I'd originally just planned to write one book, but you EMC folks are just too darn inspiring. So here's your chance to tell me which you'd like to read more of... This is a continuation of my earlier contest from a couple weeks ago, wherein my Muse got more than she bargained for. As such, I leave it to you, my friends, to decide which story sounds the most interesting to you. Below are three "snippets" based on the trio of entries I found most inspiring. All of these have "won," but I'm letting EMC decide the order. Please use the poll to select the one snippet you'd like to see finished. I gritted my teeth, laborously hauling myself up another block. I swear the mountain wasn't this tall when I started climbing, I thought to no one. Already I'd consumed two of my steaks trying to reach its peak, and my stomach was beginning to demand a third. To make things worse, there was only one narrow, winding path - the rest was flat stone or empty space. And it was getting dark. "I swear to Notch, if I see a zombie or skeleton up here I'm kicking their miserable carcass right off the edge," I muttered. It always mystified me how the undead were everywhere - even in places where no one had ever been before. Didn't something have to die first before it could rise from the grave? As the sun sank below the horizon, I jabbed a torch into the rock face. Hopefully the light would discourage anything from following me up. I should have been more worried about what was already above me. The creeper fell like a meteorite, hissing loudly as it dove at me from the rocks above. Dirt and stone shattered around my feet and I felt myself flying through the air. Life began to flash before my eyes, but no sooner had I crafted my first wooden pickaxe than I struck ground. Winded, I sat up coughing, brushing dust and debris from my clothes. "Could've sworn that would take longer. And hurt more." I looked up, but saw no mountain above me. It took a moment's further reflection to realize I had somehow landed on its peak. I had made it! Then I looked below. The path was gone, obliterated by my unfortunate skydiver. A gap several blocks long had been blown out of the mountainside, with my torch gleaming just out of reach. "Well, crap." Liam awoke breathlessly, drenched in cold sweat. The nightmares were growing worse. He could no longer close his eyes without visions of a bleached, desolate land, drifting in endless night. Hundreds of burning, violet eyes turned their gaze on him, waiting. Waiting... for what? He looked at the table beside his bed. A small green pearl floating just above its surface, pulsing with a faint glow. Liam had traded five emeralds for it in the village nearby, hoping it would get him to a hard-to-reach vein of iron he'd spotted the day before. Unlike other pearls however, this one had not vanished after use. Or for the next throw. Or the one after. In fact, he could not manage to get rid of it at all. And now, the Endermen and their bleak landscape were haunting his dreams at night. Sometimes, it felt like the pearl itself was watching him. Annoyed, he reached out and batted it off the table. A second later, he vanished from his bed with a soft voop! and reappeared in a tangled heap on the floor. The station shook from countless impacts. Red lights glared in the hallway, warning klaxxons screeching from every coridor at once. Someone had found his facility at last. Dalton stumbled as he ran, struggling to put on his pressure suit amidst the chaos. He knew someday this place would be discovered, that there would come a time when everything he had worked so hard to create would be threatened. Another spasm shook the facility, Dalton falling forward as the steel under his feet bucked - and found himself in freefall as the gravity generator went dead. He glanced through the narrow slit of a window shutter, seeing for the first time the enemy raining hell down on his head. It was small, for a cruiser, but it bore the markins of a pirate vessel and bristled with rocket launchers and autocannon turrets. Behind the last wave of missiles, a small infiltration crew was drifting towards his home, their guidance packs burning brilliant cerulean trails in the void. Dalton gazed past them, into the black. It was time to choose - to stay and fight, to protect his small chunk of rock, or to abandon his home to these predators and build anew somewhere else? The alarms changed pitch, signaling an atmospheric breach. Prizes will be awarded as follows: First Place: 50,000r and their own Sale Chest for the completed book, in my bookstores on both SMP1 and SMP8. Second Place: 30,000r and a signed copy of the story written from their entry. Third Place: 20,000r and a signed copy of the story written from their entry. All Entries: My sincere gratitude for getting my Muse back to work.
ERm.... Which entries did you base these off of? Names preferably (cuz if I didn't see my name their and that was mine, I'd be like, well, this looks new)
I have their names saved privately, but I'm not posting publicly because I want each entry to be judged based on the story, not the author. Per the original thread:
Oh here's an idea I thought of. Send the original creators a PM so they know which one is their's so they don't vote for themselves
I like where number 2 is going. My vote is for it. The logic gap in ascent of falling to the top made very little sense and confused me. Shipyard was good but not as good as the pearl.
Regarding "Ascent," they keyword is "flying" through the air, not necessarily falling Think TNT cannon, but with a human projectile. And as for Shipyard, I'll confess that while the inspiration was taken from prompt, the premise / setting is based in Space Engineers - blame Bobcat for pointing me to it recently.
