2016 March Vignette

[Bard]

Your PC may be a certified genius/font of raw magic/unstoppable killing machine, but they are up against a master. How is your character thoroughly trounced at their own game?

Final date for submissions is April 4th

[Christoph]

This is but one possible future...

*

“Can you hear it?”

Black sky, fiery clouds. Clashing hordes shook the earth in a storm of blood and steel. Dragons roared above, swooping between bolts of green lightning. Eluriand, the shining city, burned. The apocalypse itself crept across the horizon and Elijah Belov, one of the world’s most powerful sorcerer, stepped forth to face it.

Atop a hill he climbed, unleashing his voice. The Faceless swarmed up the slope, their eyes and noses cut off and their mouths sewn shut, crude blades in place of hands and black metal fused to their skin. They burned alive in silence as Elijah's magic enveloped them. Strange, inside-out words spilled from his lips; orange flames erupted from his hands. Explosions blasted apart the Faceless ranks, killing the abominations by the score. Searing wind whipped his red cloak.

“Rally to me!” he cried. The defenders formed up behind him. Hundreds, elves and humans clad in green or blue and silver, formed a wall of spears and battered shields.

“Can you hear it?” asked the voice in his head.

A Coronian soldier with a plumed helm and a wild grin stepped to the front. “Good day for an apocalypse, Master Belov?”

“Not today, Captain.” The Faceless scrambled up the hill, crashing against the shield wall. “Hold!” He uttered another spell, unleashing a hundred invisible blades into the onrushing swarms. “We stop the tide of madness here! We--”

He gasped, his eyes drawn to a distant patch of scorched earth. It was her. The Prophet, the heart of this madness and destruction. An oily smudge upon reality itself. To look at her was to stare into the void.

“Can you hear the world falling to its knees?”

Wrapped in silky white robes, she walked across the battlefield, the ground crumbling to dust beneath her bare feet. Small in stature, the woman called the Prophet felt massive, like a storm at sea.

“This world still stands on both feet!” Elijah’s shout pierced the sky.

The Prophet turned her featureless black mask and raised her arm toward him. A foul wind swept across the hill, laced with veins of crackling green. Elijah raised his wards just in time, dispersing the gust with a bubble of glittering light. The soldiers were less lucky; they gasped and choked and collapsed, armor rusting and flesh falling off their bones.

A dragon swooped overhead toward the Prophet. White hot flame rushed from its jaws only to fizzle out inches from her open palm. Fingers clenched into a fist and she swept her own downward. A choked roar, a crash. The dragon halted mid-flight and plummeted, smashed into the ground by an invisible force. Arm outstretched toward the fallen beast, the Prophet never turned her featureless, masked face away from Elijah. It writhed and shrieked as its chest bulged and its heart exploded out in a geyser of blood and viscera. A centuries old dragon eviscerated in an instant.

The sorcerer wove his strongest spells, his voice cracking like thunder. Lightning surged from his fingertips, scything across the battlefield at his foe. The Prophet waved the assault away with casual gestures, stepping steadily forward.

“By resisting, you hasten the world’s unmaking.”

Elijah raised his arms and fissures split the hill. Fire and brimstone shot up from the cracks, swirling around him. He cried out, each word hurling molten chunks at the Prophet. She stopped midstep, tilting her head at the incoming barrage. A single outstretched arm, palm forward. The burning orange boulders disintegrated midair, their dust settling to the ground. She resumed her advance.

“You cry out for my mercy, but you and this world will die in silence.”

Her foul wind whipped across the battlefield once more, black tendrils battering his wards. He faltered, falling to one knee. He looked up and the Prophet already stood over him, her blank, unfeeling mask bearing down with impossible weight.

“You were a better teacher than you believed,” she whispered, her real voice now filtering through the mask to his ears – a sound like fluttering wings, deceptively innocent. “Why fight it when all you can make, I can unmake?”

He strained with all his strength, but the force of her gaze kept him rooted to the ground. He could barely move his lips enough to gasp, “How did I fail you so, Sarah? I would have done anything for you, would have pulled the stars from the sky—”

“Be silent, Elijah.” She placed a single finger over his lips and all the air rushed from his lungs, leaving him a sputtering, coughing wreck. “So arrogant. This was never about you. You’re merely a symptom of the greater disease.” She gripped him beneath the jaw, lifting him in the air like a toy. He couldn’t breathe. “Pull the stars from the sky?” Disgust poisoned her voice. “In your pride, perhaps you would have, or another of your ilk, sorcerers with delusions of divinity. Pull down the stars and let the world die in a screaming inferno. As my mistress’s instrument, I shall give the world peace, the quiet ending it deserves.”

“N’jal...lies...” he coughed, gripping her forearm. Searing heat surged through his hands, charring through her linen sleeves. “Nothing... quiet... about this.” His eyes flared like hot coals. Sarah, prophet of N’jal did not flinch as her arm’s flesh blistered and blackened.

She held her other hand up to his face. She spoke in a hundred voices melted together, her words charged with the choking finality of an infant born still. “All will embrace Her silence.”

The words carried the impossible hunger of the void. They broke him. He cried out, but no sound escaped his lips. He felt his power, all his strength and magical prowess, shatter in an instant, consumed by the void, as he fell to the ground. She left him lying in her trail of dust, powerless as he watched the silencing of all things.

[Krugor]

“Sorcerer’s balls! Who puked in my bowl? This is disgusting!”

“Sir, I’ll have you know this an extremely rare delicacy! It’s fermented herring soup. The chef spent months preparing the fish to get that exquisite taste just right”

“It tastes like the bottom of my shoe. I can have that prepared within seconds. And probably for less too.”

The waiter stared dumbfounded at the undead man sitting in front of him, making all sorts of wild gagging motions and causing quite a scene in the tavern. This wasn’t how he imagined his first day working here.

“If you don’t like it I can maybe ask the chef to prepare you something else?”

“You know what, I’ll go talk to that deranged hack myself! Somebody could die if he keeps serving this poisonous leprechaun vomit”

“I don’t think-“ the waiter started, but before he could finish his sentence the skeleton had leaped from his seat and strutted towards the kitchen in the back of the tavern. Several of the guests of the ‘White Troll Inn’ watched the scene unfold. It wasn’t every day that one could see a skeleton eating soup, let alone express his disappointment in the way it was prepared.
They dropped their cutlery and stopped eating, this was the most exciting to happen all week. A few of them got up from their seats and followed the skeleton, hoping to catch a glimpse of the argument going on in the kitchen.

“You there!” Krugor yelled as he pushed open the wooden door separating the kitchen from the dining area. “Are you responsible for this disaster? Explain yourself!”

A corpulent and stout looking dwarf stood in the kitchen, pot in one hand and a spatula in the other. The dwarf had long, greyish hair, which he wore in a ponytail, covered by a hairnet and his thick beard showed signs of a struggle with bread crumbs. He wore a stained cooking apron, which had long lost its color but read ‘Soup-A-Chef’ in vague lettering, and stood upon a small stool to reach the pots and pans on the stove. More angry than surprised the short cook looked up and saw the skeleton bursting into his kitchen.

“What do ye want, corpse!?” the dwarf spouted, while he continued cooking and stirring the pot on the stove.

“I demand an explanation! How dare you serve me this bowl of translucent mucus which tastes like an ogre’s behind. I demand to know how you dare call yourself a chef, dwarf!”

“That fermented herring soup ye ordered is renowned in this region, baldy. I’m the only one who can make it and people come from all over ta get a taste of it!” the chef said, now focusing his attention back to his meal.

“I guess travelling a great distance and being on the brink of starvation is the only way you could actually consume any of this so-called soup” Krugor responded grinning, quite pleased with his own wit. The preparation of food and creating something edible meant a great deal to him, it was the only thing he was actually good at. Other than being a fearless warrior and magnificent lover of course. So someone calling themselves a chef yet serving this monstrosity was an outrage. He would show the dwarf how a real chef prepares soup!

“I’ll put an end to this right now. The customers of this fine establishment deserve to taste a real treat for once! I challenge you to a cook-off, sir!”

The guests still lingering near the kitchen gasped loudly and the entire tavern suddenly got so quiet you could almost hear the dwarf’s sweat crawling down his forehead. For a few moments the only sound came from the pot still cooking on the stove, when the chef responded; “All right, skeleton. I accept yer challenge”.

“Of course you do. You have no choice. It’s dishonorable and a disgrace among dwarven chefs to decline a cook-off” Krugor said enthusiastic. The fact that there is no such a thing as a cook-off or even an honor code of some sort among dwarven chef didn’t seem to matter to the skeleton. “Let’s do this, tiny bearded man!”

In one fluent motion Krugor grabbed a pot hanging from the ceiling and put it next to the one the dwarf was using. He filled it to the brim with water from the water bucket standing next to the stove and as the dwarf stood there wondering why the skeleton would use the dirty water used for cleaning the floors he noticed Krugor already grabbing a kitchen knife and going to work on the remainders of the fermented herring laying on the kitchen counter. “Those pieces are actually not edible-“ the bearded chef started, before being interrupted by Krugor’s bony index finger touching his lips; “Sssh, this’ll be over soon. You can have the recipe later.”

The chef burst into laughter as he realized any notions of this crazy skeleton actually being able to cook anything quickly went out the window. Troublesome customers came and went daily in the popular inn, and the bearded cook could’ve guessed this undead was no different.
He pushed Krugor aside as he stepped of his stool and started chopping pieces of herring like a ferocious animal on the table behind him. With a flick of his wrist he propelled the fish bits into the still boiling pot on the stove, and while grabbing some herbs and spices from the spice rack he jumped back on his little stool.
The chef mumbled something to himself, sprinkled the spices over the pot and with a loud bang and a lot of smoke the boiling water with fish bits had transformed into a thick soup, with the most amazing aroma, tickling the senses and instantly wetting the tongue.

“You used magic!” Krugor said insulted. “That’s not cooking!”

“That’s how dwarves cook, skeleton” the chef responded. He took the pot from the stove and poured some of its contents into a small bowl.

“Damn that bite-sized hairball..” Krugor mumbled to himself. He quickly grabbed some sliced onions laying on the kitchen table, threw them into pot and spoke some gibberish as he made several hand movements, faking magic and hoping it would fool at least the waiter assigned to do the tasting. The skeletal chef also poured his soup into a bowl and put it on the table.

This was it. The moment of judging. The young waiter looked anxiously at the two bowls, not knowing wat kind of adventures would await him on the toilet in a few hours. Slowly he let the spoon fill in one of the bowls and brought it to his lips…

“Oh my lord!” he shouted in ecstasy as he took a sip of the dwarven soup, “this is heavenly! Take me now, I’ve tasted pure happiness”
Krugor sighed, this contest was obviously rigged. “Now taste the winning soup, my soup!” the skeleton ordered.

Again the waiter sunk his spoon into one of the bowls. The stench of the green, vile-looking soup already made the boy gag. Feeling pressured by a dwarf and a skeleton staring at him intensely he took a sip and immediately threw up. “Oh my lord, I’ve just tasted death. What rancid, truly horrifying creation is this!?”

The bearded dwarf roared and laughed so hard it was deafening, and as the entirety of the tavern watched him Krugor stepped out of the kitchen, grabbed his backpack and staff and walked out of the White Troll Inn.

“Bunch of culinary barbarians” he whispered, vowing never to step foot in that dump ever again.

[Bard]

Closed for judging.

[Bard]

This was actually a lot harder for me to judge than one might think, and it pretty much came down to the wild card aspect of it for me to make a decision.

Christophe:

While there were a couple of sentence fragments here, such as with the part at the beginning, “Black sky, fiery clouds”, there weren’t many other grammatical issues that I noticed. Some might say that you should have used prophetess, instead of prophet, but I’m going to assume that you were using it in the generic sense.

This came across as one of those classic tales, of a master and apprentice relationship, with heavy bitter romantic undertones, which has been transformed to antagonism. While viewing the dialogue in that light made the dialogue perfectly understandable, some of Elijah’s statements seem a little cliché, but that might have been intended.

The personalities of the two main characters come through quite clearly, both seeing their actions as clearly justified.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen a bit more ‘magic’ in the prophet’s response to Elijah’s spells, beyond simply seeming to dispel all his attacks; perhaps a description of the distortion of reality with phantom lights or sounds, or something else to show arcane interactions in some form, something to think about for future threads. All and all though, it was entertaining, and would definitely be a good hook into something else, which point of fact seems like it is turning into one if your post in the LCC thread is any indication.

Krugor:

I’ll admit upfront, the fact that nobody having a problem with an undead patron in an establishment took me a moment to get my head around, but when I let it go and ran with the thread, I’ll admit I found this very funny, and a bit original.

The dialogue, especially for Krugor is creative , and helps to show him as both in a comedic light, but also as more than just a bit flamboyant. Equally so the dwarven cook’s personality comes through both in his dialogue, and internal thought processes.

While I did notice a few mechanical errors with this post, there were relatively small, and didn’t hamper my enjoyment in the slightest.

“Damn that bite-sized hairball..” you needed one more period here to make this a true ellipses, which given the context is what I believed you intended. Also, the following line “wild gagging motions and causing quite a scene in the tavern. This wasn’t how he imagined his first day working here” sounds better if you add, “be like.” At the end; this isn’t a major issue for the statement, just that it sounds a bit more complete if this is added.

Krugor’s defeat at the hands of the dwarf are due to a combination of his own personal opinion of his cooking prowess, perhaps a bit of haste on his part to win the contest with the dwarf, and the fact he can’t use magic. The presence of a magic using dwarf cook is definitely not something I’ve encountered before. Dwarf cooks, yes, magic using chiefs, but never all three in combination.

While the kitchen scene was fine, and there was truly nothing wrong with it, something that you might want to consider in future threads involving kitchens might be: presence of other works more clearly described, such as someone bringing something in from a nearby smoke house, the presence of other cooks working on other dishes, etc.; perhaps even some conversations that others having while they work; or the smells that individual dishes being prepared has beyond the man dish being focused upon. As I said something to consider in future threads.

As I said previously, I had some difficulty is determining which I thought was a better post, but based on my own judgement scores Krugor’s was slightly higher and thus takes first place, which Christoph coming in at a close second.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Congratulations guys! Rewards are as follows:

Krugor receives 200 EXP, 200 GP and 2 AP
Christoph receives 960 EXP, 150 GP and 1 AP

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

All EXP, GP and AP have been added!