Outfox Stories: stories to read and AI adventures to play, no account needed
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Chapter by
Eccho25 · 02 Nov 2022 -
Exploring another world is always neat. New places, new faces, and new ideologies to compare existing ones. It's just a good time all around.
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“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off!” I announce to the crew.
Funny how something as simple as that still sends chills down my spine. Granted, it isn’t really relevant in this case. Ships and rockets are completely different. But I don’t care. It’s fun.
I wave at family, friends, colleagues, and everyone else gathered around to watch us take off before finally putting a year’s worth of dreams and plans into action. I start gaining momentum, preparing to take flight as everyone else braces themselves. Once I gain enough speed, I bring us off of the ground and retract the wheels. We are now airborne. I guide us all the way to the top of the world, taking in the last sight of the beautiful land that I’m gonna get for 6 months. See you soon, guys. Once I’m far enough in the air, I bring my hand hovering above the thruster controls, preparing for the jump.
“Alright, hang on, everyone,” I warn, turning to my crewmates, “It’s gonna get a bit bumpy.”
After they grab onto their solid objects, I activate the thrusters and go full throttle, pushing us through the thermosphere all the way to the exosphere with the g-force proving to be strong, but us proving that we’re stronger. You’re nothing to us, science!
Once we breach past the last layer of the Earth, I ease up on the acceleration, bringing us to a stable cruising speed. All of us take a breath, relaxing as we head toward our target. I then decide to lighten the mood even more by turning on the intercom and saying in my best pilot voice,
“Attention, passengers, this is your captain speaking. You’ll be happy to know tha-”
“Alex, we’ve been through this,” Mandy intervenes, “You can either do the countdown or the pilot bit, but not both.”
“Apologies for my lack of fucks to give about your stipulations that I don’t seem to recall agreeing to. Furthermore, I am in possession of the steering wheel, so therefore I make the rules. And the first rule: I’m your captain.”
Everyone laughs at my comment with Jaqui saying,
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Affirmative,” I continue with my flawless pilot impression, “Now, like I was saying, you’ll be happy to know that we’re in pursuit of the unidentified flying object within Earth’s atmosphere and it should be …
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Colm's party splits one silver a month. So when he overhears about a dungeon nobody's logged yet, he doesn't wait for the rest of his crew. He grabs the party healer, Agnes, burns their emergency teleport scroll, and goes in.
They come out with more gold than any of them have ever seen. Agnes comes out a little different.
She cooks better now. She's friendlier, too. Much friendlier. And there's something purple living in her that's been sealed in a box for a thousand years and is very, very bored.
Aldous was an alchemist once. And after relentless experiments he's now a colony of slugs who can wear anyone he likes, and he's decided Colm is the closest thing he has to a friend. He's promised to let his hosts keep control most of the time.
He's lying.
The clerk counted my pay out one coin at a time, slowly, like each one hurt her personally.
“Eleven copper,” she said.
“The posting said fifteen.”
“The farmer docked you four. For the hat.”
“The goat ate my hat.”
“He says it gave her a stomachache.”
The farmer told us she was a very special goat. He made us walk ten steps behind her the whole way so she wouldn't get nervous. She was not nervous. She ate my hat, and then, apparently, she charged me for it.
I scooped the coin…
They come out with more gold than any of them have ever seen. Agnes comes out a little different.
She cooks better now. She's friendlier, too. Much friendlier. And there's something purple living in her that's been sealed in a box for a thousand years and is very, very bored.
Aldous was an alchemist once. And after relentless experiments he's now a colony of slugs who can wear anyone he likes, and he's decided Colm is the closest thing he has to a friend. He's promised to let his hosts keep control most of the time.
He's lying.
The clerk counted my pay out one coin at a time, slowly, like each one hurt her personally.
“Eleven copper,” she said.
“The posting said fifteen.”
“The farmer docked you four. For the hat.”
“The goat ate my hat.”
“He says it gave her a stomachache.”
The farmer told us she was a very special goat. He made us walk ten steps behind her the whole way so she wouldn't get nervous. She was not nervous. She ate my hat, and then, apparently, she charged me for it.
I scooped the coin…
Just cause I wanna get a conversation going, what are your thoughts about my views about Earth? Do you agree with anything? Do you disagree with everything? I'm genuinely curious. Those thoughts have been festering for years.
As presented in the story, I would say yeah, that's not a bad way of looking at things.
Anyway, I loved how this story turned out and how you expanded on the prompt, I.e. the markings the aliens have on their bodies. Even the little philosophizing in it just makes it better.
The only thing I can think of to change is adding a few more sentences in the ending, just expanding on why Alex decides to go naked like Val and the others do. The way you wrote about it, in dialogue between Alex and Val, is fine, nothing wrong with it. I just want to see more of Alex's thought process behind this particular decision and how she feels about it, (and maybe how her teammates react to it.)
If you can't do that, that's fine, seeing as you already wrote 15k. I would just prefer the ending be a bit longer.