To Be a Pirate King

Just took a mock-AP, wasn't that bad actually

Well, with the last of my AP tests done, I'm proud to announce that I've finally written the first two paragraphs of the Pirate King novel! More to come in the near future.

Post them please.

Not much to post at the moment, I'm afraid. Just a few sentences. Once I get a page or two, I'll post.

Yay!

Well, here's the first bit. Tell me what you think.

Lumbridge, I thought with a grimace, stepping off the cobbled bridge onto the dirt path before me. Goddamn Lumbridge. I had been gone for nearly two years by this point, but as soon as I was within sight of the shrunken black towers, I remembered exactly why I had hated it so much in the first place.

It was not, as many people are quick to contradict, a pleasant place. In all of Gielinor, there cannot be a place more full of backwater adventurers and deadend traders than goddamn Lumbridge. The castle, once a place where the upper crust from the local villages could gather, is now frequented by the most pox-ridden adventurous hacks the world can offer. It has always been this way, since I first stepped across that godforsaken bridge.

Not even the squalid trade of the town can do anything to redeem it. There are a few shops scattered about the streets. Step around the beggar, avoid the chicken carcasses strewn across the path, and you might soon find yourself in the general store, where the shopkeeper and his assistant will do their utmost to scam you out of every hard-earned coin. The one potentially legitimate place in the entire town is the church (not even the palace gets this distinction; the Duke of Lumbridge is not quite as generous as he would have us think) and even this holiest of places isn’t above the stench of scandal and corruption. The priests have been known to occasionally dip into the donations.

And so here I was, back in the place I hated so much. What, you may ask, was I doing in such a place? Why, you may rightfully query, had I returned to so vile a cesspool? The answer is simple: I was a deadend adventurer like the rest of them. Things had gone as well as I could have hoped for the past two years. In Gielinor, there’s never a short supply of dragons to slay, rocks to mine, cows to slaughter for hours at a time. There really is enough to keep any adventurer occupied for the rest of his natural life.

And so there I was, making the most of my life. I was in Taverly at the time of the incident, I believe. Taverly….goddamn Taverly. Those druids wouldn’t know a dragon if it came and bit them in their well-clothed behinds. But there I was running errands for them. I knew collecting herbs for druids was a dangerous business, but I hadn’t done much with the local flora for a while so I figured it was a safe bet. On my return to the local bank in Taverly, I was informed that my bank was “full” and that I couldn’t possibly deposit or withdraw anything until the proper paperwork for a “full” bank had been filled out.

What constituted “full” (or what constituted “paperwork”, for that matter) I shall never know. The next thing I knew, I was ejected from the bank and not allowed back into that branch or any other branch. With all my life’s savings, spare armor, and every single item I could ever use to cash in a favor in that bank, I was hopeless. I had nothing but the clothes on my back and what was in my pack. And thanks to the druids of Taverly, I was wearing white robes and carrying a pack full of guam…

So where else to go but to Lumbridge? Where else could I go? None of the major cities would accept me as a veteran adventurer. With no legendary sword nor expensive armor, I could hardly prove my worth. And so I ended up in…Lumbridge.



It was a pleasant morning, now I come to think of it. The sun was beaming, the clouds were few and far between, and the occasional pleasant breeze almost carried away the scent of squalor. I pushed my way through the crowd directly in front of the bridge; they were milling around chatting about this or that and generally just being a nuisance.

“Did’ja hear about the miller’s new daughter? They say she’s just adorable?” shouted one gossiping woman to another right next to her.

“What’s that? Who’s adorable, then?”

“The miller’s daughter!”

“Oh, the new one?”

“That’s right! They say she’s cute as a sack of flour.”

I felt a stab of cold humor and felt like injecting my presence into the conversation. “Madam, if what you say is true, then the miller’s new baby should be drowned in water and thrown in an oven at the next opportune moment. She would make quite an adorable loaf of bread.”

I left before either could gather their wits about them. I didn’t even hear a vindictive whisper behind my back as I pushed through the rest of the crowd and attempted to reach the gates of the castle.

A crowd of starving chickens fled before my approach, abandoning their worn patch of earth to my booted feet. There was still no escape from the wearying crowds. Here, too, they congregated, making it nigh impossible to get up the stairs and seek an audience with the Duke. I attempted to break through the ranks, shoving, pushing, and generally just causing a ruckus, but there was so much of that going on already that I hardly made a difference in the chaos. It was a moot point, though; the doors seemed to locked and barred from the inside.

Resigned to wandering around Lumbridge for the rest of the day, I began to pick my way back through the crowd, dodging a multitude of flying fists. As I passed by the portcullis, I initially thought little of the small piece of paper hammered to the stones, but I quickly doubled back. My eyes had thought they spied the word “REWARD” penned in small, scraggly letters. The words were so poorly written, in fact, that they could have said “FREE HOMOCIDE” rather than reward, and I would have doubled back all the same. Fortunately for me and my purse, the letters did spell out some semblance of “REWARD” and I eagerly perused the rest of the message, looking for what I had to do to win whatever paltry amount of coins the author was giving up.

The message was simple: a dog was lost. If the dog was found, the dog was to be returned to Dirty Dave, a resident of Port Sarim.

Nice.

Very nice. But... the bank always lets you withdraw items.

Thanks for the feedback guys! And trixtor, I know the bank lets you withdraw items, but I'm taking some creative license.

What about Lumbridge Celler - there's no standing bank officer!

It's most awesome Jeevies.

The bank is run by a horde of gublinches, the bankers are just a front, every bank and chest is a portal to the gublinch realm. the gublinches love the bureaucracy.

As much as I'd love to debate the different banks of Runescape, I think I'll just stick with writing this as much for the ignorant masses as for us suggesters. Hopefully even people who've never even heard of Runescape would be able to figure out what's going on.

Nice

I have an idea of how to fix the banking problem: say that the bank foreclosed on your home, and seized your assets (items) as collateral. Or you could say that you started a ponzi scheme that, while short-lived, allowed you to acquire an absurd amount of money.

Following the completion of the Pirate King bestiary, I may be reposting the entire series on the forum. It won't last long, I think, since I'm going to Europe in a week and won't be able to bump it, but it at least signifies my return to the forums!

This forum, or the Rs forums. Or Both? *Begs*

Well, the first quest is already up on this forum, but yeah, I was planning on re-releasing all five quests on the official forums.

Have they been reposted yet?

I've got all the questy stuff written, so now all I need to do is figure out what format I want. I might steal Blaze's style or I might just post it all and figure it out later.

If only I went on the RS forums more than once a week...

Go ahead! Post the rest of the series on the forum!

Wait... Didn't you already post the rest of the series on the RSOF?

I had this stuff all posted months and months ago, but it fell off the forums when I stopped being a member. I just haven't gotten around to reposting it now that I can use the forums again.

Oh, wow. That happened with ALL of my posts on the forums about suggestions when I left the game for a few months to catch up with school.

Ha, I hardly think this belongs in the "Masterpiece" section.

Stop being so modest.

I said I was going to bed didn't I? I'm still going... I just got distracted.

Jeeves wrote:Ha, I hardly think this belongs in the "Masterpiece" section.

Dude, be quiet. This series is fantastic!