Gender: Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 2488 Status: User Location: I drive real fast, I'm gonna last.
Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 6:26 pm Post subject: A pirate story in progress.
Mmyep, workin' on a story. 'Bout pirates. It'll be about novel length by the time it's done, and I need an outlet for my ego to be shattered. So, I'm gonna post chapters as I finish 'em, and you guys can tell me how much they suck, and what about them sucks. Or you can just ignore this thread entirely and let it fall into the recesses of page 2. Whichever.
And yes, this is about the characters that I posted drawings of in the art thread a couple of weeks back.
Desert Pirates
(Working title, and a really bad one at that)
Chapter 1: The Sad Life of Mr. Deserts
Mr. Deserts sighed as he stared at the sea through the dusty, tiny window of his dusty, tiny store. He was an elderly fellow with but a few wisps of hair remaining on his liver spot-infested head. The stench of mildew emitted from his old sports jacket, and it must have been quite some time ago that someone considered his pants to be neatly pressed or his shoes brightly polished. His old and wrinkled form was hunched over with scoliosis. A withered and bony hand rose to push the spectacles that rested on the man’s crooked nose closer to his eyes, so that he may better see the ocean which harbored, alongside of ships and barges, a great number of his memories
A countless number of days ago, Mr. Deserts had been a young man, and had served in Our Nation’s Noble Navy, for that was the name it was known by then, before all of the nonsensical political squabblings in the current days that have now renamed it Our Sovereign’s Loyal Navy.
Mr. Deserts slowly shuffled his elderly body towards the door of his store, where a basket of apples lay. He grabbed one and chewed on it sadly as he looked about at all of the antiques about him. Antiques always sold for a high price; what product could man produce today that even approached the almost divine abilities of ancient machines from the past? People couldn’t simply build such devices as calculators, televisions, or refrigerators; they had to find them. And which was easier? To hunt unceasingly in the ocean for such relics, or simply enter an antique store such as this and purchase them? His gaze shifted from the antiques hung about the walls, to the scattered and dusty medals of honor that hung on vacant spaces of the walls.
It was here, in Portsmouth, where he had met his beautiful wife. With her he had brought a number of children into the world, the last of which born as his mother died. It was this son in which a great deal of Mr. Deserts’ hope had been placed. That boy will go places, he had thought. That boy will have a magnificently wondrous life.
When the boy was 18, he enlisted in the Navy, where he lived a relatively uneventful life. Finally, about four years ago, he had been put in his first major conflict with pirates; he was the first one to die in the battle.
The boy’s siblings didn’t fair much better. Two sisters were murdered, a brother died cirrhosis of the liver, and the triplets didn’t survive a severe fever that had come upon them when they were still but babies.
Mr. Deserts now turned his sad eyes upon a table littered with photographs of his family. Mother; dead. Father; dead. Sister; dead. Uncle and aunt; both dead. Nephew; dead. And then, a number of group shots, one of which depicting the entirety of the relatives he had known throughout his life, all of which now dead. It wouldn’t be a great deal longer before he joined them. As he returned to the space behind the counter, he once more let out a pathetic sigh.
Perhaps it’s time I began to make my last days worth living, he thought, but again heaved a sigh. For you see, even Mr. Deserts admitted at this point that his life, by and large, was depressing and uneventful. A story written about it wouldn’t be worth reading, let alone worth writing. It is for this reason that no such story exists; you may be thinking that this is such a story, considering this overview of the man’s life, not to mention his titular name. You would be mistaken, however, and in fact Mr. Deserts plays an almost completely negligible part in this tale. The true man whose exploits are here chronicled is the man who next entered the store.
Chapter 2: The Escape of Captain Jonathan Brickley
“So, why do they shape boats like this?” Ana asked, as she stretched lazily on the velvet couch. She honestly couldn’t care any less about why they shaped boats one way or another. She was simply bored and thought that perhaps discussion with her host would be a way to remedy her boredom. The man turned away from his antique-sensing instruments with a bit of shock; it was the first thing Ana had said since they had gone out to sea. For a moment, the man was unresponsive as he caught sight of her large, beautiful green eyes, slightly obstructed by a few stray curls of her light brown hair. Her scarlet dress was draped over her legs and the couch on which she lied. Her face held an expression of pure, unprecedented apathy. For a moment or two, the beeping of the metal detector was the only sound between them. The man gulped quietly.
“Well, uh... I’m not too sure, really. No one does, I think. This is the way old records say ships were made, and that’s reason enough I suppose.” He paused for a moment. “There seems to be something wrong with the old records, though. The methods of propulsion explained in them don’t work for sailing at all. We don’t know a great deal about science, but over the course of time we’ve managed to figure out how to combine certain antiques in such a way as to make ships like this work. I’m sure the ancient people had some reason to build ships like they did, though; after all, why should shipbuilding be the one thing they lacked prowess in? It’s just that we’ve yet to learn their reasons. According to some accounts, it was so that ships could float on water. Water! Don’t you find that interesting, Ms. Belle?” Ms. Ana Belle did not find that interesting, and let her company know it by opening her mouth wide and letting out a loud, long yawn.
“I’d like to go back to shore now.”
“Oh, uh, sure. Okay,” the man replied, feeling somewhat defeated.
*
Mr. Deserts sat at the stool behind his counter, laying his head in his hand in a bored fashion. He perked up when the bell above his door sounded, and in rushed a peculiarly dressed man, moving to and fro quickly. It was immediately clear that the man was in quite a hurry.
“Yeesh,” the man said to Mr. Deserts as he picked up the basket of apples. “For an antique store, this place is pretty mom ‘n pop. But then, I like places like this...” The man said nothing else, and simply kept moving back and forth like a bee, collecting anything he found to be of interest. He moved about so much that Mr. Deserts never managed to get a particularly good look at him. The body underneath the blue cloak was quite tall, at any rate, and very wiry. The man finally approached the counter after a few moments to pay for the two armfuls of goods he held, everything from food to guns, but even then Mr. Deserts failed to get a good look at him; before the got the opportunity, the bell jangled quite a bit, drawing his attention back to the door. Within an instant, it was blocked from his vision by about twenty men, dressed in black uniforms, a large silver badge pinned to their left breast. Black helmets covered their heads, as did a semi-opaque orange visor their eyes. By far however, the most notable, and coincidentally most frightening, aspect of these men was the fact that each of them held a gun pointed at Mr. Deserts’ customer, who had turned to face them. The man’s face was white and frozen in fear in an almost comical fashion as he gazed wide-eyed at the weapons pointed at his chest.
“Jonathan K. Brickley,” one of the officers said. “You are under arrest for larceny, murder, and treason against both Our Loving Sovereign and Our Noble Congress, amongst a plethora of other crimes considered piracy by the just laws that govern Our Nation.” As soon as the officer finished, the man called Brickley performed a graceful and swift back flip over the counter, items still in arms, and landed on Mr. Deserts’ shoulders, wrapping his legs around the stunned old man’s neck. Brickley immediately refocused his attention on the police.
“You wouldn’t shoot me if you might hit the old man, would you?” he asked, his voice cracking in alarm in the process; if he was truly a pirate as the police officer had claimed, he was surely the meekest one to sail the seas. The officers responded to his humorous plea by pulling the trigger on their weapons. With a loud yelp, Brickley kicked off against the old man’s shoulder, knocking him to the ground in a dazed stupor as the fugitive burst through the window into the street, though not without receiving a number of minor bullet wounds. A second later, a wad of money flew in from the window, and scattered about Mr. Deserts’ prostrate form.
“Sorry for the trouble!” Brickley yelled as he dashed off. The squad of police flooded back out of the door and followed behind closely.
“Grr.... I’m running the wrong way!” Brickley growled to himself as he flew from his pursuers. Suddenly, something hard slammed into his face; it was the ground. Cursing himself for tripping,, he turned round, expecting to be staring down the barrel of a gun. Instead, however, all he saw was two dead officers, each with a bullet in the chest. The others stepped back fearfully. Brickley paid them no heed for the time being, and instead looked up at the roof of a nearby building with a smile, as the far off figure that had saved his life waved to him.
*
Congressman Avourus Belle sulkily brushed some of his curled white hair out of his face.
“Bloody sea air,” he muttered to himself in the proper British accent customary of important figures such as himself. “Such frustrating winds, and there’s more sand than oxygen, I’d wager...”
“Sir, did you say something?” asked one of his uniformed bodyguards.
“Eh? No, no.” He said with a grumble as he pulled a pocket watch out from bottle-green vest. As he lowered the timepiece from his line of vision, the sight to replace it instantly cheered up the politician. It was his daughter, heading towards him from the nearby pier at a quick pace, the man who had taken her out to sea for the afternoon following behind, a shy and somewhat ashamed look on his face. Avourus’ pudgy cheeks stretched back to make room for a smile as his daughter approached him.
“And how was your time on the sea, dear? You’re back quite early.”
“Oh Father, it was terribly boring. I was nearly falling asleep there on the boat!” The man was about to say something in his defense, but simply heaved a sigh when he was cut off by Congressman Belle’s chuckle.
“A friend of mine in town had told me that Swontz here was quite a wealthy fisherman, but it’s apparent that that does not insure his being an entertaining host!” Swontz looked between the two of them sadly as they shared a laugh at his expense. He attempted to put a word in, and once more was cut off by the Congressman.
“Well, if it’s any consolation for such a horrible day, I bought you a gift while you were away.”
“Oh Father, you truly shouldn’t have! What is it?” Rather than answer, her father remained silent. After a second, Ana’s ears perked up to the sound of a metallic clicking, and then saw the gift emerge from behind her father. It was a mirror, it’s surface absolutely spotless, the frame surrounding the glass of truly masterful design. It was held up by a set of metal bolts, which were connected to three mechanical legs, resembling that of a spider. Ana looked at her own beaming face in the glass.
“Oh Father, it’s simply wonderful!” As she continued to praise the gift, one of the security guards jumped slightly at a crackling in his ear.
“Squadron Nine to Congress Defense! A terribly dangerous pirate has been spotted within the vicinity. Evacuate the Congressman’s party immedia- AH!” and with that scream, the line went dead. The guard placed a hand on the Congressman’s shoulder, instantly drawing the man’s attention away from his daughter. He glared at the guard somewhat angrily.
“Sir, we need to get out of here. A dangerous pirate has just been spotted in the area,
and-”
“Bah! Nuts to pirates, I say! Now leave me be! It’s a rare opportunity that I have time to spend with my daughter, and I don’t intend to squander it looking over my shoulder for some dimwitted swashbuckler!”
“But sir, I seriously think we should-”
“Enough!” Avourus snapped, and with that turned back to his daughter.
*
As his sabre pierced an officer’s chest, Brickley buried his head in the collar of his cloak and spoke into the tiny microphone concealed therein.
“So, how’d you make out?” he asked the person on the receiving side. The responding voice was strong and deep.
“Nicely. I’ve got at least as much as you, and I didn’t run into any police trouble. You seem to be the only one of us that ever draws attention.” Jonathan smirked, then winced as deafening gunshots rang from the speaker, two more officers dropping dead.
“I’ll bet it’s the hat,” he responded to his compatriot on the roof as he slashed through another foe. With that one, only a single officer remained. He was crouched down amidst a pile of his comrade’s bodies, yelling something into a radio fearfully. ZIP! CHINK! A yelp from the man as a jagged, golden hook on a line caught him squarely in the Adam’s apple. Another zipping sound pierced the air as the line retracted, and the man was dragged backwards with terrible force. The line disappeared completely into a metal dome, the same color as the hook, that capped the arm of the man’s murderer. The man was older, with bushy white eyebrows in conflict with the square bill of his white cap for space on his forehead. A scruffy grey beard and mustache hung from his face. A navy-blue trench coat, tattered at the bottom, held within it his still quite-muscular form, further clothed by a black shirt and beige pants. He looked down at his victim with a bit of disdain.
“Ew, caught that’n in a nasty place, didn’ I?” he asked Brickley as he shook the cadaver off of his hook. Jonathan smiled.
“I was wondering when you’d show up, Sieg. Are you stocked up?” Sieg grinned as he turned round, gesturing to the large metal basket on his back, which was chuck full.
“Right then, let’s get out of here,” Brickley said as he sheathed his sword on his back, gathering up his own supplies. “Hein’s probably getting impatient by now. Hey, Hawk!” he shouted as he turned to the rooftop once more. However, the form of his comrade was no longer there. He turned round quickly to see Hawk standing before him.
“Came down by the fire escape while you two were talking,” he explained. Brickley nodded with a grin and a small chuckle.
“Well then, let’s get out of here!” he said to his companions, and the three of them dashed off, in the direction opposite the way Brickley had came. Sirens alerted them to dive into an alley as twelve police cars rounded the corner. The three exited the alley on the other side of the cars and kept onward towards their destination, fourty-something officers chasing them, guns blazing.
*
“Well then, Mr. Swontz, thank you for your services. You can be on your way now.” Swontz reached an arm out to the Congressman, who turned to leave after saying this.
“But... I...” once again, the poor man was completely ignored by the rest of the party as Avourus turned to speak to his daughter, who was still quite enthralled with her gift. The guard interrupted his banter, rather angrily.
“Sir, it is my responsibility to keep you and Ms. Belle safe. If you do not cooperate and come with me this once-”
“Are you still on it about this pirate fellow!?” Congressman Belle demanded. “I’ve told you before, I’ve not intention to yield for the ruffian! And what’s more, I don’t quite care for the tone in your voice. Have you forgotten that I am your boss, and not the other way around? Hm? Well, go on! Speak!”
“GAH!” was the only response that Mr. Belle managed to get from the guard, however, as he was suddenly clutching his knee in pain. The other guard, as well as Swontz and the Belles turned immediately to see the source of the shot. There were three men running towards them, one with a hook for a hand, one with a black patch over his eye, and another, leading both of them, who was apparently not malformed. It was he who now shouted out to them.
“Get out of the way if you don’t want to be shot!” he demanded of them. Then, too quiet for them to hear, “Although...” he made a gesture to the hook-handed man, who extended his hook-tipped arm towards the party. With a soft bang, the hook shot out at them, attached to the man’s arm by a cable. With remarkable precision,the hook caught the loop of a large bow on the back of Ana’s dress, and the immediately retracted, dragging the captive towards the three men (“Much prettier than las’ time,” Sieg had thought). The three suddenly stopped, and so did the now-visible throng of police, now that they saw that their fugitives had a hostage. Brickley unsheathed his sabre and pressed the blade to Ana’s neck, immediately silencing the previously screaming captive.
“All right then,” Brickley said in an oddly cheerful fashion to the people surrounding him and his men. “Anybody says a word, one word, they get shot square in the head by my friend Hawk here.” He gestured to the man with one eye with his free hand. “If anyone takes a step closer,” he continued, “I slit this pretty little thing’s throat.”
“Hey, you can’t just make Ms. Belle a human shield like-” Swontz’s sentence, his terribly bad day, and indeed his entire life came to an end with a bang and a piece of hot lead imbedding itself in his skull. The crowd gasped, first at the corpse, then at Hawk, who blew the smoke away from the barrel of his pistol.
“Oh, come on now,” Brickley said. “I warned him in advance. It’s not my fault that he can’t follow simple directions. You there,” he said as he pointed out the Congressman, who gulped as the finger turned to him. “You heard me, right? You heard me say that we’d kill anyone who spoke, didn’t you?” Avourus silently nodded. “See then? It’s the idiot’s fault, not mine. Now,” he said, his tone becoming more smug. “I’ve had a lot of fun here, I really have. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such hospitality in my travels than that which I’ve received here in Portsmouth. However, even we pirates have schedules we must adhere to, and I’m afraid that we just simply haven’t any time left to stay and murder the lot of you. Perhaps next time... Hein!” Though unknown to the crowd, the final word was directed not at them, but at Brickley’s microphone.
The ground suddenly began to rumble. The sea, directly behind Jonathan and his companions, shook the worst. And then suddenly, in a massive explosion of sand, a face appeared before them; and not one of them was uncertain that, had the circumstances been different, the face would have made all of them burst into laughter. Two large eyes peered at the crowd from over top of a large, stupidly smiling mouth, from which dangled a large tongue. A large boywer stabbed out from the forehead of this ridiculous 18-foot wide visage, and a sail jutted out of the back of its skull; for this foolish sight was in fact the figurehead of a large ship.
Sand poured out of the previously submerged ship through countless well-placed shafts as an unseen hand tossed a set of rope ladders over the ship’s side. Still as smug as ever, Jonathan Brickley and company slowly stepped backwards into the ever-growing cloud of sand, Ms. Belle in tow. Once each of them were situated on a ladder, the ship began moving in reverse.
“So long, friends!” Brickley shouted towards the crowd. “My heart will writhe in my chest until we’ve met again!” With that, the ship began to turn, and crew and captive climbed to the deck, by their will or otherwise.
By this point, the vessel had turned a full 180 degrees, and had begun to venture out to sea.
However, the escape was not to be as simple as all of that. Already the police officers were barking into their radios.
“Border Defense, this is Unit 14. A ship manned by pirates, including Jonathan K. Brickley, is currently attempting to leave the harbor. Onboard is the daughter of Congressman Avourus Belle. Your orders are to capsize the ship, with as little harm to those onboard as possible.” Men gazing with boredom out of the tiny windows, each filled with loaded cannon, suddenly jumped to life, and peered into the scopes of their weapons with a dogged focus. They held their collective breaths as the suspense tightened; one could hear a pin drop, if I may be so cliché.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
They waited, waited, waited, waited, until their target came into sight. The second the enemy ship came into entered the view of the scopes, a score of cannonballs were shot, putting Brickley’s vessel under heavy fire. And yet, the ship, despite the fact that it appeared incredibly ramshackle, was far faster than predicted, and each fire missed. Those with their scope aimed near the stern could see the form of Brickley himself, standing with legs apart and hands at his hips, grinning smugly.
“Save your ammunition, friends!” he shouted to the city that became ever more distant. “Never has a cannonball struck the Proud Nomad!” As if in answer to his challenge, a cannonball came rocketing towards the ship, and in fact directly at him. As this fact donned on him, his face became one of that frenzied, comical panic that the late police officers had seen previously. At the last possible second (as this is the manner in which events like this tend to play themselves out), Brickley contorted his body, with a seemingly inhuman flexibility, in such a way that the projectile just missed him.
“HEY!” he called out to the guard tower from whence the cannonball had came. He opened his mouth wide to further chastise the shooter; However, he was cut short when his ears pricked up to a terrible ripping sound. He turned, and let out a shout of frustration to see that the ship’s main sail had in it a large, round hole. He leaped off his platform at the rear and turned his head upward, to the miniscule person manning the wheel.
“How bad’s the damage, Hein?” he asked the tiny man, who was covered from head to toe in an assortment of strange gadgetry. Hein spoke without turning, focusing instead on his steering.
“The sail’s not giving us any power, Captain. Our energy reserves as well as the other sails should keep us moving for now, though.”
“Good then, you can fix it tonight. It looks repairable enough.”
“Says you, Captain. You’re not the one who has to climb up there and fix it.” Brickley chuckled as he continued onwards.
“No, I suppose you’re right.” He forgot about Hein as his attention was directed to Sieg, who had their hostage in his arms.
“And how is the lovely lady, Sieg?”
“She’s passed out on us, Cap’n. After all, ‘twas quite a bit of excitement fer the lass.”
“All right then, go on and tie her to the mast until we decide what to do with her. I’m heading below deck to see what Bourshkin can do for some of these wounds I got.”
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 2845 Status: User Location: Not there.
Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 6:47 pm Post subject:
I'll read it either when pirates are cooler than ninjas or when I got home.
NINJAS PWNZORZ. _________________
.daerps em pleh ot erutangis ruoy otni em ypoC .suriv erutangis a ma I
Gender: Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 6077 Status: Moderator
Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 6:56 pm Post subject:
pirates ARE cooler than ninjas. _________________ Come into my den let me hear you cluck
You can be my hen and we can f(Bu-GAWK)
A bite to the leg, it's time to play
Baby, let me be your egg that needs to get laid.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Chicken of Lust"
Gender: Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 3691 Status: User
Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 11:22 pm Post subject:
No he was joking, and doing it to point out that he did it before and it cause a huge flame war for no apparent reason. He probably even actually read it.
It's a joke, either way. I remember it from Rules. _________________
OK, I'm about halfway done reading it and my first comment is this: after that last story you posted, didn't I make you promise that you wouldn't post another without running a spell-check?
Naah, there aren't many errors. Only a few. But you might want to run a spell-check, all the same.
Also, the line that really bothered me so far is when you talk about the storekeeper receiving a 'number of minor bullet wounds'. That doesn't fit right. I mean, unless the men were carrying BB guns, I'm not seeing how they could shoot this man a number of times while only inflicting minor wounds. Or where they could shoot him, while I'm thinking about it. I mean, I guess if you consider having a hand blown off to be minor, then it works, but otherwise, no.
Maybe I wasn't in a good mood by that point after scoffing at how lame Jonathan's excuse was for the men not to shoot him. I mean, would they really care if they shot the old man? I think not. But then again, you kind of showed that when they didn't make a huge effort not to shoot him.
It also seemed as if the character's motives are forced a bit. I mean, if Jonathan knew that the men were chasing him, why did he stop to buy antiques? You had better have a reason for that one later.
And you mentioned hunting for electronic relics. After they've been out that long, they shouldn't work. This is more of a minor thing, though, and doesn't need to be fixed. You can twist anything you want there, especially since it's, you know, your story.
I'm noticing, as I said before, numerous editing errors. Like run-on sentences and changing tense. But those can be fixed later.
Um, yeah, again, I only read the first half. I'll comment on the second half when I have it read.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
