“Yes, Kora. No, Kora. Of course I have my weapons, I polished my sword just last night. Well, let’s think about that one, do you think I’d be here if he wasn't?”
“Don’t worry about me, Kora, I’m right here.”
The holographic projection of Intel Agent Kora crossed her arms worriedly. “Are you sure you don’t need a squad?”
Social shook his head thoroughly. “I can take care of her. Besides, it’s only a reconnaissance mission. We don’t need an entire squad to take a look at a new planet.”
Kora sighed. “I suppose not. But make sure you stay together.”
Social nodded solemnly and turned to the other Knight as the transmission faded. “We need to stay together this time, Network.”
“Oh please. I could handle this mission all by myself. It’s nothing difficult.”
Social raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Network’s almond-shaped eyes dropped for a moment. “Well, I can’t be sure. But what could go wrong?”
“Never say that, Network. Never say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because something will go wrong.”
Network chuckled. “Let’s get on the dropship. We have a planet to scout.”
As she took a step forward, the deck shook under her feet. “Social…”
“I’m not doing anything.” The other Knight had drawn his Blaster already. “Something’s gone wrong, Network.” He tapped his helmet and said, “Kora, do you copy?”
After a few static-filled seconds, Kora’s voice came through. “Affirmative.”
“Do you know what’s happening?”
“Negative. Something’s hit the starboard side of the Skylark. Internal and external damage.”
“The deck’s still shaking here.”
“It’s like that everywhere. Captain Ozlo wants all Knights to report to the escape pod bay immediately.”
“Other side of the ship,” Social muttered. “Copy, Kora. We’re on our way. Social out.”
Network was staring at him. “What do you think it is?”
“I’m not sure. But if the captain’s telling us to drop our mission…”
“This has to be bad. We’d better hurry.”
Social Network
They ran down the hallway, deck still shaking, windows to their left and doors to the right. They were on the port side of the Skylark, the flagship of the Spiral Order. The Order’s many Knights roamed the universe on cruisers and ships, scouting and colonizing planets. Nobody on the Skylark had been on it for the entirety of its journey; it had been traveling for centuries. There was very little information about the Order on the ship, and only four commanding officers of the Skylark had been appointed - the captain, Ozlo, and three lieutenants, Feron, Vaelyn and Barrus, and they conducted operations very well.
As Network and Social continued down the hallway, more and more Knights were running with them. It seemed everyone had received the message.
The floor was still shaking, and now distant explosions could be heard on the ship. Glancing out the window, Network stopped dead in her tracks. “Social…”
“What is it, Network? We need to…” He trailed off as he, too, saw what she did.
Fire was licking the transparent material of the windows, flames leaping up and dancing around. The material fogged up and the image shifted as the heat warped it.
Social grabbed Network’s arm. “Network, we need to move.” His voice was deadly serious.
They sprinted up the hallway, but it was too late. Behind them, windows began to break, Knights being snatched up and thrown into the vacuum of space. The walls were cracking, tearing, whole sections peeling away and flying off into the void.
Up ahead, Social could see Lieutenant Feron at the escape pod bay doors, hurrying Knights inside. As he gazed down the corridor, he saw them, and beyond them the walls peeling off and Knights being thrown away.
They ran as fast as they could but the pressure of air rushing from the ship was faster. Walls tore off mere meters behind them, and as they were closing in on the escape pod bay, one tore off right next to Network.
She leaped to her right and desperately snatched at a door handle, or the doorframe, or anything, trying to get a handhold, but her hands found nothing. For a single moment, she hung in midair, then the next, pressure grasped her and began to pull her out of the ship.
Social reached out to grab her, but couldn't reach. He reached further, but still couldn't - then he kicked off the floor and grabbed blindly, refusing to let his friend die. His hand closed around her arm, and he cried triumphantly, but then they were both being pulled into the void.
Then a hand grasped Social’s leg and Feron hauled them into the escape pod bay.
They collapsed onto the floor, adjusting back to gravity, as Feron slammed the hatch closed. He hurriedly explained, “The door is airtight, but the fire is still melting the walls. I don’t know how long they can hold. Most of the pods are loaded and ejected, but take the leftmost; it’s empty. I’ll be with Ozlo and the other lieutenants soon after you. Good luck, soldiers.”
The two Knights were dazed, but they stood and rushed into the pod. The door sealed behind them, and Social quickly took the controls and launched it.
Behind him, Network pulled herself onto a seat and sobbed.
It took him about a minute to make sure the pod was safely out of the trajectory of any shrapnel from the Skylark, which was now spiraling down into the atmosphere of the planet below, and set a course to follow the other pods. Once he was done, he stood and walked straight over to Network, who was staring blindly at the floor. Social couldn't see her face, but he could sense her mood.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him listlessly. “The flagship of the Spiral Order just got blown out of the sky, we almost died, and now you ask what’s wrong?”
Social took a step back. “Hey, we've had worse. I mean… nothing quite like the Skylark being taken down. But we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. We need to stay strong.”
“That’s exactly my point. We don’t know what we’re up against. We could be walking right into a trap!”
“We can deal with what happens as it happens, Network. Ozlo and the lieutenants are in a pod, no doubt formulating plans right now.”
“They don’t know what the planet’s like. Nobody does.”
“We will deal with what comes along as it does.”
“Maybe.”
She gazed out the window at the planet below. “What do you think of it?”
“It’s not like other planets, that’s for sure. The surface, at least, seems to be a patchwork. It might be inhabited, maybe hostile. If something could make a planet like this, it could probably shoot at the Skylark.”
After a long pause, Network said, “I hate it.”
“Hate what?”
“Not knowing. We could land on a minefield, or an ambush, or a smelting pit or something. We have no idea what we’re up against.”
“What if we’re not up against anything? What if we’re landing on a perfectly friendly planet, and we can refuel and repair and then be on our way?”
Network was silent for the rest of the trip.
You can fire in vacuum? Seems legit.
I guess it's more like high orbit, but you're right. Then again, we're talking about a planet made out of other planets, and a ship full of people who wear armor all day and have nothing but eyes for their faces.
The planet seemed peaceful at first. The pods touched down in a relatively forested area, a few kilometers away from the Skylark’s crash site. It wasn't difficult to locate - huge plumes of smoke and flame pillaring into the sky. It was the first expedition the Knights set out on.
There wasn't much left undamaged. The ship’s immense size had kept it intact throughout the entire disaster, but much was still burning. The larger fires were extinguished within a day, but some of the internal ones and chemical fires lasted for up to a week. But eventually the Skylark was cleared of equipment and it became little more than an empty, scarred ship, laying in a destroyed patch of forest on the planet that had been dubbed Cradle.
The Order was trying to restore it and repair the flagship, of course. But the parts required were complicated and rare - their only chance would be to search the huge underground system of dungeons and battlefields known as the Clockworks.
The Clockworks had been discovered only a few days into the crash of the Skylark. They consisted of countless floors filled with all manner of creatures, terrain and even mysteriously placed treasure boxes - filled with crowns, which were adopted as currency, weapons - and blueprints for them - and heat, which improved a Knight’s weapons.
A base was set up for the order, dubbed Haven. The intelligent species which inhabited the surface of Cradle, called the Strangers, were willing to provide help to the Knights and began to sell their goods to them; weapons, armor and other objects in exchange for the currency, crowns.
The Clockworks were home to many monsters, most of which were hostile. The Knights stuck to their traditional three types of Knights; Guardians, Strikers and Infiltrators, but after a few months, Knights had gained too much gear and had become too distinct from their assigned class that the system was disbanded. It was kept in competitive sporting events, though.
Two weeks after the fires had been extinguished, Network and Social’s mission resumed - in a way. They would be scouting an additional section of the Clockworks - another elevator. A single elevator had been founded, but it was filling up with Knights most of the time. Other had to wait for parties to return, and so Spiral HQ, as the command of operations had been called, founded a second.
hooray ten posts a day! This is escalating quickly! Hooray!
Friendly bump! Love! Great to see another legit fanfic
Oh? What's a "legit" fanfic?
A fanfic that is worth reading.
A fanfic that is worth reading again.
A fanfic that is worth posting.
A fanfic that is worth posting, posting again and posting character applications.
A fanfic that contains something from the writer that I appreciate: courage to begin the fanfic, responsibility to continue the fanfic, a genuine pledge to write the fanfic as good as you can.
Good luck have fun.
...Wow. Thanks, I guess?
Now I feel obliged to finish this. I usually don't finish things I start. I forget about them.
I need to make sure I don't forget about this.
Lieutenant Vaelyn briefed them in the Arcade.
“When we were just discovering the Clockworks, we sent down a squad,” she said, a hint of nervousness in her voice, “Alpha Squad… they never came back. We’re not quite sure what happened to them.”
“But,” she said, confidence returning to her voice, “that was in the other elevator. We’re pretty sure each one is distinct from the others. You’ll have three modules with you - make sure to drop one at each subtown you come across.”
“Modules?” Network asked.
“Yes, modules. They’re capsules you can fill with your findings - written, of course, but you can leave a few small samples of anything interesting you may come across.”
“Understood,” Social nodded.
“Document any new monsters you come across. If there’s any interesting, see if you can bring back a sample to the surface. The elevator should be able to carry you straight up for about fifty floors.”
Her tone darkened and her voice quietened a bit as she added, “Just… don’t go past Depth Twenty-nine. Please. For your own sake.”
Network asked the obvious question. “Why not?”
Vaelyn seemed reluctant to answer, but after a few moments, she continued, “Alpha Squad… after they reached Depth Twenty-nine, they… we don’t actually know. They went past it. They said they saw something… we’re not exactly sure what it was, but… they disappeared into it. They've never been heard of since.”
Network and Social exchanged a glance, before Social replied, “We’ll leave a module at Depth Twenty-nine and return straight to the surface, Lieutenant.”
Vaelyn nodded. “Hurry back, soldiers.”
She walked off.
They made one last check of their gear before boarding the elevator.
Network was wearing a Spiral round helm equipped with a long-range com device, made up of a modified headband and com unit. She wore Spiral brigandine, and for the sake of contrasting with Social, her color was red and her armor was dyed toasty. She was equipped with a beaten and damaged sword which had been weaponized - known as a Cutter. It was extremely sharp and could be swung very quickly if used correctly. Her secondary weapon was a standard-issue Spiral Blaster.
Social wore a Spiral crescent helm adorned with a bolted vee and mecha wings, simply to look as intimidating as possible. His armor was a Spiral flak jacket and he was contrasted to Network with cyan as his color, and a fancy armor dye. His weapons were a gun modified to deal what was known as Elemental damage - one of the three special damage types, along with Piercing and Shadow. These could deal bonus damage to some monster families. His weapon was known as a Prismatech Alchemer. He had a standard-issue Spiral Calibur sword for close-range combat.
“You have all your weapons?” Social asked.
“Of course I do.” Network twirled her Cutter.
Social took a cautious step back, “Be careful with that thing! You’re going to decapitate somebody with it.”
“Hey, I’m careful. I’d never intentionally decapitate somebody with it…”
Social ignored ‘intentionally’. “What if it was a monster?”
“Sure, then I’d decapitate them.”
“But not a Knight?”
“Well, no.”
“A traitor?”
“I’d try to subdue them as non-violently as possible.”
“If it was a duel?”
“Defeat them in combat! Avoid fatalities.”
“A duel to the death?”
“Oh, come on. Now you’re being unrealistic.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You never know what might happen.”
The elevator console beeped at them. They shouldered their weapons and stepped onto it.
Besides the queer character names, I would like a little more body language and imagery to accompany that dialogue of yours. Additionally, instead of doing this :
"placeholder."
"placeholder2."
Try doing this :
"placeholder."
"placeholder2."
Makes the reading a lot more easier for your audiences. Also do this between paragraphs.
I generally do this when I write stuff, but I do prefer not to. A little prompting was all I needed; thank you.
And after a considerable break in the writing of this, I come back to (hopefully) keep writing it. If, of course, another case of severe Writer's Block doesn't hit me. Without further ado:
The elevator immediately began to move downwards, shaking sometimes and continually making an obnoxious grinding sound as the rickety metal ground against the walls.
“I hate the sound,” Network said, shifting uncomfortably.
“Would you prefer dead silence?” Social smirked. “Or maybe it would be broken by the cries of monsters from the floors we pass.”
Network shivered. “On second thoughts, I’m content with metal-on-metal.”
“I thought as much.” Social snatched the Prismatech Alchemer from his belt as the elevator screeched to a halt.
The two knights stepped off cautiously, glancing around the area.
“This looks… just like the other gate,” Network said. “That shouldn’t be right. This is a separate gate.”
She was right. It looked exactly like the Wolver dens the knights had fought through often enough back in the first gate. Behind them, there was a thick, impassable wall of trees and shrubs, and ahead of them was an irregularly-shaped pathway scattered with unnaturally square blocks of hedge-like plants, and even square-shaped collections of leaves, as if everything in the area had been grown in boxes and simply placed down later. It was an eerie effect, but the two knights knew by now that it was part of the strange Clockworks. There was no point questioning it; the Geo Knights had done that enough already.
“I don’t trust the Clockworks,” Social said, his eyes intently scanning every shadow for anything that could be hidden beneath. “This is a completely different gate, but you never know what this place might cook up for you. Let’s keep moving.”
Network nodded uncertainly and followed close behind him as they moved forward.
Expecting a monster lurking around every corner, Social kept his Alchemer in hand and sword ready to draw at any time. Network was less than a meter behind him at all times, scanning behind them to make sure there were no threats approaching from behind or emerging from terrain they had passed. It was difficult, walking backwards, making sure she didn’t run into Social, and the constant movement of her head and eyes made it difficult to maintain her path, but Social kept her on course.
After several turns and bends in the path, he said to her, “There’s a change in the elevation coming up. I’ll go up myself; you stay here.”
“Alright,” she said uncertainly, still unnerved by the familiar terrain. She turned around and was somewhat surprised to see him facing her instead of looking at the path ahead, where the terrain sloped relatively steeply.
He studied her carefully. “You’re worried,” he said.
She shrugged nervously. “Different gate, looks the same,” she explained. “It’s odd, that’s all.”
“But that’s not all, is it?” Social asked, shaking his head. “You can feel it, too. This place seems dangerous.”
She nodded shortly. In a quiet voice, she said, “It’s not like the Wolver dens I’ve been to before.”
“It could just be the fear of the unknown making the shadows seems darker and the trees seem larger,” Social said, trying to reassure himself just as much as he did her. Without meaning to, he glanced around after he said it.
“Could be,” Network agreed, sounding unconvinced.
“Anyway,” Social said, taking a step away from her. “I’m going ahead to see what’s up here. Be right back.”
He spun on his heel and marched swiftly up the slope, leaving her feeling even worse than before.
Social slowed as he neared the top, until his steps were almost silent on the thick, springy grass. He settled into a crouch and peered up the end of the slope… and froze.
He crouched, perfectly still, for several seconds, and Network watched him in panic, her heart racing with her mind. What did he see? Had he been spotted?
Slowly, he inched backwards until he could no longer see above the slope, then turned and ran back down. To her surprise, Social’s eyes burned not with fear or panic, but with intense curiosity.
Before she could speak, he said, “Spiral HQ’s going to love this.”
“What is it?” she asked, her own curiosity sparked.
“I have no idea. Come with me.”
And again he went up the slope. She followed him cautiously, still wary of the area they were in.
Once he reached the top, he settled into a crouch again and glanced back at her, before turning to stare intently at whatever it was he saw. A few seconds later, she reached the top and peered over.
A clearing lay there, with several cube-shaped shrubs scattered around the small area, and in the center, several of the leaf piles had been torn from the ground, stacked together and, upon the makeshift bed, lay a small creature.
It was a dark shade of blue-purple, relatively spherical in shape, with stubby arms that ended in wicked-sharp points, which had likely been used to cut the roots of the leafy piles in order to move them as it had. Its back was mostly covered by what appeared to be a harness - a close-fitting plate of metal, a rusty shade of gray, with a few dimly-glowing red grooves carved into it.
Its most prominent feature was a teardrop-shaped mask; a solid gray face covering which left only two holes for its eyes, which were, at the moment, closed as it slept.
“What is it?” Network asked absently, staring at the creature.
“Does it look familiar?” Social asked in return, excitement speeding up his speech.
“Slightly, yes,” Network replied. The shape of the creature and the harness it wore were vaguely familiar, but from where, she could not recall.
“The E-class sprites!” Social burst out. “This is an E-class reconnaissance sprite. They disappeared when the Skylark crashed, and now we’ve found one!”
“But…” Network hesitated. “It’s not the same, is it?”
Social shook his head. “Not at all,” he agreed. “Something’s happened to it. It’s rather… dark.”
“Do you think it’s hostile?” Network threw a nervous glance toward the sprite.
“I doubt it. It still has its harness, which means it will probably refrain from attacking knights. It might even be friendly and assist us.”
“Should we take a closer look?” Network’s wariness was gone now, replaced by curiosity and anticipation at being one of the first to see these new sprites.
On the other hand, after the initial rush of curiosity, Social’s natural caution had returned. He looked behind them and, seeing nothing, said, “Probably. But be careful about it. I don’t want anything jumping out at us when we’re distracted.”
Network took this as an affirmative and stood straight up, her sword clanking loudly against her armored leg as she did so.
“I said careful,” Social hissed, also rising.
“Sorry!”
But she was too late. The sprite on the leaves stirred, making a loud, sighing noise as it shifted around. The two knights looked on in fascination as it shifted, turning upright, and then began floating upwards. It continued so until it reached a level about even with their heads, then opened it eyes - or rather, eye.
Network recoiled slightly as a bright blue globe began to emit light out of the sprite’s left eye. The other, though, was ominously dark. It stared at them for several seconds, its bright eye filled with intelligence, and then began to move towards them.
Social moved forward a few meters, towards it, until it stopped moving. It shifted its gaze to look warily at his weapons; Alchemer in hand and sword at his side.
He unbuckled the sword and dropped both weapons, pushing them away with his foot. Now the sprite turned its gaze to Network, standing at the edge of the clearing with both her weapons sheathed.
“Put them down,” Social advised.
Reluctant to leave herself defenseless, Network hesitated, but complied after a few seconds, then walked over and stood next to Social
The sprite moved forward again, but before it could reach them, the trees rustled and a loud growl echoed through the clearing.
Huh. This seems like a start to a fanfiiiiiic!