Patrick

We all have our characters we like to play, enjoy playing, but I sometimes feel that it is really interesting to try out something new, so I propose a, hopefully fun, activity. I shall propose a character and a situation he/she is in, and then anyone can have a try at roleplaying that character in that situation. After a given amount of time has passed I shall choose, which interpretation of the character I liked best, and the person who wrote that interpretation gets to pose the next challenge, in which he/she poses a character in a situation, etc...If that is a bit vague, then just ask and I'll give clarifications. And now, without further ado I present you with the first challenge! The character to play is: Peter Westson is a thirty-three year old lumberjack, who has lived alone most of his adult life, in his shack in the middle of the woods, his only contact with the outer world being, when he went into town on his wooden cart, pulled by his trusted companion, Grazer, the mule, to sell the wood he chopped, in exchange of foodstuffs and miscellaneous items he needed. The situation the character has to be roleplayed in is: Two weeks ago, after nine years of faithful service, Grazer passed away. Still mourning his loss, Peter had gone into town, by foot, to buy a replacement mule. He was directed to Maria's stables, where he met Maria, aged 27, a widow, with a three year old son. She had been the proprietor of the stables ever since her husband died seventeen months ago. Peter had fallen into love at first sight, and now, two days after having bought the new mule, he has gone back to the stables again, to meet Maria for a second time. The way the story continues from here can be different for everyone, who wants to take part. I was purposefully quite vague about the situation, and didn't mention any physical characteristics, so as to let your imaginations run wild. After some discussion in IRC, if someone wants to be able to interact, then I can play the characters you would want to interact with.

Alfonso de Margarita Alfonso is your typical spanish charmer in his early thirties. Black, shoulder-length hair, black eyes and that typical mediterranean complexion about him. He is a riding instructor at the court, teaching anyone who wants to and can pay, how to elegantly or speedily ride horses. OOC: more might come, if I find more ideas.

Cedric sighed. Another day, another person dead during the night. Cedric had seen Nathaniel's body. He longed to see Susan, but he had to see his friend again, who could abort her. While going there he met Karen. She seemed streesed. Cedric did not say a word as he made his way to his meeting, but after passing Karen he shot a glance at her from behind. OOC: Sorry for the short post and late vote, last night I was out partying, and now I'm also just going to leave again. Vote for Katzaniel/Karen Zahn again.

Cedric had slept much more peacefully, after that conversation with Susan. Last day he had sent word to his acquaintance, who could possibly perform the abortion. He hoped to hear back from him soon. Susan had seemed to like the dresses yesterday and that had made Cedric happy. Seeing her happy was what made him feel joy. He hoped that a small sliver of hope existed that some day she could possibly feel love for him, or at least not resent him. Timothy came rushing in, in the morning. From the shovel in his hands and the wet snow on his trousers Cedric guessed that he had been cleaning the snow in front of his home. From Timothy's expression Cedric knew that another kill had occured during the night. "Granny Jammeez!" - Timothy announced, and he was close to tears. The old woman had clearly been liked by everyone in town. Cedric donned his heavy overcoat, and left his home. He wanted to check on Susan. His first guess was that she would be at the murder scene, but he was wrong. Karen was again at the murder scene, at the center of attention. Cedric did not say a word, as his suspicions about the young woman were beginning to be more and more confirmed. He hated to admit it, but he was starting to fear her. He turned and made his way towards Susan's home. He wanted to inform her of what he had managed to do so far, and ask whether she wanted to have the rest of the clothes, she and Timothy could not carry back last day. OOC: vote for Katzaniel/Karen Zahn.

Only original ornithologists offer orphans objectionable organs.

Jovially juggling jolly jelly, Jack jinxes jokers.

Count me in!

So...Stage 2 has been started. Ever since Aardvark's remarks in #thepen that a QQ should be written alone I've been wondering how to do this stage. I have come up with two possibilities, and would like to ask the participants, and especially Gwaihir, which of the two I should go with. 1. I pm the players with the questions, they send the answers back, and then me and the two players co-write their quiz with all the timezone problems it brings. or 2. I pm the players with the questions, they send the answers back, and then I write out the quiz as it happens, then before posting ask the two contestants whether their characters have been misplayed, possibly make changes and then post it. Edit: Gwaihir has told me that there is no official rule on whether a QQ has to be done completely alone or not and as long as I do the work there won't be criticism for having help, so the question modifies itself to which version people would prefer, possibly even being different for each "match". Edit to edit: The other two first round matchups, which shall take place will be Sweetcherrie vs. Gwaihir, and Venefyxatu vs. Appy.

Half an hour later The clapping of the crowd subsided and the cameras centered on Heather's smiling face. "Ladies and gentleman! We are sorry about this technical delay, but everything has now been sorted out, and the show is ready to start!" The bright overhead lights were dimmed until nearly switched off, and blue and green spotlights flashed across the scene. "And here come the contestants!" - Heather announced, and on the overhead screen the Madame's face appeared. A silver-lettered text appeared, spelling out the question of why the Madame had signed up for the quiz. "Because it was in my fate to do so. The stars themselves spoke to me and told me that it was necessary. That prize, if the geld part will happen, then it would, of course, be invested in the Pen through participation in another project. The item ... the Madame will have a special use for that." - her replicated image announced. As the short video finished, Fred motioned to the Madame that she could enter the stage. As the audience spotted her some of them began cheering and applauding. The Madame took her place behind the closest of the six hastily erected stands. Three of the original ones had been broken, when the trees suddenly leaped from the floor and Fred had decided to replace all of them. The screen was lit up again, and this time it was Dana, who introduced herself. "My name is Dana, and I come from a different world. I got sucked into this one because…well, one moment I was there and the other I was here. I still have a lot to learn about your world, and hope that I will do well here, tonight. I simply thought it would be fun, and to be honest that price didn't sound bad either. I was thinking of using it to improve a bit on some of my spells, I'm a bit clumsy at times...." Dispersed laughter greeted the last sentence and was followed by applause as Dana entered and took her place next to the Madame. "I just made a wrong turn. Then someone invited me to stay." Gwaihir's voice came from the speakers, while his cheerful face showed on the screen. Several members of the public started chuckling to themselves. "Honestly I don't know what to do with money. I usually just let pen friends be my banker. Books are fun, the perfect thing to do when you want to rest out in a garden." Gwaihir walked in and stood next to Dana. A single yellow spotlight focused on Heather. "As I was saying we did have some technical problems, and it is due to these problems that we could not produce introduction videos for the remaining three contestants. It is therefore my honour and privilege to introduce them to you. First, we have the one and only, Almost Dragon, Elder of Initiates, Wyvern!" The crowd, obviously oblivious to who Wyvern really was cheered loudly as the reptilian elder entered and took his place next to Gwaihir. "Next up is Eda, of whom we do not know much, but please give her a very hearty welcome!" "And finally we have Jhenrau Tyier, who arrived only recently on this planet. Let's all give him a very warm welcome!" Jhenrau walked in and stood at the last available spot. Six parallel beams of light shone on the contestants, illuminating each of them, standing there in a semi-circle around Heather. In her long, silver dress, decorated with pearls, Heather looked possibly even more beautiful than when she had won the Pageant. The camera centered in on her smiling face, as she announced: "Let the show begin!" Thunderous applause greeted the announcement, and all lights dimmed on the scene. "The first two to compare their knowledge are..." The sound of drums rolling emerged from the speakers for several seconds. "Wyvern!" A red light shone on the almost dragon. "aaaand...Jhenrau Tyier!" A blue light shone on Jhenrau. "Please step forward, both of you, next to me here." - Heather indicated. Jhenrau went and stood on her left side, while Wyvern stood on the right. "Our two contestants shall now choose the two topics from which both of them shall receive 4-4 questions each! And remember everyone two extra questions from other topics shall also be presented to them, making a total of ten." "And here are the topics!" On a large screen, partially hidden by a tree, twelve topics appeared. Dreams Current Age Computers/Technology Music Science-Fiction Origin of Foodstuffs Horoscopes Plants Famous Pennites Famous Elves Great Discoverers/Inventors Medieval Times "Wyvern, and Jhenrau, each of you now need to choose a topic!"

Five minutes before Susan arrived the cook had come back from the market and brought the news of another killing. Cedric was sitting in his study, thinking about both the possible failure of the planned marriage, and this terror striking randomly each night. He knew no more about the killings than the previous day, and knew that he shouldn't be thinking about them, when he was going to have a serious talk with Susan. Timothy knocked on the door and announced Susan, then left and led her in. Cedric was once again stunned by Susan's beauty, and was about to remark on it, but then remembered why he wanted to talk to her, and bit back the remark. He stood up from the heavy wooden chair where he had been sitting and crossed half the distance between himself and Susan, then stopped. He motioned Timothy to leave, and the man complied. "Susan, I...." - he started saying, but the speech he had prepared was already long forgotten. He took a long breath and blew it out slowly. The silence stretched on. When Cedric finally spoke, Susan had to strain her hearing to hear what he nearly whispered. "Who?" The question did not leave much uncertainty as to what Cedric was asking about. Cedric wondered whether Susan still loved the man, whose child she was carrying. Would she have loved him even through the marriage with Cedric? There were too many questions. Too many unknowns. Cedric awaited Susan's answer impatiently. OOC: Vote for Katzaniel/Karen Zahn.

Especially evil elephants elegantly exterminated ecstatic elves.

Cedric had trouble sleeping during the night, as his thoughts drifted around the revelation of just before dinner. In the morning he was surprisingly not as tired as he would have expected himself to be. "What can I get you this morning Mr. Fernsworth?" - his manservant asked, stepping into his room. "I'd like you to deliver a letter to Susan Strongam, breakfast can wait." Cedric said, and handed the man the letter he had written during the hour before dawn. As the manservant left Cedric sat up on the side of his bed, and tried rearranging his thoughts. He now took it as a fact that Susan was pregnant, for if what she had were to be a simple illness she would not have acted the way she had. Cedric felt immense disappointment, and, he had to admit to himself, envy at the man, who had been able to win Susan's heart. Cedric's heart had been broken last night, and now he was trying to find its pieces and somehow put the complicated puzzle together again. OOC: no vote yet

1. Colour - ocher 2. Adjective - miniscule 3. Name of Male - William 4. Adjective - smelly like roquefort 5. Verb (Past Tense) - square-rooted 6. A Profession - writer 7. An Exclamation - Bollocks! 8. Adjective - shaky 9. Noun - research 10. Part of Body (Plural) - locks of hair 11. Noun - deep-sea chart 12. Verb (Past Tense) - elevated 13. A Hobby - collecting stamps 14. Noun - high tide 15. Verb (Past Tense) - nit-picked 16. Name of Female - Susanne 17. Noun - pollenation 18. A Number - square root of minus 1 19. Adjective - sickly brown 20. Adverb - proverbially

OOC: post co-written with Mynx. Cedric walked down the already darkening streets. His thoughts were in shambles. After yesterday he had come to realise that he loved Susan even more than he had thought. To him she was beauty incarnate, and it even seemed that she had an intelligence, which was higher than what she could have acquired just by watching her mother and her father. As he got near the house he saw Susan’s mother just leaving the house. “Good afternoon to you Mrs. Strongam. Is the dinner still scheduled? I wouldn’t want to miss your delicious cooking.” – he said, complimenting her. She smiled and nodded, adding: “Just go on in, I need to get half a dozen eggs. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Cedric pushed the door open, and was surprised at hearing retching sounds coming from the back of the home. He entered the door and walked towards the back, where he came across Susan leaning out the back door, her back heaving as she retched. "Susan?" Cedric asked, taking a hesitant step towards her. "What...?" Susan let out a frightened yelp and slammed the door shut, turning her back to it as she faced Cedric with terror written all across her pale face. "Susan, what's wrong? Are you sick?" Cedric took another step but stopped as he saw Susan blanch and press herself into the back corner. What on earth? Cedric thought to himself, some quiet bell of thought ringing at the back of his head. "I'm sorry," Susan whispered, tears glistening on her face as her hand unconsciously went to her stomach, not yet showing any sign of her situation but... What? She can't be...? But that's not possible! Her mother said... Cedric only managed a stunned choking sound. Susan looked at him pleadingly. "It's not what you think," she babbled. "I was -" They both jumped as they heard the heavy steps of Susan's father at the front door. Susan suddenly ran to Cedric and gripped his hand tightly, her eyes wide with fear. "Please, not a word. I beg you!" Before Cedric could respond, Susan ran to her room to clean up before her parents saw her. Susan’s father stepped into the room and seeing Cedric, walked over to greet him. “Ah, Cedric, nice to see you.” He was still uncomfortable with using the slightly older mans first name, but Cedric had specifically asked him to do so. Just call me Cedric. he had said, and John did so, not wanting to offend Cedric. He held out his hand in greeting and Cedric took it, returning his strong grip. “Where is Susan?” – John Strongam asked. “She said that she was feeling cold and was going to change in her room.” – Cedric said talking so that Susan could hear through her door, recomposing his thoughts, and coming up with an excuse for Susan. He would have to have a talk with her, but didn’t want to humiliate her in front of her parents. This was definitely a most interesting development, and Cedric had been caught completely unawares. He had to think on how he wanted to act about it. He smiled at John, and then turned when he heard Mrs. Strongam come in, giving her one of his best smiles also. Having dealt with very different people during his business affairs had taught Cedric to control his emotions pretty well, and he found that useful in this situation. While he watched Mrs. Strongam start preparing dinner his thoughts started turning rapidly. He couldn’t be totally sure, but he was nearly certain that Susan was pregnant, and that her parents did not know. The fact that they had said that she was a virgin and in truth wasn’t, wasn’t what bothered Cedric. What did was the possibility that Susan had someone she loved. Someone younger than Cedric, who could offer that, what he couldn’t. It troubled him, and he felt jealous, but outwardly showed no emotions. He would act like a gentlemen and have the decency of not discussing it in front of Susan’s parents. When Susan emerged from her room, Cedric smiled warmly at her, hoping to stay her worries while at the same time wondering how serious she was with this secret lover of hers. Susan smiled weakly, but her eyes betrayed her fears, unnoticed by her bustling parents but certainly noticed by her betrothed. She spent the entire meal being dutifully polite, if somewhat quieter than usual. Even after Cedric had gone home, kissing her gently on the hand as he left, Susan's thoughts continued to chase each other in circles of panic and fear.

Royal rats rarely rush rat-women reasonlessly.

Dutifully digging does deterministically destroy drainage.

He felt that he had made at least a moderately good impression on Susan last afternoon. He hoped that she did not resent him as much as before. He was just about to go and see her again, when he heard the rumours of the murder. He stumbled across Susan's mother taking Susan home from the scene, and tried talking to Susan, but her mother clearly didn't want her to talk now. He watched Susan's figure walk away and wondered for a moment where he would go now. He preferred not to anger Susan's parents by visiting her at this time. His steps instead took him towards the scene of the murder, where he looked upon the gruesome sight. It definitely was not a clean kill. Either whoever had done it was still a beginner, or this was the intended effect. Cedric spotted Karen and heard strangely that her thoughts were coinciding with his. Was that merely a coincidence? He remembered that Karen was at medical school, and through her father would have seen many animals slaughtered. Could it have been her? Cedric chased those thoughts quickly away. It was not a right thing to accuse someone like that. But a small sliver of doubt lingered on... "Who knows what she has been through since she went away?" Cedric murmured. "How coldly she reacted to it all..." OOC: Vote for Katzaniel/Karen Zahn

Cedric gently put a hand under Susan's chin, and lifted her head so that he could look her in the eyes, and she could also see his expression as he spoke. "Susan, I have servants to do that work, and you shall not need to do any of it. I wouldn't want you to be doing things that, you don't like doing." He glanced around the room again. "When I said that this is a good home, I meant that contrary to my home, it has the hand of those, who live inside it on it. A loving touch here and there. My home is just a collection of expensive paintings and objects of art from my travels, which only have monetary value, and no sentimental one. I hope that when you come to my place you could offer advice on how it could be made more a place, which one can grow to like, and not only like its contents." He smiled, hoping he didn't come off too snob for Susan.

Reality and the unreal intermingle as oil and water would. The unreal, this dream-like state floats on top of reality as though it were oil floating on water. Occasional stirring allows water to reach the surface, but these glimpses are few. The unreal blocks off the real, keeping Jacob unaware of the pain, his head wound would be causing him. For indeed, were he completely aware of reality at this moment, he would be screaming in a pain, the likes of which he had not felt before. He swam in the calm waters of the unreal, his only glimpses of reality were a pair of hands tending to him, and a blanket being draped around him. He was unsure whether he was still alive or not. For all he knew, the afterlife could be exactly this. Disconnected from one's body, and surveying what would have happened to it if one had not died. Only time would tell whether he would come back to his senses. Time, he had plenty of, he thought, his mind slowly drifting along strange thoughts.

The door was opened by Susan's mother, and Cedric could see Susan standing behind her, a strange expression on her face. Maybe she's as nervous as I am about this meeting. - Cedric thought. He hadn't been this nervous since he had been a boy of six years old and had had to go to school for the first time. It both surprised and intrigued him that he was still capable of living such emotions this far in life. He smiled pleasantly at Susan's mother, and taking her hand kissed it. He then made a hesitating step towards Susan, and from behind his back brought out the boquet of roses. Even the short time in the cold outside had made them look not as good as when he had left his home, so he tried explaining himself. "I brought these for you, Susan, sorry they don't look too good, but since I couldn't get any of them here, I had to have them brought from far away, and well...the trip didn't seem to do too much good for them."

Starlight shines, secret sphere shown.

Cedric was clutching the boquet of roses tightly. It had cost him a lot to have them transported intact here, but for her he would have done nearly anything. He hated to admit it, as he walked down the streets, but he had never felt this nervous in his life. This was going to be the first time he was going to really have the chance to get to know his future wife better. His own emotions did not make him blind to the possibility of Susan resenting this marriage. He hoped that she wasn't going to be hostile, and if she held at least some emotions for him that would even be better. It was a mostly egoistical thinking, but he knew that he cared more about her, than most men of these times cared about women they married. He turned down the now familiar small street and knocked on the door of Susan's house.

Very few people in real life know that I write (just a few close friends and family), so I got to wondering: how open are you about your writing to people you know in real life?

Only original octopuses outswim orcas.

Pi produces pythagorasic problems.