Opal - Jade - Topaz

Using a mind-mapping ap to keep track of the characters as the cast grows. Yes, the names are comically mundane. That's perfectly purposeful. I have a hard time keeping track of characters with unreal names (looking at you, Silmarillion) so I write my stories initially staring Bob and Howard and Lisa and Betty and then go back and change them into something more fitting of the setting.

I don't usually write prologues. This one is intended to invoke questions, not answer them. Rotating 3rd limited, this prologue using Patrick as the POV character. “Another centimeter in, one meter by one meter,” Patrick instructed. Dead shaft, my ass, he thought. The pearlescent silver cermet digger did not reply. As long as Patrick could remember, only one of the cube-shaped machines could still speak and the council certainly wasn’t going to waste it on a shaft that had been pronounced...

Stone Tech

The wildlife

The Backstory