Places to Chat
Role Playing Story
Chatterbox: Inkwell
Role Playing Story
Role Playing Story
Heya, I'm going to try something new in the Inkwell, (Hoping it isn't breaking any rules.) It's called fourm role-playing. Bassically, it's like a story with many different authors. Everyone makes a character in the world, and we take turns posting the story out. There are just a few rules, otherwish you can just jump in.
1. No taking control of other people's characters.
This is common sense, please make sure you stick to controlling your charrie and your charrie only.
2. No making an all powerful charrie.
No making any charries who can destroy an entire city with a clap of their hands, kay? Again, common sense.
3. Have fun!
Self explanitory. ^-^
Let's get this thing started!
Xelix yawned, as he put his feet up on his desk. Another boring day at the Mage's Guild. Another day of deskwork. It was tedious work, having to sit at the desk, day after day, answering all questions applicants had. He had been promised adventure, not a desk job when he applied. He suspected it had to do with his age- 15, in the bigwig's opinion, was too young to go out and defeat the beasts that prowl the land at night. After all, they were only kids, right? Well, this 'kid' was very proficiant in all kinds of water magic, and could easilly knock out an un-prepared foe with a simple swipe of hardened water, which also doubled as a shield against attacks. Still, the pay was decent, and three rectangular meals a day and a place to sleep weren't anything to complain about, so life was pretty good.
He heard a small 'mew' as something brushed against his legs. He smiled at his small calico cat, Ala, who jumped on his lap and began purring cheerfully. "Well, at least one of us is happy....." Xelix yawned, stroking Ala on her head. He glanced upstairs. It was still morning, so most of the mages were still asleep in their rooms, and no one was sitting in front of the fire, (It was mid-winter) and studying some new latest spell. It was quiet, and Xelix liked it that way.
submitted by Dmboogie, age 11, Not tellin'!
(January 16, 2009 - 11:32 pm)
(January 16, 2009 - 11:32 pm)
((So it's an RPG/RPW thing? Nice. Should be fun. So long as nobody goes all Mary-Sue on us...))
Alessandra opened her eyes. She could taste the chill in the air, a frosty, calming taste. With a soft moan, Alessandra rolled stiffly to her feet, crossed to the window. She leaned against the rough-hewn frame, and stared out across the city. The young girl sighed, deeply, a cleansing breath.
A plump hand descended on Alessandra's shoulder. "Come on, girl," said Morgan gently. "There's work to be done."
"Of course, ma'am," replied Alessandra. "I'll take the west wing."
Morgan smiled, creasing her freckled, round old face into a comfortingly familiar shape. "And see to it you finish before the Mages wake up this time."
Alessandra sighed. "I'll do my best, ma'am," she said. "But no promises." She picked up a rag and a broom, and left the room escorted by Morgan's cheerful laughter.
It was dark in the west wing. No fires had yet been lit and the sun was only just beginning to creep up through the windows of the enormous Mage's Guild. It was the time of day that Alessandra liked best, the rare time that she could relax her guard and sneak sentences and paragraphs out of the enormous, leather-bound tomes that the Mages filled with spellcraft and potion recipes.
Alessandra hummed quietly to herself as she clicked her fingers and lit a fire in the yawning fireplace that heated the library.
(January 17, 2009 - 5:36 pm)
Suddenly, something came tumbling down the stairs and landed with a loud BANG in a jumble on the floor. Xelix leaped out of his chair, much to the dismay of Ala, and cried loudly, "What the-?!" before looking closer. In an exasperated voice, he said, "Oh, it's just you, Annaliese."
Slowly, the heap untangled itself and became recognizable as a girl with curly, dirty-blond hair, so long it brushed the floor. She looked sheepishly at Xelix with large purple eyes. "Uh, sorry to disturb you, big bro. I was just um, coming to check on you. By the way, do you have any idea how slippery those stairs are?"
Xelix glared at her. "Yeah, right, sure, 'coming to check on me.' You just wanted an excuse to get out of bed. You know, I had to practically beg on my knees at the boss to get you to come here with me; it would help if you at least followed the rules." Turning back to his desk, he continued muttering angrily, "Why did I have to get stuck with you? Why? You'd think, with a job, I could be free of my little sis once and for all, but NO, Mom and Dad just have to go on a secret mage mission and leave me with 'Liese."
Annaliese stared at his back earnestly, trying to look as innocent as possible. If Xelix kicked her out, she'd never get a chance at secretly learning magic. She knew that she had to have SOME talent, and she had a better chance of discovering it here at the Mage's Guild than anywhere in the world. Just knowing that she was in the same building as some of the most powerful magicians on the planet made her tingle from head to toe. She just had to learn magic, she had to. That, however, would require staying on Xelix's good side.
I like the idea of the role-playing thing, Dmboogie. Just a question: does making up dialogue for someone else's character count as controlling them? If so, ignore what I just wrote.
(January 17, 2009 - 5:50 pm)
((Three points.
1. Usually, in role-playing, non-RP comments are enclosed in double parenthesis. I propose we use that system as it keeps confusion to a minimum.
2. If dialogue counted as character controlling (power-playing, that is), none of the characters would be able to interact with each other. Dialogue is not power-playing. Power-playing occurs when a character's actions, emotions, or thoughts are directed by someone who did not create the character. Usually PPing is a good way to make people mad at you; however, in some cases it is acceptable if it's for the sake of getting the plot moving.
3. I think, due to the way that comments are organized on Chatter, RP comments should not be replies to individual posts (i. e. clicking the "reply" link at the bottom of somebody's post), but comments on the thread itself (i. e. clicking "add a comment" at the bottom of the first post, above all the other comments.))
(January 17, 2009 - 11:32 pm)
((Now why, I have to ask, do new threads drop back to the end of the queue when a first post is made?))
(January 17, 2009 - 5:52 pm)
Alessandra moved from room to room, lighting fireplaces and flicking her rag in the direction of imaginary bits of dust. The Mage's Guild was ridiculously clean, as the Archmage insisted on daily once-overs and weekly deep-cleanings. It was rumored that he was germophobic, but, as he kept himself locked away in a high tower all the day long, it was impossible to prove the theory.
Alessandra pushed open a heavy oak door, reciting a healing spell under her breath. She stumbled over something small and warm, and looked down. A cat stared balefully back up at her.
"Hello," she murmured, kneeling to stroke the little calico. "You're that stuffy receptionist's cat, aren't you... Ala? Something like that anyway..." The cat purred, and Alessandra sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't be nasty, though," mused Alessandra. "After all he does outrank me."
A bell tolled. Alessandra groaned as she heard the all-too-familiar sound of the Mages beginning to stir. She stood up and hastily lit the fireplace, then pulled back a bookcase and slid inside. A spiral staircase led down, down into the depths of the Guild building, and ultimately into the servant quarters.
Alessandra started down.
(January 17, 2009 - 11:47 pm)
((Yes, creating dialogue for another charrie does count as controlling them.))
Xelix glanced at Allessandra. "Heya Alless." He said calmly, holding a hand up in greeting. He then returned to the book that he was reading. Ala, however, had another idea, mewing loudly and headbutting his chest. "Whaddya want, ya dumb cat?" Xelix asked teasingly, glancing at Ala. "Oh..... I havn't fed ya today. Well, might as well get it over with." Xelix carefully placed Ala on the ground, then stood up. He headed to his bedroom behind the front desk, and grabbed a key from his pocket. Unlocking the door, he headed in. It was a simple room, consisting of a bed, a trunk, (Containing Ala's food, his clothing, and some weapons, just in case,) A small bookshelf containing books on water magic, and Ala's food bowl and water dish. Flipping open the lid of the chest, he scooped up enough cat food for a breakfast, and poured it into the food bowl. Returning the food to the chest, he sighed as he realized that there was no more water left. "Guess I'll have to improvise...." He muttered, walking over to the bowl. Waving his hand over the bowl, water poured out of his hand. Stopping the flow, he studied his handiwork. "Not bad... not bad at all." Xelix said satisfied. The room seemed a bit more arid then usual, mostly becuase to create the water, he had to draw it out of the moisture in the atmosphere. While magic was a miraculous science, it was still a science. You can't create something out of nothing, and if you try to make something too big, from something too small, you end up with a charred mess. Yes, Magic was a precise art, and it took many years to become profeciant in it. Xelix was only able to create a slight drizzle, but he studied every day to further his own abilities.
(January 18, 2009 - 2:01 am)
((Well... Dialogue between characters is sometimes necessary in order to move the plot along, so dialoguing doesn't always mean power-playing. For example, making someone else's character say "Hello" is not controlling them. However, making another person's character go into a long monologue is. Yes?))
(January 18, 2009 - 10:53 pm)
Morgan glanced up as Alessandra slipped through the hidden doorway. "Late again, I see," she said mildly.
"Sorry," replied Alessandra guiltily. "I was distracted."
"The library?"
"Mm."
"Well," said Morgan with resignation, "at least you weren't caught this time, but heaven above, girl, if they catch you sneaking peeks at their textbooks..."
"I know, ma'am," said Alessandra sharply. "Imprisonment. Torture. Banishment. They don't like to share their secrets with us lower folk."
"I'm just worried about you, that's all," said Morgan, touching her cheek.
Alessandra bowed her head. "Sorry. I'm just..."
"Bored?" suggested Morgan dryly.
"Yes," Alessandra agreed with a rueful grin. "Bored." She sighed. "I want to... do something... Other than light fires for stuffy old Mages who won't share their knowledge with the rest of the world."
"There's a reason for everything," said Morgan gently. "Even the laws of secrecy."
"I'm really not so sure..." muttered Alessandra, running her fingers through her dark red curls. She sighed, and suddenly needed to be moving around, getting something accomplished. "I'm going to go clean windows," she said.
Five minutes later she was up two flights of stairs and furiously attacking the buildup of dust in the corners of an enormous stain-glass window. She finished and stepped away, nearly tripping over a small, warm something. Alessandra whirled around, expecting perhaps a large dog, but was instead confronted with the sight of a young girl, sprawled on the floor amid a mess of impossibly long dirty-blonde hair.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Alessandra. "Are you all right?"
(January 19, 2009 - 5:22 pm)
Annaliese scrambled to her feet with some difficulty, rubbing her head but grinning a lopsided grin. "I'm okay, sorry, I...uh....probably shouldn't be up here.....but......" She glanced down at the worn leather book she'd been reading before realizing what she was doing. Quickly, she shuffled her feet to block the book, but the servant girl had already seen. "What's that?" she asked, curiously.
A flustered Annaliese stammered, "Uh, well, it's, uh, you see, just a book. I'm....er....reading it for fun." She just wished the maid would go away and leave her to read in peace.
Unfortunately, the maid's interest had already caught, and she didn't seem to be intent on going anytime soon. "May I see it?" she asked Annaliese politely.
"Well, you see, it's sort of kind of.....well, I'd rather you not," said Annaliese anxiously, twisting her small, pale hands. She cried, "Hey wait!" but it was too late. The maid hadn't waited for an answer to her question, and had already leaned down and picked up the book. She was staring at the deteriorating cover with her eyes wide and mouth agape. Still stunned, she looked up and half-whispered, half accused, "This is a spell book. You're reading a magic book!"
Annaliese moaned and covered her beet-red face with her hands. "Please don't tell!" she said, though her plead was muffled by her hands.
The maid asked in surprise, "So you're not supposed to have it?"
Blushing face still covered by her hands, Annaliese shook her head back and forth. Everything was ruined. The servant girl would report her for unauthorized magic learning, plus the fact she wasn't even supposed to be in this tower anyway, she had sneaked out of her bedroom, where Xelix still thought she was playing with her dolls. All she'd wanted to do was try a few spells. After all, magic couldn't be that hard, could it?
(January 20, 2009 - 3:09 pm)
Alessandra stared from the girl, to the old book, and back again, several times, her mind in a whirl. Judging from the degree of deterioration about the cover and the embossed titles, it was an old, probably complicated tome. Gently, she flipped back a few pages, taking in the spells. The younger girl shuffled uncomfortably in front of her.
"This is complicated stuff..." said Alessandra quietly. She tapped a finger in the margin of a faded yellow page. It was a fire spell, one that she herself had been working to get right for quite some time. "Can you manage it?"
She saw the terror on the young girl's face and added quietly, "Don't worry. I'm not going to turn you in." Alessandra paused, and then qualified, "so long as you extend the same courtesy towards me."
(January 20, 2009 - 8:53 pm)
"Oh, thank you, thank you!" Annaliese was so relieved she grabbed the maid's hand and began jumping up and down before suddenly pausing. "Wait....turn you in for what?" she asked suspiciously.
((Dmboogie, just out of curiosity, why do you call characters "charries"?))
(January 22, 2009 - 3:06 pm)
Alessandra bit her lip. "The same as you," she said, lowering her voice almost to a whisper. "Illegal study of magic." She tapped the book. "Fire, mostly."
(January 22, 2009 - 5:52 pm)
Annaliese stared at the maid for a moment, shock in her eyes. "So......wow. I thought I was the only one," she said quietly, half to herself.
Instantly, she seemed to snap back to normal, and was cheerful once more. "Does that mean you have a fire talent?" she asked exitedly. "Like Xelix can do all this cool stuff with water, except he won't let me watch most of the time, which is really annoying. Do you want to learn magic together? How long have you been working on spells and stuff? Can you help teach me?" she babbled in one breath, getting so worked up that she grabbed the maid's hand and began jumping up and down. before stepping on her floor-length hair and tumbling to the ground. The maid let out a gasp and moved forwards, as if to help, but Annaliese waved her away carelessly. "I'm fine, that happens all the time. Xelix tells me I should cut it, or at least braid it, but I like it the way it is." "Xelix? So you know him well?" the maid asked. Annaliese noticed that although she was smiling, the smile was just barely concealing a grimace. "Xelix is my older brother," Annaliese explained. With a teasing glimmer sparkling in her heliotrope eyes, she added, "You don't like him?" The maid looked abashed, and rushed to say, "Oh, I didn't mean that at all, he's just....."
Annaliese grinned. "Stuffy? Stuck up? Snobby? Conceited? Yep, that's about right." The maid grinned back, and Annaliese knew for absolutely certain that she wouldn't be ratted out.
((Hey, everybuggy! I like writing with TNO, but we could use a couple more characters! Role Playing is usually supposed to be for MORE than two players, so please, whip out your creative pencils or pens or quills or SOMETHING and add to the story!))
(January 23, 2009 - 3:22 pm)
The maid left, and Annaliese turned back to her book when there was a rustling of the curtains. Annaliese hid the book quickly in case it was Xelix, but it wasn't. It was a girl of about ten, dressed in thin linen, and she was crying.
"Excuse me, who are you?" Annaliese asked.
"Sara, ma'am. Forgive me if I disturbed you." Sara curtsied so low she almost touched the rug.
"But what are you doing here?" Annaliese asked.
Sara reluctantly told her. "I'm the new maid here, ma'am. Are you Xelix's sister?"
Annaliese nodded.
"Oh," Sara said, disappointed. "I thought maybe you wouldn't be, seeing as you're not at all like him..." She stopped talking. Me and my big mouth, she thought. "Excuse me," she said, and began cleaning.
(January 24, 2009 - 8:39 am)
Annaliese stared at Sara's back for a minute, then shook her head vigourously, trying to clear the swirling thoughts and questions that filled her mind like creeping fog. The "fire maid", as Annaliese thought of her, had rushed off so abruptly that Annaliese hadn't even learned her name. One moment she was talking to Annaliese, the next Annaliese heard a distant bell and the maid had scurried down the stairs, calling over her shoulder, "Morgan wants me!" And then she was gone. Annaliese hadn't even gotten any answers to her questions.
Still concentrating deeply, Annaliese began to pace around the tower. Lost in thought, she moved mechanically, her mind still with the Fire Maid. She was so wrapped up in her head she smashed right into Sara, who'd turned around to dip her rag in a bucket of soapy water.
Sara and Annaliese both stumbled, Sara grabbing a windowsill to keep from falling over, and Annaliese teetering around for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she should fall. Eventually, she regained her footing, wincing as she rubbed her sore head for the second time that hour.
"Sorry about that," she mumbled to her shoes, before looking up and noticing Sara's tear-streaked face for the first time. "Hey! Why are you crying?"
((Welcome, Commander Kip! No, the Archmage isn't taken, and I'm glad you decided to take him! He needs someone to control him!))
(January 27, 2009 - 3:02 pm)