LOVE LUST DECEIT ELECTRICITY
Short Fiction

A Sizzling Love Story

by

VIKRAM KARVE

There is a saying: “ If you decide to murder your husband you must never act in concert with your lover ”.

That’s why I did not tell Raj.

Or involve him in any way.

Not even the smallest hint.

I made my plans alone and with perfect care.

An “accident” so coolly and meticulously designed.

Precisely at 12:50 in the afternoon, the ghastly accident would occur.

And then my phone would ring – to convey the “bad” news.

And suddenly I would be a widow.

Free.

Liberated from shackles.

Released from bondage.

Then all I had to do was to keep cool, maintain a solemn façade, and patiently wait for Raj to return after completing his project in Singapore.
Then after the customary condolence period was over, Raj would propose to marry me – an act of chivalry, of sympathy, or even “self-sacrifice”.

First I would demur, then “reluctantly” succumb to the pressure from my friends and relatives, and accept – just for my children’s sake.

There would be nods of approval all around.

And soon Raj and I would be Husband and Wife.

The phone rang.

I panicked.

There is no fear like the fear of being found out.

I looked at the wall-clock. It was only 10.30 am.

Had something gone wrong?

I felt a tremor of trepidation.

The phone kept on ringing – it just wouldn’t stop ringing.

I picked up the receiver, and held it to my ears with bated breath.

The moment I heard Anjali’s voice I felt relieved.

“Why didn’t you come to the health club?” Anjali asked.

I’m not well,” I lied.

“Anything serious? Should I come over?” she asked.

“No!” I tried to control the anxiety in my voice. “It’s a just a slight headache. I’ll take a tablet and sleep it off,” I said cautiously.

“I hope Manish and you are coming over in the evening,” Anjali asked.

“Of course,” I said and put down the phone.

I smiled to myself.

That was one party Manish was going to miss. Probably they would cancel it and would be right here offering their condolences and sympathy.

I would have to be careful indeed.

And to hell with the health club and the painful weight loss program. I didn’t need it any more.

Raj accepts me as I am – nice and plump and on the “healthier” side, as he calls me lovingly.

Not like Manish who is always finding fault with me.

I know I can always depend on Raj.

He really loves me from the bottom of his heart.

I looked at my husband Manish’s framed photograph on the mantelpiece.

Soon it would be garlanded.

My marriage to Manish had been a miserable mistake, but soon it would be over and I would be free to live the life I always wanted.

I wish I didn’t have to kill Manish, but there was no way out – Manish would never give me a divorce, and if he came to know about me and Raj, he would destroy both of us, ruin our lives; for he was a rich and powerful man.

Also, I prefer to be a pitied widow rather than a stigmatized divorcee.

The plan was simple.

I had programmed a Robot to do the job.

The huge giant welding robot in Manish’s factory.

At exactly 12:45, when the lunch-break started, Manish would enter his pen drive into the robot control computer to carry out a maintenance troubleshooting check.

And then he would start inspecting various parts of the robot – the manipulator, end effectors and grippers – to cross-check their programmed movements.

It was a routine exercise, and I knew Manish had become quite complacent as the robot had never developed any faults so far.

But today it would be different.

Because I had surreptitiously reprogrammed the software last night.

This is what was going to happen.

At precisely 12:50 all safety interlocks would be bypassed, and suddenly the robot would activate and the welding electrode would arc 600 Amperes of electric current into Manish’s brain.

It would be a ghastly sight – his brain welded out and his body handing like a pendulum, lifeless. Death would be instantaneous.

Manish had been a fool to tell me everything and dig his own grave. A real dope – he deserved it!

It was a foolproof plan and no one would suspect since the program would erase itself immediately. I had ensured that. It would be an accident, an unfortunate accident.

Condolences, compensation, insurance – soon I would be a rich widow, with one and all showering me with sympathy and compassion.

And then I would wait for Raj to come back from Singapore.

And then, after a few days I knew he would propose to me, and I would ‘reluctantly’ accept and we would live happily ever after.

I looked at the wall clock. It was almost 11 O’clock.

Suddenly I began to have second thoughts. Maybe I should give Manish a last chance.

All I had to do was pick up the phone and ask Manish to rush home.

Feign a sudden illness or something.

But no! I tried to steel my nerves. I had crossed the Rubicon, and there was no going back. The tension of waiting was unbearable, but I must not lose my head.

I tried to divert my thoughts to Raj.

The first time I suspected that Raj loved me was when he didn’t attend my wedding. Then he disappeared abroad for higher studies and I almost forgot him. And one fine day, after almost fifteen years, Raj suddenly reappeared to take up a job in my husband’s factory.

And when I learnt that Raj had still not married I realized how deeply in love with me he was.

At that point of time I was so disillusioned with my marriage that my daily life was rather like sitting in a cinema and watching a film in which I was not interested.

Raj and I began spending more and more time together, and somewhere down the line emotions got entangled and physical intimacy followed.

Did Manish suspect?

I do not know.

Was that the reason he had sent Raj to Singapore?

I don’t think so.

We had kept our affair absolutely clandestine.

I looked again at the clock.

11.45 am.

One hour to go.

I began to have a feeling of dread and uneasiness, a sort of restlessness and apprehension – a queer sensation, a nameless type of fear.

So I poured myself a stiff drink of gin.

As I sipped the alcohol, my nerves calmed down.

Today was the last time I was going to have a drink, I promised myself.

Once I married Raj I would never drink – there would be no need to.

In my mind’s eye I could almost visualize my husband Manish sitting in the vacant chair opposite getting steadily drunk every evening.

Manish was an odd creature with effeminate mannerisms that became more pronounced when he was drunk.

He was always picking at an absurd little moustache, as though amazed at himself for having produced anything so virile.

How I hated the mere sight of him.

The very thought of my husband made me gulp down my drink.

I poured myself one more drink and gulped it quickly to steady my nerves. Then I had one more drink; and one more, when my cell-phone rang.

I shook out of my stupor and picked up my mobile phone. It was an unknown number. I rejected the call.

The cell phone rang again; same number. I looked at the number. 65….. – it was from Singapore.

Was it Raj? From Singapore? My heart skipped a beat. I answered urgently.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi Urvashi, how are you?” it was Raj’s voice.

“Where are you speaking from? Is this your new number?” I asked.

“No. This is Rajashree’s cell-phone,” Raj said.

“Rajashree?”

“Yes, Rajashree, she wants to talk to you,” Raj said.

“Hi Urvashi,” a female voice said, “Raj has told me so much about you.”

It was strange.

Who was this Rajashree?

I knew nothing about her!

So I said, “But Raj has told me nothing about you!”

“I know,” Rajashree said, “it all happened so suddenly. Even I can’t believe it could happen so fast – Love at first sight, whirlwind romance, swift wedding.”

“Wedding?” I stammered, shocked beyond belief.

“Yes. We, Raj and I, got married yesterday and we are on our way to our honeymoon, on a cruise liner.”

“You bitch! Give the phone to Raj,” I shouted, losing control, the ground slipping beneath me.

“Hey, chill out. What’s wrong with you?” Rajashree said calmly, paused for a moment, and spoke, “Raj has gone to the embarkation booth. Hey, he’s waving to me. I’ve got to go now. Bye. We’ll see you when we come there.” And suddenly she disconnected.

I stared at my cell-phone, never so frightened, never so alone.

I felt as if I had been pole-axed.

I looked at the wall-clock.

12.55.

Oh, My God!

The deadline of 12.50 had gone.

It was too late.

My blood froze.

The telephone rang.

I picked it up, my hands trembling.

“There’s been an accident, madam,” said the voice. It was the company doctor. “We are rushing Manish Sahib to the hospital. I am sending someone to pick you up.”

“Hospital? Tell me the truth,” I shouted hysterically into the phone, “Tell me, is he dead?”
“No. He’ll survive.”

Manish did survive.

I wish he hadn’t.

For his sake. And for mine.

For till this day he is still in coma.

And I know I will have to live with a ‘vegetable’ husband all my life.

It was a small miscalculation.

600 Amperes wasn’t enough.

But then the Robot is a machine.

My real miscalculation was about Raj.

LOVE LUST DECEIT ELECTRICITY

Short Fiction

A Sizzling Love Story

By

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
vikramkarve@sify.com

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

Huge hulking beast that he was, you’d be hard-pressed to hear Levi approaching. He had had many years to perfect the silent approach and it had proved useful. When he could ease his way in and stow away his bulk before someone noticed it he often fared better. He intimidated people and, while that was useful sometimes, it was not the perfect state in which to dwell permanently. He was fortunate that he often didn’t need to use his powers because his reputation preceded him and often did the work before he even had to set foot in an area. Reputation was like the flies pre-digeestion mechanism – it got to work on the repast before the fly even had to be really involved.
Levi sensed, as he was sure many hereabouts sensed, that something was coming – something moving under the surface to upset all the things which rested on the skin. He had kinship with those things; understood how the future moved into place. Levi was an excellent chess player – he had the patience and the foresight required of a Grandmaster. He had no need of his preternatural gifts when it came to playing, and he prided himself on this.
Would he be called upon to squash someone? Would necessity issue orders that leisure and luxury allowed him to avoid? The world grew tighter by the moment; pressed in upon his sentience; made demands of him.
Depth Heights had been the place he called home for too long – he wished to move on, but, as with others, something placed a lock upon his forward progress until he had satisfied the requirements of either his own or some other creatures destiny.
In spite of his largeness he saw himself for what he truly was – a pawn at the mercy of Gods. He did not mind so much, but he wished that they would move on. Sure, he had patience for chess aplenty, but after all this time spent here his tolerance was thinning for the crushing stasis. Make a move. Check. Mate.

Lord of the flies – ha de fucking ha – that was what he thought some days. No one liked flies, no one liked him. He wished it meant that he got great air miles but it didn’t. He wished it meant that he had a huge pecker to poke through his flies at those women in the park who he liked to get over-friendly with, but it didn’t. No, being lord of the flies meant, as everyone knew, being lord over those stupid turd munching insects who buzzed around irritatingly.
People who knew his job title expected him to be some kind of advocate for the bloody things, but really, who could big up the little bastards? He’d tried – he surely had, but flies just got such bad press. Sometimes the constraints manifestation placed on him made him appear as a huge fucking fly, and some mad-for-it Christians had forced him to appear only to try and zap him with a custom made giant bug-zapper. He was not impressed and had left a room full of charred bodies in his wake – well, after several hours of suffering rather painful electric shocks as they tried to alter the voltage – thinking that this was the reason they were unable to kill him.
Being lord of the flies was like being in charge of a department where you were the only member of staff – it sucked ass in a major way. He would get small amounts of amusement from sending flies to pester people, but on a day to day basis he would say that his major sentiment was one of being seriously cheesed off.
He was, at that moment, directing what he was thinking of as an aerobatic team in a display that spelt out the words fuck you. He thought it was kind of nifty but it was like myspace and facebook – after days of endless repetition one wanted to bang there head repeatedly against something until they dislodged the boredom.
He was bored, and he knew he wasn’t the only one.

He liked to believe that the song by Eminem was inspired by him, but he knew it wasn’t true. He liked to believe many things but he was too old and too knowledgeable to ever really be able to fool himself.
He knew that some of these scions of hell thought of themselves as more than finite archetypes marking the current age’s vision of what the devil might be, but he knew better. He had gone into exile so long ago that he was sure no one remembered him – except some minor file clerk in the halls of Heaven who had been banished to a similar exile in one of the dusty sub-basements of Heaven’s Central filing office.
He was considered to be toothless now – no kind of threat to anyone at all except maybe himself. It got him angry sometimes – who likes to be thought of as a has-been? No one that he knew, that was for sure. But seriously what constituted flexing his muscles these days? Killing a pigeon as it landed on his windowsill? Giving a cockroach heart palpitations? Whatever he was doing it was not the stuff of which legends are made.
Stan has become, he hated even giving voice to the thought: ‘Boring.’ Did it happen with the dropping of the A? The moving from the cutting edge to this beige suburbia? Maybe. He had gone to seed, that was all he knew.
He took out a cigarette from the pack, did the old trick with the flame leaping out of the tip of his thumb, and smiled. Small things amuse those with small minds, and perhaps, after an eternity of living within the means of a small character he had learned to play on threat of annihilation, he had downsized. Ambition was not a word he bandied about anymore – he was not the arrogant Morningstar who had been cast down from heaven – that was for the newer iterations.
Boring life: boring eternal life – he needed to do something to spice it up.

The BBC analyses the impact of, and attitudes to, rising sea levels in two very different cities: Rotterdam and Maputo…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: rank cities. The blog is also related to: city place.

I love this print by Tom Gauld: Characters for an Epic Tale.

Tom Gauld Print: Characters for an Epic Tale

Check out this great bunny video… 

It has various footage of real bunnies in action and also some faux bunnies from the movie “A bunny girls tale” … can you spot which are real and which are fake?

~ Bunny Victoria

Mate Soulmate SPDP  

Short Fiction – A Tasty Story

By

VIKRAM KARVE

Pune. Fergusson College Road. Vaishali Restaurant. 5 PM on a Sunday evening.

Crowded. Crammed full. Jam-packed. All tables occupied chock-a-block. Aisles teeming with people waiting with watchful eyes for signs of someone finishing their refreshments.

Suddenly I see a woman waving to me, beckoning me with her hand. Her face seems familiar – oh yes, she is Ravi’s wife. She is sitting all alone on a table for two with a half eaten masala dosa in front of her.

I walk towards her and give her a smile.

“Sit down, sit down,” she says to me, gesturing with her hand towards the empty chair opposite her, “Sit down here with me, otherwise you will have to wait for hours.”

I sit down opposite her and say, “Thanks.”

She summons a waiter and orders peremptorily, “SPDP.”

“Two?” the waiter asks.

“No, one SPDP for Madam,” she says pointing to the empty plate in front of me without even bothering to ask me, then she pauses for a moment and tells the waiter, “and get one Kachori for me.”

Before I can recover my wits, she says, “You like SPDP don’t you? Ravi told me.”

“Yes, I love the SPDP at Vaishali. In fact I come all the way here every Sunday…”

“To spend the day reading in the library opposite followed by an SPDP at Vaishali,” she completes my sentence.

“Ravi told you all this?”

“Of course. He’s told me everything about you. Ravi admires you so much, he always talks about you.”

“Really? But he never tells me anything about you.”

“What’s there to tell? I am only his housewife, you are his office wife.”

“Come on. Please don’t say that. There is nothing like that between me and Ravi. We are just colleagues – workmates…”

“Workmates?” Ravi’s wife interrupts, and then says with a hint of sarcasm, “I think you are his true soulmate – and I am only his mate!”

I am struck dumb, feel a bit uneasy, but suddenly the plate of SPDP is kept in front of me, so I look down and begin to eat.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “Don’t get angry. I was just teasing. I want you to be Ravi’s friend. He likes you so much. That’s why he is so happy in office and doing so well in his work.”

I stop eating; look up at her vacuously, wondering what to say.

“Ravi appreciates you so much he even brings you home to me every evening in his thoughts and talks…that’s why I wanted to meet you.”

“We’ve met before…”

“Only once, that too only an introduction, at the Office Annual Day get-together…we are hardly married for three months, you know, and you all are so busy, with your targets and all, so I decided to meet you, talk to you, get to know you better, make a friendship…”

“You mean…”

“Yes, I contrived this coincidence. I came to the library also, but you were so busy browsing that I did not want to disturb you, so I waited here in Vaishali knowing you would surely come for your SPDP.”

“You’re not eating your Kachori,” I say, trying to change the direction of the conversation.

“Here, you eat,” she says pushing her untouched plate of Kachori and katori of whipped curds towards me, “I am all full – I ate an Uttapam, Idli-Vada Sambar, god-knows-what, waiting for you to come…”

She leans forward and casually picks up a Sev Potato Dahi Puri from my plate, pops into her mouth and says, “Wow. I love the chatpata flavour of SPDP – you call it Umami taste or something – that’s what you told Ravi, isn’t it?”

“I think I’ll go now,” I say, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, making up my mind to have a long talk with Ravi the moment I meet him in the morning at work.

“No, no, don’t go, I want to show you something.”

“Show me something?”

“Yes, that’s why I came all the way here to meet you.”

We finish the SPDP and Kachori, I insist on paying the bill, she doesn’t object too much, and then she takes me to the drapery section of the Shopping Mall nearby.

“We are furnishing our new house,” she says, pointing at the curtain cloth on display.

I look at her clueless.

“I like yellow, you like blue, and since you have told him about the aesthetic cool tranquil beauty of the blue colour, Ravi is besotted with everything blue – blue shirts, blue trousers, blue table-covers, blue bed-sheets, blue napkins, the sober blue everything that you make him buy…”

I look furtively and self-consciously at the blue dress I am wearing, and say, “Okay, tell me which curtains you like.”

She points to a bright yellow floral print and says, “I like that one, I love yellow, so lively and cheerful… I hate sober gloomy colours, especially blue, it depresses me.”

Next morning at the office, Ravi says to me, “Hey, keep yourself free in the evening. We’ll go to Deccan for some shopping. You’ve got to help me select curtains for our new home. Then we’ll have SPDP at Vaishali.”

“Sure, Ravi, I’ll love to come with you,” I say.

Now I’ve got till evening to decide one thing – which colour curtains should I tell Ravi to buy – Yellow Curtains or Blue Curtains?

VIKRAM KARVE

 Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve 

Appetite for a Stroll

vikramkarve@sify.com

Holy crap, the largest source mod since the games inception…the largest source code mod in my entire game development career. It has been finished. This new system is one-hundred twenty-six million, thats 126.000.000 times more efficient. It will never de-synchronize either. The FPS of the game has been drastically improved to 64 making things so much more fluid. Special thanks to Scorpious2k for all his coding help.

I am going to be working straight on the games development now…only one more month to go.

Fairy Tale is the one of the newest animes to appear on my list of favorites. The Main character is a teenage girl named Lucy Heartfilia who is in the world of wizards and guilds.

HIAAA

She comes to a small costal town looking for a guide to a famous guild called Fairy Tail and finds new friends. Her friends are Natsu Dragneel, a wizard withdragon like powers, and his friend, Happy who is a talking cat. The show goes on about various missions for Fairy Tale.

It’s been a while since i’ve done a development update. Okay so, Implementation is what i’d like to call this stage. All the work I have been talking about on the item database the quest database it’s really paying off in organization and rebalancing the game. Everything is much friendlier and casual, but there are still hardcore features. Im also fixing bugs inside the engine…

Visual Basic Coding ...Fun

Right now I have all the tier 1 items entered into the game. Including quest items. However I have a lot of quests to re-do, which means that npc drops have to be redone. Plus I have additional quests that i’m adding into the older areas of the game.  The beta test contained 10 tier 1 quests. Version 1.0 will have 20 tier 1 quests. On top of that I will have 7 treasure finding side-quests. With the new item database I also have to re-write a lot of scripts and code with new variable numbers so it’s kind of annoying. Almost all quest dialogue has been changed.

The game will launch with tier 1 and 2 content. The tier 3 content is going to be released shortly after launch as an expansion. Shortly after launch we hope to have around 60 quests in the game.

C’était l’anniversaire de William le boulanger, lundi passé. Nous sommes allés voir le réjouissant, touchant et si québécois spectacle de Fred Pellerin, L’Arracheuse de Temps

Il est porte-parole de la campagne d’Entraide 2009 du gouvernement du Québec. Ils ont bien choisi.

Last Monday was William the baker’s birthday. We saw the pleasing, touching and so Quebecer show of Fred Pellerin, L’Arracheuse de Temps.

He is spokesman for the campaign d’Entraide 2009 of the Quebec government. They have chosen well.

den altafgørende elevatortale

Du har 90 sekunder til at sælge en idé! Hvad gør du? Du bruger denne model: Hey, You, See, So

“Hey!” er din indledninge. Det der gør DU fanger opmærksomheden hos din kunde.

“You!” er dit twist. Her perspektiverer du over i hvorfor netop DIN kunde skal lytte efter nu, hvad de kan bruge det til!

“See!” er forklaringen. Laver koblingen mellem din idé og hvad der allerede eksisterer

“So!” er konklusionen. Afslut stærkt! Derfor skal kunden købe netop DIN idé!

1. FASE – HEY!
KIG HER!!! Du starter med at skabe opmærksomhed omkrig det produkt, du gerne vil have, at dine modtagere skal købe eller det budskab, de skal høre. Der skal være et eller andet i din reklame, der gør, at dine modtagere ikke kan undgå at lægge mærke til reklamen. Det er grunden til, at der i mange reklamer f.eks. optræder let påklædte damer! Det er jo sjældent, de har noget som helst med produktet at gøre!

2. FASE – YOU!
DET ER DIG DET HANDLER OM! Når opmærksomheden er fanget, skal modtagerne helst opdage, at reklamen eller annoncen er henvendt til dem. Der skal altså være noget, som holder din modtager fanget, inden opmærksomheden har fundet noget andet at koncentrere sig om.

3. FASE – SEE!
HER ER FORDELENE FOR DIG! Når du har fanget dine modtageres opmærksomhed (HEY) og gjort dem interesserede (YOU), skal du fortælle eller vise, hvilke fordele modtagerne får ved at købe produktet (SEE).

Som regel er det bedst at holde sig til en eller to fordele – også selvom produktet har mange flere.

4. FASE – SO!
SÅDAN SKAL DU GØRE! Hvis de første tre faser er vellykkede, mangler din modtager nu kun en enkelt oplysning:

· Hvis det er noget der er til salg: I hvilke butikker kan jeg købe produktet?

· Eller hvis det er en indsamling til en god sag: Hvordan kan jeg give et bidrag?

· Eller hvis det er en sundhedskampagne: Hvor kan jeg få mere at vide?

There will be no delay…I have finished the items database tier 1. The 2nd and third tiers will be there by launch everything will be on schedule. The quests database has been finished as well.

MARRIAGE MARKET

A Mulla Nasrudin Story

By

VIKRAM KARVE

Here is some food for thought and a laugh – a Mulla Nasrudin Story – think about it and have a laugh!

A rich man was father of many unmarried daughters.

He was trying desperately to marry off his daughters at the earliest.

One day he met Mulla Nasrudin at a gathering and saw in him a prospective son-in-law.

“I have several daughters,” the rich man told Nasrudin.

“That’s good,” said a nonchalant Nasrudin.

“I would like to see them comfortably married,” the rich man propositioned Nasrudin, “And I would also like to say that they all will go to their husband’s house with plenty of wealth and prosperity.”

“You mean dowry?” Nasrudin commented.

“Ah, yes, you can put it that way,” the rich man remarked, and said, “Well, my youngest daughter is twenty-three years old and she will take a dowry of Rupees 10 Lakhs with her. The next one is thirty-four years old and she will take Rupees 20 Lakhs dowry with her. Another daughter of mine is forty-five and she will take Rupees 30 Lakhs with her…”

“That’s very good,” exclaimed Nasrudin, who for some time appeared deep in thought as if calculating something in his mind, and then suddenly Nasrudin asked the rich man, “I was just wondering if you have a daughter of about seventy-five years of age…”

This story says a lot about the evils of dowry and the marriage market, isn’t it?

VIKRAM KARVE

vikramkarve@sify.com

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

Sometimes the best adventures, are the ones we create ourselves.

I know I’ve written a fair amount about Wurm lately, so I’m going to start this post off with a more general message.  There have been some amazing quests in games, but eventually you have experienced them all and all you can do is wander around aimlessly.  Sandbox games go some way to fix this, in a PC Gamer preview of The Elder Scrolls IV:  Oblivion, the writer told of his experiences playing the game before it’s release.  A standard PR event, writers from various magazines, websites, etc. met up after they’d had a chance to play around with the game, and each one had a different story to tell.  But even they are often not open enough to create unlimited adventures, once all of the official quests are complete the world can feel a little empty.  Either every item is hand placed, or randomly generated, the former are more interesting but limited in number and the latter are unlimited in number yet lack any reason.

That’s where Wurm Online has an advantage, since the whole world can be changed by other players, you aren’t stuck with the same layout you often get in sandbox games or even other MMOs.  Abandoned chests can appear anywhere, and contain anything from gems and high quality tools, to a pile of wood scrap.  Developers spend a lot of time writing back stories for these , Morrowind in particular I remember for leaving interesting notes and books for you to find, with some great tales.  But although the backstories in Wurm are often trivial or boring, they are always natural, and occasionally you find an item with an amazing backstory, the aforementioned chest could have been dropped by a passing trader who took on too many items to carry home, he could have acquired it from a traveller who took the chest from a little village in the mountains which was raided when their fences fell down.

When it comes to the stories we make up for ourselves however, sandbox games can still prove a great catalyst for the imagination.  They contain enough detail and a large enough backdrop, all it needs is a spark.  Ignoring all the mini-side quests to return a glove to a warriors loved one (Morrowind), sometimes our imagination can fill in the backstory when it is missing in the game.  When on a quest for the usual reasons (treasure, main storyline, boredom) you join forces with an Orc warrior, after facing unimaginable hardships together you are initiated into a group of knights.  More important issues call you away, but you promise to return once your quest is complete, to carry on your great work.  I have still yet to return to Mazoga, someday I hope I can keep that promise…

The reason I’m writing this is because a few days ago I experienced another such adventure of the imagination.

It was a bright, sunny day, a few clouds were drifting through the sky, and in the PCG village the inhabitants were going about their daily lives.  I needed to pop down to the coast to pick-up the clay I had dug earlier in the day, so I asked Jekev, the village animal carer, if I could borrow some of the animals to drag my cart.

I had wanted to give hitching a try for a long time, and now seemed the perfect opportunity.  Jekev agreed and decided to join me for a little ride, I had to fix up my cart before we left so he hitched up his cart and decided to have a ride around.  It was an entertaining spectacle watching him ride around, one of our neighbours, Hippias, hopped on the back and the two of them wandered around the village for a while.

Soon my cart was ready and I grabbed my rope and started hitching one of the village bulls and Pothop the horse, who we rescued from an area that had been completely fenced off, to my large cart. Then, after waiting for the gate to be unlocked I was off, the handling was spotty and the animals picky, but I was having a great time. I started heading for the gravel path that led down to the coast, and the clay-laden boat that waited below. Things were going well, until the trail started descending, my engines weren’t keen on the steep and uneven slope, and there wasn’t a safe way around.

Jekev had joined me by this point and he too could not find a safe route, then I remembered there was another slope on the other side of the village. This one was completely man-made and stood a better chance of suiting the animals temperament. So we flicked the reins and headed back through the village. We had only gotten halfway when we once again ran into issues, the villages position on the edge of a hill had always been a little troublesome and designing walkable paths took a lot of effort. Unfortunately, what had been suitable for us wasn’t for our herd and we couldn’t even get close to where we wanted to go.

Disheartened I started riding back to the farm, on the way we drove past the path that leads up to the summit of the mountain. I got to thinking about the poor animals, stuck in the middle of this dense forest, with no easy way down. I decided to take them up to see the sights, little did I know that this would be the start of a mini-adventure.

The long path up to the top of the hill is a good one, the slope is just enough to be easily walkable, although it still takes some effort if you’re carrying a lot of weight, but for the bulls and Pothop the horse it was almost effortless. Ahead though we saw a kink in the road. As we drew closer we saw it was a fairly large rise in one corner of the road, which proved too steep for our poor travelling train. So Jekev and I leapt of our carts, shovels in hand and we started digging. After a few minutes the rise was now a very shallow lump, so we climbed back up and carried back on our way.

As we ascended higher and higher, the edge of the hill started creeping in towards the road, and soon the trees started parting and we got a look at the magnificent view over Glitterlake, across to the even higher hill on the other side.

Maintaining a shallow gradient up the hill is a difficult task, eventually the hill starts out-ascending the road, and soon we reached the twist in the road that had been created to bypass this issue. We started turning our carts, heading up and round, but as the path started coming back on itself we hit another difficult slope. So once again we climbed down and started work with our shovels. This time however none of our changes seemed to make a difference, at some sections we hit the bedrock below, and the cherry trees that are so prevalent on this hill got in the way of others. We were stuck.

The top was so tantalisingly close, I was determined not to give up. I started thinking about everything I knew about carts, which admittedly is very little, then I remembered back to all the old westerns I had seen when I was younger. This situation was similar to the difficult river crossings that always seemed to come right before bandits pounced upon their position. What they had to do was unhitch the animals, and lead them past one by one, then slowly work the heavy carts along by hand. So that’s that we did, we grabbed our ropes and lead the animals up past the difficult slope. Then slowly dragged the carts up after them, constantly on the look-out for bandits who might try to steal our precious livestock.

We re-hitched the animals and were soon on our way again. The road to the top didn’t turn up any more problems, and soon it started disappearing. We were very close now, all we had to do was navigate the uneven terrain, past the fences and buildings, till we reached the edge. Directly ahead it was too steep, so we worked our way along the top and round the other side.

Eventually we made it to the edge, we parked up the carts and let the animals drink in the view. After many struggles and distractions, we had made it to the summit. We had done it, for Pothop and the bulls.

The view went on for miles, right down the spine of Golden Valley. Campfires and settlements could be made out in the distance.

After waiting around for a while, it was time to start heading back. The animals reluctantly turned away from the view and we set off back down the hill. We reached the twist again, and in a momentary case of amnesia, I forgot what we had done last time. After leading the animals down the difficult slope the journey was a simple one and we were soon back home.

It was a sad return, during the journey we had been so excited, working through the hardships. Now the adventure had ended.

I will remember this little adventure for a quite a while, and will be reminded of it every time I hitch any animals to a cart Wurm Online.  Many other people have had little adventures like this, that only they have experienced.  So feel free to share. 

The re-launch might be delayed until early 2010, due to the awesome games coming out lately and my ideas about reconstructing a lot of game data. The whole game is basically getting a huge re-balance. I’m going to do an eclipse only beta so the first users are going to be coming from there, if I cannot finish the new item database and re-do all of the quests by Nov 20th. The game will have to be delayed until 2010. So stay tuned until then to find out if I make the deadline.

In other news:

If you want to make some suggestions or have an impact on future development on the game…I’ve set up a form for you to fill out. We will credit your suggestions possibly through the use of in game items or other things. You can find and fill out the form here.