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[Willfor]

-stuff-

Do tell, please. I saw that quote, and began spreading it around as something awesome, but I've never seen the attribution. I'd like to know who said it.

[Nivim]

 Well, he made it clear he learned the sign from someone else. Perhaps Niel. Here's a link on it.

[Grakelin]

3,824 words so far.

[Solifuge]

Tempted to join in, but I have so many irons in the fire already, plus school to worry about. I do have a neat little Soft SF idea I played with a few months back; something in the vein of Twilight Zone:

Spoiler: It was based on a neat dream I had (click to show/hide)

I awoke in a huge, hotel-like facility I had never seen before. Everything looked rather high-tech, but familiar enough, almost like a Holiday Inn, or a really nice, futuristic dorm building. I was being kept there with a bunch of other people, under the constant watch of a series of guards and technicians. The facility was extremely high-tech, and designed to keep people entertained and happy, with pool tables, cafes, indoor atriums, and all sorts of things, like a gigantic indoor resort. While hanging out with some of the other residents of the facility, I noticed the guy who lived next door to my room looked exactly like one of the technicians working at the facility. I asked him if they were twins, and he explained that they were essentially the same people: that he was the technician's "Prime".

Everyone held at the facility, including me, were apparently Primes, brought from the Earth we know to this place, on an Alternate Universe Earth, and had Alternate Universe selves living here too. Every time anyone makes a choice, or a situation has a different outcome, new universes split off from that point. Other Universes in turn branch off from those too, but if you traced them back far enough, you'd reach the Root of all universes in which humans survived and evolved, rather than dying out. This was called the Prime Universe, and is the one that our Earth exists in.

The reason we Primes were brought to the facility was because every branched-off universe is still tied to the universe it originated from. If a person from a root universe dies, all the versions of them that live in universes branching out from that root also cease to exist. Since we were from the Prime Universe, at the root of every human universe, every version of us that ever existed in any universe would cease to exist if we were to die.

The facility was designed for wealthy and powerful people from this Alternate Universe, to abduct "Primes" from our universe, and to keep them safe... since as soon as the Prime died, so would they. They only wanted to keep the Primes happy, safe, and healthy, and many of them (like most of my neighbors) thought it was a great thing to be able to live in the facility, without having to worry about work and so on. Not everyone there felt that way, including myself... and after he finished explaining this, one of the people living in my residence block (who was based after my roommate), started arguing with a guard about letting him leave the facility. It got really heated, and he eventually tried to punch the guard, but was knocked down, cuffed, and taken away. After that, my block was told via loudspeaker announcement that it was impossible to return us to our original Universe once we were taken here, and though the guards would never kill a Prime, they would punnish any who caused trouble or attempted escape with temporary solitary confinement, under constant watch. Everyone went back to recreation after that, and I went over with the rest of my neighbors and played pool, trying to forget about it.

Later in the evening, while we were watching a theater performance, a guard from my residence block named Hannah (oddly based on the sales agent who set up my AT&T service IRL), brough accusations that me and my blockmates were dissidents, and had us cuffed and brought with her from the auditorium for processing. Once we got to a quiet area of the facility, away from other guards, she told us that the technicians at the facility had lied, and that we could actually be returned to our own universe the same way we were brought here. She was a part of a rebel humanitarian group, who had been infiltrating different positions of the facility to free us Primes, and return us to our home Universe. After getting a call on a personal communicator that looked like a Bluetooth, she told us a patrol was comming. We hurried into a side room, and Hannah told us to hide, and wait for a technician named Duncan, who would bring us to the Warp Room, before she quickly slipped out of the room.

It looked like a small lecture hall, and there were very few places to hide... we crammed people into a storage closet, and I hid behind a row of bench seats, with a view of the door. Before long, the door opened, but instead of a technician, three patrolling guards stepped in, throwing Hannah in before them.

They were wearing futuristic-looking white and blue armored suits, and holding devices resembling tasers. The black-haired woman leading the patrol told us to come out, and gave a monologue about how selfish we were being, since they were only trying to keep us happy and healthy, so that we wouldn't take stupid risks and get all our alternate selves killed along with us. Hannah said something about kidnapping people and holding them hostage, and defying the nature of the universe, but another of the guards kicked her in the stomach.

We knew they wouldn't kill any of us, and that the worst they could do was imprison us for attempting to escape, so me and the other Primes started grabbing whatever objects were at hand, and got ready to fight. I grabbed a metal chair and hurled it at them, but as it got close, the little taser-looking weapon blasted the chair with energy, deflecting it in mid-flight. The woman leading the patrol shook her head, and said that, though they wouldn't dare kill any of us Primes, that this didn't mean they would let the rebellion stand. She then turned to Hannah, and fired the energy weapon at her, killing her instantly.

She then gave us a grin, and said that she was feeling generous, and that if we agreed to go quietly, they'd spare us solitary confinement, and just return us to our residence block as though nothing had happened. Figuring it was the best option, I went along with it, and we were led back. Soon after that, I woke up to my alarm clock.

I'll weight my options tomorrow, though I'd have lots of words to catch up on if I were to start, and that would probably keep me from being able to run the Deserted Island Game I've been putting together to run here.

Decisions, decisions.

[Fishbreath]

I'd read it. It's a wonderful asset, having dreams coherent enough to turn into stories. It usually takes a lot of polishing for me to even get a workable idea out of a dream, much less that much detail.

For those of you striving for victory, will we get to see excerpts and such here?

[Talanic]

Okay, first 700 or so words of Guardian, just thrown out as an experiment. 

Spoiler: Guardian (click to show/hide)

I've waited about five hundred years for someone to show up and kill me.  Sure, it's happened before – millions of times, from world to world – but the fear is always the same. 

What if I'm wrong?  What if my past lives are just some kind of delusion, sent by the fell spirits to make sure I don't confront them myself? 

I don't have an answer to these questions.  In the end all I have is faith.  Faith...and adventurers beating down the door.  Would-be champions, the lot of them, with one in a thousand actually worthy.  A startling majority of them haven't even visited the other Aspects; how could they possibly hope for success?

This time it's three adventurers, and it looks like their chances are better than most.  That's...that's a good thing.  I've been watching them from above, hidden by a screen that they think is the ceiling, as they fight their way through my lair.  Most of their battles are against sendings – phantoms of my own construction, sent to test the champion's prowess in combat.  After all, it just wouldn't do for the Champion to not know how to fight, right?  I'm the last Guardian.  After my death, the Champion fights for the world; he'd better not need to train, because there's not a lot of time left for him to do so.

I can hear the spawn now.  They're scraping at the wards around my lair...the wards keep them out, but when the Champion kills me, they will have free reign.  They believe this is the one.

I do too, now.  Although, I'm not sure which of the three is the Champion, yet.  I can sense the presence of the other Aspects now; all eight of them are here.  My brothers are dead.

Good, and bad.  The Champion has collected their essences, absorbed their powers and been judged worthy; if he beats me, we'll be ready to face the fell spirits soon.  But if the adventurers below lose, it'll be an uphill battle to re-establish the other Aspects in time for another Champion to make a go at it.

I hear a yelled obscenity from below as the adventurers reach the room right outside my lair and view the last puzzle I've set for them.  The Champion has to be smart, too, you know. 

Which one of them is it?  Is the short one the Champion?  He's the one giving directions; I may not have ears but I can pick them up pretty clearly.  Is Fox whispering to him on the inside?  Is Gryphon blustering on in his head? 

Or is it the big guy?  He's quite the impressive specimen; I'd actually mistaken him for my brother Bear when I first saw him – fitting enough if Bear's Aspect is in him.  He's pushing the blocks around like nobody's business.

Or is it the woman?  She's nimble enough to be Mouse.  For some reason, I'm unsurprised to see her use a bow – nor am I surprised that she didn't need a second shot to knock a key down from a thirty foot ledge.  That could be Hawk's help.  If she's the one, I'd better watch those arrows – Serpent will be sure to poison them.

I won't know for sure until I see one of them actually assume an Aspect.  The other two will be immaterial; a regular mortal can barely scratch my scales.

It doesn't matter.  The last room won't hold them for long – really, it's only there to slow them down while I get into position, crawling across the real ceiling and dropping into a large nest, curling up and wrapping my wings around myself.

Why a nest?  I don't know.  I fly – I guess that makes me sufficiently birdlike that they expect a nest, even though that would imply eggs, and I'm the only one of my kind.  Physically, at least.

The door creaks open, but nobody enters. 

[Vector]

I'm considering it.  4532 words so far.

[Grakelin]

5891 words done.

[Nivim]

[...]

  So many paragraphs for so few words on purpose? It doesn't look like it needs it for any reason.

[mendonca]

5891 words done.

Cool. You'll have it done for the weekend ...

[Talanic]

[...]

  So many paragraphs for so few words on purpose? It doesn't look like it needs it for any reason.

I suppose it's deliberate.  My style tends to be pretty sparse on description, resulting in fewer words per paragraph, and I change paragraph whenever there's any break in what I'm saying.  Makes it easier to follow with the eye, and when I started doing it, I got a number of compliments - that was about seven years back, and you're the first to comment on it since then.

[Euld]

Sitting at 4,699 words, need to be at 6800 by the end of today.  Then I'll be leaving for a four day trip :X  I really really don't want to fall behind...

[Vector]

Writing an outline.  Oh god, it's 14 pages long and I'm only a third of the way through.

[fqllve]

Writing an outline.  Oh god, it's 14 pages long and I'm only a third of the way through.

Jeeesus. Does that include snippets about characters and settings or is it only a scene breakdown?

[Vector]

Jeeesus. Does that include snippets about characters and settings or is it only a scene breakdown?

Yeah, it has a lot of notes on the characters' internal reactions, whether or not is was raining, and so on.  There's even a description of someone's shirt cuff in there.  Dialogue.  It's a very fleshed-out skeleton of everything that happens, so that the direction and motivation of each scene are completely clear.