Notebook: Last Vigil, Part Four

Last Vigil

By Blake Tan

Continued from part three:

She woke before the sun as she often did, the lamp at her desk dimmed, her back sore from the chair and her bed covers untouched. Jehanni had not slept lying down for what felt like an age. When she stood, she stretched to crack her back, her knees, and her shoulders. Age was catching up to her, but Jehanni would race ahead for as long as she could. Kormir was much older when she’d led the Sunspears against Varesh Ossa.

After slipping into her Vigil armor and buckling on her sword, Jehanni dragged a wet cloth across her face over the washbowl, enjoying the moment’s serenity and realizing that it might be her last. The Sound would be constant battle, sleep caught rarely and without pattern. Geirmund would not believe his warmaster would miss this peace but she would and not just the quiet, but the friends among the asura krewe she had made while posted here.

Nixx would be fine, she promised herself. The little genius could crack heads with the best of them, and he still had his friends in the Peacemakers, who were never far off in the Brisban Wildlands. But if the Peacemakers got themselves tied up with Inquest or the Nightmare Court, what then? Could the asura defend themselves without her?

“Warmaster?” 

Notebook: Last Vigil, Part Three

Last Vigil

By Blake Tan

Continued from part two:

Battle filled her dreams. Centaurs swarmed over the hills, their hooves kicking dust so thick she could only see their vague outlines as they closed the gap on the caravan.

“Seraph! Form line,” her throat dry and scratchy with dirt, bellowing over the din as her squad formed up around her. Two ranks, the front rank kneeling, their rifles leveled. Behind them, the merchants struggled to keep their pack bulls from panicking. “Fire!”

The shots rang in her ears. Bullets cut through the clouds of dust, finding their marks and the centaurs in the front of the charge buckling, their fellows leaping over their blasted corpses, whooping their battle-cries. “Load!”

Through her helmet she saw the centaurs wheel, rallying to their shaman. Splinters of earth leapt from the ground, knife-like shards of rock raining down on their positions. Jehanni lifted her shield, calling forth her protection magic, sheathing her soldiers in blue light.

“Fire!” More centaurs fell, their cries like the howling of wounded animals. Beside Jehanni, Corporal Taggart took an arrow in the neck, gasping, his hands trying to stop the bleeding. “Load!”

“Lieutenant! More centaurs on the ridge!” a faceless figure beside her, pointing, before another arrow pierced her warding aura, plunging into his chest.

Notebook: Last Vigil, Part Two

Last Vigil

By Blake Tan

Continued from part one:

Geirmund Gavelfist shook with disbelief, the laughter erupting from him like a geyser, globs of spittle and ale spraying down his chin. Beside the norn, Tactician Eris was more reserved, her lips silently forming words, as if in deep conversation. When Jehanni had asked her about it, Eris claimed she was communing with the Pale Tree, but the other sylvari in Jehanni’s unit claimed Eris was either faking it or just plain crazy.

“Are you done?” Jehanni asked when Geirmund stopped to breathe, snorting and chuckling, wiping snot from his beard. “Well, what do you think?”

“By the Spirits, warmaster, you’ve been dreaming of an assignment like this for as long as I’ve known you!” Geirmund roared, pounding his chest. “Let’s take the fight to Jormag! It’s time to crack the Fang of the Serpent, and Geirmund Gavelfist’s the norn to do it!”

Notebook: Last Vigil, Part One

Last Vigil

By Blake Tan

“Compliments from the marshal, warmaster.”

Jehanni looked up from the reports scattered across her desk, the magitech lamps flickering in the dim gloom of her makeshift office. Backlit by the moonlight outside, the messenger stood with an easy, unassuming posture, half slouching, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and his mask pulled down around his neck to reveal a cocksure grin only an agent of the Order of Whispers would dare to wear in her presence.

“Nolan,” she said through gritted teeth, folding the corner of the page from Tactician Eris’s latest report. General Soulkeeper might be fool enough to trust the spies of the Order, but Jehanni knew to trust only in her own sword and shield. “Out with it and quickly. Unlike others in the Pact, I do not have time for foolishness.”

The agent tugged at his coat sleeves, pulling loose a folded letter from a hidden pocket. Still with that idiot grin on his face, Nolan handed the letter to her. “New orders from the marshal in Orr: The commander is leading the majority of Pact forces north. The norn in Hoelbrak have been pushing the Pact to engage Jormag in the northern Shiverpeaks, and Captain Magnus in Lion’s Arch is likely to join them in clamoring for another victory over the Elder Dragons.”

NaNoWriMo '13 Journal: Day 1 (err.. Day 5)

Let this month of madness begin! If you don't already know, November is National Novel Writing Month. During this time, authorial hopefuls such as I embark on a grand adventure with the the ups and downs of a drug-induced manic episode. There will be tears. There will be hardship. And hopefully, there will be pants-wetting, joyous celebration when December 1 rolls around and we hold up our finished novels in our ink-stained fingers.

Notebook: The Countess and the Artist

The Countess and the Artist

By Blake Tan

Reclining in a lounge seat in her parlour, her crimson shawl draped carelessly over her shoulder, Varvara Golovina did not look the commanding, imperial presence she seemed at court. She looked distraught, fanning herself with her free hand while she sipped from a frosted glass.

“Louise,” the countess said when she noticed the French exile standing in the doorway. “Oh, my darling Louise, I’m sorry for you to see me in such a state. I’m a mess.”

“Nonsense,” the painter said, coming into the parlour and taking a seat across from the countess, folding her hands in her lap. “You look beautiful as always, Varvara.”

“Louise,” Varvara said, burying her face in her crimson shawl. “I think Nikolai is cheating on me.”

Reflections of a Third-Year 'Humans vs. Zombies' Survivor

A properly formed firing line. Photo courtesy of HvZ Athens.

I have been fighting the good fight, resisting the onslaught of the living dead on Ohio University's Athens campus, for three years. I have played over eight games, counting the fall and spring games, invitationals, and  even a winter game. I have stood the line against shambling (and not-so-shambling) hordes of zombies hungry for a tug of my bandanna. I went from pathetic, scared-shitless noob to captaining my own strike team of hardened, grizzled veterans. When the zeds besieged us in front of Fort Ellis in the winter of '12, during final night, I stood with over a half-dozen other survivors on the left staircase -- I remember distinctly when our flanks were breached and zombies poured across the defenses, the hasty, haphazard retreat to the tower. I have died many times, risen as a member of the walking dead, and proceeded to die and resurrect countless times after that

Through it all, I've made friends in the foxholes, stolid companions in the midst of a war for our very humanity. I've seen those friends turn, our brotherhood tested when undeath took hold, and I've been on the other side, a bandanna-hungry demon, prowling and stalking my hapless human prey. These memories, these friendships, and lessons learned (oftentimes, by the skin of our own hides) are what HvZ is all about.

If you're going out there and playing HvZ in Athens tonight, let a "pro" (I use the term loosely; there are countless others with far more experience than I) share some of tips to aid you in your survival (and fun!) out there.