My Muse Is An Orc

Other Side Of The Screen - Ultra Combo!

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 09:21:20 -0400

Ultra Combo!

by J.R.Brabson

“So, did you sign up?” he asked me with a cocky grin.

“Yes. I wanted to thank you again for giving me the honor and privilege to train with you,” I bowed to him to show my respect. “I assure you that our weeks of training will not go to waste.”

Never one for formalities, I heard his chuckle and felt his firm hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it bud, just do your best in the arena and watch for the openings I showed you.”

Standing up straight, the overwhelming sense of kinship for my sparring partner made it easy for me to smile back at him. “I promise to give it my all. Especially if we end up in a fight together.”

He removed his light grip on my shoulder and leaned his head back with a hearty laugh. “That’s the first time I ever heard you sound competitive, Isamu,” he proclaimed, his laughter dying down. “I won’t hold back either. Now get in there and show your first opponent who’s boss!” He gave me his patented thumbs up and humorous American grin.

I nodded and basked in his positive energy before entering the arena for my first ranked match in the Trials of Steel Fighting Circuit.

I stepped into the pitch-black room and felt nothing except an eerie feeling of emptiness surrounding me. The thick darkness made it unclear if my eyes were even open.

“The waiting room is there to give you a hard time. It plays on your nerves and lets your nervousness build up before the match. If you let that beat you, then the match is over before it began.” Clearly, my sparring partner’s words were wisdom at its finest and helped any sense of maddening vanish.

I focused on my breathing and concentrated on the only noise I could hear: my own heartbeat. Surely, my heart would not betray me at this important time in my fighting career. I felt the thumping and kept it steady, not letting the excitement of my impending fight get to me.

A loud booming voice echoed through the room, “Challenger selected!”

My meditating had paid off, for the sound did not startle me in the least. I never felt so ready for a battle.

“Isamu versus Black Priscilla!”

My mentor warned me of this particular opponent. Priscilla, the Brazilian woman known far and wide for her agility and the snake like strikes of her kicks.

“Back Alley!”

As the words rang in the air, a damp city alleyway replaced the cold black of the room. My opponent stood in front of me.

“I pray the gods bless our battle,” I proclaimed.

“You will be my new play toy,” she replied with a coy smile.

As I watched her body for any weaknesses, I understood then about the rumors regarding how she distracted men during fights. Her cascading white hair sat on top of a revealing black jump suit, which made one want to question how her clothing stayed on her body. I shook any vile images out of my mind and focused on the battle at hand. I clenched my fists at chest height, and prepared for anything.

Our eyes locked and she nearly let her body pour out of her skintight attire in a truly unorthodox stance. Clearly, the benefits of the stance were for me to lose my concentration and leave myself open to her impending attacks. I narrowed my eyes. I would not to be so easily swayed.

“The fate of battle is impending! Round one of one! Fight!”

I took a step forward and decided to take the initiative in hopes of catching her off guard. She readied her back leg for what appeared to be a high kick aimed at my head. I dipped my body low and connected with a medium powered right jab to her body.

Another medium blow to her midsection made it possible to proceed with the rest of my combination. After achieving three hits to her body and a finishing hard kick to her sternum, she fell back on the ground. My sparring partner’s training had shown itself in every blow.

Backing up slowly, I gave her time to regain her footing and let her recover. My heart pounded furiously against my chest like a drum when she stared back at me. I felt rewarded when I saw her icy glare. She realized my skills were something honed and shaped under blood and sweat.

She took a deep breath and readied herself once more. “That was a lucky hit. You won’t get another.” I detected a level of respect mixed in with the resent of her words.

Crouching into a low stance, she motioned me towards her with a smirk.

A direct assault again felt useless, she would see it coming. I had to go for something different.

Steadying my feet against the concrete, I straightened my back and brought my hands in front of my chest. I focused on the space between my hands, tensed my muscles, and let the energy from my body burn inside my very core. I took the energy and gave it shape between my fingers, lightning shot between them. It only took a moment for the lightning to coil around itself and form the desired effect. I pushed forward and unleashed my energy ball in her direction with a cry.

“Lightning blast!”

I saw her bend low in a crouch when the crackling ball began its flight towards her, but when I gazed over a moment later I saw she had vanished. I charged my blast for too longer and it gave her ample enough time to use her agility and speed to vanish behind me. At my own moment of realization, I felt her presence behind me and braced myself for the inevitable attack to my back.

Numerous and painful strikes pounded against my spine in a vicious combo. It ended with me landing face first on the ground due to a sweep to my legs. Luckily, I had caught myself and cushioned the impact.

I closed my eyes tightly and anticipated the oncoming blows of her taking advantage of my prone position. None arrived. Peering behind me, I viewed her standing off to the side, yawning while keeping her eyes on me.

A part of me wanted to believe she did it just to spite me, my heart knew better. She longed for the future exchange with a desire reminiscent of my own. The corners of my lips stretched to a smile. I would not disappoint her.

Ignoring the pain in my back, I pulled myself to my feet and fixed the belt of my gi.

We locked eyes once more and readied into our stances. I moved a few feet in front of a wall, placing my left hand in front of me, while balling the other into a fist to the side, lined with my chest. The stance I took embodied a strong ground offense. She wasted no time with a stance of her own and rushed towards me.

She had done what had I predicted, she saw my offensive stance and wanted to exploit it. When I saw her leap into the air and extend her foot to strike my chest, adrenaline surged through my body.

I unclenched my fist and placed my hand at my chest, bracing myself for when her foot connected with it. This stance not only exposed openings, it created them. The moment our limbs touched, I pivoted my body and used my free hand to grab her ankle, pulling her with my movement. Her eyes went wide as her body followed mine and she found that not only had I let go of her foot, but also her back colliding against the wall behind me.

Something inside me felt clear. I couldn’t tell if it was my soul, my mind, or maybe my adrenaline. Either way, it made the span of time between her impact with the wall and her descent to the ground slow to a snail’s pace. Despite her teeth clenched in pain from my attacks, her narrowed eyes peered into my very being. She still had fight left in her. I had to end it before she could get a chance to pay me back.

I waited for her feet to touch the ground and the moment her body would slump to the ground. The clarity I had achieved pushed my body forward and helped me deliver a devastating combination, my limbs moving in a blur. Her body jerked and bended with each hit until I turned a hard stomach blow into my tenth strike. She reeled over from the force of my punch and I brought my other hand back seeing the perfect time to unleash what should end her.

“Lightning Judgment!” I yelled while the familiar lightning jumped between the fingertips of my hand. The irises of her eyes stared at my hand in shock, until the moment where I propelled my hand forward and engulfed her face.

Her body shook and convulsed as lightning took over her body. I held my grip on her for a only a moment to ensure my victory, nothing more. I stopped the surge of energy and her body landed on the ground with a small cloud of dust kicking up in response.

“Winner! Isamu!”

I stood up straight and felt a sense of calm and accomplishment washing away the adrenaline.

“You have a strong body, but you lack strength of self.” My words fell on deaf, unconscious ears, but I felt she would hear them somehow. I hoped she would take solace in them.

The back alley landscape vanished from view, only to leave me cradled again in the calming blackness. The resonating pain from my back faded away and I felt completely refreshed once more.

I stood still as before and tried my best not let to my last victory get to my head. Before I could focus, the familiar voice echoed again.

“Challenger selected! Isamu versus McGurt! Warehouse!”

When mentioning this opponent, my sparring partner wished I had more experience before fighting the newcomer to the tournament. McGurt was a defensive bull of a fighter, known for his grapples, ground stances, and devastating counters. I had to be extremely careful.

The black faded once more into a dark warehouse with only a single light above our heads, illuminating our bodies. He stood as tall as they said, easily seven feet tall, and wore a pair of blue baggy pants and a blue bandanna. The hair peeking out from under the cloth and his beard were blood red. He sneered at me and sported a bloodthirty grin. Truly, he was the chaos to my peace.

“My strength of will shall be your undoing,” I spoke calmly.

I waited for his customary response and he tilted his head down enough to expose his green globes from behind his sunglasses. The murderous look in his eyes spoke more than any words ever could.

I focused my footing and got into my neutral stance. Based on what I heard, he will come at me with a head on assault. I had to be ready for it.

He stretched his back then hunched forward with his arms out in a traditional grappler stance.

“The fate of battle is impending! Round one of one! Fight!”

We stood for only a moment and I watched his body, he showed no signs of moving. I started to inch my way towards him, watching for any signs of intent, only to have him stand still. I threw caution to the wind and leaped into the air towards him, aiming for a hard heavy punch to his jaw, which I intended to follow up with a low punch. Instead, he bent his knees slightly and jumped up into the air, throwing his legs out into what the wrestling world knew as a drop kick.

It connected with my chest while I was still air borne and sent me flying back, hitting my back against the floor. Severe pain rushed through me from his kick, but I had to fight on. I sat up and watched him stand there as if nothing had happened.

I brought myself to my feet and kept eye contact on him. The murderous gaze remained and he shown no sign of actual movement beyond his stance. An idea sprang to mind.

He wasn’t fast like Black Priscilla and I hoped that maybe I could bait him. I brought my hands up once more and focus my energy, making sure to keep eye contact on him. I threw the ball of lightning forward and ran behind it, waiting for the moment when he blocked it and exposed the lower half of his body. When it approached, he leapt into the air.

Not only had he jumped over my blast, he extended his legs out and drop kicked me once again, thus causing the flat bottoms of his shoes to connect with my face. My body became one with the air yet again.

The boxes on the shelves around us shook from the impact of my landing. I had to sum up every bit of will power in my being to ignore the pain in my jaw and nose. I sat up and wiped my nose, leaving a red streak of blood running down the sleeve of my gi. I wore it like a badge of pride.

And there he stood, still unchanged from the earlier exchange of blows. Where were the grapples? Why did he resort to such an odd attack? Was my style that laughable? Rage started to build up inside me at the sheer frustration of my skills not being enough to handle such a basic attack. I had to get around it.

My eyes narrowed and I took a deep breath. Leaning forward, I charged forward and brought my fist back to appear as though I wanted to aim a punch for his mid-section. When I got close enough, he bent his legs one more and jumped up in the air. The dishonorable bastard tried doing it again.

“Fine!” I thought, it would be his undoing.

My punch missed as intended and I readied my feet, pivoted on my front foot, and let my back foot cut the wind in a strong high roundhouse. The move was designed to counter airborne attacks such as his drop kick. Yet, an all too familiar pain struck my leg and I found myself on the floor.

I laid on my back and punched the ground next to me. This battle had no logic and no honor could possibly be found from it. He insulted not only me with this tactic, but he disgraced the very essence of glory and honor in battle. A battle such as this was not why I fought. Winning and losing meant nothing in a true battle of skill, but the idea of losing to… this, infuriated me. His move seemed to go through all of mine. I had one last trick in my sleeve.

The iron taste of blood built up in my mouth so much that I had to spit it out. “Good,” I thought. “Let him think he has the upper hand.”

I got up to my feet and my blood boiled in anticipation of what I intended to do to him. Charging once more, I waited for his legs to bend. Good they did. Then for his legs to extend out in a drop kick. Of course they did. I brought my hand in an all too familiar stance, placing my hand in the way of his feet, and grabbed his ankle with my other hand. I swung my body to side and slammed his massive body to the ground. Several boxes fell off the shelves from the shock wave.

Leaving him no chance to recover, I jumped on top of his massive body and mustered the strength to pull him to his feet. Before he could take a moment to realize what happened, I begun the same combo I performed on Black Priscilla. There was no wall to support his body, so I stepped forward between attacks to press into him until I saw the right moment.

I brought my hand back, yelled out my attacks name, and grabbed his face, sending the shock wave coursing through his body. His face contorted in agony while steam rose from his body. He needed more of it then Priscilla did.

I let go of his face and waited with a grin for his body to drop, but he stood up still. His body shook side by side in a daze, clearly my attack was strong, but sadly, not enough to finish him. One blow seemed to be all that I needed.

I screamed out in rage and threw my right hook forward, waiting for the pleasure of connecting with the dishonorable lowlife’s jaw and thus ending the horrible farce of a fight. It never came.

My punch went through the air and hit nothing else except the empty space his body once occupied. My eyes darted around frantically. Did he appear behind me? No, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.

Blackness covered the warehouse.

“Son of a…!” Todd held back the urge of throwing his controller, something he hadn’t done since his childhood.

“Whoa, I get up to go make a sandwich and suddenly you’re screaming. Ranked matches not go over well?” His friend Harry replied through the headset.

“The first one was fine. Someone picked Black Priscilla and I did the combo we went over and nailed her at the end.”

“Ok that’s a good thing, so why the yelling?”

“The next fight had this jackass playing that new DLC character McGurt. And he kept drop kicking me!”

“Serious? Oh whoops.” Harry’s voice had a hint of guilt. “I forgot to tell you about how McGurt is bugged. Apparently, his drop kick has priority over everything and they are looking to fix it in the next patch. It’s the reason I didn’t want you to fight him any time soon.”

“Yeah well, I found a way around it.” Todd’s anger stopped him from enjoying the victory. Disdain still surrounded his words.

“Let me guess, he did a force disconnect?”

“Yes! The a-hole must have pulled his cable out or something when he saw I was gonna win!”

“Sadly, some people are just sore losers. I heard this game actually penalizes people for cutting the fight off short like that.”

“Oh, really? That’s good to know.” Todd mused with a righteous smile.

In the mess of obscenities from the sixth graders mouth, one question remained clear. How did he lose?

Vincent “Vinnie” Truman stood tall over his console with an Ethernet cable in one hand and the fingers of the other remained clamped onto the side of his joystick. His gaze, deadly. His sneer, mighty. His breathing, heavy. And his losing attitude, sore.

“Stupid Isamu!” He lifted the joystick up in the air and slammed it down on the rug at his feet. The sound of the impact followed by the cracking of plastic snapped him out of his rage.

“Oh crap!” Vinnie exclaimed and jumped down on top of the controller, examining the damage.

In his blind fury, he caused the joystick to snap out of its casing and the plastic around it looked like cracked earth on a hot day.

He peered around frantically and hugged the controller to him. How was he going to fix it? Did He hear it? All these thoughts and much more ran through the frightened boy’s mind.

“What the hell was that noise?” came a shout from beyond the door.

“N…nothing!” Vinnie replied.

He cringed when the door creaked open and revealed the shadowed frame of his older brother.

“What did you do?” His brother’s cold gaze looked to the Ethernet cable then back to his brother, the huddled ball of clothing and skin on the ground.

“I said nothing Chad!” His heart thumbed against his chest at a pace he wished he could run at.

“Let me see that!” Reaching his hand out, Chad smacked his younger brother on the back of the head and ripped the joystick from his grip.

“Ow!” Vinnie said, rubbing his head.

“You broke my tournament stick you little…” like his younger brother, Chad could fling obscenities with the best of them. It was where Vinnie learned them all.

Vinnie didn’t dare get up. He knew the lumbering bully yelling at him would punch him. Words such as “I’m telling dad!” and “You’re gonna get your ass kicked when he gets home” were used, each one filled young Vinnie with more and more dread.

Tears swelled up under his eyes and caused a horrible burning feeling in his retinas, forcing him to clench his eyelids. Why did he always have to lose at everything? Nothing ever seemed to go right for him. He wished he could disconnect, like the fight. Make it seem like it never happened. He could just imagine pulling out the Ethernet cable of the situation. His hand even reached out and pulled out the imaginary cable.

“Wait… what the fu…”

Vinnie whipped his eyes and peered up at his brother who held the joystick with a confused look on his face. He watched his brother examine it for several seconds and hand the dvice back to him.

“Nevermind. I could have sworn I saw a huge crack on it.” Confusion laced his brother’s words.

As he investigated the joystick in his hand, Vinnie’s eyes widened since he could find no crack or signs of damage. He looked up at his brother and watched him walk towards the door, scratching his head.

“Ju…just don’t let dad hear you talk like that.”

Where did the crack in the joystick go? Vinnie saw it, felt it, and feared it. He turned it over on every side and swore it had to be somewhere. A crazy thought ran through his sixth grader mind, past the checkpoint of his imagination, and crossed the finish line of the irrational.

He sat the controller down carefully and examined the room for a particular type of item. It took him several moments of searching before, ah ha! One of his dad’s beer cans sat next to a bag of stale pretzels on the couch. It was perfect.

Leaping across the room, he grabbed the beer can and felt the aluminum bend to his will. He grinned and his imagination replaced the silver can with Imasu. He sat it down on the coffee table with a smile of triumph, his heart beat pounded once more and thought about how, just maybe, this could work. Closing his eyes, he pictured the can submitting to his iron grip, then imagined pulling out an Ethernet cable with a satisfying amount of force. Opening them, the can seemed fine.

Vinnie growled and tried it again. Maybe he did just imagine the crack in the joystick after all? This time his temper cued in and urged him to make the hand gesture of ripping the cable out of the console.

This time when he peered to the can, it sat on the table in its original pristine state. The corners of Vinnie’s mouth stretched apart and upward as far as they could.

To Be Continued

««»»

23 Staples - Other Side of The Screen

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:13:00 -0400

23 Staples

by J.R.Brabson

Thirty days before the tournament.

Dear Journal,

Hi, it’s Susan again, and I feel like I’m either really lucky or going insane. As we both know, I like to shoot people to relieve stress. By shooting people, I mean shooting in Cry of Vigilance. Even writing it down sounds weird to me since I really detest violence in real life. But hey, it floats my boat. Anyway, since going to college, I know I have been slacking off way too much with classes. I can’t help it. My CoV team got into the tournament bracket and they depend on me. I mean at first, I was excited about it (as you might remember from my previous entry), but now it’s causing way too many problems. My stress relief is my stress and it’s annoying as hell! My roommate Becka isn’t helping with her constant nagging about me skipping classes. Sorry, I ramble when I get excited. On to the insane part.

I had an essay to do, but I fell behind on the leaderboards and needed to practice. On the startup screen on my YCube, I saw an ad for something called “Cross Hair Training”. It caught my attention so it only seemed natural for me to click on it since it was shiny.

“This app promises to improve your hand eye coordination in game and in real life for a limited time! The more friends you invite to try, the more time you get!” it said in the description next to a picture of this weird white guy with a beard and really creepy sunglasses.

Anyway, it sounded promising and the last bit seemed nothing more than a joke to turn me into a walking advertisement. The fact it’s cheap helped too.

So yeah, I downloaded it of course and a stupid loading screen came up with that weird guy’s sunglasses blinking in and out of a black background. Thankfully, it wasn’t there long enough to repulse me beyond belief but it did leave something weird on the screen. It resembled an interface from a very basic first person shooter on a black background. It had cross hairs in the middle and two sets of numbers. One looked as if it was for health and the other one seemed like it was for ammo, since it had a bullet above it.

“Stare into the cross hairs for five minutes then close your eyes for one minute,” the text read for the brief moment it was there. Well it sounded ridiculous and I felt stupid for doing it, but I think at the time, I thought it was something different than the constant stress I’d been feeling lately.

I set my alarm and actually stared at it for five minutes straight! I had to remind myself of the one time my Buddhist cousin in China tried to get me to meditate. He wanted five minutes of my time too and I figured I would humor the game just like I did him. It did make me think about how he told me “time is something man invented”. Sounds ridiculous yet insightful, and sums up my life.

When the phone beeped next to me, I couldn’t tell you how happy I was to be done with it and I closed my eyes like the game told me to. The image of the interface was as clear as day on the dark side of my eyelids. It sorta reminded me of when I used to stare into the light as a kid and see blotches for a few minutes afterwards.

Right when I had enough and wanted to just give up out of sheer annoyance, I noticed the numbers change on the interface. Yeah, I’m not kidding, the numbers on the interface that were burned into my eyes changed and said ninety-eight health and the ammo said one and showed a picture of a YCube controller. Next to the cross hairs were a couple of lines I think represented distance, like on a scope of a sniper rifle in CoV. I hoped I was just seeing things and opened my eyes. It was still there! Like some kinda weird overlay. See why I said I think I’m going insane?

It got even weirder because I dropped my controller in shock and my ammo went to zero and the image of the controller went away. I admit, I panicked and tried to rub my eyes like a crazy person, only to find it didn’t go away. After a few minutes of hyperventilating and really deep breaths, I picked up the controller and the ammo icon went back to one with the controller pic again. I dropped it and grabbed the nearest object: Becka’s stapler.

As you could imagine by this point, the ammo icon changed to a staple and it gave a count of twenty-three. I don’t know why I thought it would be wrong, but I counted anyway, and of course, there were twenty-three of the little buggers!

I jumped right to my desk to write this down, since I think this is what Mr. Hoffman in high school said is one of those “exciting moments in life” that needs to be recorded. Well I’m gonna try to see what else I can do with this! Wish me luck.

Twenty days until the tournament.

Dear Journal,

Yay I’m at the top of the team’s leader boards! The app has helped me out so much; it’s amazing! All excitement aside, it really does help my aim, though I’m not sure how since it’s weird having two cross hairs in my view. It seems like, if I align my cross hair with the game’s, it really improves my reaction time. What’s even better is that I hardly have to practice now, so I have been getting done all my school work! Extra happiness gotten from Becka leaving me alone now.

I also started having fun with the “health” counter. Anything done to me causes it to tick down, like when I got a paper cut and it bumped down by three points. Sadly, just touching a first aid kit doesn’t bring it back up (I feel silly for thinking it would) though a Band-Aid and some Neosporin did put it back up by one.

The thought of telling others was tempting, but I’ve refrained thus far. I figured everyone would think I’m nuts, and even if they did listen to me, it would mean they would all have the same advantage I do. This sounds good for nationals and all but I think we will be fine with just me having it. Ok, I’ll admit I like being at the top rank… In all seriousness, I think we’ll be fine.

Seven days until the Tournament.

Dear Diary,

Nothing new to report. I’m still at the top of the leader board (*dances*) and the only odd thing going on is that my health dropped fourteen ticks from my usual ninety-sight, so I’m at eighty four. I’m not really sure why it’s happening. Maybe I’m coming down with something or I should stop eating the chili at the cafeteria?

Two days until the Tournament.

Dear Diary,

This is really starting to creep me out. My health has dropped by fourteen every day (so I’m at twenty-eight) and I still feel f’n fine. I went to Dr. Forester for a checkup and he said I seemed “perfectly fine for a twenty year old woman”, what a quack. I even wasted another six minutes of my life and tried to give myself a second dose of the app. And NOPE, my health is still the same.

I really want to hurt the guy who made that app. I even tried to look up the company that made it, HeX Studios, and couldn’t get through to anyone, let alone this Guts McGurt guy. Best I can do is try not to get hurt, which also prompted me to call in sick for all of my classes the past two days.

Tomorrow is the Tournament.

Dear Diary,

Could this get any worse!? First off, my health is now at fourteen and the whole trip to the hotel has been a disaster. I haven’t been able sleep at all since I last wrote in you. I’m sure I look like a mess and even with my HUD my reaction time has dropped drastically.

So not only was the two hour flight a nightmare of dealing with people and their noisy brat kids for the whole thing, I also forgot to pack my team shirt too!

I had to take a cab from the Philadelphia Airport to the hotel near the Convention Center. The whole ride was weird because even the awkward smell of the east coast and the weird music being played in the cab didn’t stop me from feeling calm. No really, I have no freaking clue why it gave me the closest thing I had to sleep in days.

When I got to the hotel, I could already tell the team was angry with me for not having my shirt. Thankfully, Kim had an extra shirt; down side being, she is twice my size. I didn’t care at the time, and still don’t.

What I do care about though is that I got roomed up with Emily the chatterbox. I really hoped she wasn’t going to be as talkative like she usually is on mic. To give you an idea, as I’m writing this in my hotel bed, she is still trying to tell me weird stories about her cousin Keith and his idiot friend Ellis down south.

At this point, my fourteen health feels like the least of my worries. Tomorrow morning I’ll find out what happens when it hits zero, I don’t think it’s my health at all anymore, I think it’s a countdown timer to when the HUD goes away. Maybe I should tell Emily about the app like the message said and it will refresh? No, I don’t think it would do any good; we don’t even have a system for me to prove I’m not crazy. I hope that it won’t go away when I wake up. I haven’t been practicing at all.

I think I’m just going to go to sleep and place the pillow over my head in case she snores.

He tried not to run through the hallway of the hotel, but the desire to hear his chief lecture him about being late did not appeal to him in the slightest. Peering ahead, he saw where the yellow tape hung from the walls, blocking off two adjacent doorways from the large group of teenagers on the other side.

“Badge,” the closest officer to the tape addressed him.

He groaned and pulled his badge out of his track jacket. “Why do you make me do this every time?”

“Just following procedure, detective, and the chief told me to when you showed up.” The rookie had the type of grin that seemed like the perfect bull’s-eye for a right jab.

“No suspension today,” the detective convinced himself and dipped under the tape near the doorway of the hotel room. He glanced in door number one and saw a heavyset girl sitting on a bed in her nightwear, crying heavily with a traumatized look on her face. It reminded him of the witnesses he met during gruesome murder cases. The call from dispatch didn’t mention anything about a cleanup crew.

“Who’s that?” he asked the rookie with a quirked eyebrow.

“Friend of the victim.”

“Suspect?”

The rookie paused for a moment and blinked several times, “I’m not really sure how to answer that right now Mulligan. You really should go inside the other room and see if you can figure anything out.”

Detective Mulligan walked into the doorway of the door number two, his inquisitive expression stayed.

Inside the room stood the chief and a crime scene analyst staring at a body of what appeared to be a teenage girl on a bed with a red pillow over her face.

“About time you showed up Mulligan,” the chief sneered at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Whatcha got for me?” Mulligan said, dismissed the look, and addressed the analyst.

“Susan Kinjo, Asian American female, twenty one years old. Her eyes suffered third degree burns like she got too close to a set of blow torches,” the analyst stated. He held a clipboard in one hand and rubbed the eraser from a pencil against his temple, lost in thought.

Leaning over, Mulligan reached down, removed the pillow, and revealed the two black charred lumps, which were once her eyes. The tightening of the muscles around her face reminded him of that scream painting he saw when he helped his daughter with her art history homework. Never a good idea to link the imagery of a dead corpse to a memory of your kid. Still, it wasn’t the most horrible injury he had ever seen.

“Her roommate found her like this in their hotel room. She seemed to have died of shock from the pain, though the roommate didn’t hear any screaming.”

“That makes no sense,” Mulligan replied. “I feel stupid for asking this, but maybe it was that thing you always hear rumors about… what was it…” several snaps of his fingers helped the gears turn in his mind. “Spontaneous combustion?”

“Normally I would rule something along those lines out completely since there are no conclusive studies to support spontaneous combustion even exists, let alone targeting a single body part or two.” The analyst adjusted his glasses on his nose with a sigh. “However, I am very willing to accept anything at this juncture.”

“Mulligan,” the chief said with her usual straightforward tone, holding a small purple notebook in a clear evidence bag to him. “After you’re done here, run this to the lab and let them run some tests on it. Once we get the results, see what you can make of it.”

Accepting it with a questionable look, Mulligan held the bag up against the lamp next to him. The word “Diary” sat on the book’s cover, written in gold. A look of satisfaction played across his face. “A diary… nothing better at getting some answers.”

sarah-bang: kevinbolk: IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ AND SPREAD THE...

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:53:46 -0400

sarah-bang:

kevinbolk:

IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ AND SPREAD THE WORD! If this comic is too hard to read, check out a higher-res version here!

Interrobang Studios is competing for one of the twelve Quarter Million Dollar Small Business Grants put out through www.MissionSmallBusiness.com. We’re asking all our fans to click that link, log in via their facebook account, and vote for Interrobang Studios.

If you don’t have a facebook account, feel uncomfortable logging in to vote, or just want to do MORE than vote, please share this comic and spread the word. The minimum number of votes we need is low—but minimums don’t win grant money. Everyone can only vote for any one business one time, but if even a quarter of you click “VOTE,” that would be AMAZING.

I don’t ask this lightly, but it really means a lot to us, gang. So please spread the word. I’ll keep you all posted on our progress. Thanks in advance, everyone! ^_^

This is my love’s comic. This is our life together. We could have an amazing future—and build an amazing future for other aspiring artists. Will you please take a moment to vote for us?

www.missionsmallbusiness.com > Click Login & Support > Auto-Facebook Login

Type “Interrobang Studios” > Click Vote > Feel warm fuzzies.

Though I love this game, this is 100% true. palpatype: Ramon...

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 14:08:55 -0400

Though I love this game, this is 100% true.

palpatype:

Ramon Salazar, Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Best part of this is that Leon Kennedy gets caught up in the moment and responds in a similarly insipid manner. No thanks, bro!

“Yes, Mister Kennedy, I have wonderful new friends for you to exercise with and stuff.”

“That’s swell, because I love exercise. I especially love when I get to exercise with terrifying monstrosities.”

“We hold spinning class every Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy.”

About Writing - Inspiration

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 10:38:00 -0400

So now that I shared why I write with you and hopefully gave you some insight into my own mindset when I started this crazy journey, let’s talk about inspiration. Now as practiced, I will be talking about my own work and time on the topic, in hopes to give you a better idea of what I put into my writing or at least give you some inspiration of your own.

Let’s take an earlier idea I had and look at how inspiration was good and bad for it. When I was a teenager, I started doing online roleplaying in Yahoo Chat under the name Daren Whern. He ended up being a fun character for my thirteen year old self because the inspiration for him was me with less problems and thrown into a fantasy setting. Most of the time it seems that when someone does that exact thing, the character turns into a “Mary Sue” and I will admit that, over the course of time I role-played as Daren… oh yeah, he became a Gary Stu.

Now part of the problem with the inspiration for Daren was that I never really defined him as character outside of that original idea and I invested too much of me into it. Now the thing about why it was a good thing is that everything we create DOES have a part of us in it. So I was on the right track, I just stood on the track for so long that a train ran me over.

By this point you might be thinking, “But JJ, what if I’m inspired by a place, person, or thing that isn’t me? How does is the inspiration have a part of me in it?” It’s quite simple really; the inspiration is how you perceive the object or idea of your choosing.

Example time! Let’s take my current project, Koldesa. I came up with Koldesa after I decided to write and was getting frustrated at the novel idea I had (this novel will come back in several posts in the future). I plopped down on my couch just to let my mind wander and shape my story around the characters. Around that time, I played Lost Planet 2 and my mind got caught up on the idea of huge boss battles with several people taking them down. The annoying little eavesdropper that is my imagination heard that thought and teased me with something that resembled a movie trailer.

In this trailer, three people were chasing a wingless dragon around a barren wasteland on horseback. These people consisted of an orc, a dwarf, and an elf, all dressed in cowboy like apparel. I watched them ride along the dragon and bring it down with ropes, giving a satyr guy with a pike a chance to pin the beast down for them to tie it up. They were Dragon Wranglers.

This scene hit me like a jab from Mike Tyson. It knocked me on my metaphysical creative arse. I stood up and ran to my wife to tell her about it as if I was a school kid telling their mommy about their first A in class. After her telling me to “shut up and write it”, I started work on the world of Koldesa.

My inspirations for stories were more centered on characters first, but this was the first time that my story idea was inspired by a scene (not that there is anything from with that, I’ll go over that later when I go over theme). That inspiration came from my longing for a video game with big boss fights where my friends and I could take down huge creatures. Therefore, the inspiration was because a game gave me a desire for a certain type of plot/story/gameplay. Now we come full circle.

Inspiration can come during any step of the process of creating, from plot development, to characters, to genre. A creator needs to shape the inspiration into something they can be proud of, whether it is art, writing, making videos, doesn’t matter. The main thing is to see the inspiration, recognize it, and bend it to your will.

Change of plans.

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:02:28 -0400

Hiya everyone! As you can tell from the title of this post, I think I am going about a certain detail with my site a little wrong. The detail being my Tales Of Koldesa short stories. After “Introductions” I was supposed to be posting back stories about my characters from the novel I’m working on that is set in that world. BUT after doing some thinking, most people probably would not want to read about a back story of a character they haven’t even experienced yet ><. So basically, I’m going to take the time that I spent on writing those and directing it towards the novel. Now Other Side Of The Screen will remain untouched and will continue to be on a once a month basis for the time being. I’m hoping that once convention season dies down for Geek Mythology Crafts, I can make it twice a month for Other Side, and maybe throw in a Tales Of Koldesa story in for fun that is more about the world, and not so much the characters in my novel. I think this will work best for me to get done my novel and relieve some stress from having a 9-5 job, Geek Mythology, and my writing. Thanks for listening/reading and expect more updates along the way! ^^b

Save The Date - Other Side Of The Screen

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:33:00 -0400

Save The Date

By J.R.Brabson

The fierce wind howled between the tall buildings of Central Philadelphia’s lit streets. Mother Nature had trouble deciding between snow and rain the past few days, so various dark puddles and grey snow stacks lined the roads and sidewalks. The temperature had dropped to around thirty degrees after sundown and yet Terrance still feared he was sweating excessively.

He stood and waited for his blind date in front of a restaurant a few blocks away from South Street. The only information he had about her from his old roommate was her name, Caprice. He pulled his fingerless gloved hands out of his jacket pocket and brought out his smart phone. Its main function in his life remained the ever-daunting task of trying to manage his guild in Universe of ConflictCraft. For once, it had another purpose. He opened a browser and looked up her name on one of the million and one baby name sites.

“Impulsive and whimsical. Yeah, she better be drop dead gorgeous too…” He shivered when the wind blew across his face.

He regretted gloating to his friend, Barry, about how he used to get girls into bed throughout high school with ease. He even went as far as to describe himself as a “black Don Juan”. Barry didn’t believe a word of it, so he issued the challenge for Terrance to hook up with this girl for the night and he demanded to know every step of the way. Barry description of her being high class and the thought that High School was four long years ago, made him worry about being too rusty.

He groaned also at the memory of telling Barry he would “check in” when he got to the restaurant. “What was that stupid App’s name? Save something I think…” Trying to find an app that had a check-in feature didn’t help his level of annoyance.

Terrance flipped through the App store and downloaded the first one with the word “Save” in it. He touched the App to open it and nearly jumped when the image of a red bearded white guy with sunglasses and a blue bandanna took up the whole screen on his phone. It reminded him of those jokes where someone would show you a video of kittens playing, then out of nowhere, a picture of a zombie lady would come out and scream at you. Granted, the guy wasn’t some grotesque zombie, but it was unexpected. He raised an eyebrow, as the face didn’t go away for a minute. Oh, he had to touch the guy. He sighed at how horrible that statement sounded in his head, causing a puff of fog to materialize in the cold air. His finger slowly went down and pressed the grinning face and the screen went black.

“Guts McGurt and Company presents, for your convenience, your very own save point!” The text appeared in blue letters then went to a screen with a blue background and only two word buttons in white, “Save” and “Load”.

It looked like a Save screen from an old school RPG, he thought. Guts McGurt was clearly trying to capitalize the style for profit. Shrugging it off, Terrance pressed the save button and the letters were replaced by a time stamp with his location and the current time. Pressing Load seemed to be the next logical step. When his finger shadowed over the button something interrupted his train of thought.

“Terrance, right?” came a sweet voice next to him. Looking up, he saw a woman in her early twenties with darker skin tone than most white girls he knew. She must have been Italian, he figured. Raven black hair came down to the middle of her back, and though her figure hid under her burgundy jacket, he saw enough to leave a fond first impression while leaving a little something on the side for his imagination. Thankfully, she didn’t wear much in the way of makeup, because he felt she had a natural beauty to her where applying it seemed like a waste. She wore jeans tucked into black boots and a simple black shirt under her jacket. It looked great on her and Terrance made it his night’s goal to see what was under all of it. In the meantime, he thanked his friend for all of the dirty thoughts filling his mind.

“Yeah, that’s me. You must be Caprice.” He put on his best smile in hopes that his first words seemed more memorable. “I love your name. It’s like the Chevy.”

“Yup.” Her smile faded and she exhaled slowly, producing a familiar dense cloud of fog. “Just like the car.”

He noted her expression and shrugged it off with a coy smile. “Either way, the car is impressive to look at and so are you.” He tried his best to not make it sound cheesy, hoping instead, to turn it around to a compliment.

“Yeah, can we go inside please?” Her lip curled up a hint of a sneer.

He suddenly imagined his own body, so caked in rust that it was near impossible to move.

Reaching for the door and opening it for her to pass him, his eyes followed her backside with each step she took. Even if things were starting off bad, at least he would get something out of it. In his mind, he went over the checklist of things not to talk about. The most important thing on said list was his guild and gaming in general. He got into gaming after high school when his roommate introduced him to MMOs for stress relief and got completely sucked in. Thinking about it, he realized he had worn his faction necklace from Universe of ConflictCraft and made sure to tuck it under his shirt before he took off his jacket. Though he knew plenty of female gamers, the idea of her being one wasn’t part of his old strategy from high school. It felt too risky to include since that would mean assuming she was a gamer.

Ten minutes into the date and he didn’t feel the rust chip off at all. Everything out of his mouth sounded like a terrible eighties movie jock, a Casanova wannabe, or one of those bumbling characters in a Spike Lee movie. His friend was right, she was high class, and any compliment he said immediately hit her body and bounced off with a sigh of boredom and a roll of the eyes. “It’s just like riding a bike,” he remembered telling Barry. Oh, how badly he wanted to punch himself, since that line alone should have been a major clue that he needed to brush up.

“You’ll have to excuse me. I have to use the rest room.” She forced a smile that made it evident that he wasn’t connecting with her in the slightest. Terrance watched her walk off towards the back of the restaurant, and despite his dismay, he couldn’t help but stare once more and then he went back eat his dinner. Thankfully, the meal happened to be good at least.

The thought of utter failure to get her drove him to the brink of annoyance. None of the girls he slept with in high school could compare to Caprice and the idea of screwing up as much as he did killed him. After a minute of getting annoyed at himself, he heard his phone beep and made him lose track of his long-winded thoughts.

“Dude 1^stoff u didn’t check in, 2^nd she just txtd me. U falln off the bike mr xpert?” the text read.

He slumped back in his chair and let his head hang off the back of the chair. “Well this is a complete disaster,” he thought to himself.

Terrance brought the cell phone up and turned the app on once more. Checking in and admitting defeat seemed like the least he could do. He pressed his finger against the guy’s face again and saw the time stamp still on the save button. He shrugged and firmly pressed Load, figuring it would load to his Facebook account on his phone. When the button changed to say “Loading”, his body quivered with a horrible sensation of cold and pain. He had to close his eyes tight in reaction and thankfully, the feeling lasted only a moment, though the chill remained. Before he could open his eyes, he felt like he skipped a breath, his heart missed a beat, and his body sincerely felt wrong. A sense of déjà vu plagued his mind. He opened his eyes and looked down at the buttons again. The Save button still had the time stamp on it and the second button said “Loaded” for a moment before changing back to its normal position of Load.

He stared passed the fog coming from his mouth and focused on the button. How did it get so cold inside? Terrance’s gaze slowly traveled up and didn’t see the table he sat at anymore. Instead, he was outside the restaurant like before. He stayed motionless with a blank stare, the cogs in his mind trying to bring some rational explanation.

“Terrance, right?” he heard next to him. He turned his head slowly and saw Caprice, who wore her jacket and looked exactly like she did when he first saw her.

“How did we get out here?” he asked her while retaining his vacant expression.

“Umm you walked here right? “ She looked to him with a confused look.

“Yeah, I did like an hour ago. We were just inside eating.” He motioned inside the restaurant with a narrowed gaze. “Did I get drunk or something?”

“Ok… I take it you’re not Terrance then.” She seemed afraid of him. “Excuse me.” She tried to move past him and into the restaurant.

“No wait, yeah I’m Terrance.” His head hurt. None of it made sense.

“Yeah, you know what, I don’t believe you. What’s my name then?” She clenched her fists and he thought she seemed ready to punch him.

“Caprice. Like the car,” he blurted out in a quick reaction. He thankfully caught his words. “Anyway why are you asking me these questions, we were just inside eating like five seconds ago.”

“I just got here. What are you talking about?” Her tolerance for his questions seemed to be dwindling and put her hands in front of her to distance herself from him. “Listen, I’m not getting a good vibe from this, and I’m feeling really uncomfortable. Maybe we can do this some other time, when you aren’t crazy.”

Caprice turned to leave and if Terrance wasn’t so confused, he would have stopped her. Instead, he simply watched her walk away, leaving him with only his phone and a headache. Not only hadn’t he won the bet, but had also messed up his chance of doing what he really wanted to do to her.

“Ok… that made no sense,” he sneered at his new found headache which started to escalate for several reasons. He groaned and looked to his phone. Now seemed like a good time to text Barry his declaration of defeat, he thought. He blinked his eyes several times when he saw the time on his phone matched the time stamp on the save point, with the difference of a minute.

“Whoa!” He nearly dropped his phone when the numbers connected in his head.

Turning around quickly, he peeked his head into the restaurant and saw their clock matched. His eyes remained fixed on it for several moments while his mind pieced together what was happening. What in the hell happened when he pressed Load? Looking to his phone once more, he slowly inched his finger to the load button as an idea dawned on him. Maybe it didn’t only look like an RPG save screen, it was one, and Terrance could only think of one way to find out.

The pain washed over him like before except this time he was ready for it, though it was still powerful enough to force his eyes closed. When he opened them, he still stood outside the restaurant and faced towards the like when he pressed save the first time. A grin crept its way across his face.

“Terrance, right?” the all too familiar words and voice came from next to him.

Most people would ponder over what they could do with such power, take over the world, find ways to get money to feed the hungry, or at least work the stock market. Terrance remained focused on his nightly goal and now he had nothing in his way. All the rust chipped away to reveal a nice clean example of man that rivaled the Old Spice Guy.

“Why yes I am.” He turned to face her and his lips curled to a confidence grin. “You must be Caprice, I love your name.”

She hesitated for a moment, obviously expecting the car comment, and had a look of relief when it didn’t emerge. “Thank you.” She had the most genuine smile he had seen all night.

He opened the door for her and motioned inward. She nodded in thanks and walked past him into the restraint.

Terrance had all of the time in the world and all the chances to make a good impression. He embraced the newly found confidence like a long lost friend. The power went to his head because he didn’t realize he was being overly cocky and trying too hard to act “cool”. That attempt ended in her being put off by him in a similar fashion as the first try. That too resulted in another push of the load button. At this point, the jarring pain it brought seemed worth it.

Having trouble figuring out what she went for, he tried something different for his third attempt. He thought back to when he used to play around with the shy girls at school and went somewhat blunt and straightforward. It ended as horribly as his first two attempts and concluded when he made a comment about revving her engine. Oh, how the load button was becoming his best friend.

In situation number four, he felt he had his fun, though the lingering idea of trying to act like a black Jack Nicholson seemed far too appealing. For this try, he decided to stop the endeavor of figuring her out the hard way and thought to ask her a million questions instead, hoping to get some answers before she got too annoyed. He needed ammo for attempt number five. The conversations from the past gave him some clues, though now he could get what he really needed. He was a lot more casual and merely acted like she was more of a friend, instead of someone he was trying to get in the pants of (not that he still didn’t want to, that was the point of everything). Terrance tried his best to make his questions not too intrusive.

He found out many good tidbits about her. She worked as a file clerk for a law firm in the city until she got her degree in business, had a fondness for the color burgundy, and joked about moving to Europe one day so she could hunt down a certain actor she had the hots for. All the things she said were cute and funny with a touch of maturity he wasn’t used to. He came to realize the most important thing about her and his problem the whole night. He was dealing with a woman, not a high school girl.

The genuine smile on her face seemed to be an obvious clue to him that she was having a good time. It didn’t seem like she was excited about herself or anything of the sort, she seemed to be enticed by his desire to get to know her, rather than treating her like some sort of prey. She also turned things around on him and asked him about his views and opinions on different matters, which he answered honestly, though he still felt it would be pointless to bring how most of his free time consisted of being on an online game.

She excused herself to the restroom, though this time it seemed for natural reasons rather than to get away from him. He felt overly pleased with how things were going. Maybe a fifth attempt wasn’t needed after all. They were bonding and he didn’t have to do anything tricky or act any differently than he normally would on a day to day basis. No games, no pretending to be someone else, just being himself. This was a lot different from high school by leaps and bounds.

Pulling out his cell phone and pressing Save once more, Terrance figured that it might be nice to have a backup since things were going well. When he removed his finger from the screen, he saw the time stamp changed to his current time and location.

Caprice returned to table and stated, “So I noticed your necklace.”

He felt the chill similar to the biting cold outside. A sharp headache struck him as he realized he forgot to put away his Faction emblem after his last load. Also, the recent memory of how he save his spot a few seconds before made his mind pound in panic.

He remembered his roommate Derrick complaining while playing Epic Journey 9 about how he saved before a boss he couldn’t beat. The game had his roommate in a spot where he couldn’t turn around to level up to beat the boss, making him stuck between a wall and his death. Derrick ultimately had to revert to a save point that was twenty hours behind that spot and redo everything from there. Terrance didn’t know whether to be annoyed that he knew what all that meant, or that he now completely understood the feeling, minus the earlier save point.

“Yeah… it’s just something I wear,” he muttered in an attempt to pass it off as nothing.

“It’s from Universe of ConflictCraft,” she noted with a coy smirk. Terrance tried his best not to groan in defeat. “My brother actually plays all the same.”

“Oh that’s cool.” She didn’t seem bothered by the game, though he felt an odd geeky desire to ask her what server he was on. A thought he rapidly suppressed and tried to think of a way to divert the topic.

“Yeah he’s trying really hard to catch up to me.” Her smile went from coy to just down right teasing, obviously stringing him along. “I piss him off when he sees my max level Trapper soloing elites his level.”

He found himself laughing hard because he couldn’t believe he panicked over something as stupid as a necklace.

They spent the last few minutes of their dinner swapping general contact information and server info for the game. They were on different servers but they said they would make new characters on a server to party together. The check came and he offered to pay for it only to have her insist on splitting the bill.

She examined the clock on the wall and explained to him that she wanted to hail a cab since it was getting late. Terrance’s mind went to the save point in his pocket and the idea that maybe if he went back the few minutes before he could somehow convince her to head home with him and win the bet. Terrance smirked and shrugged. He didn’t really care about losing at this point.

Walking outside, Terrance made sure to let her go first for a reason other than to check out her ass. He sported a plotting grin, pulled out his phone, and pressed Save. He couldn’t help it, he wanted to kiss her at least once tonight, and the idea of having a contingency plan in case she pushed him away gave him some extra confidence. As he stepped out to the chilly air once more, she already had turned towards him.

“Listen Terrance, I had a good time tonight. A really good time actually.” Caprice’s eyes drifted down to the ground and he could see her blushing.

“Me too,” he whispered and wasted no time stepping close to her. He brought his hand up to cup her cheek and kissed her before she could react. The kiss lasted only a few moments and the soft texture of her lips felt better then he imagined. As they pulled away, he was glad to notice her hand on his shoulders.

“I was about to say we should go slow with this.” Her forehead leaned against his. “But that was enough to definitely earn you a second date.”

Terrance seemed all right with that, and longed more for the promise of another date than the idea of prospect of sleeping with her. He didn’t respond to her at first, and just enjoyed the feeling of closeness that his arm wrapped around her waist brought. Hearing an odd hollow noise that sounded like a series of quick taps, he chuckled as she looked into his eyes and shrugged with a grin, showing her chattering teeth.

He laughed, “Ok, let’s get ya that cab. I don’t want ya freezin out here.” He found the idea of letting her go to be one of the hardest things he had to do that night.

She stepped back and patted his cheek with a smile, while she turned around enough to see the cars go by. It only took a moment for a taxi to pass and pull up to the curb in response to her raised hand.

“Figures they pull up for a beautiful woman. Just be careful. Ya know the taxi drivers around here are worse than New York’s” he jested, opened the car door, and motioned for her to enter. He watched her climb inside the back of the cab and tried his best not to lose eye contact with her beautiful brown eyes. “Hey bud,” he stated to the taxi driver, “Here’s a twenty, get her where she needs to go safe alright?”

“Will do,” the driver replied then drove away with Caprice in the car, and with her went the warm feeling she brought him, but he had a way to fix that.

Terrance pulled out his phone once more and stared at it with a blank stare, finally realizing what he had in his hand. A thousand ideas started to tear through his mind at all of the things he could do with this. Forget the bet. He would never have to worry about money or anything else ever again. It would be so easy to take. Even the thought of all the women he could easily hook up with was more than enough to make him completely forget about his date with Caprice. The urge to use the save point to get in Caprice’s pants and achieve his old nightly goal seemed like less than a simple task thanks to his gift. One touch of a button and he can try to find the right words to tear down any stupid emotional and moral walls she had up and get to what he wanted from the start. He grinned and lifted his thumb up to press the button, but the abrupt sound of steel hitting steel made him drop his phone.

On instinct, he quickly scooped it up and looked up at what made the god-awful noise. Caprice’s cab laid in middle of an intersection and turned upside down, another car sitting next to it with major damage done to the front. Terrance’s heart stopped.

His body went into auto drive as he ran to the cab with as much speed as his legs could muster, chanting, “Please be ok,” with each stride. Getting closer, it looked like the cab’s roof almost meet the bottom of the windows on the door’s frame, his mind pushed him faster and his tears to well up under his eyes. Ignoring the people taking photos of the accident, Terrance quickly slid along the street and knelt down along the passenger side door.

“Caprice!” He shouted several times. “Caprice, freak’n talk to me!”

When he glared at into the window, he couldn’t see anything but the cushions of the car seat and the twisted steel of the frame.

“Oh please no… Caprice!” he yelled once more. His mind drowned out all the sounds around him, and focused solely on her and the feeling he had when he left the restaurant. That warm feeling of happiness was now replaced with the regret of how the moment she left he was scheming to use his phone to sleep with her, and also the over whelming fear that he will never be able to be near her again.

He bent down lower and tried to reach in to the closest passenger window, his hand meet resistance only a few short inches deep. When he brought it out, he stared at it, watching the crimson red of blood dripping from his shaking dark brown hand. The red puddle forming under the car and along the pavement seemed to be the only thing he could see past the tears that clouded his vision. He clenched all the muscles in his body until every fiber in his being felt as though it would snap from the tension. He had gone from heaven and went directly to hell.

Something hit his mind like a ton of bricks: his phone! His eyes went wide and he grinned in a way that was bordering on insane.

“I can save her!” He stood up, pulled out his cell phone with his bloody digits, and turned around to show everyone the device. “It’s ok, I can save her!” A look of maddening relief draped his face, causing the people around him to stare and be more concerned at him than the hopeless accident.

While holding the phone, his hands never stopped shaking. He pressed the app leaving a bloody fingerprint, and then Guts McGurt’s grinning face appeared. “Yeah I’m smiling along with ya.” Terrance thought the crazy white guy’s face felt like peering at the face of god. Directing his finger towards the Load button, he pressed it and welcomed the pain it would bring. It was nothing compared to how he felt at that moment. His eyes widened as it never came, and he looked down at the message his phone gave him, forcing him to press the load button frantically several more times only to get the same message.

“Save data corrupt?” his deep voice roared at his phone in utter despair and maddening rage. He had the power to do whatever he wished, but now could do nothing.

«< »>

About Writing - Why I write

Sat, 19 May 2012 15:24:39 -0400

As I’ve done research on the craft, I have come across numerous articles about the technical end of it, but rarely have I found something pertaining to the writer’s mentality. The only exception I’ve found is when talking about why you want to write. Because why someone picks up a craft is one of the most important things about actually doing said craft.

To give an example, let me explain why I choose to write. I made a promise to myself to put a story out in the world. Didn’t have to be good, didn’t have to be popular, just to have it out there and have someone enjoy it. Sounds pretty basic, a little dreamy, but it’s what pushed me through a lot of my creative endeavors. I would elaborate and go deep into my own backstory, but I realize that it really covers only “I drew, I role played” rinse and repeat. Therefore, I will spare you the details and just get to the actual reason.

I write because I wanted to add something to the world, didn’t matter if it was something important, just something. I had tried doing traditional and digital art (event went to college for it) but I was never satisfied with my skills and it left me with a bruised ego for years. The one thing I always took pride in was the characters and stories I had for my art projects and table top (and online) role-playing.

Coming up with the characters and stories was really my favorite part of everything, but the result (art wise) would always disappoint me. I wanted to SHOW something, but the visuals I presented felt subpar. Because of the showing mentality, writing never came up as an option when I was younger. Writing came up as an option someone had suggested to me in college (after a really fun D&D session) and the idea stuck in the back of my mind and festered. After college I didn’t really have much in the way of roleplaying anymore, my art was depressing me, and suddenly the whole idea of writing sprang back in my head like a little kid who played hide and go seek and hid for years because no one looked for him. This led to research!

The more research I did, the more it felt like the perfect way for me to do what I always wanted to do, get a story out in the world. One major problem I had… well my wife put it best when she read my first paragraph I ever wrote for a story, “You write like a second grader”. Now bear in mind, I come from an artistic background, so I’m able to handle criticism very well. Normally I would just brush it aside and work out what the problem was, but with writing, it felt almost like a personal challenge. A challenge I accepted with a grin. I wanted to get better and to be better, more so than I ever wanted to be with as an artist. That was when I realized that art was something I did when I was bored, writing I did because I want to create.

Why do I write and why does this blog exist? Because I want to share my creations with people. I don’t care if I never become popular or make any money off it. It’s just fun and an awesome feeling to know that someone out there might be enjoying my writing.

"Introductions" - Tales of Koldesa

Sat, 12 May 2012 18:14:17 -0400

Introductions

by J.R.Brabson

1197 A.P.

“Dr. Nathaniel Gloken?” a young voice asked, disturbing him and his studies. He stood up to peer at the short figure on the other side of his desk. The buckball style hat he saw read “Shuster’s Delivery Service” and sat on top of a toothy grin.

“Nathan will do, how may I assist you?” He raised an eyebrow and tried his best to put on a pleasant smile for the young satyr who had addressed him.

“Package for ya, sir,” the boy stated, lifting a very thick, plastic-sealed envelope over his head. It looked as if it contained at least two dictionaries. Nathan paused, thinking about how the satyr was able to lift it up with such ease.

“Oh, must be George’s annual budget for the university. You can set it down right there.” Nathan tried to hide his distaste at the prospect of seeing how little his department’s funds would be next year. He motioned to the far side of his desk in front of him with a grimace.

Nathan looked back down at his work and sighed, resting his elbow on the desk and the connecting palm against his forehead. Hearing a tiny cough, he peered next to him to find that not only had the satyr placed the package where he suggested, but he had also come around to Nathan’s side of the desk. His hands were behind his back and he looked up at the ceiling while whistling, as if waiting for something.

“Doesn’t George usually tip you in advance?” Nathan inquired and tried his best not too sound offensive. Sure, why not give the boy something extra, he thought with a pleasant smile. He reminisced about his own odd jobs when he was a teenage orc, and how living paycheck-to-paycheck felt. He exhaled slowly after a moment as he realized the memories were not positive ones. Nathan shook out the thoughts and reached into his desk drawer. It took him several seconds to weed through the documents that covered the inside and find a small bag. He pried it open with his large fingers and pulled out some coins. The money the university gave him came in handy at times such as this, for his pockets were bone dry. He turned back to the boy and smiled, putting the currency into his hand.

“Thank ya bro!” The satyr nodded with a smile and ran off, leaving Nathan to lament once more at the maps spread out in front of him, trying his best to ignore the package.

The library’s windows were high along the roof and easy to miss unless one tilted his head up in their direction (This simple fact was what made it easy for Nathan to lose all track of time and miss several meals throughout the day). Nathan looked up to the windows and rolled his eyes as he saw only darkness past the glass panes. Yet another day passed by with no progress.

“Not again.” Like earlier, he heard a voice coming from the other side of his desk. This time it was Frank the night janitor, whose short greying red hair and long elven ears rested under his hat. Frank had his hands on his hips and a teasing smirk on his face like a child who caught their younger sibling trying to watch a movie clearly out of their age range.

Nathan laughed in reply and closed his book. “You caught me again it seems,” he replied. Standing up and stretching, Nathan heard his spine crack in places he didn’t know could.

“My boys told me that you’ve been here since the morning. What has caught the professor’s attention this time?” Frank asked and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I was using the reference maps you had from the Jolintown region to try to pinpoint where the Harpy colonies migrated to after the construction of the town.” Nathan looked down to the stacks of papers and sprawled-out maps on the desk.

“I don’t see why you are so stuck on that Jolin guy and that time period in general,” Frank stated with an easily detectable hint of concern.

“It is just a fascinating era, and ever since Edward procured those old correspondences that actually told Jolin’s story, I cannot get it out of my head. I need a new topic for a thesis and I thought this might work.” Nathan looked down at his notes again and felt a twinge of disappointment strike at his core.

He sat back down and got his notes together for when Frank eventually kicked him out. The professor thankfully made copies of the maps so he could continue at home.

“What you need is a topic you could write another story about. These thesis reports you keep giving the review board won’t help you get funding. The Jolin story actually got published and got the university some publicity,” Frank suggested.

Nathan laughed again. “Frank, if only it were that easy. The Legend of Jolin was just something I did for amusement. I wanted the real story to be exposed and to give more insight into the area and time period. I gave most of the money from it to Edward and the university, because it would have been impossible without him. Besides it got mixed reviews.” Nathan used his finger to circle Jolintown on the map, trying his best to distract his thoughts from the reviews online. They singled out his story as the weak one in a collection of short stories.

“Hey, speaking of Edward.” Upon hearing Frank musing, Nathan looked up at him with a perked eyebrow. The elf was looking down at the package on his desk.

“I completely forgot about that. Wait, you mean that isn’t the university’s budget?” Nathan’s heart started to beat faster; Edward only sent him things that were interesting, like the Jolin documents.

Nathan stepped down from the chair and went around to the package. There was Edward’s address in Jolintown, clear as day. He had an urge to grab it and claw at it like some sort of wild animal who had found its prey, but he refrained and grabbed it with a shaking hand.

“You ok?” Frank’s voice had the same tone of concern he had earlier.

“Yes, sorry. I must admit I was not expecting anything from him, so I suppose you can say I feel like a child opening a present.” Nathan laughed and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment before he continued his attempt at trying to tear into the package.

The tan package was giving him much resistance. Not only had Edward taped every edge and fold, Nathan was having trouble getting through the envelope’s material itself.

“Does he do this because he knows it bothers you?” Frank glanced at the package and shot Nathan a coy smirk.

“No, no,” the orc stuttered while trying to rip it apart, pausing for a moment with a blank expression. “Well maybe, though I would imagine he does it to protect what is inside.”

Frank reached onto the desk and grabbed a pair of scissors, moving slowly to cut the package along the top. Nathan saw the elf’s smile, hugged the precious package with his muscular arms, and shot the elf a protective glare.

“By the spirits man, you have to be careful with this sort of thing!” The orc unsuccessfully stopped himself from raising his voice. Thankfully, it didn’t faze Frank; not much did.

Nathan stood the package up and made sure all of the documents sat along the bottom so there would be ample room up top for the blades. Frank took his cue and cut the top slowly while Nathan reviewed every snip, watching closely and listened for the sound of something besides the envelope being cut.

“And there!” Frank tore the last bit off. Nathan cringed and ignored his friend’s teasing laugh as he took the contents out of the envelope with the utmost care. The plastic wrapped books and documents found a new home on the table.

“Jolene? Is that like an ancient way of spelling Jolin?” Frank asked as he tried his best to see through the plastic. Nathan’s glasses did little to help as he leaned down to try to inspect the words on the cover.

“No, no. Jolene was a human girl that had very little documentation about her and just tons of rumors. Historians never take her stories seriously because they are mostly hearsay.” Nathan raised an eyebrow and tried to convince himself it wasn’t anything important so he wouldn’t get overly excited. Cautiously grabbing the scissors with a shaking hand, Nathan cut into the plastic and exposed the top book to the air. He reached for it as if it were a lost treasure and flipped through it, his eyes getting wider with every turn of a page.

“Edward, you lovable dolt! You found a diary!” Nathan’s normally deep voice went several octaves higher in excitement. “This will be perfect for a thesis!” The orc hugged the leather-bound book to his chest with the joy of a new father.

“Just message John and write it as a story. You know as well as I do that people prefer to be entertained over being informed. With Jolin you guys did both.”

Nathan found Frank’s words were, well, frank and it was enough to snap the orc out of his hypnotic trance. “I suppose I could. But I wrote Jolin’s story so long ago, and I am out of practice,” he replied with hesitation in his voice.

“Well you were always better at vocal storytelling than writing, and maybe you should try that again. By the spirits, you basically dictated Jolin loud to me before you wrote it.” Frank stopped and appeared to be thinking to himself in silence, and then his eyes shot open as if he had come up with the cure for satyr pox. “You read what you can from those notes and I’ll lend you one of my crew and you can tell them the story. If you want you can even borrow some of the sound equipment to record it.”

Nathan looked to the side for a moment in thought. “That… could work. Though judging by this stack of papers-,” Nathan gestures to the stack of documents and books on the desk. “It might be a rather long story.”

“That’s fine, just go home, study, and let me know when you need me to call my lackey.”

Nathan got out of the cab and hurried into his apartment, tossing his trench coat to the side. He still had the package, hugged tightly against his chest. He exhaled with a smile as his heart nearly burst from his chest at the thought of all the things he was about to learn. Going straight to his office, he touched the rune on his runesmith lamp, causing a jolt of electricity to travel to the bulb at the end and illuminate the room. What great stories did Jolene have for him? The excitement was almost too much for him to bear and caused any weariness he felt earlier to fade.

He went to sit down but had to take a few moments to clear his chair and desk of the many now useless documents. After finding room for himself and his new treasures, he picked up book after book and thumbed through them. His eyebrow perked up after skimming over a couple of random pages. There wasn’t only Jolene’s story here; there were backgrounds on several different people. The names sounded familiar to him, they were names that went along with the rumors passed around by the academic community. A grin stretched the distance of his face and exposed his short tusks fully; he had a lot to work with here. He reached over to the far end of his desk and turned on his computer while the thought of waiting even a second longer to get everything down was unbearable.

“I have enough here to write stories about everyone Jolene knew. I guess those can be practice before I tackle her story.”

He tapped his green fingers against the desk in annoyance as he waited for his computer to load up. Nathan took as many notes as he could before he passed out at his keyboard. On the screen was a text document with only the words “Struggle Together”.

To Be Continued With “Struggle Together” Next Month

"Press A For Morality" posted

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:12:00 -0400

New “The Other Side Of The Screen” story uploaded. Here is a taste ^^b, link at the bottom.

Press A for Morality

J.R.Brabson

“Mr. Jingles, it says here you have a condition that needs to be addressed.” The stuffy middle-aged man behind the desk peered out over the resume to Mr. Jingles. “Care to explain?”

Mr. Jingles took a moment to remember which one of his many “conditions” came to mind when he wrote that on his resume. “My fear of copy machines,” he said with an innocent grin.

“Fear of copy machines?” The would-be employer took off his glasses and stared at Mr. Jingles with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes.” Mr. Jingles took a deep breath as he prepared to tell the tale. “You see, Mr. Dickens, one year I was visiting my cousin and we went to these tar pits. There was a clown there juggling…”

Mr. Dickens leaned forward over the desk at the long pause.

“He…he tripped and fell into the tar pit,” Mr. Jingles cringed and looked as if he wanted to cry. “The final honks of his nose, as his body sank into the blackened depths, haunt my nightmares still to this very day!”

“Wait.” Mr. Dickens’ leaned back in his chair with a look of disbelief. “You’re telling me that a clown falling into a tar pit is why you’re afraid of copy machines?”

“Yes sir,” Mr. Jingles said with a sniffle.

“Because…?”

“Because, sir, the black ink reminds me of the tar pit.”

“But, your resume is printed…”

Mr. Jingles leaned over and pointed at the ink, “It’s hard to tell, but the ink is actually dark green.”

Putting down the resume, Mr. Dickens took off his glasses and rubbed the imprints they left behind on his nose. He exhaled slowly and pointed to the door. “We need someone who isn’t afraid of copy machines.”

“Thank you for your time. Oh, is there any chance I can have that back? Some guys broke into my house and stole my computer with the saved version.” He offered his hand out and accepted the papers from Mr. Dickens who looked as if he was still recovering.

I Gave It A Try - Castlevania Symphony of The Night

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:18:00 -0400

This is a exert from a post on our sister blog, Pixelcadia.

Ever go back and play a game you remember being incredibly difficult only to find it to be so easy when you played it again years later? That just happened to me with Castlevania Symphony of The Night (SoTN) to a harsh degree. I believe the year was 1999 (or might have been 2000) when I was introduced to the game at a friend’s family BBQ that I was invited to. I was going through his games for something to play and saw SoTN and commented that I used to play Castlevania a lot when I was a kid, but never picked that one up. My friend was shocked and ordered me to pop in it that very moment with so much gusto that it nearly made me slam back onto the chair and fall through the cushion. He shoved the controller in my hand and I was shocked at the first scene with Richter and Dracula with actual, albeit, cheesy dialogue and I didn’t need him to tell me that I was playing the end of a game from the previous Castlevania game (though I didn’t know the title name, Rondo of Blood, until later). It was a rough fight and I admit I lost a few times just on Dracula alone; yeah, yeah, I was rusty on my whip skills, but I beat him eventually and moved onto the actual game. I was off put at first that I wasn’t a Belmont, but I did know of the Alucard character from the third game on the NES, so it wasn’t too unfamiliar. I paused the game and saw the menu screen and my mind went straight to final fantasy, since I saw that I had a character level, stats, equipment, even a nifty profile picture of Alucard that reminded me of one of my favorite RPGs, Final Fantasy 6. I was finding it a little hard to get a hang of it once death stole my shiny weapons and I sadly didn’t get to continue long after that because the party was nearing an end. It would be another three (or four) years before I got a chance to play it again.

"The Legend Of Jolin"

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 10:04:00 -0400

The first “Tales of Koldesa” story! I hope you enjoy it!

The Legend of Jolin

By J.R. Brabson

Year: 832 A.P.

A loud bang echoed through the stagecoach, waking me up with a jump. The top of my head hit the low roof of the interior with a thud and a shock of pain. Rubbing my head, I looked around quickly seeing only my sister, Kollarn, sitting across from me. She had her eyebrow raised and a stack of papers in her lap, she was just as confused as I was.

“Ow… What happened?” I asked her.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Jolin.”

I turned to the window and moved the blinds out of the way; not keeping in mind the sun would blind me. The light made me squint at first but my vision started to clear after a few seconds. What replaced the horrible blotches from the sun was nothing but orange dirt and a few patches of dried up plants that went on until the end of the horizon. I saw the same thing for the past two weeks since coming into the Harshlands.

“Just dirt here,” I peered in again with a disappointed look on my face and saw my sister peeking her head out the other side.

“Same, no disturbances that I can see that would warrant a gun shot. Just a mountain range,” she said back to me with a smile of relief.

“Hey driver!” I yelled up to the front of the coach to the grizzled old man that we hired to be our driver. “Why are you wasting ammo?”

“Just greeting tha locals,” I heard him yell back.

“You mean we’re almost at our destination?” Kollarn shouted from her side.

“Almost, but dis here is harpy territory and dey were the locals before us,” the driver responded with another gunshot.

We both sat back down on their seats. I grinned in excitement and kept my window shade wide open. My older sister’s complexion went down a tone lighter as she closed her shade.

“Harpies? Did you hear that Kol? Maybe we might see some dragons too!” I said eagerly.

“Yeah, real great,” her voice was less than enthusiastic.

“I think I’ll make that my new goal,” I said while rubbing my hands together and added it to my mental checklist of things to do.

“What? Just see a harpy or a dragon? In all of your eighteen years of existence, I have never heard you give yourself such a basic goal. Usually it’s more along the lines of hog tying some creature or something more asinine,” she exhaled slowly and rolled her eyes.

“Well I’m taking your advice and starting off small this time,” I stated with a grin. Almost being arrested for trying to tie up a City Official who told me he was an escape artist in a previous life, promoted the lecture that brought that idea.

“Yes, yes, sure. We’ll see how that changes by the end of the day,” she smirked. If I were smarter then, I would have questioned why she was smirking.

A few minutes had passed and I saw Kol yawn. I closed my shade and looked to her; she seemed to be fighting the urge to sleep. I smirked, letting my mind fill with thoughts of harpies and Dragons, while Kol rubbed her eyes and looked down to the documents in front of her. We both felt the stagecoach start to slow down, rocking our bodies as it came to a stop. Sitting up at attention, we looked to each other. Our hearts pounded against our chests, I wanted some excitement with harpies, and I think she was just nervous about meeting her boss. The door next to me creaked open and before us stood a tall elf with a rough demeanor and I guess what most would consider a pleasant smile. Behind him were the sounds of many voices and activity that caught my attention more than anything.

“You must be Jolin and Kollarn,” the elf said to us. He moved to the side and kept the door open for us to exit.

We nodded to him slowly with blank expressions; hearing all the commotion outside felt a bit surreal at the time. Kollarn passed by me as the elf assisted her getting out. I followed suit on my own and stepped out onto the dull orange ground. From left to right, there was one long row of various sized buildings lined one after the other. Each one seemed to supply a different necessity for life or work from supply houses to recreation. I couldn’t help but stare in amazement as various beings of all different sizes and colors were coming in and out of the buildings and along the roads. Even though I was from the city, the sheer amount of people in one area all working on a single goal left me dazed. As I stared, I didn’t pay any mind to Kol and the elf as they were probably greeting each other. The flow of people left me feeling like I was in a hypnotic trance and soon I found myself following it like a sand lemming following the herd over a cliff.

“Hey boy!” a yell came snapping me back to reality. I turned around and saw the elf motioning up to the luggage on top of the stagecoach, “That stuff ain’t comin down on its own.”

“Oh, what? Sorry I got distracted,” I said with a sheepish grin.

“Distracted?” the elf laughed. “There’s no getting distracted when there is work to be done. If you wanna get anywhere around here you have to work for it.”

Looking to my sister, I saw her nod to the elf with a coy smile on her face, wanting me to say something. I realized why she smirked at me back earlier. I said the first thing that came to mind.

“I didn’t expect to be working immediately,” I blurted out as I walked towards the stagecoach, passing my sister who rolled her eyes and groaned.

“Watch out, Thale, you might be trying to get his attention a lot,” Kollarn said. So that was his name. “I’m going to leave you two to get more acquainted while I show my new designs of the Elevating Surface Service Device to the man in charge.”

“Wait,” Thale said, turning to her with a raised eyebrow and a smile that made him look like he was on the verge of laughing. “The what?”

Kollarn stared at him and placed her hand on her hip. “The Elevating Surface Service Device,” she exhaled loudly and I saw her look down at the ground. “The thing I’ve been sending you designs for, to get people down the cliffs?”

“Oh sorry Miss, we’ve just been calling it the elevator,” Thale rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled with a grin.

“Elevator? I like that!” I laughed before I picked up the first piece of luggage. It was a lot easier to remember then what she called that thing.

“Just great. I am surrounded by Harpies and an army of people that think like my brother,” Kollarn scoffed and walked off into the crowd, leaving me with Thale, who had a list of things for me to do after the luggage was gathered.

I gazed out over the view the high cliff presented me and couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride inside my whole being. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, feeling the wind coming up the base of the cliff and felt it move around me. I wasn’t normally a very religious person but it was almost as if the spirits were speaking to me. I opened my eyes and looked to the skeleton of the elevator off to the side. The wood and steel structure worked its way down the cliff, held in place by scaffolding. Since we got here the most complicated parts of the pulley system had been designed and attached, leaving it to look like a new breed of monster for the Harshlands to embrace.

“The name Jolin will be known all the way up to those savages in the Hig Hills by the time I’m done building that elevator,” I boasted and let my voice ring out over the open air. I was hoping for a reply from the only other person there, but my sister seemed too busy to listen. She was sitting on the ground next to me, focusing solely on a piece of paper pinned down by a rock so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. “Didn’t you hear me, Kol? Your name will be famous too! Kollarn: the woman who designed the elevator,” I admit I was excited about the idea so I let my hand pan out towards the cliffs edge in a majestic manner to try to get her attention. I kept my hand out and glanced back at her. A groan escaped my lips as I saw her looking down at her papers still with the same overworked expression she had over the past few months.

“You should be assisting with the shipment,” she said as she continued to take her pencil to the designs.

“Oh it’s fine, they got it,” I said leaning down to her and grinning, I just wanted her to relax. “So what do you think, will everyone talk about how great we are?”

“If you are looking for a thoughtful or excited rejoinder to your outlandish prediction that you will somehow have a future worth noting,” she began, looking up at me with an expression of pure annoyance, “the only thing I can reciprocate is, ha. Now leave me alone so I can make sure no one plummets to their deaths on the…elevator,” she spoke with a deadpan voice and proceeded to push her glasses back up her nose to reinstate her attention to her work.

That was rather harsh, I thought and something inside me built up. I stood up and kicked up quite a bit of dust to the side. “Is having faith in your little brother that hard?” I said as the wind carried the dirt towards Kollarn and her work, the orange sand blotting each one. “Oh geez! By the Spirits, sis, I’m sorry!” I blurted out, quickly kneeling down to help brush the dirt off her papers.

“Just back off!” Kollarn yelled and she reached out, shoving her hands against my chest, pushing me over. A small dust cloud flew up as my rear end landed on the dirt. My eyes were wide in surprise, staring at her in shock.

“We have been here for over five months and you carry on about your idiotic dreams which you always give the actions needed to finish them nothing short of half-assed effort!” Her words were hard and fierce, hitting me in the chest repeatedly like a large drunk whose mother had been insulted. “You, my dear brother, are a supply carrier, not a builder, just like when you first got here. You could have been a builder if you did not sit here and dream all day rather than do your job and have me make excuses for you!” I winced at her declarations and started to crawl back. The force with which she spoke with was stronger than any wind I had felt in the Harshlands.

I stared into her eyes with a look of desperation; I wasn’t sure what else I could do. She responded with nothing but heavy breathing and a cold glare as she tried to recover from her outburst. After a few moments, I saw her fists unclench before looking back down at her work with an unsatisfied expression.

It took a moment for me to regain my composure after the brutal onslaught. I watched her try to brush away the dirt from her work with her olive-skinned hand. Just to add insult to injury; the wind replaced the dirt with more loose clumps. I couldn’t tell if the look of failure was directed at me or the dust-covered piece of paper, either way her expression chilled me to the core despite the heat from the sun barreling down on me.

“I think I’ll get back to work now.” I knew my words were meek and barely audible, but it was all I could muster. I continued to look at my sister when I stood up. I had never seen her look so depressed. Taking a small step towards her, I quickly sighed and turned to the main lumber mill and town that was a distance behind us. All I could muster was a silent, “I’ll see ya later, sis.” Then I walked away and left my sister motionless except the short black hair that moved from the wind that continued to stain her work with dirt. I felt terrible but I couldn’t help but think, “Why does she even do her work there anyway?”

The walk to the mill was not an easy one for me, both emotionally and physically. Rocks that resemble a rock troll’s head littered the ground and made walking a hazard for anyone who had plenty on their mind. I dodged them due to second nature and avoided the usual stubbed toe that I had suffered many times the past few months. I kept my eyes plastered to the buildings in front of me. At the time I wish I could smile like I did standing over the cliff, but instead I could only produce a blank stare.

The noises of other living beings filled the air and soon overpowered the roaring of the wind, which I honestly preferred. Approaching the town and the large red mill where I worked at, I continued my emotional decline at the thought of the horrors my boss would inflict on me. I slipped into a small alleyway between the mill and the supply shed next to it. It was my best chance to sneak in. I looked down at my suspenders and saw they were starting to slump down my shoulders. I imagined Thale’s annoyed expression if they were down even the slightest. I groaned and fixed them, seeing his face just added to my negative mood.

The life of the city was very active due to a new shipment of lumber coming in from the forests south of the Rock Trolls’ home. Shipment day was always very exciting because those who loved to work complained that out of the ten days between shipments, they would always run out around the eighth day, leaving two days of nothing to do. Those who hated work loathed shipment day because it meant double the shift to make sure the wagons got back on the roads before nightfall. I think I always fit into a category all my own since I liked the idea of the work, but hated performing it. It wasn’t like my job wasn’t easy: every shipment day I take the planks and rods to the service station to get them ready for the builders.

Looking around the corner, I saw the thirty odd some laborers that helped unload the lumber. Everyone was too distracted in the lines to notice me if I would sneak in. I smirked and saw my line didn’t have a foreman watching it. Could it get any more perfect? I crept out of my hiding spot and moved among the crowd, trying not to draw attention to myself as I sneaked to my designated line. Once there the back of a very large orc woman greeted me. A smile of satisfaction formed on my face. Not because I liked staring at an orc female’s back, (mind you I have nothing against orc women. They are just too much muscle for me) but because she had tons of scars for me to count while I was in line.

After a few minutes of counting, I found out two things: she had twenty-five and it sadly didn’t occupy me as long as I had hoped. My shoulders slumped in boredom and looked to the side, beyond the orc. I saw the edge of the cart and sighed in relief as I saw I was two people away from it. The orc in front of me reached forward and grabbed the large planks, pulling them onto her shoulder. My face cocked to the side when I saw the planks; they were very large and wider than usual, casting a shadow over my body. As the orc stepped away, I saw the person in the carts wasn’t Kraladeck, the orc who normally supplied my line with lumber. Instead, a rather large human looked to me with a confused look in its eye seeing an average sized human in his line. As planned, I wasn’t going to get in trouble for being late, but I was gonna get in trouble for forgetting something important. I couldn’t help but slap my forehead.

“It’s the beginning of the month, isn’t it? I forgot about the line change,” I mumbled with a sheepish grin. There was a moment of silence but as I was about to voice an excuse I felt a hand touch my shoulder from behind.

“Yup! It’s the first of the month, Jolin, but I think you got the right line after all!” The voice was sharp and filled with a mocking malice that I knew only Thale could emit. “How about you give him his share, Al, whatcha say?”

I sighed and extended my arms out to receive the boards of wood that the man in the wagon was more than willing to give. The boards fell into my arms and I felt my knees almost give out from the sheer weight on them. Laughter rang out all around as I stood there afraid to move else the wood would fall, each board being docked from my pay. I looked to Thale’s cocky grin and growled as my arms were getting really tired very fast.

“Ok, enough laughs, someone take his boards so we can get some momentum here!” Thale addressed everyone around him and the laughter died down as he commanded. A Rock Troll came from behind me and took the boards with little effort. Sweet blessed relief, I thought. A coy smile that resembled Thale’s laid across the troll pebbled face. The thought of hearing about this for the rest of my life made my shoulders slump.

Thale motioned for me to follow him, his expression turned serious. My head stayed downward as I followed.

“Boy, listen, we allowed you to work here because it was one of the only requests your sister made when we asked her to come here,” Thale’s voice was softer than I had ever heard it, nearly sounding as if he cared. My eyes narrowed though at his words; she never told me that. We walked through the same alley I went through next to the mill. I was thinking about what he said about Kol but the wind was fierce in the alleyway, it blew his long blond hair into my face, and got my attention. “You need to realize that we need people who are not just capable of doing the work, but also have the desire to do it.”

“Thale, but I…” I said, but I could get my mind back on track Thale cut off by turned around to face him, his face resembling my sister’s on the cliff.

“No buts, kid, I know what happened with your parents and that you had no one to give you any real discipline over the years besides your sister. By the spirits, how I pity her.” I looked to the side and clenched my fists as I listened. I wasn’t sure who to be mad at. “She also told me you would be like this. Listen, boy, your sister is trying to look out for you and right now your actions are not making her look great to the bosses, so you are ruining things for both of you.” Was I really that much of a burden? I needed to fix this.

“Ok fine, make me a builder then and I’ll show you what I can do.” I nearly shouted at him. It was a risky shot but at the time, I felt like I had to do something.

“Make you a builder? You do horrible just being a basic laborer and you want me to promote you? Do I look like a Satyr to you?” I stayed silent and looked to the ground. He sighed and said, “Is being a builder what it will take to get you to do any work?” The last question caught me off guard and I looked to Thale with a raised eyebrow. He was kidding right?

“Wait, you mean you’re gonna make me a builder?” Just saying the words caused my heart to start beating fast.

“No,” Thale responded as he crossed his arms over his chest, that single word made the beating in my chest stop. “Not exactly. How about this?” Thale started pacing back and forth but the last few words were enough to give me some form of hope. “I will make a deal with you. You like goals don’t ya? I’m gonna give you a clear one, something to work towards that you can see coming. You need to go back there and do the shipment, you also need to report to Jacsur right after that, and he will start to instruct you on how to be a builder.”

My eyes, I’m sure, were almost sparkling at what I was hearing. My lips stretching out to one of the largest smiles I could remember having. I felt like a little child but I couldn’t help it.

“Stop that!” Thale’s voice was sharp and cold like when he first addressed me in the alley, the softness gone from his voice. “I want you to get something straight here, you’re not being promoted, you’re being tested. You are to do your job as a laborer every morning and you will spend your down time training to be a builder. You will also report to me with Jacsur every night and I will hear of your progress throughout the day. If you can’t prove to me that being a builder is worth the effort, then you will be gone and if your sister goes too then she will be replaced even if that will put us behind schedule. I will have no more of this, Jolin.” Thale’s eyes were fixated on my fading smile with a look that would scare even the most vicious dragon. “Say thank you.”

“T…thank you.” I said. My head was spinning at thinking of all the work.

“Now get back there and show me something special.”

I poured my heart into every turn of a screw or placement of a rivet over that week. Working from sun up to sunrise, I found my body ignoring everything around me except the tools of the trade. For the majority of my training I was working a stone’s throw away from the cliff and the base construction of my sister’s elevator.

“Hey, boy! Stop for a sec, will ya?” Jacsur yelled to me.

I placed the plate down over a bend in the wood and looked to the old orc who was talking to Thale. Thale motioned to me and I quickly ran to them. While running my body shivered from the biting wind, I had just let myself notice that it was getting dark.

“How long do think we were talking here?” Thale asked with his eyes narrowed and arms folded over his chest.

“Maybe five minutes?” I shrugged. At the time, I really had no idea.

“It was well over an hour,” Thale responded with a smirk.

“Ok, well I take it he told you how I was doing?” I asked with a smile full of pride. I had put everything I had into trying not to be a disappointment and getting some recognition for it would have been great.

Thale motioned for Jacsur to tell me. The grey-skinned orc turned to me and cleared his throat. I stood tall and tried to remove the cocky smile I knew I had on my face.

“Ya were sloppy at first and missed a lot of the proper spots where rivets go,” the orc stated. The words made me swallow hard. Ok maybe I didn’t do great, I thought. ”But then ya double checked ya work and corrected the mistakes. Ya didn’t repeat them again. Ya craftsmanship changed quickly and by the end of the week, I coulda sworn it was ya fifth year out here. Also tha otha builders like work’n with ya.” Jacsur turned to Thale and grinned with his tusks beaming in the moon light, something he didn’t do unless he meant it.

I couldn’t contain my smile which I’m sure blended itself with an “I told you so” look to Thale. I hadn’t seen Kol at all those past few days, and I hoped she was gonna hear this from Thale himself, since she wouldn’t believe me.

“Oh knock that off,” Thale laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “This doesn’t mean anything yet. You do this sorta work every day and we’ll see where you stand.” Thale looked to Jacsur with a smile and both of them stretched together and yawned. “Well, we’re done for the night. We forgot to mention that you have been appointed the job to clean up tools around the site so the harpies don’t come a knocken when they see the metal in the moonlight.” They normally assigned this task to all of the builders, but it seemed I was the last one. When did everyone leave?

“That’s fine.” My smile didn’t fade as my two supervisors looked shocked I didn’t complain. “They came up on the ropes an hour ago and left their tools in the buckets so everything should be together,” I said while pointing to the buckets that sat near the cliff’s edge.

They looked to each other, blinked several times and looked to me once more with the same confused expression. “Who are you and what did you do with the boy? Well, he’s fired. I like you, you’re hired.” Thale laughed with Jacsur.

“Don’t worry; I will make sure everyone who comes to this town knows my name. I’ll personally build this thing myself.” I say and give them a thumbs up with a cheesy smile. A part of me is serious but all that week my mind filled with thoughts of making sure they didn’t fire Kol.

“You do and I’ll make sure the town is named after you!” Thale says with a laugh. He then walked off into the town with Jacsur, leaving me by myself.

I stood there for a moment and took in every second of my victory. It was great; I was making myself more respected and making my sister look better. Walking over to the several torches around the work area, I put each out using a small pail that sits next to them. As the orange light of the flames went away, I was pleased to see that I could see just fine by the blue light of the moon. Grabbing two of the buckets of tools, I heard the wind whistle as it came up the cliff and directed my gaze to the skyline. I walked over to the pulley system the workers use to get up the cliff at the end of the day and stood amazed at the sheer drop.

“Has to take at least fifteen seconds to fall to the bottom,” I said followed by a whistle. My heart raced at the thought riding down the elevator and seeing what it must be like to look up from the lower level of the cliffs. Despite my newfound fear and respect of the drop, I set down the buckets next to me and sat at the cliff’s edge, looking up at the moon. My lips curled to a smile as I took in the view. After several minutes, I found myself yawning, as my work had finally caught up to me. Reaching behind me, I grabbed a bundle of Elven rope and set it where I would place a pillow. I leaned back and placed my head against the rope. It was smooth but strong, like only the best Elven Rope was. It was good enough for a decent nap. I admired the sky for a bit longer before I found myself blinking slowly and falling asleep.

Darkness and the horrible sound of someone scraping metal filled my mind, twisting whatever dream I was having into a wretched nightmare. I tossed and turned for a moment, my eyes remaining closed, locking me with the creatures that lurked in the darkness. My body swatting at something, trying to get whatever was haunting me away. Suddenly, I felt something force my shoulders down, causing my eyes to spring open. A scream emitted from my mouth, as my nightmare had become a reality; a harpy was perched on top of me.

It responded in kind by emitting a horrible cry that rang in my ear and nearly deafened me. The image of it so close with its wing spread out wide made me shake in panic. I looked around frantically and saw the talons of its clawed feet being what pinned down my shoulders. Then I tried to rise up but to no avail as the harpy continued the pressure on my shoulders. It must have weighed as much as I did, but was pure muscle. The harpy let out a low screech that repeated several times, almost like a chuckle coming from its beaked face.

I continued to squirm as the creature stood over me, reveling in its prey’s helplessness and the fact that I was shaking in pure desperation and fear. Reaching next to me with both hands, I try to find anything of use. I watched the harpy raise its head up, its eyes focusing on its target: my face. Then it began its rapid descent. My right hand hit something metal and I snatched it up quickly. I swung it right over my chest, connecting with the temple of my wake up call’s head. The harpy’s body slammed to the side by the blow and its body still covered half of mine. I sat up and breathed heavy, it taking several moments for me to collect my thoughts. Lifting up my right hand, I see that I grabbed a wrench. I thanked the spirits for my excellent luck. I pushed the unconscious creature away and scrambled to my feet. There were sounds of screeching as three harpies were flying around the build site.

“Oh no you don’t!” I yelled as I saw a larger one fly right toward the main rig of the elevator. I narrowed my eyes, threw my arm back on pure instinct, and chucked the wrench at the winged horrors. The tool flew through the night air, missing the harpy by a hair and vanished down the cliff. At least it was enough to get its attention.

Glancing back at the town off in the distance, I think to myself that it’s too far away for anyone to hear the commotion. If the damn harpies came back, I had to handle it by myself. Looking around for anything to use, I realized the polished tools I didn’t put away drew them to the spot. Figures, I was doing so great too. Growling to myself, my mind racked over what to do. I wanted to run but if I did, the rig would be destroyed for certain, and months, if not years of Kollarn’s work would be ruined. One of the harpies perched on top of the rig of the elevator, and that made my choice for me.

In the darkness, I could feel the harpy’s eyes follow each one of my movements as I cautiously made my way to it. It was sizing me up, like it was gauging when to attack me. The one in front of me seemed like the leader due to its size and when it screeched, the other two harpies would move as if commanded. Stories started to flood my mind of how civilization first tried to push deeper into the Harshlands. A common tactic was to kill the flock leaders; this caused the rest of the harpies to leave the area. Even with these thoughts, my body was shaking in fear at the thought of them getting their claws on me.

If I got the leader, they would never have to worry about harpies again, it was a nice thought. If I wanted recognition, this was the best chance. The thought of protecting Kol’s elevator pushed the thought of my own glory out of my head. My fists clenched as I knew I had to at least try, not just to save the elevator that night, but for every night after. I stared at its eyes for a moment longer then smiled confidently as I felt my fear replaced with determination. I got this, I thought. My heart pounded against my chest: this was pure adrenaline.

Leaping over the body of the harpy at my feet, I grabbed the only other tool left, a hammer, and made my way to another bucket of tools. I knew I would need more weapons. As I was running, I heard a loud, shrill, screech from the leader and I could hear the other two harpies take flight. My feet carried me the short distance fast but unfortunately, one of the harpies landed in my way. With the obstacle in front of me, I had to skid to a stop, causing sand to kick up into the harpies face. It wasn’t what I planned but it gave me an opening. I swung the hammer and hit the harpy across the face, causing it to fall to the side. It wasn’t that hard of a hit but it was enough to stun it. Grinning in satisfaction and surprised I pulled that off, I failed to notice the second harpy landing behind me. I heard the leader screech and heard the dirt rustling from the harpy that snuck up on me. It lunged at me, but I had enough time to duck, causing it to fly over me and land on top of its friend. I jumped back up to my feet and smiled as I saw the two start to fight, since the one that I hit in the face must have been disoriented still and had no clue what landed on it.

Looking around, I went to one of the closest items to me, an unlit torch sticking out of the ground that was about three feet tall. Smiling with a nod I thought, this will do, and pulled it out of the ground revealing a sharp end that was stuck in the dirt. At the time, I thought it sorta resembled a spear. I turned around and saw the other harpies were still clawing at each other and trying to recover from the collision. The thought that the leader still sat on the elevator started to cause fear to creep up my spine. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I looked to the leader who stared back at me with a cold, calculating look. It could easily screech again and hope to call the minions to attention but it didn’t. It wanted me for itself.

I moved closer to the rig and the cliff, the harpy leader sitting on a section of the scaffolding that was off the edge and in the air. As I got there, I saw it move back farther away from the edge of the cliff. “HA!” I thought, “It was afraid of me.” I already felt like I had achieved victory to a degree, and it was written all over my face as I stepped closer to the edge. Measuring my steps to get the creature in throwing range of my new spear, I saw I would have to get to the edge to get the most out of it. I lowered the straps on my suspenders and let them fall down my arms and to my side; I didn’t want the resistance and right then I could care less what Thale thought.

Getting within a foot of the cliff, I stretched my arm back, ready to throw the unlit torch like I did with the wrench earlier. I narrowed my eyes to aim the attack. It had to die in one hit or it will just fly away. Hearing the leader screech once more caused that shiver to return up my spine and my eyes went wide. It was a trap to get me close. Let me feel confident enough to put my back to the others. Suddenly I felt a powerful force hit my back, as one of the minions must have lunged at me. Flying forward, I found that I wasn’t going to land on the cliff’s edge, but instead fly over the cliff due to the force of the push.

This was it; this was how I was gonna die; outsmarted by a damn harpy and its lackeys. The harpy’s push was so strong that it sent my body flying what must have been at least twelve feet over the cliff and slammed my chest against one of the wooden planks that held the rig together. It knocked the wind right out of me, but my arms still managed to lie over top of the plank. My left hand quickly grasped the opposite side of the wood, but my right hand clenched tight around the torch on instinct and it hung at my side.

Feeling the heavy wind brush up my body, I tried my best to keep my eyes closed so I wouldn’t see the vast valley below. I heard yelling; the workers were coming. Thank the spirits; I thought with a shaken sigh of relief. Maybe they could help. My grip started to loosen and opened eyes in surprise as I frantically tried to retain my grip. The view in front of me was vast; I was able to see so much more of the valley then when I was on the cliff. It mesmerized me for a moment until a loud thud next to me snapped me back to reality and caused the plank to shake. My grip remained firm on the plank, but my feet dangled hundreds of feet above the ground of the valley and brought my mind to a panic.

I looked up at the source of the thud and met gazes with the harpy leader once more, seeing a look of desperation in its eyes. It wanted me dead but the faint sound of oncoming voices meant it might not have the time to. Its lackeys already flew off leaving it behind. A part of me felt relief; maybe it will fly away in fear of the other workers and I could try to pull myself up. Instead, it lifted its head up and slammed its beak down against my left forearm that lay in front of it. I yelled out in pain as I felt the beak break my flesh and go into the muscle below my elbow. The muscle was taut due to the strength needed to hold me up, so the beak didn’t go straight to the bone. Somehow, my grip stayed strong. The harpy brought its head up to ready another strike.

Why didn’t it hit me in the head? I spent a short second fighting the pain to think why but came to the realization that the harpy wanted to make it as painful as possible. Why did I take the time to think this? It helped me hold back screaming as I could feel the muscle and flesh tearing from the force of holding me up, causing more blood to flow from the wound. I was starting to get light headed and the urge to black out reared its ugly face.

Images of my sister sitting on the cliff filled my mind. She was there with the same defeated look on her face she had the day she yelled at me. I realized the leader had to die to let her forgive me. I grinned in sheer determination as I remembered an important detail and clenched the torch that was still in my right hand; I might be able to live after all and save the rig, I thought. The harpy’s beak was as high as it could go; it was going to slam down with all of its strength and I knew it would break my arm in half, but I had other plans.

“Hold on!” Thale yelled from the cliff’s edge followed by a random tool that flew through the air and went past the harpy. The stupid tool broke my concentration and for a moment, I thought I missed my chance.

As the harpy came down with the final strike, I gritted my teeth and fought the pain to pull myself up with my left arm. Bringing my right hand up, I jabbed the pointed end of the torch into the creature’s skull, creating a satisfying crunch sound that echoed all around me. I stopped the beak just mere inches above my arm and the force of the jab pushed the harpy leader back and to the side. Grinning again, I saw the harpy fall off the plank and began its lifeless descent.

“Jolin!” I heard my sister scream from the cliff side. I just had to grab the other side of the plank with my right hand, taking the pressure off my left. It sounded easy enough, and hoped that within minutes I would be back with her.

My eyes and teeth clenched tight as I held myself up long enough to attempt to reach for the opposite end of the plank with my right hand. However, the strain I put on my left arm was too much and my fingers let go of the plank out of sheer reaction to the pain and damage. The first part of my plan succeeded, I saved the rig from future harpy attacks. The second part of my plan failed, I was plummeting to my death with the wind ravaging my body as I fell.

Staring up as the cliff started to get further away from me, I felt like time was slowing down for me and me alone. The memories of my sister and the past few weeks filled my head and it almost seemed like I got to relive them. I smiled and felt like I did something right for a change.

Kollarn gulped and stared at the cliff’s edge. Since her brother’s death a few months ago, she couldn’t bear to stand near it. The sight of her elevator in its completed form caused her to grimace and be sick to her stomach. The local’s name for it used to bother her but she had a newfound respect for the townies after how they tried their best to comfort her when Jolin died.

“You ready, Ma’am?” Thale asked her as he stood against the podium that was erected for the commencement ceremony. He was dressed in nice black slacks, jacket, and wide hat combo that made him look rather handsome. She turned to the crowd who faced the cliff and saw they were clapping for her. It consisted mostly of the project Investors in front, this being their first time at the Harshlands most likely. Months ago, her boss asked her to address the investors, and now that she looked to them, she felt a sensation of nervousness that seemed like a sand storm was in her stomach. She stood up and brushed off her pants as some dirt had gotten on them from the wind. Walking over to the podium, the same wind felt like it was pushing her ever gently.

She looked to the crowd and breathed in deeply, placing the speech she wrote in front of her. It was a rather large stack of papers talking about all of the various bits and pieces of how the elevator was constructed. Kollarn had taken about a month to write it and the stack of rewrites stood almost as tall as her bed at her home.

Kol opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. At first, she thought it was stage fright but after a few seconds of thought, she looked down at her notes once more. Her lips curled into a smile as a soft breeze lifted the tips of the papers.

“Ok Jolin, you win I’ll try to loosen up,” she said to herself as she chucked the papers behind her, the wind picking them up and carrying them over the cliff’s edge.

The crowd stared silently at her in confusion. After a few seconds, a clap rang from behind her. It was Thale smiling at her. It was similar to the one he would tease Jolin with. The workers standing behind the investors started to follow Thale’s lead. The investors looked to each other with confused expressions and shrugs, as they started to clap with the workers.

“I don’t think I ever saw you smile like that,” Thale said behind her, low enough for only her to hear amongst the applause. She grinned back at him then addressed the crowd, the clapping dying down.

“My brother Jolin was a loser to the highest caliber. He was arrogant, brash, but damn well determined to see my creation brought to existence. The day after he died, I found out why I did not see him all that week: he was actually building the elevator rather than sitting on his thumbs daydreaming. He gave his life though to make sure that not only was the work of everyone here not in vain, but to seal his own place in the history of what will soon be a colonized Harshland.” She gave a slight pause after her sentence and the crowd started to clap. She let the crowd continue to clap until they gave her another moment to speak. She opened her mouth once more but someone placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Which is why, with permission of the investors, we wish to call the upper city you see here Jolin’s Fall, and the town that will be built below Jolin’s Landing!” Thale said to the crowd then looked to Kol next to him; her mouth agape in shock. The applause rang in her ears and all she could think about now was how awful the names were.

“That is utterly disgusting! Thale, this is a direct disrespect to his name!” She turned to Thale and yelled at him, thankfully the roar of the crowd drowning out her words.

“Oh, you know he wouldn’t want it any different. Besides, they love it,” he said to her with the ever-knowing smirk on his face, motioning to the crowd to confirm his point. “They all heard ‘the story Jolin’ by this point, the man who saved their investment. They are also suckers for local charm,” he added. “And what was more charming than naming two cities after a tragedy and adding a touch of dark humor?”

Kollarn groaned and rolled her eyes with a smirk. He was right; Jolin would have wanted it this way. “You were drunk when you came up with that, weren’t you?” she asked.

“Heavily. It was the night he died. He said he wanted everyone to know his name,” Thale replied with a faint smile. He looked out over the cheering crowd, but Kollarn could see his eyes were red from holding back tears, just like hers.

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