Viduus
12-20-2008, 07:37 AM
So today I woke up from a nap and had something scratching at my brain, wanting to be written. I resisted at first, then gave in. Here's what I imagine would be a chapter of something longer which I may or may not decide to write later. I'm not really looking for edits, I can do that myself, this is more or less just to see if people actually enjoy it or not. Enjoy (oh, and as a general note, I may or may not have been reading entirely too much Terry Pratchett books lately >.>).
It was a Dark and Stormy night, but the town of Due Process never really knew anything other than Dark and Stormy nights. Most scientists agreed that the dark and stormy night effect (which was widely called The Lytton Effect by the scientists; the locals just referred to it as The Way Things Are, because well… that’s the way things were) had something to do with the converging polarity fields around the city. They could not, however, explain why it was perpetually a dark and stormy night, even when the sun was clearly up above. Most scientists usually just shrugged and mumbled something about magic when they were asked about it, which was the standard scientific explanation when they had no clue about something. The local commoners (otherwise known as everyone else not of the scientific community) gave up trying to get straight answers scientist; they were not sociable figures anyways, you could hardly take one to a bar with him getting sidetracked about the contents and fermentation process of beers. Such ventures to mix locals and scientists together usually ended with the scientist getting a rather rude bonking, then waking up in some ditch with most of his pens and usually one shoe gone (the other left on when the thief realizes that it’s a scientist and his shoes are rather out of style and would not sell well, no one is quite sure where the single stolen shoes go however). Thus, scientists generally stayed in their buildings on one side of town, pushing buttons and running mice through mazes (though lab mice were in short supply at the moment as the Lab Mice 408 union was protesting the inhumane working conditions and the lack of a decent pension plan), while the locals stayed on the other side, generally working some day labor, though quite a few took to the night shift which mainly consisted of pushing sharp pointy things into other commoners, grabbing their coin purse, and fleeing into the night.
On this particular Dark and Stormy night, which most historians would agree was a Tuesday, the scientists who will be (or has-been as most time travelers said) the greatest scientist known to the world was sitting at his lab table, mixing substance A with substance B, and hoping that it would not explode. Most scientific experiments boiled down to the same general concept, mixing one thing with another and hoping it wouldn’t explode, then mixing it with another substance and hoping that it would not explode, then mixing it with yet something else and hoping it would not explode, and so on and so forth. Over the centuries, scientist had built up a resistance to explosions, to the point where it could be said that the only thing that can survive a nuclear explosion are cockroaches and scientist, but since no one knew what a nuclear explosions were, no one said it. Either way there were much worse thing in the world than nuclear explosions (if they existed, but they didn’t, though the flatulence of the giant sky bulls had the same general effects), and those usually involved stuff like getting your bones pulled out of your body while you still lived, and not even the most explosion resistant scientist could survive that. And so, the greatest scientist will-be sat and his table, waiting how substance A and substance B would react, acutely aware that his explosion resistance was not all that great. He sighed, and glanced out his window, gazing longingly at the commoner section and wondered what wonderfully amazing things they were doing out there.
At the same exact moment, the greatest hero who will have ever lived (but never existed, as most historians agreed, and confirmed by the time travelers who could never find him at the place and time he was supposed to have been) was sitting at a table, recounting his latest adventure to an ever growing crowd of people at the Salty Fish Tavern.
“The thing about giants,” he started, and stopped abruptly as he glanced down at his mug, and realized it was empty. He waved it at the bartender, who filled another mug and brought it over to his table. He grabbed his bag, and rummaged around in it for a bit, and fished out a gold piece which he flicked to the bartender, completely unaware as the crowd around him watched as the coin flew through the air in a perfect arc, landing in the bartender’s hand. This was about the tenth time the hero had gone through the same motions, and while no one in the crowd could see the gold in the bag, they sure heard it.
“…” he started again, and realized he was lost.
“Where was I?” he looked up at the crowd for assistance.
The crowd looked at one another, and to their relief someone piped up, having actually heard the last thing the hero had said.
“Giants.” That particular person said.
“Oh yesss,” the hero said, slightly dragging his speech, “The thing about giants, ish, wehell… they’s reeeeeeally tall.”
And the hero raised his hand above his head, as if to signify that anyone a few feet taller than himself would be giant. The crowd nodded, feigning interest. The hero was quite oblivious that most of the crowd had no interest in his story, and instead were watching him and his bag with the same look in their eyes as wolves when they smell a freshly cooked ham. In fact, over the last hour or so, many allegiances and deals were negotiated, then broken, then renegotiated over who would get the spoils of this small man who was getting increasingly drunk, and telling highly imaginative stories.
“But not only tall” the hero continued, stopped to let out a small burp for which he looked rather apologetic, and quickly continued with his story.
“But alsho… gigantic.” The hero nodded mostly to himself, proud of explaining things so thoroughly.
He remembered something, and quickly bent down to grab his bag again, right around the same time that a dagger flew through the same space his head had just occupied, instead thunking into the chest of one of the other crowd members, who fell over only slightly surprised (in his line of work, getting struck by a stray dagger in the chest was rather commonplace and was often was used as a rite of passage). The amateur who had thrown the dagger was quickly disposed of by some of the other crowd members. One of the few unwritten rules of their profession specifically stated that killings in taverns were prohibited. It was bad for business, both for the tavern and the ones that did the killings; no tavern wanted to be known for deaths (except maybe the Gothic Surprise, but most normal people wouldn’t even dare venture near there, in a city where it was a perpetually Dark and Stormy night, the area around the Gothic Surprise was especially Dark and Stormy), and if a tavern was known for deaths most people would not stop there, reducing the targets that could be surveyed and picked out. Some, however, couldn’t contain themselves, but they never lasted in the business for that long.
The hero had rummaged around inside the bag for a bit, and pulled out something that resembled a giant stalagmite, only it was black and a little curly. The more observant of the crowd noticed that something of this size could hardly have fit in the bag by itself, not to mention the amount of coins that had been heard clinking around inside.
“What’s that?” someone asked.
The hero grinned in a way that only very inebriated people could.
“This… ish the nhose hair of a giant."
The crowd stared and the big black thing on the table.
“The nose hair…” someone from the crowd started,
“Of a ghiant, yesh.” The hero finished. He was rather pleased with himself.
The crowd stared some more.
“You may wondah,” the hero continued after a minute, even though the crowd didn’t wonder at all, “How I gotsh my hands on this noshe hair.”
The hero looked around.
“Well, you shee, the othah thing about giantsh, othah than being tall, and… gigantic…”
The hero’s eyes crossed slightly for a second, then he glanced at his mug, and took another swig of his beer.
“Shlow. Giantsh ah… slow. Take a loooooong thime to take a single shtep, yassee. Yhu can easily climb upa ghiant, and shnip a nhose hair from his nhose. Yhu just bettah be a far whay away when it eventually shneezesh!”
The hero chuckled, mostly to his own mug of beer which he had started raising to his face to take another swig at, and then instead decided to slump down over the table. The crowd watched intently as to what was going to happen next. A few seconds later, the hero began to snore.
This, of course, provided a great deal of problems for the crowd. The truce of the tavern was still in place, but there were now new deals being brokered about what to do with someone passed out inside a tavern. In the frenzy of activity, the figure snuggled comfortably in the corner of the tavern went completely unnoticed. That, however, would not last the night.
It was a Dark and Stormy night, but the town of Due Process never really knew anything other than Dark and Stormy nights. Most scientists agreed that the dark and stormy night effect (which was widely called The Lytton Effect by the scientists; the locals just referred to it as The Way Things Are, because well… that’s the way things were) had something to do with the converging polarity fields around the city. They could not, however, explain why it was perpetually a dark and stormy night, even when the sun was clearly up above. Most scientists usually just shrugged and mumbled something about magic when they were asked about it, which was the standard scientific explanation when they had no clue about something. The local commoners (otherwise known as everyone else not of the scientific community) gave up trying to get straight answers scientist; they were not sociable figures anyways, you could hardly take one to a bar with him getting sidetracked about the contents and fermentation process of beers. Such ventures to mix locals and scientists together usually ended with the scientist getting a rather rude bonking, then waking up in some ditch with most of his pens and usually one shoe gone (the other left on when the thief realizes that it’s a scientist and his shoes are rather out of style and would not sell well, no one is quite sure where the single stolen shoes go however). Thus, scientists generally stayed in their buildings on one side of town, pushing buttons and running mice through mazes (though lab mice were in short supply at the moment as the Lab Mice 408 union was protesting the inhumane working conditions and the lack of a decent pension plan), while the locals stayed on the other side, generally working some day labor, though quite a few took to the night shift which mainly consisted of pushing sharp pointy things into other commoners, grabbing their coin purse, and fleeing into the night.
On this particular Dark and Stormy night, which most historians would agree was a Tuesday, the scientists who will be (or has-been as most time travelers said) the greatest scientist known to the world was sitting at his lab table, mixing substance A with substance B, and hoping that it would not explode. Most scientific experiments boiled down to the same general concept, mixing one thing with another and hoping it wouldn’t explode, then mixing it with another substance and hoping that it would not explode, then mixing it with yet something else and hoping it would not explode, and so on and so forth. Over the centuries, scientist had built up a resistance to explosions, to the point where it could be said that the only thing that can survive a nuclear explosion are cockroaches and scientist, but since no one knew what a nuclear explosions were, no one said it. Either way there were much worse thing in the world than nuclear explosions (if they existed, but they didn’t, though the flatulence of the giant sky bulls had the same general effects), and those usually involved stuff like getting your bones pulled out of your body while you still lived, and not even the most explosion resistant scientist could survive that. And so, the greatest scientist will-be sat and his table, waiting how substance A and substance B would react, acutely aware that his explosion resistance was not all that great. He sighed, and glanced out his window, gazing longingly at the commoner section and wondered what wonderfully amazing things they were doing out there.
At the same exact moment, the greatest hero who will have ever lived (but never existed, as most historians agreed, and confirmed by the time travelers who could never find him at the place and time he was supposed to have been) was sitting at a table, recounting his latest adventure to an ever growing crowd of people at the Salty Fish Tavern.
“The thing about giants,” he started, and stopped abruptly as he glanced down at his mug, and realized it was empty. He waved it at the bartender, who filled another mug and brought it over to his table. He grabbed his bag, and rummaged around in it for a bit, and fished out a gold piece which he flicked to the bartender, completely unaware as the crowd around him watched as the coin flew through the air in a perfect arc, landing in the bartender’s hand. This was about the tenth time the hero had gone through the same motions, and while no one in the crowd could see the gold in the bag, they sure heard it.
“…” he started again, and realized he was lost.
“Where was I?” he looked up at the crowd for assistance.
The crowd looked at one another, and to their relief someone piped up, having actually heard the last thing the hero had said.
“Giants.” That particular person said.
“Oh yesss,” the hero said, slightly dragging his speech, “The thing about giants, ish, wehell… they’s reeeeeeally tall.”
And the hero raised his hand above his head, as if to signify that anyone a few feet taller than himself would be giant. The crowd nodded, feigning interest. The hero was quite oblivious that most of the crowd had no interest in his story, and instead were watching him and his bag with the same look in their eyes as wolves when they smell a freshly cooked ham. In fact, over the last hour or so, many allegiances and deals were negotiated, then broken, then renegotiated over who would get the spoils of this small man who was getting increasingly drunk, and telling highly imaginative stories.
“But not only tall” the hero continued, stopped to let out a small burp for which he looked rather apologetic, and quickly continued with his story.
“But alsho… gigantic.” The hero nodded mostly to himself, proud of explaining things so thoroughly.
He remembered something, and quickly bent down to grab his bag again, right around the same time that a dagger flew through the same space his head had just occupied, instead thunking into the chest of one of the other crowd members, who fell over only slightly surprised (in his line of work, getting struck by a stray dagger in the chest was rather commonplace and was often was used as a rite of passage). The amateur who had thrown the dagger was quickly disposed of by some of the other crowd members. One of the few unwritten rules of their profession specifically stated that killings in taverns were prohibited. It was bad for business, both for the tavern and the ones that did the killings; no tavern wanted to be known for deaths (except maybe the Gothic Surprise, but most normal people wouldn’t even dare venture near there, in a city where it was a perpetually Dark and Stormy night, the area around the Gothic Surprise was especially Dark and Stormy), and if a tavern was known for deaths most people would not stop there, reducing the targets that could be surveyed and picked out. Some, however, couldn’t contain themselves, but they never lasted in the business for that long.
The hero had rummaged around inside the bag for a bit, and pulled out something that resembled a giant stalagmite, only it was black and a little curly. The more observant of the crowd noticed that something of this size could hardly have fit in the bag by itself, not to mention the amount of coins that had been heard clinking around inside.
“What’s that?” someone asked.
The hero grinned in a way that only very inebriated people could.
“This… ish the nhose hair of a giant."
The crowd stared and the big black thing on the table.
“The nose hair…” someone from the crowd started,
“Of a ghiant, yesh.” The hero finished. He was rather pleased with himself.
The crowd stared some more.
“You may wondah,” the hero continued after a minute, even though the crowd didn’t wonder at all, “How I gotsh my hands on this noshe hair.”
The hero looked around.
“Well, you shee, the othah thing about giantsh, othah than being tall, and… gigantic…”
The hero’s eyes crossed slightly for a second, then he glanced at his mug, and took another swig of his beer.
“Shlow. Giantsh ah… slow. Take a loooooong thime to take a single shtep, yassee. Yhu can easily climb upa ghiant, and shnip a nhose hair from his nhose. Yhu just bettah be a far whay away when it eventually shneezesh!”
The hero chuckled, mostly to his own mug of beer which he had started raising to his face to take another swig at, and then instead decided to slump down over the table. The crowd watched intently as to what was going to happen next. A few seconds later, the hero began to snore.
This, of course, provided a great deal of problems for the crowd. The truce of the tavern was still in place, but there were now new deals being brokered about what to do with someone passed out inside a tavern. In the frenzy of activity, the figure snuggled comfortably in the corner of the tavern went completely unnoticed. That, however, would not last the night.