Listen Now

At sunset, the old gunslinger looked upon a fallen kingdom and found himself unimpressed.   Music in Book 3, Chapter 19:   Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Crowander - Vanda’s Blues (CC BY-NC 4.0) Monolog Rockstars - Two Years (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Floor Shine (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Floretin (CC BY-NC 4.0) Rain On Heavy Glass Allen Masterton - Project 5 Cory Gray - Follow The Trail (CC BY-NC 3.0) straget - the rain falls against the parasol (CC BY 3.0) Kai Engel - From Dreams to Melancholy (CC BY-NC 4.0) tim.khan - 019 denver airport (CC BY 3.0) Allen Masterton - Berceus BOPD - Grotesque (CC BY-NC 3.0) Timbre - remixes of 32985__hardpcm__alarm001 (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - The Envelope (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel - Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0) Marcos H. Bolanos - The Sea (CC BY-NC 4.0) Podington Bear - Wren (CC BY-NC 3.0) Borrtex - There Is Always A Reason (CC BY-NC 4.0) Borrtex - Falling Into Presence (CC BY-NC 4.0) Podington Bear - Juliette (CC BY-SA 3.0) Podington Bear - Monday (CC BY-NC 3.0) Borrtex - Over Again (CC BY-NC 4.0) rambler52 - Pickup_Ford_62_Start_Idle (CC BY 3.0) klankbeeld - wood on mattress 001 (CC BY 3.0) Inspector J - Destruction, Wooden, A (CC BY 3.0) Podington Bear - Feldspar (CC BY-NC 3.0) Jamie Evans - Opening Doors (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Scott Holmes Music - Escape (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel - Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0) Audionautics - Crowd Long (CC BY 3.0) InspectorJ - Crowd Screaming, A (CC BY 3.0) Scott Holmes Music - Discovery (CC BY-NC 4.0) Dexter Britain - Sleepless Nights (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Origamibiro - Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Crowander - Black Trees (CC BY-NC 4.0) Crowander - Looking Back (CC BY-NC 4.0) My Bubba & Mi - Goodnight Heart (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Crowander - I Found You (CC BY-NC 4.0) Scott Holmes Music - Uninvited (CC-BY-3.0) Dexter Britain - Lifted (CC BY-NC-SA) Dexter Britain - Transpire (CC BY-NC-SA) Allen Masterton - Iodine Crowander - Old Man’s Tale (CC BY-NC 4.0)

The moment cut his word in half, flickered lights before his eyes, then shut it all down with a deep dark absence of color so grim it was difficult to put word on.   Music in Book 3, Chapter 18:   Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Marcos H. Bolanos - Stranded (CC BY-NC 4.0) Allen Masterton - Iridian Siddhartha Corsus -  Oh Radiant One (CC BY-NC 4.0) Borrtex - Fog In The Street (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Floretin Interlude (CC BY-NC 4.0) Crowander - Underwater (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Catcher Textile (CC BY-NC 4.0) AVOIDANT - Apparitions (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Kai Engel - Extinguished (CC BY-NC 4.0)

In the dark and rainy parking lot of the diner, Tom and Noah pulled the collars of their jackets up over their ears. Mark did not seem to notice the rain.   Music in Book 3, Chapter 17: Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Rain On Heavy Glass Blue Dot Sessions - Remsen (CC BY-NC 4.0) Allen Masterton - Iodine Borrtex - Going Undercover (CC BY-NC 4.0) Marcos H. Bolanos - Suspects (CC BY-NC 4.0) poalopat - [AMBIENT] Desert Valley (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Allen Masterton - Project 5 Blue Dot Sessions - Bliste (CC BY-NC 4.0) Borrtex - The Undertake (CC BY-NC 4.0)  

Be forewarned, I can still taste the ferment on my teeth. Conjecture and abstract thought do not, admittedly, serve much purpose in a guide to the mysterious world you and I now inhabit, yet I would submit that you can cut as deep as you like as long as your implement remains sharp.   Music in Book 3, Chapter 16:   Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Allen Masterton - Berceus Scott Holmes - Abandoned City (CC BY 4.0) Scott Holmes - Vasky Skyline (CC BY 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Nervous Whisp (CC BY-NC 4.0) Allen Masterton - Iridian Blue Dot Sessions - Cobweb Transit (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Stillness (CC BY-NC 4.0) Crowander - Backward (CC BY-NC 4.0) Origamibiro - Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Crowander - Above Us (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Abranyah blinked through the rain, peering down both ends of the street, waiting for activity.   Music in Book3, Chapter 15: Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Bask VX (CC BY-NC 4.0) Guitar Drone 1 - Ghost Hunter (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Podington Bear - Submerging Blue-Black (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear - Dark Water (CC BY-NC 3.0) The Rifleman - Day Of The Hunter (1960, clipped) Podington Bear - Satellite Bloom (CC BY-NC 3.0) Crowander - Prayer (CC BY-NC 4.0) Crowander - In The Sun (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Fog Interlude (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel - Rejecting the Sirens (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Big River Run (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Bare-footed and with packs slung over their shoulders, Rhamuel and Abranyah made for the main gates of The Omaha Claim, fit to leave as fast as the dust would allow.   Music in Book 3, Chapter Fourteen: ​Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Emmit Sprak (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Aloscape 2 (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear - Lonesome (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - VK Mendl (CC-BY-NC 3.0) Sound Phenomenon - Sci - Fi Ambient 6 - The Vast Calm (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Blue Crystal Star - Legends (CC BY-SA 3.0) poalopat - [AMBIENT] Desert Valley (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Cold and Hard (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - VK Tails (CC BY-NC 3.0)

In a sun dappled stretch of the Scar, endless as it had always been, a young woman found herself near done with what the dust had to offer.  So goes folk in younger years—just aged enough to know and appreciate the finer and subsequent illuminations of ferment—yet still damn fool enough to know nothing else of nothing else.   Music in Book 3, Chapter Thirteen: ​Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0)​HarryHaaren - Acoustic Ambient (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) ambient-samurai - Scene Of Sunshine Filtering Through Foliage (CC BY 3.0) Zhalih - Firefly (CC BY-SA 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0) ​Blue Dot Sessions - Diagram K (CC BY-SA 4.0) Guerrics - the new season (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) ​Scott Holmes - Black Jack (CC BY 4.0) ​Finn Perring - Ascension (Above The City) (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

The diner was far enough away from work, but nothing felt far enough when there was going to be talk of confidential things.  Things some argue better left unexplained, not discussed, kept away from deeper thought—weird things.   Music in Book 3, Chapter Twelve: Cullah - Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Podington Bear - Undersea Garden (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Periodicals (CC BY-NC 4.0) Sergey Cheremisinov - The Loneliness (CC BY-NC 4.0) David Szesztay - Cascet (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Cobweb Transit (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Surly Bonds (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Bliste (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions - Turning (CC BY-NC 4.0) Nic Bommarito - Apace (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Podington Bear - Submerging Green (CC BY-NC 3.0)  

Knucklebones stepped one leathery bare foot into the plastic pool, bright and faded colors both rippling under the liquid. Filth bloomed in arcs from his foot, dirt and barren clouding the chemicals. He wrinkled an ancient looking triangle that sat center on his face, and enshrouded by the giant round disc his hat made, and Knucklebones inhaled deeply.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Eleven: ​Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Podington Bear – Submerging Blue-Black (CC BY-NC 3.0)Blue Dot Sessions – Floor Shine (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Slow Slow Sky (CC BY-NC 4.0) David Szesztay – First Step Inside (CC BY-NC 3.0) David Szesztay – Creepy Atmo (CC BY-NC 3.0) David Szesztay – Creepy Sirens (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Smolder (CC BY-NC 3.0) BOPD – New England Air (CC BY-NC 3.0) Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0) David Szesztay – Backward (CC BY-NC 3.0) Sergey Cheremisinov – Labyrinth (CC BY-4.0) Dexter Britain – Sleepless Nights (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

King’s office was surprisingly empty for a man of his resources. There was no special reason for it—he was in charge of it all, the whole enterprise, but cared little for the more obvious of comforts or distraction.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Ten: ​Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) David Szesztay – Underwater (CC BY-SA 3.0) Scott Holmes – Something In The Distance (CC BY-NC 4.0) Podington Bear – Three Colors (CC BY-NC 3.0) VYVCH – Get Well (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – More Weather (CC BY-SA 4.0) Dexter Britain – Dance For One (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Will Bangs – Cold Feet (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0) Sacred Harp Signers of Cork – Drone: 274t The Golden Harp (CC BY-NC 3.0)

We are always starving. It sort of goes with the territory—this being hungry in every odd tick of the day. An empty belly and its degrees of unpleasantness is better than any watch or sundial, and no further calculations on mood need interject.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Nine: ​Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) ​Scott Holmes – Shimmer (CC BY-NC 4.0) Podington Bear – Swale (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Turquoise (CC BY-NC 3.0) Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0) ​Dexter Britain – Late Mornings Beginning (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Dexter Britain – Late Mornings (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Podington Bear – Monday (CC BY-NC 3.0) AVOIDANT – At First, the Separation from Your Body Was Harmful (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Cach (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Tom smiled and nodded with the applause, but when the meeting resumed he went right back to staring directly into the center of a donut.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Eight: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Alterr – Small Group Applause (CC BY-NC 3.0) Scott Holmes – Origin II (CC BY-4.0) Seclorance – Dir (CC BY-4.0) Charlie Salas-Humara (CC BY-NC 3.0) AVOIDANT – Apparitions (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) KSEA – Interlude A (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Cyborgs On Crack – Paraplegic Gerbil Processing Plant (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Damon Boucher – Desert Sun (CC BY-NC 3.0) David Szesztay – Backward (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Sepia (CC BY-NC 3.0) Mystified – Running From An Evil Force (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Seclorance – Depths of Self-Deception (CC BY 4.0)

Torches had never done Allgood much favor, but that they lit up a question or two in the good populace was useful. Two old branches lit the stench of thoroughfare just before the bar-house, the tips never extinguished thanks to some flammable green-black sludge the fiddle fingers had cooked up for otherwise pursuit. They stunk, and while most folk came to the bar house either by regular pre-dinner appointment or curiosity, they came all the same.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Seven: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Podington Bear – Nocturne Op 48 No 1 (CC BY-NC 3.0) Kai Engel – Moonlight Reprise (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Bliste (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Between Stones (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Gtks (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – That River Wide (CC BY-SA 4.0) Will Bangs – You Make My Heart Sing So Loud (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Stillness (CC BY-NC 4.0) Mystified – Spooky Theme (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Sergey Cheremisinov – Back to Home (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Even in that too-bright light of the morning, Abranyah always struggled to wake with it. She preferred to sleep as long as possible, but the sun would eventually prove to be an enemy—fuel for whatever device the barren was planning to kill you with today. This morning was of little difference, but the body rustling through her pack had become lazy, desperate, or both. In any case—far too loud.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Six: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Podington Bear – Juliette (CC BY-SA 3.0) Podington Bear – Tortoise Shell (CC BY-SA 3.0) Kosta T – say sounds (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Costa T – Moon Valley (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) David Szesztay – Prayer (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Bkls (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel – Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0) Sacred Harp Signers of Cork – Consecration (CC BY-NC 3.0) Kai Engel – Curtains are Always Drawn (CC BY-NC 4.0)

An otherwise normal day in an otherwise normal life, time as it was. Tom had been fostering a general sense of unease for a while now, yet like a weird sort of depression, he had difficulty pinpointing its origin.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Five: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Podington Bear – Three Colors (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Submerging Blue-Black (CC BY-NC 3.0) David Szesztay – Snow (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Monday (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Gtks (CC BY-SA 4.0) Cory Gray – Terminal One (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – At All Ends (CC BY-SA 4.0) Mystified – Spooky Theme (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) visualasylum – Radio Static (CC BY-3.0)

The ways a body tends to crave its own undoing is a humanistic riddle that I no longer wish to endure. A short way to speak it, I suppose: my empathy muscles have atrophied.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Four: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Kosta T – Red in Black (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Stillness (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – A Simple Shroud (CC BY-NC 4.0) Podington Bear – Undersea Garden (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – That Horse Ithaca (CC BY-NC 4.0) David Szesztay – Freezing (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Submerging Green (CC BY-NC 3.0) Podington Bear – Swale (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Mobile (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel – Highway to the Stars (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Rhamuel kept folks on a spectrum of his own design, the range beginning somewhere around “tolerate,” and ending near “abject avoidance.” Abranyah once asked where the disdain found its origination point, but the tanker would only reply, “Everyone seems to give me a reason.”   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Three: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – The Envelope (CC BY-SA 4.0) David Szesztay – First Step Inside (CC BY-SA 3.0) David Szesztay – Cascet (CC BY-SA 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Lights Out (CC BY-SA 4.0) Kosta T – Whole Alone (CC BY-NC SA-4.0) David Szesztay – Plashes (CC BY-SA 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – More Weather (CC BY-SA 4.0) David Szesztay – Wake Up (CC BY-SA 3.0) Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0) Cory Gray – Low Rollers (CC BY-SA 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Diagram K (CC BY-SA 4.0) Will Bangs – The First Person Awake (CC BY-SA 3.0) David Szesztay – Surreal 2 (CC BY-SA 3.0)  

This was the kind of fruitless nonsense that permeated The Scar—a seeming irregularity of principle and purpose to things. A body could rub a book to ash in their fingers. They could then take a step and trip over a heaping stack of books showing no more than frayed edges, dust, and that grainy kind of yellow that takes over the page after a while.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter Two: Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – 4th Chair (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Emmit Sprak (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Midday (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Catcher Textile (CC BY-NC 4.0) Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Thread Caramb (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Cobweb Transit (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Thread Ceylon (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel – Prelude – Bells in Heavy Clouds (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – An Accumulation (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Old splinters whistle.  Everything across The Scar has aged long past the reek of decay, more so worn, faded, and abused by the transient miscellany that wandered through it over and over and over.  There was a weird beauty when the too-bright day went purple as night prepared, no windows left to cover, no reason even if they remained.   Music in Tincture: Book 3, Chapter One: Kai Engel – Paranoia (CC BY-NC 4.0) Audionautics – Crowd Long (CC BY 3.0) Kai Engel – Universe In Hands (CC BY-NC 4.0) Cullah – Please Bring Me Shelter (CC BY-SA 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – 3rd Chair (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel – January (CC BY-NC 4.0) Kai Engel – Morbid Imagination (CC BY-NC 4.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Between Stones (CC BY-SA 4.0) Will Bangs – I’m So Glad That You Exist (CC BY-NC 3.0) Sergey Cheremisinov – Back to Home (CC BY-NC 4.0) Origamibiro – Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) Genghis Attenborough – Clandon Chime (CC BY-NC 3.0) Blue Dot Sessions – Bliste (CC BY-NC 4.0) Sergey Cheremisinov – Birds Walk Away (CC BY-NC 4.0)

The tanker was always a curiosity for Rachel. “What are you looking for?” she asked. “You said you had an idea?” Arachal was bent over the front seats of his black Mustang and rifling through the glove compartment. “I do. I’m looking for—ah, here we are.” Withdrawing his long frame from the car, he held up a stack of pink sticky-notes in one hand, a black marker with Warrant Sciences embossed on its gray surface in the other. “Pink?” asked Rachel. “I don’t remember pink.” Arachal raised an eyebrow. “What color should they be?”   Music in Tincture: Book 2, Chapter Nineteen: Kreng – Merope Jahzzar – Part X Art of Flying – fields so green, part 2 MiaMia – Bend Over Harder Julien Neto – From Cover To Cover Podington Bear – Mensa Art of Flying – a. Guitar #2 BOPD – 2.18.05 dai Podington Bear – Desormais Lee Maddeford, Roland Vouilloz – Yuyu Dexter Britain – Utopia, Part 3 BOPD – Grotesque Makunouchi Bento – Seduction Theme from Millano Brothers IV Podington Bear – Brightening The OO-Ray – Silhouettes Krowne – Embarrassed Even By Death Remus – The Sciolist Podington Bear – Reflector Dexter Britain – Zenith Lee Rosevere – Cat Wearing Glasses Art of Flying – O daughter, dear daughter Brian Joseph Davis – Track5 Dexter Britain – Nothing To Fear Intro music selected from: PrudHommes by Cobra (avec logo panthère)