Nothing makes sense these days, I think I'm going mad I tell myself but sometimes it all becomes drastically clear. What a waste of time it all was, yet is anything really a waste?
Sometimes I remember enough to know I forgot something very important and sometimes I know I'm right but just don't know what about.
It all started long ago when Gillion Darkendrath, the closest thing to a father I ever had brought me to this accursed city, the city of doors. Gillion or 'Sir' as I always called him was a Necromancer. I spent a lot of my younger years cleaning off bones and polishing the dried blood out of brass bowls. I really wasn't fond of it at all but Necromancy really is one of those kinds of magic you love or hate. The problem with it is, the animations, as Gillion used to call them, were dead. Always we were surrounded by them doing his work but empty their eyes were, empty and soulless.
Gillian knew it wasn't for me and open minded enough he was to allow me to play and experiment and my earliest fond memories of magic were being allowed to play around with the size of things. I loved changing the size of things, how increadibly fun. Sometimes I would enlarge a pair of my underpants and put them in his drawer whilst he was sleeping. He'd wake up in the morning and put them on and some time during breakfast they would suddenly shrink back to the normal size. Oh the look in his eyes and how he'd go nuts! But only for a moment before he managed to pull them off and had to sit down half naked and drink one of his heart calming potions.
He wasn't one for laughing but I knew he had a sense of humour under that hard, cold and cruel visage.
The last I saw him was a terrible day. We had been working hard for many cycles building the tower for his Masters back home. They were very grumpy people and used to send us big crates of soil to put down in the foundations. Apparently if you build a tower on your soil from home it makes the tower like your home. I never understood that much but those Red Wizards had all kinds of rules and ideas that made no sense to me.
Where was I, oh yes, the permits. Apparently he needed permits for building and permits for importing land to build on and permits for the undead workers because they weren't living workers earning a wage which could be taxed bla bla bla. Permits and rules. I really couldn't keep up with it all and neither it seemed could Gillion.
They came and tried to tell him the tower had to come down and that didn't go down well. All I remember was the battle and the explosions and all the skeletons fighting the men in red armour. I remember a wall breaking and seeing the rooftops far below. Gillion launching fireballs from a wand down to the streets below and.... and then the back of his bald head, the tattoos slowly disappearing as he turned grey... turned to stone. Luckily for me I was able to make myself very small and jumped down the toilet, down down down all the way I went until I woke up some time later floating in a lake in Undersigil. That was not fun I tell you but the old Sea Captain down there, a skellington captain of a ghost ship was an associate of Gillion and he told me he'd be keeping the boat full of bodies Gillion had paid for in exchange for sending me back safely up to topside.
It was hard growing up in the shit hole end of this apathetic city with no one to look after me but I knew a magic trick or two and soon got a job as a shoe shine boy. "The one who makes the shoes fit better," people used to ask for me as.
I looked at the old ruins of that tower and figured it as a dangerous business this magic malarky. Best stick to what I know and make peoples shoes fit. Nearly 60 years I've been making shoes, making shoes fit. Nobody knows who I am, nobody cares, nobody would notice if I was gone. What a waste, what was the point of it all so here I lie, Barmy they say.
I don't know how long I've been lying here listening to that bloody woman wailing in the next room, I don't know how long I've been staring at the ceiling, having my arse wiped by some poor berk but it dawns on me now, somebody cared, somebody picked me up when I was down and kept me going and that's what it's all about.
Some days I can hear the kids from the hive outside. They come to play in the gardens outside the gatehouse. I remember now being that young, being so carefree and full of hope. All those years ahead of me, a tome full of spells and a master who let me write my own path and what did I do with it. I wasted my time.
They say the time least wasted is the time we waste enjoying ourselves.
That's what the waste was, not enjoying myself, not enjoying time but wasting it on everything else.
Well I guess that now ...it's time.
The Amazing Adventures of Grandad Gimbleglow and his Tit.
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*Azulfae
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Wurzig pulled back the bed sheets and lay for some moments breathing laboured.
Slowly he reached over the edge of the bed with his legs and allowed the falling weight to pull him around as he tried to get himself up with his elbow.
The minutes passed, sat on the bedside looking around the dormitory at the other lost souls being cared for by the bleakers.
Outside he could hear some young boys playing a ball game, he'd been listening to them all morning but something had turned sour and now he could hear crying and shouting.
A cold sweat dripped from the old man's wrinkled face.
A nurse came over and wiped his brow with a cold flannel and tried to pul his legs back up onto the bed but he reached down to stop her. She looked him in the eye for a moment enough to see him looking back.
"Welcome back shoemaker." she said with a bleak smile.
Wurzig almost chuckled but instead began to cough, his lungs not used to sitting up.
"I thought my time had passed, I thought I was for the deadbook." He rubbed his hands over his bald head and down round to feel the wisps of hair around the back then circled through to feel the scraggly beard growing on his face.
"Sometimes we feel older than we are, sometimes it feels like the end but it is just the end of beginning and the beginning of a new time." She smiled at him again and reached under the bed to pull out an old book, a book he had kept with him his whole life. She dropped the book down in his crotch making him jump and wheeze. Her red lips curling into a devilish smile. He noticed then the small horns poking through her mahogany hair, a sparkle in her dark eyes.
"Not a bad collection, needs a little work in the higher circles. No conjuration I see, a pity."
The old man looked fondly at the young woman his eyes strangely greener than they had been a moment before his eyebrows strangely matching.
"If you don't mind there is something I must attend." Wurzig rose from the bed and steadied himself still hunched and slowly straightening his back to the chorus of many clicking vertebrae.
"Be my guest." the bleaker nurse said to him and stood aside.
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Outside in the gatehouse gardens the old man emerged from a door his face screwed up as the light of day scorched his eyes.
Five boys, all wearing black, hoods dropped around their shoulders and daggers on their belts, tossed around a ball, another, dressed in the brown and grey rags of a pauper, scrambled frantically trying to get a hold of it, nearby a boy and another girl were standing worried for their friend, watching helplessly.
The biggest of the gang kids caught the ball and pulled out his knife. He raised it up threatening to pierce the leather sphere, a wicked smile with small unformed tusks protruding and a small upturned nose indicating some orc blood in the little wretch.
"Please don't, my Da' just bought it for me, it's the only thing I ever had worth havin! just let it back, I'll do what ye want." The orcan boy just chuckled and shanked his blade down at the ball. A hiss of air and the ball was wrecked. He threw the screwed up leather at the other kid and walked past pushing him to the floor. The other gang kids walked by one after another mocking the boy for crying.
A gust of wind passed and some coughing, cries of panic only seconds long and a sound like stones rolling over rocks.
"Benji, look!" The girl shouted to her crying friend. Benji stood up with his busted ball and looked behind him. An old man in bed robes held stood admiring a half orc statue under a tree and the other 4 kids were hastily running away, one with his coat on fire.
Wurzig cracked his knuckles and reached in snapping off the small stone tusks from the statue. "Now I need to learn the spell to turn hims back.... ah... that might be a few weeks.... I hope I remember."
The second boy walked up and looked at the old man closely. "Hey grandad, are you a wizard?"
Wurzig puffed up his chest triumphantly and then grew in size to stand nearly 11 foot tall over the small children. He reached up into the air with a hand gnarled like the branches of an old oak tree. "YES! I AM ... A WIZARD!!!!" He boomed before suddenly reaching down to Benji and plucking the leather ball from his shaking hands. A ginormous green eye blinked in front of Benji's face. "This I can fix... if ye like?"
A sudden wave of his hand and the old man was holding a full and shiny bright blue ball instead of the stabbed old thing the gang kid had wrecked.
It is indeed... time to start again.
Slowly he reached over the edge of the bed with his legs and allowed the falling weight to pull him around as he tried to get himself up with his elbow.
The minutes passed, sat on the bedside looking around the dormitory at the other lost souls being cared for by the bleakers.
Outside he could hear some young boys playing a ball game, he'd been listening to them all morning but something had turned sour and now he could hear crying and shouting.
A cold sweat dripped from the old man's wrinkled face.
A nurse came over and wiped his brow with a cold flannel and tried to pul his legs back up onto the bed but he reached down to stop her. She looked him in the eye for a moment enough to see him looking back.
"Welcome back shoemaker." she said with a bleak smile.
Wurzig almost chuckled but instead began to cough, his lungs not used to sitting up.
"I thought my time had passed, I thought I was for the deadbook." He rubbed his hands over his bald head and down round to feel the wisps of hair around the back then circled through to feel the scraggly beard growing on his face.
"Sometimes we feel older than we are, sometimes it feels like the end but it is just the end of beginning and the beginning of a new time." She smiled at him again and reached under the bed to pull out an old book, a book he had kept with him his whole life. She dropped the book down in his crotch making him jump and wheeze. Her red lips curling into a devilish smile. He noticed then the small horns poking through her mahogany hair, a sparkle in her dark eyes.
"Not a bad collection, needs a little work in the higher circles. No conjuration I see, a pity."
The old man looked fondly at the young woman his eyes strangely greener than they had been a moment before his eyebrows strangely matching.
"If you don't mind there is something I must attend." Wurzig rose from the bed and steadied himself still hunched and slowly straightening his back to the chorus of many clicking vertebrae.
"Be my guest." the bleaker nurse said to him and stood aside.
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Outside in the gatehouse gardens the old man emerged from a door his face screwed up as the light of day scorched his eyes.
Five boys, all wearing black, hoods dropped around their shoulders and daggers on their belts, tossed around a ball, another, dressed in the brown and grey rags of a pauper, scrambled frantically trying to get a hold of it, nearby a boy and another girl were standing worried for their friend, watching helplessly.
The biggest of the gang kids caught the ball and pulled out his knife. He raised it up threatening to pierce the leather sphere, a wicked smile with small unformed tusks protruding and a small upturned nose indicating some orc blood in the little wretch.
"Please don't, my Da' just bought it for me, it's the only thing I ever had worth havin! just let it back, I'll do what ye want." The orcan boy just chuckled and shanked his blade down at the ball. A hiss of air and the ball was wrecked. He threw the screwed up leather at the other kid and walked past pushing him to the floor. The other gang kids walked by one after another mocking the boy for crying.
A gust of wind passed and some coughing, cries of panic only seconds long and a sound like stones rolling over rocks.
"Benji, look!" The girl shouted to her crying friend. Benji stood up with his busted ball and looked behind him. An old man in bed robes held stood admiring a half orc statue under a tree and the other 4 kids were hastily running away, one with his coat on fire.
Wurzig cracked his knuckles and reached in snapping off the small stone tusks from the statue. "Now I need to learn the spell to turn hims back.... ah... that might be a few weeks.... I hope I remember."
The second boy walked up and looked at the old man closely. "Hey grandad, are you a wizard?"
Wurzig puffed up his chest triumphantly and then grew in size to stand nearly 11 foot tall over the small children. He reached up into the air with a hand gnarled like the branches of an old oak tree. "YES! I AM ... A WIZARD!!!!" He boomed before suddenly reaching down to Benji and plucking the leather ball from his shaking hands. A ginormous green eye blinked in front of Benji's face. "This I can fix... if ye like?"
A sudden wave of his hand and the old man was holding a full and shiny bright blue ball instead of the stabbed old thing the gang kid had wrecked.
It is indeed... time to start again.