Stafos
10-27-2008, 12:33 AM
Keep in mind I am only posting this here for a generalised opinion of my work. Constructive critisisms are welcome insulting posts are not.
Darkness and Misfortune
Something dark was about to happen . . . He could feel it. He could feel it in his veins, on his skin and he could see it in their eyes. They weren't telling him something, and he needed to know now. Unfortunate for him he did not speak the common tongue and the scared villagers seemed reluctant to approach him. "What . . . . . is . . . . . happening?" He yelled, but received no reply, the villagers just stared dumbly forward looking at seemingly nothing.
The ground around them had begun to shake. Nearly knocking him off balance he had to grab hold of a lamp post for support. The weather had made a sudden change from still to a lingering mist in a matter of seconds. Now he was scared. He walked with the villagers to the town square, where he saw her. A witch of sorts he supposed, fancy trick to come up with this mist, but what did she want? And why were the villagers so afraid?
"I am here to collect what is mine" she shouted aloud in a voice so shrill it chilled him to the bone. With that the villagers immediately began to bow down as if to her will. Then he heard a blood curdling scream from a near by villager and watched as he exploded into a shower of blood and a creature so horrifying it could only be described as an abomination rose from his corpse. "Why do you not bow mortal? Your fate is the same as theirs."
"I am not one of them. Why are you here? And what are you doing to these innocent villagers?" He challenged, as several more villagers exploded and turned into those things.
"These people are mine, and I shall do with them as I please, as shall I do with you."
So the things were upon him. Moving with blinding speed and impossible precision, he had barely enough to time to draw his sword and fend off the first blow let alone defend against the million others coming from every direction imaginable. A blinding light, a ringing of the ears, then darkness.
-
His eyes weakly opened and he blinked several times, attempting to get rid of the fog that filled his skull. “Wha- What happened?” He grabbed his head, “**** this hurts!” He stopped, suddenly feeling a small bulge on his head, tracing it; he realized it was a symbol, a mark of some kind.
“She- marked you too. Yet another slave, stuck in this god forsaken village!” Said a villager, before walking off mumbling to himself and punching the side of a house.
“A mark?” He pondered, not questioning anyone directly. What could this mean? How could such a small mark bind me to a village? He looked around, noticing all the marks that he had not seen before, some on hands, shins, arms, foreheads, cheeks, almost all areas had a villager with a mark located there. He shifted his gaze towards a nearby villager, questioning them, “Are we all destined to die?”
The woman glanced at him, then quickly averted her gaze. “Yes, We are all destined to die here.” She walked away quietly into a nearby house.
“If I’m destined to die, then damn it, I’m taking that witch with me!” He proclaimed as he got to his feet, “who’s with me?” He looked at every face in the village, all of their eyes locked onto his. “Well?”
A riotous laughter started among the crowd. Then suddenly the whole crowd was laughing at him, laughing and pointing. Did he say something funny? Not that he could remember. "Guess I'm on my own then" he muttered under his breath as he sulked off further into the village square.
It had started to rain, only a misty kind of drizzle, the kind that makes everything wet, and slippery. He wandered ever forward through alleys, behind houses, sulking and muttering to himself, about how ****ty his life was. Before he wandered off into this village he had been a Captain for the King's Armies, he had an entire regiment under his command. "Damn that Commander General!" he shouted, teeth gritted. It had been his fault he was in this mess. The Commander General ordered him to this village alone, to discuss terms with the village leader, hoping to use the village as a supply route or a base camp. Not much chance of that now though.
Suddenly someone had grabbed his arm, a nice firm grip, and dragged him into an alley on his left. "Shhhhh. . ." whispered a female voice. He sat in utter silence not daring to look at his companion, only staring out into the alley from which he had been stolen. He heard footsteps, and with a gust of wind he caught the smell of something utterly putrid, as the creatures from earlier walked past. "They be lookin' for you boy." She whispered in a harsh raspy sounding voice.
"Why are they looking for me?"
"Because that witch wants you dead; now quickly, follow me." With that she darted off down the alley, with amazing speed for an old woman. He followed her lagging behind through alley after alley, this way and that. Eventually she reached a flight of stairs and followed her winding ever downwards deep underground.
Through what seemed like an endless labyrinth of hallways they eventually emerged into a dim lit room with a large rectangular table at its centre, filled by several men and women sitting round talking in a low buzz barely audible. In the corner of the room he noticed a pile of rusty old weapons, armor and other such goodies. He flicked his eyes back to the table and noticed the entire room had its gazed fixed upon him. "This be the resistance boy." Came the woman’s voice.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” He questioned, becoming a little on edge.
“No need to worry young’un, your safe here.” The old woman said,” We think you can rid us of that witch for good.” She sat down at the big table, gesturing for him to join the group.
After taking a seat among the others, he began to observe the group, looking at each face individually. “And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do?” He gripped the hilt of his sword, trying to figure out how he could possibly use it against a witch.
“We’ve got a plan. It’ll take a lot of sacrifice, but none of us having anything to lose while under the witch’s power.” One of the people began, “we noticed a couple weeks ago, one of the resistance members was turned into one of those things, he didn’t act the same as the others, like his will was too strong to just be destroyed. The creature ended up getting torn apart by the others before he could learn to control it.”
“How does this help us in the least?” He pried.
“Helps us a lot, the biggest threat is the threat that doesn’t care if it lives or dies. At least half of us are willing to sacrifice ourselves, get turned into those creatures, hopefully hold them off and distract the witch long enough for your part.” The speaker’s eyes locked with his. “We built a tunnel under the road, with an entrance just beside where she usually stands; it’ll be your job to spring up and cut her down.”
"Alright." He said, "But you had better do your part."
"No need to worry." A voice replied, "We have our part down."
"Then it's settled. We go tonight when she comes for you boy." With that the old woman slammed her fist down on the table with a sound so loud it seemed as if she had shaken the whole room. The rest of the resistance members looked up at her and the slammed their fists down as well and so did he, all in agreement to the plan.
"When you hear screaming that’s your cue to pop out. Once she sees you, she'll turn all of us into her minions. We'll fend the others off as long as we can but we need you to cut her up good," the old woman explained. He nodded. "Alright." She shouted "any empty heads round the fire?" And she looked at each member individually and each and everyone shook their head, even him.
-
The tunnel was a long dark thing, dimly lit with lanterns and held up with poorly constructed supports that looked like they were going to crumble at any moment. At the end there was a small hatch on the roof he assumed lead out into the town square to where that witch was hiding and a ladder by which he was meant to climb up with. Below that near the rocky wall next to the ladder was a chair, a table and a deck of cards he figured he was intended to use to entertain himself with. After all he might be the quite some time.
"****!" "I lost another game. I swear to god these cards are rigged!" He grumbled stacking the cards once again into their original deck and shuffling them. "****ing solitaire." He whispered to himself. He was growing bored of the cards now. He'd been sitting for what seemed like ages, he'd wished that god damned witch would get her *** over here already.
"Aha!" "Ace of spades. I win!" he yelled, "showed those ****ing cards who’s b---"
"ARRRRGHHHHHHH"
"**** that’s my cue." He fumbled for the ladder and thought to himself. I have to go up there, and charge into a hoard of monsters, kill as many as I can plus a witch, before they kill me. Seems a damn fool notion right there. But there he was climbing the ladder.
He opened the hatch and emerged in utter chaos. A tangled mess of beast on beast and beast on villager, thousands of explosions happening in showers of blood and more and more of those creatures emerging every second. It didn't seem like she was in a merciful mood.
He drew his sword and made a charge for the witch through the crowd, stopped by one of those creatures, a big one too. "Not this time." He roared, and made for the creature blocking his way. He swung his sword in a great horizontal arc missing the creature's head by an inch, giving it time to charge him in the ribs and knock him onto his back. He rolled off to the left dodging the creature's great fist, making a loud thud as it slammed into the turf, spraying dirt and rocks all over. He swung his sword whilst still his back, severing the creatures arm at the elbow, it reared back giving a long shriek as he stabbed the creature through the gut with his sword, dripping with blood as it emerged out the other side.
He charged through the ranks of monsters until he finally reached the witch. Nearly ****ting himself getting there. He was lucky she hadn't noticed he was there. The sword moved in an irresistible fashion as it cleaved through the air. Wait. The air? The sword had moved through her as if she wasn't there at all.
The sound of her cackling hurt his ears it was loud and high pitched. "Fool! You cannot hurt me with weapons such as these." She shrieked, moving her hand in a motion as if to slap him across the face. Crack! The force of the blow sent him reeling back, but she hadn't hit him? Had she?
With that he felt a wave of nausea, then a sharp stabbing pain in his gut. All was black . . . . . for a moment. When he opened his eyes he looked down at a pool of blood, and his own corpse. He looked at his hands, his feet, he felt different, he felt strong. She had no control over him, he no longer felt fear. Stepping forward he looked her in the eyes, hers a look of utter terror, He lifted her up with both hands above his head, and started to tear. Slowly, yes slowly, she began to scream but it didn’t bother him, it only made him stronger. He could feel her coming apart in the middle, then she started to bleed, a warm shower of blood raining down on him and soon she was in bloody halves, so he let her corpse drop.
He saw the other creatures around him slowly fall and burn and he guessed that he was next. A searing pain, a bright light, a ringing in the ears and then darkness.
Darkness and Misfortune
Something dark was about to happen . . . He could feel it. He could feel it in his veins, on his skin and he could see it in their eyes. They weren't telling him something, and he needed to know now. Unfortunate for him he did not speak the common tongue and the scared villagers seemed reluctant to approach him. "What . . . . . is . . . . . happening?" He yelled, but received no reply, the villagers just stared dumbly forward looking at seemingly nothing.
The ground around them had begun to shake. Nearly knocking him off balance he had to grab hold of a lamp post for support. The weather had made a sudden change from still to a lingering mist in a matter of seconds. Now he was scared. He walked with the villagers to the town square, where he saw her. A witch of sorts he supposed, fancy trick to come up with this mist, but what did she want? And why were the villagers so afraid?
"I am here to collect what is mine" she shouted aloud in a voice so shrill it chilled him to the bone. With that the villagers immediately began to bow down as if to her will. Then he heard a blood curdling scream from a near by villager and watched as he exploded into a shower of blood and a creature so horrifying it could only be described as an abomination rose from his corpse. "Why do you not bow mortal? Your fate is the same as theirs."
"I am not one of them. Why are you here? And what are you doing to these innocent villagers?" He challenged, as several more villagers exploded and turned into those things.
"These people are mine, and I shall do with them as I please, as shall I do with you."
So the things were upon him. Moving with blinding speed and impossible precision, he had barely enough to time to draw his sword and fend off the first blow let alone defend against the million others coming from every direction imaginable. A blinding light, a ringing of the ears, then darkness.
-
His eyes weakly opened and he blinked several times, attempting to get rid of the fog that filled his skull. “Wha- What happened?” He grabbed his head, “**** this hurts!” He stopped, suddenly feeling a small bulge on his head, tracing it; he realized it was a symbol, a mark of some kind.
“She- marked you too. Yet another slave, stuck in this god forsaken village!” Said a villager, before walking off mumbling to himself and punching the side of a house.
“A mark?” He pondered, not questioning anyone directly. What could this mean? How could such a small mark bind me to a village? He looked around, noticing all the marks that he had not seen before, some on hands, shins, arms, foreheads, cheeks, almost all areas had a villager with a mark located there. He shifted his gaze towards a nearby villager, questioning them, “Are we all destined to die?”
The woman glanced at him, then quickly averted her gaze. “Yes, We are all destined to die here.” She walked away quietly into a nearby house.
“If I’m destined to die, then damn it, I’m taking that witch with me!” He proclaimed as he got to his feet, “who’s with me?” He looked at every face in the village, all of their eyes locked onto his. “Well?”
A riotous laughter started among the crowd. Then suddenly the whole crowd was laughing at him, laughing and pointing. Did he say something funny? Not that he could remember. "Guess I'm on my own then" he muttered under his breath as he sulked off further into the village square.
It had started to rain, only a misty kind of drizzle, the kind that makes everything wet, and slippery. He wandered ever forward through alleys, behind houses, sulking and muttering to himself, about how ****ty his life was. Before he wandered off into this village he had been a Captain for the King's Armies, he had an entire regiment under his command. "Damn that Commander General!" he shouted, teeth gritted. It had been his fault he was in this mess. The Commander General ordered him to this village alone, to discuss terms with the village leader, hoping to use the village as a supply route or a base camp. Not much chance of that now though.
Suddenly someone had grabbed his arm, a nice firm grip, and dragged him into an alley on his left. "Shhhhh. . ." whispered a female voice. He sat in utter silence not daring to look at his companion, only staring out into the alley from which he had been stolen. He heard footsteps, and with a gust of wind he caught the smell of something utterly putrid, as the creatures from earlier walked past. "They be lookin' for you boy." She whispered in a harsh raspy sounding voice.
"Why are they looking for me?"
"Because that witch wants you dead; now quickly, follow me." With that she darted off down the alley, with amazing speed for an old woman. He followed her lagging behind through alley after alley, this way and that. Eventually she reached a flight of stairs and followed her winding ever downwards deep underground.
Through what seemed like an endless labyrinth of hallways they eventually emerged into a dim lit room with a large rectangular table at its centre, filled by several men and women sitting round talking in a low buzz barely audible. In the corner of the room he noticed a pile of rusty old weapons, armor and other such goodies. He flicked his eyes back to the table and noticed the entire room had its gazed fixed upon him. "This be the resistance boy." Came the woman’s voice.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” He questioned, becoming a little on edge.
“No need to worry young’un, your safe here.” The old woman said,” We think you can rid us of that witch for good.” She sat down at the big table, gesturing for him to join the group.
After taking a seat among the others, he began to observe the group, looking at each face individually. “And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do?” He gripped the hilt of his sword, trying to figure out how he could possibly use it against a witch.
“We’ve got a plan. It’ll take a lot of sacrifice, but none of us having anything to lose while under the witch’s power.” One of the people began, “we noticed a couple weeks ago, one of the resistance members was turned into one of those things, he didn’t act the same as the others, like his will was too strong to just be destroyed. The creature ended up getting torn apart by the others before he could learn to control it.”
“How does this help us in the least?” He pried.
“Helps us a lot, the biggest threat is the threat that doesn’t care if it lives or dies. At least half of us are willing to sacrifice ourselves, get turned into those creatures, hopefully hold them off and distract the witch long enough for your part.” The speaker’s eyes locked with his. “We built a tunnel under the road, with an entrance just beside where she usually stands; it’ll be your job to spring up and cut her down.”
"Alright." He said, "But you had better do your part."
"No need to worry." A voice replied, "We have our part down."
"Then it's settled. We go tonight when she comes for you boy." With that the old woman slammed her fist down on the table with a sound so loud it seemed as if she had shaken the whole room. The rest of the resistance members looked up at her and the slammed their fists down as well and so did he, all in agreement to the plan.
"When you hear screaming that’s your cue to pop out. Once she sees you, she'll turn all of us into her minions. We'll fend the others off as long as we can but we need you to cut her up good," the old woman explained. He nodded. "Alright." She shouted "any empty heads round the fire?" And she looked at each member individually and each and everyone shook their head, even him.
-
The tunnel was a long dark thing, dimly lit with lanterns and held up with poorly constructed supports that looked like they were going to crumble at any moment. At the end there was a small hatch on the roof he assumed lead out into the town square to where that witch was hiding and a ladder by which he was meant to climb up with. Below that near the rocky wall next to the ladder was a chair, a table and a deck of cards he figured he was intended to use to entertain himself with. After all he might be the quite some time.
"****!" "I lost another game. I swear to god these cards are rigged!" He grumbled stacking the cards once again into their original deck and shuffling them. "****ing solitaire." He whispered to himself. He was growing bored of the cards now. He'd been sitting for what seemed like ages, he'd wished that god damned witch would get her *** over here already.
"Aha!" "Ace of spades. I win!" he yelled, "showed those ****ing cards who’s b---"
"ARRRRGHHHHHHH"
"**** that’s my cue." He fumbled for the ladder and thought to himself. I have to go up there, and charge into a hoard of monsters, kill as many as I can plus a witch, before they kill me. Seems a damn fool notion right there. But there he was climbing the ladder.
He opened the hatch and emerged in utter chaos. A tangled mess of beast on beast and beast on villager, thousands of explosions happening in showers of blood and more and more of those creatures emerging every second. It didn't seem like she was in a merciful mood.
He drew his sword and made a charge for the witch through the crowd, stopped by one of those creatures, a big one too. "Not this time." He roared, and made for the creature blocking his way. He swung his sword in a great horizontal arc missing the creature's head by an inch, giving it time to charge him in the ribs and knock him onto his back. He rolled off to the left dodging the creature's great fist, making a loud thud as it slammed into the turf, spraying dirt and rocks all over. He swung his sword whilst still his back, severing the creatures arm at the elbow, it reared back giving a long shriek as he stabbed the creature through the gut with his sword, dripping with blood as it emerged out the other side.
He charged through the ranks of monsters until he finally reached the witch. Nearly ****ting himself getting there. He was lucky she hadn't noticed he was there. The sword moved in an irresistible fashion as it cleaved through the air. Wait. The air? The sword had moved through her as if she wasn't there at all.
The sound of her cackling hurt his ears it was loud and high pitched. "Fool! You cannot hurt me with weapons such as these." She shrieked, moving her hand in a motion as if to slap him across the face. Crack! The force of the blow sent him reeling back, but she hadn't hit him? Had she?
With that he felt a wave of nausea, then a sharp stabbing pain in his gut. All was black . . . . . for a moment. When he opened his eyes he looked down at a pool of blood, and his own corpse. He looked at his hands, his feet, he felt different, he felt strong. She had no control over him, he no longer felt fear. Stepping forward he looked her in the eyes, hers a look of utter terror, He lifted her up with both hands above his head, and started to tear. Slowly, yes slowly, she began to scream but it didn’t bother him, it only made him stronger. He could feel her coming apart in the middle, then she started to bleed, a warm shower of blood raining down on him and soon she was in bloody halves, so he let her corpse drop.
He saw the other creatures around him slowly fall and burn and he guessed that he was next. A searing pain, a bright light, a ringing in the ears and then darkness.