06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 05:58:23 AM

The challenge was to complete a story in one of 27 different subgenres of Fantasy using an upturned stone and a pest in 1000 words or less.



Example story:


My Love, My Life

By:
N.J. Kailhofer



I worship. I wait.

Dark tresses cascade down her forehead as she laughs. She smiles, her brown eyes playful. Her face, filled with happiness, draws us to her.

I adore. I wait.

The evening air is cool refreshment after the burning heat of the day, and her sigh is filled with contentment. Her eyes sparkle like jewels, twinkling with delight, and she reaches for the other. Their hands intertwine. At their feet, an upturned stone stumbles from the path to the lake, startling a turtle into the water.

I sing. I wait.

Her eyes look to the trees, searching for our faerie song. The unseen host dances before them, casting every hope for survival upon her. She sighs and rests her head upon the shoulder of the other.

I wait. I ache.

The nape of her neck beckons to us, and her perfume tantalizes. We draw near. The boldest of us gently strokes her smooth skin. She is our chosen one.

I touch. I love.

Even as our passion begins to swell inside her, will she understand our devotion? Will she know how she completed us, fulfilled our destiny? We give to her all that we can.

I fear. I flee.

The motion of the blow casts me aside, but three of my sisters are crushed. Our song fills with mourning as we watch their broken bodies tumble to the stones below. They will never know joy.

"Darn mosquitoes!" she shouts, swatting again. Still, she is as full of me as I of her.

Our children will live. They will love.


[align=center]The End[/align]
Last edited by kailhofer on October 19, 2008, 07:52:48 AM, edited 1 time in total.
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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 05:58:59 AM

Fortune

By:
David A. Jones



Sunshine bathed the little valley, spilling from the near peaks to ignite verdant summer foliage in thick stands of timber. Birdsong played sweetly upon the wind. Bees and butterflies flew lazily amongst hillside wildflowers. Even the Stonecobbler River, a treacherous man-killer at nearly any other spot along its course, ran here almost gaily between high, tame banks, tracing the valley floor.

The wizard Wiggin sat ahorse frowning dolorously at all that pastoral beauty below him. He was not, by nature, a curmudgeon, but no amount of pastoral beauty could lift his spirits with an unfriendly army arrayed along the valley's opposite rise.

"Nyssor's balls, Master, we're going to die," whispered Bean, Wiggin's apprentice, who sat a donkey beside his master's horse.

Wiggin slapped him, hard, and then cast about amongst the nearest cluster of knights. No one seemed to have heard his loquacious student.

"Say something like that within earshot of King Card and we're dead for sure, you idiot," said Wiggin.

Rubbing his cheek, yet seemingly nonplussed, Bean said, "What do we do, Master? That's the best of three armies over there. We don't have magic enough to stop three armies." Bean pulled at Wiggin's sleeve like a babe tugging its mother's apron.

Wiggin freed himself temporarily from his apprentice's grubby clutches, slapping at the boy's doughy hands. "Quit blubbering, you," he hissed.

A commotion amongst the nobles caught the wizard's attention.

"Bean, stop it. The King approaches."

Bean redoubled his efforts, grasping his master's arm, nearly toppling from his donkey.

"Don't listen to King Card, Master. You know he's insane. Let's ride out of here."

Wiggin stiffened his arm, bringing Bean's frantic movements to a stop. Lightning flowed through the wizard's exposed wrist, giving Bean a good shock — not enough to cause any real damage, but plenty to silence him.

The boy yelped and sucked his fingers.

"Wizard," said old King Card as he and four of his knights retainers approached.

"That weren't nice," complained Bean, pouting.

"Shut-it," hissed Wiggin then turned to his liege lord.

"My Lord," said Wiggin, inclining his head in a bow.

"We're on the brink of civil war, wizard. What say your stone on this? Read our future."

Wiggin exchanged a knowing glance with King Card's First General, Lord Hatrack, who rode at the old king's side. That glance spoke volumes. Any faith either man had once held for their elderly king had long since fled with the king's reason. Everyone knew Card was mad even fat Bean. Only their oaths of fealty, general and wizard, kept them in Card's service. In years past the two of them had been able to guide Card to reason, to passably logical choices if not always the most sane, but not this time.

Across the valley an allied force of Card's former liegemen waited. Bound together by their mutual hatred for the king, they had rallied behind Duke Milnard Corvidae. A man known for strategic genius and armed prowess, Corvidae had, not long ago, been old King Card's most feared war duke and enforcer. But the old man's insults and heavy-handed dealings had finally been enough to raise even the duke's ire.

Wiggin wondered why it had taken Corvidae so long to revolt. For three years Card had demanded a tithe of eighty percent of all incomes — coin and crop — from all subject lords living outside his home county of Selerous. Those within the home boundary, however, enjoyed a mere five percent tithe. It was enough to make a man's blood boil.

The wizard came out of his reverie. King Card's beady eyes were upon him. Quickly, Wiggin freed a cloth-of-gold sack from inside his robes, retrieved from it an ornately carved, eight-sided stone about the size of a man's fist, and tossed the thing into the grass between himself and his king.

"Well?" said Card.

Wiggin gasped. He couldn't help it. The upturned stone had landed on the dancing swordsman.

"Fortune, High Lord. The stone shows portents of fortune," said Wiggin.

Old King Card gave General Hatrack a knowing, triumphant smile that spoke of old arguments won.

"Fortune," he said with a childish smirk. "Now, General, I shall lead the charge."

"Sire, I really don't think —"

"Silence," said Card as he donned a golden helm formed in the shape of a dragon's head.

He drew his long sword raised it over his head and shouted, "To me!" as he galloped headlong down the uneven slope.

So abrupt was his departure and so muffled his voice that only Lord General Hatrack, Wiggin and Bean followed the crazed king. Wiggin wouldn't have followed at all, except his stupid horse ran after the King's own mount despite the wizard's insistent tugs at the reigns. Bean's donkey did likewise.

This would be an ignoble end to Wiggin's days of magical service, he thought. He didn't belong at the front of battle, especially when the bulk of King Card's army sat stupidly above them on the rise. For all his grammary and alchemical genius, he was about to die a most common, dirty death. Would it be an arrow in the chest or a pike in the gullet he wondered as he struggled to keep hold of his mount.

And then the prophesied fortune arrived. Old King Card's horse stumbled, spilling its royal cargo. The old man toppled from the saddle ignominiously, struck the green earth with a thunderous boom, rolled several times, and then lay still, an inert lump of ornate golden armor.

Silence ruled the erstwhile battlefield as seasoned fighting men on both sides watched in jaw-dropped fascination like children at a puppet show.
Lord General Hatrack, having followed his liege, trotted up to the dead king. He dismounted, kicked the former High Lord of all Telred softly several times, then drew his sword and cast it before Duke Milnard Corvidae. Hatrack sank to one knee.

"Thank the gods that man's dead. We surrender."


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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 05:59:35 AM

The Deviser

By:
G.C. Dillon



Shadrack the Deviser stood upon the tower's parapet. His optical televiewer showed him the approaching bugs, the Kha'rog. I stood below at the base of the structure. I am Bran, the Deviser's Alpha dog-soldier. Mine was the first chimera species, the first gene-split palingenesis of human and animal DNA. WE have been allies forever. We hunted their birds, shepherded their sheep, slept at the foot of their beds. Our canine ancestors were Man's Best Friend. My floppy ears pricked up and my nose wrinkled. My canine senses picked up the scraping sound of the approaching insects, as well as their fetid stench. I felt a growl grow in my throat.

Shadrack stepped off the tower and fell, conjuring the wind to slow his descent. His cloak billowed out behind him. He fell as if he had dived in the Big Pond and was only sinking to the muddy bottom, not falling through the thinner buoyancy of air. His boots touched the Earth lightly. He discarded his now spent and defunct counter-gravity cloak and it fell heavily to the ground.

I carried a thick katar knife, perfect for punching through chitinous armor, and a long-barrel blaster. Shadrack brandished a long sword-rapier with a swept hilt, dueling finger-ring, and a half-basket wire guard; he also wore a small disintegrator pistol. Chaiz the Cat-woman came up to join us. She had tawny fur with wide black stripes. A disruptor gun graced her studded leather belt. A spiked collar graced her slender neck.

Shadrack stepped out, his long strides eating up the distance between his camp and the advancing scourge of Kha'rog. The ultra-violet rays of the scant sunlight had reddened his balding forehead. A grey goatee circled his mouth. The Deviser's universal translator was a crystalline dodecahedron. He set it spinning in the air. My sharp ears could pick out the click, clack, and twills of the insectoid language. These sounds were created by rubbing their hindmost legs together. The creature began without salutation or preamble.

—zzzz carryfulls of Human corn are our tribute. Since the Sun began to fade, so it has been.

"Honored guests. It is with great sorrow and a penitent heart that I inform you that we have no gifts for you this year. Although, the glaciers are encroaching, not every year is a freeze. This spin about the pale Sun brought a deluge of Noah proportions, tornadoes and hurricanes that blow. Levees broke. Our fields were flooded and our crops drowned. We have food for humans and the human-hybrid chimera only."

A general buzz came from the hive of bugs. The translator glowed a vivid vermilion, but gave no voice to the noise. I knew that the Deviser told no lie. I had filled sandbags myself, and piled them high.

"We give you free run of our land from the red desert border to the Long River. Eat every blade of grass, each flowering dandelion, a multitude from the leaves of the trees. But do no damage to our buildings or our machinery. Respect our homes." Shadrack placed a large rock upon the ground between himself and the bugs. "Leave our stones unturned," he added, trying to imprint the message securely upon them. The bug raced toward the Deviser.

A howl escaped my muzzle as I fired a laser blast at the Kha'rog. The weapon's red crystal faded to pink as its cache of energy leached from the dying Sun drained into the discharge. I dropped to all fours and ran for the air skimmer. We, three, took flight.

The Kha'rog marched. Their segmented bodies swished and twisted. Each leg moved slowly but steadily. This pest would pillage our villages. One hundred packs guarded the grain silos across the river, Shadrack's private demesne. I scratched at the fur of my neck. I hate fleas. They are as much of an annoyance as the Kha'rog. When I returned to the tower, I would need a sonic treatment. If only we could as easily rid ourselves of other pests.

Shadrack sipped from a demitasse cup of Kona coffee from the Hawaiian sub-continent. I kept my forepaws on the targeting sights of the rocket powered petard aerolauncher.

Shadrack waved one ringed finger at the televeiwer. Suddenly the bugs stood before us, a arms length at the most. Yet the creature stood upon its six legs kilometres away. They moved the largest Ogham stone. It tipped, falling over like a mated King upon a Chessboard or toppling like the statue of a 21[sup]st[/sup] century dictator.

"Yes. Those phegmniks reversed the polarity of the positron flow! As I hoped. It has been released." Shadrack smiled.

Our first indication of what was to come was a solid, loud drone. Then the sky darkened into a small cloud of gnatlike beasties. These pests were metallic with gossamer wings made of plastic. These predators blasted into the invaders, sending waves of incendiary rockets into the scourge. I could not believe my eyes. I rubbed them with the backs of my furry paws. An entire city block was on the move, only the structures contained an army base, batteries of laser cannons, and flocks of armored tanks. This was one of the war machines from long ago. I have little mercy for the bugs, but even I could not believe the wreckage wrought.

"You can conrrrol it?" asked Chaiz, her large cat-eyes sparkling.

"There are things even Devisers fear. Terrible things from the Old Times. Even I cannot stop this abomination that has been devised by the Old Ones. I did not free it. And I broke no treaty in its emancipation. I warned the Kha'rog to leave the monoliths alone."

"And how are we to defend ourselves?" I asked.

"We do not," Shadrack confessed. "We wait till it returns to its hoary subterranean facility — its mission accomplished — then we replace the Ogham."

"How lonnng will that be?" Chaiz purred quietly.

"Too long!" Shadrack replied.


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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 06:00:01 AM

Dark Choice

By:
J.B. Hogan



I swatted at the bloody thing as it flitted back and forth in front of my face. What a nuisance, a real pest. It was just a wee thing and could hardly sting through my crusty skin, but I swung at it again and again.

"Bzzt, bzzt," buzzed the thing as it spun this way past my big right ear and that way by my shrunken left.

Was the blasted thing trying to speak to me? About what? Why? How did it dare, a thing so puny I could squish it between my cloven hands like the hopping things that I made my food from?

"What, what?" I cried out at the buzzer, swiping my hands above my matted, coarse black hair.

"Bzzt, bzzt," was all it said.

Tiring of the game, I bent down with a grunt and dislodged an upturned stone from the boggy soil. I held the stone in my thick two-fingered hand and judged its weight. Just right for knocking a pest out of the air. Carefully aiming at the buzzer, I hurled the stone with all my might.

"Bzzt … Aieee!" the buzzer shrieked as the stone whistled past its annoying little body. A dark limb from a nearby fungus-covered tree also shifted quickly to avoid my air-ripping rock.

"Sorry," I told the tree. It merely shrugged its branches.

"Zzt," the buzzer buzzed.

"What?" I said.

The stone, I now saw, in passing my target – as well as the nimble tree – had caused a ripple to appear in the air before me.

"How now?" I snorted, reaching cautiously toward the ripple. The buzzer was quiet for the moment, fluttering near my pointed, hairy ears.

Without warning, then, the ripple – like a whirlpool – pulled me toward and into itself. In a flash I was drawn through it.

On the other side all was bright sun and blue skies, the exact opposite of my dark, dank wood. I wiped my eyes to block the light. When I was able to see, I looked around this strange new place. It was way too clean and neat for me. I was thinking about how I could try to get back to my own land when I turned and saw her.

A maiden. A cheerful, light-haired, beautiful maiden – at least as the human things go, that is. She was standing next to a big rock. In the rock was a sword. There was something familiar about that to me but I wasn't sure why. This maiden, however, was enclosed in a makeshift prison of thick, twisted grapevines. That wasn't so familiar.

"Handsome sir," the girl asked sweetly, "would you please remove yon sword and free me from this awful prison."

"Handsome?" I asked, wondering what was wrong with the maiden's eyes. "You're talking to me?"

I leaned forward to see my reflection in the glistening sword and sure enough I was one of the human things, light-haired, handsome, properly built and appendaged. I leapt back from the shiny weapon.

"P…pull the long blade from the rock?" I questioned.

"Oh, yes," the maiden said.

"Well."

"Please," she begged. I considered for a moment. Why not? What would it hurt?

I leaned forward to pull at the sword, but as I did I thought I saw something strange out of the corner of my eye. The maiden's lovely white teeth had grown long, sharp and deadly? I looked at her. She smiled back innocently.

Once more I reached for the sword, but this time I turned to watch the maiden. Oh, yes, the long, knife-teeth were there. She tried to hide them with a cough and a hand held up delicately to block my view.

"Uh," I said, stepping back away from the sword and the stone, "I think I'll pass if it's all the same to you."

"Take that sword," the maiden ordered me, in a voice like that of a ferocious beast, "and cut the ropes. Release me!"

"Yeah, well," I said, tilting my head to the side, "maybe next time."

I turned away from the maiden, who continued to growl and howl and curse me, and looked for the strange ripple in the air through which I had walked before. I was lucky. It was still there.

"Come back here, you miserable cur," the once-lovely girl bellowed after me.

Without looking back – I could sense those knife-teeth extending down from the maiden's face, snarling, ready to rip me to shreds – I stepped back through the shimmering ripple and into my own world. I quickly checked my body to see that I was back to my old self. All was as it should be. And, of course, the buzzer was still there, waiting for me.

"Zzt?" it buzzed.

"Don't ask," I told it. "Just forget about whatever that was."

"Bzzt, bzzt," the buzzer replied.

"I'm hungry," I told my wee, flitting shadow. "It's time to get some newts and toadstills. Supper time."

"Zzt, zzt," the buzzer commented.

"It's what I always have for supper," I said with a shrug, "especially after a hard day's work saving maidens."

"Bzzt, bzzt," the buzzer seemed to be laughing.

I shrugged my shoulders and plodded on in search of my favorite meal. The buzzer stayed nearby, making its sound, but not flitting around me anymore. It flew along at my side like it belonged there. That was alright now, it was no longer a nuisance to me.


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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 06:00:28 AM

Death and Taxes

By:
J. Davidson Hero



It was in the city where the oracle sees all, and knows all by the alignment of the stars, that Wor Nerto sat not at the Inn of Delight, but down the street at the seedy dark little establishment known as the Three Fingers.

Those around him had moved cautiously away. The shadows from the sooty fire danced on his great countenance making it a pallid death mask. But those around him did not pull away because of his awesome and terrible demeanor, or his bulging muscles, or the ghastly and near fatal cuts that gushed blood down his springy limbs. For while all of these things were true enough, he did have a terrible demeanor, and bulging muscles, and suffered from grievous wounds, and the rumor of vast treasure newly won surely whetted curiosity, it was the pungent putrid odor that wafted about him that drove the inn's regular irregulars away.

Wor Nerto had spent the last three days slogging, spelunking, and crab-crawling his way through the always partially full sewer tunnels below the majestic and teeming, squalid, massive city of the oracle. And it was worth it too, for he had tracked down that foul, (yes foul is perhaps too short a word), the foul dwelling of the treasure-hoarding sewer spivel, whose monkey fingers had spirited away so many gaudy and bejeweled anklets which were so very popular among the affluent ladies of the city being the current couture fad.

Yes, the spivel had indeed hoarded a great, great pile of these things, and other trinkets of various value, but truly it was nothing more than a common pest in a city of this size, at least until the fateful day that a particularly favored anklet of the wife of the Consul disappeared. Then the spivel became legend. Then the stories of glorious reward for bravery brought the following to many a great hero's lips, "Where doth the spivel live?" and "What killeth such as a spivel?" and "I have slain many a spivel indeed."

But the moment the city's engineer, small, wiry, yet brilliant, cracked the lid on the great cloacae, bravery waned, bravery wilted, bravery dissipated before the foul wind that rose up from the fetid depths.

Until Wor Nerto, that is. Not one of great nose, no, he hardly noticed his own stink most days. He was brave for greed's sake. And he was well muscled, and vicious, and while he had not killed a spivel, many another beast he had. With his sword, he lowered himself into the lukewarm stream beneath the city and started to track the spivel.

Now Wor sat, sullen, wanting nothing but the drink and food he had ordered, the heavy leather bag, full of his hard earned treasure, pulling at his hip.

But even as the barkeep set the steaming bowl of gruel before him, and Wor's evil bloodshot eye glared at the barkeep condemning the gruel's particularly thin consistency, Gother the tax collector appeared as if by foul sorcery.

Wor stared blankly at Gother's brown fez festooned with the brocade of the exchequer's office. The porcine Gother's face was frozen in a frown, his calculating eyes peering out past a patchy beard covering fatty jowls. Suddenly Wor realized dimly in some seldom used corner of his brain, that this man wanted something from him.

Clearing phlegm from his throat while unrolling a scroll, Gother began: "If thou art named Wor Nerto, and henceforth named slayer of the dread spivel, and claimant of the spivel's pelf, knowest that it is my office to assess the municipal tax which is to be levied against any commerce not excluding goods and lucre appropriated following the slaying of creatures hell-spawned or otherwise within the city's walls."

Wor stared without response, a bit of gruel running down his chin.

"Still further as such lucre must be weighed and value assessed to ascertain the appropriate taxation, said lucre will be expropriated in its entirety to the lower office of the exchequer in the name of his lordship, the Consul."

Wor's spoon splattered into the gruel. The lower lid of his left eye began to twitch. He ground his teeth. The cords in his neck began to coil and tighten. He leaned forward to meet Gother's stare and his fetid breath rolled across the table. His right eye, laced with broken vessels, nearly popped out of his head.

"I've killed the spivel. Beware boothaler; I'll gut you the same."

Leaning forward Gother smirked with a newfound surety. "Ah, thou art a predictable breed. A detachment of city guards stands outside this inn at the ready. When I walk out of here empty handed, they'll be coming in."

With that the obese man rolled the scroll, wiped a fleck of gruel from his face, and exited from the now empty inn. Immediately, neat trim men-at-arms began to pour in. Swords were drawn and they strategically began to spread toward Wor like a stream of fire ants.

With a mad glint in his eye and a snarl that curled his lip into a cruel smile, Wor Nerto backed into the post in the center of the inn. If the mythic spivel could not claim his life, these catchpoles wouldn't either. He forced his back into the post with all his might as the guards charged simultaneously. And as they thrust home, his great mass wrenched the beam and with a mighty crack the room came down.

As night fell, a bloated Gother stood with whip in hand directing a ramshackle crew. Slowly they upturned stone and splintered beams until at last they marched out with the mighty, massive, broken body of Wor Nerto. Face down, his long bedraggled hair hung low to the ground as did the bag that Gother now deftly cut from his belt knowing in his gloating heart that this fateful day the Consul's wife would at last reclaim her precious bauble while this brutish oaf met life's two great certainties, death and taxes.



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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 06:00:58 AM

Lord of the Ring

By:
Casey Callaghan



It's not an easy life, boxing. For one thing, your medical insurance premiums go through the roof.

And it's even worse when you're about three and a half feet tall. Not that I'm complaining. I mean, I chose this life. After Uncle Bilbo retired injured and left me his padded vest and gloves, his trainer – my trainer now, old Gandalf – spent about an hour going through the minutiae of several contracts before finding a clause that permitted him to sign me on mid-season to replace my uncle. And it was important, of course; Uncle Bilbo had got himself a running spot on the Mt. Doom International Tournament, and with him injured Mordor would have been the uncontested world featherweight boxing champions. So, really, it was up to me to defend the national honour. (Gandalf himself was a foreigner; for him it was a personal vendetta with the Mordor trainer, one Sauron).

This isn't to say that it was easy, of course. First he had to persuade the Boxing Federation that I could legally take my uncle's place and his accumulated score so far in the tournament – not an easy task, he had to call together a council headed by the boxing league president, Elrond. This was made rather tricker by the fact that on the way, at Weathertop, a stond had turned under my foot and I'd pulled a muscle in my shoulder trying to steady myself. Fortunately, Elrond's household included an excellent biokineticist and they soon had my shoulder working again (though it's likely to contiue giving me problems throughout my life now). And then, of course, we had that trouble at the pass; it was snowed over and so we had to take the bus the long way around. And then when we get there, they've got some kind of specieist policies that only the boxer and his trainer are allowed in and both have to be the same species, which cut poor Gandalf out. I ended up taking Sam with me for moral support, and everyone else had to face the terrors of the paid seats (I'm told the crowd was pretty rowdy). All we had to face was the mosquitos at that bit of marshy ground just outside (there must be thousands of mosquito corpses there) and a humungous spider on the wall. Despite what Sam may tell you, I did not faint on seeing the spider, and I did not have to be carried in by orcs as a result.

Still, after all the trouble we had getting there, the fight itself was kind of anticlimactic. Gollum was a tough opponent, and at one point I seriously thought he was going to win the fight; but I managed to knock him down for the count in round three without taking too much damage. I'll admit I hit him hard enough to break a finger, and I ached all over the next morning, but those were the only injuries I took.

Gandalf tells me that some fellow called 'Tolkien' bought the rights to the story. Of course, he exaggerated it a bit.


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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 06:01:27 AM

Dawn of an Age

By:
TaoPhoenix



Senior Magician Starchild was restless. He was intrigued by a barely developed area of knowledge in his texts. Some ideas were beginning to occur to him which he wanted to test. Presently, he arranged a research sabbatical. He would be available for advice in an emergency, but his third-in-charge could benefit from the organizational practice. Such a request was quite sensible during peacetime, and it was granted. He promised to inform the royal court of his discoveries when he was finished. Contact arrangements were settled, and the magician reposed to his personal library.



...

Senior Magician Starchild called a meeting with the Captain of the Royal Guard. "Captain Clendenning, does your army have time to support some of my research?"

"Hello, Magician. Yes, I can spare some manpower. We've been lucky enough to be safe for a long time, and I am certain a few of my men could use an exercise to keep them sharp."

"Excellent. I will be operating out of the unused West Territory past the castle premises. I will be there in a couple of hours."

At the site, the Captain presented his squad of twelve volunteer soldiers. The Senior Magician nodded to his colleague, and addressed the group. "Sirs, Gentlemen. Thank you all for assisting me in my studies. To start, I would like to conduct a small war-game exercise. Since your commanding officer has trained you well, do not blame yourselves when matters become confusing. Consider it a side-effect of assisting me with my magical studies.

"The goal will be simple. Work crews have built a mock-castle with a throne room for each side. The goal will be to capture the enemy king alive and bring him back to the home side throne room, such as might happen with a blackmail threat." The camps were set at one hundred meters apart, with the Captain guiding the Red team, and the Senior Magician guiding the Blue forces. The Red forces were offered first pick of the assembled quality swords, shields, and armor. A stone wall drawn by a horse&cart arrangement was also present. The Blue forces, upon advisement, chose leather and stone instruments.

The soliders began to relax at this news. So far, this was comprehensible enough. They trusted their magician, but when they volunteered, it became a question of when, not if, clarity would completely depart the premises.



The Blue Forces were content with a defensive formation, and their instructions were to deflect but not engage the enemy. The Red team opted for a classical charge on the enemy position. Soon the members of the Red team began muttering about "What strange force is making this so difficult?" Each successive step towards the enemy castle was increasingly difficult, and near the end the men were picking up each leg one at a time to haul it forward. However, the pesky flies buzzing around were having no problems. For that matter, the Blue Force scouts seemed "as swift as the wind". They simply ran past their counterparts swinging their stone maces, which "magically added a few centimeters" to their twists out of weapons range.

A couple of Red Team strongmen made it a point of pride to make it all the way to the enemy gate, where they hooked arms around the enemy gate lest they slide away. However, they knew that this was a symbolic victory at best, and that they were in no condition to actually attack the castle. The Blue Forces quietly hauled their mysterious wall into readiness and waited as instructed. The Captain waved for a meeting.

"Potent Magic, indeed, Magician. That must be tiring you greatly."

"In fact, I am doing absolutely nothing and my full strength is at my command should I need it."

"Really? You have apparently literally repulsed my offensive force, so I resign from my attack." With a signal, the Captain retrieved his exhausted offensive line. "However, what is your offensive strategy?"

"Watch. Blue Forces, secure the enemy premises." So ordered, they wheeled the mysterious wall closer to the enemy gate. It seemed to grow easier as they drew closer. At the final stage the stone upturned of its own accord and slammed adjacent to the enemy gate with a deafening roar. The Magician invited one of the Red Team members to attempt to move it. He was barely able budge it a centimeter. The Red Team king was trapped inside. "I submit a Siege Strategy. You will have to compromise your own castle to restore normal operations, at which time a standard offensive invasion should suffice."

The Captain nodded. "I resign my defense as well. What is the principle?"


"Lodestone, Royal Grade. It creates something called a Magnetic Force which operates in two directions. On my side, it repulses metal. Since your men gleefully decked themselves out in metal armor and weapons, they encountered this force which never tires. If they were to discard it all down to their basic uniforms, in peace, they could walk up quite naturally."

"Hmm. What about your mysterious wall stuck to my gate?"

"I did not wish to risk the lives of my men in an actual attack, which your army has trained to defend against for decades. That wall is also Royal Grade Lodestone, attracted to your gate by the same untiring magnetic force. When the enemy has exhausted their forces weakening their own fortifications, then we can also walk up to negotiate in peace.

"How do I get my man out?"

"Your men working together should be able to slide it sideways."

"Phenomenal. What branch of Magic is that called?"

"Science."


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kailhofer
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06/'08 - Fantasy Subgenre
Post by kailhofer » October 19, 2008, 06:01:52 AM

- Winner -


Nightshade

By:
Bill Wolfe



The wind howled as the Banshee sang her woeful tune. She sounded pretty good, and I wondered if I hadn't already downloaded her CD to my iPod. But I wasn't here to appreciate the floorshow. I had a client, the paying kind. A kilo of elfin gold was stashed under a loose floorboard behind my filing cabinet. It was enough to keep me in bullets and cheap whisky for a year. Everything a Private-Eye needs to survive in this crossroads cesspool of a city.

Nightshade, the city between the worlds of science and magic. You wanna get from one side to the other, you gotta go through here. It was a playground for conmen, smugglers—both human and faery—and anyone on the lam. That was my case, and I'd just found my target. He was in the far back booth, talking with a human I recognized. He was some elflord who had broken one of their strange codes and was trying to get to the other side before his buddies found him. My snitches told me that I wasn't exactly the first gumshoe that High Lord Muckety-Muck had tried to hire. All I had to do was tail him and call the client on his cell.

Most folks don't mess with elves, but I had an edge. An old police nightstick with an 1876, honest-to-God iron nail driven into the butt. Cold iron, heat-forged on a coke fire and beaten into shape with a hammer. Just a touch would drop them the way a charged-up cattle prod would drop me. Don't touch skin, it doesn't even leave a burn mark. Far as I know—and I know a lot about this town—it was the only cold iron this close to the border. One touch, and the fay loose two important things: consciousness, and that day's memories. Ain't no law against cold iron. The Sidhe just hunt you down and kill you. It was an edge, but a risky one.

A fly buzzed my head. My distracted swat almost made me miss his exit. He was a smooth one, alright. He moved with the sinuous grace that only the High-Elven display. I had rear-exit privileges in this joint, but I didn't want to spook him. The back alley offered two directions, but I knew he was heading for the freight yards. The human he met worked the trains.

The alley was empty of all but its smell, he'd had plenty of time to get-out. Another fly—couldn't be the same—buzzed me, close. As I turned my face to avoid contact, I noticed some very well-crafted boots, barely visible behind the dumpster. I pulled my piece and my billyclub, I hated alleys. I approached cautiously, gun out, club low. It was my runner, alright. From the bruise on his head and the upturned cobblestone next to him, he'd been koshed, but good. You can't kill an elf with a rock, but you can ruin his day.

"Mister Reuel." The familiar voice was accompanied by a light pinprick on the base of my neck. I'd seen enough elven blades to know what was there. "Do drop the gun and that ridiculous truncheon."

"Contract's fulfilled, you've found him." I spoke slowly as my gun clattered on the cobblestones. I hadn't let go of the nightstick, yet. "I hope you have the other half of the payment, on you."

"Oh indeed," I could hear him picking-up my gun. I was about to make my move when my left hand felt like it was hit with a blowtorch. My nightstick bounced at my feet. Elven blades burn.

"But unfortunately, I was too late." I heard the high-density ceramic cylinder open, bullets clinked. He'd just unloaded my gun. "It seems the disreputable private investigator I hired bungled the job. When poor Lord Alaron confronted him, he was killed in the struggle."

"Ain't easy killing an elf," I said through gritted teeth. The hand was agony.

"Oh?" More clinking, he was reloading the gun. "Even with steel-jacketed bullets?"

I gasped, but not in pain. Steels weren't just contraband, it would cost millions to smuggle something like that into Nightshade. There were powerful protective wards to be bypassed. Heavy magic. You could kill a freakin' dragon with six steel .38's.

"Son-of-a-troll." It wasn't eloquent, but it was all I had.

"Of course, Lord Alaron would have managed to take your life, even as he died. Now turn around, Mister Reuel." The fly that had been buzzing me flew over and landed on his shoulder.

"Oh, of course," he grinned as he addressed the fly. "You're dismissed."

"You bugged me." My voice betrayed my awe. Enchanting a fly was serious Ju-Ju. Few had the Talent to do it right. By looking through its eyes, he knew exactly where I'd been all day.

"Who is this Lord Alaron, anyway? What'd he do?"

"Let's just say that a public trial might have raised questions that certain powerful interests would rather keep quiet." He was holding my gun in his right hand.

"A few defensive wounds, I think. Lord Alaron was handy with a blade." Agony seared with each light flick of his sword. Chest. Arm. Another on the wrist. I dropped to my knees, head bowed, trying very hard not to scream.

"And now mister Reuel, you would have landed several blows with your truncheon before he drew his weapon. Do hand it to me, please. Handle first, of course."

Sometimes, they just make it too damn easy.

That he was found alone in the alley carrying contraband was the talk of the town. Some said it was a magic tome, others that he was selling faery dust. We all heard about the trial and execution, but nobody said anything about steel bullets. Imagine that, carrying five lethal bullets and being so careless as to touch one with his unprotected hand? No wonder he couldn't remember anything that happened that day.

Five? Everybody needs a little edge, don't they?


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