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The Witcher

Cur Chapter 9 ‘Stone letter’

Hello there,
Erm almost didn’t post a poem yesterday and was set to apologise for going out into the real world and interacting with humans sort of. But then I did so…
The poem thing is something I can’t really force, but hopefully it’s something someone might find enlivening, if that’s a word. I know my stuff has dropped off a little because as with the season I’m just being a bit of a miserable cunt haha.
But I got this chapter proofread (but not spellchecked haha) and I’m making strides towards getting the pitch stuff ready for Diana to make her real world debut, fingers crossed. Could be some time yet before it’s all edited but I’m making a concerted effort to make sure it has the strongest foot forward I can give it. Nothing too drastic, I just keep going back with fresh eyes and going over it but I plan on doing an entire new read through just to make sure it flows and just to buff out some of the rough edges. 
Cur certainly needs that, I’m thinking of almost rewriting it entirely before I even hand it over to an editor because I dunno along the way I think I let it wonder off the mark a little bit. And I haven’t too clear headed these last couple of months what with the sleep experiments which are sort of working but also not because I keep fucking them up and on top of that the weighlifting messes with my sleep even more. So a lot of the time it’s like I can’t even think straight or I’m too tired to put it together and make sense of it.

In other news, thinking about the new Diana book has already begun, implying I don’t have a plan/have it half written in my head already. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile waiting for the mood to be right and for lightning to strike.

Gonna have to get back into the Dexter books for inspiration but I’m already deep into the next Parker book which is pretty good so far. It’s sort of trying to redeem the shitty amusement park book and so far it’s delivering quite, it’s definitely better, more open, more mobile, more dynamic with more characters old and new. It’s shaping up to be really good.
Anyway that’s about all I need to go cook for the fam now, making my signature (as of a week ago) spaghetti and meatballs made entirely from scratch. Kind of proud of it because it’s delicious and I do find cooking very fun and relaxing.
See you…
 
Birds in the forest tittered and fluttered through the trees. The sound of which made Tuan’s head feel like an hourglass turned on it’s side.
 
The campfire from the night before was dying. Cur put it out of it’s misery stamping down on it with his heavy boots, the warm embers crashing around it.
 
One of which flew close to Birog’s face as she lay sleeping. She opened her eyes cautiously to look at it as it smouldered on the ground in front of her. She turned her eyes up to look at him. Her expression that of a fawn looking up at a great mountain that might fall on her head at any moment.
 
“We ride out” Cur grunted almost as if he was talking to himself.
 
“We?” The girl said coyly.
 
Cur grimaced slightly, hearing her slight.
 
Tuan groaned and held his head and hissed. “He doesn’t like repeating himself” He paused. “Where are we going again?” The shapeshifter said squinting.
 
They set off to Sí an Bhrú, the druidess on her horse, the shape shifter accompanied her in the form of a bird flying over top surveying the roads and fields. The barbarian preferred to walk than to ride.
 
Within a few hours of travelling they were in eye shot of the temple mound known as Sí an Bhrú. The mound and cairns of inish vale were so old that not even the Firbolg knew their true origin or original purpose.
 
The mound was located on the north side of the river Boyne. It lay in an open field surrounded only by hedgerows and a series of standing stone circles moving out. The mound itself was an enormous structure, round and grassy like a manmade hillock. A retaining wall at the front, made of white quartz cobblestones at its entrance. Forty foot high at its tallest point and two hundred and fifty wide and there was no telling how deep it went into the earth if it stopped at all.
 
The Tuatha de, recognizing it as a holy site of some power made use of it as a temple to Danu. Honoring it by placing the stone of destiny on the nearby hill of Tara where Bres himself was crowned king of Inish veil.
 
They approached the enormous retaining wall and as they got closer they could now see all the engravings in the stone. Deeply set swirls and circular patterns swirling outward around the entrance. The entrance itself was a very small rectangular slot walled in by large megalithic stones with similar carvings. The temple had no door and there was no activity or guards posted anywhere around the outside.
 
Standing at the entrance looking in they could see it was lit. What little sunlight got in from the outside was accompanied by braziers on the ground every ten or twenty feet. as well as hundreds of candles affixed directly to the stone. Years of wax drippings coating them making them slick and appear almost like the inside of a throat. The flames of the candles lapped at the irregular stone that made up the inner construction. It resembled that of a manmade cave formed from rocks no tuatha de could hope to move.
 
The stones inside and the clay roof gave off a strange resonance the druidess could feel in her torque. Cur too could feel it buzzing at his scars like a mosquito.
 
Cur swept past her squeezing into the cramped entrance and listening for footsteps or any sign of occupance. He traversed a very narrow hallway with entrances onto a pair of small altar rooms on each side, little more than caves and holes in the ground. Some of which could have been a very meager sleeping quarters or an anti-room.
 
He heard then the sound of whispering carried on a draft and he followed it to another identical room. The entrance made of two bowing stones making a triangular shape.
 
Inside it seemed much larger with a high ceiling that echoed with his heavy footfalls. The whispering carried by the strange acoustics of the structure. Something about it bothered him, as if every breath gave him away. It felt as if someone at the heart was listening or even watching him indifferently, waiting.
 
The room was a hollow and the floor sloped into the centre where a basin lay. The basin formed of descending slates of stone circling each other making a shallow pit which appeared to have water in it.
 
Kneeling at the pit was a skinny welp wearing a moth eaten grey cloak.
 
Without saying anything Cur crossed the room and picked the old man up by the collar of his cloak and stood him up on his two feet.
 
“Dian Cecht?” He growled low.
 
“Wwwhat?” The man said, his breath stinking of mouldy bread and cheese. His balding head and shining flat face angered Cur with it’s oblivious sincerity. Cur spat on the floor.
 
“Firbolg?” The druidess said behind him “What are you doing?”
 
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt Stone letter.

Cur Chapter 8 ‘Thick as thieves’

Bit of a chill one today, its raining outside and I’m feeling gently melancholic – but in a good way haha.

I really do love the rain, sometimes I can’t sleep without hearing it. Don’t know what I’d do if I left the country to some hotter climb. I think I’ll only truly be happy when I move somewhere where it rains all the time haha.

It really doesn’t rain in England as much as people think.

I dunno, I don’t like going out in it but I could spend hours just watching it. Something about knowing that someone else is doing the exact same thing somewhere. Or that outside the world is bare of people, just all huddled around inside watching as it comes down. The steady rhythmic metronome of the rain hitting the ground and trees. Something about that really gets me.

I don’t have much to say other than that, not been up to much except proofreading. I think I really need to go over Cur a couple of times because it’s just too big of a project not to. It only worked out around 50k words but when I say big I’, referring to the scope. I tried to make a little fantasy story but the source material is unrestrainably epic.

I did borrow my brothers ps4 to try out the new spiderman game, I think the last spiderman game I played might have been spiderman 2 haha. It’s pretty good but it has some serious flaws, I might write a review when I finish it.

Down to this latest chapter of Cur, probably the most pivotal chapter up to now in terms of the lore and the backstory for the characters as well as the main themes for the story overall. No action unfortunately but *in Bain voice* ‘That comes later’.

This is sort of where the main story really takes off in terms of an actual quest and some epic duels will follow on from this. This is basically the end of this part and the next will all be about the actual task that Birog is to be given. The main story is of course about Cur but Birog is the character that carries the driving force of the plot.

Ok so enough rambling about that haha. I’ve been too knackered to finish Plunder Squad recently, that’s the name of the Parker book I’m reading, please don’t judge them by the titles haha. Thankfully kept away from the witcher. Not sure I’ll return to that honestly, just a chore to read.

That’s all for now, hope you like this excerpt and if you do, head on over to inkitt to read the rest and my other stories.

See you…

Hear- could hear nothing but the sound of the lapping sea and the gulls circling overhead with their monotonous chatter. The sea roared at his feet, the sky swirling with black and grey clouds. His mouth was open and dry and he could feel the sand under him but nothing else and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

 

He stared up at the clouds unable to move his head or close his eyes or feel any of his extremities whatsoever. Not the cold of the wind, nor the spray of the sea, only the sand below him shifting and the little things crawling beneath it.

 

There was no pain, or pleasure, or sense at all, just the sea’s endless roar.

 

Underneath him and he could feel his hair knotting in the sand, damp and being pulled by something. His feet too were being tugged by something out of his line of sight.

 

“We want the dead one’s boots” A little guttural voice said.

 

“We wants his eyes” The harsh voice tugging at his hair said. “Whats you need boots for under the waters anyways?”

 

“To trade” The affronted one said.

 

“You already have your trophy for the king of the deep, begone with you!”

 

“No you!”

 

The two figures continued to bicker and pull at the dead man lying on the beach.

 

“What’s that?” One of them said.

 

“Leg it!” The other said accompanied by the sound of skittering little feet.

 

And then by his feet a splashing sploshing noise as the waves swallowed one of the little things pulling at him and the other darted into a bush.

 

“What do we have here?” A new voice said, one that sounded like a bear and a bird talking at once. “There is life left in this one yet”

 

Time passed as the dead man watched the sky roll over him without care. The sun seen through the clouds turning orange as he felt himself being dragged on what sounded like wooden plank along the ground.

 

The sounds of the waves then replaced with the sound of a campfire and the blanket of clouds replaced by the blanket of night. The stars like pin pricks in the roof of the sky beaming down on his lifeless inert form. Only remnants of his consciousness left to stare out of a blank face for eternity as the rest fell away.

 

Cur awoke from his dream, his neck feeling stiff after being trampled by the black mare. He hushed himself as he heard quiet conversation and the melodious playing of a harp and the light of another fire.

 

“It’s quite alright, I’d probably rob me too if I met me” The druidess laughed.

 

“Our time on the road has hardened us, I beg forgiveness my lady” Tuan tittered like a bard.

 

“And the other one?”

 

“He fell out of his mother hard as a rock” Tuan chuckled.

 

The druidess giggled “However did you meet him?”

 

“It’s a long and very embarrassing story.” Tuan said.

 

“Well? Do tell shapeshifter” She fawned

 

“You see I was caught short, let’s say, a mating ritual -interrupted.” He smiled and waited for a response.

 

“I see”

 

“I was, how do you say, conducting myself in an indecent manor when some loutish fishermen caught me with my trousers around my ankles should we say. They bound me before I could change into something more formidable. There was nothing I could do, I was at a loss” Tuan said with a waiffish arrogance.

 

“Fisherman, in their nets, I’m sorry I’m not following.” The druidess balked as she talked into her cup.

 “Forgive me, I forgot to mention I was transformed into a salmon at the time.” Tuan said absentmindedly staring off into space.

 

“Oh I see, Oh I see” She giggled.

 

“Yes, so these idiots were planning on cooking and eating me, I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t have any of it. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a fish but that just made it worse. You see they were convinced for some damned reason that eating me would give them all the knowledge in the world. I have no idea why.” He said as he took a sip from his cup.

 

“Why didn’t you change into a Wyvern or a crocodile?” Birog said wide eyed, listening intently.

 

“I was already confined in the pot, and I couldn’t think of anything, I get terrible stage fright, all animals fall out of my head when pressed.”

 

“So what happened then?” She said shaking her as if the drink was getting to her a little bit.

 

“Well all the noise of me shouting and arguing with the fishermen drew out the ogre. Who I suspect was trying to take a shit in the woods at the time and he came out and scared them off.”

 

The druidess burst into laughter spilling her wine over her shoulder.

 

“I only suggest that as his trousers were around his ankles as he chased them.”

 

She tried to catch her breath and sputtered “What happened after that?”

 “Well I pledged my life to him as he inadvertently saved it. But of course sour one as he is, he didn’t take kindly to it at first but I was sure to follow him to one day return the favor. But as you might have guessed saving the life of a dead man is quite impossible.”

 

“What an interesting story, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it in all my life.” Birog gaped. “But can I ask- why is he so-?”

 

“Cruel?”

 

“I’m not sure that’s the right word for it, I’m not sure a word exists to describe what he is. He’s cold but inside burns something truly- monstrous, something I couldn’t envision even in my dreams”.

 

“I know little of him but of his people, I have seen much.”

“What have you seen?” She said intently as bit from a leg of succulent roast pork which turned on a spit over the fire.

 

“I have seen Connacht in ruins as a crow sees it.”

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Thick as thieves

 

 

GS2 Chapter 24 ‘Kinda outta luck’

Hey ho fellow humanoids,

This sadly will be the only blog for this week because my day job is about to get especially hectic over the following week and I’ll have absolutely zero time to work on that or anything else for that matter. I just have time today to do a little proofreading, maybe some spamming then hi ho hi ho it’s off to work I go.

What have I been up to, none other than revisiting everyone’s favourite (and only) clown samurai; Pookie Pookerson (not cannon last name).

Yep so I started the next part of three ring like ‘how do I do this again? What’s the backstory?’ haha and weirdly it went pretty well, I mean I’m not churning it out but what I put out was pretty good I thought. I kinda wanted it to be like an anime that skirts a fine line between serious and comedy. So you have this completely ridiculous world full of ridiculous people but the humour comes from them all taking it really seriously until they don’t.

So I think the opening I did for the second part captured that pretty well, had some wry humor but mostly kept it straight and focused on the action and the story… of which there is one haha. I have some idea where I want to go with it but I’m not taking it too seriously, I’m just trying to have fun with it and work on it as a break that’s not a break haha. Because I can’t actually stop writing, I can just take it less seriously haha.

The next few days are gonna suck for multiple reasons but maybe I’ll get some reading done in between unspeakable horror. Might finish that Parker novel which is shaping up to be really good. It kind of has a weird structure because its sort of gone off on a tangent but has such good tension that it doesn’t matter that it’s not directly attached to the job. He’s basically had his cake and eaten it here because you have the autistic planning and setup phase interspersed with this tense action set piece which is also drawn out really well. And all the characters are great and Parker feels like Parker again when he kind of felt like Joe blow in the last couple of books. 

But this book makes me happy because I started to feel after the witcher and these last two Parker books that I was falling out of love with reading as a result of playing too many video games and watching too many films. But it’s not the case I’m as eager as before to really get into this book. Not as much as I was when reading Dexter but that’s Dexter for you haha.

Now that I mention the witcher I heard rumours that ciri is supposed to be black in the netflix show. And I could have maybe seen how Geralt the white wolf could have been black maybe because his origins are sort of a mystery so you can just rewrite and say he came from Kovir. Same could be done with Dandelion because they don’t really have firm backstories in the books or the games. But Ciri has a really firm backstory which is tied directly to the plot.

For Ciri to be black literally all of Cintra of which she’s the princess of has to be wakanda haha. The entire royal line would have to be black, the elves too because she’s the spawn of the elder blood. She has elven blood running through her veins. So the elves have to be black too. I mean maybe she could be mullatto because her father is sort of this cursed outcast who had to basically trick Queen Calanthe into marrying her daughter Princess Pavetta. Which Geralt helped him to do in exchange for the right of surprise on Ciri. So you could just make her father from Kovir I guess but that adds another layer of politics to an already politics heavy story and not to mention Kovir I don’t think is even in the books.

Essentially I think this show is going to be a glorious trainwreck too concerned with diversity quotas and virtue signalling to actually tell a decent compelling story, it’s the type of shit we see everyday. This isn’t new, so it’s probably going to flop, I mean you’ve alienated the majority of the fanbase even saying you’re basing it off the books because the people that play the games have no idea how shit the books are in comparison haha. So they’ll watch the first episode and be like “What is this shit?” and they’ll turn it off haha. Add to that the new wakanda plotline and you’re making a show for like three people two of which are in the writing staff haha.

I just think this is really funny. It just sounds like it’s going to be a colossal disaster and I’m just getting my popcorn ready, while also eagerly awaited CD projeckt red to wow us Cyberpunk which looks amazing. I can’t wait for that, still not going to preorder haha. Unless they make me an offer I can’t refuse haha. Some people are still shitting on it saying it looks like shitty Deus ex and I don’t know what they’re talking about it, I think it looks like the complete fucking opposite. It looks like Deus ex with some balls and real grit and a living huge world not a tiny sandbox to mess about in, but a gta sized world with cars and people.

What I hope is it finds a balance between deus ex with it’s well crafted little sandboxes and gta’s huge open world because there are trade offs to both. With deus ex you get less room to play and explore and no vehicles but every set piece is hand crafted and every room feels kind of lived in and real. Whereas in gta it’s sort of lots of nothing in some cases. It’s bigger and has more vehicles but you can’t actually explore all the buildings or what not, so there are trade offs. 
The bar I’m setting for Cyberpunk is a middle ground between these two. Because I love Deus ex but I always felt like it was holding back, not giving me enough, sort of just giving me bite size chunks of this world to sell me the rest as dlc. Whereas in gta you almost get too much and it deters replay value. And once upon a time we had a perfect blend of both. 
We once had games that were full satisfying experiences that weren’t just dlc/sequel bait but also left you wanting to play them again to experience things you might’ve missed.

It’s the kind of oldschool mentality and feel you only get from these eastern european developers like cd projekt and warhorse because their ethos is stuck in the 90’s but their tech is modern. They have passion and grit and love of their games without trying to squeeze every cent out of them or push some political narrative. They’re at this perfect stage where they’re big enough to make triple a titles that rival the big boys but small enough to not have focus groups or investors breathing down their necks and imposing their will on the games like we’re seeing from EA and Besthesda. Two companies that were once heroes now living long enough to become villains. Due alone to their business practices and their churning out of these lazy subpar games used to push lazy political narratives.
But that’s just the way it is I guess. I mean if multi-billion dollar companies can’t bring out a decent series of star wars movies then what hope does netflix and videogame companies have?

Anyway that’s enough ranting for today, gone on way too long already. Gonna see if I can’t get some proofreading in before I crash, got a big week of constant sorrow ahead of me haha. But that come down is sweet, on sunday I promise to do little more than feed myself and I might not even do that haha. Might be too lazy and just learn to photosynthesize haha.

Legit running out of content now haha. Green Sunday is almost done, Gage is toast, gotta get cranking out those Proofs on Cur and write some more samurai clown goodness haha.

See you..

“ADAM WAIT!” A ghostly voice cried out.

A deathly pause, a black echo, the sound of shaking metal and a robotic response; “That name.”

TJ opened his eyes slowly, the metal foot hovering an inch in front of his face about to curb stomp him against the ice. The foot was stopped, frozen with hesitation. The Lancer paused, he shook his head and pretended he didn’t hear it. A mistake, a ghost in the machine and pressed his foot against TJ’s skull pinning it to the ice. Put pressure on it a pound at a time of crushing pressure.

“ADAM STOP!” A shrill voice cried.

The Lancer stopped again and took the pressure off. The hair on the back of his neck raised like he was a kid caught playing with his mothers high heels. He breathed in and out but didn’t turn his head. He shook his head again and put his foot back.

TJ closed his eyes. The cold metal foot was still stopped and all he could hear was the drone of the furry horde. The Lancer’s foot came completely off TJ’s head and he stumbled backwards weighed down by something. White tentacles wrapped around his throat and his legs and his arms and his waist. More and more latching on until he was almost covered in these white appendages.

TJ rolled onto his back and he rubbed his eyes trying to focus on the ghostly arms that had hold of the chrome knight.

‘Arm…s’ plural, the Lancer was locked down by a series of thin naked white arms.

A straight jacket of porcelain flesh constricting around all his joints stopping him like quicksand. His movements grinding to a halt as more and more arms began to wrap around him.

“What the fuck?” TJ whispered.

Carpenter looked down at the sea of furry faces. All cheery and colourful and hungry for flesh and probably the juice inside eyeballs. He lost his balance for a second wobbling the plank. He darted his head back and kept his cutlass high locking eyes with the Frenchman who was still and silent.

“Are you ready?” The Frenchman said. His voice ringing with a gleeful tone of completion. Of fate reaches out a warm hand and patting him on the small of his back.

Carpenter said nothing. He smiled broadly and started to rock back and forth and then bounce slightly up and down like he was a on a trampoline. Getting deeper into the bounce each time.

The Frenchman lost some composure as he felt the board shaking. Heard it creaking and groaning, wood fibres splitting and giving way. “What are you doing?” He shrieked as he could feel it giving way.

Carpenter fed on his fear, his smile growing wider. His lips parting showing those sharp teeth and he said; “Whatever it takes.”

Read the full chapter on inkitt by following this link kinda outta luck.

Cur chapter 7 ‘Sore eyes’

Hello there,

Back again with some special content, now I’m finished writing it I’m barrelling away with the proofreading and hope to get it edited soon. I like how it turned out. It’s small but it’s like a stepping stone to how epic the plan is for it going forward. I want people to read the last book and see how it compares to this one in terms of how the scope gets grander and grander as there was no way in hell this can’t turn into epic fantasy based on the source material. 
The mythology I’m working with is probably the basis for a lot of Tolkien, hopefully that gives you some window into what I’m processing in terms of the actual lore.

Didn’t do much yesterday, spent a nice chunk of time with the most special people on the earth to me in digital form then I ate a lot of meat and pasta and fought to stay awake while proofreading this chapter. Quick tip, don’t eat pasta in the middle of the day haha.

Still really digging the latest Parker book, still in austistic planning phases and I’m loving it. No news on the witcher front except about the TV show casting Henry Caville to be Geralt which is a weird choice. I guess its just because he wanted it haha. Honestly I don’t hold out much hope for the show because netflix is garbage, and the writing team they have seem like millenial douchnozzles and it’s supposedly going to be based on the books and I think I’ve made my opinions on the books apparent. I think the books are a dumpster fire and the games are only good because they use the characters and build an interesting world to interact with. CD projekt red did the impossible and polished a turd and made it sparkle. Now do I think netfux can do that? Nah.

The witcher is only popular because of the games, no one ever heard of it before that and for good reason, the books are objectively bad/boring/derivative only a bunch of sycophantic hipsters pretend to like it for whatever reason. So if you’re basing it off the books in which Geralt slays like three monsters, we’ve got problems. Whereas if they make it like a freak of the week show akin to supernatural where’s there’s a new monster every episode and a vein of story running through it, it could work. But do I think they’ll do that or go with game of thrones shit?

I don’t think Caville will do a bad job and I’m glad it’s an english guy, although I would have preferred Mads Mikkelson, that dude was born to be Geralt. But maybe now he can be Cur haha.

Actually thinking about it who would I cast as Cur if I had the choice of anyone, Tom Hardy pops out for Bane. I could see that, use camera trickery to make everyone shorter than him and hey presto got a giant.
Of course if I could choose anyone and age didn’t matter it would definitely hands down be Mr Krabs himself, Clancy Brown, the basis for the character of Cur from the Kurgan in highlander. I just saw him in Detroit become human and he doesn’t look too old but I don’t know if he’s in shape but if I could choose anyone it would be him. Tom Hardy would be a bigger draw and he’s a better actor. And he’s yet to have like a solid action type movie where he’s the center.

Like he stars in all these thrillery actiony movies but is never ‘that guy’ like bond or Ethan Hunt. I think maybe that’s why he wanted to do venom so he could do that. But I hear it’s gonna suck because they pussed out and made it a 12a when originally they were gonna go the deadpool route and push for an adult rating. Which would have been awesome because the first trailer was dumb but the second trailer looked pretty good and that plus venom biting people’s heads off with maximum gore seemed like a winner but neutered 12a venom makes me think of ghost rider and I get a full body cringe.

I think certainly after seeing him as Bane and Bronson, he has the screen presence to pull that off.

But young Clancy Brown is who’s in my head when I write Cur, he’s the guy. I sometimes have to watch the ‘Gimme the prize’ music video from the highlander movie and see the Kurgan in action to really get into the mood of the character and put them into my story. To get that raw visceral ambivalence and chaotic evil nature and put it up on the page.

Talking about Detroit become human actually, makes me think about gaming before youtube. Because Detroit is one of those games I would have played and written an angry review about which is what I desperately want to do with a game that just came out that’s called ‘We happy few’. But I haven’t actually played either I just watched a full playthrough on youtube while doing something else haha.

So I don’t feel good about reviewing something I haven’t spent any money on (apart from movies haha),like I don’t feel that mad or invested. I just feel relieved that I saved forty quid haha. Because those games were interesting to watch on a stream but if I paid for them I would be spitting mad with those two garbage fires haha.

Detroit is basically the least subtle movie about social justice race/gender politics I’ve ever seen. It’s so on the nose with the holocaust stuff it’s was almost unbearable to watch it’s complete lack of subtlety and nuance. It just made me wonder if David Cage needs someone to chew his food for him. I half expected Trump to be in it and personally throw a black jewish drag queen into an oven while reciting passages of mein kampf.

And we happy few is basically a game made by someone in canada who liked bioshock and overheard someone talking about 1984 and brave new world and thought that would be good as a game. Because the only real parallel between 1984 is the fact the first character you play edits newspapers, once at the beginning of the game and never does it again, wow, much reference such inspired. I haven’t actually read brave new world but I’m assuming it’s not about hiding in bushes and engaging in really shitty combat with an umbrella.

It started life as just a survival game then some bright spot thought it would be good to have a story and then just made a series of fetch quests and called it a story. Its basically a glorified hidden item/phone game like granny but on a larger scale with less good stealth mechanics and much more filler. The difference is granny is free and this is basically an indie kickstarter game asking AAA prices. Kill yourself haha. Mainly what I hate about it is it’s essentially bioshock but instead of playing someone coming from outside discovering the world for the first time, you’re just a splicer with no powers who whines constantly about everything in the most annoying voice ever haha.

 My one line review would be “It’s bioshock but you can’t shoot bees from your fist” End. That’s all you need to know, it’s totally derivative and seems to take the wackiness of bioshock to a point where you can’t take it seriously. But it also fails to juxtapose that with the oppressive atmosphere to create any tension. It’s like it takes the wackiness to a point of idiocy but also deals with the serious stuff in a way that is just boring and depressing. It’s the worst of two worlds, it’s not serious enough to be ground but too depressing and boring to be fun.

Ok enough rambling, actually I have nothing better to do today haha. I spent too much time setting things up now I have 14 minutes to do some more proofreading, well whatever. I guess I’ll just do some spamming and take a nap, fuck me haha.

I think I’m gonna make a start on the next three ring instalment, just take a poke at it. I started doing the real shit workout again and I feel so sluggish, feels like I’ve been sleeping covered in sandbags. So until I get used to that again I’m gonna be basically useless at everything except holding up mugs full of green tea and yawning and it’s about to get crazy at work next week, somebody kill me.

This is a pretty fun chapter, not as fun as the last one but close.

See you…

The crow watched dispassionately from it’s perch in high Tallaght. It cawed loudly and ruffled it’s feathers and took off in the direction of the woods.

Down below the girl ran desperately through the streets, her lungs burning. All thoughts of using her magic chased out of her brain by a shrieking fear of the eternal. And what could she do without her torque or the sword? All she could do was run and hide and prey to the goddess that birthed her. The sounds of the black hooves and the devil whinney of that black mare grew faster and closer and louder and shook the earth with terrible fury.

“Wake up you big bastard” A strange small voice said. “You’ve got no time to be laying about”

Cur’s eyes fluttered and then opened wide. His eyes bulging as he stared at the sky seeing nothing but a blinding bright light and then closing them again tightly.

He rose and hunched forward in a sitting position and rubbed them with the large palm of his hand.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know” The little bird said. “It’d didn’t take me long to find you, a naked giant lying in the forest is hard to miss from above.”

“You were supposed to be watching” Cur groaned and looked at bird in the form of the bird bobbing around on the ground.

“I was watching but something more interesting caught my eye.” The bird seemed to cock a cheeky grin and wink.

“A wench is it?” Cur growled scanning the grove which was now empty and placid and looked like it had never been home to a cottage of any kind.

“Aye, a cumbly wench, a familiar one at that.”

Cur spat on the ground “The fool.”

“Quite right, she must really want her sword back, good thing you didn’t take anything else” The bird laughed.

“Should have let me kill her” He said as he found his clothes lying in a heap in the grass under a birch. He dressed as quickly as one can with a single arm.

“Ah but if you’d killed her you’d have lost your chance at reprisal”

“What talk is this?”

“It seems our little lark has earned the ayer of none other than the black knight of Dun Bresse.”

“Dullahan is here? Why?”

“For the girl I can only assume.”

“What could he want with that scrawny wench?” Cur scoffed.

“Her head perhaps”

Cur seethed angrily rubbing his neck as if there was a faint scar there.

The crow laughed “He took your head once before and you still bear a grudge.”

“What of it?”

“A man took your head only a few nights since”

Cur grimaced growing silent and solemn, He tightened his jaws until his face looked hard and skeletal white.

“He was the first.”

The girl, frantic, tossed her light body about the streets, like a leaf in an errant and erratic wind looking for any nook to hide herself in. She fought not to stumble over herself as she heard the horse’s whine and the hooves resonating through the tight streets.

She stopped dead, her breath burning in her throat almost drooling with fear, mad with it. Her eyes wide and shaking and leaking. She looked up and saw the high stone wall of the guardhouse, one of the only two story buildings in the village. Penned in on all sides but one by the little round house huts and their thatched rooves.

She rattled for the handle and it opened easily with a yawing creak and she fumbled into a large square eating hall. Looking around goggle eyed she spotted a stair case and fell up it as she heard the horse’s cry all around her now.

Hiding in here was her best course of action. He’d have to get off the horse if he would pursue her any further and then she’d at least have some chance at escape. Or enough where with all to use some sort of spell on him.

She waited holding her breath perched on the edge of the wood and stone staircase. Looking down at the only entrance of which she didn’t take the time to barricade. Now regretting it, looking around at all the heavy wooden chairs and tables in the canteen. She cursed herself and thought to go down and hurriedly construct some edifice to slow his pace. But then what? Wait to die?

It was too late, a dull slow almost disinterested pounding on the door shook the whole building. Within no more than three strikes the door gave up the ghost and fell open like a whore’s legs.

Read the rest of this chapter on inkitt Sore eyes

GS2 Chapter 22 Duck Seazon

Ahoyhoy fellow sailors, it is I, that dude on the internet who writes stuff I guess.

Back again with more inane commentary on random books and other such pointless crap haha

I just watched Deadpool 2 and I said I wouldn’t do a review because I didn’t really have strong feelings about it, I just thought it was ok. But then I went ahead and wrote a review which I cut out of this blog haha.
Just started writing it and I got out a lot of things I thought about the movie had potential. Because one thing I hate more than a bad movie is a potentially good movie which squanders that potential and just descends to the ranks of the average. Be good or be bad but never be average.

So I’ll have that up tomorrow, shit now I’m completely out of content for todays blog haha.

Well from the get go, that new Parker novel is shaping up to be a complete return to form, even bringing back a villain I forgot he didn’t kill haha. Which is rare if you read the other Parker novels. If you cross Parker it usually doesn’t matter who you are, you end up with a toe tag sooner or later. But I guess he let him live at the end because he felt sorry for him. Which is actually kind of the whole theme  of the book he appears in.

He’s basically this loser criminal who manipulates everyone around him, either by just lying and being reverential or being so pathetic you can’t help but pity him. And I think that’s why Parker couldn’t kill him, but in the book I seem to remember it was sort of up in the air, it wasn’t explicit that he didn’t kill him it was just left to interpretation. And my interpretation of Parker is that he would have killed him without question. Parker does not fuck around, if someone is in his way he’s getting out of his way in a body bag.

He’s killed women and children in these books, he’s imprisoned mentally retarded people, he’s shot people in the back when they were running away, one of which was a woman. He gives zero fucks, he’s a cold calculated criminal who will do anything to survive and profit.

But I’m guessing what Stark is going for is that Parker is softening, getting weak, which is a good idea because it adds more tension, more uncertainty. So the power fantasy of being this unstoppable badass is slowly eroding. And this is an intentional thing since the addition of his love interest Claire.

We’re supposed to know she’s a danger to him but not care because he loves her. And that’s the ultimate dichotomy. Because if Parker was 100% this practical cold calculating machine he would never keep Claire, he would have treated her like all the other women in his life after his first wife Lynn. Just disposable.
All this time Parker has gotten by watching others like him fall because they tried to live a dual life. Balancing the two being impossible, so Parker just decided to have no life other than his criminal life making him invulnerable but isolated. But now Claire in a way is his ultimate villain, someone that weakens him but he can’t let go of, risking himself and her.

This book seems a lot bigger in scope and so far I’m really enjoying it.

As far as the witcher is concerned, I’m not really paying any attention anymore, I just turn it on when I’m gaming, the audiobook I mean. The only thing I pick out of it is that every character this guy writes is more obnoxious than the last, especially women. He goes out of his way to make all the women make me want to stab a pen in my ear. They’re just these working ‘hurr durr women can be cool too’ stereotypes, gotta respakt da wamans. It’s just so forced and corny and lame. I don’t mind strong female characters, heck I write a bunch of them, there’s one at the bottom of this damn blog post haha. But I try and steer clear of this mary sue bullshit ‘the women are just as tough as the men’ bullshit, this unearned superiority to men. I can’t stand it really. I kind of try and mock that trope with Sunday but she’s not in my mind this total generic bad ass, she has struggles with herself and I tried to make her more believable as a woman. And not just a carbon copy bad ass. I tried to make her strong but also nurturing and aloof too. I can’t be a judge of how well I did but hey haha.

Now if you’d asking me about my own writing I would get quiet. Hasn’t been the smoothest recently, day job and weather really getting in the way, it’s sort of slowed to a crawl. Can’t seem to muster the same passion I had at the start.

I’m considering a break to write something more fun until I’m in the mood again but I fear what that might lead to. My only option really is to keep plugging away and hope I don’t go mad.

Well there was something at least haha.

See you…

“Is this really necessary? I mean I’m not exactly much of a threat. I don’t even do cardio, my blood is ninety percent mountain dew! I get out of breath going to the bathroom, come on!” Murray cried as Carpenter tied him to the mison mast of the giant pirate ship in the whitefish mall.

He was whistling passing ropes back and forth wrapping him snuggly around his whole body. Murray’s soggy floppy hair hanging down with sweat.

“And why upside down? That’s just cruel and unusual, I’m getting dizzy already.” Murray continued to whine.

Carpenter bent down when he was satisfied Murray was tied tight enough. He got right up in Murray’s face with that harsh oniony breath making his eyes water. Murray tried to get away from that acidic breath burning his eyes but there wasn’t much room for his head to move. Carpenter smiled and said “I don’t want you to get in the way” He laughed and flicked his nose “Landlubber”. He stood up tall with his hands on the hips of his new red coat and pirate hat he stole off the captain of the skeleton crew.

He looked out on at the mall. All the stores, down at the fake concrete pool floor painted to look like a sea and licked his lips.

“Yoho a pirates life for me!” The little girl’s voice said.

He looked up at her, she was in the crows nest dressed as a pirate with a spyglass. “Land ho!” She said grabbing a rope and sliding down to the deck like Errol Flyn.

He put his foot up on one of the cannons and took the spyglass from her looking out at the entrance of the mall. Thousands of zombie furries were slowly pouring in. Muffled gunfire as the far off mercs tried to quell them in vain falling back to the second floor.

“First mate Cecilia”

“Cecilli.” He corrected as he came out of the captain cabin wearing a really tight stripey first mate shirt. His belly comically poking out of it. An eyepatch shifted up onto his beanie and a pair of tight leather pants completed the ensemble. “Why do I have to wear this?” He asked pulling the tight shirt away from his manboobs, giving them some air to breath.

Carpenter grinned like an evil pirate skeleton and said “Because this is your grave”.

“Sir, should we move? The choppers waiting on the roof.” Rigby said to Evergreen’s back. Evergreen watched the furries flood into the mall beneath him, surrounding the ice rink. He breathed and thought about it for a moment. His men on the far side were holding behind their makeshift barricades for the moment. They were quelling the horde with intermittent automatic fire stopping them from reaching the second floor.

“We can hold a little longer.” Evergreen said without looking back.

Rigby made an incredulous face behind his back and said “Yes sir”.

Evergreens hands tightened on the rail of the second floor balcony as he breathed deeply watching. “How will you get out of this one Sunday girl?” He said under his breathe.

“We have to keep moving!” She screamed in TJ’s sweaty ear as she yanked his flabby arm trying to keep him on his feet.

The eviscergrator was rolling back and forth and around the giant icerink. It was watching and waiting trying to run over and mulch them like an old fashioned push lawnmower. It made crunching biting noises as it ran over the ice. If they watched it and waited and were quick and nimble they could dodge roll out of it’s path like a dark souls boss.

But TJ was getting tired of that. He was drenched in sweat and it was making him heavy and cold and his legs felt numb and shaky. He could barely stand up on the ice and Sunday knew it. A chill ran up her spine as she stared into his desperate sweaty face, she sniffed as she could feel it coming on. Tears welling up in her eyes, tired defeated tears on their way in buckets.

If she ever had a chance to live.

He had to die.

The Frenchman let out a mirthless chuckle and said “So you knew the whole time, I’m impressed”.

Carpenter grinned and walked the deck up and down. He plucked a sword out of the hand of one of the skeleton crew and said “Knew what?”

The Frenchman was incredulous, “That I was here to kill you this whole time, you knew?” He pleaded.

Carpenter scratched his beard with the tip of the sword and said “Nah, not until you just said so.” He dropped the sword away from his face and said “Why would anyone want to kill me?” He said without a hint of irony in his voice.

The Frenchman walked up to now naked skeleton captain and took the rapier from his cold dead hand. “You have no idea what I’m talking about do you?”

Carpenter smiled and shrugged like he didn’t care.

“In the last game you killed a very important man’s only son and he- why am I telling you this?” He said cutting himself off. He stumbling forward into an angry thrust of the rapier as if pulled forward by a magnetic rage. The two sword clanking together. Their faces coming close as they locked blades. Carpenter smiling with his stinking breathe.

Read the rest of this chapter on inkitt.

Duck Seazon

Cur Chapter 6 ‘Hammer to fall’

Good morrow gentle folk,
Gonna keep this super short and sweet because I sort of lost yesterday in the best way possible so had to cram everything I had to do then into today so lots of editing spamming, procrastinating, all packed into today haha.
So yeah that’s it, see really short right haha? But that haiku yesterday was cool right? Right?

See you…
*spoilers*
This chapter is really spicy haha.
 
A crow perched atop the highest stone structure of Tallaght. It watched as Birog of the Tuatha De’ descended her horse and cautiously entered the walls of the cursed city.
 
She stopped in the entryway and seemed to sniff the air taken by a familiar scent. She dropped to one knee taking off one of her gloves and touched the ground with her bare hands.
 
She rubbed some sort of substance between her fingers before cautiously putting it in her mouth to taste it. She instantly spat it out and said “Sea salt, how odd.”
 
She rose from the ground and put her glove back and mused to herself “All their salt is surely mined, why would sea water be here, inland of all places? When a fresh water river runs but a stones throw.”
 
She stopped and straightened rigidly as she craned her neck trying to listen for people or animals but not even the crow cawed. Just dead silence and the calm creaking of the empty houses echoing the empty streets.
 
“The village is abandoned, but I was sure they were here, perhaps they camped here and then moved on, maybe I can find something in one of these houses”
 
She tied her horse up at the gates. Briefly she glanced at the standing stone with alien symbols not of her people, she assumed it must have been left from the Firbolg.
 
She entered the small round house tucked closely by the outer fence which was a stone layered daub and thatch wall. Similar to most perimeter construction in villages at the time.
 
On the surface the house was fairly unremarkable. A simple stone and clay hut with the standard spiral thicket inlays and a thatched conical roof. The village had seemed strange to her but she had assumed the village had been abandoned but the inside of the hut seemed to tell a different story.
 
One where food was left to spoil in the pot and a table was lain ready for it to be served. A number of sets of simple hide and leather shoes left untouched and clothes slowly being devoured by all manner of insects.
 
Conclusion could only be that they fled in a hurry or they hadn’t fled at all.
 
The same strange smell of sea spray and the salt hanging in the air, so odd for it to be here as well. The building was a very simple dwelling with the fire pit in the centre and the beds on one side and a simple table for eating on the other. The beds looked slept in but untouched, a thick layer of dust covering them. One adult sized and two small wooden frame bed with hide and fur bedding drawn up.
 
A strange feeling gripped her and she took to looking at the ceiling and the inner thatch working. Staring at the elaborate patterns of cobwebs that had collected there.
 
She paused breathing in through her nostrils and closing her eyes. Then swallowing her fear and trepidation she marched over to the adult bed and drew back the covers swiftly.
 
As she feared underneath the remains of a couple clinging to each other, their expressions of horrifying finality. They had no eyes or tongues or lips but there was something there, something that struck a terrible enervation in them. Skin, what little was left was drawn and yellow and putrified. The smell of the sea salt must have masked it or else there was nothing left to rot. The beetles taking all the flesh for their own and leaving naught but cold off white bone.
 
“They must have been preparing food and then hid here” She remarked to herself. “What could have scared them so?”
 
She shuddered and covered them up again and looked over at the children’s beds.
 
“Oh goddess no”
 
She slowly walked around the adult bed and approached the children’s small simple beds. She took another deep inhale of salty air and turned over their covers.
 
She sighed in relief to see them empty.
 
“Empty?” she ground her teeth “Where are the children?”
 
A noise outside, the clopping of an unfamiliar horse on hard stone, a heavy harsh whinnying that sounded like a howl of a man pained.
 
She took to the small shuttered windows. She got low and peeped out at the cluttered claustrophobic streets seeing nothing. Only hearing the distant closing sound of devil hooves.
 
Then suddenly a black horse’s head appeared close to the window too close, the sound of the hooves completely divorced from its distance. She shrunk back into the hut stupidly trying to avoid the gaze of a dumb horse and reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. Terrifying as it was looming over her.
 
The horse passed by the window and she caught a glimpse of the rider. He was enormous, much larger than any tuatha she’d ever seen. Black armor that looked like bones and a skull death mask with gleaming red jeweled eyes. The black rider silently seemed to throb with breath. His armor rising and falling heavily, making a terrible noise like ribs being scraped with a knife. The plates rattling and shifting as the horse jossled.
 
The mysterious knight scanned the area, what was he looking for? Why here? Why now?
 
After a moment, he whipped the reigns as if angry at the air, spurred the horse and disappeared from the frame of the window.
 
She left it a moment, holding her breathe as she listened to the horses hooves get further away and it’s terrible cries cease.
 
Cautiously she approached the entrance to the round house, taking careful quiet steps on the earthen floor covered in loose straw.
 
She swallowed and listened and when she was satisfied stepped out of the small building and looked around. Without warning a tight gripping sensation around her heart told there was strong magic trained on her. She froze looking at the ground and a huge shadow growing at her feet.
 
She turned and saw the black knight on horseback standing on the thatched roof of the hut looking down at her. The horse scrapping at the straw and snorting breathing heavily.
 
“Hello girl, I’ve been looking for you!”
 
 
Head on over to inkitt to get the rest of the chapter right here.

Gage Chapter 12 ‘Passover’

Hello hello again,

Greetings on this fine tuesday coming from my shack in the middle of murky nowhere to bring you more weird stories and general musings on life (or the lack thereof).

Been getting on with some decent writing and a lot of slacking off, still trying to get back into the swing of things with the 2k a day word count, not quite managing it but saying that the stuff I’ve been putting out imo isn’t too bad. It’s taking shape, it’s getting there.
Is it as good as the start, I don’t but I’m reaching the tipping point now, the story is peaking and I like the way it’s shaping up.

And tbh I’m looking forward to doing something more silly and fun again, so as soon as I’m done here gonna get straight back into 3 ring for the next instalment of that and then maybe start thinking about a sequel to Diana after dark if the time is ready for that. Been wanting to write that one for a while.

But the moon and the stars have to be aligned for that, it has to be perfect and if you’ve read the book you’d know that is pretty topical haha.

Not that I don’t love writing serious stuff and intense stuff, it’s just a little draining being in that head space constantly, you have no idea how worked up I have to get to write stuff like this. It’s like I meditate but not to get calm and serene but to get the complete opposite. I get so worked up it’s like I’m trying to rip the keys out of my laptop haha.

It just takes up a lot of energy to run that hot, I’m literally trying to make myself feel like I’m in battle flinging a battleaxe into someone’s face haha.

Talking about battleaxes in the faces I haven’t been reading or listening to the witcher much, I just don’t care enough to follow the story honestly, the characters are boring and unlikable and I feel like I was cheated out of the witcher series I should’ve have gotten. I keep lamenting to my polish buddy at work that if the series had been like the first story it would have been perfect. If Sapkowksi had kept it a tight almost pulpy action packed terse tense fantasy thriller it would have been my favourite fantasy series hands down.

But it just gets lost in the weeds with this generic crap and shitty characters I just lost interest. I mean most of the books are just about Ciri and completely unrelated stuff honestly. For a series about a monster slayer it just uses his monster slaying as like a character trait, it’s not what the story is about at all and plays no part in the narrative whatsoever.

Geralt being a witcher is just something he likes to tell people like he’s on a speed date but he never actually does any ‘witching’. It’s just astounding that CD projekt red can get it so right with the games but the creator of the character can get it so wrong. It’s weird because it’s usually the opposite for adaptations like it’s the total reverse with Dexter. Sure they hired a great actor to play Dexter but they completely fluffed the story and the character after season one. If the show had followed the books religiously it would have been amazing.

But it’s equally amazing that CD projekt red (jesus I sound like I’m doing marketing for these guys haha) could turn a cool shorty story (which could be a rip off of elric, I need to read elric) and turn it into one of the biggest game franchises in history.

I also finished that Parker book it was taking me ages to get through and yeah it kinda goes nowhere like I thought it might. They kill the only interesting villain off halfway through and replace him with an old guy on a golf cart who doesn’t do anything except shout at people. And the whole book is about Parker trying to escape this amusement park while getting besieged by this criminal organisation and spoilers yeah at the end he escapes and then goes home and makes himself a sandwich. That’s literally the end, I’m not making that up. The last line is him eating the sandwich and then thinking about getting the money he left there.

He doesn’t even get the money, or even try for it there’s no tension at all. He just escapes and thats it, no epic show down because the person he would have had the showdown with he already killed, he was literally the first guy he killed, it was pathetic. I mean why the fuck couldn’t you just have killed off the guys buddy and continued the story with the interesting villain instead?

That tiny change would have changed the entire plot and made it ten times more interesting and it would have been so easy to do. You just have the other guy walk into the hall of mirrors. Why would this smart villain be the first to walk into a trap like that? It made no sense and basically destroyed all the tension in the book.

I complained that the last book was kind of small and uninteresting and the heist was a little boring because everything went right. But that still had tension and interesting characters and a more dynamic story, it had legs. This book is just lazy and hacky honestly.

But still this is like I dunno the 14th book in the series and it’s the first real stinker, so that’s amazing. I’ve been burning through these books and loving each one more than the last. I just hope the next one returns to form a little.
Oh and I’m really excited because I just found out that someone turned all Stark’s books into graphic novels so that’ll give me a reason to read them all again which is great. I can’t wait for that.

I didn’t think the book was shit, I think if it had a few tweaks it would have been decent. Just have that interesting villain you spent all that time building up live til the end and have this awesome battle of wits of which I expected. And maybe have a little more set up to the actual job and the park itself. Just to give the story a little more breathing room and not be this claustrophobic almost like stage play set in one room.

Yeah so that’s my rant for the day probably be back for a poem tomorrow, I don’t know yet, been feeling a little up and down about that. I definitely have material let’s leave it at that.

Oh that reminds me I finally got to the part of the story where my bardic poem is used in Cur, so that’s cool. It is kind of a pivotal point in the story and the lore, the celtic mythology. Bards are held in high regard in that culture, their power to influence people is quite literally seen as a form of powerful magic and curses.

Anyway gotta go and do some proof reading as usual, finished the Diana pitch chapters but I’m gonna start working on the whole book soon enough. But I will put out another Cur chapter soon enough.

See you…

They came for us at night.

Me and my friends watched from our rooftops as they snaked through the back alleys. That bookish one with the moustache behind them fiddling with a tiny pencil and paper trying to write in some kind of journal.

They crept quickly and quietly to the centre of town. The town was so quiet you could hear the sand moving in their boots. A ghost town silently watching as they worked their way closer to the saloon they hoped Gage was sleeping in.

I could see on the hill where they set up camp, those weird pods were still there closed up and not moving, just sitting there like warts on a frogs ass.

They had strange weaponry and stalked the alleys ways watching every corner as they went. Feeling the eyes on them, slits of boarded windows following them as they passed holding their breath.

They must have felt us watching, the big one with the beard looked up at us but we ducked too quickly for him to see. They hurried along passing us off as curious birds.

He was waiting for them.

Just standing so tall, alone in the centre of main street, a cold wind blowing. His shotgun hanging loose at his side.

The men fanned out in formation and surrounded Gage in a semi circle in front of the saloon.

The man with the moustache shouted and tried to push past the men.

“Ryan, we have to take him alive.” He shouted as he approached the man with the white hair.

The man at the front said nothing, he just spun around and hit the pudgy moustache guy in the guts dropping him flat to his knees. Then he turned back to Gage and shrugged his shoulders.

The man on his knees tried to get up as the other men attempted to keep him down.

“If you kill him and others hear about it, he’ll become a martyr”

The man with the white hair, he must have been the leader turned to each of his men and he pointed, first at the woman. He said “Are you gonna tell anyone about this?”

She shook her head.

Then to the large man with the beard “You?”

“Not a soul.”

Then to the mexican.

“De nada”

“You?” He said to the younger man.

“No sir” he grinned.

“Well that’s everyone.” He said looking at the man with the mustache and quickly shooting him in the head with his strange alien weapon. There was just a quick flash of light and a strange noise and the man’s head was gone and his body became dead weight in the arms of the men carrying. Stained as they were with a light dusting of pink mist.

Disgusted, they threw his body down like a sack of potatoes in the dry loose top soil.

Gage watched the dust settle around it as it stopped being a person and just became scenery.

Ryan stopped and looked Gage up and down and scoffed. “We travelled all this way for this” He sniffed and spat on the dirt next to the mustache man’s body and said “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to do that.” He smirked and put his e-cigar in his mouth and sucked on it looking at Gage. “I know you” He said.

Gage tossed his gun out in front of him on the ground. It landed with a heavy thudding noise.

Ryan let out a laugh and said “Well that was easy.”

Gage didn’t move or say a word, his one eye burning staring through Ryan who tried too hard to hide a boiling fear in his gut. Destiny staring him right in the face, looking at the bare pit where his soul was supposed to reside.

Gage took his duster off of his shoulders revealing a mountain of man in a stained grey longsleeved under shirt that was once white. Ripped and torn and bitten and stretched with the sinewy muscles underneath forged through nothing but hard work and sweat and toil. The work horse bitten and turned sour and vicious and lame biting back at the hand of his master and running madly and wild and free to it’s own doom.

He took his suspenders off his shoulders and clenched his fists.

Ryan scoffed again “Oh so you wanna do it the old fashioned way.” He took another suck on his e-cigar and put it back in his pocket. He took his gun out of it’s holster and lifted it over his shoulder at which point the younger guy with the shaved head took it off of him.

He was wearing some kind of weird skeleton suit over his body that went over his arms and legs and connected at the hips. Under it he was just wearing a fitted shirt and a pair of pants.

Ryan didn’t take a stance he just smiled with his cocky smile and said “Well what are you waiting for?”

He let out a mocking breathy laughter and said “Ok, I guess I’ll be the one to lead”

He moved so fast I thought I was dreaming at first. I’d never seen a human move like that, it was like he was there one minute and then there was just dust and dirt and he was barrelling at Gage. He didn’t throw a punch he just launched himself right into him like a cannonball and swept him off his feet with enough force to kill a horse.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He couldn’t have been more than six foot nothing this guy but one minute he was standing there the next he was on top of Gage. He toppled the gigantic man in two seconds flat, felled him like a great oak tree in a single strike.

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Passover

GS2 Chaper 21 ‘Some girls are bigger than others’

Hey there,

Not much to say today, mostly been working and being boring haha. Not much writing or wackiness happening right and I haven’t really had time to be bored by the witcher. I watched avengers infinity war yesterday and it was ok I guess. I have no strong feelings about it.

Getting to the end of this Parker book, it’s pretty short but I’m taking my time haha. I dunno I’m not rushing to finish it, as I said before it’s just sort of smaller with less in depth characters than the other books so I’m not like dying to read the next chapters like I usually am. 
It’s pathetic, I look forward to bus journeys and waiting for stuff just so I can read but this one is just a little meh. It’s just not as big in scope, it’s all set in one place and although its an interesting place it just sort of kills the pacing. I kinda thought this one would be like home alone but really bloody but it sort of let me down. His traps were kind of short lived and didn’t do much.

I was hoping the story would actually follow the main villain who I thought Stark had built up quite well and then you’d get to experience the fear of running into Parker’s traps from his perspective a little like the fourth book and how terrified the villain in that book is of Parker *spoilers* so much so he chews a cyanide capsule just seeing his face again.

But they killed off that cool villain character like in the first encounter and then bring in this sort of generic mob boss character who hasn’t been built up at all really and he’s not really doing anything except riding around in a golf cart barking orders at people. I mean yeah it’s realistic that he got killed just by fate but it’s just so anti-climactic because I’d actually grown to like that guy and I wanted to see him and Parker go at in the ring of intelligence and to have him go down at the first hurdle made all that time spent with him seem pointless.

I mean it’s sort of that divide you get between subverted expectations and actually being good. I don’t care if a story is predictable as long as it’s good. I don’t care if my expectations are subverted if I’m disappointed. It’s like last jedi all over again, they spent too much time trying to subvert expectations and do something unexpected than they did actually crafting a decent narrative that made sense and good characters people could identify with.

It’s not a bad book, it’s just not great. Parker, you’re getting soft my old pal, you need to get back in shape, oh yeah also one of my favourite characters gets arrested right at the start so that sucked. Probably never see him again now.

Anyway enough bitching about that, time is getting away from me and it’s too damn hot today, need to attempt some real work today and maybe some spamming since I’m back on facebook, but for how long who knows? I seem to have report snowflakes on my friends list who like to flag me and get me banned for saying only the least edgy things haha.

So we’ll see how that goes.

See you… 

TJ froze making a stupid face. Trying to flip through ten seconds of footage of his pathetic life flashing before his eyes. Lots of him just sitting in his underpants watching anime and jacking it to anime porn. His mom’s smile, and a man he thought he recognised but couldn’t place. A skinny guy with short dark hair in a buttoned shirt with a pocket protector. ‘Who is that guy?’ He said to himself as he stood dumbstruck. Staring into the those glowing spider eyes rolling towards him through the threshing blades.

“TJ!” A faraway voice called out to him and he turned in a dreamy haze before getting knocked hard on his ass. The eyes following him in slow motion as the buzzing of blades moved like a cloud of wasps shredding up the top ice as they passed.

Sunday knocked TJ out of the way. She pushed her bat out in front of her. The force of the movement of this thing wrenching it twisting out of her hands and sending it into the air. It landed with a thudding clink. Lodging a heavy circular saw blade into the ice like it was put there by the lady in the lake herself.

The rolled to a stop and started to come together. A picture was forming as the rounded gauging blades slowed, white hot. Cooling and steaming on the ice. The frame of the thing heaving with unnatural laboured breathing. Which moved mechanically like bellows making a harsh wheezing noise.

It was big, atleast seven foot tall but hunched like it was on all fours. Twelve foot long with a whipping barbed metallic tail. No backlegs, just the tail and the front pronged metallic claws like a birds. It’s head was a squat thing with no neck, some kind of helmet covered in sharp barbed spikes. The entire length of it’s body was covered in these holes with gauged rounded blades like a “Fucking cheesegrater cyborg?” TJ said as he peeled himself over his fat gut to get a good look at that thing. “Seriously?!” He spat as he got to his knee.

For the rest of the chapter head on over to inkitt.

Some girls are bigger than others

Cur Chapter 5 ‘Storm King’

Hey again humanoid creatures,

Back again and this time significantly less lazy, I actually have a chapter of Cur, one I’ve been promising for ages and it’s probably one of my least favourite chapters so far. I mean it’s not bad it’s just not as good as either the chapter before it or after it. It’s sort of a connective tissue chapter, a set up to something else. Just like this spiel is just a set up to an inevitable rant about the witcher haha.
I feel like there’s more I can do with this chapter and I most certainly will in the near future when it comes time to revisit it for editing and what not.

I was thinking of going in to a doctor to get a referral to see if I have aspergers but I’ve been putting it off because I just hate the idea of being a victim or being probed in any way just to have someone write it on a piece of paper. I want to know but I just don’t want to go outside haha. If only it could be done indoors and I could just print my “I’m a retard” certificate and hang it on my wall.

I dunno it’s kind of depessing, feels like I’ve been lying to myself this whole time, promising myself a normal happy life I was never equipped to have. Living like a character from a Lovecraft story (or even Lovecraft himself) and telling myself “One day” maybe eventually I’ll have the things these normal happy people have. I watched a documentary on the plane on the way back about it and it just made me miserable knowing that was out of reach for me.

But in a way it made me feel thankful that I have some good things in my life, even if it’s just the tiny spec of happiness and a future, it’s better than nothing and I can keep living another day.

Well that got heavy fast, quick pivot to the witcher.

The thing I hate most about the witcher is that I love the witcher.

I love the premise of the witcher that was sold to me in the game and also in the very first short story in the book.

It was basically a pulp detective story but fantasy, a little like Solomon Kane. There was very little dialogue, it was stark, gritty, great action. All about a monster hunter tracking down and killing monsters and all the story surrounding it. This is what I thought the books were going to be like.

As a premise that really worked but as a premise it was dropped like a ten tonne weight in the subsequent books. In four books he might have killed maybe three monsters. A book series about a monster slayer who seems completely disinterested in hunting monsters.

The books basically toss the fact he’s a witcher around as a backstory fill like you would if someone was a vietnam vet, simply to signify he’s tough and can handle himself. But he never engages in slaying monsters.

Instead the books are mostly about really boring politics of a really boring war and how disinterested Geralt is about getting involved in said war.

And then it pivots again into being a story about Ciri having prepubescent lesbian sex with an elf. The story just has no grounding, it’s boring and wordy and convoluted and just seems to be going nowhere.

It astonishes me how well CD projekt red took the mantle of the premise and really ran with it. They relegated the boring war into the background where it belongs just to focus on Geralt hunting monsters and then interlaced a plot around it. And also they made the characters more likeable and relate-able on the whole. I can’t say I like or care about any of the characters in the book. Even so Geralt even in the game is sort of a generic bad ass, he’s more fun than he is in the books.
In the books he’s supposed to be like this brooding serous guy but it makes him come off as a weird whiner.
I just think it’s amazing that they took such a dull uninspired series which I’ve come to believe is actually a rip off of the elric series because apparently the guy who wrote the witcher series worked on the marketing for the polish translation of Elric. They took this sort of go nowhere series and they turned it into this conqueror of the games industry.

And I’m just really hoping they can do the same magic with Cyberpunk when they finally release it. I’m hearing really good things about it.

That’s about all.

If you’re on my mailing list the free copies of my stuff went out today so you should have them already, if not, let me know.

See you…

The dying embers of the fire fizzled and cracked and resonated through the cave. The sounds of birds chirping arrogantly outside petered in and rang in the druidess’ pained ears as she lay flat on the cave floor.

 

She forced one eye open and moved her face off the ground, rocks and debris sticking to it. Her face covered in red indentations from the rubble she lay prone on all night. The light that came through the tunnel was unwelcome and unkind and drove sharp slivers of pain to her head and neck.

 

Something dawned on her suddenly; she clutched at her side and felt it wanting. The sword was gone, what little money she had, her wrist too was bare, her magical torque swindled by that damn shape shifter and the ogreous dead man.

 

She rose to a sitting position and thanked the goddess that she was at least still dressed and felt undisturbed. Having thankfully not been violated in her sleep by those vile miscreants she had the bad luck to encounter.

 

The druidess sitting rubbed all the parts of her head that pained her which seemed like all of them. Her head feeling like a pig’s stomach full of broken clay pot that someone had violently shaken.

 

Her senses returned and she could smell the fire and hear a distant soft humming, her feet scraping on the cave floor as she labored to her feet.

 

The old man was still there pottering about, he blinked as he saw the young girl and smiled, she couldn’t tell if that meant he remembered her or not.

 

“Those men that were here?”

 

“Men?” He aped absentmindedly as if the word were foreign to him and lacked all meaning.

 

“The shape shifter and the dead man.”

 

“Dead man?”

 

“The Firbolg” She felt silly even saying it, as if she was playing in to some sort of delusion, the firbolg didn’t exist anymore.

 

“Oh yes” The old man nodded “I remember them; things were peaceful for a time after they were done killing each other.” He laughed. “But that was a long time ago, I’m three thousand years old, did I mention that?” He said ditheringly.

 

She brushed it off again having no time for his fantasy “Do you remember the sword I had?”

 

“Yes, the singing sword of the lesser demon”

 

“Lesser demon what are you talking about?”

 

“Tethra, I think his name was” The old man mused.

 

The girl shook her head sick of playing the old man’s silly games. “Do you know where they went?” She motioned with her hands as she described them. “The tall man and the man with the red hair”

 

He squinted.

 

“The man who can turn into a dog”

 

“Oh the young lad, he came later, his people didn’t last long but they were before even the Firbolg. I was the first on this island though, me and my wife, until I turned into a fish” He waffled on.

 

“Do you know where they went?” She said through tight lips.

 

“Aren’t you some kind of a witch or something? You don’t have a magic potion you can use to find him” The old man laughed.

 

“Hmm I could try scrying for them if I had something of theirs and I knew where I was on a map.” She pinched her chin.

 

“That can be arranged” The old man laughed.

 

 

“I greet you noble assassin, you may know me. Gwenton assistant of Abartach of Slaverghty, Abertach is very sorry he couldn’t meet you in person, but I have been sent in his stead.

 

Cur and the messenger met at a traveller’s camp off the road to Banagher near Lough Derg. A heavily wooded area that sung with the sickly sweet sound of birds chirping and woodpeckers pecking. They sat across from each other, an unkindled fire pit black with the warm ashes of the previous night and stinking with the smell of rotten game.

 

The messenger was a young looking half-blood elf with a ridiculous haircut. The sides of his head shaved but for a floppy quaff of hair that fell in front of his face. His features more rounded than an elf’s but he was taller than that of a dwarf. Thin but trying to compensate by wearing the thick leather armor of a thief weighed down with pockets. He carried the vomitus arrogance of a noble dabbling at thuggery.

 

“I’m no assassin” Cur spat “Assassins kill for pay, I would kill an elf for a hot meal” He grinned wickedly staring at the half elf hungrily.

 

The elf gulped loudly and shrunk behind his leather armor. “Quite” He said trying to laugh it off. “I bring you your reward in silver” He said hoping it would cool tensions that suddenly flared. He reached out his hand with which a large hide pouch dangling from it. The dog at Cur’s side barked at him and Cur ground his teeth.

 

“The woman” Cur growled not looking at the purse.

 

“Ah yes well, Abartach needs you to do one last jo-!” Cur caught him by the wrist and yanked him off his feet and through the fire pit, the bag of silver split and poured out all over the ground. Cur stepped on his chest and pulled his arm up uncomfortably as if he might rip it out of its socket. The last embers of the night before felt through his leathers.

 

The elf completely overpowered groaned vacantly as he lay dazed his head swimming. Silver coins marked with the ulster symbol of the hand on the shield as his pillow, the dog by his ear growling a steady heat rising at his back.

 

“The one before and the one before that were also ‘the last’.” Cur applied more pressure with his foot and the half elf groaned. “I played your games because they amused me, I grow weary of them.”

 

“Abartach!” The half elf gasped as he tried to get more air in his lungs than Cur’s heavy foot would allow “He lied- to you!”

 

“I know” Cur laughed. “What do dwarves do but lie and count coin? And now he sends a boy to meet me.” He held the young man’s hand to his face. “But there’s more?”

 

“Yes, there’s someone who might know!”

 

“Speak!”

 

“There’s a woman who lives in the woods of Tallaght, it might be her.” Cur pressed harder on his chest, the heat at his back now slowly searing and a smell like overcooked beef filled his nostrils. “-Or else she might know where your woman is”

 

“Tallaght?” Cur said it as if he’d said it before.

 

The dog barked and growled at hearing the name.

 

“It’s not far from here, a half a day’s walk no further. You don’t remember it, Abertach sent you there before now. Damn near slaughtered half the village, a plague gripped it after you left and narry a soul remains. As if overnight, only bones now. Some say it’s some bloodsucker’s curse but its utter nonsense. A single monster couldn’t devour a whole village, with no one to tell the tale, it’s not possible. Maybe you did it” The elf spat defiantly.

 

Cur grinned.

 

Cur pressed his back harder into the hot ash and he cried out like a branded calf and foamed at the mouth.

 

“Is that all? Cur asked, the dog teeth flashed in his vision

 

“Yes I swear it!”

 

Cur pulled him still clutching jealously at the envoys hand pulling him closer and breathing heavily into his face. Smiling that malevolent smile.

 

“You are a messenger yes?”

 

“Yes” the messenger replied reticent.

 

“You will take a message back to your master.” Cur grinned wide.

 

“What message?”

 

Cur opened his mouth wide and with a vicious speed he bit off all the messengers’ fingers on one hand.

 

He screamed as jets of white blood sprayed out of the sides of Curs grinning devil mouth.

 

Read the full chapter on Inkiit

Storm King

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