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Fallen Earth Fiction (plus eventually cool quest ideas)
Clive
Member Posts: 65
Ok this was initially going to be about the quest ideas but I started writing and decided to turn it into a sort of lengthy fiction piece. I will add a few paragraphs periodically and continue the story, which will include elements I hope to see in the game. (And maybe the devs who *are* watching will take some of my ideas and run with them). Feedback is welcome.
Without further adieu:
Chapter 1:
Duni was surrounded, he glanced to his left, then right, checked behind him, then stared straight ahead. It didnt matter. It was all the same. Those sand striders were ugly all right. Sort of a combination of a spider and a scorpion, his Pa had said, and he wasnt too far off from the truth. Duni remembered having nightmares of the beasts as a kid, it seemed ironically fitting he was going to die by the same things that haunted his sleepless nights so many years ago.
A quick slash across his arm by a stinger brought him back into the present, an unpleasant metallic sound as painful as nails on the chalkboard jarred his mind back to the battle. A blow like that to a normal man would have had the victim crumpled over within seconds, the poison was that strong. Duni silently thanked that man whod taken a machete to his arm in a particularly bloody bar fight five years ago, forcing him to get a mechanical replacement. An instinctive reaction was to pull the trigger of his Dawson-10 A2, Hand-cannon Jareth had called it. The gun was originally mounted on desert assault vehicles, but Duni had modified it to be able to attach it to his arm and tote it along wherever he pleased. Well almost wherever, there was that incident with the bouncer in that seedy joint in Langdon but that was neither here nor there.
He fired three rounds off without even thinking about it, let alone aiming. It didnt matter, there were six of the buggers within 3 feet of him. It made the cliché of hitting the broad side of a barn look like something of an Olympic sport, especially with the spread the D-10 provided. He iced two of the buggers on the spot, and took a few legs off the third. One who didnt know the Wastes well might have thought he was off to a good start, but when it comes to sand striders you either kill them quick, or the reverse happens twice as fast. Before he even had time to realize his gun had jammed, (that was an unfortunate side effect of his personal A2 model), A stinger plunged down into his right shoulder. He immediately hit the ground. The last thing he remembered was those ghastly insectoid faces staring down at him and a stinger plunging down one last time, piercing his lung with a large POP!.
Comments
Sort of reminds me of the "Rad Scorpions" from Fallout. Damn those things are a pain to deal with, always had to have anti-venom on hand to deal with their stingers.
Nice job I like it... only problem with "quests" that are supposed to be deathly hard sometimes become mundane and stupid.. great story great ideas though
Eh this is more of a preface than the main quest, as I write more you'll see. Ive got 3 finals this week though so it'll be next week.
Well finals are over. Had some more time to throw a few words into the ol' word processor. I rarely spellcheck and my grammar isn't great (I'm taking a break from worrying about that for at least another couple of weeks).
By the way, if you haven't yet, all you post-apoc junkies, check out Ashes of Apocalypse just released a couple of days ago and is a 350 mb Total Conversion for Morrowind based on a Fallout type setting. Might hold you over until beta. Haven't tried it yet myself as I'm on my Mom's computer, and the only real hard core gaming she does is FreeCell.
So without further adieu, the second chapter. As always feedback/suggestions are welcome!
Happy Festivus! (for the rest of us) *breaks out the pole*
Chapter 2:
POP!
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Duni opened his eyes with a start. He took a moment to observe his surroundings. He saw two figures in front of him, looking not at him but in the other direction, downward. Sh*t! one of them said, Duni watched him shake his head and look at the other one. What in the hell are we gonna do now?
Duni sat up, shaking his head, and looking down at his hands. Im alive, he muttered aloud, in amazement.
Well you better be alive, youve had more sleep than any of us this whole trip. The voice was flat, with a matter-of-fact tone to it. Jareth reached down to help his friend up, bad dream again there buddy?
Sand stiders, Duni replied with disgust. What happened? He remembered they were en route to New Flagstaff to look for work. It was one of the few places in the region that was actually holding itself together. Funny, Duni thought to himself, Ive spent most of my life hating those Enforcer types for trying to shove their law around where it doesnt belong, and here these guys run a city that may be our last hope. He looked down at the ground below their buggy, and noticed immediately he didnt feel like he was on level ground.
Damn tire blew man! Didnt you hear it? I thought we were being attacked! Jalex, another one of his good remaining friends, was rummaging through the back compartments, presumably for something to patch the tire. After a couple of minutes he looked up, disappointed, I dont think we have anything that can fix this on board.
Jareth looked down at his Desert Eagle, Shoulda taken that guys offer for the spare back in Tanner.
Oh come off it mate, that piece is worth quite a bit more than a hunk of rubber any day. Though Duni knew that in this harsh world, nothing had a set value. If you were stranded in these parts of the Wastes, no handgun no matter how much stopping power it had, would be worth more than a way out.
Well it may not be an issue, at least for the present moment, look at this, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />11:00! Jalex beckoned Duni and Jareth to come look. In the distance they saw very little, heatwaves obscured most of what was just sand anyways, but upon careful examination, all three of them were able to see a sign which brought them hope.
Smoke! Looks like were not alone out here after all! Jalex exclaimed, notably proud of himself for discovering it first.
Smoke can mean a number of things laddie, including more trouble for us. Duni spoke pessimistically but there was a glimmer of hope in his eye.
Look whatever it is, I think its pretty clear we have to investigate it. Jareth was always the rational voice in the party. A born leader, his father had called him.
Agreed, the others both nodded.
Now, we cant leave any one alone, not out here, so well all need to go. Being a leader also came with great responsibility, he could be sending them all to their deaths.
But wholl watch the stuff?! Jalex questioned, almost whining. A lot of his prized possessions resided in those two chests in the back of the buggy, sometimes he had a hard time sorting out priorities.
The stuffll be fine lad, theres nothing around for miles, Well, almost nothing, he remembered how the sand striders, both real and in the dream world, ambushed their prey, from underground. The victim never knew what hit em. At least nothing whod want that crap, he adding, playfully jabbing Jalex in the ribs.
Oh come off it you fat piece of sh-
Enough you two, bring only what you can carry, and be alert, were moving out. The two immediately picked up and equipped their essentials. They argued like any group of friends who had been on the road for two years, but they worked as a team very well, and it had kept them alive through many dangers, all too common in this raped world.
The three began walking, side by side, to the North, towards whatever would await them. Towards the smoke.
Hmm.. Dunno if this thread is for Fallen Earth stories, or just yours. Anyhow:
I sat there in the bar wondering when it really went wrong. Everything had be so good until the catastrophy, or atleast I thought so.
I was no longer sure that the memories are real, it all seems so strange with houses and civilisation. Maybe I just dreamed it up. But then I found some proof that there really was a civilisation before this, but I do always doubt.
While sitting there in the bar, drinking some kind of moonshined liquor which tasted like hell, a man came to me and asked me if I was interested in a job.
I was always interested in a job, you need all the work you could get to survive in this world, so I took the job before he even described it. I should never have done it.
The job sounded like a fair deal. He had problems with this gang of thugs raiding his silos, so he wanted me to eliminate their leaders, to make them go somewhere else. The reward sounded reasonable, as much juice and food as I could carry. Juice was always nice and the price was really high, so we talked a bit more, and he told me everything he knew about the thugs, or "Childrens of the Apocalypse" as they called themself. Told the man it was late and went to get some sleep, still thinking about the so called life before the catastrophy. I remembered, or atleast thought I did, something about just finishing high school, but as I said before, I'm not even sure there was something called "high school".
I left the town early next morning, searching for the thugs. Equiped with my tournament bow, a sport I think I trained before the catastrophy, and a ice axe for the close combat, I thought I was well prepared for the fight.
I was not proud of killing people for a living, it's a dirty work, but someone had to do it, and that someone was me.
The thughs camp was some distance away from the city, and it took almost the whole day to walk there. I followed the instructions I got from the many while I thought about the juice. As much as I could carry... It would be worth really much here, where juice was more uncommon than nice people.
I saw the camp at the end of that day and built myself an observation point so I could observe and learn the routines there. Slept for some hours during the night, and used the whole next day just to observe. I saw some strange things when I was observing the camp. The first was that there was both children and women there, normally, the thugs used to live only in their groups, without any children, women or other "non-thugs".
They looked also more peaceful than thugs normally do, there was no shooting or fighting in the camp. At this point I should probably have understood that everything wasn't allright, and just walked away. But stupid as I was, I continued with the observation.
I observed the camp for almost three days, learning the routines of the watch, where the leaders slept and all that other stuff which is good to know when you are going to assult somebody.
I sneaked down into the outer rims of the camp and was nearly seen by two guards. After waiting for almost half an hour before the guards dissapeared, I continued into the camp. I knew I had to be completely silent, or I wouldn't get out alive. I continued until I got right outside of the tent the leaders where living in, and draw my bow, before I got a very strange feeling. Felt like I lost control of my body, I could hardly move at all. Seconds later I was assulted, and unable to defend myself, I got overmanned pretty quickly.
I woke up later, only to find my wrists and ankles tied. Looked around, but no sign of another person, or my equipment.
There I was, in an unknown tent, wondering why the hell I've took that job...
More will come (sooner or later) @ http://www.fallenearth.se/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33
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