Deciever, Story But Not Related to TES Options

[Tulustan]

Last few weeks I have had ideas for stories rolling around in my brain muscle, so here is me trying to share one of them. Critiques are welcome!

Chapter 1

It had been roughly five years since I had gone north to the port city of Tanon in search of wealth. I had heard many things about the city, especially how easy it was to find a job on the wharf, which being of the prespant class left me very few choices in work. Slowly I had worked my way up the labor ladder on the wharfs and had become the manager of wharf four. It was still hard work especially getting the newer members to unload cargo quick enough and safe enough as to not hurt themselves or the cargo.

This year however I had begun to take a liking to one of the new dockhands. His name was Marcus and he had been working on the wharfs for only a few months. However, he had the brains to listen to my advice and not get himself seriously hurt or killed yet, and also no complaints had been filed against him (all extremely rare for new dockhands).

All in all life was going pretty good. I looked at the machine in the corner that told me what hour of the day it was… very nice almost time to go home. I decided to go down and arrange some festivities for the night.

As I walked onto the wharf the familiar feel of the treated wood groaned under my feet as the ocean tried to lazily dislodge it from the earth that it had been built into. Not much had changed about wharf four in the five years I had worked on it. A few broken planks here and there and that one time the crane had broken and almost clove the wharf in half, but it was still the same thing with a few scars and the blood of the men who worked it.

As I reached about halfway across the wharf I spied Marcus unloading a medium sized grey crate by himself. “Hey there!” I yelled to him.

“Whoa, if it isn’t the grand ol boss here to the rescue.” He yelled back. “Gonna actually contribute to this little shindig for once instead of sittin on your boat all day watchin us do all the work?”

“Hey! It takes a lot of strength writing those reports for all the crates you’ve dropped!” I replied not having to yell with the distance closed to within a few feet.

“Ah dang, you know I don’t drop any crates. But please feel free to keep sitting there while I do real work!”

I let out a little chuckle at that and began to help him lift a couple of the heavier crates off of the ship. I mean hell it’s a great way to keep in shape and I owed him after the drunken stupor I managed to drink myself into the night before.

Even though I had not totally recovered from that previous night I asked him “After were done off loading this ship wanna go to the Musty Sailor and grab some of the new import from Mumbril. I hear they added some extra zing to their new batch of ale!”

“Are you joking with me? After last night you wanna go drinking again? I mean cmon you just about killed yourself in that pile of puke you conjoured up! But yeah I guess, hopefully this time you’ll be walking me home though… Yeah I just realized the likelihood of that statement, ya drunky.”

“Hardy har har, see ya there. I gotta go take care of a few administrational things first.” under my breath, but loud enough to hear me I muttered “like getting you fired”.

“oh, you bag of dicks” he responded then said “later, don’t get too drunk before I get there to drag your boat home” he finished.

At that I walked back to my office at the end of the wharf and began to get all the reports ready to hand in the next day to the “dock master”. By the time I had finished my paperwork it was dark out and the candle lit room cast shadows of all the odd bobbles I had collected over the time I had lived in Tanon.

As I left my office the familiar smell of saltwater assailed my nostrils. Usually I just ignored it automatically but for some reason it was intensely strong. I kept walking back to my house. The whole way there the pungent aroma of the saltwater assaulted my senses.

I approached the shortcut to my house. It went behind the butchers shop and a few tall apartment buildings. Most of the city was built out of solid stone, one of the few in the kingdom. It was a key hub for commerce and with an abundance of quarries and a limited supply of farmland the city had built vertically.

As I reached my house, an apartment complex grafted onto the side of the southern wall, I noticed that most of the blankets over the windows of each apartment were down. I found this to be very odd because it was still early in the night and still fairly warm outside.

I got into my room and began changing into clothes I did not care overly much about (didn’t want to have to worry about puking on myself and buying a new shirt). I took care to put my dagger back on however, never know when you can use one in a enclosed area full of men whose heads may be a teeny bit infected with alcohol.

I left my house on the same route I had come in and when I got to the back ally I thought that I noticed someone following me. I ignored it, this being one of the safer cities in the kingdom thanks to all of the wealth it had acquired.

About halfway through the ally I heard someone full out sprinting in behind me. Quickly I turned around and began to pull my dagger. However, as the blade almost cleared the phantom behind me tackled me to the ground. He reached for something in his lavender robe, quickly I thrust my leg upward and into his growing getting enough force to somersault him over me.

I looked back to notice that he had somewhat recovered and had drawn a sword. Quickly I rolled to my feet and pulled my dagger. He came swift and fast with a lunge for my chest. I barely got the parry in time to stop the blade from gutting me. Again he tried to inflict damage on my innards using the same thrust. However this time I was more prepared and managed to parry the thrust easily. I noticed that he either must not have been expecting such a strong parry or was very inexperienced at using a sword because the parry had left his middle right open.

I took the advantage. I jumped on him with all of my might and knocked him to the ground. Right when we hit the ground I pummeled him once in the face with the butt of my dagger and kicked his sword away.

“Why are you attacking me!” I yelled into his face. The sound I got back was that of a mad animal trying all it could to break free. The thing was it wasn’t me he was trying to break free of. It was like something inside the man wanted out, or control of the body. I repeated my inquiry.

His face turned savagely red but it looked like something was winning over and he managed to mutter through gritted teeth “Heh help me”.

I had no idea how to help this man or even if he needed helping maybe this was just a ploy to break free from my hold. I began to ask in what way I could assist him when all of a sudden I heard a zinging sort of noise from my left ear, there was a wet smacking sound. The attacker had stopped moving altogether underneath me and a warm fluid had begun to puddle near my left knee where I was holding his arm down. That is when I noticed a small dagger handle jutting out of the side of my attackers’ neck.

This post has been edited by Tulustan: Dec 7 2010, 05:11 AM

[Tulustan]

Chapter 2

It had been about a month since the escape from Tanon. During that time a nice dark brown beard had managed to express itself prominently on my face. About two weeks after my escape the something I had never bothered to think about happened, the blasted thing began to itch like I had been to a brothel filled to the brim with little clappers. I had decided not to shave it however, because it would make identifying me harder.

Thankfully the mountain passes were still pretty easy to travel and not much snow had fallen. I had heard how terrible the storms could be here in the Andrine Mts. Shouldn’t be in the passes for too much longer. Every night was incredibly strenuous, what with the mountain cats prowling the pass and calling out to their brethren, and all of the bugs that slowly whittled away at me with their tiny bites. The worst part was the sogginess, even though it had not ‘technically’ rained the amount of morning dew that formed managed to chill me to the core. There was no way to escape its biting chill, every rock was slick with the dew and only twice had I been able to find any natural shelter once in the pass.

The absence of human companionship began to gnaw on me. Day and night there was no one to talk to, to help sort out what was happening. If only one other person was here to share in this loneliness it wouldn’t be so unbearable.

My finger in the dirt I began to move it in circles just passing time. The sun had been leaving the world earlier and earlier lately, it was treacherous to walk the passes at night so I entertained myself by making odd drawings in the dirt. Thankfully earlier in the day I had been able to find some wood that had not been marinating in dew for the last hundred years. A fire was a very welcome change, at this point it was almost a luxury.

A few more nights and there would be no need for a fire. In fact if what the rumors said was true a fire would be the last thing that I wanted in the wastes. For now however the warm crackle of the fire kept me warm enough and the area around bright enough to let me continue with my idle doodles in the earth.

Sure enough two days later I had dropped out of the pass and hit the wastes. They were just as I had heard; dry, sandy, and hellishly hot. The only thing for miles and miles was the golden crust of a well prepared pie. A very crispy and generally tasteless pie crust, but crusty none the less. What made it worse was the complete lack of clouds in the sky. They literally just did not exist; it was like the mountains were too much of an obstacle for them to climb over.

South was the way to go once in the wastes. If I could get far enough to the south I could find the end of the two rivers of Yurel. Between the rivers there was fabled to be a city of enormous prosperity wealth, and full of ancient artifacts and whatnot. I was really hoping they had at least some water and game I could hunt.

It had been two weeks since I had entered the wastes and I was really beginning to question my decision to journey to this god forsaken place. Every day was blisteringly hot and night had become a fight with the small critters that kept trying to poke at me while I slept. Unfortunately for those pests and fortunate for me, they were my only real source of food. There was not much fauna larger than the occasional elephant beetle so I made due. I wouldn’t have minded eating them except that sometimes their wings would get stuck in my teeth, and oddly that is where I drew the line of what was disgusting and promptly threw up.

Every few days I would find a stream that trickled down from the mountains and would fill up the canteen. I was in the process of filling when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a small rodent scurrying away from me.

“Stop!” I yelled foolishly thinking that this animal would simply stop and listen to me. The animal did actually stop look back at me, quickly turned and kept running. Even though I knew the odds of catching the rodent were very slim I kept running after it. I was about five or six yards behind it when I felt a bee like sting in my neck.

Quickly the rocks and sand began to meld into one distinctly indistinct darkness, that, in turn began to rotate. Quickly I found I was on the ground and had trouble moving my legs or any part of my body. Everything was turning dark and I could not fight the waves of nauseating sleep being forced upon me.