#Amber Skies

[cryptotheism]

Lilly: Good morning New Babel, you're listening to Screw Loose, your favorite early-morning exo rig and rig maintenance rig show this side of the white river, I'm Lilly.

The Bear: And I'm the Bear, and you- are on the air. What can we help you with?

Caller: Hello! Hi! So, uh, first time caller. My name is Zuri. I run a barley and flesh farm about an hour south of Isin. I'm in the market for a new rig. My last rig kicked the bucket. But I have an, uh, odd request that I was hoping you two could help give me some guidance on.

The Bear: Welcome to the show doll, we'd be happy to help. But first, I gotta ask, what were you running before and what happened to it?

Lilly: Yeah! We gotta know what we're dealing with here.

Zuri [beginning to laugh]: So we had an Arcadia Y-400-

[both hosts erupt into laughter]

Lilly: And it broke!?

The Bear: Doll what in the hell did you do to this thing!?

Zuri: [laughing] Listen! Listen! It was my grandfathers! We had been replacing parts on this thing since before I was born! It was its time!

The Bear: Lilly, is she dodging the question?

Lilly: I think she's dodging the question, Bear.

The Bear: Okay okay, so what exactly did you do to destroy this extraordinary museum piece?

Zuri: [laughing] Oh gosh I don't want to say it now.

[The hosts erupt with encouragement]

Zuri: My sons will play this game, where I'll be out working in the field. You know, rigged up, focusing on tilling. They'll sneak up behind me with their rigs on, jump up, curl up into a little ball, and try to lock themselves to my back-jack in the cargo position...

[The hosts are howling with laughter]

Zuri: They're- They're damn good at it too! My oldest, Zair, can do it in on solid motion. Its like one moment I'm minding my own business, the next moment I have a whole kid in a 100 pound work rig locked to my back!

Lilly: What a riot! Oh this is just dangerous to put on the air.

The Bear: Ahem, to all the parents at home we apologize in advance, please don't sue us.

Zuri: So- So one day- One day my youngest tries it, but he doesn't twist around fast enough, and the aux battery on the left arm clips an exposed spinal neurohelix. Zap! Neuros are fried. My legs and arms lock straight like stilts! Now I'm swearing up a storm, you know- "You little rats!" But I'm hobbling like a circus performer trying to chase em down and they're just dying. Musta been the funniest damn thing they've ever seen.

[The hosts continue to laugh uproariously at this]

The Bear: Doll we gotta get to advice part of the show or the network is gonna give YOU a show.

Lilly: What a way to go! You hit an aux to the spinal braid? That's fried. Done. Kaput. You gotta scrap that thing.

Zuri: Yeah, we've already gutted it. Old girl is rusting in the barn for parts now. Zair is a whiz, so I'm hoping he can get some good use out of it.

The Bear: So we hear you're looking for a new rig?

Lilly: What's your price point love?

Zuri: We've got a good chunka cash built up. We're looking at something in the 600 to 700 washer range.

The Bear: That's pretty good for a work rig. You've got a lot of choices.

Lilly: I have a sneaking suspicion that this price point has something to do with your special request?

Zuri: So, my oldest, Zair. I recently learned that he's been uh. Well gosh now I'm embarrassed about this too!

The Bear: Doll c'mon don't hold out on us!

Lilly: You called, we can handle it!

Zuri: I learned that Zair had been using the Arcadia to race on the weekends. He and some of the local kids would run street races at night. He's been rigging a grapple harness to the waist-jack, and stripping it before I need the rig for monday morning.

[The hosts laugh at this, though not as hard]

Lilly: Ha! So what you're saying is you want the biggest, slowest, beached-whale rig you can get? Something just impossible to race?

The Bear: I'm thinking an HR&R Pauldron, Heavy Industrial. With that type of money you can get the new 900 series. Ask for the high-stability option-

Zuri: No no! No you don't understand! The damn kid keeps placing last because he's been racing in a junker! What I'm lookin' for is something I can use as a work rig for the days, that's easy to strip and good to race on the weekends. I want it safe, you hear me? I can't stop this kid from racing, so I might as well get something that'll keep his skull together.

[The hosts explode into laughter again]

Lilly: You! You're a good mom! What I wouldn't give for a mom like you!

The Bear: Ma'am, one day, when I grow up, I wanna be like you. I wanna be that typea mom.

Zuri: So, can you help me?

[The hosts can be heard stage whispering for a moment, followed by the sound of cracking knuckles.]

The Bear: Okay. You've got a lot of good options here. My friend here wants you to get a sport rig, but that's not gonna have the torque you need for farmwork: Here's what you're gonna do-

Lilly: Would to! Have you seen what the Roadrunner 600 can do? Six point neuro uplink! Eighty pneumatic helices per leg! Tell me that's not good enough to rig a plow!

The Bear: The dirt Lil! We need solid-body articulation! Using a pneumo-helix for farmwork is like pouring sand into clockwork!

Lilly: You replace the dermis with a synthetic sheathe! I get no respect around here!

The Bear: Zuri, doll, here's what you're gonna do: You're gonna go to your local Post Office outpost. You're gonna ask if they have any old courier shipping rigs. You want middlegrade. Ask specifically if they have an Albatross W-500, or if you're lucky, an LH-640. These are long-haul light-load shipment rigs. They're ugly, but they're sturdy as hell, built for carrying things long distances through rough terrain.

Lilly: The kicker here is that they're both light-combat certified. Built-in medical and shock response treatment. You'll need to replace the medical gel canisters every few months to make sure they're fresh... And if a certain someone wanted to maybe engage in a little bit of light illegal street racing...

The Bear: Well the Albatross line is built to be constantly refitted for different weathers and terrains. So someone, not saying who, might have a real easy time stripping the plating for speed. That sound good doll?

Zuri: That sounds perfect, thank you so much girls!

The Bear: Perfect! Thank you for the call, you'll have to tell us how it goes!

Lilly: Please love we beg you! Call again! Toodle-oo!

Zuri: Thank you again!

[The caller hangs up, the show transitions into a commercial break]

#Amber Skies #Screw Loose

[terrafey]

Emerald Seas by @cryptotheism! Read the story in its entirety here, or start from the beginning with Amber Skies.

Click for higher resolution! Like my art? Leave me a tip!

#terrafey art #my art #amber skies #emerald seas #digital art #artists on tumblr

[jame7t]

ive been reading amber skies

#Amber Skies #AND its saturday !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ghostmoor]

i read Amber Skies recently and it's been living in my head ever since. working on other characters but heres some Teacher sketches. notes under the cut

i got a little confused in the first few chapters so i think some of my interpretation of her appearance was a little off but i don't care to correct it. let's go

skin is kind of shiny and has a squishy rubbery feel to it

arm/leg "joints" aren't really joints, more like convenient stable bending points that approximate a humanoid form but she can slide them around and make her proportions look weird

undecided on if i want her to just forego any kind of elbow joint entirely and just have bendy cartoon arms

i forget if she was specified to have ears or hair but i like them so they're there. hair is kind of an unnatural-looking grey, like you saturation-slidered all the colour out of it

#art #sketch #amber skies #the teacher

[angremlin]

I think Chapter 33 of Amber Skies in its entirety out of context might be one of the best pitches I could make for @cryptotheism's Amber Skies

#amber skies #i love nico....... #the cast here is Student / Teacher / Sorceror / Shaft Diver (Kali) / Bug Priest (Nico) #just to help keep track

[bug-gender-art]

chapter 61 of @cryptotheism's Amber Skies hit me so hard with the found family dynamic of these 5 that I just had to draw it. the coziness of this short passage is so impactful in the otherwise inhospitable landscape of the story.

no matter how bleak the world is, there can still be comfort. there can still be rest. there can still be love.

#my art #amber skies #amber skies fanart #aknhqfbd i just really love this scene #this is like a year old because I'm bad at posting but whatever

[thumbsart]

A quick sketch of the Student from Amber Skies by @cryptotheism.

When a character description starts with "feet are so scarred theyre like boots" and thats not even in the top 3 gnarliest parts of the description, you know you're in for a fun ride.

#my art 2023 #amber skies #art #she's like 50% scar tissue by surface area and the other 50% is synthetic

[carfuckerlynch]

finally reading @cryptotheism’s amber skies. first descriptor that pops to mind thus far is “visceral.” i think all of you eroticism of meat and the machine enjoyers should be crawling all over this shit like weavils. god knows i am

#guy who said all this shit in the tags and then realized it’s sounds mean. hi excellent fucking book super loving it. #in general i find dystopias to be not quite to my taste but i do love a story that’s made of meat #and i love a story that ticks #and we’re two for two so far #odhran.txt #amber skies #i’m having a little trouble for the same reason i had trouble with the locked tomb. just that the flesh and meat r So present it fucks with #me a little. but also i’m still eating ut with a knife

[normal-horoscopes]

First chapter of Amber Skies sequel is here

#amber skies #emerald seas

[fuckablerobotbracket]

#fuckablerobotbracket #genos #one punch man #the sorcerer #amber skies

[bookfirstlinetourney]

Round 1

She awoke to a boxcar full of corpses, which was damn lucky, because it meant she now had a one-way train ticket to exactly where she wanted to go.

-Amber Skies, @cryptotheism

So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians.

-Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, Brandon Sanderson

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.

-Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

#books #polls #reading #round 1 #tournament poll #amber skies #cryptotheism #alcatraz vs the evil librarians #brandon sanderson #hogfather #terry pratchett

[cryptotheism]

The city of Isin is not actually the city of Isin. Technically, it's the city of New New New Isin. That was the trouble with Isin. It was all wrapped up in itself. Like fabric around a nun, or a baby, or a whore.

People had been there, as in the physical location, for longer than history could be expected to remember. People have been in Isin since the word "people" meant something very different.

The first city called Isin was dragged kicking and screaming into the world by Heralds of the Church of the Third Sphere. A fourth-era religious order known for staunch orthodoxy and insufferable smugness. A cult whose grandest miracle was being almost universally despised by anyone who heard their sermons. Isin to them was a Good Rock. A polite term for "delusional pipe dream about the future City of God."

And it was a rock, a miraculously barren rock in the midst of a freezing swamp that only seemed to produce the sort of wildlife that stings and gnashes. Kunaabe oral history does seem to know of the location, but also seems to assume the foolishness of anyone attempted to actually travel there. This did nothing to deter the Church of the Third Sphere, as records indicate they were not aware of Kunaabe presence in the area.

The first 400 years of Isin's history were typical of other Good Rocks: regular periods of plague, mass starvation, and hyper-niche religious conflict boueyed by the occasional successful interaction with nearby Kunaabe and Baquari communities, at which point the enterprising trader would be ritually banished for speaking to hererical, racially impure outsiders.

Significant improvements were made to Isin after the local potentate promised that the Third Sphere would appear in the sky that spring. After the date passed, and no celestial body appeared to unite the Sun and Moon, the potentate was ritually burned to death, and his body was cast into Isin's only source of fresh drinking water. The fervent believers promptly died of several drinking-water related things at once. Those with a lick of sense brushed up on their Kunaabe and got busy creating a new sub-ethnicity, leaving Isin abandoned.

A decade passed. And much like the local chitin eel population grinding the corpse of the arch-astrologer into algae food, Isin soon became host to a new, beautiful population: Good, honest, criminals.

-- from An Addicts History of New Babel, by Ord Mornie

#amber skies

[terrafey]

“You can give them a boob window” -CT “@cryptotheism”

The Knight from Emerald Seas, the in-progress sequel to Amber Skies!

#the orange tubes have gushers filling in them it’s canon #amber skies #emerald seas #terrafey art #my art #artist on tumblr #the knight amber skies #character design

[valkirswrath]

I just finished amber skies, it was amazing. It gripped in a way not unlike Gideon the Ninth did.

You can read it over @cryptotheism

You should read it

#Amber skies

[deeper-ever-deeper]

CHAPTER 14 OF EMERALD SEAS IS UP

#AMBER SKIES #EMERALD SEAS

[transparent-alias]

THE MACHINE MADE WISE

(Silence-Between-Strikes, from @cryptotheism's excellent Emerald Seas)

#art #digital art #reupload bc i forgot to sign it lmao #amber skies #alternate title: who up driving they wedge