Jump to content
The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

Stranded


Recommended Posts

You have landed on a remote island and all you have in your pockets is a pen, a bottle with a cork and a piece of paper that can hold a maximum of 500 words. You will have to write a note telling people where you are or you will die of dehydration and starvation!

 

You can send me a PM, I will then give you a famous place/city/country, and a list of words you’re not allowed to use in your description. You are allowed a maximum of 500 words.

 

The writer of the story earns 10 geld and the person who is the first to guess the place that has been written about earns 5 geld.

 

Good Luck!

 

Edit: You will receive 10 geld for the first time you've been stranded, and 5 geld for the other times... Also you can't be send out again until you've been found by someone.

 

You can guess as many times as you like, but the location needs to be exactly right and you only get geld for guessing right the first 2 times

Edited by Sweetcherrie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 60
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Zadown of Old let his gaze wander across the panorama of white, square buildings.

 

Of all the possible places where that broken gate could have thrown me...

 

The raising sun glinted on a golden dome, climbed almost directly upwards with a speed that told him it wouldn't be even remotely cool for long. He could see the city with his mind's eye trembling in the haze of intense heat, the white walls radiating back some of the harsh sunlight. Square houses, walls that pointed out where ancient strife had been dammed, tension in the air that spoke of current hostilities. The sun leaped upwards again, set the various religious symbols set on top of the different temples on fire.

 

At least they know my name, here, even if it means “arrogance”.

 

He fiddled with his green robes, adjusted them to protect him against the sand and the sun, and started walking towards the waking city.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I should've stayed where I was instead of trying another teleport.

 

Zadown stood up and looked around - desolate, empty buildings, sea all around. He felt confined, the few ghosts lingering here whispering about violence, boredom and yearning for freedom, very faintly. Far away, past the shores of the bay, huge towers of steel and glass gleamed red and orange in the light of the setting sun.

 

Perhaps there will be a ferry in the morning. The only other option is trying the gate again.

 

He sighed and sat down to hone his already impossibly keen katana.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I wipe another drop of sweat off this note I search for a way home.

Nearby the women wear the most ridiculous looking straw skirts and weave ------s with red petals into their hair.

The beach is beautiful, but all the same I can't stand this place. There are more tourists here than you could shake a stick at, but still I am stranded and unable to contact anyone! The natives all speak English (though the tourists speak every language imaginable and a few that aren't.) but the words aren't all the same. For instance, their word for hello is peculiar -----.

 

Tropical, distasteful and I hate saltwater--Get me out of here!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find myself in a city with mountains on three sides and the Saronic Gulf to the south-west. Once it was a city-state, and most of the Western-European culture originated here. Recently, a new airport was constructed, as well as a highly improved public transportation system and several new museums.

The city proper has 750.001 inhabitants, but including the suburbs there are 3.7 million of them trying to fit into a city that can't really hold such great masses. I'm never counting that many people again, but hey, a guy has to do something while he's starving, right?

Several ancient places of worship are visible from where I'm standing, but unfortunately the heavy pollution is having negative effects on them and other beautiful buildings both ancient and modern.

One of those buildings is a stadium that can hold about 60.000 people and which is built entirely out of white marble.

 

Gahh, I'm starting to have trouble breathing ... the heat combined with the polluted air I'm breathing *gasp* are starting to affect *gurgle* me *cough* ... get *gloup* me out *wheeze* of here *choke* or bury mmmm........

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I survey the big city around me, finding fair people with the unmistakable look of Europe around them. As I walk around, I notice they enjoy some freedoms rarely seen elsewhere. They also seem to enjoy soccer, and the orange shirt of their National Team can be seen in several places. Talking to some people, trying to find out more about their history, I listen to a somewhat familiar tale... a little guy who, using a finger, saved a place by stopping a hole. They speak English, but the local language reminds me of German; though people tell me that they're as similar as French and Italian... Suddenly I remember that at the Pen there are a couple of very active people who are from this country, although I'm not sure what city they're from. Sweet!

 

I stop in front of a museum - it announces a special exhibit of its most famous paintings, by Rembrandt and Vermeer. And a guy there tells me about two famous houses in the city... one where Rembrandt lived and worked, the other where Anne Frank hid.

 

But anyway... I wonder who will find me stranded here!

Edited by Tanuchan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alrighty then, pm send. I'm going to guess already though and possibly ruin it for everybody else *grin* :P

 

Z: Statue of liberty island.. what's it called again? Liberty Island?

 

Gwai: Hawaii?

 

Venefyxatu: Rome?

 

Tanuchan: Amsterdam?

Edited by Appy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Appy has found Tanuchan, and I received a PM from Tanuchan guessing where Venefyxatu (Athens) and Gwaihir (Honolulu) were, both were right...

 

I will count them this time, because you told me in PM that you would be out of town, and are maybe not able to reply...

 

But from here on, please anybody that wants to guess just post it in this thread, it's the easiest way of knowing who was first to guess right :)

Edited by Sweetcherrie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The shadows twist in strange ways as Yui shoves against them, warping the bounds between Pen and Real and back again. After much moaning and complaining, a few currents of static power serving as rather stinging reminders that this is a barrier not to be crossed easily or lightly, they are finally forced to give way, and the small woman slips out into bright, California sunshine and the smell of salt and rotten fish.

 

Ugh. Wrinkling her nose, the transformed Huntress straightens her polyester-blend shirt and brushes a speck of grey-white dirt from her fitted jeans. I'd forgotten how much this place stinks. Only the ghosts of prisoners long gone and the half-crumbling cementine walls overhear her quiet mutter.

 

With a sigh, she raises her gaze to peer at the fallen prison, ignoring a gaggle of camera-draped tourists chattering on in Chinese as they meander past her on the pebbled path. Squinting against the harsh reflection off the near-white walls, it takes her a moment to get her bearings, but soon she can make out the collapsed rubble of the Warden's house on her right and the weed-choked 'field' that served as the prison Yard glaring at her from the other side of the path. Now, just to find Zadown in the bars and tunnels of the compound...

 

It wasn't all that hard, the whispers of curious and excited visitors guiding her to the 'strangely-dressed man' that was loitering in the barber's chair. A family of rather loudly-spoken Americans were busily trying to convince the people next to them in line that he was probably an actor there to help spruce up the tour. Yeah. Right. Shaking her head, Yui slipped quietly past the milling throngs and into the narrow corridor that led to the famous cells, ignoring dirty looks cast her way for 'cutting'. Sure enough, the Zadown of Old sat in the leather-wrapped chair with his chin fisted on his knees, studiously ignoring a pair of Norwegians who were asking him questions in broken English.

 

Hm. I'm not sure I even want to know how you got yourself trapped here of all places, Zadown. This particular world is notoriously difficult to get to ... and to escape from.

 

At first, he blinked blankly at this short, pretty-ish blond stranger with her long, wavey hair and her stylish clothes, but then recognition hit him, and the old mage's green eyes went wide. Yui couldn't help but grin at his surprise, making a vague little gesture down at herself. When in Rome, you know...

 

Come on. Let's get out of here before the Reality of this place has any more chance to infect you. Alcatraz Island just doesn't suit a mage of Terra.

 

Guessing long-windedly,

~Yui

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How did I get here? What is this place where people speak a strange language I don’t understand. Right now I’m in front of some sort of palace where three rivers meet. The people stare at me as if I were an alien. They can probably see from my eyes that I’m different. Theirs are just slits compared to mine.

 

Passing a genocide museum, I remember the terror of the K (smudge) R (smudge). As I buy some noodles in a sidewalk shop (with my last remaining US dollars) I marvel at the beauties of the city. Not far away I can see a pagoda, which is of a silver color.

 

A small hill crowned by a pagoda marks the founding place of the city. There are elephant rides available, but I don’t have any more money. Soon I am going to run out of edible food…someone help me please! Oh yes the elephants are clearly of the Asian variety, I can tell by their size.

 

I am lucky to see a spectacle performed, which I recognise as apsara dancing. Hopefully whoever reads this message shall know where to find me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To whomever finds this note...I ask that you bring help immediatly! I have been captured by aliens and taken to their listening post. I have been bouldered over by my fears that I will never be found. The Mother Ship promised they'd return for me if I did not evacuate immediatly! The second problem I have been having is that the time has already passed and I have yet to find a drop of tea! Perhaps I'll wait for the moonlight to point me to the mine...or better yet...find the treasure once buried here? Please! Somebody bloody help me! What's the use...I guess I'll just sit on the bloody rock and sing a bloody song!

 

In eighteen fourteen we took a little trip. Along Colonel Jackson down the mighty mississip. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and fought the bloody...oh how did that go again? It would appear that these bloody "artists", weren't squares after all! Although they could have fooled me! I do hope the myths about this place aren't true. It would most certainly help if I had a calendar around here! At least then I'd know the bloody day!

 

Oh, don't tell me! I'm complaining again aren't I? I supose now you won't bother rescuing me from the Mother Ship and her oowy goowy alien babies...are you! We'll let me tell you something! Your the squares...all of you! You know what? I don't want to be found! Wait, wait, I take that back...please find me! I beg of you! And when you do...BRING SOME BLOODY TEA!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Oh thank the Fates you found me, Yui! I hope yer not mad anymore about the little incident that happened last time we saw - in any case, I am happy about the fact I can finally throw this piece of wretched, thrice-accursed magecraft away, I was just keeping it in case I'd have no other chance than to try using the malfunctioning portal again..."

 

The green-clad mage quit his relieved, uncharacteristic rambling and pulled something that looked like a saucer-sized pocketwatch out of his robes. It had a long loop of dark beads connected to it, long enough to allow its use as a necklace. Discordant magic flowed out of the slightly open jaws like invisible smoke, weak in this low-magic world but noticeable.

 

Just as Yui was about to open her mouth and say that she had forgiven Zadown and everything was alright, the artefact let out a loud, mechanical click. Time seemed to slow down as the two mages watched, horrified, the pocket-portal opening its jaws. It drained whatever magic it could find, creating a gossamer web of coruscating ley-lines that were only visible to the mage sight, before it regurgitated all that and whatever reserves it held inside it in the form of two swirling portals of transportation magic gone wrong. The portal made a sharp cracking sound during the same tiny slice of time Yui saw to her horror the Almost Draconic logo clumsily engraved to the dying device.

 

The device shattered.

 

Yui and Zadown vanished, swallowed by the random twin portals.

 

And the Norwegian toursists stood there, mouths open, eyes wide. Until one of them woke from his stupor and turned to his friends:

 

"<Did you get a picture of that?>"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tzimfemme grabbed a paper from the nearest table, glanced at the handwriting--Treaty of Peace and Amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, Concluded at Ghent, December 24, 1814-- then flipped it over and sat down to write. Both table and chair were bolted to the floor, and the inkwell fit snugly into a cutout on the table, but she still struggled to form letters when the entire room tilted:

 

I had been adrift for hours, pulled through the mouth of the bay by the receding tide, and not very confident that my swim-wings were going to remain inflated (stop laughing), so when the current bumped me up against this, I climbed on board. Every crate is stamped "Property of the Navy of the United States"; I opened them all and can you believe it, there wasn't a single can on board? I did drink a few mouthfuls of some execrable port wine though, and will enclose this paper in the bottle while thinking

 

Heard engines buzzing overhead, sprinted up to the deck but nothing to be seen. I knocked my shin on the spiral staircase. Still, I'll go back up, and put on the peacoat this time. . .

 

It landed beside me on pontoons, neat as you please, and he and the co-pilot launched a rubber raft and paddled over here. They didn't seem surprised to find me here. "Welcome to the club," one said, and clinked a bottle of California champagne against the bottle of port while glancing around the cabin. "Bill, could you row back and get some real food? I tried hardtack once in my life and that was once too many." The co-pilot grinned and went topside. "Time doesn't pass here, and the food never runs out, but it never improves either," he told me.

 

We talked about what brought him to investigate and land here--Ted has dubbed himself and his craft the Welcome Wagon, since "Gloria did the same in our neighborhood, and by golly I miss her"--until Bill returned and proudly presented a box labeled "Swanson TV DINNER: Turkey with Gravy." "Technological marvel," he proclaimed. "It's already cooked, all you have to do is heat it, although we let it defrost in the sun and that's as good as baking it, in this latitude. Oh, you have to take it out of the box first." He demonstrated how to lay the cellophane-wrapped tray by the window, as though I'd never seen one before.

 

Ted and Bill both shook my hand. "We have to get back to our rounds, miss, this is our busy season. We'll come back after Roger goes on duty, and then you can let us know who won last year's World Series--"

 

"Red Sox!"

 

It was a religious moment. "But they haven't won for nearly forty years! Miss, wait, not another word, you can't hurry through an explanation like that." They hastened to the raft as though afraid to spoil the suspense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...