My own Adventure story!!!

kongisking

Active member
Hey everyone! I would like to maybe share an idea I had for my very own adventure story, which I am writing! I have included a number of Indy homages and references, and if the tale seems derivative: you?re absolutely right. This story is meant to be one, big, fat, action-packed love letter to the adventure genre. At the moment, my title is Lost and Found: The Sword of Souls. (Yes, I am very proud of this title.) I want to share a little piece of the beginning of a synopsis I have laid out for the book, typed below. Read, enjoy, and PLEASE tell me what you think of it!

*=This mark tells when the current excerpt begins and ends. Just wanted to tell ya.

*Many centuries ago, there was an ancient civilization, hidden away from the world on a forgotten island. These advanced people (calling themselves the Furians) possessed a magical sword, known as the Sword of Souls, with the power to open a portal into the ghostly netherworld (Hell). This was how the Furians kept their empire alive, by using the sword?s power to resurrect the dead.

However, civil war broke out between the Furians for control of the sword. In an attempt to make sure that the sword did not fall into the rebels? unstable hands, a ship was sent out by the King to hide the sword somewhere secret in the world.

Now only one more step was needed. The sorcerers of the Furia King placed a spell on a small gold medallion; whenever the medallion was stained by blood, it would magically reveal the location of the sword, and hopefully would be used for the good of the world. An added difficulty was that the sword?s power could only be used for a maximum of 20 minutes. If someone tried to bring a soul back from the otherworld, it would need a living body to possess. After the 20-minute-window closed, if the spirit was still in the body of a being in our world, that spirit would stay on our plane?forever.

For the next few centuries, the medallion became lost, disappearing completely without the knowledge of the world. But then, in the year 1901, an American explorer named Jonathan Cruise discovered a cave in a remote jungle, where he found the medallion buried under mud. The Furians had put it there after endowing it with its powers.

Jonathan returned to America, where he married and had many children, who in turn made their own families, continuing the Cruise line. Jonathan considered the coin to be a good-luck charm.

The Medallion became a family heirloom, and so, through the decades all the way to the 2000?s, the powerful coin was passed down to each new generation of Jonathan?s children?eventually down the line to a certain adventurous man named Brad and his younger, naïve sidekick brother Rodney. (?Rod?)*

Okay, so there?s Part I of my synopsis. If you like what you have read so far, tell me and I?ll show the rest one section at a time (in honor of the matinee serials). So tell me! I would love to have someone interested in my own adventure tale!

P.S. No copying and stealing please, OK? :hat:
 

kongisking

Active member
I am really annoyed here. I have recieved only 1 reply, and there seems to be no support for my own project. I thought this site was for people to chat and provide encouragement! It seems no one even cares. Now, I know that a lot of Indy 4 news has been coming in and distracting you guys from insignificant threads like this, but I really wanted to share my story with you fellas and there seems to be no interest. Please reply! I don't want to sound whiny, but I just feel rejected here. :(
 

otto rahn

New member
Sounds okay so far. I think we need to see more of the synopsis before a comment becomes worthwhile. Who else wants the sword ? How did they find out about it and what are they prepared to do to the heros to get it ? I think that for the "mcGuffin" to work you need to have someone trying to beat the heros to it (or take it from the heros as the case may be). Do the Cruise's know about the power of the medallion ? If they don't , who does and who do they see for information about it ? Much more needs to be revealed "konigsking" !:)
 

Dr.Sartorius

New member
You have some interesting ideas there, kongisking. You just need to flesh it out into more detail. This story could work as a novelette or novella if it was longer, had more character development, dialogue, etc.
 

kongisking

Active member
Like I said, it's only part I of the synopsis. If there are unanswered questions, it is because this is just one section of the full plotline. I'm still working on the next part, though I admit I'm also concurrently working on another story project.
 

The Drifter

New member
Interesting story.
I would love to read more. I write alot also, mostly short-stories. I had a post here with one of my short-stories, and did not even get one reply. lol
 

Agent Crab

New member
By the looks of it... the story is very good. Well written as well. Not to be nitpicky, You don't have to add the ()'s. Other than that, the story is A-ok in my book.

I look forward seein' more.
 

muttjones

New member
i'm liking it so far except for one thing i noticed.

How could the Furians keep their civilisation alive by bringing people back from the dead if they then had to be placed into a living body? I'm a bit lost here. If it explains it self in the other synopsis then show me the rest otherwise i think this needs a bit more work.

Story writing is hard so good work!
 

WillKill4Food

New member
No point in lying to you, mate, I actually agree with Finn on this one.
Assuming that this is the basis for the story, you're going to need to work on that a lot before you ever try to get it published...
 

kongisking

Active member
In response to your guys advice, I have tweaked it a bit to be a little more realistic and understandable. A couple small details have been revised/edited/removed, too. Here's Version 0.2 of Part I:

PART I:
THE LEGEND

Many centuries ago, before written history, there was an ancient civilization, hidden away from the world. These advanced people (calling themselves the Lakku) possessed a magical sword, known as the Sword of Souls, which held the power to open a portal into the ghostly netherworld. This sword, according to their legends, had been a gift from the Lakku god Shega, and was considered a holy artifact.

However, civil war soon broke out between the Lakku for control of the sword. In an attempt to make sure that the sword did not fall into the rebels? malevolent hands, a ship was sent out by the King to hide the sword somewhere secret in the world.

Now only one more step was needed. The sorcerers of the Lakku placed a spell on a small gold medallion; whenever the medallion was stained by blood, it would magically reveal the location of the sword. This coin was then entrusted to the brave warrior Kar-Makech; a noble, courageous and compassionate soldier. He would be the lifelong guardian of this medallion, protecting it from the forces of evil that desired the ultimate weapon: power over death.

The medallion eventually became lost, disappearing for the next few centuries, and by that time, the Lakku empire had been almost completely forgotten by the rest of the world. But then, in the year 1901 AD, an American explorer named Jonathan Cruise discovered a cave in a remote jungle, where he found the medallion buried in a strange tomb: the tomb of Kar-Makech.

Jonathan would eventually return to America and marry, having many children, who in turn made their own families, continuing the Cruise line. Jonathan, unaware of the true nature of the object he had found, considered the coin to be a good-luck charm.

The Medallion became a family heirloom and so, through the decades all the way to the 2000?s, the coin was passed down to each new generation of Jonathan?s children?eventually down the line to a certain adventurous man named Bradley Marcus Cruise?


There's the new and improved Part I (AKA the Exposition Prologue!:rolleyes: ) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, here comes the long awaited :rolleyes: Part II!!! Keep goin' down!!!
 
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kongisking

Active member
.....

PART II:
PRESENT DAY-2008

In the present, Brad Cruise and his brother Rodney “Rod” Cruise are known as thrill-seeking treasure hunters who can often be seen climbing mountains and traveling in dark, ancient caves. Brad wears the old, weathered medallion around his neck with a chain. He thinks of it as a mere heirloom of his family, and Rod feels slightly jealous that he is the younger brother, and that therefore the elder brother is entrusted with the beautiful gold coin.

On an adventure in the fictional African country of Jolandor, Brad and Rod are searching for the remains of an ancient statue in the middle of the jungle, believed to have belonged once to a tribe of cannibals, who worshipped the statue as their god.

They make their way through the thick foliage and come across a deep, disgusting moldy swamp. Brad sees the head of the statue barely sticking out above the green, thick water.

The two are then attacked by a pack of monstrous crocodiles: the guardians of the statue. An intense battle ensues, with Brad wrestling bloodthirsty crocs as Rod shoots at them with a pair of pistols, all while running out of the swamp into the jungle.

It is here that Brad uses his weapon of choice: a rapier. He uses his excellent fencing skills to beat back all the crocodiles. Brad and Rod make their way back to a nearby native village resting right by a long, winding river: their temporary base.

Their wounds are treated by the tribe’s Witch Doctor, who annoys Rod with a number of unnecessary spells and incantations. It is then that a large yacht boat, carrying a number of German men with weapons and black uniforms (and an insignia stamped on their shirts) arrives up the river, and stops at the village. The soldiers jump out, guns cocked, and they begin shouting at the natives to get on the ground or they will be shot. A huge hostage situation occurs, with the Germans demanding that the natives hand over Brad Cruise.

Secretly, Brad and Rod sneak out of the doctors’ hut, but the soldiers spot Rod before he can hide. Rod, who was fiddling with Brad’s medallion at the time, is taken away onto the yacht along with the coin, while the soldiers toss dozens of grenades into the villagers’ huts and homes.
As the yacht takes off down-river, a tremendous number of explosions utterly destroy the village, killing almost every native. Brad watches in horror as young children and their families are burned alive and killed by the explosions.

Thinking fast, Brad breaks into a run and miss-times a jump onto the fleeing boat, landing in the water. However, he manages to snatch the towing rope trailing behind the ship and is dragged behind the speeding yacht. He pulls himself onto the boat deck, fights the soldiers, and then takes on the leader (who has a machete as his weapon-of-choice) in a big duel while trying to rescue Rod. During the scuffle, Rod throws Brad his medallion; who places its chain around his neck just before being tackled off the deck and into the river by an extra-strong German.

The leader quickly interrogates Rod. A confused Rod reveals that he is actually Brad’s brother, and Rod realizes that the men are after Brad’s medallion. Being the wrong prisoner, Rod is thrown overboard as the yacht turns around to capture Brad; still scuffling with the burly soldier in the river.

The German is strangling Brad underwater. He desperately tries to free himself from the iron grip, and cuts the man on the arm with the rapier. The spilled blood attracts a swarm of murderous mutant piranha, indigenous to Jolandor, which overwhelm the German, eating him in mere seconds until only his skeleton remains. The fish ignore Brad, for they are all focused on their current victim. Brad sees the yacht fast approaching, and dives deep into the water…then shooting back up like a bullet out of the water and onto the deck. He furiously pounds on the astounded soldiers, and is then nearly choked to death by the leader, who sneaked up from behind with a staff.

However, Rod’s voice then calls out unexpectedly. The leader turns, bewildered, to see that Rod has his twin pistols aimed straight at the German’s groin. Brad takes the moment and elbows the soldier in the mouth. Dazed, the leader falls over as Brad and Hal then grab on to a large vine hanging over the river from an ancient tree overhead, swinging up and away from the still-speeding yacht…that is headed right for a huge log jutting from the water. The German man is unable to abandon ship before the boat collides, erupting into a massive fireball, presumably killing the soldier.

Brad and Hal return to the ruined village, where they recover and discuss the strange attack. During their speculations, Brad is nursing his injured neck, and a drop of blood drips onto the medallion around his neck. Rod freaks out as the coin suddenly begins to glow, and Brad throws it into the dirt in fright, before realizing that the medallion is not hot, but instead cold. He picks it up, and instinctively holds the head side towards the wall of their hut.

On the wall is projected a three-dimensional map, seemingly coming from the coin itself. The map is a surprisingly accurate chart of the world, but with multiple continents, islands and locations never before documented. It appears to be a map of the world at some unspecified time in the past, before written history. Captivated, Brad studies this image, and has Rod quickly draw a copy of the map on a parchment, before the image fades and the medallion returns to normal.

* * *​

A few weeks pass, and the two brothers return to America, to visit their good friend Ichabod Merrick, the former college teacher of the Cruise brothers and an expert on folklore and mythology. Brad shows Dr. Merrick the medallion and repeats the magical spell to prove their claims; *****ing his finger with a tack and smearing onto the coin which re-summons the projection. Dr. Merrick confesses that he has not a clue as to what this map is of, and is unfamiliar with the odd ancient language scribbled randomly around the (projected) map.

The Professor flips through a linguistics book to see if the language is included, and is surprised to discover that this book has, in modern English, a coded sequence of numbers written in very miniscule writing. Using their deductive thinking and all their knowledge concerning puzzles and riddles, both Brad and Dr. Merrick conclude that the numbers represent the specific letters of the alphabet in their order (example: D=4, M=13, T=20), and the numbers translate into this riddle:

IM MAKING THIS UP AS I GO

Stumped by this utterly nonsensical phrase, both Brad and Ichabod speculate endlessly about possible meaning, spending minutes just trying to find any possible significance in this sentence. After a long time, both give in to their frustration and give up.

It is then that Rod, who this whole time had been sitting back only half-interested, finally realizes the answer: “I’m making this up as I go,” is one of the iconic lines of dialogue from Raiders of the Lost Ark: Rodney’s favorite movie. He deduces the phrase as meaning that, since this line was immediately followed with Indiana Jones setting off on a horse to pursue a Nazi truck, that Nazis could possibly be involved in this current mystery, seeing as how Brad and Rod’s attackers were German and were quite enigmatic.

Believing these may be neo-Nazis, Rod thinks that they desire the medallion, because Rod was abducted only because the German soldiers mistook him for his brother, who was known to have inherited the coin. Brad is hesitant to agree, calling this idea preposterous, and is astounded when Dr. Merrick reveals that the linguistic book is the copy belonging to Merrick’s colleague, Dr. Jackson Carrow, an archeologist who mysteriously vanished without a trace three months ago.

Carrow had left this book in Merrick’s possession before his disappearance, not saying why, but told Merrick to keep the book secret. Merrick thinks this may be a warning left behind by Carrow, who was probably aware that he was being sought by the mysterious Germans, and made a coded message to identify his pursuers. Thus, Merrick concludes, Carrow was eventually found and kidnapped by the Nazis, explaining his disappearance.

Both Rod and Merrick are convinced that Carrow was trying to alert his friend Ichabod to his plight and warn of the Nazis, hoping that Merrick would then try to find and rescue him. Brad refuses to accept such a preposterous notion: that an academic was using Indiana Jones as breadcrumbs, and reveals he has never seen Raiders. Shocked, Rod replies with “If I didn’t know you were already nuts, I’d call you crazy!”

Reluctantly, Brad decides to investigate this mystery, and try to find out the fate of Jackson Carrow.


To Be Continued!!!



So whaddaya think of the redux Part I and the brand-spankin'-new Part II? It's a-picking up steam, right? The game's afoot! The adventure has begun!!!!

Tell me your thoughts! I'll post Part III once I finish it (will be a while I bet...). And look for the oh-so-obvious Indy references!

Please, I want honest replies. Tell me what you think could be improved, removed, or tweaked! Tell me if you see any troublesome plot holes! And most importantly.....

Give me your reviews!!!!!!!!!
 
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WillKill4Food

New member
Okay, just as fun this is a good story.

But, if you're actually considering getting it published or allowing it to recieve any notoriety at all, then you'll probably want to leave out the Indy references.
Seriously.
One or two is okay (like Jack Sparrow looking for his missing sword and then giving an Indy grin in POTC:DMC) is acceptable.

But a lot of references is just ridiculous.

IM MAKING THIS UP AS I GO
At first I when I read that I thought that was you admitting that you weren't really putting a lot of thought into the plot.
Then I realized that was the code.
My response? A picture's worth a thousand words: :sick:
 

WillKill4Food

New member
I?m sorry about my last post, I think it was a little unclear as to what I was criticizing. The code (IM MAKING THIS UP AS I GO) was what sickened me; the basis of the story itself is rather good.
After reading your story a second time, I realized that your story, your plot, is actually rather good, but the writing, the conveyor of the information, is not.
So, I tried to spruce up your plot a little with writing that has a different tone.
You see, your writing is a more recreational, and this story, or at least the prologue, would be a lot stronger if written in a more, um, epic tone. I rewrote it below.
[Note: There were a few other things I changed; for instance, Jonathon Cruise is born in 1908 instead of ?01, meaning a century has passed instead of 107 years. It?s just cleaner that way. Also, I embellished parts of the story to make it seem more like it?s set in our present world; before the Lakku had no ties to past civilization. Now, they do. Just tell me what you think]

PART I:
THE LEGEND OF KAR-MAKECH
Eons ago, before the writing of history, the realm of Lakku rose to prominence in a hidden corner of the world, guided only by their god Shega.
Through the guidance of this omnipotent deity, the people achieved world-dominance, for unlike their soon conquered antediluvian contemporaries in Egypt, Maya, and Atlantis ? the Lakku were endowed by Shega with an invaluable gift: the mystical and powerful Sword of Souls ? the key to unlocking the ethereal netherworld beyond.
Once the Lakku achieved the triumph of world-supremacy, human nature?s vice of greed split the Lakku, and a civil war erupted between the righteous King and the malevolent rebels, men who were ravenous with avarice and accompanied by those who the Lakku had subjugated in their glorious past.
The King, uncompromising to the demands of the rapidly prevailing rebels, placed the sword on a ship headed for anywhere and nowhere, an unmanned vessel that would traverse the globe and hide the Sword from a world that would exploit it?s power for evil.
To ensure that someday another virtuous man of another virtuous realm would find the Sword and continue their glorious legacy, the high priests of Lakku cast a spell on the least eminent of the King?s jewelries ? a trivial medallion of inferior gold ? so that whenever the medallion was stained by blood the location of the Sword would be revealed to the pendant?s bearer.
The courageous and noble son of the high-priest, a young man known as Kar-Makech, was assigned the lifelong duty of guarding the medallion from the forces of evil that thirsted for the ultimate weapon the medallion had the power to uncover: authority over life?s definitive rival? death itself.

***​

For countless eonaeon, the medallion was lost and with it the power that had exalted the Lakku for so long. For millennia up to the birth of Christ, and nearly twenty centuries after his death, the Lakku were forgotten and unknown to the almost all, if not all, scholars of antiquity and laymen alike.
That was, until an American explorer, Jonathon Cruise, stumbled across an antediluvian tomb in a remote and primeval jungle of the Dark Continent in March of 1908 AD. Upon venturing into the cast vault, Cruise uncovered a gilded sarcophagus covered in tells told in the writing of a long-lost tongue ? a fusion of cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and what appeared to be the Phoenician alphabet.
Calling upon all of his brawn, he forced the lid ajar to reveal the mummified remains of a stalwart man covered in gilded armor and wearing a stunning medallion around his neck. Not above grave robbery, Cruise took the medallion for his own and left the tomb, smiling as he left the ancient sepulcher, and noting once more the strange writing that covered the sides of the warrior?s sarcophagus and noticing that a single word seemed to be repeated very often; it was gibberish, of course, but it appeared to him to be a name of some sort: ҜΛЯ?ЩΛҜЭCИ.
Soon thereafter, Cruise left Africa and returned to his home in America. In subsequent years, he married and beget many children, who in turn married in beget many children. Through generations of the Cruise line the medallion was passed down as a mere heirloom, a good luck charm at most, and for an entire century not a single Cruise knew the wondrous truth about the medallion?s nature ? not until a century later when an adventurous young man ? Bradley Marcus Cruise ? followed in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, discovered the truth, and ultimately saved the world from the clutches of an immortal evil.







I didn?t rewrite PART II, I just wanted to show how that PART I could be better told. PART II is fine, but unless you intend this to be a comedy, I wouldn?t suggest having Raiders be the main characters favorite movie or having the code be ?IM MAKING THIS UP AS I GO.?
Also, I wouldn?t suggest making the main characters neo-Nazis; the story would be much better if Cruise?s enemies were either the modern equivalent of Nazis (terrorists, Iranians, Koreans, Chinese, Cubans, African dictators, etc.) or, perhaps, the descendants of Lakku?s rebels. The latter would be my suggestion.
 

kongisking

Active member
WillKill4Food said:
I?m sorry about my last post, I think it was a little unclear as to what I was criticizing. The code (IM MAKING THIS UP AS I GO) was what sickened me; the basis of the story itself is rather good.
After reading your story a second time, I realized that your story, your plot, is actually rather good, but the writing, the conveyor of the information, is not.
So, I tried to spruce up your plot a little with writing that has a different tone.
You see, your writing is a more recreational, and this story, or at least the prologue, would be a lot stronger if written in a more, um, epic tone. I rewrote it below.
[Note: There were a few other things I changed; for instance, Jonathon Cruise is born in 1908 instead of ?01, meaning a century has passed instead of 107 years. It?s just cleaner that way. Also, I embellished parts of the story to make it seem more like it?s set in our present world; before the Lakku had no ties to past civilization. Now, they do. Just tell me what you think]

PART I:
THE LEGEND OF KAR-MAKECH
Eons ago, before the writing of history, the realm of Lakku rose to prominence in a hidden corner of the world, guided only by their god Shega.
Through the guidance of this omnipotent deity, the people achieved world-dominance, for unlike their soon conquered antediluvian contemporaries in Egypt, Maya, and Atlantis ? the Lakku were endowed by Shega with an invaluable gift: the mystical and powerful Sword of Souls ? the key to unlocking the ethereal netherworld beyond.
Once the Lakku achieved the triumph of world-supremacy, human nature?s vice of greed split the Lakku, and a civil war erupted between the righteous King and the malevolent rebels, men who were ravenous with avarice and accompanied by those who the Lakku had subjugated in their glorious past.
The King, uncompromising to the demands of the rapidly prevailing rebels, placed the sword on a ship headed for anywhere and nowhere, an unmanned vessel that would traverse the globe and hide the Sword from a world that would exploit it?s power for evil.
To ensure that someday another virtuous man of another virtuous realm would find the Sword and continue their glorious legacy, the high priests of Lakku cast a spell on the least eminent of the King?s jewelries ? a trivial medallion of inferior gold ? so that whenever the medallion was stained by blood the location of the Sword would be revealed to the pendant?s bearer.
The courageous and noble son of the high-priest, a young man known as Kar-Makech, was assigned the lifelong duty of guarding the medallion from the forces of evil that thirsted for the ultimate weapon the medallion had the power to uncover: authority over life?s definitive rival? death itself.

***​

For countless eonaeon, the medallion was lost and with it the power that had exalted the Lakku for so long. For millennia up to the birth of Christ, and nearly twenty centuries after his death, the Lakku were forgotten and unknown to the almost all, if not all, scholars of antiquity and laymen alike.
That was, until an American explorer, Jonathon Cruise, stumbled across an antediluvian tomb in a remote and primeval jungle of the Dark Continent in March of 1908 AD. Upon venturing into the cast vault, Cruise uncovered a gilded sarcophagus covered in tells told in the writing of a long-lost tongue ? a fusion of cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and what appeared to be the Phoenician alphabet.
Calling upon all of his brawn, he forced the lid ajar to reveal the mummified remains of a stalwart man covered in gilded armor and wearing a stunning medallion around his neck. Not above grave robbery, Cruise took the medallion for his own and left the tomb, smiling as he left the ancient sepulcher, and noting once more the strange writing that covered the sides of the warrior?s sarcophagus and noticing that a single word seemed to be repeated very often; it was gibberish, of course, but it appeared to him to be a name of some sort: ҜΛЯ?ЩΛҜЭCИ.
Soon thereafter, Cruise left Africa and returned to his home in America. In subsequent years, he married and beget many children, who in turn married in beget many children. Through generations of the Cruise line the medallion was passed down as a mere heirloom, a good luck charm at most, and for an entire century not a single Cruise knew the wondrous truth about the medallion?s nature ? not until a century later when an adventurous young man ? Bradley Marcus Cruise ? followed in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, discovered the truth, and ultimately saved the world from the clutches of an immortal evil.







I didn?t rewrite PART II, I just wanted to show how that PART I could be better told. PART II is fine, but unless you intend this to be a comedy, I wouldn?t suggest having Raiders be the main characters favorite movie or having the code be ?IM MAKING THIS UP AS I GO.?
Also, I wouldn?t suggest making the main characters neo-Nazis; the story would be much better if Cruise?s enemies were either the modern equivalent of Nazis (terrorists, Iranians, Koreans, Chinese, Cubans, African dictators, etc.) or, perhaps, the descendants of Lakku?s rebels. The latter would be my suggestion.

Thank you very much for your constructive critisizm, dude. I'll definitely tone down my cheesy Indy references. My bad. :eek: You did a damn good job on your own Part I! I'm EXTREMELY impressed! I really get your ideas, and will surely be incorperating them. Thanks so very much. And, truth is, I actually considered at one time to have the descendants of the Lakku rebels as the villains. I agree now with your decision on this, and I will remove the whole Nazi angle. It'll allow for more creative freedom to create a new menace instead of being restricted to following historical accuracy. You did such a damn good job, man; you should be my co-writer! I'll definitely give you credit when I finisdh this! I just need your real name...:eek:

THANKS FOR THE IDEAS! KEEP THEM REVIEWS COMIN' FOLKS!!!
 

WillKill4Food

New member
You know, I didn't reread my story after I wrote it, so there a few typos that need to be fixed as follows: strikeout the "the" before "almost all" and "cast" should be "vast" before the word "vault." I'm sure there are more.
I sent my name to you in a PM.
 

kongisking

Active member
Okay here's Version 0.3 of Part I, incorperating the material by you, WillKill. :hat:


PROLOGUE:
THE LEGEND OF KAR-MAKECH



Eons ago, before the writing of history, the realm of Lakku rose to prominence in a hidden corner of the world, guided only by their god Shega.

Through the guidance of this omnipotent deity, the people achieved world-dominance, for unlike their soon-conquered antediluvian contemporaries in Egypt, Maya, and Atlantis — the Lakku were endowed by Shega with an invaluable gift: the mystical and powerful Sword of Souls — the key to unlocking the ethereal netherworld beyond.

Once the Lakku achieved the triumph of world-supremacy, human nature’s vice of greed split the Lakku, and a civil war erupted between the righteous King and the malevolent rebels, men who were ravenous with avarice and accompanied by those who the Lakku had subjugated in their glorious past.
The King, uncompromising to the demands of the rapidly prevailing rebels, placed the sword on a ship headed for anywhere and nowhere, an unmanned vessel that would traverse the globe and hide the Sword from a world that would exploit its power for evil.

To ensure that someday another virtuous realm would find the Sword and continue their glorious legacy, the high priests of Lakku cast a spell on the least eminent of the King’s jewelries — a trivial medallion of inferior gold. Whenever the medallion was stained by blood, the location of the Sword would be magically revealed to the pendant’s bearer.

The courageous and noble son of the high-priest, a young man known as Kar-Makech, was assigned the lifelong duty of guarding the medallion from the forces of evil that thirsted for the ultimate weapon the medallion had the power to uncover: authority over life‘s definitive rival— death itself.

Inevitably, the medallion was soon lost for countless eons and with it the power that had exalted the Lakku for so long. For millennia up to the birth of Christ, and nearly twenty centuries after his death, the Lakku were forgotten and unknown to almost, if not all, every scholar of antiquity and nonprofessionals alike.

Until an American explorer, Jonathan Cruise, stumbled across an antediluvian tomb in a remote and primeval jungle of the Dark Continent in March of 1908 AD. Upon venturing into the cast vault, Cruise uncovered a gilded sarcophagus, covered in stories and legends told in the writing of a long-lost tongue — a fusion of cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and what appeared to be the Phoenician alphabet.

Calling upon all of his brawn, he forced the lid ajar to reveal the mummified remains of a stalwart man covered in gilded armor and wearing a medallion around his neck. Not above grave robbery, Cruise took the medallion for his own and left the tomb, smiling as he left the ancient sepulcher. Cruise noted once more the strange writing that covered the sides of the warrior’s sarcophagus, and noticed that a single word seemed to be repeated very often; it was gibberish, of course, but it appeared to be a name of some sort: ҜΛЯ—ЩΛҜЭCИ.

Soon thereafter, Cruise left Africa and returned to his home in America. In subsequent years, he married and beget many children, who in turn married and beget their own many children. Through generations of the Cruise line the medallion was passed down as a mere heirloom, a good luck charm at most. For an entire century, not a single Cruise knew the wondrous truth about the medallion’s nature … until a century later when an adventurous young man — Bradley Marcus Cruise — following example of his great-grandfather, discovered the truth.

That's much better. And below's the revised Part II, which removes the blatant Indy references and reworks the whole idea behind the secret message. It also changes the nature of the mysterious antagonists. Keep reading:
 

kongisking

Active member
Part I
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS​



In the present day, 2008, Brad Cruise and his brother Rodney ?Rod? Cruise are known as thrill-seeking treasure hunters who can often be seen climbing mountains and traveling in dark, ancient caves. Brad wears the old, weathered medallion around his neck with a chain. He thinks of it as a mere heirloom of his family, and Rod feels slightly jealous that he is the younger brother, and that therefore the elder brother is entrusted with the beautiful gold coin.

On an adventure in the fictional African country of Jolandor, Brad and Rod are searching for the remains of an ancient statue in the middle of the jungle, believed to have belonged once to a tribe of cannibals, who worshipped the statue as their god.

They make their way through the thick foliage and come across a deep, disgusting moldy swamp. Brad sees the head of the statue barely sticking out above the green, thick water.

The two are then attacked by a pack of monstrous crocodiles: the guardians of the statue. An intense battle ensues, with Brad wrestling bloodthirsty crocs as Rod shoots at them with a pair of pistols, all while running out of the swamp into the jungle.

It is here that Brad uses his weapon of choice: a rapier. He uses his excellent fencing skills to beat back all the crocodiles. Brad and Rod make their way back to a nearby native village resting right by a long, winding river: their temporary base.

Their wounds are treated by the tribe?s Witch Doctor, who annoys Rod with a number of unnecessary spells and incantations. It is then that a large yacht boat, carrying a number of mysterious foreign men with weapons and black uniforms (and an insignia stamped on their shirts) arrives up the river, and stops at the village. The soldiers jump out, guns cocked, and they begin shouting at the natives to get on the ground or they will be shot. A huge hostage situation occurs, with the armed men demanding that the natives hand over Brad Cruise.

Secretly, Brad and Rod sneak out of the doctors? hut, but the soldiers spot Rod before he can hide. Rod, who was fiddling with Brad?s medallion at the time, is taken away onto the yacht along with the coin, while the soldiers toss dozens of grenades into the villagers? huts and homes.

As the yacht takes off down-river, a tremendous number of explosions utterly destroy the village, killing almost every native. Brad watches in horror as young children and their families are burned alive and killed by the explosions.
Thinking fast, Brad breaks into a run and miss-times a jump onto the fleeing boat, landing in the water. However, he manages to snatch the towing rope trailing behind the ship and is dragged behind the speeding yacht. He pulls himself onto the boat deck, fights the soldiers, and then takes on the leader (who has a machete as his weapon-of-choice) in a big duel while trying to rescue Rod. During the scuffle, Rod throws Brad his medallion; who places its chain around his neck just before being tackled off the deck and into the river by an extra-strong henchman.

The leader quickly interrogates Rod. A confused Rod reveals that he is actually Brad?s brother, and Rod realizes that the men are after Brad?s medallion. Being the wrong prisoner, Rod is thrown overboard as the yacht turns around to capture Brad; still scuffling with the burly soldier in the river.

The man is strangling Brad underwater. He desperately tries to free himself from the iron grip, and cuts the man on the arm with the rapier. The spilled blood attracts a swarm of murderous mutant piranha, indigenous to Jolandor, which overwhelm the soldier, eating him in mere seconds until only his skeleton remains. The fish ignore Brad, for they are all focused on their current victim. Brad sees the yacht fast approaching, and dives deep into the water?then shooting back up like a bullet out of the water and onto the deck. He furiously pounds on the astounded soldiers, and is then nearly choked to death by the leader, who sneaked up from behind with a staff.

However, Rod?s voice then calls out unexpectedly. The leader turns, bewildered, to see that Rod has his twin pistols aimed straight at the man?s groin. Brad takes the moment and elbows the soldier in the mouth. Dazed, the leader falls over as Brad and Hal then grab on to a large vine hanging over the river from an ancient tree overhead, swinging up and away from the still-speeding yacht?that is headed right for a huge log jutting from the water. The leader is unable to abandon ship before the boat collides, erupting into a massive fireball, presumably killing the soldier.

Brad and Hal return to the ruined village, where they recover and discuss the strange attack. During their speculations, Brad is nursing his injured neck, and a drop of blood drips onto the medallion around his neck. Rod freaks out as the coin suddenly begins to glow, and Brad throws it into the dirt in fright, before realizing that the medallion is not hot, but instead cold. He picks it up, and instinctively holds the head side towards the wall of their hut.

On the wall is projected a three-dimensional map, seemingly coming from the coin itself. The map is a surprisingly accurate chart of the world, but with multiple continents, islands and locations never before documented. It appears to be a map of the world at some unspecified time in the past, before written history. Captivated, Brad studies this image, and has Rod quickly draw a copy of the map on a parchment, before the image fades and the medallion returns to normal.

* * *

A few weeks pass, and the two brothers return to America, to visit their good friend Ichabod Merrick, the former college teacher of the Cruise brothers and an expert on folklore and mythology. Brad shows Dr. Merrick the medallion and repeats the magical spell to prove their claims; *****ing his finger with a tack and smearing onto the coin which re-summons the projection. Dr. Merrick confesses that he has not a clue as to what this map is of, and is unfamiliar with the odd ancient language scribbled randomly around the (projected) map.

The Professor flips through a linguistics book to see if the language is included, and is surprised to discover that this book has, in modern English, a coded sequence of numbers written in very miniscule writing. Using their deductive thinking and all their knowledge concerning puzzles and riddles, both Brad and Dr. Merrick conclude that the numbers represent the specific letters of the alphabet in their order (example: D=4, M=13, T=20), and the numbers translate into this message:


THEY ARE FOLLOWING ME
IM IN AFRICA
HELP

Rod thinks that ?they? are the same mystery men that attacked him and Brad back in Jolandor. He deduces that ?they? are after the medallion; Rod was abducted only because the soldiers mistook him for his brother, who was known to have inherited the coin.

Dr. Merrick reveals that the linguistic book is the copy belonging to Merrick?s colleague, Dr. Jackson Carrow, an archeologist who mysteriously vanished without a trace three months ago.

Carrow had left this book in Merrick?s possession before his disappearance, not saying why, but told Merrick to keep the book secret. Merrick thinks this is a plea for help, and that Carrow intended only for Ichabod to find the message, implying he did not want the soldiers to know he was aware of them shadowing him. Thus, Merrick concludes, Carrow was eventually found and kidnapped by the soldiers, explaining his disappearance.

Both Rod and Merrick are convinced that Carrow was trying to alert his friend Ichabod to his plight, hoping that Merrick would then try to find and rescue him. Brad decides to investigate this mystery, and try to find out the fate of Jackson Carrow.


To Be Continued!!!

Hope you guys like this better.

NOTE: whenever I post an altered version of a prior posted version, it automatically makes the prior version no longer relevant. IOW: the newest version of the tale is the FINAL one so far...(think the Star Wars SE)
 

kongisking

Active member
I'm kind of having a dillema. Do you guys think Brad's main weapon (i.e. Indy's whip, Mutt's sword, Rick O'Connell's hundreds of guns :cool: , etc.) should be either a sword (my original choice) or a boomerang? I've recently become quite intrigued by boomerangs, and I think it would be a unique weapon for a story like this. Which is cooler? Sword or Boomerang? Whattaya guys think? :confused:
 
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