Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Mar 30, 2024 15:35:39 GMT
Whether you heed it or not, your story is always waiting for you. It can take many forms: the watchful gaze of a raven; the barking laugh of a master at arms; the pull of zealotry in the shadows; the call to venture down below where Life and Death walk amongst their stories. After all, a story cannot begin and cannot end without them. For just as a story must have a first page and a last, all things that live must end. Time and Fate will come for them all, be they kings or paupers, recruits or captains. They know this, they have seen this: those who have lived and died and live again are merely in the middle of their tale. They know how the story must end. They know how their story must end. But do they know their part in it? Excerpted from Sweet Sorrows
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Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Mar 30, 2024 15:35:42 GMT
It is not the first thing that one reaches for when seeking, but to be inscribed in tale and shared in story is an immortality of its own. The second death, they call it, when one's name is spoken for the last time. She has died once before, but such a thing has not stopped her. No, it is in fact the goal: the power to return from what was something new, to close the chapter on one book and pick up the sequel in an excited fervour. But one book is not the next, even if filled with familiar characters. Much can change from one chapter to another. Down here, out of sight of even the gods, on the shores of the Starless Sea, maybe she will find what she so dearly seeks. Excerpted from Sweet Sorrows
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Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Mar 30, 2024 15:35:44 GMT
There is a pirate in the basement. The pirate was placed here for numerous acts of a piratey nature considered criminal enough for punishment by those non-pirates who decide such things. The girl brings a plate of bread and a bowl of water. Her feet fall softly on the stones and any sound they make is stolen away by the waves or by the mice. The girl stares into the shadows at the barely visible pirate, gives a little disappointed sigh, and places the bread and bowl by the bars. Then she waits. The pirate remains in the shadows. After several minutes of silence, the girl turns away and leaves. When the pirate retrieves his meal he finds the water has been mixed with wine. The next night, the pirate waits by the bars for the girl to descend on her silent feet. Her steps halt only briefly when she sees him. The pirate stares and the girl stares back. He holds out a hand for his bowl and his bread but the girl places them on the ground instead, her eyes never leaving his. She gives him a hint of a bow as she returns to her feet, a gentle nod of her head, a movement that reminds him of the beginning of the dance. The next night the pirate stays back from the bars, a polite distance that could be closed in a single step, and the girl comes a breath closer. Another night and the dance continues. A step closer. A step back. A movement to the side. The next night he holds out his hand again to accept what she offers and this time she responds and his fingers brush against the back of her hand. The girl begins to linger, staying longer each night. She brings two bowls of wine and they drink together in companionable silence. Some nights she brings more than bread. Oranges and plums secreted in the pockets of her gown. Pieces of candied ginger wrapped in paper laced with stories. Tonight, the pirate waits for the girl. She arrives empty-handed. Tonight is the last night. The night before the gallows. The pirate knows that there will not be another night. The girl knows the exact number of hours. They do not speak of it. They have never spoken. The pirate twists a lock of the girl’s hair between his fingers. The girl leans into the bars, her cheek resting on cold iron, as close as she can be while she remains a world away. Close enough to kiss. “Tell me a story,” she says. The pirate obliges her. Excerpted from Sweet Sorrows Adapted from The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
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Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Mar 30, 2024 15:35:46 GMT
The youngest son took his sword and went adventuring, though poor at it as he was, he soon found himself distracted. Adventurers turned to villages and people and food and a man he fancied greatly who loved rings. And so it was that the youngest son took his sword to the smith. He gave the man one ring each year for every year they spent together. There were a great many rings. Excerpted from Fortunes & Fables Adapted from The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
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Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Apr 26, 2024 0:17:27 GMT
Once in a long while an acolyte chooses to give up something other than their voice as they take their vows. Such acolytes are rare. One will not remember the last, nor will they serve long enough to meet the next. The painter has lost her way. She thinks that choosing this path will bring her closer to this place she once loved, this place that Time has changed as Time changes all things. The painter makes her decision without telling anyone. Only her single student notices her absence but thinks little of it having learned long ago that sometimes people disappear and sometimes they return and other times they do not. The painter spends her time of isolation categorizing losses and regrets trying to determine if there was ever anything she could have done to prevent any of them. She thinks if she has an idea for a new painting at any point during her time locked away she will refuse this path and return to her paints and let the bees find someone else to serve them. But there are no new ideas. Only old ones, turned over and over again in her mind. When the door opens long before the painter expects it to she follows without hesitation. The acolyte and the painter walk down empty halls toward an unmarked door. Only a single cat notices them in this moment and though the cat recognizes this mistake for what it is he does not interfere. It is not the way of cats to interfere with Fate. The painter expects to give both eyes but only one is taken. One will be more than enough. As the images flood the painter's sight, as she is bombarded by so many pictures unfolding in such detail that she cannot separate one from the other, cannot dream of capturing even fractions of them in oils on canvas even as her fingers itch for her brushes, she realizes this path was not meant for her. But it is too late now to choose another. Excerpted from Written in the Stars Adapted from The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
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Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Apr 26, 2024 0:17:29 GMT
The cursed one does not know what would happen if their book was to be around all those stories. Excerpted from Fortunes & Fables
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Alex
Dungeon Master
Posts: 84
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Post by Alex on Apr 26, 2024 0:17:32 GMT
Chance had never asked a boon of Death or Time but there was something that she wished, that she wanted, that she desired more than she had ever desired anything before. A place had become precious to her, and a person within it more so. She returned to this place as often as she could, in stolen moments of borrowed time. She had found an impossible love. She resolved to find a way to keep it. First Chance went to speak with Death. She asked if Death might spare a single soul. Death would have granted Chance any wish within her power for Death is nothing if not generous, and nothing without Chance and Fate. This was a simple gift, easily given. Chance spoke with Time. (They had not spoken in a great while.) Chance asked Time to leave a space and a soul untouched. Time made Chance wait for an answer. When she received it there was a condition. Time agreed to help Chance only if Chance in turn aided Time in finding a way to hold on to Fate. Chance made this promise, though she did not yet know how to unbreak that which had been broken. And so Time consented to keep a place hidden away, far from the stars. Now in this space the days and nights pass differently. Strangely, slowly. Languid and luscious. And so Chance found a way to keep her love. An inn that once sat at one crossroads now rests at another, where only those that are not searching for it, but need it all the same, will find it. Excerpted from Written in the Stars Adapted from The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
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