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Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Hi. I'm writing about animals again because of course I am.

Even worse, this time it's furries. You all should really, REALLY be working to defeat me. For your sakes and for mine and for all that is good and holy in the world.

Okay, let's get this shitshow rolling. This counts as my first update:

- Sunday, June 17: Update #1 on plot synopsis, genre, theme, setting, and main characters

Title: Stronghold
Genre: FURRIES
Theme: FURRIES
Setting: Various settlements along a river and surroundings with primitive to medieval level development. Everyone is a rodent or small animal of some kind.
Main characters: FURRIES!

Plot synopsis:
A empire once united most of the world in a peaceful golden age of learning, literature and art. Though long gone except for a few crumbling roads and ruins, a few strongholds still exist that preserve some of the knowledge of the past and are able to extend some of the benefits of civilizations to their immediate areas.

Your former home was one of these strongholds and when it became too complacent it fell from within to a former mercenary, a badger who declared himself king. You play as General Whitepaw, a vixen who fought against the usurper and who has just traveled across the sea in exile with the remains of your army after a series of betrayals and defeats forced your surrender.

You're now in a barbarian land of wilderness scattered with simple villages and the roving warbands and slavers who prey on them. First priority will be building defendable shelters for yourselves and figuring out a way to feed everyone, all without losing the already faltering loyalty of your dispirited army. Once your scouts start bringing back reports on the major settlements in the area, including word of a walled town deep in the woods built in the style of the old empire, your choices will lie in deciding how to deal with each of the neighbors and whether you came to this land to retire peacefully or to gain allies or to conquer.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
So is it just this thread that will be epic?

Good luck on the writing and the contest!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Is this just A story about neck beard furries role paying in the woods or something

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
yes

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Tried to send a link. Came out like this. https://goo.gl/images/L4HWVP

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Google likes to trap all the links now, it's the most annoying thing. If you're on a phone you tell it to open the image in a new tab and you get the actual address that way.

And someone really should do a Shining ripoff, horror is such a weak category here.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Figured I'd go ahead and post my first page.


***


Journey’s End and Beginning

One by one the campfires flared to life, the only color against the barren grey shore. The bright tongues of flame offered only capricious warmth as they guttered and popped in the damp and fitful wind, sending sparks against the huddled forms crowding close around them.

“Ey, how about stepping back and sharing the fire. You’ll singe your whiskers off in a moment and serves you right, you greedy sow,” the reedy voice of a ferret complained to a nearby rat who had managed to squeeze his way into a prime location. The ferret had a crumpled ear which twitched continually as though bothered by a fly, giving him a perpetually irritated air.

The rat in question turned and gave him a sullen look, taking a swig from a flask and grimacing before spitting into the sand between the complainer’s clawed feet. “Go shave yourself. There are other fires.”

“A rover in the 14th are you?” the ferret sneered, indicating a marking tattooed onto a bare patch on the other’s shoulder. “Doesn’t surprise me. You lot always were all for taking what belonged to other beasts and never pulling your own weight neither.”

“I’m in the 14th. You want to say that again?” Another ferret, this one considerably larger, loomed dangerously into the firelight and glowered at the speaker.

“Hey! Settle down!” At the sharp order of their assembly commander, a scarred old stoat known as Jamber, they all three snapped to attention. “Those of you who want more fires need to go and help break up another dinghy. None of this bickering. Haven’t we been through enough?”

Once the others had acknowledged that yes indeed, they had, he nodded his dismissal and moved away to settle a dispute elsewhere. The first ferret slunk off, ear twitching madly as he wrapped his patched and salt-stiffened cloak more tightly around himself.

Above, the grey mass of clouds hung low and heavy over a choppy sea. Here and there a star glimmered through a ragged hole, peeping down at the five ships anchored a short way out and upon the host huddled on the shore. A more dispirited and dismal lot of vermin they had perhaps never seen; patchy fur, threadbare clothes, scars both old and new, all with a hungry and discontented look about them.

And yet this was no mere disorganized mob. They responded without argument to the officers who walked among them keeping the peace, and went about what work needed doing with a level of cooperation and efficiency that seemed second nature even in their weary and sullen state. Even their garments, shabby as they were, showed signs of careful patching and repair. A closer look would reveal that among the rank and file they had all once been similar in cut and in a yellowed ivory color with darker brown trim.

When water tasting of pitch and the meager rations of hard bread were distributed, again the signs of practiced, orderly conduct were all there, even if frayed at the edges and worn as thin as their cloaks. Any quarrels that broke out were quickly quieted and none led to bloodshed.

The bread vanished as quickly as it was placed into eager paws, and after that the whole host settled down in the sand or milled about with an expectant, watchful manner. It was by now quite late, the moon high in the sky, but aside from a beast here and there falling into a doze before being nudged awake by their fellows, none showed any particular sign of wishing to stretch out and sleep. They were waiting for something.

The wait wasn’t long until the flaps of a large tent pitched up among the dunes were parted and a vixen stepped out, accompanied by a another fox, two ferrets and a rat. The whole company rose to their feet. The vixen was of a brindled pattern, black hairs mixed with reddish brown, dark all over but for a bit of white at the tip of her tail and a blotch across the left side of the chest and across her left paw and thumb, leaving only the tips of the remaining four fingers black.

Despite the automatic show of respect, the eyes of the now standing multitude upon her were not all friendly ones. In fact, more of them than not might be said to be faintly contemptuous, annoyed, or simply just impatient.

“At ease, all of you.” She gestured for those who had been sitting comfortably to return to it, her voice level and calm but with an edge of weariness she couldn’t completely disguise.

“Assembly commanders, rove captains, bevy lieutenants, squad leaders and soldiers, General Whitepaw will address you now,” said the fox beside her, perhaps a bit redundantly. This was special commander Hawkseer, who was wiry and tall with a more common coloring of red and white, and a very slight sardonic expression hovering on his muzzle at all times, as though he was always on the verge of something funny but never quite did.

The vixen’s gaze swept the assembled host, the less than pleased expressions on the faces of many of the beasts who stared back not lost on her. After a moment’s pause, she began to speak.


***


First two pages will be in third person past tense just to open the story, then it will switch to the usual second/present for the first choice. Considering doing some minor POV dabbling later as the plot opens up and events become more spread out, but if so I'm planning to structure things so that it's both clearly marked and optional.

Overall progress report: About halfway through the second page.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Most of my edits are around tightening the prose. Love your dialogue, btw.

 

One by one the campfires flared to life, the only color against the barren grey shore. The bright tongues of flame offered only capricious warmth as they guttered and popped in the damp and fitful [just a little too wordy?] wind, sending sparks against the huddled forms crowding close around them. 

“Ey, how about stepping back and sharing the fire. You’ll singe your whiskers off in a moment and serves you right, you greedy sow,” the reedy voice of a ferret complained to a nearby rat who had managed to squeeze his way into a prime location.[can be implied, tightening it] The ferret had a crumpled ear which twitched continually as though bothered by a fly, giving him a perpetually irritated air. 

The rat in question turned and gave him a sullen look, taking a swig from a flask and grimacing before spitting into the sand between the complainer’s clawed feet. “Go shave yourself. There are other fires.” 

“A rover in the 14th are you?” the ferret sneered, indicating a  marking tattooed tattoo onto a bare patch of on the other’s shoulder. “Doesn’t surprise me. You lot always were all for taking what belonged to other beasts and never pulling your own weight neither.” 

“I’m in the 14th. You want to say that again?” Another ferret, this one considerably larger, loomed dangerously into the firelight and glowered at the speaker. 

“Hey! Settle down!” At the sharp order of their assembly commander, a scarred old stoat known as Jamber, they all three snapped to attention. “Those of you who want more fires need to go and help break up another dinghy. None of this bickering. Haven’t we been through enough?” 

Once the others had acknowledged that yes indeed, they had, he nodded his dismissal and moved away to settle a dispute elsewhere. The first ferret slunked off, ear twitching madly as he wrapped his patched and salt-stiffened cloak more tightly around himself. 

Above, the grey mass of clouds hung low and heavy over a choppy sea. Here and there a star glimmered through a ragged hole, peeping down at the five ships anchored a short way out and upon the host huddled on the shore. A more dispirited and dismal lot of vermin they had perhaps never seen; patchy fur, threadbare clothes, scars both old and new, all with a hungry and discontented look about them. [your adjectives often come in pairs, and it starts to feel a bit heavy/bogged down… feels like some should be eliminated] 

And yet this was no mere disorganized mob. They responded without argument to the officers who walked among them keeping the peace, and went about what work needed doing with a level of cooperation and efficiency that seemed second nature even in their weary and sullen state. Even their garments uniforms, a yellowed ivory with fading dark brown trim shabby as they were, showed signs of careful patching and repair..  A closer look would reveal that among the rank and file they had all once been similar in cut and in a yellowed ivory color with darker brown trim. [this description felt long, trying to help the flow by shortening]

When water tasting of pitch and the meager rations of hard bread were distributed, again the signs of practiced, orderly conduct were all there, even if frayed at the edges and worn as thin as their cloaks. Any quarrels that broke out were quickly quieted and none led to bloodshed. 

The bread vanished as quickly as it was placed into eager paws, and after that the whole host settled down in the sand or milled about with an expectant, watchful manner. It was by now quite late, the moon high in the sky. However, aside from a beast here and there falling into a doze before being nudged awake by their fellows, none showed any particular sign of wishing to stretch out and sleep. [sentence felt long, so broke it up] They were waiting for something. 

The wait wasn’t long until Before long [to avoid repeating “wait”], the flaps of a large tent pitched up among the dunes were parted and a vixen stepped out, accompanied by a another fox, two ferrets and a rat. The whole company rose to their feet. The vixen was of a brindled pattern, black hairs mixed with reddish brown, dark all over but for a bit of white at the tip of her tail, and a blotch across the left side of the chest, and across on her left paw and thumb, leaving only the tips of the remaining four fingers black.[the fur description felt too long, might want to trim even more or break it up/put some of it later] 

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Thanks! Hadn't noticed you'd posted this but my focus with edits usually is on cutting down the word count and streamlining sentences so this'll be useful to reference when I get to that phase.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

My pleasure. :) Happy to do more once you get to that phase.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I'll go ahead and post my second page too. This will be the last sneak peek for awhile since this is the point the choices start to happen.


The Parting

“We’ve come a long way. Most of us have lost loved ones and friends, and we all lost our homes, and our innocence.” Whitepaw bowed her head a moment, her face very grave, although there was nothing in her dignified bearing or expression that suggested she was given to light-heartedness and mirth even at the best of times. “Six winters ago, how many of you here had never even raised a weapon? But...it’s over now. We are the ones who survived and it’s time to move on. I know many of you didn’t agree with my final decision, are perhaps angry even still, but the battle at the Standing Stones couldn’t be won. I did what seemed best...made what concessions I had to to keep those of you who remained alive and with some chance of a future outside the Usurper’s grasp.”

Many of the expressions of the crowd gazing back at her remained stony and unconvinced.

“Well...whatever you think of me, I don’t have any complaints of you. I couldn’t have asked for braver beasts, for more loyal or more true. We have starved and frozen together, been betrayed together. Been wounded together, body and soul. Some of us were hunted and snared like sparrows, treated worse than slaves. And we have fought together, of course. I’ll never forget how desperate we were outside of Cooper’s Den or how proud I felt to be beside you all when we turned the badgers back at Firebrook.”

“Certainly I made mistakes, and there were times I could have done better...but there are over two thousand of us here alive who would not be had I done worse. All of you, however, have been loyal, you have obeyed my orders even when you disagreed with them and a commander can ask for no more than that. And now that we are here in exile together on the shores of this barbarian land, we need to look to surviving and rebuilding.”

A deep breath as she looked over the silent and expectant host.

“But first, as I promised; those of you who no longer wish to follow my orders, I release from your duties. That will be a number of you, I know, but any free beast who wishes to leave shall face no repercussions. My only insistence is that you remain under the assembly commanders who will also be leaving for at least five days of travel, and that those commanders each go separate ways, so that we not have stragglers wandering the countryside and making targets of themselves. Seven days rations will be divided equally by bevies and roves. Those of you who choose to remain will get the same; it’s all we have, so let this be one decision your bellies don’t make for you.”

Light chuckles at that, the tension breaking for the first time, and all eyes then turned in anticipation to the assembly commanders as the first of them stepped forward.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Changing my title to Bread and Conquest.

Stronghold was a good fit but I wanted something that was

1) less generic
2) higher in the alphabet

And the new title sounds like bread and circuses while also more accurately describing what your main concerns will be throughout the game.


Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Empty calories.

Edit: Are you stealing the wonderbread from wibbons?

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

This setting sounds eerily familiar.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
A niche isn't a bad thing by default, but there's definitely a strong trend with the animal/non-human protagonist thing going on here. If mizal didn't hate people so much, I might be slightly alarmed!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

What does their being animals add to the overall product?

Have you ever played Mouseguard? I have been wanting to DM that for about 2 years but I can't get enough people degenerate enough to play it.

But enough about that, Juggling alliances, politics, betrayal, early medieval? I'm in for this.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

It's furry fanfiction, Mizal was just forced to change it around slightly so it's not technically fanfiction.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
End has recommended Mouseguard before since he knows I like that one series with the mice in the abbey that cannot be named in this thread. But racism (speciesism?) and various abilities and characteristics possessed by the different kinds of animals will be a factor, they're not human stand-ins with fur which has aside from the disgusting depravity has always been one of the more annoying things about actual furries to me.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Glad to know where you draw the line! (on degeneracy and decency that is)
I was expected you'd take that line of thought on the matter. It's much easier to broach issues of racism when we are talking in partial parallel instead of calling out directly. Aliens, Fantasy Races, and the Anthropomorphic can fill the role.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Well since this thread was so nicely bumped, hows the story coming along? Specifically, wordcount total.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I bet it's higher than yours. :)

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Probably. 6k though is a pretty good amount compared to most everyone else though.

Update #2 Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
- Sunday, July 1: Update #2 on story progress and any issues in the writing process



The main issue I've run into so far is that the last minute adjustments I made to the setting also had the unintended side effect of increasing the scale of the story quite a bit, and then I went diving into my intro without quite planning out the rest or what the actual extent of the changes would be.

I also wrote about 2500 words and did a bit of scripting setting up offshoots that would involve alternate POVs that I've decided to scrap entirely unless I finish the main branches significantly ahead of schedule.

Which looks unlikely to happen at this point because due to family drama and my stomach going violently on strike I've barely been on the computer this week and progress is...well, it's progressing...in a sense...but look it's rude to ask a lady her word count, okay?

Update #2 Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Increasing the scale? That sounds like great news for a contest like this!

Update #3 on Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Update #3 on story progress and what you like most about your story so far

Story progress is...uh, it's progressing. Not at all as fast as I hoped but on the bright side I did more on it today than I have in the last three weeks.

I like the freedom and sort of grounded nature of a really scaled back, primitive setting and how on one hand a few dozen thugs with clubs might as well be an army, while on the other it's really, REALLY easy for them to get in over their heads because there's never any pretense that they're able to exercise any control over the world beyond what they need to hopefully not starve the next winter.

I like writing the different characters and cultures and conflicts that all grow spontaneously from their setting, and trying to get it all in smoothly enough that it feels perfectly natural and effortless to the reader to get to know places and names and become invested in how things turn out.

I like writing a story that's shaped as much on other characters' needs and motivations as the protagonist's.

I like the furries.

Update #3 on Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

So kind of like Game of Thrones where you have Fantasy that comes more out of character motivation than some sort of magical Mcguffin.  Although by Season 7 the show now more than ever seems like the Lord of the Rings. 

Update #3 on Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Sounds like it's gonna be awesome :)

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I've been focusing on just hitting 60k as my goal all this time and only in the last few days has it really sank in just how difficult it may be to tell a story that feels 'epic' in just sixty pages. I'm going to need waaay more than that for the plot I have planned.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Good luck. It's always good when we push ourselves. There are so many more things we can creatively explore within the genre of interactive fiction.

 

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago


The steamroller is September 24th.

I'll be fine I have plenty of time.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Onward to glory! Deus vult!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
While the optimism is appreciated, I feel you may not 'get' the complex metaphors at work here.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
David toppled Goliath. Deus vult!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Story progress: It hasn't been progressing much.

Most difficult: The writing part.

I've had some difficulties/distractions etc but I always do, so I don't know what it is. But I've just completely lost interest in writing to the point I'm wondering if just saying screw it and doing a smaller story just to to kick my interest in the whole hobby back in gear wouldn't be the better than continuing to slog along with this one.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Just take a break from the epic storygame and do a smaller one for now. After a while, you'll have a new perspective on the longer work and will be able to breath some new life into it.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Indeed, I've found one of the toughest things about writing is writing when you don't want to write. Of course, the easy answer is to simply find a way to want to write again. But as Thomas said, and you said, perhaps it's time to try something else. Maybe you could write a simple quiz-like story. Maybe you can take a simple bed time story, like rock-a-bye-baby and really screw with it, but still keep it short enough to not take you too long.

Good luck!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

It seems like everyone is going through this. 

Maybe just go through and write some of the scenes that got you excited for the story in the first place.  Then write all the boring parts after, or find ways to make them seem more interesting to yourself.

Or if not, I'm going to be trying it so I'll let you know if it works or not!

 

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Thanks to all of you who have chimed in with support. I'm contemplating starting a new, more focused story, since that seems the popular thing to do all of a sudden. This one never could've been finished at 60K, I recognized that from the beginning and at this point I think I'm too far behind to get where I need to be even if I get a LOT more productive all of a sudden.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Is this a forfeit?

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

If it is, then Ebon is going to win their bet by default, unless he fails to submit something as well.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
That'd make Ebon twice shamed. Could I get both of their points then? Oh, better yet, give those points to Digit... just because.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Digit better turn something in or else he'll be TWICE SHAMED as well, not to mention he's already in debt due to a loan.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
It's entirely possible I reach 60k with the new story and it's not like I'm the only one starting over from scratch.

Not giving up yet, I want to keep my options open.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Great news everyone!

I'm not writing about furries anymore!

Now I'm writing about fairies.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
...and there was much rejoicing...

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

That is great news. 

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

gay

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Good luck, hopefully the fairies work out better than the furries.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

You usually can't go wrong with fairies.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Don't worry I'm sure I'll find a way.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Okay so I may have discovered the one weird trick to writing and it turns out it's 'get six or more hours of sleep in a night'. It's incredible really, this sense of mental clarity, I'd forgotten what it was like.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I told you this ages ago.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Well that's the problem when you get less than four hours, you don't remember things so well.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
That doesn't sound right.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I might try that some day since excessive amounts of caffeine doesn't seem to be doing the trick for me anymore. I'm still burning my candles at both ends, but it feels more like I'm chasing my own tail instead of making any kind of progress on anything.

Oh, and good luck on your new story!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
First two pages of new and improved contest entry, A Fairy's Quest (generic working title) are up if anyone's interested.

All the links on the second page just loop back to it, this is the only sneak peek you get, but I wrote about 2.5k in all today in addition to plotting and lore stuff.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
A Fairy's Fag

A story about a sprite who ventures for the world's greatest cigarette.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Looks interesting so far.  Hope to see this published in September!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

At least the furries are gone. You were about to shoot yourself in the foot, but managed to turn the gun away a little bit so you only hit your toe. I mean, on one hand, fairies are better than furries. On the other, it probably isn’t the most interesting fantasy setting. 

But you did make a squirrel story fun, so I have hopes here. 

I’m just waiting for the day when you decide to write a traditional fantasy story. Now THAT would pretty much guarantee a feature.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I'd started one but the thing is the site has plenty of traditional fantasy, and I'm not sure if I'd find it the most interesting thing to write 60k words about.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I'm at about 9.5k, and it turns out the other secret to writing is not giving a single fuck. It's fairies, who cares, I'm just having fun with this.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
What kind of fairies are you writing about?

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
They're magical and they glow and sparkle.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Stephanie Myers, get out of mizal’s house.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Haven't posted a page in awhile, so just a random early end I wrote just now because insomnia. Still a first draft.


No Escape


The nearest night sprites close in and dive for you, pinning you down with your face against the dirt. You breathe in the scent of wet moss and decaying leaves. Tingling and burning sensations course through you all over as if you’re being crawled on and bitten by ants, even after the worst effects of the magic you were struck with fades. As for your cousins, there’s no more carelessness or mischievousness in their manner; they carry knives made of snake’s teeth and in seconds your wings are slashed in a half a dozen places.

Weakness descends upon you as the power from your soul spark ebbs away and your vision grows hazy. But in the next few moments the hands grasping you pull away amid sounds of confusion and alarm. With difficulty, you raise your head. It’s not difficult to locate what’s distracted the others.

An eerie green light crawls along the dark forest floor. It doesn’t give off any heat nor consume what it touches, but it sends searching fingers this way and that like a spreading fire.

There’s a shout, abruptly cut off, and then, “Look at the trees!” a voice cries. “Watch out for the shades!”

The light has cast a lurid glow against the squat old oaks and lent them its own color, sharply illuminating each crack and crevice in the rough bark. As you watch, a shadow slides from a pool of the green flames and up one of the trunks. The shadow appears to be that of a fairy, and it joins a pair of others that separate themselves from the darkness shrouding the higher branches. Others spread out and take up positions, glimpsed briefly flitting across the green canvases cast on the other trees. A bolt of purple energy strikes and fizzles uselessly against the first one you saw, and it gives a hissing laugh. At the sound, a cold sensation crawls down your back as it dawns on you these aren’t the shadows of your cousins moving about among the trees, but entities of their own.

When the otherworldly laughter fades, there’s a moment of stillness, of waiting, and you use it to try and inch yourself into a hiding place beneath a raised tree root. Then, as if at a signal, the shadows explode into motion. Cries of anger, of terror, and low strangled sobs reach your ears from every direction, but all are silenced with disheartening swiftness.

Half a dozen purple wisps drift aimlessly across your field of vision. You press yourself down behind the root as low to the ground as possible as a shadow moves against a tree opposite yours. Perhaps these shadow creatures sense out their prey by its magic, as the wisps are said to do. A single fairy with mutilated wings surely can’t give off much. Maybe, just maybe...

You cling to that faint hope for what feels like hours. The shadows make fewer appearances against the trees, and the green light has begun to recede.

In your weakened condition you’re not up to much celebrating when it finally flickers out, but the relief lifts a weight from your shoulders. You wait awhile longer, than crawl out into the open. You’re not in an ideal situation even now of course, but manage to travel a short distance through the woods--on foot—before realizing how hopelessly lost and weary and out of sorts you are. Everything is more difficult without wings. With night fully descended now and little light except from the wisps that are all that remain of your cousins, you finally stretch out on a pile of leaves, intending to try and get your bearings in the morning with the aid of whatever sunlight can creep its way through the canopy.


*****


The chirruping of the crickets, the deeper bellows of the frogs, the hooting of a distant owl; all the usual sounds of the night resume with no evidence that anything out of the ordinary took place just hours before. Only the peaceful purple lights floating among the fireflies remain to mark where so many were felled.

That, and the single living fairy stretched out in a deep sleep on a pile of leaves. Exhausted by battle, by fear, and with damaged wings unable to store her power, the pulse of magic she gives off is very slow and low.

But, it *is* magic.

She stirs briefly when the first wisp touches down upon her, but doesn’t awaken. A wisp weighs no more than air and the glow is gentle and soft. Another, and another, eventually settle in beside it, and before the moon is high a dozen of these gentle lights have obscured the fairy's form. Their touch is feather-light, and the draining of her soul spark is slow, but insistent.

By morning, a thirteenth wisp has joined the twelve, and all the lights begin their slow dispersal through the woods.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
As always your writing is impressive. I know your current secret is "not giving a crap", but I'm really excited to read the finished product.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Thanks. This page was a fusion of one planned branch I scrapped (losing magic and flight) and an idea I liked for a dead end elsewhere I didn't have a place for anymore after changing some event orders around.

I still don't know if I'll have time to get to all three major paths but if I can keep up this pace with this one I should have something completish enough and over 60k on time.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

Looks great! Can't wait to see the rest when it is done.

I like the creepiness of the mysterious shade beings, and the description of what I'm assuming is the slaughter of the assholes who ruined the Fairy's wings.  The countering a brutal death at the hands of the shade things only to meet a gentle doom by the wisps was a pretty interesting turn around as well.

The soul spark sounds like a cool idea too.  I'm guessing the wisps just eat her soul essence and, as she becomes one is just some soulless thing floating for all eternity? Too deep to think about too much at 1am lol.

Good job and I hope you can keep up the pace!

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
The first couple pages of the story kind of go into how wisps work. They're not dangerous under normal circumstances unless you literally just stand there while they slowly kill you, and they eventually fade a way.

A soul spark can basically be thought of as a rechargeable battery that runs a fairy; if an empty one were to draw from a big enough source of magic it could bring them back to life.

Update #5 on Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Update # 5 on story progress and how you've managed to stay motivated



I'm at about 20k which is not...great, but not bad since I've really only been working on this one for less than 20 days.

It's been much easier to stay motivated on the fairy story. I think because it's more of a straightforward adventure, where the Redwall knockoff was attempting to be more open ended and meant lots of tedious similar-but-not-quite scenarios based on morale and NPC loyalty and the like.

Still I'm coming up on that 25k point which is traditionally where I always start to stall out, and instead I'm going to need an insane burst of energy and motivation to make it to the finish line.

At the very least even if I fail miserably I've already got one path done which could be a decent little story in its own right, so my fairies will see the light of day one way or another.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Shoot I forgot this.

Story progress: progressing

Editing plans: there are plans editing


Whew glad that's settled

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Not sufficient.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Really I have no idea why I got out of bed for that. If 50 points are taken I can just give them right back. I keep forgetting that.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
She's gone made with pow'a! But all the point padding in the world won't help that decade old lazy M.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

When Killa gets proper control of coding for the site, she can just ask for "infinite" points and never have to worry about them ever again.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
She'll end up getting bored and getting lost in some site that lets you play interactive fiction with dragons that you capture and breed like Poke'mon. Points have been half her existence. The other half has been being mean to children.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Still not sure if I will or not, I like having an accessible EXP page and I like watching numbers go up.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
Fuck it I quit.

Basically already did a week ago, might as well make it official.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
This is sad.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
you see I'm an admin now and above 'contests' and other such foolish mortal diversions.

It's not that I can't finish the story on time, that's not it at all and I'm pretty offended if anyone thinks that way.

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago

I seriously doubt you ever even started the story but either way, I'm sure I'm as shocked by your surrender as everyone else. (And by that I mean not at all.)

Mizal's most EPIC thread ever!

5 years ago
I still think you'll tie with Ebon.