dekkyswriting

[dekkyswriting]

Fairies Tell No Lies

The shrill ringing of my phone startled me from my novel. Faux leather creaked as I shifted and groaned in my black office chair. My hand slapped on my L-shaped wooden office desk as it searched for the landline, finally snagging it after a few seconds of flapping around.

“Mark Bishop, magical handyman,” I said into the receiver, deftly hiding the irritation in my voice. “What can I do for ya?”

“Hello,” A gruff man’s voice said on the other end of the line “The city’s got a job for you Mr. Bishop. There’s some shady shit goin’ on over at the the Spring Heights Cemetery, we need you to check it out.”

“Yeah sure, what’s your name and where’s the address,” I asked, my free hand sifting through my desk’s disparately organized piles of bills and notes for a pen and a post-it

“Captain Johnson of supernatural investigations. Your address is the eleven-twenty two Mulberry Avenue. The security guard will let you in and your rates forwarded to your account upon completion. No officers will be present.”

“Thanks, I’ll be right over.”

I let out a tired sigh. Not a single ounce of my body wanted to get up and do work despite my depressing lack of clients that month. The police presence and subsequent lack of direct involvement put my nerves a little on edge and tempted me to outright turn down the job. Ultimately, though, the proposition of covering my rent for the month far outweighed the climax of the novel I had been reading. I returned the thick paperback volume to its place on a wall high bookshelf stacked with fake leather tomes to make my magic talent appear a bit more credible and books to keep myself entertained as I waited for clients to call or visit. The rest of my office consisted of an IKEA desk with a desktop placed off to one side and covered in misshapen stacks of paper and a small sitting room. It was a place I had designed to complement my relatively sparse paper strewn office with a reasonably comfortable couch and armchair set around a circular low white table with a black clock-and-gear pattern across the face. I grabbed my morning brew and retreated back to my marginally smaller office, which consisted of my paper strewn IKEA desk and a shelf full of fake leather ‘tomes’ I’d acquired to give potential clients the idea that I really know what I’m doing, which leads me onto one of the more irritating aspects of my chosen profession: people inherently believe magic makes all things easier.

There are two things people don’t understand about my job. One, magic doesn’t make anything about plumbing easier and two, the five years’ of magic’s existence on this earth hasn’t given anyone nearly enough time to learn everything. Either way, work is work. I grabbed my staff and toolbox and strolled to my car.

Twenty minutes and three wrong turns later, my silver Nissan sedan finally turned into Spring Heights Cemetery, home of over fifty-thousand corpses. The place tried to look picturesque with red brick walls and a wrought iron gate lined with a well-kept garden. In my opinion, the ironic name takes away the entire fantasy.

I stepped out of my car with well worn jeans, work boots, and a grey T-shirt and loaded up with a toolbox filled with a mixture of ‘magical’ implements and mundane tools. To complete my costume, I pulled a shoulder-height maple wood staff carved with some celtic runes out from the back seat. I don’t often use the thing, as I only find it useful for focusing magic in the short term, but it looks cool and adds a bit more authenticity to my shtick.

“I’m Mark Bishop,” I greeted as I approached the guard booth next to the gate. “Here for a call on graveyard problems.”

“Er, hello Mr. Bishop,” The guard responded. He was a skinny guy in a grey guard uniform, and young too. His brass colored name tag read Josh. “You can come in through the pedestrian gate. Just please get rid of our zombie problem.”

“Hold up,” I drew the ‘hold’ on for longer than I should have, “I was called to get rid of a bunch of zombies?”

“Y-yeah?”

“What other details did they leave out?”

“Well, the zombies come out at night and stand in the mist. The government guys think they’re gearing up for an invasion of the city.”

“So you call up a magical handyman instead of someone who’s actually cut out for this work?” I let out an exasperated groan and mentally facepalmed. “Reverent Michael would’ve been a much better fit for this job.”

“I think you’re allowed to turn down the job if you want.” Josh said in confusion.

“No, no. I’ll do it.” I sighed, “This stuff just isn’t totally up my alley. Let me get a few things and I’ll get rid of your problem a day or so.”

I returned to my car and retrieved a Dick’s green folding chair and a red cooler from the trunk. Josh seemed to make a move to protest the new additions to my gear but reluctantly buzzed the pedestrian gate open. I gave Josh a polite wave and strolled in.

Despite the oppressive air of death and silence, the interior of Spring Heights turned out to be about as pretty as a cemetery can get. Closely cut bright green grass matched almost perfectly with the middle-aged oaks and bright flowers which sat upon ornately chiseled granite headstones lined an unmarked single lane road and meter wide sidewalks. At corners of the roads sat small flowerbeds protected by ornate and well-kept black fences. One somewhat pleasant thing about the cemetery were the hills. Spring Heights stuck true to the latter half of it’s name and boasted a suspiciously smooth and high hill close to the center, topped with a wide looping cul-de-sac of expensive mausoleums. Incidentally the best place for me to set up shop until nightfall, the time when the zombies were to come out.

There’s another assumption that a lot of people make about magic: that the power can allow one to make something out of nothing. In my experience, that simply isn’t the case. If anyone was summoning zombies, they were going around and digging up corpses for reanimation using whatever sickly power clung to the graveyard’s interior, and I imagined that someone would have made mention of upturned graves before hiring me. Which likely meant that there were no such zombies around. But that also didn’t mean they couldn’t be something worse than zombies, so I had to organize myself a little defense should that something ever stroll out of the mist.

At least from what I’ve found of magic, the use of circles integral to longer term magic. They represent what I call the three “C’s” of magic: Containment, Circulation, and Control. By focusing on these three aspects while drawing out a circle, even one as simple as a bit of chalk on the ground, one can greatly amplify the amount of power they can control now that they’re using a symbol as a medium for control rather than their bodies as a lot of young and upstart mages tend to do and, if you do it right, they can be self sustaining until the creator chooses to dispel the power, or someone finds an alternative way to break the circle. I needed a circle for protection and I wanted to keep those physically binding energies away from myself, so I chalked up a wide double-layered circle around my gear and lined the space in between with figures representing the capture and containment of magic as well as runes representing an impenetrable defense. In storybooks, that’s where the wizard would have stopped, but magic just isn’t that simple. I then had to fire up the circle, yet another thing that many people don’t understand is integral to magic: time.

I settled into my chair in as close as I could get as a meditative position and focused, sifting through the sickly dark energies of the graveyard for the powers which would be integral to my spell. Energies of the earth. I mentally reached downwards, deep into the earth and far past the graves of those below, pulling up a faint trail of rocklike sturdiness, the assurance that no matter how strong a storm might be, the fortress wall can weather it for centuries before eroding away. I fed the power to my circle, constructing a rock-solid barrier of force mystical brick by mystical brick, the end result being an invisible barrier of pure physical force that should prevent any zombies from getting through my circle, at least for a limited amount of time..

The circle probably took me the better part of an hour to get everything set up, but it was worth it. Any sort of barrier between me and any possible nasties on the other side was a welcome one to have, though the barrier itself would surely dissipate within a day if I didn’t dispel it beforehand. I set my alarm to ring at nightfall settled down with a sandwich and a Sprite, and waited.

I awoke to my phone’s alarm, ringing the comforting sounds of rain and wind chimes. Somehow, I had fallen asleep in the few hours it had taken for the sun to finally set and mist to seep out of the picturesque green grass. Thankfully, I was more than well rested enough to face the inevitable night ahead. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the deep darkness of nightfall.

My ears seemed to adjust with my eyes as the pale light of the moon and stars barely illuminated Spring Heights Cemetery. The formerly bright and plastic surroundings took to a more looming tone. Anywhere else, I would have been able to see reasonably far around the cemetery, yet my gaze hit a wall of mist twenty feet out just past the crest of the hill. Faint silhouettes seemed to shamble around the very edge of the mist. The moment my eyes caught on, the faint moans of air passing through dry, cracked lungs and throats seemed to drift towards my ears. I frowned. My little bubble of magic sat in the middle of Spring Heights, more than far enough away from the gates that no one could possibly hear a cry for help, much less respond to it with the stigma of a zombie infestation. Whoever was controlling the zombies had every reason to surround and and beat down upon my barrier to follow up and tear me from limb to limb. After all, I had no reputation of slinging around copious amounts of power. Nor would any magic user powerful enough to summon and control that many zombies have any reason to believe I could.

Unless there weren’t any zombies in the first place.

The moment realization washed over my mind, I immediately picked up my staff and whispered a deactivation keyphrase. My invisible barrier dropped and I stepped out. The sudden chill of night bit into my skin as I strolled further towards the mist. Yet, no matter how far I traveled, the mist seemed to remain a steady twenty feet away in any direction.

There’s always a saying that third time’s a charm. I take that saying to heart. First, no zombies had attacked me. Second, I couldn’t walk into the mist and none of the silhouettes approached me. Third, I set up a burning torch with the intent of burning away the oppressive mist. Needless to say, that attempt failed. The mist and zombies were definitely illusions.

Now came the difficult part: figuring out who was running the illusion. I was no expert in that particular field of magic, I prefer to stick to my runes and circles, but it was my knowledge that it was a magic that required active focus. The caster worked as a projector of sorts, conjuring and maintaining an absolutely perfect image of the illusion as it was to appear in the eyes of the target. In all honesty, it was a far more impressive feat than a necromancer summoning a bunch of zombies. Not to mention, an illusion the size of a cemetery was nothing a human could possibly pull off.

“What a curious little mortal we have here,” A woman’s voice drifted from over my shoulder. It seemed to be tinged with the rustling of dry autumn leaves blowing across asphalt.

“You’re right about that,” I replied as my gaze shifted about, trying to catch the source of the voice, “I’m very curious as to why a fairy is toying with a graveyard.”

“This matter does not concern you.” The voice turned harsher this time. More leaves rustled on the tinges of her voice.

“I’m afraid I have a stake here, Autumn Fairy.” I gripped my staff tight enough for my knuckles to turn white in order to keep my composure. Fairies are terrifying things, and powerful beyond anything a human I know can do. There would be no fighting in this one.

“What a smart mortal we have here,” The fairy said. Windy laughter floated all around me as a gust of autumn leaves coalesced into a roughly humanoid form of constantly shifting red and orange leaves in the center of my field of vision. The clearest details seemed to be a pale, regal human face topped with red hair the color of autumn and a sharply feminine jawline. “Do tell what your stake in this matter is,” She said.

“I’m not a fool, fairy,” I said flatly, “information like that isn’t a free.”

“Oh?” The fairy let out another windy laugh “And what might that price be?”

“Don’t bother this cemetery for a century,” I shifted my staff to my other hand. “That sort of time should be nothing to an immortal and all-powerful fairy such as yourself.”

“Flattery will gain you nothing but my interest,” The fairy replied. She slowly drifting a circle around me in the way only a predator who knows its prey cannot resist would. “But that information isn’t so pricey.”

“Fine then,” My heart began beating faster. I hoped the beads of sweat popping out on my neck weren’t nearly as visible as they felt. “We’ll do this the fairy way. We bargain your price and seal it with an exchange of titles.”

If any of the rumors were to go by, one had to be careful talking around a fairy. They supposedly are bound to their word and cannot lie, but that doesn’t stop them from twisting words into their favor.

“Those are reasonable terms,” The fairy said. She stopped circling now, but stood closer to me than before. I fought desperately to keep an outward cool. “I will quit my game for a century in exchange for a single mortal favor and his stake in the matter. Enforced by the exchange of titles.” For a moment, I thought I saw a grin flit across her face.

“A century is no more than a second in the eyes of a fairy,” I replied, “I have also given you a single request. My favor will must be a single request and not include a situation where I might be injured, nor will it take longer than one human month.”

“Very well,” The fairy replied. Her face betrayed no emotion. “I, Briacanae, Lady of the Autumn Winds, accept this bargain.”

“I’m Mark Bishop, a magical handyman,” I outstretched my hand. “I accept this deal.”

We shook hands a moment later. Nervous sweat and clammy fingers met the palm of cool autumn breeze. Other than the distinctly intangible touch of Briacanae’s hand, nothing extraordinary happened. No magic, no orange flashes. Simply the understanding that both of us would have to uphold our ends of the deal. For her, because it was impossible to otherwise. For me, because I could be a very dead man if I didn’t comply.

“When you leave, I get a nice payday that’ll cover my rent for the month,” I said after the moment finished, “That’s my stake.”

“At least this mortal is truthful,” The fairy said, her face drifting just inches away from my own. She grinned before darting away and disappearing into the mist.

Morning came a few hours later. I wasted no time in packing up what little gear I had brought with me and cleaning up the physical remains of my defense circle before power walking to the exit of Spring Heights Cemetery, hopefully never to see it again. I found myself greeted by a pair of police officers car and a very irritated and morning-tired security guard.

“Hey there Officers,” I said and waved as I exited through the pedestrian gate. “I took care of that zombie problem for Captain Johnson. Turns out it was a fairy pulling some illusion trick on this place’s night guards.” I made a motion to the grey suited morning guard.

“I’m sure Captain Johnson would love to hear that,” One of the officers replied while brandishing a pair of handcuffs. “You are under arrest for a Class D misdemeanor, trespassing on a gravesite. Drop your voodoo junk and put your hands behind your head.”

I began to raise my hands in protest, but quickly shifted it into an action of compliance. My gear clattered to the ground as a placed my hands behind my head and waited for the cold steel to bite into my wrists.

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So I decided to post again, sort of. I could be pretty healthy for me to actively write on a somewhat-weekly basis. At least for myself. Thanks to @shanyajain29 for throwing me back into the swing.

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[dekkyswriting]

I kind of killed myself

With school and the prospect of writing a longer story with multiple chapters (I had enough material to make the Hidden World series novel length) I kind of killed myself. I didn’t have enough time to plan out everything and school and live obligations kept me away from my blog. So... Sorry. I’ll try my best to upload more consistently in the future

-Dekky

[dekkyswriting]

Hidden World - Chapter 2

We sat in silence in a squishy red booth in the brightly lit pizzeria. I twiddled with the garnet pendant on my necklace. My birthstone, a gift from my mother mostly for sentimental value. The necklace was pretty, so I wear it a lot of the time.

The waiter brought over a medium cheese pizza on it, then disappeared in the back. No toppings. I wasn’t feeling all that creative to be honest. Any other day and I would have gotten double sausage and pepperoni. And maybe a salad if my mom was nearby.

“So, John,” I began. I waited a moment for him to respond before speaking again. “John,” He shivered, then turned to me.

“Yeah,” He asked.

Given his nature, anything could be true. And John Anderson was a very generic name.

“What’s your real name,” I inquired. Leaning back in my seat and crossing my arms. I think I read somewhere doing that establishes dominance or something.

“Oooooh you got me,” He replied. Smiling and shifting nervously in his seat. “My real name’s Michael Dealy.”

“No it’s not.”

“And you got me again.”

Why a person would go to school under a fake name, I have no idea, but this was interesting. Though it does explain why he was bad at responding to people calling him by name. I’d seen it happen before during Pre-Calc.

Someone entered the restaurant, a little bell hanging from the ceiling jingled as the man opened the door. John seemed to jump and sat stiffly in his seat.

“You know that guy,” I questioned.

“Yeah,” John replied quietly, “And he’s no fun to deal with.”

I had to say, the guy who walked in was pretty strange. He was wearing multiple layers of raincoats and wore a bucket hat pulled low over his, but what was really off putting were the car air fresheners poking out of the folds of his jackets. That didn’t stop the smell from hitting me like a brick wall. The guy reeked. Rotting meat was the best way to describe it, except worse. Think like taking a deep breath inside a garbage truck times ten. That’s how bad it was. And to make it worse, he sat two tables away from us.

“Have fun with your friend,” I said. I stood up and started to leave, covering my nose with the collar of my shirt.

John seemed to motion a small protest, but didn’t say anything.

However, the man did.

“You ain’t goin anywhere girlie,” he rumbled. The metal chair screeched across the tile floor as he stood up and began stomping towards me.

Anyone would have taken that as a threat, so I did the same thing any sixteen year old girl would do.

Kick him in the balls.

There was one small problem, though. The man didn’t double over in pain like he should have. Instead, he made a sluggish grab for my neck. I managed a light backstep and swiftly sidekicked him in the stomach with enough force to knock him over. The man gasped, releasing another burst of noxious air as he came crashing down on the table behind him. The side of his head clipped a chair as he fell, a perfect K.O. I Glanced over to the counter to see if a waiter was watching. There wasn’t. With any luck, someone had called the cops. I, however, planned on leaving.

“Whatever you’re doing,” I called to John across the restaurant, “I want no part in it.”

“I’m afraid it might be a little late for that,” He replied as I walked out the door. I shook my head in response.

I absentmindedly rubbed my pendant as I walked on a sidewalk running along the street. I could probably walk home in an hour or so. At least there were sidewalks all the way there.

My thoughts shifted to the garnet. It was said that if a person born in January wore a garnet, they would be gifted with greater strength, toughness, and become more resistant to illness. Naturally, all that astrology stuff was fake. But twelve year old me found interest in a lot of things. The gem almost seemed to glow as the faint feeling of a nostalgic hole in my chest flowed over me. I blinked in confusion and the glow disappeared.

I debated calling Kathy. If I remembered correctly, she was about to get off work. We hadn’t done much in a while and I’m sure she needed someone to proof read her fanfiction soon. Make sure it was gay enough for her followers on Tumblr.

Home was five miles away after all, and I hadn’t even walked half of one. I decided to call Kathy. I pulled out my phone and opened the contacts list.

Before I could make the call, I noticed a car pull up beside me.

“At least let me drive you home,” John said. His voice almost seemed worried, but I was sure he wanted to save face.

“No,” I replied flatly and kept walking, a little bit faster now. John lopsidedly drove beside me, trying to find the perfect speed to keep pace with my walking.

“But it’s dangerous to be outside alone,” John’s voice was full of fake pleading. He was probably attempting the puppy face too. I stopped.

“Look, asshole,” I said. My fists clenched, “Get a clue, when a girl tells you to leave her alone, you leave her alone. Got it, asshole?”

“Bu-” John tried to reply, but I simply kept on walking. All I wanted was to get home and finally sleep for ten hours. Was that too much to ask?

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Now that I’ve got chapter two in the bag, time to start on chapter three! And this time John (even though that’s not his real name) is gonna pull a few tricks out of his sleeve. Probably. I wanted this to be an important character building chapter, so I tried my best. (It’s not that great, I know)

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[dekkyswriting]

Hidden World - Chapter 1

“Alice, are you finished with your homework,” My mom shouted from across our tiny house. She was always an advocate for getting homework done as early as possible.

“Yeah,” I replied. My phone started buzzed. A text. I figured it was Sarah or someone like her. Inviting me to another Friday night party. Not that they were terribly interesting anyway. Mostly gobs of people smoking weed, drinking, and sharing the latest gossip. Typical high school stuff. I didn’t enjoy them much, but they were a great way to pass the time and gather dirt on people while I was at it. My pink bedsheets, a relic from my middle school days, beaconed to me with their fluffy warmth. I let out a large yawn. I hadn’t taken a break all week to keep up with my studies, and I was just itching to take a shower and clean off all the weariness of the previous week.

But rumor suggested Kate might be breaking up with her boyfriend, and I couldn’t wait the entire weekend to find out what was happening to a three year relationship.

The text was from the last person I would expect it to be from: John Anderson. To put it simply, he was a pretty weird kid. Now, you could associate yourself with him without ruining your social standing. He did show up to parties and stuff (no one was ever sure who invited him, though). But he didn’t have any long term friends. Once upon in freshman year, when I was looking for potential boyfriends, I had given him my number because I thought he was cute in a short and innocent kind of way. He’d never used it until that night.

It read: ‘do you want to play a game?’ with the winky-face-tongue-out emoji. Now if getting that wasn’t weird enough, it was ten o’clock at night and without any sort of context. I had barely even spoken to John except during projects in class. (Number exchanging had occurred due to the convenience of a biology project.) Either way, I was certainly not interested in playing games with a guy I knew nothing about. Snuggling into bed with a bowl of ice cream and netflix seemed far more entertaining. I quickly entered a simple ‘no’ and hit send.

I steadily began unbraiding my hair. Annoying brown stuff that was too curly to be wavy and too straight to be curly. An irritating in-between that made it nearly impossible to manage without an immense amount of styling. Oh the pain I have to go through for beauty.

‘What if it involved magic?’ the text read. This time accompanied by the sparkle and wand emojis. I let out an audible sigh this time. I wasn’t in any mood to play around.

‘Magic doesn’t exist, dumbass’ I responded, sifting through the clutter of dirty clothes and notes strewn about my tiny room for a set of hopefully clean pajamas. Yeah, I’m a slob. Sue me.

‘Then tonight’s gonna be pretty fun’ laughing face emojis. What was it with that kid and emojis? They only added his creepy vibes. I heard the doorbell ring. The creaking of the floorboards echoed through the house. I hoped it was Sarah, I really did. But my gut told me exactly who it was.

My mom burst into my room before I could play off any other kind of story.

“You didn’t tell me you had a date tonight,” My mother whined, “That John boy is cuuuuute” I sighed and rolled my eyes in response.

“It’s nothing like that, mom,” I replied flatly.

“I can’t believe it, my little girl growing up so fast”

I wanted to tell my mom exactly what it was word for word. But she was also incredibly emotional. I guessed I could deal with spending with a few hours with that John kid to make my mom happy. She deserved that much.

“Yeah, I’ll be sure not to stay out too late,” I replied

My mother grinned from ear to ear. “And if he does anything you don’t like, just karate chop him in the balls. That’s what you take classes for.”

I couldn’t help but laugh in response. My mom patted my back and pointed at the door.

“Go have some fun.”

I didn’t have time to do my hair over again, which sucked. At least I was still wearing jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt. I took a moment to tie on m high top vans and grab a leather jacket. Nothing fancy, but good enough to look presentable in public. I paused for a second to check myself in the mirror and sighed. Auburn hair didn’t go with the jacket very well. Maybe if I had blonde hair?

I brushed that thought to the side. I wasn’t going out with Sarah and her friends tonight, I was gonna ditch John’s sorry ass the first chance I had and get a froyo or something. Vanilla with chocolate sprinkles and gummy bears. Mmmmm, I could almost taste it.

John was standing outside the door when I stepped outside.

“Hi,” He said, giving a nervous, little, wave. Or was it sly? I couldn’t tell. But his hands weren’t shaking.

“Hello, John,” I said flatly, “What do you want?” I crossed my arms. Half trying to intimidate the guy and show I wasn’t going anywhere without an explanation and I certainly wasn’t going to spend any time alone with him.

“The local supernaturals are having a party at a warehouse twenty minutes away,” He replied, “I thought you might be a good addition to the community.”

“Or, you could go buy me a pizza and we could be on our merry ways,” I replied. John didn’t attempt to hide his disappointment. “I don’t think you noticed, but randomly picking up a girl at night is not a good way to invite a girl to do anything with you.”

He nodded in response, “It was worth a try,” He commented, “After pizza I can show you my workshop.” He paused for a moment. I moved to respond but he spoke first. “Workshop as in magical workshop, you get this gist?”

“Dude, I’m not going anywhere alone with you,” I growled. Anger was rising up in my throat.

“Pizza it is then,” He muttered, pulling out a ring of keys and gemstones.

At least John had a decent taste in cars. He had a 1967 Chevy Impala. Exactly the same as the one from Supernatural. A car that would make many a fangirl jealous. Or angry. Fangirls can be pretty crazy sometimes.

You couldn’t say I wasn’t looking forward to free pizza. Any kind of free food is great.

“Papa John’s or Pizza Hut,” John asked as he started the car.

“Pizza Hut,” I replied. This ride was doomed to be awkward.

We rode in silence for the better half of the ride there. It wasn’t a terribly long time, but the awkward tension between myself and John made it feel like an eternity. I was almost relieved when he started talking again.

“There’s a book in the back seat,” He said, “It’s not too big, can you bring it up front?”

So much for chivalry. John definitely was a whole lot more awkward in person than he seemed to be. But then again, I did want to know what this guy was up to. I twisted around and grabbed the book. Noting a couple of black duffel bags packed full with god knows what and a stick carved with some kind of runes sitting on the floor. It was too dark to see if it was a fantasy language I recognized. The book,, leather bound thing about the size of a copy of Heroes of Olympus. Definitely a hefty read, not something I was in the mood of starting. Especially when the book was ‘Magic for the Novice Wizard’ in gold lettering along the spine.

“What the fuck is this,” I demanded while examining the bindings. Looking for the name of an author or something for me too look up later. I searched for a few moments before giving up. The sun was setting too, so I didn’t bother with trying to read what was inside. “You’re going really far to make this magic stuff look real.”

“That’s because it is,” John replied. He snapped his fingers and a small light popped out from them and, with a subtle motion of his hand, moved it next to my head. “That should be bright enough for you to start reading.”

“You’ve got a light bulb tied to a string.” I replied, “It’s not a hard trick to do.”

“Maybe”

Needless to say, the book had piqued my interest. It was clearly fake as shit, but I might as well check it out. I had a light after all.

“This is idiotic,” I commented, “Magic circles, mana flow, mind imagery,” I listed off a the few highlighted points off the first page, “What kind of bullshit is this?”

“Magic”

That much was obvious. But it was also fake as shit. I put my money on the book being entirely blank after the first chapter.

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Soooooo... THat took a while. About halfway through writing this I realized I was stuck and had no idea how to get to the end in a timely manner. As I wrote more, I realized this story isn’t short enough to put in a short story. Which means I’ve got to write a few chapters. THis shouldn’t get to novel length, but expect another chapter this weekend!

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[dekkyswriting]

Re-Imagine

Inspired by this painting by Yuumei ^

I stand atop

This building

A dreary cube

Seventy-two people call home

With my easel ahead

And my paints at my side

I will change this world

Colored with blacks and greys

with my brush as my sword

I will re-paint this world

Bring the blue back to the sky

Plants back to

This concrete jungle

And power it with wind

This world grows duller by the day

So I will use my art as a rallying cry

To color this world in a rainbow of

revolution

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I think this is good? Maybe? idk. But I liked how it turned out so I’m not too worried about my grade. But here it is as promised. A poem I had to write for school. I hopefully have a source for a post this weekend (sunday?) but we’ll see. I’ll definitely a story by Sunday night.

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[dekkyswriting]

Oh god

I’m horribly sorry I forgot to post something last weekend. I was incredibly busy with work and school and I didn’t have the time to jot anything down. I have to make it up to you somehow?

You know what, I’m writing a poem for my english class, so I might just post that tomorrow when I have a final draft and I PROMISE a story for this weekend.

So so sorry,

Dekkys

[dekkyswriting]

Team ECSE Intro

It was three days before Elias started seeing shapes in the fog. At first, he was the only one who saw them, but upon closer inspection, the rest of Team ECSE (Eclipse) started seeing them too. None of the team members thought much of it. They thought it to simply be a being played on them by their minds. Spending three days in a foggy pine forest was incredibly creepy after all.

“Guys, I think the shapes are getting closer,” Cyrus said, lifting his cowboy hat from his head to wipe sweat off his brow.

Sapphire let out a loud sigh. “Our job is to search for dust deposits,” She said, “Not look for a fight.”

Elias scooped a fistful of dirt into a small cylinder and pressed a button. A small screen blinked for a few seconds, then flashed red. He muttered a curse to himself and dumped the dirt out.

“Yeah, but this dumb forest is too boring for my tastes,” Cyrus replied. He unhooked his five foot long greatsword from his back, leaned it against a tree, and lay on the ground. Shifting slightly in his cowboy-esque duster to find a comfortable position on the ground. “In the meantime,” he continued, “I’ll be sleeping.”

Sapphire’s hand drifted to the intricate hilt of her saber, but Elias placed a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s been three days and the detector still isn’t reading any dust, let him rest.” Elias turned to face a blonde haired girl in white military fatigues. “What do you think of those shapes, Esther,” he asked.

Esther drew a pitch black, mechanical looking shotgun. “I don’t like them,” She whispered in response.

“I guess I should be nervous then,” Sapphire muttered, brushing a lock of deep blue hair out of her face. She adjusted her blue steampunk dress, making sure everything was neat and comfortable.

Elias took a moment to retie his combat boots, making sure his jeans were tucked inside of them, then brandished a bladed whip from under his jacket.

“You should be,” He stated, “I think Esther has a pretty good sense of these things.”

Esther fired her shotgun. It’s blast echoed through the silent forest, jolting Cyrus awake.

“Hey, what was that for,” Cyrus shouted, quickly scrambling to his feet. Esther pointed to the ground at her feet. “Oh, grimm,” he sighed, picking up his greatsword and drawing it from his sheath.

The grimm wasn’t big, it was about the height of a normal human, but the similarities stopped there. The grimm’s back was hunched over, and it’s arms were disproportionately long and extremely slender, each hand replaced with wicked twelve inch long talons. No sign of it’s face remained after Esther’s shotgun blast.

“We should probably get moving,” Elias said, “There’s no way grimm didn’t hear the sound of that blast.”

Loud groans echoed throughout the forest and kept getting louder, Esther flipped a switch on the side of her shotgun and a shimmering blue shield popped out from the side.

“They’re close,” Sapphire commented, drawing her saber and a pistol from it’s holster on her waist. Two cracks erupted from Sapphire’s pistol. A pair of grimm fell from the trees above, each shot perfectly between the eyes.

The team started moving in unison. Esther took the front, Cyrus and Sapphire took each flank while Elias covered the rear, following the trail they had marked back to the landing zone.

“Didn’t the commander say this forest had minimal grimm levels,” Cyrus questioned, slicing open a grimm’s torso.

Elias swung his bladed whip, ripping off the heads of two grimm charging at him. “Clearly they were wrong,” He replied.

More grimm kept pouring out of the fog. For every single grimm the team killed, three more seemed to take its place.  

“We’re close,” Esther whispered while kicking another grimm to the ground and blowing a hole in it’s chest.

Beams of light shone through the branches. Each member of the team felt the warmth of the sun on their backs. The clangs of steel against talon and the pops of gunfire became more powerful as the team fought with greater strength, each member determined to drive off the horde of grimm.

“Cyrus, the emergency flare,” Elias shouted as he tore through grimm.

“I think I dropped it,” Cyrus mumbled.

Elias cursed under his breath. “Cover me,” he growled. Elias pressed a button on his whip. The coils began to glow bright orange and flames licked up from the cord between his whip’s blades. He slashed his whip upward, releasing coils of flame along his weapon, meeting at the top before launching a fireball into the sky. Three grimm charged at him. With the cord of his whip above him, Elias didn’t have time to react to the charge. He raised his free arm in front of his face. Elias knew his aura was more than capable of protecting him, but that didn’t mean he was immune to pain.

“You should have another mode for your weapon,” Sapphire muttered behind Elias. She dashed forward, her saber a blur of pale blue light. The blade split into three. One the original and two darting beside her, she slashed at the nearest grimm, each of her blades following suit on the other two grimm, each of their three heads hit the ground at the exact same moment.

“Thanks,” Elias replied.

Just then, the team heard the familiar rumble of an Atlas dropship. The grimm began to run off in response, rushing back to whatever dark cavern they clawed their way out from.

Cyrus cheered and waved his greatsword in the air. “Well boys, looks like we’re finally going home,” He shouted.

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Once upon a time I promised myself no more fanfiction. Yet here I am, writing fanfiction. Though since this is a RWBY OC team I guess I can let it slide since I’m really only using Remnant as the setting.

Anyway, team ECSE (Pronounced Eclipse)

Elias - The team leader. His name is a heroic one, which makes me think of gold

Cyrus - His name means young. His color is white because it’s a very impressionable color, easily painted over since he’s easily influenced. And yes, he wears a cowboy outfit.

Sapphire - She wears a blue steampunk dress. It’s hard to explain but I have a friend drawing her so I might be able to reblog it to my page. Color is kinda self explanatory

Esther - Her name literally means star. I think she’s kind of a shining purple. Something regal beneath her plain look.

I’ll write more entries on them in the future, these are just the basics.

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[dekkyswriting]

The Back of a Bookstore

Once I wandered

Amongst these cozy, wooden aisles

I searched through of books

Floated through the genres

I silently searched

Across the many shelves

To sate my need

For the perfect story

Authors both popular and unknown

Lined those corridors

Filled with stories

Simply waiting for someone with the passion to read them

I sat in those aisles

On a small chair of wood

Flipping through books

Devouring first chapters whole

Yet as I read

Searching for the perfect story

I began to realize

I would love to add my own

Now I sit here

Years later

I have created stories of my own

And I can feel them getting better

As I wander amongst these cozy, wooden aisles

I find myself comparing

My own stories to those

Beautiful enough to sit on those shelves

As I read on this small, wooden chair

I quietly fear

I might never write as tory

Beautiful enough to inspire

Others to live their life

In the way I have my own

Will my stories be good enough

To stand out from those shelves?

As I sit, read, and write

I fear in the back of my heart

That I will never create a story

With the beauty to inspire another heart

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So I decided to try my hand at poetry... Oops. This is certainly something I will never try again. Oh well, have a nice day everyone!

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[dekkyswriting]

Pretty great. I finally get to write for a profession, now to see if people actually like my work...

Your Tumblr username decides your profession. How is your first day at work?

[dekkyswriting]

I’m finally happy again

Write the happiest story you can using only four words

[dekkyswriting]

I Finally Started Reading Again

Okay, so, I recently just finished college and got my first job in the big city. It’s a pretty basic office job, but that’s irrelevant. I needed an apartment and found this awesome one in a brick building on the outskirts of downtown. I mean, this is an awesome apartment. It’s big and already furnished with a reasonably sized bedroom and two bathrooms, plus bonus space for a kitchen. What initially concerned me was the abundance of books and an incredible lack of TVs. The apartment contained none. I mean seriously, all of the wall space that wasn’t windows was covered in bookshelves full of books. But at $200 a month and twenty minutes from my workplace I couldn’t turn down the deal. I figured I could buy a TV and a stand within a few months. At least the place had Wifi

Now it’s worth noting that it’s been years since I’ve properly read a book. I can’t remember picking up a novel since my freshman year of high school. Or more accurately, I got grounded from reading because it was distracting me from my studies. By the time my parents un-grounded me, I never felt the desire to read. But within a few days of owning my new apartment, I could feel the books drawing me towards them.

Once I had gotten all my things in order after moving in, I had some time to kill before going out to my new workplace. I thought, since I had nothing else to do, I might as well check out the reading tastes of whoever had left the books in my apartment. The guy (or girl, I’m not trying to be sexist here) had a rather wide taste and didn’t seem to bother organizing his books much aside from keeping series of books together. I recognized many books from my childhood. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, and the like. As well as classic titles I had been forced to read in school, like the Odyssey and Beowulf. I wondered why any rational person would actually want to own those books. But hey, it’s not my life. What really caught my eye, however, was the wall of ancient leather bound books with faded embroidered gold lettering on what I think is the southern wall. I suppose books is a bad way to describe them, though. I suppose massive leather bound tomes is a better way to describe them. I found the titles strange to say the least. Many of them were the titles of popular series like Percy Jackson and The Lord of the Rings. Similar stuff to the normal books around. Either way. I could feel myself drawn towards them. Maybe it was some kind of recessive memory of my joy in reading way back when I was a kid or simple curiosity. Something about the books drew me in. By the time it was time for me to check in at work. I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing a book off the shelf, titled ‘necronomicon’ to read during break. I figured it would me more entertaining than looking at memes all day.

Working at all that day was super stressful. I couldn’t stop looking at my backpack. I had sacrificed my laptop and an empty binder to fit it in my bag. The I could feel the book drawing me in. Wanting me to read it. I only just barely managed to get through to my lunch break before I succumbed to my sudden desire to read. I took the elevator to the ground floor cafe, plopped down in a corner, and started to read.

Needless to say, finally reading again was wonderful. Even better than I had remembered it. Ever being before. The writing was so beautiful I felt like I was in the world of the book itself. I got to see vast swaths of space just like I was looking at pictures and I wandered amongst  massive underwater cities and tentacle beasts. I seemed to be a horror novel based on the way it was going, but it was an incredible one. I got to read about these things called the Elder Gods waiting in their prisons deep under the sea and some space wizard called Cthulu or something. Their plans for returning to the earth and bringing it to glory or, something like that. It was creepy, but it was good. The author even made some diagrams for how their magic worked and what their minions looked like. It was all some pretty weird stuff to be honest. All these weird runes that made me feel power. I can’t quite put my finger on how to describe it, but it was pretty incredible. And scary.

I couldn't take my eyes away from my new book until one of my coworkers dumped a cup of coffee on me. He snarled something about getting back to work and to stop reading my “weird ass satanist shit”. His sudden presence shocked me to say the least. I had been so deep into reading that book that I had completely lost track of time. I made sure none of the coffee spilled on my book and hurried back to my cubicle, where I crunched numbers from the rest of the day trying to focus. I didn’t regret reading that book though.

Once I got home, I decided to skip dinner. Something about the book was addicting. I needed to keep reading it, learn all the secrets it had to tell me and spread its word across the internet.

All in all, I’m pretty happy that I’m reading again. It’s so much better than I remember it being as a kid. It’ll certainly pass the time until I get enough money to buy a TV and a console.

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I decided to try my hand at horror. I don’t think it turned out too great. *sigh* I might try to make it up for myself with another story tomorrow or Sunday but I dunno. Have a nice day!

I posted this on reddit r/nosleep cuz it was relevant there

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[dekkyswriting]

Odd Bindings

I awoke with a jolt the taste of the cold metal floor bit into my cheek. Every one of my joints ached and my body felt fuzzy all over. Fuzzy like the static on a television when you flip to a channel that isn’t aired. The kind of fuzzy you get when your foot falls asleep. Even my head was ringing loudly as if I had been standing next to a gun or a massive stereo when it blasted.

I let out a loud groan as I rolled over. My aching joints flared with pain as I moved. As if protesting my will. There was an open door filled with blinding white light, sharply contrasting with the darkness of the dark metal cube I was lying in. I saw two silhouettes I couldn’t tell whether they were a man, woman, or any combination of the two. The light was simply too bright. I only barely managed to catch one phrase out of their conversation.

“It was bad, it’ll take time for her to adjust.”

Adjust? Adjust to what? I knew for a fact I was a man. Without thinking, I started a crawl towards the two silhouettes. I tried to say something, something like ‘help’ and reach out to the people, but it only came out as a loud groan. One of the silhouettes let out a squeal of surprise and the door slammed shut. I stopped trying to crawl and laid on my chest. Only I couldn’t lie flat on the ground like I had expected. Some kind of bulbous protrusions were popping out of them. My joints flared in protest again as a rolled over onto my butt and scooted over to the nearest wall. I observed what I could of my form under the blue hospital gown I was wearing once I found something resembling a comfortable position. Sure enough, I had somehow gained breasts of one form or another, as well as other forms recognizable on a woman. The one thing that hadn’t changed was my hair length, which hung just past my ears, exactly as I remembered it.

I racked my brain for answers. I had no idea what I was doing here. Or how I had transformed from a man to a woman. I clutched my head and screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Why, why are there no answers,” I cried. I think tears were falling out of my eyes by that point.

“Why”

I don’t know how much longer it was before I fell asleep. But I’m pretty sure I did at some point.

I woke up at one point. There was a searing pain in my side. I gritted my teeth in an attempt to prevent myself from screaming, but to no avail. I felt like someone had stabbed me with a long knife deep into my belly. Sliced open my belly and started moving around my organs. I was terrified to say the least. I clutched my thankfully untouched stomach and tried my best to keep from screaming and crying in pain. I’m pretty sure I wet myself at some point, but I couldn’t know. I had no way to tell the time while in a dark and empty cell. This went on for some time before the pain subsided and I was allowed to fall into the clutches of sleep. Not that it helped much. I could barely tell the difference between sleep and the darkness of my prison.

One day. Or maybe it was one hour. I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell the time whatsoever in my little corner of hell. Had it been hell? I would have felt a lot better knowing it was. That wasn’t the point though. I had heard something different. Completely out of the ordinary: shouting, human shouting. If I had to guess, it was someone giving out orders. Then there was gunfire. The familiar pulsing of laser carbines I knew from my short stint in the military way back when. It felt like it had been centuries ago thanks to that dark pit.

I started banging on the door. Shouting. Screaming. Calling for someone to come open the door for me and get me out of that miserable hell hole. After what felt like ages, light pooled into my eyes. It took me several seconds to adjust and somehow wobble to my feet. I stumbled after my first step. I would have fallen to the ground if a pair of strong arms hadn’t grabbed me. It was comforting to finally feel the touch of a human being.

“Thank you,” I whispered, leaning on the soldier man entirely for support. I could tell due to the military vest he wore.

“You’re welcome, miss,” the man replied, “Now follow us and the others.”

I nodded slightly and attempted to put my weight back on my own feet. I had to lean on the wall before I found my support. By then, my eyes had adjusted to the light and I saw several other people in blue hospital gowns just like mine standing behind a group of five soldiers. All dressed in black. One of the soldiers, the leader I believe, shouted an order and everyone started following. I joined the crowd of seven or so apparent prisoners like myself following the soldiers in black. We passed a sign that read ‘Soul mate medical technologies’. Odd. I had never heard of a company that went by that name. I should have known if I was in one of their facilities. A person had to sign contracts in order to be captured and thrown into a place like that.

I looked around further as I followed the soldiers and the crowd. Everything seemed off somehow. I was sure I had heard fighting through my cell door, yet there was no smell of charred flesh, nor bodies for that matter. There weren’t even so much as ash marks from high intensity laser beams. Something was strange.

“Stop,” I shouted, everyone stopped moving, “What is happening, what is this place, tell me before we go anywhere”

One of the soldiers piped up, the leader, “Miss, everything will be explained back at base. Now just follo-”

The man didn’t have time to finish his sentence before everything went bright white.

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Now that was pretty confusing there, I’ll say. Or at least that was the intent. Same with that awful cliffhanger. I’m not sure if I want to continue this story to be honest. I’m not sure if I enjoy the whole situation our main character is in. It’s pretty creepy. Needless to say, I hope you enjoyed reading my story for this week! Since I’m in school now, I’ll be posting on Saturdays for what I hope to be a pretty regular schedule.

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[dekkyswriting]

Delivery Day

Finally, after a straight eight hours of driving, Elias arrived at his Brooklyn apartment. A cozy space with a single bathroom, bedroom, and a larger living room with a mid sized kitchen area in the corner. It was his personal favorite of all his apartments. The walls had been lined with nearly ceiling-high book shelves, most of which were stacked with books for pleasure reading, trinkets from the places he visited in the past as well as magical tomes and trinkets. Complete with a large and warm leather couch complemented by a large flatscreen TV and game console for whenever he didn’t feel like reading. He couldn’t wait to collapse in his bed and grab a short nine hour nap. He had driven all through the night and captured a rogue werewolf. It was tough work, after all. But the whole incident was weird. Transformation wasn’t an easy feat. The kid should have been a lot more powerful than he was. Elias brushed the thought aside, it wasn’t his business what kind of magic interested kids.

Elias’ cell phone buzzed right before he collapsed into his bed. He silently spat out a string of curses and grabbed his phone to read the text.

I’ve got a 50k job, meet me at starbucks. - Kat

Elias growled and resisted the temptation to throw his phone at the wall. There was no way Kat could have found his number. It wasn’t linked to any of his names or internet profiles. It was a personal phone he shared with personal friends. He hated Kat for always finding out some way to contact him, no matter what he tried. It was always unexpected and irritating. What irritated Elias more was that he knew Kat never really needed his services as a bounty hunter. She had far more than enough power to ruin a person’s day. Everything from poisoning her target’s morning coffee to dropping a building on his head. Kat was insane, and Elias knew it was never a good idea to get on her bad side. That’s the only reason he took any of her jobs. Fear.

There was no time to take a shower. Elias slowly pulled on his black army jacket. There was no point in risking being late to a job meeting and finding out his shower actually sprayed lava instead of water. He slowly dragged himself to his feet and stalked out the door. Lava shower or not, that day was certainly going to be a bad one.

It took Elias several minutes to shape his walking form into something more friendly than a murder. Needless to say, he failed before arriving outside the nearest starbucks from his apartment and braced himself for what was to happen next.

“Elias!”, a stout girl with long, flowing black hair shouted before jumping up and wrapping her arms around him. Elias stiffened in response to the sudden contact.

“Yeah, hello Kat,” Elias responded, his tone flat.

Kat drew away and began pack up her computer, “I’ve got a pretty easy job for you this time, I just need you to take this,” she held up a pink flash drive the size of Elias’ thumb, “to my friend in that outdoor theater at Central Park.”

“That’s it,” Elias questioned, there was no way that flash drive could be worth more than fifty grand.

“Yeah, it’ll be totally easy for a clever and powerful mage such as yourself,” Kat patted Elias on the head, even though she had to stand on a chair to do so. He shivered, everything about the job screamed trap. But fifty thousand dollars was also a lot of money, and Kat was someone no one wanted on their bad side. Not even the kings of the underworld, the dragons, messed with her.

Elias sighed, “Fine”

“Yay!” Kat jumped up and down excitedly and slipped the flash drive and a set of keys into his jeans pocket, leaned closer, and whispered, “I left a motorcycle just perfect for you outside, take it as a bonus for being so nice”

Elias took a half step backwards, “Yeah, I’ll get this done quickly, too.” He quickly turned around and half walked, half ran out the door to a motorcycle all to conveniently parked right outside the Starbucks. Elias recognized the model, it was an expensive one, Elias had his eye on it in the past but never ended up buying it. He sighed and zipped up his black army jacket, making sure all his pockets were loaded and secured before putting on the thankfully black motorcycle helmet Kat had provided. He fished the keys out of his pocket and revved the motorcycle to life. Shifting into high gear, Elias shot onto the street and headed towards Manhattan and Central Park.

Air rushed past Elias as he weaved through traffic as fast as possible, squeezing between lanes of traffic as needed. He wondered exactly how Kat knew so much about everyone and why she needed his services at all. Kat was more than capable of killing anyone she contracted Elias to take out. He shook his head. Money was money, and as long as the bills were paid Elias couldn’t care less.

Getting all the way to Central Park was easy. It was still noon and rush hour wasn’t anytime soon. It didn’t take him long to find the theater Kat was talking about either. But whatever friend she was talking about clearly wasn’t there. At least not yet. Elias made sure his new motorcycle was properly warded against robbery before casually strolling towards the large concrete amphitheater.

Elias had just barely entered the amphitheatre when he was blinded by a stream of crimson fire. He barely had time to jump out of the way, although his eyebrows were still singed off. He oriented himself with his attacker, a bald man in a pearly white suit with firey red eyes and pupils in the shape of tall slits, like a reptile’s. It was a dragon. Elias had only just gotten back on his feet when the dragon outstretched his hand and launched another stream of crimson fire at him. Elias had to think fast. He could only use water to safely block dragon-fire, but it was still fire, and fire needed oxygen.

Without a moment of thought, Elias clapped his hands together, driving the air out of the space in front of him. With no fuel, the fire sputtered and died before him, though Elias hadn’t considered the consequences. As soon as he released his control of the vacuum space in front of him, air immediately collapsed inward, sucking Elias in with it, knocking him  entirely off balance. The concussive blast caused by the colliding air made his ears ring shrilly. Unbalanced and disoriented, Elias attempted to stand up. He had only just gotten to his feet when a punch with the force of a brick wall sent him tumbling back to the ground.

“It’s never a good idea to steal from a dragon,” the dragon growled, looking down at Elias, who was struggling to regain his breath.

“Steal what?” Elias retorted. The dragon went in for another punch, which Elias barely managed to block with a blast of air. The concrete next to his head cracked. Elias certainly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of another one of those punches. He quickly conjured a second gust of wind and blew the dragon several feet backwards, scrambled to his feet, and began sprinting away as fast as he could.

Dragon fire isn’t exactly like normal fire. Dragons were immensely powerful magical beings, so powerful that they could create fire by igniting the oxygen in the atmosphere without any form of catalyst. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t unblockable. Dragon fire was more than capable of blasting through any wall of air or earth Elias could create. Water was another story entirely. If Elias could find a body of water to manipulate. He would easily be able to survive the Dragon’s onslaught.

And so he ran. Elias could feel the rage of the dragon down the hairs of his back. If they were anywhere other than the city, Elias didn’t doubt the dragon would have transformed into its true form.

Another blast of fire was coming, Elias could feel it, and he was more prepared this time. He created a small platform of air angled slightly to the side and jumped, narrowly avoiding the crimson inferno. Elias knew there had to be a pond somewhere nearby.

There was, Elias began sprinting towards it even faster than before. He was almost flying. Except there was another blast of dragon-fire chasing him down, it was wider this time and he had no chance of dodging it.

Ten feet.

Five feet.

One foot.

Elias dove below the water just as the wave of dragon-fire descended upon him. He immediately began shaping his magical energies, taking control of the pond, expanding and bending the water to his will. He stood up and slowly waded out of the water. Willing the moisture off of his body as he rose above the pond.

“I really don’t want to fight like this, Dragon,” Elias calmly stated. He began to swirl the water around him.

“Not unless you return what you stole, human mage,” The dragon replied, a sneer was plastered across his face, “you are powerless against me.” He raised his arms and released another wave of crimson flame from his fingertips.

Elias sighed and shaped his water into a wall. The dragon fire collided against it with a roar. Clouds of steam rose from the collision, but Elias’ wall held strong.

As the onslaught of crimson flame continued, Elias felt his energies draining. He realized that even with the power of water at his fingertips, it wouldn’t be enough to stave of the Dragon’s flame. Yet Elias heard something in the distance. Something he hated more than everything but was more grateful than ever to hear at that moment. Police sirens.

It didn’t seem the Dragon heard the sirens at first, but he did as the sirens drew nearer. He ceased his stream of dragon fire as soon as he did.

“You seem to be lucky, mage,” The dragon growled, “It won’t be so next time.” He began to stroll towards the police.

Elias took the chance and ran. Instantly ridding himself of whatever water still clung to his clothes. He saw Kat leaning almost suggestively against his motorcycle as he approached it. He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket.

“What was with that dragon,” Elias demanded, throwing the flash drive she had given him to transport, “And take your damn flash drive.” Kat simply smiled in response and caught the drive.

“I knew you’d take care of that dragon for me,” She said sweetly, patting Elias on the cheek. He shivered as Kat touched him. “I left the money at your place.”

“Do it yourself next time,” Elias muttered, putting on his helmet and starting the motorcycle. He gunned it out of Central Park and decided: once he got home, it was time for a nap.

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Holy cow did that take a long time to write. And edit for that matter. School just started so the writing process took longer than I expected, but all is good. I’ll do my best to have a post up every weekend. Either Saturday or Sunday depending on my workload. Hopefully my extra long story makes up for the lateness of my post. Though it’s sort of a chapter two to this story. Thanks for reading...

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[dekkyswriting]

It all started when the darkness descended. Not a literal darkness, that's just what we called them. We still do for that matter. No one was really sure what the Darkness was to begin with. All we knew was that it was there.

The first warning wasn’t anything spectacular. Granted, no one noticed it until after it happened. The moon waned faster than it ever did naturally. It was slow at first, then faster and faster. Before we knew it, the moon was gone. We’re pretty sure it still exists, the ocean hasn’t gone into chaos. At least not yet. What am I saying? The moon was covered in darkness, and earth was next. The Darkness came next. At first we saw pairs floating silver dots, all about eye level with a regular human. And whenever they were near, lights covered with inky blackness. Candlelights, streetlights, and even an industrial floodlight was covered in pure dark. People were scared. They panicked and rioted. And all waited for the sun to come up. Only it never did.

Then the machines came. No one could tell exactly what they were. Only that they could barely be seen. But heard much more clearly. Some of the smarter people threw stuff at them. It seemed to break the machines. They seemed fragile, but if you got touched by one, you were gone forever. Nothing spectacular. Just gone. Poof. Disappeared into nothingness. The darkness is terrifying, but we know two things about it. The orbs can only see us, not touch us. And the machines can be broken. There’s a rumor out there, though. A bigger machine. One that can’t be broken by throwing stones at it. A machine that will take some real firepower to break. And you’ll never know where it is until it’s right upon you. 

Start a SHORT story with “the darkness descended,”

3 paragraphs tops. Emphasis on short, I want to read them. Each individual story.

[dekkyswriting]

A Standard Patrol

“Patrol force Mongoose-3 you are cleared for departure,” The comm buzzed just as Captain Altman relaxed into his surprisingly comfortable high backed command chair.

“Roger that command,” the captain replied into the comm, switching it off when he finished. He then spoke to the star cruiser’s pilot, Ensign Sully, “Ensign, take us out at one quarter pulse and wait for the rest of the patrol force to fall into formation.” Altman felt the familiar rumble of the ship's massive ion thrusters ignite as they glided out of the docking port in the Dreda System Command Station.

The captain silently sighed and resisted the temptation to rest his head on his fist. Today was just another standard patrol mission along the United Republic of Earth’s border with an alien race the public only knew as the Rhemen. Large silicon-based beasts whose ships, ironically, were grown out of durable carbon-based organics. What the public didn’t know was just how dangerous the Rhemen were. Their ships were resistant to most of the conventional laser technology that the majority of humanity armed their warships with. And just to make it worse, they were hyper aggressive towards any non-Rheman starship that wandered into their space. As a result, patrol missions such as the one Captain Altman was commanding were organized both to keep the Rhemen out of Human space and to make sure no human wandered into the wrong Rheman system and started a war. Earth Command already had enough on it’s hands dealing with the Sato Dynasty of Planets.

“Captain, E.C.S. Camelot and Athens are in formation,” Ensign Ivan, the comms officer, said.

“Excellent,” Altman replied, “Order them to follow in formation Alpha-2 at Warp 7, I want to get this patrol done efficiently.”

“Copy that, captain.” The ensign replied.

Patrol missions were usually quiet affairs. Something that were often used as tests for officers in training. After all, actual field experience is always more worthwhile than a classroom. At least that’s what Earth Command told themselves. Captain Altman knew it was a way to keep the troublemakers away from the Naval Academy back on Earth. And what better place to drop them in a fifty year old backwater command station in a quiet area of space for a little “field” training. Trainees only slowed down normal operations. But Captain Altman also didn’t like being completely bored.

“Trainee Evan,” Altman said, referring to the student currently operating the first officer’s station while he was off duty, “Bring up the schematics for the E.C.S Athena and Camelot and put them on screen.” The captain heard a stifled laugh from the comms officer. It was clear Altman was putting the trainee on the spot to tease him.

“Y-yes sir,” Evan replied, quietly. Captain Altman allowed himself a small smile as the kid fumbled with the controls on his console. Evan had been shipped out to the Dreda System Command Post on account of spray painting the dean’s office door a lighter shade of red. He was lucky a stunt like that didn’t get him expelled.

After a stunningly long thirty seconds, Captain Altman finally saw the schematics for the Earth Command Ships Camelot and Athens pop up onto the screen. Both were unimpressive ships. Nothing like the ones you would see on the front lines or close to Earth, but they did their job. The Athens, an almost disk shaped starship several small hangar bays hanging off the bottom of it, was a fittingly named Hermes-Class light carrier, carrying five wings of fighters and bombers nicely complimented by the bullet shaped Mars-Class medium destroyer, the Camelot, which was fitted with high-intensity plasma throwers. A weapon uncommon even on the front lines. Altman wondered what kind of strings the captain of that ship had to pull to get such odd weaponry. Both were classes of ships that Altman had served on in the past. Which made the deftness of which his Drake-Class Command Cruiser, the Mongoose, could give direct them even smoother.

“Captain, we have a Rheman ship on long range scanners,” A comms officer said behind him.

“Do we now,” Captain Altman confirmed, “Notify the fleet and bring us closer, let’s make sure the ship doesn’t wander too far into Human space before someone gets spooked.”

“Copy that,” Ensign Sully said.

The flight took a few suspenseful minutes. Captain Altman was genuinely curious as to why a Rheman ship would be so far beyond the borders Earth Command had so carefully mapped.

“Sir, I think you would like to see this,” Trainee Evan piped up, surprisingly. A few second later, the charred husk of an ant-like Rheman starship popped on the main viewing screen.

“Call a retrieval team, I’m sure Earth Command would love to see this.” Captain Altman said. He observed the corpse of the Rheman ship if one could even call it a corpse. Dozens of perfectly circular holes had been drilled through the ship’s carapace-like hull. Clearly not something Human technology could do. Besides, Humans outfitted their ships with missiles carrying payloads of extremely powerful acid as the armor of Rheman starships was extremely resistant to conventional laser technology. That meant something nearby clearly wasn’t human.

“All ships red alert and prepare for attack!” Captain Altman shouted, “We have potential Krell contacts!”

Captain Altman couldn’t contain his surprise. Every time the Humans had seen the Krell, it always ended in a shootout. And every time, the Krell had won. With any luck, reinforcements would arrive and the fleet would survive the encounter.

The ship suddenly rocked, nearly throwing the captain on the floor.

“Heavy damage to deck five!” one of the bride officers shouted.

Captain Altman didn’t bother to confirm the message, “Return fire!” He shouted, “Open all available laser batteries and bring those damn Krell ships on screen!”

The image was brought up faster than expected, and Altman was greeted with the image of seven bulbous starships. Krell Starships.

“Sir, the Athens has been destroyed.”

Captain Altman didn’t even bother to respond. He reached to his personal command console and tapped out a warning for Earth Command to notify them of the attack. With any luck, the retrieval fleet would turn back.

“Crew, it’s been a pleasure serving with you,” Altman said, “Comms, notify the crew to abandon ship.”

“Yes Sir.” the officers sprinted off the bridge to their personal escape pods.

Captain Altman watched helplessly as the lasers his ship was firing darted towards the Krell ships, only to collide with a barrier of light before reaching it’s frail looking hull. Warning lights blinked, indicating the total destruction of the Camelot.

“So this is how it ends,” Captain Altman muttered to himself, sitting down in his high-backed command chair. It didn’t seem so comfortable any more. Now that death was unavoidably staring him right in the face. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

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Damn, I’m slow on the upload. And with a depressing ending at that. I’m sorry about that. I have a secret schedule to have a story posted every Wednesday, but let’s keep my failure to keep up with that a secret, kay? Wonderful. I totally wasn’t ironically watching this ted talk before I forced myself to write this.

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[dekkyswriting]

Soooooooo... I need requests for stuff to write. I’m kind of bored. No real restrictions to requests and I’ll try to write all of them

[dekkyswriting]

Yeah Write Week 30

An excerpt from section 5, chapter 10: Unseen Defence of the Person in the textbook: Subtle and Practical Skills for the Educated Practitioner by Aaron Gallofree

Dreams

Dreams are dangerous things. They are a long period of time when we lose conscious control of our thoughts and ride the subconscious streams of energy flowing through our minds, allowing our emotions to take control and in some cases, external beings. While in the dream- state. A person’s mind is vulnerable. Any decent wizard would simply cast a ward around the chamber he has chosen to use for sleeping and fall asleep normally as was discussed in Chapter 7: Constructing Supernatural Wards. However, there may be a case when visiting a fellow wizard’s lair and spending the night there is necessary. In the wrong eyes, raising a ward around one’s temporary bedchamber can be seen as an act of mistrust and hostility. This section is designed to assist the reader in building up natural defenses to protect one’s mind without a ward.

Function

A practitioner with full control over his or her thoughts is perfectly safe during the hours he or she is awake, but during the hours of sleep, a mind untrained in the arts of dreamwalking, or lucid dreaming as the mundane term goes. Though for the purposes of this section, lucid dreaming and dreamwalking will be treated as different terms each with a respective definition. Lucid Dreaming being a method of forcing oneself to change aspects of a dream while Dreamwalking is the act of casting an enchantment to keep one’s mind conscious while the body rests.

Dreamwalking or Lucid Dreaming

As was stated earlier. The effects of Lucid Dreaming and Dreamwalking are the same, but the methods of going about it are different and each are concisely described in their respective definition. However, as Lucid Dreaming is mundane and requires unnecessary time and effort in comparison to it’s magical counterpart, no further time will be taken in practicing Lucid Dreaming.

Dreamwalking takes the form of an enchantment. As this enchantment is designed to act on the person, no target other than the person is necessary for casting except as an example so students might be able to feel the energy and attain a deeper understanding of how the enchantment is meant to work. Although there will be a paragraph designed to provide deeper understanding of the magic. No tools are required for effectively casting this particular enchantment.

Sub mari, textus somno. Sub cogitationes animi dolorem. Dum mens requiescit excitare. Virtus in medio posita, quae talis est, ut caput.

(Under the sea, the web of sleep. Beneath the thoughts of the mind so deep. While the body rests the mind must wake. Such that it may know the power which rests inside it's head.)

An english translation is available, but any experienced practitioner in the Art will be capable of feeling the power and purpose in the words rather than attempting to find a practical translation, doing such is a mundane thing.

Do not expect to find immediate results of the enchantment. It is not designed to put the target to sleep, but to take hold once the target has entered the dream world and allow him or her conscious action inside it, also meaning that all conscious techniques used to protect the mind while awake are doubly effective when used during sleep. Refer to section 3 of Chapter 2: Practical Defensive Skills for more information on defense of the mind.

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I was reading Grave Peril by Jim Butcher before I wrote this, then I realized I needed to order my textbooks for school. I guess I was infected with weird magic stuff textbook orders. Oops.

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