Outcast Fanfic Choose an Adventure story!!

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The weather was good as they left, nice and sunny, and therefore keeping everything warm, but over the course of the day, the weather changed into a gloomy grey overcast, making Koise's fingers feel a bit numb at the tips. His feet were getting cold too, and would be getting dirty because of the dirt path and the leaf litter and such, were it not for the fact that he was wearing Scythe's shoes. Renons, along with Bob and Booger's species, often have to clean their feet after long walks because of all the residue that winds up in the fur on the soles of their feet. You could argue why Renon's don't wear shoes to stop this from happening, like Scythe does, but the fact of the matter is that Renon feet are often too large for shoes without looking like clowns (or Sora from Kingdom Hearts). Scythe's just happened to be small enough.

As they traveled along for a further half hour, the path started to slowly make it's way up the wrinkle-like formations of the lower mountain-side, and the clouds would get darker. The path also got more moist, which irritated everyone, especially Kipo, who was a bit nit-picky about how clean she should be. She didn't mind the dirt, but and dirt particles, sticks, twigs and leaf bits would be pulled out, and she often had to catch up to the others as she fell behind for a bit.

More time passed, and no-one had said a word in terms of conversation. The low cloud covered the top halves of the mountains in a misty veil, giving an almost eerie sense among the group, and also acted as a roof, making them feel very high up even though they hadn't gotten very high up the mountain. Koise actually wondered how Bob got to the passage, what with being so small.

And then of course, some snow flakes started to fall from the clouds. Koise half took no notice of this, and half got a bit cautious about it. He was right to do so, as they started falling more and more frequently. Soon the air was thick with them, and Kipo gave up on her grooming. Koise felt even more cold, and went into his bag for a little item he picked up at the store one day. They were Retha Beans.
"Here, he said, handing them out to everyone, "take these." They were small, a bit crunchy, but had a juicy center. As Koise took a bite, the juice flowed down his throat. Then his body started to feel cozily warm, and he felt like he could make the journey once more.
"Wow." Scythe said (which she didn't say often), "These are neat... erm, I guess."
"What are they?" Marilyn asked.
"Retha Beans." Bob replied. "They have a juice which cures numbness and makes you feel more comfortable and such. Grown way back, one of the first Magically Engineered foods."
"How long do they last for?"
"And hour, give or take. Hope Koise has a fair few of them for the trip."
"Don't worry, I do." Indeed, he had a healthy supply of stock for the entire group.


No question today, but you may discuss various aspects of the story so far (favourite bits, areas of my writing that need working on, etc)

“This stuff is pretty good!” Marilyn said, “It tastes like Vanilla and Caramel!” Which indeed it did.
“Heheh, thanks.” Bob said, “I made them myself, they’re quite popular.”
“Huh?” Marilyn said, confused.
“Well, I wanted to try my hand at making a contribution to the magical realm of things, so I decided to try a simple, and yet complex, method, which was magical plants, fruits and beans. Because I had this vast library of information, it wasn’t too hard to start experimenting. The hard part was waiting for your results. It’s more boring than watching paint dry.”
“Not unless the plant you’re growing is a Killer Pohutakawa Tree.”
“Heheh, that’s true.” Koise chuckled, knowing that Killer Pohutakawas strangle any living organism that gets near it, and bugs are frequent visitors.
“So, how does it work?” Marilyn said.
“Well, you charm the plant.”
“But that doesn’t work.” Marilyn said. “I remember trying that back in Primary school during a magic class, and I kept the plant I charmed, but the offspring didn’t have the qualities of the charmed plant, they went back to normal.”
“Ah, yes, I knew that. It’s actually a problem that has been faced in the magical realm for eons. Ironically it wasn’t the Retha Plant itself which got me into stardom. It was what I discovered working on it.”
“And what was that?”
“Well, to carry magical properties to a new generation of plants, you don’t charm the entire plant itself.”
“What do you do, then?”
“You charm the genes.”
“Ooooooh!” Marilyn said, in a ‘I finally get it!’ kind of way.
“Good, eh? That’s why charming the fruit or seeds of a plant is the best way to do this. Anyway, all I had to do was use a Numb Reversal spell, combined with two flavouring spells, on the beans, and 1 2 3, you got Retha beans!”
“Heheh, I should try that sometime!” Koise said. “Oh wait, don’t tell me! It takes years of practice, skill, concentration and dedication, doesn’t it?”
“You can learn it in a day, can’t you?” Booger said.
“Yeah, yeah you can.” Bob said. Marilyn chuckled at this.

The snow picked up in it’s density in the air, and it didn’t help that the wind was beginning to pick up. Even with Bob’s Retha beans, the group felt cold and chilly. Koise, leading the group, couldn’t see very far ahead of them due to the whipping and whistling snow. Koise then looked up and saw a flare of light far above him.
“Hey Bob!” Koise yelled, over the noise of the wind, “Do you know what that light is?!”
“We’re there!” Bob yelled, “I saw the same flare when I found the door!”
“Where’s it coming from?!” Marilyn asked
“From the top of the mountain!”
“What?!” Scythe said, “We’ve reached the top already?!”
“It’s a pretty short peak!” Bob yelled, “If you look around you can see the other mountains that get higher than this one!!”
Koise looked off the path they were on, and could see the shadows of mountains reaching higher than the one of the mountain they were currently on. He could also, for a fleeting moment, see the bottom of the valley, and they were much higher than he had first thought. He hadn’t really noticed because of the pitch the path was at.
“So how do we get to the door?!” Koise asked

How DO they get to the door?
A) It’s in a cave further down the path
B) Up the cliff towards the light
C) Below them, DOWN the cliff

A. Kipo may as well be dead.

C.
I don't agree with the statement about Kipo, by the way.

Could you elaborate? For one thing, I don't even know what Kipo statement.

I don't agree. Just because she doesn't play a large part or speak very often does not mean she isn't there.

B.

Those with speaking parts move the story, do things, Kipo is hidden knowledge, what they turn to when everything they know does not work.

Yay, good point! I can see her often figuring out things like catapult trajectory and stuff!

Last edited by KBABZ on 29 May 2007, 5:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

A.

Those are good points. But right now, and for the last several posts, all she has been doing is taking up space. And that's bad. Being hidden knowledge is one thing, but she seems to hardly be there. Which I guess is okay. It's not my story. I'm sorry I said anything. I just would like to see her a bit more involved with, or at least noticed by the group.

Just reparing that problem, WWW. Read on for the next installment!

“Well,” Bob yelled, “It’s in a door on a ledge, just above us!”
“So I guess we break out the climbing equipment, then?!”
“Suppose so!” Bob said, and Koise unslung his backpack and took out Marilyn’s climbing gear. He also took out his Swingwhip, which he himself would use to help out. The wrist-strap it had meant that Koise had no need for using any climbing stuffs like foot spikes or picks.
“I’ll go first.” Koise said, putting on the Swingwhip. “Any idea where I should aim!?”
“A little bit below the light should do!”
“How do you know that!?”
“I saw a cliff up the top there last time!” Bob said.
“Okay!” Koise said, and he steadied himself to aim up the cliff to the side. The light shone through the snow and the haze, and the aiming laser on the Swingwhip made a beam pointing through the blizzard. Koise fired and the three yellow coils spiraled into the distance around the laser beam. They then tightened and Koise knew he could pull himself up.
“How will we know when you get to the top?!” Marilyn asked
“I’ll shoot the Swingwhip back down to you!” Koise replied
“Okay!”
“Ready Scythe?!” Koise said as he slung on his backpack and hooked the guide rope onto Scythe’s belt.
“Meh, I guess so.” Scythe replied, as unoptimistic as ever.
Koise pulled the trigger and the Swingwhip started pulling him up the cliff. The cliff wasn’t flat at all, it was very rugged and jagged in the rock formation. Koise held his Staff, with the Fire gem on the tip, in his right hand as the Swingwhip pulled him up, like retracting a vacuum cleaner cord. He walked his way up, but sometimes he had to push himself away as a big outcrop showed up.

Scythe, for once, was actually enjoying this. She liked anything to do with the extreme, and would go well with a rock solo as the background music. In fact she started to use her body again, as most of the time she let Koise do it, as she realized that she would rather not be moving her body at all. But up here, with the roar of the wind and the snow, hundreds of meters above sea level, she felt at home. She let Koise have controls of pulling them/her up with her hand, as she walked up the cliff herself. She found walking up the cliffside fun and enjoyable, which she hadn’t felt in quite a while, or at least like this. She actually flipped herself backwards, and stopped when she was upside down as she felt very free and liberated. Of course, doing this hurt like hell on her wrists due to the wrist strap on the Swingwhip, but it’s not like she wasn’t used to that sort of thing.

Finally they reached the top, and Scythe pulled herself up. Koise pulled out a small device from his backpack; the Grapoon, and replaced the default rope with the guide one he had just pulled up. Then he aimed downwards and shot it into the ground, providing a very secure place for it to be, well, secured. Finally, Koise shot the Swingwhip aiming beam down to signal that they had reached the top, and waited.

Down on the bottom, Marilyn saw the beam shakily waver about, and she grabbed some picks and spike-boots and set them into the icy cliff-side as she hooked herself onto the guide rope. She hadn’t gotten all that she had wanted, what with being on a low budget and at such short notice, but it was enough to get it going.

As Scythe/Koise was/were pulling themselves up, Marilyn had a discussion with Booger and Bob and they settled that one of them should ride with Marilyn up the cliff, as they were of no stature for climbing at all. After a game of Rock Paper Scissors, Bob would be the one who would ride Marilyn up. Booger held on tightly on Marilyn as she pulled her way up with the ice picks and spike-boots. Booger several times almost slipped off her, but Marilyn managed to keep him on. Upon reaching the top, Koise shot the Swingshot beam back down again to signal the final climb.

They waited.

But nothing happened.

Koise shot the aiming laser down again, and then all of a sudden his mobile went off. He picked it up out of his backpack, and saw there were two waiting callers. He answered the first one.
“Hello?!”
“Hey, it’s me again from Telecom-“
“Goodbye!” he said, and promptly switched to the second.
“Yeah?!”
“Hey Koise, it’s Bob!”
“Err, how are you calling me!?”
“Marilyn’s phone. Fell out of her pocket as she was climbing up!”
“Couldn’t you be telling us this AFTER you started climbing?!”
“Well, that’s the problem! She doesn’t want to climb up!”
“Eh?!”
“I know! She’s just too scared!”
“We should never have brought her along with us!” Scythe said.
Bob figured Scythe said that, and continued. “Do you think you could press into the door without us?!”
“Okay!” Koise said, and hung up. “We’re gonna have to go into the door first, Kipo’s holding him up!”
“Which is totally wasting our time!” Scythe said.
“Well, let’s get to it then!” Marilyn said. “But how will we weld it?!”
“Got that covered, we’ll use the Fire Gem with my Staff! Just twist the handle so that the shot will be of welding size, and move the handle up and down the shaft to get the right power output!”
“Okay!” Marilyn said as Koise handed her his staff.
Up here it was so windy that they could just barely see two feet in front of them. Marilyn felt around for the door, and it was a fair size. She knelt down, and jolted the staff to output the flame. By twisting the handle, the flame did indeed become smaller and more centered, until it looked like a welding flame. And by moving the handle away from the tip, she got more power output. She found a power output level she felt was right and started cutting the circle. But as she cut up and to the left (clockwise), she reached an edge and the staff flew up.
“What th-?”
“What’s wrong?!”
“I think there’s already a hole in the door!”
“What?!”
“I must’ve felt around it!” Marilyn got up and felt the edges of the hole. They were very well cut, and in a large oval shape. She stepped inside.
“Come in!” she said, and Koise did so.

Another update will come tomorrow

The hallway he stepped into was similar to the one found under Marilyn’s house, although the walls were more intricate with geometrical carvings and inscriptions on the walls that Koise could not decipher. A short way forward there was a drop, and what looked like a stone ladder on the edge leading down, with thick rungs.
Koise turned around to see the hole in the door. There was indeed the large, gaping hole that was cut into it.
“This was cut by an expert welder, or at least one with a steady hand.” Marilyn said. She could tell this because the edges of the oval were very smooth, like her own.
“So who do you think did it?” Koise asked.
“No idea…” Marilyn said.
“There is one person I can think of who could have done this.”
“…who?”
“As we were making our way through the bush I saw a shadow far away in the hills. I think I know who he is, too.”
“Oh crap.” Marilyn said. “We have to get out of here!”
“Look, I’ll look after you. I’ve got my Staff, you won’t have much to worry about.”
“Okay…” Marilyn said slowly.
Scythe doubted whether Koise would be able to use his staff to protect him against gun shots, however.
Koise’s mobile then went off again. Koise picked it up.
“Oy, if you call me one more time about my phone bill, I’ll-“
“Koise, it’s me!” Bob interrupted.
“Oh, heheh, sorry.”
“Kipo’s still holding us up. You’ll have to find another way in.”
“There’s a ladder ahead.” Koise said, “We’ll go down it and see what we can do.”
“Okay, thanks. But hurry up, we’ll freeze to death in a minute!”
“I’ll be as quick as I can.” Koise said, and hung up. “We’ll be going down the ladder,” Koise said to Marilyn, “let’s go.” They got up and headed down the ladder.
“Hey Marilyn?” Scythe asked.
“Yeah?”
“Why aren’t you piss-scared by that guy who wants to kill you?”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, why not? I’d be scared if I were next on a maniac’s hit-list.”
“I can’t imagine you scared.”
“I have.”
“When?”
Scythe wished she hadn’t said that.
“When?” Marilyn asked again.
“I’m not saying. Why aren’t you scared?”
“When were you scared?”
“I was never scared!” Scythe protested.
“Then why did you say you were, then?!”
“I was lying!”
“No you weren’t!”
“I was!”
‘Were you?’ Koise asked
‘Yup.’ Scythe replied.
“So why aren’t you scared then?”
Marilyn sighed. “Just because I’m scared doesn’t mean I show it.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been having a terrible time trying to get to sleep lately.”
“Hmph.” Scythe ended the argument. It was just as well, as they had reached the bottom of the ladder. Koise looked around. The room was large, yet empty, but for a hallway behind him, a water reservoir in front of him, and two pressure plates in between. Above the reservoir was a small hole where small trickles of water came out of.
“One of these pressure plates must do something.” Koise said.
“Like what?” Marilyn asked.
“Probably to drain or re-fill the reservoir.”
“And how would that help us?”
“I dunno! Maybe it’ll reveal a secret door we could use! I’ll go stand on one.”

Which plate should Koise stand on?
A)The Left one
B)The Right one

B.

A.

A.

Koise walked to the left plate and stood on it.

“Kipo, could you please try? It’s either this or walking all the way back to town!”
Kipo’s face remained undecided, but caught between the choices. She was far too scared to climb up the rockface, but the return journey was equally less appealing.
This, however, was decided for her, by a third option. As soon and Koise had stepped on the pressure plate, a door underneath them opened up, and they fell down a narrow and winding tunnel. It wasn’t all twisty and turvy, however, it took a turn towards the cliff, and then back to completely vertical. And then Bob and Kipo fell out of the small hole above the reservoir.
Which was the worst thing that could happen.

Bob fell in first, which he didn’t mind, but straight after Kipo landed, and screamed. The water was ice cold, and normal water felt painful to her, but the cold water was sharp and biting as well, and she was in tears and splashing around, and she was halfway to shock. The reservoir was deep, and Kipo began to sink. Although she did know how to swim, any contact with water threw that out the window. She was panicking and breathing hard and heavy.

Koise made his way over, when Scythe said “There’s no way I’m diving in there.”
“What?!” Koise said. “We don’t have time for this!”
“I’m not going in!” Scythe protested as Kipo sunk below the water
“Bah, fine! Marilyn, you go!”
“On it!” she said, and jumped in.
The water was a stark contrast even to the cold air inside, but Marilyn ignored this and swum her way downwards to Kipo, who, totally immersed in water, was flailing blindly. Marilyn quickly caught up to her and grabbed one of her arms, which was difficult as Kipo’s flailing made it hard to get one without getting hit. Nethertheless, she pulled Kipo up to the surface of the water, and dragged her to the edge of the reservoir. Marilyn first climbed out, and with Koise’s help, then pulled out Kipo.

She was hyperventilating as she slumped on the stone floor, and didn’t move, save for turning face down as she cried and wept on the floor.
“Kipo?” Koise asked. “Kipo are you okay?” He put his hand on her shoulder, but she immediately pulled away.
“What do we do with her?” Booger asked.
“We’ll have to push on.” Bob said. “Someone should stay behind and look after her."

Who will this person be?
A) Bob
B) Booger
C) Scythe/Koise
D) Marilyn