The crap I write at 2:30 a.m. (post two hours later when I can't sleep)

[Ginkasa]

Jarom, the newest recruit of Garoth’s town guard, watched atop a modest wooden outpost as a lone man wandered toward the city gates. The man appeared to have neither horse nor food nor weapon – dangerous items to be lacking when one traveled to Garoth. The nearest city was more than a day’s ride away to the west, but the man was coming from the east. There was not a settlement closer than a week’s ride in that direction. No mortal man could survive such a trip without rations or horse or weapon, Jarom concluded, so the man must have broken off from a larger group.

Jarom peered across the flat grassy plains towards the horizon for any sign of an escort, but he found none. Odd, he thought. There’s no place for escort to hide; I should be able to see anyone from miles away. Jarom retrieved his telescope from his side and brought it up to his. “His party is just beyond the naked eye’s view,” Jarom muttered to himself as he attempted to calm his own rising suspicions and fears at what the man might be.

Jarom searched the horizon once more, but again saw nothing. His stomach began to twist as he fears became too strong to quell; the man had to be a sorcerer to survive on his own in the wilderness. Jarom used his telescope to more closely inspect the man.

The man was wearing a simple white tunic and brown pants. A blue cloak was fastened around his neck. His skin was pale and his hair black. Jarom’s nervousness subsided slightly; there was nothing in the man’s clothing or manner that suggested he was a sorcerer. All the same, Jarom was given the task of alerting his superior to any strange sightings, and, sorcerer or not, this man was certainly strange.

Jarom dropped a small pebble down the chute that led to the guardhouse just below the outpost – the signal for the officer to head up to the outpost. Jarom could almost hear the tiny bell at the end of the chute ring as the pebble struck it. Almost immediately the commander of the guard himself rushed out of the guardhouse and up the outpost. Surprised, Jarom snapped into a rushed salute.

As the commander reached the top, he let Jarom at ease and asked, “What is it?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” stammered Jarom. “I wasn’t aware you were the attending officer. I wouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Don’t give my false courtesies,” said the commander. “I hope that you would have called me if you had known. If something is important to call anyone it’s important enough to bother me. What is it?”

Jarom cleared his throat and replied, “There’s a man heading toward the gate just over there.” Jarom pointed. “His doesn’t have any horse or protection or even food. I feared he might be a sorcerer.”

The commander laughed. “So what if he is a sorcerer? I doubt he’s here to harm us. You’ve been listening to your mother too much. My brother’s a sorcerer. Still, I had better take a look.” The commander grabbed Jarom’s telescope and inspected the man. “Yeah,” he said, “he’s a sorcerer alright. There’s no way he could have survived the trip here with his lack of supplies, otherwise. You did well, Jarom.” Jarom smiled at the praise. “I’ll stay up here and welcome him,” the commander continued. “Like I said, he probably means us no harm. However, you can never be too careful.”

The two men waited as the sorcerer continued his walk towards the gate. When he finally came within reasonable hearing distance the commander shouted, “Hello there! Welcome to Garoth. If you’re looking for rest you’ll find an inn just up the road a bit. It’s small, as fitting for a town of this size, but it’ll do you no wrong. Feel free to stay in town as long as you like. We don’t mind strangers here so long as you don’t cause trouble.” Jarom felt left out and decided he should wave a bit.

The sorcerer walked up to the outpost and lifted his hand in what seemed like a friendly wave. Jarom waved once more, relieved that his fears were nothing more than folly. He was just imagining how his family would react when told the story when he heard an awful scream from just behind him. He whirled around and saw the commander bursting with flames. Jarom turned back to the sorcerer and saw that he still had his hand in the air, aimed directly at the commander. The sorcerer’s mouth twisted into a manic grin as his arm shifted to point at Jarom. Jarom turned to run but hadn’t stepped a foot before his body combusted into fire hotter than any natural flame.

The sorcerer calmly strolled into town and began to torch every building with his Dark Magic. As the peasants streamed out of their homes the sorcerer burned them as well. It was not long before the entire town was nothing more than a pile of ashes. Before the sorcerer left the clearing that was a town he used his Dark Magic once more to burn into the grass the name Garawk Tane.

This it was that the second Dark Magic Purge was set in motion.

***

Don't blame me. Blame the lack of sleep.

Ish.

Ness.


*shrugs and walks away*

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Ginkasa

doesn’t have any horse or protection or even food.

The only problem I have is you did that several times in your story. It's technically grammatically incorrect to do that, but some writers still do. I think it would sound better as:

"...doesn't have a horse, protection, or even any food."

Err... Just a suggestion.

Sorry, it's the evil school that made me do it!

Other than that, it was kinda cool. Nothing like death and destruction to start off my morning.

[Ginkasa]

Its dialogue. People don't talk grammatically correct. It's okay to just about anything wrong with dialogue if it's in character.

And it was 2:30


*shrugs and walks away*

[TheSlyMoogle]

Err this is true, except you did it in a section without dialogue too. Something about "didn't have neither a horse nor food nor protection.

Just saying...

[Ginkasa]

Originally Posted by Ginkasa

And it was 2:30

^_^


*shrugs and walks away*

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by SlyMoogle

Nothing like death and destruction to start off my morning.

Agreed.

That was really awesome, ginkasa. Pyromaniacs are just..cool. lol. And it was written incredibly well, and once I started reading it, I couldnt stop. Have some rep, if you will.

Other than the error moogle pointed out, the only thing I saw that was wrong (and it was a small thing), was when he "raised his telescope to his"... I think you left out the word "eye".

But I was never one to care much about grammar, to me, it's the content of the story that matters, and this one had some great content.

[Typhoid]

That was a good read....good job for 2:30 in the morning.

[GameMaster]

I like it Ginkasa. Better than anything I could do during normal hours.

[Ginkasa]

I rewrote it. Just because. *cough*

***

Jarom yawned as he eagerly waited for his shift to end. Being the latest soldier to be assigned to the remote military outpost, Jarom was assigned the midnight shift – the worst shift of the night. Jarom had only been woken for his shift an hour earlier and already he was tired. He sincerely regretted asking to be assigned to the outpost. “So much for the easy life,” Jarom muttered.

The outpost was little more than a glorified cabin with a miniature wooden tower located more than a week’s ride from Garoth, the nearest town. The outpost was established near 50 years ago when the dark knights rebelled against the paladins. In those times the outpost had been heavily funded and guarded. As the threat waned, however, so had the support and need for a guard in the middle of nowhere. It would not be too long before the outpost was closed and destroyed or converted into a small inn for travelers. This was assuming the council did not turn the area into a tourist attraction; they were fond of doing that with battlefields of past wars.

Jarom chuckled at the thought of civilians paying money to stay up all night on guard just like the soldiers of old. He was beginning to think of other attractions the entertainment committee would come up with when he noticed the faint light from a lantern approaching the outpost. Jarom took a pebble from the basin near his feet and dropped it into the chute that led to a small bell located into the cabin – the signal to alert the captain to anything strange or unusual. The captain was a man hardly more experienced than Jarom himself; some said the captain only received the command position because the council drew his name from a hat rather than another’s. Jarom did not care; the man was his rank superior and ordered the soldier on guard to signal when he spotted anything abnormal.

Jarom continued to watch the flame, too far away to distinguish any details about who held the lantern, as he heard the cabin door open and the captain stumble up the ladder to the tower. When the captain reached the top, Jarom pointed out the light now considerably closer than it was before. Jarom could almost make out the profile of a man behind the lantern. But no horse, he thought.

“This is what you woke me up for?” grunted the captain. “A man with a lantern?”

“You ordered me to wake you up if I noticed anything unusual,” Jarom said.

“And you consider a man taking a leak in the middle of the night unusual?” mocked the captain. “I thought you had prior guard experience before being stationed here.”

Jarom sighed. “Does it not seem strange to you that a man would approach a military outpost in the middle of nowhere? And look, you can see he doesn’t even have a horse. How could he have possibly survived walking here?”

The captain chuckled. “He obviously broke off from a larger group to ask us if they could camp near us for protection. You’re greener than a toddler. Come on. I might as well welcome him personally now that I’m awake.”

Jarom disagreed with the captain. If the man had come from a larger group, a bonfire should be visible. Jarom did not argue, however. Despite being obviously less experienced and intelligent than Jarom, the captain was his superior. Although he felt it best to humor the captain, he could not help but feel a slight tingle of fear at who could possibly survive a week’s ride trip without a horse.

The captain and Jarom climbed down from the tower and waited as the strange man continued to walk toward the outpost. As the man neared, Jarom could faintly make out his attire. The man was wearing plain brown pants and a dirty white tunic. A thin blue cloak was fastened around his neck. The cloak’s hood was pulled over the man’s head hiding his features. Jarom knew there was something missing, but he could not quite place what. Suddenly, he realized what should be there but was not. He has no weapon! thought Jarom. No protection! There’s no way he could survive in the wilderness without a weapon. Unless…

“Captain,” whispered Jarom, attempting to mask his voice from the man getting nearer with every step, “what if this man is a sorcerer? We should wake the other men.”

The captain laughed loudly. “A sorcerer?” he near shouted. Jarom winced. “What do we have to fear from a sorcerer? Most mean no harm. My own brother’s a sorcerer.”

“Most sorcerers still resent the military after the attempted Dark Magic Purge,” Jarom warned. “You never know what one could do if drunken and roused by idle talk.”

The captain laughed again. He turned back to the traveler. “Ignore my guard here,” the captain said to the man as he entered easy hearing distance. “He’s new and a little paranoid. You have nothing to fear from us if we have nothing to fear from you, as I suspect.”

The man smiled and gave the captain his hand to shake. “Perhaps you should have listened to your guard,” the man said in a calm and cool voice when the captain took his hand. The captain’s laugh at the assumed joke quickly turned into a horrifying shriek as his arm suddenly burst into flame. The man, now unmasked as a sorcerer, raised his other arm and aimed it at Jarom. The young guard swiftly turned to run, but was caught by flames hotter than anything coal could produce on his left side. His arm was instantly incinerated in the fire. Jarom fell to the earth and kept conscious only long enough to watch the flames spread over the captain’s body.


The sorcerer quickly burned the cabin before the other soldiers could rush out to meet him. As powerful as he was, the sorcerer couldn’t defeat multiple armed and prepared soldiers in combat. He smiled as the men inside the cabin burned in the flames. His work done, the sorcerer walked up to the young guard. The guard’s arm was now a pile of ashes near his body, but he still lived. The sorcerer smiled again. He reach into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper and place it in the hand of the guard’s remaining arm.

The sorcerer took one last look at the carnage he had created. The cabin was already near collapse and the dead captain was still burning. The sorcerer nodded with satisfaction and began walking to his next target. Maybe next time I’ll use ice, he thought amusedly.


When Jarom regained consciousness several hours later he noticed the paper in his hand. Ignoring the pain from the left side of his body, he laid the paper flat against the ground and read the name written on it. “Garawk Tane,” Jarom read.

Jarom carefully and painfully picked himself off the ground and looked around. He was not surprised to find the cabin in ashes. “I have to get help,” he gasped while dreading walking the distance to the nearest town, especially with his injuries.

Jarom steeled himself against the pain and started stumbling toward Garoth.

***


*shrugs and walks away*

[Canyarion]

Hey I posted something here. Where is it?

[Vampyr]

This one was quite possibly better than the first. lol. Good job.

[Canyarion]

Perhaps 1 thing: "Maybe next time I’ll use ice, he thought amusedly."

How do you know what the sorcerer thinks?? You only tell him once about his thoughts so it doesn't really fit in in my opinion..
Rest is pretty good. Better than the first one.

Did you read my first reply?? Somehow it disappeared but I'm pretty sure I posted it.

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Canyarion

Perhaps 1 thing: "Maybe next time I’ll use ice, he thought amusedly."

How do you know what the sorcerer thinks??

maybe because he invented this sorcerer, so he can make him think whatever he wants him to.

[Ginkasa]

Originally Posted by Canyarion

Perhaps 1 thing: "Maybe next time I’ll use ice, he thought amusedly."

How do you know what the sorcerer thinks?? You only tell him once about his thoughts so it doesn't really fit in in my opinion..
Rest is pretty good. Better than the first one.

Did you read my first reply?? Somehow it disappeared but I'm pretty sure I posted it.

The perspective of the story shifts from Jarom to the sorcerer near the end. When it's from the sorcerer's perspective, we can hear anything the sorcerer thinks.

That's also why Jarom is referred to as just "the guard" in those paragraphs rather than "Jarom." The sorcerer doesn't know the guys name.

I know it's not easy to tell the perspective shifts. The forums don't allow indented paragraphs, so each paragraph has to have a space in between for it not to be one giant hunk of text. In my Word document, the paragraphs are indented except for when the perspective shifts. There's a space there.


*shrugs and walks away*

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

Agreed.

That was really awesome, ginkasa. Pyromaniacs are just..cool. lol. And it was written incredibly well, and once I started reading it, I couldnt stop. Have some rep, if you will.

Other than the error moogle pointed out, the only thing I saw that was wrong (and it was a small thing), was when he "raised his telescope to his"... I think you left out the word "eye".

But I was never one to care much about grammar, to me, it's the content of the story that matters, and this one had some great content.

An example of why grammar is important:

once long ago there was a boy named vampyr and he was kinda not into grammar and he didn't really think it was important and he never used commas periods or correctness i aint got no problems with my grammar he said and i dont see no reason to change it well that was all fine with vampyr until one day the people of gametavern got really fed up with vampyr and his double negatives horrible comma usage and his lack of concern for grammar before vampyr knew what was going on he was hit with so much negative rep his meter instead of a numerical value read just this

geez people really hate you.


Thus concludes this tale of horror. Brought to you by: TheSlyMoogle, grammar whore.