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  1. #21
    Senior Member ahmet476's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BDK16 View Post
    Campfire Stories

    "Yo dudes! This campfire made me think of an amazing card to design eh!" Kyle shouted.
    Funny story. That last line. LMAO!

  2. #22
    Senior Member XanteseZerylliom's Avatar
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    This may be non-traditional for a fanfic, but I guess that's okay for me. I like it. Also, I hope the other two mentions don't disqualify this as primarily about the Scythe :) At any rate, I hope you all enjoy this (at least more than I think some will).

    Scythe of Fate

    John Winterborn looked across the fields of dead vegetation that blanketed his farm. For the past few years, Balor had been plagued with famine. He and his wife were slowly starving, down to the last of their pitiful stores. They were dangerously close to losing everything they had.

    Yet John and his wife had never been the kind to let hardship get to them. John would just wipe the sweat dripping from his dusty brow and move forward, and this time was no exception.

    Looking out over the field from the road, John did wipe his dusty brow, plopped his straw hat, also soaked in sweat from a long day’s journey, back onto his curly black locks, and set off again toward his home and his wife.

    On this return trip, started at sun’s early light that morning and ending just now at dusk, John felt accomplished. He’d done what he’d set out to do: save his dying farm. While he thought the last of the goats and one thin cow would help him earn enough money to stay another few months in their home, something even better, something unexpected, had happened.

    He’d met a wizened old man, a tome in one hand and a scythe in the other, who offered the scythe in exchange for the animals. At first, John laughed. What use had he of another scythe? Yet as he looked down at the man, skin dark and wrinkled with age, hair white with experience, he felt a sense of trust come over him. He would listen to this man, at least to see if he could help such a lonely traveler on such a terribly hot and barren road.

    The man croaked, “You may laugh at my offer, but you will not laugh after I’ve told you of its power and shown you what it can do. This is the Scythe of Fate; no ordinary scythe is this.” For the first time, John noticed a faint black aura surrounding the scythe. “This scythe,” continued the old man, long-taloned fingers clicking against the scythe’s handle, “can reach into the future and reap what has not yet been sown. Watch.”

    The dark man waved the scythe above a shriveled stalk of corn and pulled up a vibrant green stalk full of juicy ears of golden corn. John gasped in amazement.

    “What kind of magic is this?”

    “It is a magic I have rarely encountered in my thousand years, one from the far reaches of Balor. So, do we have a deal?”

    John considered for a moment. “Sure.”

    As John reached out for the scythe, the man withdrew it quickly, his stern face hardening. “But first, a warning for you: this scythe will reap anything its blade touches. Take care not to touch the blade yourself, and be certain your wife does not touch it as well.”

    John only nodded. The old man placed the scythe firmly in John’s hand, and with that, he and the animals disappeared.

    Now, John stood on the edge of his property, readying himself for a test swing. What if he’d been made a fool of? How could he return to his wife without some proof? He drew the scythe back, muscles trembling not with effort but nerves, and swung over a dead vine of tomatoes. Just as the mysterious man had done before him, he pulled up a fresh, juicy bunch of crop, red glowing more violet in the fading light.

    Victorious, he ran to the house, shouting for his wife.

    “Lizzie!” he shouted as he burst through the door.

    The beautiful woman, skin white as ivory and hair black as night, started. “John! What are you doing? You nearly gave your little one a heart attack.” She rubbed her bulging womb, calming the life growing inside. She smiled at him.

    He plopped the tomatoes on the table.

    “What’s this?” she gasped. “Surely you didn’t find this?” She picked one up and bit into the fruit, crimson juice bursting forth and rolling down from the corner of her lip. Her face brightened as she chewed. “This is so good! Have you tried it?” She offered him the fruit.

    He bit into it and found himself as ecstatic as she was. Licking their lips after finishing the whole vine, John and Lizzie chuckled. “How’d you get this?”

    “I ran across an old man who traded our animals for this scythe.” He pointed to the object, which he’d placed against the wall earlier, and Lizzie took in its faint glow, so dark it was visible even in the failing light. “We’re saved, Lizzie; we’re saved! That old man saved us.”

    Lizzie walked toward the scythe. “How does it work?”

    John bolted up, rushing to protect her from the scythe’s power. In his rush, he dropped the scythe, and its gleaming blade caught Lizzie’s left arm, barely nicking her, but still forming a red slash with a trickle of thick, hot blood seeping out. It rolled down her arm slowly, like the juice of those red, red tomatoes.

    Lizzie grabbed not her cut arm, but her womb. The life inside her was writhing, and Lizzie fell to the floor with the pain. Screaming, she kicked and rolled, the pain unbearable.

    Then, suddenly, it all stopped. Lizzie wasn’t screaming. John rushed to her side, trying not to think the worst.

    As he neared, he saw Lizzie’s body, still pink with life, blood still trickling down her arm, but something was now clutched within those arms. He also noticed that her womb had suddenly shrunk.

    Then, Lizzie let out a cry, and John saw why. In her arms was clutched the dead body of their unborn infant. Just like the scythe had reaped what had not yet been sown, now it reaped what was not yet born.

    As Lizzie huddled in the corner, wailing over the loss of their child, John knew he had been warned against this very thing. Distraught, John began to cry as well, falling to his knees and pulling at his dark, curly locks. Through blurring, teary eyes, he saw the scythe. He could have lived through famine, but this? He grabbed the scythe and stabbed himself through the heart. As the blood spilled over the blade, he felt a sense of calm. He was going to be with his child.

    ***

    Lizzie had left the farm behind days ago, setting the Scythe of Fate on the table so she could bury her child and husband. She was saddened, but she had never been the kind to let hardship get to her.

    Clad in a flowing black dress to show her mourning, she walked into the Temple of the Seven. A wizened old man, skin dark and wrinkled, with talon-like fingernails and a tome in his hand, greeted her. “A rough path you’ve found to this place, my child, but to find peace, we must simply return to the seven. What’s your name, child?”

    She looked into the dark man’s eyes. “Elizabeth Winterborn.”
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  3. #23
    Senior Member XanteseZerylliom's Avatar
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    I would edit instead of double-posting, but that's against the rules :P

    I also meant to say I wanted this to be longer but was worried about the length. I'm wordy, what can I say?

    Edit: I also meant to say that I did look for some lore to make sure I didn't overstep it, but I found none specifically for the cards I used. Sorry if I did overstep some boundaries I didn't know about.
    Last edited by XanteseZerylliom; 07-29-2013 at 12:56 AM.
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  4. #24
    DP Visionary Warr Byrd's Avatar
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    Lyra Blackrose

    Deep within the borders of the kingdom of Vozit (or, you know, as deep as one could get considering it was an island nation across the sea from most the other kingdoms of Balor) there was a small, nameless village, its precise location known only to its inhabitants, the King, and a few others. Surrounded by dense forest and tall mountains, it was very difficult to stumble upon accidently and was normaly reached only through a secret tunnel under one of the mountains. People who managed to find the village on their own tended to disappear, although some were known to reappear many years later with newfound talents. This village was the training grounds for the individuals known as the King’s Hands, the secret servants of the King, tasked with carrying out his less than honorable needs. Primarily, they were assassins, executing those whom the King felt were dangerous to his position on the throne, such as Arthyle in the Last War nearly 1,000 years ago and the mad “prophet” Hothar who had tried to instigate a war with the neighboring kingdom of Ellos a mere 150 years ago, violating the truce established by the Brothers of Unaxio. In addition to assassination, the Hands were also known to carry out other insidious deeds, including sabotage, thievery, and espionage.

    In the year 979 LW, a daughter was born in this nameless village to the Master Thief Mangus Blackrose (second only to the one known only as “Agent Rex”) and his wife, the Master Saboteur Arylla. They named their daughter Lyra and trained her in the ways of both their arts. When the proud parents were summoned to carry out the orders of their king, Mangus and Arylla left their daughter in the care of the young maiden Serena Thoughtripper, a dabbler in all the arts of the Hands but particularly nasty with her knife and whip work, studied under the tutelage of Anklu Calmdown. The two girls became fast friends, little Lyra following Serena all around the village while she carried out the daily chores and training, and then training together once the two became older.

    Shortly after Lyra’s twentieth birthday, rumors began circulating of monstrous beasts that were terrorizing the mainland kingdoms of Balor. At first, these monsters were said to be nothing more than nuisances, even though there likes had never been seen in Balor, but as time passed more intelligent and ferocious beasts were reported, as well as a sort of loose command structure resembling that of an invading army. Wanting to know more about the creatures and unwilling to be surprised if they ever made their way to the kingdom of Vozit, the King sent out his two most promising Hands, Lance Shadowstalker and Lyra’s friend Serena, as well as a company of the spies known as the Nightshades.

    Over the next year, stories came back from the small contingent describing the ferocity of the beasts, known collectively as “The Shadow,” as well as stories of the mysterious gems with miraculous powers, referred to as shadow crystals. These crystals released an aura over time that was said to amplify the natural abilities of those who could harness it, a group that included both Lance and Serena. Between his fear of the Shadow making its way across the ocean to Vozit and his greed for the power of the shadow crystals, it wasn’t long before the King sent a larger force to help in the war for Balor, a force that included the energetic and eccentric Lyra, now a skilled practitioner herself in sabotage and thievery. Along with Lyra there was Grandmaster Thief Agent Rex, more Nightshades, and some of the assassins from the order of the Night Owls, along with supplies for repairing old weapons and making more tools of the rogue trades such as smoke bombs and poison. Upon their arrival, Lyra was placed under the command of her old friend Serena, whose power over the crystals had granted her the speed to deal increased injury to her opponents and disrupt the plans of opposing generals, as well as the stamina necessary to lead battles against the forces of The Shadow for days on end.

    **

    It was a dark and stormy night. But who ever heard of calling off a war on account of a little bit of rain? Sure, it made the battlefield muddy, reduced visibility, and was just all around icky, but a rain delay in the middle of a battle?

    Serena had been fighting the forces of the Darkclaw fiend and his minions for the past five days. Lyra herself had only just arrived, having been stuck with caravan guard duty and trying to get the wagons through the thick Layarian mud, made worse by the snow melting off the mountains that formed the border with the barbaric Gaderi tribes. Now that they had arrived, Lyra no longer had to do the boring work and was allowed to do what she did best: wrecking havoc on the enemy’s supplies, in between killing Shadow trash. Lyra was particularly skilled at noticing when the power of the shadow crystals was about to be used and frequently used that as a distraction for her work.

    As Lyra laid waiting under a rose bush, she watched Serena prepare her attack. Standing still for just a moment as she ran her hand, holding one of the rare shadow crystals, down the edge of her fan, Serena was suddenly a blur of motion. Before Lyra could blink, two of the smaller wolves were dead and even the dreaded Howlfang was roaring in pain. But even more impressively, Serena laid a massive blow on Darkclaw, causing him to roar out in pain, followed by a snarl of fury as the beast realized that the strike had shattered one of his precious spell vials. From the splatter of fine red droplets, Lyra thought that it was probably the Blood Moon spell; when properly casted, a dense red mist would block out the moon, somehow allowing the Wulven supplies to come in even faster. Unfortunately, the power behind Serena’s attacks had caused her fan of blades to break, leaving her defenseless for just a moment before a carrier managed to run forward bringing the whip Serena had affectionately named “Anklebreaker.”

    That was when Darkclaw launched his attack. One of the beasts known as a Karash launched itself at Lyra. Tales had been told of how difficult it was to pierce the skin of the brutes in order to kill them. Lyra had never had trouble killing them before, and this one proved no different. She didn’t even stop to think about the slash marks running across her abdomen; they would just join the multitude of other scratches that Lyra had acquired from previous battles and would fade away with magic and time. Out of the corner of her eye, Lyra saw Darkclaw handling his own shadow crystal. She started towards the beast, but he disappeared before she had taken two steps. She blinked, realized what had happened, and started to spin around and slash at the fiend.

    But Lyra was too slow. Darkclaw knocked her dagger out of her hand while she was still turning, then chomped down on her shoulder and tossed her over to the side. Lyra crashed into the ground, limp and dying, as Darkclaw strutted over to gloat. She could barely make out the beast's words through his growling misshapen muzzle. “You always thought you were so clever, you and your stinky harlot of a mistress. Taking and destroying everything you see, leaving us superior beings with nothing. Well not this time. I’ve killed you, and you have nothing to show for it, you filthy, slimy worm!”

    Lyra just smiled up briefly at the fiend looming over her before turning to the side to cough out blood. After clearing her passages, Lyra turned back to the beast and managed to gasp out some last words: “Everything . . . has its . . . price.” So saying, she held up the vial she had taken from Darkclaw just before he bit her, the silver contained inside marking it as the Full Moon spell, which would cause a light to shine down and protect Darkclaw while granting his allies greater strength. Before Darkclaw could react, Lyra brought her hand back down, shattering the vial against a rock and preventing him from ever being able to cast that particular spell. Everything faded to black as Lyra heard Darkclaw’s howls of rage once more.

    **

    Sunlight streamed through the walls of the tent, turned a garish yellow and a sickly pale blue by the universal colors of healing. Lyra, like many of the Vozitian King’s Hands, found the bright colors sickening, but had learned to deal with them in the time serving abroad.

    Lyra sat up on her cot and found Serena standing at the foot of it, watching over her while managing the hustle and bustle of post-battle regrouping. Noticing that Lyra had woken up, Serena smiled down at her, a toothy grin that was fearsome to most but comforting to those familiar with it. Lyra asked, “Did we win?”

    “Of course we won you silly little Rose. That stupid Darkcoward ran off shortly after your demonstration, abandoning his troops to easy mop up action.”

    “Don’t praise me, mistress, I barely accomplished anything in my short time on the field.”

    “Nonsense. If you hadn’t managed to destroy that particular spell, Darkclaw would have probably thought his hide and his troops claws would be enough to break through our defenses in one lucky strike. We would have still managed to hold him back, but our losses would have been far more severe. Just be glad you got to miss his final barrage of Fire Snakes.” And with that, Serena turned on her heel and started walking away to deal with other issues, muttering something about cursed false deities under her breath.

    Lyra let Serena get a couple of steps away before calling out to her again. “Serena!”

    As Serena looked back over her shoulder, Lyra tossed an unsheathed dagger at her. Serena caught it between two fingers, inspected it, and slipped it back into its sheath inside her boot. Walking away again, Serena called back over her shoulder “Remember to do that on the field to our opponents, not me. I’m rather fond of that knife!”

    Lyra grinned and lay back down, resting before they were off to their next battle.
    Congratulations to Preybird for designing my Avatar!

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  5. #25
    Senior Member Random Heroes's Avatar
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    Some fantastic work here!

    @Xantese, you're fine. You've not breached any rules.
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  6. #26
    Senior Member whirlowisp's Avatar
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    Dang, I really liked the one with the scythe.
    Excelsior!
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    Failed shot at looking clever. ^
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  7. #27
    Senior Member Master_Savage's Avatar
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    Some good stuff here, but BDK still won it!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
    IGN: Master Savage
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    Warriors of the Blue Phoenix, Greatness Reborn.

  8. #28
    Senior Member Master_Savage's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by whirlowisp View Post
    Dang, I really liked the one with the scythe.
    That one was really good too!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
    IGN: Master Savage
    - 1st Place in 7/26/13 BP Challenge Tournament #7
    - 1st Place in 6/13/12 Pop-Up Tournament.
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    Warriors of the Blue Phoenix, Greatness Reborn.

  9. #29
    DP Visionary Direwulven's Avatar
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    Here's the link to my original story with some light edits:http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?t=15825

    ILL GOTTEN GAINS
    ==============================

    In the Examination Room, he could see an immense silhouette appraising the various weapons and armours that were laid on the table. Taking care not to break the concentration of the appraiser, Lance gently pulled a chair, sat down and patiently waiting for the completion of this examination of his spoils. No one in his right frame of mind would like to disturb Mastermerchant Ignatius Goddard-Gantz (or more affectionately known as Master Iggy) at work.

    Mastermerchant Ignatius has always maintained that he is the true and sole surviving member of the Goddard-Gantz, an extremely influential family who was responsible for all high street financings in Balor. No one would be able to raise any form of finance without the backing of the Goddard-Gantz. Not even the Royal Purse enjoys such clout. Rumour has it that the family’s extensive influence was the cause of their mysterious massacre one moonless night four decades ago. Mastermerchant Ignatius, being a bastard child (a fact that he strongly denies) of a dalliance between Jayson Goddard-Gantz and one of the serving wenches, survived that massacre when his mother had him delivered outside the Goddard-Gantz Manor.

    Master Iggy glared at Lance and barked. “You expect me to pay for a god-damned rusty longsword? At least Serena was able to provide me with an almost brand new Dimension Ripper!”.

    Lance replied, spreading his hands helplessly, “Well, the terms set out by I.G.G., Inc. is that a string of coins for every item obtained regardless of quality and condition. I’m not asking too much, am I? Moreover I have also presented you with two Nightshades.”

    “And what do you expect me to do with those elusive creatures? At least get me some of those Rosecult girls and I could get good value out of them with Mistress Sybil down at Indulgent Roses! What about the four I.G.G. agents that accompanied you? They were my very best!”

    “I had snared one with my trusty Anklebreaker but she was quick to retreat from the skirmish”, replied Lance defensively, “As for your agents, the damned priestess somehow destroyed each and every one of them.”

    Just as Master Iggy was about to retort, cries of “THIEF! STOP THAT THIEF!” could be heard in the compound. The door opened and a small young lad quickly slipped into the Examination Room, bowed in the direction of Master Iggy and presented him with a trinket, “Master Iggy, a token of appreciation from my lord Shadowstalker.”

    Master Iggy took a quick look at the elaborately carved jade bracelet and gave a quick nod, “Belongs to one of Mistress Sybil’s girls. Just as well, Sybil has been a little short in her monthly contribution to me. I see more potential in you than your lord Shadowstalker” as he gave Lance a sour look.

    “There is one more chance for you to atone for this poor haul. A train of spice caravans belonging to Mastermerchant Hildan is on its way via the Northern Highway. I have no love for Hildan but certainly bear more affection for his spices. Get me the stuff and I am willing to forgive you for the loss of my agents.”

    Lance nodded and strode away with his little thief. As he was closing the door, Master Iggy yelled “Oh by the way, the caravan is probably being escorted by one of the Frost Mages. Bring something warm to wear!”
    Guardian of the Riding Hoods
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  10. #30
    Senior Member XanteseZerylliom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by whirlowisp View Post
    Dang, I really liked the one with the scythe.
    Quote Originally Posted by whoisSAVAGE View Post
    That one was really good too!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
    Well, I'm glad to see y'all liked it! I was nervous because I usually give myself a lot more time (and space) to write, but I didn't think I would have any more time this week since I was scheduled to work and have a friend's wedding this weekend, but I apparently could have given myself more time as my wife is sick at the hospital again. I'd have made some changes (I'm really critical of my own stuff), but I'm happy with the end results anyway.

    Really enjoyed the other works on here, too! Can't wait to see what else the week has in store!
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