Whisp's Tale

This is the last of the Paragon Path tales that I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

The journey back to Fjornik was a quiet one, everyone wrapped up in their own thoughts. Only the rhythmic beat of the horses’ hooves disturbed the silence, a silence which had been hard won.

Faces flashed before her eyes. Maran. Ena. Doe. Even Vile, she thought with a snort. He was a bastard, but he didn’t deserve to die like that. The last weeks weighed heavily on her, and she knew the others were feeling it too.

“We won, didn’t we? We’re heroes.” she said aloud, more to herself than anything else. 

Toofi looked round. “It doesn’t feel like it, though,” she said quietly.

Whisp nodded and fixed her eyes back on the road. Then why do I feel so insignificant?

Gods. Demons. And she just a human. She narrowed her eyes. It was clear that the monsters of this land were too vast to be easily hunted, cornered and slain.

Ostardva's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path tales I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. As a bit of back story to this one, we left Ostardva's story hanging at the point when Tiamat, the evil dragon goddess, had offered him a place as her paladin. We kept the suspense up until the very end of Heroic Tier about whether his Paragon path would be as an evil paladin or as a righteous one, or turning his back on the path of a paladin altogether. Enjoy!

“No.”

The word echoed around the cavernous chamber. Ostardva, stood on one of Tiamat’s long, sinuous necks, stared defiantly at the five immense dragon heads, arrayed in front of him.

The central one, the red one, started backwards a little, as if surprised.

“No? Just like that? You disappoint me, child of Arkhosia.” The five heads spoke as one, a woman’s voice but with a hint of growling bass in it. The sound was like a hammer-blow, every word a storm to be weathered.

“Just like that,” Ostardva said, holding the red head’s gaze.

“I offer you power.”

“I don’t need power.” Ostardva felt a small flame kindle in his chest.

“I offer you privilege.”

“Privilege must be earned.” The flame grew brighter, and Ostardva began to remember how it felt to be righteous.

The heads began to move closer in unison. “I offer you the respect of your companions. As an arbiter of a god, they would see the worth in you.”

“You offer me nothing that I cannot gain on my own.”

Futch's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path tales I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

Futch frowned as he walked away from the others. No-one seemed in a particularly celebratory mood; they had won the war, beaten the Lich, but at a high cost. Hundreds had died, thousands perhaps. Ostardva, Gieve, the others on the airship.

Maran.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, fighting the surge of frustration that threatened to boil over. To have been so far away, and not able to do anything, or even know about it... It wasn’t fair. He wandered through the streets, barely aware of the direction his feet were taking him, lost in thought.

Finally he stood in front of the southern gate, looking out over the plains. The gently sloping path that lead to Varikause and beyond lay in front of him and, with one backwards glance at Fjornik, he shifted.

Faster than the wind, faster than thought, he ran, and as he ran he allowed the sheer joy of it to carry away his anger and sadness. They can never know this, he thought to himself, never see the world through scent and hear the smallest sound, never run through the wilds on four paws like this.

Kali's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path stories I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

Kali stood in the confusion of the city. In a way, ruined as it was, it felt more comfortable to her; instead of stone formed into buildings and walls, it was more like the hillsides of her childhood, rough and unformed.

She rubbed her shoulders at that thought, feeling the roughness of her own skin. It was still odd to her; she’d grown used to the small slices and nicks, the little pieces of skin that grew back harder than scars should, but the final battle against the Lich had been devastating in more ways than one. Hundreds had died, an entire city fallen into a pit, friends and travelling companions blasted into nothingness. In the darkness and heat of the cavern under Ortmund, revealed at last, they had battled the Lich and emerged victorious. She flexed her hands, remembering the freezing cold and biting pain that had stung them as she had grabbed at whatever was inside its armour, holding it in place so that Toofi could deliver the death blow. The backlash of energy had flayed her torso open, revealing a rougher layer beneath the skin that ached still.

She wandered out of the city. A few children waved at her in passing, and she smiled and waved back. The road sloped gently downwards towards the grassy plain to the south of Fjornik, and Kali lengthened her stride. As she walked, she scanned the horizon.

“Aunty Moonie,” she whispered to herself. “If you’re out here, I could really use some help.”

Toofi's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path stories I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

The bar was loud, uncomfortably so, but Toofi had found a quiet corner in which to sip her mug of ale. Fjornik was coming back to life, more so now that the threat of the undead horde was gone, and it was good to not have to watch her back all the time.

The events of the last few weeks were still large in her mind, though. Memories rose unbidden; fabulous journeys into other realms, the weird feeling of controlling a body much larger than hers, and a grinning face pressed up against crystal.

Ilneval.

Toofi’s mouth twisted in distaste. Who was the demon (was he even a demon?) going to take his revenge on? Who were the descendants of Ragnus? Had they settled one problem only to free another, greater threat?

Slapping a couple of coppers down onto the table, Toofi stood up. Hanging around in taverns worked for trying to track down killers and thieves, but finding out about the first men who walked the earth was going to require something a little more definite.

Projects Update!

Pocket Fiction has launched!

Essentially it's a channel for audio stories that I'm recording. Initially it'll be my own stuff, mainly Poisonroot. One of my jobs this week is to continue recording chapters of Poisonroot in advance, so that when term starts next week I've got a load of updates. At first it will be updating on a Friday only, but I might up that to two-a-week when I'm more confident with it. I've also been posting them to Tumblr, at stevecookfiction for a bit of cross-media notice.

I'm really excited about it!

The deadline came and went for D&D stories, and everyone seemed really happy with them. Essentially, all the characters reached paragon tier, which is a major advancement point both in roleplay terms and in stats. We had a four-week break for real-life reasons between finishing one chapter and actually having the characters get their paragon paths, so we roleplayed it that all five characters went away for a week and had their own personal adventures. I had a long talk with each of the players and we hammered out what their characters did, and then I wrote up an individual story for them. No-one knew I was doing it, which was both exciting and a little scary; trying to capture each character, and at the same time writing a story that would be 'right' and considered canon, was a challenge. However, everyone was really pleased with them, and I got permission to post them here. I'll queue up the posts and you'll get one each day, starting tomorrow with 'Toofi's Tale'.

Next up: Work for teaching work, and then cake-making.

Projects on top of projects!

I'm making a lot of work for myself and should probably clear some of it off. In no particular order of importance:

1. I've planned out, and just need to write, Noctis Point. It's the new and improved psych-based story that I think will work really well. I just need a bit of discipline and actually get writing it. Go go fake NaNoWriMo time, perhaps!
2. Dungeons and Dragons! Ok, so I've got normal planning to do, and also a little bit of a special project that I can't share until after Sunday. I don't think any of the people who play actually follow this blog, which is sad times, but even if word gets back to them I don't want it spoiled. Lets just say that I should have a few days of updates on here next week that I'm queueing up now.
3. Pocket Fiction! It's going to be a real thing soon. I've actually recorded five now, but they're in varying degrees of quality and I really need to confirm which recording method works for me. I'm also trying to get hold of a royalty-free fire-in-a-fireplace video that I can set the stories to, so that people have something to look at. I'm going for that 'cosy story in front of the fireplace' feel to it, but Sue pointed out that it could easily double for 'everything you love is burning to a cinder', or words to that effect.
4. NomCake! Not sure I've ever talked about that here, but we do cakes to order. I love baking and don't do it enough. NomCake is my way of making sure I do some at least. Reasonable prices, any cake to order within reason.
5. Working with Patrice Aggs! I'm very lucky to be working on a project with awesome illustrator Patrice Aggs on a project that I don't think I can talk about yet. But it will be awesome, and you can bet I'll talk about it a bunch when it happens.
6. Work for which I get paid! Or not at the moment. But I do need to do some actual planning for next term. I've done some, it's just a matter of getting down to it.

Two of those are fairly quick to finish; NomCake's deadline is a week on Saturday, and D&D's deadline is this Sunday coming. Pocket Fiction is an ongoing project. Noctis Point is a long-term project, at least a month without much else going on. The others are open-ended, so I guess that prioritises things!

Humble Bundles and Books I've Read Recently

I was able to snag a Humble Bundle book deal a little while ago (actually, it was Sue that spotted it!) and downloaded it to my Kindle before going to Sweden. I'm a big fan of the Kindle, by the bye, and I've found that it makes such a difference to packing weight.

I read a couple of books while I was out there. On the flight out, I read the entirety of Arcanum 101: Welcome New Students, by Rosemary Edghill and Mercedes Lackey which is a fun book set in the present day, but one where magic, elves and arcane happenings occur. It was brief but interesting; most of the books in the humble bundle were on this sort of topic, and there are lots of shared ideas, or common points from which they draw. I think it was a quirk of the formatting on my Kindle that the shift from the first character's point of view to the second's was something I had to read over twice, to pinpoint exactly when it happened.

I probably could have gotten more reading done actually during the week, but in the end I only read Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton and found it really inspirational. He details some of the things that lead from where he was, pretty much known only for being in Star Trek TNG, struggling to get more acting parts and finally putting two fingers up at it to focus on writing. I know I haven't had anything like that sort of struggle, but it was kind of comforting to read about someone else going through some of the same questions about trying to get into writing full time. I'll definitely be reading the other Wil Wheaton book that came with the bundle, The Happiest Days of Our Lives.

I read Sunstorm on the way home, by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. It's excellent, but then I've come to expect that from both authors. It was also exceptionally handy as research for Noctis Point, set as it is on Mars, the Moon and Earth. I got the idea that there was a bigger world here, on the scale of the Xeelee by Stephen Baxter, which I suppose makes sense. The FirstBorn give the impression of that kind of all-knowing power. Certainly, for anyone looking for a nice solid sci-fi adventure that can be read in about five hours, this is a good option. I finished it actually on the Underground, pulling in to Brockley station, which works just fine for me.

Recording has started for Pocket Fiction, my new project. This is slightly procrastination for Noctis Point but not really, because I have lots of other things I could be procrastinating on, like making cakes for the next NomCake outing or, y'know, preparing work for the new term that starts in about twelve days.

Eek.

Sweden and back!

I've just come back from a holiday in Sweden with John Aggs, Nana Li and my wife Sue. We went to Visby, Gotland, and it is beautiful! We were blessed with the weather as well, only one day of rain and it was the day we'd 'planned' for there to be bad weather. All it meant was umbrellas, a museum and some writing/drawing at home!

And believe me, there was a fair amount of drawing, writing, or talking about either going on. We must have talked for hours each about our projects, picking out potential plot points, filling in plot holes, renaming the entire thing in my case, and generally being creative. Sue quite rightly said that it felt like a week-long brainstorm.

I did actually manage to get some writing done, namely replotting the entirety of what is now called Noctis Point. 'Psy-Clones' was a stupid placeholder name, and it's gone for good now. Some of it is familiar; since I last posted about it, I've actually done a fair amount of work towards making the psych powers have rules and actually work. I can now answer questions like 'Why can the Moon be terraformed in your book when it doesn't have an atmosphere?' and 'Where does the half-light drive come from?' and 'What is the Machine doing out beyond Pluto?' which is nice. The new plot is tighter, and starts with more of a bang.

I'm also super excited to be starting a new project: audio books. I'm going to be reading chapters of Poisonroot and putting them up on YouTube and the iTunes store, basically as a way of getting my work to more people. These podcasts will be going up on a dedicated channel, which I'll blog about when it's populated a little.

I love the world of Poisonroot, and I'm not leaving it yet. For a start, my D&D group wouldn't let me suddenly transport them into the sci-fi world of Noctis Point, I'm sure! Second, I feel there's more stories to be told in Ehrian, perhaps not about Trip but definitely more stories. I'm going to read some of my short stories too, and anything that's been published on this blog (and therefore can't be published in print). And now that I've actually written about it, I have to do it!

I read a couple of books while I was away, which I'll go over briefly in tomorrow's post, but I just wanted to post to say that I'm not dead, and very excited going forward from here!