PotD 4 Free

That’s right, everything that’s available from Peregrination of the Deliverer, as well as everything that is to come, will be freely available to read. My birthday present to you, hope you enjoy:

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chapter 07

Cold. It’s very cold in dungeons. Damp as well. I bet the dampness contributes to the cold. They wouldn’t care enough to heat dungeons, would they? Criminals don’t deserve any humane luxuries, right? It’s not like it’d get cold enough to cause any harm. Winters were pretty light in that part of the kingdom. Was I even a criminal?

I rested my forehead against the bars as I stood by the steel gate of my stone cell. I was trying to think of what exactly was so serious that Prince had threatened to execute me for. Once the guards dragged me to where my cell was insight, I became aware that what was happening, was really happening and so I began to attempt to resist. However, Maraulen, who had walked down with us, assured me that I wouldn’t be executed but I would have to be held briefly while she and “the council” decided what was to be done about the situation. She then confiscated my vial of Royal Honey. Bother.

So apparently I was in jail because of something to do with the Royal Honey. Maraulen had warned me before, but why was it so serious? Something had to have been going on that I didn’t understand. Why were the Indians so concerned about the bees and why was everyone concerned with Royal Honey?

Tremarch said he collected honey for the king, yet everyone seems to want nothing to do with Royal Honey. Was there some kind of conspiracy going on? Was I unwittingly involved in it? But then why am I being punished by other people who are involved in the same conspiracy? Because I was revealing the secret Royal Honey! Of Course! But wait, this is about honey, isn’t it? It’s just honey! This is all far too ridiculous!

Gah! I beat my head against the bars of the gate, slowly inhaled a breathe of the heavy, musty air, then turned around to face the wall. A small block cut out of its top allowed a pale blue light to flow into the cell. It was barely large enough to look through, so there was no chance of anybody escaping through it. An old wooden bench was spread along the same wall.

On the other side of the cell, a man sat spread out on the bench. He was asleep with his long hair covering his face, but he was obviously snoring. He rested with his head set back against the wall and he’d chew on his hair in between breaths.

He was probably just some homeless drunk. I didn’t know why we had to share a cell, there were a couple more available and I was pretty sure we were the only two inmates there. I would expect there to be more of a crowd here, but maybe this isn’t the only prison in the city.

Although I felt relieved to hear I wasn’t going to be executed, the uncertainty of my fate was a feeling that was creeping eerily upon me. Maybe this castle really was too crazy of a place to stay. Heck, I doubted they would let me stay, since I’d been to prison. Royalty usually doesn’t want to associate with criminals, “keeping appearances” and all that. However from what I’d seen of the royalty around there, appearances didn’t seem to be a top concern.

I bet Tremarch’s offer still stood, if I could get out of there by noon the next day I could go and live with him! Would that happen? They weren’t going to execute me, but no one said anything about letting me go!

I should figure out how to get out of here.

I scanned the room. Bars, walls, micro-window, bench, drunk… not much to work with. The prison looked like a typical old dungeon, maybe there was a hole in one of the walls I could open up, or maybe the hinges on the gate would be rusted. I looked around but nothing was popping up in my favor. The gate was strong and the walls were secure. I guessed I’d just have to wait for someone to bring me food or something and break out then. The guy on the bench looked like he’d been there for a while and he didn’t seem to be starving.

Uh-oh. He was waking up. The man arched his back and rubbed the back of his head, yawning his own wake up call. I slunk against the cell’s bars wearily while the man pulled the strands of hair out of his mouth and glanced around the cell.

“Mindy?!”
Mindy?
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“That is you, Mindy! I didn’t think I’d see you again!” The man sat up attentively and shone a toothy smile at me.
My goodness. It was him.
“Hi there… Kal. Fancy meeting you here.”

Unbelievably, it was that annoying soldier boy I traveled with before getting lost in Tremarch’s forest, Kalipherous Mennus. It takes a special kind of person to force you to remember a name like that and Kal was that person. I had learned to recognize him chiefly by his ridiculously bright orange hair, but in the dungeon, the faint light had painted his hair more of a dark blue and I didn’t recognize him.

“Certainly! What are you doing in a dungeon?! I’m very surprised, I wouldn’t expect you to turn up in a place like this!” Kal exclaimed chipperly.
“It’s more surprising that you’re here!” I snapped at him. Though I’m sure few people wouldn’t be surprised in this situation.
“I suppose it is!” he hummed through his smile. “I came to the castle to inform the king that I was going to end the war but apparently some of the townsfolk had already put in complaints about me, so they put me in here!”

I’m sure he told every person he came across that he was “going to end the war”. He’s been saying that since I first met him. Those were the first words he even said to me! Seeing how there hadn’t been a real war in decades, I’m sure the comment would have confused quite a few people. Not that I understood what he meant, either. Kal was a soldier, he had the armour and sword, obviously they had been confiscated while he was in prison, but hearing him say that there was a war going on in the kingdom, it would probably be a bit alarming.

“So, why are you here?” Kal asked again.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I replied, turning back to look through the bars of the gate. “Something to do with the king being a maniac, most likely.”
“Ahhh,” he moaned affirmatively. With my hands stretched through gaps between the bars, attempting to reach out and grab a piece of familiar freedom, I looked back at him,
“You know of the king?”
“Of course!” Kal suddenly turned serious and tilted his head down. “He’s the reason for this terrible war! He’s the one I’ve got to put a stop to!”
“What do you mean ‘put a stop to’?” I questioned.
“Beheading, probably.”

Let me out of here! This guy really is a maniac!
I flailed my arms and one of my legs on the other side of the bars.

“We should probably get out of here, hey?” He stated casually, glancing around the room as though he was preparing to say goodbye to a house he had been visiting.
“Huh? Do you know how to get out of here, Kal?” I pulled myself back through the bars and turned towards him. Kal stood up, stretched some more, then joined me at the cell gate.
“Nope.” I sighed disappointed. Admittedly I had some dwindling hopes that he might know how to escape. “But they usually let us out by dinner time!”
“What? How long have you been here, Kal?”
“A week probably.”
“And they let you out every day?”
“Yup!”
“And you keep getting locked in here every day?!” I jumped towards Kal and wedged him between me and the gate. Kal was more than a head taller than me, so I’m sure I wasn’t much of a threat, but I had to express how much he annoyed me some how!
“Well, there’s a lot of guards to go through to get to the king!” Kal defended himself while gesturing innocently.

What’s wrong with this place?!
Someone comes to kill the king, so they just take away his sword and stick him in the corner for the day? Maybe they secretly wanted him to do away with the king, so they could get some stability back in their lives. That almost made me feel sorry for Prince.

Kal chuckled nervously as I sighed and stepped back for some thinking room. Kal really was a doofus, but he really did help me out when I was out on my own. I had spent as much time with Kal as I had with Tremarch, however his personality and one track mind had kept us from developing much of a relationship. Which, in retrospect, I’m grateful for. He’s a real handsome guy and all, but obviously someone who’s attempting assassination to end an imaginary war has to be bad company.

Devon Riley Support

Where the heck have I been? Seems I have forgotten that this website isn’t only for my literary practices. Please bare with me as I reevaluate what exactly I want to do with this site. I’ll post later on Make Belief updates and goals, but right now, here’s something important that I should have posted a few days ago.

Devon Riley, of the interweb famous Riley brothers, was stuck in hospital for (major? he’s got a big-ass scar, so it should be major) surgery. If you don’t know who Devon is, now is a great time to find out. He is most famous for his work as NES in the internet drama-adventure program by PBC productions: The New Adventures of Captain S!

Anyway, to help Devon with his insane hospital bill caused by the inferior US health care system, a site has been set up at http://lovefordevon.wordpress.com.

If you have any love for Devon, or feel for the financial strife of independent artists, please consider donating a little something something!

Dean Rankine’s “Sonova”

Agree or not with his heart-on-sleeve, message heavy panels, this guy knows how to push the envelope.

Give Dean Rankine some recognition!

chapter 06

The repetition of opening and closing the over sized doors was giving me quite a headache. It’s no wonder the king schemed so much to get out of this job, it was only about half an hour in but the endless quibbles of the peasants made it seem like an eternity.

Most of the complaints were about the legal tenderizing of gumdrops which I learned was a recent change. Apparently when Prince was still a prince, he was quite spoiled by his fun-loving father. They regularly had theme days where all of the castle staff, soldiers included, were forced to wear animal ear and tail attachments, or whatever other strange costume idea the prince could come up with, with their standard uniforms. Also, apparently the prince was big into magic tricks. So nearly every night there was a party which featured a new magician of some sort and various servants were made to fall victim to the prince’s own practicing of the art. However, the thing was, with the king, all of Prince’s desires were contained within the castle, now that the previous king had passed on, Prince was free to manipulate the kingdom as he pleased.

Of course there was some resistance, but thanks to Prince’s royal adviser, Dragged, whom thinks that any kind of exercising of authority is beneficial to a young king, no one could complain very loudly for very long. After a couple royal guards were exiled to a tropical island which sole inhabitants were a palm tree and a rather large colony of fire ants, the rest of the castle forces quickly obliged to the young kings demands and enforced them upon the rest of the kingdom.

Luckily the kingdom is very spaced out and includes a wide range of conflicting cultures, so in reality, the king’s influence didn’t fall much farther than the city where the castle was in. This also explains why people like me who originate from small villages on the outskirts of the kingdom don’t know much about what goes on near the capital region. Anyway, Maraulen did her best to keep both the king and his adviser in check, but as Prince’s personal caretaker she had a wide range of responsibilities throughout the castle and no one else had the authority to keep the two permanently under surveillance.

Well, it was an educational half hour to say the least. I frequently required Maraulen’s advice in just convincing the people to go back go their lives and not complain about the frivolous things. After all, it’s not like Prince’s ideas were terribly cruel, they were just terribly ridiculous. Fortunately, due to the wide range of cultures who pass through the capitol, a ban couldn’t be placed on other currencies. So most people were satisfied once they heard that they could ignore gumdrops and head to the bank for real gold. They’d just have to do more conversions come tax time.

In addition to quickly becoming intolerable, with the exit of the fish-man the job had become quite boring. Apparently all the interesting people were travelers who didn’t have time to come to the castle and complain about the weirdness going on in the city. Rivoulin was the rare foreign celebrity appearance which I thought, and honestly hoped, would not happen twice on the same day. However, rotten odds seem to have no effect on me.

The latest person to enter the court came with a trio of supporters. They all had tanned, sun-kissed skin and long black hair decorated with various beads and clips. All four stood solemnly, wearing various animal skins and even parts.

One, which was half the size of the others, had heavy fur boots with bird talons sewn onto the front, the claws hanging over his toes. There was also a tall girl who wore a dress of reptile skins wrapped tight to her body. They were dry and made crinkling and rustling noises the rare time she moved. The third was a very big, strong looking man who was shirtless and showed off a thick necklace which hugged his collar. It had tied to it various kinds of long teeth which extended down most of his torso and a couple of smaller ones which jutted off behind his head. The last, whom the three seemed to gravitate to, was the largest and was dressed in a long leather robe. Upon his head, like a hat, he wore the face of a boar and long tinted red, peacock-like feathers extended from it, flowing down his back.

“It’s the Indians.” Maraulen leaned over and whispered to me. Prince was leaning against her shoulder, nearly falling asleep.
“You mean natives.” I corrected.
“What? No,” Maraulen said with a confused look. “We were here first, the Indians migrated up from the south of the river. Now they farm ostriches in the prairies to the east.”
Gah! I told mom and dad homeschooling was useless!
“We have beheld a great disturbance,” the big guy with the headdress started. “We must speak to the true king, not this girl.”

The young king was pretty famous, so most people recognized right away that I wasn’t the official wearer of the crown. Most didn’t mind though, this was the right castle and the crown was legit, so what was there to complain about?

“It’s alright, Chief,” Maraulen called as she supported Prince’s resting head with her palms and popped out from behind the thrones. “By order of the king, this girl is legitimate royalty, for now. And the king and I are behind here anyway.” The chief gave a stern nod of approval. He and Maraulen seem to be familiar with each other.

“A great rain cloud was seen flying in fear of the forest,” the small indian stepped forward and said meagerly.
“We seeked out the cloud and found that it did not contain rain. It was filled with Black Widow Wasps,” the strong man with the teeth barked. I heard Prince stir behind me, things must of finally been becoming more interesting for him.

My own interest perked up a bit more as well. Obviously this was the same swarm which Tremarch destroyed the hive of in his forest. I wondered what concern the Indians had for it. Then again, they were pretty dangerous animals, I doubted anybody would feel good about them flying loose.

“The forest is under your jurisdiction, is it not?” Chief continued, “did you not know the bees were dwelling there?”
I hesitated as I thought about what the chief could of meant by this. The Indian woman finally stepped forward with a swift rustle from her dress.
“We could not be in good moral conscience if we did not come and check to make sure that no Royal Honey was gathered.”
“But of course we gathered it,” I finally interrupted. “Tremarch and I collected it ourselves!” I proudly held up the little container that was dangling by its leather cord beneath my shirt.

The group of Indians collectively released a disturbed gasp. I scowled and chewed the corner of my bottom lip, thinking about the situation, then I became aware of the icy coldness growing behind me. I cautiously turned around in my seat to look back. Maraulen was twitching oddly with bitter expression on her face while a wicked grin was spread across Prince’s.

“We must consult the great skyfish for further instruction.” The lady stated as the Indians recollected themselves and turned towards the doors and exited the room.

Something had gone wrong, but I didn’t quite understand why. A very cold quiet had filled the room and the line of soldiers all seemed to stare at me. Prince had stepped out from behind the thrones and calmly retrieved his crown from my head.

My hour’s not up yet!

Once the crown was firmly placed back on the king’s head, he hissed through his teeth in a vicious smile,
“Execute her!”
“What? Why?! Maraulen?” I turned toward Maraulen and her bitter expression fell into an expression of pity. She braced her forehead with a clasped hand and just shook her head.
“I told you you couldn’t flash that thing around.”
I stood dumbfounded as a small group of soldiers came, picked me up by my arms, and dragged me away.