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 Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:05 pm
Character: Sampson Wyrm: Alath Quote: All the King's Men
"Back in my day, you young'un wizards actually did some good! All your upstart potion did for me was give me a sore patootie! TO THE DUNGEON WITH YOU!"
King Jollop the Third is one hundred and twenty years old, and hopping mad. Even though he's lived such a long time, he wants to be immortal, and never forgotten. But the last wizard whom he ordered to make an everlasting-life potion only gave him a laxative! Needless to say, that wizard is now locked in the dungeons and on a strict bread-and-water diet.
But the king is still in search of such a potion, and has enlisted your guild to help with its concoction. If you fail, you will surely have he same fate as that unlucky alchemist. If you succeed, this tyrant will live forever!
What do you do?
Explain to the king that everyone dies and that his turn will come up sooner or later, and risk execution? Try to make a potion? Does your potion have a strange side effect? Does some convenient circumstance give you a way out of this predicament?
This quest yields 10 endurance points.
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:08 pm
"Potions aren't really my strong point. Why don't you go get an alchemist to do this? The guild's got plenty of them." Pleading wasn't usually something Sampson made a habit of doing, and old habits gave the young man an air of importance. Arrogance was something the guild head for this town despised, and they way his gray eyes almost seemed to dare him to keep him on the job seemed too fascinating a challenge for him to deny.
"Apprentice, you will do as told. King Jollop expects this potion before he dies, so I would suggest getting to work." He smirked as the man turned about, slamming the door behind him. Sampson paused on the other side, eyes closing and begging that this had been some strange nightmare. If it was, he remained asleep. Angrily, he felt his hand grow colder, gripping the doorknob. Slowly, his pale hand coated with ice, cold eyes glistening with fury as they slowly opened. Jerking away, he heard the slight crack as ice broke, turning quickly and throwing a quick blast of power at the door. The delicate hand work by carpenters unknown soon began to fracture as the snow now plastered to it shrank the frame. Panting slightly, Sampson grinned, turning from the sound of wood breaking to the outside world. Several of his fellow apprentices watched him with a mix of horror and awe. He beamed at them, scaring off a few.
"When the old man comes out here, I'd scatter if I was you. He's going to be angry." They scattered swiftly as Sampson walked past the old gates out into the streets of dirt. He glanced behind him, watching his precious creation melting away, the wood beneath deformed, the carvings unsalvageable. A small pang of regret hit his stomach, but a sharp reminder of the task ahead made him cringe.
Walking down the path, Sampson felt his wyrm's presence in the back of his mind. Allowing his barriers to fall, he felt Alath's joyous rejoining. Sampson explained what he had to do, and felt the hybrid's slight confusion as to the problem. Master alchemists, he explained, do not often make potions of unlimited life. It is a taboo art for the most part, although not necessarily illegal. Using a potion like that would tip the balance set forth from the gods in some way, and that makes most people wary. I don't think any store in town would carry all the supplies I'll need, and that's including a reputed branch of the guild. He walked in silence for a few moments, considering the other options, though none looked promising.
I'm sure you could do it! Alath said with his usual optimism, arousing a chuckle from his bonded.
Alath, the guild is more supportive of people with a little talent who put it into study. I can't learn book magic. All the studying in the world can't change a person born with a natural talent. Making potions doesn't require actual magic, true, but that's an area of study that I've had little contact with. He paused in his walk, allowing someone behind him to bump into him at the feeling of contemplation on the other end.
Are there any Masters in flying distance? Alath inquired helpfully. Sampson glanced up out of a habit of annoyance, only to spot a far off figure in the sky.
How should I know? Come down here, I don't want to walk everywhere. He couldn't help but smile as Alath happily agreed, spiraling downward. At first, when Alath had been a shaky flyer, Sampson couldn't have gotten the wyrm to let him up for anything in the world. Once practice made near perfect, Alath had still been hesitant, though this time more of his own dignity than Sampson's safety. The human had just shrugged it off. Once Alath had seen it was not an issue of dominating him like a common animal, he had been more than willing to carry Sampson on the rare occasion. The form stopped before coming too close, spiraling hesitantly. I was joking, Sampson said, watching his wyrm seem to get more uncomfortable. The man reached out to feel, suddenly feeling a wall appear that had never been there, didn't belong. Another shadow burst out of the air, Alath rising high. Feathers fell that Sampson caught, looking down to confirm the orange tipped with red.
"ALATH!" He yelled, recognizing the flying form as a wind wyrm, perhaps of pure blood. Occasionally a purger would come along, hating hybrids, wanting to destroy them, but this was different. How had they known about their bond? One hand growing tighter around the feathers, he yelled for Alath again, his free hand growing cold. Had he been certain that his wyrm wouldn't be hit, Sampson would have fired away, but, as it were, he was helpless.
"ALA-" His yells were muffled immediately by a hand rough from hard work. The hand with feathers in it was pulled behind him, his cold hand suddenly warming from unknown words whispered from behind. He tried to growl, but found himself mute. A small pain on the top of his head came before his world spun into darkness.
~*~
He awoke in a darkened chamber, finding himself unable to groan. Rubbing at his head, he saw the familiar feathers float to the floor, landing in the grime. A door opened, allowing him to see the room for what it really was. Alchemical ingredients lined the room, tools of the trade on one of the many tables. Before he could inspect too much, a shadow filled the door frame, drawing his eyes. It was only a form until another person entered the room, lighting up torches to allow his momentary gift of sight to remain with him. Silenced, Sampson lacked the ability to ask questions, though the sight of King Jollop the Third was enough to answer most of them. For a man of his age, he looked about as well as any man could. Wrinkles age his face more than anything, his hair thin and gray. A gaunt face and figure seemed almost to say that he was on the edge of the world, waiting for someone to kick him off into death. Only a pair of sharp, bright yellow eyes seemed to deny age, deny frailty, and deny the world its effects.
"You, wizard, are to make my lord a potion of immortality. Should you fail and attempt another practical joke like the last fool, you will be thrown in the dungeon to starve. Should you kill my lord, you will go free." Sampson didn't look at the speaker's face, watching what was left of the old man's lips twist into a manic smile. "However, you will go less half your soul. My lord's servant's wyrm overtook that abomination that is your bond and we have him in custody. We will not hesitate to kill him, and make you feel every anguish, every torture inflicted, including his knowledge that it was your failure to cooperate." Sampson gritted his teeth. "Now, will you take that and go free? Or will you stay here and do what we hired you to do?" Sampson now turned his eyes to the smaller man, walking over to him and Jollop. Jollop's eyes met his own, and they held. Locking eyes with Jallop, he let his hatred surged over that momentary bridge between them, making that smile grow, revealing a set of teeth that made part of him cringe, the gaps huge with only one or two breaks. With a signal, Jallop turned, and headed to a chair being floated by some sorcery as the doors shut, leaving him alone with the fires.
The flicker of torches in the darkness offered no company. Even though he reached out for Alath, he found himself groping in a greater shadow. Walking to where he dropped his bonded's feathers; he picked them up and cleaned them tenderly. He pocketed most, holding the largest in his hand, running his fingers along the edge. What if he killed the king on accident? Well... that couldn't happen. He reached up and tucked the feather behind his ear, fingers nervously taking a quick run through shoulder-length white hair.
Walking over to the table, he ran his hands over the mortar and pestle, picking it up and examining it. He couldn't help but shake his head at the poor quality, setting it down gently onto the wooden table. Something in the corner of the room caught his eye, at the edge of the ingredient table. Passing by, he noticed a variety of poisonous things, including a no doubt venomous concoction just out of reach of a shackled hand. Running about quickly, he lit the nearby torch to reveal the man who had thought it a funny idea to give Jollop a laxative instead of unending life.
"Sammy?" The older man asked, and Sampson took a moment to recognize another member of the guild. He nodded, tapping his own throat three times to tell the man that he had been silenced. "Damn. Thought maybe he'd forget. You can still do your magic though, right?" The young man thought, trying to capture the feeling of his power, but it flitted beyond his grasp. Shaking his head woefully, he knelt beside the man, gray eyes glittering in the fire's light. "Double damn."
Sampson's hands began flying, trying to sign out a simple statement through his body language. The man kicked the boy in the shin, causing the panicked frenzy to halt. "Slowly," he said. Sampson held out his hands like a book, occasionally reaching over to an invisible mortar and pestle. Finally he just shrugged and hung his head, peeking up to see if the man understood. "Ah. Listen, Sammy, we can't make a potion here." A look of alarm passed over the pale face, his hands groping at the remains of a dark tunic, pulling him up and into the light for the first good look he had seen. Fear rested on the gaunt face, though at the moment that didn't seem to matter. Removing the feather from behind his ear, Sampson waved it front of the man's face, and then pointed at the shackles. Letting that message sink in, the boy was stiff, holding the man out. Only when a pained groan was uttered did he even think of how uncomfortable and hurtful it would be to someone like him. Releasing him, Sampson paced nervously, waiting for any differing opinions, but when he looked back, the man's expression was full of remorse.
"It can't be done, Sammy. None of the ingredients here could work in making him a potion of immortality and the idiots who said so are the weakest alchemists I've ever seen. Trying to get that point across by acting out was a bad decision, but he kidnapped me the same way he did you.
Sampson sat down, trying to think. No one but Jallop and the people on his payroll wanted the King to live, but they were the ones with Alath in their hands. Or... did they? By blocking their bond, Alath could be flying free, and Sampson would be none the wiser. Could he take that chance? He stood and walked slowly to the table, reading the books until he found a concoction that seemed like a rather good substitute. He ceased to second guess his new plan, getting to work.
~*~
Three days later, and it was ready. Whenever someone would bring food, he would smile sunnily and nod, yet when the left it was a different story. Jallop's crony would be showing up for the finished potion in but a few hours. As the servant scuttled through, Sampson grinned again. Soon as the door shut, he abandoned the finalities of his work to take his prisonmate his meal in exchange for the water and bread. He sat down near the nameless man, munching away.
"So what have you been doing for the past few days?" He piped up, tearing a piece of meat up as best he could with his hands where they were. Sampson replied by pointing at him and then pointing at his eyes. "I'll see, huh?" Nodding, Sampson dropped the plate and gulped the water, heading back to work. Figuring his odds of survival, he found them to be slim enough to almost go back on, but chances of him, or possibly Alath, surviving when there was nothing to do were even slimmer. Holding up a vial of the hardest work he'd every put into alchemy, he peered into the murky depths. Murky wasn't good. I have a nine out of ten chance that this is going to poison me. Perfect. But even the grimmest thoughts weren't enough to keep him from turning about as light from the outside flooded in. Turning, he faced the small man from before, holding up the vial. As he entered into the world Sampson had come to know for the past four days, a smile spread across Sampson's face.
"Just give it here, boy, and you can go free." When Sampson flashed Alath's feather, the man laughed. "Did you really expect me to let that impure b*****d live? He was dead long before you awoke and met my lord." With that, Sampson felt a rage start up deep within him. Throwing his head back, he downed the potion, praying to the gods that he had done right. The look of anger on the wizard's face amplified as Sampson smirked.
"Is that right?" Throwing the vial that had just been emptied of it's desilencing liquid at the wizard, Sampson dodged a ball of fire, feeling his powers break free from the unrenewed restraints. Before the wizard's incantation could be repeated to make his powers again fail, Sampson felt the tips of his fingers grow colder, both palms cold enough to freeze his blood, were he normal. Hurling both shots of power at the man at once was not the best idea he'd ever had, but he'd never heard a more gratifying crunch as the body his the wall. Pilfering quickly revealed the shackles key. By eating Sampson's meals these last few days, the man found himself able to stand when his bonds clattered against the wall. "Let's go."
"Sammy, what about Alath?" Sampson paused, looking over at the formless pile of wizard. Timidly, he reached out, Alath? There was a roar unlike any he had heard before, the walls of the building shattering around them as Alath broke through to get to his bonded. As the large hybrid found his bonded and Sampson happily hugged the brown head, he noticed the man headed inwards, the bottle that had been so close to his hand since the incident clutched. "Teach him to starve me." Sampson would have argued, were it not for the vicious smile and dark glittering eyes of his friend.
"Good luck with that." Sampson said, while being bombarded with questions from Alath. Smiling, the boy stepped out into the daylight, looking up at a cloudless sky, and for this he was grateful. Even as yells echoed behind him, people turning to stare at the wyrm and human who had torn down a solid side of the tyrant's house, he couldn’t help but feel happiness in his soul, beneath the glory of the sun.
END.
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:02 pm
The Grade
Creativity: 6
Syntax: 2
Style: 1
Overall: 9 out of 10
Points: 9
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