October 23, 2010

Esgalwen and Two Spiders

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Filed under: 2. Middle Earth fanworks,Esgalwen,Miscellaneous Writing,Writing — Illinia @ 11:14 am

Hey, some pointless rambling about Esgalwen and two spiders that attack her. There is nothing of interest in these stories; no character development (except I found out Hano likes cleanliness), no theme, no meaning… just some events. For the curious – the fiancé in the first half is the same as the husband in the second half.

I don’t know why I decided to write this. The second one was sort of based on a dream I had recently, and the first was something that happened to Esgalwen soon after I met her… but I don’t know why I decided to record (and present) them now.

Esgalwen and Two Spiders

The first spider

It was dusk in the forest that had once been called Greenwood the Great. Esgalwen walked though the woods on the path to her house, idly swinging her hips in an innocent girlish way.

When she saw her house, built around a living tree, she thought something looked odd about it, but could not place it…

With a contented sigh she scampered up the ladder and… paused with her hand on the door. Something smelled bad, and it all felt terribly wrong…

She opened the door and was dragged inside by a pair of black pincers. She cried out and yanked away, tearing her blue ankle-length dress.

The giant spider took up more than half of the one-room house, and it was all she could do to play keep-away from its fangs. It was not really blocking the door, but she had her eye on her one weapon, a knife, a gift from her fiancé, and was determined to get it before retreating.

After another instant, her chance came, and she seized it with both hands before darting out the door again. She’d use the knife to fend off the spider as she fled to call her brother and fiancé for help…

It squeezed through the door and pounced at her, knocking her off her balcony and heavily to the ground several meters below. She lay stunned for a moment, and it bounded down, flicking her over with a claw.

She groaned – she’d hit the ground quite hard – and flailed weakly. It flicked her over again, so she was on her back, and stood over her, venom dripping from its jaws. But its weakest point…

She braced herself and struck with the edge of her knife into the point where its abdomen joined its head. It hissed and reached back to strike her – and fell, cut in two.

Now she was pinned, and her beautiful dress was indelibly stained with spider blood…

“Esgalwen!” came a cry. Her brother.

“Hano,” she wheezed. “Help me get this off!”

With a quick heave, he pulled the body off her and helped her up, rather careful not to get any blood on his clean gear. Hano always was rather fastidious.

“Thank you,” she said.

“How… oh dear.” He shook his head. “Your fiancé is not going to like this.”

“Of course not,” she said. “Neither will Captain.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts leading a campaign to wipe them out around this area… after all, this is residential!”

“I’m the only one living in this place for about half a mile,” she reminded him gently.

He shook his head and tapped his eyebrow. “That counts, dear sister. Besides which, you’re rather important to people. Trust me, he’s going to go a little noble and determined.”

“I don’t mind,” she sighed happily, leaning her head – just her head – on his shoulder.

The second spider

It had been a hard day. First her husband had not come home from his patrol, though she knew he was safe – her brother had visited instead, and told her so (“his father wants to talk to him” – and no one denies a father that) – and then it had hailed heavily, trapping her inside her little house.

Even with candles it felt too dark to read. So she went to bed. How soundly she slept she could not tell.

She could tell when she woke up and found herself in the cold dark, against a tree, with her lower half liberally swathed in something clinging and sticky and restrictive. Her poor heart suddenly surged with adrenaline and fear as a spider, not as big as the last one, but still big enough, crawled out from behind her.

Esgalwen gasped (and that was all; she was never loud) and lashed out with her fist, her other hand groping for the tiny knife that she always kept at her side. It wasn’t there, but as the spider flinched, she tumbled forward, struggling against the webbing around her legs.

The spider pounced on her, not sinking its fangs into her – yet – but getting webbing in her hair.

She was vastly outmatched, her frail dancer’s physique against an unnaturally large killing machine. It dragged her back, twisting her around even as she fought, covering her body and then her head in suffocating wrappings. She felt a jerk around her ankles and was hauled up into the air, dangling helplessly from a branch.

For some reason, she felt calm, only very sad. Through the shroud over her face she could see the spider’s fangs so close to her slender throat. It was giggling to itself.

Inexplicably it staggered back, a hoarse scream torn from that hideous mouth. It flinched again and again, thudding noises coming from it.

Someone – she hoped – cut the thread suspending her to the branch, and gently lowered her to the ground. “You’re all right, miss,” a light, warm voice said – heavenly music to her ears.

A few seconds work with a white-hilted knife, and –

“Esgalwen!?” cried her husband. “What- how- Oh, my dearest!” And she was crushed against his warm chest as he held her close in shock.

The spider was dead, a few feet away, full of arrows.

“I’m all right,” she whispered, trying to reassure him. “You saved me.”

He picked her up and walked away slowly, breathless still.

July 9, 2010

Kalmaeirin Currency

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Filed under: Miscellaneous Writing,Writing — Tags: , , , — Illinia @ 1:43 pm

As I write this it is skin-meltingly hot out… but Flairé was unusually talkative today and gave me the outline of the history of the kalmaeirin currency system(s), so I thought I should get it down before I forgot it or it got garbled by something. <_<  >_>

This does not include a discussion of the credit system they used, or the age jewel gifting traditions that existed in some parts of the kingdoms, or of the economic system itself. This is only a summary of how they started using currency.

As soon as the kalmaei were ‘civilized’ enough to start producing ‘goods’, they needed a way to exchange them. At first this was done by barter (“I’ll give you baked goods for three weeks if you give me those boots…”). This was pretty obviously impractical; they made do for a while with extremely complicated agreements (“I want some of your fish, but you don’t need my fishhooks, but that guy over there does, and he’ll give you a couple of oars, which you do want…” etc.) but in the end they decided something had to change.

They valued all metals and gems, but they also thought of them as simply raw materials for jewelry, statues, and other decoration. Hence, although perhaps they traded small nuggets of metal, it was not widespread or common. It was too easy to falsify the value and purity of metals. Precious stones were too valuable to trade except for other gems and perhaps things like houses or a significant amount of labour, and also usually required an appraisal before being accepted at a certain value.

The first currency was actually inadvertently invented by a group of sculptors, who had done a substantial number of tiny carvings on small river rocks. These they traded as beads, at first, but then someone showed them to Erd Lord of the Unicorn-kalmaei, and he thought it was a brilliant idea to use them for currency. They were labour-intensive, and therefore hard to counterfeit, and no one would decide to melt them down or destroy them in order to make something else out of them. They changed little from their original bead concept, except that designs became standardized. And really, if someone was going to spend all that time counterfeiting them, more power (and wealth) to them.

Strange to say, this ‘currency’ became standard throughout the Four Kingdoms. The pieces were made of hard stone, and wore down slowly, and were convenient for making small purchases.

Eventually, someone wanted to tie the currency back to the metal standard, and they began rimming the stones with strips of gold and silver, even iron, though it was more common than the ‘precious metals’. Now counterfeiters needed both time, skill, and a little existing wealth in order to make copies of money. The state in conjunction with the carvers and metalworkers were of course the main producers if not the main users of money; the ones who made each ‘coin’ were allowed to keep half to introduce into circulation themselves, and were paid for the rest in food and sometimes shelter and workspace. (Official sanctions, as it were.) The primary fear with counterfeiters was quality control; no one wanted to trade something considered worthless.

For larger transactions, loose jewels were far more common to trade; not all of them were incorporated into jewelry, clothing, and decoration of all kinds. Rubies, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, amythests, tiger eyes, topazes, anything that could be induced to gleam and/or possess transparency (not manufactured glass, of course) were considered greatly valuable. They were more convenient than carrying around loads of stone coins, but as said before, often required an appraisal, unless they were well known, like the Great Baroque Pearl of Kyri-il, a large and amazingly shaped pearl that had been passed from Lirar-Moihh Bay, where it was found, all over the kingdoms. It was worth about 2000 gold coins, which was a representation of a lump of about 2 square feet of gold (which many believed would be better off being used as a statue or something like that). Sometimes the pearl had been set in jewelry; some kalmaei are practical with every piece of beauty that comes their way (what do you do with shiny things? Wear them, of course!), but some do like to flaunt their wealth.

So the kalmaei were successful to themselves in their quest to find something with common value that they could trade instead of perhaps something that others did not want, or that they wished to keep for themselves. They could still trade anything they liked, for the economy was not strict and as long as both sides felt they were getting what they wanted, anything was fine. Some may have tried to exploit moral loopholes in the system, but kalmaei being long-lived, it simply wasn’t socially practical and most were shut down quickly.

Thoughts? Where am I totally wrong in these ideas? What can I do to improve them? I think the core is pretty good but I may be wrong in application. If there is anything I can explain to make things clearer, or if you make a comment on something that seems wrong to you but right to me, let me know and I will try to fix it.

December 29, 2009

Pent’s Story materials

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I thought someone might find this interesting, so here it is! – It’s the two sides of the piece of paper that I used to help me plot out Pent’s Story. On the one side, like so:

 pentchart

is a map of all the characters and how they relate together. As you can see, some of them I didn’t name at first – or at all, until it came to actually writing. And I did some digging on the Fire Emblem Wiki to find out all I could about Etruria. This chart was an amazing help to me. I recommend this method to everyone writing about a group of more than three characters.

While actually writing the story, I used several lists in each chapter:

A short synopsis of the chapter plot

A list of the heroes, including their unit class, personality, age, origin, and sleeping arrangements on the march

A list of other characters with a one-word reminder of who they are, crossed out if they’re dead - looks like this:
          Ocery strongnoble                               Lorad Ceciliafan
          Aldash gobetween                               Lesil Louisefan
          Deis Oceryland                                     Rhost Douglasknight
          Vork Clericdude                                   Blier weaknoble

 And at the bottom, a more detailed synopsis of the plot, with the part I haven’t written yet highlighted in red

And a list of what everyone is carrying in their packs (each holds up to five items, as per the game rules)

The other side of the paper:

 wrigleycastleplan

is just a map of Castle Wrigley, Pent and Louise’s home, to give me a general idea of how it all fits together. But unfortunately, I have no sense of scale, so the ballroom is massssssively huge, and the kitchen is the tiniest thing. But they’re in the general place that they are in my head. Except I forgot the cute mini-towers on the corners. Oh well. Someday I’ll do a picture of the front of the castle. There is also a third story, which is more of the same of the second story, but with more servant bedrooms. I didn’t draw anything on it.

I have ideas for expanding the opening of Zela’s Story. There needs to be something more happening between when Zela and Flaer meet, and when they get married. Otherwise, it’s just extremely dull and icky romance without actually showing the dynamic between the pair. I may as well start the story from when Tam fell on Flairé! But I do want to have more, so I’m going to have a little story about the Lilemlen ‘court’, which will expand on what Flar, Stialia, Flaer, and Lyrestan actually DO all day, the relationships between these four and Zela and Gyoriing, introduce new characters for a more dynamic and wider world (though that means more to keep track of! Oh noes!) and maybe even have a little bit of Tam! Not too much. He does love attention. But this will be from Flaer’s POV, and will often watch Zela. Because I know who she is again, but it’s hard to put down on the page. So I need to put a lot of it. Yes? So, lots of Flaer, lots of Gyoriing, lots of Flar, lots of Zela. Now I need a plot! I have an idea for that too, but I only just got it Monday morning. So be patient, plz!

I’m also planning to have more material tracking Flairé and Tam around the Four Kingdoms while they’re tramping through the wilderness. : D

I’m not worried about myself keeping track of everyone. I’m fine, nearly all the time. I’m worried about my readers, having to remember who the heck so-and-so is while also remember his/her connection to forty-seven other characters, most of them relatively minor.

…I’m a Tam fangirl. X D

July 30, 2008

Jedi Outcast II Review

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Filed under: Miscellaneous Writing,Writing — Tags: — Illinia @ 10:46 pm

jediknight2_boxshot

 

Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

 

 

All righty, then. My first game review! I watched my brother play through the entire game over the course of the last

Music 2/5
Story 1/5
Graphics 3.5/5
Gameplay 3.5/5
Audio 4/5
Overall
2.8 (ok, 3)

week. This review does contain spoilers, so if you still want to play it yourself, I suggest not reading further.

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast is all right, as far as Star Wars games go. The Force powers in particular are quite good. However, the story is, in one word, pathetic, and considering that story is important to me, that’s a lot of a downer.

From the top: Music. I would say the music gets a score of 2/5 only because John Williams wrote it; otherwise, it would have a score of .5 or something. I don’t think there even was music for most of the game, because I sure don’t remember it. The Gamespot review claims that there was, but I missed it. One oddity was that there wasn’t ANY music during the credits! What? But the credits are so boring otherwise! Okay, you can see how many names there are in the ‘special thanks’ sections as opposed to the normal credits… Anyway, I demand more attention to music in my games.

Story: Story was extremely weak. It was linear, predictable, and had about .05% of tension. Yes, the girl dies, but we all know they never kill off the female lead indefinitely, right? That sort of switcheroo was done to perfection in Radars of the Lost Ark; it actually had me fooled for a good portion of the movie and I was really surprised when she showed up again. However, in JKII… well, we got to the end of the levels of the area after ‘Jan is dead’ and then took a break. The next time I even remembered she was there, before we started playing again, I knew she wasn’t dead. The few lines on philosophical or Force-related matters were the same-old same-old, and there is a huge contrast between Master Skywalker’s gentle chiding of Katarn’s obsession with killing Desann (breezed over, really) and the collective Jedi’s displeasure with Anakin’s behaviour in the New Trilogy movies.

Another story point: it felt like it was just providing excuses to go to a new location. While some might say that that’s the point of a story, especially in a first person combat game, I personally felt it was flat and boring. I have no idea how it measures up to the original Dark Forces (only got to about level 3-ish… kept getting killed by sewer creatures) or Jedi Knight I. I can say that Dark Forces felt reasonably like “I’m going on a mission! Go in, get objective, get out.” with the story framing that. I thought that felt plausible. A comment about story in general: Fire Emblem is perhaps my favourite, with battles almost like interruptions to provide some ‘game’ to go with the ‘story’, although I realize this is not everyone’s cup of tea. Zelda is also good with lots of open-endedness but with all the NPC’s and side quests (mostly) fitting in to their world and the overall plot simple but well developed. Final Fantasy seemed less entertaining; while I haven’t played ANY FF (gasps of shock from readers) it looks a little like walking from cutscene to cutscene, which seems a little pointless and interrupts both game and story needlessly. Although, FF has excellent stories in general and the full-rendered cutscenes are really lovely.

So, to Graphics! They are quite decent for the age of the game, I think, although the Gamespot reviewer comments on the excellent lip-syncing…. excuse me? What lipsyncing? But I have to say that Luke and Lando, the two main franchise characters, are quite real looking, and the polygons are not too noticable until they start moving. Jan… I thought in Dark Forces she was the cute/spunky type? They’ve sexy-fied her, I think. The stormtroopers are fantastic looking, and terrain is pretty good, although you can see the bottom in some bottomless holes and rocky terrain is very chunky. Cities are  excellent, though, and the interiors of bases and ships. Props like AT-STs and TIEs are well done and move like they’re supposed to. The lightsabre also deserves special mention, as it will cut holes (that do heal eventually) in whatever terrain is touched by it, and will evaporate raindrops (which, however, can pass through rock) and will extinguish in water. The stormtroopers display an admirable level of AI, although since my brother got word of Force Unleashed he can’t talk about anything other than that game’s next-gen AI, which does look to prove amazing. Anyway, the visual effect of combat is very good, with stormtroopers flinging their weapons in the air when they die, and the occasional severed limb. Occasionally our game suffered a small stuttering when Force Speed was used, but not enough to really interfere with gameplay unless he was fighting a Cortosis Jedi. Also it kept launching with the brightness at 0, which meant either really really dark levels or that we had to go and adjust it every single time. The only other minor detail I’d like to point out is that… kissing should not be attempted yet even with the level of graphics available to this game. Unless you have reeeeeaaaaaally good romantic music to go with it. Oh, and I liked how the first level felt very much like Dark Forces.

Gameplay: My only real complaint with the AI is the fact that stormtroopers, as long as they have their weapon, will keep shooting at your lightsabre and will eventually kill themselves. Hardly realistic. Force powers are fantastic to use, and while fighting with the lightsabre is occasionally clunky as you can’t turn fast enough to hit an enemy behind you (especially a Cortosis Jedi) it’s generally extremely effective. The various shooter weapons are very handy, although my brother mostly used only the pistol, the sniper rifle, and the Nerf-gun (my name for it… it’s the rapid-fire machine-gun thingy). He would have liked to use the rocket launcher more, but didn’t find occasion to, although the final boss battle was very amusing for a few seconds (before he reloaded). Levels were nicely laid out, although sometimes it was hard to find where to go next. Puzzles were fairly good, and one source of amusement is finding all the different ways to get killed by terrain, whether from being squashed closing doors or getting fried by electricity or mining car repair equipment… you know the room I mean.

Audio: Excellent audio. Voice actors well chosen, especially in the case of Luke and Lando, of course, and for Lando, actually, the original actor provided the voice, which means of COURSE it’s spot on. The sound effects were also very good, from various lasers to terrain noises to footsteps.

Overall, this game gets about 3/5. I still think the flatness of the plot means that it deserves less, as it and the lack of music added up to a slightly unsatisfying play experience, but the good gameplay and decent graphics do partially make up for that. Having watched this game once, I’m probably unlikely to watch it again.

We have not tried the multiplayer version (not enough players or programs) so no comment on that.

September 9, 2007

No One Cares About Heaven and Earth

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Filed under: Miscellaneous Writing,Writing — Illinia @ 10:39 am

No One Cares About Heaven and Earth

    Shell Silverson was wandering the city. The city’s name was Capulno, but that didn’t matter to him. He hated the dull concrete buildings with their endless holes full of glass; his favourite buildings were the historical museums, the toy figure centre, and the hotel he was staying at with his family. The toy figure centre wasn’t even nice; it was just where the tiny plastic people were.
    Shell was the youngest of a family of four: his father, his mother, his older sister Jill, and himself. Of those four, he was the only extraordinary one. Shell knew this without conceit, since it was hard to be conceited when wizards were a banned substance.
    Shell wandered by the elven garrison, a giant construction of metal and stone – no concrete, thankfully, and it was the most lovely thing in the city, so it made his list of favourite buildings, but it wasn’t built by humans, so it technically didn’t count. Motorcars raced by him on the street, their backdraft whipping his thin white polyester T-shirt.
    His family was waiting for him at the toy store. He would catch up to them later…
    “Hey! Hey, you! Kid!”
    Shell turned slowly, appraising the policeman who had called him. The man’s hostile glare couldn’t be good.
    “Yes?”
    “Don’t say ‘yes’ in that smug tone, you little witch! Your kind has been banned from the city! You’re not supposed to be here!”
    “Ah. My apologies. I will exit immediately.” Shell couldn’t suppress a sigh of disappointment; he was only thirteen, and had been planning on buying a new set of goblin knights when he went to find his family. Of course, goblins didn’t exist anymore, which was a great thing for everyone, except the goblins, but he still liked their models.
    “Is there a problem?” a soft voice called. Shell turned again, startled more by the soft voice than the policeman’s earlier brusque shout.
    “There’s a wizard in town. This kid.” The policeman gestured to Shell.
    “Is that so?” The blue-clad elf soldier looked Shell up and down. He thought he saw one of the eyes wink at him behind blonde hair and the bandages that partially swathed the head and arms of the elf. The eye was scarlet. “And what is the procedure for dealing with a wizard?”
    “Wizards are dangerous criminals. They are all immediately arrested unless they can produce a legitimate reason for being in a settled area.”
    “I have a passport.”
    “Why didn’t you say so?” demanded the man.
    “You didn’t ask. I’m so used to being kicked out I just decided to leave when asked.”
    The policeman considered, giving Shell a long hard look. “Let me see it.” With Shell’s papers in his hand, he thought some more. “You should leave this evening, then.”
    “How long is the passport good for?” asked the elf soldier.
    “Saturday,” said the man grudgingly.
    “Then he should be allowed to stay until Saturday, of course. That’s the day after tomorrow.”
    “He should come with me anyway and the authorities will deal with him.”
    “Are wizards really so dangerous?” the elf queried laconically.
    “Depends who’s asking,” Shell answered in the same tone. The policeman’s already red colour heightened, and he pointed a shaking finger at the boy.
    “You’re not supposed to be here, passport or no! I’ll give you until tomorrow to clear out of here!”
    “That seems reasonable,” Shell acquiesced reluctantly.
    “Well, then, go about your business,” the soldier ordered the policeman.
    As the policeman left, Shell found himself presented with the elf soldier’s hand.
“What?” he asked, bewildered.
    “My name’s Keesh,” said the elf. “What’s yours?”
    “That’s… a girl’s name!” exclaimed Shell. “In elvish, of course. Forgive my lack of manners, but you didn’t look like a girl. I’m Shell.” He followed etiquette and kissed her hand.
    “A maiden, more properly,” Keesh explained. “A maiden in the military, yep, that’s me. And this isn’t a uniform. This is my off-duty clothing.” She gestured at the skin-hugging blue outfit. “Now that you have a couple more hours, what are you going to do with them?”
    “Get out, of course. My family will be annoyed, obviously, but that can’t be helped. I have until morning. I think I’ll get to bed.”
    “Fare well, then.”
    Shell hurried back to his hotel, which was not unpleasing to the eye, as it was covered in a raised diamond pattern. The windows were a little too regularly spaced for his taste, however. His family waited there; evidently they had given up waiting at the toy store. He brushed past them and hurried up the spiral staircase to the second floor. They followed him without comment. They had learned long ago that he was unpredictable, and snappish when questioned, so they simply followed.
    A maid was polishing the displayed fossils on the second floor. For some reason, that stuck in Shell’s mind.
    He came to his family’s room, and entered. His grown-up cousin Lucy and her new husband Phillip were in their bedroom, watching TV.
    Shell went into the large bedroom he was sharing with Jill and watched the sky grow dark to twilight. It was cloudy.
    He returned to the main room and ate dinner with his family, telling them briefly what had happened that afternoon. They accepted it, which made him glad to be part of such a loving family that accepted a freak in their midst.
    After that, he went back to staring out the window. He could see above some low, two-story residences. The sky was very dark now, but there was a patch of darkness that extended below his field of view. Almost like a very wide tornado…
    As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the patch tightened into a thin pillar and swerved to the left. Shell closed his eyes, opened his mind and watched the tornado carve its way across town. It halted about 110° to the left of where he had seen it first, then came towards him erratically. It cut a neat, foot wide gap through the corner of the room, almost sucking him into it.
    Shell leaped back a half-second too late, cutting off an involuntary exclamation, staring at the trench through the floor, the breaches in the walls, and the fissure in the ceiling. He had felt the wind scrape his skin, and now that he looked at his left arm, there was a 20 centimetre-long splinter sticking out of it. He wrenched it out of his arm angrily and grabbed his back-pack, rummaging through it to find a band-aid.
    Then he sneaked out of the hotel and went to find the evil wizard who was being so irresponsible with his magic.
    Boy-like, he went to the toy figure centre first, but found it guarded by six of the Royal Guard, knights in silver armour on horseback. Shell wondered what they thought of the freak tornado, but spent more time admiring their glittering armour. As he watched, two more rode into position in front of the centre.
    Shell began to wonder what sort of wonderful thing he had missed about the toy store. But, he left, searching for the person causing the tornado.
    He searched with his mind now, letting it soar above the rooftops and peering under pine trees.
    Under the pine trees behind the hotel were two freaky huge bunny rabbits. They weren’t hares – the ears were different. Shell frowned and headed in that direction.
    As he approached, his suspicions were confirmed. One of the rabbits was indeed controlling the tornado. Shell materialized a baseball bat in his hand and kept running.
    He did have to beat the one rabbit to death, the one that was controlling the twister. The other had disappeared…
    It jumped on him, knocking him to the ground and clawing and chewing at him. He curled up, whimpering as it gouged his side to ribbons. He fumbled for the magic baseball bat and changed it into a golf club for more power.
    Then he changed his mind and simply formed a shield around himself. The evil bunny attacked, and he blasted it away into a tree.
    He lay there for a long moment. He had stopped the tornado, but the wizard who summoned the demon rabbits was still out there. This time, when Shell searched, he found a potent power emanating from a field near the elvish citadel.
    Agonizing over his shredded side, he staggered to his feet and dragged himself to the main road, taking the collars of the rabbits with him. The sun was beginning to rise, and people, pedestrians and in motorcars, were about, so he cloaked his wounds and tried not to limp.
    The source led him to a large field, surrounded by trees and gathering people travelling in the same direction as he, clothed in baseball gear. One of them, mistaking him for someone, called to him. “Gary, you look awful! You’re so pale, man! Are you all right?”
    Shell shrugged and kept moving.
    Near the opposite end of the field there was a large man with a dark beard. Shell walked up to him.
    “Excuse me, sir, but are these yours?” He proffered a plastic bag, in which he’d stowed the rabbit collars.
    The man peered inside, then raised a furious face to the boy. “Who are you, little witch, to destroy my things?”
    “Who are you to put people in danger?” countered Shell angrily. “I might be an ‘illegal’ wizard, but I’m not evil. Those rabbits were.”
    “I am the king’s wizard, little boy. I was ‘encouraging’ you to leave. You were warned, yesterday! We are always watching you! We know where you are! You will have to die now.”
    “You’re crazy, that’s what you are!” sputtered Shell, throwing up a shield in time to avoid getting speared by a lightening bolt. Standard spell, he muttered to himself, but his shield was broken and drained.
    Shell lay on his back, unutterably exhausted and in pain from his injuries. The king’s wizard towered over him, and Shell aimed a kick at him and scrambled away. He retreated in the direction of a prickly hedge, trading spells with the wizard, barely dodging or surviving the ones targeted at him.
    The baseball team ran over to see what was going on. A wizard battle was hardly known anymore.
    Shell, crawling backward on his back, reached the hedge and warped through it, but was hardly surprised when his enemy passed through it without difficulty. The young wizard lay under a tree, under a thick branch. The king’s man jumped on it and bent it down with terrifying strength, intent on crushing his adversary. Shell reached up and kept it from doing so with his own supernatural strength.
    “Give up, boy,” growled the man. “Just give up and die. It’d be a lot easier for both of us.”
    “No!” grunted Shell, struggling.
    The pushing contest was quickly weakening his reserves of power. With a wriggle and a kick, Shell burst out from under the branch and flopped under skinnier branches. He looked up and saw a building behind him, above his head. It was still a long way away, but for some irrational reason it gave Shell hope. He wondered if he could make it. He didn’t feel he could stand.
    In a sort of daze, the distance between the tree and the building shrank until he was almost there.
    The man picked up and threw him over a barrel-shaped concrete flower planter, materializing a knife in his hand.
    In a lazy, half-speed time, Shell watched him raise the knife.
    “Hey!” There was a shout, but it wasn’t slowed down. It wasn’t unfamiliar, either…
    “Keesh,” croaked Shell as a blue-clad blur whizzed over him and he blacked out.

    He woke up tucked in a comfortable bed, Keesh standing beside it. Her hood was down, and her chin-length blonde hair hung free.
    “How are you feeling?” she asked kindly.
    “Tired, but regenerating,” Shell rasped. His side had been bandaged. “What happened to the evil wizard?”
    “Well, since killing him would be politically incorrect, all I did was knock him down and get you out of there. I have an explanation for the authorities, too. He was attacking you because you’re an ‘illegal’ wizard? Well, I say your power was so low I couldn’t tell, so I was rescuing a defenceless little boy from a homicidal maniac. Hey?”
    “You… you’ve saved me, twice, you know,” Shell murmured gratefully. “Yesterday, and today you saved my life… Thank you.”
    “Don’t mention it. I’ll probably have to resign now, but that’s all right. I’ve got other things to do besides be in the military. It was fun while it lasted.”
    “Take me with you,” the boy begged softly.
    “Why?”
    Shell was silent for a long moment, trying to sum up his feelings. “No one cares about Heaven and Earth.”

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