Sometimes Poke's assessment of my school is right

/rant

He usually characterizes us with extreme generalizations (I mean, we can't ALL be hippies, otherwise those of you in DG would be able to smell the pot/BO from home), but at the moment I'm pretty annoyed at the cliched liberalism here. I mean, I'm all for most liberal things, but THINK about your political stances and actions, people. For instance, this Friday is Hurricane Katrina Reflection Day, filled with panels and mini-seminars on various aspects of the hurricane. Now, I wouldn't normally have any objection to this, but for some reason this particular cause is worthy of cancelling classes and devoting the whole fucking day to it. This from the school which has classes as normal on NATIONAL HOLIDAYS. Not like, Flag Day or Arbor Day or one of the "...and it was the best ____ ever!" at the end of a story. Holidays such as Memorial Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And yet, a horrible (but not in comparison to much of the rest of the stuff going on in the world today) natural disaster that occurred 7+ months ago somehow warrants this special treatment. WTF, Carleton, WTF. OMG, at least give us a BBQ. Ahem. It's just that, though well-intentioned, this event is not only horribly contrived but also, the special treatment being afforded it just cries out "Look prospective students who happen to be visiting around this time of year! We're really liberal here! Don't you like liberals?" Ugh. Have some PRIDE, school. And democrats. Andy's right.

/end rant

In other, more fun news, it's only about 14 hours until the demo of Gal Civ 2 comes out, and then I get to enjoy my delicious 4-day weekend (the upshot of the above annoying school event) with that, girlfriend, parties, and other such ways in which to fritter away my time. More work is being done on the Werewolf stories, and also EXALTED! Good times will hopefully ensue from this, and the more I see of 2nd Edition, the more I like. I'm going to be running a game for some of my friends up here, so it'll be a good chance to get a feel for the new rules for this summer.

WELL, thanks for reading this far (if you gave up earlier, well, you don't get these kind thanks, do you?) and I'm off to play a little more Murloc RPG. Classic.

Flurry of Posts (6 ticks, -2 DV)

Click for full-size goodness. This is the first page (the bottom got cut off thanks to a crappy scanner) of a werewolf comic (ahem..."graphic novel") that my friend Carl and I are working on. Thanks to my writer's block/our "edjookayshun", it hasn't seen much progress in a while, but I just sent off the direction for page 2, so hopefully it'll move along a little bit. So far, my creativity hasn't been too elusive the last few days. Here's hoping it stays.

Bouldering

It's like rock wall climbing, only with less vertigo! Yay less vertigo! I started doing the bouldering thing back fall term when, incidentally, the Rec Center got a bouldering room installed, and I was hooked, though at this point it's been a while since I last did any climbing. BUT that all changed today, when I monkeyed around on teh wall for about half an hour. Good times, good exercise. I have a giant blister and my fingers/forearms/shoulders are sore as crap, but it's a ton of fun.

Now, back to hopefully writing some more about werewolves.

Ares is staring at me

Not the god of war though, sadly. This Ares is still pretty bad-ass, though; he's a beta fish I'm taking care of while I'm here at school over spring break. Someday he'll be out of his testing phase; we're looking at a May 2006 release date if the stress test goes as hoped. *rim shot*

Ahem. So yeah, I'm here at school instead of going to the sunny beaches of Cancun and getting really drunk and flashing people with video cameras, as I've been led by the media to believe is the normal mode of behavior for college students on spring break. Given that it's below freezing and the ground is covered with snow, I have to say that it's something of a let down. But hey, I'm making money, so it all evens out.

I've also been playing Civ 4, Homeworld 2, and ChronoTrigger, all excellent games. Civ 4 is wonderful and a worthy successor to Civ 2 (I never played Civ 3, but I've heard it was solid, mostly from Poke's ramblings about it) and is immensely fun. The addition of religions to the Civ model is really interesting-they're powerful for cultural imperialism, plus they let you monkey with history in the most hilarious fashion - like my Spanish Jewish theocracy, ofr the predominantly Buddhist American empire I'm leading at the moment. Though I probably get more of a kick out of that than normal people.

ChronoTrigger is just classic. 'Nuff said. We'll ignore the fact that I never played SNES games when I was younger and that my declaring the game to be "classic" means nothing; it's really fun though.

Homeworld 2 has all the good things of Homeworld, none of the minor flaws, and massively sexier graphics. There's a mission INSIDE an asteroid field/dustcloud. Did you see the Battlestar Galactica episode where the fleet was stuck in a really dense asteroid/dust field and it was all gorgeous SFX? Yeah. That's the HW2 mission. And when your ships fire, it creates static electricity lightning. It's gorgeous. Plus the whole game has this exotic quasi-Arabic overtone and fantastic music. Yay game series that improve with time.

I can't really remember where I intended to go with this post, except that, thanks to the fairly crappy, very pulpy Werewolf Tribe novels, I may be yet again starting to get my writing mojo back. Now if I move very, very slowly, maybe I won't spook it...
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Waiting for Exalted 2.0 - those hosers at Amazon had better get it to me soon, I need to get excited about Solars finally having Charms on par with the other types of Exalts.

the value of brevity

So, I'm going to be posting Garou in smaller chunks so any of you guys reading it don't die of inordinate length. Hopefully it's more manageable this way.

Also, the zombie game I mentioned? Not terribly many zombies, as of yet. It moves pretty darn slowly, though I think that if I had anything to occupy my time other than games and my writing to suck up my time I probably wouldn't feel the slowness so much. I've already died, risen as a zombie, and then been revived by something called NecroTech....it's weird, but apparently when you die you can play AS a zombie until someone revives you, and then you go on pretty much as before. Not sure what I think of it, but I'll keep playing because I haven't had my zombie fix since Ravenholme, though DAMN that place was freaky. I mean, what other game can actually make you feel bad for setting zombies on fire?

All right, off to partay with people I haven't seen in a year. Should be...interesting. Hopefully I'll still know a few of them. People change more quickly than I would have thought.

Garou, Part I

Greg Barber leaned against the smooth bark of a birch tree and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. His brown corduroy jacket hung from a branch on a nearby tree. Greg liked the cold, and the crisp autumn air that had others tugging on their coats merely put him at ease.

The wind that rustled the leaves of the forest canopy whipped past him, and he ran a hand through his scruffy, thick hair to mash it back into place. Greg looked into the clearing he stood at the edge of; the treeless space was fairly large, and the wind took every opportunity to swoop down into it and run among the many log benches and whistle past the monolithic, irregularly shaped stone set in the center of the clearing. Greg took a step back and settled against a tree further into the forest; he scratched his neatly-trimmed beard thoughtfully. The trees put Greg at ease; in the face of the chaos he dealt with daily, their aura of solidity was a comforting contrast. Their spirits were moved by little short of the changing of the seasons, and Greg admired, with just a touch of envy, their constancy.

A sudden howl split the night and Greg jerked his head up, suddenly alert. The howl was long and low, and Greg’s eyes narrowed in recognition. Greg pushed himself away from the tree and trotted back to the clearing. He wove his way through the many weather-worn benches. They had many carvings scratched into their surfaces, but Greg jogged by these without a second glance. He arrived at the large stone in the center of the clearing. It, too, was covered with carvings, the claw marks forming hundreds of runes, painstakingly etched into the stone’s ancient surface.

Scanning over the runes, Greg circled the monolith, his fingers trailing across the neat lines of slashes in the cold stone. He found the right one, and pushed; there was a soft and barely audible click as the symbol gave way under his finger, and a recessed, shadowy area of the stone swung inwards. Greg slid through the door, quickly found the first step, and started down the stone latter. Once inside the monolith, Greg straightened up. He reached up and swung the stone panel back into place, where it caught with a soft click, cutting off Luna’s light.

The light cast by the thin crescent of the moon did little to illuminate the interior of the caern. Greg concentrated on the darkness and blinked, and when his eyes opened they shone with a ghostly, green glow. Greg looked around; his vision now easily pierced the darkness, and he quickly descended the ladder. At the bottom, a familiar tunnel opened up before him. The passages under the clearing itself were carved directly from the same stone that formed the monolith above, but those extending into the forest were actually lined with tree roots. Greg’s ancestors, who had helped build these tunnels, must have used some long-forgotten Gift to coax the roots into forming a network of large underground passages, ten feet wide and tall. Greg thought it sad that the ability to deal with trees in such a way had been lost so long ago; the root-passages were ancient; the ones carved of stone were older still.

Torches hung in sconces in these passages, and their light hurt Greg’s eyes; he blinked again and let the Cat’s Gift fade from his eyes. Walking down a hall, Greg read the symbols painted onto the wall and turned down a narrower side passage. He stopped in front of a woven, plant-dyed blanket suspended across a doorway. “Lady?” he called through the curtain. “Lady Voice, are you there?”

“One moment,” came a calm voice from behind the curtain. Greg waited in the hall, reading the runes etched into the wall. ‘My Children, my Warriors, do not despair, for you are never alone. Look, my Children, to my Voice and to my Arm, for they will guide you and aid you in you great struggle. Look to them, as the Apocalypse approaches.’ Across the hall was another curtain; there, Greg knew, was the Arm’s room. But Greg was not here to see the Wyrmbane, and he turned his attention back to the inscriptions on the wall.

The most familiar glyph was centrally located, and resembled a large, elongated letter “c” with a curved, horizontal line running through its lower quarter. Below either end of this line there was a pair of short, vertical slashes. Greg could read most of the characters on the curtain, but he was especially familiar with the large “c”-shaped one. It was the sign of his tribe, the Children of Gaia. Below that symbol were several more, naming the surrounding tunnels and forest the Caern of Slàinte.

Greg heard a rustling of cloth and looked up. The curtain was pushed aside by a small, feminine hand that was followed by the rest of Cathryn, the Voice of the Goddess. She was a small woman, almost dwarfed by Greg’s tall, well-muscled form, but she maintained a powerful presence nonetheless. Her smooth, unwrinkled face did not belie the age that was beginning to touch her hair, streaking it with gray. The Voice was dressed in a faded World Wildlife Foundation t-shirt and blue jeans with worn knees. She turned her handsome face upwards and spoke in the quiet tone that was her usual. “Hello, Gregory. What brings you down here tonight?”

“A Call for the Hunt has been sounded,” said Greg, describing the howl he had heard a few minutes ago. “A Black Spiral Dancer was found about seven miles northwest of here. It sounded like one of the Svenson brothers, and there are plenty of sentries out, so they should have it under control. I thought you might like to know, lady Voice.”

“Please, Gregory. My name is Cathryn,” she replied. “You have been here too long to refer to me by that title.” She sighed. “I do suppose the Svensons can handle a Black Spiral, they are capable, if overzealous, warriors. They mentioned only one Black Spiral, you say?” Greg nodded. “Then let us hope that the Svensons are not being overly confident. The Wyrmbane is out as well, though, so it is of no immediate concern.”

“Should I wait outside for news?” asked Greg.

“It would be best, just in case things turn out poorly. Olie and Lars will likely be back soon, though, and then perhaps we can find out what the Spiral meant by his intrustion. Oh,” she paused. “Has Kathy spoken to you this evening? She asked me to tell you to wait for her in the clearing.”

Greg responded with a nod and a quick bow, and moved off down the passages. He retraced his steps, climbed the ladder, and exited through the door in the caern stone.

The light from the moon’s crescent was a sharp change from the tunnels’ bright torchlight. Greg let his eyes adjust to the lower light, and even in Luna’s dim light he could easily make out his surroundings. Greg smiled, reflecting for a moment on the superior senses that he took for granted.

Greg could interpret a wolf’s call perfectly, and could glean as much information from a few howled notes as most people could from a short news article. He could track prey through the thickest woods with a mere scent of the target, and he could navigate quite well with only a sliver of Luna’s light as guidance. For all his superior senses, though, Greg still did not detect the person sitting on one of the benches behind him until she coughed politely.

Getting back on track (hopefully)

So, the below post is the first part of a story I've been working on for over four years now. It's the part I wrote first and it probably shows, even though I've revised it as many as half a dozen times in places. I hope it is enjoyed, and comments/criticisms are always welcome!

Whenever I read well-written books, I want to write, and as stymied and undisciplined as I've been in the past with Garou, there's still more I want to tell with it. So, since many of you have been doing your own fanfics, maybe there's a venue for it here, and in any case it needs some editing. Plus, it makes me feel nifty to "publish" my posts. So, there it is. More will come soon since it's just revision for the moment, though hopefully I'll be adding on to the story as a whole soon enough.

Garou, Prelude

Run. Run. Run.

The only thought that ran through Meghan’s mind as she plowed through the woods was that she had to keep running. She had to keep running, or else that thing would catch her. That thing with the teeth, the claws, the fur. The terrifying thing that had thundered out of the trees as she walked to her car, that she had sprinted into the forest to get away from. The thing that had kept up with her through what seemed like miles of night-covered woodland, always a few steps behind, always chasing her.

Run. Run. Run.

Meghan’s lungs were on fire. Her legs ached from exertion. Her body was sending out signals, messages telling her she must stop running, must rest and catch her breath, but the sheer terror pounding inside her skull shut out the messages and kept her moving away from the thing crashing through the trees after her.

Run. Run. Run.

It was just like the dreams. The dreams she had had for nights before, in which a huge, dark, unseen thing plowed after her, always keeping up no matter how fast or far she ran and always, always fading to dim memory when she woke up, seconds before it got her.

Run. Run. Thud.

Meghan opened her eyes and for a moment expected to be met with the familiar sights of her bedroom, her face pressed against her pillow, the sheets soaked with sweat. This was where she always woke from the dreams, reassured that nightmares could not harm her.

But she was not in her bedroom. She was met not with the sight of familiar, comfortable things but with the feeling of dirt pressed up against her face. She became aware of a throbbing, dull ache in her legs and chest; a sharper pain pounded in her forehead. Rolling over, she touched a dirt-smeared hand to her forehead; it came away shiny and wet, and she smelled the tang of blood.

Panic again gripped Meghan as the moon, her only source of light, was obscured by some massive bulk. Attempting to scramble to her feet, she fell back to the ground as she struggled to free herself from a root which had snared her foot. Shrieking in terror, she reached to her side, groping for something to defend herself with. Her hand grasped something hard and cold at her side, and she hurled it at the thing blocking the moon.

The thing moved fluidly, dodging to one side and easily avoiding the projectile. As it looked to see what had been thrown at it, its head was partially silhouetted against the silvery crescent of the moon. For a moment, Meghan could make out the thing’s rows of jagged teeth; a thin tongue flicked around inside a short, square snout as moonlight glittered against its ebony eyes and outlined its tall, triangular ears. It reminded her of some weird cross between a bat and a deranged hyena. Then it turned to face her again, towering over her, and Meghan’s mind was paralyzed with fear.

The monster’s lips pulled back into a terrible grin, and Meghan began to scream. It ended in a muffled gurgle as terror constricted her throat, refusing to release any noise. The thing lumbered towards her, ears twitching, and the sounds of its breathing filled Meghan’s ears. She frantically swept the ground with her hands, trying to find some purchase, some weapon, a way to get away, a way to drive off this thing, this beast. Eyes wide in abject terror, Meghan could do nothing as the huge creature slowly advanced on her prone body.

It raised its paw, claws gleaming in the dark, ready to spill her blood. The paw rose high above the thing’s head, ready to descend in one deadly arc. But the blow never fell.

A dark form, smaller than the one before her but still very large in its own right, sailed over Meghan’s head and latched onto the thing’s upraised paw; the monster roared with pain. At the same time, a howl pierced the still of the night, a long, low, ululating call which seemed to hold a sense of anticipation. It seemed familiar, and it was almost comforting until Meghan felt a weight on her hand.

Struggling to pull free, Meghan looked to her side and froze when she found herself looking into a pair of amber orbs inches from her face. Nothing dawned on her until she felt warm breath on her skin. The surrounding darkness seemed to retreat a bit, but Meghan was totally oblivious to all but the animal in front of her: a frightening, if familiar, animal. A wolf.

Broad-shouldered and a deep gray against the black of the night; Meghan had seen this creature before. In her dreams, as she was chased, there were often wolves running alongside her, never acknowledging her presence but always with her, keeping stride perfectly. Their quiet presence had always seemed perfectly natural, and she had never given the wolves any thought until now. Yet here was one with a huge paw pinning her hand to the ground, keeping her from even getting to her feet, let alone escape the monster.

Stand up, said the wolf.

Meghan was taken aback. She had only heard the wolf bark, and yet from its inflection and its dimly moonlit posturing, she understood what it meant. No words had been exchanged, yet she knew that it wanted her to stand. The wolf exhaled noisily, a puff of warm breath blown at Meghan’s face.

Stand up, cub! It growled, posturing more forcefully. Meghan frowned, confusion and anger welling within her. Here was this beast, probably weighing more than she herself, deliberately standing on her arm, and demanding that she stand up!

What’s wrong, little girl? The wolf’s growls and barks had taken on a scornful edge. Meghan’s anger grew. Can’t you stand up? Or are you too weak? The last growl was punctuated by an increased pressure on her arm. Meghan flinched. She could feel the wolf’s claws digging into her skin.

“I am not,” she spat, “a weak little girl!” She struggled to face the wolf and propped herself up on her free elbow.

Is that so? The wolf’s body language was downright mocking. If that’s true, and you’re not as weak as you look, then why don’t you prove it? Stand up, weakling!

Meghan took a swipe at the side of the creature’s head. It ducked the blow easily. She bared her teeth and yanked her hand out from under the animal’s big paw. The wolf danced away, yipping with delight. Ha ha ha! That’s it! But your leg’s still caught! Ha ha! Can’t get up!

Meghan sat up and began to tear fiercely at the root holding her foot. She was still oblivious to the fight going on a few yards in front of her; the wolf that had saved her had latched onto the monster’s wrist and was being clawed and shaken viciously in an attempt to dislodge it. Finally, the thing shook the wolf loose and threw the smaller creature into the underbrush. Blind with rage and pain, it advanced on Meghan, meaning to finish what it had begun.

Clawing at the entrapping root, Meghan noticed something strange: her hand wasn’t quite a hand anymore. It was growing, bulging with muscle as her fingers lengthened and sprouted what looked like fiendishly sharp claws. Meghan looked at the rest of her body. Her other hand had undergone the same metamorphosis, and her arms were growing thicker, bursting through her sleeves. Sinew appeared, rippling under her now furry skin. Meghan saw her shirt ripping under massive strain as her chest tore through the fabric, thick hair and flat muscle where only bare skin and breast should have been. Looking down her nose, she saw it lengthen and widen. Her anger almost gave way to confusion when she found herself looking down a snout, very much like her own dog’s. Her whiskers twitched.

Ha ha ha! That’s it! Stand up, bitch!

Meghan’s confusion was immediately forgotten. Rage welled within her, rage at the taunting wolf, at being called a bitch, and most of all at the thing that had chased her and terrified her for so long and which only now came back into her thoughts. She snarled, bared her teeth, and slashed the root apart, freeing her leg. Fury rolled over her like a wave, crashing into her brain, blinding her vision. A blood-red fog fell over her eyes, and she howled, long and loud, as she let in to her rage.

Two men sat a safe distance away, brushing dirt from their clothes and picking twigs out of their shoes. “You okay, Olie?” the shorter of the two asked, eyeing a big gash down his brother’s side. “Looks like that fucker got ya pretty good.”

“Eh, it’ll be all right.” Olie poked tentatively at the long gash and decided to leave it alone. “Ya missed all the fun, though, Lars! I haven’t had a fight that good for months!” The larger of the brothers looked back to where the giant black thing and the large, transformed Meghan duked it out, trading and ducking bites and claw swipes. The dark creature raked its claws across Meghan’s chest; she fell back and rushed forward again to land a savage slash across the beast’s face. It howled in pain. She ducked its clumsy retaliation and tore into its belly, gore flying from her claws. “Shit! Look at her go!”

“Well, somebody had to piss her off enough to make her shift. And I doubt she would’ve had the guts to attack it if I hadn’t gotten the little bitch to frenzy. Tell you what,” said Lars, watching Meghan land blow after blow on her dying foe. “The next time we find a cub like this, I’ll hit whatever’s attacking ‘em, and you can try to make ‘em flip out.”

“Whaddaya mean, try?” Olie punched his brother on the shoulder, and began to lope away. “I bet I’ll make ‘em frenzy in half the time it took you!”

“Fat fuckin’ chance, Olie!” Lars sat for another few seconds, grinning and panting as he watched Meghan make a final slash at the dark creature. Her claws came away holding its throat. She howled mightily. Lars grinned and turned away to follow his brother. “You know what, Olie?”

“What?”

“Being a werewolf kicks ass!”