Once when I was a callow youth, I lost my footing and slipped sideways into a parallel world called Mythtasia. It was a wide, dangerous, beautiful land teeming with demons and elves, with princesses and knights and adventure! After long labors and legendary quests I was finally able to return to my own world - to this world - only to find out that I hadn't aged a day in my absence! What's more, neither had anyone else.
It was as if I had never gone.
I immediately decided to thrill the world and make my fortune by setting down in print the amazing true tales of the story of my adventures! Unfortunately, preliminary market research revealed that bookstore shelves were already glutted with any number of cheap paperback fantasy novels, pretty much identical to my own experiences in terms of overall setting, action, and tone. Even some of the specific incidents and characters were almost identical! I was deeply chagrined. It seemed that, even though my experiences had the advantage of reality, I had been "beaten to it" - and who would believe? Eventually I decided to let the idea drop...until one day, inspired by the online publishing revolution, I decided "what the hell! I'll serialize the whole thing in blog form!"
It is with great burgeoning trepidation, therefore, that I bring you Skullshirt: The Chronicles of Mythtasia!!!
(I had been wearing a shirt with a skull on it at the time of my sudden shift into parallel worlds - so such became my dread name!)
CHAPTER ONE
With a hoarse battle-shout rending my grinding lungs as I clung to the back of my soaring Hnarnot (these are great beasts like smelly dragons, only with dank, matted fur instead of a scaly reptilian hide; and with feathered wings instead of stretchy bat-wings, and with two gaping, hideous mouths, one on each side of the face - one mouth lies, the other mouth tells the truth!), I drew my glittering scimitar and reminisced about poor Decamair. She had been the first friendly face I'd seen in my mysterious new home. She had saved my life! Little did I know then that she was Princess Decamair - Princess over all Mythtasia!
Had I not been so prideful, so headstrong, we would be together now - and I would never have gone down the road that led me here to this pitched, desperate, aerial, all-but-hopeless battle high above the Mokwa Plains. I began to think back to the first time we met...I had just come through the dwimmering portal...
Then it goes into the flashback where you find out how I got there, and how it all first seemed. See how I put you right in the thick of the action first, then pull back using a narrative device? That builds a great deal of suspense. I'll be doing that all the time, back and forth, back and forth. They'll straighten it out in the movie version.
Anyway, for now, just sit back and await another thrilling installment in our next thrilling installment!
It was as if I had never gone.
I immediately decided to thrill the world and make my fortune by setting down in print the amazing true tales of the story of my adventures! Unfortunately, preliminary market research revealed that bookstore shelves were already glutted with any number of cheap paperback fantasy novels, pretty much identical to my own experiences in terms of overall setting, action, and tone. Even some of the specific incidents and characters were almost identical! I was deeply chagrined. It seemed that, even though my experiences had the advantage of reality, I had been "beaten to it" - and who would believe? Eventually I decided to let the idea drop...until one day, inspired by the online publishing revolution, I decided "what the hell! I'll serialize the whole thing in blog form!"
It is with great burgeoning trepidation, therefore, that I bring you Skullshirt: The Chronicles of Mythtasia!!!
(I had been wearing a shirt with a skull on it at the time of my sudden shift into parallel worlds - so such became my dread name!)
CHAPTER ONE
With a hoarse battle-shout rending my grinding lungs as I clung to the back of my soaring Hnarnot (these are great beasts like smelly dragons, only with dank, matted fur instead of a scaly reptilian hide; and with feathered wings instead of stretchy bat-wings, and with two gaping, hideous mouths, one on each side of the face - one mouth lies, the other mouth tells the truth!), I drew my glittering scimitar and reminisced about poor Decamair. She had been the first friendly face I'd seen in my mysterious new home. She had saved my life! Little did I know then that she was Princess Decamair - Princess over all Mythtasia!
Had I not been so prideful, so headstrong, we would be together now - and I would never have gone down the road that led me here to this pitched, desperate, aerial, all-but-hopeless battle high above the Mokwa Plains. I began to think back to the first time we met...I had just come through the dwimmering portal...
Then it goes into the flashback where you find out how I got there, and how it all first seemed. See how I put you right in the thick of the action first, then pull back using a narrative device? That builds a great deal of suspense. I'll be doing that all the time, back and forth, back and forth. They'll straighten it out in the movie version.
Anyway, for now, just sit back and await another thrilling installment in our next thrilling installment!
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But then I thought...that sounds a little crazy!