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 Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:43 am
Aright, I'll update anyway, softie that I am.
With a single pearl, Jaldra and her newly formed team set sail aboard The Wave Eater.
Flare and Fang stood near the prow. Flare bounced enthusiastically back and forth swinging her comparatively minute weight against the towering draconic figure. The pair of them would have strongly reminded you of a Chihuahua yapping at the heels of a Great Dane.
There were others who joined the quest as Jaldra sought them in following with the prophecy. A slender and dexterous male archer named Blue Fletcher squinted at the horizon as if seeking a target. Kal Draco, the muscular warrior, hauling up the anchor with just one of her powerful tentacles. Hawk Stormson, the cleric of wind, stared out aimlessly while he quietly recited a prayer. The reclusive sorceress Whare Rynegard was bending over the prow of the boat, her plump body violently spasming as her vast stomach emptied its contents into the churning sea. The thin and remote Rance Woodwind rested against the golden serpent figurehead, holding on with his tentacles, idly playing out a bittersweet tune on his silver flute. Elda Finn, the quiet healer, sat staring vaguely, gazing out on the cabin boy working the rigging with a speed and dexterity that defied his slow wits, while her false eye gazed out and captured the gold, tangerine and green of the setting sun. The plump and well-muscled hunter-chef Kalga Spear was busy roasting a delicious feast of banderloon pot pie, fresh fruit roast, and savory salmon stew, for could very well be months before any of them saw such native meats and fresh fruits again. Jancor, the battlemage, stared eagerly towards the horizon, a magic sword ready in one hand and a powerful charge of arcane energy in the other. The assassin warrior Keeth Sting carefully loaded the metal stings she attached to the tips of her tentacles with doses of appropriate poisons, one paralyzing and one killing. Finally, Zelda Bring, the last member of the part, stood out with her moderate skill in almost every area and her possession of three tentacles.
As the ship crossed through the waves and the sun set, the buoyant ship captain Heidi Shore thought she saw a string of small green things drifting on the sea, but the light was thinning, and when she blinked they were gone.
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Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 11:57 am
MMMMMM......BANDERLOON POTPIE.......LOL
xp sorry fuzz, I was the one who voted that ....KIDDING, I wonder who did, that was kinda sad cry who would be mean to fuzz
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Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 6:37 pm
Oh noes! You skipped eveyone else's stories!
I really wanted to hear about Whare Rynegard and where she came from. And that Rance Woodwind. He sounds completly awesome. Nothing less than that. Just playing his flute while the others do work.
Can I be his number one fan boy?
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:48 am
Yeah, sorry about that. =/
In the writing process before the result you see here, I was getting a lot of blocks and stallings, so I decided to cut down on the intro and head right to the voyage. Oh, and since you didn't get to find out, a banderloon is a kind of fat, muscular, pig-dog animal averaging 4 feet in length. It's incredibly tenacious, territorial, agressive, ravenous, and it has three heads.
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 2:45 pm
They had been sailing due west for some time under mostly clear skies when the storm broke out. By this, I do not mean that a group of clouds rapidly formed and congealed into a mass of angry thunderheads. I mean there was a strange surging, a bubble in the sky and a storm literally erupted from an apparent portal to nowhere. Jaldra had only to blink and great claws of lightning and sheets of rain appeared from the brooding clouds that had not previously existed. As they felt the sharp headache brought on by a sudden drop in air pressure and a strange hot metallic taste filled the sea wind, they all felt disquieted by this uncanny occurrence. “Something weird is going on,” Flare said unnecessarily. Keeth laughed nervously and Hawk anxiously fingered his holy symbol.
It was several hours since the sudden and violent storm emerged. The sail had been steadily billowing, and the cabin boy saw a green shape ahead. He came down explaining that he thought he saw something, but whether it was land or rocks or floating seaweed he couldn’t tell. The crew and passengers all hurried to the deck to investigate.
Up ahead was a series of green masses. They looked almost entirely unlike a row of dolphins going single file. Each thing was the upper tip of a curving slimy arc, smooth and powerful, pliable yet strong, with a row of spiny protrusions linked by red webbing. Some were lined with small fins. All of them progressed in a great chain, leading to…
At the end of the procession was one large mass, more than 4 feet long. It resembled a horse’s skull that somebody had covered in green plaster. Sunken eyes leered forward with feral purpose, a crest of spines lined the head, the mouth opened to show a pair of intertwined tongues and far more teeth than seemed necessary.
The sea-green behemoth raised its head on a muscular column of spine-rimmed flesh, swaying erratically to match the ripple of the ocean. The deck range out in a long, panicked cry as one,
“Sea serpent!”
One thing that many stories fail to convey properly is what it’s like to confront a monster. It’s all very well to say its terrifying and such, with soulless glowing eyes and shining teeth and the horrible stench of death, but this still fails to really put things into the right psychological perspective.
To begin with, a monster is a fantastic thing. It’s an abomination, an aberration, something that defies the laws of natural selection. Monsters always have some feature, usually an excess, that makes them less efficient in terms of survival and reproduction but also more freaky and scary. While having multiple heads requires more caloric input than its worth, you’re certainly more likely to run away screaming and gibbering from, say, a seven-headed vulture than a standard one.
In addition to this alien or unnatural touch, there is the basic fact that a monster is generally larger and tougher than you. When you face it, you have a clear understanding of why the betting odds on your survival with at least some of your limbs and major organs intact are 25 to 1 at a generous estimate.
Finally, monsters are things that most people don’t believe in. Whether because the level of scientific advancement causes you to scoff at such fairy tales or simply because of psychological defense mechanisms, it is extremely difficult to accept a monster as part of reality up until the point where it fixes its three neon green eyes on you and bares its 387 razor-sharp teeth.
So, to get a full idea of what Jaldra and her companions were experiencing, take the feeling you get upon discovering some bizarre insect in your breakfast serial, add to that the fear that overtakes you when you find yourself staring down a grizzly bear or a steroid-abusing angry man named Victor armed with a semiautomatic, tack on the reaction you would have if your sock drawer sprouted insectoid legs and began singing showtunes, and multiply these sensations tenfold.
With all that in mind, you will perhaps be less critical of Jaldra for, rather than taking out a weapon or diving headfirst at the creature or ramming it or doing those other courageously stupid and improbable things that typical heroes are always supposed to do, pissing her toga screaming in terror at an octave usually reserved for calling dogs. The general majority of the passengers and crew took similar courses of action, save for Jancor, Fang, and Whare, and Whare only because she was below deck and unable to witness the behemoth before them. The beast glared down and a bright flare of blue light flashed in its sulphur-yellow eyes. A similar glow briefly flashed as a huge gust of wind came and began pushing the sail toward the sea serpent. The monster then casually exhaled a powerful gout of water from its mouth like a whale spouting from its blowhole. The stream of water struck the hunter Kalga like a giant’s club. In the few seconds that elapsed since the creature’s appearance she had not the time to raise her psychic barrier, and as it thrust her against the deck the bones in her torso fractured with a series of alarming cracks not entirely drowned out by the noise of the storm and the torrent of water.
Fang had already drawn her spear out of habit when she heard words of a strange green mass, and now she hurled it with all her might. The weapon struck true, hitting a soft spot in the tough hide, but some unwholesome force resisted the blow a few inches from the skin, and only made a small flesh wound upon the enemy. Jancor was next to strike. She raised her blade high and tapped into the arcane powers of a battlemage. Running down her sword, a visible vibration carried up with a dull orange glow, converging into a tiny speck of humming orange at the blade’s tip. As this grew to a compact sphere of vibrating air, the blade was covered in condensation and then frosted over. A glow of blue energy surged up and engulfed the orange, adding on over it in layers until a sphere of energy larger than her head hovered in front of her. Jancor gave a howl of defiance and the arcane blast soared to strike the looming foe.
The icy blast seemed to have little effect on the serpent, but the orange core shook it violently, breaking into supersonic shrieks as it reverberated through the uneven tissue, cracking bones and causing flesh to fly off. The titan foe reared back its head and snarled angrily. The other members of the crew were still gripped by fear, and could only watch and raise their psionic shields.
Again the beast glared with that blue glint, and short fork of blue lighting struck the ship deck as if aimed. The boat was fortunately constructed from Jalthorian greywood, a kind of tree that grows in rocky peaks and is extremely resistant to electric current, but Jancor had barely dodged it in time, and those nearby commenced with a panicky reshuffling in hopes of avoiding whatever new assault might fall from the heavens. The sea serpent then gave a frustrated snort of water at the battlemage which, while only a glancing blow, managed to knock prone this impudent creature that dared challenge a colossus of the sea.
Flare was the first to recover from the stupor of self-preservation. She hurled a large glass vial of yellow fluid at the sea monster which burst into flames on impact, but the thing’s moist salty hide seemed to quench all but the strongest of flames. Despite the ineffectiveness, the actions inspired others to take arms against the foe. Hunter and Warrior hurled spears while Blue unleashed a pair of arrows, but the same force that had softened Fang’s attack prevented these assaults from leaving so much as a scratch. Keeth managed to implant a poison-tipped blade upon the creature, but it was either immune to the venom or its fortitude was so great that the toxin was neutralized scant seconds after it entered the body.
The creature scoffed at such weak attempts with a snort of water at Flare that was barely deflected by her psychic barrier. Its iridescent leer was this time accompanied by another blast of wind, pushing in the same general direction as the first gust. The sail wailed as it flapped and vibrated, and the seams began to weaken accompanied by small rips. The captain, her mind always on the welfare of the ship, shouted “The sail’s about to tear! Do something!” Hawk grasped his holy symbol, held it aloft, and chanted a prayer to the air spirits.
The wind died down, the tempest above them dissolved, and the sea serpent blinked stupidly in feral confusion. It roared and simply lunged for the boat. With one swift strike it latched its mouth onto the prow, and seconds later its entire body was coiling about the ship. Flare hurled a flask of acid onto the creature, and watched it neutralize on the beast’s slimey hide. “DOESN’T ANYTHING HURT THIS MONSTER?!” she screamed in frustration.
Jaldra began backing away as the monster’s head and neck plopped on board and began to slither towards her. As she retreated, she felt a sharp snap across her legs as she was struck by the brute’s tail. She was cornered. She felt the screams wither and dissolve in her throat. She stuck out her hands in a futile attempt at defense and closed her eyes.
Jaldra felt her five tentacles whip and writhe. She flexed her four clawed arms, and glared reproachfully with her three all-seeing eyes.
Jaldra heard a terrible animal howl of pain. When she opened her eyes, the sea serpent had released the boat and was swimming off to the murky depths, and all her traveling comrades were staring at her in awe.
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:15 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:16 pm
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:28 pm
Wow! Big update! eek
Only you could make the feeling of confronting a sea serpent so amuseing. biggrin
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:37 pm
Thank you. ^_^
A big update it is.
And I expect big comments on it!
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:04 pm
Fuzzy Necromancer Thank you. ^_^ A big update it is. And I expect big comments on it! And big comments you shall get now that I finished reading it. I've got to ask. Where did you come up with the idea of Vampire Butterflies? It just seems so... Out of the ordinary. Also, it's nice to know that Fang hasn't forgotten her Half-dragon nature. Otherwise, you would be writing a very short story. xd
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 6:35 pm
Zeta_240 Fuzzy Necromancer Thank you. ^_^ A big update it is. And I expect big comments on it! And big comments you shall get now that I finished reading it. I've got to ask. Where did you come up with the idea of Vampire Butterflies? It just seems so... Out of the ordinary. Interestingly enough, it's none other than real life. Several butterflies drink human urine and sweat, a few drink tears (nasty buggers flap wing-dust in your eyes to promote tearing), and one species feeds on blood. Quote: Also, it's nice to know that Fang hasn't forgotten her Half-dragon nature. Otherwise, you would be writing a very short story. xd ...I don't get it. o_o
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 5:04 am
Fuzzy Necromancer Interestingly enough, it's none other than real life. Several butterflies drink human urine and sweat, a few drink tears (nasty buggers flap wing-dust in your eyes to promote tearing), and one species feeds on blood. Well now, You learn something new every day. 3nodding Not a very good joke on my part. sweatdrop I was just refering to why Fang didn't just torch the butterflies in the first place and how she would've ended up being a pale, whithered, lifeless husk if she didn't.
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:29 pm
Ahhhh.
Well, part of the reason is restraint. Because she's just a half-dragon, she can only breath fire once each day.
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Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 7:39 am
Fuzzy Necromancer Ahhhh. Well, part of the reason is restraint. Because she's just a half-dragon, she can only breath fire once each day. I see. Being limited in your abilites can suck.
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Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:34 pm
Yeah.
Since I still think in DnD stats a lot, I tend to have lots of characters with once per day abilities. Case in point the jalthorian racial power of the psychic shield, and Jancor's Arcane Strike.
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