Hi. Well, owing to some alleged "
date/time conversion problems"
on the site, my entry to the competition was submitted just under an hour too late. The deadline appeared on my screen as 1pm, but Malarame, in a PM, said it was supposed to be 12. It's apparantly not going to be included (I did ask, mentioning that it would have been a tad clearer to include a timezone, rather than leaving us to assume he meant his own - which I gathered from his profile -, and secondly that there were already existing reasons for remaking the poll, such as all the immature people who are voting 1 for every story. However, this was approximately two days ago, and I have since received no reply. Hmm.)
So what the hell. I've got to say, I'm quite disillusioned with the whole contest process for the way this was handled, but regardless, I decided to post this here. Enjoy it. I can't lose; positive criticism is always welcome, and as for negative, well, you'd be making me feel better by posting to let me know I'd have had no chance of placing in the competition anyway
Edit: I've attached the file in .doc format as well, because posts on this board don't seem to preserve formatting, and [tt] didn't seem to work.
A Delver
The same pale, sickly light that had filled the last three rooms illuminated this one as well. Dazed, and slightly delirious, Beethro briefly wondered where it came from as he stumbled in. He’d been worried, leaving the first room, that the tomb would quickly turn pitch black. Fears of Roaches creeping up on him in the dark, of falling down some bottomless pit, of being eaten by a grue, all had haunted him. But they had proved groundless.
Beethro’s thoughts started to wander. His mind quickly focussed, however, when he heard it. Just there, almost beyond the audible range, coming from somewhere just out of sight. He wasn’t alone.
The chittering. They were here, then. Beethro was only on the first level of his first dungeon, and already, he was sick of the sight of them.
He’d known, of course, what he was going to encounter. When he’d proudly told every Smitemaster he knew of his first appointment – a petty job, by their standards; little more than airing out a dusty old crypt – they’d look at each other, give a conspiratorial wink, and tell him of “Roaches so big they’ll be rippin' yer arm straight off, sword an' all, boy!”. By the time he’d talked to half of the senior Smitemasters, the young Beethro was terrified. If the Roaches – which were, he was now informed, big enough to tower over him, breathed fire, and would crush him like, for lack of a better word, a bug – didn’t get him, and if the Wraithwings didn’t spirit him away, then he’d be eaten alive by Living Tar. It was a grim prospect.
But, despite this, Beethro did not cancel his assignment. And so, on that cold Onsuary morning, he stood outside the tomb. The gate seemed ominous and forbidding , and his hands trembled. But Beethro would not back down. He’d never get into the Smitemaster’s guild if he ran away from his first real job. He had accepted a contract to clear the tomb of the Portly Earl Munfus, His Most Excellent Earlness, and clear it he would.
It was a matter of honour; but even more than that, it was what he was meant to do. Because Beethro knew. He was a Delver.
And now here he was, about to be eaten by Roaches, only four rooms into his first dungeon. Not exactly a promising start to his career. Hanging his head in resignation, his eyes half shut, Beethro almost missed the arrow under his feet. Almost.
“Huh? Arrow? Well… I suddenly have a strange need to only travel in this general direction. Odd.”.
Round and round the maze of arrows, Beethro travelled. Until, suddenly, he found the source of the noise. There it was. The terrible cuisinart of mandibles and chitinous scales. He’d found the Roach.
But then Beethro noticed something. And he laughed. He roared with laughter, and when his sides hurt, and he felt like he couldn’t laugh anymore, he did anyway. He laughed until tears ran from his eyes, and he was almost doubled over from the powerful convulsions.
Because underneath the Roach, Beethro saw an arrow, pointing to the wall. By now, Beethro had uncovered the secret of these arrows, and their strange force. He knew that the Roach could not reach him. But Beethro could reach it.
And he did.
As he prepared another succulent meal of Roach meat, Beethro thought back on the path of carnage behind him, considering what a near-miss he’d had reaching this room so weak and unprepared to fight. “Damned Architects and their conundrums, and stupid mind-games.”, he thought to himself. “Would it kill them to make a room that a normal person could understand!?”
* * *
Beethro had sat for too long to measure. The hours had turned into days, and still it didn’t move. He couldn’t speak to it, and behind the smooth, shiny surface, there seemed a kind of hidden malevolence. An unmistakable sense of impending doom, wafting around it like a dark cloud. In short, the orb seemed evil.
But eventually, days later, having fended off stony-hearted Hunger only through his quick-witted application of the appropriate resources (that Roach meat made quite the stew, actually. Maybe they were good for something after all), Beethro won his freedom. At last, he had learned the secret of the orb! Simply by striking its enigmatic surface with his sword, it caused the yellow wall in front of him to vanish. Marvelling at the fiendish sorcery of the Architects, Beethro lurched to his feet, and entered the fourth room. There was a job still to be done, and he would do it.
Because he was a Delver.
____________________________
The President has been kidnapped by ninjas! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?
) for trying.
