The Black Hearted Man

Sorry its been a while. Been in a rut lately. Nothing good comes to the mind you know. I'm one of those people with really bad moods and they were getting a bit more frequent. I'm feeling better now but, ya' know, its important to get a routine. So with that, lets celebrate with story time. How 'bout a sequel

The Black Hearted Man

I emerge from the seal, feeling like there's a 200 pound weight on my chest. Breathing isn't exactly something you worry about when you're floating in a magic space. I quickly glance around, probing the room with magic. The seal below me is glowing, taking up the entire floor of a round chamber about a mile in diameter. I'm honored they poured this much magic just into containing me honestly. Looking closer it seems to be a pretty standard seal, but they layered it a lot. Well, I would also be scared of the guy who ruined the world. I also notice a lone human armed with a makeshift gun at the singular entrance, towering at least 100 feet high.

Found the person who freed me. Now lets see who dares to wake the devil.

"Hello, unlucky soul," I say in poisoned honeyed tones, warping in front of him. Note to self, don't do that again for a bit. Hurts like hell since I'm way too rusty. "What brings you to Old Man Azazel today, and what moronic idea did you think justified interrupting my nap."

"I-I-I-It's y-y-your s-s-sister sir," he stutters out slowly. Its fun being terrifying. Unfortunately, no one likes you much afterwards, but humor is its own reward.

"What, is dear Angelus inviting me to her birthday party." Okay, time to stop fucking with him and get some answers.

"She's gone crazy sir!" He says this in the most panicked voice I've heard. "Last I heard, she plans to drag you out and kill you."

"Okay," I say, just a little surprised. Angelus was the one on the council who insisted that I remain alive. "When will she arrive."

"F-f-fff-fifteen minutes."

"Alright then." I summon my old pistol and call my dark attack ghosts. "Time to get going." I run out of the room and mentally steel myself for a fight.

Must I kill again. My own sister... No, I can't die.

Writer's block

I don't know why but I've been trying to write and not able to get anything even remotely satisfying. It's not that I don't have ideas, its that my writing out those ideas is crap. If you saw my last story you know I like the cold open. But right now everything I right has way too much set up. Any ways, I've been watching Kill La Kill. How the fuck do these people do this. Its so stupid but its the good type of stupid. I want to be able to do that. Its really easy to look at this stuff and get really discouraged. Well, I guess we get better. There's nothing to do but get practice here.

So I need to fill a blog entry huh. Well lets talk about stuff I think I would like. I'm a big fan of anti-heroic sociopaths as protagonists. Probably comes from Darker Than Black. Good show and you should watch it. Similarly, I like having some powers for a protagonists. It's much more interesting than if they're static, normal people. One of the issues I have with the Cyberpunk 2020 setting is the lack of any real special things that distinguish the player characters from others. Even when you're playing a normal, non-magic characters  in Shadowrun you have edge, a resource that represents a sort of cosmic backing or supernatural luck for the characters. Characters aren't just random schmucks, they're Shadowrunners, with all the implications of that. Compare to the Cyberpunks who don't have much special to them. You can see why one might be more interesting. (Does Cyberpunk have an edge system? If it does, it's not as clearly defined.)

Speaking of Shadowrun, I also like the consolidation of magic and technology. It sort of makes sense. If magic really existed, we would try to evoke modern technology with it. Modern tech has a lot of things going for it. Its reliable and accessible to the common person through easily sold, cheap to produce accessories without having to give commoners access to the actual tools used to make them, limiting their ability to revolt or build weapons. Its a more sensible setting than, say, the average D&D setting where there are old ruins and tombs everywhere for no reason.

Some BS writing

So this is a bit of writing I did. Nothing impressive, just a bit of fiction that I came up with, just meant to be a preface to some story thoughts I came up with.

Intro

I'm looking down the barrel of a pistol. “Wonderful,” I mutter under my breath so that my assailant. This rich brat calls me to this alley behind his oh-so prestigious private school and then has the sheer audacity to try to rob me. I might almost be impressed if the blood red sweater-vest over the white dress shirt with the khaki pants didn't make him look like an absolute tool.

“Look,” I say somewhat more loudly, in my most diplomatic tone. “Why don't we put down the gun and you won't to get blood in that pretty-boy blonde hair of yours.”

His eyes flare up in anger. Mistake. “How about you stop treating me like a little kid,” he yells at me, despite being all of 5 feet away. His quivering voice fails to disguise his stress or imply that he's in charge. “Drop the stuff and walk slowly away or… or… I'll shoot! I'm in charge here.”

I slowly take a step forward. “Look, let's not get-” BANG! I see a muzzle flash and feel a sharp pain on my forehead as my head snaps back and my vision goes dark.

“Fuck! That hurts you spoiled brat!” I say in a tone of annoyance as I wipe the blood out of my eyes. I look up now that I can see again. Ah the look on his face immediately cheers me up. I don't know if it's the abject horror that I'm still standing after getting shot or the fear of what's going to happen to him, but it just makes me feel all fuzzy inside, like the warmth from a campfire, minus the smell of burning human. I slowly walk forward and say slowly “now see, I'm going to have to hurt you. We can make this easy or hard.”

He slowly backs away, trembling, then quickly turns and runs in terror.

“Hard it is then.”

Inflict suffering. Charge.

I pool magical energy into my right arm, cloaking it in darkness as I rocket towards my target, leaving a black smog in my wake. I stop just short of the preening fool, punching him with my right arm and forcing the energy into his back, causing him to scream in agony as sparks of magic leap through his nervous system, leaving no permanent harm but still causing him to writhe in pain as he falls down.

I spit on his fallen body. "Maybe you'll remember next time," I say as I rifle through his pockets. "Ah, here's the money I need." I take the money I was due before he acted so rudely. "Pleasure doing business with you. Let's try not to make this not so eventful next time."

I walk away from the scene. After all, I got things to do and places to be.