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[ST] The Six (Back by popular... well, one demand)
05.23.06, 01:18:44
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Post #1 (permalink) |
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So, a long way back in the archives of this forum you will find a story titled the six. It was a work in progress then and continues to be.... Except that I pretty much scrapped most of what was there due to a couple of glaring problems with it, the first being that I had started the story down a path I couldn't get it out of wihout going on and on forever ad nauseum about nothing terribly intresting, and secondly, that I was largely talking out my ass about things I had no true comprehension about.
However, with some soul searching, a bit of reading other authors (Terry Pratchet being one of them and I highly recommend his discworld series for anyone who has a sense of humour above that of mildew) and basically aging three years, I think I've got a much better version started.
As with the other one, this is a work in progress with the barest of editing, so I not only request feedback, but if readers have any intrest in this story whatsoever than PLEASE tell me and demand of me that I continue posting, because it's the only way I'll ever get it finished is if people bug me about it, and I really really really WANT to finish it, I just need the motivation to actually DO it. So. Anyways, Here we go with the first installment In which, the reader shall find,
Seth Harbinger's active imagination
What Planet is this again?
Casual Magic
Redefinition of the term 'Hygene'
Edit: Goddamn the word cut and paste thing! Alright, I added the line breaks for the paragraphs and dialogue in now so it should be readable. (Thanks for the post about that) In the original I used a lot of italics to indicate tone of voice or internal thoughts as well... so just imagine that you see those.
Seth could feel the depth of water and crushing presure against his chest. The water was so deep it was inky black all around him and try as he might to fight the depth he was being dragged down, weighed down by something, he was too confused and disoriented to see what. He was going to die, he could tell. He was in way too far over his head and he just wasn’t strong enough to fight the weight and the presure.
Bubbles fell away from him as he screamed noislessly in the depths. He couldn’t figure out which way was up and he was almost out of air. His lungs burned, his body was tingling and going numb but he fought back the urge to inhale. His brain ground to a halt, began to think stupid things, the kinds of things he couldn’t believe himself thinking at a time like this.
Not the kinds of things like, ‘well I wish I had been a nicer person in life’ or, ‘you know, all in all I guess I had a good run when you look at how bad things could have been’ but, ‘I wonder how much these gloves cost her anyway? They really do look pretty cheap. I bet it’s the kind of thing you get in line to get groceries, look how the lining’s already comming off.’
He felt like such a traitor for even thinking it, which was a surprising thing to be thinking at a time like this, about to die and all, but there it was; deep down, when you really got right down to it, Seth was just as mean minded and shallow as anyone else. And with that, he inhalled.
He found he could breath. The water was just like air in his lungs and the presure was just like gravity and the numbness was just like he had slept on his arm and it had fallen asleep. The world was red like when he had fallen asleep, red from the blazing city and from the sun rising through a stormy horizon. It was going to be an ugly, ugly day in a few hours. Red sunrise always meant grey afternoon. Only six in the morning and stormclouds on the horizon.
Blood was working its painful way back into Seth’s arm as he sat up. The ground was cold, and the night had been colder. He was shivering and his arms were covered in goose pimples. He rubbed his hands together through the thin lining of his gloves then rubbed his bare arms. He knew as he watched the sun break over the tops of the cloud range that this was probably going to be a better day than yesterday, which wasn’t much of a comforting thought.
Yesterday had been the worst day of his life, on the other hand, he had eaten yesterday and he hadn’t eaten yet today and if prospects didn’t look up, he wasn’t going to either. He had just slept a freezing restless night on a muddy hill which was starting to translate into serious muscle and joint pain and everything he had tried to build in the past weeks in this strange place had been dashed, plundered and in all likeliness raped before being burned to smouldering ashes.
The people here called this place The North. Seth didn’t know what north it was of because he hadn’t found a polite way of broaching the question yet. ‘Pardon me my good sir but er... What planet am I on exactly?’ wasn’t going to cut it, Seth thought, but whatever it was north of it was certainly cold. Apparently it was the height of summer but it never got above twenty five degrees in the day and the nights were brutal damp and chilly affairs with fog and dew and general moisty unpleasantnesses.
Had it really only been weeks? Seth tried to take an account of what he knew was time. Very hard to say because he had spent an awful lot of time unconcious. It was probably only two weeks of days he had been awake and done things, but he had done well to fill those days with events. Events like meeting Julia.
Julia had been eventful.
Seth punched the ground, angry at himself. How quickly he was able to put the present into the past tense. Everything had felt so real but now it was like waking from a dream and everything slipped right away into the light of day, only as real of a memory. He could remember being unconsolable yesterday but was that all she was worth when it was said and done? Just one bad night’s sleep and let’s just get on with it already?
She’d been working at a bar in a town that was, well a one horse town was pushing it, if these people had owned a horse it would probably have fed them for a month, but for some reason, there was a very prosperous Inn and Tavern which did a steady buisness selling fermented dog piss to the local population of wood cutters, charcoal burners, hunters and mercenaries who roamed the area. The town would have been a cross roads if there was more than one road in these parts, but there weren’t so it was a collection of shanties in the middle of a burned out clearing straddling a road that went from Nowhere Town to Who Gives a Crap’s Ville.
Seth was from Toronto. Ontario, Canada... Earth. So the rustic appeal of the area failed to... well... appeal to him. It wasn’t that he was terribly fond of his home metropolis of course, he wasn’t. He had always thought of himself as the type of person who could find a glaring character flaw in someone like Ghandi and surmised himself to be the ultimate loner, but even a loner appreaciates running water and enclosed toilets. Bathing in a rainwater barrel was pushing the bounderies of his environmental tollerances and 'water closset' was a new and terifying term to him. Besides, crapping in a hole in the ground would have been an improvement to the accomodations there.
This new situation was difficult to adjust to. Not only the living conditions were alien but everything about the place was different. Especially, and this was something he still couldn’t wrap his mind around, the magic. The fact that he was here, he’d made peace with that. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t feel he needed to right now. The voice in his head. The one that wasn’t him that is to say, he hadn’t made peace with that yet, but he also hadn’t heard it in a while so it was edging to the back of the list of most urgent things to worry about right now. The casual magic, that was still frightening.
This wasn’t the Vegas kind of magic either where a man in a glitery jogging suit and an unfortunate haircut clefts scantilly clad women in twain, waves a bedsheet and they’re standing there whole again either. This was the fireballs and lightning bolts kind of magic. The kind you only get in fantasy stories or movies with huge special effects budgets.
Although, Seth considered, most of it looked like really cheap special effects, the way he would glow red whenever he conjured up a small flame or something like that. It looked to him like a bad chromo key effect. He would become outlined in a glowy neon red aura and then it would fade out again and the fire would be there where he wanted it to be. He could make things burn that didn’t normally burn, like metal, but that took a lot more energy than wood or grass or things that would burn if you held a match to them.
He could use the same power to become stronger as well. He wasn’t well built, anyone else would probably discribe him as scrawny, but he had his pride, so he thought of himself as trim. But with an ounce of this magic in him he could lift boulders, jump ten feet in the air or punch through a tree. Julia had seemed to act like this wasn’t anything unusual, and he had seen her use her magic quite casually for mundane tasks like serving drinks. Of course, Seth hadn’t known his own power at the time.
He also hadn’t any money to his name and when he’d arrived at the Inn tired, hungry and pennyless he’d had to look for a way to make a quick buck. There was all sorts of gambling going on in the bar and Seth could instantly tell why. Because everything there had been riged except for one person who was consistently winning.
It was obvious the owner of the bar riged everything because there was an obvious difference between the players and the game masters. First off, all the games worked like casino blackjack where people only won eachother’s money and the house always took a bit in. Secondly, all the players looked like they had the combined intelligence of the benches they were sitting on and the dealers or dice rollers kept looking for signs from the Inn keeper who would occasionally nod or shake his head from behind the bar when no one was buying.
This worked so well because the person who was consistently winning was gathering the attention of the rest of the people in the small tavern and no one was watching the Inn keeper who was a fat slimy piece of work named Bill Townsend who would give an occasional gesture to the dealers. He was the type who would smile and laugh jowfully and shake your hand vigourously in the classic two-handed conman’s grip and call you friend or pal having never met you before.
‘Evenin’ Friend.’ He’d said to Seth. ‘What takes your fancy tonight?’
‘How much for a room and something to eat?’ Seth had asked.
‘Can I assume that if you have to ask that money is probably tight?’
It’s probably not exsistent Seth thought but replied Yes.
‘Well then tell you what, now I’ll be taking a loss of course but you look like a lad in need of a break. Let’s say, two crowns and I’ll let you sleep in the stable and you can help yourself to whatever we’ve got on the stove.’
Seth knew now what two crowns could buy and it would have been the biggest scam of his life if he’d had the money, but of course he hadn’t, so that was just as well. He had milled around for a while feeling the pinch in his stomach when the evening’s main event began. The gambling inside was nothing but a warmup act for the main event which was out in the barn were there was a crude boxing ring stung up between the pillars. It was a bareknuckle, anything goes fight between a big nasty looking Woodsman and one of the local Guardsmen.
The Guardsman was the bigger man by far but the woodsman was a scrapper. The Guardsman confined himself to punches and grapples but the woodsman knew how to fight, very near the begining, the Guardsman took the offensive and fought him back right to the corner but out of nowhere, the woodsman landed an inside-out roundhouse kick to his head and the other man went reeling back and was knocked out soon after by a volley of blows. The guard had been dragged unconcious from the ring, bloody and missing his front teeth after just one round.
The crowd would have booed, but they’d all put thier money on the woodsman who had barely taken a hit. The crowd cheered the beast of a man and Seth asked what had just happened. The man in the ring was asking in a loud voice if there was anyone in the crowd willing to go two more rounds with him so that they might split the contender’s purse with his previous victim and in a fit of desperate hungry insanity, Seth had called out ‘Sure, bring it on’.
The crowd had gone silent. That kind of eerie silence that you get between the flash of lightning and the thunder, then they had laughed. Laughed and pointed and jeered but Seth walked towards the ring, the magnet of madness drawing him to the refrigerator door of oblivion and he took off the Jacket he’d been given and his tee shirt and tossed them to one side of the ring. He kicked off his boots and then ducked under the rope.
Now it was the silence of a hospital room when the doctor is about to pull the plug on a terminal patient. Everyone knew that someone was about to die, but no one wanted to stop it either. They had paid for blood after all, because when you bet on a fight, you really want to see your man kill the other. Maybe you want to see a contest of it, but at the root of it all, it’s blood people want.
Seth had known he was doomed too. The woodsman was a head taller than him, a foot wider in any given direction and had the scars of a hundred conflicts more challenging than the one he was about to face. Seth was Seventeen and the closest he had come to a fight was when he’d bloodied the nose of a bully in grade six, and that had been a lucky shot. It was the only one he’d needed at the time though because a bully can always find someone to fight who isn’t going to fight back. Seth wasn’t going to win this like that.
Still, he thought, one round. That’s what, a minute? Two? I can probably dance around him for the most part, he’s a scrapper alright, but he’s also a showman and it’s not a show if he knocks me out in one go. He’ll want to prolong it as much as possible, and I can take a dive after one round and take enough to eat dinner... Providing of course I have any teeth left to chew it.
He’d touched fists and the bell had rung and for a moment, he really thought it might work. Then the man hit him. It was a weak shot, Seth was pretty sure he’d pulled the punch on him, but it had gone right past his arm and hit him full in the eye. It was like being in a clock tower a noon. He’d woken up on the ground with someone counting. They were at six but he picked himself up and felt that magic inside him push him upright where he staggered for a moment. The woodsman was showboating, his back turned in contempt, making a gesture which concisely illustrated that fighting Seth was like kicking a puppy, and that he liked to kick puppies.
The match resumed and Seth, driven entirely by fear and adrenaline powered into him. He used his head, his knees, his elbows anything he could bring to bare in one initial crazed rush, hoping that if he could keep it up long enough the next hit would knock him out at round end. His dash didn’t last long enough. With a sidestep, he was thrown against the ropes and with a jab to the gut and a backhand to the face, Seth went down again.
The crowd was really jeering now. They were throwing things, threatening to finish him themselves if he didn’t get up for the rest of the round, demanding the show they’d paid for. He heard the woodsman’s taunts too. Things that had to do with small Trees and short handled axes and woodworm, probably some seriously ripping insults if your life consisted of cutting down trees and burning them for charcoal, but it was the inflection Seth recognized. That oily maliciousness he had heard all his life from people that said in so many words ‘you’re never going to do anything that amounts to anything ever’ or ‘You’re an ugly little toad and no girl is ever going to sleep with you’. ‘You’re worthless.’
That was the first time it happened. The world became so hot that it went cold, the way dry ice burns, only backwards. He pased through the fierce red furnace of rage and emerged in the blue/green chemically fired incinerator of totally-ape-****; And in this new world, anger gave him power. He didn’t know how, but it made him stronger than he could have imagined. He slowly picked himself up. He couldn’t hear any noise. He was slightly aware that the air around him was smouldering. Seth grabbed his opponent by the fist as he swung a punch slower than continental drift and wrenched it around so fast it snapped the man’s elbow.
Seth could smell burning flesh as he gripped harder until the man’s hand crunched in his grip. Hands shouldn’t crunch, he thought to himself in that distant slow methodical way that a person thinks as thier car is about to drive off a cliff. He gave the hand a twist and the man screamed noislessly. Seth kicked him in the head as he doubled over and a spray of blood hit the barn ceiling two stories up. His rage cooled back down to inferno and sound returned to the frantic ringing of the bell. The man was clearly unconcious and was not getting up. His face looked like it had been hit with a pneumatic ram and his right forearm was cracked and the bone was sticking out.
What disturbed him most in hind sight was that it made him feel good. It made him feel great. Better than great even, better than sex, better than drugs, it made him feel like this was the one thing in the world that he was meant to do, like winning an olimpic gold medal, like taking the first step on the moon. He looked at the twisted bloodied form lying on the ground and he felt strong, powerful. Proud.
But just like a dream, once the fight was over, the memory of those feelings faded away, back into the white hot fury they’d come from and he was left with the facts. A man was withing an inch of his life and it was because of him. It was strange, he didn’t even feel tired and there wasn't even a bruise to show where he’d been hit before. He checked his reflection in a puddle and his hair wasn’t even damp. He would have been sweating surely in all that heat... but it was like it never happened, like he’d never been in the ring at all.
But he was paid. He was paid well, forty crowns and a free stay in the guest room for the night and as much to eat and drink as he could manage just so long as he promised to make himself scarce by tomorrow before word could get to Northwind Castle or Havenwood Keep. Apparently, this kind of thing was not exactly as legal as it appeared to be, but no one asked any questions just so long as taxes were paid and nothing wierd happened like, oh, say a small boy beating six previously undiscovered varrieties of crap out of a born brawler who had a hundred pounds on him. Inquisitors were mentioned. That kind of thing attracted the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people and Bill Townsed was not the kind of man that wanted anything to do with the prying eyes ears and worst of all, pens of the inquisitors. He did a steady lucrative buisness of cheating ignorant bumpkins out of thier hard earned pennies and would be willingly take a small hit to keep it that way.
There was a little bonus on top of the money, and that was how he’d met Julia. |
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If you have enjoyed this post, or posts like it, please do not hesitate to click on This Link and take a look at my Story. The link is to a page that's already on this forum.
Chaos Lt, twice voted best writer by a pannel of experts (Well alright, the Repubies). Click the link to find out why!
Last edited by Chaos Lt. : 06.12.06 at 14:50:19.
Reason: Just adding a tag
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I'm not going to edit your post if you don't wish for me to, but I can't read it because there are no breaks between the paragraphs...it's too hard on the eyes.
Also, I'm adding a [FC] to your thread title to signify that it's a story which needs reading. I'm not sure if it's a fan fiction or not, because I don't know the characters, so feel free to edit the lable. Just remember next time to lable the thread type in the title next time. Here's a list of working tags:
[A]-- Add when you post up a thread containing artwork.
[FC]-- Add when you post up a thread containing fanfiction.
[P]-- Add when you post up a thread containing poetry.
[PR]-- Add when you post up a thread containing prose.
Thank you  |
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Welcome to The Church of What's Happenin' Now
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Hey dude, Its great that you've decided to come and post all this back up. I was a regular reader last time you posted installments of this story up and i'm going to carry on doing so now with the new version. I look forward to reading it over the next...umm however long!! lol. And finally maybe i'll get to find out the ending.
Oh, and i was the one demand  Anyone who hasn't read this story yet should definantly take the time too. It'll be long and time consuming getting through it all as he writes but its worth every second. |
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America: 250 million wankers living in a country with no word for wanker - Clarkson.
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Okay, well that's one reader on board. Well on the way then, and apparently people are glancing at it so, yes. Good. Sorry if it is a little slow going reading the long paragraphs but it's coppied right out of word so I'm not going to edit it much. I'm going to try reducing the size of the font for this edition though so if readers can tell me if it's something that I should keep doing, that would be great.
Right, Chapter two.
In which the reader meets the Negotiably affectionate Julia Tailor.
Has Terrible Cell phone reception.
Eats meat bits not suitable for fast food Chineese take out.
Discovers that there are worse things in life than being alone in bed.
Seth had eaten his meal in a quiet corner of the bar which was easy because people made good and sure he was a long way away from them. It would be wrong to call the food stew, because it was basically dog meat in gravy with potatos, except that you wouldn’t feed a domesticaed dog this kind of meat because then you would have to take it to the vet to be put down. It looked like all the nightmare bits of animal that get ground up and put into hotdogs, only, not ground up so much as boiled to the point of colourlessness.
It was by far the grossest thing he’d ever eaten in his life, so luckilly Julia had taken it away from him after two bites and pressed a venison steak with gravy, bread and boiled turnips into his lap.
‘Here’ she told him ‘its amazing that you survived that fight, wouldn’t want to loose you now.’
‘Thanks.’ He said, spitting out something that could give the gristle in a realy sketchy sweet and sour pork a run for it’s chewyness. ‘This looks... Well, edible for one thing.’
‘Hey, I made that specially for you.’ She contrived through her overly applied makeup to look hurt. ‘I’m sorry if it’s not what you’re used to but we eat what we can get here.’
‘No, look, it’s very nice, thank you.’ Seth took a bite. ‘Really, really...’ Adjectives failed him ‘nice.’ he finished lamely. ‘I’m Seth by the way. Seth Harbinger.’
‘Charmed.’
‘Were your parents into Jewlery or...’
‘Julia Tailor.’ Her hands rested briefly on her hips in mild irritation. ‘Um, if you don’t mind my asking’ she continued ‘what exactly are you doing here?’
‘Besides drinking some seriously substandard beer?’ Seth winced and replaced the tankard beside his plate on the table.
‘In general I mean. You don’t look the kind of person that usually comes here.’
‘That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all evening.’
‘So you’re just pasing through then?’
Seth hadn’t the first clue what he was doing at the time. Someone called Simon who he’d met when he first came here had told him he should head this way. Simon seemed to sugest that this town would be a good place for him to stay for the night.
‘I suppose I am.’ Seth replied.
‘So how come you got in that ring and fought Buck?’
‘Needed the money. I’m broke.’
She gave him an appraisingly suspicious look.
‘You don’t look broke.’
‘Well I’m not, anymore.’
‘But I mean,’ She waved a hand feebly at him ‘you’re not dressed broke.’ She trailed off seeming to finish the thought in her head.
She thinks I killed a rich guy and stole his clothes. That’s what she’s probably thinking. He thought.
‘Look,’ she finished, ‘we get all kinds here I’m sorry I asked I didn’t mean to...’
‘No no, it’s nothing like that!’ Seth said smiling just a little manically ‘I’m not a thief or... Or well... Look I got lost in the forest and...’
He’d been carrying a short sword too... And he’d fended off a couple of wild animals and cut one of them and never wiped the blade. He’d checked it at the door, Bill was no fool and wasn’t about to let people brandish weapons openly but...
‘They told me how you beat Buck...’ She said quietly. Seth held a hand out to her but she backed away hurriedly and went back to serving drinks. He went back to his food. It tasted like ash in his mouth. Everyone was afraid of him. He’d never wanted that, just to stand up for himself. He didn’t want to be the guy everybody looked down on, but he didn’t want to be someone everybody feared either.
Seth turned around to watch Julia for a moment and noticed another figure across from him, sitting in the opposite corner of the room, almost complettely hidden in the poor lamplight was a tall man in a long white coat trench coat, just sitting and watching him. He didn’t have a drink, which meant he wasn’t stupid, and he had his head resting lightly in his hand with a slightly intrested smile on his face. As soon as Seth noticed him, he got up and crossed the room and sat across from Seth at the table. He moved slowly and gracefully, but also seemed to move across the room without traveling the entire distance. At one moment he was in the corner looking at Seth and the next he was across from Seth sitting and staring inquisitively at him only a couple feet away. It was most disturbing.
‘I saw the fight.’ The man said in a strangely effeminate voice. It was soft and lyrical, like a lute, but penatrative like a dagger. ‘most impressive. I don’t believe I’ve seen anything like it before.’
‘Yeah well...’ Seth was at a bit of a loss. The man’s eyes were boring into him like a pair of diamond drills. They sparkled cold and green, like Ice that has been compressed for thousands of years. ‘What can I say? I was in rare form.’
‘I should say so. One minute I saw a foolish young man, the next a giant warrior engulfed in flames. Quite the transformation I must say.’
‘What are you talking abou-’ At this point Seth stopped himself. The man was holding up a Cellphone. It was one of those phones with a built in digital camera and the picture displayed on the tiny screen was in fact a picture of a huge fire engulfed man gripping Buck by the fist.
‘How did...’ Seth began...
‘I tell you it is a devil to recharge and the battery seems to drain twice as fast, and of course the reception is dreadful,’ the man rolled his eyes as he said the word.
‘But why do you have it?’
‘Oh I would feel naked without it. It’s got everything in here,’ He went on casually ‘appointments, phonenumbers, addresses, music. I’d be lost without it. I don’t know how I ever lived without one to tell the truth.’
‘So you mean to say that... You... You’re from...’ Seth had thought he’d been dreaming all this time. Maybe he still was, but this had been strange never the less, and this was just making things stranger.
‘Yes yes, of course, I thought we’d gotten past all that, I didn’t know I actually had to say it out loud. Sheesh. My point is, we couldn’t have people seeing that could we? They’d get entirely the wrong idea about you. Think about it, shape shifting person seems to be weak and helpless then turns into a powerful monster-like thing, then turns back again without a mark on him. Gets people on edge. This isn’t a crowd you’d want to have on edge.’
‘I get your point.’
‘No, no you don’t, not yet.’ The man’s voice was getting a fine razor edge to it now. ‘the point is my friend that everyone here did not see this. This is what happened, but they did not see it.’
‘How do I know that?’
‘Because people do not preceive anything. They simply
remember preceiving and the memory can be fooled into thinking it saw something different. What these people saw, was a lamp explode, because that happened at the same time, and with just a little twist on the mind, they beleive that what really happened was just a trick of the light, you see?’
Seth looked at the picture on the phone a second time and he could see that no one else in the picture was looking at the ring. They were all looking up were there was fire cascading from the ceiling above the ring were there had been an oil lamp burning over them to illuminate the fighters.
‘When everyone looked at the ring, all they saw was who had won.’
‘So the lamp explains his burns and... it’s like I just caught him off guard. Beating him by fighting dirty. Kicked him in the head while his hand was on fire.’
‘Today, I have done you a favour. Someday, and this day may never come, I shall call upon you do return it.’
And with that, the man was gone. Not gone either, it was like he hadn’t ever been there. Seth looked around to see were he’d gone but there was nothing. Like a shadow that looks like a giant spider in the periferal vision, it turned out to be nothing but the shadow cast by his own hand. He sat staring blankly at the wall, fork halfway to his mouth, slack jawed and confused. He looked around the room again but there was no sign of him. Maybe he’d never been.
At least that’s what Seth thought at the time.
He finished his meal and was ushered up the ricketty staircase behind the bar to the attic. It was nothing more than an attic with blankets on the floor and a hole in the floor with a curtain which could be drawn around it. Seth however was shown to the back of the room were there was a door. The door was pushed open and Seth could see what pased for the special room.
It had been a room, in that it had more than two walls, and a ceiling, although, not the kind of ceiling that kept the out doors separated from the indoors. It could probably keep out very large eagles, but that was about it. There was a small bed and a bedside table with an oil lamp on it which Bill lit for him before leaving him alone in the room.
Seth nudged the mattress with his foot. It was sort of squishy and in the orange lamp light Seth swore he saw it move on it’s own. Still, it was chilly outside and Seth was prepared not to be alone in his bed in exchange for the warmth. It had been that kind of a week where he was prepared to accept just about anything anyway.
He’d kicked his boots off and thrown his jacket on the ground and taken off his gloves and laid them on the bedside table, because, well, thats where they lived. He wouldn’t just throw them on the ground like he would with the rest of his clothes. He wore them like an expensive watch, if he’d been able to afford an expensive watch. He took them off to shower and to sleep, and that was all. They were black leather and a size too large but he could write well enough with them on and they made sure his hands were always warm.
There was also a warped and tarnished mirror hanging on an otherwise bare wall made of pourly fitting wooden joists. He looked at his face in the lamp light and it was strange. The fight had left him complettely unmarked. He didn’t look any different than normal, his redish/blondish/brownish hair which tended to mimic the colour of whatever light was reflecting off it looked like a tangle of vines sprouting from his head, but it always looked like that.
He took off his tee shirt and gingerly checked his ribs for any residual damage but like were he’d been hit in the face, no marks, no bruises, no cuts, and no pain. Weird. He knew instinctively that he should hurt after being kicked in the ribs and punched in the face but all evidence suggested he’d never even been in a fight at all. He put his shirt back on as he heard a timid knock on the door which in so many unsaid words contrived to say ‘what, oh you’re asleep well I’ll just come back latter and...’ Seth opened the door.
Julia was standing outside the door. She had changed out of her short skirt and corseted shirt into a robe which... well what can be said for a robe other than the fact that it comes off easily. None of those laces up the back for one thing. She stood there shivering in the hall, clasping her robe to her chest with one hand and carrying a candle in the other.
‘Hi’ She said.
‘Uh...’ Seth replied.
‘Um... Can I come in?’
‘Er...’
She took a deep breath and took a step inside the room shutting the door behind her. She closed her eyes and pursed her lips and when her eyes opened again the frightened timid look was gone, replaced with a predatory and sudductive stare. She smiled like a carnivore- she had very nice teeth –and the robe dropped to the floor.
Seth had not been expecting this.
She strode forward confidently, gracefully, nakedly. Her brown eyes staring right through him like he wasn’t there, like this was an act performed for a mirrior, and that was really what made him stop... eventually... Well, fair’s fair, he milked it a little. She kissed him hard, despreatly and nearly tore his shirt off, all the while forcing him backwards onto the bed where she fell on top of him. Her face still locked to his, he felt her reaching for his belt and for some stupid reason heard himself start to talk.
‘Why are you doing this?’ She stopped. He could feel her heart beating fast through his chest. ‘I mean, earlier, downstairs, you didn’t seem to...’
‘You don’t know?’ She asked very quietly.
‘Uh. No?’
‘Bill didn’t even tell you?’ She pushed herself off him and looked in his face.
‘Tell me what? Well he said something about a little something... extra... Ah.’
She gave him a suspicious and sideways look. ‘Are you just thick or something? What did you think he meant?’
‘Well...’ Seth gestured feebly ‘I don’t know I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘You do... Like girls right?’ Julia shrugged and shook her head, obviously confused.
‘Well yes, but...’
‘But what, what’s the problem? You’re not going to tell me I’m no good are you?’
‘No no, you’re very... very... nice... I just...’ This was a nightmare. Him and his stupid mouth. ‘You didn’t look like a... well...’
‘Whore?’
‘Lady of negotiable affection?’ Seth strained a smile.
Julia chuckled in spite of herself. She lay face down on the bed next to him and laughed, her shoulders heaving uncontrollably- she had a very nice back too -then Seth realised she was crying. He mentally claped himself on the back for this one and retrived her robe from where she’d let it fall to the ground. He lay it over her then turrned away from her while she regained her composure.
‘Way to go genius’ He thought ‘Hot girl throws herself at you and within a minute she’s balling her eyes out. Nice going!’
‘I’m not you know.’ She said after the silence had gone on a lot longer than was comfortable.
‘It’s alright you know, you don’t have to excuse yourself.’
‘I just work the bar. That’s all... Until tonight anyway.’
‘Then why would you... You know...’
‘Bill’s the Landlord around here... My family’s in debt to him... Well practically everybody is... so I work for him and my mother and sisters get to stay in our house. It’s not a good deal, but it’s a deal.’ She shrugged. ‘He said if I did this... You... That he would take twenty crowns off what we owe.’
‘Just out of intrest, what is the winner’s purse supposed to be for the fight?’
‘Fifty crowns plus a percentage of the house’s winnings. Why?’
‘Somehow I thought that would be the answer.’ Seth had made a quick calculation and figured that probably added up to over a hundred crowns, what with the fact that the champion had been such a strong favorite. Bill gets Julia to sleep with him and then casually adds ‘and oh by the way you spent the main portion of your money last night, I hope that’s alright with you.’
‘So what’s it going to be?’ Julia asked after a moment. ‘I really could use the money and... well, you seem like a nice enough guy.’
‘How ‘bout I just go downstairs and rip Bill a new ass hole?’ Seth muttered clenching his fist. He was angry now. He’d been cheated out of a lot of money, he was certain of it, and the worst part was, if he went and called him on it, he would have to admit that he hadn’t taken her and that would mean that she wouldn’t get paid either. Worse, he would probably makes things worse for her.
‘Look, please don’t.’ Julia put a hand on his shoulder. ‘He’s a liar a cheat a pimp and a scumbag...’
‘Fat ****ing ass basket of...’
‘...but he controls all the money around here and... well, he pays a lot in taxes to keep the inquisition out of our hair and most people would rather be in debt to him than under the heel of inquisitors. Better the evil you know right?’
‘So were does that leave me?’ Seth said, still fuming.
‘Well give me a little credit, I wouldn’t think it’s that hard to decide...’ Julia trailed off sounding just a little indignant.
‘I can’t believe I’m sitting here rationally discusing wether I’m going to have sex for money.’ Seth furowed his brow till his face was red... Reder...
‘You’re not going to tell me this is your first time either...’
‘No, no... Just... I don’t know I didn’t think I was the type to...’ Seth sensored his thoughts on the issue... He had always wanted to be, it’s just the opportunity had never come up.
‘I’ve never met your type then.’ Julia muttered, her inflection haemoraging general disgust.
‘Look, I’d feel like I was using you.’
‘Well, you know, really, it would be the other way around.’ She pointed out. ‘I’m getting way more out of this bargain than you are.’
‘Fine, fine, still... Using would be going on.’ He said. ‘I’m very much against the using.’ He finished feebly. ‘I’d just as soon not have to choose at all.’
‘Well, then on your back and let’s do this. I don’t have anything against sex, and I need the money.’
‘Hey, I need the money too, did you ever think about that? You at least have a job,’ Julia snorted at this ‘All I’ve got are the clothes on my back.’
‘Trade you.’ Julia scowled. ‘My debt for your clothes, see how you like it.’
‘Look... How about this... How much do you owe him anyway?’
Julia stood up and backed away from him with the most searching suspicious look Seth had ever seen. ‘Fifty Crowns... Why?’
‘Alright, how about I pay it off for you? Then that way I still get to keep more of the cash and you and your family go free.’
‘Hey hey, no way. I’m not trading masters. I don’t even know you, I’ll take the evil I know thank you. If you don’t want me to...’
‘Wait wait’ Seth cut her off ‘I’m not talking about buying you or, or anything like that... No, This just means you can... What is there like a deed that I get or something?!’
‘I’m his slave! Of course. That’s what happens when you’re in debt, you have to work for the person until you’re paid off.’ She looked at him like he was clueless.
‘Oh... That’s not how it works where I come from... At least I don’t think it does...’
‘You’re telling me that you’d give me the money to buy myself off...’ She said, still suspicious.
‘Yeah, if you count tonight then that’s... What, thirty crowns right?’ Seth walked over to where he’d stored the money in the jacket’s inside pocket. He began to count out the silver coins two at a time. Julia nealt down next to him and put a hand on his to stop him.
‘I can’t take this from you.’ She said. ‘Do you even know how much money that is? You could live for half a year on this.’
‘It’s mine to spend.’ He said, forcing the fistful of coins into her hands.
‘Bill won’t let me go you know.’ She said looking at the tarnished silver rings. ‘He’ll find a way out, charge me for something, say there’s a sudden increase in cost of living that he’ll charge retroactively. He’ll find a way to make me stay on. He needs me.’
‘Then he can find someone else to scam.’ Seth said standing up and clenching a fist in anger.
Julia just looked at the money and kept shaking her head.
‘You know I’ve never had this much money at one time? And I don’t even know how to thank you, it’s not like you’ll let me sleep with you. Which still leaves us with one problem. If we haven’t slept together than I owe Bill another twenty crowns anyway and if we have, then how do you get reimbursed?’
‘Now, I was giving that a little bit of thought...’ |
Last edited by Chaos Lt. : 06.12.06 at 15:11:51.
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Ha ha, didn't I mention this story was long?
05.25.06, 17:36:17
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Post #5 (permalink) |
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Well it's about that time again that I should be posting the next installment. Seeing as I DIDN'T GET ANY FEEDBACK ABOUT THE FONT SIZE I'm going to assume that it's better, because I think it is.
I'll repeat again for anyone reading up this far, if you're reading please put a little tiny post in here or pm me or something, just so I know I'm not chatting with myself here.
Anyways, Chapter 3, in which we meet the Other Girl.
Nobody suspects....
The real nature of Obsidian.
Light a fire to catch a conman.
Not wanting to overdo it too much, they had spent the next ten minutes making a series of suggestive noises from the guestroom which got increasingly louder, Seth rocking the bed frame against the wall as if he was pushing a car out of a snow bank, hurling his whole weight into it and Julia making the most amazing noises while jumping up and down on the matress making the springs whine in protest. It was just as well he hadn’t slept with her, there’s no way he would have been able to match such a performance.
They would have pressed it for another minute but thier enthusiastic bed abuse caused first the end Seth was pushing on to collapse inwards, shortly followed by the right back leg giving way, and they fell onto the bed in a hysterical heap.
‘Ow.’ Seth said, his head buried somewhere under Julia.
‘I think I broke something.’ Julia balled laughter.
‘Yeah, me!’
They laughed.
‘Do you have a lot of experience faking orgasms?’ Seth’s voice was muffled from the blankets in his mouth. He would worry about that when he had the energy.
‘Nope, you’re my first!’
They laughed more.
‘My stomach hurts.’ Julia cried.
‘You’re sitting on my neck.’ Came Seth’s muffled response.
‘It’s a very comfortable neck I have to say.’ Julia shifted her weight.
‘It’s alright that I can’t breath then is it?’ Seth said, gargling wool.
Julia rolled off of him between spasms of laughter and lay gasping on the bed. Seth spat out the sheets and pushed himself up by his arms, and then the slats supporting the matress gave out and he fell over again until he and Julia were both pressed together in the crater of the terminal bedframe, neither able to stop laughing for any length of time, as they would be kick started by the buffeting of the other. It wasn’t until threat of permanent muscle damage interceeded on the part of sanity that they both were able to calm down.
It was then that Seth noticed, his arm was around her body, her leg around his waist and thier noses touching, that she had very nice eyes. Oh she had been pleasant to look at anyway in the manner that pretty much all late teenaged girls who’s income relies heavily on the generosity of drunken male tavern patrons manages to look pleasant no matter what genetics they might be cursed with, but theres nothing that can be done to the actual eyeball that will make the slightest difference at this distance. You either had it or you didn’t.
Julia had it.
They were big and brown, glowing orange in the lamp light, two pools of light and magic you could happily drown yourself in. The kind of eyes that reflected your own as you stared at them and they stared right back at you, unwaveringly. She’d had so much blue eyeshadow on that he hadn’t noticed her eyes before, but now they filled his vision. Colour in her cheeks was cheating through her pale makeup and sweat glistening on her exposed skin gave her an amber glow which highlighted every curve. She looked much less like the Tavern wench and much more like an Angel.
‘Where will you go now?’ Seth asked her once his breath had returned.
‘I don’t know. Maybe north to the Keep, maybe east to the foot hills, maybe south to the Temple. Maybe all the way to Stormwind. I haven’t decided.’ She replied, her eyes still drawing his into them like two big beautiful electromagnets.
Seth had been on his way to Northshire, at the heart of which was a temple. Maybe it was the same one. ‘When you say the Temple, do you mean the one in Northshire?’
‘So that’s were you’re heading is it?’ She smiled.
‘Could be.’ Seth admited. ‘Would you come with me?’
‘You’re not attatching a string already are you because I will give you the money right back if...’
‘I don’t want to take you anywhere...’ Seth said, putting a finger to her lips, ‘but I’d really like you to come.’
‘Well I don’t know about that Mister...’ She said, a wicked little smirk opening on her face, ‘But if you ask nicely, I might just see you clear to comming along with me.’
Seth kissed her, and she kissed him back. It was different this time from the kiss she had planted on him before which was like a pationate kiss as described by a text book with all the elements in place and all the emotion of a susinct accedemic essay on the proper use of latin verbs in medical descriptions. This kiss was like a one column letter to the editor that suddenly makes you want to become a carpenter and go overseas to build houses in Africa, and as such, it was relatively short but heart palpatatingly susinct.
‘Well, I dunno, I’m still deciding...’ Julia looking away in a manner that begged on bend of knee to be convinced otherwise.
‘Pretty please?’ Replied Seth. This time she kissed him first. And this time it went on much longer.
That had pretty much summed up how he’d met Julia. There was that pesky past tense again, but there was no use in denying it anymore. He had gone to sleep on the hillside hoping that the world would be normal again when he opened his eyes, but no, it was still the same. Even his dreams wouldn’t let him be happy for long.
The weather was already begining to sock in and it brought with it a heavy inversion. The smoke from Northshire was going up a few hundred feet and staying there, and the air was getting acrid with the stench of fire and death. The crows were still busy with the bodies of those who had fallen in the battle... Those that remained. Most of those who had fallen had been incinerated. Seth’s eyes carefully avoided the huge crater off to his right, around which was scatered the odd lance tip or partially chared helmet.
The smell of carrion and decay stired the girl who was sleeping beside him. She had his jacket clenched tightly around her, her fingers gripping it tightly even in her sleep. She opened her eyes as the first drops of rain began to fall.
‘Uhg!’ She moaned as she rolled over.
‘Morning sunshine.’ Seth said softly, not really to her in particular.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yup.’
She just moaned again, the deep grumbling moan of the bed ridden night owl. ‘Where’s my stuff?’ She asked, half heartedly waving a hand around on the ground, shielding her eyes with the other. Thunder rolled in the distance.
Seth hugged himself as the rain began to soak through his tattered clothes. He kicked a bow and a quarrel filled with a few arrows and many silver coins towards her.
‘I don’t suppose I’ll be getting that jacket back will I?’ He asked.
‘Yeah sure, here you-’ She yelped and suddenly grasped the jacket back and held it firmly to her chest.
‘What? Did something bite you or something?’ He said, grabbing the sleeve with one hand, but she held on fast.
‘Two words for you, Cold and Cling.’
‘Two more words, My Jacket!’ Seth replied, like it would help things, he was already soaked, but it was the principle of the thing. ‘Besides, don’t you have like... a bra or something.’ Seth waved his hands in a vaguely ignorant gesture of feminine support apparel.
‘Do you wear a bra at night?’ The girl replied indignatly.
Seth was tired of this. He was filthy, he was hungry, cold and soon to be soaked to the bone, and worst of all, the only other person around for miles as far as he was aware was in exactly the same predicament. This was going to be great...
The girl’s name was Alysa Morningstar. He had met her out in the huge forest which dominated this part of The North like a nasty rash growing over the landscape with only the odd bastion of civilisation poking out of it like a pimple to add to the infection. The forest as an entiety was bizzare, all new growth but so thick it was like a jungle. At first Seth hadn’t understood how such a diverse ecosystem could exsist in such a temperate climate. He had asked Julia about it on thier way to Northshire.
She had told him that a forest this size makes it’s own life and when he’d asked what that meant she’d asked how far away he’d come from anyway. He said without hyperbole that it was probably farther than she had come before and did she know of a place called earth?
‘What like... Dirt?’ She asked nonplused. When you thought about it, what kind of a name for a place was Earth anyway? Other than a brilliantly accurate discription of about forty percent of it’s surface.
‘It’s a farming town.’ He’d replied absently.
Seth had saved enough money that they would be able to stay the night where ever they wound up that night, but not so much to afford a better means of transportation than thier legs. Not that the little shanty town had much in the way to offer.
Earlier that morning Seth had had a bit of a talk with Bill Townsend. After of course, being treated to all the niceties the Inn had to offer. Oat meal for breakfast that was so runny it could have been soup, not that Seth much liked Oatmeal anyway... And it didn’t even look like it had any real oats in it... Then he had relieved himself in the raised box in the middle of the field, and because sleeping on that matress had left him feeling a little uneasy, (well, at the time he’d been with Julia and it had been right out of his mind) he bathed in the rainwater barrel out back, which the previous night had left so cold that he would be thinking very clean thoughts for the next week. So his talk had started off on a high note.
‘So tell me Bill... Pal... I’d like to thank you for hanging onto all the rest of my money last night. I appreciate that you’d be worried about someone sneaking in to my room and dancing the old jugular fandango to accompaniment of rusty razors on me if you’d given me my full due all at once right?’ Bill was thoroughly confused, Seth could tell because he was smiling amiably and nodding in agreement, so Seth ploughed on like an Ice breaker at full steam through the thick ice of incomprehension. ‘I imagine you must have got quite a share last night, what with the upset and all, what would the odds have been against the challenger, six to one? Seven? That must amount to quite a lot I should think, when everyone bets high on the sure thing am I right?’
Bill continued to nod as the moon of eventuallity began to emerge from the cloud cover of Seth’s stream of conciousness.
‘Of course I have to thank you for your consideration last night...’ Seth purposefully left the sentence open, allowing for Bill to fill it with what Seth knew was to follow.
‘Oh, yes I thought you might appreciate that, was ol’ Bill right or was he right?’ He made a gesture greatly involving an elbow and a pair of eyebrows which in Seth’s oppinion should not be done by balding over wieght men in thier fifties who have a pension for sweating heavilly.
‘That is to say...’ Seth continued, finally tossing his chips into the pot and hoping like hell that Bill didn’t have a hand either, ‘that I would have to thank you, except that the bed fell appart and it was quite impossible to get any sleep at all and your poor waitress on top of it all...’
‘Well...’ Bill stuttered for a moment, loosing the thread of the conversation utterly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that would be such a problem. You didn’t enjoy the company? I ‘eard you enjoyin’ the company. We all ‘eard it! You were making such a ruckus I thought the building’d fall over! She told me this morning that you’d enjoyed it so much she’d got a hefty bonus out of you.’
‘I don’t know what you thought you heard,’ Seth sniffed, contriving to sound embarased and outraged. ‘But we were talking very respectfully,’ Seth relished the nearly abject lie. ‘and the bed collapsed on her ankle. She was screaming for me to move it but theres a lot of metal in the frame and, well that took a bit of doing and then I did what I could to tend to it and, well, she screamed some more and it took forever to calm her down again. She had told me that she wouldn’t be able to work for a month with her leg hurt and had told me she needed the money to pay for medicine for her sick grandmother.’ Seth managed to get it all in there without choking on his own genius. The only question was, did Bill think he was that gulible.
‘Oh boy lad, did she ever pull a fast one on you...’ Bill said, his head in his hands. ‘Early this morning she came downstairs and gave me that money to pay for...’ Seth was looking at him with the deeply penetrating stare of the inconsolably ignorant and Bill quickly backtracked. ‘That is, she left early this mornin’ saying she had buisness out of town or somesuch. I hate to say that’s money you’re not going to be seeing soon.’
‘Damn!’ Seth pounded the bar with his fist on the bartop just a little more ent | | | |
