The Bookwyrm

The leader of the group of six travellers stowed her wand in her robes and walked up to Insa. "You need training," she said. "You should come with us to our village." She turned to Rabbit. "You too. If you even think of harming any of us, you'll be in trouble." One of the warriors picked up Bookwyrm and began walking towards the nearest village. The Gak, now unconscious, was left behind. The leader kept walking, and gestured for Rabbit and Insa to follow.

As the grammar critic of my family and friends, I'm allowed to break grammar in specific ways to cleverly highlight the reasons why we hate English. I am sorry for the annoyance. "It's a happy identity crisis, but it's still an identity crisis." - @InfiniteInsanity to @That1Cellist with me in the vicinity.

The electricity caught Bookwyrm completely off guard, despite his Atium and precognition. He wasn't paying attention to Insa. The bolt struck him, and he spasmed before falling unconscious. His Shardblade and Staff vanished as he fell.

I think the rule is kind of hard to enforce. And considering the nature of the thread... It's probably fine. Probably. Maybe.

Bookwyrm called upon the Alignment, the source that gave Worldseers power. He teleported behind Rabbit and summoned his Shardblade. He knocked Rabbit's sword out of her hand with the flat of his Blade, then attempted to sweep her legs out from under her with his staff. He tapped Zinc, increasing his mental speed and allowing him to react quickly, and also burned Atium, waiting to see her next move. A half dozen other forms of precognition would warn him if anything else started to happen, like if the Gak struck. Bookwyrm mentally prepared a spell that would bind Rabbit and make her unable to move or use magic. If Rabbit really was as powerful as she claimed, she could probably counter a spell like that. But Bookwyrm held too much power of his own to be defeated by Rabbit. He held on to the spell, not casting it, waiting to see what she would do next. Even as he swept into action, Bookwyrm sent a mental message penetrating Rabbit's mind. I hold enough power that some would label me a god, he said. Past, present, and future lay themselves out before me. How can you counter that? Secretly, along with the message, Bookwyrm sent a mental probe into Rabbit's mind, and sent it deeper, hoping to figure out if anything was going wrong. It was strange to attack suddenly and with no reason...

Bookwyrm almost laughed. "A duel? And you expect to win?"

And so it was that an ambitious group of young Tearsmiths sought to slay their old god and replenish the fading universe with her infinite lifeblood.

Bookwyrm burned bendalloy, giving himself ample time to come up with a clever response. He thought for a moment. Bookwyrm dropped the bubble. "I'm so sorry, O strawfully strawmazing and strawsome one. You've strawminated this battlefield of words, and strawngled all of your opponents. How could I, a strawmple human, ever hope to strawnd up to your strawmaculate straw puns? Even if I strawnted to, I could never muster the strawngth to strawnd up to you. It is a hopeless strawgle." Even as he spoke, Bookwyrm sent a mental message to the six travelers around them, and @InfiniteInsanity and Rabbit. Be ready to attack. And if any of you have some straw...use it. He burned Atium, waiting to see if the Gak made a move.

For some reason, he kind of reminds me of Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles...except grumpier. Though I doubt you know who that is. Still, good job! I know I haven't posted here yet, but these are fun to look at. Thanks for all your art!

Not as good as Eof's. What? Oh, sorry. Ahem. Where were we... They settled on a peaceful planet, and over the generations, a thriving civilization came into existence. While history turned to legend and religion, they still held fast to their relics, and the secrets of Tearsmithing. Young children who showed proficiency, those who were called by the relics, were taught the art from their early childhood how to use Tearsmithing to help society.

Bookwyrm trailed off. "Is something wrong? I mean, strawng?" Bookwyrm turned to the Gak. "I hope you'll forgive my strawlly here. She is strawbably...just strawssed about having to pull so many straw puns out of thin strawr." Bookwyrm cringed internally. It was getting to the point where you could hardly tell what he was saying. @CalanoCorvus

"Indeed," Bookwyrm continued, hoping the flattery strategy worked, "But this Gak is clearly very strawlite. I've never seen a Gak as strawmazing at strawsembling strawmaculate straw puns." Technically, it was true. Bookwyrm had never seen a Gak until now. Only heard and read of them.

Thanks to the efforts of @InfiniteInsanity, I am attempting NaNoWriMo this year. I'm going to post the chapters as I write them, or at least as makes sense according to my schedule. I'm writing a fantasy novel (with a little bit of sci fi) that's based on an idea InfiniteInsanity helped me come up with. I've added a lot to it, and thrown together a rough outline, so that I may actually be able to finish a story this time, rather than what I usually do, which is just creating some cool worldbuilding without a real story to go with it. Normally, I'd give a long explanatory rant, but this time, I'm throwing you in so you can see what you think. You'll learn as you read. To start: The Prologue. I realized as I was writing this that I made it way too long. I put a whole lot of unnecessary stuff in here, so I'm going to edit it and trim it down later. (There will most likely be a rigorous editing process for the entire story, honestly. But that's once I'm finished.) So please keep in mind that I am currently unsatisfied with this prologue, and most of it is subject to change in the future. Even so, here it is.

"I'm not going to let him eat you," Bookwyrm said resolutely. "Or anyone, for that matter." Bookwyrm turned to the Gak and sighed. "I must strawpologize," he said to the Gak. "My puns are pretty strawful. I have little strawxperience in the art of straw puns; it must take strawmendous strength and strawbility to be able to use them so strawrtfully." This is insane, Bookwyrm thought. These puns are terrible. What am I doing? Why did it have to be a Gak, of all things?

I have no experience in sequins. So the answer is technically no. (I've heard YOU complain about them quite a lot, though.) TPBM is attempting NaNoWriMo.

Bookwyrm turned to look at Insa. He felt a spike of shame when he noticed that she had been wearing heels, and was now barefoot. I probably shouldn't have just bounded over, he thought to himself. I'll be sure to apologize later. And make sure she gets some sturdy travelling gear. Bookwyrm turned back to the Gak. "Yes, I am a newcomer," he said. "And I would be really pleased if you would leave. It would be strawsome." Bookwyrm cringed. That had been terrible. What was he thinking? Calano had mentioned at some point that straw puns were helpful when fighting Gaks, but... Several of the others looked at him with confused looks after his terrible pun. @CalanoCorvus

I have indeed said variations of this several times.

I think I gave a pretty long explanation in the thread. I put Shadow at about the same suspicion level as I did Archivist and Silvereye. No one else voted for Silver or Archivist, though, but Archer voted for Shadow, and so I went along, because at that point Shadow was the only one of my main suspects with someone else voting for them. Of course, now we know that Shadow was a villager, so I feel silly, look suspicious, and need to go reassess my previous conjecture.

Having big eyebrows is always fun - @Sequence You Ruined my streak, how every spiked of you. - @The Wandering Wizard I sit up - "My beats are so sick, you will start to trip / My rhymes are so ill, you'll start taking pills Falling from that car, you stared from afar / You're standing in awe, didn't note my skin's raw Rub burn to the bone, I leave you all alone / So now please excuse me, see you in the cemetery" and then i die - @AltonicKeys "...Clairence?" I sob, tears running down my face. - Me Szeth adopts me as his pet cat, and Nightblood and I become besties. - @Telrao And can you explain this?! *holds up an arm that is half invisible* - @EmulatonStromenkiin Why is my dinner fuzzy? - @Tani This is fun...how many more can I find... but that was also a lie, it wasn't even Paul atriedes. it was actually... Thaidakar eating a pancake in an old bathing suit. - @Thaidakar the Ghostblood If you want to find random Sharder quotes, go into the depths of TLT and don't return until you have something like the quote above. It won't take long. Someone else killed it with a poisoned Peanut-butter pie. - @Nameless Suddenly, pine-kumquats. - Me