Just Give Up

Another demon passing through my thoughts:

Wearing a hard hat, putting on safety goggles, before chasing people while dual-wielding portable power drills.

WLC 1.2: In the Long Quiet Night

In the half-buried atelier, surrounded by broken equipment and furniture, the two geckos continue to stare each other down. A soft red light faintly fills the room from the window of a large metal pod. Likewise, the bubbling from within it serves as the sound in the dead eternal night.

In front of the wizard, the remains a fire pit erupt back to life. She leans forward again. "Another cold summer day," she says with the faintest laugh, "Bring a gift? Or just more disappointment?"

"What I have brought are demands," says her daughter, scanning the room, "Where is she?"

"Look at you," scoffs the wizard, "Dressing like an elf, standing like an elf. Want me to turn ya into one?" She pulls one arm out of her robe; the long violet fingerless glove blend back into them, as she traces her finger up and down her daughter's image. "Nana Ning would be so disappointed."

"And whose fault is that?" exclaims her daughter, "The time I spent with her was measurable in days." She adjusts her fine black leather gloves. "And it's not as if you knew anything about us. How would you? But that's not the point. You're just trying to distract me from-" A shadow appears, just briefly, in the doorway in the back. "My daughter."

Throwing and Battle Damage

Mikado sadly only knows one of the possible throws. With the Naginata, her signature weapon, she can break her opponent's neck. I can cheat her into using the others, but let's talk about a Story mode oddity first.

Neck breaker demonstrated by a fully battle damaged versus Mikado on a clean story Mikado.

In the second game, all four limbs and the torso can be damaged. This is marked with either bloodstains or bandages.

Story damage is in the game's files and code, for all six starting characters' versus outfits and the four unlockable characters from Slash mode, too. This is despite that none of them should be in Story mode.

Uno Reverse Card! This is what Mikado's story outfit looks like with all five damage points.

Mikado, that illegal! You can't use throws in Group Battle Mode!

WLC 1.3: Say, "The Princess?"

The wizard's daughter loosened her posture as she stared into the dark backroom. "Please, come out here," she says, her eyes aglow.

At the sound of shuffling behind the wizard, the old gecko sighs, "Fine, do it."

A smaller gecko in a ragged brown dress scurries quickly next to, and hides behind, the wizard. "Nana Ling," she whispers, "Who is that?"

"Don't act like ya weren't listening," says the wizard Ling, her focus still on her own daughter.

Said daughter takes a few steps forward, around the fire, and leans down. "I'm Jevoi, your mother," she says, smiling for the first time in months. "What's your name?"

The little gecko leans out from behind Ling and looks at her nana. Upon seeing a faint nod, she says, "Dalini. My name's Dalini."

"Dalini," Jevoi repeats, "What a beautiful name: Princess Dalini." Dalini tilts her head in confusion. In response, Jevoi stands tall again. "That's right," she says, "I am the Dead Sun Empress, ruler of the Inner Dark." She pauses, looking over her little doppelganger. "And that makes you-"

Ling scoffs. "Still trying to rename Inner Glow?"

"It hasn't glowed in eight years, Mum," says Jevoi, her eyes darting to the wizard's bone-infused hat rim which masks her.

"And whose fault is that, Jevoi?" asks Ling, leaning back so that Jevoi could see her face again, the face they share.

WLC 1.4: Sun and Daughter

"Do ya remember," asks Ling to Dalini, "What I told ya about the sun?"

"Yeah," says the little one, releasing her grip on the wizard's robe, "The sun used to shoot light of the hole in it: shoosh." She wiggles her arms in front of her. "And it span around and around: woooo woooo woooo." The older geckos watched her twirl about. "But you didn't say why it stopped," she said, pouting and no longer rotating.

"Should we tell her?" asks Ling, "Why doesn't the sun shine?"

Jevoi scowls. "Sure, let's tell her... exactly why. Let's tell her everything about that happened that day." Jevoi's face contorted into a wicked smile. "Let's not leave out a single detail."

Ling looked away. "Maybe it's too soon."

Dalini hopped around into Ling's view. "But you said-"

Ling raised her hand. "That story's too... long."

"Dalini," says Jevoi, "We can tell that story later, like after you come home." She cracks a little smile. "Do you know what a palace is?"

Dalini shakes her head.

"It's a big castle filled with all sorts of things. We can go there and you can meet your other mother, my wife. We can get you new clothes and your own room and anything you want to put in it."

Dalini's eyes sparkle in the light. She inhaled an audible gasp.

"She isn't going," says Ling, "Without me."

"Very w-"

"I'm not going, so rack off."

WLC 6.G: Magic Duel 3v3

L: The first rule of magic duels is don't get into magic duels. The second is to remain calm; if ya lose your s***e, ya soon won't have s***e left to lose.

The first to move is Tanglepork. Dodging an opportune swipe of Ioana's claws as she runs away, she reloads her gun. She quickly turns and fires, but her nerves betray her and the bullet barely misses the lycan's head.

Ioana's fierce gaze remains locked on her prey as she commands the air to twist around her. It becomes like a miniature tornado as she chases after the gnome.

Gudrun locks eyes with the minotaur. "Obey me," she says, her eyes alight.

L: The third rule of magic duels is to know what your opponent can do and prepare to counter it.

"Not this time, b***h," says Honeycrisp, shaking off the force trying to insert itself into his mind.

Gudrun pulls out a silver wand. "Fine."

Honeycrisp focuses and magic courses through his body, accelerating him. Sparks dance upon his horns.

L: Corollary: Know what your opponent knows ya can do and don't do it.

Ling raises a wall of ribs, splitting a third of the room away, isolating the lycan and the deputy from the rest of them. The massive ribs connecting ceiling to floor have gaps too small for most of the room's occupants. "This way, Porky," commands Ling, as she positions herself by the passage to the portal room.

J: How many wall of bones spells do there really need to be?

"Ling," whines Zingiber, "You're supposed to be fighting me." She releases a blast of glittery fire into Ling's face, but the gex licks her eyes clean.

Tanglepork takes a liking to the idea of people not seeing things and turns invisible, then attempts to sneak around Ioana to reach the bone wall. Her steps are calculated to match the rhythm of the other fighters.

Ioana sniffs about and detonates a burst of fire where she believes the gnome to be hiding, but by some gnomish trickery (possibly breakdancing), the deputy remains unharmed.

Gudrun fires a purple beam from her wand, but Honeycrisp defects it with his horn. "S***e," she says, calmly. Foreseeing the sheriff's next move, she conjures a shield in front of her.

Honeycrisp charges forward, his horns smash open the shield. While his target is unharmed by that, the hook to her face makes quite the impact, knocking free a tooth, which explodes. The shrapnel then defies physics and embed themselves in the dwarf's neck.

Ling conjures a facsimile of a dryad -a type of tree nymph- that wraps her arms around the elf. "Hey there, cutie," says the dryad with a wink.

L: Preventing your opponent from casting at all is the strongest option. A lot of magic requires somantics.

Zingiber forces an arm free. "Getting off on this, Dr. Ling?" She gestures wildly. "Then check this!"

Unfortunately for Zingiber, her spell fails for multiple reasons: Tanglepork is out of the area, Honeycrisp (bull) and the dryad (plant) don't have the targeted anatomy, and Ling, because of her experiences in Wizard School, always begins the day with protective spells like Genital Mirror Shield. Thus, the caster herself is the only affected person.

Zingiber clutches her guts as her Ovarian Explosion nearly rips apart her insides. "Mistake."

J: Who even crafted that? Why make that?

"Serves ya right," shouts Ling.

Invisible, Tanglepork sneaks up to the ribs while quietly reloading her weapon and squeezes through. Aiming back through, she takes another shot breaking her disguise. The bullet, buffeted by the wind, glances the lycan's shoulder. "Oh, come on," the deputy grumbles.

If Ioana were the beast she looked like, she'd just run up to the ribs and try to smash through, but the witch is smarter than that. The bones form a fence she can cast through and, with the wind making her a difficult target, she's free to do so. She condenses a suffocating cloud around the gnome. "You can't escape," she growls.

"Help me," demands Gudrun to Zingiber, taking a defensive step away. She locks eyes with Ling and a mental bomb causes her to recoil in pain.

J: How many counters do you have? L: One more than I think I'll need.

"Time to put you b***hes in your place," says Honeycrisp.

"Can you shut your f**king mouth for five b****y minutes!" yells Ling.

"Great idea!" Honeycrisp forms a zone of silence around himself and lunges headfirst into Gudrun, impaling her on his horns and lifting her off the ground.

L: A lot of magic requires incantations too.

Now unable to hear, the false dryad looks to Ling for instruction. Ling gestures for her to keep Zingiber in that area close to the sheriff. Ling then condenses the cloud around the deputy into a shield of water.

Zingiber punches and knees the dryad, bashing onto bark-coated flesh. Breaking free, she scrambles out of the inaudible zone.

Tanglepork peers around the shield (reloading) and focuses on that first bullet, the one that's still in the back of the lycan's skull. The tiny piece of lead becomes hotter, burning its way into the witch's brain.

Screeching with pain, Ioana draws in through the floor as much spiritual energy as she can. The sheriff cannot avoid having part of his soul drained and the dryad wilts, while Tanglepork's fidgeting about causes her to be less effected and Ling avoids it entirely by hopping onto the wall, taking note that Zingiber is casually unaffected.

Gudrun thrashes about, desperately trying to free herself from the horns. Her punches and kicks are not enough, however.

A bright light flashes the room as Honeycrisp channels electricity through his horns and Gudrun's body. He then charges at Zingiber slapping her across the room with her dwarven cohort's charred, but still living body.

L: Anything is a weapon. Everything is a weapon.

Ling takes a moment to think. Two of these witches should be dead now; why aren't they? It must be that contract. She commands the weakened dryad to grab the elf again (which she does). Ling yells, "Porky, we need to leave."

Zingiber once again forces her arms free to aim another spell and then shoves the dryad away. The sheriff collapses as his muscles detach themselves from his bones. Ling recognizes her own spell, Tendon Tearer.

As Tanglepork continues to burn a hole through Ioana's head, she yells to Ling, "How?" She takes another shot from the other side of the shield, sinking a bullet into the lycan's chest. "Eat that!"

Ioana retreats to the entrance door, as if daring her enemies to try to get through her. She stomps on the ground, causing the already misshapen cubes of the room to twist around becoming a series of crude pyramids. Now even just standing here is an issue.

Gudrun pries her body off of the sheriff's horns and pathetically crawls away. Her bleeding, burnt body struggling to cross the threshold of sound due to the floor's sudden shift.

Honeycrisp sends a message via vibration directly through the floor and wall to Ling's ear bones. While she doesn't know the exact meaning, it isn't hard to guess the intent.

J: Why would you keep saving him? L: Because it's the right thing to do. A: Meat shield.

Ling restores the sheriff's ability to move -his muscles reattaching themselves- and orders the dryad to muzzle the elf; the dryad's solution is to shove her hand into Zingiber's mouth.

Zingiber bites the hand and pulls a brown jewel out of her robe. She stabs it into the dryad's ear and detonates it. The dryad's mostly headless body dissipates.

Tanglepork pulls a glass bottle out of her pocket and lodges it into the barrel of her gun. The special bottle is launched by the force of her shot and explodes on impact with the lycan, whose whirling winds erupt into flame. "Give up already!"

Ioana quickly draws the moisture in the air (and the water shield) onto her person, suffocating the fire. Realizing her wind had burned away, she conjures a shield to deflect further gunfire.

Gudrun crawls further from the sheriff and attempts to scramble his brain, but cannot tell what effect she actually has.

Honeycrisp leaps with intent to crush the elf, but his vision is blurred and wobbly like a drunkard, and he smashes his fist centimeters away from her head. She weaves around the following blows.

Ling continues to rack her brain. She kicks off a burst of mental energy, accelerating her thoughts. Zingiber mentioned several construction-related spells and this lair is blatantly artificial, that entity needs mortals to interact with this world, and the witches seemed to have thought that sacrificing children into the portal was the point. ...Maybe they built the portal? So, having them harm it would break the contract?

"Porky, this way," she yells as she forms an arrow of light pointing to herself in front of Honeycrisp, "Pull back!" Ling hopes that the witches will follow after them.

While Honeycrisp is distracted, Zingiber sees an opportunity. The sheriff's horns are covered in her friend's blood. Reaching up and grabbing them, the elf drives the blood like knives into his skin and rips his face off.

A: I like this woman. Obviously became a demon.

"You f**king b***h!" Tanglepork's rage cannot penetrate the muted bubble the elf remains in, but her bullet can, barely grazing Zingiber's nose.

"Time to end this," says Ioana, teleporting right behind the deputy. A swipe of her claw slices open the gnome's backside.

"Help me," calls out Gudrun, putting pressure on her bleeding wounds. She tries to lock eyes with the deputy, but the gnome is too wrought with emotion.

Bleeding profusely, Honeycrisp slams his fists into the elf's guts, sparks passing through her organs with each strike.

"Can't get near the k**bhead," Ling grumbles. She calls upon the sheriff's flesh to mend itself, stealing pieces of Zingiber's hands in the process.

Zingiber dodges another swing as she rolls out of the silent bubble and does a wild swinging display spraying her own blood about into floating runes that drive themselves into the sheriff. On contact, the pieces of herself stuck in his face explode, taking his head with them.

Screaming with rage and grief, Tanglepork races toward Ling across the crooked, spiky floor and tries to shoot the blood-dancing elf. The bullet comes nowhere close.

Ioana chases after and commands pieces of the stone floor to erupt as a cage around the gnome, but the agile deputy leaps to freedom.

"Stop," demands Gudrun, but the deputy refuses.

L: But the most important rule of a magic duel is:

"We're getting the kids," yells Ling, ostensibly to Tanglepork, "And then we're getting the f**k out of here." She conjures a massive potato to block the lycan's path.

"No, you're not," yells Zingiber forming further runes. With a great forceful push, the corpse of the sheriff is launched at the doctor, who dives out of the way. The body tumbles into the corridor and explodes, collapsing the tunnel.

L: Never forget why you're fighting.

"Zingiber, you fool!" yells Ioana, but it is too late.

"The final line has been crossed," announces a booming voice, "No simple task was beneath your ability to fail. The violation of the contract has ceded all boons I have blessed upon you."

From the liquid metal in Ioana's brain and the burnt, ruptured organs in Gudrun's body, the two die with no fanfare.

"What?" Zingiber staggers forward in confusion, the blood-loss killing her slowly. "That's not fair."

Tanglepork stops running. Ling and she carefully walk toward Zingiber. "You killed my boss," says Tanglepork, out of breath.

"Whatever," says Zingiber, focusing on Ling, "Going to kill me, Ling? Plenty of ways to make me suffer. You could sta-"

"I'm talking to you," says the deputy.

"I don't want y-"

BANG

The deputy helps Zingiber paint the ceiling a delightful new shade of pink.

"Bl'ell, Porky," mutters Ling, "You didn't-"

"It's over." Tanglepork sits down.

Ling turns to the collapsed passage. "I'll get the kids..." She looks around at the bloody mess that was once three witches. "...And ya... deal with this?"

WLC 6.9: Something Drawful

"What's this about witches?" asks Ling, "Got a lot of questions, really."

The svelte man stares at Ling, but she does not turn away. He does not blink, but she can't either.

"I'd rather not stare in a mirror all night, b*****d, says Ling, "Just write it down if you have to."

D: You weren't scared? L: Why would I? I've fought worse. Outsiders, ghost. His mindwarp aura was bodgie as sh-

The svelte man twitches and bends one arm the wrong way around to retrieve a set of parchments from his back. He awkwardly swings arm back around to present it to Ling.

L: Bloke just couldn't talk. Still don't know what he was.

The first crude drawing depicts three beings in pointy hats - one of whom is a furry creature of some kind- standing under a purple swirl that shines a light upon them. The second shows a goblin being lifted into the spiral. The third shows one of the pointy hats throwing a sword into a lake.

A: Ioana? L: Couldn't tell from his sucky drawing.

"Strewth, that's b****y clear," says Ling, "So what's your role, tall, dark, and spooky?"

The next picture is of the svelte man climbing/falling out of the spiral. Then one of several different small crying beings surrounded by eyes and teeth in the spiral. Finally, the svelte man being hit with beams from the pointy hats.

J: And you believed him? L: Enough to believe in witches.

"So, where are they?" asks Ling.

The svelte man twitches and jerks his body behind a tree.

"Ya could just draw me a f*****g map!" yells Ling as she scans the area for him. "Or just point!" She spots him leaning behind another. "Really going to make me chase ya?"

Ling follows the svelte man as he zigs and zags across the woods until he reaches a clearing with a small broken metal windmill barely standing in its center.

Ling detects the magic runes hidden in the dirt. This place is trapped to Hell and back. As the svelte man disappears again, the silence remains; nature itself is afraid of this place.

L: Laker and Faceboy could've been lying, but I'd only find the good oil probing these witches. J: And probe them, I'm sure you did.

This happened when I ran Age of Ashes too. She got a great scene showing up to help in the sixth book.

Also she has a friend called Belmazog. She was a big bad villain who tried to summon a dark god of death and destruction to slaughter indiscriminately but she’s alright now.

WLC 3.8: Children with Knives

J: Let's not forget whose story this is.

The training room is much larger than Jevoi had been expecting. Numerous training targets of various sizes stand around the spacious chamber. Along the walls, several weapons (swords, axes, polearms) are kept sorted in stands. A few grindstones sit next to shelves of materials and a small forge in the corner.

Jevoi's eyes dart across the room; scanning the weapons, she finds her target: knives, daggers. Little blades that can fit in little hands. Her hands. She rushes to them and begins testing their handles. Forward, backward, reverse-grip. She has to find one that fits.

"Oh, ya're into this," says Gank with a smile, "Anything clicking?"

Jevoi stops, holding one sleek dagger in her hand. "YES," she exhales, swinging the runic blade a few times, listening to it sing as it cuts through the air, "Perfect."

"D'ya think?" asks Gank, she points to a humanoid dummy, "Go on, then. Give it a whirl."

The little gecko walks around the dummy and slices at it. The blade cleanly cuts through its soft plant-like material. Jevoi coos at the damage, but the gasps in realization.

"Don't worry," says Gank, as the dummy stitches itself back together, "Nobody'll see nothing."

Jevoi licks her eyes and stabs the dummy as many times as she can, as fast as she can. She twists the blade and begins slashing wildly into it, desperate to outpace the regeneration.

"Okay, slow down," laughs Gank as she walks up to another one, "Let me ya how the big girls do it!" Gank unfurls her claws dramatically and swipes at the dummy in a practiced concert of blows. Her four arms tear, rip, and shred it that it flops about as if it were alive. She throws in a few twirling slashes and kicks as well.

"That's not fair," says Jevoi, "You've got four arms."

"Sorry," says Gank, her tongue hanging from her mouth, "But that's why I'm a warrior and ya're just a rogue."

"Oh yeah?" says Jevoi, running back to the daggers, "I'll show you." She grabs another and racing toward another dummy.

Gank's slit eyes widen. "Woah, kid, wait, no," she steps in front of Jevoi, "If ya get hurt, I'm getting in trouble. Put that one back."

"You don't get to call me a kid," says Jevoi, she looks at her weapons, then up at Gank, "Try and take them!"

L: Trouble from day one.

The developing rational part of Gank's brain attempts to conjure a means of handling this situation. Unfortunately, the emotional threat to her ego prevents the teenager from having any ideas more complicated than, 'Take them.' Some may also claim that her species, hard-wired for a short life of constant violence, may also be a factor in this spur-of-the-moment decision, but that hypothesis's largely irrelevant when faced with the far more accepted theory:

L: Kids are so f*****g stupid.

Gank suddenly lunges at Jevoi, who reflexively holds the blades in front of her. Gank grabs onto Jevoi's wrists, but the gecko squirms and the weapons come dangerously close to the charda's face.

"Let go!" yells Gank.

"Make me!" yells Jevoi. She kicks Gank in the groin. Both girls gasp in pain and Jevoi almost loses balance.

"Why would'ya do that?" says Gank, she then kicks Jevoi right back, "How d'ya like it?"

Jevoi emits a long squeak, but continues struggling to pull her hands out of Gank's claws. Blood begins dripping down both of their arms.

Gank bends her empty hands inward and uses the back of her wrists to slap Jevoi's face and punch her in the gut. "LET!" Hit. "GO!" Slap. "OF!" Knee. "THE!" Clunk. "KNIVES!" Punch.

"Noooo," squeals Jevoi weakly. One blade hits the floor, but she her grip on the other. She shoves her bloody hand into Gank's face, feebly slapping her. "Let me go."

The last thing Jevoi hears before passing out is Gank's desperate voice repeating, "Oh s***e!"

Thinking about Writing

I don't know how many people are actually reading this dumb lizard story, but I'm having fun writing it, improv-ing it one day at a time. I already know the main beat of Chapter 3: How Li'l Jevoi Met the Shadow Queen.