Patrick

Hey Jechum! Nice to see you float around.

Twirp might have been an imp, and a stupid one at that, but even he wasn't as stupid as to not be able to find some glaringly red berries. The snow had not been able to fully cover the bushes. He had less luck with the mushrooms though. He could only find one of them, when he accidentally dislodged it with his foot. Grinning happily to himself like a little boy, who spots a lost coin in the middle of the road and takes it, he pocketed the mushroom, wiping his hands in his already dirty leather trousers afterwards. The childish joy was replaced by despair and fear of the beating he might receive. No other, filthy, stinking mushrooms managed to manifest themselves and Twirp was fed up. However, the beating did not happen. Master only pointed at a table to put the berries and mushroom on, not even looking up from his experiment. Twirp sat down in a corner and fiddled with the bone from a chicken leg, remnant of a meal several weeks ago. He didn't even notice the shade creap up on him. When the shadowy creature let out a sharp hiss, almost next to Twirp's ear, the unfortunate imp jumped up in shock and let out a piercing shriek. "That's enough!" came the harsh voice of master. "Twirp, stand in the middle of that circle!" he said, pointing at a circle surrounded by dozens of colourful candles and a strange, bluish-green powder. The imp stepped carefully into the circle, taking care not to touch anything on the diameter. He knew how much master hated having to restart an experiment. A foul smelling gas from a vial was poured over Twirp, master chanted in that strange language, that to Twirp resembled the foul croaking of elves, blinding lights flashed and then suddenly Twirp was no more. In the middle of the circle, candles now extinguished, stood a six-foot tall, glaringly white skeleton. Unseen muscles moved the joints and the undead creature tried placing a foot outside the circle. An invisible barrier prevented even the smallest fragment of bone to leave the area. The skeletal jaw opened, moved and then snapped shut, the only sound leaving it the clink of bone against bone. "It's time," the voice of the mage solemnly pronounced. The shadow, circling around the circle gave out a low hiss, but did not move. "I said that it is time!" annoyance crept into the voice and the shadow rose up, filling the room almost to the ceiling. "Or do you want to test my patience?" "Nooooooooooo," the shadow let out almost a moan and shrunk to its usual side. As the shadow entered the circle, the mage started chanting again. A dozen different powders were thrown inside the circle, covering the bones of the slowly wavering skeleton in fine layers of multiple-coloured dust. The chanting abruptly ended in a blinding flash of light. When the mage could once again open his eyes, the circle of bluish-green, protective dust was gone. Only the skeletal figure remained in the middle, but the bones were no longer glaringly white. "It worked?" the mage asked almost unbelievingly. "Did it work?" he asked as though he were speaking to the now black skeleton. "What do you think sssorcerer? I haven't made a ssstep to kill you yet, have I?" A triumphant smile spread along the mage's face, only to be replaced by a hint of fear as the skeleton continued speaking. "Thisss body isss woefully inadequate. If you don't finisssh what you've ssstarted, I might jussst find motivation to kill you." It took more than nine more hours to craft a body, through skillful combination of magic, rare ingredients and the bodies of some peasants from a nearby farm, before it was done. Standing in the middle of the room, now robed in a dark cloak, only the remnants of the hiss could have told one, that the handsome middle-aged man, had been just a shade a dozen hours earlier. "Now. Tell me everything that you know about thesse sstrange purple things. No, wait. First tell me again how thosse who robbed me of my body for sseventeen monthss died. It iss a pleassure to my earss." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These walls, this warm air, I've only ever heard of them in stories told by my mother. Powerful, unexplainable beings live here, she always used to say. Dabbling in ancient and dangerous magicks, others would add. It just looks like walls and celings to me. Nothing special about it at all. The little furball of a weasel manages to free himself from the confines of some pockety thing in the man's robes and runs off. I happily bound after him, up the stairs. What a great game! I always liked to play catch!

I'm willing to start the game with 5 players, but it'd be great to get more!

Die Hard 4 Saw this over the weekend. Apart from the obviously Holywood-esque portrayal of all that was related to computer hacking it was an enjoyable action-flick, where you don't need to think much while watching it. Oh and Yippie-kay-yay mother****er!

Issue is now resolved thanks to IPB support.

There seems to be an error with email notification about new PMs and emails for topic subscriptions. I'm looking into the problem.

Game thread is here Sign ups are now open. Will probably last a week. Rules shall be the standard rules (wolf (or wolves), seer, baner, no alliances).

An unusual calm weighed heavily on the small village of Hollowcreek. Not even the wind whispered amongst the mainly wooden houses and shacks. The few stray dogs and cats who had survived the winter were absent from the beaten earth streets. It was not spring enough yet for the birds to have returned from their winterly migration. Not a sound, not one movement disturbed the stillness. Everyone had heard the unnatural howl cutting across the valley shortly after nightfall. Those who knew what it meant hoped that the menace would spare their village. Those who did not had still been chilled to the bone by the almost palpable menacing edge the howl had born. A shaft of light from a slightly lifted curtain escaped one of the shacks, but was rapidly extinguished as a caring parent whisked a curious child away from the window. No words were said between them, just a reprimanding glance. The howl, heard earlier in the dense forest several miles to the north, pierced the night yet again. Closer, much closer. During the next mornings discussions, most agreed that the howl had come from the outlying farm of the Masons, just under a mile east from town. Fear gripped the village, heavily weighing on every movement. The Masons were nowhere to be found, yet their small shack had not been disturbed. The only sign of the passage of the creature were its pawprints embedded in a cabbage patch. The Masons returned two days later. They had already been accounted for as dead, but luckily for them they had just been off to the town of Sioq, fifty miles away, to buy a badly needed plow and some grain. The town breathed a collective sigh of relief. Two days had passed and no one had turned into a werewolf. No one had done it in public. It might have been a romantic encounter at the Masons' farm, or a shady deal between two villagers in the middle of the night or simply someone coming home late. Evil needed only a small mistake so as to gain a foothold. One small mistake. Someone had made it. Several would pay.

Hmmm...hard one. Will have to go with role playing. Reading or writing?

The Name of the Wind ~ by Patrick Rothfuss Unquestionably the best book I've read in almost a decade. It can definitely be placed next to Lord of the Rings, and perhaps, just perhaps, it is even better. Since it is just the first part of a trilogy, I'll just have to wait for the next two books before passing judgment. It also just happens to be the very first book written by the author. For a resume, it has been done better, than I could at the website of the author: http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/content/books.asp Clicking on book one excerpt can also show you a bit from the 90 odd chapters that the book has. The book is only out in hardcover for the moment, but even though it measures a hefty 650 pages, it took me less than 8 hours to read it (split up during several days, I mostly read it on the train while going to and back from work). Once you start you can't stop. I haven't felt this sensation since reading the dune series for the first time. The story is mostly told in first person, but when interludes come in the narrative, it adds richness to the story and the mystery. The characters are very believable and easy to identify with. Magic doesn't go as overboard as it sometimes does in Harry Potter. There is no visible fate the main characters move towards like in Lord of the Rings. The usual clichés are very skillfully avoided, yet you don't feel their absence. If I were giving marks for this book, I'd definitely give at least 9.8 out of 10. The missing 0.2 is because I have to wait until next March for the second part of the trilogy. It's going to be a long wait.

Problem fixed, courtesy of the IPB support staff. Fixed for good now. There had been a minor hiccup during the forum upgrade, which was causing the problem. Tan and blue skins are available again. Unfortunately you have to manually switch back to them.

Viewing PMs is now dead in all skins...sorry for the inconveniance. IPB techs know of the problem and are looking into it.

Tables and signatures are all fixed.

Ok...viewing PMs now only works in the IP.Board Pro skin... Minor note: saving outgoing PMs is also off by default.

The tan skin has been taken offline, while I can figure out what brings that PHP error when viewing messages. Everyone who had been using it has been defaulted to blue.

Hrmph...PM problem seems to be back with the Tan skin.

Thanks for the help Gwai. In other new this upgrade also brought a new skin, courtesy of InvisionFree, called IP.Board Pro. It is a simpler skin without gradients. For the moment it also does not contain any of our customizations, like the chatbox. (the skin called IPB 2.3.0 default is probably the default blue skin again, but I'm leaving it for the moment and will look into it after work today)

The board software has been upgraded...there seems to be a small problem with PMs...I'm looking into it. Edit...viewing PMs, and thus replying to PMs is at the moment impossible. Sorry for any inconvienience, working on resolving this as fast as possible. Edit Edit: Thanks to the people at Invision, the PMs work again! Edit Edit Edit: this is becoming like a bad soap opera Just check the latest post at the bottom of the thread to see the status of the PMs.

A puppy skips after Canid, his tongue stuck out in the sudden heat of the Cabaret Room, after the cold outside. "Happy Birthday!"

Original topic An interesting start to your story Nyarlathotep. Makes me want more, so best of luck in the fight against writer's block. In terms of possible improvements: I spotted a typo or two, nothing major, but if you want I can send them over. I also felt that the cat part could have been elaborated more on, especially the emotions (or lack of) when he kills (or just throws out) the cat.

Happy birthday Mynxie! How'd the party and the baking go?

Thank you!

Pierre heard the news while driving to the exhibition in his car, which was of course a french car. Pierre drove a 1978 Citröen 2 CV, which he had bought from a collector upon arriving in the United States. The car, despite being almost 30 years old, and having been repaired more times than Pierre could remember was still in good shape. He did not attribute much importance to the news and did not check the crime scene at the art gallery. After all, the motive of the crime could have been anything. He headed over to his own booth and settled in for another day of explaining his paintings to the visitors. OOC: Vote for Mithrandin/Dennis Cleaver (DC)

forgetfulness

*huggles Ayshela* Take care of yourself!