“”To know itself the universe must drink the blood of its children.” Her voice cracked like an ice shelf collapsing; it roared across an improbable expanse of inches. The talon pressed against my pupil. It went in and in.” ~Laird Barron, ‘Swift to Chase.’
“The foxes run. The foxes die. I mourn them, but I understand that there is a danger in mourning for those who would not mourn you in return. Empathy is for those who can afford it. Empathy is for the privileged. Empathy is not for nature.” ~Tanya Tagaq, ‘Split Tooth.’
Happy October. The best month is upon us so it is time to be thematic.
As of the time of this writing, I am one story away from closing out Not a Speck of Light, Laird Barron’s latest collection of short stories. I imagine that reviews of this specific work will be rapidly proliferating, so I am more interested in examining the overall themes of his oeuvre. All I will say about the latest publication is that it is excellent- as much so as his last collection Swift to Chase. As is normal, there are three or so stories on average from each work that really stick with me, a whole lot I enjoy thoroughly, and one or two that I am simply (but not negatively) baffled by.
Barron’s publicly available biography is well known because it is so interesting. Born and raised in Alaska, he worked in fishing and dog sledding, and spent some time in Washington State before moving to upstate New York. These three locations are extremely present in his works. Interestingly, he seems to be working backwards, with more recent stories being more likely to be set in Alaska. His earlier work was Washington-focused. There is also a novel series set in New York State, which retains the weirdness of his shorter fiction if more indirectly but is more focused on two fisted mystery and action.
Most of Barron’s stories are readable as self-contained and stand alone entries. Yet there is a clear overlap and greater cosmos going on here. Characters reappear, as do cults and monsters. Old Leech, an eldritch being who loves humanity “in his own way”, enjoys feasting on our suffering to sustain either his power or perhaps merely to slake his boredom. The world is animalistic and very much alive. But it is not a Live, Laugh, Love world- although you can do all of those things in it if you like.
Something that brings all of Barron’s work together, at least from my own perspective, is the same thing that has attracted me to for eleven years now: Its ruthless paganism. Barron’s protagonists are like Robert E Howard’s in the sense that they are tough and fight back no matter the odds. Unlike Howard, however, who was very much on Team Humanity, human supremacy never exists in Barron’s world. No one wins out over entropy. The food chain, like in Lovecraft of Clark Ashton Smith, is not stacked in favor of man. People fight back, but they often go down fighting. Specific underlings and odious toadies can get their comeuppance, but the protagonists don’t really win either in the long run. I have long maintained that Barron is really a modern Sword and Sorcery author more than even a horror author. That older and better form of fantasy was rooted in an earthy defiance of established order combined with naturalistic sensibilities. Horror was everywhere, but so was adventure. The world was predatory and so were its heroes.
A film example of sword and sorcery in the modern day which also goes unrecognized is the film Mandy, a movie I suspect Barron has seen, especially considering the direction some of his newer stories have taken in the past few years. In this way it takes one to know one as that film also influenced my own writing.
What you get with Barron is a kind of beautifully sparse and atmospheric writing style. Cormac McCarthy doing the pulps. But to say this is pulp is not to deny its literary value. In a culture where we are expected to be awash in Platonic idealism and a mandatory public moralism, it is of cultural value to take the human glasses off from time to time and see the surging tide of instinct and feeding that undergirds our experience. Life is visceral, and above such notions as good and evil. Suffering is everywhere, but so is the joy of combatting it. The pulps understood this drive, to see the awe in horror. Mysterium Tremendum made manifest. To choose life is to choose confronting, perhaps embracing, horror. Personally, I think these kinds of outlooks are extremely useful to meet many present challenges.
Barron shows us a world where everything eats everything else. An endless cycle of predation and consumption. It is perfectly in line with the view of the surviving shamanistic traditions or the old gods. This is the shamanic journey, where one is devoured by monstrous animals before being reborn with the devouring beast as a personal guide. One lives, laughs, and loves with a bloodstained mouth. As the musician and author Tanya Tagaq once put it while complaining about PETA’s demonization of traditional indigenous communities continuing to hunt: “We’re animals! We’re meat! We’re so stupid to think we are not.”
I am not one to become personally invested in people I do not know directly. When famous people I respect become ill or die it does not impact me like it does others. One very big exception to this, I found out, was when it was announced not too long ago that Laird Barron had a sudden and major medical emergency. A jolt passed through me fearing the worst. It was the fear that we would lose one of our best living authors. Someone who spoke to a reality lost in the endless publications of mainstream literary fiction with its endless focus on human subjectivity. Someone who had been one of the main reasons I had gotten back into writing fiction after years of inactivity on that hobby. Thankfully, he pulled through. Old Leech isn’t done digesting us yet. Here is to many more- both years and publications.
What follows is a rare example of me putting something creative on this site. A small stand alone spin-off of my Gothic Rustbelt sword and sorcery Sickle setting. Normally, I would illustrate such a thing myself, but considering this is a short side project not for external publication I took the lazy option instead. This is the recommended background soundtrack. The indirect inspirations for this singular spin-off are the first Diablo, Night in the Woods, and above all the Vermis series of artistic strategy guides for games that don’t exist.One could always use its skeleton to create a tabletop game campaign of modern dungeon delving.
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An order decays. A world comes apart. Adrift and lost, you begin a long-delayed journey home. Inland, back to the brooding wooded hills that made you. Once the Rustbelt drove you away, now it may be your only hope.
The town of Prospect, in hindsight quite ironically named, lies on the opposite side of Montrose County, West Virginia from its seat of Sickle. The two towns are close as the crow flies, but the broken mountainous terrain means they may as well be across the state.
But you know a shortcut. Across the abandoned rail trellis. You can leave your car and walk, as you once did many times in youth. It is nightfall, yet the colors of the autumn can still be glimpsed. The season is peaking and the moon is full
It is here, before even entering the town, that you realize your homecoming will be a strange one. For a Goatman is sitting on a stool, plucking a banjo.
‘You will find nothing as you remember it,’ it says in a bleating voice that keeps an odd cadence with the strings of its instrument, ‘and you will have no respite from that which made you return.’
Are you baffled by this sight? Angered? Afraid? It matters not. To continue you must pass, Which you do in silence. The music fades behind you as you approach the town. You do not look back.
In the morning you awake in town. No memory of the rest of your journey on foot. The seedy motel in which you emerge seems not to have a staff at the moment. You stumble out into a town square you last saw many years ago. It is Prospect. You are home.
Almost no one you once knew can be found. Most left like you did, some stayed only to die of drug overdose or mining accident. Many comment that you are the first tourist they have seen in years. ‘How did you get in?’ People are incredulous that you are coming home. All save The Mayor, who remembers you. He once was your teacher.
‘The mine closed years ago. Then last year people started going into it anyway. Camping. Dancing. Weird shit. Dangerous, I told them. Don’t know what they were doing there, but no one ever came back. Not even the Sheriff. Now there are reports of dark figures in the night around town. People stay in at night. I’m surprised you came over the bridge last night. Did you see anything?’
As you turn to leave…
‘But there is one person who came back, now that I think about it. You might not want to..well…do you remember the artist, Carver Norwood?’
The Mayor recommends you arm yourself with his recommendation for a local discount at the local Gun Nut’s shop. It is here you may begin to construct your build and choose your background.
The town’s mechanic, Melissa Norwood, is busy working on a car in her garage. ‘Came to see my brother, huh? Weren’t the two of you in the same graduating class? Well, he’s upstairs…painting as usual. Don’t worry about being shocked, he won’t notice. Anyway, feel free to stop by if you need gear fixed.’
If you converse with her long enough she might drop the rumor that the county cryptid, The Montrose Wolfman, has been seen in the woods outside of town more than usual.
You mount the stairs with some trepidation. As you are about to knock on the door a voice calls from within before your knuckles can even make contact. ‘Ah, [PLAYER_NAME], it’s been too long. Please, do come in.’
Carver Norwood seems older looking than he should be. His wild hair is unkempt as his studio. His grotesque paintings stare into your soul. ‘I came back from the mine. And the mine came back with me.’
Depending on your words he will give the following responses:
‘What goes down there changes. Adapts.’
‘A new world is coming. Those who can face the mine will adapt to it. Those who cannot will scream and howl.’
‘When I close my eyes I am awake. When I open them I am dreaming.’
‘There are many mines in many places. But here, I think, is a particularly strong one.’
‘The mine is killing us. It always did.’
‘The mine will save us.’
‘Like you, I used to hate this town. But I didn’t have the courage to leave. Now I have courage…to stay.’
Carver Norwood can identify artifacts and weapons brought to him. He will always tell the truth about their nature, sometimes to your detriment.
You can feel the call from down below. The mystery is too great. You have nothing left but one town, one mine, and one direction, DOWN.
Laden with gear, you set off into the woods. The path to the mine cutting through the falling leaves. A time of peaceful reverie with nature which comes to a close only when the subterranean mouth looms ahead of you.
The mine is randomly generated. It offers endless possibilities for awe, horror, and everything in between.
There is a chance, depending on the sequence of events you have experienced, that you will be tapped on the shoulder before entering the mine. This forces a dialogue with the Montrose Wolfman.
‘Ah heah you be going down theah. Gonna save the town? Seems moah wike da town gonna save you. Or kill ya. Well, give this to the Disco Gnolls and gimme what they twade back. I’ll give ya somethin wicked-pissah good if ya do.’
You can’t help but notice that despite the name, the Wolfman seems more like a coyote or jackal. It’s breath smells of marajuana and grilled lamb. It’s parody-impedement-Boston accent out of place in these hills.
He hands you a package. STRANGE PARCEL received. Whether this brush with the uncanny further steels your resolve to delve below or shakens it is yet to be determined.
Peering into the depths you see no recourse. You must descend.
From here on out all encounters are randomized. The following are a potential list of things that could happen.
Undead Miners: They died down here. Some over a century ago, some just a decade. They still man their posts, cursed to search for the black gold that brings life to the town while having no life of their own. They do not notice you and will not become hostile unless you impede their work in any way. If you do, their numbers will prove a challenge.
Cult of the Black Worm: Perpetually shadowed, speaking in a tongue only they can understand, the Cult monitors your progress continuously. They appear to shrink from challenge and seek safety in numbers, but may strike in large groups if they disapprove of your actions. Normally, they use their network to modify the mine in strange ways to baffle and impede you.
Should you be able to isolate or kill enough of them, the mine’s random seed generation becomes more erratic, but in a way slightly less hostile to your mission. Should you antagonize them without being able to winnow their numbers, however, they will summon an unkillable pursuer from old VHS tapes of a British children’s show about a demonic yellow cone.
‘There is a new black gold down here, it is not coal.’
‘It seems cool in here, but you have to slow down enough and then you can feel the warmth below.’
‘Send The Mayor my regards. I am waiting for him to join me here. He will, eventually.’
The Bunnyman, it isn’t funny, man. Bunnyman does not speak, and can only be hostile. If you are unprepared for grueling combat or agile avoidance your journey will end here.
Gary. The town’s lost youth. Perhaps a former friend? Now he controls the environment of the mine for the Cult of the Black Worm, though he sees himself as above and independent of them. He taunts you over speakers, but as you progress he becomes more pleading and pathetic, his scorn giving way to envy. If you are able to trace the power lines back to his nest he will not fight. His fate is ultimately up to you. If he dies the way forward will be somewhat easier.
‘Welcome to the Wizard’s lair.’
‘You left, I stayed. I was betrayed…BY YOU!
‘I made my kingdom here, after all.’
‘One day I will be President.’
‘Leave those body pillows alone!’
Has your wandering fulfilled you or merely filled you with despair? No matter the hostility or avoidance you have faced, eventually you will come to the Chamber of the Da A-nis. It may have been inactive earlier if already discovered, but once you have absorbed enough experience the eyes will flash and a portcullis will open. The next layer has begun.
Alone, hopefully steeled to horror and wonder, you advance onward.
Sirens sing, their haunting tones echo in the dark. Ignore them. The journey will end here if you do not.
A flash of scenes in the water before you. Like bioluminescence in the dark. A town that never was prosperous but once provided. Beset by growing horrors ever since it dared to stand up during the Battle of Prospect in 1924. Its loss was the first sacrifice. One future crushed, and a new one opened, feeding on all the blood that seeped down, down. Festering. Growing in power. You find a sealed case of DEMOLITION TOOLS in the shallow waters, the interior sealed and dry.
Finally, a light up ahead. Or is it? You find a hole in the wall. The mine has given way to something else entirely.
A static glow. A strange home out of time. Someone benefited down here in the depths after all. You enter.
The eerie synths of the dungeon begin to pulse with a distinctively Italian vibe. Up ahead lies a conversation pit strewn with gelatine party food. You have found the Disco Gnolls.
They regard you with indifference and will reject attempts to join their feast with hostility. If you play it cool, however, and deliver the STRANGE PARCEL to them, they will bestow upon the player an OPIUM PIPE and a warning.
‘To see how things really are, smoke this.’
CACKLING LAUGHTER
‘He who dwells below holds us in thrall. We are treated well but no one else is allowed to follow.’
‘The aspic buffet is reserved only for those of our time and place.’
You exit into another hallway. A holding chamber of sorts. There is a particularly ostentatious door up ahead. A strange tune emanates from a crackling speaker somewhere.
There is no way to go but forward. You enter the final door. There you find The Senator.
‘It has been a long time since I had visitors. How is the town doing above? Oh, what a shame. That wasn’t the intention of my actions down here.’
‘Well, at least we managed to prosper down here, which is the most important thing.’
‘Come, let me show you the culmination of my many lives’ work.’
If you have imbibed from the OPIUM PIPE, The Senator will instead appear as such:
In the final chamber lies this culmination. The thing that has been absorbing the town above. THE PROJECT.
You can choose to merge with THE PROJECT, giving up everything for acceptance of The Senator’s schemes. If so, the journey ends here. Alternatively, you can run from the mine, permanently insane, with an increased likelihood for deadly hostile encounters on the way out. Canny adventurers, however, will find a way to kill The Senator when he is unprepared, and be able to lay the DEMOLITION TOOLS rigged to blow upon exiting this area.
Should the demolition ending be achieved, the adventurer is able to exit the mine without molestation. However, the various encounters may now also leave their underground confinement.
It is dark above and the stars are out. Their presence is the only sign you are no longer underground.
If the Montrose Wolfman was encountered and gave the quest before the descent, he will be waiting for you outside. If you either do not have the OPIUM PIPE or refuse to hand it over he will attack and will initiate a fight you cannot hope to win. If you relinquish the pipe he gives you stolen keys to a randomized used car in town.
‘Eat da night, dwink da time!’
Staggering back into town, exhausted, you seek nothing but rest, feeling accomplished. But no one is about. They all stand in the central square, staring between the hills and up at the sky. The Northern Lights are almost never seen this far south. The beauty of their dance enraptures the townsfolk. The Mayor has enough presence of mind to turn to you and thank you. Carver Norwood nods and says ‘Freed from below, we now may open our hearts to what is above.’
If at any point you partook from THE OPIUM PIPE then when you look at the northern lights with greater detail you see something else in the night sky instead:
The Trickster's Guide to Geopolitics 