In a country far, far away...

[Gyrfalcon]

(Co-Written with Sweetcherrie... she wrote the story, I wrote the rules. )

 

In a country far, far away there once was a beautiful princess called Peach. This girls was the most beautiful girl any man had ever laid eyes on, and every man who saw her immediately wanted to marry her as well. One day an almost dragon knocked on the gates of the castle, and asked if he could spend the night (free of charge, of course). The people of the castle were very friendly and let him stay for the night, but then the big lizard saw the princess and immediately fell in love with her.

 

The next morning the almost dragon was gone, and poor princess Peach as well. The king was desperate and called upon all knights in the country for aid to get his daughter back, but only one knight responded.

 

Prince Mario was about the bravest of all knights in the kingdom, but a bit silly. He appeared in the court wearing green shorts and a red shirt, on his head was not a helmet but a simple baseball cap with his name on it. The king looked around if there were any other knights, but Mario seemed to be the only one courageous enough to fight the dragon. The king sighed, but there was nothing to do, so he promised Mario that he could marry the princess if he would bring her back.

 

All excited Mario left on his way, knowing that he would have to travel through dangerous and strange countries, have to fight weird and threatening monsters, but he was determined to find the lovely Peach and make her his wife.

 

-----

 

Mario: He has a red beard, wears green shorts and a red shirt all the time. The baseball cap never leaves his head. His main weapon is a sledgehammer, which he normally just swings around wildly in hopes of hitting something. Mario is brave, but a bit silly at times, and is fairly clumsy and generally inept.

 

Mario's journey will take him through strange and foreign lands, and he is the first main character. Peach and the almost-dragon are NPCs and thus do not count against the main character cap, and should not be played as a main character to the storyline. (There might be an exception to this however...)

 

You may, however, introduce monsters for the intrepid heroes to defeat or run away from, and may write those creature's actions as you wish (bearing in mind Rule #1, about killing off main plotline characters. )

 

Otherwise, feel free to throw complications in the way of the heroes.

 

A few rules:

 

1) Please adhere to the plotline - no destroying the world please, or killing off the main plotline characters.

2) We ask that a maximum of five main characters be introduced. Because of this, characters will have to be shared between several people, thus we ask that if you introduce one of the five characters, you post a basic description of how the character looks and some of the character's motivations and abilities.

3) We ask that posts be between 50 and 200 words.

 

Your first post will be worth 10 geld, and any subsequent posts will be worth 5 geld, to a maximum of 40 geld, though we hope you continue playing after reaching that amount!

[Patrick]

Forty days and forty nights Prince Mario followed the trail of the almost dragon travelling across dizzyingly highy mountains, and endless plains of razor-sharp grass before he met the first intelligent living being. When at the first the blackbird spoke to him, he nearly decapitated it with a hasty swing of his sledgehammer, but luckily he did not do so.

 

The small bird hopped onto Mario's baseball cap and whispered in a human voice, but with tones reminiscent of the mellow, fluty song of its kind in the prince's ear.

 

"You search for the almost dragon and the beautiful princess. The tracks lead north from here, but it is merely a trick by the lizard aimed at throwing you off his tracks."

 

 

OOC: The blackbird - the blackbird has an orange-yellow beak and a yellow eye-ring. In these aspects it is like any other male blackbird, but unlike all these, this blackbird has somehow the ability to converse in a language comprehensible by humans.

[Savage Dragon]

Mario is feeling a little tired after 40 days and 40 nights of following a trail and a little lonely, so he is glad to have his new friend the blackbird to converse with.

He also feels great hunger after the long journey, but realizes in his haste to get started on the journey, he did not pack enough supplies to keep him well-fed. His supply of meatballs had fallen dangerously low and the pasta has been gone for almost a week.

 

So Mario asks his new friend the blackbird if he has anything to eat.

 

"Though I travel far and wide, I carry no supplies with me. My secret? I know where food grows plentiful and can find a meal fit for a blackbird anywhere my journeys take me."

 

Mario's joy at finding a source of food causes him to jump, then double jump, but soon his joy wavers when he realizes a meal fit for a blackbird consists mostly of mushrooms and turnips. Grumbling about what he would do for some tortellini right about now, he pockets the fungus lunch for later and heads West, avoiding the flase track made by the almost dragon.

[Sweetcherrie]

Mario’s stomach was starting to hurt from not eating, but then he saw a little village in the distance. His eyes lit up, and he started bouncing, and double-bouncing. The blackbird flew up from his shoulder, which was a good thing, cause then Mario jumped so high that he hit his head against the tree limb above.

 

Leaves fell from the tree, and the moment they touched Mario’s head he suddenly felt a bit wheezy. His feet started to feel tighter and tighter in his shoes and they started hurting, but Mario didn’t notice and sprinted off towards the village. As he ran his feet seemed to grow even bigger in his shoes, and suddenly he stumbled over.

 

Like a spinning ball he shot off towards the village, with the blackbird flying as fast as it could to keep up with him. Mario rolled straight into a door, knocked it in, and didn’t come to a stop until he bumped into a pair of legs.

 

He untangled himself from his, by now enormous, feet, and as he looked up, he looked straight into the eyes of a nightelf. Two shining white eyes looked down at him, and bright blue hair waved around her head.

 

OOC: The nightelf can be defined by the next person writing

[Patrick]

"Caw? What the hell is that?" the blackbird asked, surprise distorting its voice.

 

"Just because I have blue hair and white eyes, I don't see why I am to be considered weirder than a stupid talking bird," the elf replied venom evident in his voice.

 

"Did you see the almost lizard?" Mario asked, intent on his mission. He tried bouncing, but his ever growing feet only made him fall on his buttocks.

 

"It would seem to me that you have another problem to take care of before you continue your noble quest to almost save the princess from the dragon." The dark elf did not seem friendly and Mario could not help but wonder whether he had anything to do with his feet being by now the same length as his height.

[Gyrfalcon]

The Night Elf glared at the blackbird, ears twitching in indignation. "I will not be mocked by an absurd talking blackbird!" he growled, burning eyes narrowing as he aimed a swift backhand at the bird. The blackbird avoided the blow with a quick flutter of wings. Mario, however, was not nearly as adroit. He stumbled back on his massive feet, barely restrained by his grossly stretched shoes.

 

Stumbling against a tree, Mario flopped onto his back, and as he did so, he felt a peculiar tightening sensation through the ringing in his ears.

 

The Night Elf said something in a language Mario did not understand, and then stared at Mario, his glowing eyes wide. The blackbird fluttered and then landed on the tip of the Night Elf's ear, unnoticed, likewise staring at Mario. Mario's voice sounded tiny in his ears "Why is everyone staring at me?"

 

"Er... your head just shrank." the blackbird said, turning his head first one way and then the other. "Hey, pointy ears... give his feet a smack, maybe they'll shrink back to normal."

 

The Night Elf tried to glare at the blackbird, but it's hard to glare at your own ear.

[Patrick]

"Finished yet?" a deep baritone voice asked from the cover of the trees, and another, much older night elf stepped out from his green cover.

 

"Why do you always have to spoil my fun?" the younger elf asked, as he waved his hand, causing Mario's body to slowly return to its normal proportions.

 

The blackbird sprang up from his perch and landed on a small raspberry bush.

 

"Food!" Mario cried as he noticed the bush. Almost instantly forgetting the night elves he rushed over and began feasting on the ripe fruit.

[Sweetcherrie]

Mario ate and ate, and so fast that the nightelves could barely blink or he had emptied out the bush. He rolled back on the grass and sighed happily, life was good.

 

“Yo smallbrains! Aren’t you supposed to save a princess?”

 

Mario waved with his hand as the blackbird chirped at him. The princess could wait a few minutes; he had to eat to keep his strength up.

 

Lazily he stared at the sky and started dozing off, when suddenly a shot was fired. The tree right behind Mario splintered and our friend flung back up, grabbed his sledgehammer and looked around to see where it had come from.

 

Across the clearing he had rolled through on his way into the village, he saw a hooded figure. The suit this guy was wearing was bright orange, and covered nearly his whole body, even his face, only leaving big, blinking eyes uncovered. His hands were covered in grey mittens, and in his hand he was holding an automatic machine wand. He was rapidly shooting fireballs in Mario’s direction, and our hero dove behind the berry-bush. The bush would not hold for long, and the next moment it was singed by another shot from the wand.

 

“Behold the wrath of Kenny!” The dark figure screamed, and launched another fireball in their direction.

 

OOC: Kenny is an NPC and can be killed....have fun

[Patrick]

As soon as the bush was burnt to cinders by yet another fireball, Mario jumped behind the thick trunk of a nearby tree. Yet wherever he hid, whichever plant Mario chose as cover, all fell to Kenny's fiery wrath. Soon only one more plant was left alive in the whole clearing, the raspberry bush from which Mario had satisfied his hunger.

 

The moment a fireball engulfed the bush, something snapped inside of Mario. Jumping from the blazing inferno, he snatched up an assortment of small pebbles from the ground and started hurling them towards Kenny. Our hero was not as good a slinger as David had been when fighting Goliath, but still on his fourth try he hit his mark. Kenny shrieked in pain, dropping his wand, and clutching his head with both hands.

 

Both Mario and the blackbird on his shoulder rushed at Kenny, and in a matter of a few seconds beat and pecked him to death. Mario picked up the wand from the ground pocketing it for an eventual encounter with the almost dragon he was pursuing.

 

"OMG...they killed Kenny!" the younger dark elf whispered to his companion. (OOC: sorry couldn't resist that given the name of the attacker )

 

"The scourge has finally been cleansed from this land," the elder replied, before walking over to Mario.

 

"I thank you for what you have done. We shall aid you in your quest for whom you seek." From a fold in his clothes the dark elf withdrew a map, and pinpointed a cave three days journey away. "That is where you can find the reptile and his hostage."

[Gyrfalcon]

OOC: Well, with the ending of the carnival, so ends the carnival portion of this exercise. We still hope to complete the story, so feel free to drop in and help!

 

IC:

Mario clutched the elder night elf's hand and shook it vigoriously while the elf did his best to keep his pained expression off his face from Mario's overly powerful grip. "Thank you so much!" he burbled happily before skipping away into the underbrush... heading away from the destination the night elf had pointed out. Sighing, the younger night elf picked up the map and ran after Mario, roughly turning him and pointing him the right direction. "This way. You want to go this way."

 

"Oh! That'sa good too." Mario said and returned to skipping... but at least going the right way this time.

 

The night elf and blackbird exchanged long-suffering glances and followed Mario, intent on keeping the intrepid but bumbling hero from getting himself killed before he could complete his quest.

 

Three days passed - days filled with dangers as mundane as poison ivy, or as dangerous as massive angry venus fly traps that almost made a meal of the night elf before Mario used his wand to engage in constructive deforestation and neatly removing the hostile plantlife from existence.

 

And then... they stood outside the entrance to the almost dragon's cave, the final stage of their journey.