W.T. Door
All Forums
Recent Activity
-
Finalized Applications - Short Story Section
In the flickering candlelight he stared blankly at the piece of parchment. This is what he had been building to over the last five years. Eastridge Academy, the premier school for adventurers in all of Easden; and all that stood between him and his goal was this stupid application. He leaned back in his chair, yawned, and flexed his tired arms. Why was this so hard? He never had problems with paperwork before. He silently pushed back his chair, stood, and looked out his small window and watched the snowflakes fall on the courtyard outside. The full moon reflected brightly off the snow covered landscape. Smoke rose in lazy eddies above one of the other wings of school. Silence so enveloping you were almost afraid to make any noise, lest it shatter. Despite the beauty of the scene he couldn’t help but thinking “I’m going to have to shovel that path if this keeps up.” Just another drawback of being the only warrior in a school full of clerics.
The application had started out pretty straightforward: Khoi Thalion, male, 15 years old, applying for warrior major and cleric minor. He listed his prior training, 3 years of basic combat, and was just finishing his year of pre-cleric training. It looked so puny and insignificant on paper, a few bullet points. Words on paper that couldn’t capture the what he had endured just to get this far.
It had been an ordeal simply to get permission to train. His father had served as a swordsman in the army, and despite his pride in the warrior tradition he was hesitant to allow Khoi to follow in his footsteps. He wasn’t prepared to lose another son to battle. It had taken months of begging. Months of cleaning his father’s small shop when he’d rather be with his friends. Months of doing all the things he hated, just to prove his dedication. And right when he thought his cause was hopeless, his father acquiesced. And so he had trained, but it was not the training he had expected or wanted. He had wanted to strap on armor and learn to use a sword. He wanted to become a glorious fighter. But instead his training consisted mostly of conditioning. Running, jumping, pushups. His trainer, Culann Kavanaugh of the 3rd Royal Swords Regiment, seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in Khoi’s pain. He’s run him to exhaustion and then have him do something pointless and frustrating. All the while taunting, teasing, criticizing. “Why aren’t you trying? Why are you so weak? Why can’t you complete a simple task Khoi? You’re never going to cut it, you might as well quit now!” But he had persevered. And as time went on, the taunting became less frequent. The became running less difficult. The idea of not waking up before dawn almost alien. And then the teaching had begun. During his three years he had not once touched a sword, but by the end he hadn’t really cared.
Then he had gone to Fermoy, the pre-cleric school. His mother had insisted he make use of his brains as well as his strength. He had enjoyed the study at first, but soon became bored with it. The instructors moved too slow, he was learning and relearning the same thing again and again. True it was a prep-school, for those who needed a little extra help before applying to their school of choice, but it did little to make him feel better. Not to mention the feeling he was beginning to get soft. Easy as the courses were, they were still time consuming. With all the papers and practice, he had little time to work out and no opportunity to spar. Khoi was more than a little afraid of how he would fare at Eastridge, soft as he was getting. If he got in. And that was starting to look like a big “if”.
Now all he had to do was focus. Concentrate at the task at hand. Only one question left. He sat back down and stared at the parchment yet again. Rubbing his temples his looked at the question that had kept him up so late.
“What is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness? Describe a situation where you have used your strength or overcome your weakness. Please limit your answer to 250 words or less”
What kind of question was this? He smelt a trap. He had dealt with admissions boards coming into Fermoy, and he had quickly learned that they took no truck with braggarts. But then against he wasn’t applying for another second tier prep school. He was going for the real thing. Eastridge was only for the best, and he had to sell himself. My greatest strength would have to be my ability to persevere. I will never quit once I have decided to do something.
But his greatest weakness? He felt a chill run down his spine. No, he could not tell them. To tell would surely keep him out, and that would be the end of his dreams. He’d have to crawl back home to his family and explain that he had failed. That was simply unacceptable. He’d make something up. Something minor. Something that rang true yet was forgivable. Maybe they’d buy it.
If I had to choose my greatest weakness I would say…
Posted 16 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
The Story Proper **Spoiler Warning**
Also, the three-fold-law isn't the universal karmic law. It's not even universal among wiccans, who are a statistically negligble group (no offense).
Posted 16 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
I would say the major difference is that karma has within it the belief that something supernatural is regulating human actions, be that thing God, natural law, Vishna, or what have you. It's based on the idea that even when someone does something bad and gets away with it, they're going to get their just desserts one way or another, regardless of human actions. A man kills someone and is acquitted, but he gets hit by a bus. It's a moral safety net. So that even when justice is not served we can still think to ourselves "well, that person is gonna pay through karma". It helps us preserve our belief in the inevitability of justice even when we see justice isn't being served. I'd also say that punishment in the afterlife can be thrown into this category, since we're obviously not using the classic Hindu definition of karma. That way when you see someone do something bad, not get punished, and then die peacefully, you can say to yourself "well he/she is going to hell/purgatory/be reincarnated as a cockroach".
I'm going to generalize and say that justice is the belief that those who do good are rewarded and those who do bad are punished. The concept of justice and morality are what makes civilization possible. If people believed that they could steal and kill and not be punished, things would revert to the rule of whoever holds the biggest stick to hit people with. Much of the justice system rests on the belief that there is an absolute moral code. In every situation there is a right and a wrong thing to do. It is then the duty of the people to punish/reward based on their moral code and what they believe should have been done in the situation. It's an extension of society's beliefs. It is a manner for a civilization to weed out people who threaten its peaceful continuation.
So I guess what I was trying to say here was that I feel karma and justice are two distinct concepts, but they are intertwined.
Posted 16 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
Staples are more stable, but tape allows for easy upgrading. Sure the staples will keep the memory from falling off when you're running away from badgers, but what happens when you decide you want to upgrade to 2 gigs? Then you have to remove all those messy staples and put in new ones and clean up all the blood and spend money on antibiotics etc.
Posted 12 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
Countdown to crying in a corner like a little girl.
Disarmed, I staggered backwards. He placed the tip of his bread-sword at my throat and softly said "Now you will know the true meaning of pain."
See, it's funny because the French word for bread is "pain". It's a double entendre.
Posted 12 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
Meh, I have my ways around that. I'm not sure if I could connect to the game online though. One of my friends had COD4 on his computer but he couldn't connect to any servers online (his system got wiped by the IT department shortly after installing the game).
Posted 06 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
The Book I'm Reading Right Now
Or if you really want to own them then you could buy the books used off of amazon. I was able to buy Potok's "The Book of Lights" for $0.01 (+S&H). It's not as cheap as a library but it lets me continue to buy books when I'm broke.
Posted 06 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
Phase Two - Writing for Adventurers
I must not hunger, hunger is the mind-killer haha
Posted 05 Mar 09 in Forum for Adventurers
-
-
Maybe the T-Rex was a cylon. Toastersaurus Rex?
Posted 23 Feb 09 in Forum for Adventurers
User Statistics in Tangler
Total Messages: 46
Topics Created: 2