You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
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You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Crossposting from the writing thread because I need validation.
There is a saying, passed down through countless generations of the dwarfs who live on the rocky southern peninsula of The Tail. It is said that if you are to commit any sin, do so there, for in The Tail your only judge will be the wan light of the two moons.
Few roads run through the tail, and the few watchmen who would patrol it were generally too lazy or too immoral to pursue a criminal. Civilization was sparse. No one would ever know.
It was the dead of night and the normally parched dirt of The Tail was made a thick mire by an unexpected storm that had flown in from the east. The tempest’s clouds had covered the moons, allowing only the light of an occasional bolt of lightning to illuminate the drenched plains.
Hroldi Pikes drew his cloak over his head and bore on through the rain. He wore a stately soldier’s uniform in addition to the worn, ragged coat. The uniform and cloak were not his; his clothes were lying discarded in the mud a mile back, near the naked corpse of the unlucky soldier who’d made the mistake of recognizing Hroldi’s face from a wanted poster and attempting to trail him. Hroldi was a swaggering brute whose cruelty and pettiness were only matched by his stupidity. Hroldi never had second thoughts. He would always blindly seek whatever he thought would benefit him the most, going through anything that got in the way of his shortsighted goals in the most straightforward manner possible, with no regard for the consequences of his actions. He was also extraordinarily lucky. Without any sort of plan, he would break into a mansion and find that its occupants were on vacation and hadn’t taken their possessions with them. Or he would be hanged on the gallows only for the rope to break as soon as the trapdoor opened. On one occasion, he was sentenced to a beheading, but the headsman stumbled as he swung his axe and severed Hroldi’s bonds rather than his head.
As rain and thunder roared around him, Hroldi considered his need for shelter. He scanned the horizon, look for a cave or overhang of some sort. Lightning flashed and an unnatural looking shadow caught Hroldi’s eye.
He squinted his eyes and tried to make out what it was. Lightning flashed once more and it became apparent to Hroldi what the shape in the distance was: a small farmer’s shack. He made his way to it.
He walked to the doorstep and banged his fist on the door. A few seconds passed and the door opened, revealing a squat old dwarf with a snow-white, chest-length beard. His eyes were closed.
“Hullo?” croaked the old man. “Who is this?”
Hroldi puffed out his chest and tried to affect the demeanor of a soldier. “Joric Milford, infantry of the thirty-third legion,” he said, reading off the name he found in the uniform. “I demand you quarter me for the night.”
The old dwarf straightened his back as much as he could and flashed Hroldi a grin. “Certainly, sir!” the old man said, leading Hroldi into the pitch-dark shack. Hroldi couldn’t see anything, but heard the old man shuffling through shelves. Hroldi heard a match being struck and the room filled with flickering light as the old man lit a lantern.
“I don’t have much need for the light, unless I have visitors.” He opened his eyes. They were a dull grey color. The old man set the lamp on a lopsided, splintering table in the center of the shack.
“I don’t have much in the way of food, except for some potatoes,” he said, setting a plate down on the end of the table near Hroldi. Hroldi scoffed and sat at the table, and started shoveling the potatoes into his throat. “ I wish I had more to give you legionnaire, but I sold the rest to the inn nearby.”
“Inn? What inn?” asked Hroldi, cursing himself for staying at some rickety shed when there was an inn a short distance away.
“Cliff’s Edge Lodge, run by an elvish lady, Avana. It’s upriver, across a gorge.”
“River?” asked Hroldi. He hadn’t seen a river when he entered.
“This house is right next to where the river feeds into an underground cavern. It waters the plants.” As the old man explained this, he put his left hand on the table, and for the first time Hroldi noticed the ring on the old man’s finger. It was gold and set with brilliant gemstones of various colors, far from the simple iron wedding band most poor farmers would have. Hroldi almost salivated.
“Where’d you get that ring?” asked Hroldi, almost unable to hide his greed.
“The wife was from a rich family. Gave it all up to live with me,” the old man said, wiping an eye. “Lost her ten years ago. Lost my eyesight soon after. Guess I couldn’t bear looking at an empty house anymore,” he said, with a bitter chuckle. “But enough of that. A bright young legionnaire like yourself doesn’t need his head filled with the sob stories of old men.”
“Yes indeed,” said Hroldi with an avaricious smile that the old man couldn’t see.
***
An hour passed, the old dwarf excused himself to go to bed, and soon after Hroldi sped out of the shack with the ring hidden in his boot.
“Upriver, across the gorge,” he thought, running next to the river with torrents of rain pouring around him. “Get to the inn, stay for a night, then sell the ring.” Hroldi was exuberant, bursting with newfound energy. Once he sold this ring he’d be set for life. He ran as fast as he could, never stopping, never slowing down.
He followed the river for five minutes before he saw the gorge. The clouds broke and the light of the moons shone on his goal. Past an old wooden bridge lay a ramshackle inn. Hroldi smirked and for the first time since he left the old man’s house slowed down to a walk. He peered down the gorge and felt his stomach lurch. It was a long drop, with sharp rocks at the bottom.
Hroldi swallowed hard and made his way to the bridge, which was looking older and more unstable the closer he got to it. He stood between the two wooden posts and took his first step on the bridge and felt the wood crack beneath his feet. The plank crumbled and he felt his foot fall through thin air.
He fell face first onto the bridge, one leg still in the mud and the other dangling over the gorge. Owing, Hroldi presumed, to his extraordinary luck, only the first plank broke. He grabbed the ropes to his sides and hoisted himself up.
Hroldi never considered that it might be prudent to walk carefully, nor did it cross his mind that the rain might make it hard to see gaps in the bridge. As soon as he was upright he charged headlong to his goal: the single moonlit patch where the inn stood. When he reached the other side, it never occurred to him that it was a miracle he stepped over every gap and loose step. He walked to the door of the inn.
***
It is said if you are to commit a sin, commit it on The Tail. But it’s an old saying, warped by the passage of time and the fallibility of its propagators. Hundreds of years before Hroldi’s time, it was said that if a sin were to be committed, hope that it was committed in The Tail. For there the only judge is the wan light of the two moons, the eyes of God Himself, and that is the harshest and fairest judge of them all.
Hroldi’s charred corpse was found by the innkeeper the following morning. It was lying just on the inn’s doorstep. After the initial surprise of finding a dead body subsided, it occurred to the innkeeper what must have happened for the body to have been roasted in the midst of a rainstorm.
“Poor sod was struck by lightning,” thought Avana the innkeeper, closing the door to keep out the smell.
Use fewer dialogue tags. Also, traditionally thoughts are demarcated with italics or not quoted, although whether one treats them in the same way as dialogue or integrated more directly is a matter of preference (to which I favour the latter).
Additionally, if you are going to establish a formal narrative tone in contrast to the thoughts in question, do not use contractions in the narration and remember your "that"s and "one"s.
Comments
*is currently planking on my bed*
...
*Well, shit. 4th March isn't that far away*
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
And she loves AU
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
*hugs Norman*
also hello everypony
ALWAYS.
^ I have that picture already in my Touhou folder. ^_^ It is quite full. :D
welcome baaaaaaaaack
cool.
My lair, my nest, my domicile, my resting area, my spawnng point, my checkp flag
the clockcave.