Forums » Creative Corner » Read Thread

This seems like such old news now, but I needed a warmup so figured I'd finish it.



A lone man in a travel-worn robe made his way up the corpse-strewn path to the gates of the capital city of Cystia, then onward through the crowded and chaotic streets.

Finally, he paused in the marketplace outside the famed library. “GREETINGS TO ALL!” he boomed in a voice fit to wake the dead. (Not that was exactly an unusual sight around the place.) “CALL ME SAINT. I AM BUT A HUMBLE PILGRIM, ON A QUEST TO MEET THE GODS. BERK THE EVER VILIGANT, WHO READS THE NUMBERS OF OUR SOULS, AND THE NECROMASTER, LORD OF THE DEAD. IN THIS CITY, I HAVE HEARD THEY WALK AMONG YOU.”

“Hi!”

“Hello!”

“Why is he so loud?”

“Clack!” The chorus of polite responses was joined by a little penguin man waddling up to the stranger, doing a happy dance, waving its little flippers in the air and clicking its beak.

Saint tensed. “YOU PIECE OF SHIIIIIIT!” he screamed, kicking the bird clear across the marketplace. “HOW DARE YOU?! RRRAAAARRRGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The onlookers seemed confused about what exactly was happening here, but to be fair, that was more or less their normal state. Nevertheless, a few of them retained enough presence of mind to try and tackle the madman. And by a few I mean, only Mizal, the true hero of this and every story. “GREAT NECROMASTER, BEHOLD HOW I DESTROY THIS FLIGHTLESS AVIAN WRETCH, ALONG WITH HIS TINY UNIFORM AND HAT!”

“Hey, don’t attack our penguin mascot, you cunt!”

“UNHAND ME WENCH! THE PENGUIN SOUGHT TO DISTRACT ME FROM MY HOLY MISSION WITH ITS NONSENSE NOISES AND ALLURING DANCE!”

“Look, I know the custom is to purge all beastfolk, but this penguin was approved by the King years ago, and in fact was just voted--” Mizal paused, and blinked. “Wait, is THAT why you’re mad? Because he did a little dance and--wow, okay. You need to chill the fuck out. I’ll have you know that everyone here LOVES our penguin sentinel and all his nonsense noises, which is why we dress him up in a tiny guardsman uniform and have him watch for guests in the first place.”

“Yeah!”

“What she said!”

“Oh my god is it my turn to hug and cuddle the penguin yet, I love him so much???” came the chorus of replies.

“I..SEE. IT SEEMS I HAVE COMMITTED A GRAVE ERROR,” Saint admitted. After a moment, the penguin waddled back over hugged the side of his boot in a forgiving manner, before being swept away by an adoring crowd of buxom peasant women.

“Great, glad that’s sorted,” muttered Mizal with a slight roll of her eyes, cleaning out her ear and wincing slightly before returning to shopping for 100% authentic, organic noob spleens, or whatever she’d been doing before. Cat spleens, once such a common and cheap alternative, were becoming distressingly rare.

However, none in the city were able to just ignore the stranger as they wished, least of all the gods.

“NECROMASTER! NECROMASTER! BEHOLD I DO PENANCE FOR MY CUNTERY!” the pilgrim cried, having set up a booth in the marketplace where he savagely whipped himself for days afterwards, interspersed with telling sad stories about his sick mother while passing villagers patted him awkwardly on the shoulders, unsure of how else to respond.

Even when he tried to fit in, he struggled. He handed out bizarre religious pamphlets that described how a wooden condom horse became the sea. He summoned everyone to the square so he could read letters he’d written to them out loud. He chiseled over the top, clearly ridiculous stories of outlaws on murder sprees into the walls of the library, with nothing but a little mallet and a lot of edge. All made for an eccentric but otherwise acceptable new resident...if only he had not been so determined to attract the attention of the gods.

“OH GREAT NECROMASTER. LORD OF DEATH! I FOUND LINT IN MY BELLYBUTTON!”

“NECROMASTER! HI, HOW ARE YOU THIS MORNING? I AM DOING FINE.”

“NECROMASTER, MY LUNCH IS A BIT COLD. ALTHOUGH IT’S A SANDWICH, SO I GUESS THAT’S OKAY?”

Finally, the master of the dead could take no more. The sky darkened. The wind began to howl, a mournful wail carrying all the regrets of the souls of the slain. An ear-splitting thundercrack presaged, not a storm, but the sudden arrival of a towering figure wielding a scythe carved of bone. Draped in an inky black robe and hood, nothing visible within but further darkness; a blackness that couldn’t be found even in the gaps between the stars. No, this level of blackness could hardly be found even in the despair-filled plane of Hell that had spawned him, known in the common tongue only as ‘Detroit’.

“Will you knock it OFF?” the Death God asked, exasperated. “Why are you calling me all the time?”

“NO REASON. I JUST WANTED TO SEE IF YOU’D ANSWER,” Saint bellowed in a deadpan manner. (Which is quite the feat once you think of it.)

“Seriously? Okay look you asshole, I’m destroying all these weird, pointless little monuments you’ve been making, and I don’t want to hear any more summons from you, okay? Half this kingdom has important things I need to do. And by important things I mean hot moms. So don’t fucking bother me again, okay?”

His worshiper scowled. “WOW. RUDE! I DON’T GET IT, AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPORTIVE? YOU’RE ACTING LIKE A JERK.”

“You know, you’re lucky I don’t do worse. I was just talking to Lord Berk, and he--”

“OOOH, I’M SO SCARED!” Saint sneered, face twisting into a smug, punchable expression. “WHATCHA GONNA DO? SMITE ME? TAKE MY SOUL, I DON’T CARE! YEAH, GO AHEAD AND THREATEN ME WITH YOUR HIGHER POWER, YOU JERK.”

“Okay.” The Necromaster shrugged, and barbed lances of living shadow shot out from the surrounding darkness, impaling the loud-mouthed moron and tearing out his life force.

A thin shriek of pure hate was heard, and the tattered remnants of the pilgrim’s soul struggled to take on a kind of misty form, a ragged silhouette of what he’d once been. It screeched and gibbered a bit, then finally formed hissing, hate-filled words. “You...you know...I can have this whole...kingdom...destroyed. By...the power of the great...god...TOS! You lack...Professional Conduct...Integrity and Objectivity...Due professional care.. And...I have uh, been..discriminated against on...the basis of...age, race, gender, sexual orientation! GIVE ME MY SOUL BACK, YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO TAKE IIIIiiiitttt....”

The Necromaster waved a hand dismissively and the shriek faded into the infinite distance. He then neatly folded the now inert remains of Saint’s soul and tucked it in his pocket.

No one really knew what became of the souls. Some say they were locked away in a vault, some say cooked down in a vat until nothing remained but the pure, elemental idiocy used to power the city. Some theorized they were all trapped together eternally in a single thread from the owl-themed tapestry in the death god’s lounge. Some of the souls were possibly sold to pharmaceutical companies for use as an active ingredient in horse suppositories.

But one thing was clear. “Hah! We definitely probably maybe won’t ever have any trouble from THAT guy again!”

Okay, so Sentinel is tired of being 'just the shittiest thing' in all my Cystia stories, and this is a fair complaint because his character has been the most random and inconsistent in all of them. I actually knew very little about him when we originally started posting these except that he liked to make long complicated posts and was a furry, and that didn't immediately fit the usual generic medieval fantasy archetypes.

So I am now asking for forum input on what to make Sentinel. My first thought was maybe a diplomat or librarian or something. Someone who is fond of words. But if wants to make a case for something else, go right ahead.

Sentinel himself naturally gets no input, as he is an adorable dancing penguin thing that should not be concerned with such matters.

Amusingly I was going to make a forum story with you as the protagonist and Sentinel was going to be your first party member. (After some arguing between you two of course)

Originally I was going to make Crescent your little sidekick, but I didn't think that would work as well seeing as her being an ex-warrior cat/fox girl would be too unbelievable for you to accept. Then I considered Mayana, but given that she's a medusa it might have made the party a little overpowered in the beginning even if she was a blind one. (she might have joined later though).

So I was going to settle on the warrior penguinite Sentinel joining up with you just outside "Furtown" which he warns you about since you were going in the wrong direction.

I love this but I don't love that you're saying you 'were' going to write it. You can't just tease us with this and not make it happen.

I will also accept a new installment of ANGZT.

I wasn't tired of it, I just wanted to know why. Like, why did Endmaster creepily realize how I'd act once I banded up with you guys all the time?

It's because penguins are inherently funny and also I don't put a lot of effort into these.

I actually really enjoy reading these kinds of stories, so you (and I suppose anyone with good enough writing to pull it off) should continue doing stuff like this.

I'm sure something can be done with the whole Battlemage thing. If nothing else the name means there'll be no reaching for an appropriate medieval fantasy profession. But I'd have to figure out how to turn some bizarre off topic blow up over a 4 month old thread and random Nazi accusations into physical actions in a fantasy kingdom and eh, I have real stories to work on this weekend.

Well, I mean, Sauron or Vecna or whatever equivalents would probably be pretty close to Fantasy Hitler. If nothing else you could always have people accusing each other of being Black Knight or Dark Elf sympathizers or whatever.

With all our admins being the setting's resident godwizards, Bad Mod Kiel is the closest thing we have to a Sauron, and he is just not very intimidating.

Also, what if the WC kids were our Jews. Think about it.

The WC kids were clearly the Celts. Jealous, invading barbarians standing in the way of high culture and progress, who were subsequently decimated and only allowed to stick around if they became reformed citizens.

Ahahahaha, it was kain again.

As usual it's actually kind of a relief and restores faith in humanity to know we're just getting pestered by a few people with mental illness rather than having brand new idiots popping up all the time.