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Spring Ceramic DM™: WINNER POSTED!
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<blockquote data-quote="cool hand luke" data-source="post: 1471497" data-attributes="member: 10926"><p>disclaimer, I'm not smart enough to insert links in the text. Hope you find some modicum of enjoyment!!!</p><p></p><p></p><p>Round 1 matchup</p><p>Cool Hand Luke vs. Alsih2o</p><p></p><p>I will admit, it had been an exciting 48 hours. Any 2 days where you go through an assassin effectively performing his job on you, being brought back from the dead (always a weird, disjointing process) and having a nice face to face, heart to heart session with the gods of your youth (that you had long since abandoned as trumped up fairy tales) is bound to keep you from getting to bored.</p><p></p><p>You would think that a man jumping out of the crowd, covered head to toe in a white/red paste material, (insert goblin pic!) and plunging a good sized dagger into an apparently innocent bystanders chest, SOMEONE would have seen it, and it might have been out of the ordinary enough to actually stick in there memories for a whole 48 hours. Unfortunately, I had three things working against this reasonable assumption:</p><p></p><p>First, people living in the ward had long ago learned that seeing or hearing too much could be very bad for your health and wealth. It didn’t take a genius to learn that when something like this went down, it was better for the witnesses to quickly discover they were elsewhere at the time of the event, regardless of whether it was the town watch, or mysterious, rough looking strangers asking the pointed (and often times VERY pointy) questions.</p><p></p><p>Second, this vicious, though hardly unprovoked, attack happened near the end of the annual Bachanal festival, where everyone took to the streets in the most outrageous costumes, to compete in an exhibition of extravagance of epic proportions. Demon and devilish themed costumes seemed to be the fad this year, paying homage to the degenerate roots of the bacchanal festival. So one more demon jumping and running around hardly attracted attention, not to mention his red covering made my blood very hard to spot.</p><p></p><p>Finally, I was hardly an innocent bystander. As head of the paisans (think mafia) for the ward, I was a well known face, between the extortion, assassinations, and blackmail that I have either done directly, or through my underlings over the years, it was easy to see why someone would like to put a dagger in my chest.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I came back from my little trip down dead man’s lane like all the others, slowly waking up to a warm, bordering on hot feeling covering my chest, and the sickening smell of my mothers hand burning as the candle made of human fat burned down to her hand, letting the wax fall onto my prostrate form (insert pic 1). I’ve never been sure if it was the odd combination of smells from burning flesh, and the strangely sweet odor of the human candle, shock from getting your organs jump started, or just some weird side effect of the magic, but, like every time before, I immediately roll off the carefully prepared table, sending magical accoutrements flying, and begin to wretch out what feels like the last fortnights food. Having seen me do this before, and having ruined several nice rugs, mother thoughtfully provided a large basin for me. As I crouched before the basin, waiting for my intestines to stop swimming, I heard my mother beginning to clean the altar, and saw that in the bottom of bucket I was leaning over, well, that there was no bottom. It seemed to disappear into a swirling black vortex. Finally, standing up, slowly to be sure, I looked over to my mother, “thanks mom. Nice touch with the puke bucket, saves a trip to the gutter at least.” As I collapsed on a chair, I look over to see mom rubbing some foul smelling salve over her burn wounds. If she can bring me back from the dead, healing a minor burn should be a piece of cake, yet, she never does, and I never ask why.</p><p></p><p>Finally my mother breaks the silence. “really, I wish you would be more careful. One of these times I may not be able to bring you back. Not to mention, you are getting pretty scarred up. What self respecting woman is going to want to marry someone that looks like they’ve been in a half dozen knife fights?” The absurdity of this little comment sends me snickering. My dear mother knows I was in a dozen knife fights before my 10th birthday. Hell, I secretly suspect her of setting up most of them! Also it cracks me up how the most powerful witch in the province, who’s son just happens to be a professional killer, is still just a mom at heart, wanting nothing more than to see her son settle down with a “nice” girl (though what my mother might think of as ‘nice’ is definitely up to debate) and start giving her grandchildren. Although giving me a dark scowl, she refuses to comment on my snickering. “Oh, come on mother, if your so desperate for grandchildren, can’t you just cook some up in one of your potions?” She declines to comment on this little jab, and instead returns in the ever practical way, “so, do you know who wanted you dead THIS time?”</p><p></p><p>Oh yes, back to the disturbing question at hand. “I have no idea mother, I will need to gather my men…”</p><p></p><p>At which point she took the time to interrupt me. “I took the liberty of calling Jalin, Mortgard, and Kiera in, oh yes, and I think Rofful is around here somewhere if you’d like to ask him something. Since we’ve done this so many times now, I figured that’s what you’d want.”</p><p></p><p>Good, that was a start, Jalin was my right hand man, Mortgard my chief of security, and Kiera the most incredible information source I had ever found. It’s amazing what one can overhear in a few bars around here, especially if you are a buxom, beautiful blond, quite willing to use her assets to suck up to pompous men. Rofful, now there was a confusing person. He claimed to be a prophet of the old gods. Gods that no one has believed in for over 5000 years. Of course I don’t believe him, the goofy thing is he does have SOME magical ability that can neither be human style witchcraft, elvish sorcery, or demon inspired. The more odd thing is how my mother and him have “clicked” some rumors even say they are quite an item. I flop down in the chair, forcing my thoughts away from my mother’s love life.</p><p></p><p>I sit quietly, brooding, contemplating, and waiting for my friends to show up. My mother continues to put put around the room, absentmindedly putting things here or there. I’m too self-absorbed to notice her making a few sly motions with her hand, and dropping a small piece of wood into the fire. Deeply entrenched in thought, I am jolted back to the present when I feel an iron like grip crushing my lower leg. Yelping in surprise, and pain, I attempt to jump up, but, since my leg is currently stationary, wind up sprawling flat on my face. My mother simply looked over at me, “that’s for your wise comment earlier” Managing to twist suddenly, I see the chair I had been sitting in reaching out, attempting to grasp my leg. “mother, what in the nine hells is that?” I manage to blurt out, as I pull up my pants to see a rapidly spreading bruise in the shape of those wooden fingers pulsing across my shin.</p><p></p><p>Throwing a quick glance my way, she replies, “I’m not sure, some old chair that has Rofful quite excited. He swears there is a strong connection from that chair to the crazy old gods of his. I haven’t seen him that excited since we……” her voice trails off, “well, in a while.”</p><p></p><p>Mercifully, any further pondering down that disturbing path is cut short as the door opens, and the four previously mentioned people walk into the room. Kiera rushes over to embrace me, always exuberant that one. Jalin bows formally to my mother, always curteous, while Mortgard just looks pissed. As he should, it’s his job to keep me alive. Rofful floats in behind them all, apparently unconcerned with all these banalities.</p><p></p><p>And so goes the post hit review. Interestingly, I gather these same people, and go through much the same process, regardless of rather I’m the hitter or the hittee (I much prefer the former!) We analyze what went right, (or wrong) how the holes appeared in our defenses, who might know things, and what our next steps are. Unfortunately, after wracking our brain for a solid two hours, we came up with some very disturbing facts.</p><p></p><p>1. We had no idea who was behind the attack.</p><p>2. The fact that they were able to get through our regular defenses, and my mothers special protection charms, meant that they were a very formidable enemy.</p><p></p><p>Pacing, disgusted, and getting rather nervous, I threw myself back into the same darn chair that had grabbed me earlier, as I slouched down, I once again felt a vice like grip on not one, but two legs this time. Before I could move, or attempt to extricate myself, a grey haze fell over my vision. As the haze slowly cleared, I was treated to a weird dichotomy of vision. The background picture, still seeming very solid and real, was the room where I had spent the last several hours with my friends, and shortly before that, had been brought back to life. I could still see the others in the room, but they appeared to be moving as if in slow motion. However, in front of that, in a transparent projection, was quite a different seen. I saw a long tree lined walkway, bright green, with a single figure slowly approaching. (insert picture 3) I stared, trying to make out exactly what or who this creature approaching me was. The first thing I was able to determine was the creature was incredibly tall, easily pushing 9 feet. The next detail was that the creature was feminine. Almost absurdly so, taking voluptuous to a level that previously could only be fathomed by 15 year old boys. As she walked ever closer, I noticed that her hands had at least 8, maybe 10 fingers on each hand, each with a multitude of joints, appearing to be almost like long slender twigs, and her long, blond flowing hair seemed to be made a mat of field hay, constantly being blown in a breeze I couldn’t feel or hear. </p><p>Somehow, this figure seemed vaguely familiar, like the lyrics of a song that you know, yet cannot recall.</p><p>Finally the graceful creation addressed me. “Greetings, I see that in our long absence, you mortals have forgotten not only how to properly address us, but actually who we are.” </p><p></p><p>That’s when it snapped, with a rather sickening feeling rising in my stomach, I realized that I was staring at the incarnation of Vea, the earth mother, from my childhood tales of the ancient gods. Not remembering ever having been told how to properly address an ancient mythical goddess, I decided my best course of action was to say nothing. After an awkwards moment of silence, she gave a sigh, which sounded like a small gurgling stream, and continued. “We gods have decided to return our attention to the cute little plaything of ours you call home. The august group in that room you sit in, especially Rofful, have been chosen to re-introduce us to the world. Of course not everyone is that pleased with this development. Your attacker the other day was no person disguised as a demon for some Bachanal bash, though good old bachal does enjoy that you still honor him every year, even if you’ve forgotten about the rest of us, but an honest to goodness demon, summoned to keep the status quo by some very powerful residents of your world. I suspect that the resistance will get more and more fierce as it becomes apparent the old powers that were are intent on becoming the powers that be. Initially you will be on your own, but as our power is regained, we will be able to help you more.”</p><p></p><p></p><p>My mind racing, I tried to stammer out one of the thousands of questions racing through my mind, before I could coherently utter a one, she looked straight at me for the first time, and I felt her eyes pierce my very soul. “Why you dear one? You shall see, oh yes, indeed, you shall see.” </p><p></p><p>The mist began to return, gradually fading out the lush green landscape, and bringing the room more into focus. I couldn’t wait to see the expression on the others faces when I got back and told them this wonderful news.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="cool hand luke, post: 1471497, member: 10926"] disclaimer, I'm not smart enough to insert links in the text. Hope you find some modicum of enjoyment!!! Round 1 matchup Cool Hand Luke vs. Alsih2o I will admit, it had been an exciting 48 hours. Any 2 days where you go through an assassin effectively performing his job on you, being brought back from the dead (always a weird, disjointing process) and having a nice face to face, heart to heart session with the gods of your youth (that you had long since abandoned as trumped up fairy tales) is bound to keep you from getting to bored. You would think that a man jumping out of the crowd, covered head to toe in a white/red paste material, (insert goblin pic!) and plunging a good sized dagger into an apparently innocent bystanders chest, SOMEONE would have seen it, and it might have been out of the ordinary enough to actually stick in there memories for a whole 48 hours. Unfortunately, I had three things working against this reasonable assumption: First, people living in the ward had long ago learned that seeing or hearing too much could be very bad for your health and wealth. It didn’t take a genius to learn that when something like this went down, it was better for the witnesses to quickly discover they were elsewhere at the time of the event, regardless of whether it was the town watch, or mysterious, rough looking strangers asking the pointed (and often times VERY pointy) questions. Second, this vicious, though hardly unprovoked, attack happened near the end of the annual Bachanal festival, where everyone took to the streets in the most outrageous costumes, to compete in an exhibition of extravagance of epic proportions. Demon and devilish themed costumes seemed to be the fad this year, paying homage to the degenerate roots of the bacchanal festival. So one more demon jumping and running around hardly attracted attention, not to mention his red covering made my blood very hard to spot. Finally, I was hardly an innocent bystander. As head of the paisans (think mafia) for the ward, I was a well known face, between the extortion, assassinations, and blackmail that I have either done directly, or through my underlings over the years, it was easy to see why someone would like to put a dagger in my chest. I came back from my little trip down dead man’s lane like all the others, slowly waking up to a warm, bordering on hot feeling covering my chest, and the sickening smell of my mothers hand burning as the candle made of human fat burned down to her hand, letting the wax fall onto my prostrate form (insert pic 1). I’ve never been sure if it was the odd combination of smells from burning flesh, and the strangely sweet odor of the human candle, shock from getting your organs jump started, or just some weird side effect of the magic, but, like every time before, I immediately roll off the carefully prepared table, sending magical accoutrements flying, and begin to wretch out what feels like the last fortnights food. Having seen me do this before, and having ruined several nice rugs, mother thoughtfully provided a large basin for me. As I crouched before the basin, waiting for my intestines to stop swimming, I heard my mother beginning to clean the altar, and saw that in the bottom of bucket I was leaning over, well, that there was no bottom. It seemed to disappear into a swirling black vortex. Finally, standing up, slowly to be sure, I looked over to my mother, “thanks mom. Nice touch with the puke bucket, saves a trip to the gutter at least.” As I collapsed on a chair, I look over to see mom rubbing some foul smelling salve over her burn wounds. If she can bring me back from the dead, healing a minor burn should be a piece of cake, yet, she never does, and I never ask why. Finally my mother breaks the silence. “really, I wish you would be more careful. One of these times I may not be able to bring you back. Not to mention, you are getting pretty scarred up. What self respecting woman is going to want to marry someone that looks like they’ve been in a half dozen knife fights?” The absurdity of this little comment sends me snickering. My dear mother knows I was in a dozen knife fights before my 10th birthday. Hell, I secretly suspect her of setting up most of them! Also it cracks me up how the most powerful witch in the province, who’s son just happens to be a professional killer, is still just a mom at heart, wanting nothing more than to see her son settle down with a “nice” girl (though what my mother might think of as ‘nice’ is definitely up to debate) and start giving her grandchildren. Although giving me a dark scowl, she refuses to comment on my snickering. “Oh, come on mother, if your so desperate for grandchildren, can’t you just cook some up in one of your potions?” She declines to comment on this little jab, and instead returns in the ever practical way, “so, do you know who wanted you dead THIS time?” Oh yes, back to the disturbing question at hand. “I have no idea mother, I will need to gather my men…” At which point she took the time to interrupt me. “I took the liberty of calling Jalin, Mortgard, and Kiera in, oh yes, and I think Rofful is around here somewhere if you’d like to ask him something. Since we’ve done this so many times now, I figured that’s what you’d want.” Good, that was a start, Jalin was my right hand man, Mortgard my chief of security, and Kiera the most incredible information source I had ever found. It’s amazing what one can overhear in a few bars around here, especially if you are a buxom, beautiful blond, quite willing to use her assets to suck up to pompous men. Rofful, now there was a confusing person. He claimed to be a prophet of the old gods. Gods that no one has believed in for over 5000 years. Of course I don’t believe him, the goofy thing is he does have SOME magical ability that can neither be human style witchcraft, elvish sorcery, or demon inspired. The more odd thing is how my mother and him have “clicked” some rumors even say they are quite an item. I flop down in the chair, forcing my thoughts away from my mother’s love life. I sit quietly, brooding, contemplating, and waiting for my friends to show up. My mother continues to put put around the room, absentmindedly putting things here or there. I’m too self-absorbed to notice her making a few sly motions with her hand, and dropping a small piece of wood into the fire. Deeply entrenched in thought, I am jolted back to the present when I feel an iron like grip crushing my lower leg. Yelping in surprise, and pain, I attempt to jump up, but, since my leg is currently stationary, wind up sprawling flat on my face. My mother simply looked over at me, “that’s for your wise comment earlier” Managing to twist suddenly, I see the chair I had been sitting in reaching out, attempting to grasp my leg. “mother, what in the nine hells is that?” I manage to blurt out, as I pull up my pants to see a rapidly spreading bruise in the shape of those wooden fingers pulsing across my shin. Throwing a quick glance my way, she replies, “I’m not sure, some old chair that has Rofful quite excited. He swears there is a strong connection from that chair to the crazy old gods of his. I haven’t seen him that excited since we……” her voice trails off, “well, in a while.” Mercifully, any further pondering down that disturbing path is cut short as the door opens, and the four previously mentioned people walk into the room. Kiera rushes over to embrace me, always exuberant that one. Jalin bows formally to my mother, always curteous, while Mortgard just looks pissed. As he should, it’s his job to keep me alive. Rofful floats in behind them all, apparently unconcerned with all these banalities. And so goes the post hit review. Interestingly, I gather these same people, and go through much the same process, regardless of rather I’m the hitter or the hittee (I much prefer the former!) We analyze what went right, (or wrong) how the holes appeared in our defenses, who might know things, and what our next steps are. Unfortunately, after wracking our brain for a solid two hours, we came up with some very disturbing facts. 1. We had no idea who was behind the attack. 2. The fact that they were able to get through our regular defenses, and my mothers special protection charms, meant that they were a very formidable enemy. Pacing, disgusted, and getting rather nervous, I threw myself back into the same darn chair that had grabbed me earlier, as I slouched down, I once again felt a vice like grip on not one, but two legs this time. Before I could move, or attempt to extricate myself, a grey haze fell over my vision. As the haze slowly cleared, I was treated to a weird dichotomy of vision. The background picture, still seeming very solid and real, was the room where I had spent the last several hours with my friends, and shortly before that, had been brought back to life. I could still see the others in the room, but they appeared to be moving as if in slow motion. However, in front of that, in a transparent projection, was quite a different seen. I saw a long tree lined walkway, bright green, with a single figure slowly approaching. (insert picture 3) I stared, trying to make out exactly what or who this creature approaching me was. The first thing I was able to determine was the creature was incredibly tall, easily pushing 9 feet. The next detail was that the creature was feminine. Almost absurdly so, taking voluptuous to a level that previously could only be fathomed by 15 year old boys. As she walked ever closer, I noticed that her hands had at least 8, maybe 10 fingers on each hand, each with a multitude of joints, appearing to be almost like long slender twigs, and her long, blond flowing hair seemed to be made a mat of field hay, constantly being blown in a breeze I couldn’t feel or hear. Somehow, this figure seemed vaguely familiar, like the lyrics of a song that you know, yet cannot recall. Finally the graceful creation addressed me. “Greetings, I see that in our long absence, you mortals have forgotten not only how to properly address us, but actually who we are.” That’s when it snapped, with a rather sickening feeling rising in my stomach, I realized that I was staring at the incarnation of Vea, the earth mother, from my childhood tales of the ancient gods. Not remembering ever having been told how to properly address an ancient mythical goddess, I decided my best course of action was to say nothing. After an awkwards moment of silence, she gave a sigh, which sounded like a small gurgling stream, and continued. “We gods have decided to return our attention to the cute little plaything of ours you call home. The august group in that room you sit in, especially Rofful, have been chosen to re-introduce us to the world. Of course not everyone is that pleased with this development. Your attacker the other day was no person disguised as a demon for some Bachanal bash, though good old bachal does enjoy that you still honor him every year, even if you’ve forgotten about the rest of us, but an honest to goodness demon, summoned to keep the status quo by some very powerful residents of your world. I suspect that the resistance will get more and more fierce as it becomes apparent the old powers that were are intent on becoming the powers that be. Initially you will be on your own, but as our power is regained, we will be able to help you more.” My mind racing, I tried to stammer out one of the thousands of questions racing through my mind, before I could coherently utter a one, she looked straight at me for the first time, and I felt her eyes pierce my very soul. “Why you dear one? You shall see, oh yes, indeed, you shall see.” The mist began to return, gradually fading out the lush green landscape, and bringing the room more into focus. I couldn’t wait to see the expression on the others faces when I got back and told them this wonderful news. [/QUOTE]
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