The ladies took flight, just moments before the mob ascended around the campfire. Little but panic judged their hastened steps and stumbles, and it didn’t take long for them to loose track of each other. Maria was barely keeping up with Cynthia when she vanished in a flash right in front of her. Disbelief in what she saw lasted only a moment before she too lost her footing and began tumbling down to the bottom of a large gully where her final bounce and roll landed her squarely atop Cynthia. They both scrambled to their feet, and the two bruised, but determined women picked up where they left off.

They ran for several minutes before coming upon a thicket. They stopped and quickly assessed the situation. The fog was fair, the moon was small, the gully was deep, and the chances of the mob finding them under this growth was very slim. “We should hide here for a few hours, the mob will grow tired and we can sneak back into town before morning.” Maria was inclined to agree with her. Both girls were very tired, and Maria’s movements were still impaired from giving birth. So they crawled in on their stomaches as deeply as they could into the brush and waited.

After an hour of nothing their hearts were pounding a little less and their wounds were hurting a little more. They began whispering back and forth wondering what happened to the others. They quickly silenced by the glow of firelight through the fog on top of the North ridge. They could barely hear the footsteps and occasional whispers as they slowly passed by. They held their breath as they looked for their friends in the crowd, but they never got close enough to tell. Cynthia leaned in and whispered to Maria, “I’ve got to get closer, I have to know.” Maria sharply whispered “wait” and grabbed her arm, but Cynthia just wiggled free and crawled out.

Maria could barely breath as she watched Cynthia crawl up the hill toward the men above. She felt guilty for staying behind, but she couldn’t will herself to move, so she watched. When Cynthia finally reached the top the fire glow was out of site and she was too late. Both disappointed and relieved she motioned down the hill to Maria that it was clear. Maria paused for just a moment, but decided to herself that if not now, then when. So she started to the top of the hill to meet Cynthia and make their way back to town.

Not much to report, the weekend programming was actually spent doing day job programming, so I haven’t quite gotten the tilemap editor into place just yet. I am also postponing the ongoing story until this weekend. I am tired, I was trying to write it, and my wife pointed out that I was overwriting some of last weeks, so I think I’ll wait until I have half a mind to do so.

Pretty much the only new stuff out right now are some partial tile maps I have been experimenting with. I even took a stab at hand drawn art, and I am not impressed, but not disgusted all at the same time. The hand drawn art I do always seems to dull down the colors, so I have to make a choice of all hand drawn or all generated as the two don’t seem to mix well.

The fog was thick in the air, she could only tell when the mob passed closely by. She had been running and hiding most of the night. Having no business being there with a husband and child at home she was cursing her decision to listen to Agaitha Winerek. “I clearly remember telling her with the trials and all, but ooohh no, she wouldn’t listen. Oh Maria, twill be so much fun, the cider, the stories, and not a soul will be the wiser.” Through the panic Maria blushed red with the realization of how silly her muttering sounded. What started as a night of fun with the cabin fevered mothers turned into a nightmare of deadly proportions. Her mind wouldn’t stop racing around the events that lead to this moment…

Just after dark Maria kissed her husband and child goodbye, grabbed the lantern her husband handed her and left out to meet the girls. They had grown up together, gotten married about the same time, and with Maria’s addition a couple months ago, they all had children. Growing up they had always met in the woods behind the old church, lit a fire, and told stories to see if they could scare each other. It had been years since they had been out there, and they were all as excited as they were cautious. A year ago a homeless woman was seen eating a rat, and was later caught scaring kids with the eyes and tails. What started as a simple case of disturbance soon escalated into a plague of convenience convictions and vigilante justice. They all knew know one was safe, was the nostalgia of it all was far too enticing.

One by one they showed up around the campfire, each one more giddy than the next. After they all greeted each other and settled down Cynthia Hamlin started things off with a ghost story that had some promise but got way too sappy to hold it’s once haunting edge. Then March Engel stood everyone’s hair up with a story that was way to close home. After a long silence March broke through the eerie silence with her all too common laugh after scaring the fool out of everyone, which always led to a host of laughter. Everyone was slowly quieting down as Agaitha stood to tell her story. Agaitha’s stories always started off slow, with lots of dramatic pauses, probably the only reason escaped. At about the third mouth gaping stare we heard a rustling. We were scared for just a moment, when Cynthia pointed at that March wasn’t in the circle. March was infamous for sneaking out of sight and scaring everyone, with a smile on their face, story time continued as they eagerly awaited the obvious.

Agaitha was nearly finished when they heard a rustling, odd, they usually never heard her coming. March flew out of the woods in a blind run running falling over Cynthia. They all shrieked and fell apart in laughter, it took few seconds for March to catch her breath and finally speak above noise what she had been frantically mouthing since she arrived. “Run”, she shouted as her finger pointed back toward the church. A light fog was settling in and through it they could see the tint of torchlight. Someone had seen them, they were coming…

Of all the underground witch trials in England, only one young girl ever floated the pond in chains. She was an outsider who the villagers grew suspicious of, and without ever learning her name they through her before the mob and demanded justice. The weary self proclaimed judge demanded she be immediately chained and thrown into the pond. But to his own amazement, this girl did not sink, and the waters began to shimmer. Minutes passed like seconds as everyone watched in amazement, until an unfamiliar shout “burn the witch” , was shrieked from the crowd. The still bewildered judge no longer bearing the hate in his heart was far too fearful not to feed the monster he had created. So to appease the mob, he ordered her burning.

As the men were retrieving the strange woman from the pond, a man cloaked darkly in a druids robes raised his voice and addressed the now attentive crowd. “You have witnessed the power of this witch. Would you then burn her in you own village, releasing this evil amongst you? Come with me, the druids have a place to dispose of such things, there we will burn her, and her evil will be banished from this land.” The people agreed, and for two days they trekked the countryside until they came to a peculiar stone circle where other druids were awaiting their arrival.

It was already late in the evening, the druids took the woman to the center of the circle and tied her to a stake that appeared to be placed squarely atop an alter covered with fire wood and reeking of pitch. One of the druids took a ceremonial dagger and cut her deeply on one leg well above the knee. They waited as a peculiar shimmering blood slowly found its way down her leg, onto the wood  finally landing atop the altar. Still standing in the wood, the druid holding the dagger gave a nod, and the other druids tossed their torches onto the wood. The pitch spread the fire quickly, and shrieks from both the druid and the woman filled the air for far longer than seemed natural.

An uneasy fear was growing on the crowd. The wailing had ended,and through the heated haze it was hard to determine, but it looked like they were staring at each other. Then the burnt ropes that had held her to the stake snapped, and the two leapt at each other. All but a few in the mob ran, leaving the judge and a few others watching this spectacle. And as the two in the flames battled the druids began chanting what sounded like a prophesy. “Even in the fire she guards the gate, but the guilt from judgement lingers. The fire fades away her unnatural age, and there he can lay his fingers.”

For what seemed hours they fought, but she seemed to be growing weaker. A forceful blow came from the druid landing her on her back. She tried to get up but the druid straddled her chest pinning both her arms then wrapped his hands firmly around her kneck. She weakly struggled against him but soon her body went limp, and the victor arose and watched as she quickly faded to a shimmering ash that was scattered to the wind.

Then the ground began to shake violently and pillars of light began to radiate all around. Several odd beings stepped forward from these lights and surrounded the mob. The druid who fought in the fire now turned his attention to the judge. “I thank you my friend for finding her, I have been searching a very, very long time.” The judge gathered his wits and pleaded, “please sir, allow us to be on our way.” The druid replied “fear not good judge, I have use for you all.” “You my friend, will be my eyes and ears in this world, and I will repay your service with immortality. But as for your 7 friends here, they are no use to me alive.”

With that the villagers were dragged and bound to the seven surrounding altars in the circle. The druid walked back to the judge where two others were making sure he did not leave. “They call me Arakai, and you might be?” The judge replied weakly, “Merin.” The druid motioned for the strange beings to back away then spoke, “Merin, I am going to rule this world and you will be by my side.” “And I am going to give you power you couldn’t even imagine, as well as your own army.” He pulled out the dagger that he had cut the woman with and placed it in Merin’s hand. “Your army and your power lie on these seven alters, now go claim what is yours.”

Drunk with a new lust for power, yet sickened by it all Merin moved to the first altar, dagger in hand. He knew this man, their children played together and their wives talked often, funny they had rarely spoken at all. His screams sounded like they were a mile away in a bucket, echoing through his head as he plunged the dagger into his heart almost throwing up. The next thing Merin remembers is stepping back from the 7th he had killed, as if some sort of trance had overtaken him.

Every story, be it a movie game or book, that is worth taking in will diverge through a series of situations leading up to the end result. A good writer can probably outline an entire book simply in situations and then connect the dots with drama lines, action sequences, an array of emotions, or some history. Take for example Star Wars where Luke first fights Vader. A situation arose which lead up to a vengeance action sequence and then on to one of the most memorable movie situations I can think of. The action scene before really built up the suspense and drama and lead beautifully into Luke’s frightening reality.

Now back and take another look at this. What if Vader simply entered the room, put Luke into a choke hold and let him have it with the “who’s your daddy” line. It would have OK, it would have been a little more difficult on the escape, and it wouldn’t probably wouldn’t have been as quotable. The struggle built the drama, Luke was loosing and you could feel, and when you were finally on the edge of your seat the perfect situation had been generated.

Now lets swing over to one of my favorite series that every now and then gets on my nerves. I love X-Files. Great show, I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself so I easily bond with the looming plot lines and back story. So as a fan I think I can fairly criticize this one a bit. In the latest movie toward the end there was a moment where Mulder was pushed off the road and crashed. So here he was, someone attempted to kill him, he survived, and rather than calling for some back knowing that this probably wasn’t over, he conveniently never realized his cell phone missing and went after the truth with my mind screaming from the moment he got out of the car to get his cell phone. By the time the bad situation come about I really didn’t care that he just might get killed. For me, that ended the movie, I watched the rest of it, but I couldn’t get that out of my mind.

Now lets plug this into game development. When generating situations for your heroes it is important to remember that the events leading up to the situation are just as important as the situation. If the situation completely dependent upon someone doing something that is going to have the human player throwing the controller at the screen, it is best to do it through an NPC or a temporary party member. Unless you are a truly remarkable story teller, using the main character to do something stupid for anything other than a light hearted humorous moment is likely to make the gamer feel that their role in the story has been eroded.