The Purpose of this Blog
Writing is a strange craft. In some ways, it can be the most expressive. Very little can match an in-depth description of psychology, a detailed breakdown of the thought process and emotions felt from start to finish. On the other hand, it’s also limited. Describe too much and you lose your reader. Use big and fancy words at your risk, possibly alienating people without as copious a lexicon your brobdingnagian intellect accomodates. You’ll never be able to completely and accurately describe your vision, unless you have considerable skill.
Writing, however, is similar to art in how you can easily spot the most glaring mistakes. Paint someone’s leg on backwards? Whoops. Completely forget all form of sentence structure? Whoops. Put someone’s nose where their eye should be? Whoops. Throw down a gigantic infodump without pacing? Whoops. As you get more and more skilled, however, it’s somewhat difficult to improve unless you develop. Great artists can see a little tiny smudge that ruins the flow, how an area is too layered, how a color fades out when it should get stronger. Great writers can see an awkward word of choice, a pace that jumps back and forth, forced character development. The steps from becoming a good writer to an excellent writer are incredibly difficult to see, though the results of each step are obvious.
That’s why I made this blog. Is this some sort of advertisment, declaring my “skillz” and showing off how awesome I am? Not in the least.
I’m not a good writer. I’m a decent writer, but I can hardly compare with the greats. What this blog is, is practice. Just like an artist scribbles for the fun of it, I jot down any world in my mind. Commentary on modern events aren’t rare, but I’m not aiming for those. What I’m aiming for is WRITING. Fantasy, sci-fi, fiction, non-fiction, surreal, allegorical, alternative, journalism, poems, descriptions, biographies, alternate history, anything. I’ve no doubt that what I put on here is shit. In fact, I expect it. I’ll look back several years after this, glance at this blog, shake my head and wonder “Wow, how could I have even considered that good enough to put on the internet?”.
This is simply practice. I’m hoping for an update once a week. Not all of the works I’ve written will be post up here, but it’s posting nonetheless. Will I get any fans? I highly doubt it. Most of the people probably reading this will likely just be friends and family and friends of family. Will I get people pointing and crying about how awful this is? I wouldn’t be surprised.
But, regardless, this is a place for me to sit down, practice, and publish my practice. I’ve noticed that there’s a gigantic difference in emotion between works that just sit on the harddrive and works actually displayed for all to see. With the latter I feel I’ve accomplished something, even if it’s simply what not to do, and I feel driven to my next project. The former, I feel nothing.
And nothing is worse than nothing itself.
Hitler won World War II.
It was a hard-fought war, lasting over ten years and encompassing the entire globe. The Allies and Axis Powers all clashed together in a brutal conflict that changed history entirely. Sides changed, alliances shifted, territory gained was lost, and the outcome looked bleak for the forces of good.
But in the end, it was the Axis that triumphed. The Allies were reduced to rubble and scattered across the globe. But most importantly…a new nation was born. A utopia, now, fought for every day, with every citizen producing sweat and blood in order to benefit not only themselves…but the entire earth.
Germany, Russia, and Britain joined forces on the fallen soil of the United States of America and created a glorious world from it.
But perhaps we should start from the beginning.
It seems fitting that a war begat from hatred and intolerance of other races would start simply with another race being introduced on a continent’s soil. And it seemed so sad that a war can be waged over something so simple–the right for humans to be free.
America constantly called itself “the land of the free”, and prided itself as being where people could run from oppressive forces. This all changed as soon as the black man set foot on American soil. Fighting erupted over who should or shouldn’t own him, and the land of the free bent under the weight of hypocrisy as slavery was established.
Slavery. An ugly concept that tore apart a once-wonderful land. The forefathers of America would’ve been ashamed. Civil War erupted between the North and the South, and the Confederacy won–slavery was made a continental law, and “the land of the free” was no more. The British called out America’s hypocrisy, and America promptly responded with threats and calls to mind their own business. “This is our land, which we fought for and died for.”, they said, “We have the right to do what we wish on it, and previous generations dictate nothing!”
Negotiations went south as several other continents chimed in with what they had to go through in order to secure their continent, with America’s arrogance constantly trying to say that it was special. Eventually, threats of war came out, and America quieted down–they were still licking their wounds from the Civil War, it was in no shape for another war. But if slavery was causing a problem with the other continents, they would have to get rid of it in the quickest way possible.
It was called the Holoskauston, and it was a horrific mark upon history. Even the name itself was a horrible twist of something beautiful, a religious ritual designed for purification. Millions of black people were rounded up and slaughtered in absolutely horrifying ways.
Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill were absolutely aghast at this. This was a tragedy of utterly epic proportions, never before in history had there been such a thoughtless waste of human life. Hitler himself, der Fuhrer of Germany, demanded that he be left alone to mourn for the lost people.
America, however, only had its appetite whet by all the slaughter. The only people with the right to be free were people already in America. If you don’t like it, they said…come change it.
Several continents allied themselves with America, all for different reasons. Some were oppressed and wanted to lash out. Some were xenophobes. Russia, Germany, and Britain were all horribly outnumbered, but they knew they had to protect humanity from America.
War was declared.
Years passed. Battles were won and lost, but things weren’t looking good for the Axis. Russia and Germany were conquered, leaving Britain and Japan as the last few pieces of territory for the Axis to rely on. Japan had remained neutral throughout the war, but with Allies starting to invade their soil, it was time to get serious.
Japan pooled their resources and talent together and built the world’s first atomic bomb, which Germany then dropped on America in a desperate effort to turn the tides. The impact was devastating, and the entire country was reduced to rubble. Americans were slaughtered, the President was killed, and only soldiers overseas were spared. The Allies promptly scattered like flies, having lost their main base of operations and a high commander to give them orders. The British, Germans, Russian, and now the Japanese pressed forward, taking advantage of the confusion and waging guerilla warfare–striking silently at important locales to drain the Allies of supplies. Slowly, all of Europe was regained.
Seeing how crippled America was from this, and that it was their bomb in the first place, Japan invaded America and started fighting against both Germany and Russia with threats of more atomic bombs. Britain unveiled their pet project for the time–1 SAS and 2 SAS, a top-notch special forces team with whom failure was a word for fairy tales.
The SAS covertly disabled all plans of future bomb-making, allowing for the Axis to raid and conquer the Japan-ruled American soils. The rest of the Allies were systematically hunted down and were given a chance for mercy–many, seeing that the metaphorical ship had long since sunk, happily gave themselves up and allowed themselves into rehabilitation. World War II ended in a victory for the Nazis and the Communists, whom happily gave the British credit for their nominal help.
Together, all three swore to create a new society from the ruins of America. “Pravda, Freiden, Freedom” would be the motto of this nation, emphasizing that it was three forces of entirely differing nationalities working together to make a great difference in this world. The nation was built from the ground up on Russia’s Marxism, Germany’s militant, and Britain’s culture, creating a society impenetrable of outer influences in which everyone was born to work and contribute. Everyone helped to develop a greater nation, with the benefits spread equally among all. Volunteers were chosen to become Aryan, supersoldiers acting as both military and police, enforcing all laws and keeping no crime from occuring. Technology flourished. Heroes were preserved eternally. War became a thing of the past. People put the memory of the Last Great War behind them, as incursions that did occur in the future (Vietnam War, Invasion of Afghanistan, Operation: Iraq, among others), were put down quickly and quietly.
This society is named Neureich.
“YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHH!”
The cry was as passionate as it was loud, screamed at the top of her lungs from the depth of her heart. Accenting this was a gigantic claymore, easily five feet long with the blade half the size of the crossguard, slamming into several rocks and cleaving through the pile as if they were never there. The hoped recipient was a luckless bandit who had made the mistake of irritating the wielder, arguably in a lapse of wisdom–no matter who the victim is, if said victim is capable is effortlessly slinging around a zweihandre as tall as she is with one hand, then it is advisable that they are left the hell alone.
In the bandit’s defense, said wielder seemed to be a frail lady no older than 21. She also had all-sclera eyes, a giveaway sign of blindness. The armor she was adorned in also was intricate and decorated, designed more for display and decoration than actual function. Her only companion was an also-frail, shifty-eyed, thin, balding man whose entire body language broadcasted how he would be more at home in a room full of scorpions than out in the plains with her.
He had thought it’d be an easy heist. Distract the man, loot the woman. Get in, get out. He assumed that the man was there to act as a guide for the blind woman, and this guess couldn’t have been more correct.
Just about everything else was wrong, though. The woman’s senses were hyper-attuned to all around her–she was able to sense him sneaking up on her, pulled the gigantic weapon off of her back, and then everything went to hell.
“GANGWAAAAAAY!”
She screamed again as she put her entire body into another swing, a wide horizontal swoop cleaving through the air. She could feel impact on the ground–a lot of it. He had to throw himself onto the ground in order to dodge it.
She couldn’t help but smile at this. He was brazen enough to try and pick from her, but he hadn’t the gall to even try and fight back? Thieves were a cowardly lot, it seemed. She could feel the ground as he rolled away and stood back up, trying to run. She simply took after him, matching his steps effortlessly even with the gigantic sword. The sound of his breathing reached her ears, heavy and gasping. Terrified and tired. It only took a lunge forward to overtake him, their bodies wrecking together, his clothing no match for her heavy armor as she pinned him down to the ground with both the weight of her armor and the strength of one arm.
It certainly didn’t keep him from struggling, though. Writhing and squirming, every limb flailing and desperately grabbing at her in a desperate attempt to throw her off. It was useless, though. She was weighty with the armor, and much stronger than him.
“Please! I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean to!” He gasped and begged–the only thing he could do, really. The flailing wasn’t doing anything, so any chance he had of getting out of this in one piece would be a chance he’d take. “Just let me go and you’ll never hear from me again!”
Adrianna simply smiled politely.
“Gerald? Rope, please.”
Night came swiftly, the blackness enshrouding the sky and the plains effortlessly. The only form of light was fire formed from a small pile of chopped logs. Gerald pulled two more logs from his pack and tossed them over onto the fire, as Adrianna fiddled around with a dagger that she had taken from the thief, carving into wood with it. The thief was bound tightly across the entire torso with copious amounts of rope–perhaps one could say he was mummified with rope, due to the sheer amount constraining him, but Adrianna had reasoned that she had little idea of what he was capable of and thus decided to take no chances at all.
“This is a nice blade.” She murmured as she brushed her thumb along the notches and cuts along the wood she’d been shaving. “Multiple layers of razor-thin steel, all laid one over the other like a katana. Triangular in width, designed for slashing and hacking aside from outright stabbing. Engravings boasting of a story lost to the ages. Leather grip, wrapped carefully and lovingly to ensure that the blade would never forsake one holding on for dear life.” She looked over in his general direction. “Strange to see a masterwork of a weapon in the hands of a common thief.”
He simply grunted.
“What I find more interesting, though, is this.” She sheathed the dagger in her belt and lifted up a glowing shard, red rusty metal with an ominous purple glow. The very moment she raised it, a pure aura of malevolence radiated out–pulsing as firmly as the glow and flashing images of dread and doom in all three’s minds. Gerald promptly backed away, but the other two remained glaring at each other–well, as much as they could, with one being blind and the other being aware that she couldn’t see his expression. Adrianna’s eyes were sightless, but her mouth turned in a grimace said more than open eyes ever could. The thief growled to follow his grunt.
“Yeah? What about it?”
Adrianna stood up, tossing it up and then re-catching it. “You know what’s about it. This is an artifact of great evil–what you’d typically find in any overlord’s doom fortress. Something that could spell the demise of the world, if in the wrong hands. Much like your blade, it’s strange to see a masterwork in the hands of a common thief, especially with this power. In fact…I’d guess it wasn’t a turn of events entirely in your control.”
The thief simply grunted once again. This irritated her–his vocabulary had twisted from pleading to simply animal grunts, snarls, and growls. She was half-tempted to toss him a bone.
“I’m sorry you’re not in a compliable mood tonight. We’ll try this again tomorrow.” She turned away and shrugged, making her way to her own pack and pulling out some blankets. Right now, however, it was time for some sleep.
She had slept more deeply than she had wanted to. All of that hiking probably made her tired.
Due to her being blind, all of her other senses were incredibly attuned. Her hearing, in particular, hindered her the most with sleep. Even so much as someone stepping around her could wake her up, due to how sensitive it was. She had planned on this–if the thief had tried anything, she would wake up due to either feeling his movements or hearing them.
Blame could also partially be placed on underestimation of skills. This assassin had barely let off any noise whatsoever. Only a last, dying gurgle had woken her–the thief’s. Her eyes snapped open, a useless gesture considering they couldn’t see nor were uncovered in the first place. Next gesture she chose, far more useful, was her arm snapping out to grab her weapon, and her body snapping up to leap to her feet. She turned to face this apparent intruder, teeth gritted as she gave a quick check of her surroundings.
Wind was blowing on her feet, hitting her legs. Her equipment was stolen, otherwise it’d be blocking the breeze. She couldn’t hear any breathing aside from hers and this assassin’s–the thief and Gerald were dead.
“Hey! No fair! You weren’t supposed to wake up, ever!”
And this assassin was apparently a 16-year-old girl.
“Never mind that, I’ll make sure you’ll NEVER SLEEP AGAIN!”
…or was that 23 years old? Her voice had suddenly changed. There was no time to ponder such questions, however as she could hear the ring being swung around in the air over at her. Adrianna promptly ducked underneath it and put her weight behind the sword, swinging it over.
The two blades wielded by two women clashed together, clanging loudly as armor was struck, weapons were repelled off of each other, bodies twisted and turned to narrowly dodge, clothes shredded (hawt) underneath the cutting power. Stabs were returned two-fold, and slashes were avoided vigorously as the two went blow by blow, each swing a strange step in this deadly dance.
All it took was an interruption to make things explode.
Both of them paused, one at sight and one at feel. Adrianna could feel the air changing as the Soul Edge shard shot across the sky from the ground, as if yanked by an other force. The assassin saw this as well, and let off a mad cackle.
“Ahahahahaha!” She slowly started backing off from Adrianna, lifting up her hoop over her backside. This is all well and great–I guess I don’t need you after all, loser.”
Adrianna jerked over to face her. “Need me? What are you talking about?!”
“My master now has all of the pieces he needs to restore Soul Edge, and soon the world will burn in a maelstrom of evil! What am I talking about? I guess you’ll find out soon enough! Aaaaahahahahahahahah!”
There were many times in which Adrianna desperately wished she could see. This was one of them.
The woman had just…vanished. Adrianna growled as she slid her sword over her backside, trying to concentrate the rest of her senses.
The only thing she could hear was the whipping of the wind across the ground and her own breathing.
The only thing she could smell was blood and her own sweat from the short skirmish.
The only thing she could taste was the dryness of her own mouth, from the adrenaline of combat.
The only thing she could feel was the sweat dripping down her face and blood pounding through her veins.
What all of these had in common, was that she couldn’t sense the other woman nearby. She huffed in frustration. To come and to go was the creed of the assassin, and she had done this well–but where assassins succeed is irritation for the heroic. She had little friendship with Gerald, and even less benevolence for the thief, but a life taken was still a life still taken.
She was not without a lead, however. The assassin did mention something about “Soul Edge”. Rumors about this weapon were prevalent–some great, some not such. But if this weapon drove an assassin to her, then she had some sort of business with it. Half revenge, half destruction, but a business nonetheless.
Adrianna pulled the weapon off of her back again and let it thunk onto the ground, starting to hike off in the direction she remembered hiking yesterday. She could only hope to find a town soon.
