Prompt No. 40

Last week’s story:

Well… I did not finish it. Or start it. Whoops. I was working too hard on “Specimen”, the story from the week before (Prompt 38), and this weekend I’ve been attending the Flights of Foundry virtual convention (more about that below), so I’ve been busy! I’ve also attended a couple of meetings of the SFWA Infosys Team, which I joined because I have nothing but spare time so I decided to volunteer for something.

It’s all good!

At any rate, I plan to start and finish last week’s story tomorrow. I plan on it being a drabble or a piece of flash fiction, so it should go quickly. Famous last words, I guess.

This week’s prompt:

I rolled a 1 on the d8 and a 6 on the d6. Thus: Main deck, any sub-genre. So, I’m writing an adventure story based on a prompt from the main Story Engine deck. And here it is:

An architect wants to obtain an arcane exhibit, but they will have to resist a great temptation.

My grandfather was an architect, so I can use this. I’ve occasionally wanted to be an architect as well, but somehow I never really built up enough momentum to learn what would be required, where I’d have to go to school, and so on. There are plenty of stories in my family about my grandfather and his life, but I won’t rehash them in this week’s story; rather, I’ll just make up someone entirely new.

I mean, I should research what it takes to be an architect, how one becomes an architect, etc., since the main character in my work-in-progress, Witness to the Scourge, is an architect. So any research I do for this story will come in handy for that as well.

As for an arcane exhibit, I’ve always been drawn to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, so I might make that the arcane exhibit that the rogue architect is going after. Or something similar to it, at least. I’ll steer away from occult manuscripts like The Necronomicon or The King in Yellow, since those have been done to death, so to speak.

This week’s recommendation:

It’s a convention! Again! Specifically, it’s the Flights of Foundry virtual conference, going on this weekend. Since today is the last day, it’s a little late to recommend attending this year, but definitely look into it for 2026. It’s a con aimed primarily at creatives and creative people including artists and writers and translators and game designers. I’ve attended the past three years and enjoyed the heck out of it each year. I like virtual conventions, because I get to learn all kinds of interesting things and interact with people online I may not ordinarily interact with. I do prefer in-person cons, but virtual cons are good too.

And that’s it!

As always: Be safe, be kind, be weird, have fun, and be punk af.