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Grubnessul said:
best update so far, you're building up the tension very nicely (seriously, I've read books of so called great writters who did it far less than you). Nice to see that we finaly get some information of the history of our caracters. Wouldn't have expected Tom camming with some girl (and one with issues) over the internet tho o_O

This would be the post :cool:

Well, camming/ phone sex whatever :p

EDIT: well, that was post #3.500
 
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Grubnessul said:
This would be the post :cool:

Well, camming/ phone sex whatever :p

EDIT: well, that was post #3.500

Haha , why yes you did call it didn't you XD . Smarter than you look , Grubby XD XD !
 
Congrats to Jeffg006! You deserve it.
 
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Wow.... I have to say, it's an honour. I am really please to be considered a part of such an awesome online community as this. Truly I have found no greater pleasure in the whole of my web surfing career than here amidst the presence of you fine fellows. I can only hope that in the future the work and writing I do here will continue to offer the kind of pleasure, learning and entertainment that other's have inspired me to here at the parardox community, to which I owe all of my thanks for all of this.

The fact is sometimes one doesn't realize at first how integral and important such a group of players with all of these common interests, noble means and all gifted in such writing are. Truly my great interest and further studies in history have been gradually inspired over my time here, and I have you all to thank for that very much. Who would have known that years of reading old, dusty books of Ivanhoe and King Arthur and travelling around to such far off places would somehow translate into the way I write my AARs, but I would never have dared typed even the first word without all of you guys and the work you do here. You're all great, and you've all inspired me to years of study and perhaps a future in history and/or writing. And that kind of effect on my own life, for real, shows to me what a place of quality this community has become over the last few years.

And most of all I think we all owe a big thanks to Canonized for making this place so interactive, wonderful, and alive for us - and if there were anyone whom worked so hard and deserved a wage for the AAR section it would be he whom is truly deserving, I daresay. And I'd especially like to thank him for all his excellent advice and help on becoming a much more involved member of this online writing, gaming, and AAR community.​

:)
~ Jeffrey
 
grayghost: it's been a long time coming :D

jeff: We're very honoured to have you in our roster ! Keep up the great work !
 
Welcome Jeff! I'll add you to the roster as soon as I get over this rather nasty cold :)
 
yorick.jpg

Alas, poor Jeff! I knew him, Petifog: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.








Congrats! :D
 
jeffg006 said:
and if there were anyone whom worked so hard and deserved a wage for the AAR section it would be he whom is truly deserving, I daresay. And I'd especially like to thank him for all his excellent advice and help on becoming a much more involved member of this online writing, gaming, and AAR community.[/indent]

:)
~ Jeffrey
With all due respect, I can think of at least one other person (no, make that several others) who made AARland possible long before our esteemed canonized came on the scene. But, what do I know... ;)
 
English Patriot: Hope you get better soon , old bean !

Kurt_Steiner: Haha , the bard lives in you , eh , Kurt ? XD

Lord Durham: I'm sure our dear Jeff meant no disrespect to the wonderful mods who keep our place running since the beginning :)

Update coming up in a few hours ! Sorry that I'm behind schedule , I was at the Bishop Party as it's now called XD . His Excellency was a fun guest !
 
Lord Durham said:
With all due respect, I can think of at least one other person (no, make that several others) who made AARland possible long before our esteemed canonized came on the scene. But, what do I know... ;)

Oh no, I could mostly thank him for his personal involvement in my own 'discovery' of all the great parts of AARland :) Oh, and what would Paradox be without the great godly mods!
I tip my hat to you all of course :D
 
jeffg006 said:
Oh no, I could mostly thank him for his personal involvement in my own 'discovery' of all the great parts of AARland :) Oh, and what would Paradox be without the great godly mods!
I tip my hat to you all of course :D

You're too kind , Jeff XD

Update is now !
 
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Chapter XCVIII: Lust​

6 April 1610

José’s stomach growled although one might not have thought twice of it. The night seemed to always bring about the terrible moans of the Deep jungle. Where José and Arturo were standing, fruits of the various trees about them were already on the floor rotting and providing a feast for the lowliest of insects that were only holding hostilities for the sake of the common feed before returning once more to their vicious competition.

The growl of the hungry stomach was heard by the deep darkness of the tree line not with any particular compassion but with self-loathing contempt. The hungry eye of the moon peeked from between the clouds the same way a sick man who has no control over the orbs behind his lids. Arturo and José crouched close to the bush that disguised their view from the main circle of the village.

The corpses of the men who had fought over the stone were only now being carried away by soldiers from the camp. The villagers themselves were once more hiding within the relatively safety of their huts while the men, with their torches, did the work. Arturo and José made sure to stay in the foliage for most of the evening, not being able to get any rest as they carefully observed the center. A few hours ago, they had already retrieved the stone itself and found a place to bury it in the jungle lest the shining glimmer of its golden half reveal their position to starved eyes.

José looked at Arturo who was still watching the bodies being moved to carts and attempted to figure out what exactly the other young man was formulating in his head. He was hoping to say something but the mere presence of the soldiers ahead curled his lips into his mouth stifling out any hope of sound. It seemed as if neither of them had spoken much to each other ever since the incident. Most of the afternoon and evening was spent running through the winding maze of the jungle until both had run out of breath. Even then, the slow trek back to a vantage point frightened both to the point of moving inches at a time until they locked themselves behind a bush large enough to hide them both.

When they had buried the stone, too, it was as if both had lost the power of language. Neither had expressed anything to each other except through the scrapings of their hands against the dirt which signified their respective frustration and fear. Their dirtied hands communicated hopelessness, like spots that would not be cleaned easily. Despite this, both returned to the edge of the village in the middle of the night half driven by hunger and half daring to hope for a future of salvation.

The wind that tossed the clouds overhead in an unruly fashion also forced the burning torches of the soldiers into an infernal dance. Dragging corpses along the dirt and then into the carts, each bemoaned the task and handled the dead with as much disdain as if they were hauling dirt.

“All done here,” one of them announced as he found himself a spot near one of the logs of the village to sit down with a grunt. His eyes scanned the darkened interiors of the huts warily. Despite the windows being veiled by sheets or other barriers, the soldier knew that the villagers were peeking at them from within their homes.

Arturo and José were witness to when the group had first encountered the mess in the center of the small community. The array of dead corpses had not been disturbed—none of the villagers were brave enough to move any of the bodies. When the leader of the band had asked the village elders to come out and explain the situation, they had received a strange response.

“The one young man,” one of them had said cryptically through a translator, “he said he was a descendant of Aztec spiritualists. He said that he would turn the soldiers against each other and placed a rock among them.”

“A rock?” the one soldier had said as if he was spitting out broken teeth.

“Yes,” the elder had responded, “and as you can see, they fell by their own weapons while the others escaped into the jungle.”

The leader could not deny that the bloodied swords were indeed turned against each other. “Where is this stone now?” he demanded of the natives.

“They retrieved it after your men slew each other,” was the simple response. It was obvious that despite the resolution in the face of the elders, they had a hint of fear in them. One of the elders was nursing a wound near his face—he was the most quiet of them all.

“It’s that old man that helped us,” Arturo had told José at the time when they both noticed the exchange.

That had been several hours ago, and now, Arturo and José had hoped that the soldiers would return to the camp so that they could barter with the villagers for food of some kind; their hunger was exacerbated by their inability to sleep.

“Let go of her!” was suddenly yelled out from the left of the vision of the hiding young men. The voice was elderly and obviously unused to the Castillian tongue.

“Stay quite old man and go back to sleep!” one of the soldiers responded. At first, Arturo and José could not see what was creating the sounds until one of the half armored soldiers appeared from behind a hut dragging a young native girl to the ring of soldiers camped in the center of the village clearing. Directly following them was one of the old men of the village—probably the girl’s father—obviously protesting.

Weapons had already been drawn but the laughter of the soldiers drowned out the unsheathing of blades. “Go back to sleep! We’ll return her in the morning!” another soldier laughed as he brought his blade up to point at the oncoming man.

A shiver ran down Arturo’s back at watching the sight and José wished that he could burst into a million pieces and disappear into the next life. The girl herself was younger than the two young men and she fought bitterly as much with her fists at the unphased soldier as her eyes cried out to the Heavens for help. Already, uncouth hands held back her shoulders and rude lips faked kisses on her cheek.

The father was halfway between rage and despair and his tears were masked behind a man’s distorted face. It was as if at any moment, this native would sacrifice his heart to the pagan gods of old in order to be consumed by the beasts of the jungle and rip out the soldiers’ necks in the night. However, his body could only freeze.

“José…” Arturo whispered but the words came out as bitterly hot exhalations.

“What can we do?” José responded shuddering his words in between his own tears.

There was a pause between them as the bestial scene continued in front of them. Already, the soldiers were attempting to strip the young lady of her clothing.

Viri diligite uxores sicut et Christus dilexit ecclesiam et se ipsum tradidit pro ea – Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and delivered himself up for it,” were Arturo’s only words before suddenly standing up from the bush. “Over here, putas!”

Immediately, the group raised their heads at the sudden appearance of Arturo. The leader signaled for most of them to head in pursuit while he and another stayed with the girl.

“I leave the rest up to you, José,” Arturo said while still looking forward at the oncoming soldiers. He tried to say his words as softly as possible. “Save the girl for me,” Arturo pleaded with a resignation that only made him smile. Without even waiting for José’s response, he ran off in the opposite direction drawing the men away from the bush.

---​

“It should start to be dawn above,” Riku woke up the rest. Having been an agent for so long in the northern reaches of the Russian-controlled Scandinavian counties, the Finn had a way of telling time even when darkness reigned.

The others stirred and made their preparation to abandon the garrison storehouse. “I saved some of the leaking oil in one of the skins in case we’ll need some more fuel when we get down below,” Raul explained even while fixing his makeshift bed.

“We’ll eat now before we go in case we don’t get a chance to later,” Madeleine explained with the approval of all as they huddled around where Willem was now sitting up and passing around dried meats and water. “How do you feel?” Madeleine asked the one with the bandage around his waist.

“Could be better,” the Hollander grinned proudly.

“We’ll dress that freshly before we go, too,” Riku said while chewing on some salty food.

It did not take them long to break camp and move into the large bulb like chamber once more. The lamp which they had cut down to force the door no longer provided any light for their journey so their morning trek was greeted by the cheap imitations of their torches. Walking slowly, the four eased into the next corridor and traveled a small descent downward until it opened into what seemed like another curve—another circle it was.

“Which way?” Raul asked as he looked down both left and right and could not see past the curved bends. “There aren’t any other doorways here.”

“We’ll go left,” Madeleine chose, “the same way Dante and Virgil always go.”

“Does that have some meaning, too?” Willem asked almost mockingly as they began marching in that direction.

“I have no idea, actually,” Madeleine shrugged ceremoniously, “Maybe because in Hell, everything is inverted, but it’s been years since Aunt Carmen let me study it, I could be wrong.”

As the four traveled along the course of the circle, a darker portion of the hallway finally dawned to them from the bend. “It seems like a gap up ahead,” Riku was the first to note as he held up his torch higher. The darkness was apparently from a sheer drop.

“There’s the doorway to the next descent,” Raul pointed out. The doorway itself was a simple arch located on the inside of the circle. It hovered right above a single ledge like some balcony overlooking the pit. Leading up to the ledge were pillars of stone. Madeleine had guessed correctly since if they had followed the route to the right, there would have been no pillars to cross to the ledge.

“It seems too easy,” Madeleine said to them. “Even someone as half experienced as we are could make these jumps…”

“Just in case, then, let’s tie some ropes to each other in case we miss the pillars,” Willem suggested. They each worked on securing themselves to each other.

“I’ll go first,” Raul mentioned as he took a few steps back from the edge to gain a running start.

“Wait!” Madeleine stopped him. “There has to be some kind of trap to this.” Immediately she scanned the surroundings and pointed to the walls. “See those holes bored into the earth? I suspect they have something to do with it. In the circle after Limbo is the circle of the Lustful and they’re punished by being consumed by a perpetual hurricane of hot wind symbolizing the destabilizing nature of the sin of lust.”

“But I don’t hear or feel any hot air,” Raul objected quietly.

“It’s probably the pillars themselves,” Madeleine deduced. “Putting weight on them must release some trigger below that lets the hot air out.” She immediately went off to the side of the hall and procured a rather large stone from the untidy sides. Heaving it onto the first pillar, it immediately triggered a gust of wind on contact that was strong enough to be audibly heard.

“Can we avoid it?” Riku asked.

“It’s a test of will,” Madeleine responded, “just as with all Upper Hell. Passions, human passions, are never meant to be discarded—these were all inherently good before the Fall and still are. However, it’s only living in this fallen world that they can cause us pain. Lust is only misdirected love… therefore the only way to combat it is by knowledge and a little bit of grace,” here, Madeleine smiled at her little pun. “In order to move forward, we need to know from which direction the wind will come from. At that point, as soon as we land, we can reposition ourselves to keep balance before jumping to the next one.”

“I’ll get some more stones,” Riku calculated, “If we can use some kind of handkerchief or cloth that we can throw forward ahead of us with a weight at the front of it, we can tell by the direction it’s pushed towards where each pillar pushes us to.”

Working quickly, it was not long before the four had discerned in which directions each gust would come from: Left, Right, Back, and Forward. Madeleine could not help but snicker at her uncle’s design. “Knowledge of the four cardinal directions—could it be you’re telling us to master them to combat sin?” Madeleine asked her uncle in her mind. It made her laugh a little but they prepared for their jumps.

Each was still tethered to each other so after Raul makes his jump, Riku would be next, then Madeleine, then Willem. They only had enough rope that Riku would have to jump to the first pillar while Raul jumped to the second pillar and so on. “It’s the best choice we have,” Raul shrugged before making his leap. Landing on the first pillar, he immediately braced with his face in the direction of the gust. The warm air annoyed him greatly and nearly scalded him, but Riku yelled out that he was ready and Raul had positioned himself on the pillar enough to withstand the blast and calculate for his next jump.

Both Raul and Riku now leaped and both adjusted themselves just in time to hold onto the pillars. Madeleine and Willem did the same until all four were now holding on for dear life on their respective post.

The last jump was signaled and all took their calculated leaps and all landed on their spots: Raul on the ledge to the hallway, Riku on the last pillar, Madeleine on the third, and Willem on the second. Raul was about to signal the next jump when he noticed that the ledge itself depressed slightly downward. It was then that the largest gust of wind erupted from the darkness of the corridor itself—Raul was now flying backward towards the outer wall and began to tumble towards the hard pit below.

interlude2.gif


Interlude​

When Tom hit the hard floor of his hospital room, the sheets had followed him down. The sharp pain in his shoulder only elicited a kind of pathetic whimper from him—it was the kind of whimper that pronounced that the pain was not painful enough. No call to the nurse was issued and no friend came rushing due to some cry for help. Only a great thud passed through the room. He couldn’t let the others hear him… he couldn’t let the others in the room.

“I’m so screwed up,” he said to himself quietly as he climbed back up into his bed. His dreams had been bothering him again, but no longer could he blame it on the mysterious narcolepsies that had dominated his life the past few weeks. Indeed, he had been thinking about her again. It was not merely that, he had to make sure no one knew that his sheets were stained with something…

What bothered him the most perhaps is that, even after his thoughts had taken hold of him, it did not step at those lustful memories. No, as if he let the foot of the devil enter into the sanctuary of his soul, other impulses now began to remind him of those memories past. Sweat began to pour from his brow as he frantically attempted to find some tissue or towel to wipe off the incriminating evidence. His heart raced but it was no longer due to some shame, but instead a new urge took hold of him.

He licked his lips. The taste, he thought to himself. All of the tastes. He needed to feel the chalky smoke enter into his lungs again, calming him, holding him in an ashen embrace. His tongue felt parched and he wanted to feel the stinging taste of those spirits passing into his throat once again. He wanted to return, to that time—to that broken time when the mind closed. To unreal time. When things were surreal. When everything stopped as he felt a rush of blood to the head. He needed that substance in his mouth again and down his throat; the Substance that made his dreams better. But she promised that the person he met before would be there as well. That strange doctor that she spent an hour attempting to convince him that he won’t hurt him again—so long as he cooperates. Then he’ll get what he wants—that sweet colourless and odorless substance wrapped in the guise of a sugar cube. “They don’t call him the Lord of Acid for nothing,” Marcus had told him. That’s right… he would get that too. Satisfaction would find him again both with her and with him.

Chapter XCIX: Gluttony (coming soon)
 
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Hmm interesting traps in the hell. Where did Renault find the time to design and build them all? :p

And Tom seems to be really messed up again, poor fellow

Typo in the first line btw, 'Raul' should be 'Arturo' right?

And what do you mean with 'smarter than you look'? :mad: :p
 
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ahh, so both Raul and Tom have fallen through lust, even if for Tom it was a bit more his own fault.

You should've left Raul just holding on to his pillar though. That would be a REAL cliffhanger ;)
 
Grubnessul: Typo fixed , thanks XD was typing it up pretty late last night XD

Avernite: Haha , I wanted it to be more immediate XD
 
Elorei said:
You really do have a martyr complex sometimes. XD

What can I say XD . It's the best thing we human beings can do against evil .
 
canonized said:
What can I say XD . It's the best thing we human beings can do against evil .

Sacrificing our lives is the best thing we can do? Bah...I say forget the martyr stuff, kick evil in the teeth and spit in it's face. I ain't going quietly. :D
 
Ahh lustful memories..

Good times, good times :D
 
I have to agree with Grayghost, best thing you can do against evil is kicking it hard till it's crying for it's mammy, than go home and get drunk

;)