Posts Tagged Mori

[partim] Mori.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, folks. I’ve been in a whole other place.

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I fought the urge to shut my eyes, to shut out the sight of the monster charging me.

It lowered its head as it got close. When I saw those massive horns begin to swing aside as if to disarm me, I stepped aside with them, lowered the spear, and held on tight.

The beast didn’t have time to move its head to knock the spear aside; half a second later, I felt the impact of the flaming spear under its chin.

Inertia kept the beast moving, and though I thought I was ready for it, I wasn’t fast enough; when I tried to hop aside, the ram struck my side, knocking me over, and I felt the full weight of its hind hoof on my foot.

I’m sure I must have yelled out, but I only remember the sound the ram made—a bellow weaker than before, still fierce, but somehow without anger.

It slowed down and finally fell over, the flaming spear igniting the fur around the wound. The fire spread quickly and soon covered the beast’s body.

I noticed a flickering in the air above it, and when I looked up, I saw the amassed rows of kelvins fading from sight; a moment later, there was nothing left in the arena but me, Munk, and the dead ram.

[partim] Mori.

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Munk jumped aside, dodging the ram with a lot more agility than you’d expect from a creature made of stone.

The spear lay on the ground, still burning.

I remembered that the ram wasn’t interested in fighting the golem… it had to be me.

It always has to be me.

I jumped off Munk’s head and ran for the spear, lifting it up as the ram turned around.

“All right, buddy,” I said… “Μολὼν λαβέ… come and get it.”

Mori.

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Of course the monster was on me before I could prepare any further. I held up the spear, hoping it’d impale itself, though at the last second I realized this was probably not something I wanted to happen—it’d probably still knock us down and I’d be trampled.

Instead, it knocked the spear aside with its horns.

1st draft [partim] – Mori

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The kelvin handed me his candle and crossed his arms, still watching Munk waving his spear at the ram.

“Munk!” I said.

He came back to the edge of the arena where I was. The ram stayed put, watching.

The whole place was just too quiet. I jumped down on the golem’s head and took the spear.

The monster started charging again.

I took the candle and lit the spear on fire below the head. Whatever wood it was made of caught fire easily—thank heaven—and blazed.

I took aim at the oncoming beast.

“I hope this works,” I said.

1st draft [partim] – Mori

The previous part of this was posted last month.  I can definitely see a few things that’ll need fixing on the second draft.


I sat on the edge and watched the golem attempt to fight off the monster ram, waving the kelvin’s spear back and forth.

The ram, for its part, seemed to have calmed down, and was watching Munk with an expression that oscillated between indifference and confusion as the spear went back and forth.

“It only wanted me, didn’t it?” I said.

The kelvin I spoke to nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the arena.

“I have to go back down there, don’t I?”

The kelvin nodded again.

“How’m I supposed to beat that thing?”

The kelvin didn’t answer.

I didn’t come prepared for this.  What’ve I got? My bare hands—but I’m a flabby alchemy geek, that won’t do me any good.

Clothes on my back; not likely to be helpful.

I have a golem, and my golem has a spear.  But my golem is inept at violence by design and the monster won’t fight it anyway.  No help there.  And flimsy alchemy geek arms wouldn’t handle a spear any better.

I have my environment.  An arena full of armed gryphons.

Right, and one unarmed gryphon.

With fire.

“May I borrow your candle?”

1st draft [partim] – Mori

Here’s another of those fragments I promised you’d see coming.  Mori’s story is one I still don’t have a title for or much detail in; though I have the broad outline for it, at the moment it’s mostly just something that gets put on paper as I go along.  For example, when I was working on this page it somehow became one of my goals to use the word ‘inhastate’.


Now, ordinarily a golem wouldn’t hurt a fly. They can’t really; it’s not just in their programming, it’s in principle—the magic that animates a golem just doesn’t work if you try to build hostility into it.

Seeing my golem wrestling with the gryphon-man for a weapon was, to put it mildly, more disturbing than the monster in the arena.

When it succeeded at winning the spear from the kelvin, I figured it might be a good time to bail out and jumped off its back. Munk leaped back into the arena, landing with a heavy thud, and started swinging the spear around wildly.

It didn’t look like it had any idea what it was doing.

I looked up at the now-inhastate kelvin, but he was just watching as if nothing had happened, holding its candle in front of it with both talons.