Yeah. I know. It’s a long title. But as everyone should have heard by now, Gary Gigax died on March 4th. Considering his impact on my life, I think he deserves a long title. And this being Sunday, it’s a perfect day to dedicate a post to him. See, I wanted to do something special, but couldn’t think of anything. So it’s taken me a while to do this.

As for the Sunday comment, well, here’s why:

When I was about 13 I was going to church in a small town in Louisiana. The preacher’s son would be in the sound room upstairs during the service and he invited me up there. Unbeknown to the crowd below, he’d bring his Dungeons and Dragons books with him and we’d sit there reading them during the service. I know. I know. “It’s sacrilegious!” But I was 13. There was no youth program. And to be quite honest, the preacher had a monotone voice. Mix that with the fact I was easily bored (and still am actually) and you find there was an excuse. Not a good one, but an excuse nonetheless. That was my beginnings with Dungeons and Dragons. Although that particular activity stopped, I never stopped reading the books. In high school I met friends who also played. That was the beginning of Jolt Cola, Pizza, and Weekend Gaming Sessions. I won’t go into the gritty details. At least not in this post.

So what is this tribute? And why page 1? Well, there used to be this thing on the old BBS systems (read as “before the Internet”) where we would post forum posts that were the beginnings of stories and people would come in and continue them. It was a form of roleplaying, but without the dice, pencils, and math. It tested your creativity and your writing skills. Well, that’s what I want to start here.

RULES

I’m going to start a story just below. I’m then going to tag a specific person to continue the story. The point here is to pick someone who you think can accomplish the goal and also keep the spirit of the story alive. You may want to ask the person before you tag them. Some people would call this a meme. I’m just going to call it fun. To each person who is tagged throughout this story, I ask that you put the page number in your title so everyone can keep track. I also ask that you put a link to the page before yours (in other words, the person who tagged you) so anyone who wants to read the story from the beginning can find their way. And last, but not least, when the person has written the continuation, please edit your post to contain a direct link to the next page. For example, when the person I’m tagging has written their part, I’ll edit the link at the bottom of this post to point directly to their page of the story.

I’m tagging Woobie.

THE STORY

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 |

“What did you just say?” asked Serol. He was a blonde man about in his late twenties. The scar below his right eye always seemed to twitch when he was excited, bad or good. It was twitching now. There was good reason.

“I said I’d rather not go back to Reindwood. I know you came to take me there. But King Cers and I don’t really get along. It’s a long story,” said the gleaming white sword in his hand.

“I don’t know anything about that story. What I’m having a problem dealing with is that you’re speaking in the first place,” said Serol.

“Well, when the King sent you on a quest for the ‘Sword of the Three Souls’ and offered you treasures beyond your wildest dreams, did you really expect me to be a plain sword?”

“No. I figured the cyclops guarding you didn’t just like you cause you were shiny, or he may have considering the intelligence level of a cyclops in general. But a talking sword?” asked Serol.

“For a man who has had conversations with dragons, or so the legends go, you’d think you’d be used to things like this,” said the sword.

“Dragons have mouths. You don’t,” said Serol as he blinked.

“Oh. So now you’re racist against beings without mouths. I see how it is,” the sword grew slightly brighter and with a red tint in the tip.

“Ok. Ok. No need to get angry. ‘Sword of the Three Souls’ is kind of a mouthful. What can I call you?” asked Serol.

CONTINUED BY Woobie.

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