Sworded Tales

“You, but you’re,” Gerard started with beautiful stultification.

“Dead, yes,” the wonderful smile replied, “It’s difficult to explain.”

The crashing siege in his mind had been replaced by the hammering blows of his heart.  The clearing where he had encamped for the night materialized around him as Gerard tried to swim free of the dream fugue.

“I’m awake,” he stated.

“Oh, indeed,” the Halfling woman replied, the double entendre of her tone lost on the groggy male before her.

“And you’re still here,” Gerard continued without pause.

“Not really, Gerard,” she replied, glancing in the direction of the shrouded corpses, “Our journeys have just taken new turns.” Continue reading

Seriously.  Ninjas.  Love ’em.  Love everything about them.  It’s what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Love the whole genre.  The bizarre, the ridiculous, the unknown.  The silence, the murdering, the mayhem.  The mystery, the discipline, the legendary mythos.  How can you not?

I don’t mean the Ninja Burger ninjas, or the Fruit Ninja ninjas, or even the Pirates vs. Ninjas ninjas (bitch, please).  I mean the ninjas you never ever see or hear about, because, you know, they’re nin-jas.  If you see what you believe to be a ninja, then either you will be very dead, very soon or you did not actually see a ninja.  More like a ninja-wannabe.  A ninjabe.

That’s the whole point of being a ninja.  That’s where the love stems from.

As evidence to the inspiration, I submit this pic of my VHS copy of Shogun’s Ninja.  As a child this movie was transforming to watch.  So much so that I sought out and purchased my own copy as an adult…and, here’s the good part.  I do not own the means to watch VHS technology.  Fortunately for us all, the film can be viewed in its entirety on the internet.

If I could bottle and sell the nostalgia which seeped from my pores upon enjoying this piece of art from 1980 as an adult, it would smell of ninja.  Which is to say it would smell of nothing.

Pardon me, while I go create my new fragrance line, Liquid Ninja.

I live in a world of shattered fragments.  We all do in truth, but I think I tend to dissect and reassemble the reality around me in a more fervent and chaotic continuity than most.  Bits and pieces floating about and woven together, snipped and tucked, burnt and recreated to better suit.  All of this morass is my own personal primordial ooze.  Good stuff.  Lovely stuff.  Enough to drown in.

I am forever uncovering snapshots of my gaming life, the history of those who I have created and destroyed, loved and lost, worshipped and shunned.  Oh, there are so many I have shunned.  So, so many.  Point being, I often marvel at how a simple glimpse into a past thought process can recreate the picture of what I was planning to do, what essence I envisioned.  Don’t get me wrong, I also come across those doozies that are seriously like W-T-F is this and that rekindle nothing, only continue to sleep the stink of rotting fish.

Not this one though.  This one brought a nostalgic smile, and that is often enough to make my day.

Satheris – Level 3 Eladrin Wizard Continue reading

Demonmauler

Demons walked the days, and no one could see them but Gabriel Trask.  His years preaching the word blended together, but he carried on as his mind continued to decay.  He was cast out for his beliefs, shunned by those he sought to protect, and still he walked on.

Infernal forces were massing.  The City thrummed with their blood, and the air reeked of ash and sulfur.  In the desperate days before mankind drowned in hellfire, Gabriel Trask’s prayers were answered.

God offered the artifact to him, shining with the purity of the heavens.  Gabriel reached for the weapon but hesitated, questioning his faith to the calling.  The hand of God waited patiently, and a voice echoed with infinite serenity.

“Demonmauler must once more rise against the coming darkness,” God uttered with perfect conviction, offering the weapon to him, “You have been chosen.” Continue reading

Lisa Nelson worked part-time as a bank teller for a local branch in Wichita, Kansas.  Living at home with her mother and father, Helen and Glenn, her twin sister, Abbey, two German shepherds, Zeus and Cabal, a cat, Lena, and four goldfish, allowed her to concentrate most of her time on her studies of botany at one of the local colleges.

Alexander Smith was a messenger who happened to befriend Lisa while delivering several packages to the bank.  The two teens hit it off magnificently and began dating soon after.  Two and a half months later, Lisa was pregnant.  Distraught with fear and uncertainty and against her parents’ better judgment, she decided to have the baby.

One Thursday evening about six and a half weeks into Lisa’s third trimester, she was unusually agitated.  Alexander had not arrived at her house to take her to dinner.  She tried calling, but his phone had been disconnected.  She feared the worst.  Standing there in her bedroom, tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared out at the starlit sky, the gibbous moon casting a hollow glow on everything in the back yard.

Had Lisa waited another three seconds before turning from the window, she would have seen the shadows come to life and move towards the back porch of the small ranch house, but she was across the room and out the door on her fleeting gymnast feet heels of her hands wiping the tears from her cheeks. Continue reading

Fateweaver stared down at the fluffy cap she reverently held in her hands.  All ten fingertips traced the delicate softness, as the heroine ruminated over the memories of her last encounter with this legendary headpiece.  Hundreds of years ago that had been, and she still remembered the events with crystal clarity.  No mien feat to be sure, since these particular eyes gazing down, with their almost transparent blue irises, had never actually seen this hat before.  The hint of a smile came to her lips as the conundrum of her existence surfaced once more.

She had difficulty grasping the scope of her being at times, and the notion of trying to explain it to someone else was too daunting a prospect to ever offer any solace.  Solitude was an easier mistress by far when pitted against the confused and guarded looks her story would bring.  She had found a place among kindred spirits where she could perform her work without question.  That was all that mattered, and she didn’t intend to squander such an asset.  Not when so much was at stake.  She could set her troubles aside and focus on the present, but memories were a force that could never be entirely avoided.  A tiny spark would surface from time to time, like the silk lined hat she now handled, and the flashbacks would race to the forefront of her mind.  Little good ever came of such interruptions, and more often than not, quite the opposite indeed.  She just needed to make sure that these sparks didn’t combust into wildfires. Continue reading

Standing on the snow encrusted sidewalk of Brubaker street, the sizable man swallowed the revulsion which welled up in his throat as the bustling torrents of shoppers ebbed and flowed around him.  The heart of Steel Canyon pulsed with the merriment of the holiday season in a garish explosion of color and stench.  There were only three days remaining before Christmas, and Paragon City was being consumed at a nauseating rate.

A sweaty shoulder bumped solidly into the stranger and was quickly followed by a jaunty apology.  The flare of red in the mysterious man’s eyes was masked by the thousands of lights strung along the street, but the fluid state of the mass citizenry drew the offender away from him before the rage could take over.  His teeth ground thickly.  Uncapping the flask drawn from an inner jacket pocket, a hefty swallow of bourbon replaced the feral burning with a more mundane, manageable version.

‘Why in Shiva’s name did I agree to come here?’ the thought came unbidden to him.  He swallowed the animal a second time, and focused on the instructions for his task ahead.  As always, prophetic truth had come from the lips of his savior, and existence was utterly more satisfying when he did not have to think about the insignificant nuances.  He was the weapon.  Simple.  Clean.  Efficient.

Well, a clean result with a very messy methodology. Continue reading

In the whispering glow of the nearby fireplace, Deadspring’s swift and surefire fingers hovered over one of her rooks, drumming a chaotic dance against the calloused pads of her thumb.  Her eyes flicked to her king and back, as the spidery shadow of her hand danced in reflective harmony amidst the other chess pieces scattered about the board.  For several long moments the choreographed duet continued, until the heroine’s hunched form finally sat erect once more, digits now moving to her face and ceaselessly fluttering at her lips while she pondered.

From a semi-reclined state on the opposing leather sofa, Dakota Sunrise lifted her head slightly and peered out from under her seasoned fedora.  One eye crept open momentarily to visualize the status of the game before sliding closed again, her head lolling down in quick succession.  The contented sigh which followed, elicited solely by the delightfully sedate ambiance, was mistaken by her counterpart as an indicator of impatience.

“Yes, yes.  I know.  I know,” Deadspring chattered, hunkering forward over the table once more, “Move, move already.” Continue reading

“I cannot die,” Gilgallon said to him, her words tinged with pleading.  One of the girl’s delicate hands slid up the unyielding stone nearby, her chill grip seeking to ground her belief by latching on to something familiar.  For a few desolate moments, nothingness was all she encountered.  Then their bony fingers met, hands joining comfortably as their thumbs wrapped around each other in an affectionate embrace.

“I know, my dear,” the man known as Valentine whispered delicately into her mind.  The skeletal mask which gazed down upon the recumbent heroine conveyed no sympathy, no love, only the eternal rictus which was etched into its flesh from millennia past.  How anyone could find solace in the grim spectacle was truly a mystery, but Valentine’s presence seemed to put Gilgallon at ease, if only for the moment.

“Why must I sleep here?” she asked, each word puffing from her lips in a dense plume of fog.  The heat had long been sucked from the surrounding area, and the corresponding energy swirled violently in the cobalt blue of Gilgallon’s eyes.  Eyes that momentarily glistened with a thin sheen of moisture.  In an instant, those pools glazed over into frozen lenses. Continue reading

Sharrock

“Our primal instincts are what has allowed us to survive this far.  Suppress them long enough, and you will evolve into extinction.”

Sharrock struggles against civilized suffocation as she wreaks her own special brand of havoc across Paragon City.  Her strong moral compass guides her in her hunt against the seditious predators which abound, but her ferocity often paints her in a poor light in the public eye.

Every dawn brings with it new challenges for this warrior who sees herself as the next step in the evolutionary ladder.

Prismatic Hugh

“The rainbow is the real treasure.  There is no pot of gold.”  –Prismatic Hugh Continue reading