Ranka Goes Hunting

Okay, I'm pretty much done with my fleshed-out version of the hunter story. But since it is now quite large, I'm thinking I should link to it. This is all well and good, except I don't have a website. Does anyone know of a fairly good, free service where I can build a site? I need one anyway.

 

It depends on what you want.

tripod.co.uk started using massive amounts of banner adds.

 

lol, when I used them, I was lucky to get the MySQL database to work 50% of the time....my forums were down more than they were up...

and the FTP is ridiculasly slow...like they use a 56k modem for ftp connections.

I will say it's one of the best free ones...but that really isn't saying anything....

If you want a dinky personal page that hase a picture of you and your dog, and a favorite quote...freesites are o.k....

for anything involving space, options, speed, and reliability...you have to spring atleast $5 US a month for proffesional hosting...

of course...if you want to host your stories in basic html/text format...your ISP probably has a few MB of space for you. Most ISP gives you a meager ammount of space for a web site when you sign up.

sorry for the rant...but after spending over a year getting the run around with free webhosts....I'm a bit bitter

 

where are you getting this 1.25 website?

 

Okay, here is the more developed story, at long last. I finished it on Friday night, but my difficulties with html frustrated me to no end, so I decided to dispense with the website and just post the thing here. I'll get one of my freinds to help me with the coding on the site later.

Za'anamalx Goes Hunting

Ranka son of Morbek was a bounty hunter. Not a Bounty Hunter, because that would require membership in the Guild. Ranka son of Morbek considered guilds to be inefficient, irritating, and most of all, a waste of his precious time and money. Of course, this meant he had to be careful about where he hunted, and who, since he didn?t want the Guild to be hunting him.
Ranka's current quarry was one Granthyr Dane. Granthyr had broken no law that Ranka knew of, but a disreputable merchant from Morhaven had offered Ranka four hundred gold svatas for his head. Thus, Ranka was hounding the human?s trail through the country of Aneldor, seeming to reach each village just as Granthyr left. In the village of Halbryn, he walked into the Templar?s Rest tavern to see if he could get any information. The fat, balding bartender looked up to see the tall orc walking through the door. The orc was heavily built, and a chain mail shirt was stretched tightly over his heavy chest and thick arms. A leather weapon case hung from his broad, spike-studded belt. The bartender didn?t usually see many orcs in that area, and Ranka was especially distinctive. Instead of the usual black or dark brown, his long, well-combed hair was a dark red like newly dried blood. The bounty hunter's face was covered with intricate tribal tattoos, and they ran from below his eyes down his throat and out of sight under the mail shirt. Most tribal orcs had such tattoos, but Ranka's were denser and more intricate, and they were iridescent red instead of black. Ranka walked to the bar and sat on a stool.
"Hey, bartender. Get down here!" Lon the bartender resented the orc's tone, but he moved down the bar anyway.
"What do you want, orc?"
"Do you know of a man named Granthyr Dane?"
"Maybe. Who?s asking"
"I am. It would probably be healthy to tell me what I want to know."
Lon sneered. "Izzat so? Maybe he's a friend of mine and I don't want to tell you shit about him."
Ranka stood up and slammed his fist down on the bar. "Whaddya mean you won't tell me shit? I need to find Granthyr Dane, and you know where he is!"
The fat bartender laughed in his face. "I mean what I said, you filthy goat-shagger. Go back to your flocks!"
At this insult to his species' propensity towards goat herding, Ranka's temper got the best of him. He reached into his case and began drawing his mace. He had only pulled out an inch of it when a deep, commanding voice spoke from behind him.
"I wouldn't."
Ranka turned to see the source of the voice seated on a chair near the fire. The man was taller than he, and probably fifty pounds heavier. He was clad in heavy mail from head to toe, and a great helm sat on the table next to him. A long, well-made broadsword rested naked across his lap, and his right hand was gripping the hilt. All this wouldn?t have bothered Ranka if not for the holy circle emblazoned on the knight?s surcoat. He was a Knight of the Holy Order of The Temple of Morhaven, commonly known as a Templar. Everyone knew not to fool with the Templars. Not only were they the elite of the elite when it came to melee combat, but many of them also possessed some limited divine magic. And to the fiercely pagan Ranka, any divine magic was bad magic. Therefore, he was forced to back down. Uttering a particularly foul Orcish curse, he turned and left the tavern.
Unfortunately for Granthyr, a stable hand at a nearby livery had been much more forthcoming. Apparently Granthyr was riding straight west to the town of Scharkerk. Ranka mounted his own white gelding and set off again, through rolling, forested hill country. Sleep and food could come later. His orcish blood gave him terrific endurance, like the wolf his people so closely identified with, but he would call on another force to help him in this hunt. About ten miles from the village, Ranka stopped in a clearing and tied his horse to a tree. He began to gather wood for a fire. After building a good-sized stack of wood, he used his flint and tinder to get the fire going. Watching the smoke rise to the darkening sky, Ranka drew a short knife from an ornate sheath strapped to his left wrist. The blade was only about the length of his index finger, and it broadened to a curved, leaf-shaped point. Orcish pictograms representing occult symbols ran the length of the blade. Rolling back his right sleeve, he opened the vein in his wrist with the point of the bloodletting knife. He held his arm over the fire and allowed the blood to flow into it. While the dark red liquid trickled into the roaring flames, Ranka muttered incantations in his harsh, guttural language. The blood that dripped into the fire began to congeal into a phantasmal shape, rising from the flames. It was a blood-spirit Ranka had called to his aid. The malevolent shape reared above the fire, the horse shied and screamed in terror. The blood-spirit coalesced into the shape of a serpent, and then, with an inhuman wail, entered the muttering orc. Ranka sat up straight, and jerked. His face curled into a bizarre, unnatural grin, and he leaped to his feet. The blood had ceased flowing, and he untied his frightened horse. No matter how many times he conducted the ceremony, Ranka, or rather Za?anamalx, the blood-demon, could never get the horse to accept it. Nor would the horse feel truly comfortable with his master?s "friend" riding on his back. The possessed Ranka mounted anyway, and continued on to Scharkerk.

Ranka arrived in Scharkerk the next day. His mount was nearly dead with exhaustion, his white hair matted and streaked with foam. Ranka himself looked somewhat crazed, but over the ride he had reasserted control over his body. Za'anamalx was saving his strength for the inevitable battle ahead. Despite this, Ranka still had access to the spirit's aid in tracking Granthyr's soul. The hunter gave his horse into the care of yet another small-town stable hand and headed for the nearest tavern. The sign proclaimed it the Buxom Lass, and he sensed his quarry's presence there. Ranka shoved the doors open and walked in. The common room of the tavern was large and roughly square. To his left was the bar, a few customers cradling mugs of ale. A fire burned in the hearth on the right side of the room, against the outside wall of the tavern. Several tables, ringed with sturdy chairs, filled the room between the bar and the fireplace. Most of the people glanced up when he entered, some of them staring at him as if they'd never seen an orc before. Ranka did a mental count of the number of patrons. There were just over a dozen, including Granthyr Dane, who sat by himself in the far corner of the room. Just few enough that killing them all wouldn't be terribly awkward. He knew that once blood was spilled and Za'anamalx took control, he wouldn't be able to stop killing till the last person lay dead on the floor. But before that happened, he felt he needed a drink.
Sitting down at the bar, he called, "A pint of stout, barkeeper."
The bartender happened to be a young human woman with the face of an angel and the body of a goddess. What he could see of her over the bar was clad in a low-cut, lace-up bodice, and it looked as if she would spill out of it if she took too deep of a breath. She handed him a large metal pint mug, which he received with a lecherous grin. The woman took no notice and moved to the next customer. The orc drained the mug in two gulps, and stood up. Za'anamalx awakened, and seized control of Ranka's body. Grinning horribly, he drew his mace. It was an odd all-steel design, three feet long and tipped with a clawed steel hand. A stocky elf sitting to his right shouted in alarm and tried to draw his short sword. Before the blade could clear leather, Ranka brought the mace down in a lightning-fast arc, crushing the unfortunate elf's skull and splattering blood all over the bar and the surprised bartender. She wisely ducked behind the bar, and Za'anamalx turned his attention to the rest of the room. By this time, everyone with a weapon had it drawn, and were snarling and cursing at the murderous orc. He grinned and ran a blood-soaked hand through his long red hair. Seven of the braver patrons were arrayed in sort of a semi-circle in front of him. One of them, a warrior by his dress and look, broke the circle and rushed for him. The human thrust his worn, heavy broadsword at the orc's midsection. In one smooth motion, Za'anamalx parried the thrust and disemboweled his unarmored opponent with an upward clawing motion of the mace. Kicking the falling body out of the way, he snarled as an elf lashed out with a woodsman's axe. Time seemed to slow, and Za'anamalx ducked, sliding to his knees. As the axe hummed over his head, he reached up and grabbed the elf by the tunic. The demon pulled the woodsman close to his crazed, burning eyes and uttered a curse meant to damn him to eternal flames. He then shoved the elf away and clubbed him twice in the face, rewarded by another shower of blood. Time snapped back into focus, and two elven sisters lunged at him from both sides with steel war hooks. He seized the wrist of one assailant while he dispatched the other with a mace blow to the chest. Then he turned and sliced her sister?s throat with her own hook. She fell to the ground with a look of surprised horror on her pale oval face. Before Za'anamalx could even turn around, massive arms wrapped around the orc's chest and upper arms. A strapping young farmhand held him immobile in a crushing wrestling hold, causing him to drop the mace. He felt Ranka's ribs cracking, but paid no heed. Two other farmhands began to pummel the orc?s body. Za'anamalx snarled demonically, and time coalesced again. He flexed his muscles, and with supernatural strength, broke the hold and threw the farm hand to the floor, breaking his body against the flagstones. The two others stared at him in disbelief. One of their fists came flowing towards him, like a feather slowly drifting on the breeze. Za'anamalx caught it, and squeezed until he was rewarded by a scream and knuckles crunching under his grip. He grabbed the two workmen by the throat, one in each hand, and hurled them into the hot stones of the hearth. The demon seized the mace from where he had dropped it, and turned to face his quarry, who had just made his way across the room in the ten seconds the combat had lasted. The blood-demon sized his opponent up. Granthyr Dane was average height, but built like a bear. He wielded a great two-handed sword, and the blade was in flame. Granthyr?s sword was imbued with the elemental power of Fire. Suddenly, Za'anamalx realized that Granthyr's soul was filled with divine power. He felt weak, and began losing control over his Ranka, his willing slave. Za'anamalx struggled to regain power, but it was too late. The massive blade hissed downward, trailing flame, and sliced right through the orc's mace shaft, through his mail and helm, and through his flesh and bones, splitting him from brow to groin. Za'anamalx screamed in horrific pain as he was wrenched so forcibly from the mortal shell, and his screams intensified as Granthyr banished him, in the name of the One God, to the depths of Hell. The scream died off, and Granthyr Dane sagged as if under a heavy weight. He sighed in regret, wishing he could have saved more of these unfortunates. They had died to save him, even if they did not know it. He looked over at the bartender. She stood over the body of one of the elven sisters, her face and bosom spattered with blood.
"I'm sorry I didn't do more," Granthyr lamented to her. "I'm sorry I didn't move more swiftly." And then he dropped to his knees and prayed for forgiveness.

Copyright 2003 Jonathan Rosselli

EDIT: I fixed the quotation marks. Do I have to convert the format to a txt. file before transferring it from Word?
Woops, forgot the copyright. That was close.

 

That was really good, Sigurd! Keep it up :thumbup:

 

Muchos gracias. Es solamente una parte pequena de una historia mas grande.

 

I think pequena means tiny. Dunno how you'll take it from me, but I like it. The blood works in context. I guess I was just bothered by it standing there alone, you know. But isn't that Spanish? I thought you spoke Italian. Oh, no wait, you study Spanish but you are Italian.

Maybe one of these days I'll post some of my writing. I'm, uh, not sure if it counts as web-publication. I'm not allowed to do that. Contract shit. Hm, maybe something I'm working on. It's not fantasy, though.

 

It is spanish.
It means:
It is only a small part of a larger story.

historia does not necessarily mean history
pequena means small, although the n should have an ~ over it.
And Sigurd:
Gracias is Feminine, and parte is Masculine, so your As and Os are a little screwy

 

You are partially correct. I typed that a bit quickly, and I'm still not quite fluent in Spanish, thus the gender mistake. It should be "Muchas gracias. Es solamente una parte pequena de una historia grande."
But you are wrong about the gender of parte. Parte is feminine when it is used to mean "part." Check your Spanish book. I tried to make an ñ using Alt + 0241 on the numpad, but it didn't work, and only now did I try cutting and pasting it from the character map.

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I can see how you took it when it was just the fight seen by itself. Unfortunately, I only have a very general knowledge of Italian, as my grandparents didn't speak it in the house, and thus neither did my father. Well, they used a few words, such as stunatta (stunned, stupid), manga (eat!), capiche (understand?), and, my personal favorite, sta femina! (that woman!)" My grandpa uttered that in exsaperation at the womanly antics of my grandmother, aunts, and mother.

 

Well, your first sentence should have been spelt thus (sorry if I seem a bit reiterative):

"Muchas gracias. Es solamente una parte pequeña de una historia más grande."

Meaning 'Many thanks. It's just a small part of a larger story'. The mistakes you had were 1) Wrong gender - 'muchos' instead of 'muchas'.
2) You typed a N instead of a Ñ, though I suppose for you guys that letter isn't easy to find - I just have a Spanish keyboard. 3) Lack of tilde: 'mas' instead of 'más'. In this case it matters because the meaning varies - 'mas' spelt like this means but. Dunno if you people have a ´ key though. Don't really worry about this - tildes are a difficult part of the language to master, though they do make a difference.

Just wanted to clarify - again, sorry if I sound too anal on this.

Sigurd, is that supposed to be a small part of a story? How long is (or will be) the complete one?

 

Yeah, I knew that it should have been an a con acento, just like the ñ, but I forgot to adress that. Like the ñ, I didn't bother to cut and paste from the character map. So you PC users in Spanish-speaking countries have special keyboards? That's pretty cool, I always wondered about that.
Don't worry about being anal. As I've said before, my Spanish is far from perfect. Feel free to give corrections any time I use the language.
I'm not sure how far I'll go with this one. I'm writing a larger novel on a much more epic scope, but the Granthyr Dane story will be shorter and more personal.

 

Well, they're not 'special' - just adapted to the language we use. I mean, if we had to cut and paste tildes from the character map, typing would REALLY be a pain in the ass. We do use them a lot...

P.S. - 'Acento' is different from 'tilde'. The first word refers to the stressing of a syllable when pronouncing any word. The second one refers to the symbol used in some cases to mark it.

 

Yeah....I guess that was a totally useless and stupid question. Obviously you must have a different keyboard.

But doesn't any letter "con acento" have a tilde above it to denote the accent?