Space Pirates

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Space Pirates SPACE PIRATES A role-playing story by MightiestPirate, AskCocky and featuring Ask_Otto_Lagomorph MightiestPirate: Guybrush sat in the empty kitchen, nervously tapping at the dinner table with his eyes not focusing on anything in particular. He wasn’t normally this jittery, but tonight of all nights he felt… unsure of himself, almost scared. AskCocky: Crossing the big blue sky, Cocky was trying to figure out what was wrong with his controls. There seemed to be a huge magnetic field somewhere, skewing it all. His ship tilted to the right, and he manually struggled to fix himself horizontal. “Agh, no, please, no, I’m in the middle of the sea, no, no no…” But the more he struggled the more everything was SNAFU. “NO!” He screamed as his ship started going down. MightiestPirate: He heard something… whining from outside, but he wasn’t sure. Picking himself up from the table, Guybrush made his way to the deck of the ship when he noticed a dot in the sky swerving all over the place. “What the heck…?” Guybrush mumbled at the falling star. With unceremonious splash, he quickly covered his face as the sudden tidal wave came crashing into him, knocking him flat on the deck and rocking the ship. AskCocky: Three seconds too late, an unconscious small form, clad in an astronaut suit, was ejected from the crashed ship and landed 50 ft away, followed by a sad, deflated-looking parachute. The glass of the helmet was splattered with blood. As the parachute got soaked around it, it started pulling Cocky down, making him sink slowly. MightiestPirate: Guybrush quickly pushed himself up and ran towards the rail of the ship, curious to see the life form that was ejected. His eyes widen at the brief glimpse red, he took a deep breath, leaped over the rails, and dived into the water, swimming as close and as he fast as he could, with only the parachute being his indicator of where the being was. Seeing the figure sink at the weight of the parachute, he did have much of a choice and unsheathed his cutlass, beginning to cut at the ropes in hopes to lighten the load. Feeling the ropes break free, Guybrush grabbed hold around the figure’s waist and swam up. AskCocky: Lying face down over the planks, the white stranger remained immobile. After a while, he twitched. Inside the suit, a sing-song female voice adviced: “Oxygen levels: 14%. Attaching a new oxygen tank is recommended.” But there was not an oxygen tank to begin. Cocky heard all this but he was very far away still, and had no idea the voice was directed to him or what an oxygen tank was. Right next to him, a fish that had got stuck in his suit flapped desperately on the deck. Cocky turned his eyes towards it with the vague sensation it was related to him. MightiestPirate: He sat on a crate taking the time to catch his breath and scratched his chin in curiosity, while he has seen many things in his adventures, this was for sure something new. When Guybrush saw the stranger stirring, Guybrush almost stumbled over himself as he bent down and placed a hand on the figure’s back, nudging it gently and spoke in a soft tone. “H-Hey, hey, are you alright?” AskCocky: Cocky wasn’t alright, as he soon started gasping for air inside his suit. He kind of pawed around his neck to release his helmet and let him breathe, but he was just too uncoordinated still. He tried to turn himself around to ask whoever or whatever was next to him for help, without any success. Soon his struggle got weaker as his poisoned blood buzzed in his ears, drowning it all. MightiestPirate: Guybrush jumped back and saw the figure struggling with what looked to be it’s head. Falling on his knees, Guybrush looked over at what it was clawing at. “Okay Guybrush… you can do this… i-it’s just diving helmet… a weird, foreign-from-space looking diving helmet…” he mumbled to himself, trying to keep calm as the creature was struggling less and less. “N-no panic…” Not wasting another minute, he began to look for anything resembling a latch that he could hit. He ran his hand throughout the neck when his finger brushed on something sticking out, and not wanting to waste a minute he hit what he assumed was the latch, hearing a silent hiss sound, and hoped he did the right thing. AskCocky: The fresh air hit Cocky’s face suddenly, and for a while the only thing he could do was to concentrate on breathing. His long ears, now free from their prison, twitched around. A cut on his right eyebrow was still bleeding, but he looked more or less unharmed. Finally he managed to open his eyes a bit and try to focus. It was a human of course, althought a really funny-looking one. MightiestPirate: The creature was… “A bunny?” He noted. Eyebrow cocked in confusion and curiosity, he gave the bunny a look over, noting the injury. Definitely new grounds for Guybrush. After a few minutes of trying to understand what was on his ship, Guybrush snapped back into focus. “Um… probably a very, well, stupid question but if you can hear me, just uh… blink twice if you can hear me.” AskCocky: Cocky frowned a bit. Couldn’t help but smile a bit sarcastically, but he wasn’t going to be a jerk to the guy who had just saved his ass, or at least he assumed so. “Blink twice if you speak english, blink once if you speak spanish? I…” He tried to get himself upright and immediatly regretted it. “OW. No. No, forget that, I think I’ll just lie here forever,” he said, with a pained look. Cocky turned to look at the stranger. “Who are you?” MightiestPirate: No one could blame Guybrush for raising his eyebrows at the bunny talking, let alone in English. He then gave a smirk at the small creature, “Blink three times for German.” Guybrush remarked with a bit of a chuckle, two can play the smart-ass game. “Annnnd you might want to take it easy with the sitting… you were underwater for a bit.” He slowly helped the bunny sit up right, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it over, “I’m Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™, and you are?” AskCocky: “Pirate???” Cocky thought, and noticed for the first time the old-fashioned looking garb the man was wearing. Everything was so strange. Time rift? “Frikking frakking Bermuda Triangle…” he muttered. The lago didn’t know what was happening, but he decided to play along. “My name is Cockwell, but you can call me Cocky. And. I accept your token of friendship. Sorry, I sort of left yours in my ship.” The lago took the handkerchief, evidently oblivious to the fact he was wounded. MightiestPirate: Speaking from experience, Guybrush knew not to laugh at other people’s names… but the bunny’s was for sure unforgettable. He sat in a more comfortable position and gave a small smile, “Pleasure to meet you and um… the handkerchief is less of a token and more for, well…” Guybrush pointed to his own forehead, indicating it for Cocky. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but he figured he’d start with the most obvious one “Stating the the obvious here, but you’re not from around these parts… and that whack to the head has some kind of story to it, what happened?” AskCocky: Cocky touched his brow and noticed the bright red. “Aw, numbstacks,” he muttered, and wiped his face the best he could, leaving the handkerchief pressed against the wound. He had no idea if it was bad or not, but given that he remained more or less as much of an idiot as before, maybe it wasn’t that serious. He turned to look at the blonde guy. “Thanks. Well, um. Mr. Threepwood. Let’s just say I have my own ship, like you, assuming this ship is yours. You navigate the seas, I navigate the stars. And my ship betrayed me horribly and I plummeted down and I have no idea what happened next, but I’m assuming I managed to get ejected out of it. Also, judging by the pain in my bum, I’m also assuming I hit the sea ass first. Uh. I need to…” He tried to stand up. MightiestPirate: “And how.” Guybrush recalled at the sight of the falling figure, when he noticed Cocky attempting to stand up, he quickly stood up as well, placing a hand to his back to keep the rabbit steady. “Whoa, after that graceful spectacle you might want to take it a bit easy…” seeing the handkerchief just putting a temporary pause at best, Guybrush pressed his lips together and tried to think what would be best for something like this. “I have some kind of bandaid somewhere in my ship… it’s not much, but it should help with the bleeding.” AskCocky: “Yes, that… can wait… ow…” Gods, everything hurted. He stumbled around and pointed out there weakly. “Guybrush… my ship. It’s going to get lost. We need to get to it b-before it gets lost… “ he dropped to his knees. MightiestPirate: “Also a good point… frick.” Guybrush muttered, on the one hand, Cocky needed addressing, there was no tap dancing around that. But on the other he had a point and that his ship was slowly sinking and neither of them had time to spare.
Recommended publications
  • An Investigation of Jandek's
    THEMATIC INTERCONNECTIVITY AS AN INNATE MUSICAL QUALITY: AN INVESTIGATION OF JANDEK’S “EUROPEAN JEWEL” GUITAR RIFFS NICOLE A MARCHESSEAU A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MUSIC YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO MAY 2014 © NICOLE A MARCHESSEAU, 2014 Abstract This dissertation is divided into two main areas. The first of these explores Jandek-related discourse and contextualizes the project. Also discussed is the interconnectivity that runs through the project through the self-citation of various lyrical, visual, and musical themes. The second main component of this dissertation explores one of these musical themes in detail: the guitar riffs heard in the “European Jewel” song-set and the transmigration/migration of the riff material used in the song to other non-“European Jewel” tracks. Jandek is often described in related discourse as an “outsider musician.” A significant point of discussion in the first area of this dissertation is the outsider music genre as it relates to Jandek. In part, this dissertation responds to an article by Martin James and Mitzi Waltz which was printed in the periodical Popular Music where it was suggested that the marketing of a musician as an outsider risks diminishing the “innate qualities” of the so-called outsider musicians’ works.1 While the outsider label is in itself problematic—this is discussed at length in Chapter Two—the analysis which comprises the second half of this dissertation delves into self- citation and thematic interconnection as innate qualities within the project.
    [Show full text]
  • Literature in Translation Sampler
    LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION SAMPLER Fall 2019 www.academicstudiespress.com CONTENTS Farewell, Aylis: A Non-Traditional Novel in Three Works Akram Aylisli | Translated by Katherine E. Young Night and Day Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon | Translated by Christopher Fort Beyond Tula: A Soviet Pastoral Andrei Egunov-Nikolev| Translated by Ainsley Morse Russian Cuisine in Exile Alexander Genis & Pyotr Vail | Translated by Angela Brintlinger & Thomas Feerick Where There is Danger Luba Jurgenson | Translated by Meredith Sopher 21: Russian Short Prose from an Odd Century Edited by Mark Lipovetsky The Raskin Family: A Novel Dmitry Stonov | Translated by Konstantin Gurevich & Helen Anderson With a foreword and afterword by Leonid Stonov www.academicstudiespress.com Copyrighted material. Do not duplicate. Farewell, Aylis A Non-Traditional Novel in Three Works A K R A M A Y L I S L I T r a n s l a t e d b y K A T H E R I N E E . Y O U N G Edited by REBECCA RUTH GOULD Copyrighted material. Do not duplicate. Translation of this manuscript was funded by a 2017 Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Əylisli, Əkrəm, author. | Young, Katherine E. (Poet), translator. | Container of (expression): Əylisli, Əkrəm. Yəmən. English. | Container of (expression): Əylisli, Əkrəm. Daş yuxular. English. | Container of (expression): Əylisli, Əkrəm. Möhtəşəm tıxac. English. Title: Farewell, Aylis: a non-traditional novel in three works / by Akram Aylisli; translated from the Russian by Katherine E. Young. Description: Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2018.
    [Show full text]
  • Songs in the Key of Z  
    covers complete.qxd 7/15/08 9:02 AM Page 1 MUSIC The first book ever about a mutant strain ofZ Songs in theKey of twisted pop that’s so wrong, it’s right! “Iconoclast/upstart Irwin Chusid has written a meticulously researched and passionate cry shedding long-overdue light upon some of the guiltiest musical innocents of the twentieth century. An indispensable classic that defines the indefinable.” –John Zorn “Chusid takes us through the musical looking glass to the other side of the bizarro universe, where pop spelled back- wards is . pop? A fascinating collection of wilder cards and beyond-avant talents.” –Lenny Kaye Irwin Chusid “This book is filled with memorable characters and their preposterous-but-true stories. As a musicologist, essayist, and humorist, Irwin Chusid gives good value for your enter- tainment dollar.” –Marshall Crenshaw Outsider musicians can be the product of damaged DNA, alien abduction, drug fry, demonic possession, or simply sheer obliviousness. But, believe it or not, they’re worth listening to, often outmatching all contenders for inventiveness and originality. This book profiles dozens of outsider musicians, both prominent and obscure, and presents their strange life stories along with photographs, interviews, cartoons, and discographies. Irwin Chusid is a record producer, radio personality, journalist, and music historian. He hosts the Incorrect Music Hour on WFMU; he has produced dozens of records and concerts; and he has written for The New York Times, Pulse, New York Press, and many other publications. $18.95 (CAN $20.95) ISBN 978-1-55652-372-4 51895 9 781556 523724 SONGS IN THE KEY OF Z Songs in the Key of Z THE CURIOUS UNIVERSE OF O U T S I D E R MUSIC ¥ Irwin Chusid Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chusid, Irwin.
    [Show full text]
  • Raw Thought Raw Nerve Inside the Mind of Aaron Swartz
    RAW THOUGHT RAW NERVE INSIDE THE MIND OF AARON SWARTZ NOT-FOR-PROFIT — THIRD EDITION DISCOVERY PUBLISHER Book Content: Copyright © Aaron Swartz, under BY-NC-SA 4.0 license as stated by Dr Sean B. Palmer. First Edition: 2014, Discovery Publisher Second Edition: July 2016, Discovery Publisher Third Edition: October 2016, Discovery Publisher Author : Aaron Swartz Editor in Chief: Adriano Lucca Discovery Publisher 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-4933 Valley Cottage, New York, 10989 www.discoverypublisher.com [email protected] facebook.com/DiscoveryPublisher twitter.com/DiscoveryPB New York • Tokyo • Paris • Hong Kong ABOUT THIS EDITION In October 2014, Discovery Publisher released Raw Thought, Raw Nerve: Inside the Mind of Aaron Swartz. It was then the first publication introducing Aaron Swartz’s lifetime work —see Page 3 for details. In August 2015, the publishing company The New Press, claiming to have legally obtained exclusive copyright from Aaron’s legal IP owner —Dr. Sean B. Palmer— took unlawful steps to shutdown our publication; shortly thereafter, The New Press published a scaled-down version of Raw Thought, Raw Nerve. A similar action was performed shorlty after the release of our second edition. In an article titled “If I get hit by a truck...”, Aaron stated “If I get hit by a truck [...] the contents of all my hard drives [should] be made publicly available”. It should be noted that in all articles published by Aaron on his blog, he never claimed to be against commercial publishing. Aaron was, however, against abusive or restrictive copyright. As such, when the first edition of this book was released, we did not claim exclusive copyright.
    [Show full text]