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]

Thanks Mal!

Chapter 7

“Oh balls that burns!” Marcus yelled at one of the ‘healers’ trying to treat his wounds. The healer was attempting to disinfect the wound by cauterizing it with a hot metal spit. At first the cut had just been bound in bandages but infection was something that could not be risked in a siege. Yells and groans of pain would come from others with ‘minor’ wounds. Rat had numerous cuts and gashes in his body. It was a miracle that the man had lived through the ordeal. He had been so tired that the disinfecting didn’t even wake him. Marcus thought the man was in a coma.

The smell of burned skin and death had found its way into every nook and cranny of the city. Neither side had attempted to remove the dead from the streets after the clash. The defenders held till nightfall when the Aceluns had pulled their troops back. The Tanonites had taken huge losses however and would have been overrun had it not been for the cramped streets and narrow entrance to the city.

“How much more do ya gotta poke me doc?” Marcus asked the old graying army vet that was treating him.

“You’re almost done there kiddo.” He replied and then went on to say. “Since there are no stiches you should be good to get right back out on the frontline tomorrow.”

“Just what I want, another opportunity to see you.”

“Hah, well maybe you wont have to ‘see’ me again!” Silence hung in the air. “You know, because you’ll be dead.”

“Yeah, thanks doc, just full of inspiration aren’t ya.”

“Get your boat outa here and hopefully we won’t see each other again.”

Marcus’ dislike for physicians was nothing new. There was just something about them, like nothing was too personal, especially death. That group of individuals just really got to him, they had a gift to press his buttons.
He went to go check on Rat. The man had saved not only his life but singlehandedly halted the Acelun attack. He had become a champion, quick.

Marcus approached the area of the triage that Rat was currently resting in. “Hey there buddy, how ya feeling?”

Rat turned towards Marcus, large permanent scars already prominent on his tortured body. His eyes however danced with life as he said “Avatars, we was avatars jus like I told ya!”

“Yeah, well at least you were.”

“Aw don be so bashful! I saw yeh out there slashing away wit that pilfered sword of yours. Ya did jus fine!” Rat let out a chuckle but immediately grimaced. He had sustained significant abdominal damage during the fighting. Rat closed his eyes and said “Hey, I am gonna take a nap. Ill see you for the next fight tho-“ Unable to finish his sentence he fell asleep.

Marcus left the room and headed towards the barracks. His stomach groaned. All of the excitement of the day had begun to wear off and normal habits began to take hold. The mess hall was much less crowded than he had ever seen it. Grabbing his rations from the server he headed towards a remnant of his squad.

“Hey guys.” He said as he sat down.

“Hey Marc” a medium sized man with short curly blonde hair, who was unsurprisingly nicknamed Curly, said to the right of him. The rest mumbled the same basic message.

“Can you guys believe what Rat did to those bastards out there?” Another at the table added. A long line of burned flesh snaked down one of his arms. The group called him Bigs. He lived up to the name, the man was huge. Not as big as Rat but more imposing like he would rip you to shreds if you looked at him wrong.

Red stated “Even the hard boat professional soldiers were impressed with that madman.” The group had nicknamed him Red after a sexual escapade had gone very unexpectedly in one of the brothels.

“Yeah, if it hadn’t been for him I woulda been one of those bodies out there right now.” Marcus said.

“Hey if it weren’t for that crazy honoured user a lot of us would’ve been dead. Near the end, Aceluns began just to stay the hell away from him.” Bigs reasoned.

Marcus looked up from his meal “He had said he wanted to be an avatar of death out there. Didn’t know he would actually become one.”

The next few hours went by without much excitement. Rat continued to rest while Marcus the squad and a very large majority of the militia continued to praise him. Marcus finally got up and left for bed. His head rested on the pillow for less than a minute before he joined his comrade Rat in blissfully unaware sleep.

* * *


“Hey, ya think we’d end up in this mess when we were kids?” The resonating bass came from Bigs.

“Not even the slightest.” Curley replied.

“umbrella seller of a world we live in now.”

“Yup.”

The two had left the barracks to get some air. Out of the ten original members in their squad they had been the only ones that had known each other before the war broke out. The two were silently walking down the pier.

“Wish our boat boys could get here and clear this damned blockade.” Curley said.

“Wishing ain’t going to accomplish nothing Curley. You heard the rumors that every barricade including ours took heavy losses. Our squad alone got halved by that attack. Them Aceluns are tricky bastards too. You hear about that fight a while back where they took the last free city on the south side of Indelvar?”

“Yeah, the one where they had put most of their army at the backdoor.”

“That’s the one, the poor bastards moved all the defenses to the larger attacking force while they slipped a few of their shocker troops in the front door. Then those shock troopers held their ground till the rest of the army pulled in and wham they got themselves a bran-spankin new city.”

“So what do ya think they are gonna try on us. We only have one door, and they already busted it.”

“Dunno, but I bet they have something up their sleeve.”

“Hey look at that” Curley’s finger shot in the direction of the armada. “Looks like they are pulling anchor.”

“Maybe our boats are doing some damage to them somewhere and they gotta go stop it. That would be nice, but I’m bettin its monkey business.”

A scout sprinted by the pair heading for the command center. “Musta noticed what we noticed.” Curley said.
“Yeah, nothing we can do about those damn boats though. They decide to leave great, if not then we’ll just have to destroy their army.” Or they destroy ours he thought to himself.

Curley stopped walked and got really depressed. “One way or another this will be over soon. Not enough food up here for one army, let alone two.”

The pair continued their walk in silence.

This post has been edited by Tulustan: Jan 3 2011, 09:31 PM