Episode 91: The Invisible Kingdom by Mark L. S. Stone
When Ben is accosted by a crazy man insisting that Ben is the heir to a far-off, magical land, he shrugs it off as the sort of thing you experience riding public transit in Los Angeles (of course, this could just be Rish’s experience talking). But when another stranger claims the same thing, he begins to worry.
Afterward, Big and Rish talk about being “The Chosen One,” which devolves into superhero talk. Also, they make their listeners an offer that hopefully some won’t refuse, and discover that everybody wants a bosom for a pillow.
Outtakes
Special thanks Clay Dugger for producing today’s story, and to R.E. Chambliss, Kenn Crawford, Andy Kjar, Lynn Boyd and Clay Dugger for lending their voices to today’s episode.
Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/dunesteef/Dunesteef_91_The_Invisible_Kingdom_by_Mark_LS_Stone.mp3%20Related Links:
Mark L. S. Stone’s Site
Clay Dugger’s Site
Kenn Crawford’s Site
Some sound effects were provided by freesound.org.
Music was “I’m Gonna Go-Instrumental” and “Winter Empire” by Dan-O.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine 
January 23, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Congratulations, Mark, on a great story. Really enjoyed this one. “I swear I could hear the capital letters.” That made me laugh out lout, and no mere “this just means I think this is kinda funny” LOL, but a great big monosyllabic “Bwah!” Lines like that not only suck me in, but they make me jealous as hell.
When it comes to prophesized heroes who ain’t, my list begins and ends with The Life of Brian. I can’t think of any other stories where the twist was “huh, guess he wasn’t the guy after all,” probably because it would be so hard to write without leaving the reader feeling cheated.
January 24, 2011 at 12:41 am
ZOMG Mark!
I remember this story. It was a ton of fun the first time, and I remember thinking that it was probably going to be successful. I love the idea of everyone encouraging him to go to a home he doesn’t remember; it’s a nice inversion of the typical trope, in which the Speshul Snowflake never feels “at home” in the real world and finally travels to the Magic World where it all feels so “right.” I think the Invisible Kingdom is a much more true-to-life picture, for all its brevity and absurdity.
January 24, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Fun little story. Great job on production, Clay!
January 26, 2011 at 7:06 pm
That was highly entertaining and perfect for the Dunesteef. Also very well-produced. Thank you, Marck and Clay!
March 8, 2011 at 10:05 am
Hey Dunesteef people. I’m running a bit behind in my podcast backlog, but if you all are *still* looking for stories that deal with the Refusal of the Call, I’d recommend a couple of Tim Pratt stories: “Restless in My Hand” is ALL about the refusal of the call. Also: “Another End of the Empire” is about an evil overlord who goes to some very amusing methods to thwart a prophecy of his doom. They’re both online at PodCastle :)
Thanks for another thoroughly entertaining episode!
March 22, 2011 at 7:59 am
Dude! The Dunesteef would knock those out of the park. Podcastle did a great job with them, but in full cast… man, that would be epic. I wonder if Pratt would let the Dunesteef do them?
March 30, 2011 at 9:54 am
Heh. That’s the beauty of non-exclusive audio rights, I guess :)
I actually love both those stories as solo readings (be hard to top Cheyenne Wright’s Morgoth, IMO) but like I said – with non-exclusive rights, you really can have it both ways :)