Sworded Tales

City of Heroes was my first foray into MMOs.  Seven years is a long time to participate in any endeavor, remarkably more so for a genre as transient as computer gaming.  Every minute was worth it, and I have met some of the most amazing spirits this species can put forth.

I’ve been ruminating around in old files lately when I came across a compilation of character background blurbs.  I’m going to share a few from time to time, both to honor them and to help show how those seven years in virtual spandex shaped the core themes of my creative engine.

Tara Volts

“I eat batteries.  So what?” the woman formerly known as Tara Hodge challenged, “Don’ look at me like that.  We all have our little quirks now, don’ we?”

Tara accidentally ate her first battery at the age of six.  Instead of the battery passing though, the young girl -digested- it.  She didn’t realize her ability to convert the stored energies into a more active form until later.  As a teenager, she swallowed a triple-A battery on a dare and was surprised at the levels of increased energy she experienced afterward.

Tara’s dabbling eventually turned into a full blown diet, and she now finds herself with huge surpluses of energy which she expends to right injustices.

“I consider eatin’ them old batteries recyclin’, and I like to–” she demurred, stifling an electrically charged belch, “–do my part.  Bustin’ heads is just a bonus.”

Spin

We all get our spin on the big wheel of life.  Some just get to ride a little bit longer than others.

How does one define immortality?  Through lineage?  Corporeal existence?  Maybe spiritual achievement?  I guess I’m going to get to find out, one way or the other.  You see, as soon as I was fused together from two existing souls, I reached a pinnacle of sorts.  A static level of existence that hasn’t changed in the years since I joined.

No matter what happens, I always come back to this.  And truthfully, I’m sick to death of it.  I don’t know if I can stay sane forever.  So in the meantime, I’m looking for a way to stop this endless merry-go-round…

Mother Slug

“I deal in truth and lead.”  –Mother Slug

Mother Slug’s arrival was heralded by the screeching of metal and the echoing reports of gunfire.  Careening out of an Atlas Park tunnel on a smoldering monstrocycle, one clip of a passing SUV sent rider and steed skittering across the pavement.  The metallic mount exploded into glittering fragments against a nearby cement pylon, and after a few seconds of road rash, Mother Slug rolled to her knees.

Two polished hand cannons extended from her knobby hands back the way she’d come, barrels still smoking from recent discharge.  The revolvers all but hummed in the brilliant daylight, but stayed level and steady for several long heartbeats.  Narrow eyes scanned thoroughly before she rose, first one gun, and then the other, dancing into worn holsters on her hips.

From that day forth, Mother Slug walked Paragon City with her unique brand of metal and machinery, serving justice to the lawless wherever she saw fit.

Jesus Ramirez cupped the aged circular thermometer in his hand with a clawed fervor that bespoke of a feral rage slowly subsiding.  Tiny cuts along the lengths of his knobby fingers gave a rich red hue to the brushed silver of the thermometer’s worn case.  Droplets rained unnoticed from the underside of his hand as he continued to stare, disbelieving the gauge within the chunk of metal.  The glass face of the temperature meter had cracked in two places, long slivers symbolizing the fragile existence of the balance within the now defunct technology.

Moments before, the tiny red pointer had been clearly visible through the unmarred glass cover, dancing wickedly within the wedge of red numbers along the calibrated length of the thermometer.  That was before First Corpsman Maintenance Class Ramirez had shrieked in disbelieving rage and snapped the archaic dial clean off, tearing it from its decades old housing with a wrenching twist, ripping loose the thin colored wiring and splintering the glassy surface.    Continue reading

A message had been delivered to Gerard by one of the more nimble forest folk in the area.  He often smiled as Chitter Tick bounded erratically from side to side, waiting for him to finish the brief note and offer a response.  On more than one occasion, the small chigger had scolded the Ranger for dallying over a missive that was clearly marked as urgent, perhaps even life threatening.  Nothing that was issued by the Forest Warden’s Guild was ever that critical, and if it were, there was a great certainty that it would be sent along its journey by some means of aviation, not the bounding skittering of a Chitter Tick.  Still, Gerard took his work seriously, and upon receiving the message to rendezvous at a logging station a half day’s travel to the southwest, he sent his affirmation along with the Tick and began gathering his supplies in preparation for the journey. Continue reading

Empires rise and fall.  Histories are recorded and forgotten.  Even the gods themselves wax and wane with the passing of the Ages.  What does one do when faced with the realization that the time of their species has come and gone?  That they are in fact only seeking footholds upon the slippery slope of extinction which looms all too near?  One simple precept had been engrained into a rather nondescript young Dragonborn hatchling which would unwittingly serve to mold the entire path of his destiny.

All living things perish.  What matters most is how. Continue reading

Cyric was sure that his arm was only moments away from popping out of the swollen socket of his shoulder.  The muscles had long been numb from the constant strain of so much weight pulling on the tissue.  The tendons and ligaments had stretched to unnatural limits, and he wasn’t sure whether any of the damage being done was going to be permanent.

Not that it mattered.

He looked up at his blood encrusted wrist, flexing the hand and fingers against the manacle that was firmly shackled there.  No pain reached his brain, but the sensation of mangled flesh pulling and scraping along the metal bands was enough to ignite the anger within him anew.  The chain which stretched upward away from his hand was thickly constructed and continually mocked him with those tiny squeaks of laughter. Continue reading

When I’m not dipping into sword & sorcery, you will find my writing laced with spandex and superpowers.  I grew up on comic books as well, long before they exploded into the multi-branching, crossover, graphic novel genre they are today.  I fondly remember subscriptions and getting my comics in the mail.  Those protective brown sleeves were a child’s delight peeking from the mailbox, and woe be to any postman who delivered one damaged!

A lot of comics came into our home, and many of them are still sequestered safely in my attic.  The Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Thor and the X-Men were but a few of the titles that painted bold splashes of color across my youth.  As you can see, we were a Marvel household.  DC, not so much.  While enjoyable enough adventures, my brother and I shared those Marvel titles, common ground within our different approaches to growing up.

The comics my younger self sought out as personal preference were among those less traveled, Moon Knight, ROM, Warlord and the like.  The two primary characters I enjoyed were Conan and his line of comics, Savage Sword of Conan, Conan the Barbarian & King Conan/Conan the King (fantasy, go figure), and then there was my number one guy, Iron Fist.  The former taught me about honor and bloodshed and boobs and the latter about survival and spiritual balance and ninjas.  Danny Rand, a.k.a. Iron Fist, could do no wrong, and I have tremendous, musty memories of scouring comic book shops and flea markets for any missing issues for my collection.

As my tastes developed, I gravitated toward the likes of Ghost Rider, The Punisher and Wolverine, those figures that embodied vigilantism more than classic superheroic behavior.  Teenage rebellion at its finest it was!  My initial plunge into superheroic roleplaying was molded after these questionable characters who walked a fine line with the law, and I was glad to lance that particular boil in my twenties.

While the influence of all of these elements can be found throughout my creative forays, they ebb and flow with the tides of emotion and the temperance of age.  There will be vengeance and justice.  There will be honor and deception.  There will be fantasy, and there will be spandex.  Through the decades and all the multitude of comics though, I find myself always coming back to Iron Fist.

He is simply the shit.

Long minutes dragged on in silence before Kevlin realized that since he had been staring at the petite woman before him, he had not felt any kind of emotion al all, not from him and not from her.  His eyes widened in wonder as an empty serenity flowed through him.  Never before had he felt so clear headed.  His thoughts were more focused and rational than he could ever remember.

In the mere span of heartbeats that this newfound data raced through Kevlin’s mind, the woman raised one delicate fist and held it out toward him.  Kevlin’s attention focused on her outstretched hand, but the young boy did not take what meaning she intended.  Then her fist suddenly opened, palm facing upward and slender fingers straining down toward the floor.  A flood of emotions hit the padawan with such force that Kevlin was utterly blinded for a moment. Continue reading

I killed 5.8 billion people.  No small feat to be sure, and the guilt plays hell on your psyche.  Then I was given the opportunity to save them, and I took it.  I was from the future, until I made the choice to travel back in time.  My name is, was, Levi Deveron, but most folks now simply know me as Slipstream.  This is my story. Continue reading

Gerard leapt over the fallen log with a nimble plant of one gloved hand, his lean form arcing through the moist morning fog.  His bare feet absorbed a great deal of the impact as they pattered to the mossy earth in rapid succession.  The mists consumed the remainder of his passage, clamping down on the noises with a choking undulation.  Even Gerard’s labored breathing was lost amidst the gray waste that floated around him.  The thrumming in his ears was paramount.  That rhythmic hammering of his nectarine sized heart, rapid firing in his chest.

The sweat soaked Halfling wasn’t sure how long he had been running.  The first day was clear enough at the time, but the ceaseless pursuit over the overgrown barrens was dissolving his sense of time and place.  The perpetual silver hue and the lack of any disturbance in the stagnant weather made travel in the darklands difficult under the best of circumstances.  That is, after all, the task for which he was trained.  This mindless fleeing, a thin shadow blurring through the bland backdrop, was an altogether different matter.  Many seasoned travelers had navigated the dead zone perimeter and had wandered into their final nightmare.

Gerard wasn’t about to join them.

Continue reading

The condominium felt empty to Calico despite the presence of the seed mimic somewhere close by.  Long hours had passed since the man who he had come to see had made the quiet leap from the world of the living to the realm of the eternally stiff.  The haunted blackness of night was just beginning to show signs of the bleak gray of first dawn, little more than a bleeding of sour light around the fringes of the horizon.  The futile illumination was enough to make the difference though. Continue reading