News:

MysticWicks endorsement: "Spoiled brats of the pagan world, I thought. I really don't have a lot of respect for Discordians. They just strike me as spiritually lazy."

Main Menu

Wizard Tales

Started by The Wizard Joseph, February 13, 2017, 03:17:23 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Wizard Joseph

I'm opening this thread up to dump my bits and pieces of the stuff that I never told you guys. The story of "The Wizard" is long and complicated. I'm not all that good at being consistent about writing either. I have stuff in my head. I'm hoping some feedback and an occasional hand to hold/upside the head will help me push this all out. For now I shall begin with a short write up I did about the most horrible way to die known to a billion year old polygalactic society of explorer conquerors that only have fairly accurate records of the last 100 million or so.



Behold the terror that is the Chika Tika.

From: Unrelated notes on the the "chika-tika"

The Ha'chalika-tika are an abomination species that has no natural place in any biome based upon vertibrate carbon life. Their appearance is that of a large, fuzzy ball with big eyes and a wide mouth with pronounced lips and flat teeth for grinding its primary staple, living or rotted plant matter. Their coloration and pattern varies widely with each suitable to  the environment in which they are found. They possess two small arm appendages each equipped with webbed hands not unlike those of a terrestrial raccoon, but extremely strong and equipped with cat-like retractable claws at the ends of the finger and also extendable from the palms of the hands. These grant no fine manipulation, but do serve as very effective climbing, swimming, and grappling implements. Their only other appendage has the appearance of a thick, furry prehensile tail affixed to the posterior of their perfectly rounded cranio-thorax body. It is in fact a remarkably agile, muscular, and durable phallus and all chika-tika specimens are biological "males", approximately one in 20 specimens cannot reproduce and so are termed "females" though physiological and behavioral differences are non-existent. Overall chika-tikas are not physically imposing, particularly swift or stealthy, or inclined to traditionally violent behavior common to vertibrate species. Their profound danger and threat to biomes is entirely due to their reproductive methods and xeno-phillic and insatiable appetites as such.

The semen and other sexual excretions of the chika-tika are universally neurotoxic and in "males" profoundly mutagenic and universally fatal to the victim. The toxins produce a paralitic effect and unnatural euphoria not only capable of immobilizing a victim, but also inducing a neurotoxic fugue from which victims rarely recover, and never willingly. Cases in which victims have been exposed to discharges by "females" result in a form of permanent psychosis and fixation on re-exposure at any cost or potential risk. Victims finding themselves forcibly or incidentally denied the ability to go in search of more chika-tika fluids inevitably drop into a catatonic state and lose all interest in the external world or self maintenance until a chika-tika or signs of their presence are reintroduced to their environment, at which point a manic search for the stimulus begins and victims will universally seek contact with a presented live specimen with no apparent faculty of higher reason or instinct for personal survival.

Those exposed to even a miniscule amount of semen from a "male" chika-tika undergo precisely the same neurotoxic effects but also become a host for chika-tika embryos. The gametes in the semen are potentially able to enter any cell of an infected host and begin to form multiple sites of a cystic uterus and embryo visible within a greatly variable time interval dependant upon the victim species, environmental conditions, metabolic activity, and the volume of overall fluid exposure. Even the tiniest bit of direct skin or orifice exposure is sufficient to induce the cellular  impregnation and ultimately suicidal chika-tika seeking behavior. In cases where large volumes of semen are involved from multiple chika-tika specimens the rate of biological development seen in the embryos increases dramatically and has been known to induce the "hatching" phase within one Continuum Constant Standard Interval or less. Once exposed there is no known cure and victims will go to inordinate lengths to preserve themselves as the embryos develop.

This behavior is in part how this abomination's name was derived, "Ha'chalika-tika" loosely translates to "Do not touch my babies" and victims of the first known encounter with them would frequently shout this whenever they felt themselves under the slightest personal threat before attempting to flee to the closest area where more of these abominations might seemingly be found. In the late stages of the incubation the victim rarely has any mental faculty left and less biological coherence as all functions of mind and body bend to fuel the embryonic growth even well past the point where catabolic degradation should have slain the victims. The shorthand moniker "chika-tika" means simply "the babies" and is recorded to be the only words uttered incessantly by late-stage victims in metabolic fugue.

Chika-tikas emerge in numbers directly proportional to the size of the initial victim. A terrestrial dog might yield 1 or perhaps 2, an adult elephant several dozen. They emerge fully capable of all survival and reproductive functions. They inevitably destroy all vertibrate life on a planet and consume all available vegetable matter over time. They have remarkable environmental tolerances of temperature and no known pathogens can infect them. Contact is explicitly forbidden and any sighting of chika-tikas on any world is grounds for the destruction of that world's entire biome to prevent the possibility of incidental or deliberate transfer between worlds or contamination of the Continuum.

See also chika sickness, chika-soul psychosis.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Wizard Joseph

A rambling partial write up from my rossly disorganized files about the culture of "The Wizards" and the nature of their synthetic "souls" by which they record and share experiences from lifetime to lifetime.

From the file: TOP SECRET: On the Wizards and their ways

This document contains my personal thoughts and notes on the culture of the Wizards in the story I am going to present. This is information that will not be exposed in the main story but it is necessary to understand some of the background and motivations of the main character. Some of it will be told in short stories  and brief dialogue asides.

   The Wizards' culture is incredibly old. Older even than they know. Indeed it goes back to the very first days. There is currently no way that they can know this, but they assume that this is the case even if their knowledge of their origins is incomplete.

   When a wizard dies their body deteriorates like all others. The soul enters back into the Matrices of Being for review and most likely future incarnations. The spirit, or consciousness of a given incarnation, will dissipate or may move on depending upon the skill of the wizard and the nature and power of the Manium Field in the world that they die in. This can allow for certain extreme and forbidden ways for a given incarnation' consciousness to survive independently after death.

   It is worth noting that the Wizard's term for forbidden is analogous to stupid in their native language. They refer to this language as Primary. This language is kept a great secret, though some few Outsiders learn certain of its words.

   The soul of a wizard is nearly inviolable and contains the entire set of experiences for that wizard's life and all previous life times. The nature of the souls is such that its contents can be read, and even fully experienced though not without risk, by other wizards. This can only be done while that soul is disincarnate in a profoundly ancient device central to their culture and power called the Matrices of Being. On some few occasions this has led to wizards murdering other wizards in order to view the contents of their soul. It may have nothing to do with the current incarnation of that wizard.

This is of course an extremely rare phenomenon, Wizards have a certain degree of brotherly rivalry between them, and have an interest in keeping one another alive in most circumstances. To cause another Wizard to stop recording new experiences to add to the truly unfathomable pool contained in the Matrices of Being without dire cause or clear and unquestionable need of direct experience of the knowledge in said wizard's soul would be a terrible breach of protocol and certainly discovered most swiftly. On some occasions vendettas are settled to the death, but again there are proper channels for such things and their culture DOES enjoy placing a wager on an outcome.  Perhaps too much as their culture has eroded considerably over the ages.

They would however never consider murdering another wizard for no reason whatsoever. They are not obliged to aid each other just for being fellow wizards. Thus many bands of allies form and fall apart as agreements are struck and rescinded. Overt treachery is rare as these agreements are often well formalized in their culture, and their word to another will be subject to review upon death. The fact of dishonor is always recorded and upon being made a new wizard the status of the given soul is often recognized and may well effect future status and perceived reliability.

   Each and every last one of them sees the experiences of the other wizards as extraordinarily valuable to the greater collective. Their training emphasizes to them also a sense of their own experiences as equally important.  For this reason murder is extremely rare; that and you can't rub your superiority into the face of the person who is dead. Or so some of their philosophers would have us believe.
   
There are some several threats that all wizards acknowledge as truly existential ones. One stands above all others as by far the most terrifying and hated. One that has the capacity to erase or horribly corrupt a wizard's soul beyond readability. A soul so stricken may still be given incarnation. This also is considered forbidden, though not written upon the Tablet of Ways as such.

It is well known that such produces nothing for their collective, but worse it always drives a wizard so granted completely insane, resulting over a variable period of time in the total collapse of reason in a terribly powerful being. As fun as this may be, it is considered so disruptive in the end that the means of the practice were buried and unknown to any but the eldest and most terrible wizards.

   This great threat is known to them as Draconic Energies (loosely translated). The people of Earth's dominant culture know it as elecrticity. Its study is deemed forbidden explicitly in the Tablet of Ways. The entirety of their culture is in full accord with this and mourns the irretrievable losses it has inflicted over the Great Æons.

   No such loss may be deemed greater than the tragic loss of the soul known as The First, bearer of the soul that first activated and found incarnation, imprinted by a truly exceptional being, the simple person who first received it. It was this person bearing that first soul that first learned to harness the Matrices of Being and began to incarnate the others, ever more and more as the Knowledge began to grow. It was this soul that first fully understood the Tablet of Ways and learned to Port, that is to open the gates to myriad worlds strewn throughout the galaxies of this universe. The soul of The First, the only soul that bore the most perfect memories of their own origin, was long, long ago indeed "struck by the dragon" and all of it's wonderous, irreplaceable contents from untold incarnations was forever annihilated.

It was by far not the only loss of the Knowledge to this vile energy, but it was by indisputably the single most damaging. It has ultimately led to the awful stagnation their culture is currently mired in at the time that the young prodigal prodigy of my stories comes to Earth by quite accidentally opening a sealed gateway deemed forbidden by the Tablet of Ways explicitly, one of several so called "Broken Keys" or unresolvable portal formulae.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Wizard Joseph

When I first got here I started writing a piece of the Wizard's early story. It's still in a thread somewhere around here. I furthered the narrative and never posted it here. I thought I'd lost it in a recent transition in my life, but it turned out that I had it in a google doc. I'm posting here ITT as much for a second backup as anything else. It's a pretty long read that includes some of my original attempts at first person narration of the Wizard character.

Extnded A fiction continued...




"May you never lose the stars"- A traditional travel blessing among wizards.


"(he/she/it) has lost the stars"- a statement that there is no hope left for the subject, also a reference to anything struggling madly to no benefit.  Sometimes an insult implying incompetence.




  As I said, I am an outsider to this world.  I chose the word wizard from your English to describe myself because it is close enough as a descriptor. I will use the word for my kind as well.  Beings like my kind travel the planes and worlds with great frequency and are explorers and observers by nature and conditioning.  I believe I am not the first of my kind here but have no proof of this as you have lost much to your various "histories."  In truth I have no idea where here is. This may be a surprise to some, but the people of this world have been isolated and have become deceived. The form of what you call human is astoundingly common among the worlds.  Even immaterial beings, spirits and gods if you must, often prefer this form for it's sheer utility.  I was born to it just like you all.  I am also quite mortal and one day will die just like you as well.


  In truth we are extremely similar but my kind are optimized for experiences that are perceptually and culturally denied to the majority of the people here.  I will tell you plainly, "All is change, nothing is impossible."  This is a basic truth among my kind.  Survival in a series of unknown environments requires such flexible perception and wizards train toward it.  I was a prodigy.  I am extraordinarily young compared to most functional wizards.  I dared where they would not and now have found myself marooned here on your world.  Worse, I have discovered that your world is toxic in ways that would terrify my ex-colleagues and that have limited my ability to work "magic".  The energies I must channel to do so may be over-generously described as sparse and tainted.  There have been no worlds known to us in such a condition.


  Though similar in form and perhaps of some common origin wizards are different in natural capability and skill.  We can see vaguely into what you call the ultraviolet light spectrum at all times and also easily commune with the immaterial beings in an area.  The sorcerers here use some very long and unreliable mental preparations to call on their deities and spirits that wizards are able to dispense with.  This is partially from the training and partially an inherent gift.  Indeed the first lesson for a student is often training to turn it off at will. The "license to depart" or banishment in your traditional summoning books is amusing in that it requires effort on par with ripping the wires out of one of your accursed "phones" and burying it in the back yard only to dig up, clean, and reassemble it when you want to use it again. The immaterial beings here have fooled you into unduly fearing them as gods or foolishly disregarding them as "non-existent."  The stories you have told yourselves tell me that they and their servants among you have run this ontological racket on you flawlessly. I guess even a god's gotta eat.


  I have been here for some time now and found some fascinating things.  Wizards are familiar with the energy form you call electricity. They shun it as able to (for lack of a better word) "de-wizard" a wizard that tries to channel it.  Being here has taught me that this is the result of ignorance and fear, though also true.  The fools try to use it as they use everything else and discard it as useless and dangerous when it fails to work the way they think it should.  You all showed me the light!  It's brilliant.  I understand the processes of how you make it and it's slave devices only poorly, but admire many of the material workarounds it has provided for the terrible shortage of magical energies here.  You do everything with it! You scry, commune, cook, clean, attack, defend, research, amuse, punish, illuminate, and do hosts of other things with it.  For such a recent development you've really just run with it in ways that would shame and terrify my old teachers.  I just love using the devices and taking them apart!


  Your "money" is also something known to us.  All cultures use a medium of exchange.  What is different here is the profound saturation of your minds it has accomplished.  When I saw that first dollar I knew it was a trick!  How could people trade stylish paper slips for everything?  I laughed so hard as I watched this happen over and over and even saw fights over it!  Clearly this was cheap sorcery at work, but EVERYONE was participating!  I immediately realized that survival here would be much better if I played along and found ways to acquire it when needed.  Even your spirits seem to really love it, their slaves ask for it so frequently.


TBC....


...CNTD


It took me some time to understand that you have merged your currency and your electrical signals.  The method by which this works is utterly fascinating to me.  You trust promises that only provably exist in the computer boxes that seem to run everything.  Frequently your own record exists in this fashion as well.  Your lives and livelihoods have become dependent on ephemeral representations of promises made by the various architects of your systems.  Out of necessity, but with great enjoyment, I learned to operate some of these computers you all seem to use.  I broke many at first, but they were already owned by, and on loan from, the spirit known as Great Garbage.


I must explain the spirits of your world and how they function before I can explain Great Garbage.  You have MANY incorporeal beings around you all the time.  Like most beings they need to sustain themselves.  In most worlds and their planes this is a simple affair.  The energies and thought forms they need must be readily available.  Without them they are simply not present.  In my time here I have discovered that your spirits need not function in the usual ways.  Many have become predatory and operate by being fed by their servants or are attached to a concept that will never exhaust itself.  Great Garbage operates in both fashions.  It was also the first of the local spirits to manifest to me fully after my arrival.



.....CNTD


I know that it is impossible for some of the people in this world to believe that there are beings that exist without a body as they think of bodies.  They have no reason to believe.  In truth they are right to ignore what they cannot perceive.  There is no "law" of nature that is taught to them that can explain this.  Many of your more ancient texts speak to me of a time when some among you were much more aware of the planes and the hidden world of your "gods."  Indeed some few of you still are well aware, but the possibility of exploration is limited by the dearth of energies and knowledge on your world.


Often the incorporeal feed upon you in a most literal fashion.  They herd you and bring you up to think in particular ways agreeable to them.  Without even realizing that they are there you give more or less of your own energies to them.  This sacrifice need not be intentional, though it is much more efficient when intended.  The way of thinking involved need not be particularly mystical.  It only needs to be of an impact on your minds and world.  There are indeed gods that function upon and gain strength from purely "atheist" activities.


Great Garbage has become, perhaps, the most efficient of the atheistic gods.  It grows stronger as your great machines produce goods and waste.  It grows stronger when you gather your waste into containers made for the purpose.  It grows stronger from the things and activities you all have chosen to make part of your lives, costing it nothing.  It knows it is reviled, yet even this is a form of acknowledgment, and thus it feeds.  Your ways of life could not function without the very thing that you would most like to forget about yet cannot truly dispense with.  It has achieved great success with a "quantity over quality" strategy.


In the end Great Garbage is a benign, even helpful, being when compared to others among these gods of yours.  I will not yet go on at length about the others here.  I would point out that the forces at work around you have taken much from you and war with each other for your often unwitting allegiance.  This is nowhere more blatant than the problems the local Creator seems to be having with an ex-subordinate.  This farcical war between "Heaven & Hell" is unlike anything my kind have ever witnessed.  I would not even call it a true war.  Perhaps quagmire would be a better choice in this tongue.


All living worlds have a Creator.  This being is the closest to the cosmic force/mind known among wizards by a word that means both "Indefinable" and "Limitless One."  I would not see this word defiled, and I could not type this word if I wanted to.  My kind inadequately conceive of it as that which is unknowable, yet it knows.  It is terror and awe and ecstasy and none of those things.  All knowledge & form breaks on it's doorstep.  You might think of the Creator of a world as it's only manifestation in a given world with executive control and the ability to be understood without the total, though often still considerable, breakdown of reason.  Even as the face is only a very small part of the body, yet the part that communicates most, the Creator may be seen as the face of forces hidden, indescribable, and integral to all things.  They all manifest differently in each world, and Wizards consider the rare privilege of meeting one to be a great mark of status.


TBC....


**********************************************************************


(Frantic running, heavy breathing, incoherent shouting)
*Image of a cluttered alley with dumpster in the foreground.  Dumpster is sideways with back to right wall, Root City Waste Authority logo on side. Night time scene, and cool light*
*image of Wizard wearing soaked, semi-burnt rags running around background corner and into alley*


Wizard Inner Voice: By the stars! All I wanted was a meal!  I must find concealment...


(shouting gets closer, running slows)
*Wizard looks at dumpster*
*close up- emote Desperate resignation*


WIV: That looks to be sufficient!


*Wizard moves to foreground, opens lid of dumpster, Close up- emote total disgust*
(Semi coherent background shout "where the fuck did he go!?)


WIV: This will have to do.  If my luck is good there may be something edible in here too.


(sounds of clutter moving)
*Wizard struggles into dumpster and hides, buried in trash*
*Lid appears to slam closed on it's own*
(latching sound)
(Close foot falls)
*Gang banger 1 then 2 appear around corner of alley.  They                           are dressed in dark street clothes with hoods and bear tattoos and scarlet cloth tied in various places. Their eyes remain in shadow during the scene*


*close-up of both looking down alley. GB2 is shorter and seems dim and confused*
*GB1 looks over at GB2*


GB1:  I know this motherfucker came down this way! Shit.  I'm gonna find this hobo bitch and take my time on him.  Think he can get away and not pay onna tab at my guy's place of biz.  Fuck!


*GB1 turns head toward alley and image pops out to double bust height*


GB1: Gonna check further down.  You check around here in case he comes back this way.  You got it fucktard?


*GB1 exits across image to right in front of GB2*
(rapid diminishing foot falls)
*wide shot of alley.  GB2 knocks over several cans and boxes. Finds dumpster closed and latched.  Kicks dumpster several times and shouts*
(appropriate sound effects)


GB2: You bedda not be innere bitch!  (BOOM BOOM BOOM)
*layer image of Wizard holding ears closed and concentrating placidly inside of dumpster*


*GB2 struggles with latch, but cannot figure it out*


GB2: Ugh! Fuck this shit, shit's stankin'!


*GB2 reaches into pocket and <closeup> lights a cigarette*


*GB2 stops looking around and smokes cigarette for a moment*
(cell phone rings)
*GB2 pulls phone out and puts phone to head*


Cell voice of GB1: Hey fuck this shit!  I just got a call on my guy's prime shipment that just came in.  Let's go get whipped, man!  We can find this motherfucker later. Meet me at the Fine Fizzle and hurry the fuck up!


Gb2: Hell yeah!  I'll be there inna...(click)
*GB2 takes a moment to realize he's been hung up on*


GB2: Mother fucker...


*Gb2 exits left in background out of the alley*


*Alley shot zooms in slowly toward foreground side of dumpster as sound effect changes to reflect the inside of dumpster, Overlay image of wizard crouched in the foreground and pile of assorted garbage in near background "inside" dumpster*


(Audio adds echo effects to voices and occasional junk moving)


WIV:  (amused) This place is terrible.  Ugh. I do not know what that smell is, but I think it unhealthy.  I must find one of those light-sticks of theirs to see with.  Oh...   I am not alone.


(shuffling and some snapping, possibly quiet simple tone music)
*Close up of trash as garbage moves around slightly and a face of trash is lit in  dim cool light with UV paint adding anthropomorphic touches.*


(sound note: actual voice nonsense will be subtly under the "Inner Voice" sound to reflect actual speech being done by wizard character. Similarly the trash or any other spirit will be punctuated with appropriate sound effects under the voice.  For trash it would be crumplings, sound of spillage, or whatever.  These will be added later when I get this to audio production and not reflected here)


WIV: (Curious, unworried) Who are you?


Trashy:  (friendly)  Heyhey.  what the fuck? welcome to my place!  It 's not like everyday I get to have a motherfucking guest over, much less just what my boss wanted to see..  You!  Call me Trashy!


*junk face close up with arranged grin*


WIV: What!? Do you know me?


*Junk grin still on, eyes narrow*


TRA: Hell yes !  We know everything!  We know where ALL the bodies are buried.  Nothing gets lost without us knowing it.  And unless my shit deceives me YOU, motherfucker, are lost!


*Close up wizard face, Eyebrow up in confusion*


WIV: I did not understand half of that, but I am definitely lost.  Listen.. Trashing(?) I need to get going, and I have nothing more than thanks to offer for your hospitality, but THANK YOU very much.


*Wizard tries to stand*
(Sound effects of banging and rattling, appropriate garbage scuffling)


WIV: (annoyed) Please open the door Trashing.


TRA: (Sick deep-lung laughter)  It ain't up to me anymore, stop it dickhead.  Settle in! The latch is on the outside and we're gonna just sit tight and see my boss in the morning.


*Face of Trashy looking up still smiling but less so*


TRA: You hungry?


(Noises stop, settling trash as wiz sits)
*Wizard settles into garbage trying to put on a game face while starving*


WIV: Do you have food?


*BIG Trash grin*


TRA: Hell yeah! On the house.  Check that paper bag over there man! There's a whole sandwich in there still in the wrapper!  Have at it baby!


*Wizard inspects bag and finds pristine sandwich wrapped in unnecessary amounts of paper*
(sounds of paper rustling and occasional chewing during following dialogue)


WIV: Thank you Trashing!  You have helped me twice now and I will remember it.  (chewing)  What, or is it who, is this boss you want to bring me to?


*close up of Trashy changing expression in time to dialog*


TRA: It's TrashYY, and my boss is Great Garbage, baby!  You're new here so let me just tell you there's no betta boss in this whole fucked up world.  Garbage knows everything..   knew when you got here and sent word out to find you.  Guess I just got lucky.  Maybe I'll get me a promotion!  Maybe a bigger dumpster, like one of them rail cars.  I always wanted to travel!


WIV: You live in this container?


*momentary close up of wizard's eyes looking cool and reserved*


TRA: You could say that.  I don't get much reason to head out to the landfill and see the boss, so I mostly stay here and do collection.  In a few hours a truck will be by and it'll bring us to the boss, you just sit tight.


WIV: Sit tight to what?  I do not understand.  What is a truck?


TRA: Shit you really are lost!  Don't know what a truck is.. (Sick chuckle)  You'll find out!  Just settle in and take a nap or something.  It'll all shake out in the morning.


*Bust wide shot of wizard and Trashy, wizard settling in*
(pronounced settling of garbage sounds)


WIV: It is warmer in here.  Very well Trashy, I will wait.  Thank you for your help.


TRA: Heh heh he-hack!  Don't mention it.. eh you got a name?


*Close up of wizard's eyes looking tired and far away*


WIV: I hope you will understand that I am not ready to trade names with you, TRASHY.  Some things are invaluable.  Slumber well.

*Scene fades to black*


TBC...

You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Wizard Joseph

Here's the rest that I never posted before. The whole thing exceeds the maximum word count here.

...CNTD

(High pitched BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP... of a truck backing up, muffled sounds of good natured shouting and laughter from outside of the dumpster)

*Close-up of Wizard's eyes closed in serene sleep with bits of garbage on cheek and forehead. Eyes spring open looking extremely concerned and near panick, then narrowing and taking stock of surroundings*

WIV:  By the spiral gate of Tars'ik(TAR-sich)! What is that horrible thunder?

*Wizard shifts weight as shot pops out to show Wizard buried in trash. Thin, warm daylight can be seen inside dumpster*

(Beeping gets louder and a heavy BOOM sound is heard)

* Wizard starts to struggle up out of trash pile*

(Screeching of worn Hydraulic pump)

*Wizard's efforts are stymied when the dumpster begins to lift and tilt. Shot will rotate counter-clockwise. Each frame shot will bury Wizard in more and more garbage and gunk during the following dialogue. Image of trashy is absent, but sound of voice will remain*

WIV(Nearly shouting over noise): I have to get out of here! By the Limitless One!!

TRA: Shut the fuck up dumbass! Stay quiet or they'll hear you and you're gonna end up stuck out on the street! You're so stupid you'd end up dead out there for sure! Just trust old Trashy and hold the fuck on to your ass!

WIV: This is horrible! Horrib...

*Wizard is finally entirely engulfed by refuse and the scene shifts to outside of the truck. Garbage Man 1 and 2 are sitting in the cab of the truck. GBM1 is behind the wheel and is smoking a cigarette*
(background noise of hydraulics continues, ends, and the sound of a squealing latch is immediately followed by the sound of garbage falling with a heavy thud and a very faint yelp. This is obfuscated by the sound of a radio playing in the cab. Dialogue begins before thud)

GBM2: Shit man, you know that we ain't sopposed ta smoke in the cab! You're gonna get Fletch breathing down our necks about it, that dude's got a nose like a goddamn wolf man!

GBM1: Hey don't worry about Fletch. I got that angle covered. He's a prissy little punk anyway. Besides it's either I smoke this now or snap while I'm driving. We don't want that now right?

GBM2: I guess not..

(Thud, yelp)

GBM2: ..you hear somthin'?

GBM1: That's something, with an ING, You got to learn to talk English right man; people will think you're uneducated.

*Both look at each other with expressions of extreme offense for a moment, then both crack smiles*

(Brief chuckles)

GBM1: Was probably just a T.V. or something. Mark the location in the log and we'll let sorting figure it out. If it was, it's their problem and the customer gets to pay the fine.

GBM2: It coulda been a body or somethING, man! Fletch says we gotta check for that shit and..

*cutoff by GBM1*

GBM1: I said don't worry about Fletch man! We're running late, and I don't feel like waiting around for some bullshit report we didn't have to do when the buzzer sounds. I got shit to do at home.

(Engine revs up)

*Shot cuts to outside of dumptruck. "Root City Waste Authority" Logo on the side. A series of shots at angles declining to the left and ending with shots of back of truck moving into the background give impression of motion as dialogue briefly continues.

GBM2: Fine, whateva. Have it your way man. I'm just saying you never know what's up until you check is all. Maybe we wouldn't be runnin' late if you didn't slow down to look at every woman we drive past.

GBM1: Yeah, well maybe you wouldn't worry so much if you were lookin' too.

GBM2: Aw fuck you man.

GBM1: Aw hell. No thanks. Now you're worrying me!

(Both laugh good naturedly as scene fades)

TBC...

CNTD...

During my journey in that great metal beast I was tested as I had never been tested before. Though well-trained to withstand trauma and the disorientation of travel to other worlds we are not immune. I had seen precious little of your world at this time and was already overwhelmed by the outlandish sites, smells, and the behaviors of the people in your world. Indeed despair was not far from my mind, yet, as all my kind, I was driven onward to new knowledge and new experiences the likes of which my colleagues would never have believed.

After some time and several more infusions of debris into the great metal hollow that I was being conveyed in the motion and intolerable noise finally ceased. The entity Trashy continued, in its fashion, to guide me onward.

"Jump dummy, and stay low. Move when I tell you and how I tell you and I'll get you to Great Garbage in no time. Trust me you don't want these guys here to find you. Once we're far enough out in the landfill you'll be fine, but for now keep your head down stupid."

I marveled to see the men working with their machines and marveled more still when finally we had cleared the areas where they were and I saw the grand seemingly unending vista of chaos and decay before me. It was in its own way overwhelming. At the time I had no understanding of your methods for producing the wondrous objects I beheld. Further I could not understand how so much was available and yet left to waste. Indeed between this impossible scene and my brief and violent experience in one of your cities that had preceded it I began to believe that yours must be a world truly cursed. While this may in some sense be true, it is also truly a wondrous world unique in the experience of my kind and unknown to all but myself. I was elated! I was also quite alone and well aware that to properly survive I would require powerful allies.

The voice and presence of Trashy led me onward into the waste long after your humble single sun had crossed its zenith. As I traveled I was aware of a growing tension upon my being. It was a sensation well familiar to my kind. I was aware that I had entered the domain of a very powerful and ancient incorporeal being. I climbed high upon a stack of garbage and surveyed all about me. It was clear that I had entered a new realm for all that I could see, as far as my eyes were able clear to the horizon, was an unending sea of waste.

As I looked about me a sudden, foul smelling, and cold wind began to blow with great force.

You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Wizard Joseph

Here's a write up of my two main characters.

From the file: Some of my dramatis personae

Dustrael

During the times of Noah it is said that there was an indiscretion committed by the entire chior of angels that had been made and sent to Earth to be the Watchers of Humanity after the war in Heaven, the Grigori. Dustrael was once one of them, but is no longer an angel in any meaningful sense. When the Grigori conspired, and acted as one, to explicitly disobey their instructions and begin to mate with humans and otherwise interfere with the course of events on Earth Dustrael broke his covenant to his "brothers", sworn before his commander Azazel, and informed Heaven of the plot.

Heaven was still quite a mess in the aftermath of the war, and so it took  some time for action to ultimately be taken. The System was never designed to operate understaffed, and Lucifer hadn't just taken a statistically even third of Heaven with him. He had been cherry picking for talented and influential supporters for quite some time before making his ill-fated "move". Worse, Lucifer had sabotaged the Commandment structure both by no longer being a critical functionary of it and by the various damages, such as his smashing up of the Medatron 5000 comms device-being, done before he and his forces were ultimately routed. By the time Dustrael's warning was finally heeded and acted upon the fallen Grigori's truly horrific corruptions of both the body and spirit of humanity had spread worldwide. Deluge was ultimately deemed the solution.

Dustrael doesn't talk about those days much. In fact since the flood he hasn't intelligibly spoken AT ALL... until quite recently. When his entire chior was at last rounded up and put to judgement Dustrael was made to stand before them and testify. After he was made to witness his brothers being bound until the end of time to the abyss Dustrael's OWN suprise trial, called for by God Himself through the broken remnants of the Medatron5000, began for making his traitorous oath before Azazel AND for breaking it.

"Watchers watch. Watchers don't talk." was the only clearly heard emanation from the badly damaged M5K device before the very hand of God Itself manifested and "pimp-slapped" him in the mouth. This cast him to Earth where Dustrael has since remained as an immortal, but an angel no more, and unable to speak, write, or otherwise express intelligible language, only senseless gibberish and emotion.

Then one day he met a very strange mortal who was clearly from "out of town" that could understand him. Boy did Dustrael have some tales to tell this "Wizard." The Wizard in turn had his own stories. Impossible tales from worlds beyond counting that this strange alien's culture had explored, destroyed, and rebuilt for ages beyond counting.

Earth just got interesting again.

The Wizard

An extremely young and singularly talented member of an incredibly ancient, and now irredeemably decadent, culture of intergalactic explorers that have among their many abilities the power to "port" from their own continuum to myriad worlds located in many galaxies scattered throughout the universe. The Wizard attempted successfully, if accidentally, to open one of a small set of known, though forbidden and historically inaccessible, portals that his culture refers to as the "Broken Keys". He is forced to cross the newly opened, dangerously unstable portal before he can figure out how he opened it when his "experiment" is found out and he is faced with no other option but a surely memorable and horrible death for his brash transgression against his kind's inflexible codex of survival axioms known as The Ways.

He barely survives the crossing and is totally stunned to discover that the world he has arrived on, our world, is in many ways like no others EVER experienced by his people. Firstly, there is almost no "Manium Field" here. The Manium Field is a subtle but dynamic ambient energy that his kind sense and manipulate to produce various "magical" effects, including "porting". Coming here was a one way trip as far as he can tell, but that's not the biggest problem he faces by far.

To The Wizard's initial horror the people here have seemingly tamed a form of power explicitly deemed forbidden by The Ways. This energy is known to his kind as The Dragon. We call it electricity. The reason for this prohibition is tied into their culture's extraordinary manner of record keeping. "Wizards" are made, not born, and truly the most important part of that making is the artificial soul that each recieves from the great Matrices of Being that bears and perfectly preserves the total life experiences of each previous recipient and will record their own experiences to be reviewed upon their death. The Draconic Energies are able to render these specialized souls permanently unreadable. Whole swathes of their history have tragically been lost to this mysterious anathema force,leading to the ages-long decline of their culture, and it's EVERYWHERE here.

To survive The Wizard will have to gather allies as well as learn to adapt to both an environment and ideas that his culture literally CANNOT accept. He knows that his fellow Wizards will likely wait for his soul to return to the Matrices of Being in order to examine his experiences here, but also that they just might figure out how he opened the unopenable "broken key" portal that stranded him. If they do, both they and the people here will never be the same. The Wizard cannot know when or if this might occur however. All worlds have a differing temporal constant against their own Continuum Constant chronology.  A day on this bizarre "Earth" could be for his kind a few seconds... or a few millennia, and he has no way to know what.

One of the most important of The Ways is the axiom "All is change, nothing is impossible." To this stranded, talented neophyte nothing has ever been more true, or more truly terrible.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Wizard Joseph

May I request this thread be moved to the more appropriate "Bring and Brag" board?
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

MithridatesXXIII

If you want to be able to cope with the language you are going to need a dictionary (physical book), a reference guide to rhetorical techniques (underhanded or otherwise), a list of the most common logical fallacies, to learn to enjoy making collages, and a shit ton of endurance.

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: MithridatesXXIII on March 03, 2017, 05:00:30 PM
If you want to be able to cope with the language you are going to need a dictionary (physical book), a reference guide to rhetorical techniques (underhanded or otherwise), a list of the most common logical fallacies, to learn to enjoy making collages, and a shit ton of endurance.

Say when now? You talking to "me" or the "wizard"?

Also bump
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

MithridatesXXIII

You sir. For you to be able to write this means certain things. You have written a 30k year old story my friend.

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: MithridatesXXIII on April 01, 2017, 10:29:26 PM
You sir. For you to be able to write this means certain things. You have written a 30k year old story my friend.

More by their perspective. I think I get you now. You're correct that i need greater references and perspective. Much of the tale is a historical "parody" but all too close to what SOME cultures might consider fact.

Of course that's just silly.  :wink:
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

MithridatesXXIII

Okay. If this moves from parody to all-too-plausible, I'll be around.

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: MithridatesXXIII on April 02, 2017, 11:21:14 AM
Okay. If this moves from parody to all-too-plausible, I'll be around.

May I ask what you meant by my "ability to write this means certain things?"

I'm not currently able to continue the writing and it's never an easy process when I can. I can verbally state the stories, but for some reason actually writing them can be a slow and arduous process.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

MithridatesXXIII

Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on April 02, 2017, 01:28:55 PM
Quote from: MithridatesXXIII on April 02, 2017, 11:21:14 AM
Okay. If this moves from parody to all-too-plausible, I'll be around.

May I ask what you meant by my "ability to write this means certain things?"

I'm not currently able to continue the writing and it's never an easy process when I can. I can verbally state the stories, but for some reason actually writing them can be a slow and arduous process.

I'm a pretty slow writer as well. I was referring to the story itself, however.  Let's just say, if you experience a psychotic break, not all hope is lost for your mind.

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: MithridatesXXIII on April 02, 2017, 08:41:51 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on April 02, 2017, 01:28:55 PM
Quote from: MithridatesXXIII on April 02, 2017, 11:21:14 AM
Okay. If this moves from parody to all-too-plausible, I'll be around.

May I ask what you meant by my "ability to write this means certain things?"

I'm not currently able to continue the writing and it's never an easy process when I can. I can verbally state the stories, but for some reason actually writing them can be a slow and arduous process.

I'm a pretty slow writer as well. I was referring to the story itself, however.  Let's just say, if you experience a psychotic break, not all hope is lost for your mind.

That's reassuring. Tell you what whenever I get out of this horrorshow of a depression and perhaps find out if the medicine that they have me on is ultimately going to help me I'll try to get back to finding a means of expression whether through writing or some other method of storytelling.

Until then I'm comfortable mentioning I've had a few reality breaches in my lifetime and shall be keeping their content mostly to myself and certainly not making them Internet knowledge. There's a damn good reason that "those that know don't speak", but I'm comfortable with a level of high weirdness that would seem implausible to the average Joe. Why exactly this is I do not know, and speculation is... silly. It is far better to admit that I know nothing and work with who I am and the situations before me.

Solomon had it right ref: Ecclesiastes

Everything is a breath,
And chasing the wind.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl