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TOPIC | The Trouble with Tropes:Writing Contest
@TheAnneh
Here's my entry:
~
The road is deserted. That would be unusual, except you're in the middle of nowhere and the only living creature you've seen for miles was one rather moody cow.
Oh, and Mattias.
"So, where are you headed?" Mattias asks.
You frown a little. It was on the tip of your tongue a minute ago. "The Hotel California," you reply.
Mattias chuckles. "You would not believe how many people tell me that. That song, huh. That song."
"What about you?" you ask.
"Hm? Oh, I'm headed everywhere. See the world, that kinda thing. Meet lots of people."
"Sounds interesting. I'd have liked to do that," you murmur.
Mattias smiles. "Yeah, lots of people say that too. Most people just never get the chance, you know?"
There's a distant lamppost up ahead. "I heard that most people never go twenty miles from where they were born. Well, except for brief trips."
Mattias laughs again, a warm sort of laugh. "Takes a special kind of person to be a world traveller," he replies.
You lapse into silence, but it's a comfortable sort of silence. You pass the lamppost and head back into darkness.
Eventually, Mattias reaches over and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Hey, come on," he says. "Enough of this. I'll get where I'm going, but first we have to take you where you're going."
You look at Mattias. Eyes on the road except- except.
"I know, I know. Don't bother you while you're driving. But you've been driving for years. Don't worry anymore. I can take you there."
"The Hotel California?" you ask, quietly.
Mattias laughs again. "Yeah, yeah."
You park the car and get out. Mattias comes over and takes your hand. And then you both walk into the night.
Behind you, the car slowly fades away.
Here's my entry:
~
The road is deserted. That would be unusual, except you're in the middle of nowhere and the only living creature you've seen for miles was one rather moody cow.
Oh, and Mattias.
"So, where are you headed?" Mattias asks.
You frown a little. It was on the tip of your tongue a minute ago. "The Hotel California," you reply.
Mattias chuckles. "You would not believe how many people tell me that. That song, huh. That song."
"What about you?" you ask.
"Hm? Oh, I'm headed everywhere. See the world, that kinda thing. Meet lots of people."
"Sounds interesting. I'd have liked to do that," you murmur.
Mattias smiles. "Yeah, lots of people say that too. Most people just never get the chance, you know?"
There's a distant lamppost up ahead. "I heard that most people never go twenty miles from where they were born. Well, except for brief trips."
Mattias laughs again, a warm sort of laugh. "Takes a special kind of person to be a world traveller," he replies.
You lapse into silence, but it's a comfortable sort of silence. You pass the lamppost and head back into darkness.
Eventually, Mattias reaches over and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Hey, come on," he says. "Enough of this. I'll get where I'm going, but first we have to take you where you're going."
You look at Mattias. Eyes on the road except- except.
"I know, I know. Don't bother you while you're driving. But you've been driving for years. Don't worry anymore. I can take you there."
"The Hotel California?" you ask, quietly.
Mattias laughs again. "Yeah, yeah."
You park the car and get out. Mattias comes over and takes your hand. And then you both walk into the night.
Behind you, the car slowly fades away.
@TheAnneh
Here's my entry:
~
The road is deserted. That would be unusual, except you're in the middle of nowhere and the only living creature you've seen for miles was one rather moody cow.
Oh, and Mattias.
"So, where are you headed?" Mattias asks.
You frown a little. It was on the tip of your tongue a minute ago. "The Hotel California," you reply.
Mattias chuckles. "You would not believe how many people tell me that. That song, huh. That song."
"What about you?" you ask.
"Hm? Oh, I'm headed everywhere. See the world, that kinda thing. Meet lots of people."
"Sounds interesting. I'd have liked to do that," you murmur.
Mattias smiles. "Yeah, lots of people say that too. Most people just never get the chance, you know?"
There's a distant lamppost up ahead. "I heard that most people never go twenty miles from where they were born. Well, except for brief trips."
Mattias laughs again, a warm sort of laugh. "Takes a special kind of person to be a world traveller," he replies.
You lapse into silence, but it's a comfortable sort of silence. You pass the lamppost and head back into darkness.
Eventually, Mattias reaches over and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Hey, come on," he says. "Enough of this. I'll get where I'm going, but first we have to take you where you're going."
You look at Mattias. Eyes on the road except- except.
"I know, I know. Don't bother you while you're driving. But you've been driving for years. Don't worry anymore. I can take you there."
"The Hotel California?" you ask, quietly.
Mattias laughs again. "Yeah, yeah."
You park the car and get out. Mattias comes over and takes your hand. And then you both walk into the night.
Behind you, the car slowly fades away.
Here's my entry:
~
The road is deserted. That would be unusual, except you're in the middle of nowhere and the only living creature you've seen for miles was one rather moody cow.
Oh, and Mattias.
"So, where are you headed?" Mattias asks.
You frown a little. It was on the tip of your tongue a minute ago. "The Hotel California," you reply.
Mattias chuckles. "You would not believe how many people tell me that. That song, huh. That song."
"What about you?" you ask.
"Hm? Oh, I'm headed everywhere. See the world, that kinda thing. Meet lots of people."
"Sounds interesting. I'd have liked to do that," you murmur.
Mattias smiles. "Yeah, lots of people say that too. Most people just never get the chance, you know?"
There's a distant lamppost up ahead. "I heard that most people never go twenty miles from where they were born. Well, except for brief trips."
Mattias laughs again, a warm sort of laugh. "Takes a special kind of person to be a world traveller," he replies.
You lapse into silence, but it's a comfortable sort of silence. You pass the lamppost and head back into darkness.
Eventually, Mattias reaches over and rests a hand on your shoulder. "Hey, come on," he says. "Enough of this. I'll get where I'm going, but first we have to take you where you're going."
You look at Mattias. Eyes on the road except- except.
"I know, I know. Don't bother you while you're driving. But you've been driving for years. Don't worry anymore. I can take you there."
"The Hotel California?" you ask, quietly.
Mattias laughs again. "Yeah, yeah."
You park the car and get out. Mattias comes over and takes your hand. And then you both walk into the night.
Behind you, the car slowly fades away.
@TheAnneh
I did not do any planning at all and this is basically just from the top of my head. But hey, I'm bored and writing is fun. xD
Fyi, I have no idea if I'm doing this trope right or if I'm just murdering it, basically.
---
It was pretty obvious right from the outset that Dave was the kind of guy who did this a lot.
'This' being picking up strange girls from the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, not asking for their destinations or even a general direction. The moment I stepped into the car, he flashed me a grin (almost a leer, really), said "Call me Dave, sweetie", and continued driving down the highway.
To be strictly honest, I'm worried. Worried and scared out of my pants. (Figuratively, of course. Given the chance, I'd put on a burqa to cover up from Dave. He's that of creepy.) Never would I have dreamed that I'd have to resort to hitchhiking. But just five hours ago, I wasn't stuck in the middle of nowhere. On the contrary, I'd been road-tripping with my fiance, not a care in the world, not even a clear destination in mind, but happier than ever.
"So," Dave finally speaks up, turning down the horrible country music blaring in the car. "Where you headed, sweetpea?" I asked him to drop me off at the nearest gas station, not bothering to elaborate any further. I'd take corny country crooning to a longer conversation with Dave any day. Especially since my migraine's only getting worse and worse. Caused by heat exhaustion and dehydration, probably.
There weren't many other cars on the road, but enough that I could put my focus on them and settle my thoughts. We were on a roadtrip; I was now in some stranger's car. My memory was fuzzy. How did Point A get to Point B? I had no idea.
For some reason or other, the traffic slowed to a crawl. I kept my eyes on the scenery rather than in the car itself. I wanted to get out.
A soft weight lands on my thigh as Dave addresses me again though I'd neglected to give him my name to avoid conversation. Rude, considering he was giving me a ride, but safer, i had thought.
But before he managed to get a word out, I saw what was causing the hold-up on the road.
A black Camaro, overturned, battered and twisted almost out of shape lies on the side of the road. Authorities were trying to get any passengers out of the car before more damage was done.
That's my car.
((Dave was very intrigued by the wrecked car, kept his eyes on it rather than the girl he'd picked up. It was only after he passed the wreckage that he turned his attention back on the girl.
"Hey, where'd she go?"
A sudden blaring of horns from all corners drove Dave into a panic. A few seconds later, with his life flashing before his eyes and other cliched metaphors, his car crashed into a tree, throwing him right out of his seat despite the seat belt. The airbags had not deployed, for whatever reason.
"Thanks, Dave"))
I did not do any planning at all and this is basically just from the top of my head. But hey, I'm bored and writing is fun. xD
Fyi, I have no idea if I'm doing this trope right or if I'm just murdering it, basically.
---
It was pretty obvious right from the outset that Dave was the kind of guy who did this a lot.
'This' being picking up strange girls from the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, not asking for their destinations or even a general direction. The moment I stepped into the car, he flashed me a grin (almost a leer, really), said "Call me Dave, sweetie", and continued driving down the highway.
To be strictly honest, I'm worried. Worried and scared out of my pants. (Figuratively, of course. Given the chance, I'd put on a burqa to cover up from Dave. He's that of creepy.) Never would I have dreamed that I'd have to resort to hitchhiking. But just five hours ago, I wasn't stuck in the middle of nowhere. On the contrary, I'd been road-tripping with my fiance, not a care in the world, not even a clear destination in mind, but happier than ever.
"So," Dave finally speaks up, turning down the horrible country music blaring in the car. "Where you headed, sweetpea?" I asked him to drop me off at the nearest gas station, not bothering to elaborate any further. I'd take corny country crooning to a longer conversation with Dave any day. Especially since my migraine's only getting worse and worse. Caused by heat exhaustion and dehydration, probably.
There weren't many other cars on the road, but enough that I could put my focus on them and settle my thoughts. We were on a roadtrip; I was now in some stranger's car. My memory was fuzzy. How did Point A get to Point B? I had no idea.
For some reason or other, the traffic slowed to a crawl. I kept my eyes on the scenery rather than in the car itself. I wanted to get out.
A soft weight lands on my thigh as Dave addresses me again though I'd neglected to give him my name to avoid conversation. Rude, considering he was giving me a ride, but safer, i had thought.
But before he managed to get a word out, I saw what was causing the hold-up on the road.
A black Camaro, overturned, battered and twisted almost out of shape lies on the side of the road. Authorities were trying to get any passengers out of the car before more damage was done.
That's my car.
((Dave was very intrigued by the wrecked car, kept his eyes on it rather than the girl he'd picked up. It was only after he passed the wreckage that he turned his attention back on the girl.
"Hey, where'd she go?"
A sudden blaring of horns from all corners drove Dave into a panic. A few seconds later, with his life flashing before his eyes and other cliched metaphors, his car crashed into a tree, throwing him right out of his seat despite the seat belt. The airbags had not deployed, for whatever reason.
"Thanks, Dave"))
@TheAnneh
I did not do any planning at all and this is basically just from the top of my head. But hey, I'm bored and writing is fun. xD
Fyi, I have no idea if I'm doing this trope right or if I'm just murdering it, basically.
---
It was pretty obvious right from the outset that Dave was the kind of guy who did this a lot.
'This' being picking up strange girls from the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, not asking for their destinations or even a general direction. The moment I stepped into the car, he flashed me a grin (almost a leer, really), said "Call me Dave, sweetie", and continued driving down the highway.
To be strictly honest, I'm worried. Worried and scared out of my pants. (Figuratively, of course. Given the chance, I'd put on a burqa to cover up from Dave. He's that of creepy.) Never would I have dreamed that I'd have to resort to hitchhiking. But just five hours ago, I wasn't stuck in the middle of nowhere. On the contrary, I'd been road-tripping with my fiance, not a care in the world, not even a clear destination in mind, but happier than ever.
"So," Dave finally speaks up, turning down the horrible country music blaring in the car. "Where you headed, sweetpea?" I asked him to drop me off at the nearest gas station, not bothering to elaborate any further. I'd take corny country crooning to a longer conversation with Dave any day. Especially since my migraine's only getting worse and worse. Caused by heat exhaustion and dehydration, probably.
There weren't many other cars on the road, but enough that I could put my focus on them and settle my thoughts. We were on a roadtrip; I was now in some stranger's car. My memory was fuzzy. How did Point A get to Point B? I had no idea.
For some reason or other, the traffic slowed to a crawl. I kept my eyes on the scenery rather than in the car itself. I wanted to get out.
A soft weight lands on my thigh as Dave addresses me again though I'd neglected to give him my name to avoid conversation. Rude, considering he was giving me a ride, but safer, i had thought.
But before he managed to get a word out, I saw what was causing the hold-up on the road.
A black Camaro, overturned, battered and twisted almost out of shape lies on the side of the road. Authorities were trying to get any passengers out of the car before more damage was done.
That's my car.
((Dave was very intrigued by the wrecked car, kept his eyes on it rather than the girl he'd picked up. It was only after he passed the wreckage that he turned his attention back on the girl.
"Hey, where'd she go?"
A sudden blaring of horns from all corners drove Dave into a panic. A few seconds later, with his life flashing before his eyes and other cliched metaphors, his car crashed into a tree, throwing him right out of his seat despite the seat belt. The airbags had not deployed, for whatever reason.
"Thanks, Dave"))
I did not do any planning at all and this is basically just from the top of my head. But hey, I'm bored and writing is fun. xD
Fyi, I have no idea if I'm doing this trope right or if I'm just murdering it, basically.
---
It was pretty obvious right from the outset that Dave was the kind of guy who did this a lot.
'This' being picking up strange girls from the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, not asking for their destinations or even a general direction. The moment I stepped into the car, he flashed me a grin (almost a leer, really), said "Call me Dave, sweetie", and continued driving down the highway.
To be strictly honest, I'm worried. Worried and scared out of my pants. (Figuratively, of course. Given the chance, I'd put on a burqa to cover up from Dave. He's that of creepy.) Never would I have dreamed that I'd have to resort to hitchhiking. But just five hours ago, I wasn't stuck in the middle of nowhere. On the contrary, I'd been road-tripping with my fiance, not a care in the world, not even a clear destination in mind, but happier than ever.
"So," Dave finally speaks up, turning down the horrible country music blaring in the car. "Where you headed, sweetpea?" I asked him to drop me off at the nearest gas station, not bothering to elaborate any further. I'd take corny country crooning to a longer conversation with Dave any day. Especially since my migraine's only getting worse and worse. Caused by heat exhaustion and dehydration, probably.
There weren't many other cars on the road, but enough that I could put my focus on them and settle my thoughts. We were on a roadtrip; I was now in some stranger's car. My memory was fuzzy. How did Point A get to Point B? I had no idea.
For some reason or other, the traffic slowed to a crawl. I kept my eyes on the scenery rather than in the car itself. I wanted to get out.
A soft weight lands on my thigh as Dave addresses me again though I'd neglected to give him my name to avoid conversation. Rude, considering he was giving me a ride, but safer, i had thought.
But before he managed to get a word out, I saw what was causing the hold-up on the road.
A black Camaro, overturned, battered and twisted almost out of shape lies on the side of the road. Authorities were trying to get any passengers out of the car before more damage was done.
That's my car.
((Dave was very intrigued by the wrecked car, kept his eyes on it rather than the girl he'd picked up. It was only after he passed the wreckage that he turned his attention back on the girl.
"Hey, where'd she go?"
A sudden blaring of horns from all corners drove Dave into a panic. A few seconds later, with his life flashing before his eyes and other cliched metaphors, his car crashed into a tree, throwing him right out of his seat despite the seat belt. The airbags had not deployed, for whatever reason.
"Thanks, Dave"))
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@TheAnneh
Hitchhiking Ghosts entry (sorry, much longer than I expected when I started; this is about 1500 words)
Title: Unique Breed/Gene Combo
Summary: Check the details on your crossroads before you click.
A dragon's a dragon, right? One L25 is much like another, as long as the points have the right spread. That's what I thought, too.
One of my normal leveling team was on loan; he could breed for someone's dream dragon, but she needed green-eyed babies. I sent a note to my friend in Wind, and she offered to host the nest. Didn't even charge me. (I'd say that was nice of her, but since I'm holding 6 of her dragons for the dom push, it's more like a quid-pro-quo thing.)
Point is, I was down a trainer, low on lair space, and had 12 eggs hatching in the next three days. (Yeah, yeah. Bad planning. Should've spaced 'em out better.) I needed to train and exalt a whole swarm of dragons and all but one of my trainers were out on loan or nesting elsewhere.
I put up a note in Shadow, asking if anyone could loan me a high-level dragon for training for a few days. When I checked back in a few hours, I got a ping that there was a crossroads waiting for me; I grabbed the dragon and then went back to my thread to thank the loaner, but whoever it was hadn't bothered to answer. Huh. So I had no idea whose imp I'd picked up. I figured I'd find them later; at worst, I'd hold on to him until they asked for him back. I threw a set of pearly wing bangles on him so I couldn't accidentally exalt him.
I looked for its parents, but it didn't have any. Whoa, first-gen L25 imp! Old, of course--hatched last June. No offspring, either; must be someone's dream combo. It was a gorgeous Chocolate/Brown/Maize, clown/Shim/Crackle fellow, named Earthling, which seemed appropriate since he had brown eyes. He was RTB but my nests were full, and besides, I hadn't been given permission to breed him. I set off for the Mire with him, my L25 progen, and a 1st-level mirror that I named randomly.
I checked his stats--he was a glass cannon, like I'd expect, and had the standard slash/rally/elim/double-ambush stones. He also had Fossilize, which was unusual on a coli dragon, but hey, whatever works. I've seen weirder.
He was quicker than my progen, with no points in defense, so juggled the order a bit--Quoinchaser would go first and rally him, and he'd get in three slashes, then Quoin again, then the enemies. Usually.
The first mob was the psywurm trio, and I swore, because if those go well (read: they meditate instead of attack for a couple of extra rounds) I clean up; if it goes badly, I have to refresh to keep from dying. Well, I could hope.
I rallied him, and he slashed once--critical hit, double damage, yay. The second slash knocked it down to almost dead, and then both of them meditated. A third slash went to the other wurm--another crit! Yay! Then Quoin got her hit in, on the one who was mostly wounded and it went down.
I waited for the nasty arcane zap and hope'd it'd target the trainee. Instead, the 'wurm mediated again, along with the Brilliant's first medition. I relaxed a bit; even if they both hit before I knocked 'em out, I wouldn't have three dead dragons and I'd get through the round with enough breath to start eliminating on the next.
Earthling slashed at the Brilliant--another crit! I've seen that happen a lot; the Brilliant's are a lot slower than most Mire creatures.
... Anyway. Not meaning to do a blow-by-blow here. End result: the trainee went down to a light blast, Quoinchaser dodged an arcane zap (I can never remember the name of that attack), and we ended the round with Earthling at 42 breath, Quoinchaser at 23, and the trainee at level 3.
After that it was all easy. I wasn't keeping notes or anything like that, but I think it was the fastest training session I remember ever happening. Earthling never missed, and got crits about half the time. All my dragons dodged most of the attacks aimed at them, even the trainee. I was doing so well I decided to train to level 8 instead of my usual 7; it took less than fifteen minutes to get the 32k experience.
I switched trainees; next up was a near-triple dg pearlcatcher. First mob: two croakers. The first took a lucky crit, and the secon meditated a second time instead of attacking; both down before attacking.
It went on like that. Earthling was the luckiest dragon I'd ever seen in the coliseum; it was like he couldn't miss. I'd make sure to thank his owner profusely, even though I knew it was just a matter of the RNG favoring me today.
I trained seven dragons in less than two hours; the other five I wanted to get rid of wouldn't be adults until the next day. I exalted them all and that brought my funds back up to where I could afford to look at the new silk apparel in the marketplace. Since I couldn't train any more hatchlings and didn't feel up to training my permanent dragons, I decided to farm for some of the new loot, especially the red swippables.
In an hour I had 40 chimera relics. Not enough on its own, but a solid start, and I'd also picked up a few springboks and longneck familiars, which I don't need, but there's always newbies who can use them.
I decided that was enough progress for the day, so I closed the window and went back to my ebook work.
Next morning, I named my five hatchlings (three mirrors, one fae and a pearlcatcher, none of which looked pretty enough to wait for the right buyer) and headed back to the coliseum. If anything, Earthling was even better. He got crits most of the time, and none of the enemies ever dodged either of us, and we got a lot of four-creature mobs, which speeds up the training a lot. I think I got the five of them to level 8 in just over an hour. (I don't remember. That was an *intense* grinding run.)
I went back to my normal FR activites--did my gathering, my familiar bonding, took care of my nests. Spent some time in the scrying workshop looking at brown-range possibilities. Went to the color range predictor at fr.fintastic.net and contemplated asking to breed Earthling with any of my dragons--he had *awful* ranges with all of them; I don't do anything close to those colors.
I went back to the arena to pick up a few more relics, and on the third round, right after Earthling and Q'chaser had gotten enough breath to eliminate, I got a Celestial Antelope familiar! WHOA! I decided that was enough good luck for the day, and went off to finish the editing I'd been dodging. (Dammit, I had hatchlings to train! Books can wait!)
The next morning, I logged in, hatched both a 3- and 4-egg nest (swarm of tg plentifuls; good for exalting if nobody jumps on them) and considered training up some of my breeders. I went to the create the party in the coliseum, and... Earthling was gone. Poof.
I scrolled through all 5 pages of my lair, and he wasn't there. I had 6 open spaces, enough to hatch tomorrow's nests, and one for him, and that was all. I cleared my cache and refreshed, in case that was the problem. It wasn't.
I went back to my thread in the Shadow forum, commenting to bump it, explaining that I'd borrowed Earthling from someone but he'd vanished from my lair, and I was certain I hadn't exalted him (I ran back to my hoard to check--I had 2 sets of pearly bangles, but I had no idea if I used to have 3), so maybe we needed to contact the devs. I pinged a few of the people who usually loan out dragons.
I got a couple of comments saying they hadn't loaned me a dragon. Nobody said that Earthling was theirs.
I realized I could run a search for him, so I did.
He's not there.
There is no choc/brown/maize male imperial, much less one with his genes and his name.
I thought about posting in the Bugs forum, or sending an email to the devs, but what would I say? "I picked up this dragon from a crossroads and didn't notice who it was from; I had two awesome days in the coliseum but now he's gone? Also, search doesn't show him on the site at all?" THey'd tell me I was misremembering something. Maybe he was brown/brown instead of choc/brown. Or his name was something different. It's not like I didn't check for near-misses, but he's not there either.
Gone. Poof. Like he never existed. According to the site search, he never did.
I don't know that I believe in ghosts, but I had my two best days ever in the coliseum with a dragon who doesn't exist.
Now I'm always careful to check who sends me crossroads.
Hitchhiking Ghosts entry (sorry, much longer than I expected when I started; this is about 1500 words)
Title: Unique Breed/Gene Combo
Summary: Check the details on your crossroads before you click.
A dragon's a dragon, right? One L25 is much like another, as long as the points have the right spread. That's what I thought, too.
One of my normal leveling team was on loan; he could breed for someone's dream dragon, but she needed green-eyed babies. I sent a note to my friend in Wind, and she offered to host the nest. Didn't even charge me. (I'd say that was nice of her, but since I'm holding 6 of her dragons for the dom push, it's more like a quid-pro-quo thing.)
Point is, I was down a trainer, low on lair space, and had 12 eggs hatching in the next three days. (Yeah, yeah. Bad planning. Should've spaced 'em out better.) I needed to train and exalt a whole swarm of dragons and all but one of my trainers were out on loan or nesting elsewhere.
I put up a note in Shadow, asking if anyone could loan me a high-level dragon for training for a few days. When I checked back in a few hours, I got a ping that there was a crossroads waiting for me; I grabbed the dragon and then went back to my thread to thank the loaner, but whoever it was hadn't bothered to answer. Huh. So I had no idea whose imp I'd picked up. I figured I'd find them later; at worst, I'd hold on to him until they asked for him back. I threw a set of pearly wing bangles on him so I couldn't accidentally exalt him.
I looked for its parents, but it didn't have any. Whoa, first-gen L25 imp! Old, of course--hatched last June. No offspring, either; must be someone's dream combo. It was a gorgeous Chocolate/Brown/Maize, clown/Shim/Crackle fellow, named Earthling, which seemed appropriate since he had brown eyes. He was RTB but my nests were full, and besides, I hadn't been given permission to breed him. I set off for the Mire with him, my L25 progen, and a 1st-level mirror that I named randomly.
I checked his stats--he was a glass cannon, like I'd expect, and had the standard slash/rally/elim/double-ambush stones. He also had Fossilize, which was unusual on a coli dragon, but hey, whatever works. I've seen weirder.
He was quicker than my progen, with no points in defense, so juggled the order a bit--Quoinchaser would go first and rally him, and he'd get in three slashes, then Quoin again, then the enemies. Usually.
The first mob was the psywurm trio, and I swore, because if those go well (read: they meditate instead of attack for a couple of extra rounds) I clean up; if it goes badly, I have to refresh to keep from dying. Well, I could hope.
I rallied him, and he slashed once--critical hit, double damage, yay. The second slash knocked it down to almost dead, and then both of them meditated. A third slash went to the other wurm--another crit! Yay! Then Quoin got her hit in, on the one who was mostly wounded and it went down.
I waited for the nasty arcane zap and hope'd it'd target the trainee. Instead, the 'wurm mediated again, along with the Brilliant's first medition. I relaxed a bit; even if they both hit before I knocked 'em out, I wouldn't have three dead dragons and I'd get through the round with enough breath to start eliminating on the next.
Earthling slashed at the Brilliant--another crit! I've seen that happen a lot; the Brilliant's are a lot slower than most Mire creatures.
... Anyway. Not meaning to do a blow-by-blow here. End result: the trainee went down to a light blast, Quoinchaser dodged an arcane zap (I can never remember the name of that attack), and we ended the round with Earthling at 42 breath, Quoinchaser at 23, and the trainee at level 3.
After that it was all easy. I wasn't keeping notes or anything like that, but I think it was the fastest training session I remember ever happening. Earthling never missed, and got crits about half the time. All my dragons dodged most of the attacks aimed at them, even the trainee. I was doing so well I decided to train to level 8 instead of my usual 7; it took less than fifteen minutes to get the 32k experience.
I switched trainees; next up was a near-triple dg pearlcatcher. First mob: two croakers. The first took a lucky crit, and the secon meditated a second time instead of attacking; both down before attacking.
It went on like that. Earthling was the luckiest dragon I'd ever seen in the coliseum; it was like he couldn't miss. I'd make sure to thank his owner profusely, even though I knew it was just a matter of the RNG favoring me today.
I trained seven dragons in less than two hours; the other five I wanted to get rid of wouldn't be adults until the next day. I exalted them all and that brought my funds back up to where I could afford to look at the new silk apparel in the marketplace. Since I couldn't train any more hatchlings and didn't feel up to training my permanent dragons, I decided to farm for some of the new loot, especially the red swippables.
In an hour I had 40 chimera relics. Not enough on its own, but a solid start, and I'd also picked up a few springboks and longneck familiars, which I don't need, but there's always newbies who can use them.
I decided that was enough progress for the day, so I closed the window and went back to my ebook work.
Next morning, I named my five hatchlings (three mirrors, one fae and a pearlcatcher, none of which looked pretty enough to wait for the right buyer) and headed back to the coliseum. If anything, Earthling was even better. He got crits most of the time, and none of the enemies ever dodged either of us, and we got a lot of four-creature mobs, which speeds up the training a lot. I think I got the five of them to level 8 in just over an hour. (I don't remember. That was an *intense* grinding run.)
I went back to my normal FR activites--did my gathering, my familiar bonding, took care of my nests. Spent some time in the scrying workshop looking at brown-range possibilities. Went to the color range predictor at fr.fintastic.net and contemplated asking to breed Earthling with any of my dragons--he had *awful* ranges with all of them; I don't do anything close to those colors.
I went back to the arena to pick up a few more relics, and on the third round, right after Earthling and Q'chaser had gotten enough breath to eliminate, I got a Celestial Antelope familiar! WHOA! I decided that was enough good luck for the day, and went off to finish the editing I'd been dodging. (Dammit, I had hatchlings to train! Books can wait!)
The next morning, I logged in, hatched both a 3- and 4-egg nest (swarm of tg plentifuls; good for exalting if nobody jumps on them) and considered training up some of my breeders. I went to the create the party in the coliseum, and... Earthling was gone. Poof.
I scrolled through all 5 pages of my lair, and he wasn't there. I had 6 open spaces, enough to hatch tomorrow's nests, and one for him, and that was all. I cleared my cache and refreshed, in case that was the problem. It wasn't.
I went back to my thread in the Shadow forum, commenting to bump it, explaining that I'd borrowed Earthling from someone but he'd vanished from my lair, and I was certain I hadn't exalted him (I ran back to my hoard to check--I had 2 sets of pearly bangles, but I had no idea if I used to have 3), so maybe we needed to contact the devs. I pinged a few of the people who usually loan out dragons.
I got a couple of comments saying they hadn't loaned me a dragon. Nobody said that Earthling was theirs.
I realized I could run a search for him, so I did.
He's not there.
There is no choc/brown/maize male imperial, much less one with his genes and his name.
I thought about posting in the Bugs forum, or sending an email to the devs, but what would I say? "I picked up this dragon from a crossroads and didn't notice who it was from; I had two awesome days in the coliseum but now he's gone? Also, search doesn't show him on the site at all?" THey'd tell me I was misremembering something. Maybe he was brown/brown instead of choc/brown. Or his name was something different. It's not like I didn't check for near-misses, but he's not there either.
Gone. Poof. Like he never existed. According to the site search, he never did.
I don't know that I believe in ghosts, but I had my two best days ever in the coliseum with a dragon who doesn't exist.
Now I'm always careful to check who sends me crossroads.
@TheAnneh
Hitchhiking Ghosts entry (sorry, much longer than I expected when I started; this is about 1500 words)
Title: Unique Breed/Gene Combo
Summary: Check the details on your crossroads before you click.
A dragon's a dragon, right? One L25 is much like another, as long as the points have the right spread. That's what I thought, too.
One of my normal leveling team was on loan; he could breed for someone's dream dragon, but she needed green-eyed babies. I sent a note to my friend in Wind, and she offered to host the nest. Didn't even charge me. (I'd say that was nice of her, but since I'm holding 6 of her dragons for the dom push, it's more like a quid-pro-quo thing.)
Point is, I was down a trainer, low on lair space, and had 12 eggs hatching in the next three days. (Yeah, yeah. Bad planning. Should've spaced 'em out better.) I needed to train and exalt a whole swarm of dragons and all but one of my trainers were out on loan or nesting elsewhere.
I put up a note in Shadow, asking if anyone could loan me a high-level dragon for training for a few days. When I checked back in a few hours, I got a ping that there was a crossroads waiting for me; I grabbed the dragon and then went back to my thread to thank the loaner, but whoever it was hadn't bothered to answer. Huh. So I had no idea whose imp I'd picked up. I figured I'd find them later; at worst, I'd hold on to him until they asked for him back. I threw a set of pearly wing bangles on him so I couldn't accidentally exalt him.
I looked for its parents, but it didn't have any. Whoa, first-gen L25 imp! Old, of course--hatched last June. No offspring, either; must be someone's dream combo. It was a gorgeous Chocolate/Brown/Maize, clown/Shim/Crackle fellow, named Earthling, which seemed appropriate since he had brown eyes. He was RTB but my nests were full, and besides, I hadn't been given permission to breed him. I set off for the Mire with him, my L25 progen, and a 1st-level mirror that I named randomly.
I checked his stats--he was a glass cannon, like I'd expect, and had the standard slash/rally/elim/double-ambush stones. He also had Fossilize, which was unusual on a coli dragon, but hey, whatever works. I've seen weirder.
He was quicker than my progen, with no points in defense, so juggled the order a bit--Quoinchaser would go first and rally him, and he'd get in three slashes, then Quoin again, then the enemies. Usually.
The first mob was the psywurm trio, and I swore, because if those go well (read: they meditate instead of attack for a couple of extra rounds) I clean up; if it goes badly, I have to refresh to keep from dying. Well, I could hope.
I rallied him, and he slashed once--critical hit, double damage, yay. The second slash knocked it down to almost dead, and then both of them meditated. A third slash went to the other wurm--another crit! Yay! Then Quoin got her hit in, on the one who was mostly wounded and it went down.
I waited for the nasty arcane zap and hope'd it'd target the trainee. Instead, the 'wurm mediated again, along with the Brilliant's first medition. I relaxed a bit; even if they both hit before I knocked 'em out, I wouldn't have three dead dragons and I'd get through the round with enough breath to start eliminating on the next.
Earthling slashed at the Brilliant--another crit! I've seen that happen a lot; the Brilliant's are a lot slower than most Mire creatures.
... Anyway. Not meaning to do a blow-by-blow here. End result: the trainee went down to a light blast, Quoinchaser dodged an arcane zap (I can never remember the name of that attack), and we ended the round with Earthling at 42 breath, Quoinchaser at 23, and the trainee at level 3.
After that it was all easy. I wasn't keeping notes or anything like that, but I think it was the fastest training session I remember ever happening. Earthling never missed, and got crits about half the time. All my dragons dodged most of the attacks aimed at them, even the trainee. I was doing so well I decided to train to level 8 instead of my usual 7; it took less than fifteen minutes to get the 32k experience.
I switched trainees; next up was a near-triple dg pearlcatcher. First mob: two croakers. The first took a lucky crit, and the secon meditated a second time instead of attacking; both down before attacking.
It went on like that. Earthling was the luckiest dragon I'd ever seen in the coliseum; it was like he couldn't miss. I'd make sure to thank his owner profusely, even though I knew it was just a matter of the RNG favoring me today.
I trained seven dragons in less than two hours; the other five I wanted to get rid of wouldn't be adults until the next day. I exalted them all and that brought my funds back up to where I could afford to look at the new silk apparel in the marketplace. Since I couldn't train any more hatchlings and didn't feel up to training my permanent dragons, I decided to farm for some of the new loot, especially the red swippables.
In an hour I had 40 chimera relics. Not enough on its own, but a solid start, and I'd also picked up a few springboks and longneck familiars, which I don't need, but there's always newbies who can use them.
I decided that was enough progress for the day, so I closed the window and went back to my ebook work.
Next morning, I named my five hatchlings (three mirrors, one fae and a pearlcatcher, none of which looked pretty enough to wait for the right buyer) and headed back to the coliseum. If anything, Earthling was even better. He got crits most of the time, and none of the enemies ever dodged either of us, and we got a lot of four-creature mobs, which speeds up the training a lot. I think I got the five of them to level 8 in just over an hour. (I don't remember. That was an *intense* grinding run.)
I went back to my normal FR activites--did my gathering, my familiar bonding, took care of my nests. Spent some time in the scrying workshop looking at brown-range possibilities. Went to the color range predictor at fr.fintastic.net and contemplated asking to breed Earthling with any of my dragons--he had *awful* ranges with all of them; I don't do anything close to those colors.
I went back to the arena to pick up a few more relics, and on the third round, right after Earthling and Q'chaser had gotten enough breath to eliminate, I got a Celestial Antelope familiar! WHOA! I decided that was enough good luck for the day, and went off to finish the editing I'd been dodging. (Dammit, I had hatchlings to train! Books can wait!)
The next morning, I logged in, hatched both a 3- and 4-egg nest (swarm of tg plentifuls; good for exalting if nobody jumps on them) and considered training up some of my breeders. I went to the create the party in the coliseum, and... Earthling was gone. Poof.
I scrolled through all 5 pages of my lair, and he wasn't there. I had 6 open spaces, enough to hatch tomorrow's nests, and one for him, and that was all. I cleared my cache and refreshed, in case that was the problem. It wasn't.
I went back to my thread in the Shadow forum, commenting to bump it, explaining that I'd borrowed Earthling from someone but he'd vanished from my lair, and I was certain I hadn't exalted him (I ran back to my hoard to check--I had 2 sets of pearly bangles, but I had no idea if I used to have 3), so maybe we needed to contact the devs. I pinged a few of the people who usually loan out dragons.
I got a couple of comments saying they hadn't loaned me a dragon. Nobody said that Earthling was theirs.
I realized I could run a search for him, so I did.
He's not there.
There is no choc/brown/maize male imperial, much less one with his genes and his name.
I thought about posting in the Bugs forum, or sending an email to the devs, but what would I say? "I picked up this dragon from a crossroads and didn't notice who it was from; I had two awesome days in the coliseum but now he's gone? Also, search doesn't show him on the site at all?" THey'd tell me I was misremembering something. Maybe he was brown/brown instead of choc/brown. Or his name was something different. It's not like I didn't check for near-misses, but he's not there either.
Gone. Poof. Like he never existed. According to the site search, he never did.
I don't know that I believe in ghosts, but I had my two best days ever in the coliseum with a dragon who doesn't exist.
Now I'm always careful to check who sends me crossroads.
Hitchhiking Ghosts entry (sorry, much longer than I expected when I started; this is about 1500 words)
Title: Unique Breed/Gene Combo
Summary: Check the details on your crossroads before you click.
A dragon's a dragon, right? One L25 is much like another, as long as the points have the right spread. That's what I thought, too.
One of my normal leveling team was on loan; he could breed for someone's dream dragon, but she needed green-eyed babies. I sent a note to my friend in Wind, and she offered to host the nest. Didn't even charge me. (I'd say that was nice of her, but since I'm holding 6 of her dragons for the dom push, it's more like a quid-pro-quo thing.)
Point is, I was down a trainer, low on lair space, and had 12 eggs hatching in the next three days. (Yeah, yeah. Bad planning. Should've spaced 'em out better.) I needed to train and exalt a whole swarm of dragons and all but one of my trainers were out on loan or nesting elsewhere.
I put up a note in Shadow, asking if anyone could loan me a high-level dragon for training for a few days. When I checked back in a few hours, I got a ping that there was a crossroads waiting for me; I grabbed the dragon and then went back to my thread to thank the loaner, but whoever it was hadn't bothered to answer. Huh. So I had no idea whose imp I'd picked up. I figured I'd find them later; at worst, I'd hold on to him until they asked for him back. I threw a set of pearly wing bangles on him so I couldn't accidentally exalt him.
I looked for its parents, but it didn't have any. Whoa, first-gen L25 imp! Old, of course--hatched last June. No offspring, either; must be someone's dream combo. It was a gorgeous Chocolate/Brown/Maize, clown/Shim/Crackle fellow, named Earthling, which seemed appropriate since he had brown eyes. He was RTB but my nests were full, and besides, I hadn't been given permission to breed him. I set off for the Mire with him, my L25 progen, and a 1st-level mirror that I named randomly.
I checked his stats--he was a glass cannon, like I'd expect, and had the standard slash/rally/elim/double-ambush stones. He also had Fossilize, which was unusual on a coli dragon, but hey, whatever works. I've seen weirder.
He was quicker than my progen, with no points in defense, so juggled the order a bit--Quoinchaser would go first and rally him, and he'd get in three slashes, then Quoin again, then the enemies. Usually.
The first mob was the psywurm trio, and I swore, because if those go well (read: they meditate instead of attack for a couple of extra rounds) I clean up; if it goes badly, I have to refresh to keep from dying. Well, I could hope.
I rallied him, and he slashed once--critical hit, double damage, yay. The second slash knocked it down to almost dead, and then both of them meditated. A third slash went to the other wurm--another crit! Yay! Then Quoin got her hit in, on the one who was mostly wounded and it went down.
I waited for the nasty arcane zap and hope'd it'd target the trainee. Instead, the 'wurm mediated again, along with the Brilliant's first medition. I relaxed a bit; even if they both hit before I knocked 'em out, I wouldn't have three dead dragons and I'd get through the round with enough breath to start eliminating on the next.
Earthling slashed at the Brilliant--another crit! I've seen that happen a lot; the Brilliant's are a lot slower than most Mire creatures.
... Anyway. Not meaning to do a blow-by-blow here. End result: the trainee went down to a light blast, Quoinchaser dodged an arcane zap (I can never remember the name of that attack), and we ended the round with Earthling at 42 breath, Quoinchaser at 23, and the trainee at level 3.
After that it was all easy. I wasn't keeping notes or anything like that, but I think it was the fastest training session I remember ever happening. Earthling never missed, and got crits about half the time. All my dragons dodged most of the attacks aimed at them, even the trainee. I was doing so well I decided to train to level 8 instead of my usual 7; it took less than fifteen minutes to get the 32k experience.
I switched trainees; next up was a near-triple dg pearlcatcher. First mob: two croakers. The first took a lucky crit, and the secon meditated a second time instead of attacking; both down before attacking.
It went on like that. Earthling was the luckiest dragon I'd ever seen in the coliseum; it was like he couldn't miss. I'd make sure to thank his owner profusely, even though I knew it was just a matter of the RNG favoring me today.
I trained seven dragons in less than two hours; the other five I wanted to get rid of wouldn't be adults until the next day. I exalted them all and that brought my funds back up to where I could afford to look at the new silk apparel in the marketplace. Since I couldn't train any more hatchlings and didn't feel up to training my permanent dragons, I decided to farm for some of the new loot, especially the red swippables.
In an hour I had 40 chimera relics. Not enough on its own, but a solid start, and I'd also picked up a few springboks and longneck familiars, which I don't need, but there's always newbies who can use them.
I decided that was enough progress for the day, so I closed the window and went back to my ebook work.
Next morning, I named my five hatchlings (three mirrors, one fae and a pearlcatcher, none of which looked pretty enough to wait for the right buyer) and headed back to the coliseum. If anything, Earthling was even better. He got crits most of the time, and none of the enemies ever dodged either of us, and we got a lot of four-creature mobs, which speeds up the training a lot. I think I got the five of them to level 8 in just over an hour. (I don't remember. That was an *intense* grinding run.)
I went back to my normal FR activites--did my gathering, my familiar bonding, took care of my nests. Spent some time in the scrying workshop looking at brown-range possibilities. Went to the color range predictor at fr.fintastic.net and contemplated asking to breed Earthling with any of my dragons--he had *awful* ranges with all of them; I don't do anything close to those colors.
I went back to the arena to pick up a few more relics, and on the third round, right after Earthling and Q'chaser had gotten enough breath to eliminate, I got a Celestial Antelope familiar! WHOA! I decided that was enough good luck for the day, and went off to finish the editing I'd been dodging. (Dammit, I had hatchlings to train! Books can wait!)
The next morning, I logged in, hatched both a 3- and 4-egg nest (swarm of tg plentifuls; good for exalting if nobody jumps on them) and considered training up some of my breeders. I went to the create the party in the coliseum, and... Earthling was gone. Poof.
I scrolled through all 5 pages of my lair, and he wasn't there. I had 6 open spaces, enough to hatch tomorrow's nests, and one for him, and that was all. I cleared my cache and refreshed, in case that was the problem. It wasn't.
I went back to my thread in the Shadow forum, commenting to bump it, explaining that I'd borrowed Earthling from someone but he'd vanished from my lair, and I was certain I hadn't exalted him (I ran back to my hoard to check--I had 2 sets of pearly bangles, but I had no idea if I used to have 3), so maybe we needed to contact the devs. I pinged a few of the people who usually loan out dragons.
I got a couple of comments saying they hadn't loaned me a dragon. Nobody said that Earthling was theirs.
I realized I could run a search for him, so I did.
He's not there.
There is no choc/brown/maize male imperial, much less one with his genes and his name.
I thought about posting in the Bugs forum, or sending an email to the devs, but what would I say? "I picked up this dragon from a crossroads and didn't notice who it was from; I had two awesome days in the coliseum but now he's gone? Also, search doesn't show him on the site at all?" THey'd tell me I was misremembering something. Maybe he was brown/brown instead of choc/brown. Or his name was something different. It's not like I didn't check for near-misses, but he's not there either.
Gone. Poof. Like he never existed. According to the site search, he never did.
I don't know that I believe in ghosts, but I had my two best days ever in the coliseum with a dragon who doesn't exist.
Now I'm always careful to check who sends me crossroads.
