Project resurection

Well, today is technically the first day of my last class.  However, due to a SNAFU with financing, I don't have access to the online classroom yet.  Hopefully later today, or tomorrow at the latest.  No worries, honestly.  The first week is just an intro week, literally and figuratively.

Though I will have my hands full with research and academic writing for the next few months, I am going to try to balance it with some fiction writing.  To that end I have been inspired to resurrect an old project.  This one was chugging along nicely a few years ago, and I had several thousand words down and nearly the entire first draft done.  Then, for some mysterious reason, the file got corrupted, and wasn't recoverable.  Although, looking back, I might have been able to restore it from an archived version (a perk of writing during downtime at work).

Either way, the few snippets I had emailed out to people were all I had left, so, in a fit of despair and disappointment, I just abandoned it.  Now, I have decided to take my basic premise, and reconstruct it from the ground up.  I'm also planning it to be much longer than the original short story idea I had been working on.

The story is sort of a fantasy version of Mack Bolan or the Punisher.  It involves an orc, Mahak, seeking revenge and justice in Misery, a city of oppression, after the murder of his mate and child.  The story also involves a magic-infused drug called rug-magru, or 'little death."  Below is a snippet that will probably get some edits down the road, but sets a good tone for the kind of story I want to write:

***

As Kikrok peered around the corner he spotted Lakoo. The orc looked nervous, and this made Kikrok nervous. He wondered what was causing his delivery boy to act so; eyes and head darting in every direction, jumping at every sound. Kikrok debated on foregoing the whole meeting, and high-tailing it out of there. But this delivery was important. Once this shipment of rug-magru was sold, his debt to Archid would be paid in full, and he would have enough to buy his way out of Misery. Checking behind him one last time, the orc tentatively stepped into the light at the end of the alley, making sure that Lakoo plainly saw him, lest he draw a weapon of some type.

The skittish orc looked up and flinched, but when he recognized Kikrok, he sprinted over to him.

“What’s wrong?” Kikrok’s voice was a harsh whisper.

“Did you not hear what happened to Gaag?”

“No…”

“Someone killed him!” Lakoo’s eyes were wide with hysterics. He grasped the dealer by the shoulders, their faces almost meeting in his anxiety. “They cut him to ribbons…slowly...”

“Get a hold of yourself.” Kikrok grabbed the orc’s shoulders and tried to push him away. The pair struggled, and in their shuffling, neither heard the hiss from above.

From his angle of fire, Mahak judged that the bolt would go through the first orc’s back and erupt from his abdomen with enough force to catch Kikrok in the upper thigh, or possibly the groin. Either would suffice. His estimation proved fairly accurate, as the bolt took the orc whose back was to him at the base of the spine, just to left. Both orcs cried out and collapsed. Mahak leapt from the roof, landing in a roll. As he came to his feet, he stalked towards the pair.

Kikrok saw a skull-faced apparition approach, and with a grunt shoved the dying Lakoo off of him, causing the bolt to rip from his upper thigh. But before he could move another inch, a large orc with a skull mask was looming, pointing a double-crossbow at him. The upper bolt had been discharged, but the lower one was aimed directly at his eye. There was a tense moment when all that could be heard was Lakoo’s faint wheezing combined with Kikrok’s gasps of pain.

“You will talk.” Growled the skull.