Nameless: The Best Defense

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

Only the dual scimitar wielder and one death knight remained. With a combined attack, Nessa and Drisana managed to pierce through the skeleton's defenses, staggering it back. At the same time Tabitha, now having lost her helmet and one eye to the scimitar master found an opening to begin her own offensive.

The robed man danced back immediately, making her waste precious energy swinging her great sword at nothing but air. Rex had now flanked him and roared with rage as he charged in with his axe. The robed man gave his undead companion a quick sidewards glance and the two suddenly changed tactics.

The death knight spun around in a great arc with his jagged blade, cleaving through both of Rex's raised arms in the process, followed with a stab through his throat. At the same time, the scimitar wielder spun underneath and across, attacking both Nessa and Drisana with his curved swords, managing to wound Drisana's left leg with his initial attack.

It only got worse for her when he managed to kick Nessa away and focus all his attacks on wounded ex-caravan mistress. Unable to dodge she attempted to parry instead but soon learned that was a bad idea as her fingers got chopped off, followed by an ear, a hand, her other leg and ultimately her head. Focused as he was on Drisana, the scimitar wielder turned too late as Tabitha's great sword bore down on his head cleaving right through him from top to bottom.

Nessa took a moment as she watched Drisana die before turning to face the death knight advancing towards her. In a rage she leaped up at him, letting the undead warrior parry her blade as it left him open to her main attack: smashing her shield into its face. The blow knocked it to the ground, and after kicking away its weapon and standing on its arms, she then used both hands to continue smashing its face with the edge of her shield until its face was nothing more than dust.

Nameless: Cathedral Showdown

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

The dark spirit let out a haunting moan as Father Tom banished it from the world. Behind him Rex was still brutalizing a corpse of some woodland shambler with his axe while the girls were wiping blood away from their own weapons as they stepped over the bodies of their defeated foes.

Reaching the cathedral was easier than expected as for some reason the nearby streets were deserted of monsters. Drisana guessed they had all chased another adventuring party somewhere. Now, inside the once blessed halls, they slowly worked their way up the structure. Despite the monsters lurking inside, things were progressing smoothly until they reached one of the main offices, a final hurdle to block their way from the stairs up to the bell tower.

There stood two heavily armed skeletal knights, each with a flaming skeletal hound waiting patiently beside them. In the center stood a robed man holding a pair of scimitars that looked every bit as wicked as the smile on his face. Without a word the knights drew their swords and the hounds sprang into a charge.

Nessa and Rex intercepted the dogs, easily dispatching them but both were caught off guard by the speed at which the death knights followed - leaving both open to their heavy, jagged swords. Drisana quickly parried the blade falling on Nessa and Tabitha moved to do the same for Rex - only to have her own blade blocked by the scimitar wielder who followed up with a flurry of blows that Tabitha was hard pressed to deflect.

Helpless, Rex's eyes widened as certain doom fell upon him but at the last minute another figure stepped in the way. Even the death knight looked surprised as his blade cut into Father Tom's shoulder. With blood seeping out of his mouth the old priest grabbed on tight to the skeletal arm, preventing the undead creature from retrieving its sword just long enough for Rex to cleave through its skull with his axe.

The undead knight collapsed to the floor, with Father Tom's lifeless body falling on top of it.

Nameless: Group Two

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

The long sloped roof of the Mages Guild may have let Nessa and Drisana decrease the distance of the drop back to street level, but it was the conveniently located water wheel that was powered by the nearby stream which ran along the back of the structure that let them descend safely.

The girls silently agreed that staying in the open was a bad idea and quickly moved back into the cover of the ruined town, putting as much distance as they could between them and the building they just escaped from while keeping a low profile as to not attract the attention of the trolls or winged lions still patrolling the area.

Turning around a bend they suddenly ran into three armed humans whose tattered robes and damaged armor were also covered in blood and gore. The woman in scale mail with the two handed sword was clearly the leader as she was flanked by a barbaric, dim witted looking fellow on one side and a timid, middle aged priest on the other.

After the brief moment of surprise, Drisana found her voice and whispered "We're what's left of group eight." The knight looked over them briefly and nodded. "We are group two; you're with us now. I'm Tabitha, the surly one is Rex and this..."

"This is not a good time for introductions," interrupted the priest in a loud whisper.

Tabitha sighed. "This is Father Tom's first outing," she explained slowly - much to his annoyance. "I assume it was you who destroyed the summoning gem atop the Mages Guild?"

The girls nodded, puzzled how Tabitha would know about the gem. Seeing this, she explained "We helped take care of the one at the barracks. It's just the one at the cathedral left."

"Then let's finish this," muttered Nessa grimly.

With a curt nod, Tabitha signalled the team into single file as she took point and began the run towards the old Dranner cathedral on the hill.

Nameless: Bloody Gems

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

"What is that?" asked Nessa as the team cautiously approached the huge green gem that, apart from radiating a blinding light was slowly rotating in mid air. The climb to the top of the Mages Guild had been tiring but mostly uneventful. Now they found themselves in what would classify as a large attic, full of miscellaneous items covered in blankets and tarps.

Kiefer, bringing up the rear with his injured leg, replied "It's probably what's calling all the monsters here." Signalling everyone else to stand back, Maeve stepped forward with her newly acquired staff and using its imbued magic, easily shattered the magical beacon that was spinning before them.

"That was easy," she said with a smirk - not realizing the large tarp beside her had begun to move. Before anyone could yell a warning a large stone hand shot forth and grabbed Maeve by the face, easily lifting the hapless woman off her feet. As the tarp fell, the golem became clearly visible and a wave of terror washed across Drisana, Nessa and Kiefer. It was exactly like the ones they had found in the depths beneath the city of Deepwater.

The construct took advantage of their flat footed-ness and charged with unexpected speed, catching the already limping Kiefer with its other huge stoney hand, and then slamming his two captives together face first resulting in a shower of brains and blood. It then turned its attention to the quivering Nessa, still frozen by fear.

Lucky for her, Drisana had managed to force her body to move and had already flanked the stone man without it noticing. With a well aimed thrust, she pierced through the small panel and shattered the small, magical gem powering the construct in a single blow. The statue unceremoniously collapsed to the ground - lifeless. It was then she noticed a number of the other tarps began to move - more golems!

"Nessa, we need to get out of here!" she yelled at her comrade - vigorously shaking her by the arm. Blinking away the fear, Nessa regained her senses and with a quick scan of the room sprinted towards the closest window - breaking through the stained glass shield first with Drisana following close behind.

Nameless: Not Welcome

[This is part of my Creative Writing Experiment.]

As the pounding on the barricaded doors subsided, Nessa, Kiefer, Maeve and Drisana collapsed to the floor exhausted from exertion. At least the beasts outside had seemingly lost interest in them, but each of them knew they were far from being safe. That's when they heard the tapping, a sound of wood upon stone from further inside the building.

From a darkened hallway emerged an old man with a gaunt, weathered and bearded face. He slowed to a halt when he saw the adventurers who were forcing themselves back to their feet and leant heavily on his gnarled staff with a look of utter contempt on his face.

With a sudden thrust he pointed the tip of the staff at them which shot out a thin, blinding ray of light - the same magic that killed Buggie just minutes before. Kiefer was fast enough to push Maeve out of the way of the immolating beam as it exploded through the barricade and the door, opening the portal once more to all the horrors outside.

Not willing to let the wizard fire another spell, Drisana immediately threw a knife at the old man but with a simple gesture the blade was magically deflected and found itself in Kiefer's left thigh. At the same time Maeve threw a projectile of her own, a small flask that fell short of the old man - spewing forth a thick mist as soon as it cracked open against the stone floor.

The sudden drop in visibility was the only opening Nessa needed to sprint into the hall and run the wizard through with her blade. As if on queue the mist began to dissipate as quickly as it formed, letting her team mates regroup on her position as she kicked the dead wizard off her sword. With just an exchange of nods, the team progressed deeper into the structure - with Maeve having taken the fallen wizard's staff as her own.

Ben-Hur (2016)

More CGI, less screen time.

This Ben-Hur has almost exactly the same story as Charlton Heston's version, only it is condensed - shaving over an hour of play time from the previous movie. This Ben Hur is also much more of a party animal than before, and does a better job of building and harboring hatred on his "revenge" trip as the film goes on.

A fair amount of death always gets a thumbs up from me!

The antagonist, Messala, is quite likeable here which is good given how they change the ending. He also kills a -lot- more people this time around. Morgan Freeman is present too - as a less jovial and much more serious horse racing manager.  Jesus also gets actual face time this time around, instead of just seeing him from a distance, or his back, or his hand / foot.

Ben-Hur's mother and sister get a bit of a shaft on screen time, as does the boat captain and Jesus (which is made up for his face time I think), but I do quite like their take on the naval combat this time around. The mother and sister cut is probably the worst of the condensation, but the rest of the film does make up for it. The two films are also a nice comparison between really good CGI of the new one vs actual tactile sets of the old one. Both certainly have their merits.

All up I give this 3.5 chariots out of 5, which scores it a tad higher than Mr. Heston's version, purely because it is of a more reasonable length which makes the question of "would I watch this again?" be a definite yes.

Today I Smiled: A Soul less Dark

Hope you all enjoyed what is probably the last entry of my Dark Souls tale, since that was the final DLC. I certainly had fun playing through it! I am getting exhausted with this daily posting schedule though, especially this year which seems to be flying by. It's the end of April already and I feel it's like I've done nothing productive. Anyway, the Skyrim/TESO story will carry on for a bit more but with more gaps between them as the content there finally catches up to where I actually am. Yes, I do like holding posts in reserve.

I plan on making my Nameless creative writing experiment, which has taught me that drawing eats a ton more time than writing, fill the gap for a bit: and I'm going to break that wall of using my own art per post in that story since it is really stifling myself. Back to generic pictures we go! To leave you with more entertaining stuff, here are some youtube vids: the Indian Nod, the Indian Alphabet Song, and just to have something non-Indian, Dork Souls III - a cartoon parody which is more effective for those who have played the game, or have read through my playthrough.

And just for kicks, one more Dark Souls video - apparently the armor of thorns does damage when you roll into things, so of course... we get Dark Rolls! Have a good day everyone! :)