Young Writers Society

"There's a small likelihood we'll make it out alive, here, folks," captain @Nate announced to the crew of the ship, as the fierce stom continued to rage and the waves pounded against the sides of the S.S.Y.W.S. He held on to the helm of the ship, looking out into the rumble of dark waters that was the ocean around them. First mate @Snoink looked to Nate grimly, shaking her head. "Those don't sound like favorable odds."

@Kays held to the mainmast at her place in the crow's nest, and shook her fist at the sky. "This is all because we fled the S.S.Green Room, instead of facing it boldly like we should have!"

Naturally, however, over the loud thundering that was the storm, and her voice not carrying very far because of her heightened position on the ship, no one seemed to reply. That was, until @DemonGoddess crawled up to the crow's nest with a pair of binoculars.

"I've summoned my minions for support," DemonGoddess informed Kays.

"How are they going to get to us in this storm, though?"

"I don't think you realize. I am a goddess."

And with that, Kays only simply nodded. No use arguing with a goddess.

Down below, on the main deck, the rest of the crew struggled to secure the sails and compensate for the angry winds coming upon them.

"MAYBE WE BROUGHT THIS UPON OURSELVES," @soundofmind yelled across the deck to a struggling @saentiel, who almost slipped on the wet deck but managed to grab onto the main mast. Sound slipped and slid over to her, ready to repeat herself, before saentiel replied.

"You think this is Karma?" She asked.

Sound looked confused for a moment. "Karma? I don't know her."

Saentiel looked ready to reply with a joke but suddenly, the local wolf, @wolfical stumbled over to them, knocking both of them down. They heap of wet sailors struggled to get back on their feet as the ship rocked back and forth.

Saentiel helped sound up, and sound helped Wolfie up. Then the ship hit a particularly large wave, and everyone above deck who wasn't already holding on to something fell over.

WHAP! Splash!

"POTATO OVERBOARD!" @Falconrygirl9086 yelled. "POTATO OVERBOARD!"

@Lumi, without hesitation, ran to the edge. "We're coming for you, @sheytato!" Lumi yelled, before tying a rope around his waist, securing it to the mast, and diving in after Shey with the life-saver in hand.

Sae

She ran to where her brother had fallen into the water, but @Lumi was already swimming over to him. She held her breath as they returned through the turbulent waters. By the time that they were close enough to be pulled up, her hands were already on the rope. She watched as more people grabbed onto the rope. @BrumalHunter was quick to grab on, as well @Omnom. With their combined effort, Lumi and @Sheytato were back on board the S.S.Y.W.S. in no time at all.

She wanted to do something that would technically be considered sappy - a hug and yelling about how she could have lost her only, dearly beloved, brother - but she settled with grinning at Shey and saying that she was glad he was alright. She also offered him one of the ship's rare dry towels, even though she doubted it would do much.

@BlueAfrica suddenly ran over to the conglomerate of people. "We have a problem, Captain @Nate!" she hurriedly announced. A hush fell upon all the members of the crew. Blue was a member of the After Watch, a dedicated group of several people who always kept an eye out for the dreaded Green Room. If she said there was a problem, that could only mean one thing...

"@LadyLizzLovelace ate all the lemons @LaVida grew, Captain!"

The crew collectively groaned.

"I was planning on making lemonade!" the still soaking Shey yelled out.

"I was going to too!" @Persistence chimed in.

Complaints and cries of protest filled the ship. Chaos was on the verge of breaking out, but Sae was sure that the captain had some sort of plan from the look on his face. He raised a single hand up. Almost immediately, the ship grew as silent as before.

"Send @freakforchrist to find any lemons that might still be on this ship," he declared.

The crew exchanged nervous glances.

@Rydia cleared her throat. "Um, Captain? Freak's been missing for years. I think someone else should go."

@ChieRynn eagerly said, "I'll go find them with my trusty companion @AkeliaTaske, Captain!"

And with that, peace was - relatively - restored.

LUMI COULDN'T BELIEVE it had been two posts already and @Rydia hadn't toppled Nate for Captainhood. Let's see about that.

Her forces were assembled with salty water guns and jelly cream donuts in slingshots. She called her forces of like five months of storybookers to aim!


"At my mark!"

"Ready when you are, Captain!" shouted Lumi.

"FIRE!"

And utter bedlam was unleashed upon Nate, giving her the mutinous title of Captain Rydia (thank God.)

Unfortunately, with Nate and @Snoink and @Griffinkeeper fleeing the scene on a dinghy, Lumi noticed the clouds gathering, spawning new replicas of the SSYWS in different sizes (but none bigger than yours, Captain.) It was then that he realized that, by involving a summoning spell so strong, he had started shootoff plots in the tagbook, scattering YWSers all over the place and time.

In short: he screwed up.

On his yPhone he quickly dialed @TheSilverFox and @BrumalHunter. They both picked up. "Guys, do you remember how our code word for horrendous situations I can't handle is "pineapple"?"

"Yes"
"Mmhmm."

"Pineapple. FOR GOD'S SAKE PINEAPPLE!"

MJTucker appeared with a slingshot in hand and jelly spread all over her face. "Captain, we seem to have run out of ammo," she reported.

@Lumi clapped her on the back. "Not an issue. The mission has been accomplished."

"Can I keep the slingshot?" MJTucker asked hopefully.

Lumi chuckled. "No. No, you cannot."

MJTucker's face fell. "Pretty please, with a cherry and pineapples on top?"

Lumi paused. "Wellllll..."

"I'll do anything for you!" MJTucker promised.

"Very well, then. Keep it. We might need it."

MJTucker gave a whoop of celebration and took a victory lap around the ship. "I have a slingshot! I have a slingshot! My transformation to Tarzan is nearly complete. Now I just have to find a rope made of Twizzlers to use to swing from tree to tree and whip monkeys with so they move out of the way."

SOMETHING WASN'T RIGHT.

Lupa had been spying on the S.S. Green Room, but she was too cowardly to actually attack it. She'd been trying for days, really, but something would always call her attention away--a faraway ship called S.S. Procrastination, for example.

It was supposed to be another day of staring at the earthen ship, but suddenly a wave of nausea hit her and she was on a ship. Not just any ship, though. It was the S.S. Y.W.S. But if that was the case, then was there nobody here? Shouldn't her good friends @woahhitherepal and @Flumadiddle be here?

It took a while for her to get her bearings. Lupa could now see hundreds of other ships floating in the distance, and various other members of the S.S. Y.W.S. crew standing on the decks. Why was everyone so separated?

From her position, staring at the scene, she could hear a crazed shout. It sounded like "pineapple," but she couldn't have been sure. And it sounded like Lumi, but she wasn't sure about that either. It could have easily been @Lightsong. It was hard to tell.

I need to get this ship to the others, she thought. But... I don't know how to steer.

Then the motivational person living inside her started singing, "I Believe That We Will Win," and it annoyed her to the point that she grabbed the wheel and started turning.

The ship swung wildly to the right, then to the left, then spun around in circles so fast she sat down heavily on the deck. Again, she tried, but to no avail. The only result was her facing the opposite direction of the way she had started.

"@soundofmind? @saentiel? @Iridescence?" she called, but she could only hear the slightest murmur of voices from far off. It was no use. She sunk down onto the ship and sighed.

Feltrix watched the ships materialize around him, perched atop the mast of his own galley. He'd been summoned by @Lumi 's mass call for tagbookers. With a touch of nostalgia, he recalled the last time he'd been part of a tagbook. The results had fractured the fabric of space and time. Feltrix could feel a wolflike grin forming. This should be fun.

With a combination of piratical grace and skill rarely sound outside Pirates of the Caribbean movies, he leapt off the mast and swung to the deck of the ship. He gazed at the other vessels around him. He'd arrived on the ship first, but now there were others. He would just have to declare himself captain.

"Hoist the colors!" he called to whoever would listen. "First Mate @Sparkawan? Hoist them!"

@RavenLord was the first to respond. "@Sparkawan rarely ventures into the storybook realm."

Feltrix sighed. "I know," he admitted. "Still, it would be nice if he appeared. Anyway, weren't you supposed to be hoisting the colors?"

@RavenLord seemed a bit conflicted by this, remembering the Great Desert Bluffs/Night Vale War. "Which colors?"

"Black, or course," Feltrix replied. "We're pirates!"

"About that..." @AkeliaTaske replied. "The last storybook we sailed through was so sunny... all of the black flags are really just grey at this point."

"How can all the flags have faded? This ship just materialized!"

Akelia shrugged, apparently not feeling like explaining the paradoxical and nonsensical fading qualities of flags.

"We do have several other flag options," @BlueAfrica said. "We have white, green, cerulean, beige, mauve, orange, ruby, grey, transparent, holographic..."

"Just... raise the red one," Feltrix muttered. "That's pretty piratical, I guess. Anyway, if you crew members would try to do some recruiting, that would be wonderful. There will be a mass import of crew members for hire."

Feltrix strode up to the prow of his ship, staring out at the frothing waves, the rising storm, and the boats materializing around him. "It's a pirate's life for me."

Ajruby sits calmly in the ship's galley, stuffing her face with sweet potato fries dipped in ranch, much to @Sheytato 's disgust, who is instead eating regular fries like an all-too-normal person.

A few stray donuts roll across the galley floor, but AJ knows well enough not to eat them with ranch, as that just isn't a pleasant combination. So, instead, she chucks them at @whatchamacallit 's unsuspecting back, then swiftly hiding behind a conveniently placed barrel.

Whatchamacallit spots her, however, and so AJ is forced to flee to the deck, nearly running into @MJTucker as she ran her victory dance around the deck.

"Oh, was there a battle?" AJ asked innocently, wiping a smear of ranch off of her face.

She gazes around at the deck, which was plastered in icing and a wide assortment of used ammo.

"Hmm, what a waste..." AJ muttered, then started walking around the deck, chucking bits of food off into the ocean.

It was only then that she was sucked off the ship's deck and suddenly found herself at the mast of a ship, floating out a distance from where she had just been and very conviently named "Lost at Sea".

"Huh, weird..." she said, pausing for a moment.

"Oooh, maybe there's more food below!"

She skipped giddily to where she thought the galley should be, but soon found it devoid of food.

"Drat."

Kyll was not pleased.

At all.

Okay, so launching icing at the administration had been fun and all (especially with the volleys of friendly fire), but with the splitting of the ship, the Knowledge Base was now at risk of flooding, which was simply unacceptable.

@Kays was down and out for the count, exhausted from all the bliging, leaving @Aley to pump the bilge like a tireless machine whose energy source was beyond Kyll comprehension while Kyll ran up on deck to scream at @Lumi:

"You promised me help in exchange for sweet success! THIS ISN'T HELPING!"

A moment later found Kyll belly-flat upon the deck, having had to dodge an enthusiastic @alliyah and her latest (pending) contribution to the hallowed Knowledge Base as they jumped upon the deck from a nearby sloop.

Having long ago given up on maintaining one's dignity, Kyll simply handed alliyah a bucket and booted her down to the main library hold to help Aley with the bailing.

Of course Kira couldn't resist the call of @Lumi, arriving on a Man o' War to rival the size of the universe itself. Which would make @Rydia 's own ship even larger. Hm, now isn't that an interesting rule to exist? A King like himself would need all the help he could get. It was time to call in his King-Brother, despite his lack of knowledge of such a war.

"@Casanova, your White King powers are needed. Join with me or have your powers forever shattered." said he, swiping his hand through the air, cutting the message into space and time itself.

"Ready on the guns! Deploy all Frigates and Battleships! It's time to take back this Realm!" shouted Kira, speeding towards the center of YWS.

Alliyah waves her 50 pages of freshly-inked manuscripts as @Kyllorac swipes by on a now soaking deck.
"Wait, what about my article?" she questions, as her words are drowned out by the crackling of thunder.

Alliyah looks up to the sky and notices it's not thunder that's hitting the deck... it's sacks of potatoes and lemons and pineapples.

"What in the world is going on here?" Alliyah shouts to the sky.

She turns to see on the upper deck @Sheytato and @LaVida arguing passionately about which foods prevent scurvy while @Saentiel tries to break up the fight by handing out some helpful welcoming links. "Have you two heard of the Welcome Mat? Or the land of Storybooks? Stop fighting, we need to assemble the Afterwatch!"

"Has anyone seen @Mea, @DemonGoddess, @BiscuitsLeGuin or @LadyLizzLovelace?"

At the mention of the Afterwatch, Alliyah remembers her fresh manuscript in her hand and dashes off too find Kyllorac or another sailor with the signature "Resource Crew" hat. @Rosendorn rushes by along with @ChildOfNowhere but their hands look a little full, so Alliyah continues on.

As she reaches the floor of the Main Library, the room holding the treasured collection of featured works of past and the rare pieces of Long Ago times she looks down and notices her feet are soaking! "Oh no, All hands on deck! The Library is flooding!" Just then @Kyllorac trades her manuscript for a bucket and points the way to the Library's main entrance where she sees @Aley already hard at working bailing out the water.

"I think we need more help, the water's tinted Green like the water around the Green Room's ship and it's coming in quick!"

Alliyah calls among some of the ranks of the New Members to see if any of them can help, "@Pirate, @wordwing, @raventotherow12, can you help us save the Library before it floods?"

@Griffinkeeper, @Snoink, and @Nate watched from the dinghy.

"I really don't know if we should try to take the ship back or leave them to their own devices," Nate said.

"We could probably take them. But it might be easier to wait until they ask us to come back. How long do you reckon?" Snoink said.

"Not that long," Grif replied. "It looks like they caused a rift in the fabric of fiction. Rydia's good, but that looks like a three-admin job right there. Remember the last time it happened? YWS was down for months."

"We all remember," Nate said gravely. "Still, with all those ships spawning, I'd prefer to be in something a bit tougher than this Dinghy. It's a bit too open air for my taste."

"Oh, this isn't a Dinghy. It just looks like it from the surface," Grif said. He cleared off a life preserver to reveal a hatch that lead beneath the surface.

"Let me guess: it leads to the SPEW Gryphon?" Snoink said.

"Yeah, how did you know," Grif asked.

"It ALWAYS goes back to that stupid ship," Snoink said rolling her eyes.

"You'd rather have a dinghy?"

"Enough," Nate said, opening the hatch and climbing down. The two DM's followed after him. The climb was short and within moments they were cruising underwater in the most advanced spaceship that YWS had ever seen.

@DemonGoddess went belowdecks of the ship, greeted by her dear friend @Saruka. DG had caught sight of a white ship filled with angels heading their way, and it worried her.

"How much do you want to bet that that ship is lead by our enemy?" DG grumbled to Saru as she grabbed a bottle of red fluid from a shelf.

"A lot."

"Like, your soul?"

"Not that much."

DG wrinkled her nose and dipped her finger into the fluid, drawing a pentagram into the floor with the blood, taken fresh from Lucifer's human farm. It disgusted her that Lucifer would have a human farm, but then again, those said humans included monsters like Elizabeth Bathory and that one chancellor guy from World War II, as the humans called it.

"Fetch me those candles, would you?" DG asked Saru. Saru was hesitant to do so.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Saru asked her.

"Of course. I can control my minions easily."

Saru nodded and grabbed them, silently nervous for herself. Being eaten by demons was not an ideal death for her.

Saruka gave DG the candles and DG set them around the pentagram respectively, keeping in mind that the ship could be here any moment.

DG raised her hand, now covered with blood, and began to chant in an unknown language. Sparks and magic swirled around her, and smoke began to leak from belowdecks as the first ugly demon crawled out of the hole.

Saruka was scared for her life. She couldn't leave, not now, in fear of destroying the spell that was summoning demons, but she still wanted to.

After the last demon crawled through for a total of two dozen, DG started to order them in a different tongue to try and deal with the storm and THE DANG ANGEL SHIP FOR LUCIFER'S SAKE!

--

On the deck of the Green Room, of course, stood @LadyLizzLovelace. She was bound to the main mast with @BiscuitsLeGuin on one side and @Gringoamericano on the other. At the same time they both happened to question her with, "what the [sb not appropriate word] are we doing on a [*coughs] pirate ship? Don't we want to be over there somewhere?"
"I assure you this is all part of the plan. Someone had to take some sort of action besides just shooting cannons at a force field and then having the ammunition come right back at them."

One of the pirates turned to them and now Lizz could see their true forms. Some looked like the skeletons of Green Room beasts turned upright but among them walked a few human members. Among them walked a man with a naval uniform on with a monkey tattooed on his wrist. Could this possibly mean that Nate was the sell out during the Western tag book?
As her two companions tried to reach their switchblades in their boots, standard weapons and attire for uYWS staff, Lizz tried to make eye contact with the people tied to the other masts, among them @ScarlettFire, @Holysocks and @Hattable.
Then there came the click clack click of the captain's bootheels. She turned to face him, prepared to insult something, maybe his choice in Review Day team names but instead found the identity of the ghost ship captain to be...

Find out what happened in the next broadcast where Lizz may or may not become a pirate and the resources crew may or may not have changed her car into a boat.

@ThemagicalEbonyFox sat alone on her island, feeling miserable. As usual, all the other ships were filled with experienced sailors and her poor skills made her an outcast among them. She had tried to build a raft, but due to some sort of divine intervention she didn't have the motivation to finish it. Instead, she continued to read the ever growing selection of books she had been left with, struggling to keep up with the complicated manuscripts written by those with much more expertise than she.

DG slammed open the door from below decks and beheld @Nate's ship. She grinned at the crew members of the S.S.Y.W.S., watching their shocked faces as her demons climbed up behind her.

"Help has arrived!" DG called out to the others.

They were impressed. "Where did those even come from?" @Sheytato asked her, still soaking wet and enjoying his... what did humans call those... fries?

"They came from the Underworld!" DemonGoddess called out proudly. "I summoned them, as I am a goddess."

"Well, she wasn't kidding when she said she was getting help," @Kays muttered.

DG grinned at her. "I only have three rules. One, don't get in their way while they're fixing things. Two, don't treat them like they aren't equal. They're going to help us out of here, you got it? And three, duck."

"Duck?" @Flumadiddle asked. E.E. had been summoned to the ship not five minutes ago, and had no idea what was going on.

"Yes, duck."

The crew members somehow decided to trust DG and ducked, all except for @cleverclogs and @Leekeer, who didn't really trust her much. DG and her minions ducked as well as a cannonball from the angelic ship from earlier rushed down towards them, hitting the railing of the deck with a crash and exploding, which sent... goose feathers everywhere?

DemonGoddess stood up and swore, covering her mouth immediately when she saw @Lumi and @Snoink glaring at her. "Whoops, sorry." She grinned almost evilly and started to grab the feathers and throw them over the ship.

---

The ship landed at @ThemagicalEbonyFox's island. Someone hopped off of it, somehow surviving the fall. He walked over to the girl reading, and tapped her shoulder.

"Hello, I am @Ferruccio1234567," he said. "I was banned from the S.S.Y.W.S. some years ago, and I have decided to fight against it. Do you want to join us? Your skills are welcome."