Another long night, the priest of a small coastal town thought to himself, fighting the urge to fall asleep before his work was completed. There wasn't much left of his candle by now; soon it'd become another pool of wax like all the other candles he had already burned through, kindly donated by the candlemaker's wife this last tithe for him to complete his work. But alas the parchment remained blank, his great work still on the brink of his mind. He peered from his study out into the sanctuary - Abigail was here again tonight. Like every night. He quickly busied himself, hoping she wouldn't disturb his concentration on....on what? This work would be no more influential than those of the pagans down the road; screaming out in strange languages like banshees, dancing nude around the fire. Would he really want to group himself with that?

Maybe it is time for a change in career. Its a small wonder I stayed here this long, he thought grimly, throwing his quill down for the night. Abigail was still out there. He pulled out the Bible and thought to read it for a few minutes, hoping she'd go home. The priest heard the door open and shut again - she must have gone home for the night. He quickly gathered his supplies, throwing a cloak on to chase off the chill, and was almost to the hallway when he saw a man standing there, a handful of dubloons thrust out towards him. The newcomer clearly looked as if he had spent a good deal of time at sea - his clothes were bleached and ragged, salt streaked the seems and his hair. "What can I do for you my child?" The priest asked him plainly. This was not a strange circumstance; the privateers and pirates frequently came to the church to purge themselves of the guilt of their lifestyle.

"I would like to learn more about charisma," the man said in a shockingly normal manner. None of the normal idioms or slurred words of the typical pirate. But it was not to him to ask questions of this man. The priest took the money, discretely putting it into his pocket.

"Well, this is a place of worship and love, and only through the greatest love can man learn how to truly communicate and understand one another..." the priest started slowly, building speed but never excitement as he gave the pirate a summation of the Bible, Christianity, and the role the Church plays in the town. As he finished describing hell in all of its fire and brimstone glory he realized the man had started to fidget. "Anything else I can teach you my child?"

The pirate became outraged, raising his fists and challenging the priest to a duel, demanding back the coin he had just given the church. The pirate made a couple of clumsy attempts to hit the priest in the face with his oafish hands but missed. Invigorated by the turn of events, the priest snaps to attention, focusing entirely on putting his fist into the pirate's nose. It works, and after barely another tap the pirate crumples to the ground. The priest checks the pulse of the pirate: still alive. He drags the pirate out (fortunately Abigail had left) and left him in a crumpled heap on the doorstep of a local pub before turning back to the church and his own bed for the night. When he awoke he looked for the pirate, but he was long gone. The world around him was waking up with the usually bustle and smells of early morning - a few of the church faithful waving to him while he walked his morning constitution.

The priest smiled smugly to himself. Perhaps this is why I became a priest.

10/10 A++ Would read again.

This.

Dohh gosh thanks guys. It isn't that good.

It really lays it out there why people who were controlling the RP are dumb.

...Oh.

Kame, you should write your next RP like this!

Yeah, and she would know, since she and Inferno were the only two people who contributed actions when the priest was assaulted.

The butthurt is off the charts with this one...

Haha. If people were interested in legitimately playing serious I'd do it. I was actually going to ask you if you were interested in having me run an RP Thread along side yours as a privateer who is hunting Nicholas Red. But I don't think it'd work well with this group.

Haha I respectfully stated an objective fact, while you made some random generic third-grade insult. Your extreme butthurt is showing.

Two main problems with this excerpt.

1) The sudden escalation of the pirate who was supposed to be well mannered and want to learn charisma felt out of place and begs for more context/dialogue of what happened. It felt like you purposely delivered a left-hook, but because this is just an excerpt of something you plan to continue, it feels out of place. Whether or not you intend to have this mechanic as a style of this story remains to be seen, so for this part, it feels unsupported and awkward.

2) I did not feel invested in the main character. You used third person language, which already caused us to distant ourselves from the character - especially in the fourth paragraph where the priest started talking about hell and brimstone. There's nothing wrong with making an unlikable main character, but you have to make us feel invested and interested in him/her. The dialogue between the priest and the pirate should've been more unique, and/or you should've went for a first person perspective so you can write about what the priest is thinking about, probably creating a set of moral decisions and prejudices that will cause dissonance, and thus interest, in the readers.

lol yea I agree. The excerpt is based on events in Ray's Pirate RP going on - so the sporadic character development from the pirate character was taken directly from different people's actions...so that was the outcome. I wasn't sure how to write the priest (who was referred to as "a priest" in the RP) without stepping on the toes or confusing RP players, or by assuming the priest had a name on the off chance we run into him again and he does have a name.