Entry to Endmaster's Prompt Contest 3

Play as Urga, the founder of the prestigious Church of Desires, an infamous underground religion that specializes in darkness, debauchery, destruction, and most importantly, delivering coinage to Urga (although try not to tell that last bit to the followers, it wasn't in the pamphlet for a good reason).

However, Urga's time of frolicking in the deepest recesses of society is now over, as one of his many, many, oh so many enemies has sent warriors after him,

Urga's no fighter, but to what lengths will he go to survive? Up to you.

CW: Violence of the physical, verbal, and sexual varieties, as well as all the accompanying unpleasantry. Also, demon dick.

Author's Note: There is an optimal ending, however it and all the other endings are unmarked. If you reach a page with only an End Game link, you have "won".

Entry to Endmaster's Manifest Destiny Contest.

You are a historian, searching for tales about the mythical Bogatyrs, who were heroes of somewhat Arthurian quality. You managed to locate an archive of their exploits, which had once been passed down in oral form only, stored in a remote castle, taken care of by an old man of similar historian persuasion as you.

In a world where consciousness is stored on a hard drive, the most heinous crime is hacking.

Author's Note: A police officer is supposed to be a righteous dispenser of justice, but in the future, the idea of morality is basically nonexistent. Nonetheless, a lot of choices in this game can be broken down into "things a good, moralistic police officer should do" and "amoral things that get the job done". Going down one path or the other will eventually result in you being locked out of the other entirely, but it will also give you access to new epilogues and options.

Winner of the Cyberpunk Contest.

A Halo fanfiction. Story knowledge is not required, but some basic knowledge of the franchise is ideal.

On a desolate colony near the edge of human space, a Forerunner installation is located. ONI sends an expeditionary force, containing a single Spartan II, to investigate. However, ONI aren't the only ones searching for Forerunner tech.

After the Dark Age of Technology during the 21st and 22nd centuries, humanity decided to reach for the stars. Or at least the megacorps decided to, leaving behind anyone too poor or too stubborn or too old to board the ships headed for Mars and Europa. With that, the Great Expansion started: Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, the Asteroid Belt, all were encompassed by the sovereignty of the newly formed United Human Federation, or UHF. Well... that's what the UHF would have you believe. The truth is a different beast entirely.

After graduating a prestigious engineering college on Mars and patenting a valuable new piece of tech, you were approached by the Black Hoods, a completely untraceable organization that dealt with the salvage of shipwrecks across the solar system. Despite the absurd protocols (all in the name of total secrecy), the mind-boggling pay convinced you to join. What can you discover among the derelict wreckage of humanity?

Story A was certainly something. I personally love weird stylistic stuff, so this story intrigued because of this. Unfortunately, that feeling began to fade as I kept reading. The main character infiltrates a heavily fortified base as a bunch of terms are thrown at us. None of these are explained and we are simply left to guess what anything means. It feels like we're in the middle of a larger story, just reading an excerpt. There's plenty of characters, but there's pretty much no development of them, and there's no buildup to an ending that's millions of people dying, apparently. It's funny, I guess. The writing isn't bad either.

Story B felt like a full story. We were given the exposition, then the events of the story led up to a climax and a bit of a cliffhanger. We know the Iraq war happened, but maybe this is an alternate timeline where this message somehow dissuades someone and that results in the war not happening. Nonetheless, the character in the story wouldn't know this, and the story kept me more engaged, because I actually understood what the fuck was going on all the time.

Now, I'm also pretty bad when it comes to explaining things, but Story A is pretty egregious, while it doesn't even come close to the word limit. Story B is much more complete, even though cool sci-fi concepts could've won me over if they had been explained better. I also enjoyed how vastly different the execution of the prompt was---"mergers" are certainly a form of backroom diplomacy now that I think about it. The writing was also better than Story A, on account of better imagery, deeper emotions and more showing instead of telling.

TL;DR I vote Story B!

You've descended to Alien's level now. It's over.

I knew, from the moment I finished reading Sherb's story, that I was fucked. I liked it more than my own story in all honesty! It had me scratching my head, wondering how the hell Raven pulled off this endeavor. Finally, I can breathe a sigh of relief in knowing that I was cooked by a real chef, and not a chatty child.

Congrats Sherb, you deserved it!

I like Ogre

I wish that all humans developed a better sense of empathy and were able to set aside selfish needs in order to work together as a society.

And now I've snapped back to reality.

I didn't really have an idea as to who wrote this, so this was a pleasant surprise! Nice story, you probably would've eked out a win if you had focused a little more on dialogue.

Congrats on your win and good luck on your next entry! I'm ready to duel again

This is a perfect description lol

How did you determine what kind of person I am and how does that show my gender? Seems like a prejudiced and patriarchal approach towards the subject!

If ellipsis were a valid replacement for commas, don't you think a single good writer in the history of the English language would've used them as such?

Overthinking is a curse. It keeps you socially retarded, as demonstrated here. You have to be willing to make mistakes and speak your mind, and stand by your point or acknowledge a good rebuttal. You shouldn't, however, ramble like a dementia patient trying to recollect their childhood memories. Mistakes won't hurt you nearly as much as your posts hurt to read.