Tales Of Corinthia

Short introduction to the characters of a series of short stories I’m working on. Please enjoy!

This is going to be a more modern day than pretty much anything else I’ve wrote.

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“As you take a final stand hands trembling under the weight of responsibility a lone arrow strikes your lowered enemy. Prone and unmoving its back splits open with the force of flight, blood pooling at your feet. For a moment there is silence. Then as if the universe were relieved a deep sigh shaking the wind back to life.

The Wizard King is dead; you succeeded on your journey.”

Max smiled up at their friends the group that had just spent six months in their world. Playing at a dinner table covered in dice and maps. Astraea had recommended they pick the game up again after they had abandoned it when they left school. All of them scattered across the country at different universities and jobs.

After a month of planning, they had started running one shots just the four of them that had come home. But eventually Elias had been invited to join the group to round out their party. The younger man only just leaving school when he received the invite.

That was six months ago and now they were done with the adventure that had taken up their Friday evenings. No one wanted it to be over their characters retiring into the realm of nothingness unless they found something to do with them.

“Hey so I kind of made something,” Elias announced as they were cleaning up the table, the pizzas left on the kitchen island to be ate as they go. He went over to his bag in the corner bringing it back to the near empty table, “I figured we could use mementos.”

He pulled out a book handing each of them a sketch one for each of their important moments as characters. For Max it was a painting of them like a puppet master over a few of the groups favourite characters. They had put a lot of work into developing those small interactions for their friends often getting out of bed or stopping work to write a note on how they could interact.

Sam Who had played a Grunn a dwarf barbarian received a watercolour titled: Learning kindness. Adeline whose human fighter had tried to play hero got a piece that showed their first real heroic deed. Finally, Astraea who played the wizard survivor Lethandrial received a mosaic of stars from a scene where she learnt to use illusion magic to see the night sky.

Astraea was the first to speak eyes not leaving the page, “Holy shit kid, these are amazing.”

The others nodded along Max themself going to find a frame to put theirs up. Elias watched with a smile as his friends enjoyed his labour of love in response to their own. He had done sketches of their characters before during scenes where he wasn’t needed or during down time at work. But this was the first real project for them, “Thanks for letting me play with you, I really appreciate it.”

Max returned with a frame to put the painting up smiling to the kid, “You’re always welcome.” The painting was rested on the top of the fireplace max staring at it for a moment as they tried to figure out when they’d have time to plan the next game.

There was little time in the day and with how busy work was at the moment they didn’t know when there would be time for it. But they would make time. Breaks, lunches, during their commute they would find time to make something new. It wasn’t like they could do much else as they loaded operating systems onto pc’s that couldn’t handle it. Just had to hide it from the boss.

“We should keep the Friday game nights even if we’re doing something else,” Sam suggested putting his gift into his own worn-out bag, “I’m sure we’re all mature enough to handle monopoly like adults.”

Elias watched the group, that started howling with laughter at the comment, with absolute confusion. Noticing this Max explained, “Everyone used to cheat when we were kids to the point my mum banned it from the house,” he chuckled softly his smile turning a bit less vibrant.

 At the other side of the room Adeline groaned at the reminder whilst putting the rulebooks away off the table. Bumping her shoulder into Astraea as she came over to help move stuff. Neither of them saying a word as they finished cleanup. Leaving the others to their conversation about the horrors of teenage monopoly games and the other game bans.

By the end of the night, they had all regaled the boy with their teen dramatics, Sam at one point telling the story of the first time the group invited him over. He had snuck out unsure if his auntie would let him come over just to find out she was good friends with Max’s parents. At 3am when they were kicked out for keeping everyone up, he walked out to his auntie quietly waiting for him.

The others joined in the story with enthusiastic jokes about his attempts to impress them that night. He was new to town and the youngest in the group so was trying to act much more mature and cool only to stumble over words. Max has pulled him aside early in the evening to check he was okay because of how miserably he was failing to play cool.

After that story and the pizza running out, they called it a night, Max seeing everyone out before heading to bed. Elias was taken home by Astraea and Adeline who lived in the same building. They had tried to convince him to try driving their car, but he refused because it looked expensive. Sam on the other hand walked home to his auntie’s place refusing the offer of a lift from the others.

Once everyone was gone Max went to bed but got up to start planning after an hour of tossing and turning. A single message sent to the group chat, “How do we feel about sci-fi?”