Turkey day!

Hey y'all, its thanksgiving here in the USA so that means I have consumed about 10,000 calories in pie form and stuffed myself silly on turkey. Because its thanksgiving , I suppose I should say how I'm thankful for this and that and blah, blah, blah, but thats not the way I roll (and you know it) so instead I will post...
um....
I will post...
errrrrr...
I will post... an excuse for why the next part of Blind Ravens hasn't come out yet. Yeah, that will work. The excuse for why I haven't posted the next part of Mea and Leander's adventure is because I am lazy, simple as that :)
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Blind Ravens, part 1

It was a lovely September day, clean and crisp with a brilliant blue sky over gentility rolling green hills. A hawk swooped out of the sky and landed on an old apple tree whose branches where heavy with fruit. It was the kind of day that made you smile and feel glad you were yourself. Mea saw none of it. She couldn’t see the hills, or the apple tree, or the hawk, all she saw was the darkness that had blocked her sight since she was a very small girl. She traveled along the dirt road, tapping along with her staff to check if the way was clear as she walked. She couldn’t see, but she could hear exceptionally well and so when she heard footsteps coming around the bend, she could tell it was one person, a man, most likely. Mea had been listening so hard, that she lost concentration on the road and tripped her staff flying out of her hand. She swore passionately and started feeling around for the damned stick, knowing it had probably rolled under a thorn bush or something with her luck like it had been for the last few months. I heard the man’s foot steps approaching, pause briefly, and then continued on as he walked over. The man handed me my staff and I gripped his hand and pulled myself up

“Thanks” Mea said, brushing her long and tattered cloak off and smiling at a place where she thought the man’s face would be.

“Did anything else fall out of my pack?” She wondered, but the man didn’t say anything

“Cat got your tongue?” She giggled, but there was real curiosity behind the laugh. The man moved her fingers to his chin so Mea could feel him nod,

“You can’t talk at all?” gasped Mea, wondering what had happened to him; the man shook his head and said haltingly in a scratchy voice

“Talk… little… hurts... badly” Mea felt him shrug “bye…” he started to walk away, but Mea followed him

“What is your name?” she asked

“Leander…”

“I’m Mea” she said cheerfully “This road leads to the sea port of La Ruse, are you going there?” she put her hand to his chin so she could feel him nod “I love the sea,” she said, sounding wistful “I can’t even see it, but still I know the power it holds. Have you ever seen the sea?” Leander shook his head

“It’s amazing, but the sea post is very dangerous.”

“How…?” Leander asked in his rusty voice. Mea just shook her head

“You’ll see when you get there, mein freund”

***

In his forty-something years as owner of the Crossroads Inn, Benjamin had seen a lot of things that could be listed as “odd”, but the pair that had just entered the inn where definitely at the top of the list. The two looked to be about the same age; the girl was blind, with a black cloth tied over her eyes and had long white blonde hair that fell in a braid to the middle of her back. She was talking nonstop to a young man who was about a head taller then her, with dark hair and eyes. The young man guided the girl by her elbow to the bar counter and the girl smiled at a place slightly to Benjamin’s left

“Are there any rooms available for the night?” she asked with a light German accent

“Not many people traveling these day’s, so there should be a room ready for ya”

“Two rooms would be wunderbar; will this cover them and a hot meal?” Benjamin barely noticed what the girl was saying because his attention was captured by the four dully gleaming gold coins that the girl had placed on the bar counter.

“That would be more then enough.” He said in a slightly choked voice, swiftly sweeping the coins into the pocket of his grubby apron. “I’ll have a girl bring the meal over, just go get a table” he retreated quickly to the kitchen.

“Friendly little bugger…” Mea muttered sarcastically. The inn only had a few people in it, so Mea and Leander got a good table by the fire; the severing girl brought them a suburb lamb stew which Mea promptly inhaled. She sopped up the last of the stew with a piece of bread and stood, grabbing her staff from where it leaned against an empty chair.

“I’m going to bed. I need to get an early start tomorrow.”

“’Night…”

“Goodnight Leander”

Random XD

Hey y'all, I'm NOT going to be posting the next part oh my fanfic because I can't seem to get my butt in gear and type the damn thing :( but on a happier note i will be posting a new non-Skulduggery story. It will not be a fanfic and will not feature any of my OC's, so that means no Bridget, Tanya, Anarchy, Bone... nadda, zip, zulch. So bottom line is I've stopped doing fanfic for a while, but don't worry, i will continue fanfic-ing soon enough.



in the mean time, please enjoy this random pic of my new desktop wallpaper (i made it myself)






 I have to put it down there so it won't run into my other stuff











































 

I don't want to get in trouble, so all images are copyrighted to their respective owners :D

Hmmm... I really have NO idea what to call this storyline

 The Dead Men Tales was sorta like a prologue to this storyline (just thought you might want to know)

Ghastly walked through the halls of the Roarhaven sanctuary, trying not to look as depressed as he felt, it had been one year exactly since the remnant had taken over Tanith and, asides from that one short encounter with Valkyrie, no one had heard anything about her. He opened the door to his office and was surprised to see a girl waiting for him, leaning against the wall. She had grown a few inches, and the freckles that had once covered her face had retreated to just the bridge of her nose. Her hair was still a mass of curly red, but her slightly crazy grin was still the same.

“Bone?” asked Ghastly, rather shocked and Bone grinned wider

“Hey Ghastly!” she squealed, giving him a rib-crunching hug

“Ow, turn the enthusiasm down a bit please” Bone rolled her eyes, but let go

“It’s great to see you again” Ghastly said truthfully “I haven’t seen you in nearly, what, two hundred years?”

“At least” Bone looked around the room “are you Grand Mage now or something? I haven’t been in Ireland in about seventy years, so I’m out of the loop” Ghastly shook his head

“I’m not Grand Mage, Erskine is”

“Whaaaattttt? Who in the right mind would elect Erskine as Grand Mage?”

“Welcome to Ireland, where everyone is crazy”

“It’s because there’s too many leprechauns” Bone nodded wisely and started to rummage through Ghastly’s desk “If you aren’t Grand Mage then why do you have a nice office?”

“I’m on the council of the elders”

“Really?”

“Yes, now stop going through my desk”

“I’m an American citizen; it’s my right to be annoying”

“I’m on the council of the elders; it’s my right to kick you out”

“But you won’t, because you are too overjoyed to see me to kick me out” Ghastly had to grin

“True, true…” his smile faded as he saw the picture that Bone was examining. The picture was one of Tanith on the pier by Valkyrie’s house. She wasn’t really looking at the camera, but sort of turned to the side and trying to push Valkyrie off of the pier and into the ocean, but Valkyrie was using air manipulation to keep from falling. They where laughing and it was obvious that they both where having a grand time.

“Is this your girlfriend?” Bone looked up from the picture and saw his face “Oh, god, what happened? You look like she died or something” Ghastly struggled to compose his face and didn’t say anything

“What happened?” asked Bone again “Ghastly, I’m just going to keep bugging you till you tell me.” He sighed

“When the remnants escaped a year ago, one possessed Tanith and no one has seen her since, happy?” Bone didn’t answer at once, just looked hard at the picture. Ghastly sighed again and started to reorganize the papers on his desk that Bone had messed up.

“I’ve seen her” Bone sounded slightly surprised

“What?”

“I’ve seen Tanith, and recently too. I saw her waiting around at the airport when I got on the plane to Ireland. She looked, rather different, then the way she looks in this picture, but I’m sure it’s the same person.”

“What do you mean she looked ‘rather different’?”

“She dyed her hair black, but her eyes are the same and the way she dresses is the same” Ghastly shook his head

“Even if it was Tanith, she still wouldn’t be the same; the remnant has been in her for a year now.” Bone razed an eyebrow

“Give me a month and Tanith will be back to normal.”

“Bone, listen! The remnant has been with her for a year its permanent now.”

“I’m a genius, am I not? I’ll examine the receptacle and find out a way to get rid of the remnant while some friends track down Tanith. Easy.” Ghastly tried to igrore the hope that was swelling inside him, while at the same time struggling to think of a suitable argument, Bone took advantage of his silence to pull out her phone and started texting rapid-fire.

“Fine” Bone looked up from her phone

“Eh?”

“I’ll get Skulduggery to tell you where the receptacle is and I’ll get together a group of people to track down Tanith” Bone shook her head

“I got the group together already; I just need to look at the receptacle and your girlfriend will be back in no time.”

“Who's in the group?” asked Ghastly and she held up her phone so he could see the names there. He smiled as he read the names, letting the hope show.

The Dead Men Tales: Part 3

Corrival sat in his tent, reading some reports while at the same time eating the rather delicious stew that was his supper. It was late, about 10pm and his eyes stubbornly refused to focus on the paper in front of him, he sighed and put the paper down. Corrival wondered what was taking the Dead Men and Bone so long; it was only a 3 hour walk to Castle Bancrook and Bone had assured him that it wouldn’t take long to find the papers, he sighed again and pressed the heals of his palms into his eyes. Whatever the reason for the Dead Men being late, it would have to wait till tomorrow he was about to get up from his chair when Bone burst suddenly into the tent. Corrival jumped violently and his elbow landed in his stew dish

“Bone! What happened to you?” Bone was covered in blood and gore and had a piece of what looked like someone’s spleen stuck in her hair

“Hey Corrival, I got the papers you wanted” she said with a broad grin, obviously amused at his reaction to her gore-drenched state. The rest of the Dead Men entered the tent in a slightly less exuberant fashion and they all settled down at the round table in the center of the tent.

“What happened?” asked Corrival, his sleepiness forgotten “Did you find the papers?” Bone nodded happily and pulled the stack of papers out of her jacket

“Yup, it’s all here. Baron Vengeance ordered the construction of a bomb that, when triggered, releases a chemical into the air.”

“What does the chemical do?” Anton asked the question that was on all of their minds

“It renders all magic useless” Bone paused to let that sink in, then continued “Elementals, Adepts, Symbol casters, Healers… You name it, it would be useless” She looked around the table at all the grim faces “Luckily for you all, you have a brilliant scientist-”

“Have I met her?” interrupted Dexter and Bone gave him a withering look

“As I was saying…” she said snootily “I am brilliant and I managed to cross-wire the bomb-” Dexter interrupted again

“They had already built the bomb?”

“Yes, there was already a smaller prototype bomb with an effective range of about 50 yards built” Bone said with thinly veiled frustration “But I cross-wired the bomb that took a team of geniuses almost 4 months to build in about 2 minutes, then-”

“But…” started Dexter

“Will you just let me give my report?!” Bone half shrieked and Dexter fell silent “Thank you” she said grumpily “I cross-wired the bomb and then stole the plans. The war will probably be over by the time they build another bomb” She didn’t sound grumpy anymore, but very pleased with herself, so Dexter risked a question.

“Why did you cross-wire the bomb?”

“Because I’m a genius”

“You did it just because you could?”

“No idiot, I cross-wired the bomb so that it would explode and remove the powers of all the mages in castle Bancrook”

“When will the bomb go off?” asked Skulduggery and Bone looked at her watch

“It went off about an hour ago. I suggest that someone go over to Bancrook and see what happened, it was only a prototype bomb after all, it might not have worked” Corrival agreed and Bone ran off to go find a volunteer.

“How did she get covered in blood like that?” asked Corrival once she was out of the tent, then he amended “How did you all get covered in blood?”

“There was a fight. Bone did really well, actually” Dexter said, sounding a bit reluctant

“You sound surprised,” said a grumpy voice from the tent entrance and they all turned to look at scowling Bone

“Oh, this’ll be good” said Erskine, leaning his chair back on two legs and watching the storm brew

“Did you doubt that I could take care of myself? Did you think I would just be a burden?” demanded Bone. Dexter looked slightly abashed and didn’t say anything, Bone glared at him for a few moments, then turned to Corrival.

“I got someone to go and see what’s happening at Bancrook” she told him “I’m going to my tent now, if you don’t need me for anything else.”

“No, go get some sleep, you did well” Bone nodded and gave Dexter a parting glare before exiting the command tent. Dexter waited till she was out of the tent, then looked around at them all

“To tell you the truth…” he said reluctantly “She’s really rather terrifying” Bone popped her head back in the tent

“I heard that”

Awesome Jacket!

Hey y'all! I've been thinking about the uniform that the good guys in the war would where and I came up with this: a dark brown jacket over a sky blue sleeveless jerkin with gray pants and heavy duty boots. I made the jacket out of fake leather left over from my brothers Halloween costume, I haven't made the jerkin or pants yet, and I'm NOT going to make the boots, cheers!

Goodbye Flo...

Goodbye Flo! We will all miss you! You are a very talented writer and you shouldn't let your nasty mum tell you what to do. I'm going to keep my blog black for the rest of the month in honor of you.

The Dead Men Tales: Part 2

They walked swiftly through the castle, staying away from the busier corridors and ducking out of sight when ever someone passed. They reached a heavy wooden door and Skulduggery swiftly picked the lock,

“Stay here and guard the door” said Bone, slipping into the room. Not even three minutes later, a bell started to clang an alarm. They had found Bones’ handiwork at the outside gate. Ghastly pushed open the door and called out

“Bone, we need to go, now!”

“Thirty more seconds” Bone was rifling through a stack of papers at a feverish pace “Where is it? Where is it? GOT IT!” she stuffed a pile of papers in her coat pocket and ran out of the room, Ghastly hot on her heals. The little group managed to get through the corridors without being spotted, but when they reached the front gates, a small army of mages waited for them.

“Stay behind us, Bone” Erskine warned, but she sank into a fighting stance nonetheless. “Of course…” he muttered before the enemy mages attacked. Skulduggery and Erskine clicked their fingers and sent fireball after fireball into the sorcerers’ ranks, Ghastly and Dexter fired punches at whoever got close and Anton prepared to let his gist out. Bone just stood there, smiling faintly at the chaos that raged around her. An elemental charged her with fire in both his hands and her smile grew wider, she dodged to one side and lightly tapped the elemental's outstretched arm as he rushed past her. The bones in his arm shattered and he screeched surprisingly high.

“You’re a bone breaker?” asked Dexter as he applied a painful-looking arm lock on a mage

“Among other things” Bone said as she tapped the elemental's head, his skull shattered in the rather messy way skulls tend to do while shattering, she stepped away from the mêlée and closed her eyes. Spikes of something white erupted from Bone’s fingers, turning her hands into claws and her arms grew protective ridges. Spines shot from her shoulders in such a way that looked not unlike wings and her face was covered in plates of the stuff that Dexter now realized was bone.

“Impressive” he said reluctantly as she snapped off a spine of bone from her shoulder and hurled it into the back of one of the three men Ghastly was fending off at once.

“Look out everyone!” called Anton a second before he released his gist. It screeched and tore around the battle field, causing almost as much damage to the enemy ranks as Bone was. The gist flew around, tearing out the throats of as many people as it could as Erskine, Ghastly and Dexter each took a few steps back so they could catch their breaths and Bone joined them, panting slightly. Skulduggery kept throwing punches and fireballs to equal effect. The gist started screeching awfully as Anton reeled it back toward his body and within seconds the battle field was quite.

“That was fun” Bone said cheerfully, wiping gore from her face (she had been standing to close when the gist tore through someone)

“You have… a very… twisted… idea of fun” panted Anton, still trying to ketch his breath from the effort of pulling the gist back into him. Bone shrugged and Skulduggery –who had been inspecting her shoulder spikes- jumped back to avoid getting skewered.

“Sorry,” Bone closed her eyes and the bone spikes retracted quickly

“How do you do that?” wondered Skulduggery and Bone shrugged again

“I dunno... I’ve always been able to do it, but with practice, I got really good at it” she shrugged for the third time.

“But doesn’t it hurt?” Ghastly asked and Bone smiled a gorgeous smile

“It’s excruciating” she said cheerfully “let's get these reports back to Corrival"