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  • Locked thread
SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
:siren" THIS IS NOT FINISHED, PLEASE DISQUALIFY ME, I hosed UP THE TIME OF MY FLIGHT HOME AND I'M JUST POSTING FOR THE SAKE OF COMPLETENESS[/b :siren:
[b]
How the stars found their fire


Down in the deep
the seamen sing, sleeps
one of six and two
of two. In dreams
and days, in many ways
they call to me and you. Heed
not their call, break
not the walls lest -


Aint nothing but darkness down there, and pressure: the demon-crush that turns poo poo to diamonds. And yet, there's life- flat, writhing white things that jut from thermal vents, and fish with more teeth than bones. Aint no sailor survives even that long: an ocean's worth of water punching in from every direction long since burst his eyes, and tore out his tonue, and crushed his cock and balls so wide and flat his wife would weep for at least two reasons.

Deeper n' that, even. Down into the black so far you can hear the crackling of hell beneath the rocks. If you could see, you'd see rising steam and the titantic movements of the sluggish fire currents that come up from the deep stone, and make war with the water until even they surrender to the tyranny of darkness and quiet. That's a liminal place- where two walls meet, and the possibilities are endless. The sort of crossroads only a devil could stomach and only a father could love.

Only there is the power of creation so raw that it can be snatched by the three least-lucky, and forged. One to build, one to break, and one to keep the books.

Vorun, the first, sings through sealed lips. He is the fire. His song causes the currents to coalesce in the shapes of men and beasts. At his bidding, they rise through the endless. Many stay in the deep forever, but some have the stink of greatness about them and they rise far until the breach the surface, gasping, trying desperately to remember the face of their father. They take to the land, and they take its raw pieces in their hands and carve with them images of their lost father.

Inanis, the second, loves nothing more than the silence in the belly of the world. She is the deep. She calls to each of her lost children that they might return to the sea. She weeps not for those who leave- they shall return in time. She lives behind the eyes of each old sailor who wishes nothing more than for the sea to swallow him- to return to the darkness from which he came.

Monkey, the third, finds solace in the moment where the flame strikes the water. He is the balance. Weak, but strong. Wise, but foolish. His empty bodies wander the worlds of men, hooting and howling through the treetops. They are his eyes above, while he stays on the ocean floor, forever dancing on the knife edge between beginning and end.

Aint nothing but darkness down there, and the clash of fire on the deep, and the shadows of the three that fall up upon the world. They are lonely. They are terrible company.

Long ago, Vorun made a child of stone, and he named her Lis. She was perfect, and the god of creation wept as he let her go. She breached the surface, and went further even- up into the sky. She was lonely there, and cried out for her father. Inanis found solace in this, but Vorun could not stand it. He made a second child of stone -Lor, a man- and sent it up to join the first. As the world turned, the two stars made many children, and together they spread across the sky.

As the sky-children grew and travelled, they dreamed of spinning wheels, and the face of their father, and the roiling primal abyss from whence they came- wheels of fire, and fire on the deep. Even with their great love, the heavens were too cold. They called out again to Vorun to send them fire, but he refused. He did not trust his children, and he would not see them burn. He loved them as any father loves: so total that only fear could drive it, and cowed by that same fear.

Lis and Lor sent their light to scour the earth. They found nothing in the deserts, nor the hills nor the houses. Only other lost children, trying desperately to remember the face of their father. They wept -for at least two reasons- and their tears made the rain. Whenever it rains, you know the hearts of Lis and Lor have grown too heavy to hold back their water.

They found nothing in the highest mountains, or on the surface of the deep. Go deep enough, even light dies- they were blind. They scoured the forests and groves, the fields and steppes. They scoured all seven corners until they came to a jungle, and were drawn by a chattering chorus. Monkeys of every colour and size: skinny orange ones and big fat yellow ones, long-legged toothless ones and ones with faces like old leather. Ones that ran and ones that climbed, ones that fought and ones that died.

“Are you our father?” asked Lis and Lor. The monkeys hooted and hollered, and made one damned hell of a din. The eldest monkey, who had lived 1000 years to the day, shook his head. He had three arms- one malformed and limp. He had one eye. In the place of the other was tough, dark skin only. He stomped on the ground, then grinned a big toothy grin. He gestures to a patch of dry grass that had been carefully laid aside. Then, he took a stick in his left hand, and a stone in his right, then he used them together to make a spark. The spark caught the grass and the grass caught afire. In the deep, Vorun smelled smoke.

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Tyrannosaurus
Apr 12, 2006
As Long As There Is Aloha There Will Be Aloha
1,176 words
Tyrannosaurus's Aloha and Nubile Hillock's specifically nameless winter god

Archived.

Tyrannosaurus fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jan 8, 2016

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
Guiding, Lite
1500 words

Oaf starts his day in Sky’s tavern, where he sweeps the floors and stays mostly out of the way. When Miss Sky doesn’t need him, he ambles around town. Parents pull their babes aside and say, “keep your nose clean, or you’ll end up a fool like Oaf over there.” But then they sometimes give him food scraps or coin, which Oaf doesn’t understand at all.

He suspects it’s like when he lays down on his straw-filled mattress at night. How all the day’s dirt and bits fall into the dent made by his body. He’s at the bottom of the world, and things can only tumble down toward him.

Chores finished, Oaf schleps ‘round back the tavern. The day is white-gold. The fields of amaranth ripple deliriously at the edge of town. The distant blue mountains gather clouds around themselves like grey wigs. Between the fields and the mountains is the trader’s road.

Oaf watches three merchants, black scarves hiding their faces, walk in a tight formation toward the town. Their robes are shabby, their skin eggshell-white. Inside Oaf’s head, a thought is plodding along, staring down at its feet.

As the men pass by the tavern and into town, the plodding thought runs headfirst into a conclusion: these are not merchants. Each wears on his arm a black band marked with an eye, which is colored like gold in mud.

The three pale men go to the loose circle of produce carts at the center of town. Farmer Rock and Farmer Green-Nose are taking their ease in a sparse patch of shade. When they see the three men, they get slowly to their feet. Rock makes a show of reaching for his spade.

A soft hand touches him on the shoulder. “Best come inside, Oafling.” Oaf knows it’s Miss Sky before she talks, because only Miss Sky ever touches him nicely.

“They look like cow’s milk,” says Oaf. One of the masked men points silently at the corn, the amaranth, the beans. Green-nose says something that Oaf can’t hear, but he’s got a rude look on his face.

“They worship Hm, the dark eye at world-sphere’s edge. He hates humanfolk for our ignorance.” Miss Sky sounds bitter. “His followers shun the world, live in caves and crevasses.”

The name Hm is a wet, sandy sound in Miss Sky’s throat. Like stones grinding in the dark. Blind knowing. Low, silent places into which the world’s truths trickle down like a secret cistern. Oaf’s eyes roll up in their sockets, and then--

Loose stones dig into Oaf’s knees. His wrists are locked in warm, fleshy manacles. His face feels like it’s just been gone over with a plow, his face that he’s trying to claw off because there’s something terrible hidden behind it, and if he can only get it out, he can go lay in some shade or dive into the cold mountain creek and wash the blood away.

Miss Sky is saying, “I need cloth to bind his hands, then we’ll see about his face.” And Oaf understands that the manacles around his wrists are Miss Sky's hands. He opens his eyes in spite of the sappy blood sealing them shut.

The masked men are standing some distance away, silent observers.

The Farmer brothers lift Oaf up like he’s a corn husk and heave him into the tavern, where Miss Sky’s thrown a few blankets on the floor between tables. She takes his hands, wraps them in rough linens ‘til his fists are big grey pillows. And now Oaf is calm. His cheek is on the cool floor, and he can see how he really does do a great job sweeping.

Miss Sky shoos the Farmer brothers outside, bars the door behind them, and turns back to Oaf.

“I shouldn’ta said anything,” she says quietly. Oaf doesn’t know what to think of the way she’s looking at him, her eyebrows all knitted together. “I just wanted to see how much of you is still in there.”

Oaf peels his cheek off the floor. “I’m right here, Miss Sky. You can see me.”

“I shouldn’t have said your name. But I thought the damage was done already, what with your devotees showing up in town.”

Oaf closes his eyes. He just wants to lay back down and appreciate floor that he keeps so clean.

Miss Sky sighs, goes to the bar, pours herself a swallow of rice wine. “Don’t you think you’ve moped enough? I know you’re in there. I know you can’t keep yourself bottled up forever.”

Oaf looks like a hurt lamb. “You’re talking real strange, Miss Sky. I’m real sorry. I’ll clean up if I get any blood around. I’m low as a snake’s belly, oh I know it. But I--”

“Have some dignity.” Sky’s voice is like a whip crack. “You’re not a martyr. That’s for the mortals, and if I were going to be one hundred percent honest with you, acting like one makes you look like a self-centered prick.”

Oaf’s face goes grey as the stormy mountains beyond the amaranth fields. Wisps of black smoke curl out from the corners of his eyes. The shallow wounds on his face squelch shut, leaving smooth, unbloodied skin.

“Speak softly if you’re going to talk in anachronisms,” he says in a whisper like a rockslide.

“I don’t care if everyone in town hears. I’m not playing this part anymore just so you can, like, wallow in whatever nihilistic trip you’re on.” Now there’s a soft light emanating from Sky, like when the moon hides behind a passing cloud but you can still just make out her pale corona.

“How can I condemn the ignorance of mortals? I’m ‘The All-Seeing Eye At the Edge of the Mortal Sphere’, but you and I both know that for every wall, every edge, every boundary, there is something beyond. And as long as I’m ignorant of that, how can I be worthy of devotion?” Oaf is hardly Oaf at all anymore. His body wavers, smoky and indistinct.

Someone outside knocks on the tavern door. Sky ignores the intrusion. She’s almost entirely moonlight now. Oaf squints against the brightness of her.

“My job is pretty simple,” Sky says. “The mortals look up, I look down. Sometimes they get lost, figuratively or literally, and I send a bit of the ol’ divine light their way. If I ever felt somehow hopeless, I’d remember, I’m the fuckin’ cosmic essence of moonlight, and go about my day.”

“And suppose,” says Oaf softly, “there is some greater, brighter moon trying to guide you. But you’re too busy looking down to see her light.”

The knock comes again.

“Mind telling me who’s out there?” Sky says. Her light dims, and she’s much the mortal-seeming woman she was before.

Oaf’s eyes go unfocused for a moment. “That’d be my devotees, come to fill a couple wine flasks. Even though I’ve, you know, forbidden it. They figure, since I already know how innately fallible they are, I’ve already accounted for their deviating from my divine proclamations. They’ll knock once more and then leave. If you don’t...do what you’re about to do.”

Miss Sky throws the crossbar and flings the door open. Cruel blue daylight frames the three dedicants to Hm.

“Your god is experiencing an identity crisis and has taken a mortal form to make some point about I dunno how we’re all dumb or something,” Sky says, stepping to one side so the three men can see Oaf, who’s still wavery and smokey-eyed like something out of a nightmare.

The foremost masked man looks at Sky and cocks his head. He makes a sort of nevermind gesture, and in unison the three devotees turn and shamble toward the trader’s road, hunched under fat bags of food.

“What did your followers think of your true form?” asks Sky.

“They saw an oaf and a madwoman.”

“Now. If one of your fellow gods came to you and was like, ‘Hey Hm, I want to introduce you to some meta-cosmic ur-god,’ what would you do?”

“I’d hear them out, I hope,” Oaf mutters.

“Your problem,” Sky says as she closes the tavern door, “is you think gods need to be perfect. If that's true, why are there so many of us?” With a hop, she supernovas right out of her own skin. Moonlight floods the tavern. The mortal world fades away, and now Mendora of the Moon and Hm the All-Seeing are floating in the boundless, silver-blue twilight of the immortal plane.

Mendora tugs at one of Hm’s smokey tendrils. “C’mon. Aloha’s having a laid back shindig, said we’re gonna get so blazed even the omniscients won’t know this from that. And the music is, well, divine.”

“Thank the meta-cosmic ur-god that you’re not the goddess of humor,” Hm says.

“You’re welcome,” says the meta-cosmic ur-god, but Mendora and Hm don’t hear because they’re already making godspeed to the only real party in the universe.

Hm the darkly burning eye and Mendora the moon goddess

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

Failing this week. Playing the sick pet card.

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood
Some things missing from my entry: An elaborate satire on anime transformation sequences, the reveal that all of the Lawgiver's minions have hammers that strike twice and make a :doink: noise.

credit to Capntastic for the Lawgiver

Nom-Nom Nutri-Bar Presents! Mightily Forward Thrust Heroics! Episode 12: Trouble on Moonsat Gamma. 1167 words

Melkor the Elf and Dash Wingtip, god of irresponsible alacrity, barreled towards the abandoned Moonsat Gamma with a stolen freighter full of illegal spacecycles. They were followed close behind by a red-and-blue fog of tiny lights, each of which was a robotic servitor of the Lawgiver, the galaxy's best-armed buzzkill.
“We've got less than fifteen space-minutes to deliver the goods to Amaterasu and her bosuzoku warriors, or she'll come screaming for your head. More than normal, even.” Melkor said, loading glowing purple hyperdarts into his wrist-mounted sonic crossbow.

“None can kill that which created itself, my friend.” Dash reached for the radio, to drown out the sound of sirens and cannon-fire rattling the cybernetic fillings in his molars. “Just one of the many advantages of divinity.” He settled on a neo-country station halfway through a song praising the greatness of the North American Panopticon, which was thankfully soon overwhelmed with static.
“DASH WINGTIP, RANK-0 MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSAL PROTECTORATE, UNDER THE SIGNITORY FORCE OF THE INEXORABLE COMMANDMENTS, WE THE SERVITORS OF THE AUTHORITY DO HEARBY-” The voice screeched harshly, like the blown-out speaker on a drive-thru window.
“Oh piss off!” Dash yelled, lunging for the knob. He spun through a handful of different stations.
“-COMPEL YOU TO. . . CEASE FORTHWITH AND. . . SURRENDER PEACEFUL-” Dash tore the radio out of the console, cranked down the window, and hurled it into space, where it was immediately vaporized by a salvo of lazers.

“All of creation to protect, and this is how he responds to a minor case of accidental littering. I'm going to remember this the next time we're stuck in the stomach of some awful sand-lion, see how much he cares about us then.” Dash groused.
“We passed through the atmosphere of an endangered jungle moon, and you ejected a hypercritical warp capacitor. You know those are radioactive, right?” Melkor arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
“That's irrelevant!” Dash snapped. “All that matters now is getting these cycles in that station! Besides,” He said, strapping himself into his seat. “There's the reason I made myself the god of irresponsible alacrity.”
Dash yanked the wheel, sending the space-freighter into a spin that whipped the thermal exhaust through the throng of foes, scorching their silver-and-bronze exteriors. He drew a long-barreled machine-pistol from one of his secret pockets, a sleek black number filigreed in silver. It glinted in the light of the still-distant sun. He leveled the weapon at the chaotic mass of foes swarming around him, and fired.
A volley of sparks danced out into the void of space, which swallowed the sound completely. They fell harmlessly upon the Lawgivers and their impenetrable armor.
“Buncha steam-fed clockwork dandies if you ask me.” He said, tucking the gun back into its holster.
“Why do you keep trying that?” Melkor asked. “Has it ever once worked?”
“Bullets go fast!” Dash blurted, clearly confused by what he was saying even as he said it. “And, it looks cool. Maybe they'd get scared and back off? I don't know fighting, that's what you're for!”
The front line of pursuing automatons launched their horrible grapnel-claws, which struck the thermal plating of the cargo pod, and held tight. They drew themselves forward with zipline speed.

Melkor sighed and rolled his eyes. “I'll need a minute.” He growled, unbuckling the six-point suspension harness while rolling down the window. He climbed out, knife held between clenched teeth. One minute later, he climbed back down into the cab, knife still clenched between teeth. The battery lights on his hip-mounted photonic scimitars flashed red.
“No more barnacles.” He said, spitting the knife back into its sheath.
“I don't know how you thought you were going to use that from inside your helmet.” Dash said cheerily.
“It's part of my personal brand, you know? I gotta stick out. Gotta have something that sets me apart. How can I make sure my foes knew who I was before I killed them?” Melkor kicked up his roguish boot and gestured to the additional dagger stashed next to his most severable tendons. “I go to extreme lengths to make an impression.” Dash nodded, then he shrugged.
“I know what you mean.” Dash mused. “I often what it would be like to be the kind of person who travels at reasonable speeds, who obeys traffic laws and doesn't jump off of a single sick ramp, not even one.” He stared off into space, watching Moonsat Gamma grow larger, framed with an angelic halo of precisely inaccurate blaster fire. “I bet it would suck completely.”

What remained of Earth glittered in the sunlight, a thick girdle of ice and rocks surrounding a shattered core. Even from this distance, Melkor could see some islands still harbored life, floating in the atmosphere. A haze of green vines stretched from boulder to boulder swinging slowly in an eternal dance. Others floated in place, enormous lakes of rainwater catching the melting ice and channeling it into mighty waterfalls, down onto the still-hot liquid nickle core, which vaporized it and continued the cycle.
“If I ever need a mural painted on the side of my spaceship,” Melkor said, tapping his window “I'm coming here for inspiration.” Dash chuckled.

The husk of Moonsat Gamma circled an accretion disk at the Lagrange point between the moon and the planet's ruined corpus. It was abandoned shorty after the explosion, when microscopic debris tore through it like hot flak through gelatin. Now it sat empty, a convenient meeting point for scoundrels of ill repute.
The freighter's grav-wake drew in floatrocks and space garbage, flinging it at the pursuing squadron of Lawgivers. They veered and dodged, many doggedly survived, but most crashed into each other with a spectacular pyroclasm. Siren lights and mechanical arms spun out into the black, to drift amongst the trash for all eternity.
A buzzer went off in the cockpit. “We're coming in too hot!” Melkor said, flipping switches and mashing a bankful of glowing buttons with his open palm. “We're way over weight limit, we've gotta cut thrust and engage the retros or we'll never slow down in time-”
“To Hell with time!” Dash cried, throwing the throttle open. He laughed as the sudden burst of inertia pushed him back into his seat. “Once more, with feeling!”
He threw the wheel, sending the truck into another spin. The Lawgivers pulled back, zigging and zagging clear of the exhaust port, as focused and sharp a blade of heat as a welding torch. Dash cut his spin at the halfway point, and dropped the throttle, coasting backwards into the cargo bay of Moonsat Gamma.

“Whooooo-eeee!” Dash cried, slapping the steering wheel as the freighter glided to a gentle stop. “Did you see that? Did you SEE that?” He grinned at Melkor so hard the corners of his mouth split. Melkor refused to meet his gaze, having long since grown accustomed to this sort of behavior. Moments later, while Dash continued to slap the steering wheel in triumph, the airbag deployed.

PHIZ KALIFA fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Feb 23, 2015

Wangless Wonder
May 27, 2009
The Time Thief ft. Censiron (implicitly), Inanis & Eivali (vaguely)
1,324 Words

Shem first stole time from the Old God, whose name we do not know because time is not all Shem steals. In a time before time the Old God sat atop the clouds and watched as the men to whom he had granted dominion of the world lay in the fields and wait for a death that would not come. The rains swept over the men and snow would cover their bodies and melt and cover them again and still they would not move. The Old God came to the men and asked why they did not rise and enjoy the wonders of the existence He had given them. One man stood and told the God in a voice hoarse from disuse that they had. They had explored the lands and in His honor built great wonders and fornicated under the stars, they had swum the lakes and climbed the mountains and toiled the earth betwixt. There was no fulfillment in a journey without a destination. At this the Old God shed a single jeweled tear into the ocean, for he did love his children. He bestowed a kiss on the man who spoke and Named him Censiron and bid him to observe, for now and all time. The Old God lay his hand flat against the world and with it wiped away all that humanity had ever been. The Great Wheel turned.

Shem was a farmer because everyone was a farmer. As a boy he saw the young men dying, falling down midstride, while praying or working the fields. It was fortunate when a young man died in the fields as he would not have to be dragged far to nourish the soil. His brother Dent earned his name when their mother died with him still at the breast, crushing the babe beneath her. Stricken with grief, his father took a knife and drove it towards his heart, the force of it violently shaking his body as the blade stopped a hairbreadth from ending his life. Shem’s father stood motionless for two breaths before dropping to the ground and gasping like a man who had newly rediscovered his lungs. After a time Shem’s father stood and collected himself as to not face the shame of being seen in mourning and dragged his wife off to nourish the fields. He returned bearing a great stone and lifting it above his head stood before Shem and the maimed babe Shem held in his arms. Two breaths, and the father laid the First Stone in front of the two boys before collapsing for the second time that day.

The great domed structure of stone and wood stood anachronistic against a backdrop of thatched roofs and mud walls, and at its heart Shem raged. Two dead since they started, two ordained priestesses to the Almighty who had spent their lives in His servitude, dead after twenty five winters like those who toiled the lands and fornicated in the streets. In his anger Shem broke his hands upon the stone, blood pooling into its crevices. He cursed the stone and his father who had set it before them. He cursed the temple and the twenty winters he had spent building it and he cursed the body of the priestess who devoted her existence for the reward of being burned to ash instead of buried under corn stalks. Dent stopped Shem from breaking himself further, holding the elder brother in his arms like a babe. Dent had lost his wits but he grew large and had spent so much time hauling stone he seemed made of the stuff. The left half of his head was caved in and he always took great care to hide the sight from Shem. Carry me to the bluffs dear brother, said Shem. I would speak with God.

The path to the bluffs was clear save two young lovers showing unusual modesty in coupling this far from town, this close to the end of the world. The land there ended in a sheer cliff face that looked like it had been carved out by a great sword and gave sight to an endless sea. Shem bid his brother to stay and Dent did though he paced and worried at his tunic and would not look at Shem as he ran towards the edge. Their father had started many lessons but finished just one. This was not the first time Shem had attempted to speak with God. He had threatened himself with knives, hung himself on ropes, dunked his head underwater until his face was blue. All half measures. The knives were blunted and he stabbed with hesitation, the ropes were notched and held him for a few moments, Dent always saved him from drowning. In making the temple and discovering the wonder of his mind, Shem had developed a zest for life he could not let go. He had learned to bend stone and wood to his will when all lived under mud and reeds, had created religion when most would stare into the sun and mutter prayers until they were too blind to find their plows. How was it just that he should have as much time as those who would farm and fornicate and die, amounting to no more than food for wheat and corn. Shem neared the edge and jumped.

Dent saw his brother at the edge of the cliff, a statue frozen in half crouch. Two breaths, and his brother did not move. Dent waited on the cliff for seven days and on the seventh day something enormous and brilliant fell from the sky, casting lights of many colors as it did. As it sunk beneath the water Dent wept at the loss of it and was so stricken with grief he did not notice the awesome wave that followed until it had crashed against the cliff face, the force of it knocking him off his feet. He rose and searched for his brother, frozen at a half crouch at the cliff’s edge but Shem was gone. In his place stood a young child, his hair white and thin. As the child moved towards Dent he appeared to walk, crawl on all fours, lean on a stick for support. His gait would slow down and speed up and he would at times appear to move backwards though his dark cloak swayed behind him in constant forward motion. Approaching Dent the child reached out a hand that was all wrinkles and veins and spots, the bones beneath them visible. He passed this hand through Dent and the big man fell and lay still, the child moving past without a backwards glance. The Great Wheel turned.

Shem stole time from his brother because the world needed smart men and Dent was not a smart man. Walking down the path to the village Shem came across the two modest youths once again in the tangles of their lovemaking. From the young man with soft hands and a hard member he stole ten winters. His lover screeched and wept over the body and Shem stole twenty five winters from the unborn child within her and he gave to the woman enough time to make many more children. He swept through the village, giving time to the virile and the innovative and the hard working and taking from those he found wanting. He appeared to his remaining priestesses and told them his tale and stole death from them that they might tell it forever. The name of the Old God was erased from the temple, His symbols replaced with that of the Pendulum. The people were fearful of his wrath but the Old God was not a vengeful God and instead continued to grant pieces of Himself to His children until once again we find ourselves with our backs to the fields, eyes glazing over as we wait for death.

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=3285&title=Patience

Profane Accessory fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Dec 30, 2015

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
bye

anime was right fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Oct 27, 2015

A Classy Ghost
Jul 21, 2003

this wine has a fantastic booquet
Buried and Sunken
1214 words
Borrowed gods: Yuan, Wan, An - Ironic Twist; Vorun - Grizzled Patriarch

Tirm placed the corpse of his son into the earth, and began refilling the pit. Finished, he tossed his shovel aside and knelt on top of the fresh soil.

“I bury what I value the most as an offering to you, Eivali. I demand an audience!”

The ground rumbled and through the plains rose Eivali the whale, the many gems and jewels covering it reflecting the sunlight in thousands of colored beams; a gigantic amethyst adorned her head. Tirm waited, the world waited, for her to sing; she did, and her whalesong shook the trees and made the birds take flight. No words were spoken, but understanding came to Tirm nonetheless. He did as Eivali requested and stared into her amethyst, so that she could see what drove him to be so bold as to summon her.

A village burning, people slaughtered. A brigand lord, shrugging off blades and arrows, invincible. A wife and child murdered. Ugly laughter. Sorrow. A thirst for vengeance.

Eivali saw, and judged Tirm’s cause worthy. Her cry described where the gift she would bestow upon him was hidden. It was an enchanted javelin capable of striking down anyone in a single blow, without fail. He would need to venture deep, deep beneath the waves, where the water was darkest.

“Thank you, Eivali!” he shouted. “I shall retrieve your javelin and with it avenge my friends and family!”

Before retreating, Eivali blew a bubble out of her blowhole. It floated down to Tirm; inside was a single jewel. Through her song he understood he would be able to breathe underwater as long as he held it.

Tirm travelled to the seashore, where the green water lapped at the sand. He dove in and swam towards deeper waters, but strong waves kept bringing him back ashore. After the third time, Tirm decided it was no accident and called out to whoever was responsible.

The voice that answered was the sound of water brushing against the shore, gentle and calm.

“I am Yuan, goddess of the green water. You must pay me tribute if you wish to cross these waters.”

Tirm stood tall and thumped his chest, shouting: “Let me through, goddess, or I shall slaughter your worshippers and your green waters will run red with their blood!”

Yuan was not a violent goddess and thus not used to such threats. Taken aback, she decided to allow Tirm to pass, confident her sister would deal with him.

Tirm swam until he could no longer see the shore, then swam further still. Dark clouds gathered overhead and the wind picked up. The water under him formed into a massive whirlpool; the voice that spoke to him was the cold voice of drowned bodies and sunken wrecks.

“Who dares swim into the domain of Wan, goddess of blue water?”

“I am Tirm and I am on a quest for revenge! Let me through, or I shall boil your waters and let the wind carry them away!”

Yuan laughed at the bold but meaningless threat, for she knew that Tirm did not possess the means to boil an entire sea.

“You amuse me, Tirm; there is little opportunity for mirth out here. I will let you pass, but you still need to contend with our eldest sister.”

The whirlpool spun faster and Tirm was sucked below the waves. Deep, deep within the sea he went, where there was no light and the water was blackest.

Disoriented, tossed and tumbled by the whirlpool, Tirm no longer knew which way was up. He floated in a vast expanse of blackness with nothing to see, nothing to hear. He waited.

After some time, An, goddess of black water, spoke to him. Her voice was silence, the absolute absence of sound forming holes in the shape of words.

“What man disturbs my sleep?”

“I am Tirm, and I seek Eivali’s golden javelin! Let me through, or-” Tirm’s words were muted by An’s.

“Or nothing. Eivali might guard her javelin, but these waters belong to me. Your presence is offensive and your corpse will join that of the other unfortunate souls who sank into my realm.”

A current ripped Eivali’s gem from Tirm’s hand and sent it twisting into the darkness. The pressure of this depth, unfelt until now, came on all at once and he felt as if his head would burst.

Nearby was Vorun the Sunken, the silenced god of song, who had been banished to the bottom of the ocean by a jealous deity. He woke, disturbed by the unusual activity. An tolerated his presence, since he could no longer sing, but he was not fond of the goddess. Vorun recognized the gem as one of Eivali’s, who had always been kind to him.

Vorun, being unable to sing himself, channeled his power of song through Tirm, multiplying the sound of his voice a thousandfold. Tirm screamed at the goddess, the force of his voice breaking through her veil of silence.

An could not bear to listen; she left, deciding that her peace was worth more than her pride.

The song quieted and Tirm felt the gods move away. A bright shaft of light shone in the darkness. He swam towards it.

It was the javelin, a cruel-looking weapon of gold, its shaft inlaid with topaz. Tirm took hold of it, and swam back to the surface. Neither An, Wan or Yuan hindered his return to shore.

Javelin in hand, he tracked down the brigand lord’s camp. There he challenged the lord to present himself so that they might have a fair duel, though Tirm had no intention of doing any such thing. He would strike him down with the javelin, and then each other brigand in turn, until he death came for him.

But before the fight could start, the camp’s shaman recognized the javelin and warned his lord of the danger. The brigand lord offered Tirm a deal; his life for a way to bring back Tirm’s family from beyond. The fire in Tirm’s eyes disappeared, replaced by hope and doubt.

“How can such a thing be possible?” Tirm asked.

The brigand lord held up a pouch and answered: “This pouch contains mud touched by an unknown god; feed it to the corpses of your family and they shall live once more.”

Tirm accepted the trade, knowing he could return with the javelin if the brigand lord’s claims were untrue.

He returned to his son’s grave and dug him out. He laid the fragile body across his lap and fed it the mud, little by little. Tirm waited, but his son remained motionless; the mud had been a trick after all.

The earth shook once more. It was Eivali, enraged that Tirm would take back what he had given her in exchange for her help. She slammed her tail into the earth, tearing it asunder and causing a mountain to rise up. From her blowhole came a torrent of magma, turning the mountain into a volcano. Lava pooled and flowed around Tirm.

Despairing, knowing that he’d let down his family, that he’d destroyed his chance at revenge, Tirm let himself be buried beneath the lava, still holding the corpse of his son.

Having taken back both her treasures, Eivali’s anger subsided and she retreated underground.

flerp
Feb 25, 2014
1050 words

Feat. Docbeard’s Alothaa + My Inanis

Time Heals All Wounds

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=3288&title=Time+Heals+All+Wounds

flerp fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Jul 27, 2015

Djeser
Mar 22, 2013


it's crow time again

A night in the gods' city

feat. Secondborn (Djeser), Anathot (BaiSha), Hm (Sitting Here), Sonair (Mercedes), Spirum (ZeBourgeoise), Dash Winglet (PHIZ KHALIFA), It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud (SadisTech), and Aloha (Tyrannosaurus)

Djeser fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Jan 1, 2016

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




Gods: Sonair (Mercedes) Shem (Wangless Wonder)

Rock-a-Baby
: 1382 words

Jace thrashed the strings of his guitar with no regard for musicality. He unslung the guitar from his shoulders, grabbed it by the neck with both hands, and then viciously slammed it against the floor. The body cracked with an electrical hum and the strings went slack. He lifted the wreckage above his head and brought it down again. And again.

A thin man with spiked wristbands, belts and multiple facial piercings blinked into existence. He stuffed his hands into his skinny jeans and sucked his teeth. Smoke emerged from empty sockets; black wisps that swayed gently to an invisible wind.

“Ah! Sonair!” Jace dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. “I’m honored…”

Sonair looked at the broken guitar and back to the wretched looking man. “I appreciate your…,” he paused, flicking a cigarette into existence and lighting it with a finger, “passion for your prayer; but bro, you just had a kid. Your woman’s not going to let you buy another guitar for a long time.”

“I don’t...” Jace started. He sniffed and curled his hands into fists. “It’s no longer a problem.”

Sonair pulled on his cigarette. “I hope you didn’t kill them. You don’t get any brownie points with me for pulling that kind of stunt.”

Jace shrank away from the god.

“I can’t believe I’m bothering with this mortal stuff,” Sonair said. “What did you do, huh?” He crouched then flicked Jace on the top of his head.

“I had no choice-”

“Bah, no choice my rear end.” Sonair pushed himself to his feet then tugged up on his pants. “Just, hold on a second. I’ve watched Judge Judy enough times to know how much you mortals love to twist the truth.”

The world’s colors muted and Jace froze in place. Sonair yanked a flip phone from his pocket, snapped it open and held it to his ear.

“You were going to ring?” Shem, the god of time hissed from behind.

Sonair shouted in surprise and threw his cigarette in frustration. “Every loving time, dammit!” He paced while running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t understand why you gotta try to give me a heart attack,” he muttered to himself.

Shem sat back and his white, wispy hair thin parted over his wrinkly face and milky eyes. His mouth opened in a toothless smile. “You want my help.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, guide me into this mortal’s past. I’m curious about an event.”

“Why do you care?” Shem’s voice was wheezy and guttural, like if he had too much phlegm in the back of his throat.

Sonair frowned.

“This is the price I ask if you want my help,” Shem said. “You can always go somewhere else.”

“The dude has some sick guitar solos. I like listening to him.”

“And?”

Sonair threw his hands up in frustration. “Can’t you just get on with it?”

Shem turned to leave.

“Alright! This guy was my first worshipper. He started the rock and roll movement and made me.” He rubbed his face and clicked his tongue. “Without this guy, I wouldn’t have been me.”

Shem looked at Jace, frozen in prostration then back to Sonair. “Alright, let’s go.”

*****

“I have some bad news, Jace. You may want to be seated for this.” The white haired doctor had held his chart close to his chest and had leaned against a table in practiced sympathy.

“Just tell me. Are my wife and baby alright?” Jace had crossed his arms defiantly.

The doctor had cleared his throat before speaking. “Your wife is fine, it’s just, there’s been a complication with the baby. The umbilical cord had wrapped around the child’s neck during delivery and as a result she suffered irreparable brain damage-”

Jace had pushed his way past the doctor and stood over his daughter. He had slipped a finger in her hand and had cried when he felt her squeeze his finger. “I don’t loving care. She’s perfect.”

Jace had walked into his wife’s room with a smile on his face. There had been a heavy darkness over her. “What’s wrong, Tasha?”

She had rolled away from him in her hospital bed. “The doctor told me what happened.”

“It’ll be okay!” Jace had said, “She’ll just need some extra love-”

“We’re not keeping her.”

Jace’s smile had slowly slid away as he understood what she had said.

“Did you hear me? We’re not keeping that monster!”

Jace had flinched as if she struck him across the mouth. “Monster? Jesus, she’s our daughter!”

Tasha had turned in her bed to face him. “We either get rid of her, or we get a divorce.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” He had stomped toward her, knocking a chair aside. “We can make this work! We can do this together, we-”

“Jace,” she had said, the lines on her face hard as stone. “That… child is an abomination in God’s eyes. If you bring that thing home with us, I will kill her myself.”

Jace had felt his heart pounding in his chest and his skin tingle in that moment. He had looked at the woman he had once loved and saw her as a vile and disgusting creature. Without thinking, he had grabbed an IV line and wrapped it around Tasha’s neck. “She’s our daughter!” he had said, spittle flying through a clenched jaw.

Tasha had reached up and clawed at her neck, trying to slide a finger between the tubing, but Jace was much stronger than she was. Eventually, Tasha’s hands had slumped to her sides and her bloodshot eyes had bulged out.

Jace had stepped away from the body of his wife and looked at his hands. He had done this. He had fled the room and made his way to his daughter. He had scooped her up and without a second thought, left the hospital.

*******

“That’s hosed up, Jace,” Sonair said, putting a cigarette in his mouth. “No choice, I see.”

Jace looked confused for a moment until realization set in. “I don’t know what came-” He cut himself off and looked up at Sonair. “I’m going to jail.”
He was, Sonair thought. He heard police sirens in the distance.

“I murdered someone, and I’m going to jail. But I did it for my daughter. I killed so she could live.”

“What are you getting at man? Out with it!”

“My daughter has nowhere to go. She won’t make it in a foster home.” Jace pressed his forehead to the ground again. “If my servitude; my loyalty for all these years mean anything to you, may I please just ask one thing of you?”

Sonair looked at Shem.

Shem shrugged and vanished in a puff of dust.

Sonair recalled what he told the time god earlier. He owed his existence to this man. He pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth. “What is it?”

Jace dug his fingers into the floor. “Please take care of my daughter for me? That’s all I ask! Please do what I won’t be able to do. Please be a father to her in my place?”

The sirens were much closer now. What did he know of fatherhood? “I… can not do what you ask of me.” Sonair watched as Jace’s skin around his neck turned a blotchy red. “Instead, I’ll give the two of you a chance to start over.”

Jace looked up, his eyes rimmed red and tears clinging to them.

Sonair, the god of rock and roll glowed a bright yellow. “When you wake up, no one will remember your face. Do right by your girl, I have a feeling she’s going to grow up to do great things.”

With a flash of light, Sonair, Jace and the baby girl are gone.

*****

“Daddy! I got first place!” the teenaged girl squealed, jumping into her father’s arms.

“You killed that talent contest, Sona! I’m so proud!” Jace said, lifting her off her feet. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone play Thunderstruck on the violin and made it sound so freaking metal before. It was amazing!”

“You promised ice cream. Can we get ice cream?” Sona asked, biting her lip.

Jace looked into her eyes. He saw the smoke in them. He smiled. “Of course!”

Benny the Snake
Apr 11, 2012

GUM CHEWING INTENSIFIES
How Felix Cheated Winter

(Starring Felix and NubileHillock's Winter)

(1299 words)

Deep beneath the earth, burrowing away while chewing on a mote of rare earth, Felix was happily indulging himself of one of his two vices. Rare was it when he could do both at the same time, but today would be such an occasion. As he burrowed, his pickaxe hit into solid ground. Felix sniffed and tasted the dirt beneath him--there wasn't a trace of ore around. He laid his calloused hand against the earth in front of him and it felt cold--he was digging into permafrost. There was only one explanation, and it wasn't a pleasant one. Felix chomped down hard on his mote, replaced his pickaxe with his shovel, and started digging upwards. When he finally surfaced, he found the plains completely frozen, the verdant green completely dead and gone. Felix's anger changed into fear the moment he turned around. "Hello, Winter," he said and gave him a snaggle-toothed smile.

Winter was tall and frail without a single hair on his entire body. He was wearing nothing but a pale shawl over his shoulders and held a rickety old cane with both his hands. His eyes were as colorless as his skin--he may of been blind, but he had his trusty dire wolf North at his side. "Hello, Tiny," Felix said and tipped his helmet towards the wolf.

"Call me that one more time," North snarled at him, chomping his fangs and spraying spit. "I dare you."

Winter rose his right hand as North's rage subsided. "We have business," Winter said, his voice high and harsh like a mute starting to regain his voice.

"What business?"

"Don't play dumb, you rat prick!" North barked at him. Winter gestured as if to say "What he said". "It's one thing to defy me, Felix. It's in your nature, after all, I expect that," he said and tightened his grasp on his cane. "It's another to teach and help mortals to defy me!"

"What am I supposed to do?" Felix shouted. "Let the farmers watch helplessly as their crops die? Watch the miners as they struggle to break through frozen-solid ground?"

"You're supposed to leave well enough alone!" Winter said and slammed his cane into the ground as the snow kicked up into the air, causing a small snow-devil to form around them. Felix covered his face with his arms to keep the icy wind from harming his face.

"H-how'd you want to settle this, then?" Felix meekly asked.

"I'd thought you'd never ask," Winter said as he tapped the ground with his cane. While ice formed in front of him, he formed from the palm of his hand a die made of ice so frozen it was practically glass. "Normally I'd settle it in a battle of wills but since you're a coward, Felix, we'll settle it your way," he said.

Felix could've said no, but something was up and he wanted to see it play out. "Alright then."

North chuckled gruffly as Winter flicked his die onto the ice. "I call it odd," he said as it flew it the air. Felix could see every dimple on every face on the die as it twirled from the sky and tumbled on the ice.

"Well?" Winter asked.

North looked. "You won Master," he barked happily. "It's rolled three."

"You beat me, Winter," Felix said and held his hands up. "I surrender."

Winter scowled. "Do you take me for a fool?" he thundered.

"Master-"

"Be silent!" Winter interrupted his faithful canine servant as he cowered and whimpered pitifully. "You might be a simple-minded animal," he pointed accusingly at his long-suffering minion," but I am Winter! I am constant, omnipotent, and all-seeing!" he shouted as the winds kicked the surrounding snow up in the air into a giant flurry.

Felix covered his mouth. Winter's voice was so hoarse and high-pitched that his words were not the enraged tirades of the manifestation of an entire season but instead the petulant ratings of an impatient child. It was all so absurd that he couldn't help but snort and giggle. "H-how do you suggest we should resolve this, then?"

"You!" he shouted and pointed a single bony finger at him. "You roll your die!"

Felix obliged happily by reaching into his overalls and drawing his lucky die, made of solid pyrite. "Call it."

"Even!"

"Okay," he said and twiddled it in his fingers, ready to roll.

"No, odd!" Winter demanded.

"Whatever you say," Felix said and threw his die onto the ice as it came up deuces.

"M-Master-"

"Silence!" Winter shrieked in his high, reedy voice. "You cheated, you rat prick!" he screamed and pointed his cane at Felix.

"Of course I did, Skippy," Felix giggled. "Didn't you?"

Winter didn't say anything--he looked as if someone force-fed him something hot. Felix grabbed Winter's die and played around with it. He didn't need to roll it, he could tell from the feel between his fingers that it was loaded. He rolled it a few times on the ice anyway and every time he did, it came up odd. "See Winter, you're problem is that you're too drat paranoid for your own good," he said with a poo poo-eating grin. "You don't know when to leave good enough alone."

Winter's eye's gaped, his jaws clenched, and his nostrils flared. "You cheating motherfucker!" he screamed and lifted his hands in the air. North bared his fangs and crouched down to pounce. Right on cue, Felix pulled his trusty pickaxe out of his bag and slammed it into the ground so hard that it tore the earth asunder. Holding his mining hat on his head, Felix jumped in and burrowed furiously.

"After him!" Winter shouted and mounted North as the two leapt into the tunnel below, leaving a trail of ice behind him. The two of them came finally came to an empty cavern with no sight of Felix. "Where is he?" Winter asked as he dismounted Winter.

North sniffed around, trying his best to catch the slippery bastard's scent. Instead of the scent of gold dust and mischief, he smelled sulfur and charcoal. Looking up, he whimpered as his ears folded back behind his head. "M-Master-"

Sitting above ground holding a blasting machine, Felix wrenched the handle as hard as he could. The ground in front of him collapsed, burying Winter and his wolf underneath a mountain of earth. Hearing the explosion, the nearby locals ran out to see what the commotion was about. "Felix?" they asked.

Felix coughed and tried in vain to dust himself off. "Hi everyone," he said with a dumb grin.

"What did you do?"

"I did y'all a favor is what I did," he said with an added bit of swagger, "I buried Winter alive is what I did."

They gasped. "You did what?"

"Y'all heard me, I buried Winter alive!" he repeated and crossed his arms.

"How long is he gonna stay down there?" the crowed fearfully asked.

Felix shrugged. "Couldn't tell ya, honestly...unless..."

"Unless what?"

Felix thought for a moment. "Y'all are gonna have to plant a whole mess of trees over," he said and spread his arms wide for emphasis. "Make it a grove or an orchid, I don't give a drat. Winter's directionless without the wind and you best keep him down there by trapping him with roots."

The crowd was without words. "What are y'all lookin' at me slack-jawed for?!" he exclaimed and spat on the ground. "Start planting trees, dammit!"

Winter stayed buried underground. Even after Felix was long gone, the region had winters so mild that they were able to grow their crops and mine year-round. The locals became so used to it, that they forgot what Winter was in the first place.

And that's why there's no such thing as winter in Southern California.

Grizzled Patriarch
Mar 27, 2014

These dentures won't stop me from tearing out jugulars in Thunderdome.



The Thing Beneath the Waves
(677 words)
Gods: Vorun (me), Ush (God Over Djinn)


*snip*

See Archive

Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Dec 30, 2015

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003
When Gods Forget
(882 words)
Feat: Dulme, The Lawbringer, The Monkey, The Blind God, Anathot, Alothaa, and many more!

“The world can be owned only by the gods,” Ranulph said while Hanna strapped his grandfather’s cuirass to his back, “We pay our lease in blood.”

“Don’t say those things. They hear you.”

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the nape of his neck. His presence overwhelmed her, the smell of talc and fresh linseed clearing her mind. The snap of a whip and a frightened whinny came through the window. She tasted the salt on her lips.

“Once more before you go.”

I watched him turned to face her, then pick her up so their eyes were level. She felt his warmth through the leather. Outside the others were daubing their armour with the Lawbringer’s white. He drew the curtains.

* * *

“Hush my child and I’ll sing to thee,
For Vorun’s silent in the sea,
Down with the green, the black, and the blue,
The shining whale has pearls for you.”


* * *

Hanna slung her bag of hare over her shoulder, did a little twirl, then waggled her eyebrows at Abi.

“So how do I look?” Hanna had taken in a pair of Ranulph’s trousers. “A bit too baggy?”

Abi leaned on her scythe and laughed. “You’ll need the room soon,” she said, placing her palm on her friend’s swollen belly. “Though I’m not sure about the haircut.”

“It’s better short, it was catching in the woods.” The skills they had learned since the men left had not come easily. Her face darkened. “There’s no one to look at it anyway.”

Abi rubbed her hands together and wedged them tight in her armpits. “The days are too long for this cold.”

Hanna looked up at the grey skies over the fields. I watched her kneel, place a hare on the ground, and scatter dirt on the carcass.

“For the Monkey,” she said, “may his arms stay the blind one yet a while.”



* * *

“The monkey brings us apples and pears,
The blind one brings us cold and fears,
But don’t you cry you’re here with me,
Where air’s as sweet as Nemete.”


* * *

Abi reached into a ceramic jar and peeled off a thick cap of fat.

“There aren’t many left,” she said, sliding the confit hare out into a little skillet pot heating over the fire.

Hanna winced and turned onto her side. The last few weeks of pregnancy had been hard. In the corner of the room incense burned in a small shrine, marked in ash with the sign of the book.

“Read to me. I want to hear his words.” she said, the words hurried out between sharp breaths.


There were letters beside the bed, dictated by Ranulph but written in an exotic angular hand. The caravans had stopped coming for winter, but Hanna still prayed to Anathot the scribe that more would arrive. Abi sat down and took the pile of letters. She learned to read when she lived in the city as a child.

“The most recent one.”

Abi shuffled a letter, edges dirty with thumbprints, to the top of the pile. She closed her eyes for a second, and opened them wet with tears. She spoke in a monotone, her eyes resting in the gloom beyond the paper.

“My dearest Hanna…”

I read the letter over her shoulder, silently, like I had done before. The words weren’t Abi’s: “I have bad news of Ranulph...” it began.

* * *

“As Naven for The Thunderer,
And Toron for Jayhopa,
My love for you will never bend,
Inanis lied, it has no end.”


* * *

“The bronze lion will see you dead before you leave the village, betrayer,” Hanna whispered. Her son slept in her arms, ignorant and warm.

“The gods won’t stop us from starving, I’d rather try the road. Better to rely on their neglect.” Abi drew the string on the canvas rucksack she’d filled from the larder. “I’ve left you some.”

Snow blew in when she opened the door. She didn’t look back. The baby woke, startled by the cold. Hanna fastened him to her breast.

“Don’t listen to her, my love. It is in times like this that Alothaa watches over us.”

Hanna’s lips moved in silent prayer to the mother of hope, in rhythm with the feeding of her child. I listened to her words settle on the ground outside with the snow.

* * *

“Though Spirum’s jewels I cannot give,
Nor buried gold that Felix hid,
Censiron sees what you receive,
Food and warmth and family.”


* * *

Tiny clouds of vapour rise from the mouths of mother and babe both, and dissipate like the legacy of mortals. They grow slower. Neither reacts to creak of the larder door swinging with the draft from under the door. The watery light of the moon breathes too, brighter and dimmer with the passing of clouds.

Baby wakes. He’ll have to content himself with a lullaby, she has no milk to give. Mother’s voice is soft and sweet, and catches in her throat like burnt honey. She stops short, she never could remember the end.

I sit with them as their eyes close and their breathing shallows further. I hold their hands while I sing them their final verse.

“When Menora’s moonlight starts to fade,
and heavens offer no more aid,
When there’s nothing left to do but weep,
Dulme’s mercy soothes our sleep.”

Ironic Twist
Aug 3, 2008

I'm bokeh, you're bokeh
Out of Reach
1322 words
Yuan, Wan, An, and Mendora

Once, there was a young man named Sy, and he was just a man.

Sy lived in a modest wooden hut by a beautiful beach. As a child, he loved to run across its glittering white sands, speckled with dried starfish and sand dollars. He made his way through the pale green surf in different ways as he grew: first on elbows and knees, laughing at the face he saw in the water as it flooded over his pebbly fingers, then on thin, unsteady legs, stomping holes in the warm sea as a rippling and crashing voice steadied his spirit, then on strong, flexing limbs, charging through the spray as it surged around him, diving down to skim the sandy floor, while a creature floated in the corners of his eyes, with spotted shoulders and trailing hair the color of sunlit seaweed.

Her name was Yuan, and she was of the green water. He had grown up with her, since before he knew not to tell his parents about her existence. They dismissed his stories as part of an imaginative childhood, while Sy stared out at the place where the sea met the sky.

She was like a sister to him, always willing to listen, sometimes leaving whispering answers on the beach in the time it took for the water to rush away from the shore. When he left his parents to go live on his own, she was there to greet him, caressing the backs of his hands as he sank them into his new shoreline.

One day, he told Yuan, “I saw her again.”

Her was Mendora, the moon goddess, the one that came in the night and trailed her fingers along the seawater as he watched from his bedroom window. At night, Sy couldn’t see the white sands or the starfish or the green water or Yuan—he could only see her, her arm extending down, the pale hand the featherlight anchor at the end of her body, connecting the moon to Earth. For those moments in time, only she mattered.

What was she like? said Yuan, the water sloshing against Sy’s ankles.

“Beautiful,” said Sy. “Have you seen her?”

There was silence as the water rushed away, and then it came back, foot-high waves crashing against each other. No, I haven’t. The night is her domain. I can’t see anything then.

Sy stared at the shore, picked up handfuls of sand and let it filter out through the spaces between his fingers. “I want to find her.”

Why?

“I—I think I might love her.” Sy stared out at the calm ocean. “And I’ve seen her look into my eyes in my dreams. I think she might love me back.”

Yuan said nothing. Then the next wave crashed, and uncovered a conch shell in the watery sand, gleaming in the sunlight. Sy looked out at the waves. “Yuan?” he said. He picked up the shell, put it to his ear.

“Surprise,” she said. Sy jumped, startled.

“Sorry.” Yuan giggled, a fizzing, bubbling noise. “I want you to be happy. My sister, An, is the only one who knows how to get to Mendora. If you go to where all the seas meet each other, you’ll find her.”



That night, Sy set out into the starlit sea, paddling his canoe through the surf. He looked up to the moon as Mendora lowered herself to Earth, called out her name. She looked at him and said nothing.

When the sun rose, Sy looked back, and couldn’t see the shore anymore. He held the seashell up to his ear. “Hello?” he said. “Anybody?”

Down here, said a different voice, flat and toneless.

Sy looked over the side of his canoe and saw a woman underneath the surface of the rippling waves. “An?” he said.

No, the voice said. Wan. Blue water.

She held up something to Sy, and he reached below the water and took it. It was like a coin, but the faces were smooth, and the sides were rounded like a piece of sea glass.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he said.

Under tongue, Wan said. Swim down. You will breathe.

Without another word, Sy jumped overboard and dove into the water. He placed the coin under his tongue, and the water became like air.



“An?” Sy said into the black void, the seashell pressed to his ear. His feet rested against the ocean floor. Everything was dark and cold.

She appeared in front of him, and he fought the urge to scream, almost spitting out the coin.

Her skin was milky and luminous, the length of her body fluttering in front of him, her head smooth and flat like a stingray’s, eyes on opposite sides. White strands of hair flurried in front of her face like bolts of electricity.

Her mouth opened. From the seashell came a voice as sharp and ragged as rusted metal: My sisters have told me about you.

Sy nodded, unable to speak.

You’re here for the moon goddess?

“Yes,” Sy mouthed through the black water.

Why?

Sy tried to say something else, but he couldn’t think. The cold currents pressed against him from all sides.

Have you ever been to the moon, boy? said An’s voice.

“N-no,” said Sy.

It’s much, much colder than down here. And there’s no air, either—not even my sister’s gift would help you there. She stared at him with flat, wide eyes. I’ve never seen her in person—I’ve just heard about her through my sisters. But she and I have many things in common. Yet the main difference is, I care for Yuan and Wan, and she cares for no one.

She trailed a flat hand in front of her, fluttering fingers waving in the darkness like the ghosts of minnows. That’s the problem with all of you men—you only want what you can’t have. She stuck her right hand out, swirled a finger in Sy’s face. She loves you, has always loved you, and you never saw it.

Sy stepped back. “Then why did she send me to you?”

Because she couldn’t say it on her own.

Sy clenched his teeth and stared at her, the coldness creeping into his chest.

Oh, stop sulking and go back to her. Here, said An’s voice, and she plucked a strand of gleaming grey hair from her oblong skull. As she held it out to Sy, it shot forward and tied itself around Sy’s index finger. A little hair of the god. Now you won’t need anything until you return home.

“Thank you,” Sy said. He kicked away from the ocean floor and swam to the surface.

As he left, he heard An’s fading voice in the seashell: We’ll see. Now that you’re closer to Mendora, she might not let you leave her.



When Sy’s head burst into the open air, his canoe had floated away. There was no shore to be seen, no other boats around. Nothing but the blank white light, falling from above.

Sy took one last look up at the glowing moon above him, then shut his eyes and descended beneath the waves.

He took a deep breath, and began to swim.



Even now, you can still see Sy in the right light of the moon, as it trickles beneath the ocean’s surface, flailing, desperately working his arms, even as the tides pull him back every morning and afternoon to where he started.

Ahead of him is Yuan, pining.

Behind him is Wan, listening.

Above him is Mendora, watching.

Below him is An, waiting.

And all the while Sy still keeps swimming, sometimes stopping to clasp his burning index finger in his left hand, sometimes surfacing and removing the coin under his tongue to get a taste of real air, sometimes pressing the pale conch shell up to his right ear, hoping desperately to hear something other than the sea.

Kaishai
Nov 3, 2010

Scoffing at modernity.
Nemete's Game
Gods: Nemete and Ah
(785 words)

It is said that a parfumier in Sophir caught a thousand scents and more in the glass bottles that lined his shop, and yet he couldn't be satisfied. One by one, he brought every fragrance he could conjure to the people of the city; he thought always of what still remained to do. When he grew old, when his imagination ran dry, he despaired. He prayed to Ah to guide him to the next rung of his ladder.

Nemete, who loved this man dearly, heard his plea to another. The Perfumed God took the step that separated his heaven of roses and rotting loam from Ah's throne above the peak of the tallest mountain. A haze obscured the details of Ah's face, and though Nemete floated beside the throne, light as the scent of ice on the wind, it stayed just outside his reach.

"I want the parfumier to have his desire. But he asked it of you," Nemete said. "Will you give it to him?"

Ah said, "That is not my way."

"I offer a game. We'll guess at the outcome of a mortal life. If I win, you answer the prayer; if I lose, I'll bring a scent to these heights that they'll never otherwise know."

The god of the invisible rung considered this. "You must win seven times."

"Agreed," Nemete said. "There is a dog digging at a fire ant hill." He stepped from the heights to a stretch of dusty grass far south of Sophir; Ah followed. Unseen, they watched the animal thrust its nose into a hump of grey dirt, and they watched the ants boil up.

Nemete said, "I wager the dog survives."

Ah said, "I wager the ants kill it."

Hard though the dog shook its head, the fire ants clung and bit. It fled half a mile to a pool that was half mud, and it buried its face in the stagnant water. The two gods moved ahead in time. The dog was scarred and ugly, but it lived, three years later. Nemete said, "One for me."

The Perfumed God won their next three wagers: a man left his job, a falcon returned to its master's hand, and a midwife revived a child born dead. Again and again Nemete won, until he had all victories but the seventh.

The gods stood at the shoulders of a university student taking his last exam. "I wager he'll cheat," Ah said. The boy adjusted his sleeve, revealing the formula written on his wrist.

They returned to Ah's throne, and Nemete said, "This is the scent of the core of the world." He filled the air with metal and fire, unfathomably heavy, achingly pure. Ah stretched out a hand as though to touch the heat that it could not quite feel.

"There is a woman who hates her child," Ah said.

"I wager she will smother it," Nemete said, but she did not. Nemete gave Ah the perfume of a mammoth long past being in extremis.

"There is a miner digging for rubies," Ah said.

"I wager he won't find them," Nemete said, but he did. Nemete gave Ah the salt-sweet smell of caramel cooling on a stove, so thick that it sat on the god's tongue.

Every wager after, Nemete lost, and the heights above Sophir knew the aromas of roasted onions, of old leaves pressed into the earth by rain, of sharks' blood. The gods slipped backward and forward through time; neither Censiron nor Anathot knows how long they played. The seventh triumph eluded the Perfumed God's hands.

At the last, he said to Ah, "There is one scent left that could interest you."

Ah said, "I've smelled the birth of a star and the grease in a sailor's beard, twice-chewed cud and empty walnut shells. Love, joy, apathy, and rage; Inanis' tears on the day the universe is reborn. What remains?"

"Contentment."

For a moment the haze around Ah thinned, and Nemete could almost see its eyes and an emotion in them. The god of the invisible rung gripped the armrests of its throne. "There is a parfumier in my city," it said. "I wager--"

"No." Nemete held up his hand. "I forfeit."

After a silence long even for gods, Ah nodded. The mists obscuring its mouth faded away; it wore a slight smile.

It is said that a parfumier in Sophir once prayed to Ah to no avail: he lived two years more without creating a new scent, miserable despite the good fortune that blessed him in all other ways. Yet in the final hour of his life, he distilled the chill perfume of the tallest mountain peak, breathed it in, and died contented.

Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

The Throne and the Monkey
(1496 Words. Gods used: ~~~All of Them~~~)

This World has existed for countless generations, and the form it takes is nothing more than the echoes from all that has come before. Since Inanis oversaw the birth of the first moment, all actions have flowed towards the lines upon this scroll being recognized as words. It is undecided if such a result plays into the hands of Censiron's honesty principles or merely into the pockets of Shem, who covets time. The Thunderer, if he still peers over the parapets of their oaken tower, has yet to judge her final, brilliant, all-consuming judgment.

Beneath the feet of Ah and above the hair of Hm, the world spun aimlessly without the throne of Law to give it direction. The Lawgiver, standing silent amidst the flattest expanse of land, was vexed by the seasons. No throne of Law could find rest in a land where growth and death intertwined without reason. He knew there to be a flaw in creation. Vorun's song, the rhyme which formed the world, had been cut short by violence done by his brother the Secondborn. There was an incomplete stanza, a call without a response. In this gap, the Monkey wrenched itself into being. It was a half formed streak in the heart of the world, whose seven arms scratched all things blindly. Its hunger upturned the elements themselves, stirring ice into the winds and shriveling all that grew. It was a hideous seeping blot on the scroll of the world's history. It was a page torn out of the book of its song. It was the enemy of all gods.

Diplomacy had been attempted. Ush had gone into the dark of the world to speak to the Monkey, and every tongue of man, god, and beast fell into its cavernous belly without being heard. A thousand whispers, a million shouts, all were empty to this beast. New languages formed from hunger and thirst were of no use. The Monkey did not think. The new Law was written by Anathot's own pen: The Monkey must be expelled from the world by force.

The gods assembled at the palace of Spirum to forge a strategy. The first to be called to the side of the Law were the trinity of Toron-Mata, Ebilius-Shahar, and Hartisese-Jayhopa. At their sides were the attendant goddesses of water; Yuan, Wan, and An. As the rest arrived, discussions began. In that crystal realm they discussed the sacrifice of Mendora's moon so that no tides would aid in the churning of the seasons. Aloha leapt upon the table and swore that he would have no stake in a plan that brought stillness to his coasts. Weevil sat up in his chair and opened his mouth. Sonair spoke above him, extolling the virtues of overwhelming force. He proposed dragons, and fire, and soldiers, and swords and demons, all under the spell of his music. Winglet seconded this, and any other motions. Alothaa lowered her hands onto the crystalline table, quieting the room, and suggested that no actions be taken. The sconces in the nine corners of the room flickered silently for a moment before arguments arose again, splintered into smaller discussions, and then the matter at hand was returned to. No one noticed that the Weevil's seat was empty long before negotiations had settled.

The journey was arduous, for even gods must bring along their servants and followers for a task so glorious as removing a tumor in the world's flesh. Caravans and convoys, linen flags of Law, brass and gold wheels, followed by thousands of creatures and humans in a march across the world. Symbols of the hundred gods, and the many traditions of their followers, all forming a line towards a single enemy. Many strode this path to be near their gods, many to breathe in adventure, and many to see the death of that which impeded their world from being perfected.

The first obstacle, the black wolf, was handled easily. Before its midnight jaws could envelop any from foreign lands coming to the horizon, Nemete led it towards the opposite horizon with all the scents of strangers, travellers, and new ideas. This was the last that anyone saw of either of them, though the black wolf's shadow still circles the world, slowly, once a day.

The second obstacle, a vast expanse of grime soaked dirt surrounding a broken fiery land, was inhabited by filthy little worms that sought to give their lives to defend their god, It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud. The god being a worm itself, knew nothing of its worshippers and was focused solely on its own habits of eating and reproducing through its excretion. To cut a path through these foes, Eivali the Jewelled Whale was called upon. Gleaming with treasures of a thousand dead civilizations, it swam cleanly through this land and ate its fill of the praying filth that loved It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud. The trail the whale left behind, prismatic excretions of uniform shape and size, stirred with the next step of life for millions of worms eager to become that which they had idolized for so long.

The third obstacle was the greatest. Centered now between the seven great arms of their enemy, the assembled horde of gods and followers prepared to strike down into the world and drown the Monkey. Felix led the dig, with mattock hewing through stone and earth easier than the air itself. Thousands followed Felix downwards, with shovels and picks and buckets, merely to clear away the debris he loosed. Thousands of steps spiralling down into blackness. Naven, seeing themself in that moment as a god of Soothing Compassion, ushered cool air down into that black pit, freshening the depths of the world and those toiling away within. The work continued for seven weeks. Many of the workers buckled under the strain. It was only the pleasing whispers of Ioc that kept them from mutinying or taking the lives of those alongside them. She painted for them a vision of endless tomorrows, free from strife caused by the Monkey's tampering with nature. It was good enough to keep them working until Felix's mattock sparked against the flesh of The Monkey's eyelid.

The goddesses of water began their work. Yuan of the Green Water began gently with cool rains to refresh and calm the enemy. When this had no effect, Wan of the Blue Water began a downpour to drown the enemy. When this had no effect, An of the Black Water spit a single drop into the pit that had been dug. Hours later, when it landed into the pool, oily tendrils of poison unfurled from that drop, coursing through the blue and green water. The gods and mortals leaned in close to see if this underground sea of poison would be enough to slay the Monkey. A terrible sound rang out, metal striking stone. Felix cut away a support with one motion of his arm and one laugh. The entirety of the stairway circling the pit collapsed, and as stone and earth and flesh and gods poured into that roiling black sea, it rose up and destroyed all who assembled that day to see the death of a god.

Ma'indo worked ceaselessly for seven weeks as the souls of the dead mortals worked their way up through the poisoned earth, only to be shuttled to an even darker pool so that Oubro might taste the memories they would lose. The remaining gods of the quest coalesced one by one back amid the crystal towers of Spirum's palace. From their vantage point high up, they looked upon the flat tract of land that the Lawgiver stood in, still without a throne. He stood there for some time, and the trees did not shake with sudden chills or scorch with instant heat. Their color turned gradually over many weeks, and the winds grew chillier along the course of months. What had changed? Had they succeeded in destroying their foe after all? The seven arms still spanned across all peaks of the world, but their grasping nails did not dig into the skin of the land.

Censiron had learned from the minds of humans, before Oubro had licked them clean, that something had been seen surviving that tumult beneath the earth. Clinging tenaciously to the Monkey's eyebrow, a small creature had nestled itself against the beast's eye. Perhaps the destruction of the Monkey's loneliness had relaxed its chaotic grip? It is hard to say with certainty if any of this tale belongs in The Keeper's Library, or is effluvia from the Lord of Deception. It is up to the reader to believe this or cast it away to Versoot, along with all nonsense that harms the mind. The only truths to this tale that are known to be from Anathot's own pen, are that to this day there is no throne of Law anywhere upon the world, and that the Weevil's seat at Spirum's table has been unoccupied for generations.

leekster
Jun 20, 2013
Cry of Progress
Seb's Ah and my Lidya
(564 words)

Lazy plumes stretched from the capital and broke amongst the trees. Lidya opened her mouth and tasted the air. Smoke made it harder to discern scents, but the smell of outsiders was distinct enough that she turned her head in their direction and padded towards them. it wasn’t that they smelled pungent and made her turn her head in disgust. Lidya enjoyed the smells of those from beyond. Some burned her nose with their sharp smell. Others she mistook for the river at times, mud caked onto them inches thick. No, Lidya did not hate any of these people. Everything about them was interesting. But they were dangerous.

They carried danger in their hands, forged by an anvil. They carried it in their pockets, weighted gold inscripted with whatever tongue they knew. They carried danger in their mind, every curve of the valley questioned to be flattened for growth in their eyes. Lidya’s little capital could not meet this danger. They needed to discover misery on their own.

The capital was none the wiser. Fables told of the great black wolf that guarded the forest. The midnight black nightmare that kept them crowded against the cliffside.

Lidya didn’t go hungry for new thoughts. Countless scouting parties reached her forest. They drove metal stakes in the earth to claim it for themselves. Or they’d measure trees and counted berries. The same shadow crept over all of them as fangs tore and gouged them.

-

Lidya bounded across the forest. Branches snapped as she bounced from leg to leg. Mounds of earth shot up from under her as she stopped. A new scent had arrived. This one carried with it a compelling force. Where the scent was an absence. No matter how hard Lidya focused her eyes on where the scent should be the source squirmed and shifted like trying to follow a single snowflake’s descent.

“What are you?” Lidya snarled. She sat down and curled her tail around her.

“I am the last mile of a race. The blood a fighter loses before his hand is raised. I am the moment in time when the mind clicks and things shift to make sense. I am Ah.” The absence shifted, or rather the environment where the absence was became clear again.

“What are you doing in my forest?” Lidya said. Tentative paws trotted right, the direction she thought Ah had gone.

“Many of my followers travelled here in hopes it would bring them closer to their end. All of those who were enlightened perished before they got there. I was curious to know what made this land so sacred as to stop them.” Ah chimed.

“My capital can’t be allowed to be exposed to the danger of those ideas. They’ll discover swords and other ways to construct their own unhappiness on their own. They don’t require assistance for that.” Lydia said.

“But the losses I’ve suffered here. They must be paid back to me. I am going to push your city to the edge of a great breakthrough. It is up to them to pursue it or not.” And with that the absence vanished.

Lidya boomed across her land and howled for Ah.

-

Lidya cowered in the strip of forest that remained. An army marched towards her. On their banner that hung high was the image of a black wolf that howled at the moon.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









deleted

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 2, 2016

SadisTech
Jun 26, 2013

Clem.
Stole some time from my employer and got it done.

Mountain Too Deep featuring Toron-Mata, Second of the Trinity, Guardian God of Knowledge, Logic, and Speech courtesy Screaming Idiot
771 Words


O my Lord Toron-Mata, I beseech ye in my woe. I ask of you some meagre comfort.

O Fount of Knowledge, Calculor of Logics, Scribe of Speech, it has become clear to me in these latter days of my span that man is a feeble being; never shall we climb the mount upon whose peak you proudly stand. But aspiring to your heights, we are held down by the chains of our natures; ever do we stumble and fall in dust.

O Toron-Mata, great and all-knowing, I beg an answer; are there any creatures upon this world that may climb that mountain? Can mortal beings dare seek such glory or are all things of crude flesh doomed to imperfection in understanding and ability?

I prostrate myself in your greatest temple, O Lord, and shall stay here for my few remaining days. Grant me but the humblest portion of your wisdom!

A GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT THOU HAVE BEEN.

O my Lord!

FLAWED OF COURSE, BUT SUCH IS THE CLAY WITH WHICH WE WORK. I WARN THEE THAT THE TRUTH MAY BE A BITTER FRUIT INDEED. WISH THOU STILL TO SUP?

My Lord. My Lord, I do.

THEN I GRANT TO THEE THIS VISION, OF THE CREATURES FURTHEST REMOVED FROM THE WORLD OF MAN AS MAY STILL SHARE EXISTENCE WITH THEE. FURTHER, I GRANT TO THEE THE BOON OF UNDERSTANDING THEIR CONGRESS, FOR THEIR MANNER OF SPEECH IS ALIEN TO THEE INDEED.

BEAR WITNESS.


---

Caress-of-Tendrils-Slippery-and-Sticky: hey

Bitter-Stink-of-Magnesium-Fragments: good beginning-of-peak-metabolic-activity-period, sleepytentacles. you better start sucking real hard because all the good stuff's gonna be filtered before you get any.

CTSS: wasn't sleeping, was thinking.

BSMF: yeah? bout what?

Decaying-Whalebone-From-Abyss-Above (distant): who gives a squirt

CTSS & BSMF: plug your secretion duct, singlecell

BSMF: sorry. go on, what were you thinking?

CTSS: yeah anyway. i was thinking about where it all started. where we came from, you know?

BSMF: the great worm below? It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud?

All within scent-shot: BLESSED BE ITS poo poo

CTSS: well yeah, it made us. but...

BSMF: not seeing where you're going with this.

CTSS: where'd It come from?

BSMF: ... huh.

DWFAA: Boiling-Mud you come up with some anglerfishbrained ideas, Tendrils.

CTSS: was I even secreting at you you polyp? go slavishly filter your own reproductive fluid or something. so...

BSMF: go on, i'm interested.

CTSS: so It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud -

All: BLESSED BE ITS poo poo

CTSS: yes, bless, anyway my point is that we have to grow from our fluids mingling to make a tiny larvae which gets caught on a rock or some such, we grow, we live a long time, but then we die. why is It any different?

BSMF: well, It's obviously a lot bigger than we are, to make as much poo poo as It does -

CTSS: yes, and?

BSMF: and i mean It can live in heat that would wither you or me into hard little husks

CTSS: these are differences of degree only. It exists, It must have come from somewhere and one day It must end, just like we do.

DWFAA: It is eternal you random-secreting moron. think before you open your duct. from It came all things and to It all things must one day return. even the mud and rocks go down into the vents over a long enough time. It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud -

All: BLES -

CTSS: ok we get it everyone! thank you!

DWFAA: It is the beginning and It is the end and therefore It isn't subject to these things because It embodies them.

BSMF: that's pretty elegant actually.

CTSS: yeah, wow. more than i would have expected from Whalebone i gotta be honest. but i remain unconvinced - it's a good argument but it doesn't actually explain anything, you know?

BSMF: it may just be that there are some things we can never know.

DWFAA: you might as well ask if there is anything outside the ocean. or wish that intelligent beings like us were able to swim around like the dumb fishes and squids instead of being sensibly anchored in place.

BSMF: yeah, haha.

CTSS: actually i feel that some of the octopoda might be pretty smart, almost problem-solving level -

DWFAA: oh It-Shits-Boiling-Life-Mud there is no chance of a rational exchange of scent-forms with you is there?!

All: BLESSED BE ITS poo poo

---

I... I see now, O my Lord.

INDEED.

Mortal beings simply cannot grasp Truth, then? We are too limited... too constrained by our circumstances?

CORRECT.

My Lord, I will pass from this world soon. Sooner now, I think, now that my hope has been shown futile. After that, will I know more, O Toron-Mata? Will I have the chance to grow?

O My Lord?

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
All right, Deities & Demigods, put your pencils down and hands on heads.

By my count there's only 2 fails, one abstain and no toxxes ... which gives us 31 stories to grade so this might take a while.

Please sit quietly until the judging is done. If you must, you may have a sandwich so long as you eat in silence and clean up your crumbs. Absolutely no turning into a shower of gold and muggle-loving or your final grade will be adversely affected.

contagonist
Jul 21, 2014

You shouldn't be doing anything with fluorine.
But the muggles are HAWT

Entenzahn
Nov 15, 2012

erm... quack-ward
:siren: interprompt: the bumbling victory of the forces of evil :siren:

200 words - will grade and maybe crit (a little)

A Classy Ghost
Jul 21, 2003

this wine has a fantastic booquet
Results
138 words

“Well… we won,” said Zurgahd.

“I guess,” replied Slurp.

Zurgahd looked at the goblin and shrugged. Orcs were a practical race and the results mattered more to him than the methods used to reach them.

“Stabbed to death, broken neck… either way, we wanted him dead, and he is.”

Slurp poked his spear at the corpse of the hero on the icy ground. He tried lifting the hero’s head with the tip, but it fell back, the neck at an odd angle.

“What now?” he asked.

“Get back, get paid, get drunk.”

“Works for me.”

Zurgahd and Slurp turned their back to the corpse, returning to camp. Slurp slipped and lost his footing, but Zurgahd caught him before he hit the ground.

“Look out for ice patches, you could break something.”

Slurp laughed so hard he pissed himself.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






PHIZ KALIFA posted:

Some things missing from my entry: An elaborate satire on anime transformation sequences, the reveal that all of the Lawgiver's minions have hammers that strike twice and make a :doink: noise.

dat preface tho

Benny the Snake
Apr 11, 2012

GUM CHEWING INTENSIFIES

Fumblemouse posted:

Absolutely no muggle-loving or your final grade will be adversely affected.
I make no promises

Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Feb 23, 2015

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood

crabrock posted:

dat preface tho

Awe :3: Thanks. I made the mistake of reading Waves on my lunch break and now I'm bawling.

Ironic Twist
Aug 3, 2008

I'm bokeh, you're bokeh

PHIZ KALIFA posted:

Awe :3: Thanks. I made the mistake of reading Waves on my lunch break and now I'm bawling.

are ya.

Grizzled Patriarch
Mar 27, 2014

These dentures won't stop me from tearing out jugulars in Thunderdome.



Benny Profane posted:




Also, linecrits are a good thing. I am offering two line-by-line critiques, to be completed within one week, with the only catch being that anybody claiming a crit must themselves pay two forward. That is, if you take a crit, you must offer two linecrits of your own, each to be completed within a week of their being claimed. I will happily crit any story, not just those from the most recent week, so please provide a link to the story you would like critiqued when claiming a crit slot.

2-for-1 Linecrits

1. Unclaimed

2. Unclaimed

Guess this offer got lost in the shuffle or something, but I'll take a crit for my Crossroads week story. http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=3242&title=Until+We+Meet+Again

So now there's two more line crits available for anyone that wants 'em.

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

Benny Profane posted:

2-for-1 Linecrits

1. Grizzled Patriarch, http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=3242&title=Until+We+Meet+Again. (to be completed before 3/2/15)
2. Unclaimed

You got it. One more left if anybody wants it.

Benny the Snake
Apr 11, 2012

GUM CHEWING INTENSIFIES

Benny Profane posted:

You got it. One more left if anybody wants it.
Brother, can you spare a crit for my current submission?

Profane Accessory
Feb 23, 2012

Benny the Snake posted:

Brother, can you spare a crit for my current submission?

Sure, I can do that -- I won't start until judgment for this week comes in, though. And just a reminder that it's chain-letter mechanics, so if you take one you have to pay two forward.

Screaming Idiot
Nov 26, 2007

JUST POSTING WHILE JERKIN' MY GHERKIN SITTIN' IN A PERKINS!

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.
I have to say, this week's been really impressive. Lots of imaginative gods, clever twists on traditional ideas, and a great range of tone. I managed to finish my story, but I couldn't get to work to post it in time -- just as well, because I didn't do any of my ideas justice at all. :(

As I have sinned in the eyes of the Gods of the Thunderdome, I shall atone. To that end, I'll offer line-by-line critiques of the next three people who ask for them.

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003

Screaming Idiot posted:

I'll offer line-by-line critiques of the next three people who ask for them.

I would love one for this weeks story, thanks. I'll pass it on and do an in depth crit for one of the newbies. If none of them ask I'll just choose one at random.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Screaming Idiot posted:

I managed to finish my story, but I couldn't get to work to post it in time

well where the gently caress is it then

Hammer Bro.
Jul 7, 2007

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Screaming Idiot posted:

Penance crits.

I could go for one of those, actually. I tried a thing, and I don't think it worked out how I thought it did, but I'm still recovering from The Fever so I'd appreciate (and take seriously) any critiques for next time I try.

Also what 'mojo said.

Ol Sweepy
Nov 28, 2005

Safety First

newtestleper posted:

I would love one for this weeks story, thanks. I'll pass it on and do an in depth crit for one of the newbies. If none of them ask I'll just choose one at random.

Having just burst my Thunderdome cherry I'd appreciate this. Be ruthless.

Happy to pay it forward and give crits to the first 2 people that ask might take me some time though.

Crit 1: Unclaimed

Crit 2: Unclaimed

Ol Sweepy fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Feb 24, 2015

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




When was the last time we had a perfect attendance??

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flerp
Feb 25, 2014
https://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?week=114 i think

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