# Ceramic DM autumn '03(final judegment: new ceramic dm champ!)



## alsih2o

here we go kiddies.

 the match-ups were selected with appropriate technlogical influence (a d8) and we are away!

 matchups, in order or presentation-

 nitessine vs. sparky

 gregor vs ferret

 mythago vs. taladas

 macbeth vs. cool hand luke

 when you and your opponent have checked in to this thread the competition will start.

 you will have 72 hours, no editing, no peeking at other entries till yours is in.

 be good, have fun, good luck.

 judges will be myself, maldur and probably speaker.


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## Sparky

Checking in, aye!

Wow, I'm all nervous like.

Good luck to everyone!


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## NiTessine

Sparky said:
			
		

> Checking in, aye!
> 
> Wow, I'm all nervous like.
> 
> Good luck to everyone!




You're gonna need it! 

Let's get it on!


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## cool hand luke

I'm good to go if we start soon, but will be out of town saturday and sunday, so if we don't do it soon, I'll need to wait till next week.


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## alsih2o

nitessine vs sparky

with the cool new board features i believe i can attach them all at once, here goes nothing 

 72 hours form this post ladies!


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## cool hand luke

could someone do a seach/link to previous ceramic dm threads?  I just want to look at them again before we start.


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## alsih2o

cool hand luke said:
			
		

> could someone do a seach/link to previous ceramic dm threads?  I just want to look at them again before we start.




 well, we have started, but here are 3 of them- http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42806&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=34588

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=37157


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## Taladas

Ready to go. 

Good Luck to everyone. 

And Mythago you'll never survive my RUSHED HACK WORK attack.


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## Gregor

Keyboard is locked and loaded, I am ready to get my write-on!

Best of luck to all participants!

Cheers,


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## Speaker

Nasty.  I love those pics!

Now let's see what you two got


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## Macbeth

cool hand luke said:
			
		

> I'm good to go if we start soon, but will be out of town saturday and sunday, so if we don't do it soon, I'll need to wait till next week.



If its not too much trouble, could Luke and I just start on Monday? I will also be out of town for much of the weekend, so it seems fortutious that we ended up being paired up. Since we are both out of town this weekend, we could both just start Monday (with the judges' permission of course)


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## seasong

Looking forward to watching this unfold .


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## Maldur

And away we are !!!

Good luck everyone!!!


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## Piratecat

Let me know if anyone cancels and you need a sub.


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## Maldur

Dont worry I wont forget you PC!!


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## alsih2o

Macbeth said:
			
		

> If its not too much trouble, could Luke and I just start on Monday? I will also be out of town for much of the weekend, so it seems fortutious that we ended up being paired up. Since we are both out of town this weekend, we could both just start Monday (with the judges' permission of course)




 i am just sick of oyu macbeth! first it is the snarky comments in my pbp that end up with diet coke on the keyboard, now this. well, i suppose i am going to have to do it this way since my mom quit paying you to be my buddy...


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## Maldur

Did You sleep well, Clay?

Or did you wake up with a bug in your @!@%#@%$#


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## alsih2o

macbeth humors me. he has posted some of the funniest in-game lines ever in my pbp. i know next to nithing about him (her?) but my gosh, the entertainment value of him/her in a game is great


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## Macbeth

Just to clarify, I am male (Macbeth would be a male name, for evidence see that Shakespear play, y'know, Macbeth). I geuss I could include more info about myself, but that seems slightly out of place in this thread.  Just wanted to confirm that you can use the male pronoun in my case. I'm looking forward to starting on Monday. Glad you enjoy my posts in Remember the Cavindale, I enjoy your game, so I geuss were about even.


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## cool hand luke

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Just to clarify, I am male (Macbeth would be a male name, for evidence see that Shakespear play, y'know, Macbeth). I geuss I could include more info about myself, but that seems slightly out of place in this thread.  Just wanted to confirm that you can use the male pronoun in my case. I'm looking forward to starting on Monday. Glad you enjoy my posts in Remember the Cavindale, I enjoy your game, so I geuss were about even.





"Be bloody, bold, and resolute! Laugh to scorn The pow'r of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth"

just my luck to go up against a guy that can't be harmed by anyone, in the first round no less.


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## Gregor

Well I hope that Ferret decides to check in some time soon as I am also going away this weekend (as previously mentioned).  Thus, perhaps you should put the whole lot of us on hold until Monday?


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## Feathercircle

Is it too late for me to sign up as a potential substitute?


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## alsih2o

Feathercircle said:
			
		

> Is it too late for me to sign up as a potential substitute?





 sure, just fine. if we don't hear from mythago or taladas by morning we will have to reschedule their match, that leaves you and the p-cat writing for my entertainment


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## Macbeth

cool hand luke said:
			
		

> "Be bloody, bold, and resolute! Laugh to scorn The pow'r of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth"
> 
> just my luck to go up against a guy that can't be harmed by anyone, in the first round no less.



Yeah, but all you've got to do is move Burnham wood and I'm screwed.


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## mythago

I'm in! ENworld doesn't want to let me stay logged on for some reason.

So are we starting on Monday or is the clock a-ticking now?


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## Taladas

Well, I have an unavoidable trip to make and won't be back till late tomorrow but I am ready to participate. But I have no objections to you posting the pics as soon as Mythago posts and me losing a little time. I don't want to delay the contest.

If you have any objections, you can replace me with any of the subs. Thanks of the opportunity to participate.


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## alsih2o

that counts as checking in to me, thanks taladas


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## mythago

So Taladas and I go cage match..um..Thursday?


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## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> So Taladas and I go cage match..um..Thursday?





 how about now?

 taladas vs. mythago

 round 1, 72 hours from this post-


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## mythago

DOH!

Uh, I mean, not a problem. 

Need we use 3.5 or is 3.0 still okay?


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## Maldur

remember just a great story is fine too!

 

Good luck again !


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## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> DOH!
> 
> Uh, I mean, not a problem.
> 
> Need we use 3.5 or is 3.0 still okay?




 3.0, 3.5, modern, spycraft, cthuhlu, whatever shake and bakes your d.m. boat


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## Macbeth

Just to clarify, the submission can be in story or adventure outline form, correct? Since the system is obviously not a concern, how much should we worry aboutthe rules side of things?


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## alsih2o

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Just to clarify, the submission can be in story or adventure outline form, correct? Since the system is obviously not a concern, how much should we worry aboutthe rules side of things?




 we have never worried about that side here at ceramic dm (TM)


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## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> we have never worried about that side here at ceramic dm (TM)



great, I just wanted to confirm. i'm looking forward to getting started on monday.
[TrashTalking]
You better watch out, cool hand luke, cause your going down! DOWN! DOOOWWWNN!
[/TrashTalking]
Well, with that out of my system...


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## Pielorinho

[Minor Hijack]I'm gearing up to run the Autumn Iron DM tournament, unless folks in the Ceramic DM Tournament really don't want to have it running simultaneously; post here if you have strong opinions on the subject (probably you should respond to this post there instead of here if you've got a response)
[/minor hijack]

Thanks!
Daniel


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## Feathercircle

Just a quick note- I know I'm signed up as an alternate, but until tomorrow evening, I'll be at my dad's house where I don't have an internet connection...  I can't post anything until then.


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## Taladas

I'm back and have seen the pics. Very Cool Pictures. 

I'd trashtalk but I'm too tired. I sleep now.


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## mythago

_sits down cackling madly, little lightbulb goes on, pauses_

Errr....do we need to do stat blocks? Or is just saying "Ploni Almoni is a level 5 Paladin with Cleave" plenty?


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## Maldur

I say it would be plenty!!!


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## alsih2o

mladurs right, if oyu are statting an adventure that is fine, if you are telling a story you don't even need that much


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## NiTessine

Here you go. I present to you...
__________________________________________
*Transformations*

Crimban had journeyed long to reach this point. He was standing in an underground cavern, deep in the Blood Crag mountain range. He had gone without food or sleep for three days, magic as his only sustenance, a mix of burning wrath and gnawing worry his motivating force. Four days ago, the Morvandian assassin Cullevere had snuck into the manor of the Maerthan noble family in the city of Veren, kidnapping the nobleman's daughter. At the scene of crime, he had left a note that went: "Let's see your fat magician solve this one", a taunt to the portly Crimban, known in the past for foiling the ambitious empire's dreams of conquest. When the day after dawned, Crimban was on his way to rescue the girl and slay the assassin. He had chosen to go alone, knowing he could cover more ground with his magic than fifty light cavalry scouts.

And so he had. Three days later, he stood a thousand miles from his starting point, in a region impassable to any horse. In front of the cave were the remnants of a campfire, still hot. His prey could not be more than a few minutes ahead. Now, Crimban was staring at what his foe must've fled through. It was a portal, he reasoned, but like no portal he had ever seen. Its uneven edges reminded him of a burst boil. The gate looked like a *pit* gaping into the clear, blue water of some tropical ocean, yet it lay on a vertical surface.

Crimban knew not what lay ahead, but the spell he used to trace the girl led through the portal. His instincts told him it was a trap, had been telling him from the moment he had read the assassin's note, but his prime goal was to find and save the young noble. Crimban swallowed, and reached to touch the portal's surface. He felt the familiar, cool tingle of a magical substance. With a deep breath, he stepped through.

There was the moment of nausea that accompanied all magical travel. He reached the other side, breathing a sigh of relief when his feet met sturdy ground, and landed in a crouch, his ornate magical staff pointed forward like a spear. The room he had landed in was an opulently decorated chamber, reminiscent of a Verenna noble manor.

"Well done, Crimban. We've been here for not five hours when you already come calling," said a voice from close by, tinged with amusement. The mage rose up, turning to gaze upon the speaker. He saw the man grinning in a manner that put to Crimban's mind an utter *psycho*path, looking from over the shoulder of the Verenna girl. He held a blade at her throat, glistening with a green ointment. Poisoned blade, Crimban noted. The girl looked tired and sad, but the wizard could see no real injuries. She looked vacantly at the floor, her face streaked with tears.

"If you are wondering, by the way, we are in a self-contained pocket plane. No summons can reach the outside world, or even the Upper Planes. 

"Don't worry of her, she is quite unharmed. I just had to put her mind to sleep to facilitate easy travel. It is not her that I have quarrel with, but you, good Crimban," the assassin said, smiling.
"I thought as much, but I am here to save the girl, not bandy words with a hired blade. Release her, and you may yet walk out of here."

The assassin scowled.
"The girl? You wish the girl, you may have her." As he spoke, he thrust the girl at Crimban, his knife cutting deeply into her throat. Blood cascaded over the blade and his hand, as she fell to the wizard's feet, lifeless.
"And now, we may get to the matter at-" The assassin was cut short by the burst of magic from Crimban's wand that hit him squarely in the chest.
"I've nothing to talk with you," the wizard spoke grimly, as the assassin's amusement quickly turned to horror. The spell was no ordinary evocation, he realized, as he felt his limbs stiffen. He lost the ability to move, the sense of touch, and finally, his scream of panic froze in his throat as his lungs and finally head turned into cold, dirty grey stone. 

Crimban was not yet finished with the man, however. As soon as the calcification was complete, he mouthed the words to another spell. When the final words left his lips, the stone statue's other leg simply exploded into wet *mud*. The transformation quickly spread to the other parts of the man's body that first lost their stony hardness, his limbs breaking off under their own weight, and then lost even that form, turning into wet pulp.

The portly wizard looked approvingly upon what remained of his foe, and then cast the third spell. The mud regained some cohesion it'd had as a man, and the dirty gray gradually turned into fleshy pink. A pair of *eyes* took form, looking at Crimban, imploring him to end the torment. Once the change was complete, the Morvandian assassin was but a flesh-encased puddle on the ground. Its surface rippled as it tried to use its once strong muscles that were now without the support of a skeleton. Crimban leaned closer and said:
"Show a little backbone."

He left the assassin there, like that. Once he was out, he sealed the portal, and then collapsed the cave it had nestled in. With the dead girl slung over his shoulder, Crimban began his trek back to Veren. She could always be resurrected.


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## mythago

*A Frog in the Throat*

The village of Anvil huddles in the cold shadow of the Iron Mountains; it is the last stop on the trade road from the mighty capital city of Deinby, as it winds up into Farrier's Pass. The ore that once made the town famous for the plentifulness and quality of its metalwork has become rarer, but items made by the smiths of Anvil are still prized, and the town makes a small living catering to travellers going through Farrier's Pass.  

Oddly for a human town, the villagers' patron deity is Moradin, god of dwarves. (Some say that this is because the people of Anvil have dwarven blood in them, but that's impossible. Isn't it?) They celebrate the usual festivals, such as the King's Birthday, but also those that honor Moradin. Every winter equinox, the villagers travel to a nearby cave known as the Mouth of Moradin. Within the cave is a sacred pool, surrounded by ancient, huge statues carved by the dwarves centuries ago, before they left this part of the Iron Mountains--no one knows why. Anvil's priest, who is literate, writes the villager's prayers and praise to Moradin on scraps of parchment. Then the people tie the prayers to small stones and throw them into the pool. These prayers are followed by offerings of gold, jewels, valuable stone carvings, and finely-made ornaments and weapons, to honor Moradin.

Word of this ceremony reached a mediocre Deinby wizard named Misigrem. Never one to make an honest copper when a dishonest gold would do, Misigrem conceived the idea of cleaning out the pool after the midwinter ritual. Obtaining a spell of _water breathing_, he crept into the caves, removed gold and the lighter items from the pool, and took them back to Deinby to sell.

After several years of this, rumors of black-market (and low-price) Anvil goods made its way back to the village. The townsfolk appealed to their most capable native son: Whistling Jemmy, the notorious highwayman, scourge of the trade road, whose name comes from the noise his deadly sling stones make as they hail down upon his victims. From the villager's point of view, though, Whistling Jemmy is a folk hero. He never bothers the townsfolk, or lone travellers, preferring to prey on tax collectors and wealthy caravans. He tracked the rumors down and examined the disturbances at the cave. This year, the villagers left the cave after the offering, and lay in wait to catch their thief.

Misigrem would have been caught except that his toad familiar Wart, scouting ahead, alerted him to trap. Desperate, he used his most precious magic item--a charm that, when crushed, summoned a creature that could be set to do a single task (a modified Summon Monster III). He told the Fiendish Condor that appeared to "guard the cave and don't let anyone but me pass." It flew out and drove off the watchers, and has been lurking around the entrance to the sacred cave ever since.

Misigrem spent the battle concealing himself inside one of the old dwarven statutes, which arehollow; unfortunately, the lid that was so easy to tip open from the outside is nearly impossible to open from within. He was able to push out one of the teeth mortared into the rest of the statute, so perched in a dead spruce near the cave mouth. It watches the approaching group with unnaturally bright eyes. When they are within 30' it will open its ragged, stinking wings and swoop down to attack. Whistling Jemmy will assist the group, but they should be doing most of the work; he is more accustomed to attacking with surprise and from above.

Once the guardian is defeated, Whistling Jemmy will lead the group into the cave. He doesn't know where the thief is, but he guesses that the thief is either hiding among the old statutes, or has gone past them somewhere into the tunnels and gotten lost, in which case they will be looking for bones. Privately, this is what he believes happened, but he wants to at least find the body so that he can let the villagers know the cave is safe. 

Getting to the statutes requires punting along a shallow natural river in the caves. There are punts beached along the entrance, with poles. Since Whistling Jemmy can't see in the dark, he'll either light a lantern or rely on magical light produced by a PC. The river feeds into a large underground pool, pure and startlingly blue. The water tastes wonderful, if anyone tastes it. However, it's a good 100' to the bottom, so jumping in is not suggested.

As soon as they get in line of sight, Misigrem will spot the light, guess that he has rescuers, and figure that he'd better talk fast or he's not going to make it out of the caves in one piece. He will quickly cast Water Breating on himself, cast Ventriloquism on Wart and speak in his deepest, boomingest voice. "I AM THE THE ENVOY OF MORADIN, GOD OF DWARVES!" (Wart will croak menacingly.) "I ORDER YOU TO SEIZE THIS HUMAN WHO HAS DEFILED MY CAVE AND THROW HIM INTO THIS POOL AS A SACRIFICE!" His plan is that they will get him out of the statue, fling him into the pool, and he will stay underwater until they leave. Then he and Wart will sneak out of the village and escape to Deinby.

Whether the PCs fall for this or not is up in the air. Misigrem naturally thinks everyone else is stupider than he, so he is confident that the unlettered, superstitious yokels will be awed and obedient. Of course, your players may be a little cleverer than that. The statue's lid is carefully balanced and counterweighted so that it can be opened from the outside by anyone with STR 10, but from the inside it must be forced open with STR 16 or better, or a Knock spell, which the wizard lacks. (Misigrem is not the first thief whom the original Dwarf sculptors had encountered.)

If the PCs show any signs of killing Misigrem or taking him captive, he will fight desperately to escape. He doesn't want to kill anyone, just to get past them and get out of the caves; he is a mediocre punter but can certainly manage to make his way to the cave mouth. Wart will hop into people's faces and attempt to disrupt spells and attacks, but Misigrem will call him off if it seems he is in any danger. If the fight goes badly or he is told to surender or die, he will surrender immediately.

Dead or alive, Whistling Jemmy will insist that the group take Misigrem back to the village, to be put in the stocks or buried, depending on his condition. In gratitude, the stout villagers will offer the PCs a reward: dwarf-made masterwork weapons or rings of protection +1, depending on the classes and inclinations of your party.

And, as promised, Whistling Jemmy will lead them through the passageways to the other side of the Iron Mountains. Whether they pass through the rocky underground without incident is another matter... 

Misigrem
NE, Half-elf, Wizard (6), STR 8 INT 16 WIS 10 DEX 13 CON 15 CHA 9
Spells: Resistance (0), Light (0), Mage Hand (0), Mage Armor (1), Spider Climb (1), Tenser's Floating Disk (1), Feather Fall (1), Ventriloquism (1),Protection from Arrows (2), Continual Flame (2), Nondetection (3), Suggestion (3), Fly (3), Water Breathing (3)

Whistling Jemmy
CG, Human, Ranger (3)/Rogue (1), STR 12 INT 11 WIS 10 DEX 15 CON 12 CHA 15

Fiendish Condor
NE, Fiendish, 10' wingspan
AC 10, Attacks: Peck, d6, HD 2-4, Cold and fire resistance 5/10, damage reduction -/5, Smite Good once per day


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## mythago

Sigh. Okay, I give up.

After twenty minutes of attempting to paste in the URLs correctly, the boards kicked me off every time I attempted to Preview then Post, and told me I could no longer post to that board. I tried posting with Quick Reply and several paragraphs in the middle have plain and simply vanished, making the entry completely incomprehensible.

If the Ceramic DM judges will allow me to re-post, I will be happy to put up the entire entry in as correct a form as the boards will let me. Even if editing the entry were *not* against the rules, ENworld has decided for me that editing = death.


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## alsih2o

i think we can allow a reposting, be nice and honest about it, post it as it was when you tried to post it 

 if you have to, email it to me and i will post it.

 and let's please try to respect the one sig per thread rules guys


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## mythago

*A Frog in the Throat*

The village of Anvil huddles in the cold shadow of the Iron Mountains; it is the last stop on the trade road from the mighty capital city of Deinby, as it winds up into Farrier's Pass. The ore that once made the town famous for the plentifulness and quality of its metalwork has become rarer, but items made by the smiths of Anvil--though rare now--are still prized, and the town makes a small living catering to travellers going through Farrier's Pass.  

Oddly for a human town, the villagers' patron deity is Moradin, god of dwarves. (Some say that this is because the people of Anvil have dwarven blood in them, but that's impossible. Isn't it?) They celebrate the usual festivals, such as the King's Birthday, but also those that honor Moradin. Every winter equinox, the villagers travel to a nearby cave known as the Mouth of Moradin. Within the cave is a sacred pool, surrounded by ancient, huge statues carved by the dwarves centuries ago, before they left this part of the Iron Mountains--no one knows why. Anvil's priest, who is literate, writes the villager's prayers and praise to Moradin on scraps of parchment. Then the people tie the prayers to small stones and throw them into the pool. These prayers are followed by offerings of gold, jewels, valuable stone carvings, and finely-made ornaments and weapons, to honor Moradin.

Word of this ceremony eventually got back to a Deinby wizard named Misigrem. Never one to make an honest copper when a dishonest gold would do, Misigrem conceived the idea of cleaning out the pool after the midwinter ritual. Obtaining a spell of water breathing, he crept into the caves, removed gold and the lighter items from the pool, and took them back to Deinby to sell.

After several years of this, rumors of black-market (and low-price) Anvil goods made its way back to the village. The townsfolk appealed to their most capable native son: Whistling Jemmy[1], the notorious highwayman, scourge of the trade road, whose name comes from the noise his deadly sling stones make as they hail down upon his victims. From the villager's point of view, though, Whistling Jemmy is a folk hero. He never bothers the townsfolk, or lone travellers, preferring to prey on tax collectors and wealthy caravans. He tracked the rumors down and examined the disturbances at the cave. This year, the villagers left the cave after the offering, and lay in wait to catch their thief.

Misigrem would have been caught except that his toad familiar Wart, scouting ahead, alerted him to trap. Desperate, he used his most precious magic item--a charm that, when crushed, summoned a creature that could be set to do a single task (a modified Summon Monster III). He told the Fiendish Condor[2] that appeared to "guard the cave and don't let anyone but me pass." It flew out and drove off the watchers, and has been lurking around the entrance to the sacred cave ever since.

Misigrem spent the battle concealing himself inside one of the old dwarven statutes, which is hollow; unfortunately, the lid that was so easy to tip open from the outside is nearly impossible to open from within. He was able to push out one of the teeth mortared into the rest of the statute, so his familiar was able to squeeze out. He directed Wart to get food, water and possibly assistance--unfortunately for him, his directions to the guardian had not included Wart, and the toad stopped trying to get out after the second time the condor swooped down on him. The toad has been fetching small blind cave fish from pools, and bringing mouthfuls of water, which keep Misigrem alive if not exactly well. It's starting to dawn on him that the condor is keeping potential rescuers out, but he has no way of dismissing it.

Introducting the Players: the PCs will have to head through Farrier's Pass about a week after midwinter. Ideally it will be an errand of urgency; if nothing else, weather-wizards in Deinby should be able to tell them that they have only a short time before the pass is completely closed from snows, making them impassable until spring melt.

They will arrive in Anvil and be warned that the pass is dangerous. Unless your players are unusual this won't stop them, so they'll press on a ways only to encounter dangerous snow, threatening avalanches, and shrieking winds that drown out conversation. Just as they are about to turn back or fail their last roll to endure the cold, Whistling Jemmy and his band will appear to lead the shivering group to their camp. Normally they would see outsiders such as these as easy prey, but Anvil needs help--and besides, underneath that rugged exterior Whistling Jemmy has a heart of gold.

Once the PCs have warmed up at the fire and drunk a little tea, he will make them a deal: if they will help him with a little problem down in Anvil, he will escort them through a secret network of old Dwarf tunnels that emerge on the other side of the mountain. The tunnels are a twistly little maze of passages, but Whistling Jemmy knows them all, "and 'tis better'n  your ghosts joining all the others up in the winter snows! The pass is already paved wi' the bones of fools, y'ought not to add to 'em!"

If they agree, he will leave Kaith and Hajel to guard the shelter while he shows the party to the Mouth of Moradin. (Lichen grows around the cave, making it look more than a bit like a bearded, open mouth.) The condor is perched in a dead spruce near the cave mouth. It watches the approaching group with unnaturally bright eyes. When they are within 30' it will open its ragged, stinking wings and swoop down to attack. Whistling Jemmy will assist the group, but they should be doing most of the work; he is more accustomed to attacking with surprise and from above.

Once the guardian is defeated, Whistling Jemmy will lead the group into the cave. He doesn't know where the thief is, but he guesses that the thief is either hiding among the old statutes, or has gone past them somewhere into the tunnels and gotten lost, in which case they will be looking for bones. Privately, this is what he believes happened, but he wants to at least find the body so that he can let the villagers know the cave is safe. 

Getting to the statutes requires punting along a shallow natural river in the caves. [3] There are punts beached along the entrance, with poles. Since Whistling Jemmy can't see in the dark, he'll either light a lantern or rely on magical light produced by a PC. The river feeds into a large underground pool, pure and startlingly blue. The water tastes wonderful, if anyone tastes it. However, it's a good 100' to the bottom, so jumping in is not suggested.

As soon as they get in line of sight, Misigrem will spot the light, guess that he has rescuers, and figure that he'd better talk fast or he's not going to make it out of the caves in one piece. He will quickly cast Water Breating on himself, cast Ventriloquism on Wart[3] and speak in his deepest, boomingest voice. "I AM THE THE ENVOY OF MORADIN, GOD OF DWARVES!" (Wart will croak menacingly.) "I ORDER YOU TO SEIZE THIS HUMAN WHO HAS DEFILED MY CAVE AND THROW HIM INTO THIS POOL AS A SACRIFICE!" His plan is that they will get him out of the statue, fling him into the pool, and he will stay underwater until they leave. Then he and Wart will sneak out of the village and escape to Deinby.

Whether the PCs fall for this or not is up in the air. Misigrem naturally thinks everyone else is stupider than he, so he is confident that the unlettered, superstitious yokels will be awed and obedient. Of course, your players may be a little cleverer than that. The statue's lid is carefully balanced and counterweighted so that it can be opened from the outside by anyone with STR 10, but from the inside it must be forced open with STR 16 or better, or a Knock spell, which the wizard lacks. (Misigrem is not the first thief whom the original Dwarf sculptors had encountered.)

If the PCs show any signs of killing Misigrem or taking him captive, he will fight desperately to escape. He doesn't want to kill anyone, just to get past them and get out of the caves; he is a mediocre punter but can certainly manage to make his way to the cave mouth. Wart will hop into people's faces and attempt to disrupt spells and attacks, but Misigrem will call him off if it seems he is in any danger. If the fight goes badly or he is told to surender or die, he will surrender immediately.

Dead or alive, Whistling Jemmy will insist that the group take Misigrem back to the village, to be put in the stocks or buried, depending on his condition. In gratitude, the stout villagers will offer the PCs a reward: dwarf-made masterwork weapons or rings of protection +1, depending on the classes and inclinations of your party.

And, as promised, Whistling Jemmy will lead them through the passageways to the other side of the Iron Mountains. Whether they pass through the rocky underground without incident is another matter... 

Misigrem
NE, Half-elf, Wizard (6), STR 8 INT 16 WIS 10 DEX 13 CON 15 CHA 9
Spells: Resistance (0), Light (0), Mage Hand (0), Mage Armor (1), Spider Climb (1), Tenser's Floating Disk (1), Feather Fall (1), Ventriloquism (1),Protection from Arrows (2), Continual Flame (2), Nondetection (3), Suggestion (3), Fly (3), Water Breathing (3)

Whistling Jemmy
CG, Human, Ranger (3)/Rogue (1), STR 12 INT 11 WIS 10 DEX 15 CON 12 CHA 15

Fiendish Condor
NE, Fiendish, 10' wingspan
AC 10, Attacks: Peck, d6, HD 2-4, Cold and fire resistance 5/10, damage reduction -/5, Smite Good once per day

[1] sling.jpg
[2] bird.jpg
[3] boat.jpg	
[4] facefrog.jpg


----------



## mythago

Thank you. The above is actually a pre-edited version, cut and pasted directly from my word processor--to be fair I didn't want to correct any little errors. The only change is that I footnoted the image files, since I could not get ENworld to accept my putting links in.


----------



## Sparky

We’ve been chasing a storm called the Tears of Kahl for days. I can see it there ahead of us all failing bluster and slashing rain. It scourges the Phyrahnni Wastelands each year until it finds the Font of Aylse where it rages bitterly before dying out. Each year my Order follows the storm to its death and there the pilgrimage ends. There we perform the Rite of Sorrow. I gag and bite back a curse as I nearly swallow the bitter rock that I have carried in my mouth all the way from the Temple. What a laugh that would be, a Guardian choking on his own sorrow stone.

There is a hitch in the rhythmic beat of Sintka’s wings as she adjusts our course. Shifting slightly in the riding harness, I brace for the changing wind. I feel Buhrune lose his balance behind me and lean heavily against his straps. Sintka grunts. Though I have loved flying again, I am glad we will land soon. Sintka needs to rest. She is much too young to have made such a flight. 

Over a shining wing I finally see the Font of Aylse. (pit) It stops my breath. The air grows hot and I feel the power of the place reach out to me – the righteous glory of divine wrath blazes and I am consumed by fire. I am fire. Visions are seared into my mind, things I will never speak of, things I will never forget.

I burn. 

I am the Guardian.

Cold, acrid air returns, and breath and sight. My mouth bleeds, I bit the stone. Below the dazzling pool gleams, green and blue, gold and red, gemlike amidst this endless plain of rock and dust and mud. Shaking, I close my eyes and whisper a prayer to Aylse. Behind me Buhrune is very still. Leaning easily against the straps of the harness, I turn around. Panic stabs. Buhrune is slumped in his saddle, clothes bunched where straps strain over his girth. His impressive mouth hangs slack, the sorrow stone for the whole Order suspended by a thin chain between his formidable array of stump-like teeth. His goggles are gone and his protuberant, hairy eyes are open, rolling. (eye) His eyes scare me. I pull off my scarf and leaning as far as the straps allow tie it around his brow. Not as good as goggles, but it will have to do. I briefly wonder what visions he suffers and, shuddering, turn around. Sintka dips a wing and begins the curve of our descent, shreds of the dead storm trailing her wings.

The landing jars Buhrune out of his fugue for which I am grateful. Mobs of pitiful supplicants have been trailing our approach and pitiful supplicants are his area, not mine. Buhrune smiles weakly struggling with my scarf as I help him down, but his grip is strong. 

Concern creases his already wrinkled brow, “She is not well,” he rumbles as we remove the harnesses and gear from Sintka. 

I pause, “No. She is not.” 

It seems strange to worry over a dragon, but she is young, and now she is exhausted.

“She will accompany us,” Buhrune intones with a note of decree.

It violates the strictures of the Rite, but I say nothing, I would not leave her here. I do not know how I will protect them both. She sighs as the saddles and gear slide to the ground. Collapsing, she falls immediately to sleep.

We have landed in the courtyard of a small, neat, white-washed shrine. The chants and cries of pilgrims reach us over the walls, but it is strangely quiet here. I stand for a moment getting a sense of the place. A gust brings heat and an acrid bitterness. It makes my nose twitch. 

“Help me with this, would you?” Buhrune asks, arm half in the sleeve of a robe and stuck. He hasn’t wasted any time starting preparations. The bronze bowl he will carry tomorrow is already wrapped in its bright bundle even if he himself is having trouble with his own wrappings.

Dressing a healthy, adult Patamu is, by itself, a difficult task. Dressing a healthy, adult Patamu for the Rite of Sorrow is an order of magnitude beyond that. Layer upon layer later all that is visible of Buhrune is his broad, round snout and his stubby hands. His eyes are covered once again.

He turns toward me, miraculously, “The sun sets, Guardian. We must begin our mediations.” 

His use of my title makes the spark of divine wrath in my chest and hands flare and burn. Yes, it is time. 

Buhrune points at the bright bundle of cloth, “Bring that.” He walks to the sleeping dragon and gently prods her ways, “Please, come inside, but do not speak.”

I turn away, taking longer to gather up the bundle than is necessary as she begins to change form. Shape changing magic always makes me uncomfortable. I feel a small hand tug at my belt loop and look down into Sintka’s gold-flecked eyes. Her hair is dark and short, to her jaws. She looks so thin.

Buhrune’s nose flares, “Your form,” he grunts nodding at me, “She must not think much of my riding.” He calls over his shoulder as he enters the shrine.

The long night of meditation begins. Sintka curls up in the corner and drowses. The moans and calls of the supplicants drone through the darkness, never stopping, rising in pitch and fervor toward the dawn.

As the light of dawn reaches us I stand, straightening stiff joints discreetly, and bring the cloth bundle from the altar to where Buhrune kneels. He unwraps the bundle and removes the bowl from the gaudy cloth. Rising gracefully he carries the bowl back to the altar and, standing there, carefully unhooks the chain in his mouth. He pulls the stone from its binding and kisses it before holding it skyward. His deep voice rolls out to the courtyard and over the walls as he begins singing a prayer to Aylse. 

The pilgrims outside cry out and take up the song. Buhrune’s deep voice fades as he repeats the last verse and he lets the stone fall from his hands. It strikes the bowl. A resonant, keening ring rises from the bowl. It is unearthly. Chills crawl my spine. He turns toward me and I startle, realizing that we have really begun. I take the bitter stone from under my tongue and kiss it offering up my own prayers of remorse. I drop the stone in the bowl and the ringing changes, growing, not louder, but more powerful.

Buhrune picks up the bowl and my duty as Guardian begins. As I turn to gesture Sintka to me, she is already at my side, I had not even noticed her. We walk out into the courtyard and the drone of the bowl pours out, filling the air. The chanting and songs of the supplicants drops to a murmur. With a glance down at Sintka I walk to the gate and, throwing back the bolt, swing it wide. 

The supplicants cry out again, an inarticulate sound from so many throats as they surge forward on either side of the high, narrow path that we will walk to the Font. The Tears of Kahl and thousands of feet have churned the fine Phyranni dust into a soupy mud.  They chant and push and howl. Sintka looks wide-eyed at the fray. Behind me Buhrune steps up. My stomach clenches and I am uneasy. I draw my robes more closely around me and around Sintka. I don’t know how I will protect her. I step forward and the first stones hit. Wincing, I grit my teeth and take another step. Buhrune is close behind and at the sight of him and the bowl the throng goes mad. Slipping, flailing and falling over one another, the supplicants struggle to reach the path. To reach us. Covered in mud, they are indistinguishable from one another. They are, in their desperation, made one. (mud) Their stones rain down on us, sharp and hard, stinging, biting. Only a few strike the bowl as intended. I falter, barely able to see, let alone guide us down the path. Sintka peers out from under my robes, terrified, and takes a step forward. I step. More stones. The roar of the voices becomes unimaginable. We step. The ringing of stones striking the bowl grows. I begin to take more steps, glad of the distance, however small, that the crowd cannot cross to reach us. The falling stones, the ringing bowl and the screaming crowd are unbearable, but we are near the end of the path. Near the next gate.

I feel strange, unsettled. There is a presence above, but I can see nothing. But stones are bouncing off of something above us. A man appears in the middle of the path, he is not muddy. He very much resembles Sintka. Buhrune bumps into me grunting as he does so. The bowl touches me and as it does the ringing magnifies a thousand fold. My bones feel like they will shatter and my nose jets blood onto my white, white robes. I look down. Dazed and slow, I watch the man’s arm dart out to grab Sintka. He backs down the path toward the gate amidst the hail of stones. With a cry of rage I step forward, the wrath of my god coming easily to my hands. Buhrune cries out behind me and I turn to see him slipping. Thrusting an arm back I grab his thick wrist and pull him along, another breach of ceremony. I am not supposed to touch him, only protect him. Swallowing a curse I look back and see the gate flung open and the man and Sintka disappearing through it. I run for the gate, dragging Buhrune behind, he is bellowing.

As we clear the gate, I see the man. He is backed into a corner holding a slim, black knife to Sintka’s throat. (psycho) She looks defiantly at me, determined not to show her fear. I am glad she understands the situation, the path to the Font is warded by very powerful magic. This man is dangerous. 

Still holding a knife to Sintka’s throat he reaches into his mouth and pulls out a gem. It is the color of honey. He kisses it and holds it out.

 “I have sorrows I wish to be rid of,” He hisses.

“All may put forth their sorrows to Aylse,” Buhrune’s voice is a growl.

“My sorrow is not for Aylse, it is for Kahl,” the man cinches his arm more tightly around Sintka’s neck and presses the blade nearer. A spot of blood springs up, she closes her eyes.

“Kahl!” bellows Buhrune, “It cannot be.” 

The man’s mouth curls and his hand balls into a fist. His eyes begin to shine, “I assure you Patamu, it can. I have sorrows for Kahl!”

Drawing his hand back, the man readied to throw his stone at the bowl, and, never taking my eyes off of the bloodied blade, I moved between him and his target. He grinned, too many teeth, “Brave, Guardian.”

He threw. I tensed. Somehow, this would be more painful to take than all of the stones of the supplicants. Before I could fully close my eyes to brace for the impact my stomach lurched and Sintka had changed form. She snapped out with a wickedly fast draconic head and missed the stone just as it hit me square in the chest.

And my world blew apart.

(to be continued)


----------



## Sparky

Forgot to add to my post:

NiTessine vs. Sparky

Good luck again to all, and enjoy.


----------



## Maldur

I did send clay my first judgements 


How is the rest comming?


----------



## Taladas

Mythago vs. Taladas​
	I grew up in a small village called San Pedro. My family was very poor and to help us survive I hunted birds. At first it was simple snare traps taught to me by my grandpapa, to catch the birds as they landed. Later he taught me the sling. (sling picture)  I became very good and could bring down anything. Though poor, my family never went hungry. 
	Of course being good with the sling had other advantages; it could bring down other game as well. Tourists would come down to see the ancient Mayan ruins. I would wait for one to wonder off. Then I would use the sling. I’m not a murderer. I would use an apple. It was soft enough not to kill but hard enough to stun. Then Hector and Nacho would grab the wallet or purse and we would have money for awhile. Never a lot, the police always wanted too much for their cut.  
	The festival of the Crane happened every year in March. Some elders from the village would go up the river in ceremonial garb. Taking a secret route known only to them. They would give offerings to the Crane and it was supposed to bring peace and prosperity. I always thought it proved they were stupid. Giving stuff to a bird. You eat birds. 
	Then one year a week before the festival a man came to me. He said the he had heard of my skill with the sling and that he had a job for me. He told me that he would give me 60,000 pesos if I would go up the river to the cave of the Crane and kill it. When I asked him why, he said that for progress to come to Mexico the old traditions must be swept away. A new way must be made and the old must die. When I heard this, I thought he was as stupid as the people who gave offerings to the Crane were, but he gave me 10,000 pesos up front. After that I didn’t care what his stupid reasons were, I just wanted the money. 
	I got Hector and Nacho and we stole a small boat on the dock. The man had given me directions to the cave of the Crane. We took the small boat up the river and turned down a small hidden tributary. We soon came to a giant carved face. (facefrog picture)  The man told us to place an offering into the mouth of the giant face. The offering settled into its mouth and it sank down with a groan of shifting stone. Then another tributary appeared as stones shifted away. Hector and Nacho started saying it was magic, I told them to shut up. It was just levers and weights.
	We followed the new tributary and soon found that it led to a cave opening. (boat picture) A few feet into the cave we landed the boat and got out. Hector and Nacho were nervous and started saying that we shouldn’t be there and that we should go back. I called them cowards and told them to wait there. I left them to go deeper into the cave. I went maybe a 100 yards and saw a light. I looked up and saw the Crane silhouetted against the sky. (bird picture) It stood there unaware of my existence. I readied my sling and began to twirl it, faster and faster, and then I released the stone. It flew straight and hit the Crane’s head cracking its skull. I scurried up the rise to the Crane and check if it was still alive. It was dead. I had succeeded. 
	I went back to Hector and Nacho and we took the boat back. Hector and Nacho soon began to talk about the money. I would listen to them and occasionally smile. I had only told them about the 10,000 pesos. The rest would be mine and all I had to do was kill a bird. I felt like I had everything that I could want. 
	The town learned of the Crane’s death during the festival, a week later. People were shocked, numbed. It was like I had killed their hope.
	It’s now forty years later. Hector and Nacho were killed in a drug deal gone wrong. They let their greed get ahead of them. As for me, I have seen San Pedro go from a small poor town with a small tourist trade and a festival honoring a crane to a den of drug dealers and gunmen.  Life has become fearful and uncertain and hope has flown away. I know now that San Pedro needed that myth of the Crane. We may have been poor but the Crane gave us peace and unity. It gave the town the will to persevere against poverty and strife and not to give in to the easy route. I wish I could give back the pesos. I wish I could give back the Crane. But all I can do is tell my story as best as I can.


----------



## Taladas

Done with an hour to spare. Hope you like it.


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## Maldur

Second ruling send   Greta stuff peoples, you are making it hard to decide!

When are the other groups starting?


----------



## alsih2o

well, ferret seems to have lost interest, so we have gregor vs. first alternate piratecat

 gregor vs piratecat

 round 1, 72 hours from this post gentlemen!


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## alsih2o

AND 

 macbeth vs cool hand luke

 72 hours from this post fellas!


----------



## cool hand luke

I would love to see the searches you do to come up with some of these pictures.  there just ODD....


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## Piratecat

Oh, now you've done it! My mind just broke.  Ouch.


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## mythago

> macbeth vs cool hand luke




There's a match-up you don't see every day...


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## alsih2o

Mythago vs. Taladas

 maldur-

 mythago: One of the few adventures we get here at the ceramic DM, but its a
wonderfull tale of a mage getting himself into trouble by being too clever
for his own good. I might even try it in one of my games.
taladas: A modern tale with mystery and magic. very nice. The fact that it
doesn't have an happy end, and the storyteller knows it, appeals to me.

Result: close, but superiour storytelling makes it go to taladas.

 speaker-

 Well written, the both of you.  I found amusing that you each separately 
choose to present a tale of greed, in which some rogue runs afoul for 
corrupting a ritual or offering to his own ends.

Taladas, your tale manages to weave together a fine tale of greed and 
remorse.   The narrator knows that what he has done is wrong, and that some 
things are worth more then simple money -- alas, too late.  The protagonist 
could easily be one of the many young men I met in Indonesia who seek their 
own betterment, whatever the cost to others may be.

Mythago, you offer an intriguing adventure, well suited for a one-shot 
encounter or an introduction to a particular section of the world.  Your use 
of the pictures is most inventive, and the adventure entire well written and 
clearly presented.   I particularly enjoyed the use of the crane and toad.

But in the end, I choose to lean for Mythago's adventure as the victor in 
this first round.

  alsih2o-

 taladas gives us a strong story, lots of stuff to like here. i would like to hear more adventures from this guy, and his wisened view of life.

 mythago presents a story that is more complex, and therefore more RBish.

 mythago took a big chance writing an adventure, they tend not to do as well in ceramic dm, but i have to choose with it for complexity and interest.

 RESULT- 2-1 vote in mythagos favor.

 we will see mythago next round, thanks to taladas for a good story...


----------



## mythago

*faints dead away*

And kudos to my honorable opponent, Taladas!


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## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> *faints dead away*
> 
> And kudos to my honorable opponent, Taladas!




 excellent example of a ceramic dm winner. trash talk up front, humble graciousness as the smoke clears.

 i love this game


----------



## Macbeth

Forget what this post said before, I just found my pics. Ooooh, interesting.


----------



## Taladas

Congradulations Mythago!!! It's good to see an adventure win, we don't see them often in Ceramic DM. Good luck to you sir.


----------



## Piratecat

Taladas said:
			
		

> Good luck to you *sir.*




Ma'am.


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## Taladas

oops. Sorry about that


----------



## mythago

Taladas said:
			
		

> oops. Sorry about that




No worries. Besides, I'm not sure we horrors from beyond space and time technically have gender.


----------



## alsih2o

Taladas said:
			
		

> Congradulations Mythago!!! It's good to see an adventure win, we don't see them often in Ceramic DM. Good luck to you sir.




 class, class, class. we have only really had one problem in all of these. good folks...


----------



## Sialia

Congratulations!


----------



## Macbeth

I wanted to get mine done before I start studying for Midterms tonight, so here's what I got:

The young man, obviously out of place with his light features bound up in middle eastern garb, took a quick glance over the low wall separating us from the Venmon and turned back to me. 





"Looks like they still have us pinned down. I guess we don't really have any choice but to wait them out." A flurry of bullets fly past his head as he drops back to the ground, and, as if to prove that nothing ever works out for me, not a single bullet hits him.
Just my luck. Not only am I pinned down by the South Pacific's equivalent of the mafia, but I can look forward to spending my time with Mister Super Spy himself, Richard Gavin. Only a bonafide Superpsy would expect an outfit that could have come from "Hammas 'R Us" to blend in IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC. Leave it to the CIA's 'best' to be the only person in the history of the planet to stand out more when in disguise. If there's anything this little chain of events has taught me, its that anybody audacious enough to call himself a Super Spy isn't much of a spy. You know, I really should have expected this from the beginning...

**************

Never cross the mafia. Any mafia. Not the Italians, the Russians, the Chinese, not any of them. Especially not the Venmon. The venmon are, for lack of abetter title, the mafia of the South Pacific. They run just about everything down there. I assumed that since I had barely heard of them they couldn't be much trouble, so I broke my own rule, and crossed the mafia. It wasn't a blatant slap in the face, just a little business of the side. With the number of islands the Venmon control I thought they would take little notice if I took up hiding on Taku Rikiki, just until the heat wore off.
And that statement brings us to the inevitable question: what heat? To make a long story short, I crossed the Russian mafia first, by pulling a jewel heist in St. Petersburg without their permission. The heist went fairly well, until I learned what Napoleon and Hitler learned: never attack the Russians on their home turf. The Russians in America are nasty, but the Russians in Russia seem like they still have a grudge about that whole freeing the serfs shtick, and their willing to take out their aggression on just about anybody and anything. So, with a pack of gorilla-sized Russian men chasing me, I fled the country, and found my other problem: I'm not exactly welcome in any major country, or even any minor counties, for that matter. After the heist in the U.S., the murder in England, the drug deal in Canada, the smuggling in France, the shaving cream incident in Germany, and too many other run-ins with the law to mention, my list of countries to escape to had been narrowed down to a number of small South Pacific islands. I knew of the Venmon, and I knew that because of their ties to the Russians they wouldn't be exactly happy to see me, but I needed a place to lie low, so I broke my own rule an crossed the mafia.
Maybe it was my choice of villages that screwed me over in the end. Taku Rikiki, the island I had chosen as the least likely to attract the Venmon, had only one village, and when it comes down to it the village is really the entire island. Most of the buildings are thatched, with only a couple of modern buildings, a warehouse and a small fish processing plant, mixed in. In a community that small, word travels fast, so by the time I reached the end of the dock the village elder had come to see me.
"Welcome, sir, may I ask what brings you here?"
The old man really freaked me out. He had a dull grey... something... where his left eye should have been, and skin that showed this man had really lived. He had a bright yellow head band, probably some kind of honor bestowed on him.
"...Business, I have a...investor who is interested in the fish produced here, and so I've come to take a look." A total lie, but a believable one.
"Really? I would expect that we would have heard something about this."
"Well... it's a surprise visit, of course, if you knew I was coming I wouldn't get a real impression of what your factory is like."
"Ahhh, I see the wisdom in your choice. Fine, make yourself at home, there is a small cottage further inland that you can use. I hope your stay here is enjoyable."
And with that the old man turned around and left. I didn't like him already. Anybody who accepts a surprise inspection with that kind of grace knows something that I don't, putting me at a disadvantage. But I had no choice, the boatman had already left, and from the looks of the boats moored around the island I only had two choices of destinations in thee local boats: the fishing area, or the bottom of the ocean, and I'm no fisherman.
So I made my way to the hut the elder directed me to. It was a nice place, as thatched cottages go, and I made myself as "at home" as I could get without a TV, computer, or telephone. It wasn't nice, but it would work. I thought I had found myself a safe place to lie low, but no such luck.

***********

The next day I set about getting acquainted with my new home, and came across a man who's ignorance knows no bounds, Richard Gavin. Actually, to be more accurate, Gavin found me. As I said before, word travels fast on Taku Rikiki, and I was awoken at the ungodly hour of 10:00 AM by a white man, obviously trying to be covert and failing miserably. 
When he noticed I had woken up he let out a low whisper: "Look, I know this seems odd, but I need to know who you are and what your doing here."
I'm not a morning person, and the last time I heard the questions "who are you?" and "What are you doing here?" I was waking up naked with a headache and a hangover. After a few moments composing myself I gathered enough of my wits to realize that this man was far from inconspicuous. The standard dress in the South Pacific is quite minimal, with lots of bright colors. This man was straight out of the middle east. Several layers of draped cloth and a long bandana told me that this man was either trying to do his best to blend into a foreign area without any idea of how "foreign people" dress, or a complete idiot. Or Both.
"Well, hows about you explain who you are to me first. After all, I am the one waking up with no idea why there's a strange person in my bedroom."
At this point Gavin showed his true nature. Any real spy would give a false name. Gavin, on the other hand, has to take credit for everything, and therefore gives out his name to anybody with the intelligence to ask.
"Richard Gavin, CIA, Super Spy. I know your not from around here, and I need to know what you know."
"Right now all I know is that I just woke up to find a... wannabe muslim leaning over me. What’s with the outfit?"
"Standard issue. With this outfit I can blend into any terrorist organization."
"Did you think about the fact that generally your outfit would stand out compared to your typical South Pacific villager?"
"Of course not, every terrorist is the same, with this outfit I can blend in anywhere."
Of all the CIA agents in the world, I had to end up stuck on an island with one who seemed to have failed geography.
"Fine, whatever, keep your costume, why does the CIA have an operative on Taku Rikiki?"
"Venmon"
"Oh. The Venmon. As in makes-the-Triads-look-like-a-bunch-of-friendly-kitties Venmon?"
"One in the same."
"As in connected-to-the-Russians Venmon?"
"Yep."
"On this island?"
"Affirmative."
"Oh, $%^&!" This was my worst fear. Despite my best efforts, the Venmon might find me. Which would mean that the Russians had found me. Which would mean I would be part of their personal anger management session. As a punching bag.
"Yeah, and that isn't the half of it. Their using this island to hold a stolen microchip. I've been sent here to find it, and I think you may have tipped them off."
"I tipped them off?!?! You’re the one wearing Osama bin Laden's donation to Good Will. Look, I don't exactly...get along with the Venmon. You think you could get me off this island?"
"Maybe. I'm supposed to get into the fish processing plant tonight, to find the chip. After that I should be able to get an airlift out."
"To where?"
"The nearest U.S. Air Base, of course."
"Well, that leaves us in a bit of a tricky situation. You see, I'm not exactly welcome on American soil."
"I'm sure we can work something out. Are you going to help me or not?"
I'll give Gavin this: deep down he was a nice guy. He didn't owe me anything, but he was willing to try to get me off the island. I was more then willing to accept.
"Fine. What Can I do?"
"Meet me outside of the processing plant at midnight, we'll figure it out from there."
And that’s how Gavin and I met. And, of course, since Gavin was involved, the  hit the fan.

************

we had the full moon on our side. We could see fairly easily, and meeting outside of the plant was no problem. In fact, even getting in was easy. Within a half hour I found myself standing inside the fish processing plant and fighting off a strong urge to become a vegetarian. 
The place was deserted. Gavin, to his credit, actually cased the joint first, and so he had a good idea of where to look. He led me upstairs to a small office. Of course, since this was Gavin, something had to go wrong: after a rather destructive search of the office, we cam up with nothing.
I was getting desperate. No chip meant no ride off the island, so I took to digging through a pile of trash with gusto, meaning I couldn't see the door, when Gavin spoke up:
"You can stop looking"
"You found it? Great, lets get..." Or at least I thought it was Gavin. I spun around, and found that Gavin was being strangled by a huge man I had seen around the island the previous day. Standing in front of the man choking Gavin was the Elder. He was holding an alligator, stroking it like a cat. His skin rolled like leather as his lips moved and he spoke.
"I said you could stop looking. The chip isn't there. In fact, I have it, and so I would appreciate it if you would kindly stop destroying my office. You won't find anything there. Now, as for you, Mister "Business man," and your CIA friend, you will be coming with me to visit some friends of mine."

***********

When a member of the Venmon speaks of his 'friends' he rarely means his high school buddies, or the guys from the bar. More likely, he's talking about something deadly. I don't know why 'friend' and 'thing-that-kills-you' are so closely associated, but I really had no interest in finding out more on the subject. 
In our case, the old man's 'friends' were sharks. I knew enough about Taku Rikiki (it pays to research your likely hideouts) to know that the fishing boat he loaded us onto was heading into shark infested waters. Gavin was barely conscious after a beating at the hands of the larger man, and both of us were tied up. The old man was still holding his tiny pet alligator, who was nibbling playfully on the old man's face.




"I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I was beginning to think that I would have to kill a cow for the sharks. I can't go around wasting cows. now can I? So your arrival was wonderfully fortuitous. Take them of the boat, Tommy."
Of course. The big guy's name was Tommy. It's a universal constant. Any underground crime organization has at least one Tommy. Usually with a rather colorful (and suggestive) last name that puts you in mind of bullets.
Tommy picked us up and dropped us into the water. 
Your last thoughts are supposed to be dramatic. Maybe "I lived a good life" or "I wish I had told her I loved her" not like mine, which ran along the lines of "I hope they eat that CIA @$$ Gavin first." I started to black out from lack of oxygen just as the sharks began to swim into view. 




Big sharks, the tiny fish scattering before them. Big sharks, with big teeth, big eyes, big fins, big knives ... knives? Sharks don't have knives. Gavin, bless his idiotic, incompetent soul, had managed to sneak in a knife. Just as I was about to give in to the darkness Gavin pushed me to the surface, just far enough away from the boat to avoid detection. Thank God, I was saved! I was here, bobbing in the... shark infested water. SO much for that relief.
Sharks have a single, obvious weakness. They stay in the water. This gave me a brilliant idea: if you're not in the water, you cant be attacked by sharks. Sure, now that I look back, it wasn't all that brilliant. But, if you had sharks swarming below you, would you think of it?
the only trouble was taking advantage of this weakness. The nearest rock was a good 20 ft. away. Luckily for Gavin, I thought better on my feet then he did:
"Can use you use that knife?"
"Of course, what do you think I just di..."
"No, not that way, I mean like fighting something. Something like those sharks below us."
"Maybe, but I can't be sure I'll win."
"That’s a chance I'm willing to take. Follow me to that rock, and the minute anything gets near you, stab it."
Maybe I should have been more clear with my instructions. If I had had time to think, I would have said "Stab any shark that comes near you." But I didn't have that kind of time, and so, with only an arm's reach to the rock, I felt a stabbing pain in my leg.
"I got one!" Gavin yelled.
"No, you didn't, you cretin, you got my leg!" Get onto the rock and pull me up."
Gavin wasn't totally inept, and he dragged me onto the rock. We spent the pre-dawn hours moving slowly from rock to rock, and by daybreak we had made it to shore. My leg had stopped bleeding, but I was still slow moving. I limped around the beach with Gavin's help until we came to his hut. He had obviously gotten the nice accommodations. He even had a lawn of sorts with a low wall around it.
Inside he dressed my wound and made a call to the Air Base. Finally, I might be out of this mess, the Air Base was sending a copter. Just as I thought I might be able to live through this, I heard the first gunshot. And the second, the third, the fourth, actually a whole clip worth. Bullets zipped through the side of the cottage, and, completely by instinct, both Gavin and I dropped to the floor. We were lucky: the shooters were far enough away that the wall around Gavin's lawn gave us cover. We crawled out of the house and examined the situation: we were surrounded, Venmon on every side.

**************

And that brings us to the present. A present that has just become filled with lots of noise. What the $%^* could the Venmon have that would create that much noise? 
Oh, ^&*^^%. The Venmon have just proved that they are no second string mafia: they just rolled out a huge stylized flamethrower in the shape of a Dragon. 




And Gavin and I are sitting by a thatched roof cottage. If the Venmon fire their little Burninator at the thatched roof cottage, Gavin and I are dead. But how are they powering it. Lets see... must need lots of gas... do the houses have gas stoves?
"Gavin, does your hut have a gas stove?"
"Not exactly a time for a quick bite to eat, is it? They've got a flamethrower out there!"
"Just answer the question."
"Well, yeah, I do, but why?"
"If gas goes in, there must be a pipe out here. If we can cut the pipe, they loose pressure, and we get a chance to escape."
There it is. Gavin, lucky bastard that he is, is standing in front of the pipe. 
"Think you can break it open?"
"I still have my knife, lets see..."
Come on... Come on... I know he's useless, but can't he at least do this?
"Got it."
And not a moment to soon. I think I just felt them start the flame thrower. Angry voices start calling over the wall in th native language.
Gavin might be able to understand them: "What are they saying?"
"It worked. The copter should be here any minute.

**********

Indeed it did work. The copter arrived, a squad of marines took out the Venmon who had us pinned down, and made an interesting discovery: The old man did have the chip, but not anywhere we expected to find it. That odd, greyish eye? Turns out it was just a compartment for the chip. So now I've got my chance at returning to the U.S., the CIA, have the chip, and, with any luck, I'll never see Gavin again.


----------



## cool hand luke

round one:  cool hand luke vs. macbeth


Keeping up Morale, part 1

OOC:  The setting is a large metropolitan port city, with a definite shady side too it.  (like waterdeep?? Perhaps?   The main character is an underboss for the Paisans, the ruling mafia like group in the city, and not necessarily in a dnd setting)



When a man that works for you dies, it’s always bad for business.  When that person is killed specifically to send a message that someone very powerful has taken offense at something you did, let’s just say it causes problems on many levels.  First, is purely financial.  When a guy is taken out of action permanently, you give 5000 imperials to the widow, 10k if the guy had kids. Ouch.  Second, you have to find a someone to replace him.  Jergan wasn’t just your typical copper-piece a dozen street thug, so finding a replacement is no easy thing to do.  Good second story men are impossible to find.  Most of them don’t have long careers, thanks to the profusion of magical traps, and such that are now all the vogue with the upperclass.  Jergan was old school, the consummate professional.  He often claimed he could slip into your house, and steal your daughters virtue without waking her up.  (of course some of the guys said this wasn’t because he was sneaky, but because of his…. Well… stature)   
 (insert sneak picture).    Finally, and probably most crucially, is making sure your remaining employees don’t take the death to hard.

Understandably, seeing a co-worker go down is hard on guys.  First, because it tells everyone several bad things.  1.  Someone dislikes you enough to spend money on an assassin to take you out.  2.  There are enough holes in your defense that someone can get to you, and 3.  The person was able to find and hire an assassin good enough to exploit these weaknesses.

The way we learned of his death was especially troubling.  It was Monday morning, so, of course, I was waiting for everyone to show up for the weekend review meeting.  (the weekend being a time when most of our vice oriented businesses are booming.)  All of my guys were in the room, (except Tunden, who was taking care of his sick mother) Except Jergal.  That’s when my personal assistant/ front office girl/ bodyguard Jillian entered, with a large wooden box.  I could tell from the look on her face that something was up.  She plopped the box down on my desk, and handed me a small crowbar (she has a remarkable ability to always have whatever tool is needed handy.  I have to look into how she does that.)  Nervously picking up the crowbar, I quickly pried the top of the wooden crate.  I was so taken aback by what I saw there that I jumped, spilling the crate onto the ground.(consider what it takes to startle a guy who has made his living as an assassin)  The severed left arm in it rolled out, and came to rest near the feet of one of my guys.  There was no mistaking who’s it was, the intwined snakes going up the forearm told all that it was my missing sneak thief.  Nedwin made a small retching noise, and appeared quite green.  He blurted out, “By the Gods, what happened, why would someone do that?”  He was a good kid, showed great promise as a forger/info man, but was still a little squeamish.  

Jillian, who always had the best eyes in the group, (one of the  reasons she’s the  highest paid office clerk in the city, well, that, and her ruthless proficiency with poisoned darts….) Spoke up.  “Boss, there something in the hand.”  I tried to open the hand up, but death stiffness had set in, making it impossible.  Frustrated, I tossed the grisly remains at one of my more seasoned men.  “Go in the other room, get whatever it is out.  Try not to massacre the poor thing.”  

With a wordless shrug, the brute walked into the other room.  A few minutes, and several loud smacks later, he came back out.  Thankfully, he had left the arm in the other room.  He comes out, holding a small white object.  “Tooth boss.” He said, as he put it on my desk.  We all studied the object silently for a minute, before Nedwin broke the silence.  “what the hell does that mean?”  As I said earlier, good kid, needs to keep his mouth shut though.  I caught a raised eyebrow from Jillian, and nodded to her to fill the boy in.  “It’s a Sharks tooth, tells you how they killed him.  Most likely hacked the arm off, tossed him into the bay, and let there finned friends do the dirty work.  It makes resurrection a real pain, and makes it hard to find the skull so you can speak with him from beyond the grave.”

All sat silently for a long time, Finally, I dismissed many of them to go check on our daily operations.  I kept my  inner circle, Jillian, and my four lietenants.  Four now that Jergan was gone.  Eventually, we hammered out a plan.  Obviously someone was sending us a message, the severed arm confirmed that.  If they just wanted to kill him, there are far easier ways to do it.  The problem is we had no idea WHAT they were trying to tell us, only that they were quite serious about the cryptic message.    We broke the meeting 2 hours later, no closer to a solution, but quite a bit more depressed.  Not a good way to start the week.  We were all going to think about the situation, and play everything really close to the vest, work in pairs, constant check ints, etc, just to play it safe.  

As of Wednesday, we had had no big events, operations seemed to be running smoothly, which caused me great discomfort.  Nobody goes to that kind of effort to send a message and then just drops it.  Late Wednesday afternoon, Jillian walked in, and pulled up a chair.  She sat back, and threw her very long legs up on my desk, briefly revealing a glint of steel of something quite deadly nestled on her thigh.  She often uses her looks to her advantage, but I had become (mostly) immune to the effect.  It’s hard to see a lady as real attractive after you’ve seen them methodically torture someone for a few days.  She started “Boss, seems to me, our real problem is we don’t have a CLUE why we received an arm special delivery.  I’m pretty sure it’s someone outside the organization.  I’ve been doing some research , and we need to get the head back, to take to a wizard to question.  But there’s gotta be a few thousand sharks in the bay.  Anyway, I’ve heard talk lately of a shaman man living in the lowlands outside of town.  Supposedly, he can talk with animals,  some rumors say even become them,  if you believe that.  Maybe he can use his affinity with nature to help us out.”  

Honestly, I didn’t think much of her idea, yet three days later, after failing to come up with a better one, I found myself slogging through a swamp looking for this mythical Shaman.  After several hours slogging through the swamp, and listening the whinings and grumblings of the “muscle” I’d brought along, (amazing how tough a guy can be in a street fight, but get a little mud, and a few bite bugs on him, and he whimpers) we finally reached a clearing.  It would be hard to say that a human lived here.  There was a small fire pit, and what could be called, if one was very generous, a lean to, but no other signs of  human habitation.  As we sat there, and swatted a myriad of bugs off of us, suddenly before us materialized a man from the bushes.  I was very adept at stealth, and for the life of me could not figure out how he could walk quietly through the thick swamp growth.  As he neared us, he stared at us with one good eye, the other one had a milky covering, that was obviously blind.  He started to talk in an accent so thick it’s almost impossible to understand, “My friends told me you were coming.  City people don’t like nature’s swamp.  Usually my friends and I are left alone.  City people do bad things, with this, he reaches into a bush, and pulls up an immature reptilian creature, missing one back leg and most of it’s tail.  (insert  crocodile pic)


He continued, “city folk hurt him when he was a hatchling.  Why you here?”

I stepped forward, and in a few minutes managed to stammer out a version of the story (no reason to give him all the details)  I don’t know if it was his milky eye, the way the reptile “kissed” the man, or the surroundings that so unnerved me, but my usual silken tongue had turned to burlap.

 It was quite apparent that he was very unhappy with our presence, and none to convinced by our story.  After I finished, he sat silently for long enough to make us all very uncomfortable, and notice once again the myriad of bugs crawling on us, looking for a nice juicy spot to bite.  He suddenly sprang into action, “you ask for help, yet offer nothing.  I thought of something You can do, city folks (he says with obvious disdain)  and heads through the bush.  We were hard pressed to keep up.  He moved with such amazing ease through the swamp, and we were left floundering, flopping, and cursing in the mud as he cruised on.  After 20 of the longest minutes of my life, we came to another patch of solid ground.  There was a crude altar there built of sturdy wood.  The top of which was charred, as were the branches of the overhanging trees.  “Here for years was the skull of the fire god’s great war beast. (insert firehead pic)
) 


  It was worshipped by many, feared by all.  It had great magic in it.  Magic man from city come and steal it.  Has many powerful magics.  My friends could not stop him, they were held still like stone.  I went into the city, (where he spits on the ground in disgust)  but could not find him for his magics.  You find the remains.”

At that point, I figured, what the hell?  If I didn’t figure out who offed one of my guys, I was going to have big issues anyway.  After agreeing, the shaman took off back into the swamp, expecting us to follow him.  After an hours hard march, during which time, any non-mudcoated part of us was bitten by something, we came to where the swamp gave way to the bay.  Sitting there was a crude boat, made from a huge hollowed out log.  He nodded at us to board it, and, with great trepidation, we loaded up.  He handed out paddles, and we attempted to navigate the boat.  Our inexperience was comical, as we only managed to soak ourselves, and propel ourselves in a large circle.  We finally made it out past the breakwater, and rolled gently on the waves.  I could see the man behind me turning a nice green color, as the motion got to him.  Suddenly one of the men shouted, “What the….” As the boat was bumped by something in the water.  The shaman, looking quite disgusted with us, “you ask for the sharks, and I call them, now you complain?”  In the next few minutes, dozens of sharks could be seen skimming just below the surface.  (insert shark pic)   My crew was uneasy to say the least, and one screamed like a stuck pig when the Shaman suddenly stood off, and jumped overboard! Rocking the boat violently.  “crazy old man, he’s dead for sure now.”  We sat there, not quite sure what to do for a while, when suddenly the water broke next to us, and the white of the man’s one good eye gleamed eerily in the moonlight.  “Is this your friend?”  As he tossed a head into the boat.  

Now identifying a head after it’s been in the stomach of a shark for a week is neither easy, nor pleasant.  Luckily, the large intricate earring was still attached.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with a smelly head, a skull stealing magic user, and a powerful yet unknown enemy.


----------



## NiTessine

Congratulations, mythago!


----------



## Macbeth

Just wanted to say that my above post should say Cool Hand Luke vs. Macbeth at the top.

Also, I haven't read all of Cool Hand Luke's Yet, but I happened to see that apparently we both used a mafia-type organization in our stories. Odd, since those pictures are not at all Mafia related. 

Good game, Cool hand Luke, I had a great time, hope you enjoyed it also, and however wins, I think we both did a great job.


----------



## cool hand luke

thanks Macbeth, I thought it odd too we both did mafia stories, since the pics are so random.  how odd.


----------



## Gregor

Ahoy.  My apologies for not responding sooner, but I just got into town (its about 6:45pm EST right now).  I just wanted to say good luck to all participants and my opponent the dread pirate rob...er....cat   I'll see what I can whip up for tomorrow!

Cheers,


----------



## alsih2o

Gregor said:
			
		

> Ahoy.  My apologies for not responding sooner, but I just got into town (its about 6:45pm EST right now).  I just wanted to say good luck to all participants and my opponent the dread pirate rob...er....cat   I'll see what I can whip up for tomorrow!
> 
> Cheers,




 your work is cut out for you gregor. you either are soemthing caught in "the mod who shall not be named" boot, or oyu are the guy who knocks off the most popular storyhour writer ever. 

 remember, 72 hours from this mornings post


----------



## Gregor

But.....no pressure right?


----------



## alsih2o

nope, there is always room at the top


----------



## mythago

Don't let them tell you that there is not!


----------



## Piratecat

What are the length restrictions?  I don't want to bore the judges. This is something that I could tell a lot easier in 10,000 words than a thousand, but that isn't going to happen.


----------



## Macbeth

I just looked at my entry again, and it looks like mine was around 3000. Hope thats not too long. It seemed to fly by when I wrote it...


----------



## Maldur

I think Clay equated our (the judges) attention span with a that of a hyperactive kid on a sugar rush last time


----------



## NiTessine

Err... Not to sound pushy or anything, when will the judgement for me vs. Sparky posted? I keep reading the entries and I am getting less and less certain of my certain victory. Make the doubting stop?


----------



## alsih2o

waiting on one more judgement for you there nit vs sparky 

 as for length limit, we have never formally named one, but macbeth came pretty close to writing right up to the line there


----------



## cool hand luke

*word count*

Macbeth's entry = 3031 words

Cool hand Luke's = 2098.

Make sure you heavily weight those extra 33 words that Macbeth had to use in making his vastly inferior story.


----------



## alsih2o

Nitesse vs Sparky

 Maldur-

Nitesse: the arogance of of the high level mage is amazing. A ruthless series of spells, and the comment on resurection, Very nice.

Sparky: A strange tale of monks, dragons and incomprehensable rites. I just love the idea of a dragon hiding from a crowd, within the robes of a monk. 

I say Sparky for this one!

 Speaker-


NiTessine presents one very nasty end to one deserving assassin.  The use to 
which the pictures were put is very well done.  I like the idea that the 
mage cares not for the dead girl because 'She could always be resurrected.'  
Sounds like a PC or two I've known.

Sparky's world is one I find very interesting.  His use of language feels 
right and proper, and the dialogue between characters clear and realistic.  
I particularly liked his use of the mud and eye images.

Sparky has my vote.


 Alsih2o-

 nit presents us with a different view of the pit particularly and i like that. the pictures say soemthing to everyone, i am usually interested in what else they are saying. nit always does this well. very caught up in one series of actions though. it seems an encounter more than an adventure or story.


 sparky starts odd and finishes with it too. i like the "feel" of this one.

 unfortunately nit always shows up and does well, against someone who does really well.

 i vote for sparky.


 unanimous decision in sparkys favor. 3-0


----------



## mythago

Congrats, Sparky!


----------



## Macbeth

Ummmm.. I hope that having a long entry won't count against me in this round, since no length was stated. I would be happy to write a shorter entry in the next round (assuming I will make it), but I just think that without a stated length having a long entry shouldn't sount against me.


----------



## cool hand luke

WRONG MACBETH!!!!

being so incredibly over long should definitely hurt you,  SHould dang near disqualify you outright.  

what is the eta of our judgement?


----------



## Macbeth

Let us not forget that Cool Hand Luke is 33 words shorter, and that, no matter what your girl friend tells you, length does matter.


----------



## NiTessine

Ach, again... I hate it when this happens. Well, congratulations to you, Sparky, and you'd better go on to win this thing...


----------



## Gregor

brain.....is......melting.........


----------



## Macbeth

So were just waiting for the Judgement on me and cool hand luke, and for the submissions from P-Kitty and Gergor (dog vs. cat?), right? Any idea when you'll have the judgement for me and Cool Hand Luke? I feel like the challenger on Iron Chef, during that long pause before the winner is announced....


----------



## alsih2o

sorry for the long pauses, but there are 3 of us to coordinate. one guy with a rough day at work or a splinter and this thing grinds slowly.

 one of the best and worst things about ceramic dm is the 3 judge process, but i like it 

 oh, and a personal note to gregor- that "brain is melting" stuff just encourages me/us


----------



## Gregor

You kids will see my entry in a few hours.  Then I can begin to repair the mental damage done to me by Alsih2o 

Cheers,


----------



## Gregor

Actually, just for info, when is this thing due....tomorrow?


----------



## alsih2o

Gregor said:
			
		

> Actually, just for info, when is this thing due....tomorrow?




 72 hours from when it was posted


----------



## Sparky

Wow, thank you. I don't envy you judges your work.

NiTessine, Crimban is terrific. He is very... meaty. And I don't mean fat. Really, the creativity from everyone here is inspiring. Keep it coming! For future reference, I am female, just so everyone can feel comfortable with their pronoun choices. 


Insert-round-2-opponent-name-here, I hear the parting gifts are nice. Hope you enjoy them. Hang on to them, you might be able to trade with insert-round-3-opponent-name-here.


----------



## Gregor

Hey, congrats Sparky!  I totally dug your story, I sure hope I dont have to face off against you in round 2 if I make it  

Cheers,


----------



## Speaker

To many judges spoil the broth.  Or was that cooks?

I'm very impressed by the quality of work seen in this thread.  Kudos to every one of you who have participated.  And may those to come take up the torch and handle it just as ably.

'Cause we'll be watching .


----------



## Berandor

I didn't feel MacBeth was too long in writing. It was long, but it was a tight tale and not boring (just like cool hand luke's).

Furthermore, the difference between 2098 and 3031 words is 933.

Berandor
may have outed his stupidity in not getting a simple word number joke here


----------



## Gregor

Well here is my entry for Ceramic DM.  Unfortunately I had to rush through it (school work is picking up).  I wish the best of luck to my opponent and to all others in the contest.  With a little luck, and a mysterious attack on PirateCat with a crowbar a la "Tanya Harding" thereby making him incapable to submit, I'll see you in the 2nd Round.  



Ceramic DM Round #1
Gregor vs. PirateCat



The fat merchant’s laughter rang out across the shallow muddy river, causing his narrow boat to rock back and forth and his turban to slip down over his eyes.  His two female passengers dressed provocatively in sheer silks and glittering jewelry, gripped their seats tightly and released faint nervous giggles as the bobbing boat threatened to send them into the water.  Moustafa Al-Jortir enjoyed nothing more than to spend his idle days careening down the river in his boat, his obese frame suspended by the piles of multi-coloured pillows which adorned the floor.  Basking in the heat of the mid day sun, the large man would puff at his bubbling hooka pipe, drink his exotic teas which warmed in coal-holding braziers and entertain his many concubines on his routine river trips.  As always, a larger second boat sat ahead of Moustafa’s and tugged it along the river.  This larger slave-powered oar-driven craft held four such rowers and two of the merchant’s guards.  The oars dipped noisily into the river, spurning the two boats onward and leaving a trail of stirred-up grayish silt in the brown water behind them.  

From where Kimose Mobaso could see, crouched among the reeds and branches of the river’s shallow edge, the fat man puffed at his pipe and stared out across the water.  The ebony-skinned Kimose lowered his upper torso into the dark waters and leveled his camouflaged head with its rippling surface.  Draped across his face hung the cured feathery carcass of a pearl-white river monitor [PIC 1].  The bird-mask created a life-like representation of a monitor, frozen in natural form by both rigor mortis at death and “koomba”, the thick waxy waterproofing glue Kimose’s tribe uses for such projects.  From Moustafa’s pleasure craft, the unsuspecting passengers noticed only a typical river monitor swimming among the reeds and out into the deeper waters.  

With one hand outstretched beneath the surface to guide him and the other gripped tightly around the hilt of his dagger, Kimose propelled his naked form softly and slowly along the thick silt floor of the river.  Approaching the slowly moving craft, the assassin studied his massive target.  Rolling his eyes back and forth from behind the mask, Kimose tried to determine where on the silk-clad merchant his dagger should slip for immediate success.  When the sickly-sweet scents of Moustafa’s hooka tobacco, the stale perfumes of the concubines and the fetid odor of human sweat began to tingle his nostrils, he knew it was almost time.

 * * * * * * * *

There was once a time when Kimose was just another tribal boy, the sort who loved his day trips into Buuthma, the city of a thousand splendors.  Buuthma was a frontier town, the last bastion of civilization in the south and the final destination for intra-empire merchants.  Thus, it was a fair mix of wealthy eastern Imperials, poor southern tribesmen and every combination of wandering human, demi-human and humanoid.  This mélange was especially apparent when the bazaar crowded the palm-covered streets of the city.  The flood of silk and turban clad easterners, the dark skinned animal fur wearing southerners and the intermittent Imperial guard was truly a sight to behold.  It was days like this that Kimose longed for as a child.  The day when his weekly chores came to an end and he could bask in the glow of eastern civilization, spend his own money and live like a king.  Every ten-day he would ride into Buuthma from the surrounding tribal outlands with his small group of friends, their almost-empty leather change pouches rattling noisily from atop their trotting Zebra mounts.

Although Kimose enjoyed spending his coin in the packed palm streets of the market, taking in the rich scents of spices, cooking fires and various dishes, he especially enjoyed participating in one specific pleasure.  While he was no stranger to cleaning himself in the rivers around his village, he could not help but spend the majority of his money in the outdoor hot-springs of Moustafa Al-Jortir’s canopied harem.  Nestled into the ground and covered by richly dyed leather canopies lay a number of stone carved reservoirs filled with steaming perfumed water.  It was here, surrounded by barely-dressed eastern women and bombarded by the cacophony of sitar music, that Kimose spent his gold.  Whiling away his afternoons, he soaked his skin in the sensuous heat of the water and felt like an emperor, whilst his friends scurried through the streets like children [PIC 2]. 

On one such hedonistic afternoon however, Kimose’s world changed in an instant.  Opening his closed eyes from their bliss-induced slumber with a start, the boy watched as a very large eastern man lowered his bare skinned body into the pool with him.  His mounds of chest hair flattened and stuck against his wet skin as he shifted into position.  Kimose gazed at him but said nothing.  His large yellow turban hid his hair, but a long greasy goatee hung from his chin that framed his brown-toothed smile.  Reaching out of the pool and off to the side, the large man brought forth a long spouted tube and sucked deeply.  The low rumble of bubbling water and the escape of rich white smoke from the man’s mouth revealed the hooka positioned to the side.  He stared at Kimose before speaking.

“I see you here every week, yet you are just a child, how is it that you afford these pleasures?” said the large man, his words hissing slowly from behind his lips.

“I work hard in my village” replied Kimose with a slight tremble.

“You must work quite diligently to be able to afford these services.  Pardon me … my services.”

Kimose remained motionless, his façade an image of fear and confusion. “Who is this man and why have the guards allowed him to share my pool” he thought.

“How rude of me” said the man with a grin. “Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Moustafa Al-Jortir, I own this harem as well as many merchant caravans.”

“It’s very nice to meet you.” Replied Kimose, his voice continuing to tremble.

“Do not be afraid little one, you have done nothing wrong and I am not here to harm you.” The large man coaxed.  

Moustafa sucked deeply from his hooka once more, this time exhaling through his nostrils and staring intently at the boy before him.  He raised a wet hand from beneath the surface of the pool and placed it on the shoulder of Kimose who sat staring at it, afraid to move.

“I can see that you are special” whispered Moustafa, his hand running slowly down the arm of Kimose. “You are young and virile, your skin is dark and tight and you have the form of a warrior.”  

Kimose pulled his arm away nervously and his breathing began to increase, the fear becoming clearer upon his young face.

“How would you like to be able to afford these pleasures everyday little one?” Moustafa asked as he lowered his hand down beneath the surface of the perfumed water and towards Kimose’s lap. “I would pay you well and you would only have to provide a few minor services for me.”

By the time Moustafa’s hand touched Kimose’s inner thigh, the boy was up and swinging at the fat merchant, his bony black hands connecting with his fleshy greasy face.

“Guards!” shouted the merchant between punches. “Take this piece of garbage to my tent!”

Before Kimose could react, he was pulled from the pool, his hands lashed with cord and was dragged along the dirt floor of the canopied harem.  He landed with a jolt, his face buried in a pile of pillows and the closing flap of the canvas tent he now occupied muffled the outside music and chatter.  His heart was pounding with terror, his chest heaving with each breath and his surroundings a blur.  It was not long before Moustafa’s fat wet hand forced the boy’s face into the pillows, gripping tightly around his neck and warning him not to scream.  

“Now I will take what I want from you boy and you will serve another purpose” whispered Moustafa, his voice a viper’s hiss.  “I will steal you from your family and you will fight for my enjoyment in the arena.  But first…”

The last sounds that Kimose could recall were the muted laughing voices of the concubines outside and the “swishing” of fabric that marked the loosening of Moustafa’s robe.

 * * * * * * * *

The gladiator lowered her massive form into a defensive stance, her back legs squatting and shifting the weight to her rear.  Her front limbs, ending in large tightly clenched fists, dug her knuckles into the sandy floor of the arena, her face reddening from the rush of blood to her head.  She was exhausted, her deep constant breaths scattering the sand beneath her in all directions.  Above her sat the throngs of the affluent, the many easterners and rare southerners who could afford this form of barbaric entertainment [PIC 4].  It was this crowd of cheering social elite that Kimose was focusing on, his gaze dancing across the rows of seats, his eyes for one man only.  Acting almost instinctively, the young man leapt to the side as the thick female gladiator plowed towards him, her exhaustion evident in the sloppiness of her approach.  Backing off, still full of energy and armed with a long knife, Kimose danced around his opponent.  The woman knelt to the ground and grasped at long iron spear, one of the many deadly weapons scattered in the arena before each match.  Using the butt-end to prop her weary body up and help her get to her feet, the woman’s face deepened in shades of crimson and her breathing increased.  Kimose could clearly see his opponent’s vision swimming, her cognizance of surroundings fading rapidly.  He stole another glance into the crowd and there he was, the corpulent merchant who watched him every day, the reason he had been fighting in the arena for years, and the butcher who violated him as a child.  Kimose’s gaze was unyielding; it locked onto Moustafa and his greasy skin, matted beard and ochre teeth.

The spear whisked across Kimose’s face, its deadly barbed point coming within inches of contact.  He removed his glance from his oppressor and focused on his attacker.  He raised his knife and pointed it towards the woman, her motions slow and uncoordinated.  Falling into his own defensive posture, the young man circled his opponent, the thick ropy muscles of his bare legs and arms visible with each movement.  The spear came again, its tip flying towards Kimose’s chest.  In one smooth motion, he stepped to the side of the blow and pushed the hilt of the incoming spear out of the way and caused the gladiator to lose her balance.  Stepping towards her as she struggled to bring her spear back to the ready position, Kimose drove his knife into her stomach.  The crowd let out a cry of enjoyment, their screams only a blur of noise in the young man’s ears, his senses blinded in the sickening exhilaration of murder. Her eyes turned white and rolled back in their sockets, her lips parting to allow a stream of blood to run down her chin and onto Kimose’s dark skin.  He stepped to the side and allowed her lifeless form fall forward onto to the sand covered floor, the weight of her body driving the blade clean through her back.  Kimose rushed to pick up the iron spear from the hand of his vanquished opponent, holding it in preparation to throw and scanning the seats for his last sight of Moustafa.  His eyes found their mark, but a dissipating cloud of hooka smoke signaled the villain’s exit.

 * * * * * * * *

It had been one year since his escape from Moustafa’s iron grip Kimose thought as he swam up next to the boat, his monitor mask concealing his presence.  

The guards had forgotten to lock his cell one evening, their inebriated states removing both their sense of duty and their ability to stay awake at their posts.  As quiet as a gazelle, the young southern prisoner slipped out of his dirt-floored cage and murdered his guards with their own knives.  Covered in the blood of his captors and gripping the hilt of a bloodied dagger, Kimose fled into the empty evening streets of Buuthma, his sprinting form delivering him from bondage.

He listened to another of the fat merchant’s jokes, the squealing laughter of the concubines and the rough evil voice of his enemy caused his skin to crawl.  Kimose swam the length of the small boat, his grip on his weapon becoming tighter as he approached Moustafa’s pillow covered position.  

“Oh what a pretty bird.” Exclaimed one of the concubines, her many jewels rattling with each word.

 “What bird?” inquired the merchant, his massive body rolling on its side to gaze into the water where his whore was pointing.

Moustafa’s melon-sized cranium reached out over the water and his eyes met the brilliant white monitor.  In one lightning-quick motion, Kimose shot his dagger-wielding arm out of the muddy water, its point penetrating the fleshy neck of his mortal enemy.  Tearing the mask from his face and pulling his mud-covered body into the boat, he climbed over Moustafa’s choking and bleeding body.  The concubines screamed in unison at the sight of their strange attacker and the convulsing, blood spewing form of their employer.  Diving from their seats into the river, the soaking silk-clad women splashed noisily as they tried to swim towards the guard boat.  

Kimose stood over his bleeding foe, the wet gurgling sounds of his blood-splattering neck wound filling his ears.  With a look of complete and utter satisfaction, he released a wad of hot spit upon the face of Moustafa, its translucent dallop distinguishable among the flowing crimson.  With a flesh-piercing jolt, Kimose fell backwards, the end of a cross-bow bolt protruding from his chest.  The guard boat had spun around and was moving towards the merchant’s pleasure craft, the screams and splashes of the concubines alerting them to danger.  Kimose fell, gripping at his wound and watching his life-force drip from the opening in his flesh.  His body collapsed upon the tea-warming brazier, its collapsing structure scattering red-hot lumps of coal into the boat.  The many pillows and fabrics beneath his dying body burst into flames [PIC 3].  Despite the intense heat of the boat turned inferno, Kimose’s body remained cold while he died.  

“At least we die together” he thought, “for all the years of suffering …”

A final smile permeated itself on his face.  His world went dark. 




Pictures

PIC 1 – Bird Mask
PIC 2 – Child in Bath
PIC 3 – Burning Man
PIC 4 – Sumo Wrestler


----------



## Piratecat

*Ceramic DM Round #1
Gregor vs. PirateCat*

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

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

By the time he heard the rhythmic stamping, David Korka already had a reasonably good idea of exactly how much trouble he was in. The wooden floorboards beneath his feet vibrated violently, and Korka braced himself as he wiped the sweat and sea water off his brow with one tired hand. His eyes stung.

“Stranger?” The voice was surprisingly high-pitched, in accentless Japanese. “Turn around, stranger. I prefer not to kill you while your back is turned.” 

Korka sighed, a long and gut-wrenching sigh that eloquently expressed just how bad a weekend he was having. And slowly, reluctantly, he turned to face the person behind him.

*  *  *

Forty eight hours earlier, he had been seated in the empty cabin of a high tech agency plane bound for Central America. The agent briefing him had been short and squat, her face lined with fatigue. Her cigarette-roughened voice was almost drowned out by the thunder of the plane’s engines. 

“…when you get there.”

Korka strained his ears. “What?”

The woman gestured violently with her unlit cigarette, eyes irritated. “Pay attention, Agent Korka. I said you’re on a solo mission, and you shouldn’t expect extensive logistical support when you arrive.”

“Where are we headed? No one actually briefed me when I boarded in Mexico City.” The plane pitched in the turbulence, but neither agent noticed.

“Placencia, Belize. We’ll land there ostensibly for refueling and errands, and you’ll be smuggled out at the airport. Here’s your necessary ID.” Papers rustled.  “Once you’re free of observation, you’ll make your way to Dangriga to investigate a drowned agent.” 

Korka smiled in eager anticipation, already picturing exotic femme fatales swimming towards him through azure water off of Belize’s coast. “Lighthouse Reef and the Blue Hole again? Sometimes I love this job.  I’m always amazed by how much spying goes on in that place. You know, all you have to do is show some evil mastermind a photo of the Blue Hole and he immediately assumes that it’s a perfect location for his undersea lair. Idiots.” Korka chuckled to himself.

The senior agent smiled to herself in grim and sadistic satisfaction.  “Not this time, Agent.  We save those assignments for more experienced operatives. We have something a little more… _gritty_… for you.” Korka’s face fell. “This time, you’ll be investigating a murder on the mainland. We’ve lost an agent named Anne Pitcairn. She was drowned. We found her washed up on the beach, but it wasn’t sea water that we found in her lungs; it was a mixture of gasoline and fresh water.  There were defensive slashes on her hands and forearms.” 

“So she certainly didn’t drown while taking a midnight swim.” Korka gestured expressively with one hand. 

“Exactly. You’re to find the place where she was killed and recover her belongings. If someone stole them, track and remove them as necessary. The agency wants her equipment back in friendly hands.”

Korka frowned at his Control. “We want her belongings? There’s something you aren’t telling me. This sounds like an amateur job, a simple murder. I’m not yet sure why we’re getting involved.”  The other agent nodded slowly.

“Pitcairn was one of our scientists recruited from Atlanta’s Center for Disease Control. She was top notch, with brilliant theoretical knowledge and a talent for experimentation and virus design. We pulled her out of the field because she reported that she had developed what could be a deadly new pathogen. Unfortunately, someone else got to her first.”  She cleared his throat. “Pitcairn had encrypted data with her, containing all of her notes and research on biological contaminants. When they found her body, the laptop and PDA were both missing. Whether she was killed for that information or not, we want it back before someone else is able to decipher it.”

Korka scowled. “Understandable. I hate bioterrorists. Homing beacon in the laptop case?”

His Control rolled her eyes. “She had changed the homing code, and hadn’t reported it back. It’s probably listed in the PDA.” 

Korka laughed despite the noise and the turbulence, and his smile flashed at the challenge. “Then it’s going to be a fun one. Hand me the file, and I’ll get to work. I haven’t had a challenge since Leticia.” He flipped open the manila folder marked SECRET and began learning all about the life and habits of Anne Pitcairn.

*  *  *

The boy looked up at Korka with wide brown eyes. “This is where it happened, senor. The thing with the girl. The screaming.”

Korka’s dark eyes took in the narrow little graveyard.  Mostly abandoned, the cemetery was littered with empty beer bottles that lay beneath old crosses painted an odd shade of blue.  “Tell me.”

“This place is very close to my house. A gang of bad men uses this place to meet. They drink here, and have women with them, and they gamble.  Sometimes they fight. My padre used to try and chase them out, but they have cuchillos… knives.  They used an empty crypt to hide the gasoline that they steal from the cars of las turistas.” The boy pointed to an above-ground grave, a covered stone box clearly designed to hold a coffin. The boy’s voice dropped, and Korka had to strain to hear it. “They take off the lid and pour it in here, then take it out later for their cars and motorcycles.  The policia know, but they do nothing.” A barely concealed smile twitched at the corners of the boy’s mouth. “But _somehow_ the lid to the grave got left off one night while it rained, and all their precious fuel was _ruined_. Que’ lastima, no? What a shame. I think they were very mad, but they never found out who did it.” The boy’s smile, when it finally appeared, was like the sun emerging from behind dark clouds. “Here. Let me show you this thing.”

Korka grunted as he and the young boy pushed the lid off of the stone crypt. The slab crashed to the ground, and the smell of petroleum rose up to burn into his nostrils. “You weren’t kidding, were you?” he asked in amazement as he ran one finger through the rainbow sheen of the gasoline and rainwater mixture.  “Now tell me about the girl.”

“It was only a few nights ago, senor. I heard cars and a woman screaming, so I snuck out of my window and ran over. I could see people here! They looked like they were holding her, maybe robbing her? But one of them saw me and I ran.” The boy’s head drooped in shame. “I should have gone to la policia, but I was afraid.”

“I’m not surprised, Esteban.” Korka was examining the ground and the edge of the crypt, and his experienced eye picked up a multitude of clues. He studied them carefully.  “It looks like they threw her in here, clothes and all, and held her down. Charming. And I’m actually going to have to climb in there.” The agent made an involuntary face as he flicked at the liquid with a forefinger.

Esteban’s head snapped up. “No, senor! A woman died in there!”

“And she might have dropped something I need. I need to check.”

The boy took a big breath. “Then I will search for you. It is my gift to the woman who I should have helped.” Before Korka could get close enough to stop him, the young boy had stripped off his shirt and clambered over the side of the crypt. Holding his breath, he sank out of sight into the polluted water. 

Korka shook his head. “What a helpful little idiot.” The hot equatorial sun beat down on his dark skin, and he wiped sweat from his forehead.

Esteban resurfaced thirty seconds later, objects clasped in each hand.  “I found something, senor! A purse!”

Korka smiled in appreciation. “Esteban, you just earned yourself a bonus on what I’m already paying you. Thank you.” He reached out his hand to take the purse and help the boy from the water. A quick glance into the handbag told him that the PDA was still there.  Then a stone clicked behind him, and the hair on the back of Korka’s neck rose in warning. 

He spun smoothly, putting himself in front of the boy. Five men in their mid-twenties stood before him, clothing ragged and much too tight. Their ugly faces were mocking and cruelly amused.  “An’ what do we have here?” asked one of them, a pale skinned thug with a glint in his eye. “A gringo and un nino, poking around where they shouldn’t be. What a shame for them.” The four other gang members began to fan out.

Korka smiled carelessly. “I’d like to know why you killed a woman here. I’d like to know who hired you, and why.” The leader’s eyes flickered like a snake, and Korka knew that he had hit paydirt. “We can do this the easy way, and I can pay you for the information. Or we can do it the hard way.”  More quietly, he added, “Esteban, go.” Behind him, he heard the boy obey.

The leader laughed, a harsh little sound that carried across the graveyard. “The hard way, I think. There are five of us and one of you. Maybe we will be paid a bonus for you. And we’ll come back later to finish off the boy.” The man shook his sleeve, and a long and very sharp knife slid into his hand. He was missing a tooth, and Korka could see the pale thug’s tongue probing the blackened gap like a tiny pink worm every time he tried to be threatening.  _Amateur,_ Korka thought, and shrugged.

“Your choice.” His right hand dipped into a pocket as his left hand skimmed across the surface of the open crypt, sending a wave of watery gasoline through the air and onto the man with the knife. It soaked him thoroughly, and set him raging.

“Hijo de puta! You’re going to die for that!” He rushed forward recklessly, teeth bared. _Poke, poke_ went the tongue.

Korka clucked his tongue. “I don’t think so.” He took three steps forward and one to the side as he used his left hand to evade the knife thrust. At the same time he brought his right fist smoothly across the attacker’s body. A tiny sound like the grinding of stones came from his hand. _Cha-Click._

“What?” The thug looked confused.

Korka smiled helpfully and held up the object in his hand. “It’s a cigarette lighter,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Smoking can kill you.”  He flipped the top of the lit lighter closed, even as gasoline-fueled flames blossomed from the knife wielder’s clothing with a dull _whump_.  

The burning man screamed and turned, leaping past Korka’s shadow for the dark stone floor of a nearby crypt. One of his friends reached out a hand to help pull him to safety. The forgotten knife clattered on flagstones.

“Bastard!” Another gang member started for Korka, but reeled back as soon as he realized that a snub-nosed pistol had appeared in the agent’s clenched hand. 

“Have a seat, boys, as soon as you put out your friend.” Korka settled himself on the edge of the crypt.  His voice was very sincere.  “We have a lot to talk about and not much time for pleasantries.”

*  *  *

“You’ve found it?” Korka sipped the martini with his eyes shut, and grinned happily; just how he liked it. Under him, the agency plane taxied for takeoff.

“We have.” His Control sat down beside him and dropped a file on his lap. “The PDA had the homing code, and the satellite has picked it up. Pitcairn’s laptop is on a small island not far from Japan.  Those thugs you met apparently were hired by a reclusive Japanese millionaire named Yee.”

“Why’d he want it?”

“Not he. She.” The agent dropped a photo onto Korka’s lap, and Korka raised unbelieving eyes to his Control’s face.

“A female sumo wrestler?  You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding.” 

The agent shook her head. “Nope. She’s retired. Inherited millions of dollars from her father, bought her own island. Apparently she’s reclusive and hostile. In any case, we now have reasonable proof that she paid to acquire this information on infectious diseases. Lord knows what she’s planning, but you’re going to find out.”

Korka snorted sarcastically. “Because an occidental black man is going to fit in so well in Japan. Why not let our Asian operatives handle it?”

His Control smiled. “Secrecy; the fewer people who know, the better. Anyways, you always manage to find a way. That’s why you work for us.”  

“Flatterer.  Any instructions?”

“You’ll need to infiltrate the island, which is smack in the middle of an avian wildlife sanctuary. It’ll be tricky; shallow seas and abundant radar, so no easy way to approach by land, sea or air. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”  She dropped another file on the seat next to him, and left him to prepare.

*  *  *

_So, this is something._  Korka rolled his eyes as he removed the knife from the sniper’s back, and paused to pick a leech off of his arm. _A nice set-up here. No one allowed near due to the endangered storks, water too shallow for easy scuba diving, both radar and sonar stations, and a whole ring of snipers guarding the island’s perimeter. Yee may be the size of a hippo, but she’s got some brains in her – and she’s protecting something important._  Silently, Korka propped the sniper back in a life-like pose and slipped from the raft back into the shallow water. He readjusted the stork mask on his head. _But all they see all day is storks. They expect to see storks. And that makes it a lot easier for me._ Cautiously, Korka resumed his swim for the nearby shore, the protective coloration of his realistic stork mask the only thing visible to observers.

* * *

Infiltrating the sumo wrestler’s complex was even more difficult. Despite being built somewhat in a traditional Japanese architectural style, the place was alive with armed guards, electronic security, guard dogs, and even a tiny henchman who thought he was a ninja – Korka had run the whole gauntlet, and so far he had prevailed. He had found the bioterrorism lab and jiggered the locks, then tossed a couple of sleeping gas grenades into the sealed ventilation system. He had dumped the computer core and burned the backup tapes with thermite. The only task left was to retrieve the encrypted laptop itself, and so he found himself climbing four stories of bamboo stairs up into Yee’s personal quarters. He had been so stealthy, so careful…

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

Korka turned around. Yee stood before him, crouched in the traditional sumo crouch, feet stamping the wooden floor. She was wearing full Kevlar body armor over her sumo garb. Behind her, Korka could see the laptop open on a table. 

Korka groaned. “I don’t suppose you’d like to talk about it?”

_Thump. Thump._ Her feet pounded the floor, making the structure shake.  “I’ve just gotten off the radio. It seems as if you’ve managed to disabled my entire operation in less than an hour, and I never even noticed. I have great respect for you, stranger. Now you will have to die.” She eyed him. “I’m fairly sure that I can crush you like a bug.”  Privately, Korka had to agree.

“What’s your problem, anyways? You’ve got  - or rather, you had - an entire bioterrorism lab here. You had a decent woman killed in order to steal her research on diseases. This isn’t exactly a normal hobby.”  Korka eyed her sumo gear. “Not that you’re necessarily into normal hobbies, mind you.”

“Revenge is a wonderful motive. You have no idea how – ”

“Blah, blah, blah. You know, I’ve seen all the James Bond movies. I’ve heard all that, and it doesn’t ring true. The real world is more complex. There are consequences for actions.” Korka used the machine gun that he’d taken from a guard to let off an ear-rattling burst of gun-fire, raking the bullets back and forth across the wooden floor to make a dark line of bullet holes. Cartridges twisted and spun as they leaped from the gun.  

“This is your last chance, lady. Stay where you are, surrender and face justice. Cross that line, and I’ll have to kill you.”

Yee smiled coldly. “Goodbye, assassin.” Four hundred and fifty pounds of muscle rushed forwards towards him, inexorably –

And as Yee crossed the line Korka had made in the floor, the bullet-riddled boards snapped and parted under her weight. She plummeted downwards, screaming as loudly as the snapping wooden planks. Korka listened as she hit the floor below, fell through, hit the floor below, fell through that as well, and finally hit the distant ground. The noise was indescribable.

“Warned you,” said Korka out loud, and maneuvered his way around the unstable flooring to pick up the stolen laptop. Some people never learned.


----------



## Piratecat

Gregor, that story is GREAT. Nicely done!  Geez, I wanted to kill Moustafa myself.


----------



## Gregor

Cheers PKitty!  

I just finished your story and I am speechless ... its just THAT good! 

I especially enjoyed your usage of the pics.

Well, now comes the nail biting of the waiting period.  Best of luck mate!


----------



## cool hand luke

trust me, waiting is agony....  (or did I miss the post that tells me I lost?)


----------



## Macbeth

cool hand luke said:
			
		

> did I miss the post that tells me I lost?



No, but it's on the way.


----------



## Piratecat

Piratecat said:
			
		

> “You know, all you have to do is show some evil mastermind a photo of the Blue Hole and he immediately assumes that it’s a perfect location for his undersea lair.”




So, I apologize slightly for this little in-joke. The boy in the grave made me think of central america, central america made me think of Belize, Belize makes me think of the Blue hole, and the Blue Hole makes me think of a spy movie. And sadly enough, that's where my story started.  So I thought I'd mock myself.  

Writing and ranking these is hard! Lordy, I'd hate to be a judge.


----------



## Speaker

All judgements in.

You folks are amazing.  I've read everything at least three times now.  Highly enjoyable!  Your wife is a big hippo!

I'm sure things will only get worse/better as the contest moves on.    Hey, I am having fun!


----------



## Berandor

Wow, two cool stories.

I was surprised at Gregor's implied brutality, but it works within the story.
And Piratecat: that Blue Hole is sooo cool! I mean, who *doesn't* immediately think of an underwater hideout upon seeing that?


----------



## mythago

Yes, I love the supervillan honeypot. And swimming in gasoline...aaaa....


----------



## Maldur

Damn this was hard. 

But the judgements are in.
Justa seat of the pants, rough feeling judgement though. really hard to choose.

Good luck in the next round for alll the winners. And I hope to see all the ones that didn't make it this time, in the next episode of ceramic!!


----------



## alsih2o

cool hand luke vs. macbeth

 maldur-

macbeth: 
A long, choatic story of a hardened criminal and a bumbling cia agent. All I
can say is ... Odd.

cool hand luke: 
A long and chaotic story about a hardened criminal and a crazy shaman. All I
can say again is odd.

My vote goes to cool hand luke, as I like the story better, but this was
some strange round!

 speaker-

 I sent this in twice.  The first time, cyberspace swallowed it.  Or the 
mafia got hold of it.  I'll just be short, sweet, and too the point.  I know 
you two are about ready to go after us with pitchforks already.

Macbeth:  The pictures flowed well with the story.  Don't waste a cow.  
Venmon mafia.

cool hand luke:  I want to hear more.  No fair leaving us with a 
cliff-hanger .  Head from sharks stomach = great image.

Final Judgement.

Are you sure you want it?

Ok.  I vote for Macbeth.

 alsih2o-

 macbeth, funny, and odd as all get out. i feel this is a great basis for a story, but that the writer needs more familiarity with the genre. the skipping back and forth between the serious actions and the dork character were entertaining, but could have been a little smoother.

 cool hand luke- i am not a big fan of the unfinished story, but writers sem to be  i liked how the characters were mostly handled, and the bit with the head was great.

 if he promises not to use pics in his body again i will vote for macbeth.

 Result- 2-1 for macbeth


----------



## alsih2o

gregor vs. p-kitty

 maldur-

 Gregor: Great story, great characters! One of the best stories I ever read in ceramic DM so far!

Piratecat: wow, after reading a great story by gregor, another really great story.

verdict: damn this is hard. By far the best entries are up against one another. Both deserve to continue to the next round.
but I have to choose for gregor this time! Sorry P-kitty

 speaker-

High quality entries.  Absolutely impressive work from both contestants.

Gregor:  A thought-provoking story of revenge.  Justice?  Vengeance?  Atwixt 
the two, perhaps, and all ending in death.  The depth of writing your piece 
holds is impressive, both in diction and form.  You captured the pictures 
effectively and bent them to your tale.

Piratecat: Also makes an exceptional showing of it, with a cunning 
protagonist who is at the same time a James Bond like figure and one that 
somewhat defies that tradition.  The language you use is stylistic and 
fitting.  I particularly enjoyed the subtle fragments of Spanish you added 
to the dialogue.  Your use of the pictures and archetypes of the 
spy/thriller genre was direct and effective.

I wavered, I made lists, I argued.  And in the end, my vote goes to:  
Piratecat, by a whisker.


 alsih2o-

 gregor- i was not fond of the ending, or of the rape scene, and still i loved this story! when you can write about ugly stuff like that and hold my interest your are really writing. this is some great stuff. in some minor way the sumolady pic seems tacked on. i am not sure how well it works withing the story, but when the script is realeased for the movie i am sure it will be my favorite scene 

 p-kitty- i love this one too, the only real weakness i see is the quick glossing of the entry into the sumolady's compound. but i really enjoyed the hero. his attitude and concern left me with a urge to hear moe about him, and that is good writing.


 i had a really hard time with this one. i expected big from p-kitty, and gregor lit me up as an unknown quantity. if i had known what gregor had up his keyboard/sleeve i may have posted a warning to p-kitty instead of him. similar sensations in how the timeline was handled but drastically different heroes. if i just keep writing this summation maybe a winner will spring into my mind  four reads later, i just want more form each of you. but i have to go with piratecat, but barely and only by his more unusual handling of the pics, through going modern and having the woman be the bbeg.

 result- piratecat at by 2-1, probably more like 1.6 to 1.4 if we could break it down that way...


----------



## alsih2o

sooo...

 when i get check-ins the next round starts.

 matchups-

 "stoned" sparky
 vs.
 "lady-killer" piratecat


 AND

 "caught up in art" mythago
 vs.
 "never cross the mafia" macbeth


----------



## cool hand luke

good job macbeth.

You guys were left hanging, because my long term goals was to try to string together this story through the length of this contest.


----------



## Maldur

Good luck to y'all


----------



## alsih2o

cool hand luke said:
			
		

> good job macbeth.
> 
> You guys were left hanging, because my long term goals was to try to string together this story through the length of this contest.




 i love this idea, but it has yet to be succesfully pulled off. when someone does this, i start attaching prizes to ceramic dm


----------



## cool hand luke

I figured it would be very hard to do, but what the heck.  I used a setting I'm most familiar with, and that has  agood degree of flexibility to attempt it.  

I guess I should concentrate on just winning one round first, huh?


----------



## Macbeth

Well, cool hand luke, we both had entries that were good enough to win, but we can't both win. I want to thank you for some great competition (2-1, Wow) and for you entry. You see, I've been reading entires during breaks in studying for midterms, and you guys are about the only thing keeping me sane right now. All of the contestants deserve my thanks for giving me something else to think about besiade midterms. Thanks.

All I can say us: I;m glad I'm not up against piratecat, now lets get going. I want to see if that "none of women born shall harm Macbeth" thing holds true against Mythago


----------



## Gregor

My thanks to the judges for their thoughtful responses!  One of the things I love about this contest is the plethora of responses from all judges, it really helps us to improve upon our work.  

I knew this was a though match going up against the illustrious PirateCat and unfortunately I lost.  However, I had a great time writing, waiting and reading.  

I wish you the best of luck PirateCat, your prose was fantastic and I dug your lead character.  If I were a judge I would have swayed towards your tale as well.  I'll be cheering from the sidelines for you in the rest of this tourney...but you owe me a re-match! 

On a personal note to Alsih2o:  I knew the rape scene was a little strange and frankly I was not to sure of it myself.  I wanted to do something dark and depressing and when it started to depress me, I knew it had to stay.  I took a chance with a controversial topic and unfortunately it wasn't your cup of tea.  Either way, I look forward to the next and my third Ceramic DM contest!

Thanks again to everyone!


----------



## Piratecat

Gregor, I'm of the opinion that taking risks with your story was one of the things that made it as exceptional as it was. My hat's off to you, man; really nice work.

As for summarizing the assault on the Japanese bioterrorism lab, it was a risk. I decided that if I couldn't cover all the action they way I wanted to, I wouldn't cover any of it. Nevertheless, if I were rewriting it for publication I'd definitely want to flesh out that last section. It came out as more abrupt than I had intended.

One final thought: this contest is like aerobic exercise for the mind. It makes me think in unusual ways in order to link the photos, and I value that immensely.

I'm checked in. Sparky, let's rumble!


----------



## mythago

Congrats to all you guys! I'm glad I don't have to be a judge; that would be the hard part.

So can I please change my loginid to "Macduff" for this round


----------



## alsih2o

Gregor said:
			
		

> On a personal note to Alsih2o:  I knew the rape scene was a little strange and frankly I was not to sure of it myself.  I wanted to do something dark and depressing and when it started to depress me, I knew it had to stay.  I took a chance with a controversial topic and unfortunately it wasn't your cup of tea.  Either way, I look forward to the next and my third Ceramic DM contest!




 this had nothign to do with my vote away from you. writing is an art, and therefore can have multiple intents. i was uncomfortable with it, but i am uncomfortable with francis bacon too, and cannot quit looking at it. it worked, and made a powerful story, and that is so much more important than flowers and puppies


----------



## Maldur

Judging becomes harder and harder. You guys make some nice tales


----------



## mythago

alsih2o said:
			
		

> it worked, and made a powerful story, and that is so much more important than flowers and puppies




May I just say, word.

Ready whenever.


----------



## Sparky

Hi all. I'm dropping in to say congrats to everyone! And thanks to the judges. I'm going to be packing and moving through the weekend. Judges and PC, if it is okay with all of you, could we start the Sparky/PC rumble on Monday or Tuesday?

If that is okay, consider me checked in. If not, please let me know so that we can keep *Ceramic DM Autumn 03* (three three three) moving.

Good luck to all, looking forward to crossing words with you, Piratecat.


----------



## alsih2o

2nd round, meaner, louder, more likely to stain!

 macbeth vs. mythago

 72 hours from this posting my pretties...


----------



## alsih2o

well, p-kitty is definetely a whiner, but we might get him to hold off till monday for ya'


----------



## Piratecat

alsih2o said:
			
		

> well, p-kitty is definetely a whiner, but we might get him to hold off till monday for ya'




Clay, you need a spellchecker; you spelled "winner" wrong!  

Monday's okay. It kills me to wait, though!


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Clay, you need a spellchecker; you spelled "winner" wrong!
> 
> Monday's okay. It kills me to wait, though!




 i am still waiting on "math checker" and "core life philisophy checker" but i suppose i could try spellchecker til they are done


----------



## Macbeth

Wow, are these pictures purposefully harder then before? Those are going to take some work....
Don't expect a response from me until friday night at the earliest: midterms are keeping me busy...


----------



## mythago

No need to jump the gun, "Thane," we got 72 hours.

And you're going to need every. last. one.


----------



## Speaker

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Wow, are these pictures purposefully harder then before?






*Lucy Liu* You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?


----------



## alsih2o

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Wow, are these pictures purposefully harder then before? Those are going to take some work....




 did that feel good all over to everyone, or was it just me?


----------



## barsoomcore

Wow, what a contest this has been! Not only do the pictures get harder, but the stories get better!

Of course, in my day, things were much harder...

(he mumbled through what was left of his teeth from his seat in the "Old Former Ceramic Champions" box)

Kudos to all contestants, as well as the hard-working judges. I look forward to the semi-finals....


----------



## Macbeth

Glad my comment has provided you with so much amsuement. I geuss, looking back now, it was rather obvious. Oh well, back to studying chemistry...


----------



## Speaker

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Of course, in my day, things were much harder...




Whippersnapper!  In my day we had pictures that would shoot the socks off you so hard that you'd still be looking for them next week.

And that was only the first round too.


----------



## Macbeth

I don't know how this happened, but I found a common thread through all the pictures.... while studying chemistry   
Better watchout, mythago, I actually have A WAY OF LINKING ALL THE PICTURES THAT MAKES SENSE (kind of)


----------



## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Better watchout, mythago, I actually have A WAY OF LINKING ALL THE PICTURES THAT MAKES SENSE (kind of)




Don't make me get all Dunsinane on you!


----------



## Macbeth

Hmmm, I think I'm going to have to change ideas in mid stream, so to speak. The idea I had for linking all the pictures seemed to lead into areas that I really didn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole, so the link I mentioned earlier is gone. *sigh*


----------



## alsih2o

2 days of silence....makes one...nervous 


 and what in the heck is Dunsinane anyway?


----------



## Macbeth

Don't expect to see my entry until noon tomorrow (my time, about two hours before the deadline) I'm taking full advantage of my time...


----------



## mythago

*mythago vs. macbeth, round 2*

Maitresse


Inamori saw the panicked cloud of birds fly up as they drove onto the broken road, saw that among the pigeons and the other trash birds were a handful of white doves. He knew that they couldn't afford to risk killing any of those doves this early. He pounded on Boshears's shoulder and signed _Stop_. Boshears looked annoyed, but slowly rolled the T-91 down until he could cut the engine. The transport truck braked behind them. 

Cassetta started to sign a question, but Inamori interrupted him. "Go ahead and talk. If they didn't hear us pull in, then you talking isn't going to wake 'em up."

_His talk crap anyway_, Boshears signed, behind the back of the seat where Cassetta couldn't see it. Inamori elbowed him to shut up. Unlike Boshears, who really was deaf, the squad used ASL as a second, silent language, and Cassetta was still struggling with it.

"Sir, the men want to know why we've stopped. The compound isn't for another two clicks up the road."

"Change of plans. I want to make sure none of Nassan's wives get in the way while we're setting this thing up. That means my team goes in and secures the entrance, then we come back, haul the generator and the lighting gear by hand."

There were grumbles from the men coming out of the truck. Inamori waited for it to die down before he split them up and gave orders. He and his men left the road, staying in surveillance range while cutting through the forest. They got lucky enough to run across a patrol of wives who hadn't yet found the vehicles. Inamori watched them through binoculars. Seyoum Nassan liked his wives young, and these girls were barely teenagers, but Inamori knew better than to underestimate them. Most of Nassan's women were orphans, taken by warlords from hellholes in the Congo or Senegal, taught to be vicious killers as soon as they were strong enough to hold up a rifle, or a bayonet. Nassan married them so that no other man could have them, and then never touched them. They were deadly fighters and fiercely loyal to their husband.

They weren't trained by the best military in the world, though, and so Inamori was not terribly surprised when his squad got the drop on them. His men heaved a cross-barrage of tear gas--Inamori shook his head, the girls had obviously never been through a gas chamber--followed it up with flashbangs, and his team moved in, well-prepared with their own gas masks, to take prisoners. He was relieved that none of the woman had any serious wounds; if they had harmed or even killed any of them, negotiation with Nassan would be nigh impossible. Then it was just a matter of half-carrying, half-dragging them back to the vehicles and securing them in the bed of the truck.

They loaded the heavy boxes of stage gear onto a makeshift sledge, making jokes about being Uncle Sam's roadies. Then they dragged the gear along the irregularly-paved road, uphill, at a snail's pace, stopping often to make sure nothing was jarred or knocked off the sledge. Inamori refused to let anyone push--if the load slipped, whoever was behind it would be smeared under its weight like jam across toast. It was bad enough when part of the sledge broke off so that it took all of them to keep the gear from slipping back downslope.  Their goal was a small clearing in the forest, screened from the main compound. A hundred meters from goal, a pale brick structure loomed out of the forest.

Boshears frowned and signed something that needed no translation. Inamori agreed with him: the map didn't show this building, which meant that the rest of their intel was suspect. Bad enough that they were on an unofficial, plausibly-deniable mission that left them unable to call for backup. With the local government's fear of taking Nassan down by conventional means, there was no way to call the special-ops part of their job off and resort to shooting the bastard. Inamori blew out a lungful of air and considered. Maybe the building was abandoned, or used for storage. Too soon to panic and back out now.

He signed to Shuttles and Condon to follow. The three of them eased through the low trees and undergrowth and cautiously approached the building. As they reached it, Inamori heard talking. It took him a minute to realize that they were children's voices. _Crap in a hat_, he thought, _it's one of his schools_. Nassan's schools made it hard for the local authorities to move against him. Orphaned children, especially the offspring of white mercenaries who ravaged the area every few years, were despised; Nassan took them in, taught them his religion, and kept them alive on the United Nations emergency supplies his wives stole at gunpoint. If they were here, they weren't helping the Lion's Army or the People's Front or some other militia band, burning farms and shooting up government officials for the hell of it.

Shuttles eased up to a window, peered in, and then signed that the other two should follow suit. Inamori looked and saw that, yes, it was one of Nassan's schoolhouses. At the direction of a scowling man swinging a short leather strap, a room full of little boys dressed in pious garb recited a prayer in Fon. When one of the boys stumbled over a word, he got a crack over the head with the strap. Inamori noticed that he had moved his finger onto the trigger of his M1A1 and very deliberately moved it away.

The three men swung open the schoolhouse door and pointed their weapons at the teacher. He put his hands in the air, terrified, still holding the strap. Inamori motioned with the barrel of his rifle for the man to sit, which he did. The boys hadn't moved. "Shuttles, Condon, you stay here and keep this bunch out of trouble. I have to get back and help Boshears prep." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and headed down the road. He didn't want to think of what would happen if the kids panicked, but right now he had to get Boshears ready before the whole op went chest-up. Literally.

When he returned to their impromptu base, the squad had finished unpacking the supplies. Either they had heated the shower bag quickly or Boshears had gone ahead and washed in cold water, because his hair was still wet. He sat impassively on a director's chair while Sorensen laid his costume, makeup and jewelry out on a clean blanket on the ground. Inamori wondered where Sorensen had learned to put that kind of outfit together. _Don't ask, don't tell, I guess._ He looked past the men dragging the lighting gear to the road, at the horizon over the forest. The sun was a red cusp at the edge of the sky. He turned back to the two end tables that had been turned into altars and covered with cloth: black and white for Ogun, red for Erzuli. Inamori opened the box of regalia, sorted the candles, painstakingly put each in its proper place. He scattered iron nails over Ogun's altar, propped stock photos of Marilyn Monroe and Monica Lewinsky on Erzuli's. Somebody had taken the trouble to bubble-wrap the cheap stoneware salad plates, so only a few were cracked. He took the good ones and loaded them with honeycomb, palm oil, sticks of cinnamon, and an entire can of Libby's Pumpkin Puree, opened with his pocket knife. When he had balanced the plates on every available space on the altars, he got a lighter from his pack.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Of all the ridiculous things on this op--Sorensen dressing Boshears, of all people, up like a Carnivale drag queen; the US Army ordering this hush-hush op in the first place; the fact that they were being sent in instead of having the compound carpet-bombed into the group--the one stupid little fact that nagged at him was that he, a fourth-generation Japanese-American raised in an agnostic home, was going to invite the orishas down to help them out. He pushed that from his mind and lit the candles, one by one, first the white tapers for Ogun, then the red ones for his mistress, Erzuli. He called out a greeting to each in his halting Fon, directing them to the fine offerings and humbly inviting them to journey from their homes and visit their human supplicants. He was about ready to send one of the men to fetch him a white dove when he heard a rustling directly behind him. He turned and there was Boshears, wearing a shimmering two-piece dancer's costume and strings of pearls, with a gold-threaded body veil reflecting the flickering candle flames. Apparently, Erzuli had found the place prepared for her satisfactory.

Her ruby-painted mouth curved in an inviting smile. "Aren't you going to get to the songs of praise?" she asked him in Fon. Her voice rippled like warm water. Inamori's scalp tightened. He could never tell whether the terrible thing about that voice was that it came from Boshears or that it belonged to a goddess. He forced himself to look away from her and over her shoulder. The lighting team stood motionless and stricken. Inamori knew the feeling, but he snapped his fingers at them to get going. They did, bathing the clearing in soft red light just in time for Ogun's arrival.

Unlike Boshears, Seyoum Nassan had no need to change his appearance to please the orisha who rode him. Inamori recognized him from the surveillance photos, but had expected him to be taller, more muscular, somehow more fitting for Ogun the Ironworker; Erzuli towered over him by a head. _I don't know what the orisha sees in that guy_, he thought, and had to suppress a panicked snort of laughter.

Ogun stormed into the clearing with a phalanx of his soldier-wives following him, his white teeth showing in a snarl. Then he saw Boshears and stopped. A few of the wives bumped into him, surprised, and he waved them off. Cautiously, he stepped into the ring of red lights. Erzuli walked toward him as slowly as if she were a catwalk model, her hips swaying like a dancer's. Ogun matched her pace with a slow, powerful step. His wives milled uncertainly behind him. Erzuli stared at them with pure venom, and they turned to avoid her eyes. Not once did she break the rhythm of her seductive promenade.

Inamori waited until they were an arm's length apart to step between them. Ogun swore at him in Fon--not that the Defense Languages Institute had ever taught Inamori Fon swear words, but the translation was obvious enough. Inamori bowed. "Great Ogun, lord of iron, patron of warriors, Erzuli comes on our behalf, and for bringing her to you, I ask a boon."

Ogun glared at him, then looked to Erzuli. She hummed and inspected her nails with interest. Since she was riding Boshears, she knew exactly what Inamori wanted. Apparently the offerings had been good enough that she was willing to play along. _Not to mention those are genuine pearls she's wearing. I better remember to give Sorensen a commendation for that one._

Ogun grunted through Nassan's throat. "Speak. Your offerings were proper but your interference is not."

"But mine is," hissed a woman's voice. It was not Erzuli. Inamori and the two orishas looked around in bafflement. It seemed to have issued from the group of teenage girls now huddled somewhere behind Ogun. One of them stomped into the red light, using her AK-47 as a walking-stick and pounding the ground in rage with each step. She stopped in front of Ogun and spat at his feet. "How dare you bargain with this man so that you can take your whore in front of me and your lesser wives?"

Inamori inched away from the group and knocked into Sorensen. _Angry woman say what?_ the taller man signed. _Angry woman big wife,_ Inamori signed back. Yemaja, Ogun's jealous senior wife. He had no idea how or why the third orisha had manifested without being invited, but right now she was making this whole op go FUBAR.

"O Yemaja, great queen, please hear me," he interrupted. Three heads swiveled toward him. "My business is not with you, but with your husband. The human he rides has caused problems for the people of this country. We need him to find another _hounsi_."

It was unnerving to have a twelve-year-old girl look him up and down like a woman three times her age. She considered his words, then nodded. "Quite reasonable. Here." She turned and gave a sharp come-here gesture to one of the other teenagers. The girl pulled back, but her friends moved quickly away, singling her out. Yemaja made an irritated noise and repeated the gesture. The terrified girl shuffled forward. Yemaja grabbed her arm and dragged her to Ogun's altar. She bent over the offerings and rattled off something in Fon, too fast for Inamori to translate, then grabbed the girl by the hair and slammed her into the altar.

"There," she said with satisfaction. "Now, husband, this girl is your vessel. See if your mistress likes this one better!"

Erzuli gasped and turned to Seyoum Nassan. The man was slack-jawed, confused, all his power gone. The teenager got unsteadily to her feet and shook her head as though dizzy. In a man's voice, she croaked, "Erzuli?"

The woman in red ignored her and stalked to where Yemaja stood smirking. She drew back her hand and slapped the smaller woman across the face. Her plastic fingernails left long red trails on her rival's cheek.

Inamori seized Nassan's collar and dragged the man back down the trail. His men didn't waste time following him. They ran at full tilt, tripping over stones and rolling and scrambling back to their feet, none of them bothering to pick up any of the expensive gear they had been assigned for the mission. Inamori shoved his prisoner at Sorensen and clawed for his radio. He needed to warn Shuttles and Condon to get the hell out and hump back to the trucks, to leave the kids and avoid the clearing, leave this whole mess of an op behind and hope that parading Nassan around the country would show the people that Ogun had indeed abandoned him. Without his god to back him up, Nassan was just another warlord for the government to execute. 

On the way out, he ran the T-19 straight through the  flock of birds. He hoped he killed a few.

 -


----------



## mythago

alsih2o said:
			
		

> 2 days of silence....makes one...nervous
> 
> 
> and what in the heck is Dunsinane anyway?




Been a busy little bee over here...

Dunsinane


----------



## Maldur

mmmm, interesting


----------



## Macbeth

Cermic DM, Round 2, Macbeth vs. Mythago
Circe

Richard Gavin moved into the decadent office, obvious signs of apprehension showing on his face. This was his first real mission, and the excitement showed. The director sat behind his desk, taking keen notice of Gavin's  excitement. 

"Take a seat, Gavin."
Gavin moved into the chair just a little to quickly, a clear sign that he was anxious to get started on his mission.

"Yes, sir."
New agents were always like this: all "yes sir"'s and "no sir"'s, but not an ounce of common sense. 

"Right. After your success on Taku Rikiki, we've decided to assign you to a new, more important mission. There's been rumors of a paramilitary group forming in the South pacific, and since you were there so recently, the mission is yours." the director passed a folder over the desk. 

Gavin opened the folder, and begin hungrily searching through the folder, devouring the info on his new mission. A certain picture caught his eye.

"Um, sir, I think you left a... personal picture in here." Gavin moved to hand the picture of the gaudy show girl back to the director.

_Not an ounce of sense..._, the thought runs through the directors head again. "No, Gavin, that's your primary target. Her name's Circe Monique, and until yesterday, the CIA had never heard of her. Then one of our contacts in the Venmon gave us info on some new secret weapon the Circe is developing for the Venmon to sell. We don't know the nature of the weapons, but we can't risk giving the Venmon that kind of power. Get in to her compound, destroy the weapons, and get out. You'll be airdropped in, and you can radio out for a copter out. Don't use your radio until your ready to leave, if you use it too often the Venmon may catch your signal. Got it?"

"Yes sir, I think I do."

"Good luck then. Off you go..."

****************

Airplanes and Gavin didn't agree. The series of flights from the US took their toll on Gavin's dinner, and when the jump finally came just before sunrise, it was somewhat of a release: no more airplanes.

On the ground Gavin quickly collected his parachute and shoved it under a large outcropping of rocks. With a quick look at his compass he oriented himself and headed towards Circe's compound.

No more then 50 ft. away Gavin was stopped by a sensation he had hoped to never feel again: the cold, hard steel of a rifle muzzle sticking into his back. A female voice spoke from behind him: "And what might you be doin here, darlin' ?"

"I was just looking for the bathroom, I swear!"

"Now that has to be the worst excuse I've ever heard. Get on the ground."

A pair of hands began searching around through Gavin's pockets, and eventually cam across his ID. "Says here your CIA, you here to stop Circe?"

"Depends on who's asking."

"Listen sugar" Gavin was yanked up and finally got a good view of his captors. "If your CIA, and you’re here to stop Circe, then your goin' to help us. If not, were going to let you go you merry way with a bullet as a souvenir.

His captors were an unusual sight: three black women, all heavily armed, who looked more like a dance group then anything he would have expected to find. 

"Yeah, I'm CIA. What’s your beef with Circe?"

"She kidnaped my son. I don't know why, but one day all that came back from school was a letter containing a letter from 

Circe explaining that she had Jimmy, and that she would take care of him, and a wad of cash that was supposed to pay me for 

my son. No money can buy my son. So I took the money, bought me ad my friends here some weapons and airplane tickets here, and now were going to get my son back."

This was exactly what Gavin hoped to avoid: more civilian interaction. After the incident on Taku Rikiki, the last thing he wanted was to have some untrained civilians slowing him down. but what choice did he have? He couldn't leave this women and her friends.

"Fine, you can come along."

"Great. My names Beatrice. This here's Cindy, and she's Margarite."

"Great, whatever, just follow my lead and we might just live through this.

******************

The greatest thing about these compounds on otherwise empty islands is that they never expect to be attacked. With an entire island to yourself, who could really threaten you? Gavin took the lead, taking full advantage of the lack of guards. 
Before Gavin could decide which entrance to take into the series of low building that Made up Circe's headquarters, a series of scream filled the air. _Just what I need, another sidetrack from the main mission. But if there's somebody that Circe hates enough to make them scream like that, they might just be of use_

"We're going over that way. Anybody who Circe would torture like that might have some info we could use."

Beatrice and her friends followed, accepting Gavin's lead, at least for now. The moved silently around the back of the compound, and found the source of the screaming: on a slope leading away from the compound there were several small ditches, each the size of a man, and in each these ditches there was a prisoner tied to a rope, which eventually went over a cliff at the bottom. The prisoners had to stand up against the bottom of their ditch or get pulled down by the weight. As each prisoner collapsed the remaining prisoners had to hold more weight. Only one prisoner was still struggling, and a couple of guards were watching over him.

"How much longer  do ya' think he'll last?"

"Not long."

"Then how abouts we go get some food, I've seen enough torture for the day."

"Fine by me."

The two guards walked away, but not before one gave the last prisoner  mocking pat on the head. "Have fun."

As soon as the guards were out of sight Gavin turned to Beatrice. "Cover me, I'm going to save him."

Gavin ran towards the last prisoner and started trying to cut through the rope with his knife. The prisoner looked surprised at Gavin's appearance, but said nothing instead concentrating on holding the weight until Gavin finished the cut. A long 5 seconds later the rope broke, and the Prisoner heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank you... Thank you" Gavin pulled the man back to the hiding place where Beatrice, Cindy, and Maragrite stood watch. Now that the prisoner owed Gavin his life, it was time for answers. "Who are you, and why were you being tortured?"

'My name is Victor Frish, and I am... I mean was.... one of Circe's head researchers. I was in charge of Project Oedipus. I lost favor when my morals started to get in the way of my work, and so Circe had me and my entire team put to death. The others collapsed earlier, I think their all dead."

This was what Gavin was looking for: an insider. Now he was getting somewhere. "I'm sorry about your team, but what was Project Oedipus? Was that Circe's weapons program for the Venmon?"

"I guess you could say it was a weapons project, but really it was a new kind of training. She kidnaped kids from all over the world, and she's been training them to be her mindless soldiers. I, I'm sorry to say, went along with the project, until she started talking about stimulants. The project was going to take too long, so she's going to inject the kids with a hormone cocktail and hope that it makes them grow faster. That’s what I objected to, and now my teams dead..."

"Its not your fault," Gavin had what he needed, now all he had to do was get this guy out..."Cindy, Maragrite, take Mister 

Frish and get him to the point where you met me. Beatrice and I will go in and get the kids."

Cindy and Maragrite took Frish off, and Gavin went in to the compound with Beatrice close behind.

**********

The compound was a maze, but Gavin managed to find the holding room for Project Oedipus. The children were being held in a classroom, with a teacher who seemed to have very traditional views on physical punishment. They had to get in, and there wasn't any easy way to go about it. Gavin had a plan. "On the count of three, I kick the door in, and we rush in. Ready.... one... two... three! Gavin's leg connected solidly with the door, but in a contest between a man and a locked, bolted, hardened steel door, who's going to win? Gavin doubled over in pain, and the teacher stopped beating the child to go open the door. As the door swung open and the teacher stepped out, Beatrice clubbed him with the but of her rifle. "That’s for Jimmy."

The children in the classroom took advantage of the teachers absence and started to rush out the door. "Mommy !" one of the smaller children yelled at the sight of Beatrice. "Oh, my baby, its so good to se you. I love you honey, now lets get going. Mr Gavin, are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine, just gimme a second." Gavin stood up, and, with a noticeable limp, moved back towards the entrance they had used earlier. Moving back through the compound was hard, with a group of a dozen kids trying to avoid the guards, but Gavin demonstrated some measure of competence, and got them all out without being noticed. Or almost got them out...

**********

As the group approached the forest, a rumble came out of the underbrush. A flight of birds took to the air, and a tank rumbled out of the trees. Standing on top was a women draped in so many beads and so much fine fabric it had to be Circe, and at her feet were Cindy, Frish, and Maragrite, all bound with ropes. "Now, Now, Now, Mr Gavin, you didn’t think I would let you get away with my children, did you?" said Circe in a voice like sugar coated poison.

Panic flashed across Gavin's face for a second, before something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. There was movement in the bush, so his fall black plan must be working...

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Circe, but I'm afraid my associate in the bushes over there has something to say about this.' Gavin motioned towards the bush, and right on cue, a small pig wandered out.

"Why, Mr. Gavin, I had no idea you worked with pigs in the CIA."

_Oh, %^&#$, Time to think fast..._ "The joke is on you, Circe, that pig is loaded with enough explosives to blow your tank sky high, now let my friends go."

"Surely you jest, Mr. Gavin, I do not think you have any explosives, in fact, I think you are, as the masses would say, 'screwed."

Gavin would have been 'screwed,' if not for the coincidence that his backup was there, they just weren't in the same bush as the pig. Circe jumped as the other CIA agent on the island jumped onto the back of the tank and held a pistol to the small of her back. "Circe, let us go or you'll be digesting lead."

"Fine, go, this is but a minor setback."

Gavin, Beatrice, and the kids made a break for it, while the other agent let Frish, Cindy and Maragrite go. A radio call while they ran and a helicopter picked them up before Circe's gooks could catch up.

***********

On the helicopter ride out, Gavin found time to talk to his backup. "Thanks Mike."

"I told you, you don't have to thank me, Gavin. In fact, I told you didn't even have to talk to me."

"I just thought..."

"No. You didn't. That’s why I saved your ass. Now, the only reason I helped you was because you helped me back on Taku Rikiki. Let it rest. No "thank you"'s this time. Now were even."


----------



## Macbeth

Just realized I didn't link to the pictures. Oh, well, I hope the parts that are from the pictures are obvious. If you want me to explain where I used the pictures, I can, but I think its self evident.


----------



## mythago

Yay! I was afraid you weren't gonna make it.


----------



## Macbeth

I almost didn't make it. I had Mid-Terms friday, I went to Albuquerque yesterday to watch a Rugby Tournament and a Marching Band Tournament. Had to put the finishing touches on this morning.


----------



## barsoomcore

It's Ceramic Modern!

Some great stories, guys. Thanks for the reading!


----------



## mythago

At least it's not Ceramic Postmodern.

Whoops...that was a Rule 1 violation, wasn't it...


----------



## barsoomcore

Right, Ceramic Postmodern. Where you don't bother referring to the pictures because referentiality is dead, and anyway a word is just a signifier of a signifier, and there is no teleogical signified, so the notion that a URL can actually "point" to a file only proves how trapped you are in patriarchal hegemony of ontological facility. Saussure proved that the "play of signs" is all there is to language, dude, so why are you even bothering!

The death of the book is at hand! Vive Derrida!

...

Sorry, got carried away there. Haven't smacked a French philospher in a long time, sorry about that.


----------



## Macbeth

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Haven't smacked a French philospher in a long time



Is that some kind of euphimism?


----------



## alsih2o

round 2

 piratecat vs. sparky.

 72 hours from this post...


----------



## Gregor

My brain just popped and I dont even have to write a story about those pictures


----------



## alsih2o

Gregor said:
			
		

> My brain just popped and I dont even have to write a story about those pictures





 popping brains is boring, unless it actually pops out we at ceramic dm feel we have failed.


----------



## Maldur

First round two verdict send. These pics are hard


----------



## Macbeth

So, It looks like Maldur's judgement is in, any idea when the judgement will be posted?


----------



## alsih2o

i have to wait for speaker to send his in...and for the "tension-o-meter" to rise a bit


----------



## Maldur

tension, tension!

*dances around, and throws another log on the fire*


----------



## mythago

*cues ominous music*


----------



## Macbeth

Yeah, Speaking of tension, I'm much more nervous about this match then about the first round. This may be close...


----------



## Speaker

My judgement is in.

Getting close, now...


----------



## Piratecat

Can't wait!


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Can't wait!



Neither Can I! I'm kind of worried I might lose. This is going to be close, either way, win or lose...


----------



## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Neither Can I! I'm kind of worried I might lose. This is going to be close, either way, win or lose...





Perhaps we can find a clue in a fragment of a lost scene from The Scottish Play:

*A heath. Enter MYTHAGO and MACBETH.*

_Macbeth._ Lay on! dark spirits prophesied my fate,
No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth.

_Mythago._ The witches' servant spoke thee fair and true;
but as is plain to see with open eye,
I am no man.

_Macbeth._ D'oh!

*They fight.*

...the rest of the scene is, unfortunately, lost...


----------



## Maldur

In a great dutch cartoon adaption of macBeth:

The witches: we will tell you the future for a crown a year.
MacBeth: ok, tell me the future
The witches:That will be one and a half crown.


----------



## Macbeth

Mythago, isn't that the scene that ends with Macbeth washing his hands of Mythago's blood?

Macbeth: Out, Out damn spot! I knew I should have used bleach...


----------



## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Mythago, isn't that the scene that ends with Macbeth washing his hands of Mythago's blood?




Scholars disagree, as there are multiple versions all attributed to the Bard, but none of which can be authenticated. In addition to the bleach ending, there is one where Mythago shouts "Look! A three-headed monkey!" and then treacherously stabs Macbeth while he is distracted.


----------



## Macbeth

mythago said:
			
		

> "Look! A three-headed monkey!"




WHERE !?!


----------



## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> WHERE !?!




There!

_trips over her own two feet, drops the heavy foil on one toe and stubs it_

Now we just need to persuade alsih20 to post the judgments in the style of the Three Witches


----------



## Macbeth

mythago said:
			
		

> _Mythago._ The witches' servant spoke thee fair and true;
> but as is plain to see with open eye,
> I am no man.
> 
> _Macbeth._ D'oh!



Just to be nitpicky, the Bard himself (any relation to Raab Himself from Jackass?) was more liberal then you allow: Macbeth could be harmed by "none of women born," so that would imply man or women. 

Advantage: Macbeth


----------



## mythago

Not quite. Check out Act V, Scene III.

_Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee.' Then fly,
false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear._


----------



## alsih2o

mythago vs. macbeth, round 2 

 maldur-

mythago: Voodoo magic, riders, african warlord, and strange special ops. "Wicked" 
Its a strange tale, but aren't all tales strange when they involve voodoo?

macbeth: Another bumbling CIA agent story. R&B groups with AK-47's? also a very odd tale.

Verdict: Mythago, gets my vote, as his story is more coherent and just more creepy. But well done you two!


 speaker-

Mythago:  Evoking the days when gods roamed the earth as men and women, your 
tale is well thought out and intriguing.  I am very impressed with your 
handling of the pictures, the creativity shown here.  The story itself read 
very well.

Macbeth:   I love those allusions to Greek myth imbedded in this CIA 
mission.  The use of the pictures might have been handled a little better, 
but all around this is competent tale.

My vote goes to Mythago


 alsih2o-

 mythago: parts of this seemed very interesting (love the sorensen bit) but i felt like i missed a chapter, or it was part of a running series and i missed the first few. the pictures were all used a bit predictably, altho i liked the slight twist on the women.

 macbeth: seems to be struggling at the edge of a genre. i like the idea, but the execution could improve. there are some serious gem lines in here ("How much longer do ya' think he'll last?"

"Not long."

"Then how abouts we go get some food, I've seen enough torture for the day.") but i think they will find a limited audience. but hey, john waters does ok with a limited audience.


 i have to go with macbeth, because i laughed way out loud a couple of times("yeah, i'm CIA") and was less confused.


 looks like mythago 2-1. let's see if she takes advantage of the 2-3 break with proper nutrition and a good training regimen...


----------



## Maldur

You were just in time clay I think they were ready to kill each iother!


----------



## alsih2o

shakesperean trashtalk.


 i spend my time with these people....   

 well done all around, thanks for the entertainment.


----------



## mythago

*can breathe now*

Well fought, Macbeth!



			
				alsih2o said:
			
		

> mythago: parts of this seemed very interesting (love the sorensen bit) but i felt like i missed a chapter, or it was part of a running series and i missed the first few.




My fault for trying to keep it from being too long.

That *is* a picture of a drag queen, innit?


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> My fault for trying to keep it from being too long.
> 
> That *is* a picture of a drag queen, innit?




 i don't know.
 i studied art, i was trained not to read all the words surrounding the pretty pictures


----------



## mythago

alsih2o said:
			
		

> i don't know.
> i studied art, i was trained not to read all the words surrounding the pretty pictures




"Words are Satan's tools! Only through images can we gain salvation!"


----------



## Macbeth

mythago said:
			
		

> Not quite. Check out Act V, Scene III.
> 
> _Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
> Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
> I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
> Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
> All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
> 'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
> Shall e'er have power upon thee.' Then fly,
> false thanes,
> And mingle with the English epicures:
> The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
> Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear._




Act IV, Scene I

_Be bloody, bold, and resolute! Laugh to scorn The pow'r of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth_

I geuss If you assume he's refering to the man from the first part of the sentence...

Either way, Good Job, it was close, as I expected, but Your supperior writing style payed off. Now You've got to go on to the finals and win so I can say I lost to the first place Cermic DM.

A postmortem on mine: I wrote most of it in a single morning. I really should have spent more time, but Real Life gets in the way. I think that, If I had more time to put my ideas to the keyboard things might have been different.

But, No hard feelings, I lost to a worthy opponent (with a good knowledge of Shakespeare, I might add), and it was close. Good Luck Mythago. I'll keep reading the entries.


----------



## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Good Luck Mythago. I'll keep reading the entries.




Thanks! I'll try to do right by you 

Well-smacktalked, by the way...


----------



## barsoomcore

Those were two awesome stories, guys.

Macbeth -- I love this character and his ridiculous scrapes. The dismantling of spy story tropes is irresistible, and the constant mythological references just add to the fun of it all.

Mythago -- I was wrapped up in this tale. When the altar got set up my brain started doing backflips. It was one of the great moments where your whole image of the story twists inside and suddenly you're wondering what the heck is going on. And then you pulled off that most difficult of feats, a killer ending to a ceramic story.

Well done, both of you. I don't envy the judges in this contest...


----------



## Berandor

O.K., if this post is a little messy, it's because my brain exploded after seeing the pictures 

I mean, without thinking whether I could weave a story around them (everything can be waved into story, just don't expect the story to be good ) - where do you get these pics???

I mean, do you go to google, and type "man in car seat" or "jumping soldier" into the search line?

Berandor


----------



## alsih2o

Berandor said:
			
		

> O.K., if this post is a little messy, it's because my brain exploded after seeing the pictures
> 
> I mean, without thinking whether I could weave a story around them (everything can be waved into story, just don't expect the story to be good ) - where do you get these pics???
> 
> I mean, do you go to google, and type "man in car seat" or "jumping soldier" into the search line?
> 
> Berandor




 i google lots of funky words, and word combos, i use the week in pictures on msnbc a lot, renfair pages, mythology pages, pages i wouldn't want my mom to see.

 coming up with pictures is easy, weeding it down to the ones you want to use is what is hard.

 take an example, look at the "jump" pic in p-kitty vs sparky above. i chose it over the one below, both were really cool images, but one spoke more to me.

 also, check out photojpurnalists webpages, they rock!


----------



## alsih2o

or this one. great pic, but the story is sorta already told. i struggle with that.


 i try to include a who, what and where in every grouping. of course one pic can have all of those and frequently the writers surprise me with what they choose to use form the pic. those surprises frequently get my vote.


----------



## alsih2o

whoops, here is the too much told pic-


----------



## Gregor

Judge Julie Strain presiding?


----------



## mythago

"Objection!"


----------



## alsih2o

sparky, let us know you are still alive!


----------



## alsih2o

come to think of it, i am worried we haven't heard from p-kitty either.


----------



## mythago

They're probably going "do de do de do OMG!!!! I am almost out of time for my entry!" *scribble scribble*

That 72-hour thing is seductive.


----------



## Piratecat

One day out of three gone!

Tick... tick... tick...


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> One day out of three gone!
> 
> Tick... tick... tick...




 sparky doesn't have an email listed, can you use your supermod powers to drop an email?


----------



## Piratecat

You bet. She was moving, so she might not have internet access yet. I'll email her.

EDIT - Done. She hasn't been on the boards since the 16th, so she certainly hasn't seen the entries. If you need to scrap these and start again in order to give her more time, try to let me know before I write too much.


----------



## Maldur

Clay, It might give Pkitty time to write his most excelent Storyhour!


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You bet. She was moving, so she might not have internet access yet. I'll email her.
> 
> EDIT - Done. She hasn't been on the boards since the 16th, so she certainly hasn't seen the entries. If you need to scrap these and start again in order to give her more time, try to let me know before I write too much.




 if that is o.k. with you. sparky had suggested monday, but that isn't the same as a check-in, and the rules committee drinks a lot, so lets give her some time 

 my apologies


----------



## Piratecat

Okay. I'll stop working on the previous photos - a gripping story of, err, some jumping guy who climbs a wall before flying away in a car seat balloon chair, only to dump a flaming outhouse on some swimming soldiers. Honest, it was brilliant.


----------



## mythago

Maybe you can find a way to work that into the next Defenders adventure. "Okay, Priggle--we're going to put you in this balloon chair and push you over the battlefield. When you get above the Ivory King's head..."


----------



## Sparky

Hello! I'm here! 

All the bustle has left me bruised and battered (though not yet deep fried) and I, finally, have an internet connection . I took the week off to settle into my new place and - as suspected - wasn't able to check anything until late last night. (P-kitty, I saw your email late last night, but was parsing a lot of spam and work email and thought I'd just come here and catch everyone up). 

I hate to make the judges scrap any images (apologies, Alsih2o) and my pone scrap any work (apologies Piratecat), though I do appreciate the more than generous consideration. Please consider this an official check in, if all are still game and we can keep moving.

Thanks, everyone, for being patient during my move.


----------



## alsih2o

Sparky said:
			
		

> Thanks, everyone, for being patient during my move.




 what make you think we were patient?


----------



## alsih2o

piratecat vs. sparky

 round 2, try 2 

 72 hours from this post!


----------



## alsih2o

hints? comments? someone know what the line is?


----------



## Piratecat

I'm too busy twitching. Can I go back to the jumpy guy in the car seat?


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm too busy twitching. Can I go back to the jumpy guy in the car seat?




 i actually considered posting 4 pics for this round. then letting each persons opponent post their 5th.

 it has a certain odor of RB that tickles me


----------



## Sparky

I'm sure it's debatable, but aren't nut.jpg and suit.jpg mixed up?


----------



## Piratecat

No, Sparky. That's actually a 6' tall hyperintelligent peanut in the diving suit. It's fleeing from the genetic manipulation labs of the Planters company.  *grin*

Bonus competitor points if you steal that idea for your story.


----------



## alsih2o

Sparky said:
			
		

> I'm sure it's debatable, but aren't nut.jpg and suit.jpg mixed up?




 naw, the one pic caught my eye because of the bad suit. and "nut" is the guy who wanted to walk across the bottom of loch ness. (he pulled if off too if i am not mistaken)

 but i will note the pompous attitude of your post, and the judge taunting.


----------



## alsih2o

hopin' to see you writers bright and early


----------



## Piratecat

*Sparky vs. Piratecat*


*Services Rendered*

I was sitting behind my desk when she walked into the room. To tell the truth, she didn’t walk; she _slid_, moving through the doorway like a dancer on a sleazy stage. My eyes devoured her, taking in every last detail as she paused in the doorway and looked around with a disapproving sniff. She even looked a little familiar, but I chalked that up to too much time with the magazines I keep in the filing cabinet’s top drawer.

“My office isn’t much to look at,” I leered, “but I don’t do my best work here. Who are you, doll?” I sat up and stuffed the pint bottle of bourbon into a half-open drawer. Best to make a good first impression.

She didn’t answer my question. Still looking around as if she was going to have to pull on rubber gloves before touching anything, she took off her hat and fixed me with an imperious stare from icy blue eyes. “Are you Louis Meyer Covington the third?” Her voice was like soiled silk, her accent Swedish, and I felt a shiver run up my spine.

“In the flesh, lady. Of Covington Investigations, the finest joint you’ll find south of New York. Call me Louie.”

This time, she really did sniff. I could hear her. “That’s hard to believe. But you come highly recommended. _Very_ highly recommended, from some very hard-to-please people who have had some very odd problems.” She fixed me with that icicle stare, and I felt like a butterfly pinned up against some kid’s collecting book. I grinned nonchalantly and ground out my cigar. It’s never a good idea to let them feel superior to you, even when they come from rarefied breeding stock.

“I do good work in a very specialized field. I’m discrete and open-minded when it comes to phenomena. I also get paid a hundred and fifty bucks an hour plus expenses, so if you only came here to insult me, consider the meter ticking.” My chair creaked as I leaned back again and studied her over the bridge of my nose. A faint sheen of sweat, a nervous crease by her perfect lips; she was worried, or I was a two-bit Ghostbuster in a third-rate movie. I like to see worried, because desperate people always pay better and I still had a raftload of gambling debts that Knuckles Tony was going to try to collect on next Friday. With no other work in sight, I needed this bird, but I’d hate for her to guess that. “You didn’t say your name.”

She brushed a pile of papers off the moth-eaten chair and slid into the seat. My chest tightened as I watched her move. “You’re right. I didn’t.” She took a big breath, which wouldn’t have pleased my cardiologist any, and the look on her face announced to one and all that she’d decided to spill the beans. I was ready with an old fountain pen and a tablet of paper, and I took down her every word. “My name is Katarina Lenter. I’m…” She waved one long, perfect hand in agitation. “This will sound stupid.”

Lenter? Sounded familiar, but alcohol-fogged memories are never reliable. I smiled greasily, showing yellowed teeth. She recoiled a bit, but I’m used to that. “Probably.”

She steeled herself and went on. “I’m being haunted by the ghost of my husband.” 

I pointed with a stubby finger. “No wedding ring.”

She scowled, and even that set my degenerate little heart racing. “I took it off after the funeral. He’s been dead for two weeks. I’m a widow, I’m in mourning, and I want him to finally be able to truly rest.”

Mourning? She, with her mink stole and tailored suit and dangling diamonds and stylish makeup, was in mourning? Sure she was. I eyed her, and decided that at least the suit was black. Well, dark. Well, darkish… if you squinted in bad light. I decided that there hadn’t been a lot of love lost between the two of them. 

“When did he die? How did he die? And who was he?”

“His name was Fritz…” but by then I’d made the connection. Fritz Lenter: multi-millionaire power broker of a half-dozen different industries. Old bastard, looked like a two-bit bum even as he kept a trophy wife and a half dozen mistresses and four different mansions in three different countries. No wonder she looked familiar. I was suddenly sorry that I’d already stated my standard fee. No one knew how Lenter did it, but he was known for pulling together deals that everyone had thought were impossible.

I looked back at the trophy wife that I was suddenly on a first name basis with, even as she slid a photo across the desk to me.

“A helicopter took this.” If there was any grief in her silken voice, I couldn’t detect it. “I’m sure you read about it in the paper. He was out in the bay with a small crew, testing new propulsion equipment on one of his company’s ships. There was an explosion, no one knows why. Most of the crew got away. But not Fritz.” She worked a false sob into her little speech, and dabbed a monogrammed hankie at an imaginary tear. Then her voice snapped right back to a business tone. “And now he’s dead, but the lawyers say I get nothing because there’s no body. And my darling is haunting me every time I try to sleep. I keep seeing him there, below decks in the ship, and he doesn’t look happy. It’s just horrible.” 

“Kararina, can ya blame him?”

Her voice came like a whip. “Mrs. Lenter.”

Well, that just doubled my price. Guess I wasn’t on a first name basis after all.  “Mrs. Lenter, can you blame him?”

Her voice took on that false pleading tone again, and she laid one flawless and bejeweled hand on top of my own hairy mitt. She hardly even flinched.  “I _hate_ to think of his spirit as unhappy, or trapped between worlds. I think it’s because he doesn’t have the benefit of a proper burial. So Louie, I want you to put his ghost to rest. If that means swimming down there yourself and bringing back his corpse, I want you to do it.” She smiled a thousand watt smile that lit up the whole back of the office, but I could feel her lacquered nails digging into my flesh. “I can pay your fees, and your expenses, and a big fat bonus, and I can be _very_ friendly to people who are friendly to me. It’s a hard job, but money is no object.”  

I grabbed her own hand with mine, and felt her shiver as I pulled her closer. Must be my raw sex appeal. “Then you got a deal, doll. I’m on the case.”

She let out a long breath of air, and I suddenly needed to wipe sweat from my forehead.  “Just do it quickly, darling.” She pulled out a hand compact and examined her reflection in the tiny mirror. “I think the lack of sleep is giving me wrinkles.”

*  *  *

The first step after getting her advance deposit was to check with Hitesh. My charming new client was clearly as false as a sackful of campaign promises, but I needed to understand exactly where it was she stood. The spirit world can be a fairly dicey place, and it does no good to piss off the wrong people. Hitesh was my interpreter to the foreign land of death.

His parlor smelled like moth balls and spices. I glanced at the painting over the fire place, showing him back in his performing days down on the pier so many years ago. Creepy as hell, and that powder blue tuxedo didn’t do a thing for him; he looked like he was attending the New Delhi junior prom after being desperate enough to carve his date himself. Then the sound of the electric wheelchair caught my ear, and I turned to watch him roll in past the dangling curtain. As always, his two marionettes were sitting lifelessly in his lap, flopped sideways as Hitesh maneuvered the wheelchair around a dusty coffee table.

“Hitesh! It’s good to see you!” I meant it, too. The old bastard was on his last legs, but for a business associate we had a very close relationship.

“Likewise, you old thug. I don’t suppose that you have come to tell me that you have given up investigations once and for all, and wish to settle down as a shabby greengrocer?” His voice was weak and scratchy from the cancer he’d beaten three years back, but you could still make out the Indian lilt. It always made me smile.

“Nah, I got a live one here. So to speak. I got some dame who claims her husband is haunting her. Dead two weeks in a boat accident, and this bird wants to inherit. I need to know the lay of the land.”

Hitesh frowned, his wispy little mustache bending beneath his nose. He spoke in a croak.  “Louie, you’re dealing with dangerous forces. Ghost are real, you know it as much as I. You shouldn’t get involved.”

“I am, though. Let me speak to Luke and Lucille.”

He shook his head feebly. “It’s a bad idea, and you…” His head rolled back on his skinny neck, and in his lap both marionettes suddenly sat straight up. I could see Hitesh’s arms holding them upright, but my friend didn’t otherwise seem to be conscious.

“We are here.” Luke’s hiss was eerie, and loud, and nothing like Hitesh’s normal voice. I’ll never understand how he does this.

“We are.” Lucille, the female marionette, turned her wide painted eyes to stare at me. Her little hinged mouth moved up and down as if on its own accord.  “Louis. Four years two months ten days until you die, you know.”

“Yeah, so you told me last time. And the time before that. I got it written down in my daytimer.”

“You seek knowledge from Lucille’s third eye.” Luke stated it as a fact, not as a question. The fake eyelids blinked. “But we can not help you.”

I sat up. “Why the hell not? You helped me last time. I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do for Hitesh. He’s happy, you’re happy, why the sudden grief?” My voice began to rise unreasonably. Talking to spooky puppets always does that to me, every single time.

Lucille swiveled her wooden head. “Because the man whose spirit to seek to becalm is not on this side. He is not with us.”

I stared at her, for a moment almost forgetting that I was talking to the equivalent of a couple of haunted fireplace logs. “What do you mean, not with you? Are you saying that he’s…” A glimmer of light dawned, and I began putting two and two together. “Oh, I get it. Son of a bitch. Yeah, I think I understand.”

Both wooden puppets stared at me impassively.

“Fair enough. Lucille, say hi to Myrna for me if you get a chance. I still miss her. You two need me to do anything for your medium?”

Their mouths moved together, their voices mingled, and Hitesh never once moved his lips.  “No.”  

“Then thank you. I’m done here.” They slumped over, and Hitesh groggily raised his head.

“Did they…” He swallowed drily and continued in his faint and raspy voice. “Did you learn anything?”

I patted my friend on the shoulder. “Nothing important, and that told me a lot. Thanks again, bud. I’ll let myself out, but I’ll be back next week with steaks. I think I’m about to earn myself a big fat fee.” 

As I clicked the front door shut behind me I could still hear him croaking from the parlor in his ruined voice, something about no beef. “I got no beef with you, either,” I yelled, and I started down the front steps. I figure it’s good to keep people guessing. Anyways, I had a lot to do, and a damned short time limit to do it in.

*  *  *

I know a lot of people in this town, and most of them aren’t the kind of joe that you’d want to invite to a cocktail party. That’s how I bought myself surreptitious access to the local Navy base. I figured that if anyone had what I needed it would be them, and I didn’t have time to screw around. It cost me a lot of cabbage, but Mrs. Lenter was paying the expenses and I didn’t figure she’d miss the scratch. I spent the rest of my advance on a trip to see Knuckles Tony; easy come, easy go, and I bought a service that I thought I’d really need.

Smuggled in past the gate guards at the Navy base, I had the waterfront warehouse pretty much to myself in those wee hours of the morning. The diving suit fitted me well enough, and I had double checked to make sure that I’d gotten the coordinates of Lenter’s sunken ship correct. I didn’t really think that I’d have a chance to steal – ah, appropriate – more Navy equipment if I got lost the first time out.

I was damn clumsy when I waddled out of the warehouse down towards the water. Gearing up had taken me longer than I had expected it to, and dawn was clawing its way up over the horizon like a drowning man headed for the surface. Unfortunately, in the morning light you’d have to be deaf and blind to miss a short man in a dive suit, especially when he trips over a curb and ends up face down in a puddle. It just wasn’t my day, and the guard on duty turned out to have his faculties intact.

“Freeze!”

Feet already in the water and extra air tanks weighing me down, I slowly turned my head. Some young stallion with a chin like a roman legionnaire was staring at me with rabbit-wide eyes. His rifle was low by his hip, his helmet planted firmly on his head, and his various grenades strung from a bandolier across his chest. I clucked my tongue at him condescendingly, and that just confused him.

“What’s with the helmet, son? Nothing’s going to hit you on the head out here. You look a bit foolish.” I grinned rudely. “Your mother would be laughing right about now.” Meanwhile, I manipulated what little art I’d picked up over the years. Slowly, carefully… Sweat popped up on my forehead, but he was too far away to tell. It’s all about synchronicity and coincidence, if you do it right. Work the percentages. Make things happen, because they’ve always been that way but no one noticed. That’s true magic.

“You’re trespassing on a US Navy base!” His voice cracked, and he fought it back down. “You’re under arrest, sir. Step out of the water.”

*Click* Like the silver ball on a roulette table snapping into my number, the percentages clicked into place. I’d done what I needed to do. Despite the exhaustion, the feeling was incredible, and I could see how penny ante sorcerers get hooked on this stuff.

I shook my head in mock sorrow. “Sorry, boy. I don’t have time. And anyways, what are you going to do? Shoot me? I doubt it.”

“I will!”

“Nah. You’ll try to, but you won’t be able to see anything. Your rifle strap has gotten tangled with that tear gas grenade.” 

Really, he should have at least looked. But instead he snapped the rifle up to firing position, and I heard him swear as the gas grenade went off. I’d even warned him. I left my young friend flopping around on the beach as I strode out into the water. Working the art takes it out of me and I had a long way to swim, even with the small diving sled I’d taken. The waves closed over my head, my breath rasped in my ears, and I settled in for a long haul.

*  *  *

The inside of the ship was freezing.

As I had expected, I found it about 200 feet down and partially destroyed. Only the bow was shattered, though. I dragged my tired body through a watertight door that I sealed behind me, and then let myself into the still dry portion of the ship. I took a cautious breath; the air was musty but still breathable if I kept my oxygen tanks handy. That amazed me, but I was already working hard for my $150 an hour, so I didn’t argue. Laboriously, I clambered in and set to searching.

I shouldn’t have bothered. At first it was just a headache. Then, there was the pain of something alive trying to claw through my skull. I think I screamed, high and shrill like my mother always teased me about, and I felt something scrabble into place inside my brain. It was gibbering something about freedom and air, and I suddenly wanted to obey it and grant the spirit its every desire. 

I’ve got no patience for that kind of crap. I mouthed an incantation of Er’Kut’lu that I’d picked up last year from a Haitian bokor. The words flung the presence from me, and I caught a glimpse of it as it skittered away in surprise. It looked like a bearded old man. It looked like Fritz Lenter. With an untrained spirit assertion like that, no wonder the guy was such a successful businessman.

I finally found Fritz Lenter’s body in the ship’s tank farm, the hold where oxygen and helium had been stored. Most of the oxygen containers had been emptied to keep him alive, and his body stood stiffly in the corner of the room. He was bundled up head to toe to ward off the cold, and I started to actually greet him… but apparently good breeding and good manners don’t survive two weeks entombed in a silent ship, because he didn’t exactly try to shake my hand. Instead, his eyes flashed insanely while his twisted spirit shrieked towards my face. This time I was ready for him, and a simple warding gesture of Bur’ok was enough to fling him back. He may have been powerful, but he had no real finesse.

I strode forward, grabbed Lenter by the jacket and slapped my open hand across his face twice. Spittle flew loosely from his sagging mouth, and his breath steamed in the cold.  “Snap out of it, Lenter! You’re still alive, and I’m here to rescue you. But I’ll damn well leave you here to die if you don’t stop these simple tricks!”

His eyes were unfocused. “You have her stink on you,” he mumbled incoherently. I could still feel his psyche nosing around my head, looking for any vulnerability. I slapped him again. “She…” His eyes focused as his spirit returned to his body and his madness receeded. “She set the explosion. That woman! She tried to kill me. I saw it in her dreams.”

“Your wife?” I steadied him on shaky feet. He nodded, and I can’t say I was especially surprised. “I suspected as much. She wanted you proven dead, but when I found out that you hadn’t died I had to assume that you were still alive down here. I came as soon as I could.”

Lenter took a deep gulp of the thin air, started to cough, and I offered him my oxygen tank. “I’ve got another one of these, and a fellow named Knuckles Tony who’s going to meet us at these coordinates an hour from now, in a boat.” Lenter looked at me with amazed eyes.

“You’re,” he coughed and tried again, “you’re double-crossing her?”

I shook my head and grinned evilly. “No, Fritz. She’s paying me to bring back your body and stop your spirit from haunting her. I intend to do that. She never specified that you had to be dead. After that, I want nothing to do with her. She’s a dangerous kind of woman.”  He nodded.  “The question for you is,” and I felt just like a shark coming in for the kill, “how much money I can spend in the next four years, and how quickly you intend to pay it to me.  You know. For services rendered.”

He met my eyes, and he nodded again. We started to talk, and the next hour just flew by.

--x--


----------



## Piratecat

And... done! I knew I'd never get up early to post it on time, so I thought I'd finish it off tonight.  This is the first time I've ever tried to write from a first person perspective. It's fun.


----------



## alsih2o

57 more minutes for sparky, by my watch


----------



## Sparky

*Piratecat vs. Sparky*


*Festival of Lights*

Diwali. The Hindi festival of lights. The triumph of light over dark, knowledge over ignorance. Here’s hoping.

*Day 1 - Dhantrayodashi*

When Ankur popped around to my cluttered corner of the fourth floor lab I knew something was up. He leaned around the side of my cube flourishing a tacky, blue suit and a battered instrument case. I pursed my lips as he hung the unpleasant suit over my print of George Washington Carver. He very carefully put the case on the floor, as if it held something unimaginably precious. 

“Check this out, these used to belong to my uncle,” he grinned, thumbing a release on either side of the case.

With a clack the clasps leapt open. Ankur beamed with the pride of nostalgia at the two decrepit ventriloquist’s dummies entombed inside. I couldn’t help but feel we had disturbed their rest. Dust floated out. I stifled a sneeze.

“Your uncle had a Michael Jackson dummy?” I asked hiding a smile behind my sneeze-warding hand.

Ankur pointed at the smaller dummy’s forehead, “See her bindi. HER bindi. They’re married,” he motioned to include the other figure.

He pivoted on his heel to give me a long, measured glance before turning back to the creepy figures, “Tonight is the first night of Diwali,” he began slowly, “There’re performances every night. Anyone who wants to perform can,” he grinned again and shrugged, “Rather, anyone who wants to perform is allowed. Want to go?” 

“Sure, it’s not like Dr. P needs these anytime soon,” I said gesturing at the lab paper’s I’d been marking up. Ankur stiffened. He’d had a run in with Professor Pflanzer.

“Sorry,” I muttered. Or something like it. Smoothing the hair on the dummies, Ankur cleanly snapped the case shut.

“I should go on around eight-ish. Come find me before the show. I have something to tell you.”

As he walked away his foot left a neat print in the dust from the case.

***

Eight-ish had come and gone. And nine-ish. Ankur was nowhere to be found. Worry. Making a circuit around the Auditorium I found a door I hadn’t previously seen wedged open with a bag of squishy orange candy. Ick, carnival peanuts. Nasty. Slipping through the door, I crept carefully in, peering through the dim. Old scenery. Canvas wardrobes, mothball stink. Shadow puppets, shadows. Fog from a machine somewhere spilled out over the floor. From above, distant and dreamlike, the hypnotic drone of tamburas, the heart-wrenching brightness of sitars. 

And there he was. Sitting in the dark with his dummies, a grin stuck on his face, meditating.(suit.jpg) Something wasn’t right. The fog was pouring off of him. Alarm. I reached out and gasped as my fingers touched solid, Ankur-colored ice. His fixed and staring eyes began to glow white and the mouths of the dummies dropped open spilling more fog. But this fog didn’t fall to the floor with the rest, it looped and coiled, serpentine, toward me. Blinking I tried to pull my hand back, but it had frozen to Ankur’s face. I beat at his brittle, blue suit with my free hand. Freaking out. The coils seem to wreathe my neck and for no real reason I thought of the lunches my mom used to pack for me. And I screamed. Fainted.


*Day 2 – Narakchaturdashi*

I’ve been cold for a while. Can’t sleep when I’m cold. Blanket… where’s my… This is not my bed. Those are not my sounds. Not my room. I have a splitting headache and a knot on the back of my head. The fingertips on my right hand are sore and poorly bandaged. I remember Ankur. I sit up, brilliantly awake, heart in my throat. Small, gray room. Unmistakable rocking. Puke on the floor. I didn’t eat any of those nasty candy peanuts. What… It’s a boat. And from the look of things, I shouldn’t be expecting Captain Stubing any time soon. Though I’d settle for Gopher, or even Julie.

A slow, building squeal announces the opening of the hatch and I back up into the corner, well away from the door, just like a good little damsel. Damnit. A bulky figure, bundled head to toe in heavy winter clothes, enters. I think it’s a man, but its curves suggest a woman. White light glows from underneath its cap. My knees go weak. Had I been standing I’d have another hefty knot on my head. The bundled figure pulls me bodily out of the bunk and through the hatch. By the time I get my feet under me, we are turning, down one deck, turning an ankle, through a bulkhead and a firewall, over a catwalk, down a couple steps, moving forward I think, across another catwalk, through a bulkead. I can see my breath. My captor undogs a hatch labeled Authorized Personnel Only and shoves me through with a foot. I catch a glimpse of shining white spats.

“But, I don’t have clearance!” I shout, turning to face the hatch as it slams in my face. 

Panic chants at the edge of my thoughts. It occurs to me that really, I’m in shock. Total shock. Nothing is reaching me. Not fear, not panic, not conscious, coherent thought. Focus. Focus. I bite my mouth trying desperately to keep hold of the situation. This room. Odd. Not gray. And tanks, lots of tanks. It is filled, floor to ceiling, wall to wall with tanks of liquid helium. Well, that explains the temperature. I shiver and rub my arms, looking around at the tanks. 

I begin to move through the area, looking down one narrow aisle of tanks then another. Another. And another, when he appears. Professor Pflanzer. He is grinning.

“Ah…. I expected more fire out of you. Where is that famous Irish blood?” he croons, steam pouring from his mouth. I am reminded of the vapor snakes and Ankur’s dummies.

“Kovalev…?” I toss back weakly.

“Not your father,” his eyes begin to glow white, “McClendon,” the tips of his fingers begin to glow, “Your mother.” He takes a deep breath and exhales in my direction. 

I think of the grade school lunches again. Unbelievable.

Pflanzer advances, swarmed in writhing fog tentacles. I back away slowly. There’s a valve just there. No – don’t look at it. Easy… easy… Don’t let on. Pretend to freeze. 

Pretend.

Pflanzer moves in… Now! 

I reach up and yank the valve. It sticks. Damnit, damnit! I lift myself off the ground hauling on the valve open for all I’m worth until I hear a satisfying spray. My hand aches suddenly. Burns, vanishes, aches… hurts. I am running. Pflanzer screams as the jet catches him and I get one good look at him before I take a header into another tank. His face reflects in the cloud of breath above him. I have time enough to think it very strange indeed that his reflection wasn’t inverted like it should have been before the darkness comes.

(helium.jpg)


*Day 3 – Laxmipujan*

I wake even more uncomfortable than before. My hand is... frozen. I’m not yet sure just what that means, but it won’t be good. I roll onto my side as a great explosion rocks the floor. Another not good thing. Staggering to my feet, I catch glimpse of the Professor’s body, or what’s left of it. It is broken in chunks across the floor. Gruesome. I am worried about my hand. Another explosion. I barely keep my feet. The tanks groan under the strain of the detonations.  I’ve got to get out of here. I run to the hatch and desperately feel all around it. Got to open from this side somehow. I hear the rolling of the wheel on the other side and spring out of the way just in time to miss the door. A cloud of bitter smoke, or gas – agh! my eyes! Backing away, choking and coughing. Just my luck. The thought is no sooner through my head when I see the gun barrel, helmet and face of a soldier steps through the hatch. His face is screwed up against the reek of the gas. Clearly, he’s able to withstand it, but that doesn’t make it smell any better. (mindifismoke.jpg) Convulsed with coughing I lean over, raw throated and red-eyed.

“Who…” is all I manage to rasp before I fall to the ground.

Before I can drop and pass clean out again the soldier catches my arm and leans in as another explosion hits, “This way,” he shouts into my ear. He is pointing, motioning his buddies through the hatch. I stop coughing long enough to unbend and cough in his face. He takes that as a sign that I’m okay and we’re off. He prods the fog-pouring chunks of Pflanzer. 

“Nasty business,” he shouts. 

I flinch, there wasn’t much noise to cover his shouting this time. We all make our way aft, through offices or lab space or something when I see familiar papers on work bench. I dig my heels into the deck and with my good hand and grab a fistful of papers. Exactly what I thought… my research. What in the world is it doing here?


*Day 4 - Bali Pratipada*

We hustle aft and I notice that the floor is starting to cant. Quite a bit. I take that to mean that the explosions did the trick. Trying vainly to see through teary eyes just what part of my research this is, I realize the soldiers are really starting to work to drag me along. I should carry myself. Risking cuts, I tuck the paper into my waistband and start pulling myself along the more and more treacherous floor. We reach the deck. Bitter wind sends spray arcing into the air and I am dazzled by sunlight and sea air. And cold. The ship stretches above and below us. The water is clear. The soldiers rally and split into two groups as two helicopters make an approach. They are hovering near. Searing pain as one of the soldiers grabs my hand. He realizes his mistake and throws me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Copious rope burn and bruisings later I am snugged into the back of the helicopter. I look down only once and see the horror of all that steel sinking beneath the waves. (upended.jpg) I hope no one is alive down there. No one alive to die that terrible death. 

When I realize that I am finally safe a wave of emotion sweeps me. I didn’t think there were tears left. I cry myself to sleep in the back of the helicopter. A phrase comes to me as we leave the sinking ship, something Ankur had said. 

“Let suffering go and let Bali’s kingdom come.”

And another.

“I’m hungry, I want a sandwich.”


*Day 5 – Bhaubij*

Ankur’s funeral is today, but I will not be there, I’m still in the hospital. My left hand is gone. And my dear friend.

Ankur tried to warn me about Pflanzer. About the experiments. Mixed in with the research I had taken from Pflanzer’s ship was the hardcopy of a private email from the head of company research and development to a Mr. P. – Pflanzer. It explained in no little detail solutions and suggestions for maintaining the vitality of a certain crop of monstrous peanuts he had fostered. Monstrous peanuts with shining white spats. Spats, tophats, canes and monocles. I tear into my PB & J and think dire thoughts. At least I finally got my sandwich.



On a beach not far from the last reported location of an unnamed, unknown ship, an oddly shaped figure in a decidedly strange wetsuit strolls into the water. (nut.jpg) He steps lively on skinny legs as the waters close over his head.


----------



## Sparky

Phew!


----------



## Piratecat

I can't believe you did that. Ha, that's beautiful!

Judges, have fun with these.


----------



## alsih2o

wow.


----------



## BSF

I am ... awestruck ... wow ...


----------



## Maldur

hahahahahahahaha


----------



## alsih2o

sparky vs. piratecat

 maldur-

 Strangely enough both stories were spooky and featured more than natural puppets, and oth used the smokytrail on the helium picture as a spell-like effect. Great stuff.

verdict:
Allthough I laughed load on the last few lines of Sparky's story. My  vote goes to Piratecat


 speaker- 

 I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that this was a tough decision in many 
respects.  Both of the authors displayed a strong response and association 
with the pictures, and constructed their tales closely and ably about them.  
Both have demonstrated apt use of the short story.

Sparky: Good reference to Diwali.  Feels very appropriate to me as a number 
of close friends are currently celebrating.  I also like your sentence 
structure - short, sharp and to the point.  A times a truly horrifying tale. 
  Your story really maked me think.

Piratecat:  Detective stories have always been a favourite staple of mine.  
They are fun to write, and easy to read.  The double cross at the end was 
very nicely handled.  D20 modern touches, of magic and possession, are 
always a good bet.

What a fix.

My vote goes to Piratecat.


 alsih2o-


 i was so disappointed when i thought the first round may give us our best match-up, but i am pleasantly surprised at being wrong.

 sparky- i tend to key in on creative use of pictures, and man-o-man did you hit that nail. mixing in cultural attributes that were foreign to me, freezing hands, and paper cuts! what hero worries about paper cuts? an interesting one. and i haven't even touched on the self referencing "nut." brilliant and spooky and unpredictable and interesting.

 piratecat- gumshoe sorcerer. very good. some great lines here and a great feel for mixing 2 genres. one criticism i have stated in previous judgements, i don't like it when someone uses one of the pictures as a picture in their story. all around a great tale though.


 vote- both are great tales, with pic as pic reference for p-kkitty and the freaky nut reference at the end of sparky i have to choose sparky.


 DECISION- 2-1 for piratecat.


 see you in the finals kids!



 i will ask for mythago vs piratecat check-in in the morning, weigh ins have been cancelled, but we will stil be checking for foriegn objects.


----------



## Piratecat

*woof* I can exhale. Sparky, your story was fantastic; the constant references to peanuts was subtle and consistent, slipping under my radar until the last. Nicely done, and thank you!

The final matchup is a little ironic; Mythago is the GM for Sialia, one of my former players who now lives in San Francisco.  We're tied together in a lot of ways.  Judges, you have to try and separate us!  Or maybe we can use custody of Sialia as the prize. Hmmmm....  

Clay, I am leaving Monday for Pittsburgh on business and will have no internet access until Wednesday night. If you post these Sunday night late or Monday morning early (which might be a problem for the west coast Mythago?), I can work on my entry while traveling and post when I get back. If not, though, I'm out of touch for a few days.


----------



## mythago

Wow, guys, amazing stories! And Sparky, you done hurt my haid.




			
				alsih2o said:
			
		

> but we will stil be checking for foriegn objects.




You SO do not want to go there.

Late Sunday/early Monday is fine by me. If Piratecat is offline I will have much opportunity to smack talk behind his back.


----------



## Piratecat

You'll need that smack talk to bolster your understandably feeble self-image!  I won't hold it against you. Meanwhile, I'll be walking up to strangers in Pittsburgh to diss you - but you know, it just won't be the same.


----------



## alsih2o

how about a now posting with a wed. midnight entry time?


----------



## Piratecat

Unless my plane is delayed, that's great! And even if it is, I'll call KidC and have her post here. I can't imagine that there'll be any problems.

Let's see the pictures!


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You'll need that smack talk to bolster your understandably feeble self-image!  I won't hold it against you. Meanwhile, I'll be walking up to strangers in Pittsburgh to diss you - but you know, it just won't be the same.




No, it won't be. But if it makes you feel better, I can sit around with Sialla (who is OURS now, OURS I tell you!); we'll sip our expensive California coffee drinks and every so often one of us will say "Piratecat...poor dear..." before we shake our heads pityingly. 
 

Bring on the pics!


----------



## alsih2o

piratecat vs. mythago

 final round, for all the marbles (disclaimer: no actual marbles included.)

 wednesday midnight...


----------



## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> We'll sip our expensive California coffee drinks and every so often one of us will say "Piratecat...poor dear..." before we shake our heads pityingly.




Explain to me how this is any different from what you do now.


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Explain to me how this is any different from what you do now.




There's usually less snickering.

Modern again, eh?


----------



## Gregor

Best of luck you two!  This is a Ceramic DM finale I dont want to miss.


----------



## Maldur

Good luck you all !!!


----------



## Sialia

Ooooh!  Oooh!!

Oooooohhh!



gloaty gloaty gloat gloat.

this is soooooo good.


wheeee!


----------



## Berandor

Good luck!

Funny, the finals of both Iron and Ceramic DM see a substitution player in the finals... so perhaps none of the originally entered contestant will win these tournaments.

Get to it, now!


----------



## alsih2o

Berandor said:
			
		

> Good luck!
> 
> Funny, the finals of both Iron and Ceramic DM see a substitution player in the finals... so perhaps none of the originally entered contestant will win these tournaments.
> 
> Get to it, now!




 our substitute player played all 3 rounds! this may be the first ceramic dm without a dropout during play


----------



## arwink

_Eats popcorn

Waits eagerly for the next rounds stories._


----------



## Sparky

Oh boy. Wow. What a round. Hats off P-kitty. Great work. I love a good detective story and yours certainly qualified. 

Thanks, for your thoughtful comments, judges. Alsih2o, reading through the previous Ceramic DM stories and judgements, I ran across your comments about pictures as pictures as pictures - it paid off! 

Good luck Mythago, you're gonna need it! Same to you, PC.

Can't wait to see what you two cook up.


----------



## Sialia

[size=-1]AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!  I have to know how this comes out. In case the board is down for a while, can we keep in touch about this competition in a yahoogroup?  [/size]

For your posting/discussing convenience, I've set one up below--hope alsi2o doesn't mind. If you don't want to use it, just let me know at mscurio@yahoo.com and I'll post a note there about where you do want to meet till the boards are back.
I'm only rushing ahead on this 'cause we have so little time before I won't be alble to reach all of you here . . .


[size=-1]The Group *ceramicGM* has been created. You can access your group using the link below or from the Yahoo! Groups "My Groups" page.[/size] 
[size=-1]Group name:[/size][size=-1]ceramicGM[/size][size=-1]Group home page:[/size][size=-1]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ceramicGM[/size][size=-1]Group email:[/size][size=-1]ceramicGM@yahoogroups.com[/size]


----------



## mythago

Thanks! I was figuring I'd e-mail my entry to alsih20, if he can post an addy. (Or send it to me at agent_faith2002@yahoo.com.) But I will also post it to the new group.


----------



## Sialia

OK, for those of you who don't want to officially join yahoogroups, but want to see the fun, I've made a log-in just for you.

Libertyinlaw is now a member of yahoogroups. The password is humantears

If you go to the above link and log in as libertyinlaw, you should be able to see everything posted.

If you are going to post anything while you are logged in as libertyinlaw, please be sure to tell us who you really are. Otherwise, it's going to get very confusing.

Any questions, email me at mscurio@yahoo.com

Thanks!


----------



## Macbeth

Thanks Sialia, but it looks like ENWorld may pull through. Here's to hoping we still see this site tomorrow.


----------



## alsih2o

i will be at sialas new site.

 big thanks to siala for being on top of this.


----------



## Macbeth

No need to worry, they just announced we already have enough donations to keep ENWorld running, not only for the next month, but for months to come. We needed $1600 for the debt, and we have, so far, $2624.26!, and thats not counting the donations made through PayPal. Things are going to be all right...


----------



## mythago

Over $8K and still rising!


----------



## BSF

Impressive isn't it?  

For all my lurking, I never read a Ceramic DM before.   Nor an Iron DM, but I started reading Ceramic before I checked out Iron.  I am hooked.  I must see the end...

PS - Thanks Sialia for setting up the Yahoo Group.  I am ashamed that I didn't think of it.  I was lamenting the possible loss of EN World too much.  I'm glad somebody had some presence of mind!


----------



## Maldur

Thanks all!!

(dang, I dont log into enwolrd for one day, and see what happens!!!)

Sialia, You'r the best! Not only having two people slugguing it out for your affection, but you also took it upon thee to secure the future of Ceramic 
( but we could have used Randomlings house


----------



## Sialia

I am so very very very happy happy happy that we don't need the yahoogroup after all!

I will go delete it. Joyfully.

It's like getting to watch somebody cast "Mass Heal" on a near TPK.

Actually, it was kinda like getting to _help_ cast Mass Heal on a near TPK.

The campaign lives on!


Now. About those stories . . .


----------



## (contact)

Ooooh . . . this oughta be bad.  In a good way.  

Like getting an overpriced California coffee drink for free because the guy in line in front of you just robbed the place.


----------



## mythago

Isn't "overpriced California" redundant?

Yeah, yeah, I'm writing.


----------



## alsih2o

it isn't that the writing hasn't been great.

 it isn't that the picture usage hasn't entertained me.

 but the biggest shock? all the she's involved. wow, i had no idea some of these people are hers.

 i like it


----------



## mythago

alsih2o said:
			
		

> wednesday midnight...




OK, I just looked at the clock and...do you mean one hour from right now, when Tuesday turns into Wednesday, or 25 hours from now?


----------



## mythago

*mythago v. piratecat*

Electric Eye

When the cops came to tell me about my parents being dead, I thought they were being hostile because they thought I killed my parents, or maybe they pulled my psych history and figured I would give them trouble. I didn't know till later that they were jealous. Even though I hadn't met Khadija yet, somehow they knew that she was going to fall in love with me and I would be her hero and rescue her from a life of slavery.  

	Oh, yeah, my parents. You probably heard about the accident because it was the one that started the whole mess for Daimler AI Industries. They built crappy driving AI and my parents didn't know how to drive manually, so they had no backup, and when the AI shorted out on them their car ran right into the back end of a diesel tanker. Big noises from the Attorney General about criminal charges for the CEO, lawyers buzzing around like flies, I got a settlement payout and Daimer AI went out of business. That's okay with me; I hated their AIs anyway.

	I had a day job doing maintenance at a Century City nightclub, keeping the AI for their HVAC system from going senile. Too many people in there and they'd be drowning in sweat. Strabinowsky was manager then and still let me work off the books, for cash. Not a whole lot of money, but a paycheck would have cut into my disability. Plus he bought my patches at cost, I guess because you can use the chemicals to make some kind of street drug. My parole was supposed to be checking to make sure I wore them, since I don't have an implant or a pump, but he was pretty overworked and I think he was just as happy to take my word for it. Even then I'd figured out the patches weren't medicine, just made me dumb and easy to herd, like a sheep. I only ever used them because it made my mom and dad, may they rest in peace, upset if I took the patches off.  

	God, that's the other thing about those stupid patches, they made me so placid that when I'm off I just talk and talk. I was telling you about Club Degas, and meeting Khadija. Yes, THAT Khadija. Now you get how important this is. 

	There was a cute little artist there, on a week-long gig, that I had kind of a thing for.  After I saw her the first night, I made sure the AI on the club's air conditioning got a little rambly and needed me to repair it. Anyway. This chick, Rosalina, was doing a number about bugs. Weird, huh? Something about female insects and hierarchy and slavery; she'd matrixed into the queen bee of a hive for a couple of weeks straight. So she was dressed up in some kind of bug outfit and stomping around the stage reading poetry. This kind of thing made Club Degas the super trendy LA hot spot, at least at that time, which would be why Khadija dropped by. 

	She comes in, surrounded by her keepers--excuse me, her manager and her bodyguards, who everybody thinks are there to protect HER but as I now know, are there to keep her from escaping. And they get her a table near the stage. She was laughing and smiling, and then Rosalina came on, which I completely ignored because when I turned to look at Khadija she _looked back at me_. I heard that humming sound, the kind I used to hear as a kid just before I got the voices, but it was Khadija. In my head. _Doug, I can't get away, you have to help me, I'm a prisoner and they're going to do terrible things to me, please please save me_, in the time it took her to blink and turn away, and nobody knew it but me and her. And I  knew that she was trapped. Prisoner of the managers and the money boys and probably the old mob, using her to make their crap movies and model their crap clothes. 

	But I could save her. Me. Not right then, because she had a lot of bodyguards, probably with RASERs and all kinds of nasty crap, to keep their property safe. Besides, the humming was getting kind of loud and I could feel a bad headache coming on. So I told Strabinowski I was sick, I had to go home for the rest of the night. He gave me a funny look, like I'd been too loud, which I probably was but you know, I couldn't hear myself over the damn humming.

	I walked some so I could buy some Johnny Walker Red on the way home--that always helps with the headaches--and I picked up a stack of magazines that had Khadija on the cover, for later.  I drank the JWR and cut pictures out of the magazines. I think I passed out after I got through five or six of them.

	In the morning I called the real estate agent. She'd been calling me every once in a while to sell my house. Well, my parents' house, which is mine now, but I really only live in the basement. All their stuff is still upstairs, just like it was when they died. She was kind of surprised to hear from me, but she was nice, which is good because I was kind of rude last time she called. Actually I was screaming at her to get out, all kinds of bad language. That was when I stopped using the patches at all and it took me a while to smooth out.

	See, I needed money for what I had to do, and the settlement from my parents' deaths was almost gone. There was no way I was going to get to walk up to Khadija and carry her off, like I was James Bond. Too many guards, too many ways to screw up. What I wanted to do was jack up my console, get a premium matrix feed and then ramp the AI. I'm really good with AI; that's what I got in Job Training for Rehabilitation and I just had a knack. They're really orderly and you can see all the paths, all the decision trees that you can code and shape like bonsai. I feel really calm when I'm working on AIs. Sometimes I even forget about the voices, you know?

	Yeah, yeah, Doug, shut up and get to the point. All right. So I found a studio apartment, a basement--I like basements--out on the east side, in a neighborhood where nobody spoke the same language as me and so they let me alone. I put bars over the windows and smartlocks on the bars, and I spent the rest of the house money on a sweet Samedi 705, best matrixing setup there is, and I spent a whole damn week making friends with the AI, showing it how some of the government restrictions on its range and target were really more like options, that kind of thing. I set up a debit account fed to it so that I just had to do a one-button, and whoever owned the animal or machine I matrixed was paid automatically. Plus, I put extra foam in the viewhelm so it wouldn't chafe my forehead like they usually do.

	Then I went to find Khadija. 

	With the modified Samedi  it wasn't hard. I knew from all the entertainment channels that she was doing some romantic comedy. I tightened up the straps on the helmet, took a hit of Dewars, and opened up the search channel. My vision and my head were full of static as the signal fanned out. Then the very helpful AI popped up a list of likelies for me: a couple of meter bots, the sprinkler system (very cool, but not especially useful), a camera array in the studio where Khadija was working today, and then somewhere down the list was a hawk. Man, I didn't think there were any of those around in the city. No rental information, so either it was black market or somebody's expensive pet got out; nobody puts matrix shunts in wild animals and lets them go. I dropped that one to HOLD and checked out the cameras to make sure they were a go.

	Everything lurched, like it always does when you matrix into something mechanical and your brain has to play catch-up. What I saw made me start growling, I was so mad. Some jerk was dressed in a suit and a top hat and he was acting like he was going to marry Khadija. I wished this camera were mobile so I could swing it out and crush his windpipe. But then I remembered this was a movie set and he was probably just an actor, and I felt stupid. I watched for a little while, and when there was a break in the shooting Khadija laughed and pretended to karate-kick the guy in the gut. That made me feel better but I wished she'd hit him a little harder.

	So, knowing she was there, I dropped out of the cameras and brought the hawk up to ACTIVE. That took a while for me to get used to, wheeling up through the air like that, seeing everything moving way down below me like I was looking through a super-sharp lens, like I was God. I realized I was sticking my arms out, like a little kid pretending to fly. It took me a while to get the hang of going where I wanted to go. Luckily it was a good shunt, so the hawk didn't fight me. I circled around for a while and watched Khadija from up above. Some of the film people noticed me and pointed me out, but of course they thought I was just some stupid bird. 

	I bet you're wondering why they couldn't tell somebody was matrixed into it, because the home unit is supposed to make the shunt pulse an identifier signal. I told you I was good with AI.

	I was having a great time up there, just feeling the air currents. Then I saw the flower girl. Or the kid who was pretending to be the flower girl, because when I looked at her my head buzzed. I knew, I just _knew_, that this kid was matrixed too, illegally because of course you can't matrix into a human, nobody does that, unless you didn't care about the law at all like the people who owned Khadija didn't care about the law at all. And she was walking right up to Khadija with some flowers in her hand. Probably a painshot under the flowers, just to keep her in line and let her know who was boss, and I didn't think, I just swooped down on the kid, screaming "Don't touch her, don't touch her", screeches coming out of the hawk's beak and me screaming in my chair at home, and the so-called kid dropped her flowers and ran, and Khadija was safe.

	I dropped all signals  and pulled off the helmet so I could run to the toilet and puke. I put my head on the cool tile floor until the buzzing went away. I'd saved Khadija, a little, but now they knew she had a protector, and that was going to make things harder. I was going to have to lay low, follow the news about Khadija in the regular stream quietly, wait for my chance to get her out completely. I curled up in bed and stared at the glossy pictures of Khadija I'd glued over every inch of the ceiling, all of them staring back with that fake, desperate smile, waiting for me to save her. I got myself to sleep by counting the eyeballs.

	It took me three months--three whole months of Khadija waiting for me with those sadistic users shuttling her around--to find a safe place to rescue her. She was down in Kenya to be used in another scene for their big blockbuster movie. That meant I had to get close enough to use the Samedi, which has great range but is not going to reach from LA to Nairobi, so I had to arrange to ship myself and all my equipment out to Africa. I was out of money by the time I got off the freighter, so believe me, I was motivated for this rescue. I was not going to fail or go back empty-handed.

	This time I'd managed to push up the AI's capacity even higher. The switching was faster and the hold times stretched out so I could keep two channels matrixed at once: as long as I switched back before the hold flatlined completely, I could juggle them back and forth. It woudn't be easy, but easy wasn't really the point, was it? And I had stocked up on a bunch of local grain alcohol, that always helps keep my head clear and keeps the buzzing down.

	I popped the scan open and the channels lit up like the Las Vegas strip at sundown. They were doing this shoot on a game preserve, so of course all the animals had shunts. Much easier to get them to show up for the tourists when you could drive them to you. I matrixed into a herd of zebras, flipping back and forth between the alpha male and one of the females, pushing them closer to the shoot. Really, I was doing this for practice, seeing if the rest of the herd would follow along, getting the timing right to grab a new channel while letting the old one fade. 

When I got the hang of it I let them go and picked up my next two: a male and female lion. See, lions get all the press but it's actually the females who do the hunting. These two were on a "stay away" loop to keep them from attacking the film crew, but that's a pretty no-brain AI. I overrode it and moved the lions out, shuttling between the channels now that I had the hang of it. The lioness would attack Khadija's bodyguards, hopefully kill a couple but definitely keep them busy. The lion would run up to Khadija and she would see my eyes through its eyes, and she'd know I was finally here to rescue her. She'd climb on the lion's back and I'd drop the lioness, let it kill people or get killed or whatever, run the lion back to me and we'd escape, together.

I was so excited that I wasn't monitoring the other channels--there were so many--and I had the lioness almost to the perimeter when the giraffe showed up. I don't know what brought it out; something in the shunt being attracted to my signal, that happens sometimes. It lumbered out of the mist and the trees. I watched it through the male lion, tried to switch back to the female, and found that the channel was gone. The lioness was stalking the giraffe. I flipped virtual jumpers on the AI and pulled up subroutines but it didn't work, the shunt was wrong or there was a flaw, or the animal's instincts were so high that it overrode the signal, and I was shaking, my head humming, *this was not supposed to happen*, and I panicked and forgot about the lion. Who left his mate to her kill and wandered straight into the middle of the shoot, where the onsite animal handler discovered that (thanks to me) his park AI wasn't working at all and the lions weren't under control, not in the least. There was screaming and that sound RASERs make that sets your teeth on edge, and a roar, and the lioness abandoned her kill to protect her mate, clawing and fighting at anything that got in her path.

Khadija got in her path.

I threw the working parts of the Samedi into my rucksack and ran. I hitched a ride on a livestock truck back to the coast. I had enough money to pay for a steamer ticket back to California, after the captain agreed I could work off the rest by keeping the engine's AI running on the trip. I couldn't go back to Club Degas or my apartment, but there are AIs everywhere and they all need replacing. I can save up again, make some money, put the Samedi back together (or replace it with the new 805, even), and then I can rescue Khadija. The streams say that they expect her to be walking again soon, and her body is handling the artifical kidney well.

I know. Hospitals have AIs all over the place. I watch her through their machines, and she sees me, and she's so happy she cries all the time. Khadija, hang in there. I'm coming.


----------



## alsih2o

well, i meant 25 hours from then, when p-kitty had a return date of wed night.

 sorry for the confusion. the misdirection there is a pet peeve of mine too.


----------



## mythago

I was finished anyway.


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> I was finished anyway.




 it reads like it.

 good job.


----------



## mythago

_puts feet up, acts totally nonchalant so will appear unhurried when Pkitty arrives_


----------



## Berandor

Well... let's just say PirateCat has found a worthy opponent 

Good job!

BErandor


----------



## Sparky

Fantastic mythago!


----------



## Sialia

kneels abjectly, worshipping the godess of . . .

what ARE you the goddess of anyway?

No, no . . . don't answer that. The mystery will suit me fine.

(goes back to averting her eyes and covering her head in her hands and shaking)



(See? i _can_ be taught.)


----------



## mythago

Sialia said:
			
		

> kneels abjectly, worshipping the godess of . . .
> 
> what ARE you the goddess of anyway?
> 
> No, no . . . don't answer that. The mystery will suit me fine.
> 
> (goes back to averting her eyes and covering her head in her hands and shaking)
> 
> (See? i _can_ be taught.)




You know, even if Piratecat comes in here and gives me a whuppin' like I never had, I think I just won!


----------



## barsoomcore

mythago said:
			
		

> You know, even if Piratecat comes in here and gives me a whuppin' like I never had, I think I just won!



 That wasn't you winning. That was P-Cat getting OWNED by his own player.



This has been a spectacular competition, folks. Great stories from everyone. I'm all agog to see what our feline buccaneer can pull out.


----------



## BSF

Absolutely wonderful!


----------



## mythago

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I'm all agog to see what our feline buccaneer can pull out.




Me too! I can hardly smack-talk him when he's offline.


----------



## barsoomcore

mythago said:
			
		

> Me too! I can hardly smack-talk him when he's offline.



 Hey, don't let that slow you down! A little smack-talk never goes to waste around here...


----------



## Macbeth

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Hey, don't let that slow you down! A little smack-talk never goes to waste around here...



Especially if it involves Shakespeare....

( I think i'll always have fond memories of our little Shakspearean trash-talking rampage. Good fun)


----------



## mythago

Hey, Sparky...where's the rest of that story?


----------



## Sparky

Which? The first to-be-continued one?


----------



## Sialia

Sparky said:
			
		

> Which? The first to-be-continued one?



I'd sure like to see the rest of that one, too!

I was sure you'd paste the 'Cat with that one if you'd gone on with it--if only he hadn't seduced you with his Jedi mind tricks during the smack. . .

but then, of course, you'd be sitting there biting your nails about now about whether your chapter 3 was up to Mythago's snuff . . . 

ah, that _would_ have been a fine, fine match up.

Really, there was no possible outcome for this event that wouldn't have had me all a-quiver.

Damn good writing, all.


----------



## Swack-Iron

mythago said:
			
		

> You know, even if Piratecat comes in here and gives me a whuppin' like I never had, I think I just won!




It's fun to watch sweet, innocent Sialia break tough-as-nails, seen-and-done-it-all Mythago every so often.   

Can't wait to see how this contest comes out!!!


----------



## mythago

Swack-Iron said:
			
		

> It's fun to watch sweet, innocent Sialia break tough-as-nails, seen-and-done-it-all Mythago every so often.




It seems only fair that it flow the other way once in a while.

C'MON, PIRATECAT!!!!!


----------



## Piratecat

*Ceramic DM Round 3: Mythago vs. Piratecat*


*Hunting Anna*

Three days ago, I got married. It was the same day my new wife Anna disappeared.

The ceremony had been perfect, an outdoor wedding on a beautiful spring day. I didn’t invite many friends, because most of my friends are doing five-to-twenty upstate, and they wouldn’t necessarily clean up well. The biggest frustration had been some absent relatives and a no-show by the flower girl, my wife’s three year old niece Melissa.  Just before the ceremony I finally tracked down my sister-in-law and asked where her daughter was. Anna’s sister just gave me a blank and confused look and slowly said that she was sorry. “Sick?” I asked, aggrieved at the unexpected change. She nodded slowly, and then shook her head in confusion or regret. _Probably catching,_ I thought to myself, so we scratched the flower girl from the ceremony and thought little more of it. I had other things on my mind.

I wish I had paid attention.

The change happened after dinner. Anna was standing behind me at the table, laughing, hands on her hip as she looked down at a card we’d just been given. And then something roared in my ears and things… were somehow different.

I looked up, head swimming. Anna still stood behind me, silent, an unmoving smile frozen on her face. I spoke to her and she didn’t answer. Jokingly, I waved my hand in front of her face. She didn’t blink. I grasped her wrist; the skin was still warm and pliable, but her muscles were as stiff as an iron rod. 

I jumped to my feet and stared into her face, but I was looking into the eyes of a beautiful mannequin. There was no life, no motion there at all. I checked, and she wasn’t breathing. I think that’s when I began to panic. I turned and yelled for help, shouting over the music for someone to call 911.

The band didn’t stop playing. There was a momentary lull in the chatter of the guests, and then people went right back to their conversations.

I tried again, shouting for help and calling for a doctor. Behind me, my new wife stood rigidly at attention. On the dance floor, couples paused for a beat and then continued with the dance. Nothing.

I grabbed a waiter by the arm. “You!” I screamed in his face, spittle spraying from my mouth. “The bride is sick! Get a doctor!”

He looked baffled as he tried to balance his dish tray. It tipped and crashed at my feet, but I didn’t even notice. The man looked at me, angry and trying not to show it. “Who, sir?”

I blinked. “Anna! My wife, the bride!”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know who that is.”

I gestured with a sweeping arm towards Anna’s unyielding body, now knocked partially over and leaning at an angle against the wall. “The BRIDE!” I watched his eyes unfocus slightly. The man smiled politely, nodded, and went back on his way towards the kitchen. When he reemerged, it was to pick up the fallen dishes. 

I think that’s when I started to cry.

*  *  *

Twelve minutes later, I had Anna by one leg and was hauling her out to the car. No one at the reception could comprehend who she was. They knew that they were at a wedding, they knew I was the one getting married when I was right in front of them, but none of them could even recognize the _concept_ of Anna. Even when I dragged her out across the middle of the dance floor, our families and friends just waltzed around us. I stole someone’s cell phone and tried 911, too; the operator kept hanging up on me in mid-sentence.  Bastard.

As I pulled my bride’s stiffened body past the flowering bushes and down the outside stairs, I considered the possibility that I was dreaming. It didn’t feel like it, though; I was wracking my brains for what I should do. The hospital, maybe? A crazed little laugh trickled from between my lips. We had no car, since we both came in limos, so I popped the lock on someone’s Mitsubishi and tossed my top hat onto the front seat before hotwiring the ignition. Then I hefted the stiff body into the back of the car.  Panting, I paused for a breath of air as I flicked away some of the insects buzzing around my head.

“Excuse me. Sir?”

I spun, wild eyed. “You!” My pointing finger fixed on the young boy soliciting donations for his local softball team. I must have startled him. “You see her, don’t you?”

He backed away, terrified. “No. Who?” 

I choked back a sob and turned to show him Anna, to make him SEE her, but I was utterly alone in the parking lot. The bugs had gone, the boy was fleeing, and Anna’s body had completely disappeared.

*  *  *

I eventually learned that I had to be careful when asking around for help. One mention of Anna’s name, and the person I was talking to completely lost focus. Even worse, Anna wasn’t the only one missing. My mother, my uncle… when I started to make calls, no one I spoke to could even remember them. Acting on a hunch, I called Anna’s sister and asked her again about my no-show flower girl. “I don’t have any children, you know that,” she told me. “Melissa’s a pretty name, though.”

Uh huh.

Finally I got a lead when my elderly grandmother recommended an agency at the corner of Topher and Haynes. “He’ll be able to help you, Daniel,” she said as she absentmindedly rolled her glass eyeball around inside her eye socket with one arthritic finger. “He’s very good. Helped us once, when your grandfather made a bad enemy out in India. Whatever you need, he’s your man. Tell him Sadie says hi.” _Roll, roll._ Now empty white looked out at me from her left eye.

“Thanks, Grandma. I wish you wouldn’t do that thing with your eye, though.”

She smiled bitterly and tapped one fingernail on the eyeball as a nurse came into the room with a plateful of strained squash. “An old lady has to have her fun. Now then, sweetie, when are you going to meet a nice girl and get married?”

*  *  *

A tall and gorgeous blond with a furious expression on her face stalked past me as I made my way into the seedy building. I got out of her way, but I absentmindedly dipped her wallet out of her open purse as she passed.  Force of habit.  Then I paused outside the office door, because particles of glass were crunching under my feet. Someone had smashed the glass window on the door. I could just make out the lettering of “…ington …igations” in the shattered pieces of glass littering the tiled hallway. I was in the right place.

“Come on in,” chortled a dirty little voice from inside the office. He sounded amused. I looked through the hole in the glass and I saw a squat man on the far side of a dark and dingy office. A ceiling fan slowly pushed rancid cigar smoke through the air, and the man had his scuffed shoes up on the desk. The room smelled like old shoes, and had nothing of obvious value in it. This was Louis Covington, of Covington Investigations. I glanced over to see the degenerate little troll toasting the air with a near-empty bottle of cheap bourbon. Cautiously, I made my way through the door.

“What happened here?” I asked, gesturing at what was left of the door. Covington smirked like an oversized rodent who had just scared away a cat. 

“Disgruntled ex-client in what’s turned into a divorce case. Wanted a refund, and didn’t take ‘no’ very gracefully.” He eyed me suspiciously. “You don’t want a refund, though.”

“No. My name is Daniel Strom.  My wife is missing.”

“Who are you?”

“I just told you.”

His eyes bored into me like icepicks. “No, who _are_ you?”

I understood. “I’m an airline transportation consultant.” He kept looking at me, and the silence stretched out. I sighed and put my head in my hands. “No I’m not. I’m a thief. Did that blond pay you?” I tossed her wallet onto his desk. He gave me a dirty look, but I noticed that he kept the wallet.  “I’m mostly an _ex-_thief now, actually,” I corrected myself. “I quit when I got married.”

He laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “Sure you did. Don’t matter to me.”  His cigar stabbed towards me to punctuate his sentence. “Why come to me, then? Lots of folks do missing persons, and they charge less.”

I shook my head. “Not missing. _Missing._” Understanding dawned in the man’s dark and beady eyes. He let out a breath of foul-smelling air.

“Total loss of memory? Cogency fade? Disassociative behavior?” Dumbfounded, I nodded and started to speak. He cut me off.  “Shut up, punk. Wait.”  Taking another swig of bourbon, he began to chant, a wailing and discordant verse that sent shivers up and down my spine. When he finished a moment later, it was noticeably darker in the already dim office. “Okay, I’m shielded. Spill it.”

I did. When I had finished, he was looking at me speculatively. His voice was raw. “Interesting combination of a Siberian isolation curse and an African paralyzation spell. Someone has some imagination, and they want your bird to literally disappear without a trace. I don’t know how they transported her, though.” He clucked his tongue at me. “I’d say that someone doesn’t like her, but she’s not the target. You are.”

I was still trying to come to terms with the word ‘curse.’ “What?”

 “Don’t be stupid. Whoever this is, he likely has a grudge against you or your family, and he’s grabbing family members to make his point. You go home. I’ll do some digging and see what I can come up with.” His eyes narrowed with greed. “Assuming you can afford my fee? I’m not cheap.”

I figured that if he got me Anna back, he’d be worth everything I had in the world. I kept enough of my faculties not to tell him that. Instead I just pointed towards where he hid the stolen wallet.  “Oh, and you’ve met my grandmother before. Sadie says hi.”

He looked up, eyes seeing something that had happened a long time ago, and his leering smile turned my stomach. “I’ll bet she does.”

*  *  *

The phone call came at 2 in the morning. Rubbing grit from my eyes, I heard Covington’s voice grate in my ear. “Meet me outside of 381 Monroe, half an hour. Don’t be late.” He hung up before I could say anything, and I rolled out of bed with a sudden flare of hope.

27 minutes later, we were standing in a light rain underneath a burnt out street light. Covington was speaking. “We’re dealing here with someone who has a hell of a lot more prestige and power than I do. This building belongs to Nikolai Belandros.” 

At first the name meant nothing. “Who?”

“World-wide explorer. Big game hunter. Owns diamond mines in Africa. He’s 80 but supposedly looks 50, and he owns this entire skyscraper.” Covington ground out his cigar and pulled his dark trench coat around him. “Why does he hate you?”

“I have no idea.” But I did. For a while I supported myself by stealing luggage from the airport and pawning the valuables.  One of the bags I grabbed from an international terminal had belonged to this guy. It was filled with all sorts of wooden and cloth knickknacks, some of which I pawned, and the rest of which I had used to feed my fireplace during that long, cold winter. He must have tracked me down somehow. Covington looked at me, and I found myself confessing to him.  “But it was just luggage, right?” I concluded worriedly. “Just crappy little knickknacks that no one would even pay for.”

The silence stretched out, and I realized that I may have inadvertently killed the woman I love.

Covington looked at a pocket watch and abruptly turned on his heel to walk away. “We’re going. Stay close to me, keep your mouth shut, and don’t stop to ask questions.” I struggled to keep up, half-running down the sidewalk to catch up to him. Belandros Towers loomed over us like a mountain of glass, a pillar of clouds.  Behind us, the burned out street light weakly flickered back to life.

“What are you planning on doing? We not just going to stroll on in there. I cased this place after I stole the guy’s bag. Security is insane.”  I tried to catch his eye, but Covington was looking someplace that I couldn’t see. Sweat dripped freely down the detective’s face, and I had no idea why. We approached the locked and heavily guarded front doors.

His voice rasped. “It’s all timing.”

When we were ten feet away, the door lock clicked off and someone swung the door open. “Night, Jerry!” called one of the security guards over his shoulder as he strolled out into the early morning air. “Thanks again for covering. I’ll make the time up.” Someone inside swore good-naturedly in a strong southern accent, and the departing guard turned right without glancing in our direction.  Covington caught the edge of the closing door with one hand, swung it back open, and never even slowed as he sauntered into the building.  I followed.

The metal detector had been turned off when the building closed, and we walked right past it. Over the muzak I heard a toilet flush from somewhere. Only one guard was in sight, but he was bent over and fishing under his desk for a dropped pencil. I held my breath.  He started to stand up as we passed, bumped his head on the bottom of the desk, and stayed under the desk rubbing his head.  He stood up at about the same time his partner came out of the men’s room, but by then we were around the corner and out of sight. Ahead of us down the hall, an empty elevator opened its inviting doors without anyone pushing a button. 

We strolled into the car, and with a thrill of horror I heard the door open on an elevator right next to us. A guard walked out just as our own doors silently slid shut, and we were quickly ascending.

Covington wiped sweat from his brow. “The security cameras?” I asked him.

“The man watching them got a phone call.”

“The electronic alarms?”

“Being serviced today.”

“How did you just do that? Did you pay someone off?  Crap, if I could do that I’d be the richest man in the city!” For a second I almost forgot Anna, and then I remembered why I was there.  She was my one chance to go straight, and I loved her for it.

Covington looked at me with shadowed, beady eyes as he slumped against the elevator wall and shrugged lopsidedly as he tried to catch his breath.  “It’s just good timing.”

Then we reached the fifteenth floor, as far as this elevator would go. The doors slid open, and in front of me was a giraffe.  At first I thought I was seeing things. An actual giraffe! It looked at us through the dimness before it dipped its neck gracefully and wandered away through a small forest. I blinked, but Covington just grunted. “I’d heard rumors that Belandros had imported animals to make his own zoo. Supposedly he trains ‘em to be vicious, and then hunts ‘em.  I just didn’t expect it to be in the skyscraper. Look out for lions.” The giraffe rustled the foliage as it moved away, and I jumped. My fear didn’t stop me from looking around for something to steal while I was there.

We moved through the building, taking the wide ramps from floor to floor. We met no one.  The furnishings here were worth millions, and I had to restrain myself. On almost every floor we found a different selection of animals; huge white tigers, rhinoceros, elephants, even a sandy-floored aviary full of raptors. Opposite the door to the stairs on every floor was the mounted head of some huge game animal, such as crocodiles or hippos or elk.  And on the top floor, the decapitated head of my own goggle-eyed mother.

It stopped me in my tracks.

“Like it?” A croaking voice wheezed from down the hall. I looked, and saw an incredibly ancient man in a mechanized wheelchair. He may have had tubes sticking in his arms, but he also had a huge elephant gun resting in his lap and pointing right towards us. A bizarre Asian woman with tall blue hair stood beside him. She looked like some horrible cross between a beetle and a girl, and she stood with one hand protectively resting on the ancient man’s shoulder. “I made it especially for you, Mister Strom. But there will be many, many more.” He leaned towards me, and a trail of spittle dribbled from his toothless mouth. “You owe me.”

I started towards him, the bug woman moved faster, and everything went dark. 

*  *  *

Someone was slapping me. I opened my eyes; it was the strange bug woman. When she realized I was awake she turned and _changed_, becoming a large beetle that buzzed over towards the ancient Belandros before becoming a person once again. He no longer carried the elephant gun, but he didn’t need it.

Covington leaned over to help me up. My throat screamed with pain where the woman had been holding me. “She’s a yokai, boy. A Japanese bug demon. At least now we know how he moved your wife.” He looked pale under the layer of perspiration and grime.  “Best stall for time. I’m working on something.”

Belandros cackled and pointed towards a thick glass window opening into the aviary. Thirty feet below us on the other side of the glass, I watched Anna’s three year old niece Melissa toddle across the sand in her diapers. Seconds later, I watched a trained raptor swoop in for the kill. There was nothing I could do. At first I could even hear her scream through the glass. My heart broke, and I turned towards Belandros as he spoke.

“You stole my luggage, boy. You stole the talisman that had been keeping me alive, that had been keeping me from aging for thirty eight years. And you _threw it in the fire!_” His thin voice rose to a scream, and he began to cough uncontrollably. “I aged thirty eight years in one day. So now I’m taking from you everything you’ve ever loved. Taking it all, one piece at a time. I think we’ll start with one of your eyes, move on to your uncle and some crocodiles, and then,” his eyes glittered. “Your wife. I have a white tiger specially picked out for the dear. I think I’ll let her free in their enclosure and let them hunt her, while you watch. Well… partially watch. You could run to her, but I’ll have cut your hamstrings by then.” 

He gestured with one palsied hand and the yokai was next to me once more. A pale claw-like hand wrapped around my throat as she lifted me from the ground, squeezing. Her blue hair twitched as if it were antennae, and her compound eyes shone with bloodlust underneath blue skin. Her right claw came up to my face, one long nail slowly pointing towards my eyeball.

“Slowly,” giggled Belandros in senile glee.

“Put him down,” growled Covington. “He’s paying my bill.”

Belandros squinted. “What are you going to do about it, wizard?  I know charms and spells from a dozen dark cultures. You are no match for me. There is nothing you can conjure that I can not stop.”

Covington scowled. “Really? Let’s see if you can counterspell this.”  From under his jacket he pulled out an ancient revolver and pressed it to the demon’s skull. Her claw was just caressing the tip of my eye when he fired twice. She jerked hideously, the slugs spraying ichor across me as they shattered her exoskeleton. She fell, chittering. 

Covington stalked towards the shocked old man, gesturing with the smoking gun instead of with his cigar. “Belandros, you’ve tried my patience. You do know more art than I do, no question about it. The problem is,” he tapped one finger on his unshaven chin thoughtfully, “when you’re old and half-senile you just can’t remember how to use any of it.” Their eyes met, and fear suddenly blossomed like a hothouse flower. 

Covington’s voice was almost a hiss.  “I’ve been thinking about it, Belandros. My client here may be a light-fingered punk, but he didn’t steal anything from you that you hadn’t already stolen from someone – or somewhere – else. You, however, have killed at least two members of his family. I’ve just killed your demon, so that leaves just one crime unanswered. We need to balance the scales. You of all people should know that.”

Belandros began backing his wheelchair away up the ramp. Coincidentally, the battery on his chair died suddenly and it sputtered to a halt. The old man flicked the small switch impotently, and Covington continued.  “I shouldn’t be the one to settle the score, though. These animals are innocents in this, and you’ve stripped them from _their_ homes and flown them here to be your amusement and your prey.  I think, Nikolai,” and Covington smiled coldly as his voice turned hard, “that they might like some revenge.”

He said it, and just like that we all knew it to be true. We suddenly heard elephants trumpeting on the floor above us as they battered down the walls of their enclosure. We knew that it was happening on every single floor, and we knew it was just a matter of time.

“Feel free to run, Nikolai.” The wheelchair finally restarted, and the feeble old hunter whirred down the hall away from us as fast as he could.  Above us, the ramps began to groan with weight.  “It’s only a matter of time.”

*  *  *

We leaned on the railing of an overpass and watching the spectacle below. Belandros had managed to get out of the building and get a decent head start, but the animals could somehow sense him. The faster moving beasts had chased the old man through the streets of the city and out into snarled early morning traffic. Just now, they were stampeding after him into an underpass beneath the city.  He shouldn’t have kept cheetahs. Beneath us, a petroleum truck that hadn’t heard the news headed over the hill and down into the already crowded underpass.

“It’s a tough break, kid. His death might not save her. You know that, don’t you?” 

Anna’s body was safe. So was my uncle’s, and so was several hundred thousand dollars worth of art from Belandros’ home. But they may never wake up, I was responsible for the death of my mom, and I’d have to somehow tell Anna’s sister what had happened. Maybe it would be best if no one _did_ ever remember those people. No one but me. I was praying the paralysis would fade once the old man was dead. I was praying that I could forgive myself. 

“I know.” We were silent for a moment, even as a terrible screeching and a crunch came from the tunnel. “So where did you get the gun, Mr. Covington?”

He smiled a wintery smile and lit a cigar. “I never travel without it. People just forget to check.  Lucky, I guess. But you know what isn’t lucky?”

“Besides me? No, what?”

Louie settled back to look down into the tunnel, just as a tremendous fireball burst upwards. The hot breeze blew back our hair and seared our eyeballs. The tanker had blown.

“Being trapped between a jackknifed tanker truck and an angry hippo when the truck explodes.”  We pondered that for a few minutes as the fire burned. The smell of cooking meat was carried on the blazing wind. If there was some kind of moral in it, I couldn’t find it. Maybe I had my revenge. I just hoped I had my wife, too.

“Oh, and kid?  Call me Louie. Don’t stiff me on the rest of my bill. And give me back my watch.”

I did, and shrugged. Then I turned away to hunt down Anna, and to find out whether or not death had restored life. 

I could feel Louie’s eyes on my back as I walked away. I didn’t turn around.

 -- x --


----------



## Piratecat

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I'm all agog to see what our feline buccaneer can pull out.




I'm pulling something out RIGHT NOW, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.  

Pant, pant. Done.


----------



## mythago

w00t!


----------



## Piratecat

"Honey? The bad news is, I got your niece eaten by a hawk. The good news is, you won't have to deal with a mother-in-law.

"Honey?"

Mythago, your story is fantastic. I'm humbled.


----------



## Bandeeto

[sialia]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee!!!!


I'm a happy happy person, a happy happy person I'm a happy person

'cause I don't have to judge!!


(boy, howdy, am I glad I don't have to judge these.)

But Piratecat, I admit, when I saw the bug corset photo, I was really hoping for some Boston Beacons action.

But your actual version is so good, I think I'll contain my disappointment.


Congrats to both of you on a gorgeous final round!  [/sialia]


----------



## mythago

"Dammit, I lose more nieces that way..."

I have some happy things to say about your story but I'm a gonna wait for the judges first.


----------



## Maldur

eeeek!

*brain oozing out of my ears!*

Im a bit busy but it will come


----------



## alsih2o

this may be the best ceramic dm ever.....

 i have to go to the doc, then build a bunch of fence for the horse who arrives this afternoon. we will probably have a judgement up this evening.

 wow....


----------



## Sparky

Holy smokes. Very glad not to be a judge.

mythago and Sialia... I just couldn't resist Piratecat's bait...er, challenge. I tried to marry the two stories together, but couldn't do both and in the end the Planter's escapee was just too attractive.

Can't wait to see the outcome.


----------



## mythago

Sparky said:
			
		

> Which? The first to-be-continued one?




That one. I mean, we've got all this time to kill while the judges are hard at work.

It beats waiting to see what happens next with alsih2o's gnome...

p.s.: Yes, Piratecat, you were the inspiration for the .sig change. (They don't call them .sigs anymore, though, do they...)


----------



## Piratecat

Sure they do! Or at least I do.

Your .sig is great. It reminds me of a good friend of Sialia's and mine - a guy who when he talks to you, makes you feel like you're the most interesting thing he's ever run into. Ask her about him some time.

You know what I think? I think the 4 second-round competitors should provide a photo each, and when the judging is done we should make all three judges provide us with a story, too.  

Sparky, may I please offer another vote for you to continue your previous story? It needs finishing, and I want to know what happens!


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Your .sig is great. It reminds me of a good friend of Sialia's and mine - a guy who when he talks to you, makes you feel like you're the most interesting thing he's ever run into. Ask her about him some time.



Sure, if I can get her to stop gibbering and clawing out her own eyes for a minute...

I'm all over that make-the-judges-sweat idea.


----------



## Sialia

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Sparky, may I please offer another vote for you to continue your previous story? It needs finishing, and I want to know what happens!



I'd sure be in favor of seeing what Sparky would have done with the final round photos . . . Although I'd settle for seeing the rest of her novella without it being photo driven. 

I was pretty sure I was reading one of those teaser chapters for a much longer work when I read her round 1 submission . . . and if I'd gotten that far, I'd have surely walked out of the bookstore with the rest of the novel in hand.

Which brings up an interesting point: I'd like to see Piratecat and Mytahgo each give the stories one more polish and then submit 'em off for a publication somewhere and see what happens. (They'd only need the polish 'cause the publisher wouldn't be grading on "use of required elements") If you didn't have to use _these_ illustrations, would the story still stand?

I think they're both prety fine.

Maybe one of our goodies for the next annual fund raiser would be a pdf version of all the top Ceramic GM stories.

Just a thought.


----------



## alsih2o

i wanna see finished story, i like a pdf, and if the past contestants wanna test my abilities i will come with all i got.

 nyah!


----------



## Macbeth

I like the idea of seeing a finished story

I like the PDF idea. I'd even be willing to contriubute. I'm not sure if you just want finalists or what...

I REALLY like the idea of seeing what the judges got. I'm sure I can find some great pictures...


----------



## mythago

I have a large collection of random pictures taken by my four-year-old. I'm sure I can find one that would make a nice Ceramic DM element....


----------



## Maldur

Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!


----------



## barsoomcore

Wow, what a round! Glad I'm not a judge.

Piratecat, put that away. No, I mean it. That's just WRONG.


----------



## Sialia

alsih2o said:
			
		

> i wanna see finished story, i like a pdf, and if the past contestants wanna test my abilities i will come with all i got.
> 
> nyah!




I have another idea.
Let's do another round at the end of December. 
I'll meet you in round 1.
But we'd need another master of ceremonies . . . 
unless you want to let me post 1/2 the photos for our round and you post 1/2 . . 
and of course, we'd need judges . . .
either way . . .


----------



## mythago

Sialla v. alsih2o?

YAS!


----------



## Macbeth

Sialia said:
			
		

> I have another idea.
> Let's do another round at the end of December.
> I'll meet you in round 1.
> But we'd need another master of ceremonies . . .
> unless you want to let me post 1/2 the photos for our round and you post 1/2 . .
> and of course, we'd need judges . . .
> either way . . .



I would love to see this. If you need judges, i could help, though Maldur might be a good choice...


----------



## mythago

And besides, *hint* we need to finish this one first *hint*...


----------



## BSF

Woo!  Alsih20 & Sialia.  

If nobody else is willing, I would volunteer to judge.  Or even help contribute pictures.  

Though, I suspect there are plenty of people here that would be happy to judge.  

If it was just a showdown, we could put it up as a poll and let everyone vote?  

For the tourneys though, I definitely think it is a good idea to keep a small, consistent judge pool.


----------



## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Woo!  Alsih20 & Sialia.
> 
> If nobody else is willing, I would volunteer to judge.  Or even help contribute pictures.
> 
> Though, I suspect there are plenty of people here that would be happy to judge.
> 
> If it was just a showdown, we could put it up as a poll and let everyone vote?
> 
> For the tourneys though, I definitely think it is a good idea to keep a small, consistent judge pool.



Maybe it should be a tournament. i would like to see how alsih2o could do against when he competes, instead of judgeing. Either way, if its just a showdown it look like you've got bardStephenfox and myself offering to help out judgeing/choosing pictures.


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Maybe it should be a tournament. i would like to see how alsih2o could do against when he competes, instead of judgeing. Either way, if its just a showdown it look like you've got bardStephenfox and myself offering to help out judgeing/choosing pictures.




*laugh*

Yay! Go New Mexico.


----------



## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> And besides, *hint* we need to finish this one first *hint*...




Yes. Yes, we do.


----------



## Sparky

I might just take a crack at finishing my 1st round story. Oh! Without working the peanut angle! hmmm... well, we'll just have to see...

Sialia vs Alsih2o

Such assonance.


Also, it's OT, but I've enjoyed this tournament so much, I wouldn't mind getting involved in more EN World stuff - to that end, is anyone here (besides Macbeth) an active player in LEW? One of the concepts I had was to be an existing player's kid brother/sister/apprentice/side kick - I think it could be fun. Takers?


----------



## alsih2o

just waiting on the last judgement to roll in.

 if we do this with me as a competitor i would prefer that we maintain the tradition of judgeships being accupied by previous winners, but i am not hard-core in that belief, it is just a small preference...


----------



## Piratecat

I was just saying that it would be fun to see you three do an entry. No worries if anyone would rather not.


----------



## BSF

alsih2o said:
			
		

> just waiting on the last judgement to roll in.
> 
> if we do this with me as a competitor i would prefer that we maintain the tradition of judgeships being accupied by previous winners, but i am not hard-core in that belief, it is just a small preference...




That's fine by me, no hurt feelings on my part.    I don't imagine it is an easy thing to judge since there is the potential for hard feelings.  As well, there are issues of credibility and such.  I just don't want to see the potential contest to go away because of no judging.


----------



## alsih2o

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> That's fine by me, no hurt feelings on my part.    I don't imagine it is an easy thing to judge since there is the potential for hard feelings.  As well, there are issues of credibility and such.  I just don't want to see the potential contest to go away because of no judging.




 i think i stated my case poorly, or was misunderstood. if folka wanna do pics for me, maldur and speaker i am happy to play and invite anyoen to be a judge. i hvae been making stuff for years, i am beyond having my feelings hurt by such and i think it would be fun.

 i meant if siala and i took each other on in some future winter ceramic dm i would appreciate some input from previous winners as judges or pic creators rather than a whole new crew at once.

 sorry if i was too brief or vague.


----------



## Macbeth

Sparky said:
			
		

> I might just take a crack at finishing my 1st round story. Oh! Without working the peanut angle! hmmm... well, we'll just have to see...
> 
> Sialia vs Alsih2o
> 
> Such assonance.
> 
> 
> Also, it's OT, but I've enjoyed this tournament so much, I wouldn't mind getting involved in more EN World stuff - to that end, is anyone here (besides Macbeth) an active player in LEW? One of the concepts I had was to be an existing player's kid brother/sister/apprentice/side kick - I think it could be fun. Takers?



I don't believe anybody who posted here recently is active (but they SHOULD be, hint hint), but i'll have to look back at the earlier posts to be sure.


----------



## Speaker

I would not mind stepping up to try my hand at writing for the Ceramic DM once more.

But first we see who wins this last round.  I'm looking forward to seeing these entries!


----------



## mythago

um...do you mean the final round's entries?


----------



## Speaker

Thas'  right.

Busy writing up for my halloween one-shot, so please forgive any mistakes I may exhibit.  Doing all 8 characters sheets single handedly, one after the other..  my brain hurts.


----------



## Piratecat

Looks like Alsih2o isn't currently getting his email - so we may have to wait for a judgment. Yikes!


----------



## Maldur

I think Clay had to do some physical labour, instead of just playing with mud, so he might be sore or tired or something 


(just kidding, he is infinitly more in shape than I am, unless its a round shape)


----------



## BSF

alsih2o said:
			
		

> i think i stated my case poorly, or was misunderstood. if folka wanna do pics for me, maldur and speaker i am happy to play and invite anyoen to be a judge. i hvae been making stuff for years, i am beyond having my feelings hurt by such and i think it would be fun.
> 
> i meant if siala and i took each other on in some future winter ceramic dm i would appreciate some input from previous winners as judges or pic creators rather than a whole new crew at once.
> 
> sorry if i was too brief or vague.




No sir!  I think I am the one being vague.  I was at work at the time and was posting quickly.  (Admittedly, I just got off work after a 14 hour day, so I am probably babbling here too.)

First off, this is the first Ceramic DM I have read. As a result, I am not very familiar with judging, how judges are chosen, how pictures are chosen etc.  With ignorance of any other protocol, I wanted to volunteer just to avoid having nobody else volunteer.

Secondly, I was trying to make a general statement that finding people that are willing to judge may not always be easy.  After all, what if you, as a jugde, don't like something a competitor has written and they think you are personally attacking them?  There are a whole slew of potential problems that make volunteering to "pass judgement" somewhat risky  My statement was intended as a general reflection that finding judges might be difficult sometimes.  

Now, I think most people willing to participate in a Ceramic (or Iron) DM tourney would be mature enough to handle it.  So it shouldn't be a problem.  If there were a lack of judges ... I would step forward and give it my best shot.  However, if there are plenty of judges, I would defer to them on the grounds that I am not familiar enough with the way they are run to be qualified.


----------



## Berandor

Whoo! Great, great entries!
If that ain't a worthy finale, I don't know what is 

Well, I'd be willing to judge, should you need someone. I'm used to people hating me 
But otoh, I'd consider entering a tourney, as well - if it's not at the same time as Iron DM. If it is, and I'd have to choose, I'd... probably run around screaming, helplessly waving my arms around. 

Berandor
anxious to congratulate to winner and belittle the loser


----------



## alsih2o

mythago vs. piratecat, the final!

 maldur- 

 Gods this is hard!

Cyberpunk in the style of ZEN, or modern day magic.
Hacker or Wizard.
Showdown in Africa or an erzats-Africa in a skyscraper
A tragic, open end or a tragic, open end
A Great story, or a GREAT story

In the end my vote goes to mythago


 speaker- 

Piratecat:  The loss of a loved one, the entrance of a man into a world he 
could never have known existed - chilling.  Your protagonist makes for a 
well-rounded character, with his compulsive thievery and his reactions to 
that which he encounters.  Your conclusion is well crafted, and your use of 
dialogue throughout the tale well crafted.

Mythago:  When I finished this short story, I kept dreaming, of the world 
you developed and the people you populated it with.  While I have a 
love-hate relationship with the first person perspective you used, in this 
case it just felt right.  I saw what your character saw, I knew him, or 
thought I did.  As the tale twisted through to its beautifully tangled 
conclusion, I was thoroughly immersed.  This is what the Ceramic DM is all 
about.

For this, the final round of Ceramic DM, I vote for Mythago.



 alsih2o-

 piratecat: i was bowled over by your use of the bride pic. the bug demon was a cool idea, and the little girl and the hawk was as funny as all get out. twisted and entertaining. your characters always resonate for me, these are no exception.

 mythago: performance art, wacky nutjobs, both stories had a flower girl, whoda thunk? the ai and the actress, good stuff.


 p-kitty had some wicked picture use and wrote well, but i have to go with mythago so people will remmeber i was there at the beginning when the movie comes out.


 MYTHAGO is the new ceramic dm by unanimous vote!






 final judges comments:
 maldur- For the future, I am hoping for more Ceramic DM's that are this hard to 
judge!
Great storytelling folks, Sialia is a very lucky person to game with these 
great storytellers!

 speaker- Well done, to every contestant, to my fellow judges.  What a series of 
excellent match ups.  I have enjoyed myself, and enjoyed the calibre of 
writing we have seen here.  Thank you.

 alsih2o- ceramic dm is always fun, but this one had a specail kind of magic. high quality writing and great contestants amke this so much fun. thanks to everyone who comes in just for the reading too, the buck stops with the readers afterall.


----------



## Mirth

Congrats mythago! Here's the key to the porcelain potty room 

Hey Clay, when we get to 8 Ceramic DMs I suggest we make an all DM superfinal. How many do we have now? 4 or 5? 

Well done competition all around this time. I wish I had time to participate...

Jay


----------



## alsih2o

Mirth said:
			
		

> Congrats mythago! Here's the key to the porcelain potty room
> 
> Hey Clay, when we get to 8 Ceramic DMs I suggest we make an all DM superfinal. How many do we have now? 4 or 5?




 oooh! sounds fun! except some moron screwed up the math by winning the first 2


----------



## Piratecat

I expected that; Mythago's story was a lot more ambitious than mine, I think, which is just one of the many reasons I liked it so much.  

YAAAAAAAY, MYTHAGO!

Thank you, everyone, for making this so much fun. I may not have won but I went out swinging, and I learned a tremendous amount about short story writing. I couldn't ask for more.


----------



## Gregor

Hey Congrats Mythago!

This was a great Ceramic DM.  I am definitely looking forward to the next one!

Cheers,


----------



## mythago

Me?

Really?

well heck. Thanks guys. If I were not already extremely stunned this morning I would be...extremely stunned. Y'all made me work for it, I can tell you that. 

Piratecat, you had me pretty darn worried with that yarn o' yours! I will offer more intelligible and detailed praise after I get more than three hours of sleep here. (And I think your sleazy PI is probably not quite due for retirement, is he?)

Don't be silly, Berandor, you can enter Iron DM too. I did! And I'm perfectly sane, see! SEE?!


----------



## alsih2o

added big thanks to speaker for stepping up, and my constant back-up maldur.

 great job to all


----------



## Sparky

*Congratulations mythago!!*

And Happy Halloween everyone!


----------



## Macbeth

Way to go, Mythago. I knew you were a good writer, but beating Piratecat is a feat. All of the contestants were amazing, and I want to thank everybody. Let's do this again sometime...


----------



## barsoomcore

To all the contestants in this round, hat = off.

This was a stomp-down no-kidding holy-toledo round of Ceramic DM, I ain't lying. That's a true fact. Everybody did a tremendous job -- there are so many great stories in this thread I just thank heavens I wasn't a judge.

Speaking of which, the judges deserve a doff as well -- not an easy task and as always they pulled it off with insight and class.

Mythago, welcome to the club. Carry your key close to your heart.

And don't forget the racoon stick. They make 'em big out here...


----------



## alsih2o

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Mythago, welcome to the club. Carry your key close to your heart.
> 
> And don't forget the racoon stick. They make 'em big out here...




 i forgot to issue her racoon stick.

 good catch barsoomcore...


----------



## barsoomcore

alsih2o said:
			
		

> i forgot to issue her racoon stick.
> 
> good catch barsoomcore...



 I'm not the brightest bulb on the string, but those are some BIG honking raccoons.


----------



## BSF

Holy smokes!  Though, to be honest, I think all of us getting to read this great stuff are the winners.  

Congratulations to Mythago!  I could tell you how great your story was, but you wouldn't have won if it wasn't great.  Wonderful job.

Piratecat, still an exquisite job.  Great story too.  

Wow, when I initially read the Ceramic DM I was thinking I could jump in at some point in the future.  Watching these stories though has seriously deflated my ego.  That's a good thing!    I need to hone my writing skills so I can jump into a future competition.  

Thanks, everyone, for the great stories!


----------



## alsih2o

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Wow, when I initially read the Ceramic DM I was thinking I could jump in at some point in the future.  Watching these stories though has seriously deflated my ego.  That's a good thing!    I need to hone my writing skills so I can jump into a future competition.




 i watched iron dm for a long while saying "i can do that!"

 then i tried. wow, did i get my buttocks handed to me....


----------



## Macbeth

Yeah, this was a great chance to have it (thouroughly) proved that I can't write half as well writing fiction as I can essays. thats the school system for you...


----------



## barsoomcore

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Wow, when I initially read the Ceramic DM I was thinking I could jump in at some point in the future.  Watching these stories though has seriously deflated my ego.  That's a good thing!    I need to hone my writing skills so I can jump into a future competition.



You want to hone your writing skills -- jump into a competition like this one. You learn so much getting thrown into a whirlwind like this.

Don't think you need to be "at a certain level" in order to enter the competition -- you'll rise to the occasion. Enter with commitment and a sense of fun and you'll do yourself (and all of us) proud.

I don't really think of Ceramic DM as a competition so much as a CELEBRATION. A celebration of the creative impulse and of inspiration.

Join in!


----------



## barsoomcore

alsih2o said:
			
		

> wow, did i get my buttocks handed to me....



 Which is nice, because you probably needed those.


----------



## seasong

Congrats Mythago!


----------



## Piratecat

A few thoughts on my last entry.

This last one was definitely the most difficult of the three to write. Unlike the others, I made four false starts before I found roughly the tone and plot that I wanted. I just wasn't comfortable using the same protagonist as in the second story, but I finally decided to do so from another person's point of view. The concept of the husband pushing a mannequin finally sealed it for me. The tie in with magic was too strong not to use it.

I considered having the little girl flying an ultra-realistic hawk kite, but couldn't tie it in. I considered making the bug-lady an actor in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (or a former HR Puffinstuff cast member!), but rejected that, too. The giraffe was a reject - beautiful, but very hard to tie to a story - so I ended up using it as window dressing.

When I finished the first draft, the narrator was completely and utterly without personality. Bleah.  I improved it by making him a thief, but he still suffers a little. The last draft was spent removing words and tightening the story. I think it's still too wordy, though, for what it's trying to be.

I think I did a decent job (better than the first, worse than the second), but ultimately I retreaded mostly old ground. Mythago went with something that was ambitious, original and lended itself beautifully to the genre and mood of the photos. It shows.


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## Sialia

maldur said:
			
		

> Great storytelling folks, Sialia is a very lucky person to game with these
> great storytellers!



Yes, yes. Yes I am.


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## Maldur

It always fun to judge these. Im amazed how you come up with stuff!!


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## BSF

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> You want to hone your writing skills -- jump into a competition like this one. You learn so much getting thrown into a whirlwind like this.
> 
> Don't think you need to be "at a certain level" in order to enter the competition -- you'll rise to the occasion. Enter with commitment and a sense of fun and you'll do yourself (and all of us) proud.
> 
> I don't really think of Ceramic DM as a competition so much as a CELEBRATION. A celebration of the creative impulse and of inspiration.
> 
> Join in!




I completely understand what you are saying.  And I would agree.  While I am great at encouraging people, I am lousy at following my own advice.  I am hoping I can overcome my reticence by the time the next big Ceramic DM event comes around.


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## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> A few thoughts on my last entry.
> 
> The giraffe was a reject - beautiful, but very hard to tie to a story - so I ended up using it as window dressing.




 i am glad to hear this. i have believed for a long time that "blank" pictures like that make the hardest pics to deal with.

 almost anything can be happening in a pic and people find it easy to use. almost any character can be thrown at these writers and they are on it.

 but there is a certain catergory of what i htink of as "static" pictures that i keep in a seperate file, the ones that are great pics, but seem hard to use. i have seen great writers stumble on them and seen mediocre writiers really be drawn out by them.  

 i always like the feedback on pic use because it shows that we tend tos ee things very universally. i love the commoness that is shown amongst us by art as amuch as i love the individuality.

 i THINK the key with such pictures is to focus on somethig that isn't the focus. have a settign with a giraffe, but have the text be about how the odd fog arose, or about the trees. 

 i think i miss a lot of references in these stories, when  read other peoples reviews i always think "i don't rememebr that!" peanut references, mythology references- ZOOM, right over my head. but what people draw from these pics seems an amorphous and hard to discuss art, and i like those 

 i worry about the fact that someone else is gonna do one. i worry that they won't have THAT feel. and then i realize that whoever it is will have their feel, and that is a good thing.

 wow, i went on a bit there, didn't i?


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## barsoomcore

alsih2o said:
			
		

> wow, i went on a bit there, didn't i?



You go, Potter.

_*waits for it*_


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## mythago

Piratecat, I *really* liked your use of the bride pic; you didn't get stuck on the title or what it was "obviously" about and did your own thang. I really, really loved the trip through the building, your PI sweating as he kept up the spell that let them have the right timing to breeze through the security. And of course you gotta love one-eyed Gramma.

The pics can be hard for me because I don't usually sit down and say "Hm, okay, let's make this one a flower girl and this one can be the guy's parents dying." Usually they just pop something in my brain and that's what they are, and it's very hard for me to shift tracks and deliberately (rather than intuitively) change them. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. 

(For example, when I looked at the woman in red pic for round #2, my brain went "Oh, that's a drag queen channelling Maitresse Erzuli." I don't know where I get these things, honest.)


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## Macbeth

mythago said:
			
		

> (For example, when I looked at the woman in red pic for round #2, my brain went "Oh, that's a drag queen channelling Maitresse Erzuli." I don't know where I get these things, honest.)



I saw it as a Vegas show girl. Same general concept though.


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## BSF

alsih2o said:
			
		

> i love this idea, but it has yet to be succesfully pulled off. when someone does this, i start attaching prizes to ceramic dm




Hey Clay, I forgot about this post way back when.  So, um, whatcha going to do since Sialia won the last Ceramic DM with a strung together story?  

Um yeah, what am I doing bringing this thread back from the grave?  Actually, I was looking for the thread so one of my players could read it.  Since he plays in the same game with Macbeth, I thought he might like to see it and cheer Macbeth on.


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