Adventure
Brinwood Star Series Pt.1
Football Commentator: Hello ladies and gentlemen we are live at Brinwood high for the game of the year where things have come down to the wire. With 10 seconds left, Brinwoods’ star player must bring it all the way home with this kick return for the win.
By Jordan Bruton4 years ago in Fiction
Downscaled
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Everyone, especially Bertha "Bertie" Winters, agreed that it was all former Mayor Greene's fault. While Bertie did owe her very nice cottage to the Stone Valley Retirement Community, she laid the blame for having to replace the thatch roof - three times so far - squarely on the Mayor's doorstep. Some argued that the idea of getting a tax break for the struggling town for agreeing to host a "community for those over sixty years old" and not checking the fine print was an understandable mistake, but Bertie wasn't having it. What kind of ninny didn't read the fine print? She had no less than four magnifying glasses herself.
By Melissa Coy4 years ago in Fiction
The Uloralie Plains
"There weren’t always dragons in the valley," Eothyn says gently, closing his eyes in thought. "My father – our father, told me so often and so fondly about his travels along what used to be called the Uloralie Plains." He points out through the trees and brush, giving way to a sheer drop off the mountainside the four friends are perched upon. They overlook onto pale green rolling hills and in the far, misty distance, remains a blackened site of ill repute. A line, in essence, a border, stretching easily from one side of the plains to the other and much further beyond.
By J. Arthur Collins4 years ago in Fiction
Where Is Here?
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Actually, there weren't always dragons on Earth. It's only been a few years since the Incident, that's what the media calls it now, that brought them back into existence. Before the Incident, there had been a minor regen back in 2002. Only in China though. We watched it on the news. It seemed very far away. We saw the Chinese people donning their headlamps and jet pack fire throwers and metal suits and felt badly for them, but never, ever expected to deal with that here, in the good ole USA. It took them two years to get the regens rounded up and extinguished. Years later, Chinese scientists traced the regen point of origin to a cave in Yunnan. Some spelunkers stumbled, literally, over a pit filled with glowing rocks. Or so they thought. A minor earthquake caused an avulsion of the cave wall, uncovering the regen eggs. Now, I don't know about you, but there's no way in hell I would think that pulling rocks, pulsing with amber light, out of an obviously once buried pit, deep in a cave in China was a good idea. Then again, I would never BE in a cave in China just for the thrill of exploration. I wouldn't even be interested in watching that on TV. I'm more of a Ted Lasso, Hallmark Channel, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel kind of gal. Sci-Fi was never my thing. It even took me a while to come around to the Marvel Universe, but my kids finally broke me down by swearing that beyond all the theatrics, was an amazing story. We watched it back in the early days, when everyone was still in hiding. They weren't wrong. I was expecting something akin to an 80s miniseries about a werewolf outbreak, but now I'm hooked. Maybe, in some small way, it's also because the Marvel Universe, doesn't feel so far off from our own now.
By Kerri Austin 4 years ago in Fiction
Lake of Dragons
“There weren't always Dragons in the valley”. Grandad leaned forwards conspiratorially, the hushed circle of little ones automatically followed suit. “Back when I was a lad, this was a bustling fishing village, we alone knew the secrets to pluck the sweet treasures from the depths of our lake”. His eyes clouded with the far off look of reminiscence, that and cataracts. “Back then we had the whole lake we didn’t cower in the shallows, scraping a life off what the dragons left us”.
By Joe Forsyth4 years ago in Fiction
Masters of the Storm
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Those words were repeated, over and over in a mumbled, frantic tone, by a figure stumbling through a hurricane in the dead of night. “Not here, why here, this upends everything!” he frantically spoke aloud. The wind rushed vigorously, sending curtains of rain streaming sideways that felt like shards of glass against his skin. Anyone with an ounce of sanity would’ve turned back days ago or surrendered their fate to the elements. But his mission was anything but, it was too important. Traversing the Kethiat Mountains by going through the Valley of Iron was almost certainly a death sentence these days, for reasons that were quickly becoming obvious. But he had to find someone known as Nashiri in this region, that’s all he had been told by his doomed traveling party before they were annihilated in a blast of light. He was almost at his destination, he was sure of it. A flash of lightning illuminated him, scrambling over a broken, twisted path of rocks, accompanied seconds later by a drawn-out roar of thunder. It sounded different every time, this time it sounded like an actual roar of a fast-approaching monster, chilling and unnatural. Nothing about this seems natural, he thought. The rain was leaving small red marks on the parts of him that weren’t covered by his bulky gray part cloak, and the wind felt both impossibly cold and searingly hot. In the corners of his vision, blurred by the rain, a pale golden glow appears. There’s another loud crack of thunder, this time it sounds only meters away. He looks back and realizes his mistake, as he saw what looked like a claw made of lightning appear from the storm, moving toward him. The air around him begins to feel dry and energetic, as a hissing noise quickly overpowers the noise of the gale. Without time to react, the claw strikes the side of his face, and his vision gives out. A searing shockwave propels him forward, causing him to trip and fall, as an unbearable burning pain shoots through his head. As the rain pelted him, he felt a warm liquid trickling down his face. ‘Probably not a good sign’ he thought. Looking around, he noticed that his vision was faded and blurred. Out of his one eye that was working, he saw the scattered interior of his bag strewn among the ground. His food and remaining clothes that he accumulated from his prior journeys were all out in the open, ruined by the downpour. He turns around, lying on the ground and staring up as the rain hits his face, washing away the ever increasing amount of blood on it. “Why do I even try?” he groans, “It was a fool's errand to begin with”. As he lies there, panting heavily, the linings of the pitch-black clouds above him begin to glow with an ethereal red light, and the sound of the rain is accompanied by a low rumbling that sounds like breathing. With difficulty, he props himself up, and starts to move back slowly. The glow gets brighter, revealing what looks like two large dark red pearls with black pupils in the center. The light it casts faintly shows the huge head of a terrifying reptile-like being. “Ah… just as I feared. Pity, I was really hoping this nightmare would end” the downed figure says in a nervous tone. Looking around frantically at his scattered belongings, he lunges with what little strength he has remaining, and ends up flopping over to a cylindrical silver canister, etched with glowing orange lines in various shapes, reminiscent of hieroglyphs. Grabbing it tightly, he musters what little strength he had left and yells in a deep voice “INGENI, MAI”! The runes on the cylinder glow, and the ground around him begins to quake, the rumbling sounds briefly overpowering the howling gale. A plume of lava gushes forth out of the ground, jarringly illuminating the mountains and the dragon, with its stag-like antlers and ethereal smoky gray wings. It shoots high enough to strike it in one of its eyes. He’s then deafened by its roar of pain, loud enough that he can feel his body vibrate under the pressure. The ground around him cracks and convulses, as more jets of both lava and steam shoot forth. The creature rears its head back from the bursts and the hissing sound is heard again, as purple lightning shoots out from all along the creature’s body, striking the surrounding land in a vain attempt to counter the attack. Unable to stand amid the chaos, the figure crawls along, the canister tucked under his arm. He pays no attention to his other belongings, the instinct to escape powers him along, until he ducks behind a boulder, coughing violently. He winces as pain shoots through his arm. On his arm and hands are the inverted marks of the runes, etched into his skin. “I must… too far… where is she?” His thoughts swirled around, unable to think coherently among the howling vortex of wind and rain. His haze of thoughts is suddenly broken by the low rumbling sound of a dragon breathing. Panic grips his body and soul, as he realizes that his attempt at salvation failed. With a large thud that sends shockwaves through his body, the boulder providing his cover cracks in two. Looking up, he sees in horror that the boulder was broken by the weight of a large bird-like claw on it that crackles with electricity. Not staying to examine it, he runs on in panicked manner, trying to find some relative safety from his pursuer among the scattered boulders and cliffs. He sees an opening underneath an overhanging rock, and his basic instinct of survival kicks in. As he sees the pale golden glow behind him, and the hissing sound of an impending attack from the unnatural lightning, he dives for it, and realizes too late that it’s deeper than he thought. He rolls down a small slope into a stagnant pool of water. There’s a feeling of a rock catching his back, and the unbearable pain returns, as he collapses. The jolting feeling of the freezing water making contact with his skin is the only thing keeping him conscious. There’s a loud crack, as he sees the mouth of the cave suddenly engulfed by the purple lightning. In the dim glow, he sees the cave lead further in. He slowly moves forward in a hunched pose, his hands outstretched in front of him, ignoring the blood trickling from the gash in his back. He feels like he’s been moving for hours through the silent darkness, the only reminders of reality being the muffled sounds of the storm and the cold rock walls. Eventually, the rocks become clammy and he feels the faint spray of water. ‘An odd feeling for a cave’ he thought ‘but at least I’m getting somewhere’. Moving forward, the muffled sound of the storm gets louder. It’s now accompanied by the sound of a rushing river. As he continues on, he sees the outline of an opening in the cave. It appears to overlook a raging river, dimly lit by what he hoped was starlight, a comfort in his current situation. He stumbled over more small rocks in his path, and his legs gave out from fatigue. “No… almost there… Nashiri, save me…” he gasped, as he shuffled along. His vision became more blurred and monochrome, his breathing became heavier and longer. ALl he could hear now was the beating of his own heart, gradually getting slower and slower. At the edge of the cave, he gazes upon the river, and looks to what he assumes is the south where the river is running to. He sees a faint pulsating blue glow high above the left bank of the river far away. He gets a warm feeling when viewing it, either from its apparent passiveness or the pool of blood he’s lying in. His eyelids begin to flicker closed, as he wishes for the soothing warm feeling to stay. His body goes limp and he feels himself slipping away. “I suppose I’m not saving them” he says, as he falls into the raging waters below.
By Will Miller4 years ago in Fiction
King Dellor & The Curse Of The Seven Realms
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But due to the rise in power of the evil Lord, Vulmeir. Dragons had descended on all parts of the realm. Causing havoc wherever they tread and then residing in major areas of the realms to strike order over the cities and its people to Vulmeir's despicable deeds and killing those that defy him.
By George Hall4 years ago in Fiction
