Are you bored at work? Perhaps the game servers are down and you are just killing time on these forums. Could be you're like me and love to dabble and try your hand at writing from time to time. If so I have an idea to soak up some time in between new module's for this game we play.

For those interested...



Assignment #1:

Pick a weapon you know and love. Try and write something describing that weapon. You could write one line. You could write one single paragraph about it. You could attach it to this thread or start your own all about that weapon. It could be a large and lengthy tale with lots of characters or a simple description of the weapon itself. It could be a description merely of what happens when it is used. For example, imagine a page of text going in detail on the use of a Vicious weapon. Ouch!

I don't ask anyone to do something I am not willing to do myself, so I'll go first.







The Mace

(A memory of Nalinor's)

by

SniptheShadow




Everyone crowded around the treasure chest as Nalinor worked the lock. Someone bumped him and his pick scraped the detailed etching on the gold outside of the lock. Nalinor hissed and shoved hard to get everyone back. If this thing was trapped!!

"Could I breathe while I do this, please!?"

People nodded and stepped back, and the barbarian grunted in what Nalinor took for a sloppy apology. The sorceress was all smiles and big strawberry blonde hair. She always seemed to be grinning at him, and it made Nalinor self-conscious. Her smile looked like she had a big secret and couldn't wait to tell him.

He turned back to the chest.

The lock was made in a design he wasn't familiar with but he soon figured out its workings and the satisfying *clack* sounded to all their ears. He opened the chest wide and then was knocked out of the way as his companions, all save the sorceress, went at the contents of the loot like wolves on a carcass.

The sorceress smiled down at him. Nalinor looked directly up at her and her upsidedown face made his head swim and his blood pump faster.

"You were a bit slow getting it open," she said.

Sorrow. Her name was Sorrow. Odd name for a woman so beautiful, thought Nalinor.

Nalinor looked at the treasure chest over from where he had just been crouched. The other four in the group were all heading off out of the room and either comparing their finds or arguing over ownership.

A tiny hand came into his line of vision. "Here, I'll help you up."

Nalinor took hold of her hand and his blood flow sluiced through his ears like language. She was so beautiful! She pulled him to his feet.

"I thought rogues were supposed to be nimble."

"I wasn't expecting my companions to toss me to the floor in their greed," he retorted a bit too abruptly.

"Let's see if they've left anything for us," she said and then smiled that same smile again.

"You always smile like you have a secret," he said.

Not looking back as she headed over and peered down into the depths of the chest she said, "Perhaps I do."

Nalinor said, "I'm Nalinor."

Sorrow said, "I know."

He bit down on his lip, not knowing what else to say. She pulled out four scrolls and a wand in a darkwood case. Everything disappeared into pockets hidden within her robe. Nalinor let his eyes quickly scan the curves beneath the fabric of her robe until she spoke and he felt his face redden.

"You can have what's left."

He blinked and swallowed and said, "Thank you."

He leaned over and looked into the treasure chest.

The insides were lined with a red plush velvet trimmed in gold. The only thing left inside the chest was a mace.

Wonderful, thought Nalinor.

He reached in and grabbed it by the hammer head and then pulled his hand back and stumbled away. Pain shot up his arm from his fingertips and it made him dizzy. The sensation was cold but it burned, it burned like fire.

"Here, here," said the sorceress and grabbed his hand and examined it. She bit her lip and then produced a salve from another hidden pocket and rubbed it on Nalinor's burns.

Nalinor watched her as she tended him. She smelled good! Her hair smelled of lilac and her fingers rubbing his blacked out everything else in the world; there was only her.

"My name is Sorrow," she said, not looking up.

"I know," said Nalinor.

_____

"Reach in and grab the HANDLE and not the business end this time," she said.

Nalinor lifted out the mace and held it up to the torchlight. The leather around the hilt felt nice in his hand; soft and spongy. It had tufts of white fur that jutted out near the base and the place where his thumb curved around the thing. He tested the weight and it felt heavy and perfect. The metal was made of a dull black iron and it seemed to have a grayness to it like --

"Is that frost?" he said out loud.

"It has a snowflake on the side, so I should think so," said Sorrow.

Nalinor twisted it around and saw the star branded deep into the black metal. He had never seen snow before so he would just have to take the woman's word for it.

"We should hurry and catch up to the others," said Sorrow. "Bring your new toy, Nalinor."

Nalinor watched her move off ahead and out of the room.

He hooked the mace to a loop on his belt and ran after her.

_____


The sound of screaming caused Nalinor and Sorrow to break into a sprint. The sound echoed down the corridor out from the darkness and sent shudders rippling through Nalinor.

They came around a corner to chaos.

Nalinor took in the scene:

Metal blades had erupted from the floor and spun in place like fans of death. He counted two rows of six. One had the remains of the paladin. A severed arm clenched the air not far from him, but the rest spun round and round and he screamed like a little girl. Blood drops flew out like rain in spirals from him, both arms missing and both wounds jutting his life away like a fountain.

A red-robed priest with a necklace of bones wielded magic and his hands glowed deep blue and black. Undead filled the room both in front of the blade barrier and behind. The barbarian fought shoulder to shoulder with the fighter while the cleric was unconscious on the floor. The other fighter had somehow managed to get himself trapped beyond the blade barrier and was trying to fight the horde of zombies there all alone.

The barbarian yelled, "The traps, man! The traps!"

But Nalinor was distracted.

Sorrow was trading arcane magics with the evil cleric. For every spell he tried she countered with a blast of fire this time, and a zap of lightning the next. The priest shouted something in a language that made Nalinor feel dizzy and then Sorrow wasn't moving. A blue light swiraled around her. The priest laughed.

Nalinor crouched down as an axe went wizzing by his head and he moved into the room. The men battled the things around them and the gore on the floor grew massive and slippery.

The priest was mumbling more words that made Nalinor's skin crawl. He moved around the edge of the wall away from his chanting and tried to find a control box for the traps. The paladin's screams had ceased.

The air began to open.

Nalinor blinked and couldn't believe what he was seeing. The air was ripping open in a verticle slit from...nothing. One minute he could see the fighter and barbarian engaged in battle across from him and the next the air tore wide.

An arm reached through from the other side.

It was huge in size, the skin so black it pulled in the light around it. The fingers of the giant hand ended in blood-red talons and they gripped the open air in an eagerness that made Nalinor need to pee.

Nalinor could see things beyond the rip in space.

The thing on the other side shifted and twisted and tried to come through and Nalinor could see a sea of gibbering and clawing red-eyed things moving like waves on an ocean in hell waiting to come through from the other side. The priest was doing it.

Nalinor could tell by the look on the man's face that he was working some nightmarish spell and trying to open the rift. Nalinor took a step and then spotted the trap box. He would need time to work the mechanism to shut it off. Time! No time!

He looked over his shoulder and saw his comrades standing hip-high in fallen corpses, he saw Sorrow still frozen in place with the spinning corpse of the paladin swiraling and swiraling insanely in the backdrop behind her, armless and impaled on the blade barrier.

He looked back and the priest was looking into the rift as it widened, mesmerized.

A screeching noise poured out from the rip in the air and it froze everyone in place; something was coming through. The priest laughed again.

Nalinor didn't think about his next movements, he merely acted.

Still crouched down low to the floor he slithered up as fast as he could around behind the priest. He reached down for his weapons but this time his hand grabbed the handle of the mace and not the hilt of his dagger. The mace was dangling from his belt and there would be no hissing sound drawing it from a sheathe like there would his blades, so he took hold of the mace, drew back and hit the priest in the ribs.

The priest half growled, half yelled in rage and pain and he turned around at his assailant.

Nalinor watched in fascination as the priest slowed down in his turning around to confront him. He reached out his hands at Nalinor, opened his mouth to utter a spell at him and then stopped. His eyes were open wide and full of hatred at first, a look like he wanted nothing more than to drink from Nalinor's skull later after the battle, but the look to turned terror. The eyes widened further and Nalinor saw frost travel across them.

The priest was freezing in place.

With arms outstretched, with mouth opened mid-spell he froze into a glistening white statue. He sparkled in the torchlight. His robe was a thing of beauty and his every hair was a thin wondrous strand of ice. Nalinor could even see nose hairs frozen. The eyes were orbs of frozen fear locked on Nalinor.

The priest shattered.

Nalinor involuntarily let out a shout as shards of the priest bounced off in every direction with the sound of windows being shattered by a stone.

And with his death went the horde. The zombies faded away in a black smoky mist and the rip in the air softly popped closed. They all could hear the frustrated wail from the giant thing with the taloned hand. It started just as the rip sealed over and echoed around the now empty room, save for the companions and the grinding sound of the spinning blade barrier.

Nalinor looked down at the mace in his hands.

The barbarian cheered and held his axe high overhead.

Sorrow came up and stood next to him, her small boots crunching on ice. Her last foot fall crunched the priests face into powder.

"Do you like your new toy?"

Nalinor kissed her.

"I think I do," he said.




The end