# Spring Ceramic DM™: WINNER POSTED!



## Piratecat

*Spring Ceramic DM™: WINNER POSTED!*

It's time!

The last winner, Sialia, is providing her artwork instead of competing.  Worship her.  As a result, we'll be needing at least eighteen people (sixteen contestants and two alternates) interested in trying their hand. 

Ceramic DM involves crafting the best short story you can from 4-6 judge-selected pictures.  It's like wrestling greased pigs on ice while making up haiku, and it's great fun. And self-induced torture. But almost all fun.

A few rules, shamelessly cribbed from our venerable leader Alsih2o:      

- Treat the illustrations as if they were the illustrations for your story. Using an illustration as a piece of art inside the story ("He slid the photo across the desk") should be avoided.

- Spelling, grammar and punctuation count.

- With more contestants, length becomes a lot more of an issue for the judges. Please keep first round entries under 5000 words, 2nd and 3rd round entries under 6000 words, and 4th round Final entries under 7000 words.

- Creative use of photos gets considered favorably.

- Once it is posted, no editing. 

- The illustrations will be numbered. Please indicate by number where they belong in your story, or link to them with hypertext.

- 72 hours from the post of the illustrations for you to post your story. Times will be using the timestamp on your posts, no credit for turning anything in early, disqualified for 1 minute or more late (c'mon, you have 72 hours!!)

- An adventure is acceptable, as is a story, but applicability to the d20 3e genre (fantasy or otherwise) is the rule.

- Here's a link to the Winter competition, so you can see how things went.

The competition will open late this week. Judges are myself, Arwink and Maldur.

Let the battle begin!


*Quicklinks to Photos, Stories and Judgements:*

Use these to avoiding wading through all the discussion between stories.



*First Round*

1 Pictures - Alish2o vs Cool Hand Luke - Judgement

2 Pictures - Macbeth vs Thullgrim - Judgement

3 Pictures - Berandor vs Drose25 - Judgement

4 Pictures - Mythago vs Orchid Blossom - Judgement 

5 Pictures - Tzor vs Zhaneel - Judgement

6 Pictures - RangerWickett vs Speaker - Judgement

7 Pictures - WanderingMonster vs BardStephenFox - Judgement 

8 Pictures - NiTessine vs Francisca - Judgement



*Second Round (Winners of First Round competitions)*

1 Pictures - Alish2o vs Macbeth - Judgement 

2 Pictures - Mythago vs Drose25 - Judgement 

3 Pictures - BardStephenFox vs NiTessine - Judgement

4 Pictures - Zhaneel vs RangerWickett - Judgement



*Third Round (Winners of Second Round competition)*

1 Pictures - Macbeth vs BardStephenFox - Judgement 

2 Pictures - Mythago vs Zhaneel



*Final (Waiting for Third Round completion)*

Macbeth vs ?



*Related Links:*

Ceramic DM Contests

Ceramic DM - December 2002

Ceramic DM - January 2003

Ceramic DM - March 2003

Ceramic DM - April 2003

Ceramic DM - June 2003

Ceramic DM - August 2003 (Spycraft & Modern themed)

Ceramic DM - October 2003

Ceramic DM - January 2004



Ceramic DM Inspired stories without the time limits.

Ceramic DM, the home version

Kiln-Fired Ceramic DM



And finally ... Instant Feedback a thread that has commentary on the stories, where the judges won't see it and possibly become "biased".


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## Macbeth

I'm in.


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## mythago

_boinggggggg_

  In!


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## alsih2o

and awaaaaay we go!

 ME ME ME! i want in


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## Maldur

good luck everyone!


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## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> and awaaaaay we go!
> 
> ME ME ME! i want in



Ceramic DM against alsih2o? The founder of Ceramic DM? Ooooh, this should be interesting.


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## RangerWickett

I shall enter this competition, as was ordained by prophecy.

(. . . if it's cool with you guys, that is.)


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## WanderingMonster

I'd like to give it a go.


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## tzor

As a person who graduated from the Snoopy School of Short Story Writing (I've think I've gotten better) I would like to apply for a position in the contest.  (Should the picture involve a person in armor with lightning in the background I reserve the right to start my story with the cliche "He was a dark and stormy knight."   )


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## NiTessine

Count me in.


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## Berandor

I'm probably too late to even be an alternate, but count me in nevertheless.

And then, I'm moving a few time zones closer 

ETA: I'm ... 8th? Woohoo? Well, if I'm really in, I'll be out for roughly 1 1/2 hours, so don't be mad if I don't answer during that time


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## Piratecat

We're considering raising the number of contestents, since there are already about 14 people who want to play. Details as we have 'em!


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## mythago

I'm all for that! And it's cool to see the new people signing on.


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## BSF

Boy, I would like the chance to go up against Macbeth on this one, but I have a fever today and I have some travel to begin setting up some site-to-site VPN's coming up soon.  I don't think I can commit on this one. 

Piratecat, if you have a lack of alternates (unlikely), then I can fill one of those spots.  It's not that I won't have net access on the road (I am setting up VPN's) but I am not sure on my time availability.  

Good luck to everyone!


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## Piratecat

BSF, if we do in fact raise the number of entrants, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't schedule around your business travel. Please don't feel that should necessarily stop you from entering!


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## alsih2o

oooh! A crowd!

 Prepare to be felled mortals!


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## Maldur

alsih2o said:
			
		

> oooh! A crowd!
> 
> Prepare to be felled mortals!



 oeee! smacktalk allready


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## thullgrim

I would like to give it a try though I've never done it before.  Just so I understand, you have to write a short story based on or including the pictures?

THullgrim


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## Zhaneel

Growl... this is what I get for not checking for 24 hours.  *sigh*

I'm up, if you increase the number or being an alternate if the number stays at 8.

Zhaneel


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## Piratecat

Zhaneel, I've put you up, and I've moved over the other people from the other thread too. Just confirm if you're in, folks!

Thullgrim, you've got it; write a story based on or including the illustrations. The more a photo is an integral part of the story, the better you're doing.  Take a look at the old thread linked above for examples.


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## BSF

thullgrim said:
			
		

> I would like to give it a try though I've never done it before.  Just so I understand, you have to write a short story based on or including the pictures?
> 
> THullgrim




THullgrim,
Piratecat linked to the previous contest.  My .sig has direct links to a few of the stories in the last contest.  I'm sure we could pull up some previous Ceramic DM contests as well.  

You will have a few pictures that you must use to help tell your story.  These pictures may be very unusual and varied.  For some vague pointers, when you are writing the story, think how you would use the pictures as illustrations.  Generally speaking, the more thoroughly you can integrate the picture to the story, the better.  The pictures are *not* easy to use, that is the point of the Ceramic DM contest.  You need to creatively integrate the pictures as seamlessly as possible while still telling a good, compelling story.  

It's fun.  It's hard.  It is draining for me, perhaps for others as well.  Don't be intimidated by it.  If you like to write, it is a great opportunity to do so under a time constraint and then get some feedback on it.  You may get trounced, you may be the next Ceramic DM.  But, you won't know unless you try.  If they increase the contestants, I thoroughly encourange anyone to try it.


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## drose25

If there is still room, I'd like to give it a try.


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## Zhaneel

Thanks PK.

I just wonder if Sialia has enough art for us rabid writers?   I wouldn't want her to be stressed out by adding more competitors, but maybe she has more art than I'm aware of.  I haven't taken the time to look through her albums.

Zhaneel


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## alsih2o

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Thanks PK.
> 
> I just wonder if Sialia has enough art for us rabid writers?   I wouldn't want her to be stressed out by adding more competitors, but maybe she has more art than I'm aware of.  I haven't taken the time to look through her albums.
> 
> Zhaneel




 Siala oozes art like a slug oozes, well, ooze.

 I am more than sure she is up to the task


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## Piratecat

We're using a combination of art and photographs. No worries there. 

Everyone, please make sure that the email addresses in your profile are up to date in case I have to email you.  

Drose25, you're in!


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## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> BSF, if we do in fact raise the number of entrants, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't schedule around your business travel. Please don't feel that should necessarily stop you from entering!




OK, OK!  Let's see, you are already filled up to 16.  I can stay as an alternate, but if one of those (currently) unconfirmed 5 cannot confirm, slide me into one of those spots ... pretty please?


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## francisca

if you need another alternate, I'm game.


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## Sialia

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Siala oozes art like a slug oozes, well, ooze.
> 
> I am more than sure she is up to the task



You are not kidding. Piratecat isn't going to be able to use but about 10% of the stuff I cranked out since I went insane and volunteered to do this last winter. I've been oozing out about 4 or 5 pieces a week, I kid you not. All hidden away where almost no body but Piratcat has had a chance to peek at them.

Something about the thrill of knowing that someone is going to have to suffer through writing for these has turned on some kind of tap in me--I can't seem to shut it off.

And the ferment has been delicious.

The stuff that does not get used for this competition will have to find another use . .


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## Berandor

my e-mail is correct.

However, since I live in Germany (+6 hours), I can't really promise to check my e-mail soon after you sent them 
During the contest, a PM might work as well, if not better (since I'll be checking in from work, and I don't know how to do that with my e-mails (but I'll look into it, as of now)


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## Taladas

I would like to be in if there is still room. If not then an alternate.


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## Zhaneel

My e-mail has been updated with my non-spam trap... But I will probably change it back after the contest is over as I dislike having it availible.

I'll also go check now to make sure PC can see it.

Zhaneel

_Edit: Okay, I have updated my e-mail, but only admins can use it.  As PirateCat is an admin, that should be okay, right?  Let me know if I need to further do anything._


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## Piratecat

Thanks, Zhaneel. That's fine; you don't have to make the email public, because I can get at it through the admin panel if I really need to.  Berandor, I'll make sure that everyone has plenty of advance notice as to when things are posted, so that we avoid miscommunications.  

Francisca and Taladas are now alts. They'll slide in if any of the people awaiting confirmation can't make it.

We'll begin once I have a chance to confer with the judges. We'll post roughly one set of photos a day for a week or so, allowing each pairing to tackle it in turn.


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## Berandor

Are we to hold off posting our stories if we're early, then? Let's say I'm done with my story, but the pairing before me hasn't posted their stories yet. I'm waiting with mine, taking the time to go over it again, right?


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## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> OK, OK!  Let's see, you are already filled up to 16.  I can stay as an alternate, but if one of those (currently) unconfirmed 5 cannot confirm, slide me into one of those spots ... pretty please?



So is BardStephenFox in? I'd really like to have a chance to compete against him, just for the fun of it.... And to try to get revenge for making my PC spend a night adventuring in a skirt-like piece of clothing made of purple flowers


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## Piratecat

Good point. If it's convenient, please delay posting you entry until the people before you have both posted theirs. If it's inconvenient, though, we won't penalize you for needing to post early.


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## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> So is BardStephenFox in? I'd really like to have a chance to compete against him, just for the fun of it.... And to try to get revenge for making my PC spend a night adventuring in a skirt-like piece of clothing made of purple flowers




Hey!  That was funny.  And it wasn't just your character.  And hey, if it helps you feel any better, you guys aren't quite done with that encounter yet.  

I am still listed as an Alternate.  Even then, the odds are against you and I being paired up.


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## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Hey!  That was funny.  And it wasn't just your character.  And hey, if it helps you feel any better, you guys aren't quite done with that encounter yet.
> 
> I am still listed as an Alternate.  Even then, the odds are against you and I being paired up.



Yeah, it is kind of unlikely, but if you weren't in it at all, then it would be impossible.

And, yeah, it was funny. Especially Keldorn in the pink flower loin cloth.


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## cool hand luke

darn it, once again real life and the ultimate 4 letter word, WORK get in the way of my hobbies! stupid meetings!


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## orchid blossom

Okay, confirm me.  As I sit here waffling, I'm letting my evil twin who loves to set me up for torture and humiliation sign me up.


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## Sialia

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Siala oozes art like a slug oozes, well, ooze.
> 
> I am more than sure she is up to the task



Er.  You _did_ mean that in a _nice_ way right?  I can be kind of dim about these things. Pathetic need for attention and all that.

Because if that was intended as smack, I am more than happy to oblige you with a response.

I mean, as if what Piratecat has in store for you wasn't bad enough.

I'd like to see some abject slime-like quivering now. 

It won't do you any good at this point, but it _would_ amuse me.


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## alsih2o

Sialia said:
			
		

> I'd like to see some abject slime-like quivering now.
> 
> It won't do you any good at this point, but it _would_ amuse me.




 I meant it in the best way. I was referring to the seemingly effortless way you produce.

 But I will quiver if that is what you want


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## Zhaneel

Sialia, love the new sig line.

And I think it was meant in a good way.  Just like you oozed those wonderfully long stories last time (since you could ooze 13+ pages is the time it took others to beat 6 pages out).

Zhaneel


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## Speaker

Seeing as I am on the list, I had best enter.  Considering the size and prestige of my fellow contestants and esteemed judges, I look forward to the tales to follow.

Count me in.


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## WanderingMonster

There's a good mix of new/veteran members.  It should be fun.*


_*And by "It" I mean laying waste to all competitors until only I remain!_


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## Sialia

Ah yes, it is a blessing to be in tune with one's ooze. Or, as it is said:

"Feel with your whole body that which cannot be seen with your eyes and ears alone." 

http://www.slugweb.com/slugweb/index.phtml?loc=Item002.phtml


Sometimes, I surprise even myself with the vast volumes of gunk I am able to output. Fortunately for you lot, I have an editor in this instance, who will ensure that only the freshest, top quality secretions will be included in your repasts.

Really, they're little more than dressing on the tossed salads of delight he has prepared for your delectation.

Which, yes, ought to worry you.

Piratecat's output has exceeded even my feverish fantasies.

You needn't rush the quivering thing if you're not ready. 

It will come.



.


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## Cthulhucoffeecup

*Any slots still left?*

Hey PC! Any seats on this bus still left?

JavaApp


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## arwink

tzor said:
			
		

> (Should the picture involve a person in armor with lightning in the background I reserve the right to start my story with the cliche "He was a dark and stormy knight."   )




Aiiiiiiieeeeee!

You know, there is a special place in the underworld for people like you, right next to folks who end stories with some variation of "and I woke up, and it was all just a dream..."   :


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## Maldur

Sialia said:
			
		

> All hidden away where almost no body but Piratcat has had a chance to peek at them.




What Am I chopped liver?!

If you ever decide to make a RL, hanging on the wall version of MysteriesOne, I will move heaven and earth to make that my wall !!


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## Sialia

Maldur said:
			
		

> What Am I chopped liver?!
> 
> If you ever decide to make a RL, hanging on the wall version of MysteriesOne, I will move heaven and earth to make that my wall !!



You didn't have access to the full set yet when I posted that, silly. You do now.

And so will our third judge when he/she steps forward.

When we're all through with this game, I could probably be persuaded to make with some high-res files suitable for printing. My own inkjet doesn't do them much good. They'd probably be all right taken over to your local copy center on a CD and output on a laser. Given your location, it'd probably be quicker and cheaper for me to send a file for you to print than to make you a hardcopy and snail it. 

Anyway, we can talk about printing options afterwards. And maybe talk about what the heck we're gonna do with all the leftovers.

MysteriesOne, for example, didn't make the cut.


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## thullgrim

THe more I think about this the more excited I get.  I read through some of the previous Ceramic DM threads and just thought to myself "there are some really talented people on these boards".  Should be a ton of fun.


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## Maldur

Sialia said:
			
		

> MysteriesOne, for example, didn't make the cut.




And I dont get it, its the bestof the lot


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## arwink

Sialia said:
			
		

> And so will our third judge when he/she steps forward.




Strange, I thought I had.  You want me to step back a few paces and try again?


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## Dirigible

Man, sometimes it sucks to live in a distant timezone...
Looking for more contestants or alternates? Pweeze?


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## arwink

Dirigible said:
			
		

> Man, sometimes it sucks to live in a distant timezone...
> Looking for more contestants or alternates? Pweeze?




This is why you volunteer to judge - it saves time and anguish, and you don't have to pay attention to the timezones


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## Maldur

smart thinking Oh master of Yip 

(btw same here, besides Im better at reading stuff, then writing stuff )


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## Piratecat

Okay, we're still waiting for Cool Hand Luke, Bibliophile and Whitey to confirm. If they don't for some reason, the five alternates (including Cthulhucoffeecup and Dirigible) will slide upwards.

Arwink, Maldur and I are all confirmed as judges. Rah rah rah!  As Wandering Monster said, this is a great mix of old and new entrants; it ought to be fun.

Being nothing if not efficient, I have determined the pairings by expediently splitting the list in half. It will look like this:

Alsih2o vs Cool Hand Luke: posted 4/6 afternoon
Macbeth vs Thullgrim: to be posted 4/6 night
Mythago vs Orchid Blossom
RangerWickett vs Speaker
Wandering Monster vs Bibliophile (from other thread - subject to their confirmation)
Tzor vs Zhaneel
NiTessine vs Whitey (from other thread - subject to their confirmation)
Berandor vs Drose25

For those of you with a checked-in partner, who wants to go first? We can start as early as tonight.


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## alsih2o

Now, the nervous starts!

 Smack-talk and literary rushes all around boys! Batton down the metaphors and heave on the non-sequiturs, this visio-literary schooner of doom is soon to be awash in authorial flotsam and jetsam.

 Watch for the rocks and listen not to the siren song of mass appeal, for Ceramic DM is about to go broadsides on your scurvy ass!













  Good luck all!


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## Piratecat

Photo and illustration organization is done. Embarrassingly enough, even after doubling the number of contestants, I still have over 80 great photos left over that I wanted to use and couldn't!  I'll just save them for the next judge.  

We're using eleven of Sialia's drawings this time. I can't wait to see what you do with them. 

Who wants to get their photos tonight? Remember, you have three days (72 hours) to write.


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## alsih2o

I emailed cool hand luke and he says he is on the way.





 What a masochist.


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## cool hand luke

oh good grief, my first round opponent is alsi!@!@!!@#$

at first I as thrilled to get in, but now I feel lilke that spare #16 seed in the NCAA tourney that on one hand is thrilled to get in, but then get's to get drilled by Kentucky or something about 97-33.  oh well!


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## alsih2o

cool hand luke said:
			
		

> oh good grief, my first round opponent is alsi!@!@!!@#$
> 
> at first I as thrilled to get in, but now I feel lilke that spare #16 seed in the NCAA tourney that on one hand is thrilled to get in, but then get's to get drilled by Kentucky or something about 97-33.  oh well!




 the floor was mopped with my sweaty brow last time, don't be too nervous


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## Maldur

Good luck everyone!  I have seen the pics, You are in for a ride 

teehee, here we go !!!


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## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Mythago and Orchid Blossom, how do you two feel about getting your pictures Wednesday, with the story due Saturday night? Then Clay and Luck would get their's Thursday, and so forth.
> 
> If someone is anxious to go, I can bump them up in the order. Wandering Monster, if Bibliophile isn't able to check in, you'll be going against BardStephenFox.



 Trying to crush me into a small, defeated ball early eh?

 I mean, er, OF COURSE I relish the opportunity to pwnz0r! Wednesday's great!

_hastily flexes typing muscles in an impressive, manly fashion_


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## mythago

Sialia said:
			
		

> Anyway, we can talk about printing options afterwards. And maybe talk about what the heck we're gonna do with all the leftovers.



 I believe that Deviant Art allows people who post stuff there to make/print/sell high-quality prints of their art; that would be one way to go. Failing that, there are oodles of print shops that let you turn art into big shiny posters.


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## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> _hastily flexes typing muscles in an impressive, manly fashion_




Frankly, both you and Orchid Blossom are impressive women -- but I suppose that statement would imply less guttural testosterone-filled grunting, so I'll bow to the intended mental image.


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## mythago

I can't speak for Orchid Blossom, but I bow to _no one_ in my mastery of testosterone-riddled obnoxiousness.


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## RangerWickett

mythago said:
			
		

> I can't speak for Orchid Blossom, but I bow to _no one_ in my mastery of testosterone-riddled obnoxiousness.




You sure?  Ask Pkitty about my 'Gamers Seeking Gamers' thread.


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## Zhaneel

tzor said:
			
		

> I'm ready whenever I'm needed.




Welcome to my opponent.  I am *not* quivering in fear.  Just for the record.

Umm... I wouldn't mind somthing being posted where I get Friday Night and/or Sunday to work on it because I know I'm free those days.  Even if Saturday is ALL gone.

So, if you don't get any other people who need/want a posting on Thrusday night/Friday morning that would work great.

Otherwise, I would prefer a Sunday morning/night/afternoon start, as I will not be near the computer to see the entries on Saturday.

Zhaneel


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## Macbeth

Ha! Only a few hours to go until the pictures are posted. Prepare to be trounced, Thullgrim!


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## Piratecat

Then we're off.  Match 1-2 (Macbeth vs Thullgrim) will be posted about 11pm EST tonight.) But first....

*Match 1-1: Alsih2o vs. Cool Hand Luke.*  Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. Please label the top of your entry with your match information, and make sure you flag your illustrations in some way. 

Good luck!


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## thullgrim

wasn't Macbeth a tragedy? As I recall he lost it all in the end...

Thullgrim


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## cool hand luke

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Then we're off.  Match 1-2 (Macbeth vs Thullgrim) will be posted about 11pm EST tonight.) But first....
> 
> *Match 1-1: Alsih2o vs. Cool Hand Luke.*  Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. Please label the top of your entry with your match information, and make sure you flag your illustrations in some way.
> 
> Good luck!





how many pics are there supposed to be? 4 or 5?  I see 4 of them no problem, is the empty space at the end supposed to be there, or is that the infamous "black box" ingredient?


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## Piratecat

First round is 4 pics; 2nd and 3rd rounds are 5 pics; final round is 6 pics. You're all set.


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## Speaker

I am ready to write when required.  Looking forward to the contest - needs must exersize muscles long left dormant.


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## Macbeth

thullgrim said:
			
		

> wasn't Macbeth a tragedy? As I recall he lost it all in the end...
> 
> Thullgrim



Check out my sig, thullgrim. Interesting that your screen name ends in 'grim' cause that's your outlook for the first match.




Wow, I'm really reaching for these...


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## BSF

Tsk, tsk, tsk, C'mon Macbeth, you can do better than that.



			
				Macbeth said:
			
		

> Check out my sig, thullgrim. Interesting that your screen name ends in 'grim' cause that's your outlook for the first match.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wow, I'm really reaching for these...






			
				thullgrim said:
			
		

> wasn't Macbeth a tragedy? As I recall he lost it all in the end...
> 
> Thullgrim



Thullgrim, Macbeth did lose it all at the end, the key being ... the end.  What happened to everyone that was in his way before that?  

You are round 1 buddy!


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## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Tsk, tsk, tsk, C'mon Macbeth, you can do better than that.



Can, and will:

May I present, the first ever image trashtalk in Ceramic DM!

Original image from: http://ew2.lysator.liu.se/loth/r/o/robertson/macbeth_kills_duncan.jpg


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## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Can, and will:
> 
> May I present, the first ever image trashtalk in Ceramic DM!
> 
> Original image from: http://ew2.lysator.liu.se/loth/r/o/robertson/macbeth_kills_duncan.jpg





That's great!


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## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Man, I love the trash-talking.
> 
> Here's my proposed schedule for posting illustrations. Instead of telling me when you ARE available, please let me know if this is a problem for anybody.
> 
> First Round:
> 4 - Mythago vs Orchid Blossom: to be posted Thursday 4/7 night
> 5 - Tzor vs Zhaneel: to be posted Friday 4/8 morning




Well, I feel sorry for the Northern CA Bay area as both Mythago & I will be crazy at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Wheee!

As per mythago's advice, I will now begin by hunting, tracking and catching my muse to beat her into submission until she gives me that story.

Zhaneel


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## orchid blossom

Thursday night sounds fine.  Rather nice actually, lots of weekend time to work with.

As for muscle flexing, my typing muscles are good, it's the writing muscles that are rusty.  I took creative writing as part of my English major, but it's been quite a while since then.  I found some of my old writing when cleaning not long ago, and some of it was frighteningly bad.  Then again, some of it was pretty darn good.  

Ao says I'm not mighty with the smack talk.  That's okay.  I don't need it.


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## RangerWickett

How does this work?  Wait, Ceramic DM?  Aren't we making minis out of porcelain?  Dang it, then why'd I buy this kiln?


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## NiTessine

Well, here's my confirmation, for what it's worth without Whitey's. Although it's not as though he has any chance of actually defeating me, but victory by forfeit is always... bland. Anyway, Saturday works fine for me.

And Macbeth, the smack talk ain't bad as long as you're not starting sentences with 'yo momma'.


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## mythago

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Well, I feel sorry for the Northern CA Bay area as both Mythago & I will be crazy at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheee!



 Hey, I'm always crazy. This is a new thing for you? 

Watch out for those muses--they hit hard.


----------



## alsih2o

Well, I have started mine. When I went to save it for the first time I realized I have no title as yet so I simply named it "ceramicnightmare".

 This one is gonna hurt.


----------



## mythago

NO PAIN, NO GAIN, MONKEY BOY!!!!!

 Oh, uh, I'm ready go to Thursday night.


----------



## orchid blossom

mythago said:
			
		

> NO PAIN, NO GAIN, MONKEY BOY!!!!!
> 
> Oh, uh, I'm ready go to Thursday night.




Hmm, I guess this is seriously going to cut into my floorcloth making and beading time, huh?


----------



## Sialia

arwink said:
			
		

> Strange, I thought I had. You want me to step back a few paces and try again?



Works for me! 

(Last _I_ knew, yer was still wafflin'.)

Glad to have you.

Very glad.

I'll send you the link shortly, unless you'd rather wait and see the photos with everyone else . . .


----------



## tzor

Piratecat said:
			
		

> 5 - Tzor vs Zhaneel: to be posted Friday 4/8 morning



Aye, it shall be a "good" Friday indeed.  I'm looking forward to seeing all these interesting pictures and what people make with them.


----------



## Sialia

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> As per mythago's advice, I will now begin by hunting, tracking and catching my muse to beat her into submission until she gives me that story.
> 
> Zhaneel



There's no doubt that works for her. 

For _me_, it's pretty much always the other way around. 

But you know your muse best.


----------



## Zhaneel

Sialia said:
			
		

> There's no doubt that works for her.
> 
> For _me_, it's pretty much always the other way around.
> 
> But you know your muse best.




My muse and I haven't been on speaking terms since NaNoWriMo.  She refused to give me anything to work with, except when I was working at my new job.  Since then, my ego was crushed and I couldn't bear to look at her.  So she's lonely and thinks I'm weak.

I'm a new woman!  The kiln of Ceramic DM will make my muse see me for the wonder I am!  Mwhahaha...

Zhaneel


----------



## arwink

Sialia said:
			
		

> Works for me!
> 
> (Last _I_ knew, yer was still wafflin'.)




I waffle well though, it's one of my few talents.  There's very little noticable destinction between my "I can't do it" waffling and my "I can do it" waffling, so it's easy for people to get confused


----------



## arwink

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Man, I love the trash-talking.
> Here's my proposed schedule for posting illustrations. Instead of telling me when you ARE available, please let me know if this is a problem for anybody.




Well, I'll be out of town for the easter weekend and probably wont have access to a computer, so I wont be sending through judgements for round ending satarday through monday until monday night...


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> NO PAIN, NO GAIN, MONKEY BOY!!!!!
> 
> Oh, uh, I'm ready go to Thursday night.




 I do not appreciate you ignoring my popsicle.


 Everyone ignores my pretty, sweet, icy-fun popsicle.


----------



## Zhaneel

arwink said:
			
		

> Well, I'll be out of town for the easter weekend and probably wont have access to a computer, so I wont be sending through judgements for round ending satarday through monday until monday night...




You just live to torture authors, don't you?

Not that I should be entirely affected, since mine is due on Monday Morning, but the idea of you reading my story after (4 rounds * 2 stories =) 8 other stories makes me worry that you'll already be so enthralled by something that you couldn't possible care about my story *glares at mythago* or so fed up with authors that the evil red pen of doom will be out.

Or maybe it is an evil red popsickle of doom, leaking it's sugary icey goodness all over our stories...


----------



## mythago

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I do not appreciate you ignoring my popsicle.



I noticed your popsicle. But I was afraid to say anything, lest Mrs. alsih2o bake me into a piggybank.




			
				Zhaneel said:
			
		

> makes me worry that you'll already be so enthralled by something that you couldn't possible care about my story *glares at mythago*



Hey! I retired from THAT profession years ago. My writing, sadly, does not garner nearly the same level of rapture.


----------



## francisca

Piratecat said:
			
		

> BardStephenFox, you'll be taking Bibliophile's place if he doesn't check in by tomorrow morning. Francisca will be taking Whitey's place if he doesn't do the same.





Might be time for me to find some inspiration.....


----------



## Piratecat

"Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is."
  - Mason Cooley, 1928

*Match 1-2: Macbeth vs Thullgrim.*  Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. Please label the top of your entry with your match information, and make sure you flag your illustrations in some way. 

Have fun!

Next up: Berandor vs Drose25, posted tomorrow afternoon.


----------



## Macbeth

Hmmmm, interesting. I like em, and brainstorming gives me an excellent excuse to stop studying for my Chem test tomorrow. Well, good luck Thullgrim, your going to need it, cause I'm going to get writing like an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters.


----------



## arwink

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> You just live to torture authors, don't you?




No, of course not.  (looks around carefully) Listen, who have you been talking too?  That wasn't supposed to be common knowledge yet, so just keep it under your hat, okay?



> but the idea of you reading my story after (4 rounds * 2 stories =) 8 other stories makes me worry that you'll already be so enthralled by something that you couldn't possible care about my story *glares at mythago* or so fed up with authors that the evil red pen of doom will be out.




Not a huge concern - reading stories and commenting on them is part of my day-job, so I've either learned the art of giving each story an equal amount of focus or I'll be jaded beyond belief with stories by the time the competition starts 

Ceramic DM often tends to be refreshing after that - I'm usually so pleased to see people trying something other than realist literary fiction that I can't help getting enthusiastic about making comments.


----------



## WanderingMonster

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Man, I love the trash-talking.
> 
> Here's my proposed schedule for posting illustrations. Instead of telling me when you ARE available, please let me know if this is a problem for anybody.
> 
> First Round:
> 
> 7 - Wandering Monster vs Bibliophile (from other thread - subject to their confirmation): to be posted Saturday 4/8 morning



Just a note that some of the 72 hour time frames will encompass Easter Sunday.  For some contestants this could mean familial/religious obligations.  Specifically, I will lose a day to work on this.  If there's no way around it, I'll deal with it, but I wanted to speak up.


----------



## Taladas

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Hmmmm, interesting. I like em, and brainstorming gives me an excellent excuse to stop studying for my Chem test tomorrow. Well, good luck Thullgrim, your going to need it, cause I'm going to get writing like an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters.





Yes, but is that an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters and popcicles? Because you need both to get them really motivated. If not then the feces really fly.   

Excellent job with the pictures Piratecat. I really like the chair.


----------



## WanderingMonster

PC, check your dates/times.  They don't match up.  Saturday is the 10th.  Am I competing on Saturday, or on the 8th (which is Thursday)?  

They must do things differently on the East Coast.


----------



## Piratecat

WanderingMonster said:
			
		

> PC, check your dates/times.  They don't match up.  Saturday is the 10th.  Am I competing on Saturday, or on the 8th (which is Thursday)?
> 
> They must do things differently on the East Coast.




Math is hard, talking Barbie. Let's go shopping!

My dates were totally messed up. Try this; there are probably mistakes in it, but I'll correct it in the morning. I can change around anyone's time and day. In particular, matches 5 and 6 may be inconvenient for the participants, in which case we'll push them back.

1 - Alsih2o vs Cool Hand Luke: posted Tuesday 4/6 afternoon
2 - Macbeth vs Thullgrim: posted Tuesday 4/6 night
3 - Berandor vs Drose25: to be posted Wednesday 4/7 afternoon
4 - Mythago vs Orchid Blossom: to be posted Thursday 4/8 night
5 - Tzor vs Zhaneel: to be posted Friday 4/9 morning 
6 - RangerWickett vs Speaker: to be posted Friday 4/9 evening
7 - Wandering Monster vs BardStephenFox: to be posted Sunday 4/11 night
8 - NiTessine vs Francisca: to be posted Monday 4/12 morning


----------



## BSF

Ooh!  Piratecat, don't forget to warn everyone that there is no editing of your story once it is posted!  Some of the newcomers might not realize that.

EDIT:  Nevermind, Piratecat as that in the rules on the 1st post.  Umm, consider this your reminder!  Yeah, that's the ticket.


----------



## thullgrim

You know I am going to be honest-this is really tough.

Thullgrim


----------



## Piratecat

That's the point! I usually let the photos sit there in my subconscious and percolate for a day or so, making connections. It's great fun when it comes together, though.

Zhaneel, Orchid Blossom -- there is no reason why you guys can't be shifted back a day. Let me just hear from Tzor and Mythago, and I'll change the days. As I said before, we'll do whatever is most convenient for you folks, because it's all the same to your esteemed judges.  We want the _writing_ to be challenging, not the scheduling.


----------



## Piratecat

Bibliophile and Whitey haven't responded to my email or checked in, so they cede their places to BardStephenFox and Francisca. Congratulations!  Taladas moves up to first alternate.

Mythago and Orchid Blossom are now shifted back a day until Thursday night. That should hopefully take care of all the scheduling difficulties for this round; if not, let me know. As always, the updated schedule of who goes when is listed in the first post of the thread.

Zhaneel, you're right about the deadline: three days (72 hours), so if you get them Friday morning you need to send them in by Monday morning.  I use east coast time, so I'll try to post morning photos about 10 am EST, afternoon photos at 3pm EST, evening photos at 7pm EST, and night photos at 11pm EST. That's rough, but it's good for an estimate.

As BardStephenFox reminded folks, no editing once it's posted. 

Incidentally, I may eventually go back and delete some of the off topic scheduling posts in this thread to make it more streamlined; if you see it get shorter briefly, that's why.

Next up: Berandor vs Drose25, posted this afternoon!


----------



## BSF

Well, that's a bummer for Whitey and Bibliophile, perhaps next time?

So, I am paired off with WanderingMonster?  Good, you know that Wandering Monsters are simply designed as small inconveniences to keep the PC's moving along.  Since we are on a time limit, that is hardly a concern anyway.  Just for the record, I am not scared of the big, scary dragon icon.  We know that's just a scan from a previous edition and it really ins't representative of what WanderingMonster is all about anyway.  So, what do I have to fear?  Woohoo!  It's back to basics!



			
				WanderingMonster's .sig said:
			
		

> Table 3-14: Back To Basics
> 1 1d6 Kobolds
> 2 Orc (Sor1)
> 3 1d6 Skeletons, medium
> 4 1d3 Dire rats




Heck, I'll take any of them!  Boy, if that's the best that can come out of my opponent, I am in for a cakewalk!  

PS - Clearing scheduling posts might be good.  Otherwise we have several pages before there is anything notable to read.


----------



## Piratecat

“The great challenge which faces us is to assure that. .  we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose."

- Hubert Humphrey, 1966

Tomorrow begins Mythago's and Orchid Blossom's contest, but today is:

*Match 1-3: Berandor and Drose25*.  Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. Please label the top of your entry with your match information, and make sure you flag your illustrations in some way. 

Good luck!


----------



## Berandor

He was a dark and stormy knight with a long beard...
Edit: Damn - that is no beard!

I've seen the pics now, will start writing on them tomorrow, finish friday, and move to the next round saturday. 

ETA: After looking at them for real, I think I'll simply despair and cry...


----------



## drose25

Oh my.     Someone overdosed on the evilness draught.


----------



## Zhaneel

Amazing how many less comments there are when 6 of the people following the thread are busy writing and the rest of are fearing our turn...  ;-)

Zhaneel


----------



## BSF

Fear?  Nah, I won't need to worry about it for a few days now.  Judging by the pictures that have been thrown in so far, I could probably go on a weekend binge of alcohol, and perhaps a few other drugs, so I could make more sense of these pictures.  

But, it's OK Zhaneel, you can be afraid.  Really, we won't mock you or anything.


----------



## BSF

Hey, just for a point of referential trivia, how many Ceramic DM Champs are in this round?  I'll keep track if anyone wants to chime in.  
- Mythago
- Speaker

Other trivia:  

How many previous Ceramic DM contestants?
- BardStephenFox
- Macbeth
- Alsih20
- CoolHandLuke
- NiTessine

How many complete newcomers?
- Zhaneel
- Orchid Blossom
- Francisca
- RangerWickett (I think I saw him asking what these were a few months back, so he might be new)
- Tzor
- Thullgrim (Based on his initial questions on how the tourney works)

Other Trivia:
Sialia won on her first Ceramic DM.  What's more, she did it with a story that unfolded across all three rounds.  She beat out Piratecat, who is a former DM of hers.  She has been kind enough to provide some of the artwork for this Ceramic DM.

Piratecat, author of the immensely viewed Defenders of Daybreak Story Hour, has kindly stepped in to run this Ceramic DM, though he has never actually won the Ceramic DM title.

Arwink and Maldur are both veteran judges. 

What other trivia should I add?


----------



## NiTessine

I feel Berandor and drose25 got an easy one. I'm getting loads of ideas just looking at those. Macbeth and Thullgrim, though... I feel sorry for you guys, I really do.

And I don't fear. The outcome of this competition on my part is preordained by fate. I will get to the finals, and then I will lose. We've seen it happen before. I'll be damned if it'll stop me from trying, though.

I'll have until Monday to focus my creative energy. I should probably lock myself into a dark, damp cellar and meditate upon my keyboard to focus my creative energy, but I've got a LAN party to attend tomorrow, not to mention a shortage of dark, damp cellars. Oh, the trials of an artist...


----------



## Macbeth

NiTessine said:
			
		

> I feel Berandor and drose25 got an easy one. I'm getting loads of ideas just looking at those. Macbeth and Thullgrim, though... I feel sorry for you guys, I really do.



That's interesting, cause I was the exact opposite: Berandor and drose25's gave me no ideas, but the pictures for my matchup have already formed a nice, fairly clean story.


----------



## tzor

So far all of them have given me ideas.  Fortunately for me they are not mine because they haven't given me ideas for the contest.  But then again I am waiting patiently for my turn at the starting gate.

It was the best of the Times.  It was the worst of the Times.  He stood with both newspapers in his hands, dreading the day he ever volunteered to be the school paperboy.  Now the ink slowly bled on his fingers.  He had the Times on his hands.

Until Friday I will have all the Times in the world, then I only have 72 hours.


----------



## WanderingMonster

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> So, I am paired off with WanderingMonster? Good, you know that Wandering Monsters are simply designed as small inconveniences to keep the PC's moving along. Since we are on a time limit, that is hardly a concern anyway. Just for the record, I am not scared of the big, scary dragon icon. We know that's just a scan from a previous edition and it really ins't representative of what WanderingMonster is all about anyway. So, what do I have to fear? Woohoo! It's back to basics!



_Excuse, me: was that trash talk?_  You'd figure someone with "bard" in their name would have come up with something better.  

*B*ibliophile's *A*lternate? *R*eadily *D*ismissed. *S*imply *T*rying *E*veryone's *P*atience; *H*ardly *E*phen *N*oteworthy. *F*ork *O*ver the *X*P.


----------



## Macbeth

WanderingMonster said:
			
		

> *B*ibliophile's *A*lternate? *R*eadily *D*ismissed. *S*imply *T*rying *E*veryone's *P*atience; *H*ardly *E*phen *N*oteworthy. *F*ork *O*ver the *X*P.



Ooooh, thats kind of clever. Come on, BardStephenFox, you can't let him get away with that...


----------



## Zhaneel

Complete newcomer, though I watched the last contest avidily.


----------



## orchid blossom

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Hey, just for a point of referential trivia, how many Ceramic DM Champs are in this round?  I'll keep track if anyone wants to chime in.
> - Mythago
> - Speaker




You know, when I saw that I was up against Mythago, I thought Piratecat must be mad at me for nearly falling asleep during his game at the Boston game day.  (Can you believe it, I get a chance to play in a P-Kitty game, and I'm falling asleep.)  I mean, for what other reason would you put a newbie up against a champ? huh?


----------



## mythago

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> I mean, for what other reason would you put a newbie up against a champ? huh?



So you'll wipe the floor with me. Think of how the NEXT round contestant would feel...


----------



## francisca

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Hey, just for a point of referential trivia, how many Ceramic DM Champs are in this round?  I'll keep track if anyone wants to chime in.
> - Mythago
> - Speaker
> 
> Other trivia:
> 
> How many previous Ceramic DM contestants?
> - BardStephenFox
> - Macbeth
> - Alsih20
> - CoolHandLuke
> - NiTessine
> 
> How many complete newcomers?




Complete newcomer/sacrificial lamb


----------



## NiTessine

francisca said:
			
		

> Complete newcomer/sacrificial lamb




Heeheehee...

It's a good thing I don't live in Western Europe, I think.


----------



## Piratecat

For what it's worth, I haven't won one of these yet; I've competed twice, and been ably beaten (by Mythago and Sialia) in the final round each time. One day! With luck, I'll get to compete in the Summer competition.

I'm glad folks are enjoying the photos. They start easy (some are harder than others!), but they'll get a little more tricky as we go on.


----------



## Speaker

Harder?  Well, that which does not kill us...

My opponent, the honourable RangerWickett, seems to be keeping quiet for the time being, and I will do the same - for now.  With any luck I will wake friday (hungover and bleary eyed) to a series of pictures that stir the blood and mind.

Until then, good luck to all those writers already hard at work.


----------



## BSF

WanderingMonster said:
			
		

> _Excuse, me: was that trash talk?_  You'd figure someone with "bard" in their name would have come up with something better.
> 
> *B*ibliophile's *A*lternate? *R*eadily *D*ismissed. *S*imply *T*rying *E*veryone's *P*atience; *H*ardly *E*phen *N*oteworthy. *F*ork *O*ver the *X*P.




Trash talk?  Hardly.  I probably could do something better, but I am tired from gaming tonight and your baiting, while clever enough, isn't enough to inspire me right now.  Sorry, perhaps I will feel more up to it tomorrow?


----------



## drose25

Speaker said:
			
		

> Harder?  Well, that which does not kill us...




...only postpones the inevitable.


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Ooooh, thats kind of clever. Come on, BardStephenFox, you can't let him get away with that...




It is kind of clever, but I had a gaming session with my group tonight, which was cool since we hadn't gamed in 2-3 weeks.  I also picked up 7 new gaming books tonight, so I have some casual reading material.  Time to relax and unplug from the net for the day.  I'll be up and back to work soon enough.


----------



## Dirigible

For the times and dates, are we talking GMT or eastern US time?


----------



## mythago

Piratecat is on EDT, but it's still 72 hours from whenever the pics are posted. No plus or minus for living on the Left Coast here.


----------



## Berandor

I'm new as well.


----------



## tzor

I'm brand new.  Come to think of it, this is the first time I have been comming to the boards multiple times a day just to check a single thread.  Most of the times I check the boards once a day or once every other day, and the way people post on this board most of the threads here are gone off of page one in a few hours, so I've missed a lot.

But I do not consider my lack of previous participation an impediment.  In fact, I consider it an advantage, a lack of previous baggage and expectations.  I am like fresh clay ready to be fired in the heat of competition.  (Well this is *Ceramic* DM, I've got to use at least one ceramtic reference.)  And a fine amphora it will be, and grander it's contents.


----------



## Maldur

Overconfidence is a virtue


----------



## Piratecat

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Trash talk?  Hardly.  I probably could do something better, but I am tired from gaming tonight and your baiting, while clever enough, isn't enough to inspire me right now.  Sorry, perhaps I will feel more up to it tomorrow?




Whoa. Passive aggressive trash talk, trashy by its very anti-trashiness! He is masterful.


----------



## Sialia

tzor said:
			
		

> I'm brand new. Come to think of it . . . . But I do not consider my lack of previous participation an impediment. In fact, I consider it an advantage,



ooooh.

_fresh_ meat.

mm. 

[wipes chin]

(you, uh, tenor, bari or bass? That is to say, will I need a red or a white to accompany this entree?)


----------



## thullgrim

ok, here it comes.  I would like to thanks P-Kitty for the selection of photo's especially the plastic tube wearing oriental lady.  It took some doing but my next post will contain my story.  Hopefully you all enjoy.  Ripper's may begin shortly.

Thullgrim


----------



## thullgrim

Ceramic DM (Spring 04) Round #1
Thullgrim vs Macbeth

*The Life of Riley*

A man stands on the steps of a Cathedral.  The looming gothic edifice that is Sacred Heart towers overhead its spires reaching towards the cloud laden sky.  The wind swirls and the man clutches at his hat in an attempt to keep it on his head.  Pulling his coat tight about him he strides up the granite stairs and pulls open the door to the church.
	Calming light banishes the natural gloom of the church.  Rows of pews stretch towards the altar.  Being here brings a feeling of relief, of safety and even of home as Riley steps into it.
	He makes his way towards the altar, stops and lights a candle along the way.  He pauses at the altar and glares up at the bishop’s chair, a brief flicker of emotion crossing his lean face.  Suddenly turning, he makes his way to the nearest confessional booth and rings a bell.
	He enters the booth and awaits the priest.  This is as he remembers it polished wood, dark with age and polish, and the sins of thousands.  Cushioned benches covered in dark red cloth and a small candle.  A wooden screen separates the penitent from the confessor; a tiny window with a small door allows them to speak comfortably.
	He sits, meditating on sins of the past and present.  It had finally come to this, a return to the strictures of his youth.  Returning to the place where his life had taken its most definitive turn.  Killing a man changes everything.  
	Moments pass and Riley hears footsteps echoing off the marble floors.  The door to the booth opens and the priest step into the booth.  The sliding window opens and the priest waits for Riley to begin.

“Forgive me father for I have sinned.  It has been” a pause “It has been a very long time since my last confession.  Almost twenty years”.

“It is ok my son, god has an eternity”

“Father” Riley begins “I have been a bad man, a very bad man.  I lie, cheat, and steal.  I am vain and proud.  I have gambled with my life and the lives of others.  I have had relations with married women, and stolen the hearts of other women who wished to marry me.  I have done all of these things without a thought towards those I’ve harmed directly or otherwise, until now.  Tonight I killed my first man, and not just one.  I stepped over the line I drew for myself long ago and now I have nowhere to turn.  Help me father, heal me, forgive me, please father, take my confession and help me if you can.” He holds his head in his hands as the tears come.

“My son, only god can forgive, but I will help you if I can, let me hear your story.

“Yes father.  It is difficult for me to tell, my life is very….confused.  For many years I have made my living as an artist and thief.  I steal original masterpieces and replace them with fakes of my own devising.  I am very good father.  You have probably seen some of my work yourself.  In any case my clients are almost always wealthy private collectors.  Some of these men are very powerful, and very ruthless.  They pay a lot of money to own originals and I provide them.” Riley takes a deep breath and thinks about what he is going to say next.

“I was hired to fake and steal a painting, the Eye of Yss, whatever that means.  A work by an obscure modern artist, picture itself was not impressive, the sum offered was.  Most of the people I work for contact me anonymously and this was no different.  They contacted my agent who passed their offer along to me.  I checked the job out (2) and decided the money was simply to easy to pass up.  They wired half of the money into a bank account.  Copying the painting proved to be no problem, the technique involved was nothing compared to forging some of the impressionist masters, for instance.  Stealing the painting also proved to be little hassle, as it was located in a gallery of modern art rather than a museum, and security in those things is laughable.  Everything was going quite well, too well it turns out.”  Sighing he continues with the story.

“I was to make the drop at a steeplechase race (3).  I was simply to put the piece in a lock in the Jockey’s locker room, and the remainder of the money would be wired.  I made the drop as planned and placed a couple of bets.  Took in the racing and left the track for they day.  I checked my accounts and sure enough the deal was complete.  I slept like a babe that night.”  Clearing his throat he says “Listen father, I know a man is supposed to be contrite when he confesses, but you have to understand, I don’t feel bad about how I make my living no one gets hurt, and frankly is obscene to see what some people will pay for some paint on a canvas.  The next series of events though scared the hell out of me though and is the cause of my current distress.”

“My life continued as it usually does, I went to museums and galleries and practiced my technique.  I was just going through the motions, waiting for the next job to come along, or the next poker game.  Like I said earlier, I gamble a lot.  I even went to the steeplechase race the following weekend to place a few bets.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened until one night I awoke to the sounds of someone in my apartment.  I jumped out of bed grabbing the baseball bat I keep in my room.  Turning on the lights I went from room to room in search of the intruder.” 

His voice growing excited he continues.

“When I got into the living room someone knocked me over the head.  A woman, dressed in a strange mesh top and black leather pants, I lashed out with my bat but she easily deflected my blow and threw me to the ground.  I got up just as she lunged towards me.  We struggled, alternating blows, her with the strength and skill of someone obviously trained to fight, me with nothing more than frustration and fear.  I managed to get behind her and throw her towards the wall. She landed hard but leapt up before I could follow up.  We wrestled near the wall; she gripped my hair and slammed me headfirst into the fish tank.  I grabbed some of the hose from the tank and attempted to strange her.  I finally got behind her and was applying all the pressure I could to my make shift garrote. She sank to he knees and her eyes closed. I let up on the pressure and when I did she grabbed the bat and struck me solidly.   Down I went gasping for air.  Last I remember she was standing above me with the fish tank hose around her neck smiling.” (1) 

“I opened my eyes to steamy darkness, not like night in the city but like being locked in a small closet.  My body ached, muscles felt like they were on fire where I had been hit with the bat there was a throbbing pain and it hurt to breath.  There was a strange taste in my mouth.  I felt around and discovered I was lying in something padded on all sides with a satiny material.   Terror struck like a hammer as I realized I was in a casket.  I thrashed in the darkness, pounding at the lid, screaming ‘let me out, get me out of here’ to no avail.  I blacked out again.”

Chuckling the priest says “Oh that was a good story but if you are quite done wasting my time young man I have other duties to attend to”.

“Father you must believe me.  This is the truth.  It gets even stranger I can assure you.” Riley cries out.  “Please! You must let me continue.  Someone must know of what I have seen.”

Struck by the vehemence in the man’s voice the priest tells him to continue.

“Thank you father.  I swear I speak the truth.”  Taking a deep breath Riley continues with the story.

“I awoke again to the darkness, though this time a different sort.  It was cold, very cold and not quite as dark.  As my eyes adjusted I became more aware of my surroundings.  The lid to my coffin was open and I sat up to look around.  There were other coffins in the same room I was in, maybe six of them.  The room was getting light flickering source down the hall.  There appeared to be no door to the room.  Water could be heard dripping from the ceiling and whole room smelled of mold and decay.”

“Getting out of the coffin, I dropped to floor as soundlessly as possible.  I was now dressed in some strange robe like garment; it felt like silk and was embroidered with strange designs.  The designs were set with gold thread, and the robe itself appeared to be deep purple, bordering on black.  In the dim light who could tell?”  In any case, I moved as close to the doorway as I could and looked down the lit hall.  Torches; would you believe there were torches in the hall?  The hall, like the room I was in was built of stone.  The walls were slick with water and in the corners near the ceiling were patches of mold.  Seeing no one in the hall, I went back to the room to look in the coffins.”

“I approached the first one with trepidation; after all, it could contain anything.  I opened it and looked inside.  Empty.  The second coffin was also empty and some of my fear was beginning to wear off.  I approached the third and was struck by the overwhelming stench of decaying meat.  I decided to leave that one and move on to the fourth.  As it opened I saw something white glinting in the torchlight, I opened the casket further and was shocked to see the obvious remains of a human skeleton.  There was a knife protruding from its ribs and the remnants of the same type of robe I was wearing clung to the frame.  I took the knife and kept looking.  One of the two remaining caskets smelled of rot, so I left it, and the other contained another knife so I took it too.  I hid the second knife in the folds of my room.”

“I crept back to the doorway, still no one to be seen.  Moving down the hall I began to hear chanting and a faint odor of incense reached me.  I came to a point where the hall intersected with another hall running the opposite direction creating a 4 way intersection.  I could not tell which direction the chanting was coming from but it was getting louder.  The same word being repeated over and over again.  Hammering itself into my mind.”

-Yss-gar-on-Yss-gar-on-Yss-gar-on-Yss-gar-on-

“Over and over, unceasingly” he pauses to wipe the sweat from his brow and continues “the same phrase droned on.  It was hypnotic.”


-Yss-gar-on-Yss-gar-on-Yss-gar-on-Yss-gar-on-

“At the intersection I went straight putting my back to the wall on one side of the hall and moving down it.  It seemed to get brighter and the incense was getting stronger, strange tendrils of smoke danced in the air and seemed to cling to me as I walked.  The voices were getting louder and stronger, more intense.  A new sound was added to the mix, a pounding sound, like a large drum, or many feet stomping rhythmically.  The chanting begins to reach a crescendo as the hall merges into a large room.”

-YSS-GAR-ON-YSS-GAR-ON-YSS-GAR-ON-YSS-GAR-ON-


“The room is circular in shape with a raised dais in the center of the room and what it is obviously an altar in the center.  There are people in the room, dressed in robes, wearing masks of gold, dancing around the altar chanting.  Obviously they are the source of the chanting.  Incense burns in sconces scattered about the room, filling the room with a thin haze.  My head was swimming from the fumes.”

“A glint of metal catches the light and I follow it to its source, a man holding the knife poised over his head, ready to strike.  I looked down at the altar and saw a man strapped down.  He was conscious and watching the entire ritual.  He was smiling.  The knife arcs downward and the dancers cry out ‘YSSGARON’, the man’s blood is spilled onto the altar.  As I watch the altar looks to absorb the blood and the dancers’ race forward to put their fingers in the blood.  They draw symbols on each other in the blood of their victim.”

“A scream rings out ‘NOOOO’ and I realize it’s my own voice.  My scream shatters everything, people look at me. I run, randomly going into rooms and closing doors.  Hearing feet behind me, voices, people searching I run into the next room, it’s a changing room of some sort.  Cubicles are set up with clothes and shoes in each.  Searching the room for something to wear other than robes I find lots of clothes, everything from Armani to Levi’s and at least one priests collar, crucifix and bishop’s ring.  Amidst one set of clothes I find a gun in a shoulder holster and a badge.   I took the gun and the extra-clip I found in the holster and headed towards the door, as I did it opened.  Not even stopping to look  I pulled the trigger.  The gun screamed in my hands, echoing off the stone of the complex.  A body fell to the ground.  Looking at it I see it’s the woman who attacked me in my apartment.  She was smiling.” 

“I hurried to the hall began looking for a way out.  What follows was a blur of smoke and fire and death.  I had to shoot several more times and killed at least three more people.  I found a set of stairs just a group of them found me.  I backed up the stairs; gun pointed at them, fired into the crowd a few times and finished climbing out.  I emerged from the underground complex into a marble room with a crypt in it.  The crypt sat of center and appeared to be designed to hide the secret staircase to the below.  I slid the crypt into place.  I heard hammering on the crypt as I went outside to face the dawn.  The sun rising over the distant horizon showered light and heat down upon me, things I had been sorely lacking throughout the long night.  Several cars were parked outside.  I found one with a set of keys in it and sped off.  Looking in the mirror I saw what appeared to be a strange mausoleum on a grass covered hill (4).  I was followed for a while but when I got to the city I lost them.”

“Father I know I killed people tonight but surely god can forgive me?”

The priest sighed “Yes my son god will forgive you, for you truly did not intend to kill those people but were only defending your own life.  It is a strange tale you tell.  I know not how I can help you though if it is within my power I will.  Tell me have you gone to the police?  Have you told anyone else of your theft or of what has happened?”

“No father I came straight here.  I could not think of anywhere else to go.  I grew up in the orphanage this church runs, it’s the only place I ever feel safe.”

“I am glad you came to me” said the priest.

Riley could hear more footsteps in the church, heading towards the altar.  He felt calmed by the priest’s words and was opening his mouth to speak when the door to the confessional opened.  Standing there were two men in purple robes and a smiling oriental woman.


----------



## thullgrim

May the ripping commence...
Win or lose this was quite an exercise in mental gymnastics and I would like to say it was alot of fun as well.  Thanks for the opportunity!

Have fun

THullgrim


----------



## Piratecat

Wow, early! That's bold.

Please no one comment on this until the second story is posted, and please don't make biasing commentary until judges have voted. 

Macbeth, obviously don't read this until you've posted your story.

Thullgrim, I reserve the right to move your post to later in the thread, so it is matched next to your competitor's physically. If I do so, I won't change anything.

Please note that if you use numbers to designate the illustrations, a footnote summary of which is which will make your readers and judges happy.  )


----------



## Sialia

Congratulations on getting your entry in!


Edit-[Biasing supportive and encouraging comment removed]


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## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Macbeth, obviously don't read this until you've posted your story.



Of course. I'll be finishing mine this afternoon, so I shouldn't have to wait too long.


----------



## thullgrim

terribly sorry about the lack of footnotes.  Here they are in order of appearance:
(2)-Painting Pic
(3)-Steeplechase Race (Horse Pic)
(1)-Orietal Girl with Tubing
(4)-Solitary building

If a mod can put these in as an edit that would be great.  I you want me to do it let me know.

Maybe just move this post next to the story post
Thullgrim


----------



## tzor

As Piratecat stated I shall not comment on the story yet, but I shall comment ...

Oh so we add the stories we write to this (the main contest) thread?  OK.   

_(Different boards do things in different ways, and I wasn't sure what way we were using ... so I was glad I wasn't going first.)_


----------



## BSF

thullgrim said:
			
		

> terribly sorry about the lack of footnotes.  Here they are in order of appearance:
> (2)-Painting Pic
> (3)-Steeplechase Race (Horse Pic)
> (1)-Orietal Girl with Tubing
> (4)-Solitary building
> 
> If a mod can put these in as an edit that would be great.  I you want me to do it let me know.
> 
> Maybe just move this post next to the story post
> Thullgrim




Thullgrim, I am sure everyone will be able to follow the footnotes down here.    In any case, if Piratecat thinks it will help, he can certainly edit your post to the end of the story.  But, editing your own post is a big no-no, so I would let it stand.


----------



## Sialia

Right. Edits by author are an immediate disqualification, to keep people like me under control.

In my opinion, the way the story is told should make it pretty obvious which  picture goes where,and the footnotes are mostly just to indicate the exact placement ("not this line . . . wait for it, ok, here!") You did that successfully, and I had no trouble following your intentions.
Of course, I'm not a judge, so my opinions won't help you.


----------



## alsih2o

I may be the first person to die from banging his head on a keyboard.


----------



## Piratecat

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I may be the first person to die from banging his head on a keyboard.




Clay, do you hear that noise? That's the sound of rust flaking off the creative machinery, but I'm pretty sure it's also the sound of *every single* competitor in *every single* Ceramic DM you've ever run giving you a simultaneous, sarcastic "Waah."  Aaaah, payback, how sweet is your gentle caress.  

Never fear, competitors; we've got faith in you. Have fun with these.


----------



## Sialia

If you do, can you ask someone to take a picture of it so we can use it for the summer session?




(Seriously--take a good break--eat chocolate--good for a walk--stare at clouds--balance the checkbook--cook a meal--take a nap. If you take your mind off it for a short while, you will find that your mind has been sorting things in the background, and solutions seem more obvious. Of course, you'll have less time left to _write_ them, but they'll come quicker. Don't take too long a break.

When I got most stuck, I went to a party at a champagne bar and ate canapes for a few hours and then wandered through Chinatown in the dark of the night. My muse likes that sort of thing. She likes chocolate and eggplant parmesan, too. Courting your muse is not the same thing as procrastinating--you have to bring her along with you wherever you go, and know that she's watching everything you do.

A wise man at the champagne bar said "When you get stuck, go deeper into your characters. Everybody has the reason they _think_ is the reason for what they do, and a _real_ reason for doing it, too. When you know all three reasons, you'll know what comes next."


----------



## mythago

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I may be the first person to die from banging his head on a keyboard.



 Don't worry, you can't actually kill yourself that way. I've tried.


----------



## alsih2o

You three stink in the best way.

 Yes, yes, this is probably good for me. but "nyah" anyway.


----------



## Macbeth

Whew! Finished my entry. Worked out pretty well. I'll post it in my next post. When can we expect a judgement?


----------



## Macbeth

_Ceramic DM, Round 1.
Macbeth vs. Thullgrim, a.k.a. Duncan_
*Vis a vis*
By Sage "Macbeth" LaTorra


The weather made it worse. It wasn't enough that he had to drive all the bloody way to Twickham to do the pickup, but the weather was against him. In fact, at this point, James Sterling was sure everything was against him. 
It wasn't that he minded his job much. As jobs go, smuggling was good, honest work. Well, maybe not honest work, but definately profitable, which will fill in for honest in a pinch. But having to drive all the way to Twickham, just to get a package of a boat coming from the continent made him feel like a delivery man for a parcel service, and a very illegal parsel service at that.
The rain had been falling all day, which didn't help. Luckily Twickham wasn't completely devoid of entertainment, and Sterling had been able to spend the morning at the race track, placing bets rather larger then he could afford on some chancy horses. He had lost miserably, which is par for the course in Sterling's life.
But now things were staring to look up. In thirty minutes the boat would arrive, he could get the package, and be on his way back to London.
Sterling set off for the cliffs. He had been there the day before, to inspect the area, insure that  the boat would be able to make it in and out without attracting attention. The cliffs were an ideal place for smuggling. Out of the way, not big enough to be a tourist attraction, but to large for any normal boat to want to dock there. Sterling had hid a heavy rope ladder in the bushes and set a couple of stakes to attach it to when the time came. If his luck held, the pickup would go off without a hitch. But, as Sterling himself already well knew, his luck would never hold.
The path was getting worse by the minute as the rain continued to fall, and the sand soaked up the water. The bushes on either side shimmered with raindrops as Sterling rounded the final bend, and found himself proving Murphy's Law. Where there should have been a nice, sheer cliff, there stood a small domed building, surrounded by pillars, a building straight out of a textbook on Greek history.(1)
Finding a small greek building standing on the edge of the cliff didn't suprise James Sterling as much as it might have. He was already expecting something to go wrong. He just wasn't expecting this.

Sterling ducked back behind the bushes. "Bloody 'ell" he mumbled, to no one in particular. "Yeah, that wasn't here yesterday" responded no one in particular.
Worse and worse thought Sterling, as he whirled around to see who else was hiding in the bushes. "Jumpy, aren't we?" Said the voice. Sterling gazed in the bushes, wildly trying to find a person to match the voice. Finally his eyes settled onto a women's shape int he bushes. "Bloody 'ell Maria, you scared the bejeezus out of me."
The women unfolded herself from the bushes. "I know. That was my plan." A mischevious grin spread across her face.
"So what are you doing here, dear, I thought you was still back in London."
"I'm here to help you" the women replied as she removed twigs from her hair. "Mr. Hamin wanted to make sure you didn't screw this up."
"Really?" Great. Mysterious greek buildings, rain, and the boss didn't trust him. Just great. "Well, if your here, you might as well tell me where that great bloody building came from."
"Thats just the thing. I checked this place last night..."
"So did I" Sterling wasn't about to let her think he was slacking on the job. It just wouldn't do to have people think he was a slacker, even if he was.
"Sure you did, hon. I had to hammer one of your stakes in. It would've come out once you wer half way down."
"Oh, yeah"
"But that building wasn't here last night, regardless. I don't know who would put up a building in a single night, but I haven't seen anybody go in our out."
"How long have you been here?"
"About an hour longer then you've been slacking at the racetrack."
Sterling's face truned a deep red. Maria was good.
He couldn't let her do this. James Sterling would not be pushed around. It was time for action: "So, uhm, you think it might be a good idea to look around inside? Maybe?"
"My thought exactly, James. I'll lead, you follow. Can't be too carefull."
"Wait, let me grab the ladder I left here. the boat should be here soon."
"Already got it." Maria grabed a duffel bag out of the bushes and handed it to Sterling, who threw the bag over his shoulder. "Okay, lets go" James said, with an only slightly noticeable trace of fear in his voice.

Maria led the way out of the bushes, with James following behind. As they approached the building the worksmanship of it became more obvious. This was no facade, the building was actually made of stone. 'Incredible' Maria thought. 'Crap' Sterling thought. 'Good' Vis thought.

Maria walked up to the building and looked inside. The room was just big enough to hold the spiral staircase that descended out of view. "Well, nothing to do about it, I say we go down. We can't risk this being a set up." Maria said to Sterling, who was still ins\ching towards the door.
"Uhm, who is 'we'?" The fear was still noticable in Sterling's voice.
"We is you and me, darling"
"I was afraid of that"
"You know, you really shouldn't be scared. It's probably just a prop for some movie."
"Not with my luck" Sterling mumbled.
"Mmmm, good point." Maria had known Sterling for some time, and even being an optomist, she had to agree that with Sterling, that with his luck, there was something to be afraid of. "But stil, your coming with me."
Maria led the way down the stairs. It was oddly light inside. There was no visible source of light, but it was still at least as bright as it was outside.
It was hard to tell how far down they were. The staircase spiralled down until finally it opened into a room. Maria and Sterling's eyes scanned the room. The room's eye scanned Maria and Sterling.
Set into the wall opposite the stairway was a huge eye that stared directly at Sterling and Maria. Actually, when he thought of it later, Sterling realized that the eye didn't look at him, it looked through him. It seemed to focus at a point just behind his eyes, as if it was looking into his skull.
While Maria and Sterling stared, dumbfounded, the eye blinked. Then a voice came from the wall behind the eye. "Eye am Vis the all seeing." echoed around the room. "Hello, James Cuthbert Sterling, Welcome, Maria Deoborah Hampton."
Sterling finally brought himself out of shock, mostly because this wasn't actually as bad as he had expected. When you have Sterling's luck, your expectations are fairly low, and since the eye had yet to inflict grevious bodily harm, it was better then James expected. "Uh, Hello, Vis the all seeing." Time to stall for time. "You know our names, impressive. But I have my doubts as to how 'all seeing' you really are"
Vis replied. "Try me."
Sterling had to think fast. He could think of far to many bad things that could still happen. Unfortunately he was not too good at thinking fast. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"1"
"Damn, you are good. How bout now?"
"4"
"Bloody 'ell, you really are all seeing. Again?"
"7"
"Jesus, that's creepy. How bout..." Luckily for James, Maria finally joined the conversation.
"Enough of this, what is this place?"
The walls shook. Vis spoke again. "This is my temple. Eye am the all seeing eye. Eye have been summoned here."
This wasn't enough for Maria. "But how did it get here?"
The floor rumbled. Vis spoke. "Eye have traveled here across the sea of dreams" the white of Vis's huge eye suddenly switched to a vision of a sea of sleeping heads, twisting, twirling, dreaming, "flown through the endless sky of imagination" the sea was replaced by the bluest sky Maria had ever seen(2), "and descended through the higher dimensions" the sky became a shape that made Sterling's eyes hurt, since he was sure the shape had no sides, infinite corners, and more dimensions then you could throw a stick at (unless it was a stick with alot of dimensions).
Maria was impressed, but that didn't stop her. "Oh. Thats all. Well, what are you here for?"
The ceiling vibrated. Vis spoke. "Eye am here to fortell. The brotherhood of the three summoned me."
Sterling liked the idea of knowing the future, If you knew the future, you could expect it to be even worse. "Well, mighty Vis, could you tell me about my future then? Or rather fortell me?"
The walls flexed. Vis spoke. "You will die. Bad things will happen. Stay away from walruses, and avoid the number 42."
"uh, thanks." Sterling was at a loss. He already knew that, especially the part about the walruses.
Before the conversation could continue, Sterling caught the sound of footsteps of the stairs. He whirled around to find himself face to face with an asian man that he would have assumed was a rejected clown, with an odd outfit and something, medical tubing maybe, wrapped around his head, if it weren't for he very un-funny gun is his hand. The clown-ly man had a triangle painted across his face(3), and as more of his friends arrived, the all shared the similarity of having a white triangle of some type on their face. They also all had guns. "Vis, who are these intruders?" the man with the gun yelled.
Vis's eye darted sheepishly for a second, since he had run out of parts of the room to vibrate while he spoke. He settled for the next best thing.
Sterling's pants rumbled. Vis spoke. "They are smugglers. They will be a thorn in you side, Isoceles. Right will try to have them killed. Obtuse will try to hire them. You, Isoceles, will try to get rid of them, especially the idiot. But they will bring failure. They will take the Triple, and use it against you."
"Imposible!" The clown man, who Sterling decided must be Isoceles, yelled.
"I will kill them now, to prove you wrong, Vis!" He raised his gun to Sterling's head. James tried to think fast, and failed. Miserably.
"Wait!" Sterling yelled, trying to stall for time. So far so good, Isoceles had yet to fire. "Uhm." Sterling was loosing ground. He had to think of something to stall Isoceles. "Whats with the clothes?" Not the best way of stalling, but effective.
Isoceles blinked. "What about my clothes? I am just trying to blend in with your western ways."
"Uhm, western ways? Where did you see clothes like that around here?"
Isoceles was indignant. "These are typical western clothes! Even the tube! I saw them at a fashion show. I sthat not where you western pigs find your clothes."
Maria finally joined in. "Oh, heavens, no. Nobody actaully wears anything from a fashion show. You actaully look, well, ridiculous."
Isoceles hesitated again. Maria siezed the moment, and the tube around Isoceles' head, throwing him directly into Vis. Vis bliked wlidly, trying to remove the ofending man from his eye, which caused the room (and Sterling's pants) to shake wildly. Sterling and Isoceles' men fell down, but Maria kept her footing, pulling Sterling back to his feet, and making a break for the door.

The shaking died down as Maria and Sterling raced upstairs. They dashed out into the now pouring rain. The drop-off ship had slid into a small niche in the cliffs.
"We've got to get the package." Maria said, with foot steps rapidly approaching.
"No. I'll tell Mr. Hamin I had more pressing matters." Sterling's sentence was punctuated by a bullet cutting through the air near his head.
"Right. Lets go." Maria dashed out down the path. "Where'd you leave your car?"
"By the... race tr... track." Sterling rasped between ragged breaths. He didn't usually have to run on the job.
"Okay." Maria turned off to the side, taking the shortest route to the track.

As they neared the track, Maria slowed down. "Those men, did you recognize them?"
"No, I don't tend to hang out with insane, gun carrying criminals. I enjoy the compnay of a better class of criminal."
"No, idiot, not personally. Didn't you recognize the face paint? Those men were Triad!"
"But I thought they were part of the weird triangle fanatics club that summoned Vis?"
"That's just it! I think they're on in the same. The Triads have been known to mess around with Asian mystics, I think they're dabbling in a new kind of magic. And they're doing it in England."
"Bloody 'ell, that just beats all, don't it?"
Maria didn't get a chance to respond. The conversation slowed them down, and Isoceles was catching up. A bullet ripped through the air. Maria picked up the pace again.

"Uh, Maria, dear, we've got a problem."
"What, James?" Maria said in a voice that implied she had no interest in any of his problems.
"We're on the wrong side of the race track."
Maria looked ahead. Sterling was right. The track stood between them and the grandstands, behind which the car park was located.
"No problem." Maria stated. "We run across the track."
"We do what!?"
"Run across the track. Shortest way. Just watch out for the horses."
"Right"

They dashed across the track. So far, so good. The green in the middle of the oval was harder going, but they amde it to the other side just as Isoceles' men strated onto the track. 
But this is where Sterling's luck gave out. Just as he and Maria crossed into the track, with the grand stands on the other side of the dirt track, the race began.
The sound of galloping horses got Sterling's attention. "Duck!" he yelled as he dived on to Maria, pulling her down next to a jump. They tucked under the obstacle just as the first horse cleared the jump. The thunder of hooves drowned out all noise, and horses filled the air over Sterling's head(4). As the pack of horses crossed the jump, Maria began to crawl out of the protection of the jump,leading Sterling with her.
They made it out the other side, and clambered into the grand stands, dashed through the crowd, and lost Isoceles again.

Sterling jumped into the drivers seat, throwing the bag with the ladder into the back. Maria slid into her seat, and he sped off to London.
Maria breathed a sigh of relief. "Glad we got out of there." now all we have to do is inform the police."
"Inform the police? Are you bloody insane! We're wanted criminals, Maria! I don't exactly do an honest day's work!"
Maria thought this over. "Then I guess it's up to us to stop the triads and that... thing. The eye. Whatever it was."
"Up to us! How do you figure that?"
"Somebodies got to do it. And I'm sure Mr. Hamin won't be too happy about having Triads on his territory. All we have to do is convince him that stopping the triads is in his best interest, and we can save the world from... whatever the Tirads are doing."
"Great." the sarcasm in Sterling's voice was overwhelming.
"Say, all that running piqued my hunger. You got anything to eat?"
"There might be a biscuit in the bag with the ladder."
Maria took the bag, opened it, and rummages around inside. "Uh, there's no ladder in here, James."
"Don't be silly. Thats my bag from the bushes, right?"
"I thought so, I saw you leave it there last night, but I think this is somebody elses."
"Who's?"
"The Triads"
"Don't be sill, how do you figure that?"
"Cause theres a thing in here that looks like about a dozen triangles inscribed on each other, except they can all rotate."
"No! That can't be..."
"the 'triple' thing the eye was talking about? I'm not sure, but it seems like it."
"Bloody 'ell"

'Good' Vis thought. Then he thought about getting a protective monocle. Having Isoceles in his eye was not fun.

The rest of the drive back to London was silent. Having to save the world did not put Sterling in a good mood. The weather didn't help. 

_To Be Continued(?)_


(1) Picture of the Cliffs with Vis' Temple.
(2) Vis, showing the infinite skys of imagination, with Maria and Sterling in the foreground.
(3) Isoceles, in his fashion show get up to 'blend in' with the westerners, with the distinctive mark of the Triads and Brotherhood of the Three.
(4) The horses jumping over Maria and Sterling as they take shelter behind a jump at the race track whith Isoceles and the other Triads in hot persuit.


----------



## Piratecat

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Whew! Finished my entry. Worked out pretty well. I'll post it in my next post. When can we expect a judgement?




Fast work!  Thank you.

The judges work as quickly as they can. Except when we're unavailable for some reason, judgment will usually come a day or two after the stories are finished. As soon as I have Maldur's and Arwink's judgments sent to me, I post all three.


----------



## Macbeth

Well, I just read my esteemed oponent's entry, and we have a good round on our hands. May the best man win!

And, just since I feel the need to trashtalk: Yo Mamma!

I look forward to the judges'...um, judgement. I had a grand time writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Edit: Say, is Arwink still around? Or will we have to wait for him to read it on Monday? Just trying to gauge when we'll see results.


----------



## cool hand luke

disclaimer, I'm not smart enough to insert links in the text. Hope you find some modicum of enjoyment!!!


Round 1 matchup
Cool Hand Luke vs. Alsih2o

I will admit, it had been an exciting 48 hours.  Any 2 days where you go through an assassin effectively performing his job on you, being brought back from the dead (always a weird, disjointing process) and having a nice face to face, heart to heart session with the gods of your youth (that you had long since abandoned as trumped up fairy tales) is bound to keep you from getting to bored.

You would think that a man jumping out of the crowd, covered head to toe in a white/red paste material, (insert goblin pic!)  and plunging a good sized dagger into an apparently innocent bystanders chest, SOMEONE would have seen it, and it might have been out of the ordinary enough to actually stick in there memories for a whole 48 hours.  Unfortunately, I had three things working against this reasonable assumption:

First, people living in the ward had long ago learned that seeing or hearing too much could be very bad for your health and wealth.  It didn’t take a genius to learn that when something like this went down, it was better for the witnesses to quickly discover they were elsewhere at the time of the event, regardless of whether it was the town watch, or mysterious, rough looking strangers asking the pointed (and often times VERY pointy) questions.

Second, this vicious, though hardly unprovoked, attack happened near the end of the annual Bachanal festival, where everyone took to the streets in the most outrageous costumes, to compete in an exhibition of extravagance of epic proportions.  Demon and devilish themed costumes seemed to be the fad this year, paying homage to the degenerate roots of the bacchanal festival.  So one more demon jumping and running around hardly attracted attention, not to mention his red covering made my blood very hard to spot.

Finally, I was hardly an innocent bystander.  As head of the paisans (think mafia) for the ward, I was a well known face, between the extortion, assassinations, and blackmail that I have either done directly, or through my underlings over the years, it was easy to see why someone would like to put a dagger in my chest.


I came back from my little trip down dead man’s lane like all the others, slowly waking up to a warm, bordering on hot feeling covering my chest, and the sickening smell of my mothers hand burning as the candle made of human fat burned down to her hand, letting the wax fall onto my prostrate form (insert pic 1).  I’ve never been sure if it was the odd combination of smells from burning flesh, and the strangely sweet odor of the human candle, shock from getting your organs jump started, or just some weird side effect of the magic, but, like every time before, I immediately roll off the carefully prepared table, sending magical accoutrements flying, and begin to wretch out what feels like the last fortnights food.  Having seen me do this before, and having ruined several nice rugs, mother thoughtfully provided a large basin for me.  As I crouched before the basin, waiting for my intestines to stop swimming, I heard my mother beginning to clean the altar, and saw that in the bottom of bucket I was leaning over, well, that there was no bottom.  It seemed to disappear into a swirling black vortex.  Finally, standing up, slowly to be sure, I looked over to my mother, “thanks mom.  Nice touch with the puke bucket, saves a trip to the gutter at least.”  As I collapsed on a chair, I look over to see mom rubbing some foul smelling salve over her burn wounds.  If she can bring me back from the dead, healing a minor burn should be a piece of cake, yet, she never does, and I never ask why.

Finally my mother breaks the silence.  “really, I wish you would be more careful.  One of these times I may not be able to bring you back.  Not to mention, you are getting pretty scarred up.  What self respecting woman is going to want to marry someone that looks like they’ve been in a half dozen knife fights?”  The absurdity of this little comment sends me snickering.  My dear mother knows I was in a dozen knife fights before my 10th birthday.  Hell,  I secretly suspect her of setting up most of them!  Also it cracks me up how the most powerful witch in the province, who’s son just happens to be a professional killer, is still just a mom at heart, wanting nothing more than to see her son settle down with a “nice” girl (though what my mother might think of as ‘nice’ is definitely up to debate) and start giving her grandchildren.  Although giving me a dark scowl, she refuses to comment on my snickering.  “Oh, come on mother, if your so desperate for grandchildren, can’t you just cook some up in one of your potions?”  She declines to comment on this little jab, and instead returns in the ever practical way, “so, do you know who wanted you dead THIS time?”

Oh yes, back to the disturbing question at hand.  “I have no idea mother, I will need to gather my men…”

At which point she took the time to interrupt me.  “I took the liberty of calling Jalin, Mortgard, and Kiera in, oh yes, and I think Rofful is around here somewhere if you’d like to ask him something.  Since we’ve done this so many times now, I figured that’s what you’d want.”

Good, that was a start, Jalin was my right hand man, Mortgard my chief of security, and Kiera the most incredible information source I had ever found.  It’s amazing what one can overhear in a few bars around here, especially if you are a buxom, beautiful blond, quite willing to use her assets to suck up to pompous men.  Rofful, now there was a confusing person.  He claimed to be a prophet of the old gods.  Gods that no one has believed in for over 5000 years.  Of course I don’t believe him, the goofy thing is he does have SOME magical ability that can neither be human style witchcraft, elvish sorcery, or demon inspired.  The more odd thing is how my mother and him have “clicked” some rumors even say they are quite an item.  I flop down in the chair, forcing my thoughts away from my mother’s love life.

I sit quietly, brooding, contemplating, and waiting for my friends to show up.  My mother continues to put put around the room, absentmindedly putting things here or there.  I’m too self-absorbed to notice her making a few sly motions with her hand, and dropping a small piece of wood into the fire.  Deeply entrenched in thought, I am jolted back to the present when I feel an iron like grip crushing my lower leg.  Yelping in surprise, and pain, I attempt to jump up, but, since my leg is currently stationary, wind up sprawling flat on my face.  My mother simply looked over at me, “that’s for your wise comment earlier”  Managing to twist suddenly, I see the chair I had been sitting in reaching out, attempting to grasp my leg.  “mother, what in the nine hells is that?” I manage to blurt out, as I pull up my pants to see a rapidly spreading bruise in the shape of those wooden fingers pulsing across my shin.

Throwing a quick glance my way, she replies, “I’m not sure, some old chair that has Rofful quite excited.  He swears there is a strong connection from that chair to the crazy old gods of his.  I haven’t seen him that excited since we……” her voice trails off, “well, in a while.”

Mercifully, any further pondering down that disturbing path is cut short as the door opens, and the four previously mentioned people walk into the room.  Kiera rushes over to embrace me, always exuberant that one.  Jalin bows formally to my mother, always curteous, while Mortgard just looks pissed.  As he should, it’s his job to keep me alive.  Rofful floats in behind them all, apparently unconcerned with all these banalities.

And so goes the post hit review.  Interestingly, I gather these same people, and go through much the same process, regardless of rather I’m the hitter or the hittee (I much prefer the former!)  We analyze what went right, (or wrong) how the holes appeared in our defenses, who might know things, and what our next steps are.  Unfortunately, after wracking our brain for a solid two hours, we came up with some very disturbing facts.

1.	We had no idea who was behind the attack.
2.	The fact that they were able to get through our regular defenses, and my mothers special protection charms, meant that they were a very formidable enemy.

Pacing, disgusted, and getting rather nervous, I threw myself back into the same darn chair that had grabbed me earlier, as I slouched down, I once again felt a vice like grip on not one, but two legs this time.  Before I could move, or attempt to extricate myself, a grey haze fell over my vision.  As the haze slowly cleared, I was treated to a weird dichotomy of vision.  The background picture, still seeming very solid and real, was the room where I had spent the last several hours with my friends, and shortly before that, had been brought back to life. I could still see the others in the room, but they appeared to be moving as if in slow motion.  However, in front of that, in a transparent projection, was quite a different seen.  I saw a long tree lined walkway, bright green, with a single figure slowly approaching. (insert picture 3)  I stared, trying to make out exactly what or who this creature approaching me was.  The first thing I was able to determine was the creature was incredibly tall, easily pushing 9 feet.  The next detail was that the creature was feminine.  Almost absurdly so, taking voluptuous to a level that previously could only be fathomed by 15 year old boys.  As she walked ever closer, I noticed that her hands had at least 8, maybe 10 fingers on each hand, each with a multitude of joints, appearing to be almost like long slender twigs, and her long, blond flowing hair seemed to be made a mat of field hay, constantly being blown in a breeze I couldn’t feel or hear.  
Somehow, this figure seemed vaguely familiar, like the lyrics of a song that you know, yet cannot recall.
Finally the graceful creation addressed me.  “Greetings, I see that in our long absence, you mortals have forgotten not only how to properly address us, but actually who we are.”  

That’s when it snapped, with a rather sickening feeling rising in my stomach, I realized that I was staring at the incarnation of Vea, the earth mother, from my childhood tales of the ancient gods.  Not remembering ever having been told how to properly address an ancient mythical goddess, I decided my best course of action was to say nothing.  After an awkwards moment of silence, she gave a sigh, which sounded like a small gurgling stream, and continued.  “We gods have decided to return our attention to the cute little plaything of ours you call home.  The august group in that room you sit in, especially Rofful, have been chosen to re-introduce us to the world.  Of course not everyone is that pleased with this development.  Your attacker the other day was no person disguised as a demon for some Bachanal bash, though good old bachal does enjoy that you still honor him every year, even if you’ve forgotten about the rest of us, but an honest to goodness demon, summoned to keep the status quo by some very powerful residents of your world.  I suspect that the resistance will get more and more fierce as it becomes apparent the old powers that were are intent on becoming the powers that be.  Initially you will be on your own, but as our power is regained, we will be able to help you more.”


My mind racing, I tried to stammer out one of the thousands of questions racing through my mind, before I could coherently utter a one, she looked straight at me for the first time, and I felt her eyes pierce my very soul.  “Why you dear one?  You shall see, oh yes, indeed, you shall see.”  

The mist began to return, gradually fading out the lush green landscape, and bringing the room more into focus.  I couldn’t wait to see the expression on the others faces when I got back and told them this wonderful news.


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## Macbeth

Ouch! I just looked at my enrty again, and realized the formatting got screwed up. Oh well, it's still readable.


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## Piratecat

And now... time to post illustrations for Mythago and Orchid Blossom. 72 hours, standard rules, and the best of luck.


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## mythago

You really haven't forgiven me for the pangolin, have you?


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## BSF

mythago said:
			
		

> You really haven't forgiven me for the pangolin, have you?



ROFL - That's funny!  But, to understand it, you need to read the Winter Ceramic DM tourney.  Check my .sig if you haven't read it yet.


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## Eeralai

*Good Luck!*

A little late, but I wanted to wish MacBeth and Bardstephenfox goodluck.  Good thing we aren't playing this week so your brains will be fresh for those...er, pictures.  Yikes!


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## Macbeth

Eeralai said:
			
		

> A little late, but I wanted to wish MacBeth and Bardstephenfox goodluck.  Good thing we aren't playing this week so your brains will be fresh for those...er, pictures.  Yikes!



Well, it may be a bit late, but thanks a ton. Encouragement is always welcome.


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## orchid blossom

I rather like these pics.  I'm not sure how I'm going to work them all together, but I like them.

Thank goodness the migraine cleared up.  Imagine the story you'd have gotten if I were still on about 5 different over the counter meds.


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## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> You really haven't forgiven me for the pangolin, have you?




No, my friend. I loved the pangolin.  I haven't forgiven you for the photo of a granite driveway sphere -- and all of those photos of peoples' hands.

I thought I was being more subtle than that, though. Dang.


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## Piratecat

About six hours to go for Alsih2o.

And it's time for *Match 1-5: Tzor vs. Zhaneel.*  Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. Please label the top of your entry with your match information, and make sure you flag your illustrations in some way.


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## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> About six hours to go for Alsih2o.
> 
> And it's time for *Match 1-5: Tzor vs. Zhaneel.*  Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. Please label the top of your entry with your match information, and make sure you flag your illustrations in some way.





Interesting... well I've at least got a throw-away story forming.  What I get for looking at these while on sleep depravation (6:50 AM here, up earlier than my alarm)

Zhaneel


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## tzor

What can I say, those pictures are fascinating!  My mind is already into overdrive working on something that is worthy of the contest.


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## alsih2o

round 1 Cool hand luke vs alsih2o

 The Grain

                                                                    1.

 My name is Yun  Soo Lee and I am a doctor. Well, I used to be a doctor. Now I am just another nobody with some paperwork saying she is a doctor. Well, I used to be a nobody….

    Three years ago I was working as a doctor in the severe burn unit of the largest hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. I spent most of my time treating people in terrible pain. I have seen strong men beg for mercy without shame at the touch of a cotton swab coated in healing ointment. I have watched children who cry without ceasing until we took their pain chemically, leaving nothing but the husk of a person. These small innocent lives and bodies are not fully formed and are already being rebuilt. Reborn. In pain.


                                                                  2.

     Nashville is an awfully small big town- small enough that my salary from the hospital left me with enough money to indulge my tastes for American plantation culture.

    “Why would you want a place so large? Seven families could live here!” my mother complained on her first visit. “Come back to the coast, there are many good Asian men still looking for wives.”

    My mother had always found my taste for American culture inappropriate. She spent 14 years working on a plan and filling out forms to come to this country and has spent the rest of her life trying to make sure I didn’t become a part of it. Add that to the men I have had to work with who naturally assume that since I am Asian I must be dying to fulfill some geisha fantasy of theirs and I start to feel like an island.  

    “Well, I have always liked Japanese women.” They say.

   “I am not Japanese, I was born in Oakland, California.” I would say.

   “Yeah, but your, you know, Japanese blooded.”  They would retort. That or some other piece of droll insight that could be summed up with a friendly “Well, you all look alike.”

    Most I would just let slide, some I actually explained it to. My mother is Thai and my father is Cambodian. I quickly found out that this leads most men right into a drooling look teamed with the word “exotic.”

   But my new home gave me respite from all of that. 285 gloriously planted acres with a big, white, columned house straight out of the ‘Gone with the Wind’ courtesy of a broken down country singer who managed to snort 6 gold albums up his nose. Wisteria grows in thick clumps on the old barn at the edge of the pond and graceful, slightly arching trees grace the driveway with a soft green light and a cool breeze 9 months of the year. 

    I have filled the house door to door with an eclectic collection of handmade furniture- Federalist, Louis the Fourteenth, Regency, Victorian, and even some Shaker pieces. All of this, of course, drives my mother crazy. 

   Mentioning my mother again should take me back to the story I guess. She came to visit for the second time in a month. This time with a man, if you want to call him that. I first heard her coming in my front door, jabbering as loud as she could in Thai about witches and Americans and how bad the rental car smelled.

    I was a little too stunned by mother walking in with a strange man to find out what it was that had upset her enough to call someone a witch. I just stood on the balcony, probably with my mouth hanging open, as she proceeded to tell the new prospect to make himself at home. After staring disapprovingly about the place for a few minutes he finally saw me above them and waved.

    “I love how you have brought this style together!” he said, sweeping his hand out over the furniture jammed all around the entry hall.

    It was one thing to lie, I mean the place was a mess, but to make the grand gesture at all of the new deliveries, some still in crates, some at odd angles where the movers had set them, that was too much.

    “It’s 12 styles.” I said with enough chill in my voice to let him know that 6 hours on a plane with my mother had been a waste of his time.

    “Do you, um, do you know there is a…vigil…outside?” he asked.

    “I wouldn’t call it that, just a crazy old woman. She has been there since I first looked at the place.” I always forgot her till a guest mentioned her. The mother of the aforementioned country singer- a country woman from deep in Louisiana. She had been camped out front when I first came to meet the realtor.

    I had remained in my car, her appearance made me uncomfortable. She had just stood there, staring at the house over the low stone wall that sits around the grounds. She caught me staring at her and a chill went down my spine. A chill- how appropriate. The realtor showed just after I locked eyes with the old lady and honked his horn. It dragged me back to my visit and when I looked back she was gone.

    I fell in love with the place instantly but tried to play it cool. I asked questions, I talked history and when I could not take it anymore I asked about the old woman outside. 

    “She is just an old woman, harmless really.” Said the realtor. “She is the mother of the dust-hound who owned this place,”

     “His mother? Aren’t all dead country stars mothers driving pink Cadillacs through trailer parks somewhere?” I asked, thrill with my own sense of humor.

    “Be careful,” he warned “I know you don’t mean any harm, but you are…different and that can be taken wrong around here.”

   Right when he said “different” was when I first noticed the Grain. He was speaking to me from just around the corner as I was examining the wood grain on the cabinet doors. I leaned in to get a closer look at the swirling tones and realized, much to my amazement, that they were closer to me!

    At first I assumed that the door had somehow come open but when I moved to close it I fully realized that the door had warped. What I could have sworn was a perfectly flat cabinet door when I entered the room was now a sweeping curve leaning towards me. I was unsettled, my sense of reality felt violated. 

    I quickly changed the subject moving away from the room. “Let’s talk about the offer.” I said moving briskly out of the pantry and through the kitchen. The realtor was quick to follow, I am sure he was counting up his commission the whole walk.

   And then it was mine. The house and the grounds and the barn and the tree-lined drive and the stone fences and, well…and her. She always stayed near the property. I would see her sometimes, never actually on the property mind you but near it. Twice I saw her digging in my trash and both times I called the police but apparently that is legal. I worried about identity theft but when I checked nothing was missing from the main trash. She had dug deep and opened the bag from the bathroom. Lord knows what she wanted in there.

    One of my neighbors warned me she was a witch. She seemed genuinely offended when I laughed. I thought it was a…euphemism. 

    She stared at me hard and leaned closer, lowering her voice in a way that made her twang even more exaggerated. “You folks from outside never believe it but there’s witches in the south, same as there is God.”

    “Do you mean to tell me she is a real, honest to goodness, cast a spell in the dark over a boiling cauldron witch?” I asked.

    “There is magic in some folks dearie, there is magic in ‘em as sure as there is corn liquor in the sheriff.”  She said with a conspiratorial tone.

    I didn’t take her seriously, of course. I actually spent most of my time trying to figure out why my neighbors, who had so much money, still dressed in gold trimmed sweats like trailer trash and talked like 

   “Hillbillies” She said, jarring me from my thought. “Hillbillies, everyone comes in from around and thinks you have to be stupid, lump us all as snake handlers and share croppers. But trust me missie, this is life.”  She turned her nose up and began to scoot away. “Don’t let that swamp witch get a focus on you darlin’, you be in for a world of hurt.”

    Late that night, enjoying a nice Merlot on my new shaker bench I was staring at my newly upholstered Chippendale chair. White silk with trefoils on a medium oak.

    And it moved. 

    Just a flinch at first, just a nearly imperceptible lean to the right where the light didn’t interfere with the grain. The Grain. 

    Now that I know about it it seems so natural, but at that moment I was shocked. Remember earlier, when I said my sense of reality felt violated? This was different. This time it felt too real. Like I had peeled back the onion skin and found an orange.

  So I decided to try. Some doctor. I immediately mistrusted all my training and tried to make the chair move. I concentrated as hard as I could; trying with what I taught was my mind to move it back just an inch.

    Nothing. And then a leg bent. The Grain. It made sense to me. Not in the rational use of the word sense but more of an intuitive feel. It was The Grain. 

    I giggled. I giggled like a schoolgirl. I hooted and snorted and laughed at the top of my lungs. I wasn’t even sure what I was laughing at. And somehow, somehow it made sense to let The Grain know and I did. I told the grain I wanted the ball from its eternally grasped ball and claw foot.

    And it gave the ball to me. http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=13627 Just a short roll across the carpet. I sat like an idiot with my mouth open, staring at the freed ball. I remember distinctly looking up at all of the furniture packed in at odd angle, the long slow curve of the walnut banister…the floor.

    And then I heard the cries- loud enough and clear enough to find their way up my drive and into the house. Wails of pain that I recognized, not in the way that you recognize a persons voice, but in the way you recognize the sharp snap of a quickly closed trap.

    I ran down the drive to find the boy right in front of my gate. His skin was still smoking, and I am a doctor again. The Grain fell away and I checked the boy’s signs. He was breathing, but I wouldn’t have bet on him seeing the sun rise. In the dark and the misting rain I was unsure of his age, he was short, but awfully heavy. And, and those ears.

    I got him into my garage and tried to lay him down but he kept springing back up to a seated position.


    “Sawatdee khrab” he said. “Sawatdee khrab.”

    Heat witch. My mother would be proud. All my various attempts at trying not to learn Thai and here I was translating the moans of a…boy? He was amazingly calm. I have seen this calm descend over patients before. It isn’t a good sign.

    What was even stranger was what he did next. He blinked. Now this may not seem an amazing feat, but when you have spent as much time as I have with burn victims this became a shocking act. His eyes should have been sealed close, his ears- his ears shouldn’t be that big. 

   I began to brush a glycerin based cream on his back http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=13625 and watched as his hands, held aloft stiffly before him, began to grow new, healthy skin.

   The “boys” lips began to heal and much to my surprise he began to speak directly to me.

    “She will burn you.” He said, betraying no real emotion.

    “Who?” I wondered

    He turned to meet my eyes with a slow plaintive stare. “Sawatdee khrab, the heat witch. You have taken what she sees as hers.”

   “How, how can you talk so soon?” I asked. “And I haven’t taken anything from anybody.” I added

    “It was only a year in the fires.” He answered, as if a year in a fire should make some sense to me. “And you took this home.”

    “I bought this home!” I retorted, lessening on my indignity toward the end, when I realized I was having a conversation with what appeared to be a rapidly healing…goblin? 


    If you ever find yourself on your garage floor arguing real estate law with a goblin returned fresh from hell, pause to have a drink. It may keep you from doing something stupid.

   I went outside.

    Now, in the newspaper accounts of the story I bravely stepped out to do combat with the witch. Between you and I- I just had to get away from the last hour, the realization that this woman WAS a witch and apparently hated me and the idea that my mother could walk into the room any minute with my intended paramour to find me rubbing glycerin on a crispy goblin freshly returned from some kind of yearlong trip to hell.

    The television and newspaper accounts also built up a long series of incidents between the witch and myself. Practically none of it is true. Yes, I did call the police on her. But none of the other things are true. I had not buried the deed swearing she could never have the property, I had not exhumed her family members buried behind the barn and stacked them in a cheap gravesite across state lines and I definitely did not attack her. But I did see her.

    She was moving up the driveway at me, slowly, deliberately. 

   “Save yourself, Bouno.”  I turned to find the little creature staggering out of my garage.  

  “Bouno?” I said, inquisitively.

  “Bouno, you are a mover, yes?” he must have known he was right by the look that washed across my face. “Which is it for you? Earth? Air? Stone?”

   “Wood.” I responded

   “Great, just back from a year in hell and I have to face my former master, the heatwitch with a WoodBouno.” He sighed  “Where are the WaterBounos when you need one?”

    “Get back inside” I said “Get back inside and call for help if you can.”

    “A lot of good that is going to do.” He said, turning back into the garage.

    She was closer now, coming down my beautiful tree lined drive at a deliberate pace. I could see that her face was ever so slightly illuminated.

    I concentrated and called to my furniture. Now, that may seem a silly proposition, but what was a woman like me to do? I called it, I willed it, I demanded it listen to me. And it did.

   The front doors ached and splintered off of their hinges and my beautiful collection ushered out and down the drive. My beautiful Windsor breakfront shuffled ahead, like some stiff soldier just remembering his youth. My Piedmont dining set scurried up behind my newly embroidered Chippendale chair. There are no words sufficient to describe this. 

    The old woman waddled closer and I could see now that she held several candles in her hand. She spat on her fingertips and passed them through the flames, gesturing in my direction, our direction. Flames licked up in rotund, swirling balls engulfing my babies. The smell of burning hardwood and boiling stains filled the air.

    I urge them on. They continued. My Rococo hall tree withered under a deluge of orange flame. My collection was turning to cinders, floating away in ashy clouds.

    Those few moments are very hard to remember. It all happened so fast, so furiously- and then I was out of allies. My entire collection had been turned to waste in less than 3 minutes.  My beautiful tree lined drive had been decimated by the heat, the burnt, dark branches stretched out above us, filtering the moonlight.

    The old woman held the stubs of her candles aloft for me to see. http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=13624 “I still have enough left for you, dearie.” She said in her cracked, husk of a voice. “And you see to be short a bit on helpers. Pity, pity, girl.”

    That is when I heard the tissue-like voice of my mother “Pity yourself bitch!” 

    She held her cane aloft and moaned, a sound not unfamiliar, a sound I had heard form many people, struggling to control themselves. 

    The old witch hurled her hands high above her thick shoulders, her deep-set eyes falling into complete shadow, and the flame began to grow anew.

    It was like a ship, that unceasing groan in the background of pirate movies. The Grain itself was warping to my mothers command. She had called the trees to my defense and they moved with grace of a willow sloughing off a high wind. The small whorl of flame swung up out of the witch’s hand as she left the ground. She was aloft for no more than a second, her blockish weight swaying from her shoulders, when the branches descended on her. She was torn beyond recognition in less than a second more. Her candles fell slowly tumbling through the blacked scene, swirling the smoke filled air behind them, finally stopping with a slightly sickening thud wick-end down on the drive.


                                                       3.


    Three years have passed. The drive approaching the house has been reborn in full lush growth http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=13626   and my mother walks it every day. I realize now that she can hear them, and speak to them. Not the clumsy shouts of my first night, not even a conversation, more like a constant agreement.

    HeMsHeut, my goblin, live under the wisteria by the barn. My mother has explained that he was just bait. The old witch couldn’t enter the property without reason so she called back this little minion of hers from his current punishment for a slight against her. When I brought him onto the property she had the right to follow him on, as she owned him.

    My mother also says he is mine now. She has shown me where it says so in the Mages Law but I don’t care much for the formal rules. I got enough of that form medicine and trust me; Mage Law makes medicine look clear, simple and easy!

   I am married now to Suk, the potential suitor I was so rude to. It turns out he is a Water Bouno, and a sound sleeper as well! We all stay here together on the farm. Eventually ‘the incident’ was left to the tabloids. It is amazing the capacity people have to not see the magic before them everyday. My mother complains about HeMsHeut but when I am up late I sometimes hear them having tea together in the summer kitchen. Being an immortal he knows all languages and I think she likes having someone to talk to in her native tongue. They mostly talk about life here in America and I think my other is the one being reborn. 

    Last month she came back from the antique market with a small Tudor stool. She seems to think it was made by the Menonites up the road. I don’t think I will tell her any different.


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## alsih2o

Well, best of luck to cool hand luke. I am off now to read his story after a little more standing around making that face that the folks make when they cross the ironman triathalon finish line.

 WHEW! that was hard!


----------



## Sialia

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Well, best of luck to cool hand luke. I am off now to read his story after a little more standing around making that face that the folks make when they cross the ironman triathalon finish line.
> 
> WHEW! that was hard!



Breathe well, friend. I am glad you made it across the finish line before the race ended.

Anything else I could possibly say would be one of those biasing comments.


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I haven't forgiven you for the photo of a granite driveway sphere -- and all of those photos of peoples' hands.



 Ah, yes, how well I remember the very posting of those spheres, as Samwise (aka Mr. Mythago) peered over my shoulder:

SAMWISE: Are those the pictures for Ceramic DM? What's _that_ one?

  ME: Bunch of gray spheres. I like the way they're all in a line.

  SAMWISE: Wow. That one's going to be really hard to place in a story, you know.

  ME: That's not _my_ problem.​ The hands were coincidence. Honest.


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> SAMWISE: Wow. That one's going to be really hard to place in a story, you know.
> 
> ME: That's not _my_ problem.
> [/indent]




 Wow, you all have this conversation too?


----------



## Maldur

Judging is hard again!

Good going peoples 

but I find the lack of smacktalk disturbing


----------



## Zhaneel

Maldur said:
			
		

> but I find the lack of smacktalk disturbing




Huh?  Was too busy writing my fabolous story that would win a Hugo to engage in petty smack talking.  ;-)

Zhaneel


----------



## Zhaneel

Just another quick reply:

All the stories that have been posted have been fun reads.  I have to say, though, I liked it better when they were further apart so I keep straigh which pictures went with stories and which stories were against each other.

Best of luck to the judges.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> have to say, though, I liked it better when they were further apart so I keep straigh which pictures went with stories and which stories were against each other.




That's our tradeoff for having more people in the first round. The second, third and fourth rounds will be somewhat more leisurely.

Arwink won't be able to judge until he gets home from the aforementioned con. Once he does and sends it to me, I'll post the first two judgments.


----------



## Sialia

mythago said:
			
		

> SAMWISE: Wow. That one's going to be really hard to place in a story, you know.
> 
> ME: That's not _my_ problem.



You know, that was pretty much the criteria I used for deciding whether a drawing was "good enough" for the competition.

Anything I thought gave away too much of its own story got pitched, and Piratecat never even saw it. This game is only partly about what stories our pictures tell--it's mostly about what stories our contestants tell. 

Obvious is so _dull_. The reason we all loved AlSiH20's game from the outset is that his pictures were never easy, and they made our brains twist into new knots to make sense of a senseless universe. Piratecat and Mythago both captured that in their selections, too.

It's so very satisfying to read a story that assembles all the nonsense into a reasonable sequence--you can just feel your brain go "click" each time it is released from the tension of bewilderment, as one more tile falls into place.

The best stories never give away that final click until you almost can't bear it anymore.

And then they do.


----------



## Piratecat

All righty. Is it time? It's time.

*Match 1-6: RangerWickett vs Speaker.*  Due Monday evening, of course. And it's worth noting that every competitor should copy down my email, so (lord forbid) if the boards crash you can email me your story before your time limit.

Enjoy!

Note that the next pictures get posted Sunday night.


----------



## RangerWickett

*blinks*  WTBleep?  Hee hee.  You are a well timed feline, my Bostonian friend.


----------



## Macbeth

Those have to be some of the best pictures I've seen in this competition. Hell if I know how to tell a story with them, but those are some awesome pictures. Good stuff!

Good luck!


----------



## RangerWickett

Oh, one quick question.  Need the illustrations be used in the order presented, or can they go anywhere?  Do I have to have the big hat before the big stone head, or can they be shuffled and such?


----------



## Macbeth

I'm not an official, but I have never used pictures in order, I think you can use them any way you want.


----------



## Speaker




----------



## alsih2o

Any old order has always worked around here RW.


----------



## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Any old order has always worked around here RW.



There you have it from the man himself. 
Good thing to, I had started worrying that I might have really screwed up by not using them in order... not that I've ever used them in order, but still, you had me worried.


----------



## RangerWickett

Bah.  Any true writer would have done it The Tarantino Way(tm), and just put the scenes in the most achronological order possible.  It's _artsier_ that way.


----------



## Berandor

Ceramic DM Match-Up 1-3: Drose25 vs. _Berandor_

*Desert Snakes*

When I saw what remained of François, it was all I could do not to cry. Martine had led me into the laboratory, where the best scientists the department could afford would examine his body - just as they had done with the previous agents.
"Are you sure that's him?"
Martine nodded solemnly, like she used to do when confirming what people already knew.
"The DNA check was positive."
François LeBoef had always been proud of his good physique. As I looked at him now, he resembled an emaciated Atlas, bereft of his burden. Some scientist, probably thinking of himself as funny, had arranged the remains of another agent so that it seemed as if François told a tale: his hands held over his head, his mouth open in a silent scream, the beard on his chin. I had known him well, but now I needed a DNA check to recognize him. He had been my mentor, my father figure ever since I joined the secret intelligence agency known as Tricolore. 
And now he was dead, having suffered the same fate as three other agents before him. His skin had shriveled and turned metallic green, the flesh beneath had drained away. Muscles had tensed, bones had melded, until he stood still as a statue, a macabre testament to HYDRA's might.
My thoughts turned to François' latest assignment - his final assignment. As his liaison, I was familiar with the details of the operation. He had tried to uncover the identity of the White Queen, head of HYDRA's Arabian department. All we knew was her being a woman. The White Queen always wore a mask of porcelain. Tricolore had worked on uncovering her identity for five years now, ever since she had assumed leadership over the terrorist organization's muslim movement. Three - now four - agents had died trying to get a look at her face.
I reached out my hand until my fingers brushed over François' brittle skin.
"Why don't we just kill her?" I knew the answer, but I had to hear it again, had to see whether it still made sense. Martine seemed to sense my inner turmoil.
"We cannot kill the Queen because we don't know what would happen in the emerging power vacuum. When you cut off a hydra's head, two more grow in its stead. We have to find out how to cauterize the wound first, and knowing the White Queen's identity-"
"-knowing her identity might allow us to," I finished her lecture.
"Or so we thought," she continued. "As it stands, we have already lost four of our best agents, and we haven't progressed very far. I am considering whether to concentrate on other matters at the moment, lull the Queen into a false sense of security?"
As she looked at me, I was amazed once more how well she knew her agents. Martine Lautrec had been promoted to head Tricolore's anti-terrorist branch just two years ago; still, she knew the ins and outs of her subordinates as if she had worked with them for decades. I was no exception.
"I will finish the assignment."
Martine had already prepared my cover identity and booked the flight to Tunis.

The White Queen's headquarter was situated right in the middle of the Tunisian desert. I would be going in as Boris Levchenkov, a Russian ex-general. Levchenkov was interested in selling high-quality biological weapons; HYDRA was interested in buying them.
The cover had originally been intended for François. On the one hand, it reminded me of his death; on the other hand, it felt right to finish his job using this identity. 
As I stepped out of the plane into the Tunisian heat, I stifled a sigh. I had always preferred humid climate to the dry heat of desert regions. Here, it only took a few minutes for your throat to become parched no matter how much water you drank.
The department had provided me with a simple-yet-effective disguise: a grey-haired wig and a false beard. Daphne Dutroux, our resident specialist for disguises, had assured me the props would withstand all but the worst wear and tear.
Two bearded Arabs had picked me up with a hand-written sign - it said  "Lebjenkoff" - at Tunis airport and sat me in the back of an old military jeep. They hadn't even bothered to search me. It showed me how secure they felt; plus, I didn't have to worry about them finding my hidden weapons: a ceramic knife and a small handgun. 
As we left Tunis and headed into the desert, I tried to start a conversation.
"Say, how long have you two been in the business now?" I spoke with a thick Russian accent. They didn't speak at all.
"The White Queen - that sounds like chess to me. In Russia, everybody plays chess. Do any of you play chess?" Again, I received no answer, no sign they had even understood me. For a moment, I entertained the notion that I had gone with the wrong Arabs, and that the real Mr. Lebjenkoff - a harmless veterinarian, no doubt - was being transported to the White Queen by a group of six armed terrorists. It was too hot for such silliness, though, so I simply sat back on my seat, trying to enjoy the ride.
I used the time to sweat profusely, and to go through the details of the operation again. Once we would arrive at the citadel Al'Zahra, I would pretend to be tired, and in need of drinks. Hopefully, the inhabitants of the citadel and its surrounding camp would leave me alone and schedule any negotiations for the next day. I would use the evening to formulate my plan, and the night to sneak into the citadel's central chamber, finally uncovering the White Queen's true visage.
The fingers of my right hand slid over my watch and the emergency transmitter hidden within. Once activated, a Special Forces unit would hone in on the signal,  fly in with a helicopter, and get me out - shriveled or alive. I had decided to also call them once I knew who hid behind the Queen's porcelain mask. I didn't want to stay a moment longer than I needed with François' killers. Let them know we knew who the Queen was - that's how these games were played, anyway, wasn't it?
Suddenly having a sour taste in my mouth, I spat over the open side of the jeep. The man sitting next to the driver turned around and said in barely understandable English,
"It is foolish to waste water, Lebjenkoff. In the desert, your life depends on every drop."
I simply smiled surly and held up the bottle of Evian I had bought at duty-free. 

The citadel Al'Zahra was a hundred and twenty feet tall. A narrow pathway snaked its way upward like a corkscrew's blades, while the building itself grew ever more narrow the higher you got. At the top, the architects of old had erected a small shrine to whatever gods they paid homage. Now, the White Queen used the shrine as her abode, towering over her loyal subjects like the superior being she felt she was. Around the shrine, protected from falling by a rusty rail, six guards overlooked the surrounding desert, and the small encampment that had grown at the base of the citadel.
We approached the camp from what seemed to be the only road leading to it. I could see several men walking about, dressed in thawbs, traditional Arab garb. Military vehicle were interspersed between the tents, jeeps and trucks alike. The wind had become stronger, and clouds of sand billowed through the camp like insect swarms. 
The driver - I had secretly dubbed him Ali, and his companion Ahmed - stopped the jeep twenty feet away from the first tent. Two guards, also dressed in thawbs but armed with Kalashnikov rifles, watched me intently as Ali reiterated my cover story to them. I did not let on that I understood Arab, but listening in didn't tell me anything useful, either.
We were allowed to enter, and Ali drove the car next to the biggest tent in the camp.
"Canteen," Ahmed said, pointing at it. Indicating another tent, "You sleep there." 
I answered in my best fatigued-Russian accent, "Thank you, my friend. Is there any place I could freshen up a little?"
"The well is right there."
 I thanked him again and turned towards the well. As I had feared, Ahmed fell in line behind me. They wouldn't let me stroll through the camp alone. At the well, I pulled up a bucket of water and splashed my face. Now my beard was soaked with sweat and water alike, and I was thankful for Daphne's skill with disguises. I had to remember buying her some chocolate when I got home, if only for her desert-proof beard.
Ahmed regarded me with stern disapproval. To him, I had probably wasted water once again. The man started to annoy me. Perhaps I could get him drunk?
"Ahh. That's better," I smiled and grabbed his arm, leading him towards the canteen. "Let's have a drink!"
He shook off my hand, but followed me into the tent. Wooden benches and equally long tables where men sat side-by-side had been erected, eating broth and drinking - tea? 
At the back of the tent, a low table held a big pot of steaming hot broth, dozens of filigreed glasses filled with tealeaves, and a kettle of hot water. Ahmed took one of the glasses and filled it with water from the kettle, then waited for me to do the same.
"Don't you have something more ... spirited," I asked him, flashing my disarmingly charming smile?
"We don't drink alcohol. It clouds the mind." 
"Of course it does." It seemed that to get rid of Ahmed, I would have to resort to violence. Remembering François, I actually looked forward to breaking the Arab's neck. But for now, I filled a glass with hot water for myself. The tealeaves swirled around in a joyous dance, reminding me of a Maltese festivity François and I had once been to. I remembered him dancing with the Maltese chancellor's wife, and the fistfight with the chancellor's bodyguards when he sent them after us. Those had been good times.
I was pulled out of my reverie as a woman entered the tent, bowing low to step under the flaps. She was of African descent, her hair cropped short. Her muscular build and military dress identified her as a member of Liberia's Black Widows. A few years ago, I had met one of them on a mission in Liberia. She had nearly killed me before I managed to punch my finger through her left eye. With president Taylor out of office, the deadly cadre of female soldiers had gone underground. 
When the woman straightened up, I noticed the eye patch. Over her left eye. It was Iami Ja'neh, the woman I had fought on the balcony of the embassy! And it seemed losing her eye hadn't worsened her sight, because she recognized me at the same time I did.
"You? Pierre Vacher?" She almost ran to me, grabbed the beard, and pulled it off. It felt as if she had pulled the skin off with it. Red dots of pain danced before my eyes. Daphne would have to get her chocolate from someone else, I thought as the pain subsided.
I could see Ja'neh's face twist into a grimace of hatred and surprise, and I could almost hear her lungs filling with air for a piercing cry. Next to me, Ahmed was still struggling to understand what was happening, giving me a moment's time. I splashed my tea into Ja'neh's face. Her scream turned into one of pain, and I followed up with a punch at her chin. She went down like a sack of wet rice. I ran.
As the tent flaps exploded outward, spilling me out into the desert, I could hear the first cries of alarm. Ahmed had finally caught up with the action. As I turned towards the citadel, my fingers found the emergency button on my watch, and pressed it. In roughly five minutes, the helicopter would arrive to save me. I just hoped I would be still alive when it came.
Dashing through the camp, I glanced up the citadel. The guards had apparently heard the alarm and were quickly descending the staircase. Still running, I drew my knife with the left hand, and the small pistol with my right. Just as I reached the base of the citadel, shots echoed through the air, and the ground left to me exploded into dirt and sand. I took two stairs at a time, not bothering to watch the camp, but looking up to see one of the guards pointing his machine gun at me. I shot before he did. He toppled forward, a bullet in his chest, and fell onto the ground below. I continued my sprint.
From the camp, I could hear the hectic symphony of shouts, gunfire, and bullets whirring through the air. Luckily, they only hit the walls of the citadel, tearing through clay and sand instead of flesh and blood. Ahead of me, the first guard turned around the corner. I rushed forward, firing three bullets into him, and reached the second guard before he knew I was on him. My knife punched through his stomach, and he fell onto me like a wet sack. I used his body as a shield as I fired shots at the next guards, killing the third one before he had the chance to fire back. The fourth guard knelt down and pulled his rifle's trigger. Bullets hit the back of the guard I was holding, spraying my face with blood, their impact forcing me a step down. I emptied my magazine at him, and he fell backwards. With the guard lying on the ground below, that left one more to kill. I watched the corner for any sign of him when my instincts kicked in. 
The last guard had gone up again, circling the citadel until he was right above me. Right now, he was aiming at me, taking his time for the killing shot. I could see the surprised look on his face when I suddenly fell on my back, grabbing the dead guard's machine gun in the process. I riddled him with bullets.
"Six down, the Queen to go."
I didn't have time to celebrate my victory, so I rolled up and continued my ascent, taking the Kalashnikov with me. A few breaths later, I had reached the top. The stairs ended opposite from the entrance to the shrine, so I circled the building, looking for any sign of trouble. I didn't see trouble coming, but it came nonetheless.
Massive hands grabbed me and threw me against the iron rail. It groaned under the sudden weight. The hands threw me against the shrine's wall, and it was my turn to groan. The machine gun fell from my hands, and I fell to the floor.
Looking up, I saw a bald man, build like an ox, standing over me. Instead of wearing a white thawb, he was dressed in black, and he was smiling a toothless smile, his mouth a gaping maw big enough for my head to fit in.
"You came to kill our Queen," he bellowed, "but the Queen cannot be killed by the likes of you."
I looked around for my gun, but the Kalashnikov lay behind him on the ground. The man continued his speech.
"Instead, you are going to die." He began to make retching noises, and for a moment I thought he would puke on me. Then his throat widened, and a viper's head snaked from his mouth, followed by another one! Snakes emerged from his throat, half a dozen or more, scales glistening with spittle and bile. I could feel getting sick, my stomach was turning, and the man laughed. It was a strange laugh, nearly drowned out by the hissing of the snakes and the scratching of scales on scales, and mangled by the snakes firmly connected to his throat. 
The snakes thrust forward, but I flipped backwards, dodging their bite. The man simply motioned for me to come forward again. The snakes pulled back, readying themselves to strike. The machine gun was out of my reach, and the knife wouldn't do me much good against this monster. The man laughed again. 
I threw my knife at him, deliberately missing him by a few inches. As he turned to dodge the throw, I rushed him, pushing my shoulder deep into his stomach. I could feel the snakes biting into my flesh, tearing skin and fabric alike, drawing blood. I could feel him stumbling backwards against the rail. I could feel poison pumping through my veins. I could hear the grating moan and shudder from the impact. I could hear the snakes hissing spitefully, drawing back for another strike. I could hear the rails giving way, bending, breaking. I could feel the man toppling backwards, over the broken railing. I could hear his muffled scream as he fell. And even as he stopped screaming, even as I forced myself up from kneeling, as I took up the Kalashnikov again, I could feel the poison coursing through me, burning away my strength.
I entered the shrine. The room was about twenty feet in diameter, lit by candles burning in closed-off windowsills. It was lavishly decorated, full of plum cushions and silken tapestries. The smell of expensive perfume and scented candles hung thick in the air like the stench of a dead animal. 
An especially big cushion had covered an escape hatch. The cushion lay to the side now, the hatch invitingly open. At the far end of the room, a modern computer displayed the sigil of HYDRA, a globe held by nine serpentine heads. In front of the computer, with her back to me, stood the White Queen.
Her skin had the color of cedar wood, with her dress reminding of freshly fallen snow. Her arms and feet were exposed, but her hair was covered by the same white silk her dress was made of.
"Did you kill him," she asked with a husky voice. She took something from the computer and fastened it somewhere in front of her.
As the White Queen turned around, she hesitated only for a miniscule moment, her brown eyes narrowing, before she regained her cool. The usual porcelain mask hid her face, enhancing her cool demeanor. Her dress opened up at chest level, and I could see she had bound her breasts with white gauze. An ornate heart brooch made of bronze-like metal dangled from her waist.
She tilted her head slightly and asked, 
"What did you do to my guard?"
"He wanted to have his snakes and eat them, too." It was the kind of cliché pun that François would have been proud of, but still I didn't feel any smarter for saying it.
For a moment, we simply stared at each other. In the distance, the sound of a helicopter could be heard. I gathered that right now, a dozen or more men were ascending the citadel. At the same time, I had been poisoned. I didn't know who would reach me first, helicopter, guards, or poison, but I knew I didn't have much time. I pointed the machine gun at the Queen.
"Wait." Her voice cut through me, right into my brain. It was a voice full of promises, promises of lust and love, of sin and virtue at the same time. Her hazel eyes locked with mine. I could not look away.
"Don't you want to see my face?" Of course I wanted to! That's what I had come for, after all. If I didn't see her face, all would have been for naught. I wanted to tell her, but my mouth was dry, too dry to speak, so I just nodded.
She lifted her right hand, slowly and deliberately. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I watched her delicate fingers brush against the porcelain, caress the mask as if it was a lover - as if it was me? She hesitated, her eyes probing my mind, searching for permission.
The noise of the helicopter grew louder, and the White Queen glanced towards the escape hatch, breaking eye contact for a moment, breaking the spell she had woven. It was all the time I needed. I aimed the Kalashnikov at her face and pulled the trigger.
The porcelain burst into blood, splashes of red spilling over cedar and snow alike. The bullets perforated her face, her skull, her brains, and the computer behind her. Her body tumbled backwards, falling onto the silken cushions, drenching them with blood. The White Queen was dead.
The helicopter was above the camp now. I could hear the on-board machine gun spitting death. A rope ladder appeared in front of the entrance, followed by the voice of a fellow Frenchman.
"Monsieur Vacher? Grab the ladder, if you can."
I took a last look around the room to see whether I had overlooked anything. Acting on instinct, I grabbed the heart brooch from the Queen's body. 
As I tied the rope around my arm, I hoped that the rescue team had brought some antidote. Or, better yet, a lot.

Fortunately, they brought antidote with them. It took me a long time to get rid of the poison's side effects, but I survived. And my instincts proved correct: the heart-shaped brooch contained a memory chip; our technicians are still trying to decipher its code.
Since the White Queen died, a war for control has been waged in HYDRA's Arab branch. They are killing their own for a change, proving that sometimes a power vacuum isn't too bad. 
We still don't know what caused François' and the others' deaths. It seems as if the knowledge of that secret died with the Queen. We also don't know who - or what - she was.
I guess some secrets are best left alone.

_The End_


----------



## Piratecat

Thanks, Berandor!

Okay, heads up, everyone: *FROM NOW ON, PUT LINE BREAKS INBETWEEN PARAGRAPHS.*  I know it looks okay in Word without them, but the stories are much more difficult to read here if you don't. Obviously, authors who have posted _shouldn't_ go back and edit them in, but if you haven't post your story yet please take this to heart.

Thanks - and have a wonderful weekend.  

We'll probably start posting judgments Sunday night or on Monday. Sorry for the holiday-caused delay.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> And it's worth noting that every competitor should copy down my email, so (lord forbid) if the boards crash you can email me your story before your time limit.




Got it.  Thanks for the heads-up.

Zhaneel


----------



## drose25

Would it be okay to post submissions as a pdf so we have better control over format?


----------



## Piratecat

You can if they're plain-text only. You can't use them to do neat graphical or layout formatting, as that isn't fair to your competitors. 

Really, the only time I want to see a pdf is when the story is just too damn long to put in a post. Sialia did this last competition with her 16+page stories. Since we now have a firmer 5000 word guideline, I'm not sure it's necessary.


----------



## drose25

*Ceramic DM Match-Up 1-3: Drose25 vs. Berandor*

This is a period horror set around the turn of the previous century. The pictures actually worked well with characters for another piece I’m developing. Some language may come across as discriminatory but keep in mind it’s the characters of the period talking, not me.  : )  Also, I have butchered history, geography, and God knows what else as well as thrown in a few pop culture references for fun.  Oh yeah, since the pictures are referred to throughout the piece, only the most significant use is noted with links.

The Ziggurat of Ghiyath al-Din

Parker Basden gazed in awe, the wind whipping his brassy blonde hair gently as the motorcar approached the airfield.  The zeppelins hung almost magically in the air, tethered to the ground by cords that looked like mere strings as the silvery beasts swayed peacefully in the breeze.  Of course, he’d seen pictures of such things in the newspaper back home in San Francisco, but to actually behold one in person almost required suspension of disbelief.  That must be the way to travel, Parker thought as the driver continued their approach.  No doubt it would beat the hell out of the laborious train ride to the east coast and the week at sea that it had taken for him to arrive in Europe.  The trip had been worth it, though, to flee San Francisco.  Parker shuddered as he thought of the city, and that relic sent for him to examine.

The driver pulled in through well-guarded gates as uniformed policemen kept the small crowds of spectators under control.  Apparently even the locals remained bewitched by the magic of the zeppelins.  Floating in the air like giant circus balloons they captivated the imagination, inspired the heart, and instilled a longing in the soul for those doomed to remain earthbound.

The motorcar slowed as they reached the tarmac and wound its way through long, shifting zeppelin shadows.  Parker could see their destination now, a silvery envelope of hydrogen with an ornate, calligraphic “G” emblazoned on its side.  It matched the one painted on the doors of the motorcar.

He smiled.  He should have expected nothing less from the flamboyant Baron von Gaertrinken.  For as long as Parker had known the man pomp and spectacle had been the Baron’s trademarks.  The driver stopped as they reached a small gathering of people on the tarmac and opened the door for Parker before retrieving his trunk and bags.  A crew of workmen was busy manhandling a set of steel stairs into place up ahead so the zeppelin could be boarded.  The gondola hanging beneath its silver skin seemed almost tiny in comparison though Parker had no doubt the gondola itself was the size of generous yacht.  Appropriately, two vast wooden propellers hung out from either side at the rear.

“Parker, darling!  How delightful to find you here!”  A woman’s voice with a dignified English accent called out to him.  He spotted a gloved hand waving above a few idle crewmen who soon parted to reveal a properly skirted young lady not much older than he was.

“Lady Clara, what a pleasant surprise,” Parker replied as he stepped forward to greet the woman.  Dr. Clara Alastair-Smythe was a renowned archeologist from a long line of renowned archeologists.  Parker had no doubt that fully half the antiquities of ancient Egypt were stashed away across her family’s estates.  “Did the Baron summon you as well?”

“Oh he did, isn’t it exciting?  Another one of his cryptic telegrams!  I simply cannot wait until we’re onboard to find out more.”  Another man stepped out from behind the crew and paused near Clara.  “You know Max, don’t you dear?” Clara asked as she introduced the newcomer somewhat hesitantly.

Parker smiled a faux smile, devoid of any warmth or sincerity.  “Of course, how are you Max?”  Max Williams was an American, like himself, but his reputation preceded him.  Max was a hired gun, nothing more, nothing less.  Swarthy and built, a five o’clock shadow darkened his cheeks and it was only a quarter of noon.  Max could be summed up on the back of two postage stamps and was about as nourishing as the glue on the back thereof.  His wallet had long since replaced his conscious and the higher calling to which he answered was the highest bidder.

“Parker, buddy,” Max smiled a broad grin as he clapped Parker on the back.  The scent of cheap whiskey lingered in the air as he spoke.  “How ya been?  Got out of Amazon okay I see.”

Max had been hired to wrangle the guides for an expedition Parker had been on just the year past.  Unfortunately he bailed when their team ran into a competing expedition with better finances days out in the jungle.  Max took the bulk of their guides with him and he had done so with a smile.

Parker smiled demurely in response but said nothing.  The stairs had been brought into position and he took Clara’s elbow.
“Shall we?” he asked as the portal on the gondola opened for boarding.

“Oh yes, let’s.  I’m positively dying to get onboard,” Clara replied with excitement dripping from her voice.

The interior was grandiose by even the most decadent of standards.  A sprawling center floor was surrounded by an elevated observation deck and private rooms could be seen towards the back.  Groups of upholstered chairs meshed with round tables dressed in neat white linen tablecloths and luxuriant potted palms towered upward to unleash their green fronds.  A white-jacketed steward was waiting for them as they entered.

“Dr. Basden, Lady Alastair-Smythe,” the smart-sounding steward greeted them.  “Do come this way, the Baron’s been expecting you.”

They followed the steward up a small flight of stairs to the observation deck that ringed the exterior wall of the gondola and then on to an elongated table already set for lunch.  A rather heavy-set man stood as they approached.  Baron von Gaertrinken was plump, but not rotund, and ruddy-faced though not obscenely red and porcine as some of his kin were wont to be.  He was dressed in a starched white seersucker suit while a matching white hat topped the oiled hair upon his head.  His characteristic handlebar mustache wriggled as his mouth opened in a broad smile and he motioned for them to sit.

“Lady Clara, Parker, it is so wonderful to see you again.”  His eyes glittered with excitement.  “We’re about to journey to a most fascinating discovery of mine.”

Parker sat opposite one of the giant plate glass windows, amazed at the view.  “Well Baron,” he began, “I must say Clara and I are always delighted to receive your telegrams, even if they never give us any clue as to what to expect.”

“This is possibly my most significant find,” the older man continued.  “Discovered under the shifting sands of Africa.”

“Africa!” Lady Clara interrupted.  “Oh how exciting!  A trip to the dark continent—do tell us more.”

“Yes, Africa,” the Baron continued.  “Or Chuk, to be precise.  A small country nestled next to Chad where I have uncovered the Ziggurat of Ghiyath al-Din.  Years of research and months of excavations have finally paid off!  I wanted you two to be the first to witness my discovery.”

“Ghiyath al-Din,” Parker mused, “I don’t recall hearing that name.”  

“It’s a name largely unknown in the west,” explained the Baron as a legion of white-jacketed waiters began to bring the first course of lunch.  Parker gasped slightly as the view outside the window started to recede.  They were off!  

“Ghiyath al-Din was a powerful warlord who ruled a vast expanse of ancient Africa,” the Baron explained.  “His kingdom stretched from sand to sea and legend has it he became mighty enough to threaten even the gods themselves.  In fact,” the Baron leaned in to the table and lowered his voice to a mere hush, “I have my suspicions that the Ziggurat of Ghiyath al-Din is actually the biblical Tower of Babel!”

It was Clara’s turn to gasp while Parker’s jaw merely dropped.  “Surely not,” she exclaimed.  “The Tower of Babel in a country overrun with dark-skinned heathens!”

“Wait until you see it to pass judgment, my dear Clara,” the Baron replied.  “Just wait.  But I digress.  According to legend, Ghiyath al-Din climbed his ziggurat once it was complete and issued a challenge to the gods.  He demanded ascension to godhood himself and gave the gods until his wedding night to reply.”  The Baron took a hearty sip of wine before continuing.  “You see, the ziggurat he built was to be a wedding present to his bride.  She was apparently a woman of great beauty whom Ghiyath al-Din loved more dearly than anything in his realm and he guarded her jealously.  So jealously, in fact, legend has it her face was never seen, hidden behind a white mask of ivory.”

The Baron paused to sample the smoked salmon a steward had placed before him moments before.  He continued, still chewing.  “After the ziggurat was complete, Ghiyath al-Din ordered an enormous festival and wedding celebration.  Thousands of guests attended and legend tell us tens of thousands of slaves labored day and night to pamper them with luxury.  The celebration ended with the marriage of Ghiyath al-Din to his ivory bride and they retired into their chambers in the ziggurat for the night.”

“Here is where things get sketchy,” the Baron addressed Parker.  “I was hoping you could help with some of the translations.  As far as we can tell, legend holds that the gods took his bride from Ghiyath al-Din that night in punishment for his insolence.  A great sandstorm followed and entombed Ghiyath al-Din in his ziggurat for eternity.  At least,” the Baron grinned, “for eternity up until now!”

“What a fascinating story,” Clara chimed in.  “Do you think any of it is actually true?”

“We shall see, we shall see,” the Baron replied.  “But we’ve spent months excavating it from underneath the sand.”

Lunch continued with lively conversation that eventually segued into dinner and died off as the evening drew to a close.  With the promise that they would arrive at their destination in the morning, the Baron bid them all good night and the ever-present, ever-polite stewards escorted them to their rooms.  The morning came all too fast, the night’s sleep luxuriant and relaxing as the gentle bob and sway of the zeppelin enhanced the goose-down mattresses.

Parker gawked as he walked along the observation deck, staring out the windows at the completely foreign terrain below.  Overnight they had gone from cool and temperate to arid and dry.  Sandy expanses with scarce green scrub churned underneath.  He met the Baron, Clara, and unfortunately Max at the table for breakfast.

“Good morning,” he said politely to all as he sat and was greeted in return.

“Gentlemen, and lady,” the Baron announced halfway through the meal.  “I would like for you to look out the windows here shortly.  Do you see that speck up ahead?  In a few minutes you shall see the Ziggurat of Ghiyath al-Din in all its glory.”

Indeed, as the minutes passed the speck grew larger until finally a towering circular structure loomed in the windows. [Picture 2] Parker looked puzzled.

“Aren’t ziggurats supposed to be pyramidical in shape?” he asked.

“Details, details, my boy.  Square, round, does it matter?”

The devil’s in the details, Parker thought to himself but he knew better than to challenge the Baron.  The zeppelin was soon tethered and by the time breakfast was done everything had been made ready for them to depart.  Several motorcars were waiting to take them to a hotel and by lunch they had been properly squared away and were waiting in the lobby for the Baron to come down.

“Are you ready,” his booming voice announced the Baron’s descent down the staircase, “to visit the great ziggurat?”  He’d changed into the traditional expedition khaki and his face could barely contain his smile.  With a wave of his hand they were off, out to the motorcars and shortly to the base of the towering ziggurat.

Parker stood in the grainy sand and gazed upward at the monumental structure while Max flicked a spent cigarette into the sand and ground it in with the toe of his boots.  Workers still continued to traverse up and down the spiraling steps carrying baskets of sand and debris.

“Looks like them Shaka fellas knew how to build,” Max commented to no one in particular.  The heat had sweat pouring from everyone only from Max it smelled like Kentucky sour mash.  

The walls lining the stairs were littered with engravings, a curious cross between hieroglyphic and script that Parker endeavored to decipher.  By the time they neared the top of the ziggurat, he’d followed most of the legend as the Baron had related it earlier.  As they approached the columned rotunda that topped the structure, however, and the end of the legend was transcribed, Parker’s own translation began to differ.  He followed the story’s script until it ended, across the stone door they all now stood before.

“So, what do you think Parker my boy?” the Baron asked.

“Well, it’s an awfully savage and imprecise language,” Parker began.  “It speaks of Ghiyath al-Din’s threat to the gods, of his celebration and wedding, and of the taking of his bride and her ascent to the heavens.  But it’s very unclear here,” he pointed down a string of script engraved in the stone.  “It could be read that the gods stole the life of his bride after they consummated their marriage.  Or,” his nose turned up, “while they consummated their marriage, or worse yet, before the marriage was consummated but it’s clear the marriage was consummated before the gods entombed him.”

“The script refers to his bride as the Ivory Guardian of Dreams, or Dancing White Protector of Dreams, it’s not particularly clear.  But it seems she attained some form of the godhood that Ghiyath al-Din had demanded for himself.  And there’s a curse, naturally.  There on the door,” he pointed to some of the last few segments of script carved deeper than the others.  “It promises the bride of Ghiyath al-Din, the Ivory Guardian, will destroy any who dare desecrate the tomb of her husband.”

“Well,” the Baron chuckled, “it’s a good thing none of us are superstitious.

	Clara smiled as well.  “Those pharaohs loved to curse their pyramid tombs as well…but none of our mummies have ever come to life.”

Max merely inhaled another cigarette before pulling a silver flask from his hip pocket and taking a swig.  The Baron stepped up to the door and pressed inward on it, finally leaning against it with the full weight of his husky frame.  It slid only slightly, sending wisps of sandy dust into the air.

“Max, would you mind?” The Baron asked, stepping aside.

Max grinned.  This was what he was paid to do.  He replaced the flask in his hip pocket and planted a booted foot against the door with a forceful kick.  It swung open with the eerie groan of stone grating against stone.  Max stepped inside and gasped before he could light the electric torch.  The air inside was freezing and a white cloud formed in front of his face as he exhaled.  Max turned around towards the Baron, who had taken a step inside, and the others.

Clara turned deathly pale as she saw Max’s eyes widen to saucers.  “What?” she mumbled as Max opened his mouth.

Max was looking past his three companions, to the white-masked woman hanging effortlessly behind them.  She was speaking but the others didn’t seem to hear.  The words burned in his ears and Max tried to raise his hands to clasp over them but they started to slow and stopped.  He tried to scream but his throat seemed suddenly rigid and full.  Nothing came out.  His mouth was filled with a bitter, metallic taste as though he had bit his tongue yet he had felt no pain.  He tried to turn his head but it refused to budge.  His eyes moved for a moment longer and then froze as he caught sight of his hands suspended in the air before him.  They were no longer flesh.  [Picture 1] 

Clara let forth a chilling scream as Max transformed into a metallic skeleton before their eyes.  The Baron bolted past both Clara and Max as he rushed madly down the stairs.  Parker was dumbfounded.  It was only when Clara grabbed his arm and pulled him that he began his own flight.

They piled into the motorcar without a word, the Baron breathing heavily and loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the racing engine.  The hotel was forgotten, their trunks and cases abandoned as they hurtled across sandy roads toward the tethered zeppelin.  No one spoke, sure of what they saw but bewildered by what it had meant.

The Baron barked orders as they re-boarded the zeppelin, surprised stewards and crewmen began scurrying about to prepare for a hasty departure.  Within minutes the airship was free and making haste towards home.  The Baron disappeared into his quarters and Clara and Parker separated without a word into their rooms.

Parker paced his room for hours, ignoring the meal the steward brought but downing the vodka on the bureau liberally.  As the evening wore on he laid on the bed, staring at the fan above with its palm-shaped blades that rotated slowly in circles.  Despite the vodka he couldn’t fall asleep, the image of a metallic Max still burning on his retina.  Desperate for sleep, Max pulled a dropper bottle from the bureau and squeezed out several drops of a dark, foul smelling liquid into a shot of vodka.  Valerian root.  Hopefully it would bring peace for the night.  He stripped and crawled into the bed, watching the fan slowly turn until the drug took hold.  Sleep came quietly.

Parker stirred restlessly under the weight of the comforter atop his naked body.  His feet moved on their own in his sleep, seeking out the cool, crisp places hiding at the edges of the bed while his chest heaved softly.  His mind languished in sleep, plagued by nightmares from which he couldn’t awaken.  The valerian root he’d taken to ease the night still gripped his body, the sleep agent still coursing through his blood with every beat of his heart.  Though his mind tried to break free of sleep’s heavy grasp it couldn’t quite pierce the dark veil hanging over it.  For the moment he was trapped.

Parker could see the waters of the bay back home sparkling under the golden-orange glow of the setting sun.  Rays of brisk light twinkled from each dappled wave cap and glimmered as though reflected by floating jewels.  It was peaceful here, sitting on the rocky shore as the waves lapped up in calm, orderly procession.  Tufts of dune grass grew ruggedly here and there, wherever it was able to eke out a foothold in the rocky terrain.  The gray boulder he sat on was warm to the touch, still radiating the heat of the sun it had collected during the day.  

He continued to watch as the sun went down, admiring the beautiful sight painted before him.  He’d always enjoyed coming to this spot in the evenings.  His eyes wandered around the rocky shore, the breeze brushing up against his cheeks as his head turned.  He had been alone when he got here but now two figures were slowly approaching him from down the shore.  One was slightly taller than the other but that was all he could distinguish from here.  The sun was setting behind them, rendering the pair nothing but black silhouettes against a fiery backdrop.

There was little light left playing on the water.  The bay had gone from a sparkling mirror to a dark, greenish-black pool.  Parker sniffed, the wind had picked up noticeably and the once-rhythmic waves had become choppy and violent.  He could make out the figures now, barely, in the dim light.  They were Max and the Baron.   Though the sun had now set and no longer blinded him as he looked their way, the darkness had fallen between him and the two walkers where it hung like a graphite fog, blurring reality with dripping shadows.

It took his mind a minute to fully register the presence of the pair, Max had been ripped from the world so violently just this morning.  But this was a dream and somehow the logic worked.  They were there, on the beach, perhaps a hundred yards away now.  Parker stood up to greet them, paying no heed to his nakedness or the impossibility of Max’s presence.

“Max?  Baron?” he called out hesitantly to the approaching figures.  

The two silhouettes waved back.  Parker wasn’t sure what to expect as they approached.  He didn’t hear the rippling of the water at first.  Or, if he did, it didn’t register in his mind.  His two approaching companions held his attention.  It was only Max’s scream that caused his gaze to move back to the water.

An upwelling churned and writhed about twenty feet from the shore.  Frothing white rings of foamy water rippled out from a boiling epicenter as a pale steam rose into the blackness.  It was back again, Parker knew instantly.  It was too familiar now, almost like a member of the family.  The cousin one never wanted to invite because he enjoyed terrorizing your pets.  It was the dark dread that never relented — the forboding that haunted his sleep off and on since that fateful day in San Francisco.

Parker tried to run toward Max and the Baron but his legs wouldn’t move.  He could see dark twisted tentacles rise above the churning water, dripping some dark liquid that was definitely not water.  Even in this poor light it was easy to tell, it dripped like syrup, like thick chocolate that absorbed the light instead of reflecting it back.

The Baron and Max began to run towards him, he could see their legs racing as they tried to make their way across the waterfront.  Only the beach seemed to get longer and longer as they ran, sand and gravel spinning under their feet.  They were making no headway, every step the two took found the rocky shoreline that much longer, that much darker.  Though there was no light left out now at all, Parker could see the horror on their faces clearly.  Or did he just remember it from earlier?  

The beast in the water continued to rise.  The churning circle was now fifteen feet across and a hulking, tentacled brute stood halfway out of the water.  It had no name.  Parker could think of nothing real or mythical that even closely resembled the horror rising from the deep.  It was huge. It was evil.  It was hungry.  He wanted to wake up desperately, so desperately, but his mind couldn’t seem to sway the hand of sleep.

Parker let out a scream that went nowhere as the first tentacle snaked out towards Max and wrapped its suckered arm around the young man’s frame.  Max was screaming at the top of his lungs, his frame wriggling desperately in the brute’s grasp.  It wasn’t really his words that Parker heard; it was the sound of terror burning into his mind.  The burning ember that marked a cigarette fell into the darkness.

Parker tried again to run towards the Baron.  This time his legs moved slightly but they betrayed him.   He fell onto the rocks below.  They had gone cold and he was shocked by their icy touch on his flesh.  The fall gashed his leg, tearing open a strip of flesh that ran the length of his thigh.  He watched the blood pour out in disbelief as heard more screams down the beach, this time from the Baron.  

He looked up to see the Baron’s plump form carried over the water by another tentacled arm.  His screams disappeared as he did, enveloped by the mass in the water.  For a moment his hat floated on the surface briefly before disappearing downward with a violent jerk.  The Baron’s face had the same look on it that Max’s did.  It was disbelief mixed with dread, washed over by sorrow, ground by grief.  And it was burned into Parker’s mind as well.

Then as suddenly as it had started, it ended.  The creature disappeared beneath the churning surface, taking his silent companions with it.  Parker still couldn’t move though he watched his skin grow paler and paler as his blood continued to pour from the wound in his side.  It grew very silent and dreadfully still.  The chilling wind stopped blowing though the cold remained and Parker could no longer hear the sound of the waves on the shore.  

His heart stopped, blood pausing in his veins.  He felt a breath of hot air on the back of his neck.  His muscles tensed involuntarily in response as the acrid smell of sulphur and rotting flesh wafted forward to his nose.  Parker felt his stomach drop.   

He knew that stench.  He had encountered it once before in the dark and he steeled his mind for the inevitable confrontation.  Something behind him growled.  At least a growl was the closest thing he could think of to describe the sound it made.  It was low, guttural, and it shook the very marrow within his bones.  The sound made his soul crave tearing itself free of his flesh and soaring away quickly. 

Parker drew in a long, slow breath.  The sulphurous air stung the back of his throat and his lungs burned.  He turned around slowly to face the thing at his neck. His heart started to pound against his chest once more, thumping harder and harder as if to break free from his chest and save itself.  Parker screamed instinctively as he came face to face with the beast.

Beast.  The word felt funny.  He knew what the fiend before him was.  Every man would know instinctively when confronted with this.  It was red, a dark red whose color bore a strong resemblance to dried blood — dreadfully matte, unquestionably not shiny in the least.  It seemed to suck the very light into its scabby, reptilian skin as it rolled one lazy yellow eye towards him. Parker met its gaze.

Its head was huge, thrice the size of an elephant’s head and it was attached to a much smaller body.  Parker would have called it humanoid in shape if it hadn’t been for all the writhing lumps and cavities that deformed its skin.  He could see the serrated tips of the beast’s incisors as they hung down past its closed mouth and he trembled.  He was face to face with evil and he was as naked as a newborn child.  His hand went up to his neck, groping for a cross that was not there.  He almost swore the beast grinned back at him.

Why did he insist on referring to it as a beast?  Parker knew what it was.  He didn’t know why it was there.  The monster’s mouth suddenly flared open and a loud bellowing roar flew out, blowing Parker backward on the rocks.  He screamed again.  The monster advanced toward him, its mouth open and its fangs dripping a yellowish ichor that sizzled as it hit the rocks below.

He tried to move backward but his trembling body didn’t respond.  His mind was disconnected in terror.  The beast grew closer and closer, toying with him as it took each lumbering step.  He felt the humid warmth of the creature’s mouth surround his naked body, teeth scraping his flesh as a jaw scooped under him.  He was still screaming, his mind trying to reject what was happening.  

He heard laughter from outside.  It was a giggling, feminine laughter that bubbled over him and suddenly he fell to the rocks, the devouring beast gone as though it had never been.  A snaky tentacle loomed over him and dropped something at his foot.  It was the Baron.  And suddenly, he was gone.  Parker looked about bewildered but the rocks were barren and vacant and the sea had gone glassy and calm.  Something hit his foot again but he saw nothing.  Then he felt the sensation while looking at his foot.  Still there was nothing.

Suddenly it was over.  His eyes flew open and he found himself sitting upright in bed, still screaming, chest heaving rapidly.  His mind had finally managed to overcome the valerian root still in his system though it took him a second before he could muster enough control over his body to stop screaming.  He could feel his heart racing faster than he could ever recall.  Short of breath he felt as though he were being strangled.  His heart was beating too fast.  He tried to control the short and rapid breaths, slowing them down into deep and calm inhalations.  Then he screamed again as he felt another thump against his foot.  It was a snake.

Parker looked up directly into the eyes of the Baron.  The man had stumbled through the woven wicker door of his bedroom.  The Baron’s eyes were aghast in horror and, Parker blinked to be sure, his mouth was stretched open wide by writhing, snarling snakes that were spewing from his chest.  The Baron made a retching, gagging sound as he grasped vainly at the slithering reptiles, trying to pull them from his throat.  [Picture 3]  He fell to his knees, still struggling, and then fell face down on the bed at Parker’s feet.

Parker froze.  Behind the Baron a masked woman stood in white.  [Picture 4]  The bride of Ghiyath al-Din, the Ivory Guardian of Dreams.  She opened her mouth as if to speak, the movement of her lips barely perceptible behind the mask.  The snakes from the Baron’s mouth snarled and leapt toward Parker but they stopped suddenly in mid-air.  The woman had raised a finger toward her nose, as if she were shushing him.  She was smiling behind that mask, Parker knew it though he could not see.  The woman cocked her head slightly as if she read his mind then turned and disappeared.

Sweat dripped down his brow onto the comforter in front of him.  Parker raised a weak hand up and wiped it across his forehead.  Clara stumbled in.  “Mummies,” she said weakly before spying the Baron’s corpse.


----------



## Berandor

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Thanks, Berandor!
> 
> Okay, heads up, everyone: *FROM NOW ON, PUT LINE BREAKS INBETWEEN PARAGRAPHS.*



 oops, sorry!

Will put breaks in next time. Didn't think of that.

ETA: drose25, I love your story! If I lost against it, it would be no shame. As it is, my victory will be the greater for it 

And to satisfy the cheap seats clamoring for trash talk:
Your story is so bad that Hollywood wants to turn it into the sequel to LXG


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## drose25

Thanks for the kind words, Berandor.  You're some pretty healthy competition yourself!

And those line breaks were a pain in the butt.  Word was all nicely formatted and tabbed and it turned into goo when I previewed the post.   

Obligatory trash talk: Charmin sent your work back with a note.  "Even our recycled toilet paper division has its standards."


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## tzor

*Ceramic DM: Match 1-5: Tzor vs. Zhaneel*

Ceramic DM: Match 1-5: Tzor vs. Zhaneel
Little Jimmy  
By _Tzor_ aka _Christopher Beattie_

It was a long and tiring drive from the city to the lake, but today was my turn to have Jimmy, and quality time with my Son was something that I always looked forward to.

The house was just the same as the day we bought it, some six years ago.  That was before I found out about Camilla’s secret.  She claimed that she had the blood of dragons and was one of a line of sorcerers that had existed for thousands of years.  I guess Jimmy has that same blood, although being a child he doesn’t seen as weird as Camilla and the other sorcerer’s she associated with.

Jimmy was the first to run out of the house shouting “Daddy.”  We hugged for the longest time but Camilla did not follow Jimmy out of the House.  “Go get Mommy,” I finally told Jimmy and sent him into the house ahead of me.  I followed slowly behind, wondering what that sorcerer ex-wife of mine was up to this time.

I started to run when I heard Jimmy shout, “Mommy, where is your body?”  In the dining room, Camilla, or rather Camilla’s head was floating near the yellow/purple wallpapered walls. (1)  Then I saw a few fingers suddenly appear from nowhere.  It was clearly sorcery.

“Shush,” she quietly said, moving the floating finger to her mouth.  I could see more of her arm appear before she lowered her arm.   “I’m trying to hide.  You never know when someone might be scrying on you.”

“Scrying?”  I replied suddenly, trying to calm Jimmy down, “Don’t tell me you are in trouble with the guild?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “someone started scrying me yesterday, so I secured this chameleon cloak to keep me hidden.”

“And I guess you didn’t tell your superiors at the guild.”

“How could I.”  She did look frightened, “Who could be scrying except my superiors?  I need you to go into the guild and find out why people are scrying on me.”

Somehow I knew she was going to get me involved with the guild again.  This was the reason why I left her in the first place.  Those guys gave me the creeps.  Reluctantly I agreed to go under cover.  It was actually easy to do, since everyone in the guild always wears black robes and black masks, probably to prevent more scrying I guess.  As I donned the guild uniform I had to ask one question.  Camilla, one thing puzzles me.  Why are the points to these hoods almost four feet tall?”

“Oh,” she answered off handedly, the fear suddenly leaving her eyes as once again she had to explain the mystic ways to a complete non magic user like myself, “Everyone in the guild works in these cubicles that are about 5’ tall.  This way, whether you are sitting or standing, everyone can know where you are.  It’s like those flags you see on shopping carts.”

I dropped off Jimmy and headed to the guild house.  In my few years with her I had managed to enter places in the guild where normal non magical people like me were not allowed to see.  I even acquired several friends within the guild as well; not everyone with dragon’s blood was exceptionally odd.  After a few conversations with them I started to catch on to the truth. (2)  It wasn’t that someone in high places was scrying Camilla, they were scrying Jimmy.  Apparently Jimmy was stronger than most of the people who were working in the guild.  Whatever the reason, it was certainly nothing to do with my bloodline, I thought.

When I returned to Jimmy, I found little Jimmy with his head in the jaws of a gigantic reptile monster, a croc that was a giant by any standard.  (3) The giant croc continued to cradle Jimmy’s head carefully while turning toward me.  For a moment, I could have sworn Jimmy was playing some bizarre game.  Before I realized it I called out his name.

“It’s ok,” he replied as he removed his head from the living giant croc, “He’s my croc.  I summoned him.  Some nasty men were following me, so I summoned him.  When they saw him they fled, and I thought they wanted to play hide and go seek, so I started counting.  What comes after 49?”

“50,” I replied without thinking.  “Are you saying that you summoned that monster?”  But before he could answer the monster vanished.

The next day I told Camilla the news, “They are not scrying you, they are scrying Jimmy, and I can certainly see why.  If I were to bring him back to the city with me, even for one week, there is no telling what bizarre thing he will do and what trouble that would cause.  I might understand this magic thing, but the rest of the world will not.  That is why you live at the lake instead of the city.  I think you need to speak with your head sorcerer.  Trimming your hair and not wearing pajamas that make you invisible might be good things to do as well.”

I stayed at home while Camilla went to see the Grandest Wizard.  The Guild was like a city skyscraper, only it didn’t have any elevators.  Those who were powerful enough to work on the highest floors didn’t need any, as they kept going up and down magically, but for the rest there was a long staircase that went up the twenty floors to the penthouse.  Camilla started the stairs, armed with a new, shorter haircut and a new positive attitude on life. (4) As for me, I resigned to spend my quality time with Jimmy at the lake.  With any luck his powers could be used for good.  I’m just dreading the day I’m going to have to discipline him.


----------



## orchid blossom

Well, I just finished my first draft, and I agree with Alshi2o, this is hard! 

On to edits and revisions.


----------



## Zhaneel

ACK!!!! Can't read posting... You're quick.

Zhaneel  (*hurries off to go write*)


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## tzor

Yes I stoped reading this thread while I was working on the story in case you posted before me.  (It also gave me an incentive to get going ... these stories are great!)  Friday was also my online game night as GM so I was rushing through the first part of the story, so I could make sure that I had every monster prepared for the session.


----------



## orchid blossom

*Round 1:   Mythago vs. Orchid Blossom* 
______________________________________________

Disruption

By:  Orchid Blossom     aka Lori Ritter



     Her awakening was sudden, disjointed.  Old eyes opened onto a darkness that could not match the one from which she'd come.  Each part of her body felt separate from the others, stiff and still, as if they'd lain unused for years.  Which, of course, they had.  That was the way it should be.

     This wakefulness was a thing that should not be.  

     In the early years of her death, she had wakened often.  Enemies had raided the tombs of her people, dogging them in the afterlife as they had before.  But they had died away, the world had grown quiet, and her people had known true rest.  But the world is seldom satisfied with quiet for long.  Other races grew upon it, and in the last century Devakiri had become familiar with the race of Humans.

     There had been few races that passed upon the world whom she liked less.  Most of them she'd not even noted.  The dead have little care for the living unless the living disturb them.  Humans had a talent for disruption; a curiosity that overrode any sense of respect they might have had for those who slept beneath the ground.  

     Devakiri moved one hand, then the other.  Each awakening was just as disorienting, but she had become practiced at retraining her body to obey her commands.  Palms flat against the ground, she pushed herself up.  She took a bit of sand from the floor of the cave and blew it softly from her hand, each grain taking on a luminescence that allowed her sensitive eyes to examine her surroundings.

     Thin ropes were stretched across the red sand floor of the cave to form squares.  There were markers in a strange language, one for each square.  Devakiri had learned about these people the last time she awakened.  Archeologists, the humans called them.  She called them grave robbers.  This expedition seemed to be in the early stages with only one small area excavated.  Still, they must have found bones.  If they had not, Devakiri would still be sleeping.

     She bent her stiff legs and stood blinking in the soft light.  Her eyes scanned the walls, looking for the carving that would mark the grave of the guardian.  "Brighter," she whispered to the sand at her feet as she laid her hand against the stone wall, her feet leaving shuffling tracks along the floor.

     "Ahh."  Her tapered fingers traced the lines of her own face carved in the rock, even as her eyes followed them.  In life, her face had been soft but angular, ears ending in a delicate point, prominent cheekbones, pointed chin.  (2)  Yes, her own face carved next to a skull, placed there to guard her people’s sleep.  It shimmered as her hand caressed it, became malleable, and Devakiri slid her hand through the skull to touch the totems behind.  Twelve, one for each of her kin buried in this spot.  By touch she found her own totem, noting it's bulging eyes and it's mandibles folded as if in prayer.  She grasped the small stone statue and pulled it free, leaving the carving untouched. 

     "I have need of you again, friend," she murmured, followed by a serious of clicks of her tongue.  The statuette shook; stone dust falling away as the mantis awoke.  The archeologists had taken the spirit of her kinsman far from his people; without form or guide he could not return on his own.  Devakiri would find his bones and those of the one who took him and return them to his resting place.  Only then could she place his totem in his grave to guide him back home.

			*		*		*

     Professor Matthew Adkinson stared again the bones found at the site on the top of Mt. Keary.  To any but the most practiced eye they seemed ordinary.  Another set of human bones found in another grave.  They were recognizable, fibula, tibia, clavicle, scapula, and others too numerous to count.  But these were different.  Their weight was wrong, for one thing.  These were dense, heavy for their size.  The color wasn't quite right.  He regretted that he would not be the one to do the analysis, but the University was not large, and its facilities were not up to the task.  Beside, to do the analysis he'd have to leave the field, and the finding was half the fun.  Without people like him to excavate, the analysts would be out of a job.

     The door to the storage area opened and one of the student workers stuck his head in.  "Hey Professor, you finally get a day off and you're in here looking at those bones again?  It's your party, come out and celebrate your find instead of just looking at it. Everyone's waiting for you."

     Adkinson grinned at the student and ran his hand through is own gray hair.  He hadn't yet grown too old to be daydreaming about his latest find.  "I hardly think you students are dying for a polka out there."  

     "You underestimate the power of beer and bratwurst, Professor.  Believe me, they're ready to roll out the barrel."  The young man stepped inside and shut the door.  "You really think there's something different about these?"

     "Most certainly," Adkinson nodded enthusiastically.  "The carvings on the walls were like nothing we've ever seen before.  The craft work on the grave goods as well."

     "But you think that whoever was buried there wasn't human?"

     Matthew shrugged.  "I don't know that I'd go that far.  But I think they may indicate that early humans learned to use tools and formed a cohesive society far earlier than we believed.  There's a lot of work to be done.  I imagine today's party will be the last one for several months."

     The student grinned.  "We should get out there and enjoy it then, eh?  Let's go grab your squeezebox and watch them try to polka.

     "Sounds good to me," Adkinson agreed.  He slid the drawer shut and checked all the locks one more time.  Outside he snapped both padlocks on the door.  "Let's go polka."

			*		*		*

     Devakiri watched as human after human wound their way up the side of the great hill that was her clan’s burial site.  (3)  It hadn't been so tall when they had first been laid to rest there.  It cut red against the sky, seemingly out of place in the lush green of the valley below.  The Earth herself had changed, pushing the peak up higher and higher into the sky.  She would have thought that would keep the humans out, but apparently not.  Nothing seemed to daunt them.  Not a bad quality in general, but one that could lead to a great deal of trouble.

     She lifted her guide up on her first finger and looked in her eyes.  (4)  "Is the one who took the bones among them?"  The mantis stared back at her for a moment before shuffling her wings and returning her forearms to their customary praying position.  "He is not, then.  Where is he?"  The mantis crept along her arm in the strange, slinking way they have, moving toward the west.  Devakiri lifted her hand and looked.  There was some kind of camp set up there.  From what she could see it was mostly tents with only a few permanent buildings.  "We go west then, following the human's road."  

     A disguise would be necessary.  Devakiri had learned that humans were suspicious of anything out of the ordinary or different from themselves.  She used the time during her walk to construct a simple glamour around herself.  Her ears became rounded, her smooth scalp covered with dark hair, long tapering fingers shorter and more blunt.  Clothing like that she had seen on the females climbing the hill covered her body, right down to the thick blue pants and heavy boots.  By the time she reached the camp, she looked like nothing so much as a student worker at a dig site.

     The camp was neatly set up with tents surrounding the few permanent buildings.  It reminded her of the strings on the floor of the cave.  It was neat, organized, and very square.  The appearance was at great odds with the party that seemed to be going on in the large building at the center of the camp.  There was shouting and singing, and a horrible kind of screeching sound she could only assume they considered music.  The mantis again shuffled her wings and tilted her pointed head toward the building.  "Inside then."

     The smell of the place nearly knocked Devakiri over and she opened the door into the cool, dim room.  There was meat of some kind, and some kind of fermented beverage.  Her mouth began to water.  The fact that she had no need of food didn't dampen her desire for it.  The smells, the music, the chaos disoriented her for a moment.  She moved away from the door and sat in a chair alongside the wall.

     She watched the dancers hop about like grasshoppers having seizures, singing in their drunken voices something about there being no beer in heaven.  Their mass inebriation made it difficult to sort one aura from the next, it took several minutes for Devakiri to find the lingering traces of her kinsman hanging around the one playing the screeching instrument.  He sat near one of the only windows in full sunlight, a large grin on his face as someone took his picture.  (1)  She had expected a younger man for some reason, not this gray-haired elder with the sparkle of youth still on his face.

     This place did not suit her purpose.  Death seemed to upset Humans; they feared it.  Perhaps that's why they paid so little attention to it, a great oversight on their part.  "This place is too busy," Devakiri said as quietly as she could and still be heard by the guide.  "We will seek out the bones.  The old one will come to us there."

			*		*		*

     Adkinson stood in front of the door to the storage shed, accordion still over his shoulder.  He'd left the party a bit early with the intention of getting a good nights sleep and avoiding a hangover.  Instead he found the two padlocks that should be on the door were missing.  He clearly remembered putting them on when he'd left.  There was no sign of prying, and no piece of either lock remained, as if they had never been there at all.  Slowly he pushed the door inward.

     It was dark inside, but in the blue light from the window he could see the form of a woman.  She turned to him just as he turned on the overhead light.  "Hello, Professor," she said quietly.

     Matthew looked again at the locks, and back to the woman.  She looked much like any of the other student workers at the site, but he couldn't place her.  "I'm sorry Miss....  I can't recall seeing you here before."  He flicked a glance back toward the door.  "You really shouldn't be in here.  In fact," he added in the same tone he used for students in danger of failing, "I'd very much like to know how you got in here."

     "It wasn't difficult," the woman answered, still in the same quiet voice, as if it came from a great distance.  She turned and laid a finger against the lock on the drawer that held the most recent finds from the Keary site.  Metallic dust fell away from the drawer and she slid it open easily.  "These are not yours, Professor," she said as he heard the door click shut behind him.

     "Now wait just a minute..."

     "You people, you have no respect for the dead.  No respect for their rest.  You plunder their graves for your own gain."  She lifted her hand and looked a mantis balanced there.  "Yes, I know."

     Adkinson took a step, his back pressing against the door.  "There have been those who plundered graves for personal profit, grave robbers.  But we seek only edification, we only wish to learn."

     "What does it matter to the dead why you disturb them?  They care only that they are disturbed."  The woman stepped forward.  "I am disturbed."  Her features began to shift, clothing melting away as her skin turned a rich shade of red.  The long, luxurious hair shortened and disappeared as her fingers elongated and her ears stretched to a point.  He had seen this face before, on a carving on a cave wall.  He slid his hand down to find the doorknob.

     "You think everything belongs to you.   Finders keepers.  You raid tombs; leave them empty with never a thought of those resting in them.  For all your protestations to treasure every life, you have no respect for death."  The doorknob was stuck.  The woman shook her head slightly.  "You can't go yet, I thought you wanted to learn.  Learn this.  You have removed my kinsman’s spirit.  I am Devakiri, guardian of the Tapti clan, and I have come to reclaim it."  The doorknob fell to dust in his hand.

     "Finders Keepers.  I think I can play by those rules."  She stepped back and smashed her hand through the drawer's glass top.  "What's the rest of it?" she asked as she gathered up the bones.  "Ah yes, Losers Weepers."  Devakiri bent and opened the deep drawer that held the skull and smashed that glass as well.  One hand scooped up the skull, the other came up with a long, dagger like shard of glass.  She looked into the old man's wide eyes, curious.  "Will you weep?"

			*		*		*

     Dawn was just coming up over the horizon as Devakiri returned to the cave; red clay soil caked on her feet.  She wasn't certain whether the daily pilgrimage of humans up the hill would occur this morning.  If they had found the headless corpse of the Professor, it likely would not.  If she was lucky, the site would earn the reputation of being cursed.  If they continued to excavate here, she would certainly be awakened again.

     She stepped back to the carving in the wall that hid the totem guides.  The mantis crawled down from her shoulder and back into her hand.  "I thank you, dear friend.  Return to your rest."  Devakiri slid her hand through the carving and felt the mantis crawl off.  She stroked the small stone statuette in farewell.  Her hand moved along each totem until it found the dragonfly.

     One after another the bones were returned to the empty grave, followed by the head of the old archeologist and the dragonfly totem.  She watched as the totem shook and awoke.  It hovered over the head for a moment, and then flew out of the cave to find the lost spirit of the Tapti clan. 

     Devakiri laid down where she had awakened and waited for the darkness.


----------



## orchid blossom

So there it is.  I would have waited till a little later to post it, but we have all sorts of holiday stuff today and I wanted to make sure it got out.

It was a challenge, but a fun challenge.  So, however it comes out, I'm proud of me for getting it done.  Good luck to everyone!

Edit:  And of course after checking carefully for typos and running the spell and grammar check several times.... I find the mistake after I post the story.  I guess that's just how it goes.


----------



## Sialia

Thank you.


----------



## mythago

*Round 1.4: Mythago vs. Orchid Blossom*

Round 1.4: Mythago vs. Orchid Blossom

 Lifespan

     Kanwe's music charmed him a wife from the forest many years before the children began to vanish. He had no sisters to negotiate a bride for him, no wealth to hire a matchmaker to take a sister's place, and for years it seemed as though he would always live in the young men's camp. The women of his village agreed that it could have been worse; at least he was a young man with a light heart, and he had a gift for making music that even the elders had never heard equaled. Visitors and travelers paid him well to have him play at the festivals, and there was always a lonely widow with a wandering eye ready to cook his food for him, so he would never go hungry. He had no wife, but he would manage.

     Kanwe did not want to manage. He wanted to marry.

     He made a traveling pack with his best bone flute and the little drum made from the hide of the bear he had killed in his manhood hunt. He brought the last of the barley cakes that he had carefully saved from the Feast of New Beer, three days past. He packed a stoppered horn of that beer that one of the elders' wives had slipped him when her husband was not looking. He put on the thick seal-fur cloak that had belonged to his father, threw his pack over his shoulder, and walked into the forest.

     Kanwe walked south. His boots squelched in the fresh spring mud. The breeze carried the last cool whisper of winter's breath. He walked, his little drum slung at his hip, playing his flute with his sun hand and keeping time on the drum with the other. He knew all the songs of the village, blessings to welcome a new baby, the laments sung over the dead, the work songs the women sing as they pound grain into bread, the charming rhymes children sing at skip-rope, the long chants of the deeds of the ancestors--but as he walked, Kanwe played only songs of love. 

     In between the sweet piping of the flute, he sang the boasts young men sing to turn the heads of pretty girls, and played back the teasing, daring 
 notes that a young girl would  sing in reply to her suitors. He played the songs of courtship, the music of weddings, the joyous trill of lovers dancing at a festival.  On the fourth day, as he was beginning to think no one but the rabbits and elk would appreciate his playing, he met a woman in the forest.

     Kanwe knew immediately that she was a spirit. Her left hand lacked its littlest finger and her hair was flame-red, and anyway no humans lived so deep in the forest. Although this was what Kanwe had wanted, he was still afraid. His hand on the little drum trembled.

     The woman who was a spirit smiled. "Why did you stop your music? It was very pretty."

     The people of the village were overjoyed to see Kanwe emerge from the forest ten days after he had vanished, bedraggled yet happy. They were less pleased to see the strange young woman on his arm, the spirit he claimed was now his wife. But Kanwe was loved as ever, and after all he could not have found a wife any other way. The spirit who called herself Olunwos was as friendly and likeable as her husband, and soon began working alongside the other women, grinding wheat and weaving cloth. Kanwe drove three cows into the forest to pay Olunwos's bride-price; no one asked him whether or not they would be collected.

     The excitement over Olunwos gradually faded. Over time, the people ceased to remark on the ways in which she was different from humans. She could bear Kanwe no children, which was thought a great sorrow; but Kanwe seemed happy enough without them. She could perform small charms, to mend a broken pot or soothe a baby's colic. In the winter she could start a fire by blowing gently on a pile of tinder. She could call clouds of bright ladybeetles and straight-backed praying mantises to the fields to pick them clean of insects. Trading boats stopped more and more often as word of her fine weaving spread. 

 The village grew rich with wealth and children as the years passed. Kanwe played and sang for joy now, not for his supper. The traders who stayed an extra night or two to hear his music brought him strange instruments he had never seen before. He taught himself to play them, and fitted them to the old songs, to his and his people's delight. [1]

     In the twentieth spring of Kanwe's marriage, the old headman died and his son Araunt took the ivory circlet. It was just at the turn of summer that the first children disappeared from the village.

     For a child go missing was nothing unusual. Every year a few would swim too far past the mouth of the inlet, or run off into the forest and wander until they were too tired to call for their mothers anymore. But that summer, the children vanished at night, from their beds, as their families slept nearby. Guards were set around the camp and mothers drank strong tea to sit awake by their children's beds; yet the children disappeared anyway, as silently as though they had turned to smoke.

     For the first time in twenty years, the people began to whisper about Olunwos. In fear and anger they sought for any answer that might explain the loss of their children. Olunwos had no children of her own, she was a spirit, she could do magic: who else could be to blame? 

     Araunt ignored the rumors as long as he could. He was reluctant to anger Kanwe and more than a little afraid of Olunwos. He stalled and delayed until his own wife informed him that his sleeping mat would be cold and empty until he found out what had happened to the children. He and his scribe entered Kanwe's house without announcing their presence. The old musician was stringing tiny bronze bells on a wire; he rose to his feet stiffly as the headman entered.

     Araunt waved him to sit back down. "Kanwe. My business is with the spirit you call your wife. Where is she?"

     "She went to the tidepools to catch crabs for supper," he said. He did not add that the other women had gone crab-catching days ago; Olunwos was no longer welcome to work with the other wives.

     "When she returns, tell her that Araunt wears his ivory circlet and speaks to her." At that phrase, the scribe unfolded a rectangle of sheepskin and began to write, preserving the headman's words so they could be read by all. His brush darted like a dragonfly over the parchment as Araunt spoke. "In three days I will assemble the village for an inquest. If Olunwos brings back our children, she will be banished from the village alive. Otherwise, we will tie an iron weight around her neck and throw her into the open sea to drown. This is the decision of Araunt."

     Kanwe's mouth worked for a moment before he was able to speak. "You know that she has had nothing to do with this, Araunt! Olunwos has grieved for the lost children with the other women! She is a forest spirit, not a demon. You must not kill her because of foolish talk and lies."

     Araunt raised a finger and the scribe's brush paused. "If I did not give her this order, she would be dead today. The women are angry. The men wager how long it will take Olunwos to drown. Now she has three days in which none of the people will touch her, in the hope that she might relent and bring their children back. Perhaps she can find the children with her magic. If not, you have three days for her to flee into the forest. I cannot help you more than this." Araunt turned and left, his scribe pulling the hide door closed behind them.

     Olunwos returned late that afternoon with a basket full of fat crabs. Kanwe watched in silence as she prepared them for their supper. His beautiful wife had not aged a day since he had brought her home from the forest. The gray in her hair was colored with lye, the wrinkles carefully painted on each morning. Away from the jealous eyes of the other women, Olunwos did not stoop or shuffle with age. He waited until they had finished their stew to tell her what Araunt had told him.

     "He did not forbid me to go with you," Kanwe said. "If you return to the forest, to the home of your father, I will go with you."

     Olunwos shook her head. "You paid my bride-price; my father's house is closed to me. Nor would I return there, even if I could; you cannot enter the spirit world alive and I will not go without you."

     "Then I will go with you into the ocean," said Kanwe. "I would drown in your arms rather than spend my old age grieving."

     "There is another way," she said. "I could change my shape, and stay with you, hidden."

     Kanwe frowned, a face he did not often make. He knew that Olunwos, like all spirits, had the power to take whatever form pleased them, but at the cost of their impossibly long lives. Becoming a woman had already taken many years of Olunwos's life. That was why she did not alter her shape, to appear to age as humans did. To take another form might mean her death. But if she did not, her death was certain.

     "I will change my shape to a small creature, and that will not cost me so much of my life," she said. "I will not be as beautiful as before, and you will have to persuade another woman to cook for you. But we will be together, in some way, and perhaps I can use my new shape to find out what has happened to the children." 

     In the morning Kanwe went to Araunt's house and said that he had driven Olunwos wailing into the forest. The villagers were relieved that Kanwe was not as grief-laden as they had expected. If Araunt thought it odd, or noticed that Kanwe had developed a habit of muttering under his breath, he said nothing. No one noticed the slender green mantis that rode in a fold of Kanwe's clothing. 

     Olunwos enjoyed her new shape. She slept in Kanwe's belt-pouch during the heat of the day and listened to his music at dusk. When the village was 
 silent and asleep she crept through cracks and gaps in the walls of the village's homes, watching the children sleep and waiting to see what had happened to so many of them. She did not need to wait long. One hot night, when the doors were pinned open to allow cool breezes to flow inside, she heard footsteps, soft as a cat's, on the wooden planks laid across the mud of Araunt's threshold. She hopped down from the wall as four creatures moved towards the children's sleeping mats. They had pointed ears and long teeth like wolves; their heads were as bald as polished stones. As with all creatures that take human form but are not truly human, the smallest finger of their left hands were missing. They crept towards the children with terrible purpose.

     In the blink of an eye Olunwos changed her form. 

     Araunt woke to the screams of his family. His children were safe and huddled in arms of their terrified mother. A praying mantis the size of a pig 
 stood calmly in the center of his house, black, stinking blood dripping from its spined forelegs. The insect dipped its head in respect. "Araunt, please call your scribe," it said in the voice of Olunwos. "I have killed two of the goblins that would have eaten your children. We must talk." [2]

     The entire village was roused from sleep. Araunt dragged the corpses of the goblins out into the firelight for all to see. The grandmothers wailed at 
 the sight. Kanwe, too, shuddered. He knew the old tales, had even told them on dark nights to some of the older children who thought themselves afraid of nothing. Goblins were powerful, evil spirits that dug their warrens under battlefields and barrows. They decorated their lairs with their ancestors' bones. [3] They could not bear the clean rays of the sun and came out only at night. They would eat animals, and each other, but most of all they prized the taste of human children. The stories had been told as warnings as long as anyone could remember, as a warning; no human had claimed to have seen a goblin in over a hundred years. Yet there lay two of them dead, and two had escaped to warn the others.

     Olunwos, again in the form of a woman, sat next to Kanwe as the elders argued with Araunt about what they should do. The villagers avoided her still, out of shame now rather than anger. Only Kanwe knew that the white streaks in her strawberry hair were real, now, and the dark circles under her eyes had not been rubbed in with soot. He took her hand in his, both of their fingers now knobbed with age.

     The arguments went on well past sunrise. The people gathered around when Araunt called for his scribe. To Kanwe's surprise, he pointed to the old 
 musician. "Araunt wears the ivory circlet and speaks," he said. "The goblins must be great in number to have taken so many children. We cannot stay another night and risk being murdered in our beds. You, Kanwe, will lead the women, the children, the grandmothers and grandfathers, away from this place into the high steppes. The men will sleep during the day and we will wait here for the goblins to come. When we have killed or driven them all away, we will light a signal-fire that you can see from your camp, and you will lead them home." He paused. "And I remove the death pronounced on your wife, Olunwos, who saved the lives of my children."

     He turned irritably at the open-mouthed villagers. "Go! All of you who can stay and do battle, send your families with Kanwe. You must be far into 
 the hills before the goblins come." They obeyed, scooping up all they could carry and discarding what they could not. There were some still who remembered the days of wandering, before Araunt's grandfather settled the people here and built the village, and they guided the young ones in preparing to leave.

     Kanwe shuffled close to Araunt and spoke to him in a low voice so that even Olunwos would not hear. "Araunt, I thank you for sparing my wife, and for the honor of leading the children to safety, but why choose me as leader? Surely one of the elders commands authority I do not?"

     Araunt drew Kanwe into a tight embrace. "The children," he whispered. "They pay no mind to the elders when they think they are not being watched. The women will be too harried to keep them all moving. But you, Kanwe, you are loved by all the children. They will swarm around you to hear your music and sing rhymes with you. You will set the pace, and the children will follow you." He released the older man and patted him on the shoulder. "Go now. We may die here, or we may drive the goblins into the sea, but you will be safe."

     At midday the long procession left the village. Kanwe walked at its head, his little drum slung at one hip, the seal-fur cloak that had been his father's carefully packed away in Olunwos's bundles. He played a merry tune on his flute with his sun hand and kept time on his little drum with the left. The 
 children swarmed around him, just as Araunt had said, begging him to play this song or that one, pestering him with questions and tripping over each other as they darted back and forth jostling for Kanwe's attention. A few asked Olunwos to turn into a praying mantis again, and were quickly shushed by their mothers.

         The sun hung red over the ocean when they reached the place where the trail upward had been. Travelers from the far steppes were few; the last news the village had had of this path was many years old. It looked as though the earthquakes that came nearly every winter had struck hardest here. There had once been a shallow valley that sloped down before rising back toward the sky. Now it was a chasm that gaped like a wound. It was steep and its walls flaked with loose rock. It would have been a dangerous climb for a young man, certain death for an old man or a young child.

     The people milled about in fear. To try and walk around would take them past sunset, even if they could be sure of safe path elsewhere. They could 
 not camp here and be sure of safety from wild animals or worse. The children cried and rubbed their eyes, and even Kanwe's silliest songs could not calm them.

     Olunwos gently laid her hand on Kanwe's shoulder. He felt the weariness in her. Changing her shape had robbed her not only of years, but of the 
 energy of her life; she seemed older now than he. "My love," she said, "we must cross into the steppes. The goblins could follow us across the lowlands, but the chasm will stop them. We must cross it."

     "We have no bridge," he told her sadly. "The trees are too far, even if we could fell one and push it across as a bridge."

     She took his wrinkled face in her old woman's hands. There was still the sparkle of a young girl's love in her eye. she kissed him, twice, then turned and cupped her hands over her mouth. "Children!" she cried. "Who wants a ride on old Olunwos's back?"

     The children hesitated, then gathered around her with their eyes wide. She looked them over and frowned in mock disappointment. "So many of you!" she said. "We will be up until the moon's next change if I have to carry one of you at a time. I shall just have to carry all of you at once."

     She stepped over the edge of the chasm. Kanwe cried out in fear. Olunwos did not fall. Her legs grew long and thick. Her shoulders swelled. Her shadow in the setting sun spread out behind her like blood on the ground as she grew into a giant, her skin the same dull red of the earth. She knelt in the chasm and laid her head on the other side.

     "Come, little ones," she whispered, her dying voice like wind rattling over pebbles. "Climb on my back."

     And they did, Kanwe leading the way with the children behind him. They clambered over the hills that had been her hips and walked single file up the sloping plain that had been her back. [4] Kanwe did not play songs for the children, now. He played the songs of mourning and loss as his feet moved 
 over earth where his hands had moved, once, when those places had been his wife's smooth skin. They followed the curve of her bent neck into the jagged steppe and walked until they reached a high hill. In the last light, they could see the village far below. 

     The people woke at daybreak to see the signal fire proudly burning in the village. They made their return journey with less fear, but with great sorrow. None needed to ask what happened to Olunwos; turned forever to rock and earth, her body remained in the chasm, a bridge for her adopted people to return home. Many of the children, as they walked across, patted the smooth columns of stone that had once been her hair, and now only only made pretty lines through the flat red earth.

     Araunt was the first to notice that Kanwe was not among those joyously welcomed home. He questioned the children, but none of them remembered when they had last seen him; none knew if he had come back to the village before slipping away. The women did not know if he had stayed behind in the hills or had come home only to wander off into the forest, where he had once gone to woo his bride.

     The chasm is still there; the shifting of the earth never closed it or collapsed the bridge that many travelers say looks so much like a crouching 
 woman, if you look at it just so. Few dare make that trip across the eastern steppes; the land is rough and there are high winds that scour the mountains even in summer.

     Some say that when the winds slow, as if to catch their breath, they sound almost like the sweet trill of a flute.


----------



## mythago

Whew! Now I can go read Orchid Blossom's story.


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## alsih2o

The only thing that really bothered me about running Ceramic DM was the people who asked rudely why they hadn't recieved judgements yet (gathering judgements form up to 3 continents all around can be time consuming) and letting down the people who asked politely because i also assumed the wait- no matter how long or brief, was interminable.

   *drums fingers*


----------



## Sialia

mythago said:
			
		

> Whew! Now I can go read Orchid Blossom's story.



The great pity is that, having matched you two in the first round, one of you will not advance.

I'd be willing to sit through a whole lot more stories like this pair.

Many thanks.


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## shilsen

Sialia said:
			
		

> The great pity is that, having matched you two in the first round, one of you will not advance.
> 
> I'd be willing to sit through a whole lot more stories like this pair.
> 
> Many thanks.



 You can say that again! I read Orchid Blossom's story and thought it was a shoo-in for the next round, and then read Mythago's. Talk about a close match! Best two stories so far in the competition, IMO.


----------



## BSF

I have been trying so hard to avoid reading any of the stories.  Call me silly, but I am trying to keep my muse undistracted.  But, it is getting increasingly difficult to avoid reading these stories when I have comments like this popping up!  

I'm looking forward to some wonderful reading once I am finished with the contest.


----------



## Macbeth

So far I've only read my opponent's story. No use getting intimidated too early.


----------



## orchid blossom

Thanks so much for the kind comments.  It's been a long time since I wrote anything, and it's good to know I haven't gone completely rusty.

I've also been avoiding reading the stories, so I now have many to go back and read.


----------



## Piratecat

I know the waiting is hard. But the holiday weekend made judging a bit tricky, and we'll be back with the first judgments as soon as we can. Think of it as prolonging the anticipation.  

In the mean time, it's time for...

*Match 7 - Wandering Monster vs BardStephenFox.* Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. More of Sialia's artwork, here, as well. Enjoy, and good luck!


----------



## mythago

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> and it's good to know I haven't gone completely rusty



 Good grid. If that is 'a little rusty', how do you write when you're in fine form?

 Don't answer that; I'm scared as it is.


----------



## Macbeth

Whew. Good luck with those, BardStephenFox. Hope you win (and I win) so theres a chance of us facing each other later.


----------



## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I know the waiting is hard. But the holiday weekend made judging a bit tricky, and we'll be back with the first judgments as soon as we can. Think of it as prolonging the anticipation.
> 
> In the mean time, it's time for...
> 
> *Match 7 - Wandering Monster vs BardStephenFox.* Entries are due 72 hours from this time stamp. More of Sialia's artwork, here, as well. Enjoy, and good luck!





Nifty!  Now, let's see if I can make anything up using all of these.

Oh, thanks Sialia!


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I know the waiting is hard. But the holiday weekend made judging a bit tricky, and we'll be back with the first judgments as soon as we can. Think of it as prolonging the anticipation.




 Well, let's see. Arwink is in Austria with hong, and if i check my time zones correctly it is now 3 a.m. next Wednesday morning there. And Maldur is in on of those wee little european countries where I believe it is currently last Tuesday around lunch.

 No wonder this takes time!


----------



## Zhaneel

Quick question for anyone while I edit, how do you put in links to the images?

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Quick question for anyone while I edit, how do you put in links to the images?
> 
> Zhaneel




Answer here!


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Answer here!




THANKS!!!!

Zhaneel


----------



## Zhaneel

Ceramic DM: Match 1-5: Tzor vs. Zhaneel
*The One*
By Zhaneel aka Dawn B.

	It was another boring day in the boring life of Karen.  She woke up, showered, argued with her brother and left for school.  Nothing ever happened to Karen, at least in her opinion.  She felt that she was boring, mousy and always blended in with the walls.  This meant that she acted boring, mousy and attempted to blend in with the walls.  And in high school, that meant no one paid her any attention.  Which was just how Karen saw her life.  It worked wonderfully.

	While on the bus to school, Karen overheard other kids discussing the academy of science trip that was happening today.  She had completely forgotten about it.  So maybe today wouldn’t be completely boring, but there was no guarantee.  Karen stared out the window as the other kids did what they did.  The cheerleaders flirted with the football players; the goths sat in the back of the bus, glaring at the rest of the kids and writing poetry in their dark journals; the geeks discussed the latest development in computer equipment.  No one talked to Karen; no one even noticed she was there.  At least the trade off was that no one noticed her enough to make fun of her, either.

	Upon arrival at school everyone filed into the classroom.  Roll was taken, and Karen was almost missed because the teacher didn’t hear her answer the first time.  In fact, Mr. Rudolph looked surprised to see her, just like he did everyday.  It seemed as if no time had passed before the class was back on the bus heading to the academy.  It was a short trip and upon arrival Mr. Rudolph instructed them to split off into pairs.  Karen watched as everyone else quickly found a buddy, mostly within their group, though a few had cross group problems.  It was over so quickly that she didn’t have a chance to find anyone.  When Mr. Rudolph noticed that she didn’t have a partner, he offered to be her buddy.  Karen just mumbled “I’ll be fine.”

	“Of course,” Mr. Rudolph said, not seeing Karen but the attractive woman walking by behind her.  He turned away from Karen, forgetting her in an instant.  He dismissed the class, reminding them to be back at the entrance at 2 PM to be able to leave the academy on time.  The he turned and followed the woman in the short skirt.  The class split into every direction and the cross-group buddies were instantly away from each other as the groups formed up.  Karen was left alone on the rotunda.

	Karen wrapped her hands around her arms and started to wander.  She liked being alone.  It meant that she could take as long as she wanted to read the descriptions of the displays.  She spent some time reading about how chameleons blended in with their environment in order to hide from predators.  She wondered if that’s what she was doing.  But she didn’t know any predators, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had tried to be noticed.

	Eventually, Karen made her way to the fossil exhibit.  Each fossil was quiet but each had a story to tell.  And it was interesting to see how the archeologists covered the fossils with fake skin and coloring in an attempt to pretend they knew what the animals had looked like millions of years ago.  A huge crocodile ancestor dominated the room; its jaws spread open in attempt to gain food one last time.  Karen watched as a little blonde boy wandered away from his parents who were looking at a brontosaurs display and approached the huge maw.  The innocent boy laid his head down into the mouth of the crocodile with no fear.  Karen smiled at his bravery, and then was assaulted with the bloody vision of the mouth snapping closed and ripping the boy’s head off.

	Karen screamed in fear and horror, only to see the boy looking up at her in surprise.  The whole room turned to stare at her and for the first time in years Karen was noticed.  She didn’t like it.  Everyone was looking at her, seeing her clearly in the center of the room.  She felt her face flush and knew she was blushing.  Tears appeared in her eyes and she fled the room.  She didn’t watch where she was going.  Every time she looked up she saw displays coming to life and engaging in destruction, only to look away and back again to see they were just as before.  She was going crazy, and she knew it but couldn’t get it to stop.

	Ahead through her tears she could make out a glowing doorway.  Since it was the only thing that wasn’t threatening death she ran towards it.  Not knowing or caring where it led as long as it was away from here.

	The minute she stepped through the portal the difference was clear.  Gone was the cool of the academy and it was replaced by the warmth and brightness of the sun.  The ground below her feet was not the paved concrete of the academy or the patio that surrounded it.  She was now on uneven ground, covered in grass.  She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes, but the image of rolling hills around her refused to clear.  And then she heard sounds behind her.  Whirling around she saw a large group of people gathered in a semi-circle around her.  They were dressed in leather and hides.  It was as if Karen had stepped into a painting of Native Americans, except that they were blonde of hair and green of eye.  They were all staring at her in what appeared to be a combination of exultation and fear.  

	This was far too many people staring at her in such a short time for Karen to react well.  She screamed again, knowing this might only attract more attention and then, her senses overwhelmed, she fainted.

# # #

	Karen awoke in a strange place. She knew that it wasn’t her bed at home.  The lighting was all wrong and there was no leather in her room, though her nostrils were filled with its sweet perfume.  She opened her eyes and a woman she didn’t recognize was bending over her.  All the details of her strange dream came rushing back and she knew it had not been a dream.  But this couldn’t be real, either.

	Trying to remain calm, in spite of the loss of her protective cover of blending in, Karen addressed the woman staring at her. “Where am I?”

	The woman blinked and replied in a tongue Karen didn’t recognize.  It didn’t sound like Spanish or French or German.  Or really, any language Karen had heard being spoken.  Karen sucked at languages.  She had almost failed Spanish when she took it because she couldn’t understand when it was spoken to her at speed.  There was no way she was going to be able to translate the language being spoken to her.  Karen had always believed in the Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” But never more than she did now.  The woman spoke again and Karen didn’t bother trying to pretend that she was listening.  She shook her head and turned to stare at the tent wall.  Hopefully, the woman would go away and Karen could figure out what was going on.

	After a few more attempts at conversation, Karen heard the woman shuffle out of the tent.  She closed her eyes and tried to remember everything that had happened.  The academy.  The statues and fossils and paintings coming to life and destroying whatever was in range.  But she was the only person who had seen it.  And attention.  For the first time in years Karen had been the center of attention.  She couldn’t remember the last time that more than two people had looked at her at the same time.  Not even her mother and her brother would pay attention to her at the same time.  They were both busy leading their lives unless Karen got in the way.  Teachers often missed her during role and during class.  Her doctor didn’t remember her from one visit to the next, and always had to consult his file to remember her name.  To have more than one person look at her and stare at her was unnerving.

	She heard someone enter the tent and turned to face them.  If she was going to be stared at, she wanted to know by whom.  If it was the woman, she would just turn away again.  But being a “show & tell” didn’t really sit well with her.  

	It was not the woman who had been with her when she had first woken.  It was a man, one she hazily recognized from the crowd of people surrounding her when she had appeared at this place.  His blonde hair was cropped short around his head, though it hung thick at his brow and over his ears.  He looked at her, not through her, with clear blue eyes.  She was mesmerized.  She saw his mouth move but she couldn’t make at the words he might be saying.  She was about to try talking again when his hands motioned toward her and then to the sky above the tent.  She saw a brief flash of light, but it didn’t hurt nor leave aftershocks in her eyes.

	“What was that?” Karen asked, not really expecting a response.

	“That was a spell that allows me to understand what you are saying and speak your language,” the man replied in perfect English.

	“A spell?”

	“Yes.  I know that you don’t have those where you come from.  But you were brought here by a spell, and how else can you explain that I can now understand you?”

	“I can’t explain how I got here, that’s for sure, but some weird stuff happened before I got here, so this could all just be some stupid delusion,” Karen said.

	The man smiled.  “Weird things?  Like seeing stuff come to life that couldn’t?  By seeing death & destruction that no one else saw?  Things like that?”

	Karen looked up in surprise.  How could he know that stuff?  This was too weird.  “Who are you?”

	“My name is He-Who-Calls-to-the-Void.  However, most people call me Void.  I am the one who summoned you here.  We need you.”

	“You need me?  No one needs me.  No one…”

	“… even sees you, usually,” Void finished for her with a smirk.  Karen gaped. 

	“How, how did you, how did you know?” she stammered.

	“Because it is only those that have been most forgotten that we can reach.  Only those that are not seen, and have a tenuous grip on their own reality can shine through the mists that part the planes to be brought across.”

	Karen’s face showed her disbelief and confusion.  Void sighed, and sat down next to her on the pelts that made up the crude bed.

	“I know this must be hard for you understand and believe.  But understanding can wait.  You must believe me.  You are the One.  The One we need and the only One who can save us.”

	“The One?” Karen repeated.  “What one?  And how can I be that if I wasn’t even here until you brought me?”

	“The One who will defeat the evil magician Zerkold and return peace to this place.  The One must be from another plane, because Zerkold is from another plane also and is protected against all attacks from people on this plane.  And since we were able to find you and bring here, as prophesized, you are the One.  You will save us.”

	“Save you?  I can’t save anyone.”

	“Maybe not in your plane.  But here, by virtue of your other-plane status you can.  You must.”

	Karen pushed herself up from the pelts and paced around the tent.  She had worked so hard to not be seen.  To not be depended on for anything.  To be able to just be and observe and get through life without anyone getting in her way or requiring anything of her.  Now it was all gone.  In fact, she was here specifically because she had made herself too disposable at home.  Now she was trapped in a strange land – plane - and could only understand one man.  And people were depending on her.

	“My name is Karen,” she offered.

	“Karen,” Void repeated.  “Thank you for gracing me with your name.  Karen, will you fulfill your destiny and help us?”

	Karen turned and studied Void.  He seemed so sincere and so convinced that she could help his people.  Could she do it?  Was she actually the One he needed?  And yet, what else did she have to do here?

	“Void, I will do what I can, but I don’t know how to help you.”

	Void smiled wide and brightly.  In that instant Karen understood why perhaps being the center of one person’s attention might not be such a bad thing. “I knew you would help us,” Void crowed.

# # #

	Over the next week Void trained her in the various weapons his tribe had stockpiled for the One.  Several of the weapons were guns, which Void said that no one who was not from the plane of origin could use.  In fact, he showed her that clicking the trigger did nothing when he did it, but made sure that she pointed the gun away from anyone else when she pulled the trigger.  And Karen was surprised that in fact the gun did shoot and her arm dealt with the backfire.  Several of the other weapons were of native make, knives and such.  To her amazement, Karen found herself picking up the skills of death quickly.  Void attributed it to her status of the One.  As there was no other explanation Karen could supply, she found herself believing it.  Who knew that the reason she had always veered from other's attention was she had not been meant for that plane.  Here she had a purpose and people needed her.  Over the week Karen became more and more comfortable with people watching her.  It was an entirely new feeling.

	Several more times Void cast his spell of understanding.  He told Karen how he wished he could give her the same ability, so that she could speak with the others in his tribe.  She wasn't quite clear on why he could only cast the spell on himself, but then the whole concept of magic was new to her.  She wasn't sure she needed to understand what everyone else was saying.  Their faces, upturned to her, were filled with hope and worship.  She was a ray of hope to them.  Zerkold had been taking their children for years in raids and was able to easily kill any hunting party that approached his fortress.  The people had stopped resisting, other than hoping for the One to come and save them.  And now the One was here.


	Over the morning meal of corn gruel about two weeks after her arrival in the village, Void turned to her and said, "I think you are ready.  There is very little else I can teach you and the annual tithe of children is approaching quickly.  Do you feel ready, Karen?"

	Karen thought carefully about her answer as she not quite chewed the mush in her mouth.  She felt more ready than she had the first day, now that she knew how to use the weapons provided to her.  However, was she ready to kill another human?  Even to save many of the gentle inhabitants who lived in this tribe?  She didn't know, but then, she was the One and it was foretold that the One would stop the tithe of children, so it must be time for her to be ready.

	Karen nodded, and again Void smiled that smile which melted her. She knew it was silly, but she had a crush on Void.  He was at least ten years older, but she really liked him.  Not that she would dream about ever telling him.  Karen was still getting used to him paying attention to her.  There was no way she would do anything further to attract attention.

	“You can do it.  I know you can.  You are the One.  Now, you must go get the blessing from He-Who-Knows-All-and-Nothing, my master.  It is he that foretold that the One would come from beyond the veil to save our people.  It is a not a long journey, but we should leave now if we are to make before evening.”

	Together, with the rest of the tribe, Karen & Void prepared to leave.  Karen carried her arsenal of weapons and Void carried what little supplies they would need.  These people did not have domesticated any riding animals, so they would walk.  As they walked, Void told her more about his people.  The village was just one of many that was being terrorized by Zerkold.  Void was the high priest of the village, but He-Who-Knows-All-and-Nothing was the High Priest for all of the people.  There were many villages, and each had their own high priest who reported back to the High Priest.  Void had learned all he knew from He-Who-Knows-All-and-Nothing, and it was imperative that the One meet the High Priest and gain his blessing, for only the High Priest could say who was truly the One.

	This was news to Karen.  She had thought that there was no one else and believed she was the One because Void said so with such certainty.  Now, however, to find out that there had been other contenders, brought by other high priests, she wondered.  Maybe she wasn’t really the One.

	Void did not notice her detachment and continued to tell the history of his people to Karen as they walked.  Karen just nodded and listened enough to make appropriate noises.  The bag on her back suddenly felt heavier and the fear of snuffing another life came back to haunt her.  By the time they reached the large village where the High Priest resided, she had convinced herself that it was all a mistake.  She didn’t have the heart to tell Void, but she knew that the High Priest would understand.  He’d send her back and she’d never have to see Void’s eyes cloud in sadness.  She’d go back to her boring life.

	The High Priest’s tent was more grand than any other she had seen in her travels in this land.  It was taller, made from the softest leather and the seams were almost impossible to discern.  When Karen asked why there was no sheen for the water sealing that all the other tents had to keep the rain out, Void confided that the High Priest was protected by a spell that did not allow any water in.  Rain sheeted off the tent, never soaking the leather.  Karen murmured her surprise and knew it would be no problem for a man of such power to send her home.  She would miss Void, and hope that the One came soon to protect them, but she was not the One, and it would be foolish to continue.

	Void opened the flap for her and remained outside.  Karen took one last, long gaze at him and stepped inside the tent.  It was brightly lit, so her eyes needed no adjustment.  Only one man stood inside, and she assumed he must be He-Who-Knows-All-And-Nothing.  She stepped in, knelt before him and said “I have come for your blessing.”

	The High Priest lifted his head and greeted her.  “So, Void believes he has found the One who will save us?”

	Karen looked up; the man’s eyes were studying her intently.  She felt her desire to disappear return in greater intensity since it has been slowly dissipating in this land.  His eyes were a steel gray and his hair was let down long.  It must have been black at some point, as there were still stray black hairs, but most of his hair had long since turned silver.  He was an old man and knowledge exuded from his every step and look.  She was intimidated and could not hold his gaze for more than thirty seconds.

	Finally, he spoke again. “You are certainly not what I expected.”

	“I know,” Karen said hurriedly.  “I’m not it, am I?  I figured it out on the way over, but I didn’t want to disappoint He-Who-Calls-to-the-Void.  Please, can you send me home and tell him?”

	He-Who-Knows-All-and-Nothing smiled.  “Tell him that you’re not the One when there is no doubt that you are?  Why would I do that?  Why would I send our savior home?  You are the One.  The One I have foretold that will come to save our people.”

	“But you said I was not what you expected.”

	“That is true.  Which is why I am called He-Who-Knows-All-and-Nothing.  I knew the One would come and I knew I would know the One when I found them.  But I did not know what the One would look like.  Arise, The-One-Who-Will-Save-Us, and receive my blessing.”

	Karen slowly stood, amazed at what she was hearing.  She had been convinced that she couldn’t be the one.  But, she was.  How could she have doubted Void?  Of course he would know the One when he saw it.  Not like his brothers, talented though they were.  He-Who-Knows-All-and-Nothing placed his hands on her head and began to chant in the way Karen had come to recognize as the casting of a spell.  She felt a heat spread from his hands to her head and travel the length and breadth of her body.  This blessing made her feel stronger and that she had the protection of the hopes of all the people upon her.  She was The One and would go do battle with the evil wizard Zerkold.

	Void was smiling his beautiful smiled when Karen left the tent of the High Priest.  “I knew you were the One. I can see that the High Priest has blessed you.”

	Karen blushed.  She felt alive and for the first time wanted more attention than she was receiving.

	“Come,” Void said.  “We shall sleep in this village tonight, and tomorrow I will take you to Zerkold’s tower.  I regret that I cannot come with you, but it is forbidden.  I can only lead you to him.”

	Karen smiled bravely.  “I am the One.  It is not your fight.  I will defeat Zerkold on the ‘morrow and your children need never been stolen again.”

	Void’s smile was worth dying for.

# # #

	The next morning dawned brightly.  Karen didn’t bother eating.  The One she may be, but that didn’t prevent her from having a queasy stomach at the thought of killing.  Void understood her silent refusal and they left together.  Void didn’t speak as he had the previous day on their travel.  Just walked with her as Karen took in the surrounding area.  At about midmorning she was able to see a tower rising from beyond a hill to the south.  It slowly grew in size as they walked, and by mid-afternoon she could see it clearly.

	Truly, it was a wizard’s tower from a book.  Zerkold must have been a fantasy nut if he came from Karen’s reality.  And really, what kind of a name was Zerkold?  It must be a made-up name Karen decided.

	Void stopped walking.  “I can go no further, The-One-Who-Will-Save-Us.  I must take my leave of you.  Be well and return to me.”

	Karen turned to look at Void, and looked at him.  She came back toward him, controlling her walk.  “I will do my best to free your people, Void,” she said and reached out to hug him.

	He embraced her back and she enjoyed the feeling of his check next to hers.  For a brief moment she thought he might kiss her, which would have been nice since she had never been kissed.  But he didn’t, and so she released him and turned away.  She walked toward the tower, noting that there wasn’t a lot to hide her approach.  She trusted in the fact that she was the One, and got out the sniper rifle.  She raised the sight to her eye and looked at the tower.

	Just in front of the tower she clearly made out two figures.  They weren’t watching her yet, engaged in some kind of exchange.  They wore long robes of a dark silken material and had tall pointy hats made out of the same.  One of them seemed to be giving the other a purple disk with a symbol emblazed on it.  Carefully, Karen sighted down the length of the barrel.  With the figures dressed in such a way to hide their faces it was easy to not think of them as men.  Carefully, taking a deep breath, she pulled the trigger once. She saw the one she had not hit turn to locate her as she released the second bullet.  Both figures went down and did not get back up again.

	Karen expected to feel sick.  She had just ended two lives.  But she wasn’t.  They were far away and it wasn’t real.  There was no one else outside the tower, so she lowered the weapon and made her way across the plain.  No one shot at her as she walked, there were no fireballs cast in her direction.  Nothing.  It was as if she was alone in the world.  

	When she got to the door, and smelled the blood that seeped from the two men she had shot, she did get sick.  Before they had just been figures in strange dress.  Now she could see them up close, though fortunately their hoods had stayed on so she didn’t see their faces.  She retched quietly, away from the corpses.  She wiped her mouth, and took a deep breath.  She was the One.  She had to go on.  She entered the cool, dark tower.

	There was a stairway. And that was about it.  It was a stairway that wound around and around in the tower, going to the top Karen assumed.  There was nothing to do but climb.  So Karen began her ascent.

	Time passed slowly.  There were few sounds.  Karen kept her breathing regular and surprised herself because she hadn’t thought she was in good shape.  But she had no problem keeping a steady pace.  She placed her feet carefully, so very little sound was heard on the stone.  And the stairs were well kept, so no gravel loosed itself as she traveled.  Finally, she could see that stairs ended soon.  She loosed her pistol and slowed her speed.  This was it.  This was the showdown with Zerkold.  She approached the doorway at the top of the stairs slowly.

	The door was closed. She tried to figure out if she could open it quietly and then decided that there was nothing for it.  She was The One.  The High Priest had said so, Void believed in her.  She would make it.  Emboldened, Karen opened the door and raised her pistol.

	A shot rang out.  Karen hadn’t touched her trigger.  She felt pain blossom in her chest.  She looked down.  A red stain was spreading from her chest.  She staggered.  As she fell to the ground, not knowing how she could have failed she heard a man say, “A shame, a waste.”

#

	He-Who-Calls-to-the-Void knelt at his master’s feet weeping.  “What will we do?  She was the One, and she has failed.  Zerkold had her body flung from his tower.”

	“We will tithe the children as usual my apprentice and seek the One.”

	“What are you talking about?  You said she was the One!”

	He-Who-Knows-All-And-Nothing looked down at his protégé.  So young, so innocent.  “Of course I said she was the One.  If I hadn’t, she wouldn’t have tried.  And she got farther than others have.”

	“Others?  You said you sent the false Ones home.”

	“As I will say I did with this one.  Obviously, she failed, so she was not the One.  But the One will appear.”

	Void had stopped sobbing.  He stared as his master.  “You sent a young girl to her death for no reason?  You knew she wasn’t the One and you told her she was and sent her to her death!”

	The High Priest shook his head.  “No.  I didn’t know she wasn’t the One.  No one can know who the One is until the deed is complete.  I sent her to her death on the hopes of our people that she might be the One.  As I did the others.  As I will more, until we are free.”

END


----------



## Maldur

The judging is hard again this time. But you all produced some wonderfull stories.

Cant wait to see the rest of the verdicts


----------



## Berandor

Zhaneel, that was great!


----------



## RangerWickett

*Random Acts of Kindness*

“And that’s why horses are illegal in this county.”

The taser struck the horse in the thigh, and it fell, shaking.

Hamid smiled as the peasant’s expression fell to dismay.  Six county police picked up the body of the unconscious horse and dragged it to the border.  Hamid wrapped his arm around the peasant’s shoulder and guided him back past the gate arm that marked the end of his territory.

“Next time,” Hamid laughed, “come in a car.”

The police officers dumped the horse body at the peasant’s feet, then lowered the gate arm, blocking the roadway.  The peasant knelt to help his horse back to its feet, and Hamid walked away, amused.  The American reporter intercepted him before he could get to the car, and her expression was disapproving.

“Governor Ma’ruf, I’d heard stories, but they sounded far too ridiculous.  Do you do this with every horse that comes here?”

“Please, call me ‘Lord.’”  Lord Hamid Ma’ruf’s English was perfect, his demeanor casual.  He liked having reporters around to brag to.  “And yes, I know you think I’m some kind of horrible person because, oh no, I taser horses.  I have a lot to protect here, and I can’t do that if I go around just letting horses into my county, don’t you think?”

Unflustered, the reporter pressed, “Lord Ma’ruf, we’ve all heard the rumors of how you carved out this land to be your own personal . . . county, but no one knows why.  The Greek government seems afraid to come here, and we in America want someone to explain-” 

Back on the other side of the border, the horse rose to its feet and let out a soft whinny of confusion.  Hamid dropped to the ground, and suddenly was unloading a pistol in the direction of the horse.  The gate guards took cover from their governor’s hail of gunfire, and the peasant and the horse fled in panic, down the road and out of sight.

Slowly, as the sounds of gunshots faded, the guards came back out.  Hamid pushed himself to his feet, grinning without concern.  “Okay, you’re going to want me to explain that, right?”

The reporter nodded, pulling out a hand tape recorder.  Hamid smiled.  She’d never believe him, but he’d enjoy telling the tale anyway.

“Alright then.  I joined the Bureau because the job sounded like it’d be fun.  You get to carry a gun and a sword to work.  Plus, they provided the tailored suits.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

Hamid gestured for the reporter to get into his chauffeured car.  “See, the Bureau’s big into the whole, you know, save the world from evil-doers thing, and they’re one of those classic secret organizations that you see about in tabloids.  You got your MIBs, your FBIs, your BFMs.   Well, the Bureau’s deal is magic.”

*	*	*​
The little girl looked innocent enough at first glance.  Cute, harmless.  Three feet of brown hair, pink bows, and flower dress.  But she didn’t walk like a normal girl.  And she didn’t shop like one.

Swedish malls are strange by anyone’s standards, but even there, children don’t normally wander into occult bookstores.

“Do you have any books on anti-magic, or counter curses?”  The little girl spoke English, and the shopkeeper spoke back gibberish.  The girl sighed.  “Alright then.  Do you have a translation spell?”

The shopkeeper, an old man with curly nosehairs, grinned grandfatherly at her.  He plucked something from a high shelf nearby and handed it to her.  It was a stack of playing cards.  On the back of each card was a picture of a Froud-esque faerie, something pretty that a little girl would like.

The girl stared up at him incredulously.  “I should curse you just for that, y’old bastard.”

A woman’s scream from outside jolted the old man and young girl, and unintelligible shouts in Swedish filled the mall with the sound of mass hysteria.  The girl glanced about nervously, but curiosity got the better of her.  As the old shopkeeper fled into the back of the store, the girl stepped out into the main thoroughfare of the mall, and looked in the direction of the screams.

The crowd was running in her direction, feet hammering, shouts stirring the uneasy parts of her mind.  She staggered toward a potted plant in the middle of walkway, hoping to take cover.  Crouching low, she covered her ears, trying to control her breathing and her heart, but she could feel bits of the world around her twisting as her thoughts crept into the world.

The crowd surged past her, their screams of terror punctuated by occasional cries of pain for reasons the girl refused to see.  She cowered for a long minute, until the surge passed, and the mall was empty.

Two pairs of footsteps approached, clicking lightly on the deserted mall’s floor.  A low hum pulsed, the familiar sound of a light blade being activated.

“Open your eyes, little girl,” said a voice, monotone and sweet.  “Open your eyes, and come to find order.”

Fighting her fear, the girl looked up.  Two men towered over her, their faces bland and expressionless, their eyes burning with conquest.  One held a crimson sword near the girl’s face, the other waited ready with a wand.  They were all but identical, same height, same posture, same face, same wristwatches, same eerily polite tuxedos.  These were no normal people, the girl knew.

“You’re Creepers.”

The two men let the same emotionless smile crack their faces, and the girl looked down, nauseous.  Beyond the two men, dead shoppers lay in pools of blood for the length of the thoroughfare.  Mechanically, the sword-wielder reached down with his free hand to grab her, but the girl pulled back.  Her heart began to pulse, and her vision blurred.

On the floor around her, the tile began to twist, patterns wending their way across the ground chaotically.  The air crackled with potential, pressing the girl’s face upward to glare at the Creepers.  Their careful masks of orthodoxy contorted with fear, and suddenly the world rippled.  Nightmare and metaphor made real, the two men had only an instant to cry out before their mouths vanished.  Their heads melted into white bile and reshaped each into a single giant eyeball, flesh reshaping into a mockery of eyelids, their weapons changed by madness and whim.  The pain of the transformation killed them instantly, but the shock left their bodies standing.

Staggering from the sudden release in power, the girl pressed her way between them and headed for the exit.  Whimpering slightly, she pushed open the mall doors and headed away.  The doors swung shut with a heavy thud.  In the silent mall, the two twisted Creepers slipped to the ground.

*	*	*​
“Good, you’re dressed casually.”  The Swedish general, bedecked in an array of silver medals and commendations, waved Hamid into the office.  The Swedish office of the Bureau was the only one where the local military had any say, and Hamid’s boss – General Bjornholm, which Hamid decided sounded funnier as ‘General Bonehead’ – took his position far too seriously.  Hamid was officially here just to deal with a group of troll smugglers, but he kept finding himself recruited to deal with local concerns.

Hamid took a seat in front of the general.  “What’s going on?”

“A magical disturbance at the Grand Fjords Mall.  Reports are still coming in, but we’re going to get going now.” 

The general started toward the door, but Hamid remained sitting, smiling at the vibrant blue and gold of the general’s uniform.  “You’re going to the mall in that?”

The general nodded, all his medals clinking prestigiously.  “Ma’ruf, someone reported men in tuxedos.  Creepers.  I can’t spare time to change.”

Hamid gulped, then ran to follow.  “Yeah, because I hadn’t had enough cultists yet this week.  At least you’ll draw their fire.”

*	*	*​
With a dramatic skid, General Bonehead stopped their car at the edge of the fleeing crowd.  They were rushing out of the Grand Fjords Mall in a panic, and Hamid couldn’t see what the source of the commotion was.  He nervously checked his gun and other weapons as the general rolled down his window and shouted in heavy Swedish for someone to explain what was going on.  By the time he was done, the crowd had cleared enough for them to press the car through, and they sped toward the mall entrance.

As they neared the grand glass doors, one of the doors opened, and a young girl staggered out, clutching her head.  Again, General Bonehead jack-knifed the car into a skid that stopped them just in front of the girl.  He leaned out the window and shouted at her in Swedish.

“Get away,” the girl said, in English, to the surprise of Hamid.  Before he could say anything, he spotted movement overhead.

“Up there,” Hamid said, drawing his gun and jumping out of the car.  Along the roof of the mall, two identical men in tuxedos clambered on hands and feet.  As Hamid took aim at one of the Creepers, they bent over the roof and started to climb down the glass doors, their fingerclaws cracking glass to create handholds.

“Get behind the car!” the general shouted to the girl.

Hamid fired a shot at one of the Creepers, catching it in the small of its back where the tuxedo was dangling loose and upside down.  The shot wouldn’t slow the Creeper much, but the bullet pressed through its body and shattered the glass door.  The Creeper fell to the ground, and was soon followed by sheets of sheer glass, slicing it to pieces.

Suddenly, the car bucked, throwing off Hamid’s aim at the second Creeper.  From below the car, a pair of hands reached out and clawed at Hamid’s legs, reeking with the stench of the sewer.

“Bonehead, some help!”  Hamid scrambled away from the car, seeing the general jumping out of the car and trying to carry the girl to safety.  Before he could get far, the second Creeper from the roof leapt upon him, crushing general and girl into the pavement.

The girl cried out, and suddenly the pavement was a patchwork of grass, glass, pebbles, and dozens of other substances.  General Bonehead rolled away, clutching his head in pain.  Hamid couldn’t see anymore, since a pair of Creepers from the sewer were bearing down upon him, expressionless yet angry.

Hamid tried to fire at the Creeper armed with the wand, but the one armed with a light blade lashed forward and deflected his aim, slamming the flat of the blade into the side of the barrel.  Hamid fired an ineffectual shot anyway, reaching for his own sword with his free hand, but his hand was still in his coat when the second Creeper dragged the tip of its wand across his forehead.  Hamid’s limbs stiffened, his lungs seized up, and he toppled to the pavement.  Expecting to die any moment, instead he heard only a girl’s screams, and the sounds of a manhole cover being slid back in place.

After a few moments, he shook himself free of the paralysis charm, and he forced himself to his feet.  After a few blinks to make sure he was really seeing it, Hamid whistled.  The car was toppled to its side, and its top half had been transformed into a large Adirondack chair.  The ground for a dozen feet in any direction was twisted into dozens of new forms – the manhole cover was a turtle shell.

And his commanding officer was a giant stone head, lying amid his abandoned general’s finery.

*	*	*​
“I’ll get you fixed up,” Hamid said reassuringly to the inert stone head he held under his arm.  “These mystics fix this stuff all the time, I hope.”

The Götjung Trollbridge stretched out before him, carved deep into the glaciers in northern Sweden.  Some of his informants about the smuggling ring lived here, and he knew at least one of them was a skilled mage.  Hamid’s breath steamed in the frozen air, and with a gentle pat on the stone head, he walked down the dark tunnel of ice and bridge.

A cackling voice stopped him halfway to the end of the bridge.  “Foreigner, human, and hopefully well-paying customer, state your business.  You stand on the border of Terra and Gaia, and with another step we will own your firstborn.”

“Take ‘im,” Hamid laughed.  “Afternoon to you too, trolls.  Listen, I got some business you need to help with.  See my buddy here?  Yeah, he’s been turned into a big stone head, and I kinda need his help to track down the badguys.”

A second troll’s voice echoed from the darkness at the end of the bridge.  “He’s straightforward.  He has no place here.  Send him away.”

A third voice.  “Yes, he’s like a dwarf.  We don’t want him.”

The original troll let loose a high laugh.  “What villains do you seek?”

“Creepers,” Hamid said.  “They ain’t from around here.  They’re just an Italian cult devoted to Arilogos, the titan of pure law.  You know, one of those ‘raise the demon from the dead’ sort of groups.  I know one of their private planes left Sweden a few hours ago, probably back to Italy, but there’s not enough agents to deal with it.  So, make with the magic, and let my commanding officer, you know, talk and move again.”

“Ah,” the second troll said, “they took a girl.  The scion of Pandora.  Yes, not our area.  Too Mediterranean.”

The trolls all laughed.

The second continued, “It won’t help you for us to turn you back.  You were lucky to survive as you are.  Her power is to change the forms of the world chaotically.”

The third troll drawled, “They will use her to remove the unbreakable seal that binds the titan of law.”

“We can help you,” the first troll chuckled, “but only that which has been transformed is safe from her power.  We can transform you, make you safe.”

Hamid rubbed his forehead.  “This is reversible, right?  And it costs me nothing?  No firstborns or curses on my family or anything you fey like to do like that?”

“Bargained well and done,” the troll said.  “You and your stoneheaded friend, transformed for safety now, then back to normal in three days, in exchange for ‘nothing.’  You leave us alone.”

Hamid put down Bonehead’s stone head and nodded.  “Sure.  When has a bargain with fey ever gone wrong?”

*	*	*​
The little girl held the deck of faerie playing cards menacingly.  Whenever the guards tried to come in and tie her down, she shuffled it erratically and unevenly.  Every time, the faceless minions of orthodoxy who were her captors jumped away in pain, and she smiled.

They had been in the air for several hours when the door to her cabin opened.  She shuffled the cards, and though the man who entered winced, he was not repulsed.  His face was square, well-defined, with precisely combed curls in his white hair.  His clothes were all white, crisply folded and well-tailored.  He might have been an albino.  The only blemish on him was a mole on his left eyebrow, and she concentrated on it, trying to burrow into his essence through that one bit of imperfection.

“Hello, little girl.”  

She bent the tips of the playing cards.  “I’m not a little girl.  At least, not normally.”

“You’re a little girl now.  We will fix that, as payment.”

“What do you want from me?  Right now your head should be a salad dish.”

He patted a cross that hung around his neck, solid white, glinting.  “It’s salt, from the Dead Sea.  Not carved at all.  Natural perfection, enough to keep you from harming me.”

“Who the hell are you?”

The man spoke as if stating the obvious.  “I am Grallion, Lord of the Infernal Creepers.  We will take to you the temple of Arilogos, the titan of pure law, and you will use your power to change the seal that binds him.  In the moment of his release, all will be at order in the world.  You’ll be returned to your true form, and I,” he tapped the mole on his eyebrow, “will be made perfect.”

The little girl tossed the whole deck of cards at his face.  He batted them away and grabbed her hands to keep her from running.  With a growl, he leaned in close to her face and glared at her.

With a weak laugh, the girl looked down at the cards.  “Um. . . .  Fifty-two pick-up?”

Inexorably, the plane flew onward to the Mediterranean.

*	*	*​
Stepping off the boat onto Theosia, a small island between Italy and Greece, Hamid shook fearfully under the amused gazes of hundreds of tourists.  He was easily the most conspicuous person in the seaport, and he coughed nervously into his new beard to try to calm himself.

“Stop moving so much,” said his hat, with a Swedish accent.  “Be on the lookout for Creepers.”

“Be quiet,” Hamid whispered.  “You’re crushing my head, so I don’t want lip from you.”

All eyes were on Hamid for good reason.  Balanced atop his head was a huge blue and gold turban, made from the remains of the general’s uniform, and adorned with his medals.  Hidden inside the turban was a large stone head, which could now talk, thanks to the humor of the trolls.

Hamid himself had a ‘very special disguise,’ courtesy of the third troll.  The turban was all the more ridiculous and conspicuous because now Hamid stood only four feet tall, with the turban practically doubling his height.  With his charming gray beard, he was the perfect image of a Norse dwarf, with a bit of Arabian blood.

“Dwarves are very tricky,” the turban whispered, as if to cheer him up.  “The Creepers won’t know you’re coming.”

A crowd of tourists stopped and stared at Hamid, then to his turban.  Hamid smiled casually and nodded slightly.  “Yes folks, my hat talks to me all the time.  For a few Euros, you can watch me kick its stony ass.  You’re lucky none of you speak English, or else I would be in trouble, and none of us want that.  Anyone here know where I can find some ancient ruins, with an old, unstoppable titan buried forever?  Anyone?”

The turban said, “Find a computer.  We’ll check the Creepers’ website.”

Hamid groaned, then smiled to an old lady who walked up and started poking at the hat.  

“Bambino?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Hamid said, “I’ve got a baby in my hat.”

*	*	*​
The hurled turban knocked one of the Creeper guards to the ground, and Hamid’s silenced gunshot through the wristwatch of the other left the second guard flailing around purposelessly.  The Creeper eventually collapsed, kicking up dust in the old Greek ruins.  Tourists never came here, a huge flat of clay and ash in what might be the remains of a volcano.  But it had been listed online on the Creeper cult calendar of events, along with a nice roadmap.

Hamid ran on squat Dwarvish legs to recover the still-rolling, turban-wrapped stone head of his superior officer.  As he scooped up the head, it said proudly, “Nice shot, Ma’ruf.  Any Creepers left?”

“No, none up here.”  Hamid unwrapped the head, and it blinked, seeing the sun for the first time in days.  Hamid placed it on a short pedestal.

“I’ll stand watch, then.  You go down, rescue the girl, and stop them from freeing the titan.”

Hamid shook his head.  “No way.  I can’t go down there by myself.  I need you, man.  You’re my partner.”

The general would have shaken his head if he could.  “No.  You have to go on without me.  I’d just slow you down.  You’ve only got a little while left before the transformation ends, and then you’ll be vulnerable.  You’re the only one who can stop them.”

Hamid stared his superior officer in the eyes and nodded resolutely.  “For you.  But I want a big reward after this.”

His head now free of the turban, Hamid felt a weight lifted from him, and he eagerly hurried down the stairs to the temple.

*	*	*​
The pistol gleamed dully in the volcanic glow of magma.  A thick, heavy weapon, a six-shot revolver, fit for a Dwarf like Hamid, it was magically silenced to attract the least attention.  He had all the stealth he needed, but he lacked speed.

The ancient temple to Arilogos stretched a half mile beneath the surface of Theosia island, a ramrod straight flow of lava bisecting its middle.  On stumpy Dwarvish legs, Hamid pumped forward, firing shots at Creeper guards that lurked around every corner.  They were all too fixated on the ritual in the center of the temple to see him coming, and he picked off a three that stood between him and saving the world.

Taking cover behind a cracked column, Hamid watched thirty or more Creepers encircle a giant glyph, carved into the ground in the center of the temple.  The glyph consisted of just a giant ring circumscribing rectangles of ever smaller dimensions, all arranged in a perfect harmony of proportions.  At the very center, however, was anarchy, a small patch of dozens of curly lines scratched into the glyph and filled with wax, disrupting the order.  Right beside this chaos stood a white man, holding a small girl in chains.

The Creepers were not chanting, but their presence somehow straightened the random echoes of the vault-like temple, forced them into a droning chant of monosyllabic words.  The temple itself was praying to release the titan, and all that was stopping it was the seal, which writhed now in resistance to the order being imposed upon it.

The voice of the tall white man boomed out from the center of the glyph, echoing precisely and clearly.

“What are the odds that chaos leads to order?  What is the chance that randomness produces a repeatable pattern?  These paradoxes cannot exist in a world of order.  Chaos’s revolt is straightened to the will of order.  You, child, shall through pandemonium, make law.”

The girl cried out, but her voice was not allowed to echo.  The tall man struck her on the face, and she fell to the ground, trying to grab her head, some deep pain overwhelming her.

“Great Titan of Law, Arilogos, make pure your loyal subject Grallion.  Free me from this blemish, and cleanse the world.”

Hamid took a perfunctory shot at the man.  It caught him in the shoulder, but as Hamid expected, did not faze him.  Instead, he kicked the girl on the ground, repeatedly, and with each kick, the air began to distort with greater intensity.  Light bent, angles curved upon themselves, space overlapped itself, hammered rhythmically into place by the cruel kicks from the white man.  The seal began to vanish, forced into the pattern of order of the glyph.

Hamid tried to fire at one Creeper to open a path for him to reach the girl, but his bullet vanished, and a dozen acorns appeared in the air where it had been.  Hamid groaned, “Well, great.  Now I can’t even shoot the girl to stop the ritual.  What stops order?  Think!  How do I stop this thing?  What’s the most random thing I can do?”

One shot left in his pistol, pulled open the chamber, spun it, and slammed it shut.  Pressing the barrel to his own temple, Hamid sighed, “Well, here’s an offering to whatever chaotic folks might happen to be listening.”

Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the white man cried out in surprise.  In the center of the glyph, General Bonehead’s stone head was latched firmly onto the cult leader’s arm, biting deep with stone teeth.  No longer being kicked, the young girl managed to roll to the side, spying Hamid standing behind the column.  Somehow, paradoxically, her shout reached his ears over the clamor.

“Get rid of his cross!”

From fifty feet away, Hamid took aim for the cross and fired.  The bullet, aimed off-target by several degrees, swerved in mid-air over the glyph and seal, changed directions, and cracked toward the cult leader.  With a nearly silent zip, the bullet cut loose the necklace, and the cross fell to the floor.  

In an instant, the ordered ritual devolved to madness, and all the air was bubbling with Swedish curses.  The temple began to shake with great pyroclastic bursts, the glyph twisted and knotted itself, and the ring of Creepers one by own were reshaped into sagging, boneless masses of skin and organ.  Hamid sprinted toward the center of the temple, managing to catch the general’s head as Grallion, the cultist, flung it free from his arm.  The bonds pinning the young girl scattered like leaves in the wind, and the white, nearly-perfect leader of the cult spasmed and became a gray horse, so perfect in its coloration that it seemed nearly impossible for chance to have caused it.

Struggling to carry the general’s head and make his way across the cracking floor of the temple, Hamid shouted for the girl to come to him.  Free of all restraints, she rushed to him, pausing only to pick the fallen cross from the ground in the center of the seal.

“Who the hell are you?” the cute little girl demanded, as lava began to seeping through the ground.  Not far away, a twenty-foot high gold statue fell to the ground and scurried away as a thousand golden coins.

Hamid smiled, taking a moment to relax during the chaos.  “I’m the guy who’s going to loot for a little while before this place collapses.  Here, take the big giant head.  I’ll catch up.”

The little girl glared at Hamid, then shrugged and tossed the head over her shoulder.  As she ran for the exit, Hamid ran for the money that would let him buy this island.

*	*	*​
Remarkably little damage was visible on the surface, though, true to form, lava filled the passage just behind Hamid as he emerged back into the sun.  The ground ceased its disturbed quaking, and once again the world lay somewhere between order and chaos.  It was about the time Hamid dumped his pocketfuls of treasure onto the ground that he realized he was back to being human.  Wandering the ground not far from him was a small chicken, wearing a white cross around its neck.

“Saved the world, and the chick.”  Hamid groaned at his own pun, then, smiling, looked around for General Bonehead.  The man was nowhere to be found, but nearby, he still saw . . . it.

Back on the same pedestal where he’d been left, the great stone head sat lifeless.  Hamid stood and walked toward it, not believing.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and holding out his arms in an anguished desire to hug his lost friend.  “Why did it end like this?”

In the distance, at the edge of the crater, a stallion looked on and snorted, planning its revenge.


----------



## Speaker

*On The Scales*

RangerWickett vs Speaker

‘I see the difficulty you have in judging me.  You look at each other, then at me as if I was a monster, some caricature of evil from the depths that has done some great wrong.  Yes, my crime is great.  But to judge me, you must consider all views.  Or so you tell yourselves, hoping that perhaps you are mistaken, the humanity is not so bad after all – not so bad it could spit out one such as I.  Perhaps.  Here then, is what I know.

‘My contact was waiting for me in the Stone Garden.  He talked too much.  His words echoed off the carved granite lips around us, danced among the empty ruins as we compared our notes and finalized our plans.  At one point, he turned to a particular bust and gesticulated wildly towards it.

‘“We are defined by that which we leave behind,” he began – I can’t remember the exact wording he used, but it went something like this – “Once all we had was stone, and that has crumbled as easily as the culture that left it behind.  Our monuments are carved of steel and concrete.  Once they were thought to have a permanence that even nature herself could not best, not with wind, fire or ice.  Now we know that even our greatest of achievements are fleeting.  One day, all we have created will disappear.  If we are to triumph over the nature of inevitable time, then we must act as required of us.  We have no other choice if we are to count ourselves as members of our own species.  We are not to be denied our right to life and continued presence as a race.  If we can fight, then we must, no matter what price we are forced to pay.”

‘I told you - such were his words, a torrent.  But somewhere in that maze of words and the repetition of concepts he caught me.  That must have been the case – I could not have continued otherwise.  Or maybe I already knew what was coming.  Whatever – I was falling toward my fate with both arms outstretched.  Whether to cushion my fall or slam the ground harder, I could not rightly say.

‘We moved quickly after that.  He knew he had me in his grip, no turning back now.  We moved quickly through the city, inbound on some destination only he knew about.  Down side streets and over bridges, through the crowded markets and under quiet houses.  It seemed like hours but it could have been minutes when we arrived at the house.  Festivities were in full swing.

‘My contact pulled me aside into and ally and we quickly changed into our costumes.  It was simple – almost too simple.  The custom of the area is to hold costumed balls on the eve of a success.  Our target was about to make a wealthy deal, and was in no position to refuse our entry into his dwelling.

‘We must have looked strange.  The contact had chosen our gear from a kids show, the “eye detectives” or something on that note.  But whatever we looked like, it worked – within minutes we were inside and mingling among the guests, the guards not having bothered to even search my duffel bag.

‘We began to work the crowd.  Worming our way to the prize.  My contact had done his research – she soon saw us and ran our way, launching into us with a squeal of glee and a glow of bright laughter.  My contact’s actions were superb in their subtlety, as he quickly cut her off from the crowd and launched a pantomime right out of the show, looking glass and all.  She was enthralled.

‘Our actions after that followed easily.  She did not resist when we led her off first to the corner, then into the privacy of her father’s study.  Once there, my contact ably brought the chloroform over her nose, tied and gagged her.  I slipped into my second costume of the night, getting rid of the eye and exchanging it for an equally ridiculous hat.  Fortunately my contact had calculated correctly, and she fit quite easily inside the spangled cloth and ornaments.  She was quite light – within moments, I stood, and no one, not that guards or any party guest, could have known that she was on top of my head.

‘We slipped out as easily as our came, before the uproar as  she was found missing had even began.  Quietly, flushed with success we moved through the streets and down to the ocean’s edge.  There, my contact revealed his safe house, a sizable room accessed by a long underwater passage.

‘You know most of the rest well enough.  Our ransom notes were explicit.  Our target was to discontinue his destructive transactions.  The longer we held her the more convinced I became that we were in the right.  Our target would not stop.  We held his daughter, but he kept up his illicit trades.

‘“My contact grew edgy.  His rants became tinged with something that had not been there before – perhaps a shade of madness had crept in.  He spoke of “creatures too vile to live” and how “the sins of the father become that of the child.”  Slowly he was convincing himself, trying to bring himself to the point where he could act once again.  Even for him, it must have been hard.

‘We left the shelter on the sixteenth day.  We left he behind.  Walking out, I looked back toward her, down the dark watery tunnel.  At the end, where she lay tied up and immobile, lay a black hole.  The water-tinged shadows danced like demons.  We left.

‘My contact paused at the end of the tunnel, but only briefly, to set the charges.  Then we were out.  That first breath of fresh air could have brought me peace, if the police had not been waiting for us.  I knew then that I would never breath free again.

‘I was frozen as the helicopter descended.  I could not bring myself to move as my companion, looking up with resolute eyes, pressed the button.  The explosion behind us seemed a world away.  There was a clap, and a heaving as the tunnel collapsed on itself.  My eardrums burst on themselves, and I could not even hear the call for surrender.  But surrender I did, nonetheless.  My contact did too, which means that you must have already heard his ravings yourself.

‘As the detectives swooped toward us, I looked behind.  The tunnel was gone, of course.  The ocean roared in of its own accord, covered the refuse and debris with stinging salt and scourging surf.

‘Perhaps she lives.  I am sure you have your divers searching even now, finding that safe house which may or may not have survived the blast.  I doubt her father cares.  He deals on in his apocalyptic trade.  In the end, I guess we did nothing to stop anything.

‘I hope she lives.’


----------



## Speaker

Well, that's done...  right on top of RangerWickett, I see.

And it's an amazing sunrise.  The weather here has been amazing...


----------



## NiTessine

That's a fine tale you've spun, Wickett, a fine tale indeed. I look forward to crossing pens with you.

Just hope Liquide never reads it.


----------



## Zhaneel

Wow... Orchid Blossom & Mythago really outdid themselves.  I'm with most of the others, read like a final round not a first.

I haven't read the newer stories, but I say good round to my opponent as well.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

I apologize for the delay in posting the final set of round 1 illustrations; the boards crashed as I went to do so, and I've been tied up since. 

On a judging update, one of the judges has been away from computers (at a con) all weekend up to and including today; he had told me this ahead of time, but I had forgotten in the excitement. He'll have some stories to read when he gets back today.  

I've got to say, I've been really impressed with a number of the stories so far. I'll get into specifics in my judging comments, but I've wanted to advance *both* contestants more than once. That's really rare for me.

So, *Match 1-8 - NiTessine vs Francisca!* Normal rules, 72 hours, and some hard thought; I especially like this photo set. After this we go on to round 2, and the photos get more challenging.


----------



## Sialia

Fine, fine stories these.

Many thanks to all of you!


----------



## RangerWickett

Oddly, I don't even remember writing the end of my story.  It was like I was in some kind of zen-like trance.

Oh, wait.  That was _sleep_.

ZZzzzzzzZzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzZ


----------



## francisca

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I apologize for the delay in posting the final set of round 1 illustrations; the boards crashed as I went to do so, and I've been tied up since.
> 
> On a judging update, one of the judges has been away from computers (at a con) all weekend up to and including today; he had told me this ahead of time, but I had forgotten in the excitement. He'll have some stories to read when he gets back today.
> 
> I've got to say, I've been really impressed with a number of the stories so far. I'll get into specifics in my judging comments, but I've wanted to advance *both* contestants more than once. That's really rare for me.
> 
> So, *Match 1-8 - NiTessine vs Francisca!* Normal rules, 72 hours, and some hard thought; I especially like this photo set. After this we go on to round 2, and the photos get more challenging.





No worries on the delay.  I was looking for them when it crashed.  This is a good set of pics.  Hope I do them justice.


----------



## arwink

The delay in judgements is fault entirely (although I'll admit that I did *try* to get onto the boards and write up stuff last night when I got home, but they weren't loading).

The good news is that I've now hand-cuffed myself to the computer desk, managed to erradicate the last traces of the bad english accent that was coming out of my mouth for most of the con, and put my mind to write stuff about the various stories.  

They should be sent through to Piratecat today, albeit at intermitent intervals.


----------



## BSF

arwink said:
			
		

> The delay in judgements is fault entirely (although I'll admit that I did *try* to get onto the boards and write up stuff last night when I got home, but they weren't loading).
> 
> The good news is that I've now hand-cuffed myself to the computer desk, managed to erradicate the last traces of the bad english accent that was coming out of my mouth for most of the con, and put my mind to write stuff about the various stories.
> 
> They should be sent through to Piratecat today, albeit at intermitent intervals.




OK, easily said since I haven't put up a story yet, but no worries Arwink.  We know you will get to it when you are able to.  I for one, appreciate your efforts.  Certainly, your comments in the last Ceramic DM were spot on for me.  It helps and is appreciated.


----------



## NiTessine

Looks like an interesting set. Challenging, yet not too difficult. I shall now go lock myself in a room with only a 386 and a word processor for 24 hours.


----------



## Piratecat

NiTessine said:
			
		

> Challenging, yet not too difficult.




You just say that because you're Finnish, and probably have a reindeer sleigh in your garage.


----------



## arwink

The first of my judgements has been sent to the esteemed head judge and dread pirate kitty-cat.

Good luck folks


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-2: Macbeth vs. Thullgrim.*

Maldur:

Strangely enough, once again criminals as the main characters, this time in both stories. For me its Thullgrim this time, a stronger more coherent story, and I like selfcontained stories more than continuing ones.

So thullgrim gets my vote.

Arwink:

Thullgrim

While I liked Thullgrim’s character and the potential for drama that comes from playing out the story as an act of confession, I don’t think the style every really lived up to the potential.  A big problem I had with the tale came down to the issues of conflict and narrative tension – there really didn’t seem to be anything driving the story forward beyond the basic concern of having a plot to follow.  Why does Riley, after being kidnapped and stolen by a strange cult, feel the need to confess after killing his first human?  It seems a strange reaction for someone who makes his life as a thief, even a relatively noble one who never kills, to think of confession before flight in this kind of situation.  Perhaps if Riley had been a devout catholic, with the father already privy to many of his secrets, this would have made more of an impact – and it would also provide the missing link between the series of events so the ready can start to process *why* these things have happened to Riley.

Macbeth – Vis-a-Vis

Nice opening sentence – it gives us an insight into the main characters personality as well as setting the scene.  From there it tends to wander a little – there’s a lot of dialogue, very little set-up of the setting beyond that, and the characterization is a little flat.  James and Maria are interesting enough, especially with James’ bad luck working against him so often, but they mostly remain a vehicle for humor and narrative rather than being the characters that drive the jokes and story.  I’d like to see James luck playing a more important place in the story – or at least having some kind of demonstration of it in the story to give credence to his complete lack of surprise at everything.  I’d also suggest putting more description of setting and character in – as someone who doesn’t remember the images and doesn’t look until the end of the round, the picture use fell flat not because the ideas were bad, but because the description was essentially little more than “Insert picture here.”  It’s an acceptable tactic, but I tend to appreciate the extra step of really bringing the images into the story.

I’ll commend Macbeth for having the guts to attempt the beginning of a multipart story (something that I can only remember Sialia and Snitch doing before), but I’d suggest putting more effort into making each chapter an individual story that can stand on its own rather than aiming towards the “To Be Continued” result – only getting a part of a story isn’t entirely satisfying for the reader.

Judgment

Being the first team is always a hard spot to be in, particularly in a competition like this, and although there are problems with both entries they are the problems common to any draft of a story produced within such a short time-span as this.  Thullgrim’s had some nice ideas, but didn’t really link them in a satisfying way, while Macbeth’s was more controlled in its narrative but cut us off far to early in the story.  

In the end, I’m inclined to give the round to Macbeth as I had a slightly clearer idea of his characters by the close of the story, but it’s a close contest.

Piratecat:

I’ll start by complaining that there are punctuation and spelling errors throughout both stories. That’s a pet peeve of mine, and they make the stories a lot less legible than they should be. One or two typos aren’t a big deal, but a pattern shows that the story hasn’t been reread or spell-checked. All else being equal, if I’m judging two stories of equal caliber but one has more errors in it, you can probably guess which way my decision will lean.

The opening paragraphs of Thullgrim’s story paint a vivid and compelling picture. Lines like “dark with age and polish, and the sins of thousands” really work well; that’s where he hooked me, although the use of the confession as a narrative device didn’t work as well as I had hoped.  How about picture use? Well, the painting certainly plays a major role in the story. The horses (or steeplechase race) is basically a throwaway reference that could just as easily not have been there at all. I love the use of the fish tank hose around the woman’s neck, though – very creative. The use of the tomb is somewhat neutral.

I note a tendency in the story to describe things as if it were a D&D module, instead of a story, and that weakens the tale. For instance, take the paragraph “The room is circular in shape with a raised dais in the center of the room and what it is obviously an altar in the center. There are people in the room, dressed in robes, wearing masks of gold, dancing around the altar chanting. Obviously they are the source of the chanting. Incense burns in sconces scattered about the room, filling the room with a thin haze.”  That’s perfect for an adventure but a little awkward here because it breaks up the action. Some of the dialogue didn’t quite ring true, either, such as the priest’s final statements. The ending was a little predictable, but very satisfying. Good conclusion; I found myself wanting to know more about the cult.

For Macbeth’s entry, I wasn’t sure at first whether this was supposed to be a comedy or simply darkly amusing. Some of the elements he used conflicted in this regard. For instance the clever dialogue was great, but the use of blatant puns really destroyed the mood. Sterling is a fine character, a little reminiscent of Donald E. Westlake’s wonderful Dortminder capers, and the snappy dialogue which involved him carried the story far more than the plot itself.  

For picture use, the tomb and painting use was just fine. The use of “coil” seems really odd to me, because that’s clearly not a man in the photo; no explanation was given for _why_ the character had the tubing around his head. The use of the horse picture was excellent, though, and a great example of how to insert the reader right into an action photo.

Overall, my judgment goes to Macbeth. While not a complete story (and that’s certainly a weakness), the combination of the humor and good conversations managed to carry the day. 

*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for Macbeth, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## alsih2o

arwink said:
			
		

> The first of my judgements has been sent to the esteemed head judge and dread pirate kitty-cat.
> 
> Good luck folks




 Thanks for letting us know Arwink, From alsih2o.


 That's alsih2o, not his crummy opponent Cool Hand Luke. who never seems to say anything nice to any fo the judges.


----------



## drose25

Oh boy.  Now I'll be up all night awaiting verdicts!  

Congrats to Macbeth and condolences to Thullgrim.  I enjoyed both of your stories.


----------



## Piratecat

Nah, Drose; yours will most likely come tomorrow. Aslih2o's and Coolhandluke's is next and might come tonight, might come tomorrow morning.  Sleep tight! 

That is, if you can sleep over the Hoover sound of Alsih2o sucking up.


----------



## Macbeth

Well, first of all, thanks for the criticism. Based on the judge's reponses, I'm reconsidering the running story aspect of the plot. It may just come down to the next set of pictures, and how well the fit into the setting and characters. Obviously having a "To Be Continued" worked against me, but I thought the story still stood on its own.

As for spelling/grammar errors: what can I say, _Mea Culpa_. I wrote it from a different word proceesing program then I'm used to, and totally forgot the spellcheck, since I usualy use the spell-as-you-go feature that highlights mistakes. I will do better next time.

In defense of the "coils" picture: I didn't actually immediately see a women. To me, at first glance, it looked like a effeminate man who got mugged by an avant garde fashion designer. So I ran with that impression. Apparently, it didn't come across too well. Eh, I feel the picture is not to gender specific, oh well, the story works just as well with a female villian.

The humor was a bit all over the place, I agree. I blame it on my recent reading: Terry Pratchett, Neil Gammien, and Douglas Adams. I didn't feel it was that hard to take, that while I was a bit scattered in my types of comedy, they still worked fine as a whole. Thank you for pointing out that this does not work. I'll try to find a single 'feel' in the future, but I would expect to  see more comedy in the future. I just need to find a comfortable voice somewhere between dark humor and farce. I think what really killed any kind of dark humor feel was the "fashion victim" aspect of Isoceles, but I was streching a ibt for the picture, to make evry aspect of it work, which obviously I didn't do.

The characters were a bit flat. In fact I started out with a different idea for Sterling, but he took on his own life on the page. In retrospect, with the feel I 
got for him by the end, I should have edited the whole thing to make him deeper and more in line with the final vision I arrived at. Unfortunately, I'm not good at going back and rewritting, so I didn't. Live and learn...

And I can't say thank you enough for the "snappy dialogue" comment, I was shooting for that, but didn't think it would come across. And knowing my dialogue didn't get bogged down too much gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment to go along with all the work I know I still have to do.

All in all, thank you all very much for all of the criticism, and for even taking the time to read my little story. I would also like to thank my opponent. Nice job, Thullgrim, you had me a little worried, and for good reason. I hope to see you around future Ceramic DM competitions. And now, On to round 2!


----------



## orchid blossom

Piratecat said:
			
		

> That is, if you can sleep over the Hoover sound of Alsih2o sucking up.




And the smack-talk returns!  Bring on the smack-talk, it'll amuse me while I wait for the judgements.

Congrats to MacBeth.


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> That is, if you can sleep over the Hoover sound of Alsih2o sucking up.




 I learned it to drown out the sound of me simply sucking!


----------



## cool hand luke

good grief, waiting is killing me!

judges, please, be as specific and cruel as you can in your evaluation.  I know I am not good at these things currently, and value your ideas on how to improve!


----------



## RangerWickett

At the end of the single-elimination challenge, I hear they're going to have a special 'boss' writer that we have to beat to really win the game.  The rumors aren't clear, but someone mentioned a seance.  I'm thinking either the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien or George Lucas.


----------



## arwink

Second group is done and sent 

Edit: And, with appologies to those of you still waiting, I'm going to take a break for a few hours.  It's mid-afternoon here, and my computer room has no method of keeping the sun out, so I'm barely able to see the screen.


----------



## alsih2o

Ack! Is this a cruel joke?


----------



## drose25

They're called blinds.  I'll email you some and you can print them out and tape them over the window.    

No hurry, bedtime for me anyway.


----------



## Maldur

yes


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

And what a cruel joke it is.  But funny, cause it's not me.  It's better torture than any gnoming.  I think Pkitty has finally upgraded his revenge for the Pkitty picture threads.


----------



## tzor

Macbeth said:
			
		

> As for spelling/grammar errors: what can I say, _Mea Culpa_. I wrote it from a different word proceesing program then I'm used to, and totally forgot the spellcheck, since I usualy use the spell-as-you-go feature that highlights mistakes. I will do better next time.




One cannot stress the importance of doing one more proof read.  To use my story as an example.  I looked over the story several times at different points in the day.  I had it printed out as well.  I gave it to a second pair of eyes.  Neither one of us saw the fact that one of my characters uses the same verb twice in consecutive sentences, followed by the other character asking "Are you saying that you (verb)ed ..." making it three times in a row.

(Funny Microsoft joke:  Apparently Word didn't think that "scrying" was a validly spelled word; I had to check with webster.  This is quite odd; Mr. Gates has been scrying on his competition for ages.)


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-1: Alsih2o vs. cool hand luke.*

Maldur:

Wow, great stories, and allthough Cool Hand Luke made me want to know more. AlSiH2O made me gasp. great new magics, and some really nifty imagery.

This round my vote is for AlSiH2O.

Arwink:

Cool Hand Luke

It’s hard to respond to Cool Hand Luke's story, mostly because for every element in there that worked really well there was something that just didn’t seem to fit. The style of it wavers backwards and forward, and although one of these styles is really effective the other needs more development in order to make it cohesive.

This story confused me a great deal in the beginning – the off-hand tone of the first few paragraphs didn’t really work for me, and I didn’t really appreciate the bluntness of the info-dump.  If you dump the first five paragraphs and start with the return down the dead-man’s path, you’ve got the kind of story-opening that grabs you and refuses to let go – strange world, high weirdness, and an immediate personal conflict for the character.  It has a nice resonance with the tropes of detective/noir fiction as well – a sort of super-natural Sam Spade story in its larval form.  The setting is built far more effectively and subtlety here, with off-hand statements about the relatively common nature of the narrators resurrection beating us with a much more subtle clue stick than the current opening.  This alternation continues for the rest of the story – the dialogue isn’t particularly strong, and the story itself gets kind of lost among the jumble, but the more subtle elements of the world have a great deal of impact.  With time and a little more focus, I can picture this being a very different story, but as it stands it works as a draft that shows a lot of future potential.

Alsih2o

While a thousand monkeys on type-writers may produce the completed works of William Shakespeare, I’m far happier reading the work of a single monkey with a Popsicle whose work has really evolved over the course of successive competitions.

A really nice opening – the conflict inherent to Yun Soo Lee’s character is nicely foreshadowed in the confusion over who, exactly, she is at this point, especially with the contrast to who she once was.  From there things continue to get more and more intricate, the real feel of the location and the characters seeping through the story like a warm and very gentle breeze (and, having read a bunch of Alsih2o’s stories in previous competitions of Ceramic DM, it’s nice to see the control over the setting elements starting to become more conscious and directed).  

Although the story is strong as it currently stands, the splitting of the story into three parts didn’t really work for me – it seemed like it was taking only a half-step towards a style.  I would have preferred to see the story take the entire bound – constructing the narrative through a montage of fragments and moments that skip backwards and forwards through time – or to work the shorter introductions into a more cohesive narrative that flows naturally without being separated.  

I also tended to loose track of the narrators mother and suitor in the course of the story – I couldn’t really place why they were there and how they arrived when they re-appeared in the conclusion.  I was aware that it had happened, but it somehow just slipped through the cognitive cracks when reading the story.  

Judgment

While both of these stories are strong and could easily be stronger with continued work, I give this round to Alsih2o – his story is a lot more even and shows a great deal of care in its crafting, and while Luke’s had a lot of shining moments where it really came together, it just didn’t manage to match the evenly distributed nature of Clay’s narrative.  

Piratecat:

Luke starts off with an excellent opening sentence that totally grabs you. The story has some typos, some tense problems (it changes between past and present tense), and some extremely run-on sentences.  Nevertheless, he sets a mood and keeps it nicely throughout most of the story. It’s clear that the world has character, and it is slowly reeled out for you to see. If he can communicate this type of feel in a D&D game, I'd want to play in it.

For picture use, the candle “melt” photo and the goblin picture are both nicely woven in. I was a little disappointed by how the chair photo was used – it wasn’t clear why it was grabbing ankles, and what it had to do with Vea – and I think the usage of the green tunnel road as a celestial meeting hall worked well enough.  

I noticed that the story starts strongly and gets weaker as it goes on. The ending has little to do with the first three quarters of the tale, which seems somewhat tacked on and disjointed. I think the problem is that there’s no foreshadowing of Vea’s return, and so it seems to have nothing to do with the murder plot. The lack of resolution in the conclusion worked against the effectiveness of the story as a whole. Darn it, I want to know who murdered our hero and why! Ancient goddesses provide an epic feel that works against the gritty beginning. This reads like he was running out of time and had a much larger story to tell, and so included the grander idea instead of narrowing his focus.

Alsih2o also starts with a strong opening paragraph. The use of sections/chapters is an attention-getting stylistic decision here, and for me it works. He paints a vivid image of the protagonist and surroundings, one that lets you feel like you actually know her fairly quickly. She quickly becomes alive.

I felt like I missed a piece of the plot, though. Chapter two seemed disjointed; it abruptly segued from the mother’s visit into a flashback, and then right into the confrontation with the heatwitch. The lack of clear time transitions in this section lessened the impact. This led to confusion of what was happening when. The concept of a wood-themed witch is incredibly imaginative, but this pacing weakness distracted from the thrust of the story.

Most of the picture use was excellent. The one relatively weak photo was the green tunnel road, occurring as it did as a footnote to the story as a whole. 

My judgment goes to Alsih2o. His richly drawn characters are the equal of Cool Hand Luke’s fascinating protagonist, and Clay added exciting mystery and conflict around that character that Luke’s story lacked.

*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for Alsih2o, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## alsih2o

Woo-Hoo! 

 Big thanks to Cool hand luke. I agree, if it was a game I would play in it!

 Many thanks to the judges, I always agree where they find weaknesses, and appreciate the insight into what is working. If i am becoming better it is almost soley through this particularly maddening exercise.


----------



## tzor

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> At the end of the single-elimination challenge, I hear they're going to have a special 'boss' writer that we have to beat to really win the game.  The rumors aren't clear, but someone mentioned a seance.




Pure rumors.  From what I'm hearing on the board, the 'boss' is recovering nicely. ...  (although the mere thought of going head to head with Mr. Gygax might require me to be contacted via seance.   )


----------



## cool hand luke

congrats to my worthy opponent.  I knew this was not a good effort, but couldn't find a way to do better, he definitely had the better piece.  I think us engineering majors need to find a better way to spend our time.  Anyone want to start an ceramic calculus competition?


----------



## thullgrim

First of all let me say Congratulations to Macbeth for a good story and the round 1 win.  To the judges I would say thanks as well because in many respects I agree.

I would also like to say that this was a tremendous game, one I will play in again next time its run.  By way of explanation about the story, the reason Riley goes to the church is that he was raised in an orphanage there, lost his way as a grown man and his experience with the cult pushes him back to the church of his youth, where he felt safe.  The initial rough of the story had several paragraphs that went into this a bit more but I was unhappy with the way they read so they got cut.  In retrospect probably more editing and less chopping.  Anyhow, I look forward to reading the rest of competition and following it closely.

Again, Congrats Macbeth

Thullgrim


----------



## arwink

drose25 said:
			
		

> They're called blinds.  I'll email you some and you can print them out and tape them over the window.




At present, I have bed-sheets taped over the windows, but it doesn't really help much.  The room is all windows and no walls, so even at my best I can't keep it contained.

Thankfully, sunset has come upon us and I can now return to reading


----------



## RangerWickett

I know bribing judges is taboo, but can I blackmail Arwink?

Not that I need to, of course.  If this were a kung fu competition, I would be Spike from Cowboy Bebop, and my competitor Speaker would be Ed.  Very cool, somewhat sly, but no match unless his dad's involved.


----------



## mythago

Congrats to Macbeth and alsih2o!

 Who, I may add, never bothered to suck up to _me_ when I was judging. Hmph.


----------



## arwink

mythago said:
			
		

> Who, I may add, never bothered to suck up to _me_ when I was judging. Hmph.




It's the avatar, I think.  The little blinky thing just doesn't seem as cuddly as the piratecat, so people are a little more afraid of it


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> Congrats to Macbeth and alsih2o!
> 
> Who, I may add, never bothered to suck up to _me_ when I was judging. Hmph.




 It was just a very subtle sort of sucking up.


----------



## Berandor

You know, waiting for judgement was easier when it was clear there would be none for the next days. Now that it could be posted anytime, it's hell!


----------



## Piratecat

I'm editing my comments now; I should post the next judgment in a half hour or so.


----------



## Maldur

Can you delay for a while?  Just for laughs?


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-3: Berandor vs. Drose25.*

*Maldur:*

deserts, snakes and scary magics. But I do love Victorian speech so.

Drose25 get my vote!


*Arwink:*

Berandor – Desert Snakes

There’s a lot going on in this story, but throughout it all I kept searching for some sign of what was *really* going on.  What, at the core of the story, is the driving force that kept the narrator going forward in the dangerous situations?  There were several ideas offered – the need for revenge, a sense of duty or obligation, even the desire to see the world a safer place – but while there were physical challenges presented to the main character the driving force was never really dealt with.  We don’t really know why the narrator is doing what he’s doing, so it’s hard to truly engage with his motivation and hope for his success – we don’t really know what we’re hoping will happen.

While Berandor has some really nice metaphor and descriptive passages in here, they also get washed over by the maze of information.  We’re told a lot, but at the same time we aren’t given terribly powerful descriptions of the situation between Hydra and Tricolore. The level of detail is good for a game or a film script – largely because it will then be interacted with by a group of players or rendered visually for the watcher – but within the story inferential description is far more effective than something that gives a lot of detail. 
By far the most powerful description in the story is that of the emaciated atlas, bereft of a burden, which has far more impact than trying to describe a withered body.

There’s a lot of good points to Berandor’s story, but I think it could stand for some judicious editing to cut down on its length and really trim up the language.

Drose 25 - The Ziggurat of Ghiyath al-Din

A really nice, pulp introduction that brings in some overtones of Indiana Jones and other great adventurers of the 1930’s – as well as some of the expected archetypes that accompany such stories.  It maintains this feel well as they head towards the Ziggurat, building the characters together as a team and getting into the swing of the style and genre.

Where Drose lost me was with the change of gears towards a horror story – it happened quickly and without really building the tension inherent in the horror story.  We don’t get the sense of mounting weirdness as you would in an adventure-horror story like the Mummy, and the deaths of the characters is seemingly random in its approach.  

Another source of confusion was the lack of resolution – while I don’t demand that everyone survive a story like this, I like there to be some kind of reason for them all to die and some sense that a source of conflict has been resolved some how.  The ending here seems to happen just as things are getting interesting – as though the entire story was really only the first part of a story and we now have two more acts as Parker and Clara struggle to overcome the Bride of the Ziggurat and save the world (etc etc).  Instead, the ending is anti-climactic and leaves us hanging before the story is done.  

The pacing here is disappointing, and I think the story needs more time to develop and pass through the various events depicted.

The Judgment

There’s an interesting contrast between the two tales, where I think Berandor’s needs to do less while Drose needs to do more to really bring his story to life.  Both of these stories show some really promising elements, but also have some problems with the nature of their central narrative conflicts and the way things hold together. 

I give this round to Drose, by the length of about a paragraph and a half, but he was very nearly taken by some very nice description in Berandor’s story.  



*Piratecat:*

The beginning of Berandor’s story sets the stage nicely; the discussion of the dead agent and the manipulation used to get the protagonist to volunteer left me with clear images of Martine and the protagonist. The mystery of “how are the agents being killed?” is clearly established, and left me curious on how the White Queen was accomplishing this. Was she a modern-day medusa, a mythological creature come to life in the Tunisian desert? I wanted to know.

Unfortunately, I never found out. The careful personality study of the first portion disappears once our hero’s true identity is discovered. We shift into action, but we never shift back out of that action in order to get the promised revelation.  I’m not sure whether Berandor knew the White Queen’s secret himself while he was writing the story and deliberately decided not to explain, or whether she was a throwaway plot device whose methods were never determined. Either way the villain ended up not living up to her true potential as a three dimensional character, and her death was an anti-climax. The mission had been about discovering knowledge and not killing her, but we never get the payoff. All the other nice touches along the way get swept aside by the unfulfilled ending.

Picture use was good. No surprises on the use of the snakes (although I liked the vomiting image) or the mosque. The mask picture was disappointing only because we never see what is behind it, but the use of the statue as an oddly murdered man was inspired. Nice job there.

Overall, I think that the careful detail and leisurely pace of the story’s first half doesn’t combine well with the frenetic action of the second half. I think with some editing this could be marvelous; as it is, it feels like two different writing styles trying to uncomfortably inhabit one story, each of them elbowing the other to try and claim more room.

In Drose25’s story, I feel like I’ve walked into a pulp Call of Cthulhu tale. None of the characters especially break out of their molds, but those molds partially define them within this genre as well. It’s clear from the beginning that it’s a story about an exciting tomb exploration, and not about a character study. We’ve got a good setting, good background, and agreeable protagonists. 

I was caught off guard when the richly established tomb setting was tossed aside almost immediately. The pacing seemed odd, and the lack of a horrific buildup disappointed me; it was less like Victorian horror with the creeping realization that you’re well and truly in trouble, and more like modern slasher flicks where the villain jumps out of a closet and stabs someone. I noticed a missed opportunity of having the characters discuss the tragedy -- and then realize that something was aboard the zeppelin with them -- which might have provided some amazing dialogue. By moving into an overlong dream sequence, a lot of the immediacy was lost; it doesn’t help that a tentacled water monster has no thematic resonance with the tomb’s dead spirit.  The ending in particular feels unfinished to me. It’s an anticlimax, and one that doesn’t necessarily live up to the wonderful beginning of the tale. It says something that I wondered if the entire story had been posted.

For picture use, I liked how richly the ziggurat was developed, making it more than a simple backdrop. I disliked that the statue didn’t bear much resemblance to the dead Max. Good use of the Mask photo, and no surprises on the snake photo.

Judgment in this case is quite close, because both stories fall into the category of “good, but could be much stronger with some polishing.”  I’m awarding my judgment to Drose25, on the basis of the rich setup and description in the first half of the tale. It's a near thing, though.


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for Drose25, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## Berandor

Yes, please. Wait a while. "Any moment" has turned into "within the next hours", so I'll be able to wait... 

ETA: *Rolls Bluff check*


----------



## drose25

Thanks for the competition Berandor, it looks like I just barely squeaked by.

Thanks to the judges for their criticism.  I agree parts of the work were bare and a lot was left unanswered or dealt with spartanly.  I will say part of the problem was the 5000 word limit.    When I wrote the first draft after outlining everything I wanted to happen I was at about 6700 words.   So a lot of dialogue, backstory, and the like had to go out the window.  If the pictures next round are conducive, maybe I'll pick up where things left off and flesh out the world some more.


----------



## BSF

mythago said:
			
		

> Congrats to Macbeth and alsih2o!
> 
> Who, I may add, never bothered to suck up to _me_ when I was judging. Hmph.




And look where it got him.  He lost.  I think he is changing tactics this time to see if something else works.


----------



## Zhaneel

Congrats to the winners.  And the non-winners who provided such great competition!

3 down.  Can't wait to see Mythago versus Orchid, but I suspect our dear Arwink needs some sleep.

Zhaneel


----------



## mythago

arwink said:
			
		

> It's the avatar, I think. The little blinky thing just doesn't seem as cuddly as the piratecat, so people are a little more afraid of it



 Bah! Graphics-ist ASCII haters, the lot!


----------



## Berandor

I somehow missed the judgement above my post. Oops! 

First off, congratulations to drose25! When I read your story, I already thought you'd probably beat me. Good luck for the next rounds!

Second in writing, but equal in quality, thanks to the esteemed judges. I hope I could do my part for a difficult round to judge. As this is the only commentary I will be able to make with regards to my own story, allow me to say a few words.

You've really hit home with your criticism. Crafting compelling characters, and especially compelling motivations, is perhaps my biggest flaw in writing. I tend to have neat ideas (the story itself came almost instantly to me), and I think I possess at least decent narrative skills - but motivation? Not much.
It's not really a lack of understanding on my part. For example, I know what I wanted to convey in the story, I know why Pierre did what he did. I just tend to fail on communicating these reasons to the reader; or on the opposite, I simply write about it matter-of-factly, and it becomes an issue of telling instead of showing.
At first, Pierre was supposed to overcome the snake-eater by remembering Francois. His going on the mission was at least as much motivated by a sense of duty and a dislike (hatred) for HYDRA's goals as by a wish to avenge his mentor. In the end, the latter was supposed to prevail. I agree I didn't show anything of that 
Back to the snake-man: I changed my mind to give Pierre something to actively overcome, without help of luck. And instead of having Francois help him against the Queen, I had the idea of the escape hatch. And all went down the gutter 
As to the White Queen, she was supposed to be a medusa indeed (home-brewed version, so to speak). I had hoped that naming the story desert snakes, having the stairs snake up the citadel, a snake-eating man and a woman whose face was hidden, in concert with "petrified" victims, would be hint enough. I still remember how in the last tourney, two medusa stories were criticised in part because of the cliché resorting to such a creature, so I didn't want to describe or unmask her, really, cop-out as it may have seemed.
I could have written more about HYDRA and Tricolore, but I partly believed that the relationship between a good intelligency agency and a bad one was known well enough for such a piece of genre fiction to function without it (see UNCLE vs. what's-their-name?, MI-6 vs. Blofeld's organization, and a host of similar examples).
I also thought about continuing that story in prosopective further rounds, I must admit.

I was surprised that my second major flaw (at least in this story) didn't come to light that much: the lack of dialogue. I had next to none dialogue, something I feel drose25's story was eminently better than my own. But perhaps you didn't want to be too cruel, eh? 

Nevertheless, I'd like to try again, come fall - if you would have me (and the board's allow) 

Berandor 
will now resort to reading the stories to come, whilst muttering under his breath that he could have done them better in his sleep.


----------



## Zhaneel

> Nevertheless, I'd like to try again, come fall - if you would have me (and the board's allow)




Why fall?  Why not summer?  Or is there not a summer Ceramic DM?

Zhaneel


----------



## WanderingMonster

Alright.  My next post will be my 1st round entry.  I figured that if I didn't do it now, I'd forget if I was supposed to have it in tonight or tomorrow night.  Rather than worry about timing, I'll just post it now.  I'm sure the competitors are all very trustworthy.


Here goes...


----------



## Berandor

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Why fall?  Why not summer?  Or is there not a summer Ceramic DM?
> 
> Zhaneel



 I think it's a semi-annual event. If not, I'll attend next week


----------



## WanderingMonster

Round 1-7: WanderingMonster v. BardStephenFox

*Myth of Day*

Before men built castles, and before the first dragon came from beyond the Edge of the World, there lived a simple people.  They were not men, nor were they elves, nor dwarves, for they had not yet thought to sort themselves out in such ways.  They simply were People; the simplest among them was Helianthus.


Helianthus, like most of the people, was a farmer.  He tilled Earth with his hands.  He drew water from the River and let his crops drink deep.  He awoke in the morning and warmed his face in the light of the Sun.  He watched lovingly as the Bright Lady danced across the blue road giving life and light to the plants in his field and hope and happiness to his family.  Helianthus was a simple farmer, and he was simply happy.



Late one day as Helianthus and his family watched the Bright Lady dance over the Edge of the World, his youngest son, Tithonias, asked, “Father?  Where does the Sun go when her dance ends?”  That was the First Question.  Helianthus had never thought to consider such things.  The Bright Lady danced from dawn until dusk, and never did he wonder—until now—why? He tried to shake the question out of his head.  He drew his family into their small house.  Darkness had fallen and it was time now for sleep.  The plants closed, the animals rested, so they too must now sleep.



But Helianthus found that he could not sleep.  For the first time in all of Time, man lay awake wondering.  Helianthus found that none of his questions had answers, only more questions.  Finally Helianthus did sleep, but soon it was time to arise and begin his day’s work once more.  He walked to his fields and awaited the start of the Bright Lady’s dance.  It remained cold as he waited, but she did come, although late.  His face warmed in her light, but he did not notice.  “Why,” he wondered, “was she late?”  Helianthus watched her carefully all day.  She seemed in a hurry, and indeed—he noted—she ended her dance earlier than she had the day before. “What,” he questioned, “is so urgent that she must leave in such a hurry?”



Darkness came, but Helianthus did not sleep.  He gathered his belongings into a sack, picked out a sturdy stick for walking, and set out to the west.  Helianthus journeyed throughout the night, but he was not afraid.  In these times, all creatures slept at day’s end so there was no danger from traveling in the darkness.  He walked far that night, and found his legs were getting weary.  He sat down on the side of the road and began to eat a piece of fruit he had taken from his orchard.



As he ate the fruit the Sun rose and began its dance in the east.  As the light of day touched the earth, Helianthus looked and saw that he was in a strange land.  The land was flat and dry and there were no trees to be seen.  The plants here were small and few in number.  Everything in this land was laid bare to the light of the Sun as she danced.  Helianthus resumed his journey.  As he walked he felt the weight of the Bright Lady’s stare heavy upon his face.  He was uncomfortable and hot and muttered curses under his breath as he walked.  He wrapped himself so completely in his misery that he almost missed the great white building that rose before him.



The building was nothing like the small brown hovels that were the people’s homes.  This was a fortress made of glittering white marble and had great white doors made of steel.  Helianthus could hardly look upon it, as the light of the sun glared harshly off of the walls of the white fortress.  He drew his hand before his eyes to shield them from the light.  Between his fingers he could see someone motioning to him from the doors of the fortress.  Helianthus approached cautiously.  He could make out a face behind the bars of the steel doors.



“Come here,” said a voice from behind the doors, “but do not speak, for you and I are being watched.”  As Helianthus drew nearer to the fortress, the shadow blocked the light from his eyes.  “Your skin is slick with sweat, and your lips are dry from thirst Helianthus!”  He could see the face, but it was so covered in shadow that he could not see the mouth that made the words.  Two hands, bound by a chain continued to motion him closer. “Yes, Helianthus, she is angry with you, for you dared to question her.  She hides the answers from you in the west, and she knows that you seek them.  That is why she hurries.  Each day you draw closer, and she spends more time jealously guarding her secrets.  Today she will go into the west much sooner than yesterday, you will see.” 



Helianthus squinted suspiciously at the figure behind the door.  His look betrayed the question in his mind.



“Who,” the figure said, “am I?  Sit here, where the light does not reach.  You will be cool, and your skin will not burn, and I will tell you who I am.”  Helianthus sat by the door, out of the view of the sun, and it was cool as the figure had said it would be. “I am Solrath.  The Bright Lady is my sister, and I know all her secrets.  I sought to share her secrets with the people, but she did not like that.  She thought the people unworthy of her knowledge, but I knew differently.  Rather than risk me giving away the secrets of all Creation, she bound me in chains and put me in this desert prison.  She watches me all day, leaving me only a few hours each night to plan my escape so that I might share her knowledge with the people.”  Helianthus tried to speak to the figure, but thirst had stolen his voice.



“How can you help me?” Solrath asked.  Helianthus nodded.  “Wait until she finishes her dance, and then you will free me.  Once you have done so, I will tell you where to find the answers to all your questions.”



Helianthus waited for the Bright Lady to end her dance.  He began to wonder if could trust the words of Solrath, after all, he was a prisoner.  Prison was a place where the untrustworthy were kept.  Helianthus almost stood to leave, but then the sun’s dance was over, and as Solrath had said, she ended it earlier than she had the day before. Perhaps this prisoner could be trusted.  If what he said was true, Helianthus might finally have the answers to all the questions that plagued him.



“Free me now,” Solrath beckoned.  Helianthus reached into the sack into which he had placed his belongings and pulled out a tool he had used to prune the trees of his orchard.  With it, he worked much of the night to cut the chains.  Finally, with only an hour before the sun began her dance, the chains had been cut.  Helianthus opened the gates of the prison and stepped aside.  The figure within stepped out. 



Solrath was much taller than Helianthus had expected.  He was angular and powerful. Each movement he made was swift and cut the air like a blade.  His eyes were large and cruel, and his mouth was wide.  Solrath smiled at Helianthus, revealing a thousand needle teeth that dripped with venom.  He stooped beside Helianthus and threw an arm around him.  “Now,” he whispered, “I will give you what you seek.”  Helianthus felt Solrath’s right hand grip his arm tightly.  He looked and saw that it was a talon, sharper than the blade of his plow.  “You will journey west.  You are not far from the Bright Lady’s home, but you must be quick if you wish to find her and know her secrets.  It is dark and you must hide as not to be seen. You will also need…this,” Solrath held up a large curved blade which shone cruelly in the moonlight.  Helianthus winced as Solrath’s grip on his arm tightened.  He could smell the venom on Solrath’s breath. “Take it.”  Helianthus grabbed the blade and tore himself from the cruel man’s grip.  Solrath stood to his full height and smiled his needle smile. “Run!  There is no time!”



Helianthus ran.  As he ran to the west, he forgot what he was running toward.  All he could think was that, for the first time, there was danger in the darkness.  The landscape changed quickly and dramatically.  The sands of the desert yielded to a great and untamed jungle.  Helianthus could hear the sound of singing and a great waterfall.  Sensing that someone was bathing nearby he hid under a great plant.  The singing grew louder as the stranger drew nearer.  His heart raced as he waited for them to pass.  He soon realized that as the person came closer, the day grew brighter.  It was the Bright Lady, and she was setting out to begin her dance.  If he didn’t look now, he may never know her secret!



He pushed aside the broad leaves of the plant, but it resisted, and blocked his sight still.  His anger grew with each new leaf that unfurled in front of him.  Was he not the master of many plants in his own fields and orchards?  This one would be no different than one of his fruit trees.  He grabbed the blade given to him by Solrath and struck down the branches of the plant.  With each cut, the plant shrank and shriveled until only a wilted, rotting mass lay at his feet.



When he looked up, to his horror, the Bright Lady stood before him.  She looked down at Helianthus and he could feel the weight of her stare heavy upon him.  She began to dance.  Helianthus could feel the heat of her fire upon his face.  His skin reddened and his lips cracked from heat.  As he looked upon her, his eyes could not abide the terrible light of her beauty.  Slowly clouds drew forever over his eyes, until there was only darkness.  



As the Bright Lady danced across the great blue road, Helianthus wept.  He sat blind, silent, and alone.  Darkness was all he could see. And there was danger in the darkness.


----------



## BSF

Berandor said:
			
		

> I think it's a semi-annual event. If not, I'll attend next week




Based on history, it is seasonal. I competed in last Winter's event.  Read last Fall's avidly.


----------



## Macbeth

Since not all the judgements for the first round are in, it's probably a bit early to consider, but I was wondering about round 2 match ups. Will the winner of Match 1-1 (AlSiH2O) be set up against the winner of Match 1-2 (Me)? Or is there some more complex plan in place? No hurry for an answer, I'm just kind of interested in knowing if I'll be up against the founder of Ceramic DM.

Also, good luck BardStephenFox! If your story is as good the campaign you run, it should be great... but don't take too much insperation from the campaign, I don't wan't to see a samurai in a flower dress... or a 'startegic retreat' by a samurai, for that matter...


----------



## Sialia

Is "wow" a biasing commentary?


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Since not all the judgements for the first round are in, it's probably a bit early to consider, but I was wondering about round 2 match ups. Will the winner of Match 1-1 (AlSiH2O) be set up against the winner of Match 1-2 (Me)? Or is there some more complex plan in place? No hurry for an answer, I'm just kind of interested in knowing if I'll be up against the founder of Ceramic DM.
> 
> Also, good luck BardStephenFox! If your story is as good the campaign you run, it should be great... but don't take too much insperation from the campaign, I don't wan't to see a samurai in a flower dress... or a 'startegic retreat' by a samurai, for that matter...




Well, with those pictures, it would be hard to integrate existing campaign elements into whatever story I come up with.  (Well, except the guy in the bush, maybe I could stretch that in.)  Besides, I find it is much more challenging to tell a good, strong story than it is to dangle various elements out there to see how different characters react.  So, it isn't likely that the story will be much like the game this time around.  But, if you and I pair off against each other, it will be hard not to write something with humor in it in the vein of Piratecat's Iconography (see my .sig for a link) and include your characters for amusement, and to try to taunt you.


----------



## alsih2o

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Why fall?  Why not summer?  Or is there not a summer Ceramic DM?
> 
> Zhaneel




 good lord willing and the creek don't rise I would like to retake the helm of Ceramic dm, posting pictures to get my grudge on. I have a few ideas for altering the contest, and it might work. 

 I am a bit nervous though, the folks who have been doing it since i let go the reins have been kicking majot gluteus.


----------



## Zhaneel

alsih2o said:
			
		

> good lord willing and the creek don't rise I would like to retake the helm of Ceramic dm, posting pictures to get my grudge on. I have a few ideas for altering the contest, and it might work. .




I have some ideas too, but won't share unless asked.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Clay, I'm only giving up judging if you win this contest! _there, that ought to light a fire underneath his tail._  Bwah ha ha! I have something like 90 photos left over, and I'll start to twitch if I can't somehow use them.  You may get a darn big email from me when you take over judging again.  

Zhaneel, please email me your suggestions (mostly because I'm curious), and I'll pass them on to Clay and the other judges. In addition, anyone with suggestions for this or future Ceramic DMs should email me, please; we judges don't get better if we don't get feedback.

I must say, although it's more work and a bit more confusing to juggle 16 people, I really like the number of really good stories we'll have at the end of this competition. I hope others feel the same.

Next judgment will probably be posted tomorrow. Mythago, Orchid Blossom... stay tuned!


----------



## orchid blossom

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Next judgment will probably be posted tomorrow. Mythago, Orchid Blossom... stay tuned!




Suuuuure, and I'm probably the only person on these boards who absolutley can't go online at work....

S'ok, anticipation makes final result all the more satisfying.  (I was going to say the victory, but I'm just not talented with the smacktalk.)


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-4: Mythago vs. Orchid Blossom.*

*Maldur:*

Archeology must be a dangerous business. Great story, But Mythago left me gasping.

Mythago gets my vote.


*Arwink:*

Orchid Blossom - Disruption

A very nice introduction, with a nice balance being struck between the movements of Devakiri and giving us enough background to understand who and what she might be.  The shift in tone back and forth between the Professors viewpoints and hers also adds to the effect of the story.  While this still has the occasional rough edge, it is in the form of minor things that likely result from putting the story together so quickly.  As usual, my awe for people able to put together this quality of work in such a short space of time is firmly in place.

Mythago – Lifespan

One of the things that I’ve always loved about ceramic DM is that it has always fed my love of the mythic tale, and Mythago produces some of the best.  The story is very controlled and a pleasure to read, the only place where it seems to concede any ground to the rigors of the contest occurring when the choice is made to transform into a preying mantis – something that seems slightly out of place with the style of the story up to this point.  

Judgment

A thousand curses upon Piratecat for making me chooses between these two tales so early in the contest – this is the kind of decision that I’d normally expect from the later parts of the competition rather than the first round.  Both of these stories are very well down, with the style and voice showing the kind of control that is hard to master in such a short space of time.  Choosing between them is largely a matter of splitting some very fine hairs, and in the end I give my vote to Mythago largely because I love the folkish overtones to her story.


*Piratecat:*

If I could, I'd advance both stories.

But I can't, can I? So let's look at the stories. Orchid Blossom starts off with a very nicely contained tale. Great characterizations throughout, good movement between the different characters in order to create tension, realistic conversation, and a fine ending that's happy -- sort of. Depending on who you're identifying with. I had no complaints with style, and the plotting was excellent. This is the first story so far that had a uniformly good beginning, middle and ending.

The illustrations were also used very well. While we usually have a prohibition against "illustration as in-story photo," the use of "Rest" as a cave wall carving was just right. Nice job comparing the closeup on the mantis to someone lifting it up to their eyes. The view of the hill from a distance was the weakest usage, but that's not saying much.

Then I read Mythago's tale. I'm a sucker for a fable, and you just don't see them very often. Like Orchid Blossom's, this story was almost perfectly constructed. There was a small logic gap when the mantis turned back into the woman, aging herself horribly in the process, but that's forgiveable when compared to the fine structure and tone of how the story was written.

With one notable exception, Mythago's photo usage was consistently weaker than Orchid Blossom's. The accordian was a little strained in the tone of the story, and while I liked the large mantis I'm not sure it fit the tone of the tale perfectly either. "Rest" was a little more throw-away than I'd have liked. Nevertheless, the usage of "Climb" helped balance things out; the inspiration of seeing a woman's body in the mountain and making that the emotional climax of the tale is simply breathtaking. Kudos. It's moments like this one that made me want to judge in the first place.

Judgment in this case is brutal, because both stories are great. My judgment goes to Orchid Blossom, on the strength of her comparative illustration usage. Nice job, both of you. This is the kind of match I'd expect to see in the Final, not the first round.

*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for Mythago, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## WanderingMonster

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Next judgment will probably be posted tomorrow.



Did Pkitty step through the Professor's wardrobe again?  He must have if 1 hour=1 day!  I'm sure he had a very pleasant visit with Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers.


----------



## orchid blossom

Congrats to Mythago, it's certainly no embarassment to lose to her fine story.  Now she just has to go on and win the whole thing so I can at least brag that I lost to the winner.

Being originally from Wisconsin, the first thing I thought of when I saw the old man with the accordian was beer, brats, and polka.  There was no other choice.  I knew immediately that he had to die, you can't have a picture of a mantis, an animal that will eat it's own kind by biting off heads, without someone losing a head somewhere.  (I might have been the only one who got that, but it made me happy.)

Short story form has never been my forte, so it's rather surprising to me that this came out so well.  I think the strict word limit really helped me here.  Every word had to count and it kept me from wandering.  There were all sorts of other things I wanted to include due to my tendency to overexplain things.  It was a case of show, don't tell.  The story had to stand on it's own without superfluous explanations.

The other trouble I generally have is plot.  The pictures were great to help with this.  Instead of starting in a huge field with no direction, I had four specific "plot points" I had to hit.  It was a matter of figuring out how to hook them together.

All in all, this was an invaluable experience.  I have not written in a long time, and now I'm finding an urge to do more writing.

I'd love to hear any more specific criticisms anyone might have to help me avoid the same mistakes the next time.

Thanks to the judges, and I hope everyone enjoyed the story.


----------



## mythago

The best part about winning is that I can now say just how much Orchid Blossom's story rocked. I was moderately pleased with mine, and then read "Disruption" and thought "Whoops. I suck."

 "You underestimate the power of beer and bratwurst, Professor. Believe me, they're ready to roll out the barrel."  Best Ceramic DM line. Ever.

 The bad part about winning is that Orchid Blossom isn't going to advance. That is, frankly, everyone's loss.


----------



## Piratecat

WanderingMonster said:
			
		

> I'm sure he had a very pleasant visit with Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers.




I'm visiting with Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers RIGHT NOW, if you know what I mean -- and I think you do.

Actually, "Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers" is a great name for a band. What actually happened is that I got Arwink's comments before I turned in for the night.


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

Maldur said:
			
		

> Archeology must be a dangerous business.




You have seen the Indiana Jones movies, haven't you Maldur?   

Congrats to Mythago, though I am sad I won't get to see more stories from orchid right now.  Hopefully she'll compete in the next ceramic dm.


----------



## mythago

Archaeology is VERY dangerous.


----------



## WanderingMonster

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm visiting with Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers RIGHT NOW, if you know what I mean -- and I think you do.



[narnianuendo]Remember to clean your sword after you use it[/narnianuendo]

Sorry. Sorry.  I'm done now.


----------



## Daulnay

*RE: Orchid Blossom vs. Mythago*

This is the third Ceramic DM that I've followed, and am finally moved to comment.  The best of the Ceramic DM stories are as good or better than the stuff that makes it into commercial collections.  A collection of the best pieces would make an excellent commercial release.  But this is really an aside.  This matchup exposes a serious flaw in the Ceramic DM competition:

This contest ought to be double elimination. 

Yes, it's more work.[1]  But some very fine writing will be stillborn because of matchups like this one, and we are all the poorer for it. 




			
				orchid blossom said:
			
		

> I'd love to hear any more specific criticisms anyone might have to help me avoid the same mistakes the next time.




To Orchid Blossom:
What mistakes? It was a great tale, and you were up against the best writer I know (speaking as Mr. Mythago here).   People were not just being polite when they expressed regret that only one of you can move up.

--
D'aulnay
aka Samwise

[1] It's very doable.  The contest could have two panels of judges, one  for each tree.  There's no shortage of people willing to judge.   Or photographic material -- PKitty himself just said he had some 90 photos still to use, I know Mythago has a bunch more, and I'm sure the other former judges do too.

Each writer would also get at least two chances to write.  A second chance, to cajole a recalcitrant muse or to make up for one set of pictures that leaves you stumped.  It would be fairer.


----------



## BSF

*Cleansing*

*WanderingMonster Vs BardStephenFox* _(AKA David Moore)_

*Cleansing*

I stepped outside as the October rain splattered on the asphalt, plastering the fallen leaves to the pavement.  My boosted senses pulled out faint traces of a score of commercial agents.  It was going to be an acid rain tonight.  Not very nice if you are Meat, but it would wash the blood off me pretty well.  I left the door to the mind-doc’s house open.  The Meat cops would probably think it was some sort of burglary gone bad.  Not that it mattered what they thought.  They would never catch me and I had paid her back for rejecting my augmentation application again.  The Meat had screamed at the end.  I hate it when Meat does that.  But, Meat is weak, as I always say.  I guess the mind-doc’s Meat wasn’t as strong as she thought it was.  Still, it always spoiled the moment when the Meat screamed.  The perfect moment was when the Meat could keep composed as it’s life drained out of it. Perfect beauty is watching the Meat just fade and die away.  Moments like that make you think.   But no, this time the Meat screamed and broke the moment.  It was a bad day all around.  Time to fix that. 

The plan was to come through Thailand and Burma with a string of forged ID chips.  It was a good plan, but it was a slow one.  Still, I am the best in the business and I have patience.  I once waited in a tree for three days for my target to arrive.  The Meat was boosted a little and tried to dodge out of the way.  One of the funniest things I remember seeing was the Meat twitch it’s head out of the way.  Too bad I was aiming at the Meat’s heart.  The Meat did not expect to see me way up in that tree either.  But, that’s why I am called Monkey.  I’ve always been Monkey.  Well, at least as long as I can remember.  I remember being a little boy hiding in the trees behind all the leaves waiting for my friends to find me.  I was always the one that could climb and hide, and I could wait for an eternity while everyone else looked for me.  It’s my only memory of being a kid.  The mind-doc always said it was important. 

Now, why am I thinking of the mind-doc?  I pressed my foot on the gas pedal and watched the trees blur as the kilometers disappeared beneath my wheels.  The mind-doc?  She has been dead for at least 4 days.  It was that last augmentation rejection that proved she had to go.  What was one more augmentation?  I already have more than 100 bones in my body that have been replaced.  I have entire muscle groups that have been replaced by smart 
polymers.  My reflex boosts are getting outdated and I need Dr. Singh’s latest boosts if I am going to stay on top of the Game.  Dr. Singh might be all Meat, but he is smart Meat.  His boosts are top-notch and they are always pushing the limits.  They aren’t cutting-edge, they are monofilament! The mind-doc shot down my augmentation application again though.  The road was a black snake that I was riding through the trees as I remembered the mind-doc rationalizing her rejection. 

"I’m sorry Mr. Stevens, I know you think you want your augmentations, but I cannot allow you to drift further."  I hate it when people use my old Meat name.  Call me Monkey! 

"C’mon Doc, I need those augmentations to keep doing my job effectively."  Her lips were colored red with some sort of makeup and matched her dress.  I couldn’t help but wonder if her blood would match. 

"Mr. Stevens, you are a psychopath that displays complete disdain for everyone on this planet that isn’t half machine like you."

"C’mon Doc, I like Meat just fine."  She cut me off this time. 

"That is exactly what I am talking about.  You refer to other people as Meat."

I shouldn’t have let the Meat comment slip.  "Oh c’mon Doc, you can’t hold that against me.  It’s a joke, get it?"

This time, her tone was firm.  "No Mr. Stevens, you are not joking.  You have learned to say the right things to a lot of psychologists, but you are not fooling me.  More augmentations will simply fuel your delusions of being a god."

"But Doc, my job..." 

"Mr. Stevens, you are a Security Specialist.  There are plenty of people in your profession that do their job quite well with half the augmentations you have."

I sat there and simmered.  I am a Security Specialist, that's what my ID says.  But, I ain’t no guard.  I keep the assets of Kendo-Tech secure.  Meaning, I aggressively eliminate the competition and protect our assets from being transferred or eliminated.  I’m good and I mean to stay that way.  To stay on top, I need the reflex boosts that Dr. Singh is constantly refining!  Problem is, some upper level Meat manager at Kendo-Tech got a little concerned last year when I blew up a 10 story executive apartment unit to keep Miyozawa Industries from absconding with one of our engineers.  I figured it was better if he were 
dead rather than working for the competition.  Besides, I also eliminated three of MI’s best extraction agents at the same time.  Sheesh, it was only 200 families.  Now, I have to see a mind-doc three times a week to ‘reintegrate with humanity’. Worse yet, the mind-doc has final say on whether I get any more augmentations.

I stayed the night in a no-name hotel in Sittwe.  It was fun.  Entering the lobby, I could spot three punks watching the Meat come in.  They had some minor augmentations and were all decked up ripperjack style.  To the locals, they were probably pretty scary and tough, but they had no real sense of style.  I made sure to accidentally wave too much money around and then I headed out to my bungalow, one of tried to surreptitiously watch me open the door and walk in.   I turned on the shower and was out a rear window before they were halfway from the lobby.  I slid into some bushes to watch the action near the door.  The ripperjack wannabes knocked on my door.  Then, they listened and could hear the shower.  With a grin, shiny blades slid out of their wrists.  Ripperjacks, just a couple of boys looking for a good time tonight.  I thought about letting them go, I still had to read over my dossier on Dr. Singh’s defection, but I couldn’t resist a little bit of fun. Besides, they were more Meat than Machine. 

I dropped out of the tree behind one of the ripperjacks.  With a whistle, they all turned toward me, surprise and malice on their faces.  One gestured toward me with his bladearm and started to say something.  Probably a demand for money.  I went into a low spin and knocked two of them to the ground with a kick.  Then, I somersaulted forward and brought my fist up against the third ripperjack’s jaw.  The bones in my hands were replaced with high impact ceramics long ago.  With my boosted arms, it made a mess of his face. His head snapped back and I grabbed his arm and leg.  Spinning on my right heel, I launched his body across the courtyard into a tree.  I heard the snapping of vertebrae and laughed.  The other two ripperjacks were starting to sit up so I kicked the nearest one in the throat.  He made a gushy sound as he fell back down and I heel-stomped the armblade of the last ripperjack. 
The blade was good steel, but it gave under the pressure of my heel and the stone pathway.  The ripperjack grimaced in pain, but he bit back his scream. I respect that. 

I knelt forward and looked him in the eye.  "Remember kid, Meat is weak.  Now, run!"

I took my foot off his arm and he looked at me with confusion.  Damn, I forgot, he probably speaks Myanmar and I didn’t have a lang chip socketed.  I gave him a moment to figure out what I meant.  He was smart enough to start crawling away. 

I spent the rest of the evening reading the dossier.  It seems Dr. Singh had gone back home to Bangladesh to celebrate some religious holiday.  The Durga Puja festival, blah, blah blah.  The netjocks always do their research, but they have a hard time sticking to the facts.  I don’t care about Meat religion.  Anyway, it seems one of our competitors has a new operative.  The netjocks are still trying to track down which conglomerate she works for, 
but her codename is Durga.  Dr. Singh’s security detail was wiped out in the defection, everyone except his Meat handler.  The handler claims that Durga told him he could leave because he was free of demons.  I had to admire Durga’s style.  She setup Dr. Singh based on his silly Meat religion.  It was a nice touch and it will be a shame when I have to kill her. 

I slept restlessly that night.  I kept having dreams about climbing in trees and hiding in bushes. 

The next day I took a hovercraft up to Chittagong.  It was cargo hovercraft, but a little bit of money spread around does wonders.  I stood there staring out at the ocean.  The salt spray was annoying and the trip was boring beyond belief.  Gazing vacantly into the haze, I remembered one of my first sessions with the mind-doc. 

"Mr. Stevens, take a look at this photo.  What does it make you think of?"  She pushed a photo across the small table to me.  It was a picture of a bad accident.  A heavy-duty cargo hovercraft had run over a car.  The driver was laying on the road, a mess of blood and limbs.  I laughed. 

"It shows me that Meat is weak."

The mind-doc was startled. "Mr. Stevens, that’s a picture of you, and the accident."  She said it like it was a big deal or something. 

With a chuckle I said, "No Doc, that was my Meat.  That ain’t no picture of me.  I’m right here."

The mind-doc never understood that the Meat is just a container.  It means nothing and all those people that prattle on about the great gift of it just don’t get it.  Meat is meat.  Meat can’t be upgraded, but Machines can.  The mind-doc went on for weeks asking me what I meant.  She thought I was spouting some stupid philosophy or religion thing.  She kept asking me about spirituality.  I don't buy into that stuff.  It's just Meat ideas to deal with the fact that they are meat.  I’m a machine and I will outlast them all.  Especially if I get my boosted reflexes from Dr. Singh! 

The drive to Dhaka was quick, but distracting.  I kept feeling like I needed to stop and climb a tree or play in the bushes.  It comes from thinking of the mind-doc too much.  I started to make a vow to kill her when this job was done, but then I remembered that I already had. 

My contact was some Meat I had worked with in the past.  A guy named Mani.  Not a bad guy considering he was just Meat.  We met in the lobby of a swanky hotel. 

"Good afternoon Monkey.  I am pleased to inform you that I have the information on where Dr. Singh was last sighted."  Mani bowed his head slightly in greeting then held out his arm for a western style handshake.  I passed him the money and he passed me the data chip.  "Monkey, one thing you should know.  This Durga, she claims to be a goddess and she has said that 
anyone with augmentations is possessed by demons.  She has said that she is here to purge the demons and send the tainted souls back to be reborn.  I know you do not believe in such things, but the people here feel that she speaks of Truth.  If you do not want to attract undue attention, I thought you might want to know what the people are hearing and believing."

I did my best to smile at Mani.  "Thanks Mani, I’ll keep that in mind.  Though, almost all of my augmentations are beneath the skin."  Mani nodded. 

"That is good Monkey.  I just wanted you to know."  He turned to walk out of the hotel.  Mani didn’t insult me by stopping to count the money on his way out.  Smart Meat. 

The data chip provided directions to Durga’s house.  Nobody had seen her since the end of the festival.  Nobody had seen Dr. Singh since then either. My guess is that they were debriefing him somewhere in, or more likely, below the house.  This is a critical time.  If a competitor can extract most of the research that an engineer is working on, there is very little reason to recover the defector.  Better to eliminate them and the extraction squad. 
Still, Dr. Singh is a genius and it would take quite a while for any extraction to get to any useful research.  I decided to play it conservative and scout the place for two days before moving in. It sure would be a shame to have to eliminate Dr. Singh.  

That night, I dreamt of my youth.  Playing in the trees and the bushes of my grandparents’ farm.  I have always loved the trees and the outdoors.  In my dream, I could smell the leaves.  I haven’t stopped to smell the leaves of a tree in years. 

Morning found me high up in a tree watching the house where Durga was holed up.  Mani was right about the people on the street.  With my boosted hearing I could hear their discussions on demons and how Durga was going to purge them from the world.  I could learn a thing or two from this Durga. She lured Dr. Singh in by appealing to religion, then she turns the street on so they are looking for a recovery team.  She really did her research. Anyone obviously augmented would probably be harassed by these people.  Not that Meat could hurt a serious recovery team, but the time it took to deal with that would give Durga time to prepare a counteroffensive.  Fortunately, I am good enough to be a one-man team myself.  Even among machines, I am the best.

As evening came, I found my attention wandering.  A few months back, the mind-doc, Hannah, had asked me to draw for her. 

"Draw the first thing that comes to your mind Mr. Stevens".

I took the pencil and paper and put together a shark mouth, smiling and added an eye.  Looking at it, it just wasn’t enough.  I threw in a cutlass for good measure.  Then, I added a sharp fork.  Yeah, that’s cool. 

Hannah looked at it and asked me if I hated myself.  She went off on some jibber jabber about how it was a reflection of what I saw in myself and how it reminder her of a shark demon. I hate mind-docs. 

I stayed in the tree all night popping stims to keep awake.  Nothing moved in the house the entire time.  If Dr. Singh was in there, he was definitely below it, especially since there really weren’t any defenses anyway.  Around dawn, I slipped down out of the tree.  I paused for a moment and admired the smell of the leaves.  Sliding around the back of the house, I approached a white gate.  A simple chain had been passed through and welded shut to keep 
anyone from entering this way.  I laughed as I reached through the bars and grabbed the chain. 

Hannah, the mind-doc, said I should do more things with my hands.  She said it would help me feel more human.  I guess she didn’t know that my hands were one of my first augmentations.  I slowly pulled the chain apart.  I could feel the skin slipping, but polymer muscle over a ceramic endoskeleton wasn’t troubled by it.  Meat couldn’t pull that chain apart, but Machine does just fine. 

I advanced through the rear courtyard without finding any further defensive measures only to find the back door unlocked.  What kind of debriefing is this?  The thought occurred to me that perhaps Durga had taken Dr. Singh elsewhere and this was just a herring.  I had to check though.  I passed through an unused kitchen then down a hall until I could see the front door. I slid into the main room soundlessly.  Incense was burning and a mirror was 
on the far wall.  Rugs and cushions were scattered about the room.  I paused there, confused.  Who lit the incense?  There was something bothering me as well.  I quickly searched the rest of the rooms.  There was nothing else to be found.  Obviously, there was something about the big room.  The second time, I stood at the door for almost a minute.  Then I realized what the problem was.  The mirror was not reflecting the rest of the room.  Very clever, but not clever enough. 

I crossed to the mirror and noted that the frame was carved, "The Being Within."  Some sort of art?  Looking in the mirror, I stepped back quickly.  There in the mirror was an image of a shark mouth with a cutlass and a fork! What the ... 

The incense drifting in the air swirled just a bit and I swung around.  There she was, Durga.  At least, I assumed it was her.  How she got there, I am not sure.  She must be boosted pertty heavily to sneak up on me.  Beautiful Meat, that’s for sure.  She was done up in makeup and clothing to look the part of a goddess.  Then she spoke, and her voice was flawless.  So beautiful it hurt, if that makes any sense. 

"Welcome James Stevens."

Nobody calls me James.  I looked her over and took a combat stance. 

"I’m sure it would be interesting to chat with you and find out your real name Durga, but I am here for Dr. Singh.  You can make this easy, or you can make this fun.  Hand over Dr. Singh and I will pretend like I didn’t find you."  I licked my lips.  "Of course, I kind of hope you don’t do that, in which case I will have to kill you.  That’s going to be fun."

Durga looked at me with anger, then pity before she breathed out. 

"You truly do not understand do you?  It is not you that hates the world, it is the demon within you.  A foul beast that permeates the machinery you think you revere.  Did you not see it when you peered into the mirror?  It is that demon that speaks with such disrespect."

Most operatives, when faced with competition, are eager to fight it out.  We always want to know which one of us is better, faster and stronger, especially when you are going against somebody with a reputation.  And believe me, I have a reputation.  But, this Durga was not ready to fight.  I could see the scheme now though.  They had sought to use the mind-doc to keep me crippled.  How else would they know about the drawing and create a hologram of it.  Well, I wasn’t going to be mind jobbed.  I leapt forward for the attack. 

I'm fast, but her arms fanned out impossibly and in my mind I counted 24 of them.  She must be boosted so fast that it looked like she had 24 arms!  Impossible, nobody has reflexes boosted that high.  Not even Dr. Singh has created anything that fast compared to me.  So, I clearly must be under the affects of some sort of drug.  Damn, the incense!  Durga’s arms settled into a defensive position, all ten of them, with blades in each one.  I was almost across the room and concentrating on blending those ten arms back into two when I jumped toward her, fists aimed to smash into the beautiful mouth of hers.

She caught my wrists.  Then, as I tried to spin my body to kick her, she grabbed my ankles.  She held me there for a second while she reached up to caress my cheek.  It was torturous.  There is no way one person could catch two arms and two legs and hold you there, while caressing your face, unless they had more than two arms.  Durga leaned forward and spoke softly, gently to me. 

"I’m sorry James.  We failed you.  We let you think that flesh is not divine, that machine is better than man.  That is what let the demons take you.  But, I am here to repair the damage.  Do not fear.  The demons will be purged again and you will be reborn.  We will make sure you have a better chance this time.  Close your eyes Monkey and think of your trees.  You will see them again soon, even if you don’t remember." 

As she spoke, I could feel more blades digging into my chest.  Briefly, I remembered scanning the dossier on Dr. Singh and what it said about the Goddess Durga.  How she fought the demons and finally slew Mahish by driving a spear through his heart and cutting off his head.  Was that what was happening to me?  I thrashed in her grasp for a moment.  She seemed to have multiple arms and incredible strength. There is no way known to graft more arms to a person.  Could she really be a goddess?  Something inside of me raged against this as I struggled to accept it.

Polymers ripped and then my mechanical heart stopped.  For just a moment, I could see Durga holding me.  Were those tears in her eyes?  It made me sad, sad for the first time in almost a decade.  With a shriek, I saw a shark swimming in the air above me.  Two more arms came up from Durga and the shark was no more.  Then, blackness. 

~~~~~ 

A young boy hid from his mother in the bushes.  He pushed giant, green leaves out of the way as he peeked out.  His mother saw him and laughed. 

"There you are Jimmy, come in and wash up for dinner you little monkey."


----------



## BSF

OK, there it is.  Wish I had a little more time, but I will be busy all Wednesday through the deadline.  Ack - I better get to bed.  I need some sleep tonight.


----------



## Berandor

Daulnay said:
			
		

> This contest ought to be double elimination.




After reading mythago vs. orchid blossom, I thought perhaps you should have 12 (or 14) contestants in the first round, leaving 2 (1) spots open for the best runner-up(s).


----------



## orchid blossom

mythago said:
			
		

> The best part about winning is that I can now say just how much Orchid Blossom's story rocked. I was moderately pleased with mine, and then read "Disruption" and thought "Whoops. I suck."
> 
> "You underestimate the power of beer and bratwurst, Professor. Believe me, they're ready to roll out the barrel."  Best Ceramic DM line. Ever.
> 
> The bad part about winning is that Orchid Blossom isn't going to advance. That is, frankly, everyone's loss.




I was rather proud of the beer and brats myself.  I keep telling Ao being from Wisconsin is a _good_ thing.

Isn't it strange how the person who writes something rarely has any idea of it's quality?  It'll be a couple months before I can go back and look at the story with a stanger's eye.  It's too fresh when you've just finished; you can't see the holes or lack thereof.


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## Berandor

I know that feeling. I could read the story several times, but whether it really works or not I can only see by reading it with a lot of temporal distance to its conception - that's why I usually give them to someone else to read.


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## Zhaneel

Damn... that was close.

I'm almost willing to say that if I win I'd be willing to give up my spot to Orchid... just to see more from her.  Please, please, please compete again Orchid.

And now, to wait for my judgement.  

I hope I win, as I'd love (and be scared s***less) to go up against mythago.

Zhaneel


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## Sialia

I'm biased, right? We take that from the get go. I drew one of the pictures and so I have a relationship with it that affects my judgement. THis is why I am not judging, among other things.

In my opinion Orchid Blososm absolutely captured the mood of "Rest" and filled it with the kind of story that I wanted it to have. She saw 90% of what I meant to put there, and she made us see it, too. 

When I saw the set come together, I realized that there was almost no way to put together that picture with the mantis without somebody's head coming off in the story, and I was pretty sure that it would be the accordianist's. 

What I liked was that, given that obvious conclusion, Orchid Blossom's story didn't fall into cliche. It told it's own story, and it wasn't about what a breeding female under laboratory stress will do, but more about a relationship with death that I was trying to express in the female character's eyes. The laboratory stress element is there in the story, too, with the disjunction between the archaeologist's view of the situation and Devakiri's, but it doesn't make her into a monster. Er, not an unsympathetic one, anyway.

Mythago's complete throw away of the image made me feel the same way I'd feel seeing a world class olympic ice skater fall on her can during a compulsory element. It was a beautiful routine--quite the nicest thing I've seen in a long while, but she blew one of the requirements of the competition. The action of the story was progressing in one direction, another creature is introduced, and by way of descriptive background for that character--an illustration of how they sleep? If I were illustrating to the story (instead of the other way around), there were a lot of better moments I would have picked to illustrate, and a portrait of the creatures should have been a whole lot scarier and more active looking. It's not that the story failed at that moment--the story was moving along fine-- but if you printed this in a book with these illustrations, you'd feel that the illustration was lousy and intrusive in this place, failing to illustrate or advance the story.

Given the general level of quality of Mythago's writing, I was curious about why this sudden change from her usual effort. Did the illustration not work for you that badly, or was there some other reaosn you caught an edge?


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## BSF

Hmm, interesting point Sialia.  OK, I probably shouldn't comment right now since my story is unjudged, but I will anyway and I will trust that the judges will use this opportunity to look away from my post until later.  

It is interesting how picture use comes to us.  For my little yarn above, the picture that I think turned out to be the weakest use was one of the original lynchpins of my inspiration.  Seeing that pic gave me a few ideas on some possible stories.  The rest fell into place after that.  But, I had to work a bit harder to bring the rest in.  Last competition, I focused a lot on not having a "throwaway".  I did in this competition as well.  What I have found is that the first pic that my muse points out to me is the most likely to be my weakest use.  I think, for me, that it is a matter between inspiration and integration.  With the pictures that I have to work harder to integrate, it comes across as a stronger use.  I look for different ways to bring a picture in if it isn't "obvious" to me.  So, the amount of work I have to put in seems to have a positive affect on the outcome.  

I also see this reflected in my stories when I am trying to finish them up too late in the night.  When I get tired, I start missing elements that I was sure I had typed.  I have gone back over my stories and found sentences that were "missing".  I never typed them, though I thought them through.  Very weird feeling at times.  The problem with this is that I might miss the communication explaing why the pic was important.  I forget to 'set the hook' if I am too tired.  

So, the lesson for me is to strat writing these things earlier in the day!   

I'm not sure that helps much Sialia.  But, you asked and while I can't answer for Mythago, I can point out some of the reasons why my picture usage might not have the same impacted I _wanted_ it to when I started typing on the keyboard.


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## Zhaneel

I'm also going to respond about picture usage, even though my story isn't judged either.

I have done other similiarly styled competitions where a list of elements to include were required.  When the judging happened (7+ judges, 100 point scale, anonymous judging, one round best score wins) the picture usage was worth 10-15 points out of 100.  The other things were plot, realism, dialogue, characters, description, overall story quality, sex [it was an erotica competition], title, and something I can't remember.  So while the items [sometimes names, situations, lines, physical items, etc.] were important, they were only 10-15% of the weight.  The rest was how well the story was told.  So, yes, you could win, technically, with poor usage.  I never saw it happen, though.

Here, I tend to think along the same lines.  The pictures need to be used.  However, great picture usage with a poor story will not win.  And I think that a great story with okay-decent picture usage should win over a mediorce story with great picture usage.  Now, Orchid did not write a poor story.  She wrote a great story.  Mythago did too.  

My opinion on picture usage:
Accordian: Orchid wins
Mantis: Tie
Mountain: Mythago wins by a landslide
Rest: Both seemed throw-away to me.

Rest wasn't my picture.  I didn't see a great story in it.  I thought both were fine usages.  True, I agree that if I were illustrating the story, Orchid did better for rest.  But I wouldn't have illustrated the mantis for Orchid's story, but maybe for Mythago's. I know we are supposed to write as if the pictures were illustrating.  OTOH, it is a damn hard thing to do, and I also think a poetic license is taken with the pictures.  I've seen great usage of a portion of the picture rather than the whole thing.  I've seen a metaphoric usage over a literal.  I think there is a lot of lee-way here and I think Mythago did a good job overall.

I loved both stories.  I'm glad I didn't have to judge.  But I think I would have gone with mythago's 'cause I think her usage of climb was original and compelling.  One of the best usages of a picture I've seen.

Zhaneel


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## mythago

Sialia, the short version is trying to keep it down to a manageable length--if you want me to go into more detail about it, I'm cool with that. But I'd rather do it off-thread because I don't want to hog the discussion, honestly.

 And again not meaning to distract, but there is a thread over in Story Hour specifically for people to post non-competition, art-inspired writings. I highly recommend Sialia's art gallery as inspiration for anyone who feels moved *cough* Orchid Blossom and by the way has anyone seen Sparky? *cough*.

 One of the coolest secondary effects of Ceramic DM is that it gets people writing.


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## Sialia

Gollee. I didn't know you'd written for my art gallery stuff.

I knew the thread was there, but I havn't looked to see what was in it for a rather long time . . .

Thanks!


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## orchid blossom

One of the best things about stories, and art in general, is how no two people will get the same thing out of it.  Something we have proof of with this discussion.  We can discuss technical construction (which I love to do) all day, but in the end there is the subjective element of the story through the readers filter that has an enormous effect.  And it should.

In the end, I did value a good story over picture use.  The "climb" photo was a weak usage, but I couldn't find a way to make it more important without the storytelling becoming heavy-handed.  I had considered having Devakiri watching the humans and thinking about how they are like ants, etc, etc, but her views had already been made clear and it would have been redundant.

With "Rest" I certainly felt the technical picture use could have been stronger, but it felt appropriate to me where it was, and the picture permiated the work, I think.  I'd considered having her return to the cave and lay her head down next to the skull she retrieved to pull in the picture, but it just didn't feel right.

And that's enough of that.  I think I'll go visit the Kiln-fired thread.


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## alsih2o

We have, in my memory, only had one participant who won or lost poorly. Unfortunately some greta writing has get beaten somewhere down the line. 

 I always come away wishing I could see more form at least oen participant, but that is why we keep doing it. A valiant match, I feel better for it


----------



## orchid blossom

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I always come away wishing I could see more form at least oen participant, but that is why we keep doing it. A valiant match, I feel better for it




Agreed.  I think the competition runs just fine single elimination.  There's always another chance down the road.


----------



## Sialia

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> One of the best things about stories, and art in general, is how no two people will get the same thing out of it.  . . .
> 
> With "Rest" I certainly felt the technical picture use could have been stronger, but it felt appropriate to me where it was, and the picture permiated the work, I think. I'd considered having her return to the cave and lay her head down next to the skull she retrieved to pull in the picture, but it just didn't feel right.



Thing is, I didn't think it was weak. It's ok by me if the picture is used as a picture, as long as the picture is in some way functional to the story. The use of it as a stone carving captured the texture and color of their piece, so that it functionally embraced the form as well as the content. And it was clear to me that the piece permeated the story because I felt something of the same mood in reading your story as I felt when I created the piece.

I drew it the same day that Bandeeto and I purchased our first house, a scant few weeks ago. I was filled with a strange mixture of fulfillment of a long awaited ambition and a terrible fear of the enormity of what we had just done. We've been waiting over ten years to be able to do this, and it will take us another 30 years to pay for it. I will be a senior citizen before we complete the payments on this purchase, if Josh and I are fortunate enough to live that long. We are now both obligated to stay alive that long--neither of us can do this alone.

I didn't think about that while I was doing the drawing--there was a mind numbing paralysis of all linguisitic thought all that day. It was a week or two later before I could look back at it and realize what went in to it.

So themes of the passage of time, grim resolve, terror, and embracing eternity were all very appropriate.

And Mythago, I love what you did with "She Waits."
That painting has a story of its own, too, but it's not nearly as interesting as the one you built for it. Many thanks.


----------



## Piratecat

I'll post the results of Match 1-5 (Tzor vs. Zhaneel) tomorrow, most likely, depending on Arwink's schedule. In the mean time....

Since we now have the first four advancements (Macbeth, Alsih2o, Drose25 and Mythago), time to start the second round! The combatants -- err, contestants - will be matched up according to my handy d4, as follows:

Match 2-1: Macbeth vs. Alsih20
Match 2-2: Drose25 vs. Mythago

I'm ready to hand out pictures as soon as people tell me they're ready for them. Wakka wakka. This is exciting; I like our round 2 illustrations.

*Changes in Rules for Round 2:* Word limit rises from 5000 to 6000 words. 

Who wants to go first?


----------



## Macbeth

Ready any time. Alsih2o. Wow... I'm not sure if I'm getting of light, or in for a real beating. At least I'm not up against Mythago.


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## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Ready any time. Alsih2o. Wow... I'm not sure if I'm getting of light, or in for a real beating. At least I'm not up against Mythago.



 Yet.

 I'm ready to go whenever.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'll post the results of Match 1-5 (Tzor vs. Zhaneel) tomorrow, most likely, depending on Arwink's schedule. In the mean time....




*cries*

Want judgement.  Need to know.  *weep*

Zhaneel


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## Piratecat

I know. Ha ha. No judgment for you and Tzor!

Seriously, I'll post it as soon as we've got them all together. In the mean time, it's a lot like Schrodinger's Victory; until we announce it, you've both won!


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## alsih2o

I'm yo' huckleberry.

 Bring it on. Macbeth, pshaw- who reads shakespeare anymore?

 Everything I needed to know about great literature I learned from Frank Miller.

 Macbeth, you are going down! (well, it could be up, that whole bracket thing is so confusing)


----------



## francisca

*Match 1-8: NiTessine vs. Francisca*

Be careful what you wish for...

Agent Keady had been waiting for this meeting most of his career.  He had been shunned and ridiculed by his peers, reprimanded for “wasting time and department funds on fairy tales and tabloid fodder”, and lost partner after partner. It was all about to become worth it.  Every single humiliation he had suffered was about to pay dividends.

Seated outside Section Chief Rumfield’s office, Keady realized that for the first time in years, he was reporting to his supervisor without fear of losing his job.  

The administrative assistant’s intercom buzzed.

“Section Chief Rumfield will see you now.” she said.

Exhaling loudly, Keady stood and walked into the office.

	***

Fifty minutes later, Section Chief Rumfield closed the file folder he was holding and sat it on his desk like he glad to rid his being of its presence.  He then leaned forward, placing both elbows on the desk and held his head in his hands.  After a pregnant pause he ran his fingers through his silvering hair and finally sat up and leaned back in his chair.  With a look that was equal parts anger, humiliation, and fear, he said to Keady: 

“I guess I don’t need to tell you what this means.”

“No.  The question now becomes, what do we do about it?”, Keady said, trying not to sound smug.

Rumfield turned his gaze to the ceiling.  

Rumfield sat silently for several minutes.  In the back of his mind, he always had a nagging fear that one of those crackpot theories might be true.  Now it seemed that his fears were warranted.

	****

Six weeks before his meeting with Rumfield, Keady was on his way to meet an old friend at a topless bar.  Branch was Greenlander who immigrated to the US when he was 12.  When he was of age, he joined the Navy and became a SEAL.  He knocked around the world for several years, until a medical condition led to his discharge.  At least, that was the story Branch had always told Keady.  After his discharge, Branch joined the CIA and spent most of his career investigating various cult activities, mostly looking for ties between cult activity and international terrorist organizations.  It was during a joint investigation with the FBI that Keady had met Branch.  They had kept in touch for the last ten years or so, often comparing notes on an unofficial basis.  Keady hadn’t heard from Branch in about a year. Then out of the blue, the phone rang at 1:00AM.  Branch wanted Keady to come out and meet him for a drink.  Keady had objected, but Branch was unusually insistent.  Finally yielding, Keady now found himself in his pickup, trying not to hit the drunks stumbling about, going from bar to bar.  Finally finding a parking spot in the back lot of the bar he was meeting Branch at, the passenger side door opened and Branch jumped in, just as Keady was about to remove the key from the ignition.

“Start it up, we gotta move!”, Branch urged.

Sensing a tinge of fear in Branch’s voice, Keady complied.  After driving around for a few miles to make sure they weren’t being followed, Keady finally asked:

“Alright, now what the hell is this all about?”

Branch replied, “Do you remember what I told you when you asked where my interest in cults came from?”

Keady answered, “Yeah, wasn’t there a cult active in your home town?  And weren’t there a few murders?  Isn’t that why you guys left Greenland?”

“That was most of it.  What I didn’t tell you is that most of the village was caught up in the cult.  Man, it was bizarre.  They would get into a frenzy during their rites that you have to see to believe.  Nobody thought too much about it until the murders started, that’s when a lot of the villagers who weren’t part of the cult decided to get the hell out.

So most of us left.  I went back to Greenland last month.  My hometown has now been completely taken over by the cult.  But, that isn’t the scary part.  My cousin told me that they claimed to have found their god!  At first, we were in disbelief until we started bumping into people who were talking about something being found up on one of the glaciers nearby.  This cult worships some dragon-god, who they claim to be descended from the Midgard Serpent.  So my cousin and I decided to go check it out.  We hired some local Inuit guide….”

Keady interrupted him, “What the hell are you talking about?  Dragon-god?  You been drinking and playing D&D, or something?  I can’t believe you dragged my sorry ass out of bed for this.  I mean, I believe some pretty outlandish things…”

“Hear me out!”, Branch shouted.  “I wouldn’t pull your leg about something like this!”

“Sorry, man, go ahead.”, said Keady.

Branch continued, “So we hire these Inuit guides to take us up on the glacier.  After a solid 2 days of searching, we find the damn thing!  At first, I thought it was a dinosaur, but then it dawned on me: If it was a dinosaur, its flesh and skin should have rotted off before Greenland iced over.  But the proof was that the thing had wings!  We scouted around, and found that the cult had been busy chipping away trying to dig out.  After about an hour of climbing around, we figured it to be around 250 feet from snout to tail.  It was about then that the cult showed up and started shooting.  So we hopped on the Inuit’s sled and beat a hasty retreat down the mountain side.  Pull over, I got some pictures.”

Pulling into a parking lot, Keady flipped the light on and looked at the pictures. 

He was astounded.  Stepping right out of legend, there it was: 200+ feet of scaled terror.  It’s scales were a steely gray with an orange-red tinge.  It’s head was easily the size of a full ton pickup truck and came complete with fangs as long as man’s leg.  Even the pictures of it  - dead and frozen no less - were enough to make Keady’s skin crawl.  It was just so unnatural and menacing.

“This is amazing!”, Keady shouted.

“Oh wait, there is more.  The cult plans on reviving it.  Who knows what a dragon might do….”

“There you go again!”, Keady shouted.

“Look man, it’s a freaking dragon!  If the thing exists at all, why couldn’t it be revived?  Look, pack your bags, we’re going to Greenland.”

“Are you nuts?  Rumfield wants to fire me as is.”

“Look, it’s simple.  You go, you get proof.  You tell Rumfield to go to hell.”

Keady reluctantly agreed, but could not leave for a few days due to some work that needed to be done.

	***

The next morning, Keady called up a buddy in the satellite imaging group and requested several high resolution images of the glacier Branch had told him about.  They were ready that afternoon.  His pal, Ronson, brought them over personally.

‘Pretty amazing stuff!  What is that, a dinosaur or something?”, asked Ronson.

“Yeah, something.”, replied Keady.

The images were astounding.  Plain as day, the dragon could be seen, as if it had lain down to take a nap and had yet to wake.

“Hey, Ronson, before you go.  Do me a favor.  Until you hear otherwise from me, pull the images down from this same site every time the satellite passes over.  I’m concerned about the site being disturbed.”

“No problemo, buddy!”, Ronson said as he left.

Keady went to Rumfield’s office to turn in his leave paperwork.  When he got there, Rumfield looked at him suspiciously.

“So what is it this time?  Bigfoot?  Loch Ness monster?”, mocked Rumfield.

Keady just grinned and went home to pack.

	***
The next morning found Keady and Branch on a plane quietly looking over the files on this particular cult.  As Branch had told him earlier, Keady learned that this cult worshipped a dragon-god.  The followers claim that the dragon was put into it’s current state of suspended animation by a bastard son of Thor, who had extracted it’s heart, causing it to fall into a slumber.  This supposedly happened around the time that Christianity was coming to prominence in Greenland, so the cult was quickly driven underground, and has only recently resurfaced. At any rate, the followers believe that they only need to bring the dragon’s heart back into it’s presence and it will be re-absorbed and the dragon re-animated.  Legend has it that the heart is hidden in plain view, somewhere near the glacier. 

Branch handed Keady another sheet of paper.  This document concerned a Christian church, the Church of the Blessed Herald.  Apparently, in ancient times, this church was the primary reason the cult was driven underground.  Ancient lore says there is a prophecy which even discusses the return of the dragon.  A fragment of the prophecy reads:

“And the chosen one shall seek the Golden Herald.
 And by doing so, his body and spirit shall be arrayed in the cloth of the Lord, 
 And his hands made mighty with the power of Him, 
 And his infernal foe shall be cast down.”

	***

Keady and Branch arrived at the hotel and checked in.  Branch soon made contact with the same Inuit guide who had taken him to the glacier on his last visit, and made arrangements for another trip.

Having a full day before the trip to the glacier, the next day was spent knocking around town looking for anything resembling a dragon heart.  While walking around the town’s harbor, Keady was asked to take a picture of a family posing in front of what appeared to be a giant ball of twine.  The ball was apparently a local oddity that drew a fair amount of attention.  Branch questioned  the old man who owned it.   The old man told him that it wasn’t twine at all, but rather material from old fishing nets.  Further, the ball was started by his forefathers several hundred years ago, and had been passed down through the generations, father to son, each adding net material and growing the size of the ball.  Branch and Keady looked at one another, each wondering what size a dragon heart might be.

	***

The next morning, while preparing to meet with the Inuit guide, there was quite a buzz about the hotel lobby.  Branch enquired and discovered that during the night, someone had cut apart the old man’s ball of net cording.

Wasting no time, they found the Inuit guide who quickly drove them to the base of the mountain where he kept his sleigh.  About an hour into the trek, Keady asked Branch a question.

“What are we going to do if we find the dragon alive and well when we arrive?”

Branch thought for a moment, then replied, “I don’t know.  At least we have the Inuit!”

Keady laughed as a he started to form a mental image of the Inuit charging the dragon wielding a makeshift lance, from the back of his Caribou-drawn sleigh. 

	***

The second day of their journey found them observing the snow they were whisking past.  Scores of tracks were present, some were from people on foot, and others were from Caribou-drawn sleighs.  It was clear: the cult was assembling to wake the dragon.

It was near dawn when they closed in on the glacier.  Branch instructed the Inuit to stay put behind a ridge of ice and drifting snow, where he would be out of sight.  Keady and Branch headed up the slope.  When they reached the top, they dropped down onto all fours and peered over the crest of the ridge.  What they saw was straight out of fiction.

Surrounding  the dragon were followers bearing torches, all dressed in long black and red robes.  A man was standing in front of the dragon’s snout, holding up what Keady guessed to be the heart, as even at this distance, he could see it slowly starting to pump.  Chants began, which quickly rose and fell, undulating like a serpent.  Slowly, but with purpose, the follower carrying the heart made his way to the dragon’s left side.  Pressing the heart up against the dragon’s ribcage, just behind the forelegs, the follower gave a mighty shove.  In an instant, he and the heart disappeared, presumably into the dragon’s chest cavity.

At this point, the chanting stopped and the followers began to edge away. In a span of a few seconds since the follower/heart disappeared, loud sounds of cracking ice began to echo about the glacier.  Then suddenly, the dragon raised his head and flexed his wings, sending shards of glacial ice into the air and all over the followers.  Then the dragon began to feed.  After snatching up a dozen or so of his black and red clad worshippers, the dragon belched forth a volley of hellfire which burnt the rest to a crisp.

It was then, Keady and Branch decided they had seen enough.  Half sliding, half running down the slope as fast as they could, they shouted for the guide to make the sleigh ready.  Jumping onto the sleigh as it set into motion, they urged the guide to push the Caribou as hard as he could.  But it was too little, too late.  The sound of giant beating wings was soon upon them.  Wheeling, the dragon came down and snatched up all five Caribou in one fell swoop, taking the sleigh up into the air with them.  Branch and Keady jumped immediately, but the Inuit was tangled in the reigns, and plunged a couple hundred feet to his presumed death when the dragon bit through the reins.

Seeing a small ravine to their left, Keady and Branch made a run for it.  Upon entering the ravine, they discovered it had a steeply sloped floor which caused them to tumble downhill almost immediately.  When they reached the bottom, Keady looked up and caught the light of dawn reflecting from a golden statue set atop a church steeple.  
Dragging Branch up by the arm, Keady made his way to the church doors and flung them open.  He was stunned to find that the church as full.  Suddenly the Priest shouted:

“Hurry!  Our time of action is now!  Bring forth the relics!”

Three men came forth.  One bore a large round shield, the outward side black as pitch.  The second bore a conical helm of bright steel and chainmail shirt, shiny as chrome.  The third bore a large cross, made of a heavy wood and iron shod.  They dressed Keady in the armor and place the cross to him.  The priest blessed  him, and bid him to go forth and defeat the dragon.

Oddly, Keady was not afraid.  He stepped forth from the church just in time for the dragon to fly over.  He ran out into the open and yelled something in a language he had never heard before.  It was at this he noticed that cross had taken on a slightly different appearance.  It no longer seemed to be a cross, but rather a giant war hammer, shod in steel and covered in runes, which he could now read.  Mjolnir, they said.

Steadying himself, he spread his feet wide apart and raised his shield.  The dragon again belched forth a torrent of hellfire.  Behind the shield, Keady was untouched.  The dragon passed and turned for another attack.  Dropping the shield, Keady grasped the hammer with both hands and held it over his head.  The dragon was coming full tilt, with it’s gaping jaws wide open.  When the dragon was just close enough to snap it’s jaws shut around him, Keady deftly stepped to one side and struck a blow straight down onto the dragon’s head.

There was a clap of thunder and a flash of brilliant white light, Keady passed out.

	***

Keady awoke to find himself looking at Branch.  

Keady muttered, “What happened?”

“You killed the dragon, that’s what!”, exclaimed Branch.

	***

About 5 weeks later, Keady was still savoring Rumfield’s silence when he asked:

“What got you?  What made you believe?”

Rumfield slowly brought his gaze back down from the ceiling to Keady.

“DNA, satellite, eye witness accounts.  Hell, it even showed up on NATO radar.  How could I not believe it?”, muttered Rumfield.  “Now I have a question for you.  You must have always wanted one of these investigations of yours provide you with concrete proof you could show me and the world.  You got it now.  What has that done for you?”

Keady considered the question for a moment, then stood up and started for the door.  He stopped, turned around, and said, “ I guess to be careful what you wish for.”


----------



## francisca

Well, there it is, for good or bad.  I was only able to find about 3 hours to spend on it tonight, and I won't have time tomorrow, so it will have to do.

And I just realized one of my edits didn't make it in before I posted.   GGGRRREEAAATTT!!!  

Hell with it, I'm going to bed.


----------



## BSF

I feel your pain!  Last Ceramic DM my story was missing an element from it during copy/paste.  I haven't re-read this one yet to see what I missed here. But hey, focus on the positive, you just took 4 wacky pictures and tied them together with some sort of cohesion and you did it in less than 72 hours.  

Good job!


----------



## NiTessine

Match 8-1: NiTessine vs. francisca

*Ragnarok*

Jack Fort had left the agency a year ago. They’d been very understanding about it. No confinement to a strange island, no hitmen sent after him, not even mandatory therapy. Still, the _other_ agency wouldn’t have been nearly as friendly about it, so Jack thought it might be best to disappear for a while. Like the next five decades. And thus it was that the man who had once been Jack Fort was now known as Björn Østersund, a fisherman in the Norwegian Lapland.

The diet was monotonous, consisting mostly of cod, with a little dried cod every now and then, for a change. The weather, frankly, sucked, with the winter lasting ten months, and the weather alternating between raining hail, snow, and just plain old water. Still, nobody was trying to kill him, and everybody else in the village was human, so Jack – sorry, Björn – couldn’t complain. He was almost beginning to enjoy the simple life, spending the days out at the sea and the evenings in the town’s pub. Björn never drank too much. Paranoia dies hard, even when the Hell has frozen over. That, and Norwegian beer tasted like something that’d been drunk already.

After all the trouble he’d gone to in order to stay hidden, according to Murphy’s Law it was only inevitable that someone would find him.

It happened late at night, during what passed for summer within the Arctic Circle. Björn was trudging his way up the hill to his cabin on the outskirts of the village, having finished his pint of Guinness in the tavern. He was uncertain whether it was a stroke of luck or just the power of a well-known brand that made the Irish stout available in there, in the most distant corner of the civilised world, nor did he much care, as long as it was available. He may have given up his old identity, but only death would part him from Irish spirits.

As soon as Björn crossed the threshold to his dwelling, he sensed something was wrong. There was no discernible reason, merely a twitch of the sixth sense that he had cultivated during his previous life. For a moment, he stood stock still in the doorway, his tall form silhouetted against the starry sky. Then, he sprang into motion, lunging low across the room and sweeping the semiautomatic pistol from its hiding place on the underside of a chair into his hand, all in one fluid motion.

Björn pointed the gun into the darkness of the cabin, waving it from one shadow to another. There, movement! The Beretta swivelled to point at the figure of a man, disentangling itself from the shadows, stepping into a pool of moonlight in front of a window. The pale illumination revealed a man in his mid-fifties, with eyeglasses that were rimmed in neon blue. (1)
“Hello, Jack,” the man spoke.
“Will, what the hell are you doing here?” Björn demanded, the gun pointed at the man’s head.
“Having a gun pointed at my head. Please, I speak a lot better when not being threatened,” the man retorted, indignation in his voice.
“Right,” Björn said, lowering the pistol. “Now, tell me.”
“I came to find you,” Will spoke, moving to close the door. “You quit, so you’re the only man I trust who can do what I need done. Oh, and you are in the right country to begin with.”
“You said it yourself. I quit. And there’s nothing in Norway that the agency would be interested in. We’ve got cod, cold and cold cod.”
“You’re absolutely right and absolutely wrong at the same time. There’s something very interesting indeed here, but the agency does not know about it.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you if you agree to help me. This is not a small thing.”
There was a long, expectant silence. Then Björn spoke:
“Well, I’m getting tired of fish, anyway. Talk.”

Willem Brock let a momentary smile pass his lips, and then began.
“It’s a long story, but I guess we’ve got the time. You’ve seen the world’s largest ball of twine?”
“Yeah, I drove past it once.”
“Well, it’s not just an ordinary ball of twine.”
“Of course not, it’s the biggest in the world.”
“No, it’s not ordinary twine, either. See, I was there some months back, following a lead. There was this stumpy old woman there, waiting for me. (2) Weird clothes. She knew my name, my job, what I was seeking, even where we hid that mob boss’ body twelve years ago. And she told me her name was Urd.”
Jack’s eyebrows shot up.
“You think she was for real?” he asked. In the agency, he’d had more than enough brushes with the supernatural, even though they weren’t his area.
“Yeah, I do. Had even a genuine accent. She was one of the Norse Fates, I’m pretty sure. And the world’s largest ball of twine is really…” he trailed off.
“The Nornor’s yarn of fate,” Jack finished. “So, that’s why you’re in Norway. What else did she say, then?”
Willem’s expression turned grave.
“I’ve got less than a week to live. Some genetically engineered disease we never found out about, just to kill me. Vengeance by one of the mad scientists we put behind the bars, probably. The only thing keeping me alive is this.” He turned his head and tapped the blue arm of his glasses. With a start, Jack realised it went inside his head.
“Recycles the oxygen in my head. One of the boys down in the lab fixed it up for me. And this, this is small compared to the big news.”
“What’s that, then?”
“The Ragnarok.”

*  *  *

When the day next dawned, they were riding a snowmobile southwards, across the snowfields. The Skand Mountains loomed in the south, their snowy caps majestic in the distance.
“Why would we be able to prevent the Ragnarok?” Jack was shouting over the motor’s roar. “The Norse believed in Fate, and that’s a hard thing to overcome.”
“The Norse believed in what they believed, but the real world doesn’t work that way. It sure is trying to, though,” Willem replied. “I came to you because the agency got compromised. Damon and Lyesmith were working for the other side. It’s all a giant power struggle about the end of the world, Jack. Us, the Illuminati, the KGB, even the Holy See, they’re all playing it. And this won’t be a cakewalk. We won’t need to go deep in the mountains, but the other side’s in this, too.”
“Loki?”
“Yeah. Some others, too, but mainly Loki.”
“There! We’ve got company!” Jack pointed at a plume of snow in the horizon, directly in front of them.
“That’d be the other side. How many shots you got?”
“One clip armour-piercing, one clip hollowpoints.”
“Ain’t gonna be enough, but they’ll have to do.”
As they drew closer, their adversary came into better view.
“Will, it’s a sled. With reindeer,” Jack said.
“I can see it, Jack. But that’s not Santa Claus.”

Indeed, it could only have been Santa Claus, if old Papa Noel had lost some 200 pounds, shaved, worn black, and carried a lance. (3)
“What he thinking? This isn’t jousting,” Jack said, as the man levelled his spear and directed his animals straight at the snowmobile.
“Tell him that. Got the gun?” Willem said, tensely.
“Yeah,” Jack replied, pulling the 9mm pistol from his jacket and flipping off the safety.
“Let him have it.”
In a snowmobile going at top speed, one of the things you cannot do is aim. Nevertheless, Jack was a master marksman, and several of his shots hit the lance wielder, his black-clad form shuddering at the impact of the hollowpoint slugs. Considering a normal man’s reaction would have been to collapse in a bleeding heap, this was fairly worrying. Jack’s clip was empty, and the lance was still pointed at them. The former agent was fairly certain, though he could not clearly see, that the man on the other end of the deadly weapon was grinning as its point pierced the snowmobile’s engine. At the same moment, Jack felt himself bodily flung from the vehicle. He and Willem landed in a heap, as the snowmobile continued on, throwing somersaults in the air and coming to rest in a crumpled heap a good thirty meters from their position.

“That was no ordinary spear,” Willem groaned as he lay on his back in the snow, staring at the bright blue sky.
“Longinus, you think?” Jack replied, laying next to his friend.
“Yeah, or Odin. More likely Longinus. Vatican is working for their side.”
“Let’s kick his ass.”
They rose to their feet, facing the assailant, who’d stopped his sled and was now approaching them, wielding a curved scimitar, its sharp blade glinting in the sun. At this distance, his Asian features were plain to be seen.
“Well, he’s no Northman.”
“Nobody said they must be, Jack. It’s a good thing I brought this,” Willem said, pulling something small and black from his jacket. He did something, and it was suddenly very long, but still quite black.
“A collapsible bo. Got another?”
“No.”
“Have to do this by hand, then.”
“Looks like it.”

The battle was quite short and very brutal. Though a skilled swordsman, the Asian was outnumbered and facing equally skilled fighters. The agency didn’t skimp on training expenses. Willem was bleeding from a gash in the arm, and Jack’s protective glasses were neatly bisected, with a corresponding thin red line across his face, but neither were seriously hurt. Their foe lay dead in the snow. They buried his spear but left him there. Jack took his scimitar. After transferring their salvageable equipment from the snowmobile to the sled, they sped off. The reindeer were surprisingly easy to control, almost like machines. Willem suspected their minds had been tampered with.

*  *  *

The two faced no more adversaries as they travelled south. They cut the reindeer loose when they reached the foothills and could not carry on with the sled, but the animals just stood there, dumbly. They were still standing when Jack last glanced at them with his binoculars, five hours of walking and climbing later.

“Now, let’s hope we don’t run into trolls. It’d be stupid to be eaten at this point,” Willem muttered, as they hoisted themselves up on a plateau. 
“Don’t jinx it. Besides, it looks like we’re here,” Jack replied, pointing at something in the distance. Willem raised his binoculars. There, in the valley, stood a golden statue. It was thirty feet high, at least, though the surrounding mountains made accurate estimations impossible. In one hand, it held a long horn, raised to its lips. (4)
“Yes, we are here. That is Heimdall,” Willem confirmed with a smile.

“So, now we have to prevent Loki from getting to Heimdall?” Jack asked.
“Yes. Heimdall blowing his horn will signify the start of the final battle, and he’ll do it the second he sees Loki. Then, they are supposed to do battle, and both will perish. The tricky part is in how you find a god of subterfuge and lies who does not with to be found,” Willem said, scanning the snowy landscape.
“Easy. You make yourself an annoying obstacle in his way,” a third voice answered. It was followed by a gunshot. As Willem collapsed, groaning, Jack whirled around, bringing his own gun to bear. He found himself facing a man in thick, black winter clothing, wearing the black glasses issued by every secret organisation everywhere to its operatives. He was slightly balding, and also pointing a gun at Jack.
“Damon,” Jack spat out the name.
“Yes. I expect he told you I’d gone to work for the bad guys. He was slightly inaccurate. See, I am the bad guy. My boss, being imprisoned under a serpent, has to work by proxy in this. And you are getting in the way of the biggest fireworks in the history. Goodbye, Jack,” the agent said, and it almost looked like his shades were blinking...

Lightning-quick, Jack turned around, dropping low and slashing with his scimitar before he even saw what he was striking, while shooting at Damon without aiming. Three gunshots rang out almost simultaneously. A reflection in the sunglasses, that’s all it’d taken...

To his great surprise, none of them hit him. Two pierced the breast of the now-former agent Damon, who keeled over, quite dead, a smoking gun falling from his hand. Another gun fell to the snow from the hand of the also former agent Lyesmith, shot through the breast by his associate and nearly split in twain diagonally by Jack’s scimitar. It was sharper than it looked, and it looked very sharp indeed.

Almost before the bodies had fallen, Jack was kneeling next to Willem, turning his old friend around. Blood stained the snow around him, and more spilt each second.
“Don’t worry... old friend,” Willem said, quietly. His glasses were caked with snow and red flecked his lips. “After... preventing Ragnarok... I can’t be going to a bad... place.”
And he died, his face freezing into a smile.

Jack rose, feeling strangely calm. A pistol in one hand, a scimitar in the other, he turned to look at the golden statue, down in the valley. It had lowered the trumpet, and was looking at him. Somehow, even though there must’ve been a thousand feet between them, he saw its face clearly as if he’d stood right in front of it. The wind howled between the mountains, and the clouds picked up speed, travelling impossibly fast. Heimdall’s golden lips cracked open.
“Thank you.”


----------



## NiTessine

And I had, what... 28 minutes to spare? Truly, last-minute panic is the greatest of all inspirations...


----------



## mythago

Now I have that darn Weird Al song stuck in my head...


----------



## BSF

mythago said:
			
		

> Now I have that darn Weird Al song stuck in my head...




Ah, I had to scan the story enough to find the reference.  Long time Weird Al fan.  I can even sing that song all the way through.  Just not quite as fast as he can.  

Looks like it will be a great read NiTessine!


----------



## NiTessine

I don't remember putting in a Weird Al Yankovic reference. What do you mean?


----------



## BSF

NiTessine said:
			
		

> I don't remember putting in a Weird Al Yankovic reference. What do you mean?




Biggest Ball of Twine - From the UHF soundtrack/album.  

Well I guess I had two weeks of vacation time coming
after working all year down at Big Roy's Heating and Plumbing...


----------



## NiTessine

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Biggest Ball of Twine - From the UHF soundtrack/album.




I see. I know the ball of twine from Sam & Max Hit the Road and that one John Travolta movie where he was Archangel Michael.


----------



## alsih2o

I have the literary version of an itchy trigger finger.

 Tonight cannot come soon enough.


----------



## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I have the literary version of an itchy trigger finger.
> 
> Tonight cannot come soon enough.



Why does this worry me? One monkey with a popsicle is no match for my infinite monkeys with typewriters! Oh, wait, that's Hamlet...


----------



## orchid blossom

I was just going through some old Ceramic DM threads to get some sets of pics to practice on and found this.



			
				Piratecat said:
			
		

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




And just a couple days ago he posted this:



			
				Piratecat said:
			
		

> Clay, I'm only giving up judging if you win this contest! _there, that ought to light a fire underneath his tail._  Bwah ha ha! I have something like 90 photos left over, and I'll start to twitch if I can't somehow use them.  You may get a darn big email from me when you take over judging again.




Quite the turnaround there, huh?


----------



## alsih2o

Pictures man! I am like a wordsmithing dance party waiting to happen!


----------



## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Pictures man! I am like a wordsmithing dance party waiting to happen!



Theres a sig quote if I ever saw one.


----------



## orchid blossom

That is a truly frightening picture, Clay.


----------



## alsih2o

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> That is a truly frightening picture, Clay.




 Thanks OB, I shouldn't be posting, but I am a little nervous in the wait.

  At least with Macbeths new webcam we can watch him be nervous-


----------



## Piratecat

Okay, here you go! Match 2-1: Macbeth vs. Alsih2o. 6000 words this time, 72 hours, and a whole lot of creativity.

I'm anticipating these eagerly.


----------



## Macbeth

Uh... Wow... What the heck...


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> That is a truly frightening picture, Clay.




It would be an even more frightening picture if it was used for one of the rounds.

Oh, that would a nasty one to try and stick in a story.


----------



## Macbeth

Ah, the ideas start to flow. This should be interesting...


----------



## Piratecat

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Uh... Wow... What the heck...




See? Piece of cake! And art by Sialia, too.

Please note that "eager" is NOT by Sialia. I don't know who the artist is, or I'd credit them.

Tomorrow morning I'll post the results of RangerWickett vs Speaker. Right now, though. . .


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-5: Tzor vs. Zhaneel.*

*Maldur:*

Again mighty hard, But the twist at the end made my choice for me.

Zhaneel get my vote.


*Arwink:*

Tzor – Little Jimmy

Short, sweet and still showing the occasional rough edge, Tzor manages to turn in one of the quickest tales I’ve read in this competition. An interesting concept, but it looses something due to its quick pace. Short short fiction is always hard to balance in this respect, and Tzor does a fair job with it, but ultimately the narrative tension is dissipated before it even gets a chance to build up. A little more fleshing out, the introduction of some kind of impediment to the narrator’s quest for understanding what’s going on, and this would be a great quick read.

Zhaneel

Zhaneel's story has a really dark undertone that subverts the usual expectations for this kind of story, and it manages to handle its premise more effectively than many that try this kind of twist. It reads a little flatly – there are a number of passive sentences that could be tightened, but on the whole it holds together well and does what it sets out to do. I did like the picture use in this story, although the conversion of the first image into a throwaway metaphor rather than a story element is either brilliant or a quick escape, depending on the point of view the reader chooses to take. While the description itself flashes by, at its core it is a large part of what drives the character and its influence is felt through the story.

The Judgment

Another close round here, mostly because the stories are different enough that drawing any real basis for comparison between them becomes tricky. In the end I gave the round to Zhaneel – the type of story she’s written up isn’t normally something that I go for, but it’s done in such a way that I enjoyed it. The subtext of fantasy heroes being driven by a desire to be noticed more than anything else is great, and I think the story itself is an idea worth toying with and fleshing out.


*Piratecat:*

Tzor's tale is possibly the shortest I've seen, and it's quite good considering its length. This is also part of its weakness, though, because the brevity doesn't leave any space for drama or action. Events are relayed in general terms and summarized as if from a distance, and so the story is less immediate and gripping than it could be. Even Jimmy remains a plot device, not a person, so we don't grow to care about him.

Despite this, it remains a nice, compact bit of fiction; I wouldn't have believed you if you told me you could cover all four photos in less than a thousand words. Photo use is okay, with no one photo being used in an especially outstanding way.


When I first read Zhaneel's story, I went through a couple of stages: delight at the girl who was effectively invisible, disappointment when I thought it was going to turn into a traditional "girl enters new world to come of age and find herself," and glee when the end turned tricky. This was good writing; it played with the reader's expectations quite nicely, using literary jujitsu to take a cliche' and make it transcend expectations.

Photo use ranged from staid (the robes, the stairs) to creative (crocodile) to completely unexpected (camoflage as a metaphor.) 

I was extremely impressed by how compact Tzor's story was; I know that I could't have written something that good in that many words. Nevertheless, better picture use and a good premise/ending give Zhaneel my vote.


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for Zhaneel, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## Sialia

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> OK, there it is. Wish I had a little more time, but I will be busy all Wednesday through the deadline. Ack - I better get to bed. I need some sleep tonight.



Things have been hectic here, and somehow the thread moved on a few pages past your entry before I got back online. Tonight I realized I had somehow missed it, and had to dig back a few pages to find it. 

Wow. Am I sorry I waited so long to get to it!

And then I paged forward and got to read a bunch more wonderful stories I hadn't had a chance to read yet.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

This competition has set up some truly awesome matches in the first round.

I cannot wait for more!!  

You guys rock my world.


----------



## Maldur

Another judgement send!

Great stuff peoples!


----------



## BSF

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Thanks OB, I shouldn't be posting, but I am a little nervous in the wait.
> 
> At least with Macbeths new webcam we can watch him be nervous-




Heh, that's funny but I can attest that it looks nothing like Macbeth!  (And no, I am not just an alt ID of Piratecat bouying up another Alt ID of Piratecat.  See silly thread for details 

Umm, back on topic, yeah, that's the ticket.

My brain still hurts.  Looking at the first pictures for round two, I am at a loss as to whether I hope I win or not.  (Who am I fooling, of course I want to win.)  I need sleep, and yet I'm post here at nearly 1:00 AM.  OK, I did just get back from a gamin session, so it makes sense that I am up.  Regardless of how this round turns out for me, I am still happy to have written in it.  I am appreciative for the work of the judges because it has got to be difficult to have 16 stories to read, knowing that you are just paring it down to 8, then 4, then 2.  It is a lot of work for you guys.  I love the fact that some of Sialia's artwork is in the competition.  I am enjoying the comments on the other stories.  I am looking forward to reading them, but not until I am done with the competition.  I'm trying to keep my muse from feeling intimidated. It's been a lot of fun and I am looking forward to future competitions.  

Thanks!


----------



## RangerWickett

Well, I'm up at 6am after a night of filling my new hard drive with fonts and video game remixes, and I really want to know how I did.  But I also want to watch Kill Bill some time today, and if I don't go to sleep until noon, that might be a problem.  Hmm. 

Oh, what the hell.  I'll just go find some more fonts.  *grin*


----------



## Piratecat

Be aware that Morrus has turned off email notification for a day or two, to see if that's what is causing our intermittant slowdown. If you depend on it to alert you to changes in this thread, you'll have to use the good old traditional "obsessive doublechecking for updates" method for a bit.

--------

*Judgment of Match 1-6: RangerWickett vs. Speaker.*

*Maldur:*

Gods, this is hard.  After carefull consideration, involving tealeaves, astrology, tarot readings, and russian roulette (it was that close). I cast my vote for RangerWicket as that is the funniest start of a story yet 


*Arwink:*

Rangerwickett – Random Acts of Kindness

Another really nice opening, finding the balance between conveying information and teasing us with the desire for more information.  It raises some interesting questions about the main character, Hamid, but unfortunately not all of these questions seem relevant to the story that follows.  What begins as an interesting opening seems to loose focus as we start to delve into Hamid’s story, and there isn’t a strong enough connection between the man as he appears in his tale and the way he is depicted in the introduction with the horse.  It reads like the first part of a longer story, rather than something that stands on its own.  As a reader, I find myself hungering to see how and where Hamid changes.  That we don’t even return to the setting at the beginning of the story, with Hamid and the reporter talking, only strengthens this feeling of wanting more – it leaves the story feeling incomplete and lost in the flashbacks.

The clash of arcane cultures is interesting, but doesn’t really flow fluidly in the story.  There’s a lot of unanswered question here, which again contributes to the feeling that we’re only really getting half the story.  While the picture use was innovative and interesting, it also tended to be slightly overt – it was noticeable that certain things happened in order to include a picture rather than fitting seamlessly into the story.  

Speaker – On the Scales

Speaker gives us an intriguing monologue, and the feel of someone performing rather than telling a story is pervasive throughout this story.  The plot is very stripped down and basic, but the style of the story carries it.  

My only real complaint is that it rushes through things far to quickly, often glossing over events where I would have preferred to see things approached in a different style.  While this story is dense and immediate, it feels more like theatre than fiction – with an actor to give us subtext and emphasis I think it would truly come alive in a way that it doesn’t quite manage here.

Judgment

These are both interesting pieces with very individual strengths, and while Speaker’s is slightly more cohesive in terms of its story the mood and pace of Rangerwickett’s story gives it a little more life than his competitors.  My vote for the round goes to Rangerwickett.


*Piratecat:*

A brief bit of trivia - the turban on the man's head is actually 375 meters long. That's a heck of a turban.

RangerWickett's story delighted me and reminded me why he writes professionally. It started off better than it ended. That's partially because it didn't have closure; we never go back to the framing story of the reporter, and that weakens it more than I would have thought. It also is weakened a bit by some holes in logic and by the fact that despite the framing story it isn't told as if it's recounted. Despite this it's got a fantastic beginning and a very good middle, and it's a good example of storytelling. I suspect that if he hadn't completed it after writing all night it would have been edited to a tighter finish.

Photo use was inventive and fun. The use of the creepers being turned into eyeballs was the best use of a photo, as it established major plot points as it explained a difficult illustration. Tying together the stone head and the turban was nicely done, and the idea of the head under the turban made me laugh. While the ice tunnel usage was unremarkable, the troll prophets at the end of it weren't, so it works decently as an illustration.

Speaker's story reads as a confession, and I'm still not entirely sure if the lack of establishing detail throughout helps or hinders it. I'm tending towards the latter; it's an interesting and effective stylistic choice with some very nice word usage ("The water-tinged shadows danced like demons. We left."), but I find the absence of names and details to be a distraction. I want to know more!  I also find that Speaker is suffering from the curse of trying to fit four photos into a relatively short tale. Events occurred only so that they could be illustrated, and that tends to weaken a tale.

Interesting that both competitors put objects under the turban. Photo usage varied; the child hidden under the turban is an interesting twist, but the quickchange of the character from the "eye detectives" in the story left that photo usage less satisfying than it would have been on its own. "Pensive" felt like it was inserted because it had to be there, but the description of the water tunnel was handled very effectively.  

Speaker's monologue had me wanting more, but my judgment goes for RangerWickett, with his story that manages to combine humor and action into some very nice imagery.

*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for RangerWickett, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## RangerWickett

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Be aware that Morrus has turned off email notification for a day or two, to see if that's what is causing our intermittant slowdown. If you depend on it to alert you to changes in this thread, you'll have to use the good old traditional "obsessive doublechecking for updates" method for a bit.




Obsessive checking works.

I didn't realize how much I would squeal to hear I made the cut.  Sure, part of it is sleep dep', but I'm still really thrilled you guys liked the story.  I'll make sure in the next round not to write past 3am; it make me not use word things good.  (Oh, and I hope it wasn't too obvious or too stupid, but all the transformations were based on rhymes.)

Speaker, your story was disturbing, in a nice way.  I liked the voice, but I wish you'd written more so I could get into it more.  Still, I'm amused that we both had things hidden in the turban.  It was fun competing against'cha.


----------



## carpedavid

I've really enjoyed reading all of the stories in the competition thus far. Across the board, the quality has been better than what I'd been expecting, with some really great standouts.

In particular, the Orchid Blossom/Mythago match was fantastic. When I read Orchid Blossom's entry, I thought, "holy *bleep*, that was good." Then I read Mythago's and thought, "holy *bleep*-ing *bleep*, that was good."

I thought AlSiH2O's story was another standout - the wood witch caught my interest, and makes me want to run a d20 Modern game.

The other entry that played fetch with my imagination was the story by RangerWickett. It's far too easy to make the "modern setting where mythology is real" dark and foreboding (it's certianly the tendency I have, as a GM), so the humor in this story provided a refreshing counterpoint to the drama and tension. All I could think of, when I finished reading, was, "Man, I *really* want to play in that world."

Kudos to all so far. When I saw the initial sign-up thread, I contemplated entering. After reading all of these entries, I think that next time I must.


----------



## arwink

Another one written up and sent off to the great overlord Piratecat.
Now my tired brain demands sleep 

My appologies to those still waiting for the judges comments on their rounds - I've ended up moving house over the next two weeks, so my weekend suddenly shifted from "Reading Ceramic DM and watching Sinbad movies" to "Pack up the horde of bookshelves and drive them two hours north to my new home."  I'm hoping to have the last of the first round judging done by the end of the weekend, but it may end up being pushed back to Monday afternoon.


----------



## alsih2o

Well, I am just all over this. 

 Well, mostly all over this.

 Well...mostly confused.

 And a little panicky.


----------



## Piratecat

Match 2-3 will be Zhaneel vs. RangerWickett.  Eel vs. Ewok death cage challenge!  When do you folks want your photos?


----------



## RangerWickett

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Match 2-3 will be Zhaneel vs. RangerWickett.  Eel vs. Ewok death cage challenge!  When do you folks want your photos?




What are our options?  (i.e., I'm busy until Tuesday, so can we get the photos Saturday or Sunday, pretty please?)


----------



## Piratecat

Sunday night's fine with me. Saturday's not; one of my gaming buddies from high school just got back safely from a year in Iraq, so I'm headed down to CT to go be joyous. Other than that, we're fairly flexible.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> [Arwink]I did like the picture use in this story, although the conversion of the first image into a throwaway metaphor rather than a story element is either brilliant or a quick escape, depending on the point of view the reader chooses to take.




I like to think it is brilliant.  

Thanks for the note on passive sentences.


			
				Piratecat said:
			
		

> When I first read Zhaneel's story, I went through a couple of stages: delight at the girl who was effectively invisible, disappointment when I thought it was going to turn into a traditional "girl enters new world to come of age and find herself," and glee when the end turned tricky. This was good writing; it played with the reader's expectations quite nicely, using literary jujitsu to take a cliche' and make it transcend expectations.




Whoo.  Literary jujitsu.  And that is more or less the process I went through while writing.  Hey!  Neat story idea pounds brain.  Ugh, but it is cliche as all hell.  Well, maybe if I do this...

Thanks everyone.  A couple of people have convinced me that there is something worth polishing in this story, so I'll let y'all know if this goes on.

Zhaneel


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Match 2-3 will be Zhaneel vs. RangerWickett.  Eel vs. Ewok death cage challenge!  When do you folks want your photos?




Actually, Gryphon (Mercades Lackey) but sure whatever.

Ugh, next week sucks.  Umm... the hard one for me is that my weeknights are rather full & I work.  Would it be too much to ask for a Friday morning posting (due Monday morning)?

Zhaneel


----------



## Speaker

RangerWickett, congrats on the utterly well deserved win.  I would have voted for you myself, in an instant - I had the luxury of not being in too much suspense over the last few days.

Judges, you made a number of excellent comments, and I thank you for your consideration.  I only wish I had spent more effort and time on this rounds showing - but having not, I am glad that the right man won!

I bow out - but will continue to observe these wonderful tales.

Cheers,
Speaker


----------



## Piratecat

Gryphon! Of course. no eels involved at all. Although that just gave me a really good idea for a monster....



			
				Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Ugh, next week sucks.  Umm... the hard one for me is that my weeknights are rather full & I work.  Would it be too much to ask for a Friday morning posting (due Monday morning)?




I would really rather not push it that far back if I can possibly avoid it. I'll accede if there's no other choice, but making the competition larger means that we need to avoid as much "dead time" as we can. I'd rather give out the photos today!  You folks know your responsibilities better than I do, though. RW, is this weekend really impossible for you?

Take a look at your schedules, guys, and let me know if you have any flexibility.


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Of course. no eels involved at all. Although that just gave me a really good idea for a monster....



 Unagi Yojimbo?


----------



## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> Unagi Yojimbo?




Now that's funny. Obscure, but funny. 

(Usagi Yojimbo is the name of a series of graphic novels about a samuari rabbit - google it for details. Unagi is japanese for eel. See, you substitute the eel for... and the rabbit now has... err. Maybe you had to be there.)


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Now that's funny. Obscure, but funny.
> 
> (Usagi Yojimbo is the name of a series of graphic novels about a samuari rabbit - google it for details. Unagi is japanese for eel. See, you substitute the eel for... and the rabbit now has... err. Maybe you had to be there.)




 Usagi Hassenpfeffer-


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I would really rather not push it that far back if I can possibly avoid it. I'll accede if there's no other choice, but making the competition larger means that we need to avoid as much "dead time" as we can. I'd rather give out the photos today!  You folks know your responsibilities better than I do, though. RW, is this weekend really impossible for you?




This weekend is really impossible for me.  I have a car/motorcycle swap thing on Saturday as well as helping cook dinner for friends.  Sunday is a 6 hour hike.  And Monday is my dance night.

As mythago's versus drose isn't posted until Monday night, could we do ours on Tuesday night (due Friday night) which I don't much like either [out Tuesday night, dinner on Wednesday, Thrusday to write, Friday out] or Wednesday night [still not a great plan but at least I'll still have Thrusday to write]?  I prefer a night posting 'cause I'm on the West Coast and therefore can see the posting between arriving home and leaving for any outings to get my brain working.  A morning posting means that I have to post the night before so I lose the 6-8 hours of sleeping that I need for work.

Zhaneel


----------



## Zhaneel

mythago said:
			
		

> Unagi Yojimbo?




Too cute.

And I must thank winter for introducing me to the referring comic.

Zhaneel


----------



## Macbeth

Well, I have a rough draft done. Hopefully I'll have some time to edit it, amybe even add a couple of scenes.

And, just to pique your interest, my entry is nothing like my last entry. Nothing at all. Completely different flavor.


----------



## tzor

*Re: Judgment of Match 1-5*

Sorry for the delay, after previously saying that I was going to check En World more often in the early days of this contest, my boss promised me that he might undo my planned redundancy (ie getting laid off) in return for not using the internet at work.  So I had to wait until I came home.

(Actually my work computer is annoying.  Some of the options ... like the start at the first unread message ... doesn't work for me on my work pc.  So reading it at home is better.  Even if I was on pins and needles all day.)

Thanks for the good comments.  I had to admit that, being new to all this, I got a little intimidated when my story hit two printed pages.  I wasn't sure how that would translate to the screen.  In hindsight I should have added a little more.

Now I can sit back, and take in the styles of everyone in the next rounds.  Just watch out ... I'm learning and I'll be ready for the next season!


----------



## BSF

tzor said:
			
		

> Thanks for the good comments.  I had to admit that, being new to all this, I got a little intimidated when my story hit two printed pages.  I wasn't sure how that would translate to the screen.  In hindsight I should have added a little more.
> 
> Now I can sit back, and take in the styles of everyone in the next rounds.  Just watch out ... I'm learning and I'll be ready for the next season!




I have the cure!  Hit the link in my .sig and go check out one of Sialia's yarns.    All of her stories from that competition were a little longer than 2 printed pages.  But yeah, I know what you are saying.  You look at it and begin to think "That's going to be a long post..."


----------



## Piratecat

tzor said:
			
		

> I got a little intimidated when my story hit two printed pages.  I wasn't sure how that would translate to the screen.  In hindsight I should have added a little more.




Isn't that scary? But it's all about the word count, not the page count. I still can't accurately judge how a Word document translates length-wise to the message boards.


----------



## RangerWickett

Suggestion for image.


----------



## WanderingMonster

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> Suggestion for image.



"Hey!  You got your easter bunny in my drag queen!"
"No!  You got your drag queen in my easter bunny!"

Two great tastes that go great together.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Isn't that scary? But it's all about the word count, not the page count. I still can't accurately judge how a Word document translates length-wise to the message boards.




I can.  But that is because I always write in Courier New, size 12.  I can pretty accurately guess the word count for both single and double space 'cause I know how long my stories have been at what word counts.

Can varying depending on amount of dialog.

And I also my first drafts almost always come in between 4500 and 5500 words.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Actually, folks should avoid adding too many random pictures to this thread; I don't want any confusion from someone quickly browsing.  

Judgment for Match 1-7 in a few minutes.


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-7: WanderingMonster vs. BardStephenFox.*

*Maldur:*

Myth and a bad end, or metal and a bad end. Both are great stories. But I am still a cyberpunk player at heart.   

BardStevenFox gets my vote. 

PS: this was one of those "why can't I advance both of them?" deals!



*Arwink:*

Wanderingmonster – Myth of Day

Wanderingmonster starts off with a story that has a real mythic feel, working his way forwards from the very first question.  It’s a powerful thing to hang a story on, and for much of the piece he manages to maintain a voice and mood that works in tandem with his key theme.  Unfortunately, it starts to loose this cohesion as it progresses on, introducing elements that seem incongruous with the setting in order to accommodate the images.  Small questions start to cause ruptures in the integrity of the story – how does an innocent man from the dawn of time start understand prison?  

Once Solrath is introduced to the story, it progresses to quickly to keep balance with the more measured beginning, giving the narrative a strange feel that leaves the conclusion slightly unsatisfying.  The pace of the language in the first half is more in keeping with the mood, and I couldn’t help feeling a little lost when the sudden rush to meeting with the Bright Lady began.

BardStephenFox – Cleansing

I’m a big fan of Cyberpunk tales, but BardStephenFox overloads us with the dense style and meat references in the early stages of this story.  It’s a delicate balance to strike with this kind of character, particularly with the pseudo-stream-of-consciousness style narration being used here, but the over-use of the term tends to turn Monkey into a rather flat character rather than a more rounded one.  He becomes a figure of cartoon menace rather than an understated and intelligent killer.

As the story develops, the connections and the characters become more intricate and the Meat references start to become more contextual zed rather than stylized.  There are some very cool ideas inherent within the intersection between the cyberpunk ethos and the religious beliefs that are touched on, and I can’t help wishing the story had delved into this a little more.  The action is well handled, and the pace of the story is well maintained.

The real flaws here, for me, largely came down to dialogue that doesn’t ring true and an ending that is a little too ambiguous to carry the rest of the story.  For the most part, this is a respectable story that could easily develop into something interesting if it were given a little more space.

Judgment

Both the stories contained some interesting elements, but in the end I give the round to BardStephenFox because I’m a sucker for a good cyberpunk story and I’ve not seen one used in this competition before. 


*Piratecat:*

Wandering Monster starts off with a wonderfully mythic feel. He really communicates the happy simplicity at the beginning of civilization, where cynicism simply has no place. I liked the first half of this very much.

The tone began to change about halfway through, because I'm not sure the protagonist's reaction to Solrath's conversation rings true. He began to get cynical and suspicious so quickly that the abrupt ending dilutes much of its possible impact. Oddly enough, I'm reminded of a Muppet Christmas Carol, where Michael Caine's Scrooge becomes a sympathetic character too quickly. This is the reverse, and as you give up the contrast of happiness vs. misery you lose sight of what Helianthus has really forsaken. I would have like to have seen a little more self-reflection and questioning.

Even for that, I really enjoyed this story. Photo usage was good to great. The book tie-in to "sharp" wasn't used, but I like the imagery of "hands", and setting "arms" as a sun goddess was inspired.

My first impression of BardStephenFox's "Cleansing" is that the first paragraph tries too hard.  It bludgeons the setting into your consciousness with too many repetitions (ten in one paragraph) of the concept "meat," almost sinking into self-parody, when a little more subtlety might have been much more effective. (Plus it made me hungry.)  Even with a string of "its/it's" errors, though, the atmosphere and grittiness comes through nicely. I was left with the impression that the narrator is very good at his job but not very bright. Communicating that sort of wary cunning is difficult, and BSF managed to do it nicely both here and in the well written action descriptions.

The core of the story is an elegant dance between memory and action that works extremely well. The internal dialogue rings true to me, although not all the conversations between people do, and I would have liked to see more focus on the interplay between religion and augmentation. There's some fascinating concepts in there. I'd also like to see a little more focus on who Singh is and what has happened to him. One complaint with the ending: since the bulk of the story is first-person narration, relating the death of the narrator is quite awkward, as is the shift to third-person narration for the last paragraph. I think keeping the last paragraph as first-person narration with a different "reborn" attitude might have been more effective.

Photo usage was quite good. The foreshadowing of "hidden," the use of "sharp" as a self-image, the combat potential of "arms"... all nicely done.

My judgment is for BardStephenFox. Both stories are good, but BSF manages to pack his with a denseness of detail and world development that hints at a well developed and complex world beyond this one particular story.


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for BardStephenFox, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Actually, folks should avoid adding too many random pictures to this thread; I don't want any confusion from someone quickly browsing.
> 
> Judgment for Match 1-7 in a few minutes.





 *sticks hand up like a basketball player admitting a foul*

 My bad, poor courtside ettiquette.


----------



## Sialia

yay!


Those were two fabulous stories. Another round that seemed more like a finalist round than an opener.

I am always a sucker for an unreliable narrator.

And I loved the picture usage.

Hooray!  We all win a pair of great stories!


----------



## BSF

Wow!  Thanks!  WanderingMonster, thanks for giving me a run I am dying to read your story, my wife says it is good, but now I am superstitious.  Last tourney, I read each story as it was posted and I think my writing suffered because of it.  This time, I am trying something different.    

Now, a little self-criticism with the judges' help.  First of all, its/it's errors? (oh good grief!)  OK, that just goes to show that my first draft should not be my final draft.  In the end, I wrote this story up in a 5 1/2 hour sitting with a single break to check EN World for relaxation.  I think it shows in the rushed manner of the story.

I thought about these pictures Sunday night, and Monday day and thought it might be a vampire story.  (Pre-pictures, I was wondering if I could work in a story about this guy that is wandering a maze, though he can't remember why he is there.  All he knows is that people keep trying to kill him.)  The crux of the story all came from the hands through the gate.  At first I thought it was a vampire prying the links apart.  But, I couldn't get past all the sunlight.  So, what else could pry the links apart?  A cyborg could.  This scene developed in my head of a cyborg doing something that a normal human couldn't and thinking about what his psychiatrist had told him about using his hands more.  It seemed like a powerful scene and I set it aside until I needed it.  In the end, it ended up looking like a throwaway scene.  Anyway, I started crafting the elements in my head Monday night and Tuesday at work.  I knew I wouldn't have time to write on Wednesday, so Tuesday night was my only writing window.  I should have tried to start sooner.

Meat - Yes, it is grossly overused in that first paragraph!    My wife told me I should cut some of it.  I pretty much agreed with her and in a second draft, I would have.  The thing is, I was trying to write from the perspective of a psychopath.  I (hopefully & thankfully) don't have much experience with that.  As a writer, I used that first paragraph to benchmark Monkey's total disdain for unaugmented people.  Establishing that, I wanted to work toward more humanity as he neared Durga. I wanted to push a bit more of that feeling, but I lost sight of it in a flurry of keystrokes.

Monkey - No, Monkey is not the brightest guy out there.  Little clues like forgetting he doesn't have a language chip socketed, talking about Meat in front of the mind-doc, and language choices.  I wish the dialog worked better, but it was hard for me to conceptualize how somebody that is fundamentally broken in how he interacts with people would talk.  I was _hoping_ the poor dialog helped convey this.  

Dr. Singh - I wanted to include more about him, but in the end, I couldn't think of a satisfying way to bring him into the story.  He helped make borgs, so he helped introduce demons into the flesh of man.  How did he react to Durga?  Did she forgive him or send him on to be reborn?  How would Monkey react if Singh was in the room?  So many questions and I want answers, but I couldn't figure out how to do that and keep the focus on Monkey.

Hannah - The story moves forward in time, while moving backward in memory.  But, I would have liked to have expanded a bit more on who the mind-doc was so the reader could judge why her death was a tragedy and how much she affected Monkey.

Hidden - The hardest picture for me to integrate, so I decided it was something from his memory.  Then it became a theme.  It worked nicely I think.  Piratecat, thank you for pointing out the perspective shift!  That is one of my weak points.  I could have written that part much more effectively if I had stayed in Monkey's head.  In retrospect, that's a no brainer.

Other story weaknesses - Where do I start?  There are many in there.  I just wanted to comment on the things that have been eating my brain the last few days.  I think there might be a good story to polish in here though.  That's one of the first times I can say that, so I think I might plan to rework this sometime down the road.  It might be a good addition to Mythago'sKiln-Fired Ceramic DM thread.  

Thank you for the comments and for liking the story.  Now, I will look forward to round two.


----------



## BSF

Sialia said:
			
		

> yay!
> 
> 
> Those were two fabulous stories. Another round that seemed more like a finalist round than an opener.
> 
> I am always a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
> 
> And I loved the picture usage.
> 
> Hooray!  We all win a pair of great stories!





Oh Sialia!  I really dug the shark-demon picture.  One of the things I liked the least about the story was the mind-doc's comment to Monkey, "Do you hate yourself?"  I needed something to drive in the idea that the shark-demon was somehow part of what makes Monkey "broken".  Otherwise, the look into the mirror, and the appearance of the shark-demon at the end wouldn't make much sense.  Having the mind-doc make such a brutal assessment of a cool drawing helped.  Still, the picture usage was not as strong as I would have liked.  Nevertheless, I still like your art, it makes me stop and think.


----------



## Piratecat

The "Do you hate yourself?" line made me laugh. Quit with the self-recrimination; both you and Wandering Monster did an excellent job. That was an fun match-off.  

If I had been writing, the "sharp" picture would have been a tome whose guardian came alive. It's interesting how different people see pictures in different ways.

We'll announce the last Round One winner Monday night, I expect, and then schedule all the Round 2 matches.


----------



## WanderingMonster

Thanks everyone!  Tanks BSF for the challenging round, and thank your wife for liking my story.  All winners are very deserving, and I don't envy the judges their task at all.

I do have to ask Pkitty—If my story reminded you of _A Muppet Christmas Carol_ why didn't I win? Oh...wait.  I'm thinking of _John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together._ Nevermind.  You're right.  

Good luck on Round 2 everyone!


----------



## orchid blossom

Piratecat said:
			
		

> The "Do you hate yourself?" line made me laugh. Quit with the self-recrimination; both you and Wandering Monster did an excellent job. That was an fun match-off.




Nobody ever believes it when someone tells us we wrote something good.  (We love to hear it but don't believe it.)  We want them to rip it apart so we can learn how to make it better.

Congrats to BardStephenFox.  I'm still catching up on the reading, but it sounds like this was a match to look forward to, with two great stories to read.


----------



## Sialia

BSF, it was good. It was good, it was good, it was good. Ok?

It's worth polishing up, and I'll look forward to seeing your revision over in kiln-fired.

I'm glad you liked the picture. I was dubious about whether the drawing was too cartoony, which is why I left in the edge of the book: so a writer would have a legitimate excuse to use it as an illustration within the tory. But I loved the way that you did that, and then made it more than that.

(The following spoilered out for those not actually interested in the backstory of the illustration.)


Spoiler



I did the drawing back in college for a Jorune campaign. (Anybody remember Jorune? Terriffic world. Pretty illustrations. Easily Googled if you're curious.) I was running a naturalist who sketched pictures of all the creatures and plants we encountered in that strange and beautiful world. The first three pages of that book are all typical "naturalist" drawings (basically copies of the illustrations that came with the game materials). 

And then there is the one now called "Sharp," and it is labelled simply "Fig. 4. Crugar."

I cannot now recall the exact details, but I think the picture speaks well enough of my PC's experience with these charming native creatures.


----------



## tzor

What's this, people start telling other people that their stories are good (which they are) and suddenly the thread winds up on page 2? This calls for a strategic bump.   

Actually I just wanted to say that I have found all of the stories extreemely interesting.  Of course some were better than others and unfortunately some good ones went against some other good ones.

I'm definitely looking forward to the ones that will be posted in the second round.   

And now that the pressure is off of me, I can sit back and observe.


----------



## Macbeth

Preparing to post my entry... 

Just a couple of quick notes:

"Maman" is a French term, roughly equvalent to "Mama" or "Mother." It is a term showing caring, love, and closeness. It is not a tupid typo on "Mama." Yeah, it is kind of weird, but it gave a better sound then "mama" or "mother," and I've read Camus' _The Stranger_ way too much.

This story is slightly short, and very experimental. I have a feeling it will either succeed admirably, or fail miserably, but I wanted to try it anyway. I really hope it is enjoyable, and thought provoking, but it may just end up being trite and odd. I've never written anything even remotely like this before, so give me the full brunt of your criticism.

And without further adieu, I will giev it a last one over, amke sure the formatting's good, and post.


----------



## Macbeth

_Ceramic DM Round 2: Macbeth vs. AlSih2o_
*Grow*
_By Sage LaTorra_




Adam met his mother's gaze as she finished buttoning his jacket. Her sharp features made him feel at home. “Be carefull, Adam. It's cold out there.” Her voice was smooth and comforting.
“Yes, Maman” Adam replied with some difficulty caused by the hood of his jacket. He turned and walked, or more exactly waddled because of his heavy pants, towards the door.
“Adam?” she said, just as he reached the door.
“Yes, Maman?”
“I know you'll do well.”
“I love you, Maman.”
“I love you too, Adam.”
He stepped out into the bitting chill of the outside world, leaving the comforts of home behind him. Adam was ready to be his own man. 



The world outside was not what Adam expected. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mothers touch, her warm embrace to let him know he was safe. The snow froze him, even through his heavy jacket. At least he had the jacket. Even if she wasn't here now, his mother had made sure Adam was ready for the world.

Adam was tired and scared. He had already lost sight of the house, he was cold, he was hungry, and he was growing more and more sure that he was not ready for this. It was to soon. _Maybe I should go back_ he thought, the wind cutting through his jacket slightly. _Maybe Maman was wrong. I'm not ready. I'll just go back. She'll still be there. I can leave tomorrow._

He took a step back towards home. Or at least the direction that should be home. But he the snow was falling, and he couldn't tell if that was the way he came. He turned slowly, searching for a sign, some way to tell which way he came.

And he found a sign, but not one telling which way he came. This sign was telling him which way to go. And this wasn't the sign Adam expected. This sign was a women. 

It took Adam a second to take in the figure before him. Thoughts filled his head. Lace. Wings. Wand. Feathers. Eyes. Sharp. Strange. Important.

“I was hoping you would come out today, Adam. It's time for you to come outside.”

Adam wasn't exactly sure what was going on. But he did know this was special. “Outside? Outside where?”

“Your house of course. It's time for you to leave. It's time for you to grow up.”

“Grow up? But... I don't think I'm ready yet.”

“Of course you are, Adam. Everybody grows up. Your mother knows. She knows your ready. She knows you can grow up.”

Adam took all this in. He still wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready to change, he wasn't ready to take on responsibility. But then again, was anybody ever really ready for it? 

“Okay.” Adam's voice was meek, unsure. He said okay, but his tone screamed “Not yet.”

The women laughed, her voice ringing with joy. “It's not as if you have a choice, my dear. It is your time. You are ready, whether you know it or not.”

“Okay.” Adam was slightly bolder now, but that didn't take much. “But... Who are you?”

“I am... a guide. Destiny, maybe. Or fate. Dreams, possibly. I am everything from your childhood that has prepared you for this. Every time your mother told you a piece of advice, I was made a little stronger. Every time she out ice on your knee, every time you learned a lesson, every time she taught you, I grew a little. And now, it is up to you and I to see that you become a man.”

“But I doubt you care so much who I am, as what you may call me. I really don't need a name, but you can call me... oh, lets see... Grace.” Grace approached Adam, put her arm around his shoulder, and led him off in a direction he was very sure was not towards home. Adam was still very sure he didn't want to grow up, but that didn't matter very much.




Grace led Adam into a field, clear of the bitting snow they had left. It was hard to tell how such little distance could mean such difference in climate, but Adam decided it better not to ask. Grace stopped on the edge of the clearing, and turned to face Adam. “You can take of your coat. It's quite warm here. But make sure you keep it. Your mother gave it to you for a reason.”

Obediently, Adam removed his coat, and slung in over his shoulder. “Why are we here, Grace?” he said as he looked up into the women's sharp features.

“The first thing you should ask is 'Where is here?' Here is, for lack of better words, your imagination.” As Grace spoke, a bear lumbered across the field lazily. Adam recognized it instantly: he had drawn the bear on a piece of paper his mother gave him, with his favorite box of crayons. But this was not the mass of curvy, random, disjointed lines that had ended up on the paper, this is what Adam had been trying to draw. This was the true bear, the one he had tried to depict in colored wax.

“But now that you know where we are, I'll tell you why.” Grace explained, as she glanced at the bear. “You have an amazing imagination, Adam, full of wild creations and untold promise. But you are growing up now, and people will not like those ideas. They will make fun of you, mock you, and try to crush the amazing beauty that you can create.” Adam didn't want to hear this. He started to cry. “But you cannot let your creativity, your beauty, die. Your mother would never want that. So we are here to take the ideas of childhood, and file them away. I wish that you didn't have to, your mother would never want you to, but it is not my choice to make. The world is not a nice place, and you are part of the world now. Your mother raised you well, but now you are the world, and They don't like imagination.”

Adam had continued to cry softly, but his sobs subsided, and his sniffells stopped, and he turned to Grace. “So, I get to keep my imagination? I don't have to give it up?”

“No Adam, your mother would never let them do that. She brought you up better. But the world still has some influence, and so the dreams of childhood must, at least, be packed away. Here. Come.” 

Grace led Adam to the middle of the field. There was a simple trap set there, nothing more then a box set up over a smattering of carrot pieces, propped up by a plank. A string was tied as a simple trigger. 

“It is time for you to grow up Adam, and sometime that means losing things we wish we could keep. You can trap your dream, that bear, in the box, and keep him to remember. I wish he could roam free, but it is the end of his time.”

Adam took up a position behind the box, set down his jacket, and sat down with the string held tightly in his hands. The bear wandered towards him, as Grace backed away. Adam was amazed to see the bear in life. He recalled the frustration of not being able to show his mother what he imagined, at only showing her his simple scrawls in unusual colors. The bear sniffed the box, ignored Adam, and stuck his snout under the box, nibbling the carrots, then wolfing them down. 

Grace watched from the edge of the clearing as Adam pulled the string and the box fell. The box was much too small to hold the bear, but that didn't matter much. The box hit the ground as the bear somehow folded into it. Grace strolled forward, and out her hand on Adam's shoulder. “Good, Adam. You are ready.”

Adam picked up the box, afraid that the bear would somehow unfold from it again, and that it would not have enjoyed the trip. But the bear did not emerge. Adam turned the box over, and found inside not the majestic bear he had trapped, but the haphazard drawing he had made with his mother's paper and his favorite crayons. Tears swelled into his eyes for the beauty he had lost. “I'm sorry” Grace said gently as she put her hand on his shoulder. “This is growing up.” Grace took his hand, her manner colder then before. “Come. We are not finished.”




They walked for some time. Adam began to feel strange. Or, rather, stranger. His legs hit the ground too soon with each step, as if he was taller then he remembered. His arms bumped into his hips awkwardly. Tree branches that he knew he should be able to walk under seemed to bend over to smack his head. Grace didn't seem so big anymore. Adam was growing.

With each step Adam grew more. As he reached Grace's height, they reached a series of buildings. Trees gave way to concrete, stone gave space to pavement, blue sky was shunted by glass. Grace stopped just the edge of the development. “Adam, this is the world. You have started growing up, and though you are not finished, it is time for you to move on. I know you are not ready, but this is your new home. I will be... around.” Grace's eye screamed sorrow as tears formed. Her voice shook. “Goodbye, for now. I may see you soon.”

She turned, and returned to the forest. As Grace left his sight, Adam lost control. He body was not his own. It grew and grew, becoming a giant among the empty buildings, while Adam remained inside, looking out of the eyes like a pair of windows. The remains of what had been the clothes of his body had become bonds. He was left inside himself, naked, with only the jacket his mother had given him, and the box that contained the last traces of his childhood. He wasn't ready for this.

“Grace” Adam screamed in desperation. “Maman! Grace! Maman!” Standing inside his own body, Adam felt undeniably alone. The eyes shut with monumental slowness, and plunged Adam into pitch black. He started to bawl, his tears a torrent of anguish for a youth he never wanted to leave. He lost track of any sense of the space he was in. It was all black. The ceiling, the walls, the floor, it was all lost in the darkness behind the eyes that had been created by the growth of Adam's body.

A light sprung to life in the darkness. The room resolved itself again, but not in the same shape it had been before the eyes closed. The source of the light, a single, unadultered light bulb, hung up from the floor. It cast flickering light around the unknowable space of Adam's body, exposing nothing more then a couple of walls and the floor in hung from. A moth fluttered to the light. This was all that was left inside Adam's body. Adam and a moth. 

The moth fluttered around the bulb for some time, until Adam heard movement, a sound too big for a moth. A twisted shape entered the light. It was also Adam. Younger, deformed, the juvenile nature of childhood. The older Adam watched the creature enter the light from the wall, and watched it crawl onto the floor, it's mindless smile still fixed on Adam. The moth flew away at the creature's appearance. As it traversed the floor towards Adam, the creature spoke in a broken, childish voice. “Don't grow Adam, we can still have fun. Don't leave Adam, don't grow. We don't need to grow, we can stay young forever. We don't need responsibility, we don't need life, we need freedom, we need to be carefree.”

Adam back away as much as he could while staying in the fluctuating globe of light. The creature continued to move towards him, and Adam grasped for anything he could use against it. His hand landed on the box he had trapped the bear in. He reached into the box, grabbed the picture, and began to pull it out, purely out of desperation. The creature was close.

But as Adam pulled out the picture, the bear emerged. Not the crude scrawls of youth, but the perfect imagination of the young. It stood proud before Adam, and the Adam-creature backed away. “But  we don't need to grow up... Please... I don't want to go...” The bear chased the creature out of the light, and began prowling the edges of the illuminated area. Adam was safe. He put down the box and the jacket, and sat down, feeling safe for the first time in a long time.



As Adam began to grow accustomed to his body, light broke in. The eyes opened, and Adam rushed over to look out. He leaned out the window sized holes, and saw the body give way beneath. The huge, awkward thing that his body he become began to crumble. The head fell, landing on a small platform in the empty streets. The rest of the body collapsed into dust, leaving Adam free to crawl out of the head.

Just as the body had changed, so had Adam and his belongings. As he reached for the jacket, he found a pile of clothes. Glad to have something to wear, he unfolded them, surprised at the size of them, but even more surprised that they fit perfectly. Adam had grown now, not just his body, and his new clothes fit. He reached for the box, and coaxed the bear back into it. Reluctantly, the bear returned to the box, and to the simple drawing. As soon as the bear returned, the box became a small briefcase. _Much better suited for a man_ Adam thought. He stepped out of the head onto the street, stopping only momentarily to take a good look at the awkwardness, the pain, the bonds, the sorrow, he had left behind, all of it in the shape of the huge head of his old self. He was grown now, and Adam was ready for the world. But it wasn't ready for him. Not that it mattered much.


----------



## Macbeth

Whew! I have really mixed feelings about this entry (for one thing I wish it was longer), but it's good to have it in. As I said, very experimental. Hope you like it, or can give me some really good criticism, cause I feel like Terry Pratchett trying to write _Crime and Punishment_. This entry goes so far beyond my comfort zone of writing that I'm taking a huge risk with it. Oh well, have fun reding it.


----------



## alsih2o

still banging away at it, looking like i will be last minute again


----------



## Piratecat

WanderingMonster said:
			
		

> I do have to ask Pkitty—If my story reminded you of _A Muppet Christmas Carol_ why didn't I win? Oh...wait.  I'm thinking of _John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together._ Nevermind.  You're right.




Best Christmas album EVER.

"Oh bring us a figgy pudding...."
"WHAT? A piggy pudding?!?!?"
"A FIGGY pudding, Miss Piggy. It's made from figs."
"Oh."
"And bacon."

I can't comment on Macbeth's yet -- but I'm looking forward to comparing it to Alsih2o's.


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I can't comment on Macbeth's yet -- but I'm looking forward to comparing it to Alsih2o's.



The suspense is killing me. I really can't wait to see what the judges think, since I can't decide for myself wether I like or hate what I wrote.


----------



## alsih2o

Round 2 alsih2o vs. macbeth

  It's All In Your Head

  To: Sgt. M. Worley
 From: Desk Sgt. L. Michaels
 Re: local crazies
 CC: Sgt. J. Timmers, F.B.I. Missing Persons Taskforce

 Contained is the text of a note turned into Desk Sgt. L Michaels on July 14, 2002 by Father N. Flannery. All attempts made to contact Father Flannery have been unsuccessful. His diocese reports he requested a transfer to a small parish hospital in south Brazil. Endnote added by Father Flannery.
    ***************************************************

My pants are usually a little baggy, the result of a loss of weight some 3 years ago that I still cannot account for. My coat fits poorly, although it is warm, and my face is nearly always sporting some length of beard. If you add this to the fact that I am often seen about downtown with my briefcase, a gift from a professor some 20 odd years ago, and a shopping bag full of my work you can see how I am often mistaken for a vagrant. But I am not a vagrant. I am a writer.

 A writer.

 I wish I could tell you I was an essayist, or a brilliant fashioner of short stories that compel the American public to once again buy magazines full of submitted works. To be honest, I would be proud to tell you I bang out technical journals full of fascinating facts or stock predictions or even livestock manuals. I will tell you, for the record, that I have written 3 novels, a beautiful novella of historical fiction and a long series on Ethics.

  None have been published. None have been published because I now have a reputation. 

  I am Shermain LaMour. 

  Well, I am Vladimir Zivkovitch, 3rd generation American-Philadelphian Jew. Unfortunately my pen name, my alter ego, my better half is Shermain LaMour.

  Desperate for money and facing a room papered in rejection letters I sent a manuscript of a romance to a small publisher some 15 years ago and it was accepted. At that moment I became Shermain. I write trash and it pays me rather well.

 Oh, and I am raising a gremlin. If that matters. I think it does, because it will help clear everything up as I go on.

 You see when I was just starting out, when Shermain LaMour was just starting out, I got a letter from that small publisher saying that they loved my book. It tested well, the editors raved about it and the women in the office who had seen the manuscript all raved about it- but they were rather sure that most women did not want to buy a book from a Vladimir Zivkovitch. In a thoughtless second I blurted out the name.

 “Shermain Lamour” I said. “I also work under the name Shermain LaMour.”

 That was my first and last act of plagiarism ever. I guess I should add that to the list- a Jew, a writer and a plagiarist.

  You see I didn’t work under that name. Shermain. I only worked under my name but my best friend fro all the way back to high school was Pat Tracie and he worked as Shermain LaMour. He does, did, a great act down at the ‘Spankentickle’ on the corner of 5th and Broad every Friday night. He is, was, a fabulous man and a talented writer. We were in a writing circle together; supporting one another and critiquing work, and frequently went out afterwards for a drink.

 Now, I see you making that face. It wasn’t like that. We were just friends. At least I thought we were.

 I sat through circle the night of my acceptance ready to burst at the seams. I was conflicted deeply, of course, over whether to share the good news that I was actually getting paid for my work or to dodge the fact that I had, in fact, written a romance novel. I could already predict the whole gamut of the conversation, the supporters, those who would deride me for ‘selling out’ and those who would smile while the envy burned at their stomachs.

 What I didn’t foresee was the reaction Pat would have.

  I sat quietly through the circle, barely commenting but rushed to Pat right as it was done.

 “Tonight, drinks are on me!” I announced.

 “Oh, honey,” he said, I knew he was about to be unavailable, he was already slipping into character “I wish, I wish, but tonight she has a gig. Do come to the club and see. You can buy me a drink after.”

 I had never seen Pat as her. I knew he did it, I knew what he did with the men who took him home too, but I didn’t see that either. I almost said no, but I was dying to share my news.

  I was three scotches into the evening and was actually enjoying myself a good bit when Pat, Shermain, came on stage. He was radiant. (fey) big hoops on his ears, swinging his wand like some erotic cross between the Sorcerers Apprentice and a porn star. I had known him for all those years and even I almost gave in to the illusion. I should have appreciated that moment more.

 He, she, had her moment on stage and disappeared behind the curtain with a wink towards me. A wink none too erotic, just enough to let me know she appreciated my being there.

 When he, she, joined me at the table she was still all made up. Everyone in the bar was staring- partially to see her in all her glory and partially wondering what she was doing talking to such a disheveled man as myself. That unwanted attention might have delayed the whole situation.

 “I, um, I used your name.” I announced rather awkwardly.

 “Honeybear, you can always use me as a reference.” She growled, her tone seeming to imply the erotic no matter what she would have said.

 “No, no, you don’t understand. I got published.”

 “You!” she almost lost herself, almost became Pat, who I knew was ecstatic for me. “Baby!” she said, her voice climbing an octave, her composure returning instantly. “I could just hug ya’ till your eyes pop! Champagne!” She said, her snapping fingers held high, as if every eye in the place wasn’t already on her.

 I steeled myself and let the whole truth spill out. I told her how it had come to me in a panic, how I had to draw from something and how his, her, name just sprung up. I cannot even remember how it all came out, but I do remember it all had the tone of a confession.

 Her smile barely broke. “Well, sugar, you enjoy the champagne, I just have to slip into something more comfortable.” It was too abrupt I knew he was hurt. She was hurt. She moved for the back.

 “Tell me you are not angry.” I pleaded, snatching her wrist as she passed.

 “Baby, it’s all in your head.” She said with a sweet smile but there was acid in her voice. Acid I knew she could not spew. Acid I would get later from Pat.

 She slunk, whispered, floated into the back rooms of the bar and I was left clodding my way out to the street. I had never meant to hurt her, him. I wasn’t close to too many people and I could not afford to lose this friend. I walked most of the night, I wasn’t even smart enough to stow my bags in a locker at the bus station or to return to my home. I walked for the entire night. “It’s all in your head.” Kept coming back to me over and over again. Maybe I had misread his face. Maybe it would all be fine.

 Shortly after dawn, as the newspaper trucks began to roar out of their downtown building I found myself on the plaza between the Art College and the mental hospital. How fitting, eh? I was admiring the sculpture they added last weekend, a kind of ‘Blind Justice’ statement, feeling overwhelmed and insecure and alone and I came to the neck (head). On any other morning I wouldn’t have noticed but this morning I did. I could not see into the thing. I mean, the sun was aimed right at its face and the eyes were empty, light should have been streaming into the head, lighting the chasing and flashing inside but instead there was just inky blackness.

 For some reason I thought of the small jockeys that sat at the head of the driveway belonging to the nice gentiles I grew up next to. These tiny concrete men painted in blackface always had a special draw for me; they were the perfect foil for a boy of unlimited imagination and few friends. I would play cowboys and robber with them, address them as friends and ride my bike in large figure eights around their bases.

 Unless I was caught. 

 My mother would throw terrible fits. She couldn’t stand the little men, couldn’t stand what they stood for, and was bothered to no end by my fascination with them. “Stay away from the sculpture!” she would shout form the window. “You could break it!” she would reprimand.

 So I looked to my left and right and seeing that I had the plaza to myself I stepped inside. I didn’t even drop my bags, I just stepped right into the things neck like I knew what I was doing.

 Like I knew what I was doing. Let’s add that to the list- writer, plagiarist and idiot.

 Sticking my head through that portal left me in an inky blackness. I am not just talking about a lack of light. I started through and my head got thick and sticky inside. I truly believe I started in, but fell through. Fell. Yes, fell is the right word.

 I dropped my bags, trying to use my arms to catch myself when I heard the buzzing. I looked up to see a gremlin(eager). Go ahead, make that face again. I wasn’t his lover and it was a gremlin. She had a light bulb in a stand, with no cord, and was watching a mayfly; taped to a string, arc back and forth banging it head on the walls.

 “Good to have you.” she said. “Good to have you, yes!”

 I swallowed deeply, disbelieving what I saw. “Have you?” I queried.

 “Yes, you come, now I have you, you have me, we have we.” She said with what I can only describe as greed in her voice.

  I tried to leave. I did, I tried my best but it seemed impossible. 

 “Relaxes, he does, relaxes.” said this..thing.

 “What the hell are you, Yoda?” I asked, sure of my bravery as I had determined it was a dream.

 “Mine names Greccel. And now am your and yours mine.” She said. I know it sounds silly, me repeating it to you like this, but you get quite used to how she talks after a while.

 I have found you can get used to anything.

 Three attempts to leave later I was beginning to surrender to her, at least mentally. I was still afraid to get close enough to it for the there to be a risk of a touch.

 “You’s gotta takes me, or you’s can’t be gone.” She would explain with a sly patience that hinted at age.

 And I succumbed.

 If I didn’t look indigent before I certainly did with my shopping bag full of gremlin. By the time I had lugged the beast all the way home my shoulders ached, my feet were sore and my head was pounding from the strain. As I said before, I am a writer. I have a body built for playing chess, not for dragging mythical and surprisingly heavy creatures around town.

 As soon as we were through the door of my brownstone I collapsed in a chair.

 “We’s needs to be eatin’.” She announced as soon as she had sniffed the air enough to tell we were alone.

 “Find something then,” I announced, my eyes growing heavy “the kitchen is that way.”

 And I was asleep. Dead to the world for the first of what would seem many times. I awoke to a loud banging at the door.

 “Coming, coming!” I hollered at the impatient knocker. “Hold your horses.”

 I opened the door to find Pat, in tears. “You betrayed me!” he said, “You betrayed me and I was always good to you.”

 I held my hands up slowly, doing my best to placate him. I wanted him to sit, to let me explain it was a mistake and I could correct it, but I was afraid. I could not for the life of me remember if what had happened with the gremlin was real or a dream.

  “Sit, Come in, let me explain.” I said. “It’s over, I have already fixed it.” I said, lying through my nicotine stained teeth.

 Pats crying gave way to heaving without the sobs, his lip quivered and he walked down the main hall to the living room. “How? How did you fix it?” he asked when he had settled on the sofa

 “Well, I am going to fix it, you know, today.” 

 “Today, what happened to ‘I fixed it’? What happened to me trusting you for so long? What..what..?” he trailed of slowly, staring at his feet. 

 And then he exploded. “You stole her from me!” he screamed, leaping to his feet and charging me like some kind of maniac.

 He was on faster than I could have expected. As I said, I am not a strong man. Pat was an entertainer, not just a writer, all that movement; all those years of dance had left him toned, and much stronger than me. I expected to take a punch right in the mouth. I can remember time almost stopping as I prepared myself, I remember thinking that it would be good to have finally known violence. It would be one more thing I could write about honestly. But it didn’t stop when he struck me. 

 He was on me, all around me, I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t see. I panicked.

 I panicked.

 I grasped and clawed out for help, looking desperately for some handhold to keep on my feet and I found an iron lamp.

 It was over before I knew I had made the decision to strike him. Her.

 He was just lying there in my foyer, a slow rivulet of crimson red leading across the dark wood and pooling by the baseboard. I think that is where I passed out.

 I awoke after what could not have been 5 minutes and that is when I heard Greccel. It was very similar to the sound my mother would make with a wet towel trying to make suction on the drain to clear it. It was clogged, like the breath of an asthmatic having an attack. I looked up to find her swallowing Pat. Whole.

 She was in the midst of choking convulsions, slowly moving her way up the body. As her mouth expanded around his waist and I watched his belt disappear behind her lips a small lipstick case fell from his pocket.

 Now here is the oddly funny part. All I could think of was getting his bag off the porch, so noone would know what was happening inside my house. Can you see it now? My witless neighbors staring at the porch, saying “Well, someone left a backpack on his porch, must be feedin’ ‘em to a gremlin!”

 I snatched his pack and brought it in. just as the door closed behind me I watched Pats cowlick disappear behind Greccels blackened teeth.

 I must have cried for hours. I just sat there in my front hall, bawling with my head on the steps. Greccel sprawled on the floor, a look of macabre satisfaction on her face.

Like all first time killers I felt the remorse, and then the anger. I pawned the whole thing off on Pat. “This never would have happened if he had let me explain.” I said to Greccels sleeping form. 

 And I grew angry. Angry at myself, angry at the world and especially angry at Pat. I kicked at his backpack, resting against the table and papers slid across the floor.

 My papers.

 Well, my words. That son of a bitch, that bitch, had stolen my work. He was passing around my work! Oh, it was retooled for sure, but any fool on any jury would have seen immediately that it was mine. That idiot was stealing my work all this time.

 I looked at Greccel, she is not much bigger than a grocery sack most days, and she was swollen with the corpse of my friend. The thief of my words. I guess I can add a perverse sense of justice to violence as things I can write about honestly now.

Now it may seem strange to you, but we were in this together. How does one grow feelings of companionship with a gremlin? I wouldn’t recommend it, but killing your best friend the plagiarizing thief helps. Nothing like ‘aiding and abetting’ to really get the friendship juices flowing.

 From there it got much easier. Greccel was smarter than I was at first. She made all the plans. 

 First came the beautiful mother and her daughter. It was Christmas, and the morning was exceptionally foggy. The child complained that her tie had come undone on her jacket. Her mother bent down to fix it, gently wrapping the cords around one another, telling her child how the rabbit comes out the hole, goes around the tree and back in the whole, pantomiming the movements with the string(touch). 

  I used my fathers 5 iron on her. Greccel was on the child before it could scream; swallowing headfirst really muffles those incriminating cries.

 And I have to admit, I tasted the mother. Just a little, off the left calf. It was good. Once you get yourself to actually taste it the guilt passes quickly and it is just like any other meat. Well, like any other meat you have hunted. I am going to add that to the things I can honestly write about. Hunting. Write what you know is what they say, yes?

 That marked our preference for holiday kills I guess. It is always a little sweeter when you can watch the whole community panic and nothing does that like the holidays. ‘Homeless man may be missing’ just doesn’t sell as many papers as ‘Easter disappearances still unsolved.”

 Easter- now that was fun! The park is less than a block from the front of my brownstone. On the day before Easter there was an egg hunt sponsored by the Park Council and the local parish. Greccel spent a month making little fake rabbits and we littered them around our small garden by the walk. In their midst we stuck a fake trap, straight out of a cartoon(c’mere). I sat on the porch waiving and smiling at the young people and their parents parading by. Many stopped to comment on our humorous arrangement.

 After an hour or so on the porch a pinch faced woman power-walked up to the gate from across the street, tugging her child behind by the arm like so much dead weight.

 “You should be ashamed of yourself!” she announced in a tone clearly made loud enough to not just scold, but to attract attention. “My child has been shielded from such things! You have no right to force your meat-eating agenda on us just because you live near the park!”

I recognized her immediately. She had shown up during the planning meeting of the egg hunt to protest someone ‘forcing’ their Judeo-Christian views on she and her daughter. I understand she lived a full 10 miles form here, and I have never seen her in the neighborhood before. As I wondered what else she considered force I could already see the Greccels drool pooling out from the ivy that was hiding her at the edge of the porch.

 Soon the children and their parents all made for the bushes and the rose garden to look for their eggs. I tell you, nothing tastes like a righteous person. Nothing.

There were others of course. I had a brief job at a local sleep clinic. People just make certain assumptions when a narcoleptic disappears! Illegal immigrants also pass as more than just house help. I followed an old lead from Pat and did rather well for us at well-known rest stops. 

 Then came the computers. Three rapists caught in 9 months based on computer models. They keep feeding information into the computer and eventually it feeds them an area to search. Patrols are increased, door-to-door interviews. Eventually they end up catching someone.

 So I am leaving. Maybe South America? I hear there are still portions of Africa where my income allows me to live like a king- especially if your enemies keep disappearing. Yes, some rural third world locale will suit us for years I am sure.

 So, add one more. Jew, writer, plagiarist, murderer and fleeing felon. 

 If this all sounds like a confession; well, I guess it is. I apologize for burdening you, but I had to let someone know.

 Signed 

 Vladimir Zivkovitch




  MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL, FATHER FLANNERY-


----------



## alsih2o

wow, that is a bit of a long on for me. I am gonna go sit someplce else till smoke quits coming out my ears, then i will return to read macbeths story.

 Good luck, macbeth! I look forward to the read.


----------



## Macbeth

Wow! Alsih2o has a long story, and I've got a very short one. Interesting. Ah well, I guess it's not the length of the story, it's what you do with it that counts.


----------



## Piratecat

You got me jealous; I just wrote a short piece for the "follow-along" thread.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1489901#post1489901


----------



## arwink

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You got me jealous; I just wrote a short piece for the "follow-along" thread.




You, sir, are slightly strange.  You do know that, right?


----------



## Maldur

Slightly is an understatement!

Judgement send!

PS PirateCat If Im correct you have all of them now (right?)


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 1-8: Francisca vs. NiTessine.*

*Maldur:*

Strange how ideas can multiply. Both stories feature agents of some sort of secret service visiting scandinavia. 

Although both stories ended kinda abruptly, Francisca created the better story (IMHO) so this round my vote is for Francisca.


*Arwink:*

My apologies for my brevity here, but I’m squeezing the judgment in before dismantling my computer and shipping it northwards to my new home.  

Francisca  - Be careful what you wish for…

As a general rule, I tend not to have a problem with segmented stories but one of the things I found myself wishing for in Francisca’s tale was a more linear narrative.  The flashes backwards and forwards in time didn’t really seem to do anything but detract from the tension of the story, and the lack of action in the early parts means the story doesn’t really catch the attention of the reader until some kind of narrative action starts in the third section that begins “Six weeks before his meeting with Rumsfeld”.  

The need for Keady to prove that he was right didn’t really come through as a strong motivator for the story, and I found myself searching for some character conflict to drive the story.  The impact and weight of each individual section of the story didn’t really seem even, which left the narrative feeling alternately abrupt and slightly flat as the pacing changed.  While the story contained some interesting ideas and settings, I couldn’t quite get past the pacing problems to really engage with them.

NiTessine – Ragnarock

I love the opening paragraph of NiTessine, full of genre humor and a wry irony that sets the tone very early.  The story itself is an interesting idea that plays well into the mood that’s generated, but the tendency to gloss over the action in the name of expediency tended to detract a little.  While the humor and irony is great, the action-adventure elements are needed to balance things out a little.  The story is ambitious by its very nature, and it’s easy to feel a little cheated when it takes the easy way out when it comes to the action.

Judgment

I give the round to NiTessine, although both are interesting stories that need a little more work to balance out the narrative.  In the end it’s the wry humor and understated grandeur of NiTessine’s tale that lures me in.



*Piratecat:*

I liked the premise of Francisca's story partially because I'm not sure that it's anything I would ever think up myself. It needs more conflict, though. Things went remarkably easily for the protagonist, who never really was responsible for any of his success but who succeeded nevertheless. If this was a RPG game I'd say that his DM had a linear lot and was fudging dice because he didn't want to kill him; blacking out during the dragon attack was an especially frustrating example of this, because I wanted the dramatic payoff of the confrontation. 

I enjoyed the story despite this. I would have liked to see more detail on how people respond to the existence of magic in the real world, and the consequences thereof. For instance, I wonder what would have happened if Keady had brought the photos to his Section Chief before actually heading to Greenland. More internal dialogue would help round out Keady as well.

One note: Inuits are the native people of North America. I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure you aren't going to find any in Greenland.

Picture use was fairly straightforward for the man and the statue, but I liked the charging reindeer (which lost points because it was only imagined) and I loved how the old ball of twine became a dragon's heart. That was inspired, and a great use of the ingredient. 

NiTessine begins his story with a fine mix of humor and tension, buoyed by tight and snappy dialogue. The pace slips somewhat with some logical inconsistencies (the lancer who is immune to bullets but not bare fists) and a glossing over of action scenes.  

Never trust anyone named Lyesmith. Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_ taught me that. *grin*

The ending was a little anticlimactic. Confusing, too; if Heimdall blows his horn when he sees Loki, but Loki is under a mountain and working by proxy, I'm forced to wonder what Loki's plan was. Heimdall certainly didn't blow his horn just because he saw the proxies, and I'm not sure what they might have done to bring about the end of the world. 

Photo use was good. The twist of the glasses which are a med device raised the photo into interesting prominence, and the ball of string as a tool of the Norns was very clever. 

My judgment goes to NiTessine.  Despite some possible holes in logic in both stories, better dialogue and and a more satisfying conclusion tip the scales in his favor.



*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for NiTessine, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## Piratecat

arwink said:
			
		

> You, sir, are slightly strange.  You do know that, right?




Oh, like YOU never thought it?

Congratualtions, Round 1 winners!

Our final round 2 matchups are as follows:

2-1: Macbeth vs Alsih2o (already posted)
2-2: Drose25 vs Mythago (posted tonight, iirc)
2-3: Zhaneel vs RangerWickett (posted late Wednesday/early Thursday)
2-4: BardStephenFox vs Nitessine (not yet scheduled.)

BSF and NiTessine, when do you want your photos?


----------



## NiTessine

Whenever that is not Wednesday, since my Saturday is booked full. Tomorrow would be ideal. What says the Bard?


----------



## BSF

NiTessine said:
			
		

> Whenever that is not Wednesday, since my Saturday is booked full. Tomorrow would be ideal. What says the Bard?




Congratulations NiTessine!  

Let's see, morning is not my ideal time (though it might be NiTessine's since that will be afternoon in Finland).  Late afternoon or evening works better for me.  Drose25 & Mythago have tonight.  Hrm.  I have gaming on Thursday, so I would need to post by Wednesday night.  I suppose that gives me two days though.  

Umm, sure, Tuesday morning can work for me.  That will be Tuesday evening for NiTessine right?  Does that work for my esteemed opponent?

EDIT:  I am basing times on when Piratecat has been posting for morning.  I am GMT -7, Boston is GMT -5.

Oh, check that out.  This is post #997 for me.  Heh, I wonder if I can hold off posting too much and actually slide the story in as post #1000.


----------



## mythago

Yes, we start tonight unless something has changed. (If it needs to be rescheduled, that is OK, but I have a settlement conference Wednesday and that cannot be a deadling for me in any way. I can work *through* it but not *on* it, if that makes sense.)


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> 2-3: Zhaneel vs RangerWickett (posted late Wednesday/early Thursday)




Late Wednesday works better for me.

Was holding off posting so that my opponent could put in a word, but haven't heard from RW.  Don't want to dominate the scheduling.

Zhaneel


----------



## NiTessine

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Congratulations NiTessine!
> Umm, sure, Tuesday morning can work for me.  That will be Tuesday evening for NiTessine right?  Does that work for my esteemed opponent?




Aye, it works perfectly.

And now, the obligatory smack talk:

You are going down.
My pencil is mightier
This warm day of spring.

Edit: fixed the haiku. I hate English syllables.


----------



## drose25

Yep.  Tonight is good for me even though I'll probably conked out when they post.  Haven't slept since when....Thursday?


----------



## Piratecat

As the resident sleep expert, I advise against that.  

Your photos will get posted at 11pm EST this evening.

NiTessine, if you're going to trash talk in haiku, it's worth noting that the first and second lines have too many syllables in it!   NiTessine and BardStephenFox, plan for tomorrow (Tuesday) at approximately 11pm EST. That gives NiTessine his Friday night (and early Saturday morning) to finish up, and gives BSF a few hours in the evening when he gets home from work Friday to make edits. That seems fair.

Zhaneel and RangerWickett, plan for 11pm EST Wednesday for your pictures.


----------



## RangerWickett

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Late Wednesday works better for me.
> 
> Was holding off posting so that my opponent could put in a word, but haven't heard from RW.  Don't want to dominate the scheduling.
> 
> Zhaneel





Works fine for me.  I didn't want to dominate anything either.  I'm overall opposed to mind control and all forms of telepathic domination.

So, in my creative writing workshop at college, I'm writing a story inspired by my roadtrip to GenCon last year.  A dark Elf is riding in the car with me and my ex-girlfriend.  Several people suggested there should be more sex in the story.  Ah, the joys of college.

I'll just have to work some into my next entry for this competition (joking).


----------



## Macbeth

Any ETA for the judgement in round 2-1? I know Arwink was moving, how will this affect the timing? No need to hurry, I just want to know when I should start feverishly reloading the page.


----------



## Piratecat

Not until tomorrow at the earliest; if you don't see it tomorrow morning, you probably won't see it until Wednesday. I know that Arwink loaded his computer into his car today, so he'll have to get reestablished before he can send it on.


----------



## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> That gives NiTessine his Friday night (and early Saturday morning) to finish up, and gives BSF a few hours in the evening when he gets home from work Friday to make edits. That seems fair.




Well, that's good in theory, except I run a Friday night game.  (The same one Macbeth plays in, actually.)  Could we try earlier on Tuesday so I have a little bit of time for the ingredients to 'gel' in my head and I might be able to write something Tuesday?


----------



## Eeralai

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> Several people suggested there should be more sex in the story.  Ah, the joys of college.
> 
> I'll just have to work some into my next entry for this competition (joking).




Zhaneel said in one of her earlier posts that she wrote in an erotica contest.  Maybe the two of you should move your match to the _Book of Erotic Fantasy_ website  


Congrats to BSF and Macbeth!  I am cheering for you again!


----------



## francisca

Piratecat said:
			
		

> *Judgment of Match 1-8: Francisca vs. NiTessine.*
> 
> 
> *FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for NiTessine, who will go on to the second round.




Hey Wow!  I got a vote!


Thanks for taking your time to judge my story.  Maybe next time I'll come up with something better.

Thanks again, and congrats to NiTessine.


----------



## arwink

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Not until tomorrow at the earliest; if you don't see it tomorrow morning, you probably won't see it until Wednesday. I know that Arwink loaded his computer into his car today, so he'll have to get reestablished before he can send it on.




I still have a work computer and, Capellan Willing, the use of my landlords computer in the evenings should he not be using it.

I'm trying to squeeze the judging in between meetings and classess today, so it's largely reliant on how many students show up asking questions between now and 3 pm 

edit: Sent.


----------



## Capellan

arwink said:
			
		

> I still have a work computer and, Capellan Willing, the use of my landlords computer in the evenings should he not be using it.




Should I cackle manically at this point?


----------



## Piratecat

Match 2-2: Drose25 vs. Mythago.  6000 words max, 72 hours. Have fun!


----------



## mythago

Mommy, make the bad man stop posting scary pictures.


----------



## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> Mommy, make the bad man stop posting scary pictures.




Mythago, you're _good_ at scary pictures. I love the latter rounds; everyone is warmed up.


----------



## Macbeth

Ooooh, I like those pictures. Have fun! 

Looking forward to the judgement for round 2-1.


----------



## drose25

<choke>   <thud>   <deathrattle>


----------



## Piratecat

drose25 said:
			
		

> <choke>   <thud>   <deathrattle>




Ahhh, the proud sound of a successful picture selection. It's like music.


----------



## Zhaneel

drose25 said:
			
		

> <choke>   <thud>   <deathrattle>




*breathes a sigh of relief that it isn't her*

*grin*

And RE: Erotica... is erotica allowed for this competition?  Just wondering in case my brain traps me.

Zhaneel


----------



## WanderingMonster

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> And RE: Erotica... is erotica allowed for this competition? Just wondering in case my brain traps me.



Only to quote the Gnomish Kama Sutra.


----------



## Piratecat

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> *breathes a sigh of relief that it isn't her*
> 
> *grin*




As of 11 pm tonight, you may see a small amount of irony in this statement.

Erotica is technically okay, although not a preferred story form, because you need to stay within board rules -- and erotica that doesn't offend Eric's grandmother probably isn't very effective to begin with.


----------



## BSF

So, no chance of getting the picks a couple of hours earlier?  OK, I'll work it into my schedule.


----------



## alsih2o

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> So, no chance of getting the picks a couple of hours earlier?  OK, I'll work it into my schedule.




 No whining there, BSF. Just take it like a man and prepare to get stomped. either this round or when macbeth or I gets a hold of you.

 That's right, he told me how you forced his character to wear a flower dress. That is some serious karma coming back at you old man.

 For shame!


----------



## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> No whining there, BSF. Just take it like a man and prepare to get stomped. either this round or when macbeth or I gets a hold of you.
> 
> That's right, he told me how you forced his character to wear a flower dress. That is some serious karma coming back at you old man.
> 
> For shame!



Hahahahaha, now we're all out to get you, BSF! Li, Tormal, Felix, Ceru, and especially Keldorn will be avenged! Stupid fairies and taking our clothes...


----------



## BSF

alsih2o said:
			
		

> No whining there, BSF. Just take it like a man and prepare to get stomped. either this round or when macbeth or I gets a hold of you.
> 
> That's right, he told me how you forced his character to wear a flower dress. That is some serious karma coming back at you old man.
> 
> For shame!




Forced?  Most certainly not.  His character *chose* to wear a dress woven by faeries from fresh picked flowers!  He could have gone with nothing.  Heck, he was even given the opportunity to request his clothes back.  But no, he wanted his weapon.  So, I vehemently deny that there was any "forcing" of his samurai to wear a dainty, pretty flower dress. It was his choice completely. 

Meh - I'll get the pictures tonight a bit before bed, try to think them over
and write up something tomorrow.  Hopefully, a story will fall into place rapidly for me.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> As of 11 pm tonight, you may see a small amount of irony in this statement.




Still won't be me getting hit... Of course if you save the best [most angtsy] pics for last...



			
				piratecat said:
			
		

> Erotica is technically okay, although not a preferred story form, because you need to stay within board rules -- and erotica that doesn't offend Eric's grandmother probably isn't very effective to begin with.




Okay, easy enough.  My brain will cease to think of erotica.

New question:  Can you write in established worlds?  I mean, like specifically citing stuff from Forgotten Realms and/or other worlds [In Nomine, Heros, etc.]?  Or does it all have to be new worlds?  What about fictional, non-gaming worlds [Valdemar, Pern, etc.]?

Zhaneel

Zhaneel


----------



## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Forced?  Most certainly not.  His character *chose* to wear a dress woven by faeries from fresh picked flowers!  He could have gone with nothing.  Heck, he was even given the opportunity to request his clothes back.  But no, he wanted his weapon.  So, I vehemently deny that there was any "forcing" of his samurai to wear a dainty, pretty flower dress. It was his choice completely.



Technically, he IS right, but really, who wants a naked Samurai? Or one without his weapon? 

But really, just to be clear, I'm just messing around. My character was dressed in a flower skirt by fairies, but I have no problem with that. It was actually amazingly funny, and BSF is a great DM. I just like giving him a hard time about the "Flower Brigade."


----------



## NiTessine

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> New question:  Can you write in established worlds?  I mean, like specifically citing stuff from Forgotten Realms and/or other worlds [In Nomine, Heros, etc.]?  Or does it all have to be new worlds?  What about fictional, non-gaming worlds [Valdemar, Pern, etc.]?
> 
> Zhaneel
> 
> Zhaneel




Well, I won a round in a past competition with a Forgotten Realms story, so it's safe to say those are okay. Wouldn't be so certain about Valdemar and Pern, though, since Lackey and McCaffrey take a dim view to fanfiction. Some legal issues in the past, I believe.


----------



## alsih2o

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Forced?  Most certainly not.  His character *chose* to wear a dress woven by faeries from fresh picked flowers!  He could have gone with nothing.  Heck, he was even given the opportunity to request his clothes back.




 Ah! So, macbeth feeds me lies to keep me off kilter. You are a devious bunch, no two ways!


----------



## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Ah! So, macbeth feeds me lies to keep me off kilter. You are a devious bunch, no two ways!



Lies? Surely you jest! I told you the truth! Just not the whole truth. 

[Little Kid voice]And it was his fault anyway (points to BSF)[/Little Kid voice]


----------



## mythago

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Okay, easy enough.  My brain will cease to think of erotica.



 You...you can DO that? What's the secret?


----------



## Zhaneel

mythago said:
			
		

> You...you can DO that? What's the secret?




Write an erotica before the competition.

And have lots of sex.  I write my best erotica when I'm... lacking.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Here are the photos for *Match 2-3: BardStephenFox vs. NiTessine.*  6000 words max, and 72 hours.  Fly, my monkeys, fly!


----------



## Macbeth

Looks like Clay finished the popsicle, and decided to take a bath.


----------



## BSF

Mmmmm!  One of those pictures looks tasty.  Another one of those looks familiar.  

But, how do I make a story out of them.

In these little bric-a-brac 
are stories waiting to be hatched!


----------



## mythago

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> And have lots of sex.  I write my best erotica when I'm... lacking.



 I myself favor the John Preston method, which I'll tell you about sometime when Eric's grandma is out of earshot.


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 2-1: Alsih2o vs. Macbeth.*

*Maldur:*

Long story, short story, fantasy or modern, you both know how to spin a tale. 

My vote goes for Macbeth, That story gripped me, while I know AlSiH2O can do better p) 


*Arwink:*

Macbeth – Grow

The introductory paragraph is a little shaky – there’s not enough happening, and the beginning of the next section is a much stronger beginning full of conflict and tension.  The story has a lot of style to it, but occasionally the repetition detracts from the impact a little.  It comes back to an overstatement – either Adam is ready or he isn’t, and after we’ve grasped that fact it’s best to move on and get on with the story.  After a while I got the feeling that Macbeth was dragging things out in order to get all the images into the concept rather than maintaining the narrative.

With a little editing and shortening, this story would make a great style piece – a short, sharp story built around an interesting idea and image. 
As it is, it just drags out a little to long and repeats itself a few times to many.

Alsih2o – It’s All in Your Head

I have to admit that Clay caught me a little off guard with this one – he manages a voice in the beginning that doesn’t even begin to hint at the strange turns the story will take by the time it’s complete.  There’s a great deal of control, the weirdness is well handled and perfectly understated, and the narrative flows naturally throughout the length of the tale.  My only two complaints, such as they are, would be the choice of a writer as the main character and the decision to frame the story as a letter.  The former is only a weakness in that it’s a common choice when making a decisions about characters – there’s something fundamentally attractive about writing about a writer.  The latter doesn’t seem necessary for the story – it holds up without being framed as a letter.

Judgment

This round goes to Alsih20, who continues to impress me with the cohesiveness of his stories and the interpretation of images.  Both stories are strong, but bhile I like Macbeth's use of the images within a surreal environment, I think the collection seems slightly more seamless when inserted into Clay's tale.



*Piratecat:*

It was experimental and surreal, and darn if Macbeth's story didn't work.

It's not perfect; there's too much repetition and hand-wringing over the same basic premise, and it could be tightened up with some editing. Nevertheless, I thought that the premise was extremely clever. Turning the photos into a metaphor could be a disaster if handled poorly, but it was well written; there was enough insightful imagery and interpretation to provide the right sort of atmosphere.

As they played right into the surreal nature of the story, the photo use was very impressive. The bear trap, the examination of his own head... nice work on these.

Alsih2o's entry starts calmly and swats you on the side of the head with a change of pace... and changes again, and again. It's almost as if it's several disparate (and interesting) stories merged into one. We have the drag queen and bar incident, the gremlin in the head, the descent into mass murder and cannibalism.  I'm not sure that each story twist flows into the next smoothly, though; I'm left with a feeling of disconnection, wondering why the story was framed as a letter and wishing that the plot twists had been better telegraphed from the beginning. Parts of the story were brilliant, and there were some powerful and vivid images, but it felt like the images were driving the plot more than usual. That was distracting to me.

Speaking of which.... the gremlin was vividly presented, especially in details such as the mayfly, and "fey" was integral to half the plot. C'mere and Touch were just throwaway images. I didn't find that any of the images really surprised me in how they were used. 

Overall, I think that the story would have been somewhat stronger if the vivid character of Pat hadn't been eaten halfway through. The balance of the narrative really changed at that point, and the consequences of this act set the story off kilter. There was a hanging logic hole that wasn't addressed (didn't anyone notice the fiction published as the missing Shermain?)  I also think that framing the story as a letter added unnecessary complexity, partially because it presented us with inconsequential names that we then had to keep track of in case they arose in the story. 

My judgment is for Macbeth. He gives us a dramatic improvement over his first round story, trying a difficult approach that pays off.



*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for Macbeth, who will go on to the second round.


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

Well... Congrats Macbeth.

I'll admit I can't always make it through everyone's story, but I always enjoy reading alsih2o's writings.


----------



## Macbeth

Holy @%^&#^! I am amazed I beat AlSiH20, who was a more then worthy opponent. Clay, it was a pleasure playing against you, and I now intend to go back and read your entry.

More tomorrow, when I'm a little more coherent...


----------



## Piratecat

Note that the third illustration in the photos for Match 2-3 is by Sialia. Photo use is getting slightly tougher. Zhaneel, I was thinking of these photos and grinning when you asked about erotica, because they don't precisely lend themselves to the story form.


----------



## alsih2o

I always seem to make a last minute decision with these stories that either saves my tush or sinks the boat.   

 Congrats to macbeth! Go on and make me proud old man. 

 Thanks to the judges, and p-kitty for posting pics. I am out, but you folks are gonna have to put up with me for the rest of the competition anyway. I will be reading and watching...


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I was thinking of these photos and grinning when you asked about erotica, because they don't precisely lend themselves to the story form.



 If not for the Grandma factor, that would be what we call "a dare" 

 Up to my eyeballs in jury instructions today, so I will probably get my story in at the last minute.

 Not that I'm trying to lull drose into a false sense of security or anything. Huh-uh. That would be, you know, evil.


----------



## BSF

Congratulations to Macbeth!

Now, I need to find a good story to write out of these pics so I can have some chance of maybe facing off against him.


----------



## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> If not for the Grandma factor, that would be what we call "a dare"




"Roughly he grabbed her heaving prehensile tail, thrusting her back into the plastic bubble and. . ."

Oh, never mind. I know better than to throw down _this_ gauntlet.


----------



## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> "Roughly he grabbed her heaving prehensile tail, thrusting her back into the plastic bubble and. . ."
> 
> Oh, never mind. I know better than to throw down _this_ gauntlet.




Hey now, stop that!  You run the risk of giving away part of my scattered and weak plot.


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

I'm just waiting to see if anyone is going to attempt a poem again this time.  Would be interesting to see.

Hmm... or combine the two.... Erotic poetry...  I'll distract the grandma.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Zhaneel, I was thinking of these photos and grinning when you asked about erotica, because they don't precisely lend themselves to the story form.




Dude!  No one told you about blue bowls and what some people do with them?


Okay, fine, so no one has told me either, but I'm sure I could have come up with something.

Now dreading my photos, sir!

Zhaneel


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> "Roughly he grabbed her heaving prehensile tail, thrusting her back into the plastic bubble and. . ."




 Man! Have you been using your admin. powers to read my private messages again?


----------



## tzor

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Here are the photos for *Match 2-3: BardStephenFox vs. NiTessine.*  6000 words max, and 72 hours.  Fly, my monkeys, fly!




I recognize the fifth photo!  It's a Reuter's photo.  Working for Reuters I occasionally visit the internal website where they typically display one of their better photos each day.  That particular photo made it on the page.

REUTERS.KNOW.NOW.

Now I feel sorry for not having made the first round, I would have loved to make a story with those pictures.


----------



## Piratecat

Want to? Mythago's thread in the Story Hour forum is a perfect place for it.  You should!


----------



## BSF

Ah!  I think I am finally starting to have something snap into place.  Starting to develop a context and possible environment for the story.  Now, if I can get the elements to fall into place, and if I have time, I might be able to put together something worthy of competing against NiTessine.  

Hmm, feeling a bit nostaglic...


----------



## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Ah!  I think I am finally starting to have something snap into place.  Starting to develop a context and possible environment for the story.  Now, if I can get the elements to fall into place, and if I have time, I might be able to put together something worthy of competing against NiTessine.
> 
> Hmm, feeling a bit nostaglic...



Good Luck, BSF!


----------



## Piratecat

*Photos for Match 2-4: Zhaneel vs. RangerWickett.* 6000 words max, 72 hour deadline, nine essential vitamins and minerals, and part of this complete breakfast! Ask for it by name.

Ahem.

Have fun with these. More art from Sialia, too.


----------



## Macbeth

hahahahah   Best Picture EVAR That guy's expression is priceless... if a picture is worth a thousand words, that picture is hillarious (x1,000).


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

I swear I recognize that bridge in wobble.  As in, I've got this feeling I've been there.

Definately interesting pictures, though I've got no clue what listen is.


----------



## BSF

Ack!  I like these pictures better than mine.  Isn't that always the case?  

It will be interesting to see what Zhaneel and RangerWickett do with them.


----------



## RangerWickett

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> It will be interesting to see what Zhaneel and RangerWickett do with them.




I look forward to finding out too.  I wonder how soon they'll be done.

Yep.  I can just kick back and relax for three days, and come Saturday night, I get to read some fun stories.  

Hey, Piratecat, do you think you'd accept a college class term paper, if I could somehow work in the images?  Oh, wait, the paper needs to be 10-15 pages.  Foiled again!


----------



## RangerWickett

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> It will be interesting to see what Zhaneel and RangerWickett do with them.




I look forward to finding out too.  I wonder how soon they'll be done.

Yep.  I can just kick back and relax for three days, and come Saturday night, I get to read some fun stories.  

Hey, Piratecat, do you think you'd accept a college class term paper, if I could somehow work in the images?  Oh, wait, the paper needs to be 10-15 pages.  Foiled again!


----------



## Maldur

Nice try, but no sigar!


----------



## Piratecat

Heh, sorry about that. 

I'm looking forward to the stories this evening!


----------



## alsih2o

This gets so much more relaxing when you are done getting your tush stomped by geeks named after Shakespeare characters.


----------



## Zhaneel

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I look forward to finding out too.  I wonder how soon they'll be done.
> 
> Yep.  I can just kick back and relax for three days, and come Saturday night, I get to read some fun stories.
> 
> Hey, Piratecat, do you think you'd accept a college class term paper, if I could somehow work in the images?  Oh, wait, the paper needs to be 10-15 pages.  Foiled again!




You're just trying to put me off guard by dangling the hope that you are as bewildered as I am.

Zhaneel


----------



## thatdarncat

woot finally caught up


----------



## Piratecat

A little more than five hours to go!


----------



## drose25

Aaarggghhh...as if I needed any more stress.  5 hours.  This one's gonna be close.


----------



## Piratecat

You'll be fine. We judges have faith.


----------



## arwink

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You'll be fine. We judges have faith.




Indeed we do.

Of course, it's the kind of faith that involves funky black robes and burning a candle to great Cthulhu, but that's part of the reason we become judges 

For those keeping track - the new home is occupied, and net access secured.  The only thing interupting my judgements for the next couple of days will be the pile of marking


----------



## Macbeth

alsih2o said:
			
		

> This gets so much more relaxing when you are done getting your tush stomped by geeks named after Shakespeare characters.



Glad I could help.


----------



## mythago

*mythago vs. drose25*

Like Clockwork



_I write this with a trembling hand, I’m sick and weak from whatever drugs he gave me, I can’t stop shaking and I have to. I have to be able to hold the gun straight. I have to go down and kill Cray and that creature he has locked in the basement. I used to laugh at all those stupid horror stories where the guy writes about some horrible thing but now I’m living in it and I know why they did. Please God don’t let this be the last thing I ever write._


             Cray hated these idiotic, pretentious parties, but they were excellent hunting grounds. He made flirtatious comments to the half-attractive girls who circled him like satellites beaming their NOTICE ME messages to an indifferent Earth, made brief acknowledgements to the other alpha males, their conversation shallow as a pie plate, gave a patronizing grin to girl he’d once slept with, sending her scuttling away as if he’d kicked over a rock and crisped her with daylight. It took him several minutes of playing friend to complete his circuit of the big living room, and then he found Danika.  

             He didn’t know her name yet, but it hardly mattered. There might as well have been a factory for girls like her; the names only mattered when you had to address them directly.  

             Cray took in the expected: thrift-shop batik print skirt, cheap Jane Iris knockoff jewelry, and a shirt that was a size too tight in the hopes of drawing attention to her generous cleavage. She was a little too heavy to be on the A-list of eligible females at this party, and from her sour face she knew it.  

             “What fools these mortals be, to leave such a beautiful gem to sparkle alone,” he said. The girl snapped her head around, sure she was being mocked, then blinked in astonishment when she saw him. Cray knew that he was good-looking and took pains to keep himself that way; his Oxford accent did the rest of the work on American girls. He _knew_ that the  escapement behind his ribcage was ticking evenly, but at times like this it was hard not to imagine it speeding up. The hunt had started.  

             “I’m sorry, that was rude of me; I was surprised to see such a lovely girl as you without a circle of admirers. I’m Cray.”  

             “Danika Szebowski,” she said. She was giving him the same look they all did, surprise and a little suspicion. And hope. He didn’t think it would take long to make this one pliable, fortunately, because he had to get to Oregon in six days and he didn’t have the usual time to condition her. From the adoring-puppy look she was giving him, he didn’t think it would take that long.  

_This is unbelievable!!! I thought I wouldn’t even get to make out with anyone at Meiri’s party last Friday and I ended up meeting Cray. He is a true gentleman, he got me home OK when I had too many G&Ts. My roommate Kathy is utterly jealous cuz he is drop dead gorgeous. We had Brunch on Sunday morning, he has this big converted factory loft in SoMa where he does industrial art and design projects. Oh, yeah, he is a Goddess worshipper too! I am skipping class next Friday to spend a long weekend over there with him.  He says he would really enjoy my company. (PS he is HOT!!!)_                  “What are you painting?” she asked.

                   “A landscape,” Cray said. “Lots of trees, sort of a forest theme.”  “Not my usual style, but—“

                  “No, I mean the color,” she interrupted. “You’re painting the color _out_. Why did you go to all the trouble to paint it colors and then cover it up?”

                  Cray paused. He lay the brush on the edge of the bucket of white paint and pulled off his tank top, using it as a rag to wipe the paint drops from his hands. . He sauntered over where Danika was perched, on the black foam cube that served as a kind of beanbag. He heard her catch her breath and repressed a smirk; he’d known perfectly well what her reaction would be to seeing him like this, bare-chested and sweating from his efforts. She’d slept over every night this week, and he hadn’t touched her. It amused him to see her trying to figure out when he would stop being such a gentleman. Well, she’d find that out soon enough.

                  “Sympathetic magic,” he said.

                  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

                  “Indeed. Don’t you ladies in the, I’m sorry, what was it? Moonsdance Coven? ever do any magic?”

                  “Well…yeah,” she said uncertainly. “But it doesn’t work. At least, I don’t _think_ it does—“

                  “It works when I do it.” He stretched and yawned delicately. “I think it’s ready. I have to load the panels up for a trip to Oregon tomorrow, and I don’t want them to smear. I’d ask you to come along and help, but no offense intended, I’m afraid you might not be up to the long ride.”

                  “I can handle it. Geez, sometimes you act like I’m such a, a kid! I’m going to be _nineteen_ next month.”

_No, I’m afraid you’re not,_ Cray thought. To her he said “All right, we’d better get to sleep early so that we’re well-rested. Why don’t I sleep on the couch?”

      ------

                  She was, after all, worn out from the teeth-rattling ride up in his old work truck, but too proud to say anything. Cray was amused; he guessed she’d been expecting to ride up in comfort, in his M3 convertible—as if his equipment would have fit, anyway. She helped him haul the panels out and prop them up against the trees. Cray took off his shatoosh sweater, folded it neatly and left it in the truck cab; he certainly didn’t want to drip paint on it. The clearing—really just a wide place in an old logging road that circled a high ridged hill-- was getting chilly now that the sun had gone down past the tree line. He walked along the line of  panels, tilting his head slightly, until the gears were running smoothly and he knew the exact spot to begin.

                  “Get the bucket, please, and the long-handled paint roller. Oh, and the roller tray,” he said. Danika obeyed. When she had lugged the five-gallon plastic bucket over, he pried up the lid. It was full of paint the color of a nosebleed.

                  “Now what?” she asked.

                  “Magic time,” he said, and dipped the roller into the bucket. “Sit back and watch.”


               She did, mystified, as Cray rolled red paint across the top of the landscape where the white paint had so recently dried. He used the roller deftly, using the edge to make feathery swipes in places, rolling long tongues of red in others. By the time he finished, the sun’s light was almost entirely gone. Danika huddled into her UCLA hoodie. Cray guessed she’d never been anywhere this dark in her entire life. Cities always had light bleeding up into the sky, as was proper, but in this hellhole of growing things there was nothing. Even the moon had shriveled up into a dim hangnail.

                  Cray sat down next to her on the tailgate of the truck. He pointed somewhere off into the blackness as if he could see through it easily. “Do you know where we are, Danika?

                  “Oregon somewhere,” she muttered.

                  “Very good. We are, indeed, in Oregon somewhere. More specifically, we are in Clatskanie National Forest, a backwater even by national forestry standards. We are here for two reasons. The first—do you know how mushrooms grow?”

                  “The, um, the mushrooms are kinda like flowers. There’s a big fungus under the ground and it pushes up mushrooms, in a circle. That’s where fairy rings come from.”

                  “Precisely. Well, you see, mushrooms are not the only things that grow out of the ground like that. You may remember hearing about a giant underground mushroom that spread over hundreds of miles? This is a bit like that, only it’s trees, not mushrooms. The creature pushes up trees.” His lip curled in disgust.

                  Danika stared at him. “What’s wrong with trees? The Goddess loves—“

                  “No. _Your_ Goddess. Your half-baked substitute for a mother figure. _My_ Goddess despises trees.” He jumped lightly off the tailgate of the truck. “There are more things in heaven and earth, naïve little Danika, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. _My_ Goddess is not the soft monkey of your needy infantile fantasies. _My _Goddess, or as I prefer to call Her, my patron, is the wire-monkey mother of your nightmares. She is steel and glass and hard ceramic. She takes out our worthless jelly and replaces it with springs and gears, cunning wires and delicate levers, and SHE—HATES—TREES!”

                  Cray suddenly realized that his face was an inch away from Danika, he was standing over her spraying spittle as she cringed against dirt and crushed dead bugs in the truck bed. Disgusted at his own lack of control, he yanked his undershirt over his head and threw it at her. She whimpered and clutched it like a toddler clinging to a security blanket. Cray ignored her; the sun was down and he had to get the fire started.

                  He undid the clasp that pinned his hair up neatly and dropped it into the dirt. The yellow flares, clipped to long chains, were packed neatly under the passenger seat where he had left them. He unwound them, lit the ends, stepped away from the truck and its potentially dangerous gas tank, and began his dance.

                  Cray swung his arms as he capered, the bright ends of the flares drawing precise elliptical patterns on the cool chalkboard of the lightless clearing. He dance to the tick below his heart and the tock in the front of his skull, leaping and shuffling in the patterns that scrolled past his vision in letters of molten iron. She was pleased. He could feel the oily steam of Her breath on his neck. His chant was the repetitive stroke of a press rising and slamming down, his hymns in praise of Her the clattering of an electric loom. He danced until his muscles, all too much flesh, gave out and he dropped to his knees in reverence of Her gleaming power.

                  Far away there was an explosion that shook the ground. Lashes of angry red fire painted the sky. 

                  Cray let go of the chains and left the spent flares where they lay. Danika screamed in terror as the sound of the forest fire roared over her. He staggered to the truck. Danika shrank away from him, still screaming. He grabbed her collar and slapped her across the mouth; she fell silent, probably in shock. He wasn’t worried that anyone would hear her, but he was too exhausted to put up with more of her nonsense just at the moment.

                  “Get. In,” he hissed. She squeaked and scrambled into the truck’s cab. He swung into the driver’s seat in one smooth motion and had the old Dodge bouncing back down the logging road before she’d gotten herself buckled in.

                  “Do you know what day it is?” Cray asked cheerfully. “Or what was happening in the forest? Before we got there, that is.”

                  Danika shook her head no.

                  “Earth Day!” he shouted. “Haven’t been reading up on the news, have you? Well, it _is_ Earth Day, and it seems a group of environmentalists started a protest to protect some of the Clatskanie National Forest’s oldest trees. Building platforms, sleeping high up, all of them trying to be the next Julia Butterfly Hill. Did I forget to mention that She demands blood sacrifice?”

                  He whooped with laughter as Danika frantically rolled down her window and vomited out of the truck. He wondered if she’d finally figured out why he put up with her.

    -----

_I’m scared now. Really really scared. I watched the forest burn and light up the whole sky like blood. No, worse, because it wasn’t just the trees burning, not the regular trees. Some of the trees he told me about, the ones growing out of the ground, the fairy ring trees. He slowed the truck down to watch some of them. There was this one little tree, almost like a baby, by itself__ and the fire was behind it catching up to it, but it couldn’t move cuz it was a tree, and Cray just pointed at it like he thought it was the funniest thing evar. I swear it MOVED, it was like the branches were reaching up to the sky, like it was trying to pull itself out of the ground. It looked like it was screaming. Cray is acting all normal like nothing ever happened but I know he’s crazy. What do I do now, nobody will believe me?!?!_

                  Cray thought after the great sacrifice of the underground plant that She would be sated, but She grew hungry rather more quickly than he expected. Or perhaps it was just that he found Danika more tiresome than ever, and it was he who was growing impatient. Either way, he doubted She would mind if he started his new plan a bit early.

                  He brought Danika’s favorite soft drink--Pocari Sweat--home from shopping early one morning and made sure to drug it well before giving it to her with a friendly smile. When she was sound asleep, Cray stuffed her into the trunk of the BMW. As an afterthought, he threw in her cheap leather backpack, the one where she carried her notebooks and the journal she thought he’d never noticed her scribbling in; it would give her something to do, and perhaps she’d have written something amusing in it by the time he killed her.

      They drove up the coast, to his other workshop, the one high up in the mountains.  He thought that the Experiment was probably still alive, and if so, it would definitely be a bit hungry by now.

_Cray was acting really sweet and normal for days, I was starting to think maybe I imagined the whole thing with the forest fire. He didn’t say anything and I didn’t ask. And then I started having nightmares about him. Like one where we were having sex (I feel so embarrassed writing this!) and I looked down and he was dripping motor oil, and then one where his head was a giant clock with his face on the front and he put it on the table next to me to watch me while I was sleeping. I think maybe that one was true because he does watch me all the time, even when he thinks I don’t notice. I went downstairs one morning while he was in the shower and there were drops of white paint on the floor. So I know it was real. I snuck into his room to get my backpack and his alarm clock went off, and I thought for a minute it had his face just like in my dream_, _and then I screamed and he came running out in a towel. So stupid!!! I could have gotten out. Maybe he really was watching me from the clock the whole time. OMG, now I’m going crazy too._

                  Cray slid the black covering away from the closet where the Experiment lived. As soon as it saw him it started howling and climbing its narrow cage, climbing the walls that were just a bit too cramped for it.  When it started pounding on the Plexiglas front wall of its cage, Danika finally stirred. Cray wished she’d had the decency to do it earlier, before he’d had to haul her down the stairs. At least she’d lost a bit of that extra weight while she’d been with him.

                  He braced himself for her to start screaming like a ninny again, but fortunately she just stared. Cray thought she might be reaching that point they did sometimes, where they just went away inside, having finally given up. That was when he knew it was time to hand them over to Her.

                  “Who are those guys?”

                  “What, not who,” he corrected. “They _were_ a gay couple I picked up down in San Francisco. Now they’re an experiment, not an entirely successful one, I’m afraid. I was attempting to create a sort of fused being, an android that I could use as a guard dog. Have you ever read the Paratwa books? No? Pity; let’s just say that at times, two heads can be better than one. Come upstairs before it hurts itself.”

                  “Did you make a blood sacrifice too?” Danika asked. “To keep it alive.”

                  “Not yet.”

                  She really did panic then, annoyingly, apparently not having gone quite all the way into herself. Cray had to actually break a sweat to subdue her, and she got in a kick that would have buckled him if he’d been purely flesh. She bolted up the stairs, and he had to chase her all the way into the first-floor study. She crawled into the space under his desk and bit him when he tried to haul her out. He considered getting the Sig Sauer out of his desk drawer and shooting her somewhere nonvital, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort; the Experiment was howling loud enough that he could hear it all the way upstairs.

                  “Why don’t you sit under there for a while, and write some pithy last words in that stupid diary of yours,” he said. “Don’t bother trying to get out; the doors are electronically locked, and if you look out these lovely French windows, you’ll see that we’re quite high up on a rocky cliff. Nowhere to go, you stupid bint. I’m going to get the Experiment some water, and then you’re going to pay me back for all those nights I wasted listening to your stupid prattle.” He stalked out and slammed the door behind him, cursing himself for his irregular behavior, his inability to keep his temper. Now, he reminded himself, was not the time to blow a gasket.

_            He’s down there somewhere with that poor thing he sewed together out of a couple of guys who were here before me. I think it’s taking him a while because he keeps stomping around and cursing. I was going to write a goodbye here in case my sister or somebody ever found my journal and then my pen was dried up, and I looked in his desk drawer for another one and I found a gun. I figured out how to check it and it was loaded and everything. I don’t know why he left it here, maybe he forgot or something? but I have a gun now. I’ve never shot a gun before. It’s really heavy._

_            I write this with a trembling hand…._


----------



## drose25

*drose25 v. Mythago*

Simon hummed a few bars of nonsense softly under his breath as he leaned up against one of the many glass cases in the room that ensconced a veritable treasure trove of fine jewelry. He'd been in this establishment entirely too many times recently, the clasp on the Bulgari watch his father had given him one Christmas refusing to stay shut. Simon was beginning to wonder if it was the watch or the jeweler, as many times as the portly man who ran this place had worked on it.

He was picking it up again today and he'd made it clear earlier on the telephone that this would be his last visit. Simon just hoped they had taken it to heart and fixed it properly for a change. An innocuous winkle came from the door behind him and Simon turned his head to inspect the new arrival. He couldn't help but notice the curious shimmering around some of the jewel cases as he did. Magic of some sort. Probably there to make the merchant's wares look all that more appealing. He couldn't help but grin to himself. Even in the best of places people resorted to the same old tricks.

The newcomer caught Simon's gaze and nodded politely. Simon nodded very politely back. The man coming through the doorway was so hulkingly massive as to seem unreal. Simon took an unconscious step back. He was pretty fit himself, he liked to think, but this gentleman had arms the size of Simon's legs.  Something else was unusual about the man...or rather something he carried. Simon tried to narrow the sensation down but couldn't. There was only a strong aura of magic radiating from a tiny box in his hand.

A well-heeled saleswoman intercepted the man before Simon could open his mouth to speak. He was curious about whatever it was the gentleman carried.

"Good afternoon," the woman said lithely. "Is there something I can help you with today?"

Simon tried not to laugh as she batted her eyelids at the hulk before her.  He hadn't expected to find such a caricature anywhere in the real world.

"Yes, thank you," the other man replied as he extended the box and opened it. "I need to see about getting this fixed. It seems to have lost a stone."

The saleswoman cooed as she pulled out a silver-colored bracelet of some sort encrusted with bluish stones. "This is very pretty," she went on as she peered into the box. "Do you still have the stone or do you need it replaced?"

"I'm afraid it's lost," the man replied.

"Well, you'll need to speak with the jeweler then...let him look at the others and see if he thinks he can find a replacement that will blend. If I might ask you to wait a moment I'll fetch him from the back..."

The saleswoman looked to the man for approval before disappearing into the back of the store. Simon walked over to the stranger, his curiosity making him uncharacteristically bold.

"I couldn't help but notice," he began speaking to the other man, "what a fine piece of jewelry you have there. Do you mind if I look at it? My mother might enjoy something like that for her birthday..."

The stranger more grunted his approval than spoke it as he moved the box toward Simon. A moment's worth of concentration brought a familiar shimmer to the bracelet as he reached to pick it up. It was definitely unusual, he thought to himself. He had never seen such an aura coming from a mundane object such as that. Simon had to stifle a gasp as his fingers grasped the cold metal. Without even concentrating foreign images came flashing into his mind.

He saw the bracelet on a hand, a creamy pale feminine hand as it trickled its way down a man's cheek. He could feel a day's worth of bearded growth tickle the skin. It wasn't the same man that was before him now, however, though this man was certainly fit as well. Simon couldn't really make out a face, or even much of a form, but he could feel the way the man's vitality seemed to pump in the air. The hand fell to the neck of a silken shirt and toyed with an obstinate button there. Simon could sense a hunger welling up within the bracelet's wearer, a cold passion she was straining hard to reign in. The bracelet touched the man's chest and Simon gasped slightly, dropping the bracelet back into the box.

The newcomer’s eyebrows raised slightly and then dropped almost as quickly.

"My," Simon stammered out, "that's quite a specimen." A terror had trembled rapidly through him as the bracelet touched the man in the vision. Or rather the terror had been trembling through the man in the images. It was a sentient terror, ripe with anticipation and fear, longing and loathing all at once. Whatever he had feared he knew it was coming. Simon didn't want to see any more. Not here in front of strangers.  Magical or mundane, Simon had been able to sense impressions from items and his surroundings as long as he could remember.  He wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse.

"Thanks," the newcomer grumbled.

"Where'd you find a bracelet that like?" Simon asked.

"It's my boss's," he replied disinterested. "She asked me to bring it down today."

Simon looked up with renewed curiosity at the hulk before him. He would have never expected the man had a woman for a boss.

"Really?” Simon was about to ask another question but the sales lady had returned with the jeweler.

“Ah, how can I help you?” the portly jeweler inquired as he led the newcomer and the bracelet aside.

Simon’s curiosity remained piqued and he glanced subtly in the direction of the jeweler and the stranger as he examined the repaired watch the sales lady finally brought from the back.  They had yet to finish their business by the time Simon had paid for the latest repair and departed.

A quick cab ride had taken him home to the estate with its view overlooking the lake and the hills.  Simon sat in an overstuffed leather chair, his feet propped up on the ottoman.  A steaming cup of oolong tea rested delicately in its matching china saucer on the small end table next to him.  The day was beginning to shift into night and he sat comfortably in the conservatory, watching the sunset consume the sky with a billowing blaze wafting up from the horizon.  It illuminated an old and barren oak tree which had long lost its leaves, silhouetting an ebony skeleton against the incandescent sky. [Pic1] It had been, Simon was told, a hanging tree in the wilder days of the west.  It still looked strong, despite weathering countless storms and infinite seasons.

The floor creaked almost imperceptibly behind him.  He had company.  Simon’s hand went out slowly to the table by his side and retrieved the hot cup of tea.  

“May I help you?” he inquired as he finished a sip of the warm tea, his head still admiring the sunset before him instead of the intruder behind.

There was a sudden scuffing noise.  A footstep braking suddenly.  Or was there more than one?  Ah, he thought to himself, his visitor hadn’t expected to be noticed first.  He’d caught him, or them, off guard.  

Arpad glanced at his partner, Viktor.  Viktor was a rather skinny man with short, but curly red hair.  Viktor didn’t look like much, but Arpad knew Viktor could kill a man with little more than a stare.  Arpad had seen it.  Not that Arpad himself was a limp noodle.  No, Arpad was actually the bulkier of the two.  Only he hadn’t been around as long.  This game was still new to him.

Viktor shot him a questioning gaze.  Neither of them had expected this.  The man in the chair had not moved, only blonde locks of hair were visible above the wrinkled leather.  “Simon St. John,” the man said more than asked, though his tone clearly indicated he expected an answer.

Simon set the cup down with hurried, but deliberate motion.  The voice was strange and carried itself on a thick Bavarian accent.  He stood and turned to face the new arrivals.  Two men in brown jumpsuits were at the door to his conservatory.  Two very strange men with something wild lingering in the recesses of their eyes.

“As I said before,” Simon said precisely to mask his concern, “how may I help you?”

Arpad grinned.  “Told ya we’d find him here.  Ivan got the address from the jeweler before he expired.”

Viktor nodded.  “Ivan rarely lead us wrong.”

“You will come with us, to see Dr. Sasha,” Arpad continued, words marred by accent.

“Dr. who?” Simon inquired as he looked at the pair somewhat bewildered.  This was most unexpected and, truth be told, a little frightening.  Something about the pasty skin on this pair was just not normal.  

“No, not Dr. Hu, Dr. Sasha,” Arpad repeated with frustration as he pulled out a silenced gun and trained it on Simon.  Viktor reacted by pulling out his own pair of handcuffs and a blindfold.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Viktor smiled.

Simon shivered.  Something faintly wicked emanated from the pair.  Viktor didn’t wait for an answer.  Within moments he and Arpad had Simon on the floor and quickly restrained.  Blinded and restrained.  Moments later something damp and pungent covered his noise.  Simon’s mind went black.

A metallic ringing sound interrupted Simon’s blissful sleep and it was quickly followed with by a vise-like headache that gripped his mind and wrenched agony into it.  He lifted a groggy eye and turned towards the sound.  A mechanical alarm clock was vibrating and chattering noisily on the nightstand, a diligent hammer constantly striking two bells.  Simon reached over and smacked it silent, gasping with huge breaths for air as another image entered his mind. [Pic 4]

The face of man with wild eyes, almost like those of his kidnappers, stared out as he struggled to wrest his arms free.  A woman approached with dark hair and pale skin that flowed like cream.  She smiled and the man’s eyes widened further, his heart racing in his chest.  Simon tried to drop the clock but his hands seemed frozen.  The woman approached again.  He could feel the man’s horror, twinged with longing, as she drew closer.  And then it was over.

The firm hand of a man standing over his bed had pulled the clock from his grasp.  He wore a white jacket and looked rather like a doctor except for the curiously dreadlocked hair.

“Good evening,” the man said, again with a thick Bavarian accent.  “It is so good of you to wake.  I am Jan.  Come,” he said motioning for Simon to get up.  “Follow me.”

The man led Simon down sterile halls, passing the occasional nurse who, like Jan, had dreadlocked hair until they reached an enclosed yard.  “Welcome to the Institute for the Very Very Nervous,” Jan said.  The yard stretched into forever and was surrounded by a white stucco wall of biblical proportions.  Jan continued to walk and Simon followed.  Several straightjacketed people wandered about the yard in the setting sun.

Jan motioned to a man painting a mural on one of the walls.  [Pic 2]  “What do you think?  Peaceful, no?  It soothes the patients, like a sort of visual happy hour before we pump them full of Xanax and pump out something else.”  Jan grinned.  “We’ve had fewer deaths since we began painting.”

“Why am I here?” Simon asked, head still splitting.  It was getting dark.

Jan laughed.  “People like you know too much,” he answered.  “We can’t have you running around on the streets.”

“What do you mean people like me?”

Jan never answered.  The hulking man from the jeweler’s had arrived and Jan clammed up.  Simon couldn’t tell if it was out of respect or fear.

“Sasha wants to see him,” he said.

“Of course, of course Ivan,” Jan stammered a reply.  “I’ll take him right away.”

Jan took Simon’s arm and started to steer him back towards the main building as the last of the sun’s rays dipped below the horizon.  They had almost reached the door when it was swung open by two shirtless men, again with dreadlocks in their hair.  A tall, pale woman stepped out, raven hair flowing down one side of her neck and resting on her breast.  She wore a very smart red dress and, Simon panicked, a very familiar silver bracelet on one hand.  Several more shirtless attendants followed her.

“Ah,” Jan stammered obsequiously, “Dr. Sasha, what a pleasure.”

“Is this the one who sees?  Your orders were to bring him to me as soon as he awoke,” Sasha replied coldly.

Jan took a step back but the two nearest attendants grabbed his arms and kept him from moving further.

“I’m sorry, I thought I should him his new home first and I didn’t want to disturb you before sunset,” Jan bumbled an apology.

Sasha walked up to Jan and stepped in towards him.  “You thought?”

“Yes…I’m sorry.”

She leaned in further and whispered something into Jan’s ear.  His mouth dropped slightly but didn’t have time to fall far as Sasha’s mouth plunged onto his neck.

Simon’s eyes bugged out of their sockets as Jan went weak in the knees.  He bolted past the occupied attendants and through the door before the others realized what had happened.  White hallways led this way and that and Simon ran as hard as he could ignoring the ghostly visions that seemed to float by.  His legs pumped underneath him as his heart tore through his chest.  Simon slowed to make an awkward corner turn and caught sight of the captors from his house.

“HEY!”  Arpad yelled.  “What you think you do?!”

Viktor didn’t waste any time yelling.  He just took off after Simon.

Where was he going?  Simon ran down another hallway and made another sharp turn, following the blue line on the floor.  God only knew where it went, but blue was his favorite color.  He ignored the other lines on the floor as they darted about here and there.  

Blue, unfortunately betrayed him.  Simon ran into a dead-end.  The hallway ended with a picture window overlooking the yard.  He turned to retrace his steps but Arpad and Viktor had turned the corner and now stared directly at him, grinning evilly.  Simon looked up.  Nothing.  Simon looked down and relief washed over him.  A hatch.

He jumped down it and found himself in another hallway, his legs taking off underneath him without waiting.

Viktor jumped down first and paused to see where Simon had headed.  Arpad jumped down without looking. [Pic 3]

“Get the hell off!” Viktor exclaimed as Arpad’s foot landed on his shoulder.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sorry,” Arpad apologized, another foot hitting the wall in an effort to stabilize himself.

Simon continued to run, ignoring the commotion behind him.  The properly painted hallway soon turned into a concrete passage that led to a garage.  Simon stumbled down a brief flight of stairs, his chest heaving as he looked about.  Several cars lined one wall and Simon tried their doors as he stumbled through the room.  All locked.  He bolted through another door and his mind sighed with relief as the cool night air hit him.

Simon took in long, deep breaths as he started to run across the grassy ground.  He turned to look behind him and as he did, his toe caught something, sending him tumbling to the ground.  Simon felt something cold strike his head as the stars above suddenly went dim.

After managing to shove Arpad off, Viktor and him continued their chase through the halls and garage.  Viktor had actually laughed when they found Simon out cold, his head on the landscape stone.

Simon came to slowly once more, his head pounding even more if that were possible.  This time, fresh outdoor air filled his nostrils instead of the medicinally sterile indoor air.  He blinked and looked up.  He was lying on his back.  Several of the dreadlocked attendants were dancing around him, twirling giant sparkling batons that left trails of light behind them.  [Pic 5]  Somewhere past his sight the sound of dull chanting rang through the air.

Jan stood at his feet, looking paler than he had earlier, no trace of smile on his face.  Simon tried to move but his arms and legs were bound outspread.  He pulled harder but the rope merely cut into his flesh.  

“What?” he asked plaintively.

Jan ignored him, but a woman’s face leaned over.  A pale woman with raven hair that fell down her face and tickled his.  

“Tell me what you see,” she said seductively as well-manicured hand reached out and pressed against his cheek.

Simon screamed as the death of thousands washed across his soul.


----------



## mythago

Whew. Hope the links worked.


----------



## drose25

Sorry for not hyperlinking the pictures but Explorer has crashed twice on me trying to do that tonight.  Since I'm almost out of time I couldn't risk it again.


----------



## Piratecat

Not a problem; the only real requirement is that we can tell one photo from another. The rest is all gravy.

Reading both stories was a delight. We'll post our judgment as soon as we can.


----------



## alsih2o

wow.

 just...wow.


----------



## Sialia

alsih2o said:
			
		

> wow.
> 
> just...wow.



what he said.


----------



## Maldur

oh man!

Judging is getting harder and harder!

But PC will get my rsults within the next five minutes!


----------



## Macbeth

Can't let his get off of the front page, so: BUMP!


----------



## drose25

Oh where, oh where has our P-Kitty gone?  Oh where, oh where can he be?

In this world of instant messaging, email, and MMORPG it's agony to have to wait for anything!!


----------



## Piratecat

What you're experiencing, Drose, is what we refer to as "intercontinental judging lag." Well, it's what I refer to as... err... even I don't refer to it as that. But when you have three judges on three continents, you're bound to have some time-related delays. 

As soon as comments are in from all three judges (and I'm working on mine now), I'll post the judgment! Think of the wait as character building.


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> What you're experiencing, Drose, is what we refer to as "intercontinental judging lag." Well, it's what I refer to as... err... even I don't refer to it as that. But when you have three judges on three continents, you're bound to have some time-related delays.
> 
> As soon as comments are in from all three judges (and I'm working on mine now), I'll post the judgment! Think of the wait as character building.



Point buy, or 4d6, drop lowest?


----------



## Zhaneel

I just wanted to share this inner dialog with all my fellow writers:

Zhaneel: Okay, the pictures are up.  Hey Muse, where are you, we had an appiontment, remember?
*Zhaneel's muse is silent and hiding*
*Zhaneel stalks off stage and comes back dragging her Muse behind her*
Zhaneel: Alright, the pictures are up.  Help me out here.
Zhaneel's Muse: Nope. Ain't happening. I'm on strike.
Zhaneel:  You can't be on strike.  Says so right here in your contract.  During Ceramic DM you promised to be there for the 72 hours after the pictures were posted.
*Zhaneel's Muse starts buffing her nails*
Zhaneel: Fine... sleep on it.

[Next Morning]
Zhaneel:  Alright, what have you got for me?
Zhaneel's Muse: Boy, you're tiresome.  Fine, here.
*Zhaneel's Muse tosses a short, thin thread causually*
*Zhaneel examines the thread*
Zhaneel: WTF is this?
Zhaneel's Muse: It is the thread for your story.  It uses all five pictures.
Zhaneel: It's a poor outline of a story that takes place in a country & culture that I know almost nothing about, told in a perspective you know I hate, with no clear end.  This isn't what you're supposed to give me.
Zhaneel's Muse: Tough luck.  S'all I've got.  Later!
*Zhaneel's Muse fades into nothingness*

Zhaneel: Why I outta... *grumblegrumble*

Not like I wanted to win anyways.

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

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Betcha a nickle she descends upon you full force, battering you with ideas from eleven different directions, roughly fifteen minutes after you sit down to try and write. Or in the shower; my muse always shows up while I'm in the shower when I never have anything to scribble notes on. I think she finds it funny.


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Or in the shower; my muse always shows up while I'm in the shower when I never have anything to scribble notes on.



 You clearly need some better writing tools.


----------



## BSF

Let me give you some of my internal dialog

Pictures posted, I log in, check out the pictures...

David - Hey Muse, check it out, whatcha think?
Muse - Whoa, that looks like a lot of red chili.
David - Yeah, it does.  
Muse - Hey, do we have any salsa left?
David - Nope, I finished that last night.  What's that blue bowl thing going to be?
Muse - We should make some salsa.
David - Yeah, we should...
Muse - Some fresh tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, onion ...
David - Yeah, that would be good.  About these pictures...
Muse - Man, that would be tasty.  We should grow some tomatoes this year.  And tomatillos, I wonder how hard those are to grow.
David - I have no idea.  But yeah, we have thought about the salsa garden thing before. That's an old idea, I need something for the story here.
Muse - Hey, doesn't that ball thing look familiar?  I think I've seen a picture like that before.
David - Yeah it does, so, what are going to do with that?
Muse - *shrug*  No idea.  
David - Ummm, what about the monkeys?
Muse - Hey!  Aren't those that one type of monkey that likes to jump in hot springs?  
David - Umm, yeah, that was what I was kinda thinking.  But, it doesn't seem to inspire a story, or does it?
Muse - One of these has gotta be a pic by Sialia, open up the rest.  Oh yeah, that looks like it might be hers!
David - OK, there are all the pictures.  So, whatcha think?
Muse - I think your screwed.  I'm gonna go get some salsa.

Next morning

David - So Muse, you around?
Muse - Yeah, got any salsa?
David - enough with the salsa already!  
Muse - I thought you liked salsa, you eat enough of it.
David - I do, but I need some inspiration.
Muse - So, whatcha talking to me for?
David - 'Cause your my muse.
Muse - Nah, not this week.  I'm on vacation.  Catch you later.
David - Hey, you can't do this to me.  
Muse- You got what, 2 1/2 days, maybe more?  Figure it out yourself.
David - No, I work and I have stuff planned.  I want to finish this tonight.
Muse - And I want salsa, tough luck.  We can't always get what we want.
David - What?  Your a Muse though, help me out here.  Hey, where you going?
David's Muse fades away humming Rolling Stones songs.

So, here I am.  Banged my head on the table for a few hours all Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  I took off early from work because I was on call last week.  I have almost 6 hours left and I have the flimsiest excuse for a story that I can come up with.  I wonder if I can make it?


----------



## ledded

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Betcha a nickle she descends upon you full force, battering you with ideas from eleven different directions, roughly fifteen minutes after you sit down to try and write. Or in the shower; my muse always shows up while I'm in the shower when I never have anything to scribble notes on. I think she finds it funny.



Oh, my muse, such as she is, is much lazier and sneakier than that.

She slams a quick image into my head, something usually at least 7+ pages into a story that I'm trying to write, that I cannot resist and then she disappears altogether.

I sit and try to write something, and she is never there, usually all I hear from her is the crinkling of chips and slurping of drinks and a television with a reality TV show on in the background.

So I try to go on without her, and bemoan my lack of inspiration and skills as I try to painfully drudge my way to that one scene that I can't pry loose from the back of my mind until I find myself writing and writing just to try to get there.  

Then, all of a sudden, I realize that somewhere along the way she has stepped in with a little push or pull one way or another and reading it over I like what has come out.  Those realizations are usually triggered by me glancing at a clock and it being 2-3 hours later than I thought it was.

So she is there all along, but she prefers that I do most of the hard work, only occasionally providing me with a flash of insight and whatnot on occasion, then returning her lazy butt to recline gracefully on my mental couch and take a cheeto dust-smeared nap.

I envy those of you with good relationships with their muse.

Maybe I should give my muse something, like jewelry or a pretty flower.

Hmmm... chocolate.  That might do...


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Betcha a nickle she descends upon you full force, battering you with ideas from eleven different directions, roughly fifteen minutes after you sit down to try and write. Or in the shower; my muse always shows up while I'm in the shower when I never have anything to scribble notes on. I think she finds it funny.




That would have been last night.  When she encouraged me to bang my head against a wall after I eeked out a paragraph.

I'm kinda doubting her input on this one.

She was great for the first round.  Basically handed me the story fully written about 10 minutes after I looked at the pictures.  Of course I was half-asleep when I looked.  And I changed the ending 'cause I thought hers was cliche (Karen would have won).  I think she's pissed at me for that.

Zhaneel


----------



## Sialia

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> That would have been last night. When she encouraged me to bang my head against a wall after I eeked out a paragraph.
> 
> I'm kinda doubting her input on this one.
> 
> She was great for the first round. Basically handed me the story fully written about 10 minutes after I looked at the pictures. Of course I was half-asleep when I looked. And I changed the ending 'cause I thought hers was cliche (Karen would have won). I think she's pissed at me for that.
> 
> Zhaneel



You were wise.  It was a good ending, just the way you wrote it.

The little snarky voice that told you that it needed to be done that way--that is one of your muses, too. 

Listen to it.

Often the very best moment comes at the instant that you know what is wrong with your best work.

If only there's enough time left to do something with the dreadful knowledge.


----------



## NiTessine

Round 2, NiTessine vs. BardStephenFox

*From the Other Side*

Assembled in the dingy room were not the best, the brightest, or the most competent operatives of the agency. They were not prodigies or exemplars. They were, however, good at what they did. They were proficient enough to get their job done, and devoted enough to carry it through.

They numbered four, the standard size for an agency operatives group.

There was always one leader, an absolute authority. He was a tall man, dark-haired and strongly built. He wore a black trenchcoat. It was well-made – the gun holsters under his arms did not show. Neither did the ones at his ankle, hip, and wrists, for that matter.

Next to the leader stood a rather more diminutive man. Thin, blonde, pale, and short, he almost seemed to blend in the background, fading from view. He was dressed in the standard black suit and white shirt that marked him down as an FBI agent a mile away. Of course, he was not, which was precisely why he wore them. Though he did not limp, he carried a sturdy cane of black, lacquered wood, with a silver handle.

There was also a woman, Caucasian, with long, flowing hair the colour of gold, tied in the back with a green ribbon. Her dress was featureless white cotton, with a silken sash. She was unarmed, and kneeling near the wall, examining something.

A third man paced about the room. He was bald and heavyset, with a broken nose and a strong jaw. His feet were encased in the black leather of army boots, and his outfit was bulky around the torso in a way that suggested the existence of heavy body armour under the layer of black clothes. His grey eyes flickered from corner to corner, every now and then glancing into the corridor outside the room, or through the window. He seemed to avoid looking at the item near the wall.

The object of their attention was a small painting of sorts, residing rather low on the wall. There was a basket, a large eggshell and some lavender flowers around it, but the painting was the only thing of consequence. It depicted a ghostly figure, clad in robes, emanating a luminescent green light. It was moving. (3)

“Yeah, it’s a strong one,” the woman commented. “Definitely a bound spirit. Dormant for the moment, but I don’t want to take any risks and wake it up.”
“Can you neutralise it, Annah?” the leader asked.
“Yeah, but it’s the last of the potions I have. Been a busy week. Why are all of these undead popping up now, Chief?” she replied, rummaging around in a leather backpack. A moment later, she came up with a blue jar. She peered at it apprehensively for a while, (2) and then removed the cork. Standing up and stepping back, she flung the contents of the jar over the painting.

The effect was immediate and dramatic. With a hiss, dark vapour rose from the green figure, which began to run like wet paint, its outlines becoming smeared and blurry. A small, unearthly scream pierced the air, making shivers run down the agents’ backs, but they’d seen it too many times to be rattled anymore. 
“Wish I knew,” the Chief replied, his eyes locked on the display. “Wish I knew.”

The house they were in was condemned, an old, wooden building run through with dry rot and not fit to house even the termites that infested it. It was located on a beach, in a less-developed part of the city. The sensors of the agency had picked up something from the Great Beyond in the house, and the team had been dispatched to take care of it. It was the twelfth such occurrence within the last month. Usually, they got that many in six months. Something was afoot. Something big.

“Sir, I am picking up a disturbance,” the pale man suddenly said, holding a finger to his left temple. His eyes were focused to a point far beyond the walls of the house. “It is near... Outside. In the water.” The eyes came back, focusing at the chief. “Now!” he said, in a hoarse whisper, and hurried to the door. The others followed him, having long since learned to trust the clairvoyant’s visions.

Outside, they were met with a peculiar sight. There were two baboons in the water, rising slowly up the beach towards the agents. A grey cast over their eyes told they were either blind or dead. (4) The agents had been in their line of work long enough to realise the latter was more likely. The first zombie ape leaped up, and was met with a hail of .357 bullets from the two semiautomatic pistols Chief had pulled out. It fell to the ground heavily, but soon jumped up again. The other one tried a flanking manoeuvre, but the pale clairvoyant drew a long, thin blade from his cane and took the classical en garde stance.

He lunged, thrust, cut, parried, and even slashed with the blade, scoring a dozen small wounds on the undead beast. It felt no pain, however, and the small blade could do little real damage to it. Then, strong, thick hands grabbed the creature by one arm and yanked hard. The bald man with the body armour ripped the baboon’s arm straight off its socket. Off-balance, the creature could not defend itself when he next grasped its skull and twisted. An unpleasant crunch and some leaking of fluids ensued, and baboon fell in three parts.

Chief returned his guns to their holsters, peering at the other undead creature, now lying on the beach, its form riddled with bullet holes. It’d been a tough one. Not many things can take ten consecrated silver bullets. This one had taken twenty. That would mean its master was nearby, or it was commanded by an exceptionally powerful necromancer. His eyes were suddenly scanning the slate-grey sea that opened in front of them as a vast expanse. The baboons had come from there, so their master would probably be there as well... There! A small motorboat was making its way towards the city central, going well above the naval speed limit of the harbour area.

“To the cars!” he shouted, already running towards them. Fortunately, the road from the beach to the city harbour ran along the beach, allowing them a view of their prey. As the speedboat neared to harbour, it slowed down noticeably. Another advantage to the agents.

They burned rubber and broke every traffic rule and regulation in the books trying to get to the harbour, but they did, in the record time of only five minutes. Seeing their prey trying to tie alongside a pier, Chief steered his car on it, parking it diagonally across the way, blocking the way from ordinary pedestrians. He rose out and pointed a gun at the man in the speedboat.

The moment he locked gazes with his foe, he knew the man for a sorcerer. Purple eyes and a grin far too wide for a human being were good clues. Its disguise spells had fallen during the chase.
“Freeze,” Chief shouted, in vain. The sorcerer wove a quick spell, and an orb of force formed around him, deflecting the agent’s shots. Then, to Chief’s surprise, he jumped in, no, _on_ the water, running inside the floating orb to get away from him. (1)

He would have given chase, were it not for the sorcerer’s next spell. The speedboat warped and melded, its form running like molten wax, assembling itself into a new shape and configuration. Wings. Horns. Claws the size of baseball bats. It shifted itself into the form of a classical devil, while retaining the garish coloration of the speedboat.
“Chaos demon. Crap,” were his thoughts when he jumped backwards to avoid being disembowelled. His twin pistols were already out and spitting large-calibre bullets at the fiend. It roared when they hit, but did not slow down. Pseudopods formed from its flesh to strike at the other members of the team who closed in to do battle. One of them was promptly sliced off by a well-placed slash of the sword cane. Sirens of police cars could be heard in the distance.

Chief threw away his empty pistols and reached for the second pair, jumping up and twisting in the air to avoid a claw. He took aim at its head, and fired. His target parted in the middle before the bullet, letting it pass before melding back into its bestial visage. Chaos daemons’ bodies were as fickle as their minds. The barrage of bullets was taking its toll on the fiend, that much could be seen. It moved slower. For a moment, one of its pseudopods flickered into the shape of the ship’s propeller. Of course... if it had trouble retaining its form, sooner or later, the gas tank would materialise. Chief ran to the trunk of his car and shot the lock open. No time for keys now. He dropped his guns inside and took out the red steel canister filled with gas. He uncorked it and ran to the demon.

“Cover me,” he shouted to the others, while he sprayed the creature liberally with the flammable liquid. Then, with one of its giant claws, the fiend split the canister and gashed deep across his arm. Pain overwhelmed him as the chemical found its way into the wound. Purple blots obscured his vision. He kicked out with both his legs, hurling himself into the water. The next moment, a shot caused the gas on the demon to catch fire. The moment after that, it exploded.

A wave of force rippled over the harbour. The inherently magical creature’s death resulted in a powerful backlash, and in the case of a creature of chaos, the results could be quite unpredictable.

“I don’t believe it,” the clairvoyant said as he looked over the changed harbour.
“Who’da thunk it?” the burly man said, next to him. His shoulder had been dislocated.
“Should we help Chief out of there?” Annah asked.
“Nah. He can make it out himself. Especially now,” the clairvoyant replied. “The colour is really quite nice.”
“Damn your hides, help me out!” came the exasperated cry of their leader. “I hate chilli peppers!” (5)


----------



## BSF

*Rojo*

NiTessine vs BardStephenFox AKA David Moore

Gwenneth Straylight slapped a third storage module into the AT-300 humming away in the hotel room.  She flicked the transmit button on her bodycomp and ran through a test sequence.  She studied the AT-300’s readout for a moment.  Then, satisfied that transmissions were working correctly, she flicked on the ‘Encrypt’ button.  From here on out, her bodycomp would encrypt the data being beamed back to the AT-300.  Internal Affairs auditing was a pain at times, but it never even entered Gwenneth’s mind to conveniently ‘forget’ to start the recording.  Picking up the omnoculars sitting on the window sill, she made sure that the data cable was plugged into her bodycomp.  She raised them to her eyes and began her running monologue.

“Star Law Ranger Gwenneth Straylight:  Subjects are currently relaxing in a hot spring.  Two Yazarians, Male and Female.  Markings on fur consistent with suspects known as Kenchar Hilo and Marhina Mato.  Other occupants of the pool include a Dralasite that hotel records show is an independent clothing sales representative.  Kdikit local police have been very cooperative and have formed a cordon around the hotel.  As well, they have provided two officers to assist with the arrest.  We are waiting for the innocent to vacate the area before we move in as the suspects are known to be violent.”  

Gwenneth continued her observation of the two Yazarians while checking in with the officers assigned to assist her.  She had briefed all of them the night before on Kenchar and Marhina.  Ken and M&M were both former employees of MerCo before being dismissed for excessive violence.  Now, the lovers were allegedly the head of the local Rojo trade.  Gwenneth had worked for months with a dealer turned informant to create an airtight case against the two Yazarians.  Two weeks ago, the informant had sent Gwenneth a tight-band, encrypted message telling her that Ken and M&M were fronts for something bigger, much bigger.  The next day, the informant had disappeared, only to reappear three days later.  He was partially cooked from repeated Maser fire, one of Ken’s favored methods of disposing of competition, and turncoats.  

Finally, the Dralasite appeared to have enough of the hot water.  Pulling itself from the water, it extruded two legs and a third arm.  Drying itself off, it was walking again.  Gwenneth unplugged the omnoculars and switched over to her helmet.  Activating the Dis-Viz progit, she continued recording.  “All units, it’s a go.  We are moving in now..”  She was out the patio door and drawing her Rafflur M-3 as the Kdikit agents assigned to assist with the arrest flanked her.  She tried to forget that Ken and M&M were well trained, violent mercenaries that had moved on to the drug trade.  This was just another bust.  Rounding corner, the Rafflur came up and she braced it in both hands while leveling it at the two Yazarians.  “Freeze, Star Law!”

The two Yazarians were seated in the hot spring, steam rose up from the water around them.  [steam.jpg]  They regarded her with contempt and Gwenneth tensed.  If they decided to fight …  The sound of distant thunder and then the water in the pool leapt into the air.  Gwenneth was thrown to the ground as blood and water rained down on her. 

Hours later the preliminary results were back from the Kdikit police forensics team.  Somebody had left a few grenades at the bottom of the pool, with a remote trigger.  Whoever triggered the explosion was nearby at the time.  Somebody wanted Ken and M&M dead.  It was quite a coincidence that the explosion happened just before Gwenneth was able to arrest them. Gwenneth never believed in coincidence.

Back in the hotel room, she slapped more storage modules into the AT-300 and pulled up the hotel registry.  In a few moments, she had the room number of the Dralasite.  Surprisingly enough, he hadn’t checked out.  Of course, a good assassin wouldn’t do anything that obvious.  Gwenneth grabbed the Forensic-CAS from the case at the foot of her bed.  She was trained on how to use it to quickly analyze an area, but any serious analysis would have to be deferred to one of the Sci-Techs.  She slung the CAS over her shoulder and checked to make sure the bodycomp was still transmitting.  

Gwenneth took the stairs up the twelve stories to the Dralasite’s room.  Reaching the door to the room, she paused and listened.  She could hear a faint hissing noise.  Pulling a sealed envelope from a zipper pocket on her leg, she broke the seal and pulled out a master room key for the hotel.  Holding the key in her left hand, she drew a small needler from a hidden holster at the small of her back.  At 45 cm long, the Rafflur M-3 was a very good long pistol, but it was a poor choice for close quarter fighting.  Besides, the needler was much quieter.  She slid the key in the door, heard the beep as the lock disengaged, and rushed through the doorway.  

She crouched with the needler held up as she scanned the room.  The window was open and the drapes were waving in the night air.  The round table in the corner held a microtape player and a blue bowl, turned upside down.  The whirring sound was coming from the microtape player as it was speed erasing the tape.  With an expletive, Gwenneth jumped across the room and turned the microtape player off.  A large, low box in the corner caught her eye.  On the side, she could see the Streel logo for a floater disk.  Leaning out the window, she saw a dark form on the ground run around the corner of the building.  With another expletive, she kicked the box.  If she had only been a little faster …  Still, it was an amazing coincidence that whoever was in this room decided to leave just as she arrived.  

No, it wasn’t coincidence.  The person had left in a hurry, otherwise the microtape wouldn’t be here.  Somehow, the person knew she was coming.  A quick examination of the rest of the room revealed a mess in the bathtub.  The Forensic-CAS indicated that it had once been a body suit to masquerade as a Dralasite.  The ceramic cone for the plastid was still sitting in the mess of goo.  

Gwenneth paced the room, thinking.  Whoever she was looking for had been in a hurry.  So, they likely left some evidence behind.  The floater disk box was one start, but how many floater disks did Streel sell in a year?  Millions?  Still, it was a place to start.  The body suit in the tub might have something the Sci-Techs could pull out, but the Forensic-CAS had indicated that the plastid had done a thorough job.  What about the plastid?  Gwenneth returned to the bathroom, put on some gloves and picked up the ceramic cone.  Inside, she could see the MerCo logo.  Perhaps the assassin was somebody with affiliations with MerCo?  That would be bad.  Even MerCo was good about ignoring former employees.  If MerCo were still interested in Ken and M&M, then perhaps they still had some corporate ties.  No, Mega-Corp ties.  After the Corporate Wars, MerCo was a legitimate Mega Corporation.  Gwenneth thought back to the classes she had at Star Law Academy.  MerCo was closely allied with Streel.  They sometimes shared research and there were numerous accounts of them sharing resources.  Gwenneth eyed the floater disk box.

Returning to the table she reached for the microtape player, then paused.  Why did the supposed assassin leave it here?  It was portable and wouldn’t have been a problem on a floater board.  She brought up the Forensic-CSA and scanned the player.  She watched the results scroll up the screen.  Somebody had very recently wiped it down with a cleaning solution.  But, there was also the chemical signature for Tornadium D-19.  The microtape player was rigged to blow up.  Very carefully, Clarice slid the player into a hip pouch.  Keying on the com-link, she requested a forensic team to come examine the room.  The local police would collect up the goo in the tub and run the usual checks on the floater disk box.  The microtape player was the best chance to get something useful as far as evidence was concerned.  

Just before she walked out the door, she stopped.  Turning back to the table, she looked at the upside down bowl.  Somebody had been holding that recently.  Striding across the room quickly, she picked up the bowl and ran the Forensic-CSA over it and watched the screen.  Human DNA.  Holding the bowl up, a smile tugged at her lips.  [bowl.jpg]  Whoever was in here forgot to wipe down the bowl.

Gwenneth made a trip downtown to drop off the microtape player with a tech she knew, Morris loved to take things apart and put them together, and he had a little demolition experience from a stint in the military.  He was tired, but intrigued and told her to come back in the morning.  

Gwenneth shot off the DNA information and requested a match out of the main database.  Maybe she would get lucky and come back with some perp info.  As she settled onto the hotel bed, she heard the insistent beeping on an incoming call.  With a sigh, she answered it.  

“Ranger Straylight, I was just reading the reports from last night.  It looks like your thugs got themselves blown up.  I’m wondering why you haven’t closed the case and returned to the office.”   Commissioner Culp could be a bit of a hardass, and he often forgot that some of his agents might be operating half a planet away.  

“Yes sir, the Yazarians appear to have been assassinated.  But, my informant led me to believe that they were merely working for a larger organization.  I’m trying to ascertain the veracity of that claim.”

“Are you sure you aren’t taking this too personally Ranger?”

“No sir, but I am tired.  Perhaps in the morning I will re-evaluate my thoughts.”

Commissioner Culp blinked.  “Oh yes, it is still nighttime on your side of the planet.  My apologies Ranger Straylight, thank you for your early report and I will look for your analysis when you wake.”

“Thank you sir.”  Gwenneth turned off the videophone and collapsed on the bed.  It had been a long day.  Just as she drifted off to sleep, she tried to remember when she had time to make a report.

She dreamt of Rojo.  Wide fields of red fruit.  She knew that it had been banned nearly 40 years earlier when it was found to make a powerful psychotropic drug.  The drug was worse than any other drug on the streets, and it affected almost every sentient race.  It was extremely addictive and was a drug pushers dream.  Oddly enough, the green variety of the same plant could not be turned into a drug.  At the academy, somebody had once tried to explain how the difference in the color made this possible, but she didn’t understand the chemistry.  Just after graduation, she had taken part in a Rojo raid on Corpco in the New Streel system.  She remembered descending on the farm.  The family was quite accommodating.  They didn’t realize it was illegal to grow red chili plants.  She still remembered the sad look on the boys face as he helped load the chilis into a truck to be incinerated.  [wade.jpg]

In the morning, Gwenneth refreshed her memory of Corpco.  It was founded by Streel a few decades back in an attempt to enter the agriculture market.  Right around the time that red chili was banned because of Rojo.  It was shortly after this that Streel profits really accelerated.  Was it coincidence?  Gwenneth didn’t believe in coincidence.  

Morris called mid-morning.  He looked like he had been up all night.  “Gwenneth, I gotcher tape.  Man, yer should see this work.  It’s bee-uterful.  It was rigged ter blow if yer hit play or eject.  It’s a good thing yer a smart girl.  Umm, yer want me to get rid of the Tornadium or do yer want it?”

“Morning Morris, yeah, I am a smart girl.  Smart enough to make you promise not to sell explosives on the street.  You got that Morris?  If I hear you sold that stuff, I will personally come down on you.  I’ll come get the tape this afternoon.  I have a few things to check first.”  Gwenneth hung up before Morris could argue.  Ideas were forming in her head and she wanted to access the Star Law library, but not from her room. 

She visited Mick.  Mick was a former Star Law Marshal.  He had worked the Rim worlds for years before he got caught in a firefight with a Rojo gang.  He lived, and the doctors had fixed a lot of the damage, but it made Mick feel old, so he retired.  

“What you have here Gwenneth is a classic setup.  You are right, it sounds like your assassin knew you were on your way upstairs.  Somehow, somebody has you tapped.  The question is, how?”

Gwenneth studied Mick for a few minutes.  “I have a theory on that.  Tell me, why do we have such serious security audits?”
“Oh Gwenneth, that is history.  People start to feel a little nervous when you have a bunch of well trained gunslingers running around that can impose martial law on a planet.  They want to have accountability for those folks.  Especially a few years back when you had one guy go bad.  Surely you learned all that at the Academy.”

“Yeah, Bjorn Dremott.  I remember looking up his biography.  He had close ties to the agriculture board for Streel.  I think he might be our assassin.”

“What makes you say that?  He was discharged from Star Law and almost faced prison time.”

Mick shook his head.  “Yes, but he didn’t go to prison.  Afterwards, he kind of just faded away.”

“That’s my point Mick, a Star Law Ranger gone bad doesn’t just fade away.  Tell me, what does the AT-300 designate?”  

Mick leaned back.  “The Audit Trail series of minicomps uses cutting edge encryption to provide a constant data stream of the actions of a Star Law agent in the field.  You know the marketing as well as I do.”

Gwenneth leaned forward.  “Yes, but I don’t know who makes them.  Tell me Mick, would you be interested in running a query on that computer in the back room?  I know you are only semi-retired.”

Mick looked intrigued.  He stood and gestured for Gwenneth to help him walk back through the house.  It took them a few tries to dig up the names of the relevant companies.  In the end, they knew that the AT-300 was manufactured by SecureCo, a subsidiary of MerCo, with a heavy investment of the Greater Vrusk Mutual Prosperity Institution, a subsidiary of Streel.  Further digging finally pulled up the information that Vlad Dremott  sat on the Board of Directors for SecureCo.  

“Mick, do me a favor and see if you can find any property that is owned by anybody in the Dremott family here.  I have a hunch that I can blow this latest Rojo ring open if I can anything like that.”

“Sure thing Gwenneth.  If there is a chance to get more Rojo off the street …”

“I know Mick.”

Gwenneth picked up the microtape at Morris’.  She found a quiet little hill outside of town to listen to it.  Somehow, she ‘forgot’ to turn on the encryption and recording of her bodycomp.  Most of the tape was erased, except for the end.  Ken was talking.

“Yah boss, we took care of the snitch.  He had some microtape with a whole bunch’a company history.  It’s cool though, we stashed the tape back at the beach house.  The egg is the key”  Ken laughed that harsh laugh that all Yazarians seem to have.

“Well Ken, I think that about takes care of everything.  I’ll talk to you and M&M later.”

“Yah boss, later.”

Mick called a few hours later, “Gwenneth, I think I have a property of interest for you.  Oddly enough, it is located near one of Star Law’s hidden transmission stations.  Quite a coincidence don’t you think?”

“Let me guess, it’s a beach house right?”

“Hmm, good guess Gwenneth.  Another coincidence?”

“You know I don’t believe in coincidence Mick.  What’s the address?”

Gwenneth had to break a window to get into the beach house.  Yazarian hair was all over the furniture.  She looked around for all the normal hiding places.  More beeping and she answered her com.  “Ranger Straylight.”

The technician on the other end was calm.  “Yes Ranger, we have a match on that DNA you sent over last night.  Are you at a place where you can receive it?”

Gwenneth thought about the nearby transmission station.  Time was running out.  “Yes, go ahead.”

“We have a visual identification as well.  Subject is Bjorn Dremott.  Visual transmitting now.”

Gwenneth stared at the picture hanging from the wall.  Below it was a decorative egg, open.  [secret3.jpg]  Dremott had already found the microtape.  Looking out the window she saw a man walking down the beach with a hat pulled low over his eyes.  He looked a lot like the picture of Bjorn Dremott.

Rushing out onto the beach, she saw him start running.  Suddenly, he jumped into the water, a globe encircling him.  He was running on the water, trying to make his way across the bay. [plod.jpg]  Stopping on the beach, Gwenneth raised the Rafflur M-3.  Her finger rested on the trigger, ready to unleash a tight beam of accelerated protons.  “Freeze, Star Law!”

Dremott turned and flipped her off, he kept going.  She pulled the trigger.  A bright white flash hit the globe and caused it to glow.  Dremott was shielded!  With a grin, Gwenneth pulled out the needler.  She pulled the trigger.  *pop*  “I said freeze Dremott.”


----------



## BSF

Bleh - Squeezed it in.  This one needed more of a lot of things.  But, the time limit is part of the competition.  

So, NiTessine, now we just need to wait.    Best of luck to us both.


----------



## Zhaneel

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Bleh - Squeezed it in.  This one needed more of a lot of things.  But, the time limit is part of the competition.
> 
> So, NiTessine, now we just need to wait.    Best of luck to us both.




You could get some salsa while you wait... ;-)


----------



## mythago

Darn it, now I want salsa!

 Where are those judges, anyway...


----------



## Eeralai

Thanks for the fun reads NiTessine and BSF!


----------



## orchid blossom

mythago said:
			
		

> Darn it, now I want salsa!
> 
> Where are those judges, anyway...




I've got chili.  It's basically salsa with meat.

Good luck to all you round two participants.  I'm enjoying watching you sweat.


----------



## NiTessine

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Bleh - Squeezed it in.  This one needed more of a lot of things.  But, the time limit is part of the competition.
> 
> So, NiTessine, now we just need to wait.    Best of luck to us both.




Yeah, well, mine could've also used a lot of things. Being written while awake would be an important one. But I got it written. I triumphed over that misbegotten bastard of a tale and that evil set of mismatched pictures! Bwahahahahahahahaa!


----------



## Piratecat

Yee ha! Doesn't it feel good to be done?  

As soon as we have a posted winner for Match 2-2, we can schedule Match 3-1. Gosh... it's way cooler than I thought it would be to see what people can do with the photos I selected. I feel like I'm sending my babies off to school for the first time, and they're coming home to tell me how much fun it was.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Gosh... it's way cooler than I thought it would be to see what people can do with the photos I selected. I feel like I'm sending my babies off to school for the first time, and they're coming home to tell me how much fun it was.




You, sir, are a sick, sick puppy.

Zhaneel


----------



## orchid blossom

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> You, sir, are a sick, sick puppy.
> 
> Zhaneel




Would you really want him to be any other way?  He just wouldn't be the same without that demented glee.


----------



## BSF

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> I've got chili.  It's basically salsa with meat.
> 
> Good luck to all you round two participants.  I'm enjoying watching you sweat.





Well, I know some people think that, but you live in NY so I will forgive you.  

Seriously though, most of the people I know always thought it was funny to watch those Pace Picante sauce.  The ones where the old cowboy would say "This stuffs made in New York City."  Then the chorus from the rest of the cowboys, "New York City?"  Then the last cowboy would say "Get a rope."  Maybe it wasn't broadcast all over the nation.  Anyway, we all thought it was funny because Pace is generally rather bland.  It certainly isn't the best salsa out there.  As for my salsa, I tend to do the following.

Several Roma tomatoes (I like Roma because they tend to be juicy and they are small enough that when I quarter them, they fit in my salsa chopper very nicely.)
1/4 - 1/2 Red Onion (Depending on size and how much onion I feel like that day.)
1 - 2 tomatillos
Cloves of garlic to my whim
a few sprigs of cilantro
a handful of salt
a bit of olive oil to help the flavors blend together
Jalapeno(s) or Green Chili, depending on whimsy
a few squeezes of fresh lime

All that goes in my chopper, I throw the top on, whirl the handle around a few times if I want it chunky, or several times if I want it very fine.  Then, grap a tortilla chip and taste it.  Sometimes I will have hit my desired taste right off.  Sometimes I will add ingredients.  It all depends on what I am using it for.  You know, just a snack, or for burritos and tacos, or to put on a hamburger, or whatever.  

That's my salsa.  

Now, to make what we call Texas-style chili, that's a completely different recipe.


----------



## orchid blossom

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Well, I know some people think that, but you live in NY so I will forgive you.




Actually, my chili isn't really chili.  It's peppers, onions, garlic, a few herbs and spices.  (right there, sounds a lot like salsa, no?)  Then beef.  All cooked.  So that's why I said it's like salsa with meat.  Real salsa, and I'm talking good stuff, I can't usually eat cause my tongue feels like it's going to burn off.

(Sorry for the ot posting.  I'll stop now.  Maybe I'll go try to write a story about Muses.)


----------



## Zhaneel

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Seriously though, most of the people I know always thought it was funny to watch those Pace Picante sauce.  The ones where the old cowboy would say "This stuffs made in New York City."  Then the chorus from the rest of the cowboys, "New York City?"  Then the last cowboy would say "Get a rope."  Maybe it wasn't broadcast all over the nation.  Anyway, we all thought it was funny because Pace is generally rather bland.  It certainly isn't the best salsa out there.




Yeah, I've seen 'em.  And thought they were funny.  I buy Pace for those days when I'm feeling lazy.  but homemade is so much better.

Zhaneel


----------



## Maldur

dang, now Im hungry.

I did spot the stories and mailed my judgement to Piratecat. You guys keep amazing me!


----------



## BSF

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> Actually, my chili isn't really chili.  It's peppers, onions, garlic, a few herbs and spices.  (right there, sounds a lot like salsa, no?)  Then beef.  All cooked.  So that's why I said it's like salsa with meat.  Real salsa, and I'm talking good stuff, I can't usually eat cause my tongue feels like it's going to burn off.
> 
> (Sorry for the ot posting.  I'll stop now.  Maybe I'll go try to write a story about Muses.)




Ah, the wonders of a sleep deprived and addled mind.  My apologies.  

I was trying to make fun of the Pace salsa commercials.  I know they were trying to indirectly mock one of their competitors, but their product isn't that wonderful either.  The fact that they felt the need to do that by trying to disparage the NorthEast portion of the country kind of torqued me out to where I remember not even touching their products for a full 8 years.  Obviously, my humor did not carry over so well.  There is no reason why Salsa from one portion of the country is inherently better than any other salsa.  Salsa is a lot of different things!  For those that are not familiar with the wonderful world of assorted Salsas, check out some of the recipes online and make your own.  In fact, here is a link for you:  Assorted Salsa Recipes


----------



## BSF

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Yeah, I've seen 'em.  And thought they were funny.  I buy Pace for those days when I'm feeling lazy.  but homemade is so much better.
> 
> Zhaneel




Pace finally has a Cilantro Salsa that isn't bad.  But, there are many, many companies with better Salsa out there.  Heck, we have a half-dozen local brands that I can think of off the top of my head.  But, this really is sidetracking the thread.  If people are really that interested in Salsa, the crucial "Red or Green" question, Mexican food vs New Mexican food vs Tex-Mex, and all sorts of assorted sundries, we could create an [OT] Thread in the appropriate forum.  

And if any of you are ever out in Albuquerque, drop me an email and I will be happy to show you the selections of local cuisine.


----------



## Maldur

I might hold you to that offer in august


----------



## orchid blossom

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Ah, the wonders of a sleep deprived and addled mind.  My apologies.




I wasn't offended, not to worry.  That's the downside of messageboards and messaging in general.  No tone of voice, crooked smile, weird laugh at the end of the statement to let you know.  I was just pointing out that my chili is about as chili as it is salsa.  (I'm a picky eater, most people don't recognize my food as what I claim it is.  lol)

I remember those commercials too.  I found them funny, but unconvincing.  Why couldn't they make good salsa anywhere?  What bugs me are products that try to sell themselves by saying thier competition is terrible.  I still can't stand Pepsi, cause for so long their slogan seemed to be, "Coke stinks!"

I actually love people's regional pride.  I may be living in NY now, but I'm originally from Wisconsin, and there are still foods I miss.  Lake to Lake Mild Cheddar cheese, (sadly now swallowed up by Borden's) Milwaukee Baby Dill Pickles....  Godfather's Pizza, burgers at The Penguin.  

Crap, now I'M hungry.


----------



## BSF

Maldur said:
			
		

> I might hold you to that offer in august




Cool.  Though, our next baby is due in August.  But still, if you are in the area, drop an email.


----------



## Zhaneel

Round 2-4
Zhaneel versus RangerWickett

*Vritra's Return*

	Devang had always had a problem with authority.  It was one of the first things that brought him to the attention of the Brothers of Vishnu.  They are always on the lookout for bright men, and often those who rebel at being commanded do so because they feel they are better than their commanders.  Devang was one such.  Though he was a poor man’s son, he had a quick wit and willingness to use it.  Much to the dismay of his commander in the Indian National Army.  Devang was constantly getting into trouble, as he subtly and not so subtly pushed the limits of what he was allowed to do as a low level grunt with very little hope for advancement due to his caste.  He would do such things as chewing gum in line for role, and when told he wasn’t allowed to do that unless he brought enough for everyone, he’d bring enough for everyone the next day.  Devang never did anything bad enough to be severely punished, though he was assigned to cooking duty more than any other grunt.  But these things were noted in his file and eventually a visitor from the Brothers came to see the troublemaker himself.

	All of the grunts were lined up for the inspection of the Brother, who was posing as a high level colonel.  Devang was obvious, instead of turning with a somber face he made a horrible face for a brief moment, thinking the official wouldn’t see.  But the Brother did see, as he was able to see more than just where his eyes were looking, thanks to the grace of Vishnu.  He did nothing, other than note the further rebellion.  After all the grunts were dismissed, he asked to be able to interview a few of the men.  The commanders in charge of the facility were more than willing to bring in those asked, though the Brother detected a little nervousness when Devang’s name was mentioned.  And one commander let a brief smirk cross his features, obviously thinking that Devang might be in trouble and relishing in it.

	The Brother went through the first couple of interviews; it was easy enough to come up with questions that didn’t matter.  He was on autopilot, thinking over all of the notes in Devang’s file and what small amount he’d witnessed here.  Finally, Devang was brought into the small room the Brother was using.  As a rare treat, Devang actually looked respectful, which was expected as the Brother outranked him both militarily and through the caste system.  The Brother nodded to the escort, who left them alone.  With a whispered plea and small gesture, the Brother beseeched Vishnu to change what the recordings of this place would be.

	“Devang, I wanted to talk to you.  You seem to be a smart man, yet you waste your intelligence with stupid pranks,” the Brother said, eying Devang for a reaction.

	Devang’s head snapped up and his mouth opened to deny it, before the years of deference caught up to him.

	“I am sorry, Colonel.  I know not of what you speak, though if I did I would work hard to correct my mistake,” Devang said, his eyes downcast.
	“Come now, Devang.  Speak plainly with me.  You like to cause trouble.  Why?”

	Devang looked up, a spark of hatred forming in his eyes.  “As you wish, Colonel. I cause trouble because there is not much else to do.  There are no enemies to attack and the days are filled with boredom.  At least when I cause trouble, I get a smile or a laugh and so do my fellow men.  And then I have something to do, punishment though it may be.  And as they dislike me causing trouble they attempt to vary the punishments to find something I don’t care to do.  I, however, like the variety, so I refuse to let any one punishment get me down, sir.”

	“Ah, so instead of putting forth your effort to become the best you could be for the Army, you waste our time and your own with stupid pranks.  Shame upon you and you may never reach enlightenment that way.”

	“And what would you have me do?”

	The Brother raised a single, elegant eyebrow.  “It is not what I would have you do.  It is what Vishnu would have you do.”

	Devang was at a loss for words.  Most people who the Brotherhood was recruiting experienced the same thing.  All was going along normal in their lives, and then someone told them a God from India’s past wanted something of them.  The next reaction was equally predictable.

	“Vishnu is a part of our history.  I doubt very much that he would want something of me, or that you, Colonel, would be the one to bring his word.”

	“Devang, whether you believe it or no, Vishnu exists still.  He did not disappear just because the majority of India pushed Him into the Buddhist lore.  As does His consort  Sarasvati, and Shiva the Destroyer, and Kali the Bringer of Death.  All of them and more.  They exist and they still mark our mortal plane and do their work.”

	Devang looked at the Brother as if he had gone crazy.  This was also normal.  “I am not a Colonel is this army, though I used to be.  My name is Ranjit Issar, and I am a Brother of Vishnu.  The Brotherhood of Vishnu attempts to do His work here on Earth and prevent the schemes of Shiva, Kali and the asuras from harming innocents.  You have been selected to be offered a place in this brotherhood.  The Army is no place for you.  You are too intelligent to be a grunt, but you are not of a high enough caste to advance.  The best you could hope for is to avoid bringing more disgrace upon that a high ranking officer would offer to sponsor your children into a higher level caste.  You are welcome to that fate, if it is what you desire.  But if you desire more, you will join the Brotherhood of Vishnu and be challenged for the rest of your life.”

	It was too much for anyone to take in fully upon hearing it for the first time.  This was exactly what the Brotherhood was counting on.  Given the intelligence necessary for the agents, it was necessary to keep them off guard so they were pliable.  It was a fine line to walk, because presenting too much outrageous information would just render the potential agent a nonbeliever.  Too little and the potentials began to engage their logic and disbelieve the information they were given.  Fortunately, Ranjit was an experienced recruiter and could easily gauge the appropriate pushes and when to give them.  Devang played right into his hand.

	“I have always felt I was meant for more.  Maybe this is what I felt.  I will join you, Brother Ranjit Issar.”

	“Good, then you will go back to your quarters and speak of this to no one.  The Brotherhood of Vishnu is a secret kept from most of the populace who wouldn’t understand what we do.  You will receive a transfer request shortly.  Take it, and come to meet your destiny.”

	With those words, Ranjit turned and walked out of the room.  As he did so, he released the hold he had over the recorders.  Devang followed slowly and made his way back to the barracks.  The transfer request came early on the morrow, just when Devang had begun to wonder if he had dreamed the experience.

#

	Over the next couple of months, Devang was trained in all things a Brother of Vishnu would need to know.  He was made to learn how to read, something he’d been denied much of his life.  Devang learned much of the history and mythology surrounding the old Gods.  While it was hard to tell truth from embellishment, the Brotherhood had an extensive library for comparison and more texts than Devang had though possible to exist.  Devang was also trained in the proper ways to honor all the gods, for even Shiva needed worship sometimes to deal with asura that went against Shiva’s plans.  He helped out on several small missions, learning the ropes and how to recognize the presence of the other world in everyday life.  It was fun and challenging, as Ranjit had promised.  Devang did not act out any more for his mind was occupied with other things.  So it went for several years.

	Then something big happened.  Reports made their way to the Brotherhood about a disturbance in the northeastern jungles.  The water had changed to blood in one of the rivers that ran toward the holy Ganga river.  While the blood was not yet defiling the Ganga, it was only a matter of time. Christian missionaries were hailing it as one of the indications of the Armageddon to come.  But the Brotherhood knew better.  And knew too that it was their job to protect India and stop the spread of this defilement.

	A team of four, one for each hand of Vishnu, was put together. Devang was one of the men chosen.  All four were cunning and well trained.  Traveling to the outer edge of the forest was easy.  Gaining entrance into the forest was also easy for the Brotherhood, though news correspondents and various religious cult members were having trouble getting past the security detail sent by the Indian Army.  Devang suppressed a smile as they made their way past.  He had never regretted his decision to leave the boring life.

	Even though the trees blocked out much of the light it was hot inside the jungle.  More than expected, and the air was oppressive.  There was definitely something from the beyond at work here.  The team hiked through the forest slowly and carefully, noting what little details they could.  But it wasn’t until they reached the river of blood did they truly find anything of note.  It was a truly frightening sight.  Bright red blood filled the banks of the river.  The tang of iron was heavy in the air.  No animals could be seen near the river, they were all avoiding it though there were well marked water paths.  Not that Devang could blame the animals.  All four members of his team were fighting the urge to be away from this defilement of nature.  But they forced themselves toward it and took samples for analysis.  No fish could be seen, which made Devang wonder if they were all dead from the lack of water and accessible oxygen or if they had been proactively removed by the same magic that placed the blood there in the first place.

	After the samples had been taken, the team conferred and decided to split into two.  The source of this magic was unclear, and they would make better time if they were able to walk up and down the river.  Devang’s team followed the river north, on the eastern bank, while the other team would travel south, hopefully finding a boat to cross to the western bank.  No one really wanted to swim across the river.

	Devang’s partner was Partha Ray, a quiet man.  Devang had worked with him on one or two missions before and knew he was dependable.  They made their way up the river in silence.  Aside from the river, the rest of the jungle seemed normal.  Somehow the trees were still managing to pull up enough water that they were healthy.  While that couldn’t last forever, it was something to note.  The groundwater had not been affected, nor had the rain that came and went with regular frequency.

	After about a mile of walking, they came upon a small boy, which would have been uneventful, if he hadn’t been carrying a boar’s head over his shoulder.  The boy was small, too small really to be carrying such a weight, but the boy carried it with ease.  Though the neck was bloody, there was no blood gushing out of the head, indicating the blood had been drained.  There was no body within visual range, but given the condition of the river, both Devang and Partha easily came to the same conclusion.  When they tried to question the boy, the received no response.  Partha was better with languages, and tried Hindi and several of the local dialects.  Partha also tried Mandarin and several Chinese dialects just in case. Nothing.  No response.  Then Partha tried the holy tongue, taught to only a special few by Vishnu’s consort, Sarasvati.  At this the boy suddenly stood stock still and dropped the boar’s head.  As Partha continued, the boy began to shake and convulse.  Devang readied his weapons in case the boy should turn violent.  But there was no need.  Partha was able to rid the boy of the asuras influence without harming the boy or causing the boy to reach out to harm them.  Which meant either this was the work of a weak asura, or a powerful asura was somehow being prevented from extending its full influence.  A quick discussion with the boy revealed very little.  He didn’t know what had happened.  And he didn’t remember any of the time he’d spent serving the asura.  Truth be told the boy was frightened, and rightfully so.  Devang & Partha spent a moment to confer.  The village was nearby, and the boy had been able to give directions but did not want to go himself.  They could contact the other half of their party and wait for them, or they could split up further and one could escort the boy home while one went to the village to confront the asura.  They had just decided to wait when an earthquake hit.  It was strong and the trees waved in the aftershocks.  If there was a river of blood and now earthquakes and people being taken over, there was very little time left.  The wait plan was abandoned and they quickly decided Devang would go to the village to confront the asura while Partha took the boy back to a safe location while contacting the rest of their team who would follow as soon as they could.

	Devang ran along the small path toward the village.  He took the right fork as indicated and came to the defensive bridge the natives employed.  No one was guarding it; all villagers were engaged in various tasks for the asura it seemed.  Devang quickly made his way across and gazed around the village.  A few people moved here and there, lugging the heads of various jungle animals toward the center of the village.  Devang made his way toward the same, staying out of sight of the focused humans.  He hoped that the asura was too engaged in whatever it was doing to spread its senses out to detect Devang’s movements.

	As it happened, Devang was able to creep to the center of the village with no troubles.  And what he saw amazed and terrified him.  An overly large figurine of a golden-green dragon took up most of what had been the village square.  It was incredibly long, iridescent scales flashing in the sun.  There was no way to tell where the tail ended as the body was wrapped in and around itself too many times to track the coils.  And it was wrapped around a small egg.  A humming emanated from the figurine, and the villagers were depositing their loads of animal heads nearby.  Devang watched as a coil slowly reached out and take the head into the mass of coils, where it disappeared.  He started to pray for guidance from Vishnu, but he heard a slow cackle behind him, filled with the sound of locusts flying on the breeze.

	“Vishnu cannot help you.  Vishnu is forbidden from harming Vritra with anything made from wood, metal, or stone, with anything dry or wet, or at any time during the day or night,” a female voice said.

	At that moment Devang knew he stood in the presence of a goddess.  And with the sound of locusts undercutting every word spoken, and yet he was still able hear the sound of grass growing he knew that it was Kali, Goddess of Destruction and the Mother Goddess in one.  Slowly he turned and bowed, laying his head to the ground, avoiding looking into the fearsome black eyes or at which hand Kali might have extended toward him.

	“Kalikamata, _Black Earth Mother_” Devang said.  “I am awed by your appearance to me,” Devang murmured.

	“Pah, you think I had something to do with this and you are trying to figure out a way to stop me,” Kali scolded.

	Devang knew that Kali hated ignorance, and feigned ignorance more.  “Yes, you are right.  Did you have something to do with this?”

	“Well and good, Devang, for you to come clean.  Yes, I helped Vritra expand the boundaries of his prison so that he could make changes.  But I do not mean for him to escape.  I will help you defeat the demon, if you promise to do me one favor,” Kali said, her voice changed to the sensual overtones of the Divine Mother.

	Devang knew as well as any of the Brothers that to make a deal with Kali was to make a deal with death.  But would his death be worth saving all the others lives that the rebirth of Vritra, most powerful of the asura whose coils could encircle the world, would end?  Surely one death instead of many was preferable.  Devang took a deep breath and answered, “What is it you wish me to do?”

	Though he didn’t look up, Devang felt the terrible smile that lit Kali’s face.  “Nothing, really.  Just make sure the egg does not get destroyed.  And when it shrinks, save it and keep it.  Think of it as a memento.”

	 Though Devang was sure it would be more than just a memento, he could see no other choice.  He was not prepared to fight Vritra, and Kali would give him the key.  What harm could one little egg cause?

	Kali told him the secret to trap Vritra once more in his prison.  No one, not even the Gods, could kill Vritra, most powerful of the asura.  But they could trap him for millennia at a time.  But they would have to wait for sunset, which Kali assured him they had enough time, as the breaths of the evening were already on the breeze.  Vritra was too consumed with completing his preparations to bother checking for intruders and Kali assured Devang that even if he did Kali’s shroud of darkness would hide them from Vritra’s sight.

	Devang hoped that his fellow team members might show up, but he doubted it.  The village was too far away, and he didn’t trust Kali not to make sure that they couldn’t find the route as she wanted something from him.  Other members of the team might complicate matters.  Soon enough, the sun began to set and the sky burned red.  It was neither night nor day for a precious few minutes and now was the time that Devang had to act.  He rose from his position behind some firewood and called out.

	“Vritra!  Most terrible and powerful of the Asura!  I know you and I have come to defeat you in battle.”

	Slowly, ever so slowly, the head of the dragon turned toward Devang.  As did the head of every human in the village.  “Mortal,” Devang felt the voice more than heard it.  “What do you think you can accomplish?  There is nothing you have that can harm me.”

	“But there is.  I have the greatest weapon against you at my disposal.”

	Devang began to chant the holy words that Kali had taught him.  Words were not made of wood, metal or stone.  They were neither wet nor dry.  And the right words spoken at the time that was neither day nor night would bind Vritra.  There was no translation that Devang knew for them, only that they had to be spoken by a mortal touched by Vritra’s greatest enemy Vishnu.  Vritra sensed history replaying itself, howling because he’d thought the holy texts that could bind him had been destroyed.  Vishnu was not allowed to teach mortals these words, so he knew he’d been betrayed.  As Vritra shrank back into himself he saw the dark lady Kali hovering behind Devang, and she winked.  At that point Vritra stopped fighting, though Devang knew it not, as Vritra understood that there would a further purpose for him.

	When Devang stopped chanting the clearing was much different.  All the villagers had dropped their burdens, and where the massive coils had once been there were a few scattered animal skulls here and there.  And in the center was a 25 centimeter high figurine of a golden-green dragon.  And to the side was a golden egg, which fit easily into Devang’s palm.  It was hard, almost like stone and Devang could not sense the life pulsing inside it.  Kali was gone when he turned to look, but Devang kept his promise and pocketed the egg.  He also retrieved the figurine, deciding that the Brotherhood might be the safest place for it.

	All this I know, having been told by the Dark Mother herself.  My father is deep within the sanctuary of his greatest enemy and I will hatch in good time to free him.  Such is the stupidity these mortals possess.  Devang has long forgotten where I came from, having convinced himself my egg is just a pretty stone.  But beauty can hide so much.

END

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

Zhaneel


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## Zhaneel

Well, there you go.  Silly Muse wanting to write in India.

I modified a little mythology, but I took most of it from an online resource which I can link if you all are interested.

Now... off to dance!

Zhaneel


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## RangerWickett

Test

test again

Checking colors.  Ach, time limit coming so fast!


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## RangerWickett

Yes, there is no way I can get done in time.  I'm sorry.


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## Piratecat

You still have half an hour. Worry less about colors and formatting.


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## mythago

Don't worry about them at all. Just put fake footnotes in, e.g.

"And then he slunk across the soccer field, the wolverine clinging tenaciously to his buttocks." [1]

   [1] thatsgottahurt.jpg​


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## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> "And then he slunk across the soccer field, the wolverine clinging tenaciously to his buttocks."​




Whoa. Talk about prescient.

What she said; there's no penalty or problem with not using hyperlinks, so don't worry about that.


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## RangerWickett

(I took a little liberty with the pictures.)

Due to an unfortunate error, the illustrator for this story was unfamiliar with certain elements of fantasy, particularly that the Underdark is underground.  Therefore, for all illustrations, please pretend humans are dark elves, plants are fungus, and the sky is the ceiling.  Thank you.

*	*	*​
The echoing wilds of the Setarhpue river guided Rodinn home.  Through miles of caverns, fungal forests drenched in acrid oils, and plains of desolate, bare stone, young Rodinn walked, carrying the heavy weight of a sedated pig he had purchased in the marketplace of Dadhgab, the nearest city to his home.  His family could not leave their village, the threat of attack by the Guenhavesti army keeping them busy preparing magical wards and charms for the small town.  Rodinn had gone alone today, bartered with the Taranesti in Dadhgab for the sacrificial pig and a few spell components his father could use, and he struggled now to get back home before the tide shifted, and crossing the river became dangerous.

Rodinn entered the village’s northern side and smiled to the nervous adults that he passed, frowns on their dark-skinned faces.  His family’s house was on the southern bank, across the Setarhpue river, on the very edge of Guenhavesti lands, and many warriors of the village were streaming across the bridge now, preparing defenses.  Not realizing the urgency, Rodinn took a short detour to the house of his friend Beired, for he was still young enough to want to play in the face of danger.

“The Guenhavesti army is on its way now,” said Beired’s father, talking with another villager.  Standing before the low brick house of Rodinn’s friend, both men wore hide armor and uneasily handled their swords as they discussed the imminent attack.  “They came down from Behnrdi Hills last night.  A few hundred warriors, a few wizards.”

The other villager cursed, then cringed as he saw the young Rodinn standing beside them.  “Oh look, it’s Beired’s friend.  Brought some food for your family?”

Rodinn grinned up at the two men, his crimson eyes pleased to share a secret.  “My mother needs the entrails to bind a demon.  She hopes it will help fight the Guenafsti.”

Beired’s father nodded.  “Then you need to hurry.  The south bank will have to evacuate soon.”

“Is Beired here to play?”

Beired’s father grimaced at Rodinn.  “Now is not the time for fun, child.  You probably dawdled enough, and I see you wasted some of your family’s money on trinkets.”

“Mother lets me learn magic!  I’m going to defend the city too.”

“Hmph.  Well, get home, and maybe we won’t-”

The other man pointed past Beired’s father, across the river.  “Look.  Torches.”

At the edge of the village’s cavern, further than any of the Taranesti could see with their normal sight, the faint light of dozens of torches burned, the military standard of the Guenhavesti.  They were less than a mile away now, and alarm drums began to sound, echoing across the vast cavern.  Beired’s father shoved Rodinn.

“Go, to your parents, quickly.  They should already be fleeing, but they’ll need the swine.  Hurry!”

Rodinn turned away and ran, but glanced back in time to see Beired’s face staring out from behind the house.  Rodinn waved and sprinted toward the bridge.

The long rope bridge shuddered under the feet of dozens of Taranesti warriors, and Rodinn walked carefully, nervous about slipping and falling into the river twenty feet below.  When he finally made it across and reached his family’s home, he had a hard time keeping up, his older siblings and his parents in a blur as they rushed the ritual to summon the demon.  Rodinn tried to watch, but his father forced him out.  The last thing Rodinn saw was an array of priceless wax candles burning in the pattern of a summoning circle, before the curtain to the room was tugged shut.

He knew that he had to reach the northern side of the river, but he could not resist the temptation to watch the approach of the Guenhavesti army as they swept down the hills outside the village.  Their skin was dark like his, their clothes somewhat different, but they were people, just the same.  Too young to understand why they would be cruel and attack his family, Rodinn simply stared as the first volley of curses and energy missiles struck the town wall.  The Taranesti warriors were outnumbered, and within minutes the stone wall had been magically reshaped into a clear path.  The Guenhavesti army, torches held high, charged into the city.  They were only a hundred feet away when Rodinn felt his shoulder being tugged.

“Stupid child, get across the bridge.”  Rodinn turned to see Beired’s father, who had broken off from his fellow warriors to pull Rodinn away.  “Don’t argue, just run.”

Angry, Rodinn backed away, ducking as he ran.  He heard the sound of earth cracking behind him, and the nearest building’s stone walls shattered, destroying the cover Beired’s father had been using.  He and other warriors charged, dodging Guenhavesti spears and sorcerous blasts.  

In the distance, Rodinn glimpsed a tall black fire demon tearing through a few of the attackers, and he smiled with hope.  But a moment later, he heard voices shouting orders to cut the bridge, and Rodinn broke into a run.  He weaved behind animal pens and through the tents in the town courtyard, trying to keep out of sight of the Guenhavesti wizards as he neared the bridge.  He could hear them closing quickly, and he felt himself being overwhelmed by the sound of booted feet pounding on the ground.

But then he heard a familiar voice, Beired’s shouting at him from the middle of the bridge.  “Rodinn!  Hurry, they’re right behind you!”

Rodinn was only thirty feet from the bridge, but he dared not look behind him.  The fear on Beired’s face was enough to terrify him.  Not waiting for Rodinn, Beired turned and ran too, and at the far shore, Rodinn could see Taranesti men waving the boy in, holding blades ready to slash the bridge.  One was waving at Rodinn too, but just as he reached the first few steps of the bridge, the far end was cut.  Rodinn pulled up short, grabbing onto the rail to keep from falling, and cried out as the bridge began to sag and fall into the Setarhpue river.

On the northern shore, Beired was shouting, crying for his friend, but the sounds of battle overwhelmed his voice.

*	*	*​
Years later, long after Rodinn’s home was just a vague memory, he found himself again on the Setarhpue river, again in the company of Guenhavesti soldiers.  A week ago, he had stood in the grand muster of the Guenhavesti army, preparing to go to war for his adoptive people, silently trying to remember the land he would soon be fighting in.  His return had come just a bit sooner than he had expected, as he was recruited specifically a a guide for a scouting party for the army.  There had never been any victors in this war, but neither side could end the fight.

He was supposed to lead them to vulnerable villages and bring back information for the attacks, but the land was foreign to him as if he had never lived here, and he had misgivings about his people’s invasion.  He could barely recognize the landmarks of the river, but something of the place caused his thoughts to drift on the darkened tides of homeland.

No one was here to welcome his return.

“You filthy, demon-son of a Taranesti, put some more arm into that oar!”  Rodinn’s commander beat him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword, and Rodinn quickly forced himself to row harder.  “Taranesti patrols will be on this river in a few hours, and with the slack-assed pace you’re moving us, they’ll catch us before we reach the sea.”

Rodinn said nothing.  He always said nothing.  Enough beatings had taught him the pleasure of rebellion was best enjoyed in silence.  Instead he focused on rowing, pressing their small three-man boat downstream toward the Nilshahal Sea, where their mission lay.  Getting them there sooner wouldn’t make his commander stop insulting him for his heritage, but it might stop the beatings.

T’penga, the Guenhavesti sorceress, leaned off the front edge of the boat and dangled her hand in the water.  “Ebb tide,” she said, turning back to the commander.  She grimaced slightly at the pain on Rodinn’s face, then shook her head.  “Sukem, we’re going more than fast enough.  No Taranesti are going to catch up with us.”

The commander sat down in the back seat of the boat and laughed.  “We don’t need that.  We’ve got one here.  I bet you’d enjoy that, Rodinn, us being caught by the Taranesti.  Speak up, will you?”

Rodinn silently rowed on, and the three Guenhavesti laughed, even T’penga.  Rodinn imagined Commander Sukem dying somehow, horribly.  Last night he had dreamed about his mother, a fleeting, terrifying image of something infernal.  He didn’t know what it had been, but he envisioned it snapping his commander’s arms off, and tossing them into the river.  Not that it would help, of course.  All of the Guenhavesti army was like this.  They were his only family, the ones who had trained him and allowed him to live despite being the son of an evil people.  He served them with the loyalty he owed them, but he didn’t like many of them, and every one of them hated him.  It would take many snapped-off arms to change that, enough to stain the waters of the Nilshahal red.

“What in hell?” T’penga pulled her hand out of the water and wiped it on her pant leg.  The cloth was stained red.  “Blood?”

Sukem stood up and shoved his way past Rodinn, knocking the oars out of his hands.  “All of you, quiet,” he said, and Rodinn laughed.  He didn’t bother to cringe as Sukem kicked him in the back.

T’penga and Sukem whispered at the front of the boat, nervously considering the possibilities as the current carried them into a swath of thick, bloody water.  “Go on then,” Sukem whispered.  “Do it.”

Sitting back cross-legged in the boat, T’penga began to cast a scrying spell, her hair shifting from black to white momentarily as the magic flowed through her.  Rodinn leaned halfway off the side of the boat, trying to get an angle to watch her actions as she cast the spell, and he listened closely to her words, hoping to catch something he might learn.  The soft tug of magic reminded him of his dreams, where he saw his parents, and though he had always been forbidden by the Guenhavesti from learning ‘infernal Taranesti magic,’ the presence of spellcasters comforted him.

T’penga finished her spell.  The boat drifted silenly, the only sound the lapping of water on stone, and their breathing.  In Rodinn’s sight, the energy from the divination flowed downriver, an invisible eye scouting ahead.

Water or blood dripped into the river just out of sight, echoing to them.  T’penga’s voice emerged almost inaudbily from the sound.  “Something great and dead lies among the rocks around the next bend.  It has killed Taranesti, several hours old.”

Worry in her voice, T’penga turned to look at them.  “Its blood flows upstream.”

Surprised, Rodinn said, “I find that happens if you get beaten enough.”  The words were just out of his mouth when Sukem kicked him in the arm.

“It’s probably cursed.  We don’t investigate.  T’penga, conceal us.”

The sorceress tapped the side of the boat.  “The depression in the water will still be visible.”

Sukem nodded and walked past Rodinn again to the back of the boat.  “We’ll let the current carry us.  No one make a sound.”

A moment later, the three of them and their boat were hidden, invisible from without, gliding silently down the river, only making noise when Rodinn had to adjust their course when the river swerved.  After a minute, they turned around a bend in the river canyon, and saw it.

Huge boulders had been gouged from the canyon walls, rended with claw marks.  A handful of dead Taranesti warriors lay strewn amid the boulders, their weapons snapped.  But above it all was the beast’s body, draped limply over two of the stones.  Golden scaled, tainted with green and black, the creature was over sixty feet long, judging from what they could see.  Its head lay near the shore, blood dripping from between its silvery teeth.  Rodinn could not imagine how this creature could have been killed by just a handful of warriors, or why anyone would leave such precious metals behind as those that made up the beast’s scales.

A warm gust of air slipped from the beast’s nostrils, and one of its long, clawed forelegs shifted.  It dug its talons into the sand of the shore, and the entire body lurched forward slightly.  On the boat, everyone froze.  Dragons were renowned for being able to hear as well as most creatures could see, and even wounded, it might be able to kill them all.

_Help kill me, please._  said a voice, echoless and pleading.

Rodinn looked to his commander, and saw no sign that the man would respond.  His expression was simply one of fear at the creature’s remaining ragged life, and his breaths were shallow.

“Sounds like a reasonable request,” Rodinn whispered, and the three Guenhavesti winced, staring at him with murder in their eyes.

 _You wonder why I wish to die?  Stop, stop.  Stay a moment._ 

The great dragon reached out with its right claw and grasped the front of the boat, even hidden.  Drawing in their breath, the Guenhavesti readied weapons and prepared to attack, but Rodinn reached out and touched the Dragon’s nearest claw, seeing it was slashed open and clotted with blood.  

T’penga noticed his movement, and she quickly drew a dagger and began to apply poison to its blade.  Rodinn looked at the others, trying to convey silently that they could talk their way out of this, but he himself didn’t know what to say.  Sukem was slowly lifting a metal spear from the bottom of the boat.

“I think they’re going to attack you,” Rodinn stammered, fear making him giddy.  Growling, Sukem stepped on Rodinn’s back and raised his spear to hurl at the Dragon’s face, but the aim suddenly grew humid and heavy, and a command crept into their bodies.

 _Stop.  Listen.  I must talk with this one._

Unable to control his movement, Sukem’s momentum toppled him over and he fell into the river.  Rodinn tried to reach for him, but he was swept away, his armor quickly pulling him under.  T’penga was also motionless, and Rodinn cowered in the back of the boat, overwhelmed by the great creature in front of him.

 _I fled here myself, from my home.  They will not let me die there, and they use me as a tool for evil.  My children do not obey me, and now I just want to die.  I . . . I tried to force these ones here to fight me, but my children put something inside me, so I cannot let myself die.  I’m sorry that I asked you here._

“Large Dragons don’t need to apologize,” Rodinn chuckled, wondering if he could swim to safety without having his body paralyzed.  “I’m sorry we got in the way of your dying, but, why do you want to die.  Too many people are killed here already.  I think that if you could get this far, you should just keep running.  I would if I could.”

Rodinn cringed, not realizing how true those words felt until he said them.  But there was no retort from a Guenhavesti soldier, and he smiled, for a moment.  The Dragon considered him, solid golden eyes blinking with interest, and he thought it smiled too.

 _You are oppressed too, held by these people.  Your family traps you as well.  Your path should not lie here. _

“My path?  I’m going, um, to the sea?  Should I not go to the sea?  We have to scout.  The army thinks it can attack Melasurej by sea, and they’re sending forces to sieze this river soon.”

Beside him, T’penga strained at the holding spell, and began to move her hands.  Rodinn watched nervously, pushing himself to the other side of the boat, as the sorceress quickly shouted out the words to a spell.  The Dragon lurched to cover her face, giving T’penga enough time to finish her spell.  Throwing out her hand, she hurled a crackling sphere of fire, which struck the Dragon’s tainted gold scales and exploded.  The heat from the blast seared the water, and T’penga shouted at Rodinn as the smoke cleared.

“Grab the oars!  Get us out of here!”

From the smoke, a single mighty claw swept out, knocking the Guenhavesti sorceress off the boat.  She spun as she flew toward the water, her arms and chest gashed, and with a scream the woman plunged in the river.  Rodinn said nothing, not sure whether his luck had taken a turn for better or worse.

Emerging from the dissipating cloud of smoke, the Dragon pushed herself to her feet, then reached out and pulled the boat to shore.  The rocks she had been laying on glowed red with heat, and the hull of the boat sizzled on the sands of the shore.

_Follow me.  I return you home, that you may some day repay me this same favor._

Rodinn, terrified that the Dragon might kill him too, stood and followed.  As he stepped off the boat, though, he realized that when the creature had stood, it left its body behind, lying on the rocks.  The form standing above him was only semi-solid, hard to see in his normal sight, but glowing dimly with normal light.

Rodinn pointed at the nearly lifeless draconic body.  “Um, are you going to just, you know, leave this here?”

The Dragon’s spirit laughed softly, and kept on walking, climbing up the edge of the bank to the top of the canyon.  _Yes, that is certainly not the path you are intended._

To synopsize the next part, they travel to a village where an adult Beired lives, the Dragon guiding him there and vanishing as soon as the local Taranesti spot him, so that he’s the only one who saw the Dragon’s spirit.  Beired is glad to see him, but doesn’t really treat him as a friend, since they hardly know each other now.  He stays for a day, uncomfortable and uncertain about whether to warn them of the approaching attacks.  The next day, T’penga finds him in the village and orders him to come with her, and Rodinn finds out that she fished Sukem out of the river before the commander drowned.  They flee back to the river, finding the Dragon’s body gone.  When Rodinn tries to explain why he left, T’penga tells him to be silent.  Lacking the will to resist, he obeys, and they cross the river in the ruined boat, then finds their way back to the Guenhavesti army.  T’penga gives them information on how to reach Beired’s village through an overhead cavern that bypasses the river, which she charmed out of one of the villagers.

The night before the attack, Rodinn wakes up, talking in his sleep but not remembering if he had a dream.  He realizes that he could escape tonight, and run to explore wherever he wanted, without being forced to obey.  But he sees the army getting ready to attack, and remembers his two different families, the Taranesti and the Guenhavesti.

The next morning, the Guenhavesti army musters, ready to march a small company of warriors to attack, Rodinn among them.  When they get within sight of the village, Commander Sukem, standing at the front corner of the unit, gives them the order to attack.  Rodinn says no, and refuses to attack, and Sukem orders the other soldiers to attack him as a traitor.  Rodinn says he doesn’t want anyone else to get themselves killed stupidly, so he warns them to back off.  They ignore him and attack, and, for the first time in years, he is able to cast a spell, the same fireball he saw T’penga cast.  The blast warns the Taranesti of the attack, and kills most of the soldiers, but gives Rodinn time to flee, and be free.


----------



## RangerWickett

I almost didn't make it in at all.  Apparently board time is 8 minutes ahead of real time.  *sad*


----------



## drose25

Congratulations!  You made it!


----------



## BSF

I know how you feel Ryan!  I wasn't sure I would sneak mine in under the deadline either.  I scrapped any attempt at hyperlinking and just hoped that my notes in the story were accurate and sufficient.  

Heck I didn't even proofread it.  So, I hope it is readable without too many glaring grammar errors.


----------



## RangerWickett

So yeah, what basically happened was: finals, Elements of Magic, staying up late to celebrate being done with my last class for my college career, and then a long, long crash of sleep.

I woke up at 3pm today, cleaned up, made food, ran to the bank for money, got back, brainstormed a bit on the story, got an email that (hurray!) Elements of Magic is ready and laid out, I got sidetracked watching a silly rip-off of Dr. Strangelove, and then at 8 I realized, "Crap, I've only got three hours left!"  And at 10:30, when I posted I didn't think I had enough time left, I realized that ENWorld said it was 10:38.  I nearly died after that.

I hope you enjoy what's there.  For what it's worth, I enjoyed writing it, and I'll probably go back and finish it in a few days.  So don't view this as an unfinished story -- view it as insight into my process of writing.

Yeah, that's it.  That sounds much less like I was slacking.  *nervous grin*

P.S., it's always fun when something out of left field helps you define a bit of your game world.  I've had this character sitting as a side side side side character I wanted to fit into the world, and some of the pictures just sparked my imagination.  Particularly 'Listen.'  Read the latest post I made in Pkitty's storyhour to find out why.  *grin*


----------



## arwink

mythago said:
			
		

> Darn it, now I want salsa!
> 
> Where are those judges, anyway...




Eep   My fault (big surprise).

I'm currently trying to get 25 student novellas marked and commented on between now and Wednesday, so I've been trying to avoid the online world as much as possible.  

Coupled with the move away from a house where I had a phone-line dedicated to dial-up, it's left me kind of behind on this for the weekend.  All things going well, I'll be adding a print out of the current entries to the bottom of my marking pile and sending out a judgment Tuesday afternoon.


----------



## Piratecat

So, judgments should be posted Monday night or Tuesday morning US time. Thanks, Arwink!


----------



## Maldur

Judgement send once again 

Can we have a halftime score?


----------



## Maldur

goodmorning everyone Is there a score yet?


----------



## drose25

Glad to know I'm not the only anxious one out there.    I think it will be another 24-48 hours before Arwink has a chance to submit his judging.  He seems to be a little overwhelmed at the moment with real life.


----------



## BSF

I think of it as more like a reprieve.  I am wiped out after trying to come up with that story.  On the other hand, I am really thinking that a D20 conversion of Star Frontiers, utilizing some of the OGC rules out there might be pretty nifty.  I could advance the timeline, convert the races, base it off of D20 modern, except maybe use Wounds/Vitality, convert the equipment and setup screens and suits as DR or ER, you get the idea.   The point is, I could have a little bit of fun and brush up on the mechanics side of things.  

So, regardless of how judgment comes out, I will have had fun with it.


----------



## arwink

drose25 said:
			
		

> Glad to know I'm not the only anxious one out there.    I think it will be another 24-48 hours before Arwink has a chance to submit his judging.  He seems to be a little overwhelmed at the moment with real life.




That puts it rather mildly   I appologise again - originally this marking wasn't supposed to take up this much time, but the university kind of forgot to mention that I had to have it all done in a week instead of the usual two.  

Writing extensive and constructive comments on sixty-thousand words of writing in the space of a week is slightly more draining than I thought it would be.


----------



## Maldur

Hey, at least you wont be bothered with it for two weeks


----------



## Sialia

arwink said:
			
		

> That puts it rather mildly  I appologise again - originally this marking wasn't supposed to take up this much time, but the university kind of forgot to mention that I had to have it all done in a week instead of the usual two.
> 
> Writing extensive and constructive comments on sixty-thousand words of writing in the space of a week is slightly more draining than I thought it would be.



Courage!

Would it help to know that the fans of this contest find your insightful and constructive comments as much fun to read as the actual stories? 

It is worth the wait--however long it takes!


----------



## alsih2o

Sialia said:
			
		

> Courage!
> 
> Would it help to know that the fans of this contest find your insightful and constructive comments as much fun to read as the actual stories?
> 
> It is worth the wait--however long it takes!




 And participants! I grow reading them as a spectator, but your students must love/hate you in all the appropriate ways


----------



## BSF

I very much appreciate reading all the judges comments.  

Maldur provides that rapid fire response that I always grin at.  He keeps me focused on the simple question - Did somebody like it and why?  While Maldur's responses tend to be shorter, I really appreciate that gut feedback.  It is entirely possible to have a good story that could still lose, but was good and enjoyable.    

Arwink provides critical responses.  These are interesting to read.  I like seeing the criticism that I myself could see in reading a story.  Arwink also has the ability to explain why something "felt wrong" even when I can't put my finger on the reason.  The critical analysis is great.

Now, Maldur and Arwink are the two consistent judges I have seen in the last three competitions.  The third judge has rotated from Clay, then Mythago, and now Piratecat.  Stylistically, each of them provides feedback a little differently.  I have appreciated reading all of their comments.  In the current contest, Piratecat was able to point out my perspective shift in my first round story.  This is a personal weakness of mine and it helped immensely for him to point it out!  

Point is, all the feedback from the judges is useful, and enjoyable.  Even when it is pointing out something that I wrote poorly, it is very enjoyable to actually have that feedback!  So, I toss out a huge thanks to all the judges.

Arwink, don't stress on the time it takes you to get to the judging.  Other responsibilities sometimes get in the way of hobbies.  As a contestant, I understand.  I will eagerly await your feedback when you have the free time to get to it.


----------



## Maldur

Im the gut response judge.  Hey that doesn't sound half bad


----------



## BSF

Gut response, like Salsa ...  Mmmmmm  

It's not a bad thing!  Even being able to read something along the lines of "I liked it, but I liked the other one better" still provides that feedback that a story was somehow good.


----------



## arwink

I've just sent of Mythago vs Drose25.


----------



## mythago

Somebody go wake up Piratecat!


----------



## drose25

Oh the horror!!


----------



## RangerWickett

Should I still be trash-talking at this late stage?  Because I could probably benefit from trying to down my opponent right now.  I mean, really, big writer thinks he's all cool just because he can turn in a full story on time?  I hope you're hungry, because you got served.

And stuff, yeah.


----------



## Maldur

Does someone remember the Piratecat activation words?

Exterminatus or something?


----------



## mythago

"What a useless scroll--it just says 'Piratecat Piratecat Piratecat'...."


----------



## Zhaneel

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> Should I still be trash-talking at this late stage?  Because I could probably benefit from trying to down my opponent right now.  I mean, really, big writer thinks he's all cool just because he can turn in a full story on time?  I hope you're hungry, because you got served.
> 
> And stuff, yeah.




Well, if I was a guy, I'd be all quaky.  But, ya'know I just don't have the bits.

So, she does thinks she's all that and a bag of chips.

And salsa!

Zhaneel


----------



## RangerWickett

Ah.  Yes, the ever-popular "change sex" trick.  You can't fool me.

*Makes mental note to look at opponent's avatar image next time*

So, salsa?  It's good that I like Mexican, because I'm going to eat you for lunch.


----------



## arwink

NiTessine vs BardStephenFox is away.

Although I appear to be discovering brevity in my judging comments this round


----------



## arwink

Zhaneel vs Rangerwickett is done and sent.

Now I'm going to linger for a while to see if the judgments show up before collapsing into bed and hoping that no-one asks me to look at any writing for the next fourty-eight hours or so


----------



## Piratecat

I'm going to have Drose25 vs Mythago up shortly. Then I'll have NiTessine vs BardStephenFox a few hours after that (early afternoon EST), and Zhaneel vs RangerWickett up in early evening.


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> "What a useless scroll--it just says 'Piratecat Piratecat Piratecat'...."




 Rolls on the floor laughing...


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 2-2: Mythago vs. Drose25.*

*Maldur:*

This is hard, both stories are amazing. 

Mythago with crazy cultists, mad art, Cthulhu-like fear and an open ending. But great use of the pictures, and the way the current holiday was used (ok, current when she wrote it  ).

Drose25 had some different images, vampires, dreadlocked nurses and doctors in a weird asylum, bumbling goons, magic incorporated into society. I loved the way the acrobats are used, Ceramic Keystone Cops!

But at the end my vote goes to Mythago. The story felt more "complete". But If I could I would make both win in this round.

----------

*Arwink:*

Once again, I’ll apologize for the lateness and brevity of the comments. 
I’ll also apologize if my comments sound a little to picky given the nature of the contest – it’s hard to break yourself of the habit when it’s all you’ve been doing for three days J

Mythago – Like Clockwork

The underlying tension of Mythago’s story is great, as is the careful construction of Cray as a character.  Unfortunately, the pay off at the ending is something of a let down – after the careful construction of the mechanistic paganism that Cray’s following in the early parts of the story, the fact that he’s feeding Danika to his experiment doesn’t really seem to resonate as an ending.

Danika, as a character, isn’t quite as engaging as Cray – it’s hard to get a feel for exactly why she doesn’t catch onto Cray’s nature earlier or why she doesn’t leave after the forest fire.  While her diary entries are an interesting motif to the story, the first entry becomes confusing in its placement – it foreshadows the rest of the story effectively, but seems to out of place to be connected the way it’s written at present.

Drose25 – Untitled

Although I like the idea of the opening, Drose’s first line is trying far to hard to cram in far too much.  To many ideas let the sentence wander, and end up creating an awkward feel to the opening.  The writing continues to feel a little stiff – the rhythm created by so many long sentences sounds slightly awkward when read aloud.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in Drose’s story, but ultimately it doesn’t quite hang together as a tale.  The connections between events are far to random, the tension and conflict that makes us *want* to follow Simon’s story isn’t quite developed enough to engage us, and the occasional switch from Simon’s point of view to his attackers seems out of place.  There’s the bare bones of a really, really cool story here, but the linkages need to be made stronger in order to escape the feeling of being driven by the needs of a plot rather than a character.  Given the time and space to make these connections, I can see this story becoming something very cool.

Judgment

I give the round to Mythago, although if the various elements of Drose25’s story had come together it would have been a strong competitor for the round.  The integration of images in Mythago’s story seems slightly more cohesive, and Cray works as a more rounded central character than Simon does.

----------

*Piratecat:*

Round Two, where the photos begin to get more difficult. As I select them I deliberately try to create some visual dissonance, to make you strain your imagination in order to fit everything in smoothly. It's not always easy.  Let's see how you did.

- o -

Mythago has a tendency to use stereotypes to her advantage, twisting them enough to get more mileage out of them than you'd initially expect. In the process she adds telling little details that add verisimillitude without distracting the plot.  Thus, we have foreshadowing with the name "Cray" and a quirky nod to Polish heritage in Danika's name. Likewise, she's painting _out_ the trees instead of painting them in. These are nice touches.

The story itself hangs together nicely. I like the interspersed segments of Danika's diary as an insight into her thought process, although they would benefit from some slightly tighter editing; some seem like her thoughts at the time and not a diary entry, and her rationale for staying with him after the forest fire seems a bit specious. Not enough to drag me from the story, though. Cray is an interesting character, and his mechanistic viewpoint and worship resonates subtlety throughout the short story.

Picture use was excellent, with one exception. The (anti-)painting twisted expectations and advanced the plot; very nice. The clock and the burning tree both became symbols for what was going on. The use of the flares wasn't especially inspired in and of itself, but it fit perfectly and logically within the story. Only the Experiment was a real stretch. Imaginative use of the photo, but in the way that Mythago has developed Cray I'd expect a different sort of monster, and so this usage seemed strained.

- o -

Drose25's story has some wonderful moments. The tale begins slowly but ends with a bang, and it has a great last line. Unfortunately, it turns from a creepy mystery to an "I'm being chased" action story without ever giving you more than a glimpse at some of the fascinating aspects of the world. Why the sympathetic magic that draws visions from the bracelet? What impact does the vampire have in the world? We never learn, and I really wanted to.

My biggest distraction was the change in point of view from Simon to the thugs (Arpad and Viktor) chasing him and back. It wasn't always seamless,  and it ended up being confusing more than once. I think the narrative would flow better if the entire tale was told entirely from Simon's (or better yet, the thugs') perspective. Ultimately the two thugs were secondary characters, minions of Dr. Sasha, but they got more attention than she did. That seemed a bit odd.

Photo use varied. The burning tree was a throwaway, as was the "fire trails" photo.  I'm neutral on the use of the painting as a therapy, but I think more could be done with it; if I had been illustrating the story myself, that wouldn't be a scene that I'd have chosen to illustrate. In comparison, the clock photo was effectively used to advance information, and I really like the image of the two thugs tumbling down atop one another.

Overall I'd have liked to see more development of both the bad guy and the protagonist, and less of the two thugs. This story had some wonderful ideas and images, and there are interesting depths in there, but it needs some more editing before it really flows smoothly.

- o -

My judgment is for Mythago, who combined very effective image usage with a tight story.  


----------


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for Mythago, who will go on to the third round.


----------



## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'm going to have Drose25 vs Mythago up shortly. Then I'll have NiTessine vs BardStephenFox a few hours after that (early afternoon EST), and Zhaneel vs RangerWickett up in early evening.




Ack!  Now I will feel nervous.  OK, I'll deal with it.  

Umm, RangerWickett, you *know* a person's avatar means next to nothing here.


----------



## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Ack!  Now I will feel nervous.  OK, I'll deal with it.
> 
> Umm, RangerWickett, you *know* a person's avatar means next to nothing here.



What are you talking about? Yours looks exactly like you.


----------



## Sialia

Macbeth said:
			
		

> What are you talking about? Yours looks exactly like you.



But of course.


----------



## drose25

Congratulations to Mythago, a very talented competitor I had no hope of besting, a fact of which I was brutally aware after that first round story.  Now I can sit back and watch everyone else squirm with Piratecat's evil picture selection!


----------



## mythago

drose25 said:
			
		

> a very talented competitor I had no hope of besting



 Not so!

 I loved your use of the two guys falling on top of each other, btw.


----------



## drose25

I had originally planned to do the story as a farce, hence several elements of humor remained in the piece, but my farce muse deserted me early on.  I had to beat something out of the horror muse again.  Honestly, I swear I almost never write horror pieces.    Just something about Piratecat's pictures, I guess.  They're cursed!


----------



## mythago

arwink said:
			
		

> I’ll also apologize if my comments sound a little to picky



 Warm fuzzies, however nice, don't help us improve.

 Author notes:

 1. I really wanted to start a story with "I write this with a trembling hand..."

 2. If you lived where I do right now, you, too, would hate trees.

 3. I'll try to rework Danika's entries because, sadly, I didn't think it surprising at all that she stayed with Cray after the forest fire. I saw her as young, immature and more than a little unsure of herself in the world, and it's depressingly common for insecure young women to stay in relationships when the rest of us are screaming "GET OUT! RUN!" from the real-life version of the audience. I tried to portray Cray as yanking her chain to keep her off-balance and cooperative; sweeping her off her feet and exposing her to the grown-up world, but acting as though he was disappointed she wasn't _quite_ up to spec as a way of making her eager to please.


----------



## Zhaneel

mythago said:
			
		

> 2. If you lived where I do right now, you, too, would hate trees.




Hey now... I like those trees.

Zhaneel


----------



## Maldur

mythago said:
			
		

> Not so!
> 
> I loved your use of the two guys falling on top of each other, btw.




Hell yeah!


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 2-3: NiTessine vs. BardStephenFox.*

*Maldur:*

Again both stories not fantasy. Is this a trend? And both stories feature some sort of law enforcement, while the pictures don't feature any of that.

My vote will go to BardStephenFox, the richness of his story amazes me. Have you used this world before?

----------

*Arwink:*

NiTessine – From the Other Side

Some elements of NiTessine’s opening I liked – the contrast of having a group who is chosen for their competence rather than their brilliance sets up an interesting dynamic from the beginning.  Other things didn’t appeal to quite as much – the character by character listing seems a bit flat and leads us away from what was interesting about the very opening – why the merely competent are suddenly important enough to earn a story.

While the story has some interesting moments in it from there on in, it doesn’t ever really take off as a narrative.  In many respects it feels like a fragment of a story – a single action sequence that is leading us into something else.  NiTessine gets points for the action and the undead monkeys (I’m a sucker for an undead monkey), but I couldn’t help wishing that the story was actually leading me somewhere or the characters would become a little more well rounded.

It feels more like a write up of a gaming session than a story – not necessarily a bad thing, but I’m slightly more forgiving of loose narratives in a storyhour than I am in a short story.  As a story, though, it leaves me slightly lost.

BardStephenFox – Rojo

BardStephenFox gives us a nice, stylish opening that leads into a very stylized story.  We get some strong character motivation, an engaging world, and a series of mysterious problems that keep things from being easily resolved.

My only complaint is that it seems to finish a little abruptly, almost as though the story ran out of time.  I’d like to see this one fleshed out a bit more, maybe given the length to run slightly longer than the competition allows, and sees where it can go.  (I also have this niggling feeling that this world was based on game system, but I can’t recall which one).

Judgment

The round goes to BardStephenFox, whose story gets the edge due to its cohesive narrative.  NiTessine has some fine moments, but ultimately the lack of empathy for the characters and the lack of motivation undercut my appreciation for the action (although if it were ever a storyhour of a campaign, I’d be on it like a shot).

----------

*Piratecat:*

NiTessine starts off well, with an opening paragraph that grabs you. He loses momentum with the four character descriptions, though; I would have preferred to introduce the characters as we go, slipping these descriptions into the text elsewhere, especially because distinguishing them never becomes especially important as the story continues. They don't get the chance to really distinguish themselves through dialogue, and that's a shame. I loooove snappy dialogue.

The use of Sialia's "secrets" painting was nice because it helps launch the plot; I would have liked it to play a longer role, though. The blue jar was pretty much a throwaway picture. Likewise for the apes; why undead apes? If these had been thematically tied into the villain more tightly, the photo usage would have been stronger. On the other hand, the sorcerer-in-a-bubble was a very innovative use of the photo. I wish I could say the same for the chili peppers, but trying to get that photo used strained credibility. Overall, photo usage isn't as strong as it had been in NiTessine's last story.

This story reads throughout much more like a game than anything else. There are some great visuals, but there's no time for character development, no unveiled revelation as to who is attacking and why, and no development of the concept of bound spirits. I think the story would be stronger if some of these disparate themes were brought together, explaining who the sorcerer was and why he was hanging out in a chaos demon/boat and summoning undead monkeys. I'd love to play in a game that ran like this, but it makes for an uneven story.

- o -

As in his previous story, BardStephenFox uses technology to help define the world. He starts off doing a good job of showing without telling, and the protagonist's running monologue allows BSF a handy literary technique for filling us in on what's going on while his character tries to deduct. He almost lapses into over-explanation in the third paragraph, but manages to keep it relatively balanced. Throughout the story, there's nice use of foreshadowing and reasonable logic trails, and that's always nice to read.

Unfortunately, this story reads as unfinished. There was no climax and no real conclusion; it stops at an odd spot, and I'm guessing that BSF ran out of time. That significantly weakens the story. In addition, the momentum begins to drag in the middle. We slip into "tell" instead of "show," and the plot begins to focus on details that might be better off glossed over in the interest of reaching a stronger final scene.

And for the photos? The hot spring monkeys work very nicely as creepy aliens. The plastic ball/energy shield is a nice image that isn't really resolved by the story taking place around it.  The examination of the blue bowl nicely advances the plot, and so is worthy of illustration. Not so with the chili peppers; relevant drug or not, the illustration of the flashback seems somewhat forced, and likewise Sialia's painting is entirely a throwaway reference. 

This is a story that needs tuning and editing. It's fundamentally quite strong and takes place in a fascinating world, but the pacing needs some adjustment. This aside, it's worth mentioning that it's nice reading about a strong, smart heroine.

- o -

My judgment is for BardStephenFox.  Regardless of how I feel about the ending, the richness of the world and the rigorous nature of the investigation made the story a delight to read. 


----------


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for BardStephenFox, who will go on to the third round.


----------



## Zhaneel

Okay... 2 out of 3 posted.

Must... remember... to... breathe...

Zhaneel


----------



## BSF

As was heavily pegged, I really ran out of time with my story.  I tried to read back over it the other day and couldn't because of all the detail that I lost in my typing.  Sialia's pic did come across as a throwaway and that bothers me a bit.  The Chili field also bothered me because I couldn't cram the significance in that I wanted to.  

I am a bit surprised that nobody seemed to pick up on the fact that it is based in the Star Frontiers universe.  Star Frontiers was a present from my parents after I started playing D&D.  I always liked the flavor because it wasn't Star Wars or Star Trek.  And it was fun to play.  For the life of me I couldn't figure out what to do with the monkeys.  I kept trying to craft a story around a modern day fantasy motif with Red Dragon crime lords hording red chili.  It just was not working.  Then I thought, hey, in Star Frontiers the slang nickname for the Yazarians was monkeys, what if I go that route?  

I won't say the story fell together at that point, but it did give me a point of reference to build from.  This set of pics was dang tough for me.


----------



## Eeralai

*Fun Read!*

I've been waiting a long time to tell NiTessine that the undead monkeys were great and made me laugh, and I thought the chaos beast turning into a chili field was really fun!  I enjoyed the story.

Congrats to BSF and MacBeth for making the semi-finals!  Hooray!  And BSF finally made salsa last night


----------



## Macbeth

How are we doing matchups for the next round? So far we have myself, Mythago, and BSF, how are we being paired up? Any chance of me and BSF facing off? When do we start scheduling the next round? My schedule gets kind of crazy with a huge work project and then final exams, so the soooner we start looking for a good time, the better.  

And congrats, BSF. I knew your story was rushed (you were still writing when I arrived for the game Friday night), but you still seem to have done a fine job. I'll make a point of reading it. That and your first round entry. Way too much reading to do...


----------



## BSF

Well, we will have Zhaneel & RangerWickett posted tonight, so we should know soon.  Wow, we both made it to the semi-finals.    Now, I have been under the impression that Zhaneel and Mythago game together.  Macbeth and I do game together.  Depending on how the matchups turn out, it might be an interesting round.


----------



## NiTessine

Ah, well... It was a crappy story, anyway. It's what you get when you go to watch Kill Bill 2 and run a game when you're supposed to be writing. Congratulations, BardStephenFox, and good luck to the next round.


----------



## Zhaneel

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Well, we will have Zhaneel & RangerWickett posted tonight, so we should know soon.  Wow, we both made it to the semi-finals.    Now, I have been under the impression that Zhaneel and Mythago game together.  Macbeth and I do game together.  Depending on how the matchups turn out, it might be an interesting round.




We don't game together, though we know each other and hang out a bit.

If I win (*hopehope*) I had been hoping for a final round match-up between Mythago and I.  But, whatever.

My only caveat (which I've been avoiding posting) is that I am away this weekend, so any match-up involving me would really have to wait until next Monday to start.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

NiTessine said:
			
		

> Ah, well... It was a crappy story, anyway.




Stop that! _Never_ denigrate your story like that in public, whether you win or lose. Any story can use improvement and tightening, but that doesn't mean they aren't fun to read -- as was yours, in case that didn't come through on the judging analysis. The fact that it didn't beat your opponent's doesn't mean that you should be unduly hard on yourself.

Mmmm, undead monkeys. 

Anyways, as a judge I don't want to read stories that you think are "crappy." So even if you really feel that way, don't say so afterwards. I know exactly how hard it is to make a good tale out of random photographs, and believe me, I chose the photos to try and avoid easy solutions.

-- o --

I never played Star Frontiers. Nice use of the setting, BSF.

-- o --

The next round matchups will be decided by my trusty d4. As a result, I won't guarantee that Macbeth and BSF are going head-to-head. We'll announce these matchups this evening.


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> The next round matchups will be decided by my trusty d4. As a result, I won't guarantee that Macbeth and BSF are going head-to-head. We'll announce these matchups this evening.



Okay, fair enough. No problem if I face somebody else, it would just be fun to have a friendly showdown between me and BSF. I'll be looking for them.


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Okay, fair enough. No problem if I face somebody else, it would just be fun to have a friendly showdown between me and BSF. I'll be looking for them.




Heh - well if the D4 dictates otherwise, then we should just consider it motivation to win the semi-finals.  

Star Frontiers - Nifty little game and writing the story has motivated me to start looking at a D20 conversion of the game.  I've never done something like that, but it actually sounds kind of fun.  Maybe a little here and a little there and someday have a whole conversion to try to talk some players into trying out.


----------



## NiTessine

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Stop that! _Never_ denigrate your story like that in public, whether you win or lose. Any story can use improvement and tightening, but that doesn't mean they aren't fun to read -- as was yours, in case that didn't come through on the judging analysis. The fact that it didn't beat your opponent's doesn't mean that you should be unduly hard on yourself.
> 
> Mmmm, undead monkeys.
> 
> Anyways, as a judge I don't want to read stories that you think are "crappy." So even if you really feel that way, don't say so afterwards. I know exactly how hard it is to make a good tale out of random photographs, and believe me, I chose the photos to try and avoid easy solutions.




When I wrote the bulk of the story, I was both very tired and in a bit of a hurry. I think it shows. Now that I read it, I wince at some of the stuff I wrote. Though it felt pretty decent at the time of writing, I've written better stories. BSF certainly wrote a better story.

But it's nice to know that even two minutes away from falling asleep on my keyboard and waking up with 'qwerty' on my forehead, I can form coherent sentences and string them together as an understandable whole.


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 2-4: Zhaneel vs. RangerWickett.*

*Maldur:*


Hmmm.

Zhaneel's story is great, Indian myth and once again a weird agency. Then RangerWickett's story, Great stuff, with demons and armies and underdark shenanigans.

My vote is for Zhaneel. It is a great story, and I think RangerWickett dropped the ball with two things: The comment about the pictures being wrong, and that very hasty ending.

----------

*Arwink:*

Zhaneel – Vritra’s Return

Zhaneel toys with notions of mythology, warping them into a smart action story that runs a little wild.  I like the bones of the story, but in fleshing it out it appears to have grown in strange and odd ways.  The tension is a little uneven, and the intricacies of the society and mythology that lead Devang through the story are occasionally a little too much for my taste.

On the other hand, Zhaneel uses a mythology that doesn’t see enough use in fantasy stories (although Kali gets a good deal in horror tales for some reason), and she crafts a world that I would like to see more of should she find the time to trim the story and hone it through further drafting.

RangerWickett – Untitled

RangerWickett produces a stylish world, but in many respects it becomes less interesting when framed as a dark-elf world as suggested in his introduction.  One of the things that immediately struck me is how effective the story could be as a simple fantasy tale, freed of any implications of underdark or drow, and there was little enough to indicate it was otherwise in the story that I barely would have noticed the connection if he hadn’t pointed it out.

Rodinn serves as an interesting character, and the dynamics of his team are interesting to read.  In many ways, it’s unfortunate that the story doesn’t reach its conclusion naturally, but such are the constraints of Ceramic DM 

Judgment

I give the round to Zhaneel on the strength of the mythological choices that dominate her story and the complete nature of the narrative.  While RangerWickett’s story is interesting and has many strengths, it also suffers slightly from running out of time.

----------

*Piratecat:*

Zhaneel's story is a good example that taking risks in storywriting can sometimes pay off. Setting the tale in Indian mythology, she draws on centuries of rich culture and suggests that there is a lot more going on in the Godly interactions than meets the eye. This is something of a cultural shorthand, and it allows her the luxury of not having to go into detail on the extensive history.

The story itself might have been leaner and more effective if it were pared down a bit. I'd like to see Devang's insouciance play a role in his eventual victory, thus making the beginning development more relevant. I'd also like to see more of the focus on Devang's ending confrontation with the Gods, and less on his recruitment and training. Right now the story feels slightly unbalanced, never quite rising to its potential emotional peak. It's still very good, though; a clever concept, a sneaky ending, an interesting protagonist, a nice plot.

It surprises me that as someone disrespectful of authority, Devang never figures out that he was played for a fool. 

Photo use was about average. Devang's introduction was handled nicely, and I like how she tied together the boar's head and the river of blood. The rope bridge was a throwaway, and "Listen" - the dragon - was interpreted literally.  No real surprises, but no disappointments (other than the rope bridge) either.

- o -

RangerWickett gives us a conflicted protagonist, a great dragon encounter, and something of a coming-of-age story. It suffers somewhat from fantasy-name-syndrome ("Guenhavesti") that distracts the reader from the plot, but as far as it goes the story covers some interesting territory.  Unfortunately, the story really suffers from not being finished. It's questionable whether the outlined ending would be truly effective; it's difficult not to suffer from anticlimax after the dragon encounter, and I'm not sure if Rodinn's "treason" would carry enough emotional weight to compensate. I'd like to read a version that has the ending fleshed out, as I think RW could do really interesting things with it.

I have no real worries with the interpretation of the photos as being in the Underdark. It's slightly irregular, but that's something I'm willing to let slip if the story supports them. Did it? I'd say yes.  The boar photo was used well, as was the bridge. (Note that the boy in the photo is carrying just the boar's head.) The river of blood was also well introduced, and the dragon played a major and effective story role. I dislike the use of "conformity" largely because it was shoehorned into the summarized ending. Overall, the photos were used quite well.

Interestingly enough, I think that this story would have more impact without the baggage of the drow. Like Zhaneel's use of the Indian pantheon, though, I can see why it was used: a shorthand so that the invaders cruelty wouldn't have to be explained further.

- o -

My judgment is for Zhaneel.  The use of mythological themes and a complex protagonist added nice depth to her story, pushing it past a good but uncompleted story from RangerWickett. 


----------


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for Zhaneel, who will go on to the third round.

Matchups will be announced later this evening. Congratulations, all, on hard-fought matches!


----------



## Piratecat

The d4 has spoken!

*Match 3-1: BardStephenFox vs. Macbeth.

Match 3-2: Mythago vs. Zhaneel.*

I've got _special_ photos for you folks this time. Hee hee hee hee hee. 

I'd like to post Match 3-2 next Monday, when Zhaneel is back from a weekend away. BardStephenFox and Macbeth, how soon can I post yours?


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> The d4 has spoken!
> 
> *Match 3-1: BardStephenFox vs. Macbeth.
> 
> Match 3-2: Mythago vs. Zhaneel.*
> 
> I've got _special_ photos for you folks this time. Hee hee hee hee hee.
> 
> I'd like to post Match 3-2 next Monday, when Zhaneel is back from a weekend away. BardStephenFox and Macbeth, how soon can I post yours?



  You ready for this, BSF?

My weekend looks really busy. The best times for me would probably be Friday. That way I can sneak in a look at the pictures, let them simmer in my head for a while, and do some writing towards the end of the weekend, when things finally calm down. The other option would be to post them tonight, giving me some time to get it done early. Does either Today or Friday work for you, BSF?


----------



## RangerWickett

Congrats Zhaneel.  I wish I could've given you a more finished story to beat; you deserved a better opponent.

Fortunately, in Round Three, you'll have one.  *grin*

Great job everybody.  Judges, I'm sorry I didn't have the time to give you a more completed story.  I do have to thank you, though, for scratching my writing bug.  I admit the story was a bit stale on first draft, and so my desire to do better is getting me eager to write some fiction for a change, instead of working on game stuff.

So thank you, very much.

Hope you all have a nice day, and a great last two rounds.


----------



## Zhaneel

Yeah!!!! Thank you.

And, eek! I get to (have to?) go up against Mythago.  Given that she was responsible for some of the whipping I needed last week to get into shape for the last round, this should be interesting.  

Zhaneel


----------



## orchid blossom

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Yeah!!!! Thank you.
> 
> And, eek! I get to (have to?) go up against Mythago.  Given that she was responsible for some of the whipping I needed last week to get into shape for the last round, this should be interesting.
> 
> Zhaneel




If she offers you any candy, DON'T eat it!

I go off to work and look what happens?  Congrats to all the winners.  I'm looking forward to seeing the next round.


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> You ready for this, BSF?
> 
> My weekend looks really busy. The best times for me would probably be Friday. That way I can sneak in a look at the pictures, let them simmer in my head for a while, and do some writing towards the end of the weekend, when things finally calm down. The other option would be to post them tonight, giving me some time to get it done early. Does either Today or Friday work for you, BSF?





I know Macbeth has some busy-ness coming up.  I am up for Today, or for Friday, whichever works out best for the schedules of our esteemed judges.


----------



## Sialia

First off, congratulations and condolences as appropriate. I enjoyed this round very much and am looking forward to the next!

Second, it might be worth mentioning that there were some other pictures that happened after I did Secrets3. This was one of those getting mugged by the muse things--she didn't let me up for air for weeks, until she suddenly strolled off and left me stnadign here with an unfinished set.

I still don't know what the rest of the story that binds these pictures together is.  So at this point, since I think Ceramic GM is done with them now, I'd like to post the others over in kiln-fired.

If anyone wants to take a stab at them while we're waiting for the next round, I'd be honored.

I can't post them until I get home tonight. Look for them late this evening, if you're interested.


----------



## arwink

mythago said:
			
		

> Warm fuzzies, however nice, don't help us improve.




True, but for people who are in the contest for a bit of fun judge pickiness can be a bit tiresome.

I've had people break up with me after I commented on their stories before, as well as driving one of my friends to drink after I critiqued his novel for the first time.  Even though they always see the point to it later, I still get a little nervous when commenting on the work of people I don't know 

Now, as an aside - Can I call on the ceramic DM competitors who aren't currently competing for a favor?  One of my friends is currently working at one of those most thankless of tasks - being a con org in the last week before the con begins.  Earlier in the week I hit upon the idea of writing a bunch of silly con-based haiku to cheer them up, but marking has eaten away at the time I would have used to put them all together.  

Anyone want to write some amusing Con-haiku or game-based haiku (call of Cthulhu stuff gets bonus points) and send them to arwink@themadship.dhs.org?  It'll help bring a grin to a harried con-orgs face, and what greater gift to the world is there than that.


----------



## Piratecat

BardStephenFox and Macbeth, you're on for tonight! I'll post the pictures at 11 pm EST.


----------



## Swack-Iron

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Yeah!!!! Thank you.
> 
> And, eek! I get to (have to?) go up against Mythago.  Given that she was responsible for some of the whipping I needed last week to get into shape for the last round, this should be interesting.




The confrontation was inevitable, however.

_"Once I was the student. Now *I* am the master."_


----------



## RangerWickett

arwink said:
			
		

> Anyone want to write some amusing Con-haiku or game-based haiku (call of Cthulhu stuff gets bonus points) and send them to arwink@themadship.dhs.org?  It'll help bring a grin to a harried con-orgs face, and what greater gift to the world is there than that.




Count the syllables
of Nyarlathotep the Great.
Hastur.  Hastur.  Has-


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> BardStephenFox and Macbeth, you're on for tonight! I'll post the pictures at 11 pm EST.



Got it.


----------



## alsih2o

Great stuff! I am all excited.

 As long as Macbeth keeps winning it seems I suck less!   

 Or somehting like that


----------



## BSF

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Great stuff! I am all excited.
> 
> As long as Macbeth keeps winning it seems I suck less!
> 
> Or somehting like that




Hey, it works for me!

Since that is what I kept telling myself when Sialia put together her trilogy.

So, just to keep it all interesting ...  Macbeth plays in my Friday night game.  We are looking at DM vs Player showdown.    Regardless of who wins, you can pretty much be sure of good table talk in the ensuing weeks.


----------



## Piratecat

I can see it now:

M: I rolled an 18. I hit!
BSM: No, you miss.
M: What? Why?
BSM: -15 circumstance penalty.
M: WHAT? Why?
BSM: Your story might be too good. Oh, and all your magic items turn to dog mucous. Ha ha. 
M: Grrrrrr.

Good table talk, indeed.  

Hey, please email your haiku to Arwink instead of posting them. Hopefully he'll post them when he's done, but I'm leery of overly cluttering the thread.  Thanks!


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> BSM: Your story might be too good. Oh, and all your magic items turn to dog mucous. Ha ha.



What magic items? Where? There are MAGIC ITEMS? You'd think BSF had never heard of such things.


I kid, I kid. We're barely 3rd level, ao you wouldn't expect much in the way of magic items, and BSF has decided to keep things a little lower powered, which I respect, since I do the same thing in the game I DM. I'm really just messing around.


----------



## Eeralai

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I can see it now:
> 
> M: I rolled an 18. I hit!
> BSM: No, you miss.
> M: What? Why?
> BSM: -15 circumstance penalty.
> M: WHAT? Why?
> BSM: Your story might be too good. Oh, and all your magic items turn to dog mucous. Ha ha.
> M: Grrrrrr.
> 
> Good table talk, indeed.




Magic Items?  It is currently a party of 7 characters.  As of this moment, they have one magic item.  But that's cool, they are only 2nd going on 3rd level.


----------



## Macbeth

Eeralai said:
			
		

> Magic Items?  It is currently a party of 7 characters.  As of this moment, they have one magic item.  But that's cool, they are only 2nd going on 3rd level.



One magic item? Is the sword the faries left us magic? I don't know of any magic items, but that one might be magic, I guess.

Ooops, sorry, back on topic. Looking forward to those pictures.


----------



## mythago

Swack-Iron said:
			
		

> _"Once I was the student. Now *I* am the master."_



So does that make me the cool dude in the black helmet, or the scrawny old guy who was righteously whacked?

Um...that didn't sound right.



			
				arwink said:
			
		

> I've had people break up with me after I commented on their stories before, as well as driving one of my friends to drink after I critiqued his novel for the first time.



Good grid. These are people who need to toughen the heck up. I mean, it's one thing if you're going all Harlan Ellison on them, but if they expect to be published writers, they can't crumple like little flowers when somebody says "I think you need a comma here."

Sialia, please do post over in Kiln-Fired; it will give me something to do while my erstwhile opponent is away.


----------



## Piratecat

Cue the celestial trumpets. Ready the tacky pyrotechnics. It's time for. . .

(duh-duh-DUHHHHHH!)

*Round Three!*

Match 3-1: BardStephenFox vs. Macbeth. 72 hours, 6000 words max, five pictures, and a higher standard of judging. Have fun!


----------



## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Cue the celestial trumpets. Ready the tacky pyrotechnics. It's time for. . .
> 
> (duh-duh-DUHHHHHH!)
> 
> *Round Three!*
> 
> Match 3-1: BardStephenFox vs. Macbeth. 72 hours, 6000 words max, five pictures, and a higher standard of judging. Have fun!




Checking in.  Now, to find some sort of strong thread to tie these pieces together.


----------



## Macbeth

Ya hear that? That's the sound of my mind being blown. uh oh.


----------



## Macbeth

And that other sound? That would be the sound of things clicking into place. Ah, I love it when I start to make sense of what's going on in those pictures.


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

Very interesting photos, Pkitty.

I look forward to reading this match.

Ah, GM vs player.  should be good.


----------



## Sialia

Three minutes, Macbeth?  _Three_ minutes?


Piratecat, if he makes it to the next round, you are going to seriously have to try harder.


----------



## Maldur

Good luck in the next round everyone!!


----------



## Macbeth

Sialia said:
			
		

> Three minutes, Macbeth?  _Three_ minutes?
> 
> 
> Piratecat, if he makes it to the next round, you are going to seriously have to try harder.



That's just how long it took me too find the common thread, the bit that I can use to tie them all together. I'm still fleshing out the story. But I have most of it mentally written, I'll proabably start writing today.


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> That's just how long it took me too find the common thread, the bit that I can use to tie them all together. I'm still fleshing out the story. But I have most of it mentally written, I'll proabably start writing today.



Drat!  I was hoping to be the one quick out of the starting blocks.  I have an interesting story brewing in my head right now, but I am not sure I should write it.  Why you might ask?  Well, the problem is that I can't find a way to bring the readers into the character rather than just watching the story happen.  I'm not sure I can bring in any real empathy, or surprise.  Nifty idea, perhaps, but I might not be able to write it as a good story.  We will see how this brews up today.


----------



## alsih2o

Page 3?? Slackers!!


----------



## Piratecat

I've been fine tuning and adjusting the Round 4 photos, adding here and subtracting there in order to get the perfect mix. Yeesh, not as easy at you'd think.  I have a wealth of options, as I've been offhandedly collecting photos for a year or so every time I saw a good one. If only I could have the final round involve 26 pictures instead of 5 or 6....


----------



## BSF

Umm, Piratecat, that would be more like Ceramic Novel.  26 Chapters with a pic for each one!


----------



## mythago

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> Hey now... I like those trees.



 I do, too...when they're not SPAWNING.


----------



## Piratecat

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Umm, Piratecat, that would be more like Ceramic Novel.  26 Chapters with a pic for each one!




Well, actually, my unused picture archive is more like 190 photos. But that's a little extreme.


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Well, actually, my unused picture archive is more like 190 photos. But that's a little extreme.




 *scratches at arm and shivers*

 "Yeah, man. It started like that for me, but you know, how can you stop, you know? I mean, why stop? I mean, dude, there are so many, and the computer just, like, holds them right there for you. I mean, my mom says I am hooked, but I could quit. Really, I just don't want to right now."


----------



## Piratecat

I'm not addicted.  I can stop at any time. Just like Sialia.


----------



## Sialia

Hi there, my name is Sialia, and I have a painting problem.

Two days ago, there was this craft store going out of business next door to my office, and they had high quality paints and brushes going for 70% off. 

I was so late to pick The Scampering Chaos up from daycare that the school had closed by the time I got there. 

I was beating myself up yesterday for being a Bad Mom, and a girlfriend said to me "well, it's not as though you were out getting drunk or doing drugs. You were picking out paints to decorate _her_ new bedroom."

And I replied, "I was looking at colors. For me, that's pretty much the same thing. There were so many, and they were all so beautiful and  .  . . I . . just lost track of the time . . ."

"This is obviously going to take years of therapy for one of you," she replied.


----------



## drose25

"The Scampering Chaos" -- I love it!


----------



## Zhaneel

So... I was thinking Monday night for posting.  Mythago or PirateCat, have a preference?

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Sooner the better, from my perspective.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Sooner the better, from my perspective.




Well, it can't be any earlier than Monday.  So Morning/afternoon/evening is the question.

I've got Tuesday & some of Wednesday set aside, so it doesn't really matter, though I think I prefer getting the pics after I leave work than before I get there.

Zhaneel


----------



## mythago

Here's my thought:

Piratecat's three hours ahead of us. If he posts in what is for him morning, we'll see it when we get up--as opposed to the waiting-around/obsessive-refresh mode of having it show up later in the day. So I say morning, although any time works for me schedule-wise.


----------



## Piratecat

I _need_ to be three hours ahead of you in order to keep up.

Morning works for me, and neither of you strenuously objected. If that remains the case, I'll post them Monday am. Thanks for being flexible!


----------



## Macbeth

...And my first draft is done. Turned out to be a little harder then I thought, but I had a good way of tying the pictures together. Now lets see what I can do with a whole day to edit and revise...


----------



## Piratecat

Looking forward to them!


----------



## alsih2o

P-kitty, you have nailed it. You make me so proud...

 *wells up*


----------



## Macbeth

Ceramic DM Round 3-1: Macbeth vs. BardStephenFox, the DM vs. Player showdown.
*Distortion*
_By Sage LaTorra, a.k.a. Macbeth_



For some people a job means a 9-5 monotony, for some people a job means hours of meaningless work for minimum wage, for some people a job means any number of things. But for Niles, a job meant hunting djinn.

"What? You want me to hunt..." Niles was confused.

"A djinn. A genie. A middle eastern mythical creature." The man in the center responded. The men on either side of him, likely his muscle, did their best to look intimidating, and succeeded admirably.

"And by mythical you mean...?" 

"A creature of the imagination."

"Oh, that's good. I thought that mythical meant it didn't exist." The sarcasm was dripping from Niles' voice.

"It does. Djinn don't exist, or at least not in the same way you and I do." The man in the center still had his back to Niles, as did the men who on either side of him.

"Care to explain? Or will I be left in the dark as usual?"

"Your complaint is noted, Mr. Niles. And in this case, you will be informed. Djinn exist because we think they do. They are a product, or rather byproduct, of years of myths, tales, and stories. For many years they were unique to the Middle East, but as the stories spread, they shifted. This is the first time we've seen one in America, and as best we can tell, he fled his home to come here."

"Fled his home?"

"The turmoil in the middle east is no less hard on creatures of imagination then they are on those of flesh and bone." The central man cleared his throat. "And by coming here he has been changed."

"Changed?"

"The American Zeitgeist holds a different view of djinn then the middle east. Specifically, this djinn has found that he can grant wishes."

"And what's so bad about that?"

"We have a creature roaming the heartlands that can warp reality. That's bad enough. So you're going to track him down."

This was more familiar ground for Niles. "Dead or alive?"

"I don't give a damn. But be weary: he can change just about anything to meet other's desires. From what we know, he feeds by fulfilling desires."

"Won't make a difference. The bastard is still going down."

"The one bit of advice I can give you: at this point, he's still adapting to his new found powers. His little modifications to reality cause... distortion."

"Distortion?"

"Best way to describe it. Like an out of focus picture, or looking down into a pool of water. You'll figure it out." The shell like structure flared into life in front of the three men, throwing them into relief from Niles' point of view. The shell displayed a video of an airplane flying over seemingly endless plains.(1) "He was last sighted by this automated drone flying a routine test flight over Dakota." The image on the screen flew forward, and two small shapes came into view on the ground below, barely distinguishable as humans. As the shapes grew closer, the screen seemed to bend and distort, and without warning there was a car beside the shapes. One of the men got into the car, and drove out of sight, just as the drone flew over where the other man still stood. 

Niles' was confused, a depressingly common situation at this point. "What was that?"

The man in the center pressed something on the pillar in front of him, and the screen went blank. "That was our friend, the djinn, creating a Ferrari out of thin air. Luckily the man he was 'helping' had a fairly mundane wish. But what if he was a Nazi? Or a member of the KKK? What might he have wanted? It seems our friend Mr. djinn works on subconscious desire, not a decided want. If he happens to encounter the wrong person, say a person with suicidal tendencies, the world could end." 

"Fine. Normal pay?"

"Yes. Your rather exorbitant fees will be payed."

"Expenses covered?"

The man in the center sighed. "Yes, fine."

"Good. I'll see you when I have him."

Niles turned and walked out of the room, trying to shake the tingle on the back of his neck that he got whenever he talked to his employer.



The driving was pure boredom. Mile after mile of nothing after nothing. Niles had begun to hate the heart of America, from the time his radio cut out, and failed to find another station, AM or FM. He played games in his mind. He doubled numbers until he lost count, somewhere around 294805 (he never was very good at math). He tried anything to keep himself awake.

Finally he reached a small town. A diner, a gas station, and enough houses to keep the people who staffed both. Niles needed a break, so he pulled off the highway into the parking lot for the diner. In the diner, he sat down, ordered the local specialty (ominously known as "Just Steak"), and settled down for a rest.

As he was waiting for his food, a man in a dark suit and sunglasses sat down across from him. Most people would be wary of this, but Niles had too much experience with shady characters and conspiracies. "Who are you?" he asked, taking in as many details as he could about the black suited man.

"A friend. I've been sent to help you."

"And how do I know you're not working for an enemy. I've got more then a few people who would be happy to send somebody to help me die."

"I know you have enemies. I'm not one of them." The dark suited man casually rearranged the silverware at his place, turning the knife to face himself.

Niles caught the signal. "Good. You got a name?"

"I've got one. But you can call me Marid."

"Odd name."

"Well, I'm an odd person."

"Aren't we all?"

Marid laughed, a deep, windy laugh. "I guess we are, I guess we are. How much further have we got to go to find the target?"

"Nother 3 hours or so."

"Ugh. You look tired. Want me to drive?"

"Fine, I could use some sleep, just let me eat first."

"You already order?"

"Yeah. The local special."

"Just Steak? Not worth waiting for."

"Too bad, I'm hungry and we're waiting."

"Fine." The waitress came back with the "Just Steak," which turned out to be very deserving of it's title. Marid glanced at the beef, and turned to the waitress. "A glass of water, please?"

"Sure, hon." The waitress turned, and walked off to get Marid's water. When she returned with the water, Marid downed the entire glass in one gulp.

Niles took note. "Thirsty?"

"Always."

"Then you'd better bring a water bottle. We've got a ways to go."

After the Just Steak was Just Finished, they set off, with Marid driving, the sunglasses still perched on his face.




The roads continued, as did the nothing around them, and Niles took the chance to sneak in a nap. He hadn't realized just how much he wanted a companion, somebody to take the wheel, just for a bit. As he nodded off, the car shifted, the seat faded, the road stopped. Niles was asleep, in bed. No more roads, nor more monotony, just a simple bed to sleep in. The moon dominated the window above the bed.

Niles settled into his dream, curled beneath the sheets, settled into the bed.

Then he became aware of the eyes. The room had been pulled apart, long claws pulling the ceiling apart, letting in the eyes.(2) He knew, somehow, they were djinn eyes. They were eyes that had seen ancient empires, eyes that had spent years in the desert, eyes that had seen war after war. The eyes stared for a second, taking in Niles, digesting him. Then the eyes burst into flame. Even in the dream, Niles could feel the djinn, closing in, the burning eyes filling his vision, he tried to crawl away, he moved back, he...

Noticed the distortion. This wasn't his dream, it was being altered.  

Niles woke up. Marid was shaking him. "You alright? You were squirming around a bit." Marid still had his ever present sunglasses on. Niles wondered what his eyes looked like.

"Yeah. I'm fine." Niles hoped he sounded more sure then he felt. He composed himself for a second, then spoke. "I think he's nearby."

"Who? The target? But we've still got another hour to where he was last seen, how can you know where he is?"

"He's taunting me. Or trying to scare me. He's doing something to me, he was in my dreams."

"Damn..." Marid's voice trailed off. "Well, we're about a mile out of the next town. Seems like a good place to start."

"Sure." Niles settled back down into his seat. Despite the disturbing nature of his dream he felt relieved. He realized that this was perfect. The djinn hat tipped his hand. Now Niles could find him. This was just what he needed, an easy catch. As they neared the town Niles idly pondered what Marid's eyes looked like.



Marid pulled into the small town of Mill. The slowing of the car pulled Niles out of his half-hearted sleep. He yawned. "This it?"

"Yep. Where do we start?" Marid's sunglasses still obscured his eyes.

"I would guess we talk to the locals. Ask about anything strange."

"Fair enough." Marid pulled the car into the most public place to be found: a large diner that seemed to double as the town meeting hall. Marid led the way in.

A cheery waitress, a few years too old, obviously tired of life, greeted them as they entered. "What can I do for ya'll?"

Niles stepped forward. "Well, we're from the Inquirer, we heard some reports of strange happenings in these parts, Mam. Know anybody we could talk to, interview, something like that?" He did an admirable job of shifting from the mannerisms of a hardened killer to a talkative reporter.

"THE inquirer? Wow, I read that all the time, I loved the story about the Alien abductions in Belen, can't believe nobody else carried that article."

"Well, Mam, the government controls all the other news companies, and they have an interest in covering things up."

"Don't ya know it. Well, if your looking for information, I'd go see Tex, over up Main Street, blue house, number... let me think... 723. He knows just about everything that goes on round here."

"Thank you Mam. We'll be in touch."

Niles led the way back out of the diner. "We going to 723 Main Street?" Marid asked, as he got into the drivers seat. "Of course." Niles replied, back to being himself.



Main Street turned out to be a bit of a misnomer. It was not a street, rather a dirt road, and the only thing main about it was that water main that could be seen under the dirt. Marid found 723 with no problem. "This looks like it."

"Fine. You come in with me, but don't talk unless you have to." Niles began to mentally shift to the manners of an Inquirer reporter.

"Why can't I talk?"

"Be cause you haven't proved to me that you can talk your way out of a lie."

"Can't prove myself if you don't give me a chance." Niles couldn't tell if Marid was being humorous. Damn sunglasses.

"Can't have a chance until you've earned it. Now shut up, and act like you're a reporter." Niles knocked on the door. A few seconds later the door opened, revealing a man, dressed in clothes that made it painfully obvious he was a rancher, or at least wanted to be one. "Can I help you gents?" the obviously-trying-to-be-a-rancher said in a forced drawl.

"Well sir, we're from the Inquirer," said Niles from the Inquirer 'we heard there might be some interesting occurrences round these parts."

The admiration in the man's eyes was clear. "The Inquirer? I love your reportin', weren't nobody else who would carry the article bout the ratboy born in Mississippi, but you guys reported it, pictures and all."

"That we did sir. Mind if we come in and ask you a few questions?"

"Sure, sure, come in. My name's Tex." the obviously-trying-to-be-a-rancher said in the same forced drawl. It was clear that the only way he got the nickname Tex was by asking people to call him that.

"Well, thank you Tex. My name's Robert, and this is Fred." Niles extended his hand.

Tex took it, and shook it hardily. He motioned for them to sit down in the kitchen, which was slightly hazy, but with no obvious source for the haze. "Now, lets see what I can think of... odd happenings... let's see..." Tex started to list off a series of minor strange occurrences. Odd noises, strangely shaped vegetables, various deities appearing alone, or, rarely, in small groups, in soup, yogurt, oatmeal, and, on one occasion, a Just Steak from the place down the road, things that would interest Inquirer reporter Robert Niles, but nothing that sounded even the littlest bit djinn related. Niles dutifully took notes, to maintain the facade of being a reporter, but his attention was slipping. 

Finally, just as Niles thought he couldn't take anymore, as he desperately hoped Tex would either stop or bring up something interesting, something caught his attention. "And I finally managed to bring my dead buffalo back to life. Being wanting him to come back for years, but didn't happen till yesterday." 

Niles jumped back into reporter mode. Marid was still sitting there, and he seemed to be smiling faintly. Niles got back into the rhythm of reporter speak. "That's certainly interesting. Think we could see it?"

Tex nodded. "Sure, but don't get up. Now that he's back, he's house trained too." Tex cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled. "Come 'ere, Fluffy." The floor of the house began to shake. A huge buffalo emerged from a hallway that Niles could only presume led outside. Tex looked all the more absurd with a buffalo that had probably died from his own lack of knowledge nuzzling his foot. Inside his own house.(3)

"This here's fluffy." Tex said, with no small amount of pride.

Niles tried to compose himself. "So... How did he come back to life."

"Don't know, don't care. Been hoping for him come back for years, and he's finally back."

"And you're sure it's him? That this is... fluffy?"

"Yep, Same birthmark, same teeth, same horns, same measurements, and everything. He's even got the scar from where I accidentally nicked him while trying to get some of his fur."

This definitely seemed to be the djinn's work. "When... Fluffy... returned, was there anybody else around?"

Tex sat in thought for a second. "Yeah, that boy from out of town was over here doing odd jobs for a little cash."

"Boy from out of town? Is he still here?"

"Yeah. Staying down at the motel. Let me see if I can find the room number." Tex dug through a number of small papers. "Sure 'nuff, here it is. Room 23."

Niles made a note. "Well, thanks Tex, I'm going to go see if this boy... what did you say his name was?"

"Abe."

Of course, thought Niles. Probably short for Abraham. Middle eastern name. It must be him.

"We're just going to go talk to Abe. I'll see you later, Tex."

"You too, Robert." Fluffy snorted, as if to say goodbye.

As they got back into the car, Marid adjusted his sunglasses (which he still had not removed) and spoke. "You didn't find out what motel he was talking about.

"Think about it. In this town, you don't need a name, it's just THE motel. I'll be there's only one."

"Sharp."

"You've got to be, in this line of work."

Marid and Niles drove away, towards the motel.




There was indeed only one motel, and room 23 was easy enough to find. Niles banged on the door, with Marid beside him, his sunglasses sparkling in the sun.

The door opened a crack. "Can I help you?" the voice had a slight accent. This must be him, Niles thought.

"Sir, I'm with the Inquirer. Could I ask you some questions?"

"I guess so." The voice was cautious. The door swung the rest of the way open. "Abe?" Niles asked.

"That's my name." Abe was whiter then Niles expected. If not for the accent, he wouldn't have expected him to be from the Middle East.

Niles stepped in, Marid a step behind him. "Well Abe," he began to reach for his notebook, but instead started to dive at Abe.

"No" was Abe's only reaction.


Niles enjoyed his High School years. It was good to be back outside the Burger Berg, the smell of their french fries permeating the air around the building, his back pressed up against the wall with the Lizard mural by her body. His arms wrapped around her, like explorers, mapping the geography of her body, occasionally going too far and being reluctantly pushed back towards the equator of her body.(4) So far he had made it as far north as Florida, by his best estimate, and as far south as Peru. He hoped to reach the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn in his room later. His thoughts drifted to the plans for the rest of the night...

And then he noticed the haze, a slight distortion. This wasn't real. Of course not. High School was years ago, but he wanted to go back, deep down. 

Niles punched up through the layers of illusion, forcing himself to the source. And he saw him.

He had yet to really see Abe. He had seem a man, but this was really Abe. His pale body moved the air around it like water, parting, shimmering, making ripples. His thin frame seemed powerful, his shirtless chest flexing.(5) His eyes had been replaced by gems of some type, and they sparkled like fire. He seemed to exist in more then one place, like Abe was moving beyond his body. A second, immaterial set of arms stretched out behind him, and faded into the shifting patterns of reality behind him. Abe moved the air, moved reality, like a swimmer in a pool: twisting it about himself, making small changes, moving himself through it at will.

And the illusion ended. Abe knew it, and he fled the room. Mirad tried to stop him, but Abe was too fast. Mirad’s glasses feel to the floor, revealing... a pair of hazel eyes. Mirad picked up his sunglasses. "That bastard better not have scratched the lenses. They're Oakley's."

Niles stood up. "Worry about your glasses later, he's getting away."

"Right." They both gave chase. Abe might have been able to shift reality, but he couldn't run very fast, and with the only desires nearby being two people dead set on catching him, consciously and subconsciously, Abe could only run. Niles caught up to him with ease, and tackled him. 

The fight was short and brutal. Niles had a huge physical advantage. He knocked Abe out and dragged him into the car with Mirad's help.



The drive back was as monotonous as the drive to Mill. Mirad drove again and Niles slept, and when he couldn't sleep anymore, he thought. He thought about djinn, he though about distortion, he thought about desire, he thought about how Tex's kitchen had been hazy almost... distorted, he thought about how everything had happened at just the right time, the dream, the buffalo, Mirad, everything,  he thought it was all to easy.

Why would Tex's kitchen have distortion? The djinn had been there some time ago, hadn't he? Could it just have been hazy? No, it was too thick to obvious, why would there be distortion there... unless the only reason Tex's buffalo had come back to life was to give Niles a lead? Then the djinn must have been there... but how? Abe was at the motel. So he wasn't the djinn... that's why it was so easy, why everything had been like Niles wanted it to be. He wanted a companion, so Mirad showed up, he wanted a lead so Tex's buffalo came back to life, he wanted to find a djinn, so Abe had been there. But then the real djinn was...

"Pull over." Niles said as he sat up again.

"You figured it out."

"Of course I did. I'm not stupid. You did it all. Abe wasn't a djinn, Mirad, you are. Why? Why did you help me?"

"Because you were the biggest source of desire in the area, and I figured if I could help you find a genie, and feed myself, and avoid capture, it would be the best for everybody. And it still could be. He could be your djinn. You did capture him. You saw him fulfilling desires."

"No. I'm taking you." Niles grabbed the wheel with one hand, and cold clocked Mirad with the other. Mirad slumped over, the blow to the head knocking him out. The car slowed as Mirad's foot stopped pushing the gas. When they stopped, Niles bound Mirad, lay him in the back with Abe, and continued back to headquarters. The boss would be happy.







Mirad walked back towards Mill. Humans were so easy to manipulate when they got what they wanted. Niles wanted to knock him out, and Mirad had granted his desire, and now Niles would return with what seemed to be Mirad. Barely any distortion either. He was getting better. Now if he could just find somebody who wanted him to get back to Mill without having to walk...



Picture Use:
(1) The boss and his assistants from Niles’ point of view while the video plays.

(2) The djinn’s eyes disturb Niles’ dream.

(3) Tex’s kitchen, with fluffy, hazy from the effects of the djinn’s magic.

(4) Niles’ delusion when Abe warps reality to match his desires.

(5) Abe’s true form, warping reality like water and air.


----------



## Sialia

ahhh. . .


----------



## BSF

*Rainmaker*

Jake was drunk when he first saw Sheryl.  Of course, Jake was always drunk lately.  Last month, he had spent nearly 3 full days sober.  He was trying to do better this month by only being sober for the two days when his pension checks came in.  Jake wouldn't need to sober up until next week.  

Sheryl was standing on a low wall at the edge of the beach passionately deriding Rainmaker Inc's monopoly on rain across the nation.  In the past three years, Jake had seen a half dozen other wannabe young activists doing the same thing.  They would come down to the gulf on spring break, or autumn break, or for a weekend getaway, or something similar.  They would get boozed up and sooner or later a storm would move in off the gulf.  They would stand there in the pouring rain, realizing that a Rainmaker rep hadn't been paid to make water fall from the sky and finally understanding why the small 2 mile band inland from the sea was called the Free Rain Zone.  Some of them would feel an upswell of grassroots indignation and they would spend the rest of their vacation playing part time environmentalist and champion of the oppressed.  Rah rah, shish boom bah.  Then, when their vacation was over, they would return to school, or their jobs, and forget about the whole thing.  Jake had seen it plenty of times.  

But Sheryl was different.  She was beautiful and her speeches were eloquent with simplicity.  And, they were filled with Spirituality.  Instead of trying to build the group into a fervor, she coaxed it to a slow simmer, almost as if she knew that most of them would forget her words in a week.  She weaved stories about how the earth was formed, lovingly, by earth goddesses.  Water and rain was a Sacred gift and no company had any right to claim it as their own.  No company had any right to decide who would and would not have rain on any given day, or in any given season.  Even to Jake's bitter ears, her words rang true.  Sheryl truly believed her stories and she believed that Rainmaker must be stopped.

Jake waited when everyone else left the beach, muttering softly amongst themselves. Jake's eyes followed her past each streetlight as she walked in his direction.  Her dark hair trailed behind her.  In the shadow of a building, Jake made his move.

"Senorita, you speak pretty words, but you cannot break the back of a beast like Rainmaker."

Sheryl stared at Jake, noted his three-day stubble and his dark tan.  His blond hair was shaggy beneath his tattered straw hat and he was swaying on his feet.  Her eyes took in the beer bottle in his hand, as well as the 4 empty bottles and the last beer in the cardboard holder in his hand.  She smiled.  Jake smiled back and held up the last beer.  "Cervezza?"

They sat on the beach and watched the sun come up.  Sheryl Maria Lujan was determined to save the world from the evil that was Rainmaker Inc.  Jake tried a dozen ways to talk her out of it, to no avail.  "You do not understand senorita, companies like Rainmaker Inc. employ people to keep their enemies out of the way.  Bad people, senorita, very bad people.  With your crazy talk, they are going to think you are an enemy."

Sheryl would just smile and laugh.  "You do not understand Jake, they must be stopped.  Who will stop them if I do not?  I cannot tolerate their violation of the Sacred Earth.  They anger the Sky Father and the Earth Mother.  I will fight because I must."

"Senorita, you are young.  Go live life first, Rainmaker will still be here later.  Fight your battles then."

"I am not as young as I look Jake.  I know Rainmaker will be here if I do not fight them!  That is why I must."

"But, senorita … they have bad men that will stop you.  Do not anger these people.  They will do bad things."

"Tell me Jake, how do you know what they will do?"

Jake fell silent and finished his beer.

When he awoke on the beach, he felt dangerously close to becoming sober.  Sheryl was nowhere to be found.  He staggered a mile down the beach until he came to his shack, a 1250 square foot beach house with glasteel windows and scry proof walls.  When he found his money, he staggered down to the local store and bought a few more cases of beer.  He tipped the apprentice mage generously for using a floating disk to help bring the cervezza back to his beach house.  Jake didn't see Sheryl again until that evening, she was on the wall telling stories about the Sky Father.  

That night, they didn't talk so much.  Every time Jake would try to tell her not to fight Rainmaker, she would ask him how he knew what the bad men would do.  It was easier to drink the beer and watch the stars.  The sunrise was especially beautiful, but the buzz was wearing off.  Jake lay back on the sand and closed his eyes.  When he awoke, Sheryl was gone.

The third night, Sheryl met him at the wall.  This time she wasn't preaching.  "Come Jake, go for a ride with me."

She had convertible with an elemental engine.  Jake was about to make a snide comment on captive elementals when Sheryl stopped and prayed, then greeted the fire creature, he almost passed out when the elemental returned her greeting.  Bound elementals can't talk and any time an elemental broke free, it went on a rampage in retribution for it's captivity.  Jake forgot his six-pack

They drove away from the coast for hours without saying a word.  At first Jake thought Sheryl was mad, but each time he caught her eye, she would smile.  They enjoyed each others company like that until morning brightened the horizon.  As the sun rose, Sheryl pointed out the fields they were driving past.  She told Jake the stories of each family that could not pay Rainmaker to make the rains come down.  Jake cried softly as he sobered up.  "They have bad, bad men senorita."

Sheryl finally pulled over and took Jake's hand to lead him from the car. They walked out into a field and lay down among the nearly dead plants.  Far overhead, clouds passed from the gulf, further up north.  Dark, heavy looking clouds, but rain did not fall.  Finally, Sheryl asked, "You see the pain that Rainmaker has caused, why do you still try to talk me out of stopping them."

Looking up at Sheryl's brown eyes, Jake caressed her cheek.  "Because you have beautiful dreams and a beautiful spirit, but they are too powerful.  Nobody can break them, and they have bad men…"

"How do you know Jake?"

"Because, I was once one of their bad men. But, it destroyed me to watch them destroy the lives of others.  Please senorita, you cannot break them and I do not want to see you destroyed."

"Help me Jake."  Sheryl's voice was calm.

"What senorita?"

"Help me.  It will do your spirit good to cleanse yourself of this pain.  You have seen their evil, you know they must be stopped."

"Yes, senorita, they must be stopped, but just the two of us?"

"Have faith Jake, the Sky Father and the Earth Mother will aid us."  Sitting up, Sheryl began chanting softly to the Great Spirit.  Jake watched in wonder as the clouds overhead stopped moving north and instead, hovered overhead.  Soon, small drops of water were falling from the sky.  A mischievous smile played across her lips.  "Call me Little Bird."

Nobody had ever superceded the wizards at Rainmaker.  Somebody would be very angry tonight.  Jake was filled with hope.  They made love to the soft patter of rain in the fields.  It wsa still raining the next day when they left.

Little Bird drove West, toward New Mexico.  She told Jake of the great buffalo that her people revered.  The buffalo represent the strength and bounty of the earth.  They churn the dirt so new plants can grow.  They give of their flesh to feed and clothe the People.  The birds of the prairie pick the parasites off buffalo, keeping them healthy.  Rainmaker Inc was just another parasite and Little Bird would pick them off to keep the earth healthy.  But first, Little Bird wished to visit her Grandfather and Auntie.  She told Jake that her Grandfather would help them cleanse themselves for the upcoming battle, and Auntie would teach Jake.  By the time they arrived, Jake was frightfully sober.  For the first time in three years, he actually enjoyed it.

They walked in to the kitchen. An old man was sitting there, petting a buffalo, a hat on his head.   A picture of a young man sat on the bannister behind him.  He looked up with a smile.  "We have been waiting for you Little Bird.  Who is your scruffy friend?"  Before Little Bird could answer, Jake stepped forward and bowed his head.  "Senor, my name is Julio, but everyone calls me Jake."  

The old man laughed.  "Call me Papa, this is Auntie."

The buffalo looked up at Jake, sniffed him once.  "Good hunting Little Bird, this man can help you  greatly if he will shed himself of his guilt."  The buffalo butted it's head against Jake.  "We know who you are and what you did.  Now you will help us to be rid of Rainmaker Inc.  Your name is not Jake, nor is it Julio.  Come, we will find you a better name if you will serve me."  Auntie pushed Jake toward the door.

Jake hadn't practiced his magic, or his martial arts for three years, he was terribly out of practice.  Auntie made him practice and taught him stories about the People and how the Spirits of the earth were displeased.  By the end of two weeks, Auntie had named him Dancing Bull.  

Dancing Bull and Little Bird sat together in the sweat lodge.  Dancing Bull spoke of the magics he had been taught.  Powerful necromantic energies, coupled with quick strikes from his fists and his feet.  Evocations, enchantments and abjurations that helped turn him into a ferocious killing machine.  Little Bird spoke of clear water stretching into blue sky.  She spoke of the blessings of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother and the Great Spirit.  She spoke of walking the Great Mystery to find herself.  She said that this was just part of her journey, a stopping point along the way.  She spoke of her brother, who had lost his way, the brother in the picture in Papa's kitchen.  Little Bird missed her brother.  Dancing Bull was not sure how long they were in the sweat lodge, but when they came out Papa was there with a buffalo skin cloak.  "Auntie says you are ready and he wanted you to have this.  Wear it when you fight Rainmaker.  Come, we are having steak for dinner and you need to give your thanks to Auntie."

~
A week later, Dancing Bull and Little Bird were back on the beach.  Dancing Bull wanted to get his equipment.  Rainmaker had given it to him, it was fitting that it be used against them.  Little Bird wanted to eat dinner and make love on the beach.  They were kissing outside the restaurant when Rainmaker caught up with them.  The eel on the restaurant animated and bit deeply into Little Bird's shoulder.  She screamed and Dancing Bull lashed out with his fists.  The eel let go of Little Bird and she backed away into the darkness.  

Thrashing against the wall of the restaurant, the animated eel was easy for Dancing Bull avoid.  His fists flashed under the light and it sounded like a wooden drum being played.  Little Bird screamed.  Dancing Bull turned in time to see her crumple to the ground, two knives stuck in her side.  "No!"  But, Rainmaker's assassins were already gone, the teltale 'pop' of a teleportation having taken them to safety.

Dancing Bull cradled Little Bird in his arms, crying for his loss.  The daggers were powerfully ensorcelled with dark magic, very powerful weapons.  They had robbed her of her life force.  Rainmaker had punished her for daring to make it rain.  Little Bird opened her eyes and caressed his face as dark bile oozed out of her wounds.  "I did not know it would hurt so much."  Her voice was weak, but beautiful.  "Do not cry Dancing Bull.  I have helped to make you healthy, my job is done.  You will dance across the ground and trample the Rainmaker so that the plants will grow again.  As for me, I will walk the Great Mystery.  We will meet again one day."  Dancing Bull felt no shame for crying as he gathered the tools of death that Rainmaker had long ago made for him.  

It took him three days to drive the convertible up to Oklahoma.  On the fourth day, he felt the presence of Rainmaker's Diviners.  That night, in an abandoned farmhouse, Dancing Bull slept fitfully.  How would Rainmaker deal with him?  Had they figured out who he was yet?  The edge of the roof lifted up, huge claws, barely material, could be seen.  Then eyes and a voice filled with mania and lust squeeled.

"Oh Julio, come here my love.  You look tasty my love.  They tell me you have been naughty."  It was Lucille.  Dancing Bull had always hated Lucille.  The demon was insane and always hungry.  The few times he had worked with her, he had gone on a drunken binge for days afterward.  It was because of Lucille that he had learned the words that would undo the binding to this world.  As Papa and Auntie would say, Lucille was a creature of the Otherworld and did not belong here.  Dancing Bull had learned the words of dismissal just in case Lucille ever decided he looked tasty.  Rainmaker did not know that Dancing Bull had done this.  

Dancing Bull rolled out of the bed and flipped across the room, his buffalo hide cloak swirling about him.  Lucille could be quick.  With a smile, Dancing Bull called out, "I always hated you Lucille!  Now be gone."  Lucille simply cackled as she pulled the roof off the farmhouse.  She was easily 50 feet tall. "Indeed little Julio, you will be gone in one little gulp."  Lunging forward, she was faster than him.  Her claws, reaching for his soft skin, were stopped by the buffalo hide.  Dancing Bull smiled and recited the incantation he had learned so long ago.  Lucille shrieked and the windows of the farmhouse shattered.

He left the convertible at the farmhouse.  Uncle had given him a salve that would make him fly and he reached the far edge of Rainmaker's private lake at sunrise.  The tower at the far side of the lake used the water to enhance the arcane energies that powered their weather engines.  To protect against assault, they had surrounded the tower with anti-magic zones.  To protect against non-magical assault, they had their cadre of martial-artist sorcerers, like the man he once was.  They would soon know that Lucille had not completed her job, so they would be looking for him. Dancing Bull hoped that he could swim across the lake before they thought to look there.  

He shucked his equipment into a small bag that, impossibly, held it all.  An extra-dimensional pocket that he had hidden equipment in before. Dancing Bull downed some liquid from a small vial.  Immediately, he felt his lungs constrict.  The magic demanded water to breathe, he was suffocating above water.  The sun was shining above as he swam across the lake.  He kept one eye out for any of the creatures rumored to live in the lake.  Rainmaker employees often speculated on the unspeakable horrors that were in the lake.  

Dancing Bull was almost to the dam he felt searing pain in his calf.  Something unclean had grabbed him.  Turning to look he saw a tentacle wrapped around his ankle.  The tentacle disappeared into the depths, where it was slowly pulling him.  Straining against the pull of the kraken, Dancing Bull was overcome with pain.  Blacking out, he could hear the thud of buffalo across the plain.  In his mind's eye, he could see Auntie with a little bird on her back.  Whispered words in his ear.  "Have faith, you are pure open your eyes and see the world for what it truly is."  Struggling to open his eyes, Dancing Bull took a deep breath.  Tree branches?  Trees from the drowned valley were reaching up from below.  Mind magic!  Rainmaker would never put a foul beast in their lake unless it could be completely controlled.  There would be too much risk that it would interfere with the engines that powered the weather engines.  

It careful swimming to make it to the access doorways on the side of the dam, but soon Dancing Bull was pulling on his trousers and a shirt.  Bracers followed and a belt.  He went barefoot as he slung the cloak around his shoulders.  Then, he pulled a tonfa out of the extra-dimensional pocket.  Rainmaker Inc's tower was nearly 400 feet tall.  A squat, fortified place that would be difficult to assault.  But, the tower was meant to keep people out.  Once they were in, there was little defense.

He made it up 12 levels before any guards found him.  He had just come out of a  stairway and the guards were coming off an elevator.  He saw them first.  With a surge, he closed the distance and hit one with a flying kick.  The strength of the buffalo carried through, tossing the first guard back into the elevator.  He felt a fist graze his back as he spun around.  Suddenly, a foot connected with his stomach.  It nearly took his breath away, but he rolled with the kick and landed with a thud.  Rolling onto his side, Dancing Bull planted a heel on the knee of the nearest assailant.  Grabbing the man's ankle, he pulled and heard a satisfying scream as tendons ripped.  He then rolled out of the way just as the kicker came down from a jump.  The man's knee thudded into the floor where Dancing Bull's head had been.  Dancing Bull quickly chanted arcane syllables and slammed his fist into the man.  Immediately, the man's face contorted in anguisk before he lost control of his muscles.  The smell of ghouls filled the hallway as Dancing Bull tumbled away.  Anybody coming through the area would have to deal with the ghoul smell coming from the paralyzed man.  

Dancing Bull had to fight off three more groups of guards before he was stood on the floor below the control tower.  Somebody had finally managed to trigger an alarm.  Rolling out of the stairwell, Dancing Bull came to stop against the wall.  Movement out of the corner of his eye gave him the split moment he needed to dodge backward.  A foot thudded into the wall and Dancing Bull looked up.  

"Good day Julio, your dressed funny nowadays."  It was Elliot Ingersoll.  Elliot had been an upcoming assassin when Dancing Bull worked for Rainmaker.  "If I had known it was you with that girl, I would have stopped to kill you too."  Elliot drew a jet black dagger as he took a fighting stance.  

"You killed Little Bird, but now I shall kill you."

"How sweet, you had a pet name for your girlfriend."  Elliot struck.  He was fast, but this time Dancing Bull was faster.  Dancing Bull caught the dagger in the folds of the cloak, stripping it from Elliot's grasp.  Then, mixing arcane gestures with an attack routine, he caught Elliot by the neck.  Elliot's eyes bulged as the magic took affect.  His life force drained out of his body into Dancing Bull's.  As Elliot withered in Dancing Bull's grasp, the bruises on Dancing Bull's body disappeared.  Finally, Elliot's body fell to the floor.  

Dancing Bull took the elevator up to the last floor.  The door opened and Dancing Bull gazed into the room for the first time in his life.  http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14005] Three smartly dressed wizards could be seen gazing out a scrying window at a green field.  Dancing Bull's ears could pull out the conversation.

"How much do you think they will pay to avoid a drought?"
"I don't know.  Losing those crops would mean a lot of people go hungry.  We should double our fee."

Dancing Bull felt the anger well up inside him.  With a cry, he charged across the room.  The first wizard fell like a sack of oatmeal as Dancing Bull rushed into him.  The second managed to get a body shield of fire in place as Dancing Bull turned to look at the third.  He paused for a moment, he had seen that face before.  He knew it wasn't when he worked at Rainmaker.  The guards never spoke directly with the wizards.  Then, it hit him.  He remembered that face from the frame behind Papa's shoulder.  This was Little Bird's lost brother.  

"That looks like Auntie's skin, who are you?"  

Dancing Bull stopped.  How could this man be related to Little Bird?  He represented everything that she opposed.  It was then that he remembered what she said about the Great Red Road and how her people had to follow it.  She would prepare it for her brother.  At the time, he didn't know what it meant.  But now … she had died so she could be there to receive her brother.  He shook his head.  He was hear to eliminate Rainmaker.  "Little Bird wants to see you, she is waiting, on the Red Road."  The dagger plunged into Little Bird's brother's heart.  He fell as lightning coursed through Dancing Bull's body.  

Turning to the last wizard, Dancing Bull smiled.  Blackened skin fell off his side as he pulled a scroll from the pouch at his side.  It was ancient, but he knew the words.  It would unleash a flurry of fireballs here in the tower.  Up here, where all the arcane energies are contained.  Rainmaker would be a ruined hulk in the wilderness.  His lips repeated the engraved syllables.  The wizard screamed.  Fire engulfed them all.

Papa looked up as stormclouds rolled in from the horizon.


----------



## BSF

I *think* I made it in time.  My computer clock and EN World are off.  I hope I made it.  

Whew.


----------



## Piratecat

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> I *think* I made it in time.  My computer clock and EN World are off.  I hope I made it.
> 
> Whew.




Technically you were over by one minute, but unless Macbeth makes an objection it's not a problem. We're doing this for fun, and I think we can forgive a minute or two worth of lag.

Can't wait to read them!


----------



## BSF

Doh!  Looking back, yes I was.  I'll let it sit with Macbeth.  I managed to sneak out of work a little early today otherwise I wouldn't have had any story to post.  Well, OK, I would have had some story, but those extra two hours were really useful.  I was really afraid that I couldn't tie all the elements together in a meaningful way.  But, I hope the story is an enjoyable read overall.


----------



## Maldur

ok, this has to sit in my mind for as while. Both stories are good.

I say we lock them both up in the basement and force them to write stuff


----------



## Eeralai

Maldur said:
			
		

> I say we lock them both up in the basement and force them to write stuff





Does that come with a grant?


----------



## Sialia

My world is rocked.


----------



## Maldur

It comes withregular feeding, if that is what you mean


----------



## Macbeth

Well, I wish I could take the easy way out and not accept BardStephenFox's entry, but I see no reason why 1 minute should make any difference, so let's go ahead with the round. I'd rather win fair and square then take the simple way out.


----------



## Maldur

You are a gentleman (gentlewoman, gentlegoat, gentletree) and a scholar!


----------



## BSF

Maldur said:
			
		

> You are a gentleman (gentlewoman, gentlegoat, gentletree) and a scholar!



Gentleman.  Male gender identifiers apply to Macbeth.  As I have said in other threads, he is a good guy, and a good gamer.  He has been a great addition to my gaming group.


----------



## Maldur

I wasn't sure, so I played it safe. You never know who is hiding behind a nick


----------



## alsih2o

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Well, I wish I could take the easy way out and not accept BardStephenFox's entry, but I see no reason why 1 minute should make any difference, so let's go ahead with the round. I'd rather win fair and square then take the simple way out.




 Good man.


----------



## Piratecat

Now the judging gets quite interesting. You both should feel very satisfied.


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## BSF

I am very pleased with this story.  I managed to weave together many elements.  I hope it is an enjoyable story to just read, but I also hope that some people find other relevance, beyond the obvious conflict, in the story.  I am very interested in hearing the judges comments, as well as comments from any other readers once the judgement is posted.


----------



## Maldur

Where is the rest of the round?


----------



## Piratecat

I couldn't get on! Here you are; my apologies for the delay. Screwy boards.

Match 4-2: Mythago vs. Zhaneel. 6000 words max, 72 hours, and keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times. Thank you.

And yes, "heat" is a real photograph that isn't photoshopped.


----------



## alsih2o

OOOH! PRETTY!

 AlSi "glad he was eliminated" H2O


----------



## Sialia

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> I am very pleased with this story. I managed to weave together many elements. I hope it is an enjoyable story to just read, but I also hope that some people find other relevance, beyond the obvious conflict, in the story. I am very interested in hearing the judges comments, as well as comments from any other readers once the judgement is posted.



At this point, I'm still prohibited from "biasing" commentary, but I know what an agony it is to wait for feedback, so can I at least set your mind at ease on the above?


----------



## alsih2o

What does the crowd think of havng a "biasing commentary and rapid input" thread seperate form the next Ceramic DM?

 NOTE- Please do not jump on this now, P-kitty is THE MAN of this here throwdown.


----------



## Piratecat

Actually, I'm okay with that now. I'll just ask the judges to not look in it, and I'll stay out of it myself. It's nice being able to trust people.


----------



## alsih2o

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Actually, I'm okay with that now. I'll just ask the judges to not look in it, and I'll stay out of it myself. It's nice being able to trust people.




 I figured we would have the same feelings on this, but I wouldn't dare speak for you since the plaid jumpsuit incident.


----------



## Macbeth

Hey, AlSih20, will you post a link to your "Instant Feedback" thread when you start it? I'd love to here what people have to say, and I have some comments on BSF's story myself.


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I couldn't get on! Here you are; my apologies for the delay. Screwy boards.




This is not me complaining, just curious.  I see only 5 pictures.  IIRC, the other round had 6.  I'm really not asking for more, just checking that only 5 is correct.

Zhaneel


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## BSF

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> This is not me complaining, just curious.  I see only 5 pictures.  IIRC, the other round had 6.  I'm really not asking for more, just checking that only 5 is correct.
> 
> Zhaneel




5 should be correct, it is how many Macbeth and I had to try to integrate.  

6 should be in the final round.  It is going to be interesting to see how this all works out.


----------



## Piratecat

Five is correct! The other round had five, too, and the final round will have six. Good of you to doublecheck.


----------



## Zhaneel

Yay doublechecking. Okay... will attempt to not include a titration in my story as that is what I'm going to be doing for the next 3 days.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Since the boards have been wonky, make sure you both have my home email. As for the 3-1 judgment, we'll have it up as soon as we can. I've written my piece!


----------



## alsih2o

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Hey, AlSih20, will you post a link to your "Instant Feedback" thread when you start it? I'd love to here what people have to say, and I have some comments on BSF's story myself.






http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1520624#post1520624


----------



## Macbeth

Thanks!


----------



## Maldur

ARGH, a threat I cant visit .......its so tempting


----------



## Zhaneel

I've got your e-mail saved.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Cool! And Mythago does as well. Mythago, when you have a chance will you please confirm that you got the photos?  I'd hate to hear that you were trampled by a rhinocerous Sunday night and never saw them.

Well, actually, that would be kind of cool. The rhinocerous trampling, I mean, not the fact that it happened to someone I know. That would be less cool. Although for years to come I'd probably be able to cadge free beers off of strangers by telling them the story. I mean, who _doesn't_ want to hear about a gory rhinocerous attack? It even worked in _James and the Giant Peach,_ so it just goes to show. 

Ahem.

Time to get another cup of coffee.


----------



## Maldur

Piratecat, when was the last time you slept?


----------



## mythago

The problem with a rhinoceros attack is that out here, we have a lot of idiots in Land Rovers (so important for getting up the 101, you know) with rhino bars on the front. And if I got killed by a rhino, they would forever point to me as an excuse. "Yuppie excess? What about that lawyer chick who got trampled by a rhino, huh? It COULD happen!"

So yes, I got the pictures.


----------



## Piratecat

All for the best, really.  All for the best.


----------



## Macbeth

Ahhhh! Everytime I see P-Kiity post to this thread, I rush over to see if he posted the judgement... I'm going to have a heart attack at the ripe old age of 18.


----------



## Sialia

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Time to get another cup of coffee.



I don't need to tell you that more likely what you need is to lay _off_ the coffee, right?

That would be like telling my grandma how to make brisket.

But I pity the rhino that thinks about trampling Mythago.


----------



## BSF

Macbeth said:
			
		

> Ahhhh! Everytime I see P-Kiity post to this thread, I rush over to see if he posted the judgement... I'm going to have a heart attack at the ripe old age of 18.




I figure that Piratecat will kind of drag it out to keep the tension going.  
I think of it as a good sign though.  I am hoping we put together two stories that are difficult to judge against.  By doing so, perhaps we will do our part to show just how cool and creative people in New Mexico can be.


----------



## Piratecat

We're just waiting for our illustrious Austrailian judge to weigh in and we're good to go; I have my judgment written, and Maldur's has arrived.

Based on Australian time, I'll most likely receive Arwink's judgment either late tonight or late tomorrow night. Once I do, I'll post them ASAP and change the thread title.


----------



## arwink

Yep, my fault.  And I'll admit that this time the lateness is for purely selfish reasons - today involved a six hour break between classess and meetings, and I wanted something to occupy my time.

Now I thank god I did, because it would have been difficult to give the kind of feedback I wanted in a shorter time frame.

(We're allowed into the feedback thread after the judging is done, right?  Right? -whimper-)


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 3-1: BardStephenFox vs. Macbeth.*

*Maldur:*


Ceramic DM Round 3-1: Macbeth vs. BardStephenFox, the DM vs. Player showdown.

VERY, VERY, VERY hard to judge these! They are both very good.

Macbeth: Once again a story about a secret agency, weird magics in the normal world. His ending is so devilish "unhappy" (or is it?)

BardStephenFox: Enviromentalists, Native americans, strange magic combined with age old tales. And those always funny Indian names.   I love the way the world is just hinted, but you can puzzle it together nevertheless.

My vote goes for Macbeth. Not only is he a gentleman (gentlewoman, gentlegoat, gentletree), his ending makes it the best of these two, but it was very close.


----------

*Arwink:*

Macbeth vs BardStephenFox

Macbeth – Distortion

Macbeth starts with a great idea, but the style used to depict the world doesn’t work cleanly.  Dialogue is great, but when all the information being told to us occurs in solid blocks it comes off feeling a little clunky.  The situation is the right choice, but give us more detail so we can contextualise the situation the right way rather than having the voices float in space.  The voice gives us some idea about Niles as a character, but it needs slightly more.  The first meeting with Marid comes of a lot more strongly, because we are given more detail about time, place and actions to place the two characters.

While the flow and pacing of Macbeth’s story is great, the voice occasionally clunks.  If you imagine this being read out-aloud in a normal speaking voice, there are occasional lines that seem awkward due to too many commas, to many sentences of roughly the same length, and other minor punctual errors.  Occasional moments of description that don’t quite work (cheerful waitress who is tired of life, the constant repetition that surrounds going to 723 main street and necking scene in Niles’ recollection of his home) also occasionally clunk against the rhythm of the story.

The story has a really nice ending, but it seems a little rushed to me. If Macbeth ever got the chance to re-write this, I’d suggest playing with the pacing of the final confrontation between Niles and Marid to give it a greater sense of tension.

On the whole, I’m really impressed with Macbeth’s story.  While it’s not as clean as it could be, the ideas, characters and pacing are all nailed down and with some editing it could easily become a brilliant story.

BardStephenFox – Rainmaker

BardStephenFox introduces us to an interesting situation and some great characters, setting the story to a slow simmer rather than heading forth with a burst of action.  The quiet spirituality of Sheryl/Little Bird and the drunken concern of Jake neatly set the tone of the story, as does the subtle insertions of information about Rainmaker Inc and the world they inhabit into the narrative.

Very quickly, this story hits a kind of delicate balance.  The combination of a world so obviously like our own, yet still colored by the presence of magic, can be difficult to maintain.  Occasionally the dance between magic appropriate to the story and the conventions of DnD arcana lean a little to far on the DnD side.  The magic being introduced in the opening is spiritual and subtle, and it clashes against the initial introduction of trapped elementals and the later DnD-ness of the events.  While there’s nothing wrong with either given the audience here, if the story found itself in wider circulation the subtle DnD’ness of it would make the magic a little out of place to some readers.  I also have to admit that in some places I found myself wishing the magic were a little more unique to the story – a firm part of the world being created instead of being pillaged from another source.  I think part of it just comes down to time, but should BardStephenFox ever take this towards the next step I’d like to see something a little more cohesive. There are occasional moments of clunky dialogue and rushed exposition during action scenes, but the pacing of this story is great. Slow-building, full of mood, and well worth pursuing into a new draft.

Judgment

This is probably the hardest round I’ve had to judge for this competition so far, and it really does come down to a case of splitting the finest hairs I can and going with my gut.  Both are very cool, well paced, show the beginnings of an individualized voice and world, and have great characters that are truly engaging.  I’ve flip-flopped back and forth on the decision a couple of times, and even now when I’m going to name names I’m not entirely sure I’ve made the right choice.  It’s possible that there isn’t one.

If either of these stories was handed in in one of my courses, I'd be urging the writers to re-draft as much as possible and handing them the address of zines and magazines that would suit the style should they wish to submit the re-worked drafts for publication. While they aren't at the right standard yet, the promise of both stories is great if they can live up to the potential exhibited here.

In the end I give the round to Macbeth.


----------

*Piratecat:*

I’ll start this off by smacking both competitors with the rolled up newspaper of my judgely ire. What’s with the sudden spate of typos and editing errors? Macbeth varies between two names for one of his major characters (Marid/Mirad) and distracts the reader with clumsy punctuation and erroneous word choice (weary/leery, clocked/cocked) that may be spellcheck mistakes.  BardStephenFox has missing words, missing punctuation, and general typos (along with my personal bugaboo, an “its/it’s” error) indicative of a rushed finish. At this stage in the competition, frankly, a pattern of these sorts of mistakes is going to harm your chances of winning. 

That being said, I loved both of these stories.

-- o --

Macbeth’s story is _much_ stronger than his Round 1 entry and very different from his round 2 entry; that shows nice range. In writing this he’s managed to include an unmistakable ear for snappy internal monologues and character dialogue that makes the story resonate. This skill – one that so many potential authors never develop – is one of his greatest strengths. People could just sit around in one of Macbeth’s stories and talk and I’d probably be happy. There is some awkwardness in the dialogue (read it out loud to see what doesn't sound natural), but not very much.

The relatively simple plotting in this story is surprisingly good, as is Macbeth’s knack for inserting his serious characters into comically implausible situations and playing them totally straight.* I even liked the surprise ending, although the misspelling of Marid’s name definitely distracted me at the wrong time. 

This story is both well-written and fun, but it does have some flaws. It needs editing and refinement in a few parts; for instance, Niles fell asleep again during the one mile drive to Mill, which must be a continuity error. The ending is slightly more confusing than it could be, especially around the manipulation of Abe’s appearance to Niles. Finally, the point of view changes at the very end from Niles to Marid for the very first time; that turns out to be somewhat jarring in how it was handled. I'd have like to see the ending strung out more, playing up the drama of Niles' deductions so that the surprise ending becomes that much more effective.

Photo use was outstanding. I especially like the use of Fluffy the buffalo in what is probably my favorite part of the story. The swimming picture of Abe was evocative (I’m assuming that djinn are of all the elements, not just air; otherwise we have some inconsistencies), Sialia’s dream image of the djinn and the bed was fine, and the flashback to high school was rushed but fit in well with the story. The aerial view from the drone was a little stretched, but not badly enough for it to worry me as I read the tale. 

* If you like this sort of thing, go read one of Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder novels; I think “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” is still in print, and your library will have most of these as books or (highly recommended) books on tape. Trust me on this.

-- o --

In comparison, BardStephenFox has very different strengths as a writer. He does an excellent job at describing a rich world through the eyes of the people within it; take a look at how we learn about Jake’s past, or how Sylvia both shows him a way out and calls down retribution onto herself by making it rain. BSF is showing instead of telling, and we get more and more drawn into the tale as the revelations gradually emerge. Nowhere in his story does he have to sit down and tell us who was who; it comes out slowly, lingeringly, and is all the better for this delicate approach. 

Given this, I'm frustrated that the dialogue doesn't entirely ring true. I'm reminded of a review I read of LotR: "This is a movie where people don't say their lines, they declaim them." The same is true of the characters in this story. I feel more like I'm watching a fantastic play with actors instead of understanding what the characters are overtly feeling; I'm watching from outside instead of being inside the characters' heads. This stylistic choice means that the rest of the story better provide me with the information I need to understand and sympathize with the characters! Thank goodness it does.

There were some pacing issues. The ending needed more buildup to the brother, who really just came out of nowhere. If you have limited time and words, I'd rather see them spent in rounding out Little Bird's brother than in describing specific (albeit well written!) combat maneuvers. Ironically enough, while the combat was probably too detailed near the end, Little Bird's death was too pat and convenient for my taste.

The photos were integrated beautifully. Only the swimming photo was disappointing, but the others melded so well into the narrative that they seemed like they belonged there.

-- o --

My judgment is for BardStephenFox, although only by a hair. His story had a resonant depth and a richness that I loved, and Macbeth's story had great plotting and excellent characterization. Both authors produced fine work and solidly nailed the targets that they were aiming for, but I think BSF was straining for a somewhat loftier goal, and the fact that he was able to reach it leaves me very impressed.

----------


*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for Macbeth, who will go on to the final round. Nice work, both of you.


----------



## Eeralai

Congrats MacBeth!  I'll still wish you luck in the final round even though you beat my husband


----------



## Sialia

w00t for both of you!


----------



## BSF

Cool!  Congratulations Macbeth!  

I appreciate the comments.  I want to, someday, polish this story up.  I'm not sure when, or how, yet.  I need some time to think about it.  It's certainly not a shame to lose when the judges all had a hard time deciding.  

On the plus side, now I get to go back and read everyone's stories!  I have been avoiding doing that for a plethora of reasons that probably sound boring to somebody that isn't in my head, so I will spare you.

And yes Arwink, I certainly would welcome your feedback in the other thread  in the post-judge phase.  I think all of us would.


----------



## Macbeth

Wow! Great job, BSF, I actually thought the round was yours. I'm plesently suprised to return from my Calc II class and find I won the round. It was a pleasure writing against you, and I think your last story was awesome. Now maybe the game this Friday will start on time.   

As for most of the grammar issues: i spellchecked without thinking. Hence the Mirad/Marid confusion: I started just skipping every time the spellcheker brought up "Marid" again, and failed to notice the mistake. It should be Marid, which, according to a website I cam across on mythology, is another name for djinn. I new it was a dead giveaway if somebody googled it, but I thought it worked for the character. 

Overuse of commas is just one of my bad habits. I'll try to work that out.

Thanks for another great round. I hope I can do well and push myself that extra little bit in the finals.


----------



## Zhaneel

Congrats to Macbeth and well done on that round.

Now, I must pound at my own story so I can beat on the great Macbeth.  ;-)  Of course, I have get past mythago first.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

Marids are also a D&D monster in the genie family, the watery equivalent of the fiery efreet, the earthy dao, and the airy djinn. The name telegraphed his true nature to me immediately, although I thought he might be an acquaintence of the djinni pursuing his own agenda. It never occurred to me that this immediate revelation wasn't intentional on your part. I'll have to read it again with this in mind, and see if the story is stronger or weaker as a result.


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Marids are also a D&D monster in the genie family, the watery equivalent of the fiery efreet, the earthy dao, and the airy djinn. The name telegraphed his true nature to me immediately, although I thought he might be an acquaintence of the djinni pursuing his own agenda. It never occurred to me that this immediate revelation wasn't intentional on your part. I'll have to read it again with this in mind, and see if the story is stronger or weaker as a result.



Hmmmm, I guess it did sound familiar... Was the Marod in the Manual of the Planes? I don't have that book on hand, but now that you mention it, it seesm familiar... Good thing they happened to be the water genie!

I ment for it to be possible to figure it out based on the name, but I didn't want the name to be galringly obvious. I guess I should have thought about the fact I'm writing for a group of D&D players....

I was shooting for an effect similiar to what you find in alot of literature: names that give away something about the character if you put some thought into them. There are any number of exmaples of names hinting at a character's true nature, just look at Dostoyevsky or Camus or Tony Morrison, or Alan Moore (I particularly like Ozymandius in Watchmen), but the one most recently in my head was American Gods by Neil Gammien, since I'm still readin that (nice long book). Google the name of pretty much any one of the gods, and suddenly all this little bits of description make sense. I even knew who Wednesday was within a few pages. Between the name of the book and the knowledge that Wednesday was named after Odin(Woden), it's very easy to see who he is from his irst appearence.


----------



## BSF

I remember the Marid from the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (S4).  They were also included in the 1st Ed MMII.  I think they are in the Manual of the Planes for 3.0, but I am not positive.  Anyway, it is a quick clue for some of us.


----------



## mythago

Zhaneel warily stepped into the shadowy arena. She patted the pouch at her side, replete with phrases; she'd had to use a lot of them to get past the other opponents, but there were still plenty left. Enough for two more rounds, she hoped.

"Far enough," called a leering voice behind her. Zhaneel spun around. At one end of the arena, on a high dais, a wide black throne squatted like a gargoyle. Across the throne sprawled a man whose every atom radiated pure evil. He gazed down at her arrogantly with his one good eye; a black patch obscured the other. The long-haired white cat on his lap raised its head to regard her coolly, then went back to sleep. To one side of the throne stood two men; she couldn't see their faces, but they radiated menace, barely kept in check and waiting only for the word of their leader to be unleashed.

"Piratecat," Zhaneel called. "I'm ready for your third challenge."

"Ready, you say? You've done quite well, for a newcomer--and I do so love blooding newcomers. Let's see how you fare against a more...experienced foe." Light glittered off the tip of the steel hook that formed his hand as he pointed across the arena. "Mythago! Kill, or be killed!"

Stone ground against stone as a hidden door gaped. A hideous figure lumbered forth. Zhaneel was hopeful when she saw this one seemed tired and bruised. Then Mythago reached over her shoulders and drew a pair of matched semicolons, as long as Zhaneel's arm. Their razor edges seemed to spark in the air as Mythago whirled them in a dizzying pattern of attack, shuffling forward toward her would-be prey.

Zhaneel said a quick prayer to her Muse and reached into her bag of phrases...


----------



## Sialia

Mythago has obviously either finished her piece well ahead of schedule and has time for this sort of thing, or has gotten utterly stuck and is fooling around instead of writing.

Bets?


----------



## mythago

Or both!


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

congrats macbeth.

looking forward to see what devilish creations get posted in the next fight.


----------



## BSF

Sialia said:
			
		

> Mythago has obviously either finished her piece well ahead of schedule and has time for this sort of thing, or has gotten utterly stuck and is fooling around instead of writing.
> 
> Bets?





Umm, I don't bet against Mythago.  Even if she is fooling around, I expect that her brain is simmering on something that is going to pop out and be ... frightening.

Besides, did you see the size of those semicolons? 

Of course, Zhaneel comes up with some great stuff too.  It's going to be a brutal blood match.  I am eagerly looking for the stories.


----------



## Zhaneel

You know... I could just have my husband come over and release the Zerg Horde of DOOM!



My phrases are more than a match for your semi-colons.  And I will feast on your corpse to absorb your phrases.

Zhaneel


----------



## alsih2o

Macbeth my man!

 See, the longer he leeps winning the betetr a writer I am.


----------



## orchid blossom

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Macbeth my man!
> 
> See, the longer he leeps winning the betetr a writer I am.




So that's your theory too, huh? 

Now I just have to wait and see if Mythago can make me a better writer.  

Seriously, I'm looking forward to the next entries, and congrats to Macbeth.


----------



## Zhaneel

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Macbeth my man!
> 
> See, the longer he leeps winning the betetr a writer I am.




So, does that mean you are so cool that you are beyond better?

*ducks*

Zhaneel


----------



## mythago

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> My phrases are more than a match for your semi-colons.



My semicolons have slaked their thirst on the blood of thousands! Soon you shall join them, impudent pup!

Anyway--please don't interrupt the cool combat whirling animation. I had to practice for weeks to get it right. Ever whacked yourself in the back of the head with one of these things? Yeah. Big owie.


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Never trust anyone named Lyesmith. Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_ taught me that. *grin*



D'Oh! I just got to that part of the book today! Though, to be honest, I had my suspicions, because of this post. Complete coincidence that you mentioned that just as I started reading the book, but it did lessen the suprise.


----------



## Piratecat

mythago said:
			
		

> My semicolons have slaked their thirst on the blood of thousands!




Most people have a full sized colon! If yours is smaller than normal, no wonder it turned to vampiric blood-drinking in order to survive outside of your body. I'll admit to a sick curiosity as to how you manage to whirl it around like that, but really -- it's better I never ask. Eww.

Suddenly, I'm reminded of the Malaysian vampiric penanggalan.  My D&D geekiness knows no bounds.


----------



## Zhaneel

Round 3-2
Mythago versus Zhaneel

It's Elemental

Carson entered the Hall of Prophecy with no fanfare nor announcement.  It was not needed in the Hall.  He knew he was supposed to be there, and anyone who waited in the hall would know of his coming.  He remembered the summons that had brought him here.

_Your magic is needed.  Attend the Hall of Prophecy at two marks after the high sun on the morrow._

Unsigned, as were any summons from the Hall.  It was Carson’s first summons, but he’d known it would happen at some point.  Every mage trained  by the Academy was promised to fulfill no less than three summons as payment for their training. 

The Hall itself was bare, with naught but the symbols of the Four Elements adorning the walls in their cardinal directions.  Earth in the north, with a strong Oak tree growing in dirt surrounded by stones.  Air to East, with light fabrics waving in the breeze and a spear upright on the wall.  Fire to South, with a captive flame burning proudly and a sword hanging over the flames.  Finally, Water to the West, with a small fountain spilling continually into a cauldron.  Carson faced east, having entered from the west as his elemental power demanded.  He dipped his hands in the cool waters and smiled as he felt the ever changing energy of water run over his hands.

No sooner than he had withdrawn his hands from the pool than he heard another enter, small bells ringing to announce the presence.  He turned and saw Perriwyn entering from the East.  Carson resisted the urge to smile at the friendly face.  If Perri was here it was because she was one of the prophets involved and therefore an official, not a friend.  He inclined his head as was proper.  Perri inclined her head as well and together they crossed to the center.

However, before Carson was able to ask Perri about what she must have seen, another sound filled the hall.  Both Carson & Perri turned to the north where an unfamiliar woman was entered, stooped with age.  The old woman reached down and scooped up a handful of dirt so dark it looked black.  She lowered her face to the soil and Carson saw her lungs fill with the scent of the loam.  The woman seemed to be standing a little straighter as she let the earth fall from her fingers.  Her eyes were bright and belayed her obvious age.  As did her strong voice.

"Welcome Carson, Master of Water, and Perriwyn, Mistress of Air.  You have been summoned as it has been seen that the world has need of your skills," the old woman spoke clearly, her voice resonate and filling the room.  "My name is Kawen, and I am a Mistress of Earth.  I am the one who saw the vision which calls to your aid."

While the masteries were obvious, it was rare to have them named.  Care was taken in the magical world to not reveal the natural mastery that each mage possessed.  Such information could be used against the mage during a duel, and so the academy taught tolerance and secrecy.  Of course, the Prophets were among those allowed to access the records detailing the masteries, but Carson was a little off balance to have his mastery revealed so easily.  It was also strange to now know the masteries of the two other mages.  He'd known Perri for a long time, and it was only through that long association he'd guessed she might be an Air Mistress.  However, he'd never known until now as it was rude to ask for such knowledge.  And to be informed of someone's mastery in the same sentence of meeting them was almost unheard of.

"In the Hall of the Prophets, all things are known.  It is necessary to have understanding for success.  However, upon leaving the Hall you are not to reveal your knowledge.  Do you understand?"

Carson and Perri nodded their assent.

"Good.  While the area of prophecy is normally regulated to Air, this dream came to me through the bones of the Earth.  I will tell you of what I dreamt, and it is your responsibility to stop this dream from becoming our world," Kawen said.

"I dreamt of heat.  Not the comforting heat of the sun, but something much hotter and closer to the coolness of the Earth.  The heat grew ever hotter, and as I rose up through the layers of the earth I felt the soil dry and crack around me.  When I emerged from the earth, my breath scorched my lungs the air was so dry with heat.  I looked around and the trees called out to me in agony as they burned.  I traveled along the ground, feeling nothing but heat and fire.  I came to a patio where the children who had been playing in the water were nothing more than cinders against the white ground and the fountains steamed as they tried to refresh the ground with life giving water.  The air was constantly being distorted by waves of heat, but I could see that not far from the white plaza with fountains there was a tower.  And as I grew ever closer to the tower, the heat increased.  My dream ended with my legs failing me and I suffocated in the dust of the earth thrown up with no water or plants to weigh it down.  That was my dream."

Carson had to force himself to breathe.  The dream was a powerful one and not one he cared to think about.  A Fire Master gone out of control was definitely what it sounded like.  Most mages knew that each element had to be in balance with the other three if the world was going to survive.  But occasionally, a mage decided the world with better off if one element ruled, as guided by the Master.  Oceanus had tried to cover the world in water several centuries ago and had been thwarted.  Now it seemed history was going to repeat itself, only with a Fire Master threatening to obliterate the world.

Perri's soft voice broke Carson's reverie.  "I understand, Kawen, that this is indeed a trouble that needs to be averted.  But, may I ask, what made you choose Carson and me?"

Kawen had slumped through the course of her telling, but she stirred at Perri's question.  "After I awoke from my dream, I beseeched the earth to give me some guidance as to who should deal with this matter.  Your names were whispered by the earthworms and the stones.  And it makes sense.  A Water Master is clearly necessary, to douse the fires of destruction.  Hence: Carson.  However, water alone often cannot contain a fire.  While air can feed a fire, it too can control a fire by deigning to not travel.  Your magics are needed to prevent the fires from overrunning the land, and to hold the fire at bay while Carson delivers the final blow.  And from the air, you might gain inspiration as to where to go.  Do not underestimate the value of planning."

With that Kawen turned from them and shuffled out of the hall.  And so it was, in the Hall of Prophecy.  Carson turned to Perri, "Do you want to come to my place for planning or shall we go to yours?"

"I'll come by your place in a while.  I have some things to take care of, and besides it might give away the game if our fire friend is scrying," she said.

"Fair enough.  I'll be waiting."

With that Carson turned and walked out the way he came, and he could hear Perri's bells ringing as she left the Hall too.

#

When Carson got home, he did the one thing he knew would relax him.  He paid a visit to his dearest friend and familiar, Pepe.  Pepe was a huge bear from the north where the earth is constantly covered in snow.  Pepe himself was covered in the purest white fur, to blend in better with the snow.  Carson had been drawn to the extreme north on his journeyman-ship, and it was there that he found Pepe.  In truth, though Carson was a Water Master, his true mastery was over the frozen form.  Pepe had come to him while Carson was making his camp, building a shelter out of the hard-packed snow.  The first thing Carson had seen was Pepe's eyes.  And Carson had lost himself in them: the black pools of darkness set into the white face.  Pepe had chosen to follow Carson home from that artic adventure, and stayed with Carson as a familiar.

Which was good and bad.  Good, in that Carson was thrilled to have a familiar.  Bad, in that northern bears are not happy in temperate zones, so certain accommodations had to be made to Carson's home.  This wasn’t a terribly hard thing, but a drawback still.  So it was that Carson made his way to the tank of ice cold water where Pepe spent much of his leisure time.  Carson leaned his head against the cool tank and waited for Pepe to come over to him.

He didn't have long to wait.  A splash of very cold water washed down his back and he looked up to find Pepe staring at him.  No one else would have known it, but Carson knew Pepe was grinning.  Shaking himself, Carson smiled and raised his hand up to the glass that separated the partners.  “Hey there, buddy,” he said.

He heard Pepe reply in his mind.  _Welcome friend.  You look troubled.  Do you want to come play in the water with me?_

“No, thanks.  I need to talk to you.  I’ve got to go on a trip.  There’s a fire mage who is megalomaniacal enough to want to cover the world in flames.  An Earth Mistress foresaw it and designated me and Perri to go stop him before he gets started.  I don’t know how long we have or how far we’ll have to go.  I can’t promise that there will be cool lakes along the way.  I would appreciate your help, but I will not force you.”

_Silly man.  I have bound my life to yours.  I will come with you and lend what help I can._ Pepe’s voice resounded in Carson’s head.  The mage smiled and leaned his head against the glass and let the coolness fill him while Pepe looked down benevolently and raised his paw.

They spent a few moments in quiet contemplation of the bond between them.  Then Carson heard the sound of a knock on his door.  Carson waved to Pepe and made his way to the front room.  He opened the front door to Perri who entered gracefully, a breeze of flowers following behind her.

“Hello Carson.   Mind if I come in?”

“Not at all, please,” he said, noting the distance.  He started reinforcing the anti-scrying traps in effect all around his home.  There were no holes and he was satisfied that no one was listening in.  

“It is safe.  Do you have a plan?”

Perri shook her head.  “Not yet.  I think it might be best if we head southeast.  The white patio sounds like something from the plazas from Alkibar.”

Alkibar was a land of deserts.  An appropriate place for a Fire Master to plot his destruction of the world, thought Carson.  It would require about two weeks of travel to reach the borders of Alkibar, and it would be hard going for Pepe.  The most direct route would be through the forests and across the river Thamas.

“That sounds reasonable.  Pepe has agreed to come with us, and I am thankful for that.”

Perri smiled at Pepe’s name.  She knew Carson very well and had met Pepe previously.  They had been lovers, Carson and Perri.  But that was a long time ago.  Though there was still a closeness that he felt for her like no other mage.  Their magics complemented each other, and he hoped it would be enough to stop the fire maniac.

“I’ve sent word to the butterflies that travel the skies and the birds that fly.  If there is aught the air denizens can learn, we will know.  Though time may or may not be of the essence, I believe that we should prepare to leave tomorrow.”

“As you wish, my lady,” Carson said, resisting the urge to brush a lock of Perri’s hair back from her face.


Perri nodded and showed herself out.  It hurt that she no longer reached out to him, but Carson had come to accept that over the years.  He sniffed to clear his mind and worked on packing for a long trip.

#

The dawn broke bright and early, and Carson and Pepe met Perri at the gates of the city.  She was seated astride a fine bay mare, and had a pack mule trailing behind her.  She had discarded the bells that normally adorned her clothing to be able to make better time, and if necessary to have the element of surprise.  The mare initially shied when Pepe came near, but Pepe’s continued ignorance of the mare made the horse decide that perhaps Pepe wasn’t a bear at all.  Carson’s gelding, Marsipe, had long since accepted that Pepe would accompany the ride no matter what and just snuffled Pepe’s fur when he came near.

Carson and Perri easily fell into a pattern.  They rode at a brisk pace, but not fast enough to tire the horses out until noon every day. They would take a short break to eat and water the horses and rest, before remounting and continuing on until evening.  If there was a village nearby, they would stop at an inn.  If there was not, they would make do in the outdoors.  Perri was able to often locate an acceptable camp location by consulting the birds, and Carson guaranteed they would be able to easily locate water to refill their flasks and to let the horses drink.  Food was made from the dried stores they had each brought or found along the road.  It was an easy time and the days passed uneventfully.  Perri & Carson made small talk and compared the different disciplines.  It was an easy relationship they had, based on a decade of friendship with a short time of intimacy to make things easier.

They passed the borders of Alkibar after thirteen days, just as Carson thought.  The fringes of Alkibar were still forested, though it was a light cover.  It was on the day of crossing the border that something eventful happened.

They had camped for the night and Carson had decided to take the first watch.  He was staring into the flames of the campfire, pondering what their enemy would be like and how difficult it would be to defeat the mage.  Pepe was wandering the perimeter, content to help with standing watch, though his white fur stood out in stark contrast to the growing dusk.

_Something comes,_ Pepe alerted Carson.

Carson stood, and crossed to wake up Perri but stopped when the air in front of him started to shimmer.  Two humanoids came into the being in front of him.  Carson felt more than heard Pepe arrive on the outskirts of the clearing, growling under his throat.

“Please ask your bear-friend to stand down.  We mean you no harm,” said the taller of the two figures, which was shrouded in a long white veil.  Her voice tinkled like crystals, making him aware a child of the earth spoke with him.

“Pepe, you can relax.  We speak with Heleads, children of the earth,” Carson said and heard Pepe cease to growl.  “Greetings, lady.  I pray we have not trespassed?”

A smile touched the shorter Helead’s lips.  “No, Master of Water.  You have not.  We have been waiting for you.  You may wake your companion.”

Carson attempted to keep his surprise in check.  The continual recognition of his mastery was unnerving.  But Heleads were fey, and may well have experienced the same dream Kawen had, which meant they would know of his purpose here in these lands.  He entered the tent where Perri lay sleeping.  He gently shook her awake, taking care to remain out of range of a strike.  She was known to respond poorly to being woken up early.  This time, however, she must have recognized his touch, for though she awoke quickly it was easily and without violence.

“We have visitors from the Heleads.  They know my mastery and knew that you were here.  They wish to speak with us.”

Perri pursed her lips into a thin line and nodded.  Carson left the tent to allow her some modesty in dressing.  She exited not long after him and together they faced the Heleads.

“We are sorry to have startled you,” said the shorter one with hair the color of rust.  “But we have heard the earth cry out and know that you will be the ones to answer.  We have been waiting for you so that we may aid you.”

“Thank you.  May we ask your names?”

“If you must,” said the tall one.  “We do not use many names.  You may call me She-Who-Sees-Beyond and you may call my partner Little-Mother.”

“Little-Mother?” repeated Perri.

Little-Mother smiled and reached down into the ground.  The air shimmered again as she pulled a bundle out of the ground.  Inside a blanket made from vines and leaves lay a very small Helead.  “I am a mother, and this is my child,” she said holding the baby between her and She-Who-Sees-Beyond.

They made a very touching picture.  “We too have dreamed.  We too have felt the flames that clear the trees and dry the earth.  It is not something we wish to come to pass.  If it does, our children will be no more, and that is something we just cannot let stand.”

“We could not agree more, She-Who-Sees-Beyond.  We will accept what help you are willing to give us,” Perri said.

“Well and good.  We do not have much more to offer you, save that you are on the right path.  Your opponent does reside in Alkibar.  When you reach the fountains described to you in the dream by Kawen, look to the north.  The tower which you seek and the mage within will be there.  And you must hurry, as his power grows ever greater.”

It was not much new information, Carson reflected.  But it was a little. And the knowledge that time was now a consideration was a valuable piece.  He bowed to the Heleads and thanked them for their concern and support.  

They curtsied themselves.  Little-Mother spoke, “We will watch over you this night so you may rest.  Head east in the morning until you find the plaza.  Be careful and be strong.” They slowly melted back into the earth.  Soon, there was no trace of them and only the crackle of the campfire was heard on the night air.

Perri looked at Carson and their eyes locked.  They both knew that gone would be the days and nights of easy riding.  Now they had a destination and a place.  This would be the last night of good rest.  Slowly Perri took Carson’s hand and lead him back to their tent.  Nothing happened, other than sharing in the warmth of each other’s bodies, but it felt good nonetheless.

#

The forest gave way to open ground the next day.  There was no shade to rest the horses in come noon.  Perri called to what little aerial animals they were and asked for some directions.  They indicated a slight hummock that would provide shade in the lee side.  Carson was able to find some water in a nearby prickly plant.  Pepe used his thick paws and sharp claws to open the plant safely and the liquid was shared all around.  They stayed in the lee of the hill for longer than the normal hour as the heat was shimmering down.

_It is very hot, Carson_ complained Pepe.

“Yes, it is very hot, Pepe,” Carson said.  Perri looked up and then understood. Carson had never gotten down the knack of speaking back into Pepe’s head.  “But this is just normal heat.  Imagine how much worse it could be if we let the Fire Mage get out of control.”

Perri nodded and took a sip of the plant juice.  They rested only a little longer before setting out.  Instead of making camp just at dusk they rode on into the coolness of the night.  In fact they pushed their horses farther than the horses truly wanted to go, but nighttime was the coolest time of day.  The rested against before the sun came up, taking a short nap.  And then it was time to ride again.  By midmorning the horses were lagging, but they were able to make out the shape of a white city not too much further away.  As the heat grew worse, threatening the noon-time highs again.  They managed to enter the shade of the city just before then.

A few people noticed them and went out of their way to avoid them.  Pepe caused no small amount of alarm and the city guard stopped them shortly.  Carson murmured a spell of communication and told the guards that he and his companion were looking for lodgings and that Pepe was tame and would not cause any problems.  Though the guards raised their eyes at that claim, they understood mages & their familiars so directed them in an inn in the foreign quarter of the city.

The inn was nice enough, though the main important thing was that it was cool within.  Perri & Carson gave their horses and mules over to the stables and found their rooms and gratefully lay down to sleep.  Pepe, with murmurs from the common room trailing, followed Carson to his room and slept on the floor.  Blissful sleep took over Carson’s body as he too lay down in the bed.

It was early evening when Carson next awoke, having trained his body to sleep on less than normal.  It was important that they find out if the plaza was in this town, and move on if it was not.  He rapped softly at Perri’s door.  She greeted him, also awake though the edges of her eyes showed that more sleep would have been preferable.

Outside the inn they wandered the streets.  Pepe had been left in Carson’s room, to avoid drawing large amounts of attention and possibly scaring the inhabitants.  They asked around for a white plaza with fountains and were directed to several small ones, but those just didn’t feel right.  Finally a townsperson directed them to the Plaza of Laughing Water.

Carson smiled at the name, for it indicated the likelihood of a water ley-line that he might be able to use to refresh his energies.  Following the pulls of power in addition to the directions, they came upon a large plaza.  Both Perri & Carson knew upon sight that it was the right one.  A multitude of fountains set into the ground stream water forth.  Adults and children laughed and played in the cool water, splashing each other vigorously.  It was not a problem for even the late afternoon sun was warm enough to evaporate the water quickly.

Carson shuddered to think upon what this Plaza would look like as seen in Kawen’s dream.

Perri & Carson both raised their eyes to the north, seeking the tower as they had been told by the Heleads.  It did not take them long.  Though the tower was not much taller than its surrounding neighbors, the architecture set it apart.  Bronze plating reflected the sun’s rays.  Orange paint could be seen from even this far away to be decorating the sides.  If someone wanted to proclaim themselves a Master of Fire, this was as good a way as any.

Slowly, through the winding streets and twisting roads, Perri and Carson traveled to the tower.  They stopped when still a good distance away, hoping to avoid setting off any perimeter alarms.  They studied it from several angles, each silently wondering what the best approach was.  It was distressing that the tower was still within the city, because that chanced innocent lives if things got out of hand.  It also meant the local law force could become involved, which would mean a lot explaining after the fact.  While most cities respected that mages dealt with their own kind, they did not take kindly to property damage.

Carson closed his eyes and let his water senses show him the underlying sewage lines and the well within the grounds.  Well and so, it seemed that even the fire mage who intended to scour the world with fire still needed drinkable water for now.  But there was no direct water route into the tower that he might be able to take advantage.  This meant his opponent had most likely already prepared for the common water counters.  It was good that Perri would be along to help change up his spells and distract the mage.

He opened his eyes and glanced over at Perri. Her eyes were closed, though she opened not long after he looked to her.  She nodded to him and he returned the nod.  They returned to their inn.

Carson told her what he had seen and she told him what little knowledge she had been able to glean from the air.  There were few windows into the tower, and all windows that were there was small.  This prevented Perri from calling on any large aerial allies she might have been able to claim.  It also meant that sneaking in through levitation would be impossible.  And though they both agreed a frontal assault was the least pleasant option it seemed the only option left.  So it was that they discussed and discarded many plans throughout the night.

In the morning they still did not have a good solid plan, though they had several general strategies in place.  It would have to do, and it would have to do now.  The small psychic indicators of flow that Carson had placed around the waterways near the tower showed that the flow of the water was speeding up toward the tower, though almost no water was returning.  Carson guessed this meant the mage was gathering his energies and beginning whatever massive fire assault he would, causing the water nearest to the tower to steam away.

All the air shimmered as the small party made their way from the inn toward the tower.  They saw no one else on the streets.  All the locals knew better than to venture abroad in the hottest part of the day.

Carson felt the first prickles of an alarm spell when he was within 10 feet of the door to the tower.  A quick glance at Perri confirmed that she had felt it as well.  They prepared for the attack, but none came.  No response worried Carson more than any defensive attack could have, because it likely meant that they mage was too involved in whatever he was doing to spare the energy to active a minor defense spell.  Though the heat urged him to lethargy, Carson sprinted the last few fee to the door.  Those steps were even hotter than before and Carson sweated profusely.  He reached for the door knob, only to snatch his hand back from the warmth radiating from the metal.  He stood aside as Pepe crashed into the now dry, brittle wood.

The door splintered under the weight of the bear and they rushed inside.  Though they expected shade, there was none to be found.  Bright light coming from within the tower itself spilled over the walls, and small fires burned in braziers set into the walls.  Carson felt his skin starting to crack, being too hot to even sweat further.  He climbed the stairs as fast as he could, fighting his body’s desire to just lay down and not exert itself.  He called up the feeling of splashing in cold rivers, of playing with Pepe in the ice pond back home, of the cold artic north where he’d befriended Pepe.  It worked to a limited extent, but the reality of the heat still overwhelmed the best illusion he had.  So, Carson gave up on illusions and called rain.

He drew on the ley line that ran under the Plaza of Laughing Water.  He pulled and used the cool power that flowed through him to create water.  In normal circumstances, it would have been as a cool rain.  However, in the heat it sizzled as it came into creation and steamed.  But the steam was welcome, hot still though it was.  The steam hydrated his skin and throat and just the simple act of heating the water lowered the temperature even slightly.  Every little bit helped.

With his rain cloud following, the three continued their assent.  Presently, Carson felt a breeze stirring the heat, pushing it out of the small windows and swirling the steam to prevent the steam from blocking vision.  He knew Perri was calling on her own skills to make sure that they reached the top.

And reach the top they did.  At the very top of the stairs they entered a large round room that was the width of the tower.  And in the center stood a man, half-naked with his arms outstretched trying to encompass a swirling mass of colored fire.

This was the fire mage no doubt.  And Carson had no need to see that ball of fire grow any larger.

“Stop!  In the name of Balance, you must stop what you are doing.”

Laughter surrounded Carson.  “What care I for Balance?” spat the mage, passion infusing his voice.  “Fire cleanses and rids us of the weak.  Balance is not needed for the strong to survive!”

Carson heard Perri muttering under her breath and knew she was preparing a large air spell.  For now it was his job to control the fire.  And so he did.  Joining his mind with Pepe’s they summoned snow from the artic.  Carson wrapped the snow around the ball of fire, waiting patiently and ever wrapping more as the first layer sizzled.  He could tell the fire mage was trying to expand the ball to prevent it from being surrounded, but in doing so he allowed the fire to cool somewhat, only making it easier for Carson to encase his target in ice.

A roar from the mage expressed his displeasure, but still Carson kept on.  He could see that white snow now held some of the fire ball at bay.  He knew this was no way to win the fight, but it was a way to prevent the ball from getting out of control.

Soon, another force joined his snow.  Butterflies streamed in through the windows and beat their wings against the air to push the flame within itself.  With the snow and the butterflies working in concert the ball of flame grew smaller and smaller.  Soon, the compression made it too hard for the snow to help so Carson stopped that and considered his next move.  The butterflies pushed ever closer to the ball, some going too close and burning themselves..

Finally, Carson struck on an idea.  It would be hard to accomplish, but he thought he could it.  He stared at the globe, trying desperately to ignore the screams of the fire mage or the flapping of the butterflies.  He concentrated on seeing just how large the ball of flame really was and reconstructing that in his mind.  He extended the globe out about 3 inches and started crystallizing a globe of ice, with walls as thick as his arm, in his head.  He built the globe up slowly, not allowing any cracks or imperfections.  It was important that this ice shell be flawless and fully connected.  Only when he was satisfied that he had it perfect in his mind did he release it into the world.

He hated that it trapped butterflies too, but there was no way to warn Perri.  A perfect ice shell encompassed the ball of fire.  The cold itself would help prevent the fire from getting through its prison and at the same time, it severely reduced the amount of fuel for the fire to feed on.  The fire mage quickly grasped this concept and tried to expand the fire to melt the ice before the oxygen trapped within was exhausted.  But Pepe and Carson working together were better than the lone fire mage.  They increased the shell as fast as they could without losing the structural integrity.  And slowly, ever so slowly, the fire started to die.  Though it was a fire commanded by magic, the fire was still subject to the rules of reality.  And while the fire mage screeched at the drain of his energies, Perri edged closer and closer.  Just as the ball of fire that had threatened to burn the world was extinguished, she clapped a manacle of anti-magic on the fire mage.

The mage slumped and fell unconscious at the abrupt disruption to his power.  Carson too slumped from the loss of energy he’d used during the fight.  But he held the ice shell steady, slowly lowering it to the ground.  It would melt in its own time, but Carson would let it do so naturally, just in case a spark still resided within the shell.

Everything after that was easy.  The elements were in balance once more and the world was safe.  At least for now.



Zhaneel


----------



## Zhaneel

Woo.  Tired Zhaneel.  Sleep now.

5612 words, for those who care.

Zhaneel


----------



## Maldur

So when is closing time?


----------



## mythago

*mythago vs. Zhaneel*

Sighting

 Chandra’s nephew Darnell came into the house when he was exactly two weeks old, three days after his mother tried to kill him by leaving him in a garbage can.

 The grown-ups hushed when they thought Chandra was near enough to listen, but she was the quietest little girl when she wanted to be. She heard them shake their heads over poor crazy Imani, leaving that pretty little baby out with the trash and wasn’t it just lucky that the newspaper man made his rounds a little early that morning and heard Darnell crying. Imani was in the psychiatric ward up in Northville and her baby was home with Chandra’s parents until the state got everything sorted out.    Chandra was figuring out what to do herself. She didn’t understand why the grown-ups couldn’t see that Darnell wasn’t her big sister’s baby, didn’t look anything _like_ a baby. When she tried to tell her mama she got slapped for her sassiness. She hung around the fringes of the living room when the visiting aunts and cousins and assorted relations fussed over little Darnell, waiting for somebody to see, the way she saw, that pretty little Darnell had pointed ears and fur around his face and big moon eyes, but nobody did. Eventually she got fed up and went over to Grandma Woodard’s house. Grandma always listened, even when she said things that would have gotten her spanked at home for telling lies.

     Grandma wasn’t too strong these days, so Chandra had to wait until Grandma woke up from her nap. Then she explained how there was something wrong with Darnell and none of the grownups saw it, and how maybe Imani knew it too and so maybe it wasn’t really her fault that she’d tried to kill the baby. Grandma nodded along, and sat so quiet that Chandra was afraid she’d fallen asleep again. When she finally talked it surprised Chandra so bad she almost spilled her jelly glass full of milk.

     “Honey, did your mama ever tell you much about the white side of the family?”

     “No, ma’am,” Chandra said. “I tried to ask her once because Orell at school asked me if my granddaddy was white, because he’s darker than me, and Mama got all mad. _Was_ he white?”

     Grandma chuckled. “No, sweetie. But your great-great granddaddy was. Most people have some white back in their family from the slave days. Your mama’s people, the Baileys, one of their ancestors was Irish and that’s where they got the last name. That’s where you and Imani got the Sight from. Lot of magic back in Ireland in the old days, see.”

     “I see, Grandma,” Chandra said politely, though she didn’t see at all. Ireland? What did this have to do with her strange nephew and her crazy sister? 

     “Chandra, you ever get in trouble for telling your mama and daddy things that they thought you made up? Like seeing things that weren’t there, or talking to people you couldn’t see?”

     “One time, at the zoo…” Chandra hesitated. “We were on a field trip last year when I was in Mister Carlyle’s class, and we went to see the new Arctic part of the zoo—“

_The __Arctic__ Ring of Life sounded kind of silly to Chandra, because she knew from the Lion King that it was supposed to be the _circle_ of life. And it was cold and she had left her new fall jacket on the school bus and Mr. Carlyle wouldn’t let her go back and get it. So she was glum and dragged her feet past the penguins and the harbor seals. Her field-trip buddy left her behind just when they got to the polar bears, the whole class going to watch the zookeepers throw the bears some fish, and Chandra stood there waiting for the group to come around and find her. Some bald guy started yelling to his friends in Spanish and pounded on the glass, trying to get the polar bear to swim over, and then it did, and it looked at Chandra and burbled, _“Tell that man to come on the other side of the wall, little girl, and you’ll see something better than watching us snap up fish.”[1]

     She felt stupid again telling Grandma, sure that she would laugh like her classmates had laughed, or that she’d get in trouble like she did from Mr. Carlyle. But Grandma just nodded as if Chandra had said something right. “Not just the Sight, then, honey, if animals talk to you. What about Darnell, though? He say something to you? Or you see something strange that nobody else could see?”

     Chandra nodded eagerly. “Yes! I tried to tell mama that Darnell didn’t look like a baby and she—“

     “That’s because he’s not,” Grandma said quietly. “Least, the baby they have at home now isn’t Darnell. It’s a changeling. Fairy folk steal babies and leave their own behind, to cause mischief. They make little spells so nobody sees, but you got the Sight, so you look right through that. And I bet your sister has a little of it, too, enough that she went crazy when she looked for her baby and saw a hairy little man looking out of the crib.”

     Chanda waited while Grandma, tired from such a long talk, drank her tea. When Grandma leaned back on her big sofa and started to snore, Chandra shook her awake even though she knew it was very rude. “Grandma, how do I get Darnell back? The real Darnell.”

     “You have to go to the fairies for that,” said Grandma. “How you get there, honey, I have no idea. Go down to the library, look in the books. Maybe they help you. Don’t try and tell your mama, though.”

     -----

     Chandra felt bad about skipping school, but she didn’t see any way around it. Her textbooks were at home, stuffed under the bed, and her backpack bumped uncomfortably with all the strange things she’d put in it. She felt even worse about taking change out of her daddy’s dime and nickel jar for the bus fare down to Belle Isle  Plaza, and scared of all the adults who gave her suspicious looks, a ten-year-old riding a bus downtown all by herself. She didn’t really know where she was going anyway. Chandra had been riding buses around the city all day long, trying to figure out the right place to go to get to Tir Nan Nog, the place the books said was where the fairies lived. A city didn’t seem a good place, but the buses didn’t go out into the country.

     She got off at the plaza and was relieved to see that there were other children still playing so late in the day. It was still a hot, sticky summer day. The city had spent a lot of money fixing up the old waterfront, trying to get rich white people from the suburbs to move back in. Not too many did, but at least the junkies kept out of the park when the sun was up, and the fountains were mostly working and spraying up water. The little kids were playing a jumping game, shouting and hopping through the water in circles, moving widdershins—

     Chandra stopped, puzzled, shook her head. Widdershins? One of the words from the books, but she didn’t know what it meant until just right now. Her stomach was starting to feel funny. She dug in her pockets for another Fig Newton but came up with a handful of nickels. She wandered across the plaza. The little kids paid her no mind and kept up their chanting. [2]

_"Blue bells, cockle shells, easy ivy o-ver
 Jump from the tree and fall in the clo-ver__
 Mama went to market to buy some meat__
 Baby in the cradle was fast a-sleep—"_

 Her stomach knotted and she knew it wasn’t just from missing dinner. There was something about the plaza, something only she could see, or maybe the little kids felt it enough to move in a circle. She walked to the middle of the fountain square, stepping around the scampering children. Her toe stubbed on something hard. She looked down and there was a  trap door, plain as could be, cut into the tile with a little pull-knob. Chandra pulled on the knob, expecting it to be locked, and nearly fell on her behind when it came open easily. She looked around to see if any of the bored parents were looking, but nobody paid her any mind. Reminding herself that Grandma told her it was okay to look for Darnell, she jumped through the doorway.     She fell onto soft grass covering hard dirt. Rubbing her bruised rear, she stood up and looked around. It was night, but awfully bright out. Chandra looked up and saw that the light was coming from the stars. There were so many of them, more than she had ever seen in her life, and the sky between them was so dark it looked solid. They lit up the whole world like candles.

     Chandra stopped to take her jacket out of her backpack, because it was pretty cold out here on this grassy hill at night. She turned it inside out first, which felt funny, but the books said it kept fairies away. Next she got out the blue cardboard box of Morton’s salt and filled her jacket pockets. Mama would be mad when she had to do wash, but the books said that was good to protect you from fairy magic, too. The backpack was still heavy, so she wiggled it over both shoulders and kept walking.

     She thought about Darnell, not the changeling in Darnell’s Pack-and-Play wearing Darnell’s newborn Pampers, but the real Darnell she’d never seen, round and laughing like her sister’s boyfriend Jamal, with big brown eyes and lots of hair like Imani. She let her feet carry her up and down the hills as she thought, and it didn’t seem like long before she found the fairy lady.

     If it had been back home, Chandra would have been surprised that she didn’t see or hear the lady coming. But this was the fairy land, so she figured the rules were different. The woman was as thin as a bird, and pale, with cornsilk hair that rose and drifted around her face even though there didn’t seem to be a breeze. She was wrapped in a sky-blue cottony robe Chandra thought she looked a little bit like the statue of Mary at church.

     There was a boy with her, taller than Chandra but just as thin as the woman. His hair looked like Chandra’s would if her mama didn’t do it for her every day, wild and tangled. His ears were pointed, just like the changeling’s. Chandra was surprised to see that he wore Levi’s, tattered and faded the color of the woman’s robe. He moved himself between Chandra and the fairy lady and snarled at her. Chandra planted her feet and put her hands on her hips, and stared right back at him. The fairy lady put her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

     “Little girl,” she called. She had an accent that made it hard for Chandra to understand her. “We heard you walking here, unasked and unsummoned.”

     “You have my nephew,” Chandra said. “Darnell. I have the Sight, Grandma said so. I want Darnell back. He’s not yours. You can have your stinky old changeling back.”

     At that, the boy hissed and took a step towards Chandra. The woman gripped his shoulder and he pulled up short, tense as a dog straining on a leash. “I do not have your Darnell,” she said. “Your changeling is my child. I would not have stolen your kin, for as you see, I have children of my own and have no need to be thieving from mortals. T’was one of the unseelie who took your babe, and stole my child as well, to put in his place.”

     Chandra knew that word from one of the books. Unseelie, the evil fairies. Not that any of the fairy people were nice, but unseelie were downright mean, like the older boys who went out on Devil’s Night and set cats on fire. She felt a shiver coming on and bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t much like the boy with the pointy ears and she wasn’t going to be a sissy where he could see.

     The fairy woman had let her robe fall over one arm and was pulling something out from under it. “Niall, help me,” she said to the boy sharply. He colored and helped her. Between them they held a great glass ball. The woman breathed on it, lightly, and nodded. She motioned with her head that Chandra should come look. Suspiciously, the girl approached. There was something moving in the glass ball. She reached up for her backpack, and then saw that it was only a picture, nothing that could hurt her. 

     The changeling looked up out of the glass. [3]  She didn’t know whether it really saw them or not. The last time Chandra had seen it, she thought the changeling was an ugly little monster. Now she felt kind of sorry for it. It looked unhappy and lonely, like a baby looking for its mama really would. Niall looked really sad, just like a big brother who missed his new baby brother would, if he were a person. Chandra was embarrassed that she had called the changeling stinky, but figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to apologize and get Niall mad again.

     The image snuffed out. The fairy woman sorrowfully tucked the ball back into a fold of her robe. Chandra looked for a bulge or a pocket but didn’t see either one. The fairy woman’s eyes met hers. Chandra understood. The fairy lady wasn’t strong enough to go and make the unseelie get her baby back. Fairies had rules about that kind of thing. Chandra, being a mortal, had her own rules. She would go and take care of it.

     “Where do I find the unseelie?” she asked. “I’m lost.”

     “That way,” said the fairy woman, pointing away over the hills. “It is a long journey. Be careful. Do you need food or water to keep up your strength?”

     Chandra immediately started walking. “No, thank you,” she called back. She knew better than to take anything from strangers. Especially fairies. The books had been _very_ clear on that part.

     ---

     She was very tired by the time her feet got her to the place where the unseelie lived. Her head ached and she didn’t have any aspirin. Chandra hadn’t known what to expect. The pictures of fairy houses in the books were always of pretty castles with tall, thin towers. This was more like what her daddy would have called a shotgun shack, small and ugly. Chandra wondered if maybe it was her Sight that made it look this way. Sometimes, the books explained, all the pretty things about fairies were just disguises, and underneath they were ugly. It made sense that an evil fairy would live in an ugly house.

     Chandra let her backpack hang from one arm and knocked politely on the door. The palest white man Chandra had ever seen pulled it open while her hand was still in the air. He was dressed in a glittery suit like a fashion model or a rock star, tall and beautiful, with a wild mane of golden hair that fell to his shoulders. Chandra squinted at him and saw something else underneath. She couldn’t tell what, but she knew that the pretty part on the outside wasn’t real.

     “I came to get my nephew Darnell back from you,” she said firmly. “The fairy lady told me that you stole him. He’s not yours and I’m taking him home.”

     The unseelie stared in frank astonishment, then burst into laughter that sounded like glass breaking. “Do you now! I went to a great deal of trouble to get that baby. Not so easy these days to find a mortal with a little fairy blood, and the doors in the hollow hills are nearly gone now….Well, little mortal with your determined lip and your hair like sheep’s wool. What do you propose to pay me for your nephew? Yourself in his place?”

     “No. I have a gift instead.”

     “Aye, a gift,” the unseelie sneered as Chandra reached into her bag. “And what do you have that is worth a mortal baby, one that I worked so hard and clever to steal?”

     “This,” said Chandra. Her hands came up clutching her daddy’s old snub-nosed .22, the only one from his gun collection small enough for her hands. “I read that fairies don’t like iron.” She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

     There was a boom louder than any thunderstorm Chandra had ever heard. She was afraid the whole house had blown up around her. She coughed from the smoke and opened her eyes. 

     She had hit the unseelie square in the chest. He had spun around and fallen face-down on the filthy wooden floor. Chandra stood still, afraid to fire the gun again but more afraid that the unseelie was still alive. The gold ebbed from his hair and he looked like he was shriveling. Chandra realized that it was his magic fading because he was dead, that this plain-looking white man was the way the unseelie really looked. His blood swirled out from under his chest, more of it than Chandra had ever seen, even in a movie, and lit up with the dead fairy’s magic as it spread across the floor. [4] She watched, amazed, until it flowed away and vanished as it if had never been.

     She stepped over the dead unseelie and began to explore the house. It really was small, just as she had thought. There wasn’t much, just cobwebs and dirt and old boxes, mostly. She found the cellar door and pulled it open. Red light pulsed up the stairs. Holding the gun out like she had seen police officers do on the street, Chandra walked down the stairs, afraid of what the unseelie might have left to guard Darnell.

     There was no guard. The root cellar was tiny and cramped. Hanging from the ceiling was a warm, glowing red ball, like a fire on a cold winter night. Little ripples went around the surface. [5] Chandra dropped the gun in her backpack and wiped her hands on her pants, leaving black sweaty smears that she knew would get her extra chores once she got home. She reached into the red ball and felt smooth, soft baby under her hands. Chandra pulled out Darnell, the real Darnell, her nephew who nobody but Imani had ever really seen before.

     As soon as the cold air hit him, Darnell started to cry. Chandra guessed the unseelie had made the ball to keep the baby warm. She took off her jacket and wrapped him up in it. She tried to tie the sleeves around her neck, like a sling, but it didn’t work. She decided to just be cold and carry him, even if he was pretty heavy for just being a baby.

   Darnell fell asleep as she walked with him in her arms. When they got to the top of a high hill, Chandra carefully laid him down in the grass, holding her breath to see if he’d wake up. He stirred a little but stayed asleep. She opened her backpack, took out the .22, and threw it as far as she could, turning away so she didn’t see it land. Humming, she picked up Darnell and walked off, letting her feet and her gift take her to where the fairy lady would be. When her daddy asked her where his gun was, she could honestly tell him she had no idea at all.



 [1] commune.jpg

   [2] heat.jpg

   [3] hold.jpg

   [4] rapture.jpg

   [5] float.jpg


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## Piratecat

Hee. Thanks; time to read!


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## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'll admit to a sick curiosity as to how you manage to whirl it around like that



In the White Kingdom, I believe it qualifies as an Exotic Weapon feat.


----------



## Piratecat

Probably so. 

Folks, it'll be a bit before we deliver the judgment, but start thinking of availability for the final round. Better we schedule it as soon as possible!


----------



## Macbeth

Well, I'm about to start into finals, so I'm going to be quite busy. Ideally, you could post the pictures Monday or Tuesday, since I finish finals on Tuesday. Posting Monday would give me time to think me story through, then I can sit down and actually write on Wednesday. Looking at my post-finals schedule, Monday night, Tuesday or Wednesday would be best for me. I'm not sure if that will work, sinec the judgements might take a while, but those are best for me.


----------



## Zhaneel

Currently I'm pretty flexible next week.  I would prefer having the deadline be no later than Saturday morning, as my weekend is sort of full.

I know that I will have at least two dinner plans next week and my hubbie is getting ansty for a date, but I can work around those (I think).

Ugh... I'm not yet recovered from this round.  How long is "a while"?

Zhaneel


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## mythago

I am the lawyer who walks by herself, and all schedules are alike to me.


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## Piratecat

We'll plan to post them Wednesday morning (West Coast time), then. That means the stories will be due Saturday morning West coast time; let me know if that's a problem for anyone. The final round will be six pictures, and the word limit rises with the extra photo by 1000 words (just to leave you enough rope.)  

I'll take this opportunity to say what a delight judging this contest has been for me. Thanks for letting a new judge take the helm, and thanks for letting me use Sialia's art as I did so. Oddly enough, taking this critical look at your stories is probably going to improve my own writing as well. I used to do what BSF does and not read the other stories, mainly because I was afraid of absorbing too much from them. Now that approach seems alien to me, and when I compete in the summer round I'll probably read everyone's story that I possibly can. It's all fodder for the imagination, I think.

Notes on photos for this last round: "heat" is a public fountain in Barcelona during last summer's heat wave, and "rapture" is a tent going up at the Burning Man festival three years ago. I saw that photo and fell in love with it; I wish I had a higher resolution copy.


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## Zhaneel

I agree that reading & critiquing other people's stories improves your own writing.

In fact, there are several workshops based around this idea.  I encouage anyone reading/writing in this thread to consider Critters Workshop.  It is an online SF/F/H based workshop. You are required to critique other people's stories and can submit your own for critique.  In order to be in the "good standing" that you should be in to critique stories, you need to maintain a 75% ratio of stories critiqued to weeks of memebership [3 critiques a month].  You can learn a lot from reading other people's critiques of the same work.  And since all feedback has to be 100 words or longer, you can expect more Arwink style critiques.

Zhaneel


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## BSF

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I'll take this opportunity to say what a delight judging this contest has been for me. Thanks for letting a new judge take the helm, and thanks for letting me use Sialia's art as I did so. Oddly enough, taking this critical look at your stories is probably going to improve my own writing as well. I used to do what BSF does and not read the other stories, mainly because I was afraid of absorbing too much from them. Now that approach seems alien to me, and when I compete in the summer round I'll probably read everyone's story that I possibly can. It's all fodder for the imagination, I think.




Hmm, that doesn't sound quite the way I intended it to.  I like reading everyone else's stories.  But, I also found myself thinking "OK, somebody already wrote a story that shares some of these characteristics this round.  If I write like that, then I will look imitative."  Yeah, that's kinda silly, I know.  But, it seemed to work better for me this round since I wasn't arbitrarily limiting myself based on stupid self-perceptions.  

But now, I am reading through all the stories, (I didn't make the menu for nothing after all) and I am even trying to comment on them in the other feedback thread.


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## BSF

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> I agree that reading & critiquing other people's stories improves your own writing.
> 
> In fact, there are several workshops based around this idea.  I encouage anyone reading/writing in this thread to consider Critters Workshop.  It is an online SF/F/H based workshop. You are required to critique other people's stories and can submit your own for critique.  In order to be in the "good standing" that you should be in to critique stories, you need to maintain a 75% ratio of stories critiqued to weeks of memebership [3 critiques a month].  You can learn a lot from reading other people's critiques of the same work.  And since all feedback has to be 100 words or longer, you can expect more Arwink style critiques.
> 
> Zhaneel




Wow!  Thanks for the link Zhaneel.  I need to be sure Eeralai sees that.  She is much more involved with writing than I am.  Which is cool, since she is my wife, and it is sad, since I bought my first computer to become a writer.  I'm trying to get back toward that writer bit instead of being a Network and System Administrator for the rest of my life.


----------



## arwink

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Probably so.
> 
> Folks, it'll be a bit before we deliver the judgment, but start thinking of availability for the final round. Better we schedule it as soon as possible!




Speaking of which - can people hold out until Sunday?  I could possibly get a really rushed judgement through before then, but after being able to take my time writing up comments about Macbeth and BardStephenFox's round I kind of miss having the time to give the stories the kind of comments they deserve.


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## Piratecat

If we know the winner of round 3-2 Sunday, then we're still good for a Wednesday morning start. Works for me.

At this point, obviously, the judges aren't allowed into the commentary thread. We'll stay out until the winner of 3-2 is announced. We might stick our noses in to join the fun, but we're strictly out as soon as the round 4-1 stories are posted.

If anyone would prefer that we stay totally out until this contest is over, say the word and we will. No problem with that at all.

BardStephenFox, thank you again for making up the summary of all links. It has been posted into the first post of this thread.


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## Zhaneel

AIEEE!! Sunday?

*pause*

Yeah, I'll live.  No problems at all.

Zhaneel


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## BSF

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> AIEEE!! Sunday?
> 
> *pause*
> 
> Yeah, I'll live.  No problems at all.
> 
> Zhaneel





If it makes you feel any better, Arwink is in Australia.  So, his Sunday isn't as far off as ours.


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## arwink

True.  The actual reading and commenting will begin in about 40 hours from this post


----------



## Piratecat

Arwink sent me an email; he's ill with a nasty flu, and so his judgment is going to be delayed. I've asked him to send me a summary judgment as soon as he can, and then he can fill in the critique details once he feels human again.

I'll keep you posted.


----------



## alsih2o

I am all atwitter!

 Great stuff!


----------



## Zhaneel

I can hold out a little longer... I guess.

Zhaneel


----------



## Maldur

I finally send PC my judgement. Sorry about the delay, my weekend was so relaxed, I did not do anything.


----------



## arwink

I've written up a judgment, but it's sketchy as far as comments go.  I'm not actually sure what's in the Cold tablets I've picked up, but for some reason they've knocked me sideways today  :\ 

And, of course, today is the day my e-mail goes down, so the judgment will be stripped back to fit in a PM.


----------



## mythago

Now where did we leave that dang _Summon Dread Piratecat_ scroll...


----------



## Zhaneel

Lala... not checking obsessively.  No, no, not me.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

*Judgment of Match 3-2: Mythago vs. Zhaneel.*


*Maldur:*

Zhaneel wrote a delightful story about elementalists. I found one thing strange: culturally it is not done to guess/ask the other mages' "element," but their spells and outlook makes their element very easy to figure out. But the story was great.  I especially liked the "form" of the spells, it gave familiar spell ideas in a new way. Very nicely done.

Mythago gave us a fairytale. Very nicely done. It reminded me of Neil Gaiman, the nice mix of modern and fantasy elements.

My vote for this round: It seems the fear of going up against Mythago was well founded (at least in my humble opinion), Mythago gets my vote. That story is so much stronger. Zhaneel spins some great tales, but Mythago just is better (once again imho)


----------

*Arwink:*

Zhaneel – It’s Elemental

The introduction to Zhaeneel’s story is interesting, but suffers from a few teething problems as it tries to get the characters and the world onto the page. At times the language is slightly clumsy, the dialogue slightly stilted, and the notion of magi having secret elements but separate entrances related to their element seems slightly inconsistent. These are niggling things to pick at, admittedly, but they clash with the sense of grandeur and importance that Zhaneel builds within the introduction to her story. Similarly, the action seems guided by the images rather than building the story around a conflict and fitting the images into it. 

The overt conflict in the form of the rogue element works, but it is overcome far to easily to be truly satisfying. The subtext of emotional conflict in Carson doesn’t really get resolved, he remains as distant from Perri at the end as he does at the beginning, so the reader is left wondering where the story is really centered. The relationships between the characters works to the stories advantage, the interplay giving the story a little more depth than a basic team quest, but I was disappointed that it didn’t go anywhere as the story progressed. 

Zhaneel’s world is very cool, and the core of this story is fairly strong, but it needs some shaping to really come to life. The various elements, in isolation, work fine – it just needs to incorporate the various parts into a seamless whole.

Mythago – Sighting

A very nice opening – simple and full of potential conflicts that let you know exactly where the story is going. From there is blossoms into a nice cross-cultural tale of fairies and magic, and I’ve always been a sucker for a good changeling story and children that are far smarter than adults. It’s possible that the merged culture that Chandra inhabits could have been played up a little more, but it gave the story a great sense of flavor eve as it is.

Where Mythago loses me a little is at the ending – the gun is logical from a real world perspective, but breaks the genre of the story fairly considerably. Up until this point Chandra has been quite content to play by the rules of the fairy game, and the gun is a little extreme (and aren’t bullets lead rather than iron?). While the twist could work if set up properly, I found myself wishing that it had been foreshadowed a little more strongly so I wasn’t twisted out of the stories world. The story has a strong feel to it, and the gun ruins it the very moment that the word is used.

Still, this is very cool and has a great sense of style.

Judgment

The round goes to Mythago. Both entrants had some interesting picture use for half the images, but tended to go for something a little mundane for the others, so in the end it simply came down to which story I enjoyed more.


----------

*Piratecat:*

I love the elemental foundation of Zhaneel's story. It provides her with a nice set of different personalities to develop the characters out from, contrasting "watery" personalities against "airy" and the like. I liked the main characters, and the story's world reminded me in part of a complex and evocative RPG setting. 

That was actually a little frustrating because several of the wonderful little details that Zhaneel enumerates didn't end up mattering in the context of the story itself.  That both strains suspension of disbelief and opens up plot holes. As an example, couldn't anyone find out who was what kind of a mage by what entrance they came in? Couldn't people guess that the guy with the polar bear familiar was a water mage? If the story's conclusion had hinged on this fact, that people didn't know what kind of mages they were, I'd be able to give it a pass. It's strongly emphasized at the beginning, though, and it doesn't end up being relevant. I have the same problem with the inclusion of the familiar; if the polar bear had saved the day, his development would have had a much larger payoff.

The same "rpg feel" dominated the ending, despite the impressive descriptions of the spells and the landscape. The villain is just a two-dimensional bad guy who exists so that our heroes can cast cool spells. The story would be stronger if there was more character development and more complexity in the fire mage's motives. The victory should be more difficult, as well; I was surprised by the ease with which it was accomplished.

Moreso than in previous entries, I think a problem is that Zhaneel is relying more on telling than showing. We're told about Perri and Carson's past as lovers and their closeness, but we're not really shown it. Same thing with the effect of the heat, or the usefulness of the familiar. 

Photo use generally didn't have any surprises. Some were beautifully described, such as the fountain plaza, the fire mage or the beautiful envisioned image of the butterflies around the ball of flame. I was much less impressed by the use of "hold" - a total throwaway - and disappointed that the polar bear in "commune" ended up being only window dressing.

Overall I enjoyed this story, but I think that it will be stronger once edited to focus the narrative on the actual plot instead of the setting.  It's got good characters and a fascinating set-up, but it needs some fine tuning to better integrate the images and give the villain more personality.

-- o --

When I was trying to write my final round of last Ceramic DM, one of the things I choked on was the voice of the ten year old boy who my original story was about. It's galling to see that Mythago managed to capture the voice of a young girl so nicely here. By twisting the original fairy tale into an urban setting, she manages to juxtapose old and new characters into an entrancing tale.

The beginning and middle of the story are very strong. I appreciated how we guess something important and heavy is in the backpack, but we're left wondering what until the end. I was caught off guard by the shooting -- and I certainly thought "Isn't she breaking her own rules because bullets aren't iron?" -- but I was willing to let it slip because it made such a fun ending to the story. The one thing I didn't care for was Chandra throwing away the gun. I'm really not sure why she did, and it seemed utterly out of character for her to have done so. 

Photo use was exceptional. "Float" was decently used (despite not mentioning the butterflies.) "Commune" was a little ordinary but well used, and "heat" held no surprises -- although I award bonus points for using the phrase "widdershins" in regards to the image. The one that I really thought would throw Mythago was "hold." Previously she's had more problems nailing the art, as compared to the photos, and I anticipated the same approach here. I was wrong, as it was used in a very touching way. It was her use of "rapture" that caught me totally off guard. Having the fabric be blood, and the character flattened on his stomach, was a very innovative use of the image. Nicely done.

-- o --


My judgment is for Mythago. Her story hangs together more tightly than Zhaneel's in this case, and the convincing narrative voice of Chandra integrates the images in a very satisfying way.


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

*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 3 out of 3 for Mythago, who will go on to face Macbeth in the final round. Pictures for that will be posted Wednesday. 

Woot!


----------



## Macbeth

Nice job Mythago and Zhaneel. I look forward to facing Mythago in the finals with anticipation (and more then a little bit of fear). Can't wait to see those pictures.


----------



## mythago

Oh my god. I honestly thought I was a goner. Congrats to Zhaneel, who I personally thought did a much better job than I with many of the pics.

 (I'll spare the gunfondling stuff about bullet types and lead vs. steel posts and jackets and whatever, but at that point in the story I tried to figure what kind of iron or steel object Chandra would be throwing at a fairy--a hair clip? a safety pin? Then it dawned on me what the most dangerous steel object a ten-year-old city kid would think of is: a gun. Fairies have good magic, but I don't recall reading that they're immune to a point-blank chest hit.)


----------



## Zhaneel

Thank you guys for the wonderful feedback.  You hit most of the things I know I have problems with.

1) Conflict.  I have real trouble making good conflicts that are person versus person.
2) Noting about telling versus showing.
3) Working external elements well into a story.
4) Having the beginning not work with the ending.

Thank you very much, and congrats to Mythago.  It was a thrill, a challenge and a great learning experience to a part of this.  I'm not sure I will do so again, as the 72 hour deadline is just harsh.  OTOH, I got three stories out of it, at least 2 of which I will work on refining and making better.

Zhaneel


----------



## orchid blossom

Congrats Mythago!  Only one more to go.  This final should be very interesting indeed.


----------



## Macbeth

So our pictures go up Wednesday? Early Wednesday? Basically the sooner the better for me, any time after 5 tomorrow.


----------



## mythago

Macbeth said:
			
		

> and more then a little bit of fear



 Fear is the mind killer.


----------



## alsih2o

37 days later,,,

 Wow, this has been a marathon of joy joy stuff.

 Mythago has my full respect. Macbeth beat me so her proves my worth.

 What to do? What to do?

 *Sneaks out to spike Arwinks coffee*


----------



## Piratecat

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> I'm not sure I will do so again, as the 72 hour deadline is just harsh.




You should! Lordy, you're good, and I want to read more from you.



			
				Macbeth said:
			
		

> So our pictures go up Wednesday? Early Wednesday? Basically the sooner the better for me, any time after 5 tomorrow.




Mythago, how early do you want them? I was going to post them about noon EST on Wednesday, but I can post them before that if you like. Let me know!


----------



## Zhaneel

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You should! Lordy, you're good, and I want to read more from you.




Thank you!  I'll strongly consider it.  Depending on timing.  

Zhaneel


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Mythago, how early do you want them? I was going to post them about noon EST on Wednesday, but I can post them before that if you like. Let me know!



Any time is fine for me. If earlier works for Macbeth, by all means, early it is.


----------



## Piratecat

In that case, it will be after 8pm EST tomorrow. All the better!


----------



## Macbeth

Piratecat said:
			
		

> In that case, it will be after 8pm EST tomorrow. All the better!



Great! The more writing time I get before Thursday afternoon (when my girlfriend finishes finals) the better.


----------



## Piratecat

And lo! It's picture time for the Final Round. Match 4-1 is Mythago vs Macbeth, and I'm very excited to see what you come up with. Six photos, 7000 words max, and 72 hours. 

Mythago, I almost made this four photos of hands and two images of stone spheres, all in hotly anticipated vengeance from last Ceramic DM, but I've thought better of it. Let's see what you think of these instead.

Impress us!


----------



## Piratecat

This seems like a good juncture to tell Sialia that her art is amazing, and to tell my fellow judges that they rock. Thank you, everyone.


----------



## Macbeth

Were supposed to make a story out of those? Looks like an excersize in freee association mixed with a Rorshache ink blot test.


----------



## mythago

Piratecat said:
			
		

> I almost made this four photos of hands and two images of stone spheres



 Tch, that set would have written itself.


----------



## Ao the Overkitty

oh man.  Those are great, Pkitty.  I think those pictures make all of those that did not advance thankful for that fact.


----------



## Piratecat

Oh, there are stories buried in those pictures, all right. In some ways I think this is easier than other picture sets.  

Or maybe I'm just saying that. It's hard to be sure.


----------



## Macbeth

I do actuallly think they are in some ways easier then other picture sets. I think that they don't clash as much as some of the other sets, but that they also don't have too many linking factors. Especially the one with mystery in it's title by Sialia. What the heck am I going to do with that one?


----------



## BSF

Now that I am not trying to write a story, I can just look at Sialia's art.  I will refrain from deep commentary here.  

Sialia, this one almost makes me cry.  If there is a place where you want more commentary, let me know.  (Perhaps in your art thread?)

Back to the pictures and the stories.  Yes, there are definitely combinations that flow together easier than others.  I'm not sure I would have the energy to link these together, but it would have been interesting to try.  Good luck to both of you.


----------



## alsih2o

Can I take a moment to say P-cat has done an excellent job with the photo selection and groupings?

 Arwink and maldur I will not praise yet, as not to jinx them.


----------



## Maldur

*whaps AlSiH2O*


----------



## Sialia

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Now that I am not trying to write a story, I can just look at Sialia's art. I will refrain from deep commentary here.
> 
> Sialia, this one almost makes me cry. If there is a place where you want more commentary, let me know. (Perhaps in your art thread?)
> 
> Back to the pictures and the stories. Yes, there are definitely combinations that flow together easier than others. I'm not sure I would have the energy to link these together, but it would have been interesting to try. Good luck to both of you.



Ai. I was secretly hoping you would make it to this round, 'cause I knew you'd see things in that one. I'm still curious about what you'd have done with it--maybe there's a good post for over in kiln-fired, once the entires are posted for this round up here. 

If you just want to talk about it, go ahead and email me. 

Macbeth--don't sweat the title of Mysteries 1. When I started doing the illustrations for this competition, I broke them into three sets: Mysteries, Secrets and Visions. And then I gave them all really generic, meaningless names like "Mysteries1" "Mysteries2" "Mysteries3" and so on. So the title itself is not really a clue. Unless you want it to be.
The photograph embedded in the collage is by Jeff Korenstein, and I borrowed it with permission.
If it would help, I have a much larger resolution version of Mysteries1 and I could post it if there are details you want to be able to see better. I pared it down to a standard size that would fit easily on most monitors and download quickly. The original is huge.


----------



## Zhaneel

I'm all of a sudden very relieved to have been eliminated.

Good luck to the victims!

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

They've sweated their way through three other stories to get here, so I don't think they count as victims. That makes them _volunteers_.


----------



## Zhaneel

I suppose your right, PC.  OTOH, I think they could be volunteers that just like pain.

Zhaneel


----------



## mythago

Daulnay pointed out the lack of smack talk...

 So after some diligent Google searching, I was able to find ANOTHER part of a draft of The Scottish Play! It doesn't look like they scanned in the conclusion, sadly.


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> Daulnay pointed out the lack of smack talk...
> 
> So after some diligent Google searching, I was able to find ANOTHER part of a draft of The Scottish Play! It doesn't look like they scanned in the conclusion, sadly.




wow


----------



## Sialia

mythago said:
			
		

> Daulnay pointed out the lack of smack talk...
> 
> So after some diligent Google searching, I was able to find ANOTHER part of a draft of The Scottish Play! It doesn't look like they scanned in the conclusion, sadly.



This time, I'm not thinking Mythago is finished early.

Not this early.

Which means whole minutes of her life ticked away while she was "googling" this.

Run, Macbeth, run.


----------



## Piratecat

Oh, but those moments lost were SO worth it.


----------



## arwink

Best Smacktalk of all the comps so far, methinks.


----------



## Macbeth

Ruh roh.


----------



## Zhaneel

So good.  Soooooo good!

And hey, I dulled a semi-colon.  Go me.  

Thank you, dear lady, for that wonderful smack talk.

Zhaneel


----------



## Maldur

I loved that!

Should we make a smacktalk contest?


----------



## Sialia

I don't know if this will be any help, but what the hey. 

A bigger version of "The First Mystery"


----------



## Piratecat

Excellent. Now they have a much better view of something that's challenging to write about.


----------



## Macbeth

Whew, this round is tough. Can we have religious themes in our story? I only ask since religion  is usually banned on the boards, but it seems like we regularly bring up deities and gods in our Ceramic DM stuff. My stody currently has the Judeo-Christian God playing a part in it. Is this acceptable? I'm trying not too make it too relgiously charged, but God does play a part.


----------



## mythago

I think that's just a rule to avoid religious flamewars and debates--I know that we've had threads about Christian gamers and Judaism and gaming, so I can't imagine a story with a religious element would be a problem.


----------



## Macbeth

I hope it isn't a problem. I just finished a first draft, and I don't think it would be offensive. Plus it seems like we've had stories involving deities from other religions, and I tried to handle the topic maturely. Oh well, I'll just stick with this idea and hope it doesn't turn out to be a problem.


----------



## BSF

I would say you are fine.  My first story in this tourney referrenced the Goddess Durga.  She is most certainly a Real World Religion Goddess.


----------



## Zhaneel

As is Kali, Vishnu, et al. from my second round.

OTOH, I didn't know there was a rule against religious stuff [argh so now we have a Grandma & a moritorium on RL religion].

Honestly, I think in story form, it shouldn't be a problem.  

Zhaneel


----------



## BSF

Profanity, Politics and Religion are off limits as topics.  Every single time politics and religion come up, there will be somebody that gets off on an aggressive stance that makes further discussion pointless.


----------



## Sialia

How about we make a deal: Macbeth gets to deliver his story the way he wants to, and we promise not to get into an online argument about his freedom of expression?

Anybody who feels the need to sound off about religion can do so offline. Online, we discuss only the literary merits of the story.

Personally, I like a story that indicates the author has convictions or opinions about something.


----------



## BSF

Sounds good to me.  As I said, they are forbidden topics of discussion.  It isn't that they are forbidden elements of story.   

Hmm, looking back through the thread, I can see where it looks like I make remarks that could be interpreted as contradictory.  I was trying to clarify that EN World does have policies on certain topics.  But, I think it is safe to say that we have seen plenty of stories that include a religious element in some form (2 out of 3 stories for me in this tourney).  I do appreciate Macbeth wanting to clarify though. I am looking forward to the story and if I want to discuss it on a non-literary level, I will keep it offline.  

So, we know Macbeth is done with a first draft.  We also know Mythago took a few moments out to "research" something she could use as smack talk.  What are the chances that the stories will both be done oodles ot time early and we can read them later tonight?


----------



## Macbeth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> So, we know Macbeth is done with a first draft.  We also know Mythago took a few moments out to "research" something she could use as smack talk.  What are the chances that the stories will both be done oodles ot time early and we can read them later tonight?



No way! I have to try to edit the heck out of this thing. There's no way I'm going to win against Mythago with my story as it stands now. But then again, maybe there's just no way I'm going to win against Mythago.


----------



## Piratecat

Macbeth, that's _lousy_ smack-talk!  

If you've made the call, a story involving religion is fine. I trust your good judgment.


----------



## mythago

Ah, I see that Macbeth is attempting to get me to rush in and self-denigrate in order to smack-talk _myself_. Veeery clever!


----------



## Maldur

very clever indeed!

*starts buffing the club(tm), getting ready for anyone making a flamefest from a ceramic DM story*


----------



## Piratecat

I'm eagerly awaiting the stories.


----------



## alsih2o

Checking and re-checking...waiting somewhat patiently....


----------



## mythago

Macbeth has apparently bribed my kids to keep me busy today, so I won't be posting until close to deadline.


----------



## Zhaneel

You have to bribe them to keep you busy?  Thought you had to bribe them to leave you alone?  ;-)

Zhaneel


----------



## Macbeth

Okay, just a quick note before I post my entry. I hope that everybody can appreciate this as a piece of literature (or at least an attempt at one), and though it contains a religious statement, please, for the purpose of these boards, limit the discussion and feedback to the literary nature of the work.

I know that some of what I have written could be controversial, and to some degree that is my intention. I want to write something that will provoke a response. Please, keep in mind that this is a story, and that I am writting to communicate an idea, a theme. I do not intend to offend anybody, but by trying to create a feeling in the reader, I may offend some. I apologize if this story offends anybody.

If anybody does feel a need to discuss anything religious about this story, please keep it off these boards. I would be happy to discuss anythgin unsuitbale for these boards in email.

And now that I've mad all this hubbub about the story, I hope it lives up to everybody's expectations. I really wish I could put something a bit better together, but I'm tired. Finals, moving out the dorms, three previous rounds writing, and a rugby 7's tournament tomorrow have just worn me down. 

And now, on to me getting trounced by Mythago.


----------



## Macbeth

Ceramic DM Final: Mythago vs. Macbeth
_*My God*_
_by Sage LaTorra, a.k.a. Macbeth_


Michael walked with Christi into the loft apartment, the tinted glass hiding the surprise ahead. This was what always impressed them. He wouldn't be alone tonight.

“You ready, darling?” He asked with a sly smile.

“Yes” Her voice was smooth. Michael couldn't wait for the night.

He walked into the loft ahead of her, through the glass door in the glass wall. The sight inside almost made Christi drop the flowers Michael had given her over lunch.

The windows, tinted from outside, were amazingly clear from within, letting in the soft light of the London afternoon. On a raised dais in the center on the room, a huge boy crouched, as if curling up in fear, wearing only a simple pair of shorts. The boy must have been 50 feet tall, if he was standing tall, but hunched over he was maybe 20 feet. The look of fear on thee boy's face was haunting.(1)

“This,” Michael said, with a certain amount of glee and a sly smile, “is God.”



Gabe was tired. London was a big city, and he was tired of having to travel around it. He detested the subway, but the streets were too slow. He was finally getting close, he could feel him, a throbbing pain in the back of his head, letting him know that he was near the Keeper. Gabe was ready to do his job.


“What?” Christi managed to stammer, her jaw dropping in what Michael considered a most un-lady-like manner.

“This is God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Isrealites, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Michael relished every word of it. It got better every time, and it always got him a night with his choice of the ladies.

Christi reached for words, failed, and instead stood there, speechless. She mad another valiant attempt at speaking: “Why?” Given her state, it was a rather long sentence. Most of them took at least another minute before they asked Michael any questions.

“Because I can. Because, my dear, God is a bit of a pushover. 'Ask and ye shall receive.' Many generations back, my family was about to be killed by a horde of barbarians, and so my ancestor, being a devout Christian, asked for God's help. The word became flesh, so to speak, and we were saved. And then... nothing. You would expect God to come and go in a great flash of blinding light, but he just... stayed. And he's never moved since. Just sat there, like a scared child. He's been a family heirloom ever since. We've managed to manipulate a bit of his power, see just a bit into the future, change the world by small measures, and so here we are today, a family fortune greater then you can imagine, and the power to keep that fortune for eternity.” That was the hook. She was his now. The women couldn't resist power and money.

“How?” They always asked how. Time to pull out the relics.

“Let me show you.” Michael walked to a seemingly empty bit of wall, put his hand flat against it, and the wall slid out of place. Michael reached into the hole the wall had revealed, and took out a low, flat box. “Come over here and take a look.” He led Christi to the bar, setting the box on the counter.

“These are the relics. They were in God's possession when he saved my family. My ancestors took them from his pockets after he hadn't moved for a few days.” Christi looked into the box, unimpressed. It contained nothing but an old picture of a run down, decrepid car in the woods, an address book, a pair of glasses, several pins, and a knife.(2) Michael savored her initial reaction. Wait till she found out what they were.

“This picture shows the most important place on the planet for whoever holds the picture at any given time. That car that it's showing right now was used by a diamond smuggler. It ran out of gas, the smuggler went to get more, and got caught. So it holds a small fortune in diamonds right now, which is very important to me. By noticing the plants and watching the sunrise and sunset, I've managed to narrow it's location down to a 5 mile radius, and I have a crew searching for it now.” Christi looked more impressed.

“And this knife. This knife can cut through anything. It made my great-great-grandfather quite the jewel thief in his day. A bit too hands on for my tastes.”

“The pins are a bit of a mystery. My father though that they were pieces of the spear that pierced Jesus' side, but we've never proved that. However, Hitler did offer my grandfather a handsome sum of money for them.”

“These glasses let you see through things. Real x-ray glasses. Again, a little too hands on for my tastes.”

“And the book. The book is my favorite. It has information on everybody, everywhere. I can find out who's out to get me, and who I'm out to get. Always opens to the page you want, too.”

She should be impressed by now, Michael thought. If past experience holds true, next she'll ask me too bed.

“But... why is he so sad?” The record of dialogue Michael repeated with every women skipped a track. Nobody had asked about Him before...

“Well... I think he wants something. Can't really say what. Or maybe he's just waiting for... something.” Michael had to improvise, something he didn't relish doing.

“And you don't try to help or anything?” Christi was definitely different from his average girl.

“How can I help? It isn't as if I'm keeping him here. The is the Almighty! What can I do to help him?” Michael was getting upset. He should be walking her to his bedroom by now.

Christi sounded meek in the face of Michael's verbal assault. “I don't know.”

“I'm sorry honey... I just don't like to... I don't want... hey, you want a drink?” Michael tried to recover. A few minutes ago, his pan for the night seemed set. Now he was loosing her.

“No, I think I should go.” She gave him a dispassionate kiss on the cheek. “I'll see myself out. Thanks for lunch.” Christi turned to go. Michael made an attempt to stop her, but he couldn't find the words. This wasn't supposed to happen. The sun was going down, it was starting to rain, and Michael was going to be alone for the night. He kicked at the dais that God sat on. “Fat load of good you've done me.”



Gabe was close now. He could feel the Keeper. It had been so long. It seemed that nobody had even tried to find Him, that things had just gone on without Him. But Gabe was going to get him back.
The rain started to fall, and the darkness closed in. Gabe rushed through the increasingly wet London streets in the direction that he felt the keeper. He brushed by a beautiful women who was crying as she ran towards the subway with flowers in her hand. Gabe instinctively wanted to stop and help, but he was in too much of a hurry. Humanity's worries could wait, this was more important.



Michael fixed himself a drink at the bar, hoping it would improve his mood. He was actually starting to feel better, until he realized he had automatically made two drinks, a habit he had picked up from many a night spent with a women in his home. The two drinks were a painful reminder of his failure. He was alone.

Not being one to let a good drink go to waste, Michael took both drinks and sat down in a rather artistic, rather uncomfortable, chair near God. He sat, a drink in each hand, wondering if this was all wrong. Wondering if it was wrong to just keep God here, for his family's gain. But eventually he convinced himself that anybody who would die for your sins would be more then happy to give you a few stock tips and a little protection. He sat, confident that he was in the right, when he heard a knock at the glass door. It was dark outside, with occasional flashes of lightening giving the night an ominous feel. It was too late for visitors, so Michael decided to let it be. Whoever it was would go away soon enough.

The knocking continued. Michael finally became annoyed enough to make an effort to find out who it was. Twisting his head to see the visitor, Michael stared into the inky blackness of the night. He couldn't make out a thing.

An odd flash of lightening threw everything into a blood red relief, an odd red light that illuminated a shadowy figure walking out of the rain, through the glass wall, and into Michael's nightmares.(3) Gabriel loved a flashy entrance.

A voice like a chorus of trumpets boomed into the glass room. “I am Gabriel, Servant of Heaven, and I have come for the Almighty.”

Despite the copious amounts of alcohol in his veins, Michael jumped quickly (if a little awkwardly) to his feet. He rushed behind the bar, and grabbed the gun he kept there, just in case. 

Two shots rang out, rather well aimed despite Michael's lightly drunk condition.

Gabe had to think fast. The bullets cut through the air towards him. He reached into the other, reached into the minds of those in the Beyond. After milliseconds that seemed like an eternity, he found the soul he was looking for, and dragged her consciousness into his body.



Yoshimay Kurosawa was a little known warrior in imperial Japan. She was little known not for lack of prowess, but because of her sex. Had she been deemed worthy of respect, historians would have written of her greatest feat: when faced with a squad of riflemen sent from England to kill her family for refusing to change to the ways of the West, Yoshimay took her dead husband's katana and deflected a volley of bullets, sending a good number of them directly back to those who fired them. The members of the firing squad not killed by their own bullets ran away, and Yoshimay's family was never bothered again.



Gabe pulled Yoshimay Kurosawa's mind into his body. “Sorry to disturb you” he thought, as she took over. Gabe forced himself to let her take control. He willed his own weapon to become her weapon. He let her be... herself.

From Michael's point of view, the body of Gabriel seemed to fade, distort, and be replaced by a astoundingly attractive Japanese women, a blur of blade and silk. He sword moved with practice speed, and he could hear the bullets ricocheting from the blade.(4) Surprised to find that his bullets had had no effect, Michael emptied the rest of the clip into Gabriel, and every bullet was deflected in a clean, smooth motion. 

With the clip emptied and his body intact, Gabriel gently pushed Yoshimay back into the afterlife. “Thank you” he thought to her, as she returned to her family. “You are most welcome, Gabriel-san.” She thought back. 

Gabriel was ready for the business at hand. “Release the Almighty!”

Michael was out of options. Time to be assertive. “Release him! I'm not keeping him here! He hasn't moved in centuries. I've done nothing but use what power he has, since he obviously isn't doing much with it.”

Gabriel wasn't expecting this. His voice lost the tenor of trumpets, “You mean... he's not a prisoner?” It had been somehow easier to serve a God weak enough to be held captive instead of a God so mysterious that he would take no action.

“Hell no, he's no prisoner. I doubt I could keep him here, if he wanted to leave, but all he's done for centuries is sit there. I think he wants something, but I have no idea what.”

“So he just saved your family, and he's been like this ever since?”

“Exactly”

This was not what Gabriel was ready for. He was ready for righteous smiting, not trying to understand the Most Holy. But he was going to change things. “Then we are going to find out what he wants.”

“Oh, great. Then tell me, what does he want?”

Gabriel stumbled, trying to sound sure of himself. “Well, a blood sacrifice always went over pretty well.”

“A blood sacrifice? Like a goat or something?”

“Exactly.” Gabriel's voice again sounded like a full brass band. “You, Michael, will sacrifice a goat to the Almighty.”

“Fine. But, just one question, How do you know my name?”

“It's an angel thing.”




Finding a goat in London turned out to be quite easy for someone with Michael's resources. Early the next day he picked up a young goat from a farm a few miles out of town. Back in the loft, Gabriel's had ripped out a good section of the bar and turned it into an altar.

“So I have to kill this goat?” Michael wasn't keen on the idea.

“Yes.”

“Why can't you do it?”

“Because, somehow, this is all your family's fault, so you get to repair the damage.”

“Ugh. Fine. How do I go about this?”

“I'll tie up the goat, you take a knife and kill it while offering it to God.”

“Easier said then done.” Michael took off his shirt, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and began.

He cut into the goat's innards, glad that Gabriel had the foresight to bind it's mouth shut. The blood flowed and the beast stopped squirming. Michael was almost covered in blood. Some primal instinct had taken over, he sacrificed in the same way his ancient ancestors had, long ago. He reveled in the basic urge, in the indulgence, in the power of his offering. The blood flowed everywhere, and Michael bowed down. “For you, Lord.” This felt right, in a guttural, visceral way.(5)

But God did not move. He still sat, still, scared, motionless.

Michael snapped back to himself, forgetting the visceral need to sacrifice he had had second before. “Why... Why didn't that do anything?”

Gabriel had been watching from some ways away. “Can't really say. The Almighty is hard to understand. Maybe we could...”

“No” Michael interrupted. “I've had enough of your ideas. Now we go to see Grandma.”

“Your grandma? What's she got to do with this?”

“She's the only other living member of the family, and she knows better then I do what's going on.”

“Fine.”



Michael took Gabriel to his grandmother. Without regard to the family fortune, Michael's grandmother had chosen to become a nun after she divorced his Grandfather. She had never liked the family's relationship with God, and had left to atone for the evil she believed the family was doing. She lived in a nunnery in London, praying for the souls of her family every day.

Michael had never been comfortable in the nunnery, it seemed too holy to him, too self righteously pious. He called ahead, and one of the younger nuns was waiting to take them to his Grandmother's room. 

Michael and Gabriel walked into the room. It was dark, illuminated only by a few candles. Michael's grandmother's wrinkled face was the only thing visible in the gloom. His father had always said that every wrinkle was a secret Grandma had learned.(6)

“Hello, Grandma.”

“Hello, Michael. Who's you friend?”

“This is Gabriel. He's part of the family business.” With the mention of how the family made their money, a disapproving look crossed Grandma's face. “Gabriel wants us to let him go.”

“Same thing I've been telling you for years, Michael. You need to let Him go.”

“I don't have much of a choice now, Grandma, Gabriel is making me let him go.”

“Good for you, Gabriel. Now I suppose you want me to tell you how to free him.”

“Yes, grandma.”

“Hmmmm, let me think... Say, would you like candy? We were visiting the orphanage, and I ended up with some extra candy when we got back.”

“Sure.” Michael took the tightly wrapped sweet from his Grandmother's hand and popped it into his mouth.

“Michael, what have I taught you? What do you say when somebody does something nice for you?”

“Thank....” And it clicked. “oh... Thanks Grandma. You're always a big help.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and a hug, and headed back to the loft.



Gabriel seemed confused when they got back to the loft. “What did I miss? What did you find out? That you should give God candy?”

Michael finally understood. “No no no, we already gave God candy. That sacrifice, that's like giving him a present or candy. But I think what he really wants is... well, you'll see.”

Michael walked to the dais where God sat, still as always. He looked up at God. “Thank you.” For perhaps the first time in his life, what Michael said and what he felt were in sync.

With motion like continental drift, God moved. He stood, no longer small looking, dominating the room. With huge, loving eyes he looked down at Michael. He opened his moth, and spoke with a voice like a full symphony in performance, a musical force that was almost physical. “You're welcome.” And he was gone. 

Michael was satisfied. He had finally done something for himself. He felt he had done the right thing for once. And it wasn't as if he didn't have enough investments to still lead a long, secure life. And for the first time, Michael considered that he really didn't need all of that money, that somebody else might be able to use some of it.


Picture Use
(1)God in Michael's flat, with Christi and Michael looking on.
(2)The Relics.
(3)Gabriel entering Michael's flat in the rain and lightening.
(4)Yoshimay deflecting the bullets from Gabirel's body.
(5)Michael making his sacrifice.
(6)Michael's Grandmother.


----------



## Macbeth

And it is done....

Whew, goo dto have it out. I don't think it's my best work, but I just don't have anything more to give. I've pretty much exhausted my writing abilites for the tim being. Now to finish moving out of my dorm room, get read for BSF's game tonight, and get ready for my girlfriend to meet my Mom. Fun....


----------



## BSF

OK, I finally had a chance to read it, while eating a sandwich for lunch.  A lunch that was much too late, but I am feeling better now.  So, um , what can I say?  Well, nothing here.  I will move myself over to the other thread and pipe up.


----------



## mythago

*Mythago vs. Macbeth*

It's, um, kinda long. So I am attaching it.


----------



## BSF

Ooh, Goody!  More reading.  Alas, I have a game to prepare for in an hour and a half.  I might not read and reply to this one quite as quickly.  

Hmm, I will let Macbeth know though.  He might have already left to make it to my house on time.


----------



## mythago

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Hmm, I will let Macbeth know though.  He might have already left to make it to my house on time.



 Tell him next time he needs to put a coffee warning on his stories!


----------



## Piratecat

Ah, now the fun part.


----------



## alsih2o

Macbeth said:
			
		

> And it is done....
> 
> ..... I just don't have anything more to give....




 That has to feel good hear from the pic-pickers chair


----------



## mythago

It just dawned on me that we had a word count ceilling.

 That was _close_.


----------



## Maldur

my verdict is sent 

But I must say I am amazed at the great stories this ceramic produced. You guys are the best!


----------



## Zhaneel

Maldur said:
			
		

> my verdict is sent
> 
> But I must say I am amazed at the great stories this ceramic produced. You guys are the best!




And may I just take a moment to thank the Judges?  Without them, we really wouldn't have been able to do this competition.  Congrats to you guys!

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

alsih2o said:
			
		

> That has to feel good hear from the pic-pickers chair




How many pics would a pic-picker pick
If the pic-picker picked slick pics?

I have Maldur's judgment, and I'm writing mine. I don't know Arwink's schedule, though, so I'll post it when We Three Judges are all complete.


----------



## Maldur

WooHoo!


----------



## arwink

Piratecat said:
			
		

> How many pics would a pic-picker pick
> If the pic-picker picked slick pics?
> 
> I have Maldur's judgment, and I'm writing mine. I don't know Arwink's schedule, though, so I'll post it when We Three Judges are all complete.




I'm at least a day or two away.  Between marking and...er...other distractions...I'm going to have to wait for a break between classess before I have the time to give the stories my complete attention.


----------



## Maldur

Noooooooooooo!

damn, Im curious what it turned out to be!


----------



## alsih2o

I am DYING here!


----------



## Piratecat

Me too.  It's going to be close!


----------



## Zhaneel

You're dying!  At least you know when you post whether or not the results are in.  I, on the other hand, saw you post and though OMG IT'S UP!

Tease.

Zhaneel


----------



## arwink

Still not done.  I've got Macbeth's comments written up, and I'm printing out Mythago's story to read on the train ride home today, so it shouldn't be too much longer.

Sorry folks.  I've not had the chance to spend to much time near a computer recently


----------



## Macbeth

You think you've got it bad? I'm even more interested, since it involves my story, AND, since I'm at my parent's house, I only get to check for updates roughly once a day... No worries about the wait, Arwink, but the suspense is killing me!


----------



## Mirth

As Tom Petty has often said, "The waiting is the hardest part."

GOOD LUCK! to both of you...


----------



## arwink

I'm done.

And can I just say, having finally read them both and managed coherant thought at the same time:

Wow.


----------



## Maldur

So when will the endresult be posted!

I am so curious


----------



## Zhaneel

Hopefully when PC wakes up.

Zhaneel


----------



## Piratecat

My email is hanging. When it does this, it usually sorts itself out within a few hours. Arwink, if I haven't posted the results by the time you're up, please PM me. I expect it'll be up by then, though.


----------



## alsih2o

Maybe it is just my generation, but isn't there usually a commercial durring tense moments like these?


----------



## mythago

The wait

 Could make

 A sane man rave

 But please, have patience!



*BURMA SHAVE*​


----------



## Piratecat

*Final judgment!*


*Judgment of Match 4-1: Macbeth vs. Mythago.*


*Maldur:*

Macbeth vs Mythago

Macbeths story is funny, with a sulking god, a repentive Casanova, and an over-intense Archangel.

Mythago gives us a story with Nazis, special agents and weird tech.

My vote goes for Macbeth, it's just fantastic story!  "Thank you"  


----------

*Arwink:*

Mythago vs Macbeth

Macbeth – My God

Macbeth has a stylish opening – the complete understatement a perfect contrast with the grandeur of the idea he’s presenting.  That the character of Michael just gets smarmier and smarmier as the story progresses is great – he’s instantly dislikable, but somehow fascinating to read about.  This is a great idea, and while the execution is a little awkward in places it carries through well.  Once again, this is the kind of piece that is worth polishing up for later use after the stress of the competition is over.

The key problem here tends to be one of pacing – this is a big idea, and as the story progresses it starts to feel more and more rushed as Macbeth tries to crush everything he wants to include into length.  Some elements, which should have more space to breath within the context of the story, get rushed through with little explanation.  Other elements, such as the summoning of the Japanese warrior-woman and Gabriel’s casual dismissal of “It’s an angel thing” break the style of the piece pretty badly – the first because of the contrast between godly/Christian ideals and the warrior code of the samurai, the latter because the story suddenly swings from a fairly serious but odd story to a bad buddy-cop movie in tone.

The ending, while a great idea, just doesn’t play out effectively given the pacing problems mentioned above – it seems less like an inevitable ending and more like a cheesy way to finish the story before it’s done. The idea is great, it just doesn’t fit the story as it stands.  Get the story to the point where this does seem inevitable, and this will be a great satirical piece.


Mythago – World Enough and Time

I was sold the moment I came across the line about anger and guffaws in the second paragraph.  A great opening, a nice sense of style, the ever-so-addictive German style of the piece – to put it simply, as an opening, this rocks my world.  Pulp science, clockworks, cattle ranchers and style – this has it all and it handles it with panache.

My only real complaint about the story is the handling of Li Mie – she’s built up as an important part of the story, something that intrigues the reader and hooks them into the story, and when she finally arrives her sole purpose seems to be as a sacrificial lamb to the plot.  Li is a great idea, but she needs to be tied to the story a little more strongly.

I feel like I should be saying more to this, especially after so long a wait, but my sole response is “Wow.”  I love a good pulp-influenced story, and this is one of the best I’ve come across in a long while.

The Judgment

Macbeth has style, concept and some impressive bones of a story on his side, but ultimately this round goes to Mythago on the strength of a wow. 
The pictures seem to flow into the background of her tale, and it oozes so much style that it grabs the reader and refuses to let go.


----------

*Piratecat:*

Macbeth: My God.

What a cool idea. 

The idea that someone might have God sitting around in their living room is utterly audacious and very, very interesting. Making the protagonist be fundamentally sleazy and yet interesting is another bold move. The core of the narrative - the setup, the reason behind God's presence there, and the consequences thereof - drives a nice story.

I had some problems with it, though. My biggest concern was that the characters didn't consistently ring true. Michael got inexplicably less smarmy as the story went on, Gabriel's personality and dialogue disrupted the tone of the piece, and Grandma ends up being more a deux ex machina than I suspect Macbeth meant her to be. I'd like to see more of Michael's emotions and feelings from his own point of view, instead of just being told them, and I'd like to see more consistency within the character studies.

For instance, Gabriel has this cool ability to borrow souls. I loved the concept -- but he only does it once in a non-plot-essential way, so it becomes a (very cool) "I have to use this photo" moment instead of the defining characteristic it deserves to be. And I must admit to some confusion as to how he managed to borrow a buddhist spirit.

I felt the same way with the photo use of the relics: incredibly cool imagination, but they never show up again in the story. In a tale this short, everything has to have a purpose if it's going to be mentioned. In comparison, the central tenet of God crouching in the living room was superb photo use. The sacrifice illustration helped advance the plot, Gabriel's entrance helped define his character, and the nun helped solve the mystery: all good. I liked the line about every wrinkle in the old woman's face being a secret, although this suggests that she always knew how to release God -- and that obviously opens up a huge and gaping plot hole.

This story needs some refinement to work out the logical inconsistencies in character, and the illustrations need to be tied more tightly into the progressing plot. It's a fun story, and will be even better with some editing.

-- o --

Mythago: World Enough and Time.

One of the things that Mythago does well is to take your assumptions and twist them. You see this throughout the story: the huge Texan is the brains of the operation, not the brawn, the lithe Brit is the unexpected assassin, the evil genius is a scared kid. Taking expected characterizations and altering them unexpectedly is a great way to differentiate a story. It works well here.

I liked the POV movement around the globe, the scenes in the chapel and the hospital and the dormitory. All good and quite cinematic. I had trouble keeping track of which character was which for the first half of the story, though, so greater differentiation on their names may need to be done.  

The pacing also needs some adjustment. Even with the constraints on story length, I think that Jakob's presence at the end will have more impact if we see more of him beforehand. Despite his initial humanization and establishment as a tragic figure, we never have much time to understand how he has changed in the intervening years, and so his inevitable death means less to us. The same could be said for Li Mei. I'd rather see her sacrifice mean something, or see her injured but not dead.

The use of the cowering boy (actually a photo of a wax sculpture in a museum, incidentally, not of a real person) with two animated dolls near him was very clever. Tying each of the items in the "mystery" collage into the ongoing plot line was elegantly done; this was an especially difficult illustration, and making each of the pieces fit into a story wasn't intended to be easy. I wasn't thrilled with using "grief" in a flashback, especially because the description didn't carry the emotional weight of the illustration. Blur was well used (except for my regret about Li Mei's short-lived fragility noted above), and "one step" was decently but not extraordinarily used.

The story needs some tightening, evening out the pace somewhat without reducing the entertaining byplay between the characters. It's wonderful nevertheless.

-- o --


My judgment is for Mythago. With greater internal consistency behind her characters' motives and better overall picture use, her story trumps a strong entry by Macbeth.


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

*FINAL JUDGMENT:* 2 out of 3 for Mythago, who for the second time is crowned *CERAMIC DM!*

Congratulations!


----------



## mythago

To steal a line from alsih2o, I believe I am all out of adrenalin.

 Congratulations to Macbeth, who put in a damn fine entry.


----------



## Sialia

Many thanks to all of you for your very wonderful stories.

Congratulations!


----------



## Maldur

Congrats!!!!!!!!!!

:d


----------



## alsih2o

Mythago and macbeth: You rocketh. Very impressive. Congrats to mythago, thanks to both of you for FOUR great stories.

 P-cat, great job. Absolutely great job.

 Arwink and maldur, thanks bunches.


----------



## orchid blossom

Thanks for a great story, MacBeth, and congrats to Mythago!

It's been a pleasure reading all these stories.  It's going to be weird not checking this thread daily.


----------



## Piratecat

As much as I loved the challenge of choosing pictures, my favorite part was getting to read all the stories that you folks based on them. Thanks for letting me lead the team this time. It was a delight.

And watch out, folks -- next time I'm competing!


----------



## Zhaneel

Congrats to Mythago.  Way to go to MacBeth... and now to breathe until the next round.

Zhaneel


----------



## BSF

Whew.  Nice tourney this time around.  Congratulations to Mythago.  Two time champ!  It might be interesting to se eyou go up against Mirth.


----------



## alsih2o

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Whew.  Nice tourney this time around.  Congratulations to Mythago.  Two time champ!  It might be interesting to se eyou go up against Mirth.




 Or Speaker!

 There is rumor of a Tournament of Champions....


----------



## Sialia

Piratecat said:
			
		

> And watch out, folks -- next time I'm competing!



Hmm.  That raises an interesting question. Or two.

The first, I don't need an answer to right away. It's "so who _is_ going to judge?"

The second is, would folks rather go back to all photographs, or should I work on some new illustrations?


----------



## Sialia

alsih2o said:
			
		

> Or Speaker!
> 
> There is rumor of a Tournament of Champions....



I sooo want to draw for that.

But it would disqualify Piratecat from competing, which would be a pity.


----------



## alsih2o

Sialia said:
			
		

> Hmm.  That raises an interesting question. Or two.
> 
> The first, I don't need an answer to right away. It's "so who _is_ going to judge?"
> 
> The second is, would folks rather go back to all photographs, or should I work on some new illustrations?




 I plan on pic-picking again, i already have a volunteer former winner as a judge.

 As for drawings, let's chat


----------



## mythago

I like the mix of drawings and photos.

 One of the big problems I had during my Guest Pic was getting photos that were flexible--interesting, but not too specific for any one setting or time. Problem is that unlike drawings, photos tend to be quite recent. There just aren't many photos of wooly mammoths around...


----------



## orchid blossom

Piratecat said:
			
		

> As much as I loved the challenge of choosing pictures, my favorite part was getting to read all the stories that you folks based on them. Thanks for letting me lead the team this time. It was a delight.
> 
> And watch out, folks -- next time I'm competing!




Hmm, maybe I should reconsider my plans for competing again next time.


----------



## alsih2o

mythago said:
			
		

> I like the mix of drawings and photos.
> 
> One of the big problems I had during my Guest Pic was getting photos that were flexible--interesting, but not too specific for any one setting or time. Problem is that unlike drawings, photos tend to be quite recent. There just aren't many photos of wooly mammoths around...




 Yeah, when this all started I used drawings, paintings, photos, anything I could find.

 Then, once, just for fun, I tried all photos.  



 And it stuck for some reason.

 I think it might be time to bring back the weirdness.


----------



## Maldur

yeah, weirdness


----------



## Piratecat

I like the possibility for additional creativity. I don't mind images that lock the writers into a modern or fantasy setting, but I wouldn't want all the photos to be modern. Images and drawings work around that nicely.


----------



## Zhaneel

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> Hmm, maybe I should reconsider my plans for competing again next time.




You should compete!  Want more blossom stories.

Zhaneel


----------



## orchid blossom

Zhaneel said:
			
		

> You should compete!  Want more blossom stories.
> 
> Zhaneel




But I would feel bad to beat up on Piratecat so early in my career.

(I think I'm finally getting this smack-talk thing)


----------



## Piratecat

orchid blossom said:
			
		

> But I would feel bad to beat up on Piratecat so early in my career.




Truth is, I'm fairly sure that's what would happen. I couldn't have written your first round story. I _know_ I couldn't, and that's humbling, but at least it gives me something to strive for.


----------



## orchid blossom

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Truth is, I'm fairly sure that's what would happen. I couldn't have written your first round story. I _know_ I couldn't, and that's humbling, but at least it gives me something to strive for.




Wow.  Thanks.


----------



## arwink

Congratulations Mythago, and to Macbeth who produced a very fine story when you take into account the rigours of the competition.  The quality of the competition just gets better and better


----------



## Talix

Definitely congratulations for everyone involved!  It was a ton of fun to catch up on this thread, even though by the time I read through it it was over.  

On that note, the shortcuts at the beginning of the thread were invaluable to have for reference, and it was very disappointing when they didn't finish up.  PirateCat, do you think you could throw the last few links up there, just for everyone's enlightenment who come to browse this historic competition?    

And now, back to waiting for Sep or Piratecat to update...


----------



## BSF

Talix said:
			
		

> Definitely congratulations for everyone involved!  It was a ton of fun to catch up on this thread, even though by the time I read through it it was over.
> 
> On that note, the shortcuts at the beginning of the thread were invaluable to have for reference, and it was very disappointing when they didn't finish up.  PirateCat, do you think you could throw the last few links up there, just for everyone's enlightenment who come to browse this historic competition?
> 
> And now, back to waiting for Sep or Piratecat to update...




*Raises hand*

That's my bad.  I just haven't parsed them out and sent it to Piratecat yet.  I keep meaning to in down moments at work, but I keep posting instead.  Tell you what.  I'll stop procrastinating and finish it up now.


----------



## Talix

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> *Raises hand*
> 
> That's my bad.  I just haven't parsed them out and sent it to Piratecat yet.  I keep meaning to in down moments at work, but I keep posting instead.  Tell you what.  I'll stop procrastinating and finish it up now.




No worries, no rush, it was just a "for posterity's sake" kind of thing.


----------



## BSF

Yes, that was my point actually.  I was looking through a previous Ceramic DM looking for a particular story to reference and I was having the dicken's of a time finding it.  I like the chit-chat between stories, but when you are reading it after the fact it is nowhere near as interesting.   

Anyway, thanks for the prod.  I am emailing the .txt file with the updated links to Piratecat now so he can edit them in when he has a chance.

EDIT:
BTW - I am glad you found the links helpful.  If it helped one person than I am happy.


----------



## Mirth

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Whew.  Nice tourney this time around.  Congratulations to Mythago.  Two time champ!  It might be interesting to se eyou go up against Mirth.




Heh. 

CONGRATULATIONS MYTHAGO!!

Here's the Platinum Rear-Scratcher to go with the Golden Raccoon-Stick. Since the executive outhouse ain't got no t.p., you should find it very useful.

In all seriousness, this was a fantastic competition and I think it really is the audience who are the true winners. Thanks to all of the competitors.


----------



## Macbeth

Wow! I have to say, I'm suprised that I even got one judge on my side, I had expected to be trounced by Mythago. Sorry to be so late to reply, but I've been mosty wihtout internet access since I submited my story. THanks for the feedback, I agree with the judges wholehartedly, I had a good concept, but it was just too rushed. I may try to rework it in the future.

And I just have to respond to the comments on the samurai spirit being used by the angel. I intentionally used the pisture in that way, I ment to imply something about my own religious beliefs (and I hope this doesn't cross the no religion line), but I ment to imply that it was ther spirit of her deeds, not her beliefs, that got her into heaven. BardStephenFox and I were talking about this at our gaming night the night after I submited the story, and he pointed out that C.S. Lewis had done something like thta in part of the Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe series. I had honestly never got to that point in the series, but I was honored to have come up with (somewhat) the same idea as C.S. Lewis. So it was not just some oversiight, I did not mean for the samurai to be christian, but I did mean for her to be in heaven. 

And, last but not least, Congrats Mythago! Nice work!

And sorry for the rampant typing errors in this, I'm using my aunts computer, with a rather odd keyboard, and I'm being called off to a family dinner. THanks to all the judges and all the competitors!


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