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For Want of Magic



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Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:50 am
Octave says...



In the land of Elnera, everyone can learn magic - everyone. Well, except for brownie Xerin. Nothing he does seems to come out right - trying to conjure red roses? He'll turn the nearby forest purple instead. Everybody needs magic to survive in Elnera, though, which puts our little brownie in much trouble.

_________________

Xerin stared at the cookie left on the human's table. They're always so wasteful, these humans. And big.

Why, Xerin wasn't even a quarter as tall as their table.

His stomach grumbled, and the little brownie stole a look around the kitchen. If he could do magic, this would be easy - just snap, and the cookie would be in his hand. The sweet, delicious, warm cookie would be -

He was getting ahead of himself again. Sighing, he decided against even trying to cast a spell on his breakfast and wobbled over to the table's leg. He circled it round and round, peered closely at it, searching this and that way for the side with the most holes for him to use as ledges. Finally, he decided on a side and began his journey. Up, up, and up, never mind the splinters he risked. If he didn't get that cookie, he'd be starved to death by tonight, he was sure of it.

From the top of the table, he could see everything clearly: the sink, on which pots lined with savory soup were left for washing; the small window humans used to peer into the next room; and even the cupboard full of preserved fruit seemed in reach now. So this was how humans saw the world. It didn't seem too absurdly huge, from where he stood. No wonder they built everything so huge.

But first, the cookie.

The little brownie waddled over to the cookie, all the time grumbling to himself. If he had magic, he wouldn't be in this stupid mess. He'd already be outside, where the humans wouldn't bother looking anymore. But nooo, he couldn't possibly try to cast magic, or else he might lose his breakfast.

The cookie, even larger than the brownie, fell to the floor with a soft thunk, splattering the floor around it with delicious crumbs. Almost immediately, a mouse poked its nose out of a whole and sniffed the air.

Gah! That mouse was going to take the cookie Xerin worked so hard for - no way he was going to let that happen. But the mouse - it was already coming out of its hole, and Xerin couldn't possibly climb down fast enough (or run, for that matter) to reach the cookie before the mouse did.

There was only one thing left to do. The brownie closed his eyes, cast a spell on the mouse, and wished for the best. Hopefully he would render it unconscious and not cause too much noise, or the humans might arrive to check on him, and he'd have no breakfast. Again.
"The moral of this story, is that if I cause a stranger to choke to death for my amusement, what do you think I’ll do to you if you don’t tell me who ordered you to kill Colosimo?“

-Boardwalk Empire

Love, get out of my way.


Dulcinea: 2,500/50,000





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Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:59 am
Griffinkeeper says...



Spoiler! :
A note on Traditional Storybooks.

Unlike Storybook RPG's, where individual authors have full control over individual characters; this is more of a community project. You can have multiple characters, but the characters will have multiple writers. No one character belongs to anyone.

There is another aspect worth noting: there is no "set" plot line. As a result, there is no way you can ruin the story, because the story itself is flexible. In fact, the main character here doesn't necessarily need to remain the main character; nor does the plot have to be the same throughout. Indeed, some authors play with other authors by putting the MC into a challenging bind, just to see how the other authors would get the MC out.

One moment, the hero may be about to kill a dragon. The next, he may slip on a banana peel and die; only to be reincarnated as a bad cup of coffee; which a wizard spits onto a pile of magic powder, unknowingly causing the character to resume his present shape, albeit with a strange aversion to coffee.

There is no way to break the story.

Have fun!
Moderator Emeritus (frozen in carbonite.)





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Wed Oct 26, 2011 10:27 am
Lumi says...



Xerin waggled his hands back and forth, little pink sparks fizzing left and right and up and down, before a loud BOOP sang out through the kitchen. The little brownie's hair flew back in the breeze he created, and he opened his eyes, hoping to see the mouse fluttering away with butterfly wings, or even a good old-fashioned capture bubble that his daddy had showed him.

But no, of course.

Nothing magical ever worked out for Xerin. He stared at the mouse, who stared at the sink, which was uttering rhythmic clinking and clanking sounds, a very steady tempo that made Xerin want to dance along. But when he found himself tapping his foot to the rhythm, his eyes grew wide and he turned to the sink, giving it a demanding "SHHHH!"

But sinks aren't very good at listening, and the pots and pans began to clatter and clink out of the sink, dancing to and fro. Xerin covered his mouth to hide his shock, but the dancing kitchenware were floating and dancing!

"No, no, no!" He whispered, wondering what in the world he could do to keep the humans from noticing him. But loud footsteps came from the hallway and the brownie knew what he had to do, instantly.

He grabbed from the table a white handkerchief, one that had yellow stains on it from the soup in the sink, and held it by two corners above his head as he closed his eyes and jumped from the side of the table!
I am a forest fire and an ocean, and I will burn you just as much
as I will drown everything you have inside.
-Shinji Moon


I am the property of Rydia, please return me to her ship.





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Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:59 pm
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Rydia says...



Thunderous voices, so loud that Xerin couldn't make out the words, came crashing through from the next room as the humans made their approach. And Xerin's feet touched down on the floor, a long and dangerous metre away from the cookie.

The little brownie looked across at the mouse and the mouse looked back at Xerin. It twitched its nose and seemed to smirk before scampering toward the cookie. Xerin was in a dilemna. He was smarter than the mouse so he knew that the humans were on their way and he knew that the humans were clever and quick and ever so big. But. He was hungry and he'd worked so hard for that cookie! So forgetting that he was smarter than the mouse, he ran toward the cookie as well.

That was how he ended up getting caught. Really, he blamed the mouse entirely who seemed to be far luckier than him, since he'd managed to fill his mouth with cookie and dart back into his hole before the human had even appeared. But not Xerin, oh no. The poor little brownie had only just picked up a crumb when he felt the air around billow about and stumbled to the floor as a glass jar was wrong ended on top of him.

This was officially the worst day of his life. He had not only been seen by a human, but captured as well. Did he dare try his magic again? Could it really make the situation any worse?
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~Previously KittyKatSparklesExplosion15~

The light shines brightest in the darkest places.








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