The game and its world are based on a new novel I plan to focus on very soon. It takes place in post-apocalyptic earth that’s been overrun by demons. The best and brightest of humanity have been wiped out and all that’s left are those with, shall we say, non-essential skills for a post-apocalyptic world. That’s right — all that’s left are the lawyers, the marketing executives, the web developers, and the like. In essence, it’s you and me, baby.

In preparation for the MUD’s release, I plan to release some “teasers”. They aren’t quite short stories. They’re just meant to give you an idea of what the world (and the new novel) will be like. Part 1 of the teaser can be found here. And now for Part 2:

The bolt shot out with a loud pop, hissing and trailing smoke. Movement inside the crevice stopped. Heads turned upward. Tails froze, poised in midair. Yellow eyes followed the water bottle as it plummeted, spinning and spewing a shower of sparks.

From the other side of the crevice, the corporal slung the crossbow over one shoulder and turned his back to them. He signaled with a wave. Two beeps crackled on the headset.

“Go.”

Tooth and the corporal dropped into the ravine.

Johnson was watching the bolt. A sharp popping sound rang out and the bolt was thrown wildly to the left. The soda bottle had been punctured by the firecrackers and it was spraying holy water across the cavern.

The scene on the ground erupted in chaos. Gray, flaky splotches appeared on the demons’ skin wherever the water touched. Unearthly screams echoed off of the cavern walls. The formation they were moving in earlier turned into a panicked evacuation, with each one scrambling over one another to get away.

Johnson exhaled slowly and jammed the butt of his gun into his shoulder. Aiming for the weakened gray spots, he started with the demons close to where Tooth and the corporal were landing.

Gunfire easily went through the wounded splotches and demons fell in a puff of toxic smoke, oozing a tar-like substance. The dead only stirred the demons’ panic further, hastening their flight out of the ravine.

Johnson stepped back from the ledge and flipped up the plate covering his forearm. The screen it protected was alive with activity. Tiny green blips on the edges told him Sarge and the rest of the team were meeting the retreating demons, noted as red blips.

Suddenly, the entire screen winked out, showing nothing but black.

“Piece of crap,” Johnson muttered, banging the side of his gun against the screen. “Come on.” He gave it another whack and the metal plate fell off. “Figures.”

The screen flickered to life and the green blips appeared, all accounted for. The red blips were quickly disappearing. The screen flickered a half-second of blackness again, only to return with an enormous red splotch filling up the center of the screen.

Johnson’s head snapped up toward the Door. The black, swirling mass of energy still hadn’t grown to full size, though the altar that it rested upon was gushing a sickening amount of blood. The flashing symbols had frozen and now only one was displayed – a crescent with various slashes through it and tiny intersecting circles. The symbol morphed from red to a blinding white.

A black dagger poked through the door. As it continued to push itself onto the physical plane, the dagger grew longer, wider, and Johnson could see that it was set on top of a red, leathery bulb. More bulbs with daggers appeared; each one smaller than the last. There were five total emerging.

A shudder rippled through Johnson as he realized — it was a foot. A gigantic foot.

The Door wasn’t large enough to allow the demon onto the physical plane. The edges wavered and stretched, its perfect rectangular shape becoming marred as the demon on the other side tried to push through.

“Corporal!” Johnson shouted. “We’ve got a Flier!”

Apparently that was old news. The corporal couldn’t help but notice the massive foot, and was doing all he could to help wake the rookie, who had passed out cold. Tooth waved her hand beneath the rookie’s nose. Johnson guessed it was smelling salts or something similar, because the rookie jerked and his head bobbed wildly. He was awake, but wouldn’t be much help against one of Hell’s Lieutenants.

The Door throbbed again, its hard edges wavering. A leathery hand came through, gripped the altar, and pulled. The Demon was bent at the waist, trying to fit through.

A voice screamed from beyond the Door, multiple tones layered together — the sounds of deep, ethereal bass and clarion shriek, and everything in between. Every one of Johnson’s muscles clenched when he heard it.

A head emerged through the black screen and angry eyes flickered about the cavern. A bouquet of spikes protruded from its cheeks and flashed in the light. Its mouth opened in a vicious roar, spewing gas.

There was nothing Johnson could do from here. He watched the Corporal and Tooth drag the rookie to the base of the altar. The rookie started to gesture, waving a golden object, looking as if he were performing an exorcism.

They weren’t fast enough. The Door swelled as if giving birth and the demon pushed through, screaming and chanting in its wicked tongue. Black wings trailed after it like snakes, trying to cover a restless, barbed tail.

The appendage lashed out, swiping across dirt and rock, aiming for the trio at the altar.

The corporal had expected it and ducked, hauling the rookie by the scruff of his armor. Tooth wasn’t so lucky and was sent flying. She hit the dirt-packed wall with a loud thud and rebounded, hard, onto the ground.

Johnson picked up his weapon and fired wildly at the demon’s head. Most of the gunfire ricocheted, but a couple of lucky hits pierced the demon’s soft ears. Screaming, the demon straightened to full height. It took a large step forward, too close to the cavern wall for Johnson to see. The tips of its horns poked over the top of the cliff.

Johnson took a few hasty steps back, just as a meaty hand reached up and swiped at the spot he had been standing in. A hungry growl rumbled below.

Johnson raised his weapon again, crouched, and charged forward, ready for another assault on the demon’s ear. As he neared, the hand swept over the edge, fingers reaching for him. He jumped, narrowly escaping its razor-like claws. When he hit the ground, he ran up to the edge and aimed —

But he didn’t fire. Movement on the left caught his eye. A dainty, pink balloon was arcing through the air, its flimsy rubber shell wobbling precariously. It hit the demon on the neck and popped, splashing water across its skin. A gray spot appeared everywhere the water had touched, and its protective hide turned to paper-thin flakes. Sarge and the rest of the team had finally reached the Door.

Johnson watched the demon charge his team, leaving him alone on the ledge. His speaker crackled and a single, long beep erupted in the speakers.

“Johnson, get your ass down on the ground and help get that Door closed.”

He paused, considering the team’s odds.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Sarge.”

Another beep. “That’s an order, Private!”

Muttering to himself, he slung his gun over one shoulder and turned away. As he reached for his rappelling gear, a low hiss filled the air. Johnson whirled back around.

The demon had crouched on all fours and was spewing a yellow gas from its mouth. The noxious cloud spread faster than his team could move. Only one soldier had escaped from it unharmed, running back out of the cavern. Johnson could tell it was Sarge by the duct tape wrapped around both thighs and the torso, and the favored slingshot in one hand. Everyone else was trapped in the cloud, succumbing to the effects of the hallucinogen. The voices of his teammates cut in and out over the radio waves. Someone was trying to pull the affected soldiers from the gas, but they were laughing too hard. Someone else was singing “Wheels On the Bus”.

The demon took off, hot and heavy after Sarge. Johnson dropped his rappelling gear and took off after the demon.

“Corporal!” Johnson said, “Sarge is in trouble! I’m on my way to assist!”

Johnson didn’t get a response from the corporal, which meant he was out of range. The only response was from Sarge. The radio projected absolute calm but the signal was broken by a pregnant pause, indicating she was running hard and out of breath.

“Negative, Johnson.” Pause. “Get your —” Pause. “ass down —” Longer pause. “to that Door!”

“Negative, Sarge!”

Johnson followed the demon thirty yards, where it was spinning in circles, swiping vainly at the tiny figure running laps around its feet. Sarge wasn’t even paying attention to where the gun was pointed, firing erratically in the air.

Johnson ran straight up to the edge, waited for the demon to turn and expose itself, and fired off a heavy round. Bits of gray matter and black goo splattered from its neck.

“Johnson! I said —”

Ignoring her, he fired again, giving the demon’s ear another heavy assault. By now, a small hole had formed in the lobe, and he could see through to the other side. Johnson decided it must have hurt like hell because the demon turned toward him and charged the ledge again. This time, its wings extended fully, like black sails catching wind. The sound they made as they beat the air was deafening.

The monstrous beast rose. Its head and shoulders came into clear view over the crag’s edge and red, feline eyes focused on Johnson. Its mouth opened wide, exposing a double row of needle-like teeth. Yellow gas preceded a deafening roar.

Johnson knew he couldn’t get away in time. He reached into his utility bag, searching for anything he could use to defend himself with. He felt a metal sphere at the bottom. Grabbing it, he hastily pulled it out, accidentally flinging everything else out of his pack.

It was a rusty, old grenade. He jerked the pin off. With all his strength, he lobbed it toward the demon’s open mouth and sucked in a deep breath just before the mist engulfed him.

The grenade made a clanking noise as it bounced around the demon’s teeth and dropped into its throat. The demon’s roar became a choking, gargled sound and its body convulsed.

Johnson spun around and bolted in the opposite direction. His voice echoed inside his helmet.

“Grenade!”

Two seconds later, a sickening splat echoed across the rock. Johnson dove for the ground but was unable to escape the spray. Flaming bits of demon innards pelted hard against his armor and black goo speckled the ground around him. He lay quietly for a minute, half-hoping he was dead.

The radio crackled and made a long, solitary beep.

“Johnson, if you weren’t already the lowest ranking grunt in this outfit, I’d demote you.”

He considered that for a moment, then rolled over on his back.

“Me too, Sarge,” he said. “Me too.”

And it reads a little cheesy.

But I’m working at it, and I’ve started building the actual MUD — as best I can anyway, without a finished program. And that’s fine, because I really don’t need it yet. The beauty of this is what I’m creating now is can be simply plugged in later.

Everything’s being planned and plotted out in a Visio-type format, just as I would a novel. It’s visual and helps me keep everything organized.

So here’s what the opening room looks like so far on my “plan”.

I tried making it small enough to give a better overview of how my pages look, while also obscuring the text. Unfortunately, the text is still readable if you focus hard enough. Warning: Spoiler above?

Too late, I guess.

It doesn’t matter too much, because not a lot goes on in this room. It’s the opening of the “story”. The room is at the top with a Key below. The letters all mark points of interest and NPC’s, and below I started filling in what the text should read, should the player interact with those points. I also put in responses for different actions.

We haven’t yet defined those actions, though it doesn’t matter. Having responses ready is really what matters, and we can add more types of responses as needed. Plus, this is all loose — we can add/subtract/modify as the world and the game grows. This is all just preliminary and the idea is sure to grow as time goes on.

I can’t wait.

Yeah, I didn’t think so. But would you at least believe he kept talking about how awesome and fun the game is, and that’s why I got it?

Good, because that’s the truth. Honest.

After the latest World of Warcraft patch set everyone’s talents back to zero (again), I lost my steam about playing it. The game was so fun but now that I have to refigure out the game and my characters and decide, once again, what I want to do…

That just sounded like too much work. I logged in, looked at the changes and the talent trees, stared a little more, blinked a few times, and logged out. A few days later, Kerry started talking to me about Lego Universe.

Basically, you’re a Lego. And you do stuff. He said a lot of other things after that, but he had me at “Legos doing stuff”.

Since my steam for WoW has waned, I asked Tom to cancel my account again. Last night, he installed Lego Universe. So when I’m not writing two novels, writing music, preparing for the writers’ group, playing Star Frontiers or spending time with Tom (not sure why that’s the last on my list — it certainly isn’t bottom of the priority list, I swear!) then I’ll be playing Lego Universe. If you’re feeling so inclined, come check it out with us!

As much fun as it was, that game didn’t last long and, ever since, we’ve been bemoaning how sad it was that we had to stop playing it. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty thrilled when Kerry suggested he start up a new roleplaying game, which has actually been around for a long time, called Star Frontiers.

The world we’re using is one that Kerry’s very familiar with and is a space theme, which I really like. My character is a human female who is pretty good with a gun and is a decent engineer/pilot. Kerry’s the GM, and the players are Tom, Bob, Jeff and me.

Our first game was this past Sunday night and turned out even better than I had expected. That is to say, it was worse than expected! We made a big rookie mistake and split up into two groups, and each group got into their own fight. Thanks to the dice (Lady Luck was not on our side), our fighting skills were either rendered to an ineffective, sissy slap fight or the equivalent of the Star Wars Kid. Seriously. Those were the words Kerry used and, as he is the GM, that’s how the story goes.

GM: Round in your favor, so you need to roll a 39 or lower on d100 to hit him.
Tom: [1d100] => [99] = (99)
Tom: ….
GM: Ok, you go full Star Wars Kid on him.

Unfortunately, our compatriots at the other end of the hall were having the same kind of luck as we were.

GM: Harloc, give him what fer
Bob: [1d100] => [97] = (97)
Bob: …
GM: Star Wars Kid.
Tom: (EIGHT-LEGGED STAR WARS KID)
GM: He is fighting back
GM: [1d100] => [52] = (52)
GM: It’s a slap fight

So we didn’t do well, per say, but it was incredibly hilarious. Honestly, it was the best time I’ve had in a very long time, and it was so great to finally be able to do something with most of the gang again. I have the transcript of the first session and my plan is to turn these into readable stories, while keeping them true to what went on during the actual game. I’ll probably post them to the blog. If I don’t and end up posting them to Kerry’s Star Frontiers site, I’ll let you know where to find them.

Here we go….

I guess when you can’t think of anything classy to name yourself, you go with that. The best part about this name is, as retarded as it is, I find myself fixated on trying to figure out how to pronounce the damn thing. I keep putting too many po’s in there.

The guild for deathly horse-lovers with a nervous tick.

I find that nothing screams “go away” better than sarcasm.

She didn’t figure it out, so I didn’t come back.

They spell “lords” with a Z and they pay cash! Serious business — er, buzinezz.

Mine’s green. What’s yours?

Ken and I are hanging out in WoW on Monday night, so I’m hopeful that we can come up with a few more screenshots for your enjoyment.

Have a great weekend!

I’ve also been working on my first novel. Oddly enough, I posted exactly a year ago saying I was almost finished with this book. And I was. Sort of. Because this is my first novel, I really wanted to take my time and do as good of a job as I could. Nearly every day, as Tom can attest, I’ve worked on this thing. It’s been written 3 times — last year when I posted, I had only written it twice. Every time I rewrote the story, I learned a ton about writing.

This final version is the final and best version, and I am going to submit it to some agents to see what happens. I feel stressed, but what do I have to lose? The worst (and most likely) outcome is that they will say no. If that happens, I’ll go another route – self publishing or internet or whatever.

At the time of this post, I have two chapters left to write and then I need to go through and finish my edits. The first three chapters are pretty much done and I’ve been passing them around. I even already have fans in my church, if you can believe that. It’s a weird feeling to know that I have fans, but it’s really encouraged me.

The book is called “The Fourth Channel” (sorry, I don’t know how to underline in HTML) and if you’re interested in taking a peek at the first chapter, post a comment below or send me an email.

I’m very excited about having this book done. Already my brain is churning over the next book, which is actually the practice book I had been working on before this one. A few days ago, I woke up at 3AM, and the first chapter just hit me. The idea is an exciting new and gritty start to the story, giving it a whole new flavor and tons of possibilities, and I’m excited to get going. Now that I’ve learned so much working on this current book, I expect new projects to go a lot faster. At least, I hope.

In gaming news, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention that I disappeared from WoW yet again. Sorry. I’ve been playing a PS3 game called Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. It’s a strategy game, which appeals to me because I loved Final Fantasy Tactics. Disgaea is similar in that it’s a strategy game, but it’s like FFT on crack. So when I’m playing games, I’ve been playing that. Maybe I’ll get back into WoW, but I think I’m nurturing a healthy fear of Sabe hitting level 80 and, if I invest a couple more hours into her, that’s what she’ll be.

And yes, she’s still dressed like the Ghost of Arenas Past.

My sound room is also done. In my spare time (har) I’ve been working on elements for a music project that is going to be coming very soon. Not much to say about that yet, but soon.

More to come, and hopefully some food related topics! Tom and I have a lot of cookouts and BBQ’s on the social calendar so I’ll have a wealth of photos and recipes to share… So stay tuned.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I’m back in World of Warcraft. My druid has been transferred to a new roleplaying server to be with Kerry, Jeff, Bob, and Mel, who have integrated themselves into a gigantic guild. Like a faithful lemming on a cliff, I’ve joined, too. I won’t give you the guild name, but I will say that it’s horde (of course) and has 5,000+ members.

Yeah. Needle in a haystack, man. I cope by setting up a separate window just to collect guild chat and announcements, and then I mostly ignore it. No, that’s not typically the way I like my guild participation to be, but for now it works.

For the most part, it’s the same kind of people on every other server. And, with a high-population server, first and second rate avatar names are already taken, so most people use what’s left.

Even if it was spelled correctly, what the crap is a CHASTITY HEART? A heart wrapped in gigantic, steel panties?

No, thanks. I’ll just stick with the generic one.

Life on a roleplaying server is a little weird. I didn’t really know what awaited me — a Tolkenesque world of imagination and adventure?

Nope.

I was really in the mood to play a noob toon (Mom: that’s slang for “brand new, low level character”), so I created a blood elf priest.

YEAH, I MADE PRETTY BLOOD ELF, YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING OF IT? MY MAIN CHARACTERS ARE A GREEN ORC WITH UGLY HAIR AND A HUGE COW AND I WANTED SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT! Geez. It’s not like anyone creates these characters for moronic titillation.

Or maybe they do.

So I’m running around, minding my own business, when the general zone chat starts to act up. And when I say “act up” I mean “people acting retarded”. Or maybe I’m the one with the problem. Maybe I have an idea of how roleplaying should go in a video game, and these individuals were trying to expand my horizons.

But I doubt it.

So it starts out with these two not-really-roleplaying-retards, Angel and Shadowlands.

For some reason I thought we were angry, mean elves out for power and glory, and not channeling the world of Paula Deen.

I wasn’t the only one gagging at this. Enter Charmcaster.

Sorry, SPORT. This here’s some serious roleplaying and they’re about to jack up the action!

You know I have to get in on this.

I’d also like to know what the hell a TEGUILA is, but some things just aren’t meant to be!

And he did go away… for about 30 seconds. Apparently, his barfy affection for Angel couldn’t keep a roleplaying Rico Suave like him away for long, and he came right back — but that conversation was really boring and my interest waned for a bit.

Angel was nice enough to take a poll to make it easier for the zone noobs to hook up. Or something. I’m not sure what the point of that was and, judging by the looks of things, no one else did, either.

I didn’t think anyone was taking the conversation seriously anymore, and that was fine because I was just happy it was over. Or so I thought.

I leveled up and needed some spells, so I wandered into the inn where my trainer was stationed. As soon as I got to the front door of the inn, the chat spam starts filling up my window. Only it’s not being relayed over general chat, it’s happening upstairs in the inn, in an upstairs bedroom, right next to the NPC I need.

And here’s the level of genius we are now dealing with:

Because pr0n is real!

I run upstairs to my trainer and see two male toons and one female toon in there, sitting on random beds. And just as I’m wondering how old these kids actually are, I see this:

You think? Better wait for the engraved invitation. Do you know the secret handshake, because you’re going to need that, too.

The best part is that the female character was Charmcaster, the individual who was blasting our fabulous roleplaying duo earlier in the evening. I decide to stick around to hear what happened. It turns out I had just shown up for the casting couch portion, and Charmcaster (who I’m pretty sure is actually a dude IRL) was being asked about the size of her/his assets.

I can only guess that the two boys who were trying to roleplay/cyber Charmcaster were around the age of 11. I probably should have shouted out that my bra was a size “R”. They probably would have believed me.

And then for some reason it got really explicit to the point where I was uncomfortable, so I’m not going to post that stuff. But here’s some of the funny bits. You should be able to guess what the overall conversation was about. Or maybe not. I don’t think THEY knew what the conversation was about, to be honest.

Dude! It’s like FLEM! 4srs! Or maybe you’re retarded virgins who are so young, I might get arrested just for listening to this garbage.

I don’t know, man. Is that going to be enough?

I kept saying I was going to log out because I couldn’t stomach much more, but then the conversation started to get good. And by good, I mean ridiculous. And then Bob had a great suggestion for me — create a little ambiance!

Unfortunately they weren’t amused when they heard my contribution to the affair, because Charmcaster ran away, right past me, without any clothes on, and out of the inn.

And the red, shouting chat-spam began as our young perverts chased Charmcaster across the zone. My work was done at that point and I logged out for the night.

The end.

Today we took our final exam, and I feel somewhat good about it. I got into class early enough that I could flip through my flash cards one last time as a refresher right before the test – very important for me because the dates sometimes escape me, and it’s good to re-read those little, last details. You know. So, despite the snow, I got in early, sat down and started flipping through my cards. Three minutes before class starts, I still had a small stack to go through, but the instructor stands up and says, “Okay, we’ve got three minutes before the final, so everyone put your things away and move your bags and books to the sides of the room.”

Um… lolwut?

I quickly (and frantically) flip through three or four of the cards sitting directly on top of my stack and and reluctantly put everything away. The test then started early.

Luckily for me, the 10 identify slides she put up were ones I had looked through that morning, so I managed to get them all right. Hopefully I mentioned all of the terminology she wanted and will get full credit for everything. You never know though, because on my first exam she wrote “Excellent, I couldn’t ask for more!” and gave me a 96.

And before you ask, yes, I’m still wondering where my other 4 points are.

Otherwise, I have very few other complaints… but here’s one. (Ha!) A month ago, we all turned in a five-page paper (12 pt. font, double-spaced, so… 2 pages of actual text?). We didn’t receive them back until today, after we turned in our final exams. When she handed me mine, she said, “Great job.” I said thanks, took it and walked away. The front page said “A”. Inside… no notes. No number. An arbitrary A-grade. Who knows what that means — full credit or the “couldn’t ask for more, here’s your 96″? I don’t know!

But beyond that, I think everything went okay and unless something mysterious happens to my test I will receive my A. Lots of changes happening for me right now so I’m debating whether or not I even want to take the CAD class next semester. I probably will because it’s all project-based and will give me a break from paper-based study.

A couple of random items… I’m working on some new things that have me very excited right now. This coming Tuesday, one of my friends, Dan, (who is also my guitarist) is coming over to measure out a section of the basement so we can build a sound room. Once it’s up I can make noise and write music without having to worry about Tom overhearing. (Making him wear headphones and blast metal just isn’t working for me — I need a room of my own to create in.) So that’s another project on top of my other projects. Right now it’s my priority so I’m very excited.

I also started playing WoW again and transferred my druid to, um, that server Kerry’s on. Her name has been changed (yet again) to Sodi. I also started another noob shaman named Saere so those of you on the new server can find me. Ken and Ed are still on Agg, and I’ve still got toons there so I can hang out with them…

…but only a little. I’m very busy and strangely addicted to Fat Princess on PS3. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you also know I’ve been trying out a little Assassin’s Creed 2, though Tom and I are trying to figure out why the game has such a good rating. It’s a long, long time before you get to the good part of stabbing anyone and the story is lamesauce.

Yeah, and unfortunately I don’t have any screenshots. As I said earlier, I’ve been wanting to play some new games and have been tinkering around with a few others. Inexplicably, I loaded up Hellgate again. And every day, Tom would say, “Oh, so you’re playing that game that you hate?”

Yep.

So I made another sword chick and started chopping up post-apocalyptic London. Her name: SnoCone. (Pink Cupcake was taken by another toon, so I had to go with SnoCone.) Things were going relatively well for an entire 30 levels — yes, I was level 30! Then I got to the final “Test” quest, where you take control of an obnoxiously inept robot and blast your way through a street. When you get the robot to the end of the street, regardless of whether or not you killed anything at all in your path, you win, hooray.

Only I was so annoyed with said inept robot that I clicked the option to exit the robot and restart the quest. I ended up back at the beginning of the street, out of the robot. And that was fine except that I HAD NO BODY. No matter what I did, I had no body. I was just a mindless essence floating around, unable to do anything. I couldn’t even get into the portal. So I quit out of the game and when I came back… My quest log showed I was in the middle of the quest and NOTHING would let me get back into the robot, because apparently the game thought I was still inside the robot. I killed everything on my own and ran to the end of the street, stood in the portal where the robot is supposed to go… Nothing. Needless to say, this is one of those disastrous, show-stopping bugs that the game was so widely criticized for.

So I did the desperate thing that you know you are absolutely NOT supposed to do (I don’t even know why they make it an allowable option): I abandoned the main story quest line.

Which abandoned everything I had done up until that point. There is no way to get the original quest back, because the original quest line begins in a small training area that is closed off once you leave the area.

Level 30! No way to progress the game any further!!! What a piece of crap!!!!!! And you know what the worst part of all is????

I started a new swordmaster named SlapChop.

You’re right, you’re right. I should have named her MissParsley.