Magic World: Davin Quickley, Prodigy Sorcerer

Welcome back! I'm glad you decided to join me today, because I've been itching to get this character made, and brought to life on the page.  

But while this character's history is quite interesting it is VERY important that I warn you; Some of you may find some parts of his history to be disturbing, as it does involve some quite violent domestic abuse.

I do not condone such things, and I do not intend it to be something interesting or even entertaining, but it is important to the character's background, and so must be included. Please forgive me if you are sensitive to such things, and feel free to skip this whole page or just those sections.

Wizards hold a rather special place in my heart. But not just wizards, but any character who is able to creatively bend or break the rules, who understands something so deeply, and puts so much effort in to be what they are. So this character Davin Quickly will probably incorporate a lot of the traits of some of the characters I love best from this field.

First let me list just a few of my favorites. Then I'll use the combo technique to flesh him out.

Gandalf, Albus Dumbledore, Edward Elric, Harry Dresden, Merlin, and Oz the Great and Powerful (both versions, but the original slightly better than the stoner version.)

But when taking the two characters I want to join together I think I'm going to list a couple of more realistic geniuses, because in this world magic has more in common with science than supernatural. The first one is going to be Will Hunting. I think it's important for a character to have a troubled past, and to hold their talent in less regard than others. Will found his mathematical talent fulfilling, and enjoyed putting it to use, but never understood why there was all the fuss, and just wanted to have a normal life, and normal relationships, but his history got in the way. I think that Davin will harbor some rather dire associations with his unusual ability.

The second genius I'll be using is Carl Sagan who viewed the Cosmos with a sense of wonder and awe that bordered on religious reverence. He understood astrophysics, and he was inspired by it, and wanted to share that feeling with others, to the point where he wrote books and had a whole TV show where he educated, not by giving facts and figures, but by demonstrating the beauty and depth of the subjects, and communicating the incredible sense of wonder that he so obviously felt.

So with that, I think I have enough to start creating the history of this young man.

Davin's parents didn't have the best relationship, but his mother Mabel Quickley thought that the best way to bring them together was to have his baby. This didn't have quite the intended effect however. When he found out she was pregnant Kenton Arrington had nearly decided to beat her again. But some rational part of his brain, spurred no doubt by his sense of self preservation gave reason to pause. She would survive the beating as she always had before, but perhaps the child wouldn't. And there were two reasons this might be important to him. First, the kid was his. Not in a loving caring parental way, oh no. But in a possessive way, like keeping a car you don't like or care about because you can't bear the concept of losing something that's yours, and to spite someone because you don't like them, not matter how much they offer.

Second, he had his retirement to think about. After all, he couldn't work forever, and he didn't have a pension. When he got older the kid would be good for a couple bucks here and there.

When Davin was born Mabel was so happy she asked Kent if they could finally get married. He responded by breaking her leg.

Davin's life would be marked by violence of this sort for nearly all his life. When he discovered in Kindergarten that he could do magic, he didn't tell anyone, least of all Kent. But his father knew he was hiding something, and beat him, as always, on the body where no one would see the marks. None of the teachers ever asked why Davin always wore long sleeves in class, even in the warmest weather.

Then in the second grade came the day that would change the course of his life forever. The Wizard came to his class as a special guest.

It was common in those days for members of the community to come into the class and give a presentation. They'd already had the policeman, the fireman, a preacher, a couple of business owners, a lawyer, a former astronaut who was raised in their town, and had retired there, and several others.

But the Wizard had actually showed them how to do magic. The task was to draw the heat energy from a glass of room temperature water, to make it cold. It required very little in the way of concentration, and nobody was expected to succeed in lowering the temperature by more than a few degrees. But for Davin the little thermometer simply continued to drop and drop until the water froze so suddenly that the glass it was in shattered as it expanded.

A short time later Davin was sitting in the teachers lounge with his teacher and the Wizard. His mother had been called, and was on her way. The teacher and the Wizard  were looking excited, but Davin was crying. They tried to console him explaining how the university had a special scholarship and tutors to help teach children who were found to have the mental potential to become Wizards. The Wizard was very interested as he had never seen any child below 5th grade who could do more than cool the water slightly by a few degrees.

But Davin was more worried how his father would react. He never seemed to take things like this as good news. Every time Davin brought home a pet, or a note from the teacher, or anything like that, things would be bad for him. And the kids would tease, and he would have to fight them again.

But in this case, nothing happened. Kent acted positively happy about it. He encouraged Davin and in fact tried to call the Wizard using the number they had for him, but it was too late at that time. Davin was in shock. He had never known his father to act like this for anything.

But Kent had the impression that wizards could turn lead into gold, and water into wine, and coal into diamonds. So the beatings on Davin stopped.

But they soon resumed on his mother. Davin had no idea of course, and enjoyed a brief period in his life where things were almost happy.

He had to fight the other kids who saw his using magic as a sign of weakness, something nerdy and geeky. He had started fighting back but mostly that just made the other kids laugh. Kent was disgusted, but also a little worried about losing his precious magical meal ticket, so he began to teach Davin how to fight. Not boxing, not martial arts, but backroom, back alley fighting, the kind people use to fight for their lives. And dirty fighting.

Davin didn't want to learn this stuff, but Kent would goad him and push him till he lost his temper, and tried to hit him. But at that young age, seven or eight, he couldn't hurt the older man. But continuously trying made him got him used to throwing punches.

When the kids tried to fight him he knocked some of the teeth out of the leader. He was suspended for a week, and he threw up in the bathroom for twenty minutes, crying. But when Kent saw him he just just nodded in satisfaction.

Occasionally the boys would try again, but the more they tried the more Davin resisted. But the more he hated himself.

Meanwhile, though his tutors were concerned about his injuries, they were delighted at his ability to learn the concepts of magic so quickly and readily, and the more they taught him the quicker he absorbed it, often arriving at obscure conclusions on his own faster than they could explain how to arrive at those conclusions the long way, doing the math. He also had to learn chemisty, biology and physics in order to understand the forces that he would need to control. He took longer to grasp those concepts, often struggling with things like Newton's Laws, or Thermodynamics or Acid-Base reactions and why they happened or Atomic Structure, but once he began to understand those concepts, he saw how they fitted as pieces in the puzzle, and how the forces could be manipulated.

But it was when he wrote the assigned papers that his tutors began to appreciate his level of understanding, as well as his ability to communicate his understanding, using complicated, and obscure simile and metaphor, that were nonetheless accurate. The papers began to circulate, and before long he was offered a fellowship to a prestigious university, and a job working as a Teaching Assistant to help him pay for room and board.

And this was when his was fifteen, though the offer was to become available once he had finished High School.

But then it happened.

He was walking into his parents room to ask his mother something, while she was changing her shirt. She quickly tried to hide it, but he saw the numerous bruises, and bruises on top of bruises, and places where it looked like ribs were out of place, as though they had been broken, and never healed properly before being broken again.

And something broke. He had always been shy, unassuming, friendly, and mostly peaceful, only defending himself against the other boys who tried to beat him. But now he felt anger rising up like nothing he had ever felt before, and he wanted to attack his father.

And he tried. He'd grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and went after Kent who was watching football in his favorite easy chair. Kent saw him coming though and handily stopped his son's attack, making him feel helpless and ashamed. But he tried again. But over and over Kent stopped him. Finally without thinking Davin reached for the magic. Without consciously realizing what he was doing or how he had sent a lightning bolt, a fairly mild one, but strong enough, lancing into the baseball bat which his father had wrested from him in the fight.

It knocked him down, and stopped his heart.

Horrified at what he had done, Davin started CPR while his mother called 911. When the paramedics arrived they told them that he must have touched the bat to some bare wires on the lamp which had been busted in the fight. They were able to revive Kent, who had to stay in the hospital for a few days, but was otherwise, fine, though wary of his son from that day forward. Not so much respectful as cautious. But he never laid a hand on Mabel again.

But the damage had been done. Davin had now grown fearful of his prodigious abilities, and swore never to use them, instead depending on his wizardly teachings, which were strictly controlled by him, and by his own concentration.

The rest of high school passed with little incident, and when he left for college in his beat up little Honda his mother waved him off tearfully, while his father just stared with cold, calculating eyes as he sat on the porch.

His time in college was much like his time at high school after the incident. He was contented to be introverted, and had only a few friends, none of them very close. He had grown afraid to be around people, who, except for this mother, had never treated him very well.

He was well liked by the classes that he help Professor Hildebrand with, often silently correcting mistakes in formulae on the overhead projector while the professor wasn't looking.

Then one day Professor Hildebrand took a short leave of absence in the middle of the school year, leaving the course to Davin for the duration of his leave. When someone called to get assistance from the Professor one day, it was Davin who answered the phone.

******************

And there you go.  For me, this was both one of the easiest, and yet most difficult things I think I've ever written. I'm not a big fan of domestic violence, even fictional, but it happens. And people arrive from the swamps of that viciousness, and find that they have become stronger, or weaker from the experience. I think Davin will turn out to be stronger for it, but will still struggle with it as well.

Okay, I feel a bit drained after writing that one. I was hoping to start on another one tonight, so I would be ahead for tomorrow, but I don't think that's going to happen now. This just took so much out of me emotionally. I'll be curious to see if it garners any responses.

So on that note,  comments and suggestions are welcomed, let me know if it's good, or if it's gone too far.

And thanks for reading!

Magic World: Plot ideas!

Hey everybody!

This Magic World concept has been giving me some problems. I mean I love the world, and I like the ideas, and I love the concept that all he stuff you see in fantasy settings is re-created in the modern world, that all seems great to me. I have some awesomely funny ideas about how to incorporate real world celebrities, and personalities into the story, and ideas about what fantasy race each of them would be, like Adam Savage the hyperactive gnome, and Jamie Hynamen, the somewhat more methodical but hilarious dwarf. And Tom Cruise, the human who always takes roles that cast him as an elf or half-elf because he REALLY wants to be one, so badly that he always seems to get married to elves, like Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes.

And I have some interesting characters, who still need names, like my college TA wizard, who is a genius at magic formula and the mental discipline of casting, even though he can instinctively cast spells without having to consciously think about it. There's also the Special Forces Ranger turned Roller Derby Queen, half elven hot and flirty tattooed  combat specialist, who always seems to be bruised, cut, bloody, or in some other way injured, yet bubbly and upbeat just the same, but somehow that just adds to her attractiveness. There are others too, but that's going to be a whole other blog post.

But while the world is great, what I really need is a story for why these people are together, and why they're doing what they're doing. I kind of envision them as an A-Team meets Mission Impossible. I've been watching a lot of Leverage lately, and the idea of a group that works to help people because they can't help themselves, and because the law won't or can't really appeals to me. Also some of the inspiration comes from old school D&D, and I figure that this group is sort of an adventuring group of the type you would get in a D&D game.

The way I have things thought out so far is that the group is working on a case of some kind when they come up against something to do with magic, and they're out of their depth, and they need to understand something before they can move forward. The leader of the group happens to know a professor at the university, and gives him a call. But when he calls it's the TA who answers the phone, and tells him that the Professor isn't available for the rest of the week due to personal issues. The group is desperate though and asks if the TA can help them out. He's hesitant at first, but once they describe the situation he's intrigued and agrees to come down and take a look. Once he arrives and works out whatever is wrong, it's apparent that things have gone from bad to worse, and the group insists that he come with them in case they need further magical assistance. He's hesitant, but it's clear that they're not about to give him a choice in the matter.

So what could that problem be, and what is the overall plot for this story? Well honestly the problem is mostly a way to get the TA character to join the group, so while it's probably important in context of the story, the actual mechanics of it can wait until the actual mission is established.

And the fact that they have to call for magical assistance might just be the key here. Perhaps this is actually the origin of this particular little group. How about this: A former military magic specialist has turned up dead, and the police are baffled. A few former colleagues, friends and comrades, who each owe him something in their own way, show up independently of one another, but begin to cross paths as they each continue to hunt for the killer, each using their own skills as needed, but separately. Eventually their searches lead them each to the same dead end, and they argue amongst each other for a while, until the ambush happens.

Suddenly they need to work together to escape the ambush or they'll all be killed. I know it's very much the plot of a lot of this type of thing, I feel like I've seen this a lot, though I'd be hard pressed to think of one off hand. If you can think of one let me know in the comments.

Anyway the merry band agrees to exchange notes and information, each according to their own skill-set, and they discover something that they wouldn't have been able to work out by themselves, leading to the scene where they need the Professor, but get the TA.

Also I think I would like to have a larger storyline as well, so that I can write multiple stories and have them all lead to a larger overall plot. I'm thinking maybe some global conspiracy aimed at a team that the Murdered Magic Specialist worked with, over something that happened while that team was in operation. The the group falls into these situations while traveling around trying to work out what's going on with the conspiracy.

Okay, so far that's a little thin. Let me add some details here. So first of there's a small team, funded by the government, of individuals who have complimentary skill sets. There's an engineer, who is an expert in making structures that can withstand bombs, and in identifying a structures weak points. Then there's the French demolitions man, who can build a bomb out of some multi-vitamins, bubble gum, and the contents of someone's pockets. Like a French McGuyver. Then they had the seductress, who could get a man to spill his secrets as easily as she could shoot him between the eyes, which as it turns out, is fairly easy for her. Then there's the cigar smoking marine, who, despite the fact that he looks and acts dumb is actually a brilliant tactician on the battlefield. Then of course the Wizard, who understands magical endowment, which gives magical properties to objects, and understands other aspects of magic's use in warfare. Then finally there's the leader, who is just trying to pull the group together, to do their jobs.

In one such job, they are looking for a way to take down a war profiteer, which they do, but he gets away. But his whole network is destroyed, so he's pretty much done when it comes to this. Or so we think...

So he hires local people to take out the people who were involved in that group, one by one, by convincing them that they want to, then providing the means. His first victim is The Wizard.

So now I just have to figure out who he convinced/tricked/helped to kill The Wizard.

Okay, so far so good. I've made some good progress so far, but right now I'm falling asleep at my desk. I think tomorrow I'll determine the manner and culprit for The Wizard's murder, and maybe do a little background on each of the characters in this new group, and how they knew the Wizard.

Maybe I'll even come up with some NAMES. Wouldn't that be something. Time to fire up the name generator.

Well, this has been fun! As always comments and suggestions are welcome, there haven't been many so far, but I like the ones I have gotten, and they've all been entertaining, or useful.

Thanks for reading!

On drugs, and doctors.

I love my insurance. Honestly this is the best health insurance plan I've EVER been on in my life. Most of my previous jobs didn't even have an option, or if they did, it was really expensive or didn't cover much of anything, the co-pays were really high, or getting set up with it and choosing a plan required a PhD in advanced applied insurance theory. My favorite method to pick my plan was to sit down to dinner with all the paperwork laid out in front of me then close my eyes and then jab the nearest piece of paper with a fork . And that would be my plan.

So I'm lucky to have my wife who bills insurance for a hospital. She took one look at our insurance options and said, "Yep, this is awesome. Here's the one we're getting, it has the best co-pay, and the best coverage, and my hospital is covered." (She also thinks she's lucky to have married a geek BTW to help her with her electronics, so you might say we're complimentary.)

This was especially useful when recently I decided that all the tiredness that I was feeling was actually not normal after all, so I said about the task of finding out what was wrong with me. Well... apart from the obvious. 

But that SOUNDS a lot more simple than it actually is.  First off my main doctor left the hospital clinic to go to a private practice with another doctor, but their staff was horrible, getting even the simplest of details wrong, such as times and dates which are of course the most important thing to get right. So she starts the process, and due to one cock-up after another we eventually decide not to see her anymore. 

So instead we decide to see the physician's assistant that works in the clinic at my wife hospital. She's fantastic, and very thorough, and proceeds to order several blood tests on me. Most of these blood tests don't show anything that we didn't already know, but there's one that shows markers for mono, which she believes could be a sign of inflammation internally. 

She in turn then refers me to a Rheumatologist , who says that the markers for mono will show up for the rest of my life because I had mono when I was younger. He however listens to all my symptoms and is the very first person to suggest that I might have narcolepsy. 

He in turn refers me too a Pulmonary doctor, who is also one of the inventors of my C PAP machine, who orders the sleep study, and something called a multiple sleep latency test, and confirms a diagnosis of narcolepsy. Once he does that able to prescribe, Hallelujah, drugs to help keep me awake! And all of this was made possible by my employer's incredible insurance plan. 

And I can't help thinking, that if I had had this kind of insurance much sooner, like when I was living in Des Moines, or maybe even sooner my life might have been dramatically different. I wouldn't have lost so many jobs for one thing, and if I'd figure this out in high school, I may have gotten much better grades. And in fact I might have been writing all along, and would be much better at it now. 

But even with the drugs and knowing what's wrong, the treatment of this condition hasn't been entirely smooth. For some reason there always seems to be confusion about the type of drugs but I'm supposed to be taking , and whether they should be a time release capsules, or immediate relief. Then the pharmacy has questions and concerns about the drug, but because the doctors office closes at 5, they are not able to contact them until the following day. And unfortunately because the drug I'm on is technically considered a controlled substance, they can't call the prescription in to the pharmacy, I have to actually take a physical prescription note into the pharmacy for them to bill. 

In short once a month my life becomes a three ring circus with lots of clowns and I end up having to take time off work to deal with the problems that arise. 

I thought this was all going to be over with once I started my most recent drug , which is not a controlled substance, and so they can call that into the pharmacy, but that drug turns out to be a case of "the cure is worse than the disease." The side effects include blurred vision,  dizziness, dry mouth and a few other choice things, but I only experienced those 3. However they were bad enough but I didn't feel safe driving, and it made it difficult for me to work. 

So why do I mention all this? What does any of this have to do with writing? Being tired and probably asleep while trying to write are the biggest things that have prevented me from writing up to this point. So for me, this is the story of how I was able to start writing again. Also its a reminder to me that all of human experience is fit to be written about. You never know, I might one day want to write a story about someone who has narcolepsy. Chronicling my own trials and tribulations with not only the disease itself but also the treatment of that disease is good experience in case I ever have to do it again, or anything else which might require the level of care and attention as this. Of course this is just an outline of the full story, but enough to get the feeling across should I ever need to expand on it. And I hope it hasn't been completely uninteresting for you the reader. 

By the way, nearly this entire blog post today was written using Android voice to text which has performed admirably under the circumstances, as much of the voice usage is in my car. Don't worry though, I kept my eyes on the road the whole time. As a result there were a few mis-translation and other types of issues, which I can fix,  but the overall benefit and time-saving has been invaluable. 

As always comments and suggestions are welcome, and thanks for reading!

Magic World: The Rules of Magic

Welcome back everyone ! Today I wrote this post using almost exclusively the voice to text feature of my Android phone, so please pardon any misspellings, or little parts that don't make a lot of sense, I haven't had a lot of time to proofread and fix. This may be the norm for these types of blog posts where it's not part of a story just because the voice feature is far more convenient and quick for me. Some of my post seem to keep me up late typing, where as I can use the voice feature from pretty much anywhere, even while driving, as long as I don't watch the screen, and speak clearly. If you find any errors, or typos, let me know in the comments here or on FB or Google+, and I'll try to fix them ASAP.

So for the last week or so, we've been working on the Santa society story. We've come up with the basic plot, history for the fictional world, and the character concept for what I hope will be the main character of the story. Or maybe I should say one of the main characters.

But to keep everything fresh, and perhaps even inspire myself, I think I'm going to take a very small break from that story, and think about the "Mage world" story instead for a little bit. It's amazing how stories can feed off of one another, or at least concepts.

So I need to work a bit on rules of magic for this world. Like everything in the universe, magic in my world has certain rules, limitations, and characteristics. If you don't have rules for these things, then suddenly all of your problems are solved by magic. In my world I would like magic to be the  cause of as many problems as it is the solution.  More in fact.

Basically in my world magic is another force much like gravity, light, radiation , and in fact the entire field of Physics. However magic is different from the things in that it responds to intention and will and consciousness. However caster does need to know everything about all of the forces involved in the so they're trying to cast.

So for example, let's say that a wizard wants to convert electricity into kinetic energy. In the real world this will involve passing electric current through coiled wire near a magnet. However for a mage this would only require knowledge, intention, and matter. This is more complicated than it sounds. The first thing that they need to know, is all the specific information about the electrical charge that they are trying to convert. Including things like the voltage, and amperage, and whether its AC or DC current. Then they also need to know how the kinetic energy will be employed, the mass of the object that will be moving, the force required to make the object, the doctor along which that object will be moving, and the distance of travel. But any time that you do a spell such as this it involves two forms of energy you must "sacrifice" matter, or more precisely you are taking the energy from that matter in the form of subatomic particles, which causes the matter to essentially disintegrate. Because of this you also need to know the atomic or molecular structure of the items that your sacrificing.

So yeah it's fairly complicated. Most wizards use mnemonic devices to help them remember specific spells . these work in the same way that for example F A C E and Every Good Boy Does Fine work to help you remember the lines and spaces on a music staff. (Anyone who's taken a piano lesson will remember that.) Only with wizards they tend to memorize charts and periodic tables, and force tables and different comparative charts between different kinds of energy. Then for the most part they tend to inscribe unique symbols in the places on the charts where Solutions tend to fall,  then combine those with other solutions which are denoted by other symbols, until they have their spell.

Sounds complicated? This is why magic tends to be seen a something that nerdy engineering types do. It takes a lot of intelligence a lot of focus and concentration and a good memory to be able to reliably perform magic. Technically anybody can do it, and most people know how to do some very small simple spells, which they're taught in grade school, mostly so that people who are inclined to do magic can be discovered at a very young age, and encouraged to follow that path.

But what can you actually do with magic? For the most part it's all about converting one thing into another. Mostly you can convert what kind of energy into another, without mechanical intervention, though to a limited degree you can also convert matter into energy and vice versa. This however can only be done in very very small amounts, and is generally only ever been done by research wizards , who are working with physicists to try to uncover subatomic particles, and theoretical things. You can however, convert one kind of matter to another, through a kind of forced chemical reaction.

So let's give some examples. Let's say that you want to convert sound into light. First you will need a conversion catalyst. Usually this is something monatomic, because it's easier to work with elements , then it is to work with molecules and compounds. So for this example we'll say that you have a pure ball bearing of nickel, and that you're familiar with the atomic structure of nickel in this form. You then need to know the frequency and volume of the sound, so for this example let's say that's the frequency is 440 Hertz, and 5.6 decibels. You then need to know the frequency of light, and the amplitude, and the intensity. I'll be honest here, I have absolutely no idea about any of that, so I'm just going to say something like a red light of somewhat varying spectrum ,  and the intensity of an average light bulb. The easiest thing for most wizards to do is right down the symbols for each of these formula according to his or her on the mnemonic device. Then they focus their concentration on those symbols and what they mean, and on their catalyst then on drawing energy from the catalyst combining a matrix with the sound, then forming a new energy in the form of light. So as you can see it's extraordinarily complicated.

That said, there are quite a few wizards alive today, that have been in the craft for so long , and have memorized so many spells that they can throw fireballs and lightning from their hands , at the cost of a bit matter. However in the right hands, this can also be used for a variety of other effects. For example if you're fast enough with your calculations you can create a matrix which will contain a bomb blast . If you over calculate the amount of energy that's the bomb will produce, in both sound heat and pressure, you can create a trap that could contain a bomb blast and convert it into electrical energy for example. If you see a pile of bricks falling on somebody, you could convert their kinetic energy into something else, for example light. If you use the bricks themselves as the conversion catalyst then the bricks wouldn't even be there to fall on the person in the first place. Another useful application that I thought of is to make a person or people invisible to visible light. ( I get around the whole Sue Storm not being able to see argument but providing glasses there are set up to convert infrared and ultraviolet light into visible light.

So that's the idea, and that's how magic will work in my world. Of course my main character will have the unique quality but he doesn't have to think about his usage of magic in the same way the other people do. He can simply do it, as if just knows all of the formula and all of the molecular structures  as if he has been born to it. He doesn't take this for granted however, and in some ways he sees this as a burden, and he will work hard to control his usage of this terrible skill.

Well that's all the time I have for tonight, but as always, comments suggestions are welcome. Thanks for reading!

The Honeymoon Part 2

The gripping conclusion! I won't make too much fuss here, just get right into it, but if you haven't read part 1, you may want to do that first.

Okay then, here we go!

****************

The first thing was the smell. Blood has a very distinctive smell, which you don't normally notice when you're not around a lot of it. But when it pools, and when your face is inches from it, it tends to fill up your whole world.

Jack opened his eyes and saw what looked like a glass marble, with a distinctive milky white and blue pattern. He tried to focus his eyes, and look around, but his body felt like lead, and he was having a hard time moving anything. He succeeded in moving his head a little, a feeling like an explosion running across the top of his head. He closed his eyes, and tried to move his arms and legs. They protested, but moved fine.

He realized that he was laying on something soft... and wondered why this mattress was so odd and lumpy. He got himself up onto all fours, his eyes still shut, his head still pounding, lightning flashes going off behind his eyelids. When he felt steady enough in that position he opened his eyes to try to figure out what was going on.

Bridget's dead eyes stared through him.

Everything rushed back to him then. Bridget, dead on the ground, Terry boasting about taking Dani. The gunshot....

He reached a hand up to his head, and found it matted with blood, but still sticky and tacky in his fingers. Some feeling around discovered a spot on his head which was totally numb at the moment, but it felt like he could feel bone. A horrible chill crept over him as he realized that there was a shallow furrow in the bone of his skull where the bullet had apparently grazed it. Terry hadn't bothered to check too closely obviously, assuming that all the bleeding meant he'd been killed. He must have been knocked out too, so he wasn't moving.

Then it came back to him: Dani.

He rose to his feet, and, ignoring the pain as much as he could, staggered and ran back down the trail.

****

"Did you kill him?" Her voice shook, but her hand remained fairly steady despite the weight of the gun.

Terry looked surprised, and his eyes went a little wide, as he looked down the barrel of the gun. "W-what are you talking about? I told you, he tried to kill me!"

"Wrong answer you son of a bitch." She pulled the trigger. Terry flinched, and threw up his arms. The trigger didn't move. She gasped and took a couple steps back looking at the gun. Terry stayed where he was but peeked at her over his upraised arms.

She had the safety on. Years of TV and movies, and every time someone forgot the safety she'd scoffed, shouldn't they know better?

Terry was cowering in the chair. "Oh my god, you were going to shoot me! I'm here trying to save your life and you're trying to kill me."

For just a moment Dani felt a tiny twinge of doubt. She flipped the safety off, but didn't immediately shoot Terry. "I know you're lying to me Terry! Jack would never kill anyone! And I was the one who planned the trip to come out here!"

Terry dropped his hands, and looked suddenly relaxed, but exasperated. "Seriously? In the home stretch and I get called out on a technical? Okay, yeah, I shot Jack out in the woods about a half our ago. But it was only so I could be with you, Dani. See, Bridget- I only married her for her looks. Because that was what I thought was important. But after meeting you I understood that there are more important things, like intelligence, and kindness, and a healthy sex dr-"

Dani pulled the trigger. The gun clicked empty in her hand. She looked at it in shock.

"Come on," said Terry in mock disbelief. "You didn't seriously believe I would give you a loaded gun d- Oh shit!" He ducked, but Dani had aimed a little low in any case, and the heavy gun bounced off the top of his head, and like a shot Dani was out the door of the cottage.

She ran along towards their car, remembering just in time that she'd left her keys in the room. She reached under the driver side wheel well and grabbed the spare key in the magnetic box, sliding it out and getting in the car. As she hit the auto door locks she saw Terry come out of the cottage door, a small cut over his left eye. He was holding the gun, and pulled a clip out of his back pocket, slid it into the chamber and slid the bolt back with the ease of someone who had practiced.

Dani turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. The lights failed to come on, the engine didn't turn over, even the little click-click-click-click-click-click of a dead battery failed to happen. Terry tapped on the window of the car with the barrel of the gun. She looked. He held up a dirty greasy looking wire which dangled from his fingers.

"Battery cable." His voice was muted by the closed window. "Come on, Dani, there's nothing to do, nowhere to go."

She started crying, big tears rolling down her cheeks. She felt helpless. Hopeless. Jack was dead, and this psycho was likely going to kill her too.

"Come on out," he was saying. "I promise not to hurt you if you don't make me."

She opened the car door. If she was going to die anyway, she reasoned, she should make it as difficult for him as possible. Possibly even take him down with her, should the opportunity arise.

He was stepping around to her side of the car as she stepped out, the gun held low but ready. He grabbed her arm, but not too roughly. Just firmly. He started dragging her toward his own car parked nearby.

"I'm going to kill you, you know," she said to him. "Make you drive off the road, strangle you with your own seat-belt."

He stopped for a moment, and looked at her critically. He nodded, saying, "Yeah, you would, wouldn't you?"

****

A few minutes later Jack arrived at the cottage.

"Dani? DANI!" She was gone. He grabbed the keys from the nightstand and went to the car. The door stood open, and the key was in the ignition, still in the "on" position, but none of the internal lights were on. He closed the door. Terry's car was gone too, he noted.

He was taking Dani.

He sprinted toward the main building trying to keep his balance, while he head was splitting.

"Mister and Missus Walters!" the place was eerily quiet. He ran around the counter, and nearly tripped over the body of Mr Walters.

"Oh Holy..." he reigned in his emotions. He had to get Dani back. He stepped past the body, and through the door behind the counter that led to the kitchen, dreading what he expected to see next. Mrs Walters was slumped over the prep table, blood flowing pooling under her.

He shook his head and gritted his teeth, fighting back the tears. He went back and checked Mr Walter's pockets for keys. He had to have a vehicle to chase down Terry, and get his wife. The pockets yielded nothing though. He looked around and found a little alcove behind the counter, not really visible from the other side. There was a key hook inside, and Jack grabbed the keys off the hook... then he saw it. His heart leaped.

A map on the wall showed the lake area, marked with trails, and roads. The main road wound around in front of the lake, to give a nice view. It was about 4 miles long all told. But there was a shorter trail that went through the woods, that went from the main road, right near the tunnel, directly to.... The Walters' garage. And it was only about a quarter mile.

Jack's adrenaline started pounding, and suddenly he felt about 100 pounds lighter. He bolted back through the kitchen, through a side door which led into the garage. Jack nearly shouted in triumph at the Range Rover parked there. He found and slapped the garage door opener on the wall, ran around to the drivers door. It was parked facing out of the garage. He slid into the driver's seat, Mr Walters had fortunately been about the same height as him, and started the Rover, putting it into gear, and starting forward just as the garage door opened up fully.

It was basically just a trail in the dirt, hard packed through constant use. It would have been no use at all if he weren't in a Range Rover. He took the vehicle as fast as he dared over little hills and dips, then the road seemed to smooth out when he could see the road ahead. Off to his right, through the trees he could see Terry's car coming up the road. The interior of the woods, where this trail was, was very shaded, and Jack doubted he would be seen from the road, which was brightly lit.

His mind raced with the possibilities. He wanted to stop them, but at the same time didn't want to hurt Dani. Terry had a gun, so he had to deal with that somehow. They were driving the speed limit, which was only 25, so it wouldn't be too damaging if they crashed, especially if Terry slammed his brakes. But should he try to T-bone the car on Terry's side, to take him out? If Dani was in the passenger's seat it would be too dangerous. Get ahead and let Terry t-bone him? What if Dani didn't have her seat belt on? He make it to the road first, then stop sideways, blocking the road... but then nothing would prevent Terry from opening fire on him, and possibly Dani as well.

He decided in the split second it took to think of all this, to try to hit the front driver side corner of the other car, near the bumper. That would spin the car, hopefully stunning Terry, but not seriously injuring Dani. He gauged his distance to the road, and how long it would take Terry to cross his path, and tried to match his speed to intercept the other vehicle.

The cars collided violently, with a single loud thump, and a screeching of tires. Jack was disoriented during the wreck, and couldn't tell what happened, but when the world stopped spinning, and the motion had stopped the two vehicles were facing back up the road. The range rover had two wheels in the mud at the side of the road, but Terry's car was about five feet away. Jack could see Terry's head slumped against the driver side window, which had cracked and splintered, but not completely broken. There was a little blood, and Terry wasn't moving.

Jack's heart raced. He pulled off his seat belt, and flung open his door, running around the front of the Range Rover. He looked through the windshield, but didn't see Dani sitting in the passenger seat.

"Dani? Dani!" he shouted.

He started hearing thumping noises from the trunk. He ran around to the back of the car and looked at the trunk, then began to feel around for a release of some sort. He found it, a little bump near the license plate, and the trunk suddenly released. Inside, bound hand, foot, and mouth was Dani, looking as though she was desperately trying to release herself. She looked up apprehensively, and saw Jack. Her eyes went wide.

Then the shooting started. Jack ducked, then looked to see where the shots had come from.

Terry stood by the open driver side door looking very unsteady. The gun bobbed and weaved in his hand. Jack looked down at Dani for a moment, realizing that she could be hit, through the car, by stray gunfire, and made a decision. He dove for cover behind the Range Rover. Shots rang out over and over, shattering the windows of the SUV. Terry was walking around the vehicle firing the whole time. Jack backed toward the front of the Rover, keeping his head low, then, still disoriented from the head wound, and with the adrenaline rush fading away, he lost balance and landed on his backside. Terry stepped around the rear of the vehicle, grinning with malicious glee.

"You survived after all. I should have checked, but honestly, I didn't expect to miss." He pointed the gun directly at Jack's face, not exactly steady, but at this range it wouldn't matter. "I won't miss this time." He blinked hard for a moment, and shook his head, as if a little dizzy, then appeared to pull it together, and pulled the trigger. The gun roared....

Jack sat for a moment, his ears ringing with the sound of the gunshot. He looked up, his eyes wide, at the gun still pointing at him, but now with the slide locked in the open position. Terry was looking at it in disbelief. Jack did a quick inventory, and found that he wasn't bleeding anywhere.

Terry had missed.

Jack looked back up at Terry just in time to see his face contorted in fury, and the gun swinging towards his head. Then for the second time that morning, everything went white, then faded to black.

Dani had closed her eyes when the shooting started, and flinched at the final shot. Now she opened her eyes, as Terry walked back to the trunk.

"...Can't believe I missed," he said almost to himself. Her heart skipped. He was still alive.

Terry was taking the clip out of the gun. He threw both into the trunk near her feet, and regarded her, in a mockery of a loving gaze. "You know there's a lovely waterfall not far from here. Maybe I'll get a chance to show it too you soon. It's right next to a cliff, nearly a hundred feet high. Gorgeous." He looked a little wistful. "But right now I'm going to show it to your husband. Actually he's going to get a great view of the bottom... for about a second. Don't worry sweetheart, I'll be back soon."

He walked away. Dani heard him grunt as, she assumed, he picked up Jack's unconscious body, and walked off through the woods.

Dani lay there stunned for a moment. Then she realized that she had to do something. She swung her legs up to the lip of the trunk, and after a few moments of struggle, levered herself up and out of the trunk. As she slid over the edge, she scraped herself on the side of the license plate. She cursed for a moment, then her eyes went wide. The plate was bent out slightly. She turned and grabbed it with her hands behind her back, and bent it out even more, then started using the sharp edge to cut through the duct tape. In a few moments there was a tear, which she pulled on as she cut, and it became wider and wider, until she was able to free her hands. She ripped the duct tape off her mouth, careful not to scream, then started unwinding it off her ankles.

Finally she was free. But, she thought a little uncertainly, now what? Obviously she had to get Jack back. But how? Terry was bigger, stronger...

Her eyes fell on the tire iron that had been laying under her hip, and causing no end of discomfort the whole time she had been in the trunk. She took it up now, and with grim determination, started through the woods at a trot.

Jack came around, and found himself being carried. He was looking down at the ground, and Terry's back. It felt like Terry had a tight hold on his legs, but he didn't seem uncomfortable carrying Jack's weight. Jack wondered how many other bodies he had carried around.

He twisted, and fell to the ground on his backside and on his back, Terry still gripping his legs. He pulled his legs in, pulling Terry, then pushed hard, throwing Terry into a tree. He quickly scrambled to his feet, and started off into the woods, running away from the deranged man. Terry's laugh followed him.

In a few moments he saw the edge of the woods, and started to pick up speed, looking quickly over his shoulder. Terry was behind him, but didn't seem to be running. Jack's heart leaped. he might be able to escape the cocky bastard after all. He ran past the last tree, and his blood ran cold. His perceptions slowed down for a moment, and just for that second, he saw things in complete clarity. There were several 3' x 3' x 3' concrete blocks here many with rebar poking up out of them, as if someone had been building a retaining wall here, that never got finished. Most of the rebar was rusted through. Right in front of him was a concrete block that had been sunk into the ground, it's rebar sticking up, but bent at funny angles.

Jack was moving to fast, inertia working against him. He hurtled up to the rebar, and tumbled over, managing to grab one of the bent pieces with his left hand. He went over the opposite lip of the concrete block, and the rebar screamed as it bent under his weight, dangling him out precariously over the nearly shear cliff. Gravity swung him back toward the cliff, but the block hung a bit over the cliff, so there was nothing for him to brace his feet on, but he was able to grab hold of a bit of rebar that had bent out in his direction.

From above he heard as Terry was laughing and clapping his hands in apparent glee. "Oh, that was just perfect," he laughed. "Saved me the trouble of dumping you over the cliff myself." He poked his head over and looked surprised, but perversely pleased to see that Jack hadn't gone over.

"You held on!" He laughed delightedly. "Oh, this just gets better and better! Now we can talk about this whole thing, and you'll see that Dani... she'll be better off with me."

"You sick... bastard," Jack rasped. His hands were sweating, and he wasn't really sure how much longer he'd be able to hold on. If it weren't for the rust making the rebar gritty, he was sure he would have slipped off by now. As it was, the rebar was slowly bending as his weight pulled it down. When that happened he wouldn't be able to stop himself slipping off.

"I'm afraid you've got me on both accounts there Jack. My parents weren't married, making me a bastard, and I've been diagnosed a sociopath by my psychiatrist, which technically makes me sick... but I've never really thought of it as a sickness."

Jack laughed a little, despite his situation. What the hell, he thought. It made him feel better. "Sociopath? Heh... don't kid...yourself.... obviously a psychopath."

Terry appeared to think about this for a moment. "You know, by definition I think you're right. No compunction to killing, an impulse to control, or destroy..." He smiled. "But what the hell. Might as well enjoy myself then, right?" He lifted a boot, and prepared to stomp down on Jack's fingers.

There was a loud thunk, and Jack saw Terry's hair fly up slightly in the back. Then he heard a grunt, and Terry was tumbling forward. Dani's face appeared behind him.

But as he tumbled Terry was grasping at the air, and was able to get hold of Jack's leg. His body jerked heavily on Jack, and the rebar bent sharply. Jack could feel his hands beginning to slip in earnest now. Dani reached down and grabbed his wrist, slowing him slightly, but not stopping. Jack gritted his teeth, and looked her squarely in the eyes.

"Hit him... again." He hissed between this teeth.

She blinked a moment then took back up the tire iron, stood up, and took aim, and said, "Terry."

He looked up at her, with murder in his eyes.

"I told you I would kill you." She threw the tire iron as hard as she could, and caught him across the face. Instinctively he grabbed for it, letting go of Jack's leg in the process.

He fell. They heard him scream all the way down, but couldn't hear the impact over the roar of the waterfall.

After a few minutes Dani and Jack had pulled Jack back up over the edge of the cement block, and past the rebar. They lay there in the dirt and grass, holding each other for a while, glad to be alive, and not wanting to think about what just happened. Then Dani gasped.

"What?" asked Jack.

"What if this is like one of the stories where the Psycho didn't really die, then ends up coming back for revenge?"

Jack smirked for a moment. It sounded ridiculous, when she said it like that. But as he thought about it, the more sober his expression became. He stood up, and she followed him to the edge of the cliff. He grabbed a piece of rebar from one of the higher stacked cement blocks. "Grab my arm," he told her. "And try to brace yourself. I think I'm developing a fear of heights."

She laughed nervously, and took hold of his arm. He leaned out as far as he dared, and looked down. Then after just a moment, he pulled himself back with a gasp. "Nope, we're good. He hit the rocks. I saw brains." She sighed in relief.

They put their arms around each other, and walked back through the woods together. 

 ****************

Happy ending! I knew it was gonna happen that way really, like I said it came to me in a dream.

Thanks, comments welcome and suggestions, and as always, thanks for reading!

The Honeymoon Part 1

I almost forgot to post something for Saturday! I know it's like 2 in the morning, but I still call this one a win. I don't have time to finish the D&D character now, so if I need to I'll deal with that another time.

In the meantime this is a story I came up with in a dream. Really. Start to finish, it played out in my head like a movie. I had to do a lot of filling in the gaps, but for the most part it was fully formed in my head before I ever wrote anything. This is incomplete, but it has all the main stuff, and I do plan to come back and do some more. So here it is, part one. Part 2 to come tomorrow.  (Sunday that is.)

 *********

The drive had been long and tiring, but really gorgeous as well. The first week of September was really considered by most to be the beginning of Autumn, even though it wasn't officially. But even on Labor Day it still felt more like Summer.

There were a lot of cars going in the other direction too. Labor Day marked the end of the holiday weekend, and the end of the season for the Kotumpka Bed and Breakfast. Jack and Dani Simmons had thought themselves pretty clever for booking their honeymoon/vacation for the week following Labor Day, and the Walters', the old couple who ran the B&B were happy to keep the place open for a few more days, provided they could agree on the menu in advance, so they wouldn't have to keep the cook on, and that they wouldn't have to keep a housekeeper on staff. Jack and Dani had agreed to clean up after themselves in their room.

It looked perfect. There was only one road in or out of the little place, apparently an aborted railroad tunnel. There was no cell service, but rooms had internet access. No TV service, but TVs with DVD players, and a radio in each room.

They pulled their car up to the main lodge, and got out looking around.

"Look look look!" said Dani excitedly, pointing.

Jack looked where her finger led, and saw two deer who had paused to look at them, about thirty feet away through the sparse trees. He smiled, and looked at Dani's enraptured face.

"Aww," she said, in a high cutesy voice. Jack smirked. "They're so cuuute," she cooed. She started fumbling for her cell phone.

"What are you doing?" said Jack. "There's no service here."

"I want to get a picture," she told him, fiddling with the phone. She held it up at arms length, at about eye level and tapped the screen. Half a second later the phone made a familiar double beep, and shutter noise, and the flash went off. The startled deer, turned and bolted gracefully through the trees. Dani made a disappointed noise, which made Jack laugh.

They checked in at the front desk where Mrs. Walters exclaimed how cute they were, then they were shown to their room.

It was a corner of the building, with it's own exit, in the form of a heavy glass door. They unpacked, and checked out all the features of the room, then fell delightedly into bed together, naked.

A bit later when they were both hungry they decided to get dressed and head over to the dining room. They were surprised to discover that they weren't the only couple there. The man was charming and seemed very confident, the woman was very attractive, but didn't seem very intelligent. When they asked Mrs Walters about it she said that someone else had asked about coming in on Labor Day, and since they were going to be open for the Simmons's anyway, they figured there was no reason they couldn't be open to anyone else.

"Maybe," said Mrs Walters, "this will become a regular thing with couples, wanting to avoid the press, have a more relaxed vacation. It could become huge!"

During the salad, which Mrs Walters brought out to both tables at the same time, the other man who had been glancing over at the Simmons, got up and went over to them, and said, "Listen, I don't mean to bother you, but my wife and I were talking, and... it seems a little weird to be the only ones in here, and sitting separately. We were thinking that maybe Mrs Walters would have an easier time if we were all just sitting together."

Jack was usually nervous in social situation, which Dani had been trying to help him get over. He looked a little unsettled, but she nodded encouragingly at him, and he agreed.

A couple hours later  they were laughing like old friends and drinking together as the Simmons told the ridiculous story of how they met, which involved the differences between real rock climbing and climbing a rock wall.

[In this scene you get the impression that the man Terry, is charming, intelligent, and confident, but somehow a little off. Bridget on the other hand is amazingly attractive, but a little vapid, but well meaning. However you can't help but notice the difference in their relative intelligence (B v D), and Terry in particular seems quite intrigued by Dani's intelligence, as if noticing Bridget’s lack of intelligence for the first time, even though they just got married.]

After a bit the Simmons excused themselves, implying in rather explicit terms that they intended to go back to their room and make much love. In passing they mentioned their plans for the following day, Jack intending to go fishing on the lake, noted for being at the top of a waterfall, while Dani wanted to go hiking through mountain woods. Terry, suggested that he might be interested to join Jack, (who seems a little reluctant) and that Bridget (who also seemed reluctant) could join Dani, who seemed eager to have another girl to talk to.

The following day Jack woke up early hoping to get out on the lake early, and - though he never said so - avoid Terry. However Terry was waiting outside, getting his tackle box ready. They went out on the lake in a little rowboat. The lake was stocked with various types of compatible fish, and was a stopping point for trout from further up the river that fed into the lake.

Terry asked many questions about Jack and Dani's relationship, Terry noted that he could hear them all the way from his room, which made Jack a little uncomfortable.

However in a small fit of manly pride he said, "Well she is kind of a wildcat in bed... I could tell you some stories, but well, it wouldn't be polite to go spreading tales about a lady."

They laughed, but Terry seemed jealous, and confessed that Bridget, though very well built, was rather unimaginative in bed. "I think now, looking back, that she never had to work at it. Men just flocked to be with her because of how she looked. She wasn't as interested in the sex, as she just wanted the attention, so she never really developed a technique, didn't ever have to work at being considered sexy." He went on to say that women like Dani were considered sexy because they had to work harder to be considered so.

Jack, who had always considered his wife to be gorgeous, took issue with this. "You make it sound like my wife is some kind of un-confident attention seeker who needs to turn herself into come kind of slut in order to get attention."

Terry considered this for a moment. "Are you saying that's not the case?"

"Yes!" said Jack in disbelief. "My wife intentionally held back from having sex with me for nearly a month when we first started going out. We'd just eat, she's always been a terrific cook, and hang out, watch movies, but... I guess there was always this... Anticipation I guess... then one day just before she was going to leave to visit some family over Fourth of July weekend..." He floundered for a second.

Terry just looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

Jack started to smile, then laughed. "Okay, so maybe she lured me in with food, and the anticipation of sex, but honestly? That just made her seem MORE confident. Like she was worth the wait. And not a slut either, because she didn't sleep around. And she didn't come off as desperate, otherwise I imagine she wouldn't have waited. She just wanted to be sure there would be something more than just the sex." Terry was nodding along distractedly, when suddenly there was a bite on his line.

They reeled in the trout, and laughed and celebrated a moment. Jack mentioned that he was planning on doing catch and release, as they wouldn't want to take the time or effort to clean them.

Terry said nothing, but just stared at the fish, holding it up, as it struggled, and gaped for water. His eyes looked intent, and focused, and his hands seemed to tighten around the fish, very slowly, whispering under his breath, "You belong to me."

"Hey." Jack nudged him in the back, breaking whatever spell had snared him. "Are you going to toss him back, or skin him and eat him?"

"Her," said Terry. He held the fish vertically, where tiny clear eggs were coming out.

Jack smiled. "Oh yeah. Well then you have to throw her back so they can re-stock the lake. It is spawning season after all, and I'm pretty sure this is a spawning pool."

Terry nodded, and lowered the fish into the water, but paused at the last minute. The fish wriggled in his grasp, and he started to squeeze, but then he blinked a few times, as if coming out of a haze, and lowered the fish back into the water, and let it go.

Dani and Bridget hiked through the woods along a trail. Dani was entranced by the wildlife, laughing and pointing out a woodpecker. Bridget seemed a little nervous though. When Dani asked her about this, and what she was worried about, Bridget told her.

"Bears?" Dani laughed. "Sweetie, I asked Mister Walters about that before we came here. There are no bears. They were all hunted out about a hundred years ago."

"I don't know, Terry warned me to be careful of bears, and mountain lions," she shook her head and looked around.

Dani was perplexed by her behavior, but more that Terry would have made her so scared. Dani had been a little worried about wild animals, so she had made the effort to call Mr Walters ahead of time and check with him, even though Jack though it was silly. Maybe Terry was just more cautious about this kind of thing, but the idea that he hadn't checked seemed a little odd.

"Bridget, sweetie, it's okay. I made a special call to Mr Walters just to make sure that there wasn't any danger hiking through the woods here, and he said that he's lived here all his life, and he hasn't seen anything more dangerous than deer since he was like twelve and they had to hunt down a mountain lion." She chuckled. "Unless you count humans that is."

Later that night Jack and Dani were in their room, talking about the days events.

"It was just weird, like he was trying to scare her," Dani was saying.

Jack shook his head bemused. "He didn't seem to concerned while we were out fishing. At least not that he said. Maybe he's just not one to let things get to him."

"Yeah. And dinner tonight was a lot better. With Bridget. It seemed like she really opened up. I'm even thinking about going to one of her interior decorating parties."

Jack snorted. "You mean the one where you get all kinds of home decorations and go redecorate a room in someone's house?" He started to chuckle until she threw a pillow at him. "Hey!" he laughed.

"Don't laugh, she's really proud of her little enterprise, and the decorations sound really pretty."

Jack could tell she was trying not to laugh herself though. "Oh god," he said. "You're not thinking about doing one of the rooms in our house in those god-awful decorations are you?"

"Well," she started, a little defensively. "If I really believed in something like that I would really want to know that it was helping someone. She's nice, and they only live a few hours from us in Boise."

"You did used to do that whole cosmetics thing, so I guess I can't really object," he said a little more kindly.

"You did like me with those false eyelashes on, right? You said it did something for you," she smirked at him as he grunted.

"Yeah," he growled. He crawled across the bed to her and pulled her onto it. She yelped and laughed, then moaned as he kissed her...

Outside in the darkness, unnoticed by either of them, something stirred.

Someone was knocking on the door. Hard. Frantically.

It was morning, and light was filtering through the trees outside, but still one spot of light managed to focus itself right onto Jack's left eyeball. He groaned and tried to roll over to get the light out of his eye, but the pounding resumed on the door. Insistent pounding.

Jack rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts, and stumbled to the door. When he got there and opened the door, Terry stood there looking a little crazed, and scanning over Jacks shoulder into the room beyond.

Jack tried a couple times to speak but seemed to be having issues. He tried clearing his throat, a few times then said, "'Srong Tree?"

"Have you seen Bridget?" Terry looked uncharacteristically upset, and panicky.

Something in Terry's voice got through the sleep-haze of Jacks mind. "She's-" He coughed a couple times and tried again. "She's not with you?"

Terry shook his head. "I think she got up in the middle of the night to take a walk, and she never came back."

"Okay, um..." Jack looked back at Dani a moment, trying to make up his mind. "Okay, I'll help you look for her, just gimme a minute to get dressed." He shut the door on Terry, and started moving around the room looking for his clothes.

Dani stirred, and sat up on her elbow, squinting at Jack tiredly. "What's wrong?" she slurred.

"I'm helping Terry look for Bridget. Apparently she wandered off in the middle of the night." Jack sat on the edge of the bed and started pulling on socks.

Dani gasped. "S'she okay?" she slurred again, obviously concerned, but still tired.

Jack thought about it for a second. "Yeah, probably. She probably just got lost out there somewhere, or she's fallen asleep or something." His brow furrowed, as he pulled on his pants, and shirt. As he slipped on his shoes, he said, "Did you get the impression that there was anything wrong between those two? Like they were having problems or something?"

Dani was sitting up in bed blinking now, and reaching for a tank top to wear, and some pajama pants. She shook her head. "No," she said. "As far as I could tell they seemed good. D'you think she left him, or she's mad at him or something?"

Jack sighed and shrugged, shaking his head, and pulling on his jacket. "I don't know. Something about this situation feels a little... hinky."

Dani nodded in agreement.

Jack reached for the door. "Do me a favor and stay here," he said. "If anything is going on I'd rather know that you're safe."

"Okay. Be careful sweetie."

He smiled and winked at her, and went out the door.

Terry was waiting near the front door of his own cottage when Jack came out. He looked a little shaky and nervous. "I'm kinda freaking out a little here," he said, starting off toward the hiking trail. "I'm starting to regret coming out here, this really isn't her kind of place. I could have chosen Maui, or Santa Barbara, Jamaica, Barbados, Sicily-"

Jack cut off his rambling before he built up a head of steam. "Do you think we ought to wake up Mister Walters about this? I mean he might have some kind of idea where she might go..."

Terry stopped suddenly, causing Jack to halt behind him. His nervousness seemed to evaporate, and he was very still for a moment, but Jack couldn't see his face. Then Terry took a deep slow breath, as if calming himself, then turned back to Jack. "No, I'm just overreacting, I'm sure. There's no need to wake them up, we can find Bridget on our own."

Jack was a little taken aback by the sudden change in Terry’s demeanor, but shook it off. The man's wife was missing. It was bound to make anyone a little unnerved. He nodded at Terry. "If you're sure then. I think if we don't find anything for a while though we might want to consider it."

Terry nodded, a look of gratitude settling on his features, and he turned and started once again down the path.

As they walked Jack picked up several little things, but in his distraction he failed to piece them together. For example he noticed several broken branches on bushes, a dead branch that had fallen in the night cracked in the middle, a large boot print in some deep mud on the side of the trail going in the opposite direction.

After nearly an hour of walking calling out for Bridget, Terry slowed to a stop squinting and looking through the trees. Jack moved up next to him and looked in the same direction. Terry pointed, and Jack saw something bright bubblegum pink, but covered in dirt in a thicket of trees ahead.

Terry looked a little shaken. He gulped. "Could you ah... I don't think I can... um..."

Jack understood. If it had been Dani he wouldn't be able to look either. He clapped Terry on the shoulder, and gave it a squeeze, and headed off through the trees to check out the sighting of pink.

It turned out to be a pink sweatshirt laying on top of a mound of what seemed to be freshly dug earth. Jacks breath caught as he walked closer, and looked over the mound.

Bridget's body, her eyes open and lifeless, her face slack, and a small red hole in her forehead lay on top of a bed of dirt, branches and leaves in the bottom of the hole, stained red by her draining blood.

Jack fought back the urge to vomit as several things passed quickly through his mind. The bootprints, the broken branches... Terry's sudden change in demeanor.

Then he heard the sound of a gun hammer being cocked. He froze, every muscle in his body tensed.

"I'm sorry Jack, but I'm afraid we're going to have to swap wives. I married Bridget for her looks, but when we met you and your wife, I realized that Dani has a bit more... Substance."

The gun went off. Jack's body flinched violently as he felt the bullet impact the top of his head, and he lost his balance, and fell forward as the whole world went very bright, then faded to black.

****

It was about an hour later that Dani heard the frantic thumping on the door. She ran over, and opened it, and gasped as Terry all but fell into the room. "Oh my god!" she nearly screamed through her fingers.

Terry was a wreck, covered in dirt and leaves, his clothes torn and he seemed to be bleeding from several places. He was panting heavily. "Jack... " he gasped.

"Is Jack all right?" Dani was suddenly even more in a panic. If something had happened to Jack she wouldn't know what to do.

But Terry was shaking his head. "No- he... tried to... kill me," Terry rasped. He was struggling to his feet now.

Dani was in shock. Jack try to kill Terry? To kill anyone? It wasn't in his character. They had known each other for a couple years now, and she had never seen anything in him that might suggest that he was capable of murder.

Terry was catching his breath now, and starting to speak a little more normal. "He told me that he'd gotten up in the middle of the night, and seen Bridget and followed her into the woods." He started to become a little emotional here, looking about ready to cry. "He said he- said he-" he collapsed into a chair nearby.

Dani stood there in disbelief for a moment, then sat down on the edge of the bed. She put her hands over her mouth for a moment, and forced herself to calm down. Her heart was racing. Jack couldn't do something like this.

But Terry wasn't done yet. "He said... he told me he was coming to kill you too. That's why he'd brought you out here. Because of all the open woods... lots of places to do it without being heard... tree cover. A lake to dump the body...."

Dani stopped listening at this point, as he continued, and just sat on the bed, her head in her hands, thinking. First of all, Jack wouldn't do anything like this. He felt bad about hitting squirrels on the road, and when a bird had rolled over his windshield, he'd nearly been reduced to tears. And he couldn't have gotten up last night, then come back to bed. Any time he got into or out of bed, it woke her up, and he hadn't moved last night, not even to go to the bathroom. And finally, there was the trip. It had been her idea the whole time, she'd booked it, researched it online, and convinced him to come along after weeks of indecision from him. In the end he'd had to admit that he had no place better in mind, and that settled things.

But all this meant that Terry was lying to her. Trying to get her on his side....

"Where is Jack now?" she interrupted him.

He shrugged. "I only hit him with a branch. I think he might be slowed down, but he seemed pretty disoriented. He was still lying on the ground last time I saw him. He... he had this..." he showed her the gun, held flat in his hands, like he was afraid of it. She gasped. Terry must have shot Jack... she could only hope that somehow that it hadn't been fatal.

She reached forward tentatively for the gun... "Can I..?" she asked, looking at him.

He offered it up to her with apparent relief. She took it, stood up, looking at it, and walked a few steps away. She didn't have much time. If Jack was out there somewhere, bleeding slowly to death, he would need her to find him as soon as possible. She made up her mind. She turned, and pointed the gun at Terry.
****




Ha HAA! Cliffhanger. Now you HAVE to read part two or you'll never see how it ends!

Thanks everyone, comments and suggestions welcome, and thanks for reading!

D&D Character part 1

Welcome back! Today I need to work on a character for a weekly D&D game.

I've been out of this particular game for a few months now, but I know a bit about the world, and I've had some conversations with the DM about some character ideas, and I think I have one that I like, and that I can be happy with. I have some concerns, after all just because you have a character with a particular skill, and a concept that you're happy with, it doesn't necessarily mean that the skills you are developing will be of any particular use in the setting, or that the other members of the group will work with you when trying to employ said skills.

I'm being vague aren't I? Okay then, sorry about that.  My character concept is an Aasimar con man.

Aasimar however are supposed to be notorious do-gooders, so how does that work? Well this particular Aasimar had a very unusual upbringing, and he uses his skills of deceit and trickery to steal from those greedy individuals who would take advantage of the people who live in the north who don't understand the value of what they have, or the concept of capitalism. I'm picturing something like the Native Americans or the Inuits or something, but that's something for the GM to figure out.

But how did he get there?

Well the way I understand it is that a long time ago there was a time when Angels and Demons roamed the lands, in equal force. For each of one, there had to be another of the opposite. But then the gates of Heaven and Hell closed, and whatever forces of good or evil remained were stuck on this plane of existance. Many bloody battles followed, and both sides lost many of their numbers. But finally there came a day when the Angels finished off the last of the Demons (as far as they knew) and restored balance to the lands.

Except...  except that their presence as Angels and the power and force they represented meant that there would never be true balance. But at the same time they couldn't simply vanish, they couldn't go to their home any more, and suicide or mutual murder would be unacceptable. So the only possible option would be to forsake their immortality and live as and among the people. The three that remained decided between them that they ought to never have children. But inevitably something that would never happen to an angel was all to easy for a human.

Kabshiel the angel of grace and favor found a tribe of nomads living in the north, barely making their way in the world, near to starvation, but possessed of a grace he had never seen before among the humans of the world. He decided to stay among them, and teach them, and help them to survive, reasoning that now that he was human this couldn't possibly considered interference. And so he lived with them and taught them how to find better sources of food, how to read the game trails, where to travel during the seasons so that nature would have a chance to replenish itself, even in the desolate wasteland. They wanted him to lead, but he refused, believing that it wasn't his place, and not wanting the temptation of taking advantage of the power that would give him, hoping instead that they would be able to maintain their innocence. Instead he became something of a shaman, guiding them in day to day life, helping them to survive, advising, but never leading. 

Then came the day that Snow fox came of age. 

Kabshiel, now known as Sky Leopard had watch her grow up, but had never taken a lot of interest in her. But on the day that she came of age, and chose her totem, she sang a song of such deep and profound beauty that he couldn't help but take notice. She sang of deep and passionate longing, of a love that could never be sated, and a respect that bordered on reverence. He had no choice but to fall in love with her, though knew he mustn't. 

She persisted. Every day she sang him a new song, and every day he fell in love again. Finally after 3 full moons he could bear it no longer and agreed to marry her. And in the fullness of time she bore his child. Kabshiel felt enormous guilt, and though he could no longer perform the kinds of miracles he once could he had enough divinity to do one thing to ensure that the effect of his betrayal would be minimal. 

He felt that it would be wrong to stop his child from having any children, but he did cause a change that meant that he, and his child, and all their decendants would never have more than one child each. 

And so it was for several generations. 

When Rabbit of the Northern Star was born the demons were already hunting for him. His mother Star Rose knew that she would never be able to protect him and his father had already been killed by the demons six moons before. They never showed themselves overtly only whispered to her in the dark about how her husband died because of his ancestor's betrayal, and that she was lucky to have survived, and that she should join the demons and live a life better than the simple life she had among her simple people, and let them raise her child, and show him his potential, and make him a god among his own people. 

No one believed her. No one except Wind Eagle the hunter, who had always secretly loved her. She begged him to take her child and go far away so he would be safe. He had little choice but to agree, so selflessly did he love her. He begged her to come with them, but she could not. She had to stay and convince the demons that she was still pregnant, and that she would consider being tempted by them in order to allow Wind Eagle to get Rabbit away. Wind Eagle tried to find some other solution, but ultimately he knew that there could be none. With a heavy heart he took Rabbit, and two oxen, and left heading toward the south. 

The oxen were nearly not enough for them to make it far enough south. Wind Eagle saved as much milk as he was able for the child, but soon he had to resort to extraordinary means to feed the baby, such as trapping goats and buffalo and hobbling them to milk, before slaughtering them for their meat. But soon Rabbit was eating more and more, and Wind Eagle was barely able to keep up with the demand, to the point where he had to water down the milk or run out. 

At the end of 3 months Rabbit was dangerously  undernourished, and nearly didn't have the strength to even cry. Wind Eagle despaired, fearing he had failed Rabbit's mother, when as he trudged through the snow, he looked up and saw a verdant forest in the distance ahead. His heart leaped and he made his way forward. When he reached the forest, he saw by chance a cart rolling along. He hailed the driver, who stopped and looked in astonishment, but agreed to take them with him into town. 

When he reached the village, a small but bustling town isolated by mountains Wind Eagle discovered that no one was willing to give him milk for Rabbit without something in trade, and his supplies had run out several days ago. He had dropped everything he couldn't carry, and so had nothing. 

But then providence once again stepped in, and took their fates by the hand. A small brothel existed in the town, and by chance one of the ladies that worked there had just had a child of her own. She agreed to wet-nurse Rabbit in exchange for Wind Eagle's service as a guard. Some customers had been growing restless and violent as of late, and the ladies would need more protection. 

Wary, but seeing no other choice Wind Eagle agreed. He took the name Sammael to allay suspicion, and to help prevent the demons from finding them. He gave Rabbit of the North Star the name Whit, though in the years to come he would still occasionally refer to him as "Little Rabbit." When he was old enough to get the joke Rabbit, or now Whit, started calling Sammael "Old Bird."

Whit grew up among the ladies of the brothel, learning the arts of diplomacy, flattery, desire, control and deception. He learned to read people, how to draw them out, how to talk them into giving you exactly what you would need to give them everything they desired. 

But his real education began when he turned 16, and a Baron's son came to town. He had never been there before. In the nearby pub, one of the ladies Albina, worked her magic on the man and learned, through his boasting that he was there to hunt, that he had heard about an enormous Albino Bear that had been sighted in the forest, enormous and ferocious. As such a rare thing surely it would make the greatest trophy he had ever had. She was rapt, and held his attention as un-noticed by the Baron's Son, but noticed by Whit, a man named Three-Coin Alexo stood up and left the pub, a strange mischevious look on his face. Whit had never understood what Alexo did in the village, so he followed the strange man out of the pub. Alexo strode casually down the street, and Whit followed at what he thought was a discreet distance, but as soon as they were both out off sight of the Pub Alexo casually U-Turned, causing Whit to run straight into him. After a brief exchange of threats Alexo agreed to show Whit what he was doing, and even offered to let Whit help. 

The following day Alexo pretended to be a woodland guide showing the Baron's son to the place where the Albino Bear was rumored to have his den. The Baron's son saw the bear through the trees while Alexo was looking in the other direction, and in his greed and haste, he drew an arrow and shot the great beast. When he and Alexo made it over to the corpse they saw that it wasn't a bear at all, but a young man wearing a white fur cloak, blood covering his face and body, his eyes open and lifeless, and his tongue hanging out. The Baron's son was horrified. He might be able to get away with quite a bit, but cold blooded murder... he would most certainly be hanged! 

He begged Alexo to make it go away, to hide the body, or make up a story so that he would avoid being punished for this crime. Alexo seemed reluctant, his conscience getting the better of him, the Baron's son though pushed bag after bag of coins at him until Alexo finally reluctantly agreed, and the relieved Baron's son ran off back to his father's lands. 

Whit waited till the Baron's son was gone before standing up. He was covered in pigs blood, and holding up the un-tipped arrow, which a few moments before had been tipped with a fragile shaped limestone arrowhead, which had simply crumbled upon impact. 

Alexo laughingly admonished Whit for having his tongue hanging out, which had almost made him laugh when he was supposed to be acting somber and worried. 

And so Whit learned the ins and outs of the confidence games, and how to rig gambling games, and how to take advantage of a "mark's" greed to take him for everything he had. He had also insisted that Whit should learn swordplay, "For those times when you can't talk your way out of trouble."

But it was Sammael who insisted on teaching him swordplay. The old warrior did not approve of the trickery and deception, but agreed that Whit needed to learn to protect himself. 

And so many years passed. Whit found that he had a conscience when it came to conning, and could not bring himself to treat people who had less than himself. Often, much to Alexo's annoyance, he would end up giving up his own money to help. He found this satisfied a deep part of himself, and whenever he pulled a con from that time forward he always made sure that his share went back to those who needed it the most. 



*******************


Welp, it's 1 am, and while it' not exactly complete, this is certainly a good start to my character background.  I still have to get him from here to where the game begins, but I'll save that for later, along with any revisions I might have to make.

Comments and suggestions are welcome as always, and Thanks for reading!