Sworded Tales

Jasmine walked around the contraption with care. There really was no better word for it. Machine was insulting to every machinist that ever was. Device was too generic a term, and it implied cohesion, uniformity. This hodgepodge of metal and plastic had some symmetry, but it bordered more on death machine. She knew that Lorne was incapable of creating something harmful though, so it was definitely a contraption.

“Okay, what the hell am I looking at?” she asked.

Continue reading

Background

Force of One observed and hand selected those individuals he thought would uphold the values that best represented the paranormal movement.  The Vanguard was born as a means to both oppose those that sought to oppress the paranormal and to police within the paranormal community.

The first hero that Force of One approached was the stalwart figure known as Gravitron.  A pillar within the superhero culture, Gravitron’s resiliency and presence offered a great boon to any fortunate enough to serve beside him.  With a firm grasp over the forces of gravity, the sizable hero represented one of the most potent forces known to man.

Next to join the Vanguard were the Brothers Atomic.  Doc Fusion and Fission seemed to have a past and a future that were inexorably intertwined.  Their balanced combination of intelligence, energy and enthusiasm served to create a stable backbone of support for the group.  With their individual masteries over the atom, few feats existed which they could not overcome. Continue reading

I grew up on them.  Long before the television blossomed into a banal and countless cartoon menagerie, there were a select few channels from which to choose.  My preferred viewing agenda was Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry and Hong Kong Phooey.  

Timeless classics of the perverted culture of the age, there was rarely an after school date or Saturday morning pajama fest that didn’t find the antics of these zany characters splashing across the screen.  Mix into that a box of Frosted Flakes or some other equally sugar inducing cereal, and WHAMMO! you had yourself an event.

Among the most classic in my memory, What’s Opera Doc? (aka Spear and Magic Helmet), Rabbit of Seville and Touché Pussycat.  Can I tell you?  The cavalcades of classical music and animated chaos that permanently imprinted the psyche.  Nothing but sheer genius.  So many wonderful snippets of memory, Marvin the Martian, the Coyote Acme antics and a host of other creative seeds.

Cartoons.  I wouldn’t be the creature I am today without them.

One simple tenet:  believe what you will and allow me to do the same.

Why is that such a hard concept for sentient beings to embrace?  Why must there be a right and wrong way of thinking?  A good versus evil mentality?

I understand that a civilized society requires some overarching system of rules to maintain order, and the larger the society, the more important the system.  These govern our actions.  Nothing should govern our beliefs.  Nothing.

The concept of morality is a tricky one though, circular.  Each individual has their own unique morality based on their own perceptions of reality.  Which of these perceived realities should serve as the moral foundation for the whole?  And what if the chosen moral foundation is in opposition to your own beliefs?  How do we know when it is time to cross the line between belief and action?

I have no easy answers.  There are none.  All I can hope is that you strive each day to further open your mind to possibilities.  Take a few moments to consider the beliefs that ring true in your heart, and I’ll do the same.

I believe all things are better in moderation.  More, bigger, faster is not always better, and too much of a good thing quickly becomes disgusting.  Moderation fosters sincerity and appreciation.

I believe you reap what you sow.  I’ve seen Karma’s wicked backhand often enough.

I believe everything works out as it is meant to.  Be true to yourself and to your heart, and all else will sort itself out in the end.

A meal of meager fare and the blistering fatigue combined with blissful perfection though, and Gerard found himself awash in a pool of dreaming sanctuary.

Flowers dotted the war trampled landscape, blossoming and fading in pulsing regularity.  The wash of color echoed with the windy hiss which sent his hair flapping forward.  Tickling strands kept nipping at his eyes, but his sluggish dream arms could never find their way to redirect this tactile assault.  Distant siege engines sent flaming spheres skyward, crashing into the frozen parapets in Gerard’s periphery.  He could not make out the specifics of the structure which shielded him, but the crescendos of thunder made his teeth and testicles ache with each impact. Continue reading

The web begins, being woven.
The minds reach and touch and feel joining at the crossroads and leaping away, ahead, aside, to the next.
The pattern holds little beauty, or flow, but the strength, in the heaviest of mind junctures, has no opposition which can hope to sever.
The center, the heart, the weaver’s home, is often a black void.
A nothingness that threatens to consume the entire weaving.
The minds must sacrifice, must push in to fill the emptiness, a struggle, a battle against the unmaker.
Is the weave strong enough?
Can there be a pattern when all starts in darkness?
The wills must be strong.
They must unite, strengthen the weak and hold on to the wild.
Do not pretend.  It won’t last.
You won’t last.
Reach for us, and follow into the dark heart.

Gerard thought about the hunter he sought and what was perhaps waiting for him on the trail ahead as the day continued to wear on.  Little was known of the wicked mechanical constructs known as Shredders.  Few who encountered them survived to convey any details about the habits and tendencies of the mechanical monstrosities.  Clearly they possessed a sentience that was impressive, locked into a permanent predatory mode that continually improved with each successful hunt.  By all accounts, they had appeared relatively impervious to damage inflicted by standard weaponry, although there was some indication that heavier, siege weaponry could exceed the integral strength of the creature’s frame.  A magical aura had been detected around the Shredder’s metal casing, but this was not uncommon when dealing with constructs fashioned by Artificers.  The number and type of appendages varied greatly from machine to machine, which added to the difficulty in classification.  Some researches believed that the term Shredder was merely a catch all title for any construct that couldn’t be placed in a more refined category.  Function seemed largely based on what appendages the particular Shredder manifested, but inevitably the lethality of many of the creature’s limbs was unquestionable.  If nothing else, the metal beasts could kill nearly without equal.  Continue reading

Gerard was the one best suited for that task.  Few knew these lands better than he, although he would send word for Rillian to join him.  She was one of the few Elven Rangers that had signed on for these grim patrols, and her keen insights into the region and the ambient magics could prove invaluable.  Still, it might take her weeks to finally reach Gerard, depending on the speed of the messengers, and he had little time to lose.  The trail of the Shredder would already have grown quite stale, but he was the only one who knew of the location of the attack, and if he were to uncover what was happening in the dark lands to the south, he would have to move quickly, and quietly.

Gerard’s news to the local representatives in Tribalta was received with the appropriate amount of consternation and concern, and a message was forwarded along the outpost chain both for information and to summon Rillian with all haste.  Reinforcements were rallied, but Gerard did not wait for their arrival.  Each hour that passed further reduced his chances of picking up the trail of the lethal machine.  Thus without any undo delay and only a few hours of solid rest, Gerard found himself headed back into the comfort of the wilderness and the nightmarish memories of his last passage south. Continue reading

Samurai Maia

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amidst the storm.” –Samurai Maia

Her origins were as much a mystery to her as to those who witnessed her arrival in the ringing aftermath of a fearsome bolt of lightning.

The locals had referred to their recent climatology as the Season of Storms, despite the inaccuracy of all other means of weather prediction.  So the rains came, and the flooding washed away the transient.  The hail peppered the landscape, and the winds set afloat all that was not earthbound.

Amidst the entire fury of the world, Maia appeared in a moment of stunning serenity, arriving bearing nothing but the slender blade clenched tightly in one hand.  Glancing down at the singed earth between her bare feet, she raised her head and stepped away from the spot, joining the fray with the zeal of ancient warriors of old.

Long Division

The Ministry of Autonomous Teaching in the Home was a short lived research project after complications surfaced with the initial prototype. The government funded effort focused on creating a cybernetic intelligence through application of nanotechnology. The Long Division unit was engineered to educate basic arithmetic values in a small scale setting, but the AI quickly exceeded the program parameters and began reapplying its fundamental code on a progressively larger scale. Continue reading

The Rangers had been organized to serve as protectors of the boundary which encircled the dead lands.  Their task was not to keep beasts inside the dying wastes, that was a pleasant side effect of the nearly impenetrable wall of fog.  The charge of the Rangers was to insure that no one from the living lands wandered into the darker regions of the area.  Keeping the unknowing commoners safe was normally not a difficult task, as the region had a haunting reputation which kept all but the most foolhardy from getting too close.  There were always wanderers and newcomers to the land, but the Rangers were trained to deal with just such circumstances, to anticipate them and deal with any problems before injuries could be sustained.  Continue reading