New iPad Air

So, for my birthday, I got a new iPad Air. It's an upgrade from my iPad 3, which means that at some point, my hubby gets to upgrade from the iPad 1.

And in celebration of the new itoy, I've been downloading stuff.

The most amazing discovery is that someone has extremely faithfully ported the original Bard's Tale series to the iPad. We are talking a game so old that an rpg game with colour graphics and music was rare. In fact, it might have been the first rpg that had such things - it is that old.

I think I will have to print the manuals and the maps. While the game has them embedded for reference, the spells are cast by four letter codes and you have to type them correctly. Still, it's amazing to see games like this (and at least one of the Monkey Island series) available again.

NaNo 2013 Snippet 2

Sam counted the coins as she put them back into the bag. “Right, so payment accepted,” she said. “You are lucky that I didn’t add a significant surcharge to the fee.”

“Why would you do that?”

“You didn’t tell me that your wife was a were. And worse, she was meeting another in the woods.” She pointed at the huge rip in her shirt. “Weres do not like being interrupted, Jack. They get angry and aggressive.” She grabbed the basket and put it on the desk. “I picked up the hood she used to mask herself on the way out of town.” Sam pulled the red hood from the basket. “When she was wearing it, you really couldn’t see that her face was getting fuzzier by the minute.” Sam frowned at Jack. “So why didn’t you tell me that she was a were?”

“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.” Jack shifted around.

“You didn’t noticed the monthly changes? The fur, the teeth? Damn it Jack, a were’s eyes change during the moon. You didn’t notice that your wife suddenly had yellow eyes?”

“She’s never home during the full moon. She’s been going to visit her mother every month, practically since we first me,” he said.

Samantha shook her head. “Jack, I take it you never went along. Did you ever meet her mother?”

“Yes, I did once. And she was the scariest woman I’d ever meet. She kept staring at me like…” Jack stopped and blinked a few times.

“Like what, Jack?” Samantha asked.

“I was about to say like a dog looking at a new bone. Oh god, do you think her mother is?”

“Given that werewolf genetics can be passed on, I’d say yes. Her mother is a werewolf too.” While werewolves could be created if someone was injured by a were, more were born with the condition.

We unpacked the rest of the basket. Typical for were getting ready for the full moon, there was: wolfsbane, a large ham and a raw leg of lamb. If the werewolves didn’t make a kill, at least they wouldn’t starve.

“Now you have the evidence. What were you planning on doing?”

Jack stared at the wolfsbane. “I thought I was getting a divorce because my wife was cheating on me.”

“From the state of the cabin, I’d say she was.”

“But I’m definitely divorcing her if she’s a werewolf. Can you imagine what the kids would be like?”

Samantha repacked the basket and handed it to Jack. “I hear a litter of werewolf pups are simply adorable, Jack. And you had better tread carefully if you are divorcing her. If she wants you, the pack will not let you go easily.”

NaNo 2013 random snippet

“Yo, street rat! Come here.” 

The small teen looked over. While his real name was Rob, everyone who ever met him called him Ratty or Street Rat. Small dark eyes, a small frame and a tendency to dart from place to place gave the overall impression that he was a bit like a rodent. He started to back away from the much larger boy. 

“No, tttthanks anyway. The last ttttime, I nearly got cccaught in the ccccat door.”

The larger boy, Leo, caught up with Ratty and grabbed his collar. “You better come when I call. You don’t come, you’ll get hurt. Understand me?” Leo was 16 and the leader of the street kids. He claimed the best of the clothes any of them found, most of the money from anything anyone sold and most of the food at the end of the day. He was backed by Owen and Geoff, two of the biggest bullies that Ratty had ever met.

Ratty nodded. The bigger kids ruled the streets, he was too small to come out ahead in a fight. “I’m here. What did you want?”

“Geoff there, he spotted an open window that’s just your size. So you know what to do, don’t you?” smirked Leo. 

Ratty shook from head to toe. He hated being sent into strange homes to steal anything precious he found. “Are you ssure? Dddddid sssssomeone ccccheck if it’s empty?”

Leo shook Ratty. “Don’t back talk me. Do you want me to take you back to the orphanage and leave you tied up outside the door? Do you?”

“Nnno. Please, not that.” Ratty still remembered the horror of the local orphanage clearly. All the kids at the orphanage were put to work as soon as they could walk on their own. They spent their days sorting through laundry, washing clothes, making repairs. A lot of the older boys were adopted by mine bosses to work within the smaller tunnels and the girls would become cheap servants for city dwellers. Because of his small size, Ratty would be working in a mine within a few days of being left at the orphanage. 

“Geoff and Owen, help our little friend. Drop him in that window so he doesn’t have to climb through,” Leo said, chuckling unpleasantly. Leo kept holding Ratty’s collar until the other two boys had an arm each. They started to drag Ratty across the road.