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  Elder Scrolls Arena?

[Character:]

Character: Baron - I wanted to hear more about Allakhan Abbot.
Plot: Sinitrena - Straightforward and related to the theme.
Background World: Baron - Lots of fun background on the kooky elves.
Word Choice/Style: LostTrainDude - Unique way of telling a story, having a narrator relay a conversation overheard in bar.
Happiness: Sinitrena - The story was centered on a selfless main character who wanted to make someone else happy.

My reaction.

My reaction to your reaction.

  Holy cow this is awesome.  Great job!

  Anian's edit is scary, though whatever style you go with don't lose that creepy eyehole.

It wouldn't matter how many armed men there were, if we'd just build that damn trap door!

Yes!  I'm telling you...Punji stakes and/or stocked with hungry lions.

And the bigger the unsuspicious lever the better!

Time Bandits?

Yep.

Here is an old one:
LPB - Low Ping Bitch...A player who has a good connection which helps their playability in an online game and thus causing other envious, players and/or HPB (High Ping Bitches) to complain.

  Welcome (back?) to the board, which apparently is in America.

 

2 Guns?

Gold: Arj0n
Silver: Tabata
Bronze: Eric

It was the best day of my life and I didn't even know it at the time.  I crack up uncontrollably whenever I reminisce about that life-changing day.  My name is Jeff Rathkins and this is a retelling of THE turning point in my amazing life, prefaced with a little backstory…

My slightly older brother Brent was my complete antithesis.  For my age I was whip crack smart, and he was what I called a “meathead”.  I was severally physically disabled, and he was not only fully ambulatory but extremely athletic.  Also, I was a nice kid and Brent had the capability to be meaner than a junkyard dog.  I'd wheel myself over to the TV using the one arm that wasn't gnarled into a ball, and change the channel from the “Renny the Rat” cartoon to a nature show or something else that was at least somewhat educational.  This would cause Brent to race me across the room to a corner, shove all kinds of crap in the wheels to prevent me from moving, and inevitably change the channel back to that horrible Rat show.  Any further attempts to mess with anything he deemed his (which was pretty much everything in the house), would result in titty twisters and/or Indian burn tortures.  Occasionally he would step up his abuse game and whap me in the balls with anything that happened to be handy at the time.  I once threatened to tell Mom on him, and was reminded that “snitches get stitches Jeff.”

My father had left when I was three years old, and so eventually I had to deal with a stepfather named Cletus who often cheated on my mother when she was away on business.  He was tall and skinny with arms covered in old faded tattoos, and was probably the only person left on Earth who still sported a rat tail haircut.  Cletus completely turned his back on me to focus on drinking, listening to Winger CDs, and sometimes playing sandlot sports with Brent.  He once told me “I ain't equipped to deal with no dribbling half-tard.”  My response was, “Nor am I, Sir.”  Being a moron, he naturally didn't get the slight.  I never understood what my mother saw in him, though I guessed she didn't care as much since she was rarely around due to her busy travel schedule.  I resigned myself to the fact that it would have been hard to find a quality man that would be accepting of my physical disabilities and deformities, and so it makes sense that she would have to lower her standards.  Of course I indirectly blamed myself at the time.

So the "happy" household consisted of my abusive brother Brent, my lazy ignoramus of a stepfather Cletus, and my buddy Captain Whiskers.  Captain Whiskers was a retired barn mouser given to us by my Uncle Mike.  My Mom's brother, Mike, would make a cameo appearance about once or twice a year to the house to check on Mom, me, and his old calico colored cat and then he would return to his oil rigs where he spent most of the year making a hard, though comfortable and honest, living.  Uncle Mike previously owned a farm, but he got tired of unpredictable weather coupled with a few lean years and sold the whole thing.  I was very young, but can still recall him dropping off Captain Whiskers at our house.  The ole' Captain had kept Mike's farm cleared of everything smaller than him with fur or feathers, and he was not a little animal weighing in at solid twenty-five pounds.  Mike had mentioned that a wild lynx was actually the cat's father, and he claimed that Captain Whiskers was the “toughest anything I have ever seen.”  He emphasized that we should never taunt or otherwise disrespect him.  Brent immediately tried to terrorize it, and one serious glare combined with a threatening growl/purr from the big cat scared him off for good.  The former mouser did seem to know it was in retirement, as it kept a low profile aside from the occasional swat at a neighborhood dog or bird that got too close.  Once and a while he would jump in my lap for a brief head patting, and he was always careful to keep his large sharp claws retracted.  My Mom debated having Captain Whiskers de-clawed, but eventually decided to leave him in peace.  Mom would only occasionally remember to get high quality cat food, whereas Cletus would simply feed the cat cheap protein powder.  Regardless of a varying diet and advanced age, Captain Whiskers was strong and in great overall shape.

My brother was planning to have a big party for his ninth birthday.  All of his close neighborhood and school friends (many of whom bullied me as well) were invited, along with Callen, who's Mom Cletus was seeing on the side.  Even back then I knew something wilder than sex was happening, judging by how the house would shake when she was “visiting” while Callen was playing with Brent.  The party would include lots of great food, a big piñata, and Brent's favorite cartoon character Renny the Rodent was slated to appear, or more specifically, a local small-time drug dealer who owed Cletus a favor was going to dress up in a cheap rat costume and dance around.  Unlike my parties, which were small and humble to say the least, Brent would get the big birthday bash of his dreams! 

I designed a plan which would both entertain myself and mete out long deserved justice at the same time.  This plan was made easier by Mom not being able to join due to a last minute business trip.  Still, I was aware that the execution of said plan would involve intelligence in the Art of War and a good bit of luck which I believed I was due.  The planning and preparation phase went without a hitch, and all I had to do was show up.


My brother was just about to whack the piñata, but he paused and walked over to me and put the stick handle in my good arm.  He genuinely smiled.  Thinking that he was offering a ceremonial piñata whack to me, I immediately felt horribly guilty…that is until he grabbed the stick back and rammed the business end into my crotch.  His assembled friends laughed while I heard noises from upstairs that I knew were the opening festivities of Cletus and Callen's Mom's private party.  I slunk off into a darkened corner, pushed the switch to lock the wheelchair into place, and patted the cell phone in my chair compartment to ensure it was still there.  It had been a while since my face formed into a grin, and it felt nice to do that.

While beaming, I saw Captain Whiskers cut a swath through the crowd of kids and head to his water bowl.  He gave a few test laps of what his cat brain could tell was not water, and then he dunked his furry, whiskered face in and began slurping Red Samurai Energy Drink like it was the Fountain of Youth.  The bottle art on a Red Samurai depicted a screaming Samurai decapitating some unlucky soul who had been drinking a brand X energy drink.  I believe this absurd marketing gimmick alone lured Cletus as regular customer.

Brent, returning his attention to the piñata, glanced over at a girl he was sweet on and declared “This one's for you baby” while pointing his piñata whacker at the sky like Babe Ruth calling his shot.  He reared back and whacked the piñata with all his might to no avail.  At this point, step one of my plans was starting to take effect as I could see hands begin clutching stomachs and behinds â€" this would be the kids who had quickly scarfed down the Metamucil tainted brownies and cookies.  Brent prepared for another strike, and was interrupted by Renny the Rodent's eagerly awaited arrival!

I started shaking my head and chuckling.  My lip, which normally trembles slightly due to an involuntary facial tick, was now quivering in anticipation.  Captain Whiskers stalked his way to the piñata, looked up at it out of curiosity, and swaggered over to the couch.  He was purring much louder than normal, sounding more like a big motorcycle engine than his usual small lawnmower.  My original plans had been evolving in a different order than what I initially expected, but I was not concerned as my insidious operation was still in motion.

Moving my line of sight from the mouser turned housecat to the Renny the Rodent knockoff, I could see that he was now dancing around like a jackass and butchering the lyrics to the Renny theme song.  From the handful of shows I've watched, I didn't recall the rodent ever doing the sprinkler or the butter churn.  Brent's friends had formed a semi-circle around Renny, and some were booing, some were clapping, others were simply dumbfounded, and the rest were holding their stomachs and moaning.  I could smell Cletus's friend's body odor and liquor stank through his ratty costume and all the way to the back corner of the room.  My chuckles had now progressed into full-on giggles.

Suddenly the Renny mask came off and Cletus's idiot friend vomited into an antique spittoon, and then he put the mask back on and announced “Don't worry kids, RANNY is feeling better now!”  The few true Renny fans among the audience corrected him while shaking their heads.  Renny resumed dancing, grabbed a fireplace poker without interrupting his jig, and danced his way over to the suspended piñata - or as I knew it â€" The large papier mâché blob filled with tainted candy and the contents of three full cans of bear pepper spray.  Meanwhile, Captain Whiskers disdain was growing for what he believed was a humongous rat that was somehow marking its own territory on HIS property.  The cat's ingestion of eight hundred milligrams of caffeine was also not helping his disposition, as his big orange hued eyes stared daggers at his new arch nemesis.

Brent was sweating profusely and he headed towards the bathroom, and several other kids were lost and wandering around looking for somewhere to take care of their own stomach issues.  A few others simply curled up and moaned while passing gas.  Renny then smashed the fireplace poker into the piñata, which exploded in a shower of pepper spray and candy, and he received a macing through the eye holes of his mask for his trouble.  Nearly all of the kids were outside of the initial blast radius, but they still received enough of a dose to start rubbing their irritated eyes.  My giggles graduated into cackles of glee.

A now blinded and obviously in pain Renny the Rodent began wildly flailing his arms and careening and crashing around the main room while screaming bloody murder.  He took a pratfall into the dessert table, sending the birthday cake and the other desserts flying into kids and one cupcake nearly hit Captain Whiskers before he artfully dodged it.  A few of the kids who were in good shape were gaping in awe, some were still wandering around the house looking for the bathroom, and the rest were in the main room holding their aching stomachs and rubbing their eyes.  One kid staggered over with a hand on his behind and another rubbing his eyes, and I looked at him and said “Great party huh?!” through a big dumb grin.  His response was to collapse on top of bean bag chair and moan.  Brent stumbled back into the room and looked at me in shock, and then turned his attention to Renny the Rodent.

Renny grabbed a bowl of fruit punch, dumped it onto his rat face mask, and began shaking his big furry head from side-to-side as he backed up - it was in the process of doing that where he made a huge mistake.  One of his large rat feet stepped on Captain Whiskers's tail, and that errant foot stomp caused the retired mouser to immediately come out of retirement.

Having heard the stories from Uncle Mike, I knew what was coming.  For a brief moment I started to feel guilty for the man in the costume…until I reminded myself that he had once actually come to my school to try to sell drugs to classmates who were still in their single digits.

Captain Whiskers hissed like a busted air compressor, his orange eyes turned red, and he then did a five and half foot standing broad jump onto the face of Renny the Rodent, bit down on the top of Renny's head, and began slashing at the sides with both front paws which resulted in tufts of fake fur to go flying in every direction.  His back paws were latched onto the neck portion of the costume.  The whole thing reminded me of those face huggers from the Aliens movies.

Renny yelled “Get it off!” and tried to ram himself face first into a wall, but the big cat simply dropped down right before the moment of impact and the man in the rat costume headbutted the wall.  He staggered backwards in a daze and Captain Whiskers leapt back up onto Renny's face and resumed his relentless assault.  Renny ran around the room as Kids moaned and cried, but a few of the partygoers actually managed to join me in laughter at the absurdity of the situation.  Tufts of fake fur and plastic whiskers rained down as the calico cat mauled both the costume and the exposed areas of the man underneath.

After about a minute of random flailing about and unsuccessful attempts to land a good bash Captain Whiskers, Renny crashed through the plate glass sliding door and ran onto the back porch.  I leaned out a bit, as my view from the corner to the backyard was slightly obstructed, and could see that the upper half of the rat costume was now in tatters.  Cletus's friend collapsed in a heap onto the porch.  He was bleeding from bite and claw marks, and I could see Captain Whiskers â€" who was miraculously uninjured from his trip through the glass window â€" detach himself and do a circle around his fallen prey before stalking off to hide under the back porch.  Brent walked over to take a look at what the previously mellow cat had done to his birthday party entertainment.  I was pounding on my chair with my good arm as tears of joy streamed down my face knowing full well that the “piece de résistance” was soon to come…

And then the police battering ram, which I thought of as “the big key” thanks to countless hours of watching crime-dramas, rammed through the front door and a small SWAT team spilled into the house.  I saw officers donning their gas masks, and one said “Good lord!  It smells like ass and pepper spray!”  This comment launched me into hysterics.

A cop walked over to me, glanced with obvious concern at the moaning kids, and said “Hey kid, look we got call about someone in a goofy mascot outfit threating children.  Have you seen someone matching that description?”  I could tell that the officer thought my tears stemmed from something other laughter, and I said “Check upstairs Sir, I think that is where your suspect went.”  I used a slightly slurred version of my voice to invoke more sympathy, which could in-turn result in less suspicion.  The police officer sprang into action along with his team, while I stifled knowing laughter.

I heard a loud commotion upstairs and could see walking down the stairway to the front door was my stepfather Cletus, and as he came into view I nearly gagged from uncontrollable laughter.  Cletus was frog marched through the front door while clad in a brown leather, studded gimpsuit.  I imagined the reaction he would get in county jail, and laughed harder.  Callen's Mom followed, she was half-naked with clothespins (or so I thought at the time) on her breasts.  This was when her son Callen went from stomach pain moaning to the “I just saw my naked Mom being hauled off to jail” variation of moaning.  Most of the kids now joined me in laughter, and the twenty or so neighbors who had gathered around the front lawn gawked and gasped in horror as Cletus was tossed in the back of the police van like a rag doll.

Brent's friends were all fine the next day, after their eyes were cleaned out and their stomachs had settled.  Cletus and “Renny” were both locked up and took the full blame for the debacle; the former for child endangerment and the latter had outstanding warrants and so was thrown in federal prison for a stint, though physically he was basically ok after the scratches and bites healed.  Animal control was called in on Captain Whiskers, who easily escaped them (I watched from the porch, and it was like the keystone cops versus Scarface) and was ultimately never found.  I assumed that he made his way into a nearby forest and lived out his days in the wild.

My Mom returned from her trip a few days later while a neighbor babysat Brent and me.  I was later told that my Mom drove from the airport back home like a crystal meth addict in withdrawals headed to their dealer.  She quit her job and found another one that didn't require as much travel, and finally focused attentions on her kids.  She even apologized for subjecting us to Cletus.


So you know what?  Everything in my life improved after that birthday party!  Cletus was never seen again.  My brother began treating me more like a human being, and only very occasionally bullied me.  My Mom eventually settled down with a decent guy who actually cared about both her and her family.  Perhaps most importantly:  I realized after that day that I was capable of outsmarting anyone who underestimated me, which in-turn gave me more confidence to excel both academically and socially.  In college I studied biology and robotics, and graduated with a master's degree in both subjects at the top of my class.

Fast forward to present day and the ripple effects from that birthday party can still be felt, as I am writing this story using a robotic hand which is connected to a robotic arm; both inventions that I had a “hand” in creating.  Life is awesome!  My only complaint right now is that the back massage I'm currently receiving from my hot wife is a little strong.

  Yea, we've been a bit dark lately in the writing comps.  I've got something cookin' in my noggin' that fits the bill.

  So I went slapstick comedy, with a dash of coming-of-age, that starts somewhat sad and ends up happy.

  Cool, congrats on the release!  I'm looking forward to checking it out when I get a bit of spare time.

Hey, I put the trophy in! It fits! That almost sounds dirty, doesn't it?

Haha, nice!    And I was just wondering if the trophy would find its way into someone's signature line.

  Fun game guys!  I was eager to see what happened next to poor Gerald every time I checked the thread.  The way the story unfolded really felt like a dark Michael Mann movie that had been scored, at least the first half before the action really picks up, with old style jazz.

  So...The winner is WHAM, with second place going to Baron, and Eric in third.  And now for the ramshackle, unwieldy, and basically non-forum friendly trophy for all participants:





You're up WHAM!

  Voting will end at exactly 2:00PM Hong Kong (GMT+8) time on Saturday, December 7th.

Wish I could have entered this one. I was going to bring a ray of hope into this bleak tale. But when I sat down on my lunch break to spell check it and give it one more look before posting it, I found that voting had already begun! At 11 am on Tuesday!!

  Yea, like I said I should have specified when on Tuesday it ends. 

  Submit an exhibition entry and I'll edit it into the main story, its never too late for a "Ponch cut".