[ENWWC] ENWorld Writer's Circle Story Hour!
Shadowdancer
First Post
Hello,(hello, hello)
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Arrr! Ahoy there Altmann, post yer story, ye scalawag, and we'll fit that scurvy dog Tonguez in otherwise!
And now, a quick translation to English for those who don't speak Pirate on Talk Like a Pirate Day.
"I hate having to do this, but Altmann, go ahead and post it if you got it.
Tonguez, we'll end up having to fit you end at the end of the cycle."
And now, a quick translation to English for those who don't speak Pirate on Talk Like a Pirate Day.
"I hate having to do this, but Altmann, go ahead and post it if you got it.
Tonguez, we'll end up having to fit you end at the end of the cycle."
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
aaarggh A man can't be turnin his back a second and ye scurvy dogs be taking over his post at t'wheel
Well I'll not be complainin' t yer faces since I b'n a bit too slow f'r things
So up t' you Altman but I'll be seein' ya all in Davy Jones Locker in the end of it...
(OOC ok I'll step aside for now - but I'll be back
PS what the heck is Talk Like A Pirate Day?)
Well I'll not be complainin' t yer faces since I b'n a bit too slow f'r things
So up t' you Altman but I'll be seein' ya all in Davy Jones Locker in the end of it...
(OOC ok I'll step aside for now - but I'll be back
PS what the heck is Talk Like A Pirate Day?)
The might of Orcs
Here it is.
Sorry if it seems patched up but, well, it is. Once again, a change in style. And no pirate talk
=====
For a long time, the coin had vanished.
However, the coin was an object of prophecy and a valuable toy for Fate.
As such, its vanishment could not last forever.
-----
``Pray tell, Baron, how long has it been? Two years? Three? More? Could it have been more?
-It has been seventeen years, m'liege.
-Seventeen years? Already? Time flows, as they say. Well, well, well. You may give it to me, now.
-I have it not, m'liege. We are getting closer on the track, but...
-I take your word on this, Baron. Because I know you are a faithful servant. Because you know my caves already. May I also take your word that you are going to bring in the very near future?
-Yes, m'lord, I will.
-Seventeen years, you said. You were supposed to bring it seventeen years ago. Almost eighteen years without our friend and its support. Doesn't it sound like quite a long time?
-Yes, my...
-I trust you do know the importance of the Mark of the Dragon, though.
-Yes, m'liege.
-Go, then. Fetch the Mark for me. Crush or bribe whoever you need to. Including Necromancers. If they find it before we do...Well, as you know, our little deadly trick is merely annoying to them. And we do not want to return to the previous situation, do we?
-No, Emp'ror.
-Guards, you may set his Lordship free. Baron, you are dismissed. Oh, and call me not Emperor. People might overhear you and misunderstand your words.''
-----
He knew his life was coming to an end. He did not feel sad or sorry. He had lived longer than many. He had done more things and learnt more than most. In the end, he even had started to like the puny creatures on the shore. His only regret was that he had no children to pass his observations to. No children he knew, that is. Perhaps he should have sought his descendance, instead of watching these creatures.
They do many things, mind you. They fight, and hunt, and fish. They love and they hate, they breed, they die. Their favorite activity, however, seems to be their strange habit of, well, speaking. From dawn till night and from birth to death, they mumble and discuss and chat and gossip and theorize and reproach and complain and congratulate and...
Take the robed and bearded ones, for example. How often do they bicker about the meaning of their texts? How often do they tell that story about this frightful End of the World, with him coming out to bring terror? They should know better. Well, maybe they couldn't, with the sailors being superstitious and all that. Strangely, from what he had heard, only children knew him as he was: a very old, very intelligent and rather nice fish-like being who liked to be carressed under the fins.
He, the Leviathan. Friends called him Raul. He was dying. Eventually, old age had got the best of him. And some kind of disease or poisoning had taken its toll, having made his sight unclear and his digestion painful. At this very moment, he was waiting on the shore for daylight. The water wouldn't claim it back. Not alive. And he was dying, thinking of the days he had seen...Yes, master Shallow, he had heard the chimes of midnight.
-----
One month later, an army was marching east. Thirteen-hundred Orcs and a thousand Gobelins, some of them mounted on wolves. Three hundred Humans, half of them horse riders, and a dozen Elf scouts. Some said that Dwarven mercenaries would have been too slow, cumbersome, and too much trouble altogether. Some said that Dwarves were on to be crushed on the way. Some said they would just have been too expensive. None spoke of the objectives of this army. Some did not care. Most did not dare.
The army was led by eight High Orcs, all of them Daughters of the Jade.
There was no subtelty in this show of brute strengh: it was an orc army, after all. But it was also an army of the Baron and those who knew his ways could guess there had to be a second group. Much smaller. Much stealthier. And just as deadly.
Among the thirteen-hundred Orcs was G'rodush, daughter of Garark, daughter of V'rirt, founder of her line. She would walk and not ride. She would fight and not command. She was tall, taller than most of the she-Orcs in the army. Her flat face and thin nose would have made her acceptable by Human standards, but she was among Orcs, and she was not beautiful to them. Her relatively thin body also meant that she could carry no children, found no line, and have no he-Orcs fight for her. And her greyish hair meant that she belonged to the past.
It was just as good that most did not look at her, for her deep, dark eyes opened on a fast mind. These eyes could not belong to a simple linewoman. She did know the Baron's ways for she used to be of the Baron's second groups, until, one day, seventeen years ago, she lost a coin she had been entrusted with. She was intelligent enough to know she was lucky just to be alive. She just did not know how lucky she was, for she had touched the coin several times.
-----
The village was starving. They ate some of the Leviathan. Then more of it. Then, although it was little more than a rotten body, they continued eating it. When there was nothing more to eat, they did not quit scraping the remains for food. They were all sick or dying. The coin could have spelled fortune for the young fisherman who found it, for there was no gold in the village. It did not, for what the village lacked in gold, it lacked neither in hunger nor in greed. It brought mischief, plotting and murder. The village was dying.
Eventually, young Lintra left by night, her newborn child on her breast and the coin clasped in her hand. She would walk to the city. There, she would buy food. She was dead before she even reached the paved way. The five thugs who had ended her life had never seen a gold coin. They could not agree on its sharing. By the end of the day, only one of them was still alive. His name was Daryl, and he had been wounded by his brother.
------
``Maybe ya wan'me to speak louder, pointy ears? Maybe ya did not get da question?
-Of course, I understood your question, you green-skinned excu...''
Elrytch was interrupted by the metallic fist of the one-eyed gobelin sitting on the table. Three other gobelins were sacking the room while an Orc was holding him. The twin girls who led them had left before the start of the violence. The one-eyed gobelin was smoking from an old-looking pipe and grinning at him.
``Or meybe we should b'lieve ya dunno no answer?
-I told more times than you can count that I have never heard about your penteityforsaken coin!''
The window was near. With the help of the Trickster, he could jump through the window and into the street. Erlytch was fast, and good at escaping. If he was fast enough, and if they had left no guards, or if Arianna had had time to call in friends...
``Ya lucky my big friend here speaks no Common. 'cause if he did, he woulda ripped your head already.
-Rip, twist, do whatever you wish, since you seem not to be able to think clearly!''
As the gobelin was about to answer, the slow, deep and thoughtful voice of another Orc came through the window. Unfortunately, this group spoke in a language Elrytch did not know. It seemed he could not make it through the window at that point. He would have to wait. As he started looking for another escape route, he met the gaze of the gobelins. They had ceased searching the room and all looked at him. They seemed to be sharing a joke at his expense.
All of a sudden, the window started to look quite far away.
-----
The town of Lankhor is fabled for its bridge-streets, its aerial gardens and its fountains. Its university welcomed student wizards from both continents and its officials were helped by translators for seven languages. Its biggest streets were paved and its sewer system had been extended five times to adapt to the size of the city.
Daryl had travelled eight days to Lankhor. During the night, he had passed the first line of watchtowers, without seeing them, and probably unseen as well. These days had been harsh to him, for he was wounded, and wolves has sought to make him a prey. Under the light of the rising sun, Daryl passed the second line of watchtowers. This is where he died of wounds and exhaustion, mere feet away from the soldiers camp of the occupying army.
There had been no fight. Marquis Launoy of Lankhor had willingly sworn himself vassal to the Baron. In a tower of the university, eleven wizards had been invited to join the Daughter of the Jade. Ten of the wizards were Orcs and one was Elf. The ritual would last one day and one night. In several classrooms of the same building, wizards and students were pondering rebellion. Most groups decided to wait. Some decided to leave. Two groups decided to rebel. Both groups would be caught by the end of the week.
Fate, it seems, did not want G'rodush to find the coin at that point. This does not mean that Fate intended to stop playing, however. In a dark tavern where both had friends, G'rodush met Shrass Icebreeze.
-----
Ariana's broken body was still breathing and suffering. Elrytch, bound near her, was crying tears and blood. She was still beautiful. Maybe she could live. Maybe she could accept what had happened. But there was no way the child she was carrying would survive. Elrytch could not speak anymore, or he would have cursed the Orcs once again. But Elrytch did not have much of a tongue anymore. Neither did he have the will to think about revenge or escape. At that point, if the Penteity had had any fairness, he would have either died a quick death, or a stroke of lightning would have killed all of them and granted him revenge.
`` Whadowedo wi'dem pointy ears ?
-Burn dem both. After all, dere is a prophecy at work. If we don't carry it, who will?''
The Penteity has never been known for its fairness.
=====
Who's next ?
Be reading you,
YA
Here it is.
Sorry if it seems patched up but, well, it is. Once again, a change in style. And no pirate talk
=====
For a long time, the coin had vanished.
However, the coin was an object of prophecy and a valuable toy for Fate.
As such, its vanishment could not last forever.
-----
``Pray tell, Baron, how long has it been? Two years? Three? More? Could it have been more?
-It has been seventeen years, m'liege.
-Seventeen years? Already? Time flows, as they say. Well, well, well. You may give it to me, now.
-I have it not, m'liege. We are getting closer on the track, but...
-I take your word on this, Baron. Because I know you are a faithful servant. Because you know my caves already. May I also take your word that you are going to bring in the very near future?
-Yes, m'lord, I will.
-Seventeen years, you said. You were supposed to bring it seventeen years ago. Almost eighteen years without our friend and its support. Doesn't it sound like quite a long time?
-Yes, my...
-I trust you do know the importance of the Mark of the Dragon, though.
-Yes, m'liege.
-Go, then. Fetch the Mark for me. Crush or bribe whoever you need to. Including Necromancers. If they find it before we do...Well, as you know, our little deadly trick is merely annoying to them. And we do not want to return to the previous situation, do we?
-No, Emp'ror.
-Guards, you may set his Lordship free. Baron, you are dismissed. Oh, and call me not Emperor. People might overhear you and misunderstand your words.''
-----
He knew his life was coming to an end. He did not feel sad or sorry. He had lived longer than many. He had done more things and learnt more than most. In the end, he even had started to like the puny creatures on the shore. His only regret was that he had no children to pass his observations to. No children he knew, that is. Perhaps he should have sought his descendance, instead of watching these creatures.
They do many things, mind you. They fight, and hunt, and fish. They love and they hate, they breed, they die. Their favorite activity, however, seems to be their strange habit of, well, speaking. From dawn till night and from birth to death, they mumble and discuss and chat and gossip and theorize and reproach and complain and congratulate and...
Take the robed and bearded ones, for example. How often do they bicker about the meaning of their texts? How often do they tell that story about this frightful End of the World, with him coming out to bring terror? They should know better. Well, maybe they couldn't, with the sailors being superstitious and all that. Strangely, from what he had heard, only children knew him as he was: a very old, very intelligent and rather nice fish-like being who liked to be carressed under the fins.
He, the Leviathan. Friends called him Raul. He was dying. Eventually, old age had got the best of him. And some kind of disease or poisoning had taken its toll, having made his sight unclear and his digestion painful. At this very moment, he was waiting on the shore for daylight. The water wouldn't claim it back. Not alive. And he was dying, thinking of the days he had seen...Yes, master Shallow, he had heard the chimes of midnight.
-----
One month later, an army was marching east. Thirteen-hundred Orcs and a thousand Gobelins, some of them mounted on wolves. Three hundred Humans, half of them horse riders, and a dozen Elf scouts. Some said that Dwarven mercenaries would have been too slow, cumbersome, and too much trouble altogether. Some said that Dwarves were on to be crushed on the way. Some said they would just have been too expensive. None spoke of the objectives of this army. Some did not care. Most did not dare.
The army was led by eight High Orcs, all of them Daughters of the Jade.
There was no subtelty in this show of brute strengh: it was an orc army, after all. But it was also an army of the Baron and those who knew his ways could guess there had to be a second group. Much smaller. Much stealthier. And just as deadly.
Among the thirteen-hundred Orcs was G'rodush, daughter of Garark, daughter of V'rirt, founder of her line. She would walk and not ride. She would fight and not command. She was tall, taller than most of the she-Orcs in the army. Her flat face and thin nose would have made her acceptable by Human standards, but she was among Orcs, and she was not beautiful to them. Her relatively thin body also meant that she could carry no children, found no line, and have no he-Orcs fight for her. And her greyish hair meant that she belonged to the past.
It was just as good that most did not look at her, for her deep, dark eyes opened on a fast mind. These eyes could not belong to a simple linewoman. She did know the Baron's ways for she used to be of the Baron's second groups, until, one day, seventeen years ago, she lost a coin she had been entrusted with. She was intelligent enough to know she was lucky just to be alive. She just did not know how lucky she was, for she had touched the coin several times.
-----
The village was starving. They ate some of the Leviathan. Then more of it. Then, although it was little more than a rotten body, they continued eating it. When there was nothing more to eat, they did not quit scraping the remains for food. They were all sick or dying. The coin could have spelled fortune for the young fisherman who found it, for there was no gold in the village. It did not, for what the village lacked in gold, it lacked neither in hunger nor in greed. It brought mischief, plotting and murder. The village was dying.
Eventually, young Lintra left by night, her newborn child on her breast and the coin clasped in her hand. She would walk to the city. There, she would buy food. She was dead before she even reached the paved way. The five thugs who had ended her life had never seen a gold coin. They could not agree on its sharing. By the end of the day, only one of them was still alive. His name was Daryl, and he had been wounded by his brother.
------
``Maybe ya wan'me to speak louder, pointy ears? Maybe ya did not get da question?
-Of course, I understood your question, you green-skinned excu...''
Elrytch was interrupted by the metallic fist of the one-eyed gobelin sitting on the table. Three other gobelins were sacking the room while an Orc was holding him. The twin girls who led them had left before the start of the violence. The one-eyed gobelin was smoking from an old-looking pipe and grinning at him.
``Or meybe we should b'lieve ya dunno no answer?
-I told more times than you can count that I have never heard about your penteityforsaken coin!''
The window was near. With the help of the Trickster, he could jump through the window and into the street. Erlytch was fast, and good at escaping. If he was fast enough, and if they had left no guards, or if Arianna had had time to call in friends...
``Ya lucky my big friend here speaks no Common. 'cause if he did, he woulda ripped your head already.
-Rip, twist, do whatever you wish, since you seem not to be able to think clearly!''
As the gobelin was about to answer, the slow, deep and thoughtful voice of another Orc came through the window. Unfortunately, this group spoke in a language Elrytch did not know. It seemed he could not make it through the window at that point. He would have to wait. As he started looking for another escape route, he met the gaze of the gobelins. They had ceased searching the room and all looked at him. They seemed to be sharing a joke at his expense.
All of a sudden, the window started to look quite far away.
-----
The town of Lankhor is fabled for its bridge-streets, its aerial gardens and its fountains. Its university welcomed student wizards from both continents and its officials were helped by translators for seven languages. Its biggest streets were paved and its sewer system had been extended five times to adapt to the size of the city.
Daryl had travelled eight days to Lankhor. During the night, he had passed the first line of watchtowers, without seeing them, and probably unseen as well. These days had been harsh to him, for he was wounded, and wolves has sought to make him a prey. Under the light of the rising sun, Daryl passed the second line of watchtowers. This is where he died of wounds and exhaustion, mere feet away from the soldiers camp of the occupying army.
There had been no fight. Marquis Launoy of Lankhor had willingly sworn himself vassal to the Baron. In a tower of the university, eleven wizards had been invited to join the Daughter of the Jade. Ten of the wizards were Orcs and one was Elf. The ritual would last one day and one night. In several classrooms of the same building, wizards and students were pondering rebellion. Most groups decided to wait. Some decided to leave. Two groups decided to rebel. Both groups would be caught by the end of the week.
Fate, it seems, did not want G'rodush to find the coin at that point. This does not mean that Fate intended to stop playing, however. In a dark tavern where both had friends, G'rodush met Shrass Icebreeze.
-----
Ariana's broken body was still breathing and suffering. Elrytch, bound near her, was crying tears and blood. She was still beautiful. Maybe she could live. Maybe she could accept what had happened. But there was no way the child she was carrying would survive. Elrytch could not speak anymore, or he would have cursed the Orcs once again. But Elrytch did not have much of a tongue anymore. Neither did he have the will to think about revenge or escape. At that point, if the Penteity had had any fairness, he would have either died a quick death, or a stroke of lightning would have killed all of them and granted him revenge.
`` Whadowedo wi'dem pointy ears ?
-Burn dem both. After all, dere is a prophecy at work. If we don't carry it, who will?''
The Penteity has never been known for its fairness.
=====
Who's next ?
Be reading you,
YA
