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Hunting the Beast: The Real Reason I Left D&D (Only To Return)

When a person leaves anything that he or she loves doing, deep-seeded reasons have to be involved. What follows is an attempt, after a 15-year hiatus from TTRPG, to delve into the reasons for my abrupt departure. It's the first time I revisit this period: who knows what I'll find deep inside of myself. I approach this post as an adventurer would approach a cavern entrance that has barely legible inscriptions warning of dangers within. Therefore, I jump right in: on my guard…but excited!

The year was 1995. I was barely out of my teens and the world beckoned to me like a siren to sample its delicacies. I had come to the big city of Ottawa from my small town of Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, ready to indulge in the pleasures that such a change brings; an overflow of cultural possibilities, a vast mosaic of unknown beautiful women, new friends of varying types (much more varied than the small-town template could offer), and perhaps most importantly: freedom.

Naturally, my AD&D 2nd Edition books had made the journey to the big city as well. Part of the wonderment and anticipation of moving to a metropolis was, quite honestly, the prospect of gaming shops! Ottawa had a few of them in those days, including one that still survives right in the downtown core, Fandom II. Money that should have been used for—oh I don't know— textbooks, was instead diverted to rounding out my Dark Sun collection (note: if you're reading this, Mom, it's not true – the previous sentence was artistic licence). Luckily, many of my gaming friends had also chosen Ottawa as the city for their post-secondary education. Hence, a resumption of my DM'ing of the Dark Sun campaign was expected.

Once we got together for the first time in Ottawa to play, something was off. I don't know and can't recall if anyone else expressed that sentiment, but I remember feeling it very keenly. I couldn't put my finger on what it was. There seemed to be a general blandness to our adventuring, a lack of focus. It was as if we were all going through the motions, trying to keep at least a part of our hometown with us. Perhaps that's just 15 years of wisdom being thrown at that particular cold case mystery. Nevertheless, the important thing here is that after a few sessions, we quit.

I quit.

Image Credit: Kevin Pelletier

I no longer had the thirst to read the game manuals, nor the hunger to prepare gaming sessions. A lot of stuff goes on when you're 19 years old and released from the shackles of a small town. There were now a plethora of entertainment options to take up my free time. I suppose a part of me was embarrassed about my gaming hobby. I didn't want my "cool" new friends to find out that I really liked to be a fantasy storyteller, guiding a bunch of D&D "geeks" to loot and lore. Presenting myself as a music nerd, a political junkie, a sports aficionado; all of these seemed better suited to my newly-found "hipster" status. Let's face it: trying to impress a girl you like with "Why don't you come back to my place, I've got this great collection of U2 bootlegs for us to listen to" sounds so much more suave than  "Hey, I know how to calculate THAC0 – wanna be my gnomish bard?".  (For the record, the U2 thing never worked…)

As the months became years, and as one apartment became another (an then another), my D&D stuff got lost along the way. I can't recall if I dumped it, sold it or gave it away. At some point it became expendable, and it vanished from my life. Sadly, I didn't notice (not consciously, anyway). Video games were now becoming better and better, especially in the RPG and sports categories I loved so much. So, my gaming itch kept getting scratched. The closest brush with D&D during the intervening years was a playthrough of Bioware's Baldur's Gate. TTRPG had become, in my mind, "something we once did when we were teens and had nothing better to do".

Not surprisingly, I can see that I was desperate for a creative outlet over this period. A void had appeared once I stopped DM'ing. I tried my hand at a few blogs. I tried to learn to play guitar. I completely threw myself into these new hobbies, trying my best to find my niche. Nothing stuck. Finally I settled down, was lucky to find a woman with whom to fall in love, bought a house, got a dog, etc.

And then: the Community episode happened.

I was already a fan of Community at that point, never missing an episode. As I sat there watching Jeff, Britta, Troy, Abed, Pierce, Annie, and Shirley play through a D&D adventure, I was flooded not only by nostalgia, but an overwhelming need to play again. I wanted to create, I ached for the camaraderie. I craved to engulf myself in lore and systems and campaign settings. Bubbling under the surface, without realizing it, perhaps I had missed D&D ever since leaving it. I had to come to a place in my life where I had never been more at peace with who I was. With that peace came the confidence to declare, without reservation, my love for whatever it was that set my heart aflutter and ignited my passions. And one of those things was D&D.

There it was, plain as day: the adventurer, after years of searching the cave, had come face to face with the beast and found it to be less daunting than he had imagined. So began the process of recruiting like-minded people amongst my circle of friends to be the adventurers in my campaign, and to do so with wild abandon. Have you been "away" from the gaming table for a time? What drove you away and (more importantly) what brought you back?

Related stories on Nevermet Press:

Back From The (Un)Dead: How a 15-Year D&D Hiatus Ended
Bad Ass Gaming (July RPG Blog Carnival)
Those Bastard Ravens
RPG Blog Carnival – New Year, New Game!

Visit the original post, Hunting the Beast: The Real Reason I Left D&D (Only To Return), at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Points on a Map: The Oasis of Del Foor Overview

Welcome to Points on a Map!

This series aims to offer small, system independent locations that can be dropped into a particular campaign easily and provide a jumping-off-point for side-treks and adventures. The first few PoaM articles will introduce Ashid, a small settlement built around an oasis that could appear in any desert on any fantasy world (or tweaked slightly for more modern settings as well).

Palm Tree by Ik Ikrig - www.publicdomainpictures.net

Ashid & The Oasis of Del Foor

Built long ago around the oasis of Del Foor in the Waste, Ashid had humble beginnings. Between a few shady palms hid a small trader's post, tavern, and inn. Travelers would arrive to replenish their supplies, possibly spend a night or two to rest or wait out a storm, and be on their way. The oasis was little more than a clear pool of water, and a handful of trees, buildings, and tents.

At least that was how it started…

In the last 100 years, Ashid has undergone an unusual change. Some oases shrink naturally over time or stay the same size for years, but Del Foor has grown larger. The desert people may not understand how the change has come about, but they can adapt quickly to embrace any advantage that nature's miracles may provide.

Since the growth began, the oasis has doubled in size every few years, creating a few problems for business owners but also creating new opportunities for profit. What was once a reluctant way station has become a choice location for first brief, then longer vacations to enjoy what the oasis has to offer. Ashid is now home to more than 100 people year-round and has between 500 and 1,000 visitors in any given year depending on the weather in the Waste. Some years are more forgiving to desert travel than others.

And then there's the small case of the disappearances… Each year since the oasis began to grow, at least one visitor never left. As you might expect, local business owners don't publicize that fact. Until recently, those travelers lost in Ashid were limited to criminals and other undesirables. Unfortunately the number of missing visitors has shot up sharply in the last handful of years and hasn't been limited to those who wouldn't be missed. This has many people concerned.

Initial Impressions and Description

When characters first see the oasis, it seems like a tropical island in a sea of sand. Many may initially discount it as a mirage brought on by the pounding heat of day. Occasionally a lone traveler will happen across Ashid, but local guides know its location and benefits as a point of resupply and entertainment. (For some pictures of oases, check out this article at Environmental Graffiti.)

The oasis of Ashid lies in the middle of the Waste, a desert that stretches for vast distances in the middle of the continent. The oasis itself occupies a roughly oval shape if it could be seen from a height, with a large pool of water serves at its center. Much debate has raged over where the fresh water comes from, but most believe it is a blessing as the oasis is far from any other large source of fresh water. The pool is calm and shallow at the edges, but very deep at the center. The oasis itself now stretches nearly a mile along its long axis and half a mile across at its center.

Around the pool is a ring of date palms, used for their fruit and leaves as well as for shade. In small tended gardens beneath some of the trees, locals have planted crops of small fruit trees (figs, small oranges, and apricots mostly) and vegetables. These crops, as well as the small number of animals raised in the oasis, are used to supplement the traded goods arriving by caravan and sparse edible vegetation (roots, berries, nuts) found elsewhere in the Waste.

Backstory

About 100 years ago, a traveler lost in the Waste stumbled on an ancient tomb in a hill not far from the oasis. Nothing was visible but the tomb door, which the visitor found when he tripped over an exposed corner of stone on his way to fetch water. He dug out enough of the structure to use it for some small shade from the sun. While he rested, a strange voice enticed him to open the sealed door with a promise of power and riches. Weakened by hunger and thirst, but a greedy man above all, the visitor agreed to the request and followed his unknown benefactor's directions to open the sealed door.

The visitor's name was Roovi El Vaz. He is now 130 years old and the most powerful man in Ashid. He owns several businesses, holds much power and riches, and a dark secret. Each year he wishes to maintain his power, he must provide a sacrifice to his benefactor. Each year he wishes to increase his power, he must provide two sacrifices.

El Vaz has lived with his secret for a century. As a result, his power and the oasis grew. But he has been patient, slowly growing his domain over generations to avoid attracting unwanted attention. And he has avoided asking any questions of his mysterious benefactor for fear of learning too much.

Unfortunately another visitor stumbled upon the tomb three years ago: Maaz Al-Yad. By this time, the tomb was well within the oasis borders and hidden in the basement of one of El Vaz' businesses. And El Vaz' benefactor was all too happy to make a similar deal with Al-Yad. However, Al-Yad doesn't have El Vaz' patience. He has decided if one or two sacrifices a year would provide wealth and power, more sacrifices would yield that much more wealth and power. He has since gone mad with a lust for power and murdered dozens of innocent victims for sacrifice to his new master. Now, having proved himself, he is willing to do much more to please his new master and garner more power for himself.

What El Vaz stumbled across in the desert was the smallest portion of the underground complex where the Benefactor resides. The demon Beyesh was trapped by the protector of the oasis in another time and buried deep beneath the sands. Sometime after the tomb complex was built, the desert swallowed the oasis in a massive sandstorm and the priests tasked with keeping the demon at bay all perished. The oasis eventually recovered, but the tomb of Bayesh still waits just beneath the surface to be discovered. Now that the demon has once again had some exposure to the outside world, he is plotting and scheming, waiting for an opportunity to break the spells that bind him to the oasis and hold him in his tomb…

Next time…

Next time we'll focus on the people in Ashid and their relationships and motivations. What are El Vaz and Al-Yad hiding? How can so many lives simply have disappeared without anyone noticing?

Visit the original post, Points on a Map: The Oasis of Del Foor Overview, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

A Fork in the Road: Starting the Adventure

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Adventures are often linear, "rail roaded" scenarios designed around getting maximum play-time out of a single product, reducing GM prep time, and maintaining story arcs across "adventure paths". While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, I still think there needs to be room for free-form roleplaying, chance encounters and so-called "sandbox campaigns." One way to mix things up a bit is to introduce side-track mini-adventures into your campaign, and that's the goal of this series of posts. Homebrew games can be created the same way, so try this for yourself you'll see how fun it can be.

"A Fork in the Road" aims to set up a dynamic mini-adventure where the outcome hinges on player choices, not scripted design choices. The PC are invited to a local noble's estate and hired to help him quell a local rebellion. Once the PCs meet the rebels, however, their choices are suddenly not so clear.

Editor's Note: It should go without saying, but if the monster stats and encounter set ups aren't appropriate for the PCs, simply retool the storyline of the encounter a little bit.  Again, this article is designed for 4E D&D.  There is no reason why the encounters can't be used in any system or setting though!

A Fork in the Road – A 4E D&D Mini-Adventure

Read the following background to the players to set up this side-trek adventure and get them started. The proper names for this scenario are generally generic, so please feel free to change them to adapt to your own campaign.

The state of the Duchy is in flux. Several recent violent disputes between the county's royal family and the commoners have occured, so Duke Regibald Darimus is calling for the aid of "independent individuals" (Adventurers!) to come to the aid of the ailing duchy.  Nothing the royalty or their direct agents can say will calm the populace at this point, and they are worried that things may get out of hand before you have come to their aid.  As court convenes, the time has arrived for you to discover what is happening in Duke Darimus's territory and what you will do about it.

The PCs could hear about this general call for help through a town cryer, or perhaps be invited personally by the Duke depending on their notoriety and how it suites your campaign. As the PCs travel to the Court, they might hear rumors of unrest, fight a small battle with brigands who are capitalizing on the country's growing unrest, or perhaps receive a warning letter from the leader of the Rebels. The exact nature of the perceived injustices by the people at the hands of the Duke's rule should be tailored to your specific campaign setting: excessive taxation, land grabbing, religious persecution, or widespread corruption are all common themes that could be played upon. This initial phase in the adventure sandbox could last for one or more sessions, or none at all if the PCs want to get straight into the meat of the adventure.

The Duke's Court

Eventually, the PCs will arrive to the Duke's estate. Have them be welcomed by the servants and their horses and other belonging cared after by the Duke's staff. They will escort them promptly to meet with the Duke in his audience chambers. The PCs should get the sense that they are not the only ones who answered his call for help.

After a brief journey, you arrive at the Duke's court chambers, a grand room of marble adorned with golden chandeliers and red velvet tapestries. The floor is checkered, and covered with dozens of overstuffed cushions on which a few other Adventurers are already lounging about, idly talking amongst themselves. The mood in the air is solemn.  The Duke stands at the far end of the room speaking to several advisors. Two downtrodden guards standing nearby.  Duke Darimus then turns and makes an announcement:

"Thank you to all that have come to my calling.  The Duchy is in dire need of your help.  After some recent altercations, the commoners have taken it upon themselves to rise up in rebellion.  I seek your aid in restoring order to my lands.  If you will help me with this cause, stay here in court.  I will approach you and task each of you myself.   There will—of course—be rewards for your loyalty and actions to support my rule."

Sounds of yelling, an argument perhaps, are suddenly heard from outside the court chamber. The two guards spring to action—blades drawn—and stand to protect the Duke. The double doors to the court chamber swing open and slam into the walls. A moment later, two men and a woman walk in. Two of them are dressed in cheap, but effective looking battle garb.  The third carries a white flag.  He steps forward and addresses the court without being introduced:

"I come on behalf of the good people of the Duchy.  We will not see the injustices against us go unpunished. Surely the Duke has claimed our cause is selfish, but it is not.  Any of you who wish to help us to rebel against the royals that have abused us, come to me before I leave.  I will tell you where you might meet one of our leaders, Citizen Strauss. 

It is custom that, even in the worst of times, the white flag bears total neutrality and peace for immediate time. Several of the members of court mutter and grumble to themselves that these rebels should be detained and executed, but the Duke, though fuming, but he does not signal his guards to detain them and permits them to leave.

The PCs now have a decision to make: should they stay and defend the Duke and become agents of the state or exit his Court and seek the Rebels at their hiding place. There are, of course, numerous other choices. Perhaps the PCs might opt to leave the kingdom entirely (effectively ending the adventure), or become a peace keeping force of their own focused on having the two sides find common ground.

What do you think? What other options do you see for the PCs? In our next post, we'll set up the adventure to explore these options to pursue helping the cause of the Duke.

Related stories on Nevermet Press:

Red Harvest
The Hope Day Massacre [4E D&D]
Highcourt, City on the Edge
Bastion of the Hidden Kingdom
Encounter; Ashes to Ashes, Part I

Visit the original post, A Fork in the Road: Starting the Adventure, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Exodus, by Eric Staggs

 

 

1.

They stood on the ancient ramparts together, watching the refugees stream into the city. The sunset behind them, the long shadows of the delicate spires of the great Aldohthiir City looked like dark teeth, raking the very land itself.

She wore her battle regalia, finely wrought, delicate-looking breastplate of bronze covered in runes and script, and leather pants with matching bronze greaves and bracers. Her arms, tanned and sculpted from her days campaigning in the Queens service, were bare save campaign tattoos and a collection of scars.

He stood next to her, his rightful place as lord-commander of her majesty's armies. His armor, no less finely wrought, was mangled and dented. Deep gouges and scratches marred its surface. He wore pauldrons and a chain-scale skirt of bronze as well, his helmet lost on some distant field.

She turned to face him and he saw there were tears in her eyes.

"It's all going to burn, won't it, Marcus?"

"Just things, Zarana. Just things. Buildings can be rebuilt."

"But it's our home."

"Not anymore. Now it's a piece of history."

She turned back to watch the refugees.

"I-I have to go."

"What? Where? The armies are defeated. Even the Handmaidens are passing through the Gate."

"You should be with them. You're their leader."

"I know." she turned to him again, "I just wanted to look one last time."

He nodded his understanding. This was the view they'd both enjoyed more than thirty years past, as young adventurers, tramping across the countryside, cutting a swath of daring-do, fighting the Great Orcs, almost single-handedly winning the first war. It was Marcus Tenibrass himself who struck the killing blow against the demi-god bastard of their beloved queen, sending the Great Orc hordes fleeing into the dark north.

"So where are you going? Won't you be escorting the Queen with your Shayleen?"

"Zarana, the Shayleen are all dead. I'm going to hold the walls as long as I can, while you all pass through the Great Gate."

"By yourself?" She was shaking her head, her typically unemotional demeanor lost. As the First Handmaiden, she was Master of the Queen's Assassins and Protector, a position that required a level head at nearly all times.

"No, there are about two hundred of us that will stay."

"I'll stay to then."

"No, I think you won't. The Queen will need you, and the Handmaidens will need you."

"Orc-son! You're trying to keep the glory for yourself," she tried to joke with him.

"We'll be the last through, I promise."

She moved forward suddenly and embraced him. He held her in turn, gently, though his armor made it awkward and then drew back. He looked into her eyes, slate and storms swirled there. He acted as if he were going to say something, but closed his mouth and left her, Zarana, First Handmaiden and Protector alone on the ramparts with her memories of their wild youth.

2.

The Gate was ancient, and few knew exactly how its magic worked. The elder sorcerers and magi had consulted the most ancient scriptures and realized that the Gate was built into the city itself, and would consume settlement wholly. None of the magi or wizards or sorcerers could offer an explanation of what would happen to the city as the magical energies that fueled the Gate surged through it.

Many were optimistic, suggesting that the ancients knew this day would come to pass, and that the entire city would be transported through the gate.

Zarana, part of the Queen's inner circle, had heard the archmages talking in hushed tones to their ruler. Many elder magic-users believed the energies required to open the gate, to rend open reality itself, would eat up the city, burn it to ashes from the inside out, leaving the refugees and their monarch alone, on a strange world.

A world without orcs, at least.

Zarana and her seven Handmaidens rode in a protective circle around the Queen's carriage, Zarana at the rear, her tear-brimmed eyes ever watchful for that last threat, that final encounter that would render her decades of service inert. She'd told the courtiers that not even the Great Orcs of Northwild knew of the Gate, that their fears were unnecessary. It was a lie of course. In her years at court she'd learned to be diplomatic and outright treacherous when it was called for. She'd been warned by Marcus one day to never become the viper she guarded against so vigilantly.

She looked back, thinking of him, hoping she'd not become that viper.

The Gate loomed before the Queen's entourage. A massive arc of stone, some hundred feet high, engraved with runes so old, so alien as to not even be recognized as ancient Aldothiir. They where strange and angular, jagged and altogether alien. Their meanings could only be surmised by even the most learned.

Zarana could hear the chanting of the mages grow louder, their strange words at once guttural and poetic. No stranger to wizards and their scuttling ilk, she reigned in her horse, a white mare with a golden bridle decorated with rubies, a gift from queen herself. She patted the beast's flank and whispered nonsense words to it.

3.

From the foremost gatehouse, using a spyglass, Lord Marshall Marcus Tenibrass could see his castle in the distance burning. He'd named it The Watcher's Fortress when he ordered its construction. It was the last bastion of defense before the city, a wondrously advanced castle, complete with engineering marvels of his own design, a griffon aerie, and more. He'd personally collapsed the two-mile tunnel that led to the city, a tunnel that had taken three years and three thousand dwarves to cut through the very earth. It's didn't matter now he told himself, the griffons are all dead.

Much closer than his flaming home, Marcus saw the Great Orc horde, led by a vengeful albino orc, known as Ashkevar. The origins of Ashkevar were a mystery, but with him came thousands of white and grey orcs, covered in thick, short hair. They were the masters of the Northwilds, come to claim the southern lands as their own.

Comparatively few in number, the Aldothiir, with their war colleges and sorcery couldn't stem the flow of orcish filth. It was the way of the Orcs, to breed in great numbers and overwhelm their foes, masses of them dying in the process. Marcus was shaken from his musings as a stone tipped arrow struck him square in the chest, shattering against his once-magnificent armor.

"That's range, Balthasar." He commented absently to his adjutant.

"Aye, Lord." Balthasar, a young man of excellent stock, raised his arm and bellowed out the order for the last few archers to open fire with their flaming and poisoned arrows. The Great Orc drums could be heard over the din of onrushing war, and Marcus felt that rare and dangerous excitement grip his soul. He drew his sword, also a gift from the Queen, so long ago. The blade was called Marethuresa and was said to contain the spirit of a woman cavalier, a knight-errant of such virtue that she drove herself to madness pursuing the very source of evil upon the world. When she found it, Marethuresa knew there was only one way to combat it properly. She sought out an artisan and bade him craft a long sword of adamantine-silver with angelic wings and a red eye so baleful that evil would cringe and shrink from its gaze. This he did. Then Marethuresa took the blade to a powerful wizard whose name was lost in antiquity, the first of the war-casters, and offered her own soul to keep the blade alight with wrath. This he did.

Marcus breathed slowly as he held the powerful war-tool in his hand, feeling it tremble. The artillerists fired their siege engines, catapults, trebuchet and arbalests and still the orcs would not scatter. Still they came on. Marcus took Balthasar's hand and nodded to him.

"It was a good life, Sir."

"It was." And Marcus leapt over the wall.

4.

Zarana felt the air charge with energy, unnamable but palpable energy. The setting sun, normally an orange rose in the sky became green and the sky a deep purple, as the ritual encompassed the Aldothiir city. She watched the stone arch light up and radiate a keening sound. Colors took on shapes and sounds became raw sensations. Her horse stamped the ground, nearby one of her handmaidens was thrown from her mount. Great peals of thunder, consecutive and angry shook the ground, in the refugee column women and children cried out, men shook in silent terror. Zarana's long, black hair began to stand up, to rise as energy coursed through the city, through her. She felt her heart begin to race as only it had in her youth when she foolish ran into battle alongside Marcus and her other companions, hacking her way through impossible odds. She grinned wickedly through her delicate gold-chain veil. The Magic was working.

5.

For Balthasar, who'd grown up on stories of the exploits of his Lord Marshall Marcus Tenibrass and First Handmaiden Zarana, a chance to see his commander in battle, though he had no delusions it would be the last, was thrilling. The martial culture of the Aldothiir would not allow Balthasar to not enjoy this moment, the finality of it. His orders were clear however, and he stood with a few other apprentice swordsmen and watched the phenomenon occur.

Marcus had trained from the age of ten to fight with a long sword, his natural ability was stunning, and he soon mastered the various styles of the Aldothiir. He was given a dagger for his off hand and he became twice as deadly. Balthasar's favorite story was during the First Orc Horde, before the final confrontation, when Marcus, clinging to the back of a mighty water serpent gouged out both its eyes with that dagger before returning to the surface. Then there was the Lord Marshall's duel with the Queen's own son-in-law, an uppity princling looking to usurp the throne.

None of the tales however, compared to what Balthasar and the others witnessed that dusk at what became known as the battle of Aldothiir Gate.

6.

Marcus hit the ground in front of the main gate seconds before the orcs first reached it. Coming along was a battering ram, pushed by the seven foot Great Orcs, smaller orcs in elaborate and heavy plate armor followed along. In the distance, their leader, an albino orc in white furs rode a mighty snow drake. It was in that direction Marcus was heading.

He raised Marethuresa in his hand and set to his grim task. The first and nearest orc was beheaded in a single blow, the next had his throat opened, the next howled as his entrails were spilled tripping other orcs in bile and feces and flesh. The next died as a thrust speared his eye, and drove into his brain. The next found his weapon hand cleaved entirely from his arm, blood like a fountain, spraying Marcus' and the nearby orcs. The next was also decapitated; another fell clutching his abdomen, another his throat, one screaming crawled off without his leg below the knee.

Marcus for his part was only warming up. The orcs were no match for him, even in greater numbers; they dared not get too close. He found himself chasing them back into their own oncoming allies. He leapt upon the approaching battering ram and swatted the heads from three of its haulers, then dropping behind it, to clove the rear axle with two quick, powerful blows.

From the ramparts and gatehouse, Aldothiir archers fired their arrows madly, supporting their frenzied commander. Orcs attempting to sneak up on Marcus from behind were holed through, the Aldothiir marksmen taking careful aim to put their arrows into the soft spot in the base of the great orcs' skulls.

Marcus continued his ferocious assault, coolly dispatching orc after orc. Sparks flew in great arcs as his blade Marethuresa chewed through the enemies armor and then on into bone. In great droves the orcs fell, this one too slow, that one not strong enough, the next in the wrong place with his parry. The sight was magnificent and horrific. In decades and centuries to come, any bard who told the tale would begin by saying the traditional lines "Though story teller I be, I have but a few of the words that do justice to the heroism of those who stayed behind. And for your sake, I dare not speak the words that accurately explain the violence unleashed by the Lord Marshall."

Balthasar saw the battering ram collapse and drew his own blade. "Time to die with a hero!" He called, leaping from the gatehouse ramparts. A cheer went up amongst the Aldothiir elite, who leapt after him into the fray, great peals of thunders followed upon their heels.

7.

Zarana, her handmaidens and the queen's entourage were among the first Aldothiir to actually pass through the gate. The sensation was sickening, painful even. As the world resolved itself once again and time took up its normal march, Zarana found herself dismounted, one of her Handmaidens was gathering the horses, another trying to awaken those who had fallen unconscious. The sky was a brilliant azure stippled with daisy-seed clouds. Beneath her was a soft earth with grasses and foliage growing up between her fingers. A dense forest spread out around them, its canopy thick and the wind smelled sweet and stick, like fresh sap. As Zarana took in her new world, more and more Aldothiir began to materialize. It looked as if their spirits were materializing first, then their bodies.

"We've made it," she whispered aloud.

8.

Balthasar was killed when an orc crushed his knee with a heavy iron mace, and then on the return swing, stove in the young warriors face. Taken over completely by his bloodlust, the orc swung twice more, pulping the young Aldothiir's skull.

Next to Balthasar was Tutra A'lis, another of the Lord Marshal's students. He died when a heavy black blade landed on his shoulder and sunk deep into his body. The orc swinging the blade put his foot on Tutra's chest and pushed off in order to free his broadsword from his victim's corpse.

Pareth of House Narh, one of the few nobles to stay behind, was bleeding from a hundred minor cuts, nicks, and wounds when finally a combination of blows knocked his helmet free and sunk a blade into his face, across the ridge of his nose and bursting his eyes. He died a moment later as he was decapitated.

And so it went, as the elite of the Great Aldothiir nation fought desperately to buy time for their beloved queen and their friends and families. The enemy paid sorely for every foot of ground they advanced, the butcher's bill counting well into the thousands of limbs, hundreds of heads, hundreds of thousands of buckets of blood.

Two hundred heroes fell that day, as the sky turned vile and the earth melted away around the Great Aldothiir city.

As for Lord Marshall Marcus Tenibrass, it was the last time he was seen on that world, chasing after the Orc Chieftain Askevar himself…

9.

It took two years to build a settlement with a high enough wall to consider it safe. The Queen of the Aldothiir, who had known Zarana from a very young age, bade asked her to marry her last remaining son, Reenoran. Tired, and heartsick for the home she knew she'd never see again, for the friends she'd lost on that tragic day, Zarana quietly agreed, and retired from her life as Handmaiden and Protector of the Queen. She was became a princess, and simply existed.

It was difficult for her, watching the younger Reenoran try to rebuild the Aldothiir nation. The Queen seemed to have aged greatly since that day, since the Battle of the Gate, and she quietly withdrew from public life. The Aldothiir people, barely twenty thousand of them, could get on without her, she said.

Often she called Zarana to her to share honeyed drinks or wine. The Queen would ask stories of Zarana's adventures in her service, and sit quietly listening to the tales. This always made Zarana sad, though she tried to hide it from the Queen. Each story included Marcus, the lost Lord Marshall. The Queen noticed this and one day spoke of it.

"I know, Zarana, that you do not love my son as you might have loved others."

Shocked, Zarana shook her head in denial, and stammered an explanation. Had she been unsubtle? Had she been cold or callous towards the prince in some way? During some official function?

"Shh. Child. Mightiest of the Handmaidens you may be, but I am three hundred years older than you. I see, still. I know."

"Your Highness-"

"Shush. Bear him a strong son, and get you a headache. We've lost so much. You and I, Zarana, our lives were never our own. Yours was mine, and mine was theirs." The Queen gestured to the growing city their balcony overlooked. Zarana turned her head and saw the chimneys of forges, signs of industry, the market was bustling and hawkers could be heard over the laughter of children in the streets. A town had grown up around their refugee camp, and commerce had begun and the young were once again being trained in the disciplines of the arts, craftsmanship, war and even magic. The Aldothiir people would live.

"My queen." Zarana bowed her head.

The Queen stood and left, her skirts rustling as she did so. As she moved past Zarana, she touched her shoulder and squeezed it.

 

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Chael's Folly, by Michael Morrison
The Gorgon's Love, by Martin Shelby
Truth, by Ian Vassilaros
Tool, by Jason Rolfe
The Bronze Horse's Ear, by KA Masters

Visit the original post, Exodus, by Eric Staggs, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Clockwork Reviews: The Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson

I hadn't heard of – well more like read anything – by Brandon Sanderson until recently. A few of my friends discovered Sanderson, and his work, in the wake of Robert Jordon's death. Sanderson was brought in to finish The Wheel of Time series, the last book due later this year. As such I only recently came across Sanderson's work and was swayed into reading The Mistborn Trilogy on a recommendation from a friend and its premise: "What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord?"  Really though—who wouldn't be intrigued by that?

One of the biggest things I loved about the series is that I virtually inhaled it in five days. That might not sound impressive, but each book in the Trilogy goes just over the 700 page mark. I bring up how long it took me to read because lately, although there have been a few good books in my hands, none have had me defy sleep to find out what happens next. It is classic "page turner" fantasy. I loved it.

The short version of the Trilogy goes something like this: there is a Dark Lord—although to be honest there's always some dark/evil overlord figure right?—and yes he is creepy and old and not to forget: very, very powerful. There's a race of people who have been enslaved for centuries, and if they just worked together things would change, but as usual there are countless reasons why that hasn't worked. Yet, despite being all kinds of miserable, there is still that all important thing, HOPE [insert oooh aaah music here]. There is a mastermind – in this one criminal – and of course the ever present unlikely heroine: a street urchin. So far, sounds like your typical fantasy book, right?

The Trilogy tells the tale of what happens when the criminal mastermind,  and a street urchin band to together and bring down a government that has oppressed its people for 1000 years. It's a gritty take on High Fantasy that is not seen enough. And of course there's the oh-so-cool magic system that is exquisitely worked out and executed with brilliance. I often find magic systems in Fantasy to not click with my understanding of the world, or they're all too similar to other works of fiction. In The Final Empire, and the following two books, Sanderson's magic isn't this careful balance, nor is it something very easily abused; it is rare and characters with the full complement of casting abilities are rarer still.

Five take-home points to The Mistborn Trilogy:

There are enough plot twists to keep things well paced, and keep you from knowing just what is going to happen.
Character development isn't placed to the side for the sake of action.
There is enough time given to each character to aid attachment. This is always a bonus for me, the attraction of serial fiction lies in being able to know what happens next to your new friends – well they seem like friends to me, hence the sadness when done with a book (or when they are killed mid-way in the story…).
There are a few great laugh out loud moments too, mostly from social interactions related to the slight girl meets boy moments.
Great scene and character descriptions without being long-winded or just there with no real purpose.

As an added bonus—there is a new novel set in the world 300 years later, The Alloy of Law, and there is a Mistborn RPG too! The new novel has a slight Western feel to it, but I'll leave that for another time. In the meantime, get out there and borrow the Mistborn Trilogy from a friend—or better yet, buy it.

You can follow Brandon Sanderson at his blog to find out more about his upcoming novels in 2012 – like the grand finale to the Wheel of Time.

CLOCKWORK REVIEWS is a new, regular column on Nevermet Press covering the current books in genre fiction and table-top roleplaying games. It comes to you every week, on Thursdays – like clockwork!

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Visit the original post, Clockwork Reviews: The Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

The Great Beyond – Surf's Up!

Silver Surfer © 2012 DEZE via http://deze.deviantart.com/

An RPG Blog Carnival Post

 

Once again – Happy New Year to all you readers out there! This month's RPG Blog Carnival post is taking us to Fantastic Places.

After role-playing for so many years in so many different genres, systems, and settings, I have grown bored with the 10 foot hallways, random villages and wooded areas just as this month's host, Keith J Davies, has. What this boredom has led me to in recent months is to blur the lines between the different genres. Often times people will see a laser gun in a fantasy game and say "Eeww, you got sci-fi on my fantasy!" I, however,  like to think this is what veteran gamers need to keep gaming enjoyable. There are only so many times I can play a moody, brooding vampire in the modern day without having a want to travel into VR space or live in ancient days and control cavemen.

So, my fantastic place is meant for a fantasy game, but it can be used in other genres if you blur the lines one way or another.

The Ghost Outpost & The Great Beyond

The basic setting is a city of your choice, only this city has two things that make it quite unique. First, a small moon known as The Ghost Outpost is locked in a geosynchronous orbit with the world, directly overhead the city. This small moon blocks out the stars directly above and the light of the sun as it approaches noon each day. Within the city, the second unique feature is a wizard's tower in the shape of a massive leaning "L" that towers over it's surrounding neighborhood. Atop this tower is the only means to travel to and from The Ghost Outpost.

The details of the city are relatively unimportant – that's up for the GM to design and should be tailored to fit the existing campaign. What's important here is the small moon orbiting above this urban expanse and the teleportation device located at the top of the wizard's tower. When activated (again, how this is done is entirely up to the GM), characters are instantaneously transported to the Ghost Outpost in the sky via a bright, but brief, beam of light. They then find themselves in a small frontier town of the same name.

Some believe the strange realm the hangs overhead in the night's sky to be another plane of existence, but those who are knowledgeable of the planes understand that the Great Beyond simply sits upon the outer edge of the material plane; or the World at it's center.

The Ghost Outpost

The Ghost Outpost itself is a small frontier town. This town is only settlement on the moon that dominates the sky over the city on the planet below. The residents of The Ghost Outpost largely live below the surface, inside craters and canyons that dot the surface on the asteroid.

The city with the teleportation hub is quite literally invisible to the naked eye, a spec on the surface of the World lost in it's epic beauty. Characters who have seen maps of the world can look up from the shadow barren rocks of the Ghost Outpost and recognize the World above's continents, oceans, and rivers that stretch for thousands of miles. Along the horizon line, the World and the Ghost Outpost share the same Moon – which orbits into view twice each day.

The World is visible in all its beauty to everyone who looks up, looming overhead like a great blue and white pearl in the sky. What little light that reaches the surface of the Outpost comes early or late in the day, or is reflected back up off the surface of the world from the passing Sun.

There is a fortified primary structure on the surface that is a transportation and commercial hub of the moon and the Great Beyond. It is run by a powerful merchant cartel that is fair, but expects everyone to on the moon to respect one another no matter what the dispute is over. This fortification is where anyone teleporting to the moon from the surface first finds themselves (such as the PCs). It's a tough place, since most of the Outpost's residents represent powerful noble houses and wealthy wizards from the World below. Nonetheless, the purpose of the outpost is to serve as a foundation on which expeditions can be staged for heading deep into the voids of the Great Beyond.

The Great Beyond

The Great Beyond is a deep, dark blackness that is filled with very few solid objects. There is no ground to walk upon. It is essentially space as we know it. To travel at a reasonable pace, characters have to rely upon Utineech, creatures that were first found after the discovery and establishment of the Ghost Outpost. The merchant cartels and noble houses use the Utineech as a means to explore the furtherest reaches of the Great Beyond. From fields of distant lights that punctuate the blackness, to floating bodies of rock drifting the depths of the Beyond; it is these places and more that hold the secret treasures of the universe that the nobles and wizards seek.

Utineech

As was mentioned above, The Great Beyond is navigated by making use of Utineech. These creatures are flat, board-like creature of super-animal intelligence. They are naturally docile when left to their own whims, but what makes the Utineech special is their psionic link they can form when first "boarded" by a World-walker. When a character steps upon a Utineech's back, a link instantly forms with the character that allows the Utineech to take them anywhere in the Great Beyond they desire. The Utineech travel at exceptionally fast speeds, and confer near total protection to their passengers, often called Pilots, while traveling.

The tight knit bond between human and Utineech strengthens over time, and some Pilots have become almost acrobatic in their abilities to control the Utineech while in flight. Many of these "Dogfighters" have taken residence at the outer reach of the Great Beyond and often fly in groups to raid and pillage expiditions heading to explore new areas. Combined with spell casting and other forms of traditional weaponry, these space pirates make the outer reaches of the Great Beyond a terribly dangerous place to visit.

Couple this with space debris, sub-lightspeed comets, shifting asteroid fields, and blackholes and you've got a great place to run some crazy space fantasy adventures in the Great Beyond. Together all these locations are a compelling attempt bring a feeling like a 1980′s style sci-fi fantasy surf board riding action flick. Enjoy the idea and make it your own!

Anyone played Spelljammer lately?

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Fantastic Locations: Agharta & The Hollow Earth
Bad Ass Gaming (July RPG Blog Carnival)
Just Enough
July RPG Carnival Round Up on Badass Gaming
Highcourt, City on the Edge

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Back From The (Un)Dead: How a 15-Year D&D Hiatus Ended

In April of 2011, I came home to Dungeons & Dragons after a 15 year absence. It was a decision made outside the vacuum of the TTRPG community, hence totally oblivious of the "Edition Wars" I've come to know about since that time. It was a decision made purely out of a desire to revisit an aspect of my life that had been integral to my development as a human being in my teenage years. It was a return I have not regretted for one second.

The first thing I did was I checked if D&D still existed. No, seriously: that's how far removed I was from the TTRPG community. A quick Google search confirmed that yes, indeed, D&D had dropped the "Advanced" from its name and was currently in its 4th edition. Being an impulsive person, I promptly spent $200 through Amazon.ca on core rule books and other stuff. It never even occurred to me that people would still be playing previous editions of D&D – this was the new and shiny edition, so it's the one I acquired.

You might be saying to yourself "Wait a second here…you bought all that stuff on a whim, without checking to see if anyone would play with you?". That would be correct. I wanted to make sure I was committed to this before roping in friends and family.

That commitment did not take long to establish itself once I started reading the 4e Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. I was instantly transported back to the wonderful world of D&D with its Armor Class, Initiative and Kobolds (with the happy realization that  THAC0 was history). I felt like I had come home to be enveloped with a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. Without really thinking about it too much for 15 years, I realized just how much I had missed it.

Trips to my friendly neighbourhood Amazon.ca were now being made almost daily, as my hunger for D&D knowledge became insatiable. Xbox 360 controllers were left collecting dust as I suddenly preferred spending hours on end in my study writing a campaign for an as yet undetermined group of adventurers.

From then on, I mentally started working through a list of people who I would invite to play. Since this new edition called on a party of 5 adventurers as its basis for all stats, I decided to go with that amount. I settled on one returning player from our old group, with four 30-something newbies rounding it out (including my lovely fiancée – getting her on board was going to be key to spending so much time on this. Pure genius, that.). This endeavour was now getting real.

Let's rewind a bit. Why did I seek out D&D again? First, there was the now-famous Community episode where everything revolved around a D&D session, which filled me with all kinds of nostalgic feelings. Beyond that, however, it's obvious my motivations were completely selfish. I had been reading (for the 2nd time) Jack Whyte's "Dream of Eagles" series, and started wondering if it would be possible to re-create the conditions that led to his re-imagining of the Camulodian Legend (namely, that the Roman Empire in Britain is collapsing and a group of breakaway legionnaires form a Utopian city called Camulod out of self-preservation). I had a fleeting thought that if I were still a DM I could recreate this scenario in the Forgotten Realms and use my adventurers as a case study in post-apocalyptic sociology. Yeah, I know – pretty Machiavellian of me. Despite this sinister strain, I forged ahead.

Little did I know that the Wizards RPG team had handed me a ready-made post-apocalyptic campaign setting with the Forgotten Realms' Spellplague! I spent the summer months researching and building my own corner of Faerûn, encouraging my newly-recruited players to acquire their own copies of the Player's Handbook and creating their characters. I also decided that, for the purposes of learning this new system and shaking off the 15-year accumulation of rust, we would play through Keep on the Shadowfell (with a few of my own plot hooks from which to build once Kalarel was defeated).

This unholy stew was brought to a boil, and what was served up was a cleric, a paladin, a rogue, a ranger and a wizard; a motley crew of traditional classes. I play-tested some solo sessions with a few of them to establish the overarching story before having the entire group meet in Winterhaven to begin to unravel the mystery of this death cult of Orcus.

I'll spare you the details, but one thing I noticed right away was that combat was taking much longer than I had anticipated. I was enjoying the addition of a battlemat, which brought the visualization of combat out of our imaginations and into the physical plane. Consequently, however, our imaginations were no longer the limit of what we could propose in combat – everything now seemed accounted for and quantified by the rules. It was an advantage for me as DM but also a constraint for the players. I shrugged this off at the time, accepting it as the new way to do things.

Have you ever been on a strict diet for a few months and then been able to delight in a favourite food of which you had been depriving yourself? That's the best analogy I can think of when describing how that first session went. We all felt it—even the newbies (only for them it was more like tasting delicious Indian food for the first time).

There is something distinctly unique that happens at a D&D table when things click that cannot be reproduced in real life. I suppose sitcom writers must feel that way when they've written a particularly funny episode, or when a music group experiences acute chemistry on a given night. It's the feeling of having put your creative juices to work, collectively, and coming out on the other end with something tangible to point at and say "Wow, we did that!" That's how our weekly D&D sessions have gone since September, and not one of my adventurers wants to miss an appointment, despite our busy lives.

For myself, I've gotten a particular thrill from seeing my creation come to life. I've finally found an outlet for my creativity that had been boiling under the surface, aching to be released. It's left me pondering "Why was I away from it so long? Why did I even leave it in the first place?" Would you look at that: I just found the premise for my 2nd post!

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Fifth Time's a Charm! Will the New Edition of D&D Bring Back What We Lost?
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Visit the original post, Back From The (Un)Dead: How a 15-Year D&D Hiatus Ended, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Slumbering Heroes – A Super-Powered Campaign Setting

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The heroes are trapped in our dreams...

 

Every gamer faces the same dilemma at some point: What game should I run next?

Well, this article proposes that you take two genres and slam them together to create something new. I took a light and frothy super hero adventure story, stirred in some gritty detective drama and created Slumbering Heroes, a campaign that lets you have your cake and eat it too. The Savage Worlds system is ideal for this sort of thing: it's so flexible that you can use it to run practically anything. Not only is this handy for gaming groups that like to change the setting without changing the rules, it also means that you can easily create a mashup of two settings together to create something new.

Slumbering Heroes is a campaign setting that fuses the genres by using the weirdness of one to enhance the grittiness of the other. Though investigation and detective work are a typical part of most superhero games, and heroic action does feature in detective games, the idea here is to start the game with the two elements at odds with each other. Then, slowly, introduce them into the campaign. In Slumbering Heroes we do this by splitting the game into two sections: The Waking World and The Dream Zone.

For this campaign, the players are invited to create two characters, one for each section. The Waking World character should be a normal human adult, with a normal job, life and motivation. The only rule is that each of the characters need to be childhood friends, and ideally roughly the same age as each other.

The other character is a superhero. Ideally, the hero should be one that the first character dreams of being. Idealised versions of themselves are fine, but feel free to let the players go nuts. If someone wants to play a very small woman who sometimes wishes they were a big green giant monster, all the better.

The campaign begins in The Waking World. It is a world much like ours, but less interesting. Crime is rife and bravery is rare. Most people keep their heads down. They don't so much live in fear as have lowered expectations. Another oddity is that they are no super-hero movies. The major comic book producers went bust sometime during the characters childhood. It really is a world without heroes.

The campaign begins at a school reunion, wedding or similar gathering perhaps. We want to give the players time to introduce their characters to each other, and this also gives the storyteller a chance to introduce other NPC's, perhaps one of the character's bosses is also at the party, maybe friends and family of the characters happen to be at the gathering as well.  It's possible that the characters haven't seen each other in years; childhood friends grow apart after all. As the celebration ends, the characters  head to their hotel rooms; by coincidence, all the characters are sleeping in the same building that night.

As the characters fall asleep, they find themselves in The Dream Zone. This is the magical land of the character's childhood, a world that they have all completely forgotten about. A world where they are all superheroes. In this land, a strange magical creature welcomes them back (it can be a frog, a gnome, a wise wizard, anything really). The creature tells them that it has missed them, and that the strange magical land is under attack by terrible monsters (the more pulpy the better), and are asked to deal with one of the horrors on behalf of their strange guide. Once they've beaten up their first monster, they wake up.

As the characters start to get their bearings and get on with their daily routine, one of them becomes the victim of crime. They are rescued, however, by a heavily armed vilgilante who swoops off into the night.

This should be the basic structure for the game; every time the player's succeed in a mission in The Dream Zone, more and more heroes appear in The Waking World.  The day time adventures focus on uncovering the mysterious appearance of these heroes, whilst the heroes fight evil forces in their dreams.

The reason for this can be as complex as you like. For example: Sometime during the character's childhood, all the villains teamed up and made the supernatural magic in the world vanish- including all the Heroes. Somehow, though, they missed the player characters, who where only ever heroes on another dimension whilst they slept. Each act of heroism undoes the spell, bit by bit. The reason the world is so dull and tawdry is because villains rule the world, and only they heroic actions of the player characters in both lands can save reality itself.

What do you think?

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Visit the original post, Slumbering Heroes – A Super-Powered Campaign Setting, at Nevermet Press. Subscribe via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.

Shelled, by M.R. Williamson

The white sand under Louise Williams's feet was the only thing warm about her as she paced back and forth watching her boyfriend frolic in the waist deep water. Although she wanted desperately to join the dark-haired, young man, the cool March breeze kept her feet planted in the sand just inches from the white foam.

"Three hours to find a bathing suit to match my brown eyes yet here I stand," she thought.

"Come on in," yelled Bill Coons. "It's warmer out here than it is on that windy beach."

Louise knew that Native Americans, especially the Cheyenne, didn't approve of lying, but the grin on his face did little to entice her into believing his words.

Louise brushed her short, blond hair from her face. "Right,"

she quipped as she gathered the big beach towel closely about her.

"March would be warm at Panama Beach?" she asked, squinting her eyes.

Bill laughed as he brushed his long, black hair back. "Your dad said that. Besides, he got the resort at a good price this time of the year. The spring break crazies are all but gone, and the Landmark's condos are as large as he boasted." Bill splashed some water in her direction being careful not to get it too close. "Come on in," he added, "once you get passed the initial shock, it's much warmer."

Watching her retreat as he splashed the water again, Bill cocked his head, smiled, and then pointed out, "The Cheyenne don't lie, pretty girl. It's not that cold."

Still staring at him suspiciously, she replied, "Ohhh, here we go again, Mr. Straight as an Arrow, but I'm going to take your word."

Louise then eased out toward him just far enough so that the waves began breaking at her knees.

"Good God," she said weakly. "You liar. It's freezing."

"Come on, Lou," encouraged Bill. "Throw that blanket back on the beach and swim to me as fast as you can."

The six-foot-six hulk of a young man stood there with his already tanned complexion and held out his arms toward her. Usually, such an invitation would get an immediate response, but the cold, March breeze had numbed her senses.

"All right," she finally said as she wadded up the towel and

flung it back to the sand toward his. "I'm freezing anyway, and you're the only warm thing I can see."

She then splashed forward a few leaps and dove in with not so much as a whimper. Swimming like Michael Phelps, she only stopped

when Bill scooped her into his arms.

"Liar," her voice trembled as she clung to him.

"See," said Bill as he danced her through the oncoming set of waves, "Your dad told the truth. The beach is a lot less crowded right now."

"Well, I'll agree to that," added Louise. Clinging to his warm body she added, "The storm that followed us here is all but gone also. For a while last night, I thought it would ruin our stay."

"Yes," replied Bill as he rubbed her cold back, "but look at it now. You would never—" Bill winced and then rubbed his right leg. "You really need to trim those toe nails. They're like claws."

Louise looked up at him through squinted eyes. "I beg your pardon. My nails are trimmed, filed, and painted."

Just as soon as she said that, the water around them began to come alive as if something was circling them.

"What the heck is this!" exclaimed Bill. "I didn't come all the way to Florida to get eaten by some fish."

"Ouch!" exclaimed Louise as she grabbed Bill and looked back

at the churning water. "Something just scratched me!"

Without a word, Bill grabbed Louise by the waist, hauled her up into the air like she weighed nothing, and then began to run for the beach. As though not pleased with that, the mysterious creature then passed close to the front of his knees. Losing his balance, they both went plunging headlong into the churning surf.

"It's a fish!" sputtered Bill as he fought to get Louise's head above the water. "It's a bloody, big fish!"

Coughing and spitting, Louise watched the churning water as Bill helped her to the dry sand. He then turned her back to the breeze, dried her as best he could, and wrapped her in his dry towel.

Louise looked past him to the set of waves now coming in. "Did you see it?" she asked as she then looked at the calf of her own leg. "I'm bleeding," she complained as she blotted her leg with her towel.

Bill turned to see her looking not at her leg, but his right thigh.

"You're bleeding also," she added

Bill blotted the blood from the strange marks. "They look human," he noted, looking at four, six-inch parallel scratches.

"They're just like mine," added Louise. "Who would do such a thing?"

"That was no shark," said Bill as he looked back toward the Gulf. "I don't think it could be a 'Who' either. I saw its scales. They looked silvery-green and as big as quarters."

Louise couldn't hide her smile as she looked up at him. "This is the spot where I would make fun of you," she quipped as she hugged the towel close to her shivering body. "But I just don't think it would be appropriate right now."

Bill turned her from the water and started leading her toward the Landmark. "Let's go back to the condo. I'll cook us some

hamburgers and we'll watch a movie. I've just lost my yen for the salt water."

"I have no problem with that," agreed Louise as she blotted her still bleeding scratches.

***

Much later that night, Louise lay in her bed, thinking on what had happened that day. She knew he had bought a ring, but had not yet given it to her. Hopefully, this vacation together would be just the thing to get that offer. Then, perhaps, she could be a little more comfortable with him being closer to her at night.

Then, as she touched the scratches on her calf, her thoughts rushed from not only Bill, but from the Landmark. She found herself drifting above the darkened beach and over the waves as they broke upon the wet sand. The breeze, which should have been unbearably cool, was now pleasantly warm as she was carried past the breakers. Like a hunting gull, she hovered above them as if waiting for something.

"Down here, friend of Bill Coons," said someone below her.

Louise looked down and quickly noticed a beautiful, yellow-haired girl. She appeared to be about sixteen and was reaching up to her. Louise reached out and as soon as their hands touched, she was taken beneath the waves.

*My God!" thought Louise as she gasped for air, but didn't

feel the sting of the salt water in her lungs. Instead, what she was now breathing, smelt like air from a cool summer's rain.

"Pleasant, isn't it," said the girl without even moving her lips.

Louise inched closer to her as they glided through the water. Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled and her voice was like a stream's water as it rippled over a thousand smooth stones. Soon, the white sand below them gave way to russet-colored reefs as a thousand small fry scurried to get out of their way. Then they slowed, and as they did, the girl looked up toward a shimmering blue-black ceiling. It looked as if a thousand diamonds were dancing above them.

*Stars*, thought Louise.

As if reading her thoughts, the mysterious young girl smiled and nodded. She then guided Louise toward the surface. Upon reaching it, she pointed toward a beach with a huge stone jetting out from it toward the water. On the right side of it, was a small, almost private, little beach. On the other, however, was wondrous pink mansion. The girl then smiled at her as she sank beneath the surface.

***

Louise pushed the covers from her face and sat up immediately. The clock on the coffee table showed a bright red eleven thirty. Snatching the housecoat from the foot of the bed, she ran from the bedroom, across the living room, and then stopped at Bill's door. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she gently knocked.

"Come in," said Bill. "There's no one asleep in here."

Louise eased open the door and peeked inside. Bill was sitting in the middle of the bed holding a pen and pad. The smile on his face indicated something had kept him awake also.

"What's kept you up?" asked Louise.

Bill slowly shook his head. "Lou, this is going to sound like one of my grandfather's tales, but I've had a visitor."

Louise eased close to the bed as she looked about the room.

"Not that kind," he explained through a grin. "Someone came to me in a dream."

"Really," replied Louise as she sat down on the foot of the bed. "Yours first."

"All right." Bill lowered the pad. "I don't usually have dreams, and if I do, I can seldom remember them. "But this one is a dandy, and I can remember every word of it."

Bill handed her the pad.

"This was in your dream?" asked Louise as she looked at what he had wrote.

A beautiful, blond-haired girl spoke it to me.

Louise plopped the tablet down in her lap and stared at him. "Blue eyes and about sixteen?"

"Yes. I was almost asleep when the scratches on my thigh started itching. The next thing I knew, I was staring into the most captivating blue eyes I have ever seen. I could only see her upper body. She spoke to me as if through a shimmering, blue mirror. Read that. I believe she asked me to do a favor for her."

Bill then squinted his eyes. "By the way, how did you know what she looked like?" he asked.

"She was in my dream also."

"The Devil's at us both!" exclaimed Bill as he jumped from the bed and looked at her. "I've heard of the 'Trickster' when I was a child. My grandmother told us countless stories about him, but this is my first encounter."

"Hold on Mr. Close Encounters," replied Louise though chuckles. "I don't think Satan looks like what I just saw. As soon as I touched my scratches, I was whisked from my bed and found myself floating across a very dark beach. When I was over the water, I saw the very same girl. She then carried me, under the water mind you, to a beach and a huge, pink house. I didn't drown, feel the first drop of water, or panic." She then looked down at the tablet and read:

"I beg you for me a kindness to see.

Go to where I am forbidden.

For I took what wasn't mine, and now my heart doth pine,

for she rests from my sight, neatly hidden.

His coffers they did fill. Counted more than the krill.

I took this little one by mistake.

Then the waves did foam and fret, and 'twas lost in the murky wet.

Now I grieve and my body doth quake.

'Neath the crystals of the dead, she now rests her pretty head,

carried past and just beyond the foggy breach.

Now it taunts me from there. Nary can I get it from here,

for it lies just beyond my reach."

"Is this some kind of riddle?" asked Bill. He then sat back down on the bed and added, "Did you get a good look at her?"

"No more than you did, but she is asking for help. As for who she is; I don't know anyone who can pull this kind of thing off."

Bill scratched his head through his mussed up hair. "She's asking us to go where she can't, or isn't allowed to go."

"That's true, but she wants us to retrieve what she has obviously stolen." Louise looked back down at the pad. "What's this krill thing she speaks of?"

"I can solve that," replied Bill through a half-grin. "They are tiny shrimp-like creatures that live in the sea. We consider them of little importance, but whales eat 'em by the thousands."

Bill leaned forward and pointed to the fourth verse. "That's spooky," he said just above a whisper. "She says she lost this thing in a storm. Could it be she was referring to the one that chased us in here yesterday?"

Louise shrugged her shoulders and then asked, "What about this 'crystals of the dead' thing and the 'foggy breach'? I've never heard these descriptions before."

"Don't have a clue," answered Bill. "I suggest when we get up tomorrow, we go and ask Carmelita at the main desk. She looks like an 'island girl'. She mentioned she's been living here for some time."

"Agreed," quipped Louise, "and I know where we can start," she added, tossing the tablet back to him. "Remember that huge, pink mansion just south of here you made fun of?"

"Yes. Only a color blind person would deface something that grand."

"Well, our little visitor showed me that very same place, but we were in front of a smaller beach. It was on the far side of a huge stone that was near the mansion.

"It's a date then," said Bill through a yawn. "I'll buy breakfast at The Pier. I think it's close to where we want to go."

As Bill followed Louise into the living room, he noticed the sliding glass door to the balcony was left open a bit.

"That's me," quipped Louise. "Thought the Gulf air might freshen up the place."

"A bit cool right now, don't you think?" replied Bill as he walked toward the balcony door.

Before he could slide it closed, the dream spoke to him again. "I beg you for me," she said again—in a voice close enough to be spoken from on the balcony. Bill jerked his hand from the door handle and peered through the curtains instead.

"What's bitten you," quipped Louise as she paused in the middle of the room.

"Not sure," said Bill weakly as he opened the curtains and moved the sliding door as well.

Bill rubbed the scratches on his thigh through his pajamas as he stepped outside. The cool, moist air greeted his face as he peered out over the railing at a small group of young people near the breakers. Their flashlights danced on the wet sand as they dug for the illusive 'sand flea' crabs.

"What's got you so spooked?" asked Louise as she pulled her housecoat closely about her neck and stepped outside to join him.

"The girl," said Bill as he looked at the moon, hanging over the black water like a pale yellow ball. "I beg you for me", she said again. I could hear her just like she was speaking to me from this very balcony."

As he spoke, a sound came floating on the gentle breeze from the water. The call, almost a moan, sounded lamenting, and melancholy.

"Do you hear that?" asked Louise just above a whisper as she edged closer to him.

Bill, not saying a word, stared out at the incoming waves just under the moon.

"Bill…" No response. "Bill!" spoke Louise again.

"Sorry, Lou," he replied, rubbing his sleepy eyes. "I heard it also. The only thing that comes close to that is whales when they call to one another."

"Are there whales in the Gulf?"

"Don't think so, but I'm not really sure," he answered. Then, as he turned and walked toward the doorway, he added, "Let's go to bed. I'll not be worth a plug nickel tomorrow if I don't get some sleep."

"Guess you're right," agreed Louise as she paused by the curtains to listen, but the sound came no more.

***

Bright and early the next morning, Bill was eager to get started on the mysterious riddle. *Six is probably a bit too early*, he thought, pausing outside her bedroom door.

"Louise," he called, knocking lightly upon the door.

"Ohhh, Bill," she groaned. "It's barely morning. The sea gulls aren't even up now."

"They've been up for hours, Louise," he responded, rattling her doorknob. "Want some help getting dressed?"

"Bill Coons," something soft hit the door from inside the room, "You stay right there."

"I think that young girl lives in the big, pink house," he guessed.

"Don't think so," replied Louise. "If that were so, why was I shown the place from the water?"

"Yes," mused Bill as he scratched his head, "I forgot about that."

"Tadaaa!" exclaimed Louise as she jerked the door open.

Bill, never being one to offer a quick opinion, stood there and eyed the yellow Bermuda shorts topped with a red and white Hawaiian flower shirt. "Cute," he finally replied, looking down at her bright orange flip-flops.

"Think it's too much," she asked, looking slightly disappointed.

"Not at all. Let's go and ask Carmelita about those two

phrases in the girl's poem. Perhaps she can tell us if there's a public access near the mansion."

***

Later that morning, with the help of the 'island girl', Bill and Louise stood at the head of the stairs leading down to the beach.

"We're nearer that mansion than I'm comfortable with." Bill nodded at the 'private beach' sign not more that twenty yards south of the wooden stairway. "Carmelita said these folks weren't very

friendly. Lou. I'd hate to spend the rest of our money bailing us out of the pokey."

"Awww, c'mon," quipped Louise as she led the way down the stairs. "Carmelita said 'the crystals of the dead' referred to the sand—remnants of dead seashells and stuff." Louise then paused at the bottom of the steps and added, "The 'foggy breach' she explained, was the sandy waves as they rolled onto the beach. If that's so, then whatever our little friend is looking for has to be close to wet sand."

As the two walked toward the 'private beach' sign, Louise pointed at the huge stone outcropping between them and the mansion. "She pointed at that very side of the stone," continued Louise. "I'll bet our little treasure is right there in its shade."

She then paused at the sign, placed her hand on its top, and then gave it a wiggle. The sign fell face down on the sand.

"If we don't see it," she quipped, "we wouldn't know to stop."

'Right," replied Bill through a half-grin. "I'm sure that's about what Custer thought just before the Indians surrounded him."

"Ohhh, come on you big fradie cat," joked Louise, and in less time than it took the next set of waves to come in, they were both kicking around the sand in the stone's shadow.

Louise soon noticed Bill looking toward the tip of the stone where it neared the water. "Hear that?" he asked softly as he walked that way.

"They can see you from there, Bill," she prompted as she ran after him.

"Shhh," Bill hissed as he glanced back at her. "I hear dogs."

"Dogs?" echoed Louise just above a whisper.

As they both peeked around the stone, they could see two Dobermans instantly jump to their feet.

"Ohhh, nuts. They've seen us," said Bill as the dogs broke into a dead run toward them.

"Come on!" shouted Louise as she headed for the stairway.

Bill quickly caught her by the arm. "No time!" he exclaimed as he grabbed her by the hand and ran for the water. "They're sure to catch us before we can get to the car."

Without saying a word, they both splashed into the water.

"God! This is freezing!" exclaimed Louise as she followed Bill into the churning waves.

"Swim out ahead of me!" shouted Bill as he scooped up a three-foot piece of driftwood.

Bill continued after her until he was waist deep. He then turned to face the dogs. The Dobermans, seemingly accustomed to the water, were already in up to their chests and drumming up the courage to challenge him.

"Go away!" shouted Bill as he slapped the piece of wood on the surface of the water.

But instead of discouraging them, it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. The two animals began to swim for him.

"Oh, Lord." he said weakly as he slowly backed toward Louise.

With the cold waves breaking against his back, he suddenly felt something big pass so close to his right thigh it all but brushed his feet from under him. The surf began to churn around the two dogs as if it had become alive. Then, both dogs, side by side, whining and barking, were dragged through the water toward the beach in front of the mansion.

"What's got them?" shouted Louise as she pushed through the water to join Bill.

"I have not a clue," answered Bill, "but I felt it as it passed me and went for them." Bill turned to face Louise. Then, as she grabbed his arm, he added, "I believe it was the same fish that scratched us."

"That's no fish," corrected Louise as they both watched the strange spectacle.

When directly in front of the house, the dogs were released in an explosion of water, which sent them tumbling across the white sand. Whining, they scurried to their feet and then ran for the mansion.

"C'mon," said Bill as he all but pulled Louise toward the beach, "let's get back to the public side. That commotion is sure to bring someone out here."

"Those were some very big dogs," said Louise as she held to Bill's arm.

"They were." responded Bill as he checked what part of the beach in front of the mansion he could still see. Noticing no sign of the animals, he then looked back at Louise and added, "I know where I can rent a small beach buggy. We can run from the Landmark all the way to here in about twenty minutes. We'll need flashlights, a rake, a hoe, a—"

"Wait right there, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," interrupted Louise as they walked up the wooden steps of the beach access. "You're thinking about coming back tonight aren't you?"

"Yes," answered Bill, noting the somewhat reluctant tone in her voice. "The tide will be in and past the rock. I don't think the dogs will have anything to do with the water for a while. Besides, I'm bringing a can of mace."

***

Later on that evening, just as the sun was all but 'touching' the water, a little, yellow dune buggy sped across the beach and approached The Palms Resort just a few miles south of The Landmark.

"Slow down," said Louise. "The private beach is just ahead of us." She then pointed down the beach and added, "There's that big rock, and the surf is almost at its tip."

Bill slowed the buggy, eased up along side of the big stone, and then turned off the engine. "Listen," he said quietly, but there was no sign of the dogs.

Louise eased out of the buggy with a garden rake and walked to the edge of the stone. "Come on, Bill," she whispered. "You won't find anything gazing out toward the Gulf."

"Something is out there, Louise," said Bill weakly as he pulled a hoe from the buggy and then slowly walked toward the surf.

"Bill…Bill!" called Louise, causing the Indian to slow to a stop.

Louise dropped the rake and quickly walked toward him. "Are you all right?" she asked, noting he was rubbing his eyes.

Bill shook his head. "I thought I heard something," he said softly. "It spoke as if on the wind," Bill pointed out past the

surf and added, "from somewhere out there."

"Uh huh," replied Louise through squinted eyes. "You big Cheyenne, don't you go weird on me with dark only a breath away."

Bill smiled but still didn't look at her. "Where I live in Wyoming," he added softly, "my sister is known as 'Owl Woman'. She loves to tell stories of lost civilizations—ours. One of the strangest is about the 'Water People'. They are called the Ne Hwas."

"Mermaids?"

Bill shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know about mermaids, Lou, but one of the stories was about a young brave who met a beautiful maiden. She was sitting on a stone just below a great waterfall. Her face wasn't familiar to him so he assumed her to be from a neighboring village. Her name was Pocahon, which means 'Playful One'. She would call to him every afternoon and soon, he began meeting her secretly. He would play his flute for her as he watched her comb her long, black hair. But, no matter what the brave did, she wouldn't leave the water's edge. It wasn't long until his sister found out. She tried to discourage him from this one, but he would have none of it. Then, fearing intervention from his father, the brave left one night never to be seen again."

Louise looked up at him. "That's it?" she asked, almost through a smile.

"They found his clothes on the stone," added Bill. "They say

if you visit the waterfall on a calm, summer's night and stand there quietly, you can hear him playing his flute."

"That's not such a bad story," said Louise.

Bill turned to look at her and replied, "At least it's not that spooky 'Skin Walker' stuff."

"Don't even go there," replied Louise as they walked back closer to the edge of the stone.

"What's strange about the story is when the young brave would hear her call to him, she didn't appear to be anywhere around. That's just like what happened a minute ago."

"There you go again, Bill Coons."

"All right. All right," said Bill apologetically. "I'll help

you look close to this rock wall first."

After a few minutes or so, Louise leaned on her rake handle and stared at Bill. "This sand is as clean as my grandmother's table," she complained as she walked toward him, dragging her feet through the fluffy, white sand.

"You'd better keep looking," encouraged Bill. "When the sun gets that close to the water, it seems to drop out of sight in no time."

No sooner had he said that, than Louise squealed and crumpled to the sand not more than two steps from him. Bill dropped his hoe and rushed to her side. She was holding her right foot with both hands and rocking back and forth.

"Did you step on something?"

"Just peachy," she quipped sarcastically. "I think I just split my big toe nail on something."

Louise slowly removed her hands from her foot. But instead of examining her toe, Bill looked just behind her at a yellowish-orange object protruding from the sand.

"Look at this, Louise," exclaimed Bill as he scooped up the cantaloupe-sized shell. "Shake the sand out of it while I tend to that toe," he added as he handed it to her and then pulled a blue bandanna from his back pocket.

"This is a 'bishop's hat'", said Louise as she gently shook the shell. "See how the four corners fold up and touch the top—kind of like a jingle bell. This is a rare find indeed."

As the last of the sand spilled out, the shell began to rattle.

"What's in it?" asked Bill as he tied the makeshift bandage in place.

"Look at this," answered Louise as she held up the shell for him to see.

Looking through the paisley-shaped openings beneath the corners of the hollow shell, he began to see something as the last of the sand spilled out.

"My God," exclaimed Bill. "Is that what I think it is?"

"I don't know," replied Louise. Then, as she pushed her hair from her eyes, she added, "I've never seen a black pearl the size of a quarter. How do you think it got in there?"

Bill slowly shook his head and added, "I think the question is

what do we do with it now?"

Louise grabbed Bill's arm and struggled to her feet. "Let's take it back to the Landmark before someone catches us here."

"Guess you're right," agreed Bill as he picked her up and carried her to the dune buggy.

When he was about to get in, he paused, and looked out past the surf.

"I heard it too," said Louise. "It sounded kind of like that whale thing again."

Bill stood there as the faint sound came again. It was as if his mind was on nothing else.

"Bill…Bill!" called Louise. "Snap out of it. Whatever is happening to us has got me worried for you."

"It's her, Louise," he said weakly as he continued looking out over the moonlit water. "I know it is."

"Mind telling me how that's possible?"

Bill slowly turned and then replied, "She said something to me in that dream just before I awoke. Although she spoke it in a rhyme, it sounded exactly like what's going on now." Bill then sat down in the buggy and added, "It was more like she was warning me."

Just then, the spooky sound came again, only more mournful than before.

"It's closer," said Louise as she sat up on the edge of her seat. "It's more toward the Palms this time." She then turned to

Bill and asked, "What did she say?"

"She said if I found this thing and took it from her, I would always hear her lament."

"Good grief," said Louise as she sat back in the seat. "That sounds like a curse."

"Lets get out of here," replied Bill as he started the buggy. "We'll figure this out when we get back to the Landmark."

The yellow buggy raced back up the beach just feet from the wet sand. Louise tried to watch the water closely, hoping to get a glimpse of the mysterious creature that had all but dominated their vacation.

"It's in the surf, Bill," exclaimed Louise as the sound came again. "It's become so dark, I can't see a thing, but I can hear it splashing and keeping up with us. Get away from the water."

Then, as the buggy veered away from the breaking surf, Bill said, "Carmelita pointed out that most of the hotels had shut off their lights because the sea turtles are laying their eggs."

"That's great," grumbled Louise. "This thing's following us and we have little chance of seeing it." She then turned to Bill and asked, "You think it's the girl in our dreams, don't you?"

Bill nodded. "It's the only thing that makes sense to me."

"But when we were swimming and it scratched us, you said you saw a silvery-blue fish. How does that work with the young girl in our dreams?"

"Ne Hwas."

"I thought the mermaids were fantasy—like elves and dwarfs," added Louise.

Bill glanced at the strange shell in her lap and then replied, "Fantasy or not, I've never seen anything like what you're now holding. We'll get your toe taken care of, fix something to eat, and then get a good night's sleep. Maybe come morning, we'll see things a bit clearer."

Bill slowed the buggy as they approached the Landmark where several of its guests playing on the beach. "How's the foot?" he asked, looking at the bloody bandage.

"It's not as bad as it looks," answered Louise as she eased from the buggy. "The rental place is just a little ways up the beach. By the time you get back, I'll have it trimmed, doctored, and bandaged."

"Good enough," replied Bill as he gunned the engine and headed for Surfside Rentals.

***

*Sure glad Surfside wasn't any farther*, thought Bill as he walked back toward Landmark.

The flashlights of the crab hunters were still dancing at the surf's edge at The Landmark. As Bill pondered their curiosity for the little creatures, he heard a splash in the surf, and it was quite near him. Slowing to a stop, he searched the black water only a few feet from him. Even though the moon was almost full, it was so close to the horizon it offered little light at all. Then, as the water calmed a bit, he noticed a silhouette not more that fifteen yards from him. It was just standing in the surf as if looking at him. Bill inched forward onto the wet sand, keeping an eye on the other young people. They were now heading away from him.

"I see you," he said. "You're no longer in my head. What do you want of me?"

The same, lamenting sound then came softly from her own lips as she held out her right hand toward him.

*We did find it and she knows*, he thought. "I haven't got it," he replied loudly. "It was carried into the building behind me."

The mournful sound stopped immediately, but the silhouette continued to reach toward him.

Bill then winced and covered his ears with his hands. "I hear you! I hear you!' he exclaimed as he backed from the wet sand.

"I'll get it…I promise. Just get out of my head!"

He then turned and ran the short distance to the Landmark beach entrance. Not waiting for the elevator, he bounded up the stairwell to the third floor. Room three-fourteen was just a few seconds down the hall.

"Let me in, Louise," he said loudly as he pounded on the door.

Louise tripped the lock and eased the door open. "Loose your card?" she quipped. But the look on his face quickly convinced her he wasn't worried about the card.

Holding his forehead with his right hand, Bill made it as far as the first chair at the kitchen table and then sat down heavily.

"It's that creature," guessed Louise. "Did you hear her again?"

"Saw her," replied Bill shakily.

Louise bent down and looked into his face. "You…you saw her?"

"Get the shell, Louise," said Bill without even looking up. "We found what she was looking for and she wants it. If we give it to her, perhaps she'll leave me in peace and get out of my head."

Louise quickly turned, hobbled to her bedroom, and then returned with the Bishop's Hat in her hands. "You're not getting this, Bill Coons. I'm going with you. You're not disappearing on me and leaving me to explain your Ne Hwas to the police. I never would get out of the funny farm."

"All right then," said Bill weakly as he left the condo with Louise limping right behind him.

Passing college kids, young families, and elderly couples in the huge building, Louise began to ponder their chances of seeing the mermaid again. Now, at almost a trot, Bill left the elevator and went straight for the beach access door.

When they drew near it, he turned to Louise and said, "We must go away from the others. She'll never come up with anyone else too close to us."

Through the access door they went with Louise struggling to keep up.

"She spoke to you again, didn't she?" asked Louise quietly.

Bill nodded. "I'm hearing her now all the time," responded Bill as he shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead once more. "Her name is Trillia of Trey Winds." Bill glanced at her and added, "I think she 'borrowed' that thing from someone she called Neptune. Have you heard of him?"

"Yes, somewhat. I think he's some kind of Greek God of the ocean or something."

Bill slowed, turned away from those playing on the beachfront, and then headed north, into the darkness.

"She spoke of this Neptune as if someone to be feared, at least by her kind," explained Bill, now slowing so Louise could keep up. "She said he collected them," he added, "and then spoke of the shell as if it were a person."

"A person?" asked Louise. "How can a…"

Louise's voice quickly grew silent as she spotted a darkened silhouette in the water just ahead of them. It was moving through the surf not more than thirty yards away. Bill stopped so quickly, she all but ran into him. With only the upper half of her body visible, she glided silently toward them until she was only a few paces from the wet sand.

"Let me have the shell," whispered Bill.

"Bill Coons," said Louise, tightening her grip on the shell, "don't you go close to that thing."

Then, the silhouette spoke. Her voice was both soothing and inviting.

"Step into the water, Bill Coons," said the young girl.

"You'll not go," whispered Louise as she grabbed his right arm.

"Then come with him," the figure said.

"Oooo, this salt water doesn't feel good to my toe," whispered Louise as she followed Bill into the water.

"Close enough," warned the shadowy figure when the waves were breaking at their waist.

Now, Louise could see the girl—at least enough of her to tell she was smiling.

"Break the shell," she said, "and let the pearl fall into the water."

"Into the water?" whispered Louise. "Do you know how much money this thing is worth?"

"This is not about money or treasure, Louise," said Bill as he produced his pocketknife. "It never was. Now, hold it still."

"Ohhh," complained Louise regretfully as she held the shell in front of her with both hands.

"Free the pearl to the water!" exclaimed Trillia as she held up her clasped hands as if begging.

Bill brought the end of the knife down on one of the shell's corners. It broke as easily as china.

"Into the water! Into the water!" exclaimed Trillia as she splashed the water at them playfully.

Louise tilted the shell and watched the black pearl roll out and plop into the water between them. Almost as soon as it touched the surf, the water began to churn about them.

"Let's go, Bill," said Louise, but Bill grabbed her arm as he backed away.

"Stay with me, Louise," he said as he drew her to him. "Let's see what happens."

"Brynn! Brynn!" exclaimed Trillia as she swam as close to them as her fear would allow.

Then, as if in a dream, Louise and Bill watched a small girl of about four, emerge from the water right in front of them. She brushed her long, brown hair from her face, and then stopped dead still, staring at the two.

"Friends," said Trillia softly as she turned from the little one and added, "She's my sister."

Upon hearing that, the little one dove under the water and swam toward Trillia. Her little, silver-blue fish tail could be seen plainly as it propelled her forward.

"We must leave now," said Trillia, "but do not think it rude of me. I am most grateful for what you did." She then looked down at the little one clutching to her side. "She is worth more to us than what we have left, but it's the best we can do."

The two mermaids then turned and swam away—first into, and then beneath the waves.

"Blow me down with a feather," said Bill weakly as he backed toward the beach with Louise still on his arm.

"What did she mean by 'what we have left'?" asked Louise.

"Not sure," answered Bill as they both turned to leave the shallow water.

But as they did, they noticed something that wasn't there when they first went into the surf—a big pile of oysters, at least three dozen of them. Each was as big as a man's clasped hands.

"Good Lord," said Bill as he quickly waded toward the pile. he then reached for his pocketknife and one of the oysters at the same time. "Do you like raw oysters?" he asked excitedly.

"Maybe fried," replied Louise as Bill cracked one open and poured it into his mouth.

A puzzled look quickly contorted his face as he worked something from his mouth and into his waiting fingers. Louise moved closer as he produced the dime-sized, white object and rolled it around between his thumb and forefinger. Bill then ate another, then another, and then another. Each left him a gift just like the first. With four pearls in her hand, and thirty-two oysters left in the pile, the two stood there looking at each other. Neither was aware of the cold…

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Clockwork Reviews: Gaslight Arcanum – Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes

Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2011, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing), is the third anthology of tales of Sherlock Holmes and the supernatural edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec. In this anthology, twelve authors contribute their own stories of the great detective and the crimes he must solve. His foes include aliens, Aztecs, and even Death itself.

Three of the stories stood out for me as particularly well written pieces of Sherlock Holmes fiction. "Sherlock Holmes and the Diving Bell" by Simon Clark, was a superbly creepy tale of eerie sounds coming from a diving bell that had been lost to the depths five years previous. As Holmes and Watson set out to solve this case, they themselves must visit the watery resting place of a man who may or may not have survived for five years in the diving bell. The villain in this tale is possibly the one closest to the sort of villains that Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes would have encountered, and the entire story read as a fairly traditional but quite creative Holmes piece.

In Paul Kane's "The Greatest Mystery," Holmes and Watson confront a much less traditional villain as they investigate a string of murders that appear to have been committed by individuals who swear that they did not murder their loved ones. The suspected murderers inevitably commit suicide afterwards, thus eliminating the only witnesses to the murders. Despite the highly unusual villain, Kane's writing style was such that even a villain that seemed preposterous in theory could fit into the Holmes universe without difficulty. While Doyle's fans may not agree that the tale is the greatest mystery that Holmes ever solved, it is a fine story that fit well into the theme of the anthology.

My favorite story of the anthology, however, was the last. "The Adventure of the Six Maledictions" by Kim Newman is not a Sherlock Holmes story–instead, it tells the story of an adventure of Professor Moriarty and his associate, Sebastian Moran. After being hired to protect a thief from the Nepalese cultists that he stole from, Moran helps Professor Moriarty to collect five additional vaunted artifacts. The story is highly entertaining, and features the sort of twists and turns that any fan of Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes is likely to greatly enjoy.

One of the problems with the stories in the book is that while they are all using the same basis of Holmes stories by Doyle, they are not consistent within this volume. One story has Holmes working alongside Count Dracula, while another story has Holmes insisting that vampires do not exist. Some stories may also bother Doyle aficionados because only a few of the stories were told from Watson's perspective. Other stories were written in the third person, from Holmes' own perspective, or, in the case of "The Adventure of the Six Maledictions," from the perspective of Moriarty's associate, Moran.

As is the case with any anthology, most readers are likely to find stories that they enjoy as well as stories that don't work as well for them. Overall, however, I found Gaslight Arcanum a generally enjoyable read. The other two anthologies by the same editors, Gaslight Grimoire (2008) and Gaslight Grotesque (2009), seem as though they would also be of interest to anyone who enjoys this volume, and it is likely that Campbell and Prepolec will continue publishing additional anthologies of the same sort, particularly in the wake of the popularity of the recent Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law and the BBC's TV series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

CLOCKWORK REVIEWS is a new, regular column on Nevermet Press covering the current books in genre fiction and table-top roleplaying games. It comes to you every week, on Thursdays – like clockwork!

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