The theme was Cycles. Please read all four pieces carefully before voting. You only get ONE vote this round. If you spotted one or more typos or formatting error, please send me a private message with the ENTIRE correct story and not just the error portion. It's a lot easier for me to copy and paste a corrected version than to search out the specific error and manually correct it, in fact, I often create exciting new errors when I try that. Spoiler: Story One "What Goes Around, Comes Around" What goes around, comes around Quick footfalls sounded through the lush and thick vegetation. Somewhere between the many trees of the out-stredged jungle of the New World a single person was finding a path where there is no given path. Heavy breathing, carrying a precious package in a satchel clamped under his right arm. The physical pressure he was under made his upper body lean forward while running. Skittishly looking back and forth; behind to see if chasers were catching up to him. And in front, checking the ground ahead for even spots to set his feet on. The background jungle trees and the undersides of the canopies behind him lid up in a blue-white flickering light. After a short glance the men’s pace quickened, swaying left and right, just in time to dodge a few darts that were sent after him. Evading a dart at his left side made him bump a tree trunk on his right, stumbling forward for a couple of meters before finding his feet again. Reimar was running for a while now and felt the heat behind him calming down. The lights had dimmed and he heard no more sounds of chasers. There hadn’t been any darts flying past him for a while. His pace slowed down and he took time to catch a breath. He felt like he had been running for a decade. Upon checking the state he was in he discovered that in all the commotion he had lost his satchel. It must have fallen during his stumbling all the way back. No chance he would recover it with all the chasers back there. Reimar set himself a new task, going forward to find a way out of this predicament he was in. After about two miles he encountered a few ruined structures. A sight of what once was a minor city, now broken and overgrown. In the middle of the ruined structures Reimar spotted some movement. A few bipedal reptilian creatures in different sizes. Five human-sized beefy lizards holding a spear and a shield. Four small ones, not much bigger than a twelve years old kid. Three of them carried a tube made out of wood about half a meter long and a belt with multiple darts. The last one looked more important, both in stature as in gear. It was adorned with vibrant coloured feathers on its head and arms and carried a staff. Reimar spotted something interesting on the left side near the party of lizards. On a slightly raised platform on a plinth rested a familiar looking object: his satchel! How did it get up there? He was sure he lost it in the jungle behind him. This meant there was still a chance he could get out of here with it. Reimar sneaked and crawled closer and closer making sure to avoid stepping on any loose stones or twigs and taking cover behind remains of walls and pillars. The distance between Reimar and his satchel had been reduced to about twenty meters. This would be it, from here out there was no more cover, only the open square. Reimar calmed himself down, took a deep breath and readied his muscles for the jump-start. One last look at the lizardmen confirmed to him that they had not seen him yet. He jolted towards the platform. In a couple of seconds he reached the plinth and grabbed the satchel from its resting place. The lizardmen reacted quickly, spears and shields were clamped and the bigger ones started to move towards him. The smaller ones reached to their belts for a feathered dart to put in their blowpipes and the adorned lizard mumbling in a language Reimar didn’t understand while the emblem on his staff started to pulse with blue light. Reimar dove to the left, into what once was an alleyway. Blow darts hit the stones of the wall where he had been merely seconds before. After a glance over his shoulder he saw that he was outrunning them. Just in that moment he did not notice the spark of blue an white light that appeared in front of him. It grew bigger and bigger and formed a growing circle. In the center of it a dense jungle landscape formed. Reimar ran through the glowing circle before he knew what happened. After the initial shock of this new environment he heard the chasers come down the alleyway as well. He clamped the satchel under his right arm and started running through the jungle. Leaning forward and seating left and right to evade the darts coming in. With a step to the right Reimar hit a tree trunk, stumbling forward for a couple of meters before finding his feet again. Reimar was running for a while now and felt the heat behind him calming down. The lights had dimmed and he heard no more sounds of chasers. There hadn’t been any darts flying past him for a while. His pace slowed down and he took time to catch a breath. He felt like he had been running for a decade. Upon checking the state he was in he discovered that in all the commotion he had lost his satchel… Spoiler: Story Two: "Short and Scaly on the Streets IV, Cycles of Chaos" Fade up on major studio label: the words "Alternate Universal" orbiting in giant letters around the Old World. This is followed by the indie studio label: Lustrian Pictures, with a stylized bronze sculpture of a skink with a blowpipe. Panning shot of a large crowd of cheering people of humans, skinks, dwarves, elves, halflings, goblins, and other races all wearing stereotypical late 1980s attire. Many holding “Vote for Franz” signs. A few have VERY large cell phones. A big haired human woman wearing a red dress with large shoulder pads is holding in front of a camera. “This is Sally Marienberg reporting live from Order Park just minutes away from the long-awaited speech of mayor-elect Karl Franz. As you can see, the turnout here is far larger than expecting showing the groundswell of support from all demographics. Let’s see what some in the crowd have to say. She points the microphone at an orc who begins replying with a perfect New York accent. “Yeah, I run a cab out on the East Side, I’m not big of humies in fancy suits, but that Franz is a good charatah, know what I mean. Finally we gotta humie that’s willing to clean up this town and I’m all for it—what the Gork is that!” The sound of loud motorcycles is heard as thickly clothed motorcycle riders drive their bikes through the crowd, lots of close calls as obvious stunt me jump out the way at the last minute but no one in the crowd is struck. The motorcycles put up more exhaust than you would expect. At first the riders appear human height, but when the smoke clears it reveals that the riders are dwarven figures with very tall helmets. Some of the riders pull out guns at fire at the podium wounding a few guards wearing shades but most of the bullets riddle Mayor-elect Karl Franz. The dwarf riders turn their bikes around and rev away in the (small c) chaos. Exciting music with synthesizers starts crescendo as the title sequence lands. Short and Scaly on the Streets IV Cycles of Chaos * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * XILITOC, THOREN! MY CONTEMPLATION CHAMBER, NOW! The telepathic voice of the police chief boomed. Thoren the dwarf looked somewhat apprehensive, but Xilitoc the Skink appeared nonchalant. “Chief sounds pissed.” Thoren said. “Hey, it wasn’t me this time! Chief has been getting a lot of grief because of Franz’s assassination, it’s been total chaos since then…you know with a small ‘c’”. I JUST GOT OFF THE TELEPATH-PHONE WITH THE GOVERNOR. HE WANTS THE FRANZ MURDER SOLVED AND HE WANTS IT SOLVED YESTERDAY. EVERY AVAILABLE OFFICER IS ON THIS. THE ATTACKERS WERE DWARVES ON MOTORCYCLES WITH VERY TALL HELMETS. I WANT YOU TO HITTING THE CANVAS ON THE KNOWN HANG-OUTS OF THE CHAOS DWARF BIKER GANG. Scene transitions to a montage as the skink and dwarf detectives going to various dive bars but no one talks to them. “That’s it, I’m tossing out the rulebook now.” Xilitoc said “I didn’t think you even had the rulebook.” Thoren replied with a smirk. “Oh yeah, I need something to prop up the short leg of my coffee table.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Fast forward through a gratuitous campy bar fight, and Thoren saying “I’m getting too old for this” one more time and some good cop/bad copping. Cut to the detectives talking to a slightly bruised dwarf in a half-destroyed bar. “Those weren’t real Chaos Dwarves, it was a frame up! I know who really done it, it was Daver Industries! Let me tell you their full scheme right after I take a long slow sip of beer.” Red dot appears on his head as he is drinking. The two detectives hit the dirt, after the gunshot they follow a dark masked figure and see him enter a car without license plates. They check and see that their own car has slashed tires. “Mahrlect, now what do we do?” Xilitoc said. Rapid scene transition to a halfling selling ice cream out of an old timey truck. He is talking to a bored human father as his kids slurp their ice cream cones. “So I had a fish stand, but it got destroyed in an out-of-control car chase. Then I took the insurance money from that and bought a newsstand. After my newsstand was destroyed in that freak warehouse district fire, I used the insurance money from that to buy a produce shop. I lost that after crime lord falling off a skyscraper onto a propane tank, near my store. Now I have this ice cream truck. If I hear sounds of a police chase I can just drive away from the danger zone. There is no possible way a shootout between cops and drug dealers will wreck my small business now…ah Gollum…not you two again.” “We need to commandeer this ice cream truck!” said the Skink. --- XILITOC, THOREN! MY CONTEMPLATION CHAMBER, NOW! “You rang, chief?” YOU CAN’T JUST BARGE INTO DAVER INDUSTRIES WITHOUT A WARRANT. STONE DAVER IS A RESPECTED CITIZEN! “The last three crime lords we stopped were also respected citizens…” Xilitoc said. YOU DESTROYED A WHOLE CITY BLOCK! “Sir, we didn’t technically destroy the block, the ice cream truck hitting the fuel truck destroyed the block” Thoren said in his defense. “Besides, we are PG-13 now, all the civilians miraculously avoided the explosions in the nick of time.” The veins on the Slann’s head grew larger and darker. ---- "This is the first time the chief took MY badge in addition to yours." Thoren said. “Eh, if I had a nickel every time the chief asked for my badge, I could buy a replacement for my three-legged coffee table.” Xilitoc said. “That’s not a very tough sounding one-liner,” Thoren said “This is the third sequel, we are kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel for one-liners.” Xilitec said “I’m getting too old for this you son of a pool….We are still going aren’t we?” The dwarf said. “Remember when that office cubicle exploded and a piece of paper with critical evidence miraculously was unburned and floated towards us? Thanks to that easily decipherable code, we know where the criminals are meeting and when, we can shut this whole thing down, and get those framed Chaos Dwarfs out of lockup. They may be cow worshipping malcontents, but they are innocent!" * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * “So that’s why you killed Franz and framed the Chaos Dwarfs! Wow that was a lengthy and thorough explanation.” said the battered skink detective while tied to a chair. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * “Professor, could you explain something about this setting. Setting aside the fact that the villain monologued his whole scheme to the heroes for no reason at all. This setting fuses cop movie tropes with Warhammer Fantasy, right?” “Yes, it’s like Zootopia but with Warhammer factions instead of animals.” “They talk about ‘Chaos’ as a light swear word, so it’s part of the mythos of the world, but this world doesn’t actually have Khorne or Slaanesh or any of those guys.” “Right.” “But if the big “C” Chaos gods aren’t around, than Hashut wouldn’t be around either?” “Yes, Hashut is a mythological figure but not a tangible force.” “So without Hashut they aren’t really Chaos Dwarfs. “No, they aren’t really 'Chaos Dwarfs' much like how most people don’t really think the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang is actually serving Satan.” “Ah, so it’s a play on words…that’s kind of clever.” “Yeah, but we kind of ruined the joke with this lengthy explanation. Some movie critics think the inclusion of Chaos Dwarves were added into this movie to pander to critics for award season.” “Pandering to whom exactly?” “Don't worry about that, let’s just go back to the movie.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The villain looked down at the tied-up cops. “Now that you know my plan, you must die.” Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of several motorcycle engines as dwarf cyclists with very tall helmets roared onto the scene. “For the REAL Chaos Dwarves!” “For Hashut! You know…symbolically for Hashut!” The bad guys scattered and fled in the chaos (you know, small “c” chaos). Dwarf bikers dismounted from their hogs and the numbers “888” was visible on all of their shoulders. A biker dwarf looked at the two detectives with a scowl and holding a knife. After a tense awkward pause. He cut them loose. “Normally I don’t help no pigs, but you stuck your neck out for my boys in jail when no one else did. You help the Chaos Dwarfs, the Chaos Dwarfs help you.” One of the other bikers interjected. “Yo, Boss, two of our boys are down, but their hogs are okay. It looks like Daver is on a motorcycle now too. What do we do?” Nightbringer turned to the detectives. “Can you two ride with two wheels?” “Our stunt doubles can at least. Let’s have a gratuitous motor cycle chase” replied Xilitoc. “Who are you?” asked Thoren. “Name’s Nightbringer…I am the rocks of the eternal shore. Now let’s get those punks.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The motley motorcycles narrowly jumps a makeshift ramp over a canal. A shark snapped at them as the motorcycles went over it. After a meandering chase where the pursuers get turned around, the villain tries to make the ramp jump a second jump and gets caught by a shark and eaten. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The film students were not happy. One spoke up. “That is the most hack movie ending ever! A deus ex machina rescue with this all powerful “Nighbringer” character coming out of nowhere, and then a literal jump the shark moment?!? No one would ever vote for this...I mean no one would like this.” “Blasphemer! It’s a cult classic, you just don’t appreciate the deeper meaning!” “There is no deeper meaning in this. There is barely a cohesive story at all. I’m out.” Spoiler: Story Three "Coin's Spin" Coin’s Spin Sometimes, Xiathyl wondered if there had ever been a beginning at all — if chaos was the first breath of existence, or if order had always shaped it. Perhaps the question was meaningless, like asking which came first: the terradon or the egg. Lord Hoati’untl, in the deep echoing tones of the Slann, had once spoken of such matters. He had said the nature of the world, of all reality, was no more complicated than the spin of a coin. To mortals, the spin seemed long, centuries or even aeons. But to eternity, the coin was always flipping, always tumbling in its endless dance. Even in these new realms, that held true. Xiathyl mused on this while he stood his vigil at the spawning pools. The chambers were quiet, except for the faint, sluggish stir of embryonic waters, alive with the unseen presence of future warriors. No intruder threatened, no task demanded. There was only the slow, humid stillness in which the mind turned inward — to reflection, to doubt. He remembered well the tale of the World-That-Was, recited countless times by the Slann in their low, resonant voices. It was less history than parable, but it had shaped the thoughts of his kind. The World-That-Was began with chaos. Life untamed and unplanned. Then came the Old Ones, who brought order to the world. The Old Ones came with a plan, with notions of who best to go forward. The cold-blooded first, steadfast and enduring, destined to bear the weight of service to the Plan. Then came the elves, bright and keen of mind, woven from starlight and pride. Dwarfs, stubborn as the bones of the world. Humans, ambitious and restless. Ogres and halflings, gifted a resistance to the disease that would soon come, but burdened with insatiable hunger. Then Chaos came. The order of the world was torn away from the curators who had no recourse but to flee. The children of those creators were forced to contend with the storm alone. And they did. They fought back, inch by inch, clawing some semblance of order from the ruins. Thus Order returned. Damaged, fragmented, but Order reigned. It wasn’t to last. Wars erupted between the creations of the Old Ones. While Order bloomed in marble cities beneath banners of unity, Chaos followed, crawling through cracks of pride and vengeance, a would-be king burnt in the flames of his ascension and fleeing in disgrace and bitterness. And that was the pattern, until the end of the world. The great failure. But it wasn’t the end, for the coin turned ever on and returned its face to order once more with the birth of new realms. An Age of Myth, where gods walked among the mortals, where empires that could have only been dreamt of would rise, creating wonders unfathomable. Then Chaos was once again facing up. The Age of Chaos had come to be. Another pivot, and the new age arrived, where Chaos is being fought back, lands reclaimed. The Age of Storm had come. It was destined to end with the victory of Order. But it would be fleeting. Darkness would return, a new Age where Order suffered a great loss, then after that, an Age where Order yet again pushes back against that same darkness. Today, the face of Order was showing, tomorrow the face of Chaos would appear. On and on. Xiathyl’s jaw tightened, his claws drumming against the stone. The weight of inevitability pressed on him like a tide he could not swim against. If reality was only a cycle, what was the struggle worth? Every victory, every reclaimed age, would fall again. Swallowed by darkness. If not Chaos, then some other evil born of mortal weakness. Perhaps not tomorrow. Perhaps not for a thousand years. But always, in time. Why fight, then, if the coin would inevitably show its darker face again? He had asked this of Lord Hoati’untl once, in a moment of waning faith. The Slann had looked upon him, sadness and wisdom in equal measure in his eyes. ‘Maybe the Great Plan is unreachable,’ Lord Hoati’untl had told him. ‘But that does not mean we should not fight. If we do not, the next darkness might never end. And who can say we will not one day win a victory so absolute that evil is forever chained? Is that possibility not worth striving for?’ Those were the words that Xiathyl rolled in his head, examining them every which way. A small part of him felt despair, because even if Lord Hoati’untl was right, that still meant that the Old Ones themselves had failed, and if their creators — so much greater than they — had failed, been forced to flee the coming of Chaos in the World-That-Was, what hope would the creations have? ‘But that is the interesting paradox,’ Lord Hoati’untl said in answer to such a question. ‘The Old Ones fled with their designs unfinished. But we did not. We struggled. We and those others with whom we shared the world. And in these realms, we continue to struggle. We have not fled, we have not been beaten.’ The great Slann leaned forward, rested his chin on one palm, eyes clouded with thought and consideration. ‘We might follow the Great Plan of the Old Ones, but that does not mean we have not potentially surpassed them. And who knows, maybe once upon a time, the Old Ones were the creations of something even older than they, who they once surpassed. Maybe one day, we shall pass our legacy to new races of our own design, and our progeny shall surpass us in turn, until eventually the coin shall cease its tumble.’ Maybe that was the truth of the Great Plan, Xiathyl mused after forcing aside his doubts. To struggle long enough to pass on a legacy to those who would grow beyond their progenitors. Or maybe it had already happened. Was not Sigmar also a product of the Old Ones? And had he not created a progeny who had heralded in this most recent Age of Order striking back against Chaos? Xiathyl didn’t know much regarding the children of storm and lightning. Couldn’t speak as to whether they would become the successors to the race of man, the next in a line of succession, inheriting a war between two cosmic concepts. Maybe they were just the first, the curators of their precursor’s designs, in much the same way that the lizardmen of Lustria, that the Seraphon, were to the Old Ones and their designs. Would new races soon be born to inherit the lands in the way the warmbloods had in the World-That-Was? Or maybe they already had. These humans were not the creations of the Old Ones, but creations of the Storm God in the image of those original humans. It was not the Dawi who roamed the lands, but recreations. These realms were not host to the elves of old. The spawning pool’s waters stirred, the embryo that lay within waking, soon to emerge. Xiathyl moved closer to the pool, crouched down to gaze upon the spawn within. An eye opened, gazed back at him in turn, though it did not yet hold true intelligence, just an animal awareness of surroundings. Given a little more time, true intelligence would be gifted to the embryo, and with that intelligence would come the desire to leave the pool, to be born into the harshness of the spinning coin. Maybe these would be the spawn who would one day see the coin finally end its dance in the void. Maybe not. It wasn’t allowed, but Xiathyl slipped his hand into the water. The embryo’s tiny grip was warm and startling against his scaled skin — a fragile tether to the future. The bitterness in his chest loosened, just a little. Muzzle gently pressed against his knuckles, then released its grip, already bored, or tired from the excitement, eyes closed and returned to the trance of sleep. Doubts quelled in the face of youths yet spawned, Xiathyl pulled his hand from the water, and let the embryonic water drip from his fingers. Listened to the rhythmic sound as droplets landed on the pool’s surface. Once his hand was dry, he returned to the wall, and he watched over the pool. Watched over the inheritors of the coin. May they be the ones to see the spin’s end. May they be the inheritors of a stilled coin. Spoiler: Story Four: "A Friend in the Dark" A friend in the dark Anatl was trapped in the dark. He was so alone. He'd been on the road to Itza, he'd needed shelter - a doorway of rough stones that led underground. Too dark to see anything. Tunnels that seemed to go in circles. No escape. Anatl felt so helpless. If he only had light, a rope - a friend. That was all he needed - a great drowning, sinking need for a companion. Someone to come to him, to help him. It wouldn't be hard to escape if he only had a friend. Bexel woke, gasping. He'd been trapped in darkness - but no, it was only a dream, and not even a dream about himself. It was a dream about Anatl - Anatl needed help! Bexel uncurled and staggered out into Chotec's life-giving sunlight, heating his bluish scales and filling his body with energy. Not even pausing for a morning snack, he scampered down the streets of Tlaxtlan until he came to the nearest temple. He ran past the guards and almost collided with a feathered priest. "Anatl! Do you know Anatl? Do you know where he is?" Bexel chittered. The priest inspected him. "Eh? Anatl? Isn't he one of the accountant skinks from Supply and Logistics? What's he to you?" "He lives in my barrio," Bexel said quickly. "I had a - well, I just need to know where he is!" "Alright, alright, don't twist your tail in a knot," sighed the priest. "Let's have a look." He stalked into the temple and examined a pair of plaques that had been marked as the week's duty roster. "Ah, here we are," said the priest after a moment. "He's not here. He was sent on a routine operational secondment to Itza several days ago." Bexel almost shrieked. "Itza! He was on the way to Itza!" He ran for the door without another word. Cultan had almost finished inscribing his first plaque of the morning when Bexel rushed into the workshop like a lizard possessed. Cultan watched as the skink scurried past into the supply room. There was the sound of rummaging, and he came out again with a small but full bag. "What are you up to in such a hurry?" Cultan asked. "No time to explain!" Bexel replied. "I have to go! He needs me!" "Go where? Who needs you?" asked Cultan, but Bexel was already out the door with a final cry of "He needs a friend!" The forest closed in around Bexel as he ran off down the Itza road. He felt as if something was drawing him, pulling him onwards. He didn't stop until the sun set and the steaming jungle began to cool; the heat left his body and he felt the familiar sluggishness of night. He ate a little food, settled down to sleep, and was immediately plunged into an even deeper darkness than the jungle. This was a place no light ever came. It was so lonely. And Anatl needed him. Bexel rose again with the sun, almost feverish with the new day's energy. Two more days he ran on the Itza road, until the afternoon of the third day, when the sun was at its hottest, he felt a sudden pull to the right. The call of the dream tugged him away from the path; he followed it unquestioningly, and at once he was completely lost among the undergrowth. But at the same time, he knew he was exactly where he needed to be. Soon up ahead was a heap of stones lifted into the shape of a door, a dreadful black entrance the perfect size for a skink. There was no light beyond the threshold, but Bezel didn't hesitate. He took a light crystal and a rope from his bag and tied the latter to the thick stone doorpost. As he did so, he noticed that several other ropes were already tied there - all of them old and mostly frayed and rotted to nothing. Doubt entered Bexel's mind. Something felt wrong - this was a bad place. But the call of Anatl's fear and loneliness was stronger than ever. With only a modicum of caution, he plunged through the door, into the dark tunnel that led rapidly down under the earth. His crystal lit the dirt walls and ceiling, where strange shapes had been etched into the packed earth. He spooled the rope behind him, a lifeline back to the jungle above. He had expected dozens of branching tunnels, but in fact there was only one, going ever downwards at a steep angle. The glyphs on the wall grew more distorted and unsettling. It seemed as though they moved. The force of whatever was calling him was stronger than ever. Up ahead he thought he saw a light - and as he got closer he saw it was a crystal, just like the one he held. Beyond it was another - at least half a dozen crystals had been abandoned here on the floor. Bexel's doubt turned to terror. This wasn't like the dream. There wasn't supposed to be light already here. He wanted to turn back, but his feet kept moving on. He felt his own crystal drop from his hand as he kept walking. As the lights receded behind, darkness engulfed him completely - and then he heard it. A wet, slimy writhing. New lights appeared just ahead - but not the warm yellowish crystals. These were nightmarish teal and magenta and lime, corruscating in mind-rending patterns all about the flopping tentacles of the thing that filled the tunnel before him. It was a wretched, useless, tainted thing. A creature of another plane that should never have taken the squirming fleshy form of a slime monster. Unable to support its own weight, trapped in a hole of its own making, powerless to do anything but lie there and squelch the appendages all around its central maw. It had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no tongue to taste - all it had was a mind, a mind that could feel and compel others, a mind that yearned to survive always just a little longer. And hunger, of course. It had plenty of hunger. Bexel turned to run as far as he could. Except that he didn't. He was walking onwards. The thing was only a few yards away now, its raw, ugly lights casting livid pulsing shadows across its freakish bulk. Bexel's feet crunched on the bones of skink-like skeletons. He knew that one of them must be Anatl. And still he walked onwards. He felt desperation, and growled in fury, baring his teeth and taking out his fighting-dagger. Except that he didn't. His hands stayed peacefully by his side, as his legs took him step by step - his body full of the sun's living energy - directly into the embrace of the cold, torpid, mucousy, neon tentacles. Bexel was trapped in the dark. He was so alone. He'd been on the road to Itza... there was a doorway of rough stones that led underground. No escape. He felt so helpless. If he only had light, a rope - a friend. It wouldn't be hard to escape if he only had a friend. Cultan woke, gasping.
What a great selection of stories! Very pleased to read them all. I will be working on my reviews now... Grrr, !mrahil
Having a difficult time deciding who gets my vote. In the meantime, here be some reviews! Spoiler: Story 1 “What Goes Around, Comes Around” – A Jungle Joke with Teeth Some stories deliver their theme with subtle metaphor. This one chases the reader through the undergrowth, pelts them with darts, and drags them back to square one by the scruff of the neck. What Goes Around, Comes Around is a neat, circular thrill-loop — a tale built on repetition, disorientation, and the grim humour of perfect inevitability. It’s tidy, sharp, and thematically spot-on. The story demonstrates the theme of “Cycles” not with philosophy or symbolism but with structure: a literal loop that swallows its protagonist whole. And that final repeated line, that the dreaded moment he discovers the satchel is missing again? It lands like the punchline of a very cruel joke. Spoiler: Story 2 “Short and Scaly on the Streets IV: Cycles of Chaos” – The Eighties Never Died, They Just Moved to Lustria Sometimes a story tackles the theme of Cycles with mythic gravitas. This one does it with exploding ice-cream trucks, mullets, and a Slann police chief on the verge of a stress-induced stroke. It’s pure VHS energy: a buddy-cop parody that knows exactly what it is and leans into every cliché with gusto. The setup is gloriously ridiculous. Mayor-elect Karl Franz is gunned down by “Chaos Dwarf Bikers” wearing comically tall helmets, triggering a city-wide meltdown. Enter our heroes: Xilitoc the Skink, who treats the rulebook as structural support for his coffee table, and Thoren the perpetually exasperated dwarf. They’re yelled at by their Slann chief, they hit dive bars, they wreck half the city, and they lose their badges — all standard procedure for an ’80s cop flick. The plot barely matters, and that’s the joke. A shady corporation is behind everything, the informant gets shot mid-beer-sip, and the villains monologue their entire plan to two bound detectives because that’s what villains do. The meta dialogues between film students underline the absurdity, mocking the franchise’s tropes even while revelling in them. When the real Chaos Dwarf bikers roar in for the finale, chanting “For Hashut — symbolically!”, the film embraces its own nonsense completely. The chase ends with the villain literally jumping a shark and being eaten. It’s the perfect capstone for a story built entirely out of recycled genre beats — because that’s the point. As for the theme... I could now be all pretentious and say that the theme is embraced not through philosophy but through franchise logic; sequels spiralling onwards, clichés looping endlessly, characters doomed to repeat their arcs with bigger explosions and worse quips... But we all know that the interpretation of the theme was Chaos Dwarfs on motorcycles. Spoiler: Story 3 “Coin’s Spin” – The Great Plan and the Endless Flip Coin’s Spin captures the quiet melancholy of endless struggle. Through Xiathyl's reflection at the spawning pools, the story explores the Warhammer cosmos as an eternal loop: Order and Chaos trading dominion like the spin of a coin. Through elegant, measured prose, the story traces this philosophy from the birth of the World-That-Was to the Age of Sigmar, showing how every rise of order carries the seed of its fall. Xiathyl’s doubting thoughts of "why fight if every victory fades?" captures the exhaustion of endless duty. His Slann’s answer offers the fragile hope that striving itself may one day end the cycle. The dialogue between doubt and faith feels ancient, patient. It’s a meditative piece, more philosophy than plot, yet it resonates. The final gesture of Xiathyl’s touch with the unborn spawn anchors cosmic reflection in a simple act of hope. In a universe doomed to repeat itself, Coin’s Spin finds meaning in the smallest defiance: to believe the next turn might be the last. Spoiler: Story 4 “A Friend in the Dark” – A Cycle of Fear and Devouring Need This tale leans into the theme with a bleak, elegant simplicity: a cycle not of ages or seasons, but of predation. The story’s shape is a loop, and its horror lies in how cleanly it closes. The setup is deceptively gentle, a skink dreaming of another skink in danger. But the dream isn’t a warning so much as bait. The path to Itza becomes a lure, and the “friendship” Bexel feels compelled to offer is revealed as nothing more than the mechanism by which the cave-creature feeds. The dream-call echoes itself, tightening like a noose, and the reader realises the cycle has played out many times before the story even starts: old ropes, abandoned crystals, bones crushed underfoot. The reveal of the monster is grimly effective. It isn’t powerful, just pathetic: immobile, sensory-deprived, utterly dependent on manipulating empathy. Its hunger has created a loop: one skink dreams another skink’s plea, goes searching, dies, and the next dreamer wakes gasping. That final gasp from Cultan closes the circle with brutal economy. In terms of theme, it’s one of the more literal yet chilling interpretations: a cycle sustained not by fate or cosmic balance, but by loneliness weaponised. A trap that resets itself in the mind. A friendship asked for and answered, again and again, until the next dreamer stirs.