Paradice Games

The time she spent going through the old beast’s memories were profitable; it’s one thing to have the knowledge and power to travel to different realms, but an entirely different thing to know anything about what you’re about to get yourself into. (Environment is a huge, but often overlooked aspect of Traveling).  One of the bits she stumbled across was the concept of the ‘gem faire’ – a marketplace made entirely of gem peddlers and associated products, like beads and jewelery and other odds and ends. Being fascinated by all things sparkly (and sometimes even valuable) Kristallen resolved to find one and go exploring… and probably shopping.

‘Hmmmm… humans and dwarves are both greedy and materialistic, they will have a ‘gem faire’ somewhere I’m sure‘…. she thought to herself as she wove the strands of the mirror, ‘Ah! that must be one there! Ok, humans, odd clothing but simple – well most of it, anyway (some planes are just strange)…‘ she continued to mutter to herself as she modified the spell from simple seeing to allowing travel through four different dimensions and barely remembered to spare a thought for her appearance before stepping through.

She realized upon entering, that this faire was being held in some kind of large building, rather like a warehouse instead of the outdoor open-air affairs she was used to, which seemed rather silly since the lighting the vendors were using made it just as warm and bright as outside was. But the pretties… truly, this was a marvelous idea, the gem faire, because there were examples of all the gems she was familiar with and many plain stones that had been carved into different shapes and figurines.  Even simple granite can look incredible when cut and polished!

And so she went shopping…

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Author’s Note: This story updates on Mondays.

The day was clear, the sun was warm and the dragon was stretched out on the grassy atop the knoll. A couple of white cabbage butterflies are fluttering about the flowers seeming oblivious the large creature just a couple of feet from them. Abruptly the sun is briefly obscured by the shadow of a second dragon, this one silver and perhaps a tad small for her age as she flips around on her tail and drops lightly to the ground with barely a grass blade blown out of place. The gray dragon just pretends to ignore the ‘upstart mage’ and just grumbles a bit – more for effect than any real feeling, because honestly, the easiest way to get rid of annoying mages is just to ignore them until they go away. The silver dragon simply burnishes her horns
on the grass, flicks her wings into place and between one breath and the next the silver dragon is gone and the white leopard sauntering over to claim her share of the sunny grass. “You know,” said the dragon-now-cat idly, “if you wouldn’t hog the whole hill I wouldn’t have to change forms all the time to fit”.
“You know,” said the still-a-dragon said in the exactly same tone of voice, “it’s my hill and I’ll cover as much or as little as I please.”
The cat, knowing that of course the cranky old beast was right, did what cats, mages, and females of most species do when confronted with an irritating (but true) fact: ignored it completely. “Anyway, I’ve finally finished going through the memories you gave me, and there are still parts I don’t quite understand and wish to discuss…”
And so the mage and the cranky beast spent the rest of the afternoon discussing other worlds and times; she because was incurably curious, and he because, well, he was hoping she’d get bored and go away. Ironically, unbeknownst to both these creatures of great size, knowledge and pure power, an entire different level of reality was happening right under their paws…

“Come back here! you arrogant bastard!”
“No way you crazy bug! I’m tired of you always flitting around from one group of ‘friends’ to another* and then coming home drunk!”
“I’m not finished, and don’t you even call me a drunk! You’re the one who likes to stick close to home and sample every single flower that come along – and don’t think I haven’t seen you looking at that bumble bee on that dandelion over there!”
The conversation (argument) continues to devolve, but being a domestic dispute won’t be
repeated here.

*social butterfly (ar ar)

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Author’s Note: This story updates on Mondays.

Late one clear evening, the dragon is approached by a red goblin he hasn’t met yet. The goblin introduces himself as ‘Matticles’ and further distinguishes himself by pulling out a pipe and sticking it in his mouth. He looks around the mouth of the cave and then tells the dragon, “You know, you will have erosion problem come next winter if you don’t do something now.’
The dragon, puzzled and annoyed replies slightly crossly, “Is that so? I suppose the entire cave will collapse if I don’t agree to whatever crazy overcomplicated scheme you have in mind?”
“Actually, pretty much, yeah.”
“Oh.”
With a heavy sigh the dragons re-settles his bulk on the hoard, blowing a small stream of colored smoke while doing so. “Well, what is then?”
Matticles lights his pipe and blows a stream of smoke to match the dragon’s before
replying. “Honestly, it’s pretty simple: I come back with a crew tomorrow and we install some new gutters to divert the rainfall away from the edges of the cave, preventing erosion and increasing the value of your cave for the rest of your life.”
The dragon, who is at this point getting a bit drowsy, is ready to agree to anything if it means he can get to sleep, “Fine fine, whatever. See you in the morning.”
“Sure thing” says Matticles, and disappears in a small puff of smoke.
The next morning the dragon is woken up with the sound of hammers on stone and rather groggily stumbles out to the mouth of the cave, where he is greeted with the site of a dozen or so goblins of various colors swarming over the cave, chiseling stones and digging what appears to be trenches along the edge of the knoll and into the ground leading away from it. Matticles is directing the chaos while puffing on his pipe (and occasionally hitting someone over the head for inattentiveness). The sun is just barely over the horizon… and the dragon turns around and stumbles back to his hoard to curl back up and tuck his head tightly under a wing until he is bloody ready to get up.

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Author’s Note: This story updates on Mondays.

So, as fiction is starting to be a lot more fun to write, we’re getting away from posting ‘real’ news here. However, there are a few things about that…

First thing is that future Caption Contests will happen primarily on Facebook; we will give the Caption Contest its own link on the right side bar of this here blog, so that you can always look up the latest version of the rules at your convenience (like the Terms of Service).

Second thing, we will be ‘hosting’ in-person meetups around Portland at places with good wi-fi and playing IRC Golf together.  Getting together to play games online?  Yes, we have a few screws loose and like it that way.  The nice thing about these meetups is that we can answer questions about how the game plays and get to know some folk in person, but at the same time those who are joining us in other time-zones, much less other continents, are able to play on an even playing field.  Out of the 12 players the league has at time of writing, we have players in North America, Europe and Australia.

Finally, we are working with a new writer to help bring to life the fiction here, when my creative juices are all dried up in the summer sun.  So, it is very likely that for a time, the fiction will update on Mondays at 12:01 AM Pacific Time.  Depending on how far ahead we get, we will add more days of the week (posting this in “Author’s Notes”).  If you have any questions, message us on Facebook or Twitter (or comment on this post); Louis Lamp still has to re-create the support email addresses listed on our Contact Us page.  He could really learn to focus.    Have a great weekend!

With a thunderous boom the dragon returned to his cave with the bushy fig tree still growing in an alcove.  His first concern was not for the tree, but for his bed, also known as his hoard.  His treasure was safe enough at least, but it may not be for long.  His ears picked up the sound of many foot falls rushing to and fro, somewhere underfoot.  In the darkness he could see small shapes moving something massive between him and his bed.  The dragon let out a roar accompanied by a gout of flame aimed at the ceiling to shed some light on just what in tarnation was going on.

The goblins underfoot dropped the moving they were doing and began to shake instead, then getting a better idea and running away.  The pitter-patter of footfalls flowed out of the cave and disappeared all together.  The smell of goblins was still coming from all parts of the cave, but a new, curious smell emerged.  For some reason, there seemed to be the smell of a banana creme pie coming from somewhere in the cave.  The dragon didn’t know what a banana creme pie was, but made every effort to not step in any of it that lay scattered on the cave floor.  Who knows, maybe it’ll attract food?

Taking stock of the cave, it seemed that the goblins moved two very large rocks and dumped them in the middle of the cave.  The smaller one, located just in front of the treasure hoard seemed to emanate quite a bit of heat.  Maybe they’d brought it up from deeper within the volcano.  The other rock was long, wide and short; sort of ovoid in shape.  It was too much to take in.  When the sun emerges over the horizon, I will take a second look at these rocks and figure out just what the hell is going on, thought the dragon.  For now, it is a good time to sleep.

Author’s note: I’m working hard this weekend to get ahead on posting again.  It would be nice to have a few days of breathing room instead of having that dreaded feeling of being behind all the time.  Depending on what I get done this weekend, I’m working towards MWF, M-F or everyday for updates; depending on how much I’m able to write. Whichever it turns out to be, I’ll let you know in another note. In other news, the IRC Golf League moved and is now public, and can be found on our forums. Finally, the bit about the creme pie. That’s an old reference to a game that ran long ago in a place that’s still online, while testing our RPG.

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Author’s Note: This story updates on Mondays only.

Just as a spiffy and quick announcement, our forums are up and running. If you need to find a link to the forums in the future, we placed one at the far bottom right of the sidebar (though we might re-arrange the sidebar to make things more spiffy). You may now resume your regularly-scheduled reading.

The dragon returned to his cave after his evening hunt.  He managed to catch a cow, which was easy pickings, and after downing his meal delicately, he flew back to his cave.  Walking in the cave he passes up the fig tree and the soft light above it.  Gold and jewels sparkle in the dim light for a beast who is renowned for being able to see in the dark.  Placing his feet in familiar spots in his hoard, he sprawls over the riches of many kingdoms.  Finally, an evening alone.

He rests his head and drifts off to sleep.  Very quickly, it is apparent that his dreams are not those that dragons normally dream, Instead, he wakes up, surrounded by pitch black.  He can see a short distance from his eyes, and as he looks over himself, he realizes that he can only perceive a part of himself.  Floating in midair, he sees nothing at all around him.  Testing his wings, he finds that they spread out to touch nothing at all in the void.  He tries to inhale, and discovers that there is nothing here to breathe in.  No heat, no smell, no air.

Anger wells up and to see more of whats around him, he bellows while releasing a huge gout of flame.  The flame itself barely flickers outside of his mouth – given that there is no air for the flame to continue to burn in.  The slight illumination shows him more of himself, and that nothing else is in sight.  Now being out of air, he thinks quickly and re-arranges a few of his insides, such that he no longer needs to breathe for awhile.  Frustrated, the grey dragon thrashes around, and can’t tell if the thrashing is sending him into a spin or not.  There’s no up or down here.

The dragon pushes its will through to break reality, and create a door back to his home.  He feels the rush of very stale air as he wills himself through the opening into a spot that is safe from passers-by.  After closing the door, the rush of air stops, but air is rushing into the enclosed chamber he placed himself in, from small vents.  He releases the powers that traded life for air, and resumes breathing, albeit heavily, and settles down to sleep.  He will see what has become of his treasure trove tomorrow.

This is just a quick, non-cool and a non-fiction post.  One thing that was lost with last night’s site migration were our email boxes (found on the Contact Us Page).  So, those email addresses are DOWN until they’re recreated, hopefully later this weekend.  We’re sorry about that, and admit that our cool points account dropped to zero because of this.  If anybody wants them though, we have plenty of dork points to give out!

Back at the grassy gnoll, a small grey lizard sprawled over the top of a rock, soaking up sunlight. Every once in awhile, a forked tongue flicked between its lips, tasting the air. The mouth of the cave loomed behind the lizard, with its cool air that smelled only slightly of dragonfart – to humans at least. In the animal kingdom, the presence of a dragon was merely one reason to avoid its cave.

The lizard’s eyes opened and he scurried off his rock into the grass, hiding between blades. A white leopard walked up to the sunning rock, and into the cave gracefully. As her tail passed into the cave, those who could hear her broadcast, did. “Oh dragon, where are you? You have answers to questions of mine.”

“You interrupted my sunbath, for questions?” A heavy mental sigh followed, “What questions do you have?”

“Well, you’ve traveled to several other worlds, and I would know what’s in them. However I would know what’s in them now, through you. Don’t keep me out, I’ll find a way in if I have to.”

“If it will make you seek attention elsewhere, cat, then you shall be obliged. You have an open mind? Here you go; there are three other worlds I’ve spent a lot of time in, and the only piece that you don’t tell anyone is that I’ve spent time elsewhere.” The dragon focused on his memories, and dumped several hundred years of living memory into the mind of Kristallen all at once. A pained moan followed by a thud echoed out of the cave. “You may want to lay there awhile, else you may throw up in my abode.” The lizard, deeming everything safe, skittered back down to his sunning rock and resumed his soak in peace and quiet.

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Hell had plenty to deal with over thousands of years of change to meet the demands of the religions of the time. None of the fame saved for the so-called ‘rulers’ of Hell actually sat on the shoulders of those in power. The famous ones were likened to Hollywood stars up in the world of the living, Lucifer being one of the most… ‘loved’ these days. No, the powers-that-be down there are as indescribable and unquantifiable as they are anywhere else.

To deal with the demands of the modern age, Hell found itself in constant transition and finally settled upon keeping the bible-thumpers and fans of Dante’s “Inferno” happy by being all about fire and brimstone by day, and a sub-zero bitter cold at night. Now, this becomes very important, if you are trying to apply paint to tablets. There is a short transition period between night and day, which is important. For the imp, he found his time to work on tablets was very limited. Just as BOB* was low on the horizon, the imp produced a tablet and his small pallet of dried or frozen paints, and before the paints became unusable, he’d get a little bit of work done.

Author’s Note: * BOB stands for Big Orange Ball in the world of the living. It is often called the Big Orange Bastard most anywhere else.
A second note to make is that updates will take place at midnight, Pacific ____ Time, this way, the British are able to read this just as they’re arriving to or starting work, and most of the US is still asleep when the updates happen.
A third note is that the IRC Golf League reached $250, meaning that another $50 will be mailed off to Return to Honor soon.

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