The story of Plaidworld  Short Stories   Main Page

1) You awaken in your homely village. You run the usual errands for your parents and feed the local animals, then go to the shop to work. The manager says he needs some new Grunge-spices, and that you should go and harvest some. They only grow in the darkest corners of the Big City to the West. Your parents give you some provisions, you arm yourself lightly, and then you set off that very afternoon.

2) The path through the woods to the Big City runs among several ancient burial grounds and spiritual meeting places. As night falls you are haunted by ghosts, but are defended by a small green wood-sprite who befriends and joins you on your quest.

3) You reach the Big City by dawn. It is a grim place, always dark and raining, overrun by warring gangs. With the aid of the wood-sprite, you defend yourself and harvest the Grunge-spice, and join up with a young orphan, Kael. He reveals that he was sent to find you by your Uncle, the great Archbishop of the Underground Cathedral, and that you must go with him. The wood-sprite instinctively trusts the young man, so you go with him.

4) Entering a dark building, you descend many flights of stairs. As you proceed, the walls begin to hum and buzz with electricity. An ancient cyborg-guardian ambushes you, but you manage with the aid of wood-sprite and Kael to destroy him.

5) You reach the underground Cathedral, and proceed through its enormous vaults. The heart of the Cathedral seems to be besieged by the undead, which you re-deadify, then as the Arch-necromancer is about to destroy you, the great Archbishop leaps from nowhere and deflects the necromancer's blast back at him, destroying him, but mortally wounding the Archbishop in the process.

6) On the Archbishop's deathbed, he reveals he is not your uncle but your father, and that you were adopted when you were born. This was because you were fated millennia ago to save Plaidworld from some hideous threat, which it would never know. He tells you to seek the blind dumb Scoobydrig monks of the mountains and gives you a piece of ancient parchment with an indecipherable script on it before passing away.

7) Leaving the town with Kael and the woodsprite, you enter the foothills and come across a dwarven village. There you buy new provisions and equipment, and they take you to the lookout point. From here you can see back across your beautiful plateau valley, but also up into the forbidding mountains.

8) The dwarves take you through a secret underground cavern, a cold dark river running through it. At the exit they bid you farewell, but one young dwarven maiden, Lamelliska, chooses to go with you: you step out onto the mountains with your party now four-strong.

9) You come across a mountain overrun by psychotic dancing children. The dancing is contagious, and you soon all join in. You dance so well that when the music stops, the children give you all magic jumping shoes.

10) With the magic jumping shoes, you all easily ascend the great steep rocky mountain of the monks. At the top you meet them; they are indeed blind and dumb and Scoobydrigs. They make rattling medidtaty music, and indicate that you alone must undertake 'the great trial' by making your way across a great crevasse populated with bottomless poles. You succeed, and there you meet their chief, who congratulates you, gives you a magic stone and then throws you back across to your comrades.

11) The magic stone acts as a compass, and guides you through the mountains, and down the other side through the foothills. The sky to the North is filled with beautiful shooting stars, which you watch until dawn.

12) You reach a large wooden town on the coast of the Great Spooky Lake of Vastness. The town is mysteriously abandoned, but the magic stone urges you to head out onto the Great Lake.

13) Boarding an abandoned ship, you set out by nightfall on to the Great Spooky Lake of Vastness. When day breaks, you fish and swim and frolic, before a mist closes in. The stone guides you onwards

14) After many days of sailing through the mist, you reach a sunny island. You weigh anchor and explore. Suddenly you are surrounded by screaming dancing crazy blue natives! But could they be friendly?

15) It seems the natives had been expecting you. They take you before their supreme witchdoctorsoothsayer, who asks for 'the words'. You hand him the indecipherable parchment and he reads it and nods knowingly. He tells you that you must construct a spiritual launchpad. With the aid of your comrades - the wood-sprite, Kael and Lamelliska - as well as the natives, and the guidance of the stone, you find the necessary holy objects scattered across and hidden in the secret places of the island. The spiritual launchpad complete, the four of you lie in the centre in a star formation, and your souls rise up smoothly

16) Your bodies breathe their last. Your souls travel to the otherworldly palace of the stars, on the borders of the solar system. In a state of Zen-like calm, you convert a malicious alien invading species into a benevolent co-operative missionary group.
You never return to your bodies.

You are mourned.
Your chilled out adventures on the mental otherworldly plain are only just beginning.