Stuff coming to the blog

I feel good that I was able to get myself to finish the Sasha The Assassin series cause the two ideas I had in my head for a long time finally got together and had a kid. Idea one was ten rings of power that were fought over for control of a kingdom and the other was a female assassin character murdering stuff she could murder and talking her way out of situations where murder wasn't an option. I don't know if/when Sasha will have further adventures but if I come up with another storyline for the character I'll put in work on it.

Now for the big project I've been working on for years on end. It's a novel I've bored many of my friends to tears about and it's art is my facebook banner. The story has the working title of "The War" and it is simply put about two nations going to war.

The elevator pitch of the novel would go something like "Game of Thrones with far fewer sides, better technology, no magic and only one dragon." And here is where I put in my plea for you to believe me that I was working on this long before I knew about the books and the show hadn't even existed yet. I know this puts me on the same shaky ground as the Hunger Games author who savaged Battle Royale but at the very least I don't think my characters/story are a take off of the books/show in any way.

So while I start to steal myself on the process of finally finishing the first draft of the first book of the series I figured I'd use this blog to write little slices of life of each of the main characters of The War before the war happened. The cast is rather large so I have a pretty big pool of characters to play with so at least once a week I'm going to try to sit down and hammer out about a thousand or so words about a day in the life of a character before the events that led up to the great conflict happened. This will be a way for blog readers to get to know these characters before I make the novel and it'll be a good exercise for me to help to get to better know the people I'll be having fight each other in a battle that will rock their nations to their foundations.

Thanks everyone who has given the blog a look see and I hope to give you some content to read and enjoy over the coming months.

Sasha The Assassin Part 9

Craggs came through the secret tunnels and appeared in the room with Mistress Green and Lord Brown. “The gem! Throw it here!” Mistress Green hissed. “Don’t you dare get any closer or I’ll kill you where you stand!” she shouted at Craggs. The sound of fighting nearby made everything far more urgent.

Craggs gave a hard stare to Mistress Green before finally throwing her the gem. “Quickly Lord Brown! The fighting closes in on us, our forces near defeat.” She told him as he placed fumbled with the gem for a few moments before finally placing it inside the slot on the face of the safe. The nine large rings he already had on his hands made the task far more difficult than it should have been.  Nothing happened for painful seconds as the three stared helplessly at the giant safe until finally gears started turning and the door slowly grinded open.

                Lord Brown walked towards the final ring. He could barely force his legs to move him the last few steps. He could not believe that finally after all these years it was finally going to happen, he was finally about to become King and restore his family to the throne they had been deposed from all those hundreds of years ago. Then he slipped the tenth ring on his right thumb and instantly was driven to his knees by ripping pain that ran through his whole body.

                Mistress Green also fell to her knees, a grimace on her face. She turned and smirked at the fallen Lord Brown. “You idiot. How we played you. How we’ve waited so long for this. Get up now, get up and show me your power, melt Craggs here to a puddle of smoldering flesh.” She turned and glared at Craggs with an evil glare.

                In the distance bells could be heard ringing signaling that midnight had arrived. Inside the room itself the clink of metal hitting stone could be heard. “She’s free. You’re fucked.” Lord Brown gasped as he lay prone on the ground.

                “What?” Mistress Green said and then suddenly a blade struck her hand and tore her fingers clean off.  In a quick motion Sasha grabbed the ring on one of the severed fingers and put it on her hand.

                “Shut up bitch.” Sasha said as she punched Mistress Green in the face. Sasha felt the pain of the ring pour through her body but she fought to control it. “Use the nullification ring on Craggs now. Get whatever junk is in his head to stop working.” Sasha snapped at Lord Brown who pointed his hand at Craggs and sent him into spasms. Craggs thrashed and buckled for a few moments, blood started to trickle from his eyes and nose and then finally he crumpled to the ground.

                Sasha wanted to run to him, to comfort him and see if he was still alive but the power of the ring she wore and the situation at hand required her to avoid getting anywhere near the giant man. “Craggs, lemme know if you’re OK. I’d hate for this to have killed you after all the work we’ve done.” She said to him from across the room. Outside the room the battle got closer, the door to the safe room was now being struck soon the King’s forces would be inside. “Craggs. Come on buddy, talk to me.”

                “I can feel it’s gone.” Craggs said, his voice raspy. “I’m. I’m free.” He said and then he slumped back down to the ground. Sasha could see his chest slowly rising and falling and knew he was still alive.

                “Sleep well my friend. It is for the best you don’t have a hand in what I am about to do.” Sasha said to him. A moment after she finished saying that the door to the room burst open and the King’s forced charged. “Kill them all” Sasha yelled and a giant burst of flame shot from Lord Brown’s hand. Men screamed as they were burnt alive. The smell of charred flesh filled the room and Sasha took deep breaths to prevent from puking. “Come on. We’ve got a king to kill.” She said as she walked from the room. Lord Brown followed behind her as if dragged by an unseen rope

                They walked up the stairs from the vault to the ground floor of the castle. Sasha let Lord Brown get in front of her, giving him a hard kick in the ass as he passed by. “All this work to behind the slave of a slave.”  He sneered.

                “First of all I’m free now, and second of all you could have doomed generations of your family to being puppets of the Green’s. You should be grateful this ends tonight with only your life.” Sasha said. More guards charged at them when she finished talking and more guards were reduced to charred skeletons.

                With a blast of energy Lord Brown blasted the doors to the throne room open. There stood twenty knights in front of the King and his eldest son. The King was old and sickly looking, his face drawn and lined with wrinkles. On the sides of the room were crossbowmen with their weapons at the ready. Sasha looked at the young man standing beside the King. “You’re the crown prince right? Eric is your name?”

                “Yes.” Eric replied. He glared at Sasha and Lord Brown with a fury in his eyes.

                “Well now you’re king, this sickly old fool is in no condition to lead the kingdom. Idiot left his crown unattended. That’s unforgivable.” When she finished speaking Lord Brown threw a bolt of energy at the King that ripped through his chest and killed him. Arrows from all directions flew at Sasha and Lord Brown but were deflected away by a giant shield that surrounded them. The knights charged them and were also unable to penetrate it. A few moments later after a volley of energy from Lord Brown’s rings the only three people alive in the room were Eric, Sasha and Lord Brown.

                Eric Champion stood at the side of throne gazing at all the dead men’s bodies strewn around him. “So what do you want me of Lord Brown?” he asked.

                “He’s just a puppet. I’m the one in control here.” Sasha said. To prove her point she drove Lord Brown to his knees in pain. “You need to understand what’s been happening and what has happened to your family. When your family took the throne from the Browns hundreds of years ago it wasn’t the plan. As a child my family always told me the Greens were on our side and the Browns were our enemies. The invasion my family launched upon your kingdom was massive. They far outnumbered your forces but the one thing your kingdom had in vast supply was magic users. The rings were not a plan to save the nation. They were a scam by the Greens to keep all the magic users away from the front lines, a way to keep them distracted until the war was over. Tragically for them your ancestors skills on the battlefield kept our armies at bay and the rings that were never meant to be finished were made and then they were given to your legendary ancestor and he used them to defeat the invasion and usurp the throne.”

                “Why would the Greens do this? What was their plan?” Eric asked.

                “They were to rule as the new leaders of the south after we’d conquered them. The Browns were to be purged such that anyone with a drop of their blood would be killed.  It didn’t work out for them so the Greens fell upon a plan B. They were the ones who designed the rings and worked with all the magic users in the crafting process. It was from this knowledge they figured out a way to craft another ring, a controlling ring. One of the Greens servants told me the rings were haunted. That led me to the truth. The Greens were using the rings to control you. Then finally one of your ancestors got tired of it and managed to find a way to drop dead in a public setting which allowed people to tear his body apart to try to get at the rings and thus they were lost. The Champions having ruled for generations at that point no longer needed the power of the rings to enforce their rule as the people had long accepted them as the rightful dynasty. Your bloodline was free of the Greens and their meddling.”

                “You killed my father, you slaughtered all my knights, why should I not kill you?” Eric asked her.

               

                “Cause I’m giving you the power right now.” Sasha said and with that she closed her eyes. Her body shook as Lord Brown began screaming and flailing. Blood began to trickle from Sasha’s nose as she kept on focusing till finally Lord Brown was dead. “That took a few years off my life.” She said as she removed the ring from her hand and threw it to Eric. “There. All the scheming of the Browns and the Greens down the drain. You have all the rings, do with them as you see fit, but know to wear the ten rings is to assure yourself an early grave.”

                Eric stared at the ring. “What happens now?” he asked.

                “I don’t know. The Greens and Browns may declare war. They may hide their intent in fear of the rings. You’re King in a dangerous world in a dangerous time. I wouldn’t want to be you.” Sasha told him and she walked away.

                “Where are you going?” Eric asked.

                “Anywhere. I’m free, that’s the point of being free right?” she told him.

POST SCRIPT

                That night Sasha walked into Arthur’s house. His eyes still had some blackness from his broken nose. “I survived and I’m free.” She told him as she walked towards him for a kiss. Arthur backed away from her. His rejection stung. “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

                “The fact that you nearly killed me one time, and broke my nose the other.” He told her.

                “Oh, you silly man, if I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.” She said it as sweetly as she could, but she could tell it didn’t really have the impact she wanted it to. “So you don’t want to have sex?” she asked in confusion.

                “Not really. It’s kind of been horrible both times.” Arthur told her.

                “So what do you want to do?” she asked him.

                “I don’t know. We could talk.” He said.

                “Talk?” Sasha puzzled over the term. “You know. I’ve never really talked to anyone besides you and a seven foot tall man who could turn his skin into stone.” She told him.

                “That guy sounds really impressive.” Arthur said.

                “Oh he was.” And Sasha began to tell Arthur the story of Craggs and that led to other stories and tales, and the two of them spent the night talking and laughing in each other’s company. 

Sasha The Assassin Part 8

                “I’m not going to kill you.” Lord Brown told Sasha as the army massed at the gathering point. “Oh I know Mistress Green wants me to once you've gotten us the jewel, but I trust you. I have faith in you my dear and more to the point I think you’ll be a helpful ally once I am king. Since you will no longer be a slave after tonight you’ll be paid quite well for your service.” He finished with a nod to her.

                Sasha nodded back to him. Her face was blank but the intensity in her red eyes was easy to see. The glamour of choice was red hair with white framing her face and a black stripe across her eyes with black tears running down her cheeks. Warriors of her nation painted such imagines on their faces when they knew they were going to die in battle. Lord Brown stared at her for another moment and then turned and nodded to the three men cloaked in blue at the head of the army.

                The men began chanting, their voices started off melodic and soothing but soon the noise became distorted and twisted, almost demonic sounding, until finally the very fabric of reality warped in front of them. Sasha had heard of the great portals that allowed people to travel thousands of miles in the blink of an eye but she’d never seen one in person. Now before her was a portal that thousands of men were charging through and on the other end was a two mile march to the castle of the king. The great battle had arrived.

                Sasha braced herself and ran through the portal. She did not follow the army on it’s march towards the castle, her place was elsewhere. She wondered for miles until she finally found the fetid stream that led into the sewers. The air was rank with waste as she made her way through the twisting tunnels until she finally came to the location Mistress Green had told her about. She was now under the castle itself.

A grappling hook got her to the ceiling of the tunnel and she was able to push aside the stone and get herself into the castle.  Once inside she quickly disguised herself as a knight of the king.  She made her way through the hallways of the castle and was amazed as she passed warding stone after warding stone yet not of them stripped her of her glamour or sounded an alarm. She shook her head as she wondered why the Greens would go to such trouble to overthrow a dynasty they were so well established with.

Sasha finally had found her way to the king’s private chambers. She drew Mercy from it’s sheath and took a breath. The door flew open as she kicked it and she rolled into the room only to find nobody there. Sasha quickly composed herself and then noticed the king’s crown resting on a desk near the bed. She looked the crown over carefully and saw that it was real gold and the gems were authentic. The centerpiece diamond took a little work to pry free but she finally managed to get it loose and she pocketed it.

She debated seeking out the king to murder him but then decided that she’d either be dead or free within the next two hours so she really didn't have much desire to engage a bunch of armored knights in an effort to kill the king when a rumor of the king’s death would do just as well. She walked towards the entry point she’d gained access to the castle from before and then waited. Finally she heard the footsteps of a patrol. With a quick jab of her dagger she drew blood from her forehead. She let the blood leak onto the crown and then she placed the crown on the ground in directly where the patrol would see it once they rounded the corner. Once the crown was placed she quickly escaped the castle and started her trek through the sewers to the meeting point.

The journey came to an end at the entranceway to the sewers where she was to meet up with the person that was to take the jewel to Lord Brown. When she got there she saw Craggs staring at her. “Really Craggs? You’re going to kill me?” Sasha said with more disappointment than anything else.

“They told me this would help to kill you.” Craggs told her in a cold, emotionless voice as he held a ball of light in his hands. The ball exploded and suddenly the whole tunnel was coated in bright light. Sasha knew of such weapons and what they would do to her. She had no means of escape and she had no way to hurt the giant that stood before her.

“I am at your mercy.” She told Craggs as she threw the diamond to him. She then took out her daggers and threw them to the side and then the sai right after that. “Do as your master demands and kill me.” Sasha told him.

“I have no choice in this. You know this Sasha. Slaves must do as their masters command. This is the way of the world.” Craggs replied to her as he pulled out his broadsword.

“What if I could make you free? What if I could make you no longer a slave?” Sasha asked him.

Craggs walked towards her, shaking his head as he moved. “Such a bold promise. I didn't hear you making such offers to me before your life was about to be ended.” He stood over her and waited for a moment.

“I hadn't figured it all out just then, but now I’m pretty sure I've got everything all mapped out. I know the truth. It’s up to you Craggs, we both know this ends with our masters obtaining an unstoppable power and being able to ruin the southern kingdoms with an iron fist. If they want to kill us after they do so it’ll take them but a thought to do so. I think I can stop them and I think I can make us both free in the process. What’s the difference if I live or die really?” Sasha asked him.

Craggs looked over her and pondered what she had said. He then put his broadsword back in it’s sheath. “You talk a big game. Let’s see if you can back it up.” He told her. Sasha grabbed her weapons and rearmed herself.

“You will be a free man come the morning. I promise you.” Sasha told him as they headed towards the vault.  

Sasha The Assassin Part 7

“You’re alive, he isn’t, and that is all that matters.” Craggs told her. He was Sasha’s new friend at Lord Brown’s estate which had become a military base instead of a residency of a high lord. Sasha walked with the giant of a man, she figured he was over seven feet tall and didn’t want to even hazard a guess at his weight. He was always shirtless, his body had weird pock marks and scars all over his bronze torso, tales of countless battles he’d fought in the past.

“But so much of it was luck, his sword breaking, that he couldn’t bite me in the neck because I’m wearing a slave collar.” Sasha said.

“If you think it would do justice to the situation I could kill you now.” Craggs told her. He playfully threw his arm into her and she’d learned how to take the hit without being knocked over, which wasn’t easy even with the lack of force he put into the blow. “Big as I am, powers I have, still doesn’t matter. I’ve had a few fights where an inch this way or that would decide if I lived or died. The inches went my way those times, maybe not next time.”

“Why do you serve as a slave? You’re so powerful. How can Mistress Green kill you? You can’t have a collar like me since you can turn your flesh into stone.” Sasha asked him.

“Device in my head, put there when I was a child, they say the magic word and my brain explodes.” Cragg told her.

Sasha sighed. “I wish we could just steal the rings and kill our masters. You know we’re not living through the night of the assault right? They’ll never let us get near all those rings once they finally have them.” Sasha said, the despair in her voice was clear.

Craggs gave a loud laugh in reply. “Oh silly girl. You know that if you have the rings they make you a slave all the same don’t you? Oh you might be powerful and fearsome but the rings control the one who wears them, drive them mad.”

“What do you mean? I’d never heard that before.” Sasha said. She was stunned by the statement.

“You know all the Champions who wore those rings died before they even made it to age fifty. They aged so fast, the rings ate their spirit. Also they said that after enough kings died wearing them that the rings became haunted, that the dead kings would talk to the new king and tell him what to do. It’s why King Franklin died in that crowd. He planned for himself to die and for the crowd to tear at his body to get at the rings. He knew the Champions had reigned long enough that they had the army and the people behind them, the rings didn’t matter anymore, and he didn’t want his son to be damned into wearing them.” Craggs said.

“I knew they had died young, but I’d never heard about the rings being haunted.” Sasha told him.

“Oh it’s what Mistress Green tells us all the time. It’s why she’s so willing to let Lord Brown wear them and become King, because she knows the Browns will have to bear the burden of the curse while the Greens can just marry into power.” Craggs said.

Sasha shook her head. She hated Mistress Green everything about her seemed so smug. She felt like there was even more to the story than Craggs knew but his information really felt like put some things into place for her.

“They want me.” Craggs said just as Sasha felt the razors in her collar poke her neck.

“They want us you mean.” She replied to him as they headed to the command center in Lord Brown’s estate.

They made it into what had been a parlor but was now the war room where Lord Brown poured over maps and pretended he was some sort of military expert when odds were he had no idea about anything at all. Today Mistress Green was looming over his shoulder as he stared intently at a map.

“Craggs, Sasha. You know that in a week we will be launching the assault on the castle and now has come the time for your missions.” Mistress Green smiled deviously as she continued to speak. “Craggs, you’ll kill everything in your path. You’re the distraction for Sasha.” She nodded at Craggs who nodded back to her. “And you my dear will assassinate King Derrick and steal the center jewel out of his crown.”

Sasha took the news as impassively as she could. She knew that assassinating the king would be next to impossible. He was guarded by wards and talismans that would prevent Sasha from ever taking him by surprise and his personal bodyguards were armored with enchanted steel plate that would be nigh impenetrable for her weapons.

“Do not worry Sasha. The king still thinks the Greens are on his side. He believes I am a double agent that has been working all this years only to betray Lord Brown in the final hour and to hand the rings back to the Champions. The Greens build that castle, we set up the wards, we know exactly how you can get at the king without anyone stopping you. The king’s death is not what matters most, but killing him will sow chaos and confusion into the ranks of our enemies. The jewel at the center of his crown is the key to the vault that houses the final ring. Once you have it, you’ll meet us at the rendezvous point for the final assault on the vault and the gathering of the tenth ring.”

Sasha nodded. She was terrified of the fact that she wasn’t being set up to fail when it came to the murdering of King Derrick. She was supremely confident that somehow someway the Greens had in fact set all of this up to allow her to pull off this assassination. As sure as she was of that, she was sure of the fact that she would be murdered the moment she handed over the jewel, never in a million years would they allow someone as deadly as Sasha to be that close to those cursed rings.