Holy Warrior

There was something very frustrating about it all. Why in the world was everyone giving him task and expecting him to be pleased about it?

He was just a random traveler after all and anyone could have stumbled across those ruins. It wasn’t as though he fought through them for any particular reason; He most certainly didn’t do it to acquire some holy relic. In hindsight he felt he’d rather have left the blasted spike to the dust and the eventual degradation.

Now everyone with a stubbed toe and a bone to pick with anything was coming to him. He’d already been dragged into dethroning two despots and countless other little conflicts. Sure those were good things but he just wanted to travel in peace.

Illness

A knot of pressure sat heavily behind his eyes, seeming to have migrated from lower in his sinuses. What more his throat felt as through he had been devouring handfuls of sand. Every swallow was painful and every cough threatened to detach his lungs and expel them as bloody lumps.

That was how it felt at least as he laid cocooned in his fleecy blanket. He had always hated getting sick but he hated it even more when he was alone. Not that he expected anyone to take care of him it just would have cheered him to have someone look in on him. Instead he was experiencing the one-two punch of sickness and loneliness so he was completely miserable.

Hacking terribly he trudged into the kitchen, the blanket dragging behind him like an overgrown tail. Saltwater. He grimaced at the cloudy glass but despite the taste gargling it had proven at least temporarily to relieve his throat.

The road though outside his kitchen window was silent, his house was silent, and whole world seemed to stop except for his own spewing of water. If he could sleep it would be nice but he couldn’t.  It was devastatingly empty and anything he did to introduce sound only softened it.

For now he simply crawled back into bed listening to the silence.

A Guardsman’s Perspective

Why was it that the capital city was always so overrun with heroes? He had worked other beats in other cities and he had seen heroes in all of them but the capital was different. There were so many heroes, more than the available quests in the city could ever possibly require. By his own crude estimates for every quest there was a minimum of 20 heroes and that was overkill. If just a fraction would consider joining the guard the city would be a lot safer. They wouldn’t of course they were all about the ‘mad lewts’ as they called it.

That in itself was strange. It was not normal to see dozens of heroes wielding and wearing gear so rare it was supposed to be but a thing of legend. Was someone out there counterfeiting those rarities and pawning them off as the original to unsuspecting villains? Villains who were then slaughtered by heroes who seized their former equipment believing them to be the genuine article. There had to be quite a massive and lucrative industry flourish behind the scenes. That was his theory at least, not that his commanding officer gave it any notice or bothered to pass it along to the heroes.

Watching a trio of heroes carrying massive gaudy weapons and riding a stride huge ferocious beast he had another thought. The word hero didn’t seem remotely correct for them. They killed indiscriminately, demanded rewards for even the most mundane tasks, and devastated the local wildlife wherever they went. Not to mention the rampant infighting among the ‘heroes’. It didn’t take much to set them off against one another…. But then they seemed to also come together over utter nonsense as well. So they were really less like heroes and more like deranged self-involved mercenaries and that was putting it nicely.

As another group passed he heard boisterous talk about the trill of a battleground victory. Battlegrounds, he scoffed they were more like elaborate competitions held between the rival factions of ‘heroes’. Personally he suspected the two factions were exactly the same and were the real driving force behind the continuing warfare that knew no boundaries and no continent. These ‘heroes’ were a menace and not the blessing others lauded them as.

Hypothetical Bear

The truck ahead them had been there for many hours. By some odd quirk of serendipity they found themselves travelling down the same desolate roads. There was something reassuring about the constant presence 10 – 20 feet ahead them.

The gray tarp fluttered ever so slightly in the wind though still obscuring the contents of the bed and the driver himself. They had caught glimpses of a hairy forearm and hints of a beard but other than that their companion of the road was a mystery.

“What do you suppose he’s hauling?” He asked eying the tall outline of the tarp.

“Furniture?” She shrugged. “I’d think they had few items they couldn’t fit in a moving truck.” That was the guess she would hazard.

“Nah…” He answered with a pause. “It’s got to be a bear.”

“A bear? Who in their right might moves a bear… Even a hypothetical bear?”

“Dunno but it’s got to be a bear.” Turning to her there was a crooked smile on his face.

“So this hypothetical bear, why is he moving it exactly?”

“It wandered into the suburbs. ” He said confidently. “They tranquilized it and now the guy’s relocating it.”

“Several thousand miles away?”

“Why not?”

“Well…” She just shrugged people had done stranger things. Maybe someone was moving a hypothetical bear to a hypothetical location.

Or it might just be a pair of sofas as they eventually glimpsed at bump in the road.

Strait of Brokenteeth

A thick fog hung over the crashing sea spray the jagged rocks jutting out at irregular points. They rose above the fog like the lower maw of an unseen behemoth poised to snap shut crushing the unsuspecting.

This was the Strait of Brokenteeth the deadliest passage on Nohval. Countless vessels had been crushed by the treacherous locale and violent currents. Only the veteran and reckless would attempt to traverse the passage in the brief window when the nigh perptual fog cleared enough to see. The fog was only a deterrent, it was the current that was the true killer of men.

Though it was the quickest passage between east and west few had the foolhardy bravado to attempt it. One of the only exceptions was the West Inde Trading Company who tackled it. Many ships had been lost but they gained greater profit.

Free-Form

I have no idea what I am doing. Yep, that’s about it. Typically I have no game plan for what I’m doing and just spitball, the strategy I use both in fantasy and reality.  Structure isn’t a bad thing but personally I prefer the freedom that making shit up as you go along gives. I do like to make stuff up though some of you may have put that together by yourself at this point.

Most of the stuff I write comes from daydreams or are inspired by whatever currently fascinates me. Lately it’s been D&D which I have really wanted to take up lately… Thanks Nerd Poker. Though sometimes it spirals from as little as single line that tickles me just so and I make stuff up to go around it.

Longer stories I try to create usually are the results of sleepless nights. I don’t mean I stay up writing, more that I can’t sleep and begin telling myself a story. Some of those stories I have fallen asleep telling myself for months on end. I love a good story though I’m not sure how well I translate the story I see in my mind to words. I try in what ways I can using words and phrases I grasp at without much more than a split second of consideration. Mostly I hope that people get the points I’m trying to make and I don’t think too much beyond that.

I am more of a storyteller I think than a writer. Sometimes I wonder if I have any clue whatsoever what I am actually writing. I must figure it out at some point I suppose.

Haven’t written much lately unfortunately but I’m going to try to get back into a more regular pattern. Whether I manage to or not is yet to be seen.

Glasses

She stared at him thinking to herself how she had never seen him without his glasses on. Not once in all the time she had known him, not even for a moment and that seemed impossibly strange. They’d been caught in the rain before yet she couldn’t remember him removing them then either. She had simply look away and they were clean.

What would he look like without them? Even with them he always seemed vaguely tired, his blue eyes partially obscured by droopy eyelids and a thoughtful stare. There was a real sleepy open charm to them she supposed. His gaze never seemed confrontational only calm and curious.

He was resting an finger on his lip idly when he realized her gaze. Had she wanted something?  His mind had been wandering maybe she had said something and he’d missed it?

“So…” He mumbled sheepish, hoping that the method worked. When he missed things he found the word so encouraged people to elaborate if they were talking and could be played off if they weren’t.

“So,” She repeated lowering her hand and smiling. “So what?”

“Ah nothing.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure what I meant to say. Forget it.” A slight apologetic smile followed it.

“Okay.” She tilted her head. There was that absentmindedness of his. It would irritate her from others but with him it was just natural. Talking was almost an afterthought with him.

They often spent time together without saying a word. It was a comfortable silence though and she enjoyed it more than made sense. In her previous relationships she hated that silence, it made things awkward and she tried to fill it.

Reaching out a hand she tapped his glasses where they rested above his nose. “Do you always wear them?”

“I don’t like contacts.” He shrugged. “They’re… unnerving. Plus…” He hesitated.

“Plus.” She pressed leaning forward.

“Well,” He chuckled gesturing towards the ceiling. “Without them I look half asleep,”

“Which you are and always do.” She interrupted grinning at him.

“Well yeah.” He agreed sheepishly. “But that’s at best, sometimes I swear I look absolutely stoned off my ass without them.”

“Seriously?”

“I don’t know. I think so.” Taking them in his hand he removed them revealing unobstructed sleepy eyes. “What do you think?”

“You just look sleepy.” Patting his cheek she proceeded to swiped his glasses. They were too big for her and slid down her nose but didn’t actually distort her vision all that much. “Are they me?” She asked playfully.

“Definitely… As far as I can tell at least.”

Villains

Between a madman and genius as an opponent the choice was simple. He would choose the genius everytime, a genius at least could be scrutinized and understood. A madman… well a madman was simply beyond complete understanding. Give him a villain the likes of Bane over the Joker any day. The genius could be a sadistic, twisted bastard but any action they took had weight.

One died much more often at the hands of a madman. A madman simple does not care they’ll kill you if they want to, act without hesitation, and with impunity. The genius on the other hand is aware he has something to lose and that may cause him to hesitate. That was as much as it amounted to in his mind. A madman does not care and a man that does not care has nothing to lose. Catastrophic results typically occurred.

These were things he always told the newbies who often failed to understand that the smartest villain was not always the most dangerous. For all a genius’s planning and weaponry they were only egomaniacal, maleficent, and greedy but at the end of the day they were at least sane. A madman will revel in the act regardless of whether the act will prove profitable in any time except the present. The lower the villain rated on the Psychopathic  Scale the better the chance you had not to lose your life pointlessly. To die at the hands of a madman was such a shame.

Seresh 4

The herds were left to graze a few minutes away from the camp and Seresh could smell and hear them before he could see the goat like Campes wandering among the sparse grass. They had a very musty odor which had a earthy tone that showed up both in their meat and milk. Outsiders had complained that it was an unpleasant taste but among the Kin it was commonplace. No other animal survived in the plains that was easy to raise while producing meat, milk, and a rough shearable coat, for all that it was a gift from the Green Mother herself.

As they neared Seresh noted a group of herdsman gathered scowling and muttering a their fellow and something they found rather distasteful approaching. Still though as he reached them the men managed to politely acknowledge him, or at least acknowledge the mantle that he wore. That counted for something among the men at least.

“Kin.” Seresh nodded his head as he came to stand before them. “You wanted my… counsel?”

“There’s a strange sickness among the herd. To see if you could figure out what it was we couldn’t” The head among the herdsmen said, his gray hair swept back and a sheen of sweat upon his sun darkened face.

No time for pleasantries Seresh thought with a stifled sigh. “You have ruled out the common afflictions.” He mused expecting no answer and instead for them to guide him to one of the afflicted Campes. A few feet away laying listlessly on the ground the increasingly thin form of the goat-like Campes rested. It was immediately evident to any eyes that the critter was not well and if he were to judge it was very near death. “No injures? A snake bite?” He asked gentle placing hands on the critter to feel for punctures or irregularities.

“None that we could find. More than one is sick as well.”

“Which makes snake bites or scorpion stings unlike… not impossible but unlike.” He mumbled noticing a redness and inflammation beneath the long coat. The lack of a puncture suggested either illness or contact with a toxin of some kind. “Any retching?”

“All these things toss up what they eat constantly, regardless of whether they are well or sick.” The head grunted at him as though he had said something stupid. “They toss up the cud all the damn time.”

“Yes, yes…” Seresh agreed. “But in this case I doubt they’d continue to.”

Idle Thoughts

What was the point of charity if you get something in return? Even if all you were to do was accept a tax deduction he felt it rather went against the very notion of charity. Shouldn’t you merely take all that charity as a pure act of altruism? Perhaps it didn’t make the act of charity any less valuable but it diminished it’s meaning to him when you accepted anything at all in return. He of course acknowledged that it was the way things worked, he wasn’t so much of idealist that he couldn’t recognize the nature of the world.

Sometimes though he wished that the world worked by the logic his mind deciphered. Things would be a lot better, there’d be equality for everyone, people could marry regardless of gender, and there would be a prescribed ways to do things. Most of all there would be no Christmas music any time except the week of Christmas. How he despised that hokey, irritating nonsense beyond almost anything else. Anyway that aside he felt he’d probably make a rather lousy leader of any kind all he wanted to do was for things to make logical sense. Leadership material he certainly was not.

Maybe politics? He thought idly. There was a part of him that always felt an inclination towards the notion. You could make a difference in politics though currently it was hard to imagine that having ever been possible. Still in theory you could make a difference, if you were willing to fight for it and weedle for it. The weedling part didn’t appeal much to him but yet again he accepted that it was the way it worked. All this was of course just a minor daydream he hadn’t really ever want to run for office, that was a hassle he rather not experience and likely would not. If someone ever offered him an office he’d take it. He’d like to think that he would make a fine politician though he might have too much devotion and certainty in his belief for his own good.