Sworded Tales

Cherry Charges

The money was always good for an exotic dancer named Cherry Popper. The hours and the maw pawing of hands? Not so much. Especially where the mob was concerned, but a girl got by no matter how many greaseballs tried to liberate her from her tassels.

Cherry took to the pole with a finesse and ferocity that hinted at talent buried deep within her genetic past. Headlining at the Barracuda Lounge brought about the performances which eventually landed her in the lap of Damiano “Cheeks” Mancini.

Dodging the mafioso’s advances for months lasted until their dance culminated with a public slap to the face that sealed her fate. Her next performance was supercharged with a pole that rocked her with electricity when she grabbed hold.

The scorched body that disappeared off of a stainless steel morgue tray wound up in the Rogue Isles with a new name and a new plan. The latent energy burning within her multiplied each day, and soon she would return to the Rogue Isles to give Cheeks his sweet goodbye.

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

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

The veteran scout had seen his share of berserk rage, and frenzy, and bloodlust within numerous species across the galaxy, and this was no different.  Driven to the brink of starvation and teetering on the edge of madness, all beasts revert to primal instinct for survival.  This was not monstrous behavior.  This was simply hunger.  Deliberately forcing someone to live like this, that was quite different. Malicious intent equates to monstrosity, and the Falleen intended for Ussyr Shryytor to understand as much before the light of life vanished from his eyes.

But there were slightly more pressing matters to deal with at the moment.

Skelsar was fast.  This shadow of Illia-Vae Victis was faster. Continue reading

Lt. Douglas Heller was listed as missing in action during his second tour of the Vietnam War in 1968.  Elizabeth Heller never quite tackled the adverse loss of her beloved and developed a drinking problem which lead to her spiraling downfall.  Raising two children while her husband disappeared in a dense jungle in some foreign country had not been her idea of the perfect family.  Her alcoholism led to dancing at a local bar that catered to the more carnal side of the Salt Lake City populace.  Prostitution followed shortly thereafter in an effort to maintain some financial stability for her children and to fuel her vices.  A faulty method of birth control left her pregnant with a son in the spring of 1973 to an unknown father.

Joshua Malcolm Heller was born February 3, 1974, five weeks premature, following a devastating car accident which hospitalized his mother for two weeks.  His older half-sister of six years was psychologically traumatized, and his older half-brother of eight years perished. Continue reading

For long moments you sit in silence watching the candlelight dance across the pallid surface of the ouija before you.  The delicate breezes brush against your skin, playfully tugging at the long tresses flowing down over your shoulders.  The sound of commonality disintegrate into the night as your essence begins to slowly take shape, weaving itself into existence from the very threads of the great fabric.

You take in a full breath, opening your mind to receive the visions which will grant you clarity into what lies ahead.  Closing your eyes, you exhale deeply, listening to the beating of your faerie heart, lub dub, focusing on your place, your purpose, within the grand scheme.  Lub dub.

Whispers emanate from the darkness all around you, creeping slowly forward against the light.  Lub dub.

Your eyes open and fall on the ouija as nearly invisible hands edge the pointer across its glassy surface.  Lub dub.

The rhythmic flash of light pulls your eyes slightly upward toward the candelabra.  Lub dub.

The flames flicker and dance…seething with light…  Lub dub.

…pulsing in time…  Lub dub.

…with the beating…  Lub dub.

…of your heart.  Lub dub.

Transfixed on the beating flames, your eyes only vaguely notice the ouija spelling out the words that are whispered all too clearly in your ears.  Lub dub.

Is…he…lost…  Lub dub.

One of the candle flames flares brilliantly, and in its heart you see… 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

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

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

Deep in the Andes mountains along the border of Chile and Argentina beneath the shadow of the menacing volcano Copahue, an ancient legend has been passed down for hundreds of generations. The archaic religions, in what is now the Neuquen Province of Argentina, tell of a great spirit that burns beneath the towering mountains, guarding the edge of the world from that which lies beyond.

The tremors that regularly shake the villages of the Neuquen, flex a little more violently than usual as dawn creeps across the lush landscape. The steamy clouds of acidic vapor lingering above the cratered summit reach ever skyward as hot gasses spill from hundreds of new fissures in the volcanic crust. In the nearby homes below, silent prayers are whispered to ancient gods in hopes of soothing the mountain spirit back to sleep. Little do they know that forces are in motion which will change their lives forever.

Today, powerful energies will coalesce deep within the heart of Mt. Copahue preparing to bring the volcano back to fiery life.
Today, the gateway which has been closed for over a thousand years will be split asunder.
And today, a legend will be reborn. Continue reading