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What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 28 Nov 2006 03:39 PM |
How much would you do for love? Would you give up your career? Would you leave your family forever? Would you give up your own finger, arm, a heart? Would you kill innocents in cold blood? To what depths would you go for that one sole mate? For the one true person that completes you. Would you break a sacred brotherhood bound and ruin a great kingdom for the sweet touch of that one person’s skin? Would you start a war that raged on for years with the deaths of 10’s of thousands of your kin for the euphoric high when you are in love? What would you do?
This is a story of what one did for love. |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 28 Nov 2006 06:58 PM |
Dearest son,
I hope your search for work is going well. Do not worry things are as well as I could hope
them to be. I have completely given up the “profession” you detest so much. Granted the
money you have sent is just about gone, but I have been selling some of the pies you enjoy
so much to Mrs. Miggins. She pays me fairly and is just enough to get by. I hope you find
some more work soon. I just wish it wasn’t in something so dangerous. I have talked to my
brother again and his offer still stands. I do not understand why you just can’t work for him
mining ore. I don’t like telling my friends that my son is a mercenary. Plus it’s a lot safer. So
please son think about your uncle’s offer.
Anyway, I was talking to my friend Susanna. You know the one that used to write
that column in the paper? She gave me this wonderful perfume as a birthday present. It
smells so wonderful. It reminds me of your father for some reason. I still miss him greatly as
I bet you do to. It makes me so mad that more wasn’t done on finding what really happen to
him. But you know how those nobles uptown are like. The world is filled with many evil
people Corbin, remember that.
Oh, that reminds me something odd happen at the market today. I was buying
some fruit when a very odd fat man walked up to me and just stared right into my eyes for a
very long time. I asked what he wanted but he wouldn’t say anything he just kept staring
into my eyes. Then he turned and walked off. It was quite unsettling. Then to make
matters worse I kept seeing him wherever I went that day. When I told Susanna she
thought I was just being stupid but, I swear I thought he was following me. Oh well just my
imagination running wild as you like to always tell me.
Well I love you deeply and hope to hear from you soon. Oh, visit your mother once
in while alright? I don’t get to see you enough.
I love you Corbin.
Mom. |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 30 Nov 2006 10:15 AM |
A city is an interesting thing really. People coming and going keeping to themselves ignoring anything not involved with there own lives. Port Royal is no different if you think about it. Exploding fireballs, walking elementals, wild animals following adventures around are the normal everyday scenes in Port Royal. The residents have learned to ignore what might seem strange. Only worried about there own survival. Why would PR Tribune readers be any different? Reading the paper for what is on the front page and maybe a glance at the gossip column before tossing it into the streets. A little ad placed by a poor man out of options would most likely be ignored.
*A small ad placed somewhere out of the way in the PR Tribune*
PLEASE HELP
Looking for my sister.
Last seen in Lower Port Market.
Wearing brown farmers dress.
Pretty face, missing 2 front teeth.
Any info please contact Fred Givens.
Glanced at and ignored.
“My sweet love, I have a most wonderful surprise for you. I have found the most pleasing curve.” |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 02 Dec 2006 12:54 AM |
Notes sketched hastily on a piece of scroll. They are written in a strange angular pictographic code. A clever reader might discern that the scroll bears a numbered list, and the counting system is somehow alien.
Were the reader able to comprehend these glyphs, they might think it were a shopping list… the collected attributes of the ideal woman that, found altogether and at once, would represent the greatest beauty in the list author's sight.
…
[ ] The trunk of a broad noble woman ~ a favorable curve to the shoulder ~ well muscled wide and powerful
[J] Slender higharched foot ~ a pair like a dancers ~ long toes and clean ~ they have walked the streets and yet their perfection is obvious and necessary to the overall composition
[C] A pelt of hair cared for most carefully ~ grown long and free of parasites ~ Dark and luxurious
[G] Luminous skin that glows thin and sheer ~ smooth like marble or supple goat ~ Not inked but pure and clear of marks, save one
…
More than four items describe this woman. A woman is more than the curve of a shoulder, the arch of a foot. The rest of her, however, requires very, very careful consideration. |
Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble
We accept you, one of us! |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 05 Dec 2006 10:41 PM |
Two Port Royal guards approach a short series of steps leading down to a shabby door in a run down alley in Lower Port. The solid wooden door is hidden in the shadows and the almost constant rain has brought a large amount of garbage to accumulate in front of the door.
Guard One, “Ugg why we gotta be comin dawn har?”
Guard Two, “Fred bein a good friend and all. I wanna be tha one to tells him we be finding his sistar.”
Guard One with a sigh, “We be seemin to be doin this a lot lately.”
Guard Two, also with a sigh, “Aye we have, we have”. He kicks some of the garbage away then knocks on the door.
A series of locks clicks out and the door is pushed outward, bulldozing the garbage out of the way. Fred Givens peers around the door. Fred, a man in his thirties, has worked for the Sanitation Department under Port for nearly 10 years cleaning out blockages and killing pesky rats. His sister has lived with him since their parents where bitten by snakes during one of many of Ports snake infestations. His sister had now been missing for nearly a week.
Guard Two, “hello, Fred”
Fred. “ello” with a nod.
Fred had known the guard since childhood. They ran together a while causing trouble as kids. Now they drank together every now and again when Fred had to money to head to the tavern. Fred could tell from the look in the guards eyes that they had found her. He nodded slowly and began to close the door. Then stopped.
Fred, “Wha be killin har?”
Guard Two, “We be findin har outside a cave dawn by the Fourwinds…out by them circle of rocks. We be thinkin tha ants be getting her.”
Freds brow narrows, “She never be goin out thar befar,” shakes his head, “Tha canna be right. She hate to be outside of Port. Even more…she be terrified of bugs. It might not be lookin it from har but she be keeping it spotless in har. If she be seein a bug yah be hearin har screamin tah the hin city, I says.” Fred shakes his head again, “if yah be telling me ye found har in some back alley in Port I be understandin. But out thar just donna seem right.”
Guard Two, “sorry Fred, I donna whats to tells ya.”
Fred’s teary eyes peers into the Guards, “Can I be seeing her one last time?”
Guard Two, “it wouldn’t be good Fred, she be chewed up pretty bad nah. I mean her head looked like it had been nearly cut off.”
Fred as a tear rolls down a cheek, “wha abou the ring on har finga, it was me mothers?”
Guard Two shakes his head, “Her hand was missing.”
Fred nods slowly and slowly closes the door. |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 11 Dec 2006 11:51 AM |
Somewhere two lovers standing inches away from each other speak in hushed tones.
“Please don’t get so close,” He looks down, “you know I can’t stand having you see me like this. The thought of you touching me in this body makes me sick”
In a reserved irritated tone, “I am sorry my dear.” She pulls back a little. “I do not mean to get upset. But you must be more careful my love. I have made friends with many on the list and I don’t want you to,” A slight pause as she contemplates her words. “The body just doesn’t fit on you and it makes you do odd things?”
“I hate this!” Large foot pounds on the floor. “Why couldn’t you have found something better to put me in?”
“My dear, please you must understand I had to use what was around or lose you forever. I am sorry. It won’t be long now. Just wait a little longer. Here come,” she motions him over, “Look the skeletal structure is almost complete. Can’t you see? Soon you will be returned to your beautiful former self and this whole thing will just be a fading memory.”
He smiles, “Yes and then I can touch you with my real skin,” his bent finger approaches her face and he pulls it away.
She smiles, “Yes but we are at the most crucial moment my love. You must try harder to control yourself around them. Just for a little longer.” She ponders a little, “Find his memories that you keep hearing and use those to act more…sociable.” |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 13 Dec 2006 02:36 PM |
*Letter left on the table*
Corbin,
I am sorry I missed you. I hope you didn’t stay up to late waiting for me. I had the most
unusual experience last night. Mrs. Miggins pie shop was flooded by sewage and a couple of
people I met decided to take care of her problem. Anyway, to make a long story short a
grotesque gnome under port was responsible and wanted us to smear filth over his body or
he would keep flooding her shop. Well needless to say I wasn’t about to do such a thing and
left. So do me a favor stop by Mrs. Miggins shop on your way home and see if her problem
was solved.
Could you pick up some fish for dinner tonight? The shelves are bare and I was in
the mood for it. Make sure you don’t buy it this time from Betty. You know what her fish did
to your stomach last time. Also, stop wearing your boots in the house. I don’t know what
you walk in outside, but it takes me an hour to try and scrap it off the floor. Another thing,
we will soon be getting the paper delivered to the front door. Make sure you bring it in so it
doesn’t get wet. I got the ash option so when you are done reading it (make sure I am too)
change the bird cage.
Last thing, if you see Ms. Monah please invite her over for tea. She was the nice
dwarf woman who we met at the coffee shop. She seems like a very nice woman and I
worry about her because she has no family. Also, I hope you aren’t following what that
shady hin we had coffee with said. I don’t think you should trust anyone with the name like
Fen. Anyway, remember the fish and please be safe.
Love,
Mom
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 14 Dec 2006 08:37 PM |
Coralyn waved to the beautiful Elven bard and said her farewells as she turned and began walking the alleyways toward home. She heard him coming. The large figure bumbling behind her. She had been aware of him for almost a week now. She would see him wandering around the market. Walking behind her on the streets. Standing in a doorway here and there.
She mentioned it a couple of times to friends and her son, but she didn’t really think it was anything serious. She froze when the man yelled for her. Her body became a statue of panic. For an instant she thought about running but he was already upon her. The man was incredibly strong but lacked any kind of grace.
As he fumbled around, Coralyn forced out a scream. A spine tingling cry that rang out over lower Port. Then an odd smell that just didn’t belong filled her nose, even as a rag was placed over her face. A pleasant smell. Something that just didn’t belong in the whole situation. Coralyn kept thinking how odd that was as she lost consciousness.
“You will make lovely hair”
Our villain has made a mistake. What a fool. A clue. Fallen out of his pocket. Left for all eyes to see. Something that just didn’t belong. |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 15 Dec 2006 01:48 PM |
| ((I find this chilling - pardon the OOC)) |
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about dying."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means lying in the ground with dirt on your face and holding your breath forever."
-Burt Reynolds, "The End" |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 15 Dec 2006 01:53 PM |
The strange angular pictographs. A code. An system of counting alien in derivation to the way money is counted, or bushels of wheat. It has some things in common with the script of alchemists, which like traditional medicine is more available to qualitative measures of phlegm, warmth… or pain.
The list is ever changing. What had been considered a very favorable attribute turns up flawed. The high-arched dancer’s feet have no feeling. The proportion of another element is not in harmony with the overall composition. But the list grows, and almost daily.
…
[ S ] sound-making apparatus and the pulmonary organs to operate same
But: can the proper arrangement of these be maintained? Careful measurement of the pipes should be made while in situ
[ R ] voluntary musculature exception material for use in any area ~ overall well developed and toned ~ discard undistinguished skin
[ S ] hands adopted as a set ~ long and sensitive fingers, graceful plucking digits ~ preserve intact
consult: remove calluses from thumb and tips, and pare down nails?
…
More than these items describe this woman. A woman is more than the sound of her voice, her toned athletic flesh. The rest of her, however, requires very, very careful consideration. |
Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble
We accept you, one of us! |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 17 Dec 2006 10:43 PM |
The past few days kept Syluné in quite the baffled state of mind. Coralyn seemed to all but disappear and the strange man who had been stalking the woman had now taken it upon himself to do the same to Syluné. Her mind wandered as a bards mind often did.
She had seen the darkly clothed man when Coralyn faded from existence right after she had gone down an alleyway in the lower section of Port, and the only link to her disappearance was perhaps that very same man.
However, things like that bothered Syluné and the only thing on her mind as of now was who she could hire as a bodyguard. Not only that, with the slander of her name in the paper, that itself would no doubt have the freaks that go bump in the night all the more willing to be another member on the list of “Syluné’s List of Crazy Stalkers”.
As for the last few days she had been speaking to a few people about the body guarding task, and a few men seemed perfectly fine for the job. |
Me-ow. |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 17 Dec 2006 10:49 PM |
{( *Ahem.*
And who, exactly, has offered their services in such a way that outshines a 19th level Sorcerer? )}
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WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 02:49 AM |
Distraught over his mother's disappearance, Corbin finds himself in the Black Pearl. In the back of the flop house he finds Guy's office, and is inspired to write him an inquiry. He places the letter in Guy's mail box along with a sack of gold.
Guy,
I have seen your advertisements. I need your services. My name is Corbin. My mother, Coralyn Fisher, is missing - and most likely kidnapped. I want you to find her.
She is a lady of lower port nearing 40 years of age. She is known for her luxurious, long black hair, and beautiful voice. Most men still find her attractive. She is unmarried. My father is dead.
She seemed to have drawn a Stalker to her recently. And disappeared. I have included her last letter to me with this one. Perhaps you can find a clue within it.
I have reason to believe that a villain named Chris is involved. The singer, Sylune, says she witnessed him following her down the alley passed PAJWT. This is the last anyone has seen of my mother. I found your office while looking for sign of her.
Sylune, a human warrior named Tristrian, and an elf maiden named Mikael Rose have each witnessed this individual stalking Sylune as well. A dwarf maid name Monah has also witnessed Chris stalking my mother.
Recently on Aquinas Coast he was slain by Tristian and then ressurected by a priestess from the Port's Temple, it became apparent necromancy could be involved with him. His body quickly turned to black dust and decomposed before our eyes. This still did not prevent the priestess from raising him from the dead.
In addition to these traits, I have noted he smells of lavender and peppermint. His eyes move independently of one another. His face looks otherwise mutilated as if he has been punished for some crime. Although it is hard to tell what crime given the state of his face.
In addition to Chris... I suspect there is another party. Someone was spying on Sylune and I when Sylune showed me the last place she saw my mother. I only got a glimpse. This person ran immediately when I spotted her. This person appeared female. human. She wore blue. I chased her from the alley, but quickly lost her in the Port. Certainly she is a suspicious character. I want to warn you in the chance that Chris is involved with other parties. Be careful.
I am sorry I am unable to offer more information. Nor will I be able to meet with you right away. I will need to lie low for a couple weeks as Chris's murder and resurrection will draw quite a bit of unwanted attention. I need to preserve my reputation. I hope that this 500 gp is a good enough advance.
I will return to Port in two weeks. I hope you have my mother by that time. And I will have for you 1000 more gold. If you want more we will need to negotiate.
-Corbin |
Famous last words:
Mykal> it's my new wireless router.
* > Mykal has quit (Ping timeout)
Vulpina> Hey!! IRC didn't boot m.....
* > Vulpina has quit (Exit: DarkMyst WebChat) |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 11:16 AM |
The last thing I wanted was any visitors to disturb the delicate balance of a hangover cigar breakfast, but there it was anyway: slipped under the mat and into what passed for my life. Ever since I'd hit the big time I'd been feeling off, like someone had slipped me a solid gold mickey laced with threats and broken promises. Of all the ways to be played, this one was probably on the books as the best, but it raised my hackles anyway. Also disturbing was the feeling that I'd never figure out just how I came to be filthy rich and the owner of a closet full of magical relics. It's enough to shake a guy's confidence, knowing he's been outclassed. Probably by a dame, too.
I didn't want to take the letter, but as the human spirit is stubborn in the short term I soon found myself reading it anyway. Anything to make the dwarven miners in my head take a break. It was a case in the real sense of the word. No snoop job, no go-betweening, no retainer on innuendofied further employment. The opposite. Missing persons were about as real as cases got. None of the names meant anything to me except His Highness, Sir Duke Jessup's establishment.
The important thing was that this letter promised me my due dough and sure enough, in the alleyway between right side up Port and upside down port, there it sat. This meant that Corbin had bought himself five days of Guy at one-hundred clams each. I needed to walk off my bourbon dinner anyhow, so I got to work. Hit the streets. Started asking questions. Started drawing a picture of a guy with a ponce's scent, a lizard's eyes, and a common name. Hopefully I'd be able to give Corbin his change and his mother when he showed up. Maybe she'd even be alive; maybe she'd even be pretty.
I dunno. The young ones are all crazy. |
True solace is finding none, which is to say, it is everywhere.
-Gretel Ehrlich |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 01:02 PM |
"Okay, Puggie. I been payin' you rent fair and square for months without any bull. Time to square up. There's a girl I know. Beautiful voice and got a body to make the gods' own pants too tight. She's lookin' for a break. I don't wanna see her hookin' out there with Candy's trackmarked thighs, so I told her I could score her a gig.
Well, Puggie. Can I? And can you stand to have this place make some honest money for once? It'll be more pleasant and less violent than most nights. That much is sure."
(( To whomever is in charge of this plot, can you please send me a PM? )) |
True solace is finding none, which is to say, it is everywhere.
-Gretel Ehrlich |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 21 Dec 2006 09:28 PM |
It had all been set up. Port was slathered in posters advertizing the best exotic singer there never was. Puggie was in the dark, but happy enough with my assurances that a talented pair of breasts in the Pearl could only drive his clientele to further drink. By all accounts, Chris (if this Chris was truly the man we were after) made his hunting grounds in the darker areas of Port Royale and it didn't get much darker then the Pearl after midnight.
A few interested folks, the kind you can trust to keep their cool, had helped come up with the plan. As such they deserved to know the lowdown, so when I sent word to our famous singer at the Broken Mask, I went ahead and left word for Fat Dorothy, too: the plan was going forward.
We were going to land ourselves the catch of the week if we had our way. The bait was ripe, the timing was perfect, and I was planning on buying rounds for the house the entire night. With any luck, the only sober bastards in the whole of the hole would be my chums or the chump we were after.
(( Can we do at least part of this through forums? There are many people involved and scheduling would be a nightmare... )) |
True solace is finding none, which is to say, it is everywhere.
-Gretel Ehrlich |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 22 Dec 2006 11:07 AM |
I had been spending much time as of late picking my way through the ruins of Lynaeum in my ongoing cartographic task so when I came to Port to resupply and spend a couple of hours lounging on the seafront with my new friend Jo, the city had a palpable tension I could feel to the marrow. In a short few hours I had learned of the death of the wizard Lucius Edmonds, seen a hulking figure watching us from the shadows, and witnessed a large man with a shattered visage (whom I've dubbed Piecemeal) press himself upon a couple of female acquaintances in Port.
Don't like to see that sort of thing normally, but this had a more desperate and hungry quality that made my hand want to rest upon the hilt of my blade. I felt like I had seen the beginning of this, started to climb the ladder and was stopped a while back. I am ready to climb again.
I thought maybe the tension was part of Lucius' death and would be revealed at his wake, but when I attended -- nothin. So when I saw the posters pasted up on nearly every vertical surface of lower Port for an event at the Pearl, I knew something was up. Pugs was too cheap to pay for entertainment and the Mystraider boys are usually so crass they keep the most accomplished bard's lips tightly closed in the Black Pearl. Don't know where the impetus began or what it's for but I am going to tuck away my maps for a while to find out.
I am ready to climb again. Letsee if this time I can get to the top.
((I'm interested in this one too. Happy to do it through forums but if something is planned please post times so I can try to arrange my schedule and participate. Thanks.)) |
T'mok Gurzi
Resident Gnoll Warlord
patron for the noble yet drink addled
Timik Gorozai the Mistake |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 22 Dec 2006 08:17 PM |
“It’s been awhile since we have spoken. I have been busy and I bring presents, my love.”
Piecemeal: “Oh, how wonderful, my dear. I ever so love presents.”
“Now dear, start from the beginning. What happened? Did the scraps hurt you?”
Piecemeal: “I do not know my dear. It is hard to explain. It was like what happened the first time you lost me. I floated out of my beautiful body high into the air. Away from you. Then suddenly I was snatched back. Just like before and I opened my eyes to be back into this disgusting shell.”
“Just like before? Interesting, I shall make a note of that. But that doesn’t explain why the scraps attacked you. I feel you’re not trying hard enough to fit in. Look, I hate to say this but, you see my love, I feel you must stay here for a short while.”
Piecemeal: “Stay here? But why my beautiful lover, the scraps are easily controlled. And our lovely specimens are practically asking to be taken.”
“I know. I know. But I am trying to get us a more permanent residence. Then my work will go much faster. Your body’s skeletal structure is all but done. But I am having difficulty with building the muscular shell and I haven’t even started with the compilation of all the different skin blends. I need time and a place to work. This isn’t as easy as we first thought. And, I fear that shell will not hold up with all the damage you have already put it through.”
Piecemeal: “Well if this body falls apart you can just find a new one.”
“Hon, it’s not that easy. The first time was under unusual circumstances and I do not know I can replicate that. So, please stay away from the specimens and the scraps for a little while. Soon I can bring them to you and then we can properly adjust the measurements to your particular body frame. Ok?”
Piecemeal: “Well, how about I just wander around in the woods and hopefully I come across a nice specimen. Can I take it?”
“Alright, but only under your covering and only if you can take it alive, Ok? I cannot do much with flesh that is beginning to decompose. You don’t want rotting flesh, right?”
Piecemeal: “No,” Laughter. ”No I don’t” |
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A Friend's Worth.
Posted: 23 Dec 2006 10:50 AM |
Valethrion mulled over his glass of wine, silent, at his usual table in the Broken Mask.
A memorable day of traveling with Sylune, whom he had offered to protect, was spoiled by yet another brush with death. Luckily the male of the Unders was brave and kind enough to drag the Elf's body out to Buckshire, where it was then brought to the Seven Sisters. He wondered what had come over him; about why he was so utterly foolish as to step around that corner, despite the tugging feeling that something was amiss.
Valethrion sighs quietly and took a sip from the glass, then sets the glass - only half empty - on the table and removes a slip of parchment from his belt. His eyes flick over the numbers scratched in ink, his lips moving around the large figures slowly, almost reluctantly. Another sigh; this one of exhasperation, and he crumples the paper and feeds it to the candle atop the table.
"I suppose...I have my gems," he mutters aloud, though apparently to no one. "How many, last count?"
A light voice on the wind obliges quickly. "Eighty-six diamonds, thirty-four fire opals, thirty-three sapphires, twelve rubies and...The one emerald."
Valethrion winces at the last item mentioned. He stares at his wine glass for a long moment, then sighs quietly and picks it up. "That will do, hopefully. The diamonds will be sold first; but be prepared to have directions to sell the rest; save for the emerald. Then give the money to me. If these four need so much payment for barely risking their lives, then I suppose giving them their fees is worth saving her."
"Now," he murmurs, noting agreement in his partner. "To do my job."
Valethrion pushes his chair away from the table and stands slowly. He takes a very small sip from the glass and then replaces it on the wooden surface. The Elf stands there for a moment, then sighs and brushes his cloak off his right shoulder, wincing lightly at an apparent bite mark, barely two days old.
He rubs the scar lightly and then makes a beckoning gesture, commanding whatever presense with which he was speaking to follow him out the door. |
WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 03 Jan 2007 01:52 PM |
((NOTE: Pushing the far edge of PG-13 with this post. The violence is bad and yes, it was coming eventually, tasteful necrophilia.
Wikipedia notes that there is little research on the issue, and follows a recent study to suggest "that either of the following situations could be antecedents to necrophilia:
1. The necrophile develops poor self-esteem, perhaps due in part to a significant loss;
(a) He (usually male) is very fearful of rejection by women and he desires a sexual object who is incapable of rejecting him; and/or
(b) He is fearful of the dead, and transforms his fear of the dead—by means of reaction formation—into a desire for the dead.
2. He develops an exciting fantasy of sex with a corpse, sometimes after exposure to a corpse."
In short the majority of necrophiliacs are motivated by a desire for an unresisting and unrejecting partner; by a want for reunion with a lost partner; by sexual attraction to corpses; by a desire for comfort or to overcome feelings of isolation; and by a desire to remedy low self-esteem by expressing power over a corpse.))
He had watched the things from concealment as they moved through the old — but not ancient — wood. Inelegant, perfunctory imitations, the things were animated and little more. How many men went into the assembly of a single one? Assembled from scraps, staples and threads of gut, hemp or rawhide holding the whole together.
These machines... They thought... had a will within their casements of foetid flesh. This could not be denied. The assaults that they perpetrated upon intruders into their wood were imaginative and hideous. He witnessed the rending apart of a proud tall stag, which had browsed on the margin of the Deep Forest. Two of the things fell on it and pulled the antlers from its head, with a sound like a nail being pulled stubbornly from its clinch. The screaming animal then gave up its limbs. The things did not eat. This had been done out of hate, and also a love for destruction.
He was not overly moved by what he witnessed.
Withdrawing, he stepped barefoot over the Great Plains, springy sods buoying him up, carefully avoiding the horse chips that were scattered across the place. West were the mountains, his former home of Icy Vale. Nearer was the keep. An infamous place of un/death.
"You left me here a long time."
"The work is unfinished. We need more material. But, I have brought with me nothing new."
"Where have you been?"
"I went to the Port again. There is a lot of good material there. But I was discovered. First it was just a few who came. Then there was the city guard. Then there was quite a crowd around the body."
"Were you seen? You were forced to leave the everything behind?"
"It was no good. I will not use material like that. But I saw her again. She sang that very night. I wish you could have that voice."
"Won't you come closer?"
"I can hardly see you. Are you angry with me?"
"Of course not, my love." And yet, he keeps some distance between them.
"Then come closer. I've been down here for such a long time. Won't you come closer?"
"Don't touch me."
Piecemeal knows this game, perhaps better than his companion. In an hour he will be the strong one, holding them both to their promise.
How long had it been like this? Stolen touches. When the work was finished and the promise fulfilled, then they would know such sweetness.
For now Piecemeal could watch, and enjoy the tortures.
He approaches the slab.
These materials were selected very carefully. And they looked so beautiful. At first he lays his hands on them gently, fingers splayed, barely touching them.
Piecemeal withdraws into a shadow and watched from that concealment, a pair of unblinking eyes shining out of the darkness.
He lays his cheek against cool dry skin gripping the side of the slab lest he collapse to the dank earth floor. The smell of death floods his nostrils, not like rot, but a thing more subtle, a staggeringly powerful intoxicant. It fills his sinuses and his lungs and starts a vibrating in his fingers and toes. Breathing at all becomes difficult.
Piecemeal covers his nose and his mouth with his hands. He knows how important a smell can be.
A piece of muslin cloth damp with light oil covers those portions of the work that have no skin. Light cloth glistens wrapping the extremities also, where they terminate prematurely. No hands there, and no feet. Now he lifts off the dampened sheet that covers the torso and drapes it carefully over the face. He knows underneath the cloth that face is showing thirty-two perfect teeth in a smile.
He wipes his hands before continuing, not wanting to introduce dirt into the work.
"Yes," Piecemeal breathes the words. "Touch me."
Blinded, he is a mole swimming through stinking black earth. Peg-teeth sink into a roiling, slippery worm and he wrestles cramming it down, alive to the very end, even after he has swallowed it.
If he continues like this...
If he continues like this...
The work is never going to be finished.
((Edit - Some content removed at DSM-IV's request.)) |
Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble
We accept you, one of us! |
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Re: What Would You Do For Love?
Posted: 17 Oct 2007 09:48 AM |
"Follow me to the back."
Corbin left the common room at the Four Winds Inn, and found two chairs at a small table in the kitchens. It was cozy, and his companion said so. They sat across from one another, and she seemed to grow fascinated with his face. She stared openly. His face was angular and handsome, and resembled his mother's.
"What do you know about Coralyn?" Corbin inquired of the dwarf. Her familiarity with his mother had brought her into his latest enterprise, a sea voyage he had been recruiting for... given her entrée so to speak, but her appearance and her demeanor... To put it bluntly, Corbin never liked this dwarf, and found her repugnant.
Monah replied to Corbin's question.
"I know she isn't who she once was."
Either she was being evasive, or she was being perfectly truthful. Corbin clenched his jaw and looked away.
"I barely know her anymore. Her behavior. It must pain you some. Perhaps more so than it pains me."
Corbin wore an intense look as he listened.
"I haven't made many friends in Port. I had hoped that she and I would... I had hoped that we would be friends. But Coralyn has no time for Monah these days."
"To be honest, Monah, I am surprised that you and she were friends." And with those words Corbin looked the grimy dwarf up and down. It was a short trip.
"That's ironic, isn't it? Now that she has fallen into the gutter, she hardly knows my name."
Corbin gripped the small table's edge in a sudden blaze of anger. He looked as though he might stand and strike the dwarf.
"I know what you feel. If only there were some way."
"Some way to WHAT?!! I mean, really!"
"We used to have conversations. That is why Coralyn tolerated my presence. She liked to talk. Could there be some way to change her? Set things back the way they were? Then we would both have what we want."
"Isn't that the problem," Corbin said mildly, almost sarcastically.
"A real problem."
"Perhaps we could talk about this, after the voyage," Corbin said. It was clear that he wished to escape from this conversation.
Only the promise, of information about his mother, brought him to speak with Monah at all. But as he moved to wrap up the dwarven woman interjected rapidly, as though trying to prolong their conversation.
"What would you do? To have her back?"
"Excuse me?"
What would you do?"
"Wouldn't you just do anything?"
"I might."
"Wouldn't anyone?"
It was tragic, for these two to speak past one another. Corbin didn't know what Monah had done to his mother. And Monah didn't know what Corbin had quartered safely at the Seven Sisters. |
Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble
We accept you, one of us! |
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The Strongbox
Posted: 31 Oct 2007 10:34 PM |
His good fortune.
Her outline was not without curves. She wore a tight corset that pushed her slight bosom into an attractive décolletage. Her arms were bare, with bangles at her wrists, and her feet were bare as well, and freshly - though not thoroughly - washed. Her feet were inelegant, broad with long toes that were topped with very light blonde curls. Her hair... luminous, thick, draping straight to her shoulders but cut flat across the front creating harsh bangs that ended just above her eyebrows.
A decent woman wears her hair up, and covers her arms, and never, ever shows her feet. An available woman bears her arms, and lets her hair fall, but only a prostitute or a slut goes about barefooted in an alehouse. This man, this souse had never been with a dwarven woman before, but like many men he would lie with any woman given the slightest opportunity.
"I've put a spell on you," she said to him as he drew up next to her. "I brought you to me." She spoke in complete sentences, and everything that she said was true. This sometimes meant saying the obvious.
"I don't have any beard," she said. "See? Hardly any beard at all."
"Touch my chin," she said invitingly, and raised it up for his inspection.
He traced the line of her jaw with one finger and then she put his ale to her lips. They passed the cup back and forth, and then they shared another cup, and another.
"I'm strong. See?" She showed him her right arm, holding up her sleeve for him to see. That same whorish smile was on her lips. What makes a smile whorish anyway? She knew.
"Show me your muscle," she said. She backed into him and laid her arm alongside his. Her hips met his thighs, and his head rested on top of her head. Her body was thick, hard and angular.
He made to embrace the dwarven woman but she rolled out of his reach and got a grip on his hand. She grasped his thumb and he grasped hers reflexively; she pulled and he almost fell forwards. "Let's see who's stronger," she said playfully, and hauled him over to the end of a table.
They were a very close match, but he overtook her at the end.
Eventually he followed her out onto the muddy street.
His new circumstances.
He wakes in darkness. A box. A...wooden box. The wood is warm but close, close as a coffin. He scrapes his knuckles on the lid trying to bring his hand up to wipe his eyes. He is stretched out flat and his knees hit wood when he bends them. One arm is free inside the box, and both of his feet are free. He is still wearing his breeches, his belt and his tunic, but his shoes have been removed. His feet are touching against the wooden bottom of the box. There are just a few inches between the tip of his toes and the lid of the box, or what he takes to be the lid.
His left arm is immobilized, outstretched perpendicular to the line of his body. Cold has sunk into it like morning frost. It is outside of the box.
He remembers the woman, a dwarf with straight blonde hair cut across the front, bangs just above her eyebrows. They were in the bar and she was flirting with him. At one point they compared their arm muscles, him with his tunic sleeve pulled up, arm alongside hers and both of them flexing exaggeratedly. He was bent over her and her hair was in his face, and he remembered it smelled oily and sweet like a dead animal lying out in a field with its innards torn out by predators. He didn't care though. At the time she was strange and beautiful to him. One by one her imperfections were coming back to him now. The sick smell of her, the bare feet with filth under her nails, the stubble on her chin, the soft thick hair like young wool across her back and running down between her shoulder blades. However impossible it seemed... Somehow it had all been alluring, at the time, in the tavern with the ale flowing, her eyes and her lips...
His arm is cold; breezes play on his skin. The sleeve of his tunic has been cut away. His arm is fixed to a plank or a bench with a cold iron shackle. He can make a fist but his arm is held straight. Pulling on it only brings his knees and forehead into contact with the wooden lid of the box; his body moves inside the container but his arm does not move at all.
His left hand is inside of a leather glove. The glove is heavy. When he makes a fist he hears and feels metal sliding over metal, and fine mail links slipping together. It is a gauntlet built from riveted plates, links of chain mail over the fingers and palm like a duelist's glove.
Where his arm exits the box, the fit is snug around his shoulder so that no light is admitted from outside the box. He cannot tell if the room outside is light or dark, or if it is day or night.
He calls out. "Oi! Oi!!" It rings very loudly inside of the box and he is not convinced that any sound escapes.
He pushes on the bottom with his feet, driving his skull against the flat wood above his head until it aches sharply. Then he forces his knees against the lid and pushes with his right arm, but the box does not give at all.
"Oi!!" he shouts to the inside of the box. "Wha's goin' on?!!"
There is the sound of a bolt in a door being thrown open. He listens silently.
Then the door scrapes open. There are footsteps. Many bare slapping feet are running over the floor, perhaps tile, perhaps stone, and they are covering the distance between the door and the box quickly. And then, they are outside the box.
The door slams shut again and the bolt is thrown.
A pair of ice-cold hands and a mouthful of teeth clamp over the biceps of his left arm. The greedy mouth bites down and first he feels a shooting cramp as the muscle is crushed. Then the teeth break through his skin and sink into the yielding flesh. Other hands and other mouths close on his arm. The ravenous things grunt and jostle for each bite, grab or gouge.
His screams are muted by the warm wooden box. His agony is too great for any but the most incoherent and guttural noises and panicked struggle. His body knocks against the box like a fish thrown into the bottom of a boat.
Before long the biting mouths have severed the nerves and his fist goes limp. He feels only a tugging at his shoulder. He is drowsy and beyond fear, lips numb. His face is wet. His heartbeat weakens in his ears. It seems to echo inside the close wooden box: lub-dub... lub-dub... lub... dub...
The Strongbox.
The box rests on the ground in the middle of a large cellar chamber, grimy windows high on the walls letting in murky daylight. Two walls of the chamber are part of the foundation of stone, and two walls are partitions made from brick. The stone and the brick are both whitewashed. The floor is dirty wet tile, and hewn wooden risers overhead support the ground floor.
The box is angled up, propped with bricks underneath the head of it, and there are drain holes drilled into the foot.
The box is silent, and a pack of five ghouls are huddled in the corner of the chamber, hands and faces covered with blood.
Another figure enters the room. Feet slapping on the wet tile, he steps over to the strongbox.
The confined man's left arm is skeletonized from the wrist to the shoulder. The strongbox held. Inside the man's body is intact.
The ghouls' master walks around to the arm outstretched. He notes that the hungry dead have fleshed the arm, leaving only gnawed bone. The hand however, is another matter. He unbuckles a strap securing a clamshell gauntlet, palm lined in fine riveted mail. Easing off the gauntlet and setting it on the floor, he now sees that the arm bones terminate in a perfectly preserved hand, bloodless and dead. This is as it should be.
In earlier experiments with the strong box the ghouls had found the fingers irresistible. Their mouths were the wrong instrument for fleshing a hand, effective though they were.
But their master is prepared to finish the task. He work his fingers under the skin and rolls it towards the end of the limb. With a triumphant flourish he removes the skin and flesh like a glove.
Now the hand and the arm both look just as they should. |
Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble
We accept you, one of us! |
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Incident at Small Stones
Posted: 05 Mar 2010 08:50 AM |
The incident was never repeated. It did not auger some new bogeyman come to Port, upsetting as it was. For most of the children it was too frightening to be turned into a game. Any who joked or teased about the Black Biter were swiftly disciplined. Otherwise, the more sensitive among them might never sleep.
It was the wee morning hours several months ago when a child began loudly to shriek in the darkness, where the orphans at Small Stones sleep in rows of short bunked beds, the older ones in hammocks. The shrieking was so horrific that it set off half of the other children to screaming in their piping, high-pitched little voices. When someone arrived with a lantern the room was bedlam, small chubby faces mottled red from shouting, wet with tears.
More lanterns filled the room with light: no bogeymen, but at the center of the disturbance one small pale child was holding himself. The orphans around him forgot their own tears in worry. Lanterns were brought closer. The boy was ushered out of the sleeping room wrapped in a blanket, unresponsive.
In a separate room he was undressed and examined. Both of the women saw it at the same time: the boy had been bitten on the fleshy spot at the back of his left arm. The bite did not break the skin, but the purple-tinged impressions of upper and lower teeth were clear where they had sunk into the skin like wax. It was a mean hungry bite that wrapped around half the boy's arm, and it was still wet with saliva.
They suspected the cruelty of an older orphan - two in particular came to mind immediately with their bad reputations for causing trouble - and the bite marks were... too large... too broad for any but the oldest of the children to have made.
The women looked at one another. They inspected the bite closely in turns and silently consulted on what they were seeing.
Was this bite too broad for any of the children to have made?
Two older children, one girl and one boy, were pulled out of their hammocks and questioned closely that night. One of them, the older girl left the Small Stones on the following day. Her time of shelter at the orphanage had come to an end, and rightly so.
But two facts clouded the affair. First, it was found on that night that each portal leading from the childrens' sleeping room to the exit onto the street was unlocked. This was not as it should be, and none could explain how it happened. It was established that two of the doors had been secured earlier that night, as was custom. No keys were missing.
Secondly, though the boy never saw who bit him, he described sensations that were hard to reconcile. Large, strong hands holding him fast, with horny callouses across the palms. The rough feeling of stubble on his arm just before the bite. An odor of rot that the young boy had never encountered before and could scarcely describe.
The strange affair registered new wariness among the caretakers at the orphanage, and watchfulness among the orphans, who banded together for their own protection against such nightmares, the enemies of sleep. |
Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble
We accept you, one of us! |
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