Gryphon

Brad sat back and relaxed, taking in Dana's briefing enough to know that it hadn't really changed from last years. With an easy smile and a nod or a wave Brad silently greeted some of the other instructors that he knew from previous years and when the initial briefing was over he moved off with the others to discuss who would take what trails the next morning. The next morning dawns fine and clear... Strapping his board to his foot Brad waits for his chance to get up the first ski-lift while talking to the other instructors around him. "We've got plenty of time on the upper mountain trails today. Does anyone want to join me for some runs down the intermediate trails for a warm up and initial check?"

Coming up behind Vinka from taking the long way to the lodge from the heli-pad Brad stomps the snow off his own boots and speaks up. "I've got a spare hand to carry stuff if you like. It's good to see you up here again this year... shall we go find some rooms?" Brad waits for Vinka to get the remainder of her gear organised before they head upstairs to find some rooms with a view.

The sun beat down from a clear blue sky as Brad watched someone entering the lodge from his vantage point up the hill. He smiled to himself as he turned to survey the mountain picking out the valleys and ridges that made up his favourite runs down the slopes. Soon he'd be back up there boarding the fresh powder, and it would be good. Listening carefully Brad could make out the sound of another chopper coming in to drop off one of the other instructors... Time enough for the first run of the season once I've dropped my gear off at the lodge. Brad thought to himself, then picking up his board and slinging his bag over his shoulder he turned and made his way along the path to see who had beat him to the lodge this year.

I can't help but wonder how often you get told you can't do things like buy alcohol or get into clubs because you're only 6 (leap) years old?

Happy birthday Annael! I always thought it'd be cool to be a leap-year baby, I never considered that there might be a down-side... so I hope you enjoy your special not-birthday.

Brad Stevenson Brad lives and breaths snowboarding. He's 27 years old and most of the last 7 years of his life have been one continual winter. A regular on the local mountains Brad has been visiting Vannacutt Point for the last 8 years and instructing there for 5. This will be his 6th year as an instructor. The rest of the year he follows the snow, taking on roles as ski or snowboard instructor the world over. Brad has been known to simplify his life down to one simple statement: "This is the perfect life, all season I get paid to do something that I love, then at the end of the season I go where the snow is and do it all over again."

It's amazing here... Red rose prices go up from $20 for a bunch of 10 or so... to about $250 for the same, or lesser quality roses. That alone is reason enough to protest Valentines day, or perhaps re-inact the St Valentines Day Massacre at your local florist. Personally I try to do special things throughout the year without waiting for the pink and red, money sucking day from hell to come around... so this time we're going out to dinner several days after Valentines day it's self.

Gryphon sees Patham and Sweetcherrie dive through the shadowy door to the tavern and shut the door behind them. Taking advantage of his distraction a troll claws at Gryphon from behind, unnoticed as it's claws turn phantasmal and fade away. From the air around him Gryphon hears Patham's voice in a ghostly echo saying, "If I read this correctly then someone with sufficient control over the flows of energy would be able to achieve quite powerful things simply by thinking strong enough about them, don't you agree?". Thinking back with an almost ill feeling Gryphon realises that the words on the air have an uncomfortable element of truth to them. Ever since the opening of the gates and the magical storm they created, he and Sweetcherrie had been reacting to their environment more than thinking, and apparantly having their environment acting back on them in return. Summoning a small fraction of power from the air around him Gryphon constructs the lightest of shields, to act as a ward and shield of simple thoughts. Moments later there is a shift in the air of the cavern as many of the trolls begin to fade and take on an insubstantial quality. Syllibant whispers arise from the darkness all around and mist seems to rise from the floor to obscure what appear to be very real troll remains while Gryphon waits expectantly to see if there is any reaction from the environment to his shield. When nothing happens he feeds more power into it, bringing his usual defenses back online even as Sweetcherrie brings her will to bear, wishing that the trolls were gone. Movement in the darkest shadows at the caverns edge attracts Gryphons eye and as the mist rises to obscure all he thinks he sees several of the largest trolls from the earlier battle slipping away mostly un-noticed... As he looks around Gryphon sees Gyrfalcon, Mynx and the others cleaning weapons and bandaging minor wounds taken in the heat of battle. The sound of a door opening attracts Gryphon's attention and he sees Patham looking out of the shadows that he and Sweetcherrie vanished into moments earlier. With a grin and a wave Gryphon begins to invite the two to re-enter the cavern, now safe, but the gesture and words die as they exit his mouth as he notices the table, medallions and glowing book in the darkness beyond Patham and Sweetcherrie. With a quick call Gryphon rallies the others in the cavern and they move to join Patham and Sweetcherrie and see what it is that they found...

I'd say it's situational for me - that is controlled by the medium of the game more than anything else. Typically if it's live - be it person to person or IRC or whatever I tend to write as the character, where as if it's in a forum and not constantly alive and in progress etc I tend to slip into story-telling mode, writing the characters actions in third person and past tense. I suppose I could mix them up a bit, in fact I probably do so and that's what causes the horrible present/past tense problems that crop up in my writing, but that's another story for another day.

Little time to read, Less time to post, Bottom line: While I'm still here, I am a Gryphon Ghost!

Leaping into an area temporarily clear of trolls Gryphon concentrates bending the magic around him to his will. With an immense crackle a bolt of lightning leaps from him to the nearest troll, incinerating it almost instantly before leaping to another leaving a smoking corpse in its wake. Gryphon watches for an instant to be satisified that his spell won't kill any of his friends before turning back to the fight and disembowling another troll nearby.

Hearing a whisper of sound behind him Gryphon whirls and slashes out expecting to defend himself against an approaching troll, only to pause in mid strike. Some distance away, two massive trolls, easily several times the size of the ones facing off against the adventurers watched the fight beginning to unfold. In that quiet instant before the proverbial storm one troll turned to the other and with a brief grunt and some gestures, the two lumbered off into the darkness of the AVV. Just seconds later Gryphon was distracted from such a puzzling sight as the sound of heavy footsteps rushing in his direction brought him back to himself. Once more he spun in place his mind on the here and now as he summoned magic and strength to fight the hordes of trolls approaching from every direction.

I don't believe I've seen that movie... It is funny though, this seemed somehow creepier last night at 11pm when I was typing it up and re-reading it. It's sad what sleep deprivation will do to you I guess.

Inspired (rather loosely) by the clown spam in Farewell Pennites, posted in the Cabaret room... ~~~ It was a typical night for the time of year and Ahmaria smiled and noded as she listened to Mrs Jones chatter on at the other end of the phone line. Thunder rumbled hinting at the possibility of rain to come and the occational flicker of lightning lit up the room better than the small lamp on the nightstand. "Yes, yes, I'm sure everything will be fine. They went straight to bed without any real fuss." she replied in response to the expected query from Mrs Jones. Outsite lightning flashed again lighting the contents of the room with an eerie glow. Upstairs in the corner of the Jones's bedroom the the glow of the lightning reflected softly from the Jones's newest piece of art, a life sized statue of a clown. Earlier that evening Ahmaria, shortly after putting the children to bed, had seen the statue standing in the corner of the Jones's room. Now she supressed a shiver at the memory. The very idea of having something like that in the room with her just gave her the creeps and while she'd been in the room the clever design of the eyes made her feel like it was watching her as she moved around. "Actually Mrs Jones, if you don't mind, I'd really like to watch a show on cable if you don't mind. I don't want to intrude but it's a live concert of my favourite band so if you wouldn't mind...". Ahmaria paused and a smile crossed her face as Mrs Jones gave the ok to watch TV in the master bedroom. Outside the lightning flashed once more, and upstairs the clown statue seemed to move slightly in the violet glow of the storm. "Just one more thing then before you go, would you mind if I covered that creepy clown statue with a blanket or something. It kind of freaks me out a bit." The silence on the other end of the phone line stretched on for long moments. "Look, Mrs Jones, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it about the sta...", Mrs Jones's voice low and strained cut across Ahmaria's words even as they were leaving her mouth. "Ahmaria, please get the girls and get out of the house immediately, go over to the neighbours, right now." The shock Ahmaria felt clearly echoed across her face at the unexpected words. "But, why?" Mrs Jones's voice seemed to come from far away down the phone line, "We don't own a clown statue." The blood drained from Ahmaria's face as she dropped the phone receiver back into the cradle of the phone. Her heart beating in her chest she turned and rapidly headed up the hall towards the children's bedrooms. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat as every little noise in the house caused her to jump and every shadow seemed to conceal danger. The lightning flickered once more as she reached the first bedroom and suddenly the house lights died throwing panic into the babysitters heart. Slowly she opened the door to the childrens room, relieved to see their shapes lying in the beds where she'd put them so little time ago, quiet. Too quiet? Behind her, in the shadows of the hallway something moved. A flash of lightning and a betraying shadow was all the warning the young girl got, as the blade of the axe bit deeply into her neck. Moments later the last thing she saw as the light faded from her eyes was the clown which she had thought was a statue stepping over her heading for the beds of the children. Silently she died. ~~~

Katz, I've got these images in my mind of an awesome Halloween-esque movie using this idea... The creepy ambience, possibly complete with some ominous thundery sounds in the background. The innocent babysitter doing the whole talking to the parents on the phone with the light turned out - or maybe just a small nearby lamp turned on - the clown figure standing absolutely still in the corner of the room. We cut to the scene seen through the clowns eyes with that eerie kind of music playing that somehow suggests that the damaged neurons in the killers head are rubbing together in ways that will produce the outcome of: "duh, if I stand still until her back is turned I'll be able to suprise her with the big knifey axish thing". The babysitter unaware sits on the bed smiling and talking to the parental units and in the background with extra creepy turned on for special effects we see the clown 'statue' move, it's head turning to look at the inadvertent heroine - or at least the first onscreen kill - horror movie standard, nothing special. (I've been hanging out with Mynx too long I guess). The smiles on the babysitters face fade and the eyes go wide as we hear the parental voiceover about the family not owning a clown statue, accompanied by the traditional panic filled glance by the victim at the not-statue which pretty much gives the game away and ensures her demise. So the girl hangs up the phone, hustles out of the room to fetch the kiddies she's looking after and we get the traditional, unnaturally silent killer, thing going on with a cut back to the clown-eye viewpoint for extra effect. If it's the first kill of the movie we probably get the whole raised axe with the light (which comes from where? this is a dark house, oh well) glinting off the blade, followed by the traditional splatter pattern on the wall and the kill confirmation aftershot as the clown walks away to take care of the rest of the residents. ~~~ If anyone knows horror movie formulae and I've missed anything out of the standard package feel free to elaborate. I know this is a bit of a strange turn to a thread that started with some almost traditional spamish tripe, but the movie style concept is a good one, which is I guess what makes that a particularly effective piece of spam to send to the gullible and/or easily scared believers that abound out there in netland.

As a concept this does have the potential to be a chilling story... as a chain letter it's just more of the usual twaddle. I delete and/or fail to pass on hundreds of these things and my survival continues.

Well done, all of you. It's always good to see others in our community getting ahead.

Yui, we're going to be based in Birmingham, going to Edinburgh for New Year and Hogmany with maybe a trip to London thrown in for good measure.

Sorry I missed the actual birthday, day Zar. I hope that you had an awesome one.

Happy birthdays indeed, I hope it's been a great one for you. Gryphon shakes his talisman gently for fear it might explode or something.

Happy happy birthday Ayshela. I hope you had an awesome day.

As Gyrfalcon, Daryl and Knight bend their combined wills on finding Gryphon and Sweetcherrie the very air around them starts to pulse with barely restrained power. One by one all of those present become aware of a sensation of tension and a tingling sensation of magical potential, much like electricity in the air, slowly it builds around them causing every hair on their bodies to stand upright. Without warning there is a sharp cracking sound as the power earths its self... somewhere... and a dark hole opens up under the quartet with a flash of light causing temporary blindness as they fall and fall for what seems like an eternity. Blinking tears from their eyes and trying to stop the ringing in their ears the adventurers slowly become aware of their new surroundings. The first thing they notice is a large silver mirror, apparantly set into the wall of a cave. Images flicker across it's surface and the three catch a glimpse of Gryphon and Sweetcherrie who appear to be standing near a bar, however the details are indistinct and the collage of images continues to shift and change, seemingly randomly. The second thing they notice is a strange snuffling sound coming from behind them. Slowly, and with some hesitation Gyrfalcon, Daryl and Knight turn in perfect time with each other to see a large scaly beast that appears to be an unholy melding of a basilisk and crocodile. The beast seems to be stunned, presumably from the same flash of light and clap of thunder that transported the adventurers to it, but even as they watch it stops moving and though it appears to still be blinded, it raises its nose and begins sniffing the air around it before giving off a strange warbling cry which is answered in kind from further down the passageway behind it...

Hope you had a happy birthday Deg.

Gryphon nudges Yan Yan quietly and points at the other birthday thread which has several people saying 'Happy Birthday' to him already.

I hope your birthday was awesome mate. May you have many more.