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[Best Character:]

Well, I couldn't participate in this one, but at least I can vote

Best Character: Sinitrena's Theodoros
Best Plot: Sinitrena
Best Tone: Sinitrena
Best Background World: kconan
Best Style: Sinitrena. Though I was seriously torn between Sinitrena and kconan for this one...
Most Substantive: Sinitrena

Will you write a vampire rhyme?
Or speak to us of gooey slime?

I will not write a vampire rhyme
I know not how, I have not time
And be it greener than a lime
I will not speak of gooey slime

Then shall you tell another tale?
Of wolves that howl and ghosts that wail?

Nor will I tell a wolfy tale
Or spin a yarn of ghosts that wail

Perhaps a brand new monster, then?
To scare even the boldest men!

I tell you once and once again
I will not scare the boldest men
Nor will I tell a wolfy tale
Or spin a yarn of ghosts that wail
I will not write a vampire rhyme
I know not how, I have not time
And be it greener than a lime
I will not speak of gooey slime

A yeti's story will you try?
And don't forget a custard pie

I did a yeti once espy
And by its furry hand did die
As to why, I'll tell you why
I'd eaten up my custard pie

Then just what monster shall it be?
Inside the game, what will we see?
And will it give us all a fright?
With claws that scratch and jaws that bite?

I will not write of snapping jaws
I can not draw the scratching claws
I did a yeti once espy
And by its furry hand did die
As to why, I'll tell you why
I'd eaten up my custard pie
I tell you once and once again
I will not scare the boldest men
Nor will I tell a wolfy tale
Or spin a yarn of ghosts that wail
I will not write a vampire rhyme
I know not how, I have not time
And be it greener than a lime
I will not speak of gooey slime

-

(The bare bones of this poem lodged in my mind and wouldn't get out, so I had to write and post it I really want to enter this month but I have exams just around the corner, so can't guarantee anything )

Can we take the concept and shift it? For example, instead of a prisonified New York, can we make it a prison moon or space station? Or is that interpreting things a little too freely?

I vote for Selmiak! Definitely

Yeah, I'm in. I have my usual problem of far too many ideas though. At least this time there was no doubt about which character or world to pick

Nope; other writing commitments got in the way and I ran out of time. Sorry but I'm out on this one

>Say "Align with Shrike's airlock."

then, if that works and we end up pointing at the airlock head-first:

>Say "Thrusters on." or
>Say "Fire thrusters" if this command is not understood

then, if we start heading towards the airlock

>Put arms "up" above head and get ready to absorb the impact and/or grab anything if it looks like we are going to bounce off back out into space...

Hmm...are we allowed to chain multiple commands like this? I was under the impression that it was only one per person per turn...

[> Say: “I'm selling these fine leather jackets”]

Was I supposed to type "Say" before the quotes? I had it in quotes because it was a voice command - or was that an incorrect voice command?

Yes, if you want to say the words, you have to use "Say":

[HOW TO PLAY] You can command the character to speak a line with the command “Say:” followed by the line, for example: > Say: “I'm selling these fine leather jackets” Note that the exact words typed will be used by the character in communication.

[> Say, "Align suit."]

> Say, "Align suit."

[> Say, "Scan on," and see if that turns on the scan function. If it does, scan for any signs of life.]

> Say, "Scan on," and see if that turns on the scan function. If it does, scan for any signs of life.

[E:]

E: Actually, since we sniff and open eyes, what about
> Try to explore the surrounding space with your fingers.

I definitely need to cut back on the cartoons...when I read this the first thing that flashed into my mind was a sneakily placed mousetrap

[> Sniff the air and see if it smells like a hospital (disinfectant, etc)]

> Sniff the air and see if it smells like a hospital (disinfectant, etc)

Can we actually command marines on per-person level? I've got an impression that they have their own plans for this operation.

I wondered about that myself, but thinking about it, I don't see why not. Our character is the captain of the ship, after all. Rather than the Marines operating completely separately and having nothing to do with the bridge, I was under the impression that a squad of Marines had been placed at our disposal to command as we see fit

[> Order two of the more experienced Marines in the boarding party to remain at the first airlock, just in case there's trouble aboard and we have to make a rapid exit. They can provide covering fire for anyone needing to get off the Shrike in a hurry.]

> Order two of the more experienced Marines in the boarding party to remain at the first airlock, just in case there's trouble aboard and we have to make a rapid exit. They can provide covering fire for anyone needing to get off the Shrike in a hurry.

[> Ask for more information about the WEIRD READINGS. Preferably before docking is complete.]

> Ask for more information about the WEIRD READINGS. Preferably before docking is complete.

[> Scan the UEFS Shrike for signs of life]

Oh, I wanna do one of these In the meantime:

> Scan the UEFS Shrike for signs of life

Technically, yes, they fall within the rules. But you're really bending them.
Why can't I stop thinking about this?

I've never seen this series before! Thanks for the new entertainment

[JudasFm]

The silver lifeboat by a sliver goes to JudasFm with 10 votes.  This is what we in the business refer to as "runner-up by a whisker".   Two more votes would have pushed you over the top, and you certainly would have gotten one from me for the scenario category: I loved your shadowy, unrevealed creatures of the darkness held at bay only by a ring of lights.  I was completely enthralled with the Kheshen, telekinesis and all, right up to the the teleporting thing.  I think that was one ability too many to keep the story believable, and really wasn't necessary from a plot point of view (the drama in the "bedroom" could have just occurred later, like the ending did).  But overall very suspenseful and entertaining read.

Thanks so much everyone and congrats to Sinitrena! The Kheshen teleporting ability...teleportation has always been considered to go hand-in-hand with telekinesis and telepathy. It does have some limitations though, which means it's not just a get-out-of-jail-free card. I plan to elaborate on this further in future contests Looking back on it, I think this was definitely the wrong world to pick for this contest.

[Best Character:]

Best Character: JudasFm's Sarah - I can emphazise with Sarah. She's in a really bad situation but still tries to understand her captors. She seems like a nice woman. I found it a bit strange that her original motivation was to teach English to the Kheshen, because it sounds a lot like the first interactions between "us" and the Kheshen was agressive - and that agression hasn't ended. So why exactly was she there? Maybe I'm missing something here.

A little.  Remember that the person telling the story of the first interactions is a soldier.  And Mawer is telling the truth when he says they came in peace, but they also came with weapons. They were expecting to walk in with superior weaponry and occupy Kheshen by awe and intimidation. If the Kheshens had been suitably awed and intimidated, or had recognized the surfacers' claim, there wouldn't have been any bloodshed. Unfortunately, at least for the surfacers, Kheshen fought back and it escalated from there.

Sarah was brought in at the beginning because at the time, the surfacers weren't expecting any more than a token resistance.  Since she wasn't armed and clearly not there to fight, the Kheshens let her live (this is part of Halsh's motivation for saving her. If they'd thrown someone else out, he would have let that person die, taken Sarah under the guise of 'letting her go' like he promised, and then had the other person in the ring killed. However, this couldn't go into a first person POV story as there's no possible way Sarah would have known about it ) I did try rewriting from Halsh's POV at one point, but watching the situation through a third party's eyes took out any real tension.

There is one problem though, where all suspense just vanishes: Halsh has just saved Sarah, they talk for half a minute about this and then ... she notices a bed? [...] As it is, I felt like there were a few paragraphs missing and the whole "talking about a bed" thing read like a Big Lipped Alligator Moment.

You know, I thought I'd read most of TV Tropes already, but that was a completely new one on me! It's a fair comment though; I knew that paragraph was off when I posted it, but I was scrabbling to get it done by the deadline. There was a whole lot more that should have been included but what with studying and everything, I really didn't have time to work it all in the way I wanted. I had to rewrite it several times as it was. I'll do better next time

Anyway, enough of that; time for my votes!

Best Character: SilverSpook for Jim.
Best Scenario: Sinitrena. As Sinitrena says, SilverSpook's story was a nice idea, but tried to do too much. I found it hard to follow.
Most Suspenseful: SilverSpook. I don't know why, but I didn't get any real sense of tension from Sinitrena's work; Ben's leisurely approach and the fact he plays a practical joke on the inspector told me that he knew something the other man didn't, and they were never in any real danger.
Best Writing Style: Sinitrena. The only thing that really jarred for me was the punctuation used while characters were speaking ("I'm sure you have a theory.", should be "I'm sure you have a theory," A period is only used if you're not going on to describe who spoke, and even then, it should be inside the quotation marks. Sorry, I'm pedantic about things like that
Cleverest Ending: Sinitrena. Even though I knew they were never in danger of drowning, I really didn't expect them to walk home through the sea. Nice twist

[GREEN LIGHTS]

AN: This went in several different directions before settling into this one, so I'm not sure how close to the prompt I managed to get. But it's done and I got it in just in time, which is the main thing And it was a lot of fun going back to this world; I'll probably reuse it for future prompts, if I can

GREEN LIGHTS

They can't cross the lights.

I have to remember that.  All the time the three of us are inside the ring of lights, we're safe.  The ring is both our sanctuary and our prison.

I can barely see to write this.  The lights aren't white; they're a kind of bottle green color and very dim.  Inside the ring, we can just about see each other.  More than a meter or so outside the ring, there's nothing but darkness, and the darkness is absolute.  In the darkness, there's nothing but death.  They're waiting for us.  We hear them, sometimes.  A scratching sound, or a soft hissing like the world's biggest hourglass.

But they can't cross the lights.

I'm not alone here.  There are two others with me; a heavily built man called Thomas Mawer and a private soldier who introduced himself to me as Andrew. 

There used to be more, though.  When I first arrived two weeks ago, there were eight of us.  The other five were stupid.  They crossed the lights.  The darkness ate them.  I hope Halsh won't bring in any more stupid people.

Halsh.  Yes.  What do I write about Halsh?

He's a Kheshen, for one thing.  Millions of years ago, an offshoot group of primitive humans went into the caves and under the ground rather than onto the plains.  They look like humans â€" surfacers, they call us â€" but they're faster.  Stronger.  They have advanced psychic powers, although using them takes so much energy that I understand most Kheshens don't bother.  The vision centers of their brains evolved and changed to fit with their underground lifestyle; from birth, a Kheshen can see not only the light spectrum, but shift vision between the infrared and ultraviolet as well.  Infrared allows them to see each other.  Ultraviolet allows them to see other things.  I've heard there are animals down here that only show up in the light or ultraviolet spectrum. 

This probably seems incredible to people, but I swear it's true.  The law of the jungle has never gone out in Kheshen and they never had the luxury of being top of the food chain like their surface cousins.  To survive to adulthood, you have to be fast, smart and strong.  Those that aren't don't live long enough to have children.  Those that are pass on the genes to their kids.

I wonder if Halsh has kids.  Probably.  He's handsome and he lived long enough to become an adult.  To a Kheshen, that ensures a healthy set of genes.

"Are you still hung up on that asshole?" Andrew demands and I jump.

"Halsh isn't an asshole," I answer.

"He's the one who put us here."

I don't know if that's true, but I know that Halsh is the one who's been bringing us food and water.  The creatures don't attack him, for some reason. 

"Where is here, anyway?" I ask.

Andrew shrugs.  "Kheshens don't explain themselves to the likes of us, Sarah.  One of their damn city-states, but I've no clue which one.  As soon as I got underground, they knocked me out."

I nod.  That had happened to me too.

"We screwed up," Andrew mutters.  I get the feeling he's not really addressing me; I'm just a convenient pair of ears.


"What do you mean?" I ask.

He gives me a death's head grin.  "We assumed that just because we didn't know about Kheshen, Kheshen wouldn't know about us either.  They've always known."

He spits into the darkness.  Something on the other side of it hisses.

"Some moron decided that since Kheshen was mostly under a surface country, it was rightfully the property of that country.  Like their city-states were nothing but gigantic natural resources.  But they knew.  Those Kheshen bastards knew we'd find out sooner or later.  They knew we'd try to conquer them when we did, or they thought we would.  They've been preparing for this war for generations.  They weren't only ready for us; they were waiting.  Your precious Halsh among them.  Didn't you ever wonder how he came to be fluent in English?"

I blink.  I've never really thought about that.

"I'll tell you," Andrew says, even though I haven't asked.  "He took it.  He didn't speak a word of English when we showed up, but when we were taken prisoner, he walked up to the guy at the far end and touched him on the side of the head.  The guy screamed, collapsed and all of a sudden Halsh is fluent in English and the poor sap whose mind he ripped into is a fucking vegetable!"

"He wasn't too bright before then."

We all look around at this new voice, even though we all know who it belongs to.  At least, I know very well.  Sure enough, Halsh is sitting on a ledge at the far end of the room, holding a green light in one hand.

"I think it's time we had a chat."  He jumps off the ledge, dropping ten feet to the ground.  There's a skittering sound as the creatures in the darkness run from the light.  I catch a glimpse of a leg, but that's all.  They're fast.

Halsh stands there and waits for the noise to stop before he speaks again.

"Okay.  Here's the deal.  You throw one person outside the ring, and we'll let the other two go."

We stare at him.

"If you want one of us dead, why don't you kill them yourself?" Andrew demands.

He shrugs.  "If it were up to me, I'd consider it.  It ain't.  I'm just passing on the message.  You got three minutes to decide."

The light in his hand goes out abruptly and I gasp, waiting for the sound of rushing, hissing, eating that always follows anyone stupid enough to step into the darkness.

Nothing happens.

"What are we going to do?" I ask.  "We can't make a decision like that, much less in three minutes!"

Andrew groans.  "You think Halsh doesn't know that?  That Kheshen bastard is just watching us right now and laughing.  He'll never let us go.  It's a game to him!  Just a sick, fucked up game!"

"You don't know that.  He said he was just following orders," I say, and Andrew suddenly explodes.

"Stop it!  Stop making excuses for the one who put us here!"

Mawer is suddenly staring at me with single-minded intensity.  "Maybe we should throw her out."

I wait for Andrew to fight back, to say there's no way they would do such a thing, but all of a sudden he's looking at me too like he thinks maybe that's not such a bad idea.

"Are you one of them?" he asks me.

I stare at him.  "No!"

"I heard they play this game in Skan," Mawer says.  "They plant one of their own in the group just to keep things interesting."

"I'm not Kheshen," I insist.

"Then why the fuck do you keep standing up for them?"

"Because we were the ones who declared war on them!" My heel hits one of the lights and something behind me hisses loudly.  I freeze.  "Why is it alright for us to attack them without any provocation, but not for them to defend themselves?"

"We came in peaceâ€""

"Yes, with a shedload of heavy artillery and the entire fucking military!"  The profanity shocks me even as I say it; I don't usually go in for that kind of language.  "You can't blame them for getting the wrong idea!  If they'd come up to the surface heavily armed and in full force, what would you have thought?  Your message wasn't Let's work together, it was Your lands and city-states are under our land and therefore we've decided they belong to us."

Mawer seizes my blouse in one hand.  "They do.  The natural resources in Kheshen are astonishing!  They use diamonds and rubies as a currency!"

Something clicks in my mind, something that's been bugging me since I agreed to come down here and teach the poor, backward Kheshens English so they could communicate with us more easily.  The hell with it.  If I'm going to die, I'm going to have my say first.

"And so you think you have the right to waltz in and strip it bare?  Because you've got an army?  That's not diplomacy or an invasion; that's bullying, plain and simple!"

"Don't talk about what you don't understand!  Natural resources have always been spoils of war."

"You sure they're not the cause of it?" I say.

He starts to push me outside the lights and I bring my knee up into his groin with all the force I can summon.  It's not much, but it lets me twist out of his hold and back into the safety of the lights.

"And what if you lose?" I say.  "Does that give the Kheshens the right to plunder the surface and call it the spoils of war?  Maybe the surfacers need someone who's more sympathetic to Kheshen to negotiate when all this is over.  Why don't you walk out of the ring?  You could save us both!"

At that point, the ring of light starts to shrink, every bulb sliding slowly inward as if pushed by invisible hands.

"He's using telekinesis!" Andrew stares wildly around as Mawer and I inch further in to stay within the circle.  I've heard that Kheshens numbered telekinesis among their psychic abilities, but this is the first demonstration I've seen.

His eyes now wild, Andrew grabs me and lifts me off my feet, then half shoves, half throws me into the darkness.  I hear the creatures approaching, I hear the scratching of claws on stone and oh dear God, I can feel them standing above me.  I roll sideways and hear a crack as something â€" a sting, fangs, claws, I don't know â€" hits the stone where I was.

Something behind me rolls me onto my back and holds me there.  I start to scream, and then something else grabs me by the wrist and my vision clouds over with black stars.

When it clears, I'm standing in a cave that's well lit.  I think it's the Kheshen equivalent to a home.  There are still green lights, but they're on the wall instead of the floor, forming a ring around the ceiling.  Good.  That's good.  I'm safe again.  Hopelessly disoriented, but safe.

"I have to say, I'm surprised."

I look around and see that the something which grabbed my wrist back in the darkness was Halsh.  He glances down, as if he's only just remembered that himself, then releases me.

"You saved me?" I stare at him, unsure how to take this.

Halsh shrugs.  "You seem smarter than the average surfacer."

"How?  I was...the darkness and those things..."

He chuckles.  "You didn't know we can teleport, then?"

I shake my head mutely.

"It's not the most pleasant of sensations and it takes a lot out of us, so we don't do it very often.  I didn't have time to rescue you in the traditional way.  Besides, I needed to get you here as soon as possible."

I take another look round at where here is.  It's mostly bare, but there's a stone table in the center and a kind of large oval container in the far corner.  I look at Halsh and he nods, so I move in for a closer inspection.  The outside is a pale beige color, and the inside is made out of what looks like highly polished mahogany.  There's a circular niche in the middle and several recesses set into the sides in perfect symmetry, plus two larger recesses at one end, which is raised much like a headboard.

"What is it?" I ask.

"A bed.  Or what you would call a bed, anyway."

I touch it.  It's as smooth as it looks. There are no blankets or pillows, but Kheshen is warm enough for me not to need them and this thing looks like it'll be far more comfortable than sleeping on the bare rock.

"Did you make it?"

Halsh laughs, as if I've just said the dumbest thing in the world.  "No!"

"I don't mean you personally.  I mean Kheshens.  Did youâ€"do your people make these?"

He shakes his head, still grinning.  "No, we don't.  We just prepare them."

"Prepare them?" I look back at the Kheshen bed and push tentatively on the edge.  It barely moves.  "What's it made of?"

Halsh's grin broadens.  "That's a terafaidi carapace.  Part of one, anyway.  They molt quite often, so we just take the empty skin when they're done."

"What's a terafaidi?"

"Oh, if I told you that, you'd be too frightened to sleep a wink.  They don't come into the city-states, though."

I look around at the ring of lights on the ceiling.  "And the lights will protect me, right?  Like they did before?"

Halsh chuckles.  "Sure, sure.  Terafaidi hate the light.  Well, living where they do, it's not surprising, is it?"

No, not at all.  Creatures that evolved in complete darkness, without even the moon...yes.  I can see where they might have a violent aversion to light.  Good.  That's good.  It means I'm safe here.  Safe in the lights.

THREE MONTHS LATER

I thought I should put a final note here, like a sort of epilog.  This is the last page in my notebook, and I don't know when I'll get another one.  Writing materials are very hard to come by in Disihad, for some reason.

Yes, Disihad.  Halsh was generous enough to answer a few of my questions last time he came.  I now know the name of the city-state where I live.  I have no idea where it is in Kheshen, but that doesn't matter anymore, because I also know that I won't be leaving until the war is over.  Maybe not even then.  It's not so bad here.  Halsh even found me a couple of books in English.  Apparently one of the other city-states has a huge library.

So I'll stay here in my lair, inside the ring.  The war will rage around me, people will die, but I'll be safe here.  The green lights burn twenty four seven.  Even then I still have nightmares about the time when those two surfacers threw me into the darkness to die.  I wonder what happened to them.

I still see Halsh from time to time.  He's very busy, but he comes by when he remembers me.  And I have a neighbor now.  I don't know her name, but she lives opposite me.  She's a surfacer too.  Sometimes we smile and wave to each other and sometimes we stand in the entrance to our lairs and talk across the street.  Even though we're so close, though, we've never actually visited each other.  And we never will.

We can't cross the lights, you see.

My entry will be in later today, I promise! I hope the deadline goes until the end of the 6th. Please?