It was midnight. The capital lay just on the other side of the gate that loomed before me. This was the time. I was going to get in. And I was going to make their exclusive little community of egotistical pricks into a churning concoction of utter chaos.
The guard was gullible. All I had to say was "Could you please let me in?" to get him to open the gate. I thanked him, then looked at the peaceful town ahead and smiled. A few moments later, the guard figured it out. "Hey! Get out of here, or die!" he yelled as I ran off into the night. I could hear his footsteps behind me as I sprinted through the streets. Finally, I vaulted over the low wall surrounding the town and disappeared.
I started small. Petty acts of thievery, for the most part. But when I succeeded at this, I began to think bigger. My underground base outside of the city walls rapidly filled with stolen goods. I didn't stop at stealing, though. I turned someone's house into a box filled with water. I flooded the town square. I erected ugly towers of cobblestone in inconvenient places. I killed. I terrorized.
Then, one day, I was found with my stash of stolen items, and sent off into the unknown with nothing but the clothes on my back. As I walked, my anger grew, and I came to the conclusion that I would do my best to utterly destroy the next land I came across.
The sign read:
Welcome to Kiwike! I snorted and looked up at the city that towered ahead of me. Its name was Cheydinhal. I walked up the steps and entered the city, taking in my surroundings, chuckling at the thought of reducing the buildings around me to assorted piles of ashes. I took out my pick, went to the beautifully crafted fountain in the center of town, raised the tool high above my head...
And stopped breathing. The air was crisp and clean. The buildings were welcoming. The land pulsed with a heartbeat of its own. Its warmth softly embraced me, and I felt at home for the first time.
The pick fell to the ground harmlessly.
I sunk to my knees.
I placed my palm on the ground.
I closed my eyes.
This was where I belonged.
Every day brought a new adventure; cities in the sky, magic carpets of liquid glass, bustling cities; I was happy.
But I knew I had something greater to contribute. I felt the need to give back to the land that had nurtured me for the past few weeks. Then, one day I came upon a huge ocean, and the solution to my dilemma presented itself in verbal form: "I'm going to make an underwater town."
A voice projected from behind me: "I wanted to do that, too!"
I turned around to see the source of the voice. It was a man with the peculiar and rather unpronounceable name of asdfasdflkjty911.
I chuckled. “Well, then! Why don’t we make one together! What should it be called?”
With a purposeful half-smile, he said, “New Rapture.”
Together, we sailed through the sky atop our magic carpets, scouting the land for the right place to build our dream town. But I woke up one morning, and everything had changed. The land’s denizens remained the same, but Kiwike itself was a completely different place. There were mountains where oceans should be, and valleys where vast plains had once been. However, we acclimated, and grew to accept this new land as our home. It was here where I met a cast of intriguing characters that remain to affect me today.
asdfasdflkjty911
Asdf. Founder of Bamboo City, the unofficial capital of Kiwike at the time. There, many of us resided, erecting houses amidst the bustle of the streets. He watched over his city, diligently keeping it in good shape, and under his leadership, its population flourished. But on one fateful day, the economy wasn't the only thing that boomed.
My Tower
I awoke one morning to a shaking city and Asdf's screams. Groggily, I stumbled out of bed, and stepped out of the house I had temporarily been staying in while I worked on my material-a-level tower. It is worth noting here that the aforementioned tower was my pride and joy.
I looked around me, disoriented, and saw the body of Asdf fly through the air, only to land in a nearby pool of water. I went to him, and he managed to choke out, "They... They blew up your tower...
kill them!" Unable to process the news, I sprinted up the staircase that led to where my tower once stood.
There was only rubble left. I sunk to my knees and screamed my reptibian* lungs out. Asdf came to my side to comfort me. Exasperated, I turned to him and said, "Dammit. I want New Rapture already." I then returned to my temporary home and continued to work on my scale New Rapture model, hoping that I might drown out the present, both literally and figuratively.
Outside, a shard of wood from my tower released a black substance into the bay bordering the city...
Android24557
Android. One of the deliverers of justice. The calm, collected manager of the Bamboo City Hotel and Apartments, a building that would soon be the only safe place for miles around.
Cerce
Cerce Eugene Tentones. The king without a crown. Founder of the small town called Blackrock, and dreamer of a nation called Cerantia that would one day become reality. Together, we developed a strong friendship that would carry us through many hardships and times of evil...
The Plague: Prologue
Geckosquids drink very little water. This is why I didn't contract the deadly disease that turned whoever fell victim to it into a mindless shell of a creature when the black liquid seeped into Bamboo City's water supply. Soon, chaos reigned over the city. The infected infested every corner of the city... Except for the hotel. It was here that me, Cerce, and some others would use as our base within the city. We made an effort to fight the infected, but we were eventually forced to flee to Blackrock. It was here that we stayed for quite a while. But then, a flame appeared.
kbrown53
Kbrown lived an average life. That is, until he became a prophet.
One day, he witnessed the impossible: a flame atop a tree. The fire did not consume any of the surrounding leaves; it simply stood there, in all of its crackling glory. We called it...
The Everflame.
Inspired by the flame, Kbrown created The Church of the Everflame, and found a secluded, peaceful spot to make The Colony of the Everflame. I joined him, and together we worshipped the flame that had so enraptured our souls. We even made pilgrimages to The Everflame.
Another Flame, Another Prophet
As I was gathering wood for the colony a few weeks after its establishment, I saw a red flicker in the distance that looked a whole lot like a fire. Worried for the forest's safety, I sprinted to the spot...
And there it was: another Everflame. I couldn't believe my eyes. There it danced in front of me, calling, pulling my body closer to it. Entranced, I stared directly at it...
And The Three spoke to me. In the fire, I saw Ki, Wi, and Ke** seated, their forms constantly flowing. I was told to spread the word of the sanctity of The Everflame, and to publish the story of how Kiwike was created. They disappeared as soon as they had come, and I walked away feeling different. There was a fire in my soul.
The Plague: Parts 1 and 2
((I recorded these parts happening. To see them, go to this link for Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnXe1iBOI5I
And this link for part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndELlbNps...re=related ))
One night, I had a dream. A gargantuan hand descended from the heavens and lifted me high above Kiwike. When I looked down, I saw the landscape shape itself like clay. Hills and oceans melded and expanded, mountains crumbled and formed again in new shapes, and every manmade creation was shattered and consumed by the churning landscape. It was the most awe-inspiring event I had ever witnessed. Then, the hand tilted to the side, sending me careening into the land below. The ground raced closer and closer...
When I woke up, buildings towered above me. Upon walking about my surroundings a bit, I discovered that I was in a great city. A sign read:
Welcome to Mavenholm! Other Kiwikeans slowly materialized around me, and went off in various directions. We adapted once again to the change. To the North, The Great Vikings of Eyvind made their home; they were a warlike people. To the South, the prosperous nation of Helvanthar dug its roots into the scorching sands of the Bludwick deserts. It was here that I stayed for a while. Soon, however, the nation of Tullius rose in the East, ruled by the very same asdfasdflkjty911 whom I had conceived the idea of New Rapture with. Under Tullius, I made New Rapture. Its glass halls rose out of the sea, standing as a monumental achievement in engineering. Yet the town was not what I had hoped it would be. Those who claimed to be citizens of the town traveled far too much, leaving me by myself in the citadel of glass that I had worked so diligently to create. For months, I wandered its halls, searching for a reason to refrain from abandoning my crowning achievement. But find a purpose I did not, and so one day, I threw my belongings into a leather backpack and simply walked away without so much as a glance behind me.
A few days later, I arrived at the gates of New Hope, the center of Roadbuilder activity, where I met Kyga, Master Stug, and André Ashdown. I joined their ranks, and for a while I led a simple life where valuables were shared and trust was strong between me and my neighbors. But then came the war.
It had happened once before; a small group of bandits decided to band together and launch merciless raids on every town, slaughtering anyone they came across. When the nation of Helvanthar got involved, however, the group of bandits, called "Grandies" after the name of their home mansion, was utterly crushed in a few massive battles. After this, the Grandies had taken a peaceful path... Until now. A minor disagreement between them and the nation of Azure occurred. This soon escalated into an all-out war between the two sides, and eventually other towns and nations got involved. Restrained by the neutrality of the Roadbuilders, me and Stug's lust for battle overcame our bonds to our order, and we split off from New Hope, creating a new town. We laced the earth with explosives, creating a huge hole that plummeted from sea level all the way to Adminium. It was in the walls of this ravine that we created our town, aptly named "Plunge". We were soon joined by Kyga, Stewfoo, Magnitude, Nota, Saurota Rurei Juranai, and Isaac Coilic. At last, I was the mayor of a successful town! It was perfect in every way. For the first time in a while, I was happy.
One day, I was notified that everyone but Isaac was leaving Plunge. In short, my dreams were shattered. Despite my extreme reluctance to do so, I decided that it would be best if I left my town behind... For a second time.
For a few days, we lived in the heart of the forest, far away from any civilization. But then, just like that, Stug told me that he and the rest of the former Plungers were leaving the lands of Kiwike for good. I sat down on the bare ground, and the world fell apart around me. I could feel my soul urging me to go after them, to follow Stug in his endeavors... But my feet told me to stay. I could do nothing but lie there and watch as everyone I had spent the last few months of my life with walked away into the sunset.
Time. It passes us by every second, yet we never even see it. As the sun revolved through the sky, I blinked, and a single tear rolled down my scaly cheek. My life no longer had purpose at all. The feeling within me was far worse than the one caused by my solitude in New Rapture. This was more real, more in-the-moment; this was my life, and like a perfectly curled spring being turned, it was slowly unraveling.
Then, a golden light caught my eye. It became progressively brighter, and eventually it reached pure golden tendrils through my body, lifting me steadily upwards.
I found myself sitting at a smooth white table, presumably made of some sort of marble. It was in the shape of an oval, and I was sitting opposite a strange creature that looked rather like a variety of machine.
"We have been watching for some time now," it said, "and we have decided to accept you into our ranks. We are the overseers of Kiwike; we are here to ensure that the laws of the land remain intact. Are you up to this task?"
I smiled. "Yes."
The response: "Then it is done. Welcome to the team."
Everything zoomed out of focus, and I found myself lying where I was before the golden light had appeared. It was almost as if nothing had happened, yet... I felt a wonderful kind of strange. Strength coursed through my veins, a feeling that I had not felt since Plunge was created.
I heard a distant cry for help... And in the blink of an eye, I was gone.
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*Reptibian: Characteristic of a creature that is both reptilian and amphibian, i.e. a Geckosquid
**See "The Beginning According to Geckosquid"((
http://kiwike.se/forum/showthread.php?tid=636))
The Memoirs of Geckosquid
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