TC . Fiction Contest - Rules, Discussion and Entry Pooling

[Thantos]

Entry I:

ASTRID AND MORHAL IN THE ZEALOT DEN

The smell of fresh paint lingered in the air as Asterid checked 'the traps for doors', today had been a particularly gruelling quest deep in to the Zealot's Den, her companions needed a good rest and a chance to relearn spells.

Morhal, usually the first to enter any room containing either monsters or treasure, was lingering at the back checking his numerous back packs for healing potions for the third time.

Asterid wondered how Morhal managed to carry the contents of so many treasure chests about his person, somewhere, somehow, Morhal always managed to conceal it all and appear just as he ever did. Standing proud with his sword raised and his shield slightly too far forward and likely to cause him a chin injury should it be struck. Oddly he also managed to spring about the place like a leaf in a hurricane*1. One moment he's “always” at the front, the next he's “always” at the back, and whenever there is a treasure chest of course he is “always” first to it even if he's still removing his sword from the neck of an Orc in the room next door. 'The Gods must favour Morhal...', thought Asterid.

But right now Morhal was recovering from a spear trap which he had sprung when the prospect of magic items ahead made him question the merit of waiting for Astrid to check for traps, a rolling boulder trap which was set off when Morhal failed to solve a portcullis lever puzzle, and a pit trap he fell in to when he ran toward a treasure chest. '...Despite him being an ass', she concluded.

Right now however, Morhal was hiding behind the Druid and trying not to get hurt until the party had recovered: “Why is it taking so long to find any traps, Astrid” he asked.

“Such things are beyond our grasp, Morhal, we must wait for the Gods to decide what happens.”.

Asterid did not find any traps. This unsettled her because the Zealots had been rather liberal with them in the dungeon so far*2 .

“The Gods are distrustful of my skill” she said, “you should all take cover at a safe distance*3. I will open the door and make sure it does not explode in our faces”.

The party retreated back around the corner of the corridor behind them and then Astrid opened the door. “Goblins” she cried back to the party, “and a glowing axe stuck into a rock”, as Morhal burst past her and into the fray.

The “God Master is challenging our very lives today” she yelped, as she plunged her short sword in to the first Greenskin she could find that Morhal had not already slain in an opening salvo of attacks that seemed impossibly fast.

As she swung her blade toward the next Goblin the whole scene played back in her mind, she looked in to the Goblins eyes as it stared back at her, terrified of whatever afterlife awaited it. The moment seemed to last forever, she glanced up to the Gods – they seemed agitated with each other.

Then suddenly Morhal sweeped in like a Gazelle on Haste and smite the Goblin so hard its limp body hit the back wall and slid slowly to the floor. Astrid lowered her sword with a grunt. Despite Morhal successfully vanquishing the Goblins before they even managed to make a single attack against the party, she was somewhat annoyed that she had not taken much of the blood herself.

“I'll check this glowing Axe for traps” Asterid said to no avail as Morhal pulled the axe from it's resting stone before she had had a chance to look over it. “Sweet, Vorpal” he said*4.

“That does it.” she said angrily, “I'm sick of this! Not you Morhal. I am talking for the first time to your God. He has offended me with every turn!”.

The whole party was stunned, even the Druid who never says anything*5.

Astrid turned her face up toward the Gods, “Hey you!” she screamed, “Yeah, you with the trenchcoat, goatie beard and trilby hat*6”.

The Gods all stared back at her in stunned silence, “You are the worst God I've ever had the misfortune to adventure with. And in case you hadn't noticed, in the last room I looted a Wand of Shrinking. Well, I am prepared to meet my painter!”.

Astrid cast her wand at the God and shrunk him to her size.

The God panicked, “But, you're just a miniature!”.

The End

*1 The Rule of Encumbrance: The amount of loot a character can carry is directly proportional to their players skill at maths, an easily available list of item weights, and the players interest in statistics. The Rule of Encumbrance dictates that should any of these things be absent then any hero, no matter how week, can carry any amount of items with the express exemption of gold coins. The limits for which are widely documented.

*2 Dungeons Have Traps: This is an immutable law of physics. It does not matter if the dungeon is occupied by drunk Orcs staggering most of the time, traps exist and will be in their ready to detonate state, puzzles will be unsolved, and all doors are shut despite the wandering monsters.

*3 Safe Distance: Being veteran adventurers even on their first quest all heroes happen to be at the exact distance required to be outside of any blast radius' and yet close enough to act in the case of an emergency.

*4 Items Identify Themselves in Quantities: When loot is plentiful it is easier to let players identify items even without the means to do so.

*5 The Disinterested Player: No matter how well you include everyone there is always 1 player who actually wanted to play a different game.

*6 Trenchcoat, Goatie & Trilby Health Check: When attending any conference you score one point for the first of each of these that you see between the train station/car park and entering the convention hall, and a bonus point for all 3 at once. If at any convention you score less than 3 then the hobby is dying.

Entry J:

'In here's where I found it,' the man said. His name was Almor, and they'd been told he knew of a strange cavern deep in these woods. It'd taken them all day to get there. Rishka's matchet was blunted from cutting through the undergrowth, and Sunsmoke had her robe and veil tied down to save them from the thorns.

They lit their torches and filed into the cave. Mostly they stooped and sometimes they crawled, until they came upon an arch of masonry, partly obscured by flowstone. Beyond lay an impenetrable blackness. Almor made to enter, but Rishka halted him. She took his torch and threw it in ahead of them. It skid across a paved floor, sputtered for a moment and then flared back to life. With it the entire room burst into a golden glow.

Satisfied there was no immediate danger, Rishka led the way, though she still drew her sword. The room was lined with tapestries woven from gold and silver thread, lustrous and unblemished by dust. In the centre stood a great sarcophagus, carved from some foreign, black stone. It bore a life-sized effigy of a crowned man in full armour.

'The style is clearly late Marasene,' Sunsmoke said, recognising the distinctive gaunt face and the thorn-like filigree on the armour, 'but I can't identify his regalia. A forgotten lender-prince, perhaps?'

Rishka shrugged and handed Almor an iron crow. Together they set to work lifting the lid, while Sunsmoke made a circuit of the room to inspect the tapestries. They showed palaces and seated kings and great battles, but the details were often grotesque and morbid. She was reminded of the evils they had recently encountered on their quests.

At last the sarcophagus' lid toppled and smashed into the floor, where it cracked the tiles. Rishka held her torch over the opening, revealing a coffin lined with carvings and holding an immaculate skeleton.
'Marasene, you said. Isn't that over a thousand years ago?'
'The bones are remarkably well preserved,' Sunsmoke agreed.
'Poor substitute for grave goods, however.'

Almor took Rishka to the back of the tomb to inspect the alcoves hidden behind the tapestries there. Sunsmoke leaned in closer to inspect the letters carved into the stone. There was a distinctive aura of magic in the coffin, a soundless whispering in the back of her mind. Though the text spoke of riches and wisdom, her thoughts filled with visions of bloodshed and hatred. A chill crept into her fingers and she pulled back from the stone, but the cold spread quickly through her body.

Inside the skeletal ribcage Sunsmoke saw a ghostly heart take form, growing a deeper red with each beat. She tried to call out to Rishka, but her breath was drawn from her into the coffin, where lungs formed around the heart. She pounded her foot on the floor, making only muffled sounds with her soft boots. Her limbs stiffened as she reached for her knife, wanting to drop it. As she sank to her knees the bones joined together and rose from their grave as a whole. Sunsmoke saw glowing eyes emerge into their sockets even as her own vision darkened.

Then she was brusquely pulled by her robe and thrown onto the smooth stone floor. Life came back to her, in pain and confusion. Her chest burned, her vision swam, but as she lay gasping she could make out Rishka lunging at the apparition. Her blade bit into the bone but did not shatter it, and a skeletal hand struck out and grasped her throat.
'Sunsmoke!' Rishka said, choking, 'How do I kill...' Her words turned to gibberish.
Then another voice spoke. It seemed to address them with questions, but Sunsmoke didn't recognise the language. Mentally she scrambled for a spell that could harm the fiend.
Rishka managed to pull free her sword for another swing, but her struggles grew feebler by the moment, and her body seemed to shrink into her clothes, while flesh began to form around the skeleton holding her.

A thought occurred to Sunsmoke. She got to her feet and pulled her dagger. 'Rishka, you'll have to forgive me for this.'
Sunsmoke plunged the steel into Rishka's arm. She made no sound, but the apparition screeched and let her go as it fell back. Sunsmoke extended her arm and gave a push with her mind. Their foe had taken on enough solid form to be affected by the spell and was knocked backwards into the far wall.

Sunsmoke pulled Rishka's good arm over her shoulders, finding her disconcertingly lighter than usual. Rishka mumbled something unintelligible and barely held onto her sword as she was dragged from the tomb.

There was a sudden scream of terror behind them and they remembered their hapless guide. In the torchlight she saw two shadows behind the sarcophagus, and the one consumed the other.

'He took his chances,' Sunsmoke told herself, 'there's nothing we can do now.'
She pulled her friend through the doorway. Rishka supported herself against the arch for a moment and drew breath. 'But we'll see you again!'
Echoing laughter followed them as they stumbled out of the cave into the light of a pale moon.

[Gold Bearer]

Someone mentioned a word limit in the other thread but I couldn't find where it's mentioned. I'm hoping it's 1500 but I'm guessing by the others it's probably 1000. I'm not going to try trimming it down more because I'm probably too late to enter anyway, I only found this contest a few hours ago. I really had to cut this down from the version in my head and just use the start of the story. I tried to keep the word count as low as possible. I've had these characters and this story (and others) in my head for years.

---

As the trees began to thin out and all traces of anything remotely resembling a path had vanished Rain turned on his horse to face Eli, one of his fellow Elven. "We're lost aren't we?" Rain and Eli were from the same city, as were the other six members of the party, and were the same race but that came from very different backgrounds. Rain was as noble as it gets, trained from birth in martial ancient martial disciplines from Elven elder masters, human combat experts, family training traditions, and numerous other sources. Unusually for an Elf he had never taken to the bow, or any other ranged weapons. He was however a truly gifted swordsman. Eli on the other hand was a member of the Elven guard, an elite force of soldiers made up from the best fighters of the standard militia. Eli wasn't the swordsman that Rain was but he was still the one of the best in the Guard and he was also an excellent shot with a bow. Eli had been surprised to find himself slotting into the unofficial role of second in command. Rain on the other hand who was used to ruling over the masses tended to leave any decision making to others. Eli, like the others was very surprised to find out that the emperor was one of the chosen eight destined for this ongoing quest. He had remarked at the time that "What are the chances of the emperor being one of the chosen?" "Exactly the same odds as any of you being chosen" Rain had answered.

"I have an excellent sense of direction!" answered Eli. "You said that last time we got lost." came a voice from behind them, from Trish (short for Tarissa), a battle shaman and another of the group's five Elven. Eli smiled at her as he responded "Yes, but who was the first one to realise that we were lost?" "Shouldn't it be getting dark by now!" exclaimed Alexandria, a human Valkyrie that also tended to have a strong influence on the decisions of the group. Sara said with a puzzled look "that's exactly what I was just thinking". Sara was a wood elf from the large forests of the huge city and had found herself regarded by the others as group's leader. She was passionate but always level headed, nothing phased her. She was also a low level magician as well as being skilled in combat, with a bow and in close quarters. After about twenty minutes the trees has thinned to nothing and the group found themselves staring over a huge, flat plane. In the distance they could see a castle, surrounded by nothing at all, just there all on its own in the middle of a wide open space. "That's weird" said L'Sandra, a noble Elven knight who knew Rain personally in the only pre-existing relationship of the party before this had all began. As the drew closer they could see that it was in ruins, although parts of it were still completely in tact.

They entered through a gap where a wall once stood and found themselves in a huge space with a spiral stair case that had collapsed from about forty feet upwards. The castle had a beautiful orange hew, that a glow that was coming from all directions at once. "It didn't look this big from the outside" Drax remarked as he stared up at the distant ceiling. Drax, a human warrior, was the most direct of the group, both in attitude and in fighting style. He was physically the largest of the group and used his size to his advantage, using brute force combined with his high technical skill. All of their gazes suddenly snapped back to their own level when a strange sound that could best be described as the sound of a loud exhale reached them from the ajoining room. The sound of some of them drawing their weapons drawing accompanied the hurried footsteps as they made their way over to a smaller, empty room aside from a bare desk that was up against the wall to the right and a scroll on the floor in front of them under a widow shaped opening. As Eli bent down to pick it up Sareena, a human paladin and healer of group, saw a figure on the other side of the opening moving slowly and smoothly from right to left as if it was floating rather than walking. About half way across it turned its head to look directly at her without slowing or showing any kind of expression on its face.

As Eli stood back up straight and turned to her they both saw startled expressions on the face of the other. Sareena's was one of fear, something Eli had never seen from her before. His own expression was not just at the sight of her but at the even more disconcerting sight behind her. "What is it?" he asked her. "We need to leave, now" she said softly but firmly. "Look behind you" Eli said. She thought she was about to see something similar to what see had just witnessed but instead what she saw was far more terrifying. There was nobody standing behind her. "Where the hell did they go?" They both quickly walked back into the huge room they had entered from. In a corner several tens of metres in from of them stood the rest of the group facing each other in a circle. As they began to make their way over to them they all turned in unison to face the two of them with the exact same expressionless faces that Sareena had seen just a moment ago. Sareena grabbed Eli's arm and after around twenty seconds or so of silence they slowly made their way backwards, back into the smaller room without turning away from six blank gazes staring back at them. As they reached about six feet into the room they stopped. None of the six of them had moved an inch but they were no further away, in fact they were much closer. Instead of being in corner of the huge room any more, they were about halfway towards the entrance to this room. Sareena felt a hand pulling on her shoulder and found herself facing the opposite direction.

Alexandria was standing in front of her with her hand on her shoulder and the other five standing behind her looking very concerned as she asked Sareena "You back with us?" "What?" "You two zoned out for a few seconds, you with us too Eli?" He slowly nodded. Sareena turned to Eli, "A few seconds? It might be that scroll, we shouldn't go near it again." "You mean this scroll?" Eli had it in his hand, she had been was looking at a figure floating staring back at her as is past the window and hadn't noticed that he'd picked it up. Her turned to see into the large room and then looking at Sareena with a smile shook his head to let her know whatever they were, they weren't there any more. "Look at this." Rain had made his way over to the opening in the wall. Trish was the closest and the first to reach the window, she gasped, "It's beautiful!". Where there should have been nothing but an open plane was a garden behind which stood more of the now very large citadel. It wasn't decayed at all and the garden looked very well taken care of. The others just stood looking silently as they each in turn saw the puzzling scene on the other side of the opening, the opening that now looked much neater than it had before with perfect straight lines and right angles at each corner. Eli began to read from the scroll. "I'm sorry my love. I know there's little chance that you'll ever read this. I didn't know. It won't be long now. If you ever do read this just know that I'm sorry and that I love you more than anything. It's here." "We're leaving." said Sara.

As they made their way back into huge room where they had entered the building Sareena and Eli both glanced over to the corner as they entered, the same corner that they thought they had seen the others staring blankly back at them, it was empty. As they looked towards the rest of the room they saw that in was also no longer in ruins. The spiral stair case was complete and the ceiling was now a much lower ceiling and the floor of the level above them. The opening in the wall where the had entered was now just a wall...