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| Thread: Family Ties |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV |
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Warlord
Famous Hero
Lord of Image Spam
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posted May 06, 2011 04:02 AM |
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Anyone home?
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted May 06, 2011 05:48 AM |
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Sorry, exams are cutting into my story-time. (Every time I post something, I spend the next few minutes studying, taking practice quiz's and doing homework. Not leaving me very much time to split my mind into one of four distinct personalities to write a story. But soon the finals will be done...)
Alright, back to the story at hand. I'm back to work, BTW! 
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted November 02, 2011 02:58 AM |
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Chapter 3
Jarod
The temple of Zerol is an odd place, the monks and priests who usually take in orphans or deal with those who come to ask their aid are busy helping those who come to seek the patron god's favor in most temples, but in the God of Knowledge's temple they have little time for any other mortals. The holy men of Zerol almost never have families, - and few who do see them more than twice a month - no, these priests are too focused on their quest to obtain every last drop of knowledge in the universe to be bothered with such petty, insignificant things as people. Why, what could something that is completely known like a human hold for the men who knew everything?
But to them, I was a new wonder. Half-demons were never truly studied under any controlled or safe circumstances, so I was really the first case study. I found myself in a convenient situation, the priests fed me - well, once they realized that I really do need to eat - and all I had to do was allow myself to be poked and prodded once in a while. Other than that, the priests and I had our agreement, and we didn't interact beyond that point.
The paladins though, they were basically the keepers of the place. Sometimes lazy old Kieth complained that of all the paladins of all the religions out there, the guardians of Zerol were little more than nannies. In many respects, I guess he was right. Tristin, the knight who had rescued me, was the leader and organizer. He kept things running smoothly and assigned the paladins their daily duties, keeping them busy with small work, meeting important city officials, talking with the high priests and lord generals of other churches and taking care of me on the side. This last duty he almost always relegated to Kieth. Now Kieth is probably one of the most rotund paladins to walk the face of this planet, at least, the most rotund one that was able to walk, so I guess that by normal standards he was only slightly overweight. Kieth is also a bit of a womanizer, despite the teaching of the paladin order he always pursued the pretties or most well off woman in any tavern that he brought me to. I guess that, after I was cleaned up a bit and given proper clothing, I was rather cute back then. I had a hurt puppy expression that drew in females like flies... though now it's just my rugged good looks.
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"You should shave tonight. Give the cat its hair back."
"Shush."
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Anyway, Kieth taught me many different things when Tristian didn't force him to teach me specific lessons... like how to find a good bar, how to talk to and coerce aforementioned good looking women and how to... er... you get the picture.
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"Naw, someone is being appropriate for the children."
"I said shut up!"
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Now, the irony of the situation, and I think it was a private joke between Tristian and Kieth, was that Kieth was supposed to be teaching me about honor, duty and the like. now, he was rather good at teaching me things, but he generally tried by showing me what not to do. He even, after I complained a little bit, taught me how to read a little on the side, but most of the blame for that can be given to my friend Ross. Ross was the master of studies, and decided that even though he was forced to teach me, and teach me well, he decided that he didn't need to be particularly nice about it. If I pronounced a single letter wrong, in any word, ever, I had to write the letter two hundred times in three different languages and give him ten words it appeared in before I was allowed to leave, eat or even sleep. If I dropped a book, I had to catalog all the scrolls in one shelf of the library, and each shelf has somewhere between three hundred and four hundred books in it. I had to yell back the names of the books, and Gods forbid that I yelled one back wrong. I cleaned pots for the better part of two months before my gutter-slurring was finally forced out of me. I remember enjoying Ross's death...
When my lessons with Kieth and Ross were done, Tristian assigned another paladin to teach me the art of swords wielding. This might not have been the best idea Tristian ever had, since every time I picked up a weapon I had a driving urge to tear everything in the city apart. It was... hard to control back then. My inner demon always was looking out at my instructor, and I think that Jake felt that. He always seemed... uneasy around me. Always on edge. He held his holy symbol close to his chest and would only teach me the most basic of fighting skills. I had to refine the rest myself.
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"Your style of fighting is refined?"
"Oh will you just-"
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Of course, the Paladins had a purpose for me. They had recently lost a member of their guild to a beggar boy who had some strange markings on his hands, being accompanied by the ugliest cat alive and wanted to replace their lost member. Basically they blackmailed me into joining their order, Tristin at the very least saw it as compensation for my crimes, and Kieth saw it as a way to dodge obligations. Strange how those two were such good friends, even though they were so opposed.
Anyway, Espen found me after looking around for a few years. News of my presence in the temple was not wide spread, and the few who had learned about it were quickly recruited by Tristian and forced to silence. If the city at large had known that I was living within the temple, the whole order would be torn down across the country and they could not be having that. Espen's journey was a long one, full of pitfalls and annoying guilds that tried to not only look into but stop his business. He actually found me quite by accident while I was wandering through the city and I led him to my temporary home.
There he and Tristian began a lengthy discussion on the state of where I was to live and on my inner nature. Tristian believed that I would be able to rise above what I was through training and discipline. Espen laughed in his face, chaos is in my nature, and the only way to control chaos was through chaos. When Tristian told him that I owed the temple my life for killing one of their own, Espen growled that my demonic ancestry put me above those rules that the gods had ordained. Taken aback by Espen's knowledge of what I was, Tristian resorted to the free-will argument.
It was my choice. I was free to choose where I would go.
Truth be told, I did not want to leave. This was my home, I did not want to abandon Kieth, and for all their studying and apparent disinterest, many of the priests had actually been kind to me. I might have been a test subject, but I was a favored subject. This temple was the closest thing to a home I had ever had, I was afraid that I would never find another one if I left.
I thought about it for days, a week, a month, a season. All the while, my "training" with Kieth continued... and my heritage continued to corrupt my mind. One day, Espen cornered me and whispered that unless I left to tame my inner demons with him that I would eventually go berzerk. I would eventually kill everyone I cared about.
I couldn't allow Kieth or Tristian to die, not by my hand.
and so it was with a heavy heart that the kittens, who were fully grown cats by this time, followed us when we left a week later. I left behind a father and an uncle... and an enemy that I would eventually take care of. Espen told me that we were going to go away to a camp of his outside the city and away from prying eyes. A camp where he would teach me how to control my inner demon. A place where he had brought dozens of potentials like myself to master their powers and break the monster inside of them. I was to be his first and only success.
Which was rather unfortunate, since I hadn't gotten everything I could from him before he died.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Duke_Falcon
Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
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posted November 02, 2011 08:22 AM |
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At last!
I started to think it won't be continue!
Like this story, friend!
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted November 02, 2011 05:51 PM |
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Thank you Duke, and I'm glad to see that you are alive and well (hopefully getting better).
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted November 05, 2011 08:05 PM |
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Quote:
Simon
I have been trained for years in my arts, a blade wielder and artist. Heh, I have created art before, but most probably would turn some's stomachs. Besides, the ones not hanging in the King's palace were burned years ago. Lately I've taken to sketching again and- right, the story.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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