2009 - Cordir's Area Story Contest
Contest Start: Fri Jan 30 23:44:41 2009
Contest END: Midnight, Mud time, Feb 7, 2009.
To: All Who Wanna Participate
I am hereby sponsoring a storywriting contest. Individuals have until midnight, mud time, on February 7th, to submit their entries. Entries must be emailed to me at Cordir@stormreaver.net
And the theme....
Write a story, of a minimum of one page in length, *from the point of view of a TFC zone or specific room.*
The judging will be 100% arbitrary: the winner is the author of the story that I feel has captured the feel of the zone best. Spelling counts. So does grammar. So does imagination.
Yes, there will be a prize. Not sure what, just yet, or how, but there will be something It may be exp circlets. It may be a named amulet, it may be a potion. I dunno. I'll work on that part, you work on your story!
Get writing!
- Cordir, Ebon Bard
The Oakheart Inn, By Cirth
An Oversized Window Casement
[Exits: east]
The window casement is just big enough for you to step into, or perhaps to
take a seat in on the plush velvet cushion that has been placed along the edge
of the casement. Strangely though, the cushion looks as though it has never
been used. The gleaming hardwood is beautifully carved with figures of strange
and wondrous creatures from far off lands. The lingering scent of dust from the
room to the east tickles your nose.
A richly colored stained glass window is half open.
---
It is nighttime and all my inhabitants are asleep. Chill autumn winds trail the sides of what I am while my surrounding children fruitlessly rattle their branches against the starry sky. Their leaves are swept away in the turning of the season, as they must be. I remain unaffected by, if not oblivious to, such things since the warmbloods re-shaped me. My sap has dried but my heart is preserved intact.
A predator silently enters my halls and the bats snuggle closer to my heartwood, the mighty beam of me that carries my roof. Down below a female sighs – first in pain then in pleasure – quietly dying without ever fully awakening. A moment later a chill draft passes as the killer pries the window open and slips into my attic.
The mice lie flat in their hideaways, their sides heaving quickly as they intake his rich scent of copper, salt and sweat. He remains motionless below the window casement, poised for striking while his senses reach out. His is an old soul and I too reach out in hope for acknowledgement but there is none. The hunter seeks the warmblooded, as hunters do. Ignoring the mice and bats he straightens and inspects my interior. Soon he returns to the window where his delicate fingers trace the figures that are carved into my wood. His touch is warm and even after his departure the memory of it remains.
---
On the Landing
[Exits: west south]
The nub of a candle sits on a three-legged table here on the landing. The air
smells musty and still. This looks like a disused portion of the inn. You
can continue to the west, or use the stairs to the south.
---
It is nighttime again and a sleek rain dribbles against my roof and along the glass of the windows. My inhabitants are all asleep and my children creak their complaints of the coldness of the air and earth. My insides breathe the warmness from the dying cinders of my brethren in the fireplaces.
The hunter has returned, leaving a wet footprint on the window sill. He is not seeking prey. Having seated himself on the floor he leans his back against the door leading to my stairs and lights the nub of a candle. Sheets of paper and an inkwell are arranged in neat order before him. In the flickering light he remains still, quill in hand.
The mice do not sense his tenseness. They grow restless in their waiting game and begin to scurry. Ignoring them the hunter bends forward dipping the quill in the ink. The arc of his movement ceases before the quill is put to paper, his hand shaking slightly as he pauses. Eventually a drop of ink slips from the blackened point, staining the paper below. With a frustrated hiss the hunter replace the quill into the inkwell and vanishes into the night. His touch on my window frame is cold and soon forgotten.
---
An Oversized Window Casement
[Exits: east]
The window casement is just big enough for you to step into, or perhaps to
take a seat in on the plush velvet cushion that has been placed along the edge
of the casement. Strangely though, the cushion looks as though it has never
been used. The gleaming hardwood is beautifully carved with figures of strange
and wondrous creatures from far off lands. The lingering scent of dust from the
room to the east tickles your nose.
A richly colored stained glass window is half open.
---
The light of dawn fractures thru the stained glass of the window, painting the ceiling and my heartwood in color. Late-autumn frost covers my roof and the ground beneath my drowsy children and my inhabitants are beginning to stir in their beds.
The hunter is here again as he often is. His touch is warm, but I can hardly notice him for the one who approaches. As she is passing thru my gardens my children stir, dreaming of warmer seasons. The hunter tilts his head in attention just before she throws an acorn against the stained window pane. A slight smile parts his lips as he peers down to beckon her up.
She scampers up and grins mischeviously as she enters my attic. I reach for her intently while she examines my rooms, but she is receding into winter and her attention keeps returning to the hunter. While their bond is strong they never touch, even as they dance around each other – drawn near and moving apart again and again. They talk for a long while. As he shows her my carved figures I quicken with pride from her pleased remarks. Once she pauses to look at him, resting her hand against my heartwood above her. Her touch is a seed for me to treasure and nurture until the bountiful summer.
A Dust-Covered Room
[Exits: east west]
Dust covers the floor of this empty room in a thick layer, and your eyes are
immediately drawn to the set of footprints leading west. There is no returning
set of footprints, and you notice that somehow the dust is not at all affected
by your presence or actions. To the east is a landing.
A tiny spider spins its web.
---
Yellow-white rays of daylight spill across my floorboards and my inhabitants busy themselves in my lower halls. My children lull in the deep dreamless sleep of winter and snow covers my roof.
A new guest paces my attic. She is a stranger and yet not, a timeless incarnation of power. She stands a while examnining the quill in its inkwell and the stained, unused sheet of paper. The scissors in her hand are gleaming with her own blood and her aura flares red as she resumes her tireless pacing. Above her the spiders’ pattern turns into a crazed weave and below the warmbloods begin to fret and bicker. She does not touch anything, yet my heartwood is ingrained with her presence.
---
A Rarely Used Room
[Exits: east west]
Wooden chests are scattered about the room, storing old bedding and other
unused items. A space has been cleared in the dust around one of the chests,
as if someone had paced about there for a time before coming to a decision.
The footprints that started in the room to the east continue west here toward
an oversized window casement.
---
It is midnight and the northern winds bring heavy snowfall to my gardens. The branches of my children are weighed down by their white burdens. Inside, my inhabitants are dying and my floor boards are soaking up their lifeblood.
The screaming below has ceased and the last of the warmbloods comes seeking refuge in my attic, locking the door behind her. She’s the daughter of my caretaker; who lies cooling in his bed. Panicky she scuttles towards the window on the other side, but considering the height she rebounds towards the door. Halfway she stops dead as the handle is pushed down from the outside. Whimpering she circles the chest in the center of the room in search of a hiding place. Two rattling strikes on the door interrupts her. Sobbing she claws the chest open, climbs inside and closes the lid.
The ensuing silence is broken only by a *Click* before the door slowly swings inward. The hunter quietly sweeps into the room, his hands shaped into claws. Although forceful and quick there is something drunkard over his movements. As he nears the chest in the centre he straightens and runs a single finger along my heartwood above him, leaving a wet red trail. His touch is radiant with heat and will have to warm me through this long and lonely winter.
Feast and Lucre in the Maelstrom, By Flitt Faeriefish
Swimming strongly, the lean and fit seadevil dashes through the opening in the reef. She thinks of herself as a shark: sleek, silent, the terror of the seas. About her swirls a maelstrom, laden with cucumbers and prey.
The others barely notice her. Some think she is just another young sahuagin learning to swim. A few notice the strong kicking of her webbed feet, and think she may be a new lifeguard. None recognises the shark-spirit that burns gleefully in her cold eyes. If they did, they wouldn't care.
The spines along her slim, powerful arms ripple as her claws strike out. The shredding of scaly skin makes no sound. The maelstrom quickly disperses the blood. Ravenous, she feasts. A swim instructor nearby shrugs and turns his attention to another young one. The fledgling will have to learn fast. Swim. Resist the current. Eat. Don't be eaten.
A sahuagin child is carried past by the maelstrom, forgetting to swim as it fingers a handful of plunder from some creature who got lost here inside the rock of Tiren. Learning fast. But not fast enough. Slash. Small, scaly fingers float away, crumbs for the cucumbers. Pocketing the loot, the marauding seadevil snacks on the corpse, her toothy maw glistening with the flesh and scales of the weakling.
Cackling quietly at the boon this maelstrom turned out to be, the predator recalls her own introduction here. Currents were stronger then. They'd sweep you right out of the kelp forests, if you weren't strong and swift. The maelstrom was fun, then. Swirling about, the young would fight, rob each other, killing for sport. Trying to land the decisive blow before being swept
on again by the fierce current. The rules were simple: don't rake the adults; they strike back, and they hit harder than you do.
The dark bands on her back undulate and shimmer as her whole body flexes to launch another attack. Another strike. Another hoard of loot. This prize is large. That the little one managed to carry all this gold earns a moment's respect. A worthy sacrifice. She lets the corpse drift away, an offering to the great shark with the white aura who stands sentinel at the top of the kelp forest. Her spiny dorsal fins quiver with pleasure. Claws flash again. Scaly skin slashed again. Blood swirls in the blackness of the maelstrom, heightening perception, focusing the mind of the shark-spirited one.
Eyes flashing with cold lust, she lashes out once more, slashing the soft underbelly of a sahuagin child who didn't swim strong enough. It writhes and curls briefly, thrashing, vainly trying to resist its doom, avenge the death it knows is now inevitable. Soon it is still. Seeing the sahuagin corpse unclaimed, others descend upon it, ripping, shredding, gorging themselves on the tender flesh.
The seadevil returns to the Great Sponge to rest her sated self and count the spoils of weeding out the weak. She flashes a cold glance at the old one, the keeper of the sponge, as if to ask: is it time yet to venture to the surface?
There, the priestesses say, lies a reef much larger, much richer, than the rock of Tiren. Ships are said to founder there, the ships of men, lured by the tempests to smash asunder on the sharp coral. Gifts of the shark-god of the wide-open sea. There, in the bays and lagoons and on the sharp rocks, the survivors wait, weak and pathetic, defenseless. As if rescue will find them
before the sahuagins do.
With a powerful arch of her sleek green body, trembling with the craving, she flits back out through the streams of bubbles, swimming powerfully against the ever-present sea currents.
She will go. Feast and lucre awaits.
A Life Preserved in Crystal Ooze (Harper's Landing), by Ylang Ylang, Sylph Maiden
The boy with the short pants kicks the dirt in the wagon wheel ruts.
'Did they make the wagons to fit the ruts, or make the ruts to fit the wagons?' he asks the drayman.
The drayman grunts, and whips his horse. The boy might as well have been talking to his frog.
'What is under that grate?' he asks a man hurrying past. 'Why is it locked?'
The man doesn't even look up. The boy might as well have been talking to Chester.
All Chester ever talks about is orcs, his nonexistent wife in her nonexistent grave, and the nonexistent amulet he remembers her by. The boy will bet his entire collection of pebbles that there aren't any orcs either.
Listlessly, he wanders on, swinging his frog to the rhythm of the axes in the distance. As the sun arcs overhead, he wishes he'd packed one of grandma's apple pies.
'Look out, snotnose!'
The boy jumps, startled out of his reverie. He has reached the forest, and a lumberjack in faded blue dungarees glares at him, leaning on the long handle of his axe. 'What are you doing here, runt? You're liable to cross paths with me blade. A sticky mess that would be!' He laughs, harshly.
Runt. Snotnose. The boy doesn't like those words. Everyone is always calling him names or yelling at him. Even his mother shakes her head at him, as if being smart and curious and ambitious is just a passing phase. Look where she ended up: poor and darning socks. What would she know?
He sneaks a peek at the man. He is large, with bulging biceps and a sunburnt face. Strong and stern and sweaty.
'What are you gawking at, lad?'
For a moment, the boy is flustered. What was he looking at? He realises he has dropped his frog, and bends to pick it up. Suddenly, it comes to him. He rises, drawing back his shoulders and sticking out his chest. Blushing deep red, he blurts: 'I want to be a lumberjack.'
The lumberjacks laughs heartily, with genuine mirth this time. 'First thing you gotta learn is not to get deaded, kid,' he sneers.
'You haven't made a good start. If we give you an axe, like as not you'd cut off your feet at the knees!' He guffaws once more.
'Sorry, sir. But not getting deaded is why I'm out here, instead of in the laboratory in town, or going with Chester to fight orcs,' the boy protests.
'Hah. Chester's a real man, but if you hang out with geeks like Martin, you'll turn out a wimp yerself, afore you get deaded.'
'I'm not a wimp! Nor a runt!' the boy sniffles manfully.
The lumberjack's voice seems to soften.
'If you're not, kid, you won't have trouble getting your scheming past the man there. He's the foreman.' He jerks his head in the direction of a newspaper. Beneath it, a man is sleeping. He wears brown corduroy pants, has a hole in the sole of his shoe, and there's a whiff of cheap wine and stale tobacco about him.
Some foreman, the boy thinks, pondering the virtue of sleeping while others do the work. He shuffles over to the foreman.
'S'cuse me sir?' he says meekly.
Starting awake, the foreman yells: 'Get back to work, you... What? Oh. Go on, little nincompoop, skedaddle, before you get yourself felled like a sapling and carried out here on a wagon.'
'But sir, I want to stay here, and learn to jack lumber.'
'Jack lumber, hey? Hey, fellas, here's a little lump, says he wants to jack lumber!' laughs the foreman. 'Want to hang out with the brawny lads, do you, boy? Well, first, you're going to have to dress the part.'
'You mean, get dungarees and a check shirt, sir?' inquires the boy.
'Yes, yes, but there's something else. If you go deep in the forest, that way,' the man says, pointing east, 'you'll find a lake. Many a boy has become a man near there.'
The boy looks puzzled, but the foreman goes on, without giving him a chance to interrupt.
'The lake is fed by a spring. At the spring, you'll find an item that would suit you perfectly. The lads will love it, and they'll surely welcome you with open arms.'
'Oh, thank you, sir! I'll accept the quest you've given me, and I'll return, and be a lumberjack!'
Elated, the boy runs off, ignoring the sniggers of the woodcutting crew. Here, finally, he has found someone who is willing to teach him something! Chester won't teach him to fight. Martin won't teach him to turn earth and water into fire and ice. Grandma Sally won't even let him pick apples for her. And now he's going to be a lumberjack! Big and strong and respected around town! Maybe Harvey will even let him into the hardware store!
His pace never dropping below a fast trot, he soon reaches the pass through the wooded hills on the edge of the pine forest. As he descends the pass and the hills open up, the trees change. The pines give way to beech trees and oaks, and sheltering soft, green grass. The wood appears enchanted, and the soft, sweet tones of music comes from somewhere among the trees. Entranced, he wanders on, unable to find the source of the music. The glittering water of a beautiful lake lies to his right. That must be what the foreman was talking about.
Suddenly, he spots her. Where she came from, he did not see. He thinks she must be a goddess. She is a creature of infinite beauty, smiling at him, calling him, drawing him towards her. Two others follow, close behind. Garbed in nothing but light blue auras, they are like nothing the boy has ever seen.
'Welcome, Wesley. We've been expecting you,' the first creature says, her voice clear like crystal bells ringing, soft like a drizzle on fern leaves.
'What... how... who... where... why...' he stammers. His mother never told him about these creatures. Nor about becoming a man. Nor about... well, she has a lot of explaining to do, the boy feels.
'Why. Always you want to know why, don't you?' she smiles. It sounds like a compliment. Anything she says would sound like a compliment, Wesley numbly realizes.
'Why, I cannot tell. That you must discover for yourself. But I can answer your other questions. We are the nymphs of the glen. We guard the trees, and live in the lake. We know everyone who enters here, which is how we know your name. Also, the frog was a dead giveaway.
'Most of the day, we frolic in the water, or dance about on the grass. Sometimes, we work our magic, to protect the trees. Occasionally, we flee from the satyrs, who keep loitering about, eager little beasties that they are. But mostly we just frolic.'
'Flee? Why, satyrs must be horrid, if they make you flee!' Wesley exclaims.
'There's no why about it. They're fairly horrid, yes, and single-minded. As you may discover, if you see one and pay attention. But they have bewitching guile on their side. They'll make you believe anything. Whatever you do, tell them nothing.'
She smiles at Wesley with her eyes. 'As for us, you can tell us everything.'
Wesley gulps. Anything? His face lights up, as things fall into place in his own mind. 'I will tell everything. I want to become a lumberjack!'
'A woodsman? Like the men across the hills from here?' the nymph echoes, sweetly. Wesley nods, eyes gleaming, his grin never wavering. 'And what, pray tell, do you seek from us?'
'Nothing, milady. Merely passage to the spring, where I will find what I must wear for the foreman and the lumberjacks.'
The nymph's brow clouds over, but only briefly. 'By all means, Wesley. Go.'
'Thank you, fair nymph,' Wesley calls out, wading into the water. 'Thank you for your kindness and beauty and permission and...' He runs out of breath before he runs out of inchoate babbling.
Finding a spring that bubbles like a shower into the lake, he is delighted to discover two more nymphs, lounging about on the rocks. He smiles brightly at them, as he begins his search. Trying not to slip and look clumsy, he searches under rock and behind boulder. But Wesley finds nothing there that might be worn, let alone by a man, and a lumberjack, as he is about to become.
While he searches, he hears the nymphs singing to each other, in words he cannot understand. Over the soothing sound of the spring, it sounds idyllic. He imagines they're singing about him.
The afternoon mellows, but his quest remains elusive. Resting a while, he glances again at the two nymphs, besporting themselves in the rainbows of the spray. He is almost blinded by their beauty. One wears a delicate malachite ring, and both wear pink shell combs in their hair. How beguiling they are! What tales he will tell his mother tonight!
Suddenly it strikes him, like a fist in the pit of his stomach. The foreman wanted him to steal the pink shell combs. Was this his idea of a joke? Why would the lumberjacks welcome him if he wore this? Why would it suit him perfectly? As realization slowly, reluctantly dawns, a deep, dull, numbing resentment roils up inside him, as if he'd had one apple pie too many.
Tears welling in his eyes, he turns to flee. Wading waist-deep, his frog held above his head, he makes it halfway to the bank, before he suddenly slips into an unseen hole under the water. Thrashing about to keep his head above water, he hears tinkling, taunting laughter.
'Why, young Wesley, did you think we would help you become a lumberjack? Did we not say we are the guardians of the trees? Why, Wesley boy, did you think the lumberjacks would make you one of them? Did they not tease you and laugh at you and call you names? Why, Wesley, why? You've asked the question often enough, have you not? Have you found the answer yet?'
Under the burden of his heavy heart, he sinks beneath the water, his tears mingling with the lake. A sharp, stinging ooze envelops him, gnawing at him, biting him, devouring him. He surrenders. He hits the ground... DEAD!
It is said that when the sun is high, and the axes ring out in the pine forest, and the pan pipes play in the wooded glen, Wesley still walks the dusty streets of Harper's Landing, still unseen, still ignored. Some say that nothing has changed.
But his last thought, his death cry, is still preserved in the glass-like body of the crystal ooze. There, when the sun is high, and the pan pipes play, one can see the life and times of Wesley, traced out in small white swirls.
They read: 'Why?'
Results
I received three entries for the storytelling contest. Tales were spun from the point of view of the Oakheart Inn, Tiren's Rock, and Harper's Landing. All of the stories were colorful and creative and well done. In the end, however, there had to be one selected.
The tale that best fit the requirements of the contest was the Tale of Oakheart Inn, written by Cirth.
Congratulations to all the authors. The stories have been posted to the timeline.
- Cordir