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KeenEmpire
Vortininja
Posts: 37
(7/18/01 9:16 am)
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New story, part 1
I've been workin on a sequal to Origin of Curses...(i hope its up by now), but its been very long and only on its first part (probably gonna be 3 or 4 parts) and I need help anyway. If anyone can give me any suggestions it would be appreciated, thanks.
And most of all...I need a freekin title!!! Plz help me find one at least...
Well heres the story:
Part I: The Two Castles
1
The shadowy night engulfed the entire suburb, the more mysterious, Billy Blaze thought to himself, and the less delightful the universe seemed. The neighbors, however, did not seem to think so. The two kids were running around their backyard, screaming, and their parents were watching them enthusiastically. Billy decided not to meddle in affairs too big for him.
Even though it was in no way “big”, considering the adventures he had already been through. Freeing the Vorticon race from mental enslavement, saving the galaxy, and eventually the entire universe from total destruction would make his homework problems alone seem very pointless (and not to mention unnessesary).
But, he thought, and knew slyly, though he would never admit it to anyone else, he would not, could not understand the small things such as his own life, it seemed a lot more complex than all the technological advancements in the galaxy combined. He did not, for example, understand why the whole world was, why his parents, brothers, why he himself was here, if not for a pointless purpose.
And he definitely did not know where to start, he thought, as his mom finally called him down for some dinner. Eight year old Billy Blaze was not the most social person, especially when it came to the vegetables that came at dinner. He went down slowly.
“BEILLY!!! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG??” His mom semi-shouted at him. “It must have been five minutes already!!”
Billy started to protest, but the thought of if he protested everyday came to him and stopped him. Everything was always exxagurated with his parents, he thought.
“Nothing.” He replied innocently.
“Nothing!” His mom said, trying to be calm. “NOTHING?!?!” She sure wasn’t being successful. “Well, go have some food before it gets to your bedtime, Billy.”
He walked over to the table, ignored something his mother muttered about grounding him, and sat beside his dad. In front of him was the usual vegetables that he now mostly forced himself to gulp down, but there was also something unusual: A delicious-looking hamburger meat. He started to eat the hamburger when his dad muttered something about the news being good for him.
Billy didn’t pay much attention, but some words from the television got to him anyway.
“Police…stay…Rottenhier…Please….Not….Attempt….Enter.”
“Geeze!”, his dad shouted to the world in general. “These superstitious freaks, getting the police to block up someplace because of ghosts…ridiculous folks, wasting all our tax money for a bunch of S—”
“Dad…” Billy’s mom quickly said.
Billy’s dad shrugged angrily and picked up a newspaper, it seemed that he could do many things at once.
Getting tired of this, Billy quickly gulped down his plate and said: “Going to feed Spot now” while running out.
2
Billy ran into his small clubhouse, opened a cupboard, and partly emptied a large sack of Martian food supply into a plate. He ran out and handed it to Spot, his pet Yorp (a creature from Mars).
Spot took the food, but not without a comment. “Hey!” He said. “This is DRIED food, you need to add water and microwave it for a few minutes.”
“Can’t you do it yourself?” Keen paced. “My mom’s gonna get suspicious, she’s always suspicious.”
“Yeah sure…but I’ve found something very interesting when monitoring the news.”
Keen grunted annoyingly and said “What?”
“Well, theres a large house in the countryside, not more than 10 miles away from here. A lot of people have got the police on it, they say ghosts and witches live there, ridiculous really. That was a week ago.”
Keen paced on. “And…?”
“Yeah, but just this night some policemen have entered the house to investigate. Most of them don’t believe it, of course, but I guess they finally got annoyed of all the reports and wanted to clear it once and for all. They never came back.”
Keen was pacing until the last sentence. After a second of slight disbelief and automatic rejection it echoed in his mind. They never came back.
“What??” Keen asked on, suddenly extremely interested.
“After that”, Spot continued, “They sent another task force to find out what happened. Larger this time, with guns and radios. After a few minutes of constant monitoring there were sudden shreaks and bright lights were seen from observers near the house. Then everything apparently exploded in fire, and came back, as if nothing happened. Meanwhile through one of the radios there was laughter as a final sound, high-pitched like the witches’ voices in movies. We have confirmed video coverage of this.”
“Oh man…”
“Now they’re all crazy over it. Helicopters, many guns, all this stuff, and they’re waiting for orders of what to do next.”
“Do you suppose--”, Keen inquired.
“I don’t know anything about this.”, came the interrupted response.
“—That this has something to do with the revolt of the magical community, as predicted by the high preist of Mars?”
Spot fingered his fingers. “It’s possible…” he finally said, “but either way, we have to check it out.”
The conversation was interrupted though, by a loud shout “BEIIILLLLLEEEEYYYY!!!! WHATS TAKING U SO LONG!?!??!”
Keen quickly leaned and whispered “Tonight, when they think I’m asleep. Probably 10 o clock. Be here and get ready.”
3
It was quite later than 10 O Clock. In fact, it was very nearly 11:20, and finally Billy Blaze donned his brother’s football helmet, slipped out of his room and opened the door. He quietly went down the stairs, freaked out a little as he forgot to jump over the creaky one, then tripped over nothing at the insanity of it and went rolling down. Despite this, though, his parents didn’t seem to have woken up.
He quickly opened the door and walked out.
“You’re late”, came a stern voice that was, of course, Spot. “We better hurry, panic is beginning to escalate. Its saying that there is increased activity in the ghost house.”
“Okay then…the ship’s too big to be concealed so we’ll take the hoverboard. It should be big enough to hold us both.”
Keen began to move, then noticed the other’s silence. “What?”
“Well…hoverboard? How about the Deathboard?” The Deathboard had been given to Keen’s inventory a few adventures ago, but—
“That’s no good, its just a skateboard…it wont go fast without…wait a minute.”
“Yes, before you ask.”
“YOU MOVED THE GRAVITIC MOTOR!?!?!?”
“Well, the hover’s a little limp now—”
“Very good” Keen muttered. He was still panting angrily though.
They walked into the clubhouse, and saw the blue over-sized skateboard in front of them, except without wheels now. Spot pressed a button and it started to rise above the ground.
They stepped onto it.
“How do you steer?” Norp asked.
“Lese, there’s crude steering, which puts out a wheel like thing…but I haven’t installed it in this board, only the hover.”
Norp blinked.
“And there’s the normal steering, just lean the way you want to go.”
“We’ve wasted 5 minutes already. Lets go. Forward.” Norp said.
Keen put his weight onto his left foot…
They kept off the road, for fear of being discovered. The Deathboard rushed forward at nearly 16 meters per second, leaving a trail of exaust; steam, in back of them. They would have been flying off by now if not for the magnetic attraction between an artificial board magnet and a device inside their shoes.
The essense of flying was only too encompassing in their thoughts. Freedom, of course, but it also gave you a light feeling of semi-invincibility. Keen still did not understand—
There were bright lights in front of them, from a distance.
Not magical lights, but police lights. Though the police were much easier to deal with, Commander Keen had not thought of what he should do, thinking of the probably much deadlier ghost house that lay ahead.
But alas, this was a barrier that needed to be crossed, and he had to do it without arising too much suspicion.
“Board Computer, slow down and stop.” He commanded. The Deathboard started to decelerate, until, a few meters later, it pulled to a full stop and slowly lowered its passengers to the ground.
“What should we do?” Norp said, seeing the lights and sirens for himself.
“You stay here.” Keen commanded. “They’re probably not used to seeing aliens. I’ll see if I can convince them.” He did not, however, have any idea of what was to be done.
Keen walked several hundred meters until he got a sight of the policemen. There were several cars, a one meter high barrier all around a certain radius, as far as he could see. In the distance, a small light that signified a chopper was taking off.
And the policemen noticed him.
They seemed to consult each other for a small while, then one of them, a woman, approached him.
He looked around, thinking quickly, and not managing to think of anything.
The policewoman approached slowly, nicely, and said in a nice voice “Hey.”
Keen replied with a weak (though not too weak) “Hey.”
“What’s your name?” The policewoman continued. “Are you lost?”
“Um…no. In fact…um…” What the hell, just say it. “I was wondering if I could go for a brisk walk to the house over there.” He pointed at the one in the distance, undoubtly the ghost house. It was about 4 stories high, with a tower extenging another story and a separate tower of the same height. “I have been told that no one lives here, and that its pretty much legal to visit anyway.” Keen continued hastily.
“Yes, but…but…”
And Keen realized that she must be feeling very foolish talking about ghosts and witches to a KID, for zark’s sake.
“Well, its off limits right now.” She finally said.
“Why?” If foolishness was to be her undoing, then so be it.
“Well…some people of us disappeared there, and we’re still trying to find out what happened—”
“SO?”
“Well, it might not be safe. Now, how far is your home? You’ve better be getting to sleep soon. I’ll be happy to escort yo—”
Suddenly there was a lot of shouting. Another policeman ran up to them.
He shouted: “We’ve picked up something on inferred, a third of a kilometer, that way.” He pointed toward the direction that Keen had came from.
And troops were already rushing toward that place.
“NO!! NO!!” Keen shouted. “That’s my…friend!!!”
But, in the distance, there were flashes of red light, undoubtably Norp’s magical defense, and some screaming
The policeman picked up his radio and shouted something like “We Have a 361 at grid G9….”
And the Deathboard was rushing at him. Through his radio Keen heard Norp shout “GET ON!!!”
The police pulled out their guns, but Norp activated the hidden Deathboard Slash (a short range weapon that pulled out a rotating mono-molecular edge from inside the board) to intimidate them. Keen jumped on when they were close enough, and the magnetic attraction pulled him on tight.
“Too late now!” Norp said. “We’ll have to make for it!”
They rushed toward the barrier.
Hitting the 1 meter tall, concrete barrier at nearly 16 meters per second, of course, would have some very disasterous results, Keen knew. The Deathboard’s hover height was barely half a meter. Keen wondered how it was that they were going to cross it, or anything. But Norp was at the controls now. He told himself not to think about it.
The barrier was barely a hundred meters away.
What would happen, he wondered, if a disaster awaited them on the other side anyway? But before them, there were policemen (and women). They were probably arming guns right now.
The barrier was barely 30 meters away.
Keen shut his eyes.
But then, before he knew it, he felt a great exileration, unlike what he ever felt before. The board was now soaring very high, the barrier a stone blockade, way under him. And then the sensation ended as the board desended to its normal height of 0.5 meters.
Approching them was the haunted house, or so they said. It seemed a lot larger here, since they had to take account of the third dimension as well, and it seemed to be a giant, towering, eating them.
The board landed on the front door, and Norp ordered a full stop.
They went off, depositing and hiding the board. They would not need it anymore; hopefully it would still be there when they came back for it.
They opened the door…
They entered…
4
The First Castle
They entered…
Behind Commander Keen, the door creaked (even worse than his stair) as Norp closed it.
Norp sniffed the air. Keen pulled out his Enhanced Sensors v35.
“Upstairs.” They both said.
According to Norp, there was a light funny smell in the air coming from the floor above. According to Keen’s sensors, there was a high probability of a temporal disruption in the fifth dimension of the fabric of the universe.
And when they went, there appeared to be a shudder in the ground.
The vortex seemed to be emminating a gray light from it. It was spinning very rapidly. Norp could see it clearly; Keen could only precieve it with the help of some computerized goggles, since humans can’t notice the fifth dimension.
Well, they SAID this was the bedroom.
Despite this enormous discovery, though (and one that would probably have rocked the entire scientific community of the Earth) they were still in square 1. They had no idea what this dimensional vortex specified, and they could not destroy it without being sure if it was safe to be destroyed.
They walked back down.
“Well?” Norp asked.
“Bah, we still do not know what all this is about. We need some clues.” Keen walked absentmindedly into the kitchen.
BOOM.
They both looked at each other. Keen was about to ask Norp if he heard that too, but thought better when seeing his expression.
BOOM. Slightly louder.
“Spot…try the door.” He did not have much hope, however, and his suspicion was confirmed a few seconds later.
“WHHHHHEEEZZZ.” Came an even louder noise.
And a secret passageway in the kitchen opened. Smoke started coming out of it.
“Poison Gas!!” Norp shouted. “Of course, the policemen had guns, but no gas masks?” When they were safely covered with their masks they stepped in the passageway.
It was a long one, made of stone, winding in some places, with no other paths Keen’s sensors could detect, until finally they came upon the other side of the house. There was a separate stairway going up.
“Geeze. I must say, that passageway just led here, while walking through the rooms would have brought us to this location much faster? Time to search these rooms.”
But in the middle there was a force field, apparently of contained deadly radiation. They would not have been able to cross if they had gone the short way.
So they went up the stairway.
And alas!
It was a computer. A very large one, at that, but a computer.
“Oh man.” Keen said.
“What?”
“This computer…its almost like the advanced Vorticon ones, only configured for English words. Let alone the fact that this house has been abandoned for 80 years, before computers were invented.”
Indeed the comp did look old. It also had apparently no power source. Keen plugged it up on a small battery (which was, nevertheless, capable of holding enough energy to power a small town for a day), and to get past the passwords he used one of his memory scanning gadgets.
The data it had, though, was disappointingly very little. In fact, it was more like a diary.
Keen started to download the memory core into another of his gadgets, and he took the time to read an entry from 1960, way after this house was supposedly abandoned.
“It has been a long time since my young self took the time to build this ghost house to scare little people. Sure enough, the computers these days are getting advanced enough to rival those I built when I was nine. I am forced to chuckle, but I find my life lacks little purpose here. I will keep thinking of it.
--Rexeel”
Keen skipped the dates and went to December 2000, the latest entry of this.
“Spot, come look at this.” He said.
The download was almost complete.
Instead of words, a voice came out of the computer. It was a young voice.
“We Cannot Contain it!!! The vortex is not expanding, but the creatures coming out of it are! We are attempting to get away, evacuate all our work. I do not understand how they could be coming out, I put a powerful lock onto the vortex, but it is expanding. The screeches are horrible. The dungeon…we do not know what is happening. It seems that another vortex is opening, though we do not know what is behind it. We have evacuated it…
“We have killed some of the creatures with certain dimension shields, but we lack hope…I wish…
“Oh my god.”
Static, then a final crackle.
And then a beep, signifying that the download was complete.
Keen recovered his devices, but his hand was shaking.
And there was a great shreak.
And a BOOM!
BOOM…BOOM
BOOM. It seemed to get louder and closer.
Keen and Norp knew what to do. There was another stair going up, then another, and they finally reached the very top.
And a wooden rope bridge, leading to the other, separate tower.
And the BOOMs and a feeling of dread were coming over them.
They quickly crossed the bridge. There was a trapdoor. They opened it. Norp started to go in.
And on the other side of the bridge, a horrible creature, sort of like a giant bird without wings, but great claws.
Keen fired his gun at it, to no effect. Norp looked out suddenly, then fired a red laser from the eye. The bird zapped, then fell.
And more were coming. “HURRY!! GET DOWN!!!” Norp bellowed to Keen, who quickly complied. They shut the trapdoor and sealed it. Keen hoped it would last long enough.
They ran down a long, winding stair, and then, after what seemed like forever, they came to the bottom. A great corridor.
And Keen and Norp realized.
“This isn’t a house.” Norp said. “This is a freekin castle, most of it being underground.”
And as they ran across the hallways, deeper into the depths, they saw it was very true. The walls were stone, the floor a sort of concrete. And they ran.
In front of them was another vortex. This one was very visible, even to Keen, and despair seemed to emminate from it.
And before they knew what was happening (and they won’t know for some time) they both passed out.
5
The Second Castle
Keen woke up. He sure didn’t want to, sleep seemed to be far better than reality…
And he remembered what was happening again.
Commander Keen, defender of the universe, was crouched on the roof of the main body of a castle, this time what actually looked like a castle from the outside.
He was suddenly alert. Standing up, he felt for his flask of Vitalin, and gulped down a little of it.
It was a world of darkness, everything was engulfed in shadow, and the castle looked no less than dark gray.
He looked down from the castle hall. There were knights in armor, though they looked nothing close to human, with very square, and very large, bodies.
Slowly, Keen jumped down from the castle wall. He landed behind a crate. Nearby was a company of two knights.
Sighing, he took out his Decoy Projector.
Commander Keen ran, at incredible speed, from the front of the castle to the cover of the side. The knights in armor follwed him, at also very incredible speed, he thought. Dealing with them would be harder than he thought.
Keen pocketed his Decoy Projector, walked to the castle door from the crate he was hiding behind, and opened the castle door.
The great hall was empty, except for a sole, sleeping knight on the table. Keen quickly walked past him and opened a door.
Even though he had no proof, he had no doubt now that this was the doing of the magical revenge for the Origin of Curses.
The Necromancer, on the Crayen System of a spiral galaxy called Elexis, was the master. His true name was Reohert, but no one remembered that now, except for the computers. He was the all powerful, and the whole universe would soon know it.
But the destruction of the creature responsible for just less than half of all the magical transistions in the universe would now limit his power.
One of his subjects entered, a promising young magician. Of all the people in this galaxy, the Necromancer knew, those who met him, the greatest Sorcerer in the entire galaxy (and just maybe the universe), most were the most lucky, and yet they were the ones who least appreciated the luck.
There was a small pond in this thoroughly fresh and clean room. The Necromancer reached his arm out and stroked it…
Three heads appeared inside it. Each head was very large, about 2 feet in diameter, but the Necromancer knew this was because of the difference in sizes of the two viewers. If one looked, they would also see that each head was connected to a neck, which went out of the pond, where to be unseen.
These anomalies were explained by the fact that the point of view the pond was looking from was from that of a cauldron (a magician pot, or whatever), and that the heads were those looking into it from above.
“Well…” the Necromancer said disapprovingly. In audiences, he did not resort to time consuming titles or anything, he was just addressed as “Sir.”
“Sir,” one of them said. “We have isolated the Yorp. He is safely in containment, and cannot do Sh!T until the spell is broken.”
“You have accomplished the feat?” came the cold reply.
Another one spoke up. “Yes, our magic has finally done the impossible: capture one of the most powerful creatures in the universe itself, the creators OF magic.”
“Well…very good. But have you have any idea where the Yorp’s accomplice is? A horrible Commander Keen, I believe. We know he is on this planet, and yet something went wrong with the teleport.”
The last person hesitated. “No, my lord. We are still investigating as to why the teleportation was not accurate. Our guards, are, however, searching for him, and we have no doubt that he shall be recovered soon. This Keen has no power in magic, he will not be able to withstand us.”
The Necromancer thought for a second. “Well then, continue your search. I will await the results!!”
The pond stirred, and went back to its original transparency, and the Necromancer thought he saw one of the three give a sigh just before all was gone.
As had Commander Keen, who had used his Paradox Interceptor to decode and view the message.
Now there was finally a way to go. The triangulation of the message had traced the three wizards to a room deep inside another corridor. Sensors indicated multiple NMEz inside it.
Oh, what the hell, Keen thought, pulling out his gun.
6
Very fast (and possibly magical) arrows fired through the space Keen was about to go though. Firing his gun (set on Disintegrate) at the place where the arrow came from, Keen blew up a wall, as well as all except the feet of a knight.
A long corridor was in front of him now, and soldiers were piling out of the doors. His gun still blasted the living (are those soldiers living? That would make a good debate question) daylights out of them. But still they kept coming and kept coming…and his gun would run out of ammo soon.
The Necromancer’s page ran in what he thought was slow motion (since nothing could possibly need to delay no longer) up the stairs and burst into the room of his Lord. He stood their for a few moments, gasping, then finally rushed out a few words.
The Necromancer, still calm, muttered “So, he’s very close to the room where they are keeping his accomplice? Keen seems better than I thought.” He covered his chin with his hand.
The Necromancer touched the surface of the pond once again. Ripples shown through, then a single face materialized in it.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Esher. We begin Seed B now, password is rottenpig.”
“What?” The voice of Esher was very different than when the conversation started. “You cant mean it! Seed B needs at least one more week of testing…”
“The machines are absolutely qualified, Esher. They have passed your own standards a week ago, and yet you resume testing them?”
“Sir, we are dealing with a power—”
“Yes, Esher. I grow impatient. The power is strong, and I will take whatever little chance there is that things might go wrong.”
Esher’s eyes still were wide open. “I will activate the machines,” he said in a sollem voice.
Commander Keen tossed a grenade into the last room with enemies. Shrapnel and acid flew around, and finally all was destroyed. Apparently there had not been an infinite number of enemies after all, and as the rooms got cleared he got closer. Now there was one last non-opened door. Grenade in one hand, he turned the knob.
The three wizards, startled, looked back, but Keen nailed the grenade in the middle of the trio, shrapnel giving them some minor wounds. One of them raised his wand, but Keen was a faster shot, and before the sorcerer could do anything he was fried and flopped onto the ground.
The other two were now holding up their wands. Keen activated his dimension shielding. He did not have much confidence in his device, but now it was his only hope as they both aimed their wands at him.
The dimension shielding DID help, after all. It did not shield against the powers of the wizards’ spells, but it seemed to deflect them a little, so that Keen got out of the way just in time.
One of the wizards held up his wand and coming from it seemed to be some kind of energy field. The other was slower, as Keen nailed him in his chest. There was no screaming of agony, though Keen knew he undoubtly felt that.
Two down, he thought. But on top of the wand of the last one, even as he was shielding himself with it, a ball of flame was beginning to gather, and Keen could guess was he was about to do with it.
Commander Keen, recognizing his last hope, tossed a grenade at the last wizard.
The wizard seemed to chuckle, despite his desprateness, probably meaning that the grenade would not harm him.
Nor did it, but as it hit, a web of dimension shielding wove from it, canceling out the poor man’s shield.
Keen wondered if the wizard knew what was coming, and waited for the end, or if he tried to rush the process of the flame, or if he was making one last desprate attempt to regain his shield.
Certainly, he did not move, and did not move ever again, as Keen tossed a real grenade, and blew him up.
The fragments of his enemies scattered around the room were ugly sights.
And then Keen saw his pet, encased in what looked like a stasis field; blue bars like a jail. The Paradox Tracer revealed its power to be coming from the pot.
So Keen tossed a last grenade into it.
An awesome set of fireworks blew out, and Norp was freed.
7
The Yorp called Norp stood up from the ground that was the cage of the magical stasis field, stretched his muscles, and looked blankly at Commander Keen. Finally he said: “Well, my friend, it looks like you’ve 0wned the entire castle, as well as some members of the magical community. The same ones that had me imprisoned here, in fact. Good job.”
Shrug. “Yeah, but the problem seems to be now, my ammo supply is very low, a few more shots would empty it, and all I have other than that is a few flower power grenades, no firepower, I remember how horrible it was in Trubia.”
“Bah”, came the reply. “Have you not learned anything from turning witches into frogs with magic wands? At least that you can as easily make them turn this bloody mess into some ammunition.” And he picked up a wand and did just that.
“How much time do we have left?” Keen inquired.
Norp sighed darkly. “I am not sure.” He said. “But I sense a new dark power at work. Nowhere in this castle will be safe soon. We must make haste!”
They bounded out of the room in great strides and soon were rushing out of the corridor. Soon Keen began to feel it too: a sense of bright darkness, much worse than when he had encountered the birdlike creature in the other castle.
Keen quickly checked his sensors. “There’s a hell of a lot of creatures heading for us.” He muttered. “And there is a lot more guarding the back enterance, for some reason. We better not head back down there.”
At this Norp stopped walking.
“The back enterance?” He said. “I have a weird gut feeling we should be heading there right now, I suppose its some sort of trap.”
“A most unusual one at that, I hope you can contain your emotions until such time that we manage to get off this planet, and of course I haven’t a single idea of how to possibly do that.”
But it did not seem that Norp was listening anymore. “OH MY GOD!!!” He shouted suddenly. “It is true, but it may be their undoing.” He stopped, then started to run the other way…
“SPOT, STOP!!!” He picked up his gun and tried to stun his pet, but he was illuded.
Billy groaned under his brother’s football helmet. This was going to be a pain in the neck, he thought, then took after his Yorpie as fast as he could.
As he ran past, he saw a wake of dead, bloody knights, undoubtly left by the magic of his pet. It looked like he was, at least, still counting them as an enemy. But still no sign of him.
Finally, after a very long walk, he came upon the Yorp, standing straight and staring blanky at the wall. “SPOT!!!” He said. “WTF HAS GOTTEN INTO J00!?!??” He thought he was shouting, but apparently his instints had taken over and he was whispering.
But Norp ignored him, and muttered “This is the wall where the secret passageway is. It has to be, it mathematically aligns with the one of the other castle. Once we cross it, we should bypass most of the guards.” Despite Keen’s protesting, he stared down the wall, and, within 10 seconds it fell, revealing another hallway identical to the first secret passageway. Their masks were gone, but they would not need it in this castle, they found out as the sensor measured quantities of good air.
Through this passage they ran through. The distance, when compared to the first, was equal, but it seemed a lot longer; an eternity, until they finally emerged from the other side. It was not the outside yet, but they could sense it to be very close.
There were two doors, and from one some knights suddenly came in.
After some mild confusion they pointed and said “That’s them!!! KEEL THEM!!!!”
Keen vaporized some with his gun, and Norp finished off the rest, but more were now coming.
And the weird feeling of powerful darkness was coming closer.
“Go!” Norp said. “The other door, I will hold them off.”
Keen ran to the other door, planted some mines, then ran through it. The path kept going straight, and he killed the few knights that were guarding it. Suddenly, there was a rush of feet behind him, and he turned around, gun in hand, but it was just Norp. He seemed to be tired, and Keen did not take that as a good sign.
“Defeated,” he muttered. “There is a very weird, and yet vaguely familiar force at work. I do not know, lightning and frostbite striked all along the way, and we must hurry. They thought to lure us into a trap, but the lure will be their undoing. We will get away. Rush…NOW!”
As if an alarm had just been triggered, Keen felt a spurt of energy, and ran, this time keeping up with Spot. He obviously knew something useful (or else was so motivated that he would lead him to their doom), and this was now the only chance. Keen quickly opened his flask and gulped down a little more Vitalin, and he seemed to get strengthened even more.
After a while they came upon a large circular room with a thin red carpet running through its middle…and sunlight shining through the other side.
“Almost…” Keen prompted.
And there was suddenly a loud pitched noise from behind them.
Keen realized that as fast as they had ran, the knights, with their awesome speed, as Keen had seen earlier, would run even faster. How could he be so stupid? But they were so close to the end now…their destiny seemed to be certain now…just this room.
And knights started coming from the other side. They seemed to pile on the left and right, like welcoming someone else. No problem…Keen pulled up his gun…
…And instead found despair leeking though him…
…As what seemed to be a horrible nightmare came through.
And there was no other word for it. It did not exist in three dimensions, and therefore could not be seen, but it seemed as if despair and other signals came from it, and they conquered Commander Keen’s vision and manifested a horrible, slithering, yet gliding in air, creature that was not a creature.
And as for Norp, he was staring at it with pure horror, eye opening wide, mouth suddenly very open. “A Furrent!” He whispered fiercely. “A creature from the magical dimension, but who could have manifested such a creature into here? It would take much more power than that offered by all the Yorps who ever lived!”
“A Furrent!” He continued. “This nightmare is not good, and I am weary already. Keen, flee!”
But Commander Keen, Defender of the Universe, was not to be taken off by a monster with a ridiculous name. Grenade in one hand, his gun in the other, he walked up and stood by Norp, ready to do whatever he could against this horrible thing.
And to his horror he suddenly saw some pulses of light, and heard a voice…a voice that seemed to be coming from himself.
“HaHaHa!” The Furrent said. “Your weakling race has peered into our dimension for millennia, and has hidden, seeing and moving as you fit the power you call magic. But that power has only been manifested through the stripping of our fabric and its existence to power your weakling society. Now, finally, I and your betters will have their revenge!”
“NEVER!!!” the Yorp shouted, and let loose a stream of red laser, but the Furrent only seemed to chuckle: a soft version of the words “That tickled!”
And, out of the fabric of the universe itself, mysterious powers combined and struck like lightning through the hall; Destruction itself compared to the Yorps’ now seemingly weak magic.
Keen tossed a grenade, and then a flower power grenade, to, of course no avail.
The monster now laughed even harder. There were more strikes, and all the while the despair in the universe seemed to increase.
But something seemed to gather on Norp’s single eye. Like the ball of fire of the last wizard, but it was white-hot, and seemed to have unlimited strength.
Even the despair of the Furrent seemed to decrease.
And suddenly Keen realized what it was. Norp had described it to him before: the End of Honor: The most powerful defense of a Yorp; A death thro that would bring the end to its enemies.
And now he knew why it was called “honor”.
“SPPOT!!! NORP!!! NO!!!” Billy, himself, shouted again. “Help.” He said in a dying voice. This was more than even the Furrent could have done, and now was doing.
Spot ignored him. The ball grew of brightness and radius. He finally said: “Your ship is outside the castle, and your last hope too. Fly, F00.” Keen backed off the red carpet, and ran.
A sudden explosion rocked the castle that Keen just ran out of, and a great circle encompassed more than half of it. Ether ran through the atmosphere. There was no more hope. He saw his BwB Megarocket, ran inside it, and started the launch mechanism. It started rising, very slowly, it seemed, and then it totally stopped, and Keen saw a dying world, a dying universe that could never come again.
And when he opened his eyes again the ship was in deep space. The planet was out behind him, and they were ready to make a Jump into hyperspace.
Not even the Iron Courage of Commander Keen could withstand the sadness of the loss of Spot/Norp: his pet and, now that he thought of it, dear friend.
Very dreadful came the end. Keen knew this all the time but, of course, he, as everyone, was plagued with the possibility that the end might not come…somewhere…somehow…
And even as his ship drifted soundlessly in space, even as he mourned over his loss, he knew there was only one thing left to do.
Keen started to record a message to send to the Vorticon government via hyperspace, and he prepared his ship to Jump.
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Forge315
Vortininja
Posts: 164
(7/18/01 4:23 pm)
Reply
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Re: New story, part 1
I will read this later; I have to go to class right now.
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XkyRauh2001 
Vortininja
Posts: 61
(7/18/01 8:42 pm)
Reply
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wow...
...pretty decent :-) i was unaware Yorps had fingers, magical abilities, lasers and what not, and i was unaware Keen carried around all those high-tech gadgets with him too.... but for what it's worth, the story was more original than some i've seen. and at least you threw in a bit about "what's the point?"
whatever happened to the simplicity of the Keen games themselves, though? Keen always just had his Stunner and Pogo to see him thru an entire adventure, not all this high-tech scanners and translators, interceptors and wands, etc. we kinda covered this in the "Keen's IQ" thread. sure, his IQ is 314 and thus he should be capable of having all this cool stuff, but the game wouldn't be NEARLY as much fun.
i'd better go before the tomatoes start flying...
--Xky
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Lagularity
Grunt
Posts: 2
(7/19/01 12:34 pm)
Reply
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Re: wow...
I never seen it...hehe
But I really think Keen DOES need SOME more weapons, man. Hmm i dunno if Origin of Curses was posted on cc314 story page yet
--KeenEmpire
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Forge315
Vortininja
Posts: 189
(7/25/01 4:28 pm)
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Re: wow...
Damn! That was good; I will have to read the other installments.
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KeenEmpire
Vortininja
Posts: 44
(8/12/01 6:15 am)
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Re: Wow...
I finally got it done, you can find it in fan fic page
My compliments to Flaose for the extremely short time it took to get it on (an hour for 60 pages!+editing+splitting+etc OMG OMG)
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Flaose
Vorticon Elite
Posts: 429
(8/13/01 1:19 pm)
Reply
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Re: Wow...
Well I thought I should make it up to you for slaking off with your other storys 
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