[I was digging through my old stories, and found one that was met with a fair amount of praise on the old boards, so I thought a reprint was in order.  I also wanted to reprint the popular Dancing with Shadows, starring Kaia Shewet, but the only copy I can find is incomplete.  In this reprint, we meet Hawk and Pine in their first adventure into Neverwinter Wood.]  

Even Scoundrels Need Clean Pants

A cool wind blew down the beaten dirt road, pushing tuffs of overgrown grass and weeds to their sides in a rolling wave.  The Last Inn could still be seen as a speck to the west, and only more rolling road to the east.  In the middle, a crouched figure rested on the road, his ear cupped against it to hear any nearby foot falls.  Slowly, he lifted his head and adjusted the wide-brimmed hat that lay loosely on his long, dirty-blonde air.  A look of concentration befell his tanned and scruffy face, and his hazel eyes looked to the cloudless, blue sky in thought.  Suddenly, his concentration was broken by a voice gentle as crystaline bells.

"Hawk, deary," whined a tiny green pixie that hovered gracefully only inches from his head.  "I'm huuuungry.  Would you hurry up?"  

His eyes lowered slightly to meet hers squarely.  She was no more than a few inches in height.  A green tint made her skin and long, carefully groomed hair.  Little else covered her tiny form, and so she appeared the spitting image of a tiny, nude elf.  Though, such is what one would expect from a pixie.  Gossamer wings flapped gracefully, holding her aloft, and an annoyed look played upon her otherwise stunning features.  

He lowered his hat to cover his eyes and stood.  A cocky smirk curled upon his lips as he chuckled.  "Fear not, Pine.  This is me we're talkin' 'bout."

"That's what worries me.  Do you know where the deer went or not?"

"'Course, love.  My uncanny senses tell me it went that way."  A finger pointed to his left, though his face did not follow.  A gust of wind rose again, kicking both the feather that sat in his cap and his black, satin cape backwards to make for quite the dramatic pose.

"Hawksie, love... That's a bear."

"Huh?"  He broke pose to look up.  Following the length of his finger, it met only ten feet away from an approaching brown bear, and fell limp.  It was quite obvious as to the beast's destination.  "Right, well.  Love?"

"Yes, Hawksies," she said in a sarcastic tone.

"We go now."  His tone only giving away a hint of panic through the dead pan statement, he turned and ran full sprint in the opposite direction and into the woods.  The bear gave chase, and managed to keep only shortly behind.

The fey turned in hot pursuit and was soon slying backwards in front of the rogue's face, turned to gaze at him.  "You know," she said tauntingly, "they can smell fear."  Her eyes lowered slightly and her tiny nose twitched before she broke into a fit of laughter.  "And fear smells a lot like urine."

Hawk was far too winded and with other matters on his mind to respond, and so the chase continued deep into the poorly lit woods.  Though he was by no means a slow runner, exhaustion was beginning to get the better of him, and it wasn't long before he would slow enough for the bear to catch him.  "Mind... helpin'... love," he questioned the fey between gasps for air.

"Why?  I suppose those are just for decoration, then?"  She pointed at the dagger and rapier that beat against his hips with every stride.

Though she had a point, the idea of fighting a bear was not one he relished.  Still, the alternative seemed worse, and so he panned the dim forest for a place to make his final stand.  He smiled and eyed his spot of choice with a nod.  Pumping his legs just a bit more to put as much distance as he could on the beast, he came to a wide tree and spun.  Both weapons met his hands with blinding speed, and he took a defensive stance.

Pine grimaced as she waited for the collision.  The scoundrel was muttering something to himself as he held his dagger in position to deflect the massive paw coming for him.  But, just as it seemed the bear would rip into him with the force of a falling meteor, he smirked and suddenly vanished.  A few sliced strands of fur flew through the air, and the beast slammed head first into the tree.  It shook its head in confusion, or prossibly from the result of a concussion, and sniffed the air.  With a snort of frustration, it wandered off into the forest.

The fey fell out laughing and buzzed lightning fast circles around the tree.  "That's my Hawksie!"  Moments later, the illusion faded, and the image of the scoundrel appeared, relaxed on a low branch against the trunk of the tree.

"Good 'nough for ya, love," he asked between heavy breaths.

"Lovely, though now we're stuck out here in the middle of the woods, and I'm still hungry."

"Nothin' ta worry 'bout.  We'll find somethin' out here.  An' out here, it's free."

The fey seemed anything but impressed.  "It would've been just fine, if you hadn't got us kicked out of Last Inn."

"Lousy place, anyways."  He hopped down from the tree gracefully and headed out deeper into the woods.  "C'mon."

"Where are we going?  You've got us completely lost, and you're just going to wander?"

"Need ta find a stream."

"Why?"  When he didn't respond, she thought back to his soiled trousers and giggled.  "I guess even scoundrels need clean pants."

Gah, okay, I thought I posted this like two times before now.  *sighs*  Right, so here's the drill.  I'll be finally doing the 1.67 update this weekend, probably in the next 24 hours.  Snag the goods, folks.  I think I found everything needed to iron out the bugs, but we'll see.  You need the update, of course, as well as CEP 1.53, which is all tiny and such.
cepv153.zip (753KB)
cepv153.rar (556KB)
As said, just unzip/unrar, and copy the .hak file to your NWN\hak folder.  If you can't figure it out, scream, and someone here will be patient enough to assist.

[Has it been that long since I wrote something?  *scrolls over the list*  Not one story since the new forums went up (not counting the goofy poetry).  Well, my schedule of late has had me away from the player's spotlight, so it is again time to break out the old quill and inkwell.  I finished the first three "chapters", so I guess I'll start with that.  Pardon for the length.  I got started, and realized my usual few pages wasn't going to make me happy on this one.  It's a bit more dramatic, I guess, than my usual action, descriptive, or comedy submissions.]

Consider me the big bad admin here, but private matters should remain private.  Please keep this a community of friends.

AKA, topic deleted

...and it's a lot like the old LotN version.

http://www.ilmatar.net/~np/gameofsatan/

It's been out there a while, so a lot of you have seen it.  Well, I found it again doing research on Satan (It was for a paper!).  You'll want to turn off your speakers after 5 seconds, but it's funny stuff.