Intergalactic Hall of Heroes - The Chalice of Souls

At the same time, Lord Pommenby, who in Spinson’s absence decided to accelerate his drinking, was absolutely wrecked. Steaming as, well, a steamer. He’d have double vision if he was able to focus on anything.

Making strange shapes with his hand through the air, he droned to the barman:

“One-one more. Come on. An-an-another... bottle.”
“You’re too drunk, my Lord, I can’t serve you.” The barman replied, casually wiping the spittle from his arms and face.
“Oi. Y’you know-you know who ows this tower. Yes? I ows this-this-this tower, so I ows YOU!” he pointed, to make the point clear, “Now I come here for fuhfuhFUN, so young man I... DON’T have lecture from YOU! Now, I dema- I dema- I want more WINE!”
“I’m sorry, my Lord, I cannot serve you! I may have to ask you to leave.”
“Do you? Do you-you know me? Who I am? Don’t deny me my DRINK! Now... bottle... here.”

Lord Pommenby patted the table exactly where he wanted the new bottle of wine. Then he retched. And thankfully he turned his head to the right, away from the barman.

Then what looked like a river of dark red, gushing yet lumpy, liquid flowed in spurts from Lord Pommenby’s mouth, onto the floor, splashing loudly – up the bar, over his clothes.

Everyone just looked at this scenario, as if being that drunk had been embarrassing enough already. He coughed and spat red gobbets of mucus filed spit onto the floor. Then coughed again and was sick a little more.

And then uncontrollably, Pommenby’s empty stomach kept trying to push out more non-existent sick.

“Huuuer! Huuuer! Hermpftst!”

The sight that then greeted the barman was a merry bearded face, ruddy and sweating, spattered with dark red spew. Droplets of it glistened in his beard. It was like what you would get if Santa Claus had been told that Christmas had been cancelled.

Spinson then bursted in to join in what everyone else was currently doing, which was clearly staring at Pommenby in his shame.

“Bloody hell. I’m gone one minute! Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“I’m alright, I’m-i’m alright.” Pommenby croaked.
“No you’re not. Oi.” He clicked his finger at a wizard sitting near him, kindly minding his own business there, “You. Help me take Lord Pommenby to his room.”
“No no no no, I want more wine. No no no no!”

Lord Pommenby was presently manheld and dragged by the two of them, against his will but unable to resist, being as legless as he was. They dragged him out of the bar, across the puddle of vomit.

In Pommenby’s bedroom, they pulled off his gown, revealing slightly winestained undergarments, then wiped clean bits of the gown across his face and beard. Then they lumped him onto his own bed, where he nodded off just like that.

And here endeth the lesson that a lightweight should really really not neck two bottles of wine and think that he or she can handle it. Of course, I’m preaching to the converted for all you who have done this already. Ahem.

The night passed, and then it was early morning. Though, the environs were silent, there were no birds chirping outside as you may expect. Though this would have been understood by even the simplest of folk, being that patches of the surrounding forest were wiped out by magical attacks from the tower. It was a face that everywhere on this planet had been touched by war, and that war had left terrible scars everywhere.

In the infirmiary, Doctor Wolagnub continued to monitor Rondar, who was still comatose. Wolagnub had administed to him a herbal remedy to thin the blood, to help prevent more blood clots. It also comes in handy as rat poison in larger doses.

Still, he pondered the fact that clotting like this was in fact unusual, and also about why weren’t his other organs affected. Maybe it was just luck, or old age, but answers like that merely tried to gloss over the nagging feeling that something was up, and it wasn’t nice.

That morning, the poorly Rondar, unbeknownst to him at the time, had attracted several visitors. You could call it a kind of a secret fan club. Sadly, Lord Pommenby was not present, as even though the light burst freely through the thin curtains, he was still sleeping off the effects of too much booze.

Even with the herbal remedy to thin his blood, Rondar’s heart had become weaker and weaker, damaged by the heart attack, not strong enough to pump blood around his body, making him look rather wan.

Doctor Wolagnub filled a syringe with a black fluid, the syringe itself fashioned from the stinger of a rather large and deceased insect. One of the wizards raised his hand.

“Erm, excuse me?”
“Yes?” Wolagnub replied.
“That’s a Tincture of Resurrection. You can’t use that. He’s not dead!”
“But I can use it! Watch me.”
“I must protest!” he protested.

Another wizard protested too.

“Yes, I also agree. That’s only for use on the recently deceased. You’ll kill him!”
“As you may already know, the patient hasn’t got a lot of time left. My job as his doctor is to either cure him, or make him as comfortable as possible. So, as I can’t cure him, I can make him feel better. So you can get that chance to say goodbye.”
“Carry on. Carry on. Can he carry on?” he said to the first wizard who protested.
“Go on then.”

The doctor inserted the slender needle into Rondar’s upper left arm, and injected the tincture into his blood stream. As he withdrew, that arm suddenly began to twitch, which gradually spread through the rest of his body. Seconds later, his body quivered all over. Rondar’s eyes shot open and he stared around him, then sat up to look around at all of these visitors, his colour fully returned to his skin.

And for a moment, he didn’t speak.

“Rondar.” Another of the wizards asked, “Can you hear me, old boy?”

Rondar replied, but he didn’t sound croaky at all. In fact, his voice sounded rather crisp.

“Loud and clear. Why are you all here though? Where am I?”
“You’re in the infirmary, you’ve had a heart attack and two strokes.”
“No wonder I feel half-dead. Who are you?”
“Doctor Julius Wolagnub.”
“You’re one of those witch doctors. Ahem.” He coughed a little, “What have you done to me?”
“This isn’t going to be pleasant. You’re dying and there’s nothing I can do for you.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. I’ve been dying for years. What, you mean any minute now?”
“That’s the way it is.”
“Bollocks to it then. I’d better tell you all what you should have done weeks ago. You can’t resist the wishes of a dying man. Ready?”
“What is it you want?”
“If you want to save this world, bollocks to what Lord Pommenby decreed, you’ll go down to that dungeon and release the Dark Wizard Grimchan. He is your only hope!”

Rondar’s eyes rolled around in his head, then he shuddered as if he were in the process of an epileptic fit, coughing spittle, then calmed to absolute stillness, collapsed back into the bed. Rondar was now dead.

© Luke O'Sullivan, 2009

Intergalactic Hall of Heroes - The Chalice of Souls

Down below, the figure in the dirty robes arose to his feet and walked to the bars, gesturing over to Spinson's stand-in, who was a half-bothered younger wizard, who was sitting down all to himself, not bothering anyone at all, whilst smoking a pipe and reading his book.

The wizard sat completely unperturbed, absorbed into the book he was currently reading. On closer examination, the book was a novel, one of those fiction novels about an imaginary world where in place of magic, people relied absolutely on technological gadgets that ran on different types of energy instead. This particular adventure involved escapades involving horseless carriages that were fueled by a strange type of oil. Pure fantasy for these people, but truly compelling.

The wizard was now at a point where the story reached a climactic point. In this chapter, there was now a chase involving two of these horseless carriages along a mountain road, reaching speeds of over one hundred and fourty miles an hour.

Then, from the other cell, the croaky man cried out:

“Help! Heeeelp!”
“Not again. You don't need any help.”

The croaky man's cries were ignored. He just stood there in vain, steadying himself against the bard, watching the young wizard read the apparently unputdownable fantasy book.

Later on, the old man suddenly collapsed and dropped to the floor, just like that - all of a sudden, landing onto a wooden bowl that clattered noisily out of the way, a bowl so noisy that this finally distracted the young wizard from an intriguing paragraph, where the main character was trying to get away from somewhere, but happened to be running low on the mysterious oil that fuelled the vehicle.

After putting his bookmark in place, the young man wondered over to peer down at the ungraceful pile that was Rondar.

“Old man. Can you hear me?” he asked.

But nothing happened. This flummoxed the young wizard a great deal, so much that he fumbled around with his own face, as the cold sweat began to build.

“Oh-erm-I-erm-oh dear.”
“Get a doctor!” said the other prisoner over to where he stood.
“W-what? What?”
“Get a doctor... now!”
“Oh crikey, yes! Ooh!”

The wizard, in panic mode, learning again how to use his own feet, ran, nearly tripped over his own robe in the process. Then he fell up the stairs, catching himself on the legs – which would be cheap slapstick fun if it wasn’t so serious.

“Bollocks! Ow.”

And just a few minutes later, he returned down the stairs with a man dressed in a very strange get-up indeed... covered in swirls and strange patterns in body paint, dressed in pieces of animal hides and wearing one scary mask, decorated with fangs and feathers. This man appeared to be wearing many different necklaces, one of which had a small sac attached to it. Whatever he was supposed to be, he descended down the stairs, with an air of importance, together with his skull-tipped cane.

“Where is he, then?” demanded the strange man, impatiently.
“Oh, just here. Oh, suppose I’d better unlock it. I’ll just get the keys.”

As the wizard stumbled over to the table to fetch the bunch of keys, the strangely dressed man grasped his cane by the shaft and shook it at the bars, making a shaky sound as if the skull had been filled with beans or generally dry bits of something.

Suddenly the door’s lock unlocked, and the door swung opened by itself, just as the wizard turned his head.

“Well, I wasn’t going to wait for you! Anyway, let’s look at the patient.” The man remarked.

The strange man crouched down over Rondar, pressing two fingers on his neck to check for a pulse.

“He’s out cold. A few more minutes and he’d have been a goner. I can feel his life force still there. Now, young man, here comes the fun bit.”

The strange man tore off his mask and discarded it to one side, revealing a face painted like a skull, staringly and grinning madly. He turned Rondar over onto his back, raised his hands in the air and exclaimed:

“AAAAKHTUMA!”

Instantly, a ball of lightning began to slowly grow between his clawing hands.

“CLEAR!” he roared.

He dragged the lightning down into Rondar, placing his hands either side on his chest, the left higher than the right. Then he gripped his hands into Rondar’s skin as the charge emitted a loud ‘Thump’ causing Rondar to try to arch his body upwards. Then the man pressed his lips to Rondar’s, held his nose shut between his fingers, and breathed into him.

“Come on!” he said between gritted teeth , and shouted again into the air, “AAAAKHTUMAAA!”

Again the charge grew between his hands, which he then plunged deep into Rondar’s still body.

“Grraaargh!” he roared as the charge thumped, and Rondar’s body automatically lurched up. Once more, he then breathed into Rondar’s lungs.

Rondar retched and coughed, stirring slowly from almost death, staring up in shock at this strange man’s painted visage. Rondar’s stare looked completely glazed and blank.

“Hey. You there.”

The witch doctor waved his hands frantically infront of his eyes, but Rondar didn’t appear to recognise this movement at all. The doctor turned his head to the young wizard.

“What’s this guy’s name?”
“R-Rondar.”

The witch doctor switched his wide eyed grinning stare back to the old man.

“Rondar? I’m a doctor. I’m putting you to sleep and we’re going to go upstairs. If you can hear me in there, there’s no need to worry.”
“Is he going to be ok?” the young wizard asked.
“Who knows? Time will indeed tell!”

The witch doctor now grabbed his stick with his two hands and raised it above his head, and stared at the ceiling. Then he began to chant warbling gibberish, as he shaked the staff at random intervals. For a moment, it is if the witch doctor had entered into a trance.

Within a minute, Rondar’s eyes closed and the witch doctor shifted his piercing gaze back to the wizard, who was already uneasy with him.

“You. You can move him upstairs.”
“What, you mean pick him up?”
“No? Use some of that wizard stuff!”
“What? Oh... yeah. Not thinking. Sorry!”

The witch doctor shook his head in despair, then went to get his mask. The young wizard unleashed a straight walnut wand (which looked as if it hadn’t been used a lot) and pointed it at the sleeping Rondar.

“Tarupa!” he attempted to bellow, as he whisked the wand in a careful-ish through the air.

“Tarupa!” he repeated.

“Tarupa! Oh bloody hell. Oop-“

Rondar suddenly accelerated from the floor upwards, his head hitting the frame of the jail cell door quite hard. Understandably, the young wizard cringed and felt as if the best place for him was a quiet corner to shrink into.

“What the hell are you doing?” inquired the witch doctor.
“Trying to levitate.”
“Don’t they teach this in first year wizard school anymore?”
“Sorry. I’m re- I’m really sorry.”
“Come on, let’s go.”

Rondar left the prison like a helium balloon tied to a string, the two of them trying their best not to injure him any further. Or accidentally let him out of a window. Because that would be quite an experience to wake up from that.

Into the infirmary they went, and they pulled poor Rondar down to strap to the bed. The witch doctor then reached over to checked his pulse again.

“He’s stable. “
“W-what do you think’s happened.”
“Well, medical opinion says heart attack, maybe stroke. Tell me about the patient.”
“I don’t really know a lot. Tell you what, I’ll get Spinson.”
“Who the hell is Spinson?”
“H-Head Gaoler, I think he’s got records of all the prisoners we ever have here, somewhere.”

The witch doctor stood there with his arms folded.

“Well, I’d like to meet this... Spinson then.”
“I’ll erm- go and fetch him then.”

As the young wizard left, the witch doctor tutted and shook his head.

“I don’t know, anyone is becoming wizards these days.”

The witch doctor turned towards the sleeping Rondar and clapped his hands together to rub them, and by doing so, energy warmly crackled between his palms. The doctor’s eyes closed and he breathed deeply, centring himself.

He held his palms an inch over Rondar’s body for a few seconds, then began to sweep them up and down, sensing if there was anything untoward in there. The doctor’s face looked relaxed.

As his hands hovered over Rondar’s cranium, they stopped there.

“Oh my.”

A few minutes later, Spinson arrived with the young wizard, who at this point in time was still feeling the after-effects of much alcohol. Though, this little emergency’s sobering effects muchly negated this.

“Who are you and what’s going on?” Spinson asked.
“Me? I’m the renowned Doctor Julius Wolagnub, WD. Your prisoner has had what we would call a myocardial infarction-“
“A what?” replied the astonished Spinson.
“Oh yeah, for people like you, he’s had a heart attack.”

Spinson considered for a moment what this meant.

“Bloody hell. Is he dead?”
“I managed to save him, oh, and he’s had a stroke at roundabout the same time too. I want to keep him here for now.”
“Well, that’s fine by me, you can keep him.”
“Before you go, can you just tell me a little about the patient?”
“Well, erm, his name is Rondar, and we locked him up for a series of robberies years ago, escaping justice and all that. Age-wise, he’s about mid seventies, yeah?”
“Is there anything... medical we need to know?”
“He’s got arthritis and, oh yeah, his short term memory’s going.”
“I scanned his body and there was something there I couldn’t put my finger on. An unusual level of blood clotting, all at the same time.”
“What does that mean?”
“When the blood clots, it blocks arteries. In older men, particularly if they’ve been smoking or,” he sniffed the air, looked down and pointed at Spinson, staring down at him, “Drinking too much, they can get narrowed. Makes blood clots more easy to form. You don’t know any family history?”
“No, nothing. What can you do for him?”
“At the moment, I’m just keeping him stable. Though tell me, where’s your Lord Pommenby?”

Spinson slapped his own forehead.

“Oh shit.”

© Luke O'Sullivan, 2009

The rules

Usually there are a set of rules for writing - plan out what your story will be like in advance, do yer sequence of events in the story, write it, edit it, edit it, edit it, then begin the hard bit - getting it published.

I don't see rules as rules, they're kind of more like guidelines. If I plan out a story in advance, more chance than not the plan seems less appetising and I would veer away and write something else entirely. Sometimes I don't know where I'm going and this injects quite a bit of unpredictability into the story. This doesn't mean that I can't put in intelligent twists into the story, but it does make it more difficult.

I've been breaking rules already with this blognovel, I've got a basic skeleton for how everything is going to pan out, but the parts I've been publishing haven't been edited greatly. Plus, once they're published, they can be edited still but maybe I should leave them the way they are, imperfect, but not necessarily faulty. Sod any grammatical or structural mistakes, eh?

Part 3 soon!

Sorry for the delay... I wrote a largeish chunk, so I've published about half of that, so I need to check and edit the next part which should be ready soon.

I feel as if I have been slacking, which isn't ever good.

Intergalactic Hall of Heroes - The Chalice of Souls

Pommenby, ahead of the throng, descended a couple of levels and sauntered into a room with a round sandpit, surrounded with dangling bells. Stood by this pit was a young wizard with a concerned look on her face.

“Well then, operator? Any luck? Did we get through this time?”

The young woman’s face was uncomfortably grim, as if she were to burst into tears.

“Afraid not. No signal at all. We didn’t even detect any interference from beyond the shield. It’s as if it were stronger than before.”
“That can’t possibly be true! No, no, no.” Pommenby replied, a little frustrated, “Not unless our enemy is strengthening it. That’s the only explanation for it!”
“My Lord, if I may suggest something?”
“What is it?”
“Our efforts may have simply been strengthening the shield. Our enemy could-“
“No, young lady! That can’t happen. That’s not how it works!”
“I don’t want to upset you, my Lord, but we do seem to be trying random magics out of desperation now. Has it really come to that now?”

Pommenby paused for a second, then retorted in a very overassertive manner.

“Do not concern yourself with that, young lady. Focus on your work, and we will do ours. Rest assured, we will make contact.”

Pommenby was visibly stressed at this point. Even the regular meditation didn’t have much of a relaxing and calming effect on him anymore. He thought to himself that this would be the time to seek out special potions to help him.

Strolling past the Potions room, Pommenby went next door to the Wizard’s Bar. Spinson was already there, propping the bar up.

“Spinson!”
“’Ello, sir. Did we win?”
“Not this time.” Pommenby ahem-ed, “Barkeep?”
“Yes, my Lord, I’m surprised to see you here. Can I do anything for you?”
“I want a bottle of house red.”
“Bad day, my Lord? I’d have thought you’d be on that meditation stuff, not here.”
“Oh it wasn’t too bad. The spell looked very pretty. First time I ever cast that one.”
“Do I, erm, take it that this was a complete failure then, my Lord?”
“Oh, not completely. Even though times are hard, someone has to remain positive. We only need one spell to work.”

The barkeep, who was also a wizard, but not nearly as senior as the others (and needed to hold down this job to pay the bills), had lost his enthusiasm days ago. He saw that the best, the great and good of this land just could not cut the mustard, and that all hope was indeed lost, which was some genuinely tough mustard oh yes. Anyway, the barkeep found a slightly dusty bottle of red wine down below the counter, something rather befitting for the Lord Wizard.

“Will this do, my Lord?”
“Ooh, let’s see. 845 Vintage. That sounds like it could be enjoyable, yes.”

Lord Pommenby then proceeded to wave his hand above the bottle and spake:

“Sisa Thuasis!”

And with that incant, the cork appeared to slide out of its own accord, and plopped neatly onto the bar.

“Very good, my Lord.” Said the unimpressed Barkeep.

Lord Pommenby, who chose to not reply, grabbed the bottle firmly in his right hand and swigged heartily from the bottle, emptying half of it within seconds, some of it spilling down his cheek into that beard. Spinson, who at the time was only a mere spectator, felt he had to comment on this with conviction:

“Hey ey ey ey, steady on! Steady on!”

Pommenby turned to his left.

“What?”
“What the bloody hell are you doing? Slow down!”
“Sorry, my friend. Just a reflex habit.”

Spinson, who had already been present here, in the bar for a couple of hours, was already in the process of marinating his liver with a choice of local brews. Or from another point of view, ensuring that what beer was left behind didn’t go to waste. As he spoke, he tried hard as he could to keep his gaze on poor Pommenby.

“You won’t enjoy it necking it like that. Just pace yourself.”
“I know what I’m doing!” Pommenby replied, who was clearly a little irritated.

Spinson was already in the phase where he couldn’t help but converse with his hands as well. Steady at the bar, he stretched out his palm and fingers at Pommenby.

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. Trust me, you know, this sort of thing I’m an expert in.”
“I’d have you know, I’ve been abstintent for twenty years. Abstinunt.”
“No worries. Times are hard but you have to take it slowly. Trust me, you’ll feel better. Oi... Barman, bloody get him a glass would you? Come on.”
“Right up, sir.”

Barely hiding his annoyance at the pair of them, the barkeep swiftly produced a wide wine glass from the shelf under the bar, upon the table.

“Right, just sip it, don’t, you know, glug it down. That don’t help nobody.”
“Don’t woollrry, I’ll be alright.”

Pommenby presently filled the glass almost to the brim with wine, set the bottle back onto the bar and without pause or hesitation, swigged the entire glass.

“Oh for f-, no, no, no, no don’t blame me if you’re sick. I did tell you.”

Pommenby suddenly took righteous offence at this and lectured back:

“There’s bloody alien forces on our land and there’s nothing, nothing we can do about it! None of our spells work and you’re bloody asking me to enjoy myself? Do you know how much we’ve tried this past month? Well?”
“So you’ve given up all hope then? I tell you, yeah, if I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t have given up. I never did anyway. No. I wouldn’t. You know what I’ve lost?”, Spinson replied, counting his losses on his fingers, and either looking close to punching someone or crying, “My wife... yeah? My two boys? My beautiful baby girl? YOU – you ain’t never had a family but if you had of done, how would it feel like?”
“Pretty bad.”
“You see, that’s it yeah, you wouldn’t understand because you never had one. You’ve got all this..” He bounced his index finger off his skull repeatedly, “Up here, so you people can NEVER give up hope, never.Iif they ever brought an army here, if they brought an army up here, right, I would break every one of their stinking bloody necks, “ He said as he rammed his fist on the bar, “Before they had me. I don’t care if they did. I’ve got nothing. Nothing here.”

Pommenby began to point his finger wildly back at Spinson in response.

“Spinson... we have, have tried everything... in the books. That’s all of our, of our magical knowledge. So what then? If we’ve thrown everything at it, what do we do?”
“Why are you asking me? I’m no magician. I look after these bloody prisoners. We’re kind of counting on you lot to get us out of this mess. I can’t believe you’ve tried everything. It’s bullshit-”

Suddenly, a younger wizard burst into the bar, waving his arms around.

“Lord Pommenby? Lord Pommenby!” He exclaimed loudly.
“Ooh, company?”

And Lord Pommenby slowly turned around to look.

“Two more have arrived. Wizards of the West, my Lord.”
“Good, good. Tell them. Tell them..” He gestured with his finger at the young man, “Ask them young man... see if they have any ideas we could try. Any spells we haven’t used yet.”
“Yes, my Lord.”

The young wizard bowed to Lord Pommenby, switched around and left the bar. Pommenby turned himself back to Spinson.

“They’re all good you know.”
“Well, they’re the best wizards in all the world. What’s left.”
“Yes, I forgot. I had many, many colleagues. Some of them, Spinson, I never saw that much because of study and whatnot. I do miss them. Yes.”
“So, would you say you’d think that’s something to be worth fighting for?”
“Well I suppose so. You know that's what we're fighting against.”
“They're not your friends any more. They're slaves now and they ain't coming back.”

© Luke O'Sullivan, 2009

Next part ready soon...

I've been a bit busy, including my other, older project (i.e. another novel i haven't finished yet which I should really focus on as well).

Off for the weekend

The next part is underway. I'm going away for the weekend but I may be able to still spend time on the next installment.

I have one follower... (thank you though) but I wasn't expecting anything until I had several parts of the story online! Anyway, I hope you're patient.

Also, there's been no more incidents with the fire alarm.