Playing the Role: Antagonism of UHCM (Chapter 1: Old Times...My Friend)

Lust and for all different reasons, none could bother to approach and taint the mind of a lowly urban survivor. Her irksome gaze scanned the dirt haze with a hint of smoke and fizz from meads, chatters and vanity. Without the gaze, she could not read who would be the chattiest, the most wrecked or even the wealthiest bigot she could prey on. Her name was Jacquelyn of Ethelton and she was a dip only famed within the shady underground called the Dump House, a gang haven underneath the capital of Dirge, Adamant Hall. Jacquelyn pulled her blond, black-tipped long hair behind her left ear and over her pink crown so she could see who just walked in. Her raunchy guise was only the physical illusion for her talent as many men found themselves recruited to the Dump House because of her sleight of hand. Mainly for the reason that they wanted to reclaim what she stole, the rare reason was just to woo her into being their property. In the society, women who cannot govern themselves are no better than beds that can pump out wailing miniature meat-bags. Jacquelyn was one of the few women who chose to punch the Prince Charming character than to marry that vain rich person who cannot cook or clean to save his neck from an ax. Instead, she preferred the self-sufficient men or women.

A year ago, the Dump House was at its worst with the crime family turning on each other because the brothers could not decide who gets to knock up the princess first. The brothers’ father, who is the governor of the Dump House and the current Master of Shadows, captured the princess of Adamant Hall before the conflict. It ended when a dip or a pickpocket managed to kidnapped the princess from the Master of Shadows, which led to the belief of beggars that the dip took away the center of conflict rather than stealing the treasure. Jacquelyn was that dip who stole what would be the greatest loot in the Dump House History. What topped a princess was in fact the one thing that what was more valuable to the Master of Shadows than the member of Adamantian Royalty was his eldest son, who pursued Jacquelyn and persisted to try and steal the princess back from Jacquelyn. Jacquelyn kidnapped the second best thief in Dump House at the same moment as she kidnapped the princess from the Master of Shadows by using George’s ambitions to take the princess back and let him pursue her. That thief’s name was George.

Attempted after another, George was frustrated that Jacquelyn, a woman could outsmart the son of the Master of Shadows. The son’s failure was by a few simple words from her pampered lips, “Take it back? Try me.” Thus, it became her infamy as the Princess of Shadows, making the George the Prince of Shadows; it was just a rumor only in the Dump House started by a bunch of stalkers. “To me, they are not better than I am. Picking pockets was the most honest form of thievery in the Dump House.” Jacquelyn thought to herself as reminder why she is not in jail yet or worse. Anyone can find thieves who robbed carriages and stores hung under the Gallows Tree in the Archer’s Target Practice, a graveyard filled with executed prisoners condemned for murder, robberies and crimes that involved gold, nobles and ill-paid guardsmen whom the Royalty turned a blind eye to.

An opportunity came to Jacquelyn as one of the guardsmen came to her with a cocksure grin on his face. His ice-steel eyes scanned her bed-skirt and seemed like he was looking for a raise for his duty in serving the people. Jacquelyn smirked, knowing that he was serving only himself and attempting to turn her into a bed was indeed his intention. “I know who ye and I have seen what ye did. How about bein’ a good bed and give me my future?” The guardsman blackmailed while feeling her exposed left thigh before rising up under her short skirt. “How about being a good doorknob and clear outta’ my way?” Jacquelyn remarked with a scolding glare while ignoring the intrusive hand caressing her rear covered in a leather leotard with straps connecting her flexible leather leggings with the leotard. A doorknob is the word used to describe a dimwitted man who kept leaving his jewels exposed for injuries like how Jacquelyn would cause to him. She lunge her right hand covered by a rough fingerless leather glove that extended up to halfway her biceps.

Unfortunate for him, he is off-duty, so he is not wearing his uniform that would have saved him the injury. Jacquelyn wrapped her hand around the crotch and she squeezed, causing the guardsman to freeze while making a baby face, showing Jacquelyn that he is now helpless by the sneak attack. She rammed her right shoulder against the guardsman and made him tumble into a nearby table, breaking it into rough twins. While guardsman was recovering from his humiliation, Jacquelyn walked to him and placed the left flat heel of her low-neck, hardened leather boot against his neck. With an apprehensive grin, Jacquelyn warned the guardsman, “Calling me a bed in front of my buddies is a terrible idea. This is Dump Territory, no guards allowed and if ya want to send in an army, allow me to tell ya one thing. Royalty will turn a blind ear to yer case because they need us to keep their treasury populated in treasure. Now leave, doorknob.” Two burly thugs, Loki and Thor carried the guardsman out of the tavern with their face of recognizable anger that could only spell one thing; they would definitely cause a ruckus with that poor fellow who deserved it.

Unlike Adamant Hall, Dump House was the only place where everything was justified in a certain way because dips have targets to pick which are mainly bigots and people who pissed off the higher ups while swashbucklers ventured down there for the purpose of finding odd jobs like stealing treasure, ruin-running and paybacks. “Jackie. Ye still wearing that outfit? They’re bed-skirts now since the guardsmen are hunting for beds caught dead wearing it.” A familiar voice reached Jacquelyn’s ears as Jacquelyn turned around to see who said it. “A lusty faint-red Lolita with a dirty white apron and dark leather armor underneath; I would say it is not very fashionable if you’re really a dip instead of a bed.” A man spoke in a mocking tone. “Ha-Ha. What was it now, George?” Jacquelyn asked after a sarcastic chuckle.

“I have to get to bed soon. Shall we continue tomorrow?” The administrator asked in the chat room embedded into the role-playing forum. UHCM leaned back on his executive chair with the keyboard on his laps and headphones glued to his earlobes. He chuckled at the thought of what would be coming up next since he and the administrator are great friends and both Jacquelyn and George, their characters are pursuing a romance story blended with an underground thriller of being criminals. UHCM was the moderator of the forum and did many things favorably while earning some ire from members due to his methods. However, UHCM knows that Jacquelyn’s action deviated from her personality that he fabricated in her profile. “Yeah, I’ll come up with more ways to make Jacquelyn sound more innocent than that. Good night, guys.” UHCM replied into the instant messaging chat room before he closed the browser and shut off his computer to go to sleep on his winter-tainted bed.

Next morning, the only sound was UHCM’s groaning as he forgets that morning sunlight was very bright when he just woke up. The chilling air haunts his face as it travels down his spine. He kept himself under two layers of covers while his body was lacking response to his mental commands. The sunlight still beckoned UHCM to rise and not heed his exhaustion. Not only that, his false purposes begged him to continue. What was not there for him was his heart that stopped long ago. A dead man walking with color still present, they say. He is pretty much alive, but hardened with the deaths of many. He rise, he stumbled and he halted before the bathroom mirror, seeing his long, rich, brown hair blocking his face like a ghost’s veil. He set aside the veil and revealed his faded green eyes sleeping in a dark sleeping bag. “Well. Fuck you too. I am tired, captain obvious.” UHCM criticized the mirror with a growl underlying the tone. “Through the thoughts left unscathed and imagination flow without a dam. I cannot say that I am doomed to insanity, as my voice was only bleak and glass. Sun and Moon never fade through the clear curtains over my eyes…”

“Yet I chose to never speak to the Shakespeare within myself.” A feminine voice spoke from the bathroom door. No reaction rise from the crooked figure and he looked with rust in his neck. Faded green eyes contacted with a familiar pair of breasts constricted in the red bed outfit. “Rouge, be thy name.” UHCM recalled with the familiar blond and black-tipped hair hanging before his eyes. “Aye…And thy, be the oppressor.” She replied. “Cease thy tongue, Rouge. Thou only be my property. Thou only be my flesh and ink.” UHCM criticized his daughter-figure without moving his lips. Throughout the conversation, neither of them moved their lips as voice echoed through the room. All UHCM did was looking into his bathroom mirror. Still UHCM can see her standing at the bathroom door without a care if it is meant to be private. He pushed himself away from the bathroom sink and walked to the doorway. The moment that he and his creation would to make contact, she disappeared.

UHCM walked to the kitchen, still mumbling his master plans while jumbling possibilities in his mind. Never-ceasing wind of imagination haunted like the ghost of his invisible romance and passion. Frustrated! Depressing! Maddening! Agonizing! Inspiring! All within the raging torrent of how could the story continue. He tugged the drawer open and kidnapped a blueberry pop-tart from its family and hung it from his lips by the flap of its crinkling armor. Boom! Thump! Boom! Thump! Heavy feet stopped before the refrigerator. Hand grasped the handle and tore it open. Gray eyes spotted a range of drinks. Milk! Coca-Cola Zero! Sprite! Water! Fresca! UHCM squatted and gripped the neck of the Coca-Cola Zero bottle and slid it out. Will she love George? No! She is too independent for that crap! What is it to get out of her situation? Bah! UHCM grumbled as he put the bottle onto the counter and opened the cabinet over his head to get the glass. Twist! Hiss! He poured his drink and twisted shut again before putting it away. UHCM carefully dropped the pop-tart onto his left and takes the drink with his right. Heavy feet walked from the kitchen. Heavy feet walked across the hallway. Heavy feet stopped at the computer desk in the living room.

The computer revved up its fans and simmered to a calm hum. The two monitors came to life with only a flickering of a small bar before the real images came vividly in presentation. Windows appeared before UHCM and UHCM turned the key to its lock, revealing a dark Celtic background and a range of indications. Virus protection status, two weather forecasts, clock, calendar and CPU/RAM speedometers are all on the right side of the secondary monitor. The media center pops up and auto-selects a playlist like the computer could read UHCM’s mind and sort out the mess of imaginations. Calmly, UHCM puts on his headset around his head and over his ears. Moments later, the music raids his ears. Metal music to be technical rendered into a low volume. Unlike the metal heads who would blast the house in Ozzy Osbourne’s, Metallica’s and European Metal music, UHCM preferred not to bust his ears to the point that he needed an implant. Looking upon the screen, UHCM entered the internet browser and accessed a forum in his bookmark collection.

There in that miniature world, UHCM is the raven, the officer and jury. He is the moderator and a respected kind of staff member of the role-playing site. However, despite it being in the middle of morning, the chat room is barely empty except for one member who seemed to be busy with creating the member. “Heyo. Having trouble?” UHCM asked. “Should I play as a Gargax or a Hermen?” The member asked. Usually, role-players are in a world of their own where the normal folks would include the weird, the dramatic, the stable and the critic. Note to all; the stable is the most common, but was shadowed by the arrogant and the dramatic that seemed to love filling the board with high-and-mighty smart-aleckry or sob tales that would make a sane person just want to say, “Shut the fuck up, I’m here to role-play, not to be your psychiatrist!” It is all entertaining, but fact be told; the joke only works when a staff member starts pounding down on a troll, the dreaded jerks who can be smart to annoy people and waste time of their lives arguing pointlessly and counterproductively. Never have a child be like them, please. “I’ll say the Gargax, we seen a few of them compared to Shijaks and Kroliers; too few to be exact.” UHCM replied. Of course, the role-players can speak a different language, just not that structured like the Finnish or the English language. “Alright, UHCM. How hard are they?” The member asked. “I’ll say that they are capable thieves and thieves can get pretty much anywhere, so they should be easy.” UHCM answered. The member sent a smiley to UHCM, a thanks for the help.

Scrolling down the page, making tabs for forums that contained the threads that he participated in with Jacquelyn, Giris, Jade and Ada, UHCM looked through the posts like a reviewer skimming through the pages of a potential bestseller novel. In the site, UHCM was known to be a trap, a guy playing female characters only. Why would he do that? He has only them because he is in the fantasy world where he does not exist, but his characters do. One of the threads caught his eyes and it was the one he has Ada in. Ada was the priestess working for the King as a spiritual caretaker. The trick for UHCM to do that is randomly picking a location and observe what is going on; when he finds the most important, he translate it into magic that allowed Ada to gain the title of the “Eye of God.” He peered through the posts and began his typing.

Before her was the King and Priestess Ada was asked about the new Hand of Sorrow. For two years since the Justified Hand murdered the last Hand of Sorrow and defected from the royal guards, the Royalty of Adamant Hall was felt under the threat of the Justified Hand’s climbing popularity as he was forcing Democratic idealism into the poor and the invalids, giving them false hopes and creating a false cult under his guise. It was not a revolution; it would end in a dictatorship under the ideas of a coup, a brave feat of “saving the people.” Ada understood about people and knew that without the new Hand of Sorrow, the merciful hand of reasons, Dirge will fall into a worse condition. The people are scared and felt like they are under hardship for nothing. Many even confessed that to her in her own cathedral in the castle. “So, where would he be the new hero to save Dirge from the Justified Hand?” The King asked while pacing left to right to left. Ada turned around and viewed the pool of sacred spring water with her steel blue eyes. She could only see a dark-haired woman dressed in a simple, modest, white gown adorned with jewelry of holy background. That image was Ada and nothing more.

Ada prayed to find the answer. “Mi’Lord, hark thy servant’s plea. Fate befell thy Hand of Sorrow and we are in gloom. Tarnished honor hath tainted these halls and only we stood before thee. Please...heed thy servant’s plea.” Ada prayed. “Mi’Lord, hark thy servant’s plea. Thy servants feared the end and the river of blood is closing in. My sword hither cannot touch the devil. My shield thither cannot protect against his fire. Mi’Lord, heed thy servant’s plea.” The King joined with Ada. Ada knew the King is scared of losing his people to a pointless war against the Justified Hand and his family felt the same. The pool rippled with the King’s single tear of fear. Before Ada’s eyes, a new Hand of Sorrow appeared in the pool while the King is still kneeling before the pool. However, Ada grew pale to see that the new Hand of Sorrow is in the cathedral itself. Whoever is the new hero will be visiting her cathedral.