Young Writers Society

Hi, this is the awkward first post with the rules and everything!

You can join the story by inserting yourself into the story. If you don't know how to do this, PM me and I'll help you out!

There are no character profiles here. Anything that is absolutely imperative to know about the character, you should include in your first story post and anything that is notable about your character, you should explain in your subsequent posts. So basically, I want you to develop your characters. So, if it's absolutely imperative to know that the person has brown eyes, brown hair, is 23 years old, has a small tattoo over her eye and a big tattoo on her butt, combine that in your introductory post. If it comes out as a crappy info dump, then you probably wrote too much.

You are free to make Mary Sue and Gary Stu characters, but please expect that these characters will not remain perfect for long. They won't. Trust me on this.

On a similar note, reclusive, psychopath loners who wear long black cloaks and laugh manically at the moon without actually interacting with any of the other characters would probably feel quite out of place in this storybook, so you should probably stick with emo poetry with the usual black roses and bleeding souls.

All levels of writing are accepted here!

There are an unlimited amount of characters and you can join whenever (though you are expected to know what has happened in the storybook). However, as there are no predefined slots, you will have to create your character completely. If you need any help on this, contact me.

If you want to join, you'll probably want to read what has happened first. However, if you have to go away for a while and the come back are overwhelmed by all the posts, then just contact me or one of the other writers and we'll be happy to fill you in.

Keep it in first person, please, and don't forget to put the name of your character in bold above your post.

I'll make the first post and then feel free to jump in!

Erin

“He’s staring at me.”

“No he’s not. You’re imagining things.”

But, the thing is, the llama was staring at me. More particularly, he was glaring at me, as if he couldn’t believe that I was idiotic to even consider going on an expedition to the Cordillera del Amamdad for a treasure that, I thought, was greater than gold.

Tomato plants.

More particularly, tomato plants that had genetically adapted to cold temperature in the high mountains. All I needed to do was genetically compare the nucleic acid sequences between the tomatoes to be able to construct a tomato that was could be grown in the cold winter months. But, that meant I had to go to South America first.

But that meant I had to have this smelly guy.

I looked at his nametag. It was “Harry.” My llama was named “Harry Llama.” I didn’t know what to even say to that.

“So, I just go out and find the plant and leave?”

The guide rolled his eyes. “Sure. That’s a quick way to die.”

“Um.”

“You need me.” He thrust a business card in my face. It said:

Grif Andersen
Mercenary Extraordinaire
Black belt master karate master
Kick ass specialist

I stared at him. “And I’m going to need you to pick a couple of tomato plants?”

He smiled, a gleam coming from his teeth. “You know it.”

Grif

"You don't look like a mercenary," she said.

"You can't judge a book by it's cover. Did I mention that I am fluent in the natives language? Or how many different varieties of insects, predators, and snakes are between us and the tomato plants? Speaking of which, I know exactly where they are."

"If you're such an expert, then why didn't you just go and pick up the tomatoes yourself?"

"I didn't know how valuable they were until I saw a report on them in Germany."

"What were you doing in Germany?"

"A job."

"Can you elaborate on that?"

"No."

Erin

I was about to tell the kick ass specialist to go away, when Mr. Llama decided he wanted to go eat grass... in the opposite direction of where I wanted it to go. I took its lead and jerked it away. "No, Harry, we have to go this way." I'm pretty sure I sounded insane. He simply put up his head and spat on me.

"I think he likes you," Grif said cheerfully.

"I think I'll pass on Harry," I started saying.

"How are going to carry all your equipment?"

"Um... you mean the plastic baggie I have in my pocket?"

"No, I mean the rocket launchers." I stared at him and he shook his head sadly. "You really don't know this country, do you?"

"The natives live in fairly primitive conditions. All they've got is a TV, a VCR, and a copy of every "Rambo" film ever made. If you don't go in armed to the teeth; they'll assume you're a spineless weenie and kill you. Because that's what Rambo would do."

"That's ridiculous."

"No, what's ridiculous is you trying to walk through that terrain with a stubborn llama and nothing but a plastic baggie to defend yourself. For one hundred bucks per day, I can guarantee that you'll get the Papaya,"

"-Tomato," she corrected.

"Right, we'll get the Tomato for you."

"Who's we?"

"My associate."

AdelineHm. Associate, Hm? Let's give things wacky twist here.

At the word associate, my oh-so sensitive ears pricked forward. I was Grif's 'associate'.

My giant wings flapped twice before I was at his side. I'm what humans call a Dog Dragon- I'm completely devoted to my master. Me and my kin help farmers and ranchers. We have a strange bond. And even though I was twice his size, I'm obedient to my Grif.

"Ah. Hello, Ade!" He said. I peered at the mystery lady curiously. She seemed shocked by my cool, obsidian color and my pure charm. "We're going to go get this lady a pineapple!" He said.

"Tomato!" She replied.

Grif sighed. "We're getting her a Tomato."

The need for a Llama? I asked him telepathically. Since I couldn't speak and all, god gave me this gift instead.

Just play along. He replied.

*Erin*

All right. I got it. This was a just a really, really stupid dream. I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

...no, dragon was still there.

Yep, definitely a dream. Of course I would be dreaming about collecting tomatoes. Not, you know, flying or defeating Godzilla or anything awesome like that. No, it would be about tomatoes. How typical.

"So, I've decided that I am not actually going to get the tomato," I said, sitting down. "I'll just wait to I wake up."

Puff (that was what I was I was going to call the dragon from now on) and Mr. Kick Ass looked at each other and then looked back at me. "Well, let's go!" Grif said. "Come on, Harry." The llama gave me a disgruntled look.

Are you coming or not? a voice in my head demanded.

I nearly peed in my pants.

Jess

"Getting me an apple, an apple, an apple! Getting me an apple to keep the doc away!"

Singing her made-up tune, Jess was practically skipping as she searched for a delicious apple. Or five. It was a good day in her mind, though any sunny day seemed to cheer her up.

As casually as she could (in other words, failing miserably in appearing casual at all), she patted her pockets for the seventeenth time. (She was counting!) No change were in her pockets though, which means no buying apples. She really was on her own in finding a juicy piece of fruit.

There was a faint growl. This certainly got Jess' heart pumping in no time, but she kept walking. Faster, actually. That growl did not make her feel too safe.

The ground seemed to vibrate beneath her feet this time, and the growl seemed to grow louder. So naturally, she walked faster -- to the point where she decided she looked like an idiot and broke into a run. Though part of her was conscious of being eaten alive, the other part still tried to look cool. Like she was handling this perfectly well. So she continued to sing, rather breathlessly.

"Getting me -- an apple, an -- apple, an apple... Getting me an -- apple to keep... that... thing... away..."

She stopped immediately at the sight of the dragon towering over a couple others, including a... llama. Oh, boy. She was going to die of a heart attack right then and there. Jess wasn't really thinking about her next move. Not like she ever does, but though the dragon hadn't yet caught sight of her, Jess tiptoed backwards to hide behind the nearest tree or shrub or whatever the closest obstacle was. She patted her pockets again, this time searching for her phone. This was so not good.

She must've left it back with her quarters. This was definitely not turning out to be as good of a day as she had hoped.

[b]Fergus[/b]

The group below was an odd one, not many people I've come across in my 15 years of life talked with llamas about finding tomatoes. Aside from that one wack farmer in the Himalayas.

Cautiously I leapt out of the sky and landed on the ledge above them. A Dog Dragon, A llama, A mercenary I recognized from Teen Hunter Magazine and some clearly creeped out girl. They were babbling about apples now, maybe I had stumbled upon the Weirdo Fruit Convention.

I took the oppurtunity to jump in, and reveal my glorious tawny 18 ft wings to the group.

"Hey, I'm Fergus and I hear you guys need a tomato?"

Grif

"Hey, I'm Fergus and I hear you guys need a tomato?" the gryphon said, revealing its wings.

"I thought it was an avocado," Adeline said.

"An avocado? Who likes avocados?" I asked incredulously.

"Shut up! I love avocados!" Adeline countered.

"How about apples? I love apples!" Jess said.

"There's a grocery store right over there!" Fergus said.

"Those are heirloom tomatoes. I checked. She's after the Gylum-Tokani Tomatos," I said. There was silence.

"Hey, I heard there is this magical portal to another world inside the 7-11, we could go there and steal a bunch of gold from dwarves," Adeline said cheerfully.

"Yeah, it would be easier than trying to steal a tomato from the Gylum-Tokani tribe," Fergus said.

"We're agreed then, we'll go steal gold from the dwarves in the world hidden inside the 7-11, then use it to by the Gylum-Tokani tomatos. What do you think Erin?"

Erin screamed.

I''m sorry, I should've been more clear but Ferg's is just your normal teen with wings. Not a griffin, sorry.

Alva

I hissed and reared back as the loud human screamed.

"Do you have to be so loud!" I yelled back. ''You're hurting my ears.'' The human stopped screaming.

"Wait...you can talk?" The human stared at me. I swished my tail and stepped a little closer.

''It's called magic human. It's common in these areas. The taller human laughed.

"The cat's right about that."

''I'm sorry, '' the shorter one said to me, ''I thought you were a mountain lion!''

The Dog Dragon snorted. ''That's not a mountain lion.'' she rumbled. ''That's a Pontrificus Animiliae or in other words, a Felicat."

''Yup, we're the one of the wisest species around these parts.'' I said and stepped closer to the group. ''Where are you all going?"

Cam>> Fergus's a gryphon now! Be sure to be more specific next time... you don't have the benefit of a profile. You can create another character, if you really want to do a winged human profile.

*Erin*

"We're going to a 7-11 and stealing the dwarves' gold!" Jess said, a little bit too happily. "And I'm getting an apple! Apple, apple, lovely apple. Crunch right into it tasty apple!" Her words dissolved into song and she started doing a tap dance routine, which might have been more entertaining were we not in the middle of the forest.

The llama glanced at the felicat, whatever that is, distrustfully and spat on it. The felicat roared. "What did you do that for?"

And, in my hallucination (because that's what all this had to be since this sort of stuff could never, ever happen in real life, ever), I could swear that the llama looked amused.

"Well, we would if Erin would hire us on," Grif said, eying me accusingly. Oh sure, like I was the bad guy.

"All I want is a tomato," I said, sighing. "A rare species of tomato that can be found in the mountaintops of Cordillera del Amamdad, and only there. If you'll escort me there, I'll hire you on." Not that it would matter, because obviously they were delusions. I suppose my margarita was a bit too strong last night. Either that, or it was laced with LSD. I wondered what the Spanish word was for that.

The Spanish word for "that" is "eso," a creepy voice came in my head.

I gave up the LSD idea... no, I was completely crazy.

Jessa looked overwhelmingly confused. "But what about apples?"

"What about them?"

But Grif didn't seem to mind at all. "To the dwarves' gold!" he said, waving around a pirate's sword that he had obviously bought at a Dollar Store. It was made completely out of plastic.

I sighed. "I give up."

Alva

I want to see how this will turn out, I thought.

''Interesting story.'' I said, leaping onto the cheerful, human's shoulder. ''I'm joining you.'' The grumpy human-Erin, I think the taller one called her-groaned.

''Not another one.'' she said and looked imploringly at the heavens.

''More the merrier!'' the sword-was that plastic?-waving human yelled.

''Yay!'' the cheerful, human said. ''We're gonna get apples!" And we set off.

Hey, I''m going on vacation so would you mind freezing my charrie? Feel free to use him still.