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I’ve also got a lot on my plate at the moment too, with covid in the household (so far I’m fine). So let’s extend the deadline until next weekend. Let’s say end of Sunday.

[August 5th]

Do we have a theme for August?

Not yet sorry. I’m still waiting, if I don’t get hear anything soon I’ll set one myself.

As for July, let’s keep it open for a few more days to let everyone finish.

New deadline August 5th

Thanks Sini for getting the ball rolling.

Don’t worry if your story is not strictly about eavesdropping. My original description lets you off the hook:

A conversation overheard, accidentally, or on purpose

This is looking great. I’ll try and have a play of chapter one tomorrow, if I can carve out a bit of time.

Finally, my game Gigant's Steam Store opened! The game will be released really soon!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1875670/Gigant/

Great news. Looking forward to the release.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Spoiler

Wordle 402 X/6*

⬛⬛🟨🟩⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩

[close]

Welcome to our new friends. It’s never to late to enter MAGS. Some decent games have been made with only a few days left. We’re usually willing to extend the deadline by a couple of days. If you need a couple of extra days, just say the word.

Got my 100 streak!



The average score from those 100 is 3.97.

That 101 is from back when I accidentally cleared my cache and then messed up the first game after doing that.

That’s great. Our first entry, albeit an accidental one 
It looks very interesting.

[Flash McCoy]

Congratulations to ddavey for Flash McCoy. Well done on such an emphatic win. You may start thinking about a theme for August.

Comooserations, Ponch.

Thanks to everyone who voted.

[Eavesdropping]

Theme: Eavesdropping

Shhh, they’re listening.

A conversation overheard, accidentally, or on purpose. A family secret revealed. A tapped phone line or a muffled conversation heard from inside a linen closet. How you approach the theme is up to you, but it must include some kind of eavesdropping activity as a plot device, or as the central story itself. It could be that the overheard conversation is what kicks of the journey, or it could play an important part in the grand finale.



Deadline is the end of the day on August 2nd

Wow, thanks for the votes, everyone. I was pleased with my story but I also knew it was full of things that could be picked apart and used against it (not to mention the dozen or so typos I never got around to correcting). I’ll start thinking about the next topic. Look out for it in the next day or so.

[Mandle]

Nice batch of stories here. Pats on backs all round.

Here’s a bit of brief feedback.

Mandle’s story was by far the shortest but it packed a hefty punch, especially with certain events in America still raw. Of all the stories, this was the one I could most easily visualize and it painted a very depressing picture. But it painted it well. The link to Sphinxes was tenuous but I didn’t mind so much.

Wham’s story had the vibe of an epic saga and some lovely word choices and enviable descriptions which created a gorgeous atmosphere. For whatever reason though, I struggled to fully visualize what was happening moment to moment and found myself having to reread parts in order to fully get what was going on.

Baron’s Egyptian Noir is a great concept, and the story itself was interesting. Very zippy and quippy with lots going on in terms of humour. To be honest, though, I would love to read a version where the humour was dialled back a bit, and the central mystery was allowed to come to the fore.


â€"-

Thanks for your thoughts Baron. You’re right that no explanation is given to how the cat even came to be. The honest truth is that I never did actually settle on a reason even in my own mind. I had a few ideas, all of which were highly unoriginal, so I kind of left it unresolved. I did consider that the cat itself was also made of these nanodrones but dismissed it as I preferred the idea that it was just a giant biological kitten.

2:nd try today!

was that #389? I also got #389 in two shots.

I’ve been getting a lot of 3’s recently too, but I spoiled it today (#390) with a 6.

Still, my streak is currently 90, so I’ll be aiming for that big 100.

@Arjon, where can one watch Magpie Murders? I enjoyed the book but had no idea they’d made a TV series out of it.

I should have my votes in later. I’ve read the takes and am just mulling them over.

Thanks DBoy. That would be a fun game.

Anyone taking up the challenge?

[The Wriggle of the Sphinx.]

The Wriggle of the Sphinx.

All Toby’s childhood, he had wanted to be an Egyptologist. Now he was a grown man and he had long forgotten everything he’d learned in elementary school about the pharoes (he could even spell it, back then) and the pyramids. His current position as a middle manager for a catering firm for global events and conferences could hardly have been further from his boyhood dream of digging in the dirt and finding tombs.

This week however, work had taken him to Cairo for a preparatory meeting to discuss the needs of a client hosting a robotics conference later in the year. And as part of the entertainment side of his trip, his hosts, two rather stony-faced gentlemen named Moussa and Osman, had planned a brief excursion to Giza to see the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. Mr Osman was organizing the conference, while Mr Moussa, CEO and lead engineer of his own private robotics company RXAIN (pronounced “rain”) was paying for it.

Toby, now 34 and usually rather a serious, expressionless gentleman, could hardly contain his excitement. In the car ride alone, he had already made three derivations of the “in de-Nile" joke, to which his hosts politely smiled as though they hadn’t heard it a thousand times before. And as the car pulled up to the large parking area and the true size of the pyramids became apparent, he couldn’t resist one more.

His hosts, Moussa and Osman, had clearly seen this place more times than they would care to, and did well to humour him with photographs and explanations in the absence of an official tour guide. One of the men, Mr Osman disappeared for a moment, possibly to find a rest room. There were a number of signs around the site asking visitors, in multiple languages, not to remove material from the site. This bummed Toby as he had been hoping to take a little souvenir for his nephew, Alfie, who was himself developing childhood love of all things Egypt.

Two things struck Toby: first, just how busy the place was. It was obvious, really, that this, the most iconic of the seven wonders, would be a popular tourist destination, but he had envisioned it being much quieter and more desolate. It is in the desert after all. The other thing that struck him was just how close you can get to the pyramids. You could walk right up and touch them. The Sphinx, however, was more restricted. The public were not allowed close to the monument, instead taking pictures from a platform some 50 metres away.
Osman returned with another gentleman in tow. The man introduced himself jovially as Doctor Al-Ameen, a resident Egyptologist. Toby went giddy at the knees and greeted the man is if he had just met Indiana Jones himself.

“Dr Al-Ameen has offered to take you closer to the Sphinx, if you’d like,” said Osman. “He owes me a favour.”

Toby was lost for words, and couldn’t quite think how to thank the man.

“It seems your man is... in de-Nile.” Dr Al-Ameen chuckled. Toby had found his soul mate.

The four men passed a chained-off entryway intended for site staff only, and the doctor led them to the very side of the Sphinx himself.

“I must remind you not to remove any materials from the site. Please do not touch the monument.”

More pictures were taken. Even Osman and Moussa were excited. They had never been up this close to the monument before. Not many people had. This was something they would go home and tell their wives and children.

Toby thought of his nephew Alfie, and in a moment of sheer kleptomania, when the three Egyptian men were not paying attention to him, he reached out and plucked a piece of limestone from the base of the Sphinx and put it in his pocket.

A few moments passed and he realised he had gotten away with it. But a sudden sense of regret filled his soul. He had been gifted this truly unique experience by some kind gentlemen who didn’t know him from Adam, and he had broken their trust. He considered trying to put the piece of rock back, but something was happening. He noticed another piece of rock falling from the area he had taken the first piece from. It was crumbling. Oh shit, he thought. What have I done? He would have to come clean. There was no way they would believe it just so happened to start crumbling at this exact moment.

“Errm... E-excuse, me, doctor?” said Toby, timidly.

Suddenly, a creaking sound sent a trickle of rubble down the side of the Sphinx’s rear. And more and more of the ancient material began rolling to the floor. The monument was crumbling before their eyes.

“What have you done?” said Al-Ameen. Moussa and Osman went back to their earlier stony-faced visages.

“I was just...”

“Did you...”

Toby nodded.

At that moment. Mr Osman pointed up at the place where the limestone had been falling from. “It’s... moving.”

“I beg your...”

“The Sphinx... It’s... wriggling.”

It was true. The rear end of the monument was definitely moving. It was shaking off the stone in a side-to-side motion.

“It’s just like a cat?” Mr Moussa said.

Dr Al-Ameen shook his head. “That’s impossible. We have seen inside it. It is not a cat.”

But even the Egyptologist could not deny his own eyes.

The Sphinx continued to wriggle and shake. Rubble continued to fall to the ground, and a larger piece narrowly missed Mr Moussa as it crashed to the floor.

“It’s getting dangerous. We need to leave.” And Dr Al-Ameen led the men back up to the public platform where a crowd of people had gathered to watch. “It’s a kitten” “Is that fur?” “I knew it?”

By the time Toby had reached the top of the steps, the doctor had disappeared. Presumably to call for some kind of back-up.

Just then, a giant crack formed right up the back of the statue and the whole right side of the Sphinx crashed to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust and sand, which completely obscured the monument.

And then: “Meeeeeeeoooooowwwww!” It echoed for miles around and as the dust began to settle it was clear the Sphinx had been replaced by a giant kitten. It was simultaneously the cutest and most horrifying thing Toby had ever seen. Most people ran. A few stopped to take videos. Toby was among the runners, as were his two hosts.

As they approached the car in the parking area, Toby stole a glance behind. The giant kitten had kicked up another dust cloud so huge around itself, the Great Pyramid was completely obscured behind it. A huge furry tail span around through the cloud and the group of Instagrammers who had chosen to stay and take selfies were swiftly swiped away. Those who had chosen to run were mostly in their cars by now.  But the cat bolted in the direction of the parking area and made light work of a school bus (thankfully empty) before slamming its paw down on the bonnet of a nearby car, crushing the engine inside.

Toby and Mr Osman seemed to have had the same idea. Run. They abandoned any hope of getting away on wheels, and changed course towards what must have been some form of visitor’s centre, some 500 metres away. Mr Moussa, apparently was not on the same page, and was not behind them when Toby checked over his shoulder.

“We’ve lost Moussa!” yelled Toby. As they approached, it became apparent that this visitor’s centre was little more than a shaded seating lounge with little in the way of any sturdy structure that might protect them from the giant furball currently turning the car park upside-down as though it were a nest of baby mice. Toby knew there was no way Mr Moussa would have survived.

The tourist centre did not look strong, and Toby knew that they would be not be safe here. Having said that, most survivors had also made their way here. Some were crying, some were on their knees praying, others were peeking out through the thin drapes.

“He seems to be happily toying with the cars,” said a familiar voice, “for now.” It was Dr Al Ameen. He had made it to the lounge too, and was addressing anyone who might listen “The military have been called. We may not be able to stay here, in case they use heavy weapons.

“They’re going to kill it?” said one voice. A small girl, maybe six or seven. She seemed to be speaking on behalf of an entire class of elementary school children on a field trip, who seemed more concerned about the welfare of the baby giant kitten than of the dozens of people it had now killed and injured.

“I don’t know,” said the Egyptologist.

At that moment, there were some shrieks and gasps from the group of people watching the devastation from the drapes. The cat seemed to have gotten bored of the carprk and was heading towards the lounge, slowly, but with prowling intent.

“We’re all gonna die!” shouted an American tourist, the front of his red shorts darkening.

The group of school-children began to scream and cry, but the doctor was able to cut through the commotion. “We have a lot higher odds if we stay in here, keep quiet, keep together and keep away from the sides.” Everyone in the room, listened to the man. Cats were not his field of expertise, but he was the only person in the place who had any remote aura of authority, so they heeded his advice and gathered, all 30-40 of them, in the centre of the lounge space

The giant cat was now prowling around the outside of the lounge, looking for a new plaything. He circled the structure slowly, turned and circled back around them in the opposite direction. At which point it collapsed to the floor with a thunderous bang and began rolling on its back, as though waiting for a giant hand to reach down and tickle its belly. No such hand arrived, and so it sat up, almost, human-like, bent forward and began licking itself.

Osman, who was closest to the kitten’s loction, turned to the others and said “my cat does this too”. Out of nowhere, a giant paw swiped through the drapes, its machete-length claws outstretched like a giant death-fan, and Mr Osman was spun around on the spot. Blood spurted in every direction, covering the crowd of frightened sightseers, as Osman was flung up into the air and landed in at least five separate locations. His torso was then hooked and lifted up into the air, and scooped into the mouth of the huge kitten.

What followed was true indescribable terror. In later reporting his version of events, Toby could only provide brief glimpses of what happened in that lounge. He and the doctor were able to escape, via some kind of desert buggy, bringing two or the school-children with them â€" that was all the space they had â€" whilst behind them the cat lay waste to the visitor’s lounge and everyone inside of it.

Dr Al Ameen, Toby and the children drove for ten minutes before they felt it was safe enough to stop. Up ahead, wall of black was heading towards them like a desert tsunami. It was the military. Armoured vehicles and supply trucks were followed by an entire fleet of helicopters and fighter planes.

The two children, already traumatised, didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved to see the soldiers. To be honest, neither did Toby. As the trucks passed their position, they were told to jump into the back of an armoured truck for safety. The truck turned around and took them towards safety as the army continued on. Toby noticed a number of helicopters flying in formation, and between them they were carrying a large net. Were they going to try to capture the cat?

“The claws,” Toby managed to say.”

“Pardon me?” said a soldier travelling in the truck with them.

“The cat’s claws are too sharp.” Dr Al-Ameen agreed. “You’ll never capture it with that net.”

The soldier’s face went pale. He immediately said something to the driver in panicked Arabic, who then repeated the information into a radio. A voice came back over the radio, thanking them for the heads up. They were going to have to engage with the kitten militarily.

A few moments passed in silence. Toby couldn’t shake something from his mind.

“Why did you bring me on the buggy? You could have saved another kid. Maybe two.”

Dr Al-Ameen shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know. I had some ridiculous idea that you might be the key to fixing this, seeing as… you know?” Al-Ameen mercifully didn’t finish the sentence.

Then Toby said: “What if we go back to the Sphinx site? What if I return the piece I took? What if there are some ancient instructions written there? What if...”

“I’ve thought of all that. None of it meshes with anything we know about the Ancient Egyptians. This is not one of your Hollywood movies. There are no riddles, no curses. That’s all just folklore.” The once jovial doctor was defeated, and in his place was a broken man, out of ideas, his life’s work rendered meaningless.

“Until an hour ago, doctor, you didn’t think there was a giant cat lying dormant inside the Sphinx.”

“Exactly. Everything we thought we knew was wrong.”

“That’s my point. Let’s just go back to the Sphinx site and see what’s there. Maybe there is a riddle after all.”
But both men knew it was futile.

The truck came to a stop and the passengers were ordered to disembark. They had arrived at the banks of the River Nile. Toby shook his head. “This can’t be happening,” he thought to himself. Two soldiers lifted the children into their arms and took them into a large tent. Another soldier led Toby and Dr Al-Ameen to a large boathouse that seemed to have been commandeered by the military.

Inside the boathouse, it was buzzing with activity. Hastily assembled equipment and cables covered every surface and personnel were flitting around. A large man covered in medals turned to face them. All formalities were dispensed with and the man (possibly a General?) paced over to Toby and said “Are you him?”

Assuming “him” referred to “the idiot who caused all this”, Toby simply nodded in the affirmative.

“I assume you are sorry. You can apologise later. Now we need your help. We are going to lure the target back to the Sphinx site. We have men there already.”

Dr Al-Ameen said “You’re not going to bomb it?”

“If this does not work, we will.”

“What makes you think it will work?”

“I don’t. But one of your friends seems to think it will.”

At that moment, the door opened. It was Mr Moussa. Toby, forgetting himself, flung his arms around the man.

“I thought you… we… I’m…”

Moussa stiffened rather abruptly and shook the man off coldly, without offering an explanation as to how he survived the car-park massacre.

It took toby a few moments to remember how he had met Mr Moussa in the first place.

“Robots!”

The men followed Moussa out of the boathouse and there, standing as high as the great Pyramid itself, was a creature in the form of an adult cat, even bigger than the kitten currently rampaging around Giza.

“A robot cat?”

“Not necessarily,” Moussa touched a button on a tablet and the giant cat transformed into a huge falcon before their very eyes. Its huge wings waved gently, and it whooshed high up into the air above their heads, and then came to a rest.

Dr Al-Ameen, dropped to his knees. “Magnificent,” he said.

“Nanodrones. These tiny drones, millions of them, each smaller than a flea can create any form. They communicate and cooperate with one another. And combined with current A.I. technology, they are almost completely autonomous. We only have to give it an objective and it will do the rest.” Moussa spoke very matter-of-factly

“But it’s so real,” said Toby.

“Each nanodrone is fitted with a tiny LED that can emit red, green or blue light. When combined, the bots can recreate any image, any texture in very high definition.”

“You said I can help? What do you need me for?”

“Well, you are its mother.”

“You what?”

“It was you who awoke it. You who gave birth to it. You are its mother, and it will follow you.” Moussa held up the tablet. “Now, look into this camera”
As he did, the huge falcon reshaped itself to its previous feline form, except this time its head was that of a human, just like the Sphinx itself. It took Toby a few seconds to realise… it had his face.

Mr Moussa typed some commands into his tablet. “I’m telling the nanodrones to lure the cat back to the Sphinx site, where it will be tranquilised and put down humanely.”
Moussa then swiped his finger across the screen with a flourish and the Sphinx with Toby’s head, stood up, morphed into the form of a cheetah and immediately started running across the desert at great speed. Toby noted that its feet were not even touching the floor.

“They can also combine to create functioning cameras that transmit the images wirelessly" The four men, Toby, Al-Ameen, Moussa and the general turned to face a large screen that had appeared. "Whenever I want, I can have some of the drones break away from the main unit and form themselves into a functioning camera for any angle we require. At the moment, we have three angles.” Moussa had clearly practiced this speech for the conference.

Three hi-definition videos appeared on the screen. One was a POV view from the front of the nanodrone cheetah running through the desert at immense speeds, another showed an overhead view while another showed the front of the creature’s beautiful face. It was flawless.

“It’s nearly there already.” The desert view from the first-person showed something appearing in the distance. It quickly grew larger on the monitor as the nanodrone cheetah approached the giant kitten. The kitten was now fully in view and it made Toby gag. Its coat was matted with blood and it was now pacing around aimlessly, having killed everyone in its path. It turned its head and the men watching the screen gasped in unison as the form of a woman appeared, dangling out of the cat’s mouth like an old discarded Barbie doll.

The cheetah, slowed down and moved closer to the cat. It subtley morphed back into its earlier form of a Sphinx with Toby’s face, and immediately got to work in its capacity as the mother of this beast. The kitten immediately recognised Toby and locked onto the mother, just as planned. It began to follow the Toby-Sphinx, dropping the human Barbie from its mouth as he did so.

The nanodrone mother slowly worked its way across the desert, occasionally turning its Toby head to keep the giant kitten in tow. The men in the houseboat-turned-control-room watched on as the nanodrones worked their magic. At one point, the kitten’s attentions began to wane, and so some of the drones broke off to create what looked like a huge length of knitting-wool, which dangled from the mother’s tail. This immediately got the kitten back on track.

Mr Moussa had not touched the tablet, so the nanodrones’ AI must have thought of that themselves. As though he had read Toby’s mind, he said “As I explained, they will do whatever necessary to bring the cat home.”

Dr Al-Ameen noticed something else in one of the other video feeds. “What are those, in the distance?” he asked, pointing to the screen.

“Those are my soldiers,” the general explained, “In case anything goes wrong.”

They continued watching. Progress was slow, as the kitten and the “mother” gradually moved across the desert. As well as the ball of string, the nanodrones also tried several other tactics, including picking the kitten up by the scruff of the neck. But this was short lived as Moussa explained, “The drones are mostly a visual tool. They can look like anything. Remember, though, that they are made up of tiny individual units. Like a sandcastle, it is not a solid object. However, the drones are equipped with limited quantum tension capabilities allowing them to essentially become solid. This requires a lot of energy, though, so it can only be used sparingly.”

Eventually though, the two cats reached the site of the Sphinx without a hitch.

Something hit the rear of the kitten. The tranquilizer, Toby guessed. But it had no effect. The kitten was so big, it barely registered the dart. Another dart flew, then another. The cat, began to swat with its paw, as though waving away an irritating fly. Three more darts flew and the cat was no distracted. The “mother” circled around and showed its Toby face to try to calm the cat, but the men firing the darts clearly hadn’t read the room and kept firing more tranquilizers at the animal. It was getting pissed off and the tranks were clearly having no effect.

The general shook his head “That’s enough. I knew this wouldn’t work.”

Mr Moussa tried to object but the general had already moved to a different part of the room. He pricked up a walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “Let it rain.”

At once, bombs rained down and bullets were flying every which way. The nanodrone Sphinx dissipated and morphed and swirled into a giant cloud, weaving and dodging between the torrent of artillery pummelling down on the giant death kitten. This carried on for what must have been ten minutes as smoke and dust and sand filled the air.

Toby watched on in disbelief. The cameras blipped on and off from various angles as the drones streaming the events had to keep dispersing and reforming around the rain of destruction, but eventually they settled as the shells and bombs finally ceased.

The nanodrones spiralled into its earlier falcon form and used its massive wings to beat away the smoke and dust. What lay beneath the rubble was, just a kitten, lying broken and bloodied and very dead. The room breathed a sign of relief, but they did not cheer. This was a sad day. The beast was defeated, but death toll would be in the hundreds, and the world’s most iconic monolith was gone forever.

Toby turned to the other men. Dr Al-Ameen was sobbing. Toby put his arm around the man he had only met just a few hours before and joined him.

“Goodbye, gentlemen.” Mr Moussa had been standing over the sobbing pair, waiting for them to finish. “I must leave now.” Toby went to shake the man’s hand, but his own hand went through it as though it were a cloud of dust.

“You’re…”

“Thank you for your help.”

“But…”

And with that, the man Toby only knew as Mr Moussa, but already loved like a brother, disintegrated and swirled into the form of a falcon, albeit smaller than the one currently overlooking the bloodied remains of the giant cat, and flew out of the room.

After a while, the general returned flanked by two officers and declared, “The mission is complete. Clear out.”

Al-Ameen stood up, “Sir, I”.

“Everybody out.”

Toby stood up too and was about ready to leave when one of the soldiers said something in Arabic and pointed at the screen. The small falcon that was once Mr Moussa flew into view and, without any ceremony, became one with its nanodrone brethren.

The huge falcon swirled and morphed into a huge spinning sphere, grey at first, but then splashes of colour formed and shifted into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of patterns. Then, the huge lightshow took the form of a marching army, a flying dragon, Elvis Presley's blue suede shoes, a bullet train, the Eiffel Tower, Ayer’s Rock, a fleet of fighter jets before finally becoming a swirling cloud again.

Slowly the cloud lifted, seeming to disappear one tiny nanodrone at a time. In its place was the Great Sphinx of Giza. Just as it had looked that very morning.

[The voting is now open.]

The voting is now open.

Here are the entries. Vote using the poll above:

	The Death of Oceanspirit Dennis by Ponch
	Flash McCoy by ddavey1983

Happy voting, everyone.

Why not consider making a game for MAGS July.
The topic is "Masquerade

Thanks for the entries folks. Voting will open soon, so start playing the games now!