NATION

PASSWORD

FALL 2014 SHORT STORY CONTEST

A coffee shop for those who like to discuss art, music, books, movies, TV, each other's own works, and existential angst.

Advertisement

Remove ads

User avatar
Nazi Flower Power
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21328
Founded: Jun 24, 2010
Iron Fist Consumerists

Postby Nazi Flower Power » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:58 am

If anybody has last-minute entries, finish them up and post them. The exact deadline is 11:59PM pacific time Nov. 5.
The Serene and Glorious Reich of Nazi Flower Power has existed for longer than Nazi Germany! Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Allied forces who made this possible!

User avatar
Old Tyrannia
Game Moderator
 
Posts: 16673
Founded: Aug 11, 2009
Father Knows Best State

Postby Old Tyrannia » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:15 am

Nazi Flower Power wrote:If anybody has last-minute entries, finish them up and post them. The exact deadline is 11:59PM pacific time Nov. 5.

Y U NO USE GMT?!!!

Oh well, that actually gives me more time to post my entry.
"Classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion" (T.S. Eliot). Still, unaccountably, a NationStates Moderator.
"Have I done something for the general interest? Well then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book XI, IV)
⚜ GOD SAVE THE KING

User avatar
Unitaristic Regions
Negotiator
 
Posts: 5019
Founded: Apr 15, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby Unitaristic Regions » Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:31 am

And here it is.

Sz'arlak, Demon Prince


With a clash of the loudest thunder, two dimensions aligned and a portal smashed into the mortal plane of existence. As a source of black darkness, seemingly ripping through thin air, it allowed no perception of what lay beyond: the only thing that gave anything away was the moaning of beings in infinite pain imprisoned somewhere beyond. And the gnarled rings of human bones laid out around the sides, perhaps. Come to think about it, that might have been a good hint.
Willing himself into reality, Demon Prince Sz'arlak "the Young" of the Third Ring leapt through into the sands of the desert. Greeting him: a small hamlet, consisting of but a smattering of huts composed wholly of thatch and clay. Pausing only to wipe his ruffled fur into shape and to shake his horns, he jumped into motion. Roaring in an excited rage, he ran forth into the town, his cruel heart pumping acid around his hardened body. Which really hurt. But hey, no one inquired for the opinion of any demons when they decided they had to be badass, did they now?
Therefore, awkwardly trying to keep his excitement down a little, Sz'arlak pumped air into his lungs, preparing a mighty roar that would shake the sleepy village from its slumber and harry its population into a frenzied terror.
"I AM- Prince", "Cough, Cough,", "I- am" "Cough".
Oh damn, why did he have a cracking voice already?! He'd practiced this for ages, by Satan! This was one of the most important moments in his pubescent life!
Therefore, Sz'arlak decided that the most prudent action now would be to stay silent. YES! He would be like a ghost of terror, a whirlwind of mute destruction, an apocalypse bringing forth no sound! He would tear this village apart in abject voicelessness!
"What kind of goat are you?"
So insignificant was the tiny-boy voice, that Sz'arlak almost did not notice it in his magnificence. But, alas, the Demon Prince had not attained the unassailable heights of arrogance the Elder Tormentors were known for yet, and as such was still forced to notice mortal children. He looked down and saw a tiny mortal in front of him, picking his nose. Flexing his blasphemously well-sculpted triceps, Sz'arlak grabbed him by the sleeve of his shirt and lifted him into the air, fully excited about vanquishing his first mortal. The overload of acid pumping around his body made him flinch in pain, however, and he dropped the boy. Ah well, he might as well get some field info on the place now.
"You there, insignificant!" he tried to growl, while frantically trying to ignore his voice skipping a few octaves with every syllable, "Where are the warrior-folk of this village?! I desire to rip out their hearts and feast on their toe-nails! Or... should that be entrails? Never could remember. Whatever, it rhymes."
The child just looked at him dumbly, wiping thin wisps of red hair out of his eyes in an unconscious motion.
"Warrior-folk? I got' me some soldiers in me house... but I ain't sure they got entrails..."
"Excellent! Superlative! Capital! Take me there at once!"
When they walked through the village, doors fell shut, and the tragic whimpering of women and children was heard all around. Something about the situation did not quite click though... it took Sz'arlak some time to realize it was his small aide, happily traipsing at his side, bragging about his unimportant part of the insignificant business of this tiny slice of the universe.
"You are not the brightest tool in the shed, are you, mortal?" Sz'arlak grunted.
"Me momma says I'm special," the boy answered in a brave attempt at verbal defense.
Special. So that was what they called those that were deformed in the head in these parts. A miracle he had not yet ended up at the Pits of Soul Devouring then. Did they even have those around here? Truly, the mortal plane was a backwards place: best not to ask. A low profile was asked for, it might be wise not to spill too much secrets. Still, Sz'arlak could not keep himself from asking: "So, mortal, why then have you not yet been completely erased from all existence yet?"
The boy just looked up at him, puzzled.
"Me momma loves me."
Did mortals express their love by actually keeping their inferior kin alive? Interesting notion. Of course, it did prove why Sz'arlak's kind was on top of the food chain once more, but the truth of that was already engraved in the Demon Prince's head, so this new information did not matter much anyhow. To the soldiers!


Poking one of the wooden miniature soldiers with a foot-long nail (and trying very hard not to break the damn thing in the process) Sz'arlak could only gaze in wonder.
"What sort of warrior is this? Did some man get frozen in a terrible curse, damned to stay wooden for all eternity? Or did someone entrap his very soul into an arcane vessel of plant-material?"
"Is'a Toy Soldier."
Sz'arlak nodded, engulfed in thought, and said: "Well, it seems I am immune to whatever aura of doom it might emanate. If these are all the warriors your hamlet possesses, I suppose I can get to slaughtering it to the last piece of livestock now."
The boy cocked his head to the side, and stared at him with tiny blue eyes.
"You talk real funny, mister Goat."
"That is because I possess class, tiny mortal. That said, what is a Goat? If it looks like me, it must surely be a superior creature on the hierarchical pyramid of life."
"Is'a furry beast. Gives us milk."
He shrugged.
"Well, fur is noble for certain! And I am sure that a goat's milk is like a sweet nectar for the likes of you! Truly, you should all praise these goats, if they have so much of my magnificent appearance!"
The conversation started to fail there, unfortunately. Something about worshiping goats did not entirely click in the boy's mind, so he left. Presumably for his mother, leaving Sz'arlak to ponder the "Toy-Soldiers" on his own. How strange, those creations... so simple, yet so effective. Sz'arlak had never had much to play with back in Hell, save some damned souls, but those never were any fun! All they did was moan about how unfair their fate was, how much they deserved to be up there in Heaven, how much they suffered in the Fields of Punishment... agh, if lacking "creativity in thought" were to have been the cardinal sin, then it every soul in Hell would've absolutely deserved it.
Exiting the shack, Sz'arlak started scratching the bald spot on the back of his head in the most complete concentration.
"Let us see... I demanded a mighty city of the greatest beauty, filled to the brim with valiant defenders of the mortal Arabian people... and I get some rotting wood and cowering mortals. That cannot be correct."
Even the inexperienced Sz'arlak (who was not exactly known far and wide for his sharp intellect) could see there had been foul play involved. Slowly, his mind drifted back to the fight he had had at the their Teak Dinner Table of Supreme Doom (©Hellkea, Malmö Series) with his parents.

"But daaaaad... all my friends already go out to the mortal plain of existence! I'm so uncool!"
"Son, what your friends may or may not do, is none of our concern. In my time, we were very calm about such things. Perhaps we claimed the souls of... two, three mortals? We only felt a small rush of blood lust, not the ridiculous amount the current generation possesses."
But then, Sz'arlak's mother Ri'zul the Terrible had intervened: "Come on, dear, the boy can't learn responsibility playing with souls at home! Shouldn't we give him a little space?"
With a sigh, Sz'arlak's father Neggallir'er the Magnificent (or N-dawg for his high school buddies) had caved in.
"Alright then! One trip. But I want you back at nine! There are always Hellhounds lurking around the portals nowadays."
"Yes! Wait, I only have eight mortal years? How am I supposed to wreak havoc in the mortal realm in eight years?! You only hate the Hellhounds because they're immigrants."
"I do not!"
"Don't be so politically correct, dad. You also backed organic soul-farming, but that was just because the neighbors did!"


Things had gone downhill from there. Dad got real angry, so angry that ultimately Sz'arlak had just left for the mortal plane of existence without any of his friends. Undead hiatus could suck so much sometimes... he'd probably messed with the portals to teach his son a lesson. He could be a prick like that.
That really pissed him off. Just like his stupid parents to point him at the boring the places where no one actually hung out. Completely forgetting he was forgetting to fake an archaic accent, Sz'arlak shouted: "Jezus, dad!" in frustration, but immediately regretted it. Devils are not supposed to invoke the name of the Son and so he felt his body stiffen and his eyeballs grow big. He fell into the dust, completely paralyzed with acid rushing through his veins, leaving him wailing: "Ow, ow", not able to do anything about it.
A terrible situation, truly. And very, very embarrassing. Still, it wasn't like Sz'arlak's situation could get any worse right now.
"Hey, are you alright?"
In the midst of his awkward spasms Sz'arlak looked up at a mortal face. He registered flashes of brown skin, eyes and hair and a general sense of prettiness. Almost... angelic, how heart-shaped her head was!
"Silence, mortal!" Sz'arlak tried to growl, but only managed to release a weird blubbering noise, as the acid was cutting away at his vocal chords. Okay, this could be handled, but only if it was done aristocratically. Sz'arlak just had to control himself...
The girl grabbed his arm and tried to lift him up. Her grip felt warm on his fur and all pretense of self-control slipped again. A rush of delicious (and indirectly very painful) panic shot through Sz'arlak and he tore loose of her grip, moaning in terror while he flapped around on the floor like some oversized furry whale with an undersized erection.
"Sorry, sorry!" he blubbered.
It took him minutes to calm down and dispel the deadly mix of acid and hormones by now nearly burning through his skin. By then, however, he was in so much pain that stars started doing a little tango in front of his eyes. Sz'arlak lost consciousness.


"Oh, you woke up!"
The mortals had captured his magnanimous essence! Disaster! In terror, Sz'arlak jumped from the bed, turned and slashed at where his captor's voice was, slashing open the pretty girl hip to hip with a foot-long talon. Both their mouths dropped to their chins in unison, and she brought her hands to her abdomen, just letting them... hover there, in complete shock. With the blood draining from her face, she fell to her knees.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Sz'arlak shouted, all pretense of an archaic dialect forgotten, "I'm so sorry!"
The girl just whispered: "That'll help."
But Sz'arlak the Younger, ever a demon of chivalry, ignored the sarcasm and pressed his daring attack of empty excuses.
"I really am! I didn't know you actually took care of me, I thought your people had... I'm sorry!"
Suddenly, a realization hit him.
"Wait! You're a nice girl, right? You took care of me, even though I'm a demon. You forgave me for the whole 'destroying your whole village' business?"
She just nodded, breathing her last breaths.
"You're going to a better place. A place where I can never go: that of white, fluffy clouds and amazing palaces of the whitest marble. Where everyone exists but in bliss, bowing before the one true God, the one that I will never know and actually kinda hate out of fundamental instinct. But you, you will be happy for all eternity!
"But... but..." She tried to whisper.
"But?"
"I... am... a child of Allah."
"Oh, then you're bound for Hell," Sz'arlak blurted out before realizing the importance of what he was saying. She grew even whiter, started panting in complete terror. The Demon Prince tried threw up his hands in the air, screaming: "I'M SORRY!"
But it was all for naught. The girl drew her final breath, and her soul left her body, was sucked into the earth. Yeah, she had been predestined for Hell surely enough, leaving Sz'arlak behind feeling lost and lonely, like a sadistic lamb bereft of its mother.

*
He dived through his portal without pause, was flung through time and space and tore into the reality-fabric of Hell. Before Sz'arlak stretched the Infernal Kingdom. Huge buildings of twisted brown rock in the ground, all appearing to be have been hewn whole out of some stone mountain. Mostly, they were giant towers piercing upwards into the sky, impossibly high, so high it was impossible for the eye to witness their tops.
Beneath these dark buildings: a sea of bright lava, filled with bodies screaming with bloodless lips. Here the average sinner burned: usually the ones that had come before Christ and thus never got to believe in him. Kind of a dick move, if you asked Sz'arlak. Mostly though, the constant whining of a few billion souls in eternal agony really was a bit of a buzzkill. All the demons flew around with earplugs nowadays, and since Satan still wasn't on the best of terms with the man up above, it wasn't like Hell's Labour Rights were about to improve drastically right now.
Sz'arlak unfurled his wings and flapped them like a motherfucker. He needed to get to the spot where souls were judged and sharpish, or he'd never be able to see that beautiful Arab girl again. She'd shown him kindness and he wasn't unmoved by that. He soared past the River of Blood and Woods of Suicide, brushing past some Elder Demons who after that probably started to rant about the youth of today's lack of respect. Impossible to say, really, since Sz'arlak had jammed his own earplugs into the prickly fur of his ears and only removed them when finally arriving at his goal: the Square of Judgment, a rectangular clearing of the most bland gray cobble the Elder Demons could get their hands on. Sz'arlak landed amidst row upon row of soon to be damned souls.
"Muslim, damned!" a voice rasped. A male scream of terror followed.
"Envious, damned."
A female scream.
"Lustful, damned."
A male scream again. Sex kills.
"Muslim, damned."
"Buddhist, damned."
"Wrothful, damned."
"Kinslayer, damned."
"Muslim, damned."
The job was intensely boring. Leave it to God to bureaucratize damning souls, Sz'arlak had always thought. They should really let damned souls damn souls for all eternity, it was that excruciating!
Pushing himself to the front of the throng, Sz'arlak shivered. It had always been cold here in this place.
"Hey, man!" Sz'arlak screamed to the demon on damning duty, a small guy with some sort of sneer plastered to his mouth.
"What's up?" he replied, obviously happy to have some company.
"I'm looking for a damned soul. She's... tall, a Muslim, pretty -"
"Stop, dude. Let me stop you right there. They're into some kinda holy war thingy up there. Ever heard of that guy Saladin? That's the real deal, bruv. He just, like, went and destroyed all the Crusaders in Jerusalem, but since they're crusading, they're going straight up to the old man, leaving us with thrice as many Muslims as usual."
Sz'arlak's hope sank like a battleship in a tsunami-wave, but he quickly recovered. He shrugged, turned around and screamed: "Who here remembers being cut nearly in half by a demon and being sucked into Hell?"
100% of the souls in the square raised a hand.
"Er... while still living?"
Nearly all hands dropped. Quickly, Sz'arlak scanned the raised hands, but they seemed to all be white. European demon parties were all the rage, apparently.
"Could anyone European drop his or her hand?"
The last hands fell down. With hope fighting a rearguard battle in his stomach, slowly being encircled by the forces of despair, Sz'arlak looked, looked, looked...
There! A small, callused palm! Tearing through the heard of souls in a storm of wing, talon and pheromone that was so terrible it probably gave all who were harmed a foretaste of what eternal torment would be like, the Demon Prince arrived before the terrified form of the girl he'd accidentally murdered. Like all souls, she looked like a shriveled up piece of meat without hair. Not so cute anymore, but hey, Sz'arlak was a Demon of great benevolence, as he liked to think. He was indebted to her kind deeds, not her great looks! At least, that was what he told himself when repressing the horror of seeing her like this.
"Your face..." he whispered, and promptly decided that saving the girl's undying soul was all fine and dandy, but saving her undying body would have to be prioritized. For her sake, of course.
"I... I... this place, it's horrible!" she said and started to cry, in shocking, heaving sobs that rocked her frail soul-body.
Sz'arlak looked back. His fellow demon was damning souls again. He was in the clear. He sighed, then took a deep breath and asked: "What is your name?"
"Asiya," she replied.
"Well, Asiya, I'm about to do something really stupid. I hope you always wanted to fly before?"

"Satan! My main man!"
On His most august throne, the son of the morning sat, his magnificent biceps even more sculpted than those of the other demons. From him, an aura of power emanated so brightly it came onto the eyes as a sort of perverse light.
"What on earth are you doing here? I cannot but perceive thine steps with mine ear!"
Asiya, managed to frown even as she was filled with awe and terror.
"He talks really weird..."
Sz'arlak merely gave a shrug.
"Ever since the guy read Paradise Lost he's gone crazy over it. He only speaks in Iambic Pentameter now. Or at least tries to. I'm not sure he actually understands it, though."
"What's Paradise Lost?"
Satan threw his hands into the air and jumped out of his throne.
"Mortal, Paradise Lost is a poem fine! Artfully it describes the story that is mine! But Sz'arlak, tell me now of your proceeds, so that I can answer them with deeds!"
"Yeah, I sort of accidentally killed this mortal girl here, Asiya. Even though she's a Muslim it still made me feel guilty as... well... hell, since she actually took care of me when I was vulnerable while in the mortal realm. I saved her from being judged and I wondered if you could make an angel of her. And... kind of pardon me for disturbing the whole divine judgment thing, while you're at it."
"To Angelize a Mortal is not the will of God. His wrath will strike hard, like a lightning rod."
Sz'arlak sighed. This part of divine dogma was arguably the most retarded bit about the whole heaven/hell thing and it pissed him off. Irritated, he answered: "Look, Satan, you've been like my go- demonfather for my entire life. When I was six hundred and finally learned to walk it was you that caught me when I fell in my tiny steps. And do you remember when I spoke my first words?"
Satan smiled his radiant smile, barely creasing his face that would probably remain smooth and crisp until the day the guy up above finally decided to smite him.
"Sz'arlak, how could I forget? The first word was a threat!"
"Something along the lines of 'All that is light must be extinguished?', yeah, I believe that's about it. I was a lot more fanatical in my baby years. Anyways, you were there when I spoke my first words, you helped me walk, you helped dad teach me how to fly. You've always been there for us. And I know you want to help me, whatever it takes. Look, Satey-boy... I think I love Asiya."
Sz'arlak gave her an encouraging smile. She just looked to the floor, embarrassed to the bone. How did Muslims handle this shit anyways? Satan brows creased up until it seemed they would soon touch the top of his skull.
"Sz'arlak, you cannot say as you please! Mortal loving... it is disease!"
"That's what the humans think about homosexuality right now, and we all know how that's going to work out. For once, step up to the man up above. You know you want to. Give her and me a chance, make her a demon... I beg of you!"
He was actually getting emotional about this...
Puberty. One thing was for sure though, he was never ever going back to the mortal realm again.
Whether I want to or not, Sz'arlak thought as the footsteps of guards could be heard. They were coming for him and Asiya. He was going to be grounded so bad... but Asiya?
"Lucifer, please! You know what's going to happen to her!"
But Satan just stared at them, unknowable and magnificent.


Epilogue.

In the end, things got a little rushed. People actually thought it'd be funny to make an demon out of a Muslim, if Sz'arlak took all of her education upon him. Indeed, after some initial fights they grew into a comfortable relationship, Sz'arlak often consoling her when she longed for the mortal world, Asiya consoling him when he had to judge souls again, for Sz'arlak had been punished to a year of community service for his crime of saving her. But, they were happy, and in the end, that was all that counted.

Asiya would become immortalized (now in a figurative sense) for writing the first genre novel about mortal live, which the demons of Hell loved. The Genre would become known as "mortal fantasy", kind of like a more sadistic version of normal mortal novels.

Satan became more and more secluded, not sure what he wanted with his life. In the end, he started writing his own poems through a mortal surrogate he whispered words to in its dreams, words of love, intrigue and war. Thus, mortal history was enriched with the writings of "Shakespeare." Firmly locked into glorious Iambic Pentameter, of course.

Sz'arlak didn't go much further than ultimately landing a job as senior manager at Hellkea. But hey, it got souls on the dining table and he was happy. And isn't that really all a demon needs? He seemed to think so.

THE END.
Used to be a straight-edge orthodox communist, now I'm de facto a state-capitalist who dislikes migration and hopes automation will bring socialism under proper conditions.

User avatar
Laerod
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 26183
Founded: Jul 17, 2004
Iron Fist Socialists

Postby Laerod » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:46 pm

I'd apologize in advance to the judges, but I'm not actually sorry u_u

Transcript of the Proceedings in the Matter of Desperaux versus Norrent


The Honorable Lumia Fletcher, Royal Magistrate

Presiding over

The Gracious Lord Armand of Desperaux, Claimant

Meryl Durant, Solicitor

versus

The Gracious Lady Geraldine Norrent, Defendant

Lea Zermine, Defendant

Casper Letterman, Solicitor

in the matter of jurisdiction over one commoner Lea Zermine.



Magistrate Fletcher calls the court into session.

Lord Desperaux names Solicitor Durant as his representative in law.

Lady Norrent and commoner Zermine name Solicitor Letterman as their representative in law.

Lord Desperaux utters an oath regarding commoner Zermine’s heritage.

Commoner Zermine asks Lord Desperaux if he would like to repeat said oath with her dagger through the roof of his mouth.

Lord Desperaux declines and offers to separate commoner Zermine’s head from her shoulders by means of his greatsword.

Magistrate Fletcher calls on the Solicitors Durant and Letterman to remind their clients of the propriety in a court. Magistrate Fletcher furthermore wonders out loud why all parties have entered the courthouse armed to the teeth and if she must call on the town guard to ensure the halls are not stained with blood before or after the issuance of a verdict.

All parties state that the calling of the guard will not be necessary.

Magistrate Fletcher then calls on the Claimant to state their case.

Solicitor Durant recounts that commoner Zermine entered an apple orchard on the property of Lord Desperaux three nights before the Fall Solstice. Commoner Zermine then proceeded to take an unknown number of apples numbering no less than a dozen and no more than twenty without prior permission of Lord Desperaux. Furthermore, as a subject of Lord Desperaux, commoner Zermine is subject to laws of the fief that demand a year of service as punishment for poaching or theft of grain.

Magistrate Fletcher asks if the Defendants dispute the allegations.

Commoner Zermine issues an oath in the direction of Lord Desperaux. Magistrate Fletcher calls commoner Zermine to order.

Solicitor Letterman states that the Defendants do not dispute the allegations.

Magistrate Fletcher expresses relief and asks the Claimant to proceed.

Solicitor Durant recounts that commoner Zermine was born in the township of Marmarine which lies in the fief of Lord Desperaux. Furthermore, commoner Zermine was born out of wedlock to one commoner Marille Zermine, subject of Lord Desperaux. Commoner Lea Zermine is therefore the subject of Lord Desperaux as well.

Solicitor Letterman lodges a dispute.

Magistrate Fletcher asks if the Claimant has anything to add. Solicitor Durant declines before Lord Desperaux can say anything. Magistrate Fletcher then asks for the Defendants to specify the dispute.

Solicitor Letterman alleges that commoner Zermine is the illegitimate child of late Lord Uther Norrent, son of Lady Norrent.

Lord Desperaux interjects a vulgar rendition of the word “illegitimate” and is silenced by a glare of Magistrate Fletcher.

Magistrate Fletcher orders that the interjection be stricken from the record.

The scribe protests and Magistrate Fletcher agrees to settle the matter after the proceedings have concluded.

Solicitor Letterman then continues and argues that as the granddaughter of Lady Norrent, commoner Zermine is also subject to House Norrent. Furthermore, the claims of House Norrent are by blood and consequently supersede the claims of House Desperaux. Thus the dispute is not between a Lord and his subject, but between a Lord and the subject of another Lordship. Hence commoner Zermine is not liable to be punished as a subject of House Desperaux.

Solicitor Durant lodges a dispute.

Magistrate Fletcher declines to hear the dispute at this time. Magistrate Fletcher then asks the Defendants if the birth of commoner Zermine as detailed by the Claimant is in dispute. Solicitor Letterman states that they are not and that the matter for arbitration is whether commoner Zermine is a subject of House Desperaux or Norrent.
Solicitor Durant lodges the dispute again. Magistrate Fletcher allows the dispute to proceed.

Solicitor Durant proceeds to allege that commoner Zermine is not related to House Norrent and that even if she were, being born out of wedlock means that any claims by House Desperaux would supersede those of House Norrent.

Magistrate Fletcher reminds the court that the burden of proof of parentage is on the Defendants. Magistrate Fletcher then asks if the Defendants have any evidence they would like to submit.

Solicitor Letterman states that parentage can be proven by the obvious resemblance between Lady Norrent and commoner Zermine, a letter written by Lord Uther Norrent confessing to the affair with commoner Marille Zermine, and a diary by the latter that indicates no other lovers during the time of commoner Zermine’s conception.
Lord Desperaux interjects a comment speculating about the profession of commoner Marille Zermine.

Commoner Zermine protests vociferously but is cut short by Magistrate Fletcher’s pounding of her gavel.

Magistrate Fletcher asks the Defendants why the evidence is not currently present.

Solicitor Letterman states that the Defendants were wary of any attempts by the Claimant to destroy the written evidence.

Lord Desperaux asks whether the Defendants are questioning his honor and unsheathes one of his swords.

Lady Norrent stands up and plunges her rapier into the table before her without statement.

Magistrate Fletcher calls the court to order and fines Lady Norrent thirty gold sovereigns for the damages to court property. Magistrate Fletcher then adjourns the court until the sunset to allow for the Defendants to fetch the written evidence.

Magistrate Fletcher calls the court into session again.

Magistrate Fletcher asks the Defendants if they can now present the documents to the court.

Solicitor Letterman states that they can and proceeds to bring a letter and a diary to Magistrate Fletcher.

Solicitor Letterman is startled by a commotion outside the courthouse and drops the evidence.

Magistrate Fletcher demands to know what is going on outside.

A guardsman enters the courthouse and states that dark elves entered the city under cover of nightfall. The guardsman further explains that dark elves are now slaughtering the citizens of the city in the streets.

Five male dark elf warriors and one priestess enter the courthouse, armed and armored. The dark elves dispatch the guardsman at the door.

The Claimant and Defendants unsheathe their weapons and scream in rage. Magistrate Fletcher loudly orders the courtroom evacuated.

The scribe protests as the court has not been properly adjourned.

Magistrate Fletcher is killed by a crossbow bolt and fails to address the protest further.

Solicitor Durant runs screaming to the back door and is felled by a crossbow bolt as well. Solicitor Letterman cowers under a table.

The Defendants battle three of the dark elf warriors. Lady Norrent engages in swordplay with one while commoner Zermine flanks and stabs him in the back. Commoner Zermine then faces the other and parries several thrusts of the dark elf’s blades.

Lord Desperaux battles the dark elf priestess. Lord Desperaux appears to mortally wound the priestess and she goes falls to the ground, bleeding profusely. Two of the dark elf warriors strike at Lord Desperaux from the sides and Lord Desperaux collapses to his knees. One dark elf warrior strikes off Lord Desperaux’s head while the other takes aim at Lady Norrent with his crossbow.

Lady Norrent stumbles upon the impact of the bolt. The dark elf engaged in combat with Lady Norrent stabs the latter.

Commoner Zermine screams a term of endearment and turns from the dark elf she was fighting to jump on the dark elf that killed Lady Norrent. Commoner Zermine proceeds to stab him repeatedly in the face.

The remaining three dark elf warriors converge on and cut down commoner Zermine.

The dark elves approach the scribe, cleaning the blood from their blades, speaking to each other in their own tongue.

The scribe informs the dark elves that the court language is the Common Tongue and that they are entitled to an interpreter upon request.

The dark elves burst out laughing. One asks the scribe if the latter is still recording the proceedings.

The scribe confirms that he is.

Another dark elf incredulously demands if the scribe is writing down everything that happens, no matter what.

The scribe confirms that he must record the proceedings so long as the court has not been properly adjourned.

The dark elf repeats the last part of his previous query.

The scribe confirms that he must record the proceedings no matter what.

The dark elves look at each other with grins and speak excitedly in their own tongue. One does a handstand while another walks behind the scribe to see what is being written, then speaks in his own tongue again. All three laugh and the dark elf doing the handstand loses his balance and falls to the ground.

The remaining dark elf makes a series of lewd gestures with his hands. The dark elf standing behind the scribe makes comments in his own tongue again. More laughter.

The dark elf behind the scribe then walks over to the middle of the courthouse and proceeds to urinate on the floor. Then the dark elf demands of the scribe to record the measurements of his member.

The scribe declines on the grounds that only the court appraiser is eligible to perform legally accredited measurements.

The dark elf appears angered and approaches the scribe, only to fall to the ground after taking an arrow through the throat. The other two dark elves quickly turn around and engage two lawkeepers, one male and one female, that enter the courthouse. The lawkeepers cut down the dark elves in short order and call to a male archer standing at the doorway.

Solicitor Letterman emerges from the table he was hiding under and asks what is going on. The male lawkeeper informs those present that the city is under attack by dark elves and that citizens are being taken to safety.

Solicitor Letterman dusts off his robe and follows the lawkeepers out of the courthouse.

The female lawkeeper returns to the courthouse and demands if the scribe is still performing his duties.

The scribe confirms and asks for the lawkeeper’s name for the records.

The lawkeeper asks why while slapping her forehead with the palm of her hand.

The scribe explains that thus far, he has been referring to the female lawkeeper by title only and that the transcript of the proceedings would be less confusing if proper names were used to refer to the parties present.

The lawkeeper explains that she was inquiring as to why the scribe was still performing his duties.

The scribe states that it is a royal scribe’s solemn duty to record the proceedings until the court is properly adjourned. The lawkeeper cuts short an explanation of the reasons why records must be kept, identifies herself as Koralin of Westerbrandt, and assumes the powers of Magistrate Fletcher on grounds of extreme circumstances, pursuant to §55, clause 7.

Lawkeeper Westerbrandt declares a mistrial on account of the deaths of the Claimant and the Defendants and adjourns the court.
Last edited by Laerod on Wed Nov 05, 2014 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Conserative Morality
Post Kaiser
 
Posts: 76676
Founded: Aug 24, 2007
Ex-Nation

Postby Conserative Morality » Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:05 pm

Stupid, stupid, stupid...

I raised my hand to the door and knocked.

There's a point in every man's life when he wants nothing more than to throw everything away. His life. His hopes, his dreams, his future. I knocked again.

The handgun was heavy in my waistband, pressed against the small of my back, like the touch of a lover. Hidden under my suit jacket, like poison in a honeyed tongue.

The door cracked open to reveal a very pretty and very perturbed feminine face. "This is..." I looked at the card in my hand again. "this is Georgios Leonard's house?" She nodded stiffly. "Tembrin Stafalos. I'm an old friend of his. From university."

Immediately, she relaxed. "Oh, come on in." She smiled and opened the door enough so that I could enter. "I'm sorry, we just get so many solicitors in this part of town." I nodded as if I understood what that was like. "Georg!" She called "There's an old friend here to see you!" "He's just in the other room, do make yourself at home.

I turned the corner and nearly ran into him. "Oh." He said "Hey." He looked like a rabbit come face-to-face with a hound.

"Hey." I said "The broad... guessing she your wife?"

"Uh, yeah." He muttered "G-God, y-you just come out of nowhere after six years..."

"Seven now. I thought I'd drop by." I knocked on the counter. Nice, stone. Very posh. "You seem to be doing well."

"Yeah," He said "Yeah. Hah. You haven't done too bad either; I've seen you, uh, big-name journalist now. Camera, uh, catching the first shot of every battle." He sat down on the couch, rubbing his hands nervously.

I shrugged. "Waste of a good education." He motioned for me to sit down across from him. There was a quaint glass table between us, covered with the usual minutiae that seem mandatory for coffee tables – old papers, half-filled cups, knickknacks and tchotchkes. "Politics suit you." I said. They always did. "The coalition is looking to sweep the House, isn't it?"

"If everything goes according to plan, yeah." He scratched at his neck beneath his suit collar. "We've, uh, got a bill going through to... stop... political violence-"

I raised my hand to stop him. "Not really my area."

"Yeah. Yeah, of course." He stared down into his coffee. Remembering. Afraid that I remembered. Afraid that he knew I remembered. How could I forget?

How could I forget him?

He let a nervous little smile flit across his face. "Too busy trading gunfire all across the continent for politics." I gave a throaty little half-laugh. "Tembrin Stafalos, man of action at last. The army lost a good one." His smile was fuller now, but stretched. Expectant.

I smiled back at him. "Believe it or not, still haven't fired a shot. I don't even carry a gun. More trouble than its worth."

"Oh, the way you make it sound in those columns..."

"Ha. So you do read them..." I shook my head. "I make it sound the way I hear it. I'm just the recorder, not the orchestra."

"Ha, yeah." The phone rang. "Just a minute, I need to go-"

"Take your time," I said "I just... dropped in."

He wasn't long. Hardly more than minute of hushed speech passed before it ended. "Yeah. Yeah, of course." He put the phone down. "It's... been a long while. But... I've got a meeting with the Prime Minister in..." He took a superfluous glance at his watch. "ten, and I-I can't really-"

"I understand."

"We'll, uh, we'll have to get together sometime. Catch up."

"We'll have to." I smiled.

He stood up, extended his hand across the table. I followed suit, took his hand, shook it firmly.

It was nice, in a disappointing way. There was so little of either of us that was.... recognizable. He was nice, and I was nice, and everything was just... nice.

I couldn't wait to end it.
On the hate train. Choo choo, bitches. Bi-Polar. Proud Crypto-Fascist and Turbo Progressive. Dirty Étatist. Lowly Humanities Major. NSG's Best Liberal.
Caesar and Imperator of RWDT
Got a blog up again. || An NS Writing Discussion

User avatar
Vancon
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 9877
Founded: Mar 01, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby Vancon » Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:18 pm

I have some schoolwork to do in the coming days, but I'll start reading tomorrow, and grading on the weekend. Unless something unexpected happens.
Mike the Progressive wrote:You know I don't say this often, but this guy... he gets it. Like everything. As in he gets life.

Imperializt Russia wrote:
The balkens wrote:Please tell me that condoms and Hazelnut spread are NOT on the same table.

Well what the fuck do you use for lube?

Krazakistan wrote:How have you not died after being exposed to that much shit on a monthly basis?
Rupudska wrote:I avoid NSG like one would avoid ISIS-occupied Syria.
Alimeria- wrote:I'll go to sleep when I want to, not when some cheese-eating surrender monkey tells me to.

Which just so happens to be within the next half-hour

Shyluz wrote:Van, Sci-fi Generallisimo


U18 2nd Cutest NS'er 2015
Best Role Play - Science Fiction 2015: Athena Program

User avatar
Old Tyrannia
Game Moderator
 
Posts: 16673
Founded: Aug 11, 2009
Father Knows Best State

Postby Old Tyrannia » Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:38 pm

Finally finished, and just in time. Please enjoy.

The Knocking on the Door


I was reading when I heard the knock on the door.

It wasn’t anything very interesting, just the Sunday newspaper. I looked up from the paper and out the window, feeling somewhat bored, and cast a glance over the gently rolling hills of the north of England. The sunset dyed the scenery red and yellow and orange, setting the landscape on fire. Often as I sat alone in the living room, with only the occasional toll of the village church’s bells and the chirping of the birds for company, I wondered why I had moved out of the city, with its hustle and bustle, to this quiet, rural community out in the middle of nowhere. This was not one of those times; my feelings of tedium were quickly forgotten as I gazed out of the window, the beauty of the countryside reminding me why I had felt the need to flee the city with its dirty streets and narrow, claustrophobic passageways between the looming buildings. As a writer, I worked mainly from home, so moving hadn’t required me to find a new job; my comfortable detached house here in Yorkshire was not much more expensive than the flat I’d owned in the heart of London, and I was far happier here than I ever had been there. Each morning I rose to the sound of birdsong and filled my nostrils with fresh air.

Then I heard the knock. It startled me, and I stirred from my daydreams, rising from the couch and making my way across the room and out into the hallway, a narrow space dominated by the house’s magnificent stairway. Feeling oddly apprehensive about this unexpected visitor, I hesitated before opening the door, placing a hand on the handle before pausing. It was about half past seven in the afternoon, which was giving way to evening as the sun disappeared over the horizon and the temperature began to drop. I’d lived here about a year now, and received so few visitors in that time that I felt somewhat uneasy whenever there was an unexpected knock on the door. My neighbours rarely called, and my only family still lived in the south-east; I somehow doubted that they’d travel 200 miles just to call in unannounced.

Suddenly struck by how ridiculous my reluctance was, I summoned up sufficient courage to open the door.

“Mr Blackbury?” the visitor asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’m Vaughan Blackbury. Can I help you?”

My visitor was a small man, twice the height of a Rottweiler but every bit as vicious looking. He was pale, and wore a double-breasted black woollen coat with a black fedora sitting lopsidedly on his head, casting his upper face in shadow. I thought his eyes might be brown, and he had a heavy dark-brown moustache speckled with grey sprouting from his upper lip. Hair fell messily down the back of his neck to his shoulders. My eyes wandered from his face down to the package he held in his hand; an innocuous parcel, wrapped up in brown paper with string, perhaps about the length and width of a brick.

“I am afraid I have some bad news for you,” the man told me. He had an unusual accent that was hard to place; eastern European, perhaps? I nodded my head slowly, realising that my gaze was still fixated on the object he was holding in his hand. Embarrassed by my poor manners, I tore it away to once again focus on the man’s face. I opened my mouth, only to find I had no words to say; after a brief and awkward silence, the man went on, “it is my regrettable task to inform you, Mr Blackbury, that your aunt Hilde died three days ago in Prague.”

“I… I don’t have an Aunt Hilde…” I stammered, cursing my awkwardness. The man might have raised an eyebrow; it was hard to tell with half of his face obscured by the shadow of the wide brim of his hat.

“You are Vaughan Eliot Blackbury, son of Ethan Blackbury and Rachael Atkinson, yes?”

“Those are my parents’ names,” I conceded. The little man nodded vigorously, and for a moment I feared his ridiculous black hat would fall off his head. Somehow I didn’t want to get a clearer look at his face. The man then said, “Your mother’s older sister, Ms Hilde Atkinson, passed away at her home in Prague three days ago. She told me that she had not spoken to your mother in many years, and had not seen you since you were born. However, she had your address, and she requested that I deliver this parcel and letter to you upon her death. She was a very dear friend.”

He shoved out his hands and thrust the package towards me; I took it instinctively before my mind was able to form any words of protest. He then dropped a large envelope marked only with my given name on top of the parcel, and turned to leave.

“Wait a minute!” I cried after him, “You haven’t told me what’s in the parcel!”

“I do not know,” he replied without turning around.

“Well, can you at least tell me how my aunt died?”

“I believe it was cancer.”

These last words were shouted, as by now the little man had made it to the end of the garden path and was turning sharply right, disappearing behind the high hedge, leaving me gaping after him from my front porch with a heavy brown package and a slightly bashed letter in my arms. Left bemused at the surreal circumstances I now found myself in, I turned around and walked back into my hallway with the calm, deliberate walk of someone desperately trying to convince himself that he is in control of the situation. I closed the front door, began to move towards the living room, hesitated, and then turned to lock the door. The part of my mind that was still capable of rational thought poured scorn on my sudden discomfort, but another, darker part of my mind whispered that I didn’t have anything to fear out there- the danger was now in here, with me. I sat down in the living room, and put the parcel down on the coffee table in front of me.

I didn’t have an aunt named Hilde, on either side of my family… at least, not so far as I was aware. But then, I had never known much about my maternal roots; Grandpa Atkinson has died when I was young, only about three or four years old, and Grandma Atkinson had died some years before I was born. I had always simply assumed that my mother had been an only child. But the stranger had known my parents’ names, and my address. How had he known my address?

I grasped the letter, tearing open the envelope. An impatient hunger for information seemed to suddenly take over from my prior wariness, and I became desperate to know what was in the parcel. Even so, like a well behaved child at a birthday party, I felt obligated to open my card before turning my attention to the infinitely more interesting matter of the parcel.
I opened the letter.

The paper was slightly stained and somewhat crumpled. There was no address, just a date in the top right-hand corner- it was dated from six days ago. The writing was an inelegant, hasty scrawl, and the grammar and spelling were abysmal; but the style of the script reminded me oddly of my mother’s. Thanks to my one time teaching career, I was well acquainted with poor writing, and had little difficulty reading my secret aunt’s drawl. The letter read:

To my dearest nephew, V.,

I do regret not having written earlier to you. please do forgive my poor spelling and grammar, as I am writing in a great hurry and it has been a v. long time since last I wrote a letter. it would not surprise me if you did not know who I am, as you’re mother and I have not been on the greatest of terms for many years now. it is a conseqence, as you will now learn, of a great argument we had following you’re grandfathers death, but even before then we were not close and I rarely saw you even when I was permited to visit.

Our family have a v. long history. in the olden days, our forefathers were what people then named “cunning folk,” and were reputed to know of magickal arts. our ancestors supplied people in the past with “spells” and trad. medicine. it was the case, in those days, that poor people would often go to such people for help when they were ill, as doctors were few and expensive. however, most of what these “cunning folk” sold them was simply tricks. including, I am shamed to say, our ancestors. however, in the 17th century, an ancestor of ours named Obadiah Atkinson acquired a v. old and interesting book which was reputed to be a grimoire- or book of magick- written long ago in Germany. Old Obadiah purchased this book as a simple prop for his “magick spells” to impress common, ill-edicated persons, and did not believe in its true powers.

However, after he purchased this book, Old Obadiah began to have v. strange dreams which he described in a v. old manuscript that i came into possession of some years ago but which was lost in a strange fire. in these dreams, he saw strange dancing figures circling a flame, and bidding him to join them. in time, he said, he felt a strange compulsion to join the dancers thoigh at first he was terrified of them. sensing that the source of his disturbence was the book he had purchased, he attempted to sell it, but no man would buy it. he then tried to burn the book, but found he could not bring himself to commit the act. finally he tried to bury the book in a field, but that v. night, the dreams were worse than ever before, and when he awoke, he was out in a field in his nightclothes with a shovel, and the book on his chest!

Finally, Old Obadiah chose to accept his fate, and passed the book down to his son, who passed it on to his son, etc, so that the cursed book was passed through the Atkinson family down the generations. the book’s rightful heir- the eldest son of the previous owner or the oldest daughter if the owner had no sons or otherwise the next living relative- would always feel compelled to claim and keep it, even if he or she did not want it. and every owner of the book, inc. my own father, had the same queer dreams as Old Obadiah. father told myself and you’re mother this story when we were children, but you’re mother never believed it, and truly neither did I even though we often heard father cry out at night when he was woken from the dream. as we had no brothers and I was older than you’re mother, it was I who was left the book upon your grandfather’s death. it was then that I too had the dreams, and finally came to believe that my father was telling the truth. i tried to tell you’re mother, but she would not listen, she said that i was imaging things because of what our father had told us and finally that she would not let me see you or your sister anymore if i kept harping on about nonsense.

I was much saddened to hear of your mothers death so young, but now i fear that you are next in line to inherit this accursed book. i only send it to you with this letter because i have studied the book’s history and found that the nightmares always come to the rightful owner anyway and eventually drive them to seek out and claim the book, even if they do not know of its existence. no member of our family has ever attempted to use the spells in the book as far as i know. though i learnt German here in the Czech Republic, i have never tried to read anything in the book as i have always been too afraid. i kept the book in a sealed box and never opened it though i do not know if this helped. the only other thing i must tell you is that you must never go with the dancers. somehow i just know that terrible things will happen if you go with the dancers in the dream.

Again i am sorry for thrusting this upon you my nephew. God bless and keep you safe from evil.

Your loving aunt,
Hilde.


Once again, I felt like my rational mind was struggling against a growing sense of dread, a cold feeling that crawled up my spine and extended its tendrils down my arms. I shuddered, although it was warm in my living room, and pulled myself to my feet. This had to be a joke. It couldn’t be real. A secret aunt, a mysterious book… it was as if I had found myself dragged into the world of some second rate novel. I picked up the parcel, and held it for a moment, at once eager to open it and deeply apprehensive; finally, I tore my way through layers of brown paper, revealing a leathery surface with unusual swirling patterns engraved upon it. I pulled away the rest of the wrapping.

It was a book.

No, it was the book.

I undid the book’s clasp with trembling fingers, internally reassuring myself that this must all be some kind of elaborate trick. I lifted the cover; the first page had browned with age, and I realised that it was made of parchment, rather than paper. The writing was in German, as my alleged aunt had described, but I recognised it as an older version of the language than that spoken today. Needless to say, being no medievalist, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the text, but my intellectual curiosity overcame my fear and I continued to flick through the pages of the book. Clearly, my aunt had not been completely delusional- this was an old book, and likely valuable. I noted the bizarre diagrams, showing pentagrams, circles and other symbols, and felt another of those cold shudders slither up my back. Outside, darkness was falling, and I had to turn on the lamp by the side of my chair to continue looking through the grimoire’s pages. As I ran my eyes over the book’s pages in sombre fascination, I came upon a print that covered an entire page, an image of a tall, dark figure with grotesque features. A sudden noise roused me from my spellbound state, and I snapped the book closed, dropping it onto the coffee table in fright. I stood up, and looked around the room; the old ornamental fireplace, the familiar dull cream walls and the sideboard served to reassure me. I felt a sudden chill in the air, and then I realised the window was still open and hurried to close it. I then looked back to the book.
Carefully, almost reverently, I picked it up and placed it on a high shelf on the bookcase to the right of the living room door.

I resolved to call my father to ask about “Aunt Hilde” in the morning. If indeed she was an eccentric blood relative, forbidden to see me by my mother out of fear that she’d pass her odd fears and obsessions onto her young nephew, perhaps she’d left me with an inheritance more valuable than she could have realised. I felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the old woman, left alone with her ghosts in a foreign country, cut off from her family by her delusions. At least, I thought, she obviously had some good friends- or at the very least, one good friend, who was willing to travel across Europe to fulfil her dying request. Odd as he might have seemed, I found myself warming to the strange man who had gone to such extreme lengths out of affection for an old friend. English obviously wasn’t his first language; perhaps his reticence to speak was because his grasp of our tongue was limited. Perhaps he had been as embarrassed and bamboozled by my aunt’s queer request as I had been.

Pushing these thoughts to the back of my mind, I decided to go take a long shower before retiring to bed, and perhaps reading for a little while or watching some television. Somehow, I doubted that I would manage to fall asleep unless I managed to distract myself from the unusual happenings of the last hour or so.




I awoke to the sound of music drifting in through my window. Still drowsy, I lay awake for a while, hoping to slip back into sleep. Instead, after many long minutes staring at the ceiling I slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of trousers and a t-shirt before going downstairs to make myself a cup of warm milk. I fumbled around in the dark kitchen until I found the light switch; a pale light came on with an accompanying hum. The music was still audible, and as my curiosity grew I strained to hear it; I think I took a cup out of the closet, but I can’t be sure, as my mind was enraptured by this eerie melody and I was scarcely paying attention to what my hands were doing. I turned and walked out of the kitchen into the hallway, grabbing my coat from the rack and slipping on a pair of slippers. The music was coming from behind the house, out over the moors; I entered my living room and went to the window, looking out over the dark shapes of the hills that so resembled slumbering monsters in the dark of the night. I felt a sudden determination to track the music to its source, and so I went to the back door and opened it, stepping out into the cold embrace of night.

At the bottom of my garden, there was a gate. I walked towards it, passing the familiar flowerbeds, the old rusting wheelbarrow that I had left lying around for months, the half-finished pond I had been creating and which at present amounted to little more than a large hole in the ground. The wilderness beyond the garden’s ordered boundaries seemed to summon me, and its call was the most beautiful of melodies. I heard pipes in the distance playing an exotic yet familiar sounding tune filled with sorrow, and I thought that the gentle, mournful voice of a woman could be heard over the sound. I stopped at the gate to listen, and there I tarried for an age before the enchantment of the music overcame my paralysing fear and brought me through the gate. I closed it behind me, and set off out towards the moors, climbing the hills that rose above my little garden.

I took a deep breath, and the cold air filling my lungs felt like a thousand needles in my chest. The hills were black silhouettes against the deep navy blue of the night’s sky. The stars were countless pinpricks of light filling the sky, visible out here in the countryside in their full glory. I scrambled up the hill in the dark, panting, until I reached the crest. Pausing to catch my breath, I cast my gaze out over the moors. The glow of orange flames nestled among some of the mounds in the distance beckoned me, and the song grew ever louder, the music echoing across the Yorkshire countryside. As I awkwardly descended down the side of the hill, briars tearing at my ankles, I felt an odd cocktail of emotions; terror, excitement and curiosity danced through my head. I tripped on an outcrop of rock, falling into the wet mud which I pulled myself up from indignantly. Mud caked my hands and the front of my coat; I only had one remaining slipper, which was muddy and slashed to pieces by thorns. The second slipper slipped off in the mud, and I limped on barefooted. I smelt the subtle scent of burning wood, and raised my head to look around; I was close now to the flames, and I could see flickering shadows dancing on the hillsides all around the fire. I could not see the mysterious singer yet, but the music was louder than ever, drowning out my fears and inhibitions, filling my mind and soul. Through the mud I trekked, drawing closer to the flickering flames. I was bathed in an orange glow by the fire; as I approached the full size of the pyre became clear, a mound of burning wood and straw thrice or more the height of a man. The heat was almost unbearable. The pipes played ever louder, their sorrowful music flowing over the moors. I could hear bells now, too; their ringing was a comforting sound, beckoning me forward. I could see the dancers now, dozens of them, dancing around the flames in a state of sinister ecstasy. I saw among them the singer, a fair women dressed in a simple white gown with long red hair. She sang so beautifully, so mournfully, all other music seemed just then to be no more than ugly noise; and yet such was the sadness it aroused within me, I felt my heart shatter with every note. Her song captured the entirety of the universe, its wonder, its beauty and its coldness. Despite the heat radiating from the blazing fire, I felt my body turn to ice.

The dancers were laughing now. Two grabbed me by my arms, and began to pull me forwards towards the flames. I offered no resistance. Tears froze on my cold face, my resolve crumbling before the onslaught of the music on my senses. Summoning what little power I still possessed over my body, I tore my eyes away from the fire and the strange dancers and I threw my head up to the sky above, millions of stars staring back down at me, cold and distant. The laughter of the dancers was a harsh cackling, interspersed with snippets of a language I could not decode. It was harsh and guttural, in stark contrast to the ethereal tones of the woman who continued to sing and dance around the flames. Her voice was higher, shriller now; I felt as if the bizarre performance was reaching its climax. Suddenly, I felt another hand on my shoulder. My dressing gown slipped down by arm as one of the two dancers grabbed my sleeve to pull me towards the flame, and so I could feel the ice cold touch of the third dancer’s hand settle on my shoulder. I turned around in alarm, and was shocked to be greeted with the unmistakable, if alarmingly aged, visage of my mother.

“Mother?” I asked first of all in a cracked whisper, the word lost to the wind; then, as my mind seemed to regain a small degree of clarity, I asked instead, “Aunt Hilde?” The third dancer smiled, displaying an array of yellowed, crooked teeth, and nodded.

“Vaughan,” she gasped, “my boy, you must not go to the flames. You must never go to the flames. I did, when I was sick and dying and thought I had nothing more to lose, though Father warned- oh, yes, he warned me again and again against it! But They have me now; and They won’t let me go. They’ll force me to dance with them, every night, and watch their twisted rituals… You must not walk into the fire. He’ll be angry; He’ll come after you, but you’ll get away, don’t worry. Just run. Run, Vaughan. God bless you, and run- oh, run!”

I stammered, unsure what to say in response to this outburst; I had so many questions- who was “he?” Who were “they?” What was this place? How was I even speaking to a woman who supposedly died three days ago? But I was shaken from my confusion by a violent tug on my shirt, and I turned around to look into the face of one of the dancers who had been pulling me towards the fires before. What I saw filled me with dread, and broke forever the strange hold that the music had on me.

I stared into the face of a dead man. Darkness stared back at me through empty eye sockets, and the skin around his mouth had rotted and peeled away to leave him- or her, or it- with a hideous, permanent grin. Tuffs of yellowish hair still clung to the abomination’s grey, cracked, bloodied scalp. Clawlike nails dug into my skin, drawing blood; I let out a silent cry and summoned all my strength to push the creature away. The other was approaching, now; this one wore an archaic dress, but her expression was the same- that horrible, unchanging grin, those dark, blank eyes. Her nose was missing, too; long scars marred her ghostly white face. She might have been beautiful once, but now I felt sick casting my gaze over her, and began to rapidly back away in a hurry. I turned and saw my aunt being dragged away by a group of similar monsters wearing a range of bizarre costumes as if they had been plucked from every period of history, from the marbled glory of ancient Rome to smoking Napoleonic battlefields. There were dozens of them, the oldest little more than yellowing skeletons shrouded in the ragged remains of their clothing. No longer paralysed, I started forward to aid my aunt, but she cried out to run and save myself, as there was no hope for her. I turned to the singing woman, remembering her beautiful face and mournful singing. Surely she couldn’t be one of these wraiths? Perhaps, if I could reach her, she, my aunt and I might be able to escape together. She sung still, and I could make out the syllables of her song now, but the language she sang in was alien to me. But as I lay eyes on her, I realised with mounting horror that she was no longer beautiful maiden I had perceived previously; those empty, dark sockets stared at me across the moor, dried blood running from the holes to her chin. The beautiful locks of red hair were still there, but her faced was ravaged with scars, and her gown was torn and bloodied; I saw her heart beating in her chest behind her exposed ribcage. I finally screamed out loud, my cry piercing the night and mingling with the dead girl’s wailing voice to produce a bizarre and terrible requiem.

I staggered backwards, the circus of horrors around me almost too much to bear. Fully awakened from the spell that had held me enraptured by the strange and awful music, I saw that everything I had previously found so beautiful and alluring was in fact horrific. Were these the souls of the books’ previous owners, forever trapped here in this awful nightmare realm? I looked at the great fire at the heart of the circle of revellers, and to my surprise I saw a door materialise amidst the flames. It glowed an angry red like hot metal, and the frame was an ornately decorated arch; I looked on in wonder.

“Run, run!” pleaded my aunt. “Why are you still here? Run, Vaughan!”

I turned to see her being dragged towards the door. I let out a silent cry of horror, eyes widening, as I realised she was going to be thrown into the flames. I started to run towards her, but then everything changed.

The door opened.

It opened slowly with a creak that became a shriek, and my aunt looked through it in horror. I realised then- how, I don’t know- that all of these dancers had walked through the door once before, and had returned to this dimension not fully whole. They could never remain here; something sinister now owned them, and it lay beyond that accursed flaming door. I stopped running and dropped to my knees as long tendrils of darkness extended from the doorway and wrapped themselves around my aunt’s terrified form; she screamed at me to run and save myself even as she was dragged through the portal, the… thing on the other side letting out a shriek of triumph. I felt a rush of adrenaline, and pulled myself to my feet, ignoring the aching that had begun to set in from my long hike here. I was breathless, but found sufficient oxygen to break into a sprint, turning and running away from the thing that was coming through the doorway. I saw its shadow, sinister and alien, dance upon the hills, highlighted by the orange glow of the fire; I saw too the shadows of the dancers as those shambling corpses lumbered behind. That awful shriek filled the air again. I don’t think I had ever run as fast before in my life as I did then, though my mind still raced ahead of my body, struggling to make sense of the myriad of terrors I had witnessed. I knew with grim conviction that the book was the source of all these phantasms, and I resolved solemnly to burn it as soon as I reached my home. I scrambled again up and down the hills of the Yorkshire moors, but not once did I trip or falter; my bare feet were cut to pieces, but I paid no heed. Finally, I saw my garden come into sight, but still I heard the shrieking behind me and almost felt the touch of those sinister tendrils gently brushing against the back of my neck, sending a cold sensation reverberating through my body.

Finally I passed through the garden gate, pulling the gate shut behind me, and jogged down the garden path to my house. I entered and slammed the back door behind me, immediately locking it. Still feeling pumped with adrenaline, I moved across the room towards the high bookshelf where the book sat, patiently awaiting me. I pulled it from its position and stared at it for a moment in disbelief, shaking violently. To see the artefact now, after the events of the night, was like seeing it- truly seeing it- for the first time.

I heard a scratching on the back door. A low rumble reverberated through the house. It- the thing from the doorway, the monster my aunt called he- was outside. The back door began to shake, and there was a tremendous thud as it knocked on the door. I clutched the book to my chest and sank, shaking, to my knees. I might have sobbed. I might have prayed, for the first time in years. I felt like I was there for an eternity, but eventually, the sun’s golden light began to creep through the curtains, and as dawn arrived, the noise stopped, and the creature was gone. Even so, fear held me there in that position, quivering, long after all signs of that monstrous presence had ceased. I must have spent hours crawled up there in the corner of my living room, clinging to the grimoire for dear life, before the silence and stillness of morning were shattered by the ringing of the telephone. Weakly pulling myself to my feet, I ambled over to the phone and picked it up, answering with a quiet “good morning.”

My father’s voice replied, in measured, reassuring tones. He told me that my mother was travelling to Europe for a funeral, that of an aunt of mine they had not seen or heard from in many years, and whom my mother had always avoided mentioning. He asked me if I was alright, as I sounded as if something was wrong; nothing was wrong, I replied, I was just tired. The lie rolled easily off my tongue. I could tell he was unconvinced from the tone of his voice, but he didn’t push me for further answers. After he hung up, I picked up the book again and, filled with sudden strength and determination, went out the back- still barefoot and wearing naught but what I’d pulled on hastily last night- gathered some twigs. I went into the kitchen to find a box of matches, and then walked back outside again. I lit one match and dropped it onto the pile of twigs. I picked the book up and prepared to throw it on the flames, but hesitated, feeling a deep, inexplicable sense of unease about what I was about to do. Instead, I snuffed out the flame, took the book inside, found an empty box and put it inside. That day I drove to the nearest large town and bought a padlock for the box, which I hid beneath my bed. Two months later I moved hurriedly back to the centre of London, into a tiny flat in a busy area, with millions of people around me. I still dream every night of the door and the fire, the dancers and the thing from the doorway. I know I must never go through door, because if I do, not all of me will return. I don’t understand why this happened to me, or how; I don’t know if I was dreaming that night, or if it was any more real than the nightmares that have always haunted me since. I do know that I will always regret opening the door to that strange little man, and what haunts me the most is still that dreadful knock, knock, knocking on the door.
"Classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion" (T.S. Eliot). Still, unaccountably, a NationStates Moderator.
"Have I done something for the general interest? Well then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book XI, IV)
⚜ GOD SAVE THE KING

User avatar
Nerotysia
Minister
 
Posts: 2149
Founded: Jul 26, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby Nerotysia » Tue Nov 04, 2014 6:58 pm

Not my best work, but all my other stuff is being reserved for other things. Ah well, I don't totally hate it.

To Massacre the Drunks

The man will disappear with a flurry of his mud-brown coat.

He will turn from the ruined man, the man he had ruined, and stride quickly into the drenching rain away from the softly flowing river, and he will stuff his hands in his pockets and crush the thoughts in his mind.

Was it really worth it?

He will ask himself relentlessly, as insistent as the pounding rain, as his boots clop across cobbled roads, traveling alongside the river. The howling winds of the storm will begin to kick up sprays of river water, flinging clinging droplets into the air with such gusto one would think God was angry at this river. The man will walk quicker and quicker in time with his pulse, as the nagging question pulls and twists his mind, his breath coming in faster icy gasps.

Yes it was. Calm yourself, fool.

The man’s breathing will ease slightly as he remembers his options had been limited. His orders had been to ruin the man. The Oversight would have no disobedience. And besides, beyond the words of the Oversight, there were the man’s actions. His raucous rabble-rousing in city bars, breaking at least three noses per week in drunken rages. He would burp and blare his insolence at the world. He would vomit acid and beer into the river, which now settled in accordance with the gentler winds. So yes, the man probably deserved his ruination. He was, after all, a nuisance.

The man would breathe easier still, until his exhalations no longer even misted in the blazingly cold air. Order was of utmost importance. The drunks did nothing to help this city, what with their guttural voices and beer-laden tongues which would spout utter nonsense. This man was surely nothing more than a nuisance.

What the man won’t consider is the boy, the son of the drunk, who just after the ruination will be pitter-pattering his way through the drenched cobbling of the city, searching for his father. He often had to do this searching, and he had become expert at rousing his father from his drooling hangovers by the riverside. They would then trudge home, father and son, so that the father could work and the son could work and the mother could work, but all in different ways. The father would make hungover attempts at bonding, softly spewing some supposed wisdom or softly speaking of his younger years. He always spoke softly in these walks home, as embarrassment had now taken the place of alcohol in his mind. The boy saw these halfhearted attempts for what they were, but still appreciated them. He would give his father little smiles, little comforting understanding smiles, and listen with ears perked.

However tonight would be different, of course, as the pitter-pattering boy will discover when he nearly pitter-patters right over his father’s blood-crusted body. The boy will glance down, notice the jade glint of his father’s signature wedding ring, and fall to his scab-stained knees. His tears will fall salty and stagnant into his mouth which is kept open with silent screams which startle even God.

Meanwhile a woman will have begun walking alongside the man, the man with the mud-brown trench coat which is fluttering in the gentle winds. The nub of a cigar will flare up at the edge of the woman’s tongue.

So, you did it? I thought you were having qualms, Daniel.

The man will walk slightly faster in an attempt to outrun the woman’s coaxing voice, the kind of voice a practiced prostitute uses to lure drunks into her groin. However the woman will keep up, the knife-like heels of her shoes tip-tapping on the slippery cobbling.

I thought you were having qualms. I thought you were even considering opposition. Murdering for the crime of being drunk, hadn’t you said it was ridiculous?

The man will spit his defiance into the river, draw the brim of his dripping hat downwards, and walk even faster. The winds will pick up again, rolling into the man’s face and body from the front like a great wave of water. The river will begin kicking again, like a babe at its mother’s womb.

You changed your mind, did you? Seems awfully –

Stop!

Finally the man will have responded, a bitten response slipping just between his clenched teeth. He could feel the doubt unspooling itself back into him, and he mustn’t allow it back in. He stopped walking along with his Stop! And the woman will skid at the unexpected halt, kicking up moisture that was clinging to the glistening cobble. She will gaze bemusedly at the back of the man’s head, where his curly night-black hair will fall from his hat. Her mouth will be stretched into a lazy sort of smile, the kind of smile one reserves for arrogant children.

I will have no talk of it.

And then the man will continue walking, leaving the woman standing there, blowing circles of smoke into the shadowed air.

Throughout all this the boy will trudge back home all alone, without his father, and he will let his tears drip into the cobbling and mix with the rainwater and sink into the ground, forgotten. And on the way home the boy will be knocked into a merchant’s cart by a passerby, and the merchant will curse and scream at the boy and his newly acquired cabbage stains. The boy will lie in the cart for a little bit, feeling his eyes burn with newly-arrived tears, wanting to just dissolve into the kiss of sleep. But the merchant will roughly yank him up and out of the cracked and cracking wood. And the boy will finish his lonely trek home.

For seven weeks and seven months the boy will stew in wrenching tears and smoldering temper. His eyes will be drooping with dark baggage, and slowly his face will curl in on itself, pulling the mouth into tight lips. And he will stew and steam and he will purchase a stubby black pistol, gleaming with garnish, the metal straight and taut in the shop’s light. He will hide the pistol and his three polished gleaming bullets under his pillow at night, like teeth for the tooth fairy, and he will continue to stew and steam. And gradually he will fixate a single face in his mind, the face of the Supreme Overseer, which looks sternly down at the patchwork peasantry from propaganda posters plastered all over the town.

During this time the man, Daniel, will become the most effective drunk ripper of them all, and many men will see the flapping of his mud-brown coat as he strides away from their blood-crusted bodies. And after seven weeks and seven months, the man will attend an award ceremony in Oversight Square, where he will receive the Supreme Oversight Award for Oversight. He will stand fidgeting in the sun’s stark rays, just in front of the sputtering fountain at the heart of the Square, and he will glance nervously around at the ranks of black-clothed soldiers assembled to witness the ceremony.

Then the Overseer himself will appear, the same robed face which stares down at the peasantry from propaganda, and he will walk laboriously up to the man. In his powdered gloves the Overseer will hold the gleaming medal, shining under the onslaught of the sun while the Overseer himself sweats under the same onslaught. The sun will simmer the very air around the Square, and the pungent odor of sweat will permeate the proceedings. And the Overseer will finally reach the man, wheezing and shaking with the exertion, and he will carefully pin the shining medal onto the man’s breast, and the man will stand with the medal over his heart as the assembled soldiers clap. The man will try to let the thunderous applause drown out the woman’s voice in his mind, which has grown louder and louder with each dead drunk.

Suddenly a single clap, louder than the rest, will ring out in the Square. It will sound as though the man responsible for the clap must have a great talent for clapping, for the clap will be so incisive it will split the thunderous applause down the middle like a bolt of lightning. It will echo into the ears of canaries perched on curling black streetlamps, and they will scatter like they were trying to escape a collapsing mine.

And as all the soldiers wonder at this extraordinary clap, something even more extraordinary will happen. The Overseer will drop dead to the ground, blood spurting from his lapels as if they were hoses. And then the thunder will roll again into the Square, and in the frenzy the boy will be crushed under the clomp of soldierly boots as they search for the assassin. The boy will be crushed and the smoking gun will roll from his fragile fingers and clatter onto the ground, shattering the frenzy. And the soldiers will converge on the gun, ignoring the crumpled body of the boy like it was a piece of paper thrown to the wind.

And the Commander of the soldiers, once he examines the gun, will decide that the assassin must have been a foreign spy. And so a great search commenced, soldiers cracking the cobblestone streets under the intensity of their marching. They search high and low, but mostly low, and they find nothing. Meanwhile the man, Daniel, will break into where the assassin’s gun is stored and shoot himself in the brains. And all his thoughts and ideas and the nagging woman’s voice will be splattered onto the pristine swirly marble of the Oversight Palace.

The woman herself will still be blowing sparks into the air with her cigar, pinching it between two red-painted fingernails and then blowing whorls of smokiness into the air. And she will find the body of the man, and the bemused smile will not have left her face, and she will blow more smoke whorls at the body. Later she will lose all her money and fall into destitution, but never will she forget the dead man.

In the end, the soldiers will find nothing but fuming peasantry and fuming nobility in their search. The crusade against drunks will cease, for now the soldiers and the disciples of the dead Overseer will need to crusade against revolutionaries, who will crawl from every corner like termites in a great chewed out log. And thus the assassin will have sparked the revolution which will replace the Oversight.

The revolutionaries will also fail, however. They, too, will massacre the drunks amidst storms of wind and rain. It will be hilariously ironic.

User avatar
Volnotova
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 8214
Founded: Nov 08, 2010
Ex-Nation

Postby Volnotova » Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:01 pm

Wait, the deadline is till 24:00 GMT... right?

...right? :(
A very exclusive and exceptional ice crystal.

A surrealistic alien entity stretched thin across the many membranes of the multiverse.
The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace wrote:You are the most lawful neutral person I have ever witnessed.


Polruan wrote:It's like Humphrey Applebee wrote a chapter of the Talmud in here.

User avatar
Vancon
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 9877
Founded: Mar 01, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby Vancon » Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:06 pm

Volnotova wrote:Wait, the deadline is till 24:00 GMT... right?

...right? :(

Technically it would be 8:00 am GMT. Or rather 7:59 am GMT.
Mike the Progressive wrote:You know I don't say this often, but this guy... he gets it. Like everything. As in he gets life.

Imperializt Russia wrote:
The balkens wrote:Please tell me that condoms and Hazelnut spread are NOT on the same table.

Well what the fuck do you use for lube?

Krazakistan wrote:How have you not died after being exposed to that much shit on a monthly basis?
Rupudska wrote:I avoid NSG like one would avoid ISIS-occupied Syria.
Alimeria- wrote:I'll go to sleep when I want to, not when some cheese-eating surrender monkey tells me to.

Which just so happens to be within the next half-hour

Shyluz wrote:Van, Sci-fi Generallisimo


U18 2nd Cutest NS'er 2015
Best Role Play - Science Fiction 2015: Athena Program

User avatar
Volnotova
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 8214
Founded: Nov 08, 2010
Ex-Nation

Postby Volnotova » Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:08 pm

Vancon wrote:
Volnotova wrote:Wait, the deadline is till 24:00 GMT... right?

...right? :(

Technically it would be 8:00 am GMT. Or rather 7:59 am GMT.


GFD is British, hence why I was thinking of GMT. :p
A very exclusive and exceptional ice crystal.

A surrealistic alien entity stretched thin across the many membranes of the multiverse.
The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace wrote:You are the most lawful neutral person I have ever witnessed.


Polruan wrote:It's like Humphrey Applebee wrote a chapter of the Talmud in here.

User avatar
Super-Llamaland
Senator
 
Posts: 3997
Founded: Jan 11, 2012
Democratic Socialists

Postby Super-Llamaland » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:18 pm

Diplomatic Horror

Author’s Note: This uses many Diplomacy terms. Diplomacy is a seven-player game set in 1901 Europe. I’ve provided a map you can use to figure out how the game usually goes at http://www.diplom.org/Online/maps/map_c.gif
. Also, “England” refers to the player who plays England and not the country.

Green Oaks, Minnesota in February was not a pleasant place, but twenty-one people from around the nation showed up to play in the James Shiffett Memorial Diplomacy Tournament anyways. Coming from the other side of Lake Michigan, I would have been used to it, but the dark manor (Shiffett's old home, I was informed) had absolutely no heating, and as such we shivered.

The event had absolutely no prestige whatsoever, and as such the players mostly ranged from “clueless” to a euphemistic “amateur”. I found this out when, in my first match, Austria attempted to attack non-neighboring France! As Italy, I quickly captured Austria and Turkey, then made my final gains towards the victory by heading north with the help of my ally, who was playing France and seemed eager to spite the German.

Germany had managed to stir up a feeble resistance from a few moribund players, delaying the end of the game by nearly an hour. He was competent and absolutely furious at me, and I was glad he wouldn’t be playing in the finals.

We walked up to the main hall in hostile silence. It was the French player, unsurprisingly, who broke it.

“Name’s Jonathan Taylor,” he said as we sized each other up. He was lean and of average height, with cordial blue eyes.

“Ash Donaldson,” I replied automatically, while the German remained ill-temperedly silent save for an occasional scathing glare. We reported our results in the main lodge, and I finally learned the names of my first opponents. None of them stuck in my mind, however. It’s a pity, the police had told me later, that one of few surviving witnesses would be unable to recall them.

The game was slated to begin at five o’clock sharp, with food delivered one hour later. The players filed in slowly, we introduced ourselves, and the game quickly began.

Jonathan and I decided early on that we would keep up our alliance from the game before if possible and end in the honorable two-way draw, and we lucked out, drawing Russia for me and Turkey for him. Immediately the Austrian player, who insisted we call him Franz and nothing else, was set upon and began to slowly bleed territory. Besides this, the only other thing I remember was the atmosphere - the food had yet to arrive, and the room, which was the only one with heating, buzzed with cheery anticipation.

And then the beleaguered Franz finally surrendered his final unit to be removed from the board. A three-pronged attack from the two of us, plus some help from Italy, had swiftly trapped his final units, and he grimly filled out his final orders of the tournament on a scrap of paper: “Trieste Army disbands, Budapest Army disbands…”
Sure enough, his final marks were the first orders to be read aloud as we clustered around France. “Trieste army disbands,” he read.
The lights went off as one. The storm had cut a power line. Next to me, Jonathan inhaled sharply.
“...uh, Budapest Army disbands as well.” he continued awkwardly. “That cuts Austria down to no units. Well, er, good game-”
Franz collapsed.


Immediately the room went silent as the six players remaining rushed towards him.

Franz lay on the ground, arm pinned under his prone body. After a stunned pause, Germany ran over and checked his pulse.
“Dead,” he said. As expected.

“Do we keep playing?” Italy said after another pause.
We stared at him.
“I mean, it’s likely to be an isolated incident…” the player mumbled. “I can’t imagine somebody killing for this trophy; it’s hardly a prestigious event.”
He had spoken correctly, of course, but when we did resume play minutes later (the food never arrived, of course; neither did a candle, and so we played in the cold dark), death hung in the air.

England had been ganged up on by France and Germany while Franz had still been alive. He’d been cordial, letting them keep going, but now, on the verge of elimination, his sangfroid shattered. He pounded at the door, but to no avail. It, of course, was bolted shut.

We’d kept quiet as he pleaded to France and Germany, tried to note dispassionately, without panic, their shakes of the head. With one turn to go and the only fleet remnant of his once-proud navy condemned to exile in Wales, he had been reduced to a shadow, permanently cowering in the corner, occasionally folding up his moves and tossing them in our direction.

Now he seemed spurred on with a frenzied despair, running to each of us in turn between his corner mumblings. He’d saved me for last - I hadn’t split up his home territories like Germany and France, but I had taken Norway.

We shook hands; I solemnly, him frantically. He handed me a slip of paper. On the front read in a choking scrawl: “Fleet in Wales disbands.” On the back was a telephone number.

“It’s my girlfriend’s,” he told me. When I looked again, he couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. Not a bad age to attend a tournament. Nor a good one to die.

I thanked him (for what I still don’t know) and we shook hands again, and then I passed the note uneasily on to Jonathan, whose turn it was to read the orders.
He repeated what the note said. Immediately England dropped.



The room grew darker and darker as evening faded dully to night. The temperature was utterly freezing, the room dark. We resorted to a sort of honor system, reading our orders out loud for nobody else could read them in the poor light.

One by one they dropped: the German, the Italian. It was now a three-player game.

I now had four scribbled notes: the Brit scrawled, the German scribbled in blotchy inkstains. The Italian’s, meanwhile, was calm and stoic as he had been when alive: his body was still sprawled next to Franz. We hadn’t touched them.

Jonathan and I remained loyally allied. France had ruthlessly swept through Germany and Italy; we, realizing our death imminent, tried to take what we could. What we lacked for in France’s instinct we made up for in desperation. I learned later that he had been a true savant of the game, coming only because the tournament’s namesake had been his uncle.

Conversation between the two of us was at a minimum, and France slowly pushed his way up to sixteen supply centers, killing (for we now knew elimination to be death) two on his way. He was one last away from a victory, and neither of us wanted to tempt fate.

It seemed to be nearly midnight, while we were making steady gains despite exhaustion and the pervasive cold, when the Frenchman came up to me.

“Why don’t we ally,” he said casually, as if we hadn’t spent the last three hours at utter virtual internecinity.

“Sorry, I’m taken by Jonathan,” I replied.

“Don’t be so flippant,” France said. “We’ll be trapped here forever otherwise. Think about it.” and then he left. I talked to Jonathan, who said not to worry, but I had the feeling the Frenchman had told him the same.
When I continued to fight, France diverted his entire army so it was facing me. I crimped my units closer and closer together, cut down to nine, then seven, then a mere five units. Jonathan profited greatly, surging through the flanks and making it to fourteen, and began to wonder if this was a ruse. Jonathan and the Frenchman had been talking, after all.
We continued to fight, until I was at three centers and my ally sixteen. I realized my death was imminent. France never wavered from his suicidal march to Moscow. He was throwing Jonathan the game unless I would crack first. It would have been offensive - he was indirectly calling me soft, after all - but nobody could muster the energy to care.

At quarter to midnight, I realized that Jonathan was going to escape. I would die. Something awakened inside of me then, a malevolent manifesto: “survive”. It proceeded to kill something else. I tamed the former, but the latter, the hope, would never return.

The three-player fight began in 1912, game-wise. It was 1926 when I first considered giving in.

“What can I do to help?” I asked France.

He told me the exact moves to make. I thanked him and left, making sure that Jonathan, whose curiosity we had piqued, was sated.

I immediately went to a corner. Immediately I realized it was that the English player had used in his final minutes for his desperate cajoling. Walking over to the map, I swallowed. France had pushed into Warsaw and Saint Petersburg, and I was down to three units. My death was imminent.

I spent what felt like hours in the corner, mind feverishly pounding back and forth between survival and decency. My mind was flooded with hypotheticals, and when the Frenchman called me back, I had resolved the crisis.

Jonathan was quickly pushed back, our combined forces too strong. I was thrown the majority of the gains and quickly used them to brutally betray France. Quickly recovering, I managed a thirteenth center, then quickly fourteen and fifteen. The victory was close. France and Jonathan frantically clung to each other in a last-ditch, but both were forced further and further back until finally, at what must have been three o’clock, (three hours of furious silence, save for Jonathan’s whispers to the Frenchman) I pushed an army past our stalemate line, capturing the final supply center needed for victory. I only needed to hold the center and I would win.

Once again came the revelation. I would win - Jonathan and the Frenchman, who I had developed a grudging but friendly respect for - would lose, joining the ranks of the dead they had both helped to kill. I later discovered that the Frenchman was a true professional, only arriving at the minor invitational because the eponymous James Shiffett had been a not-too-distant relative.

We had played for ten hours, and in the last moments of grim silence before we submitted our orders, the French player pulled a knife from his pocket.

I froze. It appeared that only one person would get out after all - and it wouldn’t be me. My treachery had been for France’s benefit; my life would end within the hour. He slowly went through the motions of polishing the knife-head with a kleenex, slowly throwing me into a pit of agony. I stood up, walking back towards the door, hoping neither of them would notice.

Lo and behold, France did. He glanced up, chuckled - in the face of death - and said: “You think I’d knife you?”

I stopped walking backwards and gaped.

“No,” he said, “although you do deserve it. You really deserve to be stabbed, Ash,” he said, glancing up. Jonathan withered in my general direction as the Frenchman continued to speak. I examined my enemy for the first time: he was ordinary in every way, yet so extraordinary. He had shattered our alliance, our friendship, and he deserved to die. He had used me. Now he would kill me.

Something poked my mind. Although he did just tell me he wouldn’t… But I couldn’t trust him. My heart raced as he flicked the knife experimentally.

“No,” he said boredly, “I’m going out on my own terms. Jonathan, if you would like to use the knife when I’m done, be my guest.”

He scribbled something on his order sheet. A phone number.

And then the knife flicked dully inwards, and there was a dull thunk and a short gurgle, and the person I never knew by any name but France died, still smirking at me.

Jonathan and I stared at each other. Neither of us spoke. I simply couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I had betrayed him too hard for any sort of reconciliation, and he made no effort either.

“I’m sorry,” I said. France had cauterized my feelings with his knife-edge. I had no pity left to give for anyone.

And suddenly Jonathan was upon me.

He had the Frenchman’s knife in his hand the entire time, and as I finished he suddenly leapt forwards, and then his hands were on my throat, knife between his teeth, and I couldn’t breathe.

He pumped inwards, and I made a futile attempt at gasping as he snatched the knife with his left hand. My vision began to fade as I thrashed wildly and futilely, a perfectly terrified arch of wasted energy, and he lifted the knife and stabbed at my throat.

The thrashing saved me. With one hand, he couldn’t hold me still, and the fatal blow gashed through my shoulder instead. The knife seemed to deflect off my clavicle, and I rolled to a side and yanked forwards his arm. The knife flew in the air, but the once-cordial blue eyes seemed frenziedly homicidal.

The orders! I could no longer beat him physically - my vision still was tinged with black and I was far too weak. But if I could eliminate him in time…

I snatched at the orders and frantically began to dictate them. He lunged with the knife, but I managed to evade the majority of his stabs. Still, my frantic dictation slowed as a few blows slashed upon gaping wounds. I came to the last line as he advanced. I felt my legs buckling underneath me as I began it.

And then Jonathan was on the ground. Dead.

I stared, and walked, then crawled to the door. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and tried the doorknob. I furrowed by eyebrows and tried again, the other way. It opened, and I walked outside to freedom’s embrace.

I was in the hospital when it came to me. It had been open the entire time; we just hadn’t turned it properly.
Last edited by Super-Llamaland on Wed Nov 05, 2014 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Eighth Llamanean Republic
Capital: New Llama City, Population: ~56,000,000
5x World Baseball Classic champion (28, 30, 31, 40, 42)
Yue Zhou • Savigliane

User avatar
Furry Alairia and Algeria
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21009
Founded: Apr 05, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby Furry Alairia and Algeria » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:46 pm

All I have is a bloody work in progress.
It was a cold morning in the school, 11:45 AM, and three minutes before lunch. I was in Language Arts room with at least 20 other people. The teacher, Ms. Lavena, was talking about our openings, and I was in a zombified state of sleep, lying on my hand holstered on my arm. The bell then rang, destroying my ears. I packed up my books and went to my locker, with my stomach growling horribly, with pains of hunger going through my body. I finally went to the lunchroom without saying a word. I then saw him. Solace had glistening yellow and white fur with a nice white spotted tail. I saw those headphones on his neck again, and I have no idea how he can stand those things on his neck about 90% of the time. I stared at him when he wasn’t looking, and accidentally bumped into him, making him drop his tray. The tray just didn’t just hit the floor. It crashed and smashed his lunch to pieces. Serves you well, I thought. You were staring at him again.

He stood still and looked down at me, and then at the food. I immediately felt a rush of heat run to my cheeks, making my cheeks warm red, and I could sense that he could see how embarrassed how I was to have crashed into him right in the middle of a room. Suddenly I got up and moved towards him. I wanted to help him. I wanted to help him, but my conscience was restraining me. I looked into his deep sea blue eyes, glistening into the sun for a few seconds, and then I called the fellow classmate, Ari, behind the counter. She grimaced and brought over a cloth to clean up the mess. I picked up the broken pieces, while he was staring at me, making me feel uncomfortable, and put the pieces back on the tray, my hand shaking as I gave him the pieces.

There was a sloppy stain on the front of his shirt. As he noticed the stain, he touched it, and his face flushed with embarrassment and a bright red color emerged from his cheeks.

“Thank you”, Solace said, still embarrassed.

I was too nervous to say anything. I shoved the tray back at Solace and went back to my table. Every second from that point, I could not stop thinking about that moment, and I could not stop the memories of his deep sea blue eyes.

“Why did he have to be so cute?” I kept saying to myself in an inaudible voice.

“How is it possible?” I only stared into his eyes for, five seconds, and I already realized that he was luring me with his eyes only.

It already got me drooling. Now I was on to my Azerbaijani/Armenian language class, with a teacher named Hellina. Hellina is really random with her students. She currently suffers from Bi-polar Disorder, as she is stressed immensely with not only her job, but also her ability to support her husband and her four kids, making her go completely mad on her students at completely random times. For all I know, I and Ari, Nimsy, Solace, and Maxxy were the banes to her existence, and that reason is shrouded in mystery.

Finally, at the end of Hellina’s tirade on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the bell rang, and I finally left the school and walked down the gray path in my blue sweater with no hood, and a blue pair of jeans almost my everyday get up. I kept thinking about Nimsy’s blue eyes. I still could not take my mind off that moment in the lunch room. It started to rain a little, and my coat didn't have a hood, which left my head exposed. I got a call from my mother from my cheap phone.

“Hey mom, how are you,” I said calmly.

‘Where are you my boy,” my mom said.

When I started to talk before some jerk with his car ran through a puddle of water and made me all wet. My phone started to short, so I threw it on the grass. My day was turned from an embarrassing one to a horrible one. Now I’m all soaked, and I’m all cold. The temperature was a horrible low of 52, and I’m already shivering.

Suddenly, I heard a noise of someone running over to me. I looked behind me, and it was Nimsy. He was calling my name out loud. I tried to silence him, but he wouldn’t stop saying my name. I closed my eyes in despair, until he basically tackled me to the ground on accident.

”Whoa, are you alright?” Nimsy said. I still had my eyes closed before I opened them.
He was holding my shoulders, and I started to blush and awkwardly smile at his face. It was a sight to behold to see the one I bumped into whose lunch I ruined, is holding me down by my shoulders. I opened my eyes while trying to struggle, and apparently got back into being hypnotized into his gaze of the sea. Why was he so cute? I kept repeating in my head. I still tried to struggle out of his grip before I heard a voice.

“Hey, Nimsy, get back here,” said Nimsy, a friend of Solace and mine.

Nimsy was a real joker, and he always loved to play pranks. He was blue and white and had a nice long tail. He was following up behind us with a light brown sweater and his usual red shirt. He apparently was walking with Solace back to Nimsy’s house. I put a face of warning before Nimsy lifted me, and put my glasses back on after the fell off when he tackled me. Solace didn’t want to be seen grasping me, so I gave him a look to go back. He was resilient, and he was totally oblivious to the situation. He lifted me back up and looked into my grassy green eyes. It was the first time he’s looked into my eyes.

“Hey Nimsy, how you been today?” asked another classmate, Maxxy. He was one of the listed Hellina’s Banes of existence. He had nice gray fur and a pair of blue eyes. He was nice in the fact that he had to be mean if he had to be. He calmly looked at me, then Solace, and then Nimsy. It had been forty minutes since I had left school, and it was still raining. Finally, Solace and Nimsy left, leaving just me and Maxxy. I and Maxxy started to walk down the sidewalk and talk.

“Hey Maxxy, how’ve you been? You look really bad, and your fur is really messed up in the sense I wouldn’t even have.” I told him

“Ehh, I’ve been really stressed lately, with this Azerbaijani/Armenian teacher being such a biased woman against people from Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, and her assigning us about over six hundred homework assignments in one week. Even the mate back at home wouldn’t ease up on me because he keeps saying that he needs me to do something, but I have no idea what he wants. I usually just leave before he starts to rant,” Maxxy said.

“Looks like your mate from New Zealand wasn't the right one for this little kitty ehh?” I joked around with him. He looked at me with a look of annoyance. We then saw Nimsy, Solace, and Ari come up to us, walking up towards us as they seemed to be hearing us. The fog was so dense that we couldn't see two feet in front of us, but after Ari reached us first, the fog started to get less dense, and more lighter. That’s when we could see Solace and Nimsy running towards us. They stopped and walked and greeted us, again. I got caught at Nimsy’s blue eyed hold, controlling me by the neck.
“Hey you guys, how’ve you been?” Ari said with delight

“I've been doing well,” I said, before Maxxy could say,”Horrible.”

“Everyone here has a boyfriend or a girlfriend in the school except me, you, Nimsy, and Ari. It’s like the school has control over the students over who they want and who they don’t want. I mean, who couldn’t want Ari? She’s a rockin chick that anyone could get.” Solace said. Everyone looked at him, especially Ari, and Ari had the red cheeks that everyone gets whenever their embarrassed or shy. We all reached the park, where we really conversed.

“I hear your moving out of town next year Solace.” Nimsy said. With that moment, my whole heart just shut down. I kept repeating to myself, I will not cry, I will not cry, even though one of your greatest and only friends you’ve been with since the third grade is moving away. I didn’t cry, and I was lucky, because I always cry during this time, when someone kills the moment.

“I ain’t moving out of town, get it right you liar, but I think Hellina’s moving out of town. I guess the Banes of her existences were really banning her from existing from this town.” Solace said with happiness.

I really couldn’t comprehend how someone could be happy about the only Azerbaijani and Armenian speaking person in this town go away because of us. I closed my eyes and stared at him, and when I opened my eyes, I think we all know what happened. I couldn’t ever take my eyes of of his eyes, and his face. I better stop before I get into details. I closed my eyes and then looked at Maxxy, who was talking about his so called mate from New Zealand. He wanted to dump him to be honest, and get back with his old lover, Leonardo, a white and gray furry. I then looked at the entrance and saw Leonardo. I looked at him and looked at Maxxy
“Hey Maxxy, isn’t that Leonardo? He gray and white one?” I asked Maxxy Maxxy’s fur jumped as if he had a lot of fear going through his body all at once. I could see it building up in him. He was shaking with anxiety and nervousness. Leonardo sat down, and asked us what we were all doing here.

“Hey Leonardo,” We all said in unison. Except for Maxxy, whose fur was really jumping. He finally calmed down, and took a big sigh.

“How’ve you been Leonardo?” I said to Leonardo.

“Fine, I guess, my mate dumped me with a trip to Pennsylvania for a convention when he told me on the phone that we were done, and I kept asking if it was a joke, and he said no and I kept asking before he yelled at me,” Leonardo said, and we all perked our heads and looked at him with no expressions, even Maxxy. “I went to the airport for his flight to come back, and say a grayish fox come holding his hand.”

He then put his arm around Maxxy. Maxxy blushed with excitement, but we really didn't react to the situation, mostly because we never noticed. Finally, night fell, and I was sitting with my friends, except Ari, she left because she had to shower, but she said she would be back. While my head was down, about to fall asleep, Solace tapped me on the neck with his yellow paw, but I barely noticed.

My eyes were half closed, though I still listened to him speak. Solace lifted my head up, and then made up a story on when Hellina was born, and how she got her attitude. Leonardo, Maxxy, Ari, and I listened in on the story. The plot was that she was born from a rich Kazakhstani and Uzbekistani family who lived in an Azerbaijani city. During her life time, she grew as a writer, writing many short stories, producing 3 at most each day. She then met this great guy, and later, they went on to live in the U.S, in Waldwick, where she would teach Azerbaijani and Armenian language classes, as she was more fluent in Azerbaijani and Armenian as she grew up in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic near Armenia than she was in Uzbekistani and Kazakh, but later, her husband became a dead beat dad once they had kids. After Hellina had 4 kids, he became a lazy man, and never searched for a job. She then went under massive stress of having to manage 2 jobs, and barely saw her kids since she worked until midnight. She then succumbed to the stress, and was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder after working for so long under so much stress. He ended the story after an hour he started.

Leonardo was falling asleep by now, and was lying on Maxxy’s shoulder. Maxxy was embarrassed, and the red blush was showing on his cheeks. Solace couldn’t bother to tell another story, but then looked at me, but with a devilish smile. I was kinda afraid what he would do, with the devilish smile. I looked at him confused, but for one of the first times, he talked to me with a good mood.

“Hey, umm, Graciano, how’ve you been?” He asked. For once I actually didn’t get hypnotized by his blue eyes.

“I’m good, life all normal, nothing extraordinary happening Solace,” I told him calmly, but inside me, my heart was going to explode by excessive beating if he says anything else.

“Well that’s good for you, but I’m a little bit stressed with Hellina’s repeated tirades and then assigning us homework on the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and what the war was about. Remember the 5 page assignment on Azerbaijani and Nagorno Karabakh culture? I swear, she can be such a racist to Armenians and Nagorno Karabakh people.” Solace stated. I closed my eyes, not really surprised to hear coming out of Solace’s mouth. He hated her.

We kept talking about how everyone hated Hellina, but the problem roots from her no good husband. He never looks for a job, excessively lavishes himself with Hellina’s paycheck, and leaves only 25% of the money for Hellina and the kids, and 10% is taken from taken from taxes, which makes her job and her life a big stress.
Last edited by Furry Alairia and Algeria on Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
In memory of Dyakovo - may he never be forgotten - Дьяковожс ученик


I do not reply to telegrams, unless you are someone I know.

User avatar
Nazi Flower Power
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21328
Founded: Jun 24, 2010
Iron Fist Consumerists

Postby Nazi Flower Power » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:58 pm

Furry Alairia and Algeria wrote:All I have is a bloody work in progress.
It was a cold morning in the school, 11:45 AM, and three minutes before lunch. I was in Language Arts room with at least 20 other people. The teacher, Ms. Lavena, was talking about our openings, and I was in a zombified state of sleep, lying on my hand holstered on my arm. The bell then rang, destroying my ears. I packed up my books and went to my locker, with my stomach growling horribly, with pains of hunger going through my body. I finally went to the lunchroom without saying a word. I then saw him. Solace had glistening yellow and white fur with a nice white spotted tail. I saw those headphones on his neck again, and I have no idea how he can stand those things on his neck about 90% of the time. I stared at him when he wasn’t looking, and accidentally bumped into him, making him drop his tray. The tray just didn’t just hit the floor. It crashed and smashed his lunch to pieces. Serves you well, I thought. You were staring at him again.
He stood still and looked down at me, and then at the food. I immediately felt a rush of heat run to my cheeks, making my cheeks warm red, and I could sense that he could see how embarrassed how I was to have crashed into him right in the middle of a room. Suddenly I got up and moved towards him. I wanted to help him. I wanted to help him, but my conscience was restraining me. I looked into his deep sea blue eyes, glistening into the sun for a few seconds, and then I called the fellow classmate, Ari, behind the counter. She grimaced and brought over a cloth to clean up the mess. I picked up the broken pieces, while he was staring at me, making me feel uncomfortable, and put the pieces back on the tray, my hand shaking as I gave him the pieces.
There was a sloppy stain on the front of his shirt. As he noticed the stain, he touched it, and his face flushed with embarrassment and a bright red color emerged from his cheeks.
“Thank you”, Solace said, still embarrassed.
I was too nervous to say anything. I shoved the tray back at Solace and went back to my table. Every second from that point, I could not stop thinking about that moment, and I could not stop the memories of his deep sea blue eyes.
“Why did he have to be so cute?” I kept saying to myself in an inaudible voice.
“How is it possible?” I only stared into his eyes for, five seconds, and I already realized that he was luring me with his eyes only.
It already got me drooling. Now I was on to my Azerbaijani/Armenian language class, with a teacher named Hellina. Hellina is really random with her students. She currently suffers from Bi-polar Disorder, as she is stressed immensely with not only her job, but also her ability to support her husband and her four kids, making her go completely mad on her students at completely random times. For all I know, I and Ari, Nimsy, Solace, and Maxxy were the banes to her existence, and that reason is shrouded in mystery.
Finally, at the end of Hellina’s tirade on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the bell rang, and I finally left the school and walked down the gray path in my blue sweater with no hood, and a blue pair of jeans almost my everyday get up. I kept thinking about Nimsy’s blue eyes. I still could not take my mind off that moment in the lunch room. It started to rain a little, and my coat didn’t have a hood, which left my head exposed. I got a call from my mother from my cheap phone
“Hey mom, how are you,” I said calmly
‘Where are you my boy,” my mom said.
When I started to talk before some jerk with his car ran through a puddle of water and made me all wet. My phone started to short, so I threw it on the grass. My day was turned from an embarrassing one to a horrible one. Now I’m all soaked, and I’m all cold. The temperature was a horrible low of 52, and I’m already shivering.
Suddenly, I heard a noise of someone running over to me. I looked behind me, and it was Nimsy. He was calling my name out loud. I tried to silence him, but he wouldn’t stop saying my name. I closed my eyes in despair, until he basically tackled me to the ground on accident.
”Whoa, are you alright?” Nimsy said. I still had my eyes closed before I opened them.
He was holding my shoulders, and I started to blush and awkwardly smile at his face. It was a sight to behold to see the one I bumped into whose lunch I ruined, is holding me down by my shoulders. I opened my eyes while trying to struggle, and apparently got back into being hypnotized into his gaze of the sea. Why was he so cute? I kept repeating in my head. I still tried to struggle out of his grip before I heard a voice.
“Hey, Nimsy, get back here,” said Nimsy, a friend of Solace and mine.
Nimsy was a real joker, and he always loved to play pranks. He was blue and white and had a nice long tail. He was following up behind us with a light brown sweater and his usual red shirt. He apparently was walking with Solace back to Nimsy’s house. I put a face of warning before Nimsy lifted me, and put my glasses back on after the fell off when he tackled me. Solace didn’t want to be seen grasping me, so I gave him a look to go back. He was resilient, and he was totally oblivious to the situation. He lifted me back up and looked into my grassy green eyes. It was the first time he’s looked into my eyes.
“Hey Nimsy, how you been today?” asked another classmate, Maxxy. He was one of the listed Hellina’s Banes of existence. He had nice gray fur and a pair of blue eyes. He was nice in the fact that he had to be mean if he had to be. He calmly looked at me, then Solace, and then Nimsy. It had been forty minutes since I had left school, and it was still raining. Finally, Solace and Nimsy left, leaving just me and Maxxy. I and Maxxy started to walk down the sidewalk and talk
“Hey Maxxy, how’ve you been? You look really bad, and your fur is really messed up in the sense I wouldn’t even have.” I told him
“Ehh, I’ve been really stressed lately, with this Azerbaijani/Armenian teacher being such a biased woman against people from Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, and her assigning us about over six hundred homework assignments in one week. Even the mate back at home wouldn’t ease up on me because he keeps saying that he needs me to do something, but I have no idea what he wants. I usually just leave before he starts to rant,” Maxxy said
“Looks like your mate from New Zealand wasn’t the right one for this little kitty ehh?” I joked around with him. He looked at me with a look of annoyance. We then saw Nimsy, Solace, and Ari come up to us, walking up towards us as they seemed to be hearing us. The fog was so dense that we couldn’t see two feet in front of us, but after Ari reached us first, the fog started to get less dense, and more lighter. That’s when we could see Solace and Nimsy running towards us. They stopped and walked and greeted us, again. I got caught at Nimsy’s blue eyed hold, controlling me by the neck.
“Hey you guys, how’ve you been?” Ari said with delight
“I’ve been doing well,” I said, before Maxxy could say,”Horrible.”
“Everyone here has a boyfriend or a girlfriend in the school except me, you, Nimsy, and Ari. It’s like the school has control over the students over who they want and who they don’t want. I mean, who couldn’t want Ari? She’s a rockin chick that anyone could get.” Solace said. Everyone looked at him, especially Ari, and Ari had the red cheeks that everyone gets whenever their embarrassed or shy. We all reached the park, where we really conversed.
“I hear your moving out of town next year Solace.” Nimsy said. With that moment, my whole heart just shut down. I kept repeating to myself, I will not cry, I will not cry, even though one of your greatest and only friends you’ve been with since the third grade is moving away. I didn’t cry, and I was lucky, because I always cry during this time, when someone kills the moment.
“I ain’t moving out of town, get it right you liar, but I think Hellina’s moving out of town. I guess the Banes of her existences were really banning her from existing from this town.” Solace said with happiness.
I really couldn’t comprehend how someone could be happy about the only Azerbaijani and Armenian speaking person in this town go away because of us. I closed my eyes and stared at him, and when I opened my eyes, I think we all know what happened. I couldn’t ever take my eyes of of his eyes, and his face. I better stop before I get into details. I closed my eyes and then looked at Maxxy, who was talking about his so called mate from New Zealand. He wanted to dump him to be honest, and get back with his old lover, Leonardo, a white and gray furry. I then looked at the entrance and saw Leonardo. I looked at him and looked at Maxxy
“Hey Maxxy, isn’t that Leonardo? He gray and white one?” I asked Maxxy Maxxy’s fur jumped as if he had a lot of fear going through his body all at once. I could see it building up in him. He was shaking with anxiety and nervousness. Leonardo sat down, and asked us what we were all doing here.
“Hey Leonardo,” We all said in unison. Except for Maxxy, whose fur was really jumping. He finally calmed down, and took a big sigh.
“How’ve you been Leonardo?” I said to Leonardo.
“Fine, I guess, my mate dumped me with a trip to Pennsylvania for a convention when he told me on the phone that we were done, and I kept asking if it was a joke, and he said no and I kept asking before he yelled at me,” Leonardo said, and we all perked our heads and looked at him with no expressions, even Maxxy. “I went to the airport for his flight to come back, and say a grayish furry come holding his hand.”
He then put his arm around Maxxy. Maxxy blushed with excitement, but we really didn’t react to the situation, mostly because we never noticed. Finally, night fell, and I was sitting with my friends, except Ari, she left because she had to shower, but she said she would be back. While my head was down, about to fall asleep, Solace tapped me on the neck with his yellow paw, but I barely noticed.
My eyes were half closed, though I still listened to him speak. Solace lifted my head up, and then made up a story on when Hellina was born, and how she got her attitude. Leonardo, Maxxy, Ari, and I listened in on the story. The plot was that she was born from a rich Kazakhstani and Uzbekistani family who lived in an Azerbaijani city. During her life time, she grew as a writer, writing many short stories, producing 3 at most each day. She then met this great guy, and later, they went on to live in the U.S, in Waldwick, where she would teach Azerbaijani and Armenian language classes, as she was more fluent in Azerbaijani and Armenian as she grew up in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic near Armenia than she was in Uzbekistani and Kazakh, but later, her husband became a dead beat dad once they had kids. After Hellina had 4 kids, he became a lazy man, and never searched for a job. She then went under massive stress of having to manage 2 jobs, and barely saw her kids since she worked until midnight. She then succumbed to the stress, and was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder after working for so long under so much stress. He ended the story after an hour he started.
Leonardo was falling asleep by now, and was lying on Maxxy’s shoulder. Maxxy was embarrassed, and the red blush was showing on his cheeks. Solace couldn’t bother to tell another story, but then looked at me, but with a devilish smile. I was kinda afraid what he would do, with the devilish smile. I looked at him confused, but for one of the first times, he talked to me with a good mood.
“Hey, umm, Graciano, how’ve you been?” He asked. For once I actually didn’t get hypnotized by his blue eyes.
“I’m good, life all normal, nothing extraordinary happening Solace,” I told him calmly, but inside me, my heart was going to explode by excessive beating if he says anything else.
“Well that’s good for you, but I’m a little bit stressed with Hellina’s repeated tirades and then assigning us homework on the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and what the war was about. Remember the 5 page assignment on Azerbaijani and Nagorno Karabakh culture? I swear, she can be such a racist to Armenians and Nagorno Karabakh people.” Solace stated. I closed my eyes, not really surprised to hear coming out of Solace’s mouth. He hated her as much as everyone hates communism, which you’d refer to Transnistria, where communism is the government.
We kept talking about how everyone hated Hellina, but the problem roots from her no good husband. He never looks for a job, excessively lavishes himself with Hellina’s paycheck, and leaves only 25% of the money for Hellina and the kids, and 10% is taken from taken from taxes, which makes her job and her life a big stress.


You still have another 27 hours if you want to add to it or tinker with it.
The Serene and Glorious Reich of Nazi Flower Power has existed for longer than Nazi Germany! Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Allied forces who made this possible!

User avatar
Forsher
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 22040
Founded: Jan 30, 2012
New York Times Democracy

Postby Forsher » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:21 pm

Nazi Flower Power wrote:You still have another 27 hours if you want to add to it or tinker with it.


Mine definitely could do with some work, but I only cobbled it together because there are so many other entries (I was going to sit this one out for the aforementioned reason, but this particularly edition seems so much more alive than most of the others have been).

The cities of the Boku desert were all the same. There were large stone walls, dry wells and names over the gates like Lukh or Rudj. These similarities came from similar conditions, history and continual exchange fostered by the typically desperate Boku traders and their camel caravans. To the residents of Lukh the traders would carry anything, morals aside. To the inhabitants of Rudj, the Bokul, as the traders were known, would sell anything, to anyone as long as doing so helped them. In jails and gaols across the desert the Bokul were the eternal hope of escape. This didn’t reflect any sympathies on the part of the Bokul but rather their convenient regularity and concealed faces. Few of the escapes succeeded for long, many slaves in Lukh began life as murderers in Rudj, for instance, but enough kept the hope alive. All this was known to Ghan, which is why three of the men that departed the great city of Haj with him were arriving in chains as they entered Lukh.

Lukh was the largest of the Boku’s cities, although it was dwarfed by the cities just beyond the reaches of the not-so-endless sands, and it never failed to impress Ghan. Even behind the walls the towers that spoke of great wealth were visible: beacons of hope for all Bokul. Much of the city was dirt poor, but Bokul didn’t care who paid them, as long as they still had money at the end of the day. A large reason for this was that life for Bokul was hard. The Boku was a harsh, unforgiving place and many caravans were simply swallowed up by fearsome storms or ran out of water crossing between cities. The lifestyle didn’t attract the amoral, it created them.

“Piss off.” Ghan kept a keen eye out for the vagrants of the cities he visited. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, many of the vagrants were excellent or, at least, largely successful thieves. Secondly, if you could catch a vagrant, you could see a vagrant. The problem with Lukh was that its sheer size meant catching vagrants typically meant exposing the caravan to other vagrants: Ghan had learnt this lesson the hard way. So, instead of chasing down the retreating ragged cloaks of the pair he’d just spotted, Ghan satisfied himself with chucking a few desert stones at them.

“Shouldn’t we try and catch them?”

“You can try, and the rest of us will stay here and try to keep them from stealing the goods. We can lose a cabbage, but twenty cabbages is another matter.”

“Them, cousin?”

Ghan reached out an arm and held his cousin closely round the shoulder: it was both brotherly and menacing. “You see those shadows to our side, how they ripple and move? That’s not from torchlight.” Ghan’s cousin nodded. His eyes were wide as he peered down the warren like streets of houses. Here and there the shadows did ripple, and Ghan, for that was also the cousin’s name, grew just a little paler. “But don’t worry, the family shed is just around the corner.”

Night fell and day rose before Ghan’s caravan did anything more than get inventoried and stored. None of the party had a decent sleep. In part this was because a guard was needed, ramshackle sheds aren’t known for their security, but mostly it was because the buildings walls were close, the ceiling low and the caravan large. In short, the shed was just good enough to keep most of the stock safe. For this reason, the very first activity was another stock-take, the first interesting activity was the arrival of Yurd, a distant uncle of the elder Ghan and a barely established Lukhian merchant.

“Nephew, it shames me to see you counting cabbages when it’s nearly noon.” This was a lie, nothing about Yurd or his family would suggest that Ghan would be doing anything else in the late morning. “We must get this lot to market.”

Ghan looked down at his small, wiry uncle with a confusion that looked quite out of place for an experienced, unscrupulous Bokul. “We have just as many cabbages as when we left Rudj. And they’re definitely ours.” A large, sand-scarred hand reached down and chucked a none-too-appetising cabbage at its uncle: cabbages aren’t ideal goods for desert transportation.

“A good cabbage, nephew. Wipe that look off and come, we must sell this lot. You have avoided being robbed, this is good.” Yurd was a simple man with simple tastes: if it didn’t clink and couldn’t be spent, Yurd didn’t care. Ghan was more complex but his distant uncle’s persistence and emphasis on their relationship managed to drag Ghan, Ghan and the rest of the caravan to the market.

The market was not far from the shed but it was not close either. It consisted of a large square, surrounded by the mudbrick buildings and openings to warrens that typified Lukh. From its centre, it was theoretically possible to see all the towers of Lukh but the bustle of reality meant anyone who tried to do this would be run over or spun around so much that one tower would stand as twenty. By noon the place would be thriving, despite the heat, and towards the end of the day movement would be next to impossible. Logically this made no sense, but the desires of wealth and power for the best shopping time, the coolness of early morning, kept both common buyers and sellers out until at least noon. This was another lesson the older Ghan had learnt the hard way: his youth was a foolish one. Such a future did not loom on the horizon of the younger Ghan, who reached a thin, not yet sand-scarred arm up to tug on his cousin’s hood.

“Cousin, didn’t those thieves steal a cabbage?”

“No.”

“But you said…”

“I know. They took nothing.”

“But…”

“But nothing. Those thieves didn’t take anything we were planning to sell.” And there it was, the moment where everything clicked. Ghan wasn’t stupid, not in the way Yurd was. He wasn’t naiive either, like the source of the prompting questions. Ghan was something else, although clever didn’t quite fit: Ghan was a man who thought slaves were more profitable than cheap labour, after all. “Uncle! Sell this lot, teach Ghan to resist haggling; I have to go back to the shed.”

Ghan wasn’t fleet of foot so he didn’t run back. He wasn’t in a hurry either: he was big, he was scarred and he looked like a Bokul so fear didn’t lend him speed. He was also a liar. The shed was empty, they’d taken everything. Ghan’s true destination was the city gate, the one all Bokul entered and left by. The thieves were there, he’d seen them too late to keep them off his camel-drawn cart, so they’d taken something. The life of a vagrant in Lukh was tough. Rain wasn’t an issue but it did get cold at night. Guards operated on a stab first, capture later policy and traders made snap judgements all the time. If you looked like a slave, no-one would sell to you… not without a master’s presence. And almost all vagrants looked like slaves. As a consequence, if a Lukhian vagrant got close to a cart, they’d take something. This was a fact of life.

“You, tell me, did you see a couple of Bokul without a caravan pass through here? Today or last night?”

“Er, no?”

“Good, there’s still time. You see this cloak? You see its dull grey colour? If you see some Bokul dressed like this, without a caravan, they’re not Bokul: they’re thieves.”

“Wait!” But, it was too late. Ghan was gone. As quickly as he’d arrived, got inside the guard’s personal space and asked questions before the guard had time to remember who he was, he’d left. The guard was left to ponder the questions alone: it was an exercise literally above his pay grade. Bokul were easy to identify: they all wore the same kind of cloak, strangely thick and hooded. It wasn’t ideal in a day time desert, but it did wonders at night and worked well if a Bokul wandered further afield. The guard had never noticed that different groups of Bokul wore different colours. If he had, he might have realised that Ghan was about to waste a week of his life. As it was, the guard ended up hitting the pub.

Lukh was, theoretically, not the ideal place to have a drink. Water was always in short supply and a lot of Bokul tended to drink what liquid stock they intended to sell themselves en route: money's no good if you're not alive to spend it. Still, for those who knew where it was, Lukh did have one anonymous little pub not far from the Bokul gate: The Escaped Slave. Most of its trade was in accommodation, but for guards who stood all day in searing heat, wearing heavy armour any drink the publican was selling was more than welcome. The guard had also discovered that the publican was a good conversationalist years previously, on asking why the pub had so many pictures of escaped slaves all over the place... it had never occurred to him that the place's name had anything to do with it. The publican had simultaneously discovered that the guard wasn't a good conversationalist, but business was usually slow.

“That happen to you often, then?” A couple of glasses clinked as the publican put a box of clean glasses up on a shelf.

“Nah. It’s all a bit strange. How often do you think about the colour of a Bokul’s cloak?”

“Never. As long as they sell me what I want, I don’t give a damn.”

“Exactly." The guard smiled in victory and absent-mindedly drained his glass. "Mind you, there was this other guy who came up to us. Turned out he had two of his slaves get loose and run off.”

The publican paused, “Yeah?”

“I told him to keep looking. We never let slaves out. You can see them a mile off, what with their ragged cloaks.” The guard looked down at his drink and noticed it was empty. “Hey, what’re you smiling for?”

“Nothin’. Another?”
Last edited by Forsher on Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
That it Could be What it Is, Is What it Is

Stop making shit up, though. Links, or it's a God-damn lie and you know it.

The normie life is heteronormie

We won't know until 2053 when it'll be really obvious what he should've done. [...] We have no option but to guess.

User avatar
Nazi Flower Power
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21328
Founded: Jun 24, 2010
Iron Fist Consumerists

Postby Nazi Flower Power » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:16 am

Forsher wrote:
Nazi Flower Power wrote:You still have another 27 hours if you want to add to it or tinker with it.


Mine definitely could do with some work, but I only cobbled it together because there are so many other entries (I was going to sit this one out for the aforementioned reason, but this particularly edition seems so much more alive than most of the others have been).

The cities of the Boku desert were all the same. There were large stone walls, dry wells and names over the gates like Lukh or Rudj. These similarities came from similar conditions, history and continual exchange fostered by the typically desperate Boku traders and their camel caravans. To the residents of Lukh the traders would carry anything, morals aside. To the inhabitants of Rudj, the Bokul, as the traders were known, would sell anything, to anyone as long as doing so helped them. In jails and gaols across the desert the Bokul were the eternal hope of escape. This didn’t reflect any sympathies on the part of the Bokul but rather their convenient regularity and concealed faces. Few of the escapes succeeded for long, many slaves in Lukh began life as murderers in Rudj, for instance, but enough kept the hope alive. All this was known to Ghan, which is why three of the men that departed the great city of Haj with him were arriving in chains as they entered Lukh.

Lukh was the largest of the Boku’s cities, although it was dwarfed by the cities just beyond the reaches of the not-so-endless sands, and it never failed to impress Ghan. Even behind the walls the towers that spoke of great wealth were visible: beacons of hope for all Bokul. Much of the city was dirt poor, but Bokul didn’t care who paid them, as long as they still had money at the end of the day. A large reason for this was that life for Bokul was hard. The Boku was a harsh, unforgiving place and many caravans were simply swallowed up by fearsome storms or ran out of water crossing between cities. The lifestyle didn’t attract the amoral, it created them.

“Piss off.” Ghan kept a keen eye out for the vagrants of the cities he visited. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, many of the vagrants were excellent or, at least, largely successful thieves. Secondly, if you could catch a vagrant, you could see a vagrant. The problem with Lukh was that its sheer size meant catching vagrants typically meant exposing the caravan to other vagrants: Ghan had learnt this lesson the hard way. So, instead of chasing down the retreating ragged cloaks of the pair he’d just spotted, Ghan satisfied himself with chucking a few desert stones at them.

“Shouldn’t we try and catch them?”

“You can try, and the rest of us will stay here and try to keep them from stealing the goods. We can lose a cabbage, but twenty cabbages is another matter.”

“Them, cousin?”

Ghan reached out an arm and held his cousin closely round the shoulder: it was both brotherly and menacing. “You see those shadows to our side, how they ripple and move? That’s not from torchlight.” Ghan’s cousin nodded. His eyes were wide as he peered down the warren like streets of houses. Here and there the shadows did ripple, and Ghan, for that was also the cousin’s name, grew just a little paler. “But don’t worry, the family shed is just around the corner.”

Night fell and day rose before Ghan’s caravan did anything more than get inventoried and stored. None of the party had a decent sleep. In part this was because a guard was needed, ramshackle sheds aren’t known for their security, but mostly it was because the buildings walls were close, the ceiling low and the caravan large. In short, the shed was just good enough to keep most of the stock safe. For this reason, the very first activity was another stock-take, the first interesting activity was the arrival of Yurd, a distant uncle of the elder Ghan and a barely established Lukhian merchant.

“Nephew, it shames me to see you counting cabbages when it’s nearly noon.” This was a lie, nothing about Yurd or his family would suggest that Ghan would be doing anything else in the late morning. “We must get this lot to market.”

Ghan looked down at his small, wiry uncle with a confusion that looked quite out of place for an experienced, unscrupulous Bokul. “We have just as many cabbages as when we left Rudj. And they’re definitely ours.” A large, sand-scarred hand reached down and chucked a none-too-appetising cabbage at its uncle: cabbages aren’t ideal goods for desert transportation.

“A good cabbage, nephew. Wipe that look off and come, we must sell this lot. You have avoided being robbed, this is good.” Yurd was a simple man with simple tastes: if it didn’t clink and couldn’t be spent, Yurd didn’t care. Ghan was more complex but his distant uncle’s persistence and emphasis on their relationship managed to drag Ghan, Ghan and the rest of the caravan to the market.

The market was not far from the shed but it was not close either. It consisted of a large square, surrounded by the mudbrick buildings and openings to warrens that typified Lukh. From its centre, it was theoretically possible to see all the towers of Lukh but the bustle of reality meant anyone who tried to do this would be run over or spun around so much that one tower would stand as twenty. By noon the place would be thriving, despite the heat, and towards the end of the day movement would be next to impossible. Logically this made no sense, but the desires of wealth and power for the best shopping time, the coolness of early morning, kept both common buyers and sellers out until at least noon. This was another lesson the older Ghan had learnt the hard way: his youth was a foolish one. Such a future did not loom on the horizon of the younger Ghan, who reached a thin, not yet sand-scarred arm up to tug on his cousin’s hood.

“Cousin, didn’t those thieves steal a cabbage?”

“No.”

“But you said…”

“I know. They took nothing.”

“But…”

“But nothing. Those thieves didn’t take anything we were planning to sell.” And there it was, the moment where everything clicked. Ghan wasn’t stupid, not in the way Yurd was. He wasn’t naiive either, like the source of the prompting questions. Ghan was something else, although clever didn’t quite fit: Ghan was a man who thought slaves were more profitable than cheap labour, after all. “Uncle! Sell this lot, teach Ghan to resist haggling; I have to go back to the shed.”

Ghan wasn’t fleet of foot so he didn’t run back. He wasn’t in a hurry either: he was big, he was scarred and he looked like a Bokul so fear didn’t lend him speed. He was also a liar. The shed was empty, they’d taken everything. Ghan’s true destination was the city gate, the one all Bokul entered and left by. The thieves were there, he’d seen them too late to keep them off his camel-drawn cart, so they’d taken something. The life of a vagrant in Lukh was tough. Rain wasn’t an issue but it did get cold at night. Guards operated on a stab first, capture later policy and traders made snap judgements all the time. If you looked like a slave, no-one would sell to you… not without a master’s presence. And almost all vagrants looked like slaves. As a consequence, if a Lukhian vagrant got close to a cart, they’d take something. This was a fact of life.

“You, tell me, did you see a couple of Bokul without a caravan pass through here? Today or last night?”

“Er, no?”

“Good, there’s still time. You see this cloak? You see its dull grey colour? If you see some Bokul dressed like this, without a caravan, they’re not Bokul: they’re thieves.”

“Wait!” But, it was too late. Ghan was gone. As quickly as he’d arrived, got inside the guard’s personal space and asked questions before the guard had time to remember who he was, he’d left. The guard was left to ponder the questions alone: it was an exercise literally above his pay grade. Bokul were easy to identify: they all wore the same kind of cloak, strangely thick and hooded. It wasn’t ideal in a day time desert, but it did wonders at night and worked well if a Bokul wandered further afield. The guard had never noticed that different groups of Bokul wore different colours. If he had, he might have realised that Ghan was about to waste a week of his life. As it was, the guard ended up hitting the pub.

Lukh was, theoretically, not the ideal place to have a drink. Water was always in short supply and a lot of Bokul tended to drink what liquid stock they intended to sell themselves en route: money's no good if you're not alive to spend it. Still, for those who knew where it was, Lukh did have one anonymous little pub not far from the Bokul gate: The Escaped Slave. Most of its trade was in accommodation, but for guards who stood all day in searing heat, wearing heavy armour any drink the publican was selling was more than welcome. The guard had also discovered that the publican was a good conversationalist years previously, on asking why the pub had so many pictures of escaped slaves all over the place... it had never occurred to him that the place's name had anything to do with it. The publican had simultaneously discovered that the guard wasn't a good conversationalist, but business was usually slow.

“That happen to you often, then?” A couple of glasses clinked as the publican put a box of clean glasses up on a shelf.

“Nah. It’s all a bit strange. How often do you think about the colour of a Bokul’s cloak?”

“Never. As long as they sell me what I want, I don’t give a damn.”

“Exactly." The guard smiled in victory and absent-mindedly drained his glass. "Mind you, there was this other guy who came up to us. Turned out he had two of his slaves get loose and run off.”

The publican paused, “Yeah?”

“I told him to keep looking. We never let slaves out. You can see them a mile off, what with their ragged cloaks.” The guard looked down at his drink and noticed it was empty. “Hey, what’re you smiling for?”

“Nothin’. Another?”


Yeah, it does look like a bigger than usual crop of entries. For a while it seemed like these things were dying, so it's nice to see a revival of interest.
The Serene and Glorious Reich of Nazi Flower Power has existed for longer than Nazi Germany! Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Allied forces who made this possible!

User avatar
Laerod
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 26183
Founded: Jul 17, 2004
Iron Fist Socialists

Postby Laerod » Wed Nov 05, 2014 8:44 am

Nazi Flower Power wrote:Yeah, it does look like a bigger than usual crop of entries. For a while it seemed like these things were dying, so it's nice to see a revival of interest.

So glad I'm not judging this time around. Reading nine stories was quite a bit of work last time.

User avatar
Vancon
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 9877
Founded: Mar 01, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby Vancon » Wed Nov 05, 2014 9:18 am

19 stories

Alright

Let's do this!
Mike the Progressive wrote:You know I don't say this often, but this guy... he gets it. Like everything. As in he gets life.

Imperializt Russia wrote:
The balkens wrote:Please tell me that condoms and Hazelnut spread are NOT on the same table.

Well what the fuck do you use for lube?

Krazakistan wrote:How have you not died after being exposed to that much shit on a monthly basis?
Rupudska wrote:I avoid NSG like one would avoid ISIS-occupied Syria.
Alimeria- wrote:I'll go to sleep when I want to, not when some cheese-eating surrender monkey tells me to.

Which just so happens to be within the next half-hour

Shyluz wrote:Van, Sci-fi Generallisimo


U18 2nd Cutest NS'er 2015
Best Role Play - Science Fiction 2015: Athena Program

User avatar
Nazi Flower Power
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21328
Founded: Jun 24, 2010
Iron Fist Consumerists

Postby Nazi Flower Power » Wed Nov 05, 2014 1:26 pm

Laerod wrote:
Nazi Flower Power wrote:Yeah, it does look like a bigger than usual crop of entries. For a while it seemed like these things were dying, so it's nice to see a revival of interest.

So glad I'm not judging this time around. Reading nine stories was quite a bit of work last time.


I know. When I tried judging it was more work than I expected.

Vancon wrote:19 stories

Alright

Let's do this!


People still have another few hours for last minute entries or edits, but it's probably OK to start taking a look anyway.
The Serene and Glorious Reich of Nazi Flower Power has existed for longer than Nazi Germany! Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Allied forces who made this possible!

User avatar
Nazi Flower Power
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21328
Founded: Jun 24, 2010
Iron Fist Consumerists

Postby Nazi Flower Power » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:26 am

Entries are closed. Judges, the thread is yours.
The Serene and Glorious Reich of Nazi Flower Power has existed for longer than Nazi Germany! Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Allied forces who made this possible!

User avatar
Vancon
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 9877
Founded: Mar 01, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby Vancon » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:28 am

Nazi Flower Power wrote:Entries are closed. Judges, the thread is yours.

HOw do you want us to do these? Do we want to share the winners at the end? Go through them, review them and then post 'em here?

What?

Also, expect some scores on the weekend from me. I should have little to no homework.

Hopefully.
Mike the Progressive wrote:You know I don't say this often, but this guy... he gets it. Like everything. As in he gets life.

Imperializt Russia wrote:
The balkens wrote:Please tell me that condoms and Hazelnut spread are NOT on the same table.

Well what the fuck do you use for lube?

Krazakistan wrote:How have you not died after being exposed to that much shit on a monthly basis?
Rupudska wrote:I avoid NSG like one would avoid ISIS-occupied Syria.
Alimeria- wrote:I'll go to sleep when I want to, not when some cheese-eating surrender monkey tells me to.

Which just so happens to be within the next half-hour

Shyluz wrote:Van, Sci-fi Generallisimo


U18 2nd Cutest NS'er 2015
Best Role Play - Science Fiction 2015: Athena Program

User avatar
Nazi Flower Power
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21328
Founded: Jun 24, 2010
Iron Fist Consumerists

Postby Nazi Flower Power » Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:54 am

Vancon wrote:
Nazi Flower Power wrote:Entries are closed. Judges, the thread is yours.

HOw do you want us to do these? Do we want to share the winners at the end? Go through them, review them and then post 'em here?

What?

Also, expect some scores on the weekend from me. I should have little to no homework.

Hopefully.


Score each entry and post the scores in the thread. The other judges do the same thing. The scores for each entry are averaged and the contestant with the highest average wins.

You don't have to post all your scores at the same time. It is up to you whether you post them one at a time, in batches, or all at once -- whatever is most convenient. The important thing is just that each contestant needs to get a score from each judge. It's nice if you include some brief comments with your scores to explain how you decided on that score. It's up to you how much detail you want to go into with the comments.
The Serene and Glorious Reich of Nazi Flower Power has existed for longer than Nazi Germany! Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Allied forces who made this possible!

User avatar
Norstal
Post Czar
 
Posts: 41465
Founded: Mar 07, 2008
Ex-Nation

Postby Norstal » Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:02 am

Vancon wrote:
Nazi Flower Power wrote:Entries are closed. Judges, the thread is yours.

HOw do you want us to do these? Do we want to share the winners at the end? Go through them, review them and then post 'em here?

What?

Also, expect some scores on the weekend from me. I should have little to no homework.

Hopefully.

The way I do it is I judge at least two entries per week and give theirs score FIFO style. I'll try to get half this weekend, but I make no promises.
Toronto Sun wrote:Best poster ever. ★★★★★


New York Times wrote:No one can beat him in debates. 5/5.


IGN wrote:Literally the best game I've ever played. 10/10


NSG Public wrote:What a fucking douchebag.



Supreme Chairman for Life of the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

User avatar
The Nation of Ceneria
Minister
 
Posts: 2619
Founded: Apr 20, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby The Nation of Ceneria » Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:50 pm

Nazi Flower Power wrote:
Vancon wrote:HOw do you want us to do these? Do we want to share the winners at the end? Go through them, review them and then post 'em here?

What?

Also, expect some scores on the weekend from me. I should have little to no homework.

Hopefully.


Score each entry and post the scores in the thread. The other judges do the same thing. The scores for each entry are averaged and the contestant with the highest average wins.

You don't have to post all your scores at the same time. It is up to you whether you post them one at a time, in batches, or all at once -- whatever is most convenient. The important thing is just that each contestant needs to get a score from each judge. It's nice if you include some brief comments with your scores to explain how you decided on that score. It's up to you how much detail you want to go into with the comments.


Great. I am starting with oldest, and moving to newest. So, here goes the first several scores.


THE DARKNESS BREEDS EVIL - Howslandia

Characters: 8/20
Plot: 18/20
Setting: 10/10
Creativity: 15/15
Style: 19/20
Grammar and Spelling: 5/5

Bonus points: 7

Comments: Overall, a very well written story. It was unable to score well on the characters section as you know very little about the proponent. Who is it? A man? A woman, or possibly not even human? It pained me to give it a low score on this. The plot of the story is very good, and the same goes for setting, creativity, and style. Spelling was impeccable.

Due to the lack of character development, which I believe was an integral part of this story, I awarded “The Darkness Breeds Evil” with seven bonus points. Overall, this was a very well-written story and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

FINAL SCORE: 82



BLISS AMONGST THE BLOODSHED - Rostogovia

Characters: 11/20
Plot: 10/20
Setting: 8/10
Creativity: 14/15
Style: 16/20
Grammar and Spelling: 5/5

Bonus points: 5

Comments: This story opened strongly, but went gradually downhill as it went along. It scored rather poorly in the characters section because of the fact that you become detached from his mind and feelings as he goes insane. It would score better if it detailed his thoughts better near the end. Plot is just a bit unoriginal, and nothing really happens in the story that makes it stand out. The setting is very interesting in my opinion, and the imagery that describes the battlefield is very prominent. The story was told quite creatively, and thus received a high score in that field. It was well written, and thus scored well stylistically. Spelling was impeccable.

I awarded “Bliss Amongst the Bloodshed” with five bonus points because of the way it examined the experience of the battlefield. The author also purposely leaves it very unresolved, and leaves you wondering what happens to the Lieutenant next.

FINAL SCORE: 58



RED WHITE AND BLUE DAWN – Pimps Inc

Characters: 16/20
Plot: 12/20
Setting: 9/10
Creativity: 14/15
Style: 12/20
Grammar and Spelling: 4/5

Bonus points: 3

Comments: Well written overall, but the statistics that were included repeatedly jerked me away from the story. There were several spelling and grammar errors as well.

FINAL SCORE: 70
Last edited by The Nation of Ceneria on Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Furry Alairia and Algeria
Postmaster of the Fleet
 
Posts: 21009
Founded: Apr 05, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby Furry Alairia and Algeria » Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:51 pm

I hate real life.
I was unable to add the last part. ;-;
In memory of Dyakovo - may he never be forgotten - Дьяковожс ученик


I do not reply to telegrams, unless you are someone I know.

PreviousNext

Advertisement

Remove ads

Return to Arts & Fiction

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users

Advertisement

Remove ads