Sure, yeah, new story...

So I was sitting at my desk in Ye Olde Writing Closet on Friday night, alternately reading The Kaiju Preservation Society and shitposting on Twitter, and wondering if I will -- at any point -- have enough brain and energy to get to work on my current writing project. I was also noting to myself (with a peculiar species of disgust that I suspect a great many would-be writers will recognize) that this has been my current writing project for well over a year, and while I've filled in a lot of things around the story I've barely done any writing of the story itself. (I keep stumbling over the opening, I think, but that's neither here nor there.)

And somewhere just a bit after bedtime, all of that sort of fell together in my head and I wrote out an opening scene for something that deals with a lot of the same concepts, but with a very different dynamic for the main character(s) and a completely different storyline. 

I cannot, at this moment, even begin to guess whether this is something worth pursuing, or just a momentary enthusiasm brought on by stress and exhaustion. No idea. Give me an entire week of getting full nights' sleeps, and I might have some perspective. 

In the meantime, I'm just going to run with it and see where it takes me.

I guess I should figure out some way to tag things related to this new project. So, at the risk of being a bit... obscure... I'll be putting them under the Long Shadows tag, which I've just added at the bottom of this post.

Tentacle Check

So... we wound up making a visit to the emergency room Wednesday night. Basically, Beautiful Wife came down with something over the weekend, and whatever it was seems to have set off some sort of rash on the front of her torso, right around the areas where she'd had her surgery. Now, the most recent surgery was back in December, so this wasn't anything directly to do with that, but still... worrisome. Especially as one area was hot and swollen -- almost hardened -- and painful. 

So, we went to one of those Quick Care places (which turned out to be more like Eventual Care, but never mind that now). And we waited. 

Time has no meaning here...

When the doctor finally came in and saw us, he basically took one look and said, "You should go find an emergency room where they can do a proper CT scan of that thing. I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming." Which he evidently did, and it saved us some time on checking in. 

So it was... maybe seven o'clock? ...when we headed down to the hospital where Beautiful Wife had gotten her surgery, and where they'd have all her records. And then we checked in. And then we waited. 

And then they took some blood and moved us to another waiting room farther inside the building. 

And then we waited. 

Eventually they got us into a room. 

And then we waited. 

Finally, Beautiful Wife got looked over by a couple of doctors, and we explained the whole thing and our concerns, and they agreed that they needed to do a CT scan to see if this was something just on the skin, or if there was a abscess or something happening deeper down. 

And then we waited. 

The secret to waiting in a hospital is to come prepared. I hadn't, exactly, but we had phones and Kindles and some chargers and a plucky, can-do attitude... and also, I managed to cadge a dry-erase marker off of one of the nurses.

So we managed.

It's important to make sure the doctors understand your concerns, after all.

So, we did eventually get the CT scan and we did eventually get the results from the CT scan, and the doctor on duty and the plastic surgeon who happened to be available looked them over and concurred that we could go back home and deal with this with oral antibiotics. There wasn't any sort of abscess, and even more reassuring they found absolutely no evidence that my wife was growing a tentacle out of her belly. 

But it was still three in the morning by the time we got home, and Thursday was -- understandably -- a day when not a whole lot got accomplished.

EvilParty: So much for subtlety...

 

So last episode we wiped out about half of the local Solari by luring them down to Durest’s newly-implemented nest of ghouls and then, well, murdering them to death. There are three Solari remaining here in Garamond: Muriel the Druid, Samson the Ogre, and Maximilian the spymaster (rogue). There is also our one-armed prisoner Wolf, who was just sure he was being rescued until we came back in.

Chuck dominates him and he tells us about a safehouse that belongs to Maximilian. We decide to turn everybody invisible (including the undead) and go there. The guards outside the place notice when Bob drops the animated severed arm, and sound the alarm. The ghouls swarm them, but it’s too late. Wolf opens the door for them, and promptly gets a chest full of arrows.

This appears to be a low-level thieves’ den, and we move in and annihilate them.

Chuck drains Wolf’s corpse, and we give the other corpses to the ghouls. Durest heals Bob and Jenny, and then Durest and Jenny go to sleep.

About two hours in, Chuck hears some scratching at the window. He peeks out the window and scares off a smallish child. Jenny takes second watch, and about two hours in she starts coughing because the air in the room has gone bad. She wakes up Durest, and we manage to avoid being affected by the smoke. Durest yanks on the tube, and someone smacks their face against the window. Jenny yanks on it, and rips it out of the bag, which causes the nasty smoke to fill the whole alley outside.

Durest settles back to pray for new spells. Then he settles in to take watch, and notices someone trying to slide another tube in the hole in the window. Irritated, Durest uses Stone Shape to close the window around the hand; then he instructs the ghouls to take turns touching the hand and paralyzing the person outside.

A couple of hours later, Jenny wakes back up. She finds some warm water and puts the hand in it, thus causing him to pee himself. It’s about three hours until sundown, but nobody bothers us. Once Chuck is up and about again, Durest strolls outside to look at the person who got their hand caught.

We head out into the streets, undead following behind us. Jenny’s idly swinging her chain around. Chuck sees a couple of kids towards the back of the crowd ducking away, and pegs them with a Magic Missile. Five kids die; one kid escapes into the crowd. The crowd is parting around us anyway. Now they’re backing away and a few are panicking over the fallen urchins.

Chuck: “You will remember the day that I came to your town, but for me it was only another Tuesday.”

There are no town guards in evidence.

We head for the fanciest tavern in town, the three-billed duck: manicured hedges, outdoor tables with well-dressed waiters hustling between them. The patrons are well-dressed and elegant.

Durest sends the mummies around to the back to keep anyone from leaving by the back door; the ghouls spread out and start herding people inside. We find the maitre d’ trying to hide behind the podium. He’s terrified, and just sure that the great chef and the lesser chefs have fled, but… they tried, and found the mummies blocking the way.

Chuck: “Three things are going to happen here. We’re going to have a lovely meeting. Second, some of your friends and guards and whatnot are hopefully going to alert the baron. And three, the Baron and his Solari better get here by dawn, or I have some very bad news for you.

Jenny chases one of the rich guys off of a table, takes his monocle and his chair, and we settle down to try everything on the menu. The rest of the patrons are required to stay at their tables and eat with us. Also, just for Jenny, they make up a plate of tiny, fried duck legs and she really likes that. They also have really good umbrella drinks.

By midnight, nobody has come to rescue the nobles and we’ve had about a thirty-course meal. Jenny: “This was the greatest idea, I am so glad we did this.”

Durest finally leans back and belches. “Aye, at last a worthwhile meal. Still, we need to get moving before dawn, so my friends here will just wait long enough to make sure we have a head start.” He stands up and hands the bag of insanity mist to Chuck.

Chuck considers this, and then says: “You’ve been really good sports, so I’m going to do you a favor.” He starts turning people into vampires, which triggers a panic; by time he’s done a fair number of the nobles have died trying to escape. Armand the maitre d’ is spared; he stays human. The head chef Theopilis, we dominate and send back to our chateau in Springhollow.

Jenny: “This was so much fun, we should do this all the time.”

We head for the keep.

Someone shoots a ballista bolt through one of Durest’s ghasts.

Chuck turns into a bat and flies up to the corner tower that the ballista bolt came from. Jenny just starts yelling. Durest uses Dimension Door to take himself, Jenny, and one of the mummies up to the tower with the ballista. There are archers up here; they try to attack and get Jenny’s spiked chain to the face instead. Jenny is all but undamaged by the arrows.

Chuck joins us on the tower, and one of the mummies kills the last of the archers that’s up here with us. Bob kills another. Durest casts Light on Jenny’s chain so that she can see, and moves a bit away. The archers target Jenny and again do minimal damage, because she’s a barbarian and resistant to damage. Our arrival has now set off an alarm spell, which is making everything very loud.

Chuck spots a group of archers on the wall, and fires off a Magic Missile to take out two of them. Durest heads further along and sets the thatched roof of the stables on fire. He also sends Bob and the mummy the other way along the walltop, with instructions to clear the wall. The archers take shots at him by the firelight, doing minimal damage.

Jenny leaps off the wall and down to the courtyard, landing in superhero pose. She moves out into the courtyard and runs into a bunch of the town guards. A bolt of lightning flashes out of the sky at Chuck, lighting him up for a moment. Durest continues along the wall away from the flames of the barn, looking to find the next tower.

Jenny takes another batch of arrows. “This is so fun! I am so excited to kill you all!”

Chuck regenerates, because vampires do that. Somebody drops a Fireball on Chuck, Bob, and the mummy. The mummy is vulnerable to fire and goes down; Bob is badly burned, but still functional. Chuck is really pissed. We’re having some real difficulties because our enemies can see us but we can’t see them.

Jenny gets hit with a Hold Person, and is suddenly paralyzed. Chuck retaliates by dropping a fireball into the bunch of archers. Jenny rages and manages to shake off the spell. She steps forward and takes out two of the remaining archers. Bob kills an archer on the wall. Durest drops a Fire Storm where he thinks the fireball came from. He fails to hit anybody, but sets the manor on fire. He hears a scream, but can’t immediately determine its source.

The archers fire on Jenny again, and again fail to do much damage to the raging barbarian. Another lightning bolt tags Chuck, but with the manor on fire he can now see some enemies; he casts Greater Invisibility on himself and moves to be out of the area where he was standing. Jenny moves forward and kills the last two archers.

Another bolt of lightning strikes right where Chuck was standing. Bob kills another archer. Durest casts Fly on himself and heads towards the center of the keep. The fire in the barn is continuing to spread; so is the fire on the manor. As the fire spreads, a wizard come into view on the roof of the manor... Just as he casts Scorching Ray on Bob. There are screams from inside the manor.

Chuck drops a fireball near the front of the manor, and… a lot of troops die. He makes sure to include the wizard, who survives. There wasn’t supposed to be a wizard here; it seems that Maximilian might have called in reinforcements.

Jenny, meanwhile, has found another batch of archers and wipes out everyone in reach of her chain, but takes damage from a bolt of lightning. Durest drops a Flame Strike on some soldiers in front of the manor as the undead come charging in through the gate. More soldiers charge at Jenny, and die.

Chuck continues regenerating, and a pair of trees suddenly animate and attack Jenny. Chuck drops a fireball on two treants and a bunch of archers, clearing some trees from around Jenny. Jenny attacks the closest treant, and absolutely murders it. Lightning strikes her again.

Durest drops another flame strike, taking out more archers as his undead charge in through the gate. Chuck is still regenerating. The Treants move in and attack Jenny; on misses, but the two others hit, one of them quite solidly. Jenny: “Finally!”

Chuck drops a fireball on two of the treants but fails to kill either of them; Jenny kills the first one, then the second one, then the third one. She has cleared the field around her. Another lightning bolt hits her, and Durest changes course and heads directly towards the Barbarian.

We’ll pick up on Sunday to hopefully finish the battle.

Blogging Challenge: Lucky

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Prompt: Something "lucky" that happened to you.

Y'all... that's my wife. 

"Send tweet," as the kids say these days. 

Thing is, I don't mean that I'm incredibly lucky to have her in my life -- though that, too, is true. No, I mean that the fact that we managed to connect and get married only happened because of an apparent coincidence of truly cosmic proportions. I did my best to tell the story and explain the absolute absurdity of the circumstances surrounding it here.

It was the kind of luck that feels like fate.

 

Forgotten Family: Youth Group

 "Ma! There's someone to see you! Says he's part of the clergy!" 

Aviarra winced as her daughter's voice echoed through the house. Like as not, the child still had her hand on the speaking stone and her shout had carried out into the street as well. With a sigh, Aviarra turned to make her way to the door. Old eno' to be forgin' decent throwin'-steel, but nae a lick o' sense in her skull... "Coming!" 

Flushed with embarrassment, Aviarra began working the crank beside the front door, turning it over and over. The clicking within the wall was the sound of adamantine chain running through the series of heavy, mounted pulleys that allowed a dwarf of her size to raise the massive stone block of the greatdoor. It was time-consuming, and most dwarves left the outer door up and contented themselves with wooden inner doors. Aviarra would have too, but Tavra seemed to be going through a phase where she was terrified that someone would break into their house while they were sleeping. Aviarra had no idea why, but keeping the greatdoor closed seemed to help. 

"My apologies," she said, as the door rose into the wall overhead and left the doorway fully open. "We don't mean tae be unfriendly--" She turned to the doorway and added with a touch of dismay, "--Stoneshaper Braekan."

The head of the local temple of the Stone Cabal smiled genially and asked, "Is't yer will that Ah enter?"

Aviarra nodded, feeling slightly intimidated. "Ah so will it."

She stepped back as the stoneshaper entered, and gestured for him to move into the entry hall while she closed the wooden inner doors behind him. "Ah would know what brings ye to our dwelling.  Would ye share?"

"Aye," he answered. "'Tis yer son Andrik. Ah'm told he's been causing a bit of trouble 'mongst his peers." 

Belrab, Amun, and Sardion, what's the boy done now? Frowning, she kept the question to herself, and instead said, "That seems very strange tae me, Stoneshaper. He asked permission specifically tae join his age-group in the temple." 

"Aye, and we're glad tae have him," answered Braekan. "In general, aye, but his tutors there speak well of him also. It's just that..." 

With a horrible feeling that combined something of deja vu and premonition both, Aviara said: "Indra."  

The stoneshaper nodded. "The temple is nae exclusive, for all that we worship Belrab. Indeed, if'n your husband would see fit tae return tae us, we'd be more'n pleased tae have his wisdom and Indra's power workin' tae our benefit."

Aviarra started to shake her head, but Braekan continued on. "'Tis merely that we cannae have Andrik encouraging his cohort tae renounce all other gods and worship Indra alone. We need 'im tae tone it down a bit, tae stop at encouraging the others tae worship Indra as well and not Indra only."

"Ah," said Aviarra, "Ah'll talk tae him." 

"That's all that Ah wish," said Braeken. "'Tis no me volition tae place additional burdens on yer shoulders. I will to depart now." 

Aviarra nodded gratefully and escorted the stoneshaper to the doors, then closed them behind him. After a suitably respectful time, she lowered the greatdoor again as well. My life, she thought, is a constant march of indignities, and most of them arise from my husband and our children. Still, fair or not, this was hers to deal with. She would speak to Andrik, and they would sort this out. They were dwarves, after all; there was no other way...

...She hoped.

A note: Dwarven language is, I think, very focused on the concept of volition. A lot of the things that would be more passive in Common/English require a much more forceful and direct statement of intent. Thus, instead of "May I come in" and "Yes, of course" we have "Is it your will that I enter" and "I so will it" or "It is my volition."

This is part of the reason that Dwarves are perceived by other races as lacking charisma.

EvilParty: The Forgotten Family

"When is Daddy coming home?" 

Whenever Indra damned well pleases, and not a moment before. Aviarra suppressed a sigh, and left the thought unspoken. Durest wasn't what she would have wanted for a husband, but she thought he'd been as good to her as he could manage. It was just that the traitor-god Indra was his first love, and she and the children could never compete with that. So she set the last of the dishes aside and told her youngest daughter, "I dinnae know. Yer father's doin' important work for Indra, may his name be praised, and it'll take as long as it takes."

Tavra held up the crude hurling-axe she'd just finished forging. "But I wan' him tae see what Ah've done!"

"He will," Aviarra assured her. Possibly because I'll sink it into his forehead, especially if he lets anything happen to Vandraka. "Just ye wait, and dinnae worry." 

"I just wish he'd come back," said Tavra. "I miss him. Everything was better when he was here." 

Aviarra nodded. "We'll tell him as soon as he returns." 

"Soon," insisted Tavra. "We'll tell him when he comes back soon."

"When he comes back soon," Aviarra agreed.

Music: Children of the Dark

Mono Inc:

A bit of Friday music because I barely made it through yesterday and honestly I don't know what I've got left for today. So much to do, so very few spoons to do things with...