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My people live in the eye of a massive storm. A magical structure, filled with chaos. Flashes of lightning, winds, hail… sometimes it rains flame or acid, sometimes even worse or stranger things. I still remember a rain of milk from my childhood, and there’s a bolt of lightning outside my house the turned into glass upon striking the ground, simply embedding itself there. Occasionally, one of us braves the winds, goes into the even worse portions of the storm to bring back outside food or artifacts. 

It’s hard enough even to live in the eye, where the weather is quietest. But out there in the winds, we lose one person in three. Struck down by unexpected phenomena. The lighting in those stormy lands has a taste for blood, or at least many think so, and it’s one of the least dangers. My own father was taken by the winds, never to return. Torn away well before I could truly understand what it meant. A gust of wind sharpened itself into blades, and invisibly cut him to ribbons. Not a clean way to go, leaving not even enough for a proper burial. 

The storm’s rage only seems to grow as time goes on, as well. Wild gusts rattling our windows, fields torn up by wind or shattered by tremors. Our augers try to predict the capricious twists of the sky above us, but they fail to do so more often than not. The storm stifles us as well; the majority of conversation is about the storm itself. Wondering who lightning will steal away next. Talking about how to shield ourselves from the wind. Wondering if our fields will survive if a sudden frost or heat overtakes us… 

I’ve learned to speak in a… different manner. Not with the people around me, but with the storm itself. I’m no auger, to try and predict the winds days in advance, but I can hear them begin to howl behind me. Can understand their ebb and flow, and wind my way around and past them. I’ve been out into the storm proper several times, relying on my instincts and the voice of the wind to guide me, and returned unscathed each time, often with a small object of magic or two for my own collection. 

To brave the storm untrained, without a team, is forbidden among my people… but while their training might keep them alive, they have also grown complacent. Their methods, to only progress so far, to only chase certain objectives… they are not nearly ambitious enough for me. 

No, my ambition is to tame the storm itself. To bind its power to my own bidding, and turn it into a true boon for the village, rather than the obstacle it currently stands as. 

It won’t be an easy journey, to find the source of the storm; it certainly does not lay anywhere within the eye itself. But it’s worthwhile, I think. To prevent any more deaths, and to bring about a true age of plenty to my people. No more will I sit idly by, holding myself back, sitting around a fireplace in a tavern, planning with the other villagers how to shield against floods, droughts, heatwaves, lightning, and all manner of other disasters. No more! 

I am done talking about the weather. It is well past time someone does something about it. 

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Commentary: Another joke-y one, although this one I could see turning into a full story. I actually came up with the punchline first by adapting an old, corny joke, and decided to see how ‘serious’ I could make a story seem while still having that as the final line. It was mostly a writing exercise initially, but I like how it turned out.

A simple incantation and a snap of my fingers lights the campfire. I had been left in charge of setting camp tonight; the party’s warrior and ranger were hunting for game, while the rogue secures our perimeter, setting up noise traps made from tins and ball bearings to detect intruders. In an adventuring party, it’s important to share out jobs evenly. Doubly so for a ‘hero’ party. I must find myself wondering once per day what makes all of us so special that the Hero would choose us for this journey. An old one-eyed ranger, a young warrior with more anger than skill to him, a rogue that by all laws of the land should have been executed… and me, a mage who can barely manage more than a spark. Maybe one or two firebolts on a good day. She could have had the greatest, most skilled adventurers in the nation at her beck and call… 

The hero comes out of her tent, carrying with her a new pair of gloves, freshly crafted. Better than anything we ever find in stores… hell, better than some legendary gear I’ve heard of. She always spends every stop to camp crafting and improving our gear, maintaining all of it. I wonder sometimes if it’s more out of pity than anything. She goes up to me and puts them in my hand. 

“Here, try these on. We need to check the fit!” 

I glance down at the gloves and slip them on. The mana flows through them easily, sparks circling around them. They’d probably make my spells use less than half as much energy. I turn my hands around this way and that, marveling at the craftsmanship, still lost in thought. She shoves my shoulder. 

“So? Pretty great, right?” She’s grinning at her own statement when I look over my shoulder at her. She always takes pride in… everything she does, really. 

“They’re astounding.” I respond. 

She frowns. There must have been something in my tone. She puts her hand on my shoulder and shakes me gently. “Hey, I can tell when you’re brooding, you know. What’s going through that big wizard brain of yours?” 

I try to give her a smile. “It’s nothing, really. I was just thinking…” 

She listens to me trail off, and sits down next to me by the fire. “Yeah? About what?” She actually looks serious for once as she asks me the question. 

I poke her on the forehead. “Now you’re brooding too? Go back to being irresponsible, if you stay serious for too long the sky will crumble.” 

She slaps my hand down with a laugh. “Ass.” 

I look into the fire for a little while, meditating on things… she’s patient, waiting for me to respond in my own time. “I was just thinking… why us? Why this… band of misfits? You’re a hero. You could have anybody for your party.” 

She puts an arm around my shoulders. “Well, lemme ask you a question. What do you think is the most important thing for a hero to have?” 

I have to think on that too. It’s not something I’d really considered before… “Strength? Bravery? …Luck?” I’m listing off anything I can think of, really. I’m not certain where she’s going with this line of inquiry. 

She shakes her head. “Bravery is close, but… not quite right. No, the most important thing for a hero… well, let me tell you a story. From my childhood.” 

I nod, sitting myself down to listen. The rogue had returned at some point. He’s pretending to be aloof, like usual, but I can tell he’s listening even as he sharpens his knives. 

The Hero takes a breath. Trying to gather her emotional strength, I presume… 

“Okay, so. You know I was raised in the Church, as an orphan. What you might not know is… I hated it.” She laughs, a little bitter. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. They meant well, they did their best… but to the priests, raising the orphans was just another job. They did it out of obligation, not love. Every day, I… I spent them missing my parents. Wondering who they were, even though I never knew them. Seems stupid now; they probably never gave me a second thought after abandoning me. Ah, sorry… getting side-tracked.” 

“So, the church…” she continues on. “three square meals per day, tutoring in the holy scriptures and a variety of useful every-day skills… some of the nuns came into our bunkroom and read us bedtime stories sometimes. But… it still wasn’t any environment for a child. Children are selfish. They demand attention from their families, from each-other… but the nuns, well. They had other priorities before us. Again, I don’t hold it against them. It was definitely better than being on the streets. At the time though? I resented them for it.” 

“It was mostly the children looking out for each-other. Older kids trying to grow up and be parents for the younger all at the same time. They were a bit better… but it was still something they did because they ‘should’ do it. Not because they wanted to. Still more out of duty than love.” She’s looking at something far-off, remembering her time at the church… not fondly, I would imagine. 

“There was one kid who was a bit different though. For her, helping the other kids, taking care of them… it wasn’t just a duty; it wasn’t something she did just because nobody else would. She had… drive. A spark. The difference between doing something because you should, and doing something because you must. She gave us her all, a big sister and parent all in one. All of us loved her for it too.” She holds up a single finger, nodding towards me. 

“So, to answer your question… the girl was a hero to me. Helping me find happiness, not because she was better at raising us than the nuns, but because she had resolved herself to do it. Because she put her heart and soul into it. So, if you ask me why I chose this group… well, I know you have your flaws. Those aren’t what I define you all by, though. I look at this party…” She glances around the campfire at everyone, the ranger and warrior having returned in the middle of the story and sat to listen. “I see a ranger who gives his all to protect nature. A warrior who burns with the need to defend the weak. A rogue who refused to let the law shove him off into the corner to die… and you, a mage who drives on ahead, learning how to be more and more efficient with the mana you have rather than just letting your low capacity stop you.” 

I smirk a bit, leaning back to glance up at the stars, and respond to her story. “So… a bunch of nobly stubborn idiots?” 

“Hey, stubbornness is a good thing! I wouldn’t trade a single one of you for any of those guild adventurers that treat all of this like a job. What are their ambitions? To make money and gain fame? Nah, I’d take a stubborn idiot like you any day of the week.” 

The rogue raises his hand. “Also in it for money and fame over here.” 

She sticks her tongue out at him, the tension firmly and completely being crushed into dust at his affronted look. The warrior starts laughing, which sets off everyone else. Even me, the ‘broody’ mage. 

Well, I can agree with her on one thing, at least, even if I think she’s overestimating me… I wouldn’t trade this group for any other either. 

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Commentary: It’s pretty common, in games and novels both, for the hero’s party to be fairly ‘unique’ compared to others in the same profession. I wrote this piece to explore that a little; why would a hero favor a band of misfits and oddballs? The answer I came up with was, essentially, ‘because they’re looking for something more important than mere technical skill.’

At the center of every magical world, there’s always something holding it together. Maybe it’s an idea, or a phrase. Maybe an image. An object. A place. A memory. Maybe something that defies description altogether. But regardless, there is always, always a center. It just makes sense, after all. Magic is something that’s made, not something natural. It needs a foundation to build upon, or it would simply fall apart in the face of the mundane. 

My world had a tree at the center. Tall and proud, visible from the furthest edges we had ever explored. Drops of mana dripped from its leaves like water after a rainstorm. 

At the base of the tree was a city. Not the largest city in the world, but there was a certain beauty there, to be built around a world-center. A certain pride in being its protectors and stewards. The greatest mages came to study there, where the mana was thickest, and reality at its most malleable. 

When I was a child, I would always dream about climbing that tree, seeing what I could see from the top. Tasting its fruits, breathing the summer scent of its leaves as the wind blew through them. I’d train for hours each day in the local playgrounds, climbing the jungle gyms to start, then smaller and more mundane trees… as I grew older, I started climbing the sides of houses as well. Everyone else in my school just called me ‘Monkey’, knowing my love of climbing. I practiced every technique I could find. Learned how to use pitons and how to secure a safety line before I learned algebra. 

On my 15^th birthday, I went for my first climb of the tree itself. Only up to the top of one of its massive roots; still a daunting task for the unprepared, although mitigated somewhat by the fact that pathways had been built along the root’s length. Of course, I went up the side rather than the path… not like there’s going to be a path up any farther. 

When people realized I was serious about my ambition, they started trying to dissuade me. They thought it was too dangerous. Too impractical of a task. Not understanding the desire to surmount a challenge nobody has managed before. Nobody had ever tried to climb the Great Tree in recent times, and the climbers in the distant past were all thought to have died on the trip up. 

I was not to be dissuaded. At the age of my majority, I gathered my climbing supplies into an enchanted pack of holding; enough food and water to last a month, plenty of rope and pitons, harnesses, my binoculars, a tent that could be set up like a hammock against the side of the tree, and a journal and pen to record my journey. 

Nobody was there to see me off on my journey, but I did not let it discourage me. I had been preparing mentally as well as physically, knowing that nobody would understand. 

I began to climb… 

After the first week, I was wondering if I had made a mistake. Not in setting the goal, but in the amount of supplies I had bought. I had been climbing for a week, and used up a week’s worth of supplies… and yet, I was nowhere near the halfway point. And since I had to go both up and down, I felt myself feeling… worried. Still, I pressed on. There were creatures living on the tree here and there, and smaller plants growing from its surface… I could hunt and scavenge. 

Two weeks, and I had started to adapt, learned to find food upon the tree’s surface. My use of my own supplies had slowed. I learned where the best spots to camp were too; how to identify the shifts in the bark that would show where my tent would hold fast, or even to track an occasional plateau where I could properly stretch out. A rare treat when climbing. 

A month in, and I was among the tree’s leaves, and had fully adapted to life upon its bark. My own supplies were tapped only rarely, only in emergencies. My pitons had almost run out, but I had begun to carve my own from monster horns, with ropes made of vines to accompany them. The top was so close I could practically taste it. 

A month and a half into my journey, and I sat high upon the crown of the tree. The world stretched out below me. I breathed the fresh air through the leaves, and drank drops of mana scooped up into my hands. I had made it. The wind was in my hair, and the world was laid out before me down below. I could see from one edge to the other. Could see the clouds from up above, the curls of the wind… ships in the ocean, little ant-size dots. Kingdoms appearing to be the size of my thumbprint up there. I was so high up that, if not for the wind magic I had learned during my climb to keep warm, there would be not enough air around me to breathe. I was closer to the moon than to the world’s surface. 

Having finally reached the top of the tree… having claimed the desire I have felt since my birth… I only have one question for you. 

How, precisely, did you manage to get a pizza up here in 30 minutes??? 

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Commentary: I freely admit, I couldn’t think of a good way to wrap this one up, so I gave it a punchline instead of a resolution. I still think it’s funny though.

My trusty mace Starfury smashes through a final skeleton; a warrior this time. The last member of the horde before I can finally confront the Dark Lord. I stand battered, but triumphant, before the doors to the Wicked King’s throne room. With my mace at the ready, I fell the doors with a single mighty kick! This is it, the final confrontation; the battle I have been training all my life for! 

“False King! I have come to bring about your end, in the name of justice!” 

The ghoulish figure of my Fated Nemesis, the Embodiment of All Evil, looks up from the table he had been peering over, away from the map of his forces. He turns to face me… and I recoil in surprise. The Beast, the Agent of Darkness, The Bearer of the Crown Steeped in Sin… looks entirely normal? 

He looks me up and down in bemusement… I’m prepared to listen to whatever speech he might have prepared, but his next words shock me far more than I could have expected. 

“…Who are you supposed to be, exactly?” 

I tighten my hands around my mace, tensing my body, ready to strike at the first sign of witchcraft or demon summoning. 

“You belittle my stature, but know the truth! I, Galaran of the Wild Lands have come to strike you down and return freedom to this realm, in my duty as Chosen One!” 

He starts laughing. Laughing! As though my duty is a joke to him! It isn’t even a sufficiently evil laugh; he sounds like my father, five beers deep, laughing at my Uncles’ belches and flatulence. Where’s the dark cackle of a villain? 

“Ah… hoo… sorry, sorry. So, Chosen One, hm?” He composes himself, turning to address me again. 

“Yes! The bane of evil and tyranny! The-” 

“Yes, yes, I know all the titles. Born under a blue moon, beneath a flaming bough? A child who sings songs so sweet as to charm the wickedest beasts, with bravery to match a dragon?” 

“Of course you would know of the prophecy, fiend! The one that describes me, the hero who will-” 

“Bearer of a tree-shaped birthmark on the back of your neck? Blind to the mortal world in one eye, but with sight into the realm of the spirits? Ten time pie baking champion?” 

“Yes! I am the one of the prophecy-” 

“Okay, but did you actually manage to obtain a god’s hand in marriage? And live 3 years in the Poison Marshes with nothing but the clothes on your back?” 

“Of course! It was fore-ordained!” I’m starting to feel a bit uncertain now… why all of these questions? Certainly, a Villain must recognize their Heroic Nemesis… right? I almost feel like I’m being made fun of by the tone of his voice… 

“And, the ‘ritual of humility’?” I can see him barely restraining from bursting out laughing. 

I hesitate, remembering what I actually had to do for said ritual. At the time, it felt more like a ritual of humiliation than humility. But that’s the point… to strip away unearned pride, and remind myself that I am no better than anyone else… 

He sees my hesitation, and bursts out in another round of laughter, leaning on the table. It’s getting harder to keep my mace held up. 

“And what, precisely, is so funny to you, monster?” I bark out at him, my patience fraying to its ending. 

“I made it up!” He keeps laughing, barely managing to squeeze the words out between laughs. 

“Made what up, Wicked Serpent of False Promises?” 

“Oh my Dark Gods, you’re even doing the names thing. You really did follow everything in that bad joke, didn’t you?” 

I can feel a bit of doubt building in my heart. Certainly, I’ve followed the prophecy step by step… there were occasional blips, where things didn’t go as ordained, but I corrected for them. I have fulfilled the prophecy. And I’m here, ready to take down the villain! 

He smirks darkly at me. “I made the whole thing up, you know? Just a bunch of nonsense.” 

“The nonsense is what you’re saying now, Purveyor of Poisoned-” 

“Frederick.” 

“What?” 

“My name is Frederick. Or Fred. Dark Lord Fred if you want to be formal. And it isn’t nonsense. Do you know how hard it is to rule an evil empire without rebels popping up all the time? It’s exhausting. So, I whipped up a prophecy of my own. A false hope, for everyone to invest into. To ensure nobody would try to challenge me, due to the unlikely conditions to be a ‘chosen one’.” He laughs, and this time, at least, it’s a more appropriate evil laugh. “Just your bad luck that you happened to fit.” 

I quickly rally myself. “Bad luck? Hah! Prophecy or not… prophecy or not, I bring your death today, Vile Beast of-” 

“Hey, if you’re ‘the chosen one’, then that’s the legendary mace Starfall, right?” 

I hesitate. I look over at the mace, and think on what he’s already said. And notice that the mace is glowing… I toss it away from myself… but somehow, it clings onto my hand. 

He wags his finger at me. “Close, chosen one. If you’d reacted just a hair faster, you might have managed to drop my little contingency plan there. As manufactured as the prophecy you follow. But for now… goodbye. Do give my regards to the gods for me.” 

As the mace explodes… I have one final thought in my mortal life, as I look towards my fake nemesis. 

‘Wow… what an asshole.’ 

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Commentary: Probably one of my favorite short stories that I’ve written; this one is a bit of a sarcastic take on the whole concept of prophecies and ‘chosen ones’. Honestly, it’s not like there’s anyone out there verifying that these prophecies are genuine, after all.

Hey all, just making a quick post to let anyone watching this site know that I’m going to be transferring some of my short stories over to here. They cover a pretty wide range of genres, so stay tuned for more! I’ll be putting the first one up in a few minutes, and release the rest over the next few days. Hope you’re looking forward to seeing them!

Apparently authors need websites, huh? Pretty crazy stuff. So, let’s put together an inaugural blog post.

My name is Benjamin Miller. I’m a nerd. Like, 200% a nerd. Into gaming, reading, anime, things like that. Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a LitRPG kick, hence the fact that my first book uses LitRPG writing conventions.

I wanted to explore some slightly more unusual themes with Journey of a Villainous Hero. Specifically, on the separation between perception and reality. People see Melinda making monsters and casting dark magic, they see her Sigil, they’d usually assume that she’s someone evil. But, at heart, she isn’t. She’s just a girl who wants to be a hero. And I feel like that makes for an interesting basis to a story.

Of course, I didn’t want to go full grimdark with my writing. That’s honestly something I hate about the current novel environment. The idea that a story can’t be good unless it’s grim and gritty and depressing. I like stories with a bit of wonder to them. While it’s not the strongest theme in Villainous Hero, I still wanted to include a bit of that. Melinda’s excitement at stepping out into a new world and having these strange new powers to play with, even if the circumstances aren’t exactly ideal for her.

Now, let’s talk a bit about my next story. My next story, A Long Shortcut, will be the kick-off for my second series, known as The Crystal Carvers. The Crystal Carvers will have a more classical sci-fi/fantasy setting, with a mix of traditional wizardry, magitech, and some ‘unique abilities’ working outside the normal magic systems thrown in. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will say that it involves dimension-hopping, an evil knowledge-hoarding cult, and a magic school.

Sound interesting? Keep an eye out around here! I’ll put up a page for it on this site once it’s out, and I’ll make a blog post about it as well!

Anyway, I don’t want to ramble on too much in this first post. Happy trails, and may your dreams shine brightly.