This is relevant to my interests

if there wasn't a story some writefag needs to get on it

This looks pretty win. Anyone know backstory?

Sure. Give me a few minutes to write it and I'll have a go.

>>8111866
I posted this about two weeks ago, /tg/ named it granpa lich.
It'd be great if there was more writefaggin' about it.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7893040/

Johnny Knuckles sat contentedly in the pub, pushing his ale around disinterestedly. By the far corner, Marissa the bar maid hunched over seductively to a rather loud and bawdy table with feigned interest.

Marissa was a well filled out girl. She had been the object of every man in the town's eye since the day she had come of age. Strong and independent, she had raised herself and her siblings from a young age since her family's well known (and oft gossiped about) wasting disease had finally gripped her father, stealing him from his family at the young age of thirty.

Since then she had worked her job quietly to support her sisters and brothers, most of whom were only now reaching working age. Johnny let out a loud sigh and slid the ale out of reach.

It was a poor idea. He wanted the drink. He needed the drink.

For as long as anyone could remember, Johnny had quietly pined over Marissa in what he considered to be relative secret. Gauhoppin was not a large town, however. One man's secret was the entire town's ear.

Most of the townfolk pitied the lad, lanky and relatively unattractive as he was. Most would admit he was not so much unattractive as simply plain. Johnny Knuckles was a plain lad. He was born a plain lad. He eked out a living as a plain farmer. A few women had expressed interest over the years since he had been a man, but he only had interest for the one. Night by night he watched her until the bouncers shoo'd him from the establishment, and day by day when he got done with his work in the fields he would retake his usual seat in the pub and watch far more interesting people than he crawl through it. These were the people who got Marissa's attention. The adventurers.

This evening a pair of these fine men began laughing over their latest escapades. Their stories often borderlined on the unbelievable. They seemed to take blows no man could take, fight monsters none could fathom. Their martial prowess was unmatched if their tales were to believed. They were a far cry from Johnny Knuckles and his field work.

No matter her mood or the lateness of the hour, Marissa ate their stories of adventure up. She was pleased by their tales, but obviously most interested by the size of their tips. Slightly avaricious by nature, she convinced herself her personal desires for wealth were seated in the interests of her still growing family. It was obvious a streetwise girl such as herself did not believe their tales of grandeur beyond their ability to raise a laugh in the room as they were told. Johnny however... Johnny was pleased to hear of a life where riches were quick.

Thus it should have come to noone's surprise when Johnny's ears perked up at the mention of the adventuring pair's recent escapades in the town's church crypts. The traps sounded dangerous, but the pair swore they had emptied the crypt of all its foul creatures. The highlight of their story was a pile of riches and an elixir of healing that laid beyond a door. They chuckled over a riddle written on the door.

"What is directed, but unguided? Is tamed forever by no man? Is needed by all. Is feared by many."

Johnny frowned and ignored his ale as he left the bar early. He knew the riches they were discussing would impress Marissa. He knew a farm hand's wages wouldn't impress her. As he returned to his one bedroom farm house, Johnny shut out the outside world. He shut out the growing rain clouds obscuring a harvest moon. He shut out the noises of men walking the dirt roads. He shut out the world and curled up in his bug-ridden hay bed. Johnny Knuckles was hopeless.

Drip. Drip. Johnny blinked. Water trickled through the ceiling. A god damned leak? He'd only fixed it this past winter, and it wasn't even the rainy season yet. Was there no way to control where the blasted water could... water?

Johnny bolted upright, wide awake. He grabbed his coat, shoved on his work boots and grabbed a pitch fork, then tore open his front door, and splashed head over heals through the mud. Onlookers at this time of night might have supposed Johnny to have been nipping at the whiskey, but such was not the case. He ran all the way up the street to the unlit tavern.

The unlit tavern... What in Tyr's name was the time of the evening? Johnny frowned. He hurried up the street, ignoring his mud splattered boots and breeches. Nearly spearing himself on a number of stumbling occasions, he cursed the slick ground. Arriving at a specific house, Johnny knocked gently on the door. A light in the upstairs window flickered on.

Gods what was he doing? Marissa's house? It was an absurd hour. What would he tell her? "Marissa, I've solved the riddle to a place I'm terrified of going to?" Would he actually go? Of course. It was for... for.. The door creaked open.

Marissa stood in night gown. No one else could fill out that shapely silhouette. She looked far more pale, and even in the dark he could tell... she was ill. She squinted at him in the darkness. "Johnny? Johnny Knuckles? What hour is it?"

It's interesting.

He fumbled and stumbled.
"Marissa I... I..."
“Johnny? You've a pitchfork in your hands.”
“I... well I suppose. Are you well, Marissa?”
She stepped aside and gestured inside the house. “Ye should come in, Johnny”.

He took a seat at the table while she lit some candles. The house was sparsely decorated and small. Through an open doorway he could see a pair of young children resting in their beds. Marissa sat next to him. In the candle light, the flesh on her skin looked even more waxy and pale. She opened her mouth to speak and was briefly engaged in a loud coughing fit she tried to suppress.

“'Tis the family sickness, Johnny. Ain't contagious, but 'tis in me blood. Oi cover it up best Oi kin afore work. Ain' been a woman or man born of it what don' die before thirty.”
Johnny looked at her, slackjawwed. It was true. She looked... thinner. Sickly.
“Marissa...”
“What're ye here for Johnny? Ye're up awful early even fer field work. Sun ain' risin' yet”
“I uh... oh. I figured out the... the riddle.”
“Wha?”
“The riddle. The men at the tavern... I thought...”

This was stupid. Johnny silently cursed himself. He was an idiot. Some spark in him lit as he looked at her sickly form though. Inspiration, perhaps. Bravado he did not know he had, even.
She stared at him patiently. “Johnny... those stories, they're just-”
He cut her off.
“Marissa. Even if there were a copper piece's chance that they were true... you deserve a better life than this. I've often thought so. I've meant to tell you and I... Well, I mean to go looking for it”
She cocked her head. “Ain' fer doin' me much good but... Johnny... ye mean all tha'?”
“I know I'm not much here, now... but Marissa... with time.”
“John.”
A shortened name. A small bit of hope?
“John... even if ye're thinkin' like that... Ye been thinkin' like tha' all this time?”
He gulped and nodded. Blush crept into her pale face.

It was an impulse. Johnny Knuckles leaned across the table and kissed her. No shy peck, but a gentle brush of lips. Affection, long bottled up. Tired of being hidden and repressed. There was a moment of shock as the affection was returned.

Several hours later, Marissa lay covered in a light sheet next to him. The idea of going to some damp, long dead townsman's crypt as her warm figure curled up beside him was ludicrous. Preposterous. He was in the work now, however. This caused a noticeable frown to appear on his face. “John”.

I TOO ONCE LOVED

Her voice snapped his attention back to the woman next to him. She was playing with her hair. The sheet slipped a bit revealing an incredibly pale bosom.
“John, ye're naught still fer goin' ta tha'?”
“What?”
“I can see it ye know. When we were kids in the schools, just little tykes. Ye always frowned then when somethin' were botherin' ye. I admit ter not always carryin' some torch fer ye but... Ye're a kind soul, John. Ye mean well, and ye donay need tah be sloggin' aroun' muddy fields at odd hours. Stay here with meself, and mayhaps have a future.”

Johnny Knuckles could not believe his ears. This woman wasn't in love with him. She had hardly ever considered liking him.

Keep it coming.

It had to be a lie. This wasn't the stuff that love stories were made of. He snatched up his clothes and forced them on. “John? Johnny?” Without a second thought he was dashing out into the rising sunlight onto the dirt road leading into town. To his right: Town. To the left: The swamps. Johnny Knuckles gritted his teeth. Of course this woman didn't love him. A poor dirt farmer, in a town of gold nuggets. He set his pitch fork forward and dashed towards the bog in the east.

It was not long before the ground became soft under his feet. In a short time, the church's high steeple rose from its resting place obscured deep in the horizon of the low lying wetlands. Johnny Knuckles stopped, panting, out of breath. The church yard was soft from the rain pouring out of town and into the marshy fields. Sinking tombstones long faded stretched out before him. Some spaces laid where gravemarkers were too expensive. Johnny's own family was one such plot. At the end of these rows were large mausoleums. Several doors were ajar. One in particular was silhouetted by the rising sun. Johnny strode up to it. Locked. Words were splayed out on it, and he cursed his illiteracy.

He looked about him. None of the other doors seemed to have any writing on them. Could this be the one? Johnny thought back to the details. Riches... elixir... riddle... elixir! Of course... an elixir of life. Marissa didn't have to die, cursed and alone... With that, she could live through it. More determined than ever, Johnny stared up at the door. The riddle... he needed water. He jabbed his pitch fork into the ground determinedly, pulling up soil and sod as quickly as possible. Without much time lost water was within reach of his cupped hands. Now what?

He splashed it on the door.
No luck.
He rubbed wet hands across it and listened again.
Not a sound. Not a change. He pushed. It didn't budge.
He slammed a fist on the stone door.
“Foul door! I'll not be so cruelly taunted!”
He jabbed his pitchfork into the jam and gritted his teeth.

There was a cracking noise. The door gave a little. With confidence, Johnny exerted all his force upon the door. With a crash and a splintering of wood, he tumbled into the room. The smell of death and mold assaulted his nostrils. He sat up. His side hurt. Johnny looked down to find the sharp shattered shaft of his pitchfork lodged neatly below his ribs. With a scream, he impulsively tugged it out.

There was a moment of nothing, followed by a steady welling up and streaming of blood. The wound wept the lifeblood, and Johnny looked desperately around the room for something to stem the flow. There was a table. A dead figure. Crowned, with a bag in one hand and a bottle in another. Johnny knocked aside the figure, ripped its cloak off the corpse, tore sections of it and stuffed the wound. Still, weakness began to take him. Dizziness was setting in. How to close the wound... the potion!

Johnny snatched the bottle from the decaying figure, uncorked it, and thrust it to his lips, gulping its contents furiously. They were acidic in taste, burned going down, and made his eyes water. As he drank, consciousness returned to him. What was he doing? Marissa! He halted his drinking and looked down at his wound. Completely closed... and still half a bottle left? Excellent. Johnny Knuckles cackled in glee as he swept the corpse's crown off its head and opened the bag to reveal dozens of shining gem stones.

This was it. He hurried out of the stone building and slogged through the tomb stones. His vision blurred. Blood... lost... too much... running. He lost his footing and tumbled face first onto the wet ground. The cloak on his back covered him, and Johnny knew no more as he sank into the swamp.

Johnny awoke to darkness. Wetness. His hands could barely move. His feet were unusable. He couldn't breath, couldn't see, couldn't open his mouth. He had sunken into the bog. Why wasn't he dead? Unless... that potion. Steadily, determinedly, he clawwed fingers and hands towards what he prayed was “up”. Months passed. No surface. Time turned over into units his uneducated mind could not keep any sophisticated track of.

>>8114662
Smart Johnny would leave now.

After making a Skeleram to use against that foul door later.

Suddenly, there was a tingling in his hand. Air? He clawwed all the more furiously, hand scraping on stone tombstone and dragging himself up. He took a deep breath. No chest expanded. Johnny Knuckles looked at himself. He was pale. His flesh was sticky and rotten in some places. Not simply plain, but hideous. He screamed. Could anyone... anyone at all? Marissa! Of course! He had her potion, he had her gems... what had she ever cared for his looks.

Cautiously Johnny Knuckles crept into town. He pulled that stolen, ragged cloak around himself as he traversed the road to Marissa's house. The door closed and two men walked out of it. “Died in her sleep, they say. Body still warm. Babe likely still in there.” Johnny's heart raced. Marissa? No. He tore past the men, burst into the home, and there on the floor...

Marissa. Belly swollen with child.. Graceful now withered curves. Children, her siblings huddled in the corner. Frail, pale body. Hair somewhat fallen out. He rushed over and cupped her head in his hands. The men had not spoken falsely, there was still warmth in her. Her heart did not beat, but the warmth came from her womb. Whose child? His? Had she slept with any other? Johnny Knuckles could not know.

He could not know whose baby he was maddeningly trying to release as he took up a dull kitchen knife from the table and set to work in front of Marissa's siblings. He wept as he cut. He tore at himself. At his lying, false flesh. It came off of him in great gobs of sickly dead matter exposing his empty insides. Johnny knew he was dead now. Knew it had happened in that time in the bog. Was this his torment? To hold his dead child in his hands?

Dead, yet most certainly warm. Johnny was no cleric. Warmth meant life, yes? He groped about on the floor behind him before coming up with a half-empty bottle. Johnny Knuckles was no hero. No great man to be celebrated.... but he could see the familiar chin of his family, the eyes of his father, and the face of his son. He uncorked the bottle and thrust it into the infant's mouth, tipping the head and rubbing the throat. Marissa's siblings screamed as the child stirred, its heart beating. Johnny looked down at his wife to be and wept bitterly. What had he done to his beautiful love?

He looked at his skeletal form. He cursed the potion, the men at the bar, Marissa's greed, anything but his own impulsiveness. He was a monster now. A god damned monster. But he cradled the child in his arms, his child; and monster or not, stepped into the world.

This BAD END brought to you by /tg/, /x/ and the "what the fuck was that shit" stories foundation. Here's hoping the writing was not too bad.

>>8114738
Was good, I enjoyed it. Worth someone archiving it in sup/tg/ anyways. . . I would if I knew how.

>>8114738
Worth archiving, methinks, if nothing else to point anyone wanting more Grandpa Lich towards and possibly making them rage.

>>8114738
Well I liked it, but I am just one anon among many.

>>8114738
Archived.

So what all got Johnny dessicated and deadish?

Well, the idea was that one does not drink half an elixir of life and then abruptly die. In fact, one does not drink an elixir of life while alive, in most cases. It's resurrection sauce.

Johnny was a commoner in adventurer's games. Although the adventurers in this case seem to be loudly boasting grave robbers. Long time RPG players can universally agree: You never read the life and times of Johnny Knuckles when you stumble across ancient skeleton #10,000. Perhaps Johnny's story will give adventurers pause.

...Naaah.