Writing assignment II

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(EDIT Thread started due to a request to try this from the “A writing assignment” thread. Let’s see if we can keep this clean :slight_smile: )

Okay, at the risk of being accused of starting another forum “game”, I’ll give it a shot…Who knows, it may get interesting. I hope that you folks can improve on this.

(Paragraph one):

Pixelmass sat at his keyboard on a particularly chilly afternoon fighting back waves of pain from cramping muscles that for some reason seemed to get short circuited in his spine only to be resent back to the offending areas in his body. And oh, the boredom, perhaps this was the most difficult thing to deal with. The pains would come and go, but the boredom was so persistent. He could visualize meandering sheep with no particular goal in mind. They were just simply plodding along, grazing and chewing their cud. In fact, he may have even seen himself among the flock. "How pointless" he thought, as another spasm racked his body, short circuited at the spine, and then returned. "What if?" he mused...
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Anyone else who posts here does not have a life like me. So get out and get a life, or you’ll turn up just like pixelmass and me, and have no life. And you’ll start posting in threads like this. So don’t post. Get a life. And stop reading this! What you still reading this ? Why ? Get a life! How many times do I have to tell you ? Get a life! Go on. Git. Get a life. I give up. No lifers.

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“…I just stop writing this bull5h17 assignment and get a life?”

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Suddenly Pixelmass’s dream came true! There was a loud bang and a puff of smoke and there he was, a sheep, still seated at his computer, and still bored. In fact, he was more bored than before, because sheep do not have fingers, and without fingers, he could not post weird threads to the off-topic forum. He tried to operate the mouse, thinking he could at least browse for some goofy videos on YouTube, but he accidentally crushed it with his hoof. “Confound!” he said. “Now at least I know how Cyborg Dragon feels. Oh, to be back in my own body!” At that moment there was a twinkling in the air. A little pink fairy appeared. She wasn’t the nice variety of pink fairy, however. She had a sinister grimace and spoke with the gravelly tones of a regular smoker.
“So, you want your body back, eh?” she croaked.
“Yes, please,” said Pixelmass.
“Well, first you must complete the Seven Challenges,” said the fairy.
“Oh,” said Pixelmass. “That sounds fair. Well, how hard can it be?”
The fairy grinned slowly, her lips tight. She explained:

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“Oh no” bleated pixelmass, his shanks shaking as he blinked his almond shaped eyes. “How am I ever to complete these impossible tasks?” “Why,I don’t even have any fingers!”.
The fairy just smiled and lit up another cigarette, then she blew blew a smoke ring that expanded and floated down over his head. Pixelsheep drifted off into a land only fairies are familiar with. It was all green and golden and there was strange music with finger cymbals playing. The words of the song seemed almost familiar, but they were not in his native tongue, still, hauntingly familiar. Young maidens appeared carrying jars of honey and placed them by the fire that the elves had started. Pixelsheep had a sudden horrific thought, “Oh no! It’s my eyes, they want to roast my eyes!” The smoke ring lingered and soon his thoughts drifted far away.

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You were supposed to make the fairy explain the tasks.

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Yes, I suppose so but that leaves very little for the imagination or to other contributors. Still in all this was hard enough to type with only a piece of hay in my teeth and silly smoke rings around my head. The first task was to be able to communicate with all species, not easy to do with hoofs…Now let’s see, the second task was to find the chalice and to return it to its rightful owner.

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Pixelsheep had a sudden horrific thought, “Oh no! It’s my eyes, they want to roast my eyes!” The smoke ring lingered and soon his thoughts drifted far away.

When he awoke from the soporific sleep induced by whatever the fairy was smoking, Pixelsheep’s first thought was, “I can see!” This second was that it was damn cold since the fire was out, the fairies were all gone, the grass was covered with dew, and he was back in his human form, buck naked.

Pixelmas looked around, hoping to see something useful, but all he saw were rolling hills, some scrub brush and tall grass. Way off in the distance, the hills took on a darker shade of grey-green which might have been trees, but it was too far to see clearly.

“Well,” he said out loud, just to hear the sound of his own voice again, after a day of bleating, “I suppose my first impossible task is to get dressed.”

He stood up, shivered, brushed the dew off him as best he could, and climbed to the top of the nearest hill. The horizon had just started to lighten, he could still see a few stars in the dark blue sky. He looked around for smoke, lights, anything man made. Nothing. Rolling hills covered with grass and low shrubs as far as the eye could see, a few wisps of cloud on the ever lightening horizon, and a slight breeze blowing over the ridge, chilling him further.

“Well,” he thought, “I’ll warm up when the sun comes out. I should look for some food and water, too.”

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Then a thought occurred to him: I don’t need to accomplish any impossible tasks, because I’m in my human form again! He grinned to himself and thought about how stupid the fairy was.
Immediately clouds of tobacco smoke began to rise from a nearby gopher hole and the fairy rose up into the air, taking long drags from a stogie. “Back in your human form, eh?” she rasped.
“Yep,” said Pixelmass. “Check it out! Stark naked, but 100% human, and a good-looking guy, too!” Then suddenly he noticed how big the fairy was. She was as big as he was.
“Yeah, 100% human maybe,” the fairy said, “but you’re like three inches tall now.”
“Oh,” said Pixelmass. “That sucks. But my impossible task is to get dressed, right?”
“Guess again,” said the fairy. “It’s to defeat the giant robot.” She vanished in a puff of smoke and ash.
“What robot?” Pixelmass said, but the ground had already begun to tremble, and as he watched the first enormous metal claw burst through the topsoil.

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Suddenly a huge robot popped out. Huge, red LED’s for his eyes, a body of steel, and claws for hands made him a terrifying sight. Pixelmass, as large as a mass of pixels, stood there, terrified, trying to find a weakness. Suddenly the robot bent down and whispered in his ear, “Hey, did the fairy send you here?” Pixelmass replied, “Y-yes”. Then the robot said, with a smile,“Look—the fairy sent me here too. It’s horrible being a robot everyone’s scared of. But the fairy said I’d have to make someone faint to go back, but there’s no one here. So what you do is act like you’ve fainted, then when the fairy comes—make sure she sees you fainted—you stand up and attack me. Then I’ll pretend that you’ve defeated me and we’ll both be outta here. Deal?”

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Pixelsheep, err, now back to pixelmass shook his head in an effort to clear the smoke rings the fairy had left. Feeling buck naked, he looked around for some leaves and bark to somehow construct a suit or at least something a bit more modest. “Maybe some old dragon scales?” he thought as he searched about.How odd an imagination can be, and how strange fairy’s senses of humor are. He found some moss on a rock and then some twigs from a pine tree. Yes, he thought, a splendid suit. He busied himself with tailoring, still wondering about the chalice and just who the rightful owner could be and where they could be found. The remaining tasks were completely out of the mind for the moment. The fairy just smiled.

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Why did you ignore abdealikhurrum’s brilliant plot twist? Maybe you didn’t see it yet…

I propose a placeholder system, where everyone who wants to add to the story posts a placeholder, so that nobody writes in vain.

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I didn’t, the plot will unfold in time. Don’t worry the LED’s are still shining, it’s only now that pixel has has some kind of clothing on. Fun for him to have a robotron as a friend. Now, where is that stupid chalice?

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“Damn,” said Pixelmass, “this thing is prickly.”

At least it had warmed up. The sun was getting higher in the sky, and a cloudless sky it was, too.

“If all I’ve got is a moss and twig Speedo,” he thought, “I’m gonna have the mother of all sunburns tomorrow. I’ve got to find some shade.”

Fortunately, still being only three inches tall, even small rocks cast a large enough shadow to shelter our tiny hero.

“Where has that bloody robot gone off to?” he wondered. “That would be shade enough, and I could look for the chalice, too.”

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He was starting to doze off in the droning heat, when suddenly he heard an awful shriek coming from the sky.

He stood up, blinking because of the sun, and scanned the sky. He couldn’t see a thing, nothing but clear blue skies.

The next moment he got grabbed by the waist roughly, and took off into the air. He heard the piercing shriek again, and realised an eagle had grabbed him with his talons and flown away. He was nearly deafened by the thumping noise made by the wings as they beat on relentlessly. He soared to dazzling heights, and looked up to see the stern head of his captor just before he passed out…

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Then there was the falling. Oh it was wonderful, like sliding down a silken sheet. The experience was wonderful at the the moment, no thoughts about the terminus occurred. He spread his fingers and tested the air finding that a bit of maneuvering was possible. As the downwards journey continued he noticed a large shining thing, sort of like a huge dome of polished silver coming ever closer as his descent continued. He steered himself as well as he could with his new found skills toward the object, the rushing approach of the ground was only an entertainment and somewhat of a distraction.

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As he approached, the optical illusion that made the object look like a dome suddenly resolved itself, and he saw himself falling into a huge silver bowl full of crystal clear liquid. At three inches tall, his terminal velocity wasn’t much worse than diving from a three meter diving board into the pool of liquid.

He paddled up to the surface of the… water? broke the surface and took a deep breath.

Wine! He was swimming in a huge silver bowl of white wine. The fumes were wonderfully intoxicating, but Pixelmass kept his wits about him and swam furiously toward the rim before the alcohol rush overwhelmed him.

He found a handle attached to the rim, and hauled himself out of the wine fumes into some fresher air, and took some deep breaths. Looking down, he saw the silver wine bowl was attached to a stem and a large silver base, sitting on an enormous altar surrounded by other ritual equipment.

“Oh, my god!” thought Pixelmass, “It’s the Chalice! I’ve dived into the Chalice! I’ve found it!”

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Enter the Robotron:

Having realized his discovery, the matter of transport became an issue. Soaked in wine juices and still a bit dizzy from the whole ordeal the 3 inch, moss clothed and somewhat disoriented creature wondered how, and where to deliver the chalice. Who owned it? Where did it belong? From over the horizon he saw his robot friend approaching, LED eyes gleaming, and a strange sort of mechanical clunking going on as it approached. All of the birds went silent as the behomath approached, while beating with twin drumsticks the large bass drum strapped around its shoulders as it kept coming, and coming, and coming.

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Pixelmass watched in amazement as the enormous drum beating robot stepped over him, the chalice and the alter and just kept going, and going, and going…

“Hey!” shouted Pixelmass, “Hey, you stupid robot! I’m down HERE!” but he couldn’t make himself heard against the incessant pounding of the drum the robot was carrying. He watched, dumnfounded, as the robot tromped and stomped his way to the horizon and out of sight.

“Stupid robot,” Pixelmass complained again. “I thought he was going to help me out here. Well, I guess I’ll have to do everything myself.”

Pixelmass shinnyed down the handle of the chalice and jumped down to the surface of the altar. Looking around, he found a small silk handkerchief, which seemed to him the size of a bedsheet, embroidered with strange runes and signs. He folded it, and, ditching his scratchy moss clothing, wrapped the handkerchief around his waist like a kilt.

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The silk was quite the relief, no more stupid water bugs and such. He pondered the runes and writings on the silk and while he was occupied in this the fairy appeared again. All she did is cough and then vanished into a cloud of smoke leaving behind a smoldering stogie. Now pixel, who was actually quite hungry at the time, picked up the smoldering thing and had a deep puff. Woah, it was cool, he found that he was growing and growing and found that soon he was back to his original size! Not only that, but he had a backpack as well. By the way, the silk had enlarged as he did, and he found himself equipped with a fine set of leather boots as well, complete with a fine knife in the the right boot’s collar. He picked up the chalice and put it into his pack and sent off once again, following the stupid robot into the horizon wondering what was so special about the big bass drum.