Short Story - Dripping with Gold

A short story from a writing prompt posted online. 

The prompt: You are a struggling alchemist trying to transmute gold. Eventually, after years of failure, it finally works! Just not quite the way you intended.

This has nothing to do with my novel, but I am working on improving my writing by practising whenever I can. If you enjoy this, share. Thanks.

Dripping with Gold.

I ran down the stairs and grabbed the bannister to propel myself down the hallway. This is worse than last term with the jelly spell.  How long would it take to burn though the floor?

I pushed open the door and called to the lab techs in their white suits to, ‘Run.’ They gaped at me for a few seconds, but then saw it when I pointed. I screamed again, this time there was a flurry of movement.

Their roof, connected to my floor, was changing colour from white to molten gold. Just as the last lab tech, directly under the widening pool of molten death, gave up on her critical and delicate experiment and dashed out of the way, the first blob of the molten metal slowly bulged downwards in a painfully slow motion drip. The spherical bulb stretched downwards, tapering up into a thin strand that hung for a moment from the floor above before snapping off and crashing down through the desk, beakers and distillation equipment.

The gold held the shape of a perfect drip for a moment before slowly spreading out across the floor. I had been frozen there for a second, watching, but then the smell of burning transfiguration serum hit my nose and I snapped out of it.

I turned around and pelted towards the staircase again. What was on the floor below?

When I reached the room, I bashed open the door to see a group of first-years, their mouths agape at the intrusion. Then I saw the daggers in Professor Trudo’s eyes. Oh no! If there was anyone I didn't want to see this... but there was no time for that. 
‘Get out of here now,’ I screamed, pointing to the roof. The gold hadn’t burned through yet, but there was a brown patch of discolouration developing. 

The first years ditched their books without hesitation, commendable speed compared to the stuffy lab techs above, and I was just turning to run down to the next level when I felt the collar of my shirt tighten.

Trudo! He’s always hated me! ‘Daniel,’ he drawled. ‘It’s such a pleasure to see you,' there was no pleasure in his tone. 'Why are you disturbing my lesson?’

I was one hundred percent sure this sadistic genious knew what I was working on with Lishman. He had tried to get me expelled already for it. If there was more time I would have made a glib jibe, but I only spluttered out, ‘Molten gold.' I didn't really mean the incredulous tone, it just came out that way.

‘So,’ he said, like we were on a Sunday drive in the country, ‘why are you letting it burn through my classroom?’
I stood aghast at his question. The pool of molten metal was, by this stage, bulging down from the hole in the ceiling. If only I had predicted that the transmutation of iron into gold would produce so much heat!

He went on like he was reading my mind. ‘As I recall, Daniel,’ could he speak any slower? ‘You did excell at cold spells when you took my class. In you go.’

I felt the force of his magic push me into the room. The gold was much lower now, forming a drip, and I had to limbo back to avoid my head from being burnt off. My heart shot into my mouth and I put up my hands to shield my face from the heat. I used all the will I could muster to remember those old cold spells I hadn’t used in five years. I shuddered. Where was my brain when I need it?

‘Come now Daniel,’ Trudo’s vicious voice sneered, ‘you remember... Glacies…’

That’s right, ‘Glacies aqua,’ I screamed in terror, and ice shot from my hands. I held the words in my mind. Ice filled the space between me and the gold.

At first, all I heard was sizzling as steam billowed around the room. The gold continued its journey downwards and my knees bent. My mind cried the spell as pressed all my energy into it. I fell onto my back and I pushed every skerrick of will into cooling that drip.

Then finally, when the drip was mere centimetres from my chest, the sizzling slowed, and the gold froze in its path. I breathed a deep sigh and slid sideways on my back, across the wet floor, and out from under the massive bulbous ball of gold still hanging from its thin strand from the floor above.

I stumbled forward and, shaking, pushed myself up onto my jelly legs to my feet.

Trudo walked in with a bored look on his face. ‘Dear me Daniel,’ he sighed, ‘you always seem to make such a mess, wherever you go.’

I didn’t care about how much Trudo hated me today, though. I had done it, and it didn’t matter that I just destroyed 3 floors of the college to do it. That amount of gold was going to set me up with enough money to finish my studies at this university. Even if it took me the rest of my life.


Inspiration: Harry Potter, Reddit r/writingprompts, and the UQ pitch drop experiment.

The world has changed a lot in the last couple of years.

The world has changed a lot in the last couple of years. And so has my story.

I began writing this story a long time ago, and when I did, I did so because I wanted a couple more seasons of a TV show that I liked about a nice vampire PI and plucky news reporter who worked together to solve crime. (prizes to you if you know the title)

Then I got busy with kids! I only came back to it occasionally to pick over the words and, as decay set in, to lament over the dead body of the plot as the dust settled on it. I got busy after all. Kids, more kids, a little side business while I was a stay at home mum, and for a long time, I thought that 80,000 words looked like an insurmountable task.

But in the last year, I began thinking about this again, and I began reading. I listened to 50 audiobooks last year, (and this year I have already reached 54). But after those 50 books last year - I must say beginning with the masterful Diana Gabaldon - I realised that I can do this, but I need to do it a lot better.

Why? Some of these books are entertaining, funny, compelling and cute. Some of them were ok. Some were honestly dreadful and I couldn't finish them. The ones I that I did like, all had one thing in common. Something that the husk of my original story lacked. 

A protagonist I could respect. 

I began reading my story again and I realised quickly that the connection between my 2 main characters was actually quite sick, one-sided and very unhealthy. I had to go back and fix my protagonist. Fix her from being a wimp. Fix her from being a fawning, uninteresting, entirely banal person who I wouldn't even like myself. I needed to transform her into a someone who is strong, determined and dauntless, if a little emotional and impulsive. Everyone has flaws, right? And that's OK too. And this is where everything has changed. Because in giving my girl some real backstory, some strength, a reason she can rival her enemies and dominate her friends, I have found a whole other world of history and intrigue in the world I am creating.

It's 100 times better.

Now I'm looking at that 80,000-word goal from just as far on the other side of it. Right now the word count is almost too high (getting towards 106,000) and there is still so much more to tell. Just finding the reason for my character's strength has made it a much more complex story, one that can probably continue on for at least 2 more books. This change reflects a change in the world, I think. Buit it also maybe reflects a change in me.

Of course, my protagonist still needs help from others, no one-man-shows around here. But she is someone I could actually respect now, whereas the original version of the character was a wet rag.

Get me the hell out of here

I love moving. It's this amazing refreshing of your life. Not just moving across town, but moving across the state or the country. Even moving to a different country - it's all amazing and I love it.

I grew up moving around all the time. I think I counted 7 moves by the time I hit high school. Of course as a kid you don't get the pain of moving, you just go with the flow. You only have to pack your own clothes, then there is a bunch of activity around you and all of a sudden your stuff is somewhere else. When I was little we moved:
from the farm,
to a caravan,
into a house with dad,
away from dad into Grandma's house,
into a house with my cousins,
into a caravan,
mobile home,
cousins house while they were overseas,
a short term rental then finally
a house that mum bought.

Wow, that's not 7 at all, that's 10.

Anyway - as a teenager we stopped moving and I really didn't like this at all. I remember changing the furniture around in my bedroom numerous times. I would just get it into my head that there was a better way to have it. I even pained the walls and recovered the floor in an effort (i now realise) to get that freshly moved feeling. My room was really an oasis away from the crazy brother and messiness of the rest of my house. I grew up, a clean person in a forever messy house. Anyway...

In early adulthood and UNI a blissfully started moving around again.
I moved in with friends, then out again when I couldn't afford to stay.
I moved to Mundubbera for my first teaching position, then back to Logan again for another position.
Moved from one rental to another.
Then with my most awesome BF now DH I moved to CHINA. That was cool.
In China we moved once 1/2 way across the country after a year,
then back to Australia and in with Friends,
then to Browns Plains.

Now DH is in the Army and guess what? Army means being moved around. It's awesome! And the best thing about it is they do all the hard stuff for you.

Moving with the army is much like moving when your a child. You only have to pack your own clothes, then there is a bunch of activity around you and all of a sudden your stuff is somewhere else. I think this is the best thing in the world. So from Browns plains I moved to Wagga Wagga then Oakey and now we are going to Townsville.

I wonder why I love moving so much? I mean apart from the fact that I have done it all my life, I guess I like the freshness it creates.

A house is so much easier to clean when there in NO stuff in it and it's so much hassle to take everything out just to clean out a room. You can get this benefit from moving locally, but moving far away is even better.

There are new streets, shops, parks and communities to explore. You get to be a long-term tourist in all of these places and explore the local tourist attractions at your leisure. While we lived in Wagga Wagga we loved to do the tourist thing and explore the little attractions that there were to see. And we didn't have to pack it into a few days - we could do one thing every now and then and spend time exploring.

I have to admit that over the past year living in Oakey we really haven't done much of that. Living close enough to friends to visit, but still far enough away that it takes the WHOLE day or weekend to do so has made this year all about catching up with friends and family or relaxing - not exploring. Also, having anew baby has taken taken lots of time.

Now, I am just chomping at the bit to get up to Townsville. Tropical Townsville, a stones through from magnetic island, right next to the great barrier reef, nearby so much amazing stuff that it's going to take us years to get through it all. That's awesome - we should be up there for at least a few years! YAY.

Then where to after that? I don't know and franly - I don't care. Anywhere new, anywhere with new stuff to do, new people to meet, new places to see.

The new year

Hello new year... it's me and you and this novel, and I am going to win!

It's been a month

Actually - I thought it was longer. I really need to get back into it, I have been bad. I just lost my motivation completley. MUST DO IT!

The opening

I have decided to post up a little liny bit of my story. Actually, it's something I just wrote and hasn't been edited, but I am making a prelude to the story because, well basically, I need it to be longer.

Anyway - I will probably go and chage this a lot, but so far - this is the NEW opening:


The warmth of the evening wind swept through the mall as people went about their evening shopping with the usual banal joys and frustrations of life. The gust brought with it dust of the construction that was a constant in the city and smells and sounds from the traffic that choked its streets.

A child cried for his mother momentarily before being swept up in the woman’s arms and carried off. A cyclist twisted around cars and pedestrians carrying ingredients for his meagre dinner in a plastic bag hung off the rusty handle of his bike. A young lady sat shaking her boot covered foot and looking at her watch with a nervous glint in her eyes and wayward teens looked trouble and cheep DVDs of foreign movies. Beyond the attention of these and the other hundred people who populated this strip of gaudy shops, two dark figures stood facing one another.

One stood on the far northern end, near a stone carving of five horses ever leaping from their stone cage but never moving, the other, on the southern end near an old beggar who tried in vain to hail the attention of passersby with less and less success as the years past. People passed between the two still figures, but they never lost sight of one another and, although they were more than one hundred and fifty metres from each other, they carried on a conversation no louder than a whisper.