[N] Last Hope

Stip45 · **Posted:** February 3rd, 2008, 8:48 am

Alright, first some explanation. Because today is the 1-year anniversary of it, Topsummoner and I have decided to release it to the public here at RV. Every few days, we'll be posting a part each, and by "part" I don't mean chapter. In fact, we don't have chapters, because this story is written in RP-style. The first (uneven numbered) parts are always by Topsummoner, and the second (evenly numbered) parts are by me. Also, because this is the 1-year anniversary, we'll be opening with two parts.

Again, note that the first part is by Topsummoner, and the second by me.

Now, without further ado, I present to you; Last Hope.

Vevis looked past his dark blond hair, through the rain, as the forest floor turned to mud. A figure was standing there. It looked... like... "Father? Could it be?"

Vevis sat and sighed. It was his fifth birthday, and his parents were making it the best they could for him. Suddenly, all went silent, except for the sound of a blade being drawn. "Mommy! Daddy!"

Vevis ran through the marsh that was once a forest, asking again. "Father?" It was just Vevis' mind playing tricks again. There was not a soul there. "I'm losing my mind... I lost my family... Lost Danzo... My only hope is to find my lost brother... but I don't think I can do this alone..." Vevis fell to his knees, cried for what seemed like a long time, and fell asleep in the mud.

Daddy... why do you hurt Mommy?

"I am not your father..." the figure spoke, as he walked towards Vevis. The man had black trousers, accompanied by a long sleeved sweater and an odd, cape like thing on his back, which seemed to be made completely out of the feathers of a black bird. But the most noticeable thing about him were his eyes, which had a strange and constant purple glow in them. "Although I too am looking for a relative of mine." He spoke, and noticed how the boy feared to lose his mind. For some reason, he felt like he had to help the kid, as they both had been separated from their families, and had to survive on their own. While the boy was crying, he remembered how he did the same for a relative long ago...

He was seventeen years old when it happened. After his mother had told him and his father that she was pregnant, and the doctor had told them the baby would be a girl. It was the most joyful time of Valish' life, until fate cruelly ruined it. Just three days later, his father had died. Valish and his mother wanted to see their father and husband, but the doctor told them it would be too dangerous, for they did not know how he had died. "Father..."

There was no funeral, there was no condolence, and nobody even seemed to care that the person Valish had loved was no longer among them...

When he snapped out of his memory, he noticed the boy was asleep. "We are not so different, it seems..." Valish sighed, and realised the boy would probably need his help if he were to keep his sanity... He lifted up the upper body of the boy, and dragged him to the woods.

When he arrived at the woods, a small wooden shack came into sight. Valish dragged the kid to the front, and looked through a window to see if anyone lived in the building. He found no movement, so he opened the door to the small shack, and dragged the boy in. In the shack he noticed a piece of cloth lying on the ground, and lay Vevis onto it. He went to sit on a nearby chair, after carefully having made sure he did not sit on a part of his cape. He looked out of the window, and into the woods he had been in for so long, looking for his sister...

Also, do note these parts were written a year ago. Our writing has improved since then.

Constructive criticism and comments are welcomed, though it'll be difficult to implement it because we've written a lot of parts already.

And yeah, we did get inspired to do this after we both played in Thieves' Guild.

Enjoy!

~Stip~

Tahu 1000 · **Posted:** February 3rd, 2008, 3:52 pm

Neat writing concept. The more roleplay-ish aspect is interesting (others would call it unique; I'm just used to roleplays). Pretty good so far.
Oh, and on a tangentially related topic: when's BF9?

Topsummoner · **Posted:** February 3rd, 2008, 8:06 pm

Horrayz. I'll post the next part in a day or two.

As for your question Tahu... Why bother asking that, when BF8 hasn't ended yet, AND, Jaron is the one hosting BF9, not Stip -_-

Topsummoner · **Posted:** February 8th, 2008, 10:39 am

Here ya go.

_______________________

Vevis woke up, sat up, and rubbed his eyes... up. Yawning he looked around. "Where am I now?" He looked and saw a figure again, this time on a chair. "Who are you?" Valish "Wait... Huh, how do I know that?" Suddenly, with a whoosh sound in the air, Vevis turned his head to see a burning arrowhead protrude through the wall.

Getting to his feet and moving away from the flames, more arrows hit the shack, setting the entire structure in flames. *SMASH* The window beside 'Valish' was smashed in by the club... of a goblin.

Vevis, having no choice but to flee the flames, dashed out of the hut, and into a crowd of at least 15 goblins. Each one was a sickly green with horid teeth, armed either with a short, crudely made crossbow, or a large wooden club. *Whoosh! SMACK!* Vevis fell unconcious to the forest floor.

The goblins picked him up, and fled into the forest, except for the one that smashed in the window by Valish. The fires spread to the nearby trees, triggering a forest fire to come.

Stip45 · **Posted:** February 11th, 2008, 9:01 am

To everyone who's reading this, we can post part after part here, but if no-one bothers to comment, it'll just seem to us as if no-one's reading this story, and that's kind of sad after over a year's work.

Anyway, here's the next part:

"You may call me Valish, and you are in a small shack in the woods near the marsh where I found you. I believe that you were sle..." Valish started, but was rudely cut off when a flaming arrow hit the shack. He ran outside after the boy, who he saw had been knocked out by one of the goblins. Fearing a forest fire would be coming soon, he closed his eyes, and the goblins standing around the boy started flying into random directions.
There was one though, which he did not manage to toss away, so he drew his sword and sliced off the arm with which the creature had been holding his club with. Screaming in pain, the goblin ran away. Valish then looked at the beginning forest fire. "There goes the shack. Yet another disaster caused by me... I would be lucky if I were to even get out of this..." He mumbled.

Seeing no other option, he decided to just do it. He concentrated on his feather like cape, which immediately became solid and turned out to be two separate wings located around his shoulder area. He then decided to pick up the boy, his strength telekinetically increased, and gave a hard flap with his two wings.

Flying in the skies always gave Valish a sense of freedom, the thought of being able to go wherever he wanted to. When he looked down, he noticed about half the forest was on fire already, and that it was spreading rapidly. The heat emerging from the flames did make it easier for him to fly though, as it created updrafts that allowed him to reduce flapping his wings a bit, thus making the flight less exhausting for him. After a while of flying, he finally reached the edge of the forest they were in. "Now to find me a safe place to land..."

As he touched the ground, he lay the boy to the ground and looked at his nearby surroundings. They seemed to be in a city abandoned long ago, and that was probably built by an ancient race. Valish had always been impressed about how civilizations long gone in present day were capable of creating such advanced structures, but now was not the time to explore, but to guard the boy for any dangers that could be lurking around.

~Stip~

Topsummoner · **Posted:** February 14th, 2008, 7:33 pm

Bleh, still no comments?

--------------------

"Get out, boy." "But... Mother stop him!" "I said get out." "Do as he says Zack." "But-" "Quickly!"

"Mommy! Daddy!" Vevis rushed to his mother's side after she was impaled by a blade. He looked at the man beside him that had done the act. He just smiled at Vevis and left.

Vevis stood up again, his head aching. Valish was standing next to him. "I... thank you for rescuing me, but I must find my brother. If I do not... There will be nothing left to keep me sane. I don't even know if he is alive or not.." Vevis looked around, seeing that his surrounding had changed from a burning forest to an ancient, abandoned city. "I must eat. Are you hungry... Valish?"

Noticing a rat scurry by, Vevis drew a dagger from his belt, and leaped, stabbing the little critter. "Now we need fire. Do you like your rat medium or well done?" Vevis said with a grin. "Wait... something isn't right... wings??!" Yes, Valish had large black wings. "Are you really human?"

Tahu 1000 · **Posted:** February 14th, 2008, 7:40 pm

Interesting. I'm getting slight congruency errors between posts, which is normal for roleplays (like the time I kept pulling buildings out of my elbow in BF7 while Stip thought it was a more suburban area). I can't wait to read the rest of the story.

Stip45 · **Posted:** February 29th, 2008, 4:26 pm

Well, it's been two weeks and still only one comment. I'll just post the next part to keep the thread alive.

"I was once a human yes, until I came across a mysterious cloaked man in the woods, who transformed me into this" Valish said with a bitter laugh. "I never found out who the man was, or even why he did it, but the next thing I remembered was being in this form, covered in leaves, and next to a large city. I do not know how much time had passed between the curse and me gaining my consciousness again, and it could have been just a few minutes, or days, weeks, months, even years..."

Valish then closed his eyes, and the bones within his wings became flexible, making them look like a cape once more. "I usually have my wings in this state, to avoid unnecessary attention to be drawn to me. And about your fire; seeing as this is one of those few cities on our world that had been built by an extremely advanced civilization in times long forgotten, I assume that there will still be something to create a fire with here." Valish spoke "And no problem for saving you, it was not too hard. In any case, what is your name, for I believe you have not told me yet."

Tahu 1000 · **Posted:** February 29th, 2008, 7:51 pm

I can't wait to see where the plot goes, but I can't help thinking that the story might be more accessible if it was in a more conventional form. The whole dual-first-person thing can work, but the posts are so short that you need to keep switching between viewpoints. I'd hate to see such a good story fail because of the format.

Saten Ruiko · **Posted:** February 29th, 2008, 8:59 pm

It's a good concept (that very vaguely reminds me of Deathstorm/UC's trilogy), but like Tahu said, the dual-perspective is making it hard to read. I wouldn't mind a dual perspective, in fact, I think it would be pretty neat. But switching viewpoints every five sentences is nerve-racking, along with the continuity errors to boot. For instance, Vevis' and Valish's statements when Vevis woke up in the shack don't go together at all. Why would Vevis say "Why do I know your name?" if Valish is right there explaining it to him? Also, Vevis' post said that the goblins dragged him away into the forest, but suddenly Valish finds him lying on the ground?

Sorry, no offense intended, as I know you guys have worked hard on this for nearly 13 months, but I'm just getting confused.

Please do keep it up, though. In this format you can continue indefinitely without double-posting or anything, luckily. To draw from my own experience, during ZB1 there were like no posts between parts 3 and 8, but I continued the story and readers eventually picked it up.

Stip45 · **Posted:** March 1st, 2008, 6:05 am

Yeah, the part where Vevis knows Valish' name was a little error we forgot to get out of the story

However, the part where Valish tells Vevis his name can be explained with the fact that he doesn't know Vevis knows his name already.

Oh, and in most cases, the parts are in order of time. And if you find this personality switching confusing already, well, let's just say there are a lot of characters in this story.

And whatever happened to that trilogy? I'm still waiting for part 3

Too bad they both left RV.

~Stip~

Topsummoner · **Posted:** March 2nd, 2008, 5:34 pm

From my perspective at least, the flow becomes smoother and easier to read later in, once most of the characters are introduced. Also, our writing improves ALOT later on. Reading it now, it seems so choppy ^_^;

Just bear with us

________________________________

"Vevis. I'm looking for my brother that my parents threw out before I was born. I've no idea when they threw him out, or what age he was, or even if he's still alive... I'm going to look for something to light a fire..." Vevis, carrying the dead rat, began to walk toward the nearest building, whiles skinning the rat with his dagger.

Grasping the handle, Vevis turned the knob, with no effect. "Damn, locked. Hey Valish? I'm not too normal myself!" Pointing his hand at the door, the sword in the sheath on Vevis' back began to glow, and a ball of energy formed in his hand. With a thrust, Vevis threw the energy at the door, smashing it in. He cautiously stepped inside.

"Jackpot! It's a kitchen, with an oven, and matches to light it! There's even a table! Come in Valish!"

Stip45 · **Posted:** March 5th, 2008, 8:58 am

...And the next part.

"That is... odd." Valish spoke "I got thrown out of my house when i was seventeen, and to my last knowledge, I am twenty-one now, so it was about four years ago i suppose... My mother did love me though, as did my real father. But the man I lived at at the time was not my actual father, but a stepfather..."

"Now you listen woman, I've taken you in my house, gave you and your filthy son food and warmth, so I expect you to behave like how a wife should behave to her husband" "But honey..." "NO BUT! You need to learn to show me some respect, woman." "No, please don't...What would Zack think if he saw it?" "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR DIRTY LITTLE BOY WOMAN!" Then the female voice started screaming in pain. "If you refuse to give me the respect I deserve to have from you, I'll make you. You will respect me like a husband, or I promise you your son will meet a long, painful death."

"Nice finding, Vevis." Valish spoke, and went into the building. Once he was in, he went to a chair near the table and said "I have never eaten rat yet, could you tell me what taste it resembles?"

Topsummoner · **Posted:** March 15th, 2008, 12:35 pm

"I have no idea, whatsoever. I've never eaten it before either, oddly enough." Lighting a match, and lighting the oven (the wood was still burnable), Vevis stuck the rat on the grill. He took a seat at the table, opposite Valish. "We may as well take a look around for dishes and utensils..."

Stip45 · **Posted:** March 21st, 2008, 3:04 pm

"Spare yourself the trouble, there are some plates and forks in the drawers behind you..." Valish said, with a strange, hollow look in his eyes. He blinked two times, and the look in his eyes became normal again. He looked at Vevis. "If you would like, I am prepared to help you find your lost brother, if you help me finding my sister after we have discovered what has happened of your abandoned sibling. Of course you are allowed to take him with you when we go on the search for my remaining family, and I would understand if you want to stay there too. I would also fully understand if you declined my offer, for who wants to work together with a creature like me... Something not even human."

"Zack, promise me, that when you grow up, you'll take good care of your sister..." "I give you my word, father, I will..."

"Who are you?" "My name isn't important, though I do know who you are." "What? but how?" "That is of no importance... Why have you come to these woods?" "What?" "I asked you why you have come to this forest, young one. Did you forget you even entered?" "I am... Just trying to find where I belong" "Is that so? You are trying to find where you belong then. Ha ha ha ha!" "What is there that is so entertaining?" "Ieniet." "What?" "Ne me mori facias. Ille iterum veniet. Hic veni mihi mortem iterum." "What are you talking about?" "Ferutum." "What are you doi..." And all went black.

Topsummoner · **Posted:** March 27th, 2008, 8:19 pm

>_>

________

"You are just as human as everyone else in this world... And how did you know about these utensils?" While saying this Vevis had opened the drawer. "Correction... Utensil. There's just a single fork, and two plates. We'll have to take turns eating... Wait, there is a knife here too." Pulling those items out, he placed the two plates on the table and the knifes, and brought the fork with him to the oven. "The rat's done." He poked it with his fork, and brought it over, flopping down on his plate. Using the knife, he cut in half, putting half on Valish's plate. "Watch out for bones... Here, you can have the fork first." He held the fork out to Valish.

"We should stay here for the night... tomorrow, we search."

Stip45 · **Posted:** April 2nd, 2008, 8:55 am

Lots of replies, eh?

"Shadow...?!" Valish suddenly said in shock. "No, sorry. Forget I ever spoke of that, I just have an unpleasant habit of losing my calm when hearing that word. Do not ask me why... For I do not know." He shot a brief smile at Vevis. "Rest, I shall make sure we do not get any unwanted company..." Valish said, as he walked to the doorpost

_________

"Is everything ready for tonights activities?"

"...Yes."

"Very good, I hope our little "excursion" will be worth all those years of preparing..."

"...I'm very sure it will be."

"Then, shall we begin our assignment?"

"...Yes."

"Okay then. Come, let's capture our target now, for the glory of Sodi."

"...Very well."

Topsummoner · **Posted:** September 20th, 2008, 4:11 pm

"Why do you lose calm apon hearing... pardon, but shadow? A shadow is simply a dark overcast and... Ah... Could Shadow be a name?" He looked to the side for a moment. His voice turned to a whisper that Valish could not hear. "Only he can stop the Shadow approaching on this world."

He got up from his seat. "Shadow... it seems... familiar somehow."

Stip45 · **Posted:** September 20th, 2008, 4:21 pm

Valish nodded. "I do not know for sure, but I thought I had seen the name in the Writings of the Ancients, the creators of this city we are in now." He looked up a bit. "Vevis, there is something you need to know..."

As he ran through the woods, Valish tripped over what was appearently a loose brick. As he examined it, it was clearly visible that it was of a material only found on certain places on the planet. "This is...this is a Stone of the Ancients!" he whispered "And if there is one stone, there must be more nearby..."

Valish began examining the forest floor, until he came across a strange, blue gem, which he picked up. When he had picked up the stone, the scenery began to change. Where he was in a forest a moment ago, he now was in what seemed like an enourmous underground library, lit by orbs that emitted a constant and bright green glow. "Can this be?" Valish spoke out loud "Is this really the Forgotten Library of the Ancients?"

Even though all of the writings were stored in specially sealed containers all stacked upon each other, one of those containers layed upon a large stone that almost appeared to be an altar of sorts. Interested, Valish got out the writing, and read the text.

See its face as it comes your way
Harmed it can be in just one way
After it takes your existence as its own
Death awaits you very soon
Of those whom fall, your fate is sealed
What it does cannot be healed

These writings, as discovered by those searching for artifacts in our home planet, appear to be a prophecy. As of now though, we have not yet found enough evidence to deem the document "true". However, research indicated that this text was written by some of the very first of our race, so it should be handled with extreme caution.

- Dr. I. Shadeheart

As Valish told Vevis of how he found the Library of the Ancients and the writing with the prophecy, he walked to the door and sat underneath its post. "That is the story. Now rest, Vevis. We will have an exhausting day tomorrow."

Dwarf_Moria · **Posted:** September 21st, 2008, 9:07 am

Interesting. I like the way the story is going, but it's so hard to guess what's coming next. You two have got a lot of possibilities to make the story better and better as it goes along.

[N] Last Hope

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