Ravenloft Cut-Scene 2
Regarding the settlements of Lamordia, it is rare that a kind word is ever uttered about Leidenheim, the remote port city on the country’s western shore. It is rarer still that anyone voices a desire to travel to Leidenheim during the summer, when the humidity from the nearby swampland makes the clothing stick to the body and forces breathing to become a conscious effort. Breathing is made more difficult by the perpetual rank odor of the fishmongers’ stalls, and the occasional whiff of foul ordure and offal discarded by the city’s poorer residents.
It was remarkable indeed how Leidenheim, once a modest city of learning and one of the most commercially successful settlements in Lamordia, had fallen so far to such a shadow of its former glory. The closing of the University of Leidenheim under mysterious circumstances seemed to be the death knell for the city, as it had driven most of the city’s more educated citizens to Port-a-Lucine, Il-Aluk, and other settlements across the world more known for their academic endeavors. The growing prevalence of piracy on the open waters between Lamordia, Dementlieu, and Darkon led many shipping companies and private traders to change their ports of call and delivery routes, eschewing Leidenheim entirely. And overland travel, which required traversing several miles of dangerous swampland, was hardly an ideal substitute for maritime commerce.
Still, some of the city’s more industrious residents found ways to make a living.
The lame beggar boy watched a rather genteel-looking man emerge from the clerk’s office near the Leidenheim shipyard. Of course, having never seen true nobility, the boy could little recognize that the man’s couture was merely a mishmash of various fashions that spanned the continent. His plain Falkovnian boots clacked across the cobblestone street, and the boy watched as the somewhat obese man slowly walked back toward the downtown business district.
“Excuse me,” the boy shouted. “Hey sir, excuse me!”
The man stopped in his tracks and looked in the boy’s direction. “Yes?”
“Sir, can you spare a coin or two?”
The man smirked and turned toward the boy. As he approached, the boy made out more of the man’s details. His clothing was rich and ornate–or at least appeared to be at some point in the past, when it was not so smudged and faded. The man appeared to be wearing several layers of clothing, which struck the boy as odd, given the stifling humidity of the day. Even more odd was the fur-rimmed overcoat that the man wore; it was considerably oversized and dragged behind him on the ground.
“What did you ask?” the man inquired, peeking inside the small rusty cup that sat beside the boy.
“Sir, I was wondering if you had a coin or two you could spare… I’ve not had a meal in days.”
“Well,” the man said matter-of-factly, “I don’t believe in charity. However… if you’d be willing to do a bit of work for me, I would give you a small pittance.”
The boy looked up at him, a bit confused. “But sir,” said the boy, “I’m just a cripple, I can’t work.”
The man smirked. “Sure you can, lad,” he said, reaching into a pocket somewhere within the interior folds of his voluminous overcoat. He produced a stack of papers and bent down closer to the boy, offering the stack to him.
“Pass these out to everyone coming and going here, especially out-of-towners and people you don’t recognize.” The boy looked down at the man’s hand, holding the papers in front of his face. The man wore a tattered woolen glove, and a couple of his fingers were exposed through irregular holes. The boy looked up at him, then reached out and took the papers.
“That’s a good lad,” said the man, and he reached into a different pocket and produced a shiny coin. He dropped the coin into the boy’s cup, and the boy was overjoyed.
“Oh, thank you sir!” the boy said, his face awash with a look of relief and simple happiness.
“Fetch me more customers and there will be more where that came from,” the man said. He then turned and walked away from the boy, continuing on his way toward the business district. The boy watched him walk away, then looked down at the papers he held in his hand.
The man made his way back to his shop, which was only barely in the business district and was just a stone’s throw from the slums and one of the less reputable taverns in Leidenheim. His shop was sandwiched between two buildings, both of which were uninhabited. As a result, both buildings had become makeshift billboards for the Pendergast Emporium, and the street-facing walls of the buildings were plastered with dozens of the same handbills that the man had given to the cripple earlier. As the door opened, a small bell tinkled, and the man cleared his throat.
Slowly walking down one of the aisles in the store, the man seemed deep in thought, but kept his arms close to his sides so that his large sleeves would not accidentally drag anything off the shelves. As he approached the front desk, he noticed the bald, heavily-tattoed man behind the counter holding a stone of some sort up to lamplight, looking intently at it.
“That’s a pretty piece, Phillip,” the man said. “Where’d you get it?”
“A man came in while you were gone, Mr. Pendergast. Quite bizarre, really. I’ll tell you more about it in a bit, but rest assured–we got this for a song.”
Pendergast walked up to the counter and extended his gloved hand to Phillip. “Is that so?” he said. Phillip placed the stone in Pendergast’s hand, and he immediately pocketed it somewhere within the folds of his overcoat. “What passes for a song these days?”
“Trust me, we got it for cheap. I’ll tell you more about it, but you might want to attend to the current customer.”
“Who is it?” Pendergast asked, looking around while leaning on the counter.
“That young errand boy of the von Hauptmanns. Baldridge, I believe.”
Pendergast grinned broadly and stood up straight. “Excellent,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Always a pleasure working on the von Hauptmann account.”
Phillip motioned with his head toward a door on the far side of the store. “He’s back there, checking out the curiosities. You ought to go sneak up on him and scare him.” As he said this, Phillip grinned, exposing teeth that had been filed down to a point. “He’s such a bleedin’ dandy.”
“All that time spent with the von Hauptmanns, I suppose,” said Pendergast. Both men laughed.
“I’ll go fetch the boy,” said Pendergast. “You, go get their order. Greta should have everything together in the back room.”
“Aye,” Phillip nodded, and he disappeared into a room behind the front desk. Pendergast, meanwhile, strode toward the closed door back in the corner of the store, near the bookshelves. As he approached, the door opened, and a young man stepped out. Seeing Pendergast, the young man smiled.
“Ah, Mr. Pendergast!” said the young man. “Good to see you again!”
“You know lad, I was serious when I said you could call me Henrik.”
“I know, it just seems somewhat… impolite.”
Pendergast laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about politeness here of all places!”
The young man snickered. “Good point.”
“Come now, Simeon, we have much to discuss before we square away this latest order of yours. If you’ll come back to my office, we’ll work out the particulars of your employers’ request.”
Simeon nodded politely and followed Pendergast back to the room behind the front counter of the store.
Shittiness Supreme
I’ve had a rather shitty day today, which included (among other things):
-. A rationale as to why my mother continues to go to the hate-filled church that she does;
-. A meal with my father and stepmother, which (as usual) ended up being a grotesque affair; and
-. Extreme awkwardness with Luke and his girl interest that ended w/ me leaving his apartment in tears.
So I will probably not be blogging or chatting or emailing or anything for a while.
Paul Newman, RIP
Paul Newman has passed away at the age of 83. As far as Hollywood celebrities go, I think he set a good example for how life ought to be lived.
Honed Silence
I find I have less and less to talk about these days. Inevitably when I do come up with an idea for a blog post, it is something that I’ve already done before, something that is just a repeat–a plagiarism of myself. It is rare when I have anything interesting or exciting to talk about. The creative sparks that used to come so naturally to me have dwindled significantly.
Oddly enough, I am not too troubled by this.
I feel myself, through my actions and through my philosophical conclusions, moving toward a state of being where there is less that I feel compelled to do. There are fewer things to expose about the nature of the world, as all the great evils and sins of the current generation are but repeats of previous generations. There are fewer “interesting” developments in my own life–there is very little value in making a chronicle of every slightest movement and endeavor of people who remain forever out of my reach. The music and the art that I share has all already been shared by others, and far better than my little blog can hope to do.
My attitude toward blogging, up to this point, has been to behave like a dog retrieving random objects and bringing them back to its master. I imagine I am not alone in this approach to blogging. So what is there to talk about? What reason would anyone have to visit this blog?
Don’t get me wrong–I do not feel bad or anything. On the contrary, I feel like I am finally headed down the path of becoming the sort of person I want to be. It’s just that as I progress down this path, as I free myself from self-imposed burdens that have always hindered me, I find I have less and less to say.
Leaving Politics
I wish the goddamned election was over.
It seems like this has been the longest election cycle ever. Things started ramping up back in ‘07 and all year, the primaries and the general election have been all over the news every day. “It’s important!” “It’s historic!” It’s fucking tiresome. I just want the election to be over and done with, the long national nightmare of the previous administration to be over, and then I want my damn life back. The only reason I got involved with politics in the first place was because I saw how much Bush was fucking the country over; when there is a return to sanity (or at least some semblance thereof) I am withdrawing from the political realm.
A Dry Spell
I need inspiration.
Global Survey of Preference for Each of the American Presidential Candidates
Below is a map summarizing the results of a global survey in which respondents were asked which of the American presidential candidates they favored.
A Reasonable Facsimile of Billy
This is Hugh Dancy. He bears more than a passing resemblance to Billy–as in, they could be twins.
Note that I am not talking about the inimitable owner of that glorious hound Ruby, but about the grifter who fleeced me for untold money during my Summer of Lust. *sigh*
He and Luke still talk on a semi-regular basis. They apparently don’t talk about me, for some odd reason. Go figure.
Miscellaneous Luke Updates
- A certain female has been after Luke for a couple of months now. She keeps hanging out with him and strongly hinting that she wants to be his girl. Luke, however, is not interested in anything other than a friendship.
- At dinner recently, Luke grabbed my
breastfuzzy man-pec and said “pass it on”. I was sitting between her and him, and the expectation was for me to then grab the girl’s breast, which was (presumably) the reason Luke had grabbed me. I of course did not grab said breast and had to explain to the girl that I am, in fact, not a fan of the fun bags. She responded by grabbing my crotch and saying “pass it on”, with the expectation I’d pass that on to Luke. I certainly had an opportunity to touch heaven’s plumbing, but I was too shocked and mortified that I’d received the bad touch from a girl to be able to coherently act on the opportunity. - During the same dinner, I did get the chance to lay my head on Luke’s shoulder. It was luverly.
- I have agreed to go to church (!) with Luke and the girl this morning. This is quite uncharacteristic of me, but… we all do strange things for the man candy. I just might reform my heathen ways if he would only explore his secret bicuriosity that no one (not even him) knows about…
The Old Popularity Index
