I bought a new PC this week, so I’m cleaning out the hard drive of my old system, figuring out what I want to archive, what needs to be moved to the new machine, and what can just be deleted. I found a file called sig.txt and assumed it was going to be a signature file for email or something.
But nope, it was a character introduction I’d written in the way back times. The timestamp on the file says 2014 but since it appears to be an intro for my Dark Age of Camelot character I’m guessing it was written somewhere around the launch window of that game, which was 2001.
It isn’t good by any stretch, but dang I had kind of forgotten that I used to goof around trying to write fiction, if you can call a character into fiction.
Anyway before I lose it to a hard drive failure or something, I figured I’d archive it to the blog. So here it is, completely un-edited. I don’t even know what it was for… some role playing guild intro post or something, probably.
Sadly, I no longer seem to have any of my old screenshots from those days and it feels cruddy to ‘borrow’ one so… just imagine low res polygonal vikings and you’ll have the right mental image!
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Was it an innate sense of duty that lead me to take up sword in defense of our realm? Sadly I say nay. T’was fish guts that made me do it.
How so? Ma and da were hard working fisherfolk and mind, fishing be honorable work. When’s the last time ye fought a battle with an empty belly? A hard task, no? We all need to eat.
But me, I just couldn’t warm to that life. I tried but oh, how I hated
it. I’d run off to watch the guards in town as they strode about . Soon enough they got to know me, and they’d show me a trick or two, me with a stick that served as me sword then. I’d come home and my da would holler at me “Where ya been Sig? There be a catch needs attending to.” And I’d cry out “Da, I don’t want ta clean fish, I want ta slay a dragon!”
As I grew taller, I spent more and more time hanging about the guards, and even grow brave enough to approach the Dreng who came and went. One day, a soldier gave me a cast-off sword. It was a weapon worthy of slaughtering chickens, perhaps, but it were mine! And I learnt quick from them guards how ta wield it. And I liked the feel of the sword in me palm. Oh yes, very much.
Da says, “Sig, there’s nets to be mended, put down that pig sticker and get up yer needle and twine.” Uppity lad, I says “Da, I got no time for mending. Somewhere there be a dragon needs slayin! I need ta go and find it!”
Finally, on the day I first realized that the itching on me chin were due to the fact I was startin ta grow whiskers, my da took me aside and he says, “Sigrund, I like the life of a fisherman. But that don’t mean you need to like it as well. I’ve seen you hanging about with the Dreng and those are the times ye look happiest. When you be gutting fish, tis like your heart has gone missing. Go and chase your dragons, son. Go and make your ma and me proud.”
And so I went. I trained with the town guard a bit but fact is, Vasudheim was feeling mighty small, especially when I’d overhear some freemen coming in from Auditlen or Hagerfel, or even as far off as Huginfel. I heard rumors of a place called Askheim overtaken by evil beings. Inside, a spark had taken hold, and the Dreng and the stories fed it, and I knew it were time for me to go out in the world and make my way. Talk of battles with elves and Arthur’s clan riled my blood, while right there at home in Vasudheim purses started to go missing and doors started being bolted at night.
At times it seemed all of Midgard was being torn assunder and needed mending.
So now, my sword be my needle, and honor be my twine, and I’m doing my best to mend our beloved realm. Valhalla awaits at the end of this road, I know. But that’s not for a while. There be much work to do first. I am proud to be a Warrior of Midgard.