1098 Dead In Here.

The other night I had a dream where I was dating Evana Lynch. She played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films if you’re unfamiliar with the name. I wasn’t me exactly. In fact I never saw myself because this was a very rare FPS dream. I almost never dream in first person. Not exclusively at any rate. Durring the course of this dream I happened to watch Evana have a car accident. For some reason when that happened it was like something had gone wrong in the fabric of space and time. Things started disappearing Back To The Future style. Eventually reverting backwards around me into a world where Harry Potter had never been written. My dream self seemed to wake up into this reality while remembering the previous one. The thing is my dream self had a word for word memory of the entire HP series, so he decided to fill the void in his new reality himself. It was pretty weird.

This morning I had a dream where I was basically fat spiderman again. Which was cool, but I felt like I’d been there before.

My animal Crossing town is coming along pretty well. I have a few nice pieces of furniture, so my house doesn’t look like a hobo shack anymore. If you have the means please visit sometime. As always, friend code is on my twitter profile.

And now more story.

Julius made to follow her but stopped when Niona and Regalius didn’t follow. His gaze fell on Alina as she too saw whatever it was they were seeing. The color drained from her face and tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. He followed her line of sight. As the greenish light spread further around he saw 3 people standing, lit from below, as the ooze reached them.

They now knew the fate of the first party.

The danger was too great to let grief take the rest of the party. Julius jumped forward, placing himself between them and their fallen friends.

“We can’t help them now!” He shouted. “Keep your wits about you or you’ll share their fate! Keep moving away from the light!”

Even as he finished speaking one of the rotting comrades lunged forward, swinging a huge sword overhand at Julius. He reacted in time, but the force of the blow was far more than he expected. Legs crumpling like paper he was forced down to one knee. This husk was no longer held back by the frailty of life. In death he was no more formidable than ever before. The icy chill of mortal fear washed over Julius. Rather than try to parry another blow he rolled away, causing the next strike to connect with the stone floor.

The attacker’s sword broke cleanly, nearly in half. He seemed taken aback by this and made the motions of cursing, which caused fetid blood to burp out of his mouth. This seemed to confuse him and Julius took the chance to make a break for it. By comparison the entire hoard of dry bones were less dangerous than these freshly dead.

Still obviously horrified at this turn of events the others followed, batting aside attacks in a bid to put distance between themselves and their massacred friends. They charged headlong into the retreating darkness. More skeletal soldiers slowly rising to undeath as they ran. Suddenly Julius understood, and the other seemed to catch on as well. Niona voiced what they were all realizing.

“It’s the light.” She gasped. “Where ever we move it wakes them up…”

“We need to stand our ground,” Alina said. “Finish off what we’ve woken up, then move on. It’s the only way to cross the room.”

“I- I think it might be too late.” Regalius observed. “We’ve activated too many. I don’t think I can keep fighting this hard.”

The sound of clattering armor was closing in all around them. Somewhere in the deeper darkness the gutteral moans of their unfortunate friends were also coming closer. For a moment Julius considered leaving them behind. He could probably get past the chamber door if he made a mad dash for it. Who were these people to him anyway? What did he owe them?

“Everyone get behind me.” Came Alina’s voice, clear and detirmined. “Niona, on my right. Julius to my left. Regalius, make a wall of that pillar. Cast whatever you think will aid us best.”

He owed that woman his life at least, and there was a good chance he owed that much to the other as well. He took a small stone from his pouch.

“Can you cast a light spell?” He said turning to Regalius.

“Of course I can.” He replied “But we have light. Why would-”

“I need real light, as bright as you can make it for as long as you can make it! Can you do it?” The urgency in his voice seemed to convince Regalius. He pointed a pinger at the ceiling.

“Everyone, cover your eyes!” He shouted. They all complied and a burst of brilliant, white, light exploded above them. Julius turned away, holding the little stone up to his mouth.

“Twig, if you’re listening I need help.” He spoke urgently to the little rock. “I’m seriously about to die here.” With that the little stone began to glow faintly blue in the darkness of his shadow. Julius let go of it and it hung in the air. A voice drifted out of it.

“Master, I obey your call.”

With that a small, female, figure rose from his shadow as if it was water. It’s hand closed around the glowing pebble. She looked as though made of shadow itself, but wasn’t dissipated by light. Regalius gaped.

“What have you summoned?” He asked shakily. The figure of shadow turned towards him and laughed in a very unsettling way.

“You’ll see soon enough, elf…” She replied, though her voice seemed to whisper from his own shadow and echo in the darkness all around them. Julius turned slightly.

“Whatever you do, do not let that light fade out!” He commanded. Regalius nodded in stunned silence as the little shadow woman strode casually into the darkness.

Niona and Alina were keeping back the tide of bones as best they could, but their numbers were over whelming. For every one they took out another was right behind it to take its place. Then Niona noticed something strange. At the very edge of the circle of light a skeleton suddenly fell over, and she heard a little outburst of maniacal laughter. Then one fell backwards out of sight. Moments later a skull exploded into a cloud of dust, the decapitated form flailing around wildly before being taken down by other soldiers. A noticeable gap was forming in the ranks of oncoming foes and continued to grow. Whatever was taking them down was doing so with total impunity. It was as though the darkness itself had turned upon them, and was laughing at them.

Soon Regalius could keep his illumination spell going while also playing his rousing tune on a small wooden flute. It wasn’t as effective as his violin had been but it was enough to keep the others going. The tide was slowly shifting in their favor again.

Of course they all knew it was only a matter of time before their lost teammates stepped out of the darkness and they would have to face them. In spite of this it was still a shock when it happened. The man with the broken sword crossed the distance between his rotting self and Alina in a few long strides. His attack vicious and resounding, but Alina stood as a stone stands against a wave. Strike upon strike rained down on her too quickly to answer, but she held her ground. Julius kept lesser beings from causing her trouble, but wondered how long she could keep up her defense.

The other slain friends soon stepped out of the darkness as well and rounded upon Niona. One was a slender man dressed and armed in a manner similar to Alina, but pierced many times, the other a woman, possibly an elf, whose long hair had been hacked wildly, had a badly injured arm. It hung lamely, but still held a shield.

Julius decided to take up arms against the man. His speed would be a better match against the slow swing of the mace. Though brutal the swings lacked finesse and he avoided them easily. Niona had reach over the shield maided. One armed she couldn’t properly defend against Niona’s skill. She was soon literally disarmed. After a clumsy swing that shattered a large section of floor Julius was able to do the same to his opponent. Regalius bitterly chanted the strongest fire spell he knew and the pair were released from their torture.

A few more of the skeletal soldiers meandered into the circle, but no longer in numbers to vast to deal with. The party turned its attention to Alina, still holding her foe at bay, unable to gain an advantage. As they made ready to help the little shadow woman casually walked back into the light. While the big man continued to wail on Alina’s mace she cut the legs from under him with no more effort than someone opening a letter. With no base the mountain crumbled. Alina stepped away, tears streaming down her face, as Regalius sent this poor soul to Valhalla as well.

The room was silent again apart from the weary panting of the party. Regalius slid down the pillar he was backed up against, exhausted. His light spell finally fading away. As it did the darkness seemed to melt away from the shadow girl leaving a beautiful, but very normal looking, dark skinned, human walking up to Julius. He hair was short, black, with a streak of blonde in the front. Her clothes looked like Julius’s might have if he wasn’t so shabby, and liked wearing them skin tight. They were also mostly an immaculate shade of midnight blue.

“Did I please master?” She said sweetly embracing Julius in a somehow catlike way.

“Very much so.” He replied wearily. “But please don’t do the master thing right now, okay?”

She rubbed face lovingly into his chest.

“Yes master…”

32 Comments

I’m surprised she wasn’t trying to sell it as an eBook as paper publishing industry is kinda dying at the moment.

Ebooks are still looked down on as “not real” when it comes to people like your parents. Having a book in your hand goes a long way to making it seem like you’ve made an actual thing of value. Even in spite of the growing popularity of such things.

Doesn’t that also depend on your target demographic.

Pretty much. Webcomic readers, for example, tend to be much more perceptive to ebooks than say the tons of other people who still don’t know what an Internet is for. Like my dentist, or our veterinary, or almost anyone I’ve ever tried to explain my comic to.

Yep, I stopped even trying to explain that I *read* webcomics to certain ages/groups of people. On the other hand, my early-20’s cousin looooooves webcomics, but doesn’t use a smart phone or an e-reader. So I guess there’s all kinds.

I was very into my e-reader when I first got it; nowadays it’s equally likely that what I borrow from the library might be 1) a dead tree edition, 2) an audio book, or 3) an e-book. When purchasing a book, I go either way on electronic or paper. Audio books are too expensive, though, especially with the likes of librivox.org around for all my public domain needs.

Oh, and of course, in the craft industry, there’s a lot to be said for having a hard copy of your knitting pattern sitting right next to you. My e-reader, as a “primitive” and small non-backlighting one, is really not sufficient for that kind of layout. However, I hear tell that the new tablets are great for electronic format knitting patterns. So who knows? I guess in that scenario, it wouldn’t matter if knitting patterns went completely digital, because most people have access to a printer somewhere. And they aren’t novels, which would suck to print out.

And even so, when a web comic publishes a hard copy of their work, it creates an air of legitimacy for the comic. Like your web comic isn’t worth anything until you publish a hard copy.

It’s all very asinine and dumb :[

Aww I reject that comment.
I don’t like “ebooks” because I think that a paper book just feels right, and saying “look at my massive library” showing them a tiny screen full of digital books just doesn’t have the same appeal to me as a room lined to the nines with physical books. The same applies when friends brag about how they got like 1000 games on their xbox due to hacks or emulators or whatever have you. It just doesn’t LOOK like a gamer’s lair when all you have is a single black box hooked up to a TV with NO GAME DISKS around the room (in or out of their boxes).

That said, I am 23 and I still like your comic. If I had money or a job, I would donate to my favorite webcomics because I love them and want to see them continue (for my own selfish amusement of course, but it is still a form of devotion right?).

It’s precisely when your house is packed to nines with walls and walls and walls so full of books there’s no room to hang a picture that you start to realise the subtle allure of a real ebook.

Oddly enough, E.L. James, author of Fifty Shades of Gray, started writing Harry Potter fanfics and self-published the four books of the Fifty series digitally before it was picked up by Vintage Books publishers. It’s an option more and more first-time authors are using to make their initial splash (or ripple, YMMV).

“In death he was no more formidable than ever before.” should be:
“In death he was more formidable than ever before.” or
“In death he was no less formidable than in life.” depending on what you mean to say.

I’m looking forward to more.

Am I detecting a hint of a not fully resolved break up on Miss Dawn’s end of things?

Not sure what I’m coming back for more at the moment, the comic or the story you’re writing in the blog. I’m enjoying both greatly, even with the little grammatical errors. I’m never very good at writing in large spurts without errors, and even shorter writings, like my comments, have had really bad mistakes that make me facepalm when I see them later.

I’ve also really enjoyed our little chats in Animal Crossing, even though my comedic one liners pale in comparison to yours. My boyfriend just about died when I was recounting our chair puns. I still have the sleek chair at the ready, I’ll try to get it to you before my island farming session tomorrow evening, if we can coordinate. My house still looks fairly ramshackle since I cannot decide which furniture sets to pursue and I’ve gather a little from several sets. For now, I know I’m after cabin, modern wood, cabana, and exotic…but where they will go in my house versus where they are now is an ongoing battle that may never resolve itself. Interior decorating with any sort of coherence is apparently not my strong suit in the game.

I was wondering if our little brooksie was ever going to show up! It took me a while to figure it out, but when you mentioned the black hair with a blonde steak everythig else started making sense. Who else could lurk through through the shadows and decimate enemy forces in brutal and somewhat macabre ways and then come out of said shadows still looking adorable and huggable? Bonus points if she was quotting “I dream of Jeanie” with the whole “Yes master” and “Did i please you master” thing. I suppose that this version might have encyclopedic knowledge of all things shown in the theatre rather than the theater?

Summon Ninjo!

I guess this version doesn’t have that crippling social anxiety, huh? Ah, the benefits of role playing.

Your dreams sound trippy.
Mine are practically always first person perspective, and (thanks to my cursed imagination) absolutely real. Should I fall in a dream, I wake up with face pain. Should I dream of going to a birthday party, I just might wake with the taste of cake in my mouth. In short, it really freaking sucks when I have a bad dream.
Are you anything like me?

I’ve never had sensations apart from emotions follow me out of a dream that I can recall. That’s beyond the limits of my experience I’m afraid.

Trust me when I say a hyperactive writer’s imagination is a curse at times. Whatever sensory details I encounter while I read becomes entirely real to me.You describe the sound of a knife scraped against stone and I hear it. Describe the metallic taste of blood and I may actually gag. The sight or smell (Especially the smell) of a corpse? There is a good chance I will hate you.

The flip side is also true. Thanks to James Patterson, I knew that certain obscure foods were absolutely delicious.

I’ve been there done that dream wise. I once got stabbed in the side in a dream and when I woke up the area that I got dream stabbed hurt like a mo-fo for several hours and I wound up with a bruise there. Really sucks, good dreams can be extra nice though if you get full sensation. I’m a foodie, and I would love waking up with the taste of some kind of yummy food in my mouth.

Since I’m narcoleptic I dream constantly, almost from the moment that I close my eyes to the moment that I open them, so I’m glad I don’t get the full sensation thing all the time. My dreams are almost always strange though, like elephants walking on peanut butter strange. Not that I’ve actually had a dream about elephants walking on peanut butter, but I wanted to give a good example of the strange of my dreams.

Heh… I love NinJo as the shadow cat girl.

I too have dreamed of dating Evana Lynch, (like in a dream not that she isn’t a beautiful girl in real life but this was an actuall dream as well. Anyway in my dream she was actually a little crazy for real, and had an episode in front of me. Long story short, her family blamed me and kept me away from her. It was quite heartbreaking.

Pics of our intrepid band-Pleeeease! (specially Carol-Alina)

Does anyone still play Animal Crossing Wild World? If so I could really use some fruit other than peaches. My friend code is 5029-5807-2950.

I don’t play anymore, but I still have my old save. I’ll find it in a minute.

3436-7728-1338 Took me a while to remember how to set stuff up. Gate’s open even now.

I tried to register you, but it said I needed your name and the name of your town. I just put Crave for your name, but I didn’t have a town name to enter. What’s the name of your town?

Nonsuch and J.T. I think. Unfortunately I left the system on until it ran out of power and I misplaced my adapter in the move. Once I fond it though… Then you’ll get some fruit. It can’t have gotten too far. I used it this last Christmas…

Um… was Nonsuch the name of the town and J.T. the friend name? LOL, no problem about the adapter… I just barely found the adapter for my DS Light recently so I completely understand. Also, thanks much for being willing to help. I don’t have a 3DS yet and probably won’t be able to afford one for a while so I won’t be able to play the new game most likely till long after most have stopped playing it.

Also, for anyone who actually wants to visit my town…
The friend name is Kat, the town is Home.

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