For now, why don’t you check out the interviews that we already have available?  You can click the link here, or select “interviews” from the menu bar at the top of the screen.  The other storytellers will certainly appreciate it!

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Practical Warrior

By Aaron Canton

Lothgar stoked the campfire and glanced at the captives huddling on its other side. The tall lagano did not, as a rule, deal with living prisoners; enemy warriors were for killing on the battlefield, and possibly eating if they were worthy enough. But this was a special case, and a true warrior was nothing if not ruthlessly pragmatic.

The five kaja on the other side of the fire cringed into each other, each trying to put themselves in the center of the other four. Three of them were mostly unadorned, but two were heavily pierced. One of the latter, a tall female, was only looking mournfully up at the waning moon. The other, a short, stocky male, turned to Lothgar. “Please,” he mewled. His voice sounded rough and scratchy; the amulet affixed to his neck let him speak and understand Common, but he clearly wasn’t used to it. “We’ve done nothing to you.”

Lothgar shrugged and glanced behind the kaja, where a half-dozen knolls leaned on their spears and joked in their native tongue. The leader broke off from the group and walked to the kaja that had spoken. “Aw, relax,” he said in a coarse, yipping voice. “We’re not gonna hurt you. Cross our hearts.”

The speaker twisted to look at the gnoll, then immediately twisted away. “We have given you everything!” he managed. “We have left you our lands, our gems, our food stores–”

“But that’s what I’m saying!” said the gnoll captain, clapping the kaja on the back and almost knocking him into the fire. “What’s the point? We advance, you run away, we get a few shiny stones and a couple of huts. I’m here to tell you–there’s a better way!” His sneer straightened out into an approximation of a smile. “Isn’t that something?”

Lothgar turned as Salzar, his assistant, slithered into the clearing. “How’s it going?” asked Salzar in the lagano native tongue.

“They’re trying the ‘ask them nicely’ plan,” murmured Lothgar.

Salzar blinked. “After capturing them and dragging them here?”

“I never said they were smart.”

The gnoll leader was continuing. “See, right next to your lands is a human settlement. Nice little place, cozy, and just loaded with these warehouses full of food and gems. Problem is, they’ve got these big walls that we can’t break through. But you kaja, I’ll bet you could use your claws to scale those walls like that!” He snapped his fingers. “You help us get in, and trust me, we’ll be most appreciative. Why–I’ll even promise that our forces will just skip right past you and yours in the future. No more running or hiding! How’s that sound for a deal?”

“But then the human armies would attack our cluster! We can’t!” The kaja’s voice was cracking. “We’ll give you whatever you ask, but we can’t provoke the humans to go to war with us!”

The gnoll sighed heavily in Lothgar’s general direction. “So unreasonable. But Lothgar, my friend!” He spread his arms wide. “You have something that can help us, yes?”

Lothgar turned to Salzar. “The mercenaries?”

“Waiting outside the clearing.”

“Good.” He rose and withdrew a large bottle and four bowls from a sack by his tail. He poured the contents of the bottle–a thick, black liquid–into the bowls, then put one each in front of four of the kaja. Only the female with many piercings was exempted. “Drink,” he ordered.

“But–” the pierced male began.

The gnoll leader’s hand shot out and grasped the pierced female by the neck. “Oh, we insist.”

Slowly, the kaja that had spoken knelt and began to lap. The others that had been offered the liquid followed suit. For a moment, they made no sound. And then the kaja began to hiss and growl, straining at their bonds and biting at each other. The female who hadn’t drunken squeaked and tried to wriggle away, but was caught fast as her companions yowled into the night sky.

Salzar left the clearing and returned a minute later with a quartet of humans wearing armor and carrying swords–mercenaries from Raleigh. One of them looked around the clearing. “Who’re we fighting?” he asked.

The gnoll leader cut the kaja’s bonds. “Get them!” he roared, shoving them at the humans. And the kaja–who no longer looked like they were scared, or wary, or even understood what was going on–screeched and screamed and leapt at the humans, slashing at them with their claws in mindless, bestial fury.

“Not bad,” said Salzar, watching the kaja fight. One went down, decapitated by one of the human’s swords, but the others didn’t even seem to notice as they savaged the humans. “My regards to the cleric.”

“I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear it.”

“One thing I don’t get. Why are we doing this? Who cares if the gnolls take the city from the humans and get the kaja blamed for it?”

Lothgar shrugged. “Maybe the gnolls and kaja will drive humans out of the region. Or maybe the humans will fight back and kill off the kaja and the gnoll armies. Maybe they’ll wipe each other out. No matter what happens, they’ll all be weaker. Room for us to move in.”

The gnoll leader glanced at Lothgar as the last of the humans fell. “They’ll do whatever I say?”

“They’re animals now. They understand dominance, so as long as they know you’re stronger than them, they’ll follow orders.”

“Hmm.” The gnoll leader grinned, then grabbed the kaja that hadn’t been drugged and threw her at her former companions. “Her too, then! Kill her!”

The kaja mewled in horror, but the others didn’t seem to notice. They just set upon her with abandon.

When it was over, one of the kaja–the one who had spoken before–began to prowl towards the gnoll leader, but the gnoll flicked his arm forwards and bashed him over the head with his spear butt. When the kaja got up, it didn’t attack again. It just sat there, tail twitching, as the others joined it. Their faces showed nothing but the rage of beasts–and the obedience of the most dutiful servants.

The captain laughed in glee. “Exactly as promised. Lothgar, friend, we should do this more often.”

“As long as you uphold your terms–half of all the land conquered using the drugged kaja–we’ll procure as much of the potion as you could want.”

“Deal.” The captain turned to his soldiers. “Let’s go!” he roared. “New orders to all units–don’t kill captured kaja. Bring them to me. We’ll process them; in a week, I want an army of these things able to scale the walls of any human fortress in the country!”

When they were all gone, Lothgar helped Salzar put out the fire. He sighed to himself as he moved. This really wasn’t his kind of battle. He preferred physical combat, battling with spear in hand against some other warrior, to all the shadowy dealings and manipulations he’d been tasked with later. It was more real, somehow, to drive an enemy from the battlefield, than to manipulate some third party to do it for them.

But, ultimately, it didn’t matter what he preferred. He was a warrior, working tirelessly for the betterment of the lagano species. And he would do whatever it took to meet his objections.

A true warrior, after all, was nothing if not practical.

The post Featured Short Story – Practical Warrior appeared first on Tellest.

Every creative person has their origin story, and I’m sure that for most it would go back to being a kid and playing make pretend. But, since every kid tends to have this memory (so many “I’m Batman”, “I’m Donatello”, and nerf war memories come from that era of my life), there’s something I like to call the true origin point (patent pending). For me, before there was screenwriting and directing, writing a novel, or even podcasting; there was one of my greatest passions was wrestling.

I’m sure there is a chance that I have lost some of you already, but sit back and read. Origin stories are important and perhaps you’ll connect with this more than you think.

Some of my earliest memories involve wrestling. My aunt was, and continues to be, a fan and we connected because of it. This is when I discovered Shawn Michaels, The Heartbreak Kid, and anyone that knows me, knows that I wanted to be him. It’s such a shame that I fell out of watching the, at the time, WWF prior to 1998; I missed so much of his career. I bring this up, because he was the reason I wanted to be a wrestler and wrestling helped show me that being creative can be so fulfilling.

In the late ’90s, early 2000’s, our group of friends started backyard wrestling (I know, I know! How dangerous! Play it safe kids!) under the organization called Underground Wrestling Federation. At this time, I don’t know that wrestling is what you could call what we did. Punches, kicks, stomps… that was mostly what we did. As my creative juices hadn’t really started flowing yet, I came up with the brilliant gimmick of Heartbreak Kev. Go ahead, judge; I would.

At some point, we met up with another group of friends who had also started their own wrestling organization; Trampoline Wrestling Federation. When I first saw a suplex… on the ground, I was amazed by these guys. Little did I know, that I would spend the next four plus years of my life wrestling, on the ground, in a ring… professionally. But, I’m getting a head of myself.

This is where the name Steel Tip was birthed. After losing the HBKev gimmick, I developed Steel Tip (which, ultimately meant nothing) into a multi-media personality. It’s a name that the Tellest fan base if familiar with; to my understanding, he’s one of the fan favorites of The Child of the Stars trilogy.

Steel Tip isn’t the only thing to come from the wrestling world. I learned how to tell a story from wrestling. At the end of the day, that’s all wrestling is, right? Each match is telling it’s own story of hero vs. villain, villain vs. villain, and even hero vs. hero. Crafting story lines in wrestling can be, at times, the most interesting part of the business. They may be no “writing” of dialogue (though at times, there is) or any kind of screen play, but you have to make the audience care about the characters who are telling the story to get them engaged.

Acting and directing are HUGE parts of this world. EVERY wrestler is doing some sort of acting during their matches or promos. It may just be an over exaggeration of the persons own personality, or it may be an over the top act. As the heel (usually), you are helping direct the match. You make the decisions that help shape what the audience sees and, hopefully, embraces.

I learned to talk here, and that’s one of the things I do MOST in hobby form now. Mike and I host a couple of podcasts (shameless plug 1 and shameless plug 2) and I built a network of podcasts on the back of Steel Tip. I certainly don’t go by that name anymore, but hidden in initials and meanings, podcasting (for me) can find it’s roots deep in the wrestling world. I think that podcasting and wrestling are so closely linked by evidence of guys like Steve Austin and Chris Jericho each starting their own show, post-wrestling career.

Aside from wrestling leading me to all these great, creative, different things; at it’s heart it was creative freedom. It was a dopey dream that I worked hard at, and it paid off. I may not have made it to the big leagues; but in reality, that was never the goal. The goal was to entertain people, and I did just that. When you are on a creative kick, it’s a kind of high. You get super excited about something that you are so passionate about, and others may balk at, but at the end of the day YOU have to be proud of what you’ve done.

The post Guest Wednesday: Creative Origins appeared first on Tellest.

Sitting around and not expressing yourself is a one way ticket to the land of What Ifs? Anxiety builds and builds and builds, until you explode. There’s a difference between expressing yourself by screaming at the top of your lungs and being that guy who’s an asshole, that is unhappy with his life and the only satisfaction felt is causing misery for others. No one likes that guy, and I’m pretty confident one of the most basic human needs is to feel liked.

Being creative may not be your ticket to fame, but that should never be the goal. When you create something, it’s a way for you to relieve some of the stress of life. It’s a way to express yourself and show your individuality; your uniqueness. The chances of seeing your name in the spotlight are slim and an ineffective way to promote your own creativity. Who want’s to go on and create more things, when you have yet to meet your goal?

That doesn’t mean you should set your goals low, as that also hinders your creativity; lacks the challenge you present yourself. The simple goal of your creation should be that you feel good about it once you’ve produced it. It makes you smile, or cry, as you see your creation come to life. It moves you in ways that you can’t describe, moves you to the point to do more. And as you express yourself more, you stop sweating the small things (and sometimes the bigger things), and live a much happier life. Sure, you may not be the next Spielberg… but why be the next anything, when you can be the first you?

I’ve been part of this world, Tellest that is, for a very long time. I’ve seen it grow, get broken down, and rebuilt. I’ve helped grow it, I’ve helped break it and I’ve helped rebuild it. And during all this time, I think I can safely say that I’ve seen someone who is 100% happy with the creation, no matter what detours had to be taken. Mike has done a phenomenal job at showing me what it means for him to be creative.

Simply put, creativity breeds creativity. And, in a world where the reboot, the retelling, or the adaptation runs the strongest; we may be low on creativity. And, that’s what I think Tellest is for; to help breed creativity. It only starts with Mike, but the world is in your hands. Mike has already told you that this world is open for all to play in, so instead of stories being rehashed, why not create your own hero, who just happens to live in the world of Tellest?

Over the next few months, as I continue to work on other projects (some of them Tellest related!), I’ll be writing a series of blogs, here, on Tellest.com, about different forms of creativity. The who, what, where, when, and how of it all. Whether it be Tellest related, or something completely original, I hope that you get inspired to try your hand at something. There is a natural high from being creative that everyone should get to experience and I truly believe that everyone has something to say, so why not you?

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