View Full Version : Day's End (Part 2)
On the boat to Scara Brae
As Jaleco gazed at the sparkling water, he felt lonely. He started to realize that he had no one. His eyes started to glisten with the setting sun. His tears fell, raining upon surface below him.
Jaleco felt foolish, knowing that his tears wouldn't change a thing. He walked away for the edge of the deck. He changed the topic on his mind to the boat. It was a fairly big ship. The captain was a simple man, in love with only the sea. Jaleco wondered if he would ever be able to live a life that settle. The thought was swept away almost instantly. He was not the kind to have a calm life, he needs adventure.
For now he continued to just stare out at the sea.
As Jaleco sat there, sulking, the boat shifted slightly from a disturbance in the water. From the depths of the water rose a giant creature. Water rained down across the deck of the boat, making the surface slick and slippery. Jaleco tried to maintain balance when a tentacle rose up along with the creature, lashing about. "What the hell is that?" Jaleco said in terror.
"Tis' just a giant squid, quite a common encounter out here, we'll take care of it," The ship's captain said calmly. Several sailors ran to the harpoons armed alongside the ship. Jaleco just gazed in awe at the giant creature. He had never seen such a beast before, let alone seen someone try to take it down.
"The thing is huge, how are a few harpoons going to kill it?" Jaleco anxiously asked the captain.
"We're not tryin' to kill it, jus' scare it away," The captain replied in the same calm tone. Jaleco trusted that the man knew how to do his job and stepped aside.
The harpoons were fired at the captains command and flew, swirling through the air, towards the creature. All guns hit their mark, sinking deep into the squids body. It thrashed about in rage, Jaleco was nervous that it would strike, but instead it fled. Sighs of relief were contagious around the passengers of the ship. The captain withdrew to his quarters as if nothing had happened at all.
Jaleco felt foolish once again, he wondered why he let fear get the best of him. "I have to learn to be calm in extreme situations," He said to himself over and over instead of thinking how to actually do just that.
The end of the day was coming once again as Jaleco slowly paced about the ship. Weariness came without hesitation, pulling at Jaleco without mercy. He walked towards his room. When he got there he just flopped down on the bed. He let the softness of the bed absorb him, begging for him to rest. His reply was a snore.
Dreams and nightmares swirled about in his mind while he slept, but he came to unwillingly settle upon one. He sitting on the edge of a matress, gazing down at a beautiful woman. She had black hair spread out around her head. Her eyes were swelling with tears as she returned Jaleco's gaze.
Unable to control his actions, Jaleco became lost in her blue eyes. They stood out brilliantly against the rest of her. The tears did not fit, they shouldn't of been hers. She wasn't supposed to be in that bed. It was all some twisted person's fantasy.
Jaleco instantly rose. His face was heavy with sweat and tears. The bed's comfort was no longer inviting, but the opposite. Jaleco didn't want to sleep again, he didn't want to experience his past again. His cries of agony echoed through the halls as he dashed out of his room. He arrived on the deck and stared down. It was now the water that beckoned him. He closed his eyes and prepared to jump, but before he could a hand came to rest upon his shoulder. He span to face the captain.
"I don't know what you've been through or are goin' through, but you can't end your life. You seem to be a decent and respectable young man, and if you're gone, you can't pay me for this ride. A guy like you wouldn' be so cheap to do that, now would he. Also, think of the reputation you'll be destroyin'. No one will want to ride on a ship that would depress them to the point of suicide," The captain said in a sarcastic, yet comforting manner.
"Thank you..." That was all Jaleco could get out. He left the captain and returned to his sleep. No nightmares or dreams awaited him.
When day arrived, Jaleco was fully rested. He took an apple out of his pack and ate. The juice ran down his mouth as his teeth sank into the apple. It tasted like it had fallen from heaven.
Jaleco looked about the room, thankful for a new day. When he dug through his pack in search of his scroll, his hand came to rest upon a peice of paper. The paper had not previously been there. Immediately he fished it out and unfolded it.
Young man, how have you come into possesion of this scroll? You do not know what this contains, do you? Forget the questions, if you want this scroll back then come talk to me. I'm in room 137. Hurry!
Jaleco was speechless. He viciously searched his pack, the scroll was gone. He looked around the room, all he found was an empty sheath. The bastard took his sword too. He burst out of his room and proceeded to run through the halls. 120, 121, 122... 135. That's where it ended. "What the hell?" He looked about in confusion. He rushed to the captain's quarters. Maybe the captain would know something about this.
Jaleco got there quickly, then lifted his hand to knock on the door. Before any sounds were made, he noticed that the number on the door read '137'. Forgetting his manners, he threw the door open. The captain was sittting in a rocking chair, waiting for him. "Where the hell is it?" Jaleco yelled at the captain.
"Right here in my hand," The captain replied in his ever so calm tone. He lifted the scroll in display. "Do you know what this is?" He inquired.
"No I can't even read it," Jaleco replied, now intrigued to see what the captain knew of it.
"The language is foreign to me as well, but the decorations tell that it was made through some kinda' magic," The captain replied mysteriously.
"So does it hold some kind of power or something?" Jaleco asked.
"Yes, all I can do is warn you to be careful of it," The captain said as he handed back the scroll and sword.
"Oh, thanks.." Jaleco answered without enthusiasm.
He slumped back to his room, upset for the lack of information. At least he knows a bit more. He fell on the bed and just thought.
After a while of thought, Jaleco opened the scroll for one last look at it. The characters were all drawn in a mettalic blue ink. He looked at the last portion of the scroll, it was a signature. One that he had seen before as well. Kyra used this signature on many of her letters and notes.
Jaleco pulled paper and pencil from his pack. He wrote a translation for the characters on it. Each character stood for a letter, in this case Kyra's name. After he finished the translations for those four letters, he began to search through the scroll for those same characters, marking them on his paper as he went. When the task was finished he glanced over the paper. It was still illegible, but it was a start on figuring out what it all meant.
He rolled the scroll up and placed in gently in his pack. He had to pry himself away from the bed and his thoughts. He walked towards the deck and looked around. An island stood in the distance. Beside it sat the sun, radiating the last of the day's warmth to him. He asked the captain, who was conveniently standing on the dock as well, how long it would be before they arrived.
"Just about an hour or so," The captain answered.
"Oh, one more thing. We've gone this whole time without knowing eachothers names. I'm Jaleco, might I ask your's?" Jaleco inquired.
" Name's Ferrin, it was a pleasure havin' ya' on board," Ferring replied heartily.
First off, since this thread is neither 10 posts long nor contains 10,000 words, it is ineligible for an official judgment. It’s just something you ought to keep in mind for the future. However, while I won’t write the usual rubric for it, I will give you several advices, comments and some EXP/GP for the effort.
There are several issues I would like to point out. The most important one is your storyline. You need to work on it, because right now it looks like it has neither a head nor a tail. You start a story on a boat, but mention neither why Jaleco is on a boat nor where the boat is heading. And keep in mind that I did read the fist part, and the first part ends up with you riding off on a horse. You end your thread with the boat coming upon an island and Jaleco introducing himself to the captain, but give no clue why are you concluding right then and there. This left me wondering where the rest of the story is. Always try to have a good idea where the quest is going, and even if you don’t and the entire story is played by ear, you still need to have both a solid beginning and end.
Also, you should run your posts through a spellchecker or at least re-read them, because there were a lot of typos, some of them very visible like two words without a space between them (“eachothers” for example). Also, keep in mind that “captains” is a plural form of the word “captain”, just like “squids” is of the word “squid”. So you can’t say that someone fired “at the captains” command (unless there are more then one captain), but rather “at the captain’s”.
That’s about it. If you work on fixing these simple mistakes, you’ll be climbing up the ranks in no time.
SPOILS:
Jaleco gets 100 EXP and 25 GP
EXP/GP added!
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.