Patrick

Joshua Oldwind, 38 years old. When he was 13, his twin sister, Tania, was taken by the wolves. Her loss hit Joshua pretty hard. But no one guessed how hard until Tania was returned exactly on her fourteenth birthday, roont. It happened three days later that Tania was found dead in her bed, her throat slashed open with the bloody knife that was next to her. Joshua was at her side crying. No one ever managed to prove that Joshua had killed his sister, though many suspected. Two years later Joshua became the woodcutter's apprentice, and when three years later the woodcutter died in an accident he took up his mantle. He still lives in town, though has moved out from his parent's place at the age of 18 to live in a small house of his own on the northern outskirts, close to the forest.

Quick question while I'm working on a character. Are the twins necessarily of the same gender or can they be different?

An owl flutters close-by, freshly awoken from his hibernation. It hoots as it spots the new arrival. Though he is definitely sure that he does not know owlish, strangely Norman can make out the word "Welcome" during all the hooting.

"Still just a cub." It was what all the pack's elders always kept telling me. "You should still get wretched-up meat from the grown-ups, not eat fresh meat like us ." But it always smelled so good. Much better than the other stuff anyway. But recently all I could get was half-digested meat. I didn't usually sneak out against my mother's wishes, but she had been busy feeding my brother and two sisters. As most often, I yet again refused it, and while she looked away I was able to sneak from the den. Snow was so much fun! It reached above my heads, but it was easy to move in the tracks of the older wolves. Right now I was following one of them, jumping from one footprint to another, having the fun of my life. I just hoped that I wasn't going to be noticed. Afterall, I wasn't allowed to leave the den...

Great concept of showing the indifference today's world can present. The end made me smile. There were a few typos in the piece, but they did not really stand out. If you want I can make a list and PM it over to you.

Congratulations on your promotion Mardrax! I've been enjoying reading your writings for quite some time now. Please do continue.

Great short story! I enjoyed reading it very much.

OOC: About the current AVV layout. You'll notice that it's not exactly as the one mentioned in character. There are two temporary forums. The temporary RP and OOC forums contain the threads, which shall later be moved to either the Conservatory or Courtyard/Under the Oak Tree. You have one month to decide where a thread should go. Currently the temporary forums are visible to QB upwards. I'll whip up a list of the threads in a seperate thread so that people can decide where they want their RPs to go. Edit: here it is: http://www.patrickdurham.net/themightypen/index.php?showtopic=15337 About the AAA: they have gone underground and shall stay thus for some time.

Also in! Character to come later.

Written for my alliance on french ogame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogame) for the start of a war. XXXX, YYYY, ZZZZ are names of players in the alliance. Le vent glacial hurlait implacablement dans la vallée. Autrefois déserte, la vallée résonnait d’activité. Des milliers de vaisseaux et des centaines de milliers de braves hommes et femmes étaient rassemblés pour la dernière inspection avant de partir à la guerre. Les seigneurs alliés assemblés sur leur plateforme d’observation pouvaient être fiers d’en être arrivés là. Six mois plus tôt Les seigneurs de la PV nRT n’étaient pas habitués à être réveillés en plein milieu de la nuit et à être convoqués sans en être avertis préalablement. Mais leur mécontentement s’évaporait vite lorsqu’ils écoutaient les propos de leurs chercheurs. Comme demandés par les seigneurs les chercheurs ont travaillés sans cesse et enfin, après de longs mois sans aucun résultat, leur recherche en physique et chimie ont enfin donné des résultats splendides. «… comme vous pouvez voir, avec cette nouvelle technologie nous pourrions augmenter considérablement toute l’efficacité de nos empires. » Ainsi concluait le chef-chercheur PV nRT. Plusieurs secondes de silence suivaient avant que les questions commencent à arriver. La plus importante de ces questions venait de XXXXX : « Que devons nous faire pour obtenir cette technologie ? » demanda le seigneur. Le chef-chercheur était visiblement inquiet, mais il donnait quand-même la réponse : « Selon nos études nous avons besoin d’une quantité énorme de ressources provenant de champs de ruines. Nous avons observés la possibilité d’obtenir la technologie uniquement dans des champs de ruines. » « C’est-à-dire ? » demanda le seigneur YYYYYY. « Soit nous détruisons nos propres flottes, soit les flottes d’autres empires et recueillons les débris, mon seigneur. Je crois bien que vous préféreriez la seconde solution. » Le murmure entre les seigneurs gagna en ampleur. « Vous parlez d’une guerre ! » cria ZZZZZZZ. « Nous ne voyons pas d’autre solution messires. » « Mais nous avons aucun ennemis contre qui nous pourrions faire la guerre ! Ceux contre qui nos peuples ont de la haine sont soit trop forts soit trop faibles pour ce que vous dites. » « J’ai peut-être une solution. » interposa un seigneur. Il provenait de galaxies lointaines et faisait partie d’un des alliés de la PV nRT. Les têtes tournaient vers lui et tout le monde attendait ses prochaines paroles. « L’alliance C.A.U » Un de ses assistants donna des feuilles avec des informations connus sur l’alliance C.A.U et sa wing. Quand les seigneurs PV nRT ont eu le temps de prendre connaissance de ces nouvelles informations il continua : « Ils sont certes plus forts que la PV nRT et également plus forts que nous, mais si on s’alliait on pourrait tenir contre eux. » Les négociations duraient tard pendant la nuit, mais au final un accord fut conclu et les préparations commencèrent. Aujourd’hui Les derniers discours avant le départ ont été conclus. Les soldats et pilotes ont fait leurs au revoirs à leurs familles. Nombreux ne rentreraient jamais, mais leur noms seront pour toujours connus comme des noms d’héros.

Welcome to the Pen burritodood. I hope your stay shall be pleasant!

Good luck with the move Ayshela!

I don't have much to offer criticism-wise, but I did really enjoy this poem. And congratulations on having gotten it published!

I really liked this poem. Read nicely in my head and for me the rhyme worked really well. Especially liked the first two lines of the third stanza.

So true...

Welcome to the Pen! I hope your stay here shall be pleasant! A little piece of advice: don't mention the word "geld" when a certain Wyvern is around.

Totally OOC reply, sorry for not following the IC trend of the topic. This transition is taking way much longer than planned. Real life seems to be having a busy period for each and every GL (me included). I promise we'll try to get all this done as soon as possible, while being unable to propose any timeline. If there are any posts/topics you desperately need in the meantime...send me a PM and I'll look into it. Sorry for any inconveniance caused by the overly long transition.

After a bit of discussion about a possible second version with Cyril. Much happier version, building on the fact that children like their tattered toys best, since they've grown used to them. big, black nose, cute, stuffed ears, shiny buttons on his fur coat, just an everyday toy missing nose, ripped-off ears, long-lost buttons, filthy fur coat, one child's bundle of joy

Happy birthday Sal! Hope the day is great for you!

big, black nose, cute, stuffed ears, shiny buttons on his fur coat, child's favourite cuddly toy missing nose, ripped-off ears, long-lost buttons, filthy fur coat, no longer an item of joy No idea what made me write this...just suddenly got the idea and within a minute the poem was written...seems that inspiration strikes at the weirdest moments...

It had been a wonderful winter morning in the garden for Gwaihir, checking that the plants were well protected for the winter. His hands had not amassed as much dirt as usual, the ground being partly frozen. It was the first really cold day at the Pen Keep, and the elf had wanted to make sure that his beloved friends had everything they needed to weather the chill season. On his way back from the gardens he passed by the guild areas, the door to which was, to his surprise, closed. The only indication of why the door, which usually was left open was not so, was a white piece of paper nailed to the door. Once inside the Cabaret Room, Gwaihir was just about to ask what had happened, but Patham was already addressing the crowd of Pennites assembled around the fireplace, in which the fire crackled merrily. "My dear Pennites and visitors who have come from distant lands! As some of you may already have noticed, access to the guild areas is currently restricted. Only those whom we all respect, our Elders and Ancients, and us, the Guild Leaders are currently permitted to visit those areas, as we are making big changes to them. I'd like to stress that all this is not to ban you from what you can obtain in those areas, if you need anything, just let one of us know and we shall fetch it for you." "We have heard the grumbles and complaints about the guilds in recent and not so recent months and we took all these suggestions to heart and once the guilds reopen, they shall be far from their current form. I know that some of you may already start being concerned about restricted materials in the guild areas that you own, becoming public, but please believe me when I tell you that we shall apply the utmost care in selecting what shall be transferred from the old guild areas to the new ones. We shall quite probably contact all of you to ask where you wish your possessions to be." Whispers and talk were already spreading in the crowd and Patham knew that he would have to finish fast. "We shall be here during the whole process, ready to listen to you. If you have anything to tell us, or any suggestions to make, please do so. It is our objective to make the guilds more member-friendly and to step out from what many perceived as our seclusion and separation from the rest of the Pen. Now, does anyone have any questions?" OOC: Thanks to Gwai for allowing me to borrow Gwaihir for this! And now for a bit of OOC explanation. Guild forums have been made readable only by Guild Leader, Ancients and Elders so that we can hammer out details without fear of the public knowing of our mess-ups. tongue.gif However if you have writings in there that you desperately need while the forums are invisible just shout and we'll grab it for you. We also know that several people have works in there that they don't wish to be made public for all the Pen to see, so we shall be careful about this. As to the why of the changes. Let's face the fact: the guilds in their current form were basically dead. Changes were needed and asked for. They shall come. We Guild Leaders already have a pretty detailed plan and shall be hammering out the details during the coming days, but we're of course still open to suggestions.

Happy birthday Sweet! Hope the day was great!

Last Wednesday (the 6th) my brother and I went to see Opeth in Lyon. I had been waiting for the concert for a long time, because they are one of my favourite bands. Amplifier, a three-member band opened the show and played during a short hour. They played a drum heavy show, with quite interesting vocals, but altogether they failed to impress me. My brother, who doesn't usually listen to metal found them more melodic and slightly better than the main act. Then came Opeth. For those who don't know them they play a pretty unique style of metal, where the singer alternates between death-metal like grunting and totally normal singing. Counting only the number of songs (which was eight) one could have thought that they played a short setlist, but with the length of songs the set was close to 2 hours long. Mikael Akerfeldt (the singer of the group) is very good in "crowd control", the best (and funniest) part was when he asked everyone to mosh without music, and right afterwards he told the drummer (quite unexpectedly) to do a solo. All in all a very enjoyable concert, and well worth the expense.

Divinity any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force

Beyond beyond A adverb 1 beyond in addition; "agreed to provide essentials but nothing beyond" 2 beyond farther along in space or time or degree; "through the valley and beyond"; "to the eighth grade but not beyond"; "will be influential in the 1990s and beyond" 3 beyond, on the far side on the farther side from the observer; "a pond with a hayfield beyond"