The room was dark, with no sound but that of rhythmic breathing and the occasional snort to punctuate the stillness. All of a sudden there was a loud banging and a muffled voice cried 'Get up and get decent you lazy sod, do you think I give you a bed to sleep in? Get down to the basement at once.'1
The sleeper lept up with a start and smacked his head on the low hanging roof, adding to his growing pile of bruises. Cursing he rubbed his head, then set about grouping for a candle, and in the inky darkness tried to concentrate on the wick, but misjudged where it was in the dark and set the corner of his small bed on fire, which flared up with impressive speed, temporarily blinded he did the only thing he could think of he shoved the candle in till it was lit, then sat on the flames. Ignoring the mess he quickly pulled on a dressing gown and pulled up the trap-door on the floor, which gave way with a long sleepy creak, and stumbled down the ladder.2
As he hurried down stairwell that led down to the basement, he pointedly ignored the reproachful eyes of the many portraits that seemed to follow his stumbling half-run and instead concentrated on keeping his balance, and the candle from going out.3
As he passed one of the many small windows that followed the lazy spiral down, he paused to look out and saw that there was still no glow of morning in the east. He tried to puzzle what he could possibly be doing awake at this hour, and finding no possible plausible reason he gave up that train of thought in disgust and hurried onwards.4
After what seemed an eternity he finally reached the large oak doors and started to pull them open, only to have a bolt of lightning zap the floor beside him, leaving the sharp smell of ozone, and a smoky haze. Then the doors swung open with a loud whoosh, and, with smoke swirling around him in little motes, a man exuding an aura of smallness trotted agitatedly out and grabbed the sleepy youth by his collar. Dragged him in, he started muttering to himself, 'what is world was coming to these days if people expect to sleep through the night, no dedication to their job, thats the problem with kids these days, no sense of responsibility, why, when I was a kid.......'5
Finding himself hauled through the door, he blinked the tears out of his eyes from the smoke and tried to work out why he ever thought being a wizards apprentice would be cool, finding no answer, he resigned himself to keeping up with his master and not getting choked.6
All of a sudden his master let go and he took a step forwards, slipped on something and fell flat on his back, 'Now look what you've done, you've messed it up, now it'll all have to be drawn again!' cried the man angrily.7
As he hurried to pick himself up, he looked at the floor and jumped back upon seeing a red pentagram painted on the floor, 'Is the b-b-blood?' he stammered.8
'Of course it is, you don't think I would you sauce for a summoning do you?' snapped the older man. Giving him a small pot filled with blood, and a brush he said 'now do something useful with yourself, instead of standing there gaping like a fish.'9
'But it's not human blood is it?' as he hesitantly took the bowl.10
'Don't be foolish, of course not. What do you think I am, some kind of barbarian? Sometimes I wonder why I ever agreed to take you on, its rat blood. Now stop talking and finish those runes, there's a book over on the table, follow them. One more inane question and next time I wont miss with that lightning.' so saying this he turned on his heal and trotted over to one of the many benches strew haphazardly around the room and busied himself with some strange coloured liquids.11
Resigning himself to his lot, the youth turned his attention the book, if it could be called that, as it looked more like someone at one point decided half a forest could nobly sacrifice its existence to be bound in dead animal skin, and filled with ink marks of all shapes and sized.12
After trying for a couple of minutes to try decipher what was on the paper, he gave up and just finished off the markings on the floor as per the diagrams. As he put the last one in place there was a faint crackle, and the lights flickered, so he hurried over to where the little man was pottering around and quietly cleared his throat.13
'What is it? Oh, you've finished, good, good. Now go light a heap of candles around it, make a nice circle.'14
Hurrying off again he found a stash of candles in one of the cupboards, and deciding that shooting magic around would be a stupid idea he picked up a flint as well, and set about making a neat circle around the pentagram, and lit all the candles. After lighting the last one, he started to turn around, only to find himself face to face with his master, getting a fright he started to fall back, and a hand shot out and grabbed his dressing gown, 'We don't want that, do we? After all that work, now stand back.'15
Cautiously, he made his way behind the wizard, and started to speak, 'Why are you summoning a d...'16
'Silence, just stand there and watch, this is tricky.' his master snapped, 'I need full concentration, otherwise stuff goes wrong.'17
Once again cursing his fate he stood there are watched as the strange little man started to walk backwards and forwards, muttering and occasionally throwing a sprinkling of powder from the mortar he was holding into the circle of candles. 18
As he did this, the room started to get darker, no, that's not right, not darker, just less light, you could still see clearly, it just wasn't as light. Little puffs of smoke started to come from the candles, swirling around with purpose, joining the other puffs to slowly spin anti-clockwise within the pentagram, and a low throbbing sound started. The man picked up his pace and started chanting louder, the smoke rising higher and higher, till there was a column as tall as the ceiling spinning around, and hideous images started to form within the dark mass, strange voices sending chills down the apprentices spine.19
Suddenly the wizard stopped pacing, and raising his arms high in the air cried out, 'By the arts learned by me, I command thee to interrupt thy dark wanderings and head my call!'. After he finished saying this there was a sudden crack of thunder, and a whooshing sound as air came rushing in to fill the gap, and the smoke writhed, more and more faces appearing, all of a sudden it burst out of the confines of the circle, and a shape started to move within, the light from the candle casting hideous shadows on the wall. Ignoring all this the man cried out with joy and rushed in, crying 'Diddles!' and disappeared into the smoke, emerging holding a mottled tabby cat, who purred contentedly as he scratched it behind the ears.20
'What are you gaping at? Clean up this mess, early day tomorrow, got lots of work to do.' he said as he walked passed his young apprentice.21
Blinking like an owl caught in sunlight, he stood coughing in the smoke, trying to work out what he just saw, once again gave in, and went and fetched a bucket of water and a mop.
Author notes
Just a random short story I wrote when I was bored.
Edit: I've started editing it recently, re-writing bits and pieces of it to try make it flow a bit better.
A contest entry
- June New Member's Contest by SW Greeters.
175 points, ended July 3, 29 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Sweet shorts....... ( Not the ones you wear ) by NinjaMegami.
100 points, ended June 20, 13 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - A Chance to Win by moonwriter.
450 points, ended June 24, 16 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - "Untitled" (Ah, that sounds rather nice, doesn't it?) by Andrew Timothy.
350 points, ended July 29, 12 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Make me LOL!!! by DeathNoteYaoi.
230 points, ended September 28, 23 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 16 of 16
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Very wired i smiled at this ^^ welldone thanks and good luck in the contest XD
DNY--
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Heh heh heh..
Nice work! Hilarious... That was a nice twist.. You could do with some punctuation changes (like a full stop in the place of a comma). The sentences look real long. They can actually made smaller by comma-removing and full-stopping them...
e.g
Finding himself hauled through the door, he blinked the tears out of his eyes from the smoke and tried to work out why he ever thought being a wizard(')s apprentice would be cool,(.) (F)finding no answer, he resigned himself to keeping up with his master and not getting choked.6
On the whole, a very enjoyable piece
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LoL, Diddles. Didn't see that one coming, but I thought something like that would happen.
A few edits:
Paragraph 2: "...then set about grouping for a candle..." The word "grouping" doesn't fit right with this phrase. Try "gathering a candle", "looking for a candle," "finding a candle."
Paragraph 13: "...so he hurried over to where the little man was pottering around..." I think here, instead of "pottering," you want the word "tottering."
Paragraph 19-first sentence: this sentence does fit in with the rest of the story's wording and comes off awkward. Try simplifying it. "The room began getting darker, but not actually darker--less light. You could still see." Or something like that.
Paragraph 19: "...interrupt thy dark wanderings and head my call!" I think you want the word "heed" instead of "head."
There were a few other little changes of tense, but nothing too major.
Good luck in the contest and thanks for entering.
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*laughs* I have to admit, the ending completely made this entire story worth reading. Diddles?
That's just awesome. Nicely done, and good luck in the contest! 
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Haha, yeah, neighbors of some friends of ours have a cat that always comes around to bug our friends, and its called Diddles, so I was stuck for a name for the cat, and that popped into my head.
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I quite enjoyed this. The humour was nicely done - subtle - lingering in the background and not interferring with the general flow of the story, but contributing to the overall readability of the piece. Some errors, but previous comments have pointed them out, so I won't repeat.
Good luck in the contest.
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Yeah, errors, I'll get around to fixing them up one of these days, re-write it a bit to make it flow better.
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Great first paragraph. Loved it and made me wanted to read more.
Thanks for entering and good luck in the contest.
Brooke
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paragraph 8 it seems you meant to say "you don't think I would use sauce for a summoning" rather than "you sauce for a summoning"
This is a fun story. I like the way you made the wizadry seem like an every day occurance. The apprentice could have been to a welder or something based on the matter of factness of the story telling. I loved that the wizard ended up conjuring back his cat. Especially with the previous mention of interupting dark wanderings. How appropriate for a cat
I enjoyed reading it.
Best of luck in the contest. -
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Thank you, and yes, definitly messed up with the sauce >.>
And I thought that making wizadry something common would help with the flow of things.
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This was actually pretty good. I kinda liked it. It could use some work, but it was well-done.
The beginning was perfect. That first paragraph was detailed with great imagery, but then it lost some of its spark as the story went on. Emotion is a must. What was he feeling as this all went on? What was he thinking?
Also, some run ons were present.
Example: As he hurried down the long stairwell that led down to the basement from his tower he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked out the window, seeing it was still very dark out he cursed again and picked up his pace, wondering what on earth his master was on about at this hour of the morning, or night, or whatever the hell it was.
Should be: As he hurried down the long stairwell that led down to the basement from his tower, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Looking out the window, he saw it was still very dark out. He cursed again and picked up his pace, wondering what on earth his master was on about at this hour of the morning, or night, or whatever the hell it was.
Pretty good, but you should edit this. It was a good start. -
Good Story.
All this build-up just to conjure up a cat? Well, I love cats; but I was expecting some sort of evil demon.
p18 counter-clockwise
p19 wanderings and (heed) my call'.
This had bits of humor throughout. I don't think I'd want to be an apprentice to this magician. He seems a bit cranky and bitchy.
Thanks for entering the new member contest. Welcome to Storywrite.
Andy
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Yeah, the point was you were supposed to expect an evil demon, and it was just a magician summoning his cat back from whatever walkabouts it had been on. And it is anti-clockwise, counter-clockwise is just the N-American spelling
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DIDDLES!!!!!!
Dude, you seriously need to write more, ur good.
No, seriously but, I love this, great writing style, I think I like it more then mine, it's much more... refined. You stick humour in the descriptions really well, I tend to stick humour more in the lame cracks.
Hehe, he set the corner of the bed alight.
Anyway, there were a few grammar mistakes that I noticed, and you seemed a little "and" heavy. Especially the first part of paragraph 14:
"Hurrying off again he found a stash of candles in one of the cupboards, AND deciding that shooting magic around would be a stupid idea he picked up a flint as well, AND set about making a neat circle around the pentagram, AND lit all the candles."
To me the "and" seems like you keep remembering you got something else to add, and just tack it on the end. Something like this might work better:
"Hurrying off again he found a stash of candles in one of the cupboards, and deciding that shooting magic around would be a stupid idea he picked up a flint as well, (setting) about making a neat circle around the pentagram, (he) lit all the candles."
Only other thing that I really noticed was: You have my tendency for long sentences!! Wooo! I'm not alone in the world.
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This. is... AWESOME! Good job. ^_^ Keep penning. I loved the imagery in this story. It was really good.
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Thanks I didn't realize people would actually like this, I just wrote it up because I was bored, haven't even proof read it yet.
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