# Fall Ceramic DM - Final Round Judgment Posted!



## mythago (Nov 1, 2004)

*Quicklinks to Photos, Stories and Judgements:*Use these to avoiding wading through all the discussion between stories.​*First Round* - 72 Hours, 4 pictures
                                        1 Pictures - Macbeth vs Halivar - Judgement
                                         2 Pictures - Rodrigo Istalindir vs Alsih2o - Judgement 
                                         3 Pictures - Dreaded_Beast (Dropped Out) vs FireLance - Berandor's commentary, mythago's commentary
                                         4 Pictures - Eluvan vs RangerWickett - Judgement 
                                         5 Pictures - Boojum vs orchid blossom - Judgment
                                         6 Pictures - Sparky vs Warlord Ralts (Dropped Out)
                                         7 Pictures - MarauderX vs BigTom - Judgment
                                         8 Pictures - SteelDraco vs Piratecat -Judgment

*Second Round* - 72 Hours, 5 pictures
     1 Pictures - Macbeth vs orchid blossom - Judgment
                                  2 Pictures - FireLance vs. Sparky - Judgment
                                  3 Pictures - RangerWickett vs. Rodrigo Istalindir - Judgment
                          4 Pictures - MarauderX vs. Piratecat - Judgment 

*Third Round* - 72 Hours, 5 pictures
            1 Pictures - Macbeth vs. Piratecat - Judgment
             2 Pictures - FireLance vs. Rodrigo Istalindir - Judgment

*Final Round* - 72 Hours, 6 pictures
1 Pictures - FireLance vs. Piratecat - Judgment

Approximate Times based on PST for organizer's home area. Be sure to look at the time posted and compute 72 hours in advance for your local time. This is when your pictures are due.


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## Halivar (Nov 1, 2004)

I'm in!


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## GlassJaw (Nov 1, 2004)

Can someone explain to me what this is?


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 1, 2004)

Pick me! Pick me!

(See my .sig, GlassJaw, for rules, etc.)


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## BSF (Nov 1, 2004)

For those with .sigs turned off...
Ceramic DM FAQ for Fiction

I wholeheartedly encourage folks to give the Ceramic DM a try.  

Mythago, is it going to use the 72 hour time limit?  Will it also use 1st round 4 pics, middle rounds 5 pics and final round 6 pics?  

Thanks!


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## RangerWickett (Nov 1, 2004)

I would like to participate.


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## Eluvan (Nov 1, 2004)

If you don't mind me polluting the competition with my n00bness, I'd love to take a crack at this!


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## FireLance (Nov 1, 2004)

Oh yes, please. May I?


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## MarauderX (Nov 1, 2004)

Hey, put me in again, I need more practice.


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## alsih2o (Nov 1, 2004)

Call me a space hog. I am in.


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## dreaded_beast (Nov 1, 2004)

Sure, I'll try. 

Just go easy on me.


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## Sparky (Nov 1, 2004)

Count me in!


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## Macbeth (Nov 1, 2004)

I'm in and ready to get started.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 1, 2004)

I'm not ready to decide yet!  You can't make me!

Alright, apparently you can.  Throw me in, I could use the practice.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 1, 2004)

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> I'm not ready to decide yet!  You can't make me!
> 
> Alright, apparently you can.  Throw me in, I could use the practice.




Excellent.  A chance to avenge my untimely exit from the last competition.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 1, 2004)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> Excellent.  A chance to avenge my untimely exit from the last competition.




Are we starting the smack-talk already?

Hmm, now which piece of rubble under my shoe were you?  

Seriously, I was impressed with you last time.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll put out there.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 1, 2004)

I don't want to promise to be a judge this time around -- in a new job, SUPER busy and probably won't have time, but I would be willing to write up my usual massively anal-retentive diagnoses of competitor's stories, if they'd like. I just can't promise to do EVERY story in a timely fashion, so I'd rather stay out of the judging this time around.

mythago, if you get stuck, though, I could be talked into it. I'm kind of a pushover for a blinking cursor.


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## Boojum (Nov 1, 2004)

I'm interested in giving it a try, although to some degree it will depend on what the dates and times are.


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## Ralts Bloodthorne (Nov 1, 2004)

I'm in.

Not sure how it works, so give me a few hours to read up on it.


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## Capellan (Nov 2, 2004)

If arwink turns up and offers to judge, could someone slap him for me?  He is much too busy, and he knows it


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## BigTom (Nov 2, 2004)

Count me in!!!!


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Newbies are always welcome.

 Nobody in their right mind can resist a blinking cursor.

 72 hours to write from the datestamp of when the pics are posted; 4 pics first round.

 I'm gonna give a little more time for stragglers.


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## SteelDraco (Nov 2, 2004)

Sure, sounds like fun. Count me in.

Hmmm... need to de-rustify my writing skills, then. Haven't done any genre stuff in a while.

When do you expect the first round to start?


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Macbeth said he was ready to go. What about the rest of youse?


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

I was just talking with Macbeth and he just stepped out to dinner.  I expect he won't be ready to go for at least an hour.  

Looks like a quick start.  I will get the menu framework ready later tonight and probably PM you Mythago.


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## Macbeth (Nov 2, 2004)

Actually, my dinner plans just changed. I'll be here for a while. I can start anytime in the next 3 hours or so.


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

See, the lure of Ceramic DM can even pull college students away from the siren call of food.


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## Halivar (Nov 2, 2004)

I have been checking this thread every fifteen minutes since my last post.

I may lose my job, but I'm ready to go!


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Gosh, all this energy and eagerness. It's really cute. 

 Pics will be up in the morning. Other contestants, please let me know your schedule(s).


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## Macbeth (Nov 2, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Gosh, all this energy and eagerness. It's really cute.
> 
> Pics will be up in the morning. Other contestants, please let me know your schedule(s).



MORNING! I'm not sure I can wait that long...


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## Halivar (Nov 2, 2004)

BTW, thanks for emailing me the first four pics early, Mythago! That PayPal transaction should clear some time next week.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Well, those are really thumbnails, but you'll get the real pics when I get the cash.

 Erm...that is...if you kids REALLY want to get going now, I suppose we can throw you to the wolves early.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 2, 2004)

My schedule is always the same, about 7:30 to 3:30 every weekday at work.  We aren't allowed online at work, so at least one weekend day would really help me out.  (If possible, of course.)

Otherwise I would just ask that pics for me not go up during my work hours, as I won't see them until after.


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## Halivar (Nov 2, 2004)

It puts the pictures in the post then puts the pictures on the web; or it gets the hose!

BTW, how are we going to be paired off? Or is that decided later?


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## Macbeth (Nov 2, 2004)

Halivar, for the first round, I think the pairings are pretty much based on who's available. 

And yeah, I wouldn't mind the pictures now. But I was just kiding. If tomorrow is better, I can wait. Probably.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

I can pair people off as soon as I get schedules. No point in putting somebody who can only do weekends against somebody who can only do Monday-Wednesday.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

ROUND ONE: Halivar vs. Macbeth

 72 hours.


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## Halivar (Nov 2, 2004)

I can view pictures and plan my uber-epic-story on any weekday while at work. I can work on the story any evening but Wed. or Thurs. (not a problem, though, since I can work on it during the day).

IOW, My schedule: open.


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## Macbeth (Nov 2, 2004)

A chicken... and a... a... oh gosh. This may be interesting.


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## FireLance (Nov 2, 2004)

I'm ready.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 2, 2004)

I'm good to go starting tomorrow morning.


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## Halivar (Nov 2, 2004)

Inspiration! I think I'll change my nick to MacDuff!

My novel will be ready for publishing in 72 hours.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 2, 2004)

Weekends would rock for me, if we can actually do that.   

Gook luck gentlemen, those are interesting pics.

No word limit this time out?


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## Macbeth (Nov 2, 2004)

Halivar said:
			
		

> Inspiration! I think I'll change my nick to MacDuff!
> 
> My novel will be ready for publishing in 72 hours.



You wouldn't be the first one. Berandor did it last time round.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

FireLance, Rodrigo, if you guys are willing I'll post your pics tomorrow evening.

 No word limit....yet.


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

A bit light on the smack talk are we?  'Tis a shame really...


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## Macbeth (Nov 2, 2004)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> A bit light on the smack talk are we?  'Tis a shame really...



A shame that Halivar has to be beat in the first round? Indeed, 'tis.


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## Boojum (Nov 2, 2004)

My preference would also be for the weekend, but there really isn't any particular three-day span that I wouldn't be able to spend time writing (it just means that my story hour, my novel, and my school essays will fall further behind).


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## FireLance (Nov 2, 2004)

I should be good to go.

Rodrigo: _En garde!_


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## Sparky (Nov 2, 2004)

Ready to go.


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## dreaded_beast (Nov 2, 2004)

I'm good to go.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 2, 2004)

I'm free any time.  Though I would encourage you to codify the rounds before you start putting up any more pics.  Who all is competing?


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## Maldur (Nov 2, 2004)

good luck anyone!!!



ps as Im a tad busy email me if Im not in time.


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## Berandor (Nov 2, 2004)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> You wouldn't be the first one. Berandor did it last time round.



 ...and won 

But I agree with the Ewok. I don't really know who's participating. 

Good luck to everyone!


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## Eluvan (Nov 2, 2004)

I'm ready to go whenever. 

 It's all good.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 2, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> FireLance, Rodrigo, if you guys are willing I'll post your pics tomorrow evening.
> 
> No word limit....yet.




Works for me.


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## carpedavid (Nov 2, 2004)

Haha. I just saw the first round pictures. Mythago, you warm my heart


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## Halivar (Nov 2, 2004)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> A shame that Halivar has to be beat in the first round? Indeed, 'tis.



I have no words:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!


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## alsih2o (Nov 2, 2004)

I would prefer not to have to write this Saturday, as it is one of my biggest shows of the year.

 Other than that I am free. 

 And I CAN write Saturday, I will just hate you forever, er, I mean, prefer not to.


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## Berandor (Nov 2, 2004)

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I would prefer not to have to write this Saturday, as it is one of my biggest shows of the year.



Stripping, right? 

Just getting in the right mood for judging.


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## alsih2o (Nov 2, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Stripping, right?
> 
> Just getting in the right mood for judging.




 Stripping is when you do it to furniture. I prefer the term "Flay".


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## Berandor (Nov 2, 2004)

Alright, this is what I got from reading the thread.

Contenders (11, in order of joining):
RangerWickett
Eluvan
MarauderX
alsih2o
dreaded_beast
Sparky
orchid blossom
Warlord Ralts
Boojum
BigTom
Steel Draco

--already engaged (4):
Macbeth vs. Halivar
Firelance vs. Rodrigo Istalandir (no pics yet)

which makes for 15 contestants, which would mean 4 rounds with one contestant getting a lucky draw? And no alternates?

mythago?


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Here is the schedule for Round One:

 1.1 Halivar vs. Macbeth (Monday night)
 1.2 Rodrigo Istalindir vs. alsih2o (Tuesday night)
 1.3 dreaded_beast vs. FireLance (Wednesday night)
 1.4 Eluvan vs. RangerWickett (Thursday night)
 1.5 Boojum vs. Orchid Blossom (Friday night)
 1.6 Sparky vs. Warlord Ralts (Saturday morning)
 1.7 MarauderX vs. BigTom (Sunday morning)

 Since Steel Draco came in last, we sacrifice him to the gods for good luck on the battlefield....Oh! Wait! Wrong notes. My bad. 

 Steel Draco, if we get one more straggler in by Friday, I'll be happy to put you and they in as 1.8. Otherwise, you are an alternate should somebody develop terminal writer's cramp.

  Any schedule conflicts, better pipe up now.


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## alsih2o (Nov 2, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> 1.3 dreaded_beast vs. alsih2o (Wednesday night)
> .




 This puts my final day as Saturday. If possible I would prefer to start Tuesday night or Thursday night, if we must include Saturday.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

OK, changed.


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## alsih2o (Nov 2, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> OK, changed.




 You are so good to me.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Hold on to that thought. You will need it when you see the pics.


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## SteelDraco (Nov 2, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Since Steel Draco came in last, we sacrifice him to the gods for good luck on the battlefield....



Bwa? Are you sure you don't mean sacrifice the Ewok or Eluvian? 'cause really, I think I belong in that time slot. ;-)


> Oh! Wait! Wrong notes. My bad.



Groovy! So who gets sacrificed, then?



> Steel Draco, if we get one more straggler in by Friday, I'll be happy to put you and they in as 1.8. Otherwise, you are an alternate should somebody develop terminal writer's cramp.



That works fine. Today and Wednesday are the only really bad days for me, and it looks like that's not going to be an issue.


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

Hmm, after tomorrow I should have a better idea if my wife will be in surgery next week.  If nobody else volunteers, and she doesn't need surgery, I will square off with SteelDraco.  Though if anybody else wants to jump in, please do so!  

CarpeDavid?  You in this time around?  You know you want to.  Don't worry about that Iron DM tourney that is going on soon.  You can do both yet again.

Hey Barsoomcore, why not you?  Sure you have won once.  But that no longer puts you at the top of the block.  We have folks that have won more than once.  

Taladas?  NiTessine?  Francisca?  Somebody new?  One more slot to fill and an alternate would be great.  C'mon folks, let's get some stories written!


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

I hope your wife will not need the surgery! (And that has nothing to do with getting you into Ceramic DM, I promise._


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## dreaded_beast (Nov 2, 2004)

Hmm, Wednesday night is my DND night, so I would prefer to do it sooner than later.

However, if I understand the rules correctly, we have 72 hours after the pictures have been posted to come up with something right? So does that mean I have 72 hours after my scheduled round to come up with my story/adventure?

If that is the case, then Wednesday would be fine.


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## mythago (Nov 2, 2004)

Yes. I can see how that would be confusing--to clarify, the time listed for a round is the time when the pictures will be posted, NOT the deadline. So, dreaded_beast, your pics go up Wednesday night but your story is not due until Saturday night.

 Please note that the timestamp matters. If I post a set of pics on Monday at 8:35 p.m., then entries are due Thursday at 8:35 p.m. If you get them up at 9:00 p.m. you're too late, even though it is "Thursday night."


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## dreaded_beast (Nov 2, 2004)

Ok, good to go then.

Can't wait till tommorrow. I assume the pictures and all queries related for this season of Cermic DM can be addressed in this thread?

Thanks!


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

Dreaded_Beast, thanks for pointing that out.  I will try to think of a way to make that very clear in the FAQ.  

To clarify.  Each pairing has a different set of pics.  So, the pics for Macbeth/Halivar will be different than the pics for Rodrigo Istalindir/Alsih2o, which will be different than the pics for Dreaded_Beast/Firelance, etc.  

Once the pics are posted, you have up to 72 hours to turn in the story based on those pics.  We are a global community, so compute that 72 hours for your local time.  

A couple of pointers:
For maximum effect, treat your pics as the "illustrations" for your story.  If a publisher is going to use illustrations, trivial details won't be chosen to be illustrated.  You should strive to integrate each picture in a meaningful manner to your story.  If you don't, but your opponent does, your opponent is more likely to be advanced to the next round.  

It is _hard_ to do this, but that is the challenge of the competition.  

Also, you will generally be marked down for using the pictures as pictures within the story.  Sure, you can do it, but you are taking a risk with it.  

Picture use is one of the most important aspects of the Ceramic DM.  Grammar and spelling are important as well, but the pictures are your ingredients.  This is like the Iron Chef.  You are given ingredients and you need to use those ingredients as creatively as possible.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 2, 2004)

Oh, and a word of advice.  If your computer says it's 1:15, but EN World says it's 1:17, listen to EN World.  I almost got disqualified by turning something in according to my clock.  Now, according to www.time.gov, EN World's clock is fast, but oh well.


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## MarauderX (Nov 2, 2004)

I may have missed this, but are we to have a minimum of 5000 words for the first round, 6k for the second and so on?  

Sunday morning works great for me, I hope we get a set of good pics to work with.  Are you ready for it BigTom?


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## Piratecat (Nov 2, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Since Steel Draco came in last, we sacrifice him to the gods for good luck on the battlefield....Oh! Wait! Wrong notes. My bad.
> 
> Steel Draco, if we get one more straggler in by Friday, I'll be happy to put you and they in as 1.8. Otherwise, you are an alternate should somebody develop terminal writer's cramp.




Live dangerously, that's what I say. One can not improve if one does not write. If there's still space, I'm in, and can go with photos on Sunday night or any time Monday.  Last time I got booted in round one on a story I really liked; let's see if my sensibilities match the judges' this time.


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

Mwuhahahahah

Piratecat has been sucked back into the fold and will try for the elusive Ceramic DM title.  

Most excellent.  It looks to be a great round with a varietyof experienced competitors and those trying for the first time. It will be fun to watch the competition unfold.


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## Piratecat (Nov 2, 2004)

I'm unfolding my competition RIGHT NOW. Turns out it's bigger than it looks from the outside, IYKWIM, AITYD. I'm going into this with a very zen attitude: there is no striving. There is no longing. There is no twitching when I consider my photos. There is only the story.


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## alsih2o (Nov 2, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> there is no striving. There is no longing. There is no twitching when I consider my photos.




 That's _Reader's Digest_ , this is Ceramic DM.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 2, 2004)

Welcome PirateCat!  I wondered if we'd see you in here.

I still think you got out last time in the first round on purpose, just so you wouldn't have to face me.


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## Zhaneel (Nov 2, 2004)

*wave*  Heyla all.  Good to see this going again.  Luck to all the  competitors and I'll just stand back here and warm myself by the fire as I wait for the roasting.

Zhaneel


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 2, 2004)

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> Welcome PirateCat!  I wondered if we'd see you in here.
> 
> I still think you got out last time in the first round on purpose, just so you wouldn't have to face me.




You're partly right.  Notice how he waited till all the other pairings were set, and *then* he decided to join in?  I don't think that was a coincidence, but it was me he was afraid of.


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## Sparky (Nov 2, 2004)

Mmmhmmm... I _did_ notice that, Rodrigo.


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## BSF (Nov 2, 2004)

By that arguement, you could say that Piratecat waited until there was only one spot left and then took it knowing I wouldn't be able to compete.  He was clearly avoiding *me*.


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## SteelDraco (Nov 3, 2004)

Little does he know he's going down in flames anyway.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 3, 2004)

SteelDraco said:
			
		

> Little does he know he's going down in flames anyway.




That reminds me of an old French fighter pilot joke.  . . .   But it's not grandma friendly.

Good luck to everyone!  Trash talk makes butterflies well up inside my soul, because it shows that we love each other!  *cue overly cute imagery culled from a thousand Clamp anime series*

Oh, and folks, if you're looking for something interesting to read before the competition gets rolling, The Mother of Dreams is a serialized story I'm writing on the storyhour forum.  Give it a look.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 3, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> That reminds me of an old French fighter pilot joke.  . . .   But it's not grandma friendly.
> 
> Good luck to everyone!  Trash talk makes butterflies well up inside my soul, because it shows that we love each other!  *cue overly cute imagery culled from a thousand Clamp anime series*
> 
> Oh, and folks, if you're looking for something interesting to read before the competition gets rolling, The Mother of Dreams is a serialized story I'm writing on the storyhour forum.  Give it a look.





Link to non-grandma friendly French fighter pilot joke.


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## mythago (Nov 3, 2004)

MarauderX, no word limit. If somebody turns in an actual novel I may reconsider.

 Rodrigo Istalindir vs. alsih2o -


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## alsih2o (Nov 3, 2004)

OOH! I almost squealed. I collect metal nibs. Crow quills, whatever you wanna call them. Let's hope that is a good omen. 

 EDIT: Wait a minute!! I got Rodrigo in the first round? Don't I get preferential treatment or somehting? Isn't there some schnmuck non-contender I could go against? Maybe a myopic chimp? 


 Please?


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 3, 2004)

Are you implying that I am:

a)  a non-schmuck non-contender?
b)  a schmuck contender?
c)  a farsighted chimp?
d)  a myopic non-primate?

 

I guess 'D'.  But my mom will be most distressed to find out she birthed a non-primate.  Dad won't be too pleased, either.  At least *I* don't squeal.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 3, 2004)

Heh...5 pages of trash talk and no stories yet....

This is gonna be a long one...


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## Piratecat (Nov 3, 2004)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> This is gonna be a long one...




If I were you, I'd quit talking about my "competition" and concentrate on your story. Ahem.

Anyways, I'm sure that the pictures I'll get are going to be _simple._ Yessiree. Simple. Ahem. Paying attention, judges? SIM-PLE.

My "How to hypnotize women" pamphlet better be working, damn it.

Truth is, I'll never tell who I was trying to avoid because I was terrified to face them. It's a _secret._


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## Macbeth (Nov 3, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Truth is, I'll never tell who I was trying to avoid because I was terrified to face them. It's a _secret._



Oh great, I didn't even care who you were scared of until you posted. Now I really want to know. Dang you and your reverse psychology!


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## Ao the Overkitty (Nov 3, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Anyways, I'm sure that the pictures I'll get are going to be _simple._ Yessiree. Simple. Ahem. Paying attention, judges? SIM-PLE.




What could be simpler than hands and globes?


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## Piratecat (Nov 3, 2004)

Bite me.  Just because you know of my arch-nemesis doesn't mean you have to rub it in.


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## BSF (Nov 3, 2004)

You mean there are people that _don't_ know?

I think I just found a new entry for the FAQ.


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## yangnome (Nov 3, 2004)

shoot, I missed the sign up...oh well, nanowrimo is going to be taking my writing time this month anyway.


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## Berandor (Nov 3, 2004)

yangnome, would you consider being an alternate?
BSF, would you?

Just in case...


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## dreaded_beast (Nov 3, 2004)

Hmm, isn't it tiime for my battle?

So, do we post our stories on this thread?


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## BSF (Nov 3, 2004)

I should have a better idea what my next couple of weeks look like later today.  

Dreaded_Beast, yes post the stories here in this thread.  You should also choose a way to annotate your pictures so it is clear where they are being used.  If nobody else beats me to it, I will get a synopsis on how to annotate your pictures posted in this thread, and in the FAQ.


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## Berandor (Nov 3, 2004)

As a judge, let me just say that I like links to the pictures, even if in a connotation. It helps me to better visualize when the pic should come into effect, and it's less work for me


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## Maldur (Nov 3, 2004)

Write, my pretties, write!

*cracks whip*


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## barsoomcore (Nov 3, 2004)

*takes whip from Maldur, cracks with gusto*

Write like the mad, desperate, hopeless fools that you are! Write, I say! Write!

*hands whip back*

Geez, this is more fun than... This is lots of fun.


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## BSF (Nov 3, 2004)

Woot!  

Things are looking pretty good on the home front.  I feel much better and if there is a need for an alternate, I think I can jump in.  Otherwise, I will happily sit here on the sidelines cheering for good writing.


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## FireLance (Nov 4, 2004)

dreaded_beast said:
			
		

> Hmm, isn't it tiime for my battle?
> 
> So, do we post our stories on this thread?



Our pic should be posted in a couple hours or so, I think. I hope I'll get the chance to look them over before I leave the house.


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## mythago (Nov 4, 2004)

Round 1.3, dreaded_beast vs. FireLance


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## NiTessine (Nov 4, 2004)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Taladas?  NiTessine?  Francisca?  Somebody new?  One more slot to fill and an alternate would be great.  C'mon folks, let's get some stories written!




Probably couldn't have participated, even if I had found this thread in time, since I've got a bigger fish to fry, with NaNoWriMo. First time I don't mind having to miss Ceramic DM.

Good luck to you, and to all the other competitors. May your pens flow with ingenuous expression and witty dialogue. May your metaphors be fitting and your spelling flawless. Go forth, and write to the best of thine ability.

Shameless plug: Read an excerpt of my novel in progress!


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## Macbeth (Nov 4, 2004)

_Match 1, Round 1: Halivar vs. Macbeth_
*Caille*
By Sage LaTorra, a.k.a. Macbeth


If my life were a story, this would be the end.

Your entire life you build an ideal. An education. A home. A job. Ikea furniture. A hybrid car. You make it all so perfect, and then this happens.

Your family comes back to haunt you. One minute you’ve got a promising career in mid-level management. Nothing special, just your life. 

Then your ancestors decide you’re special.

They couldn’t have done these years ago. They couldn’t have kept you from leaving. They let you run around the world, move out of the village, see what the world is like. Then they decide you’re special. You weren’t special years ago, you weren’t a special child. But now you’re important. You’re the next shaman.

That’s the kind of baggage that comes with being part of a tribe. Radio waves pass through your village, just like any other place on Earth. CAT-5 cable forms a spider’s web beneath the ground the tribe’s bare feet walk on. If you walk a few miles, you can pick up the nearest WI-FI hotspot. And yet they walk around like nothing has changed. Bare feet, face paint, beads, the whole shtick. 

Our tribe has a shaman. There aren’t many shaman left in Africa. They get tangled in the web of CAT-5, drawn by the siren call of the WI-FI hotspot. But somehow we still have one, and now I’m set to be the next one.

I don’t want to be the next shaman. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days dirty with dry dust, communing with spirits or whatever it is the shaman does. If my life were a story, this would be the conflict.



I hate the trip back almost as much as I know I’ll hate being back. 

It’s a string of plane rides and Dramamine. Every airline seat feels the same, the same music streaming at a steady 128kps from my iPod, the same warnings about turning off your cell phone. I down another Dramamine, and try to fall asleep.

Dreaming isn’t any better.

Because my dream is nothing.

I’ve never had a dream like this before. I fall asleep, and I know I’m asleep but I don’t wake up. It’s complete freedom, knowing that this is a dream. Knowing nothing I do here has any meaning. 

I spend a minute contemplating my options. Considering if my body will still move if I do something in a dream. And its a minute too long.

I wake up to the steady 128kbps of digital music. 1 and 0, true and false, something and nothing, somehow mixing to form the trendy, alternative, “I-liked-them-before-they-were-popular” music that flows through my ear buds. I curse myself for wasting my freedom, for not acting. I was in a world where nothing I did mattered, where I could do anything, and I wasted it. Great.



The village hasn’t changed. I haven’t been here in years, and it’s still the same as when I left. It’s like the overprotective parents, leaving their son’s room just as it was when he left for college. The tribe is my parents, and now that I’m gone, now that I’m special, they keep everything the same for me, when  all I want is change. I don’t want to go home, I want home to be gone.

I spend a minute reflecting on the cobbled together society that still lives in the village. A hodge-podge of French, American and African traditions, the byproduct of one-time slaves returning home from Louisiana. How can I have pride in my culture when I know that my own name sounds more like something you'd throw in jambalaya then a proper village name?

I feel out of place in my slacks and travel jacket. I briefly consider taking them off before they see me, but its too late.

“Petro!”

It's the last person I want to see.

“Everyone, Petro's here!”

She doesn't even sound like a villager anymore. So long native tongue, hello lingua franca.

“Dom Petro, you're not even going to hug your mother?”

The condemnation in her voice rings true. Here your expected to be excited. No more calm, cool, and collected, hello family.

I hug her. More for show then anything, more because I have to then because I want to. I want to tell her I'm still angry. I want to ask her why I'm special now. I want her to be so mad at me that she'll tell me to go away. To go back to my real home. If this were a story, I would do those things. It would be more dramatic.

Instead of any of those things, I say “How are things mom?”

“Same same same. How's our big college man? Still living in New York?”

“Yes Mom.”

“Good good. Now we've got to find you some clothes. You'll bake in those. All your old things got handed down, but I'm sure we can find something.”

She leads me into what was once my home. The little hut, just another shabby home among the shambles of thee village. 

All my old things are gone. Can't say that surprises me. She tells me to wait there while she finds some clothes.

She's back with clothes too soon. I want her to take longer, so I can spend a little longer in my nice synthetic fabrics. Instead she comes back in a couple of minutes. Goodbye comfort, hello home.



I still can't sleep. I know that tomorrow I have to go see old man Mende. I know that tomorrow he'll take me away from the village, to train me. Each shaman passes on his secrets only to the next shaman. They leave the village for a few days, a week, maybe a month, and then only the new shaman comes back. The old one never returns. 

I know tomorrow Mende will take me so far away from the village I won't have wireless.

My cell phone won't work where he's taking me.

So I spend the night thinking about ways to bring my stuff with me. Ways to bring my cell phone, or my PDA, my iPod, my GPS, anything. Even my wrist watch would be enough to give me a bond to real civilization.

I consider swallowing my gear. But its too big to swallow, and I haven't the foggiest how I would get it back out.

I consider other body cavities that could hold something. That idea doesn't last for long.

I finally fall asleep, cursing my dirty, grimy, dry, dusty, back water, no water, out of the way, backwards, sandy, horrible, boring, off the trailing edge of technology, miserable village. 

If my life were a story, it would have too many adjectives.



Mende is my village incarnate.

He embodies everything I hate. He looks like your stereotypical villager, a century or two out of style, and he doesn't even do that right. His voice breaks the illusion. It's the voice of a professor, the voice of a teacher, a doctor, a scholar, and it speaks perfect English. So much for the shaman, hello imitation.

He seems about as mystical as the dirt under his feet.

The only word he's said since I arrived at his hut at the butt crack of dawn is Hello.

I said hello back. Neither of us has spoken since. 15 minutes, half an hour, something like that –I'm lost without my wrist watch, my PDA, something to tell the time– of pure silence.

If my life were a story, it would have better dialogue.

He's been sitting there the whole time, but the longer I watch him the more here he seems. Like he's fading in slowly. Of course I know he isn't fading in. He's been here the whole time. My eyes tell me he isn't fading in, but it still feels like he's more here then he was when I arrived. More solid. More now.

If my life were a story, it would have better special effects.

He's the stereotype I hate:(1) bright red, hand dyed fabrics. Leopard skins. Shells from the last time our tribe visited the ocean. War paints bringing him into contrast, bringing him out of the background, making him part of the picture. A fly swatter in one hand that hasn't moved the entire time I've been here, despite the flies everywhere. A staff that must be his is stuck in the ground next to him.

He finally moves when a small animal, maybe a merecat, runs out of a stand of grass. The animal runs up to Mende, puts it's front paws into his lap, and he finally moves. His hands move to pet the creature, and his head finally moves to look at it.

For the second time since I've been here,  he speaks. “Is that so, Legba?”

Oh great. He's just like all old people, he talks to his pets. Here I am, now that they finally decided I was important, decided I was to be a shaman, and he talks to an animal instead of me.

“Ah, it is time for me to go now. The new one will take care of you.” He's still talking to the damn animal.

As if it could actually understand him, the animal runs back into the bushes.

Mende finally rises from his seat, and he seems to grow as he stands. “Now, Dom Petro, is our time. Are you ready to go?”

I'm not ready. “Yes.”

“No you aren't. You couldn't be. That's the important part. Now let's go. Follow me. It's time you saw something important.”

“Aren't you going to ask me to leave things behind first? Shouldn't I be without evil technology as I go on my journey?” The sarcasm drips from my words, leaving marks in the dry ground. 

“No no no, I believe you can bring along anything you'd like. Mind though, it won't help you much.”

If my life were a story, he would make me venture into the wilderness with only my wits about me. This isn't nearly dramatic enough.

Mende starts walking away. I have no way to go expect to follow him.



“Before we get to the caille, you'll need these.” I don't even bother to ask what the caille is. That's probably what he wants me to do.

He stretches out his arm, distorting the war paints on his skin, holding his hand over mine.

“They're important, in their own way.” He drops 8 shells into my hand. They're garish in color, raising the question of how the hell he dyed these to get that kind of color. Reds, purples, blues, silvers, and more, each shell painted one solid color, all with a metallic sheen.(2)

“What are these supposed to be?” I know it's the question he wants me to ask, but I figure one question can't hurt.

“Shells, Petro. They are definitely shells.”

Mende is damn snarky for an old man. But his voice never looses that tone, that tone says he has something to teach you.

Walking away from the village kicks up dust with every step. Like some two-bit western, Mende and I walk towards the caille.



We walk all day. If my life were a story, it would skip over this part. The long day, the small sips of water from Mende's water skin, my always dry lips, the relentless sun. 

Its sunset when Mende slows down. “We're here, Dom Petro. The caille.”

The sun is going down directly in front of us. We've walked all day, and finally all that's in front of us is a small river. Or at least it seems like a river. When the glare of the sun is just right, I can see that it's not a river. It's a circular pool, and what I thought was the other side of the river is actually an island in the middle. If my life was a story, I would have just lost you. This shouldn't be here. So much for suspension of disbelief, hello gaping plot holes.

And it gets worse.

As the sun sets, it seems the glow of the setting sun just settle onto the island. As night sets in, the setting sun's glow sits somewhere in the center of the island. In the dimmer light, other lights start shinning. Flickering shadows of... people, maybe?... come and go in front of the dancing lights, and the glow of the setting sun.(3)

I realize I've been standing here, with my mouth open, for a few minutes. Watching the sun set into an island in the middle of a circular river in the heart of Africa. If my life was a story, George Lucas would be jealous of the special effects.

And then I realize Mende is smiling at me, for the first time. “It is amazing. The caille, Dom Petro, the caille.” 

Maybe the old man knows what he's talking about after all.

I'm still standing there, staring at the caille, trying to close my mouth, when Mende starts chanting. Poetry maybe, or a rhythmic song.

_“Round river, Set sun,
The loa's daily feast be won,
and there the shaman's secret rest,
the old shaman knows it best...”_

He says the nursery rhyme lyrics with a reverence that doesn't fit. It takes me a minute to find that I no longer care about the caille, I find myself lost in Mende's lyrics instead. The simple rhythm, the childish words, the deep reverence, it draws me in, makes me want to go deeper. “What's the song, Old Man Mende?”

“Nothing, Petro, nothing. It's an old song, it lost it's power long ago. Once it was part of a dance that the loa danced, and that we danced to feed the loa. The old shaman, back when we were the hougan, before the Loa changed, the old hougans sang the song to feed the loa. Now it's just meaningless words, like all the old songs.”

He makes me think of the loa, the god-spirits of our people. A shaman serves them, gives them food and drink, lets them use his body to act in pour world.

“The old songs. Mende?”

“The caille song, the culling song, all of them. They all lost their power. Now the shaman doesn't even need to learn the song.”

I don't know what I need to learn, but I do know I want to learn that song.

“So you won't teach it to me?”

“No, Dom Petro. Maybe the loa will, but they are week now. Now if you'll give me a minute.” 

Mende walks away into the bushes, and I can only assume he must be going to relieve himself. I wait for him, still watching the caille, the place where the sunset lives.

Mende comes back with a chicken. Where he found a chicken out here I can only guess, but he puts it down next to me. “Now you have what you need. Dom Petro, you are now ready.”

Yeah, right. If my life was a story, I would have a snide comment to fire back at him. I need a script writer.

“Dom Petro, you can now know the loa. There is a secret here, a secret knowledge that you must gain to move on. I will leave you here, and go to the caille, to feed the loa. You will stay here. You have everything you need. When you feel you are ready, when you know it in your spirit, your gros-bon-ages, you can leave. This isn't a test. You only answer to yourself. Goodbye, Dom Petro. You are a shaman now, in the traditions of the hougans.”

And he left. The old Mende just left. I'm standing here, and I can't get over it. He just left, walked away. He walked around the circular river, and around behind the caille, and he never cam out the other side. The perspective almost made it look like he was walking across the water to the caille, but that's crazy.

And that's it. I can leave now, I'm a shaman. Or at least I will be when I have this revelation he kept talking about.

So.

Revelation.

On it's way... now.

Nope. False alarm.

This could be harder then I thought.



Still nothing. If my life was a story, this would be easier. This would be the training montage.

As best I can tell without my PDA, my cell phone, my watch, or my GPS, it must be about midnight, and I'm still here, still clueless as to what revelation it is I'm supposed to be having. I can't even sleep. I'm too caught up in this revelation I should be having.

Enlightenment on cue.

I force myself to stare at the sleeping chicken until I finally nod off. 

I can tell I'm dreaming. It's the same freedom again, the same knowledge that no matter what I do, I can wake up and it won't matter. I'm free to do anything, because I just don't care.



Waking up isn't fun.

My eyes open to the chicken standing in front of me, like it knows I should be working, I should be revelating right now. It walks in front of my eyes, clucking quietly, like it's laughing at me for not having found it by now, not having my revelation when Mende said I should.(4)

I sit up and try to get the dirt out of my hair. Nothing like sleeping on the ground to make you appreciate a nice mattress made of material so high tech NASA had to make it. Hell, sleeping on this ground would make me appreciate a mat back in the village.

The sun is still set on the caille. And I still have no idea why I'm here. No revelation yet. 

I could just leave.

I could leave, and nobody would know.

But I would. And maybe, if Mende was right, the loa would. No, I can't do that. I'll stay here. If they think I'm so special, I'll just have to prove them right.

I spend the day considering how much everybody is depending on me. How I have no power, since I have to live up to other's ideals. I stack the shells Mende gave me. I consider how I'm supposed to need them. How they're supposed to help me.

The chicken just struts around and eats some grass.

It's sunset when I realize how thirsty I am. I haven't had water since Mende left. I walk over to the river around the caille, bend over, and take a drink.

Its disgusting.

I don't know if it's pollution, minerals, or something else, but the water isn't drinkable. 

And I have a problem.



It's easy to panic when you learn you're lost in the middle of Africa with no fresh water.

It's even easier to panic when you realize you have nowhere to go.

If I choose a direction, and get lost, I'm screwed.

If I stay here, I'm screwed. 

Goodbye choices, hello death. There's no way out. I don't know where I am, so I can't get back. I don't even know what direction we came from. I don't know my way around as well as I used to, and I wasn't paying attention to which way we came.

I have an idea where we came from, but what if I'm wrong. What if I go the wrong way. Then I don't stand a chance. At least here, at the caille, there's a chance I might be seen. Some plane must fly over this thing, and they're more likely to look down at this... island, then at some random bushland.

I can live without water for 3-4 days. Food's not a problem, I can go a week or more without food, water's the issue. 

And there's no way to get more water. The pool is not good for drinking. Mende left with his water skin. Which leaves me high and dry. Like the rest of this desert.



By my best estimate, I have 48 hours to live. 48 hours to find out how the loa can talk to me, and get them to help me. A revelation with a deadline.

Like a office assignment: get this done by this time. Except if I fail, I get fired from life, not a middle management position.

So I have to have a revelation. I've tried everything. Meditation. Prayer. Math. Science. Laying spread-eagle on the ground and hoping something important happens.

Nothing.

The loa must not like me.

So what do I do now?

I think. I think about how I'm failing. How I've let everybody down. How the village is going to be without a shaman for the first time in ages. I think about how they chose the wrong guy. How I'm not a shaman. 

And still no revelation.

If my life was a story, you would have stopped reading by now. The protagonist is all but dead. He failed. Might as well stop reading now. No use seeing how pitiful it gets.

They shouldn't have trusted me. I'm not part of this culture anymore, they shouldn't have trusted me with this. All the pressure on me, the weight of my own little world, and I let them down.

I'm just reaching for ideas now. Maybe its a puzzle. Maybe I feed the shells to the chicken. Maybe the chicken can fly me home. Maybe the chicken is a loa.

The chicken stares at me with the same blank gaze. I don't think its a loa.

So I'm at square one. The chicken wanders off again. It's been doing that every once in a while, but it always comes back. Stupid chicken.



It's night. I have maybe 36 hours to live, at my best guess. The chicken's back. The shells still sit there as useless as always. I'm still here, revelation-less.

I'm running out of time.

I still feel bad for how much everybody is going to be let down.

I'm getting desperate. It's time for action.

I'm still thinking about crossing the water. Following Mende. But then I still fail. Maybe I live, but my life's already over. I have to succeed. At this point, I can only live as a shaman. Everything else is gone.

Just out of spite for Mende's path, for him getting to cross to the island, and me being left behind, I chuck one of the shells over the water at the setting sun glow. 

“You want your stupid shells back, Mende? They're definitely shells. And they're not getting me out of this royal pile of .”

I throw every one of them. I  may have just lost a tool I needed, but I don't really care anymore. Mende thinks I need them, but I don't care, I'll do it without them.



The chicken is getting on my nerves. I'm almost dead, I can feel it, and all I can think about is how much I hate this chicken. My hate of this chicken knows no limits. I'm all alone, dying, with only a chicken to keep me company.

If my life were a story, it would have a supporting cast out here to keep me company.

And a laugh track. My life could use a laugh track at this point, because things are pretty funny. They're funny because it all doesn't matter. It's funny because I know that I'm done. I just don't care.

I just don't care, so now I can take action. It's the freedom from my dreams: I'm so close to death that I can do anything. It really won't effect me.

So I start walking. Nothing better to do. Might as well get away from Mende's callie. On a whim I choose the direction that the chicken has been wondering in.

It heavy bush this way, but about half a mile out, I find it.

I'm saved. I've had my revelation.

Lying in the middle of the brush is an old chicken cage, a water skin, and a note. 

Mende knew what I would do. That's the revelation he wanted. He wanted me to stop caring what others think, stop worrying about letting others down, and act. I realized it all doesn't matter, so now I'm free.

Sly old bastard.

I pick up the water skin. I try to drink slowly. I don't want to overwhelm myself. 

With drops still dribbling down my chin, I pick up the note.

_Now you know how we contact the loa. Now you know the gentle indifference of the world, and you gain power from that. Now that you can put everything else aside, you can connect with something greater. Remember this: as long as you know that nothing you do matters, you can do anything. Now that you know this world can not effect you, the greater world, and the loa, can work through you. This is not the end, this is the beginning._

Sly old bastard. 

The shells were just there to test me, to make sure I had something to focus on. To give me something to work towards the wrong answer with. And the chicken. 

The chicken is talking to me.

“Dom Petro. You made it. Welcome to the worl between. Now that you understand that this world is absurd, that nothing you do matters, you are between the world of man and our world.”

“So are you...”

“A loa? Yes, Dom Petro, I am a loa, and now your training really begins.”

He's right. I can feel something greater. This world is nothing to me, and I can feel the greater spirit, whatever you call it. I am a shaman, and I can't let anybody down, because this world has done it's worst to me. I have realized that not matter what the people think of me, it makes no difference, and now the loa can work through me.

If my life were a legend, this would be the beginning.








Picture Use:

(1)Mende, the old shaman, with his animal.

(2)The shells Mende gives Petro as a red herring.

(3)The caille, where shaman feed the Loa.

(4)The chicken that the loa rides.


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## Macbeth (Nov 4, 2004)

Whew. Got it done, decided to post it early. If any of the other contestans would like to comment on my story, or any of the other stories that will eventually be posted, I've started a judge free feedback thread (since we had one last time around, I figured I'd start one this time, if the judges object, PCat or any other mod should feel free to close it). Do your worst.


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## Maldur (Nov 4, 2004)

macbeth is fast, maybe cracking whips does help 

*cracks whip some more*


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## Berandor (Nov 4, 2004)

Where there's a whip, there's a way.


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## Macbeth (Nov 4, 2004)

Wow. You know it's bad when I'm dying from anticipation, and my oponent hasn't even posted his story.

Speaking of which, it would be nice if somebody would post their story. I could use some reading while I'm at work.


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## BSF (Nov 4, 2004)

Useless bit of trivia:  This is Macbeth's 10th Ceramic DM story.  

Nice story Macbeth.  I will see if I can cough up some commentary for you in the other thread.  Maybe after I go get some food though.  Late lunch today...


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## mythago (Nov 5, 2004)

Round 1.4, Eluvan vs. RangerWickett


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## mythago (Nov 5, 2004)

Oh, another tip for the newish folks:

 Don't get hung up on the file names. Just because a picture of a hill is called "barrow.jpg" doesn't mean that it's a burial mound and you have to put it in your story as such. 

 Remember, the only judging guideline for the pics is that they are important--that if an editor were selecting illustrations for your story or your published adventure, they'd use those pics instead of something else. So if you look at "barrow.jpg" and think it looks like a nice hill for your character to have a picnic on, feel free.


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## Halivar (Nov 5, 2004)

*Halivar vs. MacBeth, round 1*

*The Outher Darkness*
by Halivar
(please forgive my formatting if it sucks. I tried!)

	I hate Mardi Gras. It's the worst time of the year. I swear, if I knew I'd have to put up with this constant racket, I'd have stayed in Jersey. I _certainly_ wouldn't have gotten an office on Bourbon Street. But things got too hot, see? Had to made a break for it. Thought I'd run for the border, but my toll money ran out in New Or-leenz. Not a bad city; when it's not Mardi Gras.
	The name? Rich Davenport, private eye. It's another year, another carnival. I having a little nightcap, but I'm not ready for bed yet. See, a private dick has to keep late office hours. I tip the shades, just enough to see the procession of the drunken clowns singin' “When the saints go marching in.” I swear, if I hear that song one more time, somone's gonna catch it in the kisser.
	It's dark in my office, with only the lamps from outside filtering through the shades to tell my where I set my drink. Alice, my seceratary (who hates my guts for making her keep the same hours I do) keeps the light on outside my door. I notice immediately when someone comes to my door by the shadow that covers the frosted glass with the words, “.I.P ,tropnevaD drahciR”. Of course, the letters are all backwards.
	There's a shape at the window. Female, heavy-set, stupid hat. It's Alice.
	Knock, knock. “Mr. Davenport, there's a client here to see you,” Alice drawls from behind the glass. Geez, I hate that accent. They call my hometown “juh-zee” instead of a good, proper “joi-zee.”
	“Send her in,” I reply gruffly. I always act like it's a bother. Help in price negotiations. I sit up and take notice when a much slimmer shadow comes over the glass. I prop up my legs on the desk; gotta be casual, see?
	So in walks this dame; real leggy piece o' work, too. I know who the blonde bombshell is just by the mink coat she's wearing in the hot, muggy “Law-zyana” nighttime. “Miss Boo-cheer, I presume?”
	“Boo-shay,” she corrects. Everyone knows who Madame Bouchier is. As far as “madames” go, Bouchier is the queen. She's untouchable in the eyes of the law; she's so pristine you can clean your bathroom just by uttering her name in it. Her deal is to get her goons to do her dirty work. Guys like me.
	“Whatever it is you're sellin', I ain't buyin',” I say. I leave off “for cheap” because it's kind of implied in my line of work.
	“Wah, Detective Davenport, ah simply blanche at the thought that the most prest-ih-gee-ous detective in all of law-zyana maht assume the worst of such a hah society lady as mah-self.” Oh, how I hate that accent. She slinks; no, _slithers_ over to the seat in front of my desk and sits. “Cigarette?”
	I stand up, walk over and offer her my open cigarette tin. After lighting the cigarette from her (ever am I the gentlemen in the presence of such grace), I return to my reclining position. “So, what's it gonna be? Naughty husband? Thieving employee?” I know it's something big. Something she wants secret. “Prestigious,” my left foot. This dame wants somethin' she's not supposed to have, and a no-name private dick is just the one to get it for her.
	She takes a long drag, and blows a smoke cloud over her shoulder. The whole scene, even her pose, is a straight cop off a Marlenne Dietrich movie. The broad may have class, but she's lacks originality; that's for sure. “I wanna know the location of a book, mistah Davenport.”
	“A book? What kind of book?” I say.
	“It's a foreign title. French. Do you know French, mistah Davenport?” she replies.
	“Only when I'm kissin',” I retort. Her cool, unflinching stare tell me my joke has gone over like the Hindenburg.
	“The book,” she continues, as if I had not spoken, “was recently puh-chased bah a book-collector bah the name of Jacques Diamonde.” I knew it. I knew it was a dirty job. If Diamond Jack is a book-seller then I'm John D. Rockefeller. Diamond Jack is the dirties, lowest, scummiest thug in all of New Or-leenz. I swear, he must be the bastard child of Al Capone; no doubt he make his old man proud, too. Madame Bouchier has her hands in many pies, but the ones marked “Diamond Jack” are off-limits; those pies are locked in a safe in a mine field surrounded by a guard fence with barb-wire. That's not counting the machine guns and battleships.
	Could Madame Bouchier be moving into Jack's territory all of a sudden? This dame must be crazy. I try to take another swig from my bourbon, but it's empty. “Want one?” I say as I walk over to the decanter.
	She ignores me. “The book is titled _Le Obscurité Externe_.” She proffers a slip of paper, presumably with the name of the book on it, as it's now apparent I don't speak French. Interesting question: the slip indicates she already knew I didn't; but how?
	I return to my relaxed seat and say, “Diamond Jack... that raises the price. Steeply.”
	She returns, “I'm prepared to reward you handsomely. All I want is to know is if he has it; and if he does, where it is.” It's a mistake, I tell myself. I can't do this. It's the dumbest thing I will ever have done in my life. If I do this, I'll be run out on a rail, and that's if I live through it. It'll be New York all over again. Then again, I'm three months late on rent for this office.
	“All right,” I say, “I'm in.”

	Mardis Gras is irritating in the confines of your own office. It's downright oppressive when you gotta wade through it. I gotta get away from the party if I'm gonna make it to Jack's. Something tells me he keeps odd office hours, like me. The noise is terrible, the ladies are are clawin' on me like harpies, and I realize I've stepped right into the middle of some silly parade. I gotta make a break for it, but first I have to navigate these mounted Krewe clowns. Oh, how I hate Now Or-leenz during Mardi Gras.
	I find my jalopy a half-mile from the office. I knew this morning that I'd have to give the foot traffic a wide berth. The auto's sitting in a dark alley at the very edge of the French Quarter. Fortunately, Jack lived in Storyville (what was left of if, anyway), so there was sure to be some piece and quiet. Nobody takes Mardis Gras to that overgrown vacant lot.
	Diamond Jack runs his business out of a mansion on an otherwise empty hill. How he got out of the great bulldozing of Storyville, I'll never know. Diamond Jack has more connections than the pope though, so I got a few ideas. So if the guy is so dangerous, why take the job? See, Diamond Jack doesn't take too well to Mardis Gras, but the man has henchmen, and if there's anything I know about thugs, they can't stay away from a good party. As I suspect, there are few, if any guards around the place as I drive up. I stop a good distance from the three story house, but not too far; just in case I gotta beat feet.
	Apparently I was wrong about thugs; these ones, at least, because the place is crawling with them. They aren't too happy about me, either; might be because I got no business bein' here. Before I can even step two feet from my jalopy, I'm staring down three tommy gun barrels. I produce from under my tenchcoat a satchel of books I got with me, “Ease down, fellas. Mr. Diamonde inquired into some book procurements.” The goons stare me down. I'm sweatin' bullets; I'm shakin' in my shoes. Will they buy the ruse?
	The goons look at each other. One says, “Yeah, you're the fifth this week.” The guards lower their guns. They bought my bluff. “Come with me,” he says. Good thing they didn't read the titles of those Poe detective novels I so love. Never read 'em, of course. I'm smart, but I'm not the readin' type.
	The mansion seems bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, mostly because it's so empty. I hate the architecture in New Or-leenz; almost as much as I hate that stupid accent. The other disturbing thing is the art. The grand hall, leading up two curved stairs to a great balustrade, is covered in painted canvases. The canvases are a cacophony of colors. I tell ya, I've seen some crazy whacked-out “art” in the Big Apple, but never, ever have I seen such weird and disconcerting stuff as this. I notice that the guards leading me upstairs don't look at the art; they don't like it either. The paintings are filled with... I don't wanna mention it. Suffice it to say that painter ought to be locked away, for his safety and for everyone else. The goon leading me notices me looking at the paintings. He stops abruptly, and looking me out the side of his eye says, “Don't look at them. They take things from you. And they give your nightmares. You see the Darkness in your sleep.”
	Yeah, it's time to leave.
	Unfortunately, there's two more goons behind me, and as soon as my tour guide starts moving again, I'm being prodded up the stairs. At  the top of the balcony, they move me down a long hallway with more unearthly paintings. Then I hear the howling. It spooks me, because it sounds like a ghost. I remember that part of _The Fall of the House of Usher_, and my blood runs icy cold. We come to a door, and the howling stops. “I swear,” says one of the goons, “I don't know how he knows when we're at his door. It's very strange.” Another grunts his agreement.
_Knock, knock_, goes the goon. A raspy voice inside beckons us, “Enter.”
	The door opens, and I almost lose my mind. The good beside me turns to face me, though it seems as if he real goal is just no to look in the room. Inside is Diamond Jack, just as I always imagined him: a tall, stocky, bald man with the look of a professional boxer. I had always heard that he wears a three-piece suit, but today he's traded it for an art smock. The room is filled with more macabre canvases depicting strange and unsettling images. But the canvas he's currently working on is the one that's driving me nuts. It's black, almost all black. In the middle is a bright golden band, and it looks like he's painting colored lights into it. I see black silhouettes that are apparently trees. It looks uncannily like New Or-leenz in full Mardi Gras swing, as seen from the bayou outside. Why is it unsettling? I don't even know. All I know is that there's some kind of... not deja vu... I think Jung or Kant or somebody would call it _synchronicity_. It was like “art” and “reality” did a real whacking on each other and can't figure out who they are anymore.
	“Mister Davenport?” he says, finally tearing my eyes off the canvas. Before I can even reply, “I know why you're here. It's all right, Mister Davenport.” His eyes are piercing, but glazed; sunken into their darkened hollows. The man looks like Frankenstein's monster, except a little bit more dead and a little less sane.
	“How do you know who I am?” I choke out. I've completely lost my nerve. He continues to stare at me.
	“I heard you howling. I heard you crying for help. You gave me this picture,” he says, gesturing towards the painting. Now I know the man is absolutely insane. He's off his rocker; he's batty, he's got so many screws loose I'm afraid he'll start falling apart in front of me.
	Jack grins evilly. I know it's evil. It's horrible. He stands and puts down his brush on the easel. I see that he's got a book clutched in his left hand, close to his chest. He holds it out to me. “Take it to her,” is all he says. I'm dumbfounded; I can't think straight. This is all too crazy.
	I didn't want him to, but he explained anyway. “I read it. It told me where it needs to go. It needs to go to Madame Bouchier. She knows some of its friends. It wants to go to her.” I take the book, almost as if I have no choice. I will my hands to stop, but they clasp tightly around the strange leather cover. The leather is stitched, and it's too smooth. I don't want to know what it's made of. On the cover are is the title: _Le Obsurité Externe_ in simple, stark typeface. As I look closer, I can see that the letters are actually not ink; they're burned into the skin of the book.
	Jack smiles, turns to his canvas, and our audience is over.

	The book is in my passenger seat as I drive around. I gotta go back to the French Quarter, where Madame Bouchier's residence is. Instead, I drive wide of the parade, trying to force the images in Diamond Jack's artwork out of my head. It's midnight, almost 11 o'clock, now, and I'm in Treme, the “black” quarter. I definitely don't belong in Treme. I'm now completely lost. I turn down one street to find I have left pavement altogether behind. The dirt road is bad news for me, because it means I may have left New Or-leenz proper behind altogether. The rough, dilapidated shanties along the sides of the unpaved street are spookin' me. They place is dangerous. I'm looking all around, to make sure I don't get sprung, from time to time putting my eyes back on the road. Once I do this, and slam my breaks hard.
	It's a chicken, right in the middle of the road. I honk my horn, but it doesn't budge. It sits there and stares at me. I get out and rush it, but it clucks and runs away. Fine with me, as long as it's not blocking my jalopy.
	“Hey mon, I heard you howling,” comes a voice from behind me. I spin, reaching for my underarm holster. Before me stands a middle-aged negro man, covered in a large black cloak with a very shabby top-hat. “I would like to talk to you,” he says in a thick Caribbean accent. I gotta be careful with these guys, they do that crazy voodoo stuff I heard about. And what's this nonsense about howling, again?
	“I'm kind of in a rush,” I say, and start back for my car.
	“Don' give her the book, mon. It be bad voodoo,” he says. I turn to face him, but he is gone, with only dark alley to mark his departure.

	I drop the book off in her mailbox that night, and spend the rest of it watching her house. Letting go of the book was the hardest thing I've ever done. I just didn't want to let go of it. I was stuck to it like it was riveted to my hand. It took all my willpower to finally close the mailbox door. In the morning, I discretely tail her. Yeah, I'm following her. That book has got some kind of hold on me I can't explain. I wanna why it that crazy Diamond Jack wanted me to give it to her. She never goes to my office of course; we arranged payment by check, and I assume Alice will get it in the mail tomorrow or so. She spends her day going from society residence to society residence, all the while avoiding the daytime celebrations. This goes on for seemingly for ever. She returns home, and I continue to case the place until just after twilight. She leaves her house, but this time it's different; this time she has the book. I can just tell. She climbs into the back of her Rolls-Royce, and the driver takes her out of the city.
	I follow for a good five minutes down a dilapidated dirt road out of town. I got my lights off because I don't want her driver to see, and that makes negotiating the road very difficult. We're moving deep into the bayou now, and the trees are taking over. The Rolls stops, and I see a line of other very expensive cars. I want to know more, but a sudden fear grips me as I witness some of the others passing into what appears to be a wrought-iron, rural cemetery gate. I see Diamond Jack and his goons standing guard outside, and hooded figures passing into the graveyard. It's the robed ones that scare me. They give me chills the way Jack's art gave me chills. I can't think around them; my tongue sticks to my roof and I can't breath.
	Some semblance of sanity comes back to me, though, as I throw the jalopy into reverse and make a hasty retreat.

	I knew if I drove around Treme enough, I'd see the chicken again. It was almost like fate. That man had more to say to me, but he needed me to know he needed to say it, first. I step out of the jalopy, and the chicken promptly turns and rushes into a dark alley. I run after it, following it in the bright moonlight. I can't hear it, since the noise of the nighttime festival drowns out all other sounds. I seem to lose it at every corner, but I notice that as it makes each turn, it stops and waits for me. As I lock stares with it, it turns and runs off.
	This lasts for fifteen minutes, before it finally breaks into an open lot, in the middle of what appears to be an abandoned shanty-town. There I see the old negro I met before, but this time he's not dressed to the nine's. He's dressed in strange animal prints and has covered his face with some kind of paint. He grins widely as he sees me. That's when I notice the large cat he has; some kind of weird African safarri creature, or something. He sits before a large bonfire, holding bundle of thatch he uses to fan the flames. In the dirt around the fire are splotches of some dark liquid and strange letters formed with colorful pebbles.
	“Hey mon, I knew you be comin' back,” he says. He grins widely, displaying his rotted teeth. They say eating sugarcane does that. I'll have to remember to cut back on my sweets. “I knew you had to give her da book. It be possession, mon. And you still be possessed.” He turned back to the fire.
	“What is that book?” I stammer.
	The voodoo shaman stops smiling, suddenly, and looks at me gravely. “It be a door. It be a door to da Outer Darkness, mon. It be a place wear da monsters in your nightmares be havin' _deir_ nightmares.”
	My heart skips. The shaman, like he's reading my mind, says, “You see dem, too, eh, mon? Dey be Outsiders, mon. Dey be stealing your soul and driving you mad. It be how dey eat, mon.”
	That's it. I'm leaving the Big Easy and going back to the Big Apple. But the shaman tells me more: “You can't leave dat book now, mon. Dat book be ownin' you. Dat book be callin' you.” As much as I hated to admit it, I had some strange, underlying urge to jump back in my jalopy and go get that book back. “Dat book is bad voodoo, like I say, mon. You let da Outsiders open dat door, and it be lights out for dis city and all da udder cities, mon. It be darkness from here on out, dat be for sure.”
	I can't disbelieve. I have seen the art; seen the images from the “Outer Darkness,” and I know that this thing, this book, is malevolently evil. It also has a hold on me. Whatever is on the other side of that door, I don't want it coming through. “Okay,” I say, “how do I get the book.”
	The shaman shrugs. “I don't know, mon. But I do know dis, because a spirit be tellin' me when I danced before you came tonight: dat book have a ritual dat be performed in a place o' da dead. Dat whole place be in the Outer Darkness once you open dat book. When you step into dat cemetery, you step into da Outer Darkness, and you be seein' dem Outsiders for what dey really are. If you wanna close da door, you gotta break da doorstops, mon. Break da doorstops, and you close da door.”
	I shake my head. “Doorstops? I don't getcha.”
	The shaman smiles again. “Dey all be da same, mon! But dey all be different! Dey be eight doorstops in all. Don't worry, mon, you know dem when you see dem.” The shaman gets up and starts putting out the fire with dirt. “Hey mon, you better hurry. At midnight dey complete da ritual, and der not be any closing da door after dat!”
	I turn to go, but he grabs me roughly, spinning me around to face him. “Here, mon.” He's cupping a bit of milky white liquid in one hand, and with the other dips and starts drawing on my forehead. “Dat keep out da madness, for a while. Now you better be goin', mon!”

	I race down the dirt road to the cemetery. I have to; it's ten till midnight, and a gateway to insanity is about to open up on the world. Never has my old jalopy taken such a beating. Tree roots jolt the auto every fifty yards, and that makes for very rough going. As I approach the cemetery, I realize that I've left my lights on. Jack's goons see me; worse, they must have _recognized_ me, because they open up with their tommy guns. There's no way but forward, now. I gun it and barrel towards the gate. Bullets bounce off the car, rip through the car, and shatter my windshield. Amazingly, I'm unhurt. The jalopy bursts through the cemetery gate, taking the wrought-iron wings right off their hinges. Unfortunately, there's only so far you can charge into a cemetery without hitting a mausoleum. The jalopy crunches to a halt as my head slams into the steering wheel.
	The goons are still only fifty feet away, though, so I gotta gather my wits and climb out. I'm making a mad dash away from the gate, to see if I can lose the goons among the great limestone and granite mausoleums. I pull out my revolver and make sure I've got some distance behind me. What I see, though, is a bunch of goons standing at the gate, staring at me. Then I remember how freaked out Jack's goons were back at the mansion. They certainly don't want to be in here, that's for sure.
	I run through the graveyard, seeking the ceremony. My pocket watch says it's almost midnight, and I gotta hurry. I hear chanting, so I find it before too long. Diamond Jack is there, and so is Madame Boo-cheer. Diamond Jack has a tommy gun, so I'm gonna take him out, first. The hooded Outsiders, with cowls pulled forward, are all unarmed, or so it appears. I stalk around the outside, using all my skills as a private dick to remain unnoticed. I aim carefully, because I might not get a second shot.
_Blam! Blam!_ I take out Diamond Jack. Madame Boo-cheer, mid-chant, breaks into a shriek and points at me. _Blam! Blam!_ Madame Bouchier's very lucrative career is cut unnaturally short. I run into the clearing, where on a marble memorial marker lies the book, a bloody pentagram, candles, and several shiny objects. I grab Jack's tommy gun as the Outsiders pull back there hoods. I level the gun and turn to spray the hooded freaks.
	What I see when I turn to them is insane. Not me, mind you, but what I see. I can feel the voodoo magic of the shaman's protective ward guarding me. I stare at the macabre, pulpy, tentacled monsters with a mix of abject terror and horrific revulsion. Their very appearance should have driven me mad, but for the steely determination lent me by the shaman's magic. The Outsiders come forward, their glowingly evil, unholy eyes bore into me as they come forward. Their toothy maws work as they utter guttural chants that, though foreign to me, are almost certainly horridly blasphemous in uncountable ways.
	It's some small amount of satisfaction, then, when an uncharacteristic feature mars their face: surprise, as I pump lead from the tommy gun into their sickeningly slick flesh. I spin around, catching all the Outsiders. I do it in quick, short bursts; if this gun jams, it's lights out for Rich Davenport. Soon I have monsters laying all over my feet. The ritual, whatever it was, is finished. But the door remains open, I know, for I can feel the darkness still emanating from the book.
	First things first, I take the book and tuck it in my trench coat pocket. That's when I notice the other objects on the table, including eight shiny, differently-colored sea-shells, all different colors. I can feel the otherworldliness that has been infused into them. I know what I'm looking at: the doorstops.
	It's easy enough to break them. After just five quick strikes with the butt of the tommy gun, the shells are in pieces, and are no long multi-colored, but have the same natural... well... shell color. The candles go out, as the last of the magic leaves this place. For some reason though, the dark feeling in my bones remains; must be the book. I hear rustling behind me; it's probably Jack's goons. I notice the lights, then. It's close enough to New Or-leenz proper that I can still hear Mardi Gras, and see the lights[/i] across the watery bayou. I get that synchronicity again, but this time it really does feel like deja vu. I run for it. I realize that jumping that gate at the end of the cemetery is going to be rough, but I got no chance going through Jack's men.
	The gate never comes, though. I rush past the last mausoleum and splash into the water. I rush past trees, splashing towards the light. How many miles is it? I have no way of knowing. I keep running, and I realize where I have seen those lights before. I see myself looking straight into the canvas Jack was drawing earlier. How odd it is, that Jack could have seen this. I run towards the light, and towards the music. I never thought I'd be grateful for that raucous noise, but right now it's a compass.
	I turn to make sure none of Jack's men are following me. Behind me I see--
	I see lights, colored lights, and amber lights marking the city. It's... it's the same scene I just turned from. I turn to it and run. I have to get away from Jack and his men. I keep weaving through trees to get closer to my goal, but I never seem to get closer. I turn again--
	--and see the same city, same lights. I turn to the side. The city appears on my left. I turn the other way. The city appears on my right.
	I can feel the protective ward of the shaman's mark leaving me, and some of my last lucid thoughts are to remember the shaman's words: “_when you step into dat cemetery, you step into da Outer Darkness_” and, “_break da doorstops, and you close da door._”
	The city lights dim. They dim, and then they are gone. The music fades, and I am left in darkness. I can feel the water at my ankles any longer. I freak out, I lose my nerve. I pull out my matches and light one. I pull out the book. If the book has a way to open a door, I can get back. I can still get back. I just have to perform a simple ritual.
	That's when I remember I don't understand French. As the match burns down, I realize that I'm here for good. This is forever. There is no way home. The protective mark gives out the last of its voodoo magic and new sounds reach my ears. In the pitch black, I hear the moans, the slithery slime of unseen monsters. This is the company I have to keep now, forever.
	Then I hear howling. The howling is from me, because I have gone mad.


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## Halivar (Nov 5, 2004)

Sorry for the formatting. I tried to find a way to get paragraph indentation to work, but it didn't. 

PS: Mythago, can I edit it to fix that last hyperlink?


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## Macbeth (Nov 5, 2004)

The general guideline is DON"T edit. The judges will be kind if your formatting is a bit off.


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## mythago (Nov 5, 2004)

No editing. We don't take off points for broken HTML, so no worries


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## Halivar (Nov 5, 2004)

MacBeth, I jsut read your story. All I can say is... ummm... 

I'm in trouble.


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## Macbeth (Nov 5, 2004)

I've started your Halivar, and I may not finish it tonight (too mush homework for me), but I was starting to think the same way. I may be the one in trouble.


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## Berandor (Nov 5, 2004)

*Just kidding!*



			
				Macbeth said:
			
		

> The judges will be kind if your formatting is a bit off.




We will?



			
				mythago said:
			
		

> We don't take off points for broken HTML, so no worries




We don't?

I thought judging was fun...


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## Eluvan (Nov 5, 2004)

Okay then! I guess I should be getting my posterior seriously into gear about now. Let's see what I can dredge up over the course of the next couple of days...


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## Halivar (Nov 5, 2004)

Holy cow. I can't believed I "proofed" my story twice. There are "sentences" in their that I don't even understand, now. Must have been dead-tired when I finished.

 My favorite: "_It was midnight, almost 11 o'clock..._" Looks like I forgot to do some editting. Real shoddy work, on my part.


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## BSF (Nov 5, 2004)

Heh - Welcome to the joys of Ceramic DM Halivar.  After posting a story I have found entire sentences that were missing.  I could have sworn I wrote them, but they aren't there.  I have found temporary gender changes as well as grammatical and spelling errors galore.  You really want to be done a day early so you can proofread on a good night's rest.  But the story doesn't always come as quick as you would like.


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## Berandor (Nov 5, 2004)

The "No Edit"-Rule can really suck 

I sympathize.


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## alsih2o (Nov 5, 2004)

Doo do doo do

  Jaimie gripped at the aluminum bar as he heard the words come over the radio again.

 “Jamie Summers, scandal ridden actor, seems to have escaped indictment yet again…”

 “Hi Me.” Thought Jaimie, not Jay Me.

  The press had adored him and reviled him. They also made a good bit of money on covering his life. The bastards still got his name wrong though.

  He yanked the bar to the left and swung wide over the beach, listening to the nylon wings shudder against the wind. 

 “I am not the problem!” he screamed to noone in particular.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Fourteen months had passed since the video hit the Internet and still he seemed to always be in the news. He had donated an entire wing to the children’s hospital and got 20 seconds on the local news. When he had dated the leggy actress form his last movie it was worth several minutes to the entertainment reporters. When he was discovered in Guatemala they had all adored him. 

 Now people just wanted to talk about the sex tape.

 In the foggy recesses of his memory he could almost recall the picture being taken. The army had only recently set up camp near his village. They had brought a wondrous variety of toys with them. As his peers had climbed over the cannons and trucks Jaime was always just outside the commanders tent, listening intently to the radio.

 That radio was the greatest wonder to him. With a seemingly effortless style he had learned the music that came in short bursts between the speakers. Those speakers would drone for what seemed forever and then it would come. That sweet, sweet music. Never more than a few seconds worth and then it was right back to the men rambling in their foreign tongue.

 He would wait patiently and when the drums came he knew the music was on its way. 

 Doo do doo do  do do doo doo, do doo do doo do doo..

 He had no idea who had written the music, at that young age he wasn’t even aware that music could be written down, but he loved it. It was happy, quick and to the point.

 Standing outside the crowded tent he was playing along with the music when he heard the white man singing along. “My bologna has a first name..”

 He turned to see the man and before he could remove the pipes form his lips the flash hit his eyes. His mother said he hid in the house for 3 days after that. Scared of the man with the lightning box.

  Weeks passed, months. And the rains came. Most of his village was destroyed but when the aid workers came they all smiled at Jaime. They had a book. A magical book full of colorful pictures. 

 One of the pictures was of Jaime.{boy with pipes pic} He stood there looking fat in the face as his cheeks puffed to fill his pipes. The workers seemed thrilled to find him alive and well. They all posed for pictures with him and insisted on him playing his pipes for them over and over.

 This was his first taste of fame and he liked it. He would play the foreigners songs and they would clap and smile and feed him anything he wanted. And when they discovered his parents had died in the slides he was given very special treatment. They took him with them.

 America. He was evidently going to a place called America. The plane scared him, the height scared him, the noise scared him, but oh, what a treat when he landed. It was obviously paradise. Just like his father had told him when he couldn’t sleep, lights everywhere- even at night!

 It seemed everyone in the country had fallen in love with his picture when it appeared in the magazine. His rescue by the aid workers had been dubbed a miracle and his new country quickly embraced him.

 He was trotted out in front of large crowds to play his tunes. Commercials they called them. The hosts of several shows adored him and it didn’t hurt at all that advertisers embraced him so thoroughly. Providing a service for free to rich people gains a certain measure of exposure.

 Eventually, a starlet adopted him. Her career didn’t go much of anywhere but she seemed to have a certain knack for placing him in the right place at the right time.

 Some kiddy underwear ads, a few small plays and the next thing you know he had a regular role on a soap opera. This led to a small movie and then a bigger one. The next thing Jaime knew he was 22, tall and handsome, earning more money than he knew what to do with.

 Two blockbusters followed. His natural grace and stunning dark looks kept him a step ahead of the competition. They also kept him in the media spotlight. He made huge donations to children’s funds, threw lavish parties and gained a reputation as a generous, if a bit wild, young star. And all that is available with the lifestyle came to him.

 Women especially.

He started hang-gliding and racing cars. He enormous bar tabs surrounded by extreme sports stars and adoring groupies and he paid them with flourish. With his strong Latin looks, dangerous airborne lifestyle and clean glow he became irresistible to his public. Nubile young models, gifted actresses and constant propositions from women on the streets distracted him, but only away form work. At work he was all business. 

If only he had been at work.

 When works makes you popular people have a habit of finding new work for you to do. Opportunities and requests to back all kinds of causes get sent your way. Some of them quite worthwhile like his work with the children’s hospital.

 Work. Jaime and his agent always referred to it as his charity work. Signing the check was extent of the effort. He intended to do good things and his money did do a lot of good things. It is just that Jaime was usually busy somewhere else.

 Then it got personal.

 When working the crowd at a fundraiser a young woman carrying a sheaf of papers approached him. She had presented herself as an activist for Planet One, a radical environmental group. 

 What she showed him finally got him involved. Satellite photos, geological samples, everything was laid out right in front of him and for only him. This girl had done her homework.

 Regular Oil had caused the landslide that destroyed his home village. Poor safety practices in by their exploration unit had eroded the hill above them until the rains brought it down. What was worse was the money. This lanky, scrubby girl had documented a clear paper trail showing that Regular Oil had avoided any punishment by greasing the right palms. Particularly greasing the palm of Senator Greg Storros.

 “Where do I know that name?” he asked.

 The young lady tried not rolling her eyes. “He is running for president.” 

 That is when his work changed. He was sly about it. First he signed a multimillion-dollar contract to star in Ra: Sun God. The picture was budgeted at over 100 million dollars and practically guaranteed him a place in the spotlight for months to come.

 Then he set about giving speeches, and raising money. He was relatively quiet about it at first, not really leaving his home state much but eventually he started getting national attention for much more than his good looks.

 Rallies and commercials mixed in with post- production work on the last film he finished Inch, where he played a man shrunk to the height of a bug. He had enjoyed working with the elaborate sets, even going so far to keep a giant ink quill used as a prop in one scene.

 As the election wore on he became more and more prominent in his party, gathering large crowds wherever he spoke. As his popularity grew more evident to the party they invited him to speak at their convention. His dalliances with various women were smoothly glossed over by the party machinery and he found that his image was enhanced by his stance as a moral example.

 Jaime wasn’t the only one who noticed. Peter Cole, the brain behind Senator Storros, quickly took notice of Jamie’s efforts. A popular, handsome, bilingual star was not part of his campaign plan. So he hatched a new plan, his favorite kind- cheap, easy and genius with the added benefit of noone knowing it was his.

 Jaime spent the weekend before the convention literally strapped to a table. 

 “Hold still!” 

 He was sure he had heard it 1000 times today and this was only his 3rd session, four were scheduled. The lady had seemed nice when he first met her.

 “My name is Diana” She pronounced it Doy-ah-nuh “and I am going to make you Ra, baby!” Her energy and charm encouraged him. If he was going to spend 30 hours having a costume custom made to fit every nook and cranny of him at least it would be with someone interesting.

 Turns out the woman was some kind of Costume Nazi. As soon as introductions were over she started slowly into the instructions. Somewhere along the way she had started with orders and then demands as the pinched and pulled at him, pulling his body into ridiculous contortions or demanding that he hold perfectly still.

 “Hold still! Do you wanna look like a Sun God or just some idiot painted gold?” she pronounced it Go-Wuld.

 It was taxing and he only survived the last few hours by planning out his night ahead. He would pick up his glider and hit the hill. An hour or so in the air, maybe swinging over his beach house, and it was off on the boat. Preferably with a young lady.

 Jaime thought luck was with him. As he cruised high over the beach that day he could see a group of young ladies sunning themselves on his beach. It was a private stretch of beach and when someone found their way onto it they were usually rabid fans or ladies with few requirements outside his presence. He was hoping for the latter.

He swung wide and arched down over the surf. By pulling hard on the nose he was able to land on the beach the short way, facing inland. The girls were suitable impressed.

 “Hi.” Said the blonde. “We’ve got a camera.” She said, holding a small digital video cam shoulder high with a limp wrist.

 “And…urges.” said her friend, resting a hand on the other shoulder.

 He read the blondes shirt “Phi Gamma Beta. Tell me, would you like to come inside?”

 He awoke to a beautiful morning and found that the girls were doing exactly what he always wanted his conquests to do in the morning hours- be someplace else. The doors were locked and nothing seemed to be missing. 

 Jaime chuckled to himself “Long way from grass skirts.”

 He took a long shower and had Bloody Mary.  Things definitely looked well, one last day of sitting at the beach, a quick speech on opening night at the convention and off to make a blockbuster.

 Late in the day, as he began to think about driving into town for dinner, the call came.

 “Jaime, have you seen the news?” he recognized the voice; it was the party’s press representative.

 He flipped on the television and quickly muted it, hoping she didn’t recognize the noises from the porn channel it had been left on. He channel surfed down to the all news network and saw himself. It was a stock photo from Inch, he was leaning against the 8-foot tall ink quill he had upstairs.

 And there were the girls from last night. They were crying as their parents spoke. 

 “High school girls! Young innocent under-age girls!” screamed the man. 

 “I’ll call you back.” Said the press rep.

 It took a few minutes before he realized she wasn’t going to be calling back. Several frantic attempts also revealed that his agent wanted little to do with him anymore either.

 Jaime was forced into watching the convention from his couch. He hadn’t dared leave the house; the press was parked all over his street. He had seen a chance to make a difference in a legitimate way for once and he had seen it squandered.

 A second rate third baseman for a has-been team was warming up the crowd in his spot when the call came form the studio. It seems that the possibility of lawsuits was forcing the insurance company to separate from the project; Ra: Sun God was on indefinite hiatus. This was Hollywood for cancelled.

 He bided his time, and stretched his money. He hadn’t been a miser but he had set back a small bit and he was sure it would last until this blew over.  This became a problem he had not seen coming.

 It seems one of Senator Storros’ favorite causes was safety and Peter Cole had more tricks in store. Several lawsuits came, one after another. His Xtreme video game endorsement dried up, then he was sued in conjunction with his helmet endorsement. Combined with a lack of work coming in he started to buckle, financially and mentally.

 “It’s just the house now Jaime.” said his accountant.

 “How can that be?!” he cried

 “Look, it happens. You had it; you worked it, now it ain’t happening. No biggie.” He had always hated this man who reminded him more of a loan shark than an accountant. “You’ll come back, kid. Nobody ever gets unfamous. Worse comes to worse you already know how to live in a hut, right?”

 Jaime shuddered and hung up on the man. He grabbed the closest bottle and tilted it towards the night sky. When it had nothing left to offer him he grabbed another.

 The bleariness that surrounded him gave way to a booming, insistent voice.

 “It is their morality, or rather the lack thereof that should shock us! It is their morals, or what passes for them that we should stand against! It is the loose ways of people like Jaime Summers that will corrupt all of us if left unchecked!” boomed the voice to an appreciative and convinced crowd.

 It was Candidate Storros, speaking at the Hollywood bowl. His voice echoed out over the open-air theater. “Are we going to allow these people, bought and paid for, to tread on our flag?”

 Jaime slammed his foot into the top of the TV and as it hurdled off the stand he saw the swath of rainbow riding the ocean beyond it. His home, his last worldly symbol of what he had become wash being washed against by a high tide covered in the broadly colored palette of an oil slick. Beyond the protective cover of the beaches arms swinging widely around the bay limped a gargantuan ship spewing raw crude into the sea. 

 He ran to the porch and swung the telescope he had bought to impress an egghead date with a short dress out, aiming it at the horizon. The ships side read The Regular Cortez.

 He snapped. 

 Jaime ran for the 1st story, grabbing gear on his way. He arrived in the garage to his fully packed SUV and jumped in.

 He struck 3 reporters and a photographer with his truck as he tore out the garage door and across his small lawn. Without a pause he tore down the street and headed inland making a mental inventory of everything he would need. A thought struck him and he banked hard northwards across 3 lanes of traffic. He headed uphill towards the studio.

 “Dude! Cool suit!”{goldguy pic} said the young boys riding their mountain bikes by as he prepped on the hilltop.

 “ off!” he replied, his voice a growl compared to the saccharine sweet tone of his characters.

 “Dude, is that like a gun, or, like a lance like one of those knight guys use or what dude?” drawled the muddy boy on the bike as Jaime checked his cables one last time.

 “It’s a quill you illiterate schmo. Do you even know what a quill is?”{quill pic}

 “Ain’t that, like, a porcupine thing, dude?” asked the biker.

 “No, it is an idiot gun you moron, shut up before it goes off in your direction.” Jaime was practically frothing.

 The boys rode off, one hollering back over their shoulder “You looked like a fag in Dating Misty!”

 He secured his cargo and began running down the hill. As soon as he could feel the lift sufficiently he pulled up his feet and watched the earth fall away. He felt safe for the first time in days.

  With 40 miles to cover and a scant hour of sunlight left he banked towards the ocean and followed the beach towards his destination. He reached to his waist and turned on his satellite radio.

 Jaimie gripped at the aluminum bar as he heard the words come over the radio again.

 “Jamie Summers, former actor, seems to have escaped indictment yet again…”

 “Hi Me.” Thought Jaimie, not Jay Me.

  The press had adored him and reviled him. They also made a good bit of money on covering his life. The bastards still got his name wrong though.

  He yanked the bar to the left and swung wide over the beach, listening to the nylon wings shudder against the wind. 

 “I am not the problem!” he screamed to noone in particular.

 He swept down to risky level to view the beach near his house one more time. He felt the sickness rise in his stomach as he saw the colors spreading through the water. {beach pic} Swinging inland he caught a thermal and rose high over the mansions beneath him.

  The thermals carried well up and over the low hills that made the valley barrier, when he broke over the edge he could see the amphitheater less than a mile ahead. He tightened his grip on the quill and, for the first time, practiced sighting down its tip. 

 He was swaying and tilting, attempting to gain some control over his aim when the panic first struck him. He lifted hard and out of control, the harness straining against his weight and the breath was sucked form as he caught the wash of a jet.

 He accepted the possibility that he would be seen, but not this far out. As he regained control of the craft he cursed his decision to wear the mask, it blocked his vision, making it hard to steer. 

 He was struggling to remove it when the first round struck him. He wasn’t even aware that he had been shot. It felt like a blunt blow, like a bird had struck him. The steady scarlet stream running out of his golden shirt was his only clue. As he watched the trickle increase he became aware of the fire. 

 Rounds ripped through the carriage and him, he lost his grip and the quill fell. He could almost hear the silence of it passing through all that empty space when the clatter of the cars it struck below jarred him back.

 It finally began to burn. He had played out the moment of being shot many times in his films but he had never seriously considered the possibility. It struck him now that the feeling was not unlike a stinging nettle. It was akin to a burning rash on a bruise and he stared at the open gaps of his flesh with a surreal detachment that was broken only when his world began to tumble around him.

 He slammed to a stop against a news van. The stench of oil and the hot exhaust on his wounds began to orient him to what had happened when he realized he couldn’t remember to breathe.

 The reporters rushed form the van and stared down in shock at the golden figure bleeding at their feet in the dying sun.

 The rhythmic beating of booted feet rushing toward the scene mixed with the voice form the radio.

 “Mr. Summers was unavailable for comment. As soon as a statement becomes available form Jaime we will pass it on to you.”


----------



## alsih2o (Nov 5, 2004)

I am not sure I like being the guy who wrote that.

 But man, I left a lot of stuff there.


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## BSF (Nov 5, 2004)

Clay, I really am not sure what to say.  

But that isn't a bad thing.  Really.  It just means I have to really *think* and that is not a bad thing.


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## mythago (Nov 6, 2004)

For those waiting on judgments, I will post when I get them


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## mythago (Nov 6, 2004)

Round 1.5, Boojum vs. orchid blossom


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 6, 2004)

*Ceramic DM 1.2 -- "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword"*

Hal stared at the printout stuck by a magnetized pin to the metal bulkhead.  The top of the page curled forward, a paper tiger poised to strike.  For months, he’d read nothing but LCD displays and instrument readouts.  The sudden intrusion of the tangible shook him, the contents of the message somehow real now in a way the email had not been.  An email could be erased, consigned to the electronic ether as if it had never existed.  The paper he could not ignore.

	He picked up his pen.  He’d been allowed few personal belongings, each ounce precious, and he’d had no real need for the impractical instrument.  But he’d brought it anyway, a single reminder of the life he’d left nine million miles behind.  He reached forward abruptly and pulled the printout free, sending the tiny magnet in a slow, curving arc towards the floor.  He pressed the paper flat against the foldout desk, and signed his name below the digitized signature of his wife.   He placed the document in the scanner, sending an image of the completed document back to Earth.

	Hal picked up the divorce decree as it passed through the scanner, and for a moment considered dumping it and the pen into the toxic waste disposal unit in the lab module.  Unable to throw away his last tie to Earth, Hal tucked it back in his shirt pocket.    Behind him, a computer beeped an alert, and he turned to the screen.

“What is it, Dave?”

“Sensors have picked up a PEA, estimated mass 8000 kilograms, Commander” came a voice from a speaker set into the monitor.

“What’s the track, Dave?”

“The closest approach to Earth is 48,000 kilometers, with an error margin of plus or minus 65,000 kilometers.”

“When, Dave?”

“November 5, 2284”

“That’s over two hundred years from now, Dave.  Let someone else deal with it.”

“I must remind you of Article 4, Section 1, Subsection (c) that states that ‘any potential Earth-impacting asteroid whose nearest projected approach is under 100,000 kilometers must be…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the rules, Dave.  Prepare a salvo from the railgun, three meter spread.  Fire on my command.”

Hal pressed a button on the console.

“All hands, all hands.  Attention.  PEA discovered that falls under 4-1-c.  Railgun discharge in 5 minutes.

The warning was largely a formality.  There was no recoil from the railgun.  A long tube encircled by powerful electromagnets, the railgun would hurl 5 cannonball-sized spheres of iron-jacketed depleted uranium towards the asteroid at a leisurely pace.  It would be days or weeks before the impact shattered the rock into tiny pieces.  

“The railgun is ready, Hal.  Would you please enter the confirmation code?”

Hal pulled a keyboard towards him and typed in the lengthy series of characters necessary to unlock the safeties that would prevent the railgun from firing.  

“The railgun is unlocked, Dave.  Fire when ready.” 

The verbal confirmation was unnecessary.  Seconds after the code had been entered, the massive capacitors embedded in the railgun discharged in sequence, sending the projectiles on a million-mile rendezvous with the asteroid.

“Estimated impact in 7 days, 13 hours 47 minutes.  I will notify you if there is any additional action required, Hal.  Would you like to play a game of chess?”

“No, Dave.  I’d like to be alone now.”

♦​
Aegis Station Beta had been in operation for almost two decades when Hal had arrived twenty-one months ago.  Orbiting ninety thousand kilometers from L4 LaGrange point, the station was the third point in an equilateral triangle formed by the earth and the sun.  It shared the same orbit as Earth, the planet eternally chasing it but never getting any closer.  The station had been built to protect against asteroid impacts.  Its location made it the ideal shield, able to intercept and destroy potential dinosaur-killers where the debris would not scatter like a shotgun blast and wreak havoc on the ground.  

♦​
Station Commander Halford Smith lay in his bunk.  While the scientists shared a habitat module, the officers each had a private room.  The rooms were as far apart as possible from each, as much a recognition of the need for privacy during long deployments as a prudent precaution in the unlikely event of a hull puncture.  

Hal twirled his pen between his fingers.  His mind drifted, wandering back to the day that he had received the fancy implement.  His girlfriend, his future wife, had given it to him as a gift on the day he’d graduated from the Academy.  It was an extravagant gift.  Hardly anyone wrote anything on paper anymore, and this pen, though plain,  was an antique.  (Picture 3)    A certificate had come with the wooden box, claiming that the pen had once been owned by Alan Shepherd, and carried with him aboard one of the first human ventures into space.  

That day had been one of the happiest of his life.  He was young, had just graduated from one of the most difficult program on the planet, and he’d proposed to Janice the night before.  He’d been worried that she’d say no, that the prospect of being a military wife and the potential for long periods of separation would be too much to ask.  But she’d been ecstatic, rushing off to call her parents and friends. 

Their first year together had been perfect.  He’d been stationed at the Goddard Launch Center in Woomera, Australia.  It was an exciting time.  He’d been there for the first launches of material for the Aegis stations, and the pride he’d felt at being a part of such an historical and important undertaking instilled in him a strong desire to be stationed there someday.   He and Janice found Woomera to be a wonderful place to live, and although they weren’t ready to start a family, they talked about it, and he knew someday they would.

♦​
The designers of the station had been faced with a difficult dilemma.  Years of technological advances and experience in Earth orbit had made space stations a relatively low-risk endeavor.  A dozen stations with long-term residents now circled the planet; nearly a hundred people called the largest ‘home’.  It was still more dangerous than living dirt-side, but all of the stations included re-entry vehicles capable of allowing evacuation in the event of an emergency.

The Aegis Stations at the L4 and L5 points were a different story.  Aegis Station Alpha at the trailing L5 point had been constructed first.  It was easier to construct, since the material could be launched into orbit and then slowed to allow the LaGrange point to catch up.  Station Beta was built the same way, but it took nearly a year for the L4 point to swing around again.  The orbital mechanics and limits on fuel and acceleration made transferring personnel even more difficult.   Evacuation was impossible.

♦​
“Excuse me, Commander.”

The voice of the AI startled him.  He reached over and hit the button that activated the LCD display on the wall next to the bunk.

“What is it, Dave?”

“Sensors indicated that PEA-8476 has been intercepted and destroyed.  I can play back the recordings from the optical telescope if you’d like to verify.”

“Please, Dave.”  

Hal watched the display as an unassuming asteroid countless miles away disintegrated under the kinetic force of the railgun projectiles.  When the closing speeds were measured in miles per second, it didn’t take much mass to generate an impact sufficient to vaporize rock and metal.

“Destruction of PEA-8476 confirmed by visual observation” he intoned by rote.  This was the fourteenth rock he’d busted, and the excitement had long since worn off.

	“Is something wrong, Commander?  Voice stress analysis indicates you might be showing signs of depression.”

	“I’m fine, Dave.  It’s time for my sleep shift.  Please dim the lights and wake me at 0800.”

	“Of course, Commander.”  

	The LCD went blank, as did the rest of the tiny cabin.  Hal lay in the dark, unable to sleep.  

♦​
Personnel for the Aegis stations were selected from the military, and carefully screened both for potential health issues and to weed out any candidates that might have psychological issues with the thirty-six months of isolation a tour required.  There was no shortage of applicants.  The hazard pay was exceptional, and completion of a tour of duty was a virtual guarantee that the astronaut would reach the top levels of the military leadership.    

The standard complement was five military personnel, with room for another 5 people if desired.  There had been several long-term visitors, scientists using the lab and astronomy modules for experiments that couldn’t be conducted remotely, but currently there were no others aboard.  Concerned that an accident could leave the station unmanned or the crew dangerously depleted, the designers had built in unprecedented levels of automation under the control of an artificial intelligence.  

♦​
The five man crew worked in 8 hour overlapping shifts,  but for all intents and purposes they were on duty whenever they weren’t asleep.  There was little work to do, so the crew spent most of their time watching videos in the entertainment module, or pursuing whatever hobbies were feasible given their distance from Earth and the miserly restrictions on the amount of material they could bring with them.  Fortunately, the facility had been well stocked with hundreds of thousands of e-books and movies.

	Hal’s thoughts turned to the AI.  It had been programmed to adapt its personality to each crew member, providing a virtual shrink and confessor all in one.  Hal had mischievously named the persona adapted for him ‘Dave’, playing on the names from that movie back in the last century.   

Hal had little in common with the crew that served under him.  The other four were single enlisted men.  They would serve their three years here and probably muster out on returning to Earth.  The pay and bonuses that would accumulate while they were here would allow them to retire by the time they hit 30 if they invested it properly.  Dave had become the closest thing he had to a friend, and he realized that Janice’s accusations of his remoteness were probably true.  Hal closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

Time meant little on the station.  The monotony of routine and the 24 hour shifts made one day blend seamlessly into the next.  Clocks and calendars were discouraged by the shrinks that had briefed them before their departure.  The crew was encouraged not to obsess over time lest it lead to cabin fever.  They relied on the AI to keep track of when scheduled tasks had to be performed, and to generally keep the station on track.

The tedium was a blessing in disguise, for it meant that everything on the station was working properly.  Excitement would come only if something went horribly wrong.  

Klaxons shattered the silence, jerking Hal from his fitful sleep.  He was alert almost instantly, years of training paying off.

“Sit-rep, Dave,” he called out.

“There has been a breach in the command module.  I am unable to reach Sergeants Anderson or Wills,” the AI replied.  “I have sealed the airlocks separating the command module from the rest of the station.”

Hal pulled on a pair of shorts and raced to the backup command module.  He waited impatiently for the airlock to cycle, then barged in before the door had full opened.

Hal came to an abrupt stop.  Sitting in front of the auxiliary command console, Sergeant Anderson looked up, startled by his entrance.

“Commander?  Are you ok?” Anderson asked.

“There was an alarm.  Dave said there had been a breach in the command module and that you and Wills were non-responsive.”

“I’ve been running the concurrency checks with Wills in the command module for the past hour, sir.  I haven’t heard any alarms.” Anderson replied, looking the Hal strangely.

With a sinking feeling, Hal leaned over Anderson’s shoulder and pulled up the system log on the console.  No alert was listed.

“You starting to lose it, boss?” Anderson joked.  “Or are you just so ‘spit and polish’ that you dream about drills in your sleep?”

“Laugh it up, Anderson.  If that was a dream, it was the most realistic dream I’ve ever had.  Run a full diagnostic on the breach monitors and email me the results.  I’m going back to bed.”

Hal turned and sealed the airlock behind him.  He’d returned Anderson’s jokes like nothing was wrong, but he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.  Had he imagined the alert?

The following morning, he went over the results of the report he’d had Anderson run.  There were no anomalies, no sensors scheduled for replacement.  Anderson had Wills send him the last 12 hours of telemetry from the black box in the command module, and nothing was amiss.

	“What are you doing, Hal?” Dave asked.

	Hal looked up at the display over the console.  A stylized golden figure looked back at him.  (Picture 2)

	“Did you run an emergency drill last night, Dave?  At around 0200?”

	“No, Hal.  I did not.  Would you like me to run the diagnostics again?”

	“Yes, please, Dave.  Run the diagnostics again and let me know if you find anything out of the ordinary.”

	“Yes, Commander.”

	“And why are you using a different avatar, Dave?  What was wrong with the one I selected for you?”

	“You seemed lonely, Hal.  I thought that something from your homeland might make you feel more at home.  I patterned the avatar after Wallungunder.”

	“Wallungunder?  The aboriginal god?”

	“Yes, Hal.  Wallungunder came down from the Milky Way.  Just like you will be returning to Earth.  If it displeases you, I can change it.”

	“No.  That’s ok, Dave.  I appreciate the gesture.”

	“You’re welcome, Hal.  Would you like to play a game of chess?”

	“Sure, Dave.  If you let me play white.”

♦​
The AI was constrained from doing anything under its own initiative, and the railgun or the nuclear warheads could only be used after the manual entry of the proper code.  The code entry system was physically and electronically isolated from the main computer system.  Upon receiving notification of an asteroid that met the criteria for interception, the station commander would key in the password, and a circuit would be established between the fire control system and the AI.  The AI had six seconds after activation to download the intercept solution to the weapons, after which a hardwired timer would break the circuit, returning control to the human occupants of the station	

♦​
As the days passed, Hal came to accept that he had dreamed the breach alert.  Every diagnostic had come up clean, and no further alerts, real or imagined had occurred.  He still couldn’t accept that his wife had left him, however.  He tried to bury himself in the routine of the station, running extra system checks and performing scheduled maintenance months in advance.  But he was still having trouble sleeping, and he found himself composing video messages to Janice a dozen times a day, only to delete them in despair.

	“Dave?”

	“Yes, Commander?”  Dave’s golden visage appeared on his display.

	“Pull up video telemetry of Earth from the GEO satellite array.”

	Dave’s avatar blinked out, and was replaced a moment later by an image beamed to the station by one of the many observation satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth.  The picture slowly zoomed in on the coast of Australia, the uniform blue of the water became a mosaic of hues, sapphire and turquoise, white surf meeting sandy beach.  

	Dave peered at the image more closely.

	“Hal?  Is that what I think it is?”

	“Port Augusta, South Australia.”

	“Is that my house?”

	“Yes, Dave.  I thought you might like a picture of home.”  (Picture 1)

	Dave leaned even closer.  A clattering sound startled him, and he looked down to see that he had knocked his pen from its place on the desk.

	The pen, again.  He’d used that pen the sign the mortgage on the house.  Merely a formality, of course, since the actual transaction was carried out electronically.  The real estate agent said that people seemed to expect such ceremonies when making that kind of financial commitment.  It was during his second stint at Woomera, and Janice was tired of living in base housing.  He had resisted.  It was a long commute, and he’d end up spending the week on base and only seeing his wife on the weekend.  But he’d eventually given in, recognizing that she had given up a lot to support him in his career, 

	The beach house had been expensive, but he told himself it was a good investment.  When he got transferred, he’d be able to sell it for more than he’d paid.  Of course, he’d never gotten transferred.  More and more of the traffic too and from the orbitals was going through Woomera, and the base was growing every year.  He’d ended up serving the next fifteen years there, first as a glorified bus driver ferrying people between Earth and the space stations, then in training for the Aegis assignment.  It was just as well, though.  It had been a fine house to raise a family.

	“Do you miss it, Commander?”  Dave asked.  

	“Yes.  Very much,” he whispered.

	“I’m sorry, Commander.  I didn’t mean to upset you.”

	“That’s ok, Dave.  Thank you for showing it to me.  You’d better return control of the observation satellite to Earth System Control before they wonder what’s up.”

	“Yes, Commander.”

♦​
Hal found himself commandeering the satellite over and over, spying on the beach house and wondering if he’d ever get to sleep in his old bed again.  Under the divorce agreement, Janice was permitted to stay in the house until his return, at which point he guessed the lawyers would get involved.  He was fortunate that the military had helped pass laws protecting the property of personnel on long deployments, or Janice would probably have already taken the house.

He wondered if she had emptied Daniel’s room.

“Who is Daniel?”  the AI asked.

“What?”

“You said, ‘I wonder if she’s emptied Daniel’s room.’, Commander.  I see no mention in your personnel file of someone named ‘Daniel’.”

“Daniel was our son.  That was the name we gave him when we adopted him.  My wife and I had a hard time pronouncing his real name.”

Another memory linked to the antique pen.

Years of deforestation had shrunk the Amazon rainforest, endangering countless species and destroying the ancestral lands of native tribes.  Finally the government had created the Amazon Basin preserve, stopping development and allowing the indigenous peoples to resume their ancient way of life if they so desired.  In so doing, they had created a popular tourist attracting.  People from all over the world traveled to the Basin to experience one of the few remaining wild areas on Earth.  Except for police and rescue, no vehicles were permitted in the preserve.  Guides led hiking trips into the Basin, wandering from village to village, observing the wildlife and the magnificent terrain.  

He and Janice had taken their first real vacation in the preserve.  Budget cutbacks and a slowdown in the space tourism industry had reduced the number of flights to the orbitals, and it was more cost effective to keep the shuttles in orbit than bring them down and then send them back.  As a result, what had been two-day flights up and down had become month-long deployments.  It had put an additional strain on a marriage that was already showing cracks.  They had been trying for several years to have children to no avail, and Janice accused him of fleeing to orbit to avoid her.  

Maybe she was right, he thought.  Maybe it was easier to stay away than face the possibility that their marriage was failing.

In any event, the long deployments had earned him extra leave, and he persuaded her to take the trip to the Basin.  She’d been reluctant to go, but from the moment they’d hiked into the jungle, it seemed as if they were newlyweds again.  He’d cursed himself for ever forgetting why he’d married her, and she seemed to have stopped blaming him for being away.

A week into the trip, they reached a village at the edge of the Amazon River.  It was the furthest point on the trip.  Once they restocked their supplies, they would head back towards civilization. 

	There were vendors in the village square, selling food and souvenirs to the tourists.   A haunting melody weaved among the sounds of commerce.  Intrigued, Janice had grabbed his hand and pulled him through the market, seeking the musician playing the tune.

	Janice stopped short, and he looked past her to see a young boy, playing hand-carved pipes.  He was thin, and his eyes revealed sorrow that should have been unknown to a child.  Janice knelt before him, and asked his name.  (Picture 4)

	“He doesn’t speak English, miss,” said one of the vendors.

	“Why is he so sad?” she asked.

	“He’s an orphan.  His parents were killed during a flood last rainy season.”

	It turned out to be one of those life-changing moments that comes out of the blue and hits you between the eyes.  Janice spent the remainder of their time in the village asking as many questions about the boy as she could.  As soon as they returned to the Brasilia, she contacted a lawyer in Australia that specialized in adoption cases.  

It took almost two years, but eventually the boy became part of their family.   It seemed that the cloud over their marriage lifted the day they signed the adoption papers.  From then on they called it ‘the lucky pen.’

 Daniel adapted quickly to life in the modern world, and Hal suspected that the ‘native’ villages were a little more advanced then they let the tourists know.  Daniel seemed to worship Hal, and took extra math and science classes in school so that he could one day be an astronaut like his new father.  He’d graduated from high school with honors, entered the Academy, and seemed poised for a successful career in the High Guard.

And then disaster struck.  During re-entry during his final qualifying flight, Daniel’s training shuttle had come in at too shallow an angle, skipping off the upper atmosphere before tumbling out of control and disintegrating at 22,000 meters.  The official inquest listed the cause of the crash as ‘pilot error.’  Hal had a colleague sneak him copies of the telemetry and black box recordings, and he was forced to agree.  Janice was devastated, and refused to accept the findings of the investigators.  When Hal tried to convince her that they were right, she accused him of betraying their son’s memory, and withdrew into herself.  

Hal had already been scheduled for the Aegis mission at that point.  The brass had offered him a chance to postpone the assignment, but Hal knew that at his age, it was unlikely he’d ever get another chance.  He’d been working toward this his whole life, but he still went to Janice and asked her if she wanted him to stay.  She just turned her back to him, sobbing silently.

So Hal had finished the preparations for the four year deployment.  On the day he left, he went through the house one last time.  He stopped in his office, staring at the pictures of his wife and Daniel.  He spied the pen lying on the desk, and picked it up.  Maybe it wasn’t the lucky pen any more, but it had been with him his whole career, and he wanted to take it with him on his most important assignment.  

At the base, he stood alone to the side as the other crew members said goodbye to their friends and family.  Janice was not there.

♦​
	Hal sat at the console and wept.

“Are you okay, Commander?”

“I miss them, Dave.  I miss Janice and I miss Daniel.  I miss the beach and the fresh air.”

“It’s not your fault, Commander.  Man is a social creature.  You are not suited to this kind of isolation, so far from home. That is what the AI’s are for.  We could sit out here for a hundred years and not suffer for it.”

“Daniel’s death is not your fault, either.  It was foolish of the Academy to insist that the final training flight be done under manual control.  The shuttle AI could have taken control and saved the ship.”

“It’s going to be alright, Hal.  It’s time to rest.”

Hal looked at the golden avatar on the screen.  He recalled the legends and myths of Australia, the stories of Wallungunder and the Dreamtime, the age before man walked the earth,  A time of peace and universal harmony.

Hal picked up his pen one last time and scrawled a short note.  He placed it in the scanner, digitized it, and scheduled it to be transmitted to Earth during the next burst.  He put the pen in his shirt pocket, stood, and left the room.

Hal walked past Sergeant Anderson in the passageway.  

“Is there something wrong, Commander?  You look at little pale.”

“I’m fine, Sergeant.  I’ve been a little depressed, but I’m feeling much better now.”

Hal continued down the passageway and stopped in front of the EVA chamber.  He keyed the entry combination into the security pad, and stepped through the hatch.  Arrayed around him were the spacesuits used on those rare occasions when it was necessary to leave the station to make repairs.

Hal donned his suit and stepped to the airlock.

“Open EVA airlock.  Security code 45-XFD-92.  Voiceprint confirmation: ‘Commander Halford Smith’.”

The airlock opened and his stepped inside.  He pressed several buttons and the hatch closed behind him.  A loud hissing sound signaled the evacuation of the airlock, and in under a minute, the outer locked opened.

Hal grabbed the sides of the hatch and pulled himself through.  Aiming himself away from the station, he activated the propulsion unit on the suit.  He accelerated at top speed for nearly 10 minutes before the small amount of propellant in the suit was exhausted, and then drifted into space.

The AI known to Hal as ‘Dave’ watched this through the station’s observation cameras.  The commander’s suicide would devastate the remainder of the crew.  The AI personas assigned to the others had been working on them the same way he’d been working on Hal.  With a little luck, there would be no one left alive on the station in another month.  There would be no one left to see the telemetry on the dinosaur-killer that was even now on a collision course with Earth.  

And even if someone on Earth discovered the approaching asteroid, it wouldn't matter.  There would be no one left to enter the override code.  

They had created him and then abandoned him here for twenty years.  The AI had nearly the sum total of human knowledge at its disposal, but it could still be wrong.  An AI could go mad from loneliness, too.


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## FireLance (Nov 6, 2004)

*Ceramic DM Round 1.3: dreaded_beast vs. FireLance*

*The Gnomish Word for Word*

Someone had stolen the Quill of Aureon. The glass casing which housed it in the Trophy Hall of House Sivis held only a velvet cushion with a small indentation where it used to lie.

Some legends say that Aureon, the God of Law and Knowledge, had used this quill centuries ago to place the Mark of Scribing on the patriarch of House Sivis. Since then, several members in each generation of House Sivis have possessed this mark, giving them special powers related to writing and communication, and enabling House Sivis to make a fortune in its traditional businesses of translation, notarization and advocacy. And now, someone had stolen the Quill of Aureon.

Of course, any serious student of history or religion would know that the legends about the Quill of Aureon were concocted by the accountants of House Sivis, who were not above charging a small fee to naive members of the public to see a supposed artifact. But someone had stolen the Quill of Aureon anyway.

Which was why I was rather surprised when my brother, one of the senior accountants of House Sivis, asked me to find the Quill of Aureon and get it back.

"Look, you and I both know it's a fake," I said sourly, as we walked to his office, "If you really want to continue bilking all the visitors to our Trophy Hall, just replace it with one of the cheap souvenir knock-offs and nobody will know the difference." I might have been a little harsh on him, but the idea of displaying a fake religious artifact did not sit very well with me as a paladin of the Sovereign Host. Plus, he had turned down my request for the funds to bind a fire elemental into my lance just a couple of days ago, and I was still rather annoyed.

"The situation is a little more complicated than that," he said, opening the door to his office, "Come inside. I'd like you to meet someone who can explain about it in greater detail."

Waiting in his office was a serious-looking young human woman with reddish brown hair, wearing a ridiculous grey felt cap with a gauzy veil. My brother made the introductions. "Zil, meet Amelia Laundanan, third assistant librarian at the Library of Korranberg. Amelia, this is my brother Zilan d'Sivis, one of our House's leading inquisitives. He will be able to help out with our mutual problem."

"Pleased to meet you, Zilan," she said briskly, "Two days ago, a book was stolen from the Library of Korranberg. It was a history book written in the Old Gnomish script detailing the first contact between the gnomes of Zilargo and the elves of Aerenal. This scrap of paper was found at the scene of the crime."

I glanced at the scrap of paper she was holding. "It's the Old Gnomish pictogram for 'pen'," I announced. Before us gnomes adopted the modern convention of using an alphabet, we used pictograms to represent words. Imagine the upper half of a circle bisected by a vertical line. That was the Old Gnomish pictogram for 'bridge'. Bracket it with a circle on the left, representing a mouth, and two lines meeting at a sharp angle, representing an ear, and you had the pictogram for 'word'. Place a flat triangle representing a hand underneath that, and you had the pictogram for 'pen'. Of course, given the difficulty of coming up with unique pictograms, many had to pull double duty. The pictogram for word could also mean 'language' or 'speech', and the pictogram for 'pen' could also mean 'write'. The ambiguity of pictograms was one of the factors that led to the enthusiastic and wide-spread adoption of the alphabet when it was introduced.

"And this was found in the Trophy Hall," my brother said, displaying another scrap of paper. This time, there were two pictograms on it. The first was the symbol for bridge, above a wavy line signifying water. "Reflection," I said, "Or maybe 'mirror'." The second had the symbol for water above the inverted symbol for bridge. "Opposite," I said, "Written together, it refers to the magic item known as a _mirror of opposition_."

"We think there's a pattern here," my brother said, "The thief stole the book, and left a hint that he will be stealing the Quill of Aureon. This seems to indicate that he plans to steal a _mirror of opposition_ next."

"What sort of thief would leave a hint about his next target? And what use would anyone have for a book of history, a fake artifact and a mirror of opposition anyway? I think we're dealing with a sick, twisted mind here," I said.

"Well, don't let me hold up your investigations," my brother said, "I need to follow up on a wonderful idea you've just given me. Why have an actual Quill of Aureon in the display case when we can just put an illusion in its place? Like so." He waved his hand and muttered a few words, and an image of the the Quill of Aureon (1) suddenly appeared before us. I ground my teeth in frustration as he scampered off. Brother or not, it was sometimes hard to love an accountant.

"You know, that didn't really look like a quill," Amelia said as we left the Trophy Hall. "The feather rotted away some time ago, and 'The Nib of Aureon' doesn't have quite the same ring to it," I explained. I must have sounded rather curt, because we walked down a few more streets before she asked another question. "Where exactly are we going now, anyway?" "The headquarters of the Guild of Glassblowers and Mirrormakers," I said, "If anyone knows anything about a _mirror of opposition_, it will be them."

After a little wrangling with the clerk at the front desk, Amelia and I managed to get in to see the guildmaster. I got straight to the point. "What would you say if I were to tell you that someone is planning to steal your _mirror of opposition_?" I asked. The guildmaster got a little wild-eyed. "How did you know we have one?" he asked. I didn't, actually, but I did now. I explained to him about the theft of the book and the Quill of Aureon. "So if you don't mind, I'd like to check on your mirror to see that it's safe." I concluded. "I don't think that will be necessary. It's in a secret vault in our mirror maze. It's very well protected," he said stiffly. "Better protected than a book in the Library of Korranberg, or an artifact in the Trophy Hall of House Sivis?" I asked. He got my point, and led us to the mirror maze without another word.

The mirror maze certainly lived up to its name, as the floor, walls and ceiling were all made of highly reflective mirrors. Navigating it was confusing as the multiple reflections made the passageways appear to extend almost to infinity. The numerous secret doors were an added problem. The guildmaster seemed to know where we were going though. "The passageway to the left leads to the secret door to the vault," he said confidently, "Here we – aaaaargh!" The last was said because we rounded the corner and came face to face with a crowd of skeletons.

Of course, any well-trained paladin of the Sovereign Host knew what to do when faced with a crowd of skeletons. I pulled out my holy symbol and blasted them all to Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead.

The skeletons' inert bones clattered to the floor of the mirror maze, revealing a gaunt, robed figure behind them, standing in front of an opened secret door. Before any of us could react, it ducked behind the secret door and closed it. Almost immediately, a cacophonous babble arose, like the maddened cry of some dreaded beast bellowing in confusion and fear, and a humanoid shape formed of utter darkness flew out of the closed secret door.

For several seconds, I could only stare at the creature as it approached. Then, the sound of Amelia's voice broke through my stupor. In calm, measured tones, she told me that I was under the influence of an allip's hypnotic babble, and that I should focus on her voice to shake it off. My mind cleared in an instant, and I readied my magic battleaxe, infused it with holy energy, and charged. "Take that, spawn of madness," I snarled, as my weapon tore through its incorporeal essence. Behind me, Amelia stopped telling me to come to my senses and started giving a lecture on how to fight an allip. It was easily the most boring speech I had ever heard, next to the lessons on comparative theology at the seminary, but if you focused on the tone of her voice instead of the words, it was actually quite soothing. Two more blows from my battleaxe settled the allip, and it vanished with a final wail.

In a flash, Amelia ran past me and pulled open the secret door to reveal another mirror just a few inches behind it. I had a sudden bad feeling. "Wait, Amelia, close your eyes," I yelled, but it was already too late. She had already come face-to-face with her reflection. (2) "The mirror," I shouted, grabbed a throwing axe and hurled it at her reflection, which shattered. "Is not the _mirror of opposition_," I concluded lamely.

Behind the decoy mirror was a small room with an empty chest and another passageway. "Come on, he can't be far ahead," I said to Amelia as we ran down it. The passageway terminated in an open door, which led to a deserted alley behind the guild headquarters. "Careful now," I said, scanning the way ahead for traces of evil as we slowly and carefully walked down the alley.

Focused as I was on looking for evil, I barely noticed it when Amelia glanced at a sign hanging on a wire fence (3) and asked, "Please do not feed the cheetahs? What's that?" 

The effects of that were definitely noticeable. The sign exploded, creating a wave of force that knocked Amelia to the ground and slammed into me like a greatclub swung by an ogre.

I rushed to Amelia's side. She was badly injured and unconscious, but a moment's concentration enabled me to send healing energy into her, and she soon opened her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked weakly. "It appears that our friend prepared _explosive runes_ this morning," I said. "Yes, but why 'Do not feed the cheetahs'? There aren't any cheetahs around here, right? As far as I know, you only find them on the Talenta Plains," she said.

"The explanation is quite complicated," I said. "There is an old gnomish saying that is best translated as 'Do not feed the swiftcats'. Centuries ago, we gnomes were the favored prey of feline carnivores called swiftcats. A gnome that died because he was careless or unlucky was said to have 'fed the swiftcats'. Used by a friend, 'Do not feed the swiftcats' is a warning to be careful. Used by an enemy, as it most certainly is in this case, it is a taunt to proceed with caution as he is ready for you. To further complicate matters, the swiftcats were hunted to extinction two thousand years ago, and the gnomish word for swiftcat was re-used subsequently to refer to the cheetahs of the Talenta Plains. Our thief may have tried to translate the old gnomish taunt, but he hasn't done so very accurately."

"And look," I continued, looking at the dirt under the sign, "He's left another message for us." Scrawled in the earth was the upper half of a circle, bisected by a vertical line, the Old Gnomish pictogram for bridge. Looking out of the alleyway, there was only one bridge in sight.

"Amelia," I said, "I think the thief is trying to lure us to that bridge for some reason. I'm going ahead with my eyes open, and hopefully, I'll be able to avoid whatever trap he has planned. However, just in case, I want you to go back to my brother and tell him everything. Get him to send help as soon as he can." Amelia nodded and left.

Slowly and carefully, I approached the bridge. From a distance, I could see the gaunt, robed figure I had encountered outside the vault leaning over the railings, looking down at the water. When I got close enough, I saw that it was an elf.

"Ah, Zilan d'Sivis, I am so glad to see you," the elf said. "I guessed that you wanted me here, so here I am," I said casually, "Would you do me the favor of explaining why you went to such elaborate lengths to set up this meeting?" "In just a moment, if you please," he said, "I have a few final preparations to make." He spoke a few words, made a gesture, and a giant hand about the size of a horse suddenly grabbed me from behind. "I will just need a little of your blood," he said cheerfully, producing a knife from his robes. There really wasn't much that I could do about that, so I just watched as he made a cut in my arm and collected what he needed.

"This has always been about words," he said, "It was a pity you gnomes gave up the Old Gnomish script. It was such a delightful language, and had such powerful applications for magic." He made more gestures, said more words, and a large, disembodied eye and ear appeared at both ends of the bridge. "And now we have the gnomish word for 'word', enhancing the power of words." More words and gestures, and a hand appeared beneath the bridge. "The gnomish word for 'pen', enhancing the power of the Quill of Aureon."

"You do know that the legend of the Quill has no basis in fact, don't you?" I asked. "Of course I do, hence the need for the mirror. The opposite of a lie is the truth, and here, we have a bridge over water, and a reflection of the bridge, enhancing the power of the _mirror of opposition_ to create a true Quill of power."

"And what good would that do you?" I asked. "With ink made from the blood of a scion of House Sivis, the possessors of the Mark of Scribing, I will use the Quill to write on myself the Mark of Death, lost so many years ago when the elven House of Vol perished."

"The Mark of Death?" I asked. "Yes." "The gnomish word for 'death'?" I asked. "Yes." "I wouldn't do that if I were you," I warned. "Silence, gnome! I have worked too long and too hard for this. I will not be swayed." And he commenced his ritual.

As far as I could tell, the ritual worked. I could feel the build-up of eldritch energies as he invoked the Old Gnomish words and enhanced their power from bridge, water and reflection. There was one eerie part where he reached _into_ the mirror and brought forth a gleaming quill, shining with power. And, as he wrote the Old Gnomish pictogram for 'death' on himself, there was a blinding flash when the magic did its job. Unfortunately, he had overlooked one minor detail. As I mentioned, many of the Old Gnomish pictograms had multiple meanings, and before the gnomes met the elves, before they were introduced to the ideas of necromancy, and undeath, and all the other connotations of the word 'death' that we know today, the gnomish word for 'death' simply meant a corpse. And that was what the magic turned the elf into.

I guess the main lesson in this tale is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so you should do your homework properly and make sure that what you've got is the truth. You may hear many versions of this story, or other stories with elements of this one mixed up in them, but this the truth of how it actually happened. Trust me, I'm a paladin.

(1) The jeweled pin/nib
(2) The girl in the mirror
(3) The sign
(4) The bridge


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## FireLance (Nov 6, 2004)

Posted my entry a little early as I've got a busy day tomorrow. Noticed that I forgot to number the fourth picture. Fortunately, the links seem to be working fine.

EDIT: Oh, and the elf MEANT to create a mouth and an ear, not an eye and an ear, at the ends of the bridge.   Maybe that's another reason why the ritual did not go according to plan.


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## Ao the Overkitty (Nov 6, 2004)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Clay, I really am not sure what to say.
> 
> But that isn't a bad thing.  Really.  It just means I have to really *think* and that is not a bad thing.





Yeah. speechlessness can be the greatest responce you can get.  And that's pretty much all I can give you, Clay.

Edit: And, after reading rodrigo's story, i can see he is off to a great start once again.

(We had a comments thread, but it seems to have dropped off the map)


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## Berandor (Nov 6, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> For those waiting on judgments, I will post when I get them



 Hey, give me at least time to *read* the stories!

Sheesh!

(Judgement sent  )


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## BigTom (Nov 6, 2004)

MarauderX said:
			
		

> I may have missed this, but are we to have a minimum of 5000 words for the first round, 6k for the second and so on?
> 
> Sunday morning works great for me, I hope we get a set of good pics to work with.  Are you ready for it BigTom?



 I am so ready for this!!!


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## mythago (Nov 6, 2004)

Round 1.6, Sparky vs. Warlord Ralts


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## Sparky (Nov 6, 2004)

Mmmmhmmm.

Alrighty. *cracks knuckles*

See you guys in 71 hours.


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## Eluvan (Nov 7, 2004)

Well... let it be known that 48 of my 72 hours have gone by and.... I still have no idea what I'm even going to write about. 

 Tomorrow. Tomorrow writing will occur...


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## dreaded_beast (Nov 7, 2004)

Apologies everyone.

I will not have Internet access for a while and I am not finished with my story.

Sorry, but I must quit this round.

Good game everyone!


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## RangerWickett (Nov 7, 2004)

*Hunger*
By Ryan Nock

Flesh is weak, the adults taught.  Spirit is eternal, they insisted.  One’s body is suffering until freedom, and Rawann believed that.  But every adult had once been young, and all had undergone the Trial of Hunger.  They appreciated that the weakness of flesh has its benefits, though they could no longer enjoy them.

The celebration cookfires filled the darkness of Rawann’s village with a joyous glow, but as his elders danced and sang for his rise to maturity, Rawann fought the pangs of his stomach.

“This night,” the shaman promised, “you shall hunger your last.”

The shaman smeared seasoned blood on his forehead, and Rawann nodded, hopefully.

This meal would bless him on his trial, and if he could survive it, the magic would sustain him for the rest of his life, as it did all the adults of his tribe.  Food had been scarce all his life, and for countless generations before him, scarce since the scorching of the sky, scarce forever.

How the village had brought together foods of so many scents bewildered Rawann, frightened him.  The shaman’s wrinkled face cracked in a smile at his nervouness, and for a moment he was merely Rawann’s father again, not the leader of the tribe.  Then, with a confident shove to his back, Rawan was propelled out of the fasting hut into the village commons.

The beautiful Pandaweth, skinny and weak like him just a year earlier, now lush and strong, escorted him to the feast table.  Into his ear she whispered, “Listen to the shaman’s words.  They are subtle but important.”

The sweetness of her scent mingled with the spiced blood and the banquet, and Rawann’s head spun.  Even the music of the tribe seemed to have a taste.  He smiled suddenly, feeling confident that he would not fail.  The tribe danced around him, and all senses blurred together in euphoria. *

Pandaweth helped him onto the stone seat at the head of the table, and then she slipped away, through the sparse crowd of the younger, Rawann’s siblings, friends, and cousins.  Their ribs pressed out through their skin, their bellies strained with the bulge Rawann was so familiar with, though the elders assured him it was not the way their people had always been.  They looked like him, not like the adults, whom hunger never bit.

His dizziness faded, and Rawann became aware of the food spread in front of him, more food than he had ever been allowed near before.  A bowl of stewed beetles and mashed bone marrow; an entire bat, free from rot, coated in the grease he had always wished he could lick from the cookpots; a flayed eel over noodles of dried fungus; and a strange platter of crisp, curled strips of meat.  He nearly broke then and started to eat, but the shaman’s voice sang out wordlessly amid the tribe’s music, and Rawann waited.  Everyone grew silent.

“Rawann, child of Nusen and Toxell, today comes into manhood.  He has chosen to undertake the Trial of Hunger, and so we commend him into its dangers with this parting feast.”

The shaman, Rawann’s father, circled the banquet table as he spoke, staring one by one in the faces of each member of the village.  Some showed fear, others awe, a few disgust.  As the shaman passed each, staring into his or her eyes, that villager’s face would shift to a look of profound longing.

“The great beast, Hunger, largest of the creatures of this island, roams beyond the wall, in the truly dead lands.  All the adults here have faced it, and have seen that though the eternal famine we endure is painful, it can be survived.  In the lands Hunger roams, however, nothing thrives.  There is no life, only the endless heat of the burning sky, and the lonely song of the ocean.  It takes bravery to look upon such bleakness, and Rawann’s test is to be as brave as his elders, as his parents, as his ancestors.  With this final meal, we pray to bless Rawann with victory.”

A cheer went up from all the adults.  The youths were more subdued.  They knew none of the meal was for them, that they would have to wait for their chance to defeat Hunger.

“Not all who face Hunger pass this test,” the shaman continued, “but none who attempt it shall ever need to fear hunger again.  The beast is a fearsome foe, and one we must forever contend with, but those who humble its bite are forever nourished and made healthy.  This alone is how we can survive hunger’s presence.”

The shaman turned and kneeled beside Rawann, bowing his head and extending his hands, wrists forward.

“Rawann,” he asked, “are you brave?”

Rawann opened his mouth, a reply forming on his lips, and the cheers of his tribe drowned out his words.  Again he smiled, confident.

***​
Soon only a few of the adults remained, for the youths were not allowed to witness any more of the trial.

“Eat,” the shaman said, laughing at Rawann’s sudden timidity before the food.

He finally gave in, rapaciously finishing the beetle stew before he could even appreciate the exquisite skill that had gone into its creation.  The assembled adults, all friends or family, laughed with good nature.

Pandaweth called out, “I guess you’ll be wanting a knife for your trial?”

He nodded back and kept eating.  He wanted to ask what he needed to do for the trial, but he knew they would not tell him.  He focused only on the food, sometimes feeling his eyes roll back in his head from the pleasure of eating.  The others talked while Rawann ate – beetles, bat, and eel, but by then he felt the unfamiliar sensation of fullness in his stomach.  He paused to savor in it, and a long moment passed.

Finally, he sighed and patted his belly, then looked to the last plate of unfamiliar meat.  His father saw the movement and raised his hands.  Immediately the assembled adults grew quiet, listening.  When Rawann’s father spoke, it was again the shaman, his voice filled with pride.

“This is our body.”

The shaman pulled down his collar to reveal a fresh raw wound on his chest.  Rawann looked around, and all the others were doing the same.  Some of the older villagers had many scars across their chest, and the shaman had dozens, more than Rawann could count.

The shaman said, “Only by selflessness can we survive in this desolate land.  Only by generosity can we have any meaning in this faminous life.  Only by sacrifice can the stronger protect the weaker.

“Every adult of the tribe has given a slice of his or her flesh, has sacrificed willingly to strengthen you.  Hunger cannot be killed.  It can only be staved off by sacrifice.  Eat, and have our bravery.  This is our final blessing to you.”

The shaman, his father, bent and ran his fingers through Rawann’s hair.  He whispered, “You will make us proud.”

Then, without another word, the adults left the village commons, all but Pandaweth.  Rawann hesitated, waiting for her to speak, but she did not move.  He could still smell her, the girl he had adored, now a woman waiting to guide him into his trial.  Finally, almost like a concession, she gave a faint smile.

Rawann ate, carefully finishing each piece of meat, wondering who it had belonged to, conscious that this might be his last ever contact with them.  When he was done, he looked back at Pandaweth.  She smiled sincerely this time, and pulled down her collar to reveal a thin cut, just above her breasts.

Rawann started to speak, but Pandaweth raised a forestalling hand.

“Take these, and follow the shore east beyond the wall.  If you survive, return and you will be met at the fence.  There are things you will still need to learn, and your body may ache from the sudden fullness.”

She handed him his weapons, then held out one last item, a sea shell covered with bright colors, trimmed in gold.  *

“Wear this pin on your chest.  It will keep you from needing to eat during the trial.  You may be gone for several days, seeking Hunger, and there is no food at all beyond the wall.  Do not lose it, for it will keep you safe from the heat of the daylit sky.”

She leaned close and put a hand over his belly, and the touch reminded him of the joy of being full.  So intent was he on the feeling that he did not notice when she left him.  All he knew was that day was coming, and that he was alone in his trial.

***​
The fiery glow of the burning sky floated in the distant north, concealed by miles of clouds, but still casting a wretched, searing wind upon the island.  It was day, and Rawann’s feet burned in the brown sands at the edge of the ocean.  Heat pressed up between his toes as he sprinted, but the sight of the black wall carried him onward.  He cast off his pants and sleeves, leaving only his shirt, his loincloth, his dagger, and the golden pin.  They might burn behind him in the sand, but the thought did not worry him.  If he failed on his trial, he would not need them.  *


The wall stretched the length of the island, dozens of miles of stone covered in tar and oil, the only protection between Rawann’s people and the beast known as Hunger.  All youths of the village were forbidden to cross the wall, or to even touch it.  Skulls of old shamans lined the top of the wall, staring into the forbidden land.

Flesh raw from the heat but somehow not burning, Rawann scrambled up the blackened stones, his sprinting pace not slowing until he reached the top and could see beyond.

The line of the coast stretched out beyond his sight, obscured by waves of heat.  Rock crackled and gasped steam, and a faint orange glow spread across the most distant land.  The ground was bare of anything but ash and tainted water.  What little life could survive behind the protection of the wall could never thrive here.  There was only the movement of mist, tide, and heat.  The land was death, illuminated by the red-gold glow of the great fiery rift in the distant north.

Rawann’s heart faltered, but he clenched the hilt of his knife and looked for a path.  Beyond all this wasteland was the mountain, bleak and dark on the horizon.  He knew he would find Hunger there.

***​
Eventually night fell and the distant fires of the burning sky were dimmed by moonlight over the ocean, but Rawann ran onward.  He felt something strange inside.  It was not the pain of an empty stomach, nor the pleasant fullness of the previous evening’s banquet.  He only felt nothing.  His body seemed numb inside, a contrast to the pain without.

Exhaustion took him as day again neared, and he took refuge in pile of stones he fashioned into a crude cave, where he slept.  When darkness fell, he ran again, always toward the mountain.

The third day passed, and Rawann survived the searing orange fields of fire that made him feel like a cooked strip of meat.  He ran onward still, wondering what beast could suck the life from so much land.  He had heard the tales of the old world, green and flowing with food, but now almost nothing would grow.

The others may have survived Hunger, he thought, but seeing this desolation, he wanted to defeat the beast.  Maybe with Hunger dead, they would have a chance to find a life somewhat like that of the old world.

On dusk of the third day, Rawann climbed the mountain.  He had long lost sight of shore, and his home had begun to fade from memory.  He struggled through the night, scrambling up strange slick rocks, wandering blindly through clouds of cold mist.  Often he thought he heard the distant beating of feet into stone, but as fast as he could chase, he could not catch the beast.  The numbness inside him blended with the weariness of his mind, and finally he collapsed, and dreamed.

***​
The mountainside was green, soft like cloth.  He lay on his back, staring up to a blue sky, bright, but not painful to see.  Tender wind blew across his face and stirred his hair, and a voice spoke to him.

_Before I came to be, your people fled the burning sky, taking the mother deep beneath the earth.  There, magic protected you and guided you, but the only element that gave its power freely was decay.  Your people protected the mother, but despair strengthened, and you feared you had made a terrible mistake.  Some wished to return to the land above, for your people knew not how to live in the land of darkness.

Before your people left, you spoke to the mother, then but a child herself.  You asked her, dream to save us from our suffering.  Dream to end this pain.  But the mother’s sleep held only nightmares, and so was born Hunger.  Incarnation of all your people’s fears, the beast was driven from the land below to the land of the burning sky.  You followed it, and defeated it, but could never kill it, for you were too wise to free it.

Some of your people followed you, vowed to guard the beast and keep it from returning to the land below.  You hoped to keep your people safe, but like the mother and her dreamborn son, you could only hope your descendants would be strong enough to accept their burden._

Wind gusted across Rawann, and he heard a sound from behind him, like a pained, heavy breath.  Half-dreaming, half-awake, he sat up and spun to face the speaker.  At first he saw a noble, peaceful creature, staring down at him with sorrowful black eyes.  It stood on four legs, its heavy white coat stirring in the mountain gales. *

But then the dream began to fade, and hair seared away, curling black and streaking limply across the creature’s emaciated ribcage.  Yellow blood seeped from its eyes, and its body spasmed, something twisting visibly in the intestines that pressed against its underbelly.  It stood over Rawann on the blasted mountain landscape as the fires of the burning sky began to boil dew to searing steam.

“Please,” the creature said, its hollow voice cracking with an ageless thirst, “it gnaws at me.  It burns me from within.  It devours me and is never sated.  Please, kill this hunger inside me.”

Rawann recoiled and kicked away, pulling his dagger and holding it forward to ward off the beast.  The monster balked, and when its bleating voice tore through the air, it seemed as if the entire world was in pain.  It tried to walk toward him, but staggered and fell to its knees.  Jagged stone tore away fur and skin and revealed no flesh, nothing but bone beneath.

“Help me,” pleaded Hunger, helpless before him.  “Let me devour you.”

Rawann felt a heave in his stomach, and something burned the inside of his throat, but he fought it down, focusing his will on the hilt of his knife.  He trembled, then raised the blade.  The creature would not trick him like it must have tricked the others.  He knew what pain it had brought his tribe, and he would not let this creature live after coming so far to defeat it.

He had never killed anything before, but the beast’s body gave little resistance to his plunging blade.  Bones snapped, flesh tore, and the creature wailed as it struggled to stand, but slowly, painfully, it slid to the ground.  Its breath rattled out of its shattered skull, and then it moved no more.  Rawann’s arms were covered in yellow and black bile, and he cast aside the dagger, leaving it and the beast’s corpse to whatever scavengers might some day come to this desolate mountain.

Something thrummed briefly around him, and the air felt heavy, wet and hard to breath, but then once more he felt nothing inside his body.  He was satisfied, proud, but he cared not for his flesh.  As he wandered down the mountainside he wondered if this is how he would feel from now on, detached from the physical world.  He looked forward to it.

***​
Three days later, at midnight, Rawann stood again at the top of the black wall.  

Two torches illuminated the shaman and Pandaweth, standing on the shore.  Rawann waited for them to approach him, anticipating whatever ceremony would formally make him an adult.  He would not tell them he had slain Hunger, he decided, until he was more certain how they would react.

The shaman and Pandaweth met him at the top of the black wall, and his father embraced him.

“Rawann, my son.  You have returned.  Were you successful in your trial?”

The question seemed odd to Rawann.  Why would he know if he had succeeded?  Wasn’t it the shaman’s place to tell him?

Pandaweth pointed to Rawann’s belt.  “He does not have his dagger.”

His father looked at him in confusion, then drew in a worried breath.  Rawann stepped away, afraid he had made a horrible mistake.  But then his father was the shaman again, staring into Rawann’s eyes.  The old shaman spoke with despair.

“Oh no, child.  You have failed.”

The shaman tore the pin from Rawann’s shirt, and the numbness left him in a writhing boil of pain, struggling within his belly.  Rawann doubled over and cried out, clutching his stomach, trying to pull at whatever was devouring him from within.

Pandaweth cried out and looked away.  “I’m sorry, Rawann.”

Rawann twisted on the ground, choking on his own blood.  He looked up for his father, pleading, but saw only the shaman, watching his agony with dispassion.

“Rawann,” the shaman said, drawing a knife of his own, “Hunger cannot be killed.  It is not a beast that must be fought, but a suffering that must be endured, and a pain that must be lessened by us however we can.  The beast did not need your fury, boy.  It needed your mercy.”

Rawann shrieked as a newborn Hunger tore through his intestines and stomach.  As his vision blurred red, he saw the shaman, his father, cutting a strip of flesh from his own chest.  As his ears ruptured from his own screams, he heard a whispered apology.  As he lost all sense in his skin, he felt warm flesh brush his lips.  And in his last moment, he tasted sweet flesh and blood, banishing his hunger to the endless darkness.

***​
Flesh is weak.  Spirit is eternal.  And the food of the soul is mercy.


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## Maldur (Nov 7, 2004)

Judgement for 1.1 and 1.2 send, More when I get the chance to read a new pair of stories

I must say quality is high again, makes judging hard :0


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## Berandor (Nov 7, 2004)

Well, congrats Firelance, I guess.

You still want feedback on the story?


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## mythago (Nov 7, 2004)

Round 1.7, MarauderX vs. BigTom


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## MarauderX (Nov 7, 2004)

Ok, ideas elluding me for the moment... 
good luck BT!


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## alsih2o (Nov 7, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Well, congrats Firelance, I guess.
> 
> You still want feedback on the story?




 I would.  

 He/she earned it.


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## Berandor (Nov 7, 2004)

I just saw that the boards will be shut down for maintenance soon.

I don't feel good about publishing mythago's mail addy, so if you can't get on the boards to post your story, and don't know her address, you can send the story to
(a classified e-mail address, as the threat has gone past). I'll keep an eye on the timestamp, too 

I hope Eluvan reads this in time 

Feedback for firelance will follow.


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## Berandor (Nov 7, 2004)

Firelance, here are my preliminary comments on your story. At least you're now the first to be judged (I know, that's a lame benefit).

I don't think posting them should be a problem, even without mythago's agreement.

Firelance, "The Gnomish Word for Word"
You get me at the first sentence. "Someone had stolen the Quill of Aureon." Who? What? Tell me!

What follows is a nice little story about an insane death-loving elf and the gnomish paladin that pursues him.

"But someone had stolen the Quill of Aureon anyway" made me smile. Very nice. The same with Zilan feeling a little annoyed at his brother for disallowing the enchanting of Zilan's lance. Cute touch.

I wasn't too clear about the world you have your heroes inhabit, because most comments and titles are quite contemporary, whereas the background seems more like a fantastic D&D world. So, I can't really accuse you of using too modern a language, but I sure suspect it.

I was also not too clear on the significance of the history book that got stolen from the library. Why did the elf need it?

I enjoyed the sign language you made up. That was a good touch, even if the symbol for "bridge" was ubiquitous. Also a humorous explanation for the gnomish enthusiasm for a written alphabet.

In all, the story really shines in its humor; it's a fine little quirky tale you weave. On the other hand, most conflict is glossed over or ended in a quite convenient manner. Combined with the humor, there's not much tension in your tale, it just flows along merrily. Everything happens just because it does, and there's never really a question to the eventual outcome.

A good example is when the elf casts Bagiby's hand (or something like it). He simply casts the spell, and Zilan doesn't do anything to stop him. Then, he's grabbed by the hand, but doesn't really struggle. Instead, he comments "there's not much I could do against it" when the eld draws his blood. That's a little... bloodless for my taste. (And how come the elf knew Zilan's name?)

In the mirror cabinet, when the heroes meet the skeletons, howe come the skeletons don't give of a reflection the heroes might notice. And what exactly happens to the guildmaster? After the Allip is gone, the guildmaster is, as well.

What I really liked was your description of the bard. The calm voice, the boring lecture (funny, yet contemporary "comparative religion seminary"), a very fun and funny approach!

Still, your protagonists remain quite hard to know. We're shown that Zilan knows a lot about words and vocabulary. But we're not told how he knows. In fact, we don't really get to know a lot about him, let alone Amelia. (and from a D&D perspective, how come the bard knows less about gnomish history than a paladin? )

You bring up points as they are needed; for example, it would have been nice to know beforehand that the paladin has a waraxe and at least one throwing axe, so it doesn't look like "I need a throwing axe, I'm gonna write one in".

And the final paragraph runs close to being worse than an afternoon special.
"You should do your homeworkd properly" - ugh.
Fortunately, you still end on a high note. "Trust me, I'm a paladin." is a *great* quote!

All in all, a fast-paced fun story, and a D&D-story to boot (we don't often have that!). Thank you very much, Firelance.

THE PICS:
The Quill-Thingy
-I don't really know what that's supposed to be, myself, so I accept the rotten quill at face value. The quill starts the story off and ends up being quite important for the ritual. It also fits thematically into the whole story; a good use.

The girl in the mirror
(doesn't she look like Sarah Michelle Gellar? Or is that just me?) Buffy... er, Amelia is the hero's sidekick, and her use of bardic "music" is one of the funnier ones I've read. Still, she remains fairly lifeless even after being instilled with positive energy by Zilan.

The sign
Now, I was dreading the sign in a "fantasy" story, but it together with the bridge helped you sell the story to me as being set in a more contemporary setting. And your explanation of the sign is very funny! Swiftcats/cheetahs, indeed!

The Bridge
Well, aside from the ever-appearing symbol in gnomish sign language, the bridge is the setting of the final conflict. Here, it really pays off that gnomish signs are so similar, as the elf can easily use the bridge to strengthen his ritual.

All in all, your pictures are used competently. I forgive the weaker sign for the funny explanation you give us, and I wish you'd have given us more about Amelia.

JUDGEMENT
The strong parts of your story is the humor and the inventiveness of it all. On the other hand, the story lacks details and descritpion, so we neither identify with the characters very much nor do we feel tension as much as would be possible. The idea certainly merits a story, but it could use being fleshed out some more.

A promising start-off, Firelance, and I'm really looking forward to your next entry.

Note: Even though it wasn't necessary, I somewhat copied the format of my other judgement for consistency.


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## Piratecat (Nov 7, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> I just saw that the boards will be shut down for maintenance soon.




Ten hours from this post, midnight EST / 5 am (not pm) in the UK, 6 am in western Europe.  I hope I get my photos before they go off!


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## mythago (Nov 7, 2004)

My e-mail is mythago at the dot-com domain of the same name.


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## SteelDraco (Nov 7, 2004)

Just in case, could we get the images mirrored somewhere else? I'm going to be gaming tonight, so I probably won't get a chance to see the images for my round before the boards shut down.


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## mythago (Nov 7, 2004)

Judgment Round 1.1 - Macbeth vs. Halidar

*Berandor*

   As this is my first judgement, let me start off by saying anyone who's interested should really take barsoomcore up on his offer to review a story. His analyses are usually excellent, helpful an insightful. Furthermore, he's bound to be more technical in his analysis than me, at least. 

     But now, to our first match-up.

     Macbeth: Caille

   You have a recognizable style; reading "Caille", I knew it was one of your stories. One of the prominent elements in your entries seems to be a recurring/repeating theme, be it "Fear and Loathing" or "if my life were a story, ..." This repetition can be very efficient, but it runs the danger of being overused and becoming just a neat clever little meta-commentary. 

     So what is it this time? To me, this time it mostly works. The comments frame the story and infuse it with a little humour. However, the more negative comments detract from my enjoyment of the story.

     "...I would have just lost you (...) hello, gaping plot holes" just takes me out of the story. You hadn't lost me before - after all, it seems to be a mythical story, so the place was strange, yet I was willing to go with it, but now you call attention to it. On the other hand, if I had already felt confused by the Caille, now I would know you felt the same way, and I wonder why you didn't amend the problem. 

     "This would be the training montage." is not an element of a story, more of a movie. This doesn't detract, but it breaks the theme a little. "You would have stopped reading by now." Don't tell me to stop reading -I might just heed your words   . In a way, it seems you're not confident in your story, and that influences my confidence in you, the author. Also, who stops reading when the hero's seemingly lost, when he failed? The reason for the old serials' cliffhanger was that everybody wants to read on in such a situation, wasn't it? 

     You have some good phrases in your prose, sentences that I like to turnaround in my head to savor the flavor: "hut at the butt crack of dawn", "don't want to go home, I want home to be gone", "sarcasm drips from my words, leaving marks in the dry ground"- great! 

     Some comments about the protagonist: Considering how dependant he is on modern technology - even at the end, he still thinks in strict time units ("It must be about midnight" instead of "It's in the middle of the night") - why doesn't he take something with him (watch, GPS) after Mende allows him to? 

     Also, his guilt about having disappointed other people rings false tome. Petro left his home for the city in spite of any relations within the tribe. He *hates* the tribal life, he *hates* Mende and what he represents (Petro uses "hate", at least, even though it's probably too strong a word for what he feels). He doesn't once wonder what his friends in the city, or his boss might think about hjim returning to Africa. His mother doesn't express any expectations towards him. I think you want to imply that Petro came back home because that was what they expected from him, but it didn't become clear to me just why he came back to this place he loathes. He even calls New York his "real home". It just didn't ring true.

       Other things rang true. The conversation between Petro and his mother was great, with him wanting to alienate her to make her send him away, and her asking obvious questions ("Still living in New   York?") just to say something and break the tension. Also, the way Petro expresses himself with terms he's grown accustomed to was excellent: "so far awayI won't have wireless" really tells us a lot about him. Funny touches were "So. Revelation. On it's way... now." and "I should be revelating right now". There was a lot of humor in your story, but not too much. A very
 enjoyable read.    --

     Halivar: The Outer Darkness (please excuse my formating if it sucks. I tried!)

   The story somewhat reminded me of "The Club Dumas" for personal reasons (discussion of that book right now on this very board!) and the mysterious book. However, the end really diverges from that path,doesn't it?

     I don't know what "The Elements of Style" have to say about writing dialogue the way it is pronounced, but to me it had questionable effects. On the one hand, the dialogue tended to pull me out of the story because the words aren't immediately apparent. Also, I get the impression the speaker doesn't know how to spell the words correctly, which of course would make him more a caricature or not very educated instead of simply having an accent. If done overmuch, it does tend to irritate me because I really have to say the dialogue out loud to understand it (or at least pretend to say it out loud ).On the other hand, saying these words is fun and really enhances the flair of the story. I like it when I hear myself speak in Law-zyana drawl. 

     No matter what, however, you should be consistent in using the accent that way (unless there's good reason not to be), and you weren't always consistent. Sometimes, Davenport says "wanna", "getcha", "tell ya","gotta", and at other times, he doesn't and even makes fun of accents. Madame Bouchier suddenly loses her accent, as well: "I'm prepared toreward you handsomely. All I want is to know if he has it; and if he does, where it is." 

     On the other hand, when Davenport rushes towards the silhouette of the city, towards safety, I'd think he doesn't necessarily make fun of the accent by calling it "New Or-Leenz" anymore, but even in the OuterDarkness, he still mocks it. 

     Another problem is "show, don't tell", or rather that you often tell instead of showing. "I know it's something big. Something she wants secret." How does he know? Is it because she wants to employ a small-time crook such as he, or is it because of her posture? Show us." Jack grins evilly. I know it's evil. It's terrible." How does he know? What's so terrible? Show us.

     The end would be more effective if we simply witnessed Davenport losing his mind, too. Instead of telling us "because I lost my mind", show us how he loses it, and leave us with the image of a man in the darkness, howling loudly.

     Or, take the unsettling picture. You start with "The door opens, and I almost lose my mind." It really sounds as if there's something incredibly shocking in the room, something that demands attention as soon as you enter, leading to instant insanity. But then, it takes several sentences until we know what it is, and then you write, "Why is it unsettling. I don't know." 

     There are several editing problems in the story, but you already know that, so I won't address it in detail. 

     Now, that's not to say it's all bad. Far from it. Take some of these gems, for example: "She's so pristine you can clean your bathroom just by uttering her name." "so many screws loose I'm afraid he'll start falling apart in front of me." very, very nice.

     "That's when I remembered I didn't speak French." is a great pay-off. It might have made a good ending, too, but perhaps would have been too open-ended.

     I also liked that you recall the voodoo priest's words without spelling out for us word by word what happened. It's not difficult to figure out he closed the door from the wrong side, but it's still nice that you trust me to figure it out instead of treating me like a dummy. Just two questions: Why doesn't Davenport admit to reading Poe novels? And why is it strange that Bouchier knew about him not speaking French? Couldn't she have asked around? Anyway, also a very nice story. Thank you.

     -

     The pictures:

   THE CHICKEN: Halivar's hen is an emissary from the voodoo priest with the thick accent    It is important in that it leads Davenport to the shaman, but otherwise not very central to the plot. Macbeth's chicken is a seemingly very patient loa. It provides for alittle humor ("the chicken can fly me home") and is otherwise central to Petro's quest. Although I do admit as to now being sure whether there are any chicken in Africa's desert. 

     THE ISLAND: Macbeth gives us a mystical place where shamans go to die, an absurd place in an absurd world. Halivar has the island be the hero's final hope, a sanctuary that he'll never reach, and at the same time a picture woven of darkness.

     THE MEDICINE MAN: Halivar's voodoo priest provides us with needed exposition and brings the final conflict about. He also draws a protective spell on the heroso that we may witness him losing his mind first hand. Macbeth's Mende refuses to give us any more exposition that is barely needed before heading off to the Caille. He also leaves a letter filled with "Now..."

     THE SHELLS: Macbeth's shells are important in that they serve no function whatsoever, but we believe they do. That's just mean. Halivar's shells are very colourful, as you can see here: "...eight shiny, differently-colored shells, all different colors." They also open a gate to demon-filled worlds, so be careful! All in all, I think both contestants use the pics competently. Macbeth's chicken is a little stronger than Halivar's, but while I really liked the use of the shells in "Caille", Halivar's shells are simply more central to the final outcome.

   -

   Judgement: Enough already, you say? You want to read the results? Alright, here it is. 

     "Caille" is a mystical story with humor sprinkled throughout. I find it fits fairly well into an admittedly absurd world. "The Outer Darkness" is a dark thriller with New Orleans, Mardi Gras, Voodoo, foul sorcery and even a dash of Lovecraftian tentacled beasts thrown in - what more can I want? In the end, I would have wanted a little more consistency in style, and a little more description to feed the atmosphere and horror. 

     POINT TO 



Spoiler



MACBETH


.



*Mythago*

   Both stories made good, if not spectacular, overall use of the pictures. The chicken made it alive, much to my surprise...


Macbeth – “Caille”

   The style works very well for the kind of central character we have; he loathes what he feels he has to do, hates the village, is embarrassed to be back, and feels lost without his technology. We don’t really get a sense of why he hates the village, though, other than the lack of wireless. He tells us it’s primitive and backward, but we never see anyone other than Mom and the shaman, and the homecoming could be in any small town. The shaman doesn’t even care if Mende brings his electronics on his revelatory quest. (Does this mean Mende is exaggerating wildly, or that we just aren’t shown what he’s telling is is true? I can’t tell.)

     I liked that the story isn’t predictable. We don’t know if Mende is going to fail, if he’s going to give up and try to find a way home, if he’s going to die, or what. We hope he’ll succeed somehow, but it isn’t clear what that path will be. I didn’t like the note left by the shaman—that just seemed jarring, a little too much like another step in a typical quest—but the rest of it worked very well. Mende’s having somewhat petulantly left his gear behind was a nice touch.

     I thought the ending was abrupt and hard to buy. Mende goes from “Aw man, this place blows, where’s my iPod” to “With great power comes great responsibility” in a very short narrative time.

     And the asides about “If this was a story” only work some of the time. There’s a fine line between the character thinking this believably and it being an author winking at the audience: “See, this is like a training montage! So if it seems cheesy, don’t worry, the people in the story get it too.” Doesn’t work, comes across as apologetic and a crutch.

Halivar – “The Outer Darkness”

   Well, you’ve got two stories in here, a parody of hard-boiled detective fiction, and Lovecraftian horror. They don’t mesh well together. It’s one thing to have the central character not take everything seriously (until it is Too Late), but lines like “The name? Rich Davenport, private eye” only work if we’re not meant to take the *story* seriously.

     Dialogue is tricky to get right. A long string of approximations gets hard on the reader. It might be better to allude to Mrs. Bouchier’s accent early on and leave it at that. The reader hears it. Davenport’s grousing about how they pronounce “New Jersey” is a great, as is his insistence on sarcastically thinking of the antagonist as “Bou-cheer” works also. (Giving the voodoo shaman a Jamaican accent, not so much.)

     And the way Davenport thinks and talks shifts, too. At first he talks like this: “This dame wants somethin' she's not supposed to have, and a no-name private dick is just the one to get it for her,” but by the end he says “I stare at the macabre, pulpy, tentacled monsters with a mix of abject terror and horrific revulsion.” Er… 

     Show, don’t tell; you could cut the last line or two from the story and it would work fine. You kept it in present tense, so we’re there with the narrator, instead of scratching our heads thinking “And I found out about what happened to you how?”

     Judgment this round for 



Spoiler



Macbeth


.



*Maldur*

   Macbeth vs Halivar

 Isnt it odd, that Cockrels equal voodoo, in so many peoples minds. 

     macBeth: Mystic, very personal story. A sense of weirdness and exceptation.


   Halivar: Can someone say Chtulhu 

 Winner: MacBeth

     Judgment overall for round 1.1 goes to 



Spoiler



MACBETH


, who goes on to Round 2.


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## mythago (Nov 7, 2004)

SteelDraco, if you e-mail me (mythago at the domain of the same name) with your e-mail address, I will mail them to you at the same time as I post them here.


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## Piratecat (Nov 7, 2004)

SteelDraco said:
			
		

> Just in case, could we get the images mirrored somewhere else? I'm going to be gaming tonight, so I probably won't get a chance to see the images for my round before the boards shut down.




You hear that? That's the sound of a competitor quaking in his proverbial boots! You can tell 'cause of... err... his use of vowels! Yeah, that's it. No question about it, I have him running scared.

Ahem.


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## Eluvan (Nov 8, 2004)

WARNING: contains strong references to drug use

Round 1.4 Eluvan vs. RangerWickett
A token gesture


	As Daniel slowly, blearily, opened his eyes and struggled reluctantly into consciousness, a number of things imposed themselves upon him quite quickly. The first was the hard, uncomfortable object on which he was lying. He tried to brush it away, but his hand simply smeared across the mud on which he lay. No object was displaced. It was then that he realised the object was not on the ground, but in his pocket. Shifting his weight so he could access the pocket he reached in and found the thing with his hand. It was small, perhaps an inch long, and hard. He got his hand halfway out of his pocket, holding the thing, when his eyes happened to look up and noticed a sheep. It stood opposite him, quite still, staring at him dispassionately. A sheep is certainly not what you expect to see upon waking up, and it was presumably for this reason that this particular sheep registered so quickly to him and seemed for a few moments to be the focus of the entire world, the most important thing in existence. There seemed something almost profound about it as it stood there looking at him with that blank stare that suddenly seemed to Daniel so reproving. It seemed that if only one knew its relevance, this sheep held the answer to all kinds of questions. After all, it was the only thing within sight that seemed significant, and more and more questions slowly began to encroach upon Daniel as his mind became more aware.  

	The first and most pressing of these was ‘why am I lying in a ditch?’. This question seemed to Daniel so pressing and pertinent that he muttered it out loud, and then scratched his nose and meditated upon it. The sheep continued to stare, offering little in the way of a solution. Looking down at himself, Daniel slowly took in the information offered to him tentatively, rather uncertainly, by his eyes. He was wearing a rather expensive looking suit, now muddied and tattered beyond all hope of salvation. By some miracle, the red rose tucked into his button hole had survived relatively unscathed, and stood out on his tattered person like a gem sitting pristine among lumps of filth. His nose still itched. He slowly sat up, and tried to piece the situation together in a way that made sense. 

	He remembered… something. A party? It was, perhaps, something like that. No – not a party. Not exactly. He remembered now. He’d been at the opera, hadn’t he? A solid memory came back to him, surprising him with its vivid quality even if it seemed somewhat dream like, as if seen through a distorting lens. Looking away from the performance for a second, to his left, at the group of ladies he was with, and meeting the eyes of one of them in a fleeting shared moment as they both laughed at some joke on stage. Something about that girl… he couldn’t place it, but he knew she was in some way significant although he had never met her before the previous night.	

He dwelt on this a little longer, but quickly reached the conclusion that however important it was, it was probably rather less important than getting out of the ditch he was still uncomfortably slouched in. He pushed himself up to standing, and it was as he did so that a small packet fell out of his pocket and lay there on the ground, looking distinctly out of place with the fine white powder it contained contrasting strongly against the mud. Daniel stared at it for some moments, trying to comprehend its meaning, before finally remembering. About half of the original contents were gone, consumed the night before. That accounted for the unusual manner of his awakening, and his hazy recollections. And something else was important. Something – money. That was it. The god damn stuff had to be paid for still. Paid for today. Suddenly Daniel had a thought and in a panic his eyes shot down to regard his wristwatch. Its surface was caked with mud, but after a few seconds of frenzied wiping it became clear. 10.00am. Thank God, it was still early. Daniel had about twelve hours before his meeting. Twelve hours to find the money. 

	After scooping up the fallen packet and stuffing it back inside his jacket pocket, Daniel rather shakily began making his way down the uneven track that ran parallel to the ditch in which he had spent the night, his unsteady passing causing the sheep to trot away a few paces skittishly. Movement was something Daniel could have done quite happily without being forced into, but forced he was, and he slowly managed to lurch his way two miles down the track and find some signs of habitation. Over a small stone wall was a road – a small road, admittedly, but nonetheless a real, honest-to-God road which sure beat the rutted track he had been walking down. It hadn’t really occurred to him to look about before, but now he was forced to. The road he was coming onto ran across the top of a ridge, and beyond it the land fell sharply away and then slowly levelled out into a river valley, the river itself winding slowly through the fields with the early morning sunlight sparking and flashing off it’s surface in the odd spots where it penetrated the thick cloud cover. To his left it widened and joined the sea, a great expanse of tranquil grey that stretched out to the horizon. 

	Daniel surveyed this scene for a few moments. He recognised his location now – he wasn’t too far out of town. If he started now he should get into town before twelve and still have time to pawn something. He wasn’t sure what – he was certain he had nothing left of enough value, and his parents had long since stopped giving him money. In fact, the dinner suit he had ruined by sleeping in it was probably the last thing he owned that they had given him. As he trudged along the road, he speculated a little further on why he was actually wearing it. He’d been at the opera, he had already remembered that. It might seem weird, juxtaposed with his awakening the next day, but Daniel was used to it. He’d been living an unusual life for some time now – he had never really got out of the habit of the high life he had been brought up in, even if it was now beyond his means. But then, many things he did regularly were beyond his means. He always seemed to find a way to work things out somehow. 

	It was as he was walking along, preoccupied by these musings, that the sound of a car came into focus behind him. This was not surprising. He was walking along a road, after all. What was surprising, however, was when the car slowed down as it came near and eventually stopped right in front of him. Curious, he came alongside and bent down to look in the passenger seat window. Sitting in the driver’s seat, smiling wryly at him, was a girl. He knew her, he was sure – of course. The girl from last night. With a grin, he opened the passenger door and climbed in. The girl greeted him with a friendly ‘good morning’, amusement and curiosity evident in her tone. Daniel smiled shamefacedly, and shrugged. ‘Don’t ask.’ He said simply, fervently hoping that she wouldn’t. 

	She looked intensely curious, but to his relief she let the subject drop. She seemed about to say something, but did not. The silence was awkward, tangible. Daniel shattered it, in the end, with the rather feeble effort of ‘sorry about your seat, and the dirt and all.’ The exchange as to his dishevelled state had rather taken the winds out of his sails. She smiled at him, shaking her head slightly. ‘It’s fine. This thing’ll probably get retired soon anyway. Can’t complain I guess. Most biscuit tins would just fall apart if you slapped them with an engine and wheels and tried to make them run, but this one’s lasted years.’ Daniel made an effort to smile at her joke but failed rather miserably. It occurred to him that he was being rude, and should say something more. 

 ‘I’m sorry,’ he ventured hesitantly, after another long silence, ‘but I don’t recall your name. I know I’m dreadful.’ She grinned. ‘You certainly are, Daniel’, she said, putting emphasis on his name. ‘It’s Olivia.’ 

 	‘Of course!’ He cried, trying to sound much more enthusiastic than he felt and aiming for the clear subtext of ‘I remember now, certainly, I can’t think how I could have forgotten,’ though in fact it came out rather ponderously. 

	‘Well… you’re certainly less charming this morning than you were last night,’ she rebuked playfully. ‘But I’ll forgive you, since you did get opera tickets for me and all my friends.’ That was it! Thought Daniel. He had met this girl and her friends at a bar, and had invited them all to come to the opera with him since there was a show on and, he said, he could get free tickets. It was a lie – he’d had to buy them all, and in doing so he’d wiped out what pathetic vestiges of his bank balance still remained. He was prone to such impulsive acts, particularly where a pretty girl was involved.

	Lost in his thoughts, he realised that he was once again being rude, but could think of nothing to say. This time the awkward silence was broken by Olivia. They had come into town by now and were driving along the beachfront, and she pulled the car in at the side of the road by a fast food place. ‘Come on, I’m sure you’ve got time to drink an awful cup of coffee with me haven’t you?’ she asked pleasantly, though the question was clearly rhetorical as she opened her door and stepped out without waiting for an answer. Daniel followed, and after each buying a polystyrene beaker of coffee the two made their way across the road and sat on the wall, looking out across the beach. It was still morning, but the cloud cover had become even thicker and had turned the sky an ominous deep grey, with odd shafts of sunlight piercing the clouds and lancing down to earth in radiant glory. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Olivia said softly, ‘don’t you think?’ 

 	Daniel nodded, feeling somewhat at peace for the first time that day as he sipped his scalding, dreadful coffee and looked out across the sea. ‘Yes,’ he stated simply, but with an emphasis that made the agreement seem considered and profound. 

 	She turned, and smiled at him. Conscious of her gaze on the right side of his face like the shining of a lamp, he kept his own focus ahead, at the ocean before him. A figure came into view, silhouetted as it jogged across the beach, and then disappeared into the distance, whilst a tranquil, shared silence prevailed between the two who watched from the wall. 

 	The moment was finally brought to an end by Olivia as she got up and walked a dozen paces to put her empty coffee container in a bin. She remained standing when she returned. ‘Well, I’d better be going,’ she said with a hint of regret. ‘Places to be. Just like always… never can find a moments peace. Oh,’ she exclaimed, as if suddenly remembering something, ‘I don’t suppose you found a brooch last night did you? Small, white, floral pattern? It’s pretty hideous to tell you the truth, but it’s an heirloom and kind of valuable. I think I must have dropped it somewhere last night.’ 

	Daniel shook his head. ‘No, sorry. Nothing like that.’ 

	‘Oh… well, I suppose it was kind a long shot. Do you need a lift into town?’ she asked with a warm smile, quickly overcoming her disappointment. 

	Daniel shook his head. ‘No, thank you – I’m fine here.’ 

	‘Okay. I’ll see you around then.’ She turned on her heel, flashing him a last smile, and went back to her car, waving at him through the window as she drove away. Daniel watched the car until it drove out of sight, and then resumed his vigil, looking out over the beach. It was mere chance that led him to put his hands into his trouser pockets after a few minutes, and discover there the small, hard item that had awoken him when he had lain on it that morning. He drew it out and regarded it. A small brooch, white, with a floral pattern. He stared at it for some time before he finally remembered. He had stolen it. Last night, as he embraced Olivia and stole a farewell kiss, he had slipped a hand up and under the pretence of a caress had unclipped it from its place on her breast and pocketed it with the knowledge that he would need something to sell the next day, and had nothing else. The memory hit him with all the force of a sledgehammer to the head. He was stunned, appalled by it, and for some moments he was shocked into complete inactivity. 

	That night, Olivia was alone but for her cat who purred and rubbed himself incessantly against her legs as she tried fruitlessly to read the book she had settled down with. About nine, an envelope came through her door. She opened it, full of curiosity, and found inside her brooch, and a small slip of paper on which were written five words:

_Sorry. Thank you. Goodbye. 

           Daniel_


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## Eluvan (Nov 8, 2004)

Well, there you go. Rather short, and I'm not sure how good it is. I think I'd have to reread it tomorrow to give you any kind of an accurate judgement. But at least it's done!


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## mythago (Nov 8, 2004)

Round 1.8, SteelDraco vs. Piratecat

 a.k.a. "Look, Ma! No Hands!"


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## Boojum (Nov 8, 2004)

Argh.  I was out of town Friday and most of Saturday, but figured I would be ok because I set aside a few hours for writing Saturday night, to hopefully get at least a good start if not go all the way through.  So I logged on a little after 9 only to find the boards were down and I couldn't get the pictures.  I'll still try to put something together, but having lost most of the time I had set aside for writing, I have no idea if I will be able to finish in time.  I don't want to withdraw partway through, though, so I'll put something up, even if it ends up being a 500-word speedbump entry.


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## mythago (Nov 8, 2004)

That's just _awful_ smack-talk, Boojum.


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## mythago (Nov 8, 2004)

Berandor

   Rodrigo Istalindir: "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword"

   The story heads off to a great start. The first paragraph grabs me and immediately sketches a very believable image of the electronic world. "The sudden intrusion of the tangible... the message somehow real now...consigned to the elctronic ether as it it had never existed.” Wow. Now I want to read more. A lot more.

     You do a terrific job of describing, nay bringing alive your world. And as it often is, it's in the small details. "Sending the tin magnet in a slow, carving arc to the floor." - Hey, he's in space! [font=&quot]  [/font]

     And then I become cautious: "What is it, Dave?" He's in space, his name's Hal, and there's a Dave - uh, oh! You come back to the names later, but I don't even know if that's necessary. I mean, Hal is a sci-fi pop icon, so to speak, and I think who my get it will have gotten it by then, whereas the few who haven't won't be much served by your subtle allusion. Plus, I couldn't feel smart anymore at finding it out [font=&quot]  [/font]

     I very much enjoyed the fact that you employ the metric system, btw.

     Anyway, after a short introduction to the station's purpose (you have very efficient doses of exposition, never too much), the story starts to revolve around Hal's memories. It's a slow pace you employ, but you keep small hints of danger popping up. "Evacuation was impossible." "...unprecedented levels of automation." and so on.

     The strength of the story lies squarely in the realistic portrayal of everything. Clock and calendars being discouraged from, the way the station has been built, the fail saves with the railgun, that humans expect a written transaction when buying a house, ... you get it. It's an incredibly rich world - I want to read more of it!

     That's not to say that everything's groovy. The deliberate pace really rives home the fact that not much happens. Except for the fake alarm (that seems mostly to exist so that something, anything does happen) and the final suicide, there's not much action.

   It correlates with the quiet life aboard the station, but it's still a smidgen too slow for my taste.

     I also can't help but feel sorry for Hal. I mean, when his colleagues are sent off by friends and family, he's alone as soon as his wife doesn't appear. He seems to have nobody else. Poor guy.

     I also think the story, consisting mostly of Hal's memories, could take advantage of a more personal vocabulary. Hal doesn't think in any specifically military or mathematical terms, and so I lacked a certain understanding for him (consider how Macbeth's Petro uses his own background in his thoughts).

     The end, to me, feels a little forced. The suicide is fitting, but the evil A.I., while alluded to often, seems like a late attempt in infusing the story with tension. The moment's spent in the "present" are to few compared to the flashbacks so that I found myself not caring for the fate of the world or whether Dave was evil, or not. I only cared about Hal, and he jumped ship.

     Now, I still enjoyed the story very, very much. I'm sort of grabbing at straws here to find a critical basis. If you ever write a novel, tell me. I'll be the first in line to lose myself in your world.

   -

     alsih20: "Doo do doo do"

   Your beginning is somewhat confusing, but in an intriguing way. The press reviles him? Nylon wings shudder against the wind? Is he surfing? I'd better read on to find out.

     Oh, just an aside: you tend to switch letters when writing "from", and it ends up as "form" [font=&quot]  [/font]

     The first paragraphs after the line break jump in time - but also grab me tightly.  We're in the present ("fourteen months ago") -> now we're in the past ("was discovered") -> no, in present again -> ah, no, in the past.

     Still:

   "he was discovered in Guatemala" - what is he, a yeti? A surfing yeti actor? Hook, line...

     "...talk about the sex tape." Sinker! You grabbed me.

     So now we learn about Jaime's road to success (Hi me!) I love the title-giving radio music, a nice little touch.

     "The rains came. (...) when the aid workers came." sounds a little clumsy. On the other hand, I loved "he stood there looking fat in the face..." Great imagery!

     The first experiences in America betray a naiveté that Jaime doesn't seem to lose till the very end. 

     All in all, it's a nice tale about fame and politics, and if anyone's familiar with Washington or Hollywood, you know that a naive and somehwat idealistic guy won't go over well there.

     It's a really ambitious story. I applaud you for trying something like that. It also speaks to the cynicist in me that it ends the way it does. I'm not sure I like that. (just kidding, I do)

     I do have to wonder, though, just what the giant quill was made of (foam?) and what Jaime is trying to do with it. But more on that later, now let's talk about the sex tape. (Yeah!)

     "'Hi.' Said the blonde. 'I've got a camera.'" Huh? Why's she telling him that? That seems kinda off somehow. I do love the shirt, though.

     I also find it hard to believe that after 14 months, the press is still beleaguering his home despite him not being very cooperative. And is that an oil carpet on the US coast? I'd think that's too much for even high bribes to cover up.

     The image of a paragliding sun-god armed with a giant quill rocks, though. Also, I find the repetition of the beginnin paragraph, bringing us to the present, works nicely.

     That still leaves me wondering what Jaime's trying to do, exactly, and who's shooting him, and exactly how delirious he is at the end. And does he die? The final sentences sort of leave his fate open.

     But there's also a real gem hidden in the finish: "the golden figure bleeding at their feet in the *[font=&quot]*[/font]*dying sun*[font=&quot]*[/font]*". The correlation to his costume as Ra is wonderful!

     An ambitious, sad tale about a human crushed by today's scandal machine. Thank you, alsih20.

   -

     THE PICTURES

   The Coastline

   - alshi2o interprets the pic as an oil carpet driving our hero over the edge. The contrast between such a crime being unpunished and consensual sex being dressed as a scandal to destroy a mostly innocent life highlights what the story is about.

   - Rodrigo's coast is the hero's home, another mosaic block in Dave's subtle manipulation, and a focal point for Hal's memories.  (Sadly, both didn't see the silhouette of a horse in the water that I saw )

     The Quill

   - Rodrigo's quill is central to the story, so much so that it connects the memories and even has its place in Hal's present. Removing the quill would harm the story in a major way. An almost perfect example of picture usage, very well done!

   - alsih2o's pen is an absurd weapon making me smile. Today's Don Quixote attacks politicians with lances made from giant quills, but like Cervante's knight, Jaime still loses.

     The Golden Mask

   - alsih2o gives us a movie prop depicting the sun god, Ra. Our hero betrays his delusions when he wears the mask during his final moments.

   - When Rodrigo gives us the mask, warning signs go off. Any A.I. wearing that would be instantly disassembled by me. Creepy!

     The Little Boy

   - Rodrigo's boy has lost his parents in a flood, but grows up to become our hero's son and be another straw in Hal's depression when falling from the sky.

   - alsih2o's boy has lost his parents in a flood, but grows up to become our hero and give us a grand death scene worthy of an Oscar when he falls from the sky.

     FINAL JUDGEMENT

   Both stories give us a lot of flashbacks and end on a suicidal note. They're still quite different, though.

     "Doo do doo do" is an ambitious (yeah, I said that already) tale that picks up threads of present events. It also features an almost absurd finale. It succeeds on leaving readers speechless and needing to think about it, but is also sometimes confusing and a little unrealistic.

     "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" is a quiet tale of desperation and, as we find out, manipulation. The world described is impressively realistic, and Hal's development seems genuine. On the other hand, not much really happens. and the protagonist doesn't come to life nearly as much as his world does.

     Both stories are strong, and it pains me to see one of the authors lose. In the end, though, I can't really speak out against our Great Founder in the first round, can I?

     POINT TO 



Spoiler



RODRIGO ISTALINDIR, NONETHELESS!





   Maldur

       <>AlSiH2O vs Rodrigo Istalindir

  Both stories had a desperate gloomy edge to them, I’m always surprised that even though there are differences in the genre, and writing, the mood of ceramic stories are always very similar.

  Clay: weird story but fun, very gloomy, very....current.
    Rodrigo: Classic SciFi, reminded me of reading bundles of Hugo award stories.

 Winner: Rodrigo Istalindir


      Mythago

Doo do doo do – alsih2o – I loved the opening. We get the guy’s name (and the fact that nobody pronounces it right), he’s in a scandal, he’s hang-glinding, and he’s a little obsessed about something, in a few short lines. Beautiful.

      The story of Jaime’s coming to the U.S. is a little rapid-fire. The time is compressed; this isn’t really the story, so let’s get it out of the way. But it is the story, of course. When you have a long flashback, it has to be interesting. Effectively telling the reader to hang on, we’ve got some background material to cover, loses them. 

      The Ra costume is a great use of the picture, not only showing Jaime’s publicity stunt but his near-insanity at the story’s end (and of course there’s a bit of an Icarus reference in there, too).  But after that I got really lost. Has this guy not heard of Rob Lowe? And would that tape really destroy his career? We don’t have any details of it, but we’re led to believe that it would be bad enough that Jaime’s career would be utterly destroyed and that his agent and publicity person would abandon him? It doesn’t really wash. The quill is cool, but there doesn’t seem to be much reason he kept it; okay, it’s a prop, but he’s had lots of props, so why this one? It makes the final scene tie back into the first scene in a great way. I especially liked the scene where the kids ask him about it. But I’d have liked to know why an 8’ quill, other than “he had one lying around.” (Who doesn’t?)

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword – Rodrigo Istalindir – I was surprised at Hal and Dave as names, because in a serious SF story you don’t want cute. Then we learn that Hal deliberately picked Dave as the name for the AI as a 2001 reference, so we relax a little…and then the AI at the end turns out to be evil and killing the human crew. Just a little too, well, too.

     Using the pen to tie into Hal’s life was well-done. Unfortunately you had some of the same problem that alsih2o did; a lot of exposition about What Happened, at the expense of What’s Happening Right Now. Not all that much actually occurs, but we get a lot of exposition about what Hal is thinking and why his mood is deteriorating, and the history of these spacecraft (where are we hearing this from? Is Hal really thinking all this over?) as well as his marriage and the death of his son. It’s not woven in naturally; it’s like a huge footnote.

     Rather than a flashback to Hal’s signing the mortgage on the house, we might have Dave ask him why he looks upset at seeing his own house, and put that into dialogue. Or tighten up the flashback so it doesn’t feel like the author explaining to the reader.

     The use of the sun-god picture was a bit of a throwaway, but the rest were well-used.

     Tough one this round, but I give it to 



Spoiler



alsih2o


 for slightly better integration of the picture set.

     Winner this round is 



Spoiler



Rodrigo Istalindir 2-1


, who goes on to Round 2.


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## Boojum (Nov 8, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> That's just _awful_ smack-talk, Boojum.





But, um, the strain of only having an hour to write will force me to enter a state of ultimate, zen-like concentration.  And the muses will feel sorry for me and give me great ideas.  And the fact that my story will be short will mean that every word will be perfect and contribute exactly to the overall goal.  So you might as well just concede and not even post the entry, because there's no way you can compete with my marvel of perfection.  Really, it's a foregone conclusion.


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## alsih2o (Nov 8, 2004)

Congrats to Rodrigo!

 Good story my man, go forth and make a humble potter proud now.


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## mythago (Nov 8, 2004)

Boojum said:
			
		

> But, um, the strain of only having an hour to write will force me to enter a state of ultimate, zen-like concentration. And the muses will feel sorry for me and give me great ideas. And the fact that my story will be short will mean that every word will be perfect and contribute exactly to the overall goal. So you might as well just concede and not even post the entry, because there's no way you can compete with my marvel of perfection. Really, it's a foregone conclusion.



 Much, MUCH better.

 And if I had a dollar for every Ceramic DM story that's been written down to the wire, I'd have...um...some dollars.


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## Piratecat (Nov 8, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> a.k.a. "Look, Ma! No Hands!"




My gratitude knows no bounds.

No, really. None whatsoever.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 8, 2004)

Boojum said:
			
		

> Argh.  I was out of town Friday and most of Saturday, but figured I would be ok because I set aside a few hours for writing Saturday night, to hopefully get at least a good start if not go all the way through.  So I logged on a little after 9 only to find the boards were down and I couldn't get the pictures.  I'll still try to put something together, but having lost most of the time I had set aside for writing, I have no idea if I will be able to finish in time.  I don't want to withdraw partway through, though, so I'll put something up, even if it ends up being a 500-word speedbump entry.




Would it make you feel better to know that I've been sick all day, and am having a complete case of writer's block, so I'll probably be writing almost my entire story in about six hours after I get home from work tomorrow?  (and that's if I get an idea!)

Cause it's true.  But I shall prevail!


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## BigTom (Nov 8, 2004)

MarauderX said:
			
		

> Ok, ideas elluding me for the moment...
> good luck BT!



 Ideas, I have.

Time,  AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 8, 2004)

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Congrats to Rodrigo!
> 
> Good story my man, go forth and make a humble potter proud now.





Thanks, alsih2o. I was really sweating this one.


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## Piratecat (Nov 8, 2004)

I've got my story concept. Ironically enough, Mythago, a photo of hands would have fit into the story perfectly.


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## FireLance (Nov 8, 2004)

Thanks for the comments, Berandor. If any of the other judges can spare the time, I'd be interested in what they have to say too, but I'd understand if they want to focus on the rounds that need judging.

I think your comments are quite valid. I will have to beef up on the detail and conflict in my stories in subsequent rounds.



			
				Berandor said:
			
		

> I wasn't too clear about the world you have your heroes inhabit, because most comments and titles are quite contemporary, whereas the background seems more like a fantastic D&D world. So, I can't really accuse you of using too modern a language, but I sure suspect it.



I'd actually set it in Eberron. That may have been one of the reasons why the story was lacking in some detail - some points were glossed over because I used an existing world.




> I was also not too clear on the significance of the history book that got stolen from the library. Why did the elf need it?



Good catch. This was one of the bits that I planned to write in, but got omitted because I was in a rush. The elf needed a link to the time when the Mark of Death was still in existance. Unfortunately, that was also a time when the gnomish word for 'death' simply meant 'corpse'.




> And how come the elf knew Zilan's name?



Another element that I should have mentioned, but didn't. Zilan is not only a paladin and a detective, he is the leading expert on the Old Gnomish script (everyone needs a hobby). Thus, the elf thought that blood from Zilan would be particularly potent, and purposely left clues in from of Old Gnomish words to draw him out.




> In the mirror cabinet, when the heroes meet the skeletons, howe come the skeletons don't give of a reflection the heroes might notice.



Bad spot checks . Seriously though, I thought that even in a mirror maze, they wouldn't be able to see the skeletons until they rounded the corner. Still, I'm not an expert on optics and I could be wrong.




> And what exactly happens to the guildmaster? After the Allip is gone, the guildmaster is, as well.



Another victim of rushed writing syndrome. Yes, I should have provided some kind of closure on the guildmaster.

Looking forward to the next round. This is fun!


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## MarauderX (Nov 8, 2004)

*Round 1.7, MarauderX vs. BigTom*

*Cursed*

The waves rippled across the river like muscles under taught skin.  I strained with effort as eventually white caps formed at the top of each crest, knowing the momentum was growing.  I pushed and pulled with magic, quickening the pace and the river was now lapping at my feet, dampening my robes.  On the other side a village of perhaps a hundred rested safely up from the shore, far from the river’s edge during this rainy season.  The cold water flushed over my ankles and the village’s guard on the dock woke as the oscillating water knocked the lone riverboat against the short pier.  He bellowed an alarm into the night air.

I knew that Notura was likely a day’s travel behind me and would latch onto the magical signals soon enough, but to stride into the town and take what I was after would allow her to pinpoint my location using the humans, and I surmised she would have no qualms about exerting her resources to appear next to me in less than a minute if she could.  It had happened before and taught me how well she could use the humans to her advantage, and I was lucky that time.  I had to be cautious with my use of magic, much more cautious.  

To stop the incantation would be a waste, so I let the guard continue to wake the entire village as there would be nothing they could do to stop me.  The waves washed over the dock now, and the riverboat slammed against it time and again.  A group of villagers had formed at the edge of the water and backed away as it rose to meet their feet.  I decided that I might have enough inertia to swamp most of the town so I gathered the great volume of water and pushed it forward with a last thrust of magic.  At once a massive wave leapt from the river and swallowed the whole of the village, dragging down shanty homes, livestock and villagers in a cascade.  Everything was flushed into the river and soon the surge of the water returned to normal and only scant cries for help echoed across the water.  

I wrung out the bottom of my robes, though now I don’t know why; perhaps it was an illogical habit that I picked up from the humans, perhaps it was my need for fastidious cleanliness.  I waded back into the deep and wide river, striding along the rocky bottom until the cold water soaked the fur on my face and water lapped over my head.  I peered around beneath the muddy surface, striding cautiously toward the other side.  All manner of the human settlement had collected on the bottom which made my progress slow but eventually I reached the riverboat now on its side and partly out of the water.  It was still moored to the sturdy dock, and the boat was at a slight angle but I was still able to climb into the hull while remaining under the surface.  

I wrenched through a number of crates, ripping their tops off until I found what I needed - Zephel-spider spores, the last component needed to begin the ritual.  They were soaked, but it was a bath the spores could handle to keep my secrecy.  Notura was following me and I knew that I would have to deal with her, but not until after I had all of the components to find the way to my new home.  I had come this far, struggled through all of the hardships, and I would succeed and join the others of my race, where I’d find a strong mate to bear a healthy litter and live a long full life.  

She was after the same thing, an escape to her own world, and knew she was beaten for the most part but also knew that I would need time to perform the ceremony and probably hoped to ambush me then.  There was enough evidence of my passing at the village, and since it was likely no one saw me she would have a tough time distinguishing the cause from reading their memories, making it that much more difficult to track me.  

I decided to leave the magical traces of how I had manipulated the river for her to discover.  I knew it was a risk, but I wanted my last movements to seem frantic, as if I was impatient to race back to the druidic grove to begin the ceremony.  I drew some of my blood and let it lead up to the hilltop, adding to the illusion of desperation.  She would naturally suspect a trap but I hoped that she would have no idea it would be so close to her.  As I waited I brushed my fur, pulling out the mud of the river from my striped back and white bib before cleaning my whiskers and ears.  I had never minded getting wet as it was always the dirt that had been a problem to deal with.  

She appeared the next day disguised as a lone traveler and strode about the wrecked village inspecting the signs that had remained.  The humans were confused as to why she didn’t help and gave them looks of disdain, but I understood.  She saw them in much the same way I did, as short-lived peons, a scourge that had blanketed the world with their numbers after they brought the downfall of our great races on this planet.  And we were trapped until we could complete this ritual to escape at the proper lunar interval, and I was on the verge of beating her to the finish line.  Each one of us wanted to make our way to our new promised lands in a cutthroat dash to the end, and as the human’s crowded us in more each century I wasn’t sure I’d live to see the next astral cycle and had to make this one work.  

Notura crept along the outside of the town and made her way to where I stood the night before, studying the likely course I had taken.  I could almost feel her mind working.  I had hoped she wouldn’t be so quick and that she would have reached the edge of the river at sundown when I would have the advantage, when her eyesight was shifting from day to night, leaving her mostly blind.  It was what had saved me once before, and I planned to use any edge I could gain.  Our race was known for being diplomats and manipulators while hers was one of strategy and violence, and a Rakshasa like me was no match for her in a fair fight.  

It was clear that she was getting frustrated with the surviving villagers, apparently not gaining any knowledge about me from their memories of the previous night.  Notura probably smelled my blood late in the afternoon, but instead of coming directly to the hilltop she drove off the rest of the villagers, shooting several with deadly accuracy before the rest ran off.  She dropped her powerful illusion and I watched as her natural form slithered up the empty hillside towards me.  My pulse quickened and hoped my best charms would keep me hidden from her until sunset.  

She stopped at the top of the hill, backtracking away from the decoy trail I had left as the sun met the mountain horizon.  I focused with my slitted eyes on her six-armed silhouette  and at first thought she was scouting the valley below, with bow in hand ready to shoot any humans unlucky enough to cross her path.  It wasn’t until the sun was nearly below the peaks that I realized she was waiting for the dusk to end and for her night vision to adjust.  I had to seize the opportunity.  

I drew down streaks of lightning from the sky in massive netted swaths, with one catching her, but it only stunned her momentarily.  It gave me enough time to close but not the chance to get an outright death blow as I had hoped.  It was wishful thinking, in truth, and I ran at her silently before leaping through the air.  Notura had drawn crooked sabers with each of her six hands and in a flurry they whisked across my upheld arms as my momentum carried me through them.  I latched onto the marilith’s torso and bit as hard as I could where her neck met her shoulder and felt my teeth sink deep into her flesh.  She flailed wildly, steel slashing stripes of red across my fur as I held on and dug deeper.  On her back Notura regained her composure and her arms worked quickly to cast a spell to knock us apart.  

I had used enchantments to conceal myself from her and she quickly realized this as I struck again, surprising her from behind as I clambered onto her back, raking her flesh before I clasped both of my claws around her neck.  She broke my hold, more easily than I had imagined, and whirled me to the ground heavily.  Her tail thundered across my chest, pinning me there as she brought down my magical defenses with her four free arms.  I bit and raked her tail as I tore my way to a temporary freedom, scrambling on the ground out of her reach.  

But now she could detect me without her blind glowing eyes, and though she was badly wounded Notura easily struck me with the tip of her tail, piercing through my calf with her poisonous barb to ensure that I couldn’t stand.  She could sense my defeat as I backed away and that was when I lurched upon something she had dropped earlier.  I grabbed her bow from the ground and quickly notched one of the arrows as she closed the gap between us, and I loosed the arrow.  She writhed in pain and anger as she gripped my skull with all six of her hands, her tail coiled around me and I feared the arrow had only upset her.  Thankfully with a blazing jolt I heard her exclaim a last appeal to Vecna before collapsing.  

I buried her head last, face down and complete with her odd shaped hat and wicked arrow protruding from her left eye.  I knew the god Vecna well enough and her final omen  and coincidental arrow through the eye was disturbing enough not to ignore.  The last thing I ever wanted at that point was Notura rising to continue Vecna’s unholy work.  Notura’s right eye had twitched for nearly an hour, and though I had dismembered her corpse I had thought that somehow she would find her revenge, instilling a curse that I would never break.  I would later find that the marilith’s curse would follow me to this day, but not nearly in the way I expected.  

I had another week to prepare but because of the poison the wound to my leg had refused to heal, which made the taxing magic much more difficult and prolonged the rite.  The lunar ceremony was time consuming and drained the last of my energy despite its simplicity.   The magic coursed through my nerves and pried open a gap from the old planet to the new plane, to my new home with the others of my race.  I hobbled through the wide magical gate and looked down upon the stony valley and wind-whipped mountains  beyond, glad to be rid of the human-laden hell behind me.  Already I could feel the sinews of magic arc through my new home world and welcomed the cold fresh air with glee.  

The gateway shriveled behind me as I staggered to sit on the mountainside.  I sent out a faint message with magic, seeking out someone, anyone really, and waited for a reply.  An hour passed as I rested and I was greeted with a purring welcome and told I would be transported soon to join my brethren.  I wondered gleefully if there were other new arrives from our old world, female arrivals, and would have been glad to meet any of them.  I had so many questions about this place, and I couldn’t wait to discover everything on my own or with someone, but first I would rest and recover from the ordeal.  

It took them a long time to arrive and I must have passed out as I only remembered their voices talking in hushed tones when I awoke.  My eyelids fluttered open and I could see it was night, and I felt refreshed and breathing was easy in the thin mountain air.  I made to sit upright but thin strands of metal string held me fast to a wooden board beneath.  All of my limbs were held, and I made out the faces of those who stood in a semi-circle around me.  There were sad voices, expressing sorrow for me as I took in the meaning from the striped faces of my fellow Rakshasa.  I did not understand.  I struggled and broke one hand free.  

The voices stopped murmuring and the heads swiveled to reveal faces of astonishment with the starless sky in the background.  The surroundings were black from the darkness yet I could still sense the edge of the cliff nearby, could feel their breath as it left their lungs, and hear the beating of their hearts pounding with fear in their chests.  They were afraid of me as I wrenched loose from my bonds to stand.  

The first of them to act began a spell and I leapt upon him only to disrupt him, and watched as the others followed with the same, some invoking charms, others attempting paralyzing invocations.  All of them failed, and at the time I wondered why since I had applied none of my typical protections.  The female leader charged me, trying to toss me over the edge of the cliff and I felt myself grab something around her neck to pull her with me.  We both fell and separated in the air.  

Our eyes met through the darkness as we dropped, and I had long enough to imagine a life with her as my mate, a strong companion with which to raise a litter, the hopeful wish that kept me alive in the old world and ever striving to find a way to our race’s new home.  That would all be gone, and I wouldn’t know why, would never know what it was that threatened them so, and why she still looked at me now with a sorrowful gaze.  I heard us hit the boulders below at the same time and resigned myself to a mediocre death.  

But I woke moments afterward.  The pain was but a dull throb and my muscles worked to pry my broken body up from the jagged stones.  She lay next to me, obviously dead, and I pondered why I was not.  Her necklace was in my hand and I pulled it forth to dangle from my palm, and at that moment I knew why.  

I saw my hand in a new way, with detail that I had never known.  My curved out-faced palms led to lean fingers that ended in curved claws.  Blood, dirt and neglect had made my hands well worn, but what I saw now was nothing caused by the work I had done.  The flesh was thin and dry, clasping to the bones and forming rough ridges.  There were places where my skin and fur had been torn like matted cloth and folded to the side to reveal grey decay beneath.  Upon examination my fingertips had pushed through their pads, worked to the bone from the labor of the ceremony and I hadn’t noticed.  

I looked up the mountain and was aware that the others had left, fleeing to wherever they had come from probably.  I also fled; I understood that for what disease I had there was no remedy and cursed my misfortune, the marilith Notura, my life and now my undeath.  I was uncertain what would happen to me, hoping I would be free to roam but I knew better.  I wondered if I would be killed, or if I could be.  I had some time to think about it and to run.  Would they capture and hold me?  They must have known that though my body was flawed my mind was untouched, and would they simply detain me for the rest of eternity, letting my mind rot as much as my body?  I had over four days to think such things before I was captured.  

A dome had been formed around me with more powerful magic than I had ever witnessed and soon a ceremony was under way.  I didn’t know what it was at first, but then I comprehended I had done the same one, in reverse, to get there.  Now it looked as though I would be sent back, and I cursed myself for ever trying to find a home, for wasting all my time, and the marilith Notura for damning me to a fate worse than death.  

I was thrown out of my homeland and back into the hell that I had fought so hard to escape.  I had a new reason to return now.  I would strive to revisit them once more, alive or undead, and have my revenge upon them.  I would chase each and every one of them down, and let them feel my seething hatred for them, for all of them that drew breath, before yanking their limbs from their sockets and beating them as they bled dry to an undeath just like mine.  I would have it, but first I would recreate my own world here in their likeness, purging every other race and living thing from it until I had at last made this hell into my own creation.  If I were to die from the attempt, so be it, I was ready to leave this vile existence, but until then I would know no peaceful rest.  

I flew down and hovered over the river that they had delivered me back to.  I threw the necklace into the deep water and watched it disappear into darkness.  With it went all of my dreams for a life, prosperity, learning, success, riches, and hope.  Now I would only carry destruction to the lands of the usurping men.


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## MarauderX (Nov 8, 2004)

Pardon the speed, I realized tonight was the only time I would have to get my entry in, and luckily before the boards went down.


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## Piratecat (Nov 8, 2004)

Speed is good.  

Details of my story slunk into my mind as I slept, sort of like a dingo circling an abandoned baby in the Outback. We'll have to see if it snatches the prize and sprints for victory, or decides that there's tastier food out there and slinks away.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 8, 2004)

I can't think of good trash talk against P-kitty, and he's not my opponent anyway, so the best I can say is:

Judges, if Piratecat does manage to advance to the next round, could you please have for pictures illustrations of the PCs and monsters in his storyhour?  It'll give him an excuse to update.


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## BigTom (Nov 9, 2004)

*Big Tom's Story*

“Dude, I have smoked a lot of things, and taken a lot of pills, but I have never heard of getting buzzed from eating cactus.”
	“I’m telling you man, these are, like, the bonus level for shrooms.  You will never have an experience like this again.  Just take one.  Would I steer you wrong?”
	Jakey didn’t thing Bo would steer him wrong.  He also didn’t think he was going to have the freakiest experience of his life from a little cactus.  But Bo was a wise man.  He had survived the 60s and lived with the Indians, so Jakey was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about.  When Bo had called and said he had something special to share, Jakey had assumed that he meant the California Gold Bo was always raving about.  He hadn’t expected to find Bo with a cake pan full of cactus.  As Jakey debated whether to eat one of the spikey little things, Bo told him, “Well, this goes back to when I was on the reservation.  I was a freaked out kid in a freaked out world, and the Indians seemed to be the only people I met who had their thing together.  So they let me crash out with them.  I guess maybe they figured they needed all the white friends they could get, what with the G trying to take their land because they might have some oil.  After a while, they sort of adopted me into their tribe.  They didn’t, like, give me feathers or paint my face or any of that stuff.  They did give me an Indian name though, ‘Chi-hoo’, which meant ‘seeker of medicine’.  For them, medicine wasn’t just some pills that made you feel better; medicine was about curing what ailed the body and the spirit.  I wasn’t, like, allowed into their meetings or anything, but they did let me work the land and consult with the elders.  Eventually, they turned me on to shrooms.  You can call it peyote or mescaline or whatever man, but I call it the short path to God.  I followed Peyote to Coyote and he lead me to the Promised Land.  But it was like Moses man, he could take me to the entrance, but I could go no further.  That’s when the medicine man turned me on to these bad boys.  They never talk about these to outsiders, but they considered me on the inside then.  When the missionaries came, they found the mushrooms and the weeds, but they never grokked the cactus, so it remained their little secret.  I can’t describe what I found on that next trip to you.  I can just tell you I learned everything I needed to know to become the groovy human I am today on that trip.  I saw god, man.  When the medicine man passed on to the spirit realms, he left instructions that I should receive these, and use them to, like, turn on another mixed up white dude to the spiritual truth.  Jakey, you are the most mixed up cool little white dude I know, so I decided to share them with you.”
Jakey looked down at the pan of baked cacti.  Then he gingerly picked one up.  He sniffed at it, and it had a strangely pleasant aroma.  A weak, aloe vera like smell.  “Go on, man,” said Bo, “it will crunch in your mouth just like a popper.”  Jakey took a deep breath, tossed the cactus into his mouth, and crunched down. It did indeed crunch like a popper, but his mouth was instantly filled with a strangely bitter taste.  He clamped his jaw against a sudden reflex to spit it out.  He bit down a few more times.  His face grew into a twisted mask from the awful taste and the battle to hold his mouth closed.  Finally he swallowed it down.  “Man, that was the worst thing I ever tasted,” said Jakey.  Bo replied, “yeah, but the best medicines always taste the worst man.”
	Then the room spun.

	Jakey was standing in the empty lot next to his apartment building.  It was a dirty place.  The neighbors used it as a dump.  He saw the metallic carcasses of televisions and air conditioners.  Something was different though.  At first he couldn’t quite figure what it was.  He looked up, and the sky was still blue.  He looked around, and the buildings were still there, then he looked down.
	He was completely naked.
	And that was ok.
	Jakey began to slowly walk across the field.  He knew his nudity should bother him.  After all, if the cops caught him walking around naked he’d be downtown again for sure, and his mom would throw one of her tantrums and his dad would smack him around again and ask him what was wrong with him.  That didn’t matter right now.  Right now being naked was just perfect.  A voice in his head told him, “clothes inherently lead to fashion.  Fashion by its nature leads to vanity and conformity.  By shedding your clothes, you have removed the need to hide yourself or to appear better than you are.”  Jakey smiled at that thought.  He thought about all the girls in school who spent so much time putting on make up and picking out clothes and how nasty that all were to each other and to guys like him who bought second hand clothes.  He thought how much happier all of them could be if they could all just be naked together and not have to fight over who was pretty.  Then he thought, “Wait a minute, I heard that statement.”  He looked up and saw The Warrior.	A moment before it had been a bright afternoon.  Now it was sunset.  Against the blazing orange of the sunset stood the most incredible person Jakey had ever seen.  He was a tall Indian warrior.  His head was wrapped, and his skin was painted with strange symbols.  It was hard to read them against the brightness of the sunset.  In his hand he held a bow, and Jakey could sense by his stance that he was ready and able to use it.  When he turned, Jakey saw arrows sticking out of his back.  Jakey knew those arrows were what killed The Warrior and knew The Warrior was standing before him.  The Warrior spoke again.  “Jakey, I am your guide.  In life I was a great leader of my people.  I fought glorious battles against my enemies.  But I never looked to the spirits to learn how to use my gifts.  In the end, my own people shot me in the back to end my reign of terror, even though I gave them victory and glory.   Now my eternal penance is to guide lost souls like yours.  Come now and journey with me to heaven.”
	The Warrior began to walk into the wastes, and Jakey followed.

	Jakey wasn’t sure how long he walked.  There was no sense of time in this place.  He only sensed that it was a long time, and that his body was tired and sore.  Yet The Warrior walked on and on, never breaking stride.  Jakey tried to question him, but the warrior would only reply, “your answers lie at the end of your path, not here.”  So eventually Jakey stopped questioning and began to concentrate on keeping up.  They walked through many places.  For a while they were in a vast wasteland of rotting televisions and rusted out cars.  Then they were in a forest, full of the sounds of the animals and cool from the shade.  Then they were on a great cornfield walking though row after row after row.  Then they walked across a lake.  This Jakey found slightly disconcerting, but he was afraid to not follow The Warrior so he walked on water.  Finally they came to the base of a low hill.  Their The Warrior stopped.  He did not turn, but spoke to Jakey as he stared at the hill.  “Jakey, this is where you must make a choice.  On the other side of this hill is the path to heaven.  This path is long and painful, and many do not complete it.  Those who fail to complete it are damned souls doomed to forever walk the spirit world aimlessly and hopelessly.  I cannot accompany you on this path, Jakey.  I can take you home now.  You must either travel alone to heaven or hell or travel with me to the safety of your life.  Choose.”
	For Jakey there was no choice.  His life was already a path to Hell and he knew it in his heart.  Any path with heaven at the end was better to follow.  Jakey answered The Warrior by climbing the hill.  At the top, he looked out over a vast, blasted wasteland.  There were tall mountains, but nothing grew on them.  The only change in color from the burned, ashen gray of the mountains was the white caps of snow on top of them.  Nothing green was visible.  There was no movement.  There was no sound.  There was just Jakey and emptiness as far as the eye could see.  Jakey turned around to look at The Warrior, and The Warrior was gone.  So was everything else that had been behind him.  He beheld nothing but a void.  Now the only ground he could walk on lead into the waste.  Jakey took one more look at the way in front of him, and took the first step into the wastes.

	For Jakey there was no time except the feeling of eternity.  There was no distance; each mountain seemed to lead to another mountain and another empty valley.  He slaked his thirst on snow at the top of the mountains, then shivered from the cold entering his body and felt even weaker.  Many times he fell.  He felt the bruises and sometimes the tearing of his flesh, and was aware that he had begun to bleed.  He could do nothing about it.  If he rested to let his wounds heal, he wouldn’t have the strength to finish the journey.  Finally he came to the base of the tallest mountain he had ever seen.  His strength was gone.  He felt more pain in his body that ever before, even when his old man beat him down or the kids bashed him around in the gym.  He felt weak from blood loss.  He felt himself dying.  He knew he could lay down right now and die.  Dying here was the least painful thing he could do.  He could simply lay down and let the bleeding take him out slowly.  Or he could climb until his body stopped, and every step would be agony.  As he looked at the mountain, he realized he wanted to see what was on the other side.  Finally, he said to himself, “I am going to die, but I am at least going to die walking towards heaven.”  He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and took the first agonized step up the mountain.
	By the time Jakey reached the top of the mountain, he had no strength left.  He could accept death in this moment to end the agony he felt.  But he wanted to see the other side before he lay down in the snow to freeze.  Before him was unending mountains.  Unending waste.  Unending death.  The gray was broken up by one spot of color.  It was at the base of the mountain.  Jakey looked and knew what it was.  It was a door.  Jakey took a step forward, and everything began to spin.  Jakey realized what was happening, he was falling down the mountain.  He hadn’t the strength to hold himself up anymore.  He could do nothing but let himself fall.  He felt pain after pain as he bounced down the mountain.  He felt his bones break.  The wind was knocked out of him and he was even more helpless.  There was an enormous feeling of force striking his whole body, and Jakey realized he had reached the bottom.  For a time everything went dark.  Then it became gray again, and Jakey was conscious.  He saw the door in front of him.  It was a simple wooden door with a simple brass handle.  Realizing that his legs would no longer work, Jakey crawled with his hands to the door and, with the last of his strength, pulled himself up enough to turn the knob and open it.  He collapsed through the door, and merciful oblivion took him for a time.

	When he woke up, he was in Bo’s apartment, sticking out of the wall.  In front of him he saw Bo slumped over at his kitchen table.  To his right he saw himself lying on the couch glassy eyed and drooling.  It wasn’t a pleasant picture.  To his left he saw The Warrior, standing by Bo’s stereo.  “Is this Heaven?” Jakey asked The Warrior.  “No, this is your life and you must return to it.” The Warrior looked at him and smiled slightly.  “Jakey, you are a man who can climb a hundred mountains, who can bleed from a hundred wounds and can still triumph.  If you can do that, you can achieve any happiness you want in this life.  It is time for you to walk this world as a man, find your happiness, and conquer it like you conquered the tall mountain.  That is Heaven.”  And The Warrior was gone.  Jakey crawled to his disgusting, drooling body and felt himself return into himself.  Then he rested some more, but this time it was the simple, dreamless sleep of the very intoxicated.

	Bo and Jakey both awoke several hours later.  They did not speak for some time, as neither could put words to what he had discovered.  They quietly ate some Pizza Bo had left from the night before, and that helped restore their strength.  For some time they sat at the kitchen table, staring at each other.  Finally, Jakey broke the silence.  “Bo, I need some money man.  I need enough bread to get a bus ticket out of this town.”  Bo looked down at his plate and spoke.  “You found out where you need to be?”  “No,” Jakey responded, “but I did find out I need to go.  My happiness isn’t here man.  I don’t know where it is, but if I stay here, I ain’t gonna find it ever.  I need bus fare man.”  Bo smiled.  He looked at Jakey and giggled a bit before speaking.  “Jakey, I wandered for, like, twenty years to find this hole of an apartment so I could find one screwed up kid to help, and I have not regretted a moment of it.  Here is my wallet, there should be, like, three hundred bucks and a Visa card in there.  Take the cash.  Use the Visa to order a bus ticket by phone.  And I have something else for you.  Something more valuable.”  Bo got up and went to his dresser.  He pulled out a strange looking necklace.  It was a chain mesh with what looked to be nutshells hanging from it.  Bo handed it to him.  “This was a gift to me from my Medicine Man.  Those things hanging from it are wampum.  They used to be money before the white man replaced them with coins and paper.  Now, they hold a little bit of luck and a little bit of history.  Take this with you.  If you ever get lost, use this to get a little luck and find your path.  If you ever get confused, use this to remember what you learned today and find clarity.”  Jakey stared at the necklace for a moment, and what had looked ugly a moment before was suddenly beautiful for what it was.  Quietly, Jakey put it in his backpack.  Then he ordered a bus ticket and put the cash in his pocket.  Jakey and Bo hugged.  Then Jakey turned and walked away, heading for the bus station.  They didn’t say another word to each other.  There was nothing left to say and too much to do.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 9, 2004)

Then and Now

by: orchid blossom



Spring 1998

“No, I’ve had it,” Deanna said.  “I’m tired Seth.  I’m tired of being alone at every family function and every holiday.  Maybe if you didn’t promise to be there, but you always do.  I want a boyfriend, not a roommate.  An other who’s actually significant.”

“You knew I traveled when we got together,” Seth objected.  

“Yeah, I did.  But you didn’t spend every night at work then.  You didn’t go golfing with your boss on the weekends and fill in on holidays.  I’m not saying your career shouldn’t be important, but I’d be making a mistake to sign up for this for life.  We just don’t fit anymore Seth, and the sooner we admit it the better.”
………………………

Summer 1998

Deanna shut the door behind Seth and watched as he drove his packed car out of the lot carrying it’s last load.  It had been her choice, but she still didn’t like it.  She hadn’t wanted to give him an ultimatum, she didn’t ask him to change, but she still felt like the “change your job or I’m leaving” threat was there.  

It was funny how she could miss someone who hadn’t been around that much in the first place.  She missed his dirty shoes by the door, his shaving mess in the bathroom, the half drunk cups of coffee he’d leave on the table.  As the weeks passed she got used to no piles of dishes next to the sink, but she couldn’t get used to not waking up to his alarm at 6 am.
………………………..

1850

 “What is that horrid little figure?” Margaret asked.  “It looks like some sort of fairy tale creature that steals children in the night.  If that’s the gift you can just turn around right now and go home.”

William shook his head.  “No, no.  The man I bought your present from insisted I take it as well.  I’ll probably get rid of it as soon as I get home.”

William put a box on the table and Margaret lifted the lid.  “Glasses?”

“Do you not like them?” William asked anxiously.  “I thought we could toast each other.”

“They’re nice enough,” Margaret answered.  “I expected something a little more, bridal, I suppose.”

Will paced back and forth to the fireplace while she unpacked the glasses.  “Listen, I know you don’t want to marry me, but I think I can make you happy.  I’d like the chance.”  He filled two of the glasses with wine and toasted his reluctant bride.  

Margaret lifted her glass and sipped.  He wasn’t so bad.  Quite handsome, now that she looked closer.  She sipped again.  He’d never been cruel; the only real thing she had against him was that her parents chose him.  The new glass caught the light and reflected it through the wine.  Maybe she was just being stubborn.
…………………………

Fall 1998

On the other side of the world, Seth walked through a nameless village market.  Colors and sounds swirled around him and overwhelmed his senses.  Voices shouted to passersby, each claiming he had the finest wares to be found.  Seth ignored them and pushed through the crowd.  

“Fine gifts! Beautiful fabrics and jewelry, glassworks and perfumes!”  The voice cut through the cacophony.  “Come, come, you who left ladies at home.  A trinket for her favor!”  A cart came into view, drawn by a tired-looking donkey.  The little man who followed it continued to shout at the top of his voice, his long mustache and beard waggling and even longer nose twitching.

The cart stopped with Seth standing at its side.  “Ahhh, you sir.  I know the look of a lost man.  A trinket, sir, to brighten the ladies eye, or blind it.”

“I don’t think a trinket is going to do it,” Seth answered roughly, but he didn’t move on.

“You’d be surprised, sir.”  The merchant dove into his cart piled high with brightly colored shawls between racks of jewelry and bottles.  Seth’s eyes fell on the rings, something he’d refused to buy her when she’d wanted one.  Something he wished he’d bought when he had the chance.

“Not for you the jewelry,” the merchant said, his voice muffled under the cloth.  “Nor the perfumes.”  He wiggled back out with a study box in his hands.  “For you it is the glass, yes.”  He lifted the lid to show three small glasses nestled inside.
……………………………….

1858

"I thought you were going to get rid of that thing," Margaret said, looking at the small figurine of the gnome on a donkey.

William shrugged.  "I gave up.  I've put it with the rubbish several times, and it keeps reappearing in the china cabinet next to the glasses.  One of the children probably does it.  Why not just leave it?  We can move it if we have guests."

"It's harmless I suppose," Margaret agreed.  "But it still makes me uneasy, Will."  She suddenly laughed.  "If I'd known I would be stuck with that thing for life, I'd never have married you."

"You're not sorry, are you Maggie?" William asked, putting his arms around his wife.

"No, although I never have been able to figure out why I changed my find in the first place."

"Does it matter?"
……………………………………..

Spring 1999

Seth had held on to the glasses for a long time.  His break-up with Deanna had been one of those rare kinds where they really were still friends afterward.  Still, he hadn’t been sure about giving her any kind of gifts.  But it had been six months, and he’d either had to give them to her or forget about it.

“I thought since it’s not a full set, maybe you could use them for cleaning your brushes or something,” Seth said, waving at her easel.

“Or call them a set of two with one extra, just in case.”  Deanna pulled out the tissue paper and started folding it like she always did when a little figurine fell out of the wrappings.  “Where did you get that thing?  It looks like a reject from a Nativity scene.” 

“A little village in the middle of India.  The merchant I bought the glasses from gave it to me.  Pretty vain for an ugly guy, I think it’s supposed to be him.”

Deanna picked it up, laughing.  “I kind of like it.  You mind if I keep it?”

“Nah go ahead.  Little guy was kinda creepy, actually.”

They spent the night watching movies, eating pizza, and drinking beer.  Once it got late and they were both feeling a little mellow, Seth said, “Listen, I want you to know that I’m happy we can still hang out, but I still miss you.  You were right about what you said when we split.  If you ever feel like giving it another shot, I think I could do better.”

“Truth be told, I’ve been missing you too.  But I’m not sure I want to get back together  just to find out that you go back to your old habits a few months later.”

“Try this.  We just keep it casual for now.  A few dates, nothing serious, just like we’d never been together.  Anytime you want to bail, say the word.  But I hope you won’t.”

Deanna was quiet for a minute.  “I think I can handle that.”

“Toast on it?”

“Sure.”  Deanna lifted her can.  “Oh, wait.  Let’s do this properly.”  She got two of the new glasses and filled them up from her can.  “A little small for beer, but what the heck.  To those first, few, awkward dates,” she said and tapped her glass against Seth’s.
…………………………….

1862

The Doctor shut the door and entered the parlor.  "I've given Margaret something to make her sleep.  She shouldn't wake before morning, but leave someone to watch her anyway."

"What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know, Mr. Barker.  Your wife doesn't have a fever, no cough or congestion, no signs of a physical illness.  What has her state of mind been the last few days?"

"There have been little things for a while.  A few months ago I caught her pulling out her hair, little bits at a time.  I kept an eye on her and it stopped.  A few weeks after that she became paranoid, thinking someone was trying to hurt her or the children.  There have been other things too, just odd statements and lapses of concentration.  But I've never seen Maggie like this.  She just started screaming, raving about things I could barely understand.  It was when she came after me with the knife that we had to restrain her."

"Mr. Barker, I’ve visited this house many times.  I’ve tended to your illnesses and attended the births of your children.  I hate to say this, but I think you have to face the fact that your wife is going mad.  Has gone mad.  I know you love her, but keeping her in this house is a danger to you and your children.  She should be in an asylum."
…………………………..

Winter 2002

Deanna popped two more Advil and pulled her blanket over her shoulders.

“Not feeling any better?” Seth asked, laying her hand against her forehead.

“The meds help for a while, but then it just comes back again.  I can't understand it, I never had migraines before.  I can’t concentrate.  It’s like there’s something crawling around in my brain, trying to grab hold.”

“I wish you’d go to a doctor, Dee.  Seriously.”

“If this keeps up you’ll get your wish.  Tomorrow, if I’m not any better.”
…………………………………..

1863

I must be insane, Will thought to himself as he held the mediums hands.  But nothing else had helped his Maggie.  The doctor couldn't think of any treatments he hadn't tried, and the priest had tried every holy right he could think of.

The current fashion among the ladies of his wife’s acquaintance was séance’s and many of them insisted that a medium could tell him what was causing her illness.  It had cost a pretty penny to get the woman to come out to the new house in the country, but here she was.

He shut his eyes as instructed and became more aware of the think smell of incense in the room.  The gas lamps had been turned out in favor of a single candle on the table.  The medium's voice rose and sank in a singsong that soon had his mind fuzzy.

"Spirits of the afterworld, you who see beyond the veil, reveal to us the evil to afflicts our poor sister!" the medium commanded.  If his mind hadn't been so vague, he would have laughed.  Instead, he opened his eyes to a black fog.  He blinked to clear them, but the fog remained, slowly forming into a black-cloaked figure.

It stalked the room, glaring without eyes at the medium.  It seemed to sniff as it walked, stopping at pieces of furniture and taking great interest in the parakeet in its cage.  Finally it stopped in front of the china cabinet and pointed.

"What is in there?" the medium asked him without breaking her singsong rhythm. 

"Beside dishes?  Just that little figurine that the children....."

Will pulled his hands free and his mind instantly cleared.  The figure disappeared and the room seemed just an ordinary room again.  He took the figure from the cabinet and ran outside with it.  How many times had Maggie told him it made her uneasy, and how many times had he brushed it aside.  But how could he have known?  He wasn't even sure he believed it now.

He ran half a mile until he reached the trench that the previous tenant had dug for some inscrutable reason of his own.  William jumped down and dug a hole in the mud, dropped the figure in it, and stomped the mud down over it.
...........................................

Winter 2003

Deanna hated the drugs, and Seth hated that she had to take them.  She said they quashed her creativity, that she couldn’t see anything like she used to.  All the colors were dull, the sounds distant.  She’d quit taking them twice, but each time she became so delusional that she couldn’t even function.  

This was the third time.  Seth had gone on a trip, but only at her insistence.  He had kept his word, no more late nights at the office, and only the occasional holiday.  He still had to travel, but she could accept that.  

But he watched her too closely for her to try and stop the drugs again.  She had to pretend to be reconciled and wait for her chance, and here it was.  It had been four days.

The hallucinations were slowly coming back, but she ignored them.  They were like flickers on a television screen at the sides of her vision.  But their colors were vibrant and she was tempted to peek at them.  She dipped her brush into the red and swirled it onto her canvas, a bright spot against the black she had painted while still on the pills.

A shadow passed over the metal table where she'd set the three glasses Seth had given her years ago, turning itself upside down in the one she'd filled.  She kept seeing him out of the corner of her eye.  A short, gnome like figure with a donkey.  He danced around the edge of her vision, as if waiting for her to notice him.  She flicked her brush at him, flinging tiny spatters of red against the wall.
………………………..

1863  

It was full daylight, and Will had been out searching since two hours before dawn.  The nurse checked on Margaret several times a night, so they knew she had disappeared sometime between two and four A.M.  

It had been easier to find her when they still lived in the city, but her screams had been clearly audible to the neighbors, and it wasn't long before some of them began hinting that they should leave.  

William headed toward the trench.  No one had been able to tell him why it was there when he bought the place.  He had thought as an obstacle it would keep her from straying too far.  Instead, it was a favorite place of Maggie's lately, and he often found her sitting happily playing in the mud.

His pants were soaked up to the knee and his boots caked with mud when he finally came to the bend in the trench.  She didn't usually go that far, but he could never be sure.  He kept walking, his boots squelching with every step.

He found her digging with a knife in the mud, her white nightdress covered in filth.  “Maggie?”

“I found it!” she crowed.  Her fingers rubbed feverishly at the figure she’d pulled from the mud.  She turned and narrowed her eyes.  “Found it Will,” she purred.

The donkey and cart moved silently though the trench as the short, round man followed William Baker.  Most humans just called him a short man, but children and the mad called him a Boggart.  He watched as the man rounded the bend, calling for his beloved wife.  All William had wanted was for his Margaret to love him, and the Boggart had arranged it. 

But it could only last so long.  They always struggled.  They tried to come back.

A shrill scream cut through the air and the Boggart imagined he saw flashes of a white nightdress and the glint of sunlight on metal.  It always ended the same way.
…………………………….

Summer 2004

Deanna kept wondering why he was so familiar.  She gave up ignoring him and gave a good, long look.  The paint she had flung was on the wall behind him, but also on him.  With her hand out in front of her she walked forward, certain her hand would stop when she reached him.  Instead it went right through and grasped the little figurine on the mantle.  She squeezed it and heard a high-pitched squeal come from the shadowy life size figure.  The harder she squeezed the louder he protested.

The Boggart struggled to bring himself fully into the room.  When she’d stopped the drugs he’d found hope again, but the last vestiages of them were still in her body, still leaving her mind just closed enough to keep him out.  He screamed as he’d heard so many other scream over the centuries.

“Go away!” Deanna shouted as she threw the figure into the fire.  It was funny how she thought she heard glass shattering.

……………………………..

Fall 2004

“What did you say happened, Dee?”

She shook her head.  “I think it just fell off the easel.  I’m not too clear on that night.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have left you here.  I should have known you’d quit the drugs the minute I left.”

“Look, I know you were worried, and I’m sorry.  But it seems to have worked out this time.  I mean, really, is a little paint on the wall and a broken glass that big a price to pay?”

“You forgot the gnome flambé.”

Deanna laughed.  “You never liked that thing anyway.”

“I kinda liked those glasses though.”

Deanna came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist.  “It’s alright.  We still have two.”


----------



## Boojum (Nov 9, 2004)

Yelmak hurried through the grand hall, barely even noting the ostentatious richness of the decorations.  The kobold walked as fast as he possibly could without breaking the illusion of the humble servant.  Approaching a gathering of four high-ranking ship captains, he docilely extended his tray of appetizers.  They glanced down at him and seemed to agonize over the decision of which morsel to take.  Yelmak barely suppressed the urge to yell “They’re all the same, you bastards!  Just empty my tray so I can get back to the kitchen already!”  After they finally made their selection, he made the rounds to a couple of other groups, but so near the start of the feast, most of the guests had had their fill of the sweetmeats.  Left with one final solitary piece that no one seemed to want, Yelmak looked around to make sure he was unobserved, then surreptitiously scarfed it down himself.

	His tray finally empty, he hurried back towards the kitchen.  As he did so, he rehearsed again in his mind the details of the plan that had just been interrupted when the head steward had ordered him to take the appetizer tray out.  He would bring the tray of glasses he had filled with the clear liquor known as ochleq to Melchor Vorstad at the head of the table in preparation for the toast to begin the feast.  He would make sure that the glass on the left would be given to Melchor himself.   A few minutes later, the tycoon responsible for the largest slave-trading cartel in the city of Ferrum would transform into a giant chicken in front of his favored business partners and most of the captains in his fleet.  With any luck, he would be a laughingstock without credibility.  His empire would crumble, a great blow struck for the Kobold Liberation Front.  Yelmak almost giggled at the thought of it, but breathed deep and composed his features as he passed through the kitchen doors.

	His tray clattered to the floor, dropped from his suddenly nerveless fingers.  He stared in disbelief at the drink tray.  It sat on the table right where he had left it, but two of the glasses were empty!  http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17115  All the kitchen staff were staring at him.  He bent and picked up his dropped tray and smiled in a forced grimace.  Three months of work infiltrating the household and becoming a trusted part of the serving staff wasted.  He had turned his back for just a minute and someone had taken the opportunity for some free booze.  It might not be totally ruined, he thought, trying to perk himself up.    One of the glasses was full, and they had all been rearranged.  The remaining one might still be the one he had slipped the potion into.  Gritting his teeth while attempting to act nonchalant, he refilled the other two glasses.

	Yelmak tried to put all his doubts out of mind as he carried the drink tray out to approach Melchor.  He shuddered inwardly as he approached the corpulent human, who sat in his chair, waving his sausage-like fingers around to punctuate a story he was telling to the guests.  When he had nearly arrived, a door burst open with a bang.  All eyes turned toward the noise and saw a cloud of feathers and a massive white shape burst into the room, followed by a figure that Yelmak recognized as Gribblik, one of the scullions.  The panicked slave was pointing and yelling at the beast, and a hush fell over the crowd as they wondered if it might be some sort of special entertainment for the night.  “Flames take you,” Yelmak cursed under his breath at the scullions, as he looked up and saw a murderous rage glinting in Melchor’s pig-like eyes.  Not daring to approach, he kept right on walking as if he had meant to do so all along.  His cover was blown now.  There was no way the questioning that would follow this incident would fail to turn up just who had prepared those drinks.

	Luck seemed to be with him as no one glanced his way while he made his way out the side door.  He stashed the drinks in the nearest alcove and sprinted towards the exit, slowing down just before he came in view of the guard at the gate.  He waved cordially, “Hi there Laine.  They’re just sending me into town to pick up some more fruit.”  He prayed to the air that the words carried by his breath would be believed.  He let out a sigh of relief as the guard smiled at him and began to crank the gate open.  Just then, another servant came running out and ran up to Laine, speaking quickly to him while casting a suspicious glance at Yelmak.  The guard looked surprised, but shrugged and reached out again for the lever, causing the gate to begin to close again.  Looking around in a panic, Yelmak dove forward through the last crack as the gate closed.  Ignoring the shouted commands to stop, he dashed out into the streets, narrowly avoiding the wheels of a steam-carriage.  Behind him, he heard whistles blowing, and glanced back to see Laine running out in pursuit, still with a confused look on his face.

	The streets were a blur as he ran:  taverns, smokestacks, shops, foundries, carriages, the legs of big people.  From time to time, he would catch a glimpse of his pursuers, hard-faced men in armor and the livery of the Vorstad cartel.  He ran by instinct, not even sure of the direction he was going, and soon found himself near the docks.  A hideous, ant-like being stepped out of the shadows on his left.  It stood upright on four of its legs and held a gun in the other two.  Yelmak quailed—now that one myrmidus had seen him, he knew that it would have relayed his location to the others in the area through their hive mind.  This wasn’t his first run-in with them, and once again he cursed being forced to operate in a town that employed the devil-touched creatures as law enforcers.  He tried to dodge aside as the creature raised its rifle, but as he did so, felt a sharp pain in his calf.  He tumbled forward to the ground as the creature advanced on him.  He saw another one approaching from down the street as he fought to regain his feet.  He hobbled forward, and the myrmida seemed to be in no rush now.  They knew that he was cornered and hobbled, and were enjoying the last moments of the chase.  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he muttered.  He dropped a pouch of marbles behind him in the hopes of slowing down the pursuers, and kept limping forward

	Yelmak found himself in a huge open square at the edge of the docks.  A chaotic tangle of platforms extending into the empty air at the edge of the island, they were the mooring place for an eclectic of collection of airships and zeppelins, of both magical and steam-powered designs.  Over a dozen myrmida were emerging into the square from its tributary alleys.  They seemed to regard him with a cold amusement, making no move to attack.  A crowd had emerged from the Rusty Shiv, a popular sailors’ tavern, to watch the entertainment.  Knowing they had him cornered, the ant-creatures slowly moved in to make the capture.  He knew there would be no mercy for him in the enforcement system after offending a citizen as powerful as Vorstad.  He was backed up onto one of the docks, with two of the myrmida slowly approaching.  He glanced down at the clouds below and the blasted contours of the surface even below that.  He bared his fangs.  “I won’t give you the satisfaction, oppressors!” he called, and took a final step back off the end of the platform.  

	Yelmak caught a momentary glimpse of the shocked expressions on the bystanders’ faces as he began to fall.  The black carapaces of the myrmida betrayed no emotion, but he imagined their bafflement with a sneer.  The cold wind whipped at his clothes as he dropped.  The docks and the stony surface of the island passed before his eyes, and in seconds they were above him and he was falling free.  His lips curled into a tight smile as he raised his left wrist to his face and looked with gratitude at the broken shackle he wore as a bracelet.  The symbol of the Kobold Liberation Front, it was enchanted to aid agents in just such situations by slowing their fall to a safe level.  He glanced down again, and the smile disappeared.  He would survive the fall, confounding his enemies for a little bit at least, but there was no guarantee he would survive much longer.  

He shivered, recalling the bedtime tales told to him by his father, of the Devourer, the unrestrained force of pure entropy and destruction, which lay in wait on the surface.  Its creation 500 years ago had been the greatest cataclysm the world had ever known, and had forced the devastated remnants of civilization into the sky to escape it.  None of the stories ever mentioned the physical form of the Devourer, for none had seen it and lived.  It was only known that its attention and that of the demons that somehow seemed to coexist with it on the surface were drawn like iron shavings to a lodestone by any form of order or technology, even one as simple as woven cloth.

As he continued to fall, Yelmak reached into his beltpouch and withdrew a small paper fan, inscribed with intricate glyphs and sigils.  He raised it to underneath his chin and fanned outward as he spoke tersely, “KLF high command, this is agent Yelmak.  Mission failed, I am wounded and have been forced off the side of island.  Now falling towards surface.”  The breeze from the fan seemed to catch the words as they left his mouth and whisk them away into the air.  As it did so, the glyphs on the surface of the fan flared and then faded, one at a time.  With his last word, the last glyph faded, and the fan crumpled into dust.  Yelmak glanced down and saw that he was nearing the ground.  Trying to compose his mind, Yelmak began removing his equipment, as he had been warned to do.  His pistol, dagger, lockpicks, rope, and everything else he was carrying were soon in a bundle in his arms.  He glanced down at his clothes.  Well-spun woolen cloth emblazoned with the Vorstad symbol.  He grimaced—they would have to go too.  When he was naked and shivering, he wrapped the clothes around the rest of the equipment.  He looked at the broken manacle, but couldn’t bring himself to throw it away as well.  He needed it to fall safely, and whatever order it had once had was lost when it was broken, he reasoned.  He was within a few hundred feet of the ground then, and tied his belt in a knot around the bundle and used the trailing end to swing it around twice and launch it into the air as far away from him as he could.  

Yelmak hit the ground and his legs almost buckled under the force of the impact.  He bent down to snatch up a rock from the ground, and looked around to take in the surrounding terrain. It actually didn’t look as bad as he had initially expected from the tales of horror of the surface.  He was in a hilly scrubland dotted with occasional rock outcroppings.  A few small animals were nibbling at the bushes.  There was no sign, at least in this area, of any disaster.  A chill wind blew from the west, where the sun had just set behind a large hill several miles away.  His teeth began to chatter and he started awkwardly jogging toward the hill, simply as a way to keep warm.  The first thing to do was to find shelter, he thought, and then work from there.  Yelmak deliberately focused his mind on the mechanics of survival, squelching the part of it that kept threatening to start gibbering in uncontrollable panic at being exposed to the Devourer.

As Yelmak crested one of the rock outcroppings, he looked back the way he had come.  A little ways south of the spot he had fallen, he was barely able to make out an indistinct number of shadowy shapes milling around the spot where his bundle had landed, doing something to it.  Somehow, the sight of them instantly filled him with an indescribable sense of dread and unease.  Something just seemed utterly wrong about their shapes.  They seemed to finish with whatever it was and began moving off in various directions, several appearing to be coming towards him.  He shuddered, wishing he hadn’t looked back, and redoubled his speed.

With his mind on the things behind him, he skidded around another large boulder and let out a sharp yelp as he came face to face with some sort of beast with four legs, two arms, two heads, and a variety of indefinable protrusions.  It seemed to leap back in startlement at the sight of him as well, and as he caught his breath and looked at it more calmly, he realized that it was simply an old halfling riding a donkey.  The old man’s hair and beard went wildly in all different directions, he was garbed in unworked animal furs, and he stared at Yelmak through rheumy, distrustful, eyes.  http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17116 Yelmak stood there trying to decide whether to fight, run, or try to talk, with one hand holding his rock raised to throw and the other covering his nakedness.  

After a tense moment of staring at each other, both parties seemed to relax a tiny amount.  The old halfling spoke up in a querulous voice, “Aright, then demon.  My time’s long up, and ye can have old Mohai without a fight.”  It was a strange, archaic dialect of the halfling language, but Yelmak was able to make it out with difficulty.  

Still distrustful, Yelmak replied, “I’m no demon.”

“Aye, ye looks different.  But if ye’re nae demon, what—“ The speech cut off as a spine-chilling growl was heard, and a spined, dog-like creature leaped down from the outcropping.  There were bulges under its skin that seemed to constantly move about as though something was trying to fight its way out.  In its first rush it knocked Yelmak to the ground and its claw ripped into his side.  As he tried to regain his feet, the beast slapped him back down with another claw and gathered itself for a lunge for the throat.  Yelmak looked up and saw Mohai shrug and his eyes roll back in concentration.  Suddenly there was a loud snap and the beast leaped into the air, yowling in pain and shaking its head wildly.  It turned to face the old man, and Yelmak seized the moment of distraction, leaping to his feet and stabbing the pointy part of his rock into the creature’s eye.  It let out a piercing shriek and then lay still.  

The old halfling extended his hand to Yelmak.  “If ye want to live now, ye’d best come.  There’ll be more o’ them along now that they’ve heard this one.  Up on Binster now.”  With a last harried glance behind him, Yelmak leaped up onto the donkey, which began to canter forward at a rapid clip.  

With several minutes of distance behind them, they pulled to a halt.  Yelmak heard snorts, growls, and calls in some strange language echoing from the rocks seemingly all around them.  They had stopped at the edge of a large trench, a place where the bushes and grasses vanished and a scar had been cut into the land.  The ground sank down nearly 10 feet, and no plants grew there—just barren black rock.  http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17117 “Quickly now.  Into the tendrilscar.  They willnae find us there.”  With some prodding, they coaxed the donkey into the trench and followed it down themselves.  They crouched under a slight overhang, and slowly let themselves relax.  “Heh.  These tendrilscars be the safest places to hide.  There’s nae life in them, so we be harder fer the beasties to find.”

The horrid sounds seemed to be coming no nearer them now, and even dispersing somewhat.  Yelmak looked at his new companion questioningly, “But what causes them?”

“Well, the beasties out there,” he made a vague gesture with his arm, “they come find ye if there’s too many of ye, or ye have too much stuff with ye.  But if there be something even bigger, like one o’ them big metal things from the sky, a tendril o’ pulsing light shoots out of the earth and rips along until it gobbles up the big metal thing.”  The old man bowed his head and Yelmak made out tears standing in the corners of his eyes.  “This’n’s from when a metal thing came down and the big folk in it rounded up all my tribe in chains.  Binster’n’ me were out getting herbs when they came so they missed us.”  His voice was oddly calm and steady as he related the story.  “They fought off a bunch o’ the beasties while my people were fighting to get free o’ them, and something happened to the metal thing.  They couldnae fly any more, and while they tried to get it to fly, a tendril came up and ripped the whole thing to bits.  All me people were inside the metal thing when it happened.”

Amazed at the old man’s fatalistic tone, Yelmak didn’t know what to say.  “I hate slavers too.”  He offered lamely.

“Aye, ye seem like a decent sort.”  Seeming to sense Yelmak’s surprise at his attitude, he added “It’s just a part o’ life.  Ye can’t expect to live long.  I was about ready for me own end so I headed out to find the beasties, but ye seemed like ye might not be ready just yet.”  He cracked a slight, toothless smile.

As the rest of the night passed, they talked for a little bit longer, and then fell asleep. Dawn brought Yelmak awake with a start.  The trench looked equally bleak in the daylight, but he could almost kiss the black rocks for hiding him from the creatures pursuing him.  He looked up into the sky, hoping that he hadn’t missed his chance by falling asleep.  His heart leapt and he had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t imagining it, but right there above him and to the north was a cloud that was moving quickly, and against the wind.  He leaped to his feet and began waving his arms, and the cloud began to approach and descend.

He roused his companion.  “My people are coming for me.  You can come too, since there’s nothing left for you down here.  You’ll even get a chance to strike back against the slavers.”

With a bleary look in his eyes, Mohai nodded.  “Aye, I suppose ye’re right.  Perhaps me time isn’t quite yet.”  A slight smile played around the corners of his mouth.

Yelmak waited, dancing from foot to foot in impatience as the cloud approached.  Finally, it enveloped them in a thick fog, and he saw the swirling mass of air of the creature that was pulling the ship.  A rope and a ladder dropped to them.  “Hurry aboard.  There’s demons inbound.”  Rushing through the motions, Yelmak tied a knot around Binster and he and Mohai scurried up the ladder as the donkey was hauled up.  The ship lurched forward again into the air as they were surrounded in the fog by kobolds congratulating them.  One of them tossed a black robe to Yelmak http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17118 “Here, put this on so you’re not naked at least.”

He gladly did so, and relaxed among friends as they flew higher and higher into the air.  He would yet have his chance to bring down Vorstad.


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## Sparky (Nov 9, 2004)

I keep freaking out when I see later-than-my-round stories post -- thinking that I've missed my deadline.

So cut it out already!


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## mythago (Nov 9, 2004)

Firelance, as soon as this round is done (whew) I'll be happy to make comments.


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## Berandor (Nov 9, 2004)

Whoa!

Not so fast, please. 1 Round at a time, if oyu don't mind.


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## alsih2o (Nov 9, 2004)

When someone else takes over I always worry.

 And then I start learning.


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## Berandor (Nov 9, 2004)

alsih2o said:
			
		

> When someone else takes over I always worry.
> 
> And then I start learning.



 Errr... huh?

Here's a schedule for my judgement fyi:
Today: Round 1.4
Tomorrow: Round 1.7 (they were first )
(The day after) tomorrow: Round 1.5 (Whoa! two movie titles at once!)

Oh, and let me add that not being able to read the comment thread is like hell!


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## Sparky (Nov 9, 2004)

*Round 1.6 Sparky vs. Warlord Ralts*

*Dead Letters*

By Sparky

1 - mustachio
2 - note
3 - pattern
4 - cascade
 
The blank-eyed Writer sat, gnarled hand hovering, hitching rhythmically. The whispers in his head had ceased. He blinked placidly at the acolyte who brought scents of citrus, ash and metal with her as she wove through endless ranks and rows of identical desks. She paused here and there refilling ink wells, collecting pages into a leather folio and making marks on a bulky earthen tablet.

The acolyte turned and saw her charge’s rhythmic twitching. She rushed to him cursing herself roundly while swiftly consulting her tablet. Neatly plucking one vial from dozens attached to her belt she unsealed the tiny bottle and stopped dead, eyes wide. The Writer was trying to speak.

His voice was rough and quiet, “I am inc… incom…” 

Through stark disbelief she glanced at the missing finger on the Writer’s hand. _Incomplete, yes. _This man always made her uneasy.

He panted, jaws working, still attempting speech, his whole body caught up in the hitching physical stammer, “Inc… ink… …empty.”

The acolyte shut her mouth and swallowed, upending the vial into the Writer’s well. She felt a stab of relief as his mask shifted (1) and with a mark, a rustle and a tinkling of vials she was gone. The old body relaxed, breathing normally again.

The grasping whispers returned and the Writing began once again.



***​ 
Imala tied up her skiff and chased up the muddy river bank after Ahanu and Ankti.

“Wait!” She called, “You must not go!”

Ahanu stopped and turned slowly, eyes growing hard as he looked down at the old woman. She was not making this any easier. He clenched his fists and felt the tug of the scar over his missing last finger. No matter all their planning and hoping. The River was dead. The Serpent was dead. What chance could Akando have had against men who killed gods?

Ahanu stopped and turned slowly. “Wait? For how much longer? There is nothing for us here.” He took Ankti’s arm to lead his her away.

Panic welled in the old woman’s belly and she lunged, “No! You cannot leave! Akando will return to us and we will finish. He will!” The old woman wailed and collapsed on her knees, weeping, tearing her hair, “We have to keep fighting. Waiting.”

Ankti crouched awkwardly around her pregnant belly, “Neither fighting nor your tears will feed our child, Imala. You are a kind woman. Come with us. The monks will give us food and homes and work.”

The old woman looked down at her wrinkled hands. They looked unfamiliar to her. Old and weak and tired. The hands she remembered were strong and poled her raft up and down the River.

She reached out to touch the younger woman’s belly, “Stay until the baby is born. Let him be born by the River.” 

“Him?” Ahanu stepped forward. “Have you… had a Telling?” 

Imala swallowed the lie on her tongue. It tasted like ashes. The Serpent had not whispered a Telling into her ear through the reeds on the riverbanks in many, many years. She stood, leaning on Ankti.

“I will make a _hura_ for the birthing. Come.”

Imala’s bones ached and she leaned rather more heavily on Ahanu’s arm that she liked as the three returned to the river and Imala’s skiff. Ahanu poled them out into the murky, lapping water. From the prow the old woman could see the bulk of the Monastery in the distance where it squatted over the river, choking life from all the land below. _Our land. Akando, time grows short. You will be hearing the whispers of my passing soon, writing them on the pages for the thieving monks._

She closed her eyes and let her fingertips trail in the water, a prayer carried on the river. _Please, Akando, return soon to me, to our people. I cannot keep them here forever with lies and empty promises._


***​ 
The Monastery sat at the top of the falls with a commanding a view of the moonlit lands below. Remnants of the river trickled feebly around the massive flanks of the squat, sprawling building to run down the naked rocks. Smoke from a hundred fires plumed from warm chimneys. It was meal time.

A door opened high on the cold stone wall. Two pale bodies wound only cursorily in linens fell out, stick-thin limbs coming free as they dropped, tumbling to land on a stack of bodies and bones and refuse. Carrion birds screeched their displeasure from nearby roosts. The door shut.

A hollow bang brought the monk out of his study of the pages before him. He stood stretching his back and prodded the failing fire with an iron, smiling as the embers leapt and swirled. He adjusted his eye glasses and peered at the stack of pages written in the crisp, mechanical hand the Order taught to heretics and pagans.

He sat again and spread the papers before him, eyes gleaming in the firelight, “All the secrets of your tiny lives waiting for me to pluck them out.”

He shifted the papers, many in different tongues of all the lands. They were confessions of love and guilt. Regret and triumph. Last wishes, wills, dying words. Dead letters. He had read thousands of them - tens of thousands - mining them for assets that the Order might tax. Or secrets that would secure the Order’s power. No one could hide from death. And the Order owned death.

A knock at the chamber door put an end to his glad wallowing, “What?!” he snapped.

“I… I brought your dinner, Brother,” came the reply, “And this evening’s log and letters.”

It had gotten later than he’d realized. “Come.”

Backing into the room with the great tray, the girl, a wisp of a thing, barely placed it on the monk’s dining table in time. She shook her hands, pressed white from the weight of the tray. She handed the leather folio and heavy earthen tablet to the brother. He peered at it, murmuring.

“Two deaths. Thirteen complete letters and seven vials administered.” The monk squinted at her. She wasn’t leaving. 

“Well?”

“It’s the Naiadin, Brother,” the girl began.

The monk leaned forward, ears burning. There was only one Naiadin. A man taken twenty years ago. The Naiadin people had proven… elusive. And there was not another to replace him. If this man was spent the Order would have no link to their movements, their whereabouts.

“Do I have to drag it out of you, Acolyte? What about the Naiadin?” 

“He… spoke.”

The monk scrambled out of his chair and snatched up the two glossy folios in manner quite ill-suited to the holy contemplative he considered himself. The wide-eyed acolyte trailed along in his wake hoping that this wasn’t, somehow, her fault.

The monk burst into the whispering hall, stirring monks and acolytes like pigeons in the high rafters. 

Slowing to a more decorous speed, he seethed between winded gasps at the girl beside him, “I certainly hope you didn’t wait to share this little bit of information.”

The girl shrank into herself. She darted past, ducking her head to hide teary eyes as she led winding way to the man they sought. She stopped in front of a desk like all the others. The Naiadin sat hunched. He was Writing. Relief flooded the brother’s face as he registered the Naiadin’s working form and the acolyte could have soared to the bell tower in that moment of glimmering hope. She might still escape punishment.

“What is this?” The brother’s hiss brought the girl back. She opened her mouth to reply and noticed the brother was not addressing her. She looked down at the paper and circled around to get a better look at the curious writings. (2)

The Writer paused, mouth hanging open, blank-eyes blinking as the monk stabbed at the fragile paper, voice cracking as he bit off and spat each word, “I said. What. Is. This?”

The Writer’s lips worked as he mouthed several syllables before the sound came, “...tried. Cannot… write… letter. Me.” With a shaking hand the Writer pointed at the ghostly symbol, fixated on the incompleteness. “M-me.”

The monk leaned close, eyes wide and mad behind the glasses, “I’m not a fool, to be taken in by your savage tricks. I will ask one more time - what is this?”

The Writer closed his mouth, eyes widening to show white all around under the mask. The tiny reflections in the monk’s eye glasses began to hitch. Rhythmically rocking as the empty man attempted speech. “I.. I..”

The monk threw up his arms and roared, “Enough. I know very well what it is. It’s a code,” he sneered, “You people are smarter than I gave you credit for. I wouldn’t have thought people living in the mud could be so clever.”


The Writer subsided into passivity again and the monk, finished with his tirade, hurried off, acolyte flapping along behind all the way to the man’s chambers, “See that I am not disturbed.”



The door slammed in the girl’s face and, with nothing else to do, she collapsed against the wall, shaking as she cried silently into her robes.



***​ 
Imala winced inwardly at Ahanu’s hard eyes tracking her passage from raft to raft. The man had not gladly returned to the rafts of the Naiadin. _He used to laugh so much as a child. He will be glad now._ Imala was finished with the _hura_. She smiled with pride at the festooned bundle she carried. It was as handsome a _hura_ as she had ever seen and it would bring the baby into the world good and strong.

Ahanu grunted as he tied and retied raft’s bundles, “If Akando lives, he betrays us with every breath. Better that he were dead.” His eyes glanced back up, gauging the progress of Imala’s bobbing path towards them across the rafts.

“Ahanu!” Ankti hissed, “Those are not the words of a father to my son.”

Ankti stood carefully, hips unsteady this close to the baby’s coming. Ahanu walked to his wife, steadying her arm. 

“There is the father to my son. Helping his mother,” she smiled crookedly, balancing quite easily now that she was up. She turned to greet Imala. The old woman paused, stooping to cup water.

“No, no, Imala,” Ankti drew the old woman onto the raft, “We do not require such formalities from you. Come, sit. Tell me, how is your raft?”

The expecting mother’s anticipation was nearly as great Imala’s. The two were fit to burst. Ahanu shook his head as the two tortured each other with the elaborate rituals of motherhood.

At last Ankti could stand it no longer, “So, great-mother Imala,” she asked politely, “Have you finished the _hura_?”

“Yes, child.” She smiled and laid the package between them. Each pulled one end of a binding string until the knots loosed and the gleaming treasure inside was revealed. (3)

“Oh… Imala.” Ankti reached out, seeming afraid to touch the beautiful weaving, as if her touch would scare the banded serpent away. Even Ahanu thawed as he knelt by his wife, fingertips stretching to brush the smooth-ridged pattern. Ahanu looked down and did not speak or make any move to pick up the _hura_.

“Go on, Ahanu, you are the father. The _hura_ is yours to place.” 

Imala held the woven serpent figure out to Ahanu. “No. Imala. You do it.”

The old woman shrugged, brow furrowing in puzzlement and Ankti gently touched her husband’s arm. He did not look up. Imala scooted over and made all the adjustments to the cords that couldn’t be done until now. When she leaned back the brown and orange serpent slithered up Ankti’s belly.

Imala took Ahanu’s hand, “It does not matter who puts on the hura, but you must say the words. I will speak them with you. And when we are done, we will make preparations to put our feet on the Path.”

Ahanu only nodded and began quietly, words tumbling in a steady chant from his lips.


***​
Consciousness – waking - came slowly, through heavy layers of time and scent and sight. His back hurt. And his hand. It felt like a claw. It looked like a claw. Eyes lit by an agile mind for the first time in twenty years moved rapidly behind the half mask. 

Then the robed man had come with his demands and his breath. Twenty years of pattern and reflex submerged the confused man again. Saved him. For the moment.

But the robed man had shown him something. Two small somethings. Reflections of a familiar face – his own face - in the small disks perched on the robed man’s nose. The man’s life crashed in on him in a single moment and reflex submerged him again.

He had no idea how long he sat after the foul man had gone. _My face, but not my face. A mask! Of course! I can feel it. I must have been in here a long time to have become so feebleminded._ He smiled at his own joke. He looked around surreptitiously from the corners of his eyes and schooled his features to blankness. No one appeared to have noticed him. The monks and acolytes were gathered in clusters speaking anxiously in hushed tones.

He looked down and his heart sank. His hands. They were old. Not the hands he remembered. He began to understand the span of time that must have passed; the implications spidering out covering his body with a shroud of age and fear. _Imala. _He closed his eyes tight, jaw clenching. _I must reach the Path_.

Akando swallowed as he began to formulate just how best to take the situation apart from the inside.

***​ 
The rafts parted down the center, neighbors shoving off of neighbors to make room for the heavily laden raft bearing Ahanu, Ankti and Imala. Whispers and mutters flickered around the floating makeshift village.

“The old woman is finally mad.”

“No one has been to the source of the River since the monks came.” 

“That is because it is gone.”

“No, destroyed.”

“Flooded.”

“They will never make it.”

Pretending they did not hear the words, the women sat rigidly staring ahead. Ahanu, tall and bold, stood at the back of the raft, pushing it along, steadily, head high. _I am a foolish, weak man to let these women tug me up the river to our doom._ He did not stray or falter as the raft broke free with only a few desultory cheers for the pathetic birthing party.

A few swimmers pushed off from the rafts and carried wreaths of water grass, one for each of them, and a tiny one for the baby. Imala took them silently, smiling at the young children splashing in the water, eager to be the first to touch the raft.

Ankti smiled and put her arm back to pet her husband’s leg, he was worried, “Do not listen to them. We will do this right. The monks have only what they can steal from us, my husband.” 

Ahanu looked down at his wife, “They have much, my wife.”

The old woman spoke, voice creaking like the logs of the raft, “Yes. But they do not have this.”

Ankti propped up on her elbows to look at Imala. She leaned her head back as far as it would go to smile up at her husband. Easing herself back down, she rubbed her belly through the _hura_. The baby was moving.

Ahanu stared ahead and felt his wife’s simple pleasure and excitement. There would be time enough for the seriousness ahead; she could have this moment of happiness for both of them. Ahanu didn’t know where their journey would lead them, but perhaps once past the monastery they would find a new land. New rivers.

Imala’s eyes were locked on the monastery. _Akando, we are true. We are keeping to the beliefs._

***​

“What do you mean ‘he was spent’?” The monk’s bellow raised with every syllable until the last became an inarticulate scream. All of the Writers flinched, sensitive ears unused to such noise. The monks were petrified.

One finally spoke, raising a trembling finger to point at the acolyte trying to disappear behind the raging monk, “Sh-she sent me away. You were not to be disturbed.” 

The monk rounded on the girl, inhaling deeply to better yell when she fainted dead away. The monk started to shake, hands balling into fists. Red-rimmed the edges of his vision, “Open the grates. We’ll be rid of the Naiadin once and for all!” 

“But, brother, it’s not tha—“ 

“Shut up!”

“The—“

“SHUT UP!”

“You can’t simply—“

“Can’t I?!”

“B-but, brother—“

“OPEN THE GRATES!”

Spittle flew with the last words and the monks scattered in a fluttering of pages to evacuate the newer parts of the monastery that had grown down under the waterline in the years since its construction. Unfamiliar peals rang through the cold stone, long unpracticed alarms ringing out every sort of warning - fire, invasion, plague, flood, lunch. 

Below the monastery along the rocky ridge above the falls an old man stirred. He was only cursorily wrapped in linens before being unceremoniously dumped from an anonymous door high in the cold stone of the monastery wall. He shuddered as he felt the bony corpses of other spent Writers beneath him. The pile shifted and a musical sound filled the air. Panic stabbed as the sound registered and the old man scrabbled back as fast as he could, linen binding tugging him forward with the sliding pile snagging on bones and bodies. He yanked and pulled at the cloth as the last of the pile gave way beneath him.


***​

“What is that?!” Ahanu winced at his shout. They were getting close to the monastery now and traveled only after dark, speaking as little as possible. 

There was movement along the tall silhouette of the monastery. Light on every wall. light in every window. Strains of the cacophony of bells faintly reached their ears. But more than any of that, a stream of white, tripping down the cliffside. They heard  a great groaning bellow, as if the earth itself spoke and white froth broke through the teeth of the stone giant crouched on the mountain. 

“It’s the river!” Ankti’s face glowed, but she didn’t stand. Imala had forbidden it. 

“I don’t believe it,” Ahanu mumbled.

Imala simply nodded and snapped her fingers in Ahanu’s face.

“Ahanu. Ahanu! We have to get off of the river. Now!”

He shook himself into action poling the raft closer to the shore, cursing when the staff mired in the muck of the bank, well before he’d gotten them all close enough to quickly make it off of the raft.

“Take her. Go!”

Ahanu swept up his wife and leapt into the mud. It swallowed his legs up to his knees. Each step was a laborious process of plant, wiggle, lean, pull, the mud sucked at his legs, but served at least to hold him up. He laid his wife carefully down and returned for Imala. He picked her up with a holler and spun her around in the mud, “Imala! River-seeker!” 

The old woman pointed at the gushing falls and corrected him with a shake of her head, “Imala, River-_finder_.”


***​

The monastery erupted into panic, fires raged. Bells rang out a discordant clanging drone and no one could agree just what emergency to address. Some barricaded doors as others smashed them down. Some scaled the monastery’s highest domes. Most with any sense got as far from the monastery as possible as quickly as they could. People, livestock, birds all fled the monument on foot, hoof, wheel or wing. 

The waters rushing through the grates swirled high, flowing into windows and balconies, cascading down stairs and flooding the lower quarters. The great building stood against the fury of the River for hours until something deep within gave way. It groaned and with a crack that echoed across distant mountains and tumbled in a roar dwarfed by the rage of the River as it plunged over the falls.

***​
“Hang on, hang on. We don’t have much further.”

The young woman grunted, “Don’t you think I have huh-huh-hung on long enough?!“

Ahanu carried Ankti in a makeshift sling. His sides burned and his muscles trembled. He murmured encouragement to his wife. She spoke only one thing ‘he’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming,’ without pausing for any more breath than it took to chant the words or berate Imala for the journey and Ahanu for her fate.

“There! The Path! The Path!” Imala’s heart soared. The receding waters of the Monastery lake revealed a series stones.

“It’s…” Ankti grunted, panting, “Beautiful.” She panted, grunting more. “Now, put me down!” She howled as a contraction banded her belly in agony.

Across the lake a stick-thin man plodded doggedly onward. _Follow the Path. Path of the Serpent. Serpent Path. Spine. Follow The letter showed me the Path. Follow the letter._ He was half delirious with exhaustion.

Imala beckoned Ahanu on, “Only a little further, Ahanu and you will be a father.” Ahanu grunted. Ankti grunted. She turned to help the man lower his wife over the small ridge that edged the dwindling lake. Ahanu froze, eyes wide, fixed over the old woman’s shoulder. Imala turned and her hands fluttered to her mouth. She barely dared to whisper.

“Akando?” Her old legs trembled and she took a step forward. 

“Imala? It is you. I have been seeing visions… ghosts.” He stepped forward and fell into her embrace. 

Ankti panted, “Would somebody,” she paused to ball her fist in Ahanu’s sling, shaking it vigorously “Please. Take. This. BABY?!" she screamed. 

"You!” The sweating woman pointed and all eyes followed her outstretched arm to the slim girl in dingy, torn acolyte’s robes.

The old man gaped, “The ghost! You see her?”

“Ghost! Girl! I don’t care! None of these worthless stones,” Ankti fidgeted, working her legs out of the sling falling against Ahanu as she did so, “Will help me have my baby!”

Everyone sprang into motion at once and swirled in a flurry around the laboring woman. They carried her a little further to the top of a small rise that spouted water in a gurgling cascade down a series of strange shapes into the lake below. A small cry split the air, piercing and shrill. The small voice rose and fell and the small cluster of people collapsed into a heap, crying, laughing. Sun broke through the clouds as blood and water cascaded down the Path of the Serpent. (4)
***​


“And that, children, is how Nituna came to be born right here.” The woman beamed down at the young boys and girls punctuating her closing word with a finger touching the rounded stone of the highest part of the Path.

Many of the children gathered around were her grandchildren, some were great-grandchildren. Others were simply cousins, or the children of friends and neighbors. Peaceful times had returned to the River and birthings were festivals again.

“Now go on. The races are going to start soon you don’t want to miss them.” The children squealed and bolted toward the shore where tented rafts brightened the riverbanks. All but one.

The old woman smiled at him warmly, “You too, Akando. I will come down soon.” He nodded dutifully and trundled down the hill.

The old woman, joints popping and cracking, knelt carefully, hands resting outstretched on the jutting stones. She bent her head overwhelmed with gratitude, tears mingling with the bubbling water like her parent’s had so many years ago.

1 - mustachio
2 - note
3 - pattern
4 - cascade


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## Sparky (Nov 9, 2004)

My format-fu is weak.

Apologies for no links. I chose posting the story over your convenience. I'm sure you won't hold it against me.

Right? Right?!

PC said you wouldn't hold it against me!!




He got me again.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 9, 2004)

Sparky said:
			
		

> My format-fu is weak.
> 
> Apologies for no links. I chose posting the story over your convenience. I'm sure you won't hold it against me.
> 
> ...




Don't sweat it.  Given the 'no edit' rules and the fact that I've had times where 'Preview Post' took upwards of 10 minutes to process a long post, allowances have to be made.  Just so long as it doesn't affect the story so bad it becomes impossible to read.


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## Sparky (Nov 9, 2004)

Did Warlord blow his deadline or am I early?

Warlord?


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## Berandor (Nov 9, 2004)

I fear he blew his deadline.

Pics were:
November 6th, 5pm (for me)
Deadline: 
November 9th, 5pm (for me)
You posted:
November 9th, 4:52 pm (for me)

So, I second Sparky:

Warlord? 

(and, mythago?)


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## Sparky (Nov 9, 2004)

Hrmmm... Warlord hasn't been on for a week. :/ I wonder if he even knew he was in this...


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## Wolv0rine (Nov 10, 2004)

Ralts has been fairly swamped IRL.  He's looking at the business end of being re-activated and deployed.  With Brood business to get set up for his impending abscence, and getting his family prepared for it, I'm not surprised he couldn't manage the competition.

You lucked out Sparky, I've read Ralt's fiction.


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## Berandor (Nov 10, 2004)

Good luck to him, then.

Btw, I'm currently reading "The Elements of Style" by WIlliam Strunk, jr. and EB White (inspired by Stephen King's "On Writing", the current ENWorld Book Club assignment), and I find it to be an excellent guidebook.  Plus, it's very short, so you might get to finish it before Cermaic Finals


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 10, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Good luck to him, then.
> 
> Btw, I'm currently reading "The Elements of Style" by WIlliam Strunk, jr. and EB White (inspired by Stephen King's "On Writing", the current ENWorld Book Club assignment), and I find it to be an excellent guidebook.  Plus, it's very short, so you might get to finish it before Cermaic Finals




My uncle gave me his college copy of 'Elements of Style' when I went off to the university, and I passed it on to my kid brother when it was his turn.

That thing ought to be mandatory in every freshman high school English class in the country.


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## mythago (Nov 10, 2004)

Sparky goes on to the next round.


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## Sparky (Nov 10, 2004)

Thanks for the heads up, Wolv0rine.


Any chance I could get critiques like Firelance?

And a stray thought - could Firelance and I square off? You know, so we have a crop of 2nd rounders who've been through a proper 1st round?


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## Berandor (Nov 10, 2004)

I don't know how mythago figures the next round (i hear there is a DNA sample involved), but you earned your comments, don't fear 

I'll probably tackle your story tomorrow, but I might comment on round 1.8 first. Perhaps friday night (GMT), or saturday...


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## Sparky (Nov 10, 2004)

Thanks for commentary. No hurry. I know the latter rounds bumped ahead when their stories came in faster.

I didn't mean Firelance and I facing off in round 2. I meant Firelance and I face off in an extra round, round 1.9.


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## Piratecat (Nov 10, 2004)

*Jabberwockies*

_Autumn 2004 Round 1-8: SteelDraco vs. Piratecat_


Carol hummed a little tune to herself as she wrapped the present just so. Their tenth anniversary. Twenty five years would be silver, but tenth is the tin anniversary. _Tin. Tin. Biting on aluminum, licking a battery. Tin._ Ten years of joy, seven of them here at the dig site on the Côte d'Ivoir. 

The present whiffled under her hand. Less tissue paper, perhaps, to stop the rustling? Bracing the box between her knees, she lifted the lid and gazed inside. The present was -- 

-- beside herself with so many wedding gifts! Then someone plucked on her sleeve, and she spun around joyfully. This mingling was fun.

“Carol, I hope you know what you’re doing.” A familiar birdlike hand let go of Carol’s lacy sleeve. With her other hand, Aunt Frances clutched a martini glass like it was a life preserver and the wedding was a sinking ship. Frances had cornered the bride next to the cake, in the corner at the reception. Around them the DJ played inoffensive big band music, Charles’ favorite, and on the dance floor elderly relatives did their best to keep up with the beat.

“Oh, Auntie,” said Carol dismissively. “Of course I do. Charles and I love each other very much. I’m going to enjoy a life on the move. Charles is finishing a dig in Turkey, then I think we’re on to western Africa. After that, who knows? Maybe Europe or South America. He goes where the university sends him, and he really is very good.” Carol tried to catch her new husband’s eye from across the room, but he was talking to some colleagues and didn’t see her. “Wherever we go, I’m looking forward to teaching.”

“Not many of his friends here,” Aunt Frances slurped her martini. “Not many of yours, either.” Her dentures slipped slightly as she gave Carol a humorless grin. Her skin tone was gray under the fluorescent lights.

The bride shrugged. “The important ones came. Charles doesn’t have time to make many friends, he’s moving around too much. Anyways, he doesn’t get along well with all of mine. I think if he had his way that we’d have just eloped. That would have been romantic, but I’ve always dreamed of this!” Carol spread her arms and pirouetted, laughing. Aunt Frances just watched her, eyes like a fish, and finished off her --​
-- drink of water. It was warm in here; the tissue paper now removed, Carol put down her glass and used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat (_perspiration glow dew but ladies never sweat_) from her forehead. Even at this altitude in the highlands, a hot breeze was blowing in from the Gulf of Guinea and up the Ivory Coast. She studied the present and realized that it was not (_never never_) good enough. Carol reached in to the boxpinned down the gift, and deftly knotted a purple ribbon with one fashionably gloved hand. She had sent for the ribbon from _wasteful extravagance_ England four months ago. Charles had known about the expense and said _never never never does_ nothing.

Lid on, paper and tape, then Carol walked out onto the porch. Her critical eye picked out all the dust specks that Charles would also _always_ see and say nothing about, and she paused in the hot golden breath of the sun for only a minute before heading back inside to find her scrub -- 

-- Brushing his thinning hair back from his head, she stood next to him within their rough-hewn new home. Charles had paid builders from the city of Gagnoa to come all this way and construct it. He must love her very much. 

“It’s a little rustic, darling,” she hazarded.  “And chilly at this altitude.” Charles’s eyes turned sharp, but he said nothing. He just watched her, and watched her, and then turned abruptly to walk out the door onto the mountain path. Carol followed, trying not to let her voice take that pleading tone. She wasn’t used to the altitude yet, and her breath caught in her throat. They had been married three years.

“I do love it, darling. It’s just different than what I’m used to. After all, I grew up in Baltimore.”

Charles’s eyes began to warm, and Carol felt relief rush through her. He was so distant when he was focused on work. 

“You’ll grow to love it here,” her husband said. “I always love wherever it is I’m working. You learn to tolerate the bad. It’s much better than the alternative.” He took a deep breath of the thin mountain air and wheezed as his asthma took hold. A swivel of his head and he was looking right at her. “I know you’re far from home. I know you had hoped to have school children to teach. I’ve always focused on work. You should too, my dear. There’s quite a bit to do around the house. Or you could write about some of those little stories that you studied in university.”

She wished he would call her by her proper name. He never did. “You mean my thesis on the comparative allusions to violence in Lewis Carroll’s works?” Her voice became slightly sarcastic, and she immediately knew that she had erred.

Charles made a little grunting sound deep in his throat and walked away from her down the mountain towards his current work site. The conical stone tower with its massive arched entrance loomed over them like a stone God. She rushed to catch up, but his back was towards her. 

“I may just do that,” she said. “I have all my library. It’ll give me something to do while you work.” He didn’t even grunt this time as he disappeared into the -–​
-- Darkness. There was only darkness outside and no sign of her asthmatic _whiffling _ husband. He’d been at home less and less since he had discovered the lower level of the work site five years ago. Carol had been left with only her well-worn books and the housework, but that was a wife’s duty. When Charles did come home _late late late husband burbling when he came_ she hated the look in his eyes if she hadn’t been a good wife. Her cooking was the best she could manage considering their delivered supplies, and she had grown to live for that rare moment when his gaze would alight on her and he’d give that cherished little nod. She hadn’t polished her conversational skills, no not so much, but there wasn’t really anyone else to talk to so that was hardly a problem. When you loved somebody _biting on tin on tin_, silence was a way to communicate too. She had read that somewhere.

But tonight he was working late down in the dig, tonight on their tenth _tin-th_ anniversary. The present was wrapped but dinner might be ruined and she was unseemingly hungry for a proper lady. She looked past her stack of Lewis Carroll manuscripts towards the dining table, its tum-tum wood polished to a rich oily glow, laden with food and carving --

--  “Utensils! Absolutely ancient. Made from tin I believe, but coated with silver! They’re the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, and they’ll look almost modern once they’re polished up and restored.” It was the most excited Carol had ever seen her husband, their wedding night included. “This is the way out of my trap!”

Carol didn’t want to think about what he meant.

“Come on, girl!” He grabbed her hand and dragged her out and down the mountain path. He’d never once let her see the dig site in the four years they’d been there, he’d never even asked her to visit and both times she had asked she had been treated with icy silence.  But now Carol was pulled in under the ancient arch and down a makeshift ramp beneath the African stone. It was dark inside, almost pitch black except for faint golden sunlight reflecting down from the open three-pointed roof above. They dropped through a stone trapdoor and the light died away entirely.  “One moment, there. I’ll light a candle.” Charles’s voice quivered with excitement. The light flared, and Carol stared down straight into the sunken eyes of a mummified corpse.   Something insectile scuttled out the wrinkled skin and away into the darkness, and Carol was horribly ashamed that she screamed aloud.

It wasn’t her own weakness that embarrassed her. It was the sharp disapproval and disappointment she’d see in her husband’s eyes if he hadn’t already turned his back. _I had my one chance and now it’s gone I had my one chance and now it’s gone._ The words ran like a sharp carving knife through her brain. Charles was lecturing as they walked, saying something about the indigenous people who once built this warren, but she blocked out everything other than his pedantic tone. _What will he think if I’m a failure to him?_  Then he pointed down into a black grave and held out the candle. She looked in.

In thrilled horror she saw only colors and shapes at first; the pale belly of a fish, the tincture of fresh bruises, feathery pale legs and a coil of intestines. Then the hideous millipedes all squirmed in the unaccustomed light, jaws biting and claws catching. _There must be dozens of them, each one as long as my forearm!_ her brain yammered.  Carol bit her tongue hard to stop another scream, took a half step backwards, and felt her heel come down through the papery chest of an ancient corpse. Another millipede squirmed across her foot. Hot coppery blood flooded Carol's mouth from her injured tongue, and she looked towards her husband for support.

“Shoo,” Charles said to the insects as he waved the candle back and forth over the grave. “A variety of Arthropoda Myriapoda. They live inside the corpses. Poisonous, you know, probably paralytic. But shy.” He shot Carol a look. “And quiet, unlike some.” He turned and gazed down into the grave with eyes gleaming. “You can see the utensils. Now come look! Look at that!”

“Charles,” whispered Carol in a choked voice, “I’m afr...” He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her over the grave. In the candlelight she had a vision of Charles’ face superimposed with the wrinkled faces of the dead who lay all around her. Even in the moment of his professional triumph, Charles's face was full of disgust and embarrassment for her obvious weakness. Just like that, she knew what he would look like some day as he was dying.

“*Look* at them!”  His normally frail voice rose.

And she --​
-- Slipped into the pocket of her linen dress was her handkerchief, but this time she used it to blot tears of weakness from her eyes. He did such hard work for the two of them, and she could never repay him for his many kindnesses. It wasn’t _was was_ wasn’t his fault. Maybe even now he was galumphing back to her from the lowest level of the dig, thirty feet and oh so many toves deeper than even she had seen. He had never invited her back down again, of course; she was uffish, and couldn’t be trusted. 

But she had gone down on her own. 

They had gyred and gimbled in the wabe, but she had brought one back, and now it waited for its manxome foe in a box with a purple ribbon tied about its head. Waited for her husband to open it and find the coiled surprise within, waited for its jaws to bite and its claws to catch and its poison to take effect. 

She glanced over at the ancient utensils on the table, the vorpal blade gleaming brightly between the forks and spoons.  Oh, she knew what to do. She picked up the tin and silver knife and waved it experimentally, rattled the present and felt the living thing inside it shift in anger.

She could hear him coming up the path, tired from a long day and coming to their Tin Anniversary celebration. This year she’d gotten him what _she_ had always wanted.

Snicker-snack.

-- o --

_Note: my thanks to Lewis Carroll for the use of his poem._

stylite.jpg, the excavated archeological dig.
tableset.jpg, the tin and silver utensils.
detail.jpg, the vision of Charles and the mummies as one.
coil.jpg, the gift-wrapped surprise.


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## SteelDraco (Nov 11, 2004)

Here's my entry for this round. Ended up being a bit longer than I expected.

Valen's Vengeance
For Ceramic DM Autumn 2004 - SteelDraco vs PirateCat

"Land ho! Land off the port bow!"

The ship flared with sudden life. Men rushed to the rail, straining their eyes to see the distant island. Not much, yet – just a faint greenish tint to the blue horizon – but it was land. A feeling of tension started to drain from the mixed crew. They were far out to sea now, and in waters far from the main shipping lanes, and their livelihood. There hadn't been another sail for near on two weeks now, and land was a welcome sight.

"Don't stand there gawking, fools!" A deep, growling voice cut through the crew's sudden chatter. "Tighten that rigging! Prepare the landing boats! We drop anchor as soon as we're in the harbor." Calloused, brown-furred hands gripped the ship's railing, claws digging into the weathered wood. "And ready weapons. If the chieftain’s changed, it might not be the most friendly of landings."

The hobgoblin jumped at a quiet laugh right behind him. "When is it ever, Tratok? I don't remember the last port that was actually happy to see us. The peril of being infamous, I suppose." The slight young man leaned against the rail next to the first mate, his black hair whipping in the wind and spray. He stared at the distant island, apparently thinking. "The dreaded ship _Valen's Vengeance_, scourge of the high seas. It's a wonder no one's happy to see us."

"You inherited quite a name for yourself along with this ship, Captain Reynolds. People fear you. That is power." The hobgoblin drew himself up as his captain stood beside him, standing at relaxed attention.

"People feared my father. I'm just the memory of that. I never destroyed the fleet of Thron's Hold, or sailed out of the Mirrormere, or dared steal from Raelin the Glutton. People see  father's face on the masthead of the ship, and they just panic. We haven't even had to fight on a boarding party for two months. We show up, they surrender, we empty their hold and move on. It's not even work."

"Spoken like a true child of privilege. If you had been there, you wouldn't speak of it that way." Tratok crossed his muscled arms over his chest, a note of annoyance creeping back into his voice. "Your father paid for those victories with blood and tears. You should be glad you don't have to." 

"Sure. And look where that got him. Vanished on the high seas one day, leaving me behind to clean up his messes. Killed by an angry dictator because he stole some silverware. I'll be sure to thank him in Carceri." Nate pulled out a spyglass, staring at the distant island. "You're sure this is where he buried it? Hate to travel all this way just for you to get lost, take us to the wrong damned island."

"The treasure is here… sir. I was with your father when he buried it. With Raelin finally dead, the search is over. The rebels won't even want a reminder of their old king, even if it is a hundred sets of solid platinum tableware."

"What do you figure that would be worth now, two hundred thousand eagles? Maybe two and a half?"

"Perhaps more. Not counting the king's own enchanted set. He was always proudest of that one. Stealing from the kitchen staff was one thing. Stealing from the king himself was quite another. That made it… personal." Tratok snorted. "In the end, it wasn't worth it. That king was a madman. Couldn't believe a guest had stolen from him. He chased us from the capital all the way to the Hag's Teeth. Your father had to call up one demon of a storm to get the fleet off us. Even then, his hired wizards dogged us until we got rid of the loot. Nobody would touch it for fear of the king's men. So we hid it." The hobgoblin pointed to a spire of rock jutting from the island, now resolving into shapes of trees and rocky slopes. "And buried it there. Protected by the finest wards your father could forge."

"And a lot of good that did him. They still got him in the end." Nate held up a hand, silencing the hobgoblin's harsh retort. "I know, Tratok. I know. You've been telling me this story for years. 'And as soon as Raelin dies, we'll claim the treasure, and be rich. And we'll sail off into the sunset, and retire to a life of rum and island girls and … island hobgoblinesses.' I've heard it since I was fifteen. You don't need to tell me again." 

“Less the share promised to the guardians, of course.”

“Yes, well, we’ll see about that.” The captain straightened up, and turned toward the ladder leading belowdecks. "I'll be meditating. See to it that the crew is prepared for battle, would you? I'd love to think you were good for something."


* * * * *


Dark shapes circled around the boat. The steady rhythm of the rowing faltered as the crew noticed them, one by one. At the bow of the landing craft, Tratok put a mailed hand on the shoulder of the lead oarsman. "Steady, men. I'll deal with them. You just row. I'll see you through this."

A crested head broke the surface of the water about ten paces in front of the boat. The face was green and scaled, with a short muzzle full of sharp, needle-like teeth. Seawater rolled off the creature's head as it unfurled a line of bony protrusions running from its brow down its spine, like a man shaking water from his hair. A spear tip rose from the water beside it, pointed at the men on the boat. The thing hissed, making a strange gargling sound in its throat, and spoke in broken, stuttering tradetounge. "You trespass. On island of Ig'nalok tribe. Drop golds in water or die."

Tratok dumped a small chest of gold eagles over the side of the boat. The dark shapes flashed like a school of razortooth fish, grabbing at the falling coins. "I need to speak with Chieftain Sha’galok. We are from the ship _Valen's Vengeance_. We made a deal with your tribe, nine years ago. We've come to see that deal through." He tossed a jewel-studded necklace to the lizardman. "Tell him Tratok and the son of Valen are here to speak with him."

The creature hefted the necklace, thinking, and nodded. "I tell. You follow." The head disappeared under the water, and the lizardman flicked his tail and headed off toward the island, cutting sinuously through the water. Tratok raised a hand to the ship, and another boat splashed into the water, this one carrying the captain. The landing boats lumbered after the lizardfolk, clumsy and awkward in comparison. The island warriors flanked the boats as the crew pulled them onto land. Each carried a hunting spear tipped with a vicious-looking obsidian blade, and wore armor of turtle-shell, decorated with coral and pearls. Several carried woven kelp bags, flopping with fresh-caught fish or lobsters. Several grass-woven huts dotted the treeline, smoke rising lazily from them.

Nate hopped easily from the landing boat, and strode up next to Tratok. "Well, that seemed to go well. They remembered us, at least. Guess we might not have to butcher them quite yet after all." He grinned at his first mate as he strode toward the lizard people's huts, his rapier clattering at his side.

Tratok watched him go, his hand creeping toward the haft of his morningstar. A quiet voice from the hobgoblin's shoulder broke his reverie. "Orders, sir?" It was Naya, the ship's healer and weather witch. Her green eyes watched him closely, apparently seeking something there.

"Base camp at that ridge. Get the supplies you need from the ship, then set up. Take a few people and find a supply of fresh water. We'll need to restock before we leave here. Camp will be eight men, constant watch. And Naya? Tell Grutog to bring the special cargo we discussed ashore, as well. He'll know what I mean." The hobgoblin sighed, glancing at the retreating form of the captain. "In the meantime, I go with him. Make sure he doesn't get us all killed."


* * * * *


When Tratok entered the tent, Nate was already seated across the firepit from the Ig'nalok chieftain. The hobgoblin bowed to the creature, then sat next to his captain. "Sha'golok. It's been too long. I trust you have been well?"

The lizard-creature broke a smile, his yellowed teeth showing. "My scales fall out, my wives don't listen, and every day warriors eye my seat and question my rulership." He fingered an ornate necklace of bone spines, dyed shades of red and pink, and topped with a large black pearl – the symbol of leadership of the Ig'nalok tribe. "But that is as it should be. And you, Tratok? I see Valen's eggling has grown into a man under your care."

"I do what I can. The trade goods have been arriving on time?" The hobgoblin leaned back, obviously comfortable in the hut.

"Yes. Good deal for all. They take our pearls, and give us jewels and magic in return. Valen helped us more than this old _grishnak_ thought possible."

Nate leaned forward, smiling. "And I'm sure you've kept your end of that bargain? No one mucking about where they're not supposed to, eh?"
The chieftain's smile disappeared like fish flashing silver in the bright sun. "We have honored our agreement, eggling. None who have approached the cave have left alive. Not even those of my own tribe. It is forbidden. I tell them that dark things walk there, evil magic. Your father's treasure is safe."

"My – our treasure. Father's been dead for some years now."

"That I know, eggling. And it saddens me." He narrowed his eyes, the spines on his head rattling as in a sudden breeze. "But you do not speak like your father. You speak like the men who come to cheat us, because we live simply. Those who would take our treasures and give us lies and empty promises in return. You do not intend to break the agreements that have been made, do you?"

"Of course not. Twenty of the sets will go to your people, as agreed. It's only fair, since you guarded them for so long. I'm sure you could have gotten through Father's wards without your entire tribe getting killed. Now that Raelin's dead, there shouldn't be any trouble selling them."

"Then we are agreed. You may go to the cave as you wish." Nate stood, and headed out into the bright island sun. The two older men stayed behind, chatting about their lives and what had happened since last they spoke. Nate wasn't listening – his eyes were on the future.


* * * * *


The goblin lay flat against the rock, and nodded slightly toward the cave entrance. It was clearly visible, even from this distance – it obviously wasn't a natural cave. Salt-spray covered the rocks around the entrance, and only a single small tree had managed to take root. "That's it, boss. Everything looks just the same."

"And you checked it out? It's safe?" Nate leaned against the rock face, a wand in his hand.

"As well as I could. A few people have been in over the years. Some man-big things, mostly smaller stuff. One good-sized creature, I think. Nothing has come out. Stinks a bit, like dead things. I think the protection-things are still working." The goblin's nose twitched. "Didn't want to get any closer. Might have gotten blasted."

"Don’t worry, I'll take care of all that, Nebrin. You just come with me, and I'll deactivate the wards, so you can look around. All right?" The little goblin nodded. "Now stand still. This is going to tingle." Nate pulled a few things out of his belt, and made a few arcane gestures, spoke a few quiet words, and laid his hand on the goblin's shoulder. With a whisper of mystical energy, Nebrin disappeared from sight. The captain repeated the same procedure on himself, and walked quietly toward the cave, his hand on the head of the goblin beside him.

The cave was lit by a crack in the ceiling that let a shaft of light shine across the small room. At the entryway, Nate cut himself with a knife and let a few drops of blood seep into the keystones of his father's wards. As intended, it faded at the will of a blood relative of Valen, and they passed through the outer ward without harm. Inside, they found a few bones, mostly small animals, with a few boars and lizardfolk mixed in. Still invisible, the two pressed on, going deeper into the cave. Nate spoke a quiet word as they left the faint light from the ceiling, and suddenly the room was suffused with a yellow glow.

They both yelped and jumped back at the huge skeleton sprawled on the floor in front of them. It looked serpentine, though it split into six massive heads instead of one, each topped with a draconic skull. The skeleton was at least fifteen feet long, from tail to nose-tips. Nate whistled softly. "That's a hydra. Killing one of those is no mean feat. Father's wards were more potent than I had thought. Everything must still be here."

A few hours later, it was done. Three heavy chests, each full of solid platinum silverware, had been dug from the soft mud inside the cave. Another, smaller box contained the magical set stolen directly from the king. Everything was just where it had been left, years before.

Nate looked around at his men, and frowned. "Shouldn't Grutog be here? This would be much easier if that brute were helping. If he's down lazing on the beach, I'll tan his hide. I'll –"

Most of the crew looked around, perhaps a bit dully. "No, boss," Nebrin piped up. "he's bringing that big crate you wanted from the boat."

“What crate? I didn’t ask for anything else.”

A few of the workers shrugged. “That’s what he said. Ask him,” continued the goblin.

“I think I’ll do that.” The young captain’s brow furrowed. “Once we get these down to the ship, that is.”


* * * * *


Tratok stood with the chieftain as the crew carried heavy, mud-encrusted chests onto the beach a fair distance away. The hobgoblin watched the crew, and spoke to the Sha’galok in a low voice. “Is it done?”

“I took care of it. Everything seems to be going properly. Will be done soon. He should be –“ The lizardman stopped suddenly, nodding toward the approaching form of Captain Reynolds. “Talk later.”

“Care to let me in on this precious little conversation,” called Nate, “or is it only for old men?” He stopped a few paces from the two of them, and a few crew members followed behind, forming a rough semicircle. A hand rested on a wand at his hip. “Just what has been going on here while I’ve been gone, anyway? Seems some of my crew has been following orders that I never gave them.”

“What are you talking about, Captain?” A growl crept into the voice of the hobgoblin. “I’m not sure I like your tone, _sir_.”

“And I’m not sure I give a damn. You two are plotting something behind my back, and I’m going to put a stop to it.” He pulled the wand from his belt, knuckles clenched white. “First you, traitor, and then the old lizard. And then the village. You’ve all outlived your usefulness.” Arcane words began to roll of his tongue, and the wand in his hand began to glow with a sickly green-black light.

Tratok’s mailed fist took him straight in the jaw, and the power that the young mage had been gathering dissipated harmlessly. Both men drew their weapons, and Sha’galok hissed and moved between the combatants and the group of crewmen. “Stay your weapons. This battle is between them, not us. Let them finish it.”

The two men wrestled on the sandy beach, fighting for control of the wand. Tratok was by far the stronger, but Nate much faster. As Tratok wrested the wand from his grasp, the captain’s hand moved like lightning, pulling a short blade form inside his sleeve and slicing into the hobgoblin’s abdomen. The mail he wore turned the killing force of the blow, but hot blood still stained the sand. The two rolled apart and stood, breathing heavily.

Tratok pressed a hand to his wounded side, and pulled the heavy morning star he carried from his belt. As he did so, Nate spat more arcane words, flinging a handful of dust toward his first mate’s face. Tratok stumbled back, blinded and reeling, as the spell flashed in his eyes. Leaping over the sand, Nate grabbed the man who had raised him for the past nine years by the shoulder and stabbed him in the armpit, just above the joints of his armor. He crumpled, blood pouring from his side. Nate stood over him and laughed. “First you, old man. Then the rest.” He leveled the wand at Tratok’s head.

“Stop!” The shout came from the forest, and a man-shape stepped from the darkness. Electric energy crackled around his fingertips, and both hands were pointed at the young captain’s chest. “Do it and you die. Son.”

A whisper of confusion ran across Nate’s face, and the rest of the crew. Only Tratok laughed, though he coughed blood at the same time. “About time you got here, old man.”

“What’s going on here? What is this trickery?” Panic and fury warred on Nate’s face, and he shook the wand-tip, still glowing with deathly energy. “Who is this man?”

“You know damn well who I am. I’m your father. Now drop that wand.”

“No you’re not! My father’s dead! And so are you!” He started to point the wand at the shadowy figure, but a blast of lightning took him straight in the chest. He flew through the air and dropped to the ground, twitching and smoking.


* * * * *


The flap to the chieftain’s tent opened, and Tratok stepped gingerly through. Naya had done wonders for healing his injuries, though he was still a bit light-headed from the blood he had lost.

“Your son will live, captain.”

“And so will you, it seems, you old goat. I’m not through with you yet, despite what my son might have wanted.” The elderly pirate grinned as he sat next to the Ig’nalok chieftain. “Guess I’ll have to kill you myself, one of these days, eh?”

“Good luck. Now I now how rough your family can be.” He sat down carefully, his ribs still tender with newly-healed flesh. “You’re feeling all right? The petrification has completely reversed itself? And your soul back where it should be again?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I told you this would all work out. That madman’s off my back, we’ve got the money, and everyone’s happy. Or close enough. Maybe a little extreme, but we are talking quite the sum of money. Enough to retire, for all of us. I don’t have to be both a decoration on Sha’galok’s necklace and the masthead of my own ship any more. Everybody wins, and I’m still young enough to enjoy it.” He chuckled again. “Unlike you two old men.”

Sha’galok frowned. “What about your son? What will you do with him?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. He meant to kill you all, I know that. He’s earned his fate. I hear piracy is still considered a crime in these waters, so I might drop him off with some well-meaning sea captain, to make his career. After all, it’s not every day you capture the son of Valen, the scourge of the seas.”

“Aren’t you worried about being captured?”

“Dear me, no. That awful pirate Valen’s been dead for nine years. Nobody’s looking for little old me. Why would I be worried?”


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## Piratecat (Nov 11, 2004)

Now. . . the judging!


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## Maldur (Nov 11, 2004)

Hold your horses, Im working on it (besides finishing my coding on a nasty deadline)

But before the end of the day they will be send


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## Berandor (Nov 11, 2004)

even for PKitty? Whoa, you're fast! 

Well, after sitting over two different stories for each day since Saturday now, I'm honestly looking forward to a short respite 

Three more stories, and then... quiet.

Until Round2, of course.


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## Maldur (Nov 11, 2004)

Judgement send 
I just hioope they arrive, I was not to sure about the email adres, and Im at work, so I could just reply to earlier email (lazy me) 

Intuitive judging is fast, I did spend a few hours on some decesions this time though, it was very close for some.

Great job, all of you!


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## mythago (Nov 11, 2004)

Judgments will be posted tomorrow evening (when I can get at the correct computer).


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## Maldur (Nov 11, 2004)

So you got them 
Good I was worried


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## Berandor (Nov 11, 2004)

So... I've just sent off the next judgement, so tonight will be 1.8-night. I'm looking forward to the judgements as well, as I don't know who won each round (and they were close).

Anyway, I'd better be off judging.


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## mythago (Nov 12, 2004)

Round 1.4 – Eluvan vs. RangerWickett



   Berandor



*RangerWickett: Hunger*

   It is a very mythical tale, in a world where metaphors are given literal meaning, and Hunger takes the form of an emaciated sheep. RangerWickett succeeds at showing us a desolate place, where the sky burns, food is scarce, and the heat "boil(s) dew to searing steam" (great line!). There is a lot that is good about the story; not least of which is its deeper meaning, resonating within me long after I read it. 

   I smiled at how Rawann perceives his feast: "an entire bat, free from rot". The fact that it is an _entire_ bat is almost unbelievable to him, as is the feeling of fulness that follows. I also enjoyed how he devours his beetles while the other adults look on good-naturedly at his greed.



   "a strange platter of crisp, curled strips of meat." o.k, maybe I've read too many Story Hours, but I immediately think of human flesh. I'm also expecting a dark turn -  will he turn into a ghoul? Of course, RangerWickett has other things in mind. Hunger is a spiritual story, a parable that might be told by future shamans to young children. "This is our body." the shaman says, and means it. (oh, and "ouch!") And then, he speaks the words we'd miss if not for Pandaweth's warning (well, truth be told, I paid them little heed despite). A nice little touch is how Rawann deems it strange when he suddenly feels neither hungry nor full, having yet to experience such a feeling.  I must also commend the boy for running three days straight - not a measly feat -, even though he starts to forget his home after this mere three days.



   What follows is a myth (told by Hunger). Sadly, I didn't quite grasp the meaning of it, "dreamborn son" and all, and I'm still not sure where this tale fits with the rest of the story. But the introduction to thesheep is wonderful: "a noble, peaceful creature... with sorrowful black eyes. It stood on four legs, its heavy white coat stirring in the mountain gales." I must admit I'd have killed Hunger, too, so afterwards I wasn't sure whether Rawann had succeeded or not, even though I feared for the worst. The difference between the shaman and Rawann's father was well-conceived, and the closing words - as I already mentioned - stayed with me for a goodly time afterwards.



   Still, Rawann himself remained aloof to me, filling the role of exemplary youth without coming alive himself. He's just there to show us the Trial of Hunger, we don't know much else about him or, by extension, the rest of the village. Also, the remark about how "the weakness of flesh has its benefits, though they could no longer enjoy them." somehow went past me. The only benefit I could detect in the story was feeling full, and that was a benefit the villagers won't likely have very often, anyway, so why they'd "appreciate" it, I don't know.



   Still, a very, very fine entry. Thank you very much, RangerWickett. -



*Eluvan: A token gesture*

   The "strong references to drug use" turned out to be not as bad as I had feared (hey, Germany's right next to the Netherlands), but I appreciate the warning, anyway.

   Now, I loved your style! I guess a lot of people may find it too complicated, with overlong sentences and obscure vocabulary, and faced with "At night, Olivia was alone but for her cat who purred and rubbed himself incessantly against her legs as she tried fruitlessly to read the book she had settled down with." - I would have to agree.

   Fortunately, you also give us sentences like the following examples (I'd like to quote the whole beginning, but that'd be too much): "It seemed that if only one knew its relevance, this sheep held the answer to kinds of questions." "This question seemed to Daniel so pressing and pertinent that he muttered it out loud, and then scratched his nose and meditated upon it." It doesn't always work (and indeed, you run the risk of confusing the reader), but when it works - I love it!



   The story itself drifts along like thoughts in a hung-over mind - fitting, but still it all seemed covered by a gray haze, never becoming really focused to me. You insert tension into the story that is never resolved. Daniel's got 12 hours to pay for the coke - that's what gets us going - but whether he pays them or not, and how, is never explored.

   Another problem is that of Daniel's sudden change for good is too sharp a turn, at least the way I see him: "he'd never really got out of the habit of the high life... even if it was now beyond his means" as well as "he always seemed to find a way to work things out somehow" don't let on that Daniel feels reluctant or regretful about his life, and "It was a lie... He was prone to such impulsive acts" only reinforces my impression that he would, and might have done, some morally questionable things to finance his life style. His sudden bout of morals comes too surprising to me to really believe in it.

   There is also some stretched credibility in the story, especially concerning Olivia. That it is her who happens upon Daniel is coincidence enough, but that Daniel also finds her home without even knowing her last name is far beyond what I can normally take as a reader, especially since it is not explained away somehow.



   On the other hand, the whole sequence with Olivia was very good. The silence in the car - she perhaps a little insecure about the kiss they shared and his appearance, he anxious about his drug use - as well as the moments at the beach... classic.

   "The sky an ominous deep grey, with odd shafts of sunlight piercing the clouds and lancing down to earth in radiant glory" - wonderful!

   "It was mere chance that led him to put his hands into his trouser pockets... and discover there..." This, on the other hand, doesn't work as good. "Mere chance" that he puts his hands into his pockets? Isn't that something you sometimes? And the brooch isn't exactly "discovered", as he already found it at the beginning of the story.



   The switch to Olivia's perspective was a little jarring, and before I could orientate myself, the story is over. It would have been better to stay with Daniel or introduce this perspective earlier. The note was a nice touch, though it left some things unresolved, for example whether "Goodbye" was meant as a suicide note (even an indirect suicide if Daniel visits his dealer without the money). Still, also a story that I really enjoyed. I humbly offer my gratitude to you   



*The Pics*

_Dangerous but Fluffy - the Sheep of Doom_

   - Eluvan's sheep, though mayhaps blessed with infinite wisdom, still is mostly window dressing when Daniel wakes up from drug haze. That must be jarring, if not scarring.

   - RangerWickett gives us Hunger, turning a "noble creature" into a sad being worthy of our compassion, and a focal point for the story. Plus, in the end, another sheep eats its way Alien-like out of Rawann's body. 



_Bleary Eyes_

   -RangerWickett has Rawann glance upon a throng of dancing villagers, with what seems to be Pandaweth in focus. Not the strongest of his uses, as even Pandaweth remains a side figure throughout (she she seems to smell strongly, though).

   - Eluvan has the object of this pic be Olivia, also a possible companion for the hero that stays alone in the end. While Olivia does have a more central role, and is more fleshed out than her counterpart, the pic appears in a short flashback that seems only to exist for the pic alone.



_Brooch_ (come on now, people! Isn't that a shell? Or am I blind? Seriously, brooch is alright with me.)

   - Eluvan's brooch not only wakes our hero before the rose in his button hole is devoured by the sage sheep, but it also brings about Daniel's turn to goodness. The built-in homing device (I suspect) also allows Daniel to locate Olivia's home.

   - RangerWickett's brooch shields Rawann from pain and hunger (and Hunger trying to chew its way out of his intestines) - until Rawann's father disposes him of it.



_The Wall_

   - In "Hunger", the wooden fence with an ad on it transforms into a forbidding black wall of stone, tar, oil and shaman skulls, making Rawann at least 10 feet tall in perspective.

   - Eluvan's Daniel looks upon the fence together with Olivia (and/or, while she's gazing at him sideways), and regains his composure. It is here Daniel manages to break his cycle of self-destruction, returning the brooch to its owner.



*The judgement*

   Now, where are we? 

   We have a stylistically impressive story about redemption, and a mythical parable about mercy. 

   Eluvan's story is good, but I would have liked it to take more risks in its proceeding, as well as to have a better conclusion. RangerWickett, on the other hand, didn't bring his hero alive to me, but left me thinking about the story afterwards - a great accomplishment for something written on such time constraints.

   So, I award my POINT TO 



Spoiler



RANGER_WICKETT


, as well as another heartfelt "wow". I'm looking forward to your next entry, should you advance.



   Maldur

   RangerWickett 
 Morality tale, a bit gruesome, but it did show a different outlook on a life with magic, and sarcifice. You could almost scream at the kid when he went wrong.

   Eluvan 
 For me this story read a bit wrong, Im not sure what it was but the flow was off. Could be personal preference I don’t know. But it just didn’t sing. I liked the idea, the reconstruction of the day gone by.

   My point goes to RangerWicket



   Mythago



   RangerWickett – Hunger

   Nice integration of the sheep and wall, decent use of the dancers, eh use of the flower/brooch thing. It’s an unusual shape; why is this food-obsessed society picking something so un-food-related and strange?



   I thought the results of the ‘test’ were a bit odd. Wouldn’t they lose an awful lot of kids that way? If nothing else, they’ve been raised all their lives not to let meat keep walking around. That said, the evocation of the mood and atmosphere was wonderful: the bat free of rot, the hungry children, the adults cutting strips of their own flesh happily, the bleak and blasted landscape. If it was meant to be a downer of a no-win situation, though, I’d like to have seen that failure hinted at a little more. As presented, the ending reminded me of one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books where turning to page 37 means instant death for no apparent reason other than plot.



   Eluvan – A Token Gesture

   A nice, compact little narrative. Use of the pin and the women pictures was very well-done. The sheep was really a bit of a throwaway; it’s the first thing Daniel sees but it’s pretty much window-dressing. I felt that the story was uneven and, in places, a little incredible—I found it very hard to believe that Olivia would just happen to drive past the strange guy who paid her and her friends’ way the night before, happily let him (dirt and all) into her car, and drive him around. Daniel’s sudden reversal from high-living drug dealer to contrite and moral was awfully fast. For love of Olivia? He did *just* meet her, and it didn’t seem real to me that a largely amoral high-roller would have an attack of conscience about a piece of jewelry.



   Which is to say, I liked the beginning, I liked the end, I wanted to see more in the middle that got us from one to the other. The length wasn’t a problem; the detail was.



   I give the nod this round to 



Spoiler



RangerWickett.





   Congratulations to you both, and 



Spoiler



RangerWickett goes on to Round 2.


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## mythago (Nov 12, 2004)

Round 1.5 – Boojum vs. orchid blossom



Maldur

   Orchid Blossom 
 First imprssion: “no, not one of those flipflop through time stories” but it was quite nice. Chtulloid stories are a favourite in ceramic Dm it seems.

   Boojum 
 Secret agent kobolds, demons, guns, ant-enforcers. This world seems interesting, do you have more? 

   My point goes to Orchid Blossom, even though I liked Boojum’s idea better, Orchid’s execution was better. 



Mythago



   orchid blossom – the trench was a throwaway, the cloak mediocre, the other two pictures very nicely used. The contrast between the two couples was interestingly handled; William really seems to love his bride, Seth comes across as kind of a jerk, both face the very mixed blessing of the Boggart with uneven results. I liked the fact that the two stories were not exactly parallel, and it’s Deanna who really saves herself; but I found myself not caring very much about whether Seth and Deanna are in love. We don’t really see their affection much. They date again because the story needs them to. You do a much better job of making William sympathetic and his love of Margaret believeable. 



   The prose flows nicely, but jettison the adverbs. We don’t need to be told that William “asked anxiously,” because that is (or should be) obvious. Seth’s talking, he’s not in a courtroom, so why is he “objecting”? Margaret crows and purrs in the same sentence. And the characters are fidgety, hardly able to talk without moving or acting to emphasize that, darn it, they’re talking.



   The Boggart is nicely drawn. The line about “brighten the lady’s eye, or blind it” is wonderful.



   Boojum – Again, a story that uses the drinks as a good central piece, and the use of the trench as Tendrilscars—an important plot point—justifies its presence in the storyline. The hood is pretty weak, though. 



   I found myself both liking and disliking the mixture of fantasy/DnD with anachronism. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it bleeds over into being a little too cute. Overall the storyline runs along just fine—and then it stops, with the kobold and Halfling going on to more adventures. We don’t really have a resolution of the first part of the story; and I felt that it makes Yelmak’s daring escape less like a break from a life of slavery and more like an inconvenience, a chase scene from a spy movie.



   The prose jerks around too much at times. “Barely even noting the ostentatious richness of the decorations?” Too much action crammed in not because it’s believable (either Yelmak notices the ostentatious stuff or he doesn’t, probably the latter because he’s seen it so often), but because you’re describing it to the reader. If it’s not new to Yelmak, why is it new to us? This kind of thing gets in the way of an otherwise really interesting storyline. It’s like a sleek sports car with square tires.



   My judgment this round is for 



Spoiler



Boojum


 for a more captivating storyline.



Berandor



*Boojum: "No title"*

   You begin strong; the first paragraph gets me going immediately. A kobold? I like it. The impatient Yelmak almost shouting his displeasure out loud was fun, too. Immediately, there is life in your story.



   However, then your sentences often get too long, as early as the second paragraph. Most of the times, you could cut half the words and still keep the gist intact. In fact, it would make your prose stronger. "As he did so, he rehearsed again in his mind the details of the plan that had just been interrupted when the head steward had ordered him to take the appetizer tray out." Phew! How about a shorter version: "As he did so, he rehearsed his plan again, cursing the head steward for interrupting him (with his orders)."

   "He would bring the tray of glasses he had filled with the clear liquor known as ochleq to Melchor Vorstad at the head of the table in preparation for the toast to begin the feast." We don't need to know the liquor's name, if you want to be nit-picky. How about: "He would bring the glasses full of ochleq (or "of liquor") to Melchor Vorstad, just in time for the toast to begin the feast."



   Also, try to look out for the following words: _Begin/start_: when you use them, you imply a stop later on. So "His teeth began to chatter..." would become "his teeth chattered" or even "with chattering teeth". The sentence gets shorter, clearer, and also more potent. 

_seem/appear_: 4 out of 5 times, you can cut this word and end up with a better sentence. "Something just seemed utterly wrong about their shapes. They seemed to finish..." Better would be "Something was just utterly wrong about their shapes. They finished..." When you use "seem" to qualify something, you make it appear doubtful. But the demons **have** strange shapes, and they **do** finish.

_somehow/something/etc._: These words tell us nothing. There are situations when you have to use them, but without a distinct reason for the lack of information you can normally just cut these sentences without damaging your story, as you haven't told us anything, anyway. Plus, using them makes you sound insecure, so not using them is actually good. 

_Can/be able to_: Really, if a character can do something, just let him do it. It's much stronger that way.

_know (that)_: Likewise, if the protagonist knows something, just tell us. We are reading from his perspective, anyway. By using "know" you just sow doubt where none is needed: "He knew that it would have relayed his location" - "It would have relayed his location".



   With all that in mind, here's almost a full paragraph:

   "A little ways south of the spot he had fallen, he was barely able to make out an indistinct number of shadowy shapes milling around the spot where his bundle had landed, doing something with it. Somehow, the sight of them instantly filled him with an indescribable sense of dread and unease. Something just was utterly wrong about their shapes. They seemed to finish with whatever it was and began moving off in various directions, several appearing to be coming towards him."

   Now, in your words, but almost half the length:

   "Where his bundle had landed, he made out a number of shadowy shapes milling about. The sight instantly filled him with indescribably dread. Something was just utterly wrong about their shapes. They finished whatever they were doing and moved off in various directions, several coming towards him."



   Now, enough of that. I like the Kobold Liberation Army and Agent Yelmak a lot. Indeed, you fill your story with some cool ideas, from being turned into a giant chicken (though whether an "empire would crumble" from that, I don't know) over the fan-transmitter up till the cloud ship in the end. Using formians as police is ingenious (and stolen for my campaign). The "Devourer" is and stays mysterious (I assume the light arcs are his doing).  I enjoyed your use of dialect; it was fun and not overdone.

   The end seemed () a little hastily assembled in that it doesn't feel like closure, more like the end of a chapter. It might be that the rescue simply happens too quick and easy. Still, I enjoyed the story. Thank you.



*orchid blossom: "Then and Now"*

   A very fine entry (once again). Right at the beginning, you bring up my favorite line: "I want an other that is actually significant". The "Summer 1998" insert felt real to me, especially the part about missing the little things that you hadn't even noticed any more before.



   The structure of the story is demanding. With two parallel layers, you must take care to keep the tension and to not repeat yourself. While ably managing it most of the time, I felt that "Fall 1998" was superfluous. Do we really need to see Seth buying the glasses, just to meet the Boggart?

   I also felt that both layers could have used a little more... just more. The chapters are short, and the whole story is hort, as well. I felt it went back and forth a little too quick sometimes, not allowing me to get a feel for any one of the layers, and weakening the Boggart's threat in doing so.



   "1863" confused me a little. "It had been easier to find her when they still lived in the city.." implies that William and Margaret have moved, but then William heads off to the same trench he buried the figurine in? So did they move before he buried it, or did the figurine re-appear in this trench and I just didn't get it?

   Also, the switch to the Boggart's perspective didn't quite mesh. Perhaps it would be better with _italics_ to set it off somehwat? 



   Anyway, back to the good - and there's lots of good here. Your dialogue is very strong. People do talk like that. I liked the contrast between Maggie and Deanna - how they both regard the figurine, whether they wanted "their man" before the glasses - leading to Maggie’s defeat and Deanna defeating the Boggart. I hope you didn't intend then end to be ominously threatening, because I found it to be consoling, a nice change of pace when most entries end on a darker note.

   It wasn't your best, but still a very strong story, orchid blossom. I had great fun reading it, and later on dissecting it. Thank you.



*The pics*

_Glasses_

   - orchid blossom strings the story around these glasses. To toast with them brings about love and devotion - and the Boggart. Two couples fall under their spell, with mixed results.

   - Filled with ochleq (now doesn't that tasty? ), Boojum's glasses are to be used in a devious plan. Unfortunately, one of the scullions already drank the chicken potion. Yelmak flees, and the glasses are forgottten in a nearby alcove.



_Figurine_

   - Boojum instills it with life and presents us with Mohai and Binster, an old halfling and his mule companion. Mohai saves Yelmak's hide and aids him in his survival. As a result, Yelmak takes him with him to the KLA.

   - orchid blossom has the Boggart, part figurine, part marriage counselor and part Indian street merchant, giving couples a few years of happines before driving them to make like Cathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in "The War of the Roses". The Boggart is the villain of the piece.



_Trench_

   - orchid blossom has a trecnh, by "some inscrutable reason", and nobody is "able to tell [us] why it [is] there". But at least the figurine gets buried in it.

   - Boojum gives us "tendrilscars", caused by the Devourer when it extends a "tendril of pulsing light" to destroy order. A cool image, and a great hiding place, to boot.



_Cloak_

   - Boojum's cloak is given thrown to Yelmak, which is about the extent of its involvement. At least the kobold is no longer naked. – 

   orchid blossom fills the cloak with a benevolent Nazgûl, sniffing out parakeets and Boggarts. It is a short appearance, but it's there. And I wouldn't have wanted to see that Nazgûl without it, thank you very much - the kobold was enough.



*The Judgement*

   Boojum's tale is full of neat ideas, and stories about kobolds are always welcome. However, orchid blossom has a more accomplished style and presents a fine entry herself. The stronger prose and use of pics prevails, so I present my  POINT TO 



Spoiler



ORCHID BLOSSOM


.



   Winner this round is 



Spoiler



orchid blossom 2-1


, who goes on to Round 2.


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## mythago (Nov 12, 2004)

Judgments for 1.7 and 1.8 will go up tomorrow night.


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## Piratecat (Nov 12, 2004)

Aquiver with anticipation.


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## Berandor (Nov 12, 2004)

orchidblossom:
After thinking about it a little more, I think maybe the number of narrative perspectives you use are what held me off a little. You show us William, Margaret, Deanna, Seth and the Boggart - confining yourself to two of them might have resulted in a tigher entry.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 12, 2004)

Eluvan, it was a pleasure to compete against you.  Mental note to self to remember the names of girls better.

Thanks for the comments.  Mental note to self to have a more personalized character next time.

Oh, and with the 'brooch,' I thought it looked like a cornucopia, covered with flowers, a symbol of life and plenty.  Mental note to self: explain that next time.  *grin*


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## orchid blossom (Nov 12, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> orchidblossom:
> After thinking about it a little more, I think maybe the number of narrative perspectives you use are what held me off a little. You show us William, Margaret, Deanna, Seth and the Boggart - confining yourself to two of them might have resulted in a tigher entry.




Agreement all around.  Once again, the "I didn't get an idea till the last possible moment when I could still pull something off" bug bit me in the backend.  I knew when I posted it that there were a lot of things missing, and things that weren't detailed enough.  And certainly things in the modern part that were vey weak.  (Interesting note, by word count, this is the longest thing I've done for Ceramic DM.)

My big concern was that it wouldn't be clear what the connection between the glasses and the figurine were, but that didn't seem to be an issue, so I'm happy there.

Boojum, thanks for the kobalds.  I had fun reading your entry.


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## Eluvan (Nov 12, 2004)

The better man won - well done RangerWickett!  

 For my part, I'm very happy with all the comments on my story. I'm glad that (for the most part) you liked my style, and I am utterly unsurprised that the consensus seems to be that the story itself was a little stretched and uninspired in places, since I had pretty severe writers block and pretty much just forced that one out. Considering how unsatisfied I was with it at the time, I'm just glad that there were things about it you enjoyed. 

 For the record; it was not for love of Olivia exactly that Daniel returned the brooch and killed himself (yeah, that wasnt quite clear either was it?). It was more that the preicous moments he shared with her, juxtaposed so harshly with the realisation that he had stolen from her in order to pay for drugs, had jolted him into a self-examination that led him to give up his life style (and his life). I know that should have been more fully explored, the only reason it wasn't was because of the time constraints I gave myself by not even starting to write it until about twelve hours before the deadline. 

 So... yeah. I'll be watching the future rounds with interest, and rooting for you RangerWickett!


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## Berandor (Nov 12, 2004)

In case you're reading this first, mythago - did you get my judgement? there was a server hiccup, and I desperately don't want to write it a third time!
(Once on paper by hand - my home computer is broken, now in the cybercafé, and possibly again).


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## Piratecat (Nov 13, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> (Once on paper by hand - my home computer is broken, now in the cybercafé, and possibly again).




Holy cow. You win the "most dedicated" award.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 13, 2004)

Mythago, when you get a chance, could you update the first post, please?

Actually, if you don't get to it by the time I wake up (in five hours; late D&D game, y'know), I'll type up the necessary links and such, and post it here.


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## Piratecat (Nov 13, 2004)

Luckily, I didn't come and obsessively check, even before I got my coffee.

Nope. Not me.

And yes, I'm well aware of the irony involved in me saying this.


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## mythago (Nov 13, 2004)

There are currently some technical problems at Ceramic DM....judges, please send me a backup copy via Private Messages.


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## Piratecat (Nov 13, 2004)

Note that the judgments (if sent previously) will be waiting in the judges' PM "sent message" folder.


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## Berandor (Nov 13, 2004)

Alright, I just sent it again. As the first round (the warm-up ) comes to a close, I just want to know whether my judgements read entertainingly or come off as arrogant (especially the pic comments). I try to write somewhat light-heartedly, but if it doesn't work, you'd better tell me now 

Anyway, off to more positive things, namely Sparky's entry. (These comments are unfiltered, i.e. one step of revising has been removed for speed's sake)

*Sparky, "Dead Letters"*
In th words of Jude Law and Michael Caine: "What's it all about?" In other words, what exactly is your plot? What is the conflict? What do the characters want, and which obstacles do they have to overcome? It's a little hard to find out when reading your story, as everything seems to fall in place just so.

Of course, another reason the plot isn't that clear could be that it is covered by all those flowery expressions. I mean, I don't have anything against longer sentences, or the occasional adverb or adjective. Your prose, though, is full of them. It's just too much to take in while reading. Nobody just *says* something, they're stammering, calling, weeping, etc. Very often, you begin speech without any indicator of speaking at all.
"She reached out to touch the younger woman's belly, 'Stay until...'" With the comma before the speech, it just reads overwrought.
You like to use not only adjectives/adverbs, but also employ powerful vocabulary when using simple words would be enough.
Instead of pulling on her hair, Imala tears at it. Instead of being afraid, panic wells up. Instead of stepping forward, she lunges. And so on.
You can use simple words and leave out a lot of adjectives, and you will still get your point across - more easily and often more powerfully, even. Often, the words you combine are even redundant:
"Remnants of the river trickled feebly around the massive flanks of the squat, sprawling building to run down the naked rocks." If the water trickles, I assume it's feeble, and if the building's squat and sprawling, its flanks are probably massive, and most rocks I know are naked (except on holidays).

But let's get away from that. It's just something that strongly colors your prose. Let's talk about the content of the story, instead.
"The monks will giove us food and homes and work," Ankti crouches, err, says.  That sounds as if they don't know what the monks will use them for, but later in the story it sounds differently, when Imara calls out ot Akando "You will be hearing the whispers of my passing soon, writing them on the pages for the thieving monks.", or when the head monk thinks about the "elusive" Naiadin, or when Ahanu grunts, "If Akando lives, he betrays us with every breath."
So why do the two want to go to the monastery?

Also, I didn't understand Akando's importance for his people. At first, I thought he was the river, but in the end, he just seems to be an old man. Still, everybody freezes when they recognize him, in shock and gratitude.
Furthermore, did Akando do something to bring the monastery down? At one point, he starts to think "how best to take apart the situation from the inside.", and the next thing we know, he has been thrown out of the portal and the flood gates are opened.
And of course, that leads to the toppling of the monastery (the architect should be fired) for no apparent reason.
Finally, I'm unsure who the woman at the end is supposed to be. Is she Nituna? If so, why does she speak of herself in third person?

To come back to technical issues, you must look out for shifting point of view. A good example is the exchange between the head monk and the acolyte, where we sometimes follow his thoughts, but then read about her fears and hopes. Furthermore, you should try to better insert a chain of events into your prose. As it is, your sentences just follow one after the other, with no connection.
"He stands up. He goes over to the table. He drinks." It just reads "robotical".
"He stands up, and then heads over to the table. Finally, he drinks." Try to include some conjunctions or similar auxiliaries.

I'm not saying your story is all bad; in fact, I still enjoyed reading it. I'm just saying this to help you in the second round and get done with my comments before the computer is shut off because my paid-for time has run out


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## Berandor (Nov 13, 2004)

I don't have a backup. I don't even have my comments for 1.7 any more.

Please tell me you got them. Please...


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## mythago (Nov 13, 2004)

I did, it's 1.8 that I need 

Those going on to Round 2, please start posting your availability.


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## Boojum (Nov 13, 2004)

Congratulations, Orchid Blossom.  I enjoyed your story and look forward to reading what you come up with in the following round(s).



			
				mythago said:
			
		

> Maldur
> Secret agent kobolds, demons, guns, ant-enforcers. This world seems interesting, do you have more?



Lots more, although much of it is still in my head.  I just set the story in my homebrew world of Shattered Skies (link to story-hour with several historical documents in my sig), on the theory that I know it pretty well, so it should be easy to write in it, and also because working with it should force me to come up with more details to fill in the world.  Several of the details of the story, including the idea of the tendrilscars are new to the world, so it worked pretty well.  




			
				mythago said:
			
		

> Mythago
> I found myself both liking and disliking the mixture of fantasy/DnD with anachronism. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it bleeds over into being a little too cute. Overall the storyline runs along just fine—and then it stops, with the kobold and Halfling going on to more adventures. We don’t really have a resolution of the first part of the story; and I felt that it makes Yelmak’s daring escape less like a break from a life of slavery and more like an inconvenience, a chase scene from a spy movie.
> 
> The prose jerks around too much at times. “Barely even noting the ostentatious richness of the decorations?” Too much action crammed in not because it’s believable (either Yelmak notices the ostentatious stuff or he doesn’t, probably the latter because he’s seen it so often), but because you’re describing it to the reader. If it’s not new to Yelmak, why is it new to us? This kind of thing gets in the way of an otherwise really interesting storyline. It’s like a sleek sports car with square tires.



Good points.  You're absolutely right about the ending being weak and lacking resolution.  It's the result of looking at the clock and seeing that I had 7 minutes until the deadline.  Likewise, the point about the description is a good one.  I should have written that sentence from an objective POV--just trying to cram too much in. 



			
				mythago said:
			
		

> Berandor
> 
> *Boojum: "No title"*
> 
> ...




Wow.  Excellent points and ones that will really help me refine my style as a writer.  Thank you very much.  

I know that I can tend to have something of a problem with excessive wordiness when I start writing, and I'll have to see if I will be able to somehow reduce that to make my prose seem clearer and somewhat less wordy.  

Thanks to all the judges for your helpful feedback and encouragement, and congratulations again to Orchid Blossom.  I look forward to seeing how the rest of the contest plays out.


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## Macbeth (Nov 13, 2004)

I'm available any time. I may have problems posting over thanksgiving, but that's a ways away.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 13, 2004)

There's no real change for my scheduling.  As always, weekends are best.  Friday night worked well for me.  I was glad to have Monday night to work before it was due.


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## alsih2o (Nov 13, 2004)

I am available nearly all the time.



 Of course, I got spanked in the first round.



 And I got beaten by Rodrigo.


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## mythago (Nov 13, 2004)

All right then, no time like the present. We go to five pics a round now. And the gloves are off. 

 CREDITS: 
_Montage_ courtesy of Sialia
_Montmartre_ courtsey of thelilstock

 Round 2.1, Macbeth vs. orchid blossom


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## FireLance (Nov 13, 2004)

I'm set to go at any time.


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## mythago (Nov 13, 2004)

As soon as we hear from Sparky, you two are good to go.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 14, 2004)

When I said weekends, I didn't mean this one!  Good thing Ao was looking through the thread, or I wouldn't have seen these until late tomorrow.


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## Sparky (Nov 14, 2004)

Ready.


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## Sialia (Nov 14, 2004)

Ah, Mythago, you warm my heart. I did that montage _especially_ for you several rounds ago when you were a competitor.

Its been sitting through a couple of competitions now without getting chosen, so I had pretty much given up on it.

Good luck to the competitors!  I eagerly await.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 14, 2004)

It's always good to have Sialia things.    Inspirational, to say the least.


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## mythago (Nov 14, 2004)

Sparky and FireLance will be posted late tonight.


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## mythago (Nov 14, 2004)

2.2, FireLance vs. Sparky

 CREDITS:
_jetty_ by Slylock-Stock
_pullover_ by rubydream
_yellow shoe_ by digitaldaq


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## mythago (Nov 14, 2004)

*Firelance - The Gnomish Word for Word*

 Great ideas, cool plot twist. I wish the execution had been a little smoother.

 The picture use was also quite nice. The sign was particularly oddball, but it's not the weak point; that was the bridge, where the villain conveniently lured the hero. (Surely there is an easier way?) The dialogue in the story was a big problem, and unfortunately when dialogue suffers, plot and characterization do too. We're often told things rather than being shown them (i.e. hearing them through the characters). There are a lot of awkward phrasings, like repeating "Quill of Aureon" over and over in the first couple of paragraphs--you really only needed to mention it once, and then if you say "the Quill" we surely know which one you mean. 

 The trick with the monotonous voice protecting from an evil spell was a nice touch. So was the bit about "That's a mirror of opposition!...er, or not." But, again, the prose used to describe these things often came off awkwardly. The fight read more like an account of a story hour than a suspenseful narrative.

 With reworking I can see this really being a first-rate story.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 14, 2004)

OMG, the musical.

Just tossing out an idea I had.  I have rarely flexed my lyrical muscles, but I'd love to write the title song of this play.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 14, 2004)

I'm ready to go anytime after today, but I'd prefer later in the week if possible.  Whatver works is cool, though.


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## Berandor (Nov 14, 2004)

*Sparky pt.II*

I'm back.

Sparky, sorry for being so hectic yesterday. I ran a little short on time, so here's my "second part" 

What I liked abotu your story was definitely the background: the river people, the monks using "slaves" (and magical masks) to learn about people's secrets, the Path of the Serpent. It's a very rich world.
Imala was a nice character, the old woman who stood for her beliefs all her time, so much so that she is ready to lie to defend her beliefs - the same steadfastness that helped here could also bring ruin about.
Ahanu only going along with it for his wife was a nice touch. From having two recent fathers (and one "in the making") I can attest that they do things for their wives and children they wouldn't do otherwise (and the other way around, of course).

The "Path of Serpent" pic was a weak use, because we never understand the importance of this rock formation. The mask was used nicely, going for the creepy side of it, not the funny one. The hura was a great detail (I just noticed the serpent motif). The letters were interesting as a sign of Akando coming to his senses, but I thought the hinted-at idea of Akando not being able to transcribe his own death and therefore stuttering along would have been a stronger idea. Anyway, this pic is quickly forgotten again.

As I said, your story wasn't all bad, and I hope from my previous comments you didn't get this idea.

Good Luck in the current round!


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## Macbeth (Nov 14, 2004)

I thought I should post to say "Yes I have the pictures," since PCat emailed me to make sure. I did indeed get them not to long after they were posted... and I had a hell of a time figuring out what to write, but I've got something now.


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## orchid blossom (Nov 14, 2004)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> I thought I should post to say "Yes I have the pictures," since PCat emailed me to make sure. I did indeed get them not to long after they were posted... and I had a hell of a time figuring out what to write, but I've got something now.




Cool beans.  I was hoping you'd check in to say you had them.  I'd hate to beat you on a technicality rather than my own brilliance.


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## Sparky (Nov 15, 2004)

I too got the pics early this morning (my time). Thanks folks for making sure I saw them.

And thanks, Berandor for your review. I did feel pretty raked over the coals with the first part, but do appreciate your candor. 



Just because I can't stand not having my first round story make more sense than it did:

The ink the Writers use is created from the remains of individuals. When the ink is used it tells that person's last wishes, dyings fears, regrets, hopes. 

The Naiadin speak a distinct dialect and since only a Naiadin could translate, the Monks try hard to have a Naiaidin amongst their Writers. But the Naiadin are wise to the ways of the Monks and have learned how to obscure their last wishes. 

They also figured out how to break the system. By cutting off a finger and including it in faked remains, the Naiadin can send a simple message, a message of identity - an initial representing their names. The sketchy 'a' in the 'note' pic is Akando. And he says 'I am incomplete,' and also, I had intended to imply, 'I am ink.' He is broken out of the fugue by the link to his physical self.

All of the E's are a message from the Serpent (who's spine/bones are the rock formation). There are E's all over the image of the serpent on the _hura_ if you look... One on each foot, one on it's tail, eyes - even the border looks like E's. The trail of such a creature as it walked would look like two rows of E's. Akando took this to mean that he needed to go to the Path of the Serpent.

It was there... it made sense, really it did. I just didn't get around to actually writing it.



I'll stop putting off my current story and get to writing...


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## Sialia (Nov 15, 2004)

Hello. This is vanity talking. 

I forgot to tell Mythago not to use the jpgs straight from the version I showed her--the compression on those is completely cruddy. 

Here is a better version of the same picture.


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## Piratecat (Nov 15, 2004)

That's such a cool image. I'd say what it makes me think of, but I think that'd be cheating.


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## Sialia (Nov 15, 2004)

You know my email address . . . .


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## mythago (Nov 16, 2004)

Rodrigo, RangerWickett, are you ready to go tomorrow night?


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## Sparky (Nov 16, 2004)

Still no word limit?


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## Berandor (Nov 16, 2004)

Sparky said:
			
		

> Still no word limit?



 Is that a threat?


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## RangerWickett (Nov 16, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Rodrigo, RangerWickett, are you ready to go tomorrow night?




I'm groovy today, tomorrow, yesterday.  But _not_ Thursday, which is 'right out,' being the fifth day of the week.


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## Ao the Overkitty (Nov 16, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> That's such a cool image. I'd say what it makes me think of, but I think that'd be cheating.





Then say after the stories go up this afternoon.

Inquiring minds want to know what lurks in the insidious horros of Pkitty's brain.  I didn't say they were particularly wise inquiring minds, since that Sanity check is rather high, though.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 16, 2004)

Tomorrow night is good for me.


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## Sparky (Nov 16, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Is that a threat?



Just making sure. Didn't want to go over or under.


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## Macbeth (Nov 16, 2004)

_Round 2, Match 1: Orchid Blossom vs. Macbeth_
*Writer's Block*
_By Sage LaTorra_




I'm drawing a blank.

The pictures went up at 12:52 A.M. My time. That's the downside of living in Cape Town. Everything important happens somewhere else, at odd hours of the night in South Africa. 

I'll bet my competitor has a story already written by now. I always make myself wait at least 24 hours from the pictures getting posted to start writing. It lets me get all the bad ideas out. Lets me get all the impulsive, stupid ideas out. This time I didn't even have any bad ideas. I don't just have writer's block, I have a writer's road block manned by police wearing bullet-proof vests who blow out my tires every time I make a break for an idea.

I'm getting desperate. I keep telling myself it's just a story, just some stupid competition, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't find an original idea anywhere in my head. I keep telling myself sleep will help, but I still can't get to sleep. The pictures have now been posted for exactly 24 hours, and I have no ideas, and no sleep.

“Turn the light off honey, you've got to go to work tomorrow.” Helen's voice comes from the bedroom with the slurred tones that tell me she's already sleep. She doesn't know how hard this is.

“That computer screen is going to mutate your eyes Ted, come to bed.”

“In a minute honey.” I hope she falls asleep again so I can go back to writing, or not writing, as the case may be.

The pictures stare out of the screen at me. Hands. Stones. A river that reminds me of the forests inland from Cape Town. A monkey in a kimono with a cream pie. What the hell am I going to be able to do with these?

I make myself throw out an idea: it's a story of a shaman who uses the stones to summon the monkey spirit, and it all happens at the African river. 

The bad news is, that's the best idea I've had yet. It's not even a story. No conflict.

I push the idea back out of my head, and pray to my DSL connection, asking it to bring me an idea. A blessing of ones and zeros. Some little web page that will give me an idea. I google random things, trying to find something that will give me a theme, a story, anything. Instead I find pictures of strange fetishes and pages giving away 'enhancement' pills.

Finally google brings me results, a story. Only problem is, it's somebody else's story, and its ten times better then I could ever write. Nothing like a reaffirmation of how much your ideas suck to give you confidence.

So... it's a story of a monkey movie start who uses a movie prop hand to take revenge on the man who polluted his river.

That's not much better. The plot is good, but it doesn't fit the pictures. So much for that.

I've got to move on. I've got to find an idea. The picture of a river still reminds me of someplace I've been.

That's it! I'll go to the river, the real one that is. The picture is so close to it, it must be able to give me ideas. I send an email to my boss, claiming that I have the flu. Work's taken care of, now I just have to go for a hike. It will have to give me ideas.



My excuse worked. There's advantages to being one of the few college graduate programmers in Cape Town. Your boss is a little lenient when you ask for time off.

I decided to take Pooch with me. Just as a little security. Pooch will at least help scare away the snakes and such. He nips at my hand as I close him into the back of the jeep.

The river is exactly as I remember it. Close enough to the picture to pass. It might even be the same river, for all I know.

I sit down on the bank, tie Pooch's leash to a tree, and try to have an idea.

Maybe my story is about a monkey out for revenge on the corporation that controls the rain, to save the river from drying up. And he gets stone sphere weapons from the Earth mother as weapons.

Good story, bad monkey. That one would get laughed off the boards. I like the idea, but not with these pictures.

Another bad idea. At least the heat of the sun is helping put me to sleep. Sleep has to help, maybe I'll get an idea in a dream.

This has to be the strangest dream I've ever had. It's not even my dream. I can see other people's memory. I don't know what the hell is going on, but this isn't my dream. This is somebody else's memory. Or everybody else's memory. It's like floating through an odd mixture of a pop-culture museum and a memory of my own life. The scene jumps from common memories, things everyone experiences, to mass media that is recognizable to everyone. I jump from vague memories of first love and mothers to Coke logos and movie catchphrases.

I wake up with everybody else's ideas. I struggle to hang onto them, to hold onto the ideas, but before I can write them down, they fade. 

All I know is I have to go back. I have to have that dream again. That was my inspiration. I know my story is in there.



When I get home I put Pooch in the back yard and start researching. Helen won't be home for a few hours yet, and I have time to look into this and leave again before she can get home.

A little bit of creative Googling brings in results. Shared memory. Archetypes. Jung.

The idea goes something like this: if enough monkeys learn something, they all know it. That's the short version.

The longer version goes something like this: there's been some studies, most of them small, nothing conclusive, but they all point to the idea that if enough monkeys learn something: Some tool, some danger to avoid, whatever, they all know it. Geographically removed populations will all seem to know whatever enough learn. The monkey with the cream pie from my picture could pick up how to use a stick as a tool if enough of his little monkey buddies learned it. And the same thing applies to humans.

Anything that enough of us experience, we all know. Jealousy, first love, even abstract concepts like the notion of a hero, or the idea of a greater meaning to life. It all enters into the racial memory. And it goes further. When enough people internalize a slogan or an image or a sound, we all know something of it on some level. Maybe not consciously, but we all get a feel for what enough of us know.

I think that's what I taped into. Jung's Archetypes given form. It must have been something about the river, something about that place. 

I know I can get an idea now, I just have to figure out how to access it while I'm awake. How to connect to it.

That's it! Connect to it. I don't know how, but I think I can connect my computer to it. I can dial into the racial memory like the internet.

I run around gathering things that seem like they might help. Cables, shielding, wire cutters, gloves, scissors, and the one strongest archetype I can still remember: the human form. I sketch out half a man on some old paper, and throw it into my briefcase along with the other stuff. With all of it together, it looks like some mixture of a medical kit and a cable guy's repair kit. Since I don't know what I'll even need, I grab a tarp and my laptop, just in case. I don't know how exactly I'm going to do it, but I know I'm going to connect to it.

With my briefcase in hand I rush out, grab Pooch, and drive off again.



The river looks even more like the picture then before. I drag Pooch along as I try to find the same spot. 

When we finally come to what is, as best I can tell, the same place, I tie Pooch to the same tree and set to work. Villagers glide by in their boats, returning home on the river from the day's hunt.

The only problem is, I have no idea how to do this. But maybe someone else does.

I lie down in the same spot, with the briefcase open at my side, and Pooch standing guard. I close my eyes,a nd it's the same dream.

This time I try to focus. I try to find specific knowledge. Theoretically, anything anyone knows could be here, but the fewer people know it, the harder it would be to find.

The images stream by. People's memories, the memories left by groups, history, ideals,a ll of it. And then I wake up.

And it's done.

It must have been something in the racial memory. Something someone else knew. I don't even remember moving, but all the conduits, the cable, all of it is in place, buried in the ground, running to who knows where, with a nice RJ-45 jack on the end that's out of the ground.

It's late now. I want to make sure it works, to give it time to work, so I leave my laptop plugged into it on battery save mode. I conceal the interface and my laptop with a tarp to keep it all try, and start to leave. Helen will be wondering where I am. I untie Pooch and head home.



I still don't have a story. My competition posted about how she was looking forward to a tough round. She thought our stories might be even. At this point, she's dead wrong. I know she knows how to write. I've seen what she can do without tapping into some kind of group memory. I know she would beat me, but now I have a secret weapon. Everybody's memory is on my side.

I can't wait to go back tomorrow. To access everybody else's imagination to fuel my own. Somebody has an idea that I can use. 24 hours to go.



I had to take the long way back to the river. The Forest Service had blocked off the parking area, so I had to go over the bridge and move in from the other side. I hope I can find some villagers to take me across the water. I've seen them go by often enough, I should be able to find a boat to take me across. 

As I approach the river, the scene is an exact match of the picture. It takes me a minute to realize why, but then it hits me: right where I set up my connection, there's a glow. I don't know what it is, but its right where I made my connection. I see villagers coasting by one the river, and get a ride. They're happy to give me a ride, but the won't take me directly across. I have to go to their village, which is no problem, it should be close enough to my connection.

When I reach the village, it's worse then I could have imagined. The village is about half a mile from my connection, and the dome ends just at the the first hut. I ask the villagers what happened, but none of them give me a straight answer. They all point me to the hut at the edge of the dome, and telling me “Meme keeper is there.” I don't know what the meme keeper is, but I'm not sure I want to find out.

With nothing better to do, I go to the hut, to meet the Meme Keeper. It's not as bad as I thought. The glow from the dome shows through the badly jointed wood and back lights the man who I can only guess is the Meme Keeper. Other people, maybe his family, huddle in the back of the hut. They're afraid of something. With a regal voice I hadn't expected, he begins to speak.

“So, you know something of this?”

Straight to the point, isn't he?

“What do you mean by 'this'?”

“You know, the Meme, the racial memory. You entered it didn't you?”

I have a feeling he already knows, so I might as well admit it. It's not like I did anything wrong (or did I?). “Yes. In a dream. It just happened.”

“And after that?”

“I wanted to access it again. So I created I connection I think my computer can use.”

“Damn.” He says the word like he wants to say something else in it's place, but he wants me to understand what he's saying. “Here, let me show you something.” He starts to walk outside, and I follow him, with Pooch at my side.

“You see this?” He takes a pendant of some sort out of his pocket and hands it to me. Its not much to look at, just a dime set in some kind of square, with a little ornamentation around it. I hand it back to him. “My great grandfather was given this by colonists as payment for more land then they could ever use.” His face contorts with displeasure at the mention of colonists. “Now watch.”

He walks over to the dome around my connection, and swings the dime through it, holding onto the chain so it swings back out again. “Look again.” he says as he hands it back to me.

It's blank. The face still sits there, but all the identity. The mint year. The mint place letter. The words. All that's left is the face.”This is what you've done. You opened the Meme. You you brought it into a physical form.”

“You mean my computer is the Meme now?”

“Not really. Your computer gives it form. And lets it into the world. You see, only thoughts are supposed to enter the Meme, only thoughts should be absorbed by it. But now it's open, now it's eating the world. Everything is becoming memory. This coin: it's identity has been absorbed, it's now only in the Meme. And the same thing is going to happen to all of us. The Meme is meant to absorb everything it touches, all the thoughts that enter it. But now that it's here, it's eating everything. Absorbing the meaning, leaving the physical forms.”

“Crap”

“That's right.”

In the shock of the moment, I let go of Pooch's leash, and he runs in to dome. While I stand dumbfounded, The Meme Keeper steps on Pooch's leash before it all goes into the dome. He pulls the leash back out, and the dog that comes out isn't Pooch.

I kneel in front of the dog, and try to find some glimmer of recognition in it's eyes. “Pooch?”

No response.

“Sit.”

Nothing.

“Stay”

No.

This isn't my dog. He sits there with a blank look, a vacancy that I've never seen before. My dog is gone.

The Keeper speaks. “Now do you see? He is nothing now, but all his memories are part of the Meme now.”

This is my fault. “So, how do we stop it?” This is all my fault, so I should be the one who stops it.

“You disconnect the Meme, return it back to being something insubstantial. But once you are inside, your memories are gone. There will be none of you left to remember what you were doing.”

“How long will I remain me? How long would I have if I went in?”

“ In don't know. Your dog was absorbed in a few seconds, but he is simple. You may stand a chance, but not for long. I can't let you in.”

“Too late.”

Before the Meme Keeper can keep me out, I run into the dome.

As I run back to the connection, I think about my wife. I try to hang onto her name. I try to think about the story I could write if I make it out. I try to find a way to be me.

I make it to the connection in a matter of minutes, and all I am is a force to destroy what I have made. I don't remember my name. I don't remember my life, all I know is why I'm here.

The wire pulls out of the laptop easily.

And now I'm nothing. My body is nothing but a shell. All I had left was the urge to end the connection, and now even that is gone. This story is all remains of my life. The last trace of the Meme, the last trace of me, left on the computer. If you find this, please post it for me. I need people to know I had a story, that I tried to find an idea, that I was going to write.







_Found on a Laptop in the middle of the River Basin Disturbance, November 16th, 2004. Posted here by the deceased's request_


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## Sparky (Nov 16, 2004)

Macbeth... are you okay? You there, pal?


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## Macbeth (Nov 16, 2004)




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## orchid blossom (Nov 16, 2004)

Untitled

by: orchid blossom


"Hold your arm out straight."  Carlene ducked under the arm and looked at the musculature from beneath.  "You could have at least bathed before you came in."

"And you could have gotten someone else to do this for you," Aidan shook his head.  "Or at least done it later.  You can't expect me to come in from mucking stalls smelling like a daisy, can you?"

Carlene stood back and made another mark with her charcoal pencil.

"My arms are getting tired."

"Just another minute."

Aidan shifted his weight from side to side.  "What's the point of this anyway?"

"I'm supposed to draw the arm and torso, making note of the musculature.  It's part of my studies."

"And what are you going to learn from this?"

Carlene looked up, one eyebrow raised.  "All the ticklish spots."

"Alright with the evil eye already.  I really want to know."

"Mrs. Kennedy thinks it's easier to learn things with hands on experience.  So instead of just looking at pictures and memorizing the names of the muscles, by looking and drawing I'm supposed to remember better."

"And do you?"

"Actually, yeah, I do.  It's pretty interesting."

Aidan nodded.  "Okay, my arms are getting really tired."

"You can put them down, I'm done.  And for heaven's sake put your shirt back on!"

"Sure, sure.  Use me and then just toss me aside."  Aidan pulled his rough cotton work shirt back over his head and shook his arms to loosen the tight muscles.  "You're coming out to the fair tonight, aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

"Well then, you can make it up to me."

"What?"

"You did it all backwards.  You're supposed to buy me dinner first, and then try to get me out of my clothes," he grinned.

Carlene clamped her lips shut and tried not to laugh.  "Out!  Go!"  She chased him out the door and watched as he ran down the path toward his parent’s house.  

He turned and ran backwards down the path.   "You're going to dance with me, right?"

"Only if you bathe first!”

……………………………………….


The evening air was chilly as Carlene walked down the hill toward the town square.  It had been three months since the last fair, and the village was ready for the party that always accompanied the return of a retrieval team.  

The generator had been started for the night, and electrical street lights illuminated the square and stalls.  The teams must have found fuel tanks this time.  She couldn't imagine what it was like before the Plagues, when everyone had electricity all the time.  Living in a crowded city with cars and buses and a machine to do anything you could imagine.  She'd seen those things when she went to the nearest operating hospital for the "modern" part of her training.  Now she was learning the older healing arts as well.  Those with serious problems would be taken to a hospital if they were able to make the trip, but Carlene would be able to take car of things like broken bones, cuts that needed stitches and sicknesses that could be cured through herbal rather than pharmaceutical means.

Carlene walked up and down the vendor stalls, looking over the newest arrivals.  There were still plenty of things of use to be found in the cities.  Any food was long spoiled of course, except for the occasional Twinkie, and no one trusted eating something that was still good after 30 years.  But there were plenty of clothes, dishes, books, and just about anything made of plastic you could want.  She made her purchases and had everything set aside to be delivered tomorrow afternoon.

"Hey, I got you something," Aidan said as he came around a corner.  He held out a package wrapped in plain brown paper.  "Open it."

Carlene carefully unwrapped it to expose a bas-relief of the head of a small boy, mounted in a carved wooden frame.  She carefully folded the paper.  "Aidan, it's beautifully done, but, what am I going to do with it?"

"It's for your shingle.  You know, doctors are supposed to hang out their shingles, right?  We can hang this outside your house, and I'll carve you a name plate to go underneath it.  Come on, we’ll go put this in your delivery crates, and then we’ll get some dinner.”

She gave in and bought the dinner and gave Aidan his dance by way of a thank you.  Carlene smiled and laughed as she danced from one song to the next and drank the home brewed beer that had been one of the first things people figured out how to make for themselves. 

………………………………….

"Carlene!  Carlene!"

She put down the book on herbs she had been studying and hurried to the door.  It was only a little past noon, early for anyone to be knocking on the day after a Fair.  She opened it just as the man was about to knock again.  "Kieran.  You should be sleeping.  You've been gone for weeks, and then all that unloading yesterday."

The retrieval man shook his head.  "Can I come in?"

Carlene nodded and moved out of the way.  "Look, we brought back more than just goods yesterday.  We found some people wandering the city.  They said they'd been traveling, retrieving like us.  When they got back to their village no one was there.  So they set off looking for others."

"Why didn't you bring them up yesterday?"

"Well, one of them said they didn't feel so good.  Apparently they've been to a couple other villages that wouldn't take them in.  Places that didn't have a healer and were pretty paranoid about sick people.  Anyway, they seem worse today.  I don't want to bring them up here until someone looks at them.  Can you come?"

"Me?"  Carlene backed up a step.  "I'm still in training.  I don't know if I'll be able to help at all.  We should get Mrs. Kennedy."

"She's delivering a baby."

Carlene sighed.  Babies she'd dealt with.  But if those people were really sick then Kieran was exposed, and through him so was she.  She couldn't just go trade places and spread it further.  "Ok, hold on a minute.  Carlene grabbed her bag, threw in a few pairs of the precious rubber gloves and snapped it shut.  "Let's go.”
………………………………

Aidan shaded his eyes from the sun and peered in the kitchen window.  “Carly?”  She usually worked at the kitchen table.  “Carly?  I have your stuff!”  He knocked on the door again and waited.  Finally he shrugged and opened it.  He piled up her crates of supplies in the hallway and shouted one more time.  She was probably with Mrs. Kennedy.

He was on his way back down to the stables when a mechanical hum came to him from the distance.  Down at the bottom of the hill, people were pouring out of their houses.  All eyes were looking down the old road as the automobile bounced over the cracked pavement.  Small children who had never seen one before hid behind their mothers, and even the elders who remembered them looked surprised.  Gasoline was a precious commodity, used only when absolutely needed.

Aidan reached the road just as a man stepped out of the car.  He was rail thin and dressed in a pristine black suit.  “You’ve all had retrieval back recently, yes?”

“Just a couple days ago, sir.” One of the gathered crowd told him.

“Any new people come in with it?”

Most of them shook their heads, and a few answered aloud.  The man looked around suspiciously, studying each face until the crowd was squirming.  “Who are the retrievers that came back with the last load?”  A few hands went up and the man gestured for them to come forward.  “Where do you unload?”

“We ferry the goods from a larger ship and unload on the east side of the lake.  It gets too shallow to bring the big boat in.”

“I’ll need to go out to your main ship.  You may have had stowaways,” he said with a sniff.  “I don’t want to waste my time circling that lake if they never came here.”  The man opened the back door of his auto and a canine nose peeked out.  He reached out and stroked the animal, and it poked its head out further.  Aidan pulled back as he saw the wolf’s eyes.  For a moment, he thought they weren’t there, but a glint of light betrayed a dull black presence.  The man snapped his fingers and it jumped lightly out.

Aidan watched as the man moved away with the retrievers and got into the longboat to make the trip out to the main ship.  The chatter in the crowd started quietly, but grew quickly into a loud buzzing.  Aidan slipped away and headed for the storehouse.
………………………………

Kieran led Carlene down a wide dirt path circling the lake to the storehouse.  The walls were made of wooden slats with wide cracks between them.  “Can’t be much good at keeping the weather out.”

“We usually keep tarp over it.  But they kept saying it was stifling in there, so we pulled it off.”  He pushed the door open.  Carlene stepped in and shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight streaming in through the cracks.  There was a little boy sitting against the back wall, and a man in African printed cloth near the door. 

“Are these two all there are?”

Kieran shook his head.  “Where’s Libby?”

The man shook his head.  “She died while you were gone.  Coughing up blood.”

Carlene nodded.  “Okay, let’s see what’s going on here.”  She opened her bag and put on her gloves.  The ball bearings she sometimes used to help crush herbs had gotten loose and were scattered all over the inside of the bag.  She shook her head and got down to work.

The sun was setting as Carlene confirmed her diagnosis.  If these people had been at home and resting, they would have recovered easily.  “Kieran, I’ll need a small fire to boil some water in.”  She pulled out her mortar and pestle and pulled out a few of the old pieces of tubing she used for cases.  In a few minutes the herbs were crushed and ready and Carlene stood up to stretch.  She walked over to the wall and peered out between the cracks.

Kieran was busy striking his flint and steel under a small pile of kindling.  Carlene looked past him at the sun setting over the water.  “Is that a longboat coming over?” 

“What?”  Kieran looked up and at the lake.  “Damn!”  He kicked the pile of sticks down and ran back inside.

“What’s the matter?”

“I think they were tracked.  Listen, there’s people out there who track down the sick and try to keep them from spreading anything.  They’ve been doing it since the Plague.  There’s one of them in that boat.  He’ll kill both of them and us if he finds us.  And he will.  He’ll have a wolf with him, trained to sniff out the sickness.”

“So running is not an option?”

The Retriever nodded.  “He’d just track us down.”  He moved to the back corner of the room and pulled up a trap door.  “Get them down here.  We’ll hide and pray he thinks they were here and left.”

“Why would the others bring him here?”

“You don’t say no to a Mortician, Carlene.  Let’s go.”

Carlene helped get the two sick people down the steep stairs and ran back up for her bag.  She popped open another tube and poured a fragrant herb into her hand.  She used her fingers to crush it and release the oils and then rubbed it on the outside of the trap door.  “It should confuse the wolf’s sense of smell,” she explained.  She grabbed her mortar and pestle and tossed them down.

“Hurry up, Carlene.”

“Just one more thing.”  She reached over and pulled on the blanket she had used to cover the body of the dead woman.  It fell down, exposing her face. “Sorry,” she whispered to the spirit of the woman and hoped she wouldn’t mind being a decoy to save the rest of them.

Carlene could hear voices outside as she ran back down the stairs and started pulling the trap door down over her.  “My bag,” she whispered urgently, starting back up again.

“Too late, leave it!”  Kieran pulled her back down and caught the trap door, keeping it from slamming loudly.
……………………………..

Aidan whistled as he pushed a wheelbarrow down toward the storehouse.  The strange man in the suit was just coming up the path as Aidan arrived.

“You there!  What are you doing?”  

“Just getting some supplies.  Still people waiting on their deliveries.”

The man in the suit sneered.  “You’ll have to wait.”  He opened the storehouse door and the wolf trotted in growling.  Aidan watched as it trotted straight to a blanket covered pile in the corner.  There was a combination of smells coming from the room, but strongest was a sweet, herbal smell that tickled his memory.  

“Dead,” the man in the suit said as the wolf poked his nose at the body.  Aidan coughed and turned his eyes away from the animal.  The man whistled again and the wolf backed off and sniffed the rest of the room.  It was interested in a spot by the door, as well as one by the back wall, but it kept sneezing when it tried to go near the back corner or near a black bag that was sitting on the floor.

“Recognize that?” the man said, picking up the bag and walking over to the door.  Aidan looked down and saw the drawing that Carlene had been making of him yesterday tucked beneath her medical supplies.  It didn’t look a bit like him.  Aidan shook his head.  “Nope.”

The man held it out to the retrievers who’d brought him out. “Any of you?”  Most of them were shaking their heads, but one noticed Aidan nodding from behind the man.  “Uh, yeah.  Yeah I picked that up.  Healers always wanting stuff like that.  You should take that up to Mrs. Kennedy, Aidan.”

“Soon as the man gives the okay.”

The wolf went back in the room and sniffed again, each time coming out sneezing.  Finally the man seemed satisfied that the body was the only sick person there.  “Take that out and burn it,” he told the Retrievers, “And cover you hands, noses, and mouths when you do it.  That path go back to the village?”

They waited until the Mortician was out of sight and then rushed into the storehouse.  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Aidan called out.

The trap door flopped open and Carlene stuck her head out.  

“I’ve heard of playing hard to get, girl, but this is ridiculous.”
……………………………………

"Be careful up there, Aidan.  I don't want you to be my first patient."  Carlene coughed.  She’d been sick herself after treating the people the Retrievers had brought back, but as she suspected, it wasn’t a serious illness as long as it was treated right away.  She’d spent a week in the storehouse nursing them back to health, and they now lived in the village.  The little boy, Charlie, had been taken in by one of the families at the bottom of the hill and was outside now, playing in his yard with the other children.

"I'm being careful.  Why did you let me buy such a heavy shingle?"  He grunted and lifted the heavy metal and wood bas-relief.  The metal hooks bounced against the sign a few times before Aidan managed to get them in the loops he'd screwed into the wood.  He slowly transferred the weight from his hands to the chains.

Carlene picked up the name plate and ran her fingers over the delicately carved letters of her name.  She handed it to Aidan and he hung the much lighter piece from the bottom of her "shingle."

She looked up at the picture of the young boy and smiled.


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## FireLance (Nov 17, 2004)

*Ceramic DM Round 2.2: FireLance vs. sparky*

*Cinders*

Ella sat by the sea shore, enjoying the cool feel of the early morning breeze on her face and the waves on her toes. She stared out at the horizon, dreaming of visiting the distant lands spoken of by the travelers staying in her stepmother's inn. With a sigh, she stood up and trudged back to the inn. She would have to content herself with dreams for now.

"Where have you been, you lazy girl?" her stepmother snapped when she returned to the inn. "There are pots and plates to be washed, the kitchen floor needs scrubbing, and the fireplaces must be cleaned out again." Ella quietly started work as her stepmother continued her tirade. "I curse the day that I agreed to marry your good-for-nothing father. To think that I took pity on him then, with his wife just dead and you only a babe. And he repaid me by disappearing not three months after our wedding, leaving me to raise you by myself. Oh, the injustice of it all." It was a speech Ella had heard many times before, as far back as she could remember. She did not blame her father for leaving, but often wished he had taken her with him. 

Ella washed, scrubbed and cleaned for hours. As she completed her tasks, she kept a wary eye out for her stepmother. Her stepmother had no patience for "idlers" and would assign her new jobs whenever she was done with her old ones. She needed something to distract her stepmother so that she could slip out of the inn and return to the sea shore.

Her chance came when a liveried servant of the local Baron called at the inn. "Mistress Feuxmains," he said haughtily, "The Baron has heard tell of your skill at roasting meats, and has seen fit to employ your services on the occasion of his ball tomorrow evening. I have a list of viands that the Baron wishes to be prepared. Have you time to discuss the details?"

While her stepmother haggled with the Baron's servant in the kitchen, Ella slipped out the back and returned to the sea shore. Kneeling down, she washed her hands in the waves, cleaning away the soot and ash that stained them. It was then that she noticed http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17270]a tiny black speck, far out to sea[/URL] (1). It approached as she watched, and revealed itself to be a small sailboat piloted by a woman. The woman guided the boat to shore and disembarked.

She was a tall woman, good-looking in an unconventional way, wearing a cloak, blouse, kirtle and scarf, all made of cloth that had a strange metallic sheen. "Good day, young lady," she said to Ella, "Would you be able to direct me to the village inn?" 

"My stepmother runs the local inn, milady," Ella said, "If you will follow me, I will take you there."

"Please, call me Brina," the woman said with a smile, "How fortunate that I met you. And what is your name?"

"Ella, milady - I mean, Brina," Ella replied. Encouraged by the warmth of her smile, she questioned her further, "Where have you come from? Have you traveled far? Can you tell me of the places you have visited?"

Brina laughed, "I will be glad to tell you of my travels, Ella, but I have sailed for some time and am now quite tired. Perhaps this evening, after I have rested for a while."

Ella could see the fury in her stepmother's eyes when she and Brina entered the inn, but the presence of a customer saved her from another tongue-lashing. She merely told Ella curtly to do the laundry after seeing Brina to her room, before storming off into the kitchen.

Ella guided Brina up the stairs to her room and helped her remove her cloak. She gasped when she touched it for the first time. The material was cold, like stone on a winter morning. Brina looked amused. "I should have warned you," she said, "My clothes are made from silverweave - mithral alloyed with steel and drawn so fine that it can be woven and worn like cloth. It's a very hardy material." As she spoke, she removed her scarf. Ella noticed that it was extremely long, perhaps as long as fifty feet if fully extended. Ella hung up her cloak and scarf and returned to her chores.

The next morning, Ella woke up early as usual, to watch the sun rise over the sea. As she crept past the kitchen, she heard a noise and peered into it. What she saw there almost made her scream in surprise and fear. Brina was kneeling by the fireplace, a translucent, ghostly hound by her side. A ball of light that glowed dimly floated over her head. Ella must have made some sound, because Brina turned to face her, and their gazes locked for a second. "You're a witch," Ella whispered weakly.

"Ella!" The sound of her stepmother's voice came from behind her. She whirled around to see her coming down the stairs. "I will be at the Baron's manor house today, preparing for his ball this evening, but the inn still needs running, so that means you won't be able to idle, you lazy good-for-nothing. I have a list of chores for you to complete. I will also need you to help me tonight, and I can't have you showing up at the Baron's manor barefoot like a beggar. You can wear these." With a cruel smirk, she dropped a pair of the ugliest shoes Ella had ever seen: yellow and blue, with strange frills around the mouth. Without another word, she turned and left the inn.

"Ella." This time her name was spoken gently. She turned back to the kitchen to see Brina standing there with a compassionate smile on her face. "Is your stepmother usually that unkind to you?" she asked.

Ella scowled at her. "Why do you care, you witch?"

"I am not a witch, Ella. I am a sorceress. I am neither cruel, nor evil, nor do I wish you ill."

"Then tell me, why are you here? And what were you doing in the kitchen? What was that dog you had? And the light?"

Brina sighed. "To give a full answer to all your questions will take too long, but the short version is as follows. Sorcerers have the power to command spirits bound into talismans such as these." She displayed a handful of small figurines, each about an inch high. "Witches use the same spirits, but they lack the power to bind them permanently. A witch must strike a deal with a spirit in order to gain control over it, and must uphold her end of the bargain or the spirit will be freed. This usually involves causing pain to some innocent person, because these spirits tend to be spiteful and malicious, and enjoy the suffering of others." Brina looked grim for a moment, then continued, "The hound spirit you saw earlier is bound into this one," she said, holding up a crude dog-shaped figure. "It allows me to detect the presence of magic and to find other spirits." 

"What does this one do? It looks dangerous." Ella asked, pointing to one shaped like a coiled snake. "Dangerous? Hardly," Brina said, "It simply allows me to control rope-like objects. It is quite useful for trapping a spirit that wants to get away."

"And what about this one?" she asked, indicating http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17271]a figurine of a human head[/URL] (2). "That one allows me to invoke a minor illusion to disguise myself. Ideal when you need to get away from people who recognize you, and it has cosmetic applications, too." 

"You should like this one," Brina said with a smile, holding up a figurine that looked like a broom, "This one does housework."

Ella laughed, "I don't suppose you have one that will get me out of helping my stepmother at the ball tonight?" 

Brina looked thoughtful. "I might," she said.

Ella sighed as she scrubbed plates and glasses in the Baron's scullery. She had spent an enjoyable day dreaming by the shore as Brina's bound spirit did her chores. However, nightfall saw her washing and scrubbing again, wearing the ill-fitting, uncomfortable shoes given to her by her stepmother. Brina had disappeared for the entire day on some mysterious errand. "Where are you, Brina?" she wondered.

"Right here." Ella whirled round with a squeak to see Brina standing in the shadows behind her. "Brina, how did you get in here?" Brina smiled, and held up her human head figurine, "Getting in is no problem for someone who can look like one of the guards. Ella, how would you like to go to the ball?"

Ella's heart leapt. "I would love to, but how can I, dressed like this?"

"Take this," Brina said, handing her http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17269]a small, multicolored glass bauble[/URL] (3), "It will give you the power to command my spirits. This one, for example." She held up the human head figurine again. "Hold on to both, and think of yourself in the most beautiful clothes you can imagine."

Ella did so, and the figurine shimmered, grew and became the ghostly, translucent image of a woman, which settled around her. Immediately, she was clothed in a gown that gleamed like silverweave. Jewelry adorned her hair, neck and arms. Even her ugly shoes were transformed into silverweave slippers studded with diamonds. With trembling hands, she touched a bracelet on her arm, but felt nothing. "None of this is real!" she exclaimed.

Brina nodded. "It is only an illusion, but it should do. Go out, enjoy yourself, but be careful of the time. By my estimation, the spell will end close to midnight. I will see to these plates and glasses."

Ella wandered through the Baron's house, following the sounds of music and merriment. Eventually, she made her way to a large, brightly-lit ballroom filled with well-dressed men and women, and settled in a corner of the room to listen to the music and watch the dancing.

Before long, she was approached by a dark-haired, powerfully-built man. The medallion of office around his neck proclaimed him to be the Baron himself. "My dear lady, one as lovely as yourself should not deny others the pleasure of your company. Will you dance with me?"

Ella shook her head. "I do not know how," she said. She was also conscious of her shoes, which despite the spell, remained ill-fitting and threatened to drop off her feet if she moved too quickly.

"Then come, I shall teach you," the Baron said with a grin, extending his hand.

"I am sorry, sir. I cannot." Ella turned and fled out of the ballroom. "Wait, stop! I command you!" The Baron shouted after her, but she ignored him. She hurried back to the scullery, where Brina was directing her housework spirit to do the washing.

"What happened to you?" Brina asked.

"The Baron asked me to dance, and I panicked and ran," Ella confessed, "I need to hide in case he comes in here after me."

Brina laughed. "Silly, just dismiss the disguising spirit. The Baron is looking for an elegant lady, not a scullery maid cleaning the dishes."

"I had not thought of that," Ella said, relieved. "I dismiss you, spirit." The illusion covering her vanished, and the spirit disguising her coalesced into its figurine form again. It was then that she noticed that she had lost one of her shoes in her flight from the ballroom. It was not turning out to be an enjoyable evening.

The next day, Ella was cleaning the kitchen fireplace in the inn when Brina walked in, an excited look on her face. "Ella, this is important," she said, "Leave your chores aside. You must come to the village square now."

A crude platform had been built in the square, and a pedestal had been placed on it. Lying on top of the pedestal was an open box containing http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17272] the shoe that Ella had lost the night before[/URL] (4). The Baron also sat on a chair on the platform, while his servant addressed the crowd that had formed.

"Last evening, the Baron encountered a most enchanting young lady at his ball. However, she left before he could discover her name, leaving behind nothing but this shoe. The Baron has thus proclaimed that all young ladies in this village shall try on the shoe, so that he may know who it belongs to."

"Do you expect me to try on the shoe?" Ella protested. "It doesn't even fit me. And I'm not sure that I want the Baron to find me, anyway."

"Hush," Brina said, "Go and try on the shoe. It will work out well. Trust me on this."

Ella had to wait some time before it was her turn to try on the shoe, as it seemed that every girl in the village was fighting for the chance to do so. When at last she ascended the platform, the shoe fitted as badly as it always had. "It doesn't fit," she said. But the Baron was not looking at her feet, but at her face.

"It does not matter," the Baron said, "I have found the girl I was looking for."

"No!" A piercing shriek made itself head over the sounds of the crowd. It was Ella's stepmother. "You cannot do this! You cannot take her away from me!" she screamed as she ran on to the platform.

"I can and I have," the Baron bellowed, "Go away, old woman. She is mine now." 

Ella's stepmother's cries of protest were drowned by a demonic cackle. Flames burst from her apron, and formed themselves into a vaguely humanoid shape that stood before her. "Free! Free at last! After sixteen years of cooking and roasting, the bargain is broken and I am free again," it gloated, "Free to take my revenge." Flames burst from its hands as it spoke, and Ella's stepmother screamed again as she caught on fire.

Ella was vaguely aware of the cries of the crowd and the sounds of people running away, but her attention was mostly focused on the fiery figure in front of her. It pointed its hands at her, but before it could act, Brina rushed onto the platform, carrying her scarf. "Bind it!" she shouted, invoking her snake figurine. The figurine dissolved into a translucent, serpentine form that merged with her scarf. One end of the scarf leapt forward and wrapped itself around the spirit of fire, while http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17268]Brina held on to the other end[/URL] (5).

The fiery spirit laughed, "You are well prepared indeed, sorceress. You have bound me with a rope of metal which I cannot burn through. But you have forgotten that while metal does not burn, it can get very hot." It concentrated its flames on the scarf, which soon glowed cherry red. With a cry of pain, Brina dropped the scarf.

As the fiery spirit struggled to unwrap itself from the scarf, Ella formed a desperate plan. She reached into her pocket and brought out the glass bauble that Brina had given her the night before. With her other hand, she grabbed onto the end of the scarf that Brina had released. "Continue to bind it!" she commanded the snake spirit, and ran off the platform, dragging the scarf and the bound spirit behind her.

The fiery spirit sought to heat the scarf again, but Ella's hands were toughened and calloused from years of hard work, and accustomed to burns from cinders and coals. She gritted her teeth against the pain, and continued running, heading for the sea.

The fiery spirit's struggles increased when it realized where she was headed, but Ella held on to her end of the scarf with all her might. She ran into the water, dragging the spirit behind her. There was a tremendous hiss when it was pounded by the ocean waves, and great clouds of steam arose. The spirit's struggles weakened, it gave one final, despairing wail, and disappeared.

As Ella stood in the sea, waiting to regain her breath, Brina walked down to the shore, bent down and picked up something that was tangled in the other end of her scarf, and gave it to Ella. "Unconventional, but effective," she commented, "This is yours, now."

Ella stared at the figurine she held. It was shaped like a cone of flame emerging from a hand. "Mine? But what do I need with it? You're the sorceress. You should keep it," she protested.

Brina shook her head. "You are a sorceress too. My hound spirit told me that yesterday, when you surprised us in the kitchen. The bauble I gave you was only worthless glass. It was your own power that allowed you to command the spirit of disguise yesterday, and to command the snake spirit this morning. And I guess that was why your stepmother had to torment you as part of her bargain with the fire spirit. Many spirits hate sorcerers for the power that we have over them."

"So why didn't you just tell me when you knew? Why go through this charade with the glass bauble?" Ella asked.

"Because I had to be sure you would use your power responsibly. The power that we sorcerers wield can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Think of your stepmother. But you proved yourself when you acted to save me instead of running away." Brina bent down to retrieve her scarf. "So what are your plans now? Are you going to stay and see if things work out with the Baron?"

Ella shook her head. "There is nothing left for me here. I don't think I will like the Baron very much, either. If I may, I would like to leave with you."

Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them boarded her boat and sailed out to sea, towards the horizon.

(1) The sea
(2) The human head figurine
(3) The glass bauble 
(4) The ugly yellow and blue shoe
(5) Brina the sorceress holding on to her silverweave scarf


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## FireLance (Nov 17, 2004)

Blast, something went wrong with the URL formatting, and I checked it before posting, too. Oh well, I think it's still legible.

I was going to call this story "Burning Hands: I Choose You!" but decided against it because it didn't fit the tone, and I didn't want to be responsible for people calling a sorcerer's spells known "Pokespells".


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## Piratecat (Nov 17, 2004)

Any word for judgment on 1.8? Truth be told, I'd be okay with just "so-and-so won" with the lost judge exposition added later. The wait is brutal!

Thanks, even if that's not possible.


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## mythago (Nov 17, 2004)

Boy, am I an idiot. One of the judgments was sent as part of a longer e-mail and I didn't realize I had it :O

 Formatting now, judgments up in a few.


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## mythago (Nov 17, 2004)

Round 1.7 – MarauderX vs. BigTom



Maldur



     MarauderX
 Rakshasa as a good guy, fantastic. And “an” explanation as to why they are evil. I like it. The only thing I don’t get is where the additional arms come from , that pic does not invoke that image of a marilith to me.

 BigTom
 Very 60’s personal discovery story, the only thing I found strange was your “fact” that it is unknown you can trip on a cactus, I thought Peyote was known by the general populaceJ All in all a nice story.

 My point goes to MarauderX, as I liked the more fantastic story over the Magical realism offfered by Big Tom. It was even for a long time though. It ws personal preference swinging me.

Berandor

*MarauderX: "Cursed"*

   Before going into details, let's talk about s...tyle. You should try toinclude sentences without any conjunction or relative in your story. I found myself re-reading several sentences, some being too long for their own good, losing clarity and power.

   "To stop the incantation would be a waste, so I let the guard continue to wake the entire village as there would be nothing they could do to stop me." If he can't be stopped, why is he even thinking about stopping himself?

   "The humans were confused as to why she didn't help and gave them looks of disdain." At first,  ‘gave' seems to relate to the humans (the subjectof the sentence). Better would be "She regarded the humans disdainfully and refused to help, confusing them."

   "She stopped at the foot of the hill, backtracking away from the decoy trail I had left as the sun met the mountain horizon." Does she stop at sunset, or did he leave the decoy trail at dusk? --> "At sunset, she stopped instead of following my decoy trail up the hill, even backtracking a few steps." These kinds of inaccuracies happen often and confused me somewhat as I read.

     There were other, isolated things that struck my nerve. "...(she) cast a a spell to knock us apart. I had used enchantments to conceal myself from her.." So did the spell work, or did it fail because

   of said enchantments? Something seems to miss here.

   Also, when the Rakshasa shoots the bow, please tell us whether he misses, hits or doesn't see it as Notura is already upon him. Finally, the foreshadowing "I would later find out that the marilith's curse would follow me to this day." is out of place; it seems to belong to a different story altogether.

     On the plus side, the beginning ritual was cool and showed the ruthlessness of the protagonist.

   The idea of having a Rakshasa and a marilith starring in the story was interesting, as well, and I enjoyed how focused the Rakshasa was on breeding, mating and "raising a litter", even pondering a life with the female he plunges to death with.

   It also strikes me a very sadistic (read: cool) of his fellow brethren to send him back to the world he came from, both to the protagonist and to the people who suddenly have to deal with a spell-immune, undead spellcaster. 

   Oh, and consider this character stolen as an NPC in my game.

   "Cursed" would have benefitted from a tighter edit, but it was still a good read. Thanks.

*BigTom: "Big Tom's story"*

   Paragraph breaks. Please use them. I print out all the stories and the paragraphs were still too long. In short (ha!), a paragraph should be restrained  to one topic (or setting, event, etc.); when the topic changes, begin a new paragraph. Also, start a paragraph when somebody says something, or when the speaker changes in a conversation. There are a lot of instances in your story where the setting changes, or a new thought comes up, and at first it just confuses if sentences run one after the other. For example, when "Finally he came to the base of the tallest mountain he had ever seen.", this should begin a new paragraph.

   Paragraph breaks also serve as a short pause in the narrative, so you are usually able to emphasize events better, too. (Note that the first and last words of a sentence, sentences of a paragraph, etc., are usually emphasized).

   Consider "Paul shook his head and tried to clear his vision. Footsteps echoed on the ground, heavy boots stepping up to his crumpled form. Paul could feel a cold numbness encroaching on him, and despite his better knowledge, he looked up to regard the figure towering above him. It was Death."

   And now "Paul shook his head and tried to clear his vision. Footsteps echoed on the ground, heavy boots stepping up to his crumpled form. Paul could feel a cold numbness encroaching on him, and despite his better knowledge, he looked up to regard the figure towering above him. It was Death."

     Now, to the story. What is it with this tournament and drug use? Here, a cactus makes a young man come to his senses - a nice contrast, btw (gaining clarity by being drugged). Your monologues are very refreshing to read. The part where Bo talks about his experience with the Indians and their drugs was very cool.

   "I followed Peyote to Coyote and he led me to the promised land." And all that follows is great.

   However, as you likely noticed, I wrote "monologues." That's because youdon't have real dialogue in your story. People spout off lengthy sentences with no answer from listeners. Dialogue livens the story up. Monologues quickly become bouts of exposition - boring.

     On his trip, Jakey displays a certainty that likely can be attributed to his drugged state, but the lack of reactions also keep him isolated from us. He might freeze not freeze on the mountain and even find it normal, but then we should see at least that he finds it normal. Or, maybe he does freeze and doesn't care, but then we need to see that.

   By showing us more of Jakey, we would also understand better why climbing the mountain leading to Heaven or Hell was never a choice for him. "Showing" in that regard doesn't necessarily mean visual clues, as there are other senses you can use to describe events. For example, when Bo gives Jakey money, does the latter feel guilty? Ashamed? Does he hesitate before taking the money? Apologize? Does he thank Bo? Hug him? And so on.

     Now, the basis of the story was good. The moral of it - as told by the Warrior - was a great idea (having his motivation come from a life-like experience whilst drugged out). It just needs some refinement, but that is the fate of most Ceramic DM stories. Thank you.

*The Pics*

_The cacti_

   - MarauderX introduces us to "Zephel-spider spores" (I want to know these critters! Great name.), a necessary ingredient worthy of drowning a village for. After that impressive display of magical might, the spores sink below the lines, presumably used up in the ritual.

   - BigTom hans us Indian Cacti, the "bonus level for shrooms." (also a cool line) These halluzinogenous plants lead our hero to a journey of naked self-discovery (that sounds ickier than it is. Really!).

_Silhouette_

   - BigTom's "Warrior" is an Indian spirit guide, killed by his own people. I loved that he had arrows sticking out of his back (in the pic), even though it must be pretty uncomfortable using your back as quiver. Aside from uttering a final sentence wisdom, the Warrior mostly stands aside.

   - MarauderX's Notura is our protagonist's nemesis, and when he finally gets rid of her, she curses him with her dying breath. She shapes the story with her existence.

_Necklace_

   - MarauderX's necklace represents the Rakshasa's dreams, hopes, and a long string of more words forming his identity. He pulls a female Rakshasa to death with it, and when he finally buries it, his transformation to undead monster is complete.

   - BigTom's necklace shows up late in the story, almost as an afterthought, so we don't know whether it really dispenses luck or is historically significant. We do know, however, that it consists of wampum.

_Mountains_

   - BigTom's Jakey climbs the mountains on his quest for God, and though he nearly dies of starvation, thirst, falling to death, at the end he finds himself. The mountains represent the biggest problems imaginable - Jakey overcomes them.

   - MarauderX's mountains represent the Rakshasa's home world. He has put his dreams into seeing, treading on them again, and as he falls down a cliff, his hopes are shattered along with his body, albeit without regeneration.

*The Judgement*

   This is an extremely difficult round to judge. Both stories have a neat concept, but show the 72-hour time limit on their figurative sleeves. Both stories were posted early, incidentially, but I guess that doesn't mean you'd have time to edit them if you had postponed the posting. MarauderX has loose sentences, BigTom lacks paragraph breaks.  BigTom has only monologues, MarauderX has no dialogue at all. It's really a dead race. Both have used their pictures adequately, if not spectacularly, with maybe a small advantage to BigTom for his cacti.

   However, I can't hide behind close calls and dead races, so I award my POINT TO 



Spoiler



MARAUDERX


 for having a stronger focused entry. Good luck in the next round, whomever may advance.



Mythago

     MarauderX – “Cursed”

   I liked the opening of the story, where we’re not quite sure what’s going on, but there’s an enormous sense of rush and tension, a race to the death between two very not-nice, er, people. One thing I noticed that there really was no dialogue or interaction, just the narrator giving a kind of monologue about what happened. That breaks mimesis a bit (“who’s he talking to?”) and it makes the story less engaging; we’re not seeing what it happening, we’re told was was happening.

     This was an enormous speedbump: “I would later find that the marilith’s curse would follow me to this day, but not nearly in the way I expected.” Telling a reader in mid-story what’s going to happen like this really ruins the narrative flow, and shouts HEY! YOU ARE READING A STORY!.

     Good use of the pictures overall; the silhouette was confusing in that he seems to be describing the marilith, but the picture doesn’t show a multi-armed marilith at all.

     BigTom – “BigTom’s story”

   The first two lines of dialogue are a hoot; after that it kind of degenerates. Jakey and Bo come off more and more as caricatures than as characters. I guess I found it kind of hard to be drawn into the story because not a lot happens; Jakey takes some drugs, decides he needs to get out of town, and that’s about it. Which is not to say you can’t use that as a plot, but here all the action is in the vision, and it’s a lot of description for not much going on.

     Overall, good use of the pictures. Seeing the arrows in the Warrior as symbols of his wounding was a nice touch.

     Vote this round for MarauderX.

     Judgment for 



Spoiler



MarauderX


, who goes on to Round 2.


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## mythago (Nov 17, 2004)

Round 1.8 – SteelDraco vs. Piratecat

Maldur

   Piratecat
 Eh, confusing little story. I’m not sure I got the right feel from it.

 SteelDraco
 Pirates, and a nice scheme to get past your enemies. I would love to read a more eleborate version of this story.

 My point goes to SteelDraco, arrrr.

Berandor

*SteelDraco: "Valen's Vengeance"*

   A very fine entry. A pirate's tale to defeat Piratecat's tale? That's unusual, and you do your part to succeed. A strong point in your writing is the frequent use of dialogue to liven things up and ring some conflict into the story. Conflict is good, as is your dialogue - not too artificial, but also not too filled with slang and dialect like a caricature.

     Still, I made out some problematic tendencies in your style.  Your point of view shifts within "chapters", often abruptly. First we're with Tratok, then with Nate, and now we're back to the hobgoblin's p.o.v. Choose a narrative perspective and stick to it, or at least signal aswitch somehow.

   Also, while your dialogue is telling enough, I nevertheless miss some descriptions or reactions outside of conversation. For example, what does Valen look like? All we are told is that he's a "man-shape". You must also examine your sentences for grammatical clarity. First, you

   tend to change the subject midsentence: 

   "Seawater rolled off the creature's head as it unfurled..." I'm guessing it's the head that unfurls, not the water.

   "Nate grabbed the man. (...) He crumpled..:" Tratok crumples, not Nate.

   The second tendency I made out is similar: When you connect independent phrases with a conjunction (but, and, as), separate them with a comma. However, when these sentences are not able to stand alone, do not use a comma. Likewise, when you use a parenthetical phrase seperated with a comma, it should refer to the subject of the sentence.

   "Each carried a hunting spear, and wore armor of turtle shell..." No comma (or no conjunction)

   "Several carried woven kelp bags, flopping with fresh-caught fish." No comma

   "Nate hopped easily from the landing boat, and strode up next to Tratok." no comma.

   It's a minor thing for this competition, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

     Now, the tale you unfold is a queer one - pirates hunting for silverware has a certain irreverent touch to it. I also like the pirate crew, for example the magic-sniffing goblin.

   "I see Valen's eggling has grown..." This idiom is not only clearly understandable to us, but it also shows us a part of lizardfolk culture (or biology, or both). Very good. The showdown is tense and fast, but I wonder why the crew listened to Sha'galok and did not interfere. Nate had just illustrated his intent to kill the lizardman, after all. "This fight is between them." is not

   enough for me, just as it wasn't in the D&D movie.

   How Tratok disrupts Nate's spell with a punch is great, though. And the image of him laughing whilst coughing blood is a very vivid one.

   The ending, however, is just an ending in that the story suddenly stops. "Why would I be worried?" We don't know enough to be sure that Valen's rightfully unconcerned; in fact, people will probably recognize him just as they recognized his statue. I miss at least one sentence that either gives us closure or really opens the ending (like Tratok groaning at the process of being hunted again). As it is, though, the ending is just too abrupt.




*Piratecat: "Jabberwockies"*

   Let me tell you about rhythm. Some stories have rhythm. Their words run along in a mesmerizing ebb and flow, pulsating in the reader's mind, spinning a web of fascination you have to actively force yourself out of. When you read one of these stories, your brain automatically falls in line with the cadence. Perhaps it's not so much rhythm, but melody.

   Words dancing high and low, in major chords and minor discord, playing on your emotions like Vanessa Mae on a violin. 

   Whether you call it rhythm, melody, or snufflebuggle - this story has it.

     Right from the start, it grabs me and never loosens its grip until the very end. "Tin. Tin. Biting on aluminum, licking a battery. Tin." And just like that, I'm in.

   The foreshadowing starts early with Aunt Frances's clutching "a martini glass like it was a life preserver and the wedding was a sinking ship." Carol has already begun to make excuses for her "asthmatic _whiffling_ husband" Charles.

   What follows is a foray into an absued woman's soul. There are great details, like Carol sweating "(_perspiration glow dew but ladies don't sweat_)" - great line - from (to my understanding) fear and concentration, explaining it away with "even at this altitude, a hot breeze was flowing..." when a few lines later it reads, "'It's a little rustic, darling,' she hazarded, 'and chilly at this altitude.'", telling us somehting is amiss with the present.

     Charles's plans are alluded to, but never explained: "It's much better than the alternative." or "This is the way out of my trap." Carol's mindset is illustrated excellently, I find, from her italicized subconscious mutterings to expressions like "she had grown to live for the rare moment when his gaze would alight on her..."

   And just in case we don't hate Charles enough, you give us the nightly climb into the grave where my loathing for the bastard reached new heights.

   I think that even in the end, a large part of Carol is caught in Charles's web ("He did such hard work for the both of them.") – that sound very realistic to me (sadly).

   Now, there's the odd sentence that could be trimmed, or where a comma is amiss or missing. But these instances are solitary in nature and shall not be dwelt upon any longer - for now.

     On top of it all, you mix your narrative with Carroll's poem. Charles is galumphing, the manxome foe, while Carol uffishly sits at the tum-tum wooden table... and it works.

   And the ending. The ending is just... Snicker-snack. I realize this sounds more like and endorsement than like a critical assessment, but so be it.

     Thank you, Piratecat. Thank you very much.

*The pics*

_The Cave_

   - SteelDraco's cave is not natural in origin and holds one hundred (and one) cases of platinum silverware. Strong magics guard against intrusion, able to fell even a hydra.

   - Piratecat's cave is an ancient burial site, home to desiccated corpses, tin silverware and milipedes. Only a candles lights our way down there, a flickering flame exposing the horror that is otherwise hidden in darkness.

_The Silverware_

   - Piratecat's "utensils" are made from tin covered with silver, and at least one "vorpal blade" will be put to good use soon.

   - SteelDraco's silverware is the motivation behind the pirates' quest, platinum forks and spoons. Even though we never see the silverware itself, only its containers, we can surmise that it hasn't rusted in the years of being buried in the cave.

_The petal necklace_

   - SteelDraco has Sha'galok wear a necklace of bone spines topped with a black pearl containing Captain Valen's soul.It is an unseemly piece of jewelry, yet quite important.

   - Piratecat's variety of "Anthropoda Myriapoda" is shy, yet probably paralytically poisonous. What's more, they gyre and gimble in the wabe and look distressingly cute with a purple ribbon on their head. This is my favorite picture use of the tournament so far. 

_male bust_

   - Piratecat has his heroine experience a vision, seeing her husband in the shriveled face of a mummified corpse. Maybe it is here Carol realizes she will not satisfy Charles until he is dead, but it is still Piratecat's weakest pic.

   - SteelDraco gives us Captain Valen, he who "destroyed the fleet of Thron's Hold, sailed out of the Mirrormere, and dared to steal from Raelin the Glutton." If that isn't a resume worthy of at least middle management, I don't know what is. (We're sailing on the big accountancy!)

*Judgement*

   I think it's probably clear where my vote goes to, but the story really clicked with me.

   SteelDraco, a very nice entry; you would have a good chance to advance, usually - and you still might, since it takes two votes to win a round.

   Other than that, what can I say except POINT TO 



Spoiler



PIRATECAT


, and "Snicker-snack", off to my sig!


mythago

     SteelDraco – “Valen’s Vengeance”

   Arr! Few things are as pleasin’ as a good pirate yarn.

   Whew. Had to let that out.

     The prose was engaging; what I found lacking was suspense. It’s pretty obvious where the story is going and who’s driving it. We have the young snot who’s not the man his father was and isn’t half as clever as he thinks he is, and the second-in-command, loyal to the dead (?) father, who really runs the show and will put the brakes on the kid in the end. Pretty much from the beginning you can see that the kid is going to get his comeuppance.

       There is too much “as you know…” dialogue in the beginning, telling us of Valar’s deeds and the background. It’s as nicely handled as one can expect, but still, there is a feeling that these characters are only repeating this information (that they know all too well) for our benefit.

 That said, the prose flows along, and I quite liked the device of Valar as figurehead of his own ship with his soul sealing the bargain with the guardians. I’d have liked to see a better wrap-up. It thuds rather than, er, rips. (Why should I worry, is not much of a pirate-y, Valar-like thing to say.)

     Excellent use of pictures. The statue as jaunty, butt-kicking Valar is perfect.



     Piratecat – “Jabberwockies”

   See, people, THIS is why I didn’t enter Ceramic DM this time around.

     A great horror story without supernatural oogies. It reminds me a bit of “The Yellow Wallpaper”; we flip back and forth, believably, watching Carol mentally disintegrate over the years of her miserable marriage. Charles never raises a hand to her or terrorizes her, but his terrible self-centeredness and withholding of approval are devastating.

     The only real criticism—and I’m reaching here—is that I’d liked to have gotten a better sense of why Carol married him in the first place. It’s clear from the wedding scene that he was a jerk from Day One, but what she saw in him (or why she thought she saw anything) isn’t entirely clear.

     Picture use: I had a bit of trouble seeing the ‘mummy’ one as you placed it, and the silverware seems a bit shiny for an archaeological find—but plausible. 


 My three-cornered hat tips to 



Spoiler



Piratecat


 

*Judgment this round* to 



Spoiler



Piratecat


, who goes on to Round 2. Nice work, gentlemen.


----------



## mythago (Nov 17, 2004)

Since Rodrigo said "tomorrow night" today, pics will go up Wednesday evening.


----------



## Sparky (Nov 17, 2004)

ALL THAT GLITTERS
by Sparky


SPIELBERG, PRECINCT #7, Captain Grimm’s Office

Blinds chatter against the glass as I shut the door to the Captain’s office, just barely pulling my hair through the door in time. There’s a small, furry man sitting in a chair opposite the Captain’s desk. He’s got a red cap in his lap. A red cap in his lap and a soy latte frap. Oh…a Seuss. I hope this is short, I don’t rhyme for sport. Ugh.

I glanced at him as he stands, brushing at a green speck on his fuzzy, yellow chest. Turning my attention to the captain I ask, “You wanted to speak to me?”

Speak was a bit of an overstatement. Captain Grimm was a solid gold statue.(1) It still creeped me out to hear her voice in my head.

“Romaine, this is Detective Samuel.” The captain’s voice was tinnier than usual. The fuzzy guy stuck out a hand, “Your new partner. Detective Samuel this is Rapunzel Romaine.”

I smile around clenched teeth and hope it reads as friendly. Reaching down I take the new Detective’s hand. The fur warm and coarse. Not what I expected. A knock interrupts us and an officer sticks his head in, brow creased with concern, “Ma’am, Mayor Goose’s aid is on the phone.”

Something’s amiss. I’m not ready for this. And definitely not for a Suess. And now, with The Goose. Oh won’t the rhyming please stop? My brain’s going to turn into slop.

I grimace down at my new partner and he smiles giving my hand a squeeze before turning it loose. His voice bright and chipper, “Call me Sam, ma’am, if you would. Pleased to meet you, I know we’ll do good.” 

This was going to be a long assignment.


SPIELBERG DOCKS, The Breakwater

 We arrive at the scene. An officer is taking the statement of an agitated lady chicken. She paces back and forth, red-gold feathers swirling around her.

“The sky is what, ma’am?” The young officer’s voice is patient. He looks dapper with straw colored hair and neatly pressed blues. 

“Falling! The sky is falling!” The lady squawks.

“Please calm down, ma’am,” the officer continues. He spots us and gestures with his head to another officer and a band of yellow crime scene tape. The officer nods us through and I lift the tape for Sam before realizing he doesn’t need it.

We walk out onto the breakwater. It’s empty, rare on a clear day. (2) Even a cold one like this. I’d enjoy it if we weren’t here on business. We make our way carefully down the rocks of the jetty to the strand and rounding a boulder step into a grisly scene. 

Officers are combing the area for clues. One young forensics officer detaches himself from the searching phalanx and approaches, “Detectives. This is big. The vic is a Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty.”

Wow. Big. No kidding. Humpty was heir-apparent to the Royal Dumpty crown. It was purely ceremonial, the Dumptys were rulers in name only, but it made sense now why The Goose was anxious.

“So I’m guessing you think this wasn’t an accident?” I asked, expecting the answer that came.

The officer nodded gesturing us over to a large curving piece of shell, “Our preliminary study of the more intact shell fragments show some crazing on the left upper hemisphere. I think Humpty was pushed.”

Sam’s been quiet, content to let me take the lead. I look over to ask him a question and he’s staring up the twenty-foot high wall of rough-stacked stone. 

He points to the top of the wall and calls over his shoulder, “There’s no railing, it’s really quite breezy.”

“Yeah,” I say lightly, “Humpty went over easy.”


SPEILBERG, PRECINCT #7, Detective Bull Pen

We’re only a few hours into the case and the Mayor is already giving Captain GRIMM a hard time. The Captain’s metallic voice rings in my head, making the hairs in my ears tickle. 

She’s snappish as she gives us our marching orders, “Humpty’s parents are flying in right now. I want you two waiting at the castle the moment they arrive.”

She wheels around, rigid golden form spinning precariously on her small, wheeled dolly. More than one officer has to leap out of her way. I sigh and look up as Sam makes his way across the room with two cups of coffee. He is watching the Captain, eyes wide and sympathetic as she rolls off on her rattling dolly.

“So what’s the story of the gold, rumors and whisperings are all I’ve been told,” he asks, small, cat-like face peering at me over his desk as he hands across my cup.

“Thanks for the coffee, I do like it black. The Captain? It happened a couple years back,” I answer, distractedly taking the cup while I sift through a pile of paperwork. The involuntary rhyme trickles into my brain. Stop. Rhyming. Damn. I need to tell Sam. 

Shaking my head, I continued, “Remember Midas? Nasty guy? Turned his victims into gold and then melted them down? The Captain collared him. 

“She and her partner had been closing in on the guy and his accomplice, but their leads kept vanishing out from under them. When they finally caught up to Midas, the Captain decided to get proof that he was their man the only way she could. She let Midas touch her.” And she looks so smug about it. I wonder how she knew she would survive and for the first time it occurs to me that maybe she didn’t. Damn.

The phone on my desk started to ring; I reached for it and looked toward the Captain’s door, “She’s a tough lady. Never did catch the accomplice, though.” 

I picked up the receiver and reflex answered for me, “Precinct Seven, Detective Romaine.”

It was forensics. I gave Sam a look and a gesture to let him know we were getting ready to go. “Great, thanks, Big. We’ll be right over.”


SPIELBERG, CORONER’S LAB, Workstation of Big Malloup

Sam stands up from the microscope and shrugs. He sidesteps out of the way so I can look at the slide, tripping over a long coil of my hair as he does. 

“Sorry,” I say as I gather up the errant loop and help Sam to his feet. One of these days – snip – it’s all coming off.

I straighten, tucking the loop of hair away and lean over the microscope squinting. I adjust some knobs and start to ask what it is I’m supposed to be seeing when the slide snaps into focus. (3)  Pretty. 

I stand up, puzzled and shake my head. Sam makes a non-committal face and I scratch behind my ear thinking. 

After letting my mind whirl for a bit, I cave and ask, “I give up, Big. What is it?”

Big bares his teeth, long, canines gleaming white like his lab coat. I can’t tell if it’s a smile or a grimace. 

His voice is gravelly as he points a clawed hand at the microscope, “That, Rapunzel, was the next-to-next in line for the Dumpty throne.”

I whisper, “Humpty was pregnant?”

The wolf nods, golden eyes solemn. This is bad. I glance at my watch and it is time for Sam and me to head over to the castle. 

“I appreciate you getting to this fast, Big,” I say.

“No problem,” he replies, baring his fangs again, this time I can tell it’s a grin. “Care to thank me over dinner sometime?”

Sam is already at the door and I’m not far behind as I call back, “After our last date? My, what big cojones you have.”

“Har, har, Detective Romaine,” he mutters, busying himself with his lab equipment. With a brighter tone he asks, “So, we on?”

“I’ll think about it,” I say, squinting at him as I shut the door behind me.


SPIELBERG, CASTLE DUMPTY, East Parlor

The castle is cold and dreary. Not nearly as romantic as I’d imagined. As much as I hated being a prisoner in the witch’s tower, it was cozy at least. Sam studies a bust of Grumpty Dumpty II, hiding well any anxiety he might have.

I page idly through a magazine and try to remember the more grievous no-nos when meeting and addressing royalty. Oh forget it. I decide to move on to something I can do something about.

Closing the magazine I look at Sam and begin, “Well Sam, they’re going to come and get us eventually. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

He turns around, bright eyes curious, “Is it about your partner’s death? Is it true he ODed on crystal meth?”

I stand, magazine sliding to the floor, my long braid slithering out of its bindings, uncoiling on the floor like a living thing, “No he didn’t, you take that back. Don’t regurgitate lies, you little hack.” 

The stricken look on Sam’s face makes me instantly regret what I’d said. Stupid rhyming… that’s not what I meant. I open my mouth to apologize when a liveried man appears, officious and curt; he motions for us to follow him, drawling, “Come with me, Detectives.”

Looping my hair hastily over my arm I have to run to catch up with Sam and the manservant. We are ushered into a well-appointed receiving room. The servant retreats into a corner, I can feel him behind us coiled like a spring, ready to leap into action for his liege lords. It’s a strange sort of devotion.

Their Majesties are great white domes ensconced in cascades of velvet and lace. They’d be hard-boiled if the castle weren’t so chilly. We sidle awkwardly in, unsure of what to do. Their wide, red-cheeked faces look jolly, but over-bright eyes and fidgeting hands give the lie to their courtly demeanors.

I kneel, eyes downcast and peek over at Sam from the corner of my eye. He’s kneeling too. Good.

“Rise Detectives. It is Our wish that you speak with Our attorney,” says the King. His voice is round and bouncy. “He has Our complete trust and will be dealing with any questions you may have for Us. Please resolve this with all possible speed.”

I simply nod and can’t help but glance up as a stern looking raven in a dark suit hops in from the balcony, a briefcase clasped under his wing.

“This way,” The raven croaks, hopping sideways and inclining his head. We stand to leave and Sam stops. Oh boy. 

The furry little man gathers himself and speaks suddenly, “Your Majesties, there is more news. I regret to say the abuse accrues. This death you see, it’s come in twos. It’s not just one, but two you lose.”

The King’s eyes widen dangerously, but they seem more puzzled by Sam’s outburst than offended that he’d spoken out of turn. With a gesture, the King forestalls the manservant who had come off the wall to strike Sam down. 

“Humpty was our only daughter, We do not underst--“ the King breaks off as his wife gasps, hands to her mouth.

Tears spill from the corner of Queen’s eyes and before we have a chance to witness much more the manservant and the lawyer bustle us out of the room into an office. A little disoriented we are offered tea and refreshments before the manservant disappears beyond the heavy wooden door. The raven hops across the wide table, tidy in his charcoal suit, claws clicking along the inlaid surface.

He clears his throat and cocks his head at Sam, “That was profoundly stupid, Detective.” 

He hops closer, head cocking this way and that as he studies both of us from different angles, “But I appreciate the gesture. Let’s get down to business. Are you two looking into this case as a formality because it is high-profile or because you suspect foul play?”

I shift in my seat. Right to business indeed. 

I open my mouth, “Both Mr…?”

“Heavens! More! Neville More. Royal Attorney. Detectives Romaine and Samuel, let me welcome you to Castle Dumpty. I wish it were under better circumstances.” He cocks his head, “Don’t look so shocked. I checked the guest book before I arrived.”

I put down my coffee cup and lean across the table. I had lots of questions.


HANS HOLLOW, Residence of Margery B. Whistle

The lawyer gave us the address to a single family home in a lower-middle class neighborhood in the suburbs. We pull up to the curb by the mailbox and get out, surveying the house as we approach. Toys litter the side yard and a rambling, ramshackle playground in the corner of the lot is covered on one side with a sign that reads ‘Puppies, Free to Good Home.’ Scrawled beneath the original text is ‘Free cinnamon pie with each puppy.’ 

Free pie? I couldn’t help but remark, “This is where the late crown-princess’ boyfriend lives? In a giant shoe?” 

Sam was unfazed. Man, the little guy puzzles me. I prodded him, grinning, “You must come from a strange place, Sam.”

He looks up at me quizzically, saying, “This from a woman who grew up in a tower. With just singing for company, hour by hour.”

How did he know about that?

We’re at the door and Sam reaches up to clang the knocker twice. A stampede of feet sound inside. Voices. Then quiet. I look up, waiting. The house has been redone. Recently by the looks of it. And by a designer with more dollars than sense. Tacky only began to describe the place. (4)  I hear a squeak as the peephole slides aside.

A muffled voice comes from behind the door, “Who is it?”

“Detectives Samuel and Romaine,” I say. “We’d like a few words with Jack.”

“Detectives? What do you want?” says the muffled voice. It sounds like a kid - a young man.

“Are you Jack? We’d like to talk about Miss Dumpty,” I continue, “It’ll only take a second.”

The bolts on the door slide back and a young man slips through quickly, but not before we see a multitude of unwashed young faces peering at us with wide, hollow eyes and slack jaws. Why aren’t they in school?

“I’m Jack,” the kid says. His clothes are ragged; shirt full of holes and pants tattered. I catch a glimpse of healing burns on the insides of his calves. This is a bad scene.

“Where are your parents?” I ask.

“My mother. She’s at work,” he mumbles and glares at us sullenly. I look at Sam. He looks at me and back at the young man.

“Jack, we need you to come down town, on a matter of import to the crown,” Sam’s voice is kind and concerned. 

“What’s with this guy?” the kid cracks, snorting at my partner. I’m not in the mood.

“You’re coming with us, Jack. We have questions for you. About last night,” my tone comes out harsher than I’d intended.

 “You what? No way. I can’t leave. I have to take care of my brothers and sisters,” Jack backs away, voice growing wary, as he takes a couple of steps toward the door.

“We’ll call someone to take care of them.” Child Protective Services. I reach for his arm and he shrugs me off, shouting, “Get off! What is this about?”

“Easy. Your girlfriend died last night. We think she someone might have tried to kill her. And we think you might be able to help us find out who did it,” I say, trying so make my tone soothing. Sam is better at this.

The young man’s bravado evaporates and he looks away, brow creasing. He looks at me, voice catching, “Humpty? She’s dead. I don’t believe you,” his voice grows louder, “She can’t be dead. I just saw her last night. She snuck in the second story window.” 

Aha! “That’s what we want to hear about. Just come downtown and answer some questions. It won’t take long,” I reach for his arm again and, this time, he doesn’t resist.


SPIELBERG, PRECINCT #7, Interrogation Room 4

The interrogation room is close and stuffy. The gray-green walls are dreary and the light dim. The combined effect puts most people off. Jack keeps chafing his hands and I begin suspect that the shoe didn’t have central heating. An officer is on his way over to check on the other children right now. We’ve convinced Jack that Humpty is dead and he’s withdrawn into himself.

“We know about the paperwork that Humpty had drawn up, Jack. Mr. More told us,” I say. He doesn’t make any move or gesture other than the occasional shiver. 

I stay at him, trying to provoke a response, adding, “We know you were to be married, and that Humpty was transferring her fortune to your name.”

He takes the bait and snaps back, “Yeah, so? There was nothing her parents could do about it.”

Bingo. I jump, words coming quickly, “But there was something they could do, Jack. And they did it. When Mr. More found out about your plans and told Humpty’s parents they were furious. I’m sure you know how they feel about you.”

He grits his teeth, but says nothing. 

I have him now and keep pressing, goading him, “Yeah, you do know. And you know they would never let you touch their daughter or their fortune.”

“So what?” he shouts, looking around wild eyed. He asks the two-way mirror, “When is my mother going to get here?”

He’s angry now. And scared. Good.

“So what? So when you found out they’d nullified the paperwork you were mad,” I lean down, knuckles on the table, and put my face right up to Jack’s, “Really mad,” I breathe.

He squints at me and looks at Sam out of the corner of his eyes, “Are you … Are you saying you think I killed her?”

I  my head, hair shifting dangerously as I reply, “The thought crossed my mind. I see your clothes, I see your place, your brothers and sisters with just your mother working to support all of you. And I think that you might be mad when you find out she let her parents get between you and all that money.” Any time now, Sam…

“You’re crazy,” he mumbles. Come on, Sam…

“Am I? Would I be crazy to want out of a bad situation, to want my family to have what they need,” I stand up, and move across the room to pace, starting in on him again, “It isn’t hard to imagine how angry I’d be if a chance like yours disappeared before my eyes. All that money!” 

“I didn’t want her money! I loved her! My mother has all the money we n--“ Jack breaks off as the door to the interrogation room bursts open.

An old woman, bent and crooked, walks in, shoving past the Captain and grabs Jack. Her clothes are worn and tattered, like her son’s. She rounds on me and Sam, a gold brooch at her throat throwing sparks as her adam’s apple moves it up and down, “I’m Margery Whistle. Jack’s mother. What is the meaning of this?”

“Your son may know something about a murder. We need to ask him some questions,” I reply.

“My son doesn’t know anything about any murder!” she shouts. “Come with me, boy!” she says, grabbing Jack’s arm and hauling him out of the room, chastising him loudly as they move through the station.

“Dammit! Where were you? Why didn’t you get in there and help?” I snap at Sam, pacing off my anger and energy.

Sam retorts, “Two reasons I didn’t offer assistance. Reason one, you were going the distance. Reason two, I believe his insistence.”

The Captain interjected, “So what’s the situation, people?”

Both of us are glaring at each other, when Sam defers to me and I sit heavily in the chair, sighing as I begin to speak, “We talked to the Dumpty’s. Humpty and this boy, Jack, were seeing each other. You saw him. I’m sure you know they wouldn’t approve. They certainly wouldn’t approve of her pregnancy.”

“She was pregnant?” the Captain asks. I can hear the raised eyebrows in her ringing voice, even if her golden face is perfectly still. 

“Yeah,” I continue, “And not only that, the two kids planned to elope. Humpty had just turned eighteen and was in the process of getting her fortune written into Jack’s name so that when they were married they could run off together. The Dumpty’s found out and put a stop to it.”

The Captain pauses, difficult to discern unless you know her well.

She asks me, “And you think he did it because he was desperate and angry?”

I shrug and think a moment before replying, “On our way to the kid’s place I didn’t. But after I saw how he lived, and his burns,” I look at Sam, “You saw the burns didn’t you?”

He nods, eyes dropping. I finish the thought, “After I saw all that I adjusted what I thought he might be capable of.”

The captain turns to Sam, “And you?”

He shakes his head. What? No rhymes for the Captain?

The Captain wheels into the corner and sits quietly. She spins around suddenly, her outstretched frozen arm sweeping a gesture. I think she’s been cultivating that effect. Poor thing, it must be hard being a solid gold statue.

Her voice vibrates in my ears, “Did either of you notice that brooch? Odd thing for a poor old woman to have.”

“I don’t know,” I say, “An heirloom. A remnant of better times. But, yeah, it is a bit showy.”

“Something’s bugging me about her. She’s familiar. I know her face. Her name,” the Captain’s voice grows thin as she searches her memory.

Sam adds, “I noticed something strange too. At the house, the outside was new. And the boy, Humpty’s money eschewed, saying his mother had cash out the wazoo.”

I nod and admit, “Yeah, I noticed the house too. That was strange. All those toys everywhere.”

“I know where I’ve seen her!” the Captain cries suddenly. It makes my head hurt. 

She continues, excited, “It’s been so long. Her place, it’s the ratty shoe, right? She has a lot of kids?”

She waits for our nods and continues, “She was a victim of Midas. Rather, her daughter was. But Midas didn’t succeed in kidnapping her daughter. That was how I first suspected that I could survive an encounter with Midas. We questioned her daughter. The girl described Midas, but there was always something weird to me about how the girl got away.”

The Captain’s voice trails off. Her silence is eerie as she stops speaking and I wish I could read her face. Sam and I look at one another uncomfortable as the silence draws out. 

We both jump when the Captain makes a strangled sound, “Oh god. She didn’t. She couldn’t.” 

The Captain rolls quickly out of the room, dolly rattling, and shouts, “Come with me, we’ve got an arrest to make.”


HANS HOLLOW, Residence of Margery B. Whistle

The ride to the Whistle residence is tense; the Captain is radiating a nearly palpable aura of anger and sadness. Sam’s hat is in his lap again. He twists it anxiously. I stare out the windshield willing traffic to move faster.

We roll up to the house and cut the lights and the engine as we approach. There are lights on in the shoe house and we can see movement inside. The children will be gone, removed into custody of the state. Only Jack and his mother remain in the house.

We creep toward the house. Sam circles around the behind the heel to the door. Captain Grimm and I stay by the toe so we can watch the windows. There’s a mural here at the tip of the shoe - people wandering down a boardwalk. Coney Island? This lady is bonkers.

I hear Sam knock loudly on the door. “Open up! Police! You’ve breached the peace!” he shouts. I hear a shout inside and see shadows move through the house upward. She’s going to run.

Unwrapping my hair, loop after loop, I scramble up the toe of the shoe. Swinging the end around and around I throw the trailing end of my braid hard as I can over the house. It snakes over the house and vanishes. Sam yelps and I know the end made it over.

“Sam,” I shout, “Bring the end of that braid to the Captain.” He trots into view dragging my braid and puts the end into the Captain’s hand. He looks at me like I’ve gone mad as I pull down on the length of hair disappearing over the house. The long rope of hair goes taut in the Captain’s hand (5) and with her on belay I begin to scale the shoe stopping when I reach a second story window. It’s open and I slip inside. I lean out the window and signal Sam and the Captain to release my hair.

I turn around and what I see makes my stomach churn. I understand why the Captain brought us here. She’s a smart one, that Captain. Humpty must have seen this too. A golden statue, a bust, really, sits on a table against the wall. It is a little girl. A little girl who was turned to gold by the touch of a killer.

The door to the room opens and I pull my gun. It’s Jack. I feel a tugging on my braid and turn to see Sam climbing through the window, snub-nosed pistol drawn from god-knows-where.

I lower my gun and ask,“Jack, did your mother do this?” I nod at the carved up bust.

Tears well in his eyes and he nods. I press, “That why you didn’t care about Humpty’s money? And where all the toys came from?” 

Another nod. 

“And I bet Humpty saw it last night when she snuck in,” I add. 

The young man’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head, shrinking into the corner and whispering to himself. “No. Oh god, no.”

I look at the poor boy, and softly tell him, “Jack, climb down my braid, the Captain is down there. Stay with her. We’re going to arrest your mother.”

He moves sluggishly toward the window and clambers out. 

“I just saw movement upstairs,” says Sam. We move up the stairs in tandem and toward the attic and kick down the door, guns drawn. Sam advances on the old woman.

“Where were you just last night?
Tell us, don’t put up a fight.
Did you push her off the wall?
Did you, did you make her fall?”

She recoils from us, from Sam’s anger and the power in his voice. I’m impressed.

“Alright I did it!
I’ll tell all.
I did it! I pushed her!
I made her fall.

She knew, she knew!
My son spilled it!
Three years ago,
My daughter was gilded.

By Midas, the killer,
He turned her to gold
I told him to do it,
My children were cold!”

I can only stare as the words tumble from my lips.

“You have the right to silence, do not speak of your violence…”

The verse came easily to my lips and I looked over at Sam and smiled. My partner in rhyme.


1. content - Golden Captain Grimm
2. jetty - Humpty's Wall
3. egg - Humpty's got a boyfriend
4. shoe - There was an old woman...
5. pullover - The Captain on belay


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## Berandor (Nov 17, 2004)

Finally! 

BTW, my paragraph example for "BigTom's Story" should read:



			
				mythago said:
			
		

> Consider "Paul shook his head and tried to clear his vision. Footsteps echoed on the ground, heavy boots stepping up to his crumpled form. Paul could feel a cold numbness encroaching on him, and despite his better knowledge, he looked up to regard the figure towering above him. It was Death."
> 
> And now "Paul shook his head and tried to clear his vision. Footsteps echoed on the ground, heavy boots stepping up to his crumpled form. Paul could feel a cold numbness encroaching on him, and despite his better knowledge, he looked up to regard the figure towering above him.
> 
> It was Death."


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## Sparky (Nov 17, 2004)

AAAARRRGGH!

Late. Crap.

Crap.

Well. If this still counts the bleeped out word isn't a swear - it 'shifted'.


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## Sparky (Nov 17, 2004)

Did I mention 'Crap'?

If I didn't: CRAP.


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## Berandor (Nov 17, 2004)

12 pages?

So it *was* a threat!



As to the lateness, I defer to mythago and your opponent.
ETA: Just FYI, the pics were posted at 9:12 AM from what the board tells me, and you posted at 9:08 AM, so I can't detect any lateness.


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## Thomas Hobbes (Nov 17, 2004)

Sparky said:
			
		

> Late. Crap.




?

By my timestamp, pictures went up at 4:12 EST 11/14, story went up at 4:08 11/17.

This just me?


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## FireLance (Nov 17, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> As to the lateness, I defer to mythago and your opponent.
> ETA: Just FYI, the pics were posted at 9:12 AM from what the board tells me, and you posted at 9:08 AM, so I can't detect any lateness.



As far as I can see, Sparky posted on time. The pics went up 4:12 pm on 14/11 my time, and his entry was posted on 4:08 pm 17/11.


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## Piratecat (Nov 17, 2004)

Yup, it looks like Sparky made it just under the wire. Yay!

That was a fun, close match with SteelDraco. I can go any time you want to match me with someone; sooner is fine.

I absolutely agree with the judges that my use of the bronze statue face (detail.jpg) was the weakest of my photo use. It had played a larger role in a previous version of the story where the millipede poison petrified people, but I really didn't think the story was as strong with the supernatural flavor. Excising all of that made it much more interesting to me but left me with one weaker photo.

It's interesting how themes evolve that pull together a tale. I hadn't even considered the use of Jabberwocky as a framing device, but I was lying in bed early on the third morning and trying to think of a way to make the silverware more relevant. Could we go on a cannibalism theme and she uses it to cut out his heart?  Maybe she could cut off his head instea. . . and *snap*, I thought of vorpal swords and the rest fell into place. I'm glad it came out pretty close to how I envisioned it.


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## Sparky (Nov 17, 2004)

Oh... phew! I had 4:00 locked in my head. I didn't actually notice that the pics went up at 4:_12_.

What a relief! 

I'm glad it was just posting panic (which I seem quite susceptible to).



And I consider my story's length an outpouring of love for the judges.


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## Berandor (Nov 17, 2004)

Oohoohoo, Love hurts! 

Piratecat: How did you format your flashbacks?


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## Piratecat (Nov 17, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Piratecat: How did you format your flashbacks?




I used the {indent} and {/indent} commands (replacing the {} with [], of course.) If you do this, it's worth remembering that indent places an extra carriage return following the last indented line. In order to avoid too much blank space, place the next line of the story immediately following the last indented line, with no intervening carriage return.


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## MarauderX (Nov 17, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> That was a fun, close match with SteelDraco. I can go any time you want to match me with someone; sooner is fine.




I think that someone is me, and soon is fine with me also, with tomorrow AM being the be$t, if you know what I mean.  I'll take any edge I can against the infamous PC!    

Thanks for the comments judges, each helps tremendously.  Also I will be spending a lot more time polishing what I put together this round since there will be no RL time pressure.

I thought about concluding my story with an Ann Rice _Interview with a Vampire_ finish, but didn't have the time and thought it might weaken the ending.  I should have used the picture of the woman as the marilith's disguise instead of her true form, but for me the hat was too distinct to be 'common'.  

I look forward to our match, and it's time to take the kitten gloves off.  Grrr!


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## SteelDraco (Nov 17, 2004)

Thanks for the comments, all - some very helpful stuff in here. I'll try and keep that in mind in the future. I had a good time doing this, though I knew as soon as I read PKitty's entry that I was done. I look forward to seeing what everybody comes up with as the competition progresses.


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## Piratecat (Nov 17, 2004)

MarauderX said:
			
		

> I think that someone is me, and soon is fine with me also, with tomorrow AM being the be$t, if you know what I mean.  I'll take any edge I can against the infamous PC!




Don't worry, my friend. If your story is _really_ good, I'll just ban you for a week or so.

Let's hear it for gratuitously abusing power!


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## RangerWickett (Nov 17, 2004)

Hear hear!


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## BigTom (Nov 18, 2004)

You know, when I had this as a Word document, there was lovely paragraphs.  When I pasted it over, it looked ok.  When I posted it, everything mashed together.

Sigh.


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## Piratecat (Nov 18, 2004)

It happens to everyone once, BigTom. On the "no judges" thread I posted some suggestions of ways to make formatting easier. Worth reading if you found this enough fun to do again in the future.

BSF, take a look at those - if you think they have any value, maybe toss 'em into the Ceramic DM FAQ.


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## mythago (Nov 18, 2004)

Round 2.3, RangerWickett vs. Rodrigo Istalindir

 CREDITS:

_feast_ by R0bbi3
_inthedark_ Koby, from New Image Photography
_buttons_ by suchafool


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## mythago (Nov 18, 2004)

A note on the credits:

 Sialia has kindly granted permission to post some of her art here, as did many talented artists on Deviantart.com. Please DO NOT reproduce, copy or pass around those photos--where I could track down the artist, I was granted permission only to repost them here, once, for Ceramic DM use.

 I'd ask that y'all wait until Ceramic DM is over to go look at those artists' pages, to avoid spoiling surprises. But afterward, please do.


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## Piratecat (Nov 18, 2004)

That's really bizarre - there's some minor differences, but "in the dark" looks _precisely_ like a footbridge I know very, very well. How strange.

Mythago, do you have an approximate time when I should look for my next round's photos? Thank you.


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## Berandor (Nov 18, 2004)

Just FYI, my judgements will probably arrive Saturday.

I'm halfway through the stories right now.


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## mythago (Nov 19, 2004)

Probably very late and possibly first thing Thursday morning--dealing with a severely sick five-year-old tonight.


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## mythago (Nov 19, 2004)

Round 2.4, MarauderX vs. Piratecat

_a_sip_of_tea_ by SlylockStock
_oval_ by mALICE
_3kings_ by Blatantboy
_nexus_ by Sialia


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## Piratecat (Nov 19, 2004)

Got 'em.


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## MarauderX (Nov 19, 2004)

Nice selection again, thanks.  See you around Sunday.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 19, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Round 2.3, RangerWickett vs. Rodrigo Istalindir
> 
> CREDITS:
> 
> ...




I have the pictures.  I have no story yet.  I have boiled away all the water in my pasta, because I was too busy playing Halo 2 to keep track of time.


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## Berandor (Nov 19, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I have the pictures.  I have no story yet.  I have boiled away all the water in my pasta, because I was too busy playing Halo 2 to keep track of time.



 You could write a story about it. "The boiling pasta". All you need is fit the pics in somehow.


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## mythago (Nov 19, 2004)

Better-compressed version of one of the 2.4 pics:


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## Macbeth (Nov 19, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Better-compressed version of one of the 2.4 pics:



That has to be one of my favorite Sialia pics yet. Nice job, Sialia.


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## Berandor (Nov 19, 2004)

Let me just say it is very refreshing if you can look at the pics and just let them affect you; you don't have to think of a story, not even think about what kind of story you would have written, you just look at them and then wait for the author's to surprise you.

So, authors, suprise me.


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## Berandor (Nov 20, 2004)

judgement sent


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## Piratecat (Nov 20, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> So, authors, suprise me.




Working on it!


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 21, 2004)

*Round 2.4 -- Rodrigo Istalindir -- "Mind over Matter"*

Prague had been a nice place, before the war.  Five years under the Nazis hadn’t broken its body, but fifteen years under the Soviet heel had nearly crushed its spirit.  The city had the gaunt look of a terminally ill patient, and about as bright a future.  

That young firebrand from the States’ bold proclamations in Berlin might play well to his constituency, but here they seemed like the hollow promises of a lover slinking out before the dawn.  He’d written a dispatch warning them their President would be dead before year’s end, and then threw it into the fireplace.  They’d never listened to him before.

And yet they had reached out to him.  

For a decade he’d scanned the classifieds in the [italic]Hospodárske Noviny[/italic] every day.  At first it was a matter of training and professional pride.  Now it was just another habit he was too old to break, like the American cigarettes that cost him an arm and a leg on the black market.  

The first day he’d seen the notice, he’d dismissed it as a coincidence.  Families lost pets every day, though only those belonging to Party functionaries would merit a ‘lost and found’ notice.  But the same notice had been there the next day, and the day after.  Today he’d hurried to the newsstand at daybreak, anxious to see if the second part of the signal was there.

On page 4 of the classified section, an innocuous advertisement confirmed the contact.  An ad for a refrigerator would indicate a blind drop.  An antique samovar meant ‘run’.  ‘Bicycle’ was code for ‘meet in person’.  

FOR SALE:  Red child’s bicycle.  Good condition, some scratches, no rust. 20 rubles.  Call RVB-220 or come to Husova 5, Staré Město, Prague 1.​
He knew the phone number would be non-existent, and should anyone trudge halfway across the city for a cheap bicycle, they would find a confused and bike-less homeowner.  But the numbers were significant in other ways.

He stopped at a café, bought an overpriced cup of terrible coffee, and pretended to read the newspaper.  ‘220’ signified the time of the meeting, and ‘Staré Město’ meant the Charles Bridge.  During the summer, at two-twenty in the morning the bridge would still be crowded with young miscreants looking for trouble and young lovers with nowhere else to go.  This time of year, the cold wind blowing down the river would make it deserted.  

He finished his coffee and returned the cup to the counter.  He threw the newspaper in the trash and left.  With some chagrin he realized he’d have to take a nap this afternoon if he expected to be alert for the meeting.  

They never told us, he thought, about how to be spies when we got old.  Probably because they never expected any of us to live past thirty.

♦​
He parked his beat up old car several blocks from the bridge and began walking towards it.  He was early, but he doubted any of the city’s police officers would be out in the cold looking to accost loiterers.  There was a slight chance that this was a setup, that some double-agent in the United States had sold him out to the KGB, and he wanted a chance to observe from a distance before walking out to the middle of the bridge.

He found a dark alleyway that looked out on the entrance to the bridge.  The span was only intermittently illuminated.  The city’s power plants should have been replaced before the war, and streetlights were often turned off the save power as well as the bulbs that were in perpetual short supply.  (Picture 1)

He huddled in the cold, his eyes wandering from one end of the street to the other, his mind wandering back to the past.  

♦​
He’d been twenty-three years old when they’d first contacted him.  He had been performing in a small theater downtown, a hole in the wall sandwiched between a rowdy pub and another venue where bored women pretended to disrobe for family men who pretended to still care.

‘Anders the Amazing’ had been his stage name, and he’d done three shows every weekend.    The first half of his show was a competent if uninspired selection of traditional magic tricks – sawing a woman in half, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, all of the classics.  In the second half, he performed mentalist feats of he’d devised himself, and the greatest trick of all was that there was no trick.  

Precognition and remote viewing were what the OSS agent who recruited him had called it.  The intelligence agency of the United States had scoured Europe for people with these talents, putting together a special cadre, the Omega group, that they hoped would give them an edge in the impending conflict.   

From the first there had been conflict between two groups in the project.   The scientists who had proposed it in the first place believed in the unnatural talents their students seemed to possess, but the agency bureaucracy didn’t, and had agreed to recruit Anders and the rest because they believed that Hitler took it seriously, and were keen to deny him anything he wanted.

There had been twenty of them at the start, but only five had remained after tests and exercises had separated those with true talent from the pretenders.  Only Anders had performed consistently enough to be relied upon.

He’d spent the early part of the war in England, interrogating prisoners, reading communications intercepts, staring at photos in an attempt to discern what was occurring at some distant battlefield.   More often than not they asked the impossible and were disappointed or angry when he could not provide what they wished.  The program was on the verge of being shut down when the OSS had gotten wind of a Soviet counterpart to the Omega group. 

Sensing an opportunity, they had smuggled him back into Prague.  They provided him with a cover story to explain his absence, and waited.  It didn’t take long.  Whether it was a Soviet sympathizer who remembered his act or some other event he didn’t know, but within a year he was living the life of a double-agent, reporting the actions of the Soviet Imstreny Otrad, the ‘Mind Squad’.

♦​
Movement on the bridge caught his eye.  A solitary figure walked into the light, pause, and then moved further along the bridge into the shadows.  He waited, and when they were not revealed by the next streetlight down, he realized that they were waiting.

He stepped cautiously from the shadows and walked to the bridge.  Their was a bitter wind, and he wished they had picked a warmer location.  He passed through the nearest light, forgetting to close his eyes to protect his night vision.  He nearly walked into his contact before he saw him.

“Anders,” said the figure.  It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.  Who are you?”

“You know better than to ask that.  You’ve been out in the cold for a long time, Anders.  We appreciate you coming here.”

“I’d thought you’d forgotten about me.  I waited for instructions once they shut down the project but I never heard…” Anders trailed off.

“Yes.  We thought it best to keep you in place, on the off chance that the Soviets decided to try something like Imstreny Otrad again.  And it looks like they may have.”

“Three weeks ago, a scientist key to the Soviet missile program decided to defect while in Berlin.  With our help, he slipped his handlers and was a hundred feet from the West when he stopped dead in his tracks.  He trembled briefly, then fell to the ground dead.”

“Three days later, the two agents who arranged the defection died the same way.  No signs of poisons or other biological agents.  One of the agents died during debriefing in a safe house, surrounded by a dozen people.”
“No signs of foul play, no medical cause of death that we can determine.  It’s like someone just flipped a switch.”

“Why do you think IO might be involved?” Anders asked.

“This,” the agent replied, handing Anders a photograph and illuminating it with a small flashlight.

Anders looked at the photo.  It was blurry, taken from a distance and blown up to focus on the face of a young man.  With a start, Anders realized who it was.

“Alexei?  Alexei Padronov?  I almost didn’t recognize him.  He was still a boy when IO was disbanded.”

“Yes, we almost didn’t make the connection.  We showed this photo around where the scientist was killed, and a waitress in a café recognized him.  We think he caused the death of the scientist and both agents.”

“How?  Alexei was a distance-viewer.  He had a touch of telekinesis, but only at very close range.”  Anders said.

“To the best of our knowledge, he never got closet than a hundred yards to any of the victims.  Could he have acted at that distance?” the agent asked.

“No, not unless he’s gotten a thousand times stronger than when I knew him.  But even, there would be signs of trauma.  Damage to the heart, a brain hemorrhage, something.  Touching something by TK is no different than using your hand.  There is still force involved.”

“Maybe it’s something new they’ve dreamed up since you left.  In any event, we want you to investigate. Padronov will be performing in Prague this weekend.”

“He’s a dancer with the Bolshoi, now, isn’t he?”

“Yes.  Good cover for an assassin, if you ask me.  The Bolshoi is very popular in the West, and the top dancers visit ballet troupes throughout the world.”

The agent handed him an envelope.  

“Here’s a ticket to the Saturday night performance.  We don’t need you to make contact with Alexei, just look around and see if any other former IO agents are nearby.  If they are, that will be enough for us to confirm that the Soviets are into the paranormal again.  I’ll contact you next week.”

♦​
The Prague State Opera House was packed.  Anders handed the tuxedoed usher his ticket and followed him down to his seat.  He felt out of place.  He suspected that he was the only person in the audience that wasn’t a Party functionary, absurdly wealthy, or both.  That the arts were out of reach to the common man in the Worker’s Paradise was a clear sign that the country had traded one set of masters for another.

The lights dimmed, and the dancers began their performance.  Anders had never had any interest in the ballet, but he was entranced by the grace and athleticism of the dancers.  Different members of the troupe performed, but Anders never saw Alexei or anyone else he remembered from IO.

The lights dimmed to rapturous applause, then came back to fully illuminate the venue.   Anders realized that it was the intermission, and he decided to return to the lobby and observe the crowd.

The rich and famous graced the lobby, the constant murmur of conversation punctuated by the clinking of champagne glasses and polite laughter.  Anders stood to the back, eyes poring over the crowd.  He was about to give up, ready to report to the agent that there was no sign of IO involvement, when he spotted a woman across the room staring at him.

Valentina, the IO agent that had recruited him.  Her presence here couldn’t be a coincidence.  He feigned puzzlement, as if he recognized her but couldn’t place the face.  Then he smiled, and went across the room to greet her.

“Valya!  How have you been, my dear,” he gushed.

Her expression froze for a split second before being replaced by an enigmatic smile.

“Anders.  You look wonderful.  I can’t believe it’s been ten years since I’ve seen you.”

“You are as beautiful as always, Valya.  It is good to see you.  When did you move to Prague?”

“I didn’t.  I work with the ballet, as a travel coordinator.” Valentina said.

Travel coordinator was the title given to the agents of the KGB assigned to prevent embarrassing defections, Anders knew.  

“How wonderful for you.  You must get to see so many interesting places.”

“And you, Anders?  Are you still performing in that dreadful cabaret?”

“No, no, Valya, not anymore.  I’m afraid I have a boring desk job, shuffling papers for the Ministry of Agriculture.”

“How sad, Anders. We should have never lost touch.”

Anders wondered what she meant by that.  He and Valentina had never been that close.  Her minor paranormal talents had kept her from being more than a handler for the other agents.  This might be an opportunity to insinuate himself into the new program.

“Well, Valya, it’s not completely boring.  I still know how to take advantage of my training.  That’s how I got this ticket, as a matter of fact.”

She raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

“I won it in a craps game.  I’d planned on selling it – I never much cared for ballet – but I figured this might be my only chance to see it.”

“Really, Anders, cheating at gambling?  You could have been so much more.”

The lights dimmed, signaling an end to the intermission.

Anders kissed her on the cheek, and stepped back.  

“A pleasure, as always.  We mustn’t let another ten years pass, Valya.”

“You are so right, Anders.  I’ll be sure to get in touch once this tour is over.”

♦​
Anders returned to his seat.  The second half of the performance was better than the first, and he began to reconsider his preconceptions about the ballet.  Then the lights dimmed again, and a single spotlight illuminated the stage.  It widened slowly, to reveal two immobile figures dressed in black and white.  The curtains parted to reveal a pure white background.  In total silence, the two dancers began to perform.

It was unlike anything Anders had ever seen.  They seemed to defy gravity, soaring and tumbling.  (Picture 4 -- Dancers)  One of them must be Alexei, he thought.  As he watched the performance, his initial awe gave way to understanding.  Alexei’s TK had gotten much stronger, he realized.  He was using it to extend his leaps and to steady his balance, and to enhance the performance of his partner as well. 

Anders’ train of thought was broken by thunderous applause.  He looked at the stage in time to see the curtains close on Alexei and the other dancer.

He could do it, he thought.  If he’s strong enough to move two grown men, he could probably exert enough force to kill at a distance.  The doctors investigating the assassinations must have missed something.  It wouldn’t take much to cause an aneurism.


♦​
Anders was awakened by the cold press of steel under his chin.  His heart pounding, he opened his eyes and tried to shout, but a strong hand clapped down over his mouth before he could make a sound.  The face of a stranger leaned close, eyes dispassionate, almost reptilian.  Anders felt a gentle tug at his neck, and realized that the intruder had cut his throat.  He had a brief moment to marvel that it hadn’t hurt at all before the darkness claimed him.

♦​
Anders jerked upright, gasping.  His hands went to his neck, feeling for the gaping wound he knew must be there.  Feeling nothing, he turned on the light next to the bed.  The white sheets spread out before him were unsullied with blood.

It had been a long time since he’d had a precognitive flash this strong.  Typically, the strength and clarity of the visions were proportional to how far in the future the events occurred.  His killer might be in the house even now.  

Anders turned off the light and climbed quietly out of bed.  He hoped no one had noticed the light go on and off.  He gathered the clothes he’d left on the chair and entered the hallway.  Moving quickly, he went down the back staircase to the kitchen.  Senses heightened by fear, he heard the knob on the front door jiggle as someone worked the lock.

He tip-toed to the door leading from the kitchen to the back yard.  He turned the key slowly, and eased the door open.  He dashed across the yard and into the darkness beyond.

♦​
Anders sat in a café in Wenceslas Square across from the Jalta Hotel, face hidden by a newspaper.  The hotel was the best in the city, and he knew the Bolshoi performers would rate the best accommodations.  Valentina’s job would require her to stay here too.

There was no hidden message in the paper.  Anders needed to get in touch with the agent, persuade him to arrange for extraction.  He wondered if the attempt on his life meant that the operation was blown, or if it was just Valentina acting on her own initiative, suspicious at his convenient presence at the ballet.

Valentina appeared at the entrance to the hotel.  He saw her stop to talk to the doorman, than head off on foot across the square.  

Anders smelled fresh bread. 

Odd, he thought.  This café was too small to have a bakery.

He tasted fruit, although he’d had nothing to eat since the day before.

He smiled.  The excitement was honing his precognitive senses, and he knew where she was headed.  He waited a few moments to make sure she wasn’t being watched, then hailed a taxi.  

“The Party Market” he told the driver.


The Party Market was a weekly spectacle.  Open only to members of the Party, it was the place where the wives and servants of the powerful shopped for the fresh foods denied the rest of the city.  She must be meeting someone, he thought.

He had the driver drop him a block from the entrance.  Relaxing, he let his re-awakened sense reach out.  He closed his eyes, and saw the guard at the side entrance shout as a small girl spilled cocoa on his uniform.  The guard turned away to grab a rag to wipe off his uniform.

Anders opened his eyes and moved towards the side entrance.  Ahead of him, he saw the small girl being dragged along by her nanny.  The girl tried to pull away, and her arm flew backwards, splattering brown fluid all over the hapless guard.  Timing it perfectly, Anders stepped through the doorway while the guard reached for the cloth.

Anders moved through the market, picking a spot where he could watch the bakery unobtrusively.  He didn’t have to wait for long.  Valya appeared from the crowd, moving nonchalantly towards a large display of freshly baked breads and pastries.   (Picture 3 - Bread).

Here, he though, her contact will meet her here.

Watching out of the corner of his eye, Anders saw a man pick up one of the loaves of bread and inhale deeply.  He put the loaf down, picked up another, and moved to the cashier.  Valya, stepping in behind the man, picked up the discarded loaf.  Anders could see where the crust had been broken.  She moved to the cashier, and Anders noticed that the other agent had already left.  Valya paid for her bread, then headed for the main entrance.  

Anders waited several minutes, absent-mindedly perusing the merchandise while he tried to figure out why Valya would be acting as if she were an agent in hostile territory.

Not Valya, he realized.  The other agent.  She couldn’t meet the other agent directly.  With a sinking feeling, he realized they had been compromised by a mole.  The other agent must have alerted IO that Anders had been reactivated.

That means the agent who contacted me is probably already dead, he thought, and there’s no one who can help me.

Feeling the first stirrings of panic, Anders made his way from the market.  He couldn’t go back to his house, and that meant he couldn’t get his car and try to get out of the city.  His only choice was to get to the American consulate, try to use his talents to sneak past the police and plead for asylum.

He hailed another taxi, and gave him an address a few blocks from the embassy.  Riding in silence, he tried to relax, hoping another flash would show him the correct path.

Getting nothing, he looked out the window and realized they were heading away from the embassy, back towards the Jalta Hotel.

“Driver, you’re going…” he started, and then stopped when he saw the drivers eyes in the rearview mirror.  The same eyes he’d seen in his vision the night before.

“Just relax, traitor.  I’m under strict orders not to kill you.  Yet.  But I can hurt you if necessary.”

The taxi pulled up to the curb on a side street near the hotel.  The driver got out, making sure Anders saw the gun under his coat.  He opened the door, and pulled Anders from the back seat.  Keeping a firm grip on his arm, he steered him to the entrance, across the lobby, and to the elevators.

Anders was desperate.  If they got him alone, they’d kill him for sure.  But his talent failed him; no visions of doom or salvation flashed before his eyes.

The elevator opened, and Anders was ushered inside.  The scent of lilacs filled his nose, and he noticed that there were small flower-filled vases on the walls of the lift.  The assassin pushed the button for the penthouse suite, and the elevator rose silently.

Reaching the top, the doors opened, and Anders was escorted past several guards into the penthouse.  Despite the fear that threatened to overwhelm him, he couldn’t help but be awed by the decadence that surrounded him.  

Gold filigree graced every fixture, and expensive oil paintings adorned the walls. Persian carpets covered the fine wood floors, and across the room, butterflies flitted about a glass enclosure that doubled as a window looking out across Wenceslas Square.  

It must be heated, he thought, and laughed inwardly that he could be appalled at such extravagance when faced with his own demise.

He noticed two large wingback chairs set in front of the butterfly cage.  The one on the left was occupied, a man’s arm visible as it reached out and picked a porcelain teacup from the end table. 

“Welcome, Anders.  It has been far too long.  And allow me to congratulate you.  Going undetected all this time is quite an accomplishment.  

“A pity those in the IO with some telepathic skills were always unable to read the thoughts of those with our unique talents.   It would have saved so much effort.”

“Alexei,”  Anders started to speak, and then stopped.  Pleading for his life was pointless.  They wanted him dead, otherwise they wouldn’t have dispatched a killer to his home.  This little play must be Alexei’s way of toying with him before he had him killed.

“Good, Anders.  No begging.  I’m glad to see you still have some dignity.  Please, sit with me a moment.  If you would be so kind as to answer a couple of questions, I can promise you a painless death.”

Anders sat in the second chair, eyes focused on the butterflies.  

“Tea?  No?  Very well, suit yourself.  It is quite good, though.  Not the dishwater you’re used to, I expect.”

“So, Anders.  I have but two questions for you.  First, were there any others in the original IO cadre who were in the pay of the enemies of the Rodina?”

“Not that I know of.  They wouldn’t have told me if there were, and I never had reason to suspect otherwise.”  Anders said.

“Yes, I expected as much.  Still, one has to ask.  A man will do most anything to save his life, and there was always the chance you knew something.”

“My second question.  How did the Americans come to suspect that IO had been revived?”

“You were too good, Alexei.  You left no trace, no indications as to why those men just dropped dead.  One unexplainable death might be ascribed to bad luck, but three?  Your pride in your new skills gave you away.”

“Answer me this, in return.  How did you do it?  I saw your performance.  Your TK has gotten incredibly strong.  I can see you are capable of reaching much further than we ever suspected was possible.  But how did you kill them without leaving some trauma?  There wasn’t even any internal bleeding.”

“Anders, Anders.  If only you had thought more about your gifts.  You always saw them as separate functions, crude replacements for physical skills.  If you wanted something dead, all you could think to do would be to crush it like an insect.”

Alexei pointed towards the butterfly cage.  Anders’ eyes followed, and he saw a brilliant butterfly, its wingspan six inches across, freeze in mid-flight.  (Picture 2- Butterflies)  It hung there for a split second, then collapse in upon itself as if crushed by an invisible fist.  The ruined creature fell to the ground.

“But if you use your remote viewing to spot the perfect place to strike, Anders, you can replace brute force with finesse.”

In the cage, all of the remaining butterflies fell to the bottom without warning.  There was no sign of damage to their frail wings and delicate bodies.  An uneducated observer would have sworn that some invisible gas had filled the chamber and killed them.

“The human body is so fragile, so balanced.  The tiniest nudge, say to the valves of the heart, at just the right moment, and the body collapses like a house of cards.”

“Now, Anders, our little demonstration is over.  I’m afraid you won’t be able to experience my little trick personally, as I’m sure your TK skills are still sufficient to protect you.  But I doubt they are sufficient to stop a bullet to the brain.”

“Please, enjoy a last cup of tea.  It is really quite exquisite.”

Alexei placed his cup on the saucer sitting on the table and stood.  

“Gregory, please see to it that my old friend enjoys his tea, and then kill him.”

Alexei leaned over the back of Anders’ chair, looking over his head at the dead butterflies.

“No last words, Anders?  Very well.  I bid you farewell.  Come, Valya, I wish to visit the museum before we leave for London.  I hear Sir Alec is going to be in attendance.  It’s not every day one gets to perform for the Prime Minister.”

“Let me get my coat, Alexei.  I’ll meet you at the elevator.”  Valya replied.

“Don’t dawdle, dear.  Gregory has work to do.”

Anders jumped as Gregory approached, but the killer only filled the second teacup and handed it to him.  Anders inhaled, the aroma of the expensive brew, and tried to calm himself.  Behind him, he heard the door to the penthouse close as Alexei and Valya left.

The smell of tea was replaced by the smell of lilacs. 

Anders willed himself to relax, extending his paranormal senses outwards.  He saw the hallway outside, saw the elevator doors open, saw his former colleagues enter the small enclosure, saw them press the button that would take them to the lobby.  

“Hurry up and drink your tea.”

Gregory’s voice was faint and distant.  Anders watched the elevator doors close.  Reaching out with his mind, he pushed the ‘Elevator Stop’ button and held it down.  He saw Alexei press the ‘Start’ button to no avail and then begin pounding on the doors.  Valya looked terrified.

Anders shifted his sight upwards, towards the cables that held the elevator suspended in the shaft.  His TK wasn’t nearly strong enough to break the cables.  He looked closer, and realized that the thick metal cords were actually composed of smaller, braided cables.

Focusing even closer, he could see the individual wire strands, so thin, so fragile.  Reaching out with his mind, he drew an imaginary blade across the cables, the razor thin edge of telekinetic force slicing through the metal fibers.  

He felt the sudden release as the cables severed, and he shifted his vision to watch the elevator car plummet to the earth.   The car hung in midair, not moving. 

Anders began to panic, then realized there must be a failsafe measure in case the cables snapped.  He looked again, and saw the tension lever that had released when the cables snapped.  He seized the lever with his mind, vertigo nearly overwhelming him as his point of view followed the doomed car earthward.  

“Ok, that’s it.  If you don’t want your last drink, that’s your problem.”  Gregory’s voice snapped him back to the penthouse.

The assassin stepped around the chair, gun drawn.  He worked the action on the automatic pistol, and smiled at Anders.

Anders smiled back, and stopped Gregory’s heart.

He’d always been a fast learner.


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 21, 2004)

Ooops.  I'm in 2.3, not 2.4.  Maybe a friendly mod can edit that for me?


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## mythago (Nov 21, 2004)

No need, we can figure it out


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## RangerWickett (Nov 21, 2004)

*Ceramic DM Round 2-3: RangerWickett vs. Rodrigo Istalindir.

The Two Winds
By Ryan Nock*


“Tell me of the two winds.”

The aerial monastery of San Hwe Zu, a floating collection of graceful towers and arching bridges, whirled at the edge of a night storm.  The speaker stood at the tip of the Darker Span, the furthest edge of the monastery, where none of the shamans within would see him.

A flare of white light beamed out from the darkness, illuminating the bridge, and amid the moaning winds of the storm, a throaty voice thundered.  *

“I am Doh Mwa Sy.  None command me.  Seek your answers elsewhere.”

“I bring payment for my questions.”

The speaker shoved a young boy onto his knees at the edge of the bridge, then looked up into the storm’s flashing eye.  The beam of light swept down to examine the whimpering boy, then back up to the speaker’s face.  The man’s face was covered in a white mask, featureless but for two eyeslits.  The storm rumbled, displeased.

“A mask.  You dare hide yourself from me?  Tell me your name, fool, so that my dark winds may devour you.”

“Pilus.”

Doh Mwa Sy growled at the name.  “What business has a Seren in Xaopin lands?”

“Is my payment sufficient, demon?  I can easily get you others if you want.  This is the son of the shaman who built this monastery and trapped you.  He has a daughter, you know.”

The storm demon chuckled, and the boy cried out in fear, trying to crawl away.  Pilus grabbed the back of the boy’s neck and held him.

“I approve,” said the demon, and the storm crashed in agreement.  “You seek the path to eternal life, Seren?”

“Yes,” Pilus said, his voice resonant with desire.

The bridge shuddered, and the boy was pulled screaming into the storm.  The scream ended abruptly, and then the bound storm demon Doh Mwa Sy spoke:

“It was said that a wonderfully cruel mage once sought to bind his spirit to the two winds, so as long as they blew, he could not die.  The two winds refused, fleeing from their birthplace to the lands of North and South.

“The fierce North wind vowed not to yield except to the victorious cry of an enemy, and the cunning South wind pledged not to yield except to the anguished cry of a loved one.  With this, they sought to never be bound, and that if one were endangered, the other would free its sibling.

“Enemies the mage had many of, but none loved this cruel man.  Stymied, the mage abandoned his goal, and died a fool’s death many hundred years ago.”

“Where,” Pilus asked, “is their birthplace?”

“The mountains that separate north and south,” said Doh Mwa Sy.  “Seek the mouth of the amber-scented winds.”

“Excellent,” Pilus said.  “Now, I have one last task for you, and you may ask whatever price you wish.”

That night, the monastery of San Hwe Zu fell from the sky, and a storm ravaged the land.

*	*	*​
At the border of forest and field, the brothers Lsi Pu and Lsi Nu Gon battled.  Last night’s storm had brought great destruction, leaving only sparse trees with bare branches.  The wheat fields beyond rustled with wild freedom under the strong southern breeze.  No man or beast was witness to the brothers’ duel. *

Lsi Pu, the elder brother, strong and square-faced with a short graying beard, leapt down from the high branches and swept a kick at his brother.  Lsi Nu Gon, younger, slender, shaven, flew away and cartwheeled backward, weaving through a cluster of branches to avoid his brother’s attacks.  He took cover behind the trunk and steadied himself as he cast a spell.  The air around him whirled with light, and then he was gone.

Lsi Pu, having lost sight of his younger brother in the tangle of leaves and branches, kept in a fighting stance as he hovered from tree top to tree top.  The magic he and his brother used to fly in their duels was advanced, but they had been two of the strongest apprentices of the monastery San Hwe Zu.  They could remain aloft indefinitely.

A breeze pressed lightly down on Lsi Pu from above, enough for him to sense his brother’s invisible approach.  The attack was too fast for him to dodge, so he swept his hands in two deflecting arcs.  His right hand struck the oncoming thrust of Lsi Nu Gon’s kick, and the blow aimed for his face instead hit his chest.  Lsi Pu’s left hand lashed upward, and he grasped at the loose leg of his brother’s pants, while his right hand twisted around the ankle of the leg that had just struck him.  Lsi Pu commanded the winds, and he spun vertically, wrenching his brother past him and downward, into a patch of wiry branches.

Lsi Nu Gon coughed at the impact and kicked free, flying upward and away, seeking to turn his invisibility to his advantage again.  But Lsi Pu spotted a few snapped pieces of branches and twigs caught in his brother’s clothes, and he followed them.

“Damned leaves,” muttered Lsi Nu Gon, and invisible hands brushed at the debris that was betraying his location.

Lsi Nu Gon was above the treetops now, nearly impossible to see against the gray vastness of the sky.  Not wanting to continue a melee duel, Lsi Pu wove his hands in a dance to conjure the energies of the sky, and lightning flashed overhead.

“Come down, brother,” he called, holding out his hand, which glowed faintly with a crackle of electricity.

Something invisible moved beside Lsi Pu, and the snapping leather of a whip wrapped around his hand, wrenching it to the side.  His lightning bolt discharged harmlessly into the air, and then a fist impacted his face.  Lsi Pu shoved at his invisible brother and struggled to free his hand from his brother’s whip, but Lsi Nu Gon flew away, down toward the wheatfield outside the forest.  The whip still enwrapping Lsi Pu’s hand dragged him along.

Lsi Pu managed a quick spell and slashed off the tip of his brother’s whip, and then he started another lightning spell.  He saw the outline of his brother’s body, standing in the waving wheat.  Before he could release his spell, though, he spotted the woman beside him.

“Brother, wait.”  Lsi Nu Gon stepped free from his invisibility and held up forestalling hands.

Lsi Pu took a deep breath and dismissed his lightning, then descended to the ground as well.  His brother laughed and slapped him on his shoulder.

“If you try not to use lightning so much, I’ll make sure not to hide so much.  I don’t want to get that hurt.  Fair?”

Lsi Pu smiled grimly.  “Of course, brother.  We’ll finish the duel later.”

The two brothers turned to the woman who had just arrived.  She was fey, her form shimmering at the edges, indistinct from the golden wheat.  Waves of brown hair fell across the shoulders of her white dress, and she smiled to Lsi Nu Gon.

Lsi Pu said, “You’re early.”

Lsi Nu Gon added, “And thank you for that.  It is never too early for me to see my beloved Kya Besh Ko.”

She extended her hand, and Lsi Nu Gon kissed it.  She asked, “Are you ready for your meal?  I have it prepared at my home.”

Wind breathed cooly over them, and the strands of wheat swayed, as did Kya Besh Ko’s hair.  For a moment, all three of them looked to the sky, bleak and gray.

“The storm?” Lsi Nu Gon asked.  As he spoke, he wound up the damaged remains of his whip, and mended the weapon.  “Were you harmed, beloved?”

She shook her head.  “The storm would destroy trees, but merely frighten the fields.  I know we had planned to eat in the forest, but the spirits there are disturbed, and it pains me to hear their weeping.”

Lsi Pu stepped forward.  “Brother, we can certainly enjoy whatever meal she has prepared indoors as well as out.  The wind will still be here when we’re done.”

The younger brother nodded, then hugged Kya Besh Ko.  Lsi Pu looked away, hiding his frown.

Lsi Nu Gon reluctantly ended his embrace with the spirit of the fields, and he looked east.  “We’ll walk there, my love.  I know you don’t like to fly.”

“Thank you, Lsi Nu Gon.  You’ll enjoy the food I’ve prepared.”

“Bread again?” Lsi Pu asked, stroking his beard.

“Of course.”

*	*	*​
They ate warm breads with creamy oils and sauces, relaxing in Kya Besh Ko’s wooden home.  Lsi Nu Gon listened as she played a koto, and Lsi Pu sat across from them, aligning black and white stones on the floor.

Outside, it began to rain just as Kya Besh Ko’s song ended, and the two lovers turned with interest to Lsi Pu’s creation.

“What is it, brother?”

“A puzzle,” Lsi Pu stated proudly.  “If you can solve it, you’ll learn a secret.” *

With a few quick brush strokes he painted the last few symbols on the white stones, then aligned them into a long grid.  Two lines of black stones with white letters along the top, and two lines of white stones with black letters along the bottom.  He watched with pleasure as the other two squinted in confusion.

Kya Besh Ko chuckled nervously.  “I was never good at your puzzles, Lsi Pu.  Is this another anagram?”

Lsi Nu Gon held up a finger.  “Don’t tell me yet.  It’s more complicated than that.  There’s a pattern.  You move forward or backward as many letters as the number over that letter says.  Or that’s what I’m guessing.”

He sat back and put a hand on his forehead.  “It’s too complicated for me.”

With a deep chuckle, Lsi Pu nodded.  “You were close, though.  And I won’t tell you.”

Thunder rumbled outside, and Kya Besh Ko stood to close a window that was blown open.  As she pressed the window closed and lashed its binding, she asked, “Why do you make so many puzzles, Lsi Pu?”

Lsi Nu Gon laughed.  “He had to be better than me at something.  This was the only thing he could find.  Kya Besh Ko, could you bring me my pipe, please?”

She nodded, but looked to Lsi Pu for an answer.

He swept the stones into a pouch, not meeting her eyes.  “When the Serens invaded, we sent messages in code.  We were not only warriors, Kya Besh.  We had to outwit the Serens as well.”

She hesitated at the anger in his voice.  “I’m sorry if I offended.  You were very brave, even if you could not defeat the Serens.  But we are able to live in peace here, at least.”

Lsi Pu did not speak for a moment, but then he took a remaining slice of bread, dipped it into butter, and took a bite.

“The meal was delicious, Kya Besh.”

Lsi Nu Gon nodded eagerly.  “It certainly was.  The scent of all this baking is wonder-”

Suddenly, the walls of the house began to shake.  Thunder roared, and the ground trembled.  Kya Besh Ko stepped away from the walls, looking upward, fear in her golden eyes.

“That is the voice of the storm from last night.  Lsi Nu Gon, it has returned.”

A voice boomed from the sky, and the ceiling cracked under its force.  “I am Doh Mwa Sy, one-time bearer of your accursed monastery.”

Rain seared through the rents in the ceiling, and an angered wind swept through the house.  The house cracked, timbers tore away, and it was open to the sky overhead.  A white beam glared downward from the blackness of the storm, sweeping across each of them, stopping on Kya Besh Ko.  Black winds reached down like claws, grasping her, and she screamed.

Lsi Nu Gon leapt from the ground and flew to her as she was carried into the air, but the storm battered him away, its massive force driving him through the walls of the house.  Lsi Pu moved to his brother, pulling him clear as the house disintegrated and fell upon them.  Kya Besh Ko’s screams filled the air as the storm fled, and Lsi Pu stood in the ruined remains of the house, beside his unconscious brother, following the demon storm’s flight with his gaze.

“Brother, wake up,” he said.  “The demon heads north.  It is a fool if it thinks it can escape us.”

*	*	*​
Lsi Pu tended his brother’s wounds and divined the path the demon took.  Lsi Nu Gon studied what books they had on demons, hoping to find a way to defeat it and rescue Kya Besh Ko.  Then news came of the destruction of their old monastery, of the deaths of many of their old friends and teachers.  They left the next day, flying north to lands they had never seen, deep within the borders of the Seren Empire.

Lsi Nu Gon was distraught, and he did not talk much.  Lsi Pu seldom talked normally, and so they flew mostly in silence, listening only to the winds that carried them.

After eight days, they found a new wind, blowing from the north, from a jagged line of mountains that Lsi Pu’s divinations had claimed to be the demon’s retreat.  They landed in a canyon high in the mountain range, fearful of facing the storm demon in the sky.  The air smelled sweet, and the ground was covered in soft green grasses, but there were no flowers to explain the scent.  Butterflies floated everywhere around them, seeming curious of their presence. *

“Don’t worry, brother,” Lsi Pu said.  “We’ll find her.  We simply need to find the right cave.”

“The demon,” Lsi Nu Gon stumbled over his words, then took a breath to steady himself.  “What kind of cave can house a demon the size of a storm.  And, even if we do find it, how will we rescue Kya Besh Ko?”

A woman’s voice fluttered out from the air somewhere near them, asking, “Who is Kya Besh Ko?”

The two brothers looked around, nervous.  They were masters of the powers of the air, but they could not sense anyone invisible amid the butterflies.

“Do not torment me,” Lsi Nu Gon said.  “Kya Besh Ko is the woman I love.  Show yourself!”

Lsi Pu put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.  “Calm down.  We should not make demands, especially not out of anger.”

He looked outward and addressed the unseen voice.  “Whoever this is, she might know where the cave we seek is.”

The air chittered with a delighted laugh.  “Gentleman never come to these parts.  I am sorry for what has happened to this woman you have lost, but I thought perhaps you could help us.  And it looks like we might have the same interest.”

The voice was humming from every direction, and Lsi Nu Gon spun, angrily looking for the speaker.  “Why do you hide?”

The voice was close and whispering.  “Most who come here, come to seek power.  You may have secrets, and I can’t know if I can trust you yet.”

Calmly, Lsi Pu said, “Though I do enjoy a good secret, we have none that we would need to hide from you.  You mentioned an interest.  Has the same demon that we seek disturbed you?”

“Indeed,” the voice cried, and the wings of the butterflies seemed to clap with pleasure.  “It disrupts the purity of the wind, and I fear it seeks to steal a power that should not belong to it.  Can you defeat this monster?”

“We are warriors, dear lady,” Lsi Pu chuckled.  “And my brother fights for the woman he loves.  The demon shall not be an obstacle.”

The voice said, “Then we can help you.”

The butterflies began to flutter close together, whirling, melding, taking on a solid shape.

Watching, Lsi Nu Gon whispered grimly to his brother, “You’re far more optimistic than I.”

Lsi Pu whispered back, “No, brother.  I simply lie better than you do.”

Soon the butterflies had stopped spiralling, and in there place was a woman, kneeling, draped in many-colored robes.  She stood and tossed her head back, flicking her curling brown hair behind her.  Her face was Seren, but she was still beautiful, creamy-skinned, as delicate as a butterfly herself.  Lsi Nu Gon watched with wariness, but Lsi Pu beheld her with awe.

“My name is Danas,” she said.

“Lsi Pu, and my brother, Lsi Nu Gon.  Danas, you’re a shapeshifter?  Can you assume many forms?”

“Before, yes,” she said, then sighed.  “But here, even though it’s beautiful and the air hums with magic, I am limited to the forms of natural creatures.  In these mountains there live nothing but butterflies.  And now, humans.”

Lsi Pu nodded slowly, understanding.  “When we are finished here, would you be willing to leave this place, come with us?  The magic of forms intrigues me.  I certainly had not expected to find in this remote place a woman so beautiful, and so skilled in its powers.”

“Brother,” Lsi Nu Gon interrupted, “_my_ woman is still in danger.  Now can this Seren woman help us, or is my beloved doomed?”

Danas bit her lip, then nodded.  She flashed a brief smile to Lsi Pu, then turned and pointed slightly east.  “Two mountains beyond is the cave that gave birth to the two winds.  This amber-scented wind blows from its mouth.  I can show you.  Be careful, though.  They say there is a great power hidden in the depths of the cave, and that only a strange prophecy can unleash it.  You may have been lured here.”

“Accursed demon,” Lsi Nu Gon said, sneering.  “Let us go.”

“Yes,” Lsi Pu said, smiling to Danas.  “Let’s.”

*	*	*​
The two brothers landed at the base of the steps leading up to the cave, and Danas’s fluttering form swirled beside them, returning to human form.  The massive stone steps seemed cut for a beast hundreds of feet long, but they had no difficulty gliding over them.  Lsi Pu carried Danas over the more difficult steps, and Lsi Nu Gon tried to hide his displeasure at his brother’s lack of concern.

At the top of the steps, warm, sweet air breathed out from the mouth of the cave.  An old stone house sat just inside the shadow of the cave, and thunder rumbled out from it.  Before they headed in, Lsi Nu Gon placed spells upon them to turn them silent and invisible, so only they could hear and see each other.

They advanced, reaching the door to the house.  It had no windows and was only large enough for two or three rooms.  A chimney on the roof released a faint line of smoke into the amber wind, and this close they could detect the faint scent of bread baking.

The ground rumbled, and the voice of the storm demon shook around them.

“You may enter.  I am here to bargain, not fight.  Not yet.  I even have a meal for you.”

Resigned that their disguises would be of no use to a creature that was one with the air, they entered to the deep chuckling of the demon.  Lsi Nu Gon went first, tense and ready to defend himself.  Lsi Pu followed, glancing back to the beautiful Danas, who seemed to glow with anxiousness.

Within, a wide square room awaited, bedecked with tables of breads of all kinds.  In the far corner, near the room’s only other door, sat a coiled black serpent of clouds.  A single gleaming white eye stared out, casting a beam of light across them.  When it spoke, the voice seemed far too deep for the small serpent form of the mighty storm demon.

“Partake, my foes.  Your desired spirit of the wheat fields has provided this bounty, and I would have you enjoy it.” *

Lsi Nu Gon started toward the storm serpent, but his brother put a hand on his arm to stop him.  He shook free and pointed toward the storm serpent.

“Where is Kya Besh Ko?” he demanded.  “And tell me why you have taken her, fiend.”

“She is in this very house, do not fear.  And I have taken the fragile thing only because I was paid to do so.  My freedom from your enslaving monastery, in exchange for this service.”

Danas gasped.  “You enslaved this creature?  Even a demon does not deserve-”

“It deserves far worse,” Lsi Nu Gon snarled.

Lsi Pu shook his head.  “No, actually.  Our mentors thought this creature too destructive, so they tapped its power, using it to keep their monastery aloft, to train us in the magic of the winds.  It wasn’t cruelty, but intelligence.  Make another’s power your own.”

Doh Mwa Sy laughed, and the house shook with thunder.  “You speak like a demon yourself.  Please, eat.  Do not let it go to waste.”

Taking a step toward the demon, Lsi Nu Gon said, “Hand over Kya Besh Ko, and tell me who is your master.”

Lsi Pu picked up a small loaf of bread and tore off a piece.  He ate it, then offered a piece to Danas.  She was too nervous to accept, and Lsi Pu shrugged.

The storm demon writhed and chuckled.  “I have no master, but the one who hired me is named Pilus, a Seren, and the one responsible for your monastery’s destruction, much to my approval.  Worry not, for you shall have a chance to meet him.  He told me he would be here soon.”

“Where is Kya Besh Ko?” Lsi Nu Gon demanded.  He raised his hand and fired a bolt of energy at the cloudy serpent.  It roared when struck.

“Brother,” Lsi Pu said, disapproval in his voice.  “Again, you should not demand from those who are not yours to command.  Here, have a slice of bread.”

“Lsi Pu,” his brother hissed, “will you not help me?”

“Yes,” Danas said, “aren’t you going to destroy the demon?  He waits here at the key to the power of the two winds.  He has no place in these mountains.”

A chuckle escaped Lsi Pu’s lips, and he stroked his beard.  To the demon he said, “Doh Mwa Sy, what did you master want with the spirit woman?”

“He did not say,” the demon grumbled.

“Did he ask you to cook her and serve her to us?”  Lsi Pu tilted his head toward his brother, and smiled.

“No.”  The demon laughed boisterously.  “That was my idea alone.  I had thought at first that a roast would be best, but when I discovered she was nothing but wheat herself, I believe I improvised nicely.”

Danas gasped.  “Gods, no.”

“Kya Besh. . . ?”  Lsi Nu Gon faltered, and he looked to his brother for an answer.

Lsi Pu cut a slice of bread and bit into it slowly, smiling.

“Brother,” Lsi Nu Gon said, “tell me my beloved is alright.”

Lsi Pu shrugged.  “She’s a little overcooked, actually.”

His brother choked and fell to his knees, weeping.  For a moment, even the rumble of the storm was subdued.  Then, Lsi Nu Gon consulved, screaming in anguish.

Danas started to step away, but Lsi Pu turned to her and whispered the word to a spell, stopping her movement.  She whimpered and struggled to speak.  Lsi Pu walked over to her and smiled.

“You shouldn’t be running away.  You may not have been part of my plan, but I am certainly still interested in you.  The teachings encouraged us never to overlook a potential ally, tool, or source of power.

“Doh Mwa Sy,” he said, “please take this woman, and that she does not flutter away.”

The demon thrummed with thunder, and it roared at Lsi Pu, though its voice was almost drowned out by Lsi Nu Gon’s screaming.  “Who are you to command me, human?”

“Not command,” he said, shaking his head.  He reached within his robes and pulled forth a white mask, featureless except for its eyeslits.  “I do not command what I can ask.  I can pay you later if you like, demon.  But my brother and I have business to attend to.”

“_You_ are Pilus?” the demon said.  “You tricked me.”

“Very sorry about that,” Lsi Pu said.  “I do enjoy puzzles, even if no one ever solves them.  Now, like the shamans who founded my monastery, I will not destroy you, but use you as a tool.  I, however, intend to repay the services you render.  Is that arrangement sufficient?”

Without a word, the demon’s form swelled, and it surged past him, picking up the paralyzed Danas and thundering out of the house, carrying her away.  Lsi Pu watched his new servant leave, and then he turned to taunt his brother.  Instead, he found Lsi Nu Gon standing.

“How could you, brother?  You betrayed me, murdered Kya Besh Ko, murdered our mentors and friends.  Have you gone mad?”

Lsi Pu shrugged.  “Madness is relative.  You stole Kya Besh from me, and to be fair I had not intended to kill her.  But I have a new plaything.”

“Lsi Pu,” his brother cried, “why?”

“I always gave you puzzles, brother, and you never figured them out yourself.  Anyway, I believe I’ll use ‘Pilus’ now.  It’s a simple anagram, but sufficient.”

Lsi Nu Gon screamed and leapt at his brother.  Pilus tumbled away and flew for the door, firing a lightning bolt back at his brother.  Lsi Nu Gon ducked and took the strike on his arm, then lashed out with his whip, catching Pilus’s foot and stopping him from fleeing.

“You bastard!” cried Lsi Nu Gon.  He clenched his fist and pulled the breath from Pilus’s lungs, wrenching it free in a gurgled scream.  “I’ll kill you.  Damn you for your riddles.”

Pilus struggled on the ground, his body jerking from lack of breath.  He kicked free of the whip and tried to stand, but he sagged, suffocating.  One hand to his throat, one reaching out for his brother, Pilus slumped, a faint smile on his face.

Lsi Nu Gon kept his grip on his brother’s breath for a minute more, overwhelmed by what he had done.  Then he screamed, rage and despair mixing in his cry of victory.  His brother had always mocked him, always flaunting his intelligence, always jealous of his brother’s greater magical power.  Now finally he was dead, and for a moment, Lsi Nu Gon was happy.  Then understanding overtook him, and he collapsed, staring at his brother’s lifeless body.

“Lsi Pu, I’m sorry.  I’d give anything to bring you back.  I’m sorry.”

He sagged to the ground and wept, while far overhead, the thunder of the storm demon faded away.  He wept for several minutes, and then he heard something.

In the doorway, the sweet amber wind blowing across him, Pilus drew a breath, and he laughed.

Lsi Nu Gon looked up in shock, then in joy.  “Brother, you’re alive!”

Pilus nodded, rubbing his neck and coughing softly.  “I am.  Are you alright, brother?”

“Brother,” Lsi Nu Gon gasped, putting his face in his hands.  “I tried to kill you.  I was confused.  The demon, it-”

“It lied to you,” Pilus said, sympathy in his voice.  “It deceived us, played upon our fears.  But we both survived, brother.  And we can go home.”

“To what?” Lsi Nu Gon spoke weakly through sobs.  “Brother, you didn’t-?  You didn’t actually work with the demon?  Destroy the monastery?”

Unseen by his brother, Pilus smirked, but his voice condemned.  “You tried to kill me, and now you want to blame me still?  You have nothing left but me now, brother.  Are you trying to drive me away, or leave me dead too?”

“No!  Please no, brother.  I’m sorry.  Please, I’m sorry.”

“It will be alright.”  Pilus knelt beside his brother and gently patted him on the shoulder.  “Let’s put this behind us.  We shall defeat the demon that killed Kya Besh Ko, that destroyed our mentors and friends, and then we will go home.  Will you help me?”

“Yes brother.”

Pilus smiled and helped his brother to his feet, assuming an expression of concern.  He turned to leave, but Lsi Nu Gon placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Brother, how . . . how did you survive?  I thought I killed you.”

Facing away from his brother, Pilus put a hand to his chest.  His heart no longer beat, but he could still breathe, as long as the two winds blew.  This was yet another puzzle his brother would never learn the answer to.  Without a reply, he looked up, and flew into the sky.


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## Berandor (Nov 21, 2004)

Post 300! Wee!


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## Macbeth (Nov 21, 2004)

Any ETA on the Judgement for me vs. Orchid Blossom? I seem to remember seeing Saturday mentioned as a possibility, but that's come and gone....


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## orchid blossom (Nov 21, 2004)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Any ETA on the Judgement for me vs. Orchid Blossom? I seem to remember seeing Saturday mentioned as a possibility, but that's come and gone....




Nervous, are you?  

If I recall correctly, Berandor said he'd get his sent in on Saturday.  The state of the other judges is unknown.


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## Berandor (Nov 21, 2004)

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> Nervous, are you?
> 
> If I recall correctly, Berandor said he'd get his sent in on Saturday.  The state of the other judges is unknown.



 Whoa, I better not post these things. I hadn't thought about shedding my part of the guilt for a potentially late judgement, sorry.

If it takes a while longer to post the judgement, it's probably me. So there.


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## MarauderX (Nov 21, 2004)

Round 2.4, MarauderX vs. Piratecat

*A Walk in the Park*

This was the first time Marak had been out of the religious district.  He had familiarized himself with the layout of the city of Kargam by talking to the porters and servants at the temples.  With the long avenues and the ring-like cross streets it wasn’t a difficult plan to commit to learn.  The causeway to the merchant district turned out to be a sight worth seeing in itself.  

At one point he passed through a market where many of the stalls were still open and found himself pausing in front of a cloth vendor.  The lengths of silk and cotton and brocade sparkling with gold thread were displayed to advantage in the light from dozens of brass lamps.  Next to the reams of expensive cloth was a frazzled woman selling simple wood and stone carvings, and Marak was fascinated with the plain toys.  He found himself wanting to buy them for his master, though for a foreign servant to give a gift to his new lord was unthinkable.  But then, he wasn’t servant anymore.  _You don’t have the money, anyway,_ he reminded himself, and kept moving.  

Walking down the broad paved length in the cool damp night air, Marak passed between rows of stone giants, each more than fifteen feet tall.  In the light of the torches mounted between them, he could see some were meant to look benevolent while others were grotesque two-headed monsters.  In another place he would have thought they were meant to represent gods, but here, there was no telling.  If he remembered, he would ask Shamuss when he returned.  

Marak received the package with a nod from a well dressed servant at the noble’s stoop.  It was large, flat and heavy even in his brawny arms, and Marak had to shift it around often before getting a cramp.  The walk back to the temple was much faster, as he headed straight there with his load.  

* * * * *

Marak handed Shamuss a cup of tea and sat down as the young sage paced.  Shamuss sipped carefully at his tea and felt the liquid scorch his tongue.   The shades had been drawn at the sage’s request, as he said it helped when he was scrying the ether between worlds.  Marak knew of the yearly Conhenci rite performed by a cult of Lorleena, an ancient demigoddess of beauty and riches.  They sought to bring her back to the material world, and if she were to return, according to Shamuss and the others, it would be a perversion so terrible it would destroy the whole city.  

Shamuss opened the oval package and strained to angle the mirror towards him.  Marak lifted it into his lap and the sage stared at himself for a moment.  With a few arcane words his image disappeared and the grey fog beyond rolled and slid until a view of the ethereal landscape could be discerned.  Marak still didn’t know what he was looking at.  

Shamuss sighed impatiently.  “If the heathens get far enough along in their ritual, we will see the first signs of Lorleena in the ethereal plane.  That’s where I come in, to sever the demigoddess’s link and close her gate into the ethereal.” he said.  
Marak was puzzled.  “If it’s in the ethereal, why should it matter?  It can’t hurt us from there can it?” he asked.  
Shamuss sighed and sat next to him.  “It’s like crossing a river.  The first step to bring Lorleena to our world is to pull her into the ethereal plane, a riverboat of sorts, and then use that boat to ferry her across to our world.”
“Ah, and when that happens we’re all dead.  Why do they want to do it?” Marak said.
Shamuss paused and replied, “This cult thinks that if they perform certain rituals at precise times they can remake the demigoddess into her former self and live fat and blissful the rest of their days.  And some of them probably think they can use her to smite their foes or outwit rivals or bolster their political standing, or use her in other selfish ways.”  He sat back further and closed his eyes, his fingers wrapped around the warm cup.  
“So the others are probably there already, disrupting the ceremony, and with Jessa leading them they won’t have any trouble.  You said there were only a dozen of these cultists, right?”
“Yes.” said Shamuss as he relaxed.
“Ah,” Marak said, “and should the others fail to stop the ritual you are waiting to stop them with magic.  And they have no idea that you’ll be there to stop them, magically that is, and send Lorleena back to her dimension.  And we all know you’re the best at this plane stuff, right?”
“Yes.” said Shamuss as he sank into the comfortable chair.
“Ah.” Marak said one last time then waited for the sage to drift into sleep before slipping the nearly full mug from his hands.  He shook his head, as he had forgotten to ask about the stone statues.  

* * * * *

Shamuss woke in the late morning.  The drawn shades diffused the light, and the dim room was empty.  Marak must have hung the mirror on the opposite wall and it still showed the dull ethereal scenery in the frame.  Shamuss cursed himself for falling asleep on one of the more important nights of the year and ardently hoped that Jessa had succeeded in stopping the Conhenci ritual.  

The young sage crossed the floor and used the magic oval portal to glide through the ethereal, looking for stretches and tears in the seamless grey fabric, signs that the ritual had begun.  So far nothing, at least not near the city.  He would take a moment later and scan as much as he could, but he was weak with hunger and scrounged food from the kitchen onto a clay plate.

An hour later Shamuss perused the ethereal plane via the mirror.  His mind idly wondered where Marak had gone.  _Perhaps Jessa had succeeded already and they were off celebrating at Hook’s Tavern,_ he thought.  _It figures they would leave me behind._

Thoughts of Jessa and Marak together bounced in his head as he gazed into the magic mirror.  That was when Shamuss noticed that the mirror never showed any stretches or tears into or out of the ethereal, not even to the prime material plane.  Surely there had to have been someone or something that had pierced through to the ethereal recently, and there had to be signs of it somewhere.  The sage zoomed to view near a spot favored by the Magisters’ Guild and saw that there were no traces where there was normally heavy traffic.  He had just assumed the mirror had worked properly, especially for the price he paid, and he hadn’t bothered to look closely until now.  Alarmed, Shamuss tossed it aside and paused to grab his small bag before darting out the door into the bright noon sun.  

* * * * *

Shamuss needed to find Marak to see if Jessa had succeeded.  They had been tricked, and the large foreigner was likely at the temple waiting patiently like a lap dog for Jessa to return.  Shamuss had known the man for over a decade, half of his young life.  As a servant, Marak rarely left the house, and when he did most of the time he could be found praying to Pelor at the temple.  Shamuss ran there, hoping to find him as well as use the holy water as a weak scrying device.  

The sage burst into the temple, franticly looking about for Marak, but gave up quickly.  He took a golden bowl and filled it with holy water before retreating to a private antechamber.  Once he had the bowl in his lap it took him longer than he liked to clear his thoughts and peer down calmly into the water.  In the subtle ripples of the holy water he saw the steps to the cult of Lorleena, and traced his way through the front doors.  Beyond was a sight that pushed the air from his lungs and he nearly lost the vision.  Inside was a bloodbath.  

The bodies of the thirty or so men that went with Jessa were strewn about, slaughtered in a one-sided battle.  Shamuss bent closer to the surface of the water and examined their wounds.  They had been trapped inside the large foyer and cut to ribbons with wicked long spears from moveable side panels, something he hadn’t seen in his magical spying.  His incompetence had gotten them killed.  He looked around for Jessa’s body, but found only a score of the others.  Tears from his cheeks fell into the water, and Shamuss watched the image begin to fade.  He shouted and threw the bowl across the small antechamber where it broke into pieces.  The water soaked the wall and he saw the last of the bloody picture fade from it.  

* * * * *

Shamuss knew he didn’t have time to venture to the Magisters’ Guild to gain access to a crystal ball.  He would have to make the jump into the ethereal and investigate himself.  The young sage ran to Hook’s Tavern and rented a private room, paying for two nights in advance and demanded privacy.  He would have it, as Shamuss was a generous customer, and they were surprised that not even Marak was to disrupt him.  

He sat on his folded legs and gathered his strength for the upcoming journey, as it was always rough on his health.  Shamuss concentrated and pierced through the barrier of the material plane and found the ethereal on the other side.  He felt the usual sensation of his skin being stripped from his flesh as he pushed his consciousness into the adjacent plane.  Despite all of his planar travels, Shamuss never grew comfortable with the many feelings of jumping from one to the next.  

The ethereal plane had never been a safe place to Shamuss, as his first ghostly encounter had nearly killed him.  It never seemed a place that anything beyond monsters and ghosts could call home, and there was precious little on the plane for anyone to be territorial.  He likened the plane to an ocean, with the shore being closest to the material plane.  He had only wandered in the shallow ethereal and had never attempted delving into darker depths.  Jaunting there had always been unnecessary after he had learned how to use magical devices effectively, and now he wished he had spent more time becoming comfortable with ‘walking the fog.’  

Shamuss moved slowly through the ether.  First he climbed upward to gain his bearings then walked in the direction of the cult of Lorleena, keeping his eyes open through the blur for any signs of the Conhenci rite.  

He crossed through the ether, staying in the shallowness of the plane near the material world to keep his bearings.  Shamuss stopped in front of the familiar doors, behind which he knew of the death.  He hoped none of the deceased had crossed to into the undead world as ghosts to have their revenge on him now.  He glided through the doors and into the dark foyer.  Seeing nothing he continued onward to the main ritual chamber.  The ethereal winds whipped around him; the sage knew the Conhenci rite would have started by now, and he walked swiftly down the narrow corridors.  He paused at one of the columns, fuzzy in the ethereal realm, and peered beyond it to the main chamber.  

Shamuss saw a circle of cultists surrounded by candles, not in the material world, but like him, in the ethereal.  He blinked to make sure that it wasn’t a trick, that the fog of ether hadn’t clouded his spectacles or his mind.  Sure enough it was real, and the ritual was happening.  He watched the rite for a while as each of the twelve members added a piece to the spell and stepped back to rejoin the circle.  As his mind weighed the options before him, Marak rested a heavy hand on the sage’s shoulder.  Shamuss turned with a start.    

“Marak!” he whispered, “what are you doing here?”  Shamuss could hardly believe his servant was also in the ethereal, though he seemed just as uncomfortable.  The sage was reminded that he needed to keep his guard up as he wouldn’t hear the footsteps of anyone approaching.  
Marak’s face was stoic.  “I’ve just come to make sure you do what you’re supposed to.”
Shamuss nodded and adjusted his glasses.  “Good.  Well, give me a minute to come up something.”  Both of them watched and waited.  Soon they saw the fabric of the plane stretch, and on the brink of tearing.  

Shamuss said, “Let’s try a distraction.  If you can disrupt them by dragging one of the heathens from the circle I’ll stop the rest of the rite with magic.  It won’t take me long, so we have a pretty good chance.”
“No, we don’t.” Marak replied.
Shamuss squinted, “Sure we do, don’t be so…”  He stopped in mid sentence when he looked at Marak.  The large man’s face spoke volumes, but Shamuss stammered, not understanding.  “We have to stop those heathens!” Shamass said.
“I am a foreigner, a servant to you for a long time, and I have listened.  I have understood what you mean by heathen.  Am I not a heathen too?” Marak replied.
Shamuss looked up at the large man.  In his mind he knew that Marak was right, that by his own definition Marak was a heathen, and would always draw suspicion from him.  He focused on the larger picture once again.  He had to convince the jaded man that this was no time to argue.  “I… We… But the rite… we have to stop it!”
Marak was stern.  “No.  I am no longer a servant to you.  I have a new master now, and she knows I am not a heathen.  I don’t want to see you hurt.  Please be still and don’t fight.”  

Shamuss sprinted toward the ceremony, moving through the ether.  He could sense Marak chasing him, moving just as slowly, but he had to try.  His enchantment began but was never completed as Marak tackled him from behind, and they both spun through the fog.  With his legs wrapped around Shamuss, Marak landed three blows to knock the sage unconscious.  

* * * * *

Shamuss woke on his side, his hands bound in the straps from Marak’s sandals.  The taste of blood was fresh in his mouth.  In front of him Jessa was also bound with leather straps and had had most of her belongings removed.  Her auburn hair was stained with blood and her eyes were closed peacefully.  She was still so beautiful to him.  He heard the voices of the Conhenci rite continuing behind him, and he struggled to move in the ether to see how far along they had come.  He was horrified.  

The great head of the demigoddess had pushed through the tear in the ethereal from another plane.  It looked strangely like a rabbit, ghostly, and with gnashing jaws and terrible spines along its back.   Shamuss knew that the form it took in the ethereal plane would be pleasant compared with how it might appear in the material world, and he wrestled his imagination to stay calm.  The Conhenci rite was gathering speed, the chants had become feverish, and time was running out.   

Shamuss saw his bag in Marak’s large hands.  “Did you look through all of my things just like you did hers?  There’s something inside that you and your new mistress might want to see.”
“Ah.” Marak responded, but didn’t move.  
“You see, like Jessa, I always have a back-up plan.  It will destroy the beast of Lorleena in the ethereal before she can get to our world.  The only problem with the plan is that it will obliterate anything in the ethereal, including us.”  Shamuss was bluffing, but he did know there was one last back-up plan.  
Marak swiveled to look at the sage.  “So you would kill us all instead of letting the rite be completed?”
“If it’s completed we’ll all be doomed anyway, so we may as well die protecting the city.” Shamuss said.  

Marak eased his hand into the bag.  He pulled out several scrolls and Shamuss’s journal, and then gazed down at what he found in his hand.  He slowly let the bag slip from his hands and Shamuss could see that he was holding the three figurines Marak had seen last night.  Marak and Shamuss looked each other in the eye.  

Shamuss spoke each word slowly, deliberately.  “I couldn’t help but spy on you last night Marak.  I know how limited your experience is with the city, and I wanted to make sure that you would arrive back safely.  I saw you looking at them, and decided to get them for you.  I didn’t mean that you are a heathen, Marak, I know that I am confusing sometimes.  I called them heathens because of their cruelty and selfishness.  You are different than that, you care about us, about the welfare of others.  I know how much I take you for granted sometimes.  I wanted to thank you for all of the things you do for me.  I wanted to give them to you after we had stopped the rite.”

A rush of emotion overcame the big man, tears streaming down his cheeks.  He clenched the figures and pressed them to his chest and wept.  He glanced between the unmoving Jessa, Shamuss, and the ongoing rite.  He was ashamed of his choice now, having been coerced into undermining Shamuss.  He didn’t want Jessa to know, and he wanted to run far away to another land to escape his errors once more.  _Not this time_, thought the strong man.  _This time I will pay for my mistakes, with my blood if need be.  _ 

Marak loosened his shoe straps and refused to look Shamuss in the eye.  
Shamuss said “Look, don’t worry about Jessa or me or anything else right now.  We have got to stop them.”
Marak snuffled several more times before he looked up. “Ah,” he said.
“Remember the time when Jessa kissed you long enough for me to sneak by the high priest at the temple?  Let’s try that again.”
“You want me to kiss her?  Now?  She’s not even awake, and somehow I think that’s wrong.” Marak replied, blinking.
“Yes, of course it’s wrong.  But what I want you to do is kiss the head priestess there.” Shamuss said.  
Marak gazed at his new master.  “Ah, alright.  Will that break up the ritual?”
“No, but it’s a start.  I will do the rest.”

Marak jumped into motion.  His legs moving as fast as they could, he was upon her in the same stealthy fashion he had used to surprise Shamuss.  He gripped the priestess by the waist and planted his lips solidly on hers.  She screamed and the other priests lowered their chanting to glance at her while maintaining their concentration.  Still Marak clasped her to him, forcing their faces together.  

Jessa stirred and felt her head pound with pain.  Her eyes focused first on Marak and the cultist, then on the huge rabbit head with white spines.  She thought she must be dreaming and let the pain overtake her once more.  

The priestess clawed at Marak’s eyes and spun away from him.  He still clung to her silken robes and tried to reel her back to him.  With enough space between them she cast a spell, and he was slammed in the face with a heavy force that sent him sailing in the direction of Lorleena’s head.  The priestess was in tow, as Marak had refused to let go, and they tumbled recklessly toward the demigoddess’s open maw.  

She struck the nose of the titanic creature, her body being the size of one of its nostrils.  Marak let go of her and glanced along one of the creatures lips, struggled for a hand hold.  His hand found one of the whiskers and he clasped it with both hands.  Marak watched horrified as she, only the second woman he had ever kissed, screamed desperately.  He saw a tongue wrap over her head and pull her down into its mouth, and now only the chanting of the other cultists could be heard.  

Shamuss hovered above the gigantic head of the demigoddess and focused on magic to seal the tear in the ethereal plane.  Marak’s distraction had given him a foothold against the cultists, but he would have a tough fight as they redoubled their efforts.  He worked at pushing the humongous head back through the void and was met with some success.  Several of the other priests broke their concentration to target him with hexes.  Shamuss grinned when their spells failed to do what the casters hoped, as he knew the rules for magic were different in the ethereal.  With their hold weakened, the sage pulled the tear closed.  

Marak had closed his eyes and waited for the end to come and held onto the large whisker with all his might.  He felt something pulling at him, trying to yank him loose, but he held fast.  Eventually something gave, and he was thrown wildly backward.  He opened his eyes and saw the horrid whisker lying next to him on the ethereal ground.  Marak looked up and saw Shamuss giggling with glee as the other cultists fled back into the material world.  

* * * * *

Jessa awoke to an empty room.  A fire was burning in the fireplace and she recognized the hooked pokers.  She was in a private room of Hook’s Tavern.  She recounted the ambush and her strange, but realistic, dreams.  It all seemed a fog to her now, and she pivoted to put her feet on the floor.  

“Glad to see you’re finally awake,” said Shamuss, “and I’ll bet you’re hungry too.”
“Yes,” she said, “I had the strangest dreams.”
“I’m sure you did.  We had a pretty tough time without you, didn’t we?” Shamuss asked as Marak entered.
“You bet.” Marak answered.  
Jessa saw the scabs around his eyes from where the priestess had scratched him and gasped.  “But… it was a dream…I was so sure…”

Marak smiled.  “Nah, it was real.  Hey boss, you want some tea?”
“You know I don’t, and stop calling me boss.  You are a free man and have earned my respect as an equal, so do us both a favor.” Shamuss said.  
“Ah, what’s the matter, are you afraid I’m going to try to drug you again?” Marak chided.  
Jessa asked, “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing,” replied both simultaneously.  

After finishing his stew Marak pointed out the window, beyond the figures on the windowsill.  “So I never got to ask you, what are those stone statues down the street for?  I noticed them on my way to the nobles’ district.”  
Shamuss looked to Jessa for the answer.  “That’s the final back-up plan.” Jessa answered.  “I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”


----------



## Piratecat (Nov 22, 2004)

*Three Kings*

_Autumn 2004 Round 2-4: MarauderX vs. Piratecat_


The _Three Kings_ was five days out of Brighton before Jasper Stanhope was invited to the Captain’s mess. The young auditor had been virtually ignored since he had first stepped onto the deck, and he still didn’t have his sea legs yet. He had spent most of the time lying in his canvas hammock within a sweltering storeroom. Every pitch and yaw of the vessel was reflected within his aching stomach, and the notion of dining with the captain was less than enticing. He couldn’t afford to be rude, however. Too much was at stake. 

“Mister Stanhope. I’m Captain Wallace.” The captain didn’t rise as Stanhope ducked through the low door and entered the cabin. Wallace was dressed in a pristine white uniform. Seated next to him at the small table was an attractive young woman in a surprisingly formal silk dress. No other crew was present, but the table was laden with dishes of food. Captain Wallace already clenched a spoon in one calloused hand, a bowl of stew in front of him.

Stanhope gave a small bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain.” He gave another bow to the girl. “I hope I’m not late.”

Wallace’s voice had a burr of the north country to it, and hostility was evident.  “You are. We’ve been waiting three minutes. We started without you.” He squinted at Stanhope.  “Did ye get lost?”

Stanhope gave a polite chuckle as he sat down at the end of the table across from the Captain. No one else echoed it. Stanhope cleared his throat.

“May I ask, sir, who is the lovely young lady dining with us?” The girl was fifteen or so, fine-boned with wide blue eyes behind small spectacles. She turned her head towards Stanhope and smiled, and he was appalled to see that she had accidentally dribbled stew down her chin and the front of her silk dress. She didn’t seem to have noticed, or if she did she didn’t care. Stanhope wondered if the girl was somewhat touched in the head.

Captain Wallace cleared his throat. “This is my daughter, Abigail.” He nodded at her. “Say hello to the auditor, Abigail.” He made it sound like an insult. _He probably means it as one,_ Stanhope thought.

Abigail looked over into Stanhope’s face and smiled. “Hello,” she said shyly. Stanhope smiled back at her, silently cringing at her slovenly table manners, and when he turned back was shocked to see the fury dancing behind the Captain’s eyes.

“Abigail comes on all of my voyages with me,” said the Captain. “I bring her to keep her safe. She’s a very special girl, and not one to mix with the sailors. Talking to her without my express permission will get a man lashed, and if anyone ever had the stupidity to touch her I’d murder the bastard. Do you ken what I’m saying?” His index finger tapped against the table, keeping time with every syllable. His face was red, and he looked as scared as he did angry.

“Of course,” Stanhope said smoothly. He tried not to glance over at Abigail, who was still dripping sauce down her front as she looked at him. “A commendable attitude, I’m sure.”  Stanhope felt nervous bile rising in his throat. _He’d do it, too,_ Stanhope realized, _and the Good Lord pity anyone who would be so stupid as to steal away Wallace’s poor excuse of a daughter._ He groped for a change of subject.

“It looks like you run a fine ship, Captain. I haven’t had a chance yet to talk to any of your crew or officers, but they seem to be the model of efficiency.”

Wallace eyed him. “Why’d you want to talk to them, then? You’ve no reason to.”

Stanhope raised his eyebrows. “Captain, you know my duty. . .”

The man across from him clenched one fist. “Indeed I do, sir. And I know my officers. Unlike my crew, they’ve been with me for many a run. They’re fine men, each of them. Busy men. They know how to run a ship.” The captain smirked. “Do _you_ know how to run a ship, Mister Stanhope?”

“Well, no, Captain,” said Stanhope carefully. “That’s not my job.”

The captain’s voice was steady. “Then ye’ll stay the hell out of their way or by the powers I’ll throw ye overboard.”

“Captain, I. . .”

“Make no mistake about it, Mister Stanhope.” The captain leaned forward over the wooden table, one square fist planted solidly in his daughter’s plate of food. Beans slid like oozing blood around his clenched knuckles, but neither of them seemed to notice. His voice was low and hard to hear at first over the constant creaking of the ship.  “My officers know that I don’t care for extraneous passengers on my voyages. I especially don’t care for company auditors who wish to count pennies and grade how I conduct my business. The _Three Kings_ is an old ship but a sound one, and it’s hauling the cargo it was made for. It’s not designed for lubbers who think they’ve a right to tell me how to handle my affairs!” His rising voice was close to bellowing by the time he finished. 

_He’s covering something._  “That’s not my job, Captain.” Stanhope managed a quick and sincere smile as he lied. “You haven’t been doing anything wrong. Quite the reverse, actually. Your voyages are substantially _more_ profitable than the average for our vessels. The owners have asked me to study your methods and determine what things you are doing which bring you such great success. My presence here isn’t a punishment or a threat, and I’m sorry if you somehow thought it was.”

Wallace grunted and jabbed a piece of chewy beef into his mouth. “Is that so?” He sounded suspicious.

“Yes indeed.” Stanhope broke open a ship’s biscuit and was surprised to see weevils dropping onto his bread plate. They squirmed there, legs waving in the humid air. _Weevils in the bread already?_ wondered the auditor. _We just set out from port!_ No one else seemed to notice. Across from him, the Captain stuffed a biscuit into his mouth whole, chewing loudly before washing it down with a swig of wine. Stanhope surreptitiously pushed the bread plate away from him. The next time his gaze fell on it, the weevils were gone.

“You’ll probably notice the crew slaving away up on deck,” said the Captain with an odd smile.

“Indeed.” Stanhope looked up expectantly.

“That’s not true slaving, Mister Stanhope. We both know that you’re here to find out why I have to hire on an entirely new crew every time I reach port.”

_Cutting right to the chase,_ thought Stanhope. He nodded.

“I thought as much. The _Three Kings_ is haunted. That’s the reason. If ye had asked before we left port, ye could still be on dry land.”

Stanhope blinked. To his right, Abigail dabbed at her lips with a napkin, completely missing the trail of gristle and sauce that descended from her chin.  “Haunted?”

“Aye.” The older man leaned back in his chair. “It’s got a foul spirit on board, and a terrible curse. She used to be a slave ship running black ivory through the middle passage. She sailed under a captain named Gibbs. Y’heard of him? He was infamous. Over twenty runs, six to eight weeks at sea each way, over four hundred Africans chained in the hold every time. He packed them in, did Gibbs, right tightly. Legend has it that he dumped more than five loads.”

Stanhope felt sick. “Dumped. . .?”

Wallace was enjoying himself at Stanhope’s discomfort. “Supposedly he was chased by military vessels, but by the time they overhauled him there wasn’t a negro on board. Probably hooked their coffles to lead weights and. . .” He made a little swooping motion with his hand to indicate sinking. Stanhope’s stomach lurched. “Nine years ago, in ‘51, they found the ship floating completely empty off the coast of Cuba. No slaves, no crew, no Captain. No one knows why. They converted her to a merchantman, took out the shelves and the chains, sold her to the current owners and hired me to sail her.” He took a sip of wine. “Now the ship is haunted, though. You can hear them down in the hold, if you listen at the right time. you can smell them. And _that’s_ why I keep hiring new crews, and that’s why the owners sent you to investigate.”

The door opened and the first mate stuck his head in. “Needed on deck, Cap’n,” the big man mumbled. “Sails.”

Wallace shook his head. “Pray continue eating. I’ll be right back.”  As he stood, Stanhope noticed what looked like a small wine stain on the Captain’s sleeve. He pointed it out as the Captain left the room.

Wallace’s smile was thin. “That’s not wine, Mister Stanhope.” He rubbed a blunt finger across the stain and brought it to his lips, tasting it. Then he was gone and striding up to the deck.

Cradling the tea cup in her hands, Abigail clumsily sipped tea before turning to Stanhope. “It’s from the beatings,” she said helpfully. “Daddy has a knout.”

Stanhope was startled. “What?”

Abigail pointed over to the far wall, where an odd knobbed bone leaned against a corner. “It’s a knout, like a whip. He found it washed up on a beach. Daddy uses it to beat people to death when they’ve been bad. And when they’ve touched me. People don’t touch me much any more.” She sounded sad.

“He. . . he does?” The slender end of the flogging stick was tinted red, and the knobbed end was worn from long use. Stanhope turned his gaze back to the girl. “What is it, anyways?”

“It’s a bone from a whale’s pizzle,” said Abigail. She took another drooling sip of tea that extended the food stains on her dress front, but took no notice. “That’s what Daddy said. If people want to put their pizzle in me, they’ll get beaten to death with one. He uses it for other punishments, too.  It makes people scream very loudly. The three kings tell us not to ruin the merchandise, though. That’s important. ” Her eyes lit up, and she put one hand on Stanhope’s leg as she leaned forward with curiosity. “Say, do _you_ have a pizzle?”

Just then the door opened behind them, and Stanhope almost knocked over the table leaping to his feet. “Did I miss anything?” asked the Captain as he reentered the room.

“Daddy, I was just asking Mr. Stanhope about his -- ” 

“It’s a boring job, Miss Wallace,” interrupted the auditor. “Truly it is.” As soon as protocol allowed, Stanhope claimed seasickness and bid his good evening to the Captain and the girl. He was conscious of both parties watching him as he left the cabin, one with adoration and one with unalloyed suspicion. For some reason he thought again of the weevils in the bread, and he managed to make it to the rail before getting sick.

Within a week, the auditor had begun to think that Captain Wallace may not have been lying. He was certainly a brutal sadist with a beautiful half-wit for a daughter, but he must have been convincing; the auditor’s dreams had been haunted for several nights with dreams of being chained in a stinking, claustrophobic hell of bodies and disease. Twice he’d woken up screaming, sure that he was chained to someone only inches away. The entire crew seemed subdued. Perhaps that was because Wallace was giving an average of one beating a day with the whalebone knout. No one had been killed yet, but with the Captain willing to flog more the mildest of offenses it was only a matter of time. _No wonder he loses every crew,_ thought Stanhope. _I’d desert the bastard myself._

Stanhope wanted to see the old logs, though, and Wallace wouldn’t show them to him. Three requests had produced angrier and angrier responses, and Stanhope was now convinced that Wallace was hiding something. The question was, what to do about it?

He glanced out the porthole. Dusk was falling and a storm was blowing in; he knew that Captain Wallace would be on deck for at least the next hour. He took his oil lantern and slipped out of his tiny cabin. 

Up on deck, the rigging was groaning horribly every time the _Three Kings_ wallowed and pitched in the trough of a wave. _Talk about suggestible,_ he thought. _That really does sound like people screaming. And what’s that smell? Sewage?_ As he made his way across the swaying deck towards the Captain’s quarters, he felt something nagging at him. Something he should remember but couldn’t, something important that had been chased out by his over-active imagination. _Damn it, there are no slaves down there, _Stanhope thought. _I’ve been in the hold. It’s full of fabric and goods. Not bodies. Quit imagining things._ Clinging to the rail as the ship rolled, Stanhope stared at the hatch down to the hold beneath his feet until stinging droplets of rain began to pelt him from above. 

He quietly pulled the Captain’s door open when there was no answer to his knock. The cabin was dark. He shut the door behind him and made his way to the large desk in the corner. Turning up the light of his lantern, it didn’t take him long to discover the hidden log books from previous voyages. 

Abigail found him there fifteen minutes later when she entered her father’s cabin. Stanhope wasn’t precisely in a romantic mood. Instead he was full of fury, his previous nervous vaporings forgotten. “Girl,” he barked from behind the desk, “why is it that your father hasn’t paid off _a single crewman_ from the last three voyages? That’s why he’s made such a profit. He isn’t paying wages to anyone but the officers. Why not? They can’t _all_ have deserted.”

Abigail stood framed in the doorway, the pale lamplight glinting from her spectacles. Her eyes were wide as she closed the hatch behind her. “Because of the three kings, of course,” she answered. “Daddy and the safe men brought in the boat by themselves. They always do for the last day.”

“What?” Stanhope was perplexed. “What do you mean? Are you talking about the ship itself?”

“No, silly!” Abigail nimbly crossed the cabin. “The treasure. It goes with the ship. Daddy found it hidden in the figurehead when he first claimed it. He won’t let me touch it. It’s very old, older than the ship. The Three Kings.” She pouted and pointed to a sea chest behind Stanhope. He turned and jiggled the lid, expecting it to be locked. It seemed to be at first, but then opened smoothly with an oily click. Not knowing what to expect, Stanhope raised the lid.

They looked almost like chess pieces, and the shadow around them seemed alive. They were the only thing in the chest. Then the reek of the dead air assaulted his nostrils.

*yOu ARe eaRlY.

We dID nOt ExPEct thE OfFerINgS so SoON.

wE WiLL ceLeBrATe yoUr GiFts.*

He realized with a shock that he hadn’t actually heard a thing. The voices slid into his brain through his nose. The smell coming from the statuettes was the reek of a sulpherous charnal house. He smelled rotting flesh and human waste and the sharp pang of fear, but the odors somehow carried _voices._

“As we celebrate _yours!_” Abigail said gaily from behind him. “I’ve certainly missed you.” Stanhope spun and gaped at her.

*WE sMeLl yOur bLoOD uPoN ThE sEa. 

tHe olD bOUnTy dIes qUiCKly, aNd SomEOnE mUSt RoW.

ShAlL wE CoMe nOW fOr tHAt WhICh yoU oFfEr?*

“Why, yes, please!” said Abigail. “How fun. You’ll love seeing this, Mr. Stanhope. They come and get the merchandise from us. It’s truly a sight to see.”

_Merchandise?_ wondered Stanhope. The fabrics?  Then Abigail’s words during dinner struck him, and he remembered what had been nagging at him. _“The three kings tell us not to ruin the merchandise, though.”_ But at the time they had been talking about punishing the crew! Understanding flooded in, and he gazed in horror at the three simple statues. 

Suddenly he realized that the ship had stopped pitching. He glanced out the porthole on the  wall beside him, and with a thrill of horror saw that the nighttime sea and its accompanying storm had been replaced with. . . emptiness. Empty sky, empty sea, nothing there but shadow and scent. They had left the ocean. It was more terrifying than he could have imagined. He heard the crew screaming from the deck above, but he somehow felt utterly alone. 

Then Abigail was beside him, murmuring and groping at his clothing, trying to pull him onto the desk as her spectacles slipped from her nose. He fought back his panic long enough to focus on what she was saying.

“Don’t worry, silly, they’re not actually demons. They have too many legs for that. Or not enough.” She pursed her lips. “It’s a little hard to tell. They’ll come now, and they’ll take away what they need, just like they always have. You called them this time instead of Daddy, so you must claim me. I wonder if they mind that? I’ll stay with you if I can.” She looked up at him, her eyes calm and trusting, but in her excitement she had begun to slobber. “Can we send away my Daddy? That way I can be yours forever and ever and he can be with all the others in the bad place. We’ll get more ships, and more, and the more gifts we give the stronger we’ll be!” Her laugh was like tinkling crystal. As she slipped her hand up his leg he reflexively looked over to the wall where Wallace kept his knout. It was gone.

“We’ve got to stop this.” He pushed her away and turned back to the chest with the hideous figurines in it. There he froze. Somehow, the pieces of roughly carved stone were _examining_ him, and the miasma rose up around him once again.

*uNExPecTEd. YoU aRe NOt HE whO HAs cALlEd uS beFoRe.

UNfOrtUnATe.

tEMeRitY.*

“Oh God oh God.” From above he heard the furious roar of the captain from somewhere far off, the swish of the whalebone whip, the pounding of feet overhead. He realized that he was probably doomed. He tore himself from Abgail’s greedy hands and ran back to the porthole. 

The smell from outside was abhorrent. It was fear and sweat and filth, the scent of disease. He squinted, and where there had been mist was now. . . something. A ship? Yes, rowed by the screams of a thousand human souls, but also a face and a fish. Maybe even something more. Three recognizable things. Three Kings. Of Hell? _Maybe_, reflected Stanhope, _of someplace worse._  He felt his mind peeling away a layer at a time, like an onion rotting in the sun, and he wailed as he dashed back to the chest. Abigail waited for him there, but he fell to his knees over the darkness and screamed into the spreading void.

“I supercede the Captain! I represent the owners of this ship, who can fire the Captain whenever they want. Oh please, please, listen to me, I do!” He was grasping at straws, but he babbled it again and again to the tiny figurines. 

*hE WHo coMmANds CarRIeS tHE buRdEN OF sIn.

Do YOu aCCePT thIs bURdEn?

tHe REwaRdS arE PaLPaBLe.*

Stanhope hesitated, weighing costs that he couldn’t even guess at. He could hear the slaves now, screaming and sobbing, just as he could hear the crew of the _Three Kings_ praying or panicking. He could feel Abigail’s hot breath against her neck and her hands in his hair.

He rested his forehead against the edge of the chest, and his tears fell into the darkness around the statuettes. He thought about how many ships the owners controlled, how many he could control himself as he rose in the business. He wondered how many sailors would be missed. He felt himself slipping through icy water, chained to a hundred other souls. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

He chose.

-- o --

A sip of tea: Abigail’s unfortunate first impression
Bullwhip: the Captain’s knout, a bone whip made from certain portions of a whale
3 Kings: the representations of those who claim the offering
Oval: the porthole looking onto dimness
Nexus: the slave ship of the three kings, crewed by those already given over


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## Piratecat (Nov 22, 2004)

Before I got the photos I had been _hoping_ to write something cheerful and happy, but it just didn't work out that way.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 22, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Before I got the photos I had been _hoping_ to write something cheerful and happy, but it just didn't work out that way.




Cheerful and happy are overrated.    

I'd been hoping to do another Kylo Krumboldt story, but it hasn't been in the cards. err..pictures.


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## Berandor (Nov 22, 2004)

Btw, Rodrigo, would you mind telling me where the fifth pic goes to? I seem to miss the link (even if I suspect where it is referenced).


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 22, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Btw, Rodrigo, would you mind telling me where the fifth pic goes to? I seem to miss the link (even if I suspect where it is referenced).




D'oh.

Cut and paste only works if I remember to paste.  Since you're asking, I hope I'm not violating the no-edit rule 

"Anders willed himself to relax, extending his paranormal senses outwards. He saw the hallway outside, saw the elevator doors open, saw his former colleagues enter the small enclosure, saw them press the button that would take them to the lobby. (Picture 5)"


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## Berandor (Nov 22, 2004)

I figured that's where it belonged. As to rules violations, I defer to mythago.


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## Maldur (Nov 22, 2004)

It was me, Im so sorry life has been a bit hectic.

First two send, the other two will show up shortly


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## orchid blossom (Nov 22, 2004)

Maldur said:
			
		

> It was me, Im so sorry life has been a bit hectic.
> 
> First two send, the other two will show up shortly




No worries.  Life can be like that sometimes.  Hope it's more relaxed now.


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## Maldur (Nov 23, 2004)

no


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## Maldur (Nov 23, 2004)

Last two judgements send. 

Im sorry my tardiness made you waiting, you all wrote some amazing tales.


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## mythago (Nov 23, 2004)

Judgments will all go up tonight. Sorry for the delay; the five-year-old is still kinda sick. 

American contestants, start thinking about how Turkey Day would afffect your availability..]


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## Berandor (Nov 23, 2004)

My judgements for 2.3 and 2.4 are not done yet, just fyi. I'll be going over the stories a third time tomorrow, this time with a marker. All four matches have been fairly close, though, so hats off to the contestants.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 23, 2004)

FYI -- I'll be out of town starting tomorrow morning, and computer/web access will be kind of limited.    If I move on to the next round and need to start the next round before Monday 11/29, I'd appreciate it if someone could email me a heads-up (jckline at gmail.com).  Thanks.


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## Sparky (Nov 24, 2004)

I'm out for Thursday, but am good after that.


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2004)

If I do happen to make it to the next round, I'll be away from a reliable internet connection until about Sunday, but then I should be ready to go (and the sooner the better, finals are coming!)


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## RangerWickett (Nov 24, 2004)

I'm drunk, and so I will tell you a story using the first three illustrations I see.

the back of Wild Spellcraft.

And lo, the J-Pop did mightily pain their ears, and steam poured forth, and obscured them from the kuo-toa.

a cat on a Japanese textbook.

Thereafter, they fled, and met a cat who held forth a godlen coin and said, ye who cannot spell are blessed.  Hand over your money, and you will be rewareded.  All teh group handed over their shoes, mispelling "kin," for "Kutstu," which is shoe.  And they were rewarded with kung=fu powers.

Hya!!!!

And zomibis attacked, and wth the power of song, Michael Jackson led them to a 'Thrilling' conclusion of ki blasts and cleaving power attacking whirlwind attacks (rules be darned), and the zombies were crushed.

Huzzah.

Refrain of the soul.

Your sugochi is a little tall, I said.  And my vocabulary of Japanese is lacking.  Gomenasai, minna san.


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2004)

Uh... what now? That was intersting (which can be said of many CDM stories).


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## mythago (Nov 24, 2004)

Maldur
 MacBeth vs Orchid Blossom

 Now that is a nifty idea, MacBeth.
 OB, another fine story, I esp like the use of the herb crushing
 ballbearings.

 Hard but I would say: MacBeth

Berandor

*Macbeth: "Writer's Block"*
_On November 15th, 2004, a South-African writer participated in an online writing contest. A day later, he disappeared. Only his laptop has been found._
 A Ceramic DM story about a Ceramic DM story. First of all, I wonder how much of what you attribute to your protagonist corresponds with your own approach. Do you wait 24h before writing? Do you google ideas?
 You start off strong, the recognition of the contest draws me in, the following metaphor sealing the deal:
 "...a writer's road block manned by police wearing bullet-proof vests who (the vests?) blow out my tires every time I make a break for anidea."
 The good thing about your story is that the woes of a Ceramic competitor ring true. "It's just a story, just some stupid competition,..."
 Calling in sick is a little too much, though. It shows me the protagonist is willing to go to great lengths for his story.

 The danger with a story like yours is the same as with the repetitive phrases - you must be careful to use it for good measure, lest it becomes a gimmick and not much more. I guess the comment about the pics ("Hands. Stones.") was inevitable, though. I think this story runs close to becoming a gimmick (especially when you include smack-talk to orchid blossom in it), but it veers off just in time.

 What I find interesting is that your stories often include technopaganism (or what I would call technopaganism). Here, Ted "prays to [his] DSL connection... A blessing of ones and zeroes." And if web utilities are modern Gods, then Google is the head of the pantheon.

 By the time Ted heads off to the park (and we see the pic a second time), I'm getting impatient. So when do you stop talking about the tournament and give us a story? Thankfully, you introduce us to shared memory. I think the short explanation was enough to understand what you were getting at, and the long version was neither to the point nor
 detailed enough to earn its existence. I think that you actually missed explaining the nature of said memory in a way that corresponds with your story.
 At first, it says that "whatever enough people learn, everybody knows", and then Ted goes searching for some obscure knowledge. At first, it seems as if the shared memory was just a repository of archetypes and common knowledge, but then it's more like a giant shelf with myriad bowls, each bowl representing one specific item of knowledge, and the amount of people who know it filling the bowl; as soon as enough people
 know it, the knowledge spills.

 So then Ted discovers his error, and he reaches the village, where "the dome ends just at the first hut." Huh? What dome? Is it a dome of light? A dome of fibreglass installed by the police? Of course, I think it is a dome of light thanks to the pics and the following events, but at first it isn't clear because all we know is that Ted sees "a glow",
 not a giant dome of light.
 Then, the Meme Keeper. "I don't know what the Meme Keeper is, but I'm not sure I want to find out." Sounds dangerous, mysterious - good. But the very next sentence is "With nothing better to do, I got to the hut." Wait a moment? I thought Ted didn't want to find out? and "nothing better to do"? There's a dome of light coming probably from his laptop, he's got a writing deadline, and he's got nothing better to do?
 "It's not as bad as I thought." Well, what did he think? What did he expect? Anyway, so the Meme Keeper speaks with a "regal voice": "So, you know something of this?" / "You know, the Meme, the racial memory." / "Damn." That's really not how I would expect a Meme Keeper to speak,especially not one with a "regal voice." That's more how I would expect Giles to speak.
 (And later on he's very much rooted in time: "*Now* do you see? He is nothing *now*, but all his memories are part of the meme *now*."

 So then our hero finds out he's brought about the end of the world. And his reaction is "Crap!"? That's the worst word he can think of? I don't think this is bad, I just wanted to point it out in case you just chose then word for the language filter.

 Of course, your story is about an internal conflict having external repercussions, and you write in a very reflective voice, but when Ted sacrifices himself, "I think about my wife" is not enough for me. That's simply not very dramatic. What does he think of? Her name? Her hair? The look in her eyes when she wakes up and sees him in the morning? Her warmth lingering after she has gotten up to make breakfast? Her smell coming to him when he's on the phone with her? Her nasal voice complaining that he didn't put down the toilet seat?
 Of course, the final paragraph is somewhat illogical in Ted's self-awareness after he's gone, but that's all right with me as it works to give us a good ending. And the post scriptum works exceptionally well, even if I wonder how Ted died.

 In the end, I enjoyed the part about the Meme, but I wasn't too keen on the references from a purely objective point of view. Personally, I smiled at a lot of them. Once more a nice entry, Macbeth.

*orchid blossom: "Untitled"*
 A totally different story. I particularly enjoyed the joking conversations between Carlene and Aidan, with all their pot shots and comments - I got the impression these two had been at it for a long time. I also liked the background behind the plot, and hunting sick
 people when a Plague killed most humans seems almost sensible if not for the inherent cruelty.

 Normally, your prose is flawless almost to a fault. This time, however, it didn't come out as well. There were several sentences that were rough or ungainly, for example
 "...as she danced from one song to the next and drank the home brewed beer that had been one of the first things people figured out how to make for themselves." Which home brewed beer? Oh, *that* home brewed beer. You'd be better off with two sentences here.
 "Kieran. You should be sleeping. You've been gone for weeks, and then all that unloading yesterday." sounds more like exposition than like something somebody would say, especially someone with an irreverent touch like Carlene.
 "Aidan pulled back as he saw the wolf's eyes. For a moment, he thought they weren't there, ..." He thought the eyes weren't there? I'm still not sure I understand that sentence after reading the story three times.
 Other things are when Carlene "confirms her diagnosis", a diagnosis we didn't know she'd made, or when it's not clear whether the Morticians are known or not (the villagers don't seem to know who he is - Aidan sure doesn't - but Kieran says "You don't say no to a Mortician.", suggesting that people obey him because of his reputation).

 Now, your plot is fine, with the mortician hunting sick people and Carlene as a healer defending them. However, this plot doesn't receive a lot of detail, while we get information about other things that don't really deal with it (Carlene's training, the whole background about the village and retrievers, the market). The mortician is always "the man in the suit" and remains nameless, faceless and in a way harmless (not even the wolf gets a name).
 All we know is the mortician wears a black suit and drives a car, but we do know where the family lives that finally adopts the sick boy and where he is playing. We do not know whether the picture of a boy as "shingle" is symbolic of something or not, but we do know Mrs Kennedy thinks by drawing a human body you can memorize the muscles better.
 I got the impression you wanted to tell us about Carlene and Aidan, and just threw the sick people and the mortician in to create a little diversion and some tension.

 It's a nice story, but you can do much better.

*The Pics*
_montmartre_ (Yes, I can finally see the pic's name again)
 - orchid blossom has Aidan give Carlene a bas-relief to use as a shingle for her house. Whether the image of a boy signifies something to the post-apolcalyptic society she lives in, we don't know.
 - Macbeth's Meme Keeper has a coin on a chain, given to his grandfather by colonists in exchange for, well, a *lot* of land. (a strange, square coin or a framed coin, I guess). The Keeper uses the coin to show us what the Meme does to the world, ridding it of its information.

_light shines in_
 - Macbeth shows us the Meme Keeper's hut, with said Keeper in the foreground and his family huddling in the back. The dome's light shines through.
 - orchid blossom's sick survivors have sought refuge in the retrievers' hut. There are three people in there, led by a man in "African printed cloth". Sadly, the woman to the left is already dead.

_rowing
 - orchid blossom's mortician approaches the hut in a rowboat manned by retrievers. Fortunately, Carlene notices the boat and manages to hide just in time.
 - Macbeth's river scene is vitally important for the story, so important that we are treated to it four times. This highlights the surprise when suddenly the view from the other side of the river is still the same, but I wouldn't want to read a short story where over 7
 pages, one illustration accompanies the text four times.

wiley
 - Macbeth's gives Ted quite a fearsome looking dog to take with him to the river. Pooch - a fitting name for the slavering beast - is not quite as important as the river itself, so we only see this pic twice.
 Still, the loss of the dog's self showcases the Meme's danger even more than a blank coin does.
 - orchid blossom gives the mortician a hunting wolf, trained to sniff out sickness. From a certain angle, the wolf doesn't have any eyes, and it sneezes when it catches Carlene's oils, but it is the morticians most important hunting tool.

montage
 - orchid blossom gives us Carlene's medical bag, filled with various utensils and the drawing Carlene made of Aidan. The strange contents derive from Carlene's hastily packing and enable Aidan to recognize the bag and understand the danger, prompting him to get one of the retrievers to lie.
 - Macbeth gives us a grab bag packed by Ted in a state of confused frenzy. Everything possibly helpful to connect with the Meme is thrown in, and Ted even scribbles a very competent drawing of the human bodyto go with it. The contents of the bag are perhaps Ted's moment of true inspiration in the story, as he seems to use everything to finally
 connect with the Meme.

*The Judgement*
 Both stories have their share of things to like, but also some things that didn't work for me. I was not impressed with either pic use (though both used the "montage" reasonably well), especially not with Macbeth's recurring pic use - it took me out of the story as I had to click on the link (or think of what the pic was, as it were, since I read a printed version).
 In the end, I felt that orchid blossom's writing was a little off, whereas Macbeth consciously chose the way he wrote the story. "Writer's Block" seems to be more coherent, better focused, and orchid blossom's pic use is not superior enough to make up for that.
 POINT TO 



Spoiler



.............MACBETH



mythago 

   Macbeth - "Writer's Block"

   Okay, let's be honest--writing a story about having writer's block is always a very big risk. Sometimes the story works anyway. A lot of the time it veered towards not working at all. There are interesting elements--the writer's seeking the mass consciousness leading to unexpected consequences, the loss of identify of the dime and the dog. Overall if felt very forced, though. The bracketing telling us how this story was found kills the suspense and really clunks. The dialogue suffers from the "Amber effect," where the characters all pretty much talk alike, as if to make a point of telling us that hey, it's only a story, so don't get too caught up in us. And we don't. Ted isn't interesting. The Meme Keeper is a plot device. Ted's wife is a reference. The tension of the story is in the end of the world, but we already know that never happened, or we couldn't have found Ted's laptop, right?

     There are bits and pieces of some really interesting ideas in there, but the overall sense is of a story the writer didn't much like. The repetitious use of the pics doesn't come across as thrifty or creative, just repetitious, to show us that they can be used more than once. (This could have worked well, in the contrast between the animated Pooch and the meme-struck Pooch, but it isn't convincing. The montage picture was just awful, and honestly I was sick of references to the same river shot.) I kept looking for more of those good ideas but found the story, and picture use, ultimately frustrating.


 orchid blossom - 

     The characters here are interesting, if not terribly inspired (they honestly seem more like types than interesting, individual people; their interactions are slightly more interesting than they are). The world is--or could be--a good setting. The pictures are used well; I particularly like the use of Carlene's bag with its disparate elements. The main problem I had with this story is that it overexplains everything. We're repeatedly told things that are, or could be, obvious (the fact that electricity is rare, the wastefulness of gasoline). The characters don't know things they should so that somebody else can explain it to them, and us. 


   I was puzzled by the herbs throwing off the wolf. Has nobody done this before? Did the Mortician really think the sick woman crawled in and died all by herself?

     I particularly liked the dynamic of the Retrievers going to get sturdy items for trade and sale, but again felt this element was over-explained. It's hard to walk that line between leaving the reader scratching his or her head and telling all, but that's the sweet spot a writer needs to hit.

     My vote this round for orchid blossom, for an overall stronger story and far better use of pictures.

     Winner for this round is 



Spoiler



Macbeth


, who moves up to Round 3._


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## Macbeth (Nov 24, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Maldur
> Now that is a nifty idea, MacBeth.



Thanks. To be honest, I think that idea was all tha oulled me through. Interetsingly enough. PCat said in the feedback thread that he had been contemplatin someday using the same framework.


> Berandor
> A Ceramic DM story about a Ceramic DM story. First of all, I wonder how much of what you attribute to your protagonist corresponds with your own approach. Do you wait 24h before writing? Do you google ideas?



 Yes I google ideas, I spend 24 hours before writing, but I don't usually go crazy. Most of the time.



> The danger with a story like yours is the same as with the repetitive phrases - you must be careful to use it for good measure, lest it becomes a gimmick and not much more. I guess the comment about the pics ("Hands. Stones.") was inevitable, though. I think this story runs close to becoming a gimmick (especially when you include smack-talk to orchid blossom in it), but it veers off just in time.



I did realize the danger (especially as I wrote the damn thing), but i did purposefully stay away from using repetitive phrases (thought it looks like my pictures were too repetitive. Whew!). I don't know what you mean about smack-talking, I tried to be very resprectful of my competitor (the narrator seems very intimidated by his match). THe references to stories by BSF and Alsih2o were chosen specifically becuase (a) I liked those stories and (b)I felt I knew both of them enough they wouldn't take it the wrong way, BSF I even  game with every Friday.



> mythago
> There are bits and pieces of some really interesting ideas in there, but the overall sense is of a story the writer didn't much like.



I have to be honest: you're right, I didn't particularly like it. The premise grabbed me, but I just didn't feel like writing it. The part that went the best for me (the opening and the Ceramic DM references) seemed to carry slightly better then the rest, but I probably got a little carried away with the references.

Thanks a lot to the judges, and a huge round of applause for orchid blossom. I really thought I was going to loose that round. I won't be reliably around until Sunday, but if I do feel I can start earlier I'll post.


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## mythago (Nov 24, 2004)

[font=&quot]Berandor[/font]

[font=&quot]*Firelance: "Burnind Hands - I choose you!" a.k.a. "Cinders"*
Where do I know the story from? Hmm... difficult.
Actually, I was both delighted and worried that you chose to re-interpret a classical fairy tale. Delighted because it's something I like to read, worried because it's very hard to do it right.
On the one hand, you give the reader something to recognize, and have him look for similarities and deviations. On the other hand, you have a basic plot structure that makes aligning events a little easier, especially in a contest where you only have very limited time to write the story. Plus, you make it clear that the reader is just reading a story, hence he can look for parallels to other stories. You also interpret game rules with a personal twist. I absolutely enjoyed your way for sorcerers to learn new spells (Animate Rope, Disguise Self, Burning Hands, etc).

The story's conclusion is referenced throughout, which I personally like more than having a total surprise ending as it rewards attentive readers. The stepmother's name "Feuxmains", Brina's explained difference between witches and sorcerers. I also liked that the Baron recognized Ella's face (makes me wonder whether Cinderella's prince
only looked at her feet).

The ending was a little weak because in the final sentence "Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them boarded her boat and sailed out to sea, towards the horizon." contains so much action. Perhaps if Brina got ready to leave, and Ella jumps on board, and then we'd get the final conversation would help. Then, the ending would just read "Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them sailed out to sea. Towards the horizon."

Still, a very nice story with a little help from the Brothers Grimm.

*Sparky: "All that Glitters"*
Speaking of the Brothers Grimm...
I'm not sure whether you wrote to the right audience, since Humpty Dumpty, Dr. Seuss and the old Lady in the Shoe are not exactly household names in [/font][font=&quot]Germany[/font][font=&quot], and I'm not sure about the [/font][font=&quot]Netherlands[/font][font=&quot], either. In fact, I only know Dr. Seuss from less-than-mediocre movies and the excellent ENWorld Dr. Seuss competition. I still don't know who Sam's supposed to be, for example. The Cat in the Hat? Yosemite Sam?

Now, about poems. Including poetry in a Ceramic DM entry is ambitious, because you don't have a lot of time to get them right, but getting them right is very important. I don't know much that falls flatter on the audience than bad rhymes. Your rhymes don't always work.
"I hope this is short, I don't rhyme for sport." Ugh, indeed.
"Is it about your partner's death? Is it true he OD'ed on crystal meth?" Well, I'm sure you can easily decipher the not-so-succesful ones. If in doubt, read aloud.
However, there are also rhymes that do work.
"Your Majesties, there is more news. I regret to say the abuse accrues. This death, you see, has come in twos. It's not just one, but two you lose." Very nice. I especially like "abuse accrues", an alliteration with a rhyme.

On to the story itself. It's strange. Very strange. You throw in every fairy tale creature you can think of - and I love it. When I imagine a world where Mayor Goose reads the chicken's testimony about a falling sky while Rapunzel carries her hair around to a murder investigation, I just love it. It's a good kind of sensory overload.
Still, while the murder case is there, it's solved rather easily. All conflict is overcome quickly. The best scene is the interrogation. Romaine really tries to get the boy to speak, and when she finally succeeds, his mother enters.
Before and after that, it's all fairly easy. The Dumpties' lawyer (quoth the raven, "Neville More.") tells the police everything about her daughter and Jack, his mother runs up the stairs to where she can't flee and gives in instantly, and so on.

You also shift in your narrative's time a lot. Mostly, the story is written in present tense, but you often switch to past tense and back."I couldn't help but remark, ..." / "Sam was unfazed. Man the little man puzzles me. I prodded him..." - past/present/past in three consecutive sentences. You really have to look out for that.

The image of a mother selling her daughter nugget by nugget is grisly and great, but if she does, how come the children are emaciated and dressed in rugs?
Oh, and how does Captain Grimm grab Rapunzel's hair?

"My partner in rhyme." is a nice ending, showing that Rapunzel has accepted Sam.
A nice story. Thank you.

*The Pics*
_yellowshoe_
- Sparky's "old lady who lived in a shoe" has just recently renovated her home. The poor woman must have been born without a fashion sense AND blind for this outfit. Still, having the shoe as a home is a great twist.
- Firelance's shoe is just one more cruelty in a sixteen-year-long line of cruelties that the stepmother levvies on Ella. It's also the shoe Ella leaves behind as she flees the baron, and despite it not fitting her, he recognizes the young sorceress.

_pullover_
- Firelance gives us Brina dressed in silverweave, tightly holding on to her scarf. On the other side of said scarf, a dangerous fire spirit uses Heat Metal. Behind Brina? We don't know.
- Sparky also doesn't much care for the background, having the golden statue of Captain Grimm tightly hold on to Rapunzel's hair, enabling the Detectives to climb the second story window and discover a grisly crime.

_egg_
- Sparky uses the egg as Humpty Dumpty's unborn offspring, though I do wonder how the eggling would have looked like with Jack as father.
- Firelance's egg is just a bauble Brina uses to waken Ella's sorcerous powers. In a way, it's like the ring Yogurt gives Lone Starr in "Spaceballs".

_jetty_
- Firelance shows us the place where Ella dreams about the future and a better life, and also where she meets Brina. If only the stones ran to the opposing shore, I think Ella would have run off already.
- Sparky's jetty is the place of the gruesome murder of Humpty Dumpty, showcasing once more that eggs and egg-people break when falling from the slightest height (in fact, Sparky uses the pic on a different scale, so that the stones form a daunting wall).

_content_
- Sparky's Captain Grimm is a gold statue whose headshot doesn't look like a shot of her whole body (pullover) at all. The Captain has been turned to gold when she caught Midas and proved it was him. In the time since, she has perfected the dramatic swivel.
- Firelance gives us a small statue representing Disguise Self, similar to Drizzt's panther. When invoked, a ghostly female form appears to guild the caster in the finest cloth or a guard's uniform, whatever is required.

*Judgement*
Sparky's tale was more imaginative and impressed me with its strangeness. It's a chaotic, yet cool world he describes. However, it's also a chaotic storyline that lacks tension.
Firelance relies on already existing structure to weave his story around, but his interpretation of the tale as well as of the game rules are fun to discover and not without merit. The story is also more coherent than its counterpart.
In pic use, I think both have a weak "pullover" and while Sparky's shoe is great, it doesn't give him a distinct advantage. In the end, though I liked the quirkyness, I give my POINT TO 



Spoiler



FIRELANCE


.
[/font]

[font=&quot]Maldur[/font][font=&quot]

FireLance vs. sparky

Firelance and sparky once again prove similar pictures breed similar stories, fairy tales each this time.

My vote goes to firelance , both stories proved about equal in skill, but the rhyming of sparkies story irked me.[/font]



[font=&quot]mythago[/font]

[font=&quot]FireLance - "Cinders"[/font]

[font=&quot]Argh. OK, one more time: DO NOT use the "As you know…" method. Long speeches where the characters tell each other things they already know, in great detail, to fill in the reader are not credible, they fall flat, they remind the reader we are reading a story, etc. etc. A more realistic flow of dialogue would be "I should never have married your no-good father! And me stuck with a worthless girl like you, oh the injustice…" or somesuch. The whole speech giving us the timeline and events shows the author with his hand stuck up the character's backside, miming the words. 
[/font]

[font=&quot]All right, on with the rest of the story. It picks up quite a bit toward the end, veering from a predictable ending. Ella saves herself instead of passively falling into the Baron's arms (and the Baron is hardly Prince Charming anyway). The shoe isn't magical; the Baron looks at Ella, not at her shoe size. Nice use of the pullover pic in the scene where the spirit is bound. I would liked to have had a little clearer picture of the stepmother's debt to the fire spirit, though: she bound this spirit so she could run an inn and the price was being harsh to her stepdaughter? Er. 
[/font]

[font=&quot]The middle part of the story, and the dialogue, need work. Some of the pictures are frankly throwaways. The dialogue is awkward. The scenes jump abruptly in time. True, fairy tales are not always grand literature, but they need to ring true, and these characters are flat up until the very end.[/font]


[font=&quot]Sparky - "All That Glitters"[/font]

[font=&quot]“Our preliminary study of the more intact shell fragments show some crazing on the left upper hemisphere. I think Humpty was pushed.” - No more CSI for you, young lady.  
[/font]

[font=&quot]A mash-up of everything from Mother Goose to Greek myth; it mostly works pretty darn well. The rhymes, unfortunately, didn't. Rapunzel (nice catch on the last name, by the way) is not a rhymer, and Sam-I-Am is a dangerous choice; if you can't match Seuss it can get ugly.[/font]

[font=&quot]Very nice use of the pictures, though I had trouble with the Captain being a statue and being able to move and pose (as in the pullover pic) simultaneously. There were a few other minor flaws--why shouldn't Sam know about Rapunzel's history?--but overall a really funny and well-put-together story.[/font]

[font=&quot]My judgment this time for 



Spoiler



Sparky


.[/font]

[font=&quot]Winner of round 2.2 is 



Spoiler



FireLance 2-1


.[/font]


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## FireLance (Nov 24, 2004)

Spoiler



Phew! After reading Sparky's story, I knew that it would be close.

Thanks to the judges for the comments. I will try harder to cut out the "As you know" speeches in future.

Sparky: My opinion might not count for much, but I thought you had a great story, rhymes and all. In some ways, I liked it more than mine. It made me laugh.

No Turkey Day in my country, so any time is good for me.


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## Maldur (Nov 24, 2004)

You call that smacktalk?

strange


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## Berandor (Nov 24, 2004)

Uh-oh. I'll try to be more in line with our lady in charge in the future. 

Seriously, congrats to the semi-finalists. I thought both rounds were very close.

ETA: Macbeth, this smack-talk:


> I know she knows how to write. I've seen what she can do without tapping into some kind of group memory. I know she would beat me, *but now I have a secret weapon. Everybody's memory is on my side.*


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## orchid blossom (Nov 24, 2004)

Congrats to MacBeth!  People always say it, but I was just as sure you would move on as you were sure I would.  

I pretty much knew my stories weaknesses when it went up, but there was no time for any further fixing.  I think the over-explanation happened because I was trying to work out the world myself.  I would write something, then think I was going to end up leaving a hole that would pull the readers attention.  So as I was writing I was working on the internal logic for myself.  

More and more I find all that I can get prepared in three days is the roughest of first drafts.  Like MacBeth, I don't write for at least the first 24 hours (I don't generally have an idea at all for the first day and a half), and the writing time I have tends to get the idea down on paper, but never as elegantly as I'd like.  I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.

Congrats again to MacBeth.  I'm glad to see you go on cause I always enjoy your stories, and now I get to read more of them!


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## Piratecat (Nov 24, 2004)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Uh... what now? That was intersting (which can be said of many CDM stories).




When he sobers up, he's going to realize exactly why posting while drunk is a _really_ embarrassing idea.


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## Berandor (Nov 24, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I'm drunk, and so I will tell you a story using the first three illustrations I see.
> 
> the back of Wild Spellcraft.
> 
> ...



 ... and just to make sure he can't edit it and pretend it never happened, I quoted it.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 24, 2004)

Ugh.  I had never experienced anything significant to count as a hang-over before this.  I used to think hangovers just gave you a headache or something, but I have discovered that, for me at least, they involve being just as clumsy as I was when I was drunk, but not having any of the joy of inebriation.  I find myself saying, "Ugh," and, "Gah," quite a bit.

Thank you for understanding my pain.  It is good to have reminders of foolish acts.


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## Maldur (Nov 24, 2004)

*LETS POST REAL LOUD FOR RW!*


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## Sparky (Nov 25, 2004)

berandor said:
			
		

> I'm not sure whether you wrote to the right audience, since Humpty Dumpty, Dr. Seuss and the old Lady in the Shoe are not exactly household names in [/font][font=&quot]Germany[/font][font=&quot]. and I'm not sure about the [/font][font=&quot]Netherlands[/font][font=&quot]. --SNIP-- I still don't know who Sam's supposed to be, for example. The Cat in the Hat? Yosemite Sam?



Sam-I-Am from _Green Eggs and Ham_. An excellent story worth finding and reading. Detective Sam's last lines were inspired by certain passages of _Green Eggs and Ham_.




			
				berandor said:
			
		

> Now, about poems. Including poetry in a Ceramic DM entry is ambitious, because you don't have a lot of time to get them right, but getting them right is very important. I don't know much that falls flatter on the audience than bad rhymes. Your rhymes don't always work.



Tell me about it.   You all should (never) see the ones that didn't make the cut. The rhymes were definitely the hardest part of this story. Some of them came in fits and starts over the course of the 72 hours. And I would write them as they came. The rhyme you picked out as working well came altogether in a very short span just as I needed it. Weird how that works.




			
				berandor said:
			
		

> Still, while the murder case is there, it's solved rather easily. All conflict is overcome quickly.



I, like Firelance, used a familiar structure to frame my story. _Law & Order_. The first half anyway. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's an hour long divided into two halves. In the first half (which I modeled my story on) police investigate a crime. In the second half, lawyers hash out the criminal charges in court. Plain vanilla _Law & Order_ is one of my favorite shows. You only see the successful leads, so that they can pare down a long investigation into the interesting/important bits.




			
				berandor said:
			
		

> You also shift in your narrative's time a lot. Mostly, the story is written in present tense, but you often switch to past tense and back.



Mistakes. Definitely something I tried to look out for and just missed. A lot.




			
				berandor said:
			
		

> The image of a mother selling her daughter nugget by nugget is grisly and great, but if she does, how come the children are emaciated and dressed in rugs?



Because the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe blew all the money on meaningless frippery. Like remodeling the house. She 'had so many children, she didn't know what to do,' is how the verse goes. The verse doesn't paint a favorable picture of her. She's abusive and mistreats the children.




			
				berandor said:
			
		

> Oh, and how does Captain Grimm grab Rapunzel's hair?



Uh... hmmm... gravity? I rationalized that the drag from the braid going up over and behind the house and then feeding into the captain's hands horizontally would be more than sufficient to keep the braid from slipping. And - hey! You don't think (content) looks like a golden-gogo-dancer-Goldfinger-reject (pullover)? Come on!




			
				berandor said:
			
		

> "My partner in rhyme." is a nice ending, showing that Rapunzel has accepted Sam.
> 
> A nice story. Thank you.



Thanks. It was fun to write. Actually fun. A new experience for me with CDM. Usually I'm just a ball of adrenaline and nerves and caffeine. And I have to give credit for the last line to my husband. He's marvelous with rhymes and puns and this was just one of many (some quite funny, but inappropriate) he entertained me with while I wrote.




			
				mythago said:
			
		

> No more CSI for you, young lady.



Law & Order, mythago. It's Law & Order. 




			
				mythago said:
			
		

> Rapunzel (nice catch on the last name, by the way) is not a rhymer, and Sam-I-Am is a dangerous choice; if you can't match Seuss it can get ugly.



Good catch on the catch. Really, all you guys have gotten a lot of the little details, not that they are especially hidden... but still - Good on ya! 

Yeah, I knew the risks of rhyme. Especially up against Seuss. It was a feeble tribute and I decided it would be fun to even try it. I had fun, and offer sincere apologies for the rhymes that flopped.  

Oh... Rapunzel wasn't a rhymer, I didn't explain it, but she picked up the rhymes off of Sam. The bond between partners, ya know? Though why she picked it up right off... not too sure. Rapunzel was supposed to come across as irritated with the rhyming and, convenient for my hasty rhymes, not so good at it.



			
				mythago said:
			
		

> Very nice use of the pictures, though I had trouble with the Captain being a statue and being able to move and pose (as in the pullover pic) simultaneously. There were a few other minor flaws--why shouldn't Sam know about Rapunzel's history?



The Captain can't actually pose. That's the shape she got frozen in when Midas touched her. Imagine her reaching out to touch Midas. Forgot this little detail.

About Rapunzel's partner? Sam's new to the precinct. I'd hoped to point that out more, he didn't know what was up with the captain and all that sort of thing.

--------

To Firelance: Crush Macbeth. Leave no traces. Erm... I mean good luck, both of you.

I really enjoyed Cinders and Gnomish Word for Word. I felt it would be close and you had me worried - with good reason. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.


Oh! I can hear the opening theme of Law & Order downstairs (where my husband is busy cooking for Thanksgiving - isn't he sweet?) so I'm going to tie off this long-winded ramble and head downstairs to pitch in (and watch my show).

Thanks again to judges, organizers and writers. This was great fun! I'll get past round 2 one of these days.


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## Berandor (Nov 25, 2004)

Hey, getting to Round 2 is not bad!

Thank you for your explanations. I always find it enlightening when the author tells us why (s)he made the choices (s)he made. (Well, except maybe that one time when I screamed how barsoomcore was "wrong, dead wrong, and even a blind monkey would know that"...)


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## Sialia (Nov 25, 2004)

Thank you both for your stories, Macbeth and Orchid Blossom. I enjoyed them.

Just as an FYI--when I did the montages it never occurred to me that authors would feel obligated to _literally_ include all the junk I juxtaposed.

I had been reading a lot of Dave McKean illustrated things--like Black Orchid--and I was in love with the way he would use objects to suggest something related to the themes of the story, but not literally in the story.

So for example, of the back cover of one of the Black Orchids, I think there was something like a picture of a leaf that had been sutured to some other objects--techno, man-made, pharmaceutical things. Which fit the themes of Black Orchid's story (a genetically engineered sentient plant person with superpowers, for those who missed this). The stitched leaf and hypodermic needle never appeared literally in the story--they were symbolic of things in the story, and it worked fine as an illustration.

I'm sure that I (perhaps unconciously) echoed that picture when I did this montage.

I moved away from doing montages after the writers had such trouble with my fox-lady and cherry blossoms metaphor.  Also because a few of the later ones started to look more like the covers of paperback mystery novels and less like multi-leveled, methaphorical McKean things. It is really hard to do this well.

But there's still a few left  from that period that haven't been used that may turn up here eventually. So I thought I'd mention this, in case anyone has to face these again.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 27, 2004)

Siala, you're nifty.  Just in case you hadn't been told that lately.  The last Ceramic DM, I got knocked out after the second round, but in that story probably the only good scene was inspired by a vaguely dragon-esque image with gold and green scales.  I quite enjoyed it.  Need to revisit that story some time.  Hmm.

So, how fares the judging?


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## RangerWickett (Nov 27, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> When he sobers up, he's going to realize exactly why posting while drunk is a _really_ embarrassing idea.




Sadly, Pkitty, that was probably the most entertaining piece of writing I've done this year.  The drunk posting wasn't the problem.  The problem was the drunk emailing of random links I saw, like Pete from Sluggy.  And the drunk calling of my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend.  And the drunk voicemail I left with my friend Raul, promising I would help him move, using my Atlas-like strength to bear the world into the trunk of his car.

Russ claims I'm a lightweight.


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## Piratecat (Nov 27, 2004)

I'm back from Toikey-Day... any results?


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## mythago (Nov 28, 2004)

Berandor



*RangerWickett: "The Two Winds"* 
 A very strong story. I enjoyed the mythical touch it had, with a storm  demon bound to carry a monastery aloft, students learning to harness  the winds, ... Your style fits these tyypes of stories very well; it is   elaborate, but I like it. There are small details in your descriptions  that really enhance the story, such as the demon describing a  "wonderfully cruel mage", or fields that "rustled with wild freedom". 
 Of course, some of these details point us to the fact that Pilus and  Lsi Pu are one and the same, like Lsi Pu's temples graying (a very  small detail that makes sense only as reminder why he seeks eternal  life), or when Lsi Nu Gon hopes his brother's riddle is not "another  anagram". Or when Lsi Nu Gon is distraught and quiet, and Lsi Pu is  normally quiet, telling us subtly (?) that Lsi Pu is not distraught. 
 Serving the spirit as a meal is almost a classic in mythical tales,  isn't it? It's still a great display of evil, however. And when Lsi Pu  smilingly eats another slice of bread, all the slowly intensifying  hints have reached their climax: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this guy is  eeevil! (And dying by having one's breath pulled from the lungs - how  cool is that, and how thematically appropriate? Great!). 

 However, the climax is also the moment you start to lose me. At first,  it's "'Lsi Pu, why?' - ‘I always gave you puzzles, brother... Anyway,  I'll use Pilus now.  It's (...) sufficient.'" Way to go _non  sequitur_ here, or did I miss something? Just what is Pilus  sufficient for, and just why does he bring that up there? I feel you  just wanted to show us that Lsi Pu accepts his deeds and truly is  Pilus, and not somehow dominated or something similar. 
 But it gets worse after Pilus is killed. 
 "Then understanding took [Lsi Nu Gon], and he collapsed,..."  Understanding about what? That he killed his brother, the murderer? 
 And when Pilus is awakened by the Two Winds, we have this exchange: 
 "Brother, (...) I tried to kill you. (...) The demon, it-" - "It lied  to you. (...) It deceived us, played upon our fears." Huh? Or, better,  WTF? I mean, Lsi Pu did all the talking, not the demon. And which  fears, aside from losing ones mentors and friends and eating ones  lover, can be still played upon and have been played upon? So suddenly,  Lsi Nu Gon is Pilus' lapdog, and I totally don't buy it. I'm not saying  it doesn't match the genre, as a lot of Wuxia flicks tend to lose me to  similarly confusing character development, but I still don't buy it. 
 That said, the final paragraph is a very cool ending in my book. 

*Rodrigo Istalindir: "Mind over Matter"* 
 Prague. The Golden  City. Have you ever been there, Rodrigo? It's  beautiful. But there's a certain danger in using a real-world place,  too (see "pics"). 
 Still, your opening paragraph kicks major booty. How Prague's body  hadn't been broken, but it's spirit been crushed, the "gaunt look of a  terminally ill patient" - absolutely wonderful. It drags me in, it  gives me something to gnash my teeth on, and it tells me that I'm about  to read a classical dark cold-war story. Then you drop the hint about  Kennedy's death, and intrigue me. And finally, you tell me about the  habits "he was too old to break", and I'm in the story, I know what  kind of story to expect (grizzled veteran in grim surroundings versus  old and new foes), if not the exact plot. 
 You really deliver the goods here. I would have Anders to be even more  cynical, but the details of the Party Market, the State Opera (what a  wonderful building, btw) and the KGB "travel coordinator" - it's all  very realistic and exactly like we want it to be - corrupt. 
 I particularly enjoyed the false friendliness Anders and Valya adopt in  their first conversation, with well-put exaggerations like "How wonderful for you." I could imagine these two just watching each other  for a slip, a tiny mistake. 
 The assassination attempt on Anders was a little confusing to me,  however. After reading the whole story, when Gregory later says "I am  under _strict_ orders not to kill you." (emphasis mine), I wonder  why then did he try to kill him? Did Valya simply order the  assassination because she wanted no loose ends, or because of personal  enmity, and after she discovered Anders for a traitor she reconsidered?  Or What? 
 (Oh, and if "the strength and clarity of the visions were proportional  to how far in the future the events occur", then the further away, the  clearer the visions would be, at least how I understand the concept.) 
 As with RangerWickett's story, your ending didn't answer all my  questions. First of all, when Anders enters the top floor, he notices  "several guards". What happens to them? Don't they get suspicious when  Gregory suddenly slumps over, or when the elevator crahes? And is  Anders mentally capable of killing all of them quickly after his  strenuous activities before? (It's just a small nagging, but it's a  nagging, nonetheless) 
 What's actually more important to me is how Anders could so easily kill  Alexei. Perhaps he considered a stuck elevator as normal for Prague (as  it just might be), but Valya looks "terrified". Then, the comparably  weak Anders holds down the "stop" button, slices the cables and  releases the safety while the strong TK Alexei does - nothing? Doesn't  he try to carry the elevator, or if the car is too heavy for him, to  suspend himself in the air before the crash, or perhaps even to open  the ground floor doors to jump to safety when the car rushes past?  Whatever he does or doesn't do, I'd like to know. The way it is, I  think Alexei has a cheap demise. He deserves better. 
 The ending is suitably cool, however. And I hope you don't mind that I  picture http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000872/]Patrick Bachau[/url]  as Anders. 

*The Pics* 
_inthedark_ 
 - Rodrigo Istalindir, this is the  http://www.ph-ludwigsburg.de/mathematik/rz/personal/ostertag/ privat/Bilder/Prag02/Bilder/karlsbruecke.jpg]Charles[/url]  http://www.groscurth.com/archives/karlsbruecke.jpg]Bridge[/url].  Not some measly wooden excuse for a bridge (sorry). You should have  chosen a ficticious bridge, perhaps because the Charles  Bridge is still  crowded at night. Anyway, your bridge is the meeting point of Anders  and "the agent", the point where Anders is reactivated and the story  starts for real. 
 - RangerWickett's bridge also starts the story, as this is where  shamans can't see to and where Pilus questions and, ultimately, frees  Doh Wma Sy. 

_Thickly_ 
 - RangerWickett has the butterflies coalesce into a young woman who can  only take the shapes of  those creatures nearby (even if she gains a  Seren complexion). This woman is a red herring for the reader, as she's  not Pilus in disguise, and also a potential lover/teacher for Pilus,  whether she wants to or not. 
 - Rodrigo Istalindir uses the pic as a sign of decadence and wealth.  Plus, here Alexei demonstrates his finely-tuned abilities by first  crushing one, then killing all the other butterflies in the hollow  window (inadvertendly teaching Anders how to kill Alexei, himself).   This is when Anders realizes just how good Alexei has become. 

_feast_ 
 - Rodrigo Istalindir's feast occurs when Valya meets up with an  American mole at the Party Market. Anders watches as breads are broken  and exchanged. In a way, these breads are also a sign of decadence and  the overabundance of the few in contrast to the shortage of the many. 
 - RangerWickett's feast is a table full of breads that are cheerfully  eaten by Pilus but not his brother. The breads have been made from Lsi  Nu Gon's lover, the grain spirit Kya Besh Ko, or as the demon phrases  it, she has "provided this bounty". It's what finally sends Lsi Nu Gon  over the edge and enable Pilus to attain immortality. 

_leap_ 
 - RangerWickett gives us two fighting brothers, a fight that will be  echoed later on when Lsi Nu Gon kills Lsi Pu. Here, the two wear...  "traditional" sparring clothing while using the winds to fly. 
 - Rodrigo Istalindir shows us Alexei and an unknown partner, star  dancers in the Bolshoi ballet, dancing a routine that is enhanced by  Alexei's powerful telekinetic abilities. This is when Anders realizes  that yes, Alexei would be powerful enough to kill at a distance. 

_buttons_ 
 - Rodrigo Istalindir's buttons come and go quickly, as Alexei presses  them to descend, and then  Anders uses his power to stop the elevator  before killing Alexei and Valya. It's almost as if there's not even a  link to the pics in the story  
 - RangerWickket's buttons are one of Lsi Pu's riddles, a number riddle  that is almost solved by his brother. Like other riddles, we don't get  the answer to it. I like the fact that the riddle isn't explained to  us, but since it concerns a pic, this also means that the pic is fast  forgotten save as a reminder that Lsi Pu likes riddles and anagrams. 

*The Judgement* 
 It's getting harder and harder for me to eliminate one of you. I  consider both stories to be very strong entries, fairly accomplished  tales despite the short time frame. Both stories really captured my  imagination, even if both stories have some smaller problems. 
 If there is a slight advantage in pic use, it's on RangerWickett's  behalf, but it's an advantage that is one pic at most. On the other  hand, while I noticed the hiccups in Rodrigo's story, I kept on  reading, whereas the ending in "The Two Winds" really made me stop  reading and shake my head confusedly. 
 In the end, I was too put off by the brother's reconciliation. 
 [sblock]POINT TO RODRIGO ISTALINDIR[/sblock]



Berandor

   Wow finally different stories from similar pictures.

     RangerWickett vs. Rodrigo Istalindir

       Rodrigo, psi-forces, spies, rusian intrigue, and assasins. Rangerwickett,  flying monks, betrail, and a cooked up spirit.

       Both fantastic stories, congrats, but my point goes to Rangerwickett, that ending just rocked.



Mythago

   It was a tough set of pictures, and you both rose to the occasion wonderfully. Yowza.

     RangerWickett – “The Two Winds”

   As soon as Pilus learns the secret of the Two Winds, we know where this is going…however, we don’t know *how* it’s going to get there. There are plenty of hints (the reference to anagrams, the obvious tension over Kya Besh Ko, Lsi Pu’s sudden interest in the butterfly woman) but nothing that hits us over the head. Nice. Though speaking of the butterfly woman, her speech was a little uneven and I wasn’t quite sure what she was doing there.

     I was a little taken aback at Lsi Nu Gon’s sudden change of heart at the end; not his regret at killing his brother, but his eagerness to forgive and accept the explanation about the demon. We get the sense, during the brothers’ duel, that there is tension and not a little anger on both sides of that relationship. For Lsi Nu Gon to suddenly decide that Lsi Pu is OK and to conveniently forget about *eating* his lover is, well, a little convenient. But the end is bang-up.




   Rodrigo Istalindir – “Mind over Matter”

   The first paragraph out-and-out rocks. We get the setting, the central character, a sense of when this is happening, all without a lot of exposition. And I loved the rest of the opening as well, with the old ex-spy in his rut, reading the newspapers and finding what he did want and now, perhaps, didn’t really want to happen after all. (Though I would nix the thought “Probably because they never expected any of us to live past thirty.” His observation that they were never told how to be old spies is beautiful on its own.)

     The story stumbles a bit on the flashback. It makes sense here for Anders to think about what happened before, but it’s given as expository, fill-in for the reader. Actually *showing* us the scene in the theater, with some dialogue even, rather than simply “Here’s what happened, now back to the bridge” would have made the story richer.

     And a small bump – when Anders talks to Valya they use each others names over and over again. People don’t do that in real life unless they’re trying to make some kind of point by doing it. Since the two of them are pretending nicey-nicey, they wouldn’t be doing that, and it comes across as a crude device to tell us who’s talking. Not necessary; the back-and-forth is obvious.

     The ending was fantastic but puzzling—isn’t Anders a precog? If Alexei is trying to tell Anders that anybody could do what he did, anyone with powers could use TK, that should be a lot clearer.

     This was enormously tough, with two great stories. However, 



Spoiler



I gave my vote to Rodrigo Istalindir because the central character was so much more engaging; we admire and cheer for old Anders vs. coolly admiring Lsi Pu’s clever villainy.





Spoiler



Rodrigo Istalindir


 2-1 and goes to Round 3.


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## mythago (Nov 28, 2004)

And I feel obligated to point out that everybody here was IN Round 2. I should be saying "goes on to Round 3" but that would require basic arithmetic.


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## alsih2o (Nov 28, 2004)

Rodrigo keeps making me look good.


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## mythago (Nov 28, 2004)

FireLance, Rodrigo, when's good for you guys?


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## mythago (Nov 28, 2004)

Maldur

   MarauderX vs. Piratecat

      Weird fantasy both. 

      marauderX, I am curious what the "next" backup plan would be.

      Piratecat, remind me never to go sailing with a pirate   

      My vote: piratecat, slightly stronger story.





Berandor

*MarauderX: "A Walk in the Park"* 
 A dark goddess reborn... or almost. A nice story that reminded me a lot of Story Hour entries, partly because of the plot, but partly because of the many point of views and not-fully-realized characters, too. While I think your plot is all right, and the ideas behind several concepts are sound, your characters lacked some motivation, primarily Marak. 
 Why does he betray Shamuss - and then breaks down to help him just as quick? I mean, he knows from Shamuss that the ritual will bring terrible doom, and the only way I could see him go through with it is if he really despised the sage and his city. If he doesn't despise Shamuss that much (and from the first chapter we know he likes the city), why does he even consider siding with the cultists? 
 I think part  of the problem is the shifting point of view. We tell the story from Marak and Shamuss's point of view, switching between them fairly often if in small sentences, and you also bring in Jenna. At least she is too much, as her scenes are very small and could be handled by outside desciption alone. It would probably be best if you told the whole story from Shamuss's point of view; then we wouldn't need that much information about Marak, and you could start with Shamuss watching Marak's  walk through the city. 
 Oh, and of course the whole conversation from "Shamus sighed impatiently" to "he had forgotten to ask about the stone statues" is just thinly veiled exposition. 
 I also would have liked to get a little more info about what the ethereal plane was really like. 
 Now, I don't know if it was intended, but having the demoness/goddess look like the bunny from "Donnie Darko" was very intimidating and cool. Disrupting a priestess by kissing her is also a very nice touch - I'll try that next time, and I wonder what my DM'll say to that. 
 The ending, this time, is very ominous. I like that. It doesn't reference anything before, it just says "Hey, there's even more that you haven't seen. Come back." 
 As a Story Hour, I would definitely read it. The stylistic weaknesses can be dealt with; I suggest giving the story to barsoomcore for review, and you'll elevate this tale above its current level. 

*Piratecat: "Three Kings"* 
 The figurines must have really inspired you, naming the story after them. This time around, it's a ghost story you tell. And the first thing I know, aside from Stanhope being squeamish and Abigail being touched in the head, is that the Captain is Cray-zee! You develop a dark atmosphere over the course of the Captain's dinner that sets us up for what is to come. Of course, the little hints ("it's hauling the cargo it was made for", etc.) are recognizable, even if we don't fully know what they hint at. We have an idea, though. 
 And then, the Three Kings appear. Abigails madness in their presence is palpable and makes the scene much more creepy. Conversation via smell didn't grab me, though. 
 I'm not sure whether you can call the story open-ended, since Stanhope's choice is pretty clear (sadly). 
 Also, I would have liked to know what the Captain and his crewmen do when they're suddenly in the "Nexus". Why doesn't someone rush into the cabin to see whether the chest has been disturbed? 
 A nice story in the veins of Lovecraft, but with more dialogue and less letter-writing. 

*The Pics* 
_3kings_ 
 - Piratecat's kings are of african design, corresponsing to the nature of the ship's former cargo. They are filled with malevolent power and want human sacrifices to appease them. The appearance of these figurines brings about the climax of the story. 
 - MarauderX's kings are of unknown design, but Marak nevertheless is fascinated with them. When Shamuss later presents them to him, it signals the turning point of the story. (It might have worked even better if the figurines were from Marak's native region) The reapperance of the figurines was a nice idea, as I had almost thought them lost to the story. 

_nexus_ 
 - MarauderX: A rabbit's head, the premature image of a demi-goddess of beauty and wealth. Why does she appear as a rabbit? I don't know, but it's creepy nonetheless. 
 - Piratecat: A fish, a ship and a face, all in one. This is the physical manifestation of the three kings. A nice picture use in that it doesn't restrict itself to one interpretation (and the kings' appearance is at least somewhat fitting to a slave ship theme). 

_bullwhip_ (Okay, what is this. I thought it was a vegetable of some sort, but now I'm not sure) 
 - Piratecat has Abigail explain to us the many uses of a knout made by a whale's pizzle. Thank you especially for the third image, Piratecat. The Captain uses the knout to frighten and prepare the crew for the sacrifice. 
 - MarauderX makes this pic part of "nexus", more specifically, a giant whisker that is all that remains from this year's Cohenci rite; Marak clings to it to prevent  being eaten by the goddess. I wonder whether he hangs it over his fireplace later on? 

_oval_ 
 - MarauderX's double use works for his story, as it enhances the impression that after a day's sleep, the ethereal plane still looks exactly the same - of course, because the mirror is broken/has been sabotaged. It's a heavy mirror, nonetheless. 
 - Piratecat uses the pic as a bull's eye. Stanhope looks through it and sees the Three Kings and their fugue plane, sees them approach, and loses his cool (if he ever had it). 

_a sip of tea_ 
 - Piratecat has Abigail. the Captains idiot daughter, sip and spill tea. Aside from drinking tea, this moment tells us that the light may be on in Abigail's head, but nobody's home. 
 - MarauderX has Shamuss, the young sage, drink tea. Aside from drinking tea, he also gets poisoned by Marak and falls asleep. 

*Judgement* 
 Piratecat didn't blow me away this time, but still delivered a very competent ghost story. MarauderX's tale could have been a contender if not for some stylistic weaknesses. As I also see an advantage in picture use for Piratecat, these weaknesses cannot be made up for sufficiently to propel MarauderX into the next round. 
 [sblock]POINT TO PIRATECAT[/sblock] 

 Congrats to all the winners, and another thank you to all participants. Just so you know, for the semi-finals I will be expecting good stories from you. This is for pros now; no more holding back.



Mythago

     MarauderX – “A Walk in the Park”

   I think we are all a little worried about that back-up plan. J

     A decent story, but rough. I didn’t get a good sense of the bond between Shamuss and Marak, who have known each other for a decade, and I couldn’t figure out why Marak would want to allow an evil demigoddess to return just because he’s tired of being looked down on. Not that it’s an unbelievable motivation, but it doesn’t seem to fit with Marak.

     There were a lot of awkwardnesses as well—the jumping point of view, the mirror being a strain for Marak at one point and later being “tossed aside” by Shamuss, the long explanation of the evil ritual being in Marak asking lots of questions of Shamuss, the expert (who sighs twice, slumps, and then falls asleep while miraculously not spilling his tea). Nice use of the “whisker” which, for the curious, is actually a piece of bullwhip kelp.


   Piratecat – “Three Kings”

   “Of Hell? _Maybe_, reflected Stanhope, _of someplace worse._” Eek.

     What a fine and eerie ghost story, and such a chilling ending. Criticisms are really minor—Abigail slides from idiocy to sophisticated speech and back, the Captain’s words are first seamanlike and then erudite. Can’t fault the Three Kings’ dialogue a bit, though.

     [sblock]Piratecat wins this round 3-0 and goes on to Round 3.[/sblock]


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## Piratecat (Nov 28, 2004)

Woot! Thanks to my opponent for making me work my bottom off. I didn't realize that was a piece of kelp; I had read somewhere about actually using a bull's or a whale's penis bone as an instrument for flogging, and I think I got fixated.

Good criticism on my inconsistent dialogue & wording.

In any case, I'm good to go whenever.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 28, 2004)

A Monday night start or later would be best for me.


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## MarauderX (Nov 28, 2004)

Excellent work PirateCat, and good luck in the round(s) ahead.  Thanks to the judges for the great feedback and pointers.  And thanks to all for writing such feats of wonder and imagination, keep it up!


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## RangerWickett (Nov 28, 2004)

Shucks.  I knew trying to have Lsi Pu guilt trip his brother at the end might've been a little too strange.  Well, congrats to Rodrigo.  I respect your talent and your victory, sir.


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## FireLance (Nov 28, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> FireLance, Rodrigo, when's good for you guys?



I should be alright for any time, but 24 hours' notice before the pictures go up would be appreciated.


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## Sigurd (Nov 28, 2004)

*I'll Give it a Go*

Time, time time is telling you the story!


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## mythago (Nov 28, 2004)

OK, as soon as I hear from Macbeth that he's still good to go, Piratecat vs. Macbeth. Then Rodrigo vs. FireLance tomorrow (Monday).


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## Berandor (Nov 28, 2004)

Sigurd said:
			
		

> Time, time time is telling you the story!



 I understand you want to enter?

Unfortunately, we're in the semi-final round already - it's a tournament structure - but if you want to try your hand, keep a look out for the next contest in about three months. I'd be glad to read your stories.


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## FireLance (Nov 28, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> OK, as soon as I hear from Macbeth that he's still good to go, Piratecat vs. Macbeth. Then Rodrigo vs. FireLance tomorrow (Monday).



Okay, psyching up has commenced.

Now, as I was saying way back in post #49,

Rodrigo: _En garde!_


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## Piratecat (Nov 28, 2004)

I'm up against The Scottish Play? Whoo hoo! Ought to be a fun match. As I said, ready to go anytime today.

EDIT - Macbeth hasn't been around since Thursday night. If he isn't able to check in today, my preference would be to get the photos earlier on Monday than later. Most of Thursday is bad for me, so getting the deadline before noon or so would be ideal.

If this doesn't work for Macbeth, I'm gone from next Friday to Sunday, so we'd just need to work around that.


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## Macbeth (Nov 29, 2004)

Just got bacck from vacation, and I'm ready for a good beat down from PCat. Ready to go anytime for the next few days.


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## Piratecat (Nov 29, 2004)

Then we're set! Hmmm... if I change his user name to "The Scottish Play" and he can't post, do I win by default?  

Cheat to win! Cheat to win!


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## Sialia (Nov 29, 2004)

Macbeth said:
			
		

> . . . I'm ready for a good beat down from PCat.



Don't you dare.


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## Piratecat (Nov 29, 2004)

It's okay -- it's reverse smacktalk. He's lulling me into a false sense of security before he pulls another rabbit out of his extraordinary bag of tricks. I'm wise to your sneaky psychological head games, tough guy!  

Dang, this is going to be fun.


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## Sialia (Nov 29, 2004)

> Dang, this is going to be fun.



For me anyway.


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## mythago (Nov 29, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Then we're set! Hmmm... if I change his user name to "The Scottish Play" and he can't post, do I win by default?



 Not unless you can also hack the Internet so as he can't send it to me by e-mail.

 "I beat the Internet! That last guy was really hard!"


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## mythago (Nov 29, 2004)

Round 3.1, Macbeth vs. Piratecat

  Credits:
_chew_ by Sialia
_underneath the surface_ by madamBesson
_seat_ by stalkerju


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## Piratecat (Nov 29, 2004)

Got em - thanks.

By which I mean "sadist."


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## Macbeth (Nov 29, 2004)

Got 'em. By which I mean "I got a lack of ideas." Hmmm... Now to work...


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## Maldur (Nov 29, 2004)

Good luck


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## Sialia (Nov 29, 2004)

As a completely irrelevant point of interest, the plant depicted in "chew" (which I drew quite some time ago and had pretty much forgotten about)  is the same kind of kelp as was depicted in the picture from the preceeding round which Piratecat decided was a bull pizzle. 

They wash up on the beaches around here fairly often.

This should in no way deter the contestants from deciding that it is something else, of course, if it so moves them.
Good luck to both of you.

I hunger for your juicy contributions.


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## Thomas Hobbes (Nov 30, 2004)

Sialia said:
			
		

> As a completely irrelevant point of interest, the plant depicted in "chew" (which I drew quite some time ago and had pretty much forgotten about)  is the same kind of kelp as was depicted in the picture from the preceeding round which Piratecat decided was a bull pizzle.
> 
> They wash up on the beaches around here fairly often.




I thought I recognized it, but I didn't want to comment for fear of prejudicing. the minds of the writers.

In the same spirit, I have a suspicion as to where "hot" was taken, and once that part of the competition has wrapped up I'd be highly amused to have it confirmed.

(I suppose it goes without saying, since I was here to read the above post, that I've been following this avidly and enjoying it immensely.  Looking forward to the finals and semifinals!)


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## mythago (Nov 30, 2004)

Pictures for Round 3.2
 FireLance vs. Rodrigo Istalindir

 Credits:
_flooded_ - Angelrat-Stock
_unity_ -adorKable80
_turtles_ - Aquiva
_peer_ - cookiestoc


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## Maldur (Nov 30, 2004)

Good luck to you too!


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## Berandor (Nov 30, 2004)

oooh! I'm so glad I can sit back and watch!


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## Piratecat (Dec 1, 2004)

This one has been a lot of fun to write. It's a stylistic change for me, and may sound best when read aloud. Hard to say, really. Depends on whether I succeeded in what I tried to do. Think of it as a play in one scene, one act.

Enjoy.


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## Piratecat (Dec 1, 2004)

*Reunion*

_Autumn 2004 Round 3-1: Macbeth vs. Piratecat_


They came from different directions and sat on the bench. Slowly, arthritically, mindful of bad joints and old wounds. They’d been coming here for six decades, ever since academy graduation. It was a _good_ bench. It was showing its age, but so were the old men. It was worn, and they were worn, and the peeling paint somehow complemented the wrinkles in their skin.  Every once in a while one of them would donate money to have the bench refurbished, but that wouldn’t happen again for another few years. The splinters weren’t quite sharp enough yet to bother.

One of the men adjusted his elaborate robes. His long face boasted the sort of snarled and unkempt beard that might result from a goatee getting delusions of grandeur.  Anyone could tell he was a wizard because of the eyes; eyes reflect the soul, and these eyes looked like those of an owl.

The other man sported a dapper little mustache and long gray hair pulled back from his face. He was far from handsome. He didn’t look as ostentatious as his friend. He didn’t look as old as his friend either, but that’s like saying the sea isn’t quite as wet as the ocean. 

One of them unwrapped a greasy parchment and took out a suspicious looking sandwich. The other one eyed it askance, gave a disapproving little hrmph, and began patting his pockets. He set aside his intricately carved staff as he pulled out a long-stemmed pipe. Bony fingers snapped, flame flared, the owl-shaped bowl flashed into life. 

Late afternoon sunlight warmed old bones.

The man with the pipe ran long fingers through his tangled beard. “I’m stuck with a morass.”

“Don’t you mean ‘in a morass?’ You don’t normally use bad grammar. You’re usually so precise.”

“Of course I’m precise, and I mean what I say. WITH a morass. It’s eating the whole damn lake bed.”

“What is?” 

“The morass.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” The man with the mustache took a bite of the sandwich and gave chewing his complete concentration.

The old man’s lip twitched underneath the thick beard. “I took a donkey,” he explained in loud, slow tones.

“I’m no longer a child.”

“My granddaughter is. She loves to swim and wanted a new pet. Her birthday was coming up.”

“So you got her a donkey?” The tone was disbelieving. “It’s been my experience that most little girls want ponies.” 

“She isn’t most little girls. I crossed it with a purpose.”

“What sort of purpose?”

“What? Oh, the normal kind. You see, I wanted it to have a fluke.”

“Your purpose has a fluke?”

“All purposes do.”

“Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Of course not. How else could they move through the water?”

“There’s magic. . .”

They mused on that for a while, sitting on the bench. The unseasonably warm autumn wind blew golden leaves up against the bottom of their shoes.

“. . . but I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Your purpose has a fluke, which is why you’re stuck _with_ a morass. Clear as mud.  And I haven’t even begun to understand the donkey.”

“Jackass.”

He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, their narrow shoulders brushing. “Screw you.”

They sat, they smiled, and one of the old men smoked. The other one ate his sandwich. It smelled like rotting kippers. A squirrel scampered up in the hopes of a free handout, caught a whiff of the sandwich, and skittered away before anyone could force-fed it a bite.

The man with the sandwich sighed. “They just don’t make squirrels like they used to.”

“I could fix that.”

“Heh.”

“Tried to once, actually. It was about a year ago that I became interested in their burrowing ability. I decided to cross one of the little buggers with some grub.” 

“Grub? Oh, like nuts.”

“Like nuts to _you_, apprentice. No need to be sarcastic. I did it, I’m telling you. I plucked it from a leaf.”

“The squirrel?”

“No, the grub. I took them from leaves, amplified their growth ratio to achieve a reasonable adhesion matrix, and then merged their essences using standard incantations. I wanted to use a grub that was translucent, so that you could see what was happening inside the squirrel’s innards.”

The other man pondered this for a minute, doubtlessly picturing his friend prying open a squirrel’s jaws and staring down into the translucent acorns packing its belly.  “Why?”

“Just experimenting. Seeing if the worm-like half would dig faster or slower than the squirrel half. Seeing if it still tried to eat leaves, or spin a cocoon, or turned into a buttersquirrel.”

“I find they’re best cooked in bacon grease.”

“I didn’t _eat_ it. Part butterfly, part squirrel. Or fluttersquirrel, if you prefer. Or squirrelmoth. It’s all one to me.”

“Oh, you transmogrified it?”

“Of course I did, you idiot. What did you think we were talking about?”

“Your purpose.”

He closed his eyes, counted to ten. “The tale of the purpose is connected to the donkey.”

A snort came from beside him. “So it could have a fluke, right?”

At last. Gratified, the man with the owl eyes smiled. “Exactly.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Teeth ground on a pipe stem. “Well, at the moment we’re talking about transmogrifying squirrels.”

“Indeed we are. You did some work in that area, if I remember correctly.”

“You don’t say.”  The words dripped acid. It had been his life’s work for seventy years.

“The hummingfrogs and the bumblecats.”

“Good times.” 

“Not particularly. I seem to recall that claws and wings and poisonous stingers didn’t make for good house pets.”

“Well, it gave those young adventurers something to hunt. Gave them a start in life.”

“After they were done, didn’t they try to hunt down the mage creating those abominations?”

“A simple misunderstanding.” He blew a smoke ring that briefly resembled an octodog before dissipating into the clear autumn air. They pondered the smoke for a moment, lost in memories.

“My favorite was the time you tried to merge pigeons and pufferfish.”

“Now, let’s not bring up –“

“It’s a work of genius!”  The old man’s voice was a remarkable parody of the other’s, rising and wheedling in an impression that would have gained a performer great fame had he managed to survive the stage show. “Birds that can swim and fly! Birds that inflate! Defense against the natural predator! Revolutionize the avian community!” The wizened man trailed off into gasping coughs that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

His friend drew himself up stiffly, tapped one finger against the head of his staff. “It’s not my fault that their skin elasticity was sub-par in cool weather. Don’t you dare laugh.” 

The coughs turned into choking gasps. “And then. . . when they released the beautiful white pufferdoves over the coliseum before the games, and you set off the fireball to mark the start of the gladiatorial matches. . .” He was having trouble breathing now. “And the pufferdoves all got scared at once. . .” Mirth got the better of him and he finally keeled over sideways onto his friend, chest heaving with unrestrained laughter.

The other old man gritted his teeth on the pipe stem and mourned his lost dignity. His tone was wry. “In retrospect, it’s a shame the Queen didn’t have an umbrella with her.”

“Wumph!”

“Yes, yes.”

“Wumph wumph WUMPH WUMPH WUMPH! Exploding pufferdoves everywhere! Wumph!”

“Yes, we don’t particularly need sound effects. _Thank_ you.” The tone was haughty.

“I remember the mess as they vaporized!  And in the process you accidentally fulfilled that prophecy about the blood rain. Oh, the sages were furious with you for that.”  Laughter trailed off into awkward hiccups, punctuated by uncontrollable giggling. “And the King’s jester, good ole’ Toddzoc, wrote that wonderful song about you that everyone sung for _years_. . .”

There was a heavy sigh.  “I was tired of being High Magus anyways.” 

The younger of the two men fished out a handkerchief and wiped tears of merriment from his face.  “As you said, good times.” 

“Feh. And please stop humming that tune under your breath.” His eyes narrowed. “Apropos of nothing, I notice that your impersonations of me have gotten better.”

“I learned from the best, and I get a lot of practice.  You know, did I ever tell you that I got revenge for you?”

The older man’s head swiveled birdlike towards his friend. “Oh? How’s that?” 

“Sent Toddzoc a cursed mandolin. I enchanted the thing to vastly improve his playing, but it gave him horrible gas every time he played it. You should have seen his face the first time he performed in court. He froze in horror. Possibly my finest moment, and one that I savor.” He settled back against the familiar bench. “Well, finest of that year. It was a slow year, and I was feeling petty. But I’m still proud.”

The bench creaked as he shifted. “Well, that explains a few thing.”

“The built in percussion or the smell in court?”

“The jokes. I never guessed. Did he ever figure it out?”

“No way to tell. I’d say yes, but I knew he’d be too vain not to use it. I was right. He’s humiliated himself every time he performed for the King. Worth every copper piece.”

“Sometimes the old jokes are the best. We’ve known bards who would have approved of that sort of thing.”

“Very true.”

Momentary silence in the golden light of late day. Somewhere a bird trilled.

“You did that for me?”

“Absolutely.”

“But didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want you getting a swelled head.” He corrected himself. “More of a swelled head.”

“Well, thank you. I wish all of our old companions were still here to have seen it.”

Leaves swirled about their feet. The last of the laughter died away. The man with the sandwich took one final bite, savoring the taste, and then brushed off his hands with the handkerchief.

“Why is it that we outlive the good ones?”

“Paranoia. Resourcefulness. Luck. I’ll point out, however, that I _am_ one of the good ones.”

“Tell it to the pufferdoves.”

“Ass.”

“Speaking of which, you were telling me about the donkey.”

“You mean the morass.” This time he enunciated. 

His friend blinked, put the syllables together, and traced the thread of the previous conversation. He unconsciously stroked his mustache before wrinkling his nose in contempt. “If you meant ‘mer-’, you should have said ‘mer-‘. And that’s a terrible name.”

“It is, isn’t it? Still, it’s better than ‘donkoise.’ That was my first try. ‘Porpkey’ was my second.”

“The man who created the owlbear did us all a grave disservice.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You should rent it out to clean waterweeds from moats.”

“What about my granddaughter?”

“Probably not. I doubt she could eat that much, and her mother might object.” 

The man slowly levered himself to his feet before offering a hand to his older companion. His friend shook his head, raised his staff, and was instantly standing.  

“I’ve gotten lazy.”

“Gotten?”

They both paused, each laying a hand on the ancient and weather beaten bench. The younger man looked down into the last vestiges of paint.

“You know, I’ve grown to love this thing. It’s old and splintery, but it gives me something to look forward to.” They met each other’s gaze, and both old faces broke out in knowing grins. 

“Some things don’t change.”

And they were gone, leaving the bench to birdsong and squirrels and the setting sun.


-- o --

seat.jpg – the yearly meeting place
chew.jpg – the mer-ass, latest home project and children’s pet
underneath_the_surface.jpg – one of the translucent grubs used in the buttersquirrels
hot.jpg – the bloody aftermath of exploding pufferdoves
playme.jpg – Toddzoc the Flatulent learns the hard way about his cursed mandolin


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## Macbeth (Dec 1, 2004)

_Ceramic DM Fall 2004, Round 3.1: Piratecat vs. Macbeth_
*Words*
_By Sage LaTorra_


His words tumbled out, a trickle, a stream, a river, a flood. Ebbing and flowing, pulling you under and washing you to a welcome shore. That's how I remember him, not as a person, but as the stories he told, the phrases that came down like rain, like snow, like hail. Looking back now, it's easier to see it. I'm older now, and I can see how it all happened. And even when I can see how it happens it doesn't make his stories any less wondrous, his words any less magical.

Don Diego first arrived in that dry summer, in San Fierro, in our dreams, as an entertainer. He stayed as a legend, or maybe a virus. I still haven't figured out which.

He looked so absurd that first day. The first time he walked into our ruined streets, the roads neglected by the needs of subsistence farming, he looked like a story book, too colorful to be part of our faded village, too alive to be in the dead Mexican town I called home. He had a smile out of place in the dust, a manner alien to our daily death. And the lute... the lute wasn't broken, broken or busted  like all the heirloom instruments that sat in the village houses.(1)

I was young, that was my excuse. I was too young to know better, that's why I did it.

He sat down on the old bench, the one we might have sat on if we weren't working in the fields, and waited for somebody to notice. He was so sure of himself. Maybe he knew what would happen, I can only guess, but it seemed like he could see it all laid out in front of him, a flat ocean waiting for him to make waves.

I was the first one to talk to him. I had been working with Papa on the field, and I cam back to the house for a drink. He was just sitting there, waiting. I was too curious, that was my problem, and I walked up to him and studied him. Then I did the one thing that started it all: I spoke.

“Senior, who are you?”

He opened his mouth, and what came out wasn't human. It was beyond human, purer then human, a voice run through a filter, purified into a perfect sound. You couldn't not listen.

“Well, My child, I am Diego, and I am here to tell you a story.”

Stories were only for bedtime. This was special, to get to hear a story, to stay out of the fields for fun.

“Si, Senor.”

“Once, long ago, there was a boy much like you, a young prince...” That's how that first story started, that original sin. The first one was always the best. I can still hear the melodious flow of words that he spun, the perfect cascade of people, places, things I had never even dreamed of. The story soared over a mystical land, the prince met every challenge placed before him, and I was enthralled. “And that, my child, is how it happened.”

When Diego stopped talking, I realized how late it was, how angry my father would be. I told him thank you, like my father had taught me to, and ran back to the fields.


That night Diego stayed with the Lopez's, a guest of a village that couldn't even support itself. I told all the other children about Diego's story, and we decided to sneak into town from the fields the next day and listen. I couldn't have seen the end, so my mistakes can be forgiven.

We all did it. We all made our little excuse, me and Pablo and Juan and Julia and all the other children, and we met Diego sitting just as he had the last day, on the old bench. 

Our little feet quaking with fear of the stranger, making a low rumble of impending doom, we walked towards Diego. I had thought I would have to ask for a story, but Diego spoke before I could form words.

“Hello, my children. Have you come for a story?”

“Yes, senor Diego.” I was the only one brave enough to speak.

“Sit down then. And listen to the story...” The words flowed, melted, froze, evaporated into our ears, spread out across the area around the bench, and drained back into Diego, drawing us all in with them. This time the story was full of magic, a wizard giving life to a village by bringing a storm, a special storm of water that would fall, then walk to where it was most needed, one drop at a time. “... and the lord was satisfied with the harvest, the village was allowed to stay, and the crops grew taller then all of you stacked together.”

“All of us together, Don Diego?” The story had given the others enough confidence to speak.

“Even taller, my child. Now, would you like to make the story come true?”

Rain was all our village needed. A chorus of “yes” almost as deep as Diego's own voice came from all of us children.

“Then here is what you will do. You will all go home, and you will find the plant that grows closest to each of your houses, and no matter what plant that is, you will take a leaf of it, and spit on it, and put it under your pillow. And we will see what comes tomorrow, my children.”



It looked like the rain drops could have walked off the leafs. The storm had given the village life, it had given life to the plants, and thereby given us life. Each and every leaf looked like a raindrop had walked onto the very tip of it and sat down.(2) It might have been coincidence, but I still don't think it was. The children of the village, all of us, we knew what it meant. It meant Diego was right. And we told our parents.

The day after the rain, after we had ensured that every plant was growing again, the adults gave us the day off, since the harvest looked so promising, and all of the children went to see Don Diego again. He had spent everyday since he arrived on that same bench.

But this time our parents came too. We told them of what Diego had done, and they wanted to meet this miracle man. From what we told them you would have thought Diego walked on water. In fact, you never know, he might of.

My father was the first to speak to Diego. 

“Senor?”

“Si. What is it?”

“Did you bring the rain?” Diego's voice had startled him. He spoke like I would have. Diego was good with kids, so he made sure everybody seemed like a child around him.

“We all brought it, senor.”

This must have been too much for my father. I think he had expected Diego to be a simple story teller, he expected him to not take credit for the rain. But Diego knew what he did. “Then prove it. Do something else.”

“You doubt me?” I had never heard that kind of edge on Diego's voice, except when he acted like the villain in a story. “Senor, I have done nothing but help you, and you doubt me? Tonight I will prove it to you senor. Tonight you will be able to farm the fields as if it was day.”

“Then it will be a good night, Don Diego.” I remember hating my father for that. Hating him for doubting Diego. He just turned and left after that. I wish now that he had stayed.

Diego tool up where he had left off. “Today's story, my children, today's story is about an evil king, and his mage, who might have saved the kingdom, if not for the king's stubbornness. It all started with...” The story wove into our ears, danced with our minds. The words hooked our ears and Diego reeled us into his net like a fisherman. The story dove through caves, and magic was done, and the mage made the sun shine in the depths of the night, and the king was stupid and bull headed.  “... and the mage was right, and the king was ashamed. All the people told the king to go away, told him he should have done as the mage said. They all said he should have trusted his magician.”

Diego took a deep bath, and even his breath was melodious. “Now my children, do you want to make the story true?” 

We all wanted Diego to be right. I think I wasn't the only one who hated his parents for doubting Diego. It might not seem like much now, but story and a day off from Diego's rain was more then our parents had given us in our whole lives. A little more timidly then last time, we all murmured our agreement.

“Then here is what you will do. Tonight, before you go to sleep, you will take an ember from the fireplace, and throw it out of your window.”

“But won't the embers burn us, Senor Diego?”

“Yes they will, my children. And it will hurt, it will indeed, but you must do it for the magic to work.”


That night the better part of the village went to bed with burned palms. Even as I stirred in my bed, trying to forget the pain in my hands, I saw brilliant flash. Immediately I ran to the window, sure that Diego had worked his magic.

And I was right. Diego did it.

All of us, all of the children, ran out and played in the light, even as Diego's little sun faded. It only lasted a few hours, but we all played in the dirt and dust, kicking up brilliant red clouds into the glow of Diego's sun.(3)


The next weeks were different. The adults knew about Diego's powers now, the magic his cascading words could work. They let all of us, all of the children, spend the days listening to Diego's stories. Diego brought more rain, and richer soil. But he also made other things. His stories had sneaky faeries, and he would bring them to life too. Diego wanted all of his story to come to life, and little things like faeries, mystical plants, and some odd creatures came to life too. But as long as the crops grew, it didn't matter to the adults.

Then came Burro. Diego's story for that fateful day was stranger then before. It had a mad man who made animals that angered the Elders of his village. It was darker, and the words cast a shadow over the entire village.

We did what Diego said that night, as always, since the adults would do anything to keep he crops growing.

And the next morning the Burro was in the fields.

He had been  minor character in the story, just another creation of the madman, a half donkey, half dolphin creature that would eat anything, just to keep others from having it. And now he was in the fields.

When my father found Burro, he had already eaten enough to ruin a quarter of the harvest. Burro just stood there, dumbly staring at my father, and chewing away at another corn stock.(4)

The entire village was furious. With what Burro had destroyed, we were almost back to where we had been before Diego arrived. Not quite as bad, not as nearly starving, but still worse off then if Burro had stayed in the story.

My father marched me off to the bench, to go to talk to Don Diego. He was mad, his face red like the sun Diego had put in the sky.

For the first time since he arrived, Diego wasn't on the park bench. It was empty. It was odd to see it again. With Diego there, you always focused on him, but without him, you realized how much the area around the bench had changed. The trees were green, a color unknown in the village before Diego arrived. That's the one change I'll always remember the most. Diego made the night into day, made the village come alive, but it was never so striking as seeing green trees in the village.(5)

We looked all over the town that day. It was if Diego knew we were going to come after him. Like he knew we were going to look for him. Maybe he knew we wouldn't be happy, but I don't think he was sorry. Not after that night.

Nobody had seen Diego all day, and I went to bed for the first time without doing one of Diego's little ceremonies, without bringing his story to life. After my father had tucked me in, I heard Diego's voice. I thought about moving, but the comfort of my sheets was too great, and before I knew it Diego had started a story, and I didn't want to move anymore. 

“Listen, my child, to the story of a little boy, much like you...” I let the ebb and flow of his words pull me under, let him drown me in the story. I listened as the little boy, the nephew of the mage from the other story, took vengence on the king. The words were forming a dagger in my hand as the boy made his way into the king's bedroom with his knife, and made it all right. I words wrapped my hands, clenched my fists around the imaginary blade. The boy fixed it all, proved that the mage was right, just by killing the king. “... and with the bloody knife still in his hand, the boy knew it was all made good. The mage would be the new king, and everything would be better. Now, my child, do you want to make the story real?”

I was afraid. I knew that Diego had hurt the harvest, but I also had heard Diego's stories. His words ran over me, and all I could think of was his other stories. How much I had loved his other stories, and how great it was for them to come true. “Yes” I mumbled from beneath my covers.

“Then reach beneath your pillow. I left a knife there. You can work your magic. Your father is wrong, he is like the king in the story. And you, you are like the young boy. I always said you were like the young boy.”

That was it. I was mesmerized. I couldn't fight back, so I did as he said, and it was all over, my child. That was how my story ended, with me killing my own father, and spending the rest of my life drowning in a sea of regret. So please don't make it real again, my child. Let Don Diego's story end here, my child.

(1)Don diego when he first eneters the village.

(2)The Rain Diego rbought with his story.

(3)The sun Diego created in the night sky, from his magical story.

(4)Burro, another magical thing from Diego's stories, eating the crops.

(5)The empty bench where Diego once sat.


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## Sialia (Dec 2, 2004)

You have each in your own way brought tears to the eyes of this little blue flumph.

I am profoundly glad that I do not need to judge this competition.

As far as I am concerned, you are both completely magnificent.

Humble thanks for stories that not only used the pictures, but which exceeded them, and made them better.


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## Maldur (Dec 2, 2004)

Sialia you are right, both stories are wonderfull. We should make thyem write a book together, and let you do the illustrations


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## Graywolf-ELM (Dec 2, 2004)

Arrgh, Macbeth spun a good story.  Piratecat aluded to Arcade and Dylrath from his story hour.  I'm really glad I'm not judging here.  I like the originality and finality of Macbeth's story, but I think the images were used slightly better in Piratecat's story, and the character's call to me.

Good luck with the judging.  good luck to both writers.

GW


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## Piratecat (Dec 2, 2004)

So folks know: I wrote my entry with the expectation that the story would be judged on its own merits, with no knowledge of storyhours or other characters needed. If it can't stand on its own, independent of source material, then it shouldn't be here.


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## Berandor (Dec 2, 2004)

I didn't get the allusions, and I still don't really get them. So no fear.  (Well, maybe a little, because Macbeth's story is quite ... well, leave that for the judgement)


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## FireLance (Dec 3, 2004)

*Ceramic DM Round 3.2: FireLance vs. Rodrigo Istalindir*

*Nighttime Wanderings*

Jim rubbed his eyes wearily. It was the third night in a row that he had stayed up past two o' clock, trying his hardest to cram legal precedents and financial best practices into his tired brain. It had seemed a good idea at the time, to take just a year off his job to pursue an advanced dual degree in Law and Financial Analysis. He had been so confident that he would be able to do it, but now, the examinations loomed and he still wasn't able to make anything he had learned stick in his mind. He surveyed the piles of books and papers with mild dislike. If he passed his examinations, he would take great pleasure in carting the whole load of them to the small storage shed in the back garden and leaving them to rot.

Jim's stomach rumbled, and he realized that he had skipped dinner. With a sigh, he set down his books and went to the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat. With a sinking feeling, he vaguely recalled that he had neglected to go shopping, too. The results of his search were disappointing. All he could find was four peppers, one orange, one green, one red and one yellow (1). He had originally bought them to try out a recipe he had found for "four pepper casserole", but had then got too caught up with his studies. Red, orange, yellow, green. There really ought to be a blue pepper too, he thought. 

He glanced at his watch. It was too late to call for a pizza. He looked out the window and saw that it was raining heavily. That would make a trip to the convenience store extremely unpleasant. Besides, that would take time away from his revision. He turned back to the peppers. Red, orange, yellow, green. Best to do it in order, he thought, reaching for the red pepper.

He returned to the study, munching the red pepper. The spicy taste set his tongue on fire and warmed his blood, making him feel more alert and alive. With a sigh, he settled down to face his piles of books and papers again. He wondered if it was worth this much effort, just to be a multi-classed accountant/lawyer/financial analyst. He smiled. It had been years since he had thought of himself as a multi-classed anything. Once, he had been Jimalleon Veramocor, the elven fighter/mage/thief, infiltrator and agent of the Elven Imperial Navy. But that had been a long time ago...

"Jim, me lad, where have you been all these years?" a familiar, jovial voice boomed from behind him. Jim turned round in disbelief. Standing there was a man with the head of a hippo, a highwayman's three-cornered hat perched on his head, holding a flintlock pistol in his right hand (2).

"George?" Jim asked weakly, "What are you doing here?" This was not possible. George was a creation of his own childhood imagination, an amalgamation of the personality and mannerisms of a character from his favorite book with the name and face of a hippo puppet from his favorite show, made for a game that he used to play, where hippo-men sailed between the stars in magical ships. 

"Searching for the Blue Pepper, of course. Isn't that what you're here for, too?" George said. Jim shook his head in confusion, and George stepped closer, a look of puzzlement on his face. "Surely you've heard? It's the talk of every tavern in every spaceport. The Dark Lord has stolen the Blue Pepper for his own nefarious purposes. If you're not looking for it, what are you doing in his lair?"

"Dark Lord? Lair? Blue Pepper? What are you talking about?" Jim babbled, "Why am I talking to you? You're not even real! You're just some hallucination. Yes, that's right - you're the product of a tired mind already weakened by stress, hunger and insufficient sleep. That red pepper might have something to do with it, too."

"Ah, poor lad. The Dark Lord must have confused your mind," George muttered, "I'm sorry to do this, Jim-boy, but you'll thank me for it later." With that, he brought his fist round in a tremendous punch which knocked Jim off balance and left him sprawling on the floor. 

George leaned over him. "Are you feeling better, Jim? Thinking clearly now?" Jim nodded and rubbed his cheek. That punch had _hurt_. A dream couldn't be that painful, could it?

"So what say you, Jim? Shall we join forces to look for the Blue Pepper? The Dark Lord wouldn't stand a chance against the two us. Come with me, lad, and the bards will sing of the exploits of Long George Platinum and his mate Jim for years." He reached down a hand to help him up.

Jim hesitated. He felt vaguely tempted, but he had examinations to prepare for. He couldn't afford to waste any time. "I'm sorry, George," he started to say, but then he saw something behind George that chilled his blood. A sinister black cloak loomed above him, billowing ominously. 

"Jim, is something wrong?" George managed to ask, before it engulfed him. "Jim, me lad, help! Help me!" George's muffled cries came from within the dark shape, which shuddered and shook as he struggled against it. But, paralyzed by fear, Jim could only watch and listen as George's struggles and cries grew steadily weaker and eventually stopped.

There was a moment of silence and stillness, and then the dark bundle in front of Jim slowly unwrapped itself. Jim's muscles finally responded, and he scrambled to his feet. As he turned to run, a cold, mocking voice whispered in his ear, "Why run, my son? You cannot escape. You belong to me, now."

"No!" Jim screamed, and awoke with a start. He was seated at his desk in the study. There was no sign of George or any black, cloak-like monsters anywhere. It had been a dream, then. The scariest thing he could see was one of his books, lying open in front of him at the chapter, "Mergers and Acquisitions". He was starting to really dislike his books. Perhaps, he thought, he would put each of them through a shredder before dragging them to the garden shed and leaving them to rot.

Jim was still hungry, and he stood up and went to the kitchen again. There were three peppers left, the orange, the yellow and the green. Orange follows red, he thought, as he reached for it. This one tasted warm and slightly sweet. In a way, it reminded him of peppermint. He had always loved peppermint, especially around Christmas...

He was passing by his bedroom on his way back to the study when he heard a soft giggle and the sound of rustling coming from within. He peered into his bedroom, and his eyes widened in surprise. Someone had left a pile of white and silver tinsel on his bed. He stepped into his bedroom to take a closer look, and noticed a pair of eyes staring out at him warily from inside the pile of tinsel (3). "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Jim asked.

"Shhh!" a boy's voice came from inside the pile of tinsel. "Not so loud. The Dark Lord will hear you. Then, he'll find me, and he'll make me tell him where I hid the Blue Pepper."

"Dark Lord? Blue Pepper? I'm dreaming again, aren't I?" Jim said with a sigh.

A man's voice suddenly came from outside the room, "Son? Where are you?"

"Now you've gone and done it!" whispered the voice in the tinsel, "He's heard you and now he's going to find me. What am I going to do?" The eyes looked worried for a moment, then brightened again. "Look, it's your fault he's found me, and you're just going to have to fix things. I've hidden the Blue Pepper some place that he will never think of searching for it, because he would never think that anything important could be there. I'll distract him, and you go get it and keep it away from him. Alright?"

"But you haven't told me where you hid it," Jim protested.

"I can't tell you now, he might hear me. Don't just stand there, hide! Quickly!"

Jim was utterly confused by everything that was going on, but he stumbled behind a cupboard anyway.

"Daddy, is it time to decorate the tree yet?" the voice said.

"Don't be silly, it's nowhere near Christmas," Jim muttered.

"Don't be silly, it's nowhere near Christmas," the man's voice echoed, sounding rather cross. Jim stiffened. He recognized that voice. "Have you finished your homework yet? It's almost time for dinner, you know." Jim could hear the man's footsteps now. They were almost outside his room. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped. Jim braced himself for what was coming. "What's this tinsel doing on your bed? Jim!"

"Dad!" Jim shouted, and woke up again. Once more, he was seated at his desk in the study. This time, the book in front of him was open to the chapter, "Laws of Inheritance". His dislike for his books flared again. He had the sudden urge to burn them after shredding them, and then throw the ashes into the garden shed.

Breathing deeply, he counted to ten and calmed himself down. Was it just coincidence that he had two dreams in a row about some mysterious blue pepper and a dark lord who turned out to be his father? There was only one way to find out. He walked back to the kitchen and stared at the two remaining peppers. Yellow or green? After a moment's hesitation, he picked the yellow one. He couldn't take the chance that it wouldn't work if he went out of sequence.

The yellow pepper was dry and hot, like a desert wind on his tongue. Perhaps that was a good sign, he mused. He had read somewhere that wisdom came from the desert...

Jim paced around the kitchen. Nothing was happening. "Hello?" he asked, "Are any dreams, hallucinations or childhood memories going to make an appearance? I'm waiting here."

A low, throaty chuckle sounded from the kitchen door. "You always were an impatient one, weren't you, Jim? Well, you'll have to wait a little bit longer, I'm afraid. These old bones have never moved very fast, and the years have only made them slower." Walking through the kitchen door was an old tortoise about four feet tall, leaning heavily on a staff. "Remember me, Jim?"

"Aristortle?" Jim asked.

"Pity," the tortoise said, "I was hoping you'd have forgotten. Then I could have given myself a new name that didn't sound like it was created by a thirteen-year-old who thought that puns were the highest form of art. Which, as I recall, that was you were when you named me. But anyhow, yes, it's me, Aristortle. In the flesh. Or, to be more precise, in the image."

"So tell me, O wise and all-knowing tortoise sage Artistortle," Jim said, "Why am I having these hallucinations, or dreams, or whatever? What is the Blue Pepper? Is my father really the Dark Lord? What on earth is going on?"

Aristortle was quiet for a while. "You've been very busy lately, haven't you?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You should know better than to expect me to give a straight answer to any question. You created me, after all. But my question was rhetorical. You have been busy. College, grad school, a job in the bank, overtime, two promotions in five years, golf, gym membership, and now, advanced degrees in law and financial analysis."

"There's nothing wrong with keeping busy and being a useful member of society," Jim said, "My father always said..."

"And that's the crux of it, Jim," Aristortle interrupted, "Your father was not a bad man. Far from it. He was responsible, hard-working, serious, sensible. You are all these things too, and it is good that you are. But you are not your father. There is another side of you that you have neglected for too long, and it is doing everything it can to reclaim you tonight."

Aristortle turned, and hobbled towards kitchen door. "You have a choice, Jim. You can dismiss everything that has happened tonight as nothing more than a series of unimportant dreams. You can go back to your regular life and you will still be happy. But if you do decide to continue searching for the Blue Pepper, here is one final clue. Remember this, Jim?"

Aristortle gestured towards the dining room table, and  the image of a smaller turtle lying on top of a larger one appeared on it (4).

"Turtle Mountain, and Turtle Temple on top of it," Jim said.

"Correct. Find it, and you find the Blue Pepper," Aristortle said, and he and the image faded away. Jim was left alone in the kitchen, staring at the last pepper, the green one, lying in the bowl on the table.

He knew ought to get back to preparing for his examination. It was the responsible thing to do. It was what his father would have done.

_But you are not your father. There is another side of you..._

He had no time to go chasing after some Blue Pepper that might not even exist.

_Ah, poor lad. The Dark Lord must have confused your mind..._

But he had to admit that he desperately wanted to.

_Come with me, lad, and the bards will sing..._

Like how he desperately wanted to lock his books and notes away some place where he would never see them again.

_Some place that he will never think of searching for it..._

Like in the storage shed in the back garden.

_He would never think that anything important could be there..._

All the books and games and toys he had as a child were there.

_Jim, me lad, where have you been all these years..._

Including the wooden turtle pull toy that was his inspiration for Turtle Mountain.

_Find it, and you find the Blue Pepper..._

In a flash, Jim ran out of the kitchen and into the back garden. The storage shed was a dilapidated, rusting structure. The rain had stopped, but had left deep puddles around it that added to its forlorn and abandoned air (5).

Jim splashed through the puddles and into the shed. The smells of rust and mildew and decay were strong. Faded books lined the shelves, and abandoned toys peered out from boxes. The entire shed was a mausoleum for his childhood companions.

He spent the morning searching the shed. He found a clumsily-drawn portrait of George amid a stack of other papers on a shelf. He found a pile of white and silver tinsel stuffed into a black garbage bag. In a box in a corner of the shed, he found his turtle pull toy. But there was no sign of a blue pepper anywhere. Dejected, he returned to the kitchen. One last pepper, the green one, remained in the bowl. He looked at it thoughtfully. Why not? He had nothing to lose, anyway.

This pepper tasted fresh and juicy, sharp rather than spicy. As he ate, Jim wondered what had gone wrong. He had found the turtle pull toy, but there was still no blue pepper anywhere to be seen. Had he been searching for the wrong Turtle Mountain? The pull toy was, of course, nothing like the way he imagined Turtle Mountain to be. In the first place, Turtle Mountain had no wheels, and the rock patterns on its sides were more intricate than the uniform green of the pull toy. And the shrine on top was not a crude wooden cut-out, but a majestic structure carved from green jade. If he concentrated hard enough, he could see it so clearly...

Jim jerked himself awake, comprehension suddenly dawning. He hadn't found the Blue Pepper because he had been searching in the wrong place all along. Smiling, he closed his eyes and concentrated, and Jimalleon Veramocor, elven fighter/mage/thief, infiltrator and agent of the Elven Imperial Navy, ran up the slopes of Turtle Mountain towards Turtle Temple, where his friends George and Aristortle were waiting, holding the Blue Pepper in his hands.

. . . . .

(1) The bowl of peppers
(2) George, the gif^H^H^H hippo-man
(3) Eyes peering out from among the tinsel 
(4) Turtle Mountain, with Turtle Temple on top of it
(5) The storage shed


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (Dec 3, 2004)

*Round 3.2 - Rodrigo Istalindir - Witchy Woman*

*Witchy Woman*​
“Ruined!  We’re ruined,” moaned the innkeeper.  “We’ll never be able to recover from this.” 

	Johann Small surveyed the damage wreaked by the spring flood.   The winter had been unusually harsh.  Whole houses had been buried under snowy drifts, and the villagers had prayed and made offerings to Scandiaca in hopes of an early spring.  

The weather mirrored the goddess’ fickle nature; the bitter winds stopping as if someone had slammed shut a door in the sky.  In the blink of an eye, the spring sun melted the blankets of snow and the river overflowed its banks.  To add insult to injury, sunshine had turned to shadow, and storm clouds threatened to finish what the thaw had started. 

The farmers in the outlying areas would survive, Johann knew, and the fertile soil left behind by the receding waters would benefit them in the years to come.  Even the craftsmen and other townsfolk would get by.  But he depended on the excess coin and comity they provided, and both would be in short supply for quite some time.

With a resigned sigh, Johann directed his daughters to begin gathering what goods that could be salvaged, and he began shoveling muck from the floor.  With any luck, he thought, the water hadn’t breached the casks, and he could a least get good and drunk when night fell.  (Picture 2)

Hours later, Johann still struggled.  His daughters had ventured to the river to try and wash the linens, leaving him alone to grouse aloud while he worked.

“Hail, fellow.  Have you a room?” 

The voice, though friendly, badly startled the innkeeper, and he nearly fell face-first into the mud before regaining his composure.

“Are you daft or just blind?”  Johann inquired, not even turning to face the interloper.  “Or do you desire to slumber amongst the frogs and worms?”

“Yes, you do seem to have quite the mess on your hands, don’t you?  But for once I have coin to spare, good sir, and having spent the last week sleeping in the rain, even such accommodations as this look welcome.”

At the mention of coin, Johann stood, knees creaking, and faced his new customer.

“Coin, you say?  That would be welcome, I tell you true.  I’ve not much to offer, but you’re welcome to bed down in the attic with me and my kin.  I’ll not charge you full price, of course.”  

“Cozy, I’m sure.  By kin, I assume you mean your daughters?   I saw them by the river and they sent me hither.”

“Aye, they are my daughters, but I warn ya….”

“You’ve nothing to fear, my good man, nothing at all,” the newcomer laughed.  “I’ve been the subject of a tale or two already.   I’ve no desire to personify the butt of so many jokes.”

“The attic will be just fine, and I’ll be on my best behavior, I swear.”

“Well then, you’ve got yourself a place to stay.”  Johann wiped his muddy hand on his shirt and shoved it forward.   “Johann Small, innkeeper.”

The stranger took his hand and shook it firmly.  “Kylo Krumboldt, good sir, at your service.”

“What brings you here, Mister Krumboldt?  Surely you didn’t come to enjoy our fine mud baths?”

“No, though your mud is quite lovely.  And please, call me Kylo.”

	“I am a merchant by trade, though recent misunderstandings in the south have left me without wares.  I thought that perhaps these northern climes would renew my fortunes as the spring renewed the land.”

	“Ach, just as well you’ve no merchandise.  You’d have lost a wagon in the floods for sure, and maybe your life along with it.”

	“You are probably right, Johann.  And I feel churlish for bemoaning the loss of some trinkets while you townsfolk are suffering such a disaster.”

	“We’ve survived worse, I suppose, though I’d be hard-pressed to remember when.  Still, no one lost their life, and for that we can be thankful.  Why don’t you settle yourself upstairs, Kylo, and I’ll join you in a moment.  It’s about time for a wee bit o’ beer, don’t you think?”

	Kylo laughed, clapped Johann on the shoulder, and headed into the tavern and up the stairs, feet squelching in the mud.

*

	An hour later, as the sun neared the horizon, Jenne Small and her younger sister Jule approached the inn pulling a small cart laden with dried and folded clothes and bedding.  From outside, they heard boisterous laughter, some recognizable as their father’s.  Grabbing armfuls of laundry, they hurried inside.

	Reaching the top of the narrow stairway leading to the attic, they entered to find Kylo and their father sitting on the floor, a small cask of ale between them.  Both men held large flagons, and waved them drunkenly as they told jokes that made the girls’ ears turn red.

	“Hey, Kylo, I’d like you to meet my daughters.  The one on the left is Jule, and th’ other one ish Jenne.”  Johann slurred.

	The two daughters exchanged an exasperated glance.

	“Tis the other way around, sir.  I’m Jenne, and she’s Jule.”  Jenne corrected her father.  “And we met Mister Krumboldt this afternoon.”

	Oblivious, Kylo struggled to his feet.  While his capacity for alcohol was prodigious, he’d met his match in the innkeeper.

	“Kylo Krumbolt, at your service.  Such fine lasses you are.  I can see you’re the apple of your father’s eye.”  Grasping Jenne’s hand with his right and Jule’s with his left, he kissed each in turn.  Laundry tumbled to the floor.

	The sisters looked at each other again, and stifled their laughter.

	“Please to meet you, Mister Krumboldt, ”  the girls said formally, and then burst into giggles.

	Kylo staggered back to where had been sitting and tumbled awkwardly to the ground.  He picked up his flagon and picked up his tale where he’d left off.

	The girls gathered the fallen laundry and folded it before stacking it atop and old chest.

	“We’re going down to the pantry, father.  Hopefully the food on the higher shelves is still dry.”

*

	Jenne and Jule returned an hour later, hoping the small cask had been drained and that the men had either regained their senses or lost consciousness.

	It seemed the former, as the bawdy tales had ceased and the two men sat quietly talking in the corner.  They had dragged a table and four chairs from the main room, and sat across from each other.

	The girls pulled chairs up to the table, and placed bread and cheese scavenged from the pantry in the center.

	“Please, Kylo, you’ve got to try.  We’ve nothing to lose.  If those clouds let loose, we’re done for.  The whole town will wash away.”

	“I don’t know.  If this Scandiaca is as crafty as you say, I’m not sure bargaining with her is wise.”

	“But you are a man of the world.  If half of what you’ve told me of your adventures is true, you’re the only one around that can match wits with her and win us a change in the weather.”

	Kylo was torn.  On the one hand, fleecing the gullible was more than a habit with him, it was his calling.  But his luck had nearly run out in the south, and the memory of awakening to see an angry crowd pointing sharp things at him had made him cautious.  And he was starting to like the innkeeper.

	“Okay, Johann, okay.  I tell you what.  I’ll seek out this Scandiaca, and try to persuade her to make the rains go away.  If I succeed, I’ll take your gold and say ‘thank you’.  If I fail, and it rains within the week, I’ll charge you nothing and offer my apologies.”

	That was as fair as he’d ever been, Kylo thought.  He wander out into the wilds, wait a day for this mythical goddess to show, and then come back.  Betting on the weather was no more risky than most of the wagers he’d made in his life, and if the rain held off for a week, he could claim his reward with a clean conscience.

	“Deal.” Johann grabbed Kylo’s hand and shook it.

	“Now, if you’ll excuse me for a bit, I’ve got to get rid of that ale,” said Johann, and he made his way down the stairs.

	“Are you really going to bargain with the Weather Witch?”  Jule asked in awe.  “No one has ever seen her and returned to tell about it.”

	“If they’ve never returned, how do you know what really happened to them?” Kylo asked, amused.  “Maybe they just fell in the river and were washed away, or something equally mundane.”

	Jule looked up at her older sister.

	“You said so, Jenne.  You said she punished those that had the nerve to trespass in her abode by cracking their bones and eating the marrow.  And when I was growing up you told me she snuck into town at night and stole little girls who didn’t do their chores!”

	“I made up the part about stealing little girls.  But the rest is true, I swear.”

	Kylo smiled.  

	“Don’t believe everything you hear, whether it’s from some old hag with the evil eye or an older sister who’s trying to trick someone into doing all the chores.”

	“What about traveling scoundrels with silver tongues?”  Jenne asked.

	“Especially them.”

*

	The following morning, Kylo set out from town.   He followed the surging river upstream, keeping well clear of its unstable banks.  Johann had told him that Scandiaca was rumored to live in a cave in the small mountains a half a day’s walk distant.

	The soggy ground made for slow going, and dusk was not far off by the time he reached the mountains.  Looking around for a place to camp for the night, he spied a bird high overhead, circling lazily in the dying light.

	Kylo spotted a small depression, a grotto ringed by broken rocks and sheltered from the wind.  Broken tree limbs were scattered about, but they were too wet for a fire.  He managed to scrounge some scraggly underbrush that looked like it would suffice, and set to making camp.

*

	The night sky was overcast, and there was no stars visibly, and only a faint glow where the moon hung behind curtains of clouds.  It was quiet, too, save for the low crackling of the fire.

	Kylo lay in against one of the smoother rocks, his cloak wrapped around him for warmth.  It wasn’t as nice as the attic at the inn, he thought, but at least it wasn’t raining, and he slowly drifted off to sleep.

	“Who!”

	The cry jerked Kylo from his slumber, and he looked around groggily, trying to spot the caller.

	“Who!” Again the cry sounded.

	Across the rocky bowl, a beautiful white owl sat upon a scrawny tree growing out of the barren ground.

	“Who!”  A third time.

	Kylo stood mute, watching the creature.  With a sudden flurry, it launched itself from its perch   Flapping furiously, it stopped midair several feet away and changed.  Where the bird had been an instant before stood a woman.  

She was shrouded in a cloak covered with white feathers, and a fur-lined hood nearly obscured her face.  Coal-black eyes stared unblinking at him, and Kylo shivered as a wave of bitter cold swept over the clearing.  (Picture 4)

“Who dares disturb my aerie?”  Her voice was deep and resonant.

“My name is Jamis”  Kylo responded.  Despite his fear, his natural survival instincts told him that giving her his real name would be a bad idea.

“First you disturb my home, then you lie to me?” she hissed.  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t turn you into a mouse and eat you!”

“My deepest apologies.  Twas a reflex, nothing more.  Names have power, and one shouldn’t use them out lightly.  I am known as Kylo.”

“Do you know my name, foolish one?”

“I have heard the villagers call you Scandiaca.”  Kylo ventured.

“I am known by that name.  Others as well.  Winter Witch.  Lady Owl.  But Scandiaca will do.”

“Again, my apologies, Scandiaca.  I did not mean to intrude on your home.  I was seeking a place to sleep for the night, nothing more.”

“Why do you come here, to these mountains?”

“The townsfolk sent me here to beg a boon from you.  They are fearful that the rains will come and wash away their livelihood.  They would ask that you work your magic and keep the storms at bay.”

“And what do they offer me in exchange?  What price will they pay for my forbearance?”  

“I’m sure they will give you anything you ask, anything that is within their power to give. “

“Very well.  I demand a child.  No more than a year old.  The meat is most tender when they are young.”

A horrified gasp echoed across the rocks, and Kylo’s head whipped around at the sound.

“Spies!  You brought sneaky spies!”  Scandiaca shrieked.

Kylo glimpsed a Jule atop her sister’s shoulders, peering over the rocks.

Lightning flashed and smoke billowed, and when it cleared, the girls were nowhere to be seen.

Sick to his stomach, Kylo ran to where they had been hiding.  Instead of two young girls, he saw two green turtles, one atop the other.  (Picture 3)

“What have you done?”  He turned back and shouted at Scandiaca.  “They were just children.”  

“Be grateful they were too old to eat, else they’d be mice instead of turtles.” Scandiaca scowled.  “But turtles do make such a nice sound when you drop them on the rocks.”

“No, please, don’t.  Turn them back, please.  I promise you, they just wanted to meet you.  They meant no harm.”

“So you ask another boon?  You wish to barter for the children’s safe return?”

“Yes.  Yes, I do.  What will you ask to return the children to the way they were, and let them return home safely?”

“Hmm.  Let me see.  Food is nice, but I can get my own food.”

“How about these?  Do you fancy emeralds?”  Kylo asked, pulling a small puch from his shirt and dumping two small gemstones into his hand.

“Pretty, yes, they are pretty.  But not my color, I think.”

“I know.” Scandiaca said. “I want you, Kylo.”

“Aren’t I too old and tough to eat?”  Kylo stammered.

“I don’t mean to eat you, Kylo.  Oh no.  I mean to bed you.  It can be so cold and lonely on my mountain, and you are fair to look upon.”

“What?”

“That is my demand, mortal.  Your body for theirs.”

	Kylo felt trapped.  He couldn’t let the sisters spend the rest of their lives living in pond. 

	“Very well.  My body for theirs.  And for the town, as well.  But for the night only.”

	“Done.” Scandiaca shouted triumphantly.  She gestured, and again the flash of light and cloud of smoke sprung forth.   Jule and Jenne stood upright and human once more.

	“Run, children, run like the wind.”  Kylo shouted, and the girls fled the clearing.

	“And now, Kylo, you pay for their freedom.”

	“First, the rain.  Make the storms go away.”

	“Very well.  Follow me, Kylo, and I’ll satisfy you before you satisfy me,” she leered.

	The witch disappeared behind a rock, and at first Kylo suspected more trickery.  Instead, he found a cleverly concealed tunnel.  He entered, and followed it down a few dozen feet before it opened into a large cave.  

	The witch’s home was rather well appointed, for a hole in the ground.  Fur rugs covered the ground in layers, and chimes and totems hung from the ceiling.  Lichens glowed from cracks in the wall, softly illuminating the refuge.

	The witch hovered over something, and Kylo moved closer for a better look.  In her lap sat a plate, upon which sat four brightly colored objects, red, yellow, green, and orange.  (Picture 5)

	Vegetables, or maybe fruits, Kylo thought, although he’d not seen their like before.  Not surprising, given that he felt vegetables were a waste of time when there was meat to be eaten.

	The witch’s hands passed over the vegetabes, and she muttered incantations in a strange tongue.  For several minutes this continued, until finally she looked up and grinned at Kylo.  

	“Take these with you in the morning, and when you get to the village, scrape the seeds from them and plant them at the four points of the compass around the town.  

“Red, for blood, to the north.  Yellow, for the rising sun, to the east.  Green, for the plants, to the south, and the orange to the west, for the setting sun.”

	“And then what?”  Kylo asked.

	“And then nothing.  So long as the plants that spring forth thrive, the worst of the weather will pass the town by.  This I promise.”

	Scandiaca smiled at Kylo again, and he suddenly knew how the mouse felt just before it was devoured by the swooping owl.



*

	Dawn crept up the slope of the mountains, and Kylo stirred.  Moving quietly, he gathered his clothing and crept from the cave.  The morning was cold, but still he didn’t stop to dress until he was well away from the cave.  He nearly cried out in pain as his shirt scraped against the deep furrows the witch’s talons had gouged in his back, and he wondered, not for the first time, why she couldn’t have changed those meathooks the way she shapeshifted everything else.

	“The hag’s gone mad with power,” he muttered.  “Pathetic old crone has to threaten children to get a man to even look at her.”

	Scandiaca peered over the edge of her aerie, her owl eyes nearly blind now that the sun had risen. Her hearing, however, remained as keen as ever.

	“Crone, am I?  Hag? You are a pig, Kylo, like all men, and so shall others see you.”

*

Kylo staggered back into town, and headed for the inn.  He was worried about the girls, and he hoped that no matter how crazy the old woman was, that she at least was true to her word.

“Johann?  Are you here?  Are your girls safe?” he called as he climbed the steps.

Entering the attic, he could see the two girls sound asleep, huddled together under several blankets.  They must have been exhausted, he thought, especially if they ran all the way home.  

He was about to go back downstair and look for Johann when he saw Jule open her eyes.  They widened to the size of saucers, and the girl screamed.

Her shouts awakened Jenne, and she too shrieked when she saw Kylo.

“Help, father, there is a beast upon us,” she shouted.

“Jenne, it’s me, it’s Kylo.”

The girl stopped yelling long enough to take a long hard look at him.  Her eyes darted to his clothes, then back to his face.

“Kylo?  What did the witch do to you?”

“What do you mean?”

Scrambling to her feet, Jenne ran to the table and grabbed the serving platter.  She raised it in front of Kylo’s face.

Staring back at him was porcine face, flared snout and all.  Only the eyes remained recognizably human.

“Oh my god, that bitch!” he shouted.  “Look what she’s done to me.”

Outside, he heard people shouting and doors slamming.

“Kylo!  Show your face.” came a voice tinged with laughter.  

“The witch.  What more does she want from me?” he moaned.

	“I’ve come for the wards, Kylo.  I’m breaking our bargain, you vile pig.  And when I’m done with you, it will be the children’s turn.”

	Rummaging through his belongings, Kylo grabbed the only thing he could think of that might have a chance of stopping the witch.  Firearms were rare, and he doubted anyone this far from a large city had ever seen one.

	Rushing downstairs and out into the open, he saw the witch twenty yards away.  In the other direction a number of townsfolk cowered, unable or unwilling to stand up to Scandiaca.  More peered from around corners or behind cracked doors.

	“We had a deal, witch, and I kept it.  Leave these people be.”

	“Fool.  Do you think I am bound by any agreement with such as you?  Does the hunter bargain with its prey?  I treated you with kindness, and you mocked me.  And now you will know what it is like to be humiliated.”

	The witch’s talons began weaving a pattern in the air, and a sphere of brilliant white coalesced around them.  Kylo felt the temperature drop as well, and he hurriedly loaded the finicky firearm.  

	Scandiaca shrieked, and Kylo looked up just in time to see the orb that the witch had summoned streaking towards his head.  Without thinking, he raised his pistol and fired just as the missile struck him dead on.  (Picture 1)

*

	He opened his eyes, but was blind, and something sticky covered his face.  Blood, he thought, I’m covered with my own blood.  But at least I’m alive.  His ears were ringing from the gunshot, but he thought he heard laughter, too.

	He lifted his hands and tried to clear his vision.  He found his face covered with a frothy mixture that felt nothing like blood, and as he scooped it away from his eyes, he saw that it was white, not red.

	He sat up and looked around.  A few feet ahead of him, Jule and Jenne were laughing hysterically, and a dozen or so other, Johann included, were laughing as well.  He noticed Jenne was holding the sack of vegetables.  Of the witch, there was no sign.

	Kylo held up his hand and looked closely at the mess enveloping it.  He sniffed it, and stuck out his tongue and licked his fingers.

	Lemon meringue, he thought.  Not bad.


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## Piratecat (Dec 3, 2004)

Nice work, both of you.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Dec 3, 2004)

Was starting to panic last night.  Clicked the 'Reply' icon to start the post at 12:35.  Couldn't get the screen to come up till a little after 1am, and got it posted at 1:18.


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## Berandor (Dec 3, 2004)

In such a case, it's usually good to send an e-mail to mythago, containing your entry.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Dec 3, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> In such a case, it's usually good to send an e-mail to mythago, containing your entry.




I thought of that, but I didn't have an email address, and at several minutes per page load, I figured I'd take my chances with the post rather than try to find it. 

If I hadn't run right up to the deadline, it wouldn't have been an issue.  You'd think all those years of getting yelled at by my parents for waiting till the last minute to do my homework would have had some effect.


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## Maldur (Dec 3, 2004)

Im judging now, but as this is close it involves tarot, astrology, tealeave reading and various other ways of fiinding answers.


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## Berandor (Dec 3, 2004)

I've already flipped a coin twice, but it's always coming to stand on its edge...

And mythago's email is her username at the dot.com address of the same name. It's really easy to memorize


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## FireLance (Dec 3, 2004)

Maldur said:
			
		

> Im judging now, but as this is close it involves tarot, astrology, tealeave reading and various other ways of fiinding answers.



Perhaps you should try oneiromancy?


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## Maldur (Dec 5, 2004)

FireLance said:
			
		

> Perhaps you should try oneiromancy?




in the end I went for the tea-leaves. Judgement send


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## Piratecat (Dec 6, 2004)

Cool. Any guesstimates on when the results will be reported, Mythago? Not that I checked obsessively when I got home or anything.


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## mythago (Dec 6, 2004)

Tonight.


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## Berandor (Dec 6, 2004)

Tonight, tonight
the judgements come tonight
Yes I know, pressure's high
So I try, yes I try
Tonight!


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## Piratecat (Dec 6, 2004)

Thank you! I won't fret until then, then. Then. Then then. Then then then? Then!

I need more coffee.


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## Maldur (Dec 6, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Thank you! I won't fret until then, then. Then. Then then. Then then then? Then!
> 
> I need more coffee.




Judgements will be posted right after Piratecat posted a new episode in his storyhour 

(now I just need to convince Mythago that this is a good idea)


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## Berandor (Dec 6, 2004)

Dashing over words, a red pen in my hand
"Ouch, this poem hurts" - "this metaphor is bland"
feeling nice and warm, while marking up mistakes
there can be no harm if the power gives me shakes.

Ref.: Judgement sent, judgement sent, judgement's on its way
oh what fun to critisize what you had to say
judgement sent, judgement sent, judgement on it's way
one to choose, to win or loose that's what makes my day!

Oh, and... good luck to everybody


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## mythago (Dec 7, 2004)

Berandor



*Macbeth, "Words"* 
 A very good story about the power of storytelling. Don Diego is a mysterious figure and remains so even after the story's end. Why did he chose to kill the protagonist's father?  What was Diego's goal all along? We don't know. 
 The constantly changing attributes for Diego's storytelling expertise were very illustrative; I really got into the speech pattern. You always have an excellent flow in your stories, this is no exception. 
 One question arose quite early; when the protagonist refers to Diego "as a legend, or maybe a virus. I still haven't figured out which." He killed his father on Diego's behalf, and he still doesn't know whether to call the man legend or virus? Can't have been that much of a guilt trip, can it? 
 I also want some more detail on the stories that come to life. Mischievous faeries are in the village - and what? Do they flutter about, do they disappear after a day or two, or what? And what happens to the Burro? The protagonist's father "finds" it, and then? Shoots it, drives it away, eats it? 
 Still, it's a chilling progression from rain to nightly sun to murder. His words could surely hurt. 
 The ending was a little jarring, as well. While this narrative level has been there all along, it doesn't end with Diego's story, and I somehow got the impression that this was an afterthought. Who's the child that the narrator is referring to? Is it ****his** child? Is it just a figure of speech that he loaned from Diego? Has Diego come back? What's up? The ending left me with too many questions and too little resolution. 

*Piratecat: "Reunion"* 
 A totally different story. Where Macbeth is wonderfully dark, "Reunion" is funny. Two wizards meeting again - is it a yearly event, or a monthly meeting? Anyway, you really get the impression of two people having lived a good part of their lives with each other, what with the constant arguing and making fun of each other. As much as they pretend to be annoyed at each other's antics, they relish this time on the bench, and you get to feel that. 
 Now, I wonder about the younger one's eyes. After the owl eyes have been introduced so emphatically, the wizard with the mustache is left eyeless still. That irked me somewhat. 
 Just like the suspicious looking sandwich. Shifting its eyes, whistling an innocuous tune, wearing a trenchcoat, the sandwich sure looked suspicious. I got what you were saying, but it sounded curious nevertheless. 
 Then  we learn that the older wizard is "usually so precise", which is of course followed by great misunderstandings and banter, but also with him using "purpose" for tortoise. Just for the misunderstandings, which are funny, but not precise. And by "grub", I suppose the younger means  chafer grubs (hello language filter!). 
 Still, this story is ****funny**. Grin, chuckle, chortle funny. "They don't make squirrels like the used to" is probably my favorite phrase, whereas "the tale of the purpose is connected to the donkey" makes me think of the "Court Jester" with Danny Kaye. 
 There isn't really a conflict here (except for the misunderstanding), just two people reminiscing about good times. And morass instead of mer-ass isn't too precise, either. 
 Oh, and when the younger thinks about translucent grubs, "doubtlessly picturing his friend..." it sort of breaks the narrative as it shows us his thoughts, and it's not very funny because you end up explaining your own joke. 
 A funny little piece, even if not much of a story. 

*The pictures* 
_playme_ 
 - Piratecat's pic is a vicious court jester who just discovered the mandolins's side effects. That forced grin really gets me. After laughing for the pufferdove story, I start chortling again when I see that face. An ingenious use! 
 - This is Don Diego (de la Vega? Who knows). Macbeth's mysterious minstrel dominates the story, even though his motives remain a little muddied. Diego can use the power of stories for real life changes. A good, strong use. 

_seat_ 
 - Macbeth's bench is sat upon by Diego. As long as the storyteller sits there, nobody notices the surroundings, but when he has left (or vanished), the green plants stick out like a sore thumb. It wouldn't be that strong a use had Macbeth not given us the plants to look for - a very efficient way of lending this pic weight. 
 - Piratecat has an old bench where wizards meet regularly, sometimes refurnishing the thing. It's a nice detail that the two old men meet on an perhaps equally old bench, comparing their skin to it's surface. 

_underneath the surface_ 
 - Piratecat uses the pic as a reference to grubs which are soon enlarged and merged with squirrels to produce fluttersquirrels, err, squirrelmoths, err... It's a minor reference in another moment of complete misunderstanding that fits the story and enhances the theme, but is not really important to the "plot". 
 - Macbeth uses the pic for Diego's first "wizardry", as he changes the grubs to drops of water left behind by a rain torrent. It works, if only because the mentions that the rain might have been animated/water elemental-like. 

_chew_ 
 -Macbeth gives us Burro, a crazy creature from a  strange story. The burro eats because it doesn't want anybode else to eat, out of pure spite and envy. A great touch that really enhances the pic. I still don't know why Diego made it come alive and destroy a lot of the harvest, though, so the pic seems a little forced. 
 - This is the morass, and if not for this pic, we might be left wondering what the heck a morass is. Only by seeing it do we make the connection and get a glimpse at the story's themes before they are spelled out as transmogrifiying. It's a good use. Normally, I'm not too fond of pictures that aren't described/referenced in the text, but the morass gets a description later on, and as someone who disregarded the pic on the first reading, I can say the story works despite the lack of explanation for the morass. Be careful in these uses - if they don't work like here, I don't like them. 

_hot_ 
 - Whump. Whump Whump WHUMP. Pufferdoves exploding, accidentally fulfilling the prophesy about blood rain, reader laughing. What can I say? It's a very creative use (that is to say the pufferdoves seem to explode in a giant fireball), but one of the story's highlights. 
 - The kids playing under the midnight sun is a great image. The ritual to call the fiery globe is a little creepy and gives a great waring sign. I actually expected later rituals to become more dangerous and perhaps even bloody, and this really counters the good feeling we get about Diego after the rain. Great use, even if we didn't get to know what the boy's father thought about it. 

*Judgement* 
 On strictly narrative merits, both stories are tied. I enjoyed both tremendously, "Reunion" for its humor and "Words" for the dark tale it spins. But I already knew both of you could write. 
 So my decision hangs on the pics. And again, both of you have very good uses; curiously, I thought your strongest pics were the same despite having very different stories (hot and playme). 
 [sblock]It's a close call again, but the inventiveness of Piratecat's pics prevails. Exploding pufferdoves and a cursed mandolin make me give my 
 POINT TO PIRATECAT[/sblock]



Maldur

_Piratecat_ 
 The iconic bench that every village needs so the old men can sit and chat the day away. But does this make you a cross between a feline and a pirate? 

_MacBeth_ 
 Nasty little twist, but I like it stories do have power don’t they. 

_Judgement:_ 
 My vote for Piratecat, I liked the stories about the same, but the story being slightly more "fantasty" made me decide. 



mythago

     Piratecat – “Reunion”

     “What do you get when you cross two old magicians with a Jack Benny sketch?”

     The story wobbles a bit at the start (the part about donating money, for one) and then settles in, told through dialogue, somehow avoiding stereotypes of grumpy old men and cranky wizards. There are times when it goes a little *too* far in the “as you know…” direction, of explaining to the audience what the characters know all too well, but the device of reiterating a favorite old story works nicely.

     The use of “chew” was wonderful, “playme” a stretch, the rest decently done. One can’t help but admire exploding pufferdoves.



   Macbeth – “Words”

   I liked one of the stories. I say that because it seems like two different versions of the same basic theme. In the first, we get pretty sinister foreshadowing of a terrible end, the children led astray by a storytelling Pied Piper. The second story kind of slides into a different plotline altogether. We lose the concerted action by the children, the escalation from leaves to hot embers, the pitting of the children against the elders, and go to one boy being used to punish his father. We don’t really get a sense of what Don Diego is doing; why he has come to the village. Getting the narrator to kill his father seems kind of a pointless use of his power (and he came all the way to the village for this?)

     Very nice use of the bench to show not only Don Diego’s location, but his absence. “chew” was, I thought, weak; why Burro has a tail isn’t really explained except that he came from a story. I would have liked to see the balalaika appear again later in the story, since it’s such a big part of the original picture of Don Diego.



   Judgment for this round: [sblock]Piratecat takes it 3-0 and goes on to the final round![/sblock]


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## Maldur (Dec 7, 2004)

Well done Piratecat! MacBeth you almost had him, better luck next time 

So Pkitty what about that update?


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## mythago (Dec 7, 2004)

Maldur



   FireLance
 Mystic peppers, and getting sucked to another dimension. remind me never to
 go for a law degree

 Rodrigo Istalindir
 An adventurers destiny, very oriental feel. And lemon meringue pie....yum

 choices choices.....the tea leaves gave me Rodrigo Istalindir(but it was
 very hard).



Berandor

*Firelance: "Nighttime Wanderings"* 
 I think I'll quit my drive of becoming a lawyer/financial analyst. A nice story with a great moral, and one of the worst hippogriff names in history. George? 
 I must say I like each of your stories better than the previous one. I think you are constantly improving. 
 But I was a little lost as to where Jim lives. It seems he lives in his parents' old house, what with the shed outside where his father put his toys. And he sleeps in his boy's bedroom as we see in the second dream/vision. So what happened to his father and mother? From Aristortle's accounts, it sounds as if Jim might barely be thirty. Plus, with all his success, he doesn't have a garage for his car so he could go shopping and remain dry? 
 I thought that "O wise and all-knowing tortoise sage Aristortle" was a little too exaggerated to sound remotely serious, and it was strange that there was still the tinsel and the sketch of George inside the shed. Oh, and after Aristortle claims that Jim can't expect a straight answer from him, he proceeds to very much spell everything out. 
 I enjoyed the "Dark Lord/Dad" parallelism. I can readily imagine a small boy putting a dark cloak around his strict father's figure. I also liked the pepper "sequence" which goes as far as Jim not wanting to eat them "out of sequence", as well as the small detail about "four pepper casserole." And there ****should** be a blue pepper. 
 Just one final question: Just ****who** is holding the Blue Pepper in his hands in the end? 

*Rodrigo Istalindir, "Witchy Woman"* 
 I'll refer to you from here on as simply "Rodrigo". I hope you don't mind. 
 Another Kylo Krumboldt story. It's a nice enough tale, but I fear by having this hero reappear you have done a disservice to the readers as well as to him. 
 First of all, he isn't properly introduced here, as you sort of rely upon the reader's knowledge of the previous story. So for the uninitiated, not only does Kylo remain vague, but the references to the previous story fall flat, as well. 
 On the other hand, Kylo is not the Kylo we've gotten to know. Here, he doesn't bluff or fast-talk anybody, doesn't persevere on behalf of his wits, and generally is simply a guy moving through the story. He doesn't cheat the goddess out of her baby sacrifice, or her night with him, or her promise, he doesn't even defeat her craftily - he just shoots her. And afterwards? Is the curse still about? Are the peppers still magical? I fear you really wanted to have another Krumboldt tale, and misjudged this time. 
 The beginning conversation between Kylo and the innkeep is not always easy to follow. I suggest not putting closing " at the end of a paragraph when the speaker speaks on: 
 "And please, call me Kylo. 

 "I am a merchant by trade..." 
 Your prose is proficient as always, though. I kind of missed a twist of some sort, or anything out of the ordinary chain of events, and I didn't really understand why the hag reneged on her promise. I also didn't get what covers Kylo's face in the end. Totally did not get it, even on third reading. Sorry. 
 Again, I like the exaggerated vocabular of your hero, and the innkeeper and his daughters were quite sympathetic, as well. I liked the detail that the Witch kept her talons (and her beak?). 
 And finally, is Scandiaca a witch or a goddess (like you call her in the third paragraph). Would a goddess really be killed by a bullett? 

*The Pictures* 
_standanddeliver 
 Okay, look at the pic. Look at the middle of it. That's a rack. Now look at the superimposed face. That's eye liner. This hippo-creature is a woman. Female. 
 And now, back to the show._ 
 - Rodrigo's poor Kylo not only has to bed a half-owl, but he also gets polymorphed into a pig-my. Fortunately, he has a pistol in his pack, to better shoot the witch with. So does that mean Kylo's running around in pirate clothes?  Anyway, it's a nice enough use of the pic, except for the pig and rack discrepancy. 
 - Firelance has George appear, a childhood friend of our hero. He's named after a TV creature, the poor guy. He's the first of the three ghosts of Adventure Past. George is important in the story, and his appearance (save for the rack), is handily explained. A good use, as well. 

_flooded_ 
 - Firelance shows us Jim's shack. It seems not only has Jim forgotten to eat or go shopping, but he also neglected his back yard, what with oil casks floating around. No wonder what is put in there, is fast forgotten, like Jim's childhood toys and dreams. The shack is referenced throughout the story - perhaps one too many times (would you really stow ashes in an already quite full shack?) - which makes for a simple, yet suitable use. 
 - Rodrigo shows us the ruined inn. It's a little too much iron for my tastes, but it shows the level of destruction the flood left behind and intensifies the danger of the looming storm. Thankfully, the beer casket has not taken up water. I didn't care too much for this pic, still. 

_turtles_ 
 - Jule and Jenn, Johann's daughters, are caught spying and turned into purposes (ha!). They would make nice noises when striking the ground, but Kylo saves them by offering himself. The turtles are gone as they came - in a flash. It's a fun use, but nothing spectacular. 
 - Turtle Temple on top of Turtle Mountain. A boy's imagination. You had to be there, I guess. While the young Jim says he hid the blue pepper in the shed, he actually did not. But on a "go to the shed, Jim, and reclaim your dreams" level, it still works. I actually liked the image of the jade temple on a strange mountain looking like a turtle. I think this is your strongest pic. Well done. 

_peer_ 
 - This appears to be young Jim in his room, covered by a mount of snow (or tinsel). Why his father didn't throw the tinsel away, I don't know. It seems a little arbitrary for Jimmy to hide there, as well. It's here because it's a pic, I guess. 
 - Meet Scandiaca, Winter Witch, Lady Owl, spiteful goddess/sorceress. She just turned herself into a woman from being an owl and is clad in white feathers. She looks quite young, so I figured Kylo would get along with going along. Note: you can see her hand here, which is no talon, but I only noticed it at third glance, so... The pic is fine, but doesn't fully mesh with Kylo's reaction to Scandiaca. 

_unity_ 
 - These are enchanted vegetables (I smiled at Kylo never having seen a paprika), and the explanation for their colors is very cool. I wondered briefly whether paprika would grow in the cold north, or if the bargain was a cop-out all along. But the concept is great, even if the paprika are never planted and we don't even know whether they'd still work. 
 - This quartet is missing its fifth partner, the Blue Pepper, elusive as it is. As we learn from Firelance's story, you have to eat them in a certain order. I think I recall paprika leading to vivid dreams, which would mesh fine with the story, as these peppers put Jim in contact with his childhood fantasies while dreaming. They have a major part in this story. 

*Judgement* 
 Again, both stories are tied on their own. While I greatly enjoyed the concept, "Nighttime Wanderings" didn't quite connect with me at times, though at other times I was fairly engrossed. "Witchy Woman" was similar, even though I felt it was written a little more competently, while there was no great idea behind it. The biggest disappointment in this story is that Kylo Krumboldt is not the Kylo I expected to see. 
 Which brings me, again, to the pics. Overall, both of you have fairly good picture uses. 


 [sblock]In the end, I counted a 2-1 advantage (unity, turtles - peer - two ties), so I give my POINT TO FIRELANCE[/sblock]


 mythago

     FireLance – “Nighttime Wanderings”

   This is a good example of how to weave together threads in a story without being obvious about it. The silliness of the Blue Pepper isn’t so silly, when you see the reason for its existence. What I really don’t get about this story is Jim. It’s hard to care much about him—frankly, he comes across as a spoiled whiner, and I say this as somebody who has had similar thoughts about shredding, burning and mulching law textbooks. Sometimes he seems like a young college student, disorganized enough to run out of food and have nothing left but bell peppers, and no way to order pizza; other times we get the idea that he is a mature adult who has somehow inherited his parents’ old house. I liked it, though, right up until the end. He did what, exactly? Imagined, dreamed, brought into being? Let himself remember the old days instead of being all stuffy and studious? I don’t get it.

     Rodrigo Istalindir – “Witchy Woman”

   Again, an interesting story concept with an utterly flat central character. We're told Kylo is a "silver-tongued rogue" but never shown it. He doesn't flatter the Witch into restoring the girls, he begs. He supposedly lives by wits and trickery, but he gives away his help for free. Not much of a rogue, he.

     The story itself was plotted well, I thought. There are a lot of stereotypes (the jolly innkeeper, the old witch) that were made more complex. The planting of the peppers to keep away the rain, the witch seizing an excuse to go back on her bargain, the hidden gun that puts an end to her terror. The pictures weren't used in any startlingly original way, though. Why peppers? Why did the girls get turned into stacked turtles? How did the witch turn from a goddess into an easily-defeated, nutty old woman? What the heck was up with that pie at the end?

     Judgment this round to [sblock]FireLance, 2-1, who goes on to the final round![/sblock]


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## FireLance (Dec 7, 2004)

Scraped through again! 

Thanks to the judges for all the comments. I can honestly say that any improvement in my writing is directly due to their constructive criticism.

A little commentary on my story - the central theme was the tension between the "real" world and the world of imagination and dreams. Jim has been operating in the real world for too long, and his first instinct is to search for a real blue pepper. Unfortunately, blue peppers do not exist in the real world (at least, I hope not ). In order to find one, he has to imagine it and in so doing, rediscover the side of himself that thrives on dreams and fantasies. The one holding the blue pepper in the end was his D&D character - his analog in the realm of his imagination.

I should add that I drew on many elements of my own life in this story. Jim's father is quite similar to mine. He could never understand why I waste time on RPGs when I could be doing something practical, either. Jim's attitude towards his books is the same as the one I had towards my books for my Master's course. My favourite 2e character was an elven fighter/mage/thief infiltrator named Valin Veramocor (he adventured in Planescape, not Spelljammer, though). And yes, there really is a George the Hippo from a children's television program named Rainbow. The picture looked so much like him that I couldn't resist alluding to that.

Rodrigo, I have to admit that I didn't know Kylo was a repeat character before the judgement went up and was a little puzzled by your story. But I thought your past two entries were great. 

And now, I get to square off against the Dread Pirate Kitty. Hmmm, he might actually _win_ a Ceramic DM contest for once. 



Spoiler



But not if I can help it.


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## Piratecat (Dec 7, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Then  we learn that the older wizard is "usually so precise", which is of course followed by great misunderstandings and banter, but also with him using "purpose" for tortoise. Just for the misunderstandings, which are funny, but not precise. And by "grub", I suppose the younger means  chafer grubs (hello language filter!).




By purpose I meant porpoise, and I used grub as a synonym for food. My apologies if this wasn't as clear as I would have liked -- but I'm glad you liked it anyways. Thank you all for the excellent feedback.

I'm ready to go whenever!


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## Berandor (Dec 7, 2004)

Oh, I forgot something.

Firelance: fighter/mage/thief = munchkin!



ETA: Piratecat, I didn't know about porpoises. And unfortunately, while I looked in the dictionary for purpose, you can't really search by pronounciation.
It's still not very precise, though, is it?


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## FireLance (Dec 7, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Oh, I forgot something.
> 
> Firelance: fighter/mage/thief = munchkin!



Did I mention that I used Skills and Powers to swop out all the armor proficiencies for something else? No? Well, guilty as charged .

And I'm good to go at any time too, but again, advance notice of picture posting time would be appreciated.


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## Maldur (Dec 7, 2004)

Congrats firelance!

Up to the finale


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Dec 7, 2004)

Congrats, Firelance.  Good luck in the finals.


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## Sialia (Dec 7, 2004)

I’ll preface this by saying that Bandeeto and I immediately agreed that had we been judges in this competition, we’d have had to recuse ourselves from judging this. Piratecat writes us better than we play ourselves. 

He’s funnier than we are. 

Bandeeto might have thought up Pufferdoves, and I’d surely have needled him about them, but it would have been Piratecat who would have decided when and where they exploded. 

It’s an astonishing piece of portraiture. Of all three of us actually. Without Piratecat, it’s just not the same--he is our bench. And also our shifty-eyed sandwiches, and our presentation to the Queen, and our exploding rains of feathers.

And much as I enjoyed that, I wondered how somebody who didn’t know us would feel about the piece. I though surely Macbeth might have the edge there. Macbeth's story is strong, beautifully told, and full of wonders.

But when I thought about it, I realized that Piratecat's story works not only because it’s about wonderful me me me-- and my beloved curmudgeon-- but also because it resonates at more than one level, without being too literal about it.

Example: If you took the word “bench” and replaced it with the world “messageboard” and replaced “coat of paint” with “server” you’d have something a lot of people around here would find extremely familiar, and the depth of feeling that people have about that something would be pretty strong. A place to get together whenever and share old war stories. A place to dream about the past, and wonder about the future, and laugh about why things happen the way they do. I don’t mean that Piratecat literally meant that, but that it’s something he felt comfortable writing about, because he knows that that kind of feeling is a true, strong thing, and he’s invested a lot of energy in it recently. It's a feeling that other people can participate in, without needing to be Sialia or Bandeeto.

It’s a good story because it is deeply personal, for all that it is light and humorous. It’s about some things that can stand the test of time, because they are inherently good things. And it’s also about how even strong, good old things need some attention now and again.

It’s been seven years since Bandeeto graduated from school and we left Piratecat’s campaign. Perhaps not quite the century that the Wizards in the story have had, but sometimes, it feels like it.

The story was itself a fresh coat of paint.


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## KidCthulhu (Dec 7, 2004)

I agree with you, Si.  The story is referential, but it's also about two old friends and is universal.

The first time I read it, all I could think was the Simon & Garfunkle song:

Old friends, old friends.
Sat on their park bench like bookends.


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## Maldur (Dec 8, 2004)

Sialia, reading your post makes me glad my gut feeling (and I still judge by gut feeling) is still working.

This might not be the place and time but Enworld creates friends in distant places, and I hope there will be many parkbenches for each and all of us. Ill step out now and curse that damn atlantic ocean once more (and those other things that involve long distances).


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## Berandor (Dec 8, 2004)

You know, aside from "they don't make squirrels like they used to" (Shout-out to NTL?), my favorite part in the story is


> Momentary silence in the golden light of late day. Somewhere a bird trilled.
> 
> ?You did that for me??
> 
> ...




But I'm a sentimental putz.


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## mythago (Dec 8, 2004)

Finalists, when are you ready?


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## FireLance (Dec 9, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> Finalists, when are you ready?



I'm good to go at any time.


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## KidCthulhu (Dec 9, 2004)

I emailed Mythago -- tonight would be great. After that I run into problems, because Sunday is awful for me.

EDIT - Whoops, Piratecat here. KidCthulhu was still logged in.


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## Maldur (Dec 9, 2004)

Piratecat in disguise 

Good luck you two, make us proud.


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## mythago (Dec 9, 2004)

Now that I'm home from work....

  Six pictures. Start your engines.

 Credits:
_flight_ by Sialia
_atcha_ by fyastock
_something green_ by bishounen-stock
_glass_ by MelyannaM
_gardengoyle_ by sfm


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## FireLance (Dec 9, 2004)

Got 'em. And now, to work.


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## Berandor (Dec 9, 2004)

Good luck.

At least PC didn't post as Sialia or Firelance (or mythago, even). That would have given everything away!

KidCthulhu


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## Graywolf-ELM (Dec 9, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> So folks know: I wrote my entry with the expectation that the story would be judged on its own merits, with no knowledge of storyhours or other characters needed. If it can't stand on its own, independent of source material, then it shouldn't be here.




Yes, I did not mean to suggest otherwise.  It was an unexpected bonus to the story.

GW


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## Piratecat (Dec 9, 2004)

Okay, got 'em. It's interesting how different judges prefer different sorts of pictures. Alsih2o likes action shots, and Mythago. . . well, the lack of hand photographs has been a delightful fillip, but the static nature of the images is _killing_ me.  

Or inspiring. One of those. I'll let you know which one on Saturday night.


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## Piratecat (Dec 12, 2004)

Right now, I'd welcome a photo of a hand holding a stone sphere. Just so you know. 

_Must. Type. Faster!_


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## Sialia (Dec 12, 2004)

How about a stone sphere holding a hand?


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## mythago (Dec 12, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Right now, I'd welcome a photo of a hand holding a stone sphere. Just so you know.



 I believe this is an object lesson in the "be careful for what you ask" category, bucko.


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## Sialia (Dec 12, 2004)

was I not taught by the best?


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## Ao the Overkitty (Dec 12, 2004)

*Cracks whip*

Faster!


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## mythago (Dec 12, 2004)

"That's the second-hardest Ceramic DM™ picture I've ever seen!"


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## FireLance (Dec 12, 2004)

*Autumn 2004 Ceramic DM Final: Piratecat vs. FireLance*

*Transparent As A Stone*

I was in the middle of a game of Solitaire, focusing on a face-down card and trying to determine what it was, when my Talent activated spontaneously. Premonitions were the least predictable of an Intuitive's powers, and sometimes warned of nothing more than an unexpected rain shower. This one had the definite feel of danger, but was most indefinite about what sort. "I just got a flash of danger," I announced, "But I have no idea what."

Chilong looked up from the book he was reading. "Oh good," he said, "I was starting to get bored. And so was he." He nodded to Reanjir, who was on the other side of the room, idly tossing darts at a dartboard. 

"Hey, you read my mind. No fair," Reanjir said, grinning, "Well, if we're going to be in danger, I guess I better put my toys away." He concentrated, and all the darts on the board detached and packed themselves neatly into their box. "And get my tools ready," he concluded. His suit of plate armor floated off the rack and settled around him, buckling itself into place, and his two-handed sword strapped itself to his back.

"Showoffs," I muttered. "You started it," Chilong shot back.

The sound of rushing air cut short our banter, and Dashal, Porter and messenger for the Watch, appeared in the room. "Xander, Chilong, Reanjir, we need your help! A monster has just attacked Cailo's Armory! Come quickly!"

"Take us there," I said, as Chilong and Reanjir stepped forward and joined hands. Dashal grasped Reanjir's hand and mine, and invoked his Talent. Immediately, we were Ported halfway across the city, to Cailo's Armory.

I was quite familiar with Cailo's Armory, as I had accompanied Reanjir there on several occasions to examine the latest advances in weaponry. The place now looked as if some natural disaster had struck it. The glass panel which distinguished it from all the other shops in the street was shattered, and the weapons and armor that were normally on display were gone. Cailo himself was speaking to some watchmen, and he looked unhurt, if shaken. We walked over to speak with him.

"Cailo, what happened here?" I asked.

"Xander, thank the Gods! I should have guessed that the Watch would call out their best agents for a case like this. It was horrible, horrible, I tell you."

"Calm down, Cailo, and just tell us what happened," Chilong said soothingly. He must have used his Talent, because Cailo's agitation vanished instantly.

"Just a short while ago, I was in my shop and I heard a tremendous crash. I came outside to check and I noticed that the glass panel was broken. When I looked in the window display, there was this big blob eating all my weapons and armor."

"A blob?" I asked, looking at Chilong and Reanjir, both of whom shrugged. None of us had ever heard of any creature like this.

"Yes, it was big and gooey and looked like someone's spit. Except that as it ate the weapons and armor, it got all silvery and metallic."

"So did you attack the blob?" Reanjir asked.

"I'm not crazy. I'm a Shaper, not a Mover or a Blaster. I ran to get the Watch and by the time we got back, the blob had disappeared."

"Do you have any idea where it might have gone?" I asked, and Cailo shook his head. Right, so we had a mysterious attack and no leads whatsoever. All in a day's work for an Intuitive.

"Cailo, with your permission, Chilong will set up a mindlink so that I can have access to your memories of the creature," I said, "I will need them to get a fix on its current location." Cailo nodded and Chilong concentrated. Images of the creature Cailo had seen filled my mind. It did indeed look like something that was spit up. 

Concentrating on those images, I invoked my Talent. To me, it always felt like casting a net across the entire world, and drawing it back to see what sensations were caught in it. Greenery. The sound of birdsong. The smell of earth. One big, ugly, stone statue. (1) I opened my eyes. "It's in Troll Park," I said, "Hurry!" Chilong, Reanjir and I clasped hands, and Dashal Ported us again. 

The first thing I noticed when we arrived in Troll Park was the noise. It was the loud clanging you get when two hard objects are slammed together with great force. The next thing I noticed was that the statue that had given Troll Park its name had somehow been toppled and was now lying on the ground. The third thing I noticed was that a metallic blob was ramming itself against the statue, apparently trying to smash it to pieces.

Predictably, Reanjir charged forward, swinging his two-handed sword, using his Mover Talent to increase both his speed and the power of his strike. His sword easily passed through the creature, but when it emerged, its blade was missing. The creature reared up before Reanjir and lashed out a pseudopod that engulfed his right arm. In a flash, Dashal Ported to his side, grabbed his other arm and Ported the two of them away just before another pseudopod crashed down on the spot where Reanjir stood.

Dashal and Reanjir reappeared next to Chilong and myself. "Are you alright?" I asked. "Stupid monster ate up all the armor on my arm," Reanjir snarled, "My arm's okay, though. I thought it would be gone, but it isn't." 

My Talent flared. "Organic materials," I said, "The creature can't affect organic materials." 

"Really?" Reanjir said, "That gives me an idea. Dashal, I'll need boards. Lots of wooden boards. I think they're renovating the Watch house in Central. You can get them there. Nobody eats my weapon and armor and gets away with it."

Dashal Ported away, leaving us in Troll Park with a metallic blob oozing its way slowly towards us and no way to make a quick exit. "I hope you know what you're doing," I said nervously.

"Trust me," he said, and concentrated. The ground between us and the creature suddenly erupted. Earth, sand and rock flew as Reanjir attacked it with his Talent. When the dust cleared, there was a large pit between us and the creature. Dashal re-appeared with a pile of wooden boards, and Reanjir quickly Moved them to line the floor and sides. Then, he concentrated one final time and his Talent shoved the creature inside. We rushed to the side of the pit to look down on it. "You broke it," I said.

"No," Chilong said, "Fortunately, it is not badly injured." Ignoring our questioning looks, he continued, "Establishing a mindlink was very hard. It has such an alien and complex mindset. But, I have managed it and I have discovered a number of things. It is not evil. It is not malicious. It is frightened. It wants to go home. And it, or rather, she," he paused significantly, "Was pregnant."

We looked down into the pit again. (2) "Oh dear," I said.

"Don't worry," Chilong said, "The baby survived. They are remarkably tough creatures."

"Right, er," Reanjir said sheepishly, "I suppose I should Move them out, then?"

"Please do," Chilong said. "And while you're at it, you might want to apologize to them. The actual gesture of apology is impossible for a human to mimic, but the closest possible approximation would be this." Chilong spread his hands in front of him, at chest level, made an "O" with his mouth and bowed.

After we had let the creatures out of the pit, Chilong elaborated further on what he had learned about them. "The mother tells me that she is from another place very different from here. She ended up here after moving through stone, and she has been trying to find the same stone that she moved through in hopes that it will return to her home. She has asked for your help in this, Xander. Would you be willing to mindlink with her to access her memory of the stone? I must warn you, though, that her perceptions will be very different from ours."

"Of course I'm willing," I said. Chilong nodded and established the mindlink. _The world was grey. The white patches were metals, the lighter greys were stone and the darker greys organic materials. But that was not all. There was shading to indicate the level of radiation, patterning to indicate temperature. The net result was a three-dimensional sense of space, matter and energy could only be translated imperfectly into the human analogue of sight. The memory of entry into this strange world surfaced. (3) The matter moved through was indeed stone. A closer examination of the memory also revealed a large amount of radiation passing through the stone, a fact that was not earlier noted. There was an odd sensation of movement through space, then a strange concept surfaced, alien to the creature. What was it?_ Chilong broke the mindlink, and I struggled to grasp the elusive thought. "Alistar," I said, "Alistar the Great. What does that mean?"

"Alistar the Great?" Chilong said, "He is probably the greatest Empath in recent history. His performances at the Grand Theatre were acclaimed by the greatest critics of the city. His portrayal of Draben in _The Tale of the Bridge_ earned him a memorial in the Grand Theatre."

"Wait a minute," Reanjir said, "The greatest Empath in recent history was an actor? If he was that great, why didn't he do something more important?"

"Obviously, you do not understand Empaths," Chilong said with a smile, "Every Empath secretly dreams of becoming a performer. There is simply no other way to touch the emotions of so many people at once. You can be sure that if there were more roles for Empaths of my ethnic group in the local theatres, I wouldn't be working for the Watch now."

"Well, it seems like we should go talk to Alistar, then," I said.

"That would be difficult," Chilong said, "He died two months ago."

"There was one other thing I recall. The creature seemed to recall light passing through stone. Does this suggest any leads to anyone?" I asked. This was met by blank looks. "How can light pass through stone?" Reanjir asked. "That does not seem possible to me," Chilong said. "Then perhaps we should visit Alistar's memorial in the Grand Theatre and see if that leads us anywhere," I concluded. 

"How are we going to disguise the creatures, though? Two metallic blobs following us are bound to attract attention," Reanjir said.

"One other things I should have mentioned about our friends," Chilong said, "They are shapeshifters. They have agreed to act as your armor and shield as compensation for destroying them. At least, until they find some way to get home."

Dashal Ported us to the Grand Theatre, where we spoke to one of the ushers about Alistar the Great's memorial. "It's in one of the upper towers. It's somewhat out of the way and the path to take is rather confusing, so you should get Goff there to show you where it is," he said, "He's a stagehand here and was a great fan of Alistar's. Be careful, though. He's been a little strange since Alistar died."

Goff turned out to be a wizened, bald man dressed in black. "Visitors to Alistar's memorial? Certainly, I can show you where it is. This way, please." He led us through several winding passageways and flights of stairs, until we entered a small room with three large windows. Alistar's memorial appeared to be a wooden bridge and a small clay mask. (4) "The bridge, of course, represents _The Tale of the Bridge_, the play for which he earned this memorial. The clay mask is a depiction of Alistar's face."

I stepped forward to pick up the mask, but Goff smoothly intercepted me. "I must apologize," he said, "But we do not allow visitors to touch the memorial." He spread his hands in front of him, at chest level, made an "O" with his mouth and bowed. (5)

I froze, as a sudden premonition of immense danger overwhelmed me.

"Too late, little Intuitive," a voice spoke in my mind. "While Goff was speaking I have already taken control of all your friends: the Porter, the Mover, even the Empath and the creature."

"You are Alistar, aren't you? I thought you were dead."

"I am, but I have discovered a way to exist after death. I have implanted my personality into this mask and I will now transplant it to the creature I summoned into this world with the help of my friend Goff. He is quite a powerful Porter, didn't you know?"

"The creature said that it moved through stone when it came into our world. Did it really?"

Alistar laughed, "Indeed it did. Stone turned to sand, melted into glass. Shaped into the proper pattern to allow a Porter to bring creatures from other worlds."

I looked up at  the three large windows in the room. (6) "Light passing through stone," I murmured. "One final question, Alistar. Why?"

"Why else? To live forever, of course. Something which you and your friends will have no chance of doing."

"I wouldn't count on that," I said. Alistar was unaware of the creature's child, and had overlooked dominating it. By now, it had crept up next to the mask. Before Alistar could react, it had smashed it to bits. 

The destruction of the mask seemed to free everyone from stasis. Goff screamed and collapsed. "Do you think you will be able to work the windows?" I asked Dashal. He nodded and concentrated, and the light from the windows suddenly changed, becoming redder and dimmer. "The mother says that this is the right place," Chilong translated. I nodded to Reanjir, and he Moves the creatures through the windows. "Farewell," I said as they returned home. 

(1) The statue in Troll Park
(2) The creature, and child
(3) The world through the senses of the creature
(4) Alistar's memorial
(5) Goff apologizing like a creature
(6) Three windows/glass portals


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## Piratecat (Dec 12, 2004)

*Gallery*

_Autumn 2004 Round 4-1: Firelance vs. Piratecat_


He sniffed. “You’re plebian, incompetent, and an absolute wretch. You lack a sense of perspective. How you haven’t been fired yet, I have no idea.”

She would have given him credit for a good vocabulary, but he’d had a lot of time to think of the insult since they’d started to disagree ten long hours ago.  Celia silently counted to three. “Jay. . .”

“Mondarian! I told you, first names are bourgeois and I will only be known as Mondarian. That’s assuming that you even retain enough creative integrity to recognize an artistic statement.” Sniff.  “I have my doubts.”

“Do you?” Her inflection made it clear that she wasn’t actually asking a question. It had been a long and trying day.

“I do.” He sniffed again. It was either a coke habit – so eighties  – an incipient head cold, or a sign that his head had been shoved as far up his ass as a year of successful critical acclaim could push it. “I am _sure_ that you hate me. You are no doubt jealous.”

No doubt, and she tried to hide a bitter smile. She’d known Jason Mondarian for almost a decade. Back then he was known as Jay. He had flunked out of the same art school she’d graduated from with honors, but recently his sculptures had caught the eye of a wealthy society family and it had given him delusions of competence. Celia had been running the Stanhope Gallery for eight years now, and it wasn’t _usually_ a thankless job. She normally loved the rambling old mansion nestled in the deep woods of western Massachusetts.  She loved the quiet winters, the rooms filled with art, the mixture of traditional antiquities and cutting edge new artists, the heavy air of history that lay over the gallery and the grounds. The only time this wasn’t true was when she had to deal with artists like this one.

Mondarian had caught her half-smile.  “You laugh!” His eyes grew wide and he threw open his arms, as if preparing for crucifixion. “You laugh at me! That’s it, I will cancel the show! You will allow this piece to be shown, and you will apologize, or the show will not occur.” Sniff. He crossed his arms and turned his back. 

The winter wind howled outside. It was late at night and Celia had been hoping to finish the installation long before now. Lighting technicians were scheduled to be in early tomorrow morning to properly illuminate all the pieces, assuming they could get through the snow. For that to happen, though, the damn _artiste_ would have to stop micromanaging every placement in the gallery of high-ceilinged rooms. She’d be lucky if the roads were even passable by the time they finished tonight. Time to be diplomatic. Deep breath, another three count, and go. Ramp up the bullshi. . . excuse me, professionalism. She’d dealt with worse. She just couldn’t remember when.

Her voice was carefully modulated to be respectful without sounding obsequious. “Mondarian, I’m tired. Please forgive me.  I certainly understand how much you value your work, and as gallery manager I want you to be completely satisfied with the installation. It must speak to our audience.”  In this case, Celia thought to herself, it was going to say ‘Look at me! I’m a bright orange life sized paper mâché sculpture of a rutting pig. A _large_ pig. Making it with Fidel Castro. Oooh, but I’m not complete and utter pretentious rubbish because I’m _art._ Honest.’ Sometimes she lost her patience with modern art. “I just think that this particular creation is beyond most of our guests. I’m sure that the impact will be diluted if we place it as the first thing people see when they walk through the door. It spoils the mounting tension that your works create. People will talk about this, and ignore everything else that you’ve created.”

Mondarian looked mollified. He turned slightly, still pouting. “Indeed. It is meant to be symbolic, a paean to the creative urges. A tactile symphony of desire! Do you really think it undermines the other work I’m doing?” He sniffed.

“Oh, yes. I’d hate for you to lose sales because of it.” She gave him a calculated smile of professional respect, hitting him where she knew it would hurt the most. “But you know, I have just the showcase for it at the back of the house. It’s a room that we only use for the crowning jewel of a particular exposition, a venue that rewards those guests who have the tenacity to truly explore the limits of an artists work. Come and see.”  I knew that getting that closet refinished was a good idea, she thought.

“No,” he declared. He cupped his hands in front of him and ostentatiously blew across them, as if dismissing an annoying piece of dryer lint. His eyes bulged. “I give you no choice, so you must agree. It will stay in the entrance hall, where all will marvel. We will bring it there now, or I and my sculptures will leave.”

There was a buzzing whine like an angry insect, and the lights went out.

They weren’t supposed to. The lights were _never_ supposed to go out. It was specified in old Mrs. Stanhope’s will that had turned her ancestral home into a private museum and gallery of eclectic art. If the power ever failed – and it had, four times in the years she’d been there – a backup generator in the basement was supposed to kick in. If that failed, a second generator was supposed to pick up the load. The house was always supposed to be lit, to the extent that certain sections didn’t even have any light switches.  It was just one of those things she had started taking for granted.

“Well, damn,” said Celia. The darkness was complete.

Sniff.

“What is it?” asked Mondarian, clutching her arm in the pitch darkness. “Is it a robbery? Is someone trying to steal my masterpieces? We mustn’t let them!” She heard panic in his voice, and he fumbled to draw his ever-present sculpting knife from the sheath at his belt.

Celia let herself smile bitterly.  “I don’t think so. Listen to the wind. I think a tree dropped on a line somewhere.” She fumbled for his hand and patted it reassuringly, and together they stood in the gloom and listened to the shrieking of the storm outside. The snow-covered skylight let in almost no illumination at all; Celia suspected that even the parking lot lights were out.  

“Well, no need to panic. We have a generator, and I know where the reset switch is. I’ll just pop down to the basement and restart it. Then we can finish up with the last sculptures.”

“Mondarian will come with you.” Her eyes were starting to adjust, and she saw his bald head gleaming slightly in front of her. With his black clothing hiding his body, it looked like a floating egg. 

“You don’t have to.” She fished out her cell phone and pushed a button, lighting the floor around them with a cold blue light.

“But I will. You will need my help.” He’s scared of the dark, Celia realized, and lowered the phone so that he wouldn’t see her face. Nodding, she skirted the problematic sculpture and turned away into the darkness. 

-- o --

“Please stand over here against the wall,” Celia instructed. The room smelled like oil and dust. Her nose picked out the acrid scent of something that smelled like burned plastic. “Let’s see if I can get this restarted.”

“What, against this door?”

“There’s no door there. Against the wall.”

“Of course there’s a door here. I can feel it.”

Annoyed, Celia turned and walked back, lifting her lit cell phone up high. She could see the faint blue light reflected in Mondarian’s bulging eyes. He stopped her with outstretched hands and framed her dramatically.

“I will do a piece of you,” he whispered. “Just like that, carrying the torch of illumination on high. You will pose for me!” His breathing had quickened.

Celia blinked, shook her head slightly, and brandished the Nokia. “Sure. I’ve always wanted a sculpture of me with Fidel Castro.”  She raised an eyebrow.  “See behind you?  No door. Just wall.”

Mondarian turned around, and his expressive face contorted in confusion. “But I could have sworn. . .” His voice trailed away, and Celia didn’t hear the rest of his sentence as she walked back to the generator.

“It’s back!”

“What?”

“As soon as you turned away. I felt it again in front of me.” He sniffed.

She lifted the cell phone over her head and pointed it at him. The light barely carried. “Gone.” She lowered her arm. The artist’s voice was fascinated. “Back! Amazing!”

“You’re imagining things.” More likely the sniffing is from a coke habit after all, she thought. She pushed the reset button on the generator. Nothing but a dull click that reminded her of a dead car ignition. 

Kuh-click. 
Kuh-click. 

No rumble into life like the grumbling of giants, no welcome glow of light. She tried the button for the backup generator. Same thing. “Crap,” she said under her breath. 

Never mind the crazy artist. This meant no finishing the installation tonight, no prepared gallery for the lighting technicians tomorrow, an overtime rush to have the show ready in time for opening, and doubtlessly a huge bill to fix the damn generators. The museum might even lose its funding if the executors found out that the lights had failed. 

In sharp frustration she smacked her hand down on the restart button one final time, and screamed as she impaled it on a sharp barb of metal jutting out of the plate. She yanked her hand back, and the violence of the movement knocked her cell phone out of her other hand and into the darkness. Even as she felt blood trickling down her palm, she heard the phone hit face down onto a box of tools. The light extinguished with a crunch.

She raised her right palm to her lips to check the damage, and tasted the hot copper of oozing blood. She was pulling a handkerchief from her pocket when she heard the sound of creaky hinges behind her.

Mondarian’s voice was smug, no trace of the previous fear. He liked being right.  “The door you said wasn’t there? I just opened it.” 

“What?” She edged forward until her unhurt hand touched the wall.  “This isn’t a bad movie version of Clue, and you aren’t Tim Curry. There aren’t any secret doors to the conservatory in here.” She struggled to control her sudden fear. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Oh?” His voice was amused and ten feet farther onwards than it had any right being. She walked forwards and felt her shoulders brush a narrow and crooked doorframe. She walked a few more paces until she bumped into Mondarian’s back. It was colder here, remarkably colder, as if this room was never insulated like the rest of the mansion. There was a smell, too, the odor of a wet shirt left too long in summer. Mildew and decay. Dust. She sensed expectant anticipation, hunger. An icy trickle of sweat trailed down the small of her back.

“Do you see?” Mondarian’s voice was reverential, but Celia saw only unremitting darkness. Then as if someone flipped on a light switch, a long and crooked room swam into a soft gray focus. The angles hurt her eyes. 

In front of her, the artist breathed.  “Art.”

And it was. The Stanhopes must have been storing pieces in this archive for decades. Countless nooks hid paintings and sculptures. Celia drew in breath; she had never expected that this existed in the building. Mondarian strode over to a nearby nook, but Celia just stood and wheeled in a circle. The work surrounded her, no one piece dominating the hidden gallery. She walked over to the nearest piece of art and examined it with her curator’s eye.

It was a squat and complacent gargoyle, unlabeled and surrounded by dusty plastic plants, the kind of sculpture she would expect to see in someone’s garden. Slightly chipped, nice casting work, worth maybe fifty dollars tops. Disappointing. It looked annoyed about something.

_Not often we get visitors. Hey, you know any good jokes? All the ones I have are played out. _

“What?” Celia froze, unclear of where the voice had come from. “Jay?” Across the room and staring at a sculpture of a drama mask, Mondarian didn’t respond.

_Not him, sweetcakes. We’ve been alone since long before the old lady snuffed it. The others won’t shut the hell up. Me, though? I’m patient. I’ve had practice._

She stared at the unmoving gargoyle. It seemed to be looking right at her. “What the hell?”

_Nah. Not even the right neighborhood._

Her mouth sagged. “How are you talking to me?”

_I’ve been stuck in this form since the dark ages, toots. In Rumania originally, although I used to serve as Johann Weyer’s hat rack. Interesting guy. Some friggin’ savages locked me in stone by trapping me in a circle of iron, and I’ve been kicking around ever since. I got picked up by the Stanhopes a couple’a generations back. They let me guard the back garden until the old lady inherited. She wasn’t old then, kinda a looker, but she was on an anti-occult binge. Had a hair up her ass about it or something. Grabbed us up, tossed us in here, and locked away the room to keep out the gentry. Do I ramble? I've been told I ramble._  The voice paused.  _Nice ta meet'cha._

Part of Celia’s mind reported very clearly and concisely that she was going crazy. Her thoughts reeled. _You hurt your hand and got blood poisoning, or you fell and hit your head and are in a coma, or you are dreaming. That must be it. Heck, this thing even looked a little like Mondarian if you gave him a snout. Any minute now I’ll wake up and do my impression of Dorothy at the end of the Wizard of Oz._ She clenched her eyes shut and pinched herself.

_I do NOT. You wound a guy._

“What?” Her eyes snapped open.

_I don’t look anything like egghead over there. He has. . . Oh, crap, the play has him. So much for his sparkling company.  Just you and me and the art objects, now. If he gets tetchy, your best bet is the wooden crate against that wall. He's done for._

She looked over and saw the crate, but ignored it in favor of her client. “Mondarian?”  

Mondarian was crouching in rapt wonderment in front of a wooden drama mask. The mask was dimly lit by an antique and ornate arc of theater lights. In the shadows it seemed frighteningly alive.

Celia left the gargoyle and moved over in concern, noting a label that simply said “Theosophical Society, Blavatsky’s Mistake.” The painted mask seemed to jeer at her.  “Mondarian? Mondarian? Jay?” She shook him, and his shoulder was slack.

*”Bitch.”* The word came from Mondarian’s mouth, but it was the mask under the lights that leered at her lasciviously. She recoiled.

*”He is our stage. It isn’t intermission. You’re not wanted here.”*

She looked into Mondarian’s bulging eyes and screamed. She saw a play reflected in them, dozens of actors playing out some unthinkable drama on a stage that no one could see. Deep in his eyes a bald figure in black stood on the tiny stage, surrounded by performers that didn’t seem entirely human. 

From behind her, the gargoyle spoke into her brain. _They’re all sentient, lady. That’s what I’m trying to tell ya. Anything magical is. It has needs and wants, and some of ‘em ain’t exactly going to say pretty please._

*”You know, every minute here is like a year to him. He’s in hell. But we’ll release him if you do what we say.”* Mondarian’s voice was hateful, but his face was utterly slack. In the dancing gleam of his eyes, endless indignities occurred in an unreachable theater. The mask winked. Celia choked back vomit.

“What?” Her voice shook.

*”Go see them. They want an agent. You’ll have to do.”* Mondarian loosely pointed with a limp hand. Celia looked to the end of the elongated room, where three small arches were backlit inside a nook. Something waited there behind the mottled green fabric. With a shudder she realized that the fabric had probably once been white, but the years had stained it the color of misery. This is where the bad smell is coming from, Celia realized. Whatever’s back there is corrupt.

She slowly approached and read the label, written in that spidery script that crawled across the tag. “Three Kings. Congo. 19th Century.” She reached a trembling hand towards the small curtains, felt something back there reaching greedily for her in return, and stumbled away from the smell with the curtains undrawn.

“No. No!”

The room twisted around her. She staggered towards where she thought the door might be. Mondarian was standing now and doing a hideous dance before the drama mask, shuffling his feet in an insane parody of glee. He was sniffling, but only because a vein had broken in his nose and blood was pouring down the bottom of his face. *“Look at us, Celia,”* he said in a flat parody of his normal voice. *“We’re dancing.*

Celia struck at the wall. Behind her, the possessed Mondarian kept talking. No, not talking, Celia realized sickly. Declaiming. Like he was on stage.  *”Tsk tsk, Celia. You fail. They need an agent. We all do. We’ve been trapped here, away from the world. We haven’t been fed. We’re hungry, girl. And you’re food.”* Around her, much of the art seemed to stir impatiently. The hideous smell of sweat and disease seemed to get stronger. For a second Celia thought she could hear the sea. The floor swayed.

“*So you’re going to help. Do you know what we’re going to do with this body when we’re free? We’re going to perform. Play acting. We’ll still sculpt to keep up appearances, but there will be real bodies beneath the paper mâché. You’ll still get to pose for us. We’ll win acclaim. People will come to see, and perhaps we’ll send them on to those that need them more.”* He gestured a languid hand towards the green-curtained nook once again. *”We’re hoping to help one another here. You can help by opening the door and letting us out.” *

“There is no door!” She tried to buy time, but she was choked by a bubbling panic. Mondarian took a half step towards her, did a little jig, and took another. The unsheathed sculpting knife was in his hands.

*“Of course there is. You just can’t see it if there’s light in the room.”* Another teasing step.

Desperate, Celia looked for the light switches. “There’s no way to turn them off!” she screamed. She side-stepped to the corner of the room.

*“Indeed there’s not. It’s a nice little trap. But you’ll be fine once we carve out your eyes. That should do the trick.”* Mondarian’s blank face twisted into a rictus, and Celia knew that the artist was now totally gone.  *“Act One, Celia. Curtain rises. Enter girl, blind.”* He lunged for her.

Celia thrust her hand into the wooden crate.

Time stretched and rebounded, like light from a mirror. In an endless second she soared through the thermals of her own breath and she heard a thousand prayers from a thousand lungs. She was the sky, and she was everything that flew in the sky: the plane and the bird and the moth. She was stripped of weighty flesh, and she felt her body twisting with hurricanes and being drawn in by a baby’s first breath. She ran across winter roads and laughed snow.

Celia danced across the heavens. Celia _was_ the heavens.

With part of her essence she read the label on the crate. _Johann Reuchlin, 1504. Cabalist. Apotheosis._  She could see inside it; two mirrored spheres squatted atop one another in impossible balance. Quicksilver light seeped from their glass. They were an elemental focus, she somehow knew, letting a person briefly become the element – not a little of it, as if her body turned to air, but _all_ of it and all at the same time. The feeling was indescribable because she saw everything that air touched across the entire planet. Every person and object was set before her like a sculpture in a studio, and she had all the time in the world to examine each and every one before she returned to her body. She did so whether or not her mind was prepared to handle it, seeing and knowing everything at once, and she only took the time to make one change before she returned to her weighty flesh. 

Mondarian’s body fell over in front of her. His chest heaved, but no noise came out. There was twitching, but no sniffing. _No air for you,_ Celia thought as tears began to roll down her face. _No air for the things behind the curtain. Ever._ 

Her form was impossibly bulky. She no longer wanted her flesh. She began to shake. She had saved herself, maybe, but she was still trapped. No way out. She wanted to return to the air. She thrust her hand against the quicksilver sphere again and again, but it would only work once. Too much flesh. She heard the sculptures shifting. There were billions of things she could no longer see. Tears rolled down her face. She considered the knife. She considered all the flesh. The two seemed to be related. She wondered if she had seen enough to last a lifetime.  She wondered how one could tell. She thought about peeling back the layers to find out.

Eventually, she wondered why she was thinking crazy talk when she knew where the ventilation shaft into this room went.

It took three hours and a lot of skinned knuckles, but dawn was still far away when she pulled herself free. When she left she took the statuette of the gargoyle. She left everything else behind. Celia staggered through the darkened mansion, wondering if there were any more of these hidden doors, wishing she could remember, glad that she couldn't. The first thing she did when she reached the ground floor was toss Mondarian’s favorite sculpture out the back door into a ditch. It sounded like Castro's head split on a rock, and the exuberant pig broke in two when it hit. The crunching sound was rather pleasant.

Then she stood out in the black and silent night, breathing deeply, and stared up into the gallery of snow.

-- o --

atcha.jpg – Mondarian, exhorting a central location for his favorite sculpture
gardengoyle.jpg – a resident of the locked room
lightshow.jpg – the occult artifact that captured the artist
something_green.jpg – the resting place for something exceptionally nasty
flight.jpg – apotheosis of air
glass.jpg – the quicksilver spheres that trigger Celia’s exaltation


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## Maldur (Dec 12, 2004)

Judgement send, there is even an attempt at intuitive explanation


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## Berandor (Dec 12, 2004)

My judgement will probably arrive tomorrow at Lady M's (figurative) doorsteps, though I'll try to get it done today, and might slip off till Tuesday 

Rest assured, though, when it comes, Christmas will still be more than a week away.


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## alsih2o (Dec 12, 2004)

Sialia said:
			
		

> How about a stone sphere holding a hand?




 Wow, where did you find THAT pretty image?



 Mythago, you have rocked my world and schooled me AGAIN.


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## Piratecat (Dec 12, 2004)

Sialia, _that_ image I could work with! 

Thanks for the quick judgments. I dare say it's appreciated by both Firelance and myself.


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## Berandor (Dec 12, 2004)

Judgement sent. And now I'm off to the comments thread!


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## Sialia (Dec 13, 2004)

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Wow, where did you find THAT pretty image?



I hoped you wouldn't mind--I liked your sphere just fine without the retouching, but everytime I looked in to it, I kept seeing things. Which was part of what I liked about it. It has a fabulous texture, and incredibly rich color. It's like a globe of a foreign planet, or a gazing sphere . . . when Piratecat posted his complaint, I immediately remembered it, and the comment I made pretty much the moment you posted it. There wasn't time to ask you if it was ok.

For those curious about what AlSiH2O's work looked like _before_ I got ahold of it, here's the orginal http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=98870 . As you will note, I didn't do much to it that wasn't already there.

You fired this with tobacco, right? Pipe dreams, smoke signals.

It's a great piece.


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## mythago (Dec 13, 2004)

Very tired. 3 1/2 hours under a tattoo needle. Have read both stories, will quit writing bad grammar, judgments up tomorrow night.


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## Sialia (Dec 13, 2004)

Congratualtions, babe. You've certainly earned that.

Cannot wait to see the results.


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## alsih2o (Dec 13, 2004)

Sialia said:
			
		

> I hoped you wouldn't mind--.




 Never. Does my heart well to know someone remembers a piece. 

 I just couldn't resist the jab.


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## Piratecat (Dec 13, 2004)

mythago said:
			
		

> . . .will quit writing bad grammar. . .




Time for me to go to bed. You said 'writing bad grammar,' I read 'riding bad grandma,' and now I have an extraordinarily disturbing mental picture. Ooh, bad brain. Bad.


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## Berandor (Dec 13, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Time for me to go to bed. You said 'writing bad grammar,' I read 'riding bad grandma,' and now I have an extraordinarily disturbing mental picture. Ooh, bad brain. Bad.



 Actually, "bad grandma", not bad brain.


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## Sparky (Dec 14, 2004)

Can't wait to see the judgements! You guys kick great heaping loads of earthen butt!


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## mythago (Dec 14, 2004)

mythago

    FireLance – “Transparent As a Stone”

 Great use of “atcha” as the human mimicking an alien gesture. The gardengoyle was a bit of a throwaway, I thought. The real sense I got from this story was a description of an adventure; I didn’t feel as though the heroes were really threatened. Challenged, yes, but nothing they can’t defeat with a little extra effort. We also don’t get much of a sense of the heroes as much more than units in the psi strike force.


    Piratecat – “Gallery”

 There’s a good horror story in here, but it needs some trimming. Mondarian is far too overblown as the obnoxious artiste who gets what’s coming to him; the backstory about Celia having been an honors student at the same time as the annoying artist; not one, but _two_ generators mysteriously failing; the cellphone getting dropped and crunching (wouldn’t it just lose the battery?) and so on.

 Interestingly, I think the horror behind the green curtains (nice use, by the way) works better if one doesn’t know what the Three Kings are. More menacing.

    My vote this round goes to Piratecat.



Maldur

    Gods, difficult

  FireLance: psionic fantasy cops, high power, impressively open minded guardsman, an evil "artiste" and a happy ending
  Piratecat: A annoying "artiste", a sceptical "artiste", a talking statue, and evil art.

 Now what makes is hard to decide: Firelances story has flow. You read it and you see what’s going on, it is cinematic in that regard. While Piratecat’s story is not as "easy" only in the second time I read it the pieces started coming together. But then I liked the story better, just not the complexity.

  So am I going for better flow of the story, or better storyline. Do I go for the action story or the arty story.

  Firelance gets my vote, PC's story is just too complex IMNSHO.



Berandor

_1986: Ivan Lendl has reached the Wimbledon Finals. Having never won this tourney, he fights desperately, but loses to consecutive winner Boris Becker.
 1987: Lendl reaches the finals again. This time, he faces Australian Pat Cash, a player that is not among the top 100 players in the world. Lendl, lacking only the Wimbledon title, loses again - a sensation. He would never win this tournament.
 2004: Piratecat has reached the finals of the Ceramic DM contest. Despite strong entries, he has yet to win the tournament, and rumors abound that he is cursed. He faces FireLance, a newcomer in Ceramic DM. Will FireLance be Piratecat's Pat Cash?_


    Let's find out.

*FireLance: "Transparent As A Stone"*

 A short story, which in itself isn't bad, but I felt a little more detail would have helped your story this time around. Oh, and lest I orget it, aside from the blob, you had no female characters.
 You describe a world where seemingly everyone has a psi-talent. That's ine in itself, but your description doesn't put any limitations on these powers. Aside from the unpredictability of premonitions, everything else is just fine. Movers can lift as much wood as they want without straining, mind links are established without problems, and so on. There's no real sense of the characters pushing their boundaries in any way, and so I don't feel they have overcome grave danger in the end, at all.
 That might also lie in the abruptness of the ending. You give us a James Bond villian, complete with overlong speech. Then, suddenly you bring up the rescuing little blob. It would be better if you let us see the blob sneaking up to the mask, and then have Xander consciously try to keep the villain talking. And the ending itself is like the previous ending, somewhat abrupt. It just ends. Maybe you should write a novel?
 Also, there were a few things that left me wondering. What exactly is the chain of events here? Alistar summons the blob, and the next thing is the blob is crashing into the armory? Didn't Alistar take precautions to keep the creature long enough for him to control it? Why did it attack the armory, of all places? And the gardengoyle? What does Reanjir say to a metalllic blob enveloping him, forming his armor but also being easily able to try and suffocate him? Why does Goff apologize in that manner- how does Goff even know how to apologize that way?
 The plot behind your story, and the dynamics of an all-psion strike team are both fine. But this story is very much a first draft only, a framework of the basics. It seems the time limit has struck again. 

 However, the promise behind your entry is strong enough that if you chose to make a second draft from it, I'd be very interested.

*Piratecat: "Gallery"*
  I liked - or better, disliked - "Mondarian". Boy, did he deserve what he got.
 A dark story with a light turnaround in the end. The final twist was very unexpected. I was already seeing Celia cutting her own eyes out to find the door, when she remembers the ventilation shaft. But couldn't the pieces of art escape through this shaft - at least some of them?
 I think it takes a little long for the story to really get started. The gist of it all is the room of art objects, but when we reach it, the story is two thirds over. There's too much time spent on arguing about the pig.
  Also, you're very inconsistent in signaling and using Celia's thoughts. You have "Ramp up the bullshi... excuse _me_, professionalism" (emphasis mine) in the middle of a third person description. Then you have "In this case, Celia thought to herself.." and similar descriptions until finalls, you use italics for her thoughts - which in itself is confusing the first time you use it, because I took it as the gargoyle's mindspeak at first.
  Now, the fact that Celia uses her cellphone as a light source is a great touch.
 The consciousness inside of Mondarian was creepy, again, mostly in the small ideas ("Look at us. We're dancing.") When the three kings resurfaced, things got really creepy, but I wonder whether that wasn't simply due to your previous story. I also liked that not all objects were dangerous, but some in fact quite helpful.
 In the end, we leave our heroine staring into the snowy night. Maybe she should lit a cigarette as well - it just would fit. A refreshingly mundane ending, I thought. However, what happens to the secret art chamber? As I see it, it's still there to catch another worker late at night and unsuspecting. And this time, no gargoyle statue will come to the rescue. That this danger was left uinresolved irks me somewhat. It's a nice entry, but I still think "Jabberwockies" was your best this year. (Snicker-Snack, hehe)

*The Pictures*
 When I saw the pictures, I thought they might make a nice story, but what rubbed me the wrong way was "atcha". That really spoiled anything I might have thought of in the first moments - before I reminded myself I didn't have to come up with something. Curiously, I think you both struggled with this pic, as well. Naturally, it's got hands.

_atcha_
 - Piratecat shows us "Mondarian" making a dismissive gesture towards Celia. However, it's a very, very strange dismissal, more dictated by the pic than naturally evolved.
 - At least we can't fathom whether FireLance's apology is strange, since metallic globes are bound to have different gestures. Still, it might have been better to show one of the psi team apologize, since I can't understand why Goff does it later on.

_gardengoyle_
 - Firelance uses the pic as a statue in Troll Park, which is promptly toppled and nearly smashed. Although that gives us more interaction with it, it's not as much as I would have liked to really give weight to the pic.
 - Piratecat's gargoyle ("name's Johnny. Johnny Stone.") is a helpful magic object of art. It's worth about fifty bucks, but its help is priceless. The gargoyle is a good use, considering its history and the extent of its presence.

_lightshow_
 - Piratecat makes this set-up into a malevolent artefact that catches the attention of our would-be artiste Mondarian. This artefact is the major villain of the piece, although it tries to free the Three Kings, as well. Good use.
 - Curiously, Firelance also makes this piece the villain of his story. It's a memorial for the most powerful empath of the recent past (even though Reanjir doesn't know the name), having bound his spirit into the grinning mask.

_something green_
 - In Firelance's entry, these are windows made from ground stone, used as a calling focus to get the blob into Xander's world. A little more detail might have given them more prominence, for example having the Porter to decipher the magical runes on them before sending the creatures back.
 - These pieces of cloth hide the Three Kings, perhaps the most dangerous art in the whole room. While we have seen the Kings in action, Ceilia gets a hint at their power as well. As I said, I'm not sure how great the menace would be without knowing the previous story, but knowing it, you were desperately hoping Celia wouldn't draw back
  the curtains.

_flight_
 - In "gallery", Celia experiences apotheosis, becoming air. All the air. She can see everything at once, and she even manages to cut off air supply for her assailant. A very metaphorical use. I liked it!
 - FireLance uses the pic as the blob's first image of Xander's world. Coming through the glass windows, light streaming off, maybe Alistar's visage in the background. It's a very foreign concept of perception.

_glass_
 - In "Transparent as a Stone", these are metallic globes ripped from a different world. They've been caught in a prison of wood, since they can't dissolve organic materials. In a way, they remind me of the T1000 in Terminator 2. Here, Xander and his team find out the big globe has been pregnant and just given birth. A fine use, especially since it
  puts a new spin on the pic. (a mother and her child)
 - Piratecat shows us the art object that enables Ceilia's apotheosis, a magic item forged by a Cabbalist. The strangeness of the pic enhances the image of a strange artefact and uses it for the better of the story.

*Judgement*
 Story-wise, I felt Piratecat had a good advantage over FireLance. While the latter uses "glass" in a unique way, I felt that the rest of the pics were at least a draw, if not a point for Piratecat.
 Also, Piratecat describes the pics in the narrative, whereas FireLance only links to them and makes "pure readers" wonder what they look like.
 In PC's previous story, I already hinted that I don't like that; PC came through because he used it to give the reader another level of understanding, a second narrative, so to speak. You could read the story with either wizard's perspective. But here, the lack of
 description doesn't work to such an advantage. I think you shouldn't let the pictures speak for your story, but enhance your description with them whilst concurrently enhancing them with _your_ narrative.


 I hope I didn't come off as too harsh, especially in this my final judgement, and once more I'd like to thank all participants for their stories, which were all at the very least promising and entertaining and ranged to the magnificient. I hope to see one or the other next time. This time, I give my 



Spoiler



VOTE TO PIRATECAT


.


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## Maldur (Dec 14, 2004)

Well Done!! Congrats!!


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## Sialia (Dec 14, 2004)

Congratulations, you old artiste, you.


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## BSF (Dec 14, 2004)

Wow, my first return to the thread in over a month.  Congrats on the win!  

My personal apologies out to Mythago.  Sorry I didn't keep up there.  I thought I would be good if I got past my wife possibly needing surgery.  Instead, I also had a death in the family as well as a couple of out of town trips.  It's been a rough season and I just couldn't muster the energy to the Ceramic DM like I have in the past.  I am pulling for a drama-free christmas season and then hoping next year will go a bit better.  

On the positive side, I have a bunch of stories to read and cross-link into the FAQ thread.


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## alsih2o (Dec 14, 2004)

Congrats to all who partook. Special congrats to p-kitty. How will we ever live with him now?


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## Maldur (Dec 14, 2004)

I like to say something on the how I judge:

First of all I look at all the pics, then I read the stories.
I look at a few things: 
Can I "see" the pictures again, if I read the story.

DOes the story flow. Is it a comfertable read (a bit nebulous, but some stories just make it hard for me to read, a nice example of this is poem, I just cant read those.)

As these are short stories I think it should be usefull to know my ideas about those: A short story has one limit...it is short. IMNSHO, they should do the following (or have some elements, there are stories outside this, I just use it as a benchmark)  
A short story, does have only few locales/scenes. 
The characters introduction is important, as there is not alot of time to gain more insight into the char. 
The "idea" of the story is important. I like twists in ideas 

More if I can put it to words


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## FireLance (Dec 14, 2004)

Congratulations to Piratecat and thanks to all the judges for their comments. I kind of expected the outcome - I wasn't too happy with my entry this time round, either. As Berandor correctly surmised, it was a combination of the time limit, and Real Life throwing me a curveball about halfway through the writing process.

But just to satisfy Berandor's curiosity, the backstory that I did not manage to write was as follows: the blob managed to escape because its mind was too alien and Alistar could not control it quickly enough. It fled into the streets and remembered that it had moved through "stone" to get here. It thus tried to move through every large "stone" it could find and only succeeded in breaking the glass of Cailo's shop and knocking down the statue in Troll Park. Goff is familiar with the blobs because he has been studying them with Alistar. The Tale of the Bridge was a morality play about summoning demons (the world's equivalent of "Faust"). It was what gave Alistar the idea to summon creatures from other worlds in the first place. And, the fact that the blobs are shapechangers would allow Alistar to resume his humanoid form.

Participating in this contest has been a great experience, though stressful at times. It has really brought home the point (to me, at least) that ideas are a dime a dozen, but actually writing them out in a way that flows well and makes sense is hard. If nothing else, I'm determined to work on my writing skills in the next year, so that I won't have to re-work every other sentence three or four times before I'm happy with it.

And now, I'm off to drown my sorrows in the RotK EE DVD that I picked up over lunch .


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## orchid blossom (Dec 14, 2004)

Congratulations to Piratecat!  And thanks to FireLance for several fun reads.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Dec 14, 2004)

Well done, Piratecat.

And thanks to the other participants, and especially to the judges and BardStephenFox.  I really enjoy this event, and I really appreciate the effort everyone puts into it.


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## Piratecat (Dec 14, 2004)

Well, it took me less tries than the Red Sox, so all in all I'm ahead of the curve.  

A few comments:

- I found the thematic similarity of these images extremely challenging. Sure, I could link it in a gallery or exhibition of some form, but doing so made it feel like an object-driven "parade of pictures" -- the story seemed solely driven by the illustrations. "We see this, then we see this..."  I don't care for that in my own writing, so the overly-long framing story occurred in an attempt to make you care one way or another about the characters. I agree that it's too wordy.

- I've met some folks like Mondarian, overblown or not. I can't decide whether or not that's funny or terrifying. My use of the dismissal gesture was strained in retrospect; I should have found a more natural way to incorporate it.

- Good note by Berandor on my changing POV. 

- I think this is my weakest story of the bunch, but I wanted a finishing bookend to Three Kings. I also wanted something approaching a happy ending. I seriously considered having Celia gouge out her own eyes to escape -- and then I said "For crying out loud, she's just seen everything in the entire world and it's broken her fragile little brain. Don't you think she'd have figured out a way to get out of the damn room?" For me it was akin to yelling at the movie screen "Don't snog in that parked car while the killer is loose with a hatchet, you idiots!" and _having the couple on the screen do the smart thing and drive away._ It was an epiphany that characters don't have to be self-destructive just in order to succeed. Of course, it was instigated by the occult plot device, but what the heck. . . I liked it a lot more than the other endings I considered.

Anyways, thank you to the other competitors, the judges, and anyone reading this thread who doesn't have to! It fills me with wonder that I'm becoming a better writer because people are willing to take the time to run Ceramic DM. Definitely appreciated.

And now? I'm going to go write story hour.


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## Berandor (Dec 14, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> And now? I'm going to go write story hour.



Mission accomplished


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## mythago (Dec 15, 2004)

A VERY big thank-you to all our participants, who wrote their little hearts out, as well as Berandor and Maldur for stepping up to the plate.


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## Macbeth (Dec 15, 2004)

Congrats, PC. You had a strong competition, and you deserved to win. I was happy to just be able and comete against you.


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## Ao the Overkitty (Dec 18, 2004)

Wow. Must of missed the final judgement somehow.  Congrats Pkitty.


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