Everything was cast in the warm hues of yellow common to buttercups and sunsets.
Well that's not quite right, thought Jordan, it's about 30 times that strong.
It had been getting steadily more and more yellow since last Friday when everyone, even the vehement naysayers, had to finally admit the scientists were right. That was the first day the comet appeared in the sky beside the sun.
Nearly a week later and what had started as a large day-star was now Sol's little brother, trotting along at a leisurely pace across the sky.
Really you'd expect more to have changed in a week than just the peculiar colouring, Jordan mused to himself. I mean sure the U.N. had scrambled to assemble a battery of scientists, and most recently nukes, just in case, but people were still heading to work and banks were still foreclosing properties and those poor African tribes were still being forced into squalor by their own leaders. But hey, at least they probably didn't know or care that the world would likely end within the month...
Monday, November 9, 2009
Last weekend was "sick"!
Many words weasel themselves out of straightforward meanings via the appropriation of newly minted memes and social contexts and idioms. That is not how I meant the usage of sick in the title, in this case it is a poor pun of sorts.
Man, when did I start sounding like a complete geek when writing?? Well because I was down with a cold all weekend and the better part of today, I am going to put up some short story 'beginnings' from my Thursday writing class. Keep in mind these are all written in one go and not edited or filtered as I went and started on a dime, so to speak.
Each will have it's own post and title, comments are appreciated and vote for one if you want me to try to finish it!
Man, when did I start sounding like a complete geek when writing?? Well because I was down with a cold all weekend and the better part of today, I am going to put up some short story 'beginnings' from my Thursday writing class. Keep in mind these are all written in one go and not edited or filtered as I went and started on a dime, so to speak.
Each will have it's own post and title, comments are appreciated and vote for one if you want me to try to finish it!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Time-slice Paradox
One thing that I do not excel at is so-called Time Management. The bare truth of the matter is that I simply don't "get it". Perhaps it is a function of my preternatural obsession with the literal defintion of the namesake I carry (Shirk), or merely a learned behaviour unwittingly harvested from a bout of debilitating depression as a teenager.
Often lauded as key in Time Managment is Multitasking. This is a term often thrown at me in the context of what I do poorly, as if an evolved human adult should inherently be able to do it well. The term itself comes into the popular lexicon through computing and the famously multitasking processors in our home computers. It is implied through it's popular use, and idiomatic use in self-management circles, to mean the ability to and act of performing more than one task at a time. This is utter nonsense.
In computing, with the exception of multi-core processors, multitasking never entails two processes having control of the main processor core at one moment, but rather it is the ability and act of priority switching between them. Even in multi-core processors the trick is that there is more than one processor core available! If you equate a cpu core to the human brain - which I might point out we have only one of - it is clear Multitasking really means, the ability to juggle multiple tasks based on priority, focusing on only one at a time.
Given this better definition of Multitasking I contend I am actually pretty decent at it. Where I fail is in judgements involving relative priority and efficient use of focus length. In the first case, priority is highly relative and subjective. Nine out of ten times my problem is in not using another persons relative priority matrix but instead using my own. Since I am a selfish, egoistic being, this is fraught with hazards. So fair enough, I'm basically a newb at applying an understanding of what other people find important. Luckily I am lately able to get pretty close as I build a secondary internal matrix of 'common priorites' such as timeliness of arrival (people hate it when you are late or make them so), fullfillment of promises (if you say it, do it, and not late, see #1), observance of details (do everything you said you would neglecting nary a detail), and added value (only if you've done the other three).
My main challenge is in efficiently determining how long to focus on any one task. My nature is one of the artisan, focusing intently on one work of art until it is completed then moving to the next. I am not a slave to this nature and do juggle mutiple tasks at once but I'm all to often stuck focus-firing one item down until I've long past the time where my priority matrix should dictate I switch targets. This is where I encounter the Time-slice Paradox.
In my personal life I have many, many pulls on my time, such as, cleaning, laundry, organizing, planning, preparing, gaming (oh so many games), reading, writing, exercising, cat time, sleep time, friends time, travel time, etc. Any number of these things feeds into two factors in regards to my feelings towards a given day, 1) my sense of personal effectiveness and 2) my sense of accomplishment. The Time-slice Paradox is essentially the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle of life management. The more clear I am about 1) the less sure I am about 2) and the reverse.
On a day where I return from work and perform 1 hour of each cleaning, reading, writing, eating, XBOX and PC I will feel a very high sense of personal effectiveness but will feel like I accomplished very little in any of them. On a day where I come home and spend no more than an hour on cleaning/eating and spend 5 hours playing a game on XBOX, I will feel I have accomplished a great deal on that game, but been fairly ineffective overall, wasting most of my time on one thing.
Perhaps this is only something that effects me, a result maybe of my own skewed sense of accomplishment, but it no doubt plays into all my Time Management woes, confusing my ability to rationalize the proper size of time-slices to use in my multitasking. Considering I am lagging on writing assignments, slacking on blog posts, slumming in a chaotic apartment, starting to watch 2 new TV series, and sitting on 4 or 5 new games... this is going to be one heck of a paradoxical month.
Often lauded as key in Time Managment is Multitasking. This is a term often thrown at me in the context of what I do poorly, as if an evolved human adult should inherently be able to do it well. The term itself comes into the popular lexicon through computing and the famously multitasking processors in our home computers. It is implied through it's popular use, and idiomatic use in self-management circles, to mean the ability to and act of performing more than one task at a time. This is utter nonsense.
In computing, with the exception of multi-core processors, multitasking never entails two processes having control of the main processor core at one moment, but rather it is the ability and act of priority switching between them. Even in multi-core processors the trick is that there is more than one processor core available! If you equate a cpu core to the human brain - which I might point out we have only one of - it is clear Multitasking really means, the ability to juggle multiple tasks based on priority, focusing on only one at a time.
Given this better definition of Multitasking I contend I am actually pretty decent at it. Where I fail is in judgements involving relative priority and efficient use of focus length. In the first case, priority is highly relative and subjective. Nine out of ten times my problem is in not using another persons relative priority matrix but instead using my own. Since I am a selfish, egoistic being, this is fraught with hazards. So fair enough, I'm basically a newb at applying an understanding of what other people find important. Luckily I am lately able to get pretty close as I build a secondary internal matrix of 'common priorites' such as timeliness of arrival (people hate it when you are late or make them so), fullfillment of promises (if you say it, do it, and not late, see #1), observance of details (do everything you said you would neglecting nary a detail), and added value (only if you've done the other three).
My main challenge is in efficiently determining how long to focus on any one task. My nature is one of the artisan, focusing intently on one work of art until it is completed then moving to the next. I am not a slave to this nature and do juggle mutiple tasks at once but I'm all to often stuck focus-firing one item down until I've long past the time where my priority matrix should dictate I switch targets. This is where I encounter the Time-slice Paradox.
In my personal life I have many, many pulls on my time, such as, cleaning, laundry, organizing, planning, preparing, gaming (oh so many games), reading, writing, exercising, cat time, sleep time, friends time, travel time, etc. Any number of these things feeds into two factors in regards to my feelings towards a given day, 1) my sense of personal effectiveness and 2) my sense of accomplishment. The Time-slice Paradox is essentially the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle of life management. The more clear I am about 1) the less sure I am about 2) and the reverse.
On a day where I return from work and perform 1 hour of each cleaning, reading, writing, eating, XBOX and PC I will feel a very high sense of personal effectiveness but will feel like I accomplished very little in any of them. On a day where I come home and spend no more than an hour on cleaning/eating and spend 5 hours playing a game on XBOX, I will feel I have accomplished a great deal on that game, but been fairly ineffective overall, wasting most of my time on one thing.
Perhaps this is only something that effects me, a result maybe of my own skewed sense of accomplishment, but it no doubt plays into all my Time Management woes, confusing my ability to rationalize the proper size of time-slices to use in my multitasking. Considering I am lagging on writing assignments, slacking on blog posts, slumming in a chaotic apartment, starting to watch 2 new TV series, and sitting on 4 or 5 new games... this is going to be one heck of a paradoxical month.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Body Worlds is the Science of Cadavers
Halloween weekend, what better time to go see preserved corpses on display with their internal organs on the wrong side of their skin?
My ex-girlfriend, and still good friend, Amanda and I took a jaunt up to Orillia this last weekend with the idea to treat her friend's family to a trip to the touring Body Worlds display at the Ontario Science Centre. In all fairness this was Amanda's idea, I personally had the idea to sleep in and eat candy. Her idea was a sound one, however, and I was interested in checking out the exhibit and the rest of the Centre. Then I found out these were real people's bodies entombed in plastic polymer and got grossed out.
Let me tell you, in person, it is still a bit unsettling. Perhaps most unsettling is how blasé you become in regards to a human body sans connective tissue doing an inverted bicycle spin while split into 3 parts vertically by the end of the long-ish exhibit. At first, the various bodies and organs are fascinating, with lots of little cards laden with interesting facts. Sure I knew a lot of it from textbook Biology in high school but there is something so much more real about, well, reality. While certainly instructive I had to wonder at the bizarre inventiveness of the the exhibit designers and whether the poses were a way to sensationalize a rather simple discovery.
The discovery I mention is the science/art/patented process of Plastination. This is a very marketable name for the act of submerging a previously living organism in an acetone bath and then a liquid polymer bath and applying a vacuum at each step, thus forcing the polymer into the tissues of the subject and preserving them. Okay, I'll admit it was a very good idea and has allowed a versatile and stable form of anatomy preservation and makes a fine teaching aid. I don't know how well it fits as a travelling exhibit, at least in it's current form. I'd say you could cut it down by a third in size and one may experience a little less cadaver overload.
The rest of the science centre was very interesting with a lot of fun hands on activities to entertain and inform. If you have kids with you, and intend on seeing the Body Worlds exhibit, the ones that were with us (of whom several were younger) seemed to find it interesting but doing that exhibit first is a wise move. I can't imagine them finding the bodies interesting for long enough to see the whole thing if they knew there was lots of fun buttons to push and wheels to turn just down the hall. Also be forewarned the Planetarium has limited scheduled shows and you'll want to check on the times so you don't miss it - we did.
The rest of the trip involved a pleasant stop over at my Dad's up in Orillia where I checked out his new laptop and regaled him with my interminable opinions and vehemencies. That night I finished reading Salems Lot after mon pere turned in, the Dark Tower grows in stature with each Stephen King read I complete. I also managed a visit with my good friend Jim down in Barrie where we played some video games and watched a movie of sufficiently creepy nature. The movie in question is well worth it if you like being scared of things that go BUMP in the night.
To all that I visited and to Amanda for sponsoring the journey, my thanks for a fun and memorable Halloween '09.
My ex-girlfriend, and still good friend, Amanda and I took a jaunt up to Orillia this last weekend with the idea to treat her friend's family to a trip to the touring Body Worlds display at the Ontario Science Centre. In all fairness this was Amanda's idea, I personally had the idea to sleep in and eat candy. Her idea was a sound one, however, and I was interested in checking out the exhibit and the rest of the Centre. Then I found out these were real people's bodies entombed in plastic polymer and got grossed out.Let me tell you, in person, it is still a bit unsettling. Perhaps most unsettling is how blasé you become in regards to a human body sans connective tissue doing an inverted bicycle spin while split into 3 parts vertically by the end of the long-ish exhibit. At first, the various bodies and organs are fascinating, with lots of little cards laden with interesting facts. Sure I knew a lot of it from textbook Biology in high school but there is something so much more real about, well, reality. While certainly instructive I had to wonder at the bizarre inventiveness of the the exhibit designers and whether the poses were a way to sensationalize a rather simple discovery.
The discovery I mention is the science/art/patented process of Plastination. This is a very marketable name for the act of submerging a previously living organism in an acetone bath and then a liquid polymer bath and applying a vacuum at each step, thus forcing the polymer into the tissues of the subject and preserving them. Okay, I'll admit it was a very good idea and has allowed a versatile and stable form of anatomy preservation and makes a fine teaching aid. I don't know how well it fits as a travelling exhibit, at least in it's current form. I'd say you could cut it down by a third in size and one may experience a little less cadaver overload.
The rest of the science centre was very interesting with a lot of fun hands on activities to entertain and inform. If you have kids with you, and intend on seeing the Body Worlds exhibit, the ones that were with us (of whom several were younger) seemed to find it interesting but doing that exhibit first is a wise move. I can't imagine them finding the bodies interesting for long enough to see the whole thing if they knew there was lots of fun buttons to push and wheels to turn just down the hall. Also be forewarned the Planetarium has limited scheduled shows and you'll want to check on the times so you don't miss it - we did.
The rest of the trip involved a pleasant stop over at my Dad's up in Orillia where I checked out his new laptop and regaled him with my interminable opinions and vehemencies. That night I finished reading Salems Lot after mon pere turned in, the Dark Tower grows in stature with each Stephen King read I complete. I also managed a visit with my good friend Jim down in Barrie where we played some video games and watched a movie of sufficiently creepy nature. The movie in question is well worth it if you like being scared of things that go BUMP in the night.
To all that I visited and to Amanda for sponsoring the journey, my thanks for a fun and memorable Halloween '09.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Offence is in the Eye of the Beholder
Modern Warfare 2 is probably going to be in the news this week over a leaked scene from the upcoming Infinity Ward game's opening act that involves some things that may offend some viewers. First off I don't want to spoil the game, for that you can read this article and watch the video and I've got to give credit to @rockbandaide for the link. Let's just say it is not any different from the violence already present in games, but who you are playing and who you are performing the violence on is the drama.
And there it is, the key to the whole puzzle behind why IW included the scene in the first place, drama. In the comments following that article is a litany of complaints primarily focused on how offensive and morally objectionable it is to play that part of the game and not one of these people realizes what they are doing. They are complaining that a wonderfully immersive story has pulled them so morally and totally into a scene as to make them feel actually guilty, bad, and abhorent for being the character they are playing. I fail to see how that is a bad thing, given the role you are playing at the time!
This scenaro is akin to a game about WWII putting you in the shoes of an SS soldier tasked with throwing a swtich at a gas chamber or enforcing order at a concentration camp but in doing so crafting the experience in a way that is horrifying to play. Do you see the power in that story-telling? The complex moral issues that can be addressed in that space? We could deride it for being offensive and horrifying but that's exactly what they are trying to do!
Bioshock received acclaims for many things, one of which was it's moral decision in the gameplay and how it vexxed the average gamer. It made a strong case for the use of interactive fiction as a vehicle to make us experience a disturbing reality, not just watch it on CNN. I agree that implementing these sorts of gameplay elements should be considered carefully and carry proper gravitas, but I'm afraid mainstream media and consumers may not be able to differentiate a successful implementation from the truly offensive implementation.
This latter would be a game where you are applauded and cheered for performing atrocities in cartoon fashion, making it instead a light-hearted romp. Wait, that's called Carmageddon isn't it?
Speaking of which, another deeper layer to this topic can be found by studying the list of banned games on wikipedia. There you will find the reasons in different nations for banning various video games and the reasons are often enlightening. Consider who you are specifically playing as in the MW2 leaked gameplay and assume you are an American consumer watching this sensationalised on FOX NEWS, and then compare it to this paraphrased summary of international censorship.
China
Several banned for "smearing the image of China and the Chinese army", and/or for portraying Tibet, Sinkiang, and Manchuria as independent countries and Taiwan as under Japanese control.
Germany
Multiple banned because of Nazi references
Japan
Banned (until altered) one game for having a weapon with the same title as the atomic bomb used on Japan near the end of WWII.
Mexico
Banned one game for Mexican Rebels being antagonists and stereotyping the city of Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez.
Saudi Arabia
Banned (Pokemon card game) for "promoting Zionism and gambling".
South Korea
Used to ban any game with a fictional North/South Korean war.
United Arab Emirates
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (MW2's precursor) is banned because in some cutscenes the player shoots Islamic soldiers.
Woah wait, what? It turns out the first iteration of this game was banned from a middle eastern country for a reason shockingly close to the one that may incite American media. Okay, I'll give you that there are some key differences beyond the nationality of the victims, but ultimately I contend that the main reason western media may renounce the scene is for the exact same sentiment as all these countries: an offence against a point of national tenderness. For Germany and Japan it was WWII and for America it is 9/11.
I guess what I am driving at here is that Offence is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, but unlike beauty, we don't jump at the chance to experience it. And rightly so, I just hope we don't miss out on the beauty of a rich, mature, interactive experience in the process.
And there it is, the key to the whole puzzle behind why IW included the scene in the first place, drama. In the comments following that article is a litany of complaints primarily focused on how offensive and morally objectionable it is to play that part of the game and not one of these people realizes what they are doing. They are complaining that a wonderfully immersive story has pulled them so morally and totally into a scene as to make them feel actually guilty, bad, and abhorent for being the character they are playing. I fail to see how that is a bad thing, given the role you are playing at the time!
This scenaro is akin to a game about WWII putting you in the shoes of an SS soldier tasked with throwing a swtich at a gas chamber or enforcing order at a concentration camp but in doing so crafting the experience in a way that is horrifying to play. Do you see the power in that story-telling? The complex moral issues that can be addressed in that space? We could deride it for being offensive and horrifying but that's exactly what they are trying to do!
Bioshock received acclaims for many things, one of which was it's moral decision in the gameplay and how it vexxed the average gamer. It made a strong case for the use of interactive fiction as a vehicle to make us experience a disturbing reality, not just watch it on CNN. I agree that implementing these sorts of gameplay elements should be considered carefully and carry proper gravitas, but I'm afraid mainstream media and consumers may not be able to differentiate a successful implementation from the truly offensive implementation.
This latter would be a game where you are applauded and cheered for performing atrocities in cartoon fashion, making it instead a light-hearted romp. Wait, that's called Carmageddon isn't it?
Speaking of which, another deeper layer to this topic can be found by studying the list of banned games on wikipedia. There you will find the reasons in different nations for banning various video games and the reasons are often enlightening. Consider who you are specifically playing as in the MW2 leaked gameplay and assume you are an American consumer watching this sensationalised on FOX NEWS, and then compare it to this paraphrased summary of international censorship.
China
Several banned for "smearing the image of China and the Chinese army", and/or for portraying Tibet, Sinkiang, and Manchuria as independent countries and Taiwan as under Japanese control.
Germany
Multiple banned because of Nazi references
Japan
Banned (until altered) one game for having a weapon with the same title as the atomic bomb used on Japan near the end of WWII.
Mexico
Banned one game for Mexican Rebels being antagonists and stereotyping the city of Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez.
Saudi Arabia
Banned (Pokemon card game) for "promoting Zionism and gambling".
South Korea
Used to ban any game with a fictional North/South Korean war.
United Arab Emirates
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (MW2's precursor) is banned because in some cutscenes the player shoots Islamic soldiers.
Woah wait, what? It turns out the first iteration of this game was banned from a middle eastern country for a reason shockingly close to the one that may incite American media. Okay, I'll give you that there are some key differences beyond the nationality of the victims, but ultimately I contend that the main reason western media may renounce the scene is for the exact same sentiment as all these countries: an offence against a point of national tenderness. For Germany and Japan it was WWII and for America it is 9/11.
I guess what I am driving at here is that Offence is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, but unlike beauty, we don't jump at the chance to experience it. And rightly so, I just hope we don't miss out on the beauty of a rich, mature, interactive experience in the process.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Boy
The beasts attacked in pairs. Shamroth would always remember that. Like wolves they had descended upon the small camp where his family slept and where they now found their final rest. A piercing wail sounded from his left and right in unison and two of the creatures lunged at him from the ring of glinting eyes. His stomach dropped. Hungry paws tore the ground towards him and guttural huffing followed the bobbing eyes over the torn bodies of his family. He felt his young death approach.
His mind screamed, turning on itself and tearing in blind terror at every thought and instinct, looking for salvation.
Two lunging – too many - so big - nowhere to run – surrounded – everyone dead – no use – hide – hide – behind the shield – this shield – it was ...
“Averil, lend me your heart”, he whispered.
Seeming to hear them from outside himself, those words cut through the fear within him like a hot iron, searing away the confusion and doubt and pain, and leaving the burning of a new resolve. His gut leaped back up into a knot and his body surged with expectation as he braced his father's shield in his left hand, and the borrowed short-sword in his right began its arc up from the ground.
“NOOO!”
One beast slammed into his shield obliquely as Shamroth simultaneously lunged into it with all his might, while swinging the sword up and out through the head of the second attacker caught in mid stride.
Twisting his torso around with the motion of the swing he let the shield slide down and followed the sword through into the face of the first beast.
A pair of wails behind him. He pushed the first creature off his sword with his shield arm and spun to meet his new foes.
He would make his father proud, in the service of Averil, that much was decided.
Fours eyes streaked towards him. He dug his heals in and charged, shield first, screaming.
A shuddering double crunch seconds later rocked the shield on his arm as two mid-air bodies rebounded onto the packed earth.
Shamroth slid to a halt and looked over his shield, waiting for the next beast, “Who's next?”
Terrible seconds ticked past, the air thick with throat noises, and then pairs of wails pierced the flickering ring of light from all directions and the circle collapsed inward.
He caught the fastest one in the right side of the head with a wide slice and then swung his shield out like a door to catch the runner up flat in the nose. The short-sword's back-swing caught third place in what must have been it's shoulder and it crumpled to the floor. He dropped his shield back in place in time for it to be slammed into by another snout going for his soft guts. The sound of beasts crazy with hunger and hatred crowded in on his senses.
He spun a half-circle on his shield leg and slashed aside a leaping attacker. A sudden flash of fangs headed for his face and instead caught his improvised shield punch edge-on, redirecting the now wrecked muzzle towards the last recipient of his sword.
He looked up in time to see two massive bodies coming straight at him suddenly swoop out wide and swing back in viciously. A figure-eight slash darted out in front of him, over the shield, and the pair attempting to pincer him from the front skidded to the sides.
Something wet slapped his neck as a massive body slammed into his shoulders, sending him over his knees. He was aware his neck suddenly felt cold and distant as he sprawled forward. He tucked his right shoulder in and tried his best to spring with his left foot as it left the ground.
His right shoulder hit the ground too hard as the large body pushing it back-flipped across the dirt ahead of him. Momentum followed his tuck and he rolled along his shoulders, dirt gritting into his neck and head as it scraped the ground. A burning fire suddenly replaced the cold one as he rolled over awkwardly onto his feet.
At least he knew what happened to his neck now. He had a flash of clear thought as he teetered forward - he was damned if that thing was going to enjoy its snack. Shamroth led his remaining momentum through into a wild lunge with his short-sword, catching the thrashing body in the chest. With a shout he threw his weight and body fully into the lunge and drove the sword up to the hilt into the vaguely dog-like creatures chest, resting against it as it twitched. This one was bigger than the others.
All he could hear was the distant thunder of a coming storm.
How many had there been?
“They attacked in pairs.”, he said, the words stumbling out of his mind and into his hearing. His head was buzzing with pain from somewhere behind his brain.
That was when his eyes fell on the edge of the shadows directly in front of him. A pair of massive yellow-red eyes hung nearly 4 feet in the air as the ground in front of him darkened. It looked like the shadows themselves were growing out to swallow him with those massive eyes showing the way. What he had thought was distant thunder grew with the eyes and the creature let loose an angry wail that pealed out of the shadows and echoed off the hills around them.
This last one was no puppy and it looked like he had just killed its hunting buddy, or worse.
Perhaps worst, Shamroth had no doubt the alpha-beast's wail had awakened the dead. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but for now he was just glad it wasn't these dead. He pushed himself to his feet and stooped down, struggling to remove the short-sword from the neck-biters torso. His bloody fingers slipped off the undersized grip even as the buzzing - that had now moved into his brain - confounded their coordination. Why couldn't he figure this out, why was the sword so slippery?
The creature, now largely visible in the firelight before him, was roughly the size of bears he had seen back home. It wasn't a bear though and it wasn't a dog, but it was dog-like with massive fangs in it's muzzle and eyes that seemed to reflect the fires of the underworlds themselves. Sure, maybe this thing could be a dog if it wasn't for the complete lack of a tail or... skin. It's flesh seemed to boil on it's frame like an orgy of muscle and blood.
The beast tensed as their eyes locked and Shamroth knew he was fucked. That burning in his chest, forgotten but THERE ever since his whispered prayer, suddenly roiled and flared and burst through him, freeing his brain temporarily from that infernal buzzing and filling him with certainty. The beast tore into the earth, springing forward, its jaws opening as a second dead-raising wail rose from its maw, rending the air between them.
With unnatural grace Shamroth stood into a shield-lean, looking straight over it into the beasts meteoric eyes and shouted with a booming authority that sundered the wail in a shock-wave.
“BY AVERIL!”
The shock-wave of the Command cracked outwards and ripped over the edge of his Father's paladin shield, catching the rim alight as it cascaded into a holy runic symbol that emblazoned on the surface then separated away as golden fire. The holy symbol slammed outwards straight into the alpha-beasts jaws. A burst of light lit the hills as the shield slam tore through the beasts frame and then evaporated into the night air, sending a spray of muscle and gore into the camp and campfire.
As the flames sputtered out, Shamroth fell forward to his knees, his Father's shield clattering in front of him.
“Dad”, he said with a strangled breath as he slumped forward onto the shield and slipped into blackness.
The shield glowed softly long into the night, drawing protective runes of sun-dapple onto the boys face, while the dead roamed.
His mind screamed, turning on itself and tearing in blind terror at every thought and instinct, looking for salvation.
Two lunging – too many - so big - nowhere to run – surrounded – everyone dead – no use – hide – hide – behind the shield – this shield – it was ...
“Averil, lend me your heart”, he whispered.
Seeming to hear them from outside himself, those words cut through the fear within him like a hot iron, searing away the confusion and doubt and pain, and leaving the burning of a new resolve. His gut leaped back up into a knot and his body surged with expectation as he braced his father's shield in his left hand, and the borrowed short-sword in his right began its arc up from the ground.
“NOOO!”
One beast slammed into his shield obliquely as Shamroth simultaneously lunged into it with all his might, while swinging the sword up and out through the head of the second attacker caught in mid stride.
Twisting his torso around with the motion of the swing he let the shield slide down and followed the sword through into the face of the first beast.
A pair of wails behind him. He pushed the first creature off his sword with his shield arm and spun to meet his new foes.
He would make his father proud, in the service of Averil, that much was decided.
Fours eyes streaked towards him. He dug his heals in and charged, shield first, screaming.
A shuddering double crunch seconds later rocked the shield on his arm as two mid-air bodies rebounded onto the packed earth.
Shamroth slid to a halt and looked over his shield, waiting for the next beast, “Who's next?”
Terrible seconds ticked past, the air thick with throat noises, and then pairs of wails pierced the flickering ring of light from all directions and the circle collapsed inward.
He caught the fastest one in the right side of the head with a wide slice and then swung his shield out like a door to catch the runner up flat in the nose. The short-sword's back-swing caught third place in what must have been it's shoulder and it crumpled to the floor. He dropped his shield back in place in time for it to be slammed into by another snout going for his soft guts. The sound of beasts crazy with hunger and hatred crowded in on his senses.
He spun a half-circle on his shield leg and slashed aside a leaping attacker. A sudden flash of fangs headed for his face and instead caught his improvised shield punch edge-on, redirecting the now wrecked muzzle towards the last recipient of his sword.
He looked up in time to see two massive bodies coming straight at him suddenly swoop out wide and swing back in viciously. A figure-eight slash darted out in front of him, over the shield, and the pair attempting to pincer him from the front skidded to the sides.
Something wet slapped his neck as a massive body slammed into his shoulders, sending him over his knees. He was aware his neck suddenly felt cold and distant as he sprawled forward. He tucked his right shoulder in and tried his best to spring with his left foot as it left the ground.
His right shoulder hit the ground too hard as the large body pushing it back-flipped across the dirt ahead of him. Momentum followed his tuck and he rolled along his shoulders, dirt gritting into his neck and head as it scraped the ground. A burning fire suddenly replaced the cold one as he rolled over awkwardly onto his feet.
At least he knew what happened to his neck now. He had a flash of clear thought as he teetered forward - he was damned if that thing was going to enjoy its snack. Shamroth led his remaining momentum through into a wild lunge with his short-sword, catching the thrashing body in the chest. With a shout he threw his weight and body fully into the lunge and drove the sword up to the hilt into the vaguely dog-like creatures chest, resting against it as it twitched. This one was bigger than the others.
All he could hear was the distant thunder of a coming storm.
How many had there been?
“They attacked in pairs.”, he said, the words stumbling out of his mind and into his hearing. His head was buzzing with pain from somewhere behind his brain.
That was when his eyes fell on the edge of the shadows directly in front of him. A pair of massive yellow-red eyes hung nearly 4 feet in the air as the ground in front of him darkened. It looked like the shadows themselves were growing out to swallow him with those massive eyes showing the way. What he had thought was distant thunder grew with the eyes and the creature let loose an angry wail that pealed out of the shadows and echoed off the hills around them.
This last one was no puppy and it looked like he had just killed its hunting buddy, or worse.
Perhaps worst, Shamroth had no doubt the alpha-beast's wail had awakened the dead. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but for now he was just glad it wasn't these dead. He pushed himself to his feet and stooped down, struggling to remove the short-sword from the neck-biters torso. His bloody fingers slipped off the undersized grip even as the buzzing - that had now moved into his brain - confounded their coordination. Why couldn't he figure this out, why was the sword so slippery?
The creature, now largely visible in the firelight before him, was roughly the size of bears he had seen back home. It wasn't a bear though and it wasn't a dog, but it was dog-like with massive fangs in it's muzzle and eyes that seemed to reflect the fires of the underworlds themselves. Sure, maybe this thing could be a dog if it wasn't for the complete lack of a tail or... skin. It's flesh seemed to boil on it's frame like an orgy of muscle and blood.
The beast tensed as their eyes locked and Shamroth knew he was fucked. That burning in his chest, forgotten but THERE ever since his whispered prayer, suddenly roiled and flared and burst through him, freeing his brain temporarily from that infernal buzzing and filling him with certainty. The beast tore into the earth, springing forward, its jaws opening as a second dead-raising wail rose from its maw, rending the air between them.
With unnatural grace Shamroth stood into a shield-lean, looking straight over it into the beasts meteoric eyes and shouted with a booming authority that sundered the wail in a shock-wave.
“BY AVERIL!”
The shock-wave of the Command cracked outwards and ripped over the edge of his Father's paladin shield, catching the rim alight as it cascaded into a holy runic symbol that emblazoned on the surface then separated away as golden fire. The holy symbol slammed outwards straight into the alpha-beasts jaws. A burst of light lit the hills as the shield slam tore through the beasts frame and then evaporated into the night air, sending a spray of muscle and gore into the camp and campfire.
As the flames sputtered out, Shamroth fell forward to his knees, his Father's shield clattering in front of him.
“Dad”, he said with a strangled breath as he slumped forward onto the shield and slipped into blackness.
The shield glowed softly long into the night, drawing protective runes of sun-dapple onto the boys face, while the dead roamed.
The Ice Cream Assassin
I'm rather fond of most of the names I come up with for characters in RPG's and online personas. I guess that's the nature of the game (pun) when creating a persona or even a fancy pronoun for yourself. I am aware many of them are kind of lame without a rigorous backstory to beef them up.
My first nickname was Torsion, a simple and elegant word that I frankly picked because it sounded cool and I was about 15. This was back in the days of, or before, 14.4k BBSs, and I picked it as my codename in The Third Courier. Since the game was a SPY game and had a Wicked Cool Codewheel, how could I not pick a cool sounding codename? It grew into my 'nick' in IRC and around the old ISP I worked at as a student. In those days one felt the need to rationalize your nickname and I evolved this charming backstory.
Def'n: the twisting of a body by two equal and opposite forces (torques).
In my teenage angst I took this to be a literal definition of the human soul and it's struggle to survive between the forces of good and evil. Sounds snazzy huh? The problem was this second possible defintion.
Def'n: the spermatic cord that provides the blood supply to a testicle is twisted
And believe it or not I was running into an alarming number of folks that had this predicament or knew of it. This didn't totally dissuade me until years later and in the interim of Quake 1, Threewave CTF, TF, Quake 2, and on into Univeristy I continued to be Torsion or occasionally TorsionMaster to add some "Umph".
At University I went by all manner of names, whatever took my fancy in the hot game of the day Counter-Strike Beta X. By 2002 I was ready to move on to a new persona and while reading the borrowed books for the Wheel of Time series I came across a passage refering to a group of folks as oathbreakers. Shortly thereafter I saw the movie Ronin and my concept of Oathbreaker was born.
In my mind Oathbreaker was a man who had borken an oath to his lord and rebelled over a matter of deep honor and thus become a kind of ronin. As a badge of his betrayal and his greater moral directives he self-titles himself Oathbreaker, embodening both shame and pride.
Nice eh? Except for one, everyone called me Oath for short (sort of ironic no?) and the name was taken a surprising number of times! Regardless, I ran with that tag in Counterstrike and beyond and occasionally still do to this day. I had a subservient persona Commandant which served me well in all the WW2 games of the last few years.
Then came World of Warcraft. Oh man, now I needed a half-dozen names. Here is the short list:
Shamroth - My Paladin and first character, created on Beta WoW as a dwarf and reborn as a human (to be near my GF's human) after launch. Name came out of thin air, turns out it is really some peoples name.
Unius - My Night Elf Druid. Name again came out of a combo of syllable sounds in my head, turns out there is a band named Unius.
Kleehv - My Dwarf Warrior, obvious play on Cleave
Sprox - My Gnome Mage
Veox - My Gnome Warlock - Twink but also Sprox's evil brother/twin.
Rethguals/Stabbajabba - Night Elf Warrior(Slaughter backward)/Gnome Rogue - Twinks
Undershot/Overshot - Dwarf Hunter killed to make a Dranei Hunter.
But as much as I loved these characters, they have little backstory. This is a result of them existing solely for WoW and my letting WoW contribute their own backstories through the contexts of the quest lines I pursued. That's not entirely true, I've always had a feeling of who they were but nothing concrete Now I've started to use these names everywhere else and I feel the need again. I've used them largely because while Oathbreaker is often taken, Kleehv never is. Kleehv is now my XBOX360 Gamertag.
Then comes along DDO and now Shamroth the Oathbreaker is a slighlty different Human Paladin, and Kleehv Stoneshorn is a slightly different Dwarf Fighter, and Unius Brushwalker is an Elf Ranger, and they are joined by Conora Sunborne the Human Favoured Soul. Now I want a backstory to keep their feeling intact.
And so I have the hairbrained scheme to write that backstory for each, within a neutral world of my own creation, and make a real story out of it. I took a crack at the opening the other day, introducing a young Shamroth and his first experience with the Goddess Averil and a tragic event that proves to shape his life.
We'll see how that goes.
As for me, I'm still Oathbreaker, or Kleehv, or Shamroth, and I'm seriously considering changing them all to TheIceCreamAssassin. Why? That one needs no backstory, it's simply who I am.
My first nickname was Torsion, a simple and elegant word that I frankly picked because it sounded cool and I was about 15. This was back in the days of, or before, 14.4k BBSs, and I picked it as my codename in The Third Courier. Since the game was a SPY game and had a Wicked Cool Codewheel, how could I not pick a cool sounding codename? It grew into my 'nick' in IRC and around the old ISP I worked at as a student. In those days one felt the need to rationalize your nickname and I evolved this charming backstory.
Def'n: the twisting of a body by two equal and opposite forces (torques).
In my teenage angst I took this to be a literal definition of the human soul and it's struggle to survive between the forces of good and evil. Sounds snazzy huh? The problem was this second possible defintion.
Def'n: the spermatic cord that provides the blood supply to a testicle is twisted
And believe it or not I was running into an alarming number of folks that had this predicament or knew of it. This didn't totally dissuade me until years later and in the interim of Quake 1, Threewave CTF, TF, Quake 2, and on into Univeristy I continued to be Torsion or occasionally TorsionMaster to add some "Umph".
At University I went by all manner of names, whatever took my fancy in the hot game of the day Counter-Strike Beta X. By 2002 I was ready to move on to a new persona and while reading the borrowed books for the Wheel of Time series I came across a passage refering to a group of folks as oathbreakers. Shortly thereafter I saw the movie Ronin and my concept of Oathbreaker was born.
In my mind Oathbreaker was a man who had borken an oath to his lord and rebelled over a matter of deep honor and thus become a kind of ronin. As a badge of his betrayal and his greater moral directives he self-titles himself Oathbreaker, embodening both shame and pride.
Nice eh? Except for one, everyone called me Oath for short (sort of ironic no?) and the name was taken a surprising number of times! Regardless, I ran with that tag in Counterstrike and beyond and occasionally still do to this day. I had a subservient persona Commandant which served me well in all the WW2 games of the last few years.
Then came World of Warcraft. Oh man, now I needed a half-dozen names. Here is the short list:
Shamroth - My Paladin and first character, created on Beta WoW as a dwarf and reborn as a human (to be near my GF's human) after launch. Name came out of thin air, turns out it is really some peoples name.
Unius - My Night Elf Druid. Name again came out of a combo of syllable sounds in my head, turns out there is a band named Unius.
Kleehv - My Dwarf Warrior, obvious play on Cleave
Sprox - My Gnome Mage
Veox - My Gnome Warlock - Twink but also Sprox's evil brother/twin.
Rethguals/Stabbajabba - Night Elf Warrior(Slaughter backward)/Gnome Rogue - Twinks
Undershot/Overshot - Dwarf Hunter killed to make a Dranei Hunter.
But as much as I loved these characters, they have little backstory. This is a result of them existing solely for WoW and my letting WoW contribute their own backstories through the contexts of the quest lines I pursued. That's not entirely true, I've always had a feeling of who they were but nothing concrete Now I've started to use these names everywhere else and I feel the need again. I've used them largely because while Oathbreaker is often taken, Kleehv never is. Kleehv is now my XBOX360 Gamertag.
Then comes along DDO and now Shamroth the Oathbreaker is a slighlty different Human Paladin, and Kleehv Stoneshorn is a slightly different Dwarf Fighter, and Unius Brushwalker is an Elf Ranger, and they are joined by Conora Sunborne the Human Favoured Soul. Now I want a backstory to keep their feeling intact.
And so I have the hairbrained scheme to write that backstory for each, within a neutral world of my own creation, and make a real story out of it. I took a crack at the opening the other day, introducing a young Shamroth and his first experience with the Goddess Averil and a tragic event that proves to shape his life.
We'll see how that goes.
As for me, I'm still Oathbreaker, or Kleehv, or Shamroth, and I'm seriously considering changing them all to TheIceCreamAssassin. Why? That one needs no backstory, it's simply who I am.
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