Venefyxatu

Based on two chats (IRC and MSN) ... I hate the writing style but wanted to share nonetheless ... --- Excerpt from the Sandport Daily, dated October 21, 2008 (morning edition): According to several residents of Sandport strange events took place in the graveyard last night. After a stranger was spotted entering it, some chanting could be heard. Some of the braver residents went over to investigate, but to their horror they saw the dead rising up from their graves. When asked, one persons stated that, "It was awful. You know - she's been dead for 3 months now, and those were the happiest months of my life. To think that she can just crawl out and come back, it's just ... it's like a nightmare come true." Fortunately, nobody seems to have been hurt - the dead shambled out of the town and have not been seen again. Nobody knows where they went. Excerpt from the Rockport Star, dated October 21, 2008 (evening edition): In what is probably the strangest bank robbery in the history of this nation, exactly 41.160 geld were stolen from the local bank. A little before closing time, a horde of what seemed to be, and later were confirmed to be, corpses, shambled into the bank, led by an old, toothless man dressed in black. These robbers made no effort to conceal their identity as the marched towards the clerk, ignoring the screaming around them, and demanded 41.160 of the shiniest geld coins in the vault. The elderly man and two of the corpses accompanied the clerk into the vault and counted every last coin himself as it was put into the bag held by the corpses. When all this was done, the group left again. Nobody knows where they went off to, mostly because everyone was too busy screaming, panicking or stocking up on canned food, shotguns and axes. The Recruiter's Office, Mighty Pen October 21, 2008 (late at night) Two zombies shamble through the corridor towards the office. Woody the Office Door, noticing that they are carrying a full bag, gets curious enough to open for them. The zombies shamble into the office, dump the bag in the middle of it and leave again. To the bag a card is attached, “From Venefyxatu to Wyvern – 41.160 geld as agreed.” Unspecified Location October 21, 2008 (during the day) Venefyxatu finishes making the final adjustments to a strange device just as Tanuchan enters. As if he'd planned for it, he turns to her without pause and starts tying her to the device with a long, sling-like sash. Tanuchan, by now used to the sometimes strange ideas the necromancer has, immediately rends the sash into a million pieces and hides somewhere in the room. With a muttered, “I knew I should've gone for the indestructible ones right from the start,” Venefyxatu breaks out a box and opens it. When he notices it's empty, however, he grumbles. “I'll be right back ... don't go anywhere.” Tanuchan, wisely, hides better. When the necromancer returns later on, he is followed by a bunch of zombies shoving a huge, heavy chest. They immediately set to unpacking it and welding its contents together, attaching one end to the strange device. Despite the noise, the sound of scuttling feet can be heard and three skeletons come rushing in, making a heroic dive for the owner of the feet. Unfortunately for one of them, the owner is a Wolf-Lady. The result is that one of the three skeletons is reduced to soup bones. Thanks to this brave sacrifice, however, the other two manage to apprehend Tanuchan and attach her to the chain of what turns out to be a lot of Almost Dragonic Brand Stainless Steel Pillow Casings. When the minions have finished their work and left, Venefyxatu grins proudly. “I promised you yesterday that I'd launch you into orbit ... so ... well ... here we go!” However, as he turns to the machine to activate it, Tanuchan, by quickly changing into her tanuki shape, manages to escape certain doom and flees the room. Never noticing what happened, Venefyxatu activates the machine. Slowly, the improvised stainless steel sash starts rotating. As soon as it gets up to speed and starts to align itself correctly in order to launch its now-absent quarry into space, however, the weldings start to let go. Thud! Thud! THUD! ThudTHUDTHUDthudTHUDthudTHUDTHUDthudthudthudTHUD! Thud! THUDTHUD! ZinggggggggggTHUD! It takes a long time for Venefyxatu to decide that it's safe again, but when he finally does, he gets up and looks around the room. His device is completely destroyed, and the pillow casings seem to be wedged securely into the walls. “Foiled again ... maybe I should sell these back to Wyvern as shurikens or something ...”

As promised ;-) 1) Name of Female Pennite - Tzimfemme 2) An Object - a boat 3) Verb, ending in “ing” - burning 4) Adverb - extremely 5) Noun - plant 6) Adjective - dead 7) A Number - three hundred and twenty seven Name of Male Pennite - Lord Panther 9) Adverb - clockwise 10) Adjective - smelly 11) Type of Laugh - giggle 12) Adjective - heavy 13) Adverb - beautifully 14) Plural Noun - skeletons 15) Part of Body - toenail 16) Adverb - quickly 17) A Color - pink 18) Verb, Past Tense - worked 19) Plural Noun - desks 20) Verb - shatter

~List of works~ Roleplay Title Notes Snow in the courtyard & Snow Tag A carnival booth with two events WWXXII: A post nuclear WereWolf Game My first (and so far only) WW game as a mod. Yay me! Up in the oak tree Tanny and Stephen in a bit of a predicament ... Note : especially this one is *much* too short ... I'll complete it "later"

~List of works~ Poetry Title Notes Een Voorwerp Dutch Sunlight [/td] Frustration

~List of works~ Stories Title Notes A Necromancer's journey The first one - application A tale of assassins Co-written with Black, unfinished A speeding ticket Short story after a sleepless night Venefyxatu's first incarnation Originally written on the AMBB. Don't really like the ending. Story of a chicken Story that happened in a D&D session Dark Times In collaboration with Patrick, Appy and Sweetcherrie. Unfinished Perfect Sell Co-written with Tanuchan A Book A gift for Tanuchan, story being co-written if I can poke her into continuing ... Allergies A short story, based on a sidetracked conversation during a Vampire game Tanuchan in Space Short story, based on a few chats. I don't like the writing style.

Main character: Venefyxatu Minor characters: Stephen Hascodem Tom Atoe Samantha Wilder Note: I'm lazy and did a search for topics I started, then also added the ones that just happened to catch my eye and that I knew I'd participated in for writing something Apparently, I did poetry as well

There's this interesting FAQ that those of you who regularly encounter demons might want to read. Come to think of it, those of you who do not regularly deal with demons might want to read it, too. It could come in handy ...

I don't. And I'll probably keep it that way

See, this is what happens when I finally give myself a few swift kicks in the butt and then sit it down to write. Thank you for the challenge! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why does a weeping willow lose its leaves every year? A study by Lemmen Dargwin. Foreword It is with deep regret that I had to reduce the topic of my study to weeping willows. While I was planning to find a common explanation for all trees that lose their leaves every year, this turned out to be impossible and beyond the scope of the assignment. The material I have gathered about other trees will be compiled later in separate studies, when they are complete. History of explanations The earliest reference to this phenomenon in scientific works dates back to the Second Era of the Herridites Calendar(1), the year 372 to be precise. Gerald L. Volger, Headmaster of Herbal Lore, published a paper in which he claimed that trees had, in fact, different reasons for shedding their leaves every year around the same time that herbs, which were then considered to be of much more interest, started dying. After facing much ridicule for investing time and effort in the study of something as useless as trees, neither he nor any other sages of his time touched the subject again. It was not until approximately seven hundred years later, in the year 291 of the Third Era, with the advent of the Order of Seguia(2), that another attempt was made to explain the phenomenon. According to its members, trees would start losing their leaves around the same time every year to remind all living creatures that, while Seguia had brought life to the world, she could just as easily take it away again. Naturally, this was linked to the time when trees grow new leaves, explained as Seguia showing her good will and restoring life. When the order disappeared after approximately one hundred and fifty years, it did leave a vague curiosity about trees among those who knew of it. Ignoring the ridicule and scorn of the most prominent scientists of their time, these dendrologists, as they called themselves, became more and more obsessed with trees as they continued studying them. While it is believed that they were extremely thorough, unfortunately most of their works were lost during the Fall of Science in the year 312 of the Third Era, when a lot of scientific works were burned in the streets by the homeless to keep them warm while they protested against their unfair treatment by the upper classes. Ever since, no real attempt has been made to study trees again, although there are papers which seem to get sidetracked in this direction, resulting in a large collection of theories which contradict each other as often as they complement one another. Elusive creatures In order to get to know more about trees, I decided to go and live among them. More than seven months I spent living in the Ackburn Forest, using nothing but what I could find in there to survive. After the first three months I started feeling safe, having learned to recognise signals of danger as well as having developed a feeling for what I could and could not do. While the constant feeling of being watched that everyone who enters the forest talks about remained, it no longer felt as threatening as it did at first. At last, in the seventh month, while the other trees were nearly finished losing their leaves and I was taking shelter under a weeping willow which was only starting to shed, I found the answer to my question. Cold, tired and hungry, I woke up against the trunk of the tree, only to see a figure startle and rush so quickly to hide that I could barely make it out. It seemed vaguely humanoid, although it had been too quick to make out any specific details. Breathlessly I waited, staying motionless in the hopes of making it think I had fallen asleep again. Sure enough, not much later, I noticed from the corners of my eyes that the figure was returning, quite hesitantly. Closer it came, until it finally stopped, startled to notice that my eyes were open and I was watching her. Now that I could see it more clearly, the figure was definitely a female. She looked as though she was about to run off again, but my staying still must have convinced her that I was not about to harm her. When she'd stared at me for a while, she spoke, hesitantly, searching for every word. “You ... block ... my entrance – could you move?” The look on my face must have been priceless, for she suddenly started laughing and clapping her hands, which was a strange sight considering she had tears streaming down her face. When she spoke again, it was a lot more fluently, as if every word she spoke taught her three more of our language. “I cannot return to my tree as long as you are sitting on this side.” “Your tree,” I asked, her, with my confusion obvious in my voice. How could she claim a tree as being hers, and, for that matter, what did she mean by her “entrance” and “returning to her tree”? She smiled and sat down, the movement reminding me of a leaf whirling to the ground. “A fair deal is a fair deal – I see that you have a big question burning in your mind, so I will answer it and one other if you will let me return to my tree afterwards.” I nodded to indicate that I agreed, and asked my first question. “What do you mean by returning to your tree?” She explained to me that she was a Weeping Nymph and the spirit of the tree I was leaning against. As long as I was blocking her way, she could not return to rest. I decided that, as a tree spirit, she must know why they lose they leaves each year, so I asked her. She told me that, while she could not speak for the other trees, she could explain something about weeping willows. According to her people, it all goes back to the first days of their existence. In the days of the magi, before the trees had guardian spirits, there were several magi who tried to use them as part of, or the subject of, their spells, believing that by controlling a part of nature they would gain an advantage over their foes. As they gained more control over nature's forces, they became more ruthless and stopped caring about the wellbeing of the elements they sought to control. Nature started crying out in pain and desperation more and more often until finally, the guardian spirits were called into being. Tree guardians are not the only ones: there are so many elements of nature that have guardian spirits that it would take far too long to sum them all up. The one thing they all have in common, though, is that they personify the inner strength of whichever element it is they represent. According to the legends of the Weeping Nymphs, one of the first of their kind was captured by a mage who lived near a lake with many weeping willows around it. He considered the area around the lake near his tower to be his personal domain and was quite proud of how well cared-for it looked. Every morning at the same time, he would go for a stroll through his domain and admire its beauty as well as the potential it seemed to offer. When he finally realized that something had changed, he left subtle spells behind to trap anything unusual. Then, contrary to his habit, he went for a second stroll about an hour later. One of the nymphs, in her attempt to hide from him, was caught in one of his spells. The mage, whose name was lost, was a cruel man. Seeing that the nymph was weeping incessantly, he told her that if she looked so unhappy, he would give her a reason to. He bound her with magical shackles and forced her to watch as he burned the tree she had been trying to flee to. With the flames eating away at her tree, the nymph shared its agony. However, she managed to hide this from the mage, knowing that if he realized she would die together with her tree, he would not only turn on another one, but also keep hers safe as long as he wanted to study her. If that happened, he would surely find a way to overcome the guardian spirits. So she resisted until the tree finally died and then, with a shriek containing all the agony she'd held back, she died as well, her body turning to ashes as she did. Her scream had been so loud that the mage became deaf for the rest of his life. The next morning, when he went for his morning stroll through his domain, he saw that every single weeping willow had dropped all of its leaves. They never grew back. It is in memory of this that the weeping willows start shedding their leaves every year on the day it happened. Conclusion After hearing this story, I deduced that, since each type of tree has its own guardian spirits, they all must have their own reasons for shedding their leaves every year again. Here, the neat handwriting suddenly stops and is replaced by a scrawl that's obviously made in a hurry. I should destroy this study, for I believe that if the story of the nymph were to become known, their peaceful days would be over. Yet somehow, I cannot seem to bring myself to do it – I hope they will forgive me if it is ever found... (1) Whenever a date is mentioned throughout this study, it is considered to be from the Herridites Calendar. (2) A relatively unknown cult worshipping Seguia, whom they believed was responsible for bringing life to our world via trees. Their theories were never written down in a clear, unambiguous way.

A figure moves through the shadows in the conveniently dark room, wondering whether the darkness of the room is one of the reasons there are so many lurkers gathered here. As it stepped out onto the stage, its black velvety robes became visible. It reached up with its pale, thin hands and pulled back the hood, revealing the face of Venefyxatu. With a smile playing over his lips he looked at Samarria and said, "Why yes, thank you." He took a bite, swallowed it, thoughtfully dipped the cookie in the milk and then calmly ate the rest of it. Since nobody spoke during all of this, he decided he might as well introduce himself, too. "My name is Venefyxatu. I'm one of the local necromancers, and, yes, I lurk. A lot. I've become quite good at it, too. In fact, I'm quite proud of it and fail to see the problem." Chuckling softly to himself at some of the amazed looks that got him, he quietly returned to his seat, but not before adding, "These cookies are quite good with milk!"

I enjoyed reading this as well. While I have a vague idea of what the sound might have been, I very much doubt I've picked up on any of the hints. That doesn't mean they're hidden too deep, though - I keep getting told that I wouldn't recognize a hint if it were wrapped around a brick and thrown against my forehead

A fascinating piece, both the concept and the one-sided dialogue you use to tell it. Here's hoping you'll find some interesting colours with the black ink in your key ... welcome to the Pen!

Interesting piece - I like how you connect the ending back to the beginning. This nicely brings out the feeling of trying something "just one more time" for the 30th time in the ( all too often futile ) hope that this time you'll find that something has changed. The one thing that irked me a bit was that you start sentences without a capital and/or with a conjunction (and). To some people this doesn't matter at all, to me these are important details, the finishing touches

After hearing about it on the radio this morning, I came across this website. It's a collection of Dutch literary works throughout history as well as works about the Dutch language, from the middle ages to the present. There's a whole lot of interesting reading material there for those of you who understand Dutch

"Come on, we're already late!" "Braaaaaiiiiiinsssss" "Don't tell me you're hungry again?? You just ate! Shut up, behave, and remember to be nice and not eat anyone's brains without their permission." "Uuuhhhhh ..." Lurching sounds can be heard as Venefyxatu opens the door and enters the Recruiter's Office, followed by a slowly stumbling zombie. "Hello there, Wyvern! Hope you don't mind I'm a little late, but mister I-couldn't-move-faster-to-get-away-from-a-raging-bull kind of slowed me down. Anyway, I'm here to wish you a by now belated happy birthday and offer you this zombie specifically trained for carrying geld. Just make sure to feed him brains every now and then..." OOC : Belated happy birthday to our resident schemer!

I know someone who's going to love this thread (besides myself, that is ) ... and do unspeakable things to me if I'm not part of it. So without further ado, here's Teaser : Youmay bask in my glory now, human. Genius in action : "How do I get the crisps without one of the humans noticing? Mmm ... nice and warm on this screen" zzzz

Hmm .... I'll allow secondary characters, but know that anything beyond a first character will be served at the end, when all the rest is done

I started playing D&D in 2001, in Iceland. That means I have those vikings as well as Mr. Gygax to thank for having no life and regular meetings with a bunch of other weirdos. And grateful I am!

Canid : you're most welcome to join in. And rebuilding won't be necessary - maps should depict what's there, what's there shouldn't change to fit the map (sorry for the long time in replying ... RL is kind of a time-hog at the moment >.< )

As it turns out, Minta sails in just in time to stop Venefyxatu from asking about the wet willy, which is most likely just as well. "Err ... aren't they supposed to be dead before you reanimate them?" More on the subject of maps and Questing Quills, though: I'd love to discuss mapping via some sort of chat system (IRC, one or more of the messengers listed in my profile, ...), so Kikuyu, you know where to find me... Degorram : I find that hitting people over the head until they tell you where you can find whatever it is that's missing is an excellent way of recovering missing stuff

*A few inconspicuous zaps come from nearby, heading straight for the garden, one of them with a (slightly scorched) note attached* How about turning those plants into skellies, instead?

Cool - more signuppees! Peredhil - I've got no problem with that. Artist Credit sounds purrrrr-fect for me Degorram - for a brief moment you reminded me of my brother offering my services to just about anyone he can come up with Seriously, though - thanks for the offer! I'm definitely going to keep it in mind. Also : I demand pictures of said wall-hanging map *intrigued*

Cool! I knew about AutoREALM but hadn't really used it. Those tutorials are going to come in handy The plan was to do most of the maps by hand, but I was already thinking about sneaking in one or two computer-drawn ones, too. So, lemme see where signups are at ... World mapping : Tanuchan Mynx Wyvern Patrick Peredhil Canid Gwai, am I right in assuming that yours was a post to request only that I add the gardens to the map? If so, consider it done, but please ... undead plants only *shudders at the thought of living stuff in his rooms* Edit : update list

Venefyxatu, pondering several issues that need his attention, is wandering through the Cabaret room without watching where he's going. Apparently, that's not a very good way to be wandering through any place in the Mighty Pen Keep, especially not if a certain Almost-Dragon is near. The Almost Dragonic Brand Vampiric Batting Ball, attracted by the Nether energies swirling about the Necromancer, heads straight for him and hits him right in the forehead. With a surprised yell, the necromancer takes a few steps back, his surprise causing the energies around him to swirl more frantically, sweeping the Almost Dragonic Brand Vampiric Batting Ball away in a particularly vicious torrent and causing it to emit a high-pitched "Weeeeee". With a frown Venefyxatu looks around, concentrating when he notices the trace of Nether energy left behind by the Almost Dragonic Brand Vampiric Batting Ball. When he sees the thing, his eyes go wide and he takes a few steps away from it as he shields himself. Bad move. The shield, created with more Nether energy, attracts the Almost Dragonic Brand Vampiric Batting Ball again, with such great speed that it crashes through the necromancer's shield, hitting the latter in the forehead again. Now slightly dazed, Venefyxatu notices Wyvern and gets an idea. "Wyvern, catch!" With a quick gesture of his fingers, he redirects the Nether energy around him to catapult the ball back towards the Almost Dragon ...

Apparently, I'm not planning to remain a Quill Bearer for the rest of my earthly days or I wouldn't be posting this. After a period of idleness, some semi-activeness, a return to the Mighty Pen and the official abandoning of my previous Quill Quest (if it's still marked as active somewhere, whoever maintains that list is hereby asked to update it ), Gwaihir has managed to poke me into Questing for a Quill once again, conveniently forgetting that, since I'm bearing it, I must already have one Yay Gwaihir! After some discussion, it was decided that my Quill Quest will have a somewhat different nature from others. No worries though, it's still an art form that I want to get better at, and writing will be involved. Somewhat. Enough with the introductory small talk already ... time to see if I can explain what exactly I intend to do here. The Quest will consist of two (yes, 2) parts, numbered 1, 2 and 3 for your convenience : 1. First, there will of course be time to sign up. Depending on how quickly participants show up, this may or may not last very long. 2. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can get a hold of the necessary people to draw a map of the Mighty Pen Keep and its surroundings. Given the highly magical nature of the area, this map may be out of date by the time it is finished, and may be very weird in places (it might even fail to be drawn at all), but I would love to give this a try. This is the part that requires no sign-ups ... I'll find you Of course, if the victims lucky Pennites I end up bugging aren't interested, don't have time, or have other reasons for not wanting/being able to participate, I'll either find someone else or do whatever I want without their advice. Anyone who wishes their personal area in the keep to appear on the map would do good to contact me with some descriptions! While I can't promise that I'll be able to add every area (my papers are limited in size, y'know ) I'll do my best ... 3. When the map of the keep has been completed or designated as being "impossible to draw", the main part of the Quest can start. The big idea behind this is to create maps and do some world-building, all of which will depend on the participants. I would like to try and add some worlds to the Portal room, as well as map out some of the ones already described there. For this reason, it would be interesting if at least one or two people who have posted a world there signed up for that world (although they would of course be welcome with a new world as well!), in addition to the horde of world-building-happy sign-uppees. What will happen : I will discuss with you what parts of your world to map, the style to be used for the maps and fonts, what to put where, etc. If necessary and/or desired, this will also involve creating those parts together with you and writing up descriptions. When I feel I have enough information I will make a very rough sketch so you can see whether I've put everything in the right place. Once that is done, I'll begin working on the final version, which may or may not (but probably will) need multiple drafts. Eventually I'll have a final version which I'll photograph or scan (depending on available technology) and, after your approval, post it to the Pen together with the necessary descriptions from you/me/us. By the end of this Quill Quest I would like to have a physical book in which all of the maps are collected, sort of a Mighty Atlas. Pictures will be made of it (I have two photography enthusiasts in my direct family who can and will be recruited ) and posted as well. Every map should will be accompanied by a (short,) hand-written and illuminated descriptive text. I was thinking about doing 3 to 5 maps per person : one very general one (think continent or world), and a few more detailed ones (of a country, a city, a province, ...). Given the fact that, once I have all the necessary information, drawing a single map takes at the very least one afternoon + evening and that I won't have time / feel like drawing every weekend, I can see this Quill Quest taking a few years. But that's okay, it's not like I'm in a hurry ... Let's say I'll limit sign-ups to 10 people at first. Depending on a whole bunch of factors, I might reopen sign-ups at one point. If there is interest, I might continue doing this after the Quest has finished and become a Mighty Pen Cartographer. A few final notes : Keep in mind that "world-building" is to be interpreted very loosely : it doesn't need to be an entire planet but could be, say, a country as well. While I prefer fantasy stuff, I'm willing to experiment with other genres as well. After this rather lengthy (and possibly boring) speech, Venefyxatu summons a skeleton that holds a piece of parchment. The underling sits down at one of the tables and produces a quill, ready to write down the names of those interested ...