[Lawtan]

And...Open for Business! Feel free to suggest "books" (reference sites), correct poor site choices, read, or just sip coffee and Smoothies while listening to a mix of music, from New Age to Folk Rock to Viking Metal. Also, feel free to pet the animals (Some of whom are here to read, too O.O)

And so I arrived at the broken bridge a-crumble,
I arrived on screeching wheels and failing breaks,
A pence a piece over my eyes for travel,
A piece a hand for the maggot who my body takes,
On Charon the wyrm to Death's Hospice I stumble,
Out the worm carries on, scent of flesh it craves,
I cross paths with a butcher who tongueless mumbles,
She crossed my fingers with tuna o' lake,
A legless young nymph whose love death humbles,
Sits in a chair with her Ted unawake,
A limbless Tiresias lay in pain a-grumble,
His sight I'll restore with the eye of the Cyclopae,
There was poor Poe drunk in a bed akimbo,
Oh, and Tantalus whose mouth no water could make,

But all paled to compare to the lovely nurse of Hades,
Who works with Thanatos makes us all...better.

2015 Fall:
Poem 1
Poem 2
Poem 3

Tamlane:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Candlelit Cavern/Ship of Webs:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Map

Spearfinger:

Gather round, and I'll tell you a tale from the Cherokee tribe.
I brought the heater, and more cocoa. (did not mean to steal thunder, just felt it needed a keg)

...Long ago, in the lands of the fire people - the Cherokee - there lived a terrible ogress and witch. She fed off of human livers, particularly those of young men, and could shift her shape to be that of any man's desire.

However, despite appearing as a woman, feeling like a woman, and talking like one, she was in reality a grey old crone with a finger sharp as metal made of bone. Her skin was as hard as the rocks of the mountainside.

For her finger, she was named U'tul'ta - Spearfinger. She commanded stone so fully, that she could easily lift man-sized boulders, open and reclose rocky paths.
U'tul'ta traveled the mountainside, approaching tribes as an innocent old woman, or a lost love.

To children, she would call out, "Come my children. Come to your granny, and let me fix your hair." With a child on her lap, she would comb their hair on-handed, while the bony spearfinger would pierce and cut out part of the liver, painlessly.

To young men, she would seduce them to bed with her charms, cause them to sleep, and eat the liver. In a family, she would act as a guest, eating the livers of each member individually.
Then, she would leave, humming a tune,
U-weh-la-na-tsi-ku...So..su...sa...
Liver, I eat it...So...su...sa...

Eventually, the Cherokee tribes held a great council to end U'tul'ta once and for all. Many hunters were assembled, and headed out into the woods and mountains, at times climbing or sticking to the shadows of the trees.

Eventually, the heard the bloodchilling song, accompanied by heavy footsteps.
U-weh-la-na-tsi-ku...So..su...sa...
Liver, I eat it...So...su...sa...

An old familiar woman from one of the tribes appeared, her hand sleek with some substance.

The scouts, seeing her, alerted the hunters, who built a deep pit into the clay and rock, and covered it in leaves, bramble, and sticks.
Slowly, the old woman approached the trap...slowly...slowly...
Snap! the ground fell from under her!

Immediately, U'tul'ta's illusion was gone!
The old woman's face was covered in silvery-white flowing hair, covering a snarly, warty face. Her spearfinger, more of a single finger on a swollen ball, slick with the blood and bile of her last prey, started lashing out in an attempt to kill whatever had trapped her!

The men started shooting arrow after arrow at her, each one snapping, useless against her stone hide.
U'tul'ta, clever as she is, began to use her spearfinger to dig herself out of the hole.
In the frantic activity, a bird, a titmouse, started calling out "Un, un, un" - Heart.
So, the hunters began aiming at the ogress's chest, but still to no avail.
Thinking the titmouse a liar, they caught it an cut off it's tongue, thus the titmouse was known as a liar and a poor songbird.

...Then, the chickadee arrived and perched on the spearfinger of U'tul'ta...

The braves looked at the bulgeous hand, the only odd color on her. One brave, thinking the Chickadee was pointing to the heart of U'tul'ta, threw a spear at the hand.
Whip went the spear! Through the hand. U'tul'ta screamed a bloody scream, and fell. Her hand, her heart, was destroyed. She was slain.
From then on, the chickadee was known as a helper and a truth-teller. The braves returned triumphant...
However, even dead, it is said that in parts of the Smokey Mountains, you can still hear her voice...
U-weh-la-na-tsi-ku...So..su...sa...
Liver, I eat it...So...su...sa...