Escape From Fnordish - Chapter 1
Late last year (ish) myself and Kari, a friend of mine, were killing time, and we ended up maing up a story. It's certainly not serious or anything like that (quite the opposite even), but it was fun. It all happened in an IM window, and I believe it started something like this:
Me: I'm bored.
Kari: So?
Me: Tell me a story.
Kari: No, you tell me one.
Me: Ok then...
Obviously a lot of planning went into it. So what then followed was a story that was just spat out as fast as I could. Type a sentence, send it, type another sentence, send. No chance to go back or anything - I was very conscious of the fact that the longer I took to write any given sentence, the more chance of boredom setting in to captive audience of one.
It went pretty well I thought. It was certainly not serious literature - hell, it's not even supposed to have a point. But it was fun, and it was relatively amusing. And afterwards, reading back through our conversation history, it looked like it could almost work as a short story. So it's been rewritten and edited and polished and stuff. It's still not great of course, but it's now a lot more readable than going through a conversation transcript.
And now the point. I figured I might as well blog it. There's 4 chapters written so far, with no end in sight. Once in a while we (myself and Kari) will pull it out again and think about another chapter or two, but it's been on hiatus for a bit while I've been busy with other things (read: my new xbox 360). Maybe by pushing out the bits that are complete it might spur me on to get it finished.
Well, you never know.
But here's chapter one. Feedback appreciated, but not expected. Let me know if you hate it or like it. You won't hurt my feelings, especially since it was never intended to be anything other than a time filler and a little bit of amusement. Note: Some language m ight be censored out with "***" as a replacement. If you see any "***"s, it's safe to presume that it's the good old f word. You know the one. Admit it.
Escape From Fnordish
Tales on the Path to Squishpoo
Chapter 1 - The Daring Escape
Once upon a time there was a little fish called Phillip. He was a smart fish, was our Phil, if a little undersized for his age. How old was he? Well, let’s just keep that a secret for now, if you don’t mind.
Phil lived in a lake. It was quite an ordinary lake really. It had food for him to eat, other fish for him to talk to, it was just like any other lake that you could find – except for one thing. This lake sat in front of a castle, a castle that was habituated by the evil King Fnordish. In fact, that deserves a capital e - the Evil King Fnordish. That’s how evil he was.
Phil had spent a lot of time trying to find a way to escape from the Evil King’s rule. He’d come up with plan after plan, but nothing ever worked. He always ended up back in the lake in front of the castle. But it was his dream – nay, he thought it his destiny – that one day, yes, one day, he would get himself away from the lake and live out the rest of his days in happiness in a lake in the beautiful land of Squishpoo.
For all his failed attempts though, he didn’t give up. He always kept an eye out for any opportunity – you never know when fate will come knocking at your door. Not that Phil had a door, of course, they’re a *** to install on a lake, but metaphorically speaking it was what he did. And he did it constantly.
Which is why, on this fortuitous day that we join Phil in this story, he was ready. It wasn’t fortuitous at first, but before long, Phil had managed to convince the Evil King’s son, Edgarb, to help him escape.
Edgarb really was a good little prince; he was just trapped under the rule of his Evil father, just like everyone else in the area. Now, I know what you’re thinking, Edgarb is an interesting name – surely there was a problem at the typesetters or something, right? Well, yes it really was supposed to be Edgar, but it’s not the fault of anything on my end – as with so many problems boys have, our old friend Freud wins yet again – his mother was the one that caused it.
You see, Queen Fuxalot had caught herself a bit of a cold near the end of her pregnancy. When he was born, she went to speak his name – as is tradition in these lands, the mother speaks the baby’s name out loud, and that shall be the name used for all time – she was all blocked up. "By sod’s dabe is Edgarb", she sniffled. Well, sure, everyone knew that what she meant to say was "My son’s name is Edgar", but tradition is tradition, and who were they to do any different?
So anyway, Phil was out swimming in the shallow parts of his lake when Edgarb came outside to do a spot of fishing. He sat down on the edge of the lake, baited hzis hook, and threw it in the water. Phil, meanwhile, was feeling a bit peckish, and while he was smart, he was still just a fish, and therefore could be quite stupid too. Phil happily gobbled up the worm that was sitting there on Edgarb’s hook, not even realising that his luck was actually about to change (not realising, in fact, that if it was anyone else on the other end of the pole, he was a goner).
When Edgarb started to reel Phil in, Phil put up quite a struggle. Well, as big a struggle as a little fish could make, so he lost the battle very quickly. But once he was up on the bank, flopping about as fish do, he saw Edgarb and realised that this might actually work out for the better.
Phil called out to him, "Save me, please save me, good prince, and I will reward you".
Right, so let’s just stop here a moment.
Phil spoke. He spoke English. He spoke it loud enough for Edgarb to hear him. I’ve got no idea how, ok? Phil has gills, neither lungs nor vocal cords, but it happened, and we’re just going to have to live with it. Let’s just say that something interesting happened earlier in Phil’s life, maybe on one of his precious failed escape attempts.
Now leave it be!
Edgarb of course was impressed and astounded and many other multisyllabic words besides at this seemingly impossible (but we know better, don’t we? *wink wink*) occurrence, couldn’t help but come back with something a little un-princely.
"*** me", he said, "a talking fish!"
He thought for a moment (Edgarb was indeed normally a quick thinker), and quickly followed it up with "What will you reward me with?"
Phil, you remember, was only a fish, and not nearly as quick at thinking as Edgarb, really hadn’t thought past his opening line.
"Umm, fucked if I know", he replied – hey, at least he was honest – "But I know English, and that’s pretty cool right? How about you do it for the novelty factor?"
Edgarb thought about this, realised that there was still something to be gained, even if it was only friendship, and threw Phil back in the lake. He really wanted to know about this strange fish that was sitting on the end of his hook, but he knew that now was not the time – besides, it was getting late, and staying out once it was getting dark was not a good way of keeping on his father’s good side. Not that his father had a good side, it’s only an expression, but Edgarb certainly didn’t want to get beaten. Again. So he left.
*
Edgarb slept badly that night. He kept on waking up, his mind drawn constantly to the idea of magic. If there could be a fish that spoke English, could there by other magic in the world too? Could he somehow discover some? Perhaps there was a way to be free of his Evil father! His mind was in a spin – somehow he’d find a way.
The next day he went back to the lake and called for Phil. "Here fishy fishy fishy!" he called. "Where are you little fishy?"
Phil, of course, was expecting Edgarb to come back, and had been waiting near the shore for this very thing. "Edgarb", he called back. "My name is Phillip. Phil, if you prefer. I’m not just a fishy."
"Ok, Phil then", Edgarb said with a smile, picking him up and holding him carefully in his hand. "I’ve been thinking. There must be magic in the world, right?"
"Oh, for sure there is. I don’t know much about it myself, but there certainly is. Why?"
"Will you help me defeat my Evil father?" Edgarb asked quietly, relying on hope that his father’s Storm Troopers weren’t hiding anywhere nearby spying on him.
Storm Troopers, you ask? They’re those guys dressed in white armour who work for the emperor. Duh!
Luckily, they weren’t spying, and as a result, Edgarb wasn’t shot through the head with a dinky red laser that made a noise that belonged on a little kid’s cheap plastic toy.
"Edgarb", Phil answered quietly.
"Edgarb", he wheezed, and flopped a little.
"Edgarb, please", he coughed.
"What Phil?" Edgarb asked. "What are you trying to say?"
By this stage Phil wasn’t looking too happy at all. Phil coughed again, and then said "Edgarb, I’m a fish for ***’s sake. Put me back in the water! I can’t breathe!"
Edgarb had thought of this, of course, he was just a little slow sometimes. It’s probably related to the in-breeding that goes on in royal families or something. Edgarb was happy not to have extra toes or nipples, let me tell you. He’d brought with him a fish bowl, and slipped Phil gently into it. It was filled with nice clean water, scented with rose petals oil and just a hint of lavender. Fish like cleanliness too, you see.
Phil got his breath back, gulping in gillfuls of the nice scented water, and then answered Edgarb.
"Edgarb," he said. "Edgarb, instead of defeating him, let’s just piss off to Squishypoo where we can live in safety away from your father’s Evil control. Good enough?"
You might be wondering about now why Phil said Squishypoo instead of Squishpoo. It was meant to be Squishypoo right from the start, but I made a typo – oh, don’t look at me like that! Even someone as perfect as me can have typing trouble once in a while. My word processor has already learned Squishpoo as the right way to spell it, so let’s leave it at that.
I said don’t look at me like that! We’re stuck with it now. Squishpoo it is!
Edgarb was a little unsure of this suggestion from Phil. "But I hardly know you", he said. "How do I know you won’t just turn me over to my father the first chance you get?"
"Well, you’re just going to have to trust me." Phil replied. "But we’re a team, I know it. And I’m sure we’ll become firm friends by the end of our adventures. The path to Squishyp – damn, I mean Squishpoo – will be long, dangerous, and nothing encourages friendship and loyalty like shared experience."
Edgarb agreed, but now they had to face their first real obstacle. Castle Fnordish was enclosed by a massive towering wall, and it was protected by many advanced security systems.
There were lasers.
There were flashing lights.
There were things that go beep.
There was a little red button that no one really knew what it was for, but no one ever pressed it because it was red, and it had a little sign above it that said "Don’t Press".
They needed to devise themselves an escape plan.