Short Stories

By Dezmar

It was turning out to be another boring day. Jaxxon's day hadn't started out well to begin with. Mikee and Volpe were sitting at home, as usual, leaving Jaxxon with nothing to do. So, as usual, he retreated to his study in his comfortable Rune home. Having nothing better to do, Jaxxon simply sat in his study and contemplated all possibly meanings of the word "tweaked."

Jaxxon was owner of Clan 44, the clan fondly called Tweaked. Members of Tweaked ranged from odd, to weird, to strange, and to crazy, but if you ask any of them they are just Tweaked. Jaxxon spent most of his time collecting relics, which he was sure were going to be immensely valuable and or useful in the future. He could often be found after a particularly good buy mumbling, "They'll see, they'll all see." He had, in fact, been urging the entire clan on until many of them couldn't get the idea of relics out of their heads. But whether he was collecting relics or making a run, Jaxxon still had a lot of free time on his hands, so here he was, sitting in his lounge, counting meanings of the word "tweaked."

After reaching meaning one thousand two hundred and twenty five, Jaxxon decided he needed to find something else to do. A little voice in his head told him to quest but he shook it off. He wasn't that bored. Then he thought about it. He was that bored. He silently cursed to himself as he set of to Agrippa.

* * * * *

Sahra sat, staring, in Lord Vashir's audience chamber. Not a muscle twitched as she waited to ask for a quest. Vashir eyed her nervously. He knew she hadn't moved in the last hour, because he couldn't help but notice the unmoving Sidhe, even with all of the adventurer's coming and going in his chamber. He had, in fact, been trying to forget for the past twenty minutes that she was still sitting there, staring at him.

"I feel humbled in thy presence, Mikee." Lord Vashir grandly stated as a rather intimidating Sidhe walked into the chamber.

"Hey Sahra," Mikee casually said, "waiting for a quest?"

"No, I'm trying to get a good one."

"What?" Mikee asked, confused.

"I have found," Sahra explained, still not removing her eyes from Vashir, who was listening in on the conversation, hoping for some insight, "that the longer I stare at Vashir, the better quests he gives."

Vashir beamed. He could do that. If that would get this crazy second classer away from him, he'd give her a nice, big quest. He found himself contemplating how far he could send her. Maybe to Templeton, or Sigil. Both. He quickly decided on both, leafing through his list of quests to find one suitably long enough. As he scanned all of the quests, Dezmar walked into the audience chamber and promptly licked Sahra and Mikee. He then turned to Vashir, who cringed, expecting a lick, but instead was greeted with a quest request. He quickly handed Dezmar the first quest he saw.

"May the Powers be with you, Dezmar." Vashir quickly mumbled as he continued searching for one of his longer quests for Sahra. He found it, just in time. Sahra requested a quest, and Vashir handed her a significantly longer paper than he had Dezmar.

"May the Powers be with you, Sahra!" Vashir practically yelled, relieved to see her go.

Mikee sat down to wait for Volpe, and Sahra formed with Dezmar.

"What's your quest?" she asked Dezmar.

"Oh it sucks, just to Shadow Castle and back," he replied unenthusiastically.

"Well mine's a 75/8 to Templeton and Tellerium, so I'll see you when you get back."

Dezmar flushed, "How is it that you always get the good quests and I'm stuck here with a 33/3?!"

Vashir didn't know if he was happy or not. At least she wasn't staring. But she was still here. Why didn't she go? She's there talking with that other Sidhe, when she should be gone by now.

Sahra replied, "I just know how to handle Lord Vashir, that's all."

Dezmar didn't know if he wanted to know what that meant or not. Instead of deciding, he just headed off to Mandrake, for yet another boring quest.

* * * * *

Jaxxon was pleased with his quest. Just to Arcane and back. Something small to fill in the gap of time that he called boredom. He walked out of the castle and towards the east gate. He was almost out of Rune when he bumped into Sahra, who was running in from the wilds.

"Where you going?" she asked.

"Arcane, on a quest," he replied.

Her jaw dropped, unable to conceal her surprise.

"You're - questing?" she managed to stammer, "God, you must be bored."

Jaxxon merely shrugged. "Where are you headed?"

"Taking the worm to Templeton for a quest."

"Have fun." Jaxxon called after her as she walked south and away.

* * * * *

Dezmar was quickly making his way through Mandrake woods, chuckling to himself as he marveled how ugly the forest trolls were, and how upset they would be if they knew that an invisible Sidhe was walking under them right now. He was continuing down the path, towards a wooden bridge across the river, marveling at his superiority over all of these dumb, giant trolls, when he was promptly bashed on the head. It only took him a moment to spring up and madly dash away from the fight, too dazed to care to look back and realize that he was dashing from a small, territorial troll guarding the bridge. He silently decided not to tell anyone about this.

He continued down the path, leery now of danger, walking silently. Suddenly Sahra popped in on ft.

"Are you done yet?" she asked.

"No, I'm not even there yet." he replied. He could almost hear the sigh from miles away.

"I'm already in Templeton, what's taking you so long?"

He knew he couldn't tell her the truth, being caught unawares by the smallest troll in the forest. So he did what any man would do.

"I went to the reagent store first, I needed to stock up," he lied through his teeth.

"Well hurry up, at this rate I'll be done before you."

He muttered something incoherent about women as we walked on towards the mountain. He was about halfway up the mountain when he suddenly was pulled from his body towards the faerie plane, falling forever, until he landed solidly on nothing.

He didn't even see it coming. The boulder smashed into his head, and he was down for the count. What he did see coming however, was the tell from Sahra.

"What happened?!"

"Boulder," he knew the one word reply would be all the needed explanation. This time he could almost hear the sigh from a different plane.

* * * * *

Saying Jaxxon didn't like to quest was an understatement. There wasn't really a need for him to quest, and he had done enough of them in his time to last him more than a few lifetimes. Not only that, while doing a quest, he constantly thought of a thousand other things he'd rather be doing. So when something unusual came up, it was no surprise that he completely forgot about his quest to investigate.

When Jaxxon walked from the gate of Rune into the wilds, he blinked to the coastline. Once there, he took his broom from his trunk and flew off to the east. He had not gotten very far until he noticed an island he did not remember. He stopped and looked again. It had moved. He blinked. He looked again and the tiny island had not moved, and he wrote it off to his imagination. He checked his sextant to make sure he was where he thought he was, but when he looked up, the island had moved again. It was time to investigate.

"Does anyone know anything about a moving island between Rune and Arcane?" Jaxxon asked no one in particular on ct.

"Does it move?" Dezmar asked.

Jaxxon decided that didn't even merit a response, and upon receiving negatives from every person he decided to investigate. As he approached it moved slightly to the south, then to the east. He tried entering from the west, then the north, then the east, and finally he was rewarded as he stepped onto the tiny island from the south.

* * * * *

Lord Vashir was in a perfectly jovial mood until she walked in. He looked at the clock, she was early, really early. Sahra nearly skid into the wall she ran in so fast. He couldn't believe it, he checked the clock again, 250 minutes early?! How could this happen?

"Quest complete!" Sahra exclaimed happily to Vashir.

"Congratulations on completing your quest, Sahra!" Vashir mumbled to her.

He actually considered discarding the quest time limit for her, just to get her to leave again. He was reasonably sure that she would be gone for good after two quests. He watched her as she walked to the side of the room, sit down in a comfortable chair, and resume watching him. This was going to be a bad day, he decided.

* * * * *

Once returned to his body, Dezmar stood and recalled to the Tweaked Clan Hall. He reequipped his gear as he ran out of the hall and to the south. He arrived moments later in New Rigel and wasted no time making his way to the audience chamber. He arrived to see Sahra sitting in a chair, staring at Vashir. Vashir himself was making quite a show of not noticing her, and was obviously flustered as Dezmar walked up to him and requested a quest.

"Good luck and may the Powers be with you!" Vashir said to him as he handed Dezmar his quest.

Dezmar was not happy to see his quest. It was yet another dinky 35/3 quest. He turned it in immediately, deciding to wait and ask for another in hopes of a better return.

Lord Vashir said to him, "You didn't complete any parts of your quest, I'm sorry.'

Dezmar merely grunted and went and sat with Sahra. Determined not to admit she was right, but not foolish enough to think that she wasn't, he stared determinedly at Vashir, adding to the ruler's foul disposition.

* * * * *

Slayerjared was not enjoying his day. So far he had been hard at work in Diocletian for nearly an hour, and had been rewarded with only one level and a better at sword. His form was moving slowly and inefficiently, and we wished for nothing more than a form leader that knew what they were doing.

"Don't attack the ones with fireshield!" Slay repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Hey, we killed it!" Wizlard tartly replied.

"Yea, and we could have killed five other mobs in the time it took us too!" Slay was reaching the end of his patience.

Wizlard continued on, pressing north towards the church, Slay and Auri in tow. They entered the church, and began slaying the worshippers within.

"Only 35k to go!" Auri announced happily.

Slay was tired of hearing how long until Auri leveled. Auri had already leveled three times in the time that Slay had been with him, and he had been receiving constant updates from the zealous halfling.

It was times like these that Slay wished he could cast silence.

* * * * *

Jaxxon looked around. The island was bare, with no trees or bushes, except for three mammoth, rectangular stones, arranged two standing up vertically, and one resting horizontally on both, resembling, in Jaxxon's mind, a gargantuan pi sign. Jaxxon walked up to the stones. As he stood beneath the formation, he looked up. What he saw was a white circle, with a dark black outline. He pondered the meaning as he examined the stones and the ground around them. He saw the faint outline in the ground directly underneath the white circle. He dug at the outline until he uncovered a circular stone that was, he guessed, roughly the same size as the white circle above.

He pried the stone over with his axe of misery and jumped into the hole, landing solidly on the ground after a short fall. The room was alive with a white, dancing light. He looked around the small, ten foot by ten foot stone room. The room was bare dirt except a brilliant portal on the north wall. Above the portal on the wall was a black circle. Jaxxon confidently stepped through the portal. To his surprise, bordering on concern, there was no portal where he had just stepped through, but instead a giant iron door, locked with the biggest padlock he had ever seen in his life.

For what he knew wouldn't be the last time, he took in his surroundings. It was dark, very dark. Even the light from his crystal of power seemed dimmed. There was only one direction to go, a dark, wooded path to the west. Jaxxon eagerly began down the twisting path.

* * * * *

"So how long do we stare at him?" Dezmar asked wearily.

"As long as it takes." Sahra replied.

A moment passed and Dezmar asked, "How long does it take?"

"Just shut up and wait!"

Rith walked into the room, licked them both, requested a quest, and was gone before either of them had a chance to respond. Dezmar just blinked, Sahra sighed. Dezmar really did hear it that time.

* * * * *

Wizlard was dead, and Slay stood panting a room away. He had just ran, screaming, from the elite warrior mage that had just cut off Wizlard's head. He didn't know where Auri was, and to be honest, he really didn't care. He was looking forward to the next updateless hour he was going to have leveling, even if it was by himself.

"There's no one good to level with here!" Slay complained on ct.

"Ask Ybofax to level you," was Sahra's reply.

"I don't know Ybofax?!" Slay told her obstinately

"Fine, I'll ask him."

Slay continued alone through Dio, oblivious to numerous tells from Auri asking where he was. Shame he didn't die, Slay thought to himself.

* * * * *

He felt uneasy, something didn't feel right. It wasn't for two minutes that he realized what the source of it was. In every room he passed, there was blood on the ground, but he had yet to see any creature. He pulled his banded axe of misery from its sheath, and took a few practice swings to regain the feel for the deadly weapon. He cast several defensive spells on himself, just in case, and pressed on.

Just then, a rabbit raced past him, panting, from the direction he was going. He turned to watch it run away. As he turned around, Jaxxon felt something massive pass him on his other side, chasing the rabbit. He hastily swung his axe at the creature, but it had already passed. He heard some thing's death cry to the east. He cautiously walked towards it.

His light cast upon something red on the ground. Where he expected to find the rabbit, he saw only a foot. He almost picked it up, filled with nostalgia over memories of his lucky rabbit's foot as a child. Then he remembered he never had a lucky rabbit's foot and walked on, stepping firmly on the foot as he passed.

He came upon the sight of the death. Jaxxon never knew a rabbit had so much blood. The fresh blood tainted the trees and the ground around five or six separated pieces of flesh, the only one of which Jaxxon could identify, a head. The predator was not in sight, Jaxxon's grip on the axe tightened.

Here he was faced with two choices, walk back to the door and attempt to open it and return to the island and call for help, or continue down the forsaken path. Not wanting to have walked this far for nothing, returning with only tales of a dark shape and a mangled rabbit, Jaxxon pressed on.

* * * * *

Ybofax came upon Slayerjared just as he was finishing off a sparrow.

"Heard you needed some help?" Ybo asked Slay cordially.

"Yea, help would be great."

Slay formed with Ybo and they began their mindless carnage of leveling around Dio. The leveling past much more quickly with Ybofax leading, and Slay succeded in getting another level within 15 minutes, with Ybo getting a better in bash. Slay was already dreaming of becoming an Archon, as he stepped closer and closer. He dreamed of the fights and of the power and of the money. Yes, his day would come.

* * * * *

Jaxxon passed a battered shield of war lying, discarded, on the ground with three long slashes raked across the front. He picked it up, nearly dropping it after turning it over to find a bloody arm and hand still tightly gripping the inside of the shield. A ring of spell turning adorned the hand, and Jaxxon removed first the hand from the shield and then the ring from the hand, tucking the ring away in his trunk.

He now knew that whatever that shape was, it was also strong. He almost decided to turn around, but his pride prevailed, and he pressed on down the path. He approached a fork in the path, to the right the path looked nearly the same as the one from which he came. To the left, the path was smaller, but considerably lighter than the first. He followed the path to the left, muttering something about the path less trodden.

The path was short, opening into a small clearing with an even smaller cabin. The cabin was old, and looked like no one had lived in it for years. It was covered with moss and vines, and looked like a small breath would send it to the ground. Jaxxon stepped through the door and looked around inside.

"Wtf," Jax muttered to himself upon entering the cabin.

The once brown walls of the wooden cabin were stained red. The thick, deep red of blood. There was not a spot anywhere in the cabin that was not red. The same slashed he saw on the shield covered the walls and floors, and he even saw a few on the ceilings. There was one chair in the room, facing the fireplace on the opposite wall. As Jaxxon approached the chair he expected the worst, and he got it. An old human man sat in the chair, a look of utter horror on his face, or what was left of it. Three deep slashes ran from his forehead to the bottom of his stomach. And to top it all off, he was hollow. Nothing was left inside of him, and Jaxxon couldn't find anything resembling flesh on the floor. Jaxxon left the cabin and walked silently back to the main path.

* * * * *

"Is it time yet?" Dezmar was almost afraid to ask.

Without looking at him, Sahra replied, "If you want to ask then you go ahead."

This was all Dezmar needed. He got up and walked briskly over to Vashir, who was now in a horrible mood from hours of staring. Vashir saw him coming. Stupid second classer, trying to intimidate me. Dezmar requested a quest.

"May your journey be a successful one, Dezmar!" Vashir exclaimed, a gleam in his eye.

Dezmar looked at his quest, and groaned.

"Screw it," he nearly yelled.

A slight look of surprise mingling with amusement crossed Sahra's face as she asked, "What?"

"It's a 22/2, I'm done with Vashir, forget this." Dezmar spat.

Lord Vashir exclaims, 'I will not tolerate such insolence in my presence!'

And with that Dezmar left. Sahra just sat and watched Vashir, who was silently pleased with himself for getting rid of Dezmar. But his smile faded when he realized that Sahra was still watching him. Wouldn't she just leave? Rith came in and turned in her quest and left before even Vashir realized she was there. Vashir sat wearily on his throne, wishing for the day to be over. And Sahra just sat and stared.

* * * * *

Jaxxon was knocked over, flat on his face. In the aftermath of the cabin, he had let his guard down, and something or someone had taken advantage of it. Almost instantly Jaxxon was up and on his feet, eyes scanning the woods and path, ready to slay any opposer, but there was nothing.

Once again there was silence. Whatever had hit him was gone, and left him with nothing but wounded pride and a sizable gash on his neck. A quick spell and the gash was gone, but there was no spell for his wounded pride.

He was, however, not going to be caught off guard again. He made his way back to the main path and pressed on in the only unknown direction. Jaxxon could sense that he was being watched. He couldn't hear anything but his own breath, but something told him that he was not alone.

"Hello?" he called out, not expecting an answer.

He silently hoped that there was only one other besides him, judging by the strength of whatever knocked him to the ground. The path stopped abruptly, ending in trees. Suddenly, the area was dark, all light extinguished. Jaxxon could hear movement all around him, and he tried to track down the sources. He counted one, two, maybe three shapes moving around him, circling. Then all was silent. He gripped his axe and waited.

* * * * *

"Jax?" Sahra called over ct.

"Jax, are you there? How was that quest?" she asked.

"Not a good time, be right back" Jax quickly replied.

* * * * *

Dezmar wondered what that could mean, and he looked up Jaxxon to see that he was in combat.

"That's unusual," Dez thought to himself, "Usually he's just sitting somewhere."

And he thought nothing more of it as he took the worm to Sigil, and from there he planned to walk to Diocletian to help Slay level with Ybo.

* * * * *

Light flooded the area once again, and Jaxxon swung violently in a complete circle in hopes of hitting all or at least one of the creatures. He caught sight of one of his foes just as he completed his arc, striking nothing.

He advanced towards the growling, bear-like creature just as something jumped onto his back and sunk its teeth into his shoulder between his armor. Pain jolted him, and a strange, cold sensation began spreading slowly from the wound into his body. He swung the axe over his shoulder and into the creature, sinking the blade deep into his back. Reversing the movement, he sent the animal over his head and into a tree, at the same time turning the axe sideways and continuing his arc towards the next closest threat. The axe hit the next creature in the shoulder and stopped, not penetrating the bone. This worried Jaxxon, as it was his first indication of their strength. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and realized that he was in fact facing three foes.

He swung his shield to meet this threat but was bowled over by the sheer size of the beast. But as he lay on his back, with the creature staring down from on top of him, he realized that although the size was that of a bear, the teeth were sharp and canine, with a wolfish face. But what scared him most were its eyes. The eyes were, human. Only one word entered Jaxxon's mind. werewolf.

* * * * *

"werewolfs!" Jax shouted over ct. It was the only message he had time for.

Mikee wondered what he meant by this. He looked Jaxxon up and saw that he was in combat. With this information and what Jax had just told him Mikee looked to see where Jaxxon was. He was at a "Dead End in The Path" to the southeast. Mikee didn't know where that was.

"Where?" Mikee asked over ct, preparing his gear and casting himself up as he asked.

* * * * *

Jaxxon knew he could not win this fight. He shoved the wolf off of him and ran. He suspected that he could never outrun the werewolfs, but he hoped he was wrong. He wasn't. Two of the wolves ran past him blocking the path in front, with one remaining behind. Jaxxon sifted through his spell books as he ran, pulled one out, began mumbling the incantation, and managed to cast sleep on one of the wolves in front of him before the one behind him jumped on his back, sinking its fangs into his other shoulder. The same strange, cold sensation began dripping from his other shoulder.

He dropped the axe in pain, so instead reached back and grabbed fur, feeling blood running down the werewolf's back from its first wound. A small voice in his head told him that this was a good thing, but he was too busy at the moment to consider why. He slammed his shield down on its neck, hoping to sever its head. Instead the shield just jammed into its throat, stunning it.

"Damnit!" Jaxxon cursed loudly, continuing the battle.

He cast calm on the second werewolf, at the same time throwing a flash bomb at it. It worked. Blinded, Jaxxon easily cast sleep on it also, leaving only one werewolf to deal with. One turned out to be enough.

* * * * *

"Jax! Where are you?" Mikee asked again on ct. "On a moving island, should be se of Arcane." Jaxxon replied, knowing that this was probably insufficient even if he was guessing correctly.

Mikee blinked as quickly as he could to the southern end of Sepharia, then set off southeast on his broom.

"A moving island?" Mikee muttered to himself, wondering what Jaxxon was dealing with at the moment.

* * * * *

None of Jaxxon's spells were hitting, he knew that this must be the Alpha, the leader of the werewolf pack. One of his spells managed to hit, blinding the werewolf. Jaxxon picked up his axe and ran down the path, regretting in his mind not trying to open the iron door before he had went down the path in the first place.

He arrived at the door, but he knew he didn't have much time before the Alpha regained its sight and/or the others woke up. He hastily cast magic unlock on the padlock and was more than relieved to see it spring open. He opened the door and ran inside, overjoyed to see the shimmering portal awaiting him. He jumped in and hastily recalled to his home. But he forgot to shut the door behind him.

To be continued...