[TheAverageFan]

Hello again, and welcome to our penultimate episode of Drunkenly Reviewing Every Low-Rated and Unranked Fiction on Here. Sadly once again due to my medication I will have to do this one sober, because being drunk can be fun but only when it doesn't make your stomach bleed profusely.

Anyhow, before we get to our final boss Pumpkin King, let's talk about the two final unranked works on the list.

#20: Thunderstorm by TheAverageFan

Speaking of internal bleeding, Thunderstorm is the first fiction I put on the site, and at ~250 pages it's no wonder its remained unrated this entire time. Anyone who might attempt to crack it open would also have to jump the hurdle that despite it containing Heroscape characters it has its own completely different lore from Valhalla and its Generals and all that. And if they get past that then they'll have to endure its wall-of-text formatting. And then on top of all that it's not particularly good.

So make no mistake my breakout pieces have definitely always been the Competition entries and not this behemoth. But all that being said it's unrated. And as such it's a target on my list like it or not. So to put it another way sh*t happens, someone's got to deal with it, and who you gonna call?

As I said previously the story takes place in a country called Ensterek rather than Valhalla. The only real similarities between this and the canon Heroscape are the character names and a couple instances of lore lining up (such as the Elven wizards remaining as a pack). And there's some massive differences, such as Brandis Skyhunter being Master Woo's son. If you can wrap your head around that. It's like if you gave a child a bunch of Star Wars toys, telling him only the names of the characters and nothing else, and seeing what he comes up with. An entertaining thought experiment to be sure, though probably not one worth spending 250 pages on.

The real reason for this is that Thunderstorm was a Heroscape campaign I ran with my father first, and a novel second. I compounded the adventures into a story as to not forget about its events. But it obviously makes for a better game than a book, especially when you decide to cut absolutely nothing. You'll see why as I recount the story.

Our hero is Brandis Skyhunter, no one's favorite Ullar archer. He lives alone on an empty plain until one day an army of drow show up and he's forced into action. Taking only his bow and a green keepsake jewel, he fights off the drow but is nonetheless forced to abandon his home and move on.

I do have to say regarding the green gemstone, we really haven't had many run-ins with macguffins during these reviews, which is strange given Heroscape's many glyphs and ancient artifacts that seem perfect for "go get the thing" stories.

Brandis also encounters Sharwin Wildborn—our deuteragonist—who decides to accompany him on his journey, because every protagonist needs a girl character to be interested in him and his quest for no discernable reason, because she apparently has nothing else going on. Sharwin decides to dedicate her life to tag along with some guy and is the only character to be with Brandis on every single mission of the game. Er, I mean the story.


Keeping up so far? I know it's a lot of explaining, but if the text can't be bothered to maintain any coherent pace then why should I when reviewing it? You must be made to suffer as I have.


Okay, so to the main premise: the drow are one of the many armies of Othkurik the Black Dragon. In the old days of Ensterek dragons ruled the people, but as they neared death they all decided to let the humanoids rule themselves and retire their monarchies in order to be progressive. This upset Othkurik who always assumed he would get to rule once the elder dragons died, and so he threatens Ensterek with conquest. He is opposed by the elves of Sohenberg, led by Sonlen. So Brandis and Sharwin go there to see if they can help out in any way.

However it turns out that Sonlen is a big ol' racist and doesn't want a Half-Elf or an Eladrin in his ranks. Brandis thinks about rage-quitting this game, but his father Master Woo turns up and convinces him to keep fighting. Othkurik is still worse than Sonlen after all, so like the last couple U.S. presidential elections Brandis decides to simply side with whoever of the terrible options will cause the least amount of damage overall. He will fight against Othkurik even if he has to do it against Sonlen's supremacist wishes:

“So, wait.” Brandis began, “Why are you here if Sonlen hates you? Doesn’t he want you dead?”

Master Woo chuckled, “Sonlen has far bigger problems than me. He has Othkurik’s Guardians to worry about. In fact, he asked me to come here several years ago. I would have declined, but after finding out that Sonlen had built his city so close to where I left you, I had little choice. Sonlen had begun picking fights he couldn’t win with the dragon to prove himself. And when he realized the trouble he had gotten himself into, he asked for my help in the war against Othkurik. Not that any of the U.S.E. besides him and Syvarris, his second-hand man, knew about it. Sonlen is still fighting a losing battle, but his pride is too much for him. He’d never let any of the other elves know. And he’s far too arrogant to ask any of the neighboring kingdoms for help. If it stays that way, Othkurik will destroy him.”

Brandis was quiet for a while. Finally, he got up.

“So, what do we do now?” He asked the monk.

Master Woo only smiled, “What else? We help this doomed city in our own ways. We need to fight Othkurik as soon as we can. He is a far bigger threat than Sonlen could ever hope to be.”

So far so good, yes? Okay, now onto the main plot. Othkurik has EIGHT powerful minions known as his Guardians: Krug, Taelord, Deathwalker 10000, Grimnak, Cyprien Esenwein, Ne-Gok-Sa, the Emperor Shade, and Pelloth. Brandis and his friends will go from one area or dungeon to the next, taking them all down one at a time. The location will change, the general idea of what the Guardian is up to will change, and the roster of who Brandis and Sharwin are fighting alongside will rotate (Woo, Mogrimm, the Wave 8 Elves, and Tandros + Ana). But other than that an enormous chunk of the story is going around the country killing one Guardian after another. And with a few exceptions, they're not especially interesting or deep as antagonists in their own right.

To demonstrate: the story is 243 pages long, the quest to kill the first Guardian starts at page 16, and the final Guardian dies on page 216.

This is only partially an exaggeration there is a huge shake-up in the story about forty pages prior when there are still two Guardians left, but still that's 160 pages of fighting generic bosses

Fortunately our characters are moderately charismatic and likable in the meantime: Brandis is kinda dense but good-natured and overpowered—kind of reminds me of Dilmir—and Sharwin is rude and wry and likes to hear herself talk. There's a very simplistic, blunt, but classic nature to their contrasting relationship. They're like Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc., only one is a girl

There's a lot of killers to the pace other than the repetitious formatting of the story. The battles are told in blow-by-blow style, which can work for quick little skirmishes or intense 1v1 fights. However in this case there's just so much fighting throughout the entire thing that it drags and drags. There was also a need for young me to communicate the difficulty of a particular boss fight in the campaign that we played by having that fight take a long time in the novel. So while a quick battle against some regular enemies could be over fast, a lot of the fight scenes against the Guardians of Othkurik go on and on.

If you don't quite believe me, then here's the fight against the third Guardian in its entirety:

Spoiler Alert!

DeathWalker 10000 leaned forward, and if he had a mouth he would be smiling, “By killing you and by taking that jewel for Lord Othkurik, I will prove my perfection! Get ready, you inferior, living organisms!” The floor beneath his feet raised slightly, and two robotic arms swung down by his side, each holding a very different looking robotic suit of armor. The larger one had portions spiking outward, a bulky piece of machinery with a machine gun and a scattergun on individual arms. The other was more slender, with a large rocket protruding from one limb and another missile launcher being the second arm. A voice called out as the pieces screwed into the Guardian’s arms, attaching to him.

“DEATHWALKER 9000 AND 8000 ARMOR PIECES ATTACHED AND ONLINE.”

The Guardian spoke as the armor fastened into place along the sides of his body, his gaze never shifting as the parts clanked and bolted into position, “I am DeathWalker 10000, one of the Eight Guardians of Othkurik, here to prove my true worth to my chosen master—to present him with that blessed gem afloat in a goblet brimmed with your tainted blood!” His voice froze up and continued in a much more droid-like manner, “DIE NOW, BRANDIS.”

The mechanical arms rose back up and the door behind Brandis and his friends slammed shut. Brandis drew an arrow and took aim. He could already see Ana’s magic barricade developing in front of him, and Tandros and Sharwin stepped forward and positioned themselves for battle. DeathWalker 10000 laughed and launched several explosives forward. The volley of shots burst the barrier wide open right off the bat. The machine then took a step forward and held forth its other arm and began shooting rapidly at the group. Everyone had fought more than enough machines to know when to sidestep, however, and a vast multitude of the shots missed their mark. DeathWalker then leaned forward and took a shot from his own body, a silenced bullet shrieking through the air fast and quietly. Tandros was again hit, and Ana raced over to heal him quickly. DeathWalker’s eye lit up, “RELOADING…”

“Buy me time!” Ana requested urgently.

“Gladly!” Sharwin raced over to the Guardian and began her usual show of slashes and flips and dodges and… more slashes. Her assaults were impressive but ineffective, the machine’s armor way too thick to possibly take any damage from something like a knife. Brandis figured he’d have to get closer to attack properly anyway, so he ran over by the eladrin and took aim.

Unfortunately, the armor piece closest to him didn’t even have any exposed spots. He stood there, aiming at one spot after another, quite unsure what to do.

Finally DeathWalker retaliated, lunging forth with its other arm and knocking Sharwin away before responding with another explosion attack. The blast hit both Brandis and Sharwin, and the two were sent flying again. The machine then turned back to Ana and Tandros, “DISLODGING SUPPORT.”

Another silenced shot went off, hitting Ana and knocking her aside. She dropped her weapon and clutched at the wound, gasping. DeathWalker turned back, “RELOADING…”

Tandros stumbled to his feet, “No!” He shouted and ran at the Guardian. Swinging his sword like a madman, the fighter struck at the machine’s defenses repeatedly, striking again and again. Brandis took the time to run over and help Sharwin up, and then he raced back over to Ana and fished around for his potion. Finding it eventually, the half-elf tore off the cap and gave it to his injured friend. Just as the shopkeeper had said, it worked even better than the red potion, healing up the wound with incredible speed and leaving Ana lying there wondering what she had just been crying over. Brandis pocketed the potion (it was two servings after all) and raced back to battle without saying a word.

Tandros had been swinging over and over, and his accuracy had been decreasing with each enraged blow. This one landed a bit aside and crashed into DeathWalker 10000’s arm and the armor piece, splitting them apart. The heavy piece of armor fell down and crashed into the ground, wrecking it completely, an unusable heap of metal. The overhead speaker voice called out at the loss, “DEATHWALKER 9000 ARMOR OFFLINE. REPAIRS ENGAGED.”

A mechanical arm swooped down and picked up the piece of armor. It then lifted it up onto the giant “T” structure and left it there. The top of the structure began slowly spinning as a cluster of mechanical pieces began stitching and repairing the armor as it moved near them.

DeathWalker responded quickly by holding forth its other arm and beginning to rapid-fire the warrior who had injured it. Sharwin leaped in the way and began reflecting the shots everywhere with her arcane arts. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of her magic and then harmlessly off of DeathWalker. The Guardian switched gears and fired off another silenced shot. This time the deadly projectile was deflected by Ana’s magic, defending both Sharwin and Tandros.

“RELOADING…”

The overhead voice chimed in, “DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIRS 33 PERCENT.”

Brandis didn’t know anything about percentages, but thirty-three sounded like a pretty high number, so he began pelting the other limb with additional arrows. The projectiles continued to prove ineffective, and he didn’t have a worthy weapon for attacking head-on.

Sharwin added to the attacks and success by blasting the machine with more lightning, just as ineffective as the half-elf’s assaults. The machine backed up, significantly faster without the armor piece, and continued firing its machine gun at them. Both Brandis and Sharwin were taken by surprise and riddled with the tiny pieces, knocking both of them over. It then fired again at Tandros, but the warrior ducked and avoided the attack.

“DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIRS 66 PERCENT.”

Tandros pressed forward again, swinging for the other limb, but the machine continued to block the blows either with its armor or with its free arm. Ana hurried over and began healing Sharwin, since Brandis was better armored and not as injured. The half-elf staggered to his feet, trying to aim at the machine before it was too—

“DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIRS 100 PERCENT.” The refurbished armor piece was lowered down and quickly reattached to DeathWalker, screwing back into place. The arm took its place back above and the T structure spun around once more before stopping. The Guardian turned, making use of the newly formed piece by firing another explosive at Ana. She had just finished healing Sharwin when the blast hit her, knocking her over again, and knocking Sharwin aside. Brandis looked over and took out the potion again and began racing over. DeathWalker switched weapons and began pelting the archer with more rounds. Several bullets whizzed past him, and suddenly one zoomed past right under his hand, shattering the potion into pieces, the precious medicine splashing onto the ground.

“Dang it!” Brandis cursed, throwing the remaining pieces down and turning to face the machine that had wronged him. DeathWalker ceased firing and shot off another silenced bullet at him. This time, Sharwin moved in the way and, swerving her electrified hands to the side, sent the shot wayward. She then dashed forward and began stabbing at the machine’s limbs as Tandros had done before. Tandros rushed in and continued swinging his sword like a madman at the Guardian.

Backing up, DeathWalker was no match for the speed and ferocity of the two’s harassing blows, unable to keep up with their speed while reloading. Finally Sharwin managed to land in a lucky blow on the Guardian’s armor, again slicing off the piece. DeathWalker fell over and began getting back up, but not before Tandros was upon him still, slashing and swinging at his other limb. A robotic arm came down and picked up the lost piece and set it upon the T structure, “DEATHWALKER 9000 ARMOR OFFLINE. REPAIRS ENGAGED.”

DeathWalker got back up and aimed its guns at Tandros and began firing again. Brandis leapt forth and hit one of the machine guns’ barrels with his bow, knocking it out of the way, causing the shots to misfire. Tandros rushed in again and continued smashing the Guardian down.

The voice above announced the progress, “DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIRS 33 PERCENT.”

This only added to Tandros’ initiative. He slashed this way and that, finally cleaving the other limb apart, exposing DeathWalker 10000’s body. The droid backed up, “My… my armor! Why, you!”

A mechanical arm scooped up the disabled part and moved it up also to the T structure, more arms moving the 9000 piece off to the side. A voice heralded the change in plans, “DEATHWALKER 8000 OFFLINE. REPAIRS ENGAGED. DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIR POSTPONED.”

“You’re next, you bloody machine.” Tandros threatened as he swung once more at the smaller robot. The Guardian moved with surprising speed and ducked out of the way. He then grabbed Tandros’ wrist and twisted it in an unnatural direction. Tandros yelled and grabbed his wrist, leaving himself open. DeathWalker 10000 then swung his other arm forth and struck the fighter’s neck before kneeing him in the stomach. The warrior crumpled before the Guardian.

“DEATHWALKER 8000 REPAIRS 20 PERCENT.”

Sharwin reacted fast, running up to the Guardian and then sliding down, going for the robot’s feet. Brandis took the opportunity to fire off another shot at the machine. DeathWalker 10000 gracefully moved his upper body out of the way, proceeding to move his leg, Sharwin’s intended target, up and back down on the eladrin’s. Brandis became alarmed and ran up, swinging his bow at the machine.

“DEATHWALKER 8000 REPAIRS 40 PERCENT.” DeathWalker caught the half-elf’s bow and punched him in the stomach. Brandis flinched horribly and was kicked back by the Guardian. He struggled to sit up only to have the machine hurl the bow back at him. It smacked him in the face and knocked him back down.

“DEATHWALKER 8000 REPAIRS 60 PERCENT.” DeathWalker 10000 laughed
confidentially, “You may have killed some of the others, half-elf, but you cannot defeat that which is perfect. How overestimating Doctor Lecter and Othkurik were of your kind… I’ll grind it into the dust!” Sharwin took the opportunity of the machine gloating to jump to her feet and kick the machine in the shin.

“Arrgh!” DeathWalker’s leg gave out a bit and the eladrin leapt into action.

“DEATHWALKER 8000 REPAIRS 80 PERCENT.” Sharwin began stabbing and slicing at the machine, his armor deflecting the blows but knocking him back and denting him slightly.

Every time he would recover she’d kick him in the face, knocking him further back. Finally she stabbed the Guardian and electrocuted him. Staggered, he backed up and wobbled back and forth for a moment. Sharwin withdrew her weapon and held it back, ready to finish him off.

But she didn’t. Doubt flickered in her eyes as she glanced worriedly back and forth between the Guardian and Brandis. (if yer actually reading this take a note of the fact that Sharwin neglects to land the finishing blow here. Quote this bit and I'll give you +rep, if possible)

“DEATHWALKER 8000 REPAIRS 100 PERCENT.” The armor was lowered back down. DeathWalker 10000 looked back up and lunged forward, knocking the eladrin aside, sending her dagger flying away from her. The piece of machinery was reattached to the Guardian.

The voice above called out, “DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIRS 66 PERCENT.”

“Hahahahaah!!” DeathWalker 10000 jeered, “What are you trying to do!? Irrational woman! Here’s to you!” The Guardian held out its foot and pinned her down. Before too long the last piece came down to reattach as well, fully repairing the machine, “DEATHWALKER 9000 REPAIRS 100 PERCENT.”

The machine fired off another explosive at the eladrin, blowing her away. She landed dangerously close to the edge of the platform and didn’t get back up. DeathWalker skipped the machine gun and simply fired another silenced bullet to finish her off. The bullet was deflected and flung off into the distance. Brandis stood in the way, breathing heavily, holding out his green jewel in the trajectory of the projectile.

DeathWalker’s eye lit up, “Ho ho! You’d put that in the way of your dearest friend!? Worth more than the both of you! Good thing it cannot be destroyed by bullets. Still, you did not know that. Such irrationality…”

“Shut up!” Brandis countered angrily, “I’d happily give it away. It’s only brought me trouble.”

“Ah, but that’s the trouble it’s brought you! Sad, that you’re the only one you can trust it with… Why do you think that is?”

Brandis didn’t bother to answer. He ran up to the machine and swung at it with his bow with all his might. The weapon proved most useless, however, as the droid’s armor proved too much for the bow to handle. DeathWalker’s eye lit up more as he watched the half-elf try to do anything. Another silenced shot went off, and Brandis felt his tunic get pierced and then began to feel it get soaked. Ignoring the pain, he struck again, again to no effect.

“Oh, come now. That’s not doing anything, see.” DeathWalker 10000 advised, “And don’t let your enemy reload so easily.” Yet another silenced shot went off. Brandis’ eyes quivered and he clenched his teeth. Blood dripped onto the ground and drenched his feet.

DeathWalker 10000 leaned forward in his armor, his eye glowing with cruel certainty, “The problem with you humans is that you’re so irrational, and yet so predictable.”

Brandis glared back at the Guardian. His irises began to twitch, flickering from their normal color to black, then purple, then red and back. His hair’s color began to fade and turn white. DeathWalker 10000’s eye widened significantly, “WHAT!!??”

Suddenly, Brandis blasted the machine away. His skin instantly became jet-black, his clothes were replaced by darkened armor, and a spider shield formed in his free hand. His hair became pure white and longer, and his eyes blazed red. Brandis held forth his bow, and watched in amazement as it transformed into a sword, seeping with dark energy and looking sharp as any sword he’d ever seen. The blood stopped and unlimited energy soared through him. He said not a word, moving forward at unimaginable speed. He began slashing at the Guardian, hacking away multiple times. Each hit that was unsuccessful was followed by a harder one. Brandis rushed forth, his new sword blazing black and purple, and sliced apart both of DeathWalker’s arm pieces.

The machine backed up, but Brandis only continued. He began rapidly swinging at the robot, twice as fast as Tandros and twice and deadly. DeathWalker 10000 continued avoiding the slashes as much as he could, attacking back whenever possible, but Brandis felt no pain. He finally lunged forward and hit the Guardian with his shield, stunning him. Following up, the half-elf sliced forward, right across the machine’s eye. SHING!!!

The Guardian stood still, its hands on its astonished eye, a huge gash running across it.

The T structure behind it slowly moved in the same trajectory as the slash and fell into two, the top piece sliding down the incline made by the cut and crashing horribly behind him.

“You—you can’t do that…” DeathWalker 10000 sputtered, “Th-that’s impossible.”

A loud beeping sound began to go off, the Guardian looking down to his ravaged torso.

“No… No!” He shouted, backing up. The beeping grew louder and louder, the noise stopping suddenly. DeathWalker 10000 looked back at Brandis and then promptly burst apart into a massive explosion, taking out all but the machine’s lower legs. Brandis stood unwaveringly in front of the blast, completely unaffected.

“DEATHWALKER 10000 OFFLINE.”

The third Guardian of Othkurik was dead.

Additionally the story features a large amount of onomatopoeia—you know the shings and clangs and bangs that I continue to use to this day for some reason. I don't know why, it always feels so amateurish in retrospect. Speaking of awkward and clumsy in retrospect, the story also features spelled-out heavy accents for Scottish, Transylvanian, and, uh, Asian characters. Well it was a good career but it's over now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkL91LzCMc&t=18s

Brilliant thing to put in the "racist elves bad" story, past-TAF

Anyway, stuff happens throughout. We learn that Othkurik has his own jewel, a red one. He steals a blue one and is after Brandis for his green gemstone. A bad thing'll happen if all three macguffins are assembled. Brandis kills a bunch of Guardians. He makes allies out of other kingdoms so the country can unite against Othkurik. Sonlen dies. Master Woo dies. Ulginesh dies. Okay, that's 160 pages done right there.

Let's just skip to the end and the patented twist that inevitably appears in every TAF story. Having united Ensterek against Othkurik, Brandis and Sharwin go in to finish him off. However it turns out that everything that had happened all throughout the story was set up by Othkurik and his #1 Guardian Pelloth from the get-go: they knew that Brandis' jewel had the ability to absorb power from those he killed, and so they deliberately had him go around killing Guardians to steal their strength. It turns out that Sharwin was a plant by Othkurik to make sure that Brandis would accomplish this. In one scene it is explained why our protagonist is so overpowered and why the female lead was so inexplicably interested in accompanying him from the beginning. She even made sure he always landed the finishing blow on each enemy. You see, my earlier complaints were a falsehood because it was a plot point all along! Take that, reader!

Brandis is forced to fight Sharwin. Pelloth kills her and steals the green jewel. He gives it to Othkurik who combines the three gems in order to gain ultimate power. Brandis manages to survive, brought back by the remaining cast of other rotating characters and going back in. He kills the Emperor Shade and Pelloth after a century-long fight scene and follows it up by catching up to Othkurik and killing him too despite the half-elf no longer having his power-up macguffin. How he was able to win despite Othkurik having all the power? Well it was either the power of friendship or the influence of a malevolent lovecraftian entity that will be explained in Thunderstorm II. Not that I'll ever finish that: even though it's way better than this story you'd still have to soldier through the first in order to understand the second so not much point there.

I should say there's some theming at work in this story which is worth pointing out: as the theme is the only thing worth talking about in a story, with everything else being either irrelevant or nitpicking (as I learned from my favorite film The Last Jedi). There are a lot of ideas of purpose and contentment at play, especially with Brandis being a nobody trying to find his place in the world and contrasted with Othkurik being so crushed and poisoned with the expectations his upbringing gave him, content with nothing less than absolute rule and power when he already has entire armies that love him and eight Guardians swearing undying loyalty to him—all of which he sacrifices for the sake of some imaginary birthright he feels that he's owed. He is shown to be significantly weaker than his own Guardians and a strangely easy boss for being the main villain, clearly indicating an inferiority complex that a random peasant like Brandis—content with so little—can't even comprehend. The half-elf meanwhile is just trying to find somewhere where he belongs, first being rejected by Sonlen, then losing it with his father's death, then losing it again at Sharwin's betrayal and death... before finally finding it among the random folk he's helped along the way. For all its flaws the final lines of the story do still get to me (spoilers I guess):

Othkurik the black dragon… was dead.

Brandis slowly lowered his bow and breathed a sigh of relief. He slumped down to his knees. The wind picked back up, blowing around harshly and kicking up frost from the bloodstained ground into the thin air.

I did it, the half-elf thought, I did what I set out to do. I feel like a great weight has been lifted from me. But… what do I do now? Now that Othkurik is gone, I almost feel like a little part of myself died with him. What purpose do I serve now?

He looked out at the setting sun, rising to his feet and beginning to stride down the mountain, trekking through the snow and the wreckage. It made for some devastating yet beautiful scenery, the half-elf carefully staggering his way down the mountain. After some time, he heard a familiar voice.

“Brandis!” It was Chardris. The elf limped into view, his companions right behind him.

They all looked well enough from the crash (well, they all survived it, anyway—that’s good enough). Brandis hobbled over to them, as relieved to see them as they were to see him.

“I coulda sworn you had died!” Arkmer looked like he was talking to a ghost.

“Thank goodness it’s over…” Jorhdawn sighed, “All this and I’m still an apprentice. I guess I have a long way to go…”

“Eh, this is nothing.” Emiroon assured her.

“It is over, right, Brandis?” Chardris gave the half-elf a concerned glance.

“It is…” Brandis confirmed, “We did it.”

“So Othkurik finally kicks the bucket.” Arkmer kicked at the snow, “Took long enough, I’d say. Ulginesh would be proud.”

“Indeed.” Chardris agreed, “It’s a huge relief to know that it’s finally over and done with.”

The elf turned and began to lead the way downward, heading towards the slopes at the foot of the mountain and onward. Brandis watched the group of elves go, staring at the ground and biting his lip.

“Still,” He mused, “What do we do now?”

Chardris and the others stopped and faced him.

“What do you mean?” Chardris asked, “Let’s go home.”

“You coming, man?” Arkmer pestered, waving the half-elf over. Brandis’ eyes widened, and he stood there staring at them all, looking rather idiotic.

“Oh, right.” Brandis looked down at his dagger, “Yes, let’s go home.”

He followed the elves down, beginning the long trek back to Sohenberg.

So even without the jewel that supposedly made him special, even without those he'd placed everything on and lost, he still finds a place where he can belong. It is kind of beautiful, in a way...

The blow-by-blow fight scene against Pelloth is unironically ten pages long. 4. I can't really recommend checking this one out as the length isn't exactly equal to the reward of having read it. Wars have genuinely been fought and won in a shorter time than it'd take to finish this. So there's not much reason for you to do so other than bragging rights. And while I adore bragging rights I wouldn't voluntarily walk alone through the Sahara desert while wearing shoes full of broken glass just so I could say I did it.

Take a shot every time Emirroon is misspelled as Emiroon, but only if you're okay with not waking up again once you pass out. Next!



#21: Zombies - The End by BassistofDoom

BassistofDoom brings us a short story about an undead apocalypse in America, and while it may on the surface seem like a basic zombie story I believe it to in actuality be a satirical indictment of the Crownsville police department.

Our hero is officer Dante Matthews from Crownsville, New Joysie. He encounters a zombie out of his front door and is killed by it, only for the opening scene to be a dream.

As luck would have it the zombie apocalypse actually occurs later that day. Dante Matthews encounters a man at a car wreck who resembles the zombie from his dream:

Suddenly, he saw something that made him step back in shock.
He stared into the man’s eyes and saw the look that made memories of his dream come rushing back to him. The man had the same yellowish eyes and distant look that the monster that attacked him had. This was weird.

Despite this he knowingly leaves the scene to head to another call by his coworker Derek Green. He calls officer Michael Saunders to take charge but of course in the time between him leaving and Michael Saunders arriving the zombie has killed the other bystander of the accident.

DEAD CIVILIANS THANKS TO OUR HEROES: 1

Meanwhile officer Derek Green has been chasing after an apparent killer named Gregory Butler (yes, we are going to refer to the characters by their full name every single time). In reality Gregory Butler only murdered zombies, knowing what's going on already. But the officers are slow to catch up:

Derek watched the figure stumble closer and closer, not realizing what was going on and that there was a man who seemed like he intended to harm him. “You will see,” Butler said, “That I am not a psychopath. I know what is going on, and I will show you what that thing is.” Butler used his gun to point at the person in the distance. Big mistake. Both Derek and Dante seized the opportunity. Derek ducked and grabbed a branch on the ground before rolling around to Butler’s side and smashing him in the back with it. Dante stepped out from behind the tree, with his gun trained on Butler, intending to shoot, but after seeing Derek incapacitate him he held his fire. Butler looked up at both of them with malice and a cold stare. “Ok buddy let’s go. You’re going away for a long time.”

“No!” shouted Butler. “He is the one you seek, not me!” He pointed his finger at the man moving towards them, not realizing how close he had gotten. The man bit down on Butler’s hand, ripping off two fingers. Butler screamed and clutched his blood drenched hand, while the thing devoured his fingers with blood dribbling down its chin. “What the-“ Dante and Derek both stepped back and Dante fixed his gun on the man.

DEAD CIVILIANS THANKS TO OUR HEROES: 2

The three cops head back to their base, finding everyone else to be dead. They are joined by a hardcore survivalist and ex-marine named Marcus.

No, not that one!

That's more like it. This dude knows what's up. He's got an assault rifle and a brass-knuckle knife. This ain't your dad's Marcus. He's been waitin' for a situation like this. They hop into Marcus' pickup truck and begin their journey:

“Hey rook, bet you can’t get a kill shot on that zombie there,” said Derek, pointing at a stumbling zombie in the distance. “You’re on,” replied Saunders, smiling for the first time in too long.

It's been like three hours since the outbreak.

He aimed a pistol and fired just as the truck took a sharp turn. However, the zombie jerked back and fell, lying motionless on the ground. “Ohhhh!” yelled Saunders and Derek, high-fiving each other. Marcus, meanwhile, hit a zombie that was on a curb to send it flying over the top of the truck and almost into Derek and Saunders

Bruh what the hell is wrong with these people.

I guess now is a good time to discuss this sort of thing. As an... """expert""" on zombie writing there's things to balance out when writing for the apocalypse. The first quote concerns what happens when you open on the outbreak and go from there. You don't jump to full apocalypse right away, after all. So it's weird saying stuff like "smiling for the first time in too long..." when it's been less than a day. The Walking Dead cleverly avoids this by having the main character be in a coma for the first few... whatevers of the outbreak. Then they get their cake and eat it too by having a fish-out-of-water protagonist despite the zombies being around for some time.

The second issue is how to handle tone in this kind of story; it was always something I was grappling with when writing TMHW, 'cause you don't want it to be... too miserable. As a lone editor and registered sociopath I wasn't sure how effective my balancing efforts would be, just having to eyeball it based on what seemed about right to my own view. After all, lightening the tone poorly can make your characters seem psychopathic, which for this story I'm just gonna roll with because it makes it more fun that way. It's definitely more lighthearted in tone than other zombie stuff I've read, intentionally or not.

Anyway they all head to a school to barricade themselves. Along the way they meet another civilian: an attorney named Blake Harper, much to everyone's annoyance.

The man stuck his hand through the window awkwardly and tried to shake his hand. “Blake Harper, attorney. Thank you so much for stopping.” Saunders shared some of Marcus’s anger. He, Dante, Derek, and Marcus were all calm, in control, fit, and experienced with firearms. This guy was going to drag them down.

These officers are irked that they have to protect a civilian in a time of crisis.

They make it to the school and stop to make sure it's safe, expecting about 20 minutes to do so, which is weird because I thought it took at least 80 minutes for cops to enter a school [note: this joke is not funny]. We also get a vivid scene of all the dead teachers and schoolchildren piled up inside.

Uh, so after a second pointless dream sequence with Dante Matthews the group decides to find a radio so they can get up to speed on what's goin' on. They head to a mall where they can find such a device at Best Buy and LL Bean and other wonderful stores near you. Plus they also find a great Hummer to leave with, since it's a solid vehicle with great design and mileage.

Blake Harper is infected during this visit, somehow having caught the virus despite Marcus and Michael Saunders being there to keep an eye on him. They take no responsibility for his infection. Everyone else escapes.

DEAD CIVILIANS THANKS TO OUR HEROES: 3

The radio tells them to head from New Joisey to Vermont so they depart. Along the way, sadly, tragically, Derek Green is bitten by a zombie. Knowing he's about to kick the bucket, he decides to take down any surrounding undead with him in a final act of bravery:

Dante, Saunders, and Marcus watched Derek stroll down the parking lot to the truck while 20-30 zombies slowly trudged after him. He did have a zombie fan club, thought Dante, smiling for a moment in spite of his sadness. Finally, Derek turned and seemed to give a short speech to the zombies before pulling out his pistol and firing a shot into the cargo section of the truck which resounded and seemed to last forever. However, the truck did not explode. “You shot the apple truck Derek!” yelled Dante through the window. “Oh right, thanks!” yelled Derek back. He ran to the other truck and waited for the zombies to follow. Then, Officer Derek Green truly did go out with a bang as the oil truck erupted in a fiery blast which obliterated every zombie in the area.

...+1 Points for that. A clever use of a comic reversal for the comic relief character of the bunch to go out on. This is good. It somehow manages to make one of our... meh... characters more interesting and likable in retrospect, which is impressive.

The rest of the story isn't much to write home about: they go through New York, kill some hostile raiders, and rescue some guy on their way before reaching the safe zone. Amazingly the civilian they save survives to the safe area and the four final survivors can live in peace without a need for their weapons any longer:

Dante, Marcus, Russell, and Saunders all walked out of the welcome center towards the car that would bring them to safety for the first time in what seemed like years, though it had only been a couple weeks.

...Wait, weeks?! They were in Crownsville for no more than two days! How long does it take to drive from NJ to Vermont?

6 It's a simple charming story that gets the zombie job done. It doesn't have a lot going on otherwise, other than some fun "what the hell is wrong with our characters?" moments. There's a part where they find the radio really quick so they spend the rest of their time riding an inflatable raft down the mall's up-escalator while trading high-fives. And they talk about how they wish they had some babes to repopulate the planet with even though it's only been two days. It's, it's, it's a ride. Well, at least they managed to save one civilian.

I will say it is a fun, fast read. Check it out if you are interested, though you may have trouble finding it since it's not anywhere on these forums. Seriously, this story has been in the General section of this site instead of the Fan Fiction threads for eleven years now. Can't someone move it?

Where am I? This episode's a disaster.

~TAF, wondering if PK will earn our first 9 or 10, or our first 1 or 2