(closed)Short Story Contest

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Yushi
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(closed)Short Story Contest

Postby Yushi » Sun 30 Apr 2017, 09:59

I'll be giving a way a full set of steel/odiemel plated mail armor.

I'd like for you to post a short story here. I will decide which story I like best, and the writer will receive the armor set.
Don't be shy. Post whatever. Armor set will be given away next weekend. May 6/7.

Image
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Lifewarden
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Lifewarden » Sun 30 Apr 2017, 14:56

I'll show you the short story I like :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdLTEC6X3pk

Nina
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Nina » Sun 30 Apr 2017, 15:30

My contribution :)

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a young man named Yushi. After long days of working in the mines of Hawkoria, Yushi would rest his weary muscles while reading tales of honourable knights and princesses by the light of the fire in his small hut. He washed the soot from the mines, and the juices from the maredoss berries, which he ate in abundance, from his hands vigorously so as not to smudge the pages of his precious storybooks.

One fateful night, as he drifted off to sleep in his favourite chair, with visions of shiny-armoured heroes slaying dragons, he was awoken by a loud pounding on his oak door. Startled awake, he knocked over his storybook and the plateful of guardian snapper he hadn’t quite finished eating. He hesitated for a moment, then made his way across the room and opened the door.

Standing before him, was a hooded man, the strangers face made demonic by the faint glow of the firelight. “Are you Yushi, the miner of Hawkoria?” asked the hooded figure.

Yushi, involuntarily took a step back, and cursed himself silently for his instinctual cowardice. Squaring his shoulders with resolve he took a step forward and bellowed in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own, “I am Yushi! The miner of Hawkoria! Who might you be, Sir?” He growled a little, bearing his teeth.

The hooded figure chuckled, “Stand down young whippersnapper, I am Lifewarden, and I am here to deliver you your destiny”. Lifewarden undid the silver dragon clasp to his cloak and let it fall to ground, revealing the shiniest, most beautiful armour Yushi had ever laid eyes on. The armour was more magnificent than anything the knights in his storybook had ever worn and Yushi found himself shielding his eyes from the brightness.

The Beginning.

Melindra
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Melindra » Sun 30 Apr 2017, 21:51

My vote is for Nina, but here's a contribution (although it's not a short story xD)
==============================
Sometimes a light breeze
is just
painful.
==============================
He picks up the shivering duckling,
wandering in the icy torrent,
and warms it.
=============================

~Mel

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Yushi
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Yushi » Tue 02 May 2017, 23:04

Looks like Nina is going to win. No more submissions?
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Yushi
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Yushi » Sat 06 May 2017, 00:14

Last day to win. I'll be giving away the set tomorrow at around 6pm est.
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Yushi
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Yushi » Sat 06 May 2017, 11:45

Image

Last ~10 hours to submit a story. :o
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Durogar0001
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Durogar0001 » Sat 06 May 2017, 16:32

Nearly a decade after the discovery of Hawkoria a band of adventurers from a faraway land arrived at Craneharbor. The eldest of them, Simon Gourin, quickly found work for the young band. Simon worked the docks unloading crates and other shipments for merchants. Chandar worked with the local guard and Melinda was a cook for a nearby tavern. After about six months, the three had save enough money for a small plot of land north of Craneharbor.

A few weeks after the farmhouse was built a group of mercenaries arrived during a night storm. Simon greeted them and offered shelter for the night.

The next day a captain from the Craneharbor guard came by the Gourin's farm to see there'd been any travelers in the area. Chandar promptly ensured the captain that he'd seen no one for weeks. Satisfied with his inquiry, the captain moved on to the other nearby farms and villages, but never found the travelers he was looking for.

To this day it's still a mystery why Gourin's Farm produce tastes so good.

AshPrinny
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby AshPrinny » Sat 06 May 2017, 16:48

"Come to Hawkoria.", they said, "The forests are rich and lush and untouched by the thousands of people lumbering on the mainland for a living.", they said. None had cared enough to mention the wolves...or bears...or bunnies and the bunnies were definitely the worst.

That had been 44 days ago...and a boat ride which cost Lanfan all her remaining money. The dream was so tempting, so enticing and so close and though she had known that being one of the few female lumberjacks people would stare at her awkwardly, she didn't cared much for the skewed looks of people anyways. She was a lumberjack and she was okay...until she found out why she wasn't selling too many planks.

"If you want good cedar goods, head over to Lanfan's !!
Big mistake there....

Now a cedar stoked fire was roaring in the fireplace with enough wood piled up to keep it going for months; maybe even years. Hare meat was in ample supply too; a nice reminder of how initial aversion to butchering cuddly creatures could feed a mouth for a day or two or 44.

She sighed; how could she have known? She had done everything to make a name for herself and 1 little mistake had botched everything up.
Lanfan looked down at her cedar made dinner plate...hare stew again...to be eaten with a cedar made spoon at a cedar made table, sitting on a cedar made chair. She took around the room of her cedar made cabin at her cedar bed, cedar statue, cedar cabinets and knew that if she would look out the window there would be a cedar workshop out there with a cedar lumbermill and a cedar cabinetmakers bench inside and on the side: a cedar woodshed with enough cedar wood and planks to last her a lifetime. How could she have know?

"If you want good cedar goods, head to Lanfan's!!", she scoffed as she threw another cedar log on the fire. "Bloody town criers for misspelling my name."

She looked at the paper notice hung from her cedarplank wall; it was obviously made from cedar wood as well...

She was surrounded by cedar....
In a fit of agitation she tore the notice from the wall, crumpled it and was about to throw it into the fire before she got to grips with herself again, uncrumpled it and laid it down on the table to read it one more time. Agitation gave way to sarcasm, snickered and read the words out loud.

"If you want good Cedar goods; head to Lanfar's!!"

One little letter, such a world of difference...

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Yushi
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Yushi » Sat 06 May 2017, 18:08

Trying out a new image hosting site. This one seems to be working better. Links to the direct image, rather than to the site, with all the extra bits...

Image

Only 4 hours left to submit a story!
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Norach
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Norach » Sat 06 May 2017, 20:42

He brought the hammer down tiredly for a last hit and sparks flew from the hot metal on the anvil. Hereden raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his eyebrow. How long had it been since he had first fueled the forge? Five hours? Six? There was no telling from inside the smithy, it didn't have any windows to the world outside.

A wave of his pliers and the saw blade, he had been hammering, flew right into the tank by the anvil. It sunk hissing in the cold water, but Hereden did not bother to take it out. He had made hundreds of the damn things and yet, he was nowhere near the end of his client's last order.
Still, he deserved a break. He set down his tools and moved to the smithy's entrance. Behind him, his apprentice, sat down by the oven, giving the bellows a rest, too.

It was cold outside. Mid-spring was always like that close to the Renaissance mountains. Besides, the sun was not far above the western horizon.

"Just a couple of hours of light", he thought and turned his eyes to the north. The path slithering towards the mountains was half-closed again. It got overgrown every spring. And every summer it was reopened. The military units and the supply caravans traveling between Bolgatur and Enorwen saw to that. The few traders that passed this way helped too. Traders like his client.

But, of course, they were not traders. At least, not exactly. You could call them wanderers, adventurers, even mercenaries and hit closer to the mark. They came in bands and well-armed, they left in fewer numbers and with more scars.

But they left richer. Always richer. The mountain clans and the swamp tribes had few ties with the outside world. The select few, who had managed to create trade channels in and out of those places, knew well how to exploit their achievement. His own client, Tirmen, each year would travel across Tarasquan to Nostria. The first summer week each year would see his small caravan stopping for a couple of days' rest by Hereden's place. Tirmen would collect the goods of his latest order, place his next and then continue southwards, always dragging with him a couple of mules laden with rare materials: exotic herbs, hard-to-find leathers, galandrite nuggets, even the occasional rune.

The man seemed to get richer and richer each year. Last summer, Hereden had barely managed to pull his eyes off his fashionable huberian clothes in order to notice the competence of his bodyguards. It was obvious that Tirmen could afford a better, more expensive escort now. Or perhaps it was the bundles carried by his mules that merited greater protection.

"If only my own services would merit a greater compensation," Hereden murmured. He shook his head and sighed. There was no chance of that. Rich people did not become rich by giving away their riches.

Besides, Tirmen was not unfair to him. Far from it. Hereden's salary was decent, especially if one took into account the fact that Tirmen provided most of the smithy's raw materials himself. Even, the house, in which Hereden lived, and the workshop, in which he worked, belonged to the ... trader. They were part of an old trading outpost, a trading outpost he had set up many years ago, when he had first come to Myriaden from the old continent, and the annual amount of silver he was asking for it was closer to charity than rent. No, if Tirmen had managed to carve a life for himself in Myriaden, he had not done so on Tirmen's expense.

But the sad truth remained. Hereden had come to Myriaden for the same reason Tirmen had, and yet after five hard years of work, he had barely come any closer to the dream he had set off to hunt.

"You need to move on, son," Tirmen had told him last year. "My own arrival in Lanfar paid out, but I was one of the first to come to it. There have been ten years and thousands of pioneers since. There are no easy paths to wealth here anymore. You need to go farther away, for that. You need to go to Nostria."

But Hereden could not bring himself to even think of traveling to Nostria. Actually, he could not think himself of sailing to Nostria. The sea terrified him. The trip from the old continent to Myriaden had been a nightmare, which he simply could not relive. He had barely managed to arrive at Hope Island, having lost fifteen pounds of weight and all of his dignity to seasickness and bad weather.

If only he could get to Nostria through the swamp. But the tribes would never allow him passage. Tirmen could not help him either.

"If they tolerate me and my men that's because we provided certain services to them. They won't even speak to you before riddling you with arrows," he had said, when Hereden asked him.

"But then how did you manage to provide those services to them, if they won't speak with anyone?"

"There are people you can approach, people outside Tarasquan. But I don't know anyone living outside Nostria. As things stand now, your only way to it passes through Maliken."

Hereden had not believed him back then. But, now, three years later, he knew better. He raised his eyes to the mountain in the direction of the Bolgatur fortress. He could not see it from here, unless it was that tiny white stain on a far away slope. He didn't know, he had never asked. He shook his head and went back inside. In silence, he fished the finished saw-blade from the water tank. Tirmen had asked him for a thousand steel ones and he still had several hundred of them to make. What had the man told him he wanted them for? Some kind of temple?

Tirmen never stayed idle. Hereden had to decide what to do with his future too. If the way north was closed to him, then perhaps he ought to go south. Wasn't there a rumor that the Falconers now allowed people into Grimaldaz? If he went there now, he would be one of the first. Just like Hereden had been. Perhaps, he shouldn't let the chance pass.

Still, he could wait a couple of months more. Tirmen would come for his blades, and Hereden could ask him. The man was a trove of information and had never lied to him. He might have some good advice for him, or even help. Yes, Hereden could afford a couple of months, if he was to get some good advice.

And with that thought, he lifted the hammer and returned to his work.

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Yushi
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Re: Short Story Contest

Postby Yushi » Sat 06 May 2017, 22:00

Okay, contacted Norach in game. Sent him his armor set.

Thanks all for participating!
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.


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