Ladies! Gentlemen! People of all creeds and followings! It’s here!!!!!!!!
Welcome to the first month of Novel Dreamers. I hope you’re excited as I am, because let me tell you I’m pretty damn excited. The writers have been given their brief this morning and as such they have until the 26th of September to write a piece to the following parameters:
The writers are to take a favourite character of their own choosing (game, book, film etc.) and must write a piece involving them, with a word limit of up 1500 words. This can be continuation to where the character was last left, a placement into a new story/world, whatever they like, they’ve just got to work with a specific character.
Below is my example for this month’s challenge, it took me a few days but these guys have a lot more time to make a lot better work!
Thank you for reading, we look forward to your participation. Alas, the example text:
Hero of Albion
Hero awoke, each vertebra in his spine clicking into place from years of torturous and somewhat spontaneous quests given to him from the Guild Master. He could feel the scar from his fight with Maze ripple as he slid out of the bed. He grabbed his sword, slipping it over his shoulder and stepped out of the cottage to find a large Shetland pony-like horse hitched to the fence.
“Hero, you’re needed in the village” a gruff voice called behind the tree next to the door. The Blacksmith was always hard to find when you needed him, though the forge was always burning away. The thick ginger hair fell down over his chest in a thick braided tail which contrasted the bushy beard; grey with blackened edges from years of singe.
“I don’t know why I bothered waiting for a reply, you’ve never really been one for words.”
He started up the hill towards the local village, the horse took the reins in its teeth and followed him at a short trot.
Funny that, Hero thought, after years of casting magic, fighting undead, watching a man be sucked into a void and come back as a dragon; The horse is the bit that threw me off.
He returned to the cottage to get the rest of his kit and set off in pursuit. As they reached the village square – adjacent to the inn – Hero was presented with a large box. The crystal like glass on the side seems clear as a summer sky yet Hero could not see what was behind the window. There was a large white patch underneath one window, it had some ancient ruin-like writing in the middle yet neither Hero nor Blacksmith could make heads or tails of it. A deep, unsettling rumble came from within.
“It appeared in the dead of the night, the tower crier gave such a scream as could have woke the entire village; and did, I might add. This is the man in question now,” he gestured to a balding with large moustache and a pale face. The juxtaposition of this and his portly frame gave him the look of a nightmare before Christmas.
“I shan’t go near it again, Blacksmith!” he cried, somewhat occupationally. Hero shrugged and stepped towards the box, not entirely sure what he should do. He could hit it with his sword? He could fart in its general direction? He could call Whisper and ask if she had any knowledge on this contraption.
No. He couldn’t stoop to that level. She’d gloat for weeks.
All of a sudden lights started to flicker around the edges of the box and behind the windows. The sound it started to make was worse than the constant thrumming made by The Spire, that ancient obelisk that once stood in the middle of the ocean, now broken after the battle between Hero and Lord Lucien, a few years previous.
That bastard should know better, thought Hero, readying his bow.
A door on the box exploded outwards, nearly taking him off his feet though luckily caught by a strong arm of the Blacksmith. The inside of the box gave further reason to accuse Lucien, for it had a mechanical look though more advanced; even for him. Hero took a step forward, his bow taught with anticipation of meeting an enemy.
It’s too advanced to be Lucien, but it also has the weirdness and colour schemes of the henchmen that Jack of Blades used, so many years ago.
He stepped into the orange lighting and the door slammed behind him. The crowd on the outside gasped, though Hero did not hear it. He treaded cautiously towards the main column in the box, slightly distracted by the sheer enormity of the inside; it had looked a lot smaller in the square.
“Excellent! You’re here!” A voice sprang from behind the column. A thin rake of a man stepped out in a brown suit, wearing a dickie bow and a multi-coloured scarf. “Glad you could join me, been in a spot of bother and didn’t really know what to do.” He stood, waiting for a response.
“Yes, well, I know you wouldn’t expect that from me! The Doctor knows everything – I’m The Doctor, by the way – which makes you the Hero of Albion! Crikey, you got short.”
I should let loose now, Hero’s hand started trembling.
“Wouldn’t let loose, old boy. Those are hardly your Sunday shoes! Kenny Loggins? No? Ok, either way you’ll want to put that down and grab onto something because this is where things get bumpy!” And with that, The Doctor threw a switch and everything started to shudder, it grew in intensity quite quickly.
Outside, the crowd was growing antsy, the Hero hadn’t returned and the box was humming and bobbing and glowing. The Blacksmith hesitantly went to knock on the door, only to make contact with nothing. The box disappeared with a small POP and the crowd broke into a mass scream. The Blacksmith dropped his head into his hand and an old lady placed hers on his shoulder. He looked up to her…
“Never one for subtlety, was he?”
She smiled and patted his head, “who? The Hero or The Doctor?”
Novel Dreamers 