Writer’s Workshop Submissions. Cycle 3, Week 3

Fan Media
1

Welcome to Cycle 3, Week 3 of the Writer’s Workshop! :smile:

Submission rules (note: these will differ slightly from week to week)

  • You can only submit one story per week.

  • [color=blue]The story must tie in with this cycle’s theme “The Forging of a Kingdom”[/color]

  • [color=blue]The theme for this week is “My adventures in an alternate plane”[/color] (thanks @SteveAdamo)

  • [color=blue]You must include a rhyme or lymeric of some sort - the text will not count towards the limit.[/color]

  • We’re asking for submissions to be no more than 400 words.

  • Vote for as many stories as you want - simply ‘like’ the associated post by clicking the heart at the bottom of the submission.

  • If you submit a story continuation from a previous week, there will be a varying number of automatic “likes” associated with the submission.

  • Keep all discussion of this week over here, as anything in this thread that isn’t a story will be moved or deleted.

Story submissions will close on Wednesday September 25th.

If there are any questions, feel free to pop over to the discussion thread and ask away.

Good luck writers! :smiley:

3

It had been a what felt like a year, but Lauk was sure it had only been a month, well, probably a month.

He’d been in the underground bunnymen caves for a while, at least. And he was now climbing up a rope, to the surface, the light was blinding, but he didn’t care, he was glad to see it again. Climbing closer and closer Lauk hummed:

"Oh when your far away,
Do not diss-ah-may,
for with time you will learn,
anything can come back from a burn.
For the days shall come on,
as rain falls from the sky,
as dew in the morning settles on lawn,
and water shall never say goodbye!

(A song sung traditionally by firefighters and firemages in the empire)

As Lauk Jumped out of the hole, looked around, and saw no traces of the thriving settlement that had been there, looking back down the hole, it appeared to not be a cave in, merely a cave entrance. Suddenly, with a rumble, a tree on the opposite side of the field moved, swinging it’s trunk into another tree, which also began to move.The trees all around the field pulled up their roots, and charged to the center of the field. Right where he was standing. Jumping back into the hole, he slid down the rope just in time time avoid the crunching of timber above him.

He ran back to where he had encountered the bunnymen for the first time, only to see no engraving, no carving, and certainly no doors! He followed the tunnels in what he remembered his exiting path had been, but it kept getting fuzzier the more he thought about it. Eventually he saw a purple and pink swirling light coming from what appeared the largest chamber in the cave This was the only room that looked as he remembered, engraving seemingly spewing out from the portal, onto the walls. He went up to the portal, and saw that through it, he could make out what appeared to be the same room, only filled with people, or at least, bunnymen, all looking at the portal, at him! suddenly he heard a crash, and what looked like two trees came tumbling through the roof, roots trying to grab onto anything, pulling stone down with them, jumping though the portal to avoid being crushed, he blacked out again.

Opening his eyes, Lauk saw large stone brazers set into the walls, burning with what looked like large mushrooms, giving off a very nice odor, of course, these mushrooms where highly hypnotic, and he fell again into the bliss of undreaming sleep. As bunnymen have for ages enjoyed the smell of giant hypnotic mushrooms during any sort of important event.

2 Likes
4

My Adventures in an Alternate Plane
From the Diary of Sond Geppas, Toellian Archer

–Tourbedan 9th, first fall of Toel

It all began when the Leporian bunny-folk discovered a ruined chamber with some sort of arch near the crop fields. Naturally, we were curious.

“What the heck is this?” one of the soldiers asked.

One of the female Lepori elders, named Amami, came up and examined the rough gray rock. Symbols foreign to both races adorned its faces. “I…this is…hmm.” She crooked her head. “I have no idea.”

Isana had come as well to see the mysterious site. “Well, it’s in the way of the root cellar. Can we move this thing without damaging it?”

As she spoke, Amami felt the object. Without any warning, the symbols glowed like fire and an azure cloud of flames sprang from the arch. The elder disappeared instantly.

“AMAMI!!”

Yet suddenly, the elder’s head reappeared in the fire. She cleared her throat. “…I believe…I discovered the structure’s purpose. If a few of you would also step here…”

Hesitantly, Isana, myself, and several of the Toelian and Lepori soldiers entered the cool fire. We found ourselves on a high cliff showered in golden twilight sun. “What is this place??” I asked.

“This must be a land in a different time, or different space. I’m not sure. This clearly isn’t Toel or Lepor. Look down.”

Over the edge, we saw rolling clouds. Humongous chunks of land speckled the area, like islands across the sky. Behind us, our “island” continued towards a great spired tower similar to the gateway.

“A foolish band doth sneak about,
So life they soon shall be without!!” a voice boomed.

A trail of smoke erupted from the tower, and the source of the omnipresent voice appeared—a strange, humanoid cloaked figure with a massive staff; clearly, a wizard of sorts.

“These isles are mine, and they’ll never be taken!
And if you think you can fight me…you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Ummm…Isana?”

“Clearly there’s some misunderstanding,” she said grimacing. “…But I don’t care for his tone. Let’s take him!!”

“Hmph! I see you’ve no urge to flee,
But a thousand years early you are to face me!!”

We let scores of arrows off at him, while the foot soldiers defended us from his spells. But his magic shield was impenetrable!

“This guy is really starting to irritate me! Sond, shoot the spell charging over his head!”

“…I’ll try!”

With a crack, my bolt split the ball of fire, exploding on the despot. As his staff shattered to pieces, he let out a whimper.

With a stagger, he sped off—he’d had quite enough.
And with a smile, Isana said “Let’s take all his stuff.”

We turned to the tower.

2 Likes
5

It was at the time when the walls for the second large city were in construction.
Some miners found an abandoned cave system, but when they encountered a strange glowing gate they did not explore further.

A small royal expedition force was assembled, secretly Isana joined us (her advisors would have had a fit about that).
The first interesting thing we discovered was a small plate with inscriptions on it at the side of the glowing gate.

“All words have meaning true false or not
So enter this realm true false or not
And truth is revealed true false or not”

Nothing beyond the gate was visible, so the knight stepped in first, but returned momentarily. He told our small group (it was just an archer, a mage (that was me), the knight and Isana) that it was a very weird area, but apparently safe.

So our whole group stepped through.

The sight was uncanny, while at first the right-angled walls and ground seemed familiar, they looked completely artificial. Strange lights were crisscrossing along the walls and everything was completly flat.

“Mylady look” the archer pointed at a large structure in the distance, which slowly approached us. It looked like a giant two legged … well house for the loss of a better description. Although it did not walk, but float above the ground and the two leg things were rigid below it.

Suddenly a small dot of light that spparently fled from the structure became visible.
As it came closer one could see that it changed it form from cube to star in rapid succession and it shrieked “No no no no no” constantly.

Pretty fast it was clear that this was a dangerous situation, so we started to follow the light thing, to get away from the approaching structure.
I tried to hit it with a fireball, but the orb of flames was just absorbed.

“Over here” a voice yelled to us and we saw a crack in the wall a few meters in the distance. With some relief we entered it, as it seemed unlikely that the giant would be able to chase us there.

The source of the voice was a person, but with a shape and look completely foreign.
For one thing the shape was astonishingly round and it glowed at strange places.
The person looked at us four wide eyed and said with awe “I have never seen programs like you before. Could it be? Tell me, are you Users?”

2 Likes
6

submissions are now closed… voting will continue through tomorrow… (good luck @Smith! :smile:)

i’ll be opening up the finals tomorrow morning…