Ozymandias

Wow. This has so much going for it you'd better see this through! Their surroundings are kept to bare minimum in your description, the descriptions you do give are so similar and dreary as they work hand in hand with the keepers and masters of the place; a nice touch that reflects the monotony and oppressiveness of the Fallik Home, the building itself inflicts, by being a dark mirror of its owners. Fallik...that's another nicely done touch. The names even set the tone: Zee, Eli, Javick, especially Loki, all of our protagonists' names are light and somewhat mischevious, evoking the sort of freewheeling, somewhat anarchist spirit that makes me think of the gypsies. While Polga, Thag, and Master Fallik, all evoke, almost by crude, brutish name alone, squat, trollish, mean creatures. In case I didn't mention it, More please! The only problem I can see is your breaks in the action, as Wyv pointed out. They're decipherable with little enough effort, but they flow strangely, sort of disjointedly almost through the whole piece. I'd rework 'em.

Friendship is like a good comic book- It may or may not increase in monetary value over time, but it will always be a wonderful sight to behold, as well as a good thing to spend time in.

Ozymandias beams, and stands to wait for Cheyenne to take a chair. Once she does, he sits back down and proposes a toast: "To old friends, who have been lost, and found!" Welcome back, Ms. C. Many happy returns of the stay.

OO-frickin'-RAH. Ah, the psychotic old days... I think I'll go stir up some trouble.

Character creation... The way I usually do it is 1) What do they do for a living/hobbies, where and when? 2)Why? a. What in their personality makes them do that? b. What in their history brought them here? In that order. It's still a process I'm perfecting, becuase my charcter creation modes still tend to be maybe a little too much "natural selection" because of how much more roleplaying I do than regular writing. But it's fair enough success. My strongest recommendation is Stephen King's method: Find out exactly who your characters are before you write them in. Where they're from, what they do for a living, what are their favorite foods, how many moles do they have on their hands, absolutely everything, even if you don't end up using most of it. Then they *will* come across as more believable. Or so Mr. King says. In this case, I'm not sure if realism might what you want, but...one way to find out, non? Good luck!

Well said, all. Though I would like to say this: We don't need to fear or censure our conversations with one another (beyond what common sense and caring tell us)- BUT, we do need to reprioritize what we bring into The Pen. Myself, I've been of the mindset almost from the start that getting every last one of you together and having one of the biggest parties my home state has ever seen would be the greatest moment of my life. The friends I've made here I *will* cherish forever. I hope to make many more. These being my feelings, I can't say no to people wanting to simply talk to another, I really can't. But in doing so, we started not too long ago treating our Pen like a chat board. Then, as we slipped further, it started to become a political forum, with all the rancor, raised voices, and bitter rivalry that implies. I am also of the mindset that we should embrace and teach all who want to learn all forms of writing. Even essays or columns, the seeds of which I see in many of the much-reviled debates we've been talking about. But writing is why we are here. Not friendship. Not a good arguement. Not to find conveinient targets to vent on. None of that, and nothing like that. We're all here, in some way, shape or form because we love reading and writing. As a community, this leads to some expected and some unexpected positive and negative side effects. the positve *should* be nurtured, or we can all be accused of narrow-mindedness and tunnel vision. But positive or negative, all things else than the pursuit of our craft should be dealt with with care and responsibility. "I know less than half of you as well as I should like, and like less than half of you as well as you deserve", to quote dear old Bilbo Baggins. But even though I, and many others amongst our fellow Penners have a long ways to go yet before we've truly met *everyone* here, I do know this: We're all equipped to do what needs to be done, and I defy anyone to prove otherwise. We're ready to deal with our problems, and succeed.

I'll give you my DM's e-amil addy if you want to harass him into STARTING the freakin' thing... (Oh, and thanks for reading!!!)

The bartender watched her go, and smiled to himself, stroking his greying mustaches thoughtfully. He then returned to a slightly too innocuous polishing of the bar. Elsewhere, an overly "generosity"-filled patron yowled in pain as the blade of the scythe belonging to the black-cloaked rat skeleton he'd nearly stepped on went clean through his foot.

~PROLOGUE~ Garl Glittergold's life was not always so complex. It all started, he knew, with the death of his betrothed. They lived happily in their woodland village for many years, the tale of their romance a classic one: boy meets girl in childhood, and their love blooms like an orchid as the years pass, and spreads its fragrance only more strongly the longer it endures. He, with his gift of laughter, finding the light in even the darkest tragedy, and she, with her amazing gift of awe and wonder, hers the ability to find joy and miracle in the simplest of things. The village, which in accordance with Wood Gnome custom had no proper name, was typical in all aspects. It was small, only two hundred gnomes strong in Garl's time, and was of course all but invisible to untrained eyes, or those of select other forest denizens. Most notable of the "select others" was a nearby city of Wood Elves, only about five miles away from the Gnome village's southernmost tip. Where their village was small and simple, the Wood Elves' home seemed sweeping and intricate. It was a place of swooping arches and bridges, squat smokehouses, spiraling watchtowers, gracefully angular family homes, and even a massive royal dining hall (which all the people were invited to on holidays and other important occasions). The elves numbered almost into the thousands and welcomed burgeoning trade with the Gnomes for many generations. To the Gnomes, it seemed a bustling metropolis indeed. To Garl, it seemed a treasure trove of knowledge and excitement. He made any excuse to visit as often as he could. Over time, this made him many elvish friends, in particular, the village guards. For Garl was a clever gnome and a very astute problem solver when it came to sheer wit and wisdom. Military minds are among those who always appreciate quick thinking the most. So, in their turn, the elves repaid Garl for his aid and companionship by teaching him the art of the sword, which not only delighted the young Gnome, but made him the better of all in his village in swordplay. Once his training was complete, Garl, ever pragmatic, immediately volunteered for the village watchmen- a group of wizards, sorcerors, rangers, and those few Gnomes who simply found themselves naturally adept at skull-cracking- who protected the village from marauding predators, bandits, and vandals. Lilacleah, for her part, was enchanted. Not from any romantic notions of marrying a true swashbuckling hero (though she did consider him a good man who most definitely would always fight for what's right), but from awe of the sheer grace and beauty a well-trained swordsman may invoke from a blade. Garl's new ability, totally unique in their home- no one else in the village knew how to wield a sword, except as a makeshift axe- brought his betrothed to his side even more often than before. A point he did not care to and happily made no effort to argue. Many peaceful, and not so peacful, but ever contented seasons passed this way, until finally, there was but one year left before Garl and Lilacleah's marriage. The both of them beamed like lanterns and fairly floated across the earth wherever they went from winter until fall. Then, even when Lilacleah took violently ill that new winter, they continued. Though Garl's step was laced with worry when Lilacleah could not see. She died in the second month of winter, and Garl's world shattered into a thousand razor-sharp shards. He stopped patrolling with the watch, training with them, and listening to them. He seemed to hear nothing, not the birds in the trees, not the insects all around, not even the anguished pleas of his venerable parents as they tried to bring him back to life. No, he seemed to wish to do nothing but lean on his trusty sword (a blade forged for him as an early wedding present by a wood elf blacksmith: the very same one who supplied his city guard's weapons) over Lilacleah's grave and sulk. This carried on for the next four winters. One day, as Garl awoke from another fitful night of restless dreams stiff and sore as usual, he found himself awake in the wheat field under which his love was buried. Only mildly surprised, he quickly wrote it off as sleepwalking...until he turned his gaze to Lilacleah's grave. There, standing as serenely as any of the grazing deer he'd seen countless times before, was an actual, living, breathing, unicorn, looking thoughtfully off into the trees at what Garl could not imagine. His small gnome's heart started pumping like a giant's bellows. His palms moistened, and throat went dry. It was the single most ecstatic moment of his young life. The cares and woes of the world fell away into nothing, and he was left knowing only all the joy he'd ever called his own. And then some. He was alive!; and could feel the cool breeze play over his bare arms, hear a songbird titter at him gaping like a fool, the sound of the wheat rustling in the wind; it was suddenly all almost too much for his heart to bear, happiness filled it so close to bursting as he stood here, in the prescence of this! This living legend! Here, mere yards away from a living, breathing embodiment of good, justice, purity, and hope! Sought by countless thousands in countless thousands more generations, never to be found! And here, was a unicorn, this gift from who knows where, enjoying the breeze right there in front of him! And he subsided, somewhat. And he laughed. Not loudly, for fear of scaring the beast away. A quiet chuckle, at himself. How blind he'd been! This is what it was like for her, wasn't it?, he thought, half to himself and half at the unicorn. This is the real truth of what her each and every day was. I knew that in that delicate breast beat a heart that blazed like a sun, but this...! It's enough to make a grown man weep. He laughed out loud, a great whoop of joy and unself-conscious merriment, when he realized he was weeping. I once was blind, but now I see. Grinning fit to bust his own head wide open, Garl was caught completely off guard as the unicorn cocked its head and, meeting his eye, gave him a long, knowing look. Garl was so astonished, he sat down on the ground, hard. The pain from his tailbone made no difference to him whatsoever. Then the unicorn cantered off, still the picture of infinite leisure. He looked after it for a long time. "I see now indeed," he murmured to himself. "Such beauty and wonder cannot be contained so selfishly as I have held it. It must be shared. With everyone. Starting today!," he yelled aloud to the wheat, the thrushes, and some very nonplussed field mice. With that, he leapt up, and quick as a wink, was into the elven city, and back to the village again, and had organized and proceeded to throw Lilacleah a going away party the likes of which neither gnomes nor elves had ever seen in their considerable days. A week later, Garl Glittergold took his mission to the road. That's when things for the laughing gnome got interesting. ~END OF PROLOGUE~ Author's note: This is actually a backstory I've written as a requirement from the DM of an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons game I'll be playing. The rest of Garl's story, if you, dear reader, wish to continue, will be posted here after each subsequent adventure/game evening.

I humbly add you to my "List of People I'd like to Sit in a Coffee House with One Day and Debate just about Anything". Amazing stuff, that interestingly enough (since I am pro-Operation Iraqui Freedom), gives me newfound hope for our country. Encore!

I was trying for good ol' anthropomorphization with Spidey, but am perhaps, being a bit too subtle. His whole ordeal is just a silly red herring that segues into a little slice of Colin. Too much? Too little? I'm feeling too much of a fence-sitter on that one. Ah well. We shall see. The add-ons and changes are miniscule, I know, and I apologize for that, but...Life! That sums it up. I am curious though, what you think of the narrating style for the two newcomers. The shift was deliberate, but I'm not 100% on how smoothly the two strangers' section fits with the rest. Oh, and is the description of our heroes a bit better?

And Hizzoner the Founder is... A Tanka? First, a 45 on that stupid Dr. Phil quiz and now I'm a Tanka? What's the world coming to? Oh well. I like the company I keep.

Hm. The use of "imagine" right there jarred me a little, too, but I *am* actually shooting for a storyteller's voice speaking here, at least in this proto-prologue and I was trying to hide what was really happening with Spidey as smoothly and sublty as I could, so I shifted into the commanding voice to help hide that Spidey wasn't actually feeling anything. "Unawares"...yeahhhh. That'll be fixed in the next update (ideally, tonight or Thursday. Freakin' schedule. {:>\). :>) Apologize not, Mr. Z. Like you said, I asked for it. Thanks.

More is definitely needed, I say.

Timothy sits quietly scratching symbols into the dirt with his finger, as his other two companions formulate what to do next. Some few seem familiar to both the human former scholar and the half-elf king, from their separate histories. Familiar and dire. "Well, your Highness," he says at last, "It seems you are our resident tactician. What shall we do next?"

...she plowed the legs right out from under the Founder himself, his flowing robes blending unfortunately well with this hallway for Rune to see him before she'd already gone nose to shin with the old man. The demoness finds herself preoccupied again, but this time with a rather unpleasant throbbing pain in her nose. She pokes an experimental finger at it and yelps. "Oww-w!" So Ozymandias is left to his own devices to right himself, which he does with such alacrity that Rune breifly wonders if he is about to strike her. Her fears quickly melt away in the rain of concern he showers on her. "Are you alright, my dear?," the craggy Eygptian asks her quietly, after helping her off of her rump. He smiles gently. "I know millenia-old shinbones aren't the softest landing you could ask, and for that I am sorry." He stops, stares ahead at nothing, and snaps his fingers, as though he had just remembered something. The Founder begins to rummage through his robes, muttering to himself. "I know I've got something verdant left over." But before she can ask, he triumphantly produces an unremarkable metal can. The old man stares at it quizzically along with her for an instant, then with a shake of his gray head, deftly slices its top open with a knife, releasing a very bemused polar bear, who takes one look at the blue-clad man and chubby demonness before him, and wanders away quietly. "No, that wasn't it," Ozymandias mutters. He rummages further, until, smiling widely, he produces a small gem, no bigger than a pearl. Even in the light shade offered underneath the hallway's many arrow-slit windows, it glows a bright firefly green. "Nullus", Rune's erstwhile benefactor intones, and her nose immediately feels much better. "Better?" Remembering manners (especially among unquantifiably magic people), Rune replies, "Yes, thank you," in her politest voice. "Good." He looks ready to speak further, but is interrupted by a sound she could not hear, so much as feel. A high, hollow, SQUEAK.

The e-mail address, it is correct Sah.

"I didn't know about the death," Timothy murmurs. Kalyera and Gyrfalcon watch him now, still very concerned for their battered and possibly insane companion's welfare. Kal winces in sympathy as the young man attempts to run a hand through his sweat-tangled curls, only to remember he cannot with his newly set shoulder and broken collarbone. To his credit, Timothy doesn't utter a sound to the pain. Instead, he lets his hand fall to his lap. His mismatched eyes swing up from the ground and gaze at their "hostess" dejectedly. "This eye of mine, good lady, has seen it all." At seeing her confusion, he elaborates slowly, letting his breath in and out carefully. "I was born with a different kind of 'second sight'. Always, I've seen my life, and life around me." With his good arm, he gestures to his right eye. For the first time, Kalyera notices it is a haunted thing, a painted porcelain blue, like a robin's egg. A gaze she had been used to not seeing since she had left her people, and her family... But she filed the stray thought away as Timothy continued. "With this," he gestures to the left, at the stark, soulless green that peers at them from the other lids, "I see what life has already gone. I see the past. I usually only see things when a great catalyst comes to me, " at this, he eyes his companions unreadably, "which has happened quite often, recently. I have seen the wars you speak of, Lady. In as much detail as an infantryman. Sometimes more." A small shudder shakes him, but he is committed now. "I have seen the quiet betrayals, the knife in the dark. The arguments refused resolution... Don't think I don't understand your cause, or your pain, Lady Elena. I have seen the violence men and other thinkers can wreak. I have seen, over and over, the depravities we can convince ourselves are right in a quest for power. I have seen the death of civilization. We keep killing ourselves, over and over, until there's nothing left. Just so we can be stronger or more important than someone else." Timothy's grimy face contorts in such naked rage even Gyrfalcon is momentarily taken aback. "How I hate them." He spits on the ground with every echo of a spitting viper. "I won't see whatever's left of those who aren't killing body or spirit left to the wolves." With those final words, he seems to shrink in on himself, suddenly a young boy very far from family and home sitting there in the dirt. Yet still somehow as immovable as a mountain.

Terrific poem. I especially like the turn of phrase, "If I could have but one regret." My brain's so wired into expecting that statement to end with "wish" instead of "regret", I almost missed it the first time, but the word choice there made me think more carefully about the rest of the poem. Welcome to The Pen. I hope your stay is long and fruitful. :>)

(If I remember correctly) The person above me is bald.

Intense...you actually had me worried for the state of your sanity until I reached the line "that misses schooling", and it slooooowly clicked into place. Very Zool-ish: wickedly clever and amusing. Encore!

I don't think I'll ever understand what she seems to think and plan I swear, one day you'll be the death of me This high elation and bottomless misery So beautiful, so fine, so fair I don't think I'll ever see what's truly there Because I am incomplete, an unfinished whole When we are joined, that's when I'll know the joy of true levels of ecstasy and imagination in life For a half cannot do what can a whole When we stand, man and wife EDIT: When I'd originally posted this, I'd inluded the opening lines: It's alright- She moves in a mysterious way... Which I later realized in fact belong to U2. Gah. ><

Vlad, speaking for all of the Elders until such point as they all beat me with sticks until I promise never to do it again,Don't worry about getting an Elder's gender wrong. I've known this bunch for a long time, and they really wouldn't be offended. As for me, I'm actually a *FZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT* Connection reset by peer

"IT BEGINS!", wails Timothy in a voice his companions did not know he had. Dropping to his knees, the man's voice seems home to all the pain and despair in the world as he continues, eyes wide and staring at nothing. "This IS ALL IntellIGENT KIND WILL HAVE WROUGHT! The Darkness comes! Death and destruction only shall the pool be used for! DO NOT LET THEM HAVE IT!" Momentarily dumbfounded, all in the clearing stop to stare at the wild-eyed man. Even the strange woman lowers her weapon- fractionally. It is only for a moment. Those bicolored sightless orbs that swiveled in apparent agony came to rest not on her, but in her direction. The staff was raised with new vigor, but did her little good. With a final bloodcurdling shriek, would-be sociologist Timothy McLaggan cannoned forward and into her with a maniac's strength. The woman swiftly brought her staff to bear, but he only continued plowing her back, staff connecting so solidly with his chest that Kalyera winced visibly as she and Gyrfalcon heard an audible, wet, snap. Fearing suddenly more for this strangers' life, Gyrfalcon too charged forward, but before he reached the pair, he noticed Timothy's right arm had gone slack. More disturbingly, he saw that the man did not seem to notice it as he drove his target to the ground, roughly turned her over with his left arm, and held her face in the direction of the zombies. "Do you see now?", came the hoarse whisper in her ear. "Flee! Destroy this island! Just stop them!" Excuting a leveraged throw with military precision, the woman threw the madman a full ten feet away- and towards the zombies. Scrambling to his feet, the battered and bruised man barely dodges another swing of that solid staff. Shocking his companions twice that day, in response, Timothy draws his sword and runs at the encroaching horde. Breath drawing in ragged gasps, one green eye and one blue eye swim back into focus. Timothy's breathing becomes more measured, and his jaw sets tightly. His pace quickens again. "If there be any higher point to our lives, may I learn it today," he breathes. And he is in the thick of the undead, sword flailing.

"My faith is the evidence of things unseen." -Toby McKeean