Short Story Outline: Mage

Mage One relates his bargain to Rogue.

“My people had been slain. I called out to the Powers to help me. They answered.

“Roman himself appeared before me. How can I describe a god to you? I can’t. Suffice it to say that he seemed to me all that magedom represented.

Goes on to describe accepting of power and the responsibilities that accompanied it.

Rogue reciprocates by telling how she saw Mage I burn her mother into ash when she was only ten years old.

Mage I explains that the rogue’s mother was a dark priestess hiding out in a family life. She intended to sacrifice her daughter and husband to dark powers and use that act as a stepping stone to even greater power.

Mage: Has accumulated vast amounts of power and lost his humanity.

He is cursed with the gift of foresight and uses this power to slay those who might become dangers to the world.

Believes in Order but sees himself above any man made laws.

Harbors distrust to all others as they may eventually be “seen” and die at his hands. He fears to become attached to anyone.

Female Rogue: Her mother was killed by Mage, and she seeks vengeance. The mage spotted her as his killer, but for some reason, was unable to find her. She is given the task to destroy the Mage and is joined by several adventurers. She is given an item that will drain the Mage of his power if he voluntarily uses it. During the journey, she is captured by Mage and comes to see some of his thinking.

Two fall in love and the Mage sacrifices power and regains humanity.

Warrior: A warrior hired by the same people who hire the Rogue. He and the Rogue begin to have a romance, but she is captured. Warrior swears to find her and slay the wizard.

Mage Two: A seeker of ancient power, he goes along on a quest to protect Rogue, but is hoping to apprentice himself under Mage One. He winds up betraying his comrades for power by taking Mage One’s power and then decides to kill them all. Warriors kills Mage Two but is also killed in the process.

Roman: God who makes Mage One power and latter realizes that the power has corrupted his minion to the point where Roman cannot wrest the power away from him.

Dragon: A friend of Mage One. In Mage One’s early days, the two disagreed about methods of preventing those who would rise to power. The Warrior and Mage Two seek the dragon out to gain information.

Warrior Two: Female warrior, tough as nails. Mercenary in it solely for pay. Is loyal but simple. Thinks that actions speak louder than words. 

Written probably in early 90's late 80s. Didn't have to correct too much when I put it into electronic format. Funny how some of this is basically Civil War 2 Storyline eh? Precog is a bitch!

Country of Zarlas

Country of Zarlas

Ruled by a king with support fnrom the Church of the True Faith. The country is very old and has advanced beyond most of the surrounding countries. At one point, Zarlas ruled most of Tarnill.

The country of Enkol, with its horse raiders, was the first to fall.

The main battles were waged through the Giant Spine Mountains with giants acting as mercenaries for both sides. Giants were betrayed by wizards of Tarnill and many were trapped in the mountains.

The resistance of the country was broken in the Battle of the Dead Men’s Hills.

The Firelands fell next, the Kiln Elves, never an aggressor race, gave several noble children as hostages and a champion to earn Zarlas’ trust. It was the last of these champions who helped put down one of the Grey Lords rebellions.

Borlan has always been on friendly terms with Zarlas and the two have often been at peace. Only once in the long history has Brolan attacked Zarlas and that was under the influence of Par Lethas. 

One of the reasons the two countries don’t get along. The second reason is that the True Faith declared magic heresy. Those mages who did not die fled to Par Lethas. They helped the natives master their magics, cutting their studying time in half.

Zarlas lost its hold on the land due to the Three Grey Lords. During the First War, the Kiln elves suffered massive casualties and retreated. Soldiers were recalled from Enkol. The natives of Enkol helped in exchange for their country’s freedom.

Running through my old notes and found this brief summary of one of the countries I made for my old fiction writing. As bad as this is, it's better than when I actually wrong it. There were numerous misuses of words that sounded similar but are different. It's good when you're able to catch these things without the computer telling you so I know my knowledge or at least editing skills have improved.

Matrix

Matrix

In the underworld, many horrid and terrible creatures live and prosper. Among those are trolls, skeletons and the drow.

Matrix is the last of these horrid beings and loves it. The drow are dark elves who were driven to the lands below the surface but only became stronger.

Recently a great war of light and darkness tore through the core of the planet. Matrix's parents were but a few of those slain. Thus Matrix practiced both fighting and shadow skills or thieving skills.

Now three years after his initial training, Matrix was ready to leave his clan. Yet the House of Sodidl would not allow him to, for assassin fighters were rare, and those with his fiery determination were fewer.

But the will of Matrix was not to be denied...

And Matrix knew of a resting place for a great old troll. This would prove to be the perfect chance to escape unto the surface world, and extract harsh vengeance.

The troll's eyes awakened. Blood red with sleet and an erie look of tiredness. It had slept long but now, it was awakening, it was awakening to the scent of fresh meat, of drow.

It burrowed into stone with claws able to rend metal into dust. It completely surprised the drow party, save for one with two daggers and a sadistic smile.

Writer's Current Notes

WOW. That's terrible for me to read. I have no clue what this one was, I'm suspecting the background to a drow fighter assassin NPC I had called Matrix. Now that may seem obvious, but I don't know if this was actual NPC background or if I was attempting to write something inspired by the character.

I was at the height of Drizzt is terrible and you should feel bad for liking him so I made a drow NPC. This had to be around the time 2nd edition first started as I'm sure this guy would have been rolled up using the old Unearthed Arcana rules where you got something like 9 Dice for your primary stat.

I keep meaning to pick up that reprint of Unearthed Arcana  for 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons just for S&G sake.

On the other hand, it could very well have been the old Polyhedron magazine where it had customized xp charts for multi-class characters combined with the Dragon magazine that had the Unearthed Arcana methodology for rolling races or multi-class characters? Been a while.

That fragment was found on a folded sheet inside of another piece of paper. Ancient writings indeed!

Matrix Fragment 2

The now defeated wizard, Hork Thesis, slayer of a legend, and the scourge of truth, now found himself being stalked.

The strange human body he gained control of with the now useless bloodstone grew tired. Hork turned around to see if the hunter was still alive. The fireball he had cast should have totally burned the flesh off it.

Yet only fiery eyes and a shrewd smile was behind him when he turned. Matrix the dark grand father had come to take vengeance for an act committed decades ago.

Panic filled Hork's heart as he lifted his hands to unleash mystical bolts, yet Matrix leapt upon Hork screaming oaths of a horrid nature.

Somehow Hork managed to hit Matrix with one of the bolts. Matrix screamed as shattered chain mail pierced drow flesh.

Now a surge of confidence arose from the high elf. His foe was one of the cursed ilk of elves, a drow. He arrogantly stood over the wounded drow and drew his magical longsword.

Even in his pain, Matrix could smell the magic. Quickly he called upon the natural ability of all dark elves. The ability to cast darkness, and aimed at Hork's head. He could barely stand much less attack.

Matrix kicked Hork in the groin and unsheathed his own magic sword. Hork fell to his knees with bears beginning to fill his eyes.

Hork slashed in a blur of agony and desperation and was easily blocked by Matrix who was ignoring the shrapnel in his left side.

Now it was HOrk's turn to scream as Matrix attacked and severed his hand.

Blood flowed freely and Matrix relished in his almost too easy victory for Hork was crawling away.The taste of victory almost became those of ashes for with the one good hand, Hork hurled a dagger at the dark elf's heart.

Writer's Current Notes II

Oh man, it only gets worse in that second fragment. I have no clue if I had an actual story going on here or was somehow involving the PC's in a quest to kill a corrupted high elf or what.

It looks like Hork was a high elf who used a magic item called a bloodstone to transfer from body to body, and that Hork was responsible for the original catastrophe that claimed the lives of Matrix's parents and that Matrix would have vengeance!

The fight scene is also terrible. It reads almost like an anime in how quickly the character goes from so wounded he can't stand to cutting Hork's hand off.

Ah well. Interesting to see what the writing was like back in the day.

Endar One Page Fragment

Looking up, Endar stifled a curse as a fat drop struck him in the eye. Wiping his eye clear, he looked up again, shielding his face with his hand.

He saw signs with anvils, hammers, dancing dragons and more than he could easily keep track of.

It wasn't until he spotted a sign with a keg of frothy beer smashing a skull open that he stopped. He was here at the Broken Skull where he would meet Jord.

Pushing through the door, he noticed that this tavern was like most others he'd been to. On the far west wall, fire danced in red and orange steps. Each table lit by a small candle while censers overhead masked the stale smell of vomit, beer and urine.

Smoke hung over the room and turned everything into shades of grey. He moved past the leaf smokers and the card players. If Jord remained paranoid as he last was, he wouldn't set up front with the likes of these.

Indeed, Jord must not have changed too greatly for sitting in the corner, with his back to the wall, Jord sat with unblinking red rimmed eyes. His face linned with worry wrinkles, his hair greying at the...

And that's all that was of that one bit. I've been finding a lot of my writting scattered about. Being the king of never finish a damn thing writing, I've decided to at least try and post it online in some vein attempt to semi-centralize things and get it in a typed format and hopefully provide a few chuckles to those out there who may find such.