medievalposting

AERION TARGARYEN & SER DUNCAN THE TALL

My summoning ritual began on a perfectly normal day – for me.

For the bloodied elf stumbling through the tomb, things were decidedly less normal. She shouldered her way through a moldering wooden door, into a chamber that flared to life with sickly blue wall-torches. Then, still gasping for breath, she began the ritual. From its odd shape, her left arm looked nastily broken, but even through the pain, she managed to stammer out the words.

The four lobes of my pentacle were smeared across the sandstone floor – alarmingly, in the bright red of her own fresh blood.

All very dramatic. But nothing unusual, for me. When people stumble ass-first into situations that nothing else can solve, not might, not intellect, not even wealth, they call for me. When they’re at their most desperate, when all that can save them is sheer dumb luck. . .

Because that’s me! I’m luck!

Usually, I’m depicted as a set of twins, one male, one female, one frowning and one smiling. They always make the woman the smiler, which seems a bit presumptuous, as – if the elf in this cramped chamber is anything to go by – women are perfectly capable of frowns.

Sometimes, people squish me into one body. They show my aspects back-to-back, the man’s face protruding from the woman’s hair, his penis jutting from the space that her buttocks ought to fill. And sometimes, they give me a more thorough blending: a smiling woman with a penis. Or a person with one left tit, and one right testicle. Really, the combinations are endless, and usually interesting.

I like it better when they depict me as a four leafed clover, though. That seems more to the point: one lucky but ultimately meaningless mutation that you’d find in a field of thousands. Charming, but without value. That’s how most good luck went, even with my intervention. Not because I couldn’t do more, but because I couldn't be assed to bother.

Yes, regardless of how these people depicted me, they all fell into the same trap: they didn’t realize how nigh on impossible it was to secure my favour.

The elf, with her ever-faster muttering, was in the process of making this mistake. Gravely, and with a brave wince, she lay her broadsword across the pentacle. Forcing a vessel for me to take.

I felt myself splinter, a dollop peeling off and zooming closer to the sword, like a star falling from the heavens. Goodbye, me! I said with a wave as I plummeted into the weapon, filling it with a BANG that lifted it momentarily from the ground.

The elf’s eyes brightened. Her prayers had come true. And just in time, for the tomb’s undead inhabitants had found her.

A skeleton bashed through the remains of the door, showering her in chunks of rotten wood. His jaw clacked, his finger-bones curling into claws. Red flames flickered in his eye sockets, but without any real intelligence: the guy was a bone head, through and through. 

Crying out in fear and rage, the elf seized me from the summoning circle and whirled. The monster lunged – just as she thrust me into his chest.

 Of course, him being a skeleton, I pierced through his robe, skittered between two ribs, and came out the other side, have done only negligible damage to his clothing.

Though. . . his ribs did hold me rather snuggly. And at the center of him, where a heart might otherwise be, his monster core pulsed with heat. Being stuck in someone like this, all warm and tight. . . well, it was my first time! Excuse me for making a big deal of it.

The skeleton shifted, clearly trying to loosen me, and the heat of his monster core pressed against the flat of my blade. He groaned. I whimpered.

It wasn’t just the overwhelming pulsation of his core, flush against my blade. No, even better that that: this guy stank of luck.

Keep in mind, there’s no such thing as bad luck. Only unlikely alignments, that can be taken as good or bad, depending on how positive your attitude is! Regardless, his condensed core, the swirling red bead that contained his very being, reeked of the most unbelievable luck imaginable. Stroke after stroke of it, naturally occurring, all leading him down a tremendously improbable path. 

Alright. Given his position as a slaved, brainless skeleton, perhaps we could qualify his luck as ‘bad’, just this once.

It almost made me shed a tear. This wasn’t just like finding a four-leafed clover. It was like finding a field of them! With pigs hovering above on little wings, while hell puffed out ice crystals from underneath! This guy was a work of art, and they’d turned him into this?

In a fraction of a second, I made a decision.

A mite clinging to the skeleton’s rotting robe leapt onto the elf’s wrist. It bit, with a sting that made her twitch, slightly. This twitch reverberated through my handle, up into my blade, which twisted, just a touch, enough to nick the monster’s core, severing that delicate thread of connection that attached it to another’s will.  

Now, this is what I meant about good and bad luck being a matter of perspective. For the skeleton, whose eye sockets flared with a sudden, freed intelligence, this was the best luck he’d had in, possibly, forever. For the elf, who could only watch as the previously slack-jawed skeleton grabbed at her sword’s hilt, jamming it further into himself where it caught against a rib (AHhahhh!). . . for her, this was not such a lucky occasion.

In fact, if you could ask her, and if she could answer past the hand lifting her off her feet and squeezing at her neck, she’d probably categorize my act as a stroke of bad luck.

I was too busy moaning to pay proper attention. I only came to upon my extraction from the skeleton’s ribcage, at which point I noticed the crumpled elf on the floor, with her vacant unblinking eyes. I did feel a little bad.

Though, this was quickly eased by the new hand gripping my handle. The skeleton surveyed the chamber, as if seeing it for the first time, before holding up a hand to twist in examination. 

“Ahh,” he said. “Hmm.”

And, with that, he swept his moth-eaten cape behind him and strode from the chamber, clutching me hard enough that my metal vibrated in pleasure.

unfortunately, the skeleton is similarly uncomfortable: