Project Clichéstorm: Day One

MONSTER HUUUNT! Dang, these guys just keep appearing out of nowhere! Time to get a party together and farm some EXP!

By which I mean, that time was this morning.

I stopped my definitely-full-of-hot-amazons entourage. "Let me handle this."

"Are you sure, Princess?"

Princess? Maybe I shoulda chosen a different main character. Forget it, I have a pretty high-level artistic license. I'm the prince from now on.

'Course, by the time the definitely-a-hot-amazon was done talking, I had already hopped down, spear in hand, to fight the flying turkey to the death. So, basically answered her question.

Turns out I have to have a bit of cooldown between attacks in an otherwise action-oriented world. And every four hits I land, I can do a flashy supermove. Let's call 'em limit breaks from now on. Basically, swing, back up, supermove, rinse, repeat until Turkeyman explodes into a pile of feathers. Riiight on.

Oh, man, exposition! Turns out I'm the leader of the army (which, might I add, is definitely made up of hot amazons). Also turns out I'm, like, one of the three males who actually exists in the whole castle on the mountain. And since they're the old King and my underage bro, it's a castle full o' hot chicks all to myself. Have I mentioned riiight on. 'Course, there are some more details that the plot thinks are important, like the wind generator in the basement that not even a ninja can defeat. But who cares, honestly? There's a friggin' kick-A army of hot amazons!

So anyway, that particular hunt was a few days ago. Even with more and more monsters appearing, when you have to share experience with such large parties, you don't level up much. In fact, as leader-y as I was, I was still level one. Smaller group, perhaps? I decided to find my little bro, group with just him.

He wasn't in the throne room. Dad was, though. "Have you seen Elliot?" I asked.

He checked some spirit traces or something. I dunno. Whatever thing he always does. "He can't have gone far," he finally concluded. (Seems a little redundant, finally concluded, but whatever.) "He's still in the castle.

I shrugged. "Thanks." And I went.

OH MAN the irony of getting lost in a place I've lived all my life! I ran into all sorts of crazy stuff like event flags, dramatic irony cutscenes, and a little girl who said I looked like the Mana Goddess (this nonsense is gonna take some getting used to) until I found him in the basement. Next to that important wind generator. Next... next to... a couple of ninjas. Our sworn enemies. Huh.

"Elliot what are you doing?" I demanded as he flipped the generator off. Now that he had my sane voice, he realized what was happening and ran to my side.

A ninja laughed. "Let's see how long your Castle that Never Fell lasts without the wind! Rolante is ours!"

That's right, /that/ was what it was called! Anyway, that may not be the most important of details at this moment.

I whipped out my spear and made ready to open a can of whoop-A when he spoke again. "Not so fast, princess! How long do you think old King Joster will last when he's blind?"

"Holy crap Elliot come on!" I yelled, whirling around and running back up the stairs. "And don't call me that!"

At the top, I realized he was missing.

I tried to cry out his name, a little useless in my breathless state, tumbling back down the stairs. Panting, I made a quick scan of the basement. Nothing. The ninjas had somehow slipped past me on the incredibly narrow staircase! With a kicking and screaming hostage. Ninjas are getting less realistic as we speak. Or... as I write this.

Coughing now, I managed to get all the way back up the stairs. Jeez, I could fight for hours on end, but /three staircases?/ Forget it. No time for a break, though. I had to make sure they didn't get Dad, too.

Well, that was fast, I realized as I rushed outside as fast as my exhausted little legs could go. An invasion was already underway. I tried to ignore the rather blatant panty shots as I tried to find the throne room again. Good thing for the invaders, actually, because adrenaline kicked in and I had energy to move. After I fought them off, of course. Unfortunately, ninjas seem to be the bane of my fighting style. They have moves that I can only watch, defenseless, as they fling me through they air. Fortunately, they don't use that move often.

I finally found a familiar door, and... oh, no way. No. They... they got him! Dad lay on the ground, not far from his throne. "No, dad!" I cried, falling to my knees by his side. "Hang in there!"

"The wind told me about this day," he choked. "I thought it would never come."

"Come on, start talking sense, dad!"

"Take care of Elliot." I think I caught a smile behind his massive beard before he went limp.

"Dad! DAD!!"

Nothing.

Nothing but footsteps right outside. It was then I realized how weak I was from the last few ninjas. I could do nothing but run before I died, too.


Nothing like being suddenly flung into an adventure. I didn't know what to do. Well, after getting as far away as possible from the castle. I remembered hearing of a holy city once, Wendel or something, and a Priest of Light. Seemed... seemed as good a place as any to start.

Gee, the entire world turned out to be a big invasion party! Wendel was landlocked, so I took a ship to Jad. I got in just in time for the docks to get closed by a bunch of wolfmen! Well, I wasn't going to have any more of this nonsense. Facing the nearest one, I pulled out my spear and woke up in the inn, my entire face a bruise.

"You're lucky to be alive!" said Innkeep.

Ugh. "Can I just stay till my HP's filled?"

"Sure, free of charge. Can't make a profit with these beastmen around, anyway."

I didn't bother to thank him. Of course, by then, I was already asleep.


I woke up that night, Plan B already forming. Wait it out. Plan C was quick to follow.

The city gates didn't seem very guarded. I had a realization as I stepped through them. These must be those beastmen I'd heard about. Beastly by day and bestial by night. So instead of an orderly punch to the face, I'd receive a chaotic punch to the face! The gate actually turned out to be guarded, but I made easy work of the disorganized lot.

One trip through the forest later, I was tired again. Luckily, I came upon a town just in time to pay the innkeep and collapse.

And wake up in the middle of the night to an absurdly bright light. It was pretty, and I was delirious, so I had to chase it down! It was pretty speedy, but it slowly got dizzier and dizzier until it collapsed and turned out to be a fairy. The glowing kind, I guess.

"Uh... are you okay?"

She pushed herself up and started fluttering tiredly again. "Who are you?"

So I explained myself. Well, I skipped the castle invasion bit. She didn't need to know that.

"So you're headed to Wendel?" She repeated pretty much the whole story right there, flying a circle around my head. "You'll have to do."

"Say what?"

"Let me take a rest inside your head."

"S-say what?"

A rainbow beam shot from the sky, completely enveloping the both of us.

"Er... say what?"

I gave a start when a voice rang out from the inside of my head. "what's going on in that town it looks suspicious"

I guess telepathy doesn't have capitalization or punctuation!


Oh, no way. Not again! The entire town was already deserted and burned to the ground. "Why is all this happening?" I shouted to no one.

The fairy answered. She's not no one. Who does she think she is? "we need to get to wendel fast they might strike there soon"

Okay, so it wasn't an answer to my question at all, really. But I did agree that we needed to get to Wendel. My poor little brother alone in a world where everything was burning all of a sudden? I needed some leads now.

The fairy gave me directions. I blindly followed as fast as I could go, and by blindly, I mean really, really fast and I blinked once. That was enough to get me to run directly into some smelly, hairy warrior.

I hastily repeated my scant explanation of my quest. He gave me his whole backstory. Turns out his castle was attacked, too, but with some survivors. He was off to grind some levels and whack a wizard. Well, since I'd heard his backstory and everything, it was pretty inevitable that he'd join my party. Plus, the fairy told me to tell him I had the way into Wendel, so he didn't have much of a choice.

DURAN JOINED THE PARTAY.

Wait. The way in? What did she mean by OOF

The opening to the cave shot me back a few yards, where I tumbled across the ground. The fairy had left my head, and spun around. The dazzling light meant /something/ had happened, so I marched on in.

Without mishap. What a jerk.

It wasn't long before we found a little girl dangling by her fingertips from a precipice. Being the nice guy I am, I helped her up. As if to thank me, she launched into her own backstory.

Oh, no way. There was absolutely NO WAY she was getting in /my/ party. Good thing she ran off without us, because she was /not getting in./


So we found the Priest. Duran and I had a backstory battle. By which I mean I said a few words before he pushed me out of the way and demanded to know about class changing. Then the fairy popped out of my head and said something about the Mana Tree.

"Okay, you've had your fun," I said. "Go possess the Priest or something."

"No way," she said. "Once I choose a host, I'm with you till you die."

I nudged Duran. "We do have resurrection items around here, right?"

"Well, if you're gonna do /that,/" said Fairy, "I'll consider it a non-lethal KO."

Frag.

I sighed. "Fine. I'll go save a withering tree to get a sword and /then/ find my brother."


So. Quest summary: Find eight macguffins. I mean spirits. Open a gate. Figure out how to die and get resurrected.

We were farming the cave for loot when all of a sudden OH MY GARSH BOSS FIGHT! A giant spider... thing dropped from the ceiling. We hadn't even been farming that long. We hadn't even remembered to shop for healing items!

Duran made a daring move and walked into a poisonous beam of bubbles right off the bat. We spent most of the fight whimpering and trying to avoid shockwaves that the very jumpy thing kept generating. Duran had eaten our only heal candy when HOLY CRAP AN EYE POPPED OUT. The sparkles surrounding Spidey looked like some kind of healing effect, but the eye didn't come back. Quickly formulating a plan, I jumped at the other eye.

And soon enough, we were rewarded with a second pop. Followed quickly by an eardrum-shattering KA-BOOM. But, as we all know, who cares about eardrums when there are victory poses to be striking?

I didn't really hear the conversation between Fairy and the little ghost that suddenly appeared, but it seemed important. Like, really important. Was that a macguffin?

WISP GET

Inside my head, I could still hear. Fairy wanted to go to Forcena. The kingly guy there would know where to find more spirits.

On our victorious march/swagger out, I received a very familiar punch in the back of the head.

And woke up in jail. As is natural, my first plan was to yell, "Heeeey!"

Failure. The guard simply came down the stairs, said, "Shut up," and left.

"Hey!" called a voice from the adjacent cell. I couldn't see anything, but she /sounded/ attractive.

"Yeah?"

"So they caught you, too?"

"So it would seem."

"Hold on. I think I've got a plan." Some footsteps, then, "Yoo-hoo! Guard! I need help changing my clothes!"

I barely stopped myself from bursting into laughter. /Pure genius./

He leaped at the chance. Again, I couldn't see anything, but what sounded like one kick in the pants later, she was opening our cell, the guard locked in hers. What do you know, she was... attractive. And wearing a very comfortable outfit, if you understand my meaning. She was /definitely/ getting in my party.

ANGELA JOINED THE PARTY YO

What great people, leaving our weapons right outside the cell. All that being unconscious even filled our HP, which was good, because we had to fight through all sorts of guards. Lucky they were beastmen, and it was night.

When we reached the outside, it turned out to be Jad. With even more beastmen outside! Without too much trouble (and returning a whole lot more) we made it back to the dock. "Quick!" yelled the captain. "Get aboard! We're shoving off! Anchors aweeeeeigh!"

We made it just in time for that boarding board thing to get pulled up. Then OH MAN GUESS WHAT Angela dropped her backstory. She was a mage who couldn't cast no spells, and her own mum wanted to sacrifice her. Turned out she was from the big frozen Magic Kingdom. I guessed she wasn't wearing customary dress.

Also turns out the Magic Kingdom was the place that invaded Forcena! There was a big, hilarious misunderstanding, but that's not important right now.


We finally bought supplies when we landed. Good thing, since another BOSS FIGHT sprang out of nowhere.

Here's how it went down. We were walking across this bridge over a bottemless-looking pit, minding our own business when these witch-type ladies appear at the other side. They were reasonably attractive, so I started to chat them up when SUDDENLY.

"Angela?"

Oh, so they know each other.

"And a soldier from Forcena! Send in the Machine Golems! Trap them on the bridge!"

"Er, I'm more of a mercenary," Duran tried to point out, but the boss fight was UNDERWAY.

You'd think metal would be more resistant to piercing. Well, with all the heal candies we'd bought, the fight was a breeze. Now, post-fight...?

"They defeated the Machine Golems! Run!" declared the witchy ladies, and promptly disappeared.

"Yeah, you run away!" I yelled after them, as we all struck our respective victory poses.

Hey, what's that mysterious ticking

DOOM.

The good news? We landed safely. The bad news? The /same side we started on./ "Argh," I said, "Now look what you two did!"

"Well, excuse me, princess," mumbled Duran.

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?!"