Rise of the Order 5

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She had nothing left.

With the brutality of the fighting and the need for healing after the crash, she had used every bit of her energy.  She could either tend her wounds and fall irreparably unconscious from exhaustion or battle the remaining swordsmen and die slowly. Either way, hers wasn’t the only life to hang in the balance.

The ferocity must have remained in her eyes, the frustration of a trap successfully closed and the hunter knew it. Slowly she lowered her hands, taking in the stance of the remaining swordsman.  His guard remained steady but made no move to advance on her.  She slowly rested back on her haunches, still every bit the coiled snake, ready to pounce, but the swordsman backed away to the manacle hanging from the trees.  He gave it a sharp tug, never taking his eyes from her, and the long chain pulled free, spooling to the ground beside him.

He pulled it forward with him, sword still drawn, with the cuffs of the chain outstretched in his hand. Sweat beaded heavily upon his brow. The tension of the situation was not lost on this man; though the battle was hard fought and his opponent was all but defeated, he knew the look of desperation on her face and the dangers of being careless with cornered animals.

“Around the neck,” he said, tossing the manacle in the dust in front of her. His eyes never left her.  She glared at him, her body unmoving and her face stone determination.

“Tisk, tisk, my pet: you’re far more valuable to me than this wretch,” the silver-haired man said.  Her eyes darted back towards him, but she remained unmoving.  Once the chains were on her, there was nothing to stop him from killing the girl anyway.  Her only bargaining chip was time and that would soon be out.  With each passing second the look of fury grew on the silver-haired man’s face, his calm façade wearing away with his patience.

He raised his sword then, murder in his eyes.

“Mayris!” shouted a voice within the woods. The silver-haired man was struck in the shoulder by a long bladed knife. The force of the blow knocked him off balance and the blow that would have severed the girls head came down weakly striking the earth.

This was her chance.  With the swordsman off guard she surged forward with animalistic speed.  The swordsman was distracted but rounded quickly on her with his sword. She lifted the chains of the manacle up before her, deflecting his blow. He came at her again, but not before she spun the chains around her head, wiping with deadly force striking his head.  With him dazed, she pulled herself upright  into a limp. Batting the near useless sword from the stunned man’s hands she swung her clawed hands, ripping face and throat apart. When he fell, two forms stood face to face in the distance.

The silver-haired man stood perfectly still, his eyes pure malice, with the length of his sword sticking through a young boy.  He was petrified, hands grasping at the sword’s hilt trying to release it from the man’s grasp as though it would reconcile his fate. “This is no place for children,” the silver-haired man said. The boy could only cough, blood spraying lightly from his lips, as the silver-haired man pulled the sword from his stomach turning to face her. The bloodlust still burned in his eyes. He reached up and pulled the knife from his shoulder and tossed it carelessly to the ground. Though his left arm hung useless to his side, the slim double blade in his right hand struck out mercilessly.  He strode towards her.

Her mission had become an utter disaster.  Gallet was likely marching to her death; the children she had come to protect had fallen with her, hard, likely to great injury; now, a third faction that had come to her aid, lay dying.  Her heart gate throbbed with the pain of those around her – those she had planned so long to save. The empathy she felt for those she had failed and the vile hatred that writhed from the silver-haired man set off a spark in her heart.

With a concussion of sound, her heart-gate erupted with renewed strength.  Its green light spun before her like fire. Within moments the icy tingle of healing seeped into her muscles, closing her wounds and renewing her strength. 

As the sword blow fell upon her, the Matriarch’s wings snapped open and a gale of wind crashed against the silver-haired man, staggering him. Her strikes followed through so quickly with his guard down that he had little time to react. Her claws striking furiously at the air as he backed away dodging the blows. His sword swung upward in a moment of sure footing and the Matriarch’s wings pushed her backwards away from the blow that followed, his blade swinging with a berserker’s rage.  His strokes were wild but the her wings gave her a balance advantage that he could never hope for. The sweet, chilling hum of her wings wrapped the entire forest in anticipation as she danced between his strikes.

He raised his sword striking an overhanded blow.  With a bone shattering strike to his wrist and the full force of her elbow into his sternum, she made him pay for his overconfidence. Her air enchanted strike sent him flying, spinning backwards, his back hitting a tree with an audible crunch.

She stayed perfectly still for a moment; her guard on high alert should another threat appear from out in the forest.  Her wing song calmed as she dismissed the gale winds and the natural forest sounds began to reassert themselves.  After a count of thirty she ran to the boy who’s distraction had saved her life, her eyes never quite leaving the silver-haired assassin’s limp body.

The boys eyes were beginning to glaze with hypoxia; his lips and chest covered in spit and blood.  He breathed in raggedly but looked up towards the Matriarch as she lifted his head into her lap.

“You’re her, aren’t you?” he said, gasping.

“Don’t speak, there isn’t much—“

“She gave me this for you,” he said looking away towards the ground at his side.

She leaned forward and saw the knife the assassin had pulled from his shoulder. Picking it up, she was struck by the familiarity of it.  With sudden panic she turned it over to see a small GV carved into the bottom of the hilt.

“Where did you get this?” she said, her eyes growing wider.  When he didn’t answer she shook him forcefully. “Where did you get this?!”

“Please, take care of my sister,” he said, his breath coming is short gasps.

She belted the knife; the knife that had protected her as a child; the knife that belonged to her friend; the knife that had never left her side; the knife that had come to her rescue one final time.

She opened her heart gate as wide as she could, her eyes filling with tears.  Healing her own body was one thing, but she was far more familiar with her gate’s combat capabilities than with its ability to heal others.  The energy from her gate communed with the boys spirit energy. It gave her guidance and she gave of herself the energy required to repair the damaged flesh.  Without knowing if it would be enough, she closed her eyes whispering an oath to the sprit flows around her:

“I am called the Matriarch; my name is Venara of the Raven clan. My friend and street sister, Gallet, has sent this boy to me. Give me the strength to protect his life and the life of those I have put in jeopardy for a chance at a better life.” Tears rolled from her cheeks now in silent sobs, “Give me the strength to use the gifts you’ve given me.”

The rolling heat of the fire of life roared through her and into the boy as she surrendered to the power of the spirit world; for the first time since her clan had whisked her away from Gallet and her life as a street urchin, her façade crumbled and she was Venara.

*

The fire raged on, licking the stone of the cliff side. The guards had formed a bucket brigade and the few water keepers in the town waged war on the inferno.  The keep would be nothing but rubble by morning.  A man stood on the otherwise abandoned battlements, watching.  His bald pate and golden eyes gave the smile on his face the look of satisfaction. His simple brown  robes belied the gold adorning his fingers. The Son of Order could be a modest man, but modesty was so… mundane.

“It’s always so… messy,” the Son of Order said.

There was a deep rumble of earth grinding on earth from deep within the stone mountain Kanton was forged upon.

“Oh yes, of course,” he said in response. “In order to build, one must destroy. I was simply fond of the keep.  Gorn was a garish man, but I did so enjoy his taste in décor.”

The rumbling again emanated from the mountain – though it’s vibrations weren’t felt by the people below.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Soon.” 

The earth roared again, this time shaking the city.  The voice alone of God could be vengeful.  Orak, the Son of Order, took one last look at the city before the swirling white light of his crown gate formed a singularity above his head. He slowly dematerialized, his cheshire  grin dissipating as each particle of his being was swept into the vortex. Kanton’s appointed leader, who had all but given the city to the Children of Order, had fallen.  With that, the city was cemented into the Order’s grasp.

End of Part 1

Rise of The Order is an epic fantasy world full of wonder, intrigue, and magic. I first came upon the idea with my friend Mike as we were talking about the Hindu Chakras. I thought it would be a really fun way to create a magic system for a universe. The end of part 1 is really a prelude to the bulk of the story, as we see the Son of Order himself appear to be pleased with the results of the night. 

I'm really excited to continue exploring these characters, and a lot of new ones, as the world of Ysilla begins to develop its own ecosystem, history, and culture. The battle for salvation is already underway and the characters don't even know it yet. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of Rise of the Order. Please comment, share and subscribe to see more content every Tuesday and Thursday.

Productivity, Impulse and the Sloth Demon

Productivity

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I know I’ve got a big problem dealing with my impulses: especially when I’m trying to be productive. Writing, music, painting – they’re all creative endeavors that require a steely amount of self-motivation but our reservoirs only run so deep. You obviously don’t just need to be a creative type to have a desire for productivity it could be a work to-do list; it’s summer vacation and it’s cram, cram, cram all the stuff in that couldn’t get done during the school year; or you could, very simply, be like me and my friends and want to juggle the demands of a job, a blog, a book or two, a screenplay, lifting weights,  and an album into your life all the while trying to maintain a healthy relationship with your family, friends, and spouse.

I don’t get something from each of these categories done every day, mind you. When would I sleep? But it brings up the first good point about being Productive:

• Know your priorities.

Priorities are everything. We examine and adjust them every day, but we don’t always take into account our priorities when it comes to the tasks we tackle every day. If you’ve ever had a deadline looming over your head, you know what it’s like to take a hard look at your priorities and start throwing things out the window that are just not important.

David and I once wrote two drafts of a screenplay, five drafts of a teleplay and one start to finish screenplay in three weeks. We actually had a deadline of four weeks, but we finished early and had time to get a lot of feedback before submitting them. In that case our priorities were pretty clear: we wanted a job and it was do or die to us. You understand really quickly what you have to do and what you simply want to do when these kinds of deadlines come around. If you don’t have the “luxury” of having a deadline imposed upon you here’s a couple tips for listing your priorities:

• Figure out your necessities vs your wants.

Necessities are simple, but obviously essential. You need to eat; you need to sleep (a little); you need shelter. To have food and shelter most of us need to have a job. So with those things in mind, list To-Dos for each of those things you may have in a day. Groceries, pay rent, go to work etc. These are things you have to do to survive and you accomplish them very early on  your to-do list. Our wants are most often the things that we want to be more productive with, but we can’t discount the things we do as part of our necessities as productive. Remember, if you’re dead you can’t be productive at all.

Next comes our wants. For me, I’ve got a novel I want to finish before I go back to work in the fall. It consumes the majority of my productive time (that and the blog). The problem with wants is they aren’t really dangerous to our survival if you don’t complete them to the extent we’d like. This is why it’s hard to write books and make records and beautiful paintings – it’s not imminent to our survival and let’s face it, we all want to have leisure time (we’ll have to talk more about leisure).

• Focus on one project at a time. Don’t stop until you’ve completed it.

It’s hard, if you’re like me, and your brain is full of big projects you’re dying to complete and you feel like no matter what you do you’ll be dead before you could ever finish them all (let alone get people to see and appreciate them). The reality is no one will ever see anything you do if it never gets finished. When I was younger I worked on hundreds of projects that never saw the light of day because I had split my attention among too many things or I wasn’t ready to release them out into the world yet.

That fear will kill you. I don’t care how perfect you think you can make a product if you just hang on to it for a little while longer, if you never let anybody see it you may as well have had a negative productivity (this idea deserves its own blog).

Don’t worry if it’s not the greatest thing in the history of the universe. If it’s only your first or second project chances are it won’t be that great – there’s a sense of pride that can’t be taken away from the act of completing a project. That’s the whole reason to be productive in the first place.

Impulse

I can tell you from experience that there are certain impulses that are really difficult to deal with. If you didn’t know, I’m an alcoholic.  I’ve been sober for over a year and still I have urges to drink. It isn’t easy, but impulse control is the most effective way to increase your productivity.

We’ve all got impulses we need to get a better handle on. Check Facebook more than twice a day? Got your eye on those salty crackers in the break room? Maybe you’ve got writers block and you think you have to go pee again for the eighth time in an hour. Whatever it is for you, it’s distracting you from your priorities.

A good way to get a handle on our impulses is by forming better habits to begin with. A great way to do that is by creating a reward system for yourself. I found a tool recently that I use every day called HabitRPG.

I'm a powwfuw Wowwiuw!

If you’ve ever played World of Warcraft you’ll understand why I like it so much.  It game-afies your life in a way that offers you rewards for being productive and completing the goals that you set out for yourself. List making is always a great way to goal set and reward yourself for productivity.

Sloth Demon

This is where your impulses and your productivity collide in a very peculiar way. I started calling it my Sloth Demon after a character in Dragonage: Origins. Think of sloth as one of the seven deadly sins. We think of people who are lazy, don’t work, possibly hedonistic. Sloth is the sin that keeps you from producing.

Here’s the problem with the Sloth Demon: I wrote a lot of papers last minute in college. The best part about writing a paper last minute is that you’re on a tight deadline. The worst part is that you don’t have time to goof around. I remember very clearly, one deadline looming afternoon, a paper I particularly didn’t want to write. I walked into the kitchen and stared at the pile of dirty dishes in my sink and though, “I have to get these done, they’re driving me crazy. I’ll never finish this paper with these dishes in the sink.”

Now, here’s the thing: what do those two things have to do with each other… at all?! The dishes were by no means holding me back from finishing my paper. The kitchen was, admittedly, messy but it had been much worse in the past. So why did I have this intense impulsion to do the dishes when something so important as my graduation from college was at stake?

If you have a list ranking your productivity items from greatest urgency to least you’ll find that the ones at the top are likely the ones you want to do least – otherwise you would have done them before they became urgent. Now, Sloth Demon is your buddy. Sloth Demon is your pal. It doesn’t want you do have to do that terrible, nasty task you’ve been avoiding. So it convinces you to do a different task from the list – one that’s more appealing.

The really dangerous part about Sloth Demon is that you feel as though you’ve been productive after it has tricked you into doing something you shouldn’t have been doing. Did the dishes in my kitchen need cleaning? Absolutely. Could it have waited until I had finished my paper, there-by completing something tangible to show the world? You betcha. Doing the dishes could have been the second most urgent thing on my list, but in doing them before I completed my paper I was less productive than if I had waited to do them until after.

It’s a bargain we make with ourselves. I’ll do something I really don’t want to do in order to avoid doing something I want to do even less.

Always have a To-Do list and make sure you’re comparing it with your priorities. Your priorities are going to affect the order of your list. A well-ordered, organized list is a productive list.

Take care of small tasks and chores immediately before something urgent arises. If you have a messy desk and a project deadline, if you aren’t completely pulled off task by the Sloth Demon, you’ll be distracted and unable to focus on your project completely. Clear your environment, clear your head. As above, so below.

Always reward yourself for a job well done. It’s the best way to make the next day bearable. No matter how productive we are, there will always be another project around the corner, another goal to reach, another land to conquer. There’s got to be a reward at the end of the tunnel to make the grind worth it. Externalizing rewards is a great way to help yourself along, but the real prize comes from the satisfaction of a job well done.

Just to be clear, the Sloth Demon is not a real thing - physical or spiritual. It’s a concept. Designed to identify a behavior I had trouble dealing with. Please don’t run around, blessing your house in hopes of scaring the Sloth Demon away. You’ll have already been tricked away from your productivity by it. 

^_^