Giveaway: Surrounded
Posted by Karen
Hi everyone! It’s Wednesday again and that means it’s time to announce this week’s Warded Wednesday. We hope you all are enjoying these weekly contests and if there’s a way you can think of to improve them, please let us know!
For this giveaway, we’re giving you all a situational challenge:
Imagine you are out at night and surrounded by demons. What would you do?
Answers can be as simple or in-depth as you’d like. Go wild and have fun with it!
This Warded Wednesday’s prize is a US hardcover of The Warded Man!
Remember, we can only pick your comment if you respond to our post on the blog. We’re looking forward to your answers.
UPDATE: Giveaway answers will be accepted until Friday (9/25). The winner will be announced Wednesday (9/30).
You can grab your own copy of The Warded Man hardcover on Amazon or Books-A-Million.
Dance and sing. Might well be the last time I get to do it and who knows, the demons might like it and let me escape in the process.
I would fight like Renna until I’ve killed each one or die trying.
Pray to God for strength. Then I would fight with every fiber of my being. I probably wouldn’t even put a dent in them without divine help, but at least I would die with my wounds on the front. Warrior.
I’d embrace the fear and hope it gives me clarity. I realize I have no warding skills and so my only options would be to hope that my actions in these final moments deem me worthy to stand before Everam, or more likely I’d immediately get scorched by a flame demon and torn asunder by a rock demon. It is inevera.
A moon bracketed by two birds. 🙂
Start warding like the wind! I’ve done enough I could get fairly close. Really only need fire, stone, and wood around here. Maybe water near the lakes. Yeah, they’d be in the dirt, but I’d start small and use a stick to work my way out. With careful stepping I’d eventually have a huge number of concentric ward circles. Even weak wards should give me protection with that many overlapping.
And then the adrenaline would wear off and curl up in the fetal position for the rest of the night, unable to sleep in abject fear of the wind.
Honestly, I’d probably curl up into a fetal position and cry, hoping that just one of those people with their newfound warding skills manages to find me before it’s too late.
I’m 5’2, maybe 160 lbs., so I’d be tossed like a rag doll. I would try to put some distance between the demons and myself. If I came across a house that was warded I’d hopefully be able to hide out till morning. Or if they didn’t let me in, find something sharp or maybe a heavy cooking pan. Find a leather belt and some nails and make something like brass knuckles. If there were no houses close by and I had a knife…maybe make a sharp spear as best i could using nature. If I’m going out, I’m going out like a warrior. I’d prove myself to the heavens. Although, I’d really like to set mini traps for demons just to piss them off.
The naked night used to scare me. It used to terrify me, to be more specific. Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water all rose up against my home – my family. It threatened to swallow me whole. The naked night meant death. That is, at least, until the Deliverer brought back hope. He says he ‘ent no Deliverer’ but deliver is exactly what he did. He gave us fighting wards. He gave us a fighting chance.
Fight is exactly what I intend to do.
Fear of the night has been replaced with the thrill of the hunt. I am not in the wild this night by accident. I did not lose track of time, nor was I cast out from the safety of the wardnet back home. I began preparing for this months ago, when word first reached my village that fighting wards had been returned. I gathered the necessary materials and went to work.
An undercoat of repelling wards sewn into the cloth; not painted. Paint fades, and my art was meant to last. With great care, I etched Forbiddings into every inch of my light steel armor and helm, interlocking defenses against the demons. I only wish that I had learned the wards for Night Sight that the Hollowers were rumored to have. Special care was taken to counter the behemoths, the Rock Demons. I’d heard stories of Old One Arm. Their might was undeniable.
Throwing Daggers, an axe, a spear, and a specially prepared chain were all laid out. Sometimes, it paid to be the son of a Blacksmith. They all waited, calling to me the need to be warded for war. As soon as I saw the fighting wards, I began my labor.
I started with a single throwing dagger, adding the fighting wards I had stolen a look at as a man claiming to be from Deliverer’s Hollow passed through. Testing it against a Woodie from the safety of my ward net, I was satisfied by its howls of pain. I engraved every weapon I owned. I even went as far as to carve them into my gauntlets.
All of my work, all of my sleepless nights etching, sewing, and sharpening. It was all meant for tonight. Tonight, I will not hide. I will not cower and pray. I will not wait for the day to burn the demons from my home.
Tonight, I’m going to kill them all.
I would try to get behind a wood demon, try to jump on it’s back (ideally between shoulder blades – jam something into the joint to hold on to). I would be hoping you can get yourself into a place that it cannot reach.
Now I think there are two choices – just hold for life. Hope the wood demon stops any nearby flame demons and can’t get a grip on you and isn’t smart enough to slam you off.
2nd choice – try to hold a torch (if possible) just in the eyeline of the wood demon. Hold it on the left side to scare it right, hold it on the right to scare it left. Try to make it run to a safe place (nearby farm).
Likelyhood of any of this working – almost impossible. Still the best idea I can come up with (without warding knowledge, etc.)
Didn’t want to have to do this, but little other choice. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hope he’ll forgive me. But know in my heart he most likely won’t. I coax the Thomas the Tank Engine out of his hand, and throw with all my might at the biggest throng of demons. The wail that erupts from him fills the demons heads with pain, and puts Rojers fiddling to shame. Noah, 2 years old, and no volume control. Don’t call it the terrible two’s for nothing.
Knowing it’s only a temporary relief I move on to the next part of my plan.
“Julie, I need you to load up Spotify” My wife of four years. She still looks just as beautiful as the day I met her. My best friend in the world. I can see the thoughts running through her head. She stares at me as though I’m crazy. Which I probably sound. “Just do it” I hiss at her. I see her hand moving on her phone, and need to trust her.
“Jack,” I say to my oldest, he’ll be 7 in a couple of months, I’m determined he’ll live to see it. He’s staring, transfixed, at the copse of wood demons. I hiss his name again. This time he looks at me, but his eyes are glazed over.
“Remember Tae Kwon Do?” I say to him. He nods mutely at me. “Remember how that taught you to be brave, even when you were sparring with the bigger boys?” He nods again. “I need you to be brave again tonight” I can see he’s coming back to me, his eyes now have more focus, less wild eyed.
“You remember that baiters trick I taught you?” Understanding dawns in his eyes, and he slowly begins to sway from side to side. He nods at me, takes a deep breath to steel himself, then begins the shuffling dance from side to side. The nearby demons take notice, and begin following his steps. One, two, they can’t take their eyes off him.
I turn to my wife. She’s been busy on her phone the whole time. You need to play “the song of waning” by Rojer, Amanvah & Sikvah.
All of this has bought me some time. It has to be enough. I rake through Julies bag, and pull out the sheets of paper and crayons she keeps in there. Got to have something to keep the kids amused at a moments notice.
The whole time I’ve been putting my plan into action one hand has been manipulating my phone, till I was on the Wikipedia page for The Demon Cycle. I start rapidly copying wards onto the paper with the crayons, careful not to make any mistakes, knowing the slightest one could be the difference between life and death. Within minutes I have a working circle. Just in time, as the effect of the song of waning seems to be wearing off.
A wind demon swoops down, seeing Noah as an easy target to steal away, and is knocked back by my crude ward circle. Nearby demons lunge at the circle, but are all knocked back. One last idea, I look for the fighting wards. Got to love Wikipedia. Loading one up on my phone, I hold it out experimentally. A rock demon takes a swipe at the circle, but meets my phone instead. He howls in pain, and backs off.
It’s going to be a long night, there’s no doubt about that. But armed with a terrible two’s temper, Song of waning courtesy of Spotify, a highly trained Tae Kwon Do warrior able to distract them with his dancing, and fighting wards on my phone, we have a chance of making it.
I would find a sturdy tree that did not have any other tree’s close to it, and etch a warding circle into the lowest part of the trunk, (this would be quick warding since the circle is small, and would give me time for other warding) then I would climb about 15-20 feet up but not to the top of the tree, and find a nice branch to sit on and ward just underneath that branch, then ward again just above my head. It would have gaps in the ward but the demons could not climb up the tree because of the wards at the base, and wind demons would be hard pressed to find the holes and land on them. I would of course have a warded weapon to deal with them in-case that happens, and my weapon a short staff with short swords at the ends also has a small shield attached to it in case. I could also make the small warding circles all the way up the tree increasing their strength and safety. I would simply sit on the branch all night, plucking off leaves, and acorns, warding them and dropping them on the frustrated demons, watching as they howl in pain and frustration.
Play the violin and pray to God I can channel the spirit of Rojer and produce his mad skills. If by some miracle that works make all the demons dance around then kill each other. If not, which in all honesty is far more likely, put my head between my legs and kiss my ass goodbye.
This is my technique so please don’t copy it lest the Corelings evolve to kill me.
I will have my copy of the warded man beside me, hopefully one of the pictures on the hard cover has a ward that can keep ’em away. ( God save me !!)
But the actual trick is here , Read at your own risk –
I’ll dig a hole and bury myself in the ground , Probably the corelings have a lot of free food about and don’t go into the trouble to dig me out ( moreover I guess it cant smell me under the ground – The power of the core is stronger down under )
Most Corelings materialize at the surface so I suppose that is my best bet.
I’m surrounded by demons in the night… and I couldn’t be more pleased. The demons are closing in on me, their prey, but I am in control. They don’t know that they will soon become the hunted. Smiling, I crouch and beckon to the demons.
Shit myself and hopefully the smell will make the demons run