TOGPWF 6
Blood Moon Rising uncut(very explicit) ebook now on sale!
Sharona’s new adventure Blood Moon Rising is on sale now, uncut and for the first time, featuring explicit sex scenes!
When the Blood Moon rises, for some it’s a night to lock your doors and hope for the dawn. For others it’s a night of forbidden rites and dark ceremonies.
But for Sharona it’s a night of adventure, treasure hunting, and ancient secrets that could get her killed if she’s not careful!
No. No, I cannot.
If any benevolent deities smile down on Sharona’s world, Millicent might even have considered paying for an exorcism or ten.
And maybe a couple of wizards to perform a ritual dispelling.
Probably a good idea, but Millicent had planned to upgrade the brothel after her mother’s death anyway, so it sort of killed two birds with one stone(no pun intended…sorta).
Although Millicent had a good relationship with her mother(the Madam had given up all hope of having children when she got pregnant, and as a result, doted on Millicent quite a bit), she and the Madam had very different ideas on how to run the brothel. Millicent wanted to enlarge and remodel the brothel, add more services, bring in more exotic women and thereby charge more money for everything. The Madam considered these to be frivolous expenses and didn’t see how remodeling the brothel would make men pay more for a prostitute(much to her daughter’s frustration).
In fact, the discussion about whether to fire Drualja pretty much illustrates the differences between the Madam and Millicent. To the Madam’s way of thinking, Drualja has been the brothel’s best earner for more than a decade and it would be throwing money away to fire her. Whereas, Millicent(who at this point was handling the day to day operations for her mother) was concerned that Drualja’s increasingly erratic behavior and Azra’s(11-12 years old at the time) anti-social antics(theft, torturing animals, etc.) would scare away customers and give the brothel a bad reputation.
In the end, Drualja resolved the debate, though not in the way either of them expected.
She died with a smile. That’s how the Joker in the 1989 Batman film died.
She was the only one smiling, that’s for sure!
I actually saw 1989 Batman in the theaters when it came out. We had gone to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but it was sold out so we saw Batman instead. 1989 was a good year for movies.
Oh? Cucucthu wasn’t happy with this latest and greatest sacrifice?
On a sidenote, what did Drualja actually get out of working for the brothel? She had some power, so I can’t help but suspect she had an ulterior motive for plying the world’s third oldest trade. (The oldest being hunter-gatherer, and the second oldest being flint-knapper.)
Drualja had been part of a Cucucthu cult in her native land(it’s unclear whether she was born into it or had joined it at some point). She fled from her homeland when nearby authorities heard rumors of the cult’s bloodthirsty activities, and raided it. Wanting to avoid anyone who might recognize her or her cult and report her to any authorities, she traveled into far distant lands hoping to start a new life and finally stopped in what is now the kingdom(although at the time the territory belonged to the House of Stork).
Although Drualja’s reasons for joining the brothel aren’t clear, it’s likely that she relied on theft and prostitution to survive during her travels, and working at a brothel would provide her with the stability she desired.
Drualja had plans to use her money and influence to form another Cucucthu cult and began grooming her daughter Az-Rha’Nath(Azra) to be its first member when she was old enough, but somewhere along the line her obsession with the occult seems to have driven her insane and we all saw how that turned out.
Hmm, yes.
Drualja’s occult-based madness reminds me of an element of Raymond E. Feist’s “Riftworld”-saga. Practising necromancy at any level lead to the caster’s mind starting to spiral into madness although it was possible to stop. Becoming undead meant there was no way back.
The delusional Drualja died for nothing other than scaring Millicent and her brothel with an evil smile. The blood letting and writing for the little Cucucthu while leaving her poor daughter motherless. No wonder Arza turned into an Alice Cooper what a start estrange father and insane suicidal mother one can feel sorry for her which is why she drinks.
HOLY SHITBALLS!!! I thought that princess was fucked up but Arza’s mom is the queen of all fucked up cultists. John, you are a true artist but to be honest on my opinion; how on earth did you come up with this without feeling you need to throw up? I’m betting Azra became a pure bitch when she witness her mom’s self-sacrificing to her tentacle god.
I have been a horror fan for a long time, watching John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Aliens movies, Predator, George Romero, Dario Argento, and more, so I have a pretty strong stomach for violence and gore. 😀
Azra was pretty much a hellion already and her mother’s death certainly didn’t help things.
Oddly enough, Azra’s relationship with her mother reminds me of the Simpsons’ Ned Flanders with his parents, who gave him zero guidance, leading to longlasting anger issues as he acted out in an attempt to get some sort of structure from them, or at least a response like other parents gave their children…
At least Ned got psychological care (of a sort) once his behaviour got out of hand.
Another interesting thing about Azra’s relationship with her mother is that Drualja taught Azra(more like forced Azra to learn) everything she knew about magic and the occult.
In fact, Azra knows enough magic and spells to be a low level sorcerer in her own right(Tamarus and the triplets don’t know this).
Azra, however, refuses to practice magic and stubbornly insists that magic isn’t real and the old ones don’t exist(even though she knows better).
I have plans to explore this side of Azra in a future story.
It’ll be interesting to see how she managed to justify her use of a magic ring, when she publically denied the reality of magic…
Azra hasn’t had to justify her point of view because her sisters dismiss it as an eccentricity and don’t question her about it and everyone else is afraid to.
Say, I kind of wonder if Sharona’s world is meant to be Earth in the distant past (Conan style) or some fantasy planet. I’d normally say latter what with the elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins but the last Cucucthu story ended with a fast forward to “today” with only humans present.
If it’s Earth what happened to all fantasy races? A genoside?
That’s an interesting question, actually.
I had originally intended for Sharona’s tales to exist in the far distant past before recorded history(Conan style), but I hadn’t given much thought to what would happen to the other races that populate it. One theory could be that the various races intermingled over the centuries and eventually became the different races we have today(although that would be a tad far-fetched.)
Another possibility is that Sharona’s take place in the distant past on an alternative version of our Earth. The modern age would look just like our modern age, except the various races(Elves, Orcs, etc.) would still live in it as well(picture an Orc in a business suit riding the subway to work!) That could be kind of an interesting world in and of itself.
To be honest, I hadn’t really thought it out, but those are a couple of possibilities.
If you’d forgive some back seat writing, I would be on board for the alternate modern earth with Elves, Goblins, Orcs, Gnomes and more. Hell, I’d say go whole hog and have a Shadow Run/Hell Boy/ Bright style urban fantasy stand in for the modern day, with magic being taught in collage or even high school, strip clubs featuring Succubus employees and the USA keeping attack Dragons in place of Nukes.
Not that it matters much for a Sword & Sorcery setting long before any of that.
That would be an interesting world to play around with, actually.
I have toyed with ideas for stories featuring various descendants of Sharona, and a story set in an alternative modern day with fantasy races would be pretty cool.
“Did you hear? They passed Tony from Marketing over for the promotion.”
“Who did get it, then?”
“Grugrug the Destroyer, from Accounting.”
“Oh, well. He deserves it; and you know he’s got another kid on the way.”
“Don’t Orcs always have another one on the way?”
“Dude. Don’t be speciesist.”
“I think they’re actually insulted if you don’t mention that sort of thing.”
“Really? I shoulda paid more attention in social studies…”
“Never too late to brush up on that sort of thing, Glazz’t.”
The possibilities are endless! ;D