This is a story I've been working on off and on for a few years, figured with all the free time I would try and see if I could actually finish it. As always, the usual disclaimer about being a novice writer and all that jazz. Regardless though, hope you enjoy it!
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The bright sunny day suddenly darkened, giving the man who called himself Jarek Giles pause.
“Catch me!” came a woman’s voice from above, so Jarek dutifully put his arms out just in time to snag a beautiful woman as she plummeted from above. All things considered, not the worst way to start a day.
Jarek looked into the woman’s clear green eyes, and was surprised by what he saw there. As previously mentioned, she was pretty, and the firmness of her body in his hands danced at the edges of his thoughts, but something in her eyes demanded his attention. Intelligence, warmth, and curiosity were all there, as well as something more resolute.
After a brief moment, almost frozen in time as the two took stock of one another, the girl leaned forward and gave him a quick, playful kiss on the cheek. “Thanks handsome, but you can put me down now” she said with a smile.
“Do I have to?” Jarek replied, and he meant it.
She laughed, a sweet, lilting sound, and nodded. “For now at least, I find I am in a bit of a hurry at the moment.”
Jarek looked up and saw several armed guards pointing down at her and shouting. “That’s unfortunate. Anything I can help with?”
The woman laughed again. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
He set her down and she started to turn away, but Jarek put a hand lightly on her arm to stop her. “Can I get a name at least?”
“Only if you see me again.” With that and a wink, she dashed off.
Jarek watched her go, realizing as he did he already missed her. He shrugged his shoulders and started to continue on his way when he felt arms grab him from behind and slam him down into the dusty road. Before he could regain the breath knocked out of him, a man was sitting on his chest with his knees pinning Jarek’s arms down and a knife to his throat.
“Who are you and why did you help her?” the man demanded. He was dressed in a city guard’s uniform, which, considering how sweaty the man was, was apparently rather hot.
The initial shock of the encounter gave way to anger at his treatment, but the knife at his throat was problematic. So, Jarek decided to try his best to be diplomatic.
“The name’s Jarek, and I am just doing my best in the fight against broken limbs.”
The guard smirked. “Ah, you are just a dupe then. Well then, dupe, you won’t mind telling me which way the girl went?”
“I’ll show you if you get off me…” Jarek replied.
The guardsman pressed the flat of the blade hard against Jarek’s throat, causing him to gasp for breath. “I don’t believe you are in any position to make demands” he sneered. He held the blade a moment longer, then stood up. “Now, what direction was that again?”
Pausing only briefly to consider the ways in which the girl and the guard had treated him, Jarek pointed in the opposite direction the girl went.
“Thanks” the guard replied before punching Jarek in the stomach. “If you lied to us, we’ll be back.”
As Jarek fell to his knees to recover, the guard was joined by three others, all of whom rushed off in the wrong direction. After a couple of seconds, Jarek took small comfort in muttering “Dupe this” before climbing to his feet. He almost started walking in the direction the girl had gone, but a vague feeling of being watched told him it was a bad idea. The girl had gone north and the guards south, so Jarek decided to head west. He hated not following her, but given the situation, he figured it was best to play it safe, and he needed to not be around when the guards returned from going the wrong direction.
The road west started out busy, mostly with traders and townsfolk going to and from the city, but after a few minutes, the hustle and bustle died down and the path grew quiet. Trees lined the road, but large amounts of sunlight still managed to filter down through them. Before long, Jarek grew thirsty; he had not had time to fill his water skin before having to leave town. As luck would have it though, he heard water running in the distance, so he left the path and ventured towards the sound.
***
The river was wide but shallow, and whispered to him invitingly. He kneeled down and examined the water, which appeared clear and delicious. He paused briefly at his reflection, his mind recalling the girl calling him handsome, then cupped his hands and took several long drinks from the stream. After he had drank his fill, he dunked his whole head in the water before filling his water skin.
Once finished with the river, he stood up and turned around just in time to see five figures wearing various types of leather armor materialized from the woods. They approached slowly, and did not exactly appear friendly. Jarek sighed and stared at the sky momentarily, noticing that dark storm clouds were slowly encroaching on the sunny day and his position. Returning his attention to the earth and the five men before him, he decided to try a tactful approach. “Good evening gentlemen. This must be a popular spot for this river, let me just get out of your way…”
The foremost man raised his arm and pointed Jarek, then balled his hand into a fist. The other four surged forward, unsheathing and unstrapping various weapons as they did so. Taking that as a sign of hostility, Jarek quickly unsheathed the sword from his side and took the plane wooden shield off his back.
The first man that reached him wielded a large axe, making him considerably dangerous but also rather slow. He began to swing the large weapon, and quick as a flash, Jarek surged forward. He ducked beneath the axe, then used his forward momentum to bring the shield edge up, smashing it directly into the man’s throat. The man staggered back, clutching in vain at his shattered larynx, and Jarek continued forward, shoving his shield bodily at the next attacker. The man was pushed back a step and slipped in some river mud, giving Jarek the opening he needed to bring the blade to bear and impale him. However, the dying man grabbed the blade sticking from his chest and clung fiercely with a death grip, preventing Jarek from using it.
The next attacker, sensing victory, hefted a curved scimitar and charged full out, running at top speed to catch Jarek while he was unable to use his weapon. Jarek struggled vainly to get the sword out, but the bandit on the end of the sword would not let go. At the last possible second, just as the charging man was swinging a vertical slash, Jarek rolled to the side, coming up with the knife that the man clasping his sword had dropped. He came to his feet and hurled the knife expertly at the bandit that had rushed past him, catching him in the spine.
Jarek looked around for the other men, spotting them just as they slid into the cover of the trees. After noting the directions in which they fled, he returned his attention to the man grasping his sword, who had finally died. He pried the man’s fingers off the blade and straightened up, mentally considering his options. All of a sudden, he heard a malignant hiss, and he dove to the side just as an arrow soared out from the concealing forest. The arrow thudded painfully in his left shoulder as he dove, but he managed to dodge the kill shot. He rolled when he hit the ground and came abruptly to his feet, dropping the shield due to the pain and running in the direction from whence the arrow had come. This was probably not the best plan of action, but too much rage filled his body for him to think clearly, so he clutched his sword tightly and sought out his quarry. Another arrow flew out from the forest, hitting him in the leg but also betraying the shooter’s position. Jarek did not even feel the pain as he ran, his mind focused utterly on vanquishing his attackers.
The archer was just fitting another arrow to his bow when Jarek hit him with a fierce downward slash, ending the archer’s threat. A chill of weakness and pain coursed down his body, but he dismissed it to begin seeking his final attacker. Lightning suddenly split the sky and rain began to fall in a torrential sheet, but he continued to look around, and the next lightning flash revealed the location of the other highwayman, who was cowering beneath some bushes. Hefting his blade, Jarek let out a ferocious cry and charged.
The remaining man, who had been the leader of the group, screamed in utter terror when he realized that he had been spotted. Without a backward glance, he began to run as fast as he could, knowing that his very survival counted on it. As a result, he did not see his pursuer faint from the loss of blood and exhaustion after only a few seconds of chase.
***
Morrigan Valinor wandered along the road home with his two sons, lamenting the sudden appearance of a heavy rain. Cold and wet, he quietly cursed the heavy grey clouds above his head. A hand touched his shoulder, causing Morrigan to look behind him. One of his sons, Matthias, gave him a faint smile and shrugged.
“Nothing you can do about the rain, Dad,” he said, and Morrigan nodded solemnly.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Matthias’s smile grew broader as the youngest son Aric, who was only nine, chimed in “I think it’s refreshing.” Then he gave his father a big smile.
Morrigan could not help but return the favor at that point; his son’s omnipresent optimism always served to lift his spirits. He was about to thank his sons for cheering him up when a wrenching cry cut through the forest, scattering birds in the trees and startling wild animals in the undergrowth.
The three men looked at one another and Morrigan sighed heavily, his good mood fading quickly. His sons peered at him, waiting for his advice, so he gave them a nod of acknowledgement. Without a word, the three took off running in the direction of the scream.
***
After several long minutes, the family came upon the river and a clearing that had clearly seen the chaos of battle recently. Several bodies littered the landscape, none of them having died of pleasant causes.
Morrigan viewed the battlefield with consternation, unsure about what to think. The dead men were clearly bandits, so their loss would not exactly bring humanity to its knees. However, what or whoever had killed them had likely survived the confrontation, and Morrigan did not know if that person was friend or foe.
He heard Aric give a yell. Looking up from his thoughts, Morrigan was surprised to see how far his sons had spread across and from the battlefield while he had been thinking. In fact, he couldn’t even see Aric, who had apparently gone into the trees. Panic surged through him, and he ran towards Matthias, who appeared to be able to see Aric. He quickly reached his son, who was staring down at something in the thick loam of the forest floor.
A closer inspection revealed that it was a man, partially covered in leaves after what appeared to be a heavy fall. He was lying on his stomach, blood seeping from two grievous arrow wounds and onto the blade that he clasped in his right hand. Morrigan tried to roll the man over, but the sword prevented him from putting the man completely on his back. Upon trying to remove the weapon, the stranger grasped the handle tighter, giving Morrigan the sign of life he had been looking for. The chest rose and fell very slowly; it was clear that he had lost a lot of blood. Morrigan looked up at his sons, who stared alternately between the dying man and their father.
“We can’t just leave him here, Dad.” Matthias said.
“He’s hurt badly!” Aric added.
Morrigan grimaced at the realization he would not be able to convince his sons otherwise. It was not that he didn’t want to help the man; he was afraid of what the person would do upon his recovery as Morrigan had a pretty good idea that the dying man was the one who had killed the others in the clearing. But, there did not appear to be another choice, so setting his jaw firmly and taking off his tunic, Morrigan set to work binding the stranger’s wounds.
“Matthias, I need you to run home, get the horse and some blankets, and come back here as soon as possible. Aric, you go home with your brother; when you get there, get a fire going and boil some water. You both understand what I need you to do?”
Both boys nodded and started running the last mile home.
Morrigan got back to work at that point on the man’s wounds, cleaning them out with a water skin he always brought with him for the trip between home and his blacksmith’s forge. He also used his tunic to bind the wounds, used his belt as a tourniquet on the leg, and applied pressure with his hands on the shoulder wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
When Matthias returned, they strapped the man on the horse’s back, covered him with the blankets, and started home. The going was slow since they did not want to jostle the man too much, and by the time they got home, the stranger’s pallor had grown visibly fainter.
They placed the stranger in a bed and put it very close to the fire to keep him warm, and Morrigan changed the man’s crude bandages, adding some medicinal herbs he had stored away. When all that was completed, he looked down at his sons.
“You guys have done a great job today… At this point, it’s out of our hands; his will to survive is the only thing that is going to make him recover now.” With that, they all sat down in front of the fire and began to wait.
It took three days and three nights for the stranger to come back around. Three long days and nights of changing bandages and keeping a close, tense eye on the labored breathing and survival of the strange man. Throughout these tense days, the stranger never once opened his eyes or loosened the grip he had on his sword. It rested next to him on the bed, his hand clasped tightly about the handle.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Confessions of an 8 Year Old
Given my lack of success in the job market, I have recently turned to obssessively cleaning and sorting to make up for my current lack of purpose. During the course of this, I found a journal (its got dinosaurs over the cover, so don't worry, it's very manly)from 1994. No idea how this particular item stayed in my stuff for that long (I have to fight the occassional pack-rat tendencies), so I started to go through it and found some rather humorous comments that I thought I would share.
"When I got to the shop (my folks owned a retail store growing up) I played with Liz the cat. The cat got all the compliments."
"We had a bad thunder storm and the power went out today. I was scared because I couldn't see a thing!"
"Missed almost a month of writing in my diary." (end entry with no further comments)
"Had a little dribblers game today. I scored 23 points. Our team won 27-22." (No comment about how awesome it was I scored almost all our points. Apparently I used to be rather humble)
"I hate playin with *name deleted* He says bad words all the time, and if you steal the ball he tries to kick you. When I play we win."
"We watched 007 with Sean Connery. It's Irish. The name is pronounced as Shawn, which is weird"
"We won our game today 41-6. It was actually 41-4 because *name deleted* traveled when he shot but they gave it to him anyway."
"????" (For a solid week I didn't write, but I wrote the date with question marks for every day)
"Today I got lots of presents because it was my birthday" (end entry)
"When I got to the shop (my folks owned a retail store growing up) I played with Liz the cat. The cat got all the compliments."
"We had a bad thunder storm and the power went out today. I was scared because I couldn't see a thing!"
"Missed almost a month of writing in my diary." (end entry with no further comments)
"Had a little dribblers game today. I scored 23 points. Our team won 27-22." (No comment about how awesome it was I scored almost all our points. Apparently I used to be rather humble)
"I hate playin with *name deleted* He says bad words all the time, and if you steal the ball he tries to kick you. When I play we win."
"We watched 007 with Sean Connery. It's Irish. The name is pronounced as Shawn, which is weird"
"We won our game today 41-6. It was actually 41-4 because *name deleted* traveled when he shot but they gave it to him anyway."
"????" (For a solid week I didn't write, but I wrote the date with question marks for every day)
"Today I got lots of presents because it was my birthday" (end entry)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Rest
This is the conclusion to the previous post, a story Justin and I decided to work on together.
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From my time as a soldier and scout, I was a proficient hunter and forager, so I did not need much to survive. When I did need something, there was usually a job or two at the various towns I passed through on my travels. Such a job had led me to this troll cave.
The last village I had entered had appeared barren and lifeless at first. No animals roamed the streets, no children ran across my path, and no adults were around to glare suspiciously at me. I made it to the town square before I saw the first sign of life. A large man in armor appeared, and I finally received the suspicious glare I had been expecting.
“Why are you here, stranger?” he asked.
“I am either a traveler just passing through or a skilled hunter and tracker looking for work, depending on what you prefer. And if I may ask, who are you? You do not much look like a village elder. And where is everybody else? I have never seen a village so empty.”
The man visibly relaxed. “I am called Sten, and I am the leader of this village. Our elder was slain by a marauding troll, which has been terrorizing the town of late… everybody is in hiding to try and limit the number it makes off with. So, a hunter is just what we need. Would you be interested in killing the troll for us? We would pay, of course.”
I thought on that for a moment. “Well, we could use the money, but a troll is dangerous business. Let me consult with my colleague.”
Sten tensed once again. “Colleague? We saw no one else with you.”
I smiled and whistled. Almost as a ghost, Snow appeared out of nowhere beside me. I scratched behind his ears and whispered “Nice touch”. Then, more louder and theatrically, I asked him “Well, what do you think? Shall we kill this troll for the villagers?”
Snow nodded his head, and I grinned. The villager looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled. “Nice trick. We appreciate your services then. The troll always comes into town from the north, so we would guess it has a cave in that direction.”
“That would make sense. Now, you mentioned payment…”
The man nodded. “Let me confer with the other villagers and see what we can offer you.” He started to walk towards the largest building in the town, and I started to follow. He stopped, however, and barred my path. “If you will, sir, our village has been through quite a lot as of late, and we would prefer if you would stay out here. I will be back shortly.”
I shrugged, starting to feel slightly uneasy with the secrecy, but decided it was understandable given their fear. A few minutes later, the man returned carrying a bag of coins. He tossed it to me, and said “We are prepared to give that to you now as a down payment, and triple it should you return with proof that the troll is dead.”
I looked into the bag. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it would be enough to get me through for awhile, so I nodded. It was fairly obvious they would not want me to spend the night in the town before venturing off, so despite how tired I was after several days of difficult traveling, I said “This is sufficient. I will be back shortly” and headed out.
The troll was not difficult to find, as they are not exactly the most careful of creatures. Once I was north of town, I could very easily see a trail of knocked-down trees and battered grass. So, I followed that until I reached the mouth of the cave, and that brings us back to the present.
I looked up from the fire, and the troll was still staring at me. “You know, if you wanted to come out here, we could get this over with” I said sarcastically. The troll seemed to glare at me, then stepped out and roared. Be careful what you wish for. I sighed and stood up. “Ready to go to work Snow?”
There was no response. I looked down, and the wolf was nowhere to be seen.
“Great…” I started to say, and the troll charged. I unsheathed my sword, grabbed my shield, and sidestepped the troll’s charge. He crashed into a tree on the far side, and I got into a stance to be more prepared for the next attack. The trick with a troll is to go to the neck. Much of the troll’s body is covered in thick scales that are better than most armor as protection; as a result, the target is either the eyes or the throat. Of course, reaching the eyes and throat of a ten foot tall troll is a bit of a challenge.
The troll approached slower this time. It swung one of its huge fists at me, so I rolled to the side. When I came to my feet, it tried to shoulder push me into its cave. I slide between its legs and shoved it with my shield. I don’t think it moved even an inch. It swung its arms around in reaction, and I took the brunt of the hit on my shield. The force threw me back and dented the shield, the force numbing my shield hand. Not a good sign.
The troll tried to press its advantage, lurching forward and trying to grapple. I rushed forward inside its arms, surprising it. I slashed at its throat, and it just barely managed to pull back. My sword traced a faint line across its neck, drawing a thin line of blood. The troll continued backing away in surprise, and I moved back as well. We stood momentarily staring at each other in reevaluation. The battle wasn’t really going the way either of us wanted.
Suddenly, Snow appeared out of nowhere, jumping down from above the troll’s cave. He went right for the throat, tearing it out in a flash. The troll stared at me in surprise, gurgled, and sank to its knees. Blood spurted over the ground, and it finally fell forward, dead.
I stared, momentarily stunned. And then I started laughing. The wolf stared at me.
“You did it backwards!” I shouted between laughs. “You’re supposed to be my distraction, not the other way around!”
Snow rolled his shoulders in a shrug as if to say “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” I walked forward and cut the troll’s two largest fangs out in proof of the kill, and considered my next action. It was still night and rather cold, so I decided I would head back in the morning. I settled back in front of the fire, with Snow lying down beside me, and drifted off into sleep.
In the morning, I decided to take a look around the troll’s cave before heading out. Unsurprisingly, it smelled awful and was cluttered with the remnants of humans and animals alike. What was a surprise, however, was a large volume of armor pieces either still attached to the bodies or flung around the cave. The armor was leather and dyed red, typically the kind worn by bandits. I had not heard of any groups operating out this area, so something did not quite add up to me, but I could not quite put my finger on it. Nothing else of note struck me in the cave, so I walked out and heading back to town.
I was rather tired and sore after being the troll bait yesterday, so the journey back took a bit longer than the trip to the cave, causing me to arrive around the middle of the night. Once again, I could see no villagers as I entered, but since it was the middle of the night, this did not strike me as unusual. I wandered around, looking for anybody, before arriving again at the town square. The village elder did not come out to greet me, so I considered going back into the forest to sleep when I saw light coming from the edges of the door of a large building at the edge of the square, likely the town hall. The windows were all boarded up, but as I walked closer, I could tell that it was definitely torchlight emanating from any gaps in the building.
I approached the door and was just about to knock on it when I heard Snow whine. I paused and looked around, but I saw nothing, so I started to knock again. This time, Snow growled, so I decided to investigate more first. I leaned down and tried to look through the crack at the bottom of the door, but it was too small. Once down there, however, I could hear voices… and they were chanting.
That’s never good.
I got up and looked back at Snow, but he was gone yet again. Looks like it was still my turn to be bait. Without wasting any more time, I kicked the door in and strolled into the building in time to see about a dozen men in a circle stand up quickly and look at me in surprise. Six children and six women were chained in the center of the circle with strange sigils painted on their faces, and a circle of flames was between them and the men.
“Am I interrupting anything?” I asked, and the men charged at me. I took out the nearest two quickly, but the others were smart enough to stay together and surrounded me.
“I don’t suppose I can make a last request to know what the hell is going on, can I?” I inquired.
Sten laughed, a sound that lacked the pleasantness usually associated with such an act. “Sure, why not. We didn’t think you would survive, so we are summoning Anazas the Toll Bane to take care of our troll issue.”
I looked at him incredulously. “Wait, you are summoning something that eats trolls? Is that all he eats?”
Sten looked uncertain a moment. “Well, we just have the name… figured he’d go find other trolls. That makes sense, right?”
“Uh huh. Look, before I kill all of you, I’d just like to ask how the hell you planned on stopping something that literally eats trolls for breakfast. And you’d sacrifice your own women and children to bring that thing here? That’s despicable.”
Sten laughed again. “These aren’t our women, and this isn’t our town. We are bandits, we captured this village awhile back, killed all the men that wouldn’t join us, and made the women and children our slaves. It worked out great for awhile, but we didn’t know when we attacked that the town had a troll problem. Bad luck on our parts. He killed a lot of us before I remembered this book we had found from a grave we’d robbed earlier, so we decided to use it.”
“Ah, okay. So, you guys are bandits, murderers, and grave diggers. Thanks for the information, now I don’t have to feel bad for what I’m about to do.” I snapped my fingers, and Snow burst through one of the boarded up windows, tearing into the circle of men around me. Surprised, the men turned outwards towards this new threat, and I went on the offensive. Between the two of us, the bandits didn’t stand a chance, and it was not long before we were the only ones left.
The bandits had placed buckets of water around the building to control the flames, so I quickly used them to extinguish the flames around the women and children. A quick search of Sten’s body resulted in the keys to their chains, so I freed the women and children. Tears were shed and they thanked me profusely, but I was still overcome with disgust at what the bandits had done and had tried to do. And they wonder why I hate people.
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From my time as a soldier and scout, I was a proficient hunter and forager, so I did not need much to survive. When I did need something, there was usually a job or two at the various towns I passed through on my travels. Such a job had led me to this troll cave.
The last village I had entered had appeared barren and lifeless at first. No animals roamed the streets, no children ran across my path, and no adults were around to glare suspiciously at me. I made it to the town square before I saw the first sign of life. A large man in armor appeared, and I finally received the suspicious glare I had been expecting.
“Why are you here, stranger?” he asked.
“I am either a traveler just passing through or a skilled hunter and tracker looking for work, depending on what you prefer. And if I may ask, who are you? You do not much look like a village elder. And where is everybody else? I have never seen a village so empty.”
The man visibly relaxed. “I am called Sten, and I am the leader of this village. Our elder was slain by a marauding troll, which has been terrorizing the town of late… everybody is in hiding to try and limit the number it makes off with. So, a hunter is just what we need. Would you be interested in killing the troll for us? We would pay, of course.”
I thought on that for a moment. “Well, we could use the money, but a troll is dangerous business. Let me consult with my colleague.”
Sten tensed once again. “Colleague? We saw no one else with you.”
I smiled and whistled. Almost as a ghost, Snow appeared out of nowhere beside me. I scratched behind his ears and whispered “Nice touch”. Then, more louder and theatrically, I asked him “Well, what do you think? Shall we kill this troll for the villagers?”
Snow nodded his head, and I grinned. The villager looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled. “Nice trick. We appreciate your services then. The troll always comes into town from the north, so we would guess it has a cave in that direction.”
“That would make sense. Now, you mentioned payment…”
The man nodded. “Let me confer with the other villagers and see what we can offer you.” He started to walk towards the largest building in the town, and I started to follow. He stopped, however, and barred my path. “If you will, sir, our village has been through quite a lot as of late, and we would prefer if you would stay out here. I will be back shortly.”
I shrugged, starting to feel slightly uneasy with the secrecy, but decided it was understandable given their fear. A few minutes later, the man returned carrying a bag of coins. He tossed it to me, and said “We are prepared to give that to you now as a down payment, and triple it should you return with proof that the troll is dead.”
I looked into the bag. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it would be enough to get me through for awhile, so I nodded. It was fairly obvious they would not want me to spend the night in the town before venturing off, so despite how tired I was after several days of difficult traveling, I said “This is sufficient. I will be back shortly” and headed out.
The troll was not difficult to find, as they are not exactly the most careful of creatures. Once I was north of town, I could very easily see a trail of knocked-down trees and battered grass. So, I followed that until I reached the mouth of the cave, and that brings us back to the present.
I looked up from the fire, and the troll was still staring at me. “You know, if you wanted to come out here, we could get this over with” I said sarcastically. The troll seemed to glare at me, then stepped out and roared. Be careful what you wish for. I sighed and stood up. “Ready to go to work Snow?”
There was no response. I looked down, and the wolf was nowhere to be seen.
“Great…” I started to say, and the troll charged. I unsheathed my sword, grabbed my shield, and sidestepped the troll’s charge. He crashed into a tree on the far side, and I got into a stance to be more prepared for the next attack. The trick with a troll is to go to the neck. Much of the troll’s body is covered in thick scales that are better than most armor as protection; as a result, the target is either the eyes or the throat. Of course, reaching the eyes and throat of a ten foot tall troll is a bit of a challenge.
The troll approached slower this time. It swung one of its huge fists at me, so I rolled to the side. When I came to my feet, it tried to shoulder push me into its cave. I slide between its legs and shoved it with my shield. I don’t think it moved even an inch. It swung its arms around in reaction, and I took the brunt of the hit on my shield. The force threw me back and dented the shield, the force numbing my shield hand. Not a good sign.
The troll tried to press its advantage, lurching forward and trying to grapple. I rushed forward inside its arms, surprising it. I slashed at its throat, and it just barely managed to pull back. My sword traced a faint line across its neck, drawing a thin line of blood. The troll continued backing away in surprise, and I moved back as well. We stood momentarily staring at each other in reevaluation. The battle wasn’t really going the way either of us wanted.
Suddenly, Snow appeared out of nowhere, jumping down from above the troll’s cave. He went right for the throat, tearing it out in a flash. The troll stared at me in surprise, gurgled, and sank to its knees. Blood spurted over the ground, and it finally fell forward, dead.
I stared, momentarily stunned. And then I started laughing. The wolf stared at me.
“You did it backwards!” I shouted between laughs. “You’re supposed to be my distraction, not the other way around!”
Snow rolled his shoulders in a shrug as if to say “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” I walked forward and cut the troll’s two largest fangs out in proof of the kill, and considered my next action. It was still night and rather cold, so I decided I would head back in the morning. I settled back in front of the fire, with Snow lying down beside me, and drifted off into sleep.
In the morning, I decided to take a look around the troll’s cave before heading out. Unsurprisingly, it smelled awful and was cluttered with the remnants of humans and animals alike. What was a surprise, however, was a large volume of armor pieces either still attached to the bodies or flung around the cave. The armor was leather and dyed red, typically the kind worn by bandits. I had not heard of any groups operating out this area, so something did not quite add up to me, but I could not quite put my finger on it. Nothing else of note struck me in the cave, so I walked out and heading back to town.
I was rather tired and sore after being the troll bait yesterday, so the journey back took a bit longer than the trip to the cave, causing me to arrive around the middle of the night. Once again, I could see no villagers as I entered, but since it was the middle of the night, this did not strike me as unusual. I wandered around, looking for anybody, before arriving again at the town square. The village elder did not come out to greet me, so I considered going back into the forest to sleep when I saw light coming from the edges of the door of a large building at the edge of the square, likely the town hall. The windows were all boarded up, but as I walked closer, I could tell that it was definitely torchlight emanating from any gaps in the building.
I approached the door and was just about to knock on it when I heard Snow whine. I paused and looked around, but I saw nothing, so I started to knock again. This time, Snow growled, so I decided to investigate more first. I leaned down and tried to look through the crack at the bottom of the door, but it was too small. Once down there, however, I could hear voices… and they were chanting.
That’s never good.
I got up and looked back at Snow, but he was gone yet again. Looks like it was still my turn to be bait. Without wasting any more time, I kicked the door in and strolled into the building in time to see about a dozen men in a circle stand up quickly and look at me in surprise. Six children and six women were chained in the center of the circle with strange sigils painted on their faces, and a circle of flames was between them and the men.
“Am I interrupting anything?” I asked, and the men charged at me. I took out the nearest two quickly, but the others were smart enough to stay together and surrounded me.
“I don’t suppose I can make a last request to know what the hell is going on, can I?” I inquired.
Sten laughed, a sound that lacked the pleasantness usually associated with such an act. “Sure, why not. We didn’t think you would survive, so we are summoning Anazas the Toll Bane to take care of our troll issue.”
I looked at him incredulously. “Wait, you are summoning something that eats trolls? Is that all he eats?”
Sten looked uncertain a moment. “Well, we just have the name… figured he’d go find other trolls. That makes sense, right?”
“Uh huh. Look, before I kill all of you, I’d just like to ask how the hell you planned on stopping something that literally eats trolls for breakfast. And you’d sacrifice your own women and children to bring that thing here? That’s despicable.”
Sten laughed again. “These aren’t our women, and this isn’t our town. We are bandits, we captured this village awhile back, killed all the men that wouldn’t join us, and made the women and children our slaves. It worked out great for awhile, but we didn’t know when we attacked that the town had a troll problem. Bad luck on our parts. He killed a lot of us before I remembered this book we had found from a grave we’d robbed earlier, so we decided to use it.”
“Ah, okay. So, you guys are bandits, murderers, and grave diggers. Thanks for the information, now I don’t have to feel bad for what I’m about to do.” I snapped my fingers, and Snow burst through one of the boarded up windows, tearing into the circle of men around me. Surprised, the men turned outwards towards this new threat, and I went on the offensive. Between the two of us, the bandits didn’t stand a chance, and it was not long before we were the only ones left.
The bandits had placed buckets of water around the building to control the flames, so I quickly used them to extinguish the flames around the women and children. A quick search of Sten’s body resulted in the keys to their chains, so I freed the women and children. Tears were shed and they thanked me profusely, but I was still overcome with disgust at what the bandits had done and had tried to do. And they wonder why I hate people.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Cave
Justin and I decided to work on a story together, with me writing and him illustrating it. We have a full story fleshed out, but this is what is written so far. Pictures will hopefully follow.
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Two pairs of eyes stared at me, reflecting the light from my camp fire as it danced across the walls of the wooded ravine I was in. One pair, large, blue, and friendly, belonged to my companion Snow. A large white wolf, he doesn’t say much, and as such, asks for very little. The other pair, dull, yellow, and menacing, peered out from the cave near my campsite. They belonged to the troll I was hunting, and it did not appear happy to have a squatter.
Now, I realize relaxing in front of the lair of a vicious, man-eating troll does not seem smart, but it had been a long last few days and I wanted to be rested up before our fight. Plus, only a fool chooses a monster’s lair as the sight of a fight, you never know what you’ll run into in such a place. So, I was waiting patiently outside, hoping eventually it would become bored or hungry enough to come out and face me. One thing a hunter must learn is to be patient, and I had mastered such a skill long before.
I tossed Snow a piece of the rabbit I had had for supper, and he chewed on it gratefully. When he finished, he nodded his head in thanks and placed himself between me and the cave troll. With his eyes and my sword and shield within reach, I felt I could relax a bit, and staring into the fire, I felt my mind began to wander. Without meaning to, I found myself reflecting on how I came to be here, a soldier over half a century old relaxing in the middle of nowhere with a wolf and a troll.
Truth be told, I’m not the biggest fan of people. When you’ve lived as long as I, you see a lot, and as a career soldier, a lot of that isn’t good. It had started out well enough, going off to fight as a young man to protect my homeland, but after several long years of campaigns, my homeland fell. Unfortunately, put enough years into war and that becomes a part of your identity, and I just never could bring myself to really do anything else. So, for a long while I ended up as a sword for hire, making what I could with an army before it inevitably fell to someone else. I’m not sure how I kept surviving so many final battlefields, but somehow I always found a way. After awhile though, I grew tired of making friends and enemies only to lose them, and grew tired of so much death. So, combining that feeling with my own skills in survival, I eventually became a scout.
That was a few years ago, and about when Snow came into the picture. I was scouting a mountain pass at the time, and, well, I screwed up. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
Anyways, I had decided to find a place to camp for the night. I had seen a small cave up high, so I climbed up to it and, in my haste, did not notice the wolf signs outside as I rushed in. As soon as I entered, I heard some snarling and saw a large wolf in the back feeding her puppies. She struggled to rise and the pups started complaining, so I took the opportunity to shrink down low and back slowly out of the cave. The wolf continued growling, but made no pursuit. Unfortunately, walking backwards in the snow in a mountain pass is not the best idea, and I slipped, rolling down the mountain side and making a rather ridiculous amount of noise as I did so. This, of course, attracted the notice of the enemy (I was spying on them, after all). A group of six of them, possibly a foraging party, had me beaten and trussed up before I could regain my balance after the fall.
Apparently, the enemy soldiers also knew about the cave as well, for they carried me back up and decided to camp there for the night so they could be sheltered while they tortured me for information. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to this.
When we got to the top, the first man to go inside was killed by the mother wolf, who was still riled up from my earlier entrance. Sadly, that was all she could do, and the remaining armored soldiers killed her and her puppies, tossing the corpses outside the cave. I grimaced at this, for no family deserved such a death, and reaffirming that I was on the right side of this particular conflict if these were representatives of the other guys. Perhaps now you can see why I don’t like people much. After that, they got on with the questions and the torturing, which definitely was not my favorite part of the evening. They were very thorough and proficient in their attempts, and I probably would have broken if they had not killed the wolves. Perhaps that sounds foolish given that I was protecting men I had fought and spilled blood with, but that was a somewhat distant feeling, while my anger at what they had just done was fresh. Anger is a powerful force. Eventually, they got tired and bored, so they tied me up and placed me near the cave entrance as far from the fire as possible. In my state, I wasn’t exactly about to go anywhere. Since neither army would march in such weather, they decided they could rest, and promptly all fell asleep except for one man placed as a guard, both on me and on the entrance.
I slipped in and out of sleep depending on how bad the pain decided to be at the time, and during one of my conscious times, I heard the mournful howl of a wolf off in the distance.
The next time I awoke, it was because I felt something huge and furry brush by me. I shifted slightly and opened my eyes in time to see a huge male wolf sneaking into the cave. Sensing my movement, it turned to look at me. Our eyes met, and I swear to this day an understanding passed between us. I remained quiet.
The wolf turned its gaze away from me and crept passed the sentry, who apparently had fallen asleep in a sitting position. It went up to the first of the soldiers and silently ripped out his throat. The dying man’s gargling awoke the others, but slowly (I guess I had worn them out a bit), and the wolf managed to kill two more before the sentry and the leader realized what was going on. They grabbed their swords and cornered the wolf at the back of the cave.
The wolf bristled, and there was death in its eyes, but I knew it had no chance against two armed and armored men. I could not let such a creature die, not after what had happened to its family, so I gathered up what little strength I had left and threw myself at the men. They were looking at the wolf and not me, and my charge had the intended effect of knocking both of them over. This was all the opening the wolf needed, and it made short work of the remaining two soldiers.
I had barely managed to sit up by the time it was all over, and it came over and sat in front of me. We were at the same level, eye to eye, and I was not sure what would happen next. With nothing else to say, I simply said “I am sorry about your family.”
The wolf showed the unerring amount of understanding that I would later become well acclimated to and nodded its head, and I think we both realized we had saved each other’s lives. Then it ran off.
Shrugging, I used one of the fallen men’s swords to cut the ropes that bound me. By the time I was finished, the wolf was back with a rabbit in its jaws, probably the meal it had been out finding for its family when the soldiers came. So, I put the rabbit on a spit over the fire and tended to my wounds while it cooked. I shared the meal with him, and when I left to return to the base, he followed me. I resigned after that, citing the whole torture thing, and took up selling my services as an experienced tracker, hunter, and woodsman. You’d be amazed what people will pay you to do.
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Two pairs of eyes stared at me, reflecting the light from my camp fire as it danced across the walls of the wooded ravine I was in. One pair, large, blue, and friendly, belonged to my companion Snow. A large white wolf, he doesn’t say much, and as such, asks for very little. The other pair, dull, yellow, and menacing, peered out from the cave near my campsite. They belonged to the troll I was hunting, and it did not appear happy to have a squatter.
Now, I realize relaxing in front of the lair of a vicious, man-eating troll does not seem smart, but it had been a long last few days and I wanted to be rested up before our fight. Plus, only a fool chooses a monster’s lair as the sight of a fight, you never know what you’ll run into in such a place. So, I was waiting patiently outside, hoping eventually it would become bored or hungry enough to come out and face me. One thing a hunter must learn is to be patient, and I had mastered such a skill long before.
I tossed Snow a piece of the rabbit I had had for supper, and he chewed on it gratefully. When he finished, he nodded his head in thanks and placed himself between me and the cave troll. With his eyes and my sword and shield within reach, I felt I could relax a bit, and staring into the fire, I felt my mind began to wander. Without meaning to, I found myself reflecting on how I came to be here, a soldier over half a century old relaxing in the middle of nowhere with a wolf and a troll.
Truth be told, I’m not the biggest fan of people. When you’ve lived as long as I, you see a lot, and as a career soldier, a lot of that isn’t good. It had started out well enough, going off to fight as a young man to protect my homeland, but after several long years of campaigns, my homeland fell. Unfortunately, put enough years into war and that becomes a part of your identity, and I just never could bring myself to really do anything else. So, for a long while I ended up as a sword for hire, making what I could with an army before it inevitably fell to someone else. I’m not sure how I kept surviving so many final battlefields, but somehow I always found a way. After awhile though, I grew tired of making friends and enemies only to lose them, and grew tired of so much death. So, combining that feeling with my own skills in survival, I eventually became a scout.
That was a few years ago, and about when Snow came into the picture. I was scouting a mountain pass at the time, and, well, I screwed up. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
Anyways, I had decided to find a place to camp for the night. I had seen a small cave up high, so I climbed up to it and, in my haste, did not notice the wolf signs outside as I rushed in. As soon as I entered, I heard some snarling and saw a large wolf in the back feeding her puppies. She struggled to rise and the pups started complaining, so I took the opportunity to shrink down low and back slowly out of the cave. The wolf continued growling, but made no pursuit. Unfortunately, walking backwards in the snow in a mountain pass is not the best idea, and I slipped, rolling down the mountain side and making a rather ridiculous amount of noise as I did so. This, of course, attracted the notice of the enemy (I was spying on them, after all). A group of six of them, possibly a foraging party, had me beaten and trussed up before I could regain my balance after the fall.
Apparently, the enemy soldiers also knew about the cave as well, for they carried me back up and decided to camp there for the night so they could be sheltered while they tortured me for information. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to this.
When we got to the top, the first man to go inside was killed by the mother wolf, who was still riled up from my earlier entrance. Sadly, that was all she could do, and the remaining armored soldiers killed her and her puppies, tossing the corpses outside the cave. I grimaced at this, for no family deserved such a death, and reaffirming that I was on the right side of this particular conflict if these were representatives of the other guys. Perhaps now you can see why I don’t like people much. After that, they got on with the questions and the torturing, which definitely was not my favorite part of the evening. They were very thorough and proficient in their attempts, and I probably would have broken if they had not killed the wolves. Perhaps that sounds foolish given that I was protecting men I had fought and spilled blood with, but that was a somewhat distant feeling, while my anger at what they had just done was fresh. Anger is a powerful force. Eventually, they got tired and bored, so they tied me up and placed me near the cave entrance as far from the fire as possible. In my state, I wasn’t exactly about to go anywhere. Since neither army would march in such weather, they decided they could rest, and promptly all fell asleep except for one man placed as a guard, both on me and on the entrance.
I slipped in and out of sleep depending on how bad the pain decided to be at the time, and during one of my conscious times, I heard the mournful howl of a wolf off in the distance.
The next time I awoke, it was because I felt something huge and furry brush by me. I shifted slightly and opened my eyes in time to see a huge male wolf sneaking into the cave. Sensing my movement, it turned to look at me. Our eyes met, and I swear to this day an understanding passed between us. I remained quiet.
The wolf turned its gaze away from me and crept passed the sentry, who apparently had fallen asleep in a sitting position. It went up to the first of the soldiers and silently ripped out his throat. The dying man’s gargling awoke the others, but slowly (I guess I had worn them out a bit), and the wolf managed to kill two more before the sentry and the leader realized what was going on. They grabbed their swords and cornered the wolf at the back of the cave.
The wolf bristled, and there was death in its eyes, but I knew it had no chance against two armed and armored men. I could not let such a creature die, not after what had happened to its family, so I gathered up what little strength I had left and threw myself at the men. They were looking at the wolf and not me, and my charge had the intended effect of knocking both of them over. This was all the opening the wolf needed, and it made short work of the remaining two soldiers.
I had barely managed to sit up by the time it was all over, and it came over and sat in front of me. We were at the same level, eye to eye, and I was not sure what would happen next. With nothing else to say, I simply said “I am sorry about your family.”
The wolf showed the unerring amount of understanding that I would later become well acclimated to and nodded its head, and I think we both realized we had saved each other’s lives. Then it ran off.
Shrugging, I used one of the fallen men’s swords to cut the ropes that bound me. By the time I was finished, the wolf was back with a rabbit in its jaws, probably the meal it had been out finding for its family when the soldiers came. So, I put the rabbit on a spit over the fire and tended to my wounds while it cooked. I shared the meal with him, and when I left to return to the base, he followed me. I resigned after that, citing the whole torture thing, and took up selling my services as an experienced tracker, hunter, and woodsman. You’d be amazed what people will pay you to do.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
New Horizons
For those that checked out the first post, thanks for reading. I appreciate any feedback, and one of the comments I heard was that the first story was a little scary. So, here's a slightly lighter take on the topic. And don't worry, the whole blog won't be about aliens, just felt like trying a different approach.
Oh, and this one is a little longer. Sorry :)
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I awoke to the soothing rays of a supernova burning through the windows of my house and into my corneas. Okay, supernova might be a little extreme, but whatever was out there was quite bright to my sleep-filled eyes.
A moment’s thought resulted in the conclusion that, since I live out in the middle of nowhere, that was probably a bad thing. Thinking it was probably just some high school kids having a secret kegger or a lost trucker, I headed to the front door.
Just as I left my room I ran into my brother, who was visiting me for the weekend.
“Friends of yours?” he asked.
“Just my alien buddies, time for my weekly probing” I retorted before opening the door.
My brother and I walked outside, and the lights dimmed enough to silhouette the people out there. We gasped in surprise.
“Son of a…” we started to say, but the rest of our sentences were cut off by heavy blows to the back of our heads. My last thought before descending into darkness was “I hate being right…”
**********
We awoke eventually (not sure how long it took, kinda hard to keep track of time when you’re unconscious) and found ourselves strapped down in an alien ship. Our captors were hovering around us (not literally, not those kind of aliens, just were all around us), and pretty much fit every stereotype that exists for aliens… small in stature, big heads, almond eyes, the works. Guess there had been more truth to those descriptions than I had previously thought.
Anyways, what happened next was… well, actually, I’m not going to tell you what happened next because you wouldn’t be interested. See, absolutely nothing happened. It was super boring and uneventful, and in no way was it a dark time in my life that I am trying my best to forget. Nope, nothing happened. No probing whatsoever. Zero, zip, zilch.
Where was I? Oh, right, after a few boring days in their holding cells full of non-probe related activities, the ship we were on was essentially pulled over by the cops. I learned then that there was a massive galactic government called “The Overlords” (real nice and diplomatic, right?), and the beings that had taken us were essentially a research team that had not obtained the proper permits. Apparently, any race that had not achieved intergalactic travel was considered more animal than intelligent being, and thus were studied basically like humans studied lions or gorillas. Not sure if we were just test subjects or if we would have eventually been sold to a zoo or advertising firm (even these humans are smart enough to have Black Holes Happen Life Insurance!), but luckily I never had to find out.
We were taken from the grey aliens and placed in yet another holding cell aboard the Overlord’s ship. The Overlords themselves were a blue skinned race that was a lot taller than us, with scales, large fangs, and protruding brows. They didn’t speak our language on their own, but the ones that escorted us to our cell had a small arm band. They would press the button, speak, press another button, and then the device would translate it into English. They didn’t say much though, basically just told us to wait. Given the fact that we were locked in a cell, we really didn’t have much choice in the matter, but at least we learned communication was possible. So, we sat down and stared at one another. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would come anywhere near encapsulating the last few days, so I resorted to my default setting of sarcasm.
“Well thanks for coming to visit bro, I hope you’ve had a great time!”
He stared at me incredulously for a moment before laughing half-heartedly. “I’ll give you this, nobody can say visiting you is boring… what do you think is gonna happen to us?”
“At this point I have no clue… can’t really get worse at this point though, can it?”
“I don’t see how it could, but somehow, anytime somebody says that it gets worse anyways.”
“True… and, uh, whoops.”
As if on cue, the door to our cell opened and a bored, fat, bureaucratic looking creature came in.
“We need to program your ID chips with your personal information” he said through his translator.
“Why?” I asked, and was surprised that he understood me without the use of one of those pads.
“All citizens of the Overlord Domain are required to have one. It acts as a translator, banking device, tracker, and identification.”
“So you’re not going to kill us?”
The man narrowed his eyes. “No, not yet. You are, however, forever barred from returning to your home world. Should you try to return you will be executed. We do not want knowledge of the galaxy to reach your primitive planet yet, and while it is unlikely anyone would believe you, we didn’t conquer the galaxy by making assumptions.”
“Fair enough… so what are we supposed to do?”
“That’s not my concern. In lieu of having to deal with the time and money associated with litigation, the captain of the ship that took you from your planet has agreed to give you each a pittance of 10,000 datari, which is a fair amount. That will be added to your chips and you will be released at the nearest habitable planet free to do what you will. As long as you respect our laws and never go to Earth you will have no further issues with us.”
“Oh, hey, that’s great, free to go anywhere but home, that’s real helpful.”
“If you’d prefer, we could always just kill you and save the tax payers the cost of your ID chip” he said without a touch of humor.
My brother glared at me. “That’s okay, we’ll take it. What info do you need?”
“Let’s see… race I can fill out, don’t get human too much, so… names?”
“Captain Awesome” I replied and laughed when he started to type that onto his keypad. “I’m just kidding, it’s Jarek Balkner” I said, receiving a withering glare from the alien.
“Don’t mess with me human, unless you want to be “Dead Fool.”
“Yes sir.”
“And yours?” he asked, looking at my brother.
“Vincent Balkner” he replied.
We then had to go through a list of descriptions that involved our height (tall for me, shorter for my older brother, something I enjoy taunting him about), hair color (brown for us both, although mine was short and his long), eye color (green for me, blue for him) and address (not applicable).
After that, they injected us with two chips, the identity chip in our right rists and the translator chip in the back of our neck. At that point we were left to our own devices until we arrived at the planet we would be dropped off at. Without much to do, we mostly just slept and tried to figure out our next move, but without any idea where we would be going, there was not much planning to be done.
A couple of days later, we arrived at our destination, a planet called Talen. We were led to the exit of the ship, at which point our nameless bureaucrat spoke his parting words. Interestingly enough, we could understand him this time without the translator pad… basically we heard what he said in our ears in his language, but as our brain processed it, it somehow translated it to make sense. This was a little disorienting, but we could at least grasp what he was saying.
“Don’t cause any trouble. Your wrist chip acts as your bank account, and as we said earlier, you were given 10,000 dactari each. Try to return to earth and you will be killed.”
With that, the hatch of the ship closed and it took off, leaving the two of us alone on an alien planet.
“Well, at least we could understand him this time” I said to Vincent once we were alone.
“Yeah, shame I didn’t much like what he had to say, although I do appreciate the translator chips and money.”
“Agreed.”
“So what’s the next move?”
I hesitated for a second, thinking about what I had considered during our voyage on the Overlord ship. “I’m leaning towards two options. Either we try to get the lay of the land, maybe get a job and try to learn a bit about these Overlords, or we spend our ten grand on whatever the alien equivalent of whiskey is and drink our problems away. I currently don’t have a preference.”
“Ah… what about using our money to buy a ship and return to Earth? I’m not exactly ready to give up on my life right now.”
“Besides the fact that they’ll kill us if we go anywhere near Earth, do you really think you could go back to your normal life now after knowing all of this is out there?”
“I’d sure like to try.”
“Fair enough… but again, besides the death part, do you know how to fly a spaceship? How much a ship costs? How to navigate around a solar system? Or even where Earth is in relation tot his planet?”
“Er, uh… well…”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought. Look, I want to see Earth again too, not a big fan of evil empires, but I also don’t want to crash into a star or try to fly through a black hole. So for right now, I really think we need to just try and gather as much information as possible about the galaxy and see where that takes us.”
“And how do you suggest we start that?”
I did not actually have an answer to that question, but as I looked at him to divulge this I noticed a sign down the street that read “Information.” It was in an alien language, but somehow I could read it. Don’t ask me how, I didn’t create the translator chip, I just use it. So I pointed it out to him, and we walked over to the sign. It was right above what looked like a computer terminal, and as we approached the screen flickered on to say “Please present identification.” I remembered the bureaucrat mentioning that the chip in my wrist was my ID, so I moved my wrist towards the terminal. It beeped, said “Thank you” and then a directory came up. I ran a search for history, and one entry was listed: “Museum of Planet and Galactic History.” Luckily enough, it was just down the street from the terminal, probably by design… we couldn’t have been the first newworlders to come to this planet and want to know more.
We found the museum without incident, paid for entry with our severance cash, and proceeded to skip all of the planet history until we came to the section on the Overlord Empire.
Basically, what we found out was that the Overlords had come from an older solar system on the edge of an older Galaxy. They fled when their sun went supernova, and their entire civilization came to our galaxy in warfleets and colonization ships. Initially, they were simply looking for a place to live, but once they saw how much more advanced they were than the peoples of our Galaxy, they became conquerors. While they believed they were superior to the races they conquered, they never exterminated or sought to destroy the other cultures, they wanted those to survive so that they could be compared unfavorably to their own. They only bothered with species that could achieve faster than light speed, which the museum reduced to being called “FTLS travel,” because those were the only races worth considering. However, once they had conquered the entire galaxy, they stopped expanding and had to focus on running what they conquered. So, over time, they changed from a proud warrior race to one of more bureaucratic tendencies.
So, what I took from that was that the Overlords were not some much evil as conceited, and I got the impression that the Galaxy had become somewhat stale under their rule. But, given the whole “kill you if you return to earth spiel,” they obviously still have a little ruthlessness in them. This was going to be interesting…
Oh, and this one is a little longer. Sorry :)
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I awoke to the soothing rays of a supernova burning through the windows of my house and into my corneas. Okay, supernova might be a little extreme, but whatever was out there was quite bright to my sleep-filled eyes.
A moment’s thought resulted in the conclusion that, since I live out in the middle of nowhere, that was probably a bad thing. Thinking it was probably just some high school kids having a secret kegger or a lost trucker, I headed to the front door.
Just as I left my room I ran into my brother, who was visiting me for the weekend.
“Friends of yours?” he asked.
“Just my alien buddies, time for my weekly probing” I retorted before opening the door.
My brother and I walked outside, and the lights dimmed enough to silhouette the people out there. We gasped in surprise.
“Son of a…” we started to say, but the rest of our sentences were cut off by heavy blows to the back of our heads. My last thought before descending into darkness was “I hate being right…”
**********
We awoke eventually (not sure how long it took, kinda hard to keep track of time when you’re unconscious) and found ourselves strapped down in an alien ship. Our captors were hovering around us (not literally, not those kind of aliens, just were all around us), and pretty much fit every stereotype that exists for aliens… small in stature, big heads, almond eyes, the works. Guess there had been more truth to those descriptions than I had previously thought.
Anyways, what happened next was… well, actually, I’m not going to tell you what happened next because you wouldn’t be interested. See, absolutely nothing happened. It was super boring and uneventful, and in no way was it a dark time in my life that I am trying my best to forget. Nope, nothing happened. No probing whatsoever. Zero, zip, zilch.
Where was I? Oh, right, after a few boring days in their holding cells full of non-probe related activities, the ship we were on was essentially pulled over by the cops. I learned then that there was a massive galactic government called “The Overlords” (real nice and diplomatic, right?), and the beings that had taken us were essentially a research team that had not obtained the proper permits. Apparently, any race that had not achieved intergalactic travel was considered more animal than intelligent being, and thus were studied basically like humans studied lions or gorillas. Not sure if we were just test subjects or if we would have eventually been sold to a zoo or advertising firm (even these humans are smart enough to have Black Holes Happen Life Insurance!), but luckily I never had to find out.
We were taken from the grey aliens and placed in yet another holding cell aboard the Overlord’s ship. The Overlords themselves were a blue skinned race that was a lot taller than us, with scales, large fangs, and protruding brows. They didn’t speak our language on their own, but the ones that escorted us to our cell had a small arm band. They would press the button, speak, press another button, and then the device would translate it into English. They didn’t say much though, basically just told us to wait. Given the fact that we were locked in a cell, we really didn’t have much choice in the matter, but at least we learned communication was possible. So, we sat down and stared at one another. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would come anywhere near encapsulating the last few days, so I resorted to my default setting of sarcasm.
“Well thanks for coming to visit bro, I hope you’ve had a great time!”
He stared at me incredulously for a moment before laughing half-heartedly. “I’ll give you this, nobody can say visiting you is boring… what do you think is gonna happen to us?”
“At this point I have no clue… can’t really get worse at this point though, can it?”
“I don’t see how it could, but somehow, anytime somebody says that it gets worse anyways.”
“True… and, uh, whoops.”
As if on cue, the door to our cell opened and a bored, fat, bureaucratic looking creature came in.
“We need to program your ID chips with your personal information” he said through his translator.
“Why?” I asked, and was surprised that he understood me without the use of one of those pads.
“All citizens of the Overlord Domain are required to have one. It acts as a translator, banking device, tracker, and identification.”
“So you’re not going to kill us?”
The man narrowed his eyes. “No, not yet. You are, however, forever barred from returning to your home world. Should you try to return you will be executed. We do not want knowledge of the galaxy to reach your primitive planet yet, and while it is unlikely anyone would believe you, we didn’t conquer the galaxy by making assumptions.”
“Fair enough… so what are we supposed to do?”
“That’s not my concern. In lieu of having to deal with the time and money associated with litigation, the captain of the ship that took you from your planet has agreed to give you each a pittance of 10,000 datari, which is a fair amount. That will be added to your chips and you will be released at the nearest habitable planet free to do what you will. As long as you respect our laws and never go to Earth you will have no further issues with us.”
“Oh, hey, that’s great, free to go anywhere but home, that’s real helpful.”
“If you’d prefer, we could always just kill you and save the tax payers the cost of your ID chip” he said without a touch of humor.
My brother glared at me. “That’s okay, we’ll take it. What info do you need?”
“Let’s see… race I can fill out, don’t get human too much, so… names?”
“Captain Awesome” I replied and laughed when he started to type that onto his keypad. “I’m just kidding, it’s Jarek Balkner” I said, receiving a withering glare from the alien.
“Don’t mess with me human, unless you want to be “Dead Fool.”
“Yes sir.”
“And yours?” he asked, looking at my brother.
“Vincent Balkner” he replied.
We then had to go through a list of descriptions that involved our height (tall for me, shorter for my older brother, something I enjoy taunting him about), hair color (brown for us both, although mine was short and his long), eye color (green for me, blue for him) and address (not applicable).
After that, they injected us with two chips, the identity chip in our right rists and the translator chip in the back of our neck. At that point we were left to our own devices until we arrived at the planet we would be dropped off at. Without much to do, we mostly just slept and tried to figure out our next move, but without any idea where we would be going, there was not much planning to be done.
A couple of days later, we arrived at our destination, a planet called Talen. We were led to the exit of the ship, at which point our nameless bureaucrat spoke his parting words. Interestingly enough, we could understand him this time without the translator pad… basically we heard what he said in our ears in his language, but as our brain processed it, it somehow translated it to make sense. This was a little disorienting, but we could at least grasp what he was saying.
“Don’t cause any trouble. Your wrist chip acts as your bank account, and as we said earlier, you were given 10,000 dactari each. Try to return to earth and you will be killed.”
With that, the hatch of the ship closed and it took off, leaving the two of us alone on an alien planet.
“Well, at least we could understand him this time” I said to Vincent once we were alone.
“Yeah, shame I didn’t much like what he had to say, although I do appreciate the translator chips and money.”
“Agreed.”
“So what’s the next move?”
I hesitated for a second, thinking about what I had considered during our voyage on the Overlord ship. “I’m leaning towards two options. Either we try to get the lay of the land, maybe get a job and try to learn a bit about these Overlords, or we spend our ten grand on whatever the alien equivalent of whiskey is and drink our problems away. I currently don’t have a preference.”
“Ah… what about using our money to buy a ship and return to Earth? I’m not exactly ready to give up on my life right now.”
“Besides the fact that they’ll kill us if we go anywhere near Earth, do you really think you could go back to your normal life now after knowing all of this is out there?”
“I’d sure like to try.”
“Fair enough… but again, besides the death part, do you know how to fly a spaceship? How much a ship costs? How to navigate around a solar system? Or even where Earth is in relation tot his planet?”
“Er, uh… well…”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought. Look, I want to see Earth again too, not a big fan of evil empires, but I also don’t want to crash into a star or try to fly through a black hole. So for right now, I really think we need to just try and gather as much information as possible about the galaxy and see where that takes us.”
“And how do you suggest we start that?”
I did not actually have an answer to that question, but as I looked at him to divulge this I noticed a sign down the street that read “Information.” It was in an alien language, but somehow I could read it. Don’t ask me how, I didn’t create the translator chip, I just use it. So I pointed it out to him, and we walked over to the sign. It was right above what looked like a computer terminal, and as we approached the screen flickered on to say “Please present identification.” I remembered the bureaucrat mentioning that the chip in my wrist was my ID, so I moved my wrist towards the terminal. It beeped, said “Thank you” and then a directory came up. I ran a search for history, and one entry was listed: “Museum of Planet and Galactic History.” Luckily enough, it was just down the street from the terminal, probably by design… we couldn’t have been the first newworlders to come to this planet and want to know more.
We found the museum without incident, paid for entry with our severance cash, and proceeded to skip all of the planet history until we came to the section on the Overlord Empire.
Basically, what we found out was that the Overlords had come from an older solar system on the edge of an older Galaxy. They fled when their sun went supernova, and their entire civilization came to our galaxy in warfleets and colonization ships. Initially, they were simply looking for a place to live, but once they saw how much more advanced they were than the peoples of our Galaxy, they became conquerors. While they believed they were superior to the races they conquered, they never exterminated or sought to destroy the other cultures, they wanted those to survive so that they could be compared unfavorably to their own. They only bothered with species that could achieve faster than light speed, which the museum reduced to being called “FTLS travel,” because those were the only races worth considering. However, once they had conquered the entire galaxy, they stopped expanding and had to focus on running what they conquered. So, over time, they changed from a proud warrior race to one of more bureaucratic tendencies.
So, what I took from that was that the Overlords were not some much evil as conceited, and I got the impression that the Galaxy had become somewhat stale under their rule. But, given the whole “kill you if you return to earth spiel,” they obviously still have a little ruthlessness in them. This was going to be interesting…
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hello World
I recently decided that I wanted to start writing again. I'm not sure if this is related to a genuine desire to create something or just a reaction to my impending graduation with all its uncertainty, but here we go. Oh, and as a quick side note, the blog title is an Animaniacs quote.
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March 19th was not a good day. To put it bluntly, it was the day our world ended.
To me, it started out like any other day, waking up way too early to go to a class I probably slept through. The specifics of the class or what school I went to or even my name seem rather moot at this point, so I think I shall skip the pleasantries. As I left class that morning, I noticed that it was dark, despite the fact that it had been a sunny spring day when I first entered the dreary building I was exiting. Looking up, I was amazed to see the sun being blotted out by a massive bronze-colored sphere with a tripod set of legs that was descending from the sky. After gaping up at it, I returned my gaze to earth and looked around at the people beside me. Some looked up in wonder, some in fear, and others in hope, and while I was not sure how I felt about it all myself, I knew things would never be the same.
The ship landed, and the news reported that approximately a thousand spheres had landed all over the earth. Initially the spheres seemed to lack any form of entrance, and after landing they did not seem to attempt any kind of communication. However, after about an hour they started to transmit a message across all radio frequencies, first in English, and then in a cycle of different languages.
“Your planet is dying. These ships have been sent to rescue as many of you as they can, and they will open their doors shortly. Please enter them in a calm and reasonable manner within the next 24 hours. We wish we could send more ships, but we only recently discovered your plight and this was all we could do. We are truly sorry.”
Massive confusion ensued after that. Everyone wanted to believe that it was a hoax, but the ships were rather convincing. The governments of the world tried to tell people not to panic, that the best scientists saw no evidence of these claims, and some even went as far as placing barricades at the entrances to the ships once they opened up. Others, however, left the choice up to the people, and those that tried to prevent entry were eventually pushed aside. Some discussion developed on how they spoke our languages and used our communications, but there just was not enough time for people to focus too much on such things. So, lines began to form at the spheres as people decided there was nothing else to do. We soon found out that the ships were large enough to accommodate about a million people, which meant only a billion people would survive. This initially brought about fear of riots, but eventually it became clear that many were either too distrustful, too afraid, or too set in their ways to get onto the ships, causing very few of them to fill completely.
I was one of the one’s that got onto the ships right away. Bereft of family and young and ready for adventure, I could not help but be drawn to the alien craft. Once inside, I followed a series of lights and a flat female voice that gave instructions. This led me to my “room,” which was little more than a prison cell with a bed, toilet, and a type of view screen that seemed to show feeds from the news agencies covering the evacuations. Unlike a prison cell the door did not lock immediately behind me, and I took a small measure of comfort from that. The voice also said that the quarters were only temporary until we got to the closest refugee camp, and they were small so as many people as possible could be accommodated. All of this made sense to me.
With little else to do, I sat on the bed and watched the video screen and the people entering the ship. There was also a timer, which I assumed meant the time until the launch of the ship. It all seemed crazy and overwhelming at that point, sitting in my little cell with a countdown to the earth’s destruction, but there was nothing else I could do, so I tried to focus on a possible bright future involving new planets and exotic aliens.
After awhile, the line going into the ship dwindled and stopped, at which point the view screen changed to that of the earth, apparently viewed from some unknown vantage point. The ship started to vibrate, and the door to my room slammed shut. A moment of panic was brought to a close when the voice intoned that this was just a safety measure for departure.
A few minutes later, the vibrations stopped. I continued to stare at the earth, and to my dread I noticed that the oceans were changing colors. First they darkened to black, and then lightened to a dark red color, like lava. The continents flared orange, and soon after, the planet simply exploded, sending huge chunks of rock out into space and taking the moon out in the process. Shocked, I could do nothing but stare in horror at the scene.
Then, before I could fully comprehend what had happened, the screen went black. The light in my cell went out, and in the darkness I heard the voice once again.
“We have destroyed your planet. You are now our slaves. Do as we say and you will not be harmed.”
Like I said, March 19th was not a good day.
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March 19th was not a good day. To put it bluntly, it was the day our world ended.
To me, it started out like any other day, waking up way too early to go to a class I probably slept through. The specifics of the class or what school I went to or even my name seem rather moot at this point, so I think I shall skip the pleasantries. As I left class that morning, I noticed that it was dark, despite the fact that it had been a sunny spring day when I first entered the dreary building I was exiting. Looking up, I was amazed to see the sun being blotted out by a massive bronze-colored sphere with a tripod set of legs that was descending from the sky. After gaping up at it, I returned my gaze to earth and looked around at the people beside me. Some looked up in wonder, some in fear, and others in hope, and while I was not sure how I felt about it all myself, I knew things would never be the same.
The ship landed, and the news reported that approximately a thousand spheres had landed all over the earth. Initially the spheres seemed to lack any form of entrance, and after landing they did not seem to attempt any kind of communication. However, after about an hour they started to transmit a message across all radio frequencies, first in English, and then in a cycle of different languages.
“Your planet is dying. These ships have been sent to rescue as many of you as they can, and they will open their doors shortly. Please enter them in a calm and reasonable manner within the next 24 hours. We wish we could send more ships, but we only recently discovered your plight and this was all we could do. We are truly sorry.”
Massive confusion ensued after that. Everyone wanted to believe that it was a hoax, but the ships were rather convincing. The governments of the world tried to tell people not to panic, that the best scientists saw no evidence of these claims, and some even went as far as placing barricades at the entrances to the ships once they opened up. Others, however, left the choice up to the people, and those that tried to prevent entry were eventually pushed aside. Some discussion developed on how they spoke our languages and used our communications, but there just was not enough time for people to focus too much on such things. So, lines began to form at the spheres as people decided there was nothing else to do. We soon found out that the ships were large enough to accommodate about a million people, which meant only a billion people would survive. This initially brought about fear of riots, but eventually it became clear that many were either too distrustful, too afraid, or too set in their ways to get onto the ships, causing very few of them to fill completely.
I was one of the one’s that got onto the ships right away. Bereft of family and young and ready for adventure, I could not help but be drawn to the alien craft. Once inside, I followed a series of lights and a flat female voice that gave instructions. This led me to my “room,” which was little more than a prison cell with a bed, toilet, and a type of view screen that seemed to show feeds from the news agencies covering the evacuations. Unlike a prison cell the door did not lock immediately behind me, and I took a small measure of comfort from that. The voice also said that the quarters were only temporary until we got to the closest refugee camp, and they were small so as many people as possible could be accommodated. All of this made sense to me.
With little else to do, I sat on the bed and watched the video screen and the people entering the ship. There was also a timer, which I assumed meant the time until the launch of the ship. It all seemed crazy and overwhelming at that point, sitting in my little cell with a countdown to the earth’s destruction, but there was nothing else I could do, so I tried to focus on a possible bright future involving new planets and exotic aliens.
After awhile, the line going into the ship dwindled and stopped, at which point the view screen changed to that of the earth, apparently viewed from some unknown vantage point. The ship started to vibrate, and the door to my room slammed shut. A moment of panic was brought to a close when the voice intoned that this was just a safety measure for departure.
A few minutes later, the vibrations stopped. I continued to stare at the earth, and to my dread I noticed that the oceans were changing colors. First they darkened to black, and then lightened to a dark red color, like lava. The continents flared orange, and soon after, the planet simply exploded, sending huge chunks of rock out into space and taking the moon out in the process. Shocked, I could do nothing but stare in horror at the scene.
Then, before I could fully comprehend what had happened, the screen went black. The light in my cell went out, and in the darkness I heard the voice once again.
“We have destroyed your planet. You are now our slaves. Do as we say and you will not be harmed.”
Like I said, March 19th was not a good day.
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