Feedback continues to filter in for Cold Iron. It seems to be pretty positive, and I think I’m mostly at the ‘fussing’ stage of editing. Instead of worrying about big chunks of narrative or major character turns, I’m ensuring that spacing, spelling, grammar, and other tiny things are all in order. The time is fast approaching when it will be ready for public consumption.
To that end I’ve retained the services of a graphic designer. Now, I do have access to things like Photoshop. I can do some photo editing and image manipulation that produces passable to decent results. But there is no way I’m going to make my first true commercial fiction endeavor come off like amateur night. A professional photo shoot (which turned out extremely well, thanks to the talents of J.R. Blackwell) deserves professional design. I have a few tips on how to proceed after that process is complete, and I will admit to feeling a little nervous about the whole thing.
In the meantime, three major characters have been interviewed, an outline has taken shape, and soon actual prose for some science-fiction pulp-inspired adventure is going to start hitting paper. I may also start putting together elements for a Cold Iron follow-up (depending on how the rest of the test read process goes) and of course I’m waiting to hear back from Angry Robot on Cities of Light, which may get another round of edits & test reads regardless of what is said. So there are a lot of irons in the fire, as they say. Some loose ends to tie up. A few fingers in several pies.
I’m going to stop before I start mixing those metaphors.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and apologize in advance for what may turn out to be only passable fan fiction as I write down stuff that goes through my head as I play this game. Also, the following does contain spoilers for the game. Fairly be ye warned.
She waited until we were outside Solitude’s gates to speak her mind.
“I think you’re wasting your time.”
“How do you mean?” The wind was picking up, and I put on my helm before drawing up my hood.
“You have the Scroll. You know what must be done. Why not hunt down Alduin and kill him, while you still have the element of surprise?”
“I’m still not certain that I’m ready.”
She shook her head. “You are Dragonborn. You’re one of the most powerful people I’ve ever met. I know you can do this.”
“But if I do it now, would it be for the right reasons?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
We hired horses from the Solitude stables, and we were on the road, riding side by side, when I picked the conversation back up.
“I’ve been to Windhelm. I’ve seen how Ulfric Stormcloak treats those of other races, especially Dunmer.”
“I don’t blame him for keeping an eye on the dark elves. I wouldn’t want them running rampant in my streets, either. They can’t be trusted.”
“Not all Dunmer are cutpurses and backstabbers, Aela. That’s like saying all Khajiit are scoundrels and liars, or all Nords are illiterate barbarians.”
She looked like she wanted to elaborate on her opinion, but she regarded me carefully as I continued.
“If Skyrim is to be free, it should be free for all who wish to live here. I’m not enamored of the Aldmeri Dominion, either, but I will not trade a puppet regime for a racist one.”
“There’s an alternative, you know.”
Before she could go on, we encountered what I’m told is a place called Robber’s Gorge. We were ambushed, and our horses killed from under us. The bandits, to their dismay, were no match for the pair of us. Unfortunately, we needed to proceed on foot from there.
“Go on.”
“What?” Aela was inspecting her bow as we walked, making sure the string was still taut after so much use lately.
“Tell me about this alternative.”
“You are Dragonborn. The blood of conquerors and kings flows in your veins. Why not unite Skyrim under your own banner?”
I didn’t look at her or respond, at first. That very thought had crossed my mind more than once. But when it did, the voice that carried it was only barely my own. It’s woven into the chant that exists in the foundations of my soul, the one stirred by Alduin and awakened by that first kill outside Whiterun, when Mirmulnir fell and I breathed in his essence.
The day was waning and I could make out the houses of Rorikstead in the distance. I looked at Aela and smiled a little.
“Let me show you something.”
Nahagliiv’s bones remain where we left them.
Just outside of Rorikstead, where the dragon fell, Aela and I studied the sight. She’d been there when we’d slain him, but I hadn’t spoken of it since. I walked up to the skeleton and ran my hand down a rib.
“This was Nahagliiv. His name means ‘Fury Burn Wither’. His is one of the voices that now prompts me to do the very thing you suggest. And if I were to listen, I don’t think I’d be any better than our dead friend, here.”
Aela said nothing. I turned to face her.
“I won’t save this world simply to put it to the torch myself. The sons of Skyrim are owed more than a mere conqueror. I would be known throughout the land for who I strive to be, not merely what my blood demands. I hope you can understand that.”
She stepped to me and took my hands.
“I do. But I still think that we should ensure there is a Skyrim whose sons can learn who you are, as I have, before something truly horrific happens.”
I looked over my shoulder. In the distance, I could barely make out the sky-stabbing height of the Throat of the World. The wound in time was there. My destiny was there. The Elder Scroll felt heavy in my pack. I turned back to my wife and nodded.
“We deliver the horn to the Shrine of Talos, and ask for his favor. Then we ascend that mountain, and we put an end to Alduin’s evil once and for all.”
Aela leaned up and kissed my cheek. “I’m by your side no matter what comes. Remember that.”
After a couple days of heavy stuff, I thought I’d lighten things up with a few mini-reviews of some of the best mobile games I’ve played lately. Here’s my take on three games available on both iOS devices and Androids.
Ghost Trick
I know that there are a lot of Capcom games out there that may give the impression that they don’t know how to tell stories. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is not one of them. Developed for the DS as well as smart phones and tablets, and under the direction of Shu Takumi of the Ace Attorney games, Ghost Trick introduces us to Sissel, a detective who finds himself the victim of a murder. Death is not the end, as Sissel and we discover, but before he can uncover the nature of his untimely demise, he witnesses another murder and finds he has the power to avert it. He teams up with the woman he rescues to get to the bottom of the situation, and maybe get his memories back as well.
The dichotomy of the worlds of the living and the dead yields unique puzzle mechanics. In the living world, times moves at its normal pace, but Sissel can manipulate objects. In the ghost world, Sissel can move himself but not other things, while time stands still. You can also rewind time back to a checkpoint, or 4 minutes before the impending murder if you mess something up. This intuitive system combined with an interesting story, fluid animations, and quirky characters makes Ghost Trick a rather immersive experience for a mobile device, and while only the first episode is free, I highly recommend checking it out.
Assassin’s Creed: Recollection
This game is, in a nutshell, a real-time Magic the Gathering game in the Assassin’s Creed universe. I admit, I have not played a great deal of it. While I do like Magic, and dig the Assassin’s Creed games, putting them together along with a constantly ticking clock and the unfortunate over-arching presence of a freemium model and U-Play feels like a hodgepodge meant to grab cash.
It’s not a bad game, despite its trappings. The territory is divided into three between you and your opponent, and you deploy allies and resources to defend and build up your side and increase your income. Every time day turns to night (a minute of in-game time), combat resolves, cash is collected, and new cards are drawn. I could see it working, but unlike the other games, I find myself disinclined to make the necessary investment to do well in it. Spending real-life money on digital cards has always felt off to me. It’s why I don’t play Magic Online.
Yet I’ve spent real-life money on digital skins for champions in League of Legends. I never said my mind was always entirely logical.
Jetpack Joyride
This little number comes to us from Halfbrick, creators of the very simple and satisfying Fruit Ninja, and holds to those tenets. The premise is the simple part: Your name is Barry Steakfries, and you steal a jetpack. The game consists of alternating between running and jet-packing down a long hallway, gradually building up speed, avoiding obstacles, and grabbing power-ups. If you’ve ever played one of those Flash games on the Internet that has you fling something to achieve maximum distance or one of the many “cave flyer” games out there, you’ll find Jetpack Joyride similar, but far easier to grasp and a great deal more satisfying.
Featuring a rather tongue-in-cheek presentation, a kickass soundtrack, and a true free-to-play model that does not require you to spend a dime on it, Jetpack Joyride does everything a mobile game needs to do in order to be memorable, fun, and habit-forming. With shout-outs to Angry Birds and (if I’m not mistaken) VVVVVV, Halfbrick has stuffed the game with appeal, surprises, and a lightness of tone that makes it undeniable. I seriously love this game. You have no excuse not to download it.
It’s a narrative thread woven through many, many stories we tell. Ozymandias talks of great constructs of man all but obliterated by time. A lot of tales are set in times long after the collapse of expansive civilizations. We preserve what we can, but it is impossible to escape what comes for each and every one of us in time.
Death has been personified in many ways. We want to put a face to the inevitability of our end. We struggle to comprehend the finality of it. That there is nothing more in this world for us. No matter what may come after, if there’s more to existence than these mere dimensions we perceive or if there is nothing but silence and oblivion, our hands do no more work, our mouths never make audible sounds again, our eyes fail to see another wonder or another tragedy.
And yet, our stories do not end when we do.
Time will have her way with what we build and the lines we draw between one another. Our imaginations, however, are much more difficult to destroy. In those imaginations, we remember those who’ve left us behind, we tell their stories, we wonder and question and laugh and cry. And when we latch onto something, like the arguments made by the likes of Plato or Aristotle, the teachings of pilgrims from Nazareth or visionaries from Mecca, a tale about fairies or the faux history of the epic struggle of noble houses, the creator of the work lasts even longer in our imaginations. In rare cases, we’re given more than just entertainment and escapism. We are given hope.
I don’t necessarily mean hope for an afterlife or immortality or anything like that. In a general sense, we find hope for a better tomorrow. We know the world will keep turning even if someone we admire or love dies. And if the sun does indeed rise on a new day, maybe we can find, in ourselves and in what we and our loved ones leave behind, whatever it takes to make this day better than the one before.
The challenge this week is to write about the tree above.
Ron’s mother always told him to avoid fights, not get into them.
His cousins, raised in a home closer to the city center, had shown him a couple ways to take care of himself, but his mother had broken that up quickly, yelled at Ron’s uncle for “fostering violent tendencies,” and threw out all of Ron’s Bruce Lee movies. He’d still practiced, though, in secret, for days like this.
Days when Missy and Sam got bullied.
Missy was a cute girl in his classes, and her little brother Sam was a big kid who liked books. The tougher, cooler kids liked to pick on him, especially when they found out he didn’t like girls. Ron knew his mother wouldn’t have approved, but it had been going on for weeks. That afternoon, as Missy and Sam walked home, Ron had trailed the hecklers. When the time was right, and they passed the expansive and overgrown park, Ron ran up and kicked George Frederickson in the butt. The junior football star went stumbling forward and knocked Sam down, laying on top of him for a moment.
“Ha! Looks like you’re the gay one now!”
The other boys from the football team were not amused. With a cry from George of “Get him!” they chased Ron into the woods. It had rained off and on over the previous few days, and the ground squished a bit under Ron’s sneakers. He zigged and zagged before arriving at a small clearing.
Ahead of him, a tree was bent towards the ground, branches kissing the earth. Ron approached it slowly, uncertain. It hadn’t been struck by lightning, so why was it bending like that? He heard voices behind him, and dashed under the crook of the trunk. He hunched down in the ferns under it and waited.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
None of George’s boys had been as close as that voice. He blinked, looking around. Everything seemed… greener, somehow. He inhaled and he wasn’t just smelling wet ferns anymore. He could smell berries from a bush several feet away, a soft tang in the air that probably meant more rain was on the way, his own sweat, and…
“Hey! Answer me!”
Ron looked down to see a squirrel perched on his knee. At least, it looked like a squirrel. But most squirrels Ron had seen were small rodents. This one was the size of a housecat.
“How are you talking?” Ron wasn’t sure how else to respond.
“Nevermind, nevermind that. You can’t be here. It’s dangerous. Too dangerous.”
“I don’t understand. How did I get here? Where is ‘here’?”
The squirrel slapped himself in the face. Ron tried not to laugh. A big talking squirrel facepalming was the funniest thing he’d seen in a long time.
“Stupid, stupid. Of course you don’t know. Of course. Secrets behind the curtain, more than just an old man and wheels, secrets, secrets.”
The squirrel spun in a quick circle on Ron’s knee.
“Well, you had to do or be something special to arrive, so congratulations and welcome. Now farewell, goodbye, off you go, shoo shoo.”
“But I still don’t know where I am!”
“Good! Good! The less you know, the better off you’ll be! Now shoo!”
Ron crossed his arms, glaring at the squirrel. The oversized animal, blinking large eyes at him for a moment, scrambled off of his leg. For a moment, there was silence. Then, the squirrel burst out of the ferns, squealing at the top of its lungs, its tail bushed out and claws made for climbing trees aimed at Ron’s face.
Startled, Ron fell backwards, and was on the near side of the tree again. The colors seemed more washed out. He smelled less. And he heard the bullies coming for him.
He got to his feet and into a fighting stance. When they came through the underbrush and saw him, George started laughing.
“Look! He thinks he can take all three of us at once!”
George approached, spreading his hands. “Tell you what, tough guy, I’ll go easy on ya. Just one on one, you and me, okay?”
Ron stared at George, but saw one of the other boys pulling out an empty bottle. He wasn’t sure what that boy’s name was, but if he was on the football team he probably had a decent throwing arm. Ron turned his attention to George and took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
For a moment, it was like he could still see George, and every living thing in the forest, but as a silver silhouette. He gasped, his eyes flying open. Then, seeing that the boys were still advancing on him, he repeated the breathing and the closing of his eyes. The silver lights were still there, and George was close enough that he could make out distinct parts of him; his eyes, his hands, his heart. As he exhaled, Ron reached out with his right hand, which was glowing red in this odd pseudo-vision, and pointed at George’s chest.
The football captain gasped. Ron opened his eyes and saw George clutching his chest. Ron had seen someone act like this before, when his grandfather had a heart attack. Staggering, George fell, and the other boys ran off screaming. Ron approached to see George staring up at the trees, mouth and eyes wide, unmoving.
Ron stepped back, a chill going through his body. He’s dead. How is he dead? He can’t be dead! I didn’t kill him! He looked down at his hands. It wasn’t me!
He looked over his shoulder at the tree. Swallowing, he stepped back under the crook. The squirrel was glaring at him.
“Go back! Go back!”
“I can’t.” He swallowed. “I won’t. Tell me what I am.”
The squirrel blinked, then sighed. “What you are, kid, is part of this world. The world your world forgot. Follow me. I’ll show you.”
Ron, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, followed the squirrel deep into the green.
