jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
The harsh desert blistered into his skin as he treaded onward. Bartholmaos wiped the sweat off his forehead as the sun beat down. The grains of sand burrowed into his hands as they chafed on the rope he was holding on to. He had a horrible runny nose that gave him the impression that his insides were too cold while his skin was burning away, he dare not stop and rest. The sooner he reached his destination the better.
His camel had been trekking along just fine, spitting occasionally with a relaxing *Ptoo!* as it hit the ground. Bartholmaos had envy'd Richard, the name he decided fitting for the camel- just as the camel smells, and drives away horses, so do the infidels. He thought of the water it barely had to drink, the pleasures of being an animal. Not being held accountable for things, having no responsibility. He once again wiped the sweat off his forehead, he dare not let it accumulate in his eyebrows which leads to it dripping over his face. His keffiyeh was soaked with sweat, creating a horrible odor that made him question if he was smelling Richard or himself.
In the distance he could see the faint distance of it, his destination. He had been walking for such a long time, every bone in his body ached and begged for some sort of rest. His throat had long since felt as dry as the sand he was being lead through by Richard, Bartholmaos had contemplated eating the sand just to see what was drier before he snapped back to his rationality. The bustling sounds of business and trade loomed forward as Bartholmaos realized he had finally reached his destination. Finally relieved, he jumped off Richard and began to blow his nose and threw the phlegm on the sand. He hurried and lead Richard through the streets. Bartholmaos turned heads of confused and surprised citizens as they saw a tall, lanky man rush through the streets to the well, seemingly dragging his camel along.
After a short trek through some less than memorable streets Bartholmaos quickly lowered the well bucket and retrieved as much water as he could and swallowed it as quickly as a dehydrated man was able to. Richard was determined to get his fair share and ended up stealing more than half of the water Bartholmaos received from the well. In a quick, disgruntled motion Bartholmaos slammed the water bucket from the well onto Richard's head with a loud *Kerplunk!* Bartholmaos removed the bucket from Richard's head and proceeded to keep making the same repetitive routine. Lower the bucket, raise the bucket, drink. This went on for a good five minutes until he started to give water more generously to Richard and Bartholmaos began to soak his keffiyeh in the water to cool it off.
Cairo had been a flourishing city, being the capital of what Bartholmaos considered to be the crowning jewel of Islam, the Fatimid Caliphate had been expanding consistently ever since it's conception and it'd reach it's peak a short 200 years ago from when Bartholmaos was born. The year was 1147 AD and the crusaders had just began their march to Jerusalem, Bartholmaos was a merchant who frequented visits to France to trade exotic goods. He saw it in his duty to warn the generals of the Fatimid Caliphate that resided in there, unfortunately, Bartholmaos had no access to any form of naval transportation and required Richard to march him this far. He had crossed constantly over the course of three months over the Moorish lands, but the real adventure had only just began. Bartholmaos had heard plans that the crusaders would plan to leave in two and a half months, some of them had already reached the Caliphate's lands.
The French and the Germans, lead by Conrad III, the first crowned king of Germany had set out to liberate the holy land from Bartholmaos and his people. He would do anything to defend his homeland, the thoughts of those kinds of people always rang through Bartholmaos' head. The ostracization of him because of his beliefs, or where he was born, or a combination of the two. Bartholmaos was determined to ostracize the non-believers from the holy land, just as they had ostracized him from their own lands. They spoke of "fairness" as if it was some sort of entitlement, when they themselves don't even represent what they spoke of. Fairness to them is some sort of centrist belief that the world aligns with them, or that Allah favors them. Which surely isn't the case, Allah would never favor somebody that didn't even acknowledge his existence. Bartholmaos proceeded deeper into town in an effort to sell his European wares.
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Tell me what you think, I've never actually written one of these before and I'm interested to see the reaction from it. If you guys think it's decent enough I'll keep working on it. |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
a minute in and i see an error already
"in the distance he saw the faint distance of him"
god bless me |
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should've checked for mistakes first.
now im gonna read it |
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it's good you should continue
I never saw a story where the character is a muslim |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
Thanks lad, working on Chapter two now. |
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we should collab on a crusades rp |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
That'd actually be really interesting, I'm totally up for it. |
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yas!
emir damurah will crush the infidels from the holy land.
so we collabing? |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
Chapter II
Bartholmaos, rejuvenated, stepped into the bazaar. The hot sun seemed more tolerable when you're inside some sort of city, and it was slowly beginning to set, Bartholmaos was incredibly thankful for this as he had grown to despise the sun. He tied Richard up to a post and began to advertise his wares- French marble and pottery. Well regarded for it's beauty and scarcity this far south and east, its weight meant it was usually only shipped by the boatload which increases its supply too quickly, and plummets the price as a result. However, Bartholmaos knew the secrets of trading, he'd only bring in goods in the middle of shipments which was when the price was highest and the supply was lowest.
Bartholmaos had a successful day of trading, selling half of his stock and acquiring copious amounts of dinar. Bartholmaos then untied Richard and lead him through the Bazaar, both of them were famished after their long walk through the desert and the last time they ate were two days ago at a Moorish settlement far west of Cairo. It took a few minutes of walking before they found a man who was selling vast amounts of dates, the man was short and round and something seemed weird about him. Bartholmaos just couldn't put his finger on it, blue cloth and a patterned keffiyeh, and he spoke horribly broken Arabic- but Bartholmaos knew the man wasn't Turkic or Moorish.
Bartholmaos chose fourty of the juiciest and ripest dates and payed the man and thanked him. Bartholmaos somewhat unnerved by the man but he began to walk away. Suddenly, Bartholmaos whirred around and looked the man in the face and the anomaly appeared to him. Fair skin- the man was a French man! Bartholmaos marched up to the stand and asked, as calmly as he could "What is a French person doing here?" Bartholmaos tried to remain calm, but outsiders were usually a sign that crime was about to happen. The baguette-eater faced Bartholmaos and said "I am Francis, pleasure to meet you." he proceeded with "I am not French, I am from the Principality of Antioch." The Principalities of Antioch was a catholic state established from the first crusade by the French, and was currently ruled by the Byzantines. Bartholmaos was initially confused, but went on to ask "What brings you to Cairo then?" "I am usually a trader of goods between the eastern worlds, but I recently have ran out and I'm short on dinar at the moment, so I began to sell dates." Francis explained.
Bartholmaos was taken back at Francis' simple response, but he accepted it, still very suspicious of this Francis character. He walked away and split the dates between Richard and himself, Richard had a tendency to be very gentle with people and never started an uproar. This, combined with his thirty yard gaze made Bartholmaos think that Richard was uncannily stupid, even for a camel. Bartholmaos saw something in his peripheral vision, Francis began to dart for something across the bazaar, Bartholmaos turned his head and saw what Francis was charging for. A man with a horse making his way through the bazaar in ceremonial armor. The crowd was beginning to dissipate, Bartholmaos acted quickly and jumped on Richard's back and forced him to run as fast as he could. Bartholmaos lifted a leg off Richard's stirrups and his foot collided with Francis' head right as he was about to approach the man, smashing his head in and breaking his face on the ground.
Bartholmaos turned and stopped Richard and gazed at Francis, and then up to the man in the armor. The crowd's usual cherish noise had stopped a long time ago, all eyes were on Bartholmaos. The man in the armor turned Francis over, in his hand was a long, serrated knife, muscles tensed to kill the man in armor, who was in awe of what just occurred in front of him. Bartholmaos realized the man wasn't Egyptian, he was definitely Moorish, which only became more prevalent as the man gargled something in Berber. Bartholmaos didn't want to stay and attract attention, so he immediately road off out of Cairo, he thought he was proud, but Bartholmaos also held a small seed of regret that he couldn't shake. He wish he could have prevented it before it happened, the hard *Thump* of his foot across the back of Francis' head. Bartholmaos looked down at Richard's face, which was fixed with the same thirty yard stare and the deep, thoughtless eyes. |
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dats gud, keep up the work |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
Bumping this |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
one last bump before I work on the third part. |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
As the dusk set in Bartholmaos was making steady pace across the desert east of Cairo, canteens filled and having a few days rations of dates the adventure was looking quite fine as the study *Hum Dum* of Richard's feet across the sand, leaving slight imprints of his hooves. Within sight was the Mediterranean Sea, leaving a faint scent of salt water within Bartholmaos' nose. The sea was calming, the sounds of small waves crashing was enough to nearly put him to sleep, he was thankful that he was able to have some sort of relaxing moments across this intrepid journey to save Jerusalem from the infidels.
Suddenly, something in the distance appeared, confusing Bartholmaos and even Richard seemed a little bit less "dog-like" with his usual stupidly adorable expression giving way to... concern? Bartholmaos couldn't decide, Richard was probably just tired, he concluded. Something was near the waves, something monstrous and wooden- if he was irrational or a little bit insane, he would have thought it'd be some sort of demon sent from Jahannam itself. Awe struck Bartholmaos as he was able to construct a probably narrative in his mind, this was one of the crusader boats. He promptly stopped Richard, the boat was probably fifty meters away Bartholmaos thought as he began to search his bag for something, anything.
At threat of bandits, he always carried a long dagger with him. However, he knew he always brought fire kindling supplies with him, Bartholmaos then realized he had forgotten to replenish his stock of kindling supplies at Cairo baffled at his stupidity he needed to rethink his approach. Suddenly, he was struck by brilliance. Bartholmaos took a piece of iron off Richard's harness and began to creep up to the ship, a massive vessel that was bigger than any ship he had ever seen before, it almost intimidated Bartholmaos' approach and made him reconsider doing it at all.
Bartholmaos began to work diligently, he begin to quietly break off sharp pieces of porcelain and laid them edge up on the sand next to the places where the hatches of the ship, where people were to disembark off the ship. Bartholmaos began to take the piece of Richard's harness and his own dagger and began to scrape sparks off the harness with his dagger, the hideous sound of metal on metal was something he'd just have to endure. Slowly, but surely, the ship began catching fire as he heard the men stir from their sleep, quickly, Bartholmaos departed and ran back to Richard right as the fire began to roar. He heard the screams of men in pain, with feet damaged from the sharp porcelain as he road off, just as dawn was approaching.
He was only a few kilometers from his destination, and was surely closing in on it. Bartholmaos planned to be in Jerusalem by two more days. It took him a few minutes before he was suddenly irked by terror, the infidels had already landed on land, and while he destroyed a ship, it couldn't have contained more than 500 men, and he probably only killed a tenth of that. There must be hundreds of ships just like it, full of blood thirsty savages contracted to annex Jerusalem for their own greed and desire.
Bartholmaos was filled with dread as he road along the desert. |
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Your writing skills are much greater than mine
So jelly |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
gonna pick this up when I come home later, but for now a brief bump |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
might come back to this if it gets any recent traction, bump just to bait interest. |
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jcarsonw2Join Date: 2012-05-02
Post Count: 2115 |
Richard trotted along the desert as Bartholmaos leaned back, no sound other than the air and the "clop clop" on the sandy surface, it was a relaxing mid day afternoon. Bartholmaos stopped last night after the ship incident to get some sleep a few kilometers away from the site at which it had occurred, it was a restless night but by the time Bartholmaos woke up the stress had shed off like a snake's skin. Richard bore the old, innocent but somehow conniving expression as Bartholmaos' face was shielded from the sand by his keffiyeh. The day so far had been boring, but Bartholmaos was filled with silent and calm anticipation by what was to come- he would be a hero! The very thought made a grin brandish over his face.
*Pthoo!*
Bartholmaos was filled with shock as Richard quickly gained speed, Bartholmaos turned around quickly to face about a dozen white men on horses with bows chasing him down- each of the horses wore cataphract armor as the men were donned with heavy, red-painted armor. Bartholmaos quickly came to the conclusion that they were Venetians as another crossbow arrow was shot- this one by a fat, broad man on a white horse. This arrow grazed Bartholmaos's left leg- not leaving a scratch, but tearing through his clothing. Bartholmaos panicked and searched through his bag until he found something- a spare horseshoe, he began to wind up and then he threw it, conking the front runner- a tall, slender man on a brown horse. The man fell off his horse and was trampled by the other runners. As he fell over his crossbow shot- hitting another one of them, a medium sized man on a yellow horse, right through the his heart. The scene was catastrophic, the horses began to act wildly and about three of the riders died total, Bartholmaos was overjoyed at his success and quick thinking.
Bartholmaos became excited at the sight that lay before him; Jerusalem. Finally, after such a long travel he'd finally be able to forewarn his brethren of the impending doom.
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Sorry for the short one. I'm kind of blocked on what to do next honestly. |
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at the end of the story he should become caliph somehow |
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