Empathising with Spiders

This title contains two data drops (stories): Empathising with Spiders (4600 words) and The Angry Lich(3300).

Status updating…Time and Space breached…Data leak detected…

The archives of The Numbered Entity Project have opened in this membrane of existence for the very first time. Inside the, at once both infinitesimal and infinity-spanning, data stores wait the tales of rogues, outcasts and 'others.' Those whose time was numbered but refused to 'know their place.' Those who tried, for better or worse, to change their respective worlds of swords and magic, steam and musket, or nanotechnology. The Project records all, in tribute to Time and Space.

To this end, we have two more tales.

The first is a story set during the end of a terrible war. The Fortress, a single city state, has held the coalition of Many Nations in a bloody stalemate for decades, before internal revolution brought about an end to the fighting. Cassandra the Empath, sent on a mission to secure this moment of peace, visits the Fortress, a place where her own sister was killed a generation ago. Old ghosts and secret weapons threaten to tear apart everything Cassandra holds dear.

The second story is of the Undead. In a world where Undead employment rights have reached near-parity with those of the Living, Aelred the Lich, the most successful of all Undead entrepreneurs, is on his way to lecture the beleaguered and unemployed zombie masses. His global broadcast will inspire the shambolic hordes and temper the prejudice of the living. But, Aelred ends up having a very bad day indeed, and things don't go to plan…