Ever tried?

[My Uncivilized God]

Who here has tried, or is trying, to write a book?

I'm currently working on an interesting story, with much help from Wikipedia and the band Portishead, who give me something to ignore while I write.

If you're working on something, post an excerpt.

Excerpt:
I was hanging around Cord's pickup truck. Cord is neither fish nor fowl nor good green grass. He's closer to the fringe than the rest of the crew-cut pickup truck crowd, but he's too close to being a straight for most of the stranger bookstore kids. He doesn't play their games, he doesn't have long oily hair, and he most certainly does not carry a zombie survival kit. Some people do, I understand, in case the last world war against the undead breaks loose. On the other hand, he sells books and interesting little carvings sometimes, and other things, if you want to arrange for that kind of stuff.
I sometimes did, but mostly not. I just liked sitting around on his tailgate with a coke and listening to the rise and fall of conversation against the sound of speed metal and rock from car doors. It's a good place to pick up the kind of girls who cruise the obsessive compulsive side of the lot. That night, I met Matt. He was scanning the books, looking for additions to his stack. I don't remember all of them, mostly sci-fi, Enders Game, that sort of stuff. He picked up Animal Farm while I sat two feet away, smoking my cigarette and swinging my legs. I had read Animal Farm a couple of years ago, and found it interesting and a little unsettling, but not really a big deal. My mom wouldn't have been happy about it, but back then she hadn't yet taken a peek down the central heating and air vent under the edge of my bed, so she never found it. I got rid of it for two bucks to someone on the lot a few months before she found a couple of magazines down the vent and hit the roof.
Matt had tangled bangs, pretty much identical to half the crowd and he moved his lips when he spoke. He also had on a knee length black coat, which is practically de rigueur for fringe crawlers. What drew my attention after we had been sitting pretty much side by side for five minutes, was his necklace. He had set down Animal Farm and picked up something else, and it swung out, catching the headlights from the cars behind me (the yellow streetlights in front of me were blocked by his body, so it had a cold, white look to it.) It was a silver chain with dozens of different religious symbols- a star of david, a cross, a crucifix, an islamic moon and star, the hammer of Thor. and a lot of others. In the middle (or at the bottom, rather) was a black claw, hung curved down and back from a silver bracket.
"Cool necklace. Can I find something for you?" Cord and I were pretty good friends, and he'd let me pick up a customer here and there and sell them something, as long as all the money made it into his pocket. I was straight with him, and he knew I was. Partly because anyone who saw me put anything in my pocket would have told him straight away in exchange for a discount, and partly because it was only a couple bucks here and there, which meant that stealing part of it would be enough for like, a coke. A can coke, not a bottle, in these benighted times. Mostly he would let me run his store because he knew that I knew that one slip would mean I wouldn't ever be able to buy anything from him again. We got along pretty well.
"No... just curious." He was a quiet kind of guy, I guessed at the time, and I wasn't really wrong. Part of the way he acted at the time was really shyness, but some of it, I'd guess now (with a friendship under my belt) was just absentmindedness.
"Curiosity killed the cat." I said, savoring the cigarette and feeling good natured towards everything.
"Really..."
"But satisfaction brought him back." I was smiling, but he looked up at me almost sharply. The only glance I got that night from him. His mouth worked for a moment, and he spit out the same word again, but with more life in it.
"Really."
"Really, really." I replied.
"I've never heard that phrase before."
"There's a first time for everything, isn't there?"
"There is..." More of a statement than the wry comment you would expect from most people. His eyes were back on the book, so I sat for a while, and took another drag on my cigarette. After a moment, he set down his current book and moved on to another.

[katwingz18]

I've tried my hand at writing stories a time or two, but as much as I enjoy it, I've resigned myself to the fact that even if I did start a book, I would probably never be able to finish it. My true calling seems to be more along the lines of editing, although at this point in my life it is more one of those 'maybe one day I'll be able to find someplace that will let me do this for a living' kind of dreams, rather than a reality. However, the fact remains that I seem to spend more time helping other people proof their writing rather than working on my own. That, and I've got a rather keen eye for spotting typos.

Hence this post.

Now, please don't take offense - I very much like what I read in your excerpt (and would like to read more!) save for one thing. In the passage I've quoted below, the highlighted word "where" should be "were."

He had set down Animal Farm and picked up something else, and it swung out, catching the headlights from the cars behind me (the yellow streetlights in front of me where blocked by his body, so it had a cold, white look to it.)

I am well aware that takes a lot of guts to post one's work where other people can comment on it, especially a work in progress; in this, you are already far braver than I will ever be. It's just... well, I hate to see such a silly mistake (one of my pet peeves, as a matter of fact) in the midst of such a promising piece of writing, and I felt compelled to speak up.

There are a few other changes that could be made to neaten things up a bit (although that's mostly due to my own preferences regarding sentence structure and flow), but aside from that, I'd say you have a really good start here.

Assuming, of course, that your excerpt was indeed from the start and not somewhere in the middle.

[My Uncivilized God]

Well, I hadn't written anything major in a while, so I sat down, and started something, and I didn't expect it to be anything important. So I just decided, for no reason at all, to pretend someone had a gun to my head, and was forcing me to write. And it turned into a story. So the beginning needs a lot of editing. A veritable shit-storm of editing, in fact. Which I will do at a later time, because I don't want to get bogged down this early on.

So... no, that's not the beginning . This is though.

Simon Says

What am I supposed to do? Write a book? With a gun to the back of my head, I don't really have a choice, do I? Alright, alright, right, right. The beginning is usually the best place, but I'd like to explain a few things first, My Dear Assailant. Like, I'm crazy, barking mad hatter, fruitcake in california, crazy. I'd have to be to be in this sort of situation, wouldn't I? Also, I check out the possibilities. The chances that this book (or manuscript, or whatever the hell you want to call it), will became popular, or even be published, or appear in a special edition hardback with the words of Simon in red- it's almost nil. Because it's not for anyone but the police.
However, if, by some unseen stretch of probability, the improbable is made possible, then I can tell you something you might think you know after the fact, but didn't think of until I mentioned it. The chances of someone finding an error on these less than pristine pages, and interpreting it as a deep, philosophical commentary on humanity, are horrifically high.
I measure angles, possibilities, paths. Scientists say no one actually takes any one path, instead, the universe divides, and you take both. But there is always a higher chance in our universe, that you'll take one over the other, depending on the situation, your personality, whether you're lazy or not, and whether you ate a cheap carnival hot dog that's making you sick.

So two days ago, I robbed a bank with two of my best friends.

Partners in crime. With heavy emphasis on both partners and on crime, like the media heads say it. They would have said that I led them into a life of crime (another heavily emphasized, and overused phrase), and that we had probably been hard at work on our gateway crimes. Like smoking weed. Marijuana is a "gateway crime," leading to other, more worser, (they would say "evil" if they could get away with it on live t.v.) crimes. Like, just to pick a completely random, hypothetical crime... bank robbery.
We had been. Doing the prep work for our grand finale, we worked our way through the basics first. Weed was practically core curriculum at the school I went to: none at all. And we made straight A's, too. They'd show up at my house when my mom was down and out (Miss Mom, Teacher, Alcohol 101: lesson one, never get caught driving drunk) and we'd hang out in the shed. The shed had started life as a tool-shed, became a storage unit, was emptied, gutted and rebuilt as an artists studio (for the family that lived here before we did, I guess) and ended up as the best place outside of a nightclub for doing absolutely nothing while experimenting with mind altering substances, like reefer, the internet. And Gorillaz.
The place was (and still is, I guess) a dump. When my mom pulled me out of public school to teach me herself (I heard some families actually made it with the homegrown minds thing, but not us) I got left on my own all day while she was at work, and the novelty eventually died. There's only so many times you can sneak into your mothers room before you realize she's not hiding any porn, condoms, guns or drugs in there. Dirty clothes were probably the most incriminating thing I found, and that was pretty bad. I don't think the nightgown was ours, and I doubt it had been left by the family before us. None of them were fat, unless they had a mad aunt they didn't bother telling us about. I left it where it was.



I'll fix that typo, by the way.

[Narsil]

I actually have about 100 pages written of a novel.
The tentative title is "Zephania's Throne," and it is a series of smaller stories taking place over several hundred years on a fictional world, all centering on the titular character and how he affects the world. He's born deformed in a small, sheltered town, and becomes apparent that he can control people. The first story concerns a king investigating a string of reported murders in the town, and this ultimately leads to Zephania's exile as a child. The next few stories are about Zephania' unlikely arrival in the uninhabitable northern lands, and discovery by a dying alien race. His human genetics help the aliens adapt and come back from the brink of extinction, and then complete their quest to claim Zephania's homeworld.

From there, things get weird.

[pieaholicx]

I've got a lot of rough ideas for a format that's similar to Narsil's. I've got a list of the major events that the stories will be about. I have very little detail about it though, namely because I'm hitting a roadblock on names for my deities. The title is tentatively "Chains of Heaven, The Legend of Ashthaleron" (note the "heaven" here is ambiguous). I'll probably span part of it as an RPG Maker XP game, during a 100 year gap in which only a war is taking place, between the time of a prophecy being made, and its fulfillment.

[pinkgothic]

I'm utterly addicted to writing, but I don't really have the attention span for a book. I wrote a five chapter story for a good friend of mine once, though. It's the only work I've ever written in second person, and it requires very attentive reading, because there's really no way at all that you can skim-read it.

[...]

*

A string of pain gallops up your arm as you stir. Your eyelids are reluctant to open as their edges are moist and adhesive - as they give to your persistence, the world is badly out of focus. Browns and yellows dominate the landscape. The grating sensation of coarse rope claims your wrists, and the tiredness of what could be the first stage of hypothermia - as consciousness reclaims your body, shivers course through it.

Your senses tremble back into function - the winter landscape of a forest comes into view, though you are sagged against something, and the earthy ground is notably more visible than the gnarled trees. Beyond the soft rustle of wind, there is a far more prominent source of sound - pressing your cold lips together to stop at least the most trivial of your shivers, and trying to pull yourself out of your bonds, you turn, shoulder grinding into wood, trying to glance behind you.

"...quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris, et ne nos inducas..."

Four. Four voices. You cannot see any of those who are speaking, but they are not far from you. Squinting upwards, craning your neck, you see the splintered tip of a wooden pole. Your brows furrow, and your feet, bound by their ankles, kick against the leaf-covered ground, the blood circulation stinging in your veins as it is spurred into motion.

A prank? A prank, of course! Heaving a breath, rolling your head to the side a few centimetres, you utter, voice already distressingly broken from cold - "I'm going to catch a cold and it's not funny." The complaint is clear in the icily crisp air.

No answer.

"I'd appreciate if someone untied me."

A soft crunch of footsteps across moist, rotting leaves approaches. Your shoulders sag, head rolling forward, distancing your upper body from your tied wrists. The breath of whomever is standing behind you is just audible, slightly strained itself. You feel the scrutiny sliding across your shape sharpen, and a poisonously cold whisper speaks two words - "Heathen fool."

Without further warning, liquid soaks your clothes in a splash and gurgle out of some container, worsening the chill gnawing at your fragile bones. It doesn't smell like water, stench potent, swift to add nausea to your list of ailments. As you struggle against natural urges to sag in on yourself, cough and writhe, the realisation dawns - it does nothing to better your state, instead fuelling your nausea with shocked silent panic.

Moist leaves are ground against shoe soles and the dark, rich earth. The canister is discarded, tossed carelessly back towards where you had heard the original chant. The steps retreat in three or four steps.

"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen."

Your survival instinct pushes past your shock, and flabbergasted by the craze of the situation still, you blurt out a fearful, astonished, pleading whine: "No, wait!"

The soft sound of match lighting drowned out by your very words, the world alights in fire -

- with a start, you wake up.

[...]

The plot arc of Dreamcatcher is actually far more convoluted than that. It's about a god, not realising he is a god, surviving attempted murder of his physical body (motivation for the murder has nothing to do with him being a deity, by the way), but assuming it a dream at first. He thinks it's a dream because of the meddling of another deity, who wishes to be the sole being with such strength, and who would obviously dislike him figuring out just what he's capable of.

The other chapters are about other being's attempts to kill him via his dreams so he under no circumstances ever remembers (prompted by his mind subtly beginning to recall the events), which fails miserably, of course, though the protagonist remains clueless that it's anything other than a series of nightmares until right at the end, where it turns out the scene of the first dream really happened.

Convoluted.

But it was fun to write.

Edit - My Uncivilized God, I like your style! Encore! (Also, curse the irony of your name!)

[Sir_Elderberry]

I had 100 pages of a novel down once. Then I realized that the plot sucked and I didn't like it.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Borrowed from a now-defunct thread.

New World Samurai This is my major story, currently broken up into three books. The main character starts off life as a genetically engineered person, designed with superlative mental and memorizational capacities. He is created as an experiment by a group of students at a prestigious medical college (not our dimension). The goal of creating a person with perfect memorization is to then turn him loose and allow him to travel, tourist-fashion, through all the cultures in all the countries in all the dimensions (there being hundreds of parallel dimensions that can be travelled to, much in the same way a person would travel to a different country). He'll learn everything they have, read their books, watch their movies, compare their histories, etc. Anyways, skipping ahead, in his third year of this, he is on a world which is being invaded by another dimension (that sounds so cliched everytime I type it), an exceedingly advanced world that has exhausted it's natural resources and now just takes them from the other, less-developed worlds. He escaped the initial assault, which leaves virtually everyone dead, but then ends up captured (sort of a War of the Worlds thing). He uses his enhanced physique for the first time while engineering an escape, since the captures people are basically being used as slaves to round up raw materials (copper, steel, oil, etc). They escape to a friendly dimension and pass on the word. The series from that point out stretches accross about 300 years, involving Marcus's ongoing warfare with the hostile dimension, which is ruled by a handful of 'genetically superior' humans, and populated by billions upon billions of genetically dumbed-down workers. It also involves his quest for revenge for the loss of his first love (and other loves), his constant attempts to somehow reproduce (nearly all ending in failure), dealing with the attempts on his life, which eventually escalate into clones of him being made by the enemy, and eventually by himself. Constantly improving his own genetic code, preventing his own aging, making himself stronger, he watches all those he knew around him grow old and die. Only the 'genetically superior' hostile humans live as long as he, and in a way, become his new family, even as they begin to schism and fight amongst eachother for dominance. There are three methods of transdimensional travel: the common method, used by the normal and hostile humans; a method developed by Marcus which requires vastly less amounts of energy and makes him a target by nearly everyone and a method involving using wormholes through space and time itself used by a group of humans, who were possibly the original humans accross all the dimensions, who remain hidden, relegating everyone else to fight and die. Holy crap, that seems convoluted when I write everything down!

Tempus Letum Originally a standalone book, it's now two serial books, and I know I'll think of more later. It's a contemporary story (except when it goes into the future or the past), centered around a person who slowly masters control of time (and yes, I thought of this before Hiro and "Heroes", god dammit). He starts off his life in a mental hospital, since everytime the past is changed, everything around him changes and no-one notices, but HE remains the same. His friends suddenly don't know him, his apartment suddenly has different people living in it, etc... no doubt he thinks he's crazy. He ends up alternately working with and against a government agency that deals with time travel, but due to changes in the timeline, the agency is no longer affiliated with the current government, but for various reasons remain in operation (sort of cut adrift in time, but still working off of their mission statement). There is also a time travelling assassin, a cult of murderous freaks who worship the time-travelling assassin, and occaisional visits from the afterlife.

Project Peapod My space-oriented story, the seeds for this were sewn way back in 1993 when we got ourselves our first GURPS book. Aww yeah. Anyways, it involves the test of the very first faster than light ship, and it's journey to Proxima Centauri, being the closest star, and a good a destination as any. Due to a slight flaw in the math, the ships travels considerably SLOWER than light, and arrives to find Proxima Centauri already quite inhabited.... by humans... because the trip took almost five hundred years. Humanity now exists in the trillions, and is no longer bound by country of birth, but by solar system of birth, or colossal starbase / citymoon of birth. Being a government-uncontrolled ship capable of faster-than-light travel (when the math is fixed), the crew of technicians and scientists find themselves running from about everyone, since they are in posession of knowledge that was purged from mankind generations ago, particularly some crazy ideas about freedoms. The ship, it is slowly discovered, is also technically the most powerful single ship in a universe where combat is decided quite simply by which ship can output the most energy at it's target, IE, heat it up and melt it. Generators, reactors, all determine a ships effectiveness in combat, and the experimental engine powering the experimental drive is capable of staggeringly huge amounts of energy output, knowledge which was lost when the project was scrapped since, as was seen in the past, the ship turned on and vanished with everyone aboard. Ironically, this was some of the knowledge that was purged by the current mlitary rulers. The ship is called PPod (and, as dumb as it sounds, we thought of this so very long ago I actually have to ask my buddy Tyler what it stands for now). This is a three book series, with book two ending with the ship destroyed, one main character killed, one crippled and one kidnapped (and one perfectly fine). I'm still not sure if I'm using aliens in the third book.

Origins (still need a good name) My superhero world / series. It all starts with the first hero, who appears in the early 70's, and is also the most powerful metahuman EVER (estimated to be mpre powerful than every other metahuman since him, put together). He vanishes mysteriously in the 80's, which is fine since there are dozens appearing to take up the slack (yes, thought of this before Heroes, too, and I will try to keep it distinct). The first book focuses on a bunch of disparate and "less powerful" ones coming together and trying to stop a metahuman who, by means of a sort of psychic virus, eventually comes to control a significant chunk of the planet. Metahumans are immune to this. The bad guy is defeated, but a huge amount of the people he was psychically connected to and drawing energy from were killed, so... just imagine 1 billion people, evenly distributed throughout the world, dying one day. Thats book one. Oh yeah. Book 2 focuses around an alien race coming to Earth, seeking one of their own who has been hiding there (and is actually behind the entire history of human evolution, including metahumans).

[Memo]

Mighty Jalapeno: How much until one of those books is finished? I'm really intrigued by your ideas.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Probably a long time. I don't get much time to write, and when I do, I think "I could write 0.1% of my novel... or I could play some Stars! I haven't been bi-immune Alternate-Reality in a while..." The stories exist 99% completed in my head, though. Every scene, every conversation, every bulletwound. I have some excerpts from New World Samurai and Peapod around here, somewhere.

[Masuri]

Writing is hard work and takes discipline. I'm not sure I want to work that hard.

I have a series in my head that wants to come out. I keep returning to scenes and plot points and storylines but I simply don't have the confidence to put it down on the page. Part of it is that I am daunted by the amount of research I'd have to do to make the main character ring true. I know almost no real details about two of the things that define this person. Another part is that I 'see' the scenes in my head, as actual pictures. I'm probably not skilled enough to describe the scenes as I see them, and I really don't want it to suck.

I think if I had less of an idea how tough it is to actually produce a decent novel, I'd be more inclined to start on it. Maybe getting back into the swing of short stories would be good practice...

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Soul Lenders, first iteration, chapters 1 and 2:

Spoiler:

Like the snowdrifts capping the distant, barely visible mountains, reams of white paper seemed perched forever in neat piles on Vernon’s desk. From out of his window, his view of the world was severely limited by the automatic laundry accross the street. Should he try, though, he was able to just make out tucked between the laundry and the Second National West Bank, a single mountain. He did not know it’s name. To him, it was simply ‘the Mountain’, and he had been spending more and more time there lately. Not physically, of course.

He laconically shook his head, sitting more upright in his hard wooden chair. The enormous oak desk seemed to spread out from his widening midsection like the foothills around The Mountain. Day by day, he was taking on more geological features. He prodded his torso, marvelling at the strata of shadows that the creasing fabric made accross his belly. He didn;t used to be able to push his finger in that far, a quiet introspective part of his brain mused. There had been a time when his whole body had been as trim and firm as his desk.

He rested his elbows on the papers in front of him, and rested his face in his palms. The stubbly face had seen better days. The Mountain was getting stubbly with trees and shrubs as well in the waning days of the summer, trees and shrubs that would soon be shaved clean away by the dagger edge of winter.

Intellectually, he knew that he had a lot of work to do. The papers on his desk weren’t going to organize themselves, after all. Well, they might, but it was unlikely he would be there to witness it. No, these papers had a great deal of information which needed to be absorbed, digested, ruminated over, and then turned into solutions. HE was good with solutions. Digestion seemed to be a little more problematic. Idly he wondered if The Mountain had been a volcano in it’s past.

“Vernon, could you come upstairs for a minute, please?”

And there was were intellectual knowledge broke down. Realistically, he knew that he would most likely not have to worry about these papers again. As he stood up, his mind started to wonder about the future. Specifically, the shopping he had to do on the way home. The kids wanted new channels, which was typical, but he had been putting off getting them new ones for too long. It was now a priority. He wanted to get them something educational, though, but that was sure to earn their wrath. Perhaps something educational and destructive.

“Great Wars of History?” he asked himself quietly, shuffling some papers into a neater pile. He also had to pick up a pregnancy diviner, which would be no easy feat. He’d have to hit a pharmacist outside of his neighborhood to make sure the gossip didn’t make it’s way back to them. Gossip was the only thing in the world which travelled faster than lightning, and that was only because the lightning was sending it’s mail on ahead.

Vernon steped around his desk and into the little aisle that led in one direction to the coffee room, and int he other direction to the Executive offices. All around him, similar massive oak desks covered with similar piles of paper were being manned, or in some cases elfed and dwarfed, by his fellow engineers. A good many of them were trying a little too hard to ignore him, while others had the hard sympathetic look of a person who felt sorry for you, but was secretly happy it hadn’t been them.

“Frelling gnomes,” he heard someone say as he passed, heading away from the coffee room, and he was sad to admit that a tiny voice in the back of his head echoed the sentiment, but was quickly quashed. Indeed the gnomes were first and foremost on his mind right now, but he didnt blame them. He wanted too, but he couldn’t. He could hear Savvy’s voice as if she were standing by his shoulder.

“You’re too nice. You’ve gotta be a son of a bitch if you want to be a good man, these days.”

Thanks, sweety, he thought, reaching the end of the aisle. His pants, wearing a little thin already, swished as he walked, the only sound in the normally fairly humming office. He looked out accross the dozens of people he worked with every day, envious.

The gnomes had taken posession of a substantially completed building on the other side of town just days after Vernon had closed case on the building to be built directly adjacent to it. It was an affluent neighborhood, filled with ever taller buildings, and the Heirloom Tower was going to be one of the nicest new office buidings in the area. He had spent months designing the structural and thaumaturgical systems, seamlessly meshing skilled handicrafts with magical enchantments to create a habitable work of art. It would have been his signature piece and would almost certainly have earned him his promotion from the floors to the Executives.

The gnomes, however, had different plans. They had intended to set up an alchemical college in the mostly complete building. Although externally seven standard stories, there were ten inside, making for a spacious gnomish habitation. Their construction company, a rival of Vernon’s beloved Effigy Enterprises, had neglected to mention that their rezoning applications were being held up until a gnomish councillor was back from vacation. There would need to be a gnomish opinion for the application to pass.

And when the lot was rezoned for alchemical education, MZ-3, the Heirloom Tower had to be likewise rezoned to account for the magical balance in the area. His thaumaturgical calculations had gone right out the window simply because he had not recieved due notice from the rezoning committee. The building would still be built, but somewhere else, when they had found new investors. The burned patrons had pulled a lot of money out of Effigy, something the Executives could not overlook.

Vernon sighed as he re-entered the aisle to his desk, small piece of paper in his hand. It was a short note to the effect that the bearer was a good worker with years of experience, and a valued employee.

“Valued ex-employee,” he had wanted to say to his superiors after reading the note. That was actually the most civil thing he could think to say. The least civil involved several words he was unsure how to even spell. They had told him that it was simple politics. The board of trustees needed to blame someone for the tragic loss of funds, but Vernon was unsure who to blame for the tragic loss of his building. Peripherally he realized that he was invisible. Not a single pair of eyes registered him as he walked.

At the other end of the aisle, just emerging from the coffee room was their sales leader Sherridan Stanislaus, a huge smiling handshake of a man who seemed to radiate good moods. Just around the mans bulk Vernon could see a slightly shorter, exponentially thinner man with sensible straight hair, a sensible suit and thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Almost as an afterthought he saw the delicately constructed ears of an elf.

Sherridan’s demeanor shimmered for just a second, like air rippling above a hot tarred street. Vernon could see that his desk had already been tidied of many of the paper heaps, and his briefcase had been mysteriously vanished. Even his coat was gone, although he was fairly sure it would be waiting for him up ahead.

Vernon could not help the polite smile that creased his lips as he walked past the great round man and the lithe replacement. He had to admire the efficiency with which he had been exchanged for another engineer. There’s no way an elf could make so simple mistake, he thought wryly. They’re all so quick, so sure, so smart. Truly thats what they had seemed a hundred years ago, but familiarity bred more intimate knowledge. Elves could be loudmouthed jerks just as well as humans, although they were possibly cleaner and more efficient at it.

Sherridan smiled back, and for all Vernon knew the man was sincere. He heard them resume talking as he passed the coffee room, wound through the short hallways and into the well appointed reception area. Sure enough, there was his coat, hanging on the hook.

“I’d also like my briefcase,” he said to the receptionist. He had said hello to her, calling her by her first name, every day for seventeen years, but now he couldn’t bring himself to say it. She cast her eyes down, as if she were embarassed.

“They didn’t bring it,” she replied with a helpless little shrug, and suddenly Vernon last all interest. It didn’t really matter. He had eaten his lunch, so the case only contained a wadded paper bag. Maybe the elf would get the embossed bronze plate smoothed and have his own initials stamped into it.

---

On his way home, Vernon purchased a new briefcase, complete with embossed bronze plate at a dwarven tannery. For people who eschewed livestock, they were surprisingly good with leather. They even had a servece whereas your purchased items could be ‘broken in’ for you, giving them that lived-in, familiar feel. Vernon was very fortunate that this service was available, since it allowed him to avoid telling anyone the truth until he found something better to tell them.

On the long walk home from the pharmacist in Dukes Court, a neighborhood well removed from his own, he had ample opportunity to think, and he cursed his luck. Thinking never brought anyone happiness, he thought, except for unrealistic philosophers and people trapped in drug-induced states, and even then they probably had their bad moments. Even thinking about how thinking was unpleasant was an unpleasant thoughtm and he sighed heavily.

Although his course took him steadily east and south, through long streets of small family houses and conveniently located stretches of shops, his eyes rarely left the sunset, and the buildings that occluded it. The distant star was low enough on the horizon that it was moderately safe to look at, the sky a saturated gradient of orange and purple. Standing in stark black relief was the City, dozens and dozens of unbelievably tall, statuesque buildings of stone, iron, and magic. IT had always been his dream to somehow earn a position within the City, but Effigy was not a big enough player to be allowed into the exclusive club. Powerful wizards, ancient dragons, and corporate headquarters occupied most of the ridiculously expensive real estate, and fewer and fewer of the inhabitants were human.

He sighed again. The City, land of opportunities, bastion of Civilization. He always capitalized such words in his mind. Without Civilization, after all, we would be nothing but Savages. The words of his father, and one of the few things he remembered from his childhood. He sometimes wondered if his had been particularly bad for him to recollect so little, but he finally decided it had just been boring, and he had subconciously edited out the dull bits.

The sun dropped below the Wall which separated the City from the majority of the population, and the black silhouettes were replaced by their actual colors, white marble with streaks of violet, or green volcanic stone, or scintillating purple signs composed entirely of magical thoughts. It always seemed so bright, so busy, so purposeful. He remembered purposeful.

His briefcase, well worn despite being brand new, slipped from his numbed fingers, and it was several seconds before he stopped, turned, and retrieved it.

---

“I’m home,” he called mechanically, stepping through the front door sharply at quarter to six, as he had every night for the previous twelve years.

And, as the past few months had been, there was no reply. He knew in his mind that Elwyn was in the back yard, playing at some sort of horrific war game like every five year old was prone to do. Lorelle was on the other side of the house in the family room watching the channeller, and a stab of guilt pierced his gloom to somehow make him feel worse. Savona was probably in the kitchen, staring into the ice box and trying to conjure dinner, metaphorically speaking. Lliard was, as usual, out.

He dropped his briefcase by the door, exactly the way he is scolded for every night, removed his worn and comfortable shoes, and walked into the kitchen. Savona did not look over when he entered, which was no surprise. Married life brought few surprises after a certain point. She was certain he was not surprising her with flowers, and he was certain she would not be waiting for him in that red and black number he remembered sometimes when he was feeling lonely. Even so, he walked up to her from behind, slipped his arms around her slim waist, and squeezed.

Reflexively, she leaned back into his arms, tension seeming to flow from her muscles, and she exhaled with a faint feline sound of pleasure. He squeezed harder, and for a brief moment, the past fifteen years had not happened and they were newlyweds in love, with eachother and the world.

With almost superhuman speed, her body tensed again and she stepped out of his grasp. “Hi, honey,” she said, re-opening the ice box and looking inside as if daring the dinner not to make itself. Were she better at magic, he thought, dinner just might do that. “Did you get the thing?”

She was trying to sound casual, as she always did when she was preoccupied. He nodded, and she nodded right back. He removed the small cardboard box from his pocket and handed it to her. He seemed to be floating, detached from reality, watching her take the pregnancy tester in slow motion. He could see individual strands of long dark hair swirl as her head moved, her supple hands grasping the container, her still admirable bosom heaving slightly as her anxiety peaked. Despite being, like Vernon, well into her thirties, she was still by a long shot the most attractive wife any of the non-executives had at Effigy. Many was the time a new employee would approach him after a business party and ask if she had merely been borrowed for the night. Although his eyes darkened in brief annoyance, he knew it always made Savvy smile.

“Well, let’s do it,” she said, sharp, businesslike. He sighed. He was home, all right. She tore open the package and threw the pieces into the fire box. With a puff and a faint shimmer of orange, they vanished, their heat stored for future use. She was left holding a little metallic cord with a clear crystal hanging at the end. It swayed back and forth like a tiny clock pendulum. With practiced moves, she swung the stone away such that it bounced into her flat belly on the return arc.

Vernon’s breath caught as the prism started to glow. In the past, it had been three tries, and three home runs. This was try number four, and right on schedule for them, almost exactly five years after Elwyn’s conception. The glow remained white as the crystal swung back and forth, pulled invisibly towards her midsection, it’s magic working within Savvy’s confusingly complicated inner workings. When the glow faded, both of them were motionless, trying to divine what the other was feeling before any words were spoken. Vernon tried first.

“So I wasted seven dollars on that.”

Savvy smiled, a genuine smile, something he saw too infrequently lately, and turned to face him. He was quite surprised when her arms snaked around his back and he was being held closely to her. He returned the gesture, pulling her closer as her deep breathing slowed. “Well, I guess I don’t have to let out any of my clothes.”

Neither would admit that they were relieved, but you’d have to be quite new to the ways of polite society to have missed it.

Footsteps in the hallway informed them that their private time was running out. Savvy leaned up on her tiptoes, hopping girlishly, and kissed him. Casually tossing the tester into the fire box, she turned back to the frozen food which was still quite uncooked.

“What was that?” Lorelle’s questioning voice asked. She was ten years old, and looked like a tiny version of her mother. Of Vernon, the only resemblence was her facility with the hard sciences like math and magic. “What did you throw in the fire box?”

“Nothing,” Vernon hazarded.

“If it was nothing, why does the fire box register a four percent increase in storage?” She was reading quite accurately from the display prism on the side of the box which was nestled between the ice box and the oven. “You must have either thrown something big or something powerful in there.”

Savona rolled her eyes. “She gets this from you, you know.”

He had to laugh. “Well, I bought you that new magical channel you wanted, but it was too expensive so I threw it away.”

Her eyes grew bigger at he thought of a new channel for the channeller, but her entire posture seemed to collapse at the mention of throwing it away. “What? But... then why.... Daddy...”

The admonishing tone was far too accurate, and Savona started to giggle. Vernon smiled. “Really, it was nothing.”

“So what channel DID you get me?”

“Well,” he hesitated. “I forgot to grab you a new channel on the way home. It was a long day at work, and I had to stop and, ah, talk with Rhett for a few minutes. You know I haven’t seen him in a while, what with his new girlfriend.”

“The fat elf?”

“Now, Lorelle, you know better than to make statements like that.”

She nodded recalcitrantly, but he knew she’d say it again tomorrow. “So you didn’t get us new channels like you promised then?”

Vernon wanted nothing more than to go and sit someplace quiet, but it didn’t seem to be working like that. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his wife’s face turn suddenly severe. She dropped a pan onto the stove with more force than was stricty necessary and likewise dropped a froen roast onto it.

“No, I didn’t, like I promised, and I’m sorry. Really, you’ll all be getting new ones soon.”

“New channels?!” Elwyn cried, charging in the back door with the vigor and bounciness that can only be achieved with great youth. He was prone to start every sentence excitedly, as if each word were more thrilling than the last, and ended each sentence like a cliffhanger channel program begging for a sequel. “You got us new channels?! That great, isn’t it, twitty?!”

“Don’t call your sister that,” Savona snapped tiredly from the stove as she angrily spiced the roast. Elwyn nodded absently, obviously well inured to the warnings. “And please don’t wave that thing around in the house.”

Vernon would have liked to take the tiny sword away from his youngest son, but that was about as dangerous as taking a tiger’s favorite tooth. Risky and not worth the effort, as the tiger probably had many many more teeth, and the means to use them. Elwyn’s blade was sligtly larger than the kitchen butcher knife, and hummed as it sliced through the air. Lorelle, ever the precociously little sorcery student, had layered so many minor cantrips and enchantments on the blade that it fairly buzzed with pent up energies. One tree int he back yard was nearly cut straight through, and the others bore countless battle scars.

Elwyn obediently lowered the blade, but in no other way did his demeanor change. “Did you get new channels tonight?! Please tell me you got ‘Savage Conquerors’!? I saw a few minutes of it over at Kerwin’s house,” he finished quickly, “but not a lot, since I know you wouldn’t want me watching that without you knowing.

“No, sorry, not tonight, even though he promised.” Lorelle sulked her way out of the kitchen as only a huffy ten year old girl can. Vernon was heard to say once that his daughter could pout her way through a brick wall if there was something on the other side she wanted, although he denided it when it somehow made it’s way back to said daughter. Elwyn sighed melodramatically, and then rushed back out of the house, chipping the doorjamb with his miniature sword.

“Oh, El, no... dammit.” Savona very nearly threw the roast pan into the stove, slamming the door hard enough to knock the salt and pepper shakers from their little stand on the counter. They landed with a clatter, causing his wife to rattle a little as well, but she ignored them and sat down at the kitchen table. She focused very intently on the newspaper, and Vernon sighed. Still standing in the kitchen, not having moved from the second Lorelle had entered, he looked around.

And it’s all mine, he thought, and went to sit in his office. He had a little channeller in there with the few channels he cared to watch. He thought about his eldest son, fifteen years old, so like him in so many ways and yet nothing like how Vernon had become. Lliard would be home whenever he felt like it, probably after the roast had already been put into the top shelf of the ice box to keep it cool until the next day.

---

Long after dinner, long after Lliard had rushed in, made a sandwich and left again, but not long after the younger children had been sent with sleepy protests to bed, Vernon lay on his back in the darkness of the bedroom, staring at the patterns of light on the cieling. Intellecually he knew that the draped were worn thin in places and were letting in oblong patches of street light that in no way meant anything, but he fancied he saw shapes in them. Some were people, some were faces, and some were definitly his Mountain. Some seemed like ancient sigils of power, destined to give their writers greatness. He admired how his imagination could take the bad times and shove them briefly out of the way, knowing full well that they would come crashing back with thunderclap force.

For a second he mistook reality for imagination as a warm, soft, and wonderfully resilient shape pressed against his side. Old tingly feelings stirred inside of him and he lifted his arm to let her snuggle closer. One leg moved to cover both of his, and one arm slid accross his chest. He was perpetually amazed at how such a brittle woman could become so velvety at night. Her head rested above his heart and he knew she was looking up at him.

“Sorry about dinner,” she said, her nose bumping into his stubbly chin. “I’ve had the kids all day. Wel, El at least, Lorelle was at school, and they were just.... you know.”

“It’s ok,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I know how they get.” Privately he didn’t think they were so hard to handle, but he had to admit to himself he very rarely took them for longer than a few hours, and she was here all day with them.

“El dinged the stove today. That sword of his has so many stupid little spells on it they probably add up to one major mojo.”

“We have got to get Lorelle into a better school,” he said, immediately regretting it.

“Well, have you asked about a raise yet? The Heirloom is going to make them a magic mint and you haven’t seen an extra copper, have you?” Her voice became irate as she warmed to the subject.

“No, I haven’t yet. I want to wait until it’s, you know, further along.”

“Further along. It’s already a year further then it was a year ago when I told you to ask for a raise. Any further and they’ll be giving your raise posthumously.”

“Now, you know they won’t do that. Too much paperwork for posthumous honors.”

She thumped him with her free leg, but the fight had gone out of her. “Yeah, yeah. Cheap bastards.”

He was surprised again when she once more turned affectionate. Her leg slid higher up on his, and tiny satin kisses traced up and down his neck. He silently cursed his life; she was rarely in so good of a mood and he was rarely in such a foul one. His arm reached over, stroking her back, pulling her closer, but his movements were mechanical. She stopped again, looking up in the darkness.

“Is this because of the pregnancy test?” She asked, one finger drawing lightly on his abdomen. In the dark, on his back, he seemed in rather better shape than under full lights. “I know this is what scared us tonight, but, you know, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. They have spells to help parents now, way better than the ones we had when Lliard was born.”

Better, expensive spells. He sighed. The money, which he didn’t have. In the old days, no amount of worry or stress had kept him from her warm embrace, but time has a way of making one’s perspective change. He could see her in the faint white light, her skin seeming to glow. There was absolutely no reason such a beautiful creature should have settled for him, but she did. He wondered what sort of life she had given up to stay by his side and raise a family.

She sensed his apprehension, exhaling in a frustrated gust. “Fine. Whatever.” She rolled over onto her side of the bed. “Goodnight. Sleep well.”

Her voice was dead, devoid. He knew it well. “Goodnight,” he said quietly, rolling onto his side, praying for sleep.

---

Vernon’s light breathing swelled to a heavy, lumbering wheeze as he slipped into unconciousness. It was a familiar sound, as nearly every night did he fall asleep first. To her, it was like the crashing of the waves against the shore of a distant continent, or the sough of the wind in the trees of some great forest. It was the sound of everything that she had never experienced.

She stood quietly, not a whisper of air or a swish of fabric belying her movements. Savona did not need nearly as much sleep as normal people, a biological function she lamented. She heard of so many wondrous things happening in dreams, but the closest she could come were self-guided trances. Cat-like footsteps brought her to the window, and had Vernon ever taken the time to notice he would have seen two faint impressions directly beneath the sill. The laminated wood had been worn down there, roughly in the shape of two small, delicate feet.

She stared through the drapes, not seeing the street, but seeing the rest of the world. Other lands, other cities, other people. There was so much she had to see and to do, and it would have to be done soon. Already she could sense the suspicious, surreptitious glances of the neighbors, the whispered comments of Vernon’s co-workers. Her temporal clock was slowing, and would soon begin to tick in years instead of days, decades instead of hours. She wasn’t sure if it truly stopped, but if the stories could be believed, the metaphorical hands moved so slowly as to be inconsequential.

She wanted to remember her family as they were in her fondest memories, and not as they would be in ten, fifty, or a hundred years. She did not want them to see her unaging face every day, and then see their own in the mirror. It was a pain she had read about, in endless books from the Northlands. She already knew the pain of dis-satisfaction... she did not believe she could handle that kind of loss.

Savona nodded to herself, reaching a decision. It would have to be done, for the sake of her family. It was what was best. Best for the family. She nodded slowly again, a tear building at the corner of her eye, but evaporating before it had a chance to escape.

---

Chapter 2


The sun was beating down particularly hard when Vernon was gently led out of yet another engineering firm. He should have known it was a lost effort, seeing that easily two thirds of their workforce were dwarves, but it was his best shot, his last shot to find his previous job with a new employer. Nobody wanted humans without a University degree or at least a Class II magical ranking. Vernon had never made it past Class I, despite considerably practical knowledge. Even the simplest cantrips seemed to be beyond him. His East Kingsland Royal College degree, although respected, simply was not current enough. He was tired of hearing it.

Several blocks away, he slumped on a bench near the Wall and withdrew his lunch from his briefcase. At home, Savona was no doubt wondering how his day at the office was going. A brief flash of anger made his sandwich taste stale, but both sensations faded into numbness. Distantly he wondered why he could never stay angry, at anyone, for any reason. He was too nice. He savagely tore a bite out of his lunch, but it was a token effort.

He leaned back, half of a ham and rye in one hand, and let his eyes wander over the sights of the city. Blocking some of the more impressive buildings were the new-fangled floating Adboards, magical constructs as big as as his entire property, hovering directly above the Wall. The largest corporations could pay to have short animated advertisments shown repeatedly throughout the day. At the moment, he was being told that he needed to drink Cosgrove Vintners, because it was Cool and Refreshing. A moment later he was informed that his socks could be magically made whiter by using Aero-Solve.

“Amazing how I didn’t know these things until now,” he mumbled around the last of his meal. A somewhat more tasteful image of an elderly, friendly wizard filled the board and began talking into a speech bubble about life, the Universe, and the difficulties of handling both. When Vernon realized it was some sort of promotion for the Soul Lenders, he quickly stood up, leaving the paper bag on the bench, and walked away. He didn’t need any help being disgusted with the world.

---

Elwyn ducked the flashing blade easily, stepping forwards and bringing his own weapon up hard. Uriel, a slightly older boy from a few streets over, just managed to get his wooden shield up in time to block the blow, but his shoulder was still jarred herder than he had expected. He rocked back slightly on one foot, but it was all the advantage the aggressive younger child needed.

“Have at thee!” Elwyn cried, lashing out with a grass-stained sock and striking Uriels chest soundly. The breath left his body and he stumbled backwards, losing his sword and shield in the fall. “Surrender, infidel!?”

“Pause,” the red-haired boy gasped. “Hold. Gimme a... jeez, gimme a second.” The boys were of similar height, and although Uriel had more developed muscles, he could not match Elwyn’s ferocity.

“Never!” The darker haired child cried, gently tapping Uriel on the head. Although the swords were so blunt as to be very nearly harmless, Lorelle had done a little bit of enchanting when her mother had been busy laundering. A short electrical jolt knocked Uriel back to the grass with a moan and a snort of laughter.

“El, stop, really, honest.” He shook his head, trying to quell the nausea each magical strike delivered. “I was down. Thats dishonorable.”

Elwyn was instantly sorry. “Oh, wow, you’re right. Sorry, are you ok, do you need help up, Lorelle, help me with Uriel?!” His sister looked over from the front porch, saw the situation on the lawn, and rolled her eyes. A book of basic astral projection completely filled her lap, and she needed one hand to just to balance it while the other turned a page. Although the library was not strictly supposed to loan books of such a nature to young children, Lorelle had insisted it was for her mothers continuing adult education.

“You’re no help, twitty!” the armed boy proclaimed loudly as his opponent regained his feet. From the depths of the house, both were aware of a female voice calling, quite loudly, ‘Don’t call your sister that!’ They laughed together, and simultaneously turned grim, positioning themselves for combat.

Lorelle sighed dramatically, picked up the book with no small effort, and went inside to learn in peace.
Elwyn blocked a hard strike to the thigh with his shield, his counterblow dodged by the more athletic boy. They were both breathing hard, trying to outpace the other. The dull swords clanged and sizzled as the young warriors fought for supremacy of the neighborhood.

“Yeild... dude...” he panted, feinting low and bringing his shield up high, nearly braining Uriel.

“Ne.... never...” came the wheezed reply. “Hey.... it’s your... dad...”

Elwyn laughed. “Not falling... for that... knave...” Against his better judgement, though, in case his father actually had come home with new channels, he shifted his stance and peeked down the street. Sure enough, there he was, home early with a smile on his face.

“Daddy!?” he cried. Almost absently, he backhanded Uriel accross the head, another electric blast once again flattening the poor boy. The fight forgotten, he charged his father, still wielding his combat gear.

“Hey, watch it, young knight,” Vernon laughed. “No fighting with the King.”

Elwyn grinned sheepishly, dropped his arsenal, and hugged his father’s legs. “SO what channels did you get?”

Vernon looked briefly pained, but it was replaced with a smile. “I haven’t gotten any yet, but soon, when I have some more money.”

His son pouted, but he knew it was just for show. “That was a mean trick, looking all happy and not bringing me a present.” In a fit of pique, he grabbed his sword and charged Uriel, who was getting woozily back to his feet. To cries of panic and threats of violence, Vernon walked into the house, still smiling.

“I guess you didn’t get me a channel yet, either,” came the petulant greeting from the living room. He peeked his head in to see his daughter with a far too advanced-looking tome on her lap, open to some middle page. He cheered for her in the back of his head. “I was going to start on my levitation lessons this week, because it teaches valuable fundamentals about gravity and astral interactions.”

“No, no new channels, but I got you a Bahaman Bonnie doll. All the girls are playing with them. It even comes with an apron!” The look of horror on her face made him burst out laughing.

“Dolls, daddy? I’m not a little girl,” she said in he rbest adult voice in complete defiance of actual fact. Her feet stuck straight out from the couch, and the book covered her knees and the spread folds of her pink sundress.

“I know, I’m sorry, that was cruel. You’ll have that channel before you can summon your first helper ghost.” Her eyes brightened, and he knew he had maybe a week, tops, before she figured out how to do that. With a forced sigh of exasperation, he headed to the kitchen. “Stick with your magic, dear. It’s the job of the future, even if you are only human.”

She looked puzzled as he vanished from sight, but she shrugged her tiny shoulders and went back to her book. Adults could be so random, she thought. Not like magic. Magic did what it was told.

In the kitchen, the smells of dinner wafted through the air like tantalizing wisps of incense. He could not remember a home-cooked meal smelling so good, and surely not so soon after he got home. Either Savona was trying to be extra nice, or she was trying not to be extra mad. Either way, he was suspicious. He walked in slowly, not sure what to expect.

Savvy was setting the table, dressed up a little more stylishly than he was used to recently. Gone were the sensible sundresses with the strangely puffy sleeves which had mysteriously come back into fashion. Instead, she wore something which could only be described as panther-like: it was sleek, black, and made her look both sexy and dangerous. He found he rather liked it.

“So when do we send the kids away?” he asked with a lopsided grin, thrilled to see her grin back with genuine amusement. Wow, he thought, I find a job the exact same day Savona gets into a good mood groove.

“I just thought you needed some cheering up,” she said brightly. “You’ve had a rough few weeks.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” He wanted to tell her, but tonight probably wasn’t right. Maybe on the weekend, he’d take all of them out for a day at the park, that nice park with the hover-rides. He’d explain everything then. Tonight, he would just try to enjoy himself.

“Well, we just wanted you to know that we love you, and we’re here... we’re right behind you.” Savona checked the oven quickly, trying to cover her slip. She didn’t feel rght, saying that they were all here for him. It didn’t feel honest. Oh well, she thought, I’ve lost my nerve. I’ll tell them on the weekend.

The dinner was delicious, roast wildeboar just the way Vernon remembered it. At some point in his youth he must have loved it, since old feelings came rushing back he rather enjoyed. Elwyn and Lorelle even put aside their good-natured ribbing to enjoy seconds. Lliard, naturally, failed to show up, which marred the evening for Vernon. He would have liked to see his entire family all at once on a night such as this, but he supposed he had to accept the inevitabilities of life. Lliard was a popular teenaged boy, and as such had to distance himself from his family at all costs, or risk damage to his social stature.

It hadn’t always been like that, Vernon and Savona thought at remarkably close intervals. Lliard used to loathe going anywhere without his parents. They sighed, smiled at eachother, and continued with polite dinner conversation, which was centered mostly on Lorelle’s magic studies and Elwyn’s attempts to thwart them. Having just discovered the word thwart, he was determined to use it as often as possible.

---

Vernon lay on his back in the darkness, smiling. He had a job again. Sure, it was at a fairly reduced salary, but it had excellent opportunities for advancement. The chiefly human firm was doing remarkable things with magically tempered metals that could only make them a valued business commodity in the new status-oriented world. He had shown them how quickly he could derivate thaumaturgical functions over four dimensions using the materials as a constant, and they had been impressed. It had been a long time since he had seen a look of appreciation quite like that.

Nuzzling into his arm, Savona’s mind whirled. The week had been far too hectic for her, between managing the children when they weren’t at school and trying to hide her inquiries when they were home. She had made an appointment with a nanny service the following day, to discuss the possibility of hiring a child-minder. Most of them were Pink mages, Class two, recent graduates of the medical guild’s colleges, but Savona had a specific type in mind. She would have to be good with magic, in order to keep Lorelle interested. She would have to know lots of stories about battles, to keep Elwyn in order. And she would have to be pretty, in order to keep Lliard at home more often.

She didn’t doubt that Vernon could have taken care of these affairs on his own, but she didn’t want him worrying about the future. He worked so hard to provide for this family, even if he was too nice to take what he truly deserved. He was smart, one of the smartest men she had met, but he didn’t have a spiteful or mean bone in his body. She didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse. Such a nice man didn’t deserve someone like her...

She stamped on her thoughts. She was loathe to break his heart in this way, but he was so understanding she could only hope he would take it well. Other families had recovered from parents separating, so why not hers? They were well adjusted, and adaptable. They would survive.
Sighing unhappily, she pulled Vernon closer. This was not a time for sadness, she told herself. This was a time to make the happiest memories they could in the time they had left. Vernon was more than happy to oblige her, not noticing the tear that moved from her cheek to his when they kissed.

---

Lliard walked into the house shortly after eleven PM, using his key to enter through the back door. She slid out of his soft running shoes with practiced silence, and sidled up to the ice box to try and find something to eat. He was tall, an inch taller than his father who was by no means a small man, but by no accounts an athletic one. They shared the same short, dark hair, and wide dark eyes, something which endeared him greatly with the elf-maidens at his school.

Quickly assembling a sandwich of wildeboar and extra spiced mustard, he looked around the dark kitchen for the smaller channeller.

“Channel on,” he said quietly, and sure enough, the small metallic box began to glow. The large glass disc on the front of the channeller came into focus, and the sound quickly followed.

“Sound down!” he hissed, and the two news reporters on the disc spoke in more hushed tones.

“Follow,” he whispered, and walked up to his room, the small box following behind him, bobbing at a respectful distance. It was on orders to float back down to the kitchen should he fall asleep, and fortunately no-one else in the family older than he knew how to change the orders.

He fell ungraciously onto his unmade bed, the channeller hovering above his dresser. Shoving the last of the sandwich into his mouth, he wished he had made more than one. They never had wildeboar anymore, not since El’s first birthday. Maybe his father had found a new job?

Lliard had discovered Vernon’s employment difficulties when one of the students at his school, a snotty little honor student by the name of Calder Cosgrove who would be fighting acne his entire life, started gloating to the athletic boy about how his father had been fired. Alder Cosgrove, Junior VP of Effigy, had been the one to give Vernon the bad news, and had confided in the awful decision to his family, unaware of how the information would be used.

Lliard had been in much the same boat as his father when, after knocking Cosgrove unconcious with a math text, he had been suspended for two weeks. It was only that morning he had been allowed back into the school, and apparently his dad’s luck had improved as well. Not wanting to explain about being suspended until after it had expired, he had refrained from telling his siblings about their father’s predicament, and the gambit had paid off. He smiled to himself. His dad might be a bit of a codger, and a bit of a bore, but he was hard worker, and Lliard had to respect that.

With a titanic yawn, he watched the late night news wind down and the sports programming start. Within seconds of hearing how his favorite team, the Sun Demons, had done, he was asleep, and the channeller, sensing it was no longer useful, turned itself off and floated back t the kitchen.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Soul Lenders, Chapter 3:

Spoiler:

Chapter 3

Friday morning found Vernon walking out of Water Street Architects, briefcase in hand, utterly expressionless. Inside, work was continuing along as normal, with the exception of a few vacant desks. Vernon had been the last of the recent layoffs to leave the building; security had been called after seven minutes of his slow, ponderous walk through the building to escort him quicker to the front door.

“It was just a trial basis, you understand.” He could not remember which manager had said it, and it really didn’t matter. Their eyes were the same. “We hired such a large group because we wanted to see who was the best under true work conditions. We like your calculations, we really do, but they simply weren’t economical. We aren’t a major corporation, we can’t afford the slightest waste.”

Waste. They had called his designs waste. His buildings would have survived the Cataclysm, but he supposed that would be considered waste since no-one else would be around to notice that fact. He knew he should be feeling anger, but there was just a little empty hole that his emotion seemed to be draining into. Walking down the street, the sun still low in the sky, he found he could not even think about the future, or the present, or his family. He couldn’t think about finding another job. He was, against all reason, completely preoccupied with where he was going to find to eat his lunch today. Dizzy, he decides to go home.

The buildings around him became gradually bigger and more expensive as he headed south, drawing closer to the Sun Road. The main thoroughfare through town, and indeed through the continent, it was so old they simply laid new cobbles over the old ones once they had been worn down enough. After centuries of use, it was rumored that fifty feet straight down was solid stone, cemented together through time and pressure. Vernon felt a strange kinship with it now.

To the west, the road ran through the Wall and into the City. To the east, the commercial centre metamorphosed into miles and miles of suburbs, with thousands of homes just like his. The thought that somewhere in the urban sprawl there were men like himself was almost as depressing as losing his job. Somehow he knew his replacement had been a dwarf. They were as offended at waste as they were at height jokes, and he knew of several axe-fights that came from height jokes.

His slightly worn suit was wrinkling as if in response to it’s wearers despair. His knuckles tightened on his leather case as his sidewalk let out onto the busy street, carriages and buggies and hover-discs trying to make their way between the thousands of pedestrians. Why were there so many people out and about during work hours, he wondered. Didn’t they have jobs? He walked, unaware of his feet taking step after monotonous step, unaware of his fingers going numb gripping his briefcase, unaware of the sun beating down on his neck.

It was only when he realied he could see his shadow stretching out in front of him did he realize his feet were not taking him home.

---

The guards that stand watch at the various entrances through the Wall are of a type that can only be described as ‘stony’. They are, to a man, grizzled and stern, wielding weapons that most assuredly were not for show. Vernon was surprised to find he had not even really known what grizzled meant until meeting this particular guard, clad in the black regalia of the Black mages. The Law.

These guards mostly did not have a difficult job, since the Wall took care of it’s own security. Powerful magical wards, reinforced daily, stunned anything travelling over the wall into a stupor, if not into a coma, and over the past ten years, attempts had dwindled to the point where arrests for Trespassing into the City were showcased on the nightly news. Guards at the dozens of gates were mostly to inspect goods passing through, and to check the validity of papers. Fortunately, Vernon was prepared for this.

“Elven Anti-Defamation League Headquarters, eh?” the man grunted, examining the documents through myopic eyes.

“Yes, we’re working on a new headquarters for them. They feel their current lodgings are too close to the docks. Fish smell, you know.”

The guard snickered. “Yeah, I know. All right, go on through, but you better have this stamped when you come back through.”

Vernon nodded quickly, a little intimidated. This guard, despite being fairly elderly with failing vision and a tobacco enthusiasts smile could probably cut him in half without so much as batting an eyelash. The huge lochaber axe looked rather too well worn for his tastes. Come on, he thought, you have nothing to fear. Water Street had not yet cancelled Vernon’s sigil on the documents, which meant that, for a short while, he was legally allowed to enter the city.

His last visit had been three years before, when he had to oversee measurements of intersecting ley lines for the Tan mages new headquarters. The city block had long been reputed to be haunted, which served the spiritual scholars just fine; several of the ghosts had been hired to work the desks after the grand opening. Although he had spent his entire time at ground level, it had still been exhilarating. The engineer in him was nearly giddy when he stood at the base of the great Draconian World Plaza, nineteen hundred feet of smooth vertical stone. The building lacked visible windows, but cunning magical dweomers allowed the stone to be transparent when viewed from inside. Before he had left the city, he had calculated the staggerin cost of the building with an estimators keen eye, and nearly been sick a the thought of the money the Dragons had spent.

He walked through the gate, feeling the tingle of magical screens checking him for offensive weaponry. The space on both sides of the wall was lush and green, stone pathways meanderin throuh the trees and benches, although he noticed that the cost of the average suit of clothes clearly tripled on this side.

The grass ran right up the base of the buildings which, from this angle, seemed to be muscling eachother out of the way to catch the eye. This close, the buildings seemed to soar out of the earth, volcanic eruptions in all shapes and colors frozen forever in time. A hundred years ago, such buildings would have been the dreams of madmen. Now, they were the homes of kings and chairmen.

He sat on a cool marble bench, watching the rising sun behind him ripple and distort the colors of the skyscrapers before him. For the first time, though, his easterly gae was not upon the City, but upon one of the small ad boards build into the arms of his seat. He removed his lunch and started to eat, marvelling at his own calm and daring. His palms were dry, his face was unlined with worry. He might have been any of a thousand business men who sat here every dat to eat an early meal, with every reason in the world to do so. Advertisments flashed by his eyes, with sports scores scrolling accross the bottom.

“Hmm, the Demons won again. Lliard will be pleased.” His voice seemed disembodied, ethereal. His sandwich, the last of the wildeboar, was like chalk in his throat, and his bottle of Alwayz-Cool Fresh-Water did nothing to help. Outside, he was the picture of propriety. Inside he was metaphorically running around a farmyard somewhere with his head cut off. When the advertisment he was waiting for appeared, he studiously memorized the address, stood up, dropped his paper bag into a waste bin, and headed for the nearest Discer.

Another new invention, courtesy of the Green mages, techno-wizards to a man or woman, the Discer appeared to be nothing more than a glowing puddle of green water. He stepped onto the surface, always expecting to see his feet getting wet, but the surface was solid and glassy. He withdrew a handful of change from his pocket, and not knowing the proper amounts for transit, simply dropped the entire collection onto the Disc. They vanished into the green surface as surely as they would have entering water, and he could feel a faint vibration through his worn soles.

“Uhm... Proctor Tower East, Third Lobby?”

He nearly bit through his lip as the disc levitated upwards with dizzying speed, soaring like a hawk above the parkland. Even though the disc was climbing at a sharp angle, he still felt his mass drawn down towards the disc. He was sure he was in no danger of falling, since a million discs were used everyday worldwide, but that did not make the journey any less terrifying.

Once he was several hundred feet in the air, the sensation of speed lessened, especially given the massive size of the structures around him. Many of the buildings nearest the wall were new, and designed with more aesthetic appeal, with fluting columns and flowering roofs. These quickly gave way to incredibly heavy, linear buildings with a cross section considerably larger than the block on which his house sat. He was unable to stop his mind from performing volume area calculations, taking into account average building height, and working out the number of individual offices that one could fit into such spaces. The numbers he arrived at were astonishing, even taking into account that many of the buildings held thousands of apartment suites.

His disc moved swiftly, still climbing, taking him in graceful loops around buildings, and sometimes through them. In an effort to speed up magical travel, many towers had been retrofitted with open-air lobbies at various altitudes to cut down on internal travel time. Elevators were limited by speed, even with magical aid, and wasted minutes could be spent travelling between floors, especially given that there could be hundreds between street level and destination. He correctly guessed his height to be somewhere above thirteen hundred feet as he emerged from the shade of the Honorable Clifford Blodwyn Centre for Economics pass-through lobby.

Coming around the corner of a huge building limned in purple and green magical fire, his breath caught in his throat as he spied the Draconian World Plaza. He had heard that the very top of the tower was an enormous steel tee a hundred feet wide, but he had not really believed it. Seeing it now, he finally understood. A Dragon, red and silver of scale and white of horn, perched on the tee, it’s tail wrapped around the base for balance. The mighty wings were unfurled, and Vernon’s practiced eye guaged at least four hundred feet from tip to tip.

Flitting around the Dragon’s enormous raised head were several, at this scale, tiny Draconians, a strange bipedal evolutionary offshoot. No doubt, they were conducting several different business meetings; Dragons were capable of taking part in a dozen complex debates at once. He was sad as his disc moved him out of range, but when he looked back, he could always spy some part of the Dragon completely dominating the topmost levels of the skyline.

Other discs whizzed about him as he neared his destination. The Proctor Tower complex was a no-nonsense structure of black and white quarrystone. One massive base separated into four narrower towers of varying heights at what appeared to be the sixtieth floor. He was pleased to see he was heading for the tallest one. Well, no cheap offices in there, he thought.

The Third Lobby was a vase tiered chamber, open on all four sides. There were terraced landing areas for discs, or travellers flying by some other means, and tremendously graceful crisscrossing stairways. He had always hoped to design something so grandiose, even though it was just a single grand hall, but it didn’t look like it was destined for him. He would forever be an observer, creating in his mind. Already he pictured ways to flute walkways from one terrace to another without obstructing traffic.
His disc rose to the topmost level, and deposited him on the ground, dissipating in a puff of greenish smoke. HE was pleased to note that exact change was laying on the ground just in front of his feet.

“Well, isn’t that nice,” he commented to the amused glances of some passing businessmen, who were gently leading some sort of aquatic squid-based creature dressed in shimmering robes.

He looked around. The walls were white marble with brown collonades streaked through with blue azurite. There were hallways and recesses all around him. Although he had seen a dosen plans for buildings such as this, a hundred presentations, he was a little lost in the real thing, unsure where to go. Hallways seemed to lead away from him in every direction. He peered over the railing, at the multitudes who all seemed to be in a hurry, and knew exactly how to reach their destination.

“Crud.”

A sound to his right reassured him. He turned and headed down a fairly non-descript corridor, finally noticing the signs which said “Destinations Above”. After a few feet it let out into a round room with recesses set regularly along it’s walls. This would be another first for Vernon, who was headed for the nearest one.

“Uhm... floor one-seventeen?” he said, entering the enclosed space. With a pop, he was encased in a blue bubble. There was a sensation of rapid upwards movement, and then rapid forward movement that made his teeth rattle, and as quickly as it started, it ended, and he found himself standing rather breathless in a well-appointed hallway. Expensive wood trim stretched off in both directions, and candles set in golden sconces burned unflickeringly despite the gentle breeze, and glowed a little too brightly.

Vernon peered closer. Sure enough, the white wax of the candles was covered with tiny sigils of red wax. Some of the symbols even seemed to make sense to him, but he shook his head. He had business to attend to.

“But left or right?”

“What are you looking for?” said a pleasant female voice. Vernon looked around, startled, but the doorless hallway was empty.

“What?”
“This is the Automated Service Interface. You may call me Autsie. Which office are you looking for?”

Vernon told the disembodied voice, and was told in turn to turn around. Sure enough, where there had not been a door before, there was now a heavy, no-nonsense iron bound oak door.

“Clever trick,” he said, reaching for the handle which, as it happened, was absent. “What do I do, knock?”

“Yes,” replied the friendly voice. Vernon found himself wondering what the owner of the voice looked like. She seemed nice. He knocked, and recieved his third surprise in as many minutes.

Whereas a second before he had been in the hallway, he now experienced a pulling sensation, followed by a mild impact on his legs. He looked around, a little dazed and confused. The large room was occupied by two plush leather couches, two large green plants flourishing despite the obvious lack of sunlight, and a small white desk with an extremely neat office set. Sitting behind the desk was a young man in the black, white and grey robes of the unaligned apprentice wizard. He had short, neat hair, a wide pleasant face, and two closed eyes, because he was most definitely asleep. There were, Vernon bemusedly noticed, no doors.

On the wall behind the apprentice, lit rather impressively by some hidden lights, was a relief made of what appeared to be cut steel. “Archmage Chemainus Marcene, Soul Lender, GG, DSpR,” he spoke out lodu, rousing the startled young ban behind the desk.

“Uh, ah, hello, yes, yes, that’s us. Well, that’s him, really. The last bit stands for Grey Guild, Department of Spiritual Research.” He was obviously flustered, trying to arrange the items on his desk into even more perfect mathematical exactitude, but failing since they were already there. Clearly he was not used to seeing people. “How can we help you?”

“Well, first of all, you could install a permanent door,” Vernon said, his mind skipping like a stone over the turbulent waters of his feelings. He knew he was nervous, panicky, even terrified, but it seemed like it was happening to another person. “I had to ask the wall to make your door appear, when it would be just as simple to hammer a hole through that wall and put up an old-fasioned number with hinges.”

“Well, uhm, no,” said the youngster, who was also not used to dealing with this type of dialogue. “See, we’re not TECHNICALLY In the building right now. Well, we are, but there’s a sort of space on all sides of the office that is larger in dimension than the dimension of the building. See...”

Vernon waved him down. “I know how lineospatial distortions work, son, it’s all right. I just miss the old days, you know? Stairs, doors... job security.”

The apprentice was instantly on firmer ground. “I understand what you mean, it’s hard for an honest human to get a job nowadays.”

Vernon looked sidelong at him. “You’re human, and you’re doing pretty good for yourself.”

“Well, I just graduated from the Unaffiliated University College of Buravia, they had to stick me somewhere. It’s part of my course fee.”

Vernon nodded. People could buy jobs, if they knew magic. “So are you going to catch up on your sleep or should I start asking the walls where the next door is?”

The young man blushed. “Sorry.” He leaned forward and pressed a small green crystal set into the desk. The Green wiards had cornered the market on communication devices years before, as well as most forms of mass transit, and got to pick their own color scheme.

“Lord Marcene, we have a... uh, there is a person here to see you.” He released the button, and looked expectantly at Vernon. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Vernon Houghbert.”

“A Mr Houghbert here to see you, sir.” Seemingly of it’s own accord, one of the plants had turned into a well-worn wood door. “Through there, if you please, Lord Marcene will see you now.”

Vernon nodded, feeling a pang of sympathy for the young man. It couldn’t be easy, an unaffiliated apprentice getting a job as the secretary for the most universally mistrusted commercial practice since wandering Inquisitors stalked the lands with their implements of ‘truth’. “Thank you, Mr...”

The fledgling wizard flushed. “Kaslo Enderby, Class Two. Uh, unaffiliated.”

“I noticed. If I don’t come back out, have a nice day.”

The startled look on the youth’s face made Vernon feel perversely better. Well, he thought, the lad’s heard all the stories, at least.

Vernon was pleased to see this particular door had a handle. He grasped it, and sure enough, he had to turn it to get the door to move. “Well, it’s about time.” One look beyond the door and Vernon knew why the archiac device was there, at least most of the time.

The next office was a little bit smaller, and every inch a Wizard’s haunt. Wooden shelves sagged under the weight of massive texts, dribbly candles burned and, yes, flickered in holders scattered about the room. Splitting the room neatly in half was an enormous L-shaped work desk, with clearly defined elbow grooves in the middle of both sections. Seated at the desk was an almost laughably classical wizard, an elderly but wise old man with wide sleeves and long white hair both below his nose and above his eyes, although the hair up top was beginning to recede slightly.

“So, you fancy the doors with the knobs, eh?” The wizard’s voice was deep and strong, the voice of a much younger man. Without looking up, one thinning arm dipped a quill into a jar of ink and then began to scritch accross the half-empty page of an enormous parchment tome. Vernon noticed that the only mysterious jars were most definitely ink; he had always thought elder wizards had heads in green goo, and hands in red slime. There were no skulls, no crows, and nothing seemed to be conducting electricity.

“Nice office. Yes, I was just telling the young man out there about how hinges work, he seemed quite fascinated.”

Lord Marcene laughed deeply, forced to lift his hand off of the parchment or mar his already confusing writings. “A wasted effort, I’m afraid. If it doesn’t levitate, he doesn’t want anything to do with it.”
Vernon found himself, against his better judgement, liking this man. His gray robes were dusty and smudged, but still undeniably marking him as a respected member of the Grey Guild. Sages, scholars, and researchers, they were not a popular choice for recent magical graduates, but there seemed to be enough old members to go around wherever they were needed. “He should meet my son.”

The wizard stopped writing, keen ears detecting the hitch at the end of Vernon’s comment. He looked up, and slid the book to the side, capping the ink bottle with practiced motions. He wiped his hand on his robe as he stood, making yet another tiny black smudge, and extended his other hand. “Chemainus Marcene. Don’t bother with all that ‘Lord’ nonsense, thats just something we use to teach the newbies respect.”

Vernon shook it, marvelling at the strength in the smaller arm. He was easily a head taller than the accomplished mage, but he somehow felt like a schoolboy again, standing in front of a math teacher. “Vernon Houghbert.”

There was a lengthy pause as they looked into eachothers eyes. Vernon could tell this man was also not entirely used to having customers, and was still trying to feel things out. Grey’s were not what could be called ‘people persons’, but they were trusted. They could not lie or cheat: part of their initiation was the swearing of a magical oath which bound them inextricably to their word. In recorded history, no Grey had ever committed a crime without first recanting their oaths and being excommunicated from the guild. They were men and women of knowledge, not action, which suited him just fine.

“So, uh... I guess it’s pretty obvious why I’m here.”

“Indeed it is, but I must confess, I am not one hundred percent sure why.” The wizard sat and leaned back, motioning for Vernon to do likewise. “We Greys have performed one hundred and seventeen transferences, and the Pinks and Tans have collectively performed three hundred and sixty three, and only two of these have been men of means, such as yourself. Your suit, although aging, is expensive, and your shoes have recently been polished. You are clean shaven, and the lack of lines on your face suggests that despite your age you are in excellent health. Your hands do not shake, and you found yourself to this office quite easily, without goin through our booking agency outside the Wall.”

Vernon was shaken. This man was good! “Well, I am a building technolgist, thaumaturgical and metallurgical. I understand how these interoffice systems work. Well, mostly. I guess I am in pretty good shape. But a man of means? Not so much.” He sighed. “I get by, I support my family.”

Marcene nodded. “That you do.” Clearly he wanted Vernon to continue.

Vernon recounted the story of his job losses, starting with the gnomes. He skimmed over his home life, mentioning his family only briefly, although he beamed proudly when he got to Lorelle’s magic skills. “She stuck the ice box to the ceiling the other night, it was incredible. She hasn’t even gotten the levitation charts yet.”

While he spoke, the wizard nodded. “Your story is not unique. There are a great many people such as yourself, men and women being replaced by multi-ethnic professionals. Have you not considered retraining? You are young still.”

Vernon shook his head. “I can’t perform practical magic. I could sketch out the flows and lattices of reinforcing enchantments for a three-thirty-three by eighty-eight tempered Vasco steel beam to support seventeen floors of live load, but I can barely light a candle with notes written on my hand. My teacher said he’d never seen someone so good, and so bad at the same time.” He smiled ruefully. “I couldn’t even figure out how to cheat on the tests with the Far-Sight spell.”

“Well, there are other methods of re-training. We need geological engineers, even ones without magical skill. We need skilled craftsmen, we need salesmen.”

Another shake. “This is all I’ve done, it’s all I know how to do. I can’t sell ice to Ghiardis, and I’ve always hated camping. Also, the bank won’t approve me for a retraining loan given that there is no guarantee, given my recent firings, that I’ll get a job to pay them back.”

“Does your wife work?”

Vernon looked puzzled. “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

With a prompting nod of the sage’s head, he continued. “No, she watches the kids. If she got a job, it would probably be sales, or seamstressing. She’s good with fabrics. But it wouldn’t pay enough to cover our mortgage, Elwyn’s activities, Lorelle’s extracurricular training, and Lliard’s college, even though he says he’s going to get a job. If we both got full-time jobs, most of my pay would go to hiring a child-minder, and then we’d never get to see our kids.”

Marcene nodded. “You have thought this through.”

“Unfortunately. I havenlt even told them I lost my job. Again.”

“You lost your job this morning, and got into the city illegally.”

A stricken looked crossed Vernon’s face. “How did you know?”

“You have your briefcase, and I can see some crumbs on your shirt from the lunch your wife packed you. You couldn’t have gotten into the city unemployed, with no appointment.”

The man was very good. Vernon’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. Ever considered working for the Black guild? You’d be a great detective.”

The elder wizard’s eyes crinkled with good humor. “No, I could never get used to the uniforms. Too itchy.”

Vernon looked around the office uncomfortably. Well, he thought, thats everything. I’m unemployed, here under false pretenses, and if I go home it’ll either be as a failure or as a vegetable. What a day this has been. It was a pretty easy choice.

“So how does the process work?”

Marcene cleared his throat, clearly launching into what would be an immaculately prepared speech. “The transference process is remarkably simple, and has been around for centuries. Most wizards, though, never thought it was capable of being altered to siphon only a part of a paticipants soul. Indeed, if the participant is unwilling, it is usually impossible to get a portion of it without causing tremendous psychological and spiritual damage. Several years ago, a joint committee of the Pink and Tan guilds worked together to devise a way to extract a fraction of astral energy from a living creature.”

“Frodo the Bunny,” Vernon said. Everyone knew the story.

“Yes, young Frodo. Legendarily the rabbit lapsed into a coma and died, or, in the more amusing versions told in ale-houses, grew horns and slew the wizards who were present. Neither is true. The rabbit experienced a prolonged period of malaise and general inactivity, but eventually was restored to it’s former condition. It even produced offspring which are, to this day, healthy and normal. Extensive testing showed that the astral energy, the ‘soul’ had regenerated the missing portion.”

Vernon nodded. He had heard that the rabbit had recovered, but it was a weak argument, and usually shouted down by the purveyors of the ‘slaughtering bunny’ tale. “And then you tried it out on humans?”

“Yes, a volunteer from the Tan guild. They mostly concern themselves with astral matters, so it was the obvious choice. Be was well versed with the paradimensional planes, and expected to live on quite happily there should the procedure go awry. It did not, though, and a considerable amount of energy was siphoned, enough to power the entire present day Sun City for a period of three and a half months.”

Vernon’s eyes twitched. “That... is a lot of energy.”

“Yes,” smiled the wizard, “although that was in it’s unrefined form. It would have to be fed, slowly, into turbines for those months, but it is nonetheless impressive. The wizard, a class Four, lapsed into a coma and very nearly died.”

There was a period of silence. “You’re a great salesman, you know that?”

“The Pink guilds monitored him, and the Tan guilds used their extensive knowledge and power to help sustain the man, and in time he recovered. He was not believed to be in mortal danger, but for over two years he was capable of only the most basic forms of communication, and had to be fed and cared for by attendants. Slowly, he regained his faculties, and he was declared as good as new on the fourth anniversary of the experiment.”

“And thats when they went into business.”

Marcene chuckled. “Not in quite those terms, but yes, they began to run clinical trials, on humans as well as elves and dwarves, since there were already elvish and dwarven representatives in both Guilds. Strangely, there was only one dwarf enrolled in the entire Tan guild at that time.”

“Well, can you imagine a dwarf spending his days floating around the clouded dimensions of Elysium, asking philosophical questions to the spirits?”

“Only if the spirits came in a mug.”

Vernon blinked, and burst out laughing. “I’d be careful or you might find yourself down one or both kneecaps one day.”

The sage smiled. “Don’t worry, I got that from a dwarf. Anyways, the trials all went well. No-one was lost during a transference, although the degrees of detachment varied from mild stupors to outright comas. Curiously, the elves and dwarves recovered on average one third faster, despite having slower biological clocks. Research is still being done into this. Three humans committed suicide, though, as well as one elf.”

Vernon was stunned. “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

“No, but it is important you know. It has been proven, from clinical trials and practical operations that 98% of the patients recover fully with no side effects. 2% undergo some sort of dementia, depression, and willingly end their lives. Unwilling subjects, who went into the procedure with doubts or on a dare, had that figure rise to over thirty percent.”

Seated before the elder mage, he was quite shaken. “So you’re saying, if I’m not really sure I want to be here, there’s a one in three chance I’ll off myself.”

“Well, crudely... yes.”

“But if I am... I’ll be in a coma.”

Marcene shook his head. “No, not at all. Some people experience only a mild lethargy, and are even capable of holding down simple jobs if not much social interaction is required. You want to say they could become lawyers, and I assure you, we’ve heard it before.” The Grey guilds made up half the lawyering trade, shared equally with the Black mages, the Guild of Law. “We’re not exactly sure what a person will experience before the procedure, as there are no distinguishing circumstances. Men, women, humans or other, old or young, the recuperation process differs for everyone.”

Vernon nodded to himself. He thought about laying around his house, propped up in his favorite chair while his family fet him wildeboar. He couldn’t do that to them, he couldn’t become an additional burden like that. There were convalescence homes he could have himself checked into, maybe. His family could visit him whenever they wanted. It probably wouldn’t be that often.

Then he saw Lorelle in high school, unable to get into college without her outside courses and magical training. He saw Elwyn in the bleachers, watching his friends play soccer. He saw his wife, coming home from a long day at work, tired and cranky. He saw them looking at him, and only seeing a failure.
He sighed, steadying his nerves.

“So what do I get out of this?

[cathrl]

(Grins) I only write fanfiction at the moment, but in the course of that, I do hang out with a fair few people who also write original fic. And well-written fiction is well-written fiction, when it comes down to it, regardless of whether you're writing characters you made up or characters you inherited.

MUG, you do write well. It's very readable with very few technical issues. So, a couple of nits, assuming you do want to go that step further and try to get published:

1) "Animal Farm" is a reference that everyone will get. "Ender's Game" isn't. If you want it to be a "geek reference" you might want to drop an indication in the text that that's what it is ("Ender's Game, the sort of sci-fi that every physics major knows and can't believe every English major doesn't" or something like that). Publishers, by and large, are English majors rather than physics majors.

2) It's first person. Now I LIKE first person. But I'm told it's pretty much the kiss of death as far as getting accepted by a real publisher goes. Just saying - if that's what you intend to do with this, I'd get some advice from someone who knows before you spend months on it.

And a pointer - try a writing critique site. They'll pull your work apart in ways you never knew it needed, and make it much better in the process. I recommend critiquecircle.com. But don't go there expecting glowing praise, because they'll very much focus on what's not perfect.

[TheAmazingRando]

I managed to finish a novel for National Novel Writing Month this year. Just general fiction, really, heavy on philosophizing and pretty light on plot, but I was happy enough with it. I'm still putting off the task of actually editing it until a few more people I've shown it to give me feedback.

Beyond that, I'm working on another novel (and have been for some time) that splits its narrative around three characters: a recently-awakened corpse searching for revenge in a post-apocalyptic world, a businessman traveling across the country to visit his dying brother while civilization is demolished around him, and a bedridden man on life support with no physical contact with any other humans, for whom the line between dream and reality is slowly slipping.

I may never finish it, it's been on a pretty long hiatus.

[bbctol]

I write all the time, but I've never finished anything that wasn't meant to be longer than five pages. Bloody attention span.

Here's an excerpt from my (23,000 word or so) failed NaNoWriMo.

Part I: Oregon

This world is inhabited by only the insane. Today, to the day, marks the fifth anniversary of the Split, the Breaking, the Release, the Schism, or whatever one calls it. It has many names. It is called the Breaking in Oregon, so that is the name I shall use. It was the day sane humanity died, the KT boundary, so to speak, of rational human thought.
It was July fifth, of 2033. I was 28 then, and in a mental institution, for a mild case of schizophrenia, and my psychiatrist and I had finally, finally cleared it up. He was a large, Santa-type man, a very stereotypical psychologist, a pudgy Freud, and that was the day he rejoiced and said “Now, at last, my work with you is finished. Now your demons are gone. Now you are finally a whole man.” I remember these words well because they struck me as strange. He had been working with me for about a year, and with much therapy, I was cured. It was a happy day, for me. I was to stay in the institution for another week or so, then released into society. A happy day, five long, long years ago.
It was, I suppose, lucky for me that I had had that schizophrenia.
I forget my psychologist’s name, but I remember that the institution’s name was “The Baumbovitch Institute for Psychiatric Care and Rehabilitation”. I remember this name not only because it is fairly memorable, but because I stared at a small plaque on my bedpost with this name inscribed for almost a year after the Breaking. My memory of events before the Breaking is poor, but objects can occasionally remind me of things past.
My cured schizophrenia saved me that day. So have I determined. Because on that day, the fifth of July 2033, just past 5:30 in the afternoon, every sane man, woman, and child on the Earth, or so I believe, mysteriously died.
There. The genesis and purpose of this work has been stated in the fourth paragraph. Best to be direct, I suppose.
My working solution to the puzzle of how I survived, called a working solution because it doesn’t quite work, is that whatever power or agency brought about the Breaking made an error. They made their plans of who was to live and die before I was cured, perhaps, and only implemented these plans afterwards. But this is not the obvious, greater puzzle. The puzzle is the puzzle of the entire Breaking.
Your first question is, “Why?” Why this sudden, mass murder? Why this senseless, but clearly deliberate, scouring of the sane? What for? What did it accomplish? Your next question is likely “Who?” or “How?” How did all these people die? By whose hand? Not just who could possibly profit from this mysterious holocaust, but who could possibly perpetrate it?
I do not know the answer, nor does anyone I have spoken to. Theories abound, of course, but no one knows why or how everyone outside of mental hospitals around the country and, perhaps, world, died that day. It is a question for the philosophers to pour over; mad philosophers, of course. Everyone is a philosopher now, for many forms of insanity lead to philosophy, and there is so much to think about. Everyone is a philosopher, ruminating over the mysterious and frightening world they now live in. No one is a psychologist.
Why this loss of life? How did it come about? Gods? Aliens? Demons? Mysterious, foreign weapons?
There are no pilots as I know of. There are few captains, and not enough mean to make a sane crew. I have traveled only through the former United States, so perhaps this phenomenon only occurred here. But no planes have ever flown overhead, and radios now read nothing but static. I know not if there are or are not, in fact, billions of sane, happy people living in vast Eurasia and Africa and Oceana even today, but I have suspicions. I have suspicions that the once-mighty human empire, encircling the globe and grasping it in comfortable superiority, is now nothing but a few madmen clinging desperately to the hot earth as it roams, unaware, through space. I suspect that humanity as we knew it but five years ago is gone forever.

Why yes, it is utter shit.

[trickster721]

I have a short story I work on sometimes that stubbornly refuses to end. If it turns into the first draft of a book, I'm going to be really mad.

One thing I've noticed is that it's a lot easier to spend your time organizing ideas into bulleted lists than it is to actually do anything. There's no such thing as a good idea.

[Stief]

MJ: I think I got into Soul Lenders before, it's very good ^_^ I might start looking at it again

Meanwhile, I've only made a couple of attempts...

firstly: Somnium, which was inspired by an MSN conversation...weird I know, but it was so good...anyways, it's about how two people have learnt that they can control themselves within their dreams, and also interact with other people within this dream landscape, stuff happens, which makes the two guys worried...it's complicated , I think I wrote the prologue and then stopped for some reason...I should really get back on that at some point...

the second series I thought up was named 'In the wrong hands' and the premise is that a nursery rhyme book manages to fall into the nursery rhyme world, which ends up causing all sorts of havoc with the rhymes, as most of them find out about what happens to them and avoid their fates...anyways, in the 'real world' (i.e ours) a librarian is finding out that the rhymes are changing. The nursery rhyme characters find a portal into our world and decide to get a group together. they venture through and end up falling out a bookshelf, in the library where the previously mentioned librarian works...
(I fear I've lost most of you by this point)
...anyways, they've brought the book with them, they drop it and wander off into London (where the library is situated) The librarian goes to the library, sees the book and puts it back in its place...somehow (I don't think I ever explain it) the nursery Rhyme characters all feel a shock and gain free will o_O...the group splits into two after conflicting ideas...the baker wants to return to the nursery rhyme world, but the mouse from hickory dickory dock doesn't...yeah...I think that's about as far as I got...

anyone who hasn't been...severely destroyed by these 'previews'...you can see my attempts on my deviantart page

[EdgarJPublius]

I'm in various stages of trying to write several books, only two seriously, and since recently being introduced to "The Short Story' as a viable mode of artistic expression (I don't know how it never happened before, I suspect it's because all the short stories I read until college were shit to the max) I'm both trying to cut down a few novels in progress that would actually work a lot better as short stories, and write a few stories that started out as such (and one that is actually going to turn into a webcomic, thanks to my artist brother)

Write now I'm going through a bit of a writers block period and everything I've written feels too embarrassing to expose tot he public, in a few weeks I might be up to posting some excerpts.

[TheAmazingRando]

I forgot, I have a blog up that has some things I've written. Keep in mind that a lot of this stuff is over a year old.

http://loosearticles.blogspot.com

I also have a novel excerpt from my NaNoWriMo project that's complete enough that I wouldn't mind sharing it. It makes sense without understanding any of the plot. I'll post it in spoiler tags, for the sake of space:

Spoiler:

I was outside, and it was cold. I was wearing a long, heavy jacket and it was still cold. It was dark, and it was dreary, and it was miserable, but - and this will sound incredibly contradictory - I liked it. It was, very much, emotional weather, evocative of all sorts of feelings, reminiscent of so many things, and like a 3-hour film about a life just completely collapsing and shattering, sobering photos of the lifeless aftermath of some natural disaster, or a shameless cry of anguish captured in words on a page, there was beauty in the bleakness. A heartbreaking beauty, perhaps, the type that ripped at you and clawed at you, tore a hole in your side and pulled out the emotions buried inside, because they were just struggling within you and needed some point of escape, burning behind your eyes and in the back of your throat where, denied exit, they settled in the pit of the stomach, waiting to be excised.

I let my eyes fall down from the sky to street level, and it really was surreal, like a movie, the blue tint of all things suggesting some camera filter’s trickery, some sort of manipulation, and those out and walking seemed all the more somber and distant, like each held some terrible truth burning inside them, some dark past, a deep hatred or dissatisfaction with their own life. They were all ex-murderers, they were all future suicides, cutting through the mist in their own entrances and exits and suggesting a much bleaker world.

When the fog rolls in, when the sun goes blue, the city is replaced with artifice, and life becomes a film, or a dream. We all become observers of the darkness and bleakness in all others, and we all become those others to another, and everything becomes dulled and subdued, the mist filtering out the sun like blood, pounding in your ears, and your head spinning, all screaming that, whatever is happening, it’s all so surreal, so fake, building that artificial distance until the world is just a screen, and you’re watching actors through it, only they’re also watching you through screens of their own.

And the world, itself, becomes an escape from itself. No need for television, movies, music, books. If you want to observe something false you need only look around, and it’s everywhere, at least until the fog rolls off and the credits roll up and the lights return and everyone just stands and mills around and leaves, mumbling, struck uncomfortably by the sudden reality surrounding them.

[Jahoclave]

Hum, well here's something from a few years ago. Since I started University I've been mainly doing short stories and poetry for my cw classes. I really should get back into this story though.

Bob Guy In East Jesus

Spoiler:

Prologue

It was a typical Tuesday afternoon with nothing out of the ordinary. Bob opened the door to his mother’s house. Tired from work he quickly walked inside, dropping his satchel on the floor next to the heating vent, which he swore on more than one occasion had yelled some odd racial slur. It had been a long day at the post office, what with the shooters and all. And to think, after the police were done, he was going to have to clean up the mess.

“Bob, is that you?”

Slightly annoyed, he untied his scarf and hung it on a wooden peg beside the door. “Yes mom, it’s always me. Who else would it be?”

His mom emerged from the kitchen, clad in a polka dotted sundress as usual, despite the blistering cold. Today’s color being green. “Jesus.”

Bob turned to the window. Her comment annoyed him. She just couldn’t be serious with him, neither could Mrs. Johnson, who was crossing the street. He must have missed her when he drove up. But the same wasn’t true of the next driver who, without noticing, committed the latest vehicular manslaughter. “Looks like Mrs. Johnson took an Escalade to the chest.”

“Oh dear, I knew she was gonna get hit.” Leaning over the couch, she drew back the curtains in order to get a better look. Of course, it wasn’t a very pleasant view with Mrs. Johnson’s innards decorating the street. “She’s really been slowing down these days. I told her to wait for somebody to drive her home. But no, ‘It’s right across the street,’ she said.”

As Bob joined his mom to look at the gruesome demise of Mrs. Johnson, another SUV turned onto the street. The driver was oblivious to the fact that there was even a stop sign at the intersection. As usual, she had a cell phone in hand, probably talking to some Latin dance instructor while her husband was away on ‘business.’ The slight bump didn’t even appear to phase her, not that it would. Cell phones seemed to preclude one from noticing big blinking lights, much less a corpse laying in the road.

“You know Bob, somebody really ought to do something about all these crazy drivers.”

“Should I get the shotgun ma?”

“Na, that’s only in case the Canadians invade. I got the howitzer to take care of those idiot drivers.”

Bob turned to look at his mother, eyeing her carefully, his mouth just a little parted. “You bought a howitzer?”

His mom dropped the curtains and let her weight go back onto her feet. “Yep, got a good deal too. Forty-five dollars on EBay.”

Bob got off the couch, shaking his head in disapproval. His mom was always up to something queer. It wasn’t that it bothered him, it was just that it didn’t make any sense. For example, what good was the sweater made of sporks that she knitted for Sparky, the family dog that died seven years ago after a freak incident with the blender? But, at least, she could cook, though, on occasion, her meats seemed to come from some not so “socially acceptable” sources. After all, there always seemed to be plenty of meat to go around after somebody was run over in the streets. And he never could recall an ambulance picking up a corpse.

Getting off the couch, he nearly tripped over the family cat, who had figured out how to raid the refrigerator and procure shredded cheese, and was now making a mess of it all on the living room floor. Successfully evading the mess Bob made his way to the coat rack, but before he could even manage to get his arms out of the sleeves, his mother’s hands had a firm grasp on his collar.

“Here honey, let me help you. You’ve had a stressful enough day already.”

“No mom,” he said, removing her hands while trying his hardest not to break them, lest he have to spend time with her in the hospital. “It’s fine. Just go into the kitchen and finish up, and I’ll tell you over dinner.”

***

Bob set the fork down on the plate that was undoubtedly another acquisition from the flea market of hell. He swore that the detailing bore an uncanny resemblance to a pentagram, providing that one assumed the artist was drunk. Swallowing the last bit of meat that tasted a bit bizarre, Bob turned to his mother.

“I was in the back room and all of a sudden I heard these loud noises. I was pretty sure it was gunfire as it sounded the same as the last two times this month. So anyways, I head up front just to make sure, and there’s John, standing out in the middle of the lobby surrounded by bleeding corpses, with a shotgun pointed at the clerk.” A point which Bob wonderfully exampled with his hands and a butter knife. “I just sit there near the corner not getting involved, after all, I learned my lesson the last time. Meanwhile, he’s just sitting there yelling and screaming at her…”

Bob continued on, drifting off onto a rather indecent description of the clerk, which he illustrated rather well with some unpleasant hand gestures, most definitely not the kind acceptable at the dinner table. However, a well-thrown spoon to the right cheek brought him back on topic. “…Meanwhile in walks Stan. He’s coming in thinking he is going to shoot the place up. But he sees all the bodies and John standing there and gets all pissed off.”

Bob stood, rather weary of not being able to use his full range of motion to accentuate his story. “John doesn’t see Stan coming up on him. So then Stan pulls out his pistol like this…” Holding a spoon and paring knife at a weird angle, Bob demonstrated Stan’s grip to the uninterested eyes of his mother. Showing Stan’s queer way of doing it, holding the gun by the clip and beating with the top side of the barrel, almost like a cop with a nightstick. “…and wallops John with it. John falls to the floor and Stan jumps on him and continues to beat him with the pistol.” Setting the down the spoon and knife, Bob went round the table and resumed his demonstration in the art of holding a shotgun, this time without the aid of the butter knife. “But, John managed to get his shotgun and blew Stan’s head off. John was bleeding quite a lot. The clerk was going to go save him, but I made sure to stop her lest she break a nail.”

Now on the last leg of his story, Bob abandoned full body story telling and took his seat. “That sort of thing is a paramedic’s job.” He picked up the fork, grabbing a small bite of meat and putting it in his mouth. It wasn’t pork steak as his mom proclaimed, but it was tasty and he washed it down with a sip of water. “Anyways, I’m going to head over to Joe’s tonight and play some D&D.”

“Honey, remember, Joe is at the dance with his other friends to fantasize about all the girls they don’t have a chance with.”

He swallowed the last bite and grabbed the napkin from his lap. “Well then, I’ll be up in my room. Let me know when it’s seven.”

Chapter I: It Ain’t Iowa

Bob turned the key and once more, the beat up Ford roared to life. It was going to be a late night. Not only did he have to clean the school, but he had to wait for the dance to end and then clean up after it as well. And why did he have to do this? Just so some arrogant teens could hump each other in the butt for a few hours and call it dancing. But at least he got overtime pay, which was unusual considering how much the district was strapped for cash because of all the money they had to shell out for the teachers.

The radio was playing a rather unpleasant song that definitely violated some clause in the Geneva Convention about psychological warfare. It was a sort of mix between rap and classical. Bob hadn’t even made it out of the driveway and already was sick of it. But, flipping through the stations, he couldn’t find anything much better. After all, that good ole’ time religion was hard to find, especially since the advent of punk rock and new age ass-humping antics. Finally, to his pleasant surprise, he stumbled upon Father Coffer who was giving his latest campaign speech for his bid on the papacy.

That’s right you are all going to hell! Each and every one of you will wither in pits of eternal fire! That’s right, you are going to hell! Repent! Be Saved!

Bob managed a smile as he put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. He was always interested in what Father Coffer had to say. Despite never meeting him personally, Bob found his sermons very soothing and made it a habit to purchase them as soon as they became available on DVD. He even had a rather risqué poster of Father Coffer posing with a group of supermodels tacked to his wall which he prayed to every night before going to bed. And to be honest, Bob didn’t buy it for the supermodels like most.

Now surely you could not possibly be going to hell, after all you’ve followed the church. How could you be going to hell? It’s simple. You’re going to hell because I, a disciple of God have proclaimed it! You have been lied to by the church! Your ignorance will not protect you from the flesh-eating creatures that will rip at your ever-replenishing skin! But woe not! There is hope! With your action, I, Father Coffer can save your soul from eternal damnation.

Save yourself! With your support, I will purify the church of its evil ways! I will save you! Donate to my cause. Break open your wallets and be saved! Be children of God and donate to my campaign for the papacy.

And as your pope, I promise that each and every one of your souls will be saved. Saved from the ailing torture from the demons of hell! But, you must pay your tithe! For it is very important to the future of the church that it have a well-funded and highly trained military. So secure your soul, donate to the campaign so that we can institute the Church Militant Fund Tithe. Donating is what Jesus would do, and mind you, Jesus got into heaven.

So call today. 1-800-Coffer-For-Pope. Repeat. 1-800-Coffer-For-Pope. Or visit online http://www.cofferforpope.com.

A small bump agitated Bob, drawing his attention from the radio and back to the road. Something had gone under the left side tires and it was big enough to be noticeable despite his focusing on the Father Coffer. It wasn’t quite big enough to be a human -he prided himself on having never run over one- but you couldn’t be sure in this neighborhood. Still, he stopped. Not knowing what he hit, Bob leaned over to the glove compartment and got out the flashlight buried under Aunt Misoury’s stash of crystal meth.

The light caught a glint of red as Bob slowly traced backwards, causing his heart to skip a few beats –playing a lovely rendition of Beethoven’s ninth symphony- before he finally stopped on the defiled pile of goo that had caused the agitating bump. Mrs. Johnson’s army of newts had met their match, two-year-old Firestones that luckily for Bob didn’t explode on impact. Though, he still couldn’t find what had caused the nearly blood red streak, which upon closer investigation trailed farther back from the massacred newts. And he should have figured as much –with the luck of the Johnsons today- that her garden gnome had found its way into the slaughter.

Its head was separated from the rest of its body. The eyes were scratched out of their sockets and the nose was missing. The left ear was resting against what appeared to be a mouth. Its legs were completely missing, accounting for the large red streak. As for the body, had it been human it could have sent even the drunkest of army surgeons vomiting. The hands could be made out. Though, as for which hands they were, that couldn’t be discerned. The rest was just bits of concrete with chips of colored gnome-coat to make it interesting.

Bob was about to go look for more of the gnome when the realization struck. He had killed Mrs. Johnson’s garden gnome. And it was at the minimum gnome-slaughter to the second degree, which if found guilty could land him for at least three years.

He turned around, scanning the area for any witnesses that could testify against him. He was almost done when he scanned the area with his flashlight catching a glimpse of red on the sidewalk. It looked like a sort of distorted fire hydrant, but it was too short. Shining the like directly on it he discovered that before him, finger aloft, was another gnome with a rather angry expression. And right beside it was another, and another, all angry, all giving the finger. Quickly he shut off the flashlight, turned to run –oblivious to the fact that he could no longer see- and smacked into the rear bumper.

Bob reached for his head. It was like a hangover and a PCP withdrawal combined with a concussion for flavor. And for some reason he swore that he was in Kansas, probably a side effect of the concussion.

Then something else struck him as odd. His car was gone! The remaining gnomes must have stolen it. Those dirty gnomes, he knew they were no good. But he’d get them. He had a howitzer and he knew where they lived.

Standing up abruptly –a mistake- Bob found himself back on the ground holding his head and sobbing like a small child. He half expected to be hurt, or at least have a scratch. But, he wasn’t on asphalt anymore; it was grass. They must have gotten him, those dirty crooked gnome cops. Now they were going to throw the book at him. Though, it was a rather tiny book, so more likely it would just get annoying rather than do any damage.

“What the fuck?” Bob cringed, it was bad enough that his head was about to explode, but it really wasn’t necessary to yell. Though, it was a little loud for a gnome. “Are you fucking stupid?”

Bob was about to answer, when a shaky voice answered for him. “Forgiveness… Please sir.”

“Next time make sure you look at your watch.” Figuring they weren’t talking to him Bob began a search for his gum; if MacGyver could do it, he could too. “We can’t just bring them here whenever the hell we please. Well we could… But we’re not going to!”

“But sirs, you said seven-thirties.”

“Is it seven-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it!” Bob cringed, checking his pockets frantically for gum. It was obvious they were talking about him, but why did they have to yell? “Well I guess I’ll have to attend to this problem then.”

“I go and fixa dinna sirs.”

“Yes, goes. Oh, and make sure you fry an extra goat.”

On his hands and knees, Bob started his get away. The gnomes were out for blood; it wasn’t his fault the gnome got slaughtered. Damn, where was his gum?

“Um, you can crawl if you want. But, the path’s this way.”

Bob wasn’t about to let the gnomes catch him and the tall grass was sure to provide ample cover for a getaway. Or at least that was his plan until he slammed his head into the grass, fully expecting it to part easily. It was like a solid wall. He couldn’t even get a hold of the grass with his hands.

“Oh yeah, that’s right.” The gnome behind him paused, seemingly collecting his thoughts. “That’s the edge of the universe.”

“What the…” Bob turned his head, expecting a more thorough answer from the gnome. “Fuck,” he said trailing off his voice, a bit stunned by the eight foot tall creature that resembled a rabbit with fangs. Its white fur was raggedy and reminded Bob of the werewolves from the books his mother used to read him before he turned twenty.

“So much for studies.” Looking disgusted the were-rabbit turned around revealing the large confederate flag attached to its back.

“Studies?” Bob was more than a bit confused; and he still wasn’t sure if the were-rabbit was going to eat him for dinner or lecture him on astrophysics. Either way, it was probably just a dream.

The were-rabbit began pacing about, rambling on. Just as Bob guessed, a lecture. “You weren’t supposed to respond with fright. All the studies showed that humans love rabbits. I don’t know why anyone would like a rabbit. They’re only the single most dangerous animals in the universe, what with their sharp pointy teeth an all. And even though the penguins won’t admit to it, rabbits have them outclassed. Never the less, you’ve failed to respond according to protocol and that is well… A problem.”

In his state of panic, bewilderment, and just plain confusion, the ultimate question of the universe, one that everybody has to ask, came to mind. “Where the hell am I,” Bob asked, wondering if he’d even get a straight answer?

“Well I guess you could be a statistical anomaly or perhaps bringing you here changed,” the were-rabbit paused, taking a deep breath. It figured he wouldn’t get a straight answer, that would have been too much. “Oh my, I forgot my manners. I’m Charles and that was my assistant Dupree earlier. It really is a pleasure to see you here.”

It brought a look of amusement to Bob’s face. Not only did he not have a clue where he was, but he was confronted by a eight foot tall were-rabbit that had the most obvious fake British accent he’d ever heard. “Charmed I’m sure. Now where the hell is this?”

Charles looked at him a bit weird, scratching behind his ear as if the question didn’t register in his brain. “Oh my, yes, well.” He stalled. “We call it East Jesus.”

“What,” Bob asked questioningly? He wasn’t that great at geography –One of the big contributing factors to his degree in the custodial arts. - but he was sure that East Jesus was not a real place.

“East Jesus, you know. North of South Satan, east of West Muhammad.”

Now Bob knew he must be crazy. He didn’t recall eating any shrooms, but his mom could have spiked supper with them. She was after all well known for adding things she shouldn’t. One always had to keep a watchful eye on her cooking, lest they end up eating bad shrooms or worse, potatoes. On a more comforting note, the affect would wear off soon and he could get back to his plans. That is, providing he didn’t get run over first.

Charles cocked his head a little, seemingly puzzled by Bob’s lack of response. The were-rabbit seemed to think that Bob didn’t understand, which wasn’t true, he understood he just didn’t believe it. And judging so, Charles decided he should try the method that all great human communicators used. He straightened up and spoke very loudly and slowly clearly annunciating every word over a period of half a minute. “East Jesus, south of North Buddha.”

Bob judged his options. Being silent wasn’t making this creature go away, and his rather bad attempt to communicate was getting annoying. He most certainly didn’t want to hear another explanation of where he was. Accepting it seemed to be the best option, after all, he could have been somewhere worse, like New Jersey.

“So.” Bob spoke up. “Are we just going to stand here?”

“Oh heavens no,” Charles replied, mockingly, causing Bob to figure he was being taken for stupid. “We’ve got places to go, people to see, things to learn. Well you do at least,” said Charles as he made a gesture indicating again that he thought Bob was stupid. “I already know them. So mainly I’ve got things to teach you.”

“Well then, let’s get going,” Bob said, getting a bit annoyed at being inferred to as stupid. He had his masters in the custodial arts and not just anybody can do that.

Turning round Charles beckoned Bob to follow. He did so, reluctantly. Not that it had much of a point, it was either follow Charles or face the gnomes. And out of the two, he guessed, the gnomes were probably a better option.

Chapter II: Start Windows

At first Bob thought it could be something else, as he had some serious doubts as to anything being as appeared. But the closer they got, the more he began to believe it was, as it appeared, and ordinary window. It wasn’t even floating in midair as his first introspection had perceived. Rather it was built into a rather thin wall that didn’t span much wider than the small window itself. It was almost as if the builders forgot to build the rest of the house, after all, the grove was cleared out, and level.

And given that he had a more pressing problem at the moment, Bob neglected the obvious question about there just being a window in favor of something that should be generally noted by anybody in a foreign place, lest there be an emergency and no appropriate person to ask. “Where’s the bathroom?” He asked, half-expecting Charles to have no idea what he was talking about.

“It’s over there,” Charles said as he pointed to a large oak tree. “Right by the tree.”

The tree itself seemed rather misplaced to Bob. And he had, since coming here begun to question the motives of everything. The tree itself was well inside the circular cut of the grove, which lent to the question of why. But the more pressing issue delegated that he not worry about such things as multi-universal sub-existence, which ultimately would be more important to his needing to pee than he thought. And because of his ignorance of such sub-existence or universal layering he opened his mouth to ask a question that Charles perceived as well, rather dumb; the sarcasm of it failing to register within his vast knowledge of sub-existent universes. “So I get warped all the way from the middle of a street into East Jesus through some miracle of science that I have no clue about and yet, with all this vast knowledge you’ve acquired, indoor plumbing is too hard a concept?”

“Well if you would just step inside through that window there you would realize that indoor plumbing is rather obsolete as we can now process fecal matter into delightfully tasty fruitcake,” Charles said, opening up the window.

Bob was going to debate that the possibility of a fruitcake being tasty in the first place was nonexistent, but the fact that the open window revealed an entire living room kind of made him stop speaking, which didn’t bother Charles too much either.

“See, to the left,” Charles said, rather impatient as he stood holding up the window waiting for Bob to enter, which seeing as Bob had to go so bad, one would have figured he’d do so quickly. But he hadn’t, and this annoyed Charles.

***

Having finished his business Bob was presented with a fresh fruitcake, which he proceeded to flush down the toilet, only to be given a new fruitcake. And seeing that his efforts had been in vain, he grabbed the matches that for no reason were sitting on a shelf and lit the fruitcake ablaze.

And at this point it should be noted the fruitcakes are the one and only material in the universe that burns without giving off heat, light or losing mass of its own. Trying to account for the energy being given off, Scientist spent years researching various phenomenons to explain where this energy came from, concluding that the energy emanated by a burning fruitcake was actually that of an alter-dimensional matter transfer. This meaning that energy isn’t created, or destroyed; it is essentially just stolen from other universes. However, they noted that matter transference tends to piss off those advanced societies in these alter-universes, so it’s best to not light fruitcakes on fire. And coincidently all of the scientist working on the project had since been slain after making this conclusion.

Upon return to the living room, Bob noticed that Charles had gone off somewhere. Instead of opening the other doors to look he decided to scan the rather large bookshelf in the corner. Fully expecting an array of authors he’d never heard about Bob was a bit shocked –though relieved in a way- that it was lined with volumes of Poe, who they regarded as a great humorist, and the entire Hitchhiker’s Trilogy, which was considered a serious factual work despite being highly inaccurate. The inaccuracy of course resulting from a mathematical error in assuming that two plus two equaled four instead of the five it rightly should answer. Researchers note this as the main reason why denizens of the sub-existent universe Kan-De-Bar had yet to develop sub light warp drives. Well that and the strange obsession the denizens have with new fangled bathroom technology.

The sudden impulse of knowledge startled Bob more than the books, and this time there was no comforting factor about it. Looking back at it, he had started to gain mystical knowledge of everything ever since he came to East Jesus, or so Charles called it, though Bob had a sudden urge to distrust him. Deep in thought about the newfound knowledge, or as deep in thought as an American can get when pondering something that requires the intellectual level of a mouse, Bob didn’t notice Charles entering the room until he was scared shitless by an eight foot tall were-rabbit staring at him cockeyed.

“Did I disturb you?” Charles asked. He didn’t understand why Bob would be so startled by learning everything like that. It was an experimental idea the scientists added late in development. And, as far as Charles could tell, it had worked rather successfully. To that ends he made a mental note to let the scientists know of their success when he got back.

“Disturb me!” Bob was rather red in the face, “You nearly killed me!”

“Killed you!” Charles yelled, not that he felt the need to. It was just that Bob seemed to like to communicate in loud and noisy ways. “Your heart beat barely elevated!”

“And you know that how?” Bob knew he was right to distrust this were-rabbit for more reasons than the fact that he was a giant talking rabbit.

“Simple, I just have to think about it.”

So, Bob thought about it. Not very long or very hard though, as that sort of thinking can be very dangerous. But it made sense he guessed. If all you had to do was think about something and instantly you would know everything about it, it would save a lot of time. Plus, you wouldn't have to memorize irrelevant information, which seemed to have been a staple of his younger years. In theory it was a good idea, but when you broke it down into thinking about the government, it was better off not knowing.

“Anyways, dinner's ready.”

“What are we having?”

“Oh, why we're having cute, fuzzy animal stew.”

Bob was caught with his guard down, surprised by what they were having even though he knew he should have expected something weird. Though, he really was expecting something a bit more eccentric like rack of chocolate chip muffins stuffed with bat.

Chapter III: Unfit for Vegetable Consumption

Epilogue

Charles and Dupree stood staring at the computer screen watching as Bob woke up. It was the crucial moment to see if the experiment had worked. Though Dupree didn’t really get why he still had to act like an incompetent lackey now that Bob was gone, but Charles had demanded that it was a necessity to success.

Bob was coming through now, rubbing his head. Opening his mouth it seemed like he was about to make a bold statement, which had both Dupree and Charles on edge, and then the SUV hit him, slamming him into the bumper once more. The two were shocked, stunned, all their work was for not without him making his statement. It was obvious by the way his body was laying askew that he was dead and they had no hope of finding out if he retained what he had learned or even believed it was real. The two looked up from the screen, they’d never find out if it worked. However, since he was an American it was most likely that his statement would have been along the lines of, “What the fuck?”

Then the shell came down –unnoticed by the duo as it was unimportant, but recorded anyways- hitting the SUV as it was backing up. Luckily the driver was on her cell phone, so she was too distracted to die properly, even amidst the fireball that was lighting up the sky.

Able to act like the scientist he was, the resulting fireworks vaguely caught Dupree’s attention; it seemed that mother’s howitzer had done its job. And mother couldn’t have been happier. The way she was dancing about Dupree could have sworn she’d just scored the winning touchdown in the super bowl. And not with a lack of words Dupree turned to Charles, readily imparting his held back insight into the whole project. “Well, that was a pointless waste of time.”

And, in the end, this all went to proving inevitably that, Tuesdays suck.

[bigglesworth]

Jalapeno, I like the idea in NWS about the becoming more familiar with the people he wars against than the people on his side

The bit about the assassin seems more than a bit Dan Simmons, no?

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Jalapeno, I like the idea in NWS about the becoming more familiar with the people he wars against than the people on his side

The bit about the assassin seems more than a bit Dan Simmons, no?

Assassin? *goes back to read his NWS thing* Oh, you mean in Tempus Letum? Who's Dan Simmons?

[Jessica]

I've tried and succeeded at nanowrimo.

[bigglesworth]

Dan Simmons is an author who in his books Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and Rise of Endymion has a character called the (goddamned) Shrike, an anti-hero monster (sort of) assassin who travels through time to find part of the future human Ultimate Intelligence, luring it by torturing people on his tree of pain.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Wow, that.... sounds in no way at all like my character of Worm, except for the time-travel bit.

And now I'm pissed, since pretty much the major character behind my entire Origins storyline is named Shryke...

[bigglesworth]

Hey, don't worry, Philip Reeve got away with it.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

The problem with writing, or movie-making, or ANYTHING nowadays is that, yes, it's all been done before, especially if you reduce something to one paragraph.

Reduce Project Peapod to one paragraph? It's "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda".

Reduce New World Samurai to one paragraph? It's "Sliders".

Reduce Tempus Letum to one paragraph? It's apparently... those two guys previously mentioned.

All that's left to do now is to make an idea yours, present it in a way, configuration or combination that hasn't been seen before (or at least in about fifty years).

[TheAmazingRando]

A piece of writing is as much execution as it is idea. The same premise can spawn two drastically different novels. If all books needed to be entirely original, we would only ever have one biography per public figure, or one non-fiction book per topic.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

See? There's proof. That post had been done before (by me, three minutes previous) but he wrote it out differently, and called it his own work.

[bigglesworth]

Wow, that.... sounds in no way at all like my character of Worm, except for the time-travel bit.

And now I'm pissed, since pretty much the major character behind my entire Origins storyline is named Shryke...

Whoops, I forgot to mention the additional part that made me make the connection: he also has a church/cult of followers who make pilgrimages to him to commit suicide by him.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Well, that is a little closer, but in virtually ever detail, the stories are totally different (in style, too... mine's about as far from space opera as you can get.) Still, should I be flattered at the connection?

[bigglesworth]

He is a very talented author. It's also not really that close to most space opera that i've read. Oh, it won a Hugo award, so that's good right?

[Mighty Jalapeno]

He is a very talented author. It's also not really that close to most space opera that i've read. Oh, it won a Hugo award, so that's good right?

Well, I'm going based off the Wiki, it called it "space opera" a few times...

[Mother Superior]

I've never genuinely tried to write a novel, just long-ish stories (somewhere around 30-40 pages is the longest one methinks). But maybe, one day. Lately I've been totally unable to write anything at all though

[Midnight]

i've always had ideas floating around in my head... three or four main ones in particular:

• Praetorius: It takes place in the future, ~2090. There's this crazy superorganization of terrorists who are trying to totally destroy the current government.. their methods can be subtle (infilterating a corporation and fucking with their computer databases, and nobody really realizing it) or really really brash (they've been known to hold the UN hostage, and defaced Michaelangelo's David). Anyways, in order to counter them, the world government has created a group called the Praetorii (singular: praetorius) that's just a few hundred elite soldiers with top of the line weaponry and equipment, who travel about in small groups, are assigned missions by high command, and basically go about as a super-fast-response team that fights guerilla warfare with... better guerilla warfare. It'd be a collection of short stories written from a half dozen or so perspectives, spreading across five 'acts' (major trends or events). I at first was thinking the climax would be some massive invasion of a Dissolution-controlled city, but I don't know.. it's not their style. Might go somewhere though.
• Transcendance: a trilogyish thing, where there's both angels and demons in the world. They don't appear often at all; angels are more subtle than demons, and demons can only pop up every few centuries, and they usually fight on other planes of existence... however, it happens often enough that there's a ton of myths and legends that are in fact true. anyways, the first book would go like this: these 2 guys, Giles DeVarosk and William KaDuren, are going off to check on a purchase of land. long story short, they get waylaid by a pair of low level demons, and then an archangel appears (Kizhael DePharon) and kicks both demon's asses. Turns out to be a trap though, as about fifty other demons appear and 'kill' DePharon, who uses his last vestige of strength to possess Will, and give him a ton of holy energy. another angel drops by to go 'wtf happened here', and will tells them how Kizhael gave them a cryptic message. This new angel interprets it as a prophecy to go to a place called the Helm of the Gods, a graveyard for archgods. Some cool stuff goes down once they get there. I'm thinking of calling this first book 'The Thoughts of the Gods'
• Nimius: It's a Fall of the Roman Empire type of thing. There's this crazy powerful natoin that's kind of degrading even though some really cool people are running around saving the day. A series of miscommunications, unluck, and lies ensue (along with a touch of irony) and in the end, this city, Nimius, is a) on fire, b) there's a raging mob going around, c) there's some rather important suicides, d) the two strongest houses in the whole damn country secede to have thier own private war, e) the other country (which is strong, but outclassed by an order of magnitude from the Nimian Empire) send in their crazy general with a huge army to lay seige to the city (the irony of which i mentioned is this: The other country sent in their general on the incorrect information that all of the armies around the city had been pulled away to handle other tasks. this was DEFINITELY not true when the General entered Nimian soil, but by the time he got to the city, it WAS true.)

Then there's a fourth one, goes by Nox Arcanum. A sort of graphic novel detailing some badass adventures by two sons of God. I like the whole idea of supernatural beings interacting with our world, but only a couple people know that it's even happening. I have the story down OK (not on the top of my priorities) but i'm a horrible artist, so I should probably bum that off on someone else.



anyways, my issue with writing is that i think of the stories and outline them just fine, but i'm too unmotivated to write them and have them be beautiful and complete and stuff. also i'm not great at flowing from major plot event (the parts that i like) to major plot event. The stuff in between always comes out a touch wooden, a touch shallow. To me, at least.

[parkaboy]

i'm having fun doing short stories. if any of those evolve into a noval, hooray! if not i might smoosh 'em all together for a compilation book some day.

[Sarr]

Little Idea I had for a story called Nightfall. I'd say that it's influnced by a couple other things, mainly The Sword of Shanarra when it comes to setting, and Castlevania/Dracula when it comes to plot, but It manages to be different from either of those in it's own way.

And yes the major antagonist is Dracula.

Spoiler:

It was night. The sky was covered in clouds, which were that wonderful light grey that heralds the onset of snow. It was certainly cold enough to snow. I shivered. Even in heavy winter clothes, snowfalls in this part of the world were bad, and the temperature rarely went above freezing.
The night was still, the silence broken only by the occasional hooting of an owl, and the constant noise of a spinning cylinder. My fingers were at the source of this second noise, spinning the cylinder on my revolver to keep from going stir crazy. We had been out here for hours.
“Do you HAVE to do that?” asked my friend Arcturus. He was one year senior to my 25 years, and my best friend in the world.
“Sorry” I muttered. I flicked the cylinder back into the gun and stood up, stretching.
“Look” he said. “My contact is good. They'll be here soon.”
I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to say something when the sound of wagon wheels broke the silence. “Told you,” he said with a grim smile. I pulled out a revolver,and let the long sleeve of my coat drop down over it. His hand went into his coat, resting on a sword hilt. “Lemme talk to them first, 'k Keth?” I nodded. He had done this before. I was the new one at this. I surveyed our surroundings . We stood on a path leading up to a mountain. We were already about 50 meters up. Below us spread a forest of pines. It had been one of the first to regrow. Some said it hadn't been affected in the first place. I didn't believe it. Almost nothing survived the weapons of the ancestors. Why would these have remained untouched? In the distance, along the path lay a castle, where our target lived.

My attention was snapped back to the present when the wagon rounded the bend. It was led by two pitch black horses. Their eyes were red. They weren't just red though, they glowed, the color of old blood. The cart itself was simple, wood and metal. Plain in design, but even from where I was, it looked undoubtedly sturdy. I looked up at the driver. He wore a long black cloak, pulled up over his face. Black gloved hands held the reins, and I shuddered. Something about him unnerved me. I crossed my arms and and angled myself towards the wall, so that the hand with the gun in it, my left, was covering Arcturus as he approached.
“Greetings!” he said, unnaturally cheerful. The cloaked figure looked at him, and hissed something too soft for me to hear. Arcturus nodded sympathetically and said “ 'Tis cold. Shame that you can't feel it 'cause you're a abomination of nature. The Figure hissed something louder, angrily. This reached my ears but it wasn't English. I didn't know what it was, but like the figure the language seemed wrong. Like it shouldn't exist. Arcturus threw back his cloak, showing a chain shirt, and his sword, which he rested his hand on the pommel of. “Careful what you say, vampire.” He said. “I speak your tongue.”
The figure threw back his own hood. He had long silver hair, and was white as a sheet. His eyes were as red as the horses, and there was a feral gleam in them. I shuddered, this time not from the cold. I had never seen one of these creatures, and before tonight I wasn't ever sure I believed they existed.
Naeswar jumped from Arcturus's sheath, glowing with a holy light. The blade had been blessed by the High Folk, when they stopped the ancestors war. It could cut down a creature of darkness sure as if it was a mortal. Supposedly my guns could too, but I wasn't to sure about it. They didn't exactly have the best record.
The vampire merely smiled, as if he knew something we didn't. Probably true as he had lived for millions of years. Then I realized our mistake. Vampires are strong, but they aren't the type to do their own dirty work. They'd rather have their minions do it. They had human servants, madmen who thought that the vampires were the route to salvation. They also, however, had unhuman servants. Mutants and creatures from the other world. The one outside space and time where men could not set foot.
I swore and aimed my gun to face the horses, but it was too late. One of them kicked Arcturus in the back. He stumbled and fell, swearing as I was. My right hand flew to my other gun, and I opened up with it on the horses. The bullets bounced off as if they'd hit steel. The vampire was the target of my left gun,and I dropped my right gun and used both hands to get a better shot. He had dragged Arcturus up out of the dirt with one hand, holding a knife with the other.
“Damn it!” I muttered – I couldn't risk shooting without hitting Arcturus – I was good, but not that good. Grabbing and holstering my right gun, I rushed forward, snagging Naeswar out of the dirt and swinging it right handed. It slammed into the vampire's right side. He lurched backwards, but kept his grip on the knife, Jamming it into Arcturus's chest, and twisting, before swinging Arcturus into me, and sending us both to the ground. I dropped Arcturus's sword, and swung up my guns, emptying them into the vampire's chest. He flew backwards, into the side of the wagon. Looking down at the wound, his eyes flew open, and he clutched at the reins, whipping the horses into a gallop. It was all I could do to keep myself and Arcturus from being crushed.
Checking his wound, I found it was somewhat better than I thought. It was fatal, but not immediately so. He had a chance, if I could find help. But where? Our village, was miles away, and I knew of none closer. I looked up at the cliffs above me. The mountains were my best bet. They were on the way to the plains where someone might find us, and there were rumors that Dwarves still inhabited some mountain ranges. It was a long shot, but it was the best chance we had. After bandaging Arcturus's wound – He had fallen unconscious from the pain, thank god – and retrieving my dropped gun, I lifted Arcturus and began to walk.

Chapter 2

The next few hours were a blur. After an hour my arms started to burn from the weight, and the snow had started to fall. I began to wander as sleep deprivation – I hadn't slept in more than a day – and the stress of the encounter began to take it's toll. I barely remembered collapsing of exhaustion, and didn't remember anything else.
I awoke in a warm, if somewhat small bed. The pillow my head rested on felt like cloud compared to the hard rock it had previously rested on. My eyes flicked open, and I looked around. The room that lay before me was entirely stone with no windows. On the walls lay torch brackets one filled with a torch that threw a warm light to all corners of the room. Across from me was a table with two people siting at it. They were both male, and about 4 feet in height. They had medium length hair, and beards that fell to their waists. They wore warm clothes, and – I couldn't help but notice – chain shirts. Axes hung at their belts. Obviously they were supposed to be guards, but their attentions were focused on a game of dice that was unfolding before them.
Quietly as I could I slid out of bed, wincing as my bare feet touched the floor. I wore a white cotton pair of pants and shirt. Next to the bed stood a large oak bookcase, filled with old books and scrolls. Aside from that, the room was bare. The guards – Dwarves, I assumed – were too engrossed in their dice to see me slip out the door.

And run right into another Dwarf coming down the hallway. His hair and beard were flecked with grey, and he did not wear the chain the others did, although he had an axe hanging at his belt. His eyes were a dark brown, the color of the “choklate” some villages traded for and where it wasn't grey, his hair was a bright red.

[EDIT] Hmm. Posted an older version. How silly of me.

[The Great Hippo]

I wrote this long ago. It was based in D&D (hence the satirical Drizz't reference). Hopefully, I've improved significantly back then (some of the stuff here makes me cringe upon rereading it).

Spoiler:

The cramped smoke-choked den was illuminated only by streaks of sickly gold spat by several barred windows that lurked high out of reach, as if placed in a direct attempt to prevent its occupants from escaping. Beneath them was a room that had devoured and digested several others, producing a savage clash between well-cushioned leather chairs and charred metal comforters. The stench of death was thick enough to choke on.

There were also some magazines. And nice music. And a few pleasant plants.

BUT THE PLANTS WERE DEAD.

Four figures of note were present:

Jarle of the Three-Blades, a sword-master of some renowned who had made his name in the war-hungry depths of Acheron. It was said that the old, haggard tiefling had stolen two of the blades from the forges of Dis itself, and that he had forged the third blade with his own blackened hands. His father had supposedly been a fiend, and his mother a hag--it was said that through her he came to know all the deepest darks in matters of steel. He sat in a twisted and blackened metal to the left, remaining perfectly still.

Viviana the Beautiful, a lovely dark-haired sorceress who wore her victims' teeth around her throat as if it were a necklace. Said to be part succubus, she was widely known both for her infallible abilities at treachery (despite being known for it) and her immense skills at the mystical arts. She sat in a comfortable leather chair to the right, remaining perfectly still.

Snape the Clever, an always-grinning handsome grey-skinned smoke genasi who had a penchant for escape. It was said that he managed to slip free of Carceri itself--twice--and that the Sons of Mercy had become so fed up with him that they were busy designing a prison just for him. He sat in a chair built out of random unused bone-golem parts, remaining perfectly still.

And finally, a dark-elf--otherwise known as drow. He was wearing ink-black robes, standing in the corner. Smoking.

More on him in a bit.

The door opened. A rather slender looking robed devil with rust-red skin and a pair of over-sized spectacles stepped in, reading off a clipboard. "Ahem. Gentlemen, ladies. I believe we're ready to discuss the matter of your payment--"

Something was wrong. The devil leaned forward, scrutinizing the scene. Three of the four people here were remaining far too still.

Lifting his hand up, the robed devil spoke a word, illuminating the room in a fierce burst of light. The dark-elf winced.

Jarle of the Three Blades was currently being pinned up to the metal chair thanks to the aid of his three blades--all of which had been used to impale the old soldier through the chest, emerging from his ribcage like the back-end of tacks from a notice. His jaw had dropped, eyes wide and glassy with death.

Viviana the Beautiful was slumped comfortably back on her leather chair, hands wrapped around her own throat--where the necklace of fangs had been drawn so tight they had bit deep into her skin. Her face was a contortion of choking, smothering agony, baring the signs of death by suffocation.

Snape the Clever was still grinning. His head was, anyway--that was all that was left of him. The head was smoothly decapitated and pinned to the chair by means of a dagger through a knot in the hair; there was no sign of the rest of his body.

"Excuse me," the devil said, scowling. "What happened here?"

"Cancer," the drow said morosely.

"...cancer?" This took the devil by surprise.

"Yeah," the drow said. "It's the silent killer."

"You're telling me that all your fellow assassins died from cancer?"

"Tragic as hell. They put up a heroic struggle, every last one of them. But you can't really beat cancer, can you?"

"Can you explain, then, why one of them has no body--one of them seems to have been choked--and another is impaled on all three of his swords?"

"Dire Cancer."

The devil's scowl intensified. "I suppose that means there's only the matter of your portion of the payment, then."

"Oh, yeah. Funny thing. All these folks left their shares of the reward to me," the drow announced, drawing a wreath of rolled paper out of his robes and tossing it to the devil. "Last will and testament."

The devil snagged the document, unfurled it, and peered at it critically. "All of them, while dying--"

"From Dire Cancer," the drow reminded him.

"--found the time to write out and sign a document bequeathing their portion of the reward to you."

"Amazing, isn't it? They were heroes to the last." Finishing with the cigarette, the drow flicked it to the ground and lazily crushed it beneath his heel.

"I see. Well, then."

"Well?"

The devil smiled toothily. "Everything looks to be in order. This way, please."

~*~

"I must admit. I've never met an assassin as--as--"

"Mmm."

"So direct about things," Bartleby announced.

The drow was in his office--a typhoon of paperwork, books, gifts, trophies, and other meaningless planar detritus that had apparently gathered around his employer not through any conscious work but merely by Bartleby's sheer magnetism when it came to crap. The drow was sure that if he spent hours digging through the piles of self-important nick-nacks that surrounded him, he'd never find so much as a functional bottle-opener. Bartleby was just incapable of attracting anything useful to himself.

Which made the drow wonder--how the hell did Bartleby manage to hire him?

"Speaking of direct--money."

"Oh, yes. Your payment. My devil-friend over there told me you'll be accepting the shares of your assassin friends. They all died apparently? Very tragic."

"Yeah, tragedy, terrible, choked up, will send flowers. Payment, please."

"Of course, of course." Bartleby slid up to his feet, wobbling about. The man wasn't just overweight--he had long flew past the boundaries of polite obesity on a rocket-propelled sled, making a rude gesture as he went by. The man was fat, and that was the end of the discussion. He waddled towards the far side of the room, shoving aside a few bits and pieces of refuse to get at the safe.

"I must admit, it's been an exceptional thrill to have a legend working for me," Bartleby said.

The drow peered out the window behind Bartleby's desk, observing the cityscape far below. "Eh? Oh, you heard of me?" he muttered distractedly.

Bartleby nearly sprang up to his feet. "Well of course I've heard of you! Who hasn't heard of you?! You're a downright legend around here, sir!"

"Mmm. Good to know," the drow said boredly.

"In fact," Bartleby continued, returning to his work on the safe. "I have all your books. I must say, they're quite interesting. Do you write them yourself, or does someone else write them for you?"

"Books?" The drow's eye twitched. His mouth began to spasm. Oh, Gods, please. Please, no, he thought to himself. Please make him shut up. Make him shut up right now.

"Yes, yes. I've read them all. Several times! Although I've been wondering--aren't you supposed to have that panther with you? What was his name--"

The drow turned away from the window, staring at Bartleby's back. If the city bureaucrat could see him, he would have recognized a look of such pure murderous sociopathy that it might have killed him on the spot.

The safe clinked open. Bartleby reached inside, fishing out the necessary amount of cash. "Well, anyway. Truly, it's been an absolute honor to have the legendary Drizz't Do'Urden working for m--"

Five seconds later, a window on the top-floor of a tower exploded, a screaming fat man emerging. He flailed his arms for a good 1.3 seconds before slamming into the ground with a sound best described as 'incredibly moist'.

~*~

Bristling with weapons, the guards kicked down the door and stepped into the room. They found three things of note.

Bartleby, their employer, was missing.

The very large window behind Bartleby's desk was currently broken.

In Bartleby's place was a very angry looking drow. An angry drow with a hood and two very nasty looking swords.

"Cancer," the drow croaked.

"Holy mother of pearl!" One of the guards yelled. "Do you--do you know who that is?!"

"Eh?" Said another.

"That's Drizz't Do'Urden!"

"GODS DAMN IT!" The drow roared, charging.

[Jorpho]

I do seem to be capable of voluminous output; at least, I went through a phase in my younger years wherein I gushed forth several thousand words about how miserable I was feeling. For some reason I showed it to someone else whose opinion I could trust entirely who even went so far as to encourage me to write more, for some odd reason.

But I don't know if I could have the nerve to start writing something much more creative. I really wish there was a local support group for that kind of thing. Sometimes I've wondered about starting something like that myself.