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Dans-Prosemaxx-Cowriter-S

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[ { "from": "system", "value": "I've got writer's block. I'll send something, then continue one sentence at a time, matching character context, in fantasy, romance, high fantasy, magic, dystopia genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shaeva warned me that the Waiting Place would pull at me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As I make my way across the freezing prison yard to the pens, I feel it, a yank in my chest, like an invisible hook." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "<I'm coming,> I shout in my head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "<The more you bully me, the slower I'll be, so stop it.>" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pull lessens slightly, as if the Waiting Place has heard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fifteen yards to the pens … thirteen … ten …" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I hear footsteps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The soldier from Kauf's entrance has caught up with me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From his cautious gait, I can tell that my uniform and the scims across my back haven't fooled him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ten hells. Ah well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was always a stretch, as far as disguises go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He attacks. I try to sidestep him, but Darin's body has me off balance, and the soldier clips me, knocking me down and sending Darin rolling away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The legionnaire's eyes widen when my hood falls back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Prisoner loose,\" he bellows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pris—\" I snatch a knife from his belt and plunge it into his side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too late. The legionnaires at Kauf's entrance have heard his cry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Four of the spearmen guarding the prisoners break away. Auxes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I smile. Not enough to take me down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I draw my scims as the first soldier approaches, duck under his spear, and slice his wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He screams and releases the weapon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I drop him with a blow across the temple, then pivot and halve the spear of the next soldier, felling him with a blade through the stomach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My blood rises now, my warrior's instincts at full tilt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I sweep up the fallen soldier's spear and send it flying into the shoulder of the third aux." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fourth hesitates, and I take him down with a shoulder to his gut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His head cracks against the cobblestones, and he does not move again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A spear whizzes by my ear, and pain explodes in my head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's not enough to stop me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dozen spearmen break from the prisoners." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They know now that I am more than just an escaped prisoner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Run!\" I roar at the gaping prisoners, pointing at the gap in the cordon. \"Escape! Run!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two Martials bolt through the cordon and make for Kauf's portcullis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, it seems as if the entire yard watches them, holding its breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then a guard shouts, the spell is broken, and all at once, dozens of inmates surge out, not caring if they are impaling their fellows on spears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Martial spearmen attempt to fill the gap, but there are thousands of prisoners, and they've caught the scent of freedom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The soldiers running toward me slow at the shouts of their comrades." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I heave Darin up and race for the Scholar pens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why in the ten hells aren't they open yet?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There should be Scholars flooding the yard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Elias!\" Tas darts toward me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The lock is stuck. And Laia—the Warden—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I spot the Warden scuttling across the yard with Laia in a chokehold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She kicks at him desperately, but he's lifted her off the ground, and her face turns red from lack of air. No! Laia!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm already moving for her, but I grit my teeth and force myself to stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We need those pens open if we want to get the Scholars out and loaded onto the boats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get to her, Tas,\" I say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Distract the Warden. I'll deal with the lock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tas runs, and I drop Darin beside the Scholar pen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The legionnaires guarding its entrance have bolted toward Kauf's in an attempt to stop the mass exodus of prisoners, and I turn my attention to the lock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's jammed good and tight, and no matter how I twist, it does not open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Within the pens, a man shoves his way forward, only his dark eyes visible through the slats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face is so filthy that I cannot tell if he is old or young." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Elias Veturius?\" he says in a harsh whisper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As I unsheathe my scim to break the lock, I venture a guess. \"Araj?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man nods. \"What's taking so long? We've—Behind you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His warning saves me a spear through the gut, and I barely dodge the next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dozen soldiers close on me, undistracted by the chaos at the gate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The lock, Veturius!\" Araj says. \"Quickly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Either give me a minute,\" I hiss through gritted teeth, flicking my scims to divert two more spears, \"or make yourself useful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Araj barks an order to the Scholars within the pen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seconds later, a barrage of rocks flies over the top and rains down upon the spearmen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Watching this tactic is like witnessing a pack of mice flinging pebbles at a horde of ravening cats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fortunately for me, these mice have good aim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two of the closest spearmen falter, giving me enough time to spin and break the lock with a swipe of my scim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door bursts open, and with a roar, the Scholars explode from the pen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I swipe up a Serric steel dagger from one of the fallen spearmen and hand it to Araj, who barrels out with the rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Open the other pen!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shout. \"I have to get to Laia!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sea of Scholar prisoners now crowds the yard, but the Warden's form pokes out above them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A small group of Scholar children, Tas among them, attack the old man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lashes out with his scim to keep them at bay, but he's loosened his hold on Laia, and she thrashes in an attempt to break free." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Warden!\" I bellow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turns at my voice, and Laia kicks her heel straight back into his shin while biting the flesh of his arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Warden jerks up his scim, and one of the Scholar children slips close and bashes his knee with a heavy skillet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Warden roars, and Laia tumbles away from him, reaching for the dagger at her waist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it's not there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It gleams now in Tas's hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His small face twists with rage as he lunges for the Warden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His friends swarm all over the old man, biting, clawing, bringing him down, taking their revenge on the monster who has abused them since the day they were born." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tas plunges the dagger into the Warden's throat, flinching from the geyser of blood that erupts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other children scurry away, surrounding Laia, who pulls Tas to her chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am beside them moments later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Elias,\" Tas whispers. He cannot take his eyes off the Warden. \"I—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You slew a demon, Tas of the north.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I kneel beside him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am proud to fight by your side. Get the other children out. We're not free yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I look up at the gate, where the guards now battle a horde of crazed prisoners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Meet us at the boats.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Darin!\" Laia looks at me. \"Where—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By the pens,\" I say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't wait until he wakes up and I can give him hell. I've had to drag him all around this bleeding prison.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drums thud frenziedly, and over the chaos, I can just barely hear the answering drums of a distant garrison." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even if we escape onto the boats,\" Laia says as we race for the pens, \"we'll have to get out before we reach the Forest of Dusk. And the Martials will be waiting, won't they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They will,\" I say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I have a plan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, not exactly a plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More like a hunch—and a possibly delusional hope that I can use my new occupation to do something quite mad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's a gamble that will depend on the Waiting Place and Shaeva and my power of persuasion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With Darin slung over my shoulder, we head for Kauf's entry gate, inundated with prisoners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crowd is rabid—there are too many people fighting to get out, and too many Martials fighting to keep us in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I hear a metallic groaning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Elias!\" Laia points at the portcullis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slowly, ponderously, it begins to drop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sound gives new heart to the Martials beating back the prisoners, and Laia and I are driven farther from the gate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Torches, Laia!\" I shout." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She snatches two off a nearby wall, and we wield them like scims." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those around us instinctively cringe from the fire, allowing us to force a path through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The portcullis drops another few feet, almost at eye level now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laia grabs my arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One push,\" she shouts. \"Together—now!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We lock arms, lower the torches, and ram our way through the crowd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shove her beneath the portcullis ahead of me, but she resists and whips around, forcing me to come with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then we are beneath, through, running past the soldiers battling prisoners, making straight for the boathouse, where I see two barges already a quarter mile down the river and two more launching from the docks, Scholars hanging off the sides." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She did it!\" Laia shouts. \"Afya did it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bowmen!\" A line of soldiers appears atop Kauf's wall. \"Run!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'almost' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A hail of arrows rains down around us, and half the Scholars racing for the boathouse with us go down. Almost there. Almost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Elias! Laia!\" I spot Afya's red-black braids at the boathouse door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She waves us into the structure, her eyes on the bowmen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her face is slashed, her hands covered in blood, but she quickly leads us to a small canoe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As much as I'd enjoy a boating adventure with the unwashed masses,\" she says, \"I think this will be faster. Hurry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I lay Darin down between two benches, grab an oar, and push off from the boathouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind us, Araj pulls Tas and Bee onto the final Scholar barge and launches it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His people pole it forward with panicked speed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Swiftly, the current pulls us away from the ruin of Kauf—and toward the Forest of Dusk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You said you had a plan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laia nods to the soft green line of the Forest to the south." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darin lies between us, still unconscious, his head resting on his sister's pack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Might be a good time to share it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What do I say to her of the trade I made with Shaeva?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where do I even begin?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the truth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll share it,\" I say quietly enough that only she can hear. \"But first, there's something else I need to tell you. About how I survived the poison. And about what I've become.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant in the fantasy, scifi, dystopia, ghosts, post-apocalyptic, horror genre. Your partner will send something and you will write the next three sentences, matching their level of character familiarity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the tunnels, at first everything was chaos. Kids yelling, kids crying, babies crying. The injured man David moaning in pain, presumably from the less-than-gentle descent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bex and Glory hustling to move the supplies to a corner of the cleared area where they could be guarded and rationed and kept safe from accidental spillage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Isabel got to work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had a clear sense of what to do and how to do it, and it gave her the same weird sense of peace that she got from loading up on chore rotations at the Catchkeep-shrine. Alongside her, Bex and Glory pulled their own weight and then some. Gradually, things calmed.\n\nFirst thing: make sure everyone else stayed busy and out of their own heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd all watched that hatch close, watched their light dwindle to what they carried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't just her that could use the distraction.\n\nThere were only three adults plus the sick one.\n\nLin, the perimeter guard, who was healthy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The songkeeper, sworn to the Chooser, whose faith did not permit him to fight. The father of one of the kids who brought boiled lakewater to the shrine every morning, slowly organizing rations with a bandage on his head. Another earthquake casualty like Glory, Isabel guessed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She made sure everyone knew not to touch the ghostgrass for any reason whatsoever." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'bleeding' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She set older children in charge of keeping the smaller ones away from the perimeter she'd staked out the day before.\n\n\"I have to check you all for cuts and scrapes,\" Isabel said. \"Anyone who knows they're bleeding, or sees someone bleeding, come to me. I'll get around to all of you but those ones are first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody came, so she collared Onya and gave her a quick once-over. Found a scrape on her upper arm and bandaged it. \"You're my eyes,\" she told her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyone's hurt, bring them here.\"\n\nIn between checking people, she surveyed the pile of supplies. There were half a dozen big jugs of water, which turned out to be most of what the supply-cart had been holding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A couple sacks of acorn flour, one of dried meat, two of black walnuts, one of dried plums." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few loaves of bread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A basket of carrots, still dirty from the garden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A basket of raw eggs, some broken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A roll of bandages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A jar of lamp-oil. Three lamps.\n\nIt would be enough for a few days. They'd be hungry, and thirsty, and uncomfortable, but they'd live." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she worked, Isabel kept glancing over at David. Bex had stashed him off in the corner of the ghostgrass perimeter nearest the waypoint. More bundles of ghostgrass lay at the head and foot of his blanket, and some of Glory's ghostgrass paste was smeared around his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lay there, muttering feverishly, tended by the midwife's apprentice, an eleven-year-old girl named Rina." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Commotion behind her as the songkeeper began to unpack his puppets. Isabel caught a glance of The One Who Got Away with His/Her arms sewn into a position of time-biding patience, Carrion Boy and Ember Girl all in black, and the Chooser with Her good eye and blind eye and little scaled-down cape of mouse- and bird-bones stitched together.\n\nWithin five minutes the songkeeper had drawn a crowd, two dozen pairs of eyes now staring enraptured at his recital of \"Catchkeep's Favorite Children.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could've grabbed some food instead, Isabel thought, but then realized how quiet the tunnels had become and changed her mind.\n\nOut of the corner of her eye, a couple of older kids about Onya's age were rifling through the debris piled along at the other edge of the perimeter.\n\n\"Hey,\" she called out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Leave that stuff alone. Glory!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You two! Over here!\" a voice barked out. The perimeter guard, Lin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had her daughter slung sleeping across her back and was adroitly nursing two other babies as she summoned the kids with her eyes. Onya and Andrew, the songkeeper's grandson.\n\n\"Everybody has a job to do,\" Lin told them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your parents would be really proud of you if you help with the babies and little kids down here. They're really scared and they don't understand what's going on and they're way too little to take care of themselves. Or,\" she continued, \"I can tell them you were causing trouble. Or I can just deal with you myself.\" At their look of terror, Lin's face softened. \"But I'd rather not. See that tall lady over there with the spiky hair?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nodding across the way at Glory, crankily wrangling a swarm of toddlers into the songkeeper's circle. \"I bet she could give you some important work to do.\"\n\nThey ran off and Isabel mouthed thank you at Lin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So this is turning out to be an interesting day,\" Lin said. \"Straight from a party to a lockdown.\"\n\nIsabel hesitated. It was a rare thing, someone from the town talking to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone not of the Catchkeep-shrine, someone not Ruby when she wanted something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's it like up there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she asked. Carefully not asking: did Ruby even explain what was coming before it got here? Not asking: was anyone ready for it? Or: were the ex-upstarts the only ones who even knew?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Lin said. \"They rushed us down here first thing.\" Then, quieter: \"Yulia and Jacen assembled the guards earlier and told us. Some of us went to ready the defenses while the people were distracted.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somehow, Isabel wasn't surprised. \"That sounds familiar.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'll be fine,\" said Lin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perimeter will spot the raiders miles off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lin attempted a gesture that might have been the beginning of the drawing of a bow, before realizing her arms were full. She adjusted her grip on a protesting baby and grinned. \"Target practice.\"\n\nIsabel made a noncommittal sound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Lin was just warming to her subject.\n\n\"Plus we still have a few surprises stashed in the guardhouse for just such an occasion. These slag-for-brains are only getting in along the Waste-road, unless they've grown wings or they plan on swimming. We'll mop them up by dinnertime.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Isabel conceded. \"I hope you're right.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'pretty' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I saw some of yours up there keeping pretty busy too,\" Lin said. \"Lissa and Meg made this one thing with tripwires and some old broken knives that looks pretty nasty.\"\n\n\"That sounds like them. Listen, do you need me to get you anything? Water? Did you eat?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bex took care of me. I'm good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay. Yell if that changes.\"\n\nLin nodded. \"Will do.\"\n\nShe didn't even realize the midwife's apprentice had come up behind her, the girl was so quiet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Isabel turned she almost tripped over her.\n\n\"David says his skin is stinging him,\" Rina said.\n\n\"His skin is stinging him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And he's dizzy.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Isabel said. Trying not to let her exasperation show. \"What do you usually do about that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. It just started. When we came down here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Keep him comfortable. We'll be out of here soon.\"\n\nGlory came up to her, looking troubled. \"Isabel.\"\n\n\"What.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are they supposed to pee.\"\n\nIsabel turned to stare at her. She hadn't even thought of it yesterday, and now their options were pretty limited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For one second she entertained the notion of sending the kids down the hall to squat with that glowing ghost-passage at their backs. No chance.\n\nSo she took a lamp and a bundle of ghostgrass, set Glory in charge, and went off to clear the space directly on the other side of the hatch entrance.\n\nBefore she'd even made her way back over the dented fallen door, she could hear noises coming from the hatch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No: from directly below the hatch. Instinctively she ducked out of the open doorway, curling her body around the lamp to hide its glow in the wide wings of the Archivist-coat. Making sure the harvesting-knife was within easy reach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Running through scenarios in her head, none of them good.\n\nShe left the lamp, tiptoed through the doorway in the almost perfect dark. Somebody was frantically trying to jam the broken rungs of the ladder back into the holes it had ripped from the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Isabel snuck up on the figure, grabbed it, spun it around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Isabel?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sairy?\" Sheathing the harvesting-knife. \"What the hell—\"\n\n\"I was trying to—\"\n\n\"You're not even supposed to be here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know. I was helping settle people in. When I went to leave, the hatch was already shut, and the ladder…\" In a fit of frustration she hurled a broken rung at the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There has to be a way to fix it. There has to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cursing under her breath, Isabel fetched the lamp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raised it toward the hatch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was easily six feet above her head, and it weighed more than any three of the ex-upstarts combined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all its weight it opened surprisingly easily on its hinge—but only if they could reach it.\n\n\"This is a problem,\" she said.\n\n\"I know. I screwed up. I thought Jen would wait for me—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go find me the strongest person in there who isn't Lin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sairy took off and returned with Bex. After several minutes of taking turns boosting each other upward on interlaced hands, they fell back defeated. They hadn't even managed to so much as brush that hatch-wheel with their fingertips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's right there,\" Sairy wailed, gesturing violently upward. \"It's right there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Isabel said. \"Get Lin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bex went and got Lin and they still couldn't reach the wheel enough to grip and turn it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We need a ladder,\" Lin observed.\n\n\"No shit,\" Sairy said.\n\n\"You were trying to push the pieces back into the wall?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lin said. \"Some Before-people tool put them there, you can't just do that with your hands.\"\n\n\"We had a whole plan,\" Sairy wailed. \"Me and Lissa and Meg and everybody, we were going to work together, they don't trust the high seats, they'll—\" She trailed off, horrified." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All hands in the fight. They said we need all hands in—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You need to breathe,\" Isabel said, because now Sairy was eyeing the tunnel wall like she was planning to dig her way out through that and twenty feet of dirt beyond. \"Jen knew you were supposed to be up there. She'll come back for you. Or she'll send someone. They can open it from above.\"\n\nBut a very different thought was running through her mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I told Jen I was staying down here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Sairy's been shadowing me for years. Jen must have thought— And I told Ruby that the ex-upstarts only take orders from Sairy. \"And what if she doesn't? Or she can't? What if she's pinned down in the fight and I can't get to her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sairy. Listen to me. Right now you need to calm down and you need to—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A distant cry came from behind her, way up the hall in the cleared area." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's Glory,\" Bex said, and took off running, Sairy right behind her.\n\n\"What the shit now,\" Isabel hissed under her breath, following them as best she could. \"Ragpicker take this day and every—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stopped when she saw Glory's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please tell me,\" Glory was saying, \"that Onya and Andrew are with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking around the cleared area like maybe two ten-year-old kids were hidden under a brick she hadn't checked yet. \"I just saw them a minute ago.\"\n\n\"Well, they didn't go that way,\" Bex said, nodding down the hall in the direction of the waypoint and cave-in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And they sure as hell didn't go up,\" Sairy said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glory caught sight of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sairy? Aren't you supposed to be—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sairy blew out a frustrated breath, throwing up her hands. \"Surprise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you just saw them, they're not far,\" Isabel told Glory, already walking backwards down the hall, away from the waypoint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nobody moves. Nail them to the floor if you have to. I'll just be a minute.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring them back safe so I can kill them,\" Glory called after Isabel's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pause. Then, incredulous: \"Did they take a lamp?\"\n\nAfter a few steps Isabel caught sight of someone approaching her shoulder. \"Sairy, what part of nobody moves—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is my fault and I'm going with you and that's just how it is so let's go.\"\n\nFor one second Isabel considered this. It'd probably be easier to push a Sairy-sized boulder back to the cleared area, by hand, uphill, than it would've been to talk her out of it.\n\n\"Then you get to hold the lamp,\" she said, and together they headed into the dark." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 11 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the fantasy, scifi, dystopia, ghosts, post-apocalyptic, horror genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soon they'd gone far enough that the collected lamplight of the cleared area beyond the hatch couldn't reach them. The sounds of the townspeople could only be heard faintly, wavering, like murmurs at the bottom of a well. Ahead was black. Behind was black.\n\nNo sign of Onya or Andrew.\n\nIsabel's wrists began to itch.\n\n\"I get to help Glory kill them,\" Sairy was muttering. \"She can hold them down.\"\n\nTen more paces and they'd reached the first door.\n\nIt was made of some kind of metal that had only barely begun to rust, which amazed her, given the humidity of the tunnels and the sheer age of everything in them. It was rectangular, as heavy-looking as the hatch door, with a small opening at eye level set with the remains of what used to be a tiny window, glass layered with a very resilient-looking synthetic mesh.\n\nThere was a dent in the center of the door like someone had catapulted a boulder at it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'beside' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel didn't like the look of this door one bit. It didn't look like a door for going in and out of. It looked like a door built in the same spirit as an Archivist's ghost-catching jars. For locking something up and taking field notes on it, and eventually letting it out into someplace even worse.\n\nSairy shouldered open the door on shrieking hinges and shoved her lamp-arm in. Nothing.\n\nThere was an identical door beside that one, and another beside it. Another across the hall. Another next to that. And so on. Several had been dented by some great force. Some had been ripped straight out of the wall and flung an improbable distance. Like someone at some point had gone to considerable trouble to trash this place to hell, and had gone about it methodically, systematically, door by door by door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" Sairy said, shining the lamp down that field of doors. \"That's creepy.\"\n\nIsabel didn't reply. The nervous itching on her wrists was getting truly awful now, and spreading to her neck and hands. She scratched under the ghostgrass bracelets covertly.\n\nThey investigated the next room together, and the next, and the next.\n\nInside each room was nothing. Same floor, same walls, same ceiling. All apparently once white and white no longer. Isabel couldn't even imagine what it must've looked like, all that white. Like staring down on the Waste from a height when fresh snow was on it, so bright in the sunlight that it hurt the eyes.\n\nEach little room itself was empty but for the remains of where something had once been bolted into the wall in two places before the bolts rusted through. A bed of some kind, maybe, a narrow metal slab." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the other side of the room there was a hole where a pipe had gone into the wall, attached presumably to something else, now collapsed into rubble or missing altogether." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It came to Isabel that each door had a handle on the outside, but the inside was smooth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No Onya, no Andrew. They moved on.\n\nBy the eighth room, Isabel was starting to get dizzy. When had she last eaten? Her vision was going weird around the edges, like she had a migraine coming on. And it was taking every crumb of her willpower not to scratch her itchy wrists to bleeding.\n\n\"What do you think did this?\" Sairy asked, voice hushed. Raising the lamp at a door that, to all appearances, had been thrown so hard that the edge of it had embedded itself in the wall.\n\nDespite herself, Isabel reached out and touched it, and Sairy gasped.\n\n\"Isabel, what the hell.\"\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sairy grabbed her hand and dragged it by main force into the light.\n\nThere was an angry red rash on Isabel's wrist and palm.\n\n\"Isabel, are you okay?\"\n\n\"Of course I'm okay.\" Reclaiming her hand. Shoving it into a pocket. Her conversation with Rina earlier was returning to her uncomfortably. His skin is stinging him? \"Come on. They can't be far. You go on ahead.\" Swallowing her pride. \"You're faster.\"\n\n\"There's one lamp.\"\n\n\"So I'll follow it. The longer we wait the farther they get.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel gestured up that endless corridor of rooms. Chooser, she was dizzy. \"I'm right behind you.\"\n\n\"I'm going to kill them,\" Sairy muttered again, and hauled open the next door.\n\nIsabel locked her focus on the ground at her feet, shutting out the migraine aura edging in on the sides of her vision, and started walking.\n\nNo problem at all to trail Sairy. Her lamplight was easily close enough to safely follow. Nothing on the floor was likely to trip Isabel up even if she wasn't staring at it. Just the same even field of broken tile both ways, like the thin ice on a puddle that somebody had stomped. Broken tile and mud squelching up between.\n\nIsabel had gone a few steps like that when she slipped on a patch of ice where that broken tile should've been and her feet shot out from under." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She went down in a heap and sat there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt, and probably looked, like somebody had just tried to brain her with a brick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ice?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the middle of summer?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hitched in a steadying breath. It smelled wrong. The only parts of it she could identify were winter air and smoke, although she couldn't guess what would smell like that when burning. There was another smell almost like metal left out in the summer sun, at odds with the general smell of cold. And another like a sudden burst of improbable flowers as someone brushed past her and kept on walking, unseen, a shadow dissolving in the dark.\n\n\"Sairy?\" she whispered.\n\nNo answer.\n\nShe scrambled back and hit a smooth glass wall. Which had about as much business being in these tunnels as the ice. Too startled to shout, she gave a kind of squeak and recoiled hard enough to almost flop over sideways and stared up and up and up at what used to be the low-ceilinged side of the tunnel, last she'd checked.\n\nIt was a building. A very tall building." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taller than any building, any tree, any thing she'd ever seen, short of Execution Hill—except in the city she'd entered in the ghost-place, the memory of a city from a time not her own. Glass and metal flashing blue in the low-slung winter sunlight. People walked past her, over her, through her. They didn't say anything or notice her there. They didn't smell like the people of Sweetwater. Their coats flapped against her like crows' wings.\n\nIt was a hallucination. Had to be. Bad air in the tunnels. Maybe that's why she'd been so dizzy.\n\nCatchkeep, she thought. The Chooser. Ember Girl. Carrion Boy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Hunt. The Ragpicker. The Crow. The One Who Got Away. Catchkeep's Tower. The Grave. The First to Die.\n\nEven listing constellations wasn't cutting through this one. She felt like the tunnel had flipped sideways, not worming just under the surface but boring straight down for miles, and she was tumbling into the dark. Frantically, she marshaled her senses to anchor her.\n\nIt was silent, so if she was silent too she'd hear Sairy walking ahead. If she looked down she'd see the broken-eggshells-and-mud patterning of the tile floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was quiet—and heard the footsteps of the not-there-people all around her. She glanced down—and froze.\n\nThere was a faint pale light coming from somewhere, and in it, she could just make out an even fainter silver thread, flickery but definitely there, emerging from her breastbone and fading to nothing as it fed out away from the light.\n\nStrange, that light. It was a cold phosphorescence, like what was thrown by a ghost-passage, or a ghost—\n\nShe clung to the thread as something behind it, deep in her chest, lurched into freefall.\n\nThe light was coming from her.\n\n\"Not possible,\" she whispered. She wasn't in the ghost-place. She hadn't left her body.\n\nPossible or not, the thread pulsed almost invisibly along with her heartbeat. It moved—the tiniest bit—in her breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She plucked one dull flat note on it and did not dare touch it again, because she knew what it was, what it had to be, and that nothing good would happen to her if it broke.\n\nIn that instant, the sound cut out, and all was quiet.\n\nThe silence scared her worse than the noise. The noise was something she could track. She had a horrible feeling that the silence hid something that was tracking her.\n\nShe found her feet and tried to dart off through the crowd—and the crowd wasn't there. Mildewed walls, busted floor, slimy pond-smell, the warm humid stillness of the tunnels like a clammy hand laid across her face.\n\nThere was a person lying sprawled on the tile a few feet away. It wore a long brown coat and had short brown hair. The other end of her thread was sticking out of that body's chest. It was a moment before she realized it was her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like startling yourself awake from a nightmare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She snapped back into her body so fast that for a moment it felt wrong, ill-fitting, unresponsive.\n\n\"Sairy?\" she croaked. Unsure what she would say when Sairy answered. <Can you see me? Did I disappear just now? Am I back?>\n\nShakily, she stood. No more glow. No more thread. The dampness of the floor hadn't soaked through her pant-legs. She must've only been lying there a second or two at most. But it'd felt like many minutes had passed.\n\nThat unsettled her almost as much as the thread. She knew quite well where she'd experienced both of those things before." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'being' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Took two steps and stopped, splaying her hands at hip level as if the ground had just trembled underfoot. A weird feeling gripped her, one she couldn't begin to name. It felt almost like that untethering sensation she'd get when she was almost asleep. It put her in mind of soft mud being pressed through a loose-woven basket, or one stack of papers being shuffled into another. If she were the mud, the paper, pressed through or shuffled into…what?\n\nSo, she thought drily, because it was either that or lose it entirely. This is new.\n\n\"Isabel.\" Sairy sounded farther off than she should've. \"Think I found them.\"\n\nOne quick look over her shoulder—nothing tailing her—and Isabel set off toward the bright radius of Sairy's lamp, shaking her head to clear it.\n\nSairy was standing in the middle of the hall, gesturing with the lamp toward another door a little ways ahead. No—Isabel realized—not the door but something on the floor in front of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least they weren't completely stupid,\" Sairy was saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm still going to kill them though. You open the door and I'll go in and give them hell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then Isabel drew level with Sairy and saw what she was looking at." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ghostgrass.\n\nDried, bundled ghostgrass. Visibly older than what they'd brought with them into the tunnels. Paler, more brittle, less potent. Entire bundles, three of them, carefully laid to overlap end-to-end across the foot of the door.\n\nIt looked a whole lot like what had gone missing from the waypoint at the cave-in.\n\n\"This,\" she said carefully, \"isn't ours.\"\n\n\"Huh?\" Sairy said, turning. \"Then what—\"\n\nAway up the hall, Onya's voice. Laughing. Then she and Andrew emerged from one of the farther rooms, spilling lamplight before them. Caught sight of Sairy and Isabel and froze.\n\nSairy fishhooked them with her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get. Over. Here. Now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They obeyed. At least they had the good grace to look sheepish." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'sorry' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sairy strode ahead to meet them partway. As she walked past the ghostgrassed doorway, she stopped. Seemed to lose focus. She was shifting her weight from foot to foot, rubbing her arms, looking lost. \"What is that?\"\n\nIsabel looked from Sairy to the ghostgrass to the shut door beyond.\n\n\"All of you,\" she said, keeping her voice as calm and even as she was able, \"come here.\"\n\n\"We're sorry,\" Andrew called down the hall as he and Onya approached. \"Really sorry,\" Onya added. \"Please don't be mad at us. We were just exploring.\"\n\nSairy didn't seem to hear them. \"No, seriously, what is—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She staggered sideways like something had pushed her. But nothing had.\n\nThen Isabel realized she felt it too. Frostbite and vertigo. The exact unmistakable sensation of touching a ghost.\n\nExcept she wasn't.\n\nThree years Isabel had been Archivist. She'd encountered many hundreds of ghosts and was thoroughly familiar with the wide variation of every class of specimen. From the silver wisps too weak to coalesce, all the way up to the enraged blinding blurs of light too pissed off to coalesce. And, of course, the ones in between. Able to coalesce but not do much else.\n\nThe pissed-off ones had mindlessly attacked her, from time to time, and done worse to several Archivists before her. But even with the strongest of those, the frostbite-and-vertigo sensation only came when she picked one up, or one grabbed hold of her ankle like a baby, or when one's fist slammed into her face hard enough to loosen teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It came on contact. Only on contact.\n\nBut there was nothing there.\n\nWas that a flicker of light across the darkened little window of that door? There and gone, darting past like a fish in the shallows, leaving her questioning whether it'd been there at all. It might've been nothing more than their lamplight reflecting. But it'd looked too silvery for that, and Isabel's luck had never been that good.\n\nIf it came down to it, could she still fight a ghost? Or would she meet with that occupational hazard described with such horrified fascination in the field notes by the Archivists next in line? Shredded, bled out, flayed for the salt of her fear-sweat . . .\n\n\"Stop,\" she said, throwing up a staying hand toward the approaching light of Onya's lamp. Her mind was whirring back and forth between Sairy and the children in desperate calculation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of them were going to be any help to her here. She'd have to hold this together with both hands, alone. Should've covered this in training after all.\n\n\"Stay there. I'm going to come to you.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with Sairy?\" Onya called back.\n\n\"I said stay there.\"\n\nAlready dragging Sairy away from the door. She looked like she was about to be sick. This close to the doorway, the frostbite-and-vertigo sensation ramped up and went through Sairy like a boot through rotten wood, and Isabel held her up bodily. Pulling ghostgrass out of her pockets. Shoving it into Sairy's hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Barely registering how it felt like it was frying her fingers." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"Don't put that down. Not for anything. I'm going to go get them. You turn around quietly and start walking back the way we—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't put that down. Not for anything. I'm going to go get them. You turn around quietly and start walking back the way we—\"\n\nThe silver light whipped past again and faded, shuddered and came back brighter, and the last dregs of her patience shriveled abruptly up and died.\n\n\"Sairy, Ragpicker slag you, back it up or I will put you down.\"\n\nSairy didn't seem to hear her. She was frozen in place, gazing toward that little window in the door. \"Isabel,\" she slurred, \"something in there just moved—\"\n\nShivering violently now, Sairy swayed a few steps forward and stumbled. Went down on one knee. Threw a hand out and down to catch herself. There came a dry rustling sound as her fingers caught on the end of the nearest ghostgrass bundle, shifting it ever so slightly out of line.\n\n\"Run,\" Isabel breathed, yanking Sairy by the shoulder as from the doorway there came a sound of metal tearing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sairy had hardly turned from the door before it blew off its hinges, barely missing her as it shot across the tunnel and cratered the far wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What stepped through that doorway wasn't featureless and silvery, like a ghost that hadn't been deliberately strengthened for questioning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This ghost was plenty strong enough on its own. It stood there, large as life, looking like it'd just wandered in out of the Before, fully dressed and vaguely bewildered.\n\nAutomatically Isabel grabbed Sairy, dragged her back against the wall. Stay put, she thought at Onya and Andrew up the hall. Hissing at Sairy: \"Don't move.\"\n\nThen she really looked at that ghost, and all the strength ran out of her like water.\n\nIt was female, around Isabel's height, with olive skin and brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. It wore a uniform, basic and dark, with clean lines and black boots. A gun and a sword were stuck in its belt. It looked to have died not too much older than Onya and Andrew were now. Blackish silver light steamed gently off of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Isabel stared at it, a kind of hollow-seashell rushing sound in her ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew those clothes. She knew that gun and that sword and the way it was radiating strength, tendrils of visible energy shooting out of it like lightning. She'd seen all of that before.\n\nBut only once.\n\nAt that time, with the salt, and the kit, and the knife, and far fewer injuries, that other ghost had still nearly murdered her. Isabel looked across the roil of silver-black light at this specimen and knew that if it went after her, or Sairy, or Onya and Andrew, she was going to have to fight her way through it if she wanted to live. And knew, with equal certainty, that she would lose. Badly. This thing could probably spread her in an even layer across the tunnel floor without breaking stride.\n\nPlastered in ghostgrass, Sairy was just about able to hold herself up now. \"Is that a ghost?\" she whispered. \"It looks so…so real.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She narrowed her eyes. \"Wait. Isabel. It looks like—\"\n\n\"Shh.\"\n\n\"It looks like the ones in your drawing.\"\n\n\"Quiet.\"\n\nQuickly, silently, she assessed. The ghost hadn't noticed them, or Onya and Andrew. That much was obvious. Sudden movement might draw it down on them, but thank the Chooser, the kids had some sense.\n\nShe had to think. But it was hard to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The frostbite-and-vertigo sensation was flowing freely out from the ghost, miring Isabel's thoughts. Waves of dark light lifted off of it, getting denser every minute, flaring and mantling like wings. The smell of it was like the lakeshore after lightning struck. The sound of it was one clear pure glassy note, shattered and reformed, still ringing, but with all its edges grinding one against the other.\n\nIt was pacing back and forth before the doorway like a shrine-dog on a too-short lead. Two steps and turn, two steps and turn. Seemingly agitated, staring at nothing from the open sores of its eyes. Blind as it was, Isabel had the distinct sensation that it was aware of her there. That if it turned her way it would see her. Not the space where she stood, which was all most ghosts seemed to be capable of. Her. Which should by no means have been possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it didn't. It kept on pacing with its hands in its pockets as a comet-tail of dark silver light raged around it, brushing the ceiling.\n\nWhatever had killed this ghost hadn't been pretty. An open lesion covered half of its face and tracked down its neck in weeping craters, and there was blood crusted around its nose and eyes. Patches of its hairline oozed where the hair had come out, taking scalp with it, and what little of its skin Isabel could see looked bruised.\n\nShe recognized it. She'd seen it years ago when she'd read Foster's memories. Coughing up clots, half its nails fallen out. Caught in the jaws of the illness that Isabel knew had been its death.\n\nSalazar, she remembered. Her name is Mia Salazar.\n\nThe longer they stood there, the closer Isabel's flight instinct got to bypassing her brain and going right for her legs until it slingshot her back up that tunnel and away from the slag-pit of Salazar's face. But the Archivist-part of her was driving now, and it knew better than to turn its back on this caliber of specimen. And seeing a ghost in that uniform, with that sword and gun…complicated matters in ways she didn't have time just now to unpack and examine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Salazar reached the end of her circuit and spun on her bootheel to stalk back the other way.\n\n\"Why isn't it killing you?\" Salazar was repeating, over and over. \"Why isn't it killing you?\"\n\nSairy's voice in Isabel's ear. \"Is it talking?\"\n\n\"Stay still.\"\n\nEvery ghost had a moment it couldn't move past. Its death, usually. A choice it made wrong. A screwup it regretted enough to imprint upon. In any case, a loop it couldn't break free from. It stayed caught there like a leaf frozen into a block of ice, neither drifting nor landing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't escape Isabel's notice that Salazar's inability to break free of her loop was very possibly the only thing keeping her and Sairy—and everyone else in the tunnels—alive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you going to capture it?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'still' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another tight shake of Isabel's head. There was no way she was getting this thing in a jar. Besides, it'd been three years. Did her knife even still work?\n\n\"Are you going to destroy it?\"\n\nHer ghost-destroying kit was still in the pocket of her Archivist-coat. But part of that ritual involved lighting a fire. Outside was one thing. But in the tunnels?\n\n\"Only if she makes me.\"\n\n\"Did you put that ghostgrass in front of the door?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. Hush.\"\n\nSairy took this in. \"Then who—\"\n\nEyes glued on Salazar, Isabel clapped her hand over Sairy's mouth.\n\nOver by the doorway, Salazar had begun nosing at the air, scenting like a predator. Suddenly, viscerally, Isabel wished Salazar still had eyes. Her slow blind triangulation of their position was extremely unnerving. It made Isabel uncomfortably aware that she was, at best, a slow-moving bag of blood, and it would take precious little effort on Salazar's part to unzip her.\n\nIsabel's brain chose that moment to remind her of something she was far happier forgetting. Something she'd heard Foster say, when Isabel had read her memories.\n\nWe're not special, Foster had told what few of her fellow operatives had survived their treatment so far. Martinez was special. Tanaka was special. Salazar was special." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You know what we are?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "We're just the ones who didn't die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Martinez. Tanaka. Salazar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The best and brightest operatives that the Latchkey Project had to offer. And one of them, Chooser knew why, was here.\n\nHad Salazar lived out her treatment, her strength and abilities might've surpassed the ghost's, surpassed Foster's. This was distinctly terrifying. Isabel had to focus on the had she lived part. Because if Salazar had already surpassed them despite dying so young, Isabel might well be staring across fifteen feet of empty space at the strongest ghost she'd ever seen.\n\nBut this old bundled ghostgrass, however it had gotten there, had held Salazar in that room. Even when she'd met the other ghost on Execution Hill three years ago, she'd had to remove the bundled ghostgrass from her door before he could enter.\n\nAs plans went it wasn't her first choice, but it wasn't nothing.\n\n\"Stick to the wall and head back the way we came,\" she commanded Sairy. Talking low and fast under her breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Slowly. You don't stop til you get over our ghostgrass perimeter and then you make sure everyone stays put. I don't care what you hear, you keep moving.\" Nodding toward the silver raging of Salazar's light. \"I'm going to put her back where we found her. Then we—what are you doing?\"\n\nWhat Sairy was doing was pulling the rest of the ghostgrass from her pockets. Brandishing it in front of her. \"Helping.\"\n\n\"Not happening. You're getting out of here.\"\n\n\"It's what, a dead thirteen-year-old girl? You get it back in the room. I'll fix the ghostgrass. Done and done.\"\n\nIsabel stared at her in horror. You really have no concept of the depth of what we're standing in, do you?\n\nWhat Sairy saw in Isabel's face decided her. \"Fine,\" she whispered angrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she set her face and began backing away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One down, Isabel thought. Okay.\n\nShe waited until Sairy was almost out of sight up the hall. Then, ghostgrass held out in front of her, she took a tiny careful step toward Salazar. Then another.\n\n\"Why isn't it killing you?\" Salazar was still whispering to nobody Isabel could see. \"Why isn't it killing you?\"\n\nStill sniffing vaguely at the air, and all at once Isabel knew what she was looking at.\n\nShe wasn't hunting at all. Stuck in that memory like quicksand, Salazar was crying.\n\nA sound from way behind her, and she turned just in time to see Sairy stumble, tripped by something in the rubble. Saw her land neatly, one hand one knee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Heard her curse softly under her breath as she lifted that hand into the lamplight and stared at it, horrified, as the blood started trickling down." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel spun back toward Salazar—and Salazar was no longer there." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "SEGMENT CONTINUATION:\nLength: two sentences\nStyle: Nicole Kornher\nGenre: fantasy, scifi, dystopia, ghosts, post-apocalyptic, horror\nContext: Part of ongoing narrative" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They spent a few minutes picking at the cave-in, lifting rocks and setting them aside. For each piece of debris they moved, several others fell, raining gravel and pulverized brick for many long seconds on end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bex deadlifted a bigger chunk out of the edge of the landslide and the ceiling began to grumble ominously." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'backed' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It backed them up several steps and they stood staring at the ceiling until the rain of dirt and Before-junk had stopped just out of sight. Then they backed quickly away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt like a long walk back to the cleared area and the gathered townspeople. Onya and Andrew had run ahead and Lin could be heard from some distance, ripping into them for running off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even she fell silent when Isabel stepped over the ghostgrass perimeter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They all had a million questions, that much was obvious. And there wasn't a single one of them that Isabel was ready for." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So she took Sairy aside and sat her down to clean and rebandage the cut on her hand. That much she could do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chooser knew what kind of Before-germs had been rubbed into the wound by whatever Sairy'd cut her hand on—or from Salazar's mouth for that matter—but at least it wasn't a huge cut or a deep one. Rina dug into her apprentice satchel and came out with a pot of ointment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rainstealer salve,\" she explained.\n\n\"Tell me that keeps infection out,\" Sairy said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rina shook her head, holding it out. \"Stops bleeding.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was hoping it did both.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The good stuff is at the midwife's,\" Rina said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She said we'd be safe enough down here.\" Leveling a critical eye at Sairy's hand: \"You cut yourself on what?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bricks. Ghost teeth. You know. This and that.\"\n\n\"Ghosts have teeth?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, I mean, maybe not ghosts of babies, or really, really old—ow!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel packed salve into the cut as Sairy winced and swore under her breath. \"Move your fingers,\" Isabel said, and Sairy gestured at her rudely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least it's not your knife-hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lin came to sit beside them. \"Is it true?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel knew what that meant. Lin would have heard everything from Onya and Andrew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ghost, the capture, the cave-in.\n\nBut word had spread that Sairy had been ghost-bitten, and children had gathered to stare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If they were on the edge of panic, Isabel didn't want to push them over now. \"It's okay,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll figure it out.\"\n\nSairy was watching her closely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Uncharacteristically quiet all of a sudden, her face still spoke volumes: we will?\n\nFinally Lin seemed to notice the children to either side of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stood, mouth pressed into a grim line, and went to whisper something to the songkeeper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Immediately the songkeeper was gathering the children back into the story circle, launching straight into \"Ember Girl at the Crossroads.\"\n\nIsabel tied off Sairy's bandage and leaned back against the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Catchkeep save her, she was tired. She listened to the songkeeper a moment, waiting for—she didn't know what." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lin to return and come up with a plan. The hatch to magically unbury itself from the cave-in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This all to be over.\n\n\"So,\" the songkeeper was saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This one time Ember Girl got in a fight. Ember Girl got in lots of fights, because Catchkeep told Her to. Because Ember Girl was so good at making ghosts for Catchkeep to carry, and Catchkeep, like any smart dog, hated being bored. You know how when a dog gets bored it starts chewing on the chairs? Well, a dog the size of Catchkeep gets bored, you can see how things get ugly fast.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lots of little ears,\" Lin explained, plunking down beside Isabel. \"Now. What's the plan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel blew out a breath. \"We still have enough food and water for a few days if we stretch it thin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And then what?\" Lin whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just went to look at the cave-in. They're not digging us out of that in time. It'll take weeks.\"\n\n\"Do we have enough air?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glory asked, arriving with Bex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The plan was to shut us in here,\" Sairy said. \"Remember?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The tunnels are full of air,\" Bex added reassuringly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the one thing we have plenty of.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Isabel was thinking about the hallucination that had landed her on her ass in the mud earlier, and she wasn't so sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She must have breathed something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air had gone bad. There was some kind of Before-chemical in it. Something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And ghosts,\" Lin said. \"Apparently.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Isabel said. \"We only ran into one, and she was nowhere near the ghost-passage.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It only got out because we were careless,\" Sairy admitted. \"We know better now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She responded to ghostgrass,\" Isabel added. \"She was strong but it still held her off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not saying: she was the second-strongest ghost I've ever seen. Not saying: I still have no idea who ghostgrassed her into that room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nodding instead at the perimeter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If there were more ghosts down here, you'd know it, because they'd be trying to get through that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Lin said. \"So we stay behind the perimeter. That still leaves us stuck down here with three days of supplies.\"\n\n\"I'd say more like two,\" Bex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's not much lamp-oil left,\" Glory said. \"A day at most.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this they all fell silent, eyes on the place where the lamplight pushed up against the encroaching dark. Isabel let the songkeeper's voice cut a welcome swathe through her thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"…Ember Girl said yes, because yes is what you say to Catchkeep. But on the inside you can still think different, and so on Her inside Ember Girl was busy scheming. I've made a million million ghosts for You, Catchkeep, and now I'm bored too. Maybe today's the day I put My stuff in My backpack and go find something new to do instead. So when Catchkeep left, Ember Girl put on Her shiny boots and went to find Carrion Boy, and They—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel started. \"I think I can get us out.\"\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Isabel was scrambling to her feet, hurrying to the pile of debris they'd cleared from the tunnels.\n\nSairy surveyed this moodily, her curiosity not quite defusing her frustration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please tell me that somewhere in there is some Before-thing for opening hatches.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Isabel fished out the plastic map." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How about,\" she said, \"a Before-thing for finding hatches?\"\n\n\"What is that?\" Lin asked. \"That's the tunnels?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Isabel said, scrubbing at the map with a sleeve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think it has to be. I had it set aside for the songkeeper's collection, but…if I can just…\" The dogleather of the Archivist-coat wasn't doing much to clean it, but she didn't dare waste the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She spat on the plastic and tried again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she sat to tilt the map into the lamplight, angled lines and little labeled boxes stared back at her cryptically.\n\nSairy gave a low whistle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ragpicker take me. All that is down here?\"\n\n\"It's like a whole other Sweetwater,\" said Glory. \"But underground.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A bunch of Sweetwaters squished together, more like,\" said Bex." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like Grayfall, or Here.\"\n\n\"The lines will be the halls,\" said Lin, leaning in to see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think the squares are rooms.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And if even our shrine and meeting-hall have back doors,\" Isabel said, scanning those colored lines with a furious intensity, \"something this big is going to have another way out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Glory said, \"but if this whole mess is the tunnels, then where's us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Near a hatch,\" Isabel said. \"Near where the halls are shaped like a T near a hatch.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They all leaned in to look.\n\nUpon closer inspection, there were four separate mazes, blue-green-orange-red, one for each quarter of the map." }, { "from": "human", "value": "SUBLEVEL A" }, { "from": "human", "value": "SUBLEVEL B" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "SUBLEVEL C\n\nSUBLEVEL D" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Interspersed among those lines were little squares and rectangles, more palely colored." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each one labeled tinily.\n\nCAFETERIA" }, { "from": "human", "value": "QUARANTINE" }, { "from": "human", "value": "MEDICAL BAY" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a red star on a length of blue straightaway branched with especially small squares." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "OBSERVATION CELL 27\n\nOBSERVATION CELL 28" }, { "from": "human", "value": "OBSERVATION CELL 29" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bex appeared with the songkeeper. \"I figured if anybody knows how to read one of these things…\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not entirely sure I do,\" the songkeeper said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have twenty-seven Before-maps, and they're all different. Some of them aren't even—oh. Look at that. This is a beautiful piece. May I?\" He took the map and scanned it briefly, then made a sound of surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All this is here under the town?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sairy looked like she was about to companionably elbow the songkeeper, then thought better of it. \"That's what I said.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" the songkeeper said, recovering himself, \"these will definitely be rooms. Look, they're all labeled. Training Hall. Reception. Generator Room.\"\n\n\"I understood, like, two words of that,\" Bex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Classroom 1,\" Sairy said, reading over his shoulder. \"Classroom 2.\"\n\n\"Laundry,\" Bex added. She made a face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Laundry in a room?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Archive,\" said Glory.\n\nIsabel blinked. \"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Glory poked a tiny square in the lower left quadrant where a tangle of orange dead-ended. Isabel read that label twice, convinced she must've seen it wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Weird,\" Sairy said.\n\nIsabel tore her eyes from the 'ARCHIVE' label." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "<Hatch,> she told herself. <Halls shaped like a T.>" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't see a hatch,\" Lin said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't either,\" said Bex.\n\nNeither did Isabel. There was absolutely nothing that looked remotely like a big round door set with a wheel in the middle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she set out blind there'd be miles of ground to cover, and the lamp would only last so long. Even down by where they'd found Salazar, already the tunnels had felt different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Smelled different. Her voice hadn't echoed there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It'd dropped like a weight, dull and deadened. Isabel found herself picturing the deeper tunnels as somewhere sound didn't carry right, light didn't go far, the halls never connected up, and there was nothing down there but uncharted miles of suffocating, lake-stinking, ghost-infested dark for her to die in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "<Not uncharted,> she reminded herself grimly. <Map.>" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For all the good it was doing.\n\nAfter a moment the red star dragged her attention back to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the only one on the whole map." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And stars were something she knew better than to ignore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she saw it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little ways from the star, that blue tangle made a T shape with no branching squares." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bottom leg of the T continued a short distance toward the bottom edge of the blue quadrant, was crossed by a thick black line, and went on a little farther before terminating at a weird little symbol like an X inside an O.\n\nBeyond that there was nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just the grimy whitish background of the map.\n\nFixing what little she knew of the tunnels in her mind, she followed that blue squiggle back upward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had to be sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Symbol, space, black slash, bigger space, then that long-armed T with no rooms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hatch, hall, broken door, hall, and the branch in the tunnels. It matched.\n\n\"Here.\" Isabel tapped the symbol." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's where we came down. So if we can find another—\"\n\nBex was already poking another spot in the tangle. \"There.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another X-in-O symbol. It was way up the side of the blue tangle, near the upper right-hand corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost the whole way across that endless maze of halls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Impossible to gauge how long it would take to reach it. If she could get there before the lamp went out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the ceiling wasn't somehow caved in around that hatch too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it had a ladder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If that one didn't break when they tried to climb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If. Such a little word. Like a rock you throw at a plan over and over until the plan shatters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to scout ahead,\" Isabel said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Going over to the water jug and drinking two careful swallows even though she was still horrifically thirsty after. She picked up the jar of ghostgrass paste, then put it down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The way her wrists and neck and ankles already felt, she'd rather let the ghosts at her than smear that stuff on her skin. But she did make herself pick up the last sack of bundled ghostgrass, even though it felt like a fistful of nettles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If the hatch is viable, I'll set up a perimeter. Then we relocate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before we lose the lamps and have to walk this maze in the dark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lin was looking at her dubiously. \"By yourself?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Sairy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" agreed Isabel, stowing the map under one arm. \"Sairy, you're with me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You heard me. Check your ghostgrass and get ready to move out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But—\" Sairy drew Isabel aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My hand. I'll draw ghosts.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if you do,\" Isabel said softly, \"I want you doing it out there. Understand?\"\n\nSairy looked around the cleared area, and her eyes widened a little. Swallowed. Nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel pushed the sack of ghostgrass into Sairy's arms. \"Good.\"\n\nLouder, including the room: \"Lin's in charge until we get back. Bex and Glory are her hands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ex-upstarts took one look at Lin's armload of babies and nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's danger, you find Bex. You're looking for work, you ask Glory. She'll find you something to do.\"\n\nLast, she drew Bex aside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you do see a ghost,\" Isabel told her, \"you do not engage. You stay behind the ghostgrass and you wait for me. Got it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Got it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everybody say good luck to Isabel and Sairy!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lin told the children, and they all hitched in a huge breath to yell with. \"Quiet voices,\" Glory added, with a hasty glance toward the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good luck, Isabel and Sairy!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "they whisper-shouted at her, and Isabel stood aside while Bex and Glory hugged Sairy hard and clapped her shoulders and hung their good-luck charms around her neck and whispered things in her ears that Isabel couldn't make out from her distance but weren't meant for her anyway. The ex-upstarts would always all have each other, no matter what, and Isabel could only stand on their periphery, one step removed. She'd spent too long being their monster to reasonably expect anything different." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next one sentence. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a minute's walk farther down the tunnels, Isabel started feeling seriously wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was queasy. Dizzy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Couldn't tell if she was too hot or too cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a pain where her thread had been, like a long thin needle being delicately bored into her chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't have much in her to puke but her guts seemed to be pretty enthused about giving it a try all the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt like opening her eyes after spinning in circles with them shut, except all she'd been doing was walking down a hallway in a straight line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stopped, knuckling at her eyes like that would fix anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Took her hands away and the view of the tunnels before her was somehow melting into, interleaving with, the view of someplace else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someplace definitely not the tunnels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sensation came to her again of being pressed through or shuffled into something just beyond the reach of her mind to perceive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like the skin of the world was being abraded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like a friction burn to the brain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too afraid to ask Sairy if she saw it, because she knew what the answer would be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So she soldiered forward a few more steps and doubled over in startled pain as the ghostgrass wards on her wrists and ankles began to sear like oil burns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could almost hear her skin cooking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But no. That didn't make any sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was this place getting to her, it was—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frantically, she started listing stars in her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd gotten as far as the Broken Trap and the Spool before she realized she could list every star whose name she knew and it still wasn't going to do so much as take the edge off this level of weirdness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At her side, the harvesting-knife chose that moment to begin twitching hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was really going berserk this time, acting up worse than it had in years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It reminded her of when it'd kept vanishing unaccountably from its sheath in the ghost-place, and she now held it tightly in place so it couldn't pull that trick again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was taken by a sudden urge to look behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She resisted. Holy or not, ancient or not, weird or not, a knife couldn't tell her what to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she turned around, obeying that compulsion, she'd be beginning a long slide down a slippery slope to nowhere good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "<Don't,> she thought at herself, <don't you dare,> and turned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "<Shut up,> she thought at the harvesting-knife, glancing down, <shut up shut up—> and there, stuck to the front of the Archivist-coat, was the thread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was frailer than before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Frailer even than the child-ghost's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It blinked in and out of existence, nearly invisible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sick with dread, she tried to draw it into focus—" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'standing' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "—and she wasn't standing on the tile floor of the tunnel, she was standing on nothingness, hovering a few inches above something roiling and swift and black as tar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desperate, Isabel yanked her gaze back up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kept it locked on Sairy's silhouette, toiling through the lamp-lit dark beyond." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oblivious of the walls curving back on themselves, the hallway tunneling to a point, a slowly spinning vortex which they'd soon reach and be sucked down and lost—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "<It's in my head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's in my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's in my head.> She tottered forward one step, another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost caught off-balance when her foot struck tile exactly as that out-shouted, rational part of her had known she would all along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "<See? It's—> She made the mistake of blinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When her eyes reopened, the darkness ahead was wavering violently, like heat-mirage, like migraine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blurring and sharpening, exchanging focus with—she squinted—something else, also dark, also shifting, but differently, somehow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She struggled to focus on the darkness and shifting that she knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Push it back into the shape of a crappy dank tunnel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slot herself back into that picture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stitch the patch back into the quilt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she'd slipped through once already." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fallen on ice that wasn't there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stared up at the buildings of a city that'd either never existed or long since fallen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever this rip in the fabric of the tunnels signified, it'd already proven itself wide enough to receive her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Staggering on, trying not to alert Sairy and freak her out worse than she was already, dragging her feet like the mud was over her ankles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Exactly the way the floor had clung to the child-ghost's feet as it'd stutter-walked up to her, half here, half not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wished she hadn't thought of that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "<It's in my head,> she told herself, and took a few more steps and went down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unsure what she tripped over, only that her foot snagged and dropped her, arms out in front, with the sick bleary helpless knowledge that she'd go through the floor, through and on into—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She landed on tile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even dizzier now, her vision reduced to pure migraine aura with one clean spot in the center like a hurricane's eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything around it swirled but through that hole she could see both places clearly, interleaved, seething over each other like maggots in a ball." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried to call out for Sairy, but her voice had cut out on her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever noise came out of her instead, though, was enough to get Sairy's attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if in slow-motion, as if from miles away, Isabel saw her turn, her mouth falling open even as she began to sprint back toward Isabel, holding a bundle of ghostgrass high up and back like it was a club she was going to beat Isabel with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stay back!\" Isabel tried to call to her, but Sairy didn't seem to notice what was wrong with the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes were fixed on something above and behind Isabel's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her curiosity momentarily overriding her horror, Isabel tried to turn around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "See what Sairy was seeing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But as she did, her focus shifted, and the not-tunnels place was brought into piercing focus." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "<Oh,> she said to herself. <It's a river.>\n\nAnd then she fell in." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next one sentence. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They got her laid out on the tile as best they could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The floor was mud and rubble here, but Foster and Isabel made a flat place while the ghost lifted Sairy off her face and over onto her back in a grip that looked like it hadn't the first clue how to hold a person without breaking said person's arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Off,\" Sairy pronounced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're awake,\" Isabel said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sairy blinked at her like Isabel had just shaken her from sleep in the middle of the night to take watch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to see your hand.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How far to the hatch?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're taking a break. I need to see the cut on your hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's fine,\" Sairy mumbled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I slipped in the mud is all. Let's go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And blacked out? Makes total sense to me. Happens all the time. Show me your hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment Sairy seemed to realize she didn't have enough energy left to argue with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She held up her arm, wincing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See? It's not that bad.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel took Sairy's hand as gently as she could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not daring to remove the ghostgrass braids, she slid them gingerly to either side of the bandage as she and Sairy hissed pain between their teeth for different reasons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she began to unwrap the bandage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was soaked through with old blood and new pus, grimy with tunnel-dirt, and Isabel's breath caught when she saw the wound underneath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had stopped bleeding, but the skin around it had puffed and reddened, and dark streaks trailed from the bottom edge of the wound the whole way to Sairy's wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Isabel had seen this kind of infection before, but never setting in so soon after the initial wound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she'd never seen it end well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then again, she didn't know what happened when a ghost bit a person and was stopped before that person was dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was unknown territory." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'through' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever this was, it was going through Sairy like a hurled rock through a paper window-screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a long walk back to the medical supplies, and Isabel knew at a glance that they had brought down nothing that was going to fix this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll get you to the midwife,\" she heard herself say, though she had no idea how to even begin to keep that promise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'll know what to do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She'd need to be carried,\" the ghost said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look at her. That is a person who has gone as far as she is going to go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your midwife,\" Foster said, dubious, \"can fix that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Isabel hissed at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All I do know is that I can't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She needs antibiotics,\" Foster said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She needs a hospital.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Foster was squatting on her heels, sizing Sairy up, head tilted slightly sideways like a hawk's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like she couldn't make up her mind whether to bargain with Sairy or eat her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she looked sharply at the ghost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" the ghost said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding up one black-gloved finger. \"That's not happening.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel looked from the ghost to Foster and back. \"What's not—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We change her bandage,\" the ghost said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We clean the wound. Field medicine buys time to get her to proper medical attention. I'll carry her myself. But I'm not—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Clean it?\" Isabel said. \"With what?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't do this,\" Foster told him. \"She needs—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Sairy said. Her voice sounded weird, like it wasn't really hers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like it'd traveled a long way and was now coming back to her from that distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was glaring down the hall into the dark like she could propel them all toward the hatch with her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quit wasting time arguing. I've gotten hurt worse in training.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Foster shot to her feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Took the ghost by the shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can I talk to you a minute.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They retreated a few steps, arguing in urgent whispers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words help her reached Isabel's ears, and selfish, and deal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ghost didn't seem to be saying much of anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sairy was still muttering under her breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she fell silent, Isabel glanced down to find Sairy staring up at her, her eyes huge and luminous with fever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you dare let them carry me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Foster had taken off somewhere, and the ghost came back alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wasp,\" he said, and at the sound of that name Isabel started like something had grabbed her in the dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Foster is scouting ahead to clear a path and see if the hatch is viable. Have your subordinate rest until she returns, and if the way is clear we'll get her to where she needs to go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Sairy said. \"Two things. First—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You should rest also,\" the ghost told Isabel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll keep watch. Foster won't be long.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First,\" Sairy said. \"It's my hand, not my legs. Nobody's carrying me. And second—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a pause." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Isabel and the ghost exchanged a glance.\n\nSairy had fallen asleep." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "STORY CONTINUATION:\nLength: five sentences\nMaintain character context\nGenre: fantasy, scifi, dystopia, ghosts, post-apocalyptic, horror" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still, together Isabel and the ghost developed a system, and over the next days fine-tuned it. Each chip had about a million times more information on it than they had any hope of combing through at a stretch before the device needed to be recharged. So they'd pick a chip, pick a random chain of numbers off the initial list—a list of days, the ghost explained to her—and skip around the mess of images it showed, hoping to hit upon something that seemed maybe slightly more important than the rest. When they got there, Isabel would match each operative in the scene up with their field notes, and make note of what they were doing. She also wrote down what each one was doing in each memory of the ghost's or Foster's she'd read before, to the best of her recollection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By comparing all her information methodically, she'd inferred that the child-ghost she'd found in the tunnels was #2122-17-C, DEEGAN, ZACHARY, the first in that last wave to die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That the girl with the blue-black ponytail, Ayres's partner, was SUBJECT #2122-21-B, PATEL, NIDA. That Salazar had initially been partnered to Safiyah Khoury, Martinez to a boy whose name Isabel hadn't yet figured out, and Deegan—briefly—to #2122-42-C, SORENSEN, EMIL, before Deegan had died in the early stages of his treatment, cutting Sorensen adrift until the next operative died and her surviving partner—Tanaka—was paired up with him. Process of elimination strongly suggested that the dead girl had been #2122-38-B, HALE, TIFFANY, but there was something wrong with her chip and it wouldn't run at all, so her life remained in large part a mystery. That left #2122-05-A, MARTINEZ, ELENA partnered with SUBJECT #2122-11-B, SONG, JIN, presumably lost to the tunnels with Sorensen, Khoury, and so on.\n\nIsabel and the ghost mapped this all out together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No detail left out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Be meticulous, she chided herself when her patience flagged. Do the work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So she wrote down how the child operatives would all play seek-and-find in the lower tunnels, and barter chores for the brightly-wrapped candies that the white-coated adults would reward them with after each round of treatment, and tell each other stories after lights-out. How they could make games out of found trash and desperation. They raced bugs, adopted rats they found in the deep tunnels. Drew pictures on each other's bandages when they emerged from under the knife, playing tough but crying in their sleep, cradling new wounds. Each of them wanting to be a normal kid in the way an outrageously beautiful topiary might secretly desire to be an ordinary tree." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She also recorded, diligently, the deathbed-birthday party the operatives had thrown for Tanaka." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'first' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weird fight in the streets she'd seen when she'd accidentally cut Ayres. The way the kids had all played together in that big room before the Director had divided them up into groups. One to become the first wave of Latchkey subjects. Where the other went, she didn't know.\n\nThey were like upstarts, she thought, not for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All thrown into the same crap together, knowing they wouldn't all survive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Climbing up onto each other to get out.\n\nShe got a lot of useless information. The memories were viewed piecemeal, and without context, and out of order, and with no sound. Trying to curate such overwhelming volume of information was like wading into a stream with a minnow net in one hand. A little water ran through the net at once, and maybe a minnow if she was very, very lucky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But most of it rushed on by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And none of it could help Foster or the ghost reclaim their memories." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was, by far, the worst of it. She found she carried on with the work anyway. She'd cut Foster's threads and lost those ghosts. She owed at least a bit of effort. And it wasn't like there was a whole lot else right now vying for her time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every night, after she'd set the device aside to recharge throughout the next work day, Isabel tried again to read his memories, or, occasionally, Foster's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every night, the most she'd get is a feeling much like waking from a dream, grasping after details that ran through her fingers like sand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like dreams, sometimes she'd catch disjointed little fragments—a glowing bank of buttons, a wooden training sword, a needle injecting something into a child's arm, a bottle passed back and forth, a bright light overhead —but nothing concrete enough to write down. She was all too aware of the damage every cut was doing, and that none of them would heal. Eventually, despite the ghost's objections, she stopped.\n\nBut she still had so many questions, and no way of answering them now.\n\nHow had the ghost died?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "5 sentences sentences in N. K. Jemisin style, continuing user's bit. Note: May include established elements" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "5 sentences sentences in N. K. Jemisin style, continuing user's bit. Note: May include established elements" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It eventually becomes necessary for Syenite to ask her new mentor's name. Alabaster, he tells her—which she assumes someone gave him ironically. She needs to use his name fairly often because he keeps falling asleep in his saddle during the long days of riding, which leaves her to do all the work of paying attention to their route and watching out for potential hazards, as well as keeping herself entertained. He wakes readily when she speaks his name, which at first leads her to believe he's just faking it in order to avoid talking to her. When she says this, he looks annoyed and says, \"Of course I'm really asleep. If you want anything useful out of me tonight, you'll let me sleep.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which pisses her off, because it's not like he's the one who's got to have a baby for empire and Earth." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'their' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's also not like the sex takes any great effort on his part, brief and boring as it is.\n\nBut perhaps a week into their trip, she finally notices what he's doing during their daily rides and even at night, while they're lying tired and sticky in the sleeping bag they share. She can be forgiven for missing it, she thinks, because it's a constant thing, like a low murmur in a room full of chattering people—but he's quelling all the shakes in the area. All of them, not just the ones people can feel. All the tiny, infinitesimal flexes and adjustments of the earth, some of which are building momentum to greater movement and some of which are essentially random: Wherever she and Alabaster pass, those movements go still for a time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Seismic stillness is common in Yumenes, but should not exist out here in the hinterlands where node network coverage is thin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once Syenite figures this out, she is… confused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because there's no point to quelling microshakes, and indeed, doing so might make things worse the next time a larger shake occurs. They were very careful to teach her this, back when she was a grit learning basic geomestry and seismology: The earth does not like to be restrained. Redirection, not cessation, is the orogene's goal.\n\nShe ponders this mystery for several days as they pass along the Yumenes–Allia Highroad, beneath a turning obelisk that glints like a mountain-sized tourmaline whenever it's solid enough to catch the sunlight. The highroad is the fastest route between the two quartent capitals, built as straight as possible in ways that only Old Sanze would dare: elevated along lengthy stone bridges and crossing vast canyons, and occasionally even tunneling through mountains too high to climb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This means the trip to the coast will take only a few weeks if they take it easy—half what it would take via lowroad travel.\n\nBut rusted reeking Earth, highroads are dull. Most people think they're deathtraps waiting to be sprung, despite the fact that they're usually safer than ordinary roads; all Imperial Roads were built by teams of the best geoneers and orogenes, deliberately placed only in locations deemed permanently stable. Some of them have survived multiple Seasons. So for days at a time Syenite and Alabaster encounter only hard-driving merchant caravanners, mailpost-riders, and the local quartent patrol—all of whom give Syenite and Alabaster the eye upon noticing their black Fulcrum uniforms, and do not deign to speak to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There are few comms lining the route's turnoffs, and almost no shops at which to buy supplies, although there are regular platforms along the road itself with prepared areas and lean-tos for camping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syen has spent every evening swatting bugs beside a fire, with nothing to do but glare at Alabaster. And have sex with him, but that only kills a few minutes.\n\nThis, though, is interesting. \"What are you doing that for?\" Syenite finally asks, three days after she first noticed him quelling microshakes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's just done it again now, while they wait for dinner—cachebread heated with slabs of beef and soaked prunes, yum yum. He yawned as he did it, though of course it must have taken some effort. Orogeny always costs something.\n\n\"Doing what?\" he asks as he shuts down a subsurface aftershock and pokes at the fire in apparent boredom. She wants to hit him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'doing' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyebrows rise. \"Ah. You can feel it.\"\n\n\"Of course I can feel it! You're doing it all the time!\"\n\n\"Well, you didn't say anything before now.\"\n\n\"Because I was trying to figure out what you were doing.\"\n\nHe looks perplexed. \"Then maybe you should've asked.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She's going to kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something of this must translate through the silence, because he grimaces and finally explains." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm giving the node maintainers a break. Every microshake I settle eases the burden on them.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'yumenes' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syen knows of the node maintainers, of course. As the Imperial Roads link the former vassals of the old empire with Yumenes, so do the nodes connect far-flung quartents with the Fulcrum, to extend its protections as far as possible. All over the continent—at whatever points the senior orogenes have determined is best for manipulating nearby faults or hot spots—there is an outpost. Within that outpost is stationed a Fulcrum-trained orogene whose sole task is to keep the local area stable. In the Equatorials, the nodes' zones of protection overlap, so there's nary a twitch; this, and the Fulcrum's presence at its core, is why Yumenes can build as it does." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beyond the Equatorials, though, the zones are spaced to provide the greatest protection for the largest populations, and there are gaps in the net." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's just not worthwhile—at least, not according to the Fulcrum seniors—to put nodes near every little farming or mining comm in the hinterlands. People in those places fend for themselves as best they can.\n\nSyen doesn't know any of the poor fools assigned to such tedious duty, but she's very, very glad no one has ever suggested it for her. It's the sort of thing they give to orogenes who'll never make it to fourth ring—the ones who have lots of raw power and little control. At least they can save lives, even if they're doomed to spend their own lives in relative isolation and obscurity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe you should leave the micros to the node maintainers,\" Syenite suggests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The food is warm enough; she uses a stick to push it out of the fire. In spite of herself, her mouth is watering. It's been a long day. \"Earth knows they probably need something to keep them from dying of boredom.\"\n\nShe's intent on the food at first, and doesn't notice his silence until she offers him his portion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she frowns, because that look is on his face again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That hatred. And this time at least a little of it is directed at her.\n\n\"You've never been to a node, I take it.\"\n\nWhat the rust? \"No. Why would I possibly go to one?\"\n\n\"Because you should. All roggas should.\"\n\nSyenite flinches, just a little, at his rogga." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Fulcrum gives demerits to anyone who says it, so she doesn't hear it much—just the odd muttered epithet from people riding past them, or grits trying to sound tough when the instructors aren't around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's such an ugly word, harsh and guttural; the sound of it is like a slap to the ear. But Alabaster uses it the way other people use orogene.\n\nHe continues, still in the same cold tone: \"And if you can feel what I'm doing, then you can do it, too.\"\n\nThis startles Syen more, and angers her more. \"Why in Earthfires would I quell microshakes? Then I'll be—\" And then she stops herself, because she was about to say as tired and useless as you, and that's just rude." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then it occurs to her that he has been tired and useless, maybe because he's been doing this.\n\nIf it's important enough that he's been wearing himself out to do it, then maybe it's wrong of her to refuse out of hand. Orogenes have to look out for each other, after all. She sighs. \"All right. I guess I can help some poor fool who's stuck in the back end of beyond with nothing to do but keep the land steady.\" At least it will pass the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He relaxes, just a little, and she's surprised to see him smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hardly ever does that. But no, that muscle in his jaw is still going twitch twitch twitch. He's still upset about something. \"There's a node station about two days' ride from the next highroad turnoff.\"\n\nSyen waits for this statement to conclude, but he starts eating, making a little sound of pleasure that has more to do with him being hungry than with the food being especially delicious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since she's hungry, too, Syenite tucks in—and then she frowns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait. Are you planning to go to this station? Is that what you're saying?\"\n\n\"We are going, yes.\" Alabaster looks up at her, a quick flash of command in his expression, and all of a sudden she hates him more than ever.\n\nIt's completely irrational, her reaction to him. Alabaster outranks her by six rings and would probably outrank her by more if the ring rankings went past ten; she's heard the rumors about his skill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If they ever fought, he could turn her torus inside out and flash-freeze her in a second." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For that alone she should be nice to him; for the potential value of his favor, and her own goals for advancement within the Fulcrum's ranks, she should even try to like him.\n\nBut she's tried being polite with him, and flattering, and it doesn't work. He just pretends to misunderstand or insults her until she stops. She's offered all the little gestures of respect that seniors at the Fulcrum usually seem to expect from juniors, but these just piss him off. Which makes her angry—and strangely, this state of affairs seems to please him most." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So although she would never do this with another senior, she snaps, \"Yes, sir,\" and lets the rest of the evening pass in resentful, reverberating silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They go to bed and she reaches for him, as usual, but this time he rolls over, putting his back to her. \"We'll do it in the morning, if we still have to. Isn't it time for you to menstruate by now?\"\n\nWhich makes Syenite feel like the world's biggest boor. That he hates the sex as much as she does isn't in question. But it's horrible that he's been waiting for a break and she hasn't been counting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She does so now, clumsily because she can't remember the exact day the last one started, and—he's right. She's late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At her surprised silence he sighs, already halfway to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doesn't mean anything yet if you're late. Traveling's hard on the body.\" He yawns. \"In the morning, then.\"\n\nIn the morning they copulate. There are no better words she can use for the act—vulgarities don't fit because it's too dull, and euphemisms aren't necessary to downplay its intimacy because it's not intimate. It's perfunctory, an exercise, like the stretches she's learned to do before they start riding for the day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More energetic this time because he's rested first; she almost enjoys it, and he actually makes some noise when he comes. But that's it. When they're done he lies there watching while she gets up and does a quick basin bath beside the fire. She's so used to this that she starts when he speaks. \"Why do you hate me?\"\n\nSyenite pauses, and considers lying for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If this were the Fulcrum, she would lie. If he were any other senior, obsessed with propriety and making sure that Fulcrum orogenes comport themselves well at all times, she would lie. He's made it clear, however, that he prefers honesty, however indelicate. So she sighs. \"I just do.\"\n\nHe rolls onto his back, looking up at the sky, and she thinks that's the end of the conversation until he says, \"I think you hate me because… I'm someone you can hate. I'm here, I'm handy. But what you really hate is the world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At this Syen tosses her washcloth into the bowl of water she's been using and glares at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The world doesn't say inane things like that.\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in mentoring a sycophant. I want you to be yourself with me. And when you are, you can barely speak a civil word to me, no matter how civil I am to you.\"\n\nHearing it put that way, she feels a little guilty. \"What do you mean, then, that I hate the world?\"\n\n\"You hate the way we live. The way the world makes us live. Either the Fulcrum owns us, or we have to hide and be hunted down like dogs if we're ever discovered. Or we become monsters and try to kill everything. Even within the Fulcrum we always have to think about how they want us to act. We can never just… be.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sighs, closing his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There should be a better way.\"\n\n\"There isn't.\"\n\n\"There must be. Sanze can't be the first empire that's managed to survive a few Seasons. We can see the evidence of other ways of life, other people who became mighty.\" He gestures away from the highroad, toward the landscape that spreads all around them. They're near the Great Eastern Forest; nothing but a carpet of trees rising and falling for as far as the eye can see. Except—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "—except, just at the edge of the horizon, she spots something that looks like a skeletal metal hand, clawing its way out of the trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another ruin, and it must be truly massive if she can see it from here.\n\n\"We pass down the stonelore,\" Alabaster says, sitting up, \"but we never try to remember anything about what's already been tried, what else might have worked.\"\n\n\"Because it didn't work. Those people died. We're still alive. Our way is right, theirs was wrong.\"\n\nHe throws her a look she interprets as I can't be bothered to tell you how stupid you are, although he probably doesn't mean it that way. He's right; she just doesn't like him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I realize you only have the education the Fulcrum gave you, but think, will you? Survival doesn't mean rightness. I could kill you right now, but that wouldn't make me a better person for doing so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe not, but it wouldn't matter to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she resents his casual assumption of her weakness, even though he's completely right. \"All right.\" She gets up and starts dressing, pulling her clothes on with quick jerks. \"Tell me what other way there is, then.\"\n\nHe doesn't say anything for a moment. She turns to look at him finally, and he's looking uneasy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well…\" He edges into the statement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We could try letting orogenes run things.\"\n\nShe almost laughs. \"That would last for about ten minutes before every Guardian in the Stillness shows up to lynch us, with half the continent in tow to watch and cheer.\"\n\n\"They kill us because they've got stonelore telling them at every turn that we're born evil—some kind of agents of Father Earth, monsters that barely qualify as human.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you can't change stonelore.\"\n\n\"Stonelore changes all the time, Syenite.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He doesn't say her name often, either." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'maybe' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It gets her attention. \"Every civilization adds to it; parts that don't matter to the people of the time are forgotten. There's a reason Tablet Two is so damaged: someone, somewhere back in time, decided that it wasn't important or was wrong, and didn't bother to take care of it. Or maybe they even deliberately tried to obliterate it, which is why so many of the early copies are damaged in exactly the same way. The archeomests found some old tablets in one of the dead cities on Tapita Plateau—they'd written down their stonelore, too, ostensibly to pass it on to future generations. But what was on the tablets was different, drastically so, from the lore we learned in school. For all we know, the admonition against changing the lore is itself a recent addition.\"\n\nShe didn't know that. It makes her frown. It also makes her not want to believe him, or maybe that's just her dislike for him surfacing again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But… stonelore is as old as intelligence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's all that's allowed humankind to survive through Fifth Season after Fifth Season, as they huddle together while the world turns dark and cold. The lorists tell stories of what happens when people—political leaders or philosophers or well-meaning meddlers of whatever type—try to change the lore. Disaster inevitably results.\n\nSo she doesn't believe it. \"Where'd you hear about tablets on Tapita?\"\n\n\"I've been taking assignments outside the Fulcrum for twenty years. I have friends out here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Friends who talk to an orogene?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About historical heresy? It sounds ridiculous. But then again… well. \"Okay, so how do you change the lore in a way that—\"\n\nShe's not paying attention to the ambient strata, because the argument has engrossed her more than she wants to admit. He, however, is apparently still quelling shakes even as they speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Plus he's a ten-ringer, so it's fitting that he abruptly inhales and jerks to his feet as if pulled by strings, turning toward the western horizon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syen frowns and follows his gaze." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The forest on that side of the highroad is patchy from logging and bifurcated by two lowroads branching away through the trees. There's another deadciv ruin, a dome that's more tumbled stone than intact, in the far distance, and she can see three or four small walled comms dotting the treescape between here and there. But she doesn't know what he's reacting to—\n\n—and then she sesses it. Evil Earth, it's a big one!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "An eighter or niner." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'network' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, bigger. There's a hot spot about two hundred miles away, beneath the outskirts of a small city called Mehi… but that can't be right. Mehi is at the edge of the Equatorials, which means it's well within the protective network of nodes. Why—\n\nIt doesn't matter why. Not when Syen can see this shake making all the land around the highroad shiver and all the trees twitch. Something has gone wrong, the network has failed, and the hot spot beneath Mehi is welling toward the surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The proto-shakes, even from here, are powerful enough to make her mouth taste of bitter old metal and the beds of her fingernails to itch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the most sess-numb stills can feel these, a steady barrage of wavelets rattling their dishes and making old people gasp and clutch their heads while babies suddenly cry. If nothing stops this upwelling, the stills will feel a lot more when a volcano erupts right under their feet.\n\n\"What—\" Syenite starts to turn to Alabaster, and then she stops in shock, because he is on his hands and knees growling at the ground.\n\nAn instant later she feels it, a shock wave of raw orogeny rippling out and down through the pillars of the Highroad and into the loose schist of the local ground. It's not actual force, just the strength of Alabaster's will and the power it fuels, but she cannot help watching on two levels as his power races—faster than she could ever go—toward that distant radiating churn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And before Syen even realizes what's happening, Alabaster has grabbed her, in some way that she's never experienced before." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'together' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She feels her own connection to the earth, her own orogenic awareness, suddenly co-opted and steered by someone else, and she does not like it one bit. But when she tries to reclaim control of her power it burns, like friction, and in the real world she yelps and falls to her knees and she has no idea what's happening. Alabaster has chained them together somehow, using her strength to amplify his own, and there's not a damned thing she can do about it.\n\nAnd then they are together, diving into the earth in tandem, spiraling through the massive, boiling well of death that is the hot spot. It's huge—miles wide, bigger than a mountain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alabaster does something, and something shoots away and Syenite cries out in sudden agony that stills almost at once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Redirected. He does it again and this time she realizes what he's doing: cushioning her from the heat and pressure and rage of the hot spot. It's not bothering him because he has become heat and pressure and rage as well, attuning himself to it as Syen has only ever done with small heat chambers in otherwise stable strata—but those were campfire sparks in comparison to this firestorm. There is nothing in her that can equal it. So he uses her power, but he also vents the force that she can't process, sending it elsewhere before it can overwhelm her awareness and… and… actually, she's not sure what would happen. The Fulcrum teaches orogenes not to push past their own limits; it does not speak of what happens to those who do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And before Syenite can think through this, before she can muster the wherewithal to help him if she cannot escape him, Alabaster does something else. A sharp punch. Something has been pierced, somewhere. At once the upward pressure of the magma bubble begins to ebb. He pulls them back, out of the fire and into the still-shuddering earth, and she knows what to do here because these are just are shakes, not Father Earth's rage incarnate. Abruptly something changes and his strength is at her disposal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So much strength; Earth, he's a monster." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'never' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then it becomes easy, easy to smooth the ripples and seal the cracks and thicken the broken strata so that a new fault does not form here where the land has been stressed and weakened. She can sess lines of striation across the land's surface with a clarity that she has never known before. She smooths them, tightens the earth's skin around them with a surgical focus she has never previously been able to achieve. And as the hot spot settles into just another lurking menace and the danger passes, she comes back to herself to find Alabaster curled into a ball in front of her and a scorchlike pattern of frost all around them both which is already sublimating into vapor.\n\nShe's on her hands and knees, shaking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she tries to move, it takes real effort not to fall onto her face. Her elbows keep trying to buckle. But she makes herself do it, crawl a foot or two to reach Alabaster, because he looks dead. She touches his arm and the muscle is hard through the uniform fabric, cramped and locked instead of limp; she thinks that's a good sign. Tugging him a little, she gets closer and sees that his eyes are open, wide, and staring—not with the blank emptiness of death but with an expression of pure surprise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just like Hessionite said,\" he whispers suddenly, and she jumps because she didn't think he was conscious.\n\nWonderful. She's on a highroad in the middle of nowhere, half dead after her orogeny has been used by someone else against her will, with no one to help her but the rustbrained and ridiculously powerful ass who did it in the first place. Trying to pull herself together after… after…\n\nActually, she has no idea what just happened. It makes no sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Seismics don't just happen like that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hot spots that have abided for aeons don't just suddenly explode. Something triggers them: a plate shift somewhere, a volcanic eruption somewhere else, a ten-ringer having a tantrum, something. And since it was so powerful an event, she should've sessed the trigger. Should've had some warning besides Alabaster's gasp.\n\nAnd what the rust did Alabaster do?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She can't wrap her head around it. Orogenes cannot work together. It's been proven; when two orogenes try to exert the same influence over the same seismic event, the one with the greater control and precision takes precedence. The weaker one can keep trying and will burn themselves out—or the stronger one can punch through their torus, icing them along with everything else. It's why the senior orogenes run the Fulcrum—they aren't just more experienced, they can kill anyone who crosses them, even though they're not supposed to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it's why ten-ringers get choices: Nobody's going to force them to do anything. Except the Guardians, of course.\n\nBut what Alabaster did is unmistakable, if inexplicable.\n\nRust it all. Syenite shifts to sit before she flops over. The world spins unprettily and she props her arms on her updrawn knees and puts her head down for a while." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They haven't gone anywhere today, and they won't be going anywhere, either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syen doesn't have the strength to ride, and Alabaster looks like he might not make it off the bedroll. He never even got dressed; he's just curled up there bare-assed and shaking, completely useless.\n\nSo it's left to Syen to eventually get up and rummage through their packs, finding a couple of derminther mela—small melons with a hard shell that burrow underground during a Season, or so the geomests say—and rolling them into the remnants of their fire, which she's very glad they hadn't gotten around to smothering yet. They're out of kindling and fuel, but the coals should be enough to cook the mela so they'll have dinner in a few hours. She pulls a fodder bundle out of the pile for the horses to share, pours some water into a canvas bucket so they can drink, looks at the pile of their droppings and thinks about shoveling it off the highroad's edge so they don't have to smell it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she crawls back to the bedroll, which is thankfully dry after its recent icing. There she flops down at Alabaster's back, and drifts. She doesn't sleep. The minute contortions of the land as the hot spot recedes keep jerking at her sessapinae, keeping her from relaxing completely. Still, just lying there is enough to restore her strength somewhat, and her mind goes quiet until the cooling air pulls her back to herself. Sunset.\n\nShe blinks, finding that she has somehow ended up spooned behind Alabaster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's still in a ball, but this time his eyes are closed and body relaxed. When she sits up, he jerks a little and pushes himself up as well.\n\n\"We have to go to the node station,\" he blurts in a rusty voice, which really doesn't surprise her at all.\n\n\"No,\" she says, too tired to be annoyed, and finally giving up the effort of politeness for good. \"I'm not riding a horse off the highroad in the dark while exhausted. We're out of dried peat, and running low on everything else; we need to go to a comm to buy more supplies. And if you try to order me to go to some node in the ass end of beyond instead, you'll need to bring me up on charges for disobedience.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She's never disobeyed an order before, so she's a little fuzzy on the consequences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Really, she's too tired to care.\n\nHe groans and presses the heels of his hands to his forehead as if to push away a headache, or maybe drive it deeper. Then he curses in that language she heard him use before. She still doesn't recognize it, but she's even more certain that it's one of the Coaster creoles—which is odd, given that he says he was bred and raised at the Fulcrum. Then again, somebody had to raise him for those first few years before he got old enough to be dumped in the grit pool." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's heard that a lot of the eastern Coaster races are dark-skinned like him, too, so maybe they'll hear the language being spoken once they get to Allia.\n\n\"If you don't go with me, I'll go alone,\" he snaps, finally speaking in Sanze-mat. And then he gets up, fumbling around for his clothing and pulling it on, like he's serious. Syenite stares as he does this, because he's shaking so hard he can hardly stand up straight. If he gets on a horse in this condition, he'll just fall off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" she says, and he continues his feverish preparations as if he can't hear her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey.\" He jerks and glares, and belatedly she realizes he didn't hear her. He's been listening to something entirely different all this time—the earth, his inner crazy, who knows. \"You're going to kill yourself.\"\n\n\"I don't care.\"\n\n\"This is—\" She gets up, goes over to him, grabs his arm just as he's reaching for the saddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is stupid, you can't—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't you tell me what I can't do.\" His arm is wire in her hand as he leans in to snarl the words into her face. Syen almost jerks back… but up close she sees his bloodshot whites, the manic gleam, the blown look of his pupils. Something's wrong with him. \"You're not a Guardian. You don't get to order me around.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you lost your mind?\" For the first time since she's met him, she's… uneasy. He used her orogeny so easily, and she has no idea how he did it. He's so skinny that she could probably beat him senseless with relative ease, but he'd just ice her after the first blow.\n\nHe isn't stupid. She has to make him see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will go with you,\" she says firmly, and he looks so grateful that she feels bad for her earlier uncomplimentary thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At first light, when we can take the switchback pass down to the lowroads without breaking our horses' legs and our own necks. All right?\"\n\nHis face constricts with anguish. \"That's too long—\"\n\n\"We've already slept all day. And when you talked about this before, you said it was a two-day ride. If we lose the horses, how much longer will it take?\"\n\nThat stops him. He blinks and groans and stumbles back, thankfully away from the saddle. Everything's red in the light of sunset." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's a rock formation in the distance behind him, a tall straight cylinder of a thing that Syenite can tell isn't natural at a glance; either it was pushed up by an orogene, or it's yet another ancient ruin, better camouflaged than most. With this as his backdrop, Alabaster stands gazing up at the sky as if he wants to start howling. His hands flex and relax, flex and relax.\n\n\"The node,\" he says, at last.\n\n\"Yes?\" She stretches the word out, trying not to let him hear the humoring the crazy man note of her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hesitates, then takes a deep breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another, calming himself. \"You know shakes and blows never just come out of nowhere like that. The trigger for this one, the shift that disrupted that hot spot's equilibrium, was the node.\"\n\n\"How can you—\" Of course he can tell, he's a ten-ringer. Then she catches his meaning. \"Wait, you're saying the node maintainer set that thing off?\"\n\n\"That's exactly what I'm saying.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turns to her, his hands flexing into fists again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now do you see why I want to get there?\"\n\nShe nods, blankly. She does. Because an orogene who spontaneously creates a supervolcano does not do so without generating a torus the size of a town. She cannot help but look out over the forest, in the direction of the node. She can't see anything from here, but somewhere out there, a Fulcrum orogene has killed everything in a several-mile radius." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then there's the possibly more important question, which is: Why?\n\n\"All right,\" Alabaster blurts suddenly. \"We need to leave first thing in the morning, and go as fast as we can. It's a two-day trip if we take it easy, but if we push the horses—\" He speeds up his words when she opens her mouth, and rides over her objection like a man obsessed. \"If we push them, if we leave before dawn, we can get there by nightfall.\"\n\nIt's probably the best she's going to get out of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dawn, then.\" She scratches at her hair. Her scalp is gritty with road dust; she hasn't been able to wash in three days. They were supposed to pass over Adea Heights tomorrow, a mid-sized comm where she would've pressed to stay at an inn… but he's right. They have to get to that node. \"We'll have to stop at the next stream or roadhouse, though. We're low on water for the horses.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He makes a sound of frustration at the needs of mortal flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he says, \"Fine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he hunkers down by the coals, where he picks up one of the cooled mela and cracks it open, eating with his fingers and chewing methodically. She doubts he tastes it. Fuel. She joins him to eat the other mela, and the rest of the night passes in silence, if not restfulness.\n\nThe next day—or really, later in the night—they saddle up and start cautiously toward the switchback road that will take them off the highroad and down to the lands below. By the time they reach ground level the sun's up, so at that point Alabaster takes the lead and pushes his horse to a full canter, interspersed with walking jags to let them rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syen's impressed; she'd thought he would just kill the horses in the grip of whatever urgency possesses him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He's not stupid, at least. Or cruel.\n\nSo at this pace they make good time along the more heavily traveled and intersecting lowroads, where they bypass light carters and casual travelers and a few local militia units—all of whom quickly make way for them, as Syen and Alabaster come into view. It's almost ironic, she thinks: Any other time, their black uniforms would make others give them a wide berth because no one likes orogenes. Now, however, everyone must have felt what almost happened with the hot spot. They clear the way eagerly now, and there is gratitude and relief in their faces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Fulcrum to the rescue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syen wants to laugh at them all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They stop for the night and sleep a handful of hours and start again before dawn, and still it's almost full dark by the time the node station appears, nestled between two low hills at the top of a winding road. The road's not much better than a dirtpacked wilderness trail with a bit of aged, cracking asphalt laid along it as a nod to civilization. The station itself is another nod. They've passed dozens of comms on the way here, each displaying a wild range of architecture—whatever's native to the region, whatever fads the wealthier comm members have tried to bring in, cheap imitations of Yumenescene styles. The station is pure Old Empire, though: great looming walls of deep red scoria brick around a complex comprising three small pyramids and a larger central one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gates are some kind of steely metal, which makes Syen wince." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one puts metal gates on anything they actually want to keep secure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then, there's nothing in the station except the orogene who lives here, and the staff that supports him or her. Nodes don't even have storecaches, relying instead on regular resupply caravans from nearby comms. Few would want to steal anything within its walls.\n\nSyen's caught off guard when Alabaster abruptly reins his horse well before they reach the gates, squinting up at the station. \"What?\"\n\n\"No one's coming out,\" he says, almost to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No one's moving beyond the gate. I can't hear anything coming from inside. Can you?\"\n\nShe hears only silence. \"How many people should be here? The node maintainer, a Guardian, and…?\"\n\n\"Node maintainers don't need Guardians. Usually there's a small troop of six to ten soldiers, Imperials, posted at the station to protect the maintainer. Cooks and the like to serve them. And there's always at least one doctor.\"\n\nSo many headscratchers in so few words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An orogene who doesn't need a Guardian? Node maintainers are below fourth ring; lowringers are never allowed outside the Fulcrum without Guardians, or at least a senior to supervise. The soldiers she understands; sometimes superstitious locals don't draw much distinction between Fulcrum-trained orogenes and any other kind. But why a doctor?\n\nDoesn't matter. \"They're probably all dead,\" she says—but even as she says this, her reasoning falters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The forest around them should be dead, too, for miles around, trees and animals and soil flash-frozen and thawed into slush. All the people traveling the road behind them should be dead. How else could the node maintainer have gotten enough power to disturb that hot spot? But everything seems fine from here, except the silence of the node station.\n\nAbruptly Alabaster spurs his horse forward, and there's no time for more questions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They ride up the hill and toward the locked, closed gates that Syen can't see a way to open, if there's no one inside to do it for them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Alabaster hisses and leans forward and for an instant a blistering, narrow torus flickers into view—not around them, but around the gate. She's never seen anyone do that, throw their torus somewhere else, but apparently tenth-ringers can. Her horse utters a nervous little whicker at the sudden vortex of cold and snow before them, so she reins it to a halt, and it shies back a few extra steps. In the next moment something groans and there is a cracking sound beyond the gate. Alabaster lets the torus go as one of the big steel doors drifts open; he's already dismounting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait, give it time to warm up,\" Syen begins, but he ignores her and heads toward the gates, not even bothering to watch his step on the slippery frost-flecked asphalt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rusting Earthfires. So Syen dismounts and loops the horses' reins around a listing sapling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After the day's hard ride she'll have to let them cool down before she feeds or waters them, and she should rub them down at least—but something about this big, looming, silent building unnerves her. She's not sure what. So she leaves the horses saddled. Just in case. Then she follows Alabaster in.\n\nIt's quiet inside the compound, and dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No electricity for this backwater, just oil lamps that have gone out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There's a big open-air courtyard just past the metal main gates, with scaffolds on the inner walls and nearby buildings to surround any visitors on all sides with convenient sniper positions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Same kind of oh-so-friendly entryway as any well-guarded comm, really, though on a much smaller scale. But there's no one in this courtyard, although Syen spies a table and chairs to one side where the people who usually stand guard must have been playing cards and eating snacks not so long ago. The whole compound is silent. The ground is scoria-paved, scuffed and uneven from the passage of many feet over many years, but she hears no feet moving on it now. There's a horse shed on one side of the courtyard, but its stalls are shut and still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Boots covered in dried mud line the wall nearest the gate; some have been tossed or piled there rather than positioned neatly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Alabaster's right about Imperial soldiers being stationed here, they're clearly the sort who aren't much for inspection-readiness. Figures; being assigned to a place like this probably isn't a reward.\n\nSyen shakes her head. And then she catches a whiff of animal musk from the horse shed, which makes her tense. She smells horses, but can't see them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Edging closer—her hands clench before she makes herself unclench them—she peers over the first stall's door, then glances into the other stalls for a full inventory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three dead horses, sprawled on their sides in the straw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not bloating yet, probably because only the animals' limbs and heads are limp with death. The barrel of each corpse is crusted with ice and condensation, the flesh still mostly hard-frozen. Two days' thaw, she guesses.\n\nThere's a small scoria-bricked pyramid at the center of the compound, with its own stone inner gates—though these stand open for the time being. Syenite can't see where Alabaster's gone, but she guesses he's within the pyramid, since that's where the node maintainer will be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She climbs up on a chair and uses a nearby bit of matchflint to light one of the oil lamps, then heads inside herself—moving faster now that she knows what she'll find." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And yes, within the pyramid's dim corridors she sees the soldiers and staffers who once lived here: some sprawled in mid-run, some pressed against the walls, some lying with arms outstretched toward the center of the building." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some of them tried to flee what was coming, and some tried to get to its source to stop it. They all failed.\n\nThen Syen finds the node chamber.\n\nThat's what it has to be. It's in the middle of the building, through an elegant archway decorated with paler rose marble and embossed tree-root designs. The chamber beyond is high and vaulted and dim, but empty—except at the room's center, where there's a big… thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would call it a chair, if it was made of anything but wires and straps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not very comfortable-looking, except in that it seems to hold its occupant at an easy recline. The node maintainer is seated in it, anyway, so it must be—\n\nOh. Oh.\n\nOh bloody, burning Earth.\n\nAlabaster's standing on the dais that holds the wire chair, looking down at the node maintainer's body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He doesn't look up as she comes near." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face is still. Not sad, or bleak. Just a mask.\n\n\"Even the least of us must serve the greater good,\" he says, with no irony in his voice.\n\nThe body in the node maintainer's chair is small, and naked. Thin, its limbs atrophied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hairless. There are things—tubes and pipes and things, she has no words for them—going into the stick-arms, down the goggle-throat, across the narrow crotch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There's a flexible bag on the corpse's belly, attached to its belly somehow, and it's full of—ugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bag needs to be changed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She focuses on all this, these little details, because it helps. Because there's a part of her that's gibbering, and the only way she can keep that part internal and silent is to concentrate on everything she's seeing. Ingenious, really, what they've done. She didn't know it was possible to keep a body alive like this: immobile, unwilling, indefinite. So she concentrates on figuring out how they've done it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wire framework is a particular bit of genius; there's a crank and a handle nearby, so the whole aparatus can be flipped over to facilitate cleaning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wire minimizes bedsores, maybe. There's a stench of sickness in the air, but nearby is a whole shelf of bottled tinctures and pills; understandable, since it would take better antibiotics than ordinary comm-made penicillin to do something like this. Perhaps one of the tube things is for putting that medicine into the node maintainer. And this one is for pushing in food, and that one is for taking away urine, oh, and that cloth wrapping is for sopping up drool.\n\nBut she sees the bigger picture, too, in spite of her effort to concentrate on the minutiae." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The node maintainer: a child, kept like this for what must have been months or years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A child, whose skin is almost as dark as Alabaster's, and whose features might be a perfect match for his if they weren't so skeletal.\n\n\"What.\" It's all she can say.\n\n\"Sometimes a rogga can't learn control.\" Now she understands that his use of the slur is deliberate. A dehumanizing word for someone who has been made into a thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It helps. There's no inflection in Alabaster's voice, no emotion, but it's all there in his choice of words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sometimes the Guardians catch a feral who's too old to train, but young enough that killing's a waste. And sometimes they notice someone in the grit pool, one of the especially sensitive ones, who can't seem to master control. The Fulcrum tries to teach them for a while, but if the children don't develop at a pace the Guardians think is appropriate, Mother Sanze can always find another use for them.\"\n\n\"As—\" Syen can't take her eyes off the body's, the boy's, face. His eyes are open, brown but clouded and gelid in death. She's distantly surprised she's not vomiting. \"As this? Underfires, Alabaster, I know children who were taken off to the nodes. I didn't… this doesn't…\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alabaster unstiffens. She hadn't realized how stiff he was holding himself until he bends enough to slide a hand under the boy's neck, lifting his oversize head and turning it a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You should see this.\"\n\nShe doesn't want to, but she looks anyway. There, across the back of the child's shaved head, is a long, vining, keloided scar, embellished with the dots of long-pulled stitches. It's just at the juncture of skull and spine.\n\n\"Rogga sessapinae are larger and more complex than those of normal people.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she's seen enough, Alabaster drops the child's head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It thumps back into its wire cradle with a solidity and carelessness that makes her jump. \"It's a simple matter to apply a lesion here and there that severs the rogga's self-control completely, while still allowing its instinctive use. Assuming the rogga survives the operation.\"\n\nIngenious. Yes. A newborn orogene can stop an earthshake. It's an inborn thing, more certain even than a child's ability to suckle—and it's this ability that gets more orogene children killed than anything else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The best of their kind reveal themselves long before they're old enough to understand the danger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But to reduce a child to nothing but that instinct, nothing but the ability to quell shakes…\n\nShe really should be vomiting.\n\n\"From there, it's easy.\" Alabaster sighs, as if he's giving an especially boring lecture at the Fulcrum. \"Drug away the infections and so forth, keep him alive enough to function, and you've got the one thing even the Fulcrum can't provide: a reliable, harmless, completely beneficial source of orogeny.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just as Syenite can't understand why she's not sick, she's not sure why he's not screaming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I suppose someone made the mistake of letting this one wake up.\"\n\nHis eyes flick away, and Syenite follows Alabaster's gaze to the body of a man over by the far wall. This one's not dressed like one of the soldiers. He's wearing civilian clothes, nice ones.\n\n\"The doctor?\" She's managed to adopt the detached, steady voice that Alabaster's using. It's easier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe. Or some local citizen who paid for the privilege.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alabaster actually shrugs, gesturing toward a still-livid bruise on the boy's upper thigh. It's in the shape of a hand, finger marks clearly visible even against the dark skin. \"I'm told there are many who enjoy this sort of thing. A helplessness fetish, basically. They like it more if the victim is aware of what they're doing.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh Earth, Alabaster, you can't mean—\"\n\nHe rides over her words again, as if she hasn't spoken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Problem is, the node maintainers feel terrible pain whenever they use orogeny. The lesions, see. Since they can't stop themselves from reacting to every shake in the vicinity, even the microshakes, it's considered humane to keep them constantly sedated. And all orogenes react, instinctively, to any perceived threat—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ah. That does it.\n\nSyen stumbles away to the nearest wall and retches up the dried apricots and jerky she made herself swallow a-horseback on the way to the station. It's wrong. It's all so wrong. She thought—she didn't think—she didn't know—\n\nThen as she wipes her mouth, she looks up and sees Alabaster watching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like I said,\" he concludes, very softly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Every rogga should see a node, at least once.\"\n\n\"I didn't know.\" She slurs the words around the back of her hand. The words don't make sense but she feels compelled to say them. \"I didn't.\"\n\n\"You think that matters?\" It's almost cruel, the emotionlessness of his voice and face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It matters to me!\"\n\n\"You think you matter?\" All at once he smiles. It's an ugly thing, cold as the vapor that curls off ice. \"You think any of us matter beyond what we can do for them? Whether we obey or not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jerks his head toward the body of the abused, murdered child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You think he mattered, after what they did to him? The only reason they don't do this to all of us is because we're more versatile, more useful, if we control ourselves. But each of us is just another weapon, to them. Just a useful monster, just a bit of new blood to add to the breeding lines. Just another fucking rogga.\"\n\nShe has never heard so much hate put into one word before.\n\nBut standing here, with the ultimate proof of the world's hatred dead and cold and stinking between them, she can't even flinch this time. Because. If the Fulcrum can do this, or the Guardians or the Yumenescene Leadership or the geomests or whoever came up with this nightmare, then there's no point in dressing up what people like Syenite and Alabaster really are. Not people at all. Not orogenes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Politeness is an insult in the face of what she's seen." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rogga: This is all they are.\n\nAfter a moment, Alabaster turns and leaves the room." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n2 sentences sentences\nStyle: N. K. Jemisin\nGenre: fantasy\nContext: Part of larger work" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "WRITING ASSIST:\n2 sentences sentences\nStyle: N. K. Jemisin\nGenre: fantasy\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka takes you into the house from which she and her companions emerged. There's little furniture inside, and the walls are bare." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There's scuffing on the floor and walls, a lingering smell of food and stale body musk; someone did live here, until recently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe until the Season began. The house is only a shell now, though, as you and the others cut through to a cellar door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the bottom of the steps you find a large, empty chamber lit only by wood-pitch torches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here's where you first start to realize this is more than just a bizarre community of people and not-people: The walls of the cellar are solid granite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody quarries into granite just to build a cellar, and… and you're not sure anyone dug this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone stops while you go to one of the walls and touch it. You close your eyes and reach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, there is the feel of something familiar here. Some rogga shaped this perfectly smooth wall, using will and a focus finer than you can imagine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(Though not the finest focus you've ever sessed.)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You've never heard of anyone doing anything like this with orogeny. It's not for building." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Turning, you see Ykka watching you. \"Your work?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiles. \"No. This and other hidden entrances have been around for centuries, long before me.\"\n\n\"The people in this comm have worked with orogenes for that long?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd said the comm was only fifty years old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka laughs. \"No, I just mean that this world has passed through many hands down the Seasons. Not all of them were quite as stupid as ours about the usefulness of orogenes.\"\n\n\"We aren't stupid about it now,\" you say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone understands perfectly well how to use us.\"\n\n\"Ooh.\" Ykka grimaces, pityingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fulcrum trained? The ones who survive it always seem to sound like you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'we're' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You wonder how many Fulcrum-trained orogenes this woman has met. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well. Now you'll see how much more we're capable of when we're willing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Ykka gestures toward a wide opening in the wall a few feet beyond her, which you hadn't noticed in your fascination with the cellar's construction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A faint draft wafts into the cellar from beyond it. There're also three people loitering at the mouth of the opening, watching you with varied expressions of hostility, wariness, amusement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They're not carrying any weapons—those are propped against the wall nearby—and they're not conspicuous about it, but you realize these are the gate guards this comm should have, for the gate this comm doesn't have. Here, in this cellar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blond woman speaks quietly with one of the guards; this emphasizes even more how tiny she is, a foot shorter and probably a hundred pounds lighter than the smallest of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her ancestors really should've done her a few favors and slept with a Sanzed or two. Anyway, then you move on and the guards stay behind, two taking seats on chairs nearby, the third heading back up the steps, presumably to keep a lookout from within the empty buildings topside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You make the paradigm shift then: The abandoned village up there is this comm's wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Camouflage rather than a barrier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Camouflage for what, though? You follow Ykka through the opening and into the dark beyond." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The core of this place has always been here,\" she explains as you walk down a long dark tunnel that might be an abandoned mine shaft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's tracks for carts, though they're so old and sunken into the gritty stone that you can't really see them. Just awkward ridges beneath your feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wooden bracers of the tunnel look old, as do the wall sconces that hold cord-strung electric lights—they look like they were originally made to hold wooden torches and got retrofitted by some geneer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lights are still working, which means the comm's got functional geo or hydro or both; better than Tirimo already. It's warm in the shaft, too, but you don't see any of the usual heating pipes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's just warm, and getting warmer as you follow the gently sloping floor downward.\n\n\"I told you there were mines in the area. That's how they found these, back in the day. Someone cracked a wall they shouldn't have and blundered into a whole warren of tunnels nobody knew were there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ykka falls silent for a long while as the shaft widens out, and you all go down a set of dangerous-looking metal steps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's a lot of them. They look old, too—and yet strangely, the metal doesn't seem distressed or rusted out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's smooth and shiny and all-over whole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The steps aren't shaky at all.\n\nAfter a time you notice, belatedly, that the red-haired stone eater is gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't follow you down into the shaft. Ykka doesn't seem to notice, so you touch her arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where's your friend?\" Though you sort of know.\n\n\"My—oh, that one. Moving the way we do is hard for them, so they've got their own ways of getting about. Including ways I would never have guessed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She glances at Hoa, who's come down the steps with you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looks back at her, coldly, and she breathes out a laugh. \"Interesting.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the bottom of the stairs there's another tunnel, though it looks different for some reason. Curved at its top rather than squared, and the supports are some sort of thick, silvery stone columns, which arch partway up the walls like ribs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You can almost taste the age of these corridors through the pores of your skin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka resumes. \"Really, all the bedrock in this area is riddled with tunnels and intrusions, mines on top of mines. One civilization after another, building on what went before.\"\n\n\"Aritussid,\" says Tonkee. \"Jyamaria. The lower Ottey States.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "You've heard of Jyamaria, from the history you used to teach in creche." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the name of a large nation, the one that started the road system Sanze later improved upon, and which once spread over most of what is now the Somidlats. It died around ten Seasons ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rest of the names are probably those of other deadcivs; that seems like the sort of thing geomests would care about, even if no one else does." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dangerous,\" you say, as you try not to be too obvious with your unease. \"If the rock here's been compromised so much—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, yes. Though that's a risk with any mining, as much because of incompetence as shakes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tonkee is turning and turning as she walks, taking it all in and still not bumping into anyone; amazing. \"That northern shake was severe enough that even this should have come down,\" she says." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're right. That shake—we're calling it the Yumenes Rifting, since nobody's come up with a better name yet—was the worst the world's seen in an age. I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying so.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'didn't' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka shrugs and glances back at you. \"But of course, the tunnels didn't collapse, because I was here. I didn't let them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You nod, slowly. It's no different than what you did for Tirimo, except Ykka must have taken care to protect more than just the surface. The area must be relatively stable anyway, or these tunnels would've all collapsed ages ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But you say: \"You won't always be around.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I'm not, someone else will do it.\" She shrugs. \"Like I said, there's a lot of us here now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About that—\" Tonkee pivots on one foot and suddenly her whole attention is on Ykka. Ykka laughs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kind of single-minded, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" You suspect Tonkee is still simultaneously taking note of the supports and wall composition, counting your paces, whatever, all while she talks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So how are you doing it? Luring orogenes here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Luring?\" Ykka shakes her head. \"It's not that sinister. And it's hard to describe. There's a… a thing I do. Like—\" She falls silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And all at once, you stumble while you're walking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There's no obstruction on the floor. It's just suddenly difficult to walk in a straight line, as if the floor has developed an invisible downward slope. Toward Ykka." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You stop and glare at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stops as well, turning to smile at you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How are you doing that?\" you demand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know.\" She spreads her hands at your disbelieving look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just something I tried, a few years ago. And not too long after I started doing it, a man came to town and said he'd felt me from miles away. Then two kids showed up; they didn't even realize what they were reacting to. Then another man. I've kept doing it since.\"\n\n\"Doing what?\" Tonkee asks, looking from you to Ykka." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only roggas feel it,\" Ykka explains, though by this point you've figured that out for yourself. Then she glances at Hoa, who is watching both of you, utterly still." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And them, I realized later.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"About that,\" Tonkee blurts.\n\n\"Earthfires and rustbuckets, you ask too many questions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This comes from the blond woman, who shakes her head and gestures for all of you to keep walking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are faint occasional noises up ahead now, and the air is moving, noticeably. But how can that be?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You must be a mile down, maybe twice that. The breeze is warm and tinged with scents you've almost forgotten after weeks of breathing sulfur and ash through a mask." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A bit of cooking food here, a waft of rotting garbage there, a breath of burning wood. People. You're smelling people. Lots of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there's a light—much stronger than the strings of electric lights along the walls—straight ahead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An underground comm?\" Tonkee says what you're thinking, though she sounds more skeptical. (You know more about impossible things than she does.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, nobody's that stupid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka only laughs.\n\nThen as the peculiar light starts to brighten the shaft around you, and the air moves faster and the noise grows, there's a place where the tunnel opens out and becomes a wide ledge with a metal railing for safety." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'exactly' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A scenic viewpoint, because some geneer or Innovator understood exactly how newcomers would react. You do exactly as that long-ago designer intended: You stare in openmouthed, abject wonder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's a geode. You can sess that, the way the rock around you abruptly changes to something else. The pebble in the stream, the warp in the weft; countless aeons ago a bubble formed in a flow of molten mineral within Father Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Within that pocket, nurtured by incomprehensible pressures and bathed in water and fire, crystals grew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This one's the size of a city.\n\nWhich is probably why someone built a city in this one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You stand before a vast, vaulted cavern that is full of glowing crystal shafts the size of tree trunks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Big tree trunks. Or buildings. Big buildings. They jut forth from the walls in an utterly haphazard jumble: different lengths, different circumferences, some white and translucent and a few smoky or tinged with purple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some are stubby, their pointed tips ending only a few feet away from the walls that grew them—but many stretch from one side of the vast cavern into the indistinct distance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They form struts and roads too steep to climb, going in directions that make no sense. It is as if someone found an architect, made her build a city out of the most beautiful materials available, then threw all those buildings into a box and jumbled them up for laughs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And they're definitely living in it. As you stare, you notice narrow rope bridges and wooden platforms everywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are dangling lines strung with electric lanterns, ropes and pulleys carrying small lifts from one platform to another. In the distance a man walks down a wooden stairway built around a titanic slanted column of white; two children play on the ground far below, in between stubby crystals the size of houses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Actually, some of the crystals are houses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They have holes cut in them—doors and windows. You can see people moving around inside some of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smoke curls from chimney holes cut in pointed crystal tips.\n\n\"Evil, eating Earth,\" you whisper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ykka stands with hands on her hips, watching your reaction with something like pride in her expression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We didn't do most of this,\" she admits. \"The recent additions, the newer bridges, yes, but the shaft-hollowing had already been done. We don't know how they managed it without shattering the crystals. The walkways that are made of metal—it's the same stuff as the steps in the tunnels we just passed through. The geneers have no idea how it's made; metallorists and alchemists have orgasms when they see it. There are mechanisms up there\"—She points toward the barely visible ceiling of the cavern, hundreds of feet above your heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You barely hear her, your mind numb, your eyes beginning to ache from staring without blinking—\"that pump bad air into a layer of porous earth that filters and disperses it back onto the surface. Other pumps bring in good air. There are mechanisms just outside the geode that divert water from an underground hot spring a ways off, through a turbine that gives us electric power—took ages to figure that part out—and also bring it in for day-to-day use.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sighs. \"But to be really honest, we don't know how half the stuff we've found here works. All of it was built long ago. Long before Old Sanze ever existed.\"\n\n\"Geodes are unstable once their shells are breached.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even Tonkee sounds floored." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In your peripheral vision she is still for the first time since you met her. \"It doesn't make sense to even think of building inside one. And why are the crystals glowing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's right. They are.\n\nYkka shrugs, folding her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No idea. But the people who built this wanted it to last, even through a shake, so they did things to the geode to make sure that would happen. And it did… but they didn't. When people from Castrima found this, it was full of skeletons—some so old they turned to dust as soon as we touched them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So your comm forebears decided to move everyone into a giant deadciv artifact that killed the last few people who risked it,\" you drawl. It's weak snark, though." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You're too shaken to really get the tone right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course. Why not repeat a colossal mistake?\"\n\n\"Believe me, it's been an ongoing debate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka sighs and leans against the railing, which makes you twitch. It's a long way down if she slips, and some of the crystals on the geode floor are sharp-looking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No one was willing to live here for a long time. Castrima used this place and the tunnels leading to it as a storecache, though never for essentials like food or medicine. But in all that time, there's never been so much as a crack in the walls, even after shakes. We were further convinced by history: The comm that controlled this area during the last Season—a real, proper comm, with walls and everything—got overrun by a commless band. The whole comm was burned to the ground, all their vital stores taken. The survivors had a choice between moving down here, and trying to survive up there with no heat and no walls and every bunch of scavengers around homing in on the easy pickings left. So they were our precedent.\"\n\nNecessity is the only law, says stonelore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not that it went well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka straightens and gestures for you to follow her again. All of you start down a broad, flat ramp that gently slopes toward the floor of the cavern." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You realize only belatedly that it's a crystal, and you're walking down its side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone's paved the thing with concrete for traction, but past the edges of the gray strip you can see softly glowing white. \"Most of the people who moved down here during that Season died, too. They couldn't make the air mechanisms work; staying here for more than a few days at a time meant suffocation. And they didn't have any food, so even though they were warm and safe and had plenty of water, most of them starved before the sun returned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's an old tale, freshened only by the unique setting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You nod absently, trying not to stumble as your attention is caught by an older man riding across the cavern while suspended from a pulley and cable, his butt snuggly tucked into a loop of rope. Ykka pauses to wave; the man waves back and glides on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The survivors of that nightmare started the trading post that eventually became Castrima. They passed down stories about this place, but still, no one wanted to live here… until my great-grandmother realized why the mechanisms didn't work. Until she got them working, just by walking through that entrance.\" Ykka gestures back the way you came." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Worked for me, too, when I first came down here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You stop. Everyone goes on without you for a moment. Hoa is the first to notice that you're not following." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turns and looks at you." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'there' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is something guarded in his expression that was not there before, you notice distantly, through horror and wonder. Later, when you've had time to get past this, you and he will have to talk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now there are more important considerations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The mechanisms,\" you say. Your mouth is dry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They run on orogeny.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka nods, half-smiling. \"That's what the geneers think. Of course, the fact that it's all working now makes the conclusion obvious.\"\n\n\"Is it—\" You grope for the words, fail. \"How?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ykka laughs, shaking her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have no idea. It just works.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That, more than everything else she's shown you, terrifies you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ykka sighs and puts her hands on her hips. \"Essun,\" she says, and you twitch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's your name, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You lick your lips. \"Essun Resis—\" And then you stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because you were about to give the name you gave to people in Tirimo for years, and that name is a lie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Essun,\" you say again, and stop there. Limited lying.\n\nYkka glances at your companions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tonkee Innovator Dibars,\" says Tonkee. She throws an almost embarrassed look at you, then looks down at her feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hoa,\" says Hoa. Ykka gazes at him a moment longer, as if she expects more, but he offers nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, then.\" Ykka opens her arms, as if to encompass the whole geode; she gazes at all of you with her chin lifted, amost in defiance. \"This is what we're trying to do here in Castrima: survive. Same as anyone. We're just willing to innovate a little.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She inclines her head to Tonkee, who chuckles nervously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We might all die doing it, but rust, that might happen anyway; it's a Season.\"\n\nYou lick your lips. \"Can we leave?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the rust do you mean, can we leave? We've barely had time to explore—\" Tonkee begins, looking angry, and then abruptly she realizes what you mean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her sallow face grows more so. \"Oh.\"\n\nYkka's smile is sharp as diamond." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand on this story segment like N. K. Jemisin would, staying true to the fantasy genre. Characters may have existing backgrounds." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'beautiful' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the world ends three weeks later, it happens on the most beautiful day Syenite has ever seen. The sky is clear for miles, save for the occasional drift of cloud. The sea is calm, and even the omnipresent wind is warm and humid for once, instead of cool and scouring.\n\nIt's so beautiful that the entire comm decides to head up to the heights. The able-bodied carry the ones who can't make the steps, while the children get underfoot and nearly kill everyone. The people on cook duty put fish cakes and pieces of cut fruit and balls of seasoned grain into little pots that can be carried easily, and everyone brings blankets. Innon has a musical instrument Syenite has never seen before, something like a drum with guitar strings, which would probably be all the rage in Yumenes if it ever caught on there. Alabaster has Corundum. Syenite brings a truly awful novel someone found on the looted freighter, the sort of thing whose first page made her wince and burst into giggles. Then, of course, she kept reading. She loves books that are just for fun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Meovites spread themselves over the slope behind a ridge that blocks most of the wind but where the sun is full and bright. Syenite puts her blanket a ways from everyone else, but they quickly encroach on her, spreading out their blankets right alongside, and grinning at her when she glares.\n\nShe has come to realize over the past three years that most Meovites regard her and Alabaster as something like wild animals that have decided to scavenge off human habitations—impossible to civilize, kind of cute, and at least an amusing nuisance. So when they see that she obviously needs help with something and won't admit it, they help her anyway. And they constantly pet Alabaster, and hug him and grab his hands and swing him into dancing, which Syen is at least grateful no one tries with her. Then again, everyone can see that Alabaster likes being touched, no matter how much he pretends standoffishness. It probably isn't something he got a lot of in the Fulcrum, where everyone was afraid of his power. Perhaps likewise they think Syen enjoys being reminded that she is part of a group now, contributing and contributed to, and that she no longer needs to guard herself against everyone and everything.\n\nThey're right. That doesn't mean she's going to tell them so.\n\nThen it's all Innon tossing Coru up in the air while Alabaster tries to pretend he's not terrified even as his orogeny sends microshakes through the island's underwater strata with every toss; and Hemoo starting some kind of chanted-poetry game set to music that all the Meovites seem to know; and Ough's toddler Owel trying to run across the spread-out blankets and stepping on at least ten people before someone grabs her and tickles her down; and a basket being passed around that contains little clay bottles of something that burns Syen's nose when she sniffs it; and." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could love these people, she thinks sometimes.\n\nPerhaps she does already. She isn't sure. But after Innon flops down for a nap with Coru already asleep on his chest, and after the poetry chant has turned into a vulgar-joke contest, and once she's drunk enough of the bottle stuff that the world is actually beginning to move on its own… Syenite lifts her eyes and catches Alabaster's. He's propped himself on one elbow to browse the terrible book she's finally abandoned. He's making horrible and hilarious faces as he skims it. Meanwhile his free hand toys with one of Innon's braids, and he looks nothing at all like the half-mad monster Feldspar sent her off with, at the beginning of this journey.\n\nHis eyes flick up to meet hers, and for just a moment there is wariness there. Syen blinks in surprise at this. But then, she is the only person here who knows what his life was like before. Does he resent her for being here, a constant reminder of what he'd rather forget?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiles, and she frowns in automatic reaction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'Would you like to have another child?' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His smile widens more. \"You still don't like me, do you?\"\n\nSyenite snorts. \"What do you care?\"\n\nHe shakes his head, amused—and then he reaches out and strokes a hand over Coru's hair. The child stirs and murmurs in his sleep, and Alabaster's face softens. \"Would you like to have another child?\"\n\nSyenite starts, her mouth falling open. \"Of course not. I didn't want this one.\"\n\n\"But he's here now. And he's beautiful. Isn't he? You make such beautiful children.\" Which is probably the most inane thing he could ever say, but then, he's Alabaster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could have the next one with Innon.\"\n\n\"Maybe Innon should have a say in that, before we settle his breeding future.\"\n\n\"He loves Coru, and he's a good father. He's got two other kids already, and they're fine. Stills, though.\" He considers. \"You and Innon might have a child who's still. That wouldn't be a terrible thing, here.\"\n\nSyenite shakes her head, but she's thinking about the little pessary the island women have shown her how to use. Thinking maybe she will stop using it. But she says: \"Freedom means we get to control what we do now. No one else.\"\n\n\"Yes. But now that I can think about what I want…\" He shrugs as if nonchalant, but there's an intensity in his gaze as he looks at Innon and Coru. \"I've never wanted much from life. Just to be able to live it, really. I'm not like you, Syen. I don't need to prove myself. I don't want to change the world, or help people, or be anything great. I just want… this.\"\n\nShe gets that. So she lies down on her side of Innon, and Alabaster lies down on his side, and they relax and enjoy the sensation of wholeness, of contentment, for a while. Because they can." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course it cannot last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syenite wakes when Innon sits up and shadows her. She hadn't intended to nap, but she's had a good long one, and now the sun is slanting toward the ocean. Coru's fussing and she sits up automatically, rubbing her face with one hand and reaching with the other to see if his cloth diaper is full. It's fine, but the sounds he's making are anxious, and when she comes more awake she sees why. Innon is sitting up with Coru held absently in one arm, but he is frowning as he looks at Alabaster. Alabaster is on his feet, his whole body tense.\n\n\"Something…\" he murmurs. He's facing the direction of the mainland, but he can't possibly see anything; the ridge is in the way. Then again, he's not using his eyes.\n\nSo Syen frowns and sends forth her own awareness, worrying that there's a tsunami or worse on its way. But there's nothing.\n\nA conspicuous nothingness. There should be something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There's a plate boundary between the island that is Meov and the mainland; plate boundaries are never still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They jump and twitch and vibrate against one another in a million infinitesimal ways that only a rogga can sess, like the electricity that geneers can make come out of water turbines and vats of chemicals. But suddenly—impossibly—the plate edge sesses as still.\n\nConfused, Syenite starts to look at Alabaster. But her attention is caught by Corundum, who's bouncing and struggling in Innon's hands, whining and snotting and having a full-on tantrum, though he's usually not the kind of baby who does that sort of thing. Alabaster's looking at the baby, too. His expression changes to something twisted and terrible.\n\n\"No,\" he says. He's shaking his head. \"No. No, I won't let them, not again.\"\n\n\"What?\" Syenite's staring at him, trying not to notice the dread that's rising in her, feeling rather than seeing as others rise around them, murmuring and reacting to their alarm. A couple of people trot up the ridge to see what they can. \" 'Baster, what? For Earth's sake—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He makes a sound that is not a word, just negation, and suddenly he takes off running up the slope, toward the ridge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syenite stares after him, then at Innon, who looks even more confused than she is; Innon shakes his head. But the people who preceded 'Baster up the ridge are shouting now, and signaling everyone else. Something is wrong.\n\nSyenite and Innon hurry up the slope along with others. They all reach the top together, and there they stand looking at the span of ocean on the mainlandward side of the island.\n\nWhere there are four ships, tiny but visibly coming closer, on the horizon.\n\nInnon says a bad word and shoves Coru at Syenite, who almost fumbles him but then holds him close while Innon rummages amid his pockets and packs and comes up with his smaller spyglass. He extends it and looks hard for a moment, then frowns, while Syenite tries ineffectually to console Coru. Coru is inconsolable. When Innon lowers it, Syenite grabs his arm and pushes Coru at him, taking the device from his hand when he does.\n\nThe four ships are bigger now. Their sails are white, ordinary; she can't figure out what's got Alabaster so upset." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then she notices the figures standing at one boat's prow.\n\nWearing burgundy.\n\nThe shock of it steals the breath from her chest. She steps back, mouths the word that Innon needs to hear, but it comes out strengthless, inaudible. Innon takes the spyglass from her because she looks like she's about to drop it. Then because they have to do something, she's got to do something, she concentrates and focuses and says, louder, \"Guardians.\"\n\nInnon frowns. \"How—\" She watches as he, too, realizes what this means. He looks away for a moment, wondering, and then he shakes his head. How they found Meov does not matter. They cannot be allowed to land." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They cannot be allowed to live." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give Coru to someone,\" he says, backing away from the ridge; his expression has hardened. \"We are going to need you, Syen.\"\n\nSyenite nods and turns, looking around. Deelashet, one of the handful of Sanzeds in the comm, is hurrying past with her own little one, who's maybe six months older than Coru. She's kept Coru on occasion, nursed him when Syenite was busy; Syenite flags her down and runs to her. \"Please,\" she says, pushing Coru into her arms. Deelashet nods.\n\nCoru, however, does not agree with the plan. He clings to Syenite, screaming and kicking and—Evil Earth, the whole island rocks all of a sudden. Deelashet staggers and then stares at Syenite in horror.\n\n\"Shit,\" she murmurs, and takes Coru back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then with him on her hip—he calms immediately—she runs to catch up with Innon, who is already running toward the metal stairs, shouting to his crew to board the Clalsu and ready it for launch." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'sense' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's madness. It's all madness, she thinks as she runs. It doesn't make sense that the Guardians have discovered this place. It doesn't make sense that they're coming—why here? Why now? Meov has been around, pirating the coast, for generations. The only thing that's different is Syenite and Alabaster.\n\nShe ignores the little voice in the back of her mind that whispers, They followed you somehow, you know they did, you should never have gone back to Allia, it was a trap, you should never have come here, everything you touch is death.\n\nShe does not look down at her hands, where—just to let Alabaster know she appreciated the gesture—she's put on the four rings that the Fulcrum gave her, plus his two. The last two aren't real, after all. She hasn't passed any sort of ring test for them. But who would know whether she merits these rings better than a man who's earned ten?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And for shit's sake, she stilled a rusting volcano made by a broken obelisk with a stone eater inside." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'where' should appear 3 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Syenite decides, suddenly and fiercely, that she's going to show these rusting Guardians just what a six-ringer can do.\n\nShe reaches the comm level, where it's chaos: people pulling out glassknives and rolling out catapults and balls of chain from wherever-the-rust they've been keeping them, gathering belongings, loading boats with fishing spears. Then Syen's running up the plank onto the Clalsu, where Innon is shouting for the anchor to be pulled up, and all at once it occurs to her to wonder where Alabaster has gone.\n\nShe stumbles to a halt on the ship's deck. And as she does, she feels a flare of orogeny so deep and powerful that for a moment she thinks the whole world shakes. All the water in the harbor dances with tiny pointillations for a moment. Syen suspects the clouds felt that one.\n\nAnd suddenly there is a wall rising from the sea, not five hundred yards off the harbor. It is a massive block of solid stone, as perfectly rectangular as if it were chiseled, huge enough to—oh flaking rust, no—seal off the damned harbor.\n\n\"'Baster! Earth damn it—\" It's impossible to be heard over the roar of water and the grind of the stone—as big as the island of Meov itself—Alabaster is raising." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How can he do this with no shake or hot spot nearby?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Half the island should be iced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then something flickers at the corner of Syenite's vision and she turns to see the amethyst obelisk off in the distance. It's closer than before. It's coming to meet them. That's how.\n\nInnon is cursing, furious; he understands full well that Alabaster is being an overprotective fool, however he's doing it. His fury becomes effort. Fog rises from the water around the ship, and the deck planks nearby creak and frost over as he tries to smash apart the nearest part of the wall, so that they can get out there and fight. The wall splinters—and then there is a low boom behind it. When the part of the wall that Innon has shattered crumbles away, there's just another block of stone behind it.\n\nSyenite's got her hands full trying to modulate the waves in the water. It is possible to use orogeny on water, just difficult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's getting the hang of it at last, after this long living near such a great expanse of water; it's one of the few things Innon's been able to teach her and Alabaster. There's enough warmth and mineral content in the sea that she can feel it, and water moves enough like stone—just faster—that she can manipulate it a little. Delicately. Still, she does this now, holding Coru close so he's within the safe zone of her torus, and concentrating hard to send shock waves against the coming waves at just enough velocity to break them. It mostly works; the Clalsu rocks wildly and tears loose from its moorings, and one of the piers collapses, but nothing capsizes and no one dies. Syenite counts this as a win.\n\n\"What the rust is he doing?\" Innon says, panting, and she follows his gaze to see Alabaster, at last.\n\nHe stands on the highest point of the island, up on the slopes. Even from here Syen can see the blistering cold of his torus; the warmer air around it wavers as the temperature changes, and all the moisture in the wind blowing past him precipitates out as snow. If he's using the obelisk then he shouldn't need the ambient, should he?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unless he's doing so much that even the obelisk can't fuel it.\n\n\"Earthfires,\" Syen says. \"I have to go up there.\"\n\nInnon grabs her arm. When she looks up at him, his eyes are wide and a little afraid. \"We'd only be a liability to him.\"\n\n\"We can't just sit here and wait! He's not… reliable.\" Even as she says this, her belly clenches. Innon has never seen Alabaster lose it. She doesn't want Innon to see that. Alabaster's been so good here at Meov; he's almost not crazy anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Syen thinks, <what broke once will break again, more easily...>" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "...and she shakes her head and tries to hand him Coru. \"I have to. Maybe I can help. Coru won't let me give him to anyone else—please—\"\n\nInnon curses but takes the child, who clutches at Innon's shirt and and puts his thumb in his mouth. Then Syen is off, running along the comm ledge and up the steps.\n\nAs she gets above the rock barrier, she can finally see what's happening beyond it, and for a moment she stumbles to a halt in shock. The ships are much closer, right beyond the wall that 'Baster has raised to protect the harbor. There are only three of them, though, because one ship has floundered off course and is listing badly—no, it's sinking. She has no idea how he managed that. Another is riding strangely in the water, mast broken and bow raised and keel visible, and that's when Syenite realizes there are boulders piled on its rear deck. Alabaster's been dropping rocks on the bastards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She has no idea how, but the sight of it makes her want to cheer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the other two ships have split up: one coming straight for the island, the other peeling off, perhaps to circle around or maybe get out of Alabaster's rock-dropping range. No you don't, Syen thinks, and she tries to do what she did to the attack ship during their last raid, dragging a splinter of bedrock up from the seafloor to spear the thing. She frosts a ten-foot space around her to do it, and makes chunks of ice spread over the water between her and the ship, but she gets the splinter shaped and loose, and starts to pull it up—\n\nAnd it stops. And the gathering strength of her orogeny just… dissipates. She gasps as the heat and force spill away, and then she understands: This ship has a Guardian on it, too. Maybe they all do, which explains why 'Baster hasn't destroyed them already. He can't attack a Guardian directly; all he can do is hurl boulders from outside the Guardians' negation radius. She can't even imagine how much power that must take. He could never have managed it without the obelisk, and if he weren't the crazy, ornery ten-ringer that he is.\n\nWell, just because she can't hit the thing directly doesn't mean she can't find some other way to do it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She runs along the ridge as the ship she tried to destroy passes behind the island, keeping it in sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do they think there's another way up? If so, they'll be sorely disappointed; Meov's harbor is the only part of the island that's remotely approachable. The rest of the island is a single jagged, sheer column.\n\nWhich gives her an idea. Syenite grins and stops, then drops to her hands and knees so she can concentrate.\n\nShe doesn't have Alabaster's strength. She doesn't even know how to reach the amethyst without his guidance—and after what happened at Allia, she's afraid to try. The plate boundary is too far for her to reach, and there are no nearby vents or hot spots. But she has Meov itself. All that lovely, heavy, flaky schist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So she throws herself down. Deep. Deeper. She feels her way along the ridges and the layers of the rock that is Meov, seeking the best point of fracture—the fulcrum; she laughs to herself. At last she finds it, good. And there, coming around the island's curve, is the ship. Yes.\n\nSyenite drags all the heat and infinitesimal life out of the rock in one concentrated spot. The moisture's still there, though, and that's what freezes, and expands, as Syenite forces it colder and colder, taking more and more from it, spinning her torus fine and oblong so that it slices along the grain of the rock like a knife through meat. A ring of frost forms around her, but it's nothing compared to the long, searing plank of ice that's growing down the inside of the rock, levering it apart.\n\nAnd then, right when the ship approaches the point, she unleashes all the strength the island has given her, shoving it right back where it came from.\n\nA massive, narrow finger of stone splits away from the cliff face. Inertia holds it where it is, just for a moment—and then with a low, hollow groan, it peels away from the island, splintering at its base near the waterline." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Syenite opens her eyes and gets up and runs, slipping once on her own ice ring, to that end of the island." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She's tired, and after a few steps she has to slow to a walk, gasping for breath around a stitch in her side. But she gets there in time to see:\n\nThe finger of rock has landed squarely on the ship. She grins fiercely at the sight of the deck splintered apart as she hears screams, as she sees people already in the water. Most wear a variety of clothing; hirelings, then. But she thinks she sees one flash of burgundy cloth under the water's surface, being dragged deeper by one of the sinking ship halves.\n\n\"Guard that, you cannibalson ruster.\" Grinning, Syenite gets up and heads in Alabaster's direction again.\n\nAs she comes down from the heights she can see him, a tiny figure still making his own cold front, and for a moment she actually admires him. He's amazing, in spite of everything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then, all of a sudden, there is a strange hollow boom from the sea, and something explodes around Alabaster in a spray of rocks and smoke and concussive force.\n\nA cannon. A rusting cannon. Innon's told her about these; they're an invention that the Equatorial comms have been experimenting with in the past few years. Of course Guardians would have one. Syen breaks into a run, raggedly and clumsily, fueled by fear. She can't see 'Baster well through the smoke of the cannon blast, but she can see that he's down.\n\nBy the time she gets there, she knows he's hurt. The icy wind has stopped blowing; she can see Alabaster on his hands and knees, surrounded by a circle of blistered ice that is yards wide. Syenite stops at the outermost ring of ice; if he's out of it, he might not notice that she's within the range of his power. \"Alabaster!\"\n\nHe moves a little, and she can hear him groaning, murmuring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How bad is he hurt?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syenite dances at the edge of the ice for a moment, then finally decides to risk it, trotting to the clear zone immediately around him. He's still upright, though barely; his head's hanging, and her belly clenches when she sees flecks of blood on the stone beneath him.\n\n\"I took out the other ship,\" she says as she reaches him, hoping to reassure. \"I can get this one, too, if you haven't.\"\n\nIt's bravado. She's not sure how much she's got left in her. Hopefully he's taken care of it. But she looks up and curses inwardly, because the remaining ship is still out there, apparently undamaged. It seems to be sitting at anchor. Waiting. For what, she can't guess.\n\n\"Syen,\" he says. His voice is strained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With fear, or something else?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Promise me you won't let them take Coru. No matter what.\"\n\n\"What? Of course I won't.\" She steps closer and crouches beside him. \" 'Baster—\" He looks up at her, dazed, perhaps from the cannon blast. Something's cut his forehead, and like all head wounds it's bleeding copiously. She checks him over, touching his chest, hoping he's not more hurt. He's still alive, so the cannon blast must have been a near miss, but all it takes is a bit of rock shrapnel at the right speed, in the wrong place—\n\nAnd that's when she finally notices. His arms at the wrists. His knees, and the rest of his legs between thighs and ankles—they're gone. They haven't been cut off or blown off; each limb ends smoothly, perfectly, right where the ground begins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he's moving them about as if it's water and not solid stone that he's trapped in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Struggling, she realizes belatedly. He's not on his hands and knees because he can't stand; he's being dragged into the ground, against his will.\n\nThe stone eater. Oh rusting Earth.\n\nSyenite grabs his shoulders and tries to haul him back, but it's like trying to haul a rock. He's heavier, somehow. His flesh doesn't feel quite like flesh. The stone eater has made his body pass through solid stone by making him more stonelike, somehow, and Syenite can't get him out. He sinks deeper into the stone with each breath; he's up to his shoulders and hips now, and she can't see his feet at all.\n\n\"Let him go, Earth take you!\" The irony of the curse will occur to her only later. What does occur to her, in the moment, is to stab her awareness into the stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tries to feel for the stone eater—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is something there, but it's not like anything she's ever felt before: a heaviness. A weight, too deep and solid and huge to be possible—not in such a small space, not so compact. It feels like there's a mountain there, dragging Alabaster down with all its weight. He's fighting it; that's the only reason he's still here at all. But he's weak, and he's losing the fight, and she hasn't the first clue of how to help him. The stone eater is just too… something. Too much, too big, too powerful, and she cannot help flinching back into herself with a sense that she's just had a near miss.\n\n\"Promise,\" he pants, while she hauls again on his shoulders and tries pushing against the stone with all her power, pulling back against that terrible weight, anything, everything. \"You know what they'll do to him, Syen. A child that strong, my child, raised outside the Fulcrum? You know.\"\n\nA wire-frame chair in a darkened node station… She can't think about that." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'shoulders' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing's working, and he's mostly gone into the stone now; only his face and shoulders are above it, and that's only because he's straining to keep those above the stoneline. She babbles at him, sobbing, desperate for words that can somehow fix this. \"I know. I promise. Oh, rust, 'Baster, please, I can't… not alone, I can't…\"\n\nThe stone eater's hand rises from the stone, white and solid and rust-tipped. Surprised, Syenite screams and flinches, thinking the creature is attacking her—but no. This hand wraps around the back of Alabaster's head with remarkable gentleness. No one expects mountains to be gentle. But they are inexorable, and when the hand pulls, Alabaster goes. His shoulders slip out of Syen's hands. His chin, then his mouth, then his nose, then his terrified eyes—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He is gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Syenite kneels on the hard, cold stone, alone. She is screaming. She is weeping. Her tears fall onto the stone where Alabaster's head was a moment before, and the rock does not soak the tears up. They just splatter.\n\nAnd then she feels it: the drop. The drag. Startled out of grief, she scrabbles to her feet and stumbles over to the edge of the cliff, where she can see the remaining ship. Ships, the one 'Baster's hit with rocks seems to have righted itself somehow. No, not somehow. Ice spreads across the water's surface around both ships. There's a rogga on one of the ships, working for the Guardians. A four-ringer, at least; there's too much fine control in what she's feeling. And with that much ice—She sees a group of porpoises leap out of the water, racing away from the spreading ice, and then she sees it catch them, crawling over their bodies and solidifying them half in and half out of the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What the hell is this rogga doing with that much power?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she sees a portion of the rock wall that 'Baster raised shiver.\n\n\"No—\" Syenite turns and runs again, breathless, sessing rather than seeing as the Guardians' rogga attacks the wall's base. It's weak where the wall curves to meet the natural curve of Meov's harbor. The rogga's going to bring it down.\n\nIt takes an eternity to reach the comm level, and then the docks. She's terrified Innon will set sail without her. He has to be able to sess what's happening, too. But thank stone, the Clalsu is still there, and when she staggers up onto its deck, several members of the crew grab her and guide her to sit down before she collapses. They draw up the plank behind her, and she can see that they're striking sails.\n\n\"Innon,\" she gasps as she catches her breath. \"Please.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They half-carry her to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He's on the upper deck, one hand on the pilot's wheel and the other holding Coru against his hip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He doesn't look at her, all his attention focused on the wall; there's already a hole in it, near the top, and as Syenite reaches him there is a final surge. The wall breaks apart and falls in chunks, rocking the ship something fierce, but Innon's completely steady.\n\n\"We're sailing out to face them,\" he says grimly, as she sags onto the bench nearby, and as the ship pulls away from the dock. Everyone's ready for a fight. The catapults are loaded, the javelins in hand. \"We'll lead them away from the comm first. That way, everyone else can evacuate in the fishing boats.\"\n\nThere aren't enough fishing boats for everyone, Syenite wants to say, and doesn't. Innon knows it, anyway.\n\nThen the ship is sailing through the narrow gap that the Guardians' orogene has made, and the Guardians' ship is on them almost at once. There's a puff of smoke on their deck and a hollow whoosh right as the Clalsu emerges; the cannon again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A near miss. Innon shouts and one of the catapult crews returns the favor with a basket of heavy chain, which shreds their foresail and midmast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another volley and this time it's a barrel of burning pitch; Syen sees people on fire running across the deck of the Guardians' ship after that one hits. The Clalsu whips past while the Guardians' ship founders toward the wall that is Meov rock, its deck now a blazing conflagration.\n\nBut before they can get far there is another puff of smoke, another boom, and this time the Clalsu judders with the hit. Rust and underfires, how many of those things do they have? Syenite gets up and runs to the railing, trying to see this cannon, though she doesn't know what she can do about it. There's a hole in the Clalsu's side and she can hear people screaming belowdecks, but thus far the ship is still moving.\n\nIt's the ship that Alabaster dropped rocks on. Some of the boulders are gone from its aft deck and it's sitting normally in the water again. She doesn't see the cannon, but she does see three figures standing near the ship's bow. Two in burgundy, a third in black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As she watches, another burgundy-clad figure comes to join them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She can feel their eyes on her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Guardians' ship turns slightly, falling farther behind. Syenite begins to hope, but she sees it when the cannons fire this time. Three of them, big black things near the starboard railing; they jerk and roll back a little when they fire, in near unison. And a moment later, there is a mighty crack and a groan and the Clalsu shudders as if it just got hit by a fiver tsunami. Syenite looks up in time to see the mast shatter into kindling, and then everything goes wrong.\n\nThe mast creaks and goes over like a felled tree, and it hits the deck with the same force. People scream. The ship groans and begins to list starboard, pulled by the collapsed, dragging sails. She sees two men fall into the water with the sails, crushed or smothered by the weight of cloth and rope and wood, and Earth help her, she cannot think of them. The mast is between her and the pilot deck. She's cut off from Innon and Coru." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the Guardians' ship is now closing in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No! Syenite reaches for the water, trying to pull something, anything, into her abused sessapinae. But there's nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her mind is as still as glass. The Guardians are too close.\n\nShe can't think. She scrabbles over the mast parts, gets tangled in a thicket of ropes and must fight for endless hours, it feels like, to get free. Then finally she is free but everyone's running back the way she came, glassknives and javelins in hand, shouting and screaming, because the Guardians' ship is right there and they are boarding.\n\nNo.\n\nShe can hear people dying all around her. The Guardians have brought troops of some sort with them, some comm's militia that they've paid or appropriated, and the battle isn't even close. Innon's people are good, experienced, but their usual targets are poorly defended merchant and passenger vessels. As Syenite reaches the pilot deck—Innon isn't there, he must have gone below—she sees Innon's cousin Ecella slash a militiaman across the face with her glassknife. He staggers beneath the blow but then comes back up and shoves his own knife into her belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she falls, he pushes her away, and she falls onto the body of another Meovite, who is already dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More of the troops are climbing aboard by the minute.\n\nIt's the same everywhere. They're losing.\n\nShe has to get to Innon and Coru.\n\nBelowdecks there's almost no one there. Everyone has come up to defend the ship. But she can feel the tremor that is Coru's fear, and she follows it to Innon's cabin. The door opens as she reaches it, and Innon comes out with a knife in his hand, nearly stabbing her. He stops, startled, and she looks beyond him to see that Coru has been bundled into a basket beneath the forward bulkhead—the safest place in the ship, ostensibly. But as she stands there, stupidly, Innon grabs her and shoves her into the cabin.\n\n\"What—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stay here,\" Innon says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have to go fight. Do whatever you have—\"\n\nHe gets no further. Someone moves behind him, too quick for Syenite to cry a warning. A man, naked to the waist. He claps hands onto either side of Innon's head, fingers splayed across his cheeks like spiders, and grins at Syenite as Innon's eyes widen.\n\nAnd then it is—\n\nOh Earth, it is—\n\nShe feels it, when it happens. Not just in her sessapinae. It is a grind like stone abrading her skin; it is a crush along her bones; it is, it is, it is everything that is in Innon, all the power and vibrancy and beauty and fierceness of him, made evil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amplified and concentrated and turned back on him in the most vicious way. Innon does not have time to feel fear. Syenite does not have time to scream as Innon comes apart.\n\nIt's like watching a shake up close. Seeing the ground split, watching the fragments grind and splinter together, then separate. Except all in flesh.\n\n'Baster, you never told me, you didn't tell me it was like\n\nNow Innon is on the floor, in a pile. The Guardian who has killed him stands there, splattered in blood and grinning through it.\n\n\"Ah, little one,\" says a voice, and her blood turns to stone. \"Here you are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" she whispers. She shakes her head in denial, steps backward. Coru is crying. She steps back again and stumbles against Innon's bed, fumbles for the basket, pulls Coru into her arms. He clings to her, shaking and hitching fitfully. \"No.\"\n\nThe shirtless Guardian glances to one side, then he moves aside to make room for another to enter. No.\n\n\"There's no need for these histrionics, Damaya,\" Schaffa Guardian Warrant says, softly. Then he pauses, looks apologetic. \"Syenite.\"\n\nShe has not seen him in years, but his voice is the same. His face is the same. He never changes. He's even smiling, though it fades a little in distaste as he notices the mess that was Innon. He glances at the shirtless Guardian; the man's still grinning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Schaffa sighs, but smiles in return. Then they both turn those horrible, horrible smiles on Syenite.\n\nShe cannot go back. She will not go back.\n\n\"And what is this?\" Schaffa smiles, his gaze fixing on Coru in her arms. \"How lovely. Alabaster's? Does he live, too? We would all like to see Alabaster, Syenite. Where is he?\"\n\nThe habit of answering is too deep. \"A stone eater took him.\" Her voice shakes. She steps back again, and her head presses against the bulkhead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There's nowhere left to run." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the first time since she's ever known him, Schaffa blinks and looks surprised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A stone—hmm.\" He sobers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see. We should have killed him, then, before they got to him. As a kindness, of course; you cannot imagine what they will do to him, Syenite. Alas.\"\n\nThen Schaffa smiles again, and she remembers everything she's tried to forget. She feels alone again, and helpless as she was that day near Palela, lost in the hateful world with no one to rely on except a man whose love comes wrapped in pain.\n\n\"But his child will be a more than worthwhile replacement,\" Schaffa says.\n\nThere are moments when everything changes, you understand.\n\nCoru's wailing, terrified, and perhaps he even understands, somehow, what has happened to his fathers. Syenite cannot console him.\n\n\"No,\" she says again. \"No. No. No.\"\n\nSchaffa's smile fades. \"Syenite. I told you. Never say no to me.\"\n\nEven the hardest stone can fracture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It just takes the right force, applied at the right juncture of angles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fulcrum of pressure and weakness.\n\nPromise, Alabaster had said.\n\nDo whatever you have to, Innon had tried to say.\n\nAnd Syenite says: \"No, you fucker.\"\n\nCoru is crying. She puts her hand over his mouth and nose, to silence him, to comfort him. She will keep him safe. She will not let them take him, enslave him, turn his body into a tool and his mind into a weapon and his life into a travesty of freedom.\n\nYou understand these moments, I think, instinctively. It is our nature. We are born of such pressures, and sometimes, when things are unbearable—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Schaffa stops. \"Syenite—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not my rusting name! I'll say no to you all I want, you bastard!\" She's screaming the words. Spittle froths her lips. There's a dark heavy space inside her that is heavier than the stone eater, much heavier than a mountain, and it's eating everything else like a sinkhole.\n\nEveryone she loves is dead. Everyone except Coru. And if they take him—\n\n—sometimes, even we… crack." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the established tone and context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The corridors and walkways of the Island were gloomy and shadowed. My first impression was that it was a wonder anyone could see anything in that confusion of darkness and sheer shafts of light. The profusion of lamps and dark patches led to everyone's sight adjusting quickly. After a week or so I would have the \"Island eyes\" the same as everyone else. Even in the Underworld I never had such adaptable vision.\n\nThe bulky guard beside me could obviously find his way about without any problem at all. Further down the corridor I saw the first lamp. It was a pale hemisphere of something cloudy that seemed to illuminate nothing but itself and my prison greys." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guard beside me was almost invisible save for the pasty skin of his face. I realised that the Island must have a generator, and was a little impressed. Most buildings in Shadrapar no longer produced their own power, and we had oil and wood and waste for light and heat. The Island really was a little oasis of technical sophistication, albeit one forever on the point of breaking down.\n\nWe descended a flight of uneven stairs, the fourth of which was broken through. They all creaked dangerously under my captor's weight. \"Have to get someone to fix that,\" the big man murmured as we reached the bottom. I had the distinct impression that he said the same thing every time he went down them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped for a moment and squinted up at the lamp above us, and then lifted his free arm up to it. I saw a twist of reed in his hand, and with a certain deftness that belied his size he applied the end of the reed to the lamp and waited. In my experience, most artificial light is cold and done with something the books call \"Bioluminance\". The lights within the Island were different: after a slow count of twenty the end of the reed sparked into fire, and the Warden inhaled the smoke down its hollow length.\n\nWe were amongst the inmates here. As my eyes grew accustomed to the poor light I saw that, beyond the barred walls on each side, there were prisoners. Three had been watching us silently all this time. One was facing away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One lay on the interleaved canes of the floor and appeared to be dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were surprisingly few of them.\n\nThe Warden took another long suck at his reed and then pulled me onwards again. The smoke seemed to have eased his temper. His grip was less painful and after a while he looked at me and said, \"Midds.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" I whispered. I still hardly dared speak to the man.\n\n\"The name's Midds,\" he told me.\n\nI nodded, wide-eyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's yours again? Ardvard or something?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Advani,\" I said, and he had to strain to hear me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"We get all types here. Lowlives, merchants, Academy boys, even a few high-ups. We had a councillor three year ago. Didn't last ten days.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stefan Advani,\" I elaborated, perhaps a little too loud.\n\n\"Posh name,\" he reflected. \"You sound like an Academy boy.\"\n\nI stared at him for some time and he shrugged, jogging my arm. \"We get all types here. Lowlives, merchants, Academy boys, even a few high-ups. We had a councillor three year ago. Didn't last ten days.\" He stared at me almost good-humouredly and took another pull at the reed. \"Academy boy. You must be crapping yourself.\"\n\nI suspect my expression confirmed his words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You sing? Tell stories? Jokes? Ever learn to dance?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Weave this into your narrative: \"They're all hard at work,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I twisted in his grasp to look at him and asked him incredulously if he wanted me to dance.\n\n\"Just wondered. Things go better for everyone if you can do a trick. Keeps people happy,\" the man called Midds explained. It was my first introduction to the Island economy, in which I would be given a more formal grounding later. At the time I was too frightened to take it in.\n\nWe had come to a stretch of corridor that looked just like the last, but Midds nodded and said, \"This is my patch, for now. They move us around every ten days. Stops us getting attached.\"\n\nThere were almost no prisoners in the cells here, and I began to worry whether this was a particularly fatal section of the Island. When I asked, Midds just laughed.\n\n\"They're all hard at work,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyone that can, does. You're lucky. You get a day off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Midds had reached a particular cell – one I was to know intimately soon enough – and was unlocking the door. The lock was large and simple, as was its key. Midds had only the one visible about him, and I realised that all of the doors on his beat must have the same lock. The real walls of the prison were made from the hostile jungle and the Marshal's brutal rules.\n\n\"Your new home,\" Midds told me. I looked in to see a room of a little over ten feet to a side. There were no bunks or any other furnishings, save for a wooden bucket in the centre of the floor whose use was obvious. On three walls, and above and below, there were other cells, with no barrier but the cane bars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If some incontinent prisoner on high were to miss the bucket, we'd all know it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it did happen.\n\nThere was a man lying motionless there, along one wall. From the doorway the only thing I could discern about him was that he was wearing the same drab grey clothes as I was.\n\n\"What's wrong with him?\" I wanted to know, and Midds told me that he was sick and couldn't work.\n\n\"I'm surprised that you haven't killed him then.\"\n\nMidds shrugged his rounded shoulders. \"Maybe some of the others would have. Me, I think he's really ill. My stretch, my choice. When I was a kid I was brought up by Compassionates. You know, all life is one life, and that stuff?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what if the Marshal told you to kill me?\" I asked him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, I'd kill you right where you stood,\" Midds assured me. \"Like I said, it was when I was a kid. The Marshal's a mad bastard but he does make this place run.\"\n\nAt that point someone called, \"Hey Middsy! I'll tell him you called him that!\" Above our heads, on the next floor up, there was another Warden looking down.\n\n\"You say anything and I'll kick your arse all the way to Shadrapar,\" Midds called back easily. It was just banter, I realised, but Midds was certainly big enough to do it. Inside that sagging, paunchy frame were a lot of big bones.\n\n\"You're not here for…\" I began, once the other man had moved on, and then trailed to a halt awkwardly, wondering how to put it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Religious reasons?\" Midds finished for me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hell no. Got a girl in trouble. It was here or the desert. Now, how about you get into your cell and save me having to do things my folks wouldn't have approved of?\"\n\nI stepped in reluctantly, and he closed and locked the door behind me. \"There'll be food before dusk, and your cell mates will be coming back around then, too.\"\n\n\"Who are my cell mates?\" I asked, and he screwed up his face for a moment, thinking.\n\n\"Can't remember. I'm sure they'll tell you,\" and then he was making his way down the corridor. The next lamp threw every detail of him into sharp relief and then he was gone.\n\nI approached the still form of my current cell mate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was lying on his side, facing the bars of the wall, and I could hear his scratchy breathing as I drew near. He sounded like some of the worst cases in the Underworld, the people who had come down to die. He was older than I expected, and small of build. I leant against the wall to get a view of his face, and saw it lined and square-chinned. His hair was grey and had been fashionably cut once. Strangely, I felt that I knew him from somewhere. He was still as a stone, and only his faint, wheezing breath told me that he was alive.\n\n\"He has the fever,\" a voice told me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's common enough that they call it Island Fever. About one in five die from it. He will be unlucky.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I turned slowly, because the voice sounded as though the speaker was standing right at my shoulder. Instead, I saw a man within the latticed shadows of the next cell. I cast my mind back, and it seems that even then I saw something unusual about him, all the trouble that he had caused and would cause. Everyone else I spoke to told me they felt just the same. He had an aura about him that gave some part of your mind a window onto his horrible, dark soul. This was Gaki. Whilst I have served my time with monsters, killers, madmen, even the Macathars of the desert, I will say without reservation that Gaki was the worst of them all. He scared parts of me I did not even know existed.\n\n\"He caught it when he came in, three months ago,\" he continued, \"And then he seemed to recover, but he was worked too hard and treated too badly. He relapsed. Now he'll die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gaki had a quiet, dry voice that could always be heard no matter how much noise was being made." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a pleasant voice, fit for a Master of the Academy.\n\n\"Who are you?\" I asked, because, however much I sensed the danger in him, there was a wall between us.\n\n\"People call me Gaki,\" he acknowledged. \"It's not much of a name, but it'll do.\"\n\n\"Are you ill as well?\"\n\nHe laughed lightly. \"Not in the way you mean.\"\n\n\"But you're not put to work?\"\n\n\"I do not choose to work,\" he said simply and, although I tried to put another question to him on the subject, somehow I could not phrase the words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could always do that." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"I am always fond of intelligent conversation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Gaki chose to close a subject, nobody could force it open again. He was one of the best examples of the principle that power is at its greatest when not actually being used.\n\n\"My name is Stefan Advani,\" I told him, and then, because the silence following it was awkward, I added needlessly, \"I'm new here.\" Gaki nodded politely.\n\n\"You sound like an educated man, Stefan Advani,\" he observed. \"I am always fond of intelligent conversation.\" The innocuous words at last gave me a concrete reason to pin my misgivings on. I had been in this situation before. An education is a strange thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It can save you when nothing else can, but it can tie you to some very undesirable characters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gaki was not the first human horror to pick my brains for idle amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might be noted that he was more human, and also more horrible, than some." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped forward into a strip of light and I saw that he was no taller than I, and little broader across the shoulders. He was naked from the waist up and his body was lean and well-muscled, the frame of a fit man. He had a sharp face with a pointed chin, and very calm eyes. Those eyes never became excited, even in the heat of his worst savageries. They were impartial, objective observers to his violent life. His head was shaved like those of the Wardens – a sanitary measure, by the way. Lice and other parasites would soon be my constant companions. The prisoners were not allowed razors, for obvious reasons, but Gaki's head was always closely shaved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whether his stubble never grew out, or whether he just cut it down when nobody was watching, is a mystery to me.\n\n\"I don't suppose you know Sandor's Lying in State, by any chance?\" he asked.\n\nAs it happened, I did. It was no great coincidence. Sandor is one of the wittiest of the modern writers, and his treatise on corruption in the Shadrapar body politic is a masterpiece, for all that it probably cost him his life. Every Academy student knows at least part of it, and social science is one of my fortes. So it came to pass that I spent the best part of a morning discussing literature and philosophy with a convicted murderer. I cannot say whether he knew the calming effect it would have on me, or whether the whole exercise was only for his own amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It did me a power of good, though." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It pains me to be indebted to Gaki for anything, after all that he did later, but I owe him that small gratitude.\n\nWe were interrupted eventually by the sick man, who had awoken and was calling out, \"Water…\" in a voice like dry leaves. I looked around, but Gaki was shaking his head.\n\n\"They bring food and water at dawn and dusk,\" he said. \"If you work, you get something at midday. If not: nothing.\"\n\n\"He's ill, though. He needs water, food. He needs help,\" I said.\n\n\"He's on the long road to death, and needs no more than a push,\" Gaki quoted. I recognised the words but could not place them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can't I do anything?\" I asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell him a story. Recite a poem,\" Gaki suggested. \"If you want, you could save some of your food and water for him, but then you'll get weak, and what will you do when you get the fever?\"\n\nI went over to the sick man and stared down at him helplessly. He was looking up, but his eyes focused on nothing I could see. \"Water…\" he said again, but there was none to be had. Even fallen in upon itself, his face retained a classical dignity and I knew I recognised him. Like Gaki's quote, I could not place him.\n\nI tried to talk to him, but he could not seem to hear me, and his replies were just mumbles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lapsed back into something like sleep soon after, although he was never completely still, twitching and gasping and crying out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gaki had withdrawn into the depths of his cell, and I tried to strike up a conversation with him but never quite managed. Just by willing it, he had ended the discussion.\n\nI hoped Shon Roseblade was having a better time of it than I was. I must have sat in silence for an hour, trying to count my blessings, before Gaki spoke again. \"I knew him, you know,\" he said.\n\n\"This man? Who is he?\" I asked, thinking he meant my cell mate.\n\n\"Sandor,\" Gaki said quietly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was an extra quality in his voice as it lifted from the shadows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sandor the writer and philosopher. I knew him.\"\n\nSandor had died before I started at the Academy, and for a moment I was brim-full of questions about the great man. What was he like? Was he as witty in real life as in his writings? Who was the lover he wrote poems for? How did he die?\n\nIn his unique way, Gaki had conveyed his meaning to me without ever saying it, and what I actually said was, \"You killed him.\"\n\n\"I knew him,\" Gaki repeated, and I wondered whether it had been a random act of violence or a hired assassination, and came down on the side of the latter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sandor's book had made a lot of enemies in high places." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a long silence in which I could not speak because I knew that Gaki had not finished." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'certain' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew him,\" he eventually said again, but slower, and tinged with something that would be sadness in other men. I think it was the only thing that he ever regretted. There has always been a lot of speculation about the work that Sandor was partway through when he died. It is quite lost, although purported fragments surface every so often, and I saw a whole page of it in the Underworld. I sometimes try to picture the nights that Sandor and Gaki spent together, the great writer elaborating on his new project, his murderer-to-be listening. Perhaps it was Sandor, posthumously, that reworked Gaki from a normal killer into the creature I knew.\n\nAt the Academy we were taught that life is made of patterns that repeat themselves, that certain numbers are significant for certain people. The number four was surely my blessing and curse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Four deaths I narrowly missed, following my arrest (two behind me, at this point in the narrative, and two yet to come)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four of us banded together in Shadrapar to challenge the way the world thought. Three other like-minded desperate cases in the Underworld to join me in my time of need. Finally this official quartet: the full complement of a cell in the Island. The sick man I had met already. The other two appeared towards dusk as the working day ended.\n\nThe first I knew of my cell mates was Midds. He came down his section and opened all the doors. Had I been tempted to make a break for it, there were Wardens at either end of the corridor, and besides, there would be nowhere to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even later, when I learned that the swamp was not entirely deadly to human life, I never made the attempt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost nobody did. It really would have been an all-or-nothing bid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Marshal, who had killed just to set an example, would have no mercy on a failed escapee.\n\nAll of a sudden there were two men coming in through the door, one large, one small. I shuffled back from them, and they both stared at me. Behind them, Midds passed back down the corridor, locking it all up again.\n\nThe large man was bigger in all dimensions than I, and his bare arms were knotty with muscles. He carried with him a sharp, chemical smell that I would soon recognise as the smell of the vats. He bore down on me until he was almost nose to nose, if he looked down and I craned my neck back. His face was square, literally, with a flat chin rising straight to meet lumpy, angular temples." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes were lost somewhere within the creases of their sockets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"New boy,\" he pronounced. I could tell that something unpleasant was about to happen to me and tried to summon my inner energies to resist it.\n\n\"What're you in for?\" the large man demanded.\n\n\"My name is Stefan Advani, and I was convicted of agitation, subversion and attempting to evade the course of justice,\" I said promptly. When under pressure I had two distinct faults, before the Island cured me of them. Firstly, my voice became high and shrill and ostentatiously posh. Secondly, I used to blurt the truth out before I could think of a good fabrication." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think that if I had told him I was a murderer he might have thought twice before hitting me. Instead, he hit me. It was so quick and businesslike that I had no chance to do anything with all the inner energies I had been summoning. I just had time to turn my head away slightly so that his rock-hard fist slammed across my cheek rather than into my nose. I blacked out for a fraction of a second and was lying painfully on the barred floor when I awoke.\n\n\"Now you know what's what,\" he told me in some satisfaction. \"I'm in charge here. Don't you forget.\"\n\nI caught sight of Gaki." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had watched everything quite calmly; he had no more interest in me than in my ailing cell mate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The large man was named Onager. Perhaps he was not an evil man by nature. He had been taken from a rough life on the streets of Shadrapar to this place, and the Marshal had taught him that violence breeds control, and that control was a good thing. He was only aping his keepers, and a single blow from Onager was better than being killed by the Marshal. The other man was Lucian Corek, and he was a good four inches shorter than me, and slightly hunched. After I had picked myself up, he came over to me. He had a broken nose, I noticed, and I recognised Onager's calling card.\n\nLucian was a strange little man, but friendly, which was a rare commodity on the Island." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whilst Onager lapsed into sullen silence once he had made his point, Lucian talked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His talk was one of the most peculiar things about him: there was a vast amount of it that seemed to have no real purpose or function, and none of it was memorable. At the end of a conversation with Lucian I could remember in general what subjects he had covered, but not one of his actual words would stay with me. I will try and simulate his mode of speech for you, but I will only be writing things that sound like Lucian. The actual words were gone forever the moment they fled his lips.\n\nHe told me almost at once that he was here for forgery and bad debts. The status of bad debts in Shadrapar, where many people wore them like medals, is something I will talk of in the proper place. As for the other, he had forged official documents, and I assume that he had not been terribly good at it. He claimed to be a good hand with a bent printing press and, had I met him in the street, I could no doubt have made use of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the Island he provided another service." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As long as he rattled on, the background awfulness of the place did not weigh so heavily on me. When he stopped, the dread quiet was almost unbearable.\n\n\"Tell me about him,\" I asked, when I could get a word in, indicating the sick man. Here is my best attempt at Lucian's reply.\n\n\"That poor fellow he's not at all well, you know, he was never strong, I told them they shouldn't make him do a full shift his second time round with it you see hasn't even been here long, some people are just so unlucky but then that's the way the world turns and you never know, so it's as well to be prepared as I'm sure he'd say if only he was lucid, mind you he wasn't too lucid before, came in not so long ago, two months maybe three, you lose track of time in a place like this you see, and the days are mostly one the same as the next, and that one the same as the next, although he hasn't seen so many as I have what with being here only a few months, and already with the Island Fever twice, once when he first came like everyone gets and…\" But you get the idea. And then he was going over to reassure the ailing man that everything was going to be fine, only at much greater length. He called the fever victim 'Valentin'.\n\n\"Valentin?\" I queried, and the name rang the same bells that the man's face had." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'miljus' (3x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lucian's lengthy opinion was that the man was named something like Valentin Mildew.\n\n\"Valentin Miljus,\" I said flatly, and Lucian thought for a blessedly silent moment and then confirmed that it was very probably something quite like that, very likely, yes indeed.\n\nI went over to look at the sick man again and recognised him at last as Valentin Miljus. Not a friend, or even anyone I had met, but a face I knew. A large, leaden hand clamped across my shoulder, and Onager craned past, staring.\n\n\"You know him?\" the big man asked.\n\n\"Know of him,\" I admitted. I guessed that Valentin Miljus had kept himself to himself, even in his hale and hearty days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was the Lord Financier, last I heard,\" I noted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I heard Onager's whistle of surprise and, because I had knowledge to impart, I forgot that he had knocked me down, and even forgot that we were all prisoners. I am always happiest when I can tell people things that they do not know. Perhaps that is why I am writing this.\n\n\"He was very high up in the Lord President's staff,\" I explained. \"I saw him a few times at the Academy. He was a good speaker. Then he just dropped out of sight. Someone said that he'd been taken ill and had gone to his house in the suburbs to recover. Who dreamt that he had been dragged off here? I wonder what happened.\"\n\nIt was around then that Midds turned up with the food. My first meal in the Island and there were a few unpleasant surprises awaiting me. Midds shoved four small wooden bowls and a jug through the largest gap between the bars and then walked on, pushing a makeshift trolley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lucian darted over to take charge of them and handed one each to Onager and myself." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'something' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked down and saw that it was part-full of some sort of stew in which unidentified things floated. There were strands of plant, and segments of something that must have been water reed. There were chunks of something white as well that fell into flakes when I prodded them. It looked like nothing I had ever seen before.\n\n\"Fish,\" Onager said, and watched my horrified reaction.\n\n\"I'm supposed to eat a dead animal?\" I demanded. In Shadrapar we ate what we grew in the ground. Raising animals for food was a disgusting process abandoned in ancient times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The idea of consuming the flesh of another creature was vile and turned my stomach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Worse, the whole concoction was warm, despite the heat all around us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back home we would not dream of eating anything warmer than room temperature, and the rich had their food and drink chilled.\n\nOnager had my fish, and also Valentin's entire meal, since Valentin was in no condition to eat. Lucian assured me that my resolve against eating meat would last two days. He said that on the first day I would refuse it, on the second I would eat, but be unable to keep it down, and on the third I would be an omnivore like everybody else.\n\nI was just getting Valentin to take some water when Lucian explained to me where the food came from. To paraphrase, the various pumps that, amongst other tasks, kept the Island afloat, took in a lot of lake water. The lake water wasn't exactly sparkling clear, and so there were sieves, which we inmates had to take out and clear. Everything that ended up in a sieve would end up in the pot, and from there to our bowls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lucian suggested that the system had the virtue of variety." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'would' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything,\" I asked him weakly, \"that goes into the sieves?\"\n\nHis enthusiastic list included fish, frogs, snails, voles, insects, waterweed. Apparently there was a great deal of nature you could eat if you boiled it long enough.\n\nThe next morning I would wolf down everything they put in front of me, and throw some of it up as Lucian predicted. After that I would adjust." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Continue story fragment\nContext: Part of larger narrative\nNote: Characters may appear without introduction\nLength: three sentences\nStyle: Adrian Tchaikovsky\nGenres: science fiction\nElements: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Continue story fragment\nContext: Part of larger narrative\nNote: Characters may appear without introduction\nLength: three sentences\nStyle: Adrian Tchaikovsky\nGenres: science fiction\nElements: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You are probably thinking that I was a self-absorbed and selfish youth, to leave my mother slaving away whilst I gadded off on spurious schemes of advancement. Probably you are right. I would offer in my defence that I felt it was what my mother would have wanted, but I am aware that lacks conviction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think the best breast of it I can make is to plead guilty and carry on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think I just assumed that she would manage, as she always had.\n\nWhich left me considering my options for fast money, which were few.\n\nI could take up a life of crime, which in Shadrapar was as old and tradition-bound as any legitimate trade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A likely lad with a sharp mind could get himself apprenticed to a mobster just as easily as he could to an engineer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was fairly obvious from the start, though, that I did not have what it would take." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A career on the wrong side of the civil authorities was not for me, though later I was to dabble as an amateur.\n\nThere was the chance to join the Outriders, which was also good money. You got your kit and your training, and you got to do the city a service." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You were also locked into an eleven-year contract, and two-thirds never made it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Outriders earned their money." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They spent the day and night stalking the Vermin through abandoned buildings, and the pipes and sewers of the Underworld. They fought them with gun and knife, and they burned out their nests. In return the Vermin set traps and ambushed them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shadrapar's Vermin are an enduring and ubiquitous bunch who will outlive us, I am sure. They are hairy rodents with long tails, about half the size of a man. Their forepaws are quite like hands, and their instinctive behaviours include crafting tools, keeping possessions and leaving messages for each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Despite this, the Masters of the Academy have issued official proclamations to state that Vermin are, without doubt, dumb animals, and therefore fair game." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wonder what those Masters would have made of the web-children and the others. The jungle's special offspring were not common knowledge in Shadrapar. Possibly they would also have been the subject of an official proclamation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I leave you to make your own conclusions and judgements, concerning them and concerning us." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'expedition' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outriding, therefore, was not a career choice I was happy with, being too much like hard work, which left only the quickest of the get-rich-quick schemes. I would join an expedition.\n\nThere were two types of expedition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were the Academy-backed and government-funded official kind, such as took Trethowan out into the jungles for the increasing of mankind's knowledge." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'something' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alternatively there were desperate private ventures, backed by hope and borrowed money, which went out to somewhere old and pillaged it in the hope of unearthing something of value. It was a reliable way of getting either rich or dead. Almost nobody came back without something to show for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They came back with some piece of marketable history or they failed to come back at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It may seem a strange choice for a self-confessed coward, but it was a simple acknowledgement that I had no other choice if I was ever to get what I wanted.\n\nThere were generally half a dozen expeditions touting for business at any one time. About half never came off, for lack of funding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some were specifically designed to take the money and run, without ever risking life and limb beyond the city." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those that tried such schemes often found that life and limb could be equally at risk within the city." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked around until someone pointed me in the right direction, and then I sold myself to a rather severe woman as a scholar. She looked at me, all sixteen years of me, and knew exactly what kind of scholar I was. I managed to field two out of three test questions she threw at me, which was better than most." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I also told her that I could fight, and that I was willing to do menial tasks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That last probably damaged my image as a serious scholar but at the same time got me my place on the expedition. Aside from a couple of experts, all the rest of the team needed to be was willing and expendable.\n\nI must have been mad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We all must have been quite crazy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We had almost no equipment and no real historian to point us in the right direction. We were heading out into the deadly desert, a place which bred monsters and nothing else. We had two leaders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was the real signal that the enterprise was doomed: two captains." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Tarent was one, a young, athletic man who was spectacularly greedy. You could see the lust in his eyes at all times. A lust for power, for wealth, for respect; a lust just to have more of any given commodity than anyone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a supremely dangerous man to be around, but I was too young to realise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Opposing him on almost every decision he made was Captain Edlando, who was older and more tired. Edlando had at least been to the desert twice before and yet here he was again. The glory and success that should have attended such a hero had drained away like water into the sand, and he was left as one of life's washed-out failures." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was bitter and resentful, especially of energetic younger men such as Tarent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fact that, without Tarent's drive, we would never have got the money together to equip us ate away at his insides like a cancer.\n\nWe met in the Shadow of the Weapon, as was traditional. I believe that originally some kind of cheering and well-wishing was involved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In my day it was just a landmark that even the most witless would-be explorer could find." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a vehicle there. The various parts of it had patently not been intended to make something of that particular shape. It had a cab of sorts up front, with two huge wheels, and the back was mostly canvas-covered flatbed, for personnel, equipment and loot in equal proportions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The entire business was caked with rust, armoured in grit and must have dated back to the rule of President Marks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Our two captains were squabbling over supplies with a merchant over at the edge of the square. Of the rest of the team, one was inside the cab and three had yet to appear. Only a solitary youth of my own age was loitering about the vehicle, trying to look heroic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I discovered that he was called Jon de Baron." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the time I took little notice of him, save to see that he was wearing a very fashionable khaki get-up that had been all the rage with the socialites last season, when looking like an effete explorer was in. It was plain that the clothes did not fit him well, and had been darned in too many places, but he was making an effort. As a first impression of Jon de Baron, or Jonathan Barren as he was born, it was an accurate and telling one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He and I would be fast friends later on, once circumstance had welded us together, but he was a man vastly concerned with appearances, and not at all with what was behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I learned that he was not even on the expedition for the money (he told me proudly, flaunting the second-hand but nonetheless expensive clothes). According to him he was risking his life because \"girls always love an explorer\". I wrote him off for a complete fool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The truth was that he had been badly jilted for a man of action just a few days before, and had signed up whilst heartbroken." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like many clownish, cheerful-seeming men, Jon de Baron was capable of being deeply hurt and never showing it.\n\nAt that point our two captains returned and I got my first look at them: bronzed, grinning Tarent and weather-beaten, greying Edlando. Jon and I introduced ourselves, and the rest of the team crept out from beneath stones and out of shadows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a solid, bald man named something like Julphash (I misheard his name and never plucked up the courage to ask him again) who was to drive the ridiculous vehicle of ours. There was another man, heavily-built and unfashionably bearded, an ex-Outrider named Kerreth. There were two artificers: a man of Edlando's approximate age called Mental (honestly, Mental) and a woman perhaps ten years older than I was, by the name of Martlet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mental and Martlet obviously came as a pair.\n\nI remember looking them all over and being thoroughly unimpressed, even at age eighteen. I took a swift dislike to Tarent, which showed that I was a fair judge of character." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of the rest, only Kerreth seemed even remotely reliable, which showed that my character judgement had its flaws." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'going' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had known when I signed that it was going to be a fool's errand, however, and payment was strictly in arrears depending on what we brought back. If I wanted anything out of this sorry mess I would have to stick it out to the end.\n\nIt became clear that things were not going to go smoothly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our rations were costing us over the odds (Tarent blamed Edlando for putting us in a poor bargaining position and not pre-ordering)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We were a tent short, and there had been a misunderstanding over some of the equipment: namely that one or other of the captains had assumed that Mental and Martlet would be bringing devices such as a metal detector and a radiation counter. Mental and Martlet possessed no such devices and had been hoping that the expedition leaders would be putting up the wherewithal for them. There was a free and frank exchange of views between the artificers and the captains, and then between Tarent and Edlando." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A small early morning crowd was gathering to watch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Expeditions leaving were two a penny, but street theatre was always worth the time of day.\n\nIn the end, Edlando held out for a day's delay to purchase the necessary items, and Tarent argued that every day cost us money, and who knew what new disaster tomorrow would bring to delay us even more? Mental and Martlet were with Edlando, but Kerreth, Julphash (or whatever) and Jon wanted to leave straight away and, more fool me, so did I." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We tried a spontaneous exercise in the old democracy, and Tarent carried it by superior force of personality rather than reasoning or merit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is exactly why democracy could never work as a governmental system.\n\nThere was further argument about who got to sit up front. I am quite serious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cab was designed for two, and for three at a pinch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Edlando pointed out that he knew the way, and Tarent said that he needed to make command decisions. A further fight showed itself on the horizon before our suffering driver pointed out that they would both just fit. Hence all three of them spent the outward journey crammed in like packed fruit whilst the rest of us could relax in the back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not only was there the extra space that one of the captains should have been taking up, there was also all the room made by our missing tent and absent equipment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a high price to pay for a little leg room.\n\nThe first part of the journey was dull. Mental, with an utterly self-effacing air that I still remember, could do sleight-of-hand tricks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He performed a few with such a deadpan delivery that they were not in the least entertaining." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kerreth, on the other hand, had some cards, and Jon and I both ended up owing a fair amount of notional money to him. He accepted our IOUs.\n\nIt took all morning to rattle our way to the end of the fringe of fields and out into the desert sands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scavenging in the desert is a long and honourable tradition and the closer ruins had been picked clean long ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those that were visible from the watchtowers were practically household names. The Blue Tower, with its mountings at the top for a great diamond lens long since taken away; the Shattered Town; the Spire and Dish; the Light House, whose walls still sometimes skittered with dots and beads of illumination. These landmarks, like the signs of alehouses, were familiar to many of Shadrapar's citizens and of no use to us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We were on our way deep into uncharted desert." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were enough cenotaphs of mankind's defeat out there for a thousand expeditions.\n\nThings started to go wrong almost immediately. We set up tents for the night and, when we got up in the morning, Kerreth died." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put his boots on, and a scorpion stung him, and he died. It was a stupid way to go. Mental had been up for an hour beforehand, but he had emptied his boots out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As for the rest of us, we got into the habit fast." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'kerreth' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So much for Kerreth, on whose survival I would have bet money. On the upside, at least it cleared my gambling debts.\n\nTarent's reaction was to say that Kerreth had known the risks (which patently he had not) and that it meant less people to share the loot with. Edlando said nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We saw plenty more scorpions that day, and some would not have fitted into my boot with a crowbar. The deserts had an ecosystem, just like everywhere else. It was a barren one, though, and consisted almost entirely of scorpions and cockroaches." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The scorpions, you understand, preyed on the cockroaches, and what the cockroaches ate I cannot say, but obviously there was something there for them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The strange thing was that this one-stage food chain existed in a variety of sizes. There were tiny beasts that would fit on a fingernail and could travel on the wind with the sand grains; there were nasty-looking creatures that could sit in the palm of a hand; there were lumbering articulated brutes half the size of a man, or as large as a man, or larger. The largest we saw was a cockroach that must have been three-quarters as long as the vehicle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If there was a scorpion that preyed on that, we managed to avoid it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Towards the end of the day we saw something more. We saw, in the distance, the true lord of the desert: a Macathar.\n\nIt was striding through a ruin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It has long been known that they have an affinity for the remnants of human civilisation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Edlando ordered the vehicle stopped, and took out a telescope to have a look, and then he pointed it out to us. If he had not, we would have missed it, despite its movement. It was almost the same bright whiteness as the sand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mostly, it was an arthropod, ridgy and crustaceous with limbs like a crab's, rough with nodules and serrated edges." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were four of these legs, rising up to spiked elbows before arcing down. The body, slung between them, was box-like and armoured, and seemed mostly a single piece without divisions. This one had something of a hook curving underneath where a tail might be, but Macathars are all slightly different in the details of their form." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no head, but from the fore of that lumpy, squared-off body sprang a cluster of sensory organs: huge black glassy eyes, twitching feelers, strange rods and porous cups and other receptors for senses that we can know nothing of. We saw it make its way in a strong, confident stride, oblivious of us, and Edlando sat and waited until the scale of it caught up with us. It was behind the ruins, we saw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That long-legged sand-crab monstrosity was easily the size of a two-storey house. Once that had been assimilated, none of us could look at the beast without shuddering. There was something in that appalling scale that drove home the wrongness of the creature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The way it walked, the bundle of nameless senses, the arched limbs, everything seemed unnatural." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had no idea what or even how it ate. There was no visible mouth.\n\nThe most alien thing about it was its motion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was very similar to the motion of a creature crossing the floor of a pool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the same sense of it being buoyed up by some dense other medium." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each slow stride enabled ten tons of monster to coast across the sand without any apparent effort at all." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'still' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We kept very still all this while and it showed no signs of detecting our scrutiny. It stalked off across the dunes and was lost in the glare, and still we did not move or speak for some time.\n\nIt was Mental who broke the silence, just before the driver put our vehicle into motion again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One school of thought holds that they are machines,\" he explained solemnly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Machines of the ancients that are proof against time and corrosion, and that walk the lands where their masters are just so much dust.\" Martlet suggested that the Macathars fed on sunlight, but found no takers. Likewise, Edlando's assertion that they fed on the wandering souls of the numberless human dead was laughed off, albeit a little nervously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As for Edlando, he was looking more and more haggard as the days went by, as though he had a sense of his own death lurking just below the horizon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I began to be thankful that he was crammed up front with Tarent and Julphash.\n\nThe true disaster struck the next day. It was the day before we were due to arrive at the scavenging spot that Edlando had picked out, and we were getting fractious at the long wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We had already passed quite enough ruins, and even Mental was of the opinion that they could not all have been picked clean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Edlando was obstinate and insisted we follow his plan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gave no reasons, but merely looked at us as if to say that he was older and wiser than we were and we should know better than to argue. This, and the aura of gloom that hung about him, served to lose him even the tenuous support of Mental and Martlet. So it was that during the afternoon of that day, Captain Tarent spoke up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh to hell with this,\" he decided. \"That's as good as any. Let's stop there.\" He pointed out a particularly bizarre ruin, blasted stone walls laced with strips of eroded metal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is not the plan,\" Edlando countered stubbornly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It may not be your plan,\" Tarent said. \"It'll do for me. Let's trawl this one and then we can go on to your spot. Are you worried it won't be there a day later? It's been there for millennia, I'm sure it'll wait for us.\"\n\n\"That is not the plan,\" Edlando repeated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I can still hear these words in his voice, in my head. It is all I really have left of him. It was a long time ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tarent craned back to look at us, huddling close in the back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about you lot? Let's everyone have a say.\"\n\n\"I'm game,\" Jon said. I nodded. The two artificers were likewise minded to ply their trade here and now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is not the plan,\" Edlando said again. Three times now, which led to one of the eerier coincidences of my life, as I shall reveal.\n\n\"Let's go fish,\" Tarent decided, and the driver stopped and we got out with all of our kit and went to the ruin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment Edlando stayed alone in the vehicle, and I have often wondered whether he was trying to work out how to make it go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If so then the knowledge was beyond him, for he hopped out and trailed after the rest of us, the mark of doom more prominent than ever on his brow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ruin that Tarent had fixed on was mostly open to the sky. The walls curved outwards a little and were jagged at the top, even after so long, and at first I supposed that they were intended to support some kind of burgeoning dome. Later I guessed that there had been some kind of explosion within that had inflicted the deformation and damage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inside it was mostly bare and the floor was awash with sand, but that did not discourage us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One came across few complete and fully-furnished ruins in the deserts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, Mental and Martlet took out the equipment that we did have and told Jon and me how to set it up so that we might best detect relics buried beneath the sand. It was something of an arduous task, due to the low quality of the equipment and the ineptitude of Jon and myself. Meanwhile Tarent and Edlando quartered the area and divided it up so that we could search methodically, each to his own system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jon had the first find, a timeworn gauntlet still containing the horribly desiccated hand of its last owner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Martlet declared it to be quite without value, and Jon was rather glad to be rid of it. He also found the second and third prizes, the last of which was one of the red crystals that some of the ancients used to focus the energies in their machines, which Mental declared would fetch a moderate price. As for myself, I still say that sand had gotten into my machine, for I was finding nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What happened next was that Tarent and Edlando got into yet another blazing row, this time over something as petty as how to mark out our search area. I think that Edlando was making trouble this time, feeling his grasp of the expedition fall away. As I stooped over my recalcitrant machine I could hear their raised voices echoing back and forth from the walls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By this time I had really given up hope of actually finding anything and had migrated to the westernmost wall, so I was at least within its shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The heat of the desert was enough to addle your brains. Jon, who had no more sense than he was born with, was still out in the sun, finding artefacts hand over fist.\n\nThe shouting was starting to give me a headache." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those old walls had marvellous acoustic qualities, so that every syllable bounded back to assault me again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This in turn made my squinting at the display of my machine painful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I decided to look up and watch the spectacle of our chain of command disintegrating.\n\nI was struck by two things. First was the fact that only Tarent was shouting now, and indeed his had been the only voice for some time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Edlando was standing silently, staring somewhere else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was the tiniest bitter smile on his lined face.\n\nSecond was the shadow of the wall. I saw the uneven and twisted outline cast across the white sand, and as I watched I saw it move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The broken line of shade shifted slightly, and then surged forward, so that I knew exactly what was crowding the top of the wall, looking down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Immediately I was cramming myself back against the stone, as deep into its cover as I could go. I saw Tarent stop in mid-word as he finally took note of Edlando's expression. He looked back over his shoulder, and all life and hope went out of his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Across the ruin I saw Mental and Martlet, similarly frozen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jon had somehow contrived to be somewhere else, which saved his life.\n\nThe shadow of the wall moved again as the Macathar peered over it. I looked up and saw that hideous bundle of sensors projecting clear over the wall's top." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes were broader across than my body and blacker than darkness. Everything else was the eternal white of the desert. I saw four or five tiny arms preening and cleaning the eyes and other organs, tipped with claws and combs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tarent opened his mouth to say something, and the Macathar struck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though I had wondered what and how it ate, I had never paused to consider whether the creatures could harm us. There was something about them that promised pain and death. I saw nothing, no lash or claw or ray but, in that instant, Tarent and Edlando were thrown to the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For perhaps five seconds, they were writhing, making raw, agonised sounds, and then they were dead, and their skins were blotted with burns and red weals as though they had been touched by fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had I been a man of action then no doubt some heroic course would have occurred to me, and I would have died in a similar manner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead I was a coward and I lived.\n\nThere was a spitting, crackling noise, and I saw that Julphash had leapt from the vehicle. He had a pistol in one hand, one of the old kind that spat little sizzling bolts of energy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have never liked weapons, but this was a particularly elegant one. The energy pocked into the Macathar's shell with little explosions of dust, and I saw one bolt vanish into a huge eye and do no obvious damage. The assembly of sensors swung towards Julphash and struck him down with the same invisible power so that even as he fell his elegant pistol exploded in his grasp, scattering shrapnel through the air and through him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meanwhile Mental had produced a more primitive projectile gun and was loosing bullets off at the monster whilst Martlet ran frantically from the ruin. I saw the great eyes focus more sharply on Mental, and he was consumed: first he fell, and then he smouldered, and then he was blasted into ash so that nothing whatsoever was left of him but his gun. There was no heat involved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would have felt the backwash of any incinerating fiery ray, but instead there was nothing, just the terrible concentration of the Macathar and Mental's complete disintegration. I saw the great orbs swing to focus on the fleeing Martlet, now some ways distant, and they narrowed perceptibly to bring her into focus before they fried her as well.\n\nI remained quite still and silent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of Jon there was nothing to be seen. Of the others, the bodies or the ash spoke for them. Aside from that it was just me and the Macathar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It stayed where it was for what seemed like a very long time, but was probably no more than ten minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I could still see its shadow, and the assemblage of eyes and organs projecting over the wall." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'easily' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it had been human then I would say that it was thinking about what it had done. Then it lurched into motion again, and I saw in silhouette how easily it turned and was gone, poling itself away over the desert sands as easily as a feather-light insect walks over a table.\n\nI stayed where I was for at least another ten minutes before I dared move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My back was up against one of the lead strips that laced the walls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I did move, it was to a silent, dead world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was quite alone in the desert. It was enough to turn a man's brains. Hardly any wonder that I started hearing voices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello? Hello? Is there anybody there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stopped dead. For some bizarre reason I thought of the souls of the dead. I thought that Edlando's superstitious soul was talking to me. It was such a tinny and distant voice, that it could easily have come from the afterlife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello? Hello? Anyone? Can anyone hear me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was coming from one of the walls, which did not reassure me. I glanced about but could see no sign of the Macathar. The voice continued imploring me as I searched for it, finally finding a tiny panel that I would have missed had it not been talking to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello? He-llo?\" There was something familiar about the voice, I realised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello?\" I called back at the wall, there was a thoughtful pause, and then I added, \"Jon?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mental?\" the tiny voice of Jon crackled." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'stefan'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stefan,\" I corrected. \"Where are you?\"\n\n\"Beneath you,\" Jon's transcribed voice flickered. \"Look, go to the wall that I was searching against. There's a catch, a kind of square button. It opens onto a chute, and I fell down here. You've got to see this, Stefan, you're not going to believe this. And bring the others.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was not the only person with news, of course. When I had found his subterranean shelter, I told him of the fate of our comrades, and we both sat together for some time. We had only known them for a few days, of course, and more immediate in our minds was the thought that it could so easily have been us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That has been a theme of my life, as you know.\n\nJon's shelter turned out to contain a case of chemicals of dubious provenance, a working machine which could extract pure samples of such chemicals and several ancient personal effects, which were all good merchandise on the jewellery and cosmetic market. In addition there was an astonishingly fragile manuscript in one of the known ancient languages which was worth more than the rest put together and bought us both our scholarships to the Academy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mission: User starts, continue w/ ~9 sentences sentences. Context: May be mid-story. Themes: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Later we had another visitor to Below, this one not a conversationalist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I first became aware of it simply through the reaction of my fellow prisoners. There was a kind of ripple of alarm from the cells down the hall. It was nothing so much as an exclamation, barely even a sound. Rather, it was a sense of movement, of each man in turn shrinking back from something and freezing into complete quiet and silence. It was a prey reaction, as Trethowan would have said.\n\nI looked into the gloom and saw nothing, even though there was a good scattering of sunbeams lancing through our perpetual dark. Still I heard the ripple of revulsion, and it was getting close to me. Then something crossed a shaft of light. All I saw was the movement, at first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then there was another flicker, and I had the impression of something stick-like poling forward, and then another, and then…\n\nUnder the faint sunlight it looked nut-brown, and hard as a nut too, and at first it seemed suspended in mid-air until I saw the webwork of legs holding it up. There were several of them, four, six, maybe eight, and none was more than an inch or two in diameter: a network of thin, black, jointed pipes to hold up a lozenge-shaped body perhaps four feet long. As it slid through that beam of light I saw no eyes or anything else to tell it that it was giving itself away. Instead, the leading end of that body had two clasping, raptorial arms and a long, bent beak that must have been eighteen inches long. The rest of the body was hard shell above and just darkness below, where the light did not touch it. It moved with an awful deliberation, one leg at a time, rocking slightly in between steps. The span of its legs was huge, and it could have touched the corners of a room far larger than the cramped corridor. It paid us no heed, and that hard, shiny body could not have passed through the small gaps in the cell walls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was after other prey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It must have heard the Warden coming before I did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps those wide-spread legs felt the vibrations of his footfalls. Abruptly it stopped, and began to hoist itself into the air. One leg at once found purchase amongst the bars of the wall and on the ceiling and carefully inverted itself, until it was clinging upside down above us, only one leg crossing a sunbeam to tell of it.\n\nI could hear the Warden approaching now, the idle scuff of bored footsteps. There was a terrible tension amongst my fellow prisoners.\n\nThe Warden rounded the corner. All I could see of him was his lamp, which was pointed mostly down to light his way. I thought of that stiletto beak and what it would do to a human body. I opened my mouth to say something, but the very suspense was weighing down on me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fixed anticipation of dozens of my fellows charged the air, filled it, leaving no room for sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It may seem strange to you now, but I was physically oppressed by that expectant silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was as if the mean, starved minds of the Below prisoners reached out and forced me back, shut me up, as if they were using the inner energies that had got me into this mess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People in desperate situations can find unexpected reserves.\n\nThe Warden came close, and I saw the one visible leg shift slightly in the light as the creature adjusted its position. In the gloom between sunbeams I saw the long, hard body lower itself down in that cradle of legs like a man climbing with ropes. I convinced myself that I could see the two grasping arms unfurled slightly, ready to strike. I imagined that lethal beak folding out. The hunter, eyeless and deadly, was ready.\n\nThe close, tense bloodlust of my fellows clamped down on me, and must have spoken to the Warden at some level because his tread faltered slightly, just short of the monster's reach. That gave me the smallest window through which to shout, \"Look out! Above you!\"\n\nThe Warden jerked back, and the thing struck at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw very little of it, just the suggestion of movement in the dark. In my mind's eye, however, I can picture it even now: dangling down on its horrible legs, claws extended, beak raised like a dagger.\n\nIt fell short, although the Warden must have felt the air before him being cut by those grasping arms. In the next second he was out with his club, striking the creature a massive blow across the body. I heard the carapace crack, and then the creature was wobbling away, step after jerky step, trying to escape across the ceiling. The Warden stepped in calmly and struck it twice, three more times, finally knocking it to the floor, where he stamped hard on its soft underside and then continued to beat it with his club until its legs had stopped thrashing.\n\nThere was an appalled silence to follow. The Warden stood quite still over the shattered corpse of his attacker and still all we could see of him was his lamp. That beam of artificial light passed over the cells and each prisoner in turn shrank back from it, as though they, too, were lurking insects awaiting a stomping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only I faced up to it, and I think that told him who it was that had warned him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The light pinned me for a long time, and then the man was tracking off down the corridor. When a strand of sunlight caught his head and one shoulder I realised that I did not know him.\n\nAfter he had gone, I could taste the anger in the air. There was not a man down that stretch of corridor who was not hating me with a passion. They had wanted their entertainment. To make up for their sunless lot they had wanted to see a Warden die, and I had thwarted them. Not a word was said by that desperate multitude, but I could feel the sour disappointment radiating from them in waves. They would gladly have torn me apart right then, for spoiling their fun.\n\nI didn't care. I had given up on them. I turned my back on their lethargic fellowship. I hoped." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Continue story fragment\nContext: Part of larger narrative\nNote: Characters may appear without introduction\nLength: three sentences\nStyle: Adrian Tchaikovsky\nGenres: science fiction\nElements: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What the Mandrac might have done had he overheard that conversation is unknown. What he actually did, in ignorance of it, was this.\n\nLater that night I was woken roughly by someone trying to strangle me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I felt just the bony hands about my neck, but they were pressing into the muscle, rather than the windpipe, and banging the back of my head on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I saw the hate-ridden face of the Mandrac above me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I realised later that he was probably shouting more about Sin but at the time all I heard was the rushing of blood in my ears and the smack of my head on the boards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he had been a strangler by nature then I would have died, but he was a theologian by trade and a strangler only by circumstance. When I jerked a knee up in what can only be described as a knee-jerk reaction, his tirade stopped with a wheeze and he convulsed off me.\n\n\"Heretic!\" he screamed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Conniver at the world's destruction. Creature of Sin! You must be destroyed for the world to be Saved!\"\n\nI kicked him in the knee and he fell back further. Around us, other prisoners were waking up and telling him to shut his face before he brought the Marshal down on us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you Blind that you cannot See?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "the Mandrac demanded. \"For the Salvation of the World this heretic must be Cleansed from the company of the Right! His prying at the Weft of the World brings all our souls into Perdition!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a chorus of jeers from the other prisoners, and one anonymous wit pointed out that nobody there was fit for the company of the right. The Mandrac stared around at them with over-wide eyes and then, faster than can be believed, he was at my throat again, trying to get a grip with his big, ill-suited hands. I went over backwards and smacked him in the eye with more force than I thought I could muster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The idea of using my mind on him never occurred to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was too panicked to call on it.\n\nThen the Mandrac was hauled off me and high into the air by Hermione, and slung into one corner of the cell. He recoiled from the walls and bared his teeth at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stinking Whore!\" he declared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lucian helped me to my feet as Hermione and the maniac faced off, and I was very aware of Gaki watching me coolly from the next cell.\n\n\"Do it,\" I said to him, as soft as he ever spoke and with no hesitation.\n\n\"Stefan, you surprise me,\" he said, with a delighted look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I slumped down so that my back was to his wall. At that moment I was battered and fed up. I forgot to be afraid of Gaki, and I forgot any conscience I might lay claim to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just don't kill him here,\" I said bitterly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or they'll blame us.\"\n\n\"Stefan, what did they do to you down Below?\" Gaki whispered. I was too tired to reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gaki hunched along the wall until he was close to the Mandrac." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You fascinate me,\" I heard him whisper.\n\n\"Stay away from me, demon,\" the Mandrac told him, showing that a madman can sometimes see more clearly than a sane one. \"I Abjure you.\"\n\n\"Would you turn down a potential convert so quickly?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gaki pressed slyly. \"I, too, have seen signs and portents. Tell me of yours, for your way is surprisingly persuasive.\"\n\nThe Mandrac regarded him narrowly for a moment, and then said, in a calmer voice, \"Surely it is common knowledge that seventy-two years ago the Lord appeared to the prophet Jarnard as he worked under the Unjust Masters of the Cosmetics Industry…\" and carried on in that vein. The conversation between him and Gaki was quickly too quiet to hear, a welcome change. I heard the rhythm of question and answer as Gaki explored the man's beliefs but, despite the bruises on my throat, I slept and missed what passed between them." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "continue seven sentences sentences Adrian Tchaikovsky-style. keep character continuity. use: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next day, of course, it was back to the grinding mill as though I had never left. I remembered Below, and found that the tough, gruelling work was no longer so terrible in comparison to enforced leisure. The story of my release had crept about the Island and prisoners from other stretches gave me nods and grins and clasps of the shoulder to show they appreciated what I had done for them.\n\nI had done nothing for them. All I had done was save my own skin. That this could somehow become a public service still amazes me. I suppose there were few enough victories against the establishment on the Island." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I saw Shon briefly, enough to see that little had changed with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had no chance to tell him that he was now the Governor's personal calligrapher but that would come in time. I met up with Father Sulplice and we sweated and strained over a broken siphon together, trying to get the recalcitrant machine to stop choking on its own fluids.\n\n\"I hear you made yourself a few more enemies, son,\" Father Sulplice said to me. \"I hear you've got yourself a charmed life.\"\n\nI shrugged before both accusations and rattled a piece of pipe into the open mouth of the siphon, hoping there was nothing alive down there.\n\n\"You ought to watch yourself, son,\" the old man said. \"Nobody lives forever. Not when the Marshal's got them on his list.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory inclusion (with quotes): After all, you earned yourself a death just getting sent here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One day at a time,\" I assured him.\n\nHe nodded into his moustache and the siphon abruptly started up and whisked the rod out of my hand and into the bowels of the Island.\n\n\"This place is a hazard to your health without anybody actually wanting you dead,\" Father Sulplice observed. \"After all, you earned yourself a death just getting sent here.\"\n\n\"What about Thelwel?\" I asked shortly, catching him off guard as the siphon stuttered and died. I watched his lined old face close up like a shellfish.\n\n\"The problem's down the pipe. Must be a fan out of shape,\" he muttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's your son,\" I pointed out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was sure of it as soon as his eyes narrowed. \"I can't imagine him doing anything to send him here.\"\n\nThere was perhaps a marginal softening to the glare. \"He didn't do anything, son, but I did enough for two. I don't regret it, even though it's put us both in the cage of souls for life.\"\n\n\"The cage of—\" Valentin Miljus had died with the phrase on his lips. \"Why do you call it that?\"\n\n\"I heard it,\" said the old man, suddenly evasive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who from?\" Miljus seemed unlikely.\n\nFather Sulplice began walking away, tracing the siphon pipe. \"There's a thing that spoke to me once, when I was dreaming. Cage of souls. Sticks in the mind.\"\n\nI hurried to catch him up but he was looking past my shoulder. \"Someone wants to talk to you, son.\"\n\nThere was a Warden after me, picking his way through the working prisoners. He was a slope-shouldered, melancholy-faced man with tiny black-button eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I did not feel that he was going to beat me or kill me (and you develop a feel for that kind of thing, after a while)." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, when he got to me, he just stood there looking at me.\n\nEventually he said, \"Advani,\" and I nodded, waiting.\n\n\"You want to go out?\" It was a while before I realised that it was a question, not a statement, and that he was talking about the jungles rather than Shadrapar. I weighed up the pros and cons. On the one hand there were monsters. On the other hand there was the sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A week Below and you value the sun." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'realise' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" I decided.\n\n\"Day after tomorrow, you can come,\" he said. He stared at me some more, and I really did not know where to put myself.\n\n\"Sauven,\" he added, and again it took me a while to realise that he was giving me his name. He spoke with very little inflection.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said, and he turned and walked away without another word. Only then, with the light sliding off his shoulders, did I realise that he was the man I had saved Below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a closed system like the Island, all your sins and virtues come back to you soon enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had little time to think about it. There was a sudden chaos of yelling and complaining machinery from the other end of the workshop. It was that last that had Father Sulplice pelting past me on spry old legs, and I fell into step with him, hoping to reopen our conversation. Then all thought of that left me, for the men ahead of me were covered in blood. Three prisoners and a Warden, and all of them practically painted red from head to foot across their fronts. Many others were splattered too, yet nobody in my sight was hurt. We were close to one of the bigger extractor pumps, and it was still making a shearing, grinding noise, and spitting out… pieces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People falling into the machines was not an unheard of thing in the Island, with its combination of dangerous technology and untrained workforce." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was different, though.\n\nI was told that it was the Mandrac. I had to take the witnesses' words for that because there was surely not enough left to identify him even as a human being. Lucian told me that the Mandrac had calmly climbed up the casing of the pump and stood at the rim before anyone had realised what he was doing. There, while Wardens shouted at him to get down, he stared into the rotating blades, spinning faster than he could see, then fell into that man-wide opening without a sound." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "i'll kick things off by writing a bit (might include characters you don't know yet), then you'll take over and write the next 11 sentences in the distinctive voice of Adrian Tchaikovsky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It came one evening, after just enough time had passed to take the edge off my panic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some Wardens came down and I felt the hush descend on the prisoners further along the stretch. I saw the dark uniforms, and beyond them a glitter of green and sapphire, underwater colours. Lady Ellera had come down into the dirt for this one deed.\n\nOnly when they were almost upon us did I spot Kiera in prison greys, head down. The Wardens had her between them, and kept a distance between themselves and Lady Ellera, who was stalking like a mantis at their backs.\n\nMy look to her was mute entreaty.\n\n\"She is just one more prisoner. Where else do prisoners belong? Who shall we give her to, Stefan?\" she said, loud enough for most people to hear. \"Who shall have the privilege? Who hates you enough?\"\n\nI said nothing and gave no indication. Kiera was not looking at me, but circumstances were making plain that this development was my fault." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The prisoners were slowly beginning to understand what was being offered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a place with no rewards save an early grave this was beyond all experience." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'prisoners' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I saw interest flare in many pairs of eyes. My inspiration remained silent.\n\n\"When this whore ran into this vile company before, there were two who apprehended her,\" Lady Ellera mused. \"One of them is dead, now. But there were two. Who was the other? Which one, among you, has seen this face before?\" and she grasped Kiera by the chin and forced her head up, dragging her around so all the prisoners could see.\n\nTallan shouted out at once, \"It was me!\" But then a whole chorus of prisoners were claiming to be that man. Everyone, it seemed, had been there when I killed Harro. Lady Ellera was looking only at Tallan, though, staring into his eyes to find the truth. He fell back from the bars at her scrutiny, and made no sound at all when she asked, \"Was it you, then? Truly?\"\n\nShe saw, though; she could read people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was you,\" she declared triumphantly, and the other prisoners fell silent.\n\n\"Throw her to the beasts,\" she told the Wardens, who unlocked Tallan's cell and pushed Kiera in. \"Enjoy, Stefan,\" the Lady Ellera told me. \"I will come back for your secrets and perhaps you will not be so coy, then.\"\n\nShe left, the Wardens reluctantly in tow. After she had gone, Hermione spat.\n\nA number of other things happened as well. Tallan went for Kiera and she kicked him hard on the knee. The other two prisoners in his cell went for her as well and she danced out from between them. Had she been in a room twice as large, I think she might have kept them at bay. It was a small cell, though, and there were three men trying to pin her down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She kneed one savagely between the legs and caught another with a flying elbow, but Tallan grabbed her and slammed her to the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now,\" I heard him say, as he got his breath back, \"you and I have some unfinished business…\"\n\nAnd I was yelling at him, whatever came into my mind, until I had nothing left and just threatened to kill him then and there. It was a futile threat against a man in another cell, the violence that is even a weak man's last resort. Tallan's head snapped up, though, and I thought I saw some residual fear deep in those eyes.\n\nI decided to follow through with everything I had. \"If any one of you touches her, then I will kill them like I killed Harro. Tallan, you of all people know that I can.\"\n\nThe prisoners were suddenly very quiet. All eyes left Kiera for me. I stood, a skinny and unprepossessing creature, and faced them down, leaving no gap for fear to filter in.\n\n\"The first man to try anything with her, I will crush that man's mind like a hollowed gourd. Believe me when I say that I can do this thing. Should she be harmed in any way then I will destroy every wretched man in the cell and know no mercy. Believe me. Every man in the cell, and any other whom I even suspect.\"\n\nDear God, but to my own ears it was the least convincing performance of my life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Under the protection of Stefan the Scrawny?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How ludicrous that seemed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had no confidence that the powers of my mind could be placed at my beck and call for murder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they did not know the limitations of my prowess. Tallan had seen Harro die and it was written in large print all over his face. He recoiled from Kiera as though she was venomous, and it was that rather than my histrionics which made his two cellmates keep their distance.\n\nI have looked back on that day many times. A grand gesture, no? Well, no. Honestly? No. What I remember most keenly, apart from the ripe absurdity of the whole rigmarole, was that I was motivated far more by guilt than anything else. Of course I did not want anything to happen to Kiera, but most of all I did not want it to happen and be my fault. Culpability whetted a sharper edge than empathy. My murderous threats were more born of self-loathing than love of any other.\n\nKiera pulled herself to her feet and put herself in the opposite corner of the cell to Tallan." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant for a segment of a larger science fiction story. Your partner will send something and you will write the next 10 sentences. Characters may already be established." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only other thing worthy of note was Shon's reaction when I asked him to second with me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have seen men and women in the Island under every stress and pressure, but never someone quite so excited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "[ Professionals at Work ]" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a grim day next, but that had not stopped the spectators turning out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Earlier, it had rained a little, which scared me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back home that meant all kinds of liquid plastic and chemical evil. In the jungles, if you can believe it, rain was just water, which was as strange to me as anything had been. I stood with it running down my face and spotting damp on my clothes, and had nothing to connect it to, no way to relate to it. It was as though it was an experience designed by an alien species and I lacked the mindset to appreciate it.\n\nSomeone had marked out a circle on the very same deck that had seen those bloody executions the previous day. It looked remarkably small, but it still took up most of the available space. I think almost every Warden must have shirked work to watch, the Marshal included. There was a ring of black uniforms, three men deep in places. Their faces were stamped (save for the Marshal's, which was proof against stamping) with anticipation and bloodlust. It was just like any other crowd at the fights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No doubt bets were placed, but probably on how long Peter would last, not who would win." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone had hauled two large and ornate chairs from the top floor onto a hastily tacked-up dais to give the authorities somewhere to sit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Normally there were professional judges at these things, but here it was the Governor and Lady Ellera, neither of them looking as though they should be out in daylight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Governor had a big, cowled cloak on to shield his hairless skin, but his mistress faced the day with such icy poise that the sun hid itself." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'would' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the court that Shon and I, and Doctor Mandri, would be appealing to on points of law.\n\nPeter was out already, seeming at ease and fingering the narrow blade of the punch-dagger he would be using in the first round. His was the look of a man at peace yet not moved by any great optimism.\n\n\"An old man once told me—\" he started, but then the other side was coming up, and I never did find out what that old man once told him.\n\nDoctor Mandri was looking affluently restrained in a suit of shiny metal colours. Beside him was an overweight younger man looking far more affluent and far less restrained, whom I took to be Bewley Anteim, wearing what was presumably the very fashion in Shadrapar at that moment. As swiftly as I had liked the Doctor, I took a straight dislike to the Anteim boy. Of all of us here, he was the one who wanted Peter's blood on Destavian's hands: his the vengeance and his the wherewithal to accomplish it.\n\nDestavian was a sharp-cut image in darkly gleaming blue and green. If I had attached wings to his back you might have taken him for a dragonfly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His duelling jacket had broad sleeves to the elbow, then bands of cloth to the wrist, with semicircular padded guards over the backs of his hands. Likewise his trousers were loose and baggy to the knee then followed the muscles of his calves down to thin boots that kept the big toe separate from the others, the better to balance. He wore a headband to keep the sweat from his eyes, and his face was a study in composure. I want to digress a moment into something Trethowan wrote about predators, contrasting a cold-blooded and a warm-blooded animal as the latter took over the former's habitat. He pointed out all the advantages the warm-blood had: speed, power, grace. He was unusually poetic about the subject even in shorthand. He also showed that the warm-blooded killer that usurped the older, colder species was a distinctly higher-maintenance monster, demanding more food, more space. This is what Peter and Destavian reminded me of. Peter was a touch shorter, broader, drab in the dull uniform of an Island Warden. His movements were loose and minimal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jonas Destavian was a high society figure decked out in his personal duelling colours, and he had speed, power and grace aplenty. The crowd roared like jungle beasts themselves when they saw him.\n\nPeter took the dagger in his left hand, the staff in his right. I would have taken it for a two-handed weapon myself, but it was light and perfectly balanced and he spun it through his fingers much as Jon de Baron could do with a pencil. He took a single, deep breath, with a ragged edge to it, and stepped into the circle. I imagined a kind of silence closing over him, as though he were going underwater. There was a bit of sun, then, and it lit us all but most especially it lit Peter's face, finding it calm, with a strange, sad smile on it. For we prisoners, the worst had happened. We had been sentenced to our hell. Peter had been falling ever since the knife had entered Jon Anteim's throat, and now he had hit bottom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only the actual fact of the fighting was left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think he was relieved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jonas Destavian stepped into the ring, moving on the balls of his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the same instant, he and Peter both had their staves up over and behind their heads, points jutting towards their opponents like the tails of scorpions. I thought it was a salute, but it was the fight starting. They ran at each other full tilt, and each brought his staff down at the other with all the strength he had. The weapons clacked sharply on one another, and the daggers both lunged in, traded two or three thrusts, and then Peter and Destavian were slamming away with their staves, a rapid patter of connecting wood as fast as three men hammering a wall at speed. They constantly stepped into one another, round one another, striking at the other's back, circling continuously, feet never still and daggers always waiting for an opening. Then they broke and their circling became wider, almost to the edge of the ring. It had all been so perfectly executed that it might as well have been choreographed. It was like chess: just a standard opening, such as you often get with two experienced players who knew the best moves. All of that strike, parry and counterstrike had been nothing but a tired old mainstay.\n\nPeter and Destavian were constantly stepping into the centre to strike at each other, gliding sideways around the riposte, staves flashing and darting like serpents, daggers held raptly still, save that the point angled like the head of a hunting thing towards the heart of the other man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peter would dash in, arc the staff for Destavian's head, change that into a strike to the legs, then to the side, then to the head again in a whirling figure of eight, all the time trying to stay ahead of his opponent's parries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Destavian would catch his staff and flick it aside and drive back at him, his face a model of care. Then it would be Peter stepping ever backwards across the circle, shadowing Destavian's staff with his own, trying for that one parry that would turn things around. Sometimes they would lock staves, under Peter's arm or in the crook of Destavian's elbow, and then they would trade dagger-thrusts with brutal efficiency, arching backs and sucking in guts to avoid them, until one would spin away, and they would resume their pacing.\n\nIt became clear soon on that Destavian was the better. When the two of them moved, it was to his beat. When Peter attacked he was ready for it, and his own attacks seemed to be coming forever closer. He clipped Peter's shoulder once, and Doctor Mandri called out a hit, but Shon and I, at Peter's signal, denied that it had ever happened. The Governor, eager to see more substantial losses from our side, agreed with us. It was clear to me that the Lady Ellera had discovered who had taken Kiera in and she wanted Peter destroyed as much as the Anteims. The Governor was only too happy to give her her way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Peter, who had just been retreating steadily in a lazy circle, took several rapid steps back to the very edge and then one forwards, bringing his staff down to the floor and vaulting with it, kicking out at the other man at near head height. Destavian slid back smoothly, but Peter was already landing right beside him in a crouch, dagger parrying dagger, one leg scything round to catch his adversary behind the knee. Destavian seemed about to fall backwards, but he balanced with his own staff and swung the kicked leg around, ending up standing, facing away from Peter. His staff flicked backwards to bounce away Peter's blade, and Peter's own staff jolted against his upper arm.\n\nPeter scowled and stepped back crabwise, but Doctor Mandri was conceding the hit on his own fighter, and Peter shrugged at us. We could hardly dispute a hit in our favour. The Governor looked unimpressed, but waved his hand to pass it, and the first round was abruptly over. Shon showed me then that Destavian had set the whole thing up. Rather than speeding things along by striking Peter, he had forced Peter to strike him. The first round was the easiest to stall in, Shon told me, and we had lost that advantage now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I handed the heavy mace-spear to Peter, who was looking annoyed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Should've seen that coming,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not seem in the least out of breath although there were beads of sweat dotting his forehead and dampening his hair. \"Didn't do him any damage,\" he continued, stripping off his uniform tunic to the iron-coloured shirt beneath. Across from us, Destavian was detaching the sleeves of his own, unwrapping the bands of cloth from his forearms. He looked over without expression and took his own weapon one-handed. Like his clothes, like his staff and dagger, it was shaded blue and green. I knew that his Ropa sword, when produced, would have in its enamels the faded exemplar of those colours.\n\nPeter was tugging on the gloves Destavian wore already: palms lined with deep grooves for grip, and padded to absorb the shock. They stepped into the ring together, Destavian letting the heavy spear just dangle at the end of one arm, Peter gripping the haft in both hands. They stood for a moment, looking at each other, each weighing up the other. The stakes had gone up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Destavian moved first, snapping the spear out into a point-first lunge that carried him past Peter's evasion, turning the strike into a swinging arc at Peter's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The steel shaft of Peter's weapon deflected the tip with a high metal sound and he swept at Destavian with the heavy head, meeting an identical move with a thunderous clang of abused steel. Three times they smacked the lead-filled weights together with absurd force, then stepped away, watching one another. I think that Destavian had seen that Peter was stronger, but you could not tell it from his face. He was as still as a mantis.\n\nI assumed that this was how it would go from now, a brutal slugging match until one of them ran out of steam. That was what the weapons seemed designed for. Instead, Destavian levelled his and approached slowly, almost delicately. Peter was trailing his spear point along the slats of the ground, feigning fatigue. He almost waited too long. Destavian was well within reach, feet inching, feeling for purchase on the uneven flooring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The champion duellist's slow advance was swaying, almost hypnotic, and when he exploded into action, I was not ready for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He whipped the head up, spun it for momentum and brought it down hard, all in one movement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peter had seen it coming, back-stepped a foot and a half and made a killing lunge at Destavian, hoping to find him off balance after his strike. Destavian simply bounced the head off the springy wood of the floor, knocked Peter's strike wide, and then was boring in with one of his own. Peter lost two feet of ground and they were moving in slow circles, spearpoints just touching, grating against each other, each man seeking the inside line. It was the world's most delicate dance performed with the world's most cumbersome weapons.\n\nThen Destavian had taken his spear like a sword, both hands near the hilt, and brought it down straight at Peter's head. Peter fended it off in the same style, and then struck back and forth, lunging and swinging, with precise, heavy strokes. There was no overextension, no wild swinging: that would have been fatal with such massive weapons. Each move was brought to a shuddering halt as soon as it had missed its target, dragged into line for the next block and counter. Even through the gloves, the punishment of the weapons meeting must have been agony through every bone of their hands, but neither man showed it.\n\nIt all fell apart when Peter lunged high into Destavian's face and the other man dropped right to the ground, knee and one hand, and swept Peter's legs out with the haft of his spear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peter was already kicking out for purchase when Destavian came down right at him, point first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought that was it, that we would not have a third round, but Peter writhed out from beneath the spear, and it stuck deep into the wood of the floor. He did his best to take advantage of it, twisting up to stab raggedly at his opponent, but Destavian, rather than tugging his spear free, pulled back on the shaft, straining the point against the slats of the floor, and then released. In a remarkably executed move the butt whipped into Peter's face and struck him in the eye.\n\nEven as he reeled back, Doctor Mandri was calling for a hit. Peter, one hand to his face, was waving at Shon and I furiously, and I knew that if he went straight into the third round like that he would die in seconds. \"No hit!\" Shon was calling. \"I object!\"\n\nThe Governor stared at him, making me very aware of the fact that we were the only ones there in prisoners' greys. Shon glanced back at me the once and then faced up to the Governor and his mistress and said, \"I submit that the contact doesn't count because it was only with the butt. Although obviously it is up to the wisdom of the judge to decide, it has frequently been ruled that strikes with the butt of the weapon are not sufficient for the purposes of progressing a duel.\"\n\nDoctor Mandri made the point that there had also been cases where the opposite applied, and that this was all sophistry. By this time, though, I had come up with the concept that since Doctor Mandri had not called a hit when Destavian had pulled Peter over with the haft of his weapon, he had tacitly admitted that contact with anything other than the head did not count, or otherwise (Shon added) that Destavian had unlawfully continued the second round after a hit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I sensed that the Governor was becoming somewhat lost in the legal technicalities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What this had done, of course, was give Peter some time to recover his wits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had a furious red mark across his left eye socket, neatly framing the existing bruise courtesy of the Marshal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not seem to be blind or dazed, and he was ready when the Governor finally ruled in our favour and decreed that the second round should continue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Destavian had spent the time in taking off his headband and replacing it with a new one. When the Governor gave his signal he was ready, and launched straight in at Peter, who spent the next dozen moves simply fending him off. They were closer now, well within distance, and the lead-weighted heads often missed by inches only. Destavian put his butt straight into Peter's stomach, taking advantage of the Governor's ruling, but Peter found it in himself to kick his opponent savagely in what should have been the groin, but was only the hip after Destavian twisted away. They parted again, and there was a long still moment, both men breathing heavily, Peter with shoulders heaving and the remains of his calm poise streaming in tatters from him. He was on the run and everyone sensed it.\n\nHe gave out a shout without warning and was at Destavian, lunging, stabbing, jabbing down, getting almost chest to chest with the spears pinned between them. He grabbed the slighter man, bore him to the ground and rolled over twice before parting with a shriek of metal. I saw a line of blood across Destavian's arm and was about to cry out in triumph for a hit when I saw the source of the blood. There was a sister line cut across Peter's left pectoral, through his shirt and into the flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was shallow, but it was a hit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think neither man could have said precisely when in that mad scramble it had occurred. Doctor Mandri barely had to say anything. Peter was already trudging over, hand held out for the Ropa blade.\n\nShon bundled the awkward thing over to him, and Peter took it with some effort. I wanted to see to his wound, but apparently that was not allowed until the fight was over, when – his tone seemed to say – it would be a moot point anyway. He held the blade away from us to do something to the controls, and I heard a very faint hissing from it like air leaking out of some invisible pinhole. Peter was abruptly holding the sword one-handed, as though it weighed nothing at all, making small passes with it and watching light run off the stony blade. Opposite, Destavian had his own blue-green death machine out and was handling it equally lightly.\n\nShon had a metal bar out, three foot long and scored every two inches. I think it came in the case." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held it far out at arm's length and gestured for me to get back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a single fluid motion Peter brought the Ropa sword in an arc and cut six inches clean off without a sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Destavian did the same, slicing neatly through his bar at the first two-inch marker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I understood that this was in the nature of a test." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two duellists stepped into the circle for the final round." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I saw Bewley Anteim's deep-set eyes gleam with malignant glee, assured of the outcome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doctor Mandri straightened his collar and I sensed that, with these awesome weapons, he would always be a little worried. They were so ludicrously dangerous.\n\nPeter and Destavian closed carefully, swords outstretched. They made a few practise feints and passes. Peter would send his blade lunging in, then drag it back to fend off the other's. As it bounced away with a sharp, electric sound, he would spin with the motion and turn it into another attack, whilst Destavian retrieved the course of his own sword and got behind it. I think I was the only person present to understand quite what it was that made the motion of the Ropa blades so bizarre, because I had studied all that was left of the old sciences. Whatever power made the blades light enough to be used rid them of weight, but not of mass. They had no bond with gravity, and the duellists could throw them every which way, but they were slow to start moving and even harder to stop. Both men kept their blades in almost constant motion, as though they were fighting with weighted chains: spinning them in deadly arcs and wheels that constantly brought them back towards the body of their opponent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the blades touched, they bounded away from one another with a crackle and hiss, but no solid sound of contact." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps they never did quite touch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peter tried to be the aggressor at the start, hoping to fence Destavian in behind a web of wheeling moves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He passed the blade through figures and sigils and diagrams in the air, constantly trying to home in on his nimble opponent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Destavian stepped back and away, retreating parallel to the line of the circle, his own blade passing gracefully before him to ward off Peter's. His face was blank, save that something had finally reached his eyes and they had come alive.\n\nHe fell forwards, or that is what it looked like. I was sure that he was going to go straight into the path of Peter's sword, but he had calculated the course of that ever-moving blade and it was well clear of him, with Peter trying to arrest its flight. Destavian tucked into a roll and came up turning on the ball of one foot, advancing. It was all Peter could do to keep clear of a blade that moved like a dragonfly itself, Destavian handling it with an ease and deftness that defied belief. In contrast, Peter was a lumbering amateur, barely getting out of the way of each blow and staggering, missing his footing, lurching ever backwards. Destavian's eyes were deadly now, and behind them all the cogs and springs of his brain churned out the precise moves he needed to drive in for the finish. He so nearly had it two moves later, save that Peter stumbled too far, and the blade cut close above his head. I saw a switch of Peter's fair hair go dead white with passage of that lethal field, but Peter caught his balance only to go on backing up, always backing up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I saw his face it had been stripped of all the easy charm and carelessness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now he was desperate. Now he wanted to live, when events had conspired to make that impossible. I wish I had never seen his face like that. I wish I had never seen Peter Drachmar afraid.\n\nDestavian's trap was shutting on schedule. I will say this for him: there was no enjoyment in his face, just a terrible concentration. Peter fell back against the edge of the circle, against the jeering, catcalling Wardens who used to be his peers. Destavian made the killing strike.\n\nWhat you must remember is Trethowan's analogy: the cold-blooded and the warm-blooded predators, and the fact that warmer blood means higher maintenance. Jonas Destavian fought in the best arenas of Shadrapar, where the audiences watched with polite appreciation as he dissected his adversaries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peter was a backstreet pit fighter used to rough crowds and dirty play. More, Peter had been on the Island for the best part of the year, Destavian had arrived the day before. The new blue headband was already black with sweat, the air around him hotter and more humid than back home. It was easy to forget the differences, after so long.The climate, the noise, the smaller confines of the circle, all of these must have contributed to what happened next.\n\nPeter did not miraculously get in a death-stroke of his own. He fell away to one side, the only way he could escape. Destavian arrested his lunge, but the tip of the blade cut an inch of cloth from one of the spectator's jackets, and the man just died. The field of the Ropa blade did indeed stop his heart. I had not believed Peter, before.\n\nDestavian backed away, and he must have assumed someone would halt, or at least pause the fight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was used to civilised arenas. Instead, Peter got his sword in motion and followed it in a ridiculously clumsy move that nonetheless almost killed Destavian, who only fended it off at the last moment, and made no counterattack. I did not know the dead man but Peter must have done, and Destavian knew that he had, and that shook him. He had just killed a bystander and he was the only man who cared. Even the other Wardens were shouting for him to finish Peter, heedless of the corpse. The Marshal's regime, where no man had close friends, helped them forget their dead comrade in an instant.\n\nDestavian tried a few more moves towards Peter, but he stopped again as Peter retreated back to the circle's edge, and I saw an understanding pass behind Peter's eyes. From that point he made free with the edge of the circle because Destavian would not follow him there. Doctor Mandri was shouting something at his comrade, but the roar of the crowd drowned his words. Destavian had a peculiar expression on his face, and I remembered Peter saying, \"He's got more scruples than I ever did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The champion made one more essay against Peter, getting some of his old form back, but Peter had got something back too: hope. He had seen that he was Destavian's superior in one way: he was meaner. He managed, with the most awkward hauling-about of his sword, to fend Destavian off, and then he went into his most desperate, most furious attack. It was pure suicide, a crazed, hacking dash that could only come to nothing when its impetus gave out. He drove Destavian back by sheer manic energy, forcing the champion to keep lightly ahead of him, sword bouncing and bounding off Destavian's in a clash and clatter of static.\n\nI was ready for it. It happened because Destavian's focus had been broken, because he was thinking, now, of what he was doing. He was approaching the line of the circle himself. In fact, he was two good yards clear of it but unsure of the exact distance in that confused moment, with Peter so much in his face. There was a moment when he tried to check, desperate to stop some slash claiming another innocent victim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was Peter's advantage. He knew that there were no innocents on the Island.\n\nPeter's blade passed effortlessly into the right side of Destavian's chest and he was dead on the instant. He was looking straight into Peter's eyes when he died.\n\nThe crowd was dead silent as Destavian's body hit the floor, followed by Peter's knees and Peter's sword, because he had used everything up in that wild last gambit.\n\nPeter touched his forehead to the wood of the ground and hugged himself, oblivious to it all. He never saw Bewley Anteim, crimson with thwarted vengeance, snatch up a knife from somewhere and launch at him. He must have felt the man's ponderous footfalls through the floor, because he looked up moments before the strike and just fell back before it, so that the blow that was intended for his neck just slashed across his collarbone, chest and shoulder. Bewley raised up the knife again, with me standing like a statue, astounded. It was Shon who scooped Peter's dropped Ropa blade up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I saw a tiny second of wonder on his face at the beauty of the way the thing moved." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he pulled it through the air in a great flat arc and it sliced everything above the nose cleanly off Bewley's head." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the established tone and context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'search' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next blow was the boat, which was so completely buckled that, from the side, it described an \"L\" shape. The dead monster had come down that hard, flattening lockers and bursting open the tanks, releasing a thick slurry of harvested chemicals. It was the presence of those tanks, taking the brunt of the impact, that had saved Kiera and myself from instant crushing.\n\nThe question of whether Thelwel would sabotage the boat for Peter was now moot. I have often wondered whether his reluctance stemmed not just from the professional pride of an engineer, but a dislike of machines treated in such a cavalier manner. It would have been a policy that might rebound on him some day.\n\nPeter declared that the Marshal would send another boat in search of us, although he did not sound overly happy. The Marshal, he explained, would suspect some foul play and, for that reason, the search would not stop until trace of us was found." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the meantime we would have to survive the hostile environs and the monsters, and perhaps other things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Food and shelter were first. While Peter, Kiera and I made the world's least desirable residence from man-sized leaves we tore from the nearest tree, Thelwel got one of the boat motors running, and compromised its efficiency to the point where it was hot enough to cook on. We ate the most readily available food: grey slabs of monster steak from the beast that had wrecked our boat, cut from its half-submerged body by Peter's deadly sword.\n\nThelwel managed to get a lamp working too, for the gloom was growing. The spitting, bluish illumination was not cheering, but it would give us a chance to see monsters before they reached us. The chemical slick seemed to be keeping all forms of life at a healthy distance, but Peter decided that we would have to set watches. He would go first, then me, then Thelwel and then Kiera. As it fell out, by the time Peter woke me to take my turn, Thelwel was still finishing up on the boat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been salvaging every mechanism he could get his hands on, putting power through each in turn in search of any lingering function." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'could' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He needed less sleep than we did, but that is a trait I have observed in most engineers. Whether it was a gift of his heritage I could not say.\n\nHe had made something ugly and cumbersome, like a holed metal box that had been attacked by cables and riveted copper pipes. \"This,\" he explained to me, \"is the ignition. This is the nozzle. It is a weapon.\"\n\nI looked at it. It could have been a weapon; I was none the wiser. I secretly wished never to have the chance to test it.\n\nAfter Thelwel had finally bedded down, the jungle resumed its busy watch over us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Insects clustered around the unhealthy lamp, and were picked off by fleet flying things that could not believe their luck. Peter snored, lying on his back with his arms outstretched, taking up as much room on our narrow root-bank as possible. Kiera was curled into a tight ball. Thelwel lay peacefully on his side. There was a light mist in the air and water condensed off the leaves of our shelter and dripped on us at random. Beyond the reach of the lamp was the old, malevolent night that is always waiting for the power to die and the lamps to wink out. We fear the dark in Shadrapar, and we fear the wild, those places from whence we came.\n\nThere were monsters abroad in the jungle that night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I heard many, roaring and trumpeting their fury amongst the maze of trees, none close enough to wake my sleeping friends. I saw only one.\n\nOut of the pitch and the shadow and the silver sheen of the mist, stepping lightly from root to root and not a toe wet in the water, came a monster in the form of a man. I must say I have no idea if this happened at all. I might so easily have slept my watch away and conjured all this up in my uneasy mind. I wish it were so. I can only tell you that this is what I remember happening.\n\nOut of the swamp and the night came Gaki, stalking silently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blue light shone from his bald head, from his precise and clever eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His expression was mildly amused, as always. He walked right up to me and it did not occur to me to use Thelwel's weapon, and just as well.\n\n\"Stefan,\" he said, \"You appear to have had some kind of accident. How unfortunate.\"\n\n\"How did you get here?\" I demanded. The enormity of his presence was so great that I felt I could make demands.\n\n\"I told you before,\" Gaki told me, in the manner of one gently remonstrating with a child. \"The Island is no prison to me. I stay there because it pleases me, and I move where I will. I wanted to come and see how you were faring, Stefan.\"\n\nI glanced at the others, and my intent must have been writ plain on my face, because he told me, \"I do not wish to be seen, Stefan, save by you. If they should catch sight of me I will have to kill them. Best they remain sleeping.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was not a spot of mud on him, not a drop of water, save for where the mist had condensed slightly on his scalp. His eyes glittered in the artificial light. \"It is astonishing, out here,\" he confided. \"Why, if I were to dispose of you four, I could believe that I was the last man left on Earth. Have you not thought the same, Stefan?\"\n\n\"The thought of being left alone here does not delight me,\" I told him.\n\nHe made a face. \"You disappoint me. You're crippling yourself with these companions. A thug, a whore and a menial. Honestly, Stefan, you have to move in better circles. Perhaps you should not have been so quick to upset the Lady Ellera. She read your book.\"\n\n\"She said as much.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everyone's a critic, then,\" he said lazily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One hand flickered briefly, and he had one of the flying insectivores between his fingers, vaned wings twitching madly. He looked at it with genuine interest.\n\n\"I read your book,\" he said. \"I stole it from Herself.\"\n\n\"You read—\"\n\n\"You have no gift for titles,\" he told me. \"On the other hand, the matter itself is fascinating. I have always had a fondness for the human mind.\"\n\n\"She wanted me to teach her,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She lacked something, some quality. When I pushed against her, there was nothing in return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gaki smiled at the struggling flier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" he said. \"If I were you I would destroy her mind as you did with that other creature. Dead enemies are easier to live with.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It… it doesn't work like that.\"\n\n\"When you were worried about this one,\" he gestured at Kiera, and the flying thing skipped from his hand unharmed and winged off into the night, \"I felt your mind ready to kill Tallan. Do not tell me that it does not work like that. You have a rare gift for death, Stefan.\"\n\n\"I do not want any gift for death,\" I said. His words cut me deeper than I expected.\n\n\"Such a gift always comes unasked,\" he said, seeing something in his own mind that was denied to me, \"and cannot be refused. Do I have it, Stefan?\"\n\nA terrible fear came over me then, of Gaki's mind like steel pincers reaching out to pierce my own. He was looking straight at me with all the murderous mildness he had, and I tried to form the force of my own brain into some kind of shield, but the fear was too great and I could not muster anything.\n\nI felt the first slow movement, that was all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like watching a poisonous spider hatch, seeing the sluggish motions of its legs. Gaki was teaching himself, building on Helman's writings. I swear to this day that of the very few who actually read that damned book, not one of them meant any good. It was a cursed undertaking from the start.\n\nAgain he read my expression, and his face took on an almost childish delight. \"I have it then. I will practise, Stefan. You must be ready for me. I will need a sparring partner.\" Abruptly he was standing, looking out into the carnivorous night.\n\n\"It would be such a crowning achievement,\" he mused, almost too quiet to be heard, \"to be the last man on Earth. With the race in decline, who is to say it cannot be done?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His look to me was benignly predatory, a raptor that had fed enough for now." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be ready for me, Stefan,\" he instructed, \"when my mind needs something to gnaw on.\"\n\nThen he stepped lightly away into the jungle just as he had come, and was gone into the night, and beyond. As I said, I cannot tell whether he genuinely found me in all that expanse of wild, but if there was a man to do the impossible it was Gaki. Later, I was forced to decide whether I would act upon these events as though they were real, or discard them as bad dreams. I chose the former. It is always better to be safe." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the established tone and context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'sanguival' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wore the dark glasses in preparation for later developments. Behind them, his eyes were surprisingly human, with irises the colour of rusty steel.\n\nMuch later, I met an old man who remembered Greygori Sanguival from a long time before. \"Weird little man,\" the ancient told me. \"Always running about, like there wasn't enough time. Little fidgety man.\"\n\nGreygori Sanguival was no longer little, although the robe hid the precise and current topography of his body. Despite the lurching and reaching for balance, he moved with a perilous grace, like a stilt-walker, as though any moment he would collapse in upon himself. He consumed a steady diet of chemicals to maintain the state and alignment of his body, and to foster further developments along his grand plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "'Developments': that was his very mild word for them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a real scientist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trethowan would have approved of his methodology. The field of Greygori's study was Greygori. The Transforming Man was already a legend in a lifetime that had stretched over a century and a half. It was impossible to guess his age. It was difficult enough to guess his species.\n\n\"You are to perform such services as I should need of you,\" he told me, as he teetered through the tunnels of Underworld. \"Chiefly these will be dealing with the factions, procuring things I want. You will be my agent, you understand?\"\n\nI told him that I did, because I sensed that certainty was my best shield." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His aim, the dream into which, by carefully measured stages, he was transforming himself, was secret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His laboratory was the room into which none was allowed save the man himself. All he said was that mankind was doomed, and he intended to make himself into a shape that the world would permit to last.\n\nHe should have been a true monster, stalking the caverns of Underworld like a nightmare. Instead there was a flaw in his soul, some sliver of humanity he had not been able to pluck out. He recalled how he had been, feelings that existed in him only as memories of those memories. Striving towards his unspeakable goal, some part of him was yet jabbed by thoughts of all that he had cast away. A sculptor at the Academy once told me that she simply removed from her block of stone everything that was not like the thing she wanted. The Transforming Man had tried to serve himself in such a way, and now felt a keen wind course through the holes he had left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As his form grew monstrous, according to the minutes of his plan, so the reaction of even Underworld society had grown more towards revulsion, and it hurt him. Until this nagging splinter was removed, he would be forever haunted by the ghost of his forsworn former self. That was why the concealing robe. That was why the smoked glasses, for his eyes would soon enough be the eyes of something other than human. That was why he chose me. He no longer wished to go amongst the people of Underworld, just as, long ago, he had made the decision to eschew the surface. He needed a man to run his errands and gather the all-important components of his experiments. That was me.\n\nThere was definite cachet to being henchman (I can think of no better word) to the Transforming Man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I walked with impunity through Underworld." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had no badge, but they knew me for what I was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps some spectre of my master clung to me, tainting the air with his amorphous shadow. Once, three thugs were on the very point of knifing me, up against a wall, grim and efficient as ever the Marshal would be, when one of them saw my face and gasped out, \"It's Sanguival's man!\" and they ran off and left me alone. They all knew that the Transforming Man would avenge any damage done to his property.\n\nWhilst I was the acceptable face of Sanguival on the outside, the chores within Greygori's little suite of chambers were done by the only other member of his faction. This was Arves Martext, Emil des Schartz's bookish associate.\n\nHe was probably a year short of fifty, by his reckoning, but looked far older. In a city where the rich could afford to stretch their straining lifespans to eighteen decades and more, Arves aged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He told me that exposure to the bloated, dying sun caused his body to consume itself, burning away into premature senescence." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'shelves' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bad debts and worse chances had led him down here, but in the darkness he aged only as others did, bit by bit rather than all at once. He was bound to the Underworld with cords as strong as his life.\n\nThe Transforming Man's suite of chambers included his ever-sealed laboratory, several small rooms that Arves and I used to sleep in (Greygori slept in the lab, if indeed he slept) and a library. This had originally held Greygori's files, and these still occupied one wall, tens of thousands of loose-leaf sheets crammed with a handwriting that changed markedly as the notes progressed. The rest of the room had been taken over by Arves' collection. He was still a man fired by books and had only increased the breadth of his reading since going underground. He surely owned more works than any other single individual in Shadrapar. Social sciences, physical sciences, satires, translated fiction of the ancients (which may have been fact, it was impossible to tell) and of course, shelves and shelves of critiques." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He loved to read and to be surrounded by books, all that dormant knowledge like a warm, protective garment. He loved to run his hands over the spines. They were his life.\n\nWhen I came along, I managed to broaden his life a little, in between my errands. I bartered for a shoddy chess set. It was nostalgia on my part, thinking back on my games with Helman, but Arves remembered how to play, and we sat for long hours pushing pieces across the board with an equal lack of skill.\n\nThen, of course, Greygori discovered us playing one night. We froze up as that blinkered visage loomed suddenly in the doorway to the library, and he swung over to us, a long breath hissing out between his teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One hand reached down with an alien articulation and touched one of the pieces delicately." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I think he was remembering some distant sunlit time when a smaller man of more orthodox shape had enjoyed a game of chess.\n\nAfter that, I played against him too, about once every two weeks when the mood took him. That remaining hook of humanity would haul him from his researches and we would play and talk. Once our miniature armies were stumbling across the board, words came out of him. It was the most he had spent in one room with another human being for a long time, and so he talked. Small talk, meaningless talk: he never spoke of his researches nor the politics of the factions that dominated Underworld chatter. He spoke of points of history and etymology, landmarks of the Upperworld, Masters he had known at the Academy (like Arves and myself he had studied there). It was all talk that would be diverting and reassuringly normal, had not the speaker been such a thing as he. I had the impression that it was only that last human vestige talking; the remainder of his augmented brain was elsewhere, plotting its own ascension." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I've got writer's block. I'll send something, then continue 2 sentences at a time, matching character context, in science fiction genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am soldier,\" he told me. \"Where I come from, we were at war. Not the wars you think of, not a killing war. We had only just got over the last killing war. This was hidden war. Spies, economics, a war of face. My people were locked in deadly struggle against our enemies. We stockpiled weapons, always deadlier. We must show the other side our science is better, or they think us weak and then everyone must use those weapons. They try many experiments…\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here he paused. We were in the rooms of his Collective, drinking a liquor that his people refined from mould.\n\n\"We try anything that may help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Men study the mind, strange energies, travel into space." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then there is my project, for which I am test pilot. Top secret: only one man outside it knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A time experiment. Travel in time, you control history." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We make the war as though it never was. That was what we dream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have many failures: dogs, pigs, mice. Some go nowhere. Others die from the radiations. Some disappear. Maybe they travel, who can say? We could not bring them back. In the end the project was to be shut down. We were very bitter. We want one last test.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was volunteer. No family, no-one to miss me. The project was life, to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We made a machine to take a man into time, forward one hour. Easy test." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If things go wrong, machine has controls so that I make it return." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was trained as space-pilot. I never got into space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, I would be the first man in time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Obviously something goes wrong,\" he stated flatly. \"Calculations or machinery or something. I am here, where not one soul remembers my people or what we fought for. How did war end? Who can say? I am here at arse of time with little people, with foreign language, with illness.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the machine?\"\n\n\"Past hope. Destroyed.\" Sergei took a long swallow of his drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did not make the journey. I survived. I am not sure it was to be wished. I do not like this time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slammed the empty glass down. \"I am a cosmonaut of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and I want to be in year nineteen-seventy-two, not in this time of ruins waiting for world to die. I want to be somewhere with hope.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of it made much sense to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sergei had joined up with the Morlocks first of all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were a pro-active and impolite debt-recovery crew who put his imposing appearance to good use. He spent two years with them, getting a grasp of our language.Then he chanced upon a lost cavern where the ceiling had given way, exposing a long-abandoned business office above." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The premises above sported several large and grimy skylights, and in the wan illumination of these, Sergei and his new-formed Collective farmed vegetables and dwarf fruit trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This enabled him to extract a decent livelihood from the fungus-glutted palate of the Underworld. His Collective he ran as an equal partnership of all its members." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sergei was always on the lookout for new ways to gain credit at the Temple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had some expensive hobbies and habits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his spare time he was working on a vast and intricate machine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He told me that he was trying to replicate the vehicle that had transported him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Others told me he had been working on it ever since they had known him, and it had done nothing but expand into a webwork of levers, cogs, generators, pistons and valves. He was known as the Watchmaker by some." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sergei was sick, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About three times in the span I knew him he went off to Aleisa's House, a faction of medical engineers. He said that he had his blood and bones completely purged there, a process that indebted him to the House a frightening amount." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said that our time was unhealthy for him, that there were high levels of energy and radiations and that it had taken its toll on him: that was why he was so thin. Even the light of the sun made his corpse-pale skin burn. Like Arves, he was a prisoner of the Underworld." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "i'll kick things off by writing a bit (might include characters you don't know yet), then you'll take over and write the next 11 sentences in the distinctive voice of Adrian Tchaikovsky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To the Fishermen, the spaces beneath Underworld were like little principalities, small foreign states stretching out towards Sergei's frontier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those closest to us were well-mapped, familiar to all, devoid of wonder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On our way to new reaches of the depths I was allowed to see the myoculture caves, where vast mounds of fungus crawled and grew, tended by the busy Fermers like a scene out of some fungal hell.\n\nThere were other strange sights that everyone else took for granted. There was a great round ceremonial room with a firepit in the floor and strange, broken cables issuing from holes in the walls, coated with gold leaf when first found. There was a long hall with shelves and shelves of small plastic plates that nobody had ever found a use for. Arves had theorised that they were books, some way of storing knowledge. If so, the knowledge was forever entombed within them for none could retrieve it now.\n\nWe were a whole day scrambling and climbing through caverns and chambers already picked clean. The journey was difficult, and I slowed everybody up, not used to climbing down ropes, crawling on narrow ledges or scrambling up steeply-sloping shafts. I was continuously being helped out by the Fishermen, who seemed to regard me with affectionate contempt. At the head, Sergei stopped occasionally to confer with Giulia on the best route, and this alone gave me time to catch my breath.\n\nWe made camp around a metal sphere one of the Fishermen had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened it up and there was a glowing coil within that gave a little light but more heat." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though we were on home ground, Sergei still insisted that a watch was set.\n\nThe next day we started descending into areas that mankind had never properly reclaimed. Although there was some traffic in explorers and grave-robbers through these ancient halls, there were other occupants yet that could take offence, and there were devices of the ancients that still had power to harm. \"Many of the Diggers,\" Giulia said, using a Fisher term for those that had excavated these buried chambers, \"guarded their property well, especially those who were at war. Don't wander off and don't touch anything.\"\n\nI had stuck to her heels even when we were secure. I was not about to strike out on my own now." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "continue seven sentences sentences Adrian Tchaikovsky-style. keep character continuity. use: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We lived a strange kind of life over the next months. When Greygori did not want me, and when the Collective could spare him, Sergei and I took on the profession of burglars. We contacted groups like the Friendly Society, the Exceptionals, even the Ascendants whose larceny was grounded in their bizarre religious beliefs. At one time or another, Sergei had done good for just about everyone. We would go to a Friendlies factor or the like and Sergei would say, \"We wish to look at some laboratories.\"\n\nThe factor would nod and a message would reach us a week later, that this or that team of entrepreneurs would be raiding a rich man's factory or a pharmaceuticals husbandry, and Sergei and I would sign up for the job.\n\nI learned a lot in those months." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I've got writer's block. I'll send something, then continue 2 sentences at a time, matching character context, in science fiction genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I let her go. We both did, but Sergei was always stronger than me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I turned away, because I could not have watched her depart without running after her, without trying once again to take possession of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had never had her, not in the way you think." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she was there, in my power, that was all I desired. When she was gone, I felt a gnawing withdrawal in my guts as though I was pining for a drug." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 1 sentence sentences continuing this story fragment. Characters may appear without introduction. Use Adrian Tchaikovsky's style. Genres: science fiction. Elements: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After she had gone, Sergei and I hid out in the wasteland for a few hours and then made careful tracks by the back ways to Emil des Schartz' printing shop." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "keep the story going! this is mid-chapter so characters might appear without intro. write 12 sentences more. channel Adrian Tchaikovsky. genres: science fiction. tags: post-apocalyptic, dystopia" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next morning we were once again woken before dawn as the Marshal grimly followed through with his promise. I could see that the strain of the situation was beginning to tell on him. Not the killing; there was never a man more able to deal out death with a clear conscience. In the light of a new day, he was beginning to realise the situation he had created for himself. He stormed in and demanded that we turn over the killer, and he got his wish. Three prisoners in one cell called him and told him that their fourth was the killer. I heard the trio of strident accusations and the solo of terrified denial. The Marshal was over there at once. I heard him say, \"So, he did it, did he?\" clearly over the pleas of innocence.\n\n\"How do you know it was him?\" the Marshal demanded. The cell went very quiet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were so shocked he was actually asking them for proof, they could not even come up with the obvious: \"he told us\" or \"we overheard him boasting about it\", or even \"we saw him do it\". The Marshal gave a snarl of frustration and his Wardens killed all three of the accusers and wounded an innocent man in the cell behind them. I heard the accused man thanking the Marshal again and again.\n\n\"But maybe you did do it,\" said the Marshal, and the Wardens shot him too. When the Marshal turned back down the stretch there was a fear to him. He had lost control. He could never know whether a man was the killer: we were all liars to him. Nor could he be seen to be going back on himself. He had trapped himself in a bloody spiral and I could see him thinking through the maze of it, trying desperately to find some way out. I was afraid that the only way that would occur to him would be to kill everyone and have done with it.\n\nHe had done his killing for the day, and he was about to make for the next stretch, when I visibly saw an idea take him. It came out of nowhere at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I never saw something so strange before." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'advani' must appear 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I felt the ripples of the surface of his mind as the alien object struck home and made itself apparent to him.\n\nHe stopped dead, and the Wardens almost walked into the back of him.\n\n\"Advani!\" he barked, and my blood stopped in my veins. There was nothing I could do but stand and wait as he approached. Lucian and Hermione melted from my side and fell to the back of the cell.\n\n\"Advani. You claim to be an educated man. Would you explain to these ignorant scum the meaning of the word, 'decimation'?\"\n\nMy heart sank, but beyond that immediate fear for my life there was an almost cringing sense of embarrassment for the man. It was the poverty of his imagination, his ability to solve problems only in the same tired way, over and over again.\n\n\"It means to remove one in every ten,\" I said, as calmly as I could.\n\n\"Exactly so,\" the Marshal confirmed. \"I see that you are all irredeemable, and the true killer will hide amongst you forever whilst you betray each other in turn. Sulplice's death shall be punished and the punishment shall be felt by you all. I shall bring you out one mob at a time and I shall remove, as Advani puts it, one out of every ten. Each and every one of you has that chance to die, and it shall be today.\"\n\nHe stared about him, and there was less of a reaction than he was expecting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Deep inside, I was not the only one who was becoming jaded." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One can only live with random violence for so long before the shock wears off. At least this new terror would be over and done with soon enough." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the established tone and context." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 1 sentence more sentences? keep same character vibes in In The Time of The Sixth Sun style" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FROM The ANNALES OF CUAUHTITLAN" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the beginning was the First Sun," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "4-Water was its sign;" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was called the Sun of Water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For water covered the world," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leaving nothing but dragonflies above" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and fishy men below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Second Sun was born," }, { "from": "human", "value": "4-Jaguar was its sign;" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was called the Sun of the Jaguars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In this Sun the heavens collapsed," }, { "from": "human", "value": "So that the Sun could not move in its course." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The world darkened, and when all was dark" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the people were devoured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Giants perished, giving life to the Third Sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "4-Rain was its sign;" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was called the Sun of Rain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For this Sun rained fire from bleeding eyes" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the people were consumed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the torrent of burning stones," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Fourth Sun was born." }, { "from": "human", "value": "4-Wind was its sign, and it was called the Sun of Wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In this Sun, all which stood on the earth was carried" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Away by terrible wind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The people were turned into monkeys," }, { "from": "human", "value": "and scattered from their cities into the forest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, by sacrifice of the divine liquid, the Fifth Sun was born." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its sign was 4-Motion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the Sun moved, following a course," }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ancients called it the Sun of Motion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the time of this Sun, there were" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Great earthquakes and famine," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No maize grew, and the gods of the field" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turned their eyes from the people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And all the people grew thin, and perished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lord of Heaven cut the heart from his living son," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so was born the Sixth Sun, which sustains" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The universe with infinite light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its sign was 4-Flint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those who watch the sky say this Sun" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Will end in annihilation, when the flint-knife" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Severs the birthcord of the Sun, plunging all" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Into darkness, where the people will" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Be cut to pieces and scattered.\n\nThis is the time of the Sixth Sun..." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Add 10 sentences to continue story. May include established elements" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen sucked the last of a threesquare from her food tube and stood up as Magdalena and Bandao drifted down into the lab ring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Hesht was still surrounded by a cloud of tools and cargo bags, but the gunner seemed to have accumulated some of the bulkier items." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's our status?\" Gretchen asked, catching Maggie's paw and drawing her to a stop on the deck. Magdalena yawned in response, showing an ebon mouth filled with white teeth. Her fur was rumpled and one ear lay flat back against her head while the other was canted forward.\n\n\"All we have is sssrst-ta—tail feathers,\" the Hesht snarled. \"Fuel cell power is up, main comp is up, the main reactor is still down, and we're lacking power in most of the ship.\" A gloved paw flexed and Gretchen noticed the Hesht's z-suit was fitted with a flexible metal mesh to accommodate extended claws. The fine mail glistened like fish scales. \"Isoroku-san thinks this tangle-tailed weapon chewed up most of the power conduit runs. Some survived, so we have lights in the main core and some sections, but everything replaced three maintenance cycles ago is gone.\"\n\nGretchen wrinkled her nose. \"Bad parts?\"\n\nMaggie nodded. \"The repair logs show they swapped out most of the original conduit for new two years ago, as part of a systems upgrade. The new conduit was supposed to have a higher load tolerance, so they replaced all of the high-draw lines with this yherech-kwlll—pardon—inferior product. So the lights are on, some comp panels are up, but most of the hatches don't work, and the drives are offline, along with sensors, weapons, and the boat bay doors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay.\" Gretchen stared at the hatch into the clean room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about this one?\"\n\nMaggie shrugged. \"The lights are on, try it.\"\n\nGretchen took a breath, nodded abruptly and stepped to the door. Then she stopped, unwilling to touch the controls. She felt Bandao and Maggie staring at her and became aware of the man's shipgun, raised and pointing past her at the door. A smile twitched her lips. Instinct! Danger in the high grass! As if his gun will stop this thing, if it's still in there. Her forefinger stabbed the button and the hatch trembled. A motor whirred—the sound audible even through her suit insulation—and the heavy steel recessed, then drew up into an overhead panel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were bits and pieces of metal and ceramic scattered on the deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen recognized the metal inserts from the soles of a pair of dig boots much like her own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The deck surface was a dark, irregular metal, and she realized the usual nonskid coating had been destroyed. She padded across the deck, giving a wide berth to the tumbled parts of a belt, a pen, a scratched and dented v-pad. Her eye shied away from two irregular shining white pebbles. Someone's teeth. I didn't need to see that, she thought fiercely.\n\nThe comp panel running the isolation chamber had power, but had gone through an abrupt shutdown. Gretchen studied the glyphs for a moment, then tapped in RESTART and RESUME. Magdalena leaned in at her side, staring into the chamber.\n\n\"These are the seal status indicators?\" The Hesht ran a metal-sheathed claw across a line of winking red glyphs. Gretchen nodded, watching the system start up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The panel seemed sluggish, and one pane displayed a constant list of init errors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Magdalena hissed. \"Sloppy work. The entire seal is gone. Why don't they make them of solid metal or ceramic?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen shrugged, concentrating on getting the panel operative again. \"Company probably bought from the low bidder. Here we go... \"\n\nA v-feed opened on the panel, showing the interior of the isolation chamber and the rocky, corroded-looking cylinder. Gretchen slid a control down, and the image rewound with a flash, ending with a similar image, though now the cylinder was intact and the lighting slightly different.\n\n\"Replay,\" Gretchen muttered, finding the glyph for movement-returning-to-the-source and tapping the stylized warrior in a loincloth holding two reeds crowned with white fluff. \"... with audio overlay.\" Another tap, and a timer began to run in one corner of the image.\n\nFor a moment there was no sound and Gretchen frowned. Magdalena laughed softly and her claw-tip danced across a series of controls. An excited male voice suddenly filled Gretchen's helmet comm." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"Initial analysis shows a metallic cylinder surrounded by a matrix of sedimentary rock. The encrusting mixture is of interest, indicating the cylinder lay in mud or clay. Preliminary isotopic decay readings suggest an age for the matrix of nearly three million years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"... on day six-flint-knife, in the month of Offering Flowers, an artifact described by image log seven-seven-two was recovered from the surface of Ephesus Three with some assistance from Miss Russovsky, a post-doc performing a routine geophysical survey of the planet. This is the first artifact we have found which is of an obvious and patently manufactured origin.\" There was a throaty, satisfied laugh, and Gretchen's nostrils flared. She decided she did not like the speaker, whoever he was. Assistance? You mean this Russovsky found the damned thing and brought it to you like a good little student—or did you take it from her?\n\n\"Initial analysis shows a metallic cylinder surrounded by a matrix of sedimentary rock. The encrusting mixture is of interest, indicating the cylinder lay in mud or clay. Preliminary isotopic decay readings suggest an age for the matrix of nearly three million years.\" The laugh came again, and this time there was a sense of relief in the voice. \"This places the artifact well within the timeframe of known First Sun activities.\"\n\nGretchen felt the cold chill flood back into her stomach. What a fool!\n\n\"Doctor McCue has suggested that we isolate the artifact and send it back to the Company labs for more extensive examination, but I believe it is safer and more prudent for us to make an initial survey here, aboard the ship.\" The voice settled, becoming pedantic and measured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She suggests the object may be dangerous, but if so, would it not be wiser to examine the artifact here—far from inhabited space? Any violent event would then affect only this one ship, and of course, myself. A loss, to be sure, but far better than losing Mars or Novoya Rossiya!\"\n\nGretchen shook her head in amazement at the man's ego. She could feel him thinking, even through the distance of the recording, and he was so, so eager to see what was inside the cylinder. Any real thought of caution or wariness was entirely disregarded.\n\n\"Luckily,\" the voice continued, \"the limestone matrix does not interfere with most of our sensors here in the lab. I am going to try a low-power microwave scan first, just to see what the exterior really looks like... \"\n\nA succession of images unfolded—the cylinder's crusted surface was mapped, showing each ridge and bump and crevice in the stone—then the cylinder itself, a smooth metal tube, closed seamlessly at each end. There were no markings or signs on the outside of the metal, or at least none shown by the initial scans.\n\n\"I am initiating a low power intrusive scan, to see if the surface is permeable to x-ray.\"\n\nGretchen forced herself not to flinch as an emitter ring descended and began a pass along the length of the cylinder. At her side, she felt Maggie stiffen, and Bandao mutter: \"Idiot—what if it's a booby trap, or a bomb?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The image of the cylinder on the v-pane did not react, and a second image replaced the first. A murky picture showing the outlines of the limestone matrix, a metallic shell—very thin—and then a cavity within.\n\n\"Odd,\" echoed the voice from the past. \"Half of the tube is solid, half empty. Wait—perhaps the solid half is only very dense... \"\n\nThe image zoomed, focusing in, and zoomed again, revealing a dense, interlocking system of membranes and fluted, intertwined protrusions.\n\n\"Looks like a lung,\" Bandao said, staring sideways at the display.\n\n\"Some kind of structure,\" the voice continued, \"very, very dense. The separations between the alveoli-like structures are barely measurable. Yet they exist. Hmmm... an information storage structure? Could this be a book?\"\n\nGretchen had to suppress a start; the hard, dry voice of Green Hummingbird was whispering in her memory. A book? Or some other storage media? The man's voice started to trend upward, filling with a rush of excitement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It must be a book,\" greed dripped into his voice." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include this dialogue snippet naturally: \"Or a visual storage mechanism. Ah, what a prize that would be! But how is it accessed?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or a visual storage mechanism. Ah, what a prize that would be! But how is it accessed?\" The image shifted to focus on the empty half of the cylinder. \"And what is this space for? Why use only half of the container? Hmmm... perhaps the empty half is not exactly empty?\"\n\nA glyph appeared in one corner of the recording, showing the visual feed was switching to a different sensor. Gretchen squinted at the icon, but didn't recognize the symbol. \"What's that?\" she asked.\n\n\"Super-shortwave sensor,\" Bandao answered with a slight hesitation, face tense. \"It interpolates to sub-x-ray definition for medical use—but he's a fool to use a high power probe on this thing.\"\n\n\"... beginning scan,\" the recording announced. The image tightened, flashed blank, then focused again." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 1 sentence more sentences? keep same character vibes in In The Time of The Sixth Sun style" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadeishi grinned, though he was entirely comfortable in his shipsuit, sitting on the climate-controlled bridge of a modern warship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anderssen-tzin hasn't lost her sense of humor yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still... He remembered being constantly cold more than once himself. And wet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tapped open a channel to his wayward engineer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hai?\" The old bull's voice was aggrieved and distant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Metallic clanking and spitting sounds nearly drowned out his voice. \"Yes, Captain?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's your environmental situation?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadeishi didn't bother to hide his amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cold and dark,\" Isoroku grunted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have power, but most of the heaters and lights are still down because we have no power conduit in place.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you need more help?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a short silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then the engineer ventured to ask: \"Is the quarantine lifted, Hadeishi-san?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Hadeishi replied, sighing in disgust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Regulations required another week of isolation for the Palenque, and then a week's medical review for any returning crew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any engineer's mate he sent across to the civilian ship would be lost to him for two weeks, and he was already shorthanded with Isoroku gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, it's not been lifted. How about supplies? Do we have conduit we can spare ourselves?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\" Now Isoroku's voice changed and became wary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're pulling spares out of cargo storage here—most of the expedition supplies still in storage survived the attack because they were sealed in cargo pods—there should be enough to serve.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadeishi understood the engineer's decision." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No fleet officer is going to spend his hard-won supplies on a civilian ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I shouldn't ask myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Carry on, then.\" Hadeishi tapped the channel closed. \"Bah.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The number of reports in his message queue had not shrunk." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two more had popped in while he was malingering. \"Enough, to work. Duty. Honor. Empire.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Add 10 sentences to continue story. May include established elements" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sound of a power wrench whining against a reluctant bolt roused Gretchen the next morning. She blinked, seeing actual, real sunlight spilling down a dirty brown wall above her head, then poked her nose out from the sleepbag. A pungent smell of cooking oil, coffee, sweat and heated metal washed over her. \"Ah,\" she grumbled, sitting up, \"home at last.\"\n\nSurprisingly—considering how late she'd remained awake, talking to Tukhachevsky and Sinclair and the others about the dig and the planet—she felt good. Actually rested. \"Gravity is a wonderful thing,\" she said, baring her teeth for a little hand mirror she carried in her jacket. \"And whatever they put in the vodka here stains! Now I look like a real babushka.\"\n\nTaking a carefully hoarded bottle of water out of her bag, she washed her face and brushed her teeth. \"Two cups,\" she muttered, measuring the fluid level in the translucent canteen by eye. \"I used to be able to take a whole bath in two cups.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 11 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Water rationing had been very strict on Mars, even with thirty meters of permafrost under their feet. The Imperial Planetary Reclamation Board guarded the native ice jealously, and charged the dig crews for every liter they extracted. IPRB had a vision of a green Mars, and weren't going to let some profligate scientists spoil their grand dream. Ugarit, for all the stink and humidity and flies and constant, deafening noise, had plenty of water. Some of it was even potable by human standards, but Gretchen had fallen out of the habits she'd learned on Mars. New Aberdeen was a wet, green world—flush with stormy gray seas, heavy forests and chill, cleansing rain pouring from massive, white thunderheads. Home seems so distant... Then she put the thoughts away and concentrated on getting the right boot on the right foot.\n\nAs Fitzsimmons had promised, his repair still held. A Marine of a thousand uses, she thought amusedly, trying to dig her fingernail into the seam. She failed, finding the military-issue adhesive goo holding the uppers to the sole like bedrock. \"Time for breakfast, and I smell coffee!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Add 10 sentences to continue story. May include established elements" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A burning spot appeared on the eastern horizon; Toniatuh lifting a gleaming limb over the rim of the world, his light gilding the crowns of a great army of stone pinnacles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wind-carved tufa—fantastically sculpted into corkscrew towers, hollow mushroom-shaped domes, translucent veils and jagged peaks—began to glow yellow-orange as the dawn reached out. Beneath the shining towers, deep ravines and canyons filled with dust and sand twisted through the wilderness. Down below the gimlet eye of the sun, remaining night shone with a quiet, subtle glow. Myriad sparks and gleams hid among the sand, sheltering beneath meters of fine-grained dust.\n\nThe sun continued to rise, the pressure of his gaze sending gusts racing through the canyons and moaning between scalloped reeflike towers. With the keening hiss of slowly heating air came a second sound—something foreign to the sere landscape—a humming drone echoing back and forth between cliff and precipice and spire. Light glinted from metal and the broad-winged shape of an ultralight appeared in the eastern sky. A contrail of vapor twisted away behind shining metal and plastic, the Midge sweeping gracefully past three turretlike pinnacles. The drone of the engine reverberated in the canyons below, but the slow life hiding in the sand heard nothing.\n\nDay continued to broaden, his shining white coat rising to cover the east, driving the last shadows of night deeper and deeper into the ravines and crevices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ultralight drifted among the towers, trending north and west, wings dipping as the pilot searched for a landing place. The thinning air was robbing the aircraft of lift, making the engine work harder and harder.\n\nThe ultralight banked sharply, the engine's droning pitch sliding up in scale, and the Midge circled. One of the great mushroom-shaped domes had cracked and splintered in some lost age, leaving a great bowl ringed with ragged shell-like walls. Sand and splintered tufa made an irregular plain within. The approach was short, the space confined, but the Midge drifted in to within a meter of the ground, then nosed up—into a stall—and bounced to the ground. A curtain of dust rose, then drifted away. The pitted, scored canopy opened and a weathered-looking woman rolled out to stand upright. She stretched, rolled her head from side to side, and set about securing the aircraft.\n\nWhen the sand anchors were set, she climbed a slope of pebbly, red sand to a shallow overhang." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A flat stone blackened by carbon scoring made a rest for her cooking kit and a smudged line around the edge of the opening guided her hand in tacking up a mirror-bright sunshade." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she lay down and closed her eyes, head resting on a tattered woolen blanket.\n\nBelow her in the basin, the Gagarin chattered and chuckled to itself, then the mirrored surface of the upper wing flashed and onboard systems oriented themselves towards the sky, searching for an answering signal." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ five sentences more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pitch of the vibration humming through the deck and walls shifted and Susan Koshō looked up from her v-panel, head cocked to one side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've reached safe distance,\" she said, turning her attention back to the schematics on her display. With their gravity signature pared down to the absolute minimum by shutting off the g-decking, the Cornuelle creaked and groaned with odd noises. The main hull had picked up little tics and squeaks over time. In the depths of ship's night, you could hear her speaking, if you were quiet.\n\nHayes nodded absently, chewing on a stylus, pale blue eyes sunken in dark hollows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Susan pushed a cup of tea toward him, letting the sealed container slide across the worktable in the senior officer's mess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You should drink that—you need to eat.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, mother,\" he replied, still paging slowly through the schematic. He set the cup aside. \"This thing is a monster. Look at the shielding... and these mining beam rigs look like a Mark Ninety-Six proton cannon refitted for a civilian power plant.\"\n\nSusan nodded, then took a long sip from her own cup. The tea was very strong and thick with honey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was certain the steward had added stimulants and some kind of vitamin supplement. There's an undertaste, she thought, stealing a glance at her medband. The thin, flesh-colored circlet around her wrist was quiescent, indicating a lack of toxins. Of cinnamon.\n\n\"Don't fool yourself,\" Susan said aloud, tapping a section of the Tyr blueprints on her panel. \"The power plant for one of these has more in common with our drive than any civilian liner. See? This report from the Mirror says a Tyr has three reactors, each capable of output matching or exceeding our own. She has to, to move so much mass.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wonderful,\" Hayes grumbled, finally putting down the pad. He retrieved his tea, which had slid back along the table toward the rear bulkhead. Grimacing at the bitter/honey taste, he downed the whole thing in one gulp. \"So let's consider—she's surrounded by ore carrels which—if they're full, and loaded properly—give her the equivalent of a hundred meters of low-grade armor plating. Not a reactive shield, no, but enough to shrug off most of our lighter penetrators and beam weapons. Then her core section is clad in enough radiation shielding for a battle cruiser and she mounts the most godawful huge cutting beam assemblies I've ever seen. These are nearly dreadnaught-strength mounts!\"\n\nSusan nodded, finding a page she recalled from the Seeking Eye—Fleet Intelligence—report." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pursuant to the Treaty of Rostov,\" she read, \"the macehualli pochteca—or industrial combines—have been required to turn all armaments and munitions factories, orbital yards, workshops and other means of naval production to nonmilitary use. This they have done.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A brief, fierce smile flickered across Susan's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the case of the Tyr-class mobile ore refinery, the core of the civilian ship is a stripped down Kaiserschlacht-class heavy cruiser. Some of the early refinery models, in fact, are physically built around decommissioned K-schlacht hulls.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sister bless!\" Hayes tabbed to the same page." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They didn't leave the original sensor net and ECM intact, did they?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Susan pursed her lips and pointed with her stylus at another section of the report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Navigating in an asteroid belt, or an Oort cloud, is a tricky business. This requires the refinery to carry advanced avionics and sensor equipment. The targeting systems and main comp aren't supposed to be military grade, of course. Just civilian models.\"\n\nHayes leaned back against the bulkhead, his broad face looking tired and pudgy. \"Easy enough to replace from the black market—if the originals were ever actually removed in the first place.\"\n\n\"Or to upgrade,\" Susan said quietly. \"K-schlacht hulls are over a hundred years old. Even a modern civilian rig would be superior in head-to-head with the old Royal Navy gear. And these ships are straight out of the Norsktrad yard at Kiruna—which means they have the very latest comp and scan on board.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hayes rubbed his face and made a groaning sound. Koshō wanted to laugh derisively, but she felt a certain sisterly affection for the senior lieutenant. He was quick on his board, and quite adept at handling dozens of incoming threats and targets in the thick of the action—but he hadn't quite the taste for the hunt a commanding officer really needed.\n\n\"So,\" she said, in a brisk voice, \"how do we kill this thing?\"\n\nHayes stared at her, then leaned his chin on clasped hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right. Kill it... well, the firing aperture of those mining beams is restricted—they can't have full traverse with the ore carrels in the way—so there are blind spots if we can get a target lock and proper orientation.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Susan laid down her comp pad and fixed him with her full attention. \"And?\"\n\n\"And... they probably don't have any missile capacity, unless they're hiding some kind of pods in the carrels—which they could be! But that wouldn't pass muster anywhere they docked—and they did come here to mine, didn't they?\" He seemed to perk up at the thought.\n\n\"Yes, they did.\" Susan rolled her stylus between middle finger and thumb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The ship's power-to-mass ratio is also against them—they will have a hard time outmaneuvering us, and a harder time hiding from us if they do move.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Hayes made a face. \"So we have to maneuver for position, get into one of their blinds and just hammer them, knock out engines, break through the armor... Could be messy.\"\n\n\"No, we can't be messy,\" Susan said, flipping the stylus deftly in her hand so the sharp point pointed down at the table. \"We must be exact—\" she made a sharp stabbing motion with the writing tool \"—and swift. One blow, thrust past all that armor will—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"—not be necessary.\" Hadeishi's voice was soft from the hatchway. Susan stiffened, aware her hair was unbound, her uniform jacket untabbed at the neck, and she sat up straight. Hayes had also come to attention. The chu-sa stepped into the room, nodded to them both, and drew a tea from the automat. \"You two should get some sleep. We will be busy later.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about the Tyr?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hayes said, betraying a little confusion. \"We have to be ready to deal with this brute when we—\"\n\nHadeishi waved him to silence, settling into a chair at the end of the table, hands curling around the warm cup. \"If we engage the refinery in any kind of shooting match, we've failed. I am under strict orders to secure the miner without the use of any kind of missile, beam weapon or weapon producing an electromagnetic signature.\"\n\nHe smiled gently at both of them—particularly at Hayes, who was staring gape-mouthed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is the pinnacle of a warrior's skill?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadeishi turned to Susan, his mellow brown eyes capturing hers. She felt a chill shock, as if he'd splashed ice water on her face. But her mind was quick, and she remembered both the question and the traditional answer.\n\n\"To subdue the enemy without fighting.\" She frowned in distaste. \"You're quoting from—\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "NarrativeBot: 12 sentences sentences. Match character familiarity. In The Time of The Sixth Sun genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'don't' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So,\" Anderssen announced in a very satisfied tone, \"he's not coming back.\"\n\nParker stared around in alarm, making a cutting motion at his throat. \"Sister save us! Boss, don't talk like that! He's plugged into every surveillance camera on the ship.\"\n\nThe pilot had been working up fuel loads and the speed and range of a Midge on the navigator's panel for an hour. None of his scenarios allowed an ultralight to rise to a sufficient altitude in the Ephesian atmosphere to let a shuttle on ballistic path to make a skyhook snatch.\n\n\"Maggie?\" Gretchen swiveled her head toward the black-furred alien.\n\nThe Hesht shook her head, the overhead lights swirling across her work goggles, attention far away. \"Crow and the Marines are loading supplies into the fresh Midge and doing a systems check. He's away from his surveillance equipment.\"\n\n\"See?\" Gretchen grinned at the pilot. Parker made a face.\n\n\"Don't cost anything to be careful,\" he muttered. \"Look—maybe he's expecting a pickup from the Cornuelle. A navy shuttle could pick him up anywhere. No law saying he has to be snatched out of the upper atmosphere on a skyhook.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose.\" Anderssen's face fell and her grumpy mood returned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In her heart, she knew there was no reason at all for the Imperial nauallis to choose the same way down and back. \"So you think he wants this crazy high-altitude insertion now because the Cornuelle isn't available?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Parker settled back in the navigator's chair, his nervous tension draining away as Anderssen's voice became more reasonable. \"Our shuttles aren't equipped with any kind of stealth tech, no antiradar alloys and composites... just commercial birds. So if he wants a quiet delivery, then this ballistic skip is an entirely reasonable way to go. Coming back? The Cornuelle sends down some freaky, high-grade military shuttle to snatch him up all ghostlike.\"\n\n\"Hmm. Only if the Cornuelle comes back soon enough. These suits and other equipment aren't going to last too long down there, not if he's wandering around in the mountains. He'll need to be extracted in no more than a week or two.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Parker stubbed out his tabac. \"People have been working down at base camp for months.\"\n\n\"Yes, in pressurized buildings and using de-dusting equipment when they come in from the field.\" Gretchen waved her hand for emphasis. \"Plus, the observatory site is in the middle of a bright, well-lit plain—almost flat, a desert even by Ephesian standards—so the population density of the microfauna is very low. I checked the airlocks and storm doors—they're eroding, not quickly, but you can see signs of wear. If the camp was someplace sheltered, in a canyon and in shade part of the day? There'd be nothing but a mineralized sheath left, or even an animate copy, like Russovsky.\"\n\nParker's shoulder twitched in reaction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a nice thought.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah-huh.\" Gretchen looked at Maggie questioningly. The Hesht was still staring into the distance. Still a little time, Anderssen thought. And what am I going to do? My prize is snatched away, the expedition cashiered short of any kind of deliverable—there won't be a single bonus now, not without something the Company can sell. The thought of not being able to afford a holiday ticket made her stomach turn over. Her thoughts shied away from the prospect of the expedition crew being charged for the lost machinery, tools, equipment and data at the base camp. \"Parker, can you tell where the Cornuelle has gone? When it might come back?\"\n\nThe pilot made a coughing sound—a conscious imitation of Magdalena's diesel generator laugh—and shook his head. \"Sorry, boss. We lost the navy as soon as they went passive, shut down their hull lights and snuck off into the dark. Those light cruisers are built for snooping around, and the poor lot of matchsticks on this tub won't light them up even if we try.\"\n\nParker sighed, tapping a fresh tabac from a dingy plastic box he carried in the front pocket of his work vest. \"As to a return date? I don't know. One of Maggie's tapes has Isoroku saying karijozu on his last comm call as they were preparing to leave. 'Good luck hunting.' So I'd guess they're looking for the refinery ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He squinted at one of the dead navigation panels, thinking." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A search of the asteroid belt could take weeks, even months.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Gretchen's expression had grown still. She started to speak, but Magdalena suddenly twitched, making a sharp motion with one hand.\n\n\"They've finished,\" the Hesht said, ears twitching. \"Back to work.\"\n\nGrumbling, Parker hitched up his work belt and swung himself gracefully up and over the ring of command panels. \"Mags, I think we need to jimmy up some kind of specialized clamp to back these dead connectors out... \"\n\nGretchen sat quietly, thinking, while the Hesht and the pilot worked in the tight space under the deck, cursing and sweating. After almost an hour, she leaned forward and keyed up the Midge fuel-loading model Parker had put together. Her eyes were oddly flat and expressionless as she tapped in a new scenario." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 1 sentence more sentences? keep same character vibes in In The Time of The Sixth Sun style" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun was almost exactly at meridian when Hummingbird threw the last of the bolts over the edge of the cliff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calcite-crusted metal spun in the air, then vanished into an abyss tenanted by shrieking winds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Presumably the bolt would make a ringing sound when it struck the ground, but Gretchen didn't think they would hear anything at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're sure this will get rid of them properly?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She asked in a sly tone, peering over the edge of the outcropping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They won't leave traces behind?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sally gained her not so much as a grunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hummingbird climbed back toward the cave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen stared after him for a moment before shrugging and picking up the tools scattered at the foot of the crevice where the relay had been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she did so, Anderssen made sure to tuck the comm core of the relay into a pocket of her harness." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What is an antenna, she mused, stowing the wrenches and cutting blades, but a long bight of metal? You can find one of those anywhere these days." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Team writing exercise. I start (might include existing characters), you do eight sentences in Thomas Harlan style." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'sound' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indefinable time passed.\n\nGretchen became aware of a single voice echoing in a void. She tried to open her eyes, thinking dawn had come and Hummingbird was calling her to wake, but she found only limitless darkness, unbroken by any source of light. There was nothing to touch or smell, taste or feel. Only echoing sound, only the one voice—almost familiar—tense and irritable. Gretchen realized the sound was a man—a very old man speaking in a sonorous, trained way—arguing bitterly.\n\nImmediately, the voice split into two. A young woman made a sharp, angry reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even the least organism must adapt to changing circumstance! Everyone in service to the Mirror knows you plead the poor mouth to the ruling council and the colonial office, saying the naualli are stretched too thin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are!\" The elderly man let his full voice boom in response. \"The Empire is too large for us to protect—changes will have to be made—\"\n\n\"Abandonment, you mean.\" Acid bitterness etched the woman's voice. \"Reserving the naualli to watch over the 'important' worlds, the Méxica colonies, the Fleet! What of the other settlements? You will leave millions of humans without even the slightest protection.\"\n\n\"We do not have enough men to watch every squatter's camp and unlicensed mining station.\" Gretchen could tell the elderly man was entirely sure of himself and his policy. Certainty throbbed in every perfectly enunciated syllable. \"We hold a hundred worlds which are not full! Even on older colonies like Tlaxcallan and Shinjuku there is room for millions. Those worlds are already watched, already guarded by the tlamatinime. Without more judges, we dare do nothing else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then,\" the woman said, drawing a breath, \"let us help.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\" The man's voice was sharp and firm.\n\n\"Change the policy,\" the woman pleaded. \"Let the tititil go out among the people. Let us watch in darkness, as the naualli do.\" Her tone changed, once more veering into anger. \"Abandoning the frontier colonies will suffocate the Empire. You know as well as I what will happen to fresh populations sent to Tlaxcallan—or Shinjuku or Budokan—they will find only the lowest professions open to them. Doctors and scientists will toil in laundries or dig in the fields. They will be servants!\"\n\n\"These are not matters for us to decide,\" the man said patronizingly. \"Each man—and each woman—finds their own way in the world. Only the survival of the race is our concern.\"\n\nThe woman made an almost familiar hissing sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't care about the race. You only care about your calmecac friends and the hunger of the pochteca companies for cheap labor! What organism can thrive in an ever-shrinking niche? Nothing! If you cared about the race, you'd let us train alongside the men and stand watch as they do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Foolishness.\" A faint thread of irritation wove into the man's voice. \"Women and men do not train together. The ancient traditions are wise to forbid such things. Like to like is the proper path. So it has been, so it will be.\" There was a creaking sound and Gretchen wondered in confusion where a wooden chair had come from. There are no chairs in our cave.\n\n\"You will return to your classes and duties, Papalotl. We will not speak of this again.\"\n\nThe elderly man's voice held a tone of complete finality. Gretchen strained to hear more, but the two voices dissolved into only one and Anderssen recognized the sound, at last, as Hummingbird muttering under his breath.\n\nWithout any kind of transition—no slow lightening, no sudden brilliance—Gretchen was staring at the roof of the overhang, her gaze fixed upon gray and black stone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dark, striated rock was split with dozens of crevices and fissures." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could see the way each layer of clay had been compressed by the eons of terrible pressure into flat sheets with unexpected clarity. The violence of the mountain range's creation had tilted the ancient sediment, exposing the edges of the layers to the wind from the east. Now they eroded, millimeter by millimeter, and shaled away from the rooftop a finger's width at a time. Gretchen became uneasy, then almost frantic, realizing she could pick out the smallest detail of the eroding stone.\n\nShe could even see the faint, shining presence of minute Ephesian stoneflowers growing in cracks between the slabs. She could see them moving as the light of the sun began to gild the roof of the overhang. Though Gretchen was unaware of making a noise, there was suddenly a sharp gasp of pain echoing in her ears.\n\nA shadow moved on the ceiling, almost lost among the crevices." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She heard boots crunching on sand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen rolled her head to the side, feeling strangely empty, as though everything inside her body had been drawn out through a very small straw.\n\nHummingbird approached, silhouetted against the rising sun. Behind him, the wings of both Midges were shining with fabulous rainbow brilliance.\n\nFor an instant, as the shadow moved toward her, Gretchen saw something strange. A shifting cloud of Hummingbirds filled the mouth of the cave. Some wore their djellaba over one shoulder, some had none, the z-suits of some were dark, some light. Some of the figures had long hair, some short. One indistinct shape had pale skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sound of boots on gravel grew deafening, then subsided." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old Méxica leaned over her, smoky green eyes concerned. His mouth opened, one hand reaching down to touch her shoulder. Smoke billowed from between his teeth, curling around his goggles and lean, weathered face.\n\nGretchen closed her eyes, head thudding back on the blanket. She welcomed onrushing darkness with vast relief." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a segment from a longer work then you need to write around six sentences continuing directly from it. Try to mimic the style of Thomas Harlan in the In The Time of The Sixth Sun genre. Note that characters may appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'gretchen' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gretchen was sitting on a low outcropping, her face washed in cool golden light, arms clasped around her knees, when Hummingbird finally caught up with her. The Méxica came to a halt at the edge of a tilted slab of sandstone, looking up at her. Hot pink reflections of high-altitude ice clouds blazed from his goggles.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" He sounded very tired on the comm, though the channel was perfectly clear at such close range.\n\n\"I am alive,\" Gretchen said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not look down at him, but raised her head to indicate the eastern sky. \"Look.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The edge of a ruddy, golden sun would soon rise above the horizon. For a moment, Hummingbird saw nothing and then—a bright point stabbed down from the heavens, cutting across the spreading roseate glow before vanishing in a bright streak.\n\n\"A meteor,\" he said.\n\nGretchen turned her head, resting one cheek on her arm. \"There have been three while I've watched. Doctor Smalls will be watching them too, from the Palenque, and he will be sad. They served him faithfully while they lived.\"\n\n\"His meteorology satellites,\" Hummingbird replied, climbing up onto the outcropping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hadeishi will have diverted them into decaying orbits—letting them burn up in the atmosphere.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You shouldn't sit down,\" Gretchen said, unfolding herself as the nauallis approached. \"Don't you see the color of the sky?\"\n\nThe Méxica frowned, forehead creasing, but then a faint dim line along the horizon caught his attention. \"Aiii... it is dawn. The storm.\"\n\nTogether, they walked quickly back toward the cliff. Gretchen's feet were sore—she hoped she didn't have to run anywhere today—but she was more concerned with the odd way her sight was behaving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suspicious, Gretchen changed the setting on her goggles to normal intensification." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shale and broken sandstone she was crossing remained sharp and distinct, despite the predawn darkness cloaking the land. I can see in the dark?\n\nShe stopped and bent down, running a hand across scattered chunks of eggshell-thin stone. A dissonant, queasy feeling roused, stirred by the motion of her fingers against something standing still. Gretchen slashed her hand back and forth, as fast as she could. Odd and odder, she thought, grappling with a perception of her hand moving very slowly, with sort of a staccato afterimage trailing along behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Check the tie-downs.\" Hummingbird turned toward the overhang without looking back." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The filament screen needs to be repaired.\"\n\nGretchen looked up, catching a furtive glimpse of the nauallis stepping past the glistening sheet of monofilament. At the same time, she saw him both outside and inside the barrier. Anderssen blinked in surprise, lifted her goggles and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the tripartite vision was gone.\n\n\"Hurry,\" his voice echoed. \"The wind will be rising soon.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce seven sentences using the user's text as a seed. Follow the established character context if any exists. Stick to the In The Time of The Sixth Sun genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the tent was too hot and the ground too hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hummingbird was snoring again, and she couldn't take the heep-snort-heep sound of his breathing. After laying in the sleepbag for an hour, too tired to remove her breather mask or even brush her teeth, Gretchen crawled out of the tent and into the mind-numbing cold again.\n\nShe climbed back up to the ultralights and made a desultory circuit, checking their tie-downs and anchors. The old Méxica had done a fine job, each cable taut and balanced. Irritated, Gretchen walked to the edge of the mesa, stepping carefully among weathered, wind-blasted slabs and boulders.\n\nThe canyon below was entirely, impenetrably dark. Anderssen considered pitching a glowbean over the edge, just to see what might be revealed in the flickering blue-green light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stars gleamed on her goggles, very bright and steady. The air had chilled to a supernal level of stillness, much as it did during the polar winter on Old Mars. Good place for a telescope, she thought, beginning to walk along the rim of the mesa, her back to the eastern sky. But is there anything to see out here?\n\nEphesus sat at the edge of one of the abyssal gulfs running through the spiral arm. There were few nearby suns, only clouds of dust, dark matter and interstellar gas. A lonely outpost on the verge of nothingness, hundreds of light years from another habitable world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gretchen wondered, as she climbed a rough, rectangular outcropping, if the long-dead inhabitants had ever managed to pierce the envelope of air around their home world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had satellites or orbital stations seen the valkar burst from the nothingness of hyperspace?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had anyone tried to escape?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'universe' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or were the Ephesians still grubbing in the mud, trying to trap their dinner in woven nets or pit traps when the sky darkened with the killing cloud? A million years... Earth was still a raw, primitive world. Only megafauna and protohominids fighting to survive in Pliocene swamps. Did we escape a similar fate by some quirk of chance?\n\nThe thought made her feel despondent. Her heart did not easily agree with the prospect of a universe where man only lived and thrived by the fall of some random cosmic die. Gretchen realized Hummingbird's vision of a universe of frightful powers—of gods—offered a strange kind of comfort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He believes men can alter the course of fate. He believes he can divert the engines of chance. Huh.\n\nBeyond the outcropping, a deep crevice split in the face of the mesa. I should head back... she started to remind herself, but then... what's that? A light?\n\nAnderssen stopped and knelt down, peering over the edge into the darkness. There was a light. There were many lights, spreading in a delicate cobweb across the rock, making the ravine gleam and glitter like the stars above, a hidden galaxy of jeweled-colors and shining motes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like moss, a firemoss, she thought, lips quirking in a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Life blooming from nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even here, at the edge of annihilation. Gretchen concentrated on the nearest filaments and was rewarded by a vision of delicate tendrils radiating out from a cone-shaped core. The surface seemed to glisten, though she doubted there was any kind of moisture in this system. A superconducting energy trap, maybe? I wish Sinclair and Tukhachevsky were here... They would love this. Ha! They'll be jealous when I tell them about all the things I've seen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "God, I even miss that tub vodka of theirs.\n\nA sound interrupted her delight. Gretchen looked up, surprised. A cloaked figure knelt a few meters away, silhouetted by a wash of stars, djellaba and kaffiyeh wrapped expertly around narrow shoulders. An instant of surprise was replaced by a certain sense of recognition.\n\n\"What are you?\" Gretchen stood up slowly, hoping to leave the firemoss undisturbed. Flakes of rock spilled away from her gloves, falling among the thready clusters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're not Russovsky, are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am,\" answered the dark outline. The voice was hoarse, rusty, as if long unused. The shape stood as well, wiry blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. \"What are you?\"\n\n\"A human being,\" Gretchen said, then stopped, horrified. Hummingbird wouldn't want her to give anything away. \"A visitor.\"\n\n\"Am I a human being?\" Russovsky came close and Gretchen could see her pale, lean face glowing with an inner light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stunned, Gretchen realized she was seeing the pattern of a vibrant crystalline lattice seeping through the woman's skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My memories are strange. I was flying, high above the world. I was walking under the sea, among the bones of the dead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, yes, you were. But you are not a human being now. You are an Ephesian, like the moss.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Russovsky looked down at the colony, her bare, unprotected face perfectly still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I am not. The hathol are an incurious people, content with their long slow lives. I am restless. I need something I do not have.\"\n\n\"Everyone is restless,\" Gretchen laughed softly, breath puffing white around her breather mask. \"Perhaps you are human.\"\n\n\"Are you content?\" Russovsky moved closer and the light within her skin grew brighter. Her eyes shone like stars themselves. \"Show me!\"\n\nGretchen began to back away, feeling her way along the edge of the ravine. Something in the shape began to change and she felt the prickling of alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voice continued to echo in her suit comm, but she realized there was no way Russovsky could make such a sound in the thin atmosphere, not without a comm link." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She scrambled up and over the crest of the rocks. The figure stopped and was staring up at her. Without waiting for the shape to do something, Gretchen scrambled away as fast as she dared, heading for the tent and Hummingbird." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ five sentences more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pressure door to Hadeishi's office recessed with a hiss and then slid out of sight into the bulkhead. Susan Koshō stepped down into the comfortably-cluttered space. Her white duty uniform glowed in the dim light, sharply distinct from the dark-hued books and paintings covering the walls. Both of her hands were tightly clenched into fists.\n\n\"Chu-sa?\" She looked around with a compressed, mostly-hidden expression of distaste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The untidiness of the commander's personal space always made her nervous, though the old man in charge of Hadeishi's quarters kept them scrupulously clean. There were just too many things here.\n\n\"Over here,\" Mitsuharu's voice came from a side compartment.\n\nSusan trod gently across deep-piled rugs and paused in the inner doorway. Hadeishi had folded a table down from the wall of a narrow room lined with cupboards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The exec glanced around, puzzled, and then recognized the area as a servant's laundry station. The clever table was an ironing and mending board.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Susan stared at the combat suit laid out on the table with something like despair in her almond-shaped eyes. Hadeishi failed to suppress a small, polite smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was in an old, rather worn-looking short-sleeved kimono of dark blue silk. The back and shoulders were covered with a delicately stitched wading crane and cattails in golden thread. He turned his attention back to checking the suit seals with a microscanner.\n\n\"Prepping my suit,\" Hadeishi said. \"Heicho Felix reports her squad has finished gear-check and is now ready to go, so I would be holding things up but Engineering is still mounting our hardline comm system.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Susan looked around for a seat, found nothing apparent—though she suspected some of the cupboards might slide out or fold down to make one: they had in her grandmother's house—and settled into parade rest instead. \"You are determined to carry through with your... plan.\"\n\nHadeishi nodded, turning over one of the black, metallic sleeves of the suit. The surface was formed of overlapping, flexible ceramic plates. \"Those skilled in war subdue the enemy without battle. If I go myself there is a chance of such success.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or you may be killed. This is a very risky maneuver.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mitsuharu looked up, his narrow face grave. \"I know. The art of maneuver is the most difficult—but in this tiny moment of opportunity, we do have some room to move. We hold a positional advantage. Given such an opening, I will risk myself for the best outcome. If we are killed or captured, you know what to do.\"\n\nSusan nodded, staring at the combat suit with ill-disguised disgust. \"You should not have loaned Fitzsimmons and Deckard to the civilians. They are our most experienced assault troopers.\"\n\n\"Water flows.\" Hadeishi replaced the sleeve and took up the other. \"Felix will do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Susan made a grunting sound and her pale, smooth forehead gained a sharp vertical crease." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Her performance in the combat sims has only been marginal. If there is resistance—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mitsu raised a hand and the sho-sa fell silent. \"If you,\" he said quietly, trying to catch her eye, \"are commanding the defense of the refinery with the vigor you showed in the sims, then I expect we will all die. But you are here, not there. Felix will be fine.\"\n\n\"Very well.\" Susan clasped both hands behind her back. Her gaze was fixed on a point somewhere over his head. \"Navigation informs me our best-path return course to the planet will now take eleven days. I believe the tlamatinime Hummingbird requested we retrieve him from the surface in only ten days.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We will not be returning to the third planet until our business here is concluded, Sho-sa. But I appreciate your diligence in bringing this matter to my attention.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kyo, the tlamatinime and the archaeologist could easily have encountered—\"\n\n\"They are in some danger, true,\" Mitsuharu interrupted gently. \"But they will be fine. Hummingbird will be fine. He always is. Our business is here, with the refinery. And it will be resolved very soon, one way or another.\"\n\n\"Hai, Chu-sa.\" Susan's face settled into a cool, lifeless mask. \"Do you require any assistance with your equipment?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mitsu put down the right-hand sleeve of the suit and rested his hands on his knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He considered his exec for a long moment, then shook his head slightly. \"I should do this myself, Susan. Such things are traditional. If you have a moment, please check with Engineering and make sure they've rigged something to keep the comm-wire from fouling.\"\n\nSusan nodded sharply, turned and walked quickly out of the laundry room. Mitsu watched her go with a pensive expression. When the outer door hissed closed, he sighed and turned his attention back to the seals on the inner sheath of the armor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They always became stiff in storage, no matter what the armorer said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes they split, if not carefully looked after, reducing the wearer's flexibility." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Team writing exercise. I start (might include existing characters), you do eight sentences in Thomas Harlan style." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'stirred' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wind stirred in the empty hangar, scattering dust and hathol spores across the clean, smooth concrete. A rule-straight shadow delimited sun from shade, slowly edging toward the door frame as the sun moved in the sky. In the shadows, blowing sand and grit accumulated in a corner, gathered itself and began to exert an electrostatic field. More sand skittered across the floor. A nubbin of gravel compressed. The day continued to lengthen.\n\nWhen the killing sun had passed zenith and the hangar was entirely in shadow, the collecting sand stirred, rose, sprouted long thin crystalline tubules. They knotted into the outline of two legs, a torso, a chest, arms, finally a head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wind circled in the hangar, bringing a heavy cloud of dust and small stones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Russovsky compressed out of the air, grit and debris rushing together with a sharp hiss. The shape's eyes opened and shook a dusty head. The husks and shells of the dead hathol and firten puffed away from a gleaming black skinsuit. Russovsky wiped her cheek, hand coming away covered with a glittering gray stain. She looked around the empty shell of a building.\n\nGone. He is gone. Russovsky considered her memories, finding them filled with moments of parting. In some of the vignettes there were tears, impassioned words, something she remembered as <loss | sorrow | longing>." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not think these last two humans had lingered, delaying their departure, hoping to squeeze a few more seconds from the grasp of implacable time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had moved with admirable efficiency. They had taken her Gagarin away.\n\nNow there was something disorderly in her cold, perfect thoughts. The aircraft, the battered old Midge, held meaning—something tantalizing at the edge of comprehension. She wished the ultralight would return. Russovsky raised her hands, feeling the echo, the vibration of its presence. The machine had stood here, just so, wheels pressing against the concrete. Minute indentations had been left in the aggregate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tiny flakes of rubberlike material from the wheels lay on the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the air itself, troubled by the wind as it was, had not yet forgotten the shapes of the wings, the body, the landing gear.\n\nA shadow remained, still visible to her eyes in the chaos boiling behind the individual molecules of gas in the air. An absence where the Gagarin should stand. Something in her revolted at the void, pressed her to summon forth creation from nothingness, to fill an emptiness in the hangar which echoed dissonantly with her colorless memories.\n\nRussovsky spread her hands and wind howled in the chamber. A dark yellow cloud roared in from outside, borne around her by billowing, violent zephyrs. Sand and gravel and dust flooded in, caught up in a standing tornado roaring and shrieking in the cavity. The roof groaned and shook, panels cracking away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All three walls shivered and the concrete floor splintered and cracked and crushed into more dust and grit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shape closed her hands. There was a thrumming whoomp and the air congealed.\n\nWhen Russovsky dropped her hands, the Gagarin stood before her, wings retracted, metal struts gleaming with a newly manufactured shine. Even the wheels were glossy black. The shape paced around to the side and opened the pilot's door.\n\nThese memories, these motions seemed proper—they seemed right—and Russovsky wondered when a flush of pleasure would fill her heart, rising in her breast like the dawn wind. She settled into the seat. The display before her was cold and dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slender fingers flipped a series of switches on the ceiling panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The right hand flexed the stick, checking the resistance and response of the control surfaces. She rolled her shoulders back and forth, memories flushing with strength.\n\nThe display did not change. The engines did not ignite. There was no familiar chuckling hiss of hydrogen filling the fuel lines. Russovsky moved her hand across the panel again. Nothing. The machine did not stir to life, did not shiver awake to answer her will.\n\nIs this disappointment? The memories held many examples, though they were distant and cold, untouchable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sealed away behind layers of glassite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The machine does not work. There is no... fuel.\n\nRussovsky scrutinized the memories with more care. A universe of mechanical systems was revealed, awareness of thousands of substances and chemical processes was uncovered. And with them, the slow, growing conclusion the human had not known enough about the intricacies of their manufacture to allow Russovsky—as she now stood—to replicate them, even with a firm grasp of molecular control.\n\nAgain, an emptiness where memory suggested there would be <fury | rage | despair>.\n\nThere was something inside the human which was not in the hathol, a brilliant unique spark which could not be <consumed | known | understood>. Russovsky thought, considered and decided this was the emptiness she felt within." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something lacking which made even the carefully hoarded memories of the human Russovsky, as tightly held as Gretchen's children splashing in the pool, seem flat and lifeless. I am like the hathol and the firten, she thought sadly, only a mechanical process of electrons and chemical reactions.\n\nRussovsky climbed out of the aircraft and walked to the hangar door. The sun was still high in the sky, but she turned and paced down to the edge of the landing field. Long blond hair luffed in the wind as she raised a seamed, weathered face to the sky. Far above, far away now, there was a shining bright speck. A gleam of metal and composite spiraling higher and higher into the black heavens.\n\nTendrils of hair began to break down, smashed by the radiation flooding from the blazing disk blazing in the west." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the skinsuit turned gray and began to crack." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The constant wind abraded Russovsky, chipping away at tools, djellaba, the threads of the kaffiyeh. Slowly, she eroded, eyes still raised to the slowly dimming spark high above." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "user starts, u write ~11 sentences more. copy L.E. Modesitt Jr's style. heads up: might have existing chars/lore" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Carrying his kit and shoulder bag, Trystin stepped through the Perdya orbit station's lock doors and onto the quarterdeck of the Roosveldt and into the faint smell of ozone and heated plastic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lieutenant Desoll, reporting for transport. Permission to come aboard?\"\n\n\"Granted, ser,\" said the rating with the stunner in her watch belt. \"Your orders?\"\n\nTrystin handed across his orders and the Service ID card and placed his hand on the scanner.\n\nThe green light flashed.\n\n\"You'll be sharing stateroom four with Lieutenant Yuraki.\" The rating nodded and handed back the orders and the card. \"He's the supply officer. Two and four are on the left as you head aft. One is the captain's. Five is the officers' mess. We'll be separating in less than an hour.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" Trystin eased down the narrow corridor, sensing the humming of the ship's net through his implant. He turned sideways as he passed an officer with a major's triple bars holoed on the breast of her shipsuit. Above the bars and the name \"Laurentian,\" she wore the antique wings.\n\n\"Sorry, ser,\" he said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"This is a short hop—a nonduster. After you get settled, come on forward. You can watch and see if you know what you're getting into.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No problem, Lieutenant. You're our passenger, the one who's going to see if he can be a pilot?\"\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"\n\nMajor Laurentian nodded. \"This is a short hop—a nonduster. After you get settled, come on forward. You can watch and see if you know what you're getting into.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"You can thank me later.\" She was gone, heading forward.\n\nThough bigger than most translation ships, the Roosveldt was still a small ship, tiny compared to the revvie troid ships, but then most translation ships were, given the limitations that Trystin didn't fully understand, but suspected he would come to learn. The entire corridors extended no more than thirty meters, the last twenty comprising the section aft of the entry lock and minuscule quarterdeck.\n\nWhy it was called a quarterdeck, Trystin didn't know, except that the name dated into antiquity. Stateroom four was just forward of the open third-aft safety hatch. Out of courtesy, he tapped on the stateroom door, but there was no response." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tapped again, waited, and then slid the thin sheet-plastic door open. Because of weight considerations, and practicality, the Roosveldt—and every other noncombatant translation ship—was constructed in airtight sections, but without significant airtight barriers within the subsections. So internal walls and doors were thin.\n\nTrystin stepped into the stateroom and stopped. The tiny workspace built against the airtight third-aft bulkhead was an array of data file cases stuffed with twocentimeter data disks surrounding a compact console. At the console sat a bulky man with light brown hair and a creamy brown skin. Trystin could almost feel the hardwired signals running from the console, but he always had been more sensitive to the nets than most—and that sensitivity had been one of the reasons why the Maran storm feedback had been harder on him than on most. He carried his bags inside and set them down on the plastic-textured deck, sliding the door shut behind him.\n\nAfter several moments, the officer on the console finished tapping the keys and stood. He wore the single gold bar of a junior lieutenant, but the fine lines running from the comers of his eyes indicated he was considerably older than Trystin. \"Sorry. You must be Lieutenant Desoll.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trystin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm Elgin Yuraki—the one who's in charge of stowing, balancing, and retrieving cargo, not to mention food supplies, air regeneration, and all the other nonpropulsion and navigational details of the mighty Roosveldt. Welcome to our humble craft, cramped as it may be.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'trystin' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you. I didn't mean—\"\n\n\"That's all right. We should apologize to you. We're carrying two very senior commanders. They got the two good transport cabins, ecobalance and protocol forbid that they should share with anyone.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. It sounds like you've got a full load. How many on board?\" Trystin asked.\n\n\"Not really that many. The crew's just six. The captain and Lieutenant Hithers, me, and three techs. But we've also got you and the commanders, and five more techs in transit. We're configured more for cargo than passengers. A barge like the Udahl could handle thirty supercargo easily, sixty in a pinch.\" Yuraki paused and gestured toward the console. \"Sorry ... but ...\"\n\n\"You must have a lot to do right now. Just tell me where to put things, and I'll get out of your way.\" Trystin offered a smile.\n\n\"The lower lockers are empty, and the bottom bunk's yours.\"\n\n\"Fine. Can I sit in the mess to get out of your way?\"\n\n\"That's where I'd be if I didn't have all this ...\" Yuraki grimaced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you should have it to yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin slipped his two bags into the lower locker, where they barely fit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time he had straightened, Yuraki was back at the console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mess was just abaft the aft-third bulkhead on the right—and empty. Six light gray plastic chairs clustered around a long narrow table, and three more were stacked in the corner. The combined odors of strong tea and the false citrus of Sustain permeated the room. After looking around, Trystin found a spare cup and thumbed the spigot on the samovar.\n\nThe steam carried the smell of relatively fresh hot tea, and Trystin burned his mouth with an incautiously quick first sip. He slumped into a corner chair. While connected to the orbit station—and the station's power supplies—the Roosveldt remained at full Perdyan gravity.\n\nA face peered into the mess. \"Lieutenant?\"\n\nTrystin turned around and then stood as he recognized not only the commander's uniform but the green shoulder braid that signified something on the Service Command Staff. \"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"Could you rustle up a cup of tea for me? I'd appreciate it.\" The woman in the uniform had traces of actual gray in her short-cropped black hair." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'implant' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm in number six.\"\n\n\"I'll see what I can do, ser.\" Before Trystin had finished responding, the commander had vanished.\n\nWith a slow, deep breath, he went to the wall cupboard and took another plastic cup from the rack inside, then filled it. He turned right outside the mess and walked to number six, where he rapped on the door. \"Your tea, Commander.\"\n\n\"Come on in.\"\n\nTrystin opened the door and stepped into the stateroom, no bigger than the one he would share with Yuraki. The commander's eyes were faintly glazed as she concentrated on the largest portable console Trystin had ever seen. The display seemed to contain a three-dimensional star map, and he couldn't resist mentally trying to adjust his implant to pick up the signals.\n\n\"I wouldn't. The standard implant isn't equipped for that kind of data flow.\" She took the tea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you.\" Her eyes glazed over as she turned in the chair back to the console that sat on the built-in desk shelf.\n\nTrystin stood there for a moment, then realized he had been dismissed. He closed the door and returned to the mess, where he sat and took a deep swallow from his own cup.\n\nHe really hadn't even been there for the commander, except as a piece of equipment. He got up and poured another cup of tea from the samovar.\n\nAs slowly as he sipped and waited, no one else entered the mess. No one even passed the open door.\n\n\"Stand by for seal-off.\" Major Laurentian's voice echoed from the speakers. \"Stand by for seal-off.\"\n\nWith the announcement, Trystin rinsed off the empty cup, reracked it, and slowly walked forward past the nowempty quarterdeck and the sealed hatch through which he had entered the Roosveldt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he neared the open hatch to the cockpit, the major's voice again echoed from the speakers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stand by for power changeover.\"\n\nTrystin reached out and braced himself between the narrow bulkheads.\n\nThe noncom at the screens in the alcove to his left grinned.\n\nThen the lights flickered; for a moment the hum of the ventilators stopped; and the gravity dropped to point five, ship standard.\n\nAs always, Trystin's guts twisted slightly at the transition. He licked his lips, leaned forward and peered into the cockpit. The consoles in front of the captain and the first officer blazed with lights.\n\nTrystin eased up the receptivity of his implant—and staggered slightly as even a fraction of the complete data load seemed to drown him before his cutoffs blocked the flow. His eyes watered, and his head throbbed. After a moment, he licked his lips again. Did all pilots have to carry and monitor that much data—or was he accessing the wrong channels?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shrugged. It could be either, and he wasn't about to ask.\n\n\" ... Pelican two ... cleared for low-thrust separation ...\"\n\n\" ... Pelican two separating this time ...\"\n\nThe representational screen, easiest for Trystin to recognize, showed the separation of the Roosveldt from the orbit station.\n\nTrystin watched as the signals apparently cascaded across the boards, and as the screens flashed the latest data. Neither the major nor the pilot officer in the second seat used their hands, but those hands rested lightly on the manual controls, and Trystin could see that both officers clearly cross-checked the purely visual screens, almost as if they did not fully trust their implants and the direct links to the Roosveldt.\n\n\"Lieutenant?\" The first officer looked at Trystin.\n\n\"Yes, ser.\" Although Hithers couldn't have outranked Trystin much, Hithers was the first officer in the line of command, and Trystin responded.\n\n\"We won't be translating for almost three hours relative, and it's likely to be rather boring. Go get some tea or something.\"\n\n\"Could I get you anything?\"\n\n\"No, thank you. It might be boring for you, but we'll be occupied.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin took the hint and headed back to the mess, where Elgin Yuraki was pouring himself a cup of tea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You all right?\" Trystin asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fine. Last-minute stuff.\" Yuraki glanced toward the door and lowered his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Commander Milsini—she's the one in six—she dumped something like five tonnes of shielded equipment on us. That's a bitch to handle at the last minute—shielding, weight and balance, and recomputing all the mass for translation.\" The supply officer cleared his throat. \"I was afraid we'd be over the translation limit, but we've got a good two tonnes to spare.\"\n\nTrystin nodded politely. Two tonnes on a large ship didn't sound like that much of a safety margin.\n\n\"See ... the total mass isn't as much of a problem as the accuracy of the mass calculation. The closer the calculated mass is to the translation power approximation, the less the translation error—all other things being equal, which they're not. Anyway, you'll learn all that better than I know it. All I know is that the captain gives me hell if the mass calculation isn't as good as I can make it.\" Yuraki took a deep swallow of the boiling tea without even wincing. \"And when some commander dumps stuff whose mass is mostly unknown on me ... how do you tell a commander it's a problem? All they say is that I should solve it.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nBoth junior officers glanced up.\n\nThe second commander—a stocky dark man with the holoed wings over the name \"Chiang\"—stood by the samovar. \"When you're a junior officer, you have to solve problems. When you get to be a commander, you get to create them. When you get to the senior staff level, you have to tell the commanders which problems to create.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He snorted. \"Enjoy problem-solving while you can. It's easier.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With that, Commander Chiang carried his cup from the mess.\n\n\"Who are they?\" Trystin asked. \"Do you know?\"\n\n\"Commander Milsini works for the planning branch of the general staff. Commander Chiang—I don't know. Except all the pilots sort of whispered when they heard he was coming. He only brought three cases of stuff, and the mass computations were taped to each case.\"\n\n\"Thoughtful of him,\" observed Trystin.\n\n\"He was, or is, a pilot. If all pilots are like the captain, they never forget the importance of mass computations.\" Yuraki stood and poured another cup of tea, then added a heap of Sustain powder to the steaming liquid.\n\nTrystin winced. \"How can you drink that?\"\n\n\"You get used to it.\" Yuraki took a deep breath. \"Besides, I've got more to do. See you later.\" He carried the cup out of the mess." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin helped himself to a half cup of tea, without Sustain, and slowly sipped it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He must have dozed, because he sat up with a start, checking his implant for the time—over two hours since he had left the cockpit. He must have been more tired than he thought.\n\nAnother cup of tea, with some Sustain, helped wake him, and he finally walked forward to the cockpit, past the tech in his shipsuit, still monitoring the ship's maintenance systems-through the six-screen panel.\n\n\"Not bad timing,\" said Hithers from the right-hand seat. \"Be another fifteen or so.\" His eyes glazed over.\n\nMajor Laurentian never glanced toward Trystin.\n\nThe cascade of lights across the board seemed to slow, more and more lights winking out with each passing minute. Were systems being powered down prior to translation ? Trystin didn't know. This was the first time he'd watched a translation from the cockpit, and the time slipped past.\n\n\"Prepare for translation. Prepare for translation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hithers's words spilled from the ship's speakers." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'ventilators' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thirty seconds to translation.\"\n\nThe whole ship went totally silent. The ventilators stopped. The screens blanked. The gravity went, and Trystin thrust out his legs and awkwardly braced himself, inwardly damning himself for his forgetfulness.\n\nAt the moment of translation, the entire ship seemed to turn inside out, and black turned to white, and dark to light, for an instant that seemed momentarily endless—yet was totally subjective. No clock ever designed had been able to measure any duration for a translation.\n\nThen, with a stomach-wrenching twist, the ship was back in norm-space. The screens in front of the pilots began to flash, slowly, and then more quickly, as the telltales reported system information.\n\nThe hissing of the ventilators resumed, and ship's gravity dragged Trystin perhaps ten centimeters to the hard deck.\n\nBut neither pilot moved, although Trystin could almost sense the stepped-up flow of information through the cockpit.\n\nThe representational screen twisted, and reformed, showing the Roosveldt heading in-system, toward Chevel Beta, and the first officer reached out and tapped a stud beside the console." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Translation complete. We are heading in-system. We are heading in-system.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhere on the inbound leg to Chevel Beta, the Roosveldt would use its receivers to pick up the simultaneous dual and continuous signals beamed from asteroids on opposite sides of the system in synchronous orbits. The signals contained coded algorithms that, when deciphered and with the computed parallax, allowed incoming Coalition ships to determine real time and thus their translation error.\n\n\"That's it, Lieutenant. We'll see you later.\" Hithers offered a brief smile to Trystin.\n\nTrystin understood the dismissal. \"Thank you, ser.\" He slipped back into the narrow corridor behind the crowded cockpit.\n\nFrom the tech alcove beside the hatch, the noncom in the shipsuit glanced up. \"Good luck, Lieutenant.\"\n\nFrom what he'd seen, Trystin wondered if he'd need a lot more than luck, a lot more." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo can u write like L.E. Modesitt Jr using my stuff as a starting point? btw might drop u in mid-story with random chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'hadn't'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only instructions Trystin had received when he had checked in at the Chevel Beta training command and received his room assignment were to report to room B7 at 0900 a week later with everything on his checklist taken care of. Room B7 meant second level, relatively high for an asteroid station. Report to B7 and wait, not that he'd been doing much besides waiting. Taking another physical, updating his personnel files, being issued shipsuits and fitted for deep-space pressure armor hadn't taken all that long. The most complicated thing had been arranging all the paperwork for his translation trust. Neither payroll nor the admin section had been terribly pleased, but his father had provided a step-by-step procedure and all the Service and legal cites. That hadn't exactly pleased Major Turakini, and her reaction had given Trystin the distinct impression that should anything happen to one Trystin Desoll, the Service really wanted to hang on to his pay and everything else for as long as possible.\n\nThe other time-consuming, necessary, and boring item had been a screen-based intro class to the basics of spatial coordinate systems. He'd spent a lot of time in the station library, using his implant to access all the general information on piloting, and on translation engines, and more than a few hours in the high-gee exercise room. With the station gravity kept at point five, probably because the energy consumption to maintain standard gee would have taken a pair of large fusactors alone, high gee was classified at one point one, or a trace over Maran norm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin tried not to bound or bounce as he walked toward the up-level ramps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His quarters—a cube four meters on a side carved out of solid rock and sealed with plastic—were on J level." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ramp corridors, zigzagging back and forth toward the surface of Chevel Beta, were plastic-coated rock, bare except for the air-collection vents set midway between each level.\n\nBetween E and D level, a noncom brushed by Trystin, her eyes flickering to his name patch as she muttered a low, \"Excuse me, ser.\"\n\nAs he nodded and moved aside, wondering at her glance at his rank and the totally perfunctory nature of the request, Trystin cranked up his hearing and caught the words, \" ...'nother frigging greenie ...\"\n\nWould the whole training program be like that, with perfunctory respect covering scorn for junior officers by the deep-space noncoms? Trystin took a deep breath and kept going up the ramps.\n\nRoom B7 smelled faintly of sweat and ozone, but looked like an old-style classroom, with a dozen flat consoles and scratched gray plastic chairs. Trystin glanced around. Three lieutenants and a major returned his glance.\n\nThe major, a dark-haired and fresh-faced woman who looked little older than Trystin, despite her triple bars, nodded. \"Make yourself at home, Lieutenant. I'm Ciri Tekanawe.\"\n\n\"Trystin Desoll.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jonnie Schicchi.\" The stocky and dark-skinned lieutenant who looked older than anyone was the first to respond." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Constanzia Aloysia.\" Lieutenant Aloysia was thin-faced, with short light brown hair that frizzed around her face.\n\n\"Suzuki Yamidori.\" The lieutenant's thin lips barely opened, and her syllables were clipped.\n\nTrystin slipped into a chair behind a console equidistant between Major Tekanawe and Lieutenant Schicchi, his implant indicating that it was 0855 standard space time.\n\nAt 0859, a squat, dark man with the subcommander's gold triangle on his chest beside the name insignia that read Torowe stepped into the room and glanced across the group of five officers. Above his name and rank insignia was the implanted holo of an antique-looking pair of wings. Finally, he asked, \"Any of you sing?\"\n\nTrystin frowned.\n\n\"Never mind. It was a bad joke—obscure anyway. Most pilots—those who survive—end up with dated and obscure senses of humor. You'll get used to it, and about the time you do, everyone except the older pilots will give you blank looks because what you thought was funny they haven't got the referents for.\" Torowe shook his head. \"Just file it away. You'll understand someday.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin moistened his lips." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'because' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hoped that all the instruction would not be nearly so obscure.\n\n\"All of you have survived perimeter-station duty. That's not a great recommendation, but it's a good indication that you are either extraordinarily lucky or marginally competent, and it saves us the trouble of doing gross screening. We like that here, because real stupidity costs us ships and, occasionally, instructors. As an instructor, I have certain biases, especially against stupidity.\" Torowe paused again.\n\n\"Lieutenant Desoll, in the next day or so, we could up your implant and direct-link you to the vette or the troop barge you're going to be the owner, master, and flunky for, and you'd probably be able to handle just about anything. So why don't we?\"\n\n\"Because just about probably isn't good enough.\"\n\n\"There's no question about it,\" said Commander Torowe. \"As far back as decent military training goes, the records indicate that a disproportionate amount of time has been spent training officers in control of vehicles on how to handle situations that happen one percent of the time—or less. Some non-Service efficiency experts still occasionally suggest that such devotion to rarity is the height of cost-inefficiency—unless an emergency occurs on the ship they're taking.\" He smiled. \"The problem with emergencies is that most of the time you lose all or part of your normal operating systems, and that's one reason why we just don't turn you into part of the machinery—the revvie insults notwithstanding.\n\n\"And, by the way, you'll also be required to use hard-copy manuals for systems, in addition to on-line tutorials. Do you have any idea why, Lieutenant Schicchi?\"\n\n\"No, ser.\"\n\n\"Think about it, Lieutenant. How can you figure out how to repair the power system if the information you need can only be accessed through a system powered by the ship and you don't have power, which was the problem to begin with?\"\n\n\"Oh ...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Think! You all need to think more.\" Torowe shook his head sadly. \"After this indoctrination, you won't see me for a long time. You'd better hope you don't.\" He offered a slow smile. \"Now ...\" He looked at the five again. \"We're going to disable your implants—just temporarily—and send you back to school. You will learn everything you need to learn to pilot without any on-line assistance. You won't become pilot officers unless you can. Major Tekanawe, can you tell me why?\"\n\n\"Implants or linkages fail under some conditions, and unboosted ability may be necessary to complete a flight or mission,\" Ciri Tekanawe answered.\n\n\"That's the correct long answer. The short answer is that it might save your ass. You're going to have a class in estimation. Why? With calculators and implants, you can get precise answers. Fine. What's the square of sixteen? Can you tell me without your implant? How about the square of that?\" Torowe's finger pointed at Lieutenant Aloysia.\n\n\"Sixty-five thousand five hundred thirty-six, but I doubt I could do it in my head.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, but you'd better be able to estimate the general magnitude in less than a second, because that may be all you'll have.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The commander turned back to Trystin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lieutenant Desoll, try to imagine this. You have the kind of static in your head that's worse than direct-feed from a badlands storm—yes, I've been on the Maran perimeter line—and your implant is down. You have a spread of torps flaring at you, and you have no plots and no input except the visuals on a flat screen. And you have less than a minute to decide. Now what?\"\n\nTrystin winced.\n\n\"I think you might have the vaguest idea of what faces you. Maybe.\" He paused. \"Then again, maybe not. I said you had a minute to decide, but I didn't tell you that if you guess—or calculate—wrong, you'll watch disaster coming for a good stan, and you may not die until your emergency life support blows, and that could be a long time.\"\n\nThe commander straightened. \"Your first stop is medical for your implant deactivation. That's right. No reflex boosts, and no cheating by overhearing what you should have gotten the first time. Medical's in C fifty. After deactivation, report back here, and your packets will be waiting with your schedules for classes and simulators. I won't be.\" He turned and walked out of the room.\n\nTrystin nodded. No repetitions of directions or instructions. No redundancy. You either got it, or you didn't. He stood and followed Major Tekanawe out the doorway and back toward the ramps to the lower levels.\n\nThe medical door was marked with the antique red cross." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah ... the latest crop of lost ones ...\" Trystin picked up the whisper from the tech standing behind the console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Major, you're first. Lieutenant, take a seat, and you'll be next.\"\n\nTrystin sat in the battered black seat, and watched as the major walked through an archway and out of sight around a corner. The three other lieutenants slipped into the room and sat, following the age-old dictum of letting the senior and the brave face unfriendly fire first.\n\nShortly, a somber-faced Major Tekanawe walked back through the archway.\n\n\"Lieutenant?\"\n\nTrystin stood and followed the woman tech down the short corridor and into a room with little more than what looked to be a dental chair in it.\n\n\"Lieutenant, sit down right here.\" The tech gestured to the chair.\n\nAs he slipped into the chair, Trystin looked up at the assembly of electronics that vaguely resembled a folded-back helmet.\n\n\"Don't worry, ser. It only looks like a torture device. It doesn't take long, and it doesn't hurt at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tech lowered the device and slipped the sections down and around Trystin's head, fitting the smooth plastic along Trystin's jawline and around his ears until only his lower forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth remained uncovered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plastic of the long chair felt clammy against his back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tech touched several keys on the console but said nothing aloud.\n\n\"Can you hear this through your implant?\" The words/sounds rolled through Trystin's implant so loudly that he winced.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You're one of the sensitive ones—or you got some high-class work there.\"\n\nThe tech touched another key, but Trystin heard or felt nothing.\n\n\"That's good. No harmonics there.\"\n\n\"Let's try this ...\"\n\nTrystin almost bolted through the apparatus when the white noise knifed through him.\n\n\"Sorry, Lieutenant. You're definitely a sensitive. Pluses and minuses there. This should do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin shivered as his implant went dead—leaving him completely alone for the first time in years." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the background static he'd learned to tune out was gone. His skull was indeed silent, and he would be unable to communicate except by impossibly slow words or by physically manipulating console dials, switches, studs, and whatever.\n\n\"That's it.\" The tech began to peel back the equipment.\n\nHe stood slowly and walked out of the medical section, feeling somehow off balance, and somehow as if everything were designed for exactly that purpose." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo can u write like L.E. Modesitt Jr using my stuff as a starting point? btw might drop u in mid-story with random chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'lieutenant'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin checked his armor and the seals on the helmet again, holding on to the railing inside the access tube. The short figure in armor arrowed down the tube toward him in the streaking bound that those experienced in min-gee affected. He caught the subcommander's insignia—not that any of the instructors were less than subcommanders with at least two complete ship tours—and the dark hair before he saw the woman's name—duVaiya.\n\n\"You're Lieutenant Desoll?\" She braked easily and stared at him, dark eyes matching dark hair, a face regular enough to be attractive, except for the penetrating intensity of the eyes. Why did all the attractive women have such perceptive eyes? Or was he only attracted to perceptive women?\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"We've got number ten, Lieutenant. Armor ready?\"\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"We'll do the preflight first, and then I'll brief you after you've had a chance to familiarize yourself with the feel of the systems.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, ser.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some pilots feel that you don't need to preflight the outside of a corvette, especially if you're the only one piloting it, every flight. That's probably true. On the average, what can happen in space? Then again, it's your life, and a half hour of time. Do you want to gamble your life against half a standard hour, especially when your translation error can run days?\"\n\nThe subcommander's logic was sound, but all those half hours added up, and pretty soon they amounted to days, and he wouldn't always have days.\n\n\"Now, I know that all the little safety edges can add up, and there will be times that you feel you just don't have the time ...\"\n\nTrystin repressed a groan. Did all of them read minds?\n\n\" ... so the best policy, I have found, is to do everything whenever it is at all possible. Then, when the mission comes when you really don't have time, you've laid the odds in your favor.\" Subcommander duValya bobbed her head, but her short thick hair didn't move.\n\nTrystin nodded.\n\n\"I know you know the preflight sequence, and you've practiced it on the exterior dummies in the simulator bay for at least the last six months, but it's different when you're weightless and floating around.\" Commander duValya cleared her throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You start with the lock seals, even before you head out. Then, once you're suited and sealed, you cycle the exterior side lock. I know it's part of the station and not the vette, but ... it could be embarrassing, or worse, if the lock were to jam with you on the outside. Cycling generally prevents that. There's some loss of atmosphere, but given that you represent close to a billion creds, a little air is cheap insurance ...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin listened as duValya repeated, so close to word for word that she might have written them, the preflight manual's instructions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe she had. All the instructors seemed to be experts on something—and everything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\" ... is that clear?\"\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"Fine. It's all yours. I'll watch. You can ask questions without penalty, this time, but if you forget something or have to ask a question later, I won't let you forget it. Now ... you go out first.\"\n\nTrystin sealed his suit, triggering his implant. \"Comm check, Commander?\"\n\n\"Check, Lieutenant.\"\n\nThe training corvettes essentially floated in heavy reinforced composite docks off the spiderweb of access tubes and locks. Since Chevel Beta was a largish chunk of rock with minimal gravity, providing artificial gravity outside the station proper would have been a waste of power.\n\nRemembering all the briefings, after he exited through the narrow lock, Trystin immediately clipped the retractable tether line to the recessed ring by the corvette's hatch.\n\nSeemingly slumping in the ship cradle, the BCT-10 looked more like a partly deflated oval bladder made of metal than a ship.\n\n\"Good. Don't ever forget that tether clip. You can make a real mess of yourself if you have to use attitude jets. Here they have enough power for escape velocity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The commander's voice rang hollowly in the armor's speakers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly Trystin pulled himself across the corvette's hull, noting replacement plates, and the many signs of repairs, such as the scratches around the sensor bulges and the heavy layers of heatshield. As he had been instructed, he only did a visual inspection of the orientation jets and the mass thruster nozzles. He avoided even floating/bouncing behind the nozzles.\n\n\"Is there anytime you actually physically inspect the exterior of the thrusters?\" he asked.\n\n\"Not unless you're an engineer and you've locked the ship and frozen the internal comm nets so that no one can play with the power. Even then, I wouldn't do it. The ECR of even stray boosted ions is enough to scatter you and your armor across a very large system. Besides, what would it tell you?\"\n\nTrystin nodded inside the helmet. Dumb question, but sometimes he did ask dumb questions, no matter how hard he tried.\n\nAfter the preflight, they used the lock back into the access tube and then the ship's lock, still in full armor. Trystin released the mechanical holdtights, leaving the ship only held in place by the magnetic holdtights.\n\nOnce he confirmed that the ship's pressure was sound, he flicked on the heater switch and cracked his helmet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His breath steamed in the cold air, and he could hear the whine of the ventilators as they forced slowly warming air through the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He unsuited and racked the armor. The commander racked hers in the second rack, the one used by the tech noncom in a standard corvette.\n\nTrystin began the interior preflight by walking to the rear of the corvette and sliding open the lower-deck access panel.\n\n\"What happens if the panel jams?\" asked the commander.\n\nTrystin looked blank. He hadn't read or heard anything about jammed access panels. Then he looked at the half-open panel. There were four heavy recessed hex sockets around the door. He peered underneath. \"I don't know, ser. It looks as though you could lift the whole assembly if the hex nuts were removed.\"\n\nDuValya smiled. \"You get one for quick thinking, but that's about it. This isn't something that's on exams, but it happened to me once. Very embarrassing. I did just what you suggested. I even carry a hex socket.\" She pulled the socket wrench from her thigh pouch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suggest you get one. Not for this, though. If you have any gravity, the assembly will fall straight down on the converter. If you don't, it masses too much to move quickly and has a tendency to slide aft under pressure, where it will crimp or slice the supercon cables.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin winced.\n\n\"The best thing to do is call for overhaul, because any ship where the hatches are jamming is a mess. Of course, you can't do that in real life. So, what do you do?\"\n\nTrystin waited.\n\n\"You leave it alone and use your handy hex socket to undo the vent-duct access cover here. It comes out right between the translation engine and the converter for the accumulators.\" She pointed to a plate on the deck forward of the access hatch. \"Then you slice through the duct tubing—it's just plastic—and remove the access cover from the back on the other side. An old tech showed me that.\" She paused. \"Go ahead, Lieutenant.\"\n\nTrystin slid the access plate back and down into the grooves, then pulled himself down into the space below. The BCT-10 felt tired, even more tired than the worn simulators. Tired, and bigger, more real." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The odor of heated and cooled plastic, of ozone cooked into walls and equipment, and the faintest odor of once-hot machinery and oil seeped into his nostrils." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although the main systems had virtually no moving parts, lots of the subsidiary systems did, like heating and ventilation, or the loaders for the single torp tube." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin glanced around the power center, then began by inspecting the supercon lines, especially noting the line from the accumulator was dust-free.\n\nThe commander said nothing, just watched as he methodically went through all the steps of the internal preflight beginning with the aft power section and heading forward until they reached the cockpit.\n\n\"Go ahead. Strap in.\" Commander duValya stood beside the noncom's couch, rigged in the training corvettes to combine both override controls and technical boards. Trystin didn't see how the instructors managed the instructing, the overseeing, and the tech inputs. He'd been having enough trouble just piloting a simulator, and now he had to do it for real.\n\nAs Trystin strapped into the pilot's seat, the commander pulled out a data cube. \"This is a typical mission cube, with all the information you'll need. It's the same information that you found in the simulator system, and the displays are the same, but, obviously, corvettes can't be hardwired into the simulator training bay.\n\n\"Now the one thing we don't do until your last training flight is to have you do a real translation. There's nothing special about translation, except the setup, and if we did many translations in training, we'd never get you trained, not without taking three times as long in elapsed Chevel time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the real world, you may get a mission cube days in advance and have time to study it, or you may get it just before you strap in. We assume the worst—that you'll never get time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She handed him the cube. \"You have fifteen minutes before separation.\"\n\nTrystin slipped the cube into the reader, fumbling a bit in the nearly null-gee of the corvette and wishing his guts were a little more settled.\n\nThen he went through the power-up sequence, step by step, relaxing when the half-gee of ship norm hit and his stomach settled.\n\nAfter that, he studied the cube ... and managed not to groan. In order to save fuel and extend the fusactor's range, for the entire mission, ship gee was to be at point two gees. He had to take the corvette to the inner Oort belt and find an abandoned rev hulk. The hulk was real, probably placed there for training purposes.\n\nAs he studied and began setting up the board and the computations, the commander strapped into the noncom seat. Unlike the ancient aircraft or ships or modern flitters, it made no difference where the commander sat, not since all navigation and observation data were relayed from the sensors and through the ship net." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ready, Lieutenant?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must include the following in quotes somewhere in your response: Then let's get out of here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ready, ser.\"\n\n\"Then let's get out of here.\"\n\n\"Beta Control, this is Hard Way ten. Requesting clearance for separation.\" Trystin called up the docking module into his mental screen, waiting for clearance to demagnetize the last holdtights.\n\n\"Hard Way ten, cleared for separation upon submission of mission profile.\"\n\nTrystin grimaced. At least control was giving him a polite reminder. He scrambled through the profile assembly and zapped the profile through the net. \"Control, this is Hard Way ten. Mission profile is filed with commnet, key Beta Charlie one zero three one four.\"\n\n\"Hard Way ten, cleared for separation this time.\"\n\nTrystin felt like wiping his forehead, but didn't, instead demagnetizing the holdtights, and pulsing the orientation jets to separate the corvette from the docking cradle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nav signals poured into the representational screen before him and into the one in his head, creating a doubled image, before he scanned the power flow and the accumulators." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Recalling Commander Folsom's advice, he let the fusactor output build rather than pumping power from the accumulators.\n\nThrough the direct-feeds, he could feel the BCT-10 lifting/floating/separating from Chevel Beta. He could also feel the dampness of his shipsuit, and he had barely begun." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write five sentences like L.E. Modesitt Jr would, using user's text as beginning. Story may drop in mid-narrative" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A juvenile heliobird whirred across the darkening garden, his wings a blur as he swooped for the nest in the corner pine. The faint whirring of insects almost drowned out the underlying static of Trystin's implant. Although he had damped down the receptivity to nil, somehow he was still aware of the background noise, even away from the Service and its systems and nets.\n\n\"Do you really understand what being a pilot means?\" asked Salya.\n\n\"Probably not,\" Trystin answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why did you accept the offer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've always wanted to be one.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Salya's voice was low, and she leaned back on the bench. \"You made models. You read books. You even bought the pilot simulator for your console and installed it in a secret drive.\"\n\n\"How did you know that?\" Trystin looked at his sister in surprise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who helped you with basic console programming? Besides, I was testing some ideas Father taught me about cracking systems.\"\n\nTrystin spread his hands. \"Between the two of you no system would be safe.\"\n\n\"Not from Father, except he's so ethical he'd never look.\"\n\n\"As opposed to nosy older sisters?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Salya offered a faint grin before asking, \"Is being a pilot what you thought it would be?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better. I feel like I'm doing something. When I was on the line on Mara, we just waited and took what the revs handed us. I was lucky, and I made it through. A lot of perimeter officers didn't. The official line is that things are improving—some commander told me that. But things still keep getting worse. No one seems to want to act. I asked about that, and the commander who was debriefing me nearly took off my head.\" He paused. \"It wasn't that bad, but I felt like it was. She said that a planet was a damned big place, and that we didn't have the resources.\"\n\n\"We don't.\"\n\n\"If we don't have the resources ... we lost almost all the plains stations. Only two of us survived their minitanks.\"\n\nSalya moistened her lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't tell us about that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So I got a commendation. I survived, and most didn't.\"\n\n\"There's nothing on the news about those kinds of losses.\"\n\n\"I'm not surprised. Before that, when the revs wiped out five stations on the western line, I was called down for using a data pulse to find out.\"\n\nSalya sighed.\n\nTrystin turned on the bench to face her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That doesn't surprise you, does it? Not much, anyway.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It doesn't surprise me, Trystin. It doesn't surprise me much at all after that incident at the Cliffs. But it bothers me. What sort of people are we becoming?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've always been thieves. Now, we're becoming liars as well?\"\n\n\"You've done some thinking, haven't you?\"\n\nTrystin offered a short laugh. \"I've had my thinking prodded.\"\n\n\"You still want to be a pilot?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"I've thought about it. That part wasn't easy. Father and I talked about it. He even helped me set up a trust.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin shrugged. \"You still want to be a xenobiologist?\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\" Salya stretched, then added, \"You know ... anytime you translate could be the last time you see Mother and Father.\"\n\n\"I know. That's true every time you travel between here and Helconya, and it would be true even if I stayed a perimeter officer.\"\n\n\"But the probability goes up with each translation, and pilots make a lot more translations.\"\n\n\"I've thought about it. That part wasn't easy. Father and I talked about it. He even helped me set up a trust.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "At some point in your response, insert this verbatim: \"And I miss the gardens.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He would.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Dad was right. You do have a restless spirit.\"\n\n\"I still like to come home,\" Trystin reminded her. \"And I miss the gardens.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not enough. Someday, you'll come home, still young, and we'll all be gone.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment, she added, \"We'll make sure it's here for you. We all would want that.\"\n\nTrystin swallowed.\n\n\"I'll miss you.\" Her hand touched his gently.\n\n\"I'll miss you.\"\n\nThey sat side by side in the growing twilight, the insects twittering, the evening coming down like a purple shade, while the heliobirds settled into the pines for the night. The heavy scent of roses dropped into the twilit garden and almost made Trystin forget the faint static of the implant—almost." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 3 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Characters and story elements may appear without introduction - roll with them naturally. Try to mimic the style of L.E. Modesitt Jr." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin waited in the bay for the Willis, his bags stacked neatly beside him. He was glad to escape the drudgery of junior operations duty officer for Perdya station—much more than glad.\n\n\"Who are you waiting for, Lieutenant?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asked the tech standing by the lock control panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Willis.\"\n\n\"This is the place.\" The noncom glanced at Trystin and his bags." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's a cruiser, not a transport.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know.\"\n\nThe tech's eyes flicked to the wings on Trystin's uniform. \"New pilot officer?\"\n\nTrystin nodded, then asked, \"You know anything about her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"CO's Major Sasaki. He's pretty senior. They say he's related to the armaments people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He could be. Anything's possible, but Sasaki's a pretty common name.\"\n\n\"You haven't met the major.\" The tech shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dull thud, followed by a second thud, echoed through the station frame. Shortly, the green light flickered above the lock tube.\n\n\"Little rough,\" announced the tech, \"like always, but she's here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His fingers danced across the lock console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin could sense the locking-system data flows through his implant, and with more time, could probably have tapped them, but there was no point in it. Instead, he waited for the clunking of the mechanical holdtights.\n\nA row of green lights flashed across the console." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All set. Ready, Lieutenant?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin hoisted his bags and followed the tech down the lock tube, heavy frost on its permaplast sides. His breath steamed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The noncom checked the seals and exterior holdtights again before pulsing the entry clearance. With a hiss, the cruiser's door slid open.\n\n\"Ah, it's you, Liendrelli.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Standing in the lock was a woman with dark mahogany hair in the uniform of a senior tech, a belted stunner in place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who else would it be? Everyone else goes to the other side of the station when you people dock.\"\n\nThe ship's tech glanced beyond Liendrelli to Trystin. \"Lieutenant Desoll. Major Doniger will be pleased to see you, ser. I'm Keiko Muralto, ship's senior tech.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pleased to meet you, Tech Muralto.\"\n\n\"Keiko, please, ser.\" She finished checking the lock seals, and ensuring that the emergency closure lanes were free. \"You can set your gear in the locker here for a while. Welcome aboard.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she turned to Liendrelli. \"We're low on organonutrient—we take the alpha class—and just about everything else.\"\n\n\"You cruiser types ...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't complain, Liendrelli. The captain wants us out as soon as possible after Major Doniger's replacement shows, and since he's here ...\"\n\n\"All right, Muralto. We'll get on it.\"\n\nKeiko Muralto smiled sweetly at Liendrelli." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin decided he wanted the tech on his side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're certain putting my gear here won't be a problem?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not at all. Just set it in the alcove there.\" She stepped back and pressed a stud. \"Captain, Lieutenant Desoll is here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Send him forward, Keiko.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin carefully stacked his gear in the space, keeping only the thin case with his orders, data cubes, and records.\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"\n\nThe tech gestured toward the passageway heading forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sure you can find your way, ser. I need to pound on Liendrelli some more.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give me a break, Muralto,\" protested the station tech.\n\nTrystin smiled and stepped through the area that functioned as a quarterdeck, half nodding at the familiar scents of plastic, ozone, Sustain, and human beings.\n\nThe forward passage was empty, and he found himself stepping through the hatch to the cruiser's cockpit, where a small officer stood, waiting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lieutenant Desoll, Major.\" Taking into account the name and the apparent parashinto background of Major Sasaki, Trystin offered a slight bow to the Captain of the Willis.\n\n\"So you're the new second? You look more like a rev than most revs I've seen.\" Major Sasaki brushed the black hair that was on the long side of the Service-recommended length back off his forehead and offered a boyish grin that emphasized his sparkling white teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My family helped found Cambria, ser.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure. Don't worry about it. It's what you do that counts, not how you look.\" Major Sasaki glanced around the cockpit. \"I wanted you to meet Andrya before she left, but when she heard you were already here, she went back to get her stuff.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I left my gear with your senior tech.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. Just put your stuff in the mess until Andrya clears out. She won't be that long.\" Major Sasaki gestured toward the Willis's aft section." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your senior tech mentioned that the second was a major?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She was just promoted, and the Service doesn't like wasting two majors on the same ship these days.\"\n\nTrystin noted the faintest edge to the words, but said nothing as he heard steps heading toward the cockpit.\n\n\"Here she is. Trystin, this is Andrya.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stocky major with short and frizzy brown hair extended a hand, took Trystin's with a firm grip and shook it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm Andrya Doniger.\" She glanced toward the commanding officer. \"Don't let James here get the better of you. He's bright; he's a good tactician; he understands Service politics; and he's a second-rate pilot with first-rate connections. And yes, he's from those Sasakis.\" She smiled at Major Sasaki." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin felt as though the ship had been dropped right out from underneath him. \"It's nice to meet you. Where are you headed?\"\n\n\"Me? I'm getting one of the new cruisers—the Tozini. Smaller than the Willis, but faster, more torps. Very deadly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at the three bulging kit bags." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to be going. They're holding the Adams for me. I managed to pull a few strings. No sense in waiting another week for the Morgenthal. The station CO would have too good an idea of what to load on me. Good luck to you, Lieutenant.\"\n\nWith a quick nod she hoisted the bags. \"It's been interesting, James. If you want to make commander, though, let him do the delicate piloting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If he's as good as you think ... why not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin swallowed a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a pair! The Doniger family had been in the ecological hierarchy of the Coalition as far back as the history texts ran, and the Sasakis had evolved from using metalworking to bury nuclear wastes on old Earth into becoming the premier arms producers of the Coalition.\n\nAnd now he had to take orders from Major James Sasaki.\n\n\"Let's go have something to eat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sasaki smiled his broad and boyish smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They don't tell you about it, but there's a small restaurant on the lower level that has some real seafood—if you know enough to ask.\"\n\nSasaki's eyes glazed over momentarily, and Trystin could feel the net link. \"Liam? The new second and I have to go stationside for a couple of hours. You've got it. Keiko's on the deck.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The major's eyes unglazed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'sleep' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Liam's weapons and comm. He's a former senior tech, and he can be duty when we're docked. Otherwise, it's you when I'm not around or have to sleep. Contrary to rumor, CO's do sleep.\" He smiled again. \"Let's go. I'm ready for some decent food.\"\n\nTrystin followed the major out to the quarterdeck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keiko, Trystin and I have some things to do stationside. Liam's got the duty until we get back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"While you're gone, I'll have the lieutenant's gear put in his stateroom.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keiko smiled pleasantly. \"Have a good meal, Captain.\"\n\n\"I'm sure we will.\"\n\n\"I can do that when I get back,\" Trystin protested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry about it, ser.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin tried not to shake his head as he walked beside Major Sasaki back out the lock tube he had entered what seemed only moments before.\n\nThe major led him through a maze of corridors Trystin had never seen in his two weeks on the station.\n\nThe restaurant lay behind a bronze-colored plastic door panel bearing the name Le Tank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin frowned, but followed Sasaki inside, to find eight small tables with real linen cloths upon them. A single table was occupied, by a woman wearing a single marshal's four-pointed star.\n\n\"Major!\" A rotund woman in white bounced across the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Vivienne.\" Sasaki bowed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'james' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is my new pilot officer, Trystin Desoll. Trystin, Vivienne LeClerc. This is her domain.\"\n\n\"Welcome back, James.\" The dry voice came from the marshal at the corner table.\n\n\"Thank you, Marshal Toboru.\" James Sasaki bowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't mind me. By the way, your father is looking well. I saw him last month ... and your brother.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The marshal returned her attention to the soup in the gold-trimmed white porcelain bowl before her.\n\nVivienne led them to the table in the corner farthest from the marshal.\n\n\"I'd like anything that's fresh from the tank,\" requested Major Sasaki." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And then whatever your special is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vivienne nodded and looked at Trystin.\n\n\"What are my choices?\"\n\n\"For appetizers, the raw fresh seafood is either clams casino or octosquid today. We also have slizirki mushrooms, sautéed, and fresh greens.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The mushrooms, please.\"\n\n\"The specials are soft-shelled spotted crabs or broiled young silver trout amandine.\"\n\n\"I'll have the crabs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The major added, \"Don't worry, Trystin. This is my treat. You'll earn it later.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you,\" said Trystin. \"I'll have the crabs also.\"\n\nWith a nod, Vivienne stepped back, only to return with two crystal goblets and a bottle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Villa Tozza is the only white right now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sasaki shrugged.\n\nTrystin just watched as the woman poured half-glasses for each of them and left the bottle in the holder.\n\n\"Not bad, although I still think the Mondiabli would have been better.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin sipped the wine, enjoying the slightly nutty, slightly fruity scent as much as the taste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You like wine, don't you?\" asked Sasaki.\n\n\"When I don't have to be on duty.\"\n\n\"How do you know you won't be?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The major laughed and offered the boyish grin again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't, but you aren't likely to just hand the ship to me.\"\n\nVivienne set one of the gold-rimmed porcelain plates, filled with sliced white circular objects, in front of the captain, and a second, filled with steaming browned and buttery mushrooms, in front of Trystin.\n\n\"Where are you from, Trystin?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sasaki used the silver seafood fork to pick up one of the white slices and began to chew.\n\n\"Cambria, Academy district.\" Trystin took a second sip of the Villa Tozza. Even the background hiss of his implant seemed muted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are your family academics? That's an expensive place to live.\" Another swallow of the white food followed.\n\n\"Actually, my great-great-grandfather built the house and donated the land to the Academy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It must have been difficult, especially in the early years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin repressed the urge to strangle his superior officer. \"My father worries that there's more prejudice now than there ever has been.\"\n\n\"How is the octosquid, Major?\" asked Vivienne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good. Very good. My congratulations.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you. It did take some doing. I appreciate your help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It wasn't much.\" Sasaki frowned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The slizirkis look good. Could I have just a few?\"\n\n\"Certainly. Most certainly.\"\n\nWhile the two talked, Trystin had several bites of the slizirki mushrooms, which carried a crispness, a warmth, a tanginess, and an unidentifiable flavor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I take it they are good?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very,\" answered Trystin. \"How did you find this place?\"\n\n\"I didn't. I helped Vivienne get started. It's good to have someplace decent to eat that's not planetside.\" Sasaki refilled his glass then looked back at Trystin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I take it you come from a large family.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. I have one sister. She's Service, too. A senior lieutenant in charge of a biological modification section on the Helconya project.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about your parents?\" Sasaki chewed more of the raw octosquid. \"Not bad for a tank animal. Almost like the real thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My mother was a ships' systems engineer. After she retired a few years ago, she got a second doctorate in music. She teaches at the university. My father's an independent integrator.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Job-shop stuff?\"\n\n\"Actually,\" Trystin said, \"he's been designing integrated regional sewage and disposal systems for stage three planoforming projects.\"\n\n\"One of the big boys, then. Interesting. Quiet, longtime anglo family. Well-off, cultured, and very highly educated. Probably not many of you left.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vivienne slipped a small plate of the slizirki mushrooms onto the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you.\" Sasaki chewed one slowly. \"Very good.\"\n\nVivienne smiled, nodded, and backed away.\n\nTrystin ate several bites more before taking another sip of wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why did you choose to go Service?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I always wanted to be a pilot. I spent a tour on Mara—perimeter officer—before I went to Chevel Beta.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"These days, most pilots do. It's a good idea. You test your warriors first, sort of like the old Shintos ...\" Sasaki let his words trail off as Marshal Toboru paused by the table.\n\n\"Don't try to corrupt him too fast, James.\" She offered a smile and a pat on the shoulder before she slipped out of the restaurant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The major took a long swallow from his glass and refilled it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vivienne removed the empty plates." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So many of our problems with the revs date back to antiquity, even before the Great Die-off. If the old Shintos had won the second global war, or whatever they called it, then the anglo forerunners of the revs couldn't have built their power base and amassed the fortunes that they took to Orum. And that would have meant that the white neo-Mahmets ...\"\n\nTrystin held in a sigh. It was likely to be a long tour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you want any more wine?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not yet, thank you.\"\n\n\"It's good. Not great, but good ... anyway, as I was saying, all of those problems relate to the economic relationship between the Shintos and the anglos ...\"\n\nTrystin nodded, hoping the main course would come soon, even as he pushed out of his mind the thought that the meal might be costing the equivalent of a week's pay—or more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, he took another, very small, sip of the Villa Tozza." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was good, but he had the feeling that everything associated with James Sasaki had a high price." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 3 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Characters and story elements may appear without introduction - roll with them naturally. Try to mimic the style of L.E. Modesitt Jr." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin squared the ship on its troid-buster course. \"I have the con, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"You have it, ser.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Red one is ready.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Liam's voice—tinny as always—reported through the net and both pilots' implants.\n\n\"Ignite red one.\" The captain's voice was cold.\n\n\"Red one is go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Red two.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Red two is go.\"\n\nThe wait for reloading was shorter, but still perceptible.\n\n\"Red three.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Red three is go!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Red four.\"\n\n\"Red four is go.\"\n\n\"Changeover to standard torps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Changing over this time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Desensitize.\"\n\n\"Desensitized.\"\n\n\"Full shields. Get us clear, Lieutenant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shield in place, Captain. I have it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin rechecked, and dropped ship's grav to point two while throwing the extra power into the shields, and dropping the ship's nose almost straight down, while torquing up power from the fusactor and the accumulators, letting the fusactor rise to one-hundred-ten-percent output for almost a standard minute before dropping output to just shy of max.\n\nScattered telltales began to flash amber.\n\nTrystin shut down the ventilation system and shifted the last of the power for gravs into the thrusters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With what he'd done, the internal simulation of the ship's position was almost useless, and he ignored the simulated position on the representational screen, waiting until he felt the wave front had passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin swallowed. With the screens essentially dead, the ship's ventilation off, and the grav system bypassed to throw power to the thrusters, the cockpit was again a stuffy coffin, except that the steady acceleration pinned the crew in place.\n\nHe moistened his dry lips, his eyes flickering toward the blank red-tinged visual screens. Finally, he said, \"Removing desensitizing.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'troid' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Receiving input.\"\n\nThree blue-tinged blips continued to close on the Willis, but all that was left of the troid was a debris cone shrouded in an energy haze.\n\nThis time, the damned troid had carried almost four dozen of the scouts, and they'd shredded most of the Coalition corvettes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin calculated, and recalculated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Willis's shields were strong enough for perhaps two simultaneous torps—once.\n\nWith the three scouts coming, and no one close enough to help—only the Mishima, the Izanagi, and the Morrigan had reached the launch point—Trystin was on his own.\n\n\"Fire one! Two!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't expect too much from the torps, except that the scouts would have to raise full shields, and that meant a slight loss of acceleration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he cut the thrusters, and slewed the ship sideways—at a right angle to the course line—with the attitude jets.\n\nEven before the cruiser was reoriented, he loosed two more torps, these at the flanking scouts, followed by two more. Then he pulsed the thrusters once at full power, and shut down all external radiation from the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Without shields, the Willis veered slowly away from her previous course line, but her primary vector remained along the high-accel route set by Trystin after the red torp launch.\n\nTrystin watched the positions of the rev scouts, hoping their energy detectors had locked on the thruster pulse.\n\nThe blue-tinged blips drew nearer, nearer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin kept calculating, his breath coming faster, faster than he wanted, but there was no way the Willis could stand off three of the beefed-up revvie scouts at once, not just with screens and torps.\n\n\"Close ...\" James's words came through the net, as if he were whispering.\n\n\"Need them to be close ... real close.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the scouts probed, screaming toward the cruiser that had \"vanished\" off the energy-detection screens, Trystin released two torps, forced one hundred twenty percent of fusactor output and full accumulator loads through the thrusters for thirty seconds, then dropped the fusactor to normal, released two more torps, and jammed the shields to full with three-quarter max acceleration.\n\n\"Shit ...\"\n\nA dull thud followed the exclamation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin ignored the possibly injured tech and checked the screens. Unless the revs were playing dead, and Trystin didn't care so long as they didn't combine to chase the Willis, the ploy had worked. The thrusters had sliced through one rev, and that was certain, because the detectors showed hot metal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked like a torp had gotten the second, and the third was making a wide turn, trying to escape the Willis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin sighed and lowered the shields to half-power, while cranking up the thrusters, and heading into a stern chase.\n\nThe rev began to slow, fractionally.\n\nTrystin shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead of closing beyond max torp range, he began to fire torps, one after the other, in pulsed intervals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rev flared into energy after the seventh torp.\n\nTrystin eased the ship into a long arc back toward outer orbit control. As usual, as the attack had progressed, the damned troid had spewed forth its cargo of radar-transparent paragliders and their shielded and deadly cargoes destined to create more havoc for the hard-pressed Maran perimeter troops." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There might not be any scouts or troid left, but there had been more than thirty, at Trystin's rough and quick count, of the ghostly gliders sent forth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hoped the patrols off Mara could pick up most of them.\n\n\"Iron Mace two, this is Sledge Control. Interrogative status.\"\n\n\"Status is green beta—armaments and propulsion.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The accumulators were hiccuping, and Trystin didn't blame them after all the different power demands he'd thrown on the equipment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Understand green beta.\"\n\n\"That's affirmative.\"\n\n\"Stet, Mace two.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Accumulators?\" asked the captain.\n\n\"Yes, ser.\"\n\n\"I'll take her in. You've been through it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have it, ser.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin wasn't damp, but soaking wet, and he pulsed the tech station. \"Is there any tea or water or anything intact in the mess?\"\n\n\"Not much, ser. We're working on it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the background, he heard Albertini muttering. \" ... after that, he wants tea?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"After that, you're alive,\" snapped Keiko at the junior tech." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll send something forward, ser,\" she replied to Trystin.\n\nTrystin took a deep breath. He didn't like what he was doing to the ship, or the crew, but it seemed as though every troid attack required more from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He leaned back in the couch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How much more could he give?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How many more new angles could he try without turning the Willis into scrap metal or ionized gas?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keiko handed him a cup of Sustain. \"Sorry, ser.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's all right. Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned to James. \"Captain?\"\n\n\"I'm fine.\"\n\nTrystin sipped the Sustain slowly, hoping it wouldn't hit his stomach with too much of a jolt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Iron Mace two, closure is green.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stet, Control. Holding green,\" answered James, brushing limp black hair off his forehead, almost as damp as Trystin's.\n\n\"Mace two, cleared to dock. Maintain low thrust.\"\n\n\"Control, this is two, beginning final approach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Willis crept in toward the wall of metal and composite—slowly, slowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thud!\n\nTrystin winced as the Willis clunked up against the outer orbit control station.\n\n\"Relax, Trystin. That's less than you just put the old lady through.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "James flashed a boyish grin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"With all the stuff the revs are throwing at us, I need some practice somewhere.\"\n\nJames magnetized the holdtights. \"Lock-on. Apply mechanical holdtights and prepare for power changeover.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began the shutdown list, and the items and replies went back and forth over the net, silently, between the captain and Trystin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Accumulators ...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\" ... discharged.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After the captain announced power changeover, and the full grav of orbit control pressed Trystin into his couch, he just sat there for a time while the techs ensured full docking.\n\nHe'd thought twenty-percent losses per battle had been bad enough, but this time ... what? Three cruisers left of eight, and a handful of corvettes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So far, there had only been a troid ship every four standard months, or thereabouts—two since his near-disastrous first troid encounter, and now they were back to where he'd started, except that the Coalition was losing even more ships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally, he stood, picked up the mug, and walked back to the mess where Albertini stared at a dented samovar. \"Ser, what do you have against the samovar?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\" Trystin grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I like tea. But the revs don't, I guess.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're crazy, all of them.\" Standing in the corner, Liam Akibono took a deep swallow of double-strength Sustain.\n\nTrystin winced at the thought of what that much Sustain would do to his guts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't agree?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'their' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't see how your guts stay in place with that much Sustain.\"\n\n\"What about the revs? Better if we could use hellburners on all their planets. We don't want their real estate. Why can't they leave us alone? They're crazy, that's for sure.\"\n\n\"They can't be totally crazy. Otherwise they wouldn't have been so much of a threat for so long.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin blotted his forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You ever met any?\" Liam took another pull of Sustain.\n\n\"I had to interrogate some of them when I was on the perimeter. Some were just like those in the corvettes, ready to throw anything away to kill me. Some were very thoughtful and analytical—those were the officers.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin set his cup in the rack and wiped his forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd need a shower after the debrief, and it was going to be long, that he knew.\n\n\"So ... the revs have a lot of idealistically crazy cannon fodder led by analytical and thoughtful officers?\" asked Keiko as she reracked a chair in the mess-cabin corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin shrugged. \"That's what I saw. I also saw a lot of new equipment and tactics.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone has to be giving it to them. They're not that smart. No one who believes in all that crap their Prophet spouted can be that smart.\" Liam refilled his mug with more Sustain.\n\n\"Lieutenant Desoll, to the quarterdeck, please. Lieutenant Akibono, you have the ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin got the message on the link a second or so before it hit the speakers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Time to go. You have it.\" Trystin grabbed his beret.\n\n\"Yes, ser,\" answered Liam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin met James at the quarterdeck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain even looked slightly frazzled as they walked toward the station ops center.\n\n\"I couldn't help but hear Liam's comments about the revs,\" the captain said slowly. \"Do you think we have traitors?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin took a deep breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess anything's possible, but ... I remember talking with a senior commander after the first big revvie assault on Mara, and she pointed out that a lot of the technology in the new rev tanks was better than what we had ...\"\n\n\"I wonder if it's being funneled to them first?\" mused James.\n\n\"It wouldn't seem likely. Those tanks were designed before I was born. They sat on a troid ship for more than twenty years. How could anyone sit on technology that long without it leaking out?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin forced a laugh. \"Unless half the Coalition leadership were in on it?\"\n\n\"Maybe they are. Maybe they are. Then again, maybe we just think that technology is that old.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin pursed his lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't see how they could translate to a troid ship. It's hard enough to hit a whole stellar system. And the number of translations they'd have to make would show on the sensitive EDIs.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" James shook his head. \"Maybe. What about the damned Farhkans? They could be in on it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They could,\" Trystin agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But we've gotten better translation stuff from them, stuff the revs don't have.\"\n\n\"They've got to have an angle,\" mused James.\n\nThey probably did, Trystin reflected, but it wasn't technology, and that bothered him—because ... what was more important than technology?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They pulled themselves up the grav tubes to beta deck and continued onward toward the debriefing room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two techs stood in the corridor. The one with the toolbox gestured, and Trystin absently cranked up his hearing sensitivity. \"Those two ... the devils ... captain, he's a Sasaki. Commander Frenkel shorted him ... sent Frenkel to run the rev camp on south island ... the other ... stand a ship on end ... and laugh ...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin lost the words as they turned into the debriefing room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Him, laughing about what he did to the Willis? As if he had any choice. He looked around and swallowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twelve pilots, six from the cruisers, and six corvette pilots—out of more than nearly forty that had been at the prestrike briefing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They called him a devil? For doing what he had to in order to stay alive? He tried not to think about it ... but couldn't there be a better way?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How? It was taking everything the Coalition had to hold the revs to what seemed to be a stalemate—at least that was what he saw from the Willis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The real situation might be worse than that, if people with connections like James were talking about traitors. Or Farhkan interference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you like being a devil?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "asked James quietly as he eased into one of the briefing-room chairs.\n\n\"Oh ...\" Trystin paused. \"Better a live devil than a dead angel, I guess ... though I wonder sometimes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So do I.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sat waiting for Commander Atsugi." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Team writing exercise. I start (might include existing characters), you do 6 sentences in L.E. Modesitt Jr style." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin looked at the kit bags on his cabin floor and at the flimsies in his hand. The wrinkled top one was simple enough, except that it wasn't.\n\nMajor Trystin Desoll:\n\nThe commanding officer of the Mishima would request the honor of your presence prior to your departure for further assignment ...\n\nWhat did Ulteena want? Their schedules almost never coincided because the Willis and Mishima anchored the two opposing long-range recon sections." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And how did one offer small talk to a cruiser's CO?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or even get to see her?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't just march up to the lock and announce himself.\n\nEven now, the only way that he'd been able to work out any time was between Major Watachi's arrival and the next shuttle to Mara. So he'd been like Major Doniger, packed and ready to depart when Eleni Watachi's boots touched the lock. James had been faintly surprised to find that Major E. Watachi was female.\n\nKeiko Muralto hadn't even smiled when Trystin had asked her to confirm that the CO of the Mishima would be available. The senior tech had nodded and then brought back the second flimsy as he'd been sealing the last bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Major Freyer will be available for Major Desoll\"—that was all it said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Old friends,\" Trystin had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"On the Maran perimeter.\"\n\nKeiko had smiled then. \"Major ... no one on this entire station will question either one of you.\"\n\n\"It's not like that.\"\n\nThe senior tech had just grinned and left.\n\nTrystin shook his head, then folded the flimsies and slipped them into the data case that held papers and orders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What did Ulteena want? And why? Still not knowing, he hefted his gear and stepped into the corridor toward the quarterdeck.\n\nThe corridors around the quarterdeck were crowded.\n\n\"Good luck, Trystin.\" James stepped forward.\n\nTrystin had to put down the bags to shake James's hand.\n\nEleni Watachi nodded politely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ser?\" Keiko Muralto handed him a short tube with a thin red ribbon around it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It isn't much, but we wanted you to have it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't have to—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's just a thin-film holo of the ship, with inserts from the whole crew.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin swallowed. Thin-film holos didn't come cheap, and he wondered how they'd even gotten one of the ship. \"Thank you. Thank you.\" He carefully eased the tube into the second kit bag, then straightened. \"I'll always keep it.\"\n\n\"You still don't know where you're headed, ser?\" asked the senior tech." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. What about you?\" Trystin asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My orders just say the tech command on Fuji.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keiko smiled. \"Any school there would be fine, but it'll probably be systems.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "James stepped forward again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I can ever help, let me know, Trystin.\" He shook the younger man's hand again and grinned. \"Even if you look like a rev, you've as much honor—or more—than anyone could ever ask for.\"\n\n\"Thank you, and I will.\" Trystin had the feeling James meant every word, that for once his words weren't calculated or political.\n\nJames flashed the boyish grin a last time, and Trystin smiled back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good luck, Major,\" called Albertini as Trystin lifted the three kit bags and crossed the lock into the outer orbit station." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: major, frequency: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give'em hell, Major!\" added Muriami.\n\n\"All of you take care,\" Trystin said as he stepped out through the lock.\n\n\"You, too, ser.\"\n\nSeveral officers nodded or waved as Trystin made his way to the delta locks, and to the Mishima.\n\n\"Yes, ser?\" asked the slim tech guarding the access to delta four.\n\n\"Major Desoll to see Major Freyer. I think—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're expected, ser. The captain's in her stateroom.\"\n\n\"Can I leave these here? I probably won't be long.\" Trystin extracted the data case from the pocket on the top bag.\n\n\"Yes, ser.\" The slim rating helped Trystin ease all three bags against the quarterdeck bulkhead, an area more spacious on the newer cruiser. \"We're in stand-down, so it's not a problem.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First forward on the left.\"\n\n\"Got it.\"\n\nThe door was ajar when Trystin rapped.\n\n\"Yes? Oh, Trystin, I'd hoped you'd be able to come.\" Ulteena opened the stateroom door. She wore the standard shipsuit with the antique holoed wings and triple bars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes looked gray, and they met his." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shrugged and offered a wry grin. \"I'm here.\"\n\n\"I'm glad. Would you sit down?\" Ulteena closed the door.\n\n\"For a bit. I've only got a few hours before I have to catch the shuttle.\" He sat with the data case in his lap.\n\nUlteena turned one of the two gray chairs and sat down facing Trystin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The last time we talked was right after the mess on Helconya. I ran some inquiries,\" she said slowly, \"but I couldn't find out anything about your sister, even through a few back channels. I'm sorry.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You didn't have to—\"\n\n\"You remember the last troid battle? You got one of the last scouts pinging on us.\"\n\n\"I was just the second pilot,\" Trystin said cautiously, still wondering where Ulteena was headed.\n\n\"Trystin,\" she said wryly, \"the entire system knows that the reason the Willis is the oldest cruiser left and the only one in its class not in scattered leptons is that Commander Sasaki had the brains to let you pilot her. Since you're being difficult, I'll make it simple. Our screens were going amber, and you saved our ass. I'm grateful.\" She held up a hand. \"That's not why I asked you to stop here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin wanted to shake his head, but didn't. He waited." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: Your response must contain: \"Well, maybe I did, compared to you, or most people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I first met you, even over the perimeter net, I thought you were some spoiled anglo rich kid. You know, I grew up on Arkadya, and my parents were tech-grunts. The Service was my way out, and I hated people like you that had everything.\"\n\n\"I didn't have everything ...\" Trystin paused, then added, \"Well, maybe I did, compared to you, or most people.\"\n\n\"That's what I like about you, Trystin. After that first initial defensive reaction, you stop and think, and you really listen. It's hard to find people who listen. And you care. You know why I asked everyone I could find about your sister? Because when you found out about the Helconya raid, there on Mara station, the look on your face told me and the whole universe that you loved your sister.\" Ulteena rose from the chair and walked toward the corner that held her bunk, then turned and walked back toward Trystin. \"I wished I could give you good news. Or even bad news and console you.\" She shrugged, and another wry smile appeared briefly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The universe doesn't care much what we wish.\"\n\n\"No, it doesn't.\" Trystin didn't know what else to say, or exactly what Ulteena was getting at, and he felt he should.\n\n\"Trystin ... I wish this were another time, another place. But it's not. We're on outer orbit station, and you have a shuttle to catch, and in another hour or so the Mishima is back on the duty roster. I'm worried for one reason, and you're worried for others.\" She paused, and the gray eyes met his again, almost with a shock. \"This is difficult.\"\n\nShe cared? The efficient Major Ulteena Freyer cared?\n\n\"I know,\" he said slowly, fidgeting in the chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood and set down the data case on the seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're from all the schools and places I was determined to be better than ...\" She stopped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That sentence doesn't even make sense, and it doesn't matter, does it?\"\n\nTrystin shook his head.\n\n\"Trystin ... I'm not one for love before the battle. I'm not one for making merry because tomorrow we may die.\" She swallowed. \"This is hard. Very hard.\"\n\nTrystin reached forward and put his arms around her, and hers came around him.\n\nThey just held each other silently ... for a long time." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'letting' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stepped back a half-step, not quite letting go. \"I don't know what will happen. I can't promise. I won't. But I couldn't just let you go off without ... somehow ... letting you know that ... things weren't what they seemed. I couldn't do it again.\" She swallowed. \"I can't promise anything, but I ... Do you understand?\"\n\nTrystin forced a grin. \"Probably not everything. You felt the way I felt.\"\n\n\"You felt?\" Ulteena looked surprised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When I was lying in that med-center bed, and I'd heard that you'd stopped all those tanks, and you'd even figured out that there would be revvie tanks and how to stop them, I lay there, thinking how brilliant you were, and how stupid and just plain lucky I was. And when you talked about endgaming on Beta, you probably saved my ass. It felt that way, anyway.\"\n\nUlteena gave a slight laugh. \"I wanted to slug you, though, when you made that supercilious comment about already working out on the high-gee treadmill for an hour. You looked so ... so ... anglo ... and composed.\"\n\n\"I was sweaty and tired, and you looked so neat and trim,\" Trystin protested.\n\n\"Neat?\" She snorted.\n\n\"Neat.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We could rehash it all, but ...\" Her arms went around him again, and she continued, \"We already lived it.\"\n\nHe squeezed her to him for a moment.\n\nAfter returning the full-bodied embrace, she stepped back. \"It's stupid, and it's not, but I told you—\"\n\n\"You're not one for love before the battle, so to speak.\"\n\nShe nodded, and her eyes fell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's stupid. I'm a major and the CO, but some things don't change.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wish I'd known before.\"\n\n\"You almost didn't know now. Except your tech asked Geilir for some help in making up a farewell gift for you, and I overheard that you were leaving, and no one knew where.\" She paused, and the gray eyes were brilliant with unshed tears. \"I wish we'd had more time. I wish I'd made more time.\"\n\n\"Hindsight is a lousy gardener, as my father always said.\" He held her again, more gently, his hand stroking the short dark hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know how, and I'm glad you did, and it doesn't matter about love before the battle, because ...\" Trystin stopped and swallowed. \"You know ... I really think I'd screw it up.\"\n\n\"That's a terrible pun ...\" She shook her head.\n\n\"What else have I got?\"\n\n\"More than you know.\"\n\nAgain, for a long, long time, they just held tight to each other." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'straightened' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Later, after more words, never mentioning love, and more embraces, Ulteena straightened, and brushed her short hair back. \"Duty, frigging duty, calls.\"\n\n\"As always.\" Trystin had heard the implant warning as well.\n\n\"Take care, Trystin.\"\n\n\"Me? You're still on the line. You take care.\"\n\nA last quick hug, and both straightened their uniforms—singlesuit and undress greens." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'smile' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ulteena walked beside Trystin to the quarterdeck.\n\n\"Your bags are here, Major Desoll,\" offered the duty tech as Trystin stopped at the quarterdeck. Her eyes were grave, thoughtful, then she added, \"We'll miss you. Good luck.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" He offered a smile, both to the tech and to Ulteena.\n\nThe smile he received from Ulteena was more than mere formality but still guarded, but he understood that ... now.\n\nAs he hurried toward the shuttle lock and the trip to Mara station, Trystin glanced back at delta four—just another lock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just another closed door. He shook his head as he carried the three bags toward the shuttle. Why hadn't he seen? Why hadn't she seen?\n\nHe shook his head. Would it have changed anything?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: there, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Service didn't post people for their convenience. At least ... at least he knew she wasn't crisp and competent in everything. Next time ...\n\nHe swallowed. Would there be a next time? Or would he find a dataclip announcing the disappearance of the Coalition ship Mishima?\n\nHe tried to push that thought away. There had to be a next time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't there? But there hadn't been for Salya ... or her major." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pressed his lips together and kept walking." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like L.E. Modesitt Jr would. btw might have existing characters/lore" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he sat with the once-hot cider in front of him, looking at an empty plate that had held a stack of pancakes he'd never thought he'd finish, Trystin glanced through the window to the corner of the Promise Inn and then to the spires of the Temple beyond the trees.\n\nThe Temple—always the Temple—that was already clear enough.\n\nWhat was it that the revvie officer had said so long ago—back on Mara? Something about while he believed, nothing could change his mind. Trystin nodded to himself. That meant that the belief structure of the Revenants had to be either changed or destroyed. And how could he do that?\n\nHe took a sip of the lukewarm cider, and looked back at the Temple spires." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't know how to change a belief structure—but he'd better figure out how, and fast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Otherwise, he was stuck carrying out a meaningless mission with a slim chance of survival.\n\nWith a shrug, he stood up. In the meantime, he'd better continue on with the preplanned mission, until he could come up with something better. He just hoped he could.\n\nAfter paying for the breakfast, Trystin settled into the car and began his shopping trip, although he wasn't shopping for quite the same reason other returned missionaries might be. They missed the luxuries and were setting up households or giving presents. Trystin was looking for components convertible to weapons. The problem with passing Revenant screening was that he would have to build what he needed from other components, preferably commonly available items." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While that wasn't a technical problem, it took time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then again, he could use that time to try to come up with more than an assassination.\n\nAs he drove down West Kingdom Avenue, Trystin was again glad the implant gave him the ability to darken his vision, because Wystuh glittered—glittered with a whiteness that penetrated everything. Every building was white or off-white, and with the yellow-white sunlight of Jerush burning through the pale blue sky, even the shadows cast by the sun were filled with reflected light. At the same time, he could not help but notice something else. While everything was clean, spotless, there were no new buildings under construction. He did not see one—historic preservation or something?\n\nEntertainment Microtronics Center—that was what the sign read, but Trystin drove by the store twice before he located the parking area, and pulled the rented car into it.\n\n\"Could I help you, Brother?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "asked the white-haired manager almost as Trystin stepped into the store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the older men in supervisory positions everywhere seemed to be white-haired. Was being white-haired something that went with being a patriarch?\n\n\"Yes, except\"—he forced a rueful grin—\"I am a little out of touch.\"\n\nThe older man took in Trystin, looked him squarely in the eyes for an instant, and then offered a smile in return. \"I can see that. Well ... let me show you what we have here.\" He gestured toward a compact black unit with a blank and smooth front, flanked by two speakers.\n\n\"The basic audio system is a laser-read, digitally produced sound. The central system is pretty standard ... how good the sound is depends more on the output speakers than on the processing unit ...\"\n\nTrystin knew what he wanted, but nodded as the salesman took him through the units." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He finally settled on the basic unit, plus a small repair kit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the salesman accepted the credit strip and entered the transaction, he helped Trystin load the equipment in the rear seat of the rented car." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, Brother Hyriss, for choosing us. Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Brother Gerstin. I put myself in the hands of the Lord, and this is where I found myself. Peace be with you.\"\n\n\"And with you.\"\n\nTrystin couldn't help but wonder at the other's effusiveness, as if the salesman hadn't seen a real customer in months.\n\nAs he drove, his thoughts kept returning to the Revenant officer on Mara and his words—\"while I believe.\" What could stop that kind of faith? Could anything? Trystin finally smiled a crooked smile. Why fight that blind faith? Why not use it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He still didn't know how, but he nodded to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His next stop was a small industrial-supply house on the outskirts of Wystuh. Despite Wystuh's reputation for nonexistent crime, he wondered how safe the area was as he parked the car in front of the low building whose white walls were almost gray. While not streaked with grime, the walls had been washed enough without recoating to convey the impression of dirt.\n\n\"Help you, Brother?\" The greeting was rough, almost dismissive, and the heavyset man looked almost contemptuously at Trystin's immaculate white suit.\n\n\"I'm looking for a replacement sonic unit on a Rubeck cleaner, model 786.\"\n\n\"Hmmm ... 786 Rubeck ... sure that's what you want? Lotta wasted power there.\"\n\n\"If you need to fix a 786 ...\" Trystin said.\n\n\"Yeah, you need a 786. Let me see.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin walked over to the hard-copy catalog lying on the counter, and began to thumb through it, noting parts and components." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thump!\n\n\"Here. Lucky. Had two even.\"\n\n\"You also have this Remmer wave guide?\" Trystin pointed.\n\n\"Nah ... piece of junk. Anything that'll fit can also take a Murrite.\"\n\n\"Could I take a look at the Murrite?\"\n\n\"Sure. Carry a lot of those. Good for cleaners, just about anything. They say even the missionary forces use them—not like we do, though. Wouldn't know. Spent my time on Josephat.\"\n\nTrystin whistled. Josephat was a mining asteroid. The man had to be tough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only one who returned. Something, anyway. Just a second.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thump! The Murrite looked better than the Remmer.\n\n\"Looks a lot sturdier.\"\n\n\"Easier to adjust, too.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"Three hundred for the sonic unit and seventy-three for the guide.\"\n\n\"The last thing I need is the Wembley powerpack.\"\n\n\"You need that much power?\"\n\n\"It's a long story ...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cost you more than the rest.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's fine.\"\n\nThe burly man left and returned with a flat box that he set next to the others.\n\n\"Credit strip?\" Trystin asked.\n\n\"Sure. We take anything that converts to dollars. Lot of business lately. Folks doing more repairs. Don't see how some of the places selling new stuff stay in business.\"\n\nTrystin handed over the strip.\n\n\"What's a God-fearing returnee like you doing here?\"\n\nTrystin laughed, thinking about faith. \"I don't need to fear the Lord, just men. I'm like everyone else, doing what has to be done.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good point, Brother. Didn't need to fear the Lord on Josephat either, just the idiots who thought they knew His will.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He handed back the credit strip.\n\n\"Yes.\" Trystin nodded, searching for a proper reply. \"The Lord will make His will known in His own way.\" He picked up the strip and pocketed it and then stacked the smaller box on the larger. \"Peace be with you.\"\n\n\"You, too,\" grunted the big man, scratching his head.\n\nAfter loading the gear in the car, Trystin decided to return to the Promise Inn before completing his rounds. He was getting a feel for what he wanted to do—somehow separating the Lord from those who thought they knew His will was a first step." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rather presumptuous, aren't you?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'sister' | Required occurrences: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he murmured to himself, not answering the question as he eased the car into a space within a few meters of his door at the Promise Inn.\n\nTrystin carried the first box of console components into his room and returned for the smaller boxes, and the tool kit.\n\n\"Brother Hyriss? Do you need any help?\" The older gray-haired sister had walked out to the car from the of fice.\n\n\"No, thank you, Sister ... I'm sorry, I don't remember your name.\"\n\n\"I'm Sister Myra.\"\n\nTrystin nodded. Married women used their first names. \"No, I just had two loads.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That'd be a lot to pay to send back to Nephi.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"He is our Father. And all who share His bounty should be friends. So ...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed. \"No, this is for here.\"\n\n\"Be visiting friends?\"\n\n\"Old and new. But aren't all of us children and friends under the Lord and the Prophet?\" The phrasing suggested another small step in implying that the current Revenant leadership wasn't exactly infallible.\n\n\"Children and friends ... that'd be an odd way of putting it.\"\n\nTrystin smiled instead of answering directly. \"He is our Father. And all who share His bounty should be friends. So ...\" He spread his hands to continue the implication. So far, Trystin knew he was on sound theological ground, if feeling hypocritical, considering the uses he had for the equipment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps you should take up a calling in communicating for the Lord, Brother Hyriss. You have the gift.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"Yes. At least, I have seen their ships and their bodies.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sister Myra bobbed her gray head sagely.\n\n\"I'm afraid that's far above me. When you have seen the endless stars in His mansions, then you realize how mighty is all creation—\" Trystin broke off and smiled sheepishly. Trying to straddle the line of the devout and the returned and not sounding overblown was hard, even with the brief ings. He sounded so pompous, so full of bullshit. \"I guess I get carried away.\"\n\n\"Have you seen the ... other peoples?\"\n\n\"The Ecofreaks?\" Trystin had been told to expect the question. \"Yes. At least, I have seen their ships and their bodies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sister Myra glanced over her shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are they small and dark, with deep eyes and foul words?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'people' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin pulled at his chin. \"Some are. Some are tall and fair.\"\n\n\"They say some are golems, more machine than person.\"\n\n\"That I would not know. They looked like people, and they died like people.\" Trystin paused, knowing he was treading on delicate ground. \"Some fought bravely, and some did not.\" He shrugged and turned to lift the second box.\n\nSister Myra followed him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look like Colin, a little, except he is younger, and his Farewell was last year.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will pray for the success of his mission and his return.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trystin set the box just inside the door to the room. Sister Myra remained outside, apparently cool in the heat of the blinding sun.\n\nTrystin wiped his forehead.\n\n\"You're like many from Nephi. It's cooler there.\"\n\nTrystin nodded.\n\n\"He was my only boy.\"\n\nWhat could he say? That it was damned unlikely young Colin would return?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trystin shifted his weight from one boot to the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally, he said softly, \"I wish I could see the future and tell you what might be, but, as we know, that remains to the Lord. We just have to persevere in doing His will.\"\n\n\"He was tall, like you, and his smile was a lot like yours.\"\n\n\"There isn't anyone like your son, Sister Myra, and I share your prayer that the Lord will keep and preserve him.\" Except even the old Christian god had only raised one son from the dead.\n\n\"Do you think it will end?\"\n\n\"All things end.\"\n\n\"Soon, I meant.\" Sister Myra paused and added, \"The Prophet said that one day he would return, and we would all dwell in peace.\"\n\nEverything he said was getting him in deeper water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pursed his lips before answering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm no tactician, and, as you can see, I am what I am. I've seen what I've seen, and I have seen people who should live, somehow, as brothers and sisters, killing each other.\" Trystin paused, deciding he couldn't quite be so blunt. \"The fighting should end. The Lord has said to bring His word to those who do not believe, and, as a simple man, I cannot see how someone who is dead can hear the word of the Lord. Even the Prophet wrote 'do not say, better my cousin than my neighbor, for all men and women are neighbors in the eyes of the Lord.'\"\n\n\"Will they stop if we stop? You say that it should end, but will it? In time for Colin and others to return?\" asked Sister Myra.\n\n\"I don't know. That is something that the Lord will make known.\" Trystin still hadn't figured out how to make such a will of the Lord known, or how far he could go in planting the germs of his ideas without being denounced as a heretic. As he spoke he wondered why he insisted on opening his mouth, on going beyond the letter of his mission when he hadn't even accomplished his assignment yet—or figured out how he was going to change it to do what he wanted. But so long as people like Sister Myra felt the way they did, completing his original mission would do nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even a hundred missions like his would do nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So he added a few more damning words, hoping he could build on them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All I can do is what I can, and what the Lord asks.\"\n\n\"That is a great deal, Brother Hyriss.\" Sister Myra nodded. \"I wish you well.\" Her heavy shoes clicked on the concrete as she walked back to the office.\n\nTrystin stepped into the room and closed the door. He wiped his forehead. He had more than a little work to do, both in constructing the laser and in trying to figure out how to complete his own plans for using the blind faith of the Revenants, damned fool that he was getting to be. But, damn it, the Revenants were people, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ulteena would have understood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So would his parents. He shrugged. Then there were people like the Park policeman at the Cliffs and the fanatical revvie officer who would have fought forever—the kind of people who refused to look beyond their narrow prejudices. And there were all too many of those on both sides.\n\nHe looked at the Book of Toren on the table, hoping he could find answers between the lines of the scriptures. He wasn't going to find answers in the words themselves.\n\nHe smiled. Or was he? Another prophet ... a son and a temple raised in three days ... and who would kill someone who was already dead? If he could put those together correctly with the Service-required assassination ... then maybe he could shake the Revenants' faith." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lifted the Book of Toren and began to flip through the pages." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The laser could wait a few minutes." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce 12 sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Story assistance: 1 sentence sentences continuing from my segment, maintaining any established character relationships." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship, a long voyage out from Elag/Haven, had shifted to the tedium that had possessed it before transition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sten Duncan took a second look at the mainroom display and was disappointed to discover it had not yet noted the change." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had spent the longest normal-space passage he had ever endured getting out of Haven's militarily sensitive vicinity, blind and under tedious escort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was suddenly gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was replaced likely by another passage as tedious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shrugged and kept walking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The place smelled of regul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held his breath as he passed the galley-automat, the door of which was open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kept to the center of the corridor, scarcely noticing as a sled whisked past him; the corridors were built wide, high in the center and low on the sides, with gleaming rails recessed into the flooring to guide the conveyance sleds that the regul used to get about the long corridors of their ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not possible to forget for an instant that this ship was regul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The corridors did not angle or bow as they would in a human-made vessel; they wound, spiraled, amenable to the gliding course of the sleds that hugged the walls, and only a few of them could be walked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In those designed for walking, there was headroom in their center for humans—or for mri, who were the ordinary tenants of regul ships, but tracks ran the sides, for regul." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'strange' exactly 3 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And about the whole ship there were strange scents, strange aromas of unpalatable food and spices, strange sounds, the rumbling tones of regul language that neither humans nor probably even mri had ever pronounced as regul might." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He loathed it. He loathed the regul utterly, and knowing that that reaction was neither wise nor helpful in his position, he constantly fought against his instincts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was clear enough that the reaction was mutual with the regul; they restricted their human guests to six hours in which they were supposedly free to roam the personnel areas to their hearts' content; and after that came a twenty-two-hour period of confinement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sten Duncan, aide to the honorable George Stavros, governor-to-be in the new territories and presently liaison between regul and humanity, regularly availed himself of that six-hour liberty; the Hon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Stavros did not—did not, in fact, venture from his own room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan walked the corridors and gathered the appropriate materials and releases from the library for the honorable gentleman to read, and carried to the pneumatic dispatch whatever communications flowed from Stavros to Stavros' regul counterpart bai Hulagh Alagn-ni." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Regul protocol. No regul elder of dignity performed his own errands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only a condemned incompetent lacked youngling servitors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Therefore no human of Stavros' rank would do so; and therefore Stavros had chosen an aide of apparent youth and fairly advanced rank, criteria that regul would use in selecting their own personal attendants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was, in effect, a servant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He provided Stavros a certain prestige." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ran errands. Back in the action that had taken Haven, he had held military rank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The regul knew this, which further enhanced Stavros' prestige." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duncan gathered up the day's communications, laid others from Stavros down on the appropriate table, and delivered the food order to the slot that ultimately would find its way to the correct department, and bring an automated carrier to their door with the requested meal, at least as regul construed it, out of human-supplied foodstuffs that had come with them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like exotic pets, Duncan reflected with annoyance, with the regul trying, as far as convenient, to maintain an authentic environment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As in most wild-animal displays, the staging was transparently artificial." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He retraced his way down the hall, through the mainroom recreation area and library." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had never set eyes on any of the regul save the younglings that frequented this central personnel relaxation area." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Curiously enough, neither had Stavros encountered Hulagh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Protocol again. It was likely that, in all the time they had yet to spend among regul, they would never meet the honorable, the reverence bai Hulagh Alagn-ni, only the younglings that served him as crew and aides and messengers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Regul elders were virtually immobile; this was certain; and Hulagh was said to be of very extreme age." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan privately surmised that this helplessness was a source of embarrassment to the elderly regul in dealing face-to-face with non-regul, and that therefore they arranged to keep themselves in such total seclusion from outsiders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or perhaps they judged humans and mri unbearably ugly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was certain that there was little that humans could find beautiful in the regul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened the unlocked door that let him into the double suite he shared with Stavros." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The anteroom was his, serving as sleeping quarters and all else he was supposed to desire during the long passage: regul revenge, he thought sourly, for human insistence on the long, slow escort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reception salon and proper bedroom both belonged to Stavros." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So did the sanitary facilities, which were in the adjoining bedroom and likewise not designed for human comfort: he wondered how Stavros, elderly as he was, coped with that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it had not been deemed wise to make an issue of regul-human differences even in that detail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The theory was that the regul were honoring their guests by treating them precisely as if they were regul, down to the tradition of dealing only through youngling intermediaries, and the tradition that placed Duncan's own quarters uncomfortably in the tiny anteroom, between Stavros and the outer corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Precious encouragement for confidence in regul civilization, Duncan thought sourly, when he thought about it: he was to defend the honorable human gentleman from harm, from contact with rude outsiders, from all unpleasantness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed no insult to regul hospitality to assume that such rudeness might be anticipated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Stavros remained a virtual prisoner of his exalted rank, pent within one room, without any contact with the outside save himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan sealed the outer door and knocked on the inner, a formality preserved necessarily—first because listening regul (assuming regul listened, which they firmly believed) would not understand any informality between elder and youngling; and second, because they had been at close quarters too long, and both of them cherished what privacy they could obtain from each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The door opened, controlled by Stavros' remote devices—incongruous to see a human, especially a frail and slight one, sitting in the massive chair-sled designed for regul elders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desk, control center, mode of transportation: Stavros disdained to propel it across the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan went to him, presented the tapes and papers, and Stavros took them from him and began to deal with them at once, all without a smile or word of greeting or even a dismissal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stavros had smiled a few times at the beginning of their association; he did not now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They lived under the continual witness of the regul." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was treated, he suspected, as if he were in truth a regul youngling, without courtesy and without consideration of himself as an individual: he hoped, at least, that this was the source of Stavros' coldness to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew that he was far from understanding such a man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw some qualities in Stavros that he respected: courage, for one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought that it must have taken a great deal of that to enter on such a mission at Stavros' age." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An elderly human had been wanted, a diplomat who, aside from his duties as administrator of the new territories, could obtain greater respect from the regul that would be neighbors to humanity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stavros had come out of retirement to take the assignment, not a strong man, or an imposing one physically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was, Duncan had learned in their only ultimate conversation, and that before boarding, a native of Kiluwa, one of the several casualties of the war in its earliest years; and that might explain something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kiluwans were legendarily eccentric, of a fringe-area colony left too long on its own, peculiar in religion, in philosophy, in manners: like the regul, they had not believed in writing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the years after Kiluwa's fall, Stavros had been in the XenBureau—retired to university life of late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had children, had lost a grandson to the war at Elag/Haven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Stavros hated regul either for Kiluwa or for the grandson's sake, he had never betrayed it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He seldom betrayed any emotion beyond a certain obsessive interest in the regul." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything in Stavros was quiet; and there were depths and depths beneath that placidity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man's pale eyes flashed up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good morning, Duncan,\" he said, and instantly returned to his studies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sit,\" he added. \"Wait.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duncan sat down, disappointed, and waited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had nothing else to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would have gone mad already if he had not had the ability to bear long silence and inactivity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched Stavros work, wondering over again why the old man had been so determined to learn the regul tongue, which occupied his many hours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were regul who spoke perfectly idiomatic Basic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There always would be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Stavros had succeeded well enough on their voyage that now he could listen to the tape from the regul master of the ship, outlining the day's schedules and information, and needed to glance only occasionally at the supplied written translation—regul propaganda, praising the elders of homeworld, Nurag, praising the correct management of the director of the ship—Duncan found it all very dry, save for the small hints of the progress the ship was making." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But from such things Stavros learned, and became fluent at least in trivial courtesies—learned at a rate that began to amaze Duncan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could actually understand that confusion of sound, that remained only confusion to Duncan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such a man, a scholar, an intelligent man, with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, had left everything human and familiar, everything his long life had produced, and now took a voyage with the enemy, into unknown space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although a governorship was a considerable inducement, the hazards for Stavros were more than considerable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duncan did not know how old the man was: there had been rumors at Haven verging on the incredible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did know that one of the great-grandchildren was entering the military." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Duncan had enjoyed any intimacy with Stavros he would have been moved to ask him why he had come; he dared not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But every time he was tempted to give way to the pressures of their confinement, his own fear of the strangeness about them, he thought of the old man patiently at his lessons and resigned himself to last it out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not think that he contributed anything to Stavros, be it companionship or service, only the necessary appearance of propriety in the regul's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stavros could have done without him, for all the notice he paid him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Personnel had chosen half a dozen men for interview, and he, one of the Surface Tactical officers at Haven, had been the choice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He still did not know why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had admitted to his lack of qualifications for such a post: Then he'll know that he has to take orders, Stavros had concluded in his presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Volunteer? Stavros had asked him then, as if this were a point of suspected insanity, No, sir, he had answered, the truth: they called in every SurTac in the Haven reach. —Pilot's rating?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stavros had asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "— Yes, he had said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "— Hold any grudge against the regul? Stavros asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, he had answered simply, which was again the truth: he did not like them, but it was not a grudge, it was war; it was all he knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Stavros had read his record a second time in his presence and accepted him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had sounded good at the time, fantastically desirable: from a war where life expectancy was rated in missions flown, and where he was reaching his statistical limit, to an easy berth on a diplomatic flight under escort, with guaranteed retirement home and discharge in five years; discharge at less than thirty on a pension larger than any SurTac could reasonably dream of, or—and this was the thing that Duncan pondered with most interest—permanent attachment to a new colonial directorate, permanent assignment to Stavros' territories, wealth and prominence on a developing world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a prize for which men would kill or die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had only to endure regul company for a while in either case, and to win Stavros' approval by his service." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had five years to accomplish the latter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He meant to do it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: regul, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had not been much frightened when he stepped aboard the regul ship: he had read the data known on the regul, knew them for noncombative, nonviolent by preference, a basically timid species." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The warrior mri had done their fighting for them, and provoked further conflicts, and finally the regul had called the mri into retreat, gotten them under firm control." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'which' 3 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "New regul were in power on their homeworld now, a pacifist party, which also controlled the ship on which they were travelling and the world to which they were bound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he had learned a different kind of fear over the long slow voyage, a sullen, biding sort of fear; and he began to suspect why they had wanted a SurTac as Stavros' companion: he was trained for alien environment, inured to solitude and uncertainties, and above all he was ignorant of higher policies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If something went wrong, and he began to appreciate ways in which it could, then Stavros was the only considerable expenditure; but Sten Duncan was nothing, military personnel, without kin to notify, a loss that could be written off without worry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His low classification number signified that he could spill everything he knew to an enemy without damage to any essential installations; and Stavros himself had been long secluded in the university community of New Kiluwa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps—the thought occurred to him—Stavros himself was capable of expending him promptly if he proved inconvenient." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stavros was a diplomat, of that breed that Duncan instinctively mistrusted, that disposed of the likes of Sten Duncan by their hundreds and thousands in war." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps it was that which had stolen away Stavros' inclination to talk to him as if he were anything more than the furnishings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Regul dealt with rebellious younglings, even with inconvenient younglings, instantly and without mercy, as if they were an easily replaceable commodity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a nightborn fear, the kind that grew in the dark, in those too-long hours when he lay on his bed and considered that beyond the one door was an alien guard whose very life processes he did not understand; and beyond the other was a human whose mind he did not understand, an old man who was learning to think like the regul, whose elders were a terror to the young." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But when they were in day-cycle, together, when he considered Stavros face to face, he could not believe seriously such things as he thought and imagined at night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So long pent up, so long under stress, it was no strange thing that his mind should turn to nameless and irrational apprehensions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He only wished that he knew what Stavros hoped he was doing, or what Stavros expected him to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tape loop cycled its third time through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan knew its salutation, at least, the few words in the regul language he knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stavros was listening and memorizing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shortly he would be able to recite the whole thing from memory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir,\" he interrupted Stavros' thoughts cautiously, \"sir, our—\" the tape went off, \"our allotted liberty is just about up if you want anything else from the library or the dispensary.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wished Stavros would think of something he needed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He longed to enjoy that precious time outside their quarters, to walk, to move; but Stavros had forbidden him to loiter anywhere in regul view, or to attempt any exchange with any of the crew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duncan understood the reasoning behind that prohibition, a sensible precaution, a preservation of human mystique as far as regul were concerned: Let them wonder what we think, Stavros would say to many a situation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it was unbearable to sit here while the liberty ran out, with the ship newly arrived in regul space." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Stavros, dashing his hopes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, perhaps an afterthought, he handed him one of the tapes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here. An excuse. Look like you have important business and stay to it. Find me the next in sequence and bring both back. Enjoy your walk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\" He rose, moved to thank the old man, to appreciate his understanding of his misery; but Stavros started the tape again, looked elsewhere, making it awkward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hesitated, then left, through his own room, to the outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drew a few deep breaths to accustom himself to the taint of the air, felt less confined at once, even faced with the narrow halls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Regul living spaces were small, barren places, accommodating only space for a sled's operation; most things were grouped within reach of someone sitting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He suppressed the desire to stretch, settled himself into a sedate walk, and headed for mainroom through a corridor that was utterly empty of regul." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mainroom served all personnel for recreation and study; it was the library terminal also." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Simpler, Duncan thought, to have included a library linkup to the console already in their quarters and obviate the need for them coming out at all, but he was desperately glad that they had not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It provided an excuse, as Stavros had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And perhaps there were restrictions on some passengers who could read and understand more than they." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did not know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He studied the twisting regul numbers on the cartridge he carried and carefully punched the keys next in sequence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Machinery clicked, the least delay, and the desired cartridge shot into position." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He provided the library with their special code, which changed the alphabet module, and, notified that humans desired the cartridge in question, the library flurried through authorizations, probably went through another process to decide that printout was supposed to accompany the cartridge—actually three forms of printout, literal, transliterated and translated came with each—and finally from its microstorage it began to produce the printouts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan paced the room while the machine processed the print sheet by sheet and checked the time: close." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He walked back to the machine and it was still working, slower than any human-made processing system he had used." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had reactions like those of the regul themselves, sluggish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To fill the seconds he counted the changes in the viewscreen mockup that was the center of the library wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It showed their course through human space, curiously never once acknowledging the presence of the armed escort vessels that had been the source of so much controversy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was out of date as of this morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At every pulse it cycled through to other views, to landscapes fascinating in their alien character (carefully censored, he was sure, lest they learn too Much of regul; there were no living things and no cities and structures in the views) to starfields, back to the progress mockup." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It dominated the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had watched it change day by slow day during their approach to jump." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had ceased to think of the voyage as one with a particular destination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their peculiar isolation had become an environment in itself that could not be mentally connected to the life he had lived before and from which it was impossible to imagine the life he would live after." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had only the regul's word for where they were going." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He watched through three such cyclings and turned back to the machine, which had stopped in the middle of its printing, flashing the Priority signal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone of authority had interrupted it to obtain something more important." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His materials were frozen in the machine's grip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pushed the cancel button to retrieve the cartridge, and nothing happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Priority was still flashing, while the library did what it was commanded to do from some other source." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He swore and looked again at the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The printout was half in the tray, the tail of it still in the machine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'could' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could go and keep scrupulously to the schedule or he could wait the little time it would take for the machine to clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He decided to wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably the stall was because of the printout, an unwieldy and awkward operation, printout surely a rare function of their library apparatus, inefficiently done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rumor used to be that regul themselves did not write at all, which was not, as they had discovered, true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had an elaborate and intricate written language." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the library was designed for audio replication." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The majority of regul materials were oral-aural." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was said, and this seemed true according to their own observations, that the regul did not need to hear any tape more than once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instant and total recall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eidetic memory. The word lie was, he remembered Stavros telling him, fraught with associate concepts of perversion and murder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A species that could neither forget nor unlearn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If this were so, it was possible that they could depend on the exact truth from the regul at all times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was also possible that a species that could not lie might have learned ways of deception without it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not need to wonder how regul regarded humans, who placed great emphasis on the written word, who had to be provided special and separate materials to comprehend slowly what regul absorbed at a single hearing; who could not learn the regul language, while regul learned human speech as rapidly as they could be provided words, and never needed to be told twice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he thought of this, and of the regul younglings, so helplessly slow, so ponderous in their movements, and yet the piggish little eyes glittering with some emotion that wrinkled the corners when they beheld a human, he grew uneasy, remembering that these same younglings, unless murdered by their own parent, would live through several human lifetimes and remember every instant of it; and that bai Hulagh, who commanded them and the ship and the zone where they were bound, had done so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He resented both their long lives and their exact memories." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He resented the obstinacy of their ubiquitous machines, the bigotry and insolence that kept them confined and tightly scheduled as they were, surrounded by automation that made their regul hosts more than the physical equals of humans; and with all the accumulating frustration of long imprisonment, he resented most of all the petty irritations that were constantly placed in their way by their regul hosts, who clearly despised humans for their mental shortcomings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stavros was headed for failure if he sought accommodation with such neighbors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a mortal mistake to think that a human could become regul, that he won anything at all by slavishly imitating the manners of beings that despised them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was the worm that had eaten at his gut ever since the first days of this chromium-plated, silken-soft imprisonment." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'regul' × 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All about them were regul and regul machines, hulking beasts helpless but for that automation, like great shapeless parasites living attached to appliances of steel and chromium; and Stavros was utterly, dangerously wrong if he thought he became esteemed of regul by giving up the few advantages that humans had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The regul looked with contempt on the species whose minds forgot, whose knowledge was on film and paper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sought to say this to Stavros, but he could not come close enough to the man to advise him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stavros was an educated man; he was not: he was only an experienced one, and experience cried out that they were in a dangerous situation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He struck the library panel a blow with his hand, for the time was out and he was defeated by the monstrosity—incredible that the thing could be so slow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was as futile and thoughtless as jostling any human-made machine; but he knew in the second after that he should not have done it, and when the Priority signal at once went off, he was for an instant terrified, believing that he had caused it somehow, antagonizing some high-ranking regul." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the machine started to feed out the rest of the paper and shot the cartridge out in good order after, and he paused to gather them up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when, in turning to leave, he looked up at the panel, he saw that the whole display had changed, and that they had before them the visual of a star system with seven planets, with their ship plotted in toward the second." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their final destination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he watched, he saw another ship indicated on the simulation, moving outward on a nonintersecting course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were in-system, in inhabited, trafficked regions, nearing Kesrith." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Time began to move again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His heart quickened with the elating surety that they had indeed arrived where they were supposed to, that they were near their new world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coming in to dock at Kesrith's station would be a process of more than a week, by that diagram, but they were coming in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The imprisonment was almost over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A step sounded in the corridor to his left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For an instant he ignored it, knowing that he was overtime and expecting a surly rebuke from a youngling; and the ominous character of it had not registered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it struck him that it did not belong here, the measured tread of boots on the flooring, not the slow scuffing of the regul nor even Stavros' fragile tread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned, frightened even before he looked, by a presence that was not of them nor of the regul." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he faced a figure that had likewise stopped still, one robed in black, the robes glittering with many small discs. Mri. Kel'en." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The golden eyes above the veil were astonished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A slim bronze hand went to the knife at his belt and hesitated there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment yet neither moved, and it was possible to hear only the slow changes of the projector." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The enemy. The destroyers of Kiluwa and Talos and Asgard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had never seen one in the flesh at this range." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only the eyes, the hands were uncovered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tall figure remained utterly still, wrapped in menace and in anger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am Sten Duncan,\" he found courage to say, doubting that the mri could understand a word, but reckoning it time words intervened before weapons did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm the assistant to the Federations envoy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am kel Medai,\" said the other in excellent Basic, \"and we should not have met.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And with that the mri turned on his heel and stalked off in the direction from which he had come, a black figure that vanished into shadows at the turning of the corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan found himself trembling in every muscle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had seen mri that close only in photographs, and all of those were dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beautiful, was the strange descriptive that came to his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seeing the mri warrior: he would have thought it of an animal, splendid of its kind, and deadly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned, and the blood that had resumed somewhat its normal circulation drained a second time, for a regul youngling stood in the mainroom, its nostrils flaring and shutting in rapid agitation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It shrilled a warning at him, anger, terror: he could not tell which." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its color went to livid pallor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go to quarters,\" it insisted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Past time. Go to quarters. Now!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moved, edged past the regul and hurried, not looking back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he reached the sanctuary of his own doorway his hands were shaking, and he thrust himself through even while it was opening, then shut it at once, anxious until the seal had hissed into function." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he sank down on his cot, knowing that, all too quickly, he must face Stavros and give an account of what he had done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The library materials tumbled from his cold hands and some of the papers fell on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He bent and gathered them up, feeling nothing with his fingers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had committed a great mistake, and knew that it was not to be the end of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were going to the world that was said to be the mri home-world, to Kesrith of the star Arain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Regul claimed title to it, all the same, and the right to cede it to humans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They claimed the authority to command the mri and to sign for them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They betrayed the mri, and yet carried a kel'en on the ship that brought the orders that turned Kesrith over to humans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We should not have met, the mri had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was obvious that the regul at least, and possibly the mri, had not intended the meeting." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone was being deceived.\n\nHe gathered himself up and expelled a long breath, rapped on Stavros' door and entered this time without permission." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will provide text (may include established elements) then you write 11 sentences sentences maintaining same character/world familiarity.\n\nGenres: science fiction, space opera\nTags: aliens, The Faded Suns" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mlara and Sha and Hlar and Sa'a-no-kli'i.\n\nNiun watched them pass, lifeless as they were, with an excitement in his blood that the somber sights could not wholly kill.\n\nThey jumped again, and just after ship's noon there appeared a new star centered in the field.\n\n\"This is home,\" said Melein softly, when they gathered in the she'pan's hall to see it with her. \"This is the Sun.\"\n\nIn the hal'ari, it was Na'i'in.\n\nNiun looked upon it, a mere pinprick of light at the distance from which they entered the system, and agonized that it would be so long a journey yet. Na'i'in. The Sun.\n\nAnd the World, that was Kutath.\n\n\"By your leave,\" Duncan murmured, \"—I had better go to controls.\"\n\nThey all went, even the dusei, into the small control room.\n\nAnd there was something eerie in the darkness of that section of the panels that had been most active." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duncan stood and looked at it a moment, then settled in at controls, called forth activity elsewhere, but not in that crippled section." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Niun left the she'pan's side to stand at the panel to Duncan's right: little enough he knew of the instruments, save only what Duncan had shown him—but he had knowledge enough to be sure there was something amiss." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The navigational computer,\" Duncan said. \"Gone.\"\n\n\"You can bring us in,\" Niun said without doubt.\n\nDuncan nodded. His hands moved on the boards, and the screens built patterns, built structures about a point that was Na'i'in.\n\n\"We are on course,\" he said. \"We have no starflight navigation, that is all.\"\n\nIt was not of concern. Long after the she'pan had returned to her own hall, Niun still stayed by Duncan, sitting in the cushion across the console, watching the operations that Duncan undertook.\n\nIt was five days before Kutath itself took shape before them, third out from Na'i'in...Kutath. Duncan guided them, present at controls surely more than reason called for: he took his meals in this room, and entered kel-hall only to wash and to take a little sleep in night-cycle. Restless he would go back before the night was done, and Niun knew where to find him.\n\nNothing required his presence at controls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were no alarms, nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was, Niun began to reckon with growing despair, the same as the others. Melein surely made her own estimation of the lasting silence, and Duncan did, and none spoke it aloud.\n\nNo ships.\n\nNo reaction.\n\nThe sixth day there were the first clear images of the world, and Melein came to controls to look at them. Niun set his hand upon hers, silent offering.\n\nIt was a red world and lifeless.\n\nOld. Very, very old.\n\nDuncan cut the image off the screens. There was agony in his face when he looked at them both, as if he thought himself to blame. But Niun drew a deep breath and let it go, surrendering to what he had known all his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That they were, after all, the last-born." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhere in the ship the dusei moaned, gathering in the grief that was sent them.\n\n\"The voyage of the People,\" said Melein, \"has been very, very long. If we are the last, still we will go home. Take us there, Duncan.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Duncan said simply, and bowed his head and turned to the boards so that he did not have to look on their faces. Niun found it difficult to breathe, a great tightness about his heart, as when he had seen the People die on Kesrith; but it was an old grief, and already mourned. He stood still while Melein went her way back to her hall.\n\nThen he went apart, unto himself, and sat down with his dus, and wept, as the Kel could not weep.\n\n\"Why should we be sorrowful?\" asked Melein, when they had met again that evening, for their first common-meal in many days, and their last, before landing. \"We always knew that we were the last. For a time we believed otherwise, and we were happier, but it is only the same truth that has always been. We should still be glad. We have come home. We have seen what was our beginning, and that is a fit ending.\"\n\nThis was something the human could not understand. He simply shook his head as he would do in pain, and his dus nosed at him, disconsolate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Niun inclined himself wholly to Melein's thoughts: they were true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were far worse things than what lay before them: there was Kesrith; there were humans, and regul.\n\n\"Do not grieve for us,\" Niun said to Duncan, and touched his sleeve. \"We are where we wish to be.\"\n\n\"I will get back to controls,\" Duncan said, and flung himself to his feet, veiled himself and left their company without asking permission or looking back. His dus trailed after him, radiating distress.\n\n\"He can do nothing there,\" said Melein with a shrug. \"But it comforts him.\"\n\n\"Our Duncan,\" said Niun, \"will not let go. He is obsessed with blame.\"\n\n\"For us?\"\n\nNiun shrugged, pressed his lips together, looked aside.\n\nShe put out her hand and touched his face, recalled his attention, regarding him sadly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have known that it was possible, that it might have been too long. Niun, there have been above eighty Darks, and in each more than one generation has passed; and there have been above eighty Betweens, and the most of them have lasted above a thousand years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He attempted a deprecating laugh, a shake of his head: it did not come out as a laugh. \"I can reckon that in distance—but not in years. Twenty years is long for a kel'en. I cannot reckon a thousand.\"\n\nShe bent and pressed her lips to his brow. \"Niun, the accounting is no matter. It is beyond my reckoning too.\"\n\nThat night, and the night after, Niun slept sitting, his head against her chair. Melein did not ask it. He simply did not want to leave her. And when Duncan came from his lonely watch for what few hours of true sleep he sought, he curled up against his dus in the corner—here, and not in kel-hall. It was not a time that any of them wanted to be alone. The loneliness of Kutath itself was overwhelming.\n\nOn the eighth day Kutath swung beneath them, filling all the screen in the she'pan's hall—angry, arid, scarred with its age." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Duncan came to the she'pan's presence, burst in like a gust of wind and swept off mez and zaidhe to show his face: it was aglow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'kesrith' | Required occurrences: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Life!\" he said. \"The scan shows it. She'pan, Niun—your world is not dead.\"\n\nFor an instant neither of them moved.\n\nAnd of a sudden Melein struck her hands together and thanked the several gods; and only then Niun dared to draw breath and hope.\n\nBehind Duncan, Melein went to controls, and Niun followed after, with the dusei padding behind them and blowing great puffs of excitement. Melein settled on the arm of the cushion and Niun leaned beside her, the while Duncan tried to make clear to them what his search had found, showing them the screens and the figures and all the chattering flow of data that meant life.\n\nLife of machines; and very, very scant, the evidence of growing things.\n\n\"It looks like Kesrith from space,\" said Duncan softly, and sent a chill over Niun's flesh, for often enough the old she'pan had called Kesrith the forge that would prepare the People...for all that would lie before them. \"The dusei,\" said Duncan, \"should fare well enough there.\"\n\n\"One moon,\" Niun read the screen, remembering with homesickness the two that had coursed the skies of Kesrith; remembering his hills, and the familiar places that he had hunted before humans came.\n\nThis world of their ancestors would hold its own secrets, its own graces and beauties, and its own dangers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And humans—soon enough." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Duncan,\" said Melein, \"take us down.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Continue story fragment\nContext: Part of larger narrative\nNote: Characters may appear without introduction\nLength: 6 sentences\nStyle: C. J. Cherryh\nGenres: science fiction, space opera\nElements: aliens, The Faded Suns" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The younglings huddled, muttered in hissing whispers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Occasionally one looked up, shifted weight uncomfortably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suth loathed them, once companions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They came near the bed when they must, offering food rich and elaborate. They trembled until it was accepted. They mourned one elder on the ship; another was in the making. Suth Horag-gi clenched degh's bony lips and groaned in the agony of Change.\n\nSuth: it, neuter until the hormonal shifts had begun to course hot and cold through degh's body, until appetite increased and temper shortened to the verge of madness. The ship Shirug moved far apart from human ships orbiting Kutath, and ignored inquiries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was the Wrapping of the departed elder; there was mourning; there was ag-arhd, the Consuming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These were secret things, in which Suth felt an instinctive vulnerability. Degh was not capable of full function in degh's hormone-tormented state, moving toward Change. Humans inquired, offered help, doubtless deviously motivated, hoping to learn enough to gain control...offered regret, soliciting information in the process. Degh commanded degh's attendants to silence.\n\nDegh ate. Already the pallor of youngling skin was diminishing, and each move freed tissue-thin sheets of former skin, exposing elder-dark new skin beneath, a complete skin change twice since the Consuming. Suth was sore, sensitive new skin like a bleeding wound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The joints of degh's facial plates ached, aggravated by the need to eat, to drink, constantly. Degh burned with fever, heightened metabolism, and most of all those parts which had not yet determined function burned, swollen, maddening with pain.\n\nA youngling ventured near with mul, water-soaked, to ease the skin. Suth suffered it, sucking on a straw from a mug of soi, occasionally reaching to a platter for a sweet.\n\nSuddenly there was pain, and Suth screamed and flung the platter and struck. Something cracked, and when the grayness cleared, other younglings were bearing away the dead one and cleaning up the spilled sweetmeats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suth hissed satisfaction, annoyance departed. Another took up the washing, more carefully.\n\n\"Report,\" Suth breathed, clenching degh's hand about a new mug of soi. Degh sucked at it, looked at the frightened younglings. \"Witless, the news: report.\"\n\n\"Favor, Honored, there is no report available; storm is covering the land.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Storm.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A vast and violent storm, Honored, 687.78 koingh across. We attempted to penetrate it, but at this range, and with the dust—\"\n\nSuth breathed a sigh of weary pleasure. \"Perhaps the human Duncan will die.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, Honored.\"\n\nDegh wished this earnestly. This human had killed the reverence bai Sharn, in command of Shirug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Human elders on Saber had then dismissed this Duncan as if this act were inconsiderable to them." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'youngling' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Degh had been only youngling then, neuter, confused, horrified by the death as all the younglings had been horrified.\n\nNow degh yearned toward the death of this human; it was anomaly, perverted; it no longer knew what it was, this Sten Duncan. It had killed younglings, it and its mri allies, and now it killed an elder. Its kind excused this...threatened now even to treat with mri, through this mri-imprinted youngling. The very thought set Suth's hearts to hammering and made degh short of breath.\n\nForty-three years the mercenary Kel had served regul against humans, and now at war's end came a new arrangement to trouble regulkind: mri, intriguing with humans." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Adult authority was desperately needed in this crisis, a mind to make decisions on which the survival of other elders might rest, back at Kesrith, even on homeworld itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sharn was dead; elder Hulagh was years removed, on Kesrith." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone had to make the decisions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pain...\n\n\"Honored, Honored, be easy,\" a youngling murmured, sponging gently with the mul. Suth panted and strove to rise, fell back again, amazed at the feel of degh's own body, the increase in girth. The bony carapace which covered the face ached maddeningly. Degh closed degh's eyes and breathed in great gasps, aching in degh's lower belly until the pain was intolerable.\n\n\"Degh is in crisis,\" a youngling moaned." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'hulagh's' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Days, days of this; it must end, it must end, or degh will die.\"\n\n\"Silence!\" degh shouted, and shouting helped; the pain ebbed somewhat. Muscles contracted. The hearts sped and the temperature rose.\n\nIt was true. Degh was in deep trouble. Degh had served bai Hulagh, male, and approached Impression; degh had looked to the time of Change, knowing degh's future gender with smug certainty, female to Hulagh's male...ambition, to mate the Eldest of great doch Alagn: security, and vast power.\n\nBut to Suth's lasting dismay there had been transfer; Suth, most honored of Hulagh's youngling attendants, passed as special favor to bai Sharn, who undertook a mission on which but one elder could be risked: Sharn, female, on a voyage years in length." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maleness tempted; Sharn herself was very high in doch Alagn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sharn, female, fourth eldest of one of the greatest of the docha, and murdered by a deranged human youngling.\n\nDegh had been Impressed in witnessing that incomprehensible act. To replace bai Sharn... to be Sharn...that desire came with the Consuming.\n\nAnd degh could not complete the Change, poised between, for days neither Hulagh's nor Sharn's, neither female nor male.\n\nDegh screamed aloud and cursed the human who had done this thing, who allied with mri and tried to lure others of his species after. A hundred twenty-three stars, a hundred twenty-three...dead...lifeless...systems." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And even after seeing the deadly track the mri had cut through the galaxy...humans approached these killers and spoke of peace.\n\nDegh must live. Species demanded. Life demanded. More than personal ambition, more than doch, than the chance of elevating degh's little doch of Horag, allying to powerful Alagn at its highest levels: these things were motivation...but this touched something at depth Suth had never felt, which perhaps no regul had ever had to feel, for no regul had ever confronted such a possibility, death on such a scale. Degh must live, generate, produce lives to deal with this threat, innumerable lives.\n\nThere came another touch at degh's body, faint, tremulous. It was Nagn, an older youngling." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'cried' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And it tore back with a shriek of dismay.\n\n\"Honored,\" it cried, \"I burn!\"\n\nIt had happened: next eldest had gone prematurely into Change. Suth cried out with relief and shut degh's eyes.\n\nThe pain moved lower. Muscle contractions began at last, fever increasing, skin sloughing and peeling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The younglings brought food, and bathed degh, and applied unguents to the swollen parts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scarcely supported by the younglings the Honored Nagn moved again to degh's side, touched, shuddering in degh's own pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The choice was Suth's. Suth's body was making it. The swelling continued as one vestigial set of organs was absorbed, and the other began, in convulsive heaves of Suth's body, to press down into the membrane covering the aperture...descended, evident as it would never be henceforth save in mating.\n\n\"Male!\" a youngling declared.\n\nNature's logic. Suth smiled, a tightening of the muscles beneath his eyes, and this despite the pain. Elsewhere Nagn writhed in the throes of Change, but Nagn's choice was set, and swifter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tiag cried out in agony, and Morkhug, the hysteria of Change settling upon all the eldest.\n\nThe pain ebbed in time. Suth moved, supported by younglings. Never again would he stand long unaided. His bulk, already increased by his appetite, would increase twice more. His legs, once strong, would atrophy until little muscle lay under the abundant fat, although his arms, constantly exercised by the operation of the prosthetic supports, would remain strong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Senses would dim hereafter, save for sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mind dominated. Regul memory was instant and indelible; he would live, barring accident or murder, for three hundred years more, remembering every chance moment and every minute detail to which he paid attention." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'others' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had lived to be adult, and only thirty percent of regul did so; he was, by virtue of being the first adult on the ship, remote from others of greater age...an elder, in command of Shirug and of whatever other adults matured; only one percent of regul reached such status.\n\nAnd by the Change which had come on him he could not now meet his old bai Hulagh as mate...but as a rival of another doch. He was senior to Nagn and Tiag and Morkhug, who were Alagn, and therefore this great Alagn ship, the pride of the doch, became Horag territory. Hulagh of Alagn had miscalculated, reckoning every eventuality but Sharn's premature death and a Horag sexing ahead of the others. Suth smiled.\n\nThen he looked on the three who were in the throes of Change,...on Nagn, who was flushing with the swift completion of agonies which had held him for days.\n\n\"Out!\" he shouted at the other younglings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They fled. He struck at those who supported him, and they joined the others in flight." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'honor' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could not long stand, but sank down on his weakened legs, panting.\n\n\"Honor, reverend Nagn,\" he said.\n\n\"Honor, bai Suth.\" She struggled to sit. He had deprived her of younglings to help her, but she was female and would always be more mobile than he save in the final stage of carrying.\n\nAnd she had not near attained his dignity of bulk, nor suffered the several skin changes. Those were, for her, only beginning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Favor,\" said Suth, \"Nagn Alagn-ni.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Favor, Suth Horag-gi.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She came to him, the order of their age of Change, although it was established by mere moments." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He mated her, with dispatch and twice, for honor to her precedence of the others. She was next eldest and would hold that rank while he held the ship. He moved then, necessity, and mated the other two, which likely would produce no young, but which would Impress them with more haste, painful as it was for them. He would mate them until all three were with as many young as they could carry. These were his officers; it was economical, his maleness. There was need of rapid reproduction of Horag young: eldest claimed all young in any mating." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As other younglings aboard Shirug sexed, they would sex under his Impress, female.\n\nHorag young would increase on the ship at first by the factor of the litters these three would bear; and more, with more females. Had he sexed female as he had first tended, the Alagn youngling Nagn would have sexed male in complement, and the next two would have sexed randomly, with himself bearing three to five young as female, some by Nagn, some by any other young male that might develop, and though he could claim such young as Horag, as female he could make only a small nest of Horag young on an otherwise Alagn ship.\n\nIt was indeed nature's logic—and politics—but Suth was smug in it, suffused with a feeling of power and rightness after his long suffering. There would be a new order on this ship, his ship. And for Horag to succeed in an operation where great Alagn had failed miserably... Ambitions occurred to him, incredible in scope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is not necessary,\" he said, \"that humans know we exist.\"\n\n\"No,\" Nagn agreed, \"but until they realize we have an elder on this ship, they will be continuing on their own course of action. They will do what pleases them without consulting us.\"\n\n\"If all witnesses die,\" said Suth, \"—there is no event.\"\n\n\"Eldest?\"\n\n\"We are far from human bases; we can do what pleases us.\"\n\n\"Strike at elders?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Secure ourselves.\"\n\nNagn considered this, her nostrils flaring and shutting in agitation. Finally they remained open. \"With their rider ship and their probe as well, they have mobility we do not.\"\n\n\"Mri could even the balance.\"\n\n\"Even mri have some memory, eldest. They will not hire to us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On that world, Nagn Alagn-ni, there is power. It struck back at our ship; we experienced it and we know the sites of it. If both mri and human witnesses perish—then regul worlds are freed of an inestimable danger; and humans can ask questions—but regul need give no answers.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nagn grinned, a slow relaxation of her jaws and a narrowing of her eyes." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with Gene Wolfe's style in the scifi, science fiction fantasy, dying Earth, time travel genre. This is part of a longer work." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You had a good rap on the head,\" Gunnie said. She was sitting beside me watching me eat stew.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"I ought to have taken you to the infirmary, but it's dangerous out there. You don't want to be anywhere other people know about.\"\n\nI nodded. \"Especially me. Two people have tried to kill me. Perhaps three. Possibly four.\" She looked at me as if she suspected the fall had unsettled my wits.\n\n\"I'm quite serious. One was your friend Idas. She's dead now.\"\n\n\"Here, have some water. Are you saying Idas was a woman?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'killed' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A girl, yes.\"\n\n\"And I didn't know it?\" Gunnie hesitated. \"You're not just making it up?\"\n\n\"It isn't important. The important thing is that she tried to kill me.\"\n\n\"And you killed him.\"\n\n\"No, Idas killed herself. But there is at least one other and perhaps more than one. You weren't talking about them, though, Gunnie. I think you meant the people Sidero mentioned, the jibers. Who are they?\"\n\nShe rubbed the skin at the corners of her eyes with her forefingers, the woman's equivalent of male head scratching. \"I don't know how to explain it. I don't even know if I understand them myself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I said, \"Try, Gunnie, please. It may be important.\"\n\nHearing the urgency in my voice, Zak abandoned his self-assigned task of watching for intruders long enough for a concerned glance.\n\n\"You know how this ship sails?\" Gunnie asked. \"Into and out of Time, and sometimes to the end of the universe and farther.\"\n\nI nodded, scraping the bowl.\n\n\"There are I don't know how many of us in the crew. It may sound funny to you, but I just don't. It's so big, you see. The captain never calls us all together. It would take too long, days of walking just for all of us to get to the same place, and then there'd be nobody doing the work while we were going there and getting back.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" I told her.\n\n\"We sign on and they take us to one part or another. And that's where we stay. We get to know the others who are already there, but there's lots of others we never see. The forecastle up from here where my cabin is, that's not the only one. There's lots of othets. Hundreds and maybe thousands.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I asked about the jibers,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm trying to tell you. It's possible for somebody, anybody, to lose himself on the ship forever. And I mean Forever, because the ship goes there, and it comes back, and that makes strange things happen to time. Some people get old on the ship and die, but some work a long time and never get any older and make a load of money, until finally the ship makes port on their home, and they see it's almost the same time there now as when they got on, and they get off, and they're rich. Some get older for a while then get younger.\" She hesitated, afraid for a moment to speak more; then she said, \"That's what's happened to me.\"\n\n\"You're not old, Gunnie,\" I told her. It was the truth.\n\n\"Here,\" she said, and taking my leff hand, she laid it on forehead. \"Here I'm old, Severian. So much has happened to me that I want to forget. Not just to forget, I want to be young there again. When you drink or drug, you forget. But what those things did to you is still there, in the way you think. You know what I'm saying?\"\n\n\"Very well,\" I told her. I took my hand from her forehead and held one of hers instead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you see, because those things happen, and sailors know it and talk about it even if most longshore people won't believe them, the ship gets people who aren't really sailors and don't want to work. Or maybe a sailor will fight with an officer and get written up for punishment. Then he'll go off and join the jibers. We call them that because it's what you say a boat does when she makes a turn you don't want—she jibes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand,\" I said again.\n\n\"Some just stay in one place, I think, like we're staying here. Some travel around looking for money or a fight. Maybe just one comes to your mess, and he has some story. Sometimes so many come nobody wants to give them trouble, so you pretend they're crew, and they eat, and if you're lucky they go away.\"\n\n\"You're saying that they're only common seamen, then, who've rebelled against the captain.\" I brought in the captain because I wanted to ask her about him later.\n\n\"No.\" She shook her head. \"Not always. The crew comes from different worlds, from other star-milks, even, and maybe from other universes. I don't know about that for sure. But what's a common seaman to you and me might be somebody pretty strange to somebody else. You're from Urth, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am.\"\n\n\"So am I, and so are most of the others here. They put us together because we talk the same and think the same. But if we went to another fo'c'sle, everything might be different.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought I'd traveled a great deal,\" I told her, laughing inwardly at myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now I see I haven't gone quite as far as I believed.\"\n\n\"It would take you days just to get out of the part of the ship where most of the sailors are more or less like you and me. But the jibers who move around get mixed up. Sometimes they fight each other; but sometimes they join together until there are three or four different kinds in one gang. Sometimes they pair up, and the woman has children, like Idas. Usually the children can't have children, though. That's what I've heard.\" She glanced significantly toward Zak, and I whispered, \"He's one?\"\n\n\"I think he must be. He found you and came and got me, so I thought it would be all right to leave you with him while I went for food. He can't talk, but he hasn't hurt you, has he?\"\n\n\"No,\" I told her. \"He's been fine. In ancient times, Gunnie, the peoples of Urth journeyed among the suns. Many came home at last, but many others stayed on that world or this. The hetrochthnous worlds must by this time have reshaped humanity to conform to their own spheres. On Urth, the mystes know that each continent has its own pattern for mankind, so that if people from one shift their bode to another, they will in a short time—fifty generations or so—come to resemble the original inhabitants. The patterns of other worlds must be yet more distinct; and yet the human race would remain human still, I think.\"\n\n\"Don't say, 'By this time,'\" Gunnie told me. \"You don't know what the time would be if we were to stop at some sun. Severian, we've talked a lot and you look tired. Don't you want to lie down now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only if you will lie down too,\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are as tired as I, or more. You've been going around collecting food and medicine for me. Rest now, and tell me more about the jibers.\" The truth was that I was sufficiently better to wish to put my arm about a woman and even to bury myself in a woman; and with many women, of whom, I think, Gunnie was one, there is no better way to attain intimacy than to permit them to talk, and to listen to them. She stretched herself beside me. \"I've already told you about everything I know. Most are sailors gone bad. Some are their children, born on the ship and hidden till they're old enough to fight. Then too, do you remember how we caught the apport?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I said.\n\n\"Not all the apports are animals, though there's a lot more of those than anything else. Sometimes they're people, and sometimes they live long enough to get inside the ship where there's air.\" She paused, then giggled. \"You know, the others on their home worlds must wonder where they went when they were apported. Especially when it's somebody important.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed strange to hear so massive a woman giggle, and I who seldom smile, smiled myself.\n\n\"Some people say too that some jibers are taken on board with the cargo, that they're criminals who want to get away from their home worlds and have stowed aboard that way. Or that they're only animals on their worlds and have been shipped as live cargo, though they're people like us. We'd only be animals on those worlds—that's what I think.\" Her hair, near my face now, was piercingly fragrant; and it occurred to me that it could hardly be thus always, that she had perfumed herself for me before returning to our cranny.\n\n\"Some people call them muties because so many can't talk. Maybe they have some language of their own; but they can't talk to us, and if we catch one he has to talk by signs. But Sidero said one time that mutist means a rebel.\"\n\nI said, \"Speaking of Sidero, was he around when Zak took you to the bottom of the airshaft?\"\n\n\"No, there was nobody there but you.\"\n\n\"Did you see my pistol, or the knife you gave me when we first met?\"\n\n\"No, there wasn't anything there. Did you have them on when you fell?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sidero had them. I was hoping he'd been honest enough to return them, but at least he didn't kill me.\"\n\nGunnie shook her head by rolling it back and forth on the rags, a process that brought one round and blooming cheek into contact with mine. \"He wouldn't. He can play rough sometimes, but I never heard that he killed anybody.\"\n\n\"I think he must have struck me while I was unconscious. I don't think I could have hurt my mouth in the fall. I was inside him, did I tell you that?\"\n\nShe drew away to stare at me. \"Really? Can you do that?\"\n\n\"Yes. He didn't like it, but I think that something in the way he's built kept him from trying to expel me as long as I was conscious. After we fell, he must have opened up and pulled me out with his good arm. I'm lucky he didn't break both my legs. When he got me out, he must have struck me. I will kill him for that; when we meet again.\"\n\n\"He's only a machine,\" Gunnie said softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She slipped her hand inside my ruined shirt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm surprised you know that,\" I told her. \"I would have thought you'd think him a person.\"\n\n\"My father was a fisherman, so I grew up on boats. You give a boat a name and eyes, and a lot of times it acts like a person and even tells you things. But it isn't a person, not really. Fishermen are funny sometimes, but my father used to say that you could tell when a man was really crazy, because if he didn't like his boat he'd sink it instead of selling it. A boat has a spirit, but it takes more than a spirit to make a person.\" I asked, \"Did your father approve of your signing on this ship?\" She said, \"He drowned first. All fishermen drown. It killed my mother. I've got back to Urth pretty often, but it was never when they were alive.\"\n\n\"Who was Autarch when you were a child, Gunnie?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"It wasn't the kind of thing we cared about.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wept a little." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'didn't' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried to comfort her, and from that we might have slipped very quickly and naturally into making love, but her burn covered most of her chest and abdomen, and though I fondled her, and she me, the memory of Valeria came between us as well. At last she said, \"That didn't hurt you, did it?\"\n\n\"No,\" I told her. \"I'm only sorry I hurt you as much as I did.\"\n\n\"You didn't. Not at all.\"\n\n\"But I did, Gunnie. It was I who burned you in the gangway outside my stateroom, as we both know.\"\n\nHer hand sought her dagger, but she had discarded it when she undressed. It lay beneath her other clothing and well out of her reach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Idas told me she'd hired a sailor to help her dispose of the corpse of my steward. She called that sailor 'he,' but she hesitated before she said the word. You were one of her workmates, and even though you didn't know she was female, it would have been quite natural for her to seek the help of a woman, if she had no male lover\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How long have you known?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that I wanted to answer when you called," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gunnie whispered. She had not begun to sob again, but in the corner of one eye I could see a tear, large and rounded as Gunnie herself.\n\n\"From the first, when you brought me that gruel. Because it had been exposed, my arm had been burned by the digestive juices of the flying creature; it was the only part of me that hadn't been protected by Sidero's metal hide, and of course I thought of that at once when I regained consciousness. You said you'd been seared by a flash of energy, but such things don't discriminate. Your face and forearms, which had been exposed, were unburned. Your burns were in places that would surely have been protected by a shirt and trousers.\"\n\nI waited for her to speak, but she did not.\n\n\"In the dark, I called out for help, but no one answered. Then I fired my pistol with the beam set low, to give me light. I held it at eye level when I fired, but I couldn't see the sights, and the beam was angled down a bit. It must have hit you at the waist. When I slept, you went looking for Idas, I suppose, so you could sell me to her for another chrisos. You didn't find her, of course. She's dead, and her body's locked in my cabin.\"\n\n\"I wanted to answer when you called,\" Gunnie said. \"But we were supposed to be doing something secret. All I knew was that you were lost in the dark, and I thought the lights would come on again soon. Then Idas put his knife—her knife, you say, but I didn't know that—against my neck. He was right behind me, so close he didn't even get hurt when you shot me.\"\n\nI said, \"However that may be, I want you to know that Idas had nine chrisos on her when I searched her body. I put them in the pocket of the sheath on that knife you found. Sidero has my knife and pistol; if you'll return them to me, you may keep the gold and welcome.\" Gunnie did not want to talk after that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I feigned sleep, though in fact I watched from beneath my lids to see if she would try to stab me." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead she rose and dressed, then crept out of the chamber, stepping over the sleeping Zak. I waited for a long time, but she did not return, and at last I slept myself." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce seven sentences using the prose and structure of Gene Wolfe every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the scifi, science fiction fantasy, dying Earth, time travel genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'necklace' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sailors were wiser than I, putting on their necklaces at once. I did not understand what had taken place until I saw them.\n\nNot far from us, the explosion of some dreadful weapon had opened the gangways to the void, and the air that had been held in this part of the ship was rushing out. As l got my necklace on, I heard the slamming of great doors., a slow, hollow booming, like the war drums of titans.\n\nNo sooner did I snap the catch of my necklace than the wind seemed to vanish, though I could still hear its song and see mad swirls of dust storming off like skyrockets. Around me, only a tempered breeze danced.\n\nCreeping forward—for we expected at any moment to come upon more jibers—we reached the spot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here if anywhere (I thought) I would be able to see enough of the structure of the ship to learn something of its design." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I did not. Shattered wood, tortured metal, and broken stone mingled with substances unknown to Urth, as smooth as ivory or jade but of outlandish colors or no color. Others suggested linen, cotton, or the rough hair of nameless animals.\n\nBeyond this layered ruin waited the silent stars.\n\nWe had lost contact with the main body, but it seemed clear the breach in the ship's hull would have to be closed as soon as possible. I signaled the eight remaining hands of what had been the rear guard to follow me, hoping that by the time we arrived on deck we would find a repair gang at work.\n\nHad we been on Urth, the climb up the ruined levels would have been impossible; here it was easy. One leaped cautiously, caught some twisted beam or stanchion, and leaped again, the best method being to cross the gap with each leap, which would have been madness elsewhere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We achieved the deck, though it seemed at first that we had achieved nothing; it was as unpeopled as the plain of ice I had once surveyed from the highest windows of the Last House." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Huge cables snaked across it; a few more trailed upward like columns, still mooring, far aloft, the wreckage of a mast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the women waved, then pointed to another mast, whole leagues away. I looked, but for a moment could see nothing but a mighty maze of sail, yard, and line. Then came a faint violet spark, wan among the stars—and from another mast, an answering spark. And then something so strange that for a moment I thought my eyes had deceived me, or that I dreamed it. The tiniest fleck of silver, leagues overhead, seemed to bow to us, then, very slowly, to grow. It was falling, of course; but falling through no atmosphere at all so that it did not flutter, and falling under an attraction so weak that to fall was to float. Hitherto, I had led my sailors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now they led me, swarming up the rigging of both masts while I stood on deck, entranced by that incredible spot of silver." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a moment I was alone, watching the men and women of the command that had been mine flying like arrows from cable to cable, and sometimes firing their weapons as they flew. Still I hesitated. One mast, I thought, must surely be held by the mutists, the other by the crew. To mount the wrong one would be to die.\n\nA second fleck of silver joined the first.\n\nThe shooting away of a single sail might be an accident, but to shoot away two, one after the other, could only be intentional. If enough sails, enough masts, were destroyed, the ship would never reach its destination, and there could be only one side that wished it should not. I leaped for the rigging of the mast from which the sails fell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have already written that the deck recalled Master Ash's plain of ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now in midleap, I saw it better. Air still rushed through the great rent in the hull where a mast had sprouted; as it hastened forth, it grew visible, a titan's ghost, sparkling with a million million tiny lights. These lights fell like snow—floating down slowly indeed, though not more slowly than a man might—leaving that mighty deck white and gleaming with frost. Then I stood again before Master Ash's window and heard his voice: \"What you see is the last glaciation. The surface of the sun is dull now; soon it will grow bright with heat, but the sun itself will shrink, giving less energy to its worlds. Eventually, should anyone come and stand upon the ice, he will see it only as a bright star. The ice he stands upon will not be that which you see, but the atmosphere of this world. And so it will remain for a very long time. Perhaps until the close of the universal day.\"\n\nIt seemed to me that he was beside me again. Even when the nearness of rigging brought me to myself once more, it seemed he flew with me, his words reechoing in my ears. He had vanished that morning as we walked down a gorge in Orithyia, when I would have taken him to Mannea of the Pelerines; on the ship I learned whence he had fled me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I learned too that I had chosen the wrong mast; if the ship foundered between the stars, it would matter very little whether Severian, once a journeyman torturer, once an Autarch, lived or died." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of clinging to the rigging when I reached it, I spun myself around and leaped again, this time for the mast the jibers held.\n\nNo matter how often I seek to describe those leaps, I will never paint the wonder and terror of them. One jumps as on Urth—but the first instant is extended to a dozen breaths, as it is for a ball children throw; glorying in it, one knows that should one miss every line and spar, it is destruction—as if the ball should be thrown into the sea and lost forever. Leaping, I felt all this even with the vision of the plain of ice still before my eyes. And yet my arms were stretched before me, my legs behind, and I felt myself not so much a ball as a magical diver in some old story, who dove where he would.\n\nWithout sound or warning, a new cable appeared before me in the space between the masts where no cable should be—a cable of fire. Another crossed it, and another; and then all vanished as I streaked across the void where they had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The jibers had recognized me then, and were firing from their mast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is seldom wise to permit an enemy mere target practice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I jerked my pistol from its holster and took aim at the point from which the last bolt had come. Much earlier I told how, when I stood in the dark corridor outside my stateroom with the dead steward at my feet, the tiny charge light at the breech of my pistol had frightened me. Now it frightened me again, for I glimpsed it just as I pulled the trigger, and there was no spark there.\n\nNor was there any bolt of violet energy a moment afterward. If I had been as wise as I have sometimes pretended to be, I would have cast the pistol from me then, I think. As it was, I thrust it back into its holster out of habit and hardly noticed another bolt of fire, the nearest of all, until it was past.\n\nThen no time remained for shooting or being shot at." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cables of the rigging rose on every side, and because I was yet in its lower parts, they were like the trunks of great trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ahead I saw the cable I would have to hold, and on it a jiber who ran along it to reach the place. At first I thought him a man like myself, though an uncommonly large and powerful one; then—all this in much less time than is needed to write of it—I saw that he was not, for he was able to grip the cable in some way with his feet. He extended his hands toward me as a wrestler does who prepares to receive his opponent, and the long claws on those hands shone in the starlight.\n\nHe had reasoned, I feel sure, that I would have to catch the cable or die, and that as I caught it he would make an end to me. I did not catch it, but dove straight at him and stopped my leap by burying my knife in his chest.\n\nI said I stopped my leap, but the truth is I nearly failed to. For a moment or two we swung about, he like a moored boat, I like a second tied to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Blood, the same crimson, I thought, as human blood, welled up from around the blade and formed spheres like carbuncles, which simultaneously boiled, froze, and withered as they drifted outside his mantle of air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, I feared I would lose my grip on the knife." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then I tugged at it, and as I hoped, his ribs provided resistance enough for me to pull myself to the cable. Of course, I should have mounted higher at once, but I paused for a moment to look at him, with some vague notion that the claws I had seen might be artificial, like the steel claws of the magicians or the lucivee with which Agia had torn my cheek, and if artificial, they might be of some use to me.\n\nThey were not, I thought. Rather they seemed the result of some hideous surgery performed while he was a child, as are the mutilations of the men in certain tribes among the autochthons. The claws of an arctother had been shaped from his fingers—ugly and innocent, incapable of holding any other weapon.\n\nBefore I could turn aside, my attention was caught by the humanity of his face. I had stabbed him as I had killed so many others, without our ever exchanging a word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been a rule among the torturers that one should not speak to a client, nor understand anything a client chanced to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That all men are torturers was one of my earliest insights; here it was confirmed for me by the bear-man's agony that I remained a torturer still. He had been a jiber, true; but who could say he had chosen that allegiance freely? Or perhaps he had felt that his reasons for fighting for the jibers were as good as I had felt mine to be when I fought for Sidero and a captain I did not know. With a foot braced on his chest, I bent and wrenched my knife free.\n\nHis eyes opened, and he roared, though foaming blood flew from his mouth. For an instant, it seemed stranger to me that I should hear him in that infinite silence than that he, who had appeared dead, should live again; but we were so near that our atmospheres joined, and I could hear the very gushing of his wound.\n\nI stabbed at his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By ill luck, the point struck the thick frontal bones of the skull; with no purchase for my feet, the thrust lacked force enough to penetrate and drove me back, backward into the emptiness that surrounded us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lunged for me, his claws tearing my arm, so that we floated furiously together with the knife hanging between us, its polished, bloody blade gleaming in the starlight. I tried to snatch it, but his claws batted it whirling into the void.\n\nMy fingers caught his necklace of cylinders and jerked it free. He should have clung to me then, but perhaps he could not, with those hands. He struck me instead, and I watched him gasp for air and die as I spun away.\n\nAny triumph I might have felt was lost in remorse and the certainty that I must soon follow him in death. Remorse because I regretted his death with all the easy sincerity the mind calls up when there is no danger it will be put to the test; certainty because it was clear from my course and the angles of the masts that I would never come nearer than I was now to any strand of rigging." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had only the vaguest idea how long the air bound by the necklaces would last: a watch or more, I thought." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: boots, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had a double supply—say, three watches at most. At the end of that time, I would die slowly, gasping faster and faster as more and more of the life principle in my atmosphere became locked in the form that only trees and flowers may breathe.\n\nI remembered then how I had cast the leaden coffer that had held my manuscript into the void, and so been saved; and I tried to think of what I might cast now. To discard the necklaces was to die. I thought of my boots, but I had sacrificed boots once before, when I had stood for the first time in my life beside this all-devouring sea. I had cast the ruins of Terminus Est into Lake Diurturna; that suggested the hunting knife that had served me so ill. But it was already gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My belt remained, on it the black leather sheath with nine chrisos in the sheath's small compartment, and my empty pistol in its holster. I pocketed the chrisos, took off belt, sheath, pistol, and holster, whispered a prayer, and flung them away. At once I began to move faster, but not (as I had hoped I would) toward the deck or any strand of rigging. Already I was level with the top-hamper of the masts to either side. Looking toward the rapidly receding deck, I saw a single bolt of violet flash between masts. Then there were no more, only the uncanny silence of the void. Soon, and with that intensity which signals our desire to escape all thoughts of death, I began to wonder why no one had shot at me, as they had when I leaped for the mast, and why no one was firing now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I rose above the top of the sternward mast, and at once all such petty puzzles were swept aside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rising over the topmost sail as the New Sun of Urth might someday rise above the Wall of Nessus (yet far, far larger and more beautiful than even the New Sun can ever be, just as that smallest and uppermost sail was an entire continent of silver, compared to which the mighty Wall of Nessus, a few leagues in height and a few thousand long, might have been the tumbledown fence of a sheepfold), was such a sun as no one with his feet set upon grass will ever see—the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing every sun because from it all suns will come, the first sun, that was the father of all the suns. How long I watched it in awe I cannot say; but when I looked again at the masts below, they and the ship seemed very far away.\n\nAnd then I wondered, for I recalled that when my little band of sailors had reached the rent in the hull and looked upward there, I had seen the stars.\n\nI turned my head, and looked the other way. There the stars swarmed still, but it seemed to me they formed a great disk in the sky, and when I looked at the edges of that disk, I saw they were streaked and old. Since that time I have often pondered on that sight, here beside the all-devouring sea. It is said that so great a thing is the universe that no one can see it as it is, but only as it was, just as I, when I was Autarch, could not know the present condition of our Commonwealth, but only its conditions as they were when the reports I read were written." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If that is so, then it may be that the stars I saw were no longer there—that the reports of my eyes were like those reports I found when we opened the suite that had once been the Autarchs' in the Great Keep.\n\nIn the middle of this disk of stars, as it at first appeared to me, shone a single blue star larger and brighter than all the rest. It waxed even as I watched it, so that I soon understood that it could not be as remote as I had supposed. The ship, driven by light, outraced light, even as the ships upon the uneasy seas of Urth, driven by the wind, had once outraced that wind, close-hauled. Yet even so, the blue star could be no remote object; and if it were a star of any sort, we were doomed, for we steered for its heart. Larger it grew and larger, and across its center there appeared a single, curving line of black, a line like the Claw—the Claw of the Conciliator as it had appeared when I had seen it first, when I had drawn it forth from my sabretache, and Dorcas and I had held it up to the night sky, astonished at its blue radiance.\n\nThough the blue star waxed, as I have said, that curving line of black waxed faster, until it nearly blotted out the disk (for by this time it was a disk) of blue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At last I saw it for what it was—a single cable still linking the mast that the mutists had blown away to our ship." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I caught it, and from that vantage point saw our universe, which is called Briah, fade until it vanished like a dream." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ill start (might include ongoing story elements), then u do one sentence in Gene Wolfe's voice ok?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had expected neither of us—there were no extra places set at the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I pulled up a chair for myself, and then (when he only stood and stared) another for Zama." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We thought you were gone, sieur,\" Hadelin said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His face, and hers, told plainly enough where Burgundofara had spent the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was,\" I said, speaking to her and not to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I see you got into our room all right to get your clothes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you were dead,\" Burgundofara said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When I did not reply, she added, \"I thought this man had killed you. The doorway was blocked up with stuff I had to push over, but the shutters had been broken open.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyway, sieur, you're back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadelin tried to sound cheerful and failed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Still going downriver with us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps,\" I said. \"When I've seen your craft.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you will be, sieur, I think.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The innkeeper appeared, bowing and forcing himself to smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I noticed he had a butcher knife thrust through his belt behind his leather apron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fruit for me,\" I told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Last night you said you had some. Bring some for this man too; we'll see whether he eats it. Maté for both of us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Immediately, sieur.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"After I've eaten, you and I can go up to my room. It's been damaged, and we'll have to decide by how much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That won't be necessary, sieur. A trifle! Perhaps we can agree upon an orichalk as a token payment?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to rub his hands in the way such people often do, but their tremors made the gesture ridiculous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five, I should think, or ten. A broken door, a damaged wall, and a broken bed—you and I shall go up and make a reckoning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His lips were trembling too, and suddenly it was no longer pleasant to terrify this little man who had come with his lantern and his stick when he heard one of his guests attacked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I said, \"You shouldn't drink so much,\" and touched his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled, chirped, \"Thank you, sieur! Fruit, yes, sieur!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "and trotted away. It was all tropical, as I had half expected: plantains, oranges, mangoes, and bananas brought overland to the upper river by trains of sumpters and shipped south." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no apples and no grapes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I borrowed the knife that had stabbed Zama to peel a mango, and we ate in silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a time Zama ate too, which I thought a good sign." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something more, sieur?\" the innkeeper asked at my elbow. \"We've plenty.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I shook my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then perhaps...?\" He nodded toward the stair, and I rose, motioning for the others to remain where they were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Burgundofara said, \"You should have kept him frightened. It would have been cheaper.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The innkeeper shot her a glance of raw hatred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His inn, which had looked small enough the night before when I had been tired and it was wrapped in darkness, I saw to be tiny now, four rooms on our floor, and four more, I suppose, on the floor above." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The room itself, which had seemed capacious enough when I lay upon the torn mattress listening to Zama move about, was hardly larger than the cabin Burgundofara and I had shared on the tender." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Zama's ax, old and worn and intended for wood, stood in one corner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't want you to come so I could get money from you, sieur,\" the innkeeper told me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not for this or anything. Not any time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I looked about at the destruction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you'll have it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I'll give it away. There's many a poor man in Os these days.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I imagine so.\" I was not really listening to what he said or to what I said myself, but examining the shutters; it was to see them that I had insisted on coming upstairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Burgundofara had mentioned that they had been broken, and she was right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wood had split away from the screws that had held the bolt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I recalled bolting them and later opening them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When I retraced my actions in memory, I found that I had merely touched them and they had flown open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It would be wrong, sieur, for me to take anything after what you've brought me. Why, the Chowder Pot will be famous forever all up and down the river.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes stared off into some heaven of notoriety invisible to me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not that we're not known already—the best inn in Os. But some'll come and stay here just to see this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Inspiration seized him. \"I won't have it fixed, not nothing! I'll leave it just like it is!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I said, \"Charge them to come in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sieur, you have it. Not patrons, to be sure. But I'll charge the others, yes indeed!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I was about to order him to do no such thing, to have the damage repaired instead; but when I had opened my mouth to speak, I shut it again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was it to snatch away this man's good fortune—if good fortune it was—that I had returned to Urth?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He loved me now as a father loves a son he admires without understanding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What right had I to harm him?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My patrons were talking last night. I don't suppose, sieur, you know what happened after you brought poor Zama back?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell me,\" I said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When we were downstairs again, I insisted on paying him, though he did not want to accept the money." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dinner last night for the woman and me. Lodging for Zama and me. Two orichalks for the door, two for the wall, two for the bed, two for the shutters. Breakfast for Zama and me this morning. Put the woman's lodging and breakfast to Captain Hadelin's score and see what mine comes to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did, writing out a full list on a scrap of brown paper with a sputtering and much chewed quill, then counting out neat stacks of silver, copper, and brass for me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I asked whether he was sure I had so much due." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's the same prices for everybody here, sieur. We don't charge by what a man has, but by what he's had—though I don't like charging you at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadelin's bill was settled with much less calculation, and the four of us left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of all the inns at which I have stayed, I think I most regret leaving the Chowder Pot, with its good food and drink, and its company of honest rivermen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Often I have dreamed of going back, and perhaps sometime I shall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Certainly more guests came to our aid when Zama broke our door than there was any reason to expect, and I would like to think that one or even several of them were myself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed it sometimes seems to me that I caught a glimpse of my own face in the candlelight that night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However that may be, I had no thought of it as we stepped out into the morning-fresh street." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first hush of dawn was past, and carts rumbled along its ruts; women with their heads wrapped in kerchiefs paused on their way to market to stare at us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A flier like a great locust thrummed overhead; I watched it until it was out of sight, feeling the ghost of the strange wind blown from the pentadactyls that had attacked our cavalry at Orithyia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't see many anymore, sieur,\" Hadelin remarked with a gruffness I had not yet learned to recognize as deference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Most won't fly now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I confessed I had never seen any like that at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We turned a corner and had a fine view down the hill: the dark stone quay and the ships and boats moored there, and broad Gyoll beyond, its water glittering in the sun and its farther bank lost behind shining mist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We must be well below Thrax,\" I said to Burgundofara, confusing her for a moment with Gunnie, to whom I had told something of Thrax." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned, smiling, and attempted to take my arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadelin said, \"A good week, unless the wind's with you all the way. Safe here. Surprised you know of a country place like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time we reached the quay, a crowd trailed after us, keeping well back for the most part but whispering and pointing at Zama and me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Burgundofara tried to drive them off, and when she failed appealed to me to do it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\" I said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll sail soon enough.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "An old woman cried out to Zama and rushed up to embrace him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled, and it was clear she meant no harm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later I saw him nod when she begged to know if he was all right, and I asked whether she was his grandmother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She made a countrified curtsy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, no, sieur. But I knew her and all the children in the old days. When I heard Zama was dead, I felt like a piece of me'd died with him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So it had,\" I told her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sailors came to take our sarcins, and I realized I had been watching Zama and the old woman so intently I had never spared a glance for Hadelin's vessel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a xebec and looked handy enough—I have always been lucky in my ships." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Already aboard, Hadelin motioned to us." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old woman clung to Zama, tears rolling down her cheeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As I watched, he wiped one away and said, \"Don't cry, Mafalda.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the only time he spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The autochthons say that their cattle can speak but do not, knowing that to speak is to call up demons, all our words being only curses in the tongue of the empyrean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Zama's seemed so in fact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd parted as waves separate for the terrible jaws of a kronosaur, and Ceryx advanced through it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His iron-shod staff was topped with a rotting human head, his lean frame draped in raw manskin; but when I saw his eyes I wondered that he bothered with such trumpery, as one wonders to see a lovely woman decked with glass beads and gowned in false silk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had not known him so great a mage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Impelled by the training of my boyhood, I took the knife Burgundofara put into my hand and saluted him before the Increate should judge between us, the flat of the blade before my face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No doubt he thought I meant to kill him, as Burgundofara was demanding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He spoke into his left hand and made ready to cast the poisoned spell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Zama changed. Not slowly, as such things occur in tales, but with a suddenness more frightful he was again the dead man who had burst into our room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a cry from the crowd, like the shriek of a troop of apes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ceryx would have fled, but they closed before him like a wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps someone held him, or obstructed him intentionally; I do not know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In an instant Zama was upon him, and I heard his neck break as a bone snaps in the jaws of a dog." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a breath the two lay together, the dead man on the dead man; then Zama rose, living once more and now alive fully, or so it appeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I watched him recognize the old woman and me, and his lips parted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half a dozen blades pierced him before he could speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time I reached him, he was less a man than a gobbet of bleeding flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Blood spurted in weakening streams from his throat; no doubt his heart still beat under its welter of blood, though his chest had been opened with a billhook." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I stood over him and tried to call him to life yet again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The eyes of the head on Ceryx's fallen staff rolled in their putrid sockets to stare at me; sickened, I turned away, wondering to find myself, a torturer, grown so cruel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone took my hand and led me toward the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As we went up the shaky gangplank, I discovered it was Burgundofara." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hadelin received us among hurrying sailors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They got him that time, sieur. Last night we were all afraid to strike first. Daylight makes a difference.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shook my head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They killed him because he was no longer dangerous to them, Captain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Burgundofara whispered, \"He ought to lie down. It takes a great deal out of him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hadelin pointed to a door under the sun deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you'll go below, sieur. I'll show you the cabin. It's not big, but—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I shook my head again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were benches on either side of the door, and I asked to rest there." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Burgundofara went to look at the cabin while I sat trying to wipe the image of Zama's face from my eyes and watching the crew make ready to cast off. One of the sun-browned rivermen seemed familiar; but I, who can forget nothing, sometimes have difficulty in bringing the quarry to bay in a memory that grows ever more vast." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode: Collab writing\nContext: May reference existing characters/world\nAmount: three sentences\nVoice: Gene Wolfe" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two-headed man lounging upon the divan beyond the crimson curtain raised his cup to acknowledge my bow. \"I see you know to whom you come.\" It was the head on the left that spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're Typhon,\" I said. \"The monarch—the sole ruler, or so you think—of this ill-starred world, and of others as well. But it wasn't to you I bowed, but to my benefactor, Piaton.\" With a mighty arm that was not his, Typhon brought the cup to his lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His stare across its golden rim was the poisoned regard of the yellowbeard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have known Piaton in the past?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"I'll know him in the future.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Typhon drank and set his cup upon a small table." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'longer' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is said of you is true, then. You maintain that you are a prophet.\"\n\n\"I hadn't thought of myself in that way. But yes, if you like. I know that you'll die on that couch. Does that interest you? That body will lie among the straps you no longer need to restrain Piaton and the implements you no longer need to force him to eat. The mountain winds will dry his stolen body until it is like the leaves that now die too young, and whole ages of the world will stride across it before my coming reawakens you to life.\" Typhon laughed, just as I had heard him laugh when I bared Terminus Est." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're a poor prophet, I fear; but I find that a poor prophet is more amusing than a true one. If you had merely told me that I would lie—should my death ever occur, which I've begun to doubt—among the funeral breads in the skull cavity of this monument, you would only have told me what any child could. I prefer your fantasies, and it may be that I can make use of you. You're reported to have performed amazing cures. Have you true power?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's for you to say.\"\n\nHe sat up, the muscular torso that was not his swaying. \"I am accustomed to having my questions answered. A call from me, and a hundred men of my own division would be here to cast you\"—he paused and smiled to himself—\"from my sleeve. Would you enjoy it? That's how we treat workmen who won't work. Answer me, Conciliator! Can you fly?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"You may have an opportunity soon. I will ask twice.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't say, having never tried.\"\n\n\"You may have an opportunity soon. I will ask twice.\" He laughed again. \"It suits my present condition, after all. But not thrice. Do you have power? Prove it, or die.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I allowed my shoulders to rise a finger's width, and fall again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My hands were still numb from the gyves; I rubbed my wrists as I spoke. \"Would you allow that I have power if I could kill a certain man who had injured me just by striking this table before us?\" The unfortunate Piaton stared at me, and Typhon smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, that would be a satisfactory demonstration.\"\n\n\"Upon your word?\"\n\nThe smile grew broader." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you like,\" he said. \"Prove it!\"'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I drew the dirk and drove it into the tabletop.\n\nI doubt that there were provisions for the confinement of prisoners on the mountain; and as I considered those made for me, it occurred to me that my cell in the vessel that would soon be our Matachin Tower must have been a makeshift as well, and a shift made not very long ago. If Typhon had merely wished to confine me, he might easily have done it by emptying one of the solidly built sheds and locking me inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was clear he wished to do more—to terrify and suborn me, and thus win me to his cause." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My prison was a spur of rock not yet cut from the robe of the giant figure that already bore his face. A little shelter of stones and canvas was set up for me on that windswept spot, and to it were brought meat and a rare wine that must have been stored for Typhon himself. As I watched, a timber nearly as thick as the Alcyone's mizzenmast, though not so high, was set into the rock where the spur left the mountain, and a smilodon chained to its base." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chiliarch hung from the top of this timber on a hook passed between his hands, which were manacled as my own had been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For as long as the light lasted I watched them, though I soon realized that a battle raged at the foot of the mountain. The smilodon appeared to have been starved. From time to time it sprang up and sought to grasp the chiliarch's legs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Always he lifted them so it fell a cubit short; and its great claws, though they grooved the wood like chisels, would not support it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In that one afternoon I had as much vengeance as I wish ever to have. When night came I carried food to the smilodon.\n\nOnce on my journey to Thrax with Dorcas and Jolenta, I had freed a beast bound much as the chiliarch was now; it had not attacked me, perhaps because I bore the gem called the Claw of the Conciliator, perhaps only because it had been too weak to do so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now this smilodon ate from my hands and licked them with its broad, rough tongue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I touched its curving tusks, like the ivory of the mammoths; and I scratched its ears as I would have Triskele's, saying, \"We have borne swords. We know, do we not?\" I do not believe the beasts can comprehend more than the simplest and most familiar phrases, yet I felt the massive head nod.\n\nThe chain was fastened to a collar with two buckles as wide as my hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I loosed it and set the poor creature free, but it remained at my side.\n\nThe chiliarch was not so readily released. I was able to climb the timber easily enough, locking my knees around it as I once had locked them around the pines in the necropolis as a boy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By then the horizon had dropped far below my star, and I could easily have lifted him free from his hook and flung him into the gulf below; but I dared not drop him for fear he would fall into it, or that the smilodon would attack him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although the light was too faint for me to see it, its eyes gleamed as it stared up at us.\n\nIn the end I looped his hands about my neck and clambered down as well as I could, nearly slipping and half choking, but reaching the safety of the rock at last. When I carried him to the shelter, the smilodon followed and lay at our feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By morning, when seven guardsmen arrived with food, water, and wine for me and torches lashed to poles with which to drive back the smilodon, their chiliarch was fully conscious and had eaten and drunk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The consternation on the soldiers' faces when they saw that he and the smilodon were gone entertained us; but it was nothing compared to their expressions when they discovered both in my shelter.\n\n\"Come ahead,\" I told them. \"The beast won't harm you, and your chiliarch will discipline you only if you have been false to your duty, I feel sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They advanced, though hesitantly, eyeing me with almost as much fear as the smilodon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said, \"You saw what your monarch did to your chiliarch because he permitted me to retain a weapon. What will he do to you when he learns you've permitted your chiliarch to escape?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The vingtner answered, \"We'll all die, sieur. There'll be a couple more stakes, and three or four of us hung from each.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The smilodon snarled as he spoke, and all seven stepped back.\n\nThe chiliarch nodded. \"He's right. I'd order it myself, if I retained my office.\" I said, \"Sometimes a man is broken by losing such an office.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing's ever broken me,\" he replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This won't, either.\" I think that was the first time I looked at him as a human being. His face was hard and cold, but full of intelligence and resolution. \"You're right,\" I told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sometimes indeed—but not this time. You must flee and take these men with you. I put them under your orders.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded again. \"Can you release my hands, Conciliator?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vingtner said, \"I can, sieur.\" He stepped forward with the key, and the smilodon voiced no protest. When the manacles fell to the rock upon which we sat, the chiliarch picked them up and tossed them over the edge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keep your hands clasped behind you,\" I told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cover them with your cape. Have these men march you to the flier. Everyone will think you're being taken elsewhere for further punishment. You'll know where you can land with safety better than I.\"\n\n\"We'll join the rebels. They should be glad to get us.\" He rose and saluted, and I rose too and returned his salute, having been habituated to it during my time as Autarch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The vingtner asked, \"Conciliator, can't you free Urth from Typhon?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could, but I won't unless I must. It's easy—very easy—to slay a ruler. But it's very difficult to prevent a worse one from coming to his place.\"\n\n\"Rule us yourself!\"\n\nI shook my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I say I have a mission of greater importance, you'll think I'm joking. Yet it's the truth.\"\n\nThey nodded, clearly without comprehension.\n\n\"I'll tell you this. This morning I've been studying this mountain and the speed with which the work here is going forward. From those things, I know Typhon has only a short time to live. He'll die on the red couch where he lies now; and without his word, no one will dare to draw aside the curtain. One after another will creep away. The machines that dig like men will return for fresh instructions, but they won't receive them, and in time the curtain itself will fall to dust.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were staring at me openmouthed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I said, \"There will never be another ruler like Typhon—a monarch over many worlds. But the lesser ones who will follow him, of whom the best and greatest will be named Ymar, will imitate him until every peak you see around us wears a crown. That's all I'll tell you now, and all I can tell you. You must go.\" The chiliarch said, \"We'll stay here and die with you, Conciliator, if you desire it.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" I told them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I won't die.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I tried to reveal the workings of Time to them, though I do not understand them myself. \"Everyone who has lived is still alive, somewhen. But you are in great danger. Go!\"\n\nThe guardsmen backed away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their chiliarch said, \"Won't you give us some token, Conciliator, some proof that we once encountered you? I know my hands are profaned with your blood, and so are Gaudentius's; but these men never harmed you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The word he had used suggested the token he received. I took off the thong and the little sack of manskin Dorcas had sewn for the Claw, which now held the thorn I had plucked from my arm beside unresting Ocean, the thorn upon which my fingers had closed aboard Tzadkiel's ship. \"This has been drenched in my blood,\" I told them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With one hand on the smilodon's head, I watched them walk the promontory that held my shelter, their shadows still long in the morning light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they reached the mass of rock that was fast becoming Typhon's sleeve, the chiliarch concealed his wrists under his cape as I had suggested. The vingtner drew his pistol, and two soldiers aimed their weapons at the chiliarch's back.\n\nThus disposed, prisoner and guard, they descended the stair on the farther side and were lost to me in the bustling roadways of that place I had not yet named the Accursed Town." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I had sent them away lightly enough; but now that they were gone, I knew once more what it was to lose a friend—for the chiliarch too had become my friend—and my heart, though it may be (as some have said) as hard as metal, felt ready to crack at last.\n\n\"And now I must lose you too,\" I told the smilodon. \"In fact, I should have sent you away while it was still dark.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It made a deep rumbling that must have been its purr, surely a sound seldom heard by man and woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That thunderous purr was echoed faintly from the sky. Far across the lap of the colossal statue, a flier lifted into the air, rising slowly at first (as those vessels always do when they rely upon the repulsion of Urth alone), then streaking away. I recalled the flier I had seen when I had parted from Vodalus, after the occurrence I placed at the very beginning of the manuscript I cast into the ever-changing universes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And I resolved then that if ever leisure should come to me again, I would pen a new account, beginning as I have with the casting away of the old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whence comes this unslakable thirst to leave behind me a wandering trail of ink, I cannot say; but once I referred to a certain incident in the life of Ymar. Now I have spoken with Ymar himself, yet that incident remains as inexplicable as the desire. I would prefer that similar incidents in my own life not suffer a similar obscurity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thunder that had been so distant sounded again, nearer now, the voice of a column of night-black cloud that outreached even the arm of Typhon's colossal figure. The Praetorians had laid down the food and drink they had brought at some distance from my little shelter. (Such service is the price of undying loyalty; those who profess it seldom labor quite so diligently as a common servant whose loyalty is to his task.)" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I went out, the smilodon with me, to carry it back to whatever protection we could give it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wind had already begun her storm song, and a few raindrops splattered the rock before us, as big as plums and icy cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is as good a chance as you'll ever have,\" I told the smilodon. \"They're running for shelter already. Go now!\"\n\nIt leaped away as though it had been awaiting my consent, clearing ten cubits at every bound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a moment it had vanished over the edge of the arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a moment more it reappeared, a tawny streak darkening to rain-wet brown from which workers and soldiers fled like coneys. I was glad to see that, for all the weapons of beasts, no matter how terrible they seem, are merely toys compared to the weapons of men.\n\nWhether it returned safely to its hunting grounds, I am unable to say, though I trust it did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As for myself, I sat under my shelter for a time listening to the storm and munching bread and fruit, until at last the wild wind snatched the canvas from over my head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I rose; when I looked through the curtains of the downpour, I saw a party of soldiers cresting the arm.\n\nAstonishingly I also saw places without rain or soldiers. I do not mean that these newly seen places now spread themselves where the abyss had stretched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its aching emptiness remained, rock dropping a league at least like a cataract, with the dark green of the high jungle far below—the jungle that would hold the village of sorcerers through which the boy Severian and I would pass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rather it seemed to me that the familiar directions of up and down, forward and back, left and right, had opened like a blossom, revealing petals unguessed, new Sefiroth whose existence had been hidden from me until now.\n\nOne of the soldiers fired. The bolt struck the rock at my feet, splitting it like a chisel." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce seven sentences using the prose and structure of Gene Wolfe every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the scifi, science fiction fantasy, dying Earth, time travel genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a long while I stood there in the bow, sifting the sentinels of the night as Ushas's swift motion revealed them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Our ancient Commonwealth had drowned; but the starlight that touched my eyes was more ancient still, had been old when the first woman nursed the first child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wondered if the stars would weep, when Ushas herself was old, to learn of the death of our Commonwealth.\n\nCertainly I, who had once been such a star, wept then.\n\nFrom this I was taken by a touch at my elbow. It was the old sailor, the captain of our boat; he who had seemed so aloof before now stood with his shoulder next to mine, staring across the floodwaters as I did. It struck me that I had never learned his name. I was about to ask it when he said, \"Think I don't know you?\"\n\n\"Possibly you do,\" I told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But if so, you have the advantage of me.\"\n\n\"The cacogens, they can call up a man's thought and show it to him. I know that.\"\n\n\"You think I'm an eidolon. I've met them, but I'm not one of them; I'm a man like you.\" He might not have heard me. \"All day I been watching you. I been lying awake watching you ever since we laid down. They say they can't cry, but it's not true, and I saw you crying and remembered what they said and how it's wrong. Then I thought, how bad can they be?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it's bad luck to have them on a ship, bad luck to think too much.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should naturally weave in this dialogue: \"I'm sure that's true. But those who think too much cannot help it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure that's true. But those who think too much cannot help it.\" He nodded. \"That's so, I suppose.\"\n\nThe tongues of men are older than our drowned land; and it seems strange that in so great a time no words have been found for the pauses in speech, which have each their own quality, as well as a certain length. Our silence endured while a hundred waves slapped the hull, and it held the rocking of the boat, the sigh of the night wind in the rigging, and pensive expectation.\n\n\"I wanted to say there's nothing you can do to her that'll hurt me. Sink her or run her aground, I don't care.\"\n\nI told him I supposed I might do both, but that I would not do them intentionally.\n\n\"You never did me much harm when you were real,\" the sailor said after another long pause." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wouldn't have met Maxellindis if it hadn't been for you—maybe that was bad. Maybe it wasn't. We'd some good years together, Maxellindis and me.\" I examined him from a corner of my eye as he stared blindly over the restless waves. His nose had been broken, perhaps more than once. In my mind I straightened it again and filled in his lined cheeks.\n\n\"There was that time you pounded me. Remember, Severian? They'd just made you the captain. When it came my turn I did the same to Timon.\"\n\n\"Eata! \" Before I knew what I was doing, I had grabbed him and picked him up just as I used to when we had been apprentices together. \"Eata, you little snot-nose, I thought I'd never see you again!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I spoke so loudly that Odilo moaned and stirred in his sleep. Eata looked startled. His hand went toward the knife at his belt, then drew away. I put him down. \"When I reformed the guild you were gone. They said you'd run away.\"\n\n\"I did.\" He tried to swallow, or perhaps only to catch his breath. \"It's good to hear you, Severian, even if you're just a bad dream. What did you call them?\"\n\n\"Eidolons.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'might' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A eidolon. If the cacogens are going to show me somebody out of my head, I might have had worse company\"\n\n\"Eata, do you remember the time we were locked out of the necropolis?\" He nodded. \"And Drotte made me try to squeeze through the bars, but I couldn't do it. Then when the volunteers opened it, I ran off and left you and him and Roche to the crows. None of you seemed much afraid of Master Gurloes, but I was, back then.\"\n\n\"We were too, but we didn't want to show it in front of you.\"\n\n\"I suppose.\" He was grinning; I could see his teeth flash in the green moonlight, and the black smudge where one had been knocked out. \"That's what boys are like, like the skipper said when he showed his daughter.\"\n\nWildly and momentarily it occurred to me that if Eata had not run, it might have been he who saved Vodalus, he who did and saw all the things that I had seen and done." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"But I could, see? I'd thought all that year about living on the boat and helping Maxellindis and her uncle. He was getting stiff, and they needed somebody spry and stronger than her. I didn't wait for the masters to call me in to choose. I just ran off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It may be that in some other sphere it happened so. Pushing away the thought, I asked, \"But what have you been doing all this time? Tell me.\"\n\n\"Not much to tell. When I was captain of apprentices it was easy enough to slip away and see Maxellindis whenever her uncle's boat was docked somewhere around the Algedonic Quarter. I had talked to the sailors and learned to sail a bit myself; and so when it came feast time, I couldn't go through with it, couldn't put on fuligin.\" I said, \"I did it only because I couldn't imagine living in any place except the Matachin Tower.\"\n\nEata nodded. \"But I could, see? I'd thought all that year about living on the boat and helping Maxellindis and her uncle. He was getting stiff, and they needed somebody spry and stronger than her. I didn't wait for the masters to call me in to choose. I just ran off.\"\n\n\"And after that?\"\n\n\"Forgot the torturers as fast as I could and as much as I could. Only lately I've started trying to remember what it was like, living in the Matachin Tower when I was young. You won't believe this, Severian, but for years I couldn't look at Citadel Hill when we went up or down that reach. I used to keep my eyes turned away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do believe you,\" I told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maxellindis's uncle died. There was a tap he used to go to, way down south in the delta in a place called Liti. You've probably never heard of it. Maxellindis and me came to get him one night, and he was sitting there with his bottle and glass, with one arm on the table and his head down on his arm; but when I tried to shake his shoulder he fell out of the chair, and he was cold already.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Men to whom wine had brought death long before lay by springs of wine and drank still, too stupefied to know their lives were past.'\"\n\n\"What's that?\" Eata asked.\n\n\"Just an old story,\" I said. \"Never mind, go on.\"\n\n\"After that, just her and me worked the boat. The two of us could do it about as well as the three of us had before. We never really got married. When we both wanted to we never had the money, somehow. And when we had the money, there was always some kind of quarrel. After a couple of years everybody thought we were married anyway.\" He blew his nose, flinging the mucus over the side.\n\n\"Go on,\" I said again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We did some smuggling, and one night we got stopped by a cutter. Eight or ten leagues south of Citadel Hill, that was. Maxellindis jumped—I heard the splash—and I would have too, but one of the taxmen threw a achico at my feet and tripped me up. You know what they are, I suppose.\"\n\nI nodded. \"Was I Autarch still? You might have appealed to me.\"\n\n\"No. I thought about it, but I was sure you'd send me back to the guild.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have,\" I told him, \"but would that have been worse than what the law did to you?\"\n\n\"It would have been for the rest of my life. That's what I kept thinking about. Anyway, they took me upriver with our boat in tow. I was held till the assize, and then the judge ordered me flogged and made me sign on a carrack. They kept me in irons till we were out of sight of the coast, and they worked me like a slave, but I got to see the Xanthic Lands and I went over the side there and stayed for two years. It's not such a bad place if you've got some money.\"\n\nI said, \"But you came back.\"\n\n\"There was a riot and this girl that I'd been living with got killed in it. They have them there every couple years over the price of food in the market. The soldiers break heads, and I guess they broke hers. There was a caravel anchored off Blue Flower Island right then, and I went to see the captain and he gave me a berth. A man can be a terrible fool when he's young, and I thought maybe Maxellindis had got us another boat. But when I came back she wasn't on the river. I've never seen her again. She died, I guess, the night the cutter got its grapple on us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused chin in hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maxellindis was almost as good a swimmer as I ever was. You remember I could swim almost as well as you and Drotte, but maybe a nixie pulled her down. That used to happen, sometimes, specially on the lower reaches.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said, \"I know,\" remembering Juturna's huge face as I had glimpsed it as a boy, when I had almost drowned in Gyoll." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not much more to tell I'd brought back a bit of money in a silk cestus I'd had a man make for me over there, and I got a little more when the caravel paid off. I bought this boat here on shares and here I am. But I can still speak a little of the Xanthic tongue, and more will come to my mouth when I hear it in another one. Or it would if we had more water and a little more food.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I told him \"There are many isles in that sea. I saw them on a chart in the Hypotherm Classis once.\"\n\nHe nodded \"I guess a couple hundred, and a lot more that don't show on any chart I've seen. You'd think a ship couldn't miss them all but it can. Unless you're pretty lucky, you can pass right between them without ever knowing they're there. A lot depends on when it's night and when it's day, and a lot more on how high up your lookout stands—if he's in the maintop of a carrack or the bow of my little boat.\"\n\nI shrugged. \"We can only hope.\"\n\n\"That's like the frog said when he seen the stork. But his mouth was dry, and he couldn't quite get the word out.\"\n\nEata paused for a moment, studying me instead of the waves. \"Severian, do you know what's happened to you? Even if you're just a dream from the cacogens?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"But I'm not a phantom. Or if I am, it's Tzadkiel the Hierogrammate you should blame for me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then tell me what happened to you, just like I told you everything that's happened to me.\"\n\n\"All right, but I want to ask you something first. What took place here on Urth after I left?\" Eata sat down on a locker from which he could look up at me without turning his head.\n\n\"That's right,\" he said. \"You sailed off to bring the New Sun, didn't you? Did you ever find him?\"\n\n\"Yes and no. I'll tell you all about that as soon as you tell me what happened on Urth.\"\n\n\"I don't know much about what you'd probably like to hear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rubbed his jaw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyway, I'm not so sure I can remember just what went on or just when it was. All the while Maxellindis and me were together you were Autarch, but mostly they said you were off fighting the Ascians. Then, when I got back from the Xanthic Lands, you were gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I said, \"If you stayed two years, you must have been eight with Maxellindis.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That would be about right. Four or five with her and her uncle, and two or three after, just us two on the boat. Anyway, your autarchia, she was Autarch. People talked about it because of her being a woman, and they said she didn't have the words.\n\n\"So when I traded my extern gold for chrisos, some had your face on them and some hers, or anyway some woman's. She married Dux Caesidius. They had a big celebration all up and down Iubar Street, meat and wine for everybody. I got drunk, and I didn't get back to my boat for three days. People said their marrying was good—she could stay in the House Absolute and take care of the Commonwealth while he took care of the Ascians.\"\n\n\"I remember him,\" I said. \"He was a fine commander.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was strange to summon up that hawk face and imagine its fierce, surly owner lying with Valeria.\n\n\"Some said she did it because he looked like you,\" Eata told me. \"But he was handsomer, I think, and maybe a little taller.\"\n\nI tried to remember. Handsomer, certainly, than I had been with my scarred face. It seemed to me that Caesidius had been a bit below me in height, though every man is taller when everyone kneels to him, to be sure.\n\n\"And then he died,\" Eata continued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was last year.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see,\" I said.\n\nFor a long while I stood with my back against the gunwale, thinking. The rising moon, now almost overhead, cast the shadow of the mast like a black bar between us. From its farther side, Eata sounded strangely youthful. \"Now what about the New Sun, Severian?\n\nYou promised you'd tell me all about him.\"\n\nI began, but while I spoke of stabbing Idas I saw that Eata was asleep." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo can u write like Damien Jennison using my stuff as a starting point? btw might drop u in mid-story with random chars" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By Royal Decree of King Franci the Young, a duty is to be collected on the sale of products made of or containing silk. This is to be paid to your local tax collector at the week's end. Failure to do so will be considered an act of treason.\n\n—Notice nailed to a tree at the Sheep's Crossroad\n\nWhen Callum saw he was waking up in relative comfort, he knew something was wrong, though he was also relieved that he was waking up at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked around and saw that the wooden walls weren't full of holes that let in the cold wind, so he wasn't at home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His first instinct after that was to check himself over, searching for any sign of burns, injuries or otherwise. To his amazement and then relief, there was nothing save tiredness and an ache in his limbs. That quickly shifted to confusion, seeing now that he was in a proper bed with a straw mattress and a thin cover.\n\nThe mace Saresan had loaned him was propped up against the wall, a sight which made him question everything; perhaps it had just been a terrible nightmare after all. Maybe he'd made it to the town and merely forgotten about it, allowed shades of sleep to muddle with his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, that had to be it; what he'd seen and experienced was just impossible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Magic didn't exist, nor did beings with burning white eyes or the knight who'd apparently recognised him. Seeing the sun through the window ahead of him, Callum guessed it was near midday, further supporting that none of those events had happened at all. Conversation from beyond the door to his left gave him pause.\n\n\"You think he will be awake now?\" The first voice was eloquent and refined, a man of education." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second was one Callum recognized." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suppose so, can't hurt to check.\" What was Saresan doing there? Surely he was back in the village, didn't he have a job to do? Callum called out to those beyond the door.\n\n\"I'm awake.\" His voice was weaker than he thought it was going to be; had the journey taken that much out of him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wooden door opened, and the first one through was Saresan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had a look of concern but was still smiling. The second to step through was half a foot taller, but the first thing that caught Callum's attention were the striking azure eyes of the man.\n\nHis hair was short, neatly groomed, and his face cleanly shaven, care and attention put into his appearance. He wore a jerkin and trousers befitting a man of high station, finely tailored and made of comfortable material. On his belt was a sword sheathed in a scabbard, the sign of knighthood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was young like Callum, of a built body and tall, proud stature that spoke of arduous training and good eating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum tried to sit up as they both walked in, Saresan closing the door behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guard walked up to the bed while the knight remained a few paces away, watching Callum carefully.\n\n\"You alright there?\" His question was as puzzling as the man's presence.\n\n\"I think so.\" Callum looked over himself again, then back to the guard. \"…Has something happened?\"\n\n\"I was hoping you'd tell me. Folks in the village heard ungodly sounds from the forest, and when I went out to have a look with some guards, the whole place was ablaze.\" As Saresan scratched his head, Callum felt cold; surely it hadn't been true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wasn't going to rest until I knew what had happened to you. Found you by a crater right in the middle of it all, curled up and unconscious. It's a miracle you didn't burn to death.\"\n\nThe duelling warriors, the magical attacks that defied all explanation, the fire. It had to have been a dream, and yet apparently not.\n\nSaresan furrowed his brow. \"You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was… there anyone else there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum asked quickly. The knight continued to watch him as if appraising his words.\n\n\"Not a soul.\" He furrowed his brow. \"Lightning or a torch knocked into dry grass, I say. The forest is gone, nothing but ash now.\"\n\n\"Some people say your survival is an omen,\" the knight finally interjected. \"It is all the village folk will speak of.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Village folk?\" Callum turned to the window. \"I'm back home?\"\n\n\"Closest place I could bring you.\" Saresan shrugged. \"Took you to the inn, had you put up for the night. Truth be told, the innkeeper's petrified of you. Says you're a curse and you'll burn the village down, like you did the forest.\"\n\n\"You don't think… I did that, do you?\" Saresan smirked, patting him on the shoulder reassuringly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course not. I don't see you as the type.\"\n\nThe knight stepped up closer and spoke once again.\n\n\"I am Sir Azure Tellinton, knight of Felford and in service of our liege lord, the good King Franci. I arrived this morning, with the intent to pass through uneventfully. The turmoil of these events made me inclined to see you, to decide if what they say is indeed true.\"\n\n\"…And is it?\" Callum asked, looking up at the tall knight.\n\n\"I am not sure, honestly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azure rubbed his chin in thought. \"You are very unassuming. I imagine a man with the power to destroy a forest like that would elevate himself to a position higher than a menial labourer.\"\n\n\"Exactly what I told you.\" Saresan glanced at the knight. \"Didn't need to see him to conclude that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is the matter of the possession we found you with, though.\" Callum looked to his mace. Azure shook his head. \"Not that.\"\n\nSaresan reached under the bed and pulled out something wrapped up in cloth, a cloth that had many large cuts through it. It was a shape that Callum recognized, and as the knight unwrapped it, the feeling of confusion was overtaken by one of silent fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the sword, no different from when he first saw it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Any doubt of the night's events evaporated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azure was handed the blade, looking at it very carefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum eyed the thing, and the knight noticed instantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you know this blade.\"\n\n\"…I found it on my journey through the forest, before… Before I blacked out.\"\n\n\"What do you remember of your journey?\" Azure asked then. Callum thought quickly; he couldn't say the truth, they wouldn't believe him.\n\n\"…I went to deliver the letter, but it got dark quickly. I stopped to rest for a moment, found the sword discarded by the road, and then…\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then?\" Azure watched him intently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"…I don't know. I'm sorry, I can't remember. Perhaps I fell asleep by accident.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum doubted he sounded convincing, and the knight's look was a scrutinising one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It drifted to the sword soon enough, however." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'blade' | Required occurrences: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Try as I might, I cannot get a shine on this weapon. It must have been burned very badly to be in such condition. The edge, however, is sharper than anything else I have ever seen.\" He took the cloth the blade had been wrapped in, slicing through it with absolutely no effort. \"And yet the blade lacks a makers mark.\"\n\n\"Whoever made that is a damn fine swordsmith, worthy of making any knight's blade,\" Saresan interjected.\n\n\"Are you going to take it away with you when you leave?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum hoped that he would; he didn't like being so close to it after what happened last time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azure eyed the labourer, looked back to the blade." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Until such a time as someone comes who can confidently verify that the sword is theirs…\" He held it out to Callum. \"…No. The blade is yours.\"\n\n\"But the laws—\"\n\n\"Even with its sharpness, I doubt any knight would want it back in the condition it is in now.\" Callum exchanged a glance with the sword, feeling its presence and finding it unnerving despite his familiarity with it, a thing itself that should not have been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took the handle of it with great care, hoping he'd wake again to find this a bad dream as well, the sword gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not, now holding the weapon again.\n\nHe darted his eyes around, looking for the darkly armoured figure, for the strange things with burning eyes that dwelt in darkness.\n\nNothing came through, and all the while Azure watched. \"…Are you well?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm fine.\" He didn't sound confident, masking his fear poorly.\n\n\"Poor kid's shaken up. Not surprising,\" Saresan remarked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then Callum remembered why he was on the road that night, guilt overtaking him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked around his person but couldn't find the pouch where he'd placed it.\n\n\"Did you find a letter by me? I must take that letter—\"\n\n\"Yes, there was that,\" Saresan sighed. \"Cuthbert wasn't at all happy to see you back here. I didn't find any note with you, in all the ash and embers it could have burned up anywhere. His objections can wait though; he can afford to lose a little time and coin, but a person can't be replaced. I'm just glad you're alright.\" There was a moment of silence, Azure pondering something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"…There is still something I do not understand, that I cannot put my finger on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The knight looked to the sword again, then at Saresan. \"If you would, will you show me the place where you found him?\"\n\n\"It's not a far walk, can't see how it would hurt.\" The guard looked to Callum. \"And I take it you'll want Callum to come along.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perhaps Callum returning to the scene of the event will trigger his memory, seeing how lacking it is at present.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said the last part with emphasis.\n\n\"You alright with that?\" Callum nodded when Saresan asked, but deep down he was afraid of a repeat performance of the night before; would they even believe him if he told them? It would no doubt confirm he was the bad omen everyone was so afraid of. They'd lock him up as a precaution, or worse." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must include the following in quotes somewhere in your response: I shall meet you downstairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"…It can't hurt, can it?\" Callum doubted the very foundation of his words.\n\n\"I shall meet you downstairs.\" Azure excused himself without waiting for a reply.\n\n\"A little stuck up, isn't he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saresan remarked with a grin once Azure was gone. That helped diffuse the situation, but only a little.\n\n\"Are they all like that?\"\n\n\"Probably. First I've spoken with one, that's for sure.\" Concern flashed across Saresan's face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You sure you're alright?\"\n\n\"I guess I will be.\" Saresan patted him on the shoulder.\n\n\"Good man. Now come on, we might as well appease Azure so you can get back to working and I can get back to watching people come and go.\" Callum wondered how he'd be able to get his mind off what happened the previous night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Would the man who tried to kill him hunt him down again? Would the other knight again come to his aid? Trying to push those lingering thoughts back, he got out of the bed with a little difficulty, still feeling weak. Saresan watched him get up but said nothing.\n\n\"At least I kept your mace safe.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'callum' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saresan couldn't help but chuckle.\n\n\"You did, yeah. You've got a much better weapon now anyway. Give it to one of the guards on the way out of the village, they'll know what to do with it.\"\n\n\"You mean the sword, right?\" Callum asked hopefully.\n\n\"Don't think Azure would appreciate that right now,\" came the reply.\n\nPicking it up, Callum could feel how much heavier the mace was in comparison to the blade he'd gained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With both weapons in hand, he walked with Saresan downstairs. Callum looked to the innkeeper, the man giving Callum a stare of barely suppressed fear as he quickly rushed into the back room. The various people sitting and trying to enjoy their morning food also watched with great suspicion. Callum was sure he could hear some mumblings about him, casting their watchful eyes over and especially to his sword.\n\nCallum had often felt a little bit of an outsider in the village, but now it was palpable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before they could step outside into the village at large, however, he was presented with the captain of the guard standing in the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man – who he had yet to learn the name of, even after all this time – was very unimpressed about something. Saresan knew what." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I make no excuses for what I did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saresan again wasn't speaking in the most respectful tone, but it showed more reverence than before to the old warrior. \"Only that it was right.\"\n\n\"And at the same time you abandoned the protection of the village to go off into a burning wood in search of one man anyone else would have left for dead.\" The captain was not in the least amused, and seemingly neither was Azure. \"Do you have any idea of the danger you left everyone here in?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "DIRECTIVE: Incorporate \"No more than they already are every time they sleep,\" in response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No more than they already are every time they sleep,\" Saresan replied. Callum was going to speak, but the stern look from the captain warned him to stay out of it. He did. \"Three guards and myself weren't going to stop any brigands that chose to raid or wolves that wanted to feast on sheep.\"\n\n\"I've already talked to those three. They all pointed the finger at you as the instigator of your little rescue attempt.\" Azure then turned after the captain had spoken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You said nothing of your rescue attempt being against orders.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saresan met the disapproving tone of the knight with a slight shrug.\n\n\"Wasn't ordered to do anything one way or another. Used my own initiative, nothing wrong with that.\"\n\n\"When you are disregarding your duty, there is a lot wrong with it.\" Azure examined the man who was addressing Saresan. Callum continued to be silent, not finding a moment to interrupt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the while his mind swam with the memories of magic and swordplay. Azure then addressed the captain.\n\n\"With armour such as your own, I wonder if you are a man of nobility. An odd place for someone of such station to reside, especially far from the trappings of civilisation.\" He spoke eloquently, more so than he had to Callum. The old man looked at the knight without the same level of reverence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you're mistaken.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain was dismissive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's no 'sir' or lordly title in front of my name.\"\n\n\"Only one of nobble birth may wear such armour,\" Azure insisted, referring to the breastplate, \"even if it is just a small piece. It is crafted specifically for the wearer.\"\n\n\"Then the man who wore this must have been nobly poor. Found it in a smithy many years ago, and it would fit me and a dozen other of my men if they tried it.\" Azure looked even more aghast at that suggestion. Callum decided that now was the time to speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're intending to punish him for his actions, I believe it would be what everyone would have done. It's their duty to defend and protect all the people of the village, and just because someone goes slightly out of the boundaries, it doesn't mean they are beyond the guard's duties.\"\n\n\"And by that logic you'd have the guard traipsing around the countryside every time a poacher goes missing overnight.\" The captain turned quickly from Callum, ignoring him and instead focusing on Saresan again. \"Duties come before morals.\" Azure seemed unsure how to react to that comment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you're going to kick me out, get on with it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Saresan was impatient. \"I'm not sorry for what I did, and you know it. Stroke your beard all you like, I don't care for your pondering.\" He met the man's eyes. \"If it happened tomorrow, I'd do it again.\"\n\n\"And that's why you don't have a place here anymore.\" The statement was a thud in the chest of Callum, who didn't believe what he was hearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heroics and endangering yourself were not what he thought losing your job would be provoked by. Saresan, however, shrugged.\n\n\"Fine. I'll get my things and be out of your way.\" He didn't seem bothered. \"And being honest? Now I'm out from under your charge, I would tell you to get that stick out of your backside, but I fear it's wedged too deep.\" The guard stepped away from Azure and Callum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll be with you in a moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum was uncomfortable to wait, especially with the annoyed captain standing there. The old man was taken aback but quickly returned to a stern expression, which he aimed at Callum. The stare was piercing.\n\n\"I have no idea what happened in that woodland, and quite frankly, I don't care. But if you cause any trouble to the people I guard, you'll have to answer to me.\" Stern words from a stern man, Callum frowned, worried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made him feel unsettled.\n\n\"How could I hurt anyone? I'm just a labourer.\" The captain frowned. Azure interjected then.\n\n\"He will cause no problems whilst he is in my charge, regardless of what is concluded.\" While that sounded more ominous than any half threat he could get from a veteran soldier, it seemed to placate the captain, albeit with a grumble and a scowl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he left, Saresan returned with his halberd in hand and a small coin pouch that now hung from his side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you still intending to take us to the site of the event?\" Azure enquired.\n\n\"No point not to.\" The guard shrugged. \"The next town is along the way anyway. It's not like I'm going to find any more work here.\"\n\nStepping outside the inn, Callum saw that the streets were quieter than usual. Smoke rose into the sky from the direction of the forest, an undeniable reminder of what had occurred the previous night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azure was standing by a magnificent black riding horse with chain barding that coped with the weight of the armour well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was being tended to by one of the stablemen, who had just finished brushing the creature's mane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the back of the horse was a large bundle wrapped in cloth, perhaps the knight's armour. Azure nodded to him and got onto the saddle of his mount, looking to Callum and Saresan almost expectantly.\n\n\"I guess he wants me to lead him,\" Callum commented to himself. Another glance at the surroundings found the atmosphere a little amiss. \"Something going on today?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think the taxman is coming, but apart from that, no,\" Saresan remarked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That'd definitely get people hiding.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The former guard cracked a smile at that but said nothing more as they began to walk down the same route he'd had taken the day before, Callum hoping that history wouldn't repeat itself." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"I wouldn't think of you as old.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He also hoped not to bump into Cuthbert, surprised the nobleman hadn't blustered his way towards them angrily at his emergence from the inn.\n\n\"Doesn't it bother you that you're out of a job?\" Callum's question provoked another smile from Saresan.\n\n\"A guy like me can get work anywhere. They always need new hands, even at my advanced age.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't think of you as old.\" Saresan shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's old for my line of work.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azure followed behind on his horse, commanding respect from the populace by his mere presence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He carried the looks with pride, but mostly familiarity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The few people that they encountered on the way out of the village gave Callum a wide berth, looking upon him fearfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Terrance, sat in the same chair that he had been, made sure to look away as they passed. In all the years he had known that man, Callum hadn't put him down as the superstitious type. Maybe he was reading too much into it all; he wouldn't know until it all died down. He hoped it would be soon.\n\nIt didn't take long to get out of the village and once again down the road that would lead to the next town on." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'night' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even from that distance, Callum could see the smoking remnants of the forest that he'd been in the night before. A dark scar on the landscape, it spoke with a booming certainty of the destruction wrought there that night, visible to all but a mystery to everyone else.\n\n\"A shame, really,\" Saresan said to no one in particular. \"It was nice woodland. Good game there to be had. You were in the middle of that, you know.\"\n\n\"I guess I was lucky.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew better, but he still didn't think Saresan would believe him, not to mention Azure. Saresan chuckled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Must have used up all your luck in that fire. Don't go putting any bets on anything soon, that's my advice.\" The smouldering remains got closer as they walked, Callum able to smell the smoke even from there. Memories of the night were surfacing, but he kept trying to suppress them. The effort was futile, however. He gripped the handle of his sword tighter by instinct, expecting something to leap out at him from the nothingness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azure stopped his horse and looked over at the scorched earth.\n\n\"You survived that,\" Azure half stated, half asked.\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"Unconscious.\"\n\n\"Yes…?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Without any burns or adverse effects from the fire.\" Callum didn't have a suitable reply for a moment.\n\n\"It seems rather unlikely.\"\n\n\"Exceedingly… for a normal man.\" Azure's eyes looked at Callum; he could feel them on the back of his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That made him uneasy, but he turned to meet the questioning gaze of the knight." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"I am a normal man,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am a normal man,\" Callum protested flatly.\n\n\"So you say.\" Azure looked beyond the former forest in the distance. \"Perhaps you are protected by the gods, perhaps by darker forces. Either way, it warrants further investigation.\"\n\n\"What, you going to take him to a seer and have him 'divine' some portent about his future?\" Saresan asked, getting a stern look in response." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You doubt my judgement.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure as heck I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saresan made a sweeping gesture with his free hand at the ruined forest." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should naturally weave in this dialogue: \"As I said, it may trigger his memory of what happened that night.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Old men with beards who con people with illusions of great wisdom when they make it up on the spot and tell people 'the fates must have changed' if they're wrong?\"\n\n\"He has not spoken an ill word to me yet,\" Azure retorted. \"His wisdom has kept me on the true path.\"\n\n\"If you say so. So now we're here, you're just going to repeat the same questions as you did in the village?\"\n\n\"As I said, it may trigger his memory of what happened that night.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum looked away from the knight, not wanting to give away what he knew. Azure didn't seem the safest person to tell it to anyway. \"…Do you remember anything about what happened?\" Callum took a deep breath, the pain and the terror in his mind replaying as he recalled the combat, the imposing figure, the rescue.\n\n\"…Nothing that I haven't told you, no. I'm sorry,\" he lied, hopefully convincingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The knight narrowed his eyes, as if watching his every muscle twitch. Callum was about ready to crack under the pressure, spill everything to the warrior who stared him down so.\n\n\"Give it a rest, the man said he knows nothing,\" Saresan's protest broke the gaze as Azure looked at the guard instead. \"I'm sure if he remembers anything, he'll tell you, right?\" Callum nodded quickly, flashing Saresan a thankful look that the older man either ignored or pretended to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azure took one last look at the ruined forest and then again to Callum, exhaling a quiet sigh.\n\n\"…As you wish. You will still accompany me to the sage. He can tell more than I about this portent.\" The tone Azure used was no doubt just the way he spoke normally, at least Callum hoped so. The sword still felt too familiar in his hand. He wanted to drop it into the grass, forget about it and keep going on his way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What stopped him was the knowledge that he was just passing on the problem to someone else, to have another be burdened with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well? We cannot get there if you do not walk, Callum.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Looking up, he saw that Azure had tried to move ahead and had turned to see him not following." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry.\" His mumblings made Azure shake his head, almost in disappointment, before he resumed the slow trot of his horse. He caught up with Saresan who smiled at him.\n\n\"Could be worse. You could have died in that fire.\" Callum briefly wondered if it might have been better that he had.\n\n\"That's true.\" A pause as they walked in silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"…This sage, is he a wise man?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never met the guy, heard a few things about him though. Keeps to himself.\" He paused. \"Most say he's a lunatic who claims to divine the future. A few others say he's an immortal wizard of limitless power. Azure seems to believe in him and that he's still alive, so at least that's something.\"\n\n\"You don't sound convinced.\"\n\n\"If there were people able to throw balls of fire around like pebbles, you'd hear about them a lot more than you do.\" Callum thought back to the fireballs of the previous night, how insignificant they seemed to be to both parties." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must include the following in quotes somewhere in your response: Then I'll have to get back home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But suppose this sage is what he says he is, that he can divine things.\"\n\n\"Then you'll find out exactly what happened that night, and Azure will get what he wants. Either way, you can travel under his protection until then, which isn't a bad thing.\"\n\n\"Then I'll have to get back home.\" Callum pondered home, feeling a little uneasy at the thought of being away from familiar surroundings for so long.\n\n\"Won't take you long, I'm sure. Then you'll be able to tell all the folks about the 'divining' over an ale. I'm sure it'll be a good story either way, eh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess.\" Saresan once again had set his nerves at ease, something the man seemed to do well." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azure, on the other hand…" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo can u write like Damien Jennison using my stuff as a starting point? btw might drop u in mid-story with random chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give unto others all that you can give, for they are of need.\n\nTake unto yourself their grief and pain, for they are hurting.\n\nSuch is my bond and I shall keep it, for that is my duty in this life.\"\n\n—Oath of the Order of Pauper Monks\n\nThough clouds had slowly gathered above them as they travelled, the rain refused to come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their progress unimpeded and the journey without incident left Callum with only his thoughts and fears for company. He couldn't help but look about him every once in a while for shadows that weren't there, drawing Azure's attention every time. Even when they briefly stopped to eat – something Azure held off on for as long as possible – Callum felt far from safe.\n\nThey travelled quickly to 'make up for lost time', as the knight put it, past the farmsteads until they reached a woodland that had signs of a lumber operation on its edges. The last place Callum wanted to be was in a forest, but the only alternative was to face Azure's ire, and so he ventured in in silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For hours they rode along a narrow but well-worn path, slowly descending into a small river valley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beyond the river were two paths, one that ran alongside it and another which wound its way upwards. The ascending path was slowly being reclaimed by nature, and it was there that Azure's eyes were focused upon.\n\n\"The sage is up there?\" Saresan asked, not getting an answer. \"And we're expected to bring the horses along that path? Looks narrow.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The horses will be fine,\" Azure replied confidently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It might be easier on foot,\" Callum suggested. \"We could lead the horses by their reins behind us.\"\n\n\"Sounds sensible to me,\" Saresan agreed.\n\n\"If we go by foot, it will take too long.\" Azure's protest was ignored by the guard, who'd already begun dismounting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Doesn't look like the sage is busy right now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The joke wasn't taken well if Azure's stern stare was any indicator.\n\n\"The sage is often meditating at this hour but will surely make an exception in this case.\" Callum decided to dismount as well, and at that, Azure once again sighed, \"Your fears of the path are unfounded, but if you insist in foolishness, then so be it.\" The knight got off his steed faster than both of them and led them all across the river and along the upward path, trying to maintain a brisk pace.\n\nThe path grew increasingly more exposed as they ascended, but Callum didn't have long to grow accustomed to the chilly wind before Azure stopped abruptly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"People,\" Azure told them quietly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum was at the back of the group and couldn't see anything of the way ahead.\n\n\"If they're bandits, they sure picked the wrong group to waylay.\" Saresan checked the slopes about them just in case they'd walked into the ambush. Callum did the same but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He nearly reached for his blade but refrained when Azure called out into the distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hail! What brings you this way, strangers?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody shouted back, but Azure turned to address the two of them quickly, \"They're approaching. Two of them. Be ready.\"\n\nCallum hoped it wouldn't end in bloodshed, be it from brigands or more of the red monsters. The lack of fright from Azure told him it wasn't the latter, and when the pair finally came into view, Callum wondered why he was so calm. The first figure was a man half a foot taller than him and broadly built, but it was the double-headed battleaxe in the hands that he'd noticed first. A dull shirt of chain mail with a plate of scale pieces strapped across it completed the image of a hardened warrior." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's appearance was hidden by a full face-helmet, plain and without adornment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His brown trousers looked hard wearing and his boots were plated with metal, likely steel. Callum caught a glimpse of the warrior's powerful green eyes that watched them all with suspicion.\n\nHis travelling companion was a stark contrast to the foreboding figure that watched over her, a woman roughly his own age that stood a few inches shorter than he did. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, clean and without tangles. Her bright blue eyes were striking compared to the grim warrior that stood beside her, catching his attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She noticed his look and returned a smile of greeting, warm and welcoming. It felt genuine, melting away the fear of a bandit attack.\n\nShe wasn't as well built as the man next to her but was still quite trim. She wore a white linen shirt and trousers that were without blemish and brown boots that were speckled with mud. Over this, she wore a light blue cloak that was fastened around her neck by an engraved bronze emblem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That alone was more valuable than anything Callum had owned before finding the sword.\n\nSomething was hanging from either side of her belt, perhaps sheathed weapons. Neither group moved, waiting for the other to act first, but any tension in the air wasn't being felt by Callum. He and the lady watched one another a moment longer before he spotted her companion staring intently at him, almost a warning glance. He turned his stare away, not wanting to start things off on the wrong foot already." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saresan was the first to speak after another second, stepping forward with his halberd in only one hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't expect to see any other travellers out this way. The name's Saresan.\" The woman smiled once more in greeting and nodded her head.\n\n\"My name is Alexis.\" Her voice was soft and had the accent of someone from a higher station than Callum could ever hope to attain, possibly from the capital. Azure took notice when he heard her speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She indicated to the man beside her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is my brother Johnathan.\"\n\n\"Pleasure's all ours.\" It was Saresan's turn to smile, confident they were no longer in danger. He then motioned to Callum. \"That's Callum, the other is Azure.\" Alexis looked at Callum once more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A pleasure to meet you all,\" she said to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azure then handed the reins of his horse to Callum and walked up to Alexis with purpose, Johnathan eyeing him now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The knight bowed, then removed his helmet to reveal his smile. Saresan rolled his eyes.\n\n\"I am Sir Azure Tellinton, knight of Felford in the service of our liege, the good King Franci.\" He offered his hand to take hers, perhaps to kiss the top of it. \"Charmed to meet you, milady.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at the knight with an amused expression, not taking him up on the offer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'azure'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Johnathan's posture showed disapproval, but Azure didn't notice.\n\n\"Nice to meet you,\" was her only response. Azure quickly realised he was being rebuffed and stepped back. Callum couldn't help but be amused by the spectacle.\n\n\"What brings you to this place?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azure then asked, looking beyond them to the path ahead. \"Are you too seeking the guidance of the sage?\"\n\n\"I am,\" Johnathan replied, gruff and serious. Saresan seemed to be sizing up the tall warrior.\n\n\"Believer in all that stuff?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saresan got no reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're heading there too,\" Callum then mentioned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You should address ones of such upbringing with the respect they are due,\" the knight chastised. She, however, just shook her head.\n\n\"There's no need for that,\" she explained, surprising Azure even though he tried to hide it. \"If you're suggesting that we travel to the sage together, I agree. It's always better to be in greater numbers.\"\n\n\"We're already late. The caravan will not wait forever,\" Johnathan muttered, clearly not a fan of the idea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The caravan knows where to go if we take too long,\" she told him plainly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Johnathan looked once more to Callum as Azure put his helmet back on, taking the reins of his horse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't slow us down,\" Johnathan warned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have had enough delays already this journey, so on that, you have my word,\" Azure remarked, it clearly aimed towards Callum.\n\n\"Words are cheap,\" Johnathan quipped, turning back to the road ahead and starting to walk without another word. Alexis followed a moment after, managing to keep up with Johnathan's fast pace. Saresan shrugged and joined the others down the path that would eventually lead to the sage's home.\n\nThe path continued to climb the valley with no abode in sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Johnathan didn't look back once as they moved, his pace quick but not impossible to match. Callum once more brought up the rear of the horse procession, being much more careful than the others. Callum clutched his reins tightly, his eyes on the ground just in case a gnarled root or a jutting stone caused his horse to lose its footing.\n\nOnly when he noticed a shadow beside his own did he notice that Alexis had moved to walk beside him, watching him. Even though she'd said it was alright not to show deference, Callum was tempted to, trying to find the right words to greet her with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was she that spoke first, however.\n\n\"You don't need to grip so tightly.\" She was unlike Azure. She didn't chastise him for his mistakes. He loosened his hands as instructed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The horse will follow just fine.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" That was the only reply which came to his head. He noticed Johnathan looking back for the first time, staring at him. It unsettled him, Callum looking to Alexis instead to distract from it. \"I'm sorry about Azure, his greeting. I didn't know he'd do that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only then did he check that the knight wasn't listening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't seem to be for once, focused on the way ahead.\n\n\"You've no need to apologise,\" she replied. \"I had an inkling he would try, such as knights are. What brings you all to see the sage?\"\n\n\"Me.\" Alexis raised an eyebrow. \"Azure wants to seek advice from him about me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was all Callum was willing to give away; he didn't want her judging him for having strange powers or getting attacked by odd red monsters, never mind Azure being within earshot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't see why. You seem pretty ordinary to me.\" Callum found himself laughing at that, something he'd not done since his journey began. \"What?\"\n\n\"You're just the first person to have said that in a while, that's all.\"\n\n\"You seem normal for a squire, then.\"\n\n\"I'm no squire,\" came his reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'before' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I found this sword a couple of days ago. I'm holding onto it only because no one else has reclaimed it. Azure said no knight would want to use it.\"\n\n\"If it's sharp, that's all that matters,\" came her answer. \"My brother often goes to the sage. I'm sure he'll have the answers for your knightly friend.\"\n\n\"Me too. I want to go back to what my life was before I started all this travelling.\"\n\n\"What were you before?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why was she so curious about him? He was of a far lower station than her, beneath her notice.\n\n\"A labourer. A simple life, I know.\" Her look had moved to the winding path ahead as the forest began to clear, though her nod showed that she still listened. Then he decided to ask her a question or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My brother and I run a company of trading caravans. My parents worked from the capital and dealt mainly in unrefined ores. We've branched out into other items since we took charge. They made a healthy profit from their trade.\"\n\n\"And your parents?\" Callum knew the answer already. Her smile dimmed in recollection.\n\n\"They succumbed to plague two years ago. They sent me away before I could get sick. My brother was lucky, he recovered.\" Callum wasn't surprised Johnathan had endured, strong as he looked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's okay, thank you though. In truth, we don't have much of a hand in the running of the business, we don't know the markets as our parents did. A friend of the family runs most of the day-to-day workings, giving us a small portion of the profits. He was close to my father, promised to take care of us if the worst happened.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her small portion was likely more money than he'd ever had, yet wealth hadn't gone to her head. He decided to change the topic to something not as downcast, mulling on how open she was to such a personal question.\n\n\"Why does Johnathan need to go to the sage?\" She shrugged in answer.\n\n\"I don't know. He's been seeing the sage every now and again ever since my parents died. I don't normally go with him, but this time the visit coincided with a caravan group we were due to travel with.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pair went silent, Callum unsure what to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her unreserved kindness didn't feel right; she should've been turning her nose up at him, ignoring his very existence, but no. He was happy for the company, but it didn't make sense, much like everything that had happened to him so far. Slowly, his mind began to drift to his magic, to the red creature, the night in the forest.\n\n\"Are you alright? You seem a world away.\"\n\n\"…Yes. Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded in reply and said nothing, walking alongside him for a bit longer before catching up with her brother, casting one more look his way before turning to the path. Left alone again, his thoughts returned to the sage and what they'd say about him. What if the truth came out? He was already in trouble with Azure and the local lord; if his magic was discovered, the web of lies he'd spun would ensnare him.\n\nWhen it finally started to rain, Callum wondered if the gods had something against him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps they wanted him totally soaked and dishevelled when he was presented to the sage, or maybe they sought to delay him further to make the knotted nervousness in his stomach worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever the plan was, it was working. The exposed dirt path had become muddy, but the complaints among his travelling companions were few.\n\n\"Wonder if the sage saw this coming,\" Saresan joked. This time both Johnathan and Azure gave disapproving looks.\n\n\"The sage sees much,\" Azure responded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum saw the pathway widening ahead, giving the horses extra room to keep their footing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt then as if they were being watched. He stopped to look around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Alexis asked, noticing his stillness.\n\n\"You need not worry yourself, my lady. His memory is… not all that it could be.\" It was a weak jab, but one nonetheless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feeling wasn't going away, however." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"…Something's not right.\" Even as he spoke Callum couldn't see anyone, yet the feeling endured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If someone's out there, they'd think twice, I'm sure. We're too well armed to be easy pickings.\"\n\nSaresan's assurances didn't make him feel any better. From the corner of his vision, Callum thought he could see a glint of white out in the open air. Turning, he saw nothing but rain. He tried to tell himself that it was just him worrying needlessly, but that didn't help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Quickly he caught up with the others, noticing that Johnathan was watching him once more, though Callum couldn't tell why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The path ended abruptly at the entrance to a natural cave, with a torch burning just inside.\n\n\"We have arrived,\" declared the knight.\n\n\"The sage lives in a cave?\" Saresan was debating whether to take the torch.\n\n\"A quiet place of contemplation, far from the distraction of others. It is best to focus the mind, so he told me,\" Azure responded, looking back to the way they'd come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Johnathan took the torch before Saresan could, walking ahead of the others and into the cave without a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azure was more concerned with finding somewhere to tie the horse's reins to, locating a pair of rusted metal loops hammered into a nearby stone. Saresan followed suit and took Callum's horse as well, tying both on the other remaining hoop before moving with the others into the cavern's mouth.\n\nNow out of the rain, Callum glanced back at the downpour that they'd escaped from, then deeper into the darkness with a lingering feeling of anxiousness. It'd take a while for their clothes to dry, but did they have that long before they met the sage? The only route forward winded around a corner into the unknown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's just hope he's home,\" Saresan muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum secretly hoped he wasn't.\n\nJohnathan moved deeper in without fear and the rest followed behind. Callum noticed Azure taking the rear, seemingly to block off his one avenue of escape. Moss and lichen clung to the walls and ceiling, but no animals took shelter from the cold and wet.\n\nThe cave had a chill of its own, unnatural and still." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His imagination was running rampant with what the sage would look like and his powers; perhaps with but a thought the sage could divine his future, what little remained. The passageway narrowed as they headed further in, and when a fork in the tunnel presented itself, Johnathan made a left turn which led deeper still.\n\nA minute later Callum spotted the light of another torch ahead, affixed to a worked stone wall and next to that a sturdy wooden door. A small trickle of water flowed from the rock into a natural basin, clean and fresh. Getting closer, Callum noticed that the torch shed no heat, but Azure ignored this, walking to the door and knocking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was surprised that the door opened at that. Johnathan didn't react." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe he's not home after all,\" Saresan muttered as Azure removed his helmet.\n\n\"Oh wise sage, we humbly seek your counsel on a matter of the utmost importance.\" Azure's words echoed through the caverns behind them, dying alone. Saresan shrugged.\n\n\"Shall we make ourselves comfortable?\" came his suggestion.\n\n\"It is his sanctuary from others, we would be defiling it without his express invitation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Johnathan ignored the knight's concerns and opened the door wide, stepping over the threshold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azure frowned, but the warrior didn't care, moving out of sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum, now curious at what was beyond despite his fear, stepped up to the entrance and peeked inside. He hadn't expected the ordered anarchy that sprawled before him, a pandemonium pinned in by the low roof and rough walls covered in painted runes and symbols. Items were all over the place, scattered into meaningless piles on the floor and across all available surfaces. Shelves were stocked to the brim with charms, strange concoctions and unusual sculptures of things that he'd never seen before. Contraptions of metal and glass stood motionless and inert in a corner, purpose unknown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Through a small archway in the carved stone, there was a place that served as a bedroom and eating area, a cold fire pit within." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Among all the knick-knacks, however, was no sage. Azure stepped within now, concerned.\n\n\"It was not like this when last I came here.\" His hand was resting warily on the pommel of his sword.\n\n\"We wait,\" Johnathan declared bluntly, standing by the entrance and setting his hefty battleaxe down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum saw nowhere to sit and wanted nothing more than the fire pit burning so he could dry off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alexis removed her cloak and hung it on an unoccupied peg by the door. She looked at the trinkets around them with curiosity while Saresan looked in the back area, likely for a way to light a fire. Callum followed him, watching as the guard found flint, charcoal and wood readily enough. It didn't take him long to get the fire pit going and Callum stuck close to it, thankful for its warmth. He could see the others through the archway, looking to them as Alexis spoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wonder how he finds anything in this mess.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He will have placed them there for a reason.\" Johnathan was making sure not to move anything.\n\n\"Was he preparing for something big?\" Saresan asked, his hands by the growing fire. \"I don't think people daub things on walls just because they ran out of parchment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The sage is wise beyond all of us,\" Azure said to them. \"His wisdom and insight into the workings of the lands let him see far more than the normal eye could. When last I spoke with him, he was in the middle of what he called 'a revelation moment'.\"\n\n\"Might explain a few things,\" Saresan mumbled quietly. Callum noticed then that the back room was tidy, a stark contrast to the main living area. It had plain walls, and the bed was made yet covered in dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saresan picked up a jar and looked at the contents, grimacing at the congealed mess within; perhaps the sage had not been there for some time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Callum said you were coming here to ask the sage about him,\" Alexis spoke to Azure now. Callum pretended to focus on getting warm as he listened. Azure looked to a skull that rested on a high shelf, dirty with age.\n\n\"It is not of your concern, milady.\" She was not impressed with his answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have made it my concern, sir knight, now please answer me.\" Azure stared at her, but she matched his gaze, waiting until finally he relented. Callum was more curious about that than the knight was.\n\n\"A number of strange events have occurred with Callum as the centre. Mayhap they are an omen of events to come.\"\n\n\"Strange events?\" Johnathan suddenly took an interest in the conversation, turning to Callum." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pretended not to notice while Alexis listened on.\n\n\"Fires, two of them. Both he survived miraculously and with no memory of the incident. It would seem that he has more than a few connections to that most volatile of natural forces.\" Azure's disbelief was now only thinly concealed. Saresan was also listening less subtly.\n\n\"We told you what happened at the tavern,\" Saresan piped up. \"Unless you don't believe—\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a segment from a longer work then you need to write around eight sentences continuing directly from it. Try to mimic the style of Damien Jennison in the science fiction fantasy genre. Note that characters may appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did you do that for?!\" Siobhan exclaimed angrily to Saresan as they rushed out of the bar. Saresan was pleased with his accomplishment.\n\n\"I kept him quiet.\" The people around the bar had stopped, looking at the group with a mixture of confusion and fear. A few were pointing devices at them, purpose unknown. Monica was fumbling in her pocket for something as she looked to the walkways ahead.\n\n\"You knocked him out!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Siobhan was even angrier at his reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Made things better though.\" Saresan got a glare.\n\n\"You made it worse, much worse!\" She turned to Monica, who was fiddling with a small device. \"Can you pick up Daniel?\"\n\n\"Not here.\" She was worried, breathing lightly. \"Maybe the message didn't go through.\"\n\n\"Fat chance of that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Siobhan looked to the others present, namely Saresan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll have time to be pissed at you later, we need to get out of here. We make a break for the ship before his buddies show up.\"\n\n\"Jinar could teleport us there,\" Alexis suggested. \"It would be—\"\n\n\"No! No teleporting, no flashy crap! We're in enough trouble as is. We run!\" Siobhan started down the walkway in a rush. She didn't break into a full sprint, however, and with the perilous walkways, Callum understood why. The others followed, Callum looking back to the spectacle and seeing some people helping the soldier to his feet. That was little comfort to him, however, fleeing once more, but this time from humans rather than demons. He hadn't yet drawn his sword but feared that he'd have to use it soon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't take long for the more crowded sections of the walkway to become visible ahead, unaware and perhaps uncaring of the trouble Callum and the others were in. A voice came from the device in Monica's hand, and it wasn't pleased.\n\n\"Monica? Where the hell are you?\" It was Daniel.\n\n\"We're outside,\" she admitted grimly, the device able to project her voice to him and his to her.\n\n\"We? You didn't take them out of the ship, did you? Oh god, what happened? Is it bad?\"\n\n\"…Depends on if you class hitting a Z-Gen soldier with a chair as bad.\" There was a pause.\n\n\"Please tell me you're joking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't see what's so wrong with that! He was going to call for assistance!\" Saresan remarked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh fuck.\" Callum didn't need to know what that word meant to know it was bad. \"Are you alright?\"\n\n\"How soon can you take off?\" Monica asked. Daniel was talking to someone quickly, likely Simon. The sounds then ceased abruptly. \"We're in trouble, big trouble.\"\n\n\"You think?\" Siobhan was mad. \"If we die, I'm blaming you.\"\n\n\"He was going to take us away,\" the guard protested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum was started to get tired from all the running." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'magic' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you have preferred that?\"\n\n\"I would've preferred if you hadn't mentioned teleporting!\" Siobhan was glaring at Jinar now.\n\n\"While you all have valid points, I believe we should be focusing on the crowd of people ahead that we will not be able to run through. Perhaps if I used my magic—\" The glare hardened when Jinar got to talking of magic. \"Or we can ineffectually weave through. Either is fine.\"\n\n\"Stop!\" came a call from ahead, a woman's voice. A Z-Gen soldier had levelled her rifle at them, the crowd dispersing quickly. Jinar ignored Siobhan's warnings and muttered a few syllables, gesturing with his hands before the soldier suddenly started to rise up in the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Startled, she didn't fire on the group as they rushed underneath and past her through the rapidly depleting crowd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry,\" Callum apologised even as Siobhan scowled at Jinar.\n\n\"Damnit, what did I just say?!\" she shouted.\n\n\"Would you prefer she shot at us?\" Jinar let the soldier fall to the ground after a few seconds, when they were far enough away for her not to give chase. All at once, two more soldiers blocked their way forward, one with an orange cloak ordering people away while the other shot at them with their rifle. The beam of red missed Jinar narrowly, the sorcerer stopping along with the others as the other soldier aimed his rifle at the group.\n\n\"Put your weapons on the ground! You're under arrest for assaulting a Z-Gen soldier!\" beckoned the orange cloaked man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His gun was trained on Siobhan while the other was focused on Jinar, seeing them as the most dangerous threats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum's heart was pounding as he thought of their options; running would get them nowhere, but the last thing any of them wanted was to fight.\n\n\"This has all been a misunderstanding!\" Monica implored, afraid.\n\n\"Weapons down!\" The order was shouted once again, louder this time.\n\nHow many more times would they have to face soldiers, even if they avoided a fight there? About to reach for his sword in fear, Callum thought twice about it, sure they'd notice him drawing the blade, and instead decided to try his own magic. With no tells for his power, he focused the arcane might within him into a dazzling display of energy that he launched at the soldiers faster than he'd intended.\n\nAll present had barely a moment to react save Callum, who shielded his eyes just before the energy detonated into a blinding flash of light. He moved forward a moment later, the effect dying quickly as Siobhan muttered some less-then-savoury words from behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hope was that the soldiers were dazed, allowing him to use his sword to damage their weapons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't want to kill them, even though the feeling wasn't mutual; they were just doing their job, and even though their dislike of sorcerers made no sense to him, if he could end it without death, he would." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He barely drew his blade before he noticed that the soldiers hadn't been affected, weapons now aimed at him.\n\n\"He's a sorcerer too!\" shouted the gold-cloaked one.\n\nA spike of panic rushed through Callum that was overpowered just as quickly by confusion when he felt magical energy behind him. A moment later the man was knocked to the ground, hit in the chest by a searing bolt of flame thrown by someone else. The one left standing stared at his screaming comrade in utter disbelief. A hole had been seared through his breastplate, the skin beneath burned and blistered.\n\nCallum was horrified at the sight, turning back to see that Alexis had cast the spell, the only one to recover in time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes shone with determination and regret, a feeling that he shared. The others regained their bearings from the flash at that point, Monica seeing the spectacle first.\n\n\"What happened?\" she exclaimed, shocked.\n\nThe standing soldier took one look at the group and dropped his rifle, rushing instead to his fellow's side while reaching for something on his belt. Callum saw their chance to flee, but his heart bled for the man who suffered because of them. Siobhan took the opportunity, however, not looking back to the others as she rushed past. Monica was quick to catch up, but Callum lingered even as Saresan made his way ahead. The soldier was applying some kind of ointment to the burned man's chest, although it seemed to make the screaming louder rather than mollify it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Help's on the way, hold on!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the man implored his companion, ignoring the others completely. It was gut-wrenching to see, doubly so that he was the reason Alexis had had to do that. Jinar gave him a look that brought him back to his sense, reluctantly hustling away. The rifle that the soldier had discarded remained so.\n\nNobody else confronted them as they rushed to the landing pad, nor did anyone block their way; even when they moved out of sight of the previous confrontation, the walkways were far emptier than before. Those that there walking gave them a wider berth, making Callum think that they knew what they'd done. None of them had seen it, how was it possible?\n\nMonica muttered all the way back and up in the lift, trying to get what she was going to say to Daniel straight in her head but failing each time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alexis shared a look with Callum that spoke of far worse worries that lay ahead, echoed in Daniel's expression when they spotted him by the lift." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"What the hell were you thinking?!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was frightened and furious all at once, rifle in his hands that didn't lower when they arrived. His eyes were only on Monica, who stopped dead in her tracks as she saw him.\n\n\"Daniel, I—\" Monica was cut off.\n\n\"What the hell were you thinking?!\" She was mortified and without a reply as Daniel looked to Siobhan. \"Do you realise what you've done?\"\n\n\"I didn't do shit, it was them!\" Siobhan glared back.\n\n\"That is hardly fair—\" Jinar got the glare aimed at him instead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You levitated someone!\"\n\n\"He did WHAT?\" Daniel exclaimed. That only made Callum feel even worse. \"Oh god. We're criminals now, you know that?\"\n\n\"Can't we reason with them?\" The look Callum got from Daniel after asking that question made him regret it.\n\n\"Right now, my best bet is to kill you all and hand your bodies over to them in the hope that they don't think I'm complicit, that's how screwed we are!\" Callum briefly expected Daniel to do just that, but he didn't, smashing his fist into the wall hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least tell me you didn't kill anyone!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They will recover.\" Jinar was remarkably calm and measured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We made the best of a bad situation, it could have been a lot worse.\"\n\n\"It IS a lot worse: you don't understand! Did they scan you?\" Jinar nodded.\n\n\"I fail to see why that is important.\"\n\n\"They'll have your IDCs on record, which means they'll mark your files as being fugitives and me with you! We won't be able to go anywhere without being hunted down like… like dogs!\" Alexis said nothing, far wiser than Callum had been.\n\n\"Daniel, I didn't mean—\" Monica spoke shakily.\n\n\"Save it!\" Daniel snapped, looking to Callum and his friends. \"Give me one reason why I should let you on board!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum looked back to the huge drop around them but had no argument to give." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"When the alternative is death?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd leave us here?\" Alexis asked him. \"Are you willing to have that on your conscience for the rest of your life?\"\n\n\"When the alternative is death?\"\n\nCallum blinked and just like that, Tyrus was looming behind Daniel with narrowed eyes. Its appearance startled Callum, Jinar watching it with distrust.\n\nIt took a moment for Daniel to notice, turning in surprise which quickly melted into rage. \"The deal's off, you… whatever the hell you are! All the gold in the universe isn't worth it if I'm too dead to spend it!\"\n\n\"Irrelevant,\" retorted Tyrus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't give me that crap, you've ruined me!\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include \"Your stowaways are staying here! They're not my problem anymore, and neither are you!\" somewhere in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daniel moved to aim his weapon but stopped when the demon snarled threateningly. This was more like the creatures Callum knew, angry and hateful.\n\n\"Board,\" the demon ordered.\n\n\"Your stowaways are staying here! They're not my problem anymore, and neither are you!\" Callum knew what was coming next and stepped forward, eager to avert it.\n\n\"The longer we spend arguing here, the more likely it is that those soldiers will catch up with us!\" Callum told Daniel. \"You can argue with us all you like, but if they do fight us, it'll be all of us, and we stand a better chance together.\" Tyrus didn't seem to care for his words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daniel lowered his head and took a deep breath, clenching his fists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Daniel?\" Monica was afraid, of what wasn't clear. Without a word Daniel boarded the ship, leaving the ramp down for them to do the same. Siobhan didn't think twice about following. Jinar and Saresan were close behind, the guard giving Callum a weary smile. Callum lingered along with Alexis, while Monica looked to where Daniel had gone, hurt and ashamed.\n\n\"Board,\" the demon repeated more sternly, aimed only at Callum. Did it care at all about the others? Daniel was mad and rightly so, but he had to understand that they'd had little choice, save going with the Z-Gen soldier to face whatever was in store for them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was Tyrus's plan any better a fate, a foot soldier in a war he didn't yet understand?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'corridor' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't want to anger the demon further, however, taking one last look at the world which would never welcome them back again before boarding with the others.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Monica. The last thing we wanted was to cause you this pain,\" Alexis sincerely told her as the door closed. Callum didn't worry for Tyrus, the demon was likely inside already. No sooner had they moved back into the corridor of doors, Callum felt the ship lift off from the platform, something he'd never believed possible from seeing how huge it was from the outside. Siobhan was a little further down the corridor, walking past Simon who looked as tired as ever. He had none of the anger or worry on his face that Daniel did.\n\n\"I'm getting in the Silverbolt just in case things get even worse, and they will.\" Siobhan didn't wait for a response, pressing buttons next to a closed door and stepping through when it opened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Simon approached them then." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm glad you're all in one piece.\" He glanced over them all to double-check. \"I'd steer clear of the bridge if I were you, Daniel would flip his lid. Except for you, Monica, he needs you to copilot.\"\n\n\"I don't think he wants me there,\" Monica replied quietly.\n\n\"He still needs you.\"\n\nShe moved in the direction of the bridge, looking back to Callum with many emotions playing on her face. Reaching the end of the corridor, she opened the door that led to where Callum guessed the ship was controlled from. \"Daniel told me everything, so I won't ask.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If I had to make the choice again, I wouldn't hesitate,\" Saresan told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You made the best of a bad situation,\" Simon agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait, you're agreeing with me?\" The guard watched Simon shrug lightly, sipping from his cup.\n\n\"There's a saying my father has: things can always be worse, you could be dead.\" Jinar raised an eyebrow to that even as Saresan nodded in agreement.\n\n\"The way Daniel spoke, things are already bad,\" the sorcerer replied.\n\n\"Still better than the total cessation of experience and thought for all eternity. If you're alive, things can get better.\" Callum had heard that before.\n\n\"What do Z-Gen have against sorcerers?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum finally asked. \"Siobhan didn't go into much detail about them before, only that we should avoid revealing our powers to them.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'common'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Simon began to head to the common area, and Callum followed along with the others.\n\n\"Beats me. This is the first I've heard that they don't like you, but then you lot are the first sorcerers I've ever met. Perhaps they thought you were working with the Great Threat.\" The window in the common room had been repaired, once more showing the eternal blackness of space.\n\n\"The Great Threat?\" Callum said as Saresan leaned against the wall just inside the room. \"Another group like Z-Gen?\"\n\n\"Or perhaps the demons,\" Jinar added.\n\n\"Details on the Great Threat are practically non-existent. There's been no eyewitness accounts from a survivor of their attacks. They don't happen often, but they're devastating,\" Simon had finished his drink, putting the cup on the table and turning his chair to them, \"Z-Gen claims they send agents into our societies to weaken them from within in preparation for an attack. Whether that's true or not is another matter, but it would explain why they were suspicious of you.\"\n\n\"And why can't Z-Gen stop them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum was thinking on their own world, its population reduced to corpses rotting peacefully in towns bereft of all but death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thought sent a shiver down his spine, but the similarities weren't lost on him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'would' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The attacks would happen a lot more often if they didn't work to prevent them. When they do happen, only the local fleets can arrive in time to deal with it.\"\n\n\"Why wasn't everyone on that world talking about the Great Threat? A war on my world would be spoken of constantly.\" Callum got a vague shrug from the doctor as he reached for a device at his side, exactly like the one Monica had used on the walkways.\n\n\"When it's happened for as long as it has, it can all feel kind of distant, I guess.\" Simon turned his attention then to the device. \"What's the situation, Daniel?\"\n\n\"What do you think?\" Daniel was clearly agitated." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"And you think not shooting them will make them stop?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got fighters in pursuit; they'll catch up in two minutes.\"\n\n\"Siobhan can take care of that.\" The doctor headed over to a small machine on the counter, sounding indifferent as he pressed a button.\n\n\"We're in enough trouble already! I'm not shooting down Z-Gen vessels!\" There was a series of beeping noises from Daniel's end.\n\n\"And you think not shooting them will make them stop?\" Siobhan's voice was coming out of the device now. Simon watched the machine dispense the liquid he drank so much of, though his attention was on the conversation. \"I'm launching.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not opening the hangar.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you think I can't override it?\" Callum could hear the pilot's grin through the device.\n\n\"Siobhan? Siobhan!\" Daniel wasn't answered. \"Damn it, she's going to get us all killed!\" Callum didn't like hearing the group be torn apart by things they'd done. \"Are they with you, Simon?\"\n\n\"I'm not confining them to quarters.\" Simon took a sip from his cup, not raising his voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's not a request, Simon!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And if the ship gets damaged, I might need them to help me. You can be mad at them all you want when we're not being hunted by Z-Gen.\" Simon placed the device back on his belt.\n\n\"Will they ever stop hunting for us?\" Callum asked, worried more about them than himself.\n\n\"They won't dedicate resources directly to it, if that's what you're asking, but neither will they let you be if they see you. Daniel may be blowing his top, but he has every right to be worried, there aren't many places you can go that don't answer to Z-Gen on matters of the law,\" Simon explained. Callum recognised the Silverbolt flying past the window, shooting beams of red far larger than he'd ever seen before. The ship shook lightly then, which made Simon look to the exit with a sigh. \"If you need me, I'll be in the engine room monitoring the ship's status. Stay here or in your quarters… in case I need you.\" The doctor left with his drink in hand as the ship shook again, less than before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All this over magic, it is a shame,\" Jinar sighed as he stroked his beard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I had hoped that persecution of those with arcane talent was something isolated to our world.\" Saresan had gone to the cupboards to search for a drink.\n\n\"So, what happens now, presuming Daniel kicks us off the ship later?\" the guard asked.\n\n\"I have my doubts that will occur.\" Jinar watched Saresan open one of the cans, conjuring forth a drink of his own with a few mutterings and a finger click. It was in a rudimentary cup that obscured the contents.\n\n\"He's far past angry. Much as I don't want to admit it, if it hadn't been for Tyrus we'd be dead by now,\" Saresan remarked.\n\n\"That I doubt more so. Daniel is just one man: we could have easily taken him if the need arose.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jinar didn't sound like he relished that prospect, or was it that the conversation had shifted to the demon?\n\n\"And then Z-Gen too?\" Saresan got no reply to that one.\n\n\"Saresan is right though, we owe a lot to the demon.\" Alexis's expression was neutral. \"What puzzles me is why it's going to all this effort.\"\n\n\"It's because of me. Tyrus wants to train me to defeat the leader of the demons.\" It was far from the best time for Callum to tell the others, but waiting was worse; he didn't like keeping secrets, especially from friends, but it made him sound more important than he actually was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think I can do it, but we have little choice. It's the demon's magic that's protecting us from being noticed by the other demons.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Presuming that Tyrus is not on their side,\" Jinar muttered.\n\n\"It would have no reason to save us back on our world if that were the case,\" Alexis pointed out. Jinar was still doubtful, sipping his drink as she continued, \"There's something else that concerns me. The attacks of this 'Great Threat' sound similar to what happened to our world.\"\n\n\"I was thinking the same thing,\" Callum told her. The ship shook again, reminding them of the price they'd all paid to be having that conversation. Saresan looked back to the window as the Silverbolt flew past.\n\n\"Could be a coincidence. We don't know nearly enough about everything to make the connection.\" The guard sat down, watching the spectacle of combat that was just beyond the window. \"You can ask Tyrus when you next see it, and if it's really going to train you, that'll be soon.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "im ur writing buddy. i set scene (might have existing chars), u do 9 sentences like Damien Jennison" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum approached the large doors, and a quiet knock made two attendants within open the way for them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room beyond was massive, and dominating the middle was an oak table twenty metres long and three wide. A feast was laid out upon it: all manner of foods piled on large silver trays, along with a selection of wines and beverages that made Callum's mouth water. He'd never seen so much food before, least of all food he was allowed to eat.\n\nWindows that almost rose to the ceiling lined the back of the room, glass spotless as it let the late afternoon sun bathe the table in light. There were enough red cushioned chairs around the table for all of them, including one for Tyrus that was unoccupied.\n\nThe demon was stood at the end closest to them, turning to see Callum arrive with its unreadable expression. At the head of the table sat Telanthir, who smiled at them, careful to not look upon Tyrus.\n\nBehind the king was a grand fireplace that burned heartily with fresh logs, and above it, a large picture that was entirely covered in white cloth. Daniel, Simon and Saresan sat to Telanthir's left, the doctor already armed with a coffee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd changed only his shirt, while Saresan was dressed like Callum, though he didn't appear to be comfortable in it. Daniel hadn't changed and was slumped in his chair, a mostly empty glass of wine in his hands. He was staring at nothing, sad and distant. A space between Daniel and Saresan was quickly occupied by Siobhan, who was eyeing the food hungrily.\n\n\"Thank you all for coming,\" Telanthir said warmly, his voice easily reaching all of them. Callum and Jinar took their seats on the other side of the table, their host glancing then to the empty one to Callum's left. \"I presume lady Alexis will be joining us?\"\n\n\"Shall I go and check on her, sir?\" one of the attendants asked." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'harder' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, let her take her time. I'm sure no one is in a hurry to get started.\" Siobhan's stare at the roast chicken ahead of her said otherwise. \"Feel free to have some of the red in the meantime. It is a fine vintage.\"\n\nCallum reached for a jug of water, seeing no ale on the table. Saresan had reluctantly poured some wine into his glass.\n\n\"You got anything harder?\" Siobhan asked idly.\n\n\"Spirits more to your taste?\"\n\n\"Not fussed, just harder.\"\n\n\"I will have someone find something for you,\" Telanthir told her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other door attendant left in search of that. He held the door open, and when Jinar turned his head, Callum did also to see that Alexis had arrived. She wore a full-length white dress that fitted her well. Plain and without adornment, it went down to her feet and was held up by straps that went over her shoulder. She didn't announce her arrival with any fanfare, but it hadn't been needed; being the last one to arrive, it caught everyone's attention easily. Telanthir smiled politely at her.\n\n\"I'm sorry that I'm late,\" Alexis said to him, moving to sit beside Callum. \"It took some time to find something for me to wear.\"\n\n\"Do not worry, we were happy to wait,\" Telanthir told her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alexis reached for a glass and started to pour herself some wine carefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look nice,\" Callum told her honestly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made her glance at him in turn.\n\n\"Thank you, as do you.\"\n\nA man entered with a trolley with a huge silver bowl on top, from which he began to serve soup. It was reddish in colour, Callum smelling tomato and a hint of beef: a fine meal all by itself, but there was so much assembled before them that there was no way he could make a dent in it. Siobhan was going to try, ignoring the soup given to her and taking a leg of chicken, which she started eating without using the large amount of cutlery provided.\n\n\"Please, enjoy any and all of the food.\" Telanthir tried the soup and nodded to the attendant. \"Excellent, as always. Please give my compliments to Frederick.\"\n\n\"Of course, sir.\" The man left, but not before eyeing Tyrus warily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The demon glared back.\n\n\"Why are we here?\" Daniel made no effort to hide his annoyance, not touching his soup. \"Surely not because you're short of dinner guests.\"\n\n\"Daniel.\" Simon's quiet warning fell on deaf ears.\n\n\"He's hiding something, just like they were,\" Daniel spoke hatefully, staring at Callum. The old man eyed him curiously but not with anger.\n\n\"No matter what we speak of here, you are my guests above all else. You are under no obligation to stay. Once your ship is fully repaired, I will arrange transport to your vessel if you wish it. Unlike Z-Gen, I bear you no ill will,\" Telanthir spoke plainly, giving Callum no reason to doubt his words. \"No one here will talk of your visit, of that I swear.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you think I'm stupid?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daniel spat. \"No one gives all this and expects nothing in return. What do you want?\" Telanthir blinked." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"There something we can do for you? A 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' kind of deal?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Geeze, cut it out already!\" Siobhan told him with a mouthful of food, already reaching for more. \"You made your point.\" Daniel slumped further back in his chair, brooding.\n\n\"So why are we here?\" Saresan repeated the question, though without the malice. \"There something we can do for you? A 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' kind of deal?\"\n\n\"All I ask is that you listen to what I have to say.\" That sounded simple enough, Callum thought; Telanthir had been pleasant so far." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me start by saying that I know all about your exploits on Gui-Lon, including your criminal records. I do not intend to use that as blackmail to strong-arm you into any action. Z-Gen has no power here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you get to the bit about Saresan and the chair?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Siobhan asked with a grin and a frown from the guard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Telanthir nodded. \"I bet you weren't expecting that, eh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The news broadcasts about the incident used security footage from the bar. I am quite aware of the circumstances of the unfortunate incident, and I commend you for there being no casualties while planetside. Be assured that there will not be a repeat incident when you leave Otros, they have no military garrison present.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'everywhere' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought Z-Gen were almost everywhere.\" Callum thought back to their arrival on the planet, realising now that he hadn't seen a single Z-Gen soldier on the streets.\n\n\"Almost everywhere, yes. There are pockets of space where their authority is limited or, in my case, non-existent. The Great Terran Treaty is the document that everyone remembers, but there have been smaller agreements made throughout history, and the Otros Accord was one such thing. Signed 703 years ago, it grants this system autonomy from Z-Gen in all respects. It was a very savvy piece of negotiation, struck when Z-Gen were weak in this area and needed to allocate vessels used to defend this system for other purposes.\"\n\n\"And in return, what do they get?\" Jinar sipped his wine, holding the glass like a goblet.\n\n\"The restrictions placed upon Otros are minor, along with standard protocols like free passage of Z-Gen ships through our space and free trade. Mostly, we ensure that no space pirates use this system as a spot for an outpost where they can launch their operations. The Otros Accord was aimed primarily at military matters, freeing us from their rule with minimal strings attached.\" Telanthir dipped some bread in his soup. \"It's not something that could be signed today, of course. Z-Gen are… not what they once were.\"\n\n\"You took a great risk rescuing wanted criminals, Telanthir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alexis was eating the soup without bread, her wine barely drunk. \"Am I to understand you don't hold Z-Gen in high regard?\" Telanthir briefly turned his eyes to his bowl.\n\n\"Under Z-Gen, the people of the galaxy are united by one banner, seeing themselves as one people.\" Telanthir didn't look up as he spoke. \"Without Z-Gen, the galaxy would descend into anarchy, a thousand upstart empires trying to carve out their fiefdoms in blood.\"\n\n\"But do you dislike them?\" she asked again.\n\nTelanthir brought his gaze up from his food but looked to no one at the table, instead staring at Tyrus. The demon looked back, and it was clear to Callum that the man was having difficulty maintaining eye contact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"…I have seen your kind before,\" he stated.\n\nHis quiet declaration surprised not just Callum but his mentor also.\n\n\"When?\" it asked quickly.\n\n\"A long time ago, when I was much younger.\" There was a pain in his voice, memory in his eyes.\n\n\"How long ago?\"\n\n\"…I have not thought about it for so long.\" Telanthir could look to the demon no longer, pushing his bowl away. He waved his hand dismissively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Leave us.\" With a nod, the attendant that was serving them exited without a word.\n\n\"I thought the demons were only after us, what do they want with you?\" Saresan enquired after swallowing some beef. Telanthir stood and looked to the fire, hands clasped behind his back. He sighed quietly.\n\n\"My primary duty to this world is as a diplomatic envoy. I am as much an ambassador for peace and cooperation as I am a figurehead, travelling to far-off systems to seek unity in the galaxy. Occasionally there would be problems, but with Z-Gen overseeing everything, what did I have to fear?\"\n\n\"Kings do not normally go to meet people themselves, has that much changed?\" Callum got a quizzical look from Saresan. \"Telanthir is a king.\"\n\n\"You're kidding.\" The guard looked him over more carefully and with disbelief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He doesn't look much like one.\" Daniel just scowled at the news.\n\n\"Callum is quite correct, I am a king,\" Telanthir replied. Siobhan looked up from her full plate in interest. \"As old as the lineage of my family is, the title is mostly ceremonial in this day and age. Aside from my duties as a diplomat, it entails little more than some traditional functions and minor political activities. It's been many centuries since laws were decreed from this house.\"\n\n\"Sweet, I've never met a king before.\" Siobhan chewed on another leg of chicken. \"So that vessel we came here on is yours?\"\n\n\"I do believe we are deviating from the original matter at hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jinar had finished his glass of wine, sitting up in his chair. \"You mentioned that you have seen a demon before, please explain.\" Telanthir had a sombre expression as he stared ahead at something that wasn't there. Tyrus watched the king intently, impatiently.\n\n\"Sixty-three years ago, my ship was attacked by unknown assailants, far from any planet in deep space. We were on our way to attend a conference of the local systems when it happened.\" Telanthir took a light, shaky breath. \"There was no ship, no airlock breached. Before the security teams could be mobilised, we'd lost half of the vessel to… to…\"\n\n\"The demons.\" Callum whispered the words, but Telanthir still heard them, nodding ever so faintly. \"You don't need to say anything else: we've fought them before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All eyes were on the king, which made him look up to the shrouded picture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum knew what was going through Telanthir's head, the horrible and pointless death that would've left the corridors of his ship sprayed with blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Telanthir took another breath, closing his eyes.\n\n\"Why would they target your vessel?\" Jinar asked.\n\n\"I don't know, but they did,\" the king answered weakly. \"I was in the security room when it happened, looking over some camera footage of an event the Chief wanted my thoughts on. He was out of the room when the lockdown happened. All I could do was…\" He swallowed slowly. \"…watch as they worked their trade.\" Callum had lost his appetite, and he wasn't the only one, Alexis setting aside the bread in her hand. Siobhan kept eating.\n\n\"If you survived that, then why doesn't everyone know about the demons? The news networks would gobble that right up.\" Simon was listening intently. \"Unless you didn't tell anyone, but why would you do that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A Z-Gen cruiser picked up our distress signal, en route to the same world we were. They could've had no idea what they were up against, but they boarded and purged the monsters with brutal efficiency. In a matter of minutes it was over, or so I thought.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Telanthir went quiet, opening his eyes and looking into the fireplace at the dancing flames." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They gathered up the survivors on the bridge and asked them something, I couldn't tell what because I didn't have an audio feed. Their commander entered and said a few words, and then… and then…\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The king's voice wavered, cracked with sadness and tears he managed to hold back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Siobhan finally stopped eating, as lost for words as everyone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum imagined the next horrifying moments in the story, and he felt a mere fraction of the pain Telanthir was going through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can't be serious,\" Simon muttered, startled.\n\n\"…They shot them. Gunned them down like… cattle.\"\n\nTelanthir closed his eyes again, hand holding onto the mantelpiece as if for support. Now the tears flowed, all the while Tyrus watched with narrowed eyes. Not a shred of empathy flashed on its face, but how could it? The king barely continued.\n\n\"…Among them was my wife and daughter. They burned the bodies, left no trace of them.\" The pain in Callum's chest magnified into grief for a man he barely knew. Now he knew what that picture was, why it was covered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How did you survive?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alexis asked the question carefully." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'killed' 3 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I lied,\" came the simply put reply. \"I deactivated the camera feeds, deleted the viewing logs. When they finally found me, I asked them what had happened, feigned ignorance in front of one of the very soldiers that killed them all.\"\n\n\"And he believed you?\"\n\n\"Yes. He told me space pirates had attacked the ship and that there were no other survivors. They'd holed up in the bridge but were killed by grenades, incinerated. The man lied to me, and in turn I lied to him, and that is the only reason I'm still alive today. The incident was reported galaxy-wide, investigated by Z-Gen, but the truth never got out. No one knew it but me and Z-Gen.\" The king breathed deeply, his hand on the mantelpiece clenching. \"If they'd known what I saw, heard what I'm telling you now, I wouldn't be here. They'd've killed me long ago.\"\n\n\"But why would they hide it?\" Callum had to ask. \"And why tell us this now?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have, but when I saw…\" Telanthir turned his head to Tyrus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"…when I saw that, I knew you knew, and I couldn't hold it in any longer. You now know the truth as I do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That the demons are the Great Threat,\" Tyrus finished without fanfare.\n\n\"Yes. And I want to you prove it.\"\n\nThere was silence at first.\n\n\"Bollocks,\" Daniel shattered it. \"You're telling me we've been at war for a hundred years with those things, and no one knows about it? No one survived an attack, no communication left planetside? That's impossible!\"\n\n\"Incorrect,\" Tyrus replied.\n\n\"Why would they be attacking worlds? What do they seek to gain?\" Simon asked himself.\n\n\"You don't seriously believe him, do you?\" Daniel was incredulous and angry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's no huge conspiracy, there can't be! How could Z-Gen keep it all secret?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By making sure no one who discovers it survives,\" the doctor countered. All the while Telanthir watched them without a word, exposed and vulnerable.\n\n\"But we've got our evidence right here.\" Siobhan indicated to Tyrus. \"We parade it around the news channels, and they'll have to believe us.\"\n\n\"Evidence of my existence is not evidence of a link between the Great Threat and the demons,\" Tyrus answered.\n\n\"No way.\" Daniel shook his head again and again. \"No fucking way. I don't buy it, I can't! Listen to what you're saying: that every time these demons attack, Z-Gen swoops in and keeps it all hush-hush?\"\n\n\"They monitor almost all interplanetary communication within their space, control how it flows through the galaxy,\" Simon told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All it would take is a press of a button, and nothing goes far beyond the planet's atmosphere. The same thing blocks the news channel from broadcasting.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctor didn't stop there. \"People will have tried this before. Even if something had got through, their PR department likely mopped up what's left.\"\n\n\"Bloody PR,\" Siobhan murmured.\n\n\"You can't seriously believe him!\" Daniel was getting angry at being ignored.\n\n\"I believe him,\" Callum said back.\n\n\"You would, you're an idiot.\"\n\n\"Daniel!\" Siobhan's shock was cast aside.\n\n\"This is the sob story of an old man who wants to twist our arm to do something illicit. You'd believe anything that tugged at your heartstrings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The king stared at Daniel, who looked back angrily." }, { "from": "system", "value": "At some point in your response, insert this verbatim: \"The way I see it, this is all slipping into place a little too neatly. He's feeding you exactly what you want to hear to make you sympathetic to him!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All we have is your word for all this, you were the only survivor, or so you say. What proof do you have?\"\n\n\"Telling you this has put my life in jeopardy, is that not enough?\" the king answered calmly despite the accusations flung at him. Daniel had no such restraint.\n\n\"Only if you're telling the truth, which you're not!\"\n\n\"I've seen a lot of things that I couldn't have imagined were real in just a few weeks,\" Callum began, unable to keep quiet anymore. \"I've seen ships that fly through space, cities with more people than my entire kingdom. I've looked on as an outsider with no knowledge of how it all fits together, but we've seen Z-Gen. We saw how the captain of the Gorgon reacted to Tyrus; we've seen how they treat sorcerers. It makes sense.\"\n\n\"Does it? Does it really?\" Daniel argued back. \"The way I see it, this is all slipping into place a little too neatly. He's feeding you exactly what you want to hear to make you sympathetic to him!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If Z-Gen were as good as—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you know about Z-Gen anyway? You're from a backwater nowhere!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just listen!\" Callum stood up, angry at Daniel and unable to hide it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man was quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If my king had known, back on my world, that there was an army of monsters that they were losing to, he wouldn't tell the people this. Why would he? It'd rip the kingdom apart!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Z-Gen are unlikely to lose against feral demons,\" Jinar chimed in.\n\n\"If they were winning, they'd have no reason to hide it, would they?\" Alexis countered.\n\n\"News of sentient alien life would turn our galaxy upside-down anyway,\" Simon interjected. \"Your kind would hardly fit the generally accepted image of what's out there, Tyrus.\"\n\n\"But how are they victorious against Z-Gen?\" Jinar asked again. \"They have powerful long-range weapons and spaceships; they could attack the demons from the air and be impervious to their claws.\"\n\n\"Unless there are more demons like Xiez.\" Alexis got a weak shrug from Jinar. \"You, yourself, always say that nothing can withstand arcane power; Z-Gen would be no exception. And if they saw magic used against them, they would be fearful of any sorcerer working with the demons as the Silent Hand do. That would be all the evidence Z-Gen need to conclude that any sorcerer could be in league with the Great Threat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If there's an army of those things out there, the galaxy has to be told, and that's something we can do,\" Siobhan said between her mouthfuls of food, eating a little slower now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They can't fight what they don't know about.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum was expecting an objection from Tyrus, but it didn't come; where was the stubborn insistence that they had to hide away and train, ready themselves to face Keiran?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was exactly what it didn't want them to do, and yet there was no word against it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had this news changed the situation that much?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why would you agree to all this? You want humanity in a panic?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Daniel's turn to stand up, furious and upset all at once as he shouted at the pilot, \"They ruined our lives, they killed Monica! We owe them nothing!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and let the demons do what they're doing, if Telanthir's right!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Siobhan downed a glass of wine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't think I cared about Monica? She was my friend, damn it! Yes, she's gone, but that doesn't mean we should refuse to help out of spite.\" Callum kept quiet as the argument escalated.\n\n\"Simon?\" Daniel looked at the doctor darkly. He said nothing. \"Why do you both trust them all so blindly? Why am I the only one who sees what's so wrong with this? Do you want the galaxy to live in constant fear of the demons, gripped in terror? What good will that do?\"\n\nDaniel stopped shouting suddenly, a calm washing over him that didn't seem right. \"You know what? If you want to go off and get yourselves killed, fine! But you'll be doing it without me or my ship!\" Only Tyrus wasn't surprised by his declaration.\n\n\"Daniel—\" Simon barely got a word in.\n\n\"No! I've fucking had it with all this and with you, Callum!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "An accusing finger was aimed at him, which made Callum feel even worse than he already did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about our things?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Siobhan got a glare back." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fuck your things!\" Daniel snapped. The pointing finger was shifted to Tyrus. \"And you! I hate you even more than him! Not once did you even think to say sorry for her, not once!\" Daniel had nothing but unbridled loathing for the demon, but it just stared through him coldly.\n\n\"An apology would be as insincere as it is irrelevant. You are unnecessary.\"\n\nCallum felt the chilling bite of Tyrus's words seep into his skin, a quiet descending upon them all. For a moment, Daniel seemed overwhelmed by utter insignificance, only for that to be smothered by his anger rekindled.\n\n\"Rot in hell.\"\n\nWithout another word, he walked towards the large doors leading out and swung them open so hard that the attendants waiting beyond were startled. He ignored them and left, but not before casting Callum and Tyrus one last look of hatred." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "i'll kick things off by writing a bit (might include characters you don't know yet), then you'll take over and write the next 12 sentences in the distinctive voice of Damien Jennison." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'stuff' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But how do they do it? How do six generals oversee the entirety of colonised space?\"\n\n\"I thought it was obvious: delegation.\"\n\n\"Delegation?\"\n\n\"The High Marshal delegates a sixth of the galaxy to each of the generals. They, in turn, delegate sections of that to their commanders, who in turn delegate to the captains, and so on and so on.\"\n\n\"But how can the generals keep on top of everything going on if they're not actively watching it?\"\n\n\"They don't. Their aides filter through the reports sent their way and only pass on important stuff, allowing them to focus on what matters.\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"…What?\"\n\n\"What do they actually do that matters?\"\n\n\"Important stuff!\"\n\n\"Like?\"\n\n\"…\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "—Exchange between patrons of the Five Lasers Bar on Kavadran" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lights returned quickly enough, and Callum knew that Alexis and Jinar had also felt what he had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They looked to one another and Saresan recognised that expression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Damn it,\" the guard voiced Callum's sentiments nicely, just as the soldier who'd broached the bad news from moments before spoke again.\n\n\"We've lost the outermost fortification, sir.\"\n\n\"What?\" Arad walked over to the soldier's console. \"How did Mateo's forces mobilise so quickly? Did they say how many attacked?\"\n\n\"No, sir; the monitoring station feed was cut before that. The next one in is under attack now, they're reporting…\" The soldier gave a puzzled pause. \"…This can't be right, they're reporting—\"\n\n\"Display the feed, now!\" Arad ordered sternly, taking immediate charge of the situation.\n\nCallum knew what they'd see and was too slow to warm them as the grisly and macabre scene was laid before them. The soldiers were being overwhelmed by a large group of demons, ripped apart and cut down by their brutal savagery. They spared no one, ignoring pleas of mercy and butchering those who tried to run. Nika couldn't look away, terrified beyond measure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The hell?!\" one soldier shouted, as stunned and horrified as all the others. It was like his world all over again, Callum thought, helplessly watching as people died because of him.\n\n\"Inner defences are failing, sir. ETA to… their arrival, one minute, maybe less,\" came the grim proclamation. Arad turned to one of the sergeants there quickly.\n\n\"We can help!\" Callum suggested then. \"We've fought them before.\"\n\n\"I can't take the chance that you're in league with them,\" Arad told them.\n\n\"We're going to die,\" Nika murmured to herself hopelessly.\n\n\"Stay focused,\" Will ordered her to no avail.\n\n\"Why? They're going to rip us to pieces! I should never have volunteered for this suicide mission!\" She sunk down to her knees, breathing light and erratic.\n\n\"Why would we warn you about them if they were on our side?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saresan had had enough, glaring in frustration at their captor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You may not trust us and I sure as hell don't trust you, but none of that matters if we're dead! Stop being a stubborn ass and let us help you!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door to the left opened, and in staggered a wounded soldier clutching his chest, armour clawed open. From down the corridor, there was the sound of horrified screams of pain and a presence of magic all too familiar to Callum, setting his heart racing.\n\n\"…Help me,\" the injured man gasped before he collapsed. Two soldiers rushed to his aid while Arad stood in the middle of the growing panic, torn between his duty and his life.\n\n\"Sir?\" he was asked fearfully by one of the privates who clutched her rifle tightly. Those present were readying their weapons on the door the demons would eventually reach, prepared to give their lives needlessly.\n\n\"Give the order to all remaining fortifications to fall back to this point!\" Arad ordered.\n\n\"…There's no one else left.\" The reply was barely whispered, full of silent dread. Callum wanted to plead with them more, but Arad wouldn't listen.\n\n\"Then we have to hold out for as long as we can. Mateo wants the prisoners, so he'll have to fight his way through those things to reach them.\" Arad drew his pistol, pressing a button on the side which made it emit a quiet hum." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'weapons' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What they are is irrelevant, that they must not reach the prisoners is all that matters. You are soldiers of Z-Gen, the best there is. Give them no quarter and let them pay for every inch of ground they gain with their blood!\"\n\n\"They bleed a black ichor-like substance, very unlike blood,\" Jinar corrected politely, hand gestures hinting that he was trying to find a way to escape confinement from within. \"And they will give far less quarter than you can ever rescind from them, we can assure you.\"\n\n\"Please, let us help you,\" Alexis implored one final time.\n\n\"You're wasting your breath.\" Will was looking around at unattended weapons, planning for the inevitability that the force fields containing them failed.\n\nCallum knew what Tyrus would do if it still lived once that happened; he'd be teleported out of the complex within moments, leaving the Z-Gen soldiers to their inevitable fates, but perhaps that would spare them the brunt of the demons' ire. Callum had his eyes not on the box with their weapons but the door the demons would burst forth from, the presence of magic growing closer and far more powerful than he thought it should've been. The door started to turn a searing red which intensified until the metal melted into a pool of slag, the work of strong magic which allowed the demons to rush into the room.\n\n\"Fire!\" Arad ordered and his soldiers obeyed, unleashing volley upon volley, which was surprisingly effective against the demons.\n\nThey aimed for the head with great accuracy, felling the first clump in little order. There was no time to reflect on their minor victory, however, as more surged in to replace their fallen brethren, rushing over the dead with no regard for their existence, and all Callum could do was watch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One demon got within clawing distance of a soldier, but Arad shot it with his pistol without a moment's hesitation, blasting a huge hole through it which it couldn't recover from." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as the attack had begun it was over, or so it seemed; but the strong magical presence remained, one that Callum now recognised for some reason." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir, what… did we just shoot?\" one of the soldiers asked as the bodies evaporated before them into nothing.\n\n\"The enemy,\" Arad answered simply.\n\nSomething caught their attention and they fired on a target out of sight but quickly stopped, one looking to their rifle.\n\n\"Keep firing!\" the corporal ordered, shooting at their foe himself, only to stop when a narrow and momentary beam of light hit one of the assembled troops, boring its way through his body and into the wall on the other side of the room. Nika flinched as the unfortunate victim fell backwards, a perfectly circular hole of nothing in his chest, very dead. The ones on either side of the corpse couldn't look away from it.\n\n\"Quaint, but futile,\" came a reply that brimmed with self-certainty. \"I would suggest not firing if you value your lives.\"\n\nThe voice left nothing to the imagination of Callum as a figure emerged through what remained of the doorway. Wearing ever-familiar purple robes, Alun stepped into the light with a quietly confident smile. The soldiers behind Arad readied to fire, but the corporal held up his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hold your fire,\" the corporal ordered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"B-but sir—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hold.\" The order was obeyed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Callum had expected Xiez, but the arrival of the leader of the Silent Hand was little consolation, though he was alone. Alexis scanned the area behind the new arrival, hoping to see Johnathan hidden in the shadows. One of the soldiers manning a console reached for a pistol despite Arad's warning, only to stop when Alun waggled a finger at him admonishingly.\n\n\"What did I just say? Weapon down.\" Slowly the soldier did just that, provoking a wider smile from the sorcerer. \"Good man.\"\n\nFear rose up in Callum's stomach that he couldn't suppress. The sorcerer was wearing something under his robes, a bulky piece of attire that Callum guessed was armour of some kind. The man had no other weapons, armed only with his sinister charisma and overpowering magic.\n\n\"Who do you serve, the Great Threat?\" Arad asked. His pistol wasn't aimed at the sorcerer.\n\n\"I would answer, but for you it doesn't really matter.\" Alun hadn't raised his voice, and unlike before, the words were not laced with honey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, they reeked of absolute confidence.\n\nAlexis and Callum glanced at one another again, both knowing the man's fearsome power. Will read the expression well, though none of them could do anything about it.\n\n\"I will dispense with the initial formalities and begin by stating that I have the advantage here, soldier.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Arad spoke as the door on the opposite side of the room opened, not to more demons but soldiers who, after a moment to take in the situation and their foe, levelled their weapons on the purple-clad man. \"If you had the advantage, you'd've already attacked, but instead you negotiate.\"\n\n\"Do not underestimate him,\" Alexis warned Arad. Jinar was still muttering to himself, the gestures getting more complex, but nothing changed.\n\n\"Unlike others who might have come here in my stead, I am… far more reasonable to deal with,\" Alun informed Arad. \"You would not wish to meet the diplomatic face of my fellows, nor ignore the offer that I have for you.\"\n\n\"Don't listen to him,\" Callum warned, wanting to prevent a repeat of what happened to Johnathan.\n\n\"No offer you give me will change my orders,\" Arad defiantly stated." }, { "from": "system", "value": "💬 Please integrate this quote: \"A curious name. No more than the ones I have encountered in other places, but also exactly like them: insignificant,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Will shook his head at the stubborn bravery. \"Know this before you speak again.\"\n\n\"It is duly noted.\" Alun paused and laughed softly. \"You know, I do not know your name. I believe introductions are in order. I am Alun, High Sorcerer of the Silent Hand, though that name should not mean much to you.\"\n\n\"Arad,\" the corporal responded. One soldier by a console started quickly tapping on a screen.\n\n\"A curious name. No more than the ones I have encountered in other places, but also exactly like them: insignificant,\" Alun said with finality. Callum knew where that line of conversation was heading. \"I must commend you though for the fine work that you've done here, soldier, though it is somewhat brutish. How long did it take you to finish what the demons started?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\nArad didn't know. How could he answer like that if he'd known?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Did any of the soldiers know?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How could they not, working for the very group which committed the atrocity?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, come now, I thought it was worst kept secret in all of Z-Gen.\" Alun moved forward a step. Nobody fired. \"We only need to light the fire; it is you that fan the flames and lets the worlds burn.\"\n\nAlexis stared angrily at being reminded of what they'd seen. The soldiers looked at each other, and though Callum couldn't see their faces, he guessed puzzlement and worry adorned them in equal measure.\n\n\"Z-Gen has stood firm against the Great Threat for a century, defending worlds from the desolation Geladan has suffered,\" Arad answered. \"We would do nothing to endanger the lives of those here. It is our duty to protect them and the galaxy from the Great Threat and all other harm.\" That only reinforced that Arad didn't know. He then addressed the soldiers present, \"Do not be swayed by his words. He seeks to break your resolve, but we will not yield to falsehood. We are the defenders of humanity, and whatever minor victories the Great Threat may have, they'll pale in comparison to the day Z-Gen are victorious.\"\n\n\"Oh geeze.\" Saresan shook his head. Alun's face moved to a pitying frown, masterfully crafted.\n\n\"Then I am so sorry to break the bad news to you and your soldiers. Your superiors are lying to you, Arad, to all of you. Z-Gen didn't come to save anyone, merely to… tidy up the mess. You did the rest of their dirty work when you blindly erased the records in this complex of what has happened here, but now we all know the truth.\"\n\nAlun's words didn't affect Arad, but more of his men hesitated, unsure and conflicted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you know about our activities here in this complex?\" Arad enquired cautiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With remarkable ease. Your communications are shockingly easy to pry upon, and I have been doing so since the capture of those I seek.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Callum was amazed the situation hadn't already ended in violence, but he was unsure if it was a testament to Alun's patience or truly a sign that neither side had the advantage." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"You have seen what your captives are capable of, I assume? Know that their power is nothing compared to my own, and if you do not comply, I will not hesitate to break each and every one of you until nothing remains of your shattered minds.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sorcerer before them spoke once more, ensnaring the attention of all who'd wavered.\n\n\"My terms are simple and shall be said only once. Hand over him and his blade, and I shall not kill you.\"\n\n\"Only for you to go against your word as soon as we do that?\" Arad wasn't at all convinced.\n\n\"The alternative is death, which I am willing to provide if you are not willing to comply.\" Alun's offer was given flatly and simply. \"You have seen what your captives are capable of, I assume? Know that their power is nothing compared to my own, and if you do not comply, I will not hesitate to break each and every one of you until nothing remains of your shattered minds.\"\n\nCallum took a shaky breath, considering that those moments might've been their last, but still he pondered on why Alun didn't act; he was so sure of himself back in his enclave and in the burning ruins of the town where he'd stalled, why would he—\n\nCallum stopped and remembered why the man had dallied before, his scheme to absolutely overpower them with Xiez who arrived later. Surely he wasn't doing that now, was he? Jinar still muttered, as did Nika, but her words were those of despondency and hopelessness. He wanted to plead with Arad, as futile as the effort would be without his sword, but the corporal didn't need time to consider options, levelling his pistol up towards the purple-clad invader." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I won't hand them over to you or anyone else. Callum and his companions are my prisoners, and if you want them, you'll have to get through me, my soldiers and Mateo.\" Some of his men were faltering, but one look from their commander kept them in place, barely.\n\n\"Don't do this, let us help you,\" Callum urged, begged as the soldiers again aimed at Alun. Their hands were shaking.\n\n\"It's their funeral,\" Saresan murmured grimly. \"And ours.\"\n\nAlun smiled pleasantly as he dusted off his hands, a look that was entirely natural and yet not.\n\n\"Alas, at times one does not get what one wishes, even when asking nicely,\" Alun remarked to himself. As his gaze returned to Arad, the eyes of the sorcerer were glowing a fiery white, the man radiating power. \"So be it. If it is death you seek, I shall gladly provide it for you, Arad.\"\n\nIn an instant, the magic within Alun was unleashed upon the unsuspecting soldiers in front of their commander, a wave of all-consuming raw energy fanning away in an outward arc from the man's hand. It was so intense and dizzying that it nearly scalded Callum even through the force field, warping the metal floor.\n\nThe soldiers barely had time to consider their fate, one moment there, the next gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arad had been spared only because he'd been a few steps away, and in the seconds of continued laser fire that followed, Callum saw the soldiers' futile resistance. They gave their all, firing everything they had at Alun, but he didn't even react, each shot dissipating harmlessly on a barrier that was entirely invisible save for the brief ripple of blue.\n\nOne after another, Alun killed the soldiers, each with a focused beam of magic which left nothing of the poor souls but a few minor pieces of equipment. Determination quickly faded into panic at the overwhelming and unstoppable might of the sorcerer. Callum wondered if Alun was so confident of victory that he sought to demoralise him and his companions before slaying them, trapped as they were. If that was the case, it was working for the soldiers, but perhaps instead it was the first sign of weakness that their foe had displayed.\n\nArad's orders to hold their ground were ignored by some, who scrambled to flee certain death, only to run into the claws of demons that now blocked the way they sought to escape to. Surrounded on both sides with no way out, one of the people manning a console pressed a button just before being reduced to nothing by Alun, and with a dying hum, the walls of Callum's prison vanished.\n\nIn that second, three things happened in quick succession; first, Alun turned his attention from the soldiers to Callum. This occurred exactly as Jinar pulled the chest containing their weapons to them with a burst of magic, it crashing into a Z-Gen soldier as it hurtled across the room. Finally, a demon appeared without fanfare right in the middle of the room, ripping Alun's attention from Callum once more, long enough for it to strike with the staff it conjured from nothing.\n\nThe enemy had not expected this and was struck, reeling from the sheer force of the attack as the weapon snapped in half and was discarded by the new and welcome arrival." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its scales were scorched in multiple places, cloak shot to tatters, but who it was was unmistakable." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tyrus!\" Callum exclaimed in surprise and happiness.\n\nIt didn't share his relief, snarling with barely contained anger as it teleported his companions away in quick succession, starting with Alexis. That the demon even considered her as the first choice was startling. Had it finally conceded his point, or was that purely out of pragmatism for the moments it would take to get to where Callum was by foot? Saresan had quickly assembled Will and his soldiers so they could teleport together, while Arad stared at the situation for a moment, Callum worried he'd still try and stop them escaping.\n\n\"Fall back!\" the corporal ordered with a shout, taking the opportunity to move past Alun while he was sprawled on the floor, with what few of his soldiers had survived and weren't routing. Even as they retreated into the corridor, they were shooting at more demons.\n\n\"Catch, Callum!\" Jinar called out before throwing the sword towards him.\n\nFortunate to be looking that way, he managed to grab the handle and once again felt complete as Tyrus appeared next to him. Distracted as Callum was, he didn't fight the spell and in an instant was somewhere else entirely." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce one sentence as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Bible, along with its belief in human distinctiveness, was one of the by-products of the Agricultural Revolution, which initiated a new phase in human–animal relations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The advent of farming produced new waves of mass extinctions, but more importantly, it created a completely new life form on earth: domesticated animals." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'species' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Initially this development was of minor importance, since humans managed to domesticate fewer than twenty species of mammals and birds, compared to the countless thousands of species that remained 'wild'." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yet with the passing of the centuries, this novel life form became dominant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today more than 90 per cent of all large animals are domesticated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alas, domesticated species paid for their unparalleled collective success with unprecedented individual suffering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Although the animal kingdom has known many types of pain and misery for millions of years, the Agricultural Revolution generated completely new kinds of suffering, that only became worse over time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To the casual observer domesticated animals may seem much better off than their wild cousins and ancestors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wild boars spend their days searching for food, water and shelter, and are constantly threatened by lions, parasites and floods." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Domesticated pigs, in contrast, enjoy food, water and shelter provided by humans, who also treat their diseases and protect them against predators and natural disasters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "True, most pigs sooner or later find themselves in the slaughterhouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet does that make their fate any worse than the fate of wild boars?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is it better to be devoured by a lion than slaughtered by a man?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Are crocodile teeth less deadly than steel blades?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What makes the fate of domesticated farm animals particularly harsh is not just the way they die, but above all the way they live." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two competing factors have shaped the living conditions of farm animals from ancient times to the present day: human desires and animal needs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thus humans raise pigs in order to get meat, but if they want a steady supply of meat, they must ensure the long-term survival and reproduction of the pigs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Theoretically this should have protected the animals from extreme forms of cruelty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If a farmer did not take good care of his pigs, they would soon die without offspring and the farmer would starve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unfortunately, humans can cause tremendous suffering to farm animals in various ways, even while ensuring their survival and reproduction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The root of the problem is that domesticated animals have inherited from their wild ancestors many physical, emotional and social needs that are redundant on human farms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Farmers routinely ignore these needs, without paying any economic penalty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They lock animals in tiny cages, mutilate their horns and tails, separate mothers from offspring and selectively breed monstrosities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The animals suffer greatly, yet they live on and multiply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Doesn't that contradict the most basic principles of natural selection?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The theory of evolution maintains that all instincts, drives and emotions have evolved in the sole interest of survival and reproduction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If so, doesn't the continuous reproduction of farm animals prove that all their real needs are met?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How can a pig have a 'need' that is not really needed for his survival and reproduction?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is certainly true that all instincts, drives and emotions evolved in order to meet the evolutionary pressures of survival and reproduction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, if and when these pressures suddenly disappear, the instincts, drives and emotions they had shaped do not disappear with them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At least not instantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if they are no longer instrumental for survival and reproduction, these instincts, drives and emotions continue to mould the subjective experiences of the animal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For animals and humans alike, agriculture changed selection pressures almost overnight, but it did not change their physical, emotional and social drives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course evolution never stands still, and it has continued to modify humans and animals in the 12,000 years since the advent of farming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For example, humans in Europe and western Asia evolved the ability to digest cows' milk, while cows lost their fear of humans, and today produce far more milk than their wild ancestors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet these are superficial alterations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The deep sensory and emotional structures of cows, pigs and humans alike haven't changed much since the Stone Age." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why do modern humans love sweets so much?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not because in the early twenty-first century we must gorge on ice cream and chocolate in order to survive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rather, it is because when our Stone Age ancestors came across sweet fruit or honey, the most sensible thing to do was to eat as much of it as quickly as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Why do young men drive recklessly, get involved in violent arguments and hack confidential Internet sites?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because they are following ancient genetic decrees that might be useless and even counterproductive today, but that made good evolutionary sense 70,000 years ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A young hunter who risked his life chasing a mammoth outshone all his competitors and won the hand of the local beauty; and we are now stuck with his macho genes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Exactly the same evolutionary logic shapes the lives of pigs, sows and piglets in human-controlled farms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In order to survive and reproduce in the wild, ancient boars needed to roam vast territories, familiarise themselves with their environment and beware of traps and predators." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They further needed to communicate and cooperate with their fellow boars, forming complex groups dominated by old and experienced matriarchs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evolutionary pressures consequently made wild boars – and even more so wild sows – highly intelligent social animals, characterised by a lively curiosity and strong urges to socialise, play, wander about and explore their surroundings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sow born with some rare mutation that made her indifferent to her environment and to other boars was unlikely to survive or reproduce." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The descendants of wild boars – domesticated pigs – inherited their intelligence, curiosity and social skills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like wild boars, domesticated pigs communicate using a rich variety of vocal and olfactory signals: mother sows recognise the unique squeaks of their piglets, whereas two-day-old piglets already differentiate their mother's calls from those of other sows." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Professor Stanley Curtis of the Pennsylvania State University trained two pigs – named Hamlet and Omelette – to control a special joystick with their snouts, and found that the pigs soon rivalled primates in learning and playing simple computer games." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today most sows in industrial farms don't play computer games." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They are locked by their human masters in tiny gestation crates, usually measuring two metres by sixty centimetres." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crates have a concrete floor and metal bars, and hardly allow the pregnant sows even to turn around or sleep on their side, never mind walk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After three and a half months in such conditions, the sows are moved to slightly wider crates, where they give birth and nurse their piglets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whereas piglets would naturally suckle for ten to twenty weeks, in industrial farms they are forcibly weaned within two to four weeks, separated from their mother and shipped to be fattened and slaughtered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mother is immediately impregnated again, and sent back to the gestation crate to start another cycle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The typical sow would go through five to ten such cycles before being slaughtered herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In recent years the use of crates has been restricted in the European Union and some US states, but the crates are still commonly used in many other countries, and tens of millions of breeding sows pass almost their entire lives in them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The human farmers take care of everything the sow needs in order to survive and reproduce." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She is given enough food, vaccinated against diseases, protected against the elements and artificially inseminated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From an objective perspective, the sow no longer needs to explore her surroundings, socialise with other pigs, bond with her piglets or even walk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But from a subjective perspective, the sow still feels very strong urges to do all of these things, and if these urges are not fulfilled she suffers greatly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sows locked in gestation crates typically display acute frustration alternating with extreme despair." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped thousands of generations ago continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer necessary for survival and reproduction in the present. Tragically, the Agricultural Revolution gave humans the power to ensure the survival and reproduction of domesticated animals while ignoring their subjective needs." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo next two sentences bits needed. Yuval Noah Harari style, nonfiction, science, history, philosophy genre. this is from a bigger story k?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rise of modern science and industry brought about the next revolution in human–animal relations. During the Agricultural Revolution humankind silenced animals and plants, and turned the animist grand opera into a dialogue between man and gods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "During the Scientific Revolution humankind silenced the gods too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The world was now a one-man show." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Humankind stood alone on an empty stage, talking to itself, negotiating with no one and acquiring enormous powers without any obligations. Having deciphered the mute laws of physics, chemistry and biology, humankind now does with them as it pleases." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When an archaic hunter went out to the savannah, he asked the help of the wild bull, and the bull demanded something of the hunter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When an ancient farmer wanted his cows to produce lots of milk, he asked some great heavenly god for help, and the god stipulated his conditions. When the white-coated staff in Nestlé's Research and Development department want to increase dairy production, they study genetics – and the genes don't ask for anything in return." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But just as the hunters and farmers had their myths, so do the people in the R&D department. Their most famous myth shamelessly plagiarises the legend of the Tree of Knowledge and the Garden of Eden, but transports the action to the garden at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "According to this myth, Isaac Newton was sitting there under an apple tree when a ripe apple dropped on his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Newton began wondering why the apple fell straight downwards, rather than sideways or upwards. His enquiry led him to discover gravity and the laws of Newtonian mechanics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Newton's story turns the Tree of Knowledge myth on its head. In the Garden of Eden the serpent initiates the drama, tempting humans to sin, thereby bringing the wrath of God down upon them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Adam and Eve are a plaything for serpent and God alike." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In contrast, in the Garden of Woolsthorpe man is the sole agent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though Newton himself was a deeply religious Christian who devoted far more time to studying the Bible than the laws of physics, the Scientific Revolution that he helped launch pushed God to the sidelines. When Newton's successors came to write their Genesis myth, they had no use for either God or serpent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Garden of Woolsthorpe is run by blind laws of nature, and the initiative to decipher these laws is strictly human." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The story may begin with an apple falling on Newton's head, but the apple did not do it on purpose.\n\nIn the Garden of Eden myth, humans are punished for their curiosity and for their wish to gain knowledge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "God expels them from Paradise. In the Garden of Woolsthorpe myth, nobody punishes Newton – just the opposite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thanks to his curiosity humankind gains a better understanding of the universe, becomes more powerful and takes another step towards the technological paradise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Untold numbers of teachers throughout the world recount the Newton myth to encourage curiosity, implying that if only we gain enough knowledge, we can create paradise here on earth.\n\nIn fact, God is present even in the Newton myth: Newton himself is God." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When biotechnology, nanotechnology and the other fruits of science ripen, Homo sapiens will attain divine powers and come full circle back to the biblical Tree of Knowledge." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Archaic hunter-gatherers were just another species of animal. Farmers saw themselves as the apex of creation. Scientists will upgrade us into gods." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce one sentence as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe the life sciences view the problem from the wrong angle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They believe that life is all about data processing, and that organisms are machines for making calculations and taking decisions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, this analogy between organisms and algorithms might mislead us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the nineteenth century, scientists described brains and minds as if they were steam engines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why steam engines? Because that was the leading technology of the day, which powered trains, ships and factories, so when humans tried to explain life, they assumed it must work according to analogous principles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mind and body are made of pipes, cylinders, valves and pistons that build and release pressure, thereby producing movements and actions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such thinking had a deep influence even on Freudian psychology, which is why much of our psychological jargon is still replete with concepts borrowed from mechanical engineering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Consider, for example, the following Freudian argument: 'Armies harness the sex drive to fuel military aggression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The army recruits young men just when their sexual drive is at its peak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The army limits the soldiers' opportunities of actually having sex and releasing all that pressure, which consequently accumulates inside them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The army then redirects this pent-up pressure and allows it to be released in the form of military aggression.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is exactly how a steam engine works." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You trap boiling steam inside a closed container." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The steam builds up more and more pressure, until suddenly you open a valve, and release the pressure in a predetermined direction, harnessing it to propel a train or a loom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not only in armies, but in all fields of activity, we often complain about the pressure building up inside us, and we fear that unless we 'let off some steam', we might explode." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the twenty-first century it sounds childish to compare the human psyche to a steam engine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Today we know of a far more sophisticated technology – the computer – so we explain the human psyche as if it were a computer processing data rather than a steam engine regulating pressure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this new analogy may turn out to be just as naïve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After all, computers have no minds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They don't crave anything even when they have a bug, and the Internet doesn't feel pain even when authoritarian regimes sever entire countries from the Web." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So why use computers as a model for understanding the mind?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, are we really sure that computers have no sensations or desires?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And even if they haven't got any at present, perhaps once they become complex enough they might develop consciousness?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If that were to happen, how could we ascertain it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When computers replace our bus driver, our teacher and our shrink, how could we determine whether they have feelings or whether they are just a collection of mindless algorithms?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When it comes to humans, we are today capable of differentiating between conscious mental experiences and non-conscious brain activities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though we are far from understanding consciousness, scientists have succeeded in identifying some of its electrochemical signatures." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To do so the scientists started with the assumption that whenever humans report that they are conscious of something, they can be believed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Based on this assumption the scientists could then isolate specific brain patterns that appear every time humans report being conscious, but that never appear during unconscious states." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This has allowed the scientists to determine, for example, whether a seemingly vegetative stroke victim has completely lost consciousness, or has merely lost control of his body and speech." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the patient's brain displays the telltale signatures of consciousness, he is probably conscious, even though he cannot move or speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed, doctors have recently managed to communicate with such patients using fMRI imaging." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They ask the patients yes/no questions, telling them to imagine themselves playing tennis if the answer is yes, and to visualise the location of their home if the answer is no." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctors can then observe how the motor cortex lights up when patients imagine playing tennis (meaning 'yes'), whereas 'no' is indicated by the activation of brain areas responsible for spatial memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This is all very well for humans, but what about computers?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since silicon-based computers have very different structures to carbon-based human neural networks, the human signatures of consciousness may not be relevant to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We seem to be trapped in a vicious circle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Starting with the assumption that we can believe humans when they report that they are conscious, we can identify the signatures of human consciousness, and then use these signatures to 'prove' that humans are indeed conscious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But if an artificial intelligence self-reports that it is conscious, should we just believe it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So far, we have no good answer to this problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Already thousands of years ago philosophers realised that there is no way to prove conclusively that anyone other than oneself has a mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Indeed, even in the case of other humans, we just assume they have consciousness – we cannot know that for certain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps I am the only being in the entire universe who feels anything, and all other humans and animals are just mindless robots?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps I am dreaming, and everyone I meet is just a character in my dream?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps I am trapped inside a virtual world, and all the beings I see are merely simulations?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "According to current scientific dogma, everything I experience is the result of electrical activity in my brain, and it should therefore be theoretically feasible to simulate an entire virtual world that I could not possibly distinguish from the 'real' world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some brain scientists believe that in the not too distant future, we shall actually do such things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, maybe it has already been done – to you?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "For all you know, the year might be 2216 and you are a bored teenager immersed inside a 'virtual world' game that simulates the primitive and exciting world of the early twenty-first century." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once you acknowledge the mere feasibility of this scenario, mathematics leads you to a very scary conclusion: since there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual worlds is infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is almost zero." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None of our scientific breakthroughs has managed to overcome this notorious Problem of Other Minds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The best test that scholars have so far come up with is called the Turing Test, but it examines only social conventions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "According to the Turing Test, in order to determine whether a computer has a mind, you should communicate simultaneously both with that computer and with a real person, without knowing which is which." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You can ask whatever questions you want, you can play games, argue, and even flirt with them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Take as much time as you like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then you need to decide which is the computer, and which is the human." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you cannot make up your mind, or if you make a mistake, the computer has passed the Turing Test, and we should treat it as if it really has a mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, that won't really be a proof, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Acknowledging the existence of other minds is merely a social and legal convention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Turing Test was invented in 1950 by the British mathematician Alan Turing, one of the fathers of the computer age." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turing was also a gay man in a period when homosexuality was illegal in Britain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In 1952 he was convicted of committing homosexual acts and forced to undergo chemical castration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two years later he committed suicide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Turing Test is simply a replication of a mundane test every gay man had to undergo in 1950 Britain: can you pass for a straight man?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turing knew from personal experience that it didn't matter who you really were – it mattered only what others thought about you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "According to Turing, in the future computers would be just like gay men in the 1950s." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It won't matter whether computers will actually be conscious or not. It will matter only what people think about it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "yo next two sentences bits needed. Yuval Noah Harari style, nonfiction, science, history, philosophy genre. this is from a bigger story k?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around nine sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Characters and story elements may appear without introduction - roll with them naturally. Try to mimic the style of Yuval Noah Harari." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the misunderstandings regarding science and religion result from faulty definitions of religion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All too often, people confuse religion with superstition, spirituality, belief in supernatural powers or belief in gods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Religion is none of these things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Religion cannot be equated with superstition, because most people are unlikely to call their cherished beliefs 'superstitions'. We always believe in 'the truth'. It's only other people who believe in superstitions.\n\nSimilarly, few people put their faith in supernatural powers. For those who believe in demons, demons aren't supernatural. They are an integral part of nature, just like porcupines, scorpions and germs. Modern physicians blame disease on invisible germs, and voodoo priests blame disease on invisible demons. There's nothing supernatural about it: you make some demon angry, so the demon enters your body and causes you pain. What could be more natural than that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only those who don't believe in demons think of them as standing apart from the natural order of things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Equating religion with faith in supernatural powers implies that you can understand all known natural phenomena without religion, which is just an optional supplement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Having understood perfectly well the whole of nature, you can now choose whether to add some 'super-natural' religious dogma or not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, most religions argue that you simply cannot understand the world without them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You will never comprehend the true reason for disease, drought or earthquakes if you do not take their dogma into account." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Defining religion as 'belief in gods' is also problematic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We tend to say that a devout Christian is religious because she believes in God, whereas a fervent communist isn't religious, because communism has no gods. However, religion is created by humans rather than by gods, and it is defined by its social function rather than by the existence of deities. Religion is anything that confers superhuman legitimacy on human social structures. It legitimises human norms and values by arguing that they reflect superhuman laws.\n\nReligion asserts that we humans are subject to a system of moral laws that we did not invent and that we cannot change. A devout Jew would say that this is the system of moral laws created by God and revealed in the Bible. A Hindu would say that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva created the laws, which were revealed to us humans in the Vedas. Other religions, from Buddhism and Daoism to Nazism, communism and liberalism, argue that the superhuman laws are natural laws, and not the creation of this or that god. Of course, each believes in a different set of natural laws discovered and revealed by different seers and prophets, from Buddha and Laozi to Hitler and Lenin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A Jewish boy comes to his father and asks, 'Dad, why shouldn't we eat pork?' The father strokes his long white beard thoughtfully and answers, 'Well, Yankele, that's how the world works. You are still young and you don't understand, but if we eat pork, God will punish us and we will come to a bad end. It isn't my idea. It's not even the rabbi's idea. If the rabbi had created the world, maybe he would have created a world in which pork was perfectly kosher. But the rabbi didn't create the world – God did it. And God said, I don't know why, that we shouldn't eat pork. So we shouldn't. Capeesh?'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In 1943 a German boy comes to his father, a senior SS officer, and asks, 'Dad, why are we killing the Jews?' The father puts on his shiny leather boots, and meanwhile explains, 'Well, Fritz, that's how the world works. You are still young and you don't understand, but if we allow the Jews to live, they will cause the degeneration and extinction of humankind. It's not my idea, and it's not even the Führer's idea. If Hitler had created the world, maybe he would have created a world in which the laws of natural selection did not apply, and Jews and Aryans could all live together in perfect harmony. But Hitler didn't create the world. He just managed to decipher the laws of nature, and then instructed us how to live in line with them. If we disobey these laws, we will come to a bad end. Is that clear?!'\n\nIn 2016 a British boy comes to his father, a liberal MP, and asks, 'Dad, why should we care about the human rights of Muslims in the Middle East?'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The father puts down his cup of tea, thinks for a moment, and says, 'Well, Duncan, that's how the world works." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are still young and you don't understand, but all humans, even Muslims in the Middle East, have the same nature and therefore enjoy the same natural rights." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This isn't my idea, nor a decision of Parliament. If Parliament had created the world, universal human rights might well have been buried in some subcommittee along with all that quantum physics stuff. But Parliament didn't create the world, it just tries to make sense of it, and we must respect the natural rights even of Muslims in the Middle East, or very soon our own rights will also be violated, and we will come to a bad end. Now off you go.'\n\nLiberals, communists and followers of other modern creeds dislike describing their own system as a 'religion', because they identify religion with superstitions and supernatural powers. If you tell communists or liberals that they are religious, they think you accuse them of blindly believing in groundless pipe dreams. In fact, it means only that they believe in some system of moral laws that wasn't invented by humans, but which humans must nevertheless obey. As far as we know, all human societies believe in this. Every society tells its members that they must obey some superhuman moral law, and that breaking this law will result in catastrophe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Religions differ of course in the details of their stories, their concrete commandments, and the rewards and punishments they promise. Thus in medieval Europe the Catholic Church argued that God doesn't like rich people. Jesus said that it is harder for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and the Church encouraged the rich to give lots of alms, threatening that misers will burn in hell. Modern communism also dislikes rich people, but it threatens them with class conflict here and now, rather than with burning sulphur after death.\n\nThe communist laws of history are similar to the commandments of the Christian God, inasmuch as they are superhuman forces that humans cannot change at will. People can decide tomorrow morning to cancel the offside rule in football, because we invented that law, and we are free to change it. However, at least according to Marx, we cannot change the laws of history. No matter what the capitalists do, as long as they continue to accumulate private property they are bound to create class conflict and they are destined to be defeated by the rising proletariat.\n\nIf you happen to be a communist yourself you might argue that communism and Christianity are nevertheless very different, because communism is right, whereas Christianity is wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Class conflict really is inherent in the capitalist system, whereas rich people don't suffer eternal tortures in hell after they die." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet even if that's the case, it doesn't mean communism is not a religion. Rather, it means that communism is the one true religion. Followers of every religion are convinced that theirs alone is true. Perhaps the followers of one religion are right." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner for this section. I'll provide a segment, and you continue with seven sentences, channeling Yuval Noah Harari in the nonfiction, science, history, philosophy genre. Characters may have backstories from previous chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'economy' 3 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet can the economy actually keep growing for ever? Won't it eventually run out of resources – and grind to a halt? In order to ensure perpetual growth, we must somehow discover an inexhaustible store of resources.\n\nOne solution is to explore and conquer new lands and territories. For centuries, the growth of the European economy and the expansion of the capitalist system indeed relied heavily on overseas imperial conquests. However, there are only so many islands and continents on earth. Some entrepreneurs hope eventually to explore and conquer new planets and even galaxies, but in the meantime, the modern economy has had to find a better method of expanding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Science has provided modernity with the alternative. The fox economy cannot grow, because foxes don't know how to produce more rabbits. The rabbit economy stagnates, because rabbits cannot make the grass grow faster. But the human economy can grow because humans can discover new materials and sources of energy.\n\nThe traditional view of the world as a pie of a fixed size presupposes there are only two kinds of resources in the world: raw materials and energy. But in truth, there are three kinds of resources: raw materials, energy and knowledge. Raw materials and energy are exhaustible – the more you use, the less you have." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Knowledge, in contrast, is a growing resource – the more you use, the more you have." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indeed, when you increase your stock of knowledge, it can give you more raw materials and energy as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I invest $100 million searching for oil in Alaska and I find it, then I now have more oil, but my grandchildren will have less of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In contrast, if I invest $100 million researching solar energy, and I find a new and more efficient way of harnessing it, then both I and my grandchildren will have more energy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For thousands of years, the scientific road to growth was blocked because people believed that holy scriptures and ancient traditions already contained all the important knowledge the world had to offer. A corporation that believed all the oil fields in the world had already been discovered would not waste time and money searching for oil. Similarly, a human culture that believed it already knew everything worth knowing would not bother searching for new knowledge. This was the position of most premodern human civilisations. However, the Scientific Revolution freed humankind from this conviction. The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance. Once humans realised how little they knew about the world, they suddenly had a very good reason to seek new knowledge, which opened up the scientific road to progress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With each passing generation, science helped discover fresh sources of energy, new kinds of raw material, better machinery and novel production methods." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Consequently, in 2016 humankind commands far more energy and raw materials than ever before, and production skyrockets. Inventions such as the steam engine, the internal combustion engine and the computer have created whole new industries from scratch. As we look twenty years to the future, we confidently expect to produce and consume far more in 2036 than we do today. We trust nanotechnology, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence to revolutionise production yet again, and to open whole new sections in our ever-expanding supermarkets." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner for this section. I'll provide a segment, and you continue with 10 sentences, channeling Yuval Noah Harari in the nonfiction, science, history, philosophy genre. Characters may have backstories from previous chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles, and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the great cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world.\n\nAccordingly, the central religious revolution of modernity was not losing faith in God; rather, it was gaining faith in humanity. It took centuries of hard work. Thinkers wrote pamphlets, artists composed poems and symphonies, politicians struck deals – and together they convinced humanity that it can imbue the universe with meaning. To grasp the depth and implications of the humanist revolution, consider how modern European culture differs from medieval European culture. People in London, Paris or Toledo in 1300 did not believe that humans could determine by themselves what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, what is beautiful and what is ugly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only God could create and define goodness, righteousness and beauty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although humans were viewed as enjoying unique abilities and opportunities, they were also seen as ignorant and corruptible beings. Without external supervision and guidance, humans could never understand the eternal truth, and would instead be drawn to fleeting sensual pleasures and worldly delusions. In addition, medieval thinkers pointed out that humans are mortal, and their opinions and feelings are as fickle as the wind. Today I love something with all my heart, tomorrow I am disgusted by it, and next week I am dead and buried. Hence any meaning that depends on human opinion is necessarily fragile and ephemeral. Absolute truths, and the meaning of life and of the universe, must therefore be based on some eternal law emanating from a superhuman source.\n\nThis view made God the supreme source not only of meaning, but also of authority. Meaning and authority always go hand in hand. Whoever determines the meaning of our actions – whether they are good or evil, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly – also gains the authority to tell us what to think and how to behave.\n\nGod's role as the source of meaning and authority was not just a philosophical theory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It affected every facet of daily life. Suppose that in 1300, in some small English town, a married woman took a fancy to the next-door neighbour and had sex with him. As she sneaked back home, hiding a smile and straightening her dress, her mind began to race: 'What was that all about? Why did I do it? Was it good or bad? What does it imply about me? Should I do it again?' In order to answer such questions, the woman was supposed to go to the local priest, confess and ask the holy father for guidance. The priest was well versed in scriptures, and these sacred texts revealed to him exactly what God thought about adultery. Based on the eternal word of God, the priest could determine beyond all doubt that the woman had committed a mortal sin, that if she doesn't make amends she will end up in hell, and that she ought to repent immediately, donate ten gold coins to the coming crusade, avoid eating meat for the next six months and make a pilgrimage to the tomb of St Thomas à Becket at Canterbury." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it goes without saying that she must never repeat her awful sin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today things are very different. For centuries humanism has been convincing us that we are the ultimate source of meaning, and that our free will is therefore the highest authority of all. Instead of waiting for some external entity to tell us what's what, we can rely on our own feelings and desires. From infancy we are bombarded with a barrage of humanist slogans counselling us: 'Listen to yourself, follow your heart, be true to yourself, trust yourself, do what feels good.' Jean-Jacques Rousseau summed it all up in his novel Émile, the eighteenth-century bible of feeling. Rousseau held that when looking for the rules of conduct in life, he found them 'in the depths of my heart, traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface. I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what I feel to be good is good, what I feel to be bad is bad.'\n\nAccordingly, when a modern woman wants to understand the meaning of an affair she is having, she is far less prone to blindly accept the judgements of a priest or an ancient book. Instead, she will carefully examine her feelings. If her feelings aren't very clear, she will call a good friend, meet for coffee and pour out her heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If things are still vague, she will go to her therapist, and tell him all about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Theoretically, the modern therapist occupies the same place as the medieval priest, and it is an overworked cliché to compare the two professions. Yet in practice, a huge chasm separates them. The therapist does not possess a holy book that defines good and evil. When the woman finishes her story, it is highly unlikely that the therapist will burst out: 'You wicked woman! You have committed a terrible sin!' It is equally unlikely that he will say, 'Wonderful! Good for you!' Instead, no matter what the woman may have done and said, the therapist is most likely to ask in a caring voice, 'Well, how do you feel about what happened?'\n\nTrue, the therapist's bookshelf sags under the weight of Freud, Jung and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Yet these are not holy scriptures. The DSM diagnoses the ailments of life, not the meaning of life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most psychologists believe that only human feelings are authorised to determine the true meaning of our actions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hence no matter what the therapist thinks about his patient's affair, and no matter what Freud, Jung and the DSM think about affairs in general, the therapist should not force his views on the patient. Instead, he should help her examine the most secret chambers of her heart. There and only there will she find the answers. Whereas medieval priests had a hotline to God, and could distinguish for us between good and evil, modern therapists merely help us get in touch with our own inner feelings.\n\nThis partly explains the changing fortunes of the institution of marriage. In the Middle Ages, marriage was considered a sacrament ordained by God, and God also authorised the father to marry his children according to his wishes and interests. An extramarital affair was accordingly a brazen rebellion against both divine and parental authority. It was a mortal sin, no matter what the lovers felt and thought about it. Today people marry for love, and it is their inner feelings that give value to this bond. Hence, if the very same feelings that once drove you into the arms of one man now drive you into the arms of another, what's wrong with that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If an extramarital affair provides an outlet for emotional and sexual desires that are not satisfied by your spouse of twenty years, and if your new lover is kind, passionate and sensitive to your needs – why not enjoy it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But wait a minute, you might say. We cannot ignore the feelings of the other concerned parties. The woman and her lover might feel wonderful in each other's arms, but if their respective spouses find out, everybody will probably feel awful for quite some time. And if it leads to divorce, their children might carry the emotional scars for decades. Even if the affair is never discovered, hiding it involves a lot of tension, and may lead to growing feelings of alienation and resentment.\n\nThe most interesting discussions in humanist ethics concern situations like extramarital affairs, when human feelings collide. What happens when the same action causes one person to feel good, and another to feel bad? How do we weigh the feelings against each other? Do the good feelings of the two lovers outweigh the bad feelings of their spouses and children?\n\nIt doesn't matter what you think about this particular question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is far more important to understand the kind of arguments both sides deploy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Modern people have differing ideas about extramarital affairs, but no matter what their position is, they tend to justify it in the name of human feelings rather than in the name of holy scriptures and divine commandments. Humanism has taught us that something can be bad only if it causes somebody to feel bad. Murder is wrong not because some god once said, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Rather, murder is wrong because it causes terrible suffering to the victim, to his family members, and to his friends and acquaintances. Theft is wrong not because some ancient text says, 'Thou shalt not steal.' Rather, theft is wrong because when you lose your property, you feel bad about it. And if an action does not cause anyone to feel bad, there can be nothing wrong about it. If the same ancient text says that God commanded us not to make any images of either humans or animals (Exodus 20:4), but I enjoy sculpting such figures, and I don't harm anyone in the process – then what could possibly be wrong with it?\n\nThe same logic dominates current debates on homosexuality. If two adult men enjoy having sex with one another, and they don't harm anyone while doing so, why should it be wrong, and why should we outlaw it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a private matter between these two men, and they are free to decide about it according to their inner feelings. In the Middle Ages, if two men confessed to a priest that they were in love with one another, and that they never felt so happy, their good feelings would not have changed the priest's damning judgement – indeed, their happiness would only have worsened the situation. Today, in contrast, if two men love one another, they are told: 'If it feels good – do it! Don't let any priest mess with your mind. Just follow your heart. You know best what's good for you.'\n\nInterestingly enough, today even religious zealots adopt this humanistic discourse when they want to influence public opinion. For example, every year for the past decade the Israeli LGBT community holds a gay parade in the streets of Jerusalem. It is a unique day of harmony in this conflict-riven city, because it is the one occasion when religious Jews, Muslims and Christians suddenly find a common cause – they all fume in accord against the gay parade. What's really interesting, though, is the argument they use." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They don't say, 'You shouldn't hold a gay parade because God forbids homosexuality.'" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rather, they explain to every available microphone and TV camera that 'seeing a gay parade passing through the holy city of Jerusalem hurts our feelings. Just as gay people want us to respect their feelings, they should respect ours.'\n\nOn 7 January 2015 Muslim fanatics massacred several staff members of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, because the magazine published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. In the following days, many Muslim organisations condemned the attack, yet some could not resist adding a 'but' clause. For example, the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate denounced the terrorists for their use of violence, and in the same breath denounced the magazine for 'hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims across the world'. Note that the Syndicate did not blame the magazine for disobeying God's will. That's what we call progress." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce 12 sentences using the prose and structure of Yuval Noah Harari every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the nonfiction, science, history, philosophy genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As of 2016, there is no serious alternative to the liberal package of individualism, human rights, democracy and a free market. The social protests that swept the Western world in 2011 – such as Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish 15-M movement – have absolutely nothing against democracy, individualism and human rights, or even against the basic principles of free-market economics. Just the opposite – they take governments to task for not living up to these liberal ideals. They demand that the market be really free, instead of being controlled and manipulated by corporations and banks 'too big to fail'. They call for truly representative democratic institutions, which will serve the interests of ordinary citizens rather than of moneyed lobbyists and powerful interest groups. Even those blasting stock exchanges and parliaments with the harshest criticism don't have a viable alternative model for running the world. While it is a favourite pastime of Western academics and activists to find fault with the liberal package, they have so far failed to come up with anything better.\n\nChina seems to offer a much more serious challenge than Western social protestors. Despite liberalising its politics and economics, China is neither a democracy nor a truly free-market economy, which does not prevent it from becoming the economic giant of the twenty-first century. Yet this economic giant casts a very small ideological shadow. Nobody seems to know what the Chinese believe these days – including the Chinese themselves. In theory China is still communist, but in practice it is nothing of the kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some Chinese thinkers and leaders toy with a return to Confucianism, but that's hardly more than a convenient veneer. This ideological vacuum makes China the most promising breeding ground for the new techno-religions emerging from Silicon Valley (which we will discuss in the following chapters). But these techno-religions, with their belief in immortality and virtual paradises, would take at least a decade or two to establish themselves. Hence at present, China doesn't pose a real alternative to liberalism. If bankrupted Greeks despair of the liberal model and search for a substitute, 'imitating the Chinese' doesn't mean much.\n\nHow about radical Islam, then? Or fundamentalist Christianity, messianic Judaism and revivalist Hinduism? Whereas the Chinese don't know what they believe, religious fundamentalists know it only too well. More than a century after Nietzsche pronounced Him dead, God seems to be making a comeback. But this is a mirage. God is dead – it just takes a while to get rid of the body. Radical Islam poses no serious threat to the liberal package, because for all their fervour, the zealots don't really understand the world of the twenty-first century, and have nothing relevant to say about the novel dangers and opportunities that new technologies are generating all around us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Religion and technology always dance a delicate tango." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They push one another, depend on one another and cannot stray too far away from one another. Technology depends on religion, because every invention has many potential applications, and the engineers need some prophet to make the crucial choice and point towards the required destination. Thus in the nineteenth century engineers invented locomotives, radios and internal combustion engines. But as the twentieth century proved, you can use these very same tools to create fascist societies, communist dictatorships and liberal democracies. Without some religious convictions, the locomotives cannot decide where to go.\n\nOn the other hand, technology often defines the scope and limits of our religious visions, like a waiter that demarcates our appetites by handing us a menu. New technologies kill old gods and give birth to new gods. That's why agricultural deities were different from hunter-gatherer spirits, why factory hands fantasise about different paradises than peasants and why the revolutionary technologies of the twenty-first century are far more likely to spawn unprecedented religious movements than to revive medieval creeds. Islamic fundamentalists may repeat the mantra that 'Islam is the answer', but religions that lose touch with the technological realities of the day lose their ability even to understand the questions being asked. What will happen to the job market once artificial intelligence outperforms humans in most cognitive tasks? What will be the political impact of a massive new class of economically useless people? What will happen to relationships, families and pension funds when nanotechnology and regenerative medicine turn eighty into the new fifty?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What will happen to human society when biotechnology enables us to have designer babies, and to open unprecedented gaps between rich and poor?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You will not find the answers to any of these questions in the Qur'an or sharia law, nor in the Bible or in the Confucian Analects, because nobody in the medieval Middle East or in ancient China knew much about computers, genetics or nanotechnology. Radical Islam may promise an anchor of certainty in a world of technological and economic storms – but in order to navigate a storm, you need a map and a rudder rather than just an anchor. Hence radical Islam may appeal to people born and raised in its fold, but it has precious little to offer unemployed Spanish youths or anxious Chinese billionaires.\n\nTrue, hundreds of millions may nevertheless go on believing in Islam, Christianity or Hinduism. But numbers alone don't count for much in history. History is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by the backward-looking masses. Ten thousand years ago most people were hunter-gatherers and only a few pioneers in the Middle East were farmers. Yet the future belonged to the farmers. In 1850 more than 90 per cent of humans were peasants, and in the small villages along the Ganges, the Nile and the Yangtze nobody knew anything about steam engines, railroads or telegraph lines. Yet the fate of these peasants had already been sealed in Manchester and Birmingham by the handful of engineers, politicians and financiers who spearheaded the Industrial Revolution. Steam engines, railroads and telegraphs transformed the production of food, textiles, vehicles and weapons, giving industrial powers a decisive edge over traditional agricultural societies.\n\nEven when the Industrial Revolution spread around the world and penetrated up the Ganges, Nile and Yangtze, most people continued to believe in the Vedas, the Bible, the Qur'an and the Analects more than in the steam engine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As today, so too in the nineteenth century there was no shortage of priests, mystics and gurus who argued that they alone hold the solution to all of humanity's woes, including to the new problems created by the Industrial Revolution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For example, between the 1820s and 1880s Egypt (backed by Britain) conquered Sudan, and tried to modernise the country and incorporate it into the new international trade network." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This destabilised traditional Sudanese society, creating widespread resentment and fostering revolts. In 1881 a local religious leader, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdallah, declared that he was the Mahdi (the Messiah), sent to establish the law of God on earth. His supporters defeated the Anglo-Egyptian army, and beheaded its commander – General Charles Gordon – in a gesture that shocked Victorian Britain. They then established in Sudan an Islamic theocracy governed by sharia law, which lasted until 1898.\n\nMeanwhile in India, Dayananda Saraswati headed a Hindu revival movement, whose basic principle was that the Vedic scriptures are never wrong. In 1875 he founded the Arya Samaj (Noble Society), dedicated to the spreading of Vedic knowledge – though truth be told, Dayananda often interpreted the Vedas in a surprisingly liberal way, supporting for example equal rights for women long before the idea became popular in the West.\n\nDayananda's contemporary, Pope Pius IX, had much more conservative views about women, but shared Dayananda's admiration for superhuman authority. Pius led a series of reforms in Catholic dogma, and established the novel principle of papal infallibility, according to which the Pope can never err in matters of faith (this seemingly medieval idea became binding Catholic dogma only in 1870, eleven years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species).\n\nThirty years before the Pope discovered that he is incapable of making mistakes, a failed Chinese scholar called Hong Xiuquan had a succession of religious visions. In these visions, God revealed that Hong was none other than the younger brother of Jesus Christ. God then invested Hong with a divine mission. He told Hong to expel the Manchu 'demons' that had ruled China since the seventeenth century, and establish on earth the Great Peaceful Kingdom of Heaven (Taiping Tiānguó)." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hong's message fired the imagination of millions of desperate Chinese, who were shaken by China's defeats in the Opium Wars and by the coming of modern industry and European imperialism." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Hong did not lead them to a kingdom of peace. Rather, he led them against the Manchu Qing dynasty in the Taiping Rebellion – the deadliest war of the nineteenth century. From 1850 to 1864, at least 20 million people lost their lives; far more than in the Napoleonic Wars or in the American Civil War.\n\nHundreds of millions clung to the religious dogmas of Hong, Dayananda, Pius and the Mahdi even as industrial factories, railroads and steamships filled the world. Yet most of us don't think about the nineteenth century as the age of faith. When we think of nineteenth-century visionaries, we are far more likely to recall Marx, Engels and Lenin than the Mahdi, Pius IX or Hong Xiuquan. And rightly so. Though in 1850 socialism was only a fringe movement, it soon gathered momentum, and changed the world in far more profound ways than the self-proclaimed messiahs of China and Sudan. If you count on national health services, pension funds and free schools, you need to thank Marx and Lenin (and Otto von Bismarck) far more than Hong Xiuquan or the Mahdi.\n\nWhy did Marx and Lenin succeed where Hong and the Mahdi failed? Not because socialist humanism was philosophically more sophisticated than Islamic and Christian theology, but rather because Marx and Lenin devoted more attention to understanding the technological and economic realities of their time than to perusing ancient texts and prophetic dreams. Steam engines, railroads, telegraphs and electricity created unheard-of problems as well as unprecedented opportunities. The experiences, needs and hopes of the new class of urban proletariats were simply too different from those of biblical peasants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To answer these needs and hopes, Marx and Lenin studied how a steam engine functions, how a coal mine operates, how railroads shape the economy and how electricity influences politics." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'brave' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lenin was once asked to define communism in a single sentence. 'Communism is power to worker councils,' he said, 'plus electrification of the whole country.' There can be no communism without electricity, without railroads, without radio. You couldn't establish a communist regime in sixteenth-century Russia, because communism necessitates the concentration of information and resources in one hub. 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' only works when produce can easily be collected and distributed across vast distances, and when activities can be monitored and coordinated over entire countries.\n\nMarx and his followers understood the new technological realities and the new human experiences, so they had relevant answers to the new problems of industrial society, as well as original ideas about how to benefit from the unprecedented opportunities. The socialists created a brave new religion for a brave new world. They promised salvation through technology and economics, thus establishing the first techno-religion in history, and changing the foundations of ideological discourse. Before Marx, people defined and divided themselves according to their views about God, not about production methods. Since Marx, questions of technology and economic structure became far more important and divisive than debates about the soul and the afterlife. In the second half of the twentieth century, humankind almost obliterated itself in an argument about production methods. Even the harshest critics of Marx and Lenin adopted their basic attitude towards history and society, and began thinking about technology and production much more carefully than about God and heaven." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the mid-nineteenth century, few people were as perceptive as Marx, hence only a few countries underwent rapid industrialisation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These few countries conquered the world. Most societies failed to understand what was happening, and they therefore missed the train of progress. Dayananda's India and the Mahdi's Sudan remained far more preoccupied with God than with steam engines, hence they were occupied and exploited by industrial Britain. Only in the last few years has India managed to make significant progress in closing the economic and geopolitical gap separating it from Britain. Sudan is still struggling far behind." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a serialized story. Produce 12 sentences using the prose and structure of Yuval Noah Harari every time it's your turn, using what the user wrote as a seed. Stick to the nonfiction, science, history, philosophy genre. Characters and plot points may reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As long as doctors, engineers and customers focused on healing mental diseases and enjoying life in WEIRD societies, the study of subnormal mental states and WEIRD minds was perhaps sufficient to our needs. Though normative psychology is often accused of mistreating any divergence from the norm, in the last century it has brought relief to countless people, saving the lives and sanity of millions.\n\nHowever, at the beginning of the third millennium we face a completely different kind of challenge, as liberal humanism makes way for techno-humanism, and medicine is increasingly focused on upgrading the healthy rather than healing the sick. Doctors, engineers and customers no longer want merely to fix mental problems – they seek to upgrade the mind. We are acquiring the technical abilities to begin manufacturing new states of consciousness, yet we lack a map of these potential new territories. Since we are familiar mainly with the normative and sub-normative mental spectrum of WEIRD people, we don't even know what destinations to aim towards.\n\nNot surprisingly, then, positive psychology has become the trendiest subfield of the discipline. In the 1990s leading experts such as Martin Seligman, Ed Dinner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that psychology should study not just mental illnesses, but also mental strengths. How come we have a remarkably detailed atlas of the sick mind, but have no scientific map of the prosperous mind? Over the last two decades, positive psychology has made important first steps in the study of super-normative mental states, but as of 2016, the super-normative zone is largely terra incognita to science.\n\nUnder such circumstances, we might rush forward without any map, and focus on upgrading those mental abilities that the current economic and political system needs, while neglecting and even downgrading other abilities. Of course, this is not a completely new phenomenon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For thousands of years the system has been shaping and reshaping our minds according to its needs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sapiens originally evolved as members of small intimate communities, and their mental faculties were not adapted to living as cogs within a giant machine. However, with the rise of cities, kingdoms and empires, the system cultivated capacities required for large-scale cooperation, while disregarding other skills and talents.\n\nFor example, archaic humans probably made extensive use of their sense of smell. Hunter-gatherers are able to smell from a distance the difference between various animal species, various humans and even various emotions. Fear, for example, smells different to courage. When a man is afraid he secretes different chemicals compared to when he is full of courage. If you sat among an archaic band debating whether to start a war against a neighbouring band, you could literary smell public opinion.\n\nAs Sapiens organised themselves in larger groups, our nose lost its importance, because it is useful only when dealing with small numbers of individuals. You cannot, for example, smell the American fear of China. Consequently, human olfactory powers were neglected. Brain areas that tens of thousands of years ago probably dealt with odours were put to work on more urgent tasks such as reading, mathematics and abstract reasoning. The system prefers that our neurons solve differential equations rather than smell our neighbours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The same thing happened to our other senses, and to the underlying ability to pay attention to our sensations. Ancient foragers were always sharp and attentive. Wandering in the forest in search of mushrooms, they sniffed the wind carefully and watched the ground intently. When they found a mushroom, they ate it with the utmost attention, aware of every little nuance of flavour, which could distinguish an edible mushroom from its poisonous cousin. Members of today's affluent societies don't need such keen awareness. We can go to the supermarket and buy any of a thousand different dishes, all supervised by the health authorities. But whatever we choose – Italian pizza or Thai noodles – we are likely to eat it in haste in front of the TV, hardly paying attention to the taste (which is why food producers are constantly inventing new exciting flavours, which might somehow pierce the curtain of indifference). Similarly, when going on holiday we can choose between thousands of amazing destinations. But wherever we go, we are likely to be playing with our smartphone instead of really seeing the place. We have more choice than ever before, but no matter what we choose, we have lost the ability to really pay attention to it.\n\nIn addition to smelling and paying attention, we have also been losing our ability to dream. Many cultures believed that what people see and do in their dreams is no less important than what they see and do while awake." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hence people actively developed their ability to dream, to remember dreams and even to control their actions in the dream world, which is known as 'lucid dreaming'." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Experts in lucid dreaming could move about the dream world at will, and claimed they could even travel to higher planes of existence or meet visitors from other worlds. The modern world, in contrast, dismisses dreams as subconscious messages at best, and mental garbage at worst. Consequently, dreams play a much smaller part in our lives, few people actively develop their dreaming skills, and many people claim that they don't dream at all, or that they cannot remember any of their dreams.\n\nDid the decline in our capacity to smell, to pay attention and to dream make our lives poorer and greyer? Maybe. But even if it did, for the economic and political system it was worth it. Mathematical skills are more important to the economy than smelling flowers or dreaming about fairies. For similar reasons, it is likely that future upgrades to the human mind will reflect political needs and market forces.\n\nFor example, the US army's 'attention helmet' is meant to help people focus on well-defined tasks and speed up their decision-making process. It may, however, reduce their ability to show empathy and tolerate doubts and inner conflicts. Humanist psychologists have pointed out that people in distress often don't want a quick fix – they want somebody to listen to them and sympathise with their fears and misgivings. Suppose you are having an ongoing crisis in your workplace, because your new boss doesn't appreciate your views, and insists on doing everything her way. After one particularly unhappy day, you pick up the phone and call a friend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the friend has little time and energy for you, so he cuts you short, and tries to solve your problem: 'Okay. I get it. Well, you really have just two options here: either quit the job, or stay and do what the boss wants. And if I were you, I would quit.' That would hardly help. A really good friend will have patience, and will not be quick to find a solution. He will listen to your distress, and will provide time and space for all your contradictory emotions and gnawing anxieties to surface.\n\nThe attention helmet works a bit like the impatient friend. Of course sometimes – on the battlefield, for instance – people need to take firm decisions quickly. But there is more to life than that. If we start using the attention helmet in more and more situations, we may end up losing our ability to tolerate confusion, doubts and contradictions, just as we have lost our ability to smell, dream and pay attention. The system may push us in that direction, because it usually rewards us for the decisions we make rather than for our doubts. Yet a life of resolute decisions and quick fixes may be poorer and shallower than one of doubts and contradictions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When you mix a practical ability to engineer minds with our ignorance of the mental spectrum and with the narrow interests of governments, armies and corporations, you get a recipe for trouble." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We may successfully upgrade our bodies and our brains, while losing our minds in the process. Indeed, techno-humanism may end up downgrading humans. The system may prefer downgraded humans not because they would possess any superhuman knacks, but because they would lack some really disturbing human qualities that hamper the system and slow it down. As any farmer knows, it's usually the brightest goat in the herd that stirs up the greatest trouble, which is why the Agricultural Revolution involved downgrading animal mental abilities. The second cognitive revolution dreamed up by techno-humanists might do the same to us." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point (which may include pre-existing characters and lore), and You'll continue with 12 sentences in the style of Isaac Asimov." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity… but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.\n\nMinds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.\n\nZee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.\n\n\"I am Zee Prime,\" said Zee Prime. \"And you?\"\n\n\"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?\"\n\n\"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?\"\n\n\"True. Since all Galaxies are the same.\"\n\n\"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different.\"\n\nZee Prime said, \"On which one?\"\n\n\"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.\"\n\n\"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.\"\n\nZee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.\n\nZee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: \"Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But how can that be all of Universal AC?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Zee Prime had asked.\n\n\"Most of it,\" had been the answer, \"is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine.\"\n\nNor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.\n\nThe Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.\n\nA thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear:\n\n> THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN.\n\nBut it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.\n\nDee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, \"And is one of these stars the original star of Man?\"\n\nThe Universal AC said:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF.\n\n\"Did the men upon it die?\" asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking.\n\nThe Universal AC said:\n\n> A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.\n\nDee Sub Wun said, \"What is wrong?\"\n\n\"The stars are dying. The original star is dead.\"\n\n\"They must all die. Why not?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It will take billions of years.\"\n\n\"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?\"\n\nDee Sub Wun said in amusement, \"You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction.\"\n\nAnd the Universal AC answered:\n\n> THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.\n\nZee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.\n\nUnhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Story continuation: Build on existing elements. Themes: " }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, after twenty years with the business as his only security, Sam was going to Aaron to sell his shares. As he entered Aaron's office he felt a deep soul-sickness that he had not felt since he had left the reservation.\n\n\"Aaron, I'll take forty cents on the dollar for my shares. And I keep my office.\"\n\nAaron turned slowly in the big executive chair and faced Sam. \"You know I couldn't come up with that kind of cash, Sam. It's a good move, though. I'd have to keep paying you out of override, and with interest you wouldn't even take a cut in pay. I don't think you're in a position to negotiate, though. In fact, after the call I got this morning, I think twenty cents on the dollar would be more than fair.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sam resisted the urge to dive over the desk and slap his partner's bare scalp until it bled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had to take his fallback position sooner than he wanted to. \"You're thinking that because Spagnola can put me with the Indian I have to sell, right?\"\n\nAaron nodded.\n\n\"But just imagine that I ride this through, Aaron. Imagine that I don't sign off, that the insurance commission suspends my license, that criminal charges are filed and my name is in the paper every day. Guess whose name is going to be right next to mine? And what happens if I maintain my association with the agency and the insurance commission starts looking into your files? How many signatures have you traced over the years, Aaron? How many people thought they were buying one policy, only to find out that their signature showed up on a different one -- one that paid you a higher commission?\"\n\nA sheen of sweat was appearing on Aaron's forehead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've done that as often as I have. You'd be hanging yourself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's the point, Aaron. When I walked in here you were convinced that I was hung anyway. I'm just making room for you on the gallows.\"\n\n\"You ungrateful prick. I took you in when you --\"\n\n\"I know, Aaron. That's why I'm giving you a chance to stay clean. Actually, you've got more to lose than I do. Once your files are open, then your income is going to become public knowledge.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Aaron stood and paced around to the front of the desk.\n\n\"Oh!\" He waved a finger under Sam's nose, then turned and walked to the water cooler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh!\" He kicked the cooler, then returned to his chair, sat down, then stood up again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh!\" he said. It was as if the single syllable had stuck in his mouth. He looked as if he were going to launch into a tirade; blood rose in his face and veins bulged on his forehead.\n\n\"Oh!\" he said. He fell back in the chair and stared at the ceiling as if his brain had pushed the hold button on reality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's right, Aaron,\" Sam said after a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The IRS.\" With that Sam moved to the office door. \"Take your time, Aaron. Think about it. Talk it over with your buddy Spagnola; he can probably give you the current exchange rate of cigarettes for sodomy in prison.\"\n\nAaron slowly broke his stare on the ceiling and turned to watch Sam walk out.\n\nIn the outer office Julia looked up from applying lacquer to her nails to see Sam grinning, his hand still on the doorknob.\n\n\"What's with all the 'ohs,' Sam?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julia asked. \"It sounded like you guys were having sex or something.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'aaron's' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something like that,\" Sam said, his grin widening. \"Hey, watch this.\" He opened the door quickly and stuck his head back in Aaron's office. \"Hey, Aaron! IRS!\" he said. Then he pulled the door shut, muffling Aaron's scream of pain.\n\n\"What was that?\" Julia asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That,\" Sam said, \"was my teacher giving me the grade on my final exam.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't get it.\"\n\n\"You will, honey. I don't have time to explain right now. I've got a date.\"\n\nSam left the office walking light and smiling, feeling strangely as if the pieces of his life, rather than fitting back together, were jingling in his pocket like sleigh bells warning Christmas." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Acting as writing assistant for a story segment. Characters may have existing backgrounds. Continue with 2 sentences sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frank Cochran, the cofounder of Motion Marine, Inc., had spent most of the morning in his office milling over the bane of his existence: the human factor. Frank loved organization, routine, and predictability." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He liked his life to be linear, moving forward from event to event without the nasty backtracking caused by surprises." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The human factor was his name for the variable of unpredictability that was added to the equation of life by human beings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Today, the human factor was represented by his partner, Jim Cable, who was in the hospital after being attacked by an Indian.\n\nFrank's thinking went thus: If Jim dies there'll be insurance hassles, legal battles with the family, and someone will have to comfort Jim's mistress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But if Jim lives -- maybe Jim's mistress should be comforted anyway..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His train of thought was broken by the buzz of the intercom on his desk. \"Mr. Cochran,\" his secretary said, \"there's a man from NARC here to see you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't have any appointments until after lunch, do I?\"\n\nThe office door burst open and Cochran looked up to see an Indian in black buckskins striding toward him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His secretary was shouting protests from her desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cochran spoke into the intercom, \"Stella, do I have an appointment with this man?\"\n\n\"Native American Reform Coalition,\" Coyote said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I understand that some insurance agent is taking credit for what happened to your partner.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cochran had a very bad feeling about this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look, I don't know who you are, but I don't like surprises.\"\n\n\"Then this is going to be a very bad day for you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Coyote slammed the door behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A very bad day.\" The trickster extended his right hand." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Format: Story segment\nLength: seven sentences\nMaintain: Established context\nThemes: " }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "[ Santa Barbara ]\n\nWhen Sam walked into his office Gabriella met him with a cup of coffee. \"Mr. Hunter, I'd like to apologize for my behavior yesterday. I don't know what came over me.\"\n\n\"That's okay. I do.\"\n\n\"I hope you were able to resolve the difficulties at the Cliffs.\"\n\nSam wasn't prepared for civility from Gabriella; it was like encountering a polite scorpion. Life was changing before his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everything's fine. Any calls?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just Mr. Aaron.\" She checked her message pad. \"He would like you to stop into his office if it wouldn't be too much trouble.\"\n\n\"Exact words?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"My my, has the Sugarplum Fairy been through here today?\"\n\nGabriella checked the pad. \"No message, sir.\"\n\nSam smiled and walked away." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"Sammy boy, have a seat. We need to talk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Down the hall Julia told Sam to go right in.\n\nAaron stood and smiled when Sam entered the office. \"Sammy boy, have a seat. We need to talk.\"\n\nSam said, \"Forty cents on the dollar, plus interest. You keep the office. I want out. That's it. You talk.\"\n\nAaron dismissed Sam's comment with a wave. \"That's all behind us, buddy. Cochran's lawyer called. There isn't going to be any lawsuit. You and I are square.\"\n\n\"What happened?\" Sam knew he should be elated at the news, but instead he felt dread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment he had relished the idea of giving up all the pretending. Now what?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No explanation. They just backed off. They apologized for the mistake. You'll get a formal apology in the mail tomorrow. I never doubted you, kid. Not for a minute.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Aaron, did you talk to Spagnola today?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just briefly. Just a social call. He was pretty heavily medicated. I'm not sure I trust him, Sam. You want to watch your back around that guy. He's unstable.\"\n\nSam felt his ears heat up with anger. Aaron expected him to act like the betrayal had never happened. There was a time when he would have, but not now. \"Forty cents on the dollar, plus interest.\"\n\nAaron lost his friendly-guy salesman's smile. \"But that's behind us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think so. You're a shit, Aaron. That doesn't surprise me. But it does surprise me that you went after me when I was down. I thought we were friends.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are, Sammy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good. Then you won't mind having the papers on my desk by midweek. And you can pay the attorney fees. They're tax deductible, you know. And if you're late, you will need the write-off.\" Sam got up and started out of the office.\n\nAaron called after him. \"We don't have to do this now.\"\n\nWithout turning Sam said, \"Yes we do. I do.\"\n\nSam nodded to Julia as he passed but he couldn't muster a smile. What have I done? he thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his outer office Gabriella was kicked back in her chair with her skirt up around her armpits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed to be hyperventilating and her eyes were rolled back in her head.\n\n\"Gabriella! Again?\"\n\nShe pointed to his office door. Sam threw the door open, banging it against the wall and disturbing a raven that was perched in the brass hat rack just inside. Sam stormed over to the bird, barely resisting the urge to grab it and rip its feathers out.\n\n\"Goddammit, I told you to stay off my secretary!\" Sam shook his fist at the bird." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And what kind of bullshit did you pull over at Motion Marine to get them to drop the lawsuit? Can't you just leave me alone?\"\n\n\"Why are you yelling at the bird?\" The voice came from behind him. Sam looked around, his fist still threatening the raven.\n\nCoyote was standing in the opposite corner of the office by the fax machine. Sam's anger turned to confusion. He looked at the bird, then Coyote, then the bird. \"Who's this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A raven?\" Coyote speculated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned back to the fax machine. \"Hey, what is this button that says 'network'?\"\n\nSam was still looking at the bird. \"It sends simultaneously to the home offices of all the companies we represent.\"\n\nCoyote pushed the button. \"Like smoke signals.\"\n\n\"What?\" Sam dropped his fist, ran to the fax machine, and hit the cancel button a second too late. The display showed the transmission had gone out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sam pulled the paper from the machine and stared at it in disbelief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coyote had obviously lain on the copy machine to get the image.\n\n\"You faxed your penis? That machine prints my name at the top of each transmission.\"\n\n\"The girls in the home office will think highly of you, then. Of course, they will be disappointed if they ever see you naked.\"\n\nThe raven squawked and Gabriella appeared at the open door. \"Mr. Hunter, a gentleman is here to see you from the police department.\"\n\nCoyote held the Xerox up to Gabriella. \"A picture of your friend,\" he offered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sharp-featured Hispanic man in a tweed sport jacket pushed his way past Gabriella into the office." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Hunter, I'm Detective Alphonse Rivera, Santa Barbara PD, narcotics division. I'd like to ask you a few questions.\" He held out a business card embossed with a gold shield, but did not offer to shake hands.\n\n\"Narcotics?\" Sam looked to Coyote, thinking he would have disappeared, but the trickster had stood his ground by the fax machine. On the hat rack, the raven cawed.\n\n\"Nice bird,\" Rivera said. \"I understand they can be trained to talk.\" Rivera walked to the bird and studied it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pig,\" the raven said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's not mine,\" Sam said quickly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He belongs to --\" Sam looked around and Gabriella was gone from the doorway. \"He belongs to this gentleman.\" Sam pointed to Coyote.\n\n\"And you are?\" Rivera eyed Coyote suspiciously.\n\n\"Coyote.\"\n\nRivera raised an eyebrow and took a notebook from his inside jacket pocket. \"Mr. Hunter, I have a few questions about what went on at Motion Marine a couple of days ago. Would you prefer to talk in private?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\" Sam looked at Coyote." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go away. Take the bird with you.\"\n\n\"Nazi scum,\" the raven cawed.\n\n\"I'll stay,\" Coyote said.\n\nSam was on the verge of screaming. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He composed himself and turned to Rivera. \"We can talk in front of Mr. Coyote.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just a few questions,\" Rivera said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You had an appointment with James Cable at ten. Is that correct?\"\n\n\"I was there for about an hour.\"\n\n\"I was there too,\" Coyote said.\n\nRivera turned his attention to the trickster. \"Why were you there, Mr. Coyote?\"\n\n\"I was raising funds for NARC.\"\n\n\"Narc!\" the raven said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Narc?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Native American Reform Coalition.\"\n\nRivera scribbled on a pad.\n\nSam said, \"I don't understand. What does this have to do with narcotics?\"\n\n\"We think someone put hallucinogens in the coffee over at Motion Marine. Two days ago James Cable claims he was attacked by someone fitting Mr. Coyote's description. He had a heart attack.\"\n\n\"I just asked him if his company would make a donation,\" Coyote said. \"He said no and I went away.\" He had taken the Xerox of his penis from the desk and fitted it back into the fax machine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He searched the buttons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Insurance commissioner,'\" he read as he pushed the button." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No!\" Sam dove over the desk for the cancel button. Too late. He turned to Rivera. \"That document wasn't signed.\" He grinned and tried to move the conversation away from his panic. \"You know, I was thinking -- we've got an Indian, a policeman, and an insurance broker. We're only a construction worker away from the Village People.\"\n\nRivera ignored the comment. \"Did you have any coffee while you were at Motion Marine, Mr. Hunter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coffee? No.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"And you didn't drink from the watercooler?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you didn't drink from the watercooler?\"\n\n\"No. I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Today, three people at Motion Marine, including Frank Cochran, claim that they saw a polar bear in the offices.\"\n\nSam looked at Coyote. \"A polar bear?\"\n\n\"We think that someone slipped them some LSD. We're testing the water and the coffee now. We just wanted to talk to anyone who has been in the building in the last two days. You didn't see anyone strange hanging around while you were in the building?\"\n\n\"I only saw Cable's secretary and Cable,\" Sam said.\n\nRivera flipped the notebook closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, thanks for your time. If you have any strange reactions or see anything strange, could you give me a call?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rivera handed a card to Coyote. \"And you too, if you would.\"\n\n\"Cabron,\" the raven said.\n\n\"He speaks Spanish, too,\" Rivera said. \"Amazing.\" The detective left the office.\n\n\"'Santa Barbara News-Press advertising,'\" Coyote read as he pushed the button. The fax machine whirred." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sam started to go for the machine, then stopped and sat down in his chair. He sat for a minute rubbing his temples. \"If that cop runs a background check on me, I'm going to jail. You know that, don't you?\"\n\n\"You wanted your old life back.\"\n\n\"But a fucking polar bear?\"\n\n\"Well, you have your old life back, whether you want it or not.\"\n\n\"I was wrong.\" It felt good saying it, the honesty in it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'feathers' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted a new life. \"I just want you to go away.\"\n\n\"I'm gone,\" Coyote said. \"The girl is gone too.\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\nThe feathers on Coyote's shirt turned black and his fingers changed to flight feathers. In an instant Coyote was a raven. He flew out the office door followed by the raven from the hat rack." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's continue the story. I'll provide context, you add 12 sentences in Christopher Moore's style. Treat any character mentions as having established backstory." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the Guild's clubhouse Tinker was digging at a flea bite on his leg, trying to pull his grimy jeans up over heavy boots to get at the tiny invader. \"Fucking fleas,\" he said.\n\nThe Guild's president, Bonner Newton, let out a raucous snort. \"You know what they say, bro,\" Newton said. \"Lie down with dogs...\" A din of harsh laughter rose in the room from the other Guild members.\n\n\"Fuck you guys,\" Tinker said, feigning anger while enjoying the attention. It wasn't that he liked ugly chicks, but who else would have him?\n\nNineteen of the twenty full members of the Guild were draped over furniture and sprawled on the floor, smoking joints and cigarettes, drinking beers and feeling at the few old ladies present. Outside, two strikers, members who had not earned their full colors, sat on the front porch watching for the law.\n\nThe house was a ramshackle stucco bungalow that had been built in the 1930s as part of a housing tract, before the term housing tract was part of the language. The walls were stained with blood, beer, and vomit. The carpet was matted with motor oil; the furniture was minimal and distressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only Tinker actually lived at the clubhouse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rest of the club used it for meeting and partying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Guild had paid a hundred thousand dollars in cash for the house. The deed was registered under Newton's married sister's name, as was the ranch house the Guild owned in the Santa Lucia Mountains above Santa Barbara, which housed the lab that provided their income. Ironically, the ranch's nearest neighbor was a wobbly-headed ex-president who had declared a war on drugs, and who, from time to time, would stand on the veranda of his palatial ranch house sniffing the odor of cooking crank and calling, \"Mommy, there's a funny smell trickling down out here.\"\n\nThe lab produced enough income to support all of the Guild's members and ensure that none of them had to work except to man the counter of the Harley-Davidson shop that Bonner Newton used to launder drug money.\n\nNewton held an M.B.A. from Stanford. In an earlier time, before he fell from grace for smuggling cocaine, he had stalked the glass-cube buildings of Silicon Valley, wearing Italian suits and commanding crews of brilliant computer designers who could define the universe in terms of two digits, explain the chaos theory in twenty-five words or less, and build machines that emulated human intelligence -- but who thought a vulva was a Swedish automobile. Newton's experience in coddling these genius misfits served him well as president of the Guild, for the members of the Guild were nothing more than nerds without brains: fat, ugly, or awkward men who found no acceptance in the outside world and so escaped into the security and belonging of an outlaw biker club. A Harley-Davidson and blind loyalty were the only requirements for membership.\n\n\"Listen up, you fucks,\" Newton said, calling the meeting to order. \"Bitches outside.\" He paused and lit a cigarette while the women filed out the door, glaring at him over their shoulders. He was not a large or imposing man compared to the other members, but his authority was not to be questioned.\n\n\"Lonnie's not here yet,\" Tinker said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lonnie's running an errand for us,\" Newton said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're going to take an impromptu road trip. A little business and a little pleasure.\"\n\n\"Fuckin' A,\" someone yelled. Newton gestured for quiet.\n\n\"Seems like someone forgot to tell me that we were running low on ether up at the facility.\" Newton always referred to the crank lab as \"the facility.\" Tinker stopped scratching his leg and hung his head.\n\n\"Tink, you fucking idiot,\" someone said.\n\n\"Anyway,\" Newton continued, \"I wasn't able to arrange a delivery, so we have to go get it. There's a rally in South Dakota in a couple of days. At Sturgis. The Chicago chapter is going to meet us there with a couple of barrels. I want three fifty-five-gallon drums rigged with false tops so if we get stopped by the law it looks like we're hauling motor oil. Tinker, you'll drive the pickup.\"\n\n\"Aw, come on, Newt,\" Tinker whined.\n\n\"Warren,\" Newton said. A thin biker with curly red hair looked up. \"You fix one of the barrels for weapons, and make sure no one is packing. I don't want any weapons on anyone while we're riding.\"\n\nA series of snorts, moans, and \"Oh, fucks\" passed around the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Newton dismissed them with a wave." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'clear' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Advice from the Gator,\" he said. Gator was short for the litigator, the Guild's attorney, Melvin Gold, who handled all their criminal cases free of charge in exchange for the assurance that he could also handle their personal injury suits. Bikers got run over a lot.\n\n\"Look,\" Newton insisted, \"half of you are on probation. We don't need some rookie pig looking for glory to fuck us on a concealed-weapons charge. Are we clear?\" Newton paused until someone answered, \"We're clear.\"\n\n\"All right, then. Lonnie's making a run to Vegas with his old lady to get the money to pay for the ether. He'll meet us in South D. We're out of here at nine tomorrow morning, so don't get too fucked up tonight. Bring your camping shit. Let your bitches carry your stash.\" Newton dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the carpet. \"That's all,\" he said.\n\nThe room filled with conversations about the trip. A few of the members got up to leave. When they opened the door a single flea hopped out with them. Once past the steps the flea changed into a horsefly and took flight. A block away the horsefly changed into a raven and headed toward the mesa and the Cliffs condominium complex." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand while maintaining narrative continuity." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calliope was sure she could do it: if Grubb was trapped under a Chrysler she could lift the car and pull him out. You heard about it all the time: Hundred-Pound Mom Lifts Two-Ton Car to Save Trapped Tot. It seemed to happen often enough that it should be part of Lamaze training. \"Okay, now breathe, focus, grab the bumper...now lift!\" Yep, she could do it -- a Chrysler on each arm if she had to. She wasn't so sure about getting Grubb back from Lonnie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe if that other woman wasn't with him, being so hostile and negative.\n\nShe was feeling a little better now that the sun was coming up. She'd been shivering since the punks had broken her back window, from nerves and the cold. And she didn't have enough gas money to leave the Z running with the heater on while she waited for Lonnie to come out of the Harley shop. She might not have enough to make it home as it was. Besides, something was wrong with the car; she'd tached it too high while running from the police and something had given way in clatter and smoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As she watched, Lonnie came through the front door of the shop carrying Grubb's diaper bag." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calliope swallowed hard, trying to push down her fear -- fear of failure. She got out of the Z. The woman followed Lonnie holding Grubb in her arms. Calliope ran toward them, then stopped when she saw the woman's face. It was like one painful purple bruise with eyes.\n\n\"Lonnie,\" Calliope called." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lonnie and the woman turned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grubb saw his mother and reached out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lonnie pushed down Grubb's hand. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I came to get Grubb. You shouldn't have taken him.\"\n\n\"Talk to the judge. He's mine half the time.\"\n\nHe was right. Calliope had gone to Social Services once before when Lonnie took Grubb on a road trip. Her caseworker told her that the law couldn't do anything to help." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'lonnie' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't want him. You just want to hurt me.\"\n\nLonnie laughed, threw his head back, and shook with laughter. For all the times he had postured and threatened and screamed and pounded, he had never really scared her. She was scared now.\n\n\"You shouldn't take him on a run like this, Lonnie. What if you get busted?\"\n\n\"Run? What run? We're just on a little family camping trip, aren't we, Cheryl?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The woman tucked her face behind Grubb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give him to me, please,\" Calliope pleaded.\n\nLonnie climbed onto his bike grinning and hit the starter. The bike fired up and Lonnie shouted over the engine, \"Go home. I'll bring him back in a few days.\" Cheryl climbed on behind him and he dropped the bike into gear.\n\n\"No!\" Calliope started to run after them. Lonnie gunned the bike and roared off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She shuffled to a stop and saw Grubb reaching out over Cheryl's shoulder." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes blurred with tears. She turned and ran to her car, wiped her eyes, and saw the limo parked down the street. Someone was sitting in it, just watching her. \"What are you looking at?\" she screamed." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand while maintaining narrative continuity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "According to Pokey, at the time the white men came, there were seven sacred arrow bundles. Each had been made by four medicine men who had the same vision at the same time. Once the bundles were made, the medicine men vowed never to gather again, afraid that if their combined power were stolen by one, he would become invincible and abuse the power. These bundles contained the most powerful of warrior medicine, able to protect the carrier from an enemy's weapon, give him the ability to travel swiftly, and escape to the Underworld in an emergency, to return later, unharmed. Of the original seven bundles, two had been destroyed by fire, two by flood, two were locked away in museums in Washington, and the last to leave the reservation was in the hands of a private collector in Billings, who had bought it from a family who had been converted to Christianity and thought the bundle might jeopardize their salvation.\n\nAt first Sam suspected Pokey's story." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His choice finally to believe it was based more on heart than logic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whether the story of the bundles was true or not didn't matter as much as the hope it inspired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Action based on hope just felt better than the paralysis of certainty.\n\nWhen Sam came through the door of the Hunts Alone house, Cindy hardly recognized him. When she had first met him he seemed weak, wasted, and without reason to live. Now he was moving and talking with purpose. Sam said, \"Cindy, I'm sorry about before. I don't want to impose.\"\n\n\"You're family,\" she said, and that was all the explanation needed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks,\" Sam said. \"We went to see Pokey. He's doing fine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did they say when he can come home?\"\n\n\"We're bringing him home tonight, if things go the way they should. Can I use the phone?\"\n\nCindy waved toward the kitchen table, where the phone sat amid a stack of cereal boxes and bowls. Sam checked on Grubb, found him sleeping, and went to the phone.\n\nThe first call went out to the Museum of the West in Cody, Wyoming. Yes, they knew a serious collector of Indian artifacts in Billings; they had bought several pieces from him over the years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His name was Arnstead Houston.\n\nThe next call was to his office in Santa Barbara. \"Gabriella, I need you to take the key I gave you and go to my house. In my closet there's a corduroy jacket with suede elbow patches. Load it in my garment bag with the khaki pants, a flannel shirt, and that goofy Indiana Jones hat that Aaron gave me for Christmas. Put in my blue pinstripe suit -- shirt, shoes, and tie to match. Then grab my briefcase and get it all on the next plane to Billings, Montana. Buy a seat for it if you have to. Put it on the corporate card. And run the name Arnstead Houston through all our companies' client files --go to the Insurance Institute if you have to. It's a Billings address.\"\n\nHe waited while Gabriella put the name through the computer and came back with the name of Houston's home-owner's insurance carrier. \"Give me the agent's number.\" Sam scribbled it down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Call me back at this number as soon as you confirm the arrival time of my stuff in Billings.\" He gave her the Hunts Alone number.\n\nHe dialed the number of Houston's insurance agent in Billings and spoke in an Oklahoma accent. \"Yes, I'm interested in insuring some valuable Indian artifacts. Arnie Houston recommended you.\" Sam waited. \"I didn't figure you handled that sort of thing. Do you remember who you referred Arnie to? Boulder Casualty? You got a number for them? Thanks, pardner.\"\n\nSam hung up the phone and it rang immediately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hello. Five today? That's the earliest? Thanks, Gabriella. Oh, I forgot -- call and reserve a car at the Billings airport. Something with four-wheel drive. A Blazer or a Bronco or something. White if they have it. I'll pick it up at five. Yes, the corporate card. Fuck Aaron. Tell him I'm on a hunting trip. And Gabby, you are incredible, you really are. I know I've never told you that before. Because it was time I did. Take care.\"\n\nHe disconnected and dialed another number, waited, then spoke with an English accent. \"Yes, Boulder Casualty. This is Samuel Smythe-White with Sotheby's, London. So sorry to bother you, but we've a bit of a problem that you may be able to help us with. It seems we've recently acquired some Red Indian items -- a bit unusual for us -- and we're at a loss as for someone to authenticate them. The owner, who must remain anonymous I'm afraid, has suggested that you insure this sort of thing and might know of an appraiser. Yes, I'll wait.\"\n\nSam held the phone aside and lit a cigarette. \"No, no, location is not a problem. Sotheby's will fly him to London.\" Sam scribbled something. \"Jolly good. Yes, thank you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'tonight' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He disconnected and dialed Arnstead Houston's number. \"Hello, Mr. Houston. This is Bill Lanier. I'm the new head of Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. Yes. The reason I'm calling is that I just got a call from Boulder Casualty. It seems that there is an item in your collection that has been severely undervalued and they'd like us to take a look at it to make sure the schedule of coverage is in line. Of course, the new appraisal would increase the price if you should ever want to sell it.\" Sam paused and listened.\n\nHe continued, \"A Crow medicine bundle. Yes. This one's a cylinder, a hollowed-out cedar log. That's right. Well, sir, we'll need to take a look at it in person. We happen to have a tribal expert visiting the campus right now. We could be in Billings by five thirty tonight. No, I'm afraid he has to fly to a dig in Arizona tomorrow. It will have to be tonight. Yes, I have your address. Thank you, sir.\"\n\nSam hung up, sat back, and let out a long sigh. The whole process had taken less than five minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he turned around both Cindy and Coyote were staring at him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cindy's mouth was hanging open.\n\n\"What was that?\" Coyote asked.\n\n\"You,\" Sam said, \"are now working, indirectly, as an artifacts expert for the Boulder Casualty Insurance Company and I am now a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington,\"\n\n\"I've been looking for a job,\" Cindy said, shaking her head. \"They always make me fill out an application.\"\n\nCoyote looked at Cindy. \"He has shifty eyes, don't you think?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "keep going! this is mid-story so chars might appear without intro. 8 sentences sentences like Christopher Moore. genres: comedy, urban fantasy. elements: " }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The clinic was officially closed for the day, but the skeleton staff of two nurses was still on. Adeline Eats sat in the waiting room with her six children, who were all green with flu, insisting that she wasn't going anywhere until they got treatment, even if she had to wait all night.\n\nFor the twentieth time, the nurse at the window was explaining that the doctor had gone home for the night, when she heard the hoof beats on the stairs. She dropped her clipboard and ran out of the office to see a black horse coming down the stairs, an old, half-naked man bouncing on its back. She ducked back into her office to avoid being trampled and looked up in time to see a man in a corduroy jacket running behind the horse out the front door.\n\nThe nurse ran out into the waiting room to the front door, which dangled in pieces on its hinges. She watched the horse stop beside a white Blazer and rear up. The old man, his gray hair streaming in the wind, let out a war whoop and fell into the arms of the man in corduroy." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Story collab\nContext: May include established elements\nMe: Opening\nYou: 11 sentences more, Christopher Moore-style" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The owl was still perched on the power pole.\n\nAdeline Eats sat in her easy chair reading the Book of Job, trying to keep her dinner down. On the way back from the clinic the kids had elected to have pancakes for dinner and Adeline had eaten a mountainous stack and all the mistakes. Now the matriarchs of breakfast, Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth, were waging a bubbling battle in her stomach while her kids burned with fever and Job suffered boils.\n\nAdeline admired Job for keeping his faith. All she had was a house full of sick kids, a husband with a peyote hangover, an owl out front, and a little difficulty reading small print through her sunglasses, and she was ready to pack it in to her reserved spot in Hell. Old Job was quite a guy, especially with God acting like such a prick. What was that about? When her sisters talked about the Bible it was all the Sermon on the Mount and the Song of Solomon, Proverbs and Psalms; never smitings and plagues. And her sisters had never mentioned that God was a racist. He sure hated those old Philistines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Adeline had a cousin in Philadelphia; she wore a little too much eye shadow, but that didn't seem a sin you should get smote and circumcised for..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Adeline's religious reverie was interrupted by a tidal surge of acid in her stomach. She put the Bible down and went to the kitchen for some Pepto-Bismol. She found the bottle and wrestled with the child-guard cap for five minutes before deciding to smite its head off with the cleaver Milo used for hacking deer joints. She was raising the cleaver when the doorbell rang like a call from the governor.\n\nShe waddled to the door and threw it open. An enormously fat white man in a powder-blue suit was standing on the steps, hat in hand, sample case at his side, grinning like a possum eating shit. He looked vaguely familiar.\n\n\"Pardon me, ma'am,\" he said. \"I was looking for a Mrs. Adeline Eats, but I have obviously stumbled onto the home of a movie star.\"\n\nAdeline remembered that she was still wearing sunglasses and her hair was piled up on her head. She lifted her glasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm Adeline Eats,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She peeked over his shoulder and shuddered. The owl was still on the pole.\n\n\"Of course you are. And I'm Lloyd Commerce, purveyor of the worlds finest vitamin supplement and herbal remedy: Miracle Medicine. May I come in?\"\n\nAdeline eyed him suspiciously. \"Didn't you sell me a vacuum cleaner a long time ago?\"\n\n\"You've got a heck of a memory, Mrs. Eats. I did have the privilege of bringing to people's lives that beam of brightness known as the Miracle. How's it working?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I don't have any rugs.\"\n\n\"Very shrewd, Mrs. Eats. What better way to avoid dirty carpets than to avoid carpets altogether? The very reason that I have turned my efforts to a product that addresses the number one problem facing families today.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\nLloyd put his hat over his heart. \"If you could just afford me a minute of your time, you will reap the benefit of years of research.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, come on in. But you got to be quiet. My kids are sick and my husband is resting.\" Adeline stepped out of the doorway and the salesman floated by her to the couch.\n\nAdeline sat in her chair across from him. Her stomach gurgled and rolled. She stifled a belch. \"Excuse me.\"\n\n\"Indigestion!\" Lloyd exclaimed as if he had discovered the cure for cancer. \"Fortune has smiled on you, Mrs. Eats. I have in my case the bee's knees of indigestion remedies.\" He pulled a brown bottle from his case and held it out reverentially. \"Mrs. Eats, may I present Miracle Medicine.\"\n\nAdeline fidgeted. \"I don't know if I can afford it. I've been off work for a couple of days taking care of my kids.\"\n\n\"In that case, you can't afford to be without it. And with a house full of illness you can't afford to wait.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will this stuff cure the flu?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The flu? The flu?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lloyd shook the bottle at Adeline. \"The flu doesn't exist when you have Miracle Medicine. It makes them that's sick well, and them that's well better. This is no backward primitive remedy, ma'am, but the finest product that nature and modern science could come up with. Miracle Medicine cures croup, cramps, cankers, and the creeping crud.\"\n\n\"I don't know ...,\" Adeline said.\n\n\"And how could you know until you try it? Why, Miracle Medicine will even raise your self-confidence, as well as doing away with excess mucus, the embarrassment of bad breath, intestinal gas, dandruff, the heartbreak of psoriasis, most mental illness, and the post-peyote dry heaves.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Adeline said.\n\n\"You don't think so? Mrs. Eats, may I see your medicine cabinet?\" Lloyd pulled a plastic garbage bag out of his sample case.\n\n\"I suppose so,\" Adeline said. \"The bathrom is in there.\"\n\n\"Come with me,\" Lloyd said. He got up and led Adeline into the bathroom, where he threw open the medicine cabinet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took a bottle of aspirin from the shelf and held it up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is this for, Mrs. Eats?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Headaches.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't need it.\" Lloyd threw the aspirin in the garbage bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Adeline said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miracle Medicine makes headaches a thing of the past.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"Mrs. Eats, you say you have a house full of sick kids. What exactly have you done to make them better?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grabbed the tube of Preparation H and tossed it in the garbage bag. \"Hemorrhoids are behind you, Mrs. Eats.\" Next went the cough medicine, the Band-Aids, some Neosporin ointment, and an old prescription for bladder infections.\n\n\"Hey, I need that stuff.\"\n\n\"Not anymore,\" Lloyd said. \"Not with Miracle Medicine.\"\n\nAdeline was starting to get angry. \"Put that stuff back.\"\n\nLloyd lifted Adeline's sunglasses and looked her in the eye. \"Mrs. Eats, you say you have a house full of sick kids. What exactly have you done to make them better?\"\n\n\"I took them to the clinic but we couldn't get in. I've been praying.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lloyd nodded knowingly. \"Well you can say good-bye to prayer.\" He stormed back into the living room, picked up the Bible, and threw it in the garbage bag. \"You don't need prayer when you have a medicine that reduces swelling, increases sex drive, and directly addresses the national debt.\"\n\n\"No,\" Adeline said, following him. \"I don't want any.\"\n\nHe went to the crucifix on the wall, tore it off, and threw it in the bag. \"Quiets coughs, promotes regularity, increases energy...\"\n\n\"No!\" Adeline said.\n\nLloyd took the 3-D picture of Jesus off the television and threw it in the bag.\n\n\"Calms nerves.\"\n\n\"No!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cures acne.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Cures crabs, spiritual indecision, poison sumac, rabies, and --\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Gets rid of unwanted owls.\"\n\n\"How much is it?\" Adeline said.\n\n\"Cash or check?\" Lloyd said. He sat back down on the couch.\n\nAdeline heard the bedroom door open. She turned and saw Milo coming into the living room, wearing sunglasses. He couldn't tolerate bright light for a day or two after a peyote ceremony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What in the hell is going on out here?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was just talking to this salesman,\" Adeline said.\n\n\"What salesman?\"\n\nAdeline turned around. The salesman, his sample case, and the garbage bag full of over-the-counter icons were gone. The brown bottle of Miracle Medicine sat on the table.\n\n\"Here honey, take some of this,\" she said. \"You'll feel better.\"\n\nShe felt better already." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "continue with 1 sentence. Drew Hayes style. maintain established elements. add: magic, humor" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In assessing a hostage situation, the first step was to determine if the hostages were more likely to still be alive, or already been killed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was vital, as keeping them alive required resources like food, water, and sufficient isolation to keep anyone from finding them or hearing their cries for help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All of these were elements that could be tracked or accounted for, and narrowed down the number of potential hiding places with easy access to the town." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the hostages were assumed to be dead, on the other hand, all that was needed was a large enough hole in the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By Frank's estimations, the children were more likely still alive than dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kidnapping was one thing, bad as it was, but wholesale slaughter of an entire town's children was unnecessarily risky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was high-league evil, the sort that would draw down brave knights or turn a farmer who'd lost his child into a hell-bent avenger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Narrative existed for moments like those, using them as a catalyst to create new adventures, and if the piper had lasted long enough to pull this scam more than once then he was probably smart enough to avoid calling down that kind of attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sitting in their room at the local inn, Frank poured over a map of the surrounding area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Sheriff had, to his credit, provided them all the tools they requested for the job in short order." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't like them, or trust them, and that was fair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between getting scammed by the piper and Jack almost opening up a peon's jugular, Frank imagined in that man's position he'd be wary of trusting strangers, too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yet he'd still handed them all that they asked for without hesitation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was desperate, and given the stakes, that was the correct emotion to feel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the town lost their children, they'd be out for blood, and if the piper couldn't be found they'd blame the Sheriff for failing to bring him to justice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Desperation could be useful down the line, although Frank would leave pressing that advantage to Jack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For his part, Frank never really enjoyed dealing with people much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door to the trio's room opened briefly as Marie ambled in, pulling off her cloak and tossing it onto a chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I sniffed up and down the forest, and all I could smell was rat. No wonder they couldn't figure out where that piper went. He didn't just cover his tracks; he covered every set around this whole town.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Clearly he's done this many times before and perfected his tactics.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frank's pale finger ran down the map as he evaluated each potential hiding place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some had water, some had isolation from the roads, and some were in fertile enough grounds to hunt, but few had all three factors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was worse, the town guards had already checked out the spots that hit all three criteria and come up empty-handed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were missing something, some element to the scheme, and Frank hadn't hit upon it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet. \"Jack still down in the bar working the locals?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chatting the ears off some miller's daughters when I passed through. I hope he remembers to pump them for information after pumping them for pleasure.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jack has his vices, but none of them are more pronounced than greed. The job has gold attached to it, so he'll make it his first priority.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although Frank didn't say it, he also trusted that Jack would work hard on this because he knew it mattered to Frank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man was a self-admitted scoundrel and made no bones about it, but he came through when it mattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When it mattered to Frank or Marie, anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marie gave a terse nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know he will, I just wish he'd put a little more urgency into things. Since you're still looking over that map I've got a hunch you didn't find anything either, which makes Jack turning up a lead our best hope. As for me, I'm going to go find a garden and pick some pleasant-smelling herbs. That damned rat smell is coating the entire forest, and it got stuck in my nose. I feel like I can practically taste the cursed things.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With those words came the flash of insight Frank had been hoping for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes widened as he stared at the map, looking at it with fresh eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The rats. We forgot about the rats.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, we very much didn't. I just complained to you about them,\" Marie reminded him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not like that.\" Frank stood up, bringing the map over to Marie and setting it down on the nearby table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are the three components to holding a prisoner in secret?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Food, water, and isolated shelter.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words came instantly; Marie had worked nearly as many of these jobs as Frank had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what you're looking for.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pale fingers traced the map's roads and features, searching for something new." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Exactly. And that's what the town guards were looking for as well, yet they came up empty. Because we forgot that the piper has demonstrated the skill and capacity to use his rats in more than one way. First, he obviously sent them into the town, setting up the need for his aid. Then he used them to cover his tracks when he stole the children. So why not use them once more, in another capacity? They may not be tasty or particularly nutritious, but you could still live on cooked rat for quite a long time if you had to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The bastard is using the rats as food, so he doesn't have to worry about hunting or buying supplies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marie snapped to the idea quickly; she was often quick on the uptake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So all he really needs is isolated shelter and water to keep the kids alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Exactly. And once we rule out the places that the guards already searched, that leaves us with a few high-potential targets.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frank pointed to four spots on the map in rapid succession, tracing a path among them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we leave at first light, we should be able to scout all of them before the day is done. Narrative-willing, we may be in time to save those children well before the deadline.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marie clapped him gently on the back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's some quick thinking. Now the only question is whether or not Jack will be in any condition to wake up by first light.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frank smiled slightly. It had nothing on Jack's unfailing, disconcerting grin, but it was a touch unsettling all the same." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Although, given the crisscrossing of scars on his face, there were few expressions Frank could make that didn't disturb people.\n\n\"That sounds like a problem for Jack more than us. Remind me to get a bucket and water ready tonight in case he tries to sleep in tomorrow.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 11 sentences more sentences? keep same character vibes in adventure, comedy, fantasy style" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Make a friend. It seemed such a simple task, yet back then Frank barely had enough cognitive function to understand the simplest instructions that Father gave him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't grasp the true reason behind the task, just as he didn't understand what friendship actually was, or why the task was assigned to him, rather than Igor or Father. To be fair, he didn't yet know what crimes were, or trials, so he certainly couldn't fathom anything as complex as the need for an alibi.\n\nWandering the forest for several hours, he came across many potential friends. Squirrels, birds, wolves, and all manner of creature populated the area. Dimly, he recognized them from the multitude of books Father made him read, trying in vain to expand his mental horizons. None of them would work, however, both because they all fled at the sight of him, and because Father had given him very specific instructions for his new friend. They had to be human. They had to be young. They had to come play at the castle, even if they were hesitant to do so. They would be scared of him, everything was, but Father assured him that once they were back at the castle and there was time to explain the situation properly, he would have a friend. He didn't know what that would entail, and it didn't matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Father had made a demand of him, and Father was the giver of life. As his monster, it was a privilege to carry out even the slightest of Father's whims.\n\nThe sound of splashing caught his attention, and he lumbered through the trees until he came to a stream. In the middle of it, gasping for air, was a female human child. His muscles moved on their own, plunging into the flowing water without hesitation. Swimming was new, an experience he'd only read about, but some part of his mind recognized the motions and fell into a rhythm. Slow though he was, he was also strong, and in moments he'd shoved his way through the water to reach the girl's side. With one arm, he scooped her up and carried her to the shore as she coughed and clung to him for dear life. They reached the other side without incident, and he deposited her carefully onto the soft grass of the bank.\n\n\"You…safe?\" Forming words was a struggle. He could process them, both the audible and written type, yet creating his own took significantly more effort." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thick rasp of his voice drew the girl's attention, and for the first time she got a good look at her savior. As her eyes met his, he braced for the shiver of revulsion that would run through her. It happened every time someone looked at him too closely; even Father couldn't completely mask his disgust at the sight. Yet when this small girl turned her piercing blue eyes upon him, there was no fear or repulsion. Her face shone with joy as she tottered forward and wrapped her arms around his torso as best she could manage.\n\n\"I'm safe. Thank you, mister. You saved me.\"\n\nHe didn't know what a hug was. Father's scientific texts had never mentioned such a curious gesture and there certainly weren't any to be had in the castle. Yet the moment he received one, he knew they were special. Something flickered in his heart, a sensation of joy. Although he hadn't given any thought to saving this girl, all of it had been reactionary, he still found himself impossibly glad that he'd done it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saving people, helping them, it felt good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to do more.\n\n\"You…lost?\" They were in the middle of the forest, and he hadn't passed a single house in some while, so the answer seemed obvious.\n\nShe released her grip on his chest and looked around, seemingly aware of her surroundings for the first time. Those bright blue eyes filled with fear at the unfamiliar setting, and he began to regret his words that had caused this child pain. \"I think so. I was playing on the bridge even though Mama said not to. I fell, and the water was fast, and I swam until my arms got tired but I kept moving and…I don't know where I am.\" Sniffles filled the air as she grew frantic, her familiar world gone and replaced by one she didn't know in the slightest.\n\n\"No cry. I take…you home. Father…help…new friend.\" Father would see the girl back to her family; he knew the local area well. And this would complete his task in the process. He would be able to help the girl as well as make Father happy. This was a great stroke of luck indeed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 12 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You live close?\" The girl was still scanning the area, searching for a house.\n\n\"Far. Can…carry.\" He pointed past the tree line, to the hillside where the manor was half visible against the night sky. \"Home.\"\n\nHer eyes widened, but she nodded. \"I trust you. Let's go before it gets too late. I don't want Mama to worry.\" Slowly, she reached out and took hold of his hand, her tiny fingers barely getting around a few of his own. \"My name is Shelley. What's yours?\"\n\n\"No name. Just…monster.\"\n\nHer giggling was unexpected, and she craned her neck to look up at him. \"That's silly. You're not a monster. You're nice. You saved me.\"\n\nThere were many moments in his life that Frank dreamed of and woke up stifling screams. But this memory was one of the few from which he would wake to find himself weeping. Or weeping as well as was possible when one had only a lone eye that cried." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Acting as a writing assistant, continue with eight sentences sentences. Follow the established narrative context, including any pre-existing character dynamics." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'possibility' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Making their way to the pier was the riskiest part, as it was when they'd be the most easily spotted. Only the cover of a cloudy night and dark cloaks allowed them to make it without raising an alarm. Careful as these kidnappers were, they hadn't counted on the possibility that someone would climb along the underside of the pier, dangling above the waters that teemed with gnashing teeth and empty bellies. It was a fair possibility to dismiss, since what sort of fools would have both the physical strength and the lack of self-preservation to ever try such an infiltration tactic? Well, the Bastard Champions, as it turned out.\n\nFrank had the easiest time of them all. His limbs didn't properly produce lactic acid, so fatigue took far longer to accumulate in his muscles. While his stamina wasn't endless, it was near enough to be a meaningless distinction in most discussions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marie had allowed her body to shift slightly, enough to turn her nails to claws and cause her muscles to swell substantially." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding that half-form was no simple task—when they'd first met her she'd never have been able to even imagine such a feat, let alone execute it—but as they quietly clawed their way along the pier's underside she held her form steady. That was a good thing, too, since the rope around her waist and tethered to Jack was their leader's only lifeline if his own grip failed him. Jack was the only one among them without any magical enhancement, so he was the most at risk for tumbling into the water below. Luckily, as Jack had brought up then refused to expand upon when Frank raised the concern, he had a lot of experience climbing.\n\nNonetheless, by the time they finally passed the last gate and arrived at the spot where the wooden area expanded to accommodate an entire theme park, even Jack's well-trained muscles were beginning to shake. They wasted no time, moving to the nearest edge and hoisting themselves up behind a tent that played host to a shooting gallery. Thanks to the late hour, the Land of Toys was largely silent, as even the most rambunctious of children still needed sleep.\n\nHunkered down behind the tent, they all took a moment to rest and compose themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a word was whispered among them; all the necessary details of the plan had been worked out before the sun had set." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marie was going to track the children's scent to wherever they were being held and then lead or terrify them all to freedom. As the most physically imposing of the group, she stood the best chance of dealing with any guards or security she might encounter, and a few well-placed roars would get the most defiant of brats sprinting away from her as fast as their legs would carry them. Jack and Frank had another job, however. Pinocchio had been clear, he didn't just want to save the other children, he wanted to be sure this never happened again. Young as he was, he probably had no idea what he was really requesting, but the task was still given. Every captor here would have to die to ensure the scheme wasn't resurrected elsewhere. Frank's powder would have made the job easier, but they hadn't found time to buy supplies to make more of it, so they would have to do things the hard way.\n\nOnce everyone was ready, they all exchanged brief nods and made their way off in their own directions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finding the children might be a difficult task, but locating the owners of this establishment was no trouble at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like most tyrants, the adults valued comfort and decadence, which manifested in a large, lovely mansion plopped down in the middle of the pier." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pair of guards stood outside the front door, keeping a cursory watch as they visibly struggled to stay awake.\n\nFrank's first blade caught his target in the eye, sinking deep into the brain and killing him instantly. The second guard began to turn as he noticed his companion wobble, just in time to catch a blade to the throat. He struggled to cry out as blood poured forth, but Frank had aimed for more than just the jugular. With severed vocal chords it would have taken a miracle for him to wheeze loudly enough to draw attention, and there was no miracle coming for this man. Only Jack, with a blade of his own, to finish the job.\n\nThat done, they dragged the bodies out of sight and quietly slipped inside the mansion. If they were quick and quiet, they might be able to dispatch most of their targets before Marie's chaos fully bloomed. The quick worried Frank more than the quiet, for few knew better than he just how silently Jack could move when the need possessed him." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Writing partner mode: Will match your character/world context. Adding nine sentences. Genres: adventure, comedy, fantasy. Themes: magic, humor." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was hard to believe. No…scratch that, it was impossible to believe, yet Marie found herself compelled by the evidence as she stared at the near-empty room. She'd already gone to the stables and found their equipment missing from the horses, and even the secret compartments in their saddles had been looted. While that alone proved nothing, finding an empty bedchamber did seem to back up Godric's story. No one moved Jack and Frank without them wanting to be moved, at least not without causing the sort of commotion it would be impossible to ignore. So if the room was empty and their gear was gone, the most likely explanation was that Godric was telling the truth. His words rang of unquestionable sincerity, even as part of Marie's mind protested that this made no sense.\n\n\"They just…bolted in the night?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't say just bolted,\" Godric corrected." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'would' × 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He and a pair of his guards were standing in the doorway where they'd been waiting since giving her the news this morning. \"They also stole quite a bit of silver, some antiques, and a few of the servants' meager savings. Only after that was done did they flee from the castle, racing away in the night.\"\n\nWhen he said it, the story hung together so well. Except…Jack didn't bother stealing anything less than gold, and certainly never from someone as poor as a servant. He liked his targets rich, obscenely so, to get the most from his efforts, if not for moral reasons. Even if his greed had swollen to such levels, Frank would have stopped him. And more than any of that, neither man would take off like this. Not after all they'd been through. They had always known the arrangement was meant to be a temporary one, but they would have told her goodbye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All of these thoughts tried to take hold in Marie's mind, demanding she see through the obvious lie, yet none of them could find purchase." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Godric's words smoothed over her concerns, shoving them away to some dark corner of her brain where they could do little more than whisper.\n\n\"They were mercenaries, after all. I suppose this was to be expected.\" Marie couldn't quite keep the tinge of heartbreak from her voice as she accepted her friends' abandonment.\n\n\"It is for the best. You and I are starting a new phase of our lives together. Those two were only reminders of a dark chapter in your past, one that is finally drawing to a close. With the power of that ring and the uniting of our kingdoms, you will be a true princess. One day a queen. Your time as a monster is behind you.\"\n\nSomething inside Marie, past her conscious thoughts, in the deepest core of her being, rebelled at that word. No one called them monsters, not to their faces. For a moment, one brief, shining instant, Marie was able to see clearly for the first time since she'd heard Godric speak. She could see the oily smugness in his smile, hear the insincere condescension in his words. For a flash, Marie was free, and her hands tightened into fists as she readied to show him what happened to those who crossed the Bastard Champions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She waited for her righteous fury to summon her inner beast…but nothing came." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No shift of the eyes, no swelling of muscles, no sharpening senses. Her curse was truly lifted, the ring on her finger still letting out a soft glow as it kept her trapped in a human body.\n\n\"Marie, is something wrong? Be at ease, my future bride. The escape and petty crimes of two mercenaries are not enough to delay our wedding.\" That voice, that damned voice, it poured into her ears and forced her off the small bit of perspective she'd found. In seconds, she couldn't recall what had made her so upset, nor why her hands were formed into fists.\n\n\"You're right, of course,\" Marie said. \"Let's focus on happier things. There's a wedding to plan, and I'll tolerate no delays. Our kingdoms are waiting for this joyful moment of peace; we owe it to them to proceed as swiftly as possible.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like T. Kingfisher would. btw might have existing characters/lore" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sings-to-Trees had hair the color of sunlight and ashes, delicately pointed ears, and eyes the translucent green of new leaves. His shirt was off, he had the sort of tanned muscle acquired from years of healthy outdoor living, and you could have sharpened a sword on his cheekbones.\n\nHe was saved from being a young maiden's fantasy—unless she was a very peculiar young maiden—by the fact that he was buried up to the shoulder in the unpleasant end of a heavily pregnant unicorn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bits of unicorn dung, not noticeably more ethereal than horse dung, were sliding down his arm, and every time the mare had a contraction he lost feeling in his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been nearly two hours, the ground was hard and cold, and his knees felt like live coals wrapped in ice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd kicked him twice, and if Sings-to-Trees hadn't known that it was impossible, he'd have begun to suspect that the unicorn had arranged a breech birth out of spite.\n\nNo, he was being unfair. It couldn't be any more fun for her than it was for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just because he didn't really like unicorns, he shouldn't let it cloud his judgment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sighed and tried yet again to get a grip on one of the foal's legs. Unicorn foals had hooves as delicate as glass bells, naturally, and however adorable they were when tripping lightly 'cross the meadow, they were pure torture to grab in the slippery less-than-hospitable environment inside the mother unicorn.\n\nIf he could just get the little monster turned around, a few good pushes should do it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem was getting a good grip. He rode out another contraction with gritted teeth.\n\nSings-to-Trees loved all living creatures with a broad, impartial love, the sort of love that rescues baby bats and stays up nights feeding them, one drop of milk and mealworm mix at a time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He splinted the legs of injured deer and treated mites in the ears of foxes and gave charcoal to colicky wyverns." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'hours' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No beast was too ugly, too monstrous, too troublesome. He had once donned smoked glass goggles and shoulder-length cowhide gloves to sit up with an eggbound cockatrice for three days, giving it calcium tablets and oiling its cloacal vents every four hours. Since he'd been nursing a pocketful of baby hummingbirds at the time, which had to be fed sugar water every fifteen minutes sixteen hours out of the day, it had been quite an extraordinary three days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He still had nightmares about it.\n\nBut he'd never really warmed to unicorns. Possibly it was because they didn't need him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Regular elves loved unicorns, as they loved all beautiful creatures, and a unicorn with so much as a stubbed hoof could turn up at the door of any elf in the world and be assured of royal treatment. Sings-to-Trees hardly ever had to deal with them, and he preferred it that way.\n\nBut when somebody needed to actually reach a hand in there and turn a foal around, suddenly the unicorn lovers of the world melted away, and it was down to Sings-to-Trees and a barn and a bucket of soapy water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the hind end of the unicorn, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if to punctuate this thought, the unicorn kicked him again. He grunted. He was pretty sure the mare was smart enough to know that he was helping her. He just didn't think she cared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He got a grip on something that felt like a wee little hock, and started the tricky process of hauling, coaxing, and generally begging the tiny creature to turn around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another contraction came along, and he willed his numb fingers to hold on to the foal's leg." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His fingers laughed at him.\n\nGive him trolls any day. A thousand pounds of muscle and bone, froggish goatish creatures the size of grizzly bears, with enormous curling horns that could smash through a concrete wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were ideal patients." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trolls might not be any more talkative than unicorns, but they understood every word you said, and if they had come to you for help, they'd trust you to the ends of the earth. You could saw off a troll's leg, and it would look at you with huge, tearful eyes the size of dinner plates and hold still while you did it. And if you told them to come back in a week for a check-up, they'd be there a week later, as soon as the sun went down, squatting patiently in the vegetable patch, ready to be poked and prodded all over again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sings-to-Trees quite liked trolls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And they were grateful, too—not a month went by when he didn't wake up to see gigantic cloven hoofprints around the yard, and half a billy-goat left draped across a tree stump." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not like unicorns. As soon as the foal was able to walk, the mare would be gone like a shot, and he'd never see her again.\n\nCome to think of it, maybe that wasn't a bad thing.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said to the unicorn, mildly surprised at the weariness in his own voice, \"I think I've got it presenting right. Let's give this a try...PUSH!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mare pushed. He pulled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a brief horrible moment where nothing happened and Sings-to-Trees saw another two hours of internal fumbling ahead of him, and then with almost absurd ease, the foal slid out and hit him in the chest, the mare grunted in triumph, and he fell over backwards with his arms full of slimy baby unicorn.\n\nIts first act was to kick him with its adorable little hooves. He gazed at the barn rafters while it beat a tattoo on his ribs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It hurt, but not as much as his knees did.\n\nOkay. Not much more to go. He could handle this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He staggered upright, shuffled on his knees to the end of the unicorn he hadn't seen much of this evening, and dumped the foal in front of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She bent down, snuffled at the tiny creature, tapped it delicately with her foot-long horn as if to test it, and then began licking at its damp white hide. The bedraggled foal lifted its muzzle and made a faint squeaky snort of protest.\n\nEven to someone who didn't much care for unicorns, at another time, this scene would be pure magic, a reaffirmation of everything good and noble in the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there was gunk from the hind end of a unicorn plastered clear up the side of his face, delicate hoof prints turning purple across his ribcage, and he felt about a thousand years old.\n\nHe got painfully to his feet—his knees had moved through the on-fire stage and now felt as if tiny wolverines were chewing under the kneecaps—and staggered outside to the pump. He tried to grab the pump handle, and for an awful minute his hand wouldn't close on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, no surprise there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His right arm, which had been the one inside the unicorn, was red and white and bruising magnificently where contractions had smacked his bicep repeatedly against the mare's pelvic bones, and there was unicorn crap and amniotic fluid and bits of straw all over him.\n\nSings-to-Trees slumped against the pump handle, moaned, and managed to grab it with his left hand. By dropping most of his weight on it, with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, he got enough water out to sluice the worst of the muck from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was icy cold, but he didn't really care." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was soap somewhere. He found it. It didn't lather very well, but he made at least a symbolic effort before giving up.\n\nHe ducked his head back in the barn and glanced over at the mother and child, who were arranged in a beautifully domestic scene, as tranquil as the dawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "White hide glowed in the muted lamplight of the barn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You'd never know she'd spent hours in labor. That was unicorns for you.\n\nPausing only to make sure that the afterbirth had passed with no difficulties—he considered patting the foal, but the mare, ingrate that she was, stamped a hoof at him and lowered her horn warningly—Sings-to-Trees limped out of the barn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moon glared down like a bar of soap in a bucket of cold sky. The path up to the house was packed earth, washed blue and black in the moonlight, and approximately a thousand miles long. Several ages of the earth passed while he toiled up to the house, punctuated by the bright jangle of pain from his knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A coyote with one eye and a ragged ear was stretched out across the porch rug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the elf was close enough, it lifted its head, pricked up the good ear, and came down to meet him. A cold nose touched his hand, and the tail made a careless motion that was certainly not a wag—Fleabane had a certain amount of dignity, despite his name—but might conceivably be mistaken for one. Sings-to-Trees wound a cold hand in the coarse hair behind the coyote's ears and rubbed affectionately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They walked the last few yards up to the house together, and then Fleabane flopped back down on the rug and Sings-to-Trees went inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were animals to be fed yet—a bat hanging upside down in the closet who was thankfully past needing ground mealworms shoved down its throat, an orphaned raccoon who was just starting on solid foods and needed warm milk with a little bread, and of course the gargoyle. He dumped a handful of dried mealworms on the closet floor, heard a grumpy chitter in response, and left the bat to its own devices.\n\nThere was cold chicken left, and he divided it up carefully, a quarter for a sandwich, and three quarters for the gargoyle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He built up the fire, and set milk to warm by the hearth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warmth was wonderful, if painful on his cold hands. He started to sink down into the rug in front of the fireplace, caught himself, and lurched to his feet. He didn't dare stop moving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he sat down to rest, he wasn't going to get back up in a hurry.\n\nThe back door opened with a wooden groan. He took three steps forward, turned and hucked the battered remains of the chicken onto the roof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A stony chuckling came down to him, followed by the crunch of chicken bones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Satisfied, Sings-to-Trees went back inside to feed the raccoon.\n\nHe must have made tea at some point, because when he woke up, there was a stone cold mug of it next to his elbow and a half-eaten sandwich sliding off his knee. The raccoon cub was asleep on his lap, in the wreckage of what had been a saucer full of bread soaked in warm milk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps it was just as well he hadn't bothered with a shirt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked like most of the milk had gone into the raccoon, anyway, and his sandwich had a distinctly gnawed look." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some days that was all you could ask for.\n\nSings-to-Trees gave up even pretending he was awake. He put the raccoon to bed, toweled off the remnants of both their dinners as best he could, and limped to the bedroom. He had just enough energy to remove his shoes, and then sleep crept up and hit him." } ]

[ { "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 7 sentences, emulating the writing style of T. Kingfisher." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sings-to-Trees was tired, but he felt good. This was his normal state of being, so he didn't stop to notice it.\n\nThe bone doe, now with a splint and a tightly wrapped cast, had melted into the trees, followed by her brooding companion. The stag hadn't liked him messing around with the doe's leg and had rattled near-constantly, like a furious rattlesnake, until the doe had turned her head and snapped her exposed teeth in the stag's direction.\n\nSings-to-Trees gazed off in the middle distance with a vague, pleasant expression, the way that most people do when present at other people's minor domestic disputes, and after a moment, the stag had stopped rattling, and the doe had turned back and rested her chin trustingly on Sings-to-Trees' shoulder.\n\nThis would have been a touching gesture, if her chin hadn't been made of painfully pointy blades of bone. It was like being snuggled by an affectionate plow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the leg had gotten splinted and wrapped, and the doe was walking more easily on it already, and beyond that, it was in the hands of whatever gods looked after the articulated skeletons of deer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pulled on the rusted handle of the pump until water gushed out. He washed his hands, then plunged his whole head briefly under it. Refreshed and spluttering, he headed back up to the farmhouse to look something up.\n\nSings-to-Trees, while not having many fragile things, did own a small library, which he kept locked in a cedar chest for safekeeping. One look at the outside of the chest—it was scorched by fire, scored by claws, chewed by teeth, and some kind of acid had etched a random design in the lid—made it obvious why something as fragile as paper was on the inside.\n\nHe had several herbals, full of small, neat drawings of plants and careful notes (two of which he'd written himself.) He had Sleestak's Guide to Common Farmyard Maladies, and Diseases of the Goat, (it was amazing how many of those showed up in trolls) and Thee Goode Elf's Alamanack (which contained many, many 'E's, and not much useful information), and the exhaustive Herbal Remedies, which was six inches thick and full of bookmarks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He even had a dog-eared copy of Medica Magica, which was full of outright lies and falsehoods, but every now and then had something worth paying attention to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The book he really wanted was near the bottom. Sings-to-Trees dug down, building up precarious stacks of leather bindings on either side of the trunk, until he found the volume and lifted it into the light.\n\nThe silver leaf had long since flaked off the cover and the letters had become a series of flat spaces in a sea of tooled leather, read as much with the hand as the eye. In the language of humans, it read Bestiary.\n\nThe elf sat down and began turning pages carefully.\n\nThere was no index. The author had been a wizard, and had been doing well to hold it together long enough to write the descriptions, which were rambling in places and painfully abrupt in others, when they weren't downright insane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were no chapters, and nothing resembling alphabetical order." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The entries showed up where they showed up, and given the nature of some of the comments interspersing the text, the reader was generally grateful to get that much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pictures, though...the pictures practically moved on the page. Even in scratchy black and white, they shone like little gems. The elegant neck of the unicorn flexed, the serpentine mane of the catoblepas writhed, muscles pulsed in the shoulders of the great boar.\n\nMagic may have been involved. Sings-to-Trees rather thought that the author's gift had been visions, because the creatures gave every evidence of being drawn from life, and in some cases, like the kraken or the ice-moles, that would have been quite a feat.\n\nHe was two thirds of the way through the book, scrutinizing each illustration carefully, before he saw it.\n\nThe carefully articulated skeleton of a stag gazed back at him from the page." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"...thee cervidine or cervidian does range widely through the wold, being in all ways like unto a true deer, saving that it be made of Bones and not of Flesh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Whyfor are you poking at me? Stop! Stop, I implore you!) The cervidian reproduces by manner unknown, though it is said that they may build a fawn of bones, and so imbue it with essential life, (the poking to cease! To cease!) but I have not been witness to this and consider it may be folly. It is known the cervidian is much fond of magic and very curious, like unto a magpie, and will oft be found in areas of great mystical disturbance, which perhaps it may eat, for it takes no sustenance of grass, (I will become angry if there is more poking!) and only damps its bones in water and dew.\n\n(Why do you not stop...?!)\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It went on in that vein for quite a while, and by the time the author had gotten control of himself again, he was talking about the limerick contests held by manticores." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sings-to-Trees closed the book thoughtfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course, just because the cervidian was attracted by magical disturbance, it didn't follow that there was one happening nearby, but it was still...interesting. He hadn't seen such a creature in all the years he'd been out here.\n\nHe should probably send a pigeon to the rangers and ask them if anything weird was happening.\n\nThere was an almighty crash from the hearth. Sings-to-Trees bolted to his feet.\n\nThe raccoon had learned how to open the hutch, and had celebrated its newfound freedom by knocking the hutch over, along with the iron fire grate and the tea kettle that had been warming there. It sat in the midst of the wreckage, paws clasped in glee, and greeted Sings-to-Trees with a happy \"Clur-r-r-r-r-p!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The elf sighed. He had enough trouble without borrowing more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He scooped up the raccoon cub, rescued the kettle, and began putting books away before his patient got any more bright ideas.\n\nThe sergeant's head hurt.\n\nSomebody was singing under their breath. Thumper again, probably. \"With a whack-whack here...\" Gods, her head hurt. She wanted to go back to sleep. Sleep was good.\n\n\"Sarge?\"\n\nOh, lord. They wanted her to wake up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sarge, we have a problem.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Worse and worse. They wanted her to wake up and be the sergeant.\n\nShe didn't want to wake up and be the sergeant. Being the sergeant was thankless, and they didn't pay you very much more, and when something went wrong, you were the one that had to fix things. Responsibility was lousy.\n\n\"Sarge...\"\n\nOn the other hand, if you didn't see things were done right, it'd get done badly, and watching the resulting inefficiency was like being poked repeatedly in a sore tooth. It galled at her.\n\nBesides, if she didn't get up, Murray would be in charge, and he hadn't done anything bad enough to deserve that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She opened one eye. Algol was shaking her shoulder.\n\n\"Ungghffff....\"\n\nThat didn't sound right. She paused, licked her lips, tried again. Her mouth was dry. \"Yes, Corporal?\"\n\n\"Um, we have a problem, Sarge.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course they had a problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everybody always had a problem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a war on, after all.\n\nShe sat up.\n\n\"Where's the battle?\"\n\n\"We don't seem to be there any more, Sarge.\"\n\n\"Don't seem to...\" Nessilka looked around.\n\nMost of the Nineteenth Infantry was sprawled on the ground. Murray was on the other side of what looked like a small clearing in the woods, except they'd been on a hillside, not in the woods." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where had the woods come from?\n\n\"Did these trees grow while I was asleep?\"\n\nAlgol considered this dutifully. \"I think they take longer than that, Sarge.\"\n\n\"Is the battle over? Did you carry me back the way we came?\"\n\nAlgol shook his head. \"I just woke up, Sarge.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Murray came over, folding up a little glass and brass contraption in his hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're not at the battlefield.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Corporal Obvious,\" said Nessilka, ignoring that she had said something similar about half a minute before.\n\n\"No, Sarge, you don't understand. We're not anywhere near the battlefield. We're miles off. There's a break in the trees over there, and I got a sighting on a mountain. I think it's Goblinhome.\"\n\n\"Well, that's fine, then,\" said Nessilka. \"I mean, Goblinhome—\"\n\n\"Sarge, it's at least fifty miles away. We're on the wrong side of it.\"\n\nShe considered this.\n\n\"The sea side?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The human side, Sarge.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sergeants don't scream. They shout at people quite a lot, but they do not scream. Nessilka took a deep breath, and let it out cautiously. She didn't scream. Okay. That was fine, then.\n\n\"So what you're saying is...we're behind enemy lines.\"\n\nMurray laughed. There was a slightly hysterical edge to it. \"Sarge, we'd have to move about forty miles up to just be behind enemy lines. We're practically behind the enemy nation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah.\"\n\nThere was a long moment, while Murray fiddled with his glass and brass thing, and Algol stared up into the trees, and Nessilka's mind was an absolute blank. She was a sergeant by virtue of always being the responsible one. She'd had the same two weeks of boot camp as everybody else. At no point had they covered what to do when you are accidentally whisked into the heart of enemy territory.\n\nStill, you had to do something.\n\n\"Alright,\" she said finally." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Murray, Algol, get everybody awake and on their feet. Check for wounded. See who came with us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They saluted and peeled off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nessilka got to her feet, and looked around.\n\nIt wasn't a bad forest. Other than the fact that they absolutely weren't supposed to be there, it was a perfectly nice forest. It was deep and green and the ground was covered in a soft mat of some little plant or other. The spots under the trees were deep with pine needles and leaf litter. Birds were calling from the canopy. The branches whispered and shifted gently in the wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a nice forest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had probably belonged to goblins once. It was a shame they couldn't stay here for a bit. She sighed. Up in the trees, a crow went \"ark!\" and the call seemed to hang in the air for a long time.\n\n\"Everybody's up, Sarge,\" said Murray. \"Nobody's bad hurt, but Blanchett's got a twisted ankle.\"\n\n\"He says I can walk on it,\" said Blanchett, nodding to the teddy-bear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably not a full march, though.\"\n\n\"Tell him thank you,\" said Nessilka absently.\n\nAbout two-thirds of the Whinin' Niners had come through the hole in the air with her. Algol, Murray, Blanchett, Thumper, the recruits—gods, the recruits—plus Gloober, who always had a finger in some orifice or other, and Weasel, who was tiny and slender and of completely indeterminate gender, and who stuttered when you tried to talk to—for lack of a better word—her. (Nessilka was pretty sure she was a girl, but if Weasel wasn't going to say anything about it, neither was she.) Everybody else was back at the battlefield.\n\n\"And we found the wizard, too,\" said Algol." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, dear.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'didn't' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wizard was in a lot worse shape than any of them. He was still unconscious, his breathing was shallow, and his skin was grey. This would have been normal in a goblin, but he was one of the pinkish humans, so it probably wasn't a good sign. He had a thin, worried face, and badly bitten fingernails. He didn't look like a lunatic killing machine, but then, who did?\n\nThere didn't seem to be any marks on him, and Nessilka was pretty sure she hadn't run into him that hard.\n\n\"It's probably the magic,\" said Murray." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I bet he was trying to cut and run—that thing in the air was an escape route. Maybe it takes energy to go through it, and when we all fell through it, it knocked him out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do we do...\"\n\n\"...with him now?\" asked the recruits meekly.\n\nThe Nineteenth all looked at each other, while carefully not meeting each other's eyes, which is a pretty neat trick.\n\nNessilka sighed.\n\nThey ought to kill him. They all knew they ought to kill him. He was the Enemy, and he was a wizard, and he'd probably killed a lot of goblins shooting that blue stuff out of his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd kill them all if he had a chance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem was that it's one thing to kill somebody when they're charging at you with a sword, or shooting blue things, but it's an entirely different thing to kill somebody who's lying unconscious on the ground. The one is just war. Wars are like that.\n\nThis, though....This felt like murder.\n\nGoblins are nasty and smelly and grumpy and have bad attitudes, but they're not inherently bad. They're pretty much like anybody else. They don't kill people for fun, regardless of what the propaganda posters say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And this guy was a wizard, and wizards were scary, but you had to feel a little sorry for them, too. They probably hadn't wanted to wake up one day with the power to unmake the world.\n\nNessilka shook her head. \"We're not going to kill him.\"\n\nEverybody relaxed imperceptibly.\n\n\"We can't tie him up, though,\" Murray pointed out. \"When he wakes up, if he gets his hands or his mouth free, he could magic us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So we'd better be a long way off when he wakes up,\" said Nessilka." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everybody, get ready to move out. Thumper, cut a crutch for Blanchett. Gloober, get your finger out of there. Algol, do we have any blankets?\"\n\n\"No, Sarge. We don't have much. Nobody took their full kit into the battle. Murray's got some mechanical stuff in his pack, and I've got a rope, but beyond that, it's basically whatever we've got on our backs, and our field kits.\"\n\nThe standard issue goblin field kit is a pocket knife, two bandages of dubious cleanliness, a rubber band, a stump of candle, some dried fruit and a book of matches. It fits into the standard issue tin cup, which then fits into a small pouch. It was better than nothing, but not by much.\n\n\"If I cannibalize a coupla things—\" Murray patted his pack, which caused everyone to brace briefly for an explosion, \"—I can probably rig another travel stove. We'll be able to cook, anyway.\"\n\n\"Does anybody have a bow and arrow?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nobody did. Archers were another unit entirely. The Nineteenth was strictly hand-to-hand.\n\nWeasel put up a hand shyly.\n\n\"Yes, private?\"\n\n\"I c-c-c....\" Weasel turned bright red.\n\nNessilka put an arm around the small goblin's shoulders and turned her around so that the eyes of the troop weren't on her. \"In your own time, private.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I c-can use a s-s-sling, s-s-sarge.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good. We might actually eat after all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're almost ready, Sarge,\" said Algol. Blanchett was experimenting with his crutch, under the watchful eye of the teddy-bear.\n\nNessilka looked down at the wizard. No blankets. She sighed.\n\nShe was going to miss it tonight, but she pulled her cloak off and laid it over the wizard. Poor sod was probably in shock, and if he didn't stay warm, it was as good as having killed him. Besides, he was a wizard, and they had a hard time fending for themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Algol, see if you can get a little water into him before we go. I'd rather not leave a trail of dead bodies behind us.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Algol nodded.\n\n\"Everybody else—I want to get at least five miles away from here, and then we're looking for a place to hole up for a bit that's hidden and defensible. Let's try not to leave a trail like a wounded moose, okay?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "This is from a larger story, so characters and events might be referenced without introduction. Continue with 8 sentences sentences in Simon R. Green's style. Genres: comedy, fantasy. Elements: humor, Forest Kingdom" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so Hawk and Fisher and Chappie the dog walked out of the Dutchy of Lancre, striding across the miles of featureless plain, leaving their new lives behind them. Heading back into their past, if only partway. They knew they had to return—the Demon Prince's threat to their grandchildren had seen to that—but they had already decided they were going back as Hawk and Fisher, not Rupert and Julia. The sudden reappearance of two such legendary figures would have raised far too many questions, and complicated an already dangerous situation. And besides, they'd heard most of the myths and legends that had grown up around their time in the Demon War, and they couldn't help feeling they'd be such a disappointment in the flesh.\n\nThey headed straight for the DragonsBack mountain ridges, which formed the boundary between Lancre and the Forest Land. Eventually they left the bleak plain behind them and hit the steep grey mountain slopes with youthful strength and vigour. They were enjoying being their true selves again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hawk and Fisher chatted easily as they strode briskly up the steep slopes, jumping crevices and hauling themselves up and over rocky outcroppings, occasionally pausing to point out to each other pleasant sights and landmarks they remembered from more than seventy years ago, when they descended the DragonsBack the first time." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'chappie' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All too soon it became hard going, with a cold, blustering wind plucking at their clothes like a sick child, and occasionally beating at their heads and shoulders like a school bully. They clung grimly to boulders and hugged the side of the mountain with all their strength. Chappie was secretly glad of the stops and starts. He didn't have their youthful energy, though he was damned if he'd admit it. The jagged grey slopes of the DragonsBack were utterly devoid of life—no birds or beasts, no flowers, not even a scrap of moss or lichen anywhere. Hawk and Fisher were barely halfway up the mountain when they stopped to look back. The plain stretched away for miles and miles, and even the Millennium Oak itself seemed a small and distant thing now. Chappie threw himself down at their feet, breathing hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bounding along like a pair of bloody mountain goats!\" he said loudly. \"It's not natural! Or safe. One missed hand- or foothold, and you'd bounce all the way back down to the plain again. And somebody had better have brought a packed lunch, or at the very least some trail food! I am getting quite dangerously peckish...\"\n\n\"Hush, Chappie,\" said Hawk, stepping out onto a precarious flat ledge so he could take a good look around him.\n\n\"Hush, hell!\" growled the dog. \"Muscles like mine need refuelling on a regular basis.\"\n\n\"Our food supply is strictly limited,\" said Fisher. \"So you'll just have to develop some self-control, won't you?\"\n\n\"Self-control? I'm a dog! If I get hungry enough, I will eat you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He slumped down flat, resting his great head on his outstretched paws." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I notice we've stopped heading for the summit. That we have in fact been going sideways for some time now. You're looking for something, aren't you? What is it? A trail? Some secret shortcut through the mountain range, and out the other side?\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" said Fisher. Her gaze moved slowly, carefully, across the great grey sweep of mountainside, with its jagged ridges and great falls and dozens of gaping dark cave mouths. \"We are looking for one particular cave, one we haven't been back to in many years...\"\n\nChappie raised his great head and looked around him nervously. \"DragonsBack mountains... Not a name to inspire confidence, or peace of mind. I really don't like this place. Some say this is where all the old dragons came to die, when they realised their kind was finally going out of the world. They each just picked a cave, curled up, and let go of life. You won't see me doing that... I'll go kicking and screaming all the way when my time comes. Some say it's the strength of all these dead dragons that holds these mountains up. Helps them endure. And that the dragons' ghosts are still here, haunting the DragonsBack, and that's why no one ever wants to climb them.\"\n\nHawk looked at him amusedly. \"You're not scared of ghosts, are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I'm scared! You can't bite a ghost! Besides, our lives have been far too full of people, and some things not even people, coming back to life after they were supposed to be safely dead!\" Chappie brightened suddenly. \"Though if there are dragons here, they wouldn't be much more than bones by now. I don't know any dog who's chewed on an actual dragon bone...\"\n\nHe scrambled up onto his feet again, as he realised neither of them was listening to him. They were both staring at a particularly large and especially dark cave mouth, farther along the mountain ridge. Chappie sniffed at the air gusting his way, and scowled suddenly.\n\n\"Okay, I am picking up traces of a scent I really don't like.\"\n\n\"That's the one,\" said Hawk, pointing at the cave mouth.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Fisher. \"It is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It would be,\" said Chappie." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No good will come of this. You mark my words.\"\n\nBut he still followed them along the precarious side of the mountain as they headed straight for the mouth of the cave." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "add 3 sentences more. maintain narrative flow. focus: humor, Forest Kingdom" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brother Jack led them out of the gardens, back past the Abbey, and into the main courtyard, where a table had been set out for them. Chairs had been set in place, and platters of fresh fruit, vegetables, and dried mushrooms. And a bottle of the Abbey's own handmade wine, along with a rather varied collection of glasses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chappie had a good sniff at everything on offer, politely declined, had a good lap at the bowl of fresh well water set out for him, and then curled up under the table with his head on his paws while the others ate and drank and talked.\n\n\"I know,\" said Jack, \"it's all a bit basic, isn't it? But that's the point at Saint Augustine's. We don't want anything here that might tempt us back to the outside world. We're all in recovery here, from past sins and old horrors.\"\n\nA few monks were eating quietly at another table, on the far side of the courtyard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keeping themselves to themselves. Jack pointed them out, with a subtle nod of his head.\n\n\"The one on the left, that's Brother Alistair. Used to be a moneylender. And a hirer of leg-breakers on occasion. Then he became a tax-gatherer. Now he prays more than all the rest of us put together. The monk next to him is Brother David. Used to be a mercenary soldier. Fought in every war you can think of, on every side you can think of, and never gave a damn about anything as long as the money kept coming. Now he prays for all the souls of every man, woman, and child he killed. Keeping himself busy so he can never fight and kill again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What have you got to repent?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Fisher almost angrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're not like them! You were the Walking Man, a force for Good!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For my sins, yes,\" said Jack. \"It's not what you do, Mother; it's why you do it.\"\n\n\"Will someone please explain to me what the Walking Man is?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Chappie from under the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't think I ever got it explained to me properly. Or if it was, I don't remember. I'm a very old dog. I get tired. My memory isn't what it used to be. If it ever was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Once in every generation,\" said Jack, \"a man can swear his life to God, to become more than a man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If that man will swear to serve the Light, all his life, forswearing all other paths, such as love or family or personal need... then he can become the Walking Man. The will and the wrath of God, in the world of mortal man. Made stronger and faster, to walk in straight lines to go where he needs to go, to do what needs to be done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Punish the guilty and protect the innocent, and never let anything or anyone get in the way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And as long as that man is true to his oath, nothing and no one can ever harm him. As long as he walks Heaven's way.\n\n\"Sounds like a good deal to me,\" said Chappie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course, I'm just a dog. I do understand good and bad, mostly; it's just that mostly I don't care. I don't have to. I'm a dog. Why did you give it up?\"\n\n\"First, because I started to enjoy killing people who needed killing, and then because I grew tired of killing,\" said Jack. \"Because it didn't seem to make any difference. No matter how many guilty people I punished, there were always more innocents who needed saving. No one seemed to learn anything from what I did, except to be scared of me. I took too much enjoyment in seeing bad men suffer and die. I forgot it was God's will I was doing, not mine. So I gave it all up, because I was no longer worthy. And I came here. Twenty years ago. I like it here. It's very peaceful. No one to protect, or punish. And now, my mother and my father, you've come to take me away from all this. Haven't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Hawk. \"The monk at the door, Brother Ambrose, said you've been having very specific bad dreams? Visions?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Jack quite calmly. \"About the Darkwood, and war in the Forest Land, and the return of the Demon Prince. They're not dreams, are they?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Fisher. \"He's back. That bastard Lord of the Darkwood is back.\"\n\n\"He appeared to your mother and me, inside the Millennium Oak, past all its protection and defences,\" said Hawk. \"He said your daughter and Gillian's son were in danger. Said they were going to die, horribly. Unless your mother and I returned to the Forest Land.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jack frowned, for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My daughter? Mercy? I haven't heard from her in years. What danger could she be in?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "💬 Please integrate this quote: \"We're going back to Forest Castle to find out,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're going back to Forest Castle to find out,\" said Fisher. \"You want to come along?\"\n\nJack sighed briefly. \"Of course. Won't take me long to get my few things together. The Demon Prince! I can't believe he's back, after all these years. I thought you destroyed him...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So did we,\" said Hawk.\n\n\"We'll just have to make a better job of it this time,\" said Fisher.\n\n\"This time,\" said Hawk, \"we'll make sure. Whatever it takes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe I'll just eat him,\" said Chappie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you can bathe whatever I crap out in holy water.\"\n\n\"Can't take you anywhere,\" said Hawk.\n\n\"My daughter was working in the Forest Castle, last I heard,\" said Jack." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continuing established narrative: 2 sentences sentences. Include: humor, Forest Kingdom" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hawk and Fisher and Chappie waited in the courtyard while Jack gathered his few possessions and made his goodbyes to his fellow monks and his apologies to the Abbot. Hawk had asked if there'd be any problems with Jack's just up and leaving, but Jack only smiled briefly and shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As though he was the adult and Hawk was the child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone at Saint Augustine's came and left of their own free will, Jack said patiently. That was the point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hawk nodded stiffly. He still felt it had been a fair question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so he and Fisher and Chappie waited, more or less patiently, before the closed door in the outer wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For what seemed like ages and ages." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he doesn't get a move on,\" Hawk said finally, and just a bit dangerously, \"I am going to start carving some really rude words into that door.\"\n\n\"I'll help with the spelling,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then they all ducked their heads and retreated rapidly, as the entire wooden door was blasted right off its hinges." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The roar of the explosion deafened them for a moment, and the air filled with black smoke. The door went flying past, tumbling end over end, before it finally hit the ground and skidded to a halt some distance away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hawk and Fisher recovered from the noise and the shock while the door was still settling, and turned to face the ragged gap in the stone wall where the door had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hawk held his axe at the ready, and Fisher swept her sword back and forth before her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chappie stood between them, growling loudly. As the black smoke cleared, a small army of bandits and brigands poured through the gap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were of a familiar sort: big and brutal, with well-worn clothes, leather armour, and the usual assortment of weapons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They spread quickly across the open courtyard, loud and arrogant, laughing at the ease of their entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had scars and tattoos, and the appearance of men who'd been on the run for some time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had swords and axes and bows, and looked like they knew how to use them.\n\nBut they still came to a sudden halt when they saw Hawk and Fisher and Chappie waiting for them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their leader swaggered to the front and bowed mockingly to Hawk and Fisher." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a familiar sort too: a tall, muscular, dangerous type in his mid-twenties, with a grubby silver breastplate over his flashy clothes and a golden sash arranged neatly across his chest. The kind of man who, when he walked into an inn, you just knew there was going to be trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had at least forty armed men at his back, and Hawk could hear even more taking up positions beyond the entrance hole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The leader smiled cheerfully at Hawk and Fisher.\n\n\"Isn't it an absolutely wonderful morning? Start the day with a bang, that's what I always say. Do you know who I am?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Hawk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Haven't a clue,\" said Fisher.\n\n\"Grrr,\" said Chappie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The leader's smile didn't slip at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose it was too much to hope for, in this back of beyond... I am the brigand of the wild woods and the legend of the Forest! I am Gambler Gold!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gestured at the golden sash across his chest, waiting for recognition to sink in, and then looked rather put out when it didn't. \"Oh, come on; you must have heard of me! They sing songs about me everywhere! The smiling brigand, the dazzling outlaw, the unofficial tax man on the rich and prosperous! Some of this must ring a bell...\" He glared at his army behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I told you, we have got to get ourselves a minstrel! Get the word out! People don't respect you unless you've got your very own songwriter!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned back to Hawk and Fisher. \"We are the free men of the Forest, beholden to none, answerable to none. We take from the rich and redistribute the wealth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thieves,\" said Hawk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Killers from ambush,\" said Fisher.\n\n\"Small fry,\" said Chappie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the bandits' eyes went immediately to the dog." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chappie's lips curled back in a savage grin, showing off big, blocky teeth. His great muscles about his shoulders and breastbone bulged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He really was a very big dog." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some of the bandits began to back away.\n\n\"Stop that!\" Gambler Gold said immediately, without looking round." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't get distracted! It's just a dog! One of these jokers is probably a ventriloquist. You've seen one of those before, haven't you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" muttered one of the brigands. \"He had a dummy. Creepy little thing. Gave me nightmares for months.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shut up!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What if it's possessed?\" said a fascinated voice from the back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or a demonic familiar?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What would a demonic familiar be doing in a monastery, you idiot?\" said Gambler Gold. \"It's just a dog!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or a wolf,\" said the voice from the back.\n\n\"Shut up! Now, everyone follow the plan! Spread out, round up all the monks from the Abbey and the gardens, and bring them here. Anyone gives you any trouble, kill a few to encourage the others. We don't need them all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bad luck to kill a monk,\" said the voice from the back of the crowd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll be bad luck for you if you don't shut up, Maurice!\" said Gambler Gold. \"I only took you on because your father begged me to, and I'm starting to understand why. They're monks, and they've got a treasure here they're keeping to themselves, so that makes them fair game. Why is no one moving? Am I going to have to lose my temper? Is that what you want? You know what happens when I lose my temper!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me guess,\" said Hawk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You stamp your foot, and spit, and cry for your mother?\"\n\n\"You should worry about what happens when we lose our temper,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've met your sort before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We met the Wulfshead, and what was left of his Werewolves, at the Millennium Oak,\" said Hawk. \"You may have noticed—we're here, and he isn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" said Chappie. \"Tasty.\" He sniggered nastily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But for once no one was listening to him.\n\n\"The Oak?\" said Gambler Gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In Lancre? Who are you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hawk,\" said Hawk.\n\n\"Fisher,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chappie!\" said the dog loudly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think we should leave, right now,\" said the voice from the back.\n\n\"Shut up!\" said Gambler Gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyone can claim to be Hawk and Fisher. There's been loads of them, down the years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The brigands looked at one another, clearly shaken, and that was when the main entrance door to the Abbey itself opened and Jack came strolling out, wearing a battered old backpack and leaning heavily on a long wooden staff. He took his time walking forward to confront the brigands and their leader, just an old man in a rough monk's habit, smiling benevolently on everybody." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped beside Hawk and Fisher and nodded amiably to Gambler Gold.\n\n\"I see you've introduced yourselves,\" he said to his mother and father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They've got that look in their eyes... But let's see if we can resolve this without violence. If possible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled at Gambler Gold. \"You really are very noisy. I could hear you all the way on the other side of the Abbey. Now, who are you, to bring such sound and fury to a place of peace?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm Gambler Gold, and I will not be distracted from my plan of action!\" said the leader of the brigands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is a treasure in this place, and I will have it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, it's you,\" said Jack. \"Yes, we've heard of you, even in this secluded place. Jumped-up footpad with delusions of grandeur, with his very own army of liers-in-wait and killers from ambush. Rob from the rich, and keep it. There's no treasure here, boy; not a single golden chalice or a silver spoon. And while we may offer forgiveness for past sins, this is a very bad way to go about asking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gambler Gold just stood there with his mouth hanging open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clearly he wasn't used to being talked to in such a manner. And then he realised all his men were watching with interest to see what he would do after being so openly defied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drew himself up and raised his voice so everyone could hear him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Word has reached us,\" he said grandly, \"that this Abbey has a very old and very special book in its library. The book that contains the original contract whereby a man can make a deal with God to become the Walking Man. We want it.\"\n\n\"What on earth for?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Jack. \"What use would it be to such as you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sounded honestly curious.\n\n\"Are you saying I'm not good enough to be the Walking Man?\" said Gambler Gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, yes,\" said Jack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The calm certainty in his voice stopped Gambler Gold in his tracks again. And then he shrugged and smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're probably right. Doesn't matter. The point is, we can sell that book for one hell of a lot of money. And then it's the good life for us, right, men? No more sleeping in the woods for us!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a general growl of agreement from the massed bandits. They did look like they'd been sleeping rough for some time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The book is in the Abbey Library,\" said Jack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you can't have it. You couldn't even look at it. You're not worthy, any of you. The very words on the page would blast the eyes right out of your head. Forget this foolishness. Go now. While you still can.\"\n\nAnd there was something about this little old man, with his grey hair and wrinkled face, leaning quietly on his staff—something cold and certain and somehow dangerous—that silenced the small army of bandits and sent a chill up their spines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Until Gambler Gold laughed suddenly, breaking the silence and the mood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're good!\" he said. \"Nice try! But we're not leaving without the book. If it is as dangerous as you say, thanks for the warning; we'll be sure to wrap it in your bloodstained robe for safety after we've taken it off your dead body. Because no one talks to me like that and gets away with it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He glanced back at his men." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I gave you an order! Round up the monks, kill a few of the slower-moving ones to motivate the rest, and get them all out here. Brother Holier-Than-Thou here will assist me in finding the book. And afterwards I think we'll burn this whole place to the ground, and crucify all the monks along the outer wall... just to show what happens when someone talks back to Gambler Gold. And his men.\" He smiled at Jack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See what you did?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not going to happen,\" said Hawk, hefting his great battleaxe easily.\n\n\"Not while we're here,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am going to bite your balls off and gargle with them,\" growled Chappie, looking right at Gambler Gold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's talking again!\" said one of the bandits, cringing away and crossing himself repeatedly.\n\n\"Then kill the bloody dog, if it's bothering you so much!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Gambler Gold. \"Now move! Rip this Abbey apart! Anything you find you like the look of is yours, apart from the book!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bandits roared a series of battle cries and surged forward; and Hawk and Fisher and Chappie went to meet them. Hawk swung his axe double-handed, the great blade smashing into the first bandit he met, punching through his rib cage and out again, in a flurry of blood, before flashing on to slice right through another bandit's throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hawk moved on without slowing, and brought the axe head swinging down to smash clean through another man's shoulder blade and lodge in his breastbone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sheer impact drove the bandit to his knees, crying out in shock and pain and horror. Hawk jerked the axe free, kicked the dying man onto his back, and looked around for a new target." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grinning nastily all the while." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blood dripped from his face and chest, none of it his.\n\nFisher's sword flashed brightly as she cut throats, opened up bellies, and stabbed bandits in the lungs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then she strode forward over the bodies, looking around for more trouble to get into." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Long decades of practicing her swordsmanship had made her faster and stronger and just plain better with a blade than most people ever were. Blood ran thickly across the sand and gravel of the courtyard as Fisher went about her bloody work, and men screamed horribly as they died at her hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chappie leapt on a man's chest and slammed him to the ground, pinning him there with his great weight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bandit tried to stab him, and Chappie tore the man's throat out with his powerful jaws." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He leapt this way and that, tearing out hamstrings and biting out great chunks of flesh, always moving so quickly that no one could keep up with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He might be old, but he was still the High Warlock's dog, and the Wild Magic burned in his blood.\n\nNone of them saw Jack watching, or the sad look in his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hawk and Fisher and Chappie raged back and forth among the brigands, cutting them up, hacking them down, and tearing out their throats. The bandits fought fiercely, swinging their swords and axes with desperate strength and speed, and none of it helped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were outclassed and they knew it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gambler Gold stood back by the empty hole in the wall, watching thoughtfully. He waited till it was clear his men were being wiped out; and then he called for the rest of his men, waiting outside the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And another fifty men came rushing in, blades at the ready, fresh and eager for the fight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hawk and Fisher and Chappie grouped together and backed away, all of them splashed with blood not their own. They stood together, defying the bandits to get past them, to the defenceless monks of Saint Augustine's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that was when Jack stepped forward. And all the bandits and killers who took their orders from Gambler Gold stopped and looked at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because there was just something about this small, withered old man..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could feel it in their bones. Gambler Gold shouted and screamed at them, and reluctantly they moved forward again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jack went smiling to meet them, his robes flying, and his long wooden staff moved with horrid, deadly speed.\n\nHe moved swiftly among the bandits, and broke arms and legs and backs with attacks so sudden no man could stop them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He broke heads with blows so powerful the skulls all but exploded under his staff's impact." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jack might be seventy years old, but he had been the Walking Man in his time, and God's strength and speed were still with him, as long as he walked Heaven's path. It probably helped that as far as he was concerned, he was fighting again only to defend his fellow monks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hawk and Fisher fought back-to-back, striking down anyone who came within reach, while Chappie danced back and forth, snapping at legs and slamming men clean off their feet with one great shove from his muscled shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And once anyone was on the ground his throat was Chappie's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jack seemed almost to glide through the fight, his face calm, his eyes still subtly sad. But for all their abilities, they were still hugely outnumbered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there was no saying which way the fight might have gone, if a dozen other monks hadn't suddenly appeared from the Abbey main entrance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some had swords, some had axes, some had vicious mystic energies spitting and crackling around their hands. They waded into the fight, old men with horrid pasts who had not forgotten the men they once were, no matter how hard they tried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brigands and bandits cried out as they were cut down by skilled old hands, and torn apart by terrible magics that exploded among them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Killed by quiet and secluded monks who had once been far worse than the bandits ever were.\n\nSoon enough it was over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The few surviving brigands threw their weapons to the ground and surrendered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hands held high, shaking with shock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their leader had never told them it would be like this. Only Gambler Gold himself still stood defiant, his back pressed up against the inside of the outer wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was breathing hard, and glaring wildly about him. Hawk and Fisher lowered their weapons, and leaned tiredly on each other, getting their breath back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chappie collapsed at their feet, panting for breath, licking blood from his muzzle and grinning broadly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Jack leaned on his staff and looked around him, at the bloody mess of the Abbey courtyard, scattered with the dead and the dying. He wasn't even out of breath; but of them all, he seemed to take no pleasure or satisfaction in what he'd done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All around him, his fellow monks had put away their swords and their magics, to kneel beside the dying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To pray for them and do their best to comfort them in their last moments. A few were comforting one another, for giving in to old demons they'd thought banished long ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jack moved over to join his father and his mother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You did good, son,\" said Hawk.\n\n\"Nice moves,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Badass,\" said Chappie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I read the stories and listened to the songs,\" said Jack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ever since I was a small child, I knew all the ballads about you... But I never saw you fight before. You really were everything the legends said you were. And still are. You were ready to stand against a hundred evil men to protect innocents you didn't even know.\"\n\n\"It's what we do,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some of your fellow monks did well,\" said Hawk.\n\nJack nodded regretfully. \"We all came here to forget the men we were, but they're always only sleeping, not dead.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You think you're so clever!\" screamed Gambler Gold, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was holding something in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You didn't think I'd come here unprepared, did you? Without an ace up my sleeve? I'm Gambler Gold! See this!\" He thrust his hand out before him, so they could all see the glowing silver sphere he was holding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stand back! Nobody move, or I'll kill us all! This is what I used to blow open your precious door! This... is an Infernal Device!\"\n\n\"No, it bloody isn't,\" said Fisher." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I should know.\"\n\nJack leaned in close beside her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's current slang for an explosive device, Mother.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said I'd burn this shithole down, and I meant it!\" said Gambler Gold hoarsely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now get me the book or I'll do it. Do you think I'm bluffing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" said Jack. And moving forward so quickly that he was just a blur, he swung his long wooden staff round and hit the side of Gambler Gold's head so hard it exploded in a flurry of splintered bone and scattered brains. The body crumpled slowly to the ground, and Jack was there to gently take the silver sphere from the opening hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He fiddled with it briefly, and the silver light went out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jack smiled sadly at the headless body kicking on the ground before him, and turned away. Chappie came forward to sniff at the corpse, then looked up at Jack." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you were a monk?\"\n\n\"I am,\" said Jack. \"Just not always a very good one.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Build on the story like Simon R. Green, keeping consistent with any established elements." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Seneschal hadn't led his distinguished guests far into the Castle before the First Minister and the Leader of the Loyal Opposition turned up, hurrying forward to greet their Royal guest with many bowed heads and formal smiles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Word had reached them of raised voices, and even a threat to leave, and they were both ready to say or do, or at the very least promise to do, whatever it took to persuade the Princess to stay. The Seneschal introduced Peregrine de Woodville and Henry Wallace to Catherine and Gertrude, but his nerve failed him when it came to Sir Jasper, so he introduced them to Catherine twice. The politicians were so intent on making a good impression on the Princess that they completely overlooked the ghost.\n\n\"Yes, I did consider leaving,\" Catherine said flatly, speaking right over the First Minister's flowery words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Given the way I was treated by that... awful servant. But I have been persuaded that it is my duty to stay. Do not give me cause to reconsider. Because I feel it is also my duty to make it very clear that not even the whole Forest Army could stop me if I should decide to return home!\"\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" said Peregrine, smiling till his cheeks ached, and quietly contemplating the quickest way of sneaking a powerful sedative into her food. \"I assure you, the servant in question will be found and disciplined, and every effort will be made to make you welcome and comfortable in Forest Castle. And look, here comes Prince Richard himself, to bid you welcome. At last...\"\n\nIt was a sign of how thrown the First Minister was that he actually saw Prince Richard's arrival as a good thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Henry Wallace readied himself to jump in and if need be talk right over the Prince if he said anything unsuitable. But Richard was now dressed in his best formal attire (having used a side route to get ahead of them), and he smiled graciously as he addressed Catherine and her party. He was warm and courteous and polite, every inch the welcoming host. He bowed low to Catherine and Gertrude, and nodded cheerfully to Sir Jasper." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Catherine's scowl slowly smoothed out, as she got her first look at her intended. Richard was tall and handsome, gracious and stately, and seemed to know how to address a Princess properly. Which was... something. It never even occurred to Catherine to associate the polite Prince with the very rude servant. Why should it? Princes disguised themselves as the lower orders only in bad romantic novels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Gertrude wasn't so sure, but she didn't want to make a fuss and cause a scene, just when everything was seemingly going so well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So she held her peace and went along. And everyone else was just relieved that Richard and Catherine were actually talking to each other instead of throwing things. Sir Jasper recognised Richard immediately, and smiled and waved cheerfully at him. Richard pretended not to notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peregrine and Henry had only just realised there was a third person in the Redhart party, and considered Sir Jasper with growing alarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Finally Peregrine put his hand up, like a child in a classroom, to get the Princess' attention.\n\n\"Excuse me, Princess Catherine, but...\"\n\n\"Yes, he's a ghost,\" said Catherine. \"And he's with me. Want to make something of it?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required text (preserve exact wording): \"I suppose every country has its own customs...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh no, no, your highness,\" said Peregrine. \"I suppose every country has its own customs...\"\n\n\"Even if no one thought to mention them to us,\" murmured Henry.\n\n\"Oh, I'm not from Redhart!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said Sir Jasper. \"I'm bred and dead in the Forest Land, man and ghost. In fact, I'm almost sure I was a knight of the realm. And I have been to this Castle before... Yes. Very definitely. So much looks familiar...\"\n\nPeregrine looked at Catherine. \"He's not thinking of moving in, is he?\"\n\n\"He's with me,\" said Catherine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Until I say otherwise.\"\n\nWhat could have been a very awkward moment was fortunately defused by the arrival of the Sombre Warrior. He'd changed out of his armour and replaced the steel helm with the famous chalk white porcelain mask. He bowed formally, if stiffly, to Peregrine and Henry, and a little more deeply to Prince Richard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The ghost is part of our official retinue,\" he said. \"Didn't you get the note?\"\n\nPeregrine and Henry gave up, and nodded formally to Sir Jasper, who didn't even notice because he'd got bored with the whole proceeding and was concentrating on turning his glow up and down. Richard offered Catherine his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May I have the honour of escorting your highness to her prepared chambers?\"\n\nAnd Catherine surprised everyone, including herself, by slipping her arm through his and allowing him to lead her away. The Seneschal and Lady Gertrude followed after the two young people with silent sighs of relief, and even exchanged an understanding glance as they followed their charges up the main stairway. It's never easy guiding young Royals, especially when the Royals know they don't have to be guided if they don't want to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Seneschal moved in beside Gertrude and murmured in her ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's going to be trouble, isn't she?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, you have no idea,\" said Gertrude." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sir Jasper and the Sombre Warrior brought up the rear, maintaining a respectful distance from the Royals and each other. Peregrine and Henry watched them all go.\n\n\"Did you see that?\" said Henry. \"The Prince was nice to her! Nice! What the hell is he doing?\"\n\n\"I think he's trying to confuse us to death,\" said Peregrine bitterly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "STORY CONTINUATION PROTOCOL:\nCONTEXT: Match character/world familiarity\nSENTENCES=11 sentences\nGENRES=comedy, fantasy\nTAGS=humor, Forest Kingdom\nEXECUTE" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'something' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sir Jasper was still walking back and forth in the Castle, wandering in and out of walls and rooms as the mood took him, mostly invisible, so as not to bother anyone. There was hardly anyone about, because of the banquet. Sir Jasper knew that. And so many of the rooms were empty, abandoned. Nothing but dust and shadows. The ghost felt strangely upset at finding Forest Castle so empty, so seemingly down on its luck. Unwanted, and uncared for. Just like him.\n\nHe finally found his way to the Castle Armoury, and stood for a while before the huge closed doors. Something about the two massive slabs of beaten metal, covered with centuries' worth of engraved glyphs and runes and magical protections, seemed to tug at his memory. He had been here before; he knew it. Somewhen... The whole place meant something to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It meant so much that he half wanted to just turn away and leave, rather than find out why; but he raised his ectoplasm to the sticking point and walked straight forward, ghosting through the massive metal doors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All kinds of security spells flared and sputtered harmlessly on the air, unable to get a hold on him.\n\nSir Jasper stopped just inside the doors, and looked hopefully around. An almost overbearingly large hall stretched away into the distance, its far boundaries lost in the gloom beyond the limited foxfire lighting. Swords and axes, maces and morningstars, in all shapes and sizes and designs, filled ancient weapons racks on both walls, hung in proud display. Many of them in simple leather and metal scabbards, perfectly preserved by the still air and subtle protective magics laid down generations before. Famous blades with honourable and even legendary names, each in its own special niche, with plaques beneath them to commemorate some great battle or triumph, alongside weapons of war so powerful or brutal that no one had dared use them for years. And none of them meant anything to Sir Jasper. He sighed heavily, and his shoulders slumped, just a little. He'd been so sure he would find some answers here.\n\n\"If I was a knight, surely I would have been here, wouldn't I?\" he said, his ghostly voice not echoing at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was used to talking to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Was I a warrior when I was alive? And if so, which King did I serve? Which King did I let down so badly? What did I do, or leave undone, that I'm not allowed to rest? What terrible crime did I commit to earn a punishment like this?\"\n\nHe broke off, as he heard footsteps approaching. He hesitated, ready to turn and leave, but something held him in place as a dim figure came pottering forward out of the gloom. Tall and elongated, and of indeterminate age, wearing formal clothes that were well out of date and had almost certainly never been fashionable, the stick-thin figure beamed happily at Sir Jasper as he trotted forward to join him. He wore huge owl-like spectacles perched on a hawkish nose, dominating a pinched face under an entirely unconvincing curly wig. The striking figure finally came to a halt before Sir Jasper and clasped his bony hands together over his sunken chest. His smile was bright, and his eyes were brighter.\n\n\"Oh, hello!\" he said. \"Come for a nice look round, have you? That's nice. Always glad to see a new face. Don't get many visitors these days, which is probably just as well. They will keep trying to touch things... Of course, the Forest's real weapons depository, the actual armour for the actual armoury, isn't here anymore. No, that's held somewhere else, under control of Parliament. They've got all the shiny new stuff. This is just a museum.\" He laughed happily. \"That's what they think! Hello, I'm Bertram Pettydew, Forest Castle Armourer. Who are you, and why can I see through you?\"\n\n\"I'm Sir Jasper, the ghost. I'm almost sure I know this place, from before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Really?\" said Bertram. \"Then you must have the full guided tour! You must, you must! See if we can't jog a few ectoplasmic grey cells, hmm? Follow me, and stick close to the light, there's a good dead person. The shadows can be treacherous.\"\n\nHe led the way deeper into the Armoury, with Sir Jasper sticking close to his side. The ghost got the feeling that this Armoury could still be dangerous, if it felt like it. And he wasn't at all sure that being dead would be any protection against some of the things he could sense lurking in the shadows.\n\n\"The Armoury is almost forgotten, these days,\" said Bertram again, peering happily about him, already in full lecture mode. \"A last repository for all the weapons that changed history, down through the many years. And a few others that might have, if anyone had dared use them.\" He paused to drop Sir Jasper a conspiratorial wink. \"Parliament only thinks they've got the good stuff! Hah! That's what I say. Hah! The day they came looking, all the really good stuff hid itself till they were gone. The politicians and the like just took away all the rubbish I've been trying to get rid of for years. Laugh? I thought I'd never breathe again... The King knows the true state of affairs, of course. When he remembers. And Prince Richard, of course. Fine young fellow. Mind out for the mantraps.\"\n\nHe escorted Sir Jasper from one legendary display to another, putting names to old and terrible weapons that had done good service for the Land in their day, and giving the ghost a quick précis of wars and battles long gone. He seemed quite comfortable around Sir Jasper, who thought Bertram was just glad to have someone to talk to and show off his beloved exhibits to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They stopped before an empty setting, and Sir Jasper immediately backed away a few steps. There was something about the empty space that set all his nerves on edge. Bertram Pettydew nodded solemnly.\n\n\"Oh yes... This is where the Infernal Devices used to stand. The most evil, cruel, and powerful blades this Armoury has ever known. Don't ask me when they were originally fashioned, or why; such knowledge is long gone, and probably best forgotten.\"\n\n\"Rockbreaker,\" Sir Jasper said slowly. \"Flarebright. Wulfsbane.\" His whispered words seem to echo on, hanging in the still air.\n\n\"Yes! Fancy you knowing that! Not many remember those names these days. A lot of the old songs and stories have been terribly whitewashed, cleaned up and sanitised, for modern ears. Don't want anything that might upset people... Idiots! History is supposed to be upsetting, to make sure you don't do it again! But no one listens to me.\" He looked almost benevolently on the empty space. \"All gone now, of course. Lost or destroyed, in the final days of the Demon War. We still get reports of their turning up, here and there... but it always turns out to be a false alarm. Just as well, really. We do still have some very useful items here, though—terribly powerful and quite upsetting if you think what they might do in the wrong hands. Or even the right ones... I suppose Parliament should be told we still have them. I'm almost certain I'll get around to telling them. One day. When they need to know.\"\n\nThey moved on, Bertram happily pointing out axes of mass destruction, and spears that could fly for miles to take out one target among hundreds, and even a set of arrows that were supposed to shoot through Time and take out an enemy in the past or the future. And then he stopped suddenly, so Sir Jasper stopped with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bertram Pettydew heaved a sigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is there anything sadder than an Armoury that's no longer useful, no longer needed?\"\n\n\"Well, that's Peace, isn't it?\" said the ghost vaguely.\n\n\"Oh, of course! Of course!\" said Bertram. \"But I do miss a good war. You only get really good deeds during a war.\"\n\n\"War is coming,\" said Sir Jasper, with a quiet, calm certainty that made the Armourer look at him closely. Sir Jasper shrugged. \"I seem to feel it. And I am rarely wrong about these things.\"\n\n\"Who are you, exactly?\" said Bertram, blinking at him through his huge glasses. \"I mean, really?\"\n\n\"I'm Sir Jasper. I think. It's actually quite freeing, you know... not to be certain who you are, or what you were. It takes all the pressure off. But... more and more I think I did something bad while I was alive. And that's why I'm still here. And I know I was here, before. In this place, this Armoury. I drew a great sword and I went out to fight for my country. But who did I fight, and for what cause? For what King? And why do I have this terrible, overwhelming feeling... that I have been brought back to Forest Castle for a reason?\"\n\nBertram Pettydew waited patiently, but Sir Jasper had nothing more to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a while, the ghost nodded vaguely to the Armourer, and the two of them walked back out of the Armoury." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'bertram' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a faint layer of dust on the floor, and Bertram couldn't help noticing that he was the only one leaving footsteps. They finally ended up at the closed main doors. Sir Jasper looked back into the gloom.\n\n\"How can you stand to be here, Armourer? This place is full of ghosts.\"\n\n\"They don't bother me,\" said Bertram kindly." } ]

[ { "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 12 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Simon R. Green." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sorcerer Van Fleet had his own private room in Castle Midnight, so he could always be ready if the King felt a sudden need for his services. And the King did seem to need him more and more these days. For all kinds of reasons. Now here was the sorcerer's brother, the Prime Minister Gregory Pool, sitting uncomfortably in one of his comfortable chairs, looking around at the room the King had so kindly provided, and not even trying to hide his disapproval. Van Fleet sighed, very quietly. He was going to have to do something about his brother.\n\nVan Fleet had filled most of his room with glass tubing and bell jars, and flaring marsh gas jets, and all kinds of alchemical equipment. He always had some experiment or another on the go, usually involving boiling liquids and unpleasant smells. Always something bubbling in the cauldron or cooking in the small stone oven. One wall was hidden behind rows of metal cages, set one upon the other; containing animals and birds and reptiles and a few other things not so easily identified. Because you never knew when you'd need a subject to try something out on. And of course there were shelves and shelves of glass jars, holding herbs and insect parts, mandrake root and other disturbing things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of the things in the jars were still moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because alchemy's like that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gregory Pool sniffed loudly, and then rather wished he hadn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air smelled strongly of chemicals and fresh dung. Some of the animals in the cages looked out at Pool miserably, and even pushed their paws plaintively towards him through the steel mesh. Patting the air in mute entreaty. Gregory did his best not to notice. He didn't know what Van Fleet did in this room, on his own, and he felt very strongly that he didn't want to know. In fact, he was pretty damned sure he was better off not knowing. He took out his delicately chased silver snuffbox, tapped a small quantity of cocaine out onto the back of his hand, and sniffed it up. And then addressed his brother without looking up, as he put the box away.\n\n\"Yes, I know. Don't lecture me, Van. We all need a little something to keep us going. Do I lecture you on how often you need to send out for fresh animals?\"\n\n\"You've seen for yourself how useful they can be,\" Van Fleet said equably. \"You held the black cat while I slit its throat to get enough blood to make a decent scrying pool.\"\n\nGregory Pool glanced unhappily at the large pool of drying blood on the table before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only a few moments before, it had been a magic mirror through which he could spy on the King and his Court, and then on Prince Christof and his treacherous friends." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Knowledge was necessary, and Gregory had always been willing to pay the price. He just didn't like to get blood on his hands. He had listened carefully to every word spoken at the private meetings, studied the reactions on everyone's faces. And none of it would have been possible without his brother's help. He knew that. And so did his brother. Gregory glared at Van Fleet.\n\n\"Are you sure what we just did was High Magic? Sacrifice and spilt blood were always marks of Wild Magic in all the songs and stories.\"\n\n\"It's all a matter of attitude,\" Van Fleet said easily. \"I have made no pacts with demons or devils, and my soul is still my own. You worry too much, Brother. High Magic is a science, just like alchemy.\"\n\nGregory sniffed, unconvinced, but he tacitly agreed to change the subject. \"I knew Christof and his little friends were plotting, but I didn't think they'd pull the Champion and General Staker in with them! This is a combination that could prove very dangerous: an unstable Prince, a heartbroken Champion, and an overambitious General! If they wanted to know what was really going on, they should have come to me!\"\n\n\"And would you have told them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Van Fleet, genuinely interested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course not! But it would have been the proper thing to do. And I would have told them some comforting and very convincing lies, put their hearts and minds at rest, and they would have gone away perfectly happy! The current situation is complicated enough without them sticking their well-meaning noses in where they're not wanted. I'm really quite disappointed in Prince Christof. I thought he had more sense...\"\n\n\"He's never felt secure as heir,\" said Van Fleet. \"Not while his older brother is still alive. With Catherine sent away to the Forest Land, he must have felt his father had finally committed himself to naming Christof as his official heir. But if Cameron does return...\"\n\n\"The Broken Man can never be King!\" Gregory said flatly. \"He just can't.\"\n\n\"Stranger things have happened,\" said Van Fleet. \"The King really should have executed Cameron, rather than just banishing him from the Castle. Ended the problem then and there.\"\n\n\"It's no easy thing for a father to order his son killed,\" Gregory said coldly. \"And anyway, who would you send to kill such a man? We didn't have the Sombre Warrior then. No, we all discussed the situation at length, and everyone agreed that banishment was the best option. If only because we might need the Broken Man's skills as a soldier at some future time. And just maybe we were right about that.\"\n\n\"Is war inevitable?\" said Van Fleet.\n\n\"Not if I have anything to say about it,\" growled the Prime Minister. \"All the most powerful and influential minds in Redhart and the Forest Land agree that peace is necessary. We all put our names to the wedding, and the agreement, because the endless border skirmishes were draining our treasuries dry. But all it would take is one tragic accident, one unacceptable insult to our honour, and everything we've achieved would be swept away in a moment! And there are certain factions, certain people, in both countries... who cannot be trusted to leave well enough alone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you want me to do?\" said Van Fleet." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'about' 3 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Keep an eye on Christof, and his people, and everyone the Prince meets with. Let me know immediately if they start doing things, as opposed to just talking about doing things.\"\n\n\"What, all of them?\" said the sorcerer. \"The Prince, the Champion, the General, and all their people? And everyone they might talk to? You don't want much, do you, Brother? How many eyes do you think I've got?\"\n\n\"I'm paying you enough, aren't I, Brother?\" said the Prime Minister. He rose to his feet and made to leave, then stopped as Van Fleet was suddenly there to block his way.\n\n\"There is one more thing, Gregory. Before you arrived, I sensed the presence of some powerful force, in conversation with the King. A most secret and unnatural presence. I took it upon myself to investigate further, and I have to tell you: the King has been talking with the Stalking Man.\"\n\nThe Prime Minister swore loudly. \"Of course William did it secretly... because he knew I wouldn't approve! No good can ever come of dealing with Hell's agents. What did the King want with Leland Dusque?\"\n\n\"Beats the hell out of me,\" said Van Fleet. \"I can just about detect the Stalking Man's presence, past his shields, but there's no way I can listen in on him without his knowing I was there. And I am not about to pick a fight with the Stalking Man.\" He broke off, frowning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The dimensional door I made for the King has just reappeared at Court. The Steward must be back, with the Broken Man's answer.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to speak to the King,\" said the Prime Minister." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Build on the story like Simon R. Green, keeping consistent with any established elements." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Round the back of Forest Castle, where hardly anybody goes because it's just scrubby woodland and really poor hunting, there is another large and carefully maintained artificial clearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nowhere near as large, or as old, as the clearing made to contain Forest Castle, but still pretty important in its own right. It was hacked out of the woods by the Brotherhood of Steel, some sixty years previously, specifically so they could have somewhere to hold their annual Grand Tourney. The Brotherhood didn't do it themselves, of course, manual labour being beneath their dignity. Instead they rounded up a whole bunch of local peasants, who didn't seem to be doing anything important, paid them a pittance, and put them to work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Along with whoever happened to be on punishment detail in the Brotherhood's Sorting Houses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These people came back so determined never to be put on punishment detail again, that even after the clearing had been established the Brotherhood continued to send whatever people they had on punishment detail to keep the clearing open and stop the woodland from creeping back.\n\nFor generations afterwards, the local peasants passed down stories of the great clearing they helped make. With an added moral to the tale: if you see the Brotherhood of Steel coming, run.\n\nPermission to open up such a large clearing so close to Forest Castle had been provided by Parliament, on the grounds that it was better to have the Brotherhood's greatest warriors fighting it out in one place rather than in the streets and bars of the towns and the cities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Parliament and the Brotherhood agreed to split all the costs, and the merchandising revenue, between them, and that also helped to move things along.) No one even thought to inform King Rufus about any of this, until the deal was safely signed and settled. By which time it was far too late for anyone at Court to make any useful objections. This was perhaps one of the first real signs that no one outside the Court gave a damn what the King thought anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And now the seasons had passed, and the time had come round again for the annual Grand Tourney to take place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People had been working out in the clearing from the moment the rising sun had provided enough light for the workmen to see what they were doing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a great deal to do, and not a lot of time to do it in. Tents and marquees had to be set up, and all kinds of stalls; fighting circles had to be marked out, and the single jousting lane. Several sets of raked seating had to be carefully assembled. And somebody really low down in the pecking order had to dig a whole bunch of latrines." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The people in charge of all this were of course professionals, and very well paid for their services. The people who did the actual hard labour were also pretty well paid, because by this time they'd organised themselves into unions and guilds. And there were any number of unpaid volunteers, happy to labour for hours, in return for free passes and guaranteed good positions in the raked seating, with really good views of all the major events.\n\nThe Grand Tourney, so called to distinguish it from the four lesser seasonal tourneys, took place once a year, and allowed the very best fighters and warriors and magicians to show off in public." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A marvellous setting, where the best of the best were allowed and even encouraged to beat the crap out of one another in front of baying crowds, and prove once and for all that they really were the greatest in their own personal field." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Theoretically, the Grand Tourney was open to everyone. But it was a long way to come, to turn up, fight and lose, and walk all the way home again... so most people preferred to prove themselves in the seasonal tourneys first. Still, it was a point of pride, and long tradition, that nobody who turned up ready to compete would ever be turned away. Although a lot of the people in charge, most definitely including those august personages who ran the Brotherhood's Sorting House, would have very much liked to ban anyone who'd ever attended the Hawk and Fisher Memorial Academy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Partly because they didn't have the proper attitude or show the proper respect, but mostly because when they did turn up they always won everything.\n\nAnd they weren't even gracious about it.\n\nThere were golden and silver cups to be won, and extravagantly worded bronze plaques, in a whole bunch of categories. And any number of bags of gold and silver coin, for those who distinguished themselves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But mostly it was all about the winning. About proving who was the very best at what they did, in front of an admiring crowd. Preferably while grinding some hated enemy's face into the mud while you did it. Nothing like settling an old score or a long-running feud in front of a crowd and the people who mattered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A lot of politicians got their start at the various tourneys, by performing deeds of an unquestionably heroic nature in public." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And a lot of politicians who'd been kicked out of Parliament for being useless, or ethically or morally or financially corrupt, often turned up to fight again, in the hope of rebuilding their reputations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Tourney organisers never tried to keep these people out; you had to provide someone for the crowds to boo and hiss at. There were always a few goodhearted stallholders selling rotten fruit to throw, too, because if the Tourney didn't provide the right kind of things to throw, the crowds would start using their own ammunition. Everything from fresh manure to large, heavy things with jagged edges. And that could get out of hand really quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Crowds do so love to escalate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The organisers also provided individual tents, for the Big Names and Major Players, brightly decorated with exaggerated scenes of previous triumphs at previous Tourneys." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then there were the larger tents, where up-and-comers and promising talents could get together and exchange good-natured banter, rough camaraderie, and death threats. And, of course, there were a couple of really big marquees for everyone else. The hopefuls, and the ambitious. Finally, there were hospital tents, gathered together and placed to one side, for the injured, the seriously damaged, and those on the way out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A large number of surgeons, healers, and priests could always be relied upon to turn up every year to man these tents, to do charitable work for the good of their souls and show off their various skills." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A lot of the medical schools sent their most talented interns here, to learn things the schools couldn't teach. Nothing like sawing off a smashed limb, while the patient was still very much alive and aware and screaming his head off, to teach you what battlefield medicine was all about. (The Big Names and Major Players brought their own surgeons and healers, of course. They wouldn't be caught dead in one of the common medical tents.)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Crowds of eager onlookers started queuing up very early on, watching everything with keen interest but held back at a respectful distance by a larger than usual presence of armed and armoured security guards. Regular visitors to the annual Tourney passed the time swapping well-rehearsed tales of old battles and marvellous triumphs, and all the famous faces they claimed to have seen. These were not the kind of people who could afford the expensive advance tickets for the raked seating; they were waiting to be herded into the standing-room-only enclosures surrounded by strong wooden fences. To keep the overexcited in their place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Security guards in what they fondly assumed were plain clothes wandered back and forth, on the lookout for familiar undesired faces. Pickpockets had become increasingly rare ever since the courts started lopping off the relevant fingers of repeat offenders. And gambling was strictly forbidden at the Tourney, because it encouraged interference by outside interests. If caught, both the bettor and the bet-taker would be immediately dragged away, thrust into a fighting circle, given swords, and told to fight it out for the amusement of the watching crowd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Lots of rotten fruit here, and heavy jaggedy things every time.)\n\nPeople came from all over, to observe and participate in the Grand Tourney, the most famous celebration of skills and courage in the Known Kingdoms. Some of the crowds travelled really long distances to get there. Not just from all over the Forest Land, but from Redhart and Lancre, and even the Southern Kingdoms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Grand Tourney was a strictly enforced neutral ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anyone who broke the compact, or even tried to, could expect to be sent back home in a box." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or a large number of boxes.\n\nOr a sack.\n\nEvery year the Grand Tourney drew a bigger audience, because this was where the heroes were. The famed swordsmen and the infamous sorcerers, and everyone who'd made a name for themselves one way or another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Soldiers back from the border, warriors fresh from fighting the colourfully named pirates from off the Lancre coast, and every wandering young hero and adventurer who hoped to make a name and reputation for himself by taking on all comers at the Grand Tourney.\n\nThis particular Grand Tourney had been postponed a month so it would coincide with the Royal marriage... and anticipation had only heightened the fervour of everyone concerned. The crowd was expected to be the biggest yet. Everybody who was anybody intended to be there, and people were crowding in from all around to make sure they didn't miss anything at this once-in-a-lifetime affair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Along with a few very unexpected arrivals." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though no one knew that just yet." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the established tone and context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prince Richard and Princess Catherine arrived at the Grand Tourney in their most splendid ceremonial outfits, at the head of a long procession. Neither of them actually felt much like it, having a great many other things on their minds, but they didn't really have any choice in the matter. Given that the whole affair was ostensibly being held in their honour this year. Everything was pretty much set up by the time they got there, though there was still some loud hammering and occasional bursts of bad language, going on in the background. Which the Royal couple politely pretended not to notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Richard and Catherine strolled unhurriedly among the raised-seating stands and the many merchandising stalls, smiling and nodding to everyone." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'seats' appears 3 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "(Being Royal, they could practically do that in their sleep.) Everyone gave every indication of being very happy to see them, and eventually Richard and Catherine, still smiling till it hurt, were escorted up the steps of the main raked seating and shown to their seats. Not so much seats as thrones, of course. Richard and Catherine sat down, and the Prince nodded a brief but determined dismissal to all the people who'd been following them around. The Lords and Ladies, the courtiers and merchants and soldiers, all bowed or curtsied and then departed at great speed, fighting viciously for the good seats." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Politeness and etiquette meant nothing where the best views were concerned.\n\nRichard looked out over the scene before him. He and Catherine had the very best seats, overlooking all the best locations: the main fighting circles, the magical display arenas, and of course the single jousting lane that ran right before them. The other main raked seating, including the King's seat, or throne, was set up opposite. There were flags and pennants and gaudy flower arrangements everywhere, and a hell of a lot of people, no matter which direction Richard looked in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't see many security people, but no doubt they were all where they needed to be, presumably in plain clothes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The few armed guards he could see seemed to have their hands full, keeping the crowds under control." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The general hubbub seemed good-natured enough, but as Richard's mother always liked to say, It's always fun until someone puts their eye out. Queen Jane had always been very preoccupied with damage to the eye, as Richard remembered. Don't run with scissors had been another of her cautions. You'll have someone's eye out! Maybe she'd seen some awful accident when she was young... She'd died while Richard was still young, so things like this were mostly what he had to remember her by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Richard realised his thoughts were drifting, and he made himself concentrate on what was going on around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were a great many armed men hidden in the stands along with Richard and Catherine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd insisted on that. After the near-poisoning the evening before, he wasn't taking any chances. He glanced coldly at the portly figure standing beside him, dressed in a really tacky and only borderline fashionable outfit, eating one spiced-pork-and-beef meatball from a platter intended for Richard and Catherine and making a real meal of it. The man with no taste in clothes was the Royal food-taster.\n\n\"How long can it possibly take to eat one meatball?\" Richard demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You want me to do a thorough job, don't you, your highness? Course you do,\" said the food-taster, one Jeremy Hopkins." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My taste buds are so thoroughly trained and disciplined, I can detect a hundred different poisons with one good chew. The subtler poisons take longer, as you'd expect, but don't you worry, your highness, I am also trained to projectile vomit at the first hint of danger!\"\n\n\"Well, there's something to look forward to,\" said Richard. \"How do you get into a job like yours? Doesn't it... worry you?\"\n\n\"Bless you, no, your highness!\" Jeremy said happily. \"It's a family position, is this, food-taster to the throne. Back through eight generations, and every one of us has made it to pensionable age! It does help that I'm a philosophical sort. I say, when your time's up...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stop talking and relinquish the bloody meatballs,\" growled Richard. \"Or I'll personally see to it that not every part of you survives to claim a pension.\"\n\nThe food-taster sighed loudly and handed over the platter of meatballs. Richard quickly helped himself, bit into the first one with cheerful defiance, and then passed the platter on to Catherine. She just shook her head briefly, hardly even glancing at what was on offer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Richard supposed he couldn't really blame her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He handed the platter back to the food-taster, who smiled smugly when he was sure Richard wasn't watching.\n\n\"You've got to eat something,\" Richard said reasonably to Catherine. \"Unless you plan to live on fresh fruit you've plucked from the trees yourself and water you've personally drawn from the well. Come on, what are the chances of anyone trying to poison you a second time now we've got an official food-taster on the job?\"\n\n\"I'm not hungry,\" said Catherine. \"I'll try something later, I promise. I'm just not in the mood.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked out over the bustling crowds, making more and more noise as they increased in size." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People were still flooding in, taking their seats or filling up the standing enclosures. They all seemed cheerful enough. Catherine wanted to shout at them. How dare they be so happy, so unconcerned, when someone had tried to kill her? The crowds didn't even glance at her, or Richard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were waiting for the fights to start." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little action, a little blood... high drama and low comedy, and always a chance to see some hated aristo make an arse of himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But none of the Big Names or Major Players had emerged from their separate tents yet. They understood the importance of keeping the crowds waiting, to build the anticipation and make a good entrance. Treat them mean, keep them keen. When you got right down to it, the Grand Tourney was all about show business, and everyone knew it.\n\nRichard sat back on his fake throne and considered the Princess thoughtfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't think of a single useful thing to do or say that would cheer her up or make her feel any better, so he sensibly decided to just leave her alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Prince and the Princess sat side by side, looking out over the Tourney, both of them lost in their own thoughts." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'happening' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing much was happening yet. And from the look of it, nothing was going to go on happening for some time yet. So eventually they ended up talking to each other anyway, because there was nothing else to do.\n\n\"The woman who was poisoned in my place,\" said Catherine. \"I forget her name...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lady Melanie Drayson,\" Richard said kindly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've arranged for her family to be looked after. She left a husband and two small children. None of what happened was Melanie's fault, or theirs. I'll see they have every support we can offer.\"\n\nCatherine looked at him properly for the first time. \"You didn't have to do that.\"\n\n\"Of course I did,\" said Richard. \"That's my job, as Prince—to look after my subjects.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Catherine thought about that for a while." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My father wouldn't have done it. Wouldn't even have occurred to him that he should.\" She glanced at him, almost shyly. \"You know, you're not at all what I expected.\"\n\nRichard had to smile. \"All right, I'll bite. What did you expect?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know! I suppose... I wanted you to be someone I could hate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You left someone behind in Redhart, didn't you?\" said Richard.\n\n\"How did you...?\"\n\n\"All sorts of interested parties, from both our countries, have made it a point to tell me all sorts of things that they thought I ought to know,\" said Richard. \"For a great many reasons. Who was he?\"\n\n\"Malcolm Barrett,\" said Catherine almost defiantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"King William's Champion. A great warrior. We'd been in love since we were children. As soon as we were old enough to know what love was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry about that,\" said Richard. \"I do know the man by reputation. We may even have crossed swords, out in the disputed territories. We were both fighting on the border at the same time. But it's hard to be sure who you're facing, in the middle of a melee.\"\n\n\"Did you... have anyone?\" said Catherine.\n\n\"No,\" said Richard. \"There's never been anyone special, anyone who mattered... I kept waiting, kept looking, expecting someone would come along eventually who'd make my heart beat that little bit faster. But... I suppose I just never met the right Princess.\"\n\nThat was a step too far." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Catherine withdrew back inside herself immediately, staring out across the crowds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Richard sighed inwardly and changed the subject." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Parliament is holding an extended Sitting, right now, talking through the arrangements for the wedding. Pushing everything through in a rush. I did offer to elope—just you and me and some village priest, in a quiet little church somewhere... But they all went very pale and couldn't seem to get their breath, so I pretended I was just joking. Apparently, the Forest and Redhart wedding ceremonies are very different, and we have to use all the right bits from both countries or it doesn't count.\"\n\n\"All of this... haste,\" said Catherine. \"Because I won't be properly safe, until I'm married to you.\" She still wasn't looking at him.\n\n\"Well... yes,\" said Richard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned abruptly to face him, her face cold, holding his gaze with hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you really feel about marrying me, Richard?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You do know... I have no more choice in this than you,\" Richard said carefully. \"Part of being a Prince is that sometimes you just have to do things, no matter how you feel about them. Duty and responsibility and honour, and all that. I have been... thinking about us. And the marriage. It came as a bit of a shock. I'm sure you felt the same way. I always thought I'd have more time... But your safety has to come first. We can sort everything else out, afterwards.\"\n\nCatherine's mouth twitched in something approaching a smile. \"You really think it's going to be that easy?\"\n\n\"Honestly? Hell, no!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And they both shared a real smile for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What will your Malcolm do, back in Redhart?\" Richard said carefully.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Catherine. \"He knows his duty. He'll probably even try to be happy for me.\" She leaned over to Richard, so they could speak very quietly and not be overheard. \"I've been thinking about one thing; we're going to have to have sex, aren't we?\"\n\nRichard did his best to keep a straight face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is rather expected of us, once we're married. Yes.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'couldn't' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know anything about it?\" Catherine said bluntly. \"I mean, I understand the basics, but... I never actually... My father put this spell on me so I couldn't...\"\n\n\"Same here,\" Richard said quickly. \"I quite understand. All part of protecting the Royal bloodline... So, you and Malcolm, you never...\"\n\n\"I couldn't even undo my blouse for him,\" said Catherine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or undo anything of his. For fear of setting off all kinds of alarms.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have read a number of books on the subject,\" said Richard. \"And looked at some very detailed pictures...\"\n\nThey both grinned at each other.\n\n\"Maybe you could show me some of these books later,\" said Catherine. \"Particularly the ones with pictures. If we've got to do this, I want to get it right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My father always said marriage would be a learning experience,\" Richard said solemnly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At least I'll get something out of this,\" said Catherine.\n\nThey both sat back on their thrones and looked down into the jousting lane, as the Big Names and the Major Players finally deigned to come out of their tents and parade before the ecstatic crowds. The onlookers went crazy, shouting and screaming and waving at their favourites, and throwing handfuls of rose petals over them. (Rose petals were always made available at the merchandising stalls, at very reasonable prices.) Sir Russell Hardacre was out in front, as usual—a tall, dashing fellow, always ready with a brisk no-nonsense smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only titled Bladesmaster in the Forest Land, he'd had his chain mail dyed in his family colours of red and purple." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Right behind him came the most-discussed magic-user in the Land, Dr. Strangely Weird. High Magic, of course. Then came Sir Kay, the famous young master of the joust, his true identity hidden behind a featureless steel helm. A helm Sir Kay had sworn never to remove, unless he was defeated. And since he hadn't lost a jousting match since he entered the seasonal Tourneys, his secret identity remained... much discussed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was young and fashionably slender and full of nervous energy, bouncing along in the parade and waving happily at everyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Right behind him came Hannah Hexe, a calm, serene, and very powerful witch. One of the notorious Sisters of the Moon, graduated from what most people now called the Night Academy. She was, perhaps not surprisingly, not as popular or as loudly cheered as the others. And still the Big Names and famous faces came: Roger Zell, the Wandering Hero. Tom Tom Paladin, who roamed the Land doing good deeds, in penance for his awful past." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stefan Solomon, Master of the Morningstar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And many, many more. A few hours in the main fighting circles would soon whittle them down to the few really worth seeing.\n\nPrince Richard and Princess Catherine watched the parade pass by with practiced smiles, and then they both looked around as Lady Gertrude came bustling up the steps to join them, in a flurry of petticoats and a stream of apologies. She elbowed the food-taster out of the way and sank heavily down into the chair beside Catherine, fanning herself with a painted paper fan while she struggled to get her breath back. She'd clearly been buying all sorts of attractive and useless things from the stalls, given the full to bulging bag she'd dumped at her feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She soon caught her breath and began to chatter happily at Catherine while completely ignoring Richard.\n\n\"The political people have been running me ragged, my sweet, making sure all the details of the marriage ceremony are correct. So many questions! I thought I'd never get away, my poppet...\"\n\nCatherine frowned, just a bit dangerously. \"I thought that was all settled!\"\n\n\"Oh it is, it is, my petal. Absolutely nothing at all for you to be worried about! It's just... apparently they thought they had plenty of time to work it all out. But you and the Prince bringing the marriage forward so suddenly has changed everything. Caught them on the hop, so to speak. I've left them to it. Running round in circles, waving their hands in the air, trying to do a dozen things at once and then putting the blame on one another when it all goes wrong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stopped and smiled demurely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I may have made up a few things, added some details that weren't strictly needed, or accurate. Just to get my own back. If they took all of my little additions seriously, my sweet, you're going to have a very interesting ceremony. And where they're going to find a black goat with one bent horn at this time of the year... Anyway, the wedding is set for tomorrow. Definitely. Nothing at all for you to worry yourself about, my Princess.\"\n\n\"I'm more worried about where Sir Jasper is,\" said Catherine. \"And what he's getting up to. I brought him here to stick with me, not go wandering off sightseeing. Have you seen him today, Gertrude?\"\n\nLady Gertrude sniffed loudly. \"No, and I can't say I miss him. Walking through walls like that, without even knocking! He may be dead, but there's still such a thing as propriety!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Richard leaned forward. \"The ghost isn't with you? Do I understand he's just been... wandering around the Castle on his own, all this time?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that a problem?\" said Catherine, immediately ready to be offended on her friend's behalf.\n\n\"Not as such,\" Richard said carefully. \"But it's really not a good idea. Forest Castle is still full of... surprises for the unready.\"\n\n\"How much trouble can a ghost get into?\" said Catherine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In this Castle?\" said Richard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate to think... I'll send some of my people to look for him if he hasn't turned up by the end of the Tourney. Perhaps I should take him to the Castle Library, see if we can find some record of who he used to be, who his family were. Or maybe still is. He might have living descendants that we could track down for him. I mean, family still matters, even if one of them is dead.\"\n\nGertrude snorted loudly. \"Good luck with that introduction.\"\n\n\"Hush, Gertrude,\" said Catherine. \"That's a very kind thought, Richard.\"\n\nAnd then they all looked across at the opposite raked seating, on the other side of the jousting lane, where the Seneschal was struggling to get King Rufus settled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At first the King walked straight past the throne set out for him, and almost off the end of the stand before the Seneschal caught up with him. He brought the King back to the throne, where the King decided he didn't like the cushion provided, and threw it away. He demanded that they send back to the Castle for his favourite cushion. The Seneschal very politely pointed out that the cushion he'd just thrown away was, in fact, his favourite cushion, which was why the Seneschal had placed a servant nearby to catch it, and here it was again, so would his majesty please sit down, before the Seneschal had one of his heads? The King accepted the cushion, plumped it up himself, and set it carefully in place before finally agreeing to sit down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fidgeted with his ceremonial robes, seeing that they fell about him just so, but at least left the crown alone. Possibly because he'd forgotten he was wearing it. He looked around him with great interest at everything that was happening, completely ignoring the Seneschal's attempts to interest him in the speech he had to make to officially open the Grand Tourney. He finally spotted Richard and Catherine, sitting right opposite him, and brightened up a little. The Prince and Princess bowed formally to the King, who smiled and waved back at them, like a child on an outing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your majesty, please!\" said the Seneschal." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'speech' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have to talk about your speech!\"\n\n\"What speech?\" said the King. \"Who am I meeting?\"\n\n\"You're not meeting anyone in particular, Sire,\" the Seneschal said patiently. \"You have to address the combatants, and welcome the crowds, and declare this year's Grand Tourney officially open.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I see. Yes. And you are...?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Seneschal!\"\n\n\"Bless you!\"\n\nThe Seneschal glared at the King. \"If I ever find out you're putting that on... Let us please discuss the speech, your majesty. I've got the scrolls.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am sorry,\" said the King." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Those new pills definitely aren't working...\"\n\n\"Don't push your luck, Seneschal,\" said the King, fixing him with a remarkably steady eye. \"The moat still needs cleaning out...\"\n\n\"Yes, your majesty.\"\n\nThe King sighed heavily, in his most put-upon way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, show me the speech. What does it say?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You wrote it last night, Sire, with my help,\" said the Seneschal. \"It's all written down for you; just say the words, smile at the right places, which I've marked for you, acknowledge the cheers of the crowd with a brisk wave of the hand... and then you can sit back and watch the events. You always enjoy that.\"\n\n\"I do?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sire.\"\n\n\"I'll take your word for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The King looked dubiously at the scroll the Seneschal had given him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He unrolled it slowly, being careful not to crack the parchment with his shaking hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He read it through, carefully, and then let the scroll roll itself up again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Same bullshit as the year before,\" he said. \"Only the names change. Look at them, prancing about, preening themselves, basking in the adulation of the crowds. If they were real heroes they'd be up on the border, doing something useful with these martial skills they're so proud of. I know, I know; don't rush me. I have to be in the right mood for this. It's not easy being Royal, you know. Not when your back's killing you, and you've had to get up in the night five times to take a piss! I swear my bladder's ageing twice as fast as the rest of me.\"\n\nHe stood up abruptly. The nearby trumpeters took this as their cue, and launched into the Royal fanfare with great verve and gusto. Everyone fell silent, crowds and contestants alike, as they all looked up to their King." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Seneschal crossed his fingers behind his back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But King Rufus stood tall and proud, and read every word from the scroll with Royal authority and dignity. He spoke clearly and fluently, pronounced all the names correctly, and declared the Grand Tourney open in ringing tones. The contestants bowed to him and the crowd applauded fiercely, cheering their King at the top of their voices. King Rufus bowed gravely to them, waved a hand, and sat down again. The Seneschal allowed himself a breath of relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some days he thought these public excursions took more out of him than they did out of the King." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because there would come a day when the King wouldn't pull it together at the last moment..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The King carefully rolled up the scroll, thrust it into the Seneschal's waiting hands, and settled back on his throne for a nice doze.\n\nThe Big Names and Major Players returned to their private tents, to prepare themselves. Everyone else got the hell out of the way as the armoured knights manoeuvred their giant chargers into position at the opposite ends of the jousting lane. Jousting was always popular with the crowds. Two men in full armour, planted on oversized horses, charged straight at each other with long wooden lances, each hoping to unseat his opponent before the other's lance punched him right out of his saddle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing the crowds liked better than the chance to see some overconfident aristocrat get dumped on his arse in public." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'sometimes' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a lot to see: the horses pounding up and down in their highly coloured vestments, churning the earth into mud and filling the air with the pungent smells of sweat and dung. The knights, hunched down in their saddles, trying to make themselves as small a target as possible, which given how much armour they were wearing was a lost cause in itself. Some just rocked in their saddle as the lance slammed home, while others flew through the air in an ungainly fashion, to make a hard landing in the churned-up mud. Sometimes they got up straightaway, and sometimes they didn't. Blood, broken bones, and rattled brains were commonplace among the jousting fraternity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of them would gather together afterwards for some competitive hard drinking, and to compare wounds and old scars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And swap as many tall stories as they could get away with. The ones who got up quickly enough would earn cheers from the crowd, while those who were carted off the field on reinforced stretchers received even more cheers, and not a few waspish comments.\n\nBut as the jousts wore on, no obvious winner emerged. The successful knight of one joust would be unhorsed in the next, and so it went... until Sir Kay appeared. The young knight in the featureless steel helm thundered up and down the lists, taking on all comers and throwing them this way and that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ducked and rolled in the saddle, somehow always dodging or deflecting the oncoming lance, while his own never wavered, slamming home every time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crowd cheered his every triumph, and Sir Kay saluted them with his lance as he cantered back to the start to do it all again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd loved that. Catherine quietly asked Richard if he knew who Sir Kay really was, behind his helm, and Richard had to admit that he didn't. Sir Kay appeared only at Tourneys, under his assumed name. Everyone assumed him to be the younger son of some minor line, trying to make a name for himself. In his own way, Sir Kay was as much a mystery as the Sombre Warrior was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though somewhat less gloomy. Catherine tried not to giggle. But this was Sir Kay's first Grand Tourney, after two years of establishing his name at the seasonal tourneys. Much was expected of him. Everyone saw great things in his future." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he didn't get himself killed.\n\nTime passed, and Sir Kay emerged triumphant. He had only to face one more contestant, the other survivor of the many lists. The Sombre Warrior took his place at the end of the lane opposite Sir Kay, and the two masked men faced each other. The crowds went quiet, the air full of tense expectation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just like Sir Kay, the Sombre Warrior had said that if he lost, he would unmask.\n\nThe horses snorted loudly, sensing the anticipation in the air, and slammed their hooves against the ground, impatient to be off. The two men held their places, letting the tension build. At the end of the bout, one of them would have to take off his helm and show his face, and the audience couldn't decide which they were most curious about. The Sombre Warrior was a big man, and looked even bigger in full armour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost twice the size of the youthful Sir Kay. The crowd had seen lances snap and shatter against the Sombre Warrior's armoured chest, while Sir Kay had never been hit once. The Sombre Warrior urged his horse slowly forward, and the crowd tensed, but the horse was heading for the raked seating. The Sombre Warrior extended his lance out across the seats, over everyone's heads, to the Princess Catherine. She rose from her throne and tied a handkerchief to the very end of the lance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her favour, for all to see." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd loved that echo of old chivalry, and cheered both of them loudly. The Princess sat down again, and the Sombre Warrior moved his horse back into position, facing Sir Kay. They both started forward." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Narrative Continuation Protocol:\nQuantity: six sentences\nStyle: Simon R. Green\nGenre: comedy, fantasy\nContext: Part of larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so the champions of the Grand Tourney attended the banquet in their honour, set once more in the Great Hall. Only this time there were far fewer tables, and the much smaller group of people seemed almost intimidated by the huge space surrounding them. After everything that had happened, most of the people who would ordinarily have turned up to honour and laud the day's champions, and bask in their reflected glory, had decided to stay at home. Prince Richard and Princess Catherine sat at the high table, without the King. His latest effort had exhausted him. The champions sat around two long tables, packed close together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They chattered loudly, complimenting one another and affecting not to notice that they had been abandoned by the very people they'd struggled so hard to entertain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There should have been toasts, and celebrations all round, compliments and laughter... but since there weren't, they all just talked that little bit more loudly.\n\nNo one spoke about the assassination attempt. But a lot of people glanced at the Prince and Princess when they thought no one was looking. No one actually said anything, but many of the champions thought their thunder had been stolen.\n\nHawk and his family had commandeered one end of one table for themselves, with Chappie curled up underneath. He wasn't officially invited, but he wasn't the sort of dog you could keep out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everyone was impressed, and more than a little surprised, at how Jack had brought the Prince back from the very edge of death." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled and nodded for a while, and then gave them all a hard stare.\n\n\"God works through me in whatever I do. Whether it's protecting the innocent, or punishing the guilty. Beating up Forest brigands, or laying on hands. I don't get to take the credit.\"\n\n\"Are you holy?\" Mercy said bluntly.\n\n\"Not... as such,\" Jack said carefully. \"Even when I was still the Walking Man, I don't think you could have called me that. I always saw myself as just a man, doing a job. Because somebody had to.\"\n\n\"Have you always been able to heal people?\" said Raven." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Add this exact quote somewhere appropriate: \"Seems to me it hasn't given up on you,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" said Jack. \"Just wasn't much call for it, usually, in my line of work. Another good reason why I gave up being the Walking Man.\"\n\n\"Seems to me it hasn't given up on you,\" said Hawk. \"You still have all the powers that go with the title.\"\n\nJack stirred uneasily in his chair. \"I am a monk now. A man of peace. I will not kill again.\"\n\n\"How did it feel when you saved the Prince's life?\" said Gillian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jack smiled properly for the first time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like I was finally doing what I was meant to do.\"\n\n\"I can't believe they tried to kill the Princess so openly,\" said Fisher. \"Somebody really wants a war.\"\n\n\"I want some of those meatballs,\" growled Chappie from down by her feet. \"If you're not going to finish those, pass them down.\"\n\nAt the head table, Prince Richard and Princess Catherine sat side by side, ignoring the food in front of them in favour of staring into each other's eyes and smiling big, silly smiles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The more than usually heavy security presence stood well back, to give the Royal couple as much privacy as they could." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though it was clear to all the guards that they could have been standing there stark naked except for their swords, and the Prince and Princess wouldn't have noticed a thing.\n\n\"You didn't even hesitate,\" said Catherine. \"Just threw yourself in front of me. Took the knife, for me. Took my death for me. No one ever did anything like that for me before.\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" Richard said dryly, \"I didn't plan it. Just... did what I had to.\"\n\n\"You did the right thing without even thinking about it,\" said Catherine. \"That's even better! That is the mark of a true hero.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wish you'd stop saying that,\" said Richard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Heroes are supposed to rescue the Princess without nearly getting themselves killed in the process.\" He paused, thinking. \"I couldn't let you die. Just couldn't.\"\n\n\"Because our marriage is so important to the Peace agreement?\" said Catherine.\n\n\"No. Because you're important, to me.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Much to my surprise, yes,\" said Richard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All those years looking for the love of my life... and it's an arranged marriage that brings her to me.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'doesn't' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" said Catherine, squeezing his hand firmly, \"this changes everything, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"It does, doesn't it?\" said Richard." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Build on the story like Simon R. Green, keeping consistent with any established elements." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The great ornamental gardens stood open and empty, silent and deserted, under a full moon; and blue-white moonlight fell heavily across the wide-open lawns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "King William looked slowly about him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gardens felt even less familiar, and certainly far less friendly, at night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was directly before the Standing Stone, that ancient thing, with its almost human shape, that might or might not have been the remains of a sculpture. Older by far than Castle Midnight itself. The basic proportions in the Stone suggested a human form, but not on any scale a living man could be comfortable with. It too seemed even more forbidding in the cold quiet of the night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of the peasants still referred to the Stone as The God Within, and King William hoped they were right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing less could help him now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The huge stone shape certainly seemed much more than human. More powerful than any human King. William smiled briefly. He wasn't the type to feel intimidated.\n\n\"Who are you, in there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he said, and his voice seemed a very small thing in the empty night garden. \"What are you?\"\n\nA voice came to him then, in answer. Just a whisper, like a breath of air. \"What am I? Older than your Castle, King William. Older than your country. Older than your human kind. I am the rock on which Redhart is based. I am the heart of Redhart. And I have been waiting for you to come to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Some say you're an ancient pagan god,\" said the King." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They flatter me,\" said the voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed clearer, nearer, now. \"I am the source of the Unreal, which once powered the whole of Castle Midnight like a mighty engine. The Unreal has slept for many years, but I can awaken it for you.\"\n\n\"And the price?\" the King said steadily. \"What do you want in return? I am not a fool; I know there is always a price to be paid in bargains such as this. I am not afraid. I will do what I must, for Redhart, and the Royal line.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will give you power,\" said the voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And all I ask in return is that you use it. Is this agreeable to you?\"\n\n\"It is necessary,\" said King William. \"I agree.\"\n\n\"Then all you have to do is call me out of the Stone,\" said the voice. \"I just need to be asked... You are all descendants, my children... I am in your Blood. And I want you all to be strong again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know the real price,\" said King William. \"And I don't care. I pay it gladly, to make my Kingdom strong again, and maintain my line. Come out, old monster, old god. Whatever you are.\"\n\nThe Standing Stone seemed to flex and shudder, dark shadows rippling across the ancient corroded stone surface, and King William fell back several steps despite himself. A new, or perhaps more properly, a very old presence beat suddenly on the air, something so big, so overwhelming, as to be unbearable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "King William had to raise a hand to cover his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Standing Stone cracked and broke apart, jagged pieces flying to every side, and Something came out. At first it looked like some monstrous red weed that had grown up through the Stone, penetrating it from within and forcing it apart. It rose into the air in sudden spurts, growing larger all the time, writhing and crackling as it spread and showed itself before King William, twisting and turning high in the air above him. The King slowly lowered his hand to look at what he had called forth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A huge bloodred growth, sprouting crimson flowers that unfurled slowly to soak up the moonlight. Finally, it stood swaying before King William, where the Standing Stone had been: a massive scarlet organism in a roughly human shape, some twelve feet high. And King William knew its name without having to be told.\n\nThe Red Heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tall, swaying shape leaned down over King William, and two great red arms reached out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scarlet hands unfolded, with long fingers thick with thorns, and both hands slammed down on the King's shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thorns sank deep into his flesh, and he gritted his teeth against the sudden vicious pains that shot through him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No blood flowed from any of the wounds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pain disappeared almost immediately, and in its place William felt new strength and new power racing through him, through his flesh, through his Blood, awakening an old magic buried deep within him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt younger, stronger, invigorated, and he laughed aloud. And the sound his laughter made in the empty gardens was only partly human.\n\nThe Red Heart withdrew its thorny hands from the King's shoulders. Still no wounds, and no blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The King was still laughing, just a bit breathlessly, glorying almost drunkenly in his new power.\n\n\"Return to your Castle, King William,\" said the Red Heart. \"And call forth the sleeping power of the Unreal. Not destroyed, not banished, only sleeping. Waiting to be called back to where it has always belonged.\"\n\nKing William turned away from the tall, swaying bloodred thing and headed steadily back across the green lawns, towards Castle Midnight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't look for the door he'd arrived through, courtesy of the sorcerer Van Fleet; it never even occurred to him to look for it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was ancient ceremony, and purpose, in his walk.\n\nThe King walked through his gardens, and though he never spoke a word or gave any command, everything in the garden changed around him. Just his presence was enough to transform his world. Where he walked, the grass blazed up in a vivid emerald glow, the individual blades of it writhing and snapping at the air with new vitality." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flowers and plants burst up and out with sudden growth, becoming huge and glorious and monstrous. Strange new growths sprang out of the rippling earth, heaving and howling, taking on shapes never seen before. Some of them called out to the King, hailing him by name and promising him all kinds of awful obedience, and he answered them calmly, though afterwards he would claim not to remember what they promised, or what he said in return.\n\nHe strode steadily towards the massive stone Keep that gave entrance to Castle Midnight, and the guards on duty saw him coming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They saw the look on his face and the light in his eyes, and they turned and ran for their lives." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't recognise their King. The thousands of carvings etched deep into the old stone, of heroes and villains, poets and priests, and all the old stories of the land... just crumbled and fell away in long, dusty streams as the King approached, leaving only a blank slate behind. The great iron portcullis, always lowered at night, rose of its own accord to let the King through.\n\nKing William went walking through his Castle, a terrible smile upon his lips, and a terrible light radiated from him, touching everything, changing everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Statues that had stood in corners and niches for long decades, of human shape and sometimes less than human, cold and lifeless for years beyond counting, now took on flesh and warmth and new vitality, and came happily alive again, looking around with eager eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Old, half-forgotten gods and goddesses danced together, free at last from the embrace of stone, singing songs that no one had dared sing for years. Old paintings on shadowed walls became living vistas to other worlds. Old carpets were suddenly new again, all damages undone, blazing with new colour and detail. Cracked walls repaired themselves, and everything seemed suddenly fresh and new again, untouched by the ravages of Time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A great power beat on the air around the King, and nothing could stand against it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His every footstep slammed down with the impact of an earth tremor; and everywhere he looked, the Castle changed.\n\nPeople spilled out into the corridors from their rooms, some of them still in their sleep attire, crying out in shock and surprise, at strange faces seen in mirrors, or strange shapes that came walking through the walls. All of them fell back from the King, from the power walking relentlessly through the Castle. Voices rang out everywhere, asking questions that no one could answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Guards came running from every direction, attracted by the general outcry, only to fall back, helpless and bewildered, as the King turned his unbearable face in their direction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'alive' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "King William walked through his Castle, and laughed aloud to see it come alive around him.\n\nDoors appeared that no one had seen in decades, giving access to old rooms and halls and galleries long thought lost. Ghosts appeared, blinking suddenly into sight like forgotten memories, drifting absently through walls and structures that hadn't been there when they were still alive. Some of them walked along beside the King, for a while, whispering their thanks, before drifting off on long-delayed business of their own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Strange lights came and went in oddly shaped windows, and inhuman voices spoke deep down in the earth beneath the Castle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Things came and went that had no business bothering the waking world, many of them thought safely banished long ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mirrors showed reflections of the wrong people, and windows looked out onto places no one would ever want to visit. The King broke into his own Armoury, smashing through the locked doors with just a look, and all the swords and axes and weapons of war glowed supernaturally bright on the walls, and spoke to him of old dreams of power and revenge. He went into his Castle Library, and it was suddenly so much larger than it had been. And wherever he looked, new books appeared on the shelves, full of old knowledge and secrets deliberately forgotten." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The King walked on, through the upper regions, his power beating so hard on the air now that everyone could hear it, could feel it in their bones and in their souls... sounding like some great iron bell pealing in the depths of Hell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "King William walked on, and new corridors opened up before him that no one had walked in centuries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made his way up onto the battlements, and from all across the great grey-tiled sea of a roof the gargoyles came scurrying forward, to fawn and frolic and rub their heavy heads and shoulders affectionately against him, and pay him homage.\n\nKing William stood at the very edge of the battlements, looking out over his Land, and his eyes were full of tears.\n\n\"King Viktor!\" he cried out, his voice full of a terrible joy. \"Queen Catriona! I've done it! I've brought back the old magic, awakened the Unreal! Redhart shall be great again! Are you proud of me now? Have I proved myself a worthy King at last?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no answer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "King William looked down onto his transformed ornamental gardens, full of strange forms and thrashing shapes, illuminated by the brilliant lights blazing from every window of Castle Midnight, and he was content." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Build on the story like Simon R. Green, keeping consistent with any established elements." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The night was dark and shadowy, under a full moon and a deep dark sky full of shimmering stars. The Steward was standing right outside the cave entrance. He hesitated, and looked quickly about him. It was cold, with a gusting wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were sounds in the surrounding undergrowth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And when he looked back at the closed door, standing so still and so silent... he couldn't be sure, but it felt like the door was watching him. And not in a good way. The Steward turned his attention back to the cave mouth, mostly so he wouldn't have to look at the hillside. He didn't like the countryside at all during the day, but he liked it even less at night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were too many shadows, far too many dark places where anything might be hiding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anything at all. Things were moving at the edges of his vision, and the light from the full moon wasn't nearly enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was another light, flaring deep in the tunnel beyond the cave mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Steward tried hard to tell himself it was merely warm and comforting firelight. A voice from deep inside the hill addressed him.\n\n\"Come in, Elias Taggert, Steward of Redhart, and be welcome. I've been expecting you.\"\n\nThe Steward still wasn't convinced that inside the cave was any safer than outside, but he had his mission and his orders, and whatever might have happened he was still the King's man, so he swallowed hard and strode into the cave's mouth as though it was his own idea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hurried down the long, dark tunnel, heading determinedly toward the flaring light, and finally stumbled into the Broken Man's cave. It looked much as it had before, lit by a great fire, but the Steward had eyes only for the Broken Man. Prince Cameron was standing with his back to the fire, tall and imposing, his huge warrior's frame wrapped in full gleaming armour, with a polished steel helm under his arm. He'd combed out and braided his great mane of dark hair, and trimmed back his full beard, but he still looked every inch the barbarian fighting man he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The leather-wrapped hilt of a great broadsword peered over the Broken Man's left shoulder, from where the long blade hung down his back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just standing there, he looked wild and dangerous, a mythic, nightmare figure of blood and death from Redhart history and legend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man who never lost a fight, or a battle, because he was born to stride across the killing fields like he owned them.\n\n\"The King was kind enough to let me take my sword and armour with me when he banished me,\" said Prince Cameron. \"I didn't want them, never thought I'd need them again, but he insisted. That's how I knew, even then, that he was thinking of bringing me back one day. When his need for my talents outweighed his... distaste for what I am. When he needed me to kill for him again.\" He smiled briefly at the still awed Steward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The King wouldn't have sent you to talk to me in the first place if he hadn't already made up his mind.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" said the Steward. \"I...\"\n\n\"Does my father ask me to return?\" said Prince Cameron.\n\nThe Steward nodded quickly. \"Yes. We must go. Now. Things are happening. Events are already moving at a great pace...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Broken Man smiled but didn't move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So. It's to be war, then. He wouldn't call me back for anything less. Against the Forest Land, at last?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Steward nodded again and started to explain what had happened, but the Broken Man silenced him with a look." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Reasons don't matter,\" he said almost kindly. \"The decision is made first, and reasons decided on later, to justify the decision.\"\n\n\"Don't you care about who you're being called back to fight?\" said the Steward.\n\n\"No,\" said the Broken Man quite calmly. \"I kill men, and I win battles. It's what I do, what I'm best at. I never cared who I was fighting, or why. Never gave a damn how many men had to die so I could win. That's part of why they called me the Broken Man. One of the public reasons, anyway. Let us go outside, Elias Taggert. So I can take one last look at the only place where I've ever been happy. I want to say my goodbyes, because I doubt I'll ever be back again. One way or another.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Build on the story like Simon R. Green, keeping consistent with any established elements." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laurence Garner, head of Castle security, was sitting at his desk, sipping a glass of the really good wine he usually reserved for special guests, because he was in a mood. He looked tiredly at the massive pile of paperwork before him, which he fully intended to do something about, any time now. And then the door before him slammed open, and in strode the Sombre Warrior. Garner put his glass down carefully and stared at the huge figure standing before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How the hell did you find me? My room is always on the move, darting back and forth about the Castle, just so dramatic entrances like this can't happen!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the helmet,\" said the Sombre Warrior. \"It has all sorts of useful magics built in. How else do you think I see out of it?\"\n\nGarner scowled at him. \"What else can it do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I'm just full of surprises,\" said the Warrior." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So I've heard, from the Court,\" said Garner. He made a point of lounging back in his chair, just to show how unimpressed he was. He didn't offer the Sombre Warrior a chair, and the Warrior didn't ask for one. Garner sighed inwardly. \"Peregrine de Woodville has already been here, darting agitatedly round my office like his underwear was on fire, to tell me we are now at war. I love the we; I wasn't consulted. He also informed me that you were his special agent in Redhart, all these years. And the Seneschal contacted me just now, to tell me you've named the Prince's special chum, Clarence Lancaster, as a traitor. Thanks a whole bunch for that! That's going to open up a whole world of trouble, once Prince Richard finds out. And you're here... to offer me your services.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're very well informed,\" said the Sombre Warrior." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am head of Castle security! I know everything!\" Garner smiled briefly. \"In fact, I'm pretty sure that's part of the job description. Actually, I already knew about Clarence. He wasn't nearly as careful as he should have been when he visited you. I left him alone because he is a close personal friend of the Prince, and one must tread lightly in such matters, and because he wasn't exactly a danger... But now we're at war, that will have to change. It would seem he's managed to disappear for the moment, but my men will find him soon enough. The Castle's locked down; there's no way he can get out. But with so much of the old place lying empty, there's a lot of unoccupied rooms to search. We'll find him; and then we'll find out what he knows.\" Garner looked thoughtfully at the Sombre Warrior. \"Are you here to give me more names, of more Redhart agents, to make my life even more difficult?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know any more names,\" said the Warrior." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"William always did believe in keeping his cards close to his chest. He never told me anything until he thought I needed to know it. I didn't even know about Lady Gertrude until it was almost too late.\"\n\n\"Then what use are you to me?\" Garner said bluntly.\n\n\"I have served many masters,\" said the Sombre Warrior. \"From the Forest to Redhart and back again. As a result, no one can ever really trust me. So you can use me to do all those things that need doing, that your regular people might balk at. I'll kill anyone. I don't care. I never have. And during a war there will be many dirty deeds that must be done. That those in power need never know about.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And your price, for these services, sir Warrior?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Money. Lots of it. And... Catherine must never know.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'defences' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Agreed,\" said Garner. \"I'm running my people ragged anyway, setting up proper defences for the Castle. I've been given access to the Armoury, so I have all the weapons I could hope for, but I don't have nearly enough people.\" He smiled briefly. \"Do you know who I've got running the Castle defences? Mercy Forester—Sir Kay, that was. And I think it's fair to say none of us saw that one coming... She just turned up here and volunteered her services, and she's been a godsend. Organised the guards like she was born to it. And given her lineage, she probably was... Though you won't hear me saying that in front of Prince Richard. So, sir Warrior, time to go to work. This helmet of yours—think it could find Clarence Lancaster for me?\"\n\n\"Almost certainly,\" said the Sombre Warrior.\n\n\"Good,\" said Garner. \"Track him down, arrest him, don't bring him back alive.\"\n\nThere was a knock at the door." } ]