“Those words clawed at my mind. I was dragged back in thought to the well. Would all manner of strangeness include the spider-thing? Was this dark-skinned guard really talking about the hole I had seen aeons in the past, and yet also…” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/aD3ALFYp6Bb

“But the whispers taunted, telling me of the were-culture of Gobekli Tepe, rulers of Neolithic Turkey over eleven thousand years ago. Bestial growls burst through the whispers, each full of anger…and hunger.” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/rq9XZQ71XBb

“The belt of Orion sparkled like a diamond bracer. I raced toward it, ploughing through empty space, but as nameless planets whizzed by, I gained no distance. Always it stayed beyond my persona, a beacon, but a pointless one in the…” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/sXEIa4buCBb

The Thing in the Well #19: Moving Time by @GamesSwine medium.com/p/the-thing-in-th…

“Then I realized the reason. This was no mere incantation to call the mansions into being. No, I witnessed something darkly symbolic — the prelude to a mass sacrifice. I could not turn away. I stood paralysed by a dreadfully macabre…” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/K5N7GR7x8Ab

The Thing in the Well #17: Ancient Past by @GamesSwine medium.com/p/the-thing-in-th…

“If I had a body, then the spider-thing could kill me. If I no longer drifted as smoke, I could become a skewered rat. Shivering, I pictured my cadaver speared on a leg, limbs dancing in macabre rhythm with the monster’s own jerky movements.” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/mWnb1F6IfAb

“It is anticipation of seeing something truly out of the ordinary, a deep-rooted reaction to something anciently wonderful, that, perhaps, we have all shared in the past…and now forgotten.” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/c8LKq6zXGzb

“I needed yesterday to recover from my recollection of that journey into the unknown. After writing, for hours afterwards, my mind was filled with the crouching shape of the spider-thing, leaping from its mountain into the valley below. ” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/r1caJYSu7yb

“They thumped their pikes a second time and vanished in a puff of smoke. In their place, three massive butterflies appeared — one blue, one red and black, and the third a glittering green with golden spots.” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/qBTLCpjL9yb

“‘Most poetic,’ replies the man. ‘Gilgamesh is set apart from most in antiquity − he had strength, but he appreciated heritage and the beauty of nature as well. In many ways, he was akin to Hercules — the same mixture of wits and brawn.’” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/Ee3g45nRPyb

Melody’s Room #11: Throwing Stones by @GamesSwine medium.com/p/melodys-room-11…

The Thing in the Well #4: Second Dream by @GamesSwine medium.com/p/the-thing-in-th…

“He taps a scorpion adorning the book cover. ‘Everything needs a degree of ‘conflict’, and conflict is brought on by suspicion.’” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/8wbsYhYqfyb

“Reluctantly, I stopped at an overturned log a few feet from the path. A brown spider scuttled clear as my bottom approached, and a Cabbage White fluttered past my wife’s face. Then nature settled into stillness; not even the birds…” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/JX8IJto7byb

“The man lets out a guttural growl, his bony hand poised above the book like a hovering kestrel. ‘Hurry up, girl. A tale must be told without delays, to flow, to enter the mind in one stream.’” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/faXIroKOOxb

Melody’s Room #5: A Hand in the Well by @GamesSwine medium.com/p/melodys-room-5-…

“Again, those skeletal fingers of his ‘drum, drum’ on the chair. ‘You do, but you asked the question because you seek reassurance. If Gilgamesh can be brave, what is to stop anyone else being likewise?’” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/eklgq6LeDxb

“The man stares at me for a long moment, the book resting on his bony lap. ‘He is young, and young people do not always take rational choices. Some are ruled by the heart only.’” — @GamesSwine link.medium.com/O6U4xEx8sxb