《Unstable World》A World Anew
Advertisement
"I said don't move!" The woman scowled fiercely at Garrett and gave off an incredibly powerful and threatening aura. Garrett's thoughts were racing too rapidly to really begin to understand what was going on before the woman was right in front of him. Garrett gulped nervously as she grabbed his hands. She began to pull and twist his arms and body around until he was posed like how he was when he came out of the cave, sword drawn and ready to fight. "There! Now don't move," the gray-skinned woman said as she made a small rectangle shape with her fingers. "You're gonna mess up my composition."
"Composition?" Garrett asked, but the woman was already walking away. Nervously, Garrett tried to hold the pose as best as he could, but his attention was more focused on the cave behind him. Had the Darge shifted on him? No, that couldn't be. Caves don't just change like that. Maybe he had returned to a different coffin? That could certainly be the case. If that's how it is, then was it too late to save Cerezie, Min-Tul, and Jerten? He desperately wanted to go back and investigate, but the strength the gray-skinned woman had made him too nervous to try and move without her permission.
After what felt like half an hour, Garrett heard the gray-skinned woman exclaim. "Picturesque!" He heard the sound of her approaching and turned his head to look at her. She was carrying a medium-sized canvas under her arm and a smile on her face. She held up the canvas, which was a painting of, what appeared to be, a duck with a tiara playing basketball with sasquatch. The woman smiled proudly. "Well? What do you think? Great, huh? I think I really captured the shine of your armor, huh?"
Garrett couldn't quite bring himself to say how much it didn't resemble him. He just nodded and turned back to the cave. "Yeah, I'm sure it's great hey listen I have to go bye!" He ran into the cave as fast as he could, ignoring whatever the gray-skinned woman was saying behind him.
Advertisement
"Min-Tul! Cerezie! Jerten!" Garrett shouted as he ran down into the cave, past the blank wall where the coffin room was, and deeper into the Darge. He wasn't even concerned about being ambushed by goblins. His focus was trying to find his companions. "Min-Tul! Cerezie! Jerten!" His voice echoed throughout the caverns as his breathing became more panicked and rapid. "Where are you guys?" He kept running down different hallways, trying to recall the path he and Min-Tul took until he ended up at the top of the room where they had met Cerezie. To Garrett's dismay, there was no elf wearing military clothing perched up there. He took a few moments to catch his breath before heading down the side of the wall to continue on. As he got down to the floor, he noticed something odd again.
The gallows-like structure that had held Jerten before was intact, chains included. It looked like it hadn't even been used. In fact, as he surveyed the room, it didn't look like anything had even happened in here. There weren't any bullet holes or impact craters.
'...Did the goblins fix up this place?... How long has it been?... Am I too late?'
Garrett shook his head to clear his thoughts and continued running. It was more important to try and find his companions before anything else. As he approached the area that split into four, he immediately turned and went down the path with the minecart. He gripped his sword and prepared himself to face that room again, even with the slim hope that he'd find the bodies of Min-Tul, Cerezie, and-
"Jerten?" Garrett skidded to a halt as he came across a large blue ogre. The ogre turned around to Garrett and nervously held a crossbow. Looking at the equipment and journals that were on the ogre's pack, Garrett could see that this was Jerten, but something was off. "Hey hey, Jerten, it's me, Garrett. I'm so glad you're alive." The ogre gave Garrett and confused look, but still kept his crossbow trained on Garrett. "Oh, right, you don't speak Illiman, and I don't have Cerezie here to translate for me." Garrett set down his sword carefully so not to startle the ogre. "Garrett," Garrett said, gesturing to himself. He then gestured to the ogre.
Advertisement
"Jerten," the ogre replied, still shakily holding the crossbow at Garrett.
Garrrett let out a small silent cheer. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you," Garrett said, miming his words as best as he could. The ogre just gave him a confused look.
As Garrett mimed his actions, he noticed something else strange. The room around them wasn't the room with the large Murder Crystal. Instead, it appeared to be a medium-sized room with minecart tracks on the ground. A sole minecart rested on the tracks, ready to be pushed along to its destination.
"What is going on?" Garrett said, looking around the room.
Suddenly, footsteps began approaching behind them from the direction that Garrett had come from. Jerten aimed his crossbow down the hallway and Garrett grabbed his sword, ready to face whatever might come out. Slowly, a gray-skinned woman wearing an apron emerged from the darkness. Jerten let out a whimper and fired his crossbow. In a flash, the gray-skinned woman grabbed the crossbow bolt out of midair just inches from her face.
"Hey! Watch where you're shooting that thing! You might take out someone's eyes. I kinda need those," the gray-skinned woman said, tossing the bolt to the side. Jerten immediately hopped into the minecart and cowered inside. She began to approach, but Garrett stood between her and Jerten, pointing his sword at the woman. She smiled widely and began to finger frame the scene. "Ah, picturesque!" She pulled out a small notepad from her apron and began to sketch in it. "A bold knight protects a cowardly ogre. Ah, just lovely."
"Who are you?" Garrett asked, keeping his eyes trained on her.
The woman let out an exaggerated gasp and posed dramatically, like a soap opera character receiving devastating news. "I can't believe you haven't heard of me. Frankly, I'm appalled, I'm shocked, I'm riddled with grief!" She let out a small chuckle. "But, you've captured my eye for the arts, so I shall answer you. I am Vanessa Fletcher, the greatest artist the world has yet to know!" She struck another dramatic pose as if she had just come onto the red carpet.
"Vanessa Fletcher?" Garrett said, slowly lowering his sword. "You're an artist?"
"Correct!" She gave Garrett a thumbs-up. "And when I saw you, I just knew that you would be the perfect painting subject for me to launch my career."
"Wait, you aren't here to kidnap Jerten, here? You just wanted to paint me?" Garrett asked, looking over to make sure that Jerten was still alright.
"Correct!" She kneeled down on one knee and looked up to Garrett. She smiled widely and earnestly at Garrett. "Allow me to be your artist to capture your future endeavors in paintings the world will one day know!"
Advertisement
Thousand Tales: Learning To Fly
Wings, Immortality, and a War of Trolls When aging pilot Andre nearly dies in an airplane accident, he decides it's time to upload. He has his brain removed and scanned into Thousand Tales, a game where ordinary players compete with the AIs and former humans who live inside it. He takes full advantage of his new digital life, becoming a high-flying pegasus and learning the magic of the sky. He's just in time for a strange little war. The digital world seems overly cute at first, but there's more going on than people leveling up. Spells and transformation are easy in this world, but building a society isn't. Can Andre fight in a way that will get his virtual land taken seriously, and equip his new friends to make a difference in the world of humans? This story is also available as a book at https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B071V9B4JX ! A complete version of this story is going to be posted here, but the Amazon edition is much longer. Want more free content instead? Try https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B01NCAER2M , a short story collection in the same world, or the preview of "Crafter's Heart" here on RR, or the version of "Crafter's Passion".
8 185Gold Inc.
You as a billionaire successor never wanted to experience the end of the world. However as you are thrust into it. You calmly deal with no matter what comes. Your power to improve whatever you want comes in handy too. Additional Tags: Wish fulfilment; Power fantasy
8 308Project Book
I'm Lost on creating a Project, which till now has no grapping advertising strategy, or anything noteworthy to tell, as I was not able to simplifiy it. So here goes my atteempst to explain my Project. This Story includes: Graphic Horror Excruciating detail about the Project Why you should never Post something before thinking and How to do stuff better or simply how to write a Book explained in 5 chapters.
8 397Welcome to the System
For most the system came out of nowhere, creatures out of fairytale invaded the world killing and enslaving all they could find but the government knew... and was prepared.As the monsters came the army reacted, turning cities into war zones and survivors into assets they hope to keep a semblance of justice into this new world.Aaron Ross is a menber of Ragnarok, one of the many gifted man and woman trained from birth to become loyal heroes, to lead the US when the system came, unfortunately he is not the savior they want, instead he could be the killer they need.Warning: This is the first fiction I am posting and english is not my native language so expect mistakes, mature tag is mostly for cursing and gore, sex may be included latter
8 448More than Friends (Dipcifica)
Its a dipcifica story.
8 83Peace keeper of music( Trolls world tour fanfiction)
Natalie and Nathan, the only humans living in the trolls world. Been found by king peppy when they were 4 years old and took them as his own children. Join this twins as they help poppy and her friends to stop Queen barb from collecting six strings and destroy music forever. They migh found love on their journey.
8 161