Palace of Nero

DAYBREAK ✶ Dispatches

~ Complete anthology as .pdf | Complete anthology as .epub ~

In 2080 and for the past 100 years, the sun-scorched nation of Daybreak has been at war. Mechs rampage across the battlefield while people fight to survive amid the desolation. This anthology maps the conflict with stories that showcase different attitudes and struggles to rationalise the brutality of the war and the corporate power structures that keep it running, covering perspectives from lowly scavengers and civilians to ace mech pilots and guerilla insurgents. Entries are completely standalone and vary greatly in length. The longest is The Bug Eaters, a novelette, while the shortest are poems. Zeroed Metrics is the best short introduction.
These stories take place in the same setting as the DAYBREAK ✶ ReArm CYOA. The CYOA gallery contains links to all of my choice-image games.
You can use the links below to read the stories on the website without downloading anything.

THE BUG EATERS (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X) - Faina, a scavenger working for an exit from Daybreak’s war-torn desert, struggles to make the right choices as her fragile community builds its future on technology that will drastically change their lives forever.
THE FACTORY STORY - Mech pilot Adexe Gallian strives to be the hero he is portrayed as by the People’s Liberation Militia, but it’s not heroes who win wars. This story follows him from the frontline mech-v-mech action to a secret buried in the PLM's factory industrial complex.
I went and buried her beloved - a poem
ZEROED METRICS - Mechs are valuable assets, and the Vitarian Mercantile Association knows how to protect its assets.
SOVEREIGN - A pilot from Cascadia, a powerful but fragile foreign nation, drops precision ordinance in the name of his homeland.
At least your mother still loves you - a poem
A BURST OF LIGHT - Idaira, a fighter from Eastern Sun, weaves her way through an ancient cave system known for being one of Daybreak’s most intense battlegrounds. Why does she fight? And what will keep her going?
MATERIAL ADJUSTMENTS - Sister Darija of the Ascendency keeps the faith, and builds a bomb.
You know, these guys don't look too hot - a poem
CROSSROADS - In the asphalt pressure cooker of Daybreak City, the largest city in the country, a traffic controller manages the slow descent into chaos.

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~ click here for the pdf file ~

zine created around a loose idea of 'technohorror'.
22 pages of aesthetics, flash fiction, and poetry
probably gonna go back to it and make a new edition at some point