Storygames Home City of IF
Free online storygaming
 

The Greatest Fantasy Story Ever: Chapter One
Click here to go to the original topic

 
       Storygames Home -> The Greatest Fantasy Story Ever
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Thracia Alba



Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Posts: 474
Location: The Golden State

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:45 am    Post subject: The Greatest Fantasy Story Ever: Chapter One  

Before we begin this delightful enterprise of rollicking laughter and good-natured fun, I would like to say a few words, and by a few words, I mean a long-winded paragraph. First, I would like to say that though this is my first post in this fantastic forum, and I'm not entirely sure of the unwritten protocol surrounding newbies like me posting new stories, I am doing this because I enjoy writing, as is everyone on this forum, I'm sure. The second point is that though this story is intended to be humorous, it most likely will fail in that regard, and so I shall be largely focusing on its experimental aspect, which will be to tell and develop the story through the points of view of several different characters while allowing the normal procedure of reader suggestion/direction/polling to guide it. The third and, thankfully, final point is that while I may insert some cultural references in the hopes of squeezing out a few cheap laughs, I in no way am attempting to make any sort of meaningful political or social commentary. The world in which my unfortunate characters find themselves is full of depressing cliches and is mostly made up as I go along, but I draw the line at whoring it out as a billboard for my own disorganized political opinions. That's what weblogs are for. That having been said, I am looking forward to working with anyone who deems my sad attempts at writing as being worthy of comment, and I hope you enjoy the show. I will.

-Thracia Alba

And now for something completely different.



"The Greatest Fantasy Story Ever"

Chapter One: In Which Cleothestrina Hasn't the Foggiest

This is a fantasy story, and like so many other fantasy stories, this one begins with a journey. A journey of triumph and heartbreak, of power and pain, an epic coming-of-age tale which will leave you shocked, amazed, disquieted, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit wiser.

No, actually, it will contain none of those things. But it will contain a journey. And pain. Lots of it.

The traveller stood atop a high hill overlooking The Archipelago of Thermosa. It wasn't an archipelago in the normal sense; rather, it was an area of perpetual, dense fog, through which several hilltops protruded. It was called The Archipelago because "Foggy Hills" just doesn't sell. The traveller wasn't a traveller in the normal sense, either, but that doesn't mean she wasn't special in her own way, or whatever other lies they feed you kids these days. She was short and a bit on the scrawny, underfed side; her clothes were tattered, her fingernails were ragged, and her hair was brown. Just brown. What, you want better detail? Okay, dirt brown. She looked like nothing so much as a scrawny, dusty finch, and as she gazed down from atop her hilly perch, her eyes held the barren look of one who had spent their whole life dying a little every day. Her name was Cleothestrina, and she wasn't a prescription drug. She was a sales representative.

Travelling was a practice most abhorrent to her, which is a fancy way of saying she hated it. That isn't to say she was inexperienced in it, of course, though her experience was mostly limited to climbing things, tumbling down the sides of things, falling off things, running frantically away from giant things with very sharp teeth, and filling out mountains of paperwork, sometimes while doing all of the above. She had sailed across the Sea of Sorrows to reach a client living in the Land of Eternal Suffering, which the sun-browned natives, in their bizarre language, called "Orange County, California". She had somehow scaled the inaccessible, frigid slopes of Mount Killaman'sorrow to pass out promotional fliers to the eternally gleeful citizens of the town of Tivotown, a place untouched by advertisement; the once-peaceful community soon after collapsed into a hellhole of anarchy, chaos, and rampant jingles. Another job well done. Once, for a tax-deductible mission of charity, she had wearily trudged over the barren Ayohwell Plains to deliver desperately-needed grammar and spelling lessons to the teenyboppers of the Neht-Speke Empire. No, Cleothestrina was no stranger to the many thrills of travel, and yet, for some strange, inexplicable reason, she hated it. In fact, that just may have been why she hated it. Some people, I swear.

But whatever the reason may have been, it didn't change the fact that Cleo was there, and she was hating it. Or, rather, she would have been hating it, had she not been too utterly exhausted to feel anything. But she wanted to hate it, and it's the thought that counts. She gazed across the dreary, boring fog to the dreary, boring hilltops, topped in turn with their dreary, boring settlements. It was a well known fact that in all the world, you couldn't find a more dreadfully dull place than The Archipelago, though you'd never know it from the pamphlets. Every year, hundreds of tourists came and were consistently disappointed, having been promised a beautiful island paradise in a tranquil sea, and instead finding coffee shops filled with mediocre poets and gift shops filled with those stupid "And all I got was this lousy T-Shirt" T-shirts. Those who didn't immediately kill themselves returned home bubbling with lavish praise for the "island paradise" and its many wonders, being too embarrassed to admit to having been suckered. Thus, the suckering spread and life went on. In the meantime, though, Cleothestrina was growing extremely impatient with the lengthy and unnecessary descriptions of the past paragraph, as well as the abundant commas and overabundant adjectives. Let's get back to her now, shall we?

"You know," she said aloud, because she was the kind of person who talked aloud to herself when other people weren't around, or sometimes when they were, "I could leave right now. Just cut and run." She nervously nibbled on the sliver of thumbnail that was left on her right hand, and continued, "Yeah, I could do that. They wouldn't notice. They probably don't even remember I exist." The 'they' to which she was referring was the Witches' Council, which was the governing power that regulated the use and control of all magic in the whole of the world, kind of like the Ministry of Magic from Harry Potter, only thankfully less British. It was the Witches' Council that had employed Cleothestrina as a sales representative, and it was the Witches' Council that had promised to promote her from sales rep. to public relations officer, which meant that she would be forced to do the same thankless, degrading work for five extra gold a month. That sounded like a lot, of course, but what with inflation and the ever-rising cost of living, it only amounted to about fifty of our dollars, or about twenty-eight of those British pounds. And everyone knows that twenty-eight pounds is seriously underweight, even for a Halfling, but is seriously overweight for a Gnome. All in all, though Cleo had never expected any better in her life, she was beginning to wonder if it was all worth it. It wasn't, but she was sometimes slow to catch on, so just bear with her here, okay?

Meh. That was the name of the town for which Cleo was destined, and was by far the boringest of all the boring hilltop towns of The Archipelago. It was so boring there that even five minutes of exposure could result in near-fatal apathy, as illustrated in the case of the town's founder, who, when asked what to name the place, answered, "I don't care. Name it whatever you like," and the resounding chorus of lethargic grunts gave the town its name. Cleo shifted uncomfortably and weighed her situation. Ahead of her lay a dense fog, possible death by drabness, and a meaningless promotion. Behind her lay slightly less dense fog, job loss, and the rest of the world. And around her swirled the uncomfortable realization that while what goes up may come down, what goes down can keep on falling.
Back to top  
Ingrothechundyer
Guest





Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:12 am    Post subject:  

Small suggestion :)

You might want to lock this thread and close your poll so the results don't get messed up forcing you to re-wright the capther ;)
Back to top  
Ravenwing
Guest


Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 3750
Location: Virginia

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:47 pm    Post subject:  

Or to clutter this place even further with another suggestion. Lock all old chapter threads, to keep new readers from posting in those threads. Just keep the most recent threads open for discussion.
Back to top  
Thracia Alba
Guest


Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Posts: 474
Location: The Golden State

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:48 pm    Post subject:  

Capital ideas, sir and madam! :D Now why didn't I think of that? Oh, right, that brain thing... ;)

I'll let the poll run for one more day, just in case anyone else wants to vote (though probably not, since it's been so long, and it wouldn't make much of a difference even if they did... But still).
Back to top  
LordoftheNight
Guest


Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 5276
Location: Hell

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:50 pm    Post subject:  

And lock the thread.
Back to top  
Thracia Alba
Guest


Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Posts: 474
Location: The Golden State

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:53 pm    Post subject:  

Well, first I said I was going to close the poll (though I said it in the past tense, since I thought I was going to close it in a second), but since I'm letting it run for another day, I won't lock the thread until tomorrow. Unless you can lock the thread and still let people vote... I'm still very new at this sort of thing.

Edit: Uh... I went to lock the Chapter One Comments thread (which was created by accident anyway, but I digress), but I got this error message saying Invalid_session. Twice. Can anyone tell me what that's all about?
Back to top  
LordoftheNight
Guest


Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 5276
Location: Hell

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:02 pm    Post subject:  

Hmm, worked fine for me.

Well, I think from the 9.2.0ness of the poll you can assume which one has won, and write the next chapter.

*caresses whip lovingly*
Back to top  
Ravenwing
Guest


Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 3750
Location: Virginia

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:14 pm    Post subject:  

Hmm. Don't see why it would have problem. Perhaps someone else was reading that thread perhaps?

And Lordy, I think you're becoming too fond of that whip. :cool:
Back to top  
Ingrothechundyer
Guest





Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:26 am    Post subject:  

To add yet another suggestion to the thread ;)

You might want to re-order these threads so chapter 1 is on the bottom while your locking down threads.

On the locking error I've never seen it before. Might try logging out and logging back in to see if that fixes it.
Back to top  
Ravenwing
Guest


Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 3750
Location: Virginia

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:36 am    Post subject:  

We're so full of suggestions. ;)
Back to top  
Thracia Alba
Guest


Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Posts: 474
Location: The Golden State

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:17 pm    Post subject:  

I'm always open to suggestions. Except for when I'm not, of course. ;) But now I am.

While we're at it, can anyone tell me if there's any way to re-combine this thread and the chapter one comments thread? 'Cause I, um, kinda separated them by mistake. And stuff. So yeah.

Edit: Actually, if anyone has any more suggestions (and I'd definitely love to hear them!), please kindly direct them to the Chapter Four thread, since I am about to lock this one. Yay.
Back to top  
ethereal_fauna
Guest


Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 2567
Location: USA

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:19 pm    Post subject:  

I don't think there is a way. :?
Back to top  
Thracia Alba
Guest


Joined: 27 Jan 2006
Posts: 474
Location: The Golden State

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:21 pm    Post subject:  

Dang. So much for that, then. :(

Anyway, I just went ahead and deleted the darn poll, since I was going to have to soon anyway.

Quote: You might want to re-order these threads so chapter 1 is on the bottom while your locking down threads.

Not quite sure how to do that. Man, I don't seem to know how to do anything, do I? :(
Back to top  
 
       Storygames Home -> The Greatest Fantasy Story Ever
Page 1 of 1


Powered by phpBB Search Engine Indexer
Powered by phpBB 2.0.16 © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group