Dear My Goddess,
I’ve decided to write you a letter. First of all, how are you? I’m feeling fantastic, thank you for noticing. It’s been a long time since you created me, and I’ve been wandering around this strange place called Godville. You will be pleased to know that I have made friends here. My BFF (that stands for Best Friend Forever) is called Senneth and we discovered that we have B-days on the same day. Fancy that, my Goddess. I wonder if we have any other letter-days in common. I will ask him when I see him next time.
I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. My Goddess, don’t take this the wrong way, but why am I building a temple for you? And out of gold, for pity’s sake! Do you know how hard it is, carrying around 3000 coins in a bag? My back is killing me! Will you consider replacing gold with aluminum? It’s cheaper lighter and all the rage in Godville! I read that in a magazine. It’s called How to build a house for lazy ....er, never mind.
And why are these monsters constantly attacking me? Did I do something in my previous life? And did I have a previous life? Because it can’t be this life, I’m all rainbows and sunshine in this life. Except when someone challenges me, or insults me, or calls me names, or crosses my path, or looks at me, or… well, you get the picture. Totally not my fault, any of those cases, and I have numerous court rulings in my favor to prove it. If you could clarify that little detail, I will be most grateful to you. Thanks in advance.
Well, enough of my problems, lets talk about me, shall we? Is it okay for me to be evil? Because, you know, there are heroes who are good, like my BFF Senneth. He is good to the core. I met with him the other day and you won’t believe what he was doing. He was petting some puppies he found along the road. I, being true to my nature, kicked the puppies in question. And then Senneth looked at me, and began to cry. Cry, for pete’s sake! It took me ages to calm him down. I even gave him my coins, 3412 in total, from my bag. What can I say? I’m big marshmallow deep inside. :) Anyway, after that generous gift from me, he calmed down and invited me for a couple of drinks at the Boatmurdered. And who am I to decline free booze? Hurray, I say. But oh boy, can that guy drink. I will remember that day as the best Friday the 12th of my life. Of course, I will remember Saturday the 13th as the worst Saturday the 13th in my life, because the owner made us wash dirty dishes and clean toilets all day. All that because of some broken glass, bar chairs, one beaten up pianist (my Goddess, he was playing badly, you would have done the same in my place), 40 paid bottles of booze and 24 unpaid. Sheesh, some people are waaaaay too prickly.
That is all from me for now. Huggles to you, my Goddess.
Your faithful servant, Tayse.
P.S. I wasn’t really sure how to send this letter, so I burned it in a fire. Hope it reached you. P.P.S. When I burned the letter I realized that I forgot to tell you something very important. Oh, well, I will write it in another letter.
Beginnings
There are many ways to make a hero.
This is the story of Tayse, the heroine under vigilant supervision of Goddess Desphomena.
It was just another ordinary day in which Goddess Desphomena was bored beyond belief. Wondering what to do with herself, she was often found strolling aimlessly through the lands of Godville. Suddenly, she heard a strange sound, not far away from her. Looking around to find its source, she suddenly noticed a large billboard with unusual words written on it:
– “Do you feel that something is missing from your life?”
– “I wouldn’t say exactly ‘missing’”, thought Desphomena.
The billboard suddenly flashed the text in big angry font: “DO NOT ARGUE WITH GIANT BILLBOARDS THAT CAN SQUASH YOU LIKE A BUG!”
– “Okay, okay. I’m sorry”, said Desphomena out loud, “and nice effects with those fonts, by the way.”
– “Thank you”, billboard wrote, “and now, do you feel that something’s missing from your life?”.
– “Okay, yes, I do. Pray tell what.”
Noticing that the billboard started forming some more of those big, angry letters, she quickly added, “Right. Lose the sarcasm, got it. Won’t happen again.”
– “Whatever. To find the true meaning and achieve ultimate Happiness, you must solve the Integral of Life”, the billboard wrote.
– “Where can I find that Integral of Life?”, Desphomena asked.
– “In the Godville Library: row 12, section C, third shelf to the left”.
– “I didn’t expect that the answer to be so precise, you know. I mean, in all the other stories, you have this one guy, who asks you to bring something you have to steal from another guy with the help of a third guy, whose life you saved in your previous adventure. And you know, I have that third guy, he gave me his email, he said: “Dess, if you need help, shoot me an email.”. And you tell me that I don’t need to…. Wait!!!! Godville has a LIBRARY???”
And then, when Desphomena turned to the billboard to demand an explanation of this outrageous claim, she noticed it was nowhere to be found. Quite impressive, especially for as large an object as a billboard.
With a dash of luck and touch of faith, Goddess Desphomena was able to find that mystical building called the Library. (Actually, she called a taxi, and screamed to the driver: TO THE LIBRARY!!! The driver politely told to her that he had exceeded his daily quota of mad people in his vehicle, and refused to drive her. Luckily, she persuaded him to tell her the location of the Library, after a vicious threat, which she made to his windscreen.)
In the library, thanks to received instructions, she easily found the book entitled: “The Black Book of Calculus”.
Goddess Desphomena sighed, then sharpened her pencil and opened the book. And she experienced the shock of her life. There wasn’t only ONE Integral of Life, there were THREE! “That cunning little…”, she thought, and picked one using a fool-proof, scientific method (Eeny, meenie, miney, moe).
Desphomena quickly solved the first Integral, and waited. And then waited some more. And then she went to have lunch. After lunch, she finally admitted defeat. She crumpled the offending piece of paper, and threw it masterfully into the trash bin.
Deciding that she will not be discouraged, she picked one of the remaining two Integrals. It was harder then the last one, but in the end she managed to solve it. The very second she put the last number on paper, the table began to tremble, then levitate about 5 inches above the floor. After several seconds of showing off and an applause from Desphomena, the table descended back to its previous position, then morphed into a not-so-pretty monster with gray fur and yellow eyes.
It spoke: – “I am called Sphing.”
– “Don’t you mean Sphinx?”, asked Desphomena.
– “No”. The monster said, rolling his eyes, “Sphinx is my older cousin. I have a couple of questions for you.”
– “Let me guess”, said Desphomena, “if I fail to answer them, you will kill me”.
– “Of course not, I detest violence. Now can I ask you my questions?”
– “I guess so.”
– “Why do drawers have tables?”
– “What? Don’t you mean the other way around? Your question makes no sense.”
– “No, no, no, I know what I asked”, claimed the monster, “and I asked, why do drawers have tables?” The monster stared at Desphomena with expectation. Desphomena was baffled. She didn’t say anything and simply stared back. She didn’t even blink.
– “I see”, the monster said, “that this question is maybe too hard for you. I have another one: Why do windows have houses?”
This strange one-sided conversation lasted for several decades, or maybe several centuries, we can’t be very sure about that, because for gods and goddesses, time is a relative term (since they are immortal). Moreover, this event is shrouded in a veil of mystery, because no one ever heard about the Sphing again. And when she was asked about it, the eyes of Goddess Desphomena, for one fraction of a millisecond, shifted from emerald green to pure black.
Now, let’s get back to our story.
Finally, Desphomena tackled the third Integral. After hours and hours of hard work, she finally came up with a solution. Suddenly, there was a loud “Swoosh”, and then the numbers, integrals, and all the signs started to tremble on the paper. And then after approximately 12.56 seconds they stopped. “That’s it!”, thought Desphomena, “when I get my hands on that con-billboard, I will…”. Then, she heard pop-pop-pop behind her. She turned around and saw a little creature, who then promptly fell on its knees and started to speak: “Creator, I live to serve, obey, and worship you. Please be kind to your poor servant.”
At first, Desphomena was quite taken aback with this sudden outburst of emotions, and then it hit her. She looked at the creature, who was still half-lying, half-sitting, arms spread wide on the ground. “Get up, you”, she said, “I shall name you Tayse. You will be brave and courageous. You will slay monsters in my honor, collecting golden bricks for the temple you will build for me”.
Tayse jumped for joy and in her boundless excitement promptly ran into a wall and knocked herself dead. That was her resurrection #1.
That’s the story of Tayse, the heroine under the vigilant supervision of Goddess Desphomena. But, this is just the beginning of Tayse’s adventures.
There is this one time when she brought the Godville Administrator to the brink of madness with her incessant chatter, and was bribed with a Godville Invite to leave him be.
Or the incident when she accidentally set her date on fire, thus earning the nickname “Hell raiser”. Although we must step in her defense and point out that the so called “incident” is highly exaggerated, as she did not set the entire man on fire, but merely his left leg, which, unbeknownst to Tayse, happened to be made of wood.
But, I will tell you all about that, and her other (mis)adventures some other time…