It was always my dream to become a hero, but not my destiny. Making ends meet is a problem for many in this day and age, fortunately, like my father and his father before he, I inherited the family business. That being said, I’ve never dressed in the latest vestures, toasted the finest wines, and like everyone else I can always expect a visit from the landlord every first Týrsday.. but I’ve never been in a bad enough pinch to have to sell off any of my sisters just to make rent, unlike my neighbor, Ronald. Having the only storefront within a swallow’s flight of the nearest city and just a stones throw away the fourth most active dungeon in Pilska, I do pretty well for myself as a shopkeeper and professional artisanal miak enthusiast. You would think keeping the shelves stocked would be the greatest challenge for a store so far off the grid, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. During the night, I moonlight as a scavenger and spelunk the depths of the local dungeon scavenging weapons, materials, and other goods off the dead, wannabe heroes that pass through. It’s a dirty job, but great business. The circle of life, I say… I find a sword, clean it up, sharpen it a bit, give it a good polish, and sell it to a young, hard-headed adventurer for a total profit. If I’m lucky, which I usually am, during my rounds in the dungeon, I’ll find the lifeless body of the same unfortunate, adventurer and take his goods and resell it again for full profit… easy money. Like my father always said… “You either live to make a profit or be a hero and end up dead.”
After being in a partial cryogenic hibernation for seven years, I awoke to the screeching voice of that greedy, slime-ball, snake-of-a-man that calls himself “my boss”, Tweed… Out of a literal sea of employees, I was “personally hand selected due to my natural born leadership qualities, unparalleled adaptive nature, and endless desire for discovery and exploration”… Bullshit… I’ve never lead anything, I hate change, and I have lived in Chicago my whole life and have eaten the same dehydrated Chinese food every Tuesday for near a decade… Twenty credits worth of Grob says he drew my name out of that dumb hat covers his bald head with… Regardless, I’m stuck on this godforsaken planet in a busted ship with an empty tank of fuel, a fritzy government issued multi-planetary scanner, and my only ambition is to do what this creep says so I can go home to that roach-infested micro apartment I rent from my twat of a father-in-law, Chuck…
Upon awaking, a voice in my head began speaking to me and has literally not shut up. I tried screaming to drown it out, but the voice just gets louder… Only following its orders grants me a morsel of silence. It first told me to go outside and look at the ship to assess the damage. I’ll tell you my assessment right now… it’s fucked… the entire side panel was ripped off worse than me the time I bought that case of “lightly used” toilet paper from the back of a guys El Camino… So now, not only do I have to document every damn thing on this planet but I have to replace the obliterated panel and find a comparable fuel source before I can even leave. The voice also tells me I can’t even die… If I do, it’ll reprint me with all of my memories like it never even happened… I’m just not so sure thats a good thing…
I great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
In the program I am currently enrolled in, I would have to say that the 30 hour review is the second most important day as a graduate art student (the first being the final thesis defense, of course). That being said, I am certainly looking forward to the next half of my time at GSU. I am eager to dive deep in my work and truly illustrate whats going on in my head pertaining to my Littlefork series. Though, one does deserve a mental break and to be honest, I feel like both of my camera flashes… fried and FUBAR… Yes, I am sad to say that I have killed two flashes in the past three weeks… I have has these bad boys for years and for some strange reason they’ve decided to croak on me in the middle of my final project in my special topics course in photo… Fine time to die, huh? Luckily, I am resourceful and have a plastic card that fits easily in my wallet that allows me to make stupid purchases whenever I need to… and I’m certainly lucky walmart had cheap flashes… I sure hope it works out. Still am probably looking at another week of no sleep. WOOT! I can sleep when I’m dead!
That being said, I feel great and am giddy as a school girl that it’s days away from summer break. Because after this semester, I could really use the R&R-shit… I feel like I say that after every semester… It’s weird, each semester feels like it’s been the craziest semester… Can’t wait for next!
