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Notes
on the Story
This
story was written for Halloween 1999, before Diablo II was released, and
before I got to take part in a trip to Blizzard North to see the game in
development. At the time it was written the skills and character
info was as accurate as possible, but parts of it are very different
now. I've also revised it before posting it on BlackChampagne.com,
but not that extensively, just to smooth some game-knowledge-dependent
portions that casual readers would be confused by.
Game
Logic
If
you know the final game, you'll wonder what the hell the mention of
Saraha picking up zombie eyes to make mana potions is about. Pre-release
there was a plan to have Converting as a major feature in Diablo II,
where you wouldn't have found any type of potion, but would have found
various reagents, body parts mostly, and been able to combine them or
just convert them alone into various potions, that you could then
consume. And yes, zombie eyes (or maybe it was any kind of eye)
turned into mana potions.
If
you've not played the game you don't even know or care about this, but
mana is what you use up whenever you cast any spells or use any skills
in the game. In this story every time Semla casts a spell she'd be
exhausting some of her mana, and it regenerates by itself, or you can
drink potions to speed the gain. It's far more complicated than
that, since you put points into various attributes each level up, you
can gain mana or mana regeneration rate from all your equipment or even
a skill, and as you level up you put points into skills and they often
cost more mana as they go up in effect. All of those technical
game areas are best skimmed over or left out of stories, since they
totally break the mood. I can see doing a humorous story at some
point with a character suddenly feeling much stronger after every 10th
monster kill, or suddenly gaining a ton of dexterity as if by
magic. Like they are standing there and watching their biceps
swell outwards, in ridiculous fashion.
I
rewrote the very ending somewhat also, as originally I had a thing about
how Saraha had to throw 5 javelins at a time to make them stick into the
throne with the Necro pinned, rather than the javs just vanishing, as
projectiles always do in Diablo II. Reading it at this point that
seemed a bit too slavishly-adhering to the game world logic (illogic?)
and wouldn't make sense to a non-D2 player, so out it went. The
ending with her revealing that she only had one javelin left and Tambor
showing off his math skills was the same though, just changed the
figures around some. I'm not convinced that ending really works, I
think it would be fine with it just ending as they Necromancer begins to
do his frigid girlfriend.
Sexuality
I
also changed that living dead girl part around some, not the actual
events, but I made it a bit more graphic but also clearer what's
happening. I've grown strangely reserved in my sexual content,
after not writing any horror for several years, and having to censor my
natural semi-porn tendencies with these fantasy tales. Well, I
guess I don't have to, but we try to keep the D2 site relatively clean,
at least teen rating, banning flamers and profanity-spewers from our
forums, so I thought it impolite to put any really dirty stuff or sexual
content into my stories that would be posted on the site.
I've
long criticized American society for the often-remarked upon hypocrisy,
where we recoil in horror and ban anything sexual, while allowing the
most graphic violence. This is true in movie ratings, TV shows,
and most public discourse. And then I find myself doing it,
describing horribly mutilated and tortured bodies in total anatomical
detail, but then when it comes to the very brief and cut away quickly
sex, I don't have anything like, "sinking his erect cock into her
icy cunt", which would be not even nearly as graphic as the
violence descriptions are. And in theory violence is far worse and
more offensive than sex. I mean which would you rather have done
to you or someone you love, be murdered or fucked? Christians can
take the 5th. ;)
Flow
and Pacing
Reading
it now I don't like the flow that much. The beginning is good,
slightly confusing are the first 2 or 3 pages, but once exposition is
out of the way and they are in town and hopefully the reader is
beginning to grasp the names (I can never remember names of chars in
stories) and characters, it's very good. The humor and
conversation and some of the silent pauses in the tavern are well done,
and I love the old man and the witch.
The
early stuff at the castle works okay, but it gets a bit monotonous with
too many straight battle scenes. They kill about 5000 skeletons,
zombies, and golems, and that part is too much. However then I
really like the ending, with the laboratory. Yes, I've read a lot
of Lovecraft, why do you ask? ;) The coffins and pentagram are
very much from a couple of his stories about grave robbing necromancers,
and I'd be interested to hear what a reader who hadn't read Lovecraft
thought of that part, and what possible purpose the Necromancer has for
all of those coffins, and if they'd get the description of the pentagram
with the bars around it
Action
Scenes
Writing
action scenes is very hard. The extremes seem to be zero
description, which is something like, "There was a fierce battle
for hours, before the heroes won", or else totally over done
description, where every maneuver in a duel is described (or attempted
to be) in play by play detail. I tend towards over description,
and sometimes it works well since you can see exactly what's happening,
but other times it's too long.
Generally
I see how the fight is going (in my mental eye as I'm writing), and I
want to say just how someone dies. Just saying, "Tugg made a
quick move and killed the skeletons." seems lame, I want to get
some actual description of how he did it, which skills, how he blocked
their attacks, etc. However if you do play by play it, the
descriptions tend to get really long, and you've got 30 seconds of a
fight going 4 pages, and reader's eyes glazing over.
The
skills are fun to describe, and at the time I wrote the story no one had
seen any of them in action, other than in grainy gameplay movies.
I tried to be exact in my descriptions for that reason, though I did
take some artistic liberties. It's boring read about someone
casting some spell effortlessly and killing a room of monsters, after
all.
In
rewriting it I removed a lot of skill names and some overly-technical
descriptions of how they work. It would be easier if I had just
made this all up, rather than having to try to hew somewhat to the
actual game character skills. I could have full artistic license
and have the characters do anything I wanted to, give them any abilities
at all.
My
plans for an upcoming novel length fantasy novel are much different than
how things really work in the game, in terms of character abilities, so
I'm thinking I'll just write it as a fantasy story, rather than any
connection to the Diablo world. It'll be potentially publishable
then as well. The down side is that I'll have to describe things
in much more detail and come up with a world logic and such, how spells
work, where power comes from, etc. Rather than just saying,
"she cast Charged Bolt" and having most readers know exactly
what that means.
Early
Notes
Digging
through my stories folder, I found this, written prior to the story,
obviously. I spell checked and punctuated it a bit to make it more
readable, but didn't change any of the words/content.
Big Barb and dumb
Amazon/barb
wife. They are new to the area, out trick or treating, no
one else knows of the custom, but villagers and maybe tavern keeper
plays along when the parents come in. Kids need horrible costumes.
Verisimulitude, severed fallen
heads, skin of a fallen, but they all think they are cute, including the
kids, of course.
Maybe one kid has magical talents, much to the chagrin of the
parents, "That comes from YOUR side of the family!" they say
as he cooks something with a fireball, or maybe have it be a
girl/sorceress.
Youngest boy is like Bam Bam, super strong already, little
terror.
Maybe 3 kids, oldest boy is a paladin, his auras annoy the
parents, but they recognize their use. They go to bit castle, ancient wicked Necromancer's castle, think
they skulls on spikes are just decorations, wraiths in the garden are
cute ghosts, etc. Sort of blunder through. Maybe they asked the
townspeople if there was a haunted house, were directed up the mountain
to the necro's castle
Once there they like the
decorations, and maybe they insist on getting some treats, but when the
Necro laughs and leaves the doors closed, they get pissed and decide to
break in and see the "closed" haunted house. They end up
pursuing him down into the dungeons, or maybe up into the towers,
depending on how it's laid out. Horrible things everywhere, of
course, but they think they are all part of the exhibits. The kids
love it, not scared at all, and of course they kill hundreds of
skeletons and zombies and such in the process.
Not sure of the ending,
they corner the Necro, want to thank him for the great show, take his
treasure as a treat? Or maybe he throws himself from a window to
escape. Think of something funny when I get to it.
It
worked out somewhat like that. The only main change I can see is
that the older brother with Auras didn't make an appearance in the
story, and the Amazon and daughter became non-dumb. Funnier with
just "Tugg smash!", and the others being normal intelligence.
Innocence
and Humor
This
was covered in more detail in the The
Dark Lady Discussion, so read it there if you want more on this
angle. I was surprised re-reading this now, after not doing so for
probably 2.5 years, how funny it was. And I don't mean just to
blow my own horn, I found it really LOL in a lot of places, (Saraha replied in a cold voice, "No doubt the
way seems shorter when riding a broom.").
Also
the kids were cool. I almost never have kids in my stories, unless
they are just props for horrible things. As in they are seen
murdered, or sold into slavery, etc, to illustrate how awful the bad
guys are, or the world the story is set in is. Having actual kids
running around and talking and being child-like is really unheard of in
my writing. I have virtually zero experience with kids, other than
when I was one myself, so anything I write about them is just based on
my reading or movie viewing. That's plenty really, I have no
experience in sword duels or torture rooms or necrophilia, but I have no
difficulty describing those sorts of things, so why should kids or true
love or other stuff I don't do myself be any different?
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Reader Feedback
This was the most
popular story I posted on Diabloii.net, and I had literally 20 or 30
emails from people just raving about how much they liked the
story. A few were uneasy with the living dead girl part at the
very end, but only a few, and I can't recall any other negative comments
about anything. I'll
quote a few from my email folder, and try not to sound too
self-satisfied.
WOW! That story was great! The twist with the daughter was good, the
necromancer at the end was interesting. Not sure if the queen sex thing was
needful, seeing you defined the necro character with the dead chick on the
wall, but it was a good shock.
Also the portal at the end was brilliant, like thru the whole thing you
surmised that there would be a battle between the family and the necro and
then right at the end they just say 'thanks' (was alittle forced, but generally you have to when dealing with insane necros) and then left. No fight
no nothing. A real good twist. You created the tension between mother and daughter well, the father son
relationship was also really well established, good work.
I am a avid fantasy fiction reader, and if you wrote a book, like that
I would buy it. (I also generally don't buy the books, just borrow)
Finally all I can say is "MORE MORE!!"
-Lui
______________
Hey Flux I just read your new story Haynted Castles Beat Treats and I
thought it was great, very well done ( of course). The only part I had a
problem wiht is in the end with the horney necomancer, that thought just is
weird. Also there are about 4 or 5 editing mistakes in the second part. I
read this story along with many others in The Dark Library so take it up
with them. Keep writing stories because I can't wait for your next one to
come out. Your 9384 th biggest fan (which is pretty good considering).
-Aaron
______________ I just had to drop
you a quick note to compliment you on your story "Haunted Castles Beat Treats." I went back and read it at least 4 or 5 times before I
finally printed it out. I've have read some of your other stories ("The
Magistrate Suit" was good too), but I like HCBT best. Out of all the stories
I've read so far, I felt it was one of the most engaging and original. I
would love to see further adventures of that family, or the necromancer for
that matter (what happened next Hallow's Eve?). I think HCBT could have won
the Halloween story contest easily. Anyway, just wanted to write and express my admiration, and I'm sure I don't
have to tell you to keep up the good work. ;) Thank you for providing the
opportunity for an exceptional literary journey.
Sincerely,
Pauline Gates
There were some typos
as they commented due to the rushed posting of the story, especially the
second part. Those should all be fixed now, unless I managed to
put in new typos in my rewriting. ;) The
king of feedback was this one, with his own added alternate
ending. This mail came in after part one was posted, but before
part 2, so read it in that light.
1. Loved the story. Can't wait to see you continue it.
2. Loved the story and whipped up my own continue. Hope you like it.
Theodor
Solemnius
sat at his desk, recording the outcomes of his last experiments. Those
were quite satisfactory: he'd found a way to make his skeletons even
tougher than now and he managed to make the clay golem move faster. As
he was finishing the record on the golem fastening procedure, he heard
yells, weapons clashing and growling come from the outside. Frowning,
he stood and went over to a window to look outside.
Out
there he saw his undead being hacked to pieces by a huge Barbarian,
accompanied by an Amazon, a Sorceress and, surprisingly, a Fallen One!
"So, they're sending another party..." He muttered.
"You'd think those villagers would learn by now. Well, no matter.
A few Teeth would take care of it all." He raised his hand, and
started the incantation, then stopped. Something was wrong. First, as
it was known to most, a Necromancer's armies would not last long with
their creator gone. These uninvited visitors, however, didn't seem to
try to reach him. In, fact, they never tried to get even near the
castle. Second, the Barbarian, and, as he just noted, the others as
well, were all laughing. They were enjoying themselves....
Solemnius
stood watching them for a while, then grinned. "Well, I guess
it's time for me to have some fun." he said. He raised his hand
and uttered a few words pointing at each of the newcomers, then headed
for the door...
...Tugg
chopped down the skeleton and looked around for more, raising his axe.
He blinked and looked around again. His torch, which was burning
quietly, stuck in the ground beside him, didn't seem to disperse the
darkness around him. He couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of
him, hence he lost sight of Saraha and both his children. His hearing
didn't seem to be affected, as he heard lots of feet stomping about
around him. Then came a scream from his left. It was Semla's voice.
Tugg growled and ran in the direction the scream came from. He'd only
made several paces, when he felt something gripping his leg, tripping
him. Tugg fell to the ground, rather clumsily, loosing his grip on the
axe and rolling a few feet forward, knocking his head nastily on
something. He stumbled to his feet, shaking his head, trying to clear
it a bit. He heard an enraged growl sounding like Saraha and just then
his vision cleared. His axe was nowhere to be seen, Saraha stood to
his left, as weaponless as he was. Tambor was lying on the ground,
motionless, Semla kneeling a few feet away from him, trying to take of
the tiara. They were circled by zombies and skeletons who were slowly
stepping closer. Tugg growled again and jumped to his feet. "Tugg
crushes you all now." He said. Just then the undead stopped
advancing and formed a corridor that ran to the castle. Tugg turned to
meet the new threat. Saraha came to stand beside him.
From
the shadows stepped a robed figure. "So, you're the people who
were sent to take over my castle." Said a husking voice, that
came from under the robe's hood. Saraha stepped forward. "We
weren't sent to take over anything. We thought this was part of your
Hallow decoration." She said, her voice tingling with rage and
contempt. "Well, of course you did," said the voice, as the
man took off the hood. He smiled. "I'm just acting out the
character." His eyes fell on little Tambor. "Oh, gosh. I do
apologize about that. That wasn't supposed to happen. But," he
snapped his fingers. "I believe this little trinket will fix him
up good as new." A skeleton approached from behind him, carrying
a small vial, and handed it to Tugg. Tugg lunged toward Tambor and
leaned over him, Saraha and Semla, who finally managed to take off the
tiara, next to him. Tambor shivered and opened his eyes. "Dada,
what happened?" He asked. Tugg pulled him up to his chest.
Solemnius
watched them, smiling. "I was right, then..." He said.
Saraha turned to look at him. "Right about what?" She asked.
"Well, seeing your little rabble with my creations here, I
remembered my years of travel. There was this Barbarian I befriended
or, rather, a Barbarian who didn't try to kill me on sight. We visited
his tribe once and Hallow's Eve happened to occur while we stayed
there. He explained the tradition as he could, considering his Common,
and I decided to participate. Especially when I saw the poor excuses
for undead the merchants brought. There were many corpses around, with
the festival in it's peak. Of course cow and goat and other animal
skeletons looked a little ridiculous as warriors, but the children had
lots of fun, hacking them into pieces. And you seemed to be having as
much fun." Replied Solemnius. "So, I thought I should step
in and add some more haunting. I hope I didn't scare you all too
much." He smiled again.
"That
was awesome," Tambor burst in. "Specially when that Zombie
grabbed me and hauled me in the air. I was so scared. That was so fun.
I still don't understand how he could catch me, though."
Solemnius
smiled. "Quite easily, once I slowed you down a little. Oh, and
the young Sorceress can put her tiara back on." Semla blushed and
picked up the jewel. "And now, if I may invite you to my 'humble'
home... I'm afraid I don't have any treats readied, as the people in
this town don't celebrate Hallow's Eve as you do, but I bet we can
arrange something." Solemnius bowed shortly, motioning his hand
towards the mansion's door.
On
the inside, the castle looked even bigger than on the outside: huge
halls long corridors with immense doors. Tambor had to investigate
every one of them, of course. "What's in there?" He asked,
approaching one of them. The door shut suddenly. "Oh, no. Leave
my laboratory out of this. There are delicate things in there. You
might break something or get hurt." Said Solemnius and pointed at
the door across from the lab. "In there, however, I've got a
small burial chamber. Skeletons, Zombies and Mummies. You can go check
it out. But take someone with you. Actually, you can all go in, while
I go look through my supplies."
Tambor
yelped happily and started for the door. Tugg and Saraha looked at
each other and joined him. Selma watched them and turned to the
Necromancer, "Do you have a place to hide in here?"
"Take your pick," smiled Solemnius. "But why would you
want to hide?" "So they'd stop embarrassing me,"
replied Semla. "Oh, come on, they're just having fun. Wouldn't
hurt you to have some too. But if you insist... You can come help me
set the table up." Semla nodded.
Solemnius
actually had quite a food stock. Of course, most of it was inedible
from the long keeping, but the good part was still quite considerable.
By the time the others returned from the crypt, he and Semla, with
some help from a few skeletons had set up a huge table full of sweets,
meat and other food groups. By the time they finished their feast, it
was well past midnight. Actually it was beginning to dawn. Tambor and
Semla were fast asleep for the last few hours. Finally, Tugg stretched
and yawned. "Tugg had much fun tonight. Me thanks, but we go
now." He said. "Oh, so did I," said Solemnius. "I
thank you. This was the best night I've had in a long time. Please,
drop by more often. And I'll try topping this night next Hallow's
Eve." He grinned. Saraha smiled. "Thank you. And we really
should get going. The children should get some sleep and so should
we." Tugg stood up and picked both Tambor and Semla up. Solemnius
walked them to the door, sending a Zombie to get them their weapons
back and watched them head off to the town. He sighed and returned to
his lab, smiling.
Well, would you have
preferred that to my part 2? Personally I like my version better,
as you might imagine. I didn't read this one until after I posted
part 2, since I didn't want any possible influences on me, but I don't
think it would have been one in any event. I do like that he didn't have
too much of the battle. as my part 2 did, but as I read this I kept
waiting for the twist or betrayal. I'm not cut out to read or
especially to write happy, friendly, honest characters. It
does feel a bit weird to read a story where someone else uses my
characters, so I can emphasize more with authors like Anne Rice and Anne
McCaffrey who wage war against fan fiction set in their worlds. I
still think they are misguided and foolish for doing so, but I can sort
of see their point. If the writing is good you feel like you're
being raped, and if it sucks you feel like you're being shat upon.
It's hard to look past your reaction to the writing and just appreciate
the effort and devotion of your fans that they would write it at all,
which is of course the correct response. I'll try to remember that
when I'm a multi-best selling novelist. *cough* If
you have any feedback on the story, more happy thoughts, or especially
if you have some criticism, you can send it right
here.
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