Stanhope Manor

Thrice the bell sounded to an empty corridor. The figure at the door had departed, flicking the latch, the gate snappily clacked shut, and the house wheezed an ethereal sigh, much relieved.

For a decade Stanhope Manor had sat empty with only the Lady Marthorn and her borders in residence; who preferred the mansion to be vacant - for the commotion of mortals gave them all a terrible brain fag: which was a fatigue from the constant interruption to their creative sensitivities....

Puck made his commute from the forest to the town house that he and Marley shared, keeping a watchful eye, all the while on Stanhope, protecting its ghosts and the wealth of mineral that lay tucked beneath it.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Diving Down out of a Cosmic Sky

There are faerie lights in Faerie - not the tiny paper lanterns that you might see strung up high upon a tree, and not the fat neon fireflies that sprinkle the forests at night - no, these lights are actually the beings themselves, visible as just a pin-point of light, like stars on the sky, the etheric beings grace our world with fleeting sparks of brilliant radiance.

They say for every problem there is a solution, and that grey wolves have white beards; marshmallows taste better toasted; and, once a queen, you are always a queen until death. Sifting through such wisdoms is a pastime of the disenchanted, for they have lost their own secret knowledge and seek to find it by the light of another's insights.

The air was cool and its mists were fresh.

While the lost souls locked in the interior of Hell sat picking at their scabs, the newborns were jettisoned fast into the world, diving down out of a cosmic sky, where centuries of future men awaited their time for a soft landing.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

WAR was becoming a chore

Folk were beginning to tire of games and all around the earth members were falling away from spending their days and nights with Phoenix WAR 3.

In no time at all, the online log-ins had dropped to just a five percent attendance.

Some players had leapt into the more boutique and elite games, with political and socially happening forums, whilst the overall consciousness had just shifted and drifted away. The viral temperature was deathly cold.

Reality had become so strong, they had said, that WAR was becoming a chore.

Some thought that the glamour had dissolved because people only wanted something which is new - and after a seven year success it had simply tired and retired out of fashion.

There were, added to these considerations, the subliminal add-ons the Master Kybosh had inserted: attaching olfactory and tactile sublimates to the usual hypnotic flashes, which deceptively ran throughout the high points of engagement. Players were now smelling sulphurous eggs, and spray of cat, with a whiff of salami. He also produced pins and needles in their feet and fingers; jammed consoles and wiped their scores.

Pretty soon the youth migrated leaving only the infirm to continue playing against themselves.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Puck was not purely of Fey Heritage

Although Elvish folk have come from the old world, there is always a particle of the future that they carry illumined brightly within their quick minds that is gifted with foresight, inspiring them with an acute sense of a world just about to happen.

Technically they are not capable of, or ever meant to actually, interfere with the destinies of Men - cross paths they might, but the two streams of evolution are very distinct and separate.

But it so happened that Puck was not purely of Fey heritage, for his lineage's blood was also human, and this gave him an inherited longing for involvement in their kind as well as for those of the vale.

Apart from that fact, he also had the inclination towards a good story and the epic that is Mankind surpassed the seeming frivolity of the etheric world.

And, as a tsunamic tide, the conduct of men washes over the Faerie realm in stormy repercussion - how then could he merely await its advance, to ride yet one more deathless death?

The stories of his famed debauchery had been fabricated over time - all kinds of mischief and gossip made it difficult as historical record to put right.

Puck had loved, and he had overlooked the laws of the day when it was necessary, but he was always true to Humanity with an equal heart, through and through.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Azlan Before Me, Azlan Beside Me

Richard stood in the morning's dawn light looking into the space where the Azlan had lain and had spoken to him on the dewy grass.

This session had left him with a contentedness ... and he felt as though this strength of peace and knowing would never leave him, no matter what contest or circumstance should follow.

Such meetings are private and there are few accounts in public record given, but suffice to say that the instruction King Richard received had come to him because of his honest heart that was open enough to receive it.

He truly was a noble man - who had thought himself both troubled and weak - and had downcast his own opinion of himself so dangerously that the Azlan had now come to remedy this.

And now he was uplifted again and he thereafter honoured his emissary - he soon changed the royal coat to depict this beloved Lion who had, beyond all meta-physicks, made himself known to him.

And although he could not give explanation to this royal signature that now bore three lions, he would privately say to himself (and his children to follow):

"Azlan behind me, Azlan before me, Azlan beside me."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

The Golden Corona

Oh Golden Light of Christ anoint my head

And read my mind as thoughts unwind

Of battles' roads and life unkind.

Please heal my soul and faults in all.

My wit's rebound as I here stand

In this, the light of the holy crown.

Quenched in the morning's opportune

Reviving my selfhood with the beauty of dawn

Take me now! Please take me now!

For the purity of first light is bliss

And surely the whole point of faith is just in this:

-Not that we believe ... but that we ask of He to have faith in us.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Disappeared into the Night Air

"Black Marc" Robin so named the Sheriff to himself in thought - and then saw the anger flicker sharply across the brow - it was then clear to him that he had the skill to read his thinking.

"No" he flatly and finally said.
So saying, he and his men to follow, simply vanished before the Sheriff could speak again. They disappeared into the night air completely.

"No?" the Sheriff repeated questioningly in disbelief. And then screamed again "No!" He was outraged to be disobeyed and then left bluntly like that.

"Nooo!" his voice echoed now so loud throughout the forest that the birds vacated the trees and the moths flew in spurious clouds away from their bushes.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series