Shifti - User contributions [en]

Escape From Geo Lab

2011-09-29T06:23:05Z

DragonGearAdept: New, and Horrible, Story!

''Disclaimer: As with my other story, this was written for an "Iron Author" contest, in which the goal was to write the worst possible story within certain rules! So, the quality is... exceptional, and critique on this is silly. (Though silly critiques might fit in nicely.) If editors deem it inappropriate for Shifti, I'll understand.''

"Escape From Geo Lab"
by Thundara Skunkbabe

* 1. The Adventure Begins!

Bright shadows filled the tiny lab! Another flicker of the vast machine equiepment and the the newest expermental subject, a fox, pawed in the glassite chamber. Its steel grey fur had transmuted to gray metal of sleek machinery, of silicon perfection just as Doctor Snow and Doctor Malise had predicted so many years ago.

"Exactly as I said," said the scientist. "There's no need any longer to claim raw meat as the source of human intelligence. We will demonstrate to those liberals who persist in believing in the immaterial, soul, that the body is truly a machine. Especially when we turn it into one."

"Yes," said Doctor Malise. "But the Project is more important than both of us, than this crusade of yours against superstition. Even a man like you cannot put such an arduous journey ahead of... relaxation."

"Steady, girl. We can't put our own ahead of the great task before us. Ready the next subject."

"What should we do with the old." asked Malise of him.

"The fox?" Snow stood akimbo in presentation before the metalicized fox. "Put it into the holding chamber for next week's Congressional hearing. Just wait till the politicians see how we can make life without living flesh."

"They they'll never vote for the Official Religion Act that would force a cross into every courthouse, textbook, and schoolchild in the nation. Well, lets do the next test run."

With the fox safely stewed in its compartment Snow produced another creature, this one spangled vertically across its night-hued hide with twin white tripes of fur and a dense, bushy tail.

Suddenly the lab's machines flared to life as if on their own Accord!

"No, don't go!" cried Sister Malise.

Snow whelped forward towards the shkmmering instrumentation, heedless of danger, humming warning flares of decreased coolant, orgone conduits, burgeoning radiation and other omens. The machines shook and even the vary dials turned burning-hot. Snow cursed, "Get out while you can and I'll handle this!"

If Sister Malise should run away from the machines, turn to <a href="story.html#c3">Chapter 2</a>.
If She should stay, turn to <a href="story.html#c3">Chapter 3</a>.

*2.

Malise threw all her might into her sprint through the endless corridors of the laboratory. Racks and rows of equipment barred her paths at every turn and rendered escape impossible. She cried out and tried a leap, a shove, a rending blow with her fists, but they came away bruised only. "Oh, why was I born a human?" she said. "I'm so weak and vulnerable I can't leap of even a tiny obstacle! If only I were some kind of furry creature I could smell my way out."

She struggled long with the machinery, hearing Snow negotiating with the malfunction behind her. She passed the first row of equipment but there were more, and the safety shower pitted the ground with electrified water from a broken cable, and there were sharp fixtures of lightglobes dangling and swinging from the ceiling. An impossible obstacle course for someone so weak as her!

The ceiling began to collapse as the builing shook around Marlise. "Wait!" someone said. "I can help you!"

Go to Chapter 4.

* 3.

Malise shook her head, tossing her wonderous mane of chestnut hair inthe firelight of the darkened lab. "I cant leave you behind

"Get out while you can and I'll handle this!"

Malise instead burst forward to the ignition chamber where Snow struggles with the machines. "Wait, don't throw that switch!"

"We have to reverse the polarity of the field!"

"But that will overload the conduits!"

"Never mind that! The Project data must be saved!"

Malise saw Snow fling a massive switch to modulate the output in the nick of time. Or was it?

If Malise should try to help reverse the polarity, turn to Chapter 5.
If Malise should focus on saving the project Data, go to Chapter 6.

* 4.

A voice echoed in the shattering warehouse. "Wait, I can help you!" Marlise said, "Where are you?"

The smoke billowed black and white from a side corridor and standing there was a beautiful creature with deep eyes set in a furry face. The creature had lugubrious black fur that coruscated down her sides and back with a vast-striped tail of white. "I am here," the creature said, "to save you."

Marlise found her heart racing, even though there was no way she could possibly be enamored of such a creature as this one in front of her right now. "Oh, help me whoever you are!"

The creature stared at the furniture rubble of the room around them, crossed her arms, and said, "I see there are huge racks here. We'll need to grab them and push them hard. Together. Do you see the pattern over there?"

Marlise furtively glanced at the arrangement of furniture. "But how is there enough room to push them to form a path leading to the exit? And there are at least eight levels between here and the surface. If the lab's walls rupture the Atlantic Ocean will pour in here!"

"We'll take the levels one at a time. Come on!"

Marlise helped the strange creature to her feet and began surveying the obstacles, helping her clear a path to the stairway up. "But wait, Marlise said when they encountered a trio of identical crates labeled One, Two, and three. "Should we push this middle crate first, or the two on the sides?"

If Marlise should push the middle crate-first, turn to Chapter 7.
If Marlise should push the One and Three crate-first, turn to Chapter 8.

* Episode 5.

Marlise hurled herself at the switch. "With this lever in point position we'll have unlimited energy to short-circuit the malfunction!"

But tis was not to be! Marlise slipped in the shimmering water of the floor, this area being to close to the base's underwater entrance. She yelped as the electricity from the lights evaporated in her spine, sending endless waves of pain through her. A voice called out something and she knew no more.

Turn to Chapter 9.

* 6.

Marlise nearly hurled herself at the switch,.but the entire base was suddenly caught in the edge of a passing hurricane that made it lose altitude, nearly crashing into the farmland and oceans far below.

She had been afraid of heights for many years, and now gasped to find a solution. Many years ago she'd also been deathly afraid of many things: heights, blood, and scorpions. One time her family stayed in a hotel in th desert and there were scorpions, little scorpions in the bathroom on the walls on the ceiling on the toilet. She was the one to find them and her family made her take a shower there anyway because they wouldn't beleiver and there were little scorpion stingers everywhere stinging her and she cried out from the pain as the shower water dropped down, and afterwards they took her out of there and the hotel assured them it was scorpion season and they'd be gone soon. And what was worse there were no stinger marks on her so nobody believed her when she said so. They all called her a liar so she worked very hard in school to become a naturalist scientist who could identify inseccs. She had good grades until one day when she was recruited by the Project to create the super-race of humans and stop the Official Religion Bill. That was why she burned with passion to eradicate all human weaknesses. If only she were a furry creature instead!

Marlise shook her head and leveled her hand at the computer system. UPLOADING DATA, it said when she hit the button. It was at one percent, then ten, then thirty, then fifty, and the ceiling was billowing. The computer was at sixty gigs copied to the disc.

"Snow," she called over her shoulder. "Where are you?"

There was a burst of white and-black smoke...

Marlise now has the Computer Data Disc! Turn to Chapter 4.

* 7.

No! hissed the beauty beside her! "You've trapped us! The middle crate is supposed to be pushed sideways and last!"

"I'm sorry," said Doctor Malise. "Can we pull it back?"

"I... I'm afraid we can't." The heat of the fire was beginning to melt the room so that the furniture was too hot to manipulate further. "There is no way out."

Go to Chapter 11.

* 8.

"Great! Tha's the right sequence. You push the two outer crates one space forward, then the middle one sideways."

"How'd you know that?" said Marlise.

"I don't know," said the creature. "I feel as thogh this change has made me smarter somehow, more are of my environment. I feel a closeness to Nature even in this place thath elps me solve this puzzle before us."

"What change"" said Marlise.

"What, don't you recognize me I'm --" the fur stood silent for a nonce, thinking it would be too embarassing to admit the incredible sensations of the malfunction of the machines in the moment Marlise wasn't there to see. The whole world seemed different now from when he was just a human scientist, and it would be right to recognize that. Wait, that calculation has taken only a tiny fraction of the second! The creature must truly be superintelligent as well as having the superstrength and speed to escape the lab! A peal of lightning sounded in the air from exploding generators on the roof and the fur said, "You should call me... Thundara Skunkbabe."

Marlise stood in awe of the skunk-creature there. "Truly, you're more incrediblelooking than even the works of Ursula Vernon or Diana Harlan Stein. I never thought I would ever see a real furry. I can't believe it. The experiment was more successful than the Project was going to be even when we were going to go on to human test subjects."

"I'm embarassed," Thundara said, "so I can't tell you where I came from."

"Oh, that doesn't mater now. Let's escape from here before the laboratory crashed into the ocean! Let's get to the scape pods~!"

"Not so fast," said a deep and thrilling voice. Go to Chapter 10

*9.

Marlise woke to the sound of bells. She was in a vast church being cared for by a strange soft hand. The hand had brown fur and little claws pulsing in and out as she woke. "Aah!" Marlise said. "Who are you?"

The face attached to the and was a cat-face with whiskers and a little nose. "I'm Erma Felna, EDF. We picked you up You're deep in ILR terrotory; how did a human get here? And what are you, anway?"
Marlise had heard of Erma Felna, everyone had since they made the movie with Michelle Pfeiffer and. "But you're not real!"

"OK, you must need more rest." Felna gave her and injection and Marlise slept again. She felt dissatisfied because she didn't know where she was and felt as though she'd failed to save her comrade in science and escape from the lab.

Bad Ending. But maybe it was just a dream. Go to Chapter 1.

* 10.

The voice called out "Stop right there!" Suddenly there were nine uniformed guards, like Secret Service guards only wearing dark red instead of black. They had energy swords.

"What?" said Thundara and Marlise together. "We need to escape, the building could blow at any second?"

"Hand over the furson! We can't let er escape."

"Er?" said Thundara and MArlise. "Get out of our way!"

"No! No furries can be allowed to see the general public, they'd cause a panic! We're going to dissect er for our alien research program."

"Out of our way!" said Thundara, pointing lawfully at the sheaf of guards! A billow of energy sang forth from her outstretched fists and smote all twelve human guards with one blow! They boweled to the ground smacking against the walls and ceiling before coming to rest. "Wow, I didn't know I could do that!"

"You should saver your energy so you don't run out! let's keep moving and not worry about that!"

Soon they were all the way to the escape pods that would plunge them safely from orbit, back to the safety of the laboratory. They leaped into the last escape submarine just in time as a container exploded behind them. Marlise fell down since she was only human but Thndara sized her wrist and pulled her to safety as vacuum rushed into the shuttle bay. "Oh, thank you Thundara! Are we safe now?"

"Hell yes," Thundara said. "But we can't put our quest ahead of... relaxation."

The shuttle roared away into the open sky, free of the exploding station. Marlise loved the view of the sky, but gasped at Thundara's bountiful expression. "But that -- it would be wrong I can't --"

Turn to Chapter 11.

* 11.

Thundara smiled. "I just realized from staring at you why the heathens back there called me "shi" instead of "she." You see, I must have been turned not only into a skunk but into a hermaphroditic skunk with energy powers and super speed."

"Oh, that's all right then," Marlise said, and they took the stairs joyously together.

It was in the middle of a tremendous yiff that Marlise cried out, "What about the Project data?"

If Marlise has not the Project disc, turn to Chapter11a.
If Marlise has the Project disc, turn to Chapter11b.

* 11a.

"That's all right," said Thundara, pushing them closer together again. "We'll start over again. Or better yet, we'll start a new society of skunk-people who can live in peace."

Go to #11c.

* 11B.

"Oh good, you found it! Now we can continue the Project. But now we've got to hide out from the humans who want to kill me and kill you for not turning me over."

Go to #11c.

* 11c.

First you save me, then you forgive me with the data! I love you, so much."

Their screeching and churring went on for hours. But then Thundara sat up with a many heaving bosoms. "I think there's something you can't do for me."

"What's that, love," said Marlise.

The fur told her. "Oh, my," rasped Marlise. "I couldn't smell your pheremoans, I'm just a human. And I'm not a hermaphrodite myself."

"Well then, we'll just have to pick through the ruins of the lab after it's re-entry and find a way to transform you too!"

"All right, another adventure! And we'll bring other people to transform them too!"

"But for now, said the skunkbabe, "Let's do everything we can."

"Now I know why they call you Thundara!"

Go to Chapter 11.

Convoluted Quality

2009-02-18T22:26:01Z

DragonGearAdept:

{{author note|In honor of the [http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest], a competition to create the worst opening sentence to the worst possible novel, I have created this page that I hope will host the worst opening sentences to the worst possible TF stories. The first two are just starters but if you think you can do worse (and I hope you can) please feel free to add to this. Don't forget to sign your work either!}}

1. Alex collapsed in pain as the change began; he felt his body convulse and writhe and his mind give way to an orgy of feral instincts and lost humanity as the first strand of fur was birthed from his arm. [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

2. The owner of Spells R' Us was in quite a state of pleasure and immense happiness at the moment because he knew that some naieve little man he could turn into a bimbo bovine would soon walk into his store; he was therefore quite suprised when his next customer turned out to be the ghost of John Quincy Adams. [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

3. "Not again!" thought Brad, feeling the by-now familiar itchy tingling starting to spread through his body, looking around the busy shopping mall as he desperately tried to remember where he'd left that bra and how many condoms he had left in the box. --[[User:Dani|Dani]] 21:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

4. It turns out there are some people you just don’t ask how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. --[[User:Fibio|Fibio]] 22:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

5. As John twisted his head further then he should have been able to and looked at the bushy tail now springing from his rear, he wondered where he would be now had he never said those fateful words: "Here, kitty, kitty!" [[Special:Contributions/128.252.254.14|128.252.254.14]] 04:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

6. While the fur spread across Joan's body, she considered how it looked similar to the fuzz on her new rug that, in retrospect, she could have gotten a much better price for at the ''Bed, Bath, and Beyond'' across town. [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]] February 18th

7. Mn is a creature capable of moral perfection, if he but reject the bloodsucking phiolosophical premises with which modern society in its decadance is played. -[[User:DragonGearAdept|DragonGearAdept]] 22:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

[[Category:Story]]
{{fiction}}

Talk:Those Who Triumph Of the Soul

2008-07-03T05:35:42Z

DragonGearAdept: Apology

I'm going to be frank and this might be seen as rather rude, but don't take it the wrong way:
# A spell-checker is your friend
## don't blindly trust them - they can make very stupid mistakes
# Grammar checkers will catch some mistakes
## there are some in your story, such missing quotes around what appears to be a chunk of speech at the start
# [[Help:Contents|Shifti's Help]] is far from complete but will help with some basic formatting needs.
## The [[Help:Templates|list of generic formatting templates]] has a lot of templates that are meant to be used to automate the more common formatting needs of stories.
## The [[Template:Byline|"Byline" template]] serves to add author information to pages in the "Main" namespace. The [[Template:Title|"title" template]] does the same for pages that are in the "User" namespace. (There is no need to repeat the title if you put a story in the main namespace, but you might want to put your name on it!)
## Categories help people find stories of interest to them on Shifti. <nowiki>[[Category:Story]]</nowiki> is one that all stories should have (unless they are "Adult" and then they need <nowiki>[[Category:Adult]]</nowiki> instead). See [[:Category:Stories by setting|Stories By Setting]] for setting related categories and [[:Category:Stories by TF|Stories by TF]] for transformation related categories. More information available at [[Help:Categorization]].
## If you need help figuring out the categories for a page, you can add [[Template:needs category]] and if you'd like help editing a story, you can add [[Template:Editing requested]]

Other than those bits pointed out above, this story isn't that bad. With some work it'd easily make it into [[ShadowWolfs Pack]]. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 06:16, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

After a second reading while not tired I am left wondering why I even bothered with the helpful comments above. If the spelling and grammatical errors were fixed this story would still be terrible—perhaps as bad as "The Eye of Argon". -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:32, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

:Well, everyone has to start somewhere. Though yeah, this is very much starting at the beginning. :) DragonGear, please don't get discouraged. If you like writing, keep on writing - plain old practice will eventually improve your work, if nothing else. If you want to invite other editors to dig in and help fix various things you could try adding <nowiki>{{editing requested}}</nowiki> at the top of the page to add a flag to that effect. Though the story as currently written is a bit short and sparse on detail to likely attract a lot of attention yet. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 02:49, 2 July 2008 (EDT)

This offends my artistic senses and then beats them with a two by four in a back alley.

I like it.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:01, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

My apologies. This was posted as a joke, and it seems to have wasted other people's time by them taking it seriously. I won't object to it being deleted. -[[User:DragonGearAdept|DragonGearAdept]] 01:35, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Those Who Triumph Of the Soul

2008-07-01T08:33:36Z

DragonGearAdept: Story draft posted!

*** THOSE WHO TRIUMPh OF THE SOUL ****

Mn is a creature capable of moral perfection, if he but reject the bloodsucking phiolosophical premises with which modern society in its decadance is played. None but the Almighty can but comprehend our travel arrangements, says Yester, who packs his bags the way a Frenchman does her laundry. He came into my office with a case for my Holmsien skills and a worse case of garlic breath. "I want you to fake my death and," he said, "snuggle me out of the city."

I stood before my podium and told him that to reject his own identity as a city-dweller, "is a rejection of self, which cannot stand ultimately without the abolishment of all virtue. We would have to acquire a fake body for him too, so we could get him past the security. I gestured with my cigar and poured another glass of whisky. *So I'll take the case.*

So we went to the swamp to find a body we could pass off as his. There were plenty floating there in this shady district. That's just what socialism does to people - makes 'em wade into the swamp till you've got no spine. With my country trenchcoat wrapped tight over my furry frame so they humans couldn't know what |, "was," we forged outward, out to the Outer Zones where I kept my rustic hut.

Having chosen obscureity in the buxom hills of the countryside as his manner of reaching obscurity with his heart, there frollowed logically the manner of his down-going. For vampires of the soul are just as easily the werewoves of the mind, those who pursue the pair of us before a single week of our hiding was out. We hurried just as neat as you please into my crawfush catching raft so we could get away and catch us some crawdads to boot.

So then the vampires came after us and we were paddling up the stram as fast as we could carry, but they turned into were-morph form and used their thunder power to sink us and then we were in the mayhem water. Why? Why must man insist on using force to impose his will on other swhen to do so involves a denial of the axioms of reality! Doing the vampires as fast as we could with our swords we coiud hustle away only at tarry speed, and that wasnt enough! Truly Yester sayeth unto me that he's learned from his experience as being like the America we used to know, staring into our soles. Ten years before Yester had come to be on a fishing trip that I took him on when he hired me and he hired my boat and he was on vacation from his city job moving chairs for the corporate greed ladder. Back then there'd been no werewolves only the fear that gnawed at him, in the empriness of his soul because as not a whole man appreciating the identicality of existence and the primacy of existence over consciousness he knew only the maddening hope of his empty job. That's why he was fishing. And then why he went to my offrice then years later with this case of his.

''Of course'' he doesn't appreciate that as being an otter, I am a fisher of men, one who tarries deep in the empriness of the soul and thus grappies with the werewolves of the soul struddlig for a full grasp of espestemolorgy. And that meant drawing my sword not only at the vampires but at all the vampires of this world and all that they represent. "Let's get it on," I said, "for all the whole men who are the down-goers and over-goers, 4 reaching far into the hearts of men and the hearts of otters 5, and striking out at the root!" (Mus. 3:4-6, KJV) With the strength stronger than the combined might of the Horde, that is the fully integrated consciousnes, I swong the Keyblade high and brought it down on the nearest werewolf, bashing it to pieces! Another and another fell to my right might and finally Yester took heart, siezing up a salvo and swinging it everywhere with a clang and a crang and a rang-tang-tang! And it made my heart leap.

Later it would be that we went seeking for the Changing Stone, and when we found it he suddenly turned into a hot kangaroo girl and we had bouncing wild orgies all up and down the beaches. Which was an affirmation of righteousness of the self-interest and the power of the human consciousness to affirm reality, even as it shapes us into hot marsupial girls.

Then finally the werevolves were beaten back into the river from whence they'd come, just as all our evils rise up from faulty reasoning of those who lack the power to think rationally. Beside me Yester collected the loot and stuffed it into her pouch so that we could sell it in town for more healing magic. "So" she said, "you ''were'' wrong to doubt me when I said that vampires were after me."

And I scoffed, saying, "I never doubted you, but only your ability to form the higher-level epistemical concepts necessary to fully grasp the nature of your enemies. It takes real bravery to fight them when society itself drives you from the city, and the only right thing to do is turn yourt back on the city and its lies and come to live and find the Changing Stone in the country. Do you see now why our simple country-ways are way better?"

And she did! Sure she was at least fifth level, but to give that up for a cause, for the simple life of being wholly integrated for a cause, was worth any struggle against the mystics of taxation and anti-conceptual mentality with their price-gouging laws and open-borders policy. So we lived in that peaceful valley for years, raising out two ottroo kids. Yester wanted to get them ready for wizard school so they could be in Griffindor, but I had met Two, the Ranting Griffin himself, and knew that that path was not for our family.

After all, any belief in magic is a rejection of reason as man's only means of knowlege about the world, which again is a false of the primacy of consciousness. We otters are too wise to fall for that, unlike the stupid humans. But since Yester was a former human she never learned to overcome her human nature against her intrinsicist tendencies. So, with a heavy heart I sighed, "The time has come for us to seek out the changing Stone again so that we can amend your consciousness and be sure that our little ottroos will never darken their minds with socalist thought."

So went again to the temple where we'd put the Stone, behind our moonshine still, guarded by the junkyard. No soonr had we breached the temple walls than the werewolves rose up again, those we hadn't seen since they were dead years ago! Look out yelled Yester! The weres are back for revenge!

"No!" I said, facing them down with a steel eye. "These are but the vampires of the second-order thought process! ''Mere remnants of perceptual thought!''" then I drew my Keyblade again and the fight was on! The werewolves used their thunder again but we used healing and Yester's magic was out for a minute. So we had to run and recharge so I stood atop a junkpile and named our foes for what they were, just anti-integral subjectivists. Badly wounded, I thought back to my days on the farm, and our time relaxing in the shade of our towering marijuana plants and how great thoes days had been. Yester's hand reached for mine across the ages and pulled me up, reminding me of the wild bouncing romps and our days in the laboratory. With this strength in my heart I leaped up and tackled the nearest vampires just as they were fain to disembowel my beloved, cleaving them all at once!

I landed upon the Chancing Stone and felt myself changing, glowing, until all at once I had six limbs and my body had turned into a super centaur otter keyblade swordsman, a titan of industry! Yester goggled at me, "Wow, you look handsome!"

Indeed I did! I posed and flexed for her and she giggled, giving a satisfied grin, and I felt a happy grin on my muzzle too, and for anothert reason. Not only had we saved thecity from the Changing Stone my new transformation epitimized the duality of existence and consciousness and proved that the city folk were wrong with their osha codes for two-legger humans. We were truly superior, and as Yester hugged me and I dragged with her all the way back to our creek and the farm for some fishing, I knew that we had truly had the triumph of the heart and the mind.

User:DragonGearAdept

2008-07-01T08:29:16Z

DragonGearAdept: New story!

Hi! I want to show off my new story, [[Those Who Triumph Of the Soul]]!