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I am heading to the mountains for the weekend and discovered I may not have reliable internet, so I'm gonna have to  Pretty sure I'm under the wordcount comfortably to throw extra words at the Hermit to avoid future flashes. If not feel free to DQ me. Hawklad, the Ultra Monk Nun's Priest....FOR NOW * Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT * Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "I get knocked down, but I get up again / You're never gonna keep me down" * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like a priest with exactly two more fucks, and who is giving them to the world right now?? (+50, Normal Amulet) * Surprise fairy attack: Mega Rosepetal demands PINK * Thursday's Encounter: DEATH: Endings, change, transformation, transition / Resistance to change, personal transformation, inner purging * Limerick: Entered (+50) Began with 1400 words. Currently has 1400 words The Ultra Monk’s Tale: The Mountains of the Moon ~950 words Head inside a termite mound, Inika never saw the mountain before it clocked her right in the rear end. Eleven billion tonnes of compacted dust and granite tossed her to the ground, long limbs splaying out on the clay. Inika did a quick roll as the giant dreadnought passed overhead, blocking out the desert sun with its bulk. Protruding root fibers tickled her face. Tiny beetles scrambled across the compact soil and stone of the mountain’s underbelly, inches above her. She pressed herself flat against the ground as it passed over. She knew the elliptical orbits of the mountains would sometimes dip down to touch the Earth, ripping through the soil and brush. The Great Mother said that was how the valleys and ravines that crisscrossed the desert were formed--carved from the firmament by the massive shapes that dotted the sky. When they passed close above, the Great Mother said, you could hear the old spirits within singing as they danced in their homes of basalt and brecchia. The mountains were fragments of the Earth’s only child, she said, called back to their home. The mountain soon passed over her and the setting sun’s return brought water to her eyes. In that moment Inika made her decision: she got up, and with long, sure strides, raced across the scrubland in pursuit. The mountain’s orbit was taking it away from the Earth again. Her hands scrabbled across its rough surface, seeking purchase as clots of dry soil rained down on her. Legs burning and the mountain receding upwards, she made one final leap, and caught a root that lifted her off her feet and into the sky. Now this was a sight to behold: Inika, the Salt Hunter, the Dawn Runner, her robe of furs billowing, ferociously climbing the mountain as it rose upwards into the pink sky. She moved across the regolith like a gecko, ropy muscles relentless in pursuit of elevation. Hand over hand, ever higher, until the slope fell away before her and she reached the summit. By now the sun was low, but the ponderous mountain’s ancient orbit chased it towards the horizon, and pink light stretched deep across the sky. The summit was large, covered in a uniform gray dust pockmarked with craters and littered with bones. Human remains, dry and cracked from time, deaths ages past. Inika said a prayer to her ancestors and nudged a skull with a hunting boot. It rolled over and dissolved into fragments. In the center of the desolate summit a glint of metal beckoned. A small metal hatch, its surface free of dust. Inika pulled it open to reveal a metal ladder leading downward. She took one last look at the fading world around her and descended into the mountain. Glass tubes set into the rock walls glowed softly, illuminated her descent. After a minute, the ladder deposited her into a large room. Banks of machinery surrounded her, nests of metal wires and tubes covering the walls and ceiling of this chamber. Glass displays mounted around the room on the wall displayed nothing but darkness. All of this machinery, as dormant and dead as the human remains on the summit. Inika had seen such devices before, sand-scoured relics that her tribe scavenged for raw materials. Indeed, the hunting knife on her hip was build from such scrap, recovered from a collapsed building on the outskirts of the City of Ghosts. A noise made her turn towards a small open doorway. Pulling out her knife, Inika crouched and entered a small room. It was sparsely furnished, with a simple cot and desk with a few papers strewn about. On the cot was another corpse, this one much fresher, of an ancient human male. It opened its eyes. Not a corpse. “Welcome,” he croaked. Inika hissed and pointed her knife at him, circling into a defensive posture. The impossibly old man held out two spindly arms in a consoling gesture. “Please, don’t be afraid. I can’t hurt you. Let me just--” and his voice dissolved into a rattling cough as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position. His words were strange, his dialect archaic. Behind his gray pallor, eyes the color of cobalt regarded her with curiosity. “I wasn’t expecting visitors today,” he said, attempting a wry smile that threatened to rupture his papery skin. “Who are you, what is this place?” Inika growled. “Fragment Zeta-Pi 6.2,” he said. “Although I don’t expect you understand what that means.” The Great Mother’s words sang in her head. That the mountains of the sky were fragments of the child, sundered long ago. And then she did understand. “How old are you?” she whispered. “An interesting question. Hard to know for sure. Over a thousand years, at least, my child.” Again with the smile. “Impossible.” “Quite possible, with the life extending technologies we once had.” Inika could see a glimmer of pride in his eyes. “Shame it was all lost.” “Lost?” Inika’s eyes were as sharp as the dagger she still held before her. “The fusion reactors. To power them required so much raw material. A choice was made, long ago. To make a sacrifice.” His arms dropped down to her lap. “Where we are now is--the result of that choice.” “So it was you who made the world what it is,” Inika said, and plunged her dagger into his heart. As he gasped his last breath, Inika leaned down and whispered the words of the Great Mother into his ear: “To set a man that is filled full of vice In high degree, and call him emperor. By God, out of his throne I will snatch him; When he least expects it, the most quickly he shall fall.” After, she returned to the surface and waited with the bones under the moonless night. Given enough time, the Earth would rise again beneath her.
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Nov 6, 2020 23:45
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LIMERICK CONTEST RESULTS! I can say with absolute authority that this was the best Limerick Contest this Carnival has seen in over a decade. What rhymes! What Bawdy humor! What social commentary! What attempt to write a limerick in middle english! However, winners must be chosen, and prizes given, so here they are: First place: Sparksbloom, the Blushing Man of Law, with their limerick about two serfs getting drunk! You win 250 extra words! And this useless, grotesque chess piece!  Second place: Liquid Communism, the Wet Friar, with their limerick about two priests getting drunk! You win 150 extra words! And this useless, grotesque chess piece!  Surprise Third Place: Baby Ryoga, the Macabre Merchant, with their limerick about two ghosts getting drunk! You win 125 extra words! because we liked yours and Liquid Communism's about equally, and maybe you ended up in 3rd place because that was the order you posted in, and that made it funnier, in my opinion! And this useless, grotesque chess piece!  Special Prize: Weltlich, the Nebulous Shipman, for sticking with the middle english gimmick all the way through the thread, including the limerick! Really hope your whole story isn't written like that. You win ZERO extra words! and this useless, grotesque chess piece!  I was joined this year by a very special judge, who rode in like a night in shining armor who will trample anyone in their way and also carry a tower on the back of their horse, and who, based on their own disqualified entry is an adequate limerick composer, Curling Iron! I hope you were in it for the fun and not the prize, because....You get this useless, grotesque chess piece!  NOTE: Chess pieces are COMPLETELY USELESS. They do NOTHING. No words. No rules WOULD YOU LIKE ONE? You can buy one for only 25 words! Why would you do this? I have no idea! But you can!
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Nov 7, 2020 02:13
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queen of diamonds
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Nov 7, 2020 02:31
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Thee Honeste Recorde ofe Oure Traveles is now up to date with everyone's flash rules and word counts as of this moment. Edit: I really feel like this post needs about 500 more words....... Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 03:56
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The 2 of clubs.
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Nov 7, 2020 08:20
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sebmojo posted:queen of diamonds Diamonds, being excellent conductors of heat, are colloquially known as "ice". The Ice Queen nets you a cool 100 words. Thranguy posted:The 2 of clubs. The least of cards; but dual-wielding clubs is a lowkey badass strat in a game of Donjons & Dragonnes. Lo, 75 words are yours.
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Nov 7, 2020 08:31
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yea ill use the amulet on the granite rule i guess one less rule could help the rules 
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Nov 7, 2020 08:35
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take the moon posted:yea ill use the amulet on the granite rule i guess one less rule could help After playing with your weak amulet for a while, you touch a hidden clasp and it pops open. It's actually an empty locket! You place your shiny stone inside and close it, and the compulsion to write about granite quickly fades. You got lucky! Nice one!
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Nov 7, 2020 08:56
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Nov 7, 2020 08:59
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HOLY poo poo WE loving MADE IT Everyone's circumstances should be fully up to date in the NIGHTMARE RECORD OF DEATH Please quote your entry in the NIGHT MARE RECORD OF DEEASAAAATH in your entry Please give your STORY the name I said was COOL extr4emely Your narrator may be drunk but will s urely retroactive edit this post very soon to add at least 1000 more words that make sense. Edit: fast useless edit: if you disagree with DWATH you may appeal Death by ust pointing out data is maybe drujjnmk and wrong EDIT EDIT: Entries are closed unless you want to make a SPEEDRUN in which case, gently caress it you can enter any time before 12pm noon pst SUNDAY b/c LOL Edit edit edit: i'm not joking about the SPEEDRUN deal that is real Edit edit edit edit: If someone does a SPEEDRUN of this prompt I will buy them some dumb forums thing. Edit edit edit edit edit: If you do a SPEEDRUN of this prompt, you will be IMMUNE FROM LOSING. Edit edit edit edit edit edit: If you have another idea of how to be EXTREMELY STUPID w/in the spirit of this prompt, I will probably agree and also buy you a dumb thing and also make you immune from losing. Edit edit edit edit edit edit edit: Frankly if someone doesn't take advantage of this now, i might cry ;____; Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 10:03
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Please excuse our Narrator. They have been under a lot of stress lately. I have recommended a course of bed rest lasting at least seven hours. Since I am de facto in charge for that time, I am unilaterally extending the deadline for use of amulets, flash rule purifications, and purchase of knick-knacks from my stall. This is a heavily flash-rule-based prompt and your judgement will be significantly negatively impacted if you fail to hit all of your rules! (Important Late Edit: by which I mean you probably won't win, not that you'll be DQ'd or any stupid poo poo like that. The most important criterion is, as always, write a good story.) Maugrim fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 10:15
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Maugrim posted:Please excuse our Narrator. They have been under a lot of stress lately. I have recommended a course of bed rest lasting at least seven hours. WTF dude, you did not even SPECIFY A NEW DEADLINE. What kind of law school did you even go to?
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Nov 7, 2020 10:19
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:WTF dude, you did not even SPECIFY A NEW DEADLINE. Hie thee to thy room, lush! The new deadline shall be when you emerge, sober, to inform all our companye, in a manner Moste Articulate, of their final & unchangeable route to Canterbury!
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Nov 7, 2020 10:31
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sorry trashed post. trashed crew 4 lyfe (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) take the moon fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 10:36
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Hi I am still working on an extremely cool and sober FINAL POST for you, but if you want to talk to your EXTREMELY GOOD LOOKING NARRATOR in person (on the internet) we have a Thunderdome Discord (which everyone should join anyway, tbh) https://discord.gg/KrxK8vGG <-- here Also, physical appearance should not be so important when it comes to who you interact with. Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 11:26
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Clintnod.gif
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Nov 7, 2020 13:20
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Maugrim posted:Please excuse our Narrator. They have been under a lot of stress lately. I have recommended a course of bed rest lasting at least seven hours. Hi please note my Important Edit above as I do not wish to give the impression I am some kind of Martinet, even though I kind of am; DocKloc is a big softy and will not let me DESTROY TRANSGRESSORS as I otherwise surely would
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Nov 7, 2020 15:43
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Maugrim posted:Hi please note my Important Edit above as I do not wish to give the impression I am some kind of Martinet, even though I kind of am; DocKloc is a big softy and will not let me DESTROY TRANSGRESSORS as I otherwise surely would As a last minute note, I'd like to purify myself of the below: Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "Get outta your mind (what), get outta your mind (what), get outta your mind (what) / Bump that poo poo, get outta your mind (what)"
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Nov 7, 2020 16:15
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Liquid Communism posted:As a last minute note, I'd like to purify myself of the below: Semper compos mentis! You are no longer required to get out of your mind (what) even one time, let alone four. You may still choose to bump that poo poo, but this is entirely optional. (-200 words)
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Nov 7, 2020 17:24
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I'm having to deal with some last minute things that came up on the tail end of my trip that need immediate attention, so I can't find time to finish what I have until I'm on my flight home tomorrow. I will have to take the DQ. I really like this prompt though, and I appreciate the effort put into it. I'm going to make sure I submit instead of failing like I usually do. Hopefully before crits come out at the end of tomorrow so I can get feedback.
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Nov 9, 2020 01:15
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Rules: Finicky Host Someone's got to take a bath The color black An aversion to wells An affinity for throwing What We Don't Talk About 1,583 words. Three hours into Davis’s fiftieth birthday, he paced in the kitchen while his second wife smirked at him. The two caterers shared a look with each other, wondering how to deal with their employer for the night—and the giant erection tenting his pants. “Jesus Kim, I can’t go out there like this.” Kim pretended to cough to hide her laughter. While it might have cured his erection, his self-esteem would take weeks to recover. “Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the blue pill before people started…you know,” she said while twirling her finger in a circular motion. He hissed at her through clenched teeth. “Shhhhhh. Jesus, just advertise it to everybody.” Kim turned to the male caterer, who was busy arranging oysters on a bed of ice. “Do you care that my husband has to take erection pills?” The caterer just blushed and looked away, pretending that the fresh oysters were taking all of his focus. “Well, there you go. A perfect stranger doesn’t care that you take medication for your little man,” she said, leaning in to tease her husband and flick the tip through his black leather pants. “Jesus Davis, these are tight. Did you really need your friends to see your entire hog?” Rolling his hips aside to avoid the flick, he told her, “These pants are sexy.” Davis was dressed in a pair of black leather pants and a lavender silk shirt slashed open past his breastbone. With his combover good and glossed up, he could have been Zorro, the accountant. Kim, meanwhile, wore a dress that was a second skin to her. Every inch that wasn’t exposed was hugged and cupped and shaped to perfection. “Those are the kind of pants you wear when you’re playing bad cop in the bedroom.” She pressed her index fingers together and pointed them at him. “Hands up! You’re under a sex!” “No one at an orgy is going to sleep with the sex cop. You gave me a pass and I’m drat well going to use it.” “And how exactly are you going to get everyone to just hop into bed, Officer Sexy?” He groaned. “Kim, I wrote on the invitations that people need to be open minded and expect a night to remember. The only way I could have been more obvious was to say, ‘There’s an above-ground hot tub, bathing suits are optional.’” “And you think that people will just start getting down with each other? All of your friends? The Hodges are going to suck and gently caress with the best of them?” “Yes, god drat it. Their kids have gone off to college too and Jim was telling me how boring their marriage was. This is the perfect opportunity for them. And for me.” Kim stepped behind him, gently kneading the tensed cables in his shoulders. While he melted just an inch, she leaned in and whispered, “You know, we could just go upstairs. Let these people party each other out. We’ll go upstairs, I’ll draw us a hot bath together and we can make soup.” He turned around then, stopping the massage. “I think you’ve just invented something less sexy than sex cop,” he said. Unfortunately, it had no effect on his pants problem. “gently caress it,” he said. Davis walked past the caterers to the seldom-used cabinet way up over the oven and pulled out a good bottle of Armagnac. With practiced ease, he pulled four highball glasses from the glass cabinet and poured two fingers for everyone else and four for himself. “To the good years,” he said, raising his glass. The caterers immediately stopped prepping and grabbed their glasses, clinking them to his. Kim scrunched her nose and sipped anyway. With three gulps, he destroyed $200.00 worth of Armagnac and thunked his glass on the counter. “All right, let’s go make this fuckin’ orgy, happen” he said, striding long-legged and straight-spined from his kitchen into the foyer. At 10:30, the combination of martinis and oysters and chili peppers had caused the party to saunter into a casual state of bedlam. Spaghetti straps began to drape from shoulders and ties lolled like tongues from open collars. When Davis entered the room, one of the other equity partners threw an arm around his shoulders. “You know Davis,” he slurred, “I wish I had been smart like you. I wish I had saved my money and bought a place like this.” Davis smiled and demurred gently, his eyes glancing over to his partner’s wife, Samantha, whose platinum hair gleamed from across the room. Her delicate waist curved inwards, hugged by the satin of her gown. Even though he loved Kim, Samantha ignited some fierce longing in Davis. The necklace resting on her collarbone drew his eyes gently downward towards the dark, inviting space between her breasts. The throbbing only got worse. “Don’t ever get divorced, each god damned time it’s like starting over.” “I just got divorced five years ago,” Davis said. “Well drat, don’t I have my dick in the punch bowl.” The partner glanced down and laughed. “Looks like I’m not the only one.” “If you keep looking, I’m going to brush your teeth with it.” The partner paused a moment, his brain calculating just how to parse that sentence through the haze of alcohol and polite sensibilities. With a laugh, he slapped Davis on the back, spilling some of his martini on him. The liquor bloomed into a wet stain near Davis’s belt buckle. “I’ll try anything once, and I’ve tried that once and it isn’t for me.” “Excuse me,” he said, plucking his partner’s arm from his shoulder like a diaper from the bottom of a trash can. “There’s something I’ve got to do.” From a mixture of gin, Armagnac, oysters and spice, Davis’s second voice had completely shut down—the one that told him to think through the consequences of his actions, or the reactions of the people around him. With an awkward grunt, Davis hefted one of the empty chairs from the dining room into the foyer before standing on it. “Hey everyone,” he yelled. The eyes all swiveled to him, twenty people stopping their conversations, expecting to hear a self-congratulatory toast or platitudes about their own worth. With a deep breath, he spewed it out. “Who wants to gently caress?” Two or three of the women started giggling. Kim hid her face in her hands from the threshold to the kitchen. Samantha’s eyes met his, two dark holes. Even though her eyes were blue, they looked like black wells, drinking his confidence. When the realization hit, he smiled and tried to play it off before running upstairs. Kim gave a small wave before following him. When she got there, Davis lay despondent on the bed, a starfish in a tidepool of his own pity, his uncomfortable pants in a crumpled heap. He grunted as Kim sat down on the bed beside him. At that point, she was glad he couldn’t see the smile on her face. “You doing ok, honey?” “No,” came the muffled voice from the pillow. “It wasn’t that bad,” she said. When he looked up from the pillow, her serious face came back. “Kim, I just humiliated myself in front of our friends and my business partners.” She shrugged. “Tell them you were drunk. It’s not any worse than when your brother got a DWI last year. On the big list of things that could go wrong, this is nothing.” “It would help if you weren’t sitting over there like the cat who ate the canary,” he said. “God, I hated the idea of this whole loving thing,” she said. “It wasn’t about you. You’re thirty-three for god’s sake. Talk to me when you’re fifty.” “Can you blame me for not wanting to see my Husband cheat on me?” “It’s purely physical,” he said, thinking about Samantha’s hair, thinking about how he wanted to throw her on the bed and just destroy her. She’d be walking like a cowboy for three days, if she was lucky. She ran one of her hands through her hair, buying herself a moment to put her words together. “That’s the thing. I didn’t want to give you that pass. I wasn’t even going to use mine.” “You weren’t?” “The only man I want to gently caress is my husband,” she told him. “I guess it’s different for women,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her. “Well yeah, everyone’s been eye-loving me ever since I grew tits. Having someone not trying to sleep with you is a relief, except when it’s your husband.” He ignored the dig. Instead, he took his pot belly in his hands, peeking out from under his silk shirt “What everyone always tells you is that if you get rich and powerful, everyone will want to gently caress you. Look at me, I’m 50. Big house. Lots of friends. Good business.” “Hot wife,” Kim added. He smiled a little bit. “And that’s kind of it. I’ve got to be sexy to someone. And I just need that.” She leaned over and bit him on his earlobe, not hard enough to draw blood but just enough to express her disapproval. “That’s so rude,” he said. “C’mon,” she said. “I’ll go draw us a bath.” “One thing first,” he said, standing up. He touched his two index fingers and pointed them at her. “You’re under a sex.” “You’re an idiot,” she said, kissing him before he said anything stupid.
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Nov 9, 2020 04:53
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 Broken Bowl: You always get three halves, but never a whole. (+300)* Monday's spooky castle: HAUNTED and developed an AVERSION to dirt and an AFFINITY for staying in bed * Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "I'm not big on social graces / Think I'll slip on down to the oasis / Oh, I've got friends in low places" * Lost the Drinking Contest, and developed DOUBLE VISION: can copy someone's flashrule from the same encounter. (-50) * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like a knight giving a man a nougie at sword point?? (+100) * Surprise fairy attack: Sadface Pennyblossom demands COPPER * Thursday's Encounter: the LOVERS: Love, harmony, relationships, values alignment, choices / Self-love, disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values * Friday's Card Game: Ace of Spades (+75 words) The Wretched Miller's Tale: The Flipside of The Con 1254/1925 words The worst thing about crossing the barrier between the world of the living and the dead isn’t the cold, you get over that pretty easily. It’s the dirt. The weird squelchy feeling as your foot, suddenly solid, sinks into a damp patch of ground and for half a second you think you’re back there in that infernal cosmic waiting room, cold and clammy hands with viselike grips pulling you down deep into the earth. The first thing I did after I got back was go peeking through a local hospital storeroom for the little liners the nurses put on their shoes. Kind of a dumb idea, but if having cleaner shoes means someone’s terminally ill grandmother gets a glimpse of me because some nurse cranked up the morphine drip, I’ll take it. *** Kate’s house stood exactly as I remembered it, a big white Victorian affair all alone on a hill. The windows were dark as I stepped carefully on the flagstone driveway, but I was sure Kate was watching me leap from stone to stone anyway. If the situations were reversed I would have done the same. The big French windows on the side of the house stood unlocked so I let myself in. Kate was sitting up in bed, waiting for me. “Well, you sure know how to make an entrance.” She said with a playful grin. “Didn’t want to ring the doorbell and wake you. I knew with that jank spine of yours it’d take you forever to get to the front door.” She threw a pillow in response. “rear end in a top hat. I missed you.” “Yeah, you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” She laughed and patted the spot next to her “If you give me a kiss I’ll forgive your rude and hurtful words.” I scooted in beside her. Her lips met mine and I could feel a faint tingle return to them when we broke contact. “Christ you’re cold” she said with a note of sadness. “Good thing I’ve got you to warm me up.” I pulled her closer and for a while we just lay there together and I remembered how nice it felt to have a living breathing person lying next to you instead of the endless muck and dirt of the underworld. Kate must have been reading what was left of my mind because after a while she spoke in a quiet voice. “How’s dead, did you it sit?” “What was that?” “I was asking how it was, being dead.” I thought through what I wanted to say. The truth is being dead is like nothing at all. Sure, there are cities and people and all the trappings of the world you’ve left behind, but it’s just you and all the other souls stretching out into forever, a long glance in a funhouse mirror. “It’s cold.” I said lamely. Kate didn’t answer, but pressed her body deeper against mine. “Stay here with me forever.” She muttered. “You know I can’t. Gotta finish the job.” “To hell with the job. Let’s go run away some place they can’t find us.” I thought about where that might be. “The moon maybe.” “Yes! Excellent. We’ll go to the moon. I’ll be a queen, a moon queen.” She mutters sleepily. “You betcha.” I reply, but Kate is already fast asleep. I listen to her breathing for a while before I get out from under the covers and head back out into the cursed cold with its thrice-dammed dirt, leaping from flagstone to flagstone like the world’s oldest hopscotch player. **** The dead have highways. You can’t see them, but they’re there, hidden in hard-to-read signage and strange turn-offs, winding through the heart of your cities like invisible serpents. Besides highways, the dead also have their own dive bars, tucked away in forgotten alleyways, the kind of place you wouldn’t look twice at if you were walking down the street. I pulled into The Jolly Roger, scanning the parking lot as I stepped up to the door. Octothorpe’s green BMW sat parked off to the side, as he said it would be. I pulled open the door and stepped inside. The Roger was packed. I made my way to the back, looking for Octothorpe’s booth. I found it pretty quickly. Octothorpe nursed a cocktail of some sort with a dour expression, looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. I slid into the seat across from him. “You’re looking well.” I said “Well, of course,” he said and the night was ’shean with a lifetime. “I guess?” “Well, as well as you can when you’re—” I gestured vaguely. “Not all of us have the scratch to come back completely. Whoever put you up for this job must have really been throwing their weight around. Speaking of which—” He placed his hand palm up on the table. “Give me it. I know you have it with you.” “All in good time.” I said as I folded my hand over his. He snatched his hand away as though he’d touched a hot stove, glaring angrily at me. I smiled in response. “Mercutio?” I asked “He’ll be at the same place as always,” Octothorpe sighed. “It’s an old mill now. Crazy bastard refuses to get with the times.” “The money?” He held his hand out again. I reached into my mouth, feeling for the false tooth. One firm yank later and a bullet-sized bit of copper glinted in the palm of my hand. I passed it to Octothorpe, who took it without comment. “Had to shape it into a tooth to get it past the guards, but it’s genuine.” He nodded while he slipped the false copper tooth into a pocket. He placed a black leather satchel on the table. “Job well done, as always. Mercutio will want to see you. Debrief.” I nodded as I rose from the booth and left Octothorpe to his own devices, headed for the door. I thought of Kate and our nice warm bed, how much I wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep forever once this damnable job was finished. As I got to the car, I took a look inside the bag. In addition to the money, Octothorpe had kindly supplied me with a gun. *** Mercutio was dead. Octothorpe’s gun slipped out of my hand as I stumbled through the ancient mill that served as his base of operations, his last bullet still throbbing somewhere inside my body. Blood blossomed out from the wound, seeping through my clothes in rose petal patterns. Outside it was raining, the rain turning the lawn in front of the mill to an endless patch of muck that pooled around my ankles. Every step toward the car was a small war, and I cursed as a shoe came off, leaving me to plunge my foot straight into the slurry. If I looked down I could almost see the disembodied hands reaching to pull me back home. I thought about Kate, alone and cold in that big bed. What would she think when she woke up tomorrow and I wasn’t there? Would she cry, or would she accept the fact of my death with the same plain-faced expression you accept that the earth revolves around the sun? My vision blurred and I slipped deeper into the mud. The worst thing about crossing the barrier between the world of the living and the dead isn’t the cold, you get over that pretty easily. It’s the dirt. Tyranosaurus sentences: And it felt like loving away. Or me, too, being shot! I smile, “I’m just-singy,” Yeah, I made my entry for the week pull double duty. Wylde carde bytches! 
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Nov 9, 2020 04:54
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:
The Sophisticated Plowman's Tale: IV 1986 words There's a cutting board we never wash out. Lain covered with garnish stems and never claimed. To me it eclipses out the vibe. Me and Lyda can co-exist in other ways. On bad days we both dodge each other's visual field with corner-sweeping stares. I venn between schiz and autism in an endless gemini neural burnout. The top for my anxiolytic pill tube mis-latched and I can't get it open. I'm half-asleep but staring with acid eyes at a sprite VG emu. The game is Sword of Innocence: Song of the Mourning IV. I'm chasing good karma, doing every quest because I need the affection. All the sprites will like you if you quest for them. Real people are more complex. Any dose of them nukes out my head space. So each quest is each its own prayer. Its pleading with any ultra-tulpa simul-god AI that may hardwire physical reality. To reward me with solace for my digital charity. These symbols mean nothing, but the temple priestess of St. Crea looks a lot like Lyda. The same furls of curling hair, the same open eyes, the same deep and dimpling cheeks. There's only one body model in the game, though, and it's skinny and top-heavy. Her flavour text in gothic script implores me to find the ashes of St. Crea. Stolen by a coven of witches that live in a dungeon I haven't explored yet. The text scrolling into the box a letter at a time is all that mutes the torched and crossed fuses charring my head. Lyda made bubble tea and it should still be out. I'm crashing. Out of coffee and can't come up with my keys to leave the house. I pause the game on the pixel portrait. As I retrieve my mug I try not to stare at the shadow of the cutting board jutting from the counter-top. She's left the knife on it. The silver blade gleams a faint shine into the darkness. Mottled with herbal cuttings that march into the bright left like the ants have found us. Early today I sipped some jelly at the exact moment Lyda thunked a sound effect for a childhood beating. She was deep in the throes of memory and didn't notice my weird choke-cough. Her eyes flashed as she said that was how Russians raised their kids in the 90s. You could trace trauma, she said, through families all the way to the Scare. Sometimes at night I hang out on our porch. I stare at the moon and listen to the city sleep itself off. Sometimes instead I walk out on her smoking a J and crying. When I do I don't make a sound. I slip back inside and boot up Sword of Innocence. Give a coin to the vagrant begging outside the inn and watch my karma ding up. Tonight for no reason I can make she's left her door ajar. Light spills from her room in a cascade that smears the sterile floor. She'll be bidding on K-pop merch. It's a problem. But who doesn't have a hobby that's a problem in some way? None of us as chaste as the temple priestess. Her life lives itself in amaranthine back-and-forth. Her sprite pacing out her narrow line of worship. Before I leave the temple I count her footsteps. She walks out nine before her sprite flips and she comes back. I've hacked the game to keep around bodies and gore. The blood of a dozen monsters covers my sprite. I want their deaths to hold weight. They should haunt me. The first boss was so long ago that now I look up the concept art to get a fix on him. A pale lich lord. He didn't look pleased to be alive as he was throwing black fire at me. But it's hard to feel good about granting even the undead the mercy of death. The hack made his blood candy apple red. In the concept art his eyes are hollow. Frozen tears crystallized beneath them glitter like kitsch make-up. ✗ I'm about to slip inside once again but she stops me. "Hit this," she says with a twirling flourish. It's day two without my anxiolytics. My nerves are screaming white fire, and the coven has killed me several times. By the time I've stabbed one the other two have impaled me with their swords of black light. No one will mourn you, the game text swears. You have lost your innocence. I draw on it. I'm about to tell her about the cryptic message. The gate of our fence swings in the night's breeze. In the darkness the patches of grass it hems in are little carpets of void. She cuts in then. "Mom wants to make up. She says she doesn't want to take it to her grave." "You severed what," I say, "years ago?" The night air swims. The moon is full but cut to slivers by cloud. She nods. "I should've done it before. I'm not feeling it." "Forgiving her?" i say. "No," she says, and gestures to the glow sparking my fingers. "This. I do this too much. It doesn't work for me now." "You should learn to manage your feelings without chemistry," I say. The tableau is blurring out. I can feel each hidden blade of grass. The bugs crawling between them. In daylight they're food for the squirrels that dart around our lone tree. I don't know what eats them now. "I'm gonna get into buying stuff," she says. "More merch, all the time." It's because I'm getting trashed. But I say, "I saw a doc on abuse in K-pop. It was pretty bleak." She looks at me then, and I see those lich lord hollow eyes, the tear stains below. "Dude," she says. "It works for me. Like your dumb games work for you." A shake of her head flops her curls around. "I only listen to the good ones, anyway." My sprite, covered in blood. "Hard to be the gods of our own little universe," I say. The look she gives me stings like salt. "In Russian Orthodox you need two things," she says. "A cross and a picture of your patron saint. If you don't have them your soul is in trouble." "You stick to the old ways?" I say. Her silence confirms it. "Why?" "Tell you later," she says. "Wanna see the cross?" "What about your saint?" I say. "They're a secret," she says as she pulls the pendant from around her neck. The silver of the cross is dulled to gray, but its golden victim catches a stray shard of moonlight. Echoes it in a needle-thin glint that knifes into my eyes. Then I know I'm beyond trashed. The martyr's blood, the wounds crafted with grace and detail, seeps into me. For a moment it swims through my veins, and then I'm inside out, can't figure out what we were talking about. Staring at the cross like a pilgrim who's made it, through thick and thin, to his journey's end. What is the end of Sword of Innocence like? I'll never know, I realize. I'm too busy scouring its world for new acts of faith. It's a hosed up fantasy. Way too much of a trip for me. She's asking what she should do. Then she's tilting her head to the side and asking if I'm okay. Taking me inside, guiding me to the living room couch, getting me a glass of water. I gulp it down. The couch is soft, but crumbs fleck the rug before it, tickling me through my socks. They're torn, and the skin of my foot's arch flares through a tear in the knitting, pale as any lich lord's. The bone swells the tendon like a cresting wave. It's dead ugly. My body, my prison. The crumbs against my sole are little relics of trauma. Trauma she can't eat away. To be a body is to know, every once in a while, how much it can feel. I know that knowledge should help me grow stronger. But it digs me out until all else I've felt is un-life. The witches affirm their blood pacts every time they kill my blood-soaked sprite. In my head they dance in celebration. Their black light swords still interred in my pixel-flesh. So many of their brothers and sisters lie slain. My fate is a penance for what I've done. If she says something else, I don't hear it. I lay against the armrest, my neck craned in a creeping agony that doesn't break until I'm fast asleep. ✗ In the morning the chem leech catches up with me. I'm more nervous than ever. She's made bubble tea again but it's warm. I drink it still. The cutting board under the light, filthy though unused for days, is an omen I don't need black magic to figure out. I wish there was an executioner's axe around to cut off my head from my aching neck. I jam it in the sink. Her door is open again, but I pause before it, not sure what the right path is. There's a true ending here I'm meant to unlock. but there are bad endings too, awful ones, and I don't have a guide to tell me which path takes me where. "You can come in," floats her voice from within the room. Theory books line her shelves. There’s one I’ve never seen before. My eyes flutter to its spine. The Tombs All Around Us, it reads. My fingers graze it like I pressed the action button for a closer look. The ridge worn into it lulls me into a trance, my mind triggered, for some reason, back into an altered state. She's swiveled around from her cobalt blue screen-glare to face me. "That's a study on how grief informs everyday life," she says. "The idea is that we never let go of absence. Any absence. The human psyche gets carved out deeper and deeper until it completes its slow decay." "Some absence is good absence," I say in a flat voice. I pull my hand back. Hug myself, crossing my arms. "You should keep the sever real. Nothing changes if we let it all go. All that people do to us." Her eyes are glassy. Wet. It must be getting worse. "I'm all she has," she says. Her voice is soft, though, as if scared to betray deeper feeling. "The whole family hates her." "It's good for her soul," I say. "She should beg for God's mercy." The game's death text echoes in my mind. You have lost your innocence. At the time I thought it was harsh. Wasn't I a good person in that game? I've thrown enough coins at the vagrant for him to buy the inn if he feels like it. But my fantasies owe me nothing. "What about my soul?" she says. "Dude, I didn't expect that." And I'm not sure which mental illness answers. It's blunt enough to be autism, but so much heat steeps the words they wither my lips as they leave. "Make sure you mean it," I say as I leave. "That's all." "Thanks for being honest," she says, but I'm too far away to tell if she's bitter. I comb the game's fan page. The highest rated hacks are adult, and it takes me a bit to find the one I need. It's a weather mod, with a single comment praising it that reads like a bot. Or someone whose first language wasn't English. It's all I can find. I have a save right before I enter the dungeon. The game's sun torches its texture into a painted sky. I stand outside the coven’s dessicated fortress. Wait, my sprite's blood-stained shoulder blades bobbing with his idling breath. I wait for the rain to fall and wash the blood away.
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Nov 9, 2020 04:55
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The Hellish Pardoner's Tale: The Judas Coin 1297 words Flash Rules: Aversion or Affinity for ANCIENT GRUDGES, drunk song Friends in Low Places (Used Double Vision), SILVER, TEMPERANCE "Hell," said Mr. Thornton as he cut a bite of meat off of his steak. He gestured with his fork as he continued. "I understand that you have the means to ensure a person shall avoid it." He popped the morsel into his mouth and chewed a moment. "Even should they richly deserve it." "Well, that's the easy bit," I said. I hadn't touched my plate. "Repent, and sin no more." "Amusing," he said over his wine glass. I smiled back. "Now for the man who anticipates a long future career in, for want of a better word, evil, well, other means are required." "Spare me the sales pitch," said Thaddeus Thornton. "I'm not the client." He was the type, though. Filthy rich, hasn't personally sold his soul, 'cause there's nothing I can do about that kind of damned, but probably has people on his staff who have. Certain has people who know what's real and what's what, the kind of friends in low places that can verify the work I've done before. "Really?" I said. "I've made other arrangements," he said. I guessed that meant an immortality gambit of some kind. Vampirism, maybe. Possibly some kind of hidden soul shell game. "Then-" "It's not my soul I'm concerned about." He carved at the meat again. "Ah," I said. "So long as the price is right." When you find yourself in possession of ninety-nine genuine blank papal pardons, all signed by the last real Pope before the apostolic succession was broken, well, you get rich quickly. A long time ago I lined up more than enough money to live on as well as anyone might want. And I've never been the sort who needs to keep score. Money just doesn't motivate me any more. Normal money, at least. "I have a Judas Coin," he said. I was listening. *** This is my second go around. I lived a wretched little life. Got a girl in trouble then went out to the sea. When pirates took our ship I joined their crew. They told us to kill our former officers, as a test of loyalty. I had no hesitation. The crew-chief was always loose with the whip, you see. I cut his throat and my only regret was that I didn't gut him and leave him writhing in pain as the ship burned and sank. I made it five years under the Jolly Roger. Did more killing, and worse. And ended up on a Kingston gallows, choking out slowly when the hangman misguessed my weight. And that should have been the end of it, except that one ship that we took's loot held a stack of old paper. Now me and the captain were the only ones on that ship who could read at all, and he was the only one who knew Latin. He wrote my name on one and handed it to me before sealing the rest off and sending them back to the sea. "Don't you want the same for yourself?" I asked. "Are you daft?" he barked. "Heaven's likely full of puritans. I'll have better company in hell." He was wrong, though. *** "There are those who say that it isn't money as such that is the root of all evil, nor the lust for coin even, but rather this specific money." Thornton was the type to enjoy his own voice. "Thirty coins, paid for the ultimate betrayal. Taken off the corpse after he hanged himself by soldiers. Passed among them as they diced in their tents that night. Changing hands again when one man falsely accused another of cheating and stabbed a spear through his neck." "What's the name," I said. Thornton ignored me, spinning the coin between his fingers. "From there they entered the general circulation, intermingling with all other currency, becoming all but indistinguishable. And so cursing all of human economy, to this day." "The name for the pardon. I'm sold," I said. "Tell me," he said, pinching the coin between finger and thumb, "What do you think would happen if I were to melt it down, turn it to a ring or- or yes, to a crucifix, to hang by a chain?" I had ideas. I hadn't tried it before, not with the seven coins I've taken out of circulation over my many yesrs. Tad here seemed like the kind of person to gently caress around and find out. "Nothing, for long. It wants to be a coin. Melt it, smith it, file it down, dissolve it into hydrate gels in acid. No matter. As soon as you look away it coalesces back to coinage. You can mint it, shape it as a pure silver replica of some circulating coin, and it will hold that shape, but none other." "How did you come by it?" I asked. "My daughter. Della Ivanssen," he said. "She gave it to you?" "Hers is the name I would have you write." "She's in hell, then?" I tried to show sympathy. "Of a sort. A long time ago," he said, in a way that conjured images of knights in armor if not cavemen in bear-skins, "She married a man. Well, not much of a man. He fancied himself a rival, an enemy. Not really much more than an annoyance, until then. And since, an even greater annoyance, an unscratchable itch. She has kept Della alive, after a fashion, through a net of diabolic threads and debts. An arrangement that depends on the eventual damnation of her soul." "Would she want to be released?" I said. "Do you want the coin?" *** After I died I had no place to go. Well, I could have gone past the pearly gates, but the prospect seemed so boring, and besides, my poor abandoned wife and child might we'll be there. There are other places, but I did not have the deeds or blessings needed to enter any one. I wandered the outskirts, the purgatories and limbos, which remain still, despite what any false Pope may have said. Horrible place, at least for anyone who isn't a baby. Finally I walked into Hell itself, where the demons could not touch me. I found old Boss Gregory, being shipped with a lash studded with crab-claw barbs hundreds of times for each blow he'd ever given. He looked at me, and begged forgiveness, begged mercy, wished he could take back each petty cruelty and a few more sins I did not even know about. My smile faded. So I found the devil, staked my soul and I beat him at dice for the right to come back to the world. He cried double or nothing and I beat him at cards and won eternal youth in this life. He went double or nothing one more time for a drinking contest and I won that as well, and when he asked what my last boon was I had him bring up all the other pardons from where they rested, in an oil-sealed cask at the bottom of the sea. As soon as I could find pen and ink I wrote out Gregory's name, hoping my recall of his last would be sufficient. *** I took the coin. I wrote the name, watched Thaddeus scry his ancient for and hear anguished cries from across the world. One more coin safe and out of circulation so long as I kept watch over them was worth it, I tell myself, even if her life as pawn between feuding old fools wasn't the misery I nearly knew it must be. Seven coins, now, out of thirty. When I first had four out of circulation the world convulsed and did away with chattel slavery. When I acquired the sixth the European colonial empires were dismantled. Who knows what the eighth will bring.
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Nov 9, 2020 06:40
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* Monday's spooky castle: HAUNTED and developed an AVERSION to bells and an AFFINITY for pigeons * Tuesday's terrible inn: PURIFIED (-100 words) * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like a priest with no more fucks to give?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Pink Daffodil demands YELLOW * Thursday's Encounter: the CHARIOT: Control, willpower, success, action, determination / Self-discipline, opposition, lack of direction Began with 1500 words. Currently has 1450 words The Magenta Parson's Tale: Ringing the Changes 1115 words archive MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2020 06:44
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Antivehicular, the Greedy Mancible The Greedy Manciple's Tale: A Fable About Wizards 1318 words Not so long ago, in a land across the sea, there lived a cabal of wizards who called themselves the Lords of the Azure Flame. They were a powerful lot, highly skilled in summoning and binding spirits to their will, but they were also prideful -- and, worse, they were miserly. Bargaining with spirits can be a costly business, but human servants who can tend to the need of a wizards' cabal aren't much cheaper; the Lords of the Azure Flame didn't care to pay either price, as dearly as they needed servants. Luckily, one of their junior members was talented in shape-changing, and they "recruited" a staff of animals, swiftly changed to human shape and magically bound as slaves. I could tell many sorrowful tales of those poor souls, but let me speak of the smallest of them, born to this world as an ant. This ant had the misfortune to cross the path of Eusebio, the cabal's master of shape-changing, when he was in need of a new victim. The wizard plucked the ant from the ground and chortled to himself. "Look at this one's mandibles! Yes, it shall make a fine manciple." (Eusebio, among his other flaws, possessed a wizardly sense of humor, cruel and over-clever.) Soon, the ant was transformed into a human being, and just as swiftly bound to a servant's contract. Given a ragged robe to cover herself and a bare cell to sleep in, she cried and cried. A transformed ant's mind will readily adapt to human reason, but our bodies -- large and soft, with all the wrong senses -- are a terrible prison for them. Much misery followed. The servants of the Lords of the Azure Flame were "paid" only in hardtack and soup, barely enough to sustain them, and the manciple was soon only skin and bone; when she complained of her hunger to Eusebio, he laughed. "Your bones were once worn on your skin, and now they come close to it again! Aren't you happy?" The other wizards were no better, and the cruelty and hunger slowly hardened the manciple's heart. An ant's soul is forged to be diligent, and the bindings on her compelled her service, but slowly her selfless heart learned to covet: not just the feasts and warm beds of the wizards, but their beautiful jewelry, all their finery that they would not share. The manciple especially coveted the magical candles that lit the cabal's fortress, flickering with a soft blue light, tiny pinpoints of comfort in her dank prison. The only mercy in the manciple's life was that her work often sent her away from the cabal and its cruelty, traveling to purchase food and such sundries as the wizards needed, and clothed in fine robes to show her allegiance to the outside world. Even in her travels, though, the manciple was not entirely free of the wizards' grasp. For each trip, she was given two enchanted coin purses: one which would only open to purchase her goods, and one which would only pay for her food and lodging. The second purse was far too light, and the manciple spent many nights eating gruel and sleeping rough, in the common rooms of taverns, or worse. It was on one such night that the manciple made an unexpected friend. She was sleeping in the straw of an inn's stables when she was shaken awake, in the middle of the night, by a figure who wore wizard's robes of unfamiliar color. "Forgive me," said the wizard, "but I see from your clothes that you are a servant of the Azure Flame. Why have your masters allowed you to sleep in such squalor?" "My traveling stipend is nearly spent," the manciple replied. "They dress me in these fine robes so I will not shame them, but they give me next to nothing to feed and shelter myself on the journey. All the rest of my money must go to my purchases." "I see," said the wizard, who frowned; it was whispered that the Lords of the Azure Flame were skinflints, but in the company of their peers, they hid it well. "And what is it they have sent you to purchase?" "Fresh herbs for the censer, for the annual rituals. I need silver sage from Eastport, two days' ride away." "Hmm. Well," the wizard said, "I have a deal for you. I will open your purses and give you gold enough to cover your passage and your lodgings. When you reach Eastport, find the shop of a man called Aristide; he is a friend of mine, and he will sell you herbs for what remains in your procurement purse. Your masters will not notice the difference, although you might. All I ask in return is that, when all is said and done, you consider me a friend." There were strange implications in the wizard's words, and the manciple could see some ill portent in them. Her diligent ant's soul told her that she was being asked to betray her masters, a terrible crime indeed -- but the cold hunger in her heart said, why not betray them? What had serving them ever gotten her? So she agreed, and her new wizard friend opened the enchanted pouches, moving enough gold from one to the other to let her travel in comfort for the rest of her journey. The manciple ate a fine breakfast, retained a carriage, and had a peaceful trip to Eastport. When she reached the shop of Aristide the herb-merchant, he took her offered purse and made a thoughtful noise. "Silver sage, you say? Well, for this you'll get blue-silver." The parcel of herbs he offered her had a strange sky-blue sheen, and the scent seemed a touch more acrid to the manciple's sharp nose, but she agreed that they looked close enough. She clutched the herbs to her chest for her entire trip home, heart bound in worry that she would be found out, but when she delivered her parcel to Cirino the herb-master, he simply nodded. The Lords of the Azure Flame, for all their power and all their meddling with the natural world, were not the finest students of natural history. Soon, the day came for the annual renewal of the servants' contracts. The manciple and her peers -- a weary assembly of cooks, cleaners, footmen, and dogsbodies, with dead eyes and shabby robes -- gathered in the great courtyard of the cabal, where their masters worked the spells that would enslave them for another year. As the blue-silver sage was poured into the censer, it went up in a blinding flash and an awful smell, and with that, the spells of binding were broken. Nobody is quite sure what happened next. Some say that the shape-changing magic was broken along with the bindings, and that the servant-beasts regained their animal instincts and mauled their masters to death before fleeing; if that is true, then I pray the manciple escaped the chaos and returned to her sisters and home. Others say, though, that the servants retained their human forms and minds, but lost their restraints, their sense of duty, and their fear. After all, while the Lords of the Azure Flame were mauled savagely, they were also stripped clean of their jewelry and riches -- and of every candle in their fortress. What the manciple did with them all, I cannot guess, but I hope she enjoys them still. There are three morals to be taken from the demise of the Lords of the Azure Flame. The first is that hunger and privation can twist even the most virtuous soul; when abused long enough, even the selfless ant will become a traitor and thief. Second, a wise wizard should know his natural history as well, lest an ill-picked herb destroy centuries of work. Finally, there is the simplest and most important: never bind a beast you cannot feed.
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Nov 9, 2020 07:06
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Sparksbloom the Blushing Man of Law *Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT *Tuesday's terrible inn: ABSENT * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like me, if I were holding a squirrel?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Shy Battleship demands GRAY * Thursday's Encounter: JUSTICE: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law / Unfairness, lack of accountability, dishonesty * Limerick: Entered (+50) Won 1st Place (+250) Began with 1300 words. Currently have 1650 words. Sparksbloom the Blushing Man of Law *Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT *Tuesday's terrible inn: ABSENT * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like me, if I were holding a squirrel?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Shy Battleship demands GRAY * Thursday's Encounter: JUSTICE: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law / Unfairness, lack of accountability, dishonesty * Limerick: Entered (+50) Won 1st Place (+250) Began with 1300 words. Currently have 1650 words. A Matter of Decency 688 words The local vicar summoned a judge to deal with a plague of naked people. Horace, fresh out of his legal training, having graduated with top marks in Repressing the Perverted Acts, arrived in a caravan of lechers and profiteers. The vicar greeted him outside of a busy market, which was crammed full of the nude and underdressed. “Your Honor! Truly it is a blessing for a man of such stature to come on such short notice.” Horace rubbed his hairless chin. “My pleasure,” he said, and looked down to avoid witnessing the sight of an elderly man’s buttocks. “Why are the people not wearing clothes?” “They have declared them uncomfortable and oppressive in the heat wave, sir.” Well, Horace thought, that was certainly no reason to surrender dignity and decency. The thought of his own shame being witnessed by any passer-by—why, that made him shudder to even consider it. “What remedies have you attempted?” “Ordeal by fire, sir.” “Ordeal by fire! And they still insist on not wearing a scrap of clothing?” “Aye, Your Honor, they claim that their garments interfere with the healing process.” A nude woman came up behind the vicar and whispered something in his ear. When the woman had slipped away and Horace could finally bear to look up, he was mortified to find the vicar, too, was now undressing. “Good heavens, my man!” Horace said. “What in the world are you doing? Remember your vows.” “It’s out of my hands now, your Honor,” the vicar said as he dropped trou, then left his sacred robes upon the cobblestone path as he strode into the market. Horace crossed the market, searching for anyone of sense who was still committed to decency. To a man, each person was as bare as Adam and Eve. The sun beat down upon his neck, beading a swamp between him and his judge’s cloak, but he relished in his suffering—it brought him closer to God. The only thing that made him closer was a breakfast he made from soaking millet in the leftover laundering water for seven days. “Sir,” Horace said, spotting a man wearing naught but a cloth tied ‘round his head, who was hawking an array of pungent fish. “you are in violation of the laws of our land.” He had never accused a man of a crime before, and he wasn’t sure if he was equipped for it. He considered that he would much rather come up with crimes that other people could be accused of, and explain at great length why it was important that these crimes exist, but alas, the English court was probably not established at the time this tale takes place. “What are you going to do about it,” said the man. “I shall make you wear a hairshirt,” Horace said. “You first.” “Good sir,” Horace said, “I have not committed the sin of displaying the most intimate parts of my body in broad daylight, and I will not commit myself to a punishment for a crime I have not committed.” Then, behind him, someone tapped his shoulder, and whispered “You’ve been tagged by the Clothing Arsonist.” And then his new judge’s robe went up in flames. “I will not give into your blasphemy, fiend,” Horace said, although, even though the heat on his back was growing hotter, he really just could not stomach the idea of being naked in front of these people. His cheeks burned brighter as the fishmonger looked at him expectantly. Horace burned to death. If you don’t send this story to at least five of your friends, the Clothing Arsonist will light your clothes on fire as well. Zero friends: the Clothing Arsonist burns your whole house down and then lights your clothes on fire. 1-2 friends: the Clothing Arsonist turns you into an eager new judge and lights your clothes on fire. 3-4 friends: the vengeful ghost of Horace himself lights your clothes on fire, but only the ones that sit at the bottom of the drawer that you’re really thinking of donating someday soon.
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Nov 9, 2020 07:22
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The Divergent Monk’s Tale: Change flerp fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jan 1, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2020 08:09
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* Monday's spooky castle: PURIFIED (-100 words) * Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "Lie still, little bottle / Don't twist, it ain't twistin' time / With every move you make you just disintegrate my ever-troubled mind" * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like someone who does not understand the concept of personal space?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Foggy Barksworth demands BROWN * Thursday's Encounter: INVISIBLE (-100) * Limerick: entered (+50) Won Special Prize (+0) Began with 1500 words. Currently has 1400 words The Shipman’s Tale: The Mone Seilor 745 wourdes The monthe of Mai can yet blow chele wind, So the Capitane took the hete withinne The publick house with ale, corny and moyste, Aside the hot fyre he rested his joyntes. In bestrode a manne weringe a maske so brauwn, Isen the Capitaine, and then sitten doun. His clethes wer fin, and of foreign lande, Withe a silken girdel of a scarlett bande. “Are you the Capitane from Bristol?” he asked, Bute no muscle moved bihinde his maske. “I wolde be that manne,” the Capitane said, “But sholde I grete you with joy or drede?” “That, I leve to you,” said the straunger, “I afound you this night to propos a wagour. Thy cogge is swifte, with a fin crewe— But I bete I kno something which it cannot do.” Whanne the Capitane was in his cuppe, He herd not a wagour that he colde pass uppe. “Speake not ill of my bote, handsome straunger, For my cogge and crewe fear no daunger! We have seilled acrois alle the seas. No finer seillors will you finde, thanne these. We gan seil aniwhere, this is no bost, Nou speke your wagour and drinke a tost!” The masked straunger reised his cuppe of ale, “Thenne I wolde have you make this travail— I disput not the things you have don, But I woulde have you seile to the Mone. If you have corage to take this darre, You can fille your cogge with silver there. And here is the cost sholde you faile— Your shippe will be mine to seile!” The Capitane reised his cuppe heigh, Nodded his hed, then drank it drie. Thenne he stombled out from the publik in, Gan doun to his cogge and ishippen. The seillors ofcast the ropes by quayside, And the cogge seiled from herberwe on ev’ntide. Whanne they wer asee, Capitane called the Bo’sun, “Lette us chace the Mone to the horisoun. Gather the menne and reise the seiles To ride the winge of the quikening Eurus! We gan to the west to catch the Mone, Just afore it sinks into the sea at daun.” The menne gave up a loude chere, Seiles filled with winde, the Bo’sun stered The cogge to the weste all thrugh the night— Maken chace at the Mone’s silvery light. Bute the Sonne iwakied in the este Afore the Mone had taken its reste. The Capitane istonded and spoke to the menne, “We waite until e’en and seile weste ayen. Thrugh many longe journei you have ben— We will catch the Mone, and seile until thanne.” They gan wel on for fourtenight and seven, Founde the world’s corner, and fel into heven. The cogge seiled thrugh a nebule thickke, The menne were afeared they had don wicke. Bute the Mone’s light brok thrugh, the Capitane cried, “Lok afore the bowgh—a quiksilver tide! We gan beldli wher non gan bifore— Out the erthe’s windoue, and in the Mone’s dor!” The cogge drifted upon the shining stronde, And setled itself on the silver se-sand. The Mone underfot, and the Erthe in the ski, Alle menne set awerk bifore the heigh tide. With shovel and chipaxe they gan onshore, And filt silvery sand into the cogge’s store. They laboured for hours, til the sonne wente to bed, And the toun of Bristol come soon overhed. “Ishippen quik!” belwed the Capitane loude, “The cogge is laden ful and will drop doun thrugh the cloudes!” As the Mone climben up to midnight’s pek, The cogge sliped from the shole and fel like a streke Thrugh the ski over Bristol, doun to the Erth The bote crasched sorewful onto the chirche! Oute of the cogge, the silver sand poured, But alle menne were dead, who wer aboard. Whanne Seinte Jourdan isen what befel, He sent the menne to Heven, and the Capitane to Helle. The Capitane iwakied with a sterte, Smeled sulfur, and colde not fele his herte. He satte on silver sand aside a fyri river, And thugh the hete was infirnal, he colde not stoppe a chivere. “And lok at thy reward for wining my wagour!” Said a familiar voice—the brauwn masked straunger. “What wikednes is this?” the Capitane demaunded “The wagour was wonne, this is underhonded!” “I wagoured that you would seile to the Mone, Not that thy cogge would com saufly home.” And remeven his maske to shew a face lik a gote Said, “You have thy silver, and now I have thy bote!”
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Nov 9, 2020 08:17
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Edit: Revision to Title Above: The Nebulous Shipman's Tale: The Mone Seilor
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Nov 9, 2020 08:22
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Weltlich posted:The Nebulous Shipman's Tale: The Mone Seilor Amazing. I have zero idea how any of this is supposed to be pronounced but I dare anyone else to read it better. https://drive.google.com/file/d/15BBji1LQqS1DQahO_yTFMzMbg6fa7-lm/view?usp=sharing
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Nov 9, 2020 08:35
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:Walamor, the Screeching Summoner The Screeching Summoner’s Tale: The Grifts on the Bus Go Round and Round 1550 Words Cole pushed his earbuds in even further and rolled his eyes to himself in the window. Even with the help of the rhythmic pounding of the bus’ tires, he could not drown out the inane talk coming from Seat 14C. “You really don’t want to make that move,” said 14C. His voice was high, nasally, and somehow even more unpleasant each time he opened his mouth. “Ummm… okay,” responded 14D, the unfortunate woman who was 14C’s target. Cole had watched the pimply faced man pick his way down the aisle at the Greyhound station, the man’s eyes focused on the attractive redhead seated in front of Cole. Just in case, he had moved his bag to block the aisle seat, but the woman ahead of him had not prepared any defenses to the man’s approach. “Seat taken?” the man had asked, sitting down without waiting for a response as the bus’ doors hissed closed. “Alonzo,” the man had said, extending his hand. “Jacky,” the redhead had responded, briefly shaking Alonzo’s hand before pulling headphones over her ears. Alonzo kept to himself at first, but once Jacky removed her headphones a couple of hours into the trip, he pounced. “How about a friendly game of chess to pass the time? I’ve got a travel set with me,” Alonzo had said. Jacky’s unfortunate acceptance started the last hour’s constant chess negging mixed in with random bits of chess theory. Alonzo seemed to delight in a captive audience and made sure to throw in as many words that he deemed impressive. Of particular repetition was maxim (“like the magazine, heh”) and treatises (apparently pronounced “treaties”). Cole resigned himself to continuing to fail to drown out Alonzo’s horrible attempts to impress Jacky by insulting her play. He rubbed his temples before leaning over his bag to rummage through it. “Hey!” came Alonzo’s voice from above him. Cole turned his head to see Alonzo peering over his seat down at him. Alonzo pointed towards Cole’s bag. “You play?” he asked. poo poo, thought Cole, looking back down to see that his dog-eared copy of Discovering Chess Openings had slid into view. “Oh… no, not really,” lied Cole. “It’s my brother’s book.” “But you do play?” persisted Alonzo. “Oh, you two should play!” pipped up Jacky. Thanks Jacky, Cole thought, but couldn’t blame her for finding an escape. “A little,” Cole admitted. “My brother played a lot, but I…” “Excellent!” interrupted Alonzo, already coming around to stand by Cole’s aisle seat. He looked expectantly down at Cole’s bag. Sighing quietly, Cole obliged and moved his bag to the floor. “Take it easy on me, okay?” said Alonzo while he rearranged the pieces on his board. “I’m really not very good,” said Cole. He wasn’t exactly lying, thinking of his brother’s brief professional career. The first game proceeded quickly, with only a few pauses when Alonzo still tried to chat up a clearly uninterested Jacky. Cole wondered if there were any chess pick up lines, but presumed he would have heard them already if there were. Cole bested Alonzo in forty moves, remarkably fast to beat someone who previously was trying to use chess theory to talk up a girl. The next game lasted only slightly longer, taking Cole fifty moves to defeat Alonzo. Cole found himself momentarily enjoying himself, losing himself in the game that took up so much of his and his brother’s youth. He could narrow his focus to just the board and the pieces thereon, and not the problems that awaited him in Phoenix and back home. Alonzo took each loss cheerfully, remarking on his own poor play and how easily Cole beat him. “You’re good,” he said as he set up the third match. “But I think I’m gaining on you. What do you say we make this a little more interesting. Say, twenty bucks on the next match?” Cole looked up sharply at Alonzo, his eyes narrowing. Was this guy really trying to grift him on a bus ride, or was he just an idiot? Alonzo just smiled back while pulling out his wallet from his pocket. Cole mentally counted his money. A hundred bucks for the medication in Phoenix. Ten for food. Ten for emergencies. That’s a hard pass. “I’ll play another friendly game, but I didn’t really budget in a money match,” said Cole. “Aww, come on, the way it’s been going, it’s free money for you!” “The last time I was hustled out of my lunch money was in grade school,” he said with a small laugh. “Hustle? I’m just trying to have some fun here!” said Alonzo. “All right, how about just ten bucks then?” Cole considered for a moment. Ten dollars would be all of his food money, but then again doubling up meant he could get an actual meal. And it wasn’t like he was really trying in the matches so far. Even if he was being grifted, he could probably win. “Ten dollars, sure,” said Cole. “But I get white,” said Alonzo, turning the game board around. “Fine, fine,” said Cole, busying himself by slightly adjusting the tiny magnetic pieces. This third game took longer, and Cole had to concentrate to avoid several traps that Alonzo had fairly skillfully set. Gone was the casual conversation, and Alonzo focused solely on the board. This finally felt more like a real game, though Cole was able to win pretty comfortably, much to Alonzo’s obvious irritation. If he was a grifter, he was a pretty poor one. “Twenty bucks,” said Alonzo, still looking down at his trapped king. Without looking at Cole, Alonzo pulled ten dollars out of his wallet and passed it to Cole. “Sure thing,” said Cole. Even if he somehow lost, he would still only be down ten dollars. An extra twenty could go a long way. Their fourth game progressed similar to their third, much to Alonzo’s growing frustration. Eventually, Cole was able to checkmate Alonzo by pinning his king between Cole’s queen and a rook. Twenty dollars landed on the board. Alonzo looked up at Cole and scowled. “A hundred.” Cole’s heart pounded in his chest at the thought. “Woah man,” said Cole. “Absolutely not.” Alonzo pulled out a stack of low denomination bills and thumbed through it before dropping it next to the twenty dollars already on the board. Cole stared at the pile. He could hear his mother’s voice in his head, telling him to walk away, that it wasn’t worth the risk. But he could also picture her pain that he saw every day, only dulled during the times they were able to scrape up enough money to buy the strong painkillers that was his mission to get in Phoenix. With this extra money, he could double up with their dealer and get her some real relief. “A hundred, right there,” said Alonzo. Cole chewed on his lips, then nodded. Was that a hint of a smile from Alonzo as he dropped his head back towards the board? Alonzo blitzed forward on the attack this time, leaving Cole on his heels. Cole countered as best he could, relying on fragments of remembered strategies from years past. He fended off strike after strike as Alonzo nagged him about how much time he was taking between moves. Alonzo formed a spearhead of three pawns and advanced them down the board, threatening to undo everything Cole had worked to preserve. Cole froze up, remembering games years past against his brother, where a similar strategy finished him off more often than not. How had he ever bested it? The memories of success flitted about his brain, unable to be captured. The reality of what he had agreed to, what he had wagered, crashed down upon him in waves of guilt and anger, and he had to fight his emotions to remain in the game. Cole attacked back, using his knights to maneuver his way around the pawn spearhead to some success, and for a moment, thought he was on the cusp of victory. But he had let his focus slip. Distracted by the three pawns on the other side of the board, Cole had left a path open for a single pawn to go through his lines and reach the end of the board. “I think I’ll take a queen,” smirked Alonzo as he replaced the pawn. It did not take long for Alonzo to finish him off after that blunder. Cole stared down at the board. He thought he might puke. Alonzo held out his hand and waggled his fingers at Cole. “A hundred, right?” Cole stared at Alonzo for a long moment. “Right,” he eventually managed to say. He screamed at himself, blamed himself, hated himself, as he pulled a hundred from his wallet and passed it over. How could he have been so stupid? “You played well kid,” said Alonzo. “Almost got me there.” “Yeah, sure,” said Cole meekly, not able to meet Alonzo’s eyes. Cole counted his remaining seventy dollars. He had no choice at this point. The dealer he was meeting would be furious if he brought less than one hundred. What if he refused to do the deal at all? What would his mother say? What wouldn’t she say? Cole could see the disappointment already. “Seventy?” asked Cole.
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Nov 9, 2020 08:55
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The Wet Friar's Tale: Trust Not Boasts, but Deeds (1522 Words) Chronicle: * Corrupt Chrismatory: Your story involves something corrupt disguised as something pure, and something pure disguised as something corrupt (+300)* Monday's spooky castle: HAUNTED and developed an AVERSION to things being spilled and an AFFINITY for shoes [strike]* Tuesday's terrible inn: DRUNK, now singing "Get outta your mind (what), get outta your mind (what), get outta your mind (what) / Bump that poo poo, get outta your mind (what)"[/strike] Purified (-200) * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like two friars. A little on the nose, but ok?? (+100) * Surprise fairy attack: Limpid Goldeneyes demands GOLD * Thursday's Encounter: INVISIBLE (-100) * Limerick: entered (+50) Won 2nd Place (+150) Began with 1500 words. Currently has 1800 words -- Some years ago I had traveled far on business, and happened to find myself resting from my journeys with a few fellows of my Order. Given that I would be some few days recovering my strength, I asked what interest could be found in that small town, that I might find a story to take with me on my travels, and they told me this tale. In that land, it is common that prizefights be held for the entertainment of the people. Those who compete go to great lengths to keep their identities secret, that they might live normal lives. Thus they compete masked, that their assumed identity might gain the glory of triumph or bear the shame of defeat alike. In those days there were many such fighters, from all walks of life, but two had a long and especially fierce rivalry. The current champion was a man rarely defeated in his fighting prime, who spoke often of the strength God gave him to win his battles, and wore an angelic mask of great beauty. Few there were who still tried to challenge his might. “Let them come,” he said, before the crowd gathered to watch his latest triumph, “There is none on this Earth who can defeat me. I am beyond the common man.” Now in that crowd was a young man, strong but of a shy nature. He had heard these boasts before, and had watched the way the Angel strutted, how he held himself above the people of the village. The young man worked with his father, carrying produce to market for the farmers and doing labor around town for those who needed a pair of strong hands, and he had heard from many how this man demanded the best in all things be given as his due. At the tavern, he wished the finest drink. From the butcher, the most choice cuts. From the seamstress, a new and more glorious cape, shining with bright embroidery, that he might draw more adulation when he came to fight. None of this he was denied, after all, he was the champion, made strong by God! The young man had a sister, and from her he heard even more. She worked for the seamstress, doing the fine work that the old woman’s eyes were no longer sharp enough to easily pick out, and met the Angel when he came to pick up his glorious new cloak, full of her handiwork. “He is a handsome man, this is true,” she said with a shudder, “But his eyes are cold, and his hands…” She did not finish, but her brother’s blood boiled at the thought of what else such a man might think his for the taking. Seeing the anger on her brother’s face, she quickly reached out to calm him. “I am unharmed, dear brother. He was rude, but old Olma is too well respected to let something happen in her shop.” “Still, I cannot let this stand,” he said. “This man is no Angel, and his ways will only change should he be humbled.” The young woman scoffed at him. “Brother, you are a strong man, but you know little of fighting! You will simply be crushed before him, another of his conquests.” “Still, I must try. Will you help me? I need a mask, dear sister, and you are the only one I could trust to make one fine enough to be taken seriously.” She laughed again, but nodded her agreement. “If you feel you must, I will sew you a mask so fearsome the Devil himself will think you one of his own.” At that the young man smiled, and thanked his sister profusely enough that she drove him laughing from the house with orders to find her the fabrics she would need. It took the man some weeks to gather what he would need to make the impression he desired, as his coin had all gone to his sister’s efforts. A cloak of worn black cloth, to stand in contrast to the Angel’s bright finery, he traded for his shoes. Tattered pants he sewed himself, cursing needle pricked thumbs as he worked in the candlelight after his work was done. Each day, before he began his labors, he trained. Miles he ran, barefoot over field and dusty road. Heavier and heavier loads he took on, his muscles growing used to the greater weight. He hurt, but he kept on, knowing that the strength he needed must be earned. Finally, the day came. His sister told him she had finished her work, and presented him with what could only be called a masterpiece. Scarlet it was, the color of bright blood, a mask worked with lines of black to form a sneering face fit for the haughtiest of Hell’s princes. She helped him to don it, tying it behind his head, and he looked upon himself in the mirror. Where once he had been a young man, now he was whipcord lean from running and muscled from his labors. Standing barefoot in his tattered pants and cloak, he truly looked the part of a demon come to earth. “You have outdone yourself, sister, and I cannot thank you enough.” He said, smiling beneath the mask. “If you want to thank me, tell those who ask whose work you wear!” was her reply. “Of course!” The next week’s end was the day of challenges, where new fighters could show themselves and challenge an opponent and name their wagers, to be fought that afternoon before all the town to see. Those watching in the crowd glanced curiously at the barefoot man in the ragged cloak, but oddly dressed fighters were expected, so non tried to pierce the hood’s shadows to see his face. He kept silent through the challenges as pairs of fighters named their stakes, until finally the Angel waved for silence and stood before the crowd. None had dared to challenge him, as was common for one of his reputation. “Behold this fine belt of gold! I will place it as stakes for any man brave enough to fight me this day and stand five minutes without being knocked unconscious.” The Angel’s smirk was clear through his mask. He knew no man had the courage to face him, until one voice in the crowd spoke up. “I’ll take that bet.” the young man said, throwing back his hood. The crowd gasped at the face of a demon revealed, and the Angel himself grinned wider at this obvious ploy. “Look what the Lord has brought me this day,” he said, stretching his arms wide to the crowd. “A demon itself to be vanquished before my strength. I’ll fight you, demon, and when you fall my name will be even greater.” Their fight was kept for the last of the day, as the sun went down and the square was lit with lanterns and torches. The Demon had stood impassively through the earlier matches beneath his cloak, concealing his nerves by reacting not at all to the fights. The Angel lounged with his friends, laughing at commenting on the matches, occasionally throwing another smirk at the Demon as he stood. Until finally, their names were called, and they stood face to face in the circle. An angel, resplendent in an embroidered cape, and his demonic counterpart in tattered black. They cast aside their cloaks, and the minuteglass was overturned, the fight was on. It was quickly apparent the difference between the fighters. The Angel fought with skill and finesse, each strike and throw made to be as graceful and masterly as it could be, while his opponent simply took the hits and kept coming, his hard fists swinging in powerful blows. After the first minute, the bruises had started to show on the Demon’s body. In the second, a trickle of blood ran from beneath his mask, over one eye. In the third, he was knocked to one knee by a powerful kick from the panting, sweating Angel, but rose again without complaint. As the forth minute started, the Angel was starting to fear he would not win in time. His body was tiring, his breath coming hard, and still this upstart kept coming! Finally, at a loss, he turned and threw his opponent directly at one of the torches, watching with grim satisfaction as that devil’s mask took to the flame. All was quiet save for the panting of the Angel and the furious work of the young woman who had lunged from the crowd to smother the burning mask with the Demon’s ragged black cloak, but as the timer came to its end, the Demon rose again and turned back to his opponent, the scarlet mask now blackened and smoking in places as he took his stance again. “For God’s sake, why won’t you fall!” cried the Angel, distraught. “God helps those who keep faith and endure,” said the Demon, as the timekeeper called for the bell. He took the belt of gold and staggered from the circle, leaving the man who was once an Angel to his fate.
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Nov 9, 2020 09:00
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THE PILGRIM TIMES - SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED EDITION We hath hadth our adventure and tolde ye stories, and now is time for pilgrims to rest, while Your humble Narrator, Maugrim the Hedge Magician, And Random Person Who Had the Great Unfortune to be Sitting Next to Us at The Tavern read and render judgment. All those that do poste before judgement is wrought shall be enlightened as to the various opinions of the Narrator upon its quality, and at such a time that this narrative gimmick hath ended, such that their words shall be less painful. Dr. Kloctopussy fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Nov 9, 2020 |
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Nov 9, 2020 09:19
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Sebmojo, the Faded Squire Confusing Horse: There is something in your story that no one understands, but people keep trying to use it anyway. (+300) *Monday's spooky castle: ABSENT *Tuesday's terrible inn: ABSENT * Wednesday's treasure hunt: You searched under this weird tile that looks like two serfs unwillingly fighting each other with paper shields and t-squares?? (+50) * Surprise fairy attack: Dwindledum Bowtie demands RED * Thursday's Encounter: the WHEEL OF FORTUNE: Good luck, karma, life cycles, destiny, a turning point / Bad luck, resistance to change, breaking cycles * Friday's Card Game: Queen of Diamonds (+100) Began with 1300 words. Currently has 1750 words. Nostradumbass 1100 words A fortune-telling horse is a terrible thing. Or, at least, that’s what I keep telling people. They don’t believe me and they really ought to start. Take this current shitshow. I hear it before I see it, yelling, screeching, the occasional crack of wood on bone. I wish it didn’t have the familiarity that it does, but: this is the road I’m on. As I round the corner I’m cataloguing them; jilted lover, disgruntled businessman, enraged spouse. In all honesty I should just leave them to it and maybe gather some leads from the conscious survivors but as a squire i feel an obligation. So, in I charge, disarming the lover, flattening the spouse, whipping the businessman into a slick little headlock. “Have,” I ask, when I’m sure I’ve got their attention, “you seen my horse?” I’ll skip over the momentary pause, the threefold flash of befuddled recognition, the everybody-talking-at-once: I’ve seen it before, you may have too. Long story short they have, and short story long oh gosh do they have a yarn to spin me about it. I pop the top of the flask I got at the inn ten miles back and pass it round. Now that we’re all friends together, brethren of the dopey prophetic equine, we sit right down there on the drystone wall beside the road. “I met the horse--” says the lover, who has a dashingly red coat, but I raise my finger. “Roger,” I say quietly. “He’s called Roger.” Roger is a terrible fuckwit even on a good day, but he’s entitled to his name. “Fine, Roger. Roger was pulling a cart that I got from this fella, and he starts muttering to me.” The businessman’s eyes flick wide like an umbrella opening. “He talked to you too? He said I was the only one who could hear--” I raise my finger again, this time with a lightly menacing inclination of my head. “Please, let him talk.” The lover, who has been carefully not meeting the eye of the businessman, nods. “Thanks. Anyways your Roger is explaining stuff, leaning in real close. Things only I could know. And he’s a horse! So I pull out my rainy day money which I happened to be taking to the bank, and get him off this guy, because talking horse, right? That’s a crazy revenue stream! And my girlfriend Judy is really big into passive income.” The enraged spouse has been holding it together up to now but this clearly crosses some kind of line. “Your girlfriend? That’s my wife you sleazy nonce!” “Ssh,” I suggest, then swivel around to the businessman. “May I ask: how did you happen to have my horse in your posession?” He coughs, clearly a little embarassed. “He asked me to take care of him. Well, not take care of him, but he wanted to get hooked up to the cart. Said there was some stuff he needed to do. Though he didn’t say “stuff”. That horse has a really foul mouth.” I don’t nod, but something like a nod passes between us all. It’s true: Roger swears like a sailor that’s just got off the boat and has heard you can buy dockside whores with harsh language. “He also explained some stock movements that he is 100% confident are going to happen in the next week, which I wrote down, so I was planning on taking him back to my estate to tie him up and pump him for market information for, uh, well, forever. I suppose.” “And yet you sell him to … this person?” I point at the lover, but it’s the spouse who leans forward instead, face engorged with rageblood. “That is right! And I see him riding along on that horse, chatting away, pleased as punch, and he's saying Judy thinks this and Judy did that and I know from listening just a moment--” “Eavesdropper.” “Shut it! I know from listening a moment that this can be none other than my own beloved wife! He’s a wife stealer!” “Worse! He’s actually a horse thief!” says the businessman. “I didn’t want to sell him because of the stock tips and I’m stalling his bargaining when he hurls -- hurls! -- a sack of coins at my head and jumps up on the horse!” “Roger.” “And that’s where I saw him, riding along like a sausage on a bun, chattering away, so of course I run out and grab his leg and pull him off,” gabbles the spouse. “He’s a horse thief and I want my horse back!” The lover leaps to his feet, clearly intent on scarpering, but the businessman tackles him, taking him low in a fine lunging move that uses the wall for purchase, joined a moment later by the spouse, who has gone a few steps beyond language and is howling abstract imprecations like a brazen bull with a whole family tucked up in its belly. I watch them for a moment, wrestling in the mud, then stand up. It’s pleasant rolling country here, but the road seems unhelpful to me at this time, so I pick a direction and start walking away from it. Roger is a good horse, or rather he’s not a bad horse, or to be precise he never really means to be bad. He can see the future but it doesn’t really help him much. I wonder as I walk, the shrieks and screeches and slapping sounds of violence diminishing behind me, if this time he’l decide to let me find him: it is after all entirely within his powers to go to where I’ll be. I’ve just thought that thought, very much not for the first time, when I crest the rise and see my old friend at the bottom of the valley, head down in the stream. I don’t stop, and I don’t call out, but as I pick my way down the rockstrewn slope a long, slow smile spreads itself over my face like butter on toast. This time it’s going to be different, I think.
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Nov 9, 2020 09:21
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fjgj
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Nov 9, 2020 16:19
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Nov 9, 2020 17:15
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Interprompr: the thing under my bed
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Nov 9, 2020 20:04
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Yoruichi posted:Amazing. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ws1G8ETswlgpVpBA2Ucd3-MB0-9iezIh/view?usp=sharing Welt, you're up buddy
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Nov 10, 2020 01:09
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sebmojo posted:Nostradumbass A crit of Sebmojo's horse story and a reading cos it feels like this is what we're doing today. This story only really makes sense if you blur your eyes a little. There's a squire, and he's lost his horse (who can talk and see the future), and he comes across a businessman, who harnessed the horse to a cart, apparently at the horse's (Roger's) request, because Roger has stuff (?) to do, which requires a cart (?), but Roger gives the businessman hot stock tips, so he (the businessman) decides to keep Roger forever, but then sells him to the lover, or rather, the lover steals him (but also pays for him), and the lover is riding along on Roger, chatting away, when the spouse overhears them, and realises the lover is having an affair with his wife (Judy), so the spouse pulls the lover off the horse, and then somehow they're all in a fight, which is when the squire turns up. The squire breaks up the fight, passes around a bevvie, and then asks for their story, the telling of which provokes another round of fisticuffs, so the squire wanders off, and finds his horse, who he is after all very fond of. Hooray! Who is the squire? Why does he have a fortune-telling horse? Why did Roger want to be harnessed to a cart? What does Judy think of all this?? I have the distinct feeling that these are questions that Sebmojo might have been able to tell us the answer to, had he started writing more than 15 minutes before the deadline. Not a bad effort considering, just a little lacking in, erm, focus. Enjoy my bad rendition of your bad words: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1saxGYqank-b4ugbyw1OP4Lr0hhD1w7d0/view?ts=5fa9ecfc
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Nov 10, 2020 02:41
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