About The Story

This story was written by the Myst IV: Revelation community as part of an ongoing thread. The thread was started by Speedyserd on July 11, 2004, with this introduction:

Ok, this is how this will work. We will write a story, and each contribution to it is only one sentence. One sentence can include someone saying something, but only one quote at a time. And no run ons either, since it isn't fair for everyone else.
Ready, here we go!

At the time of writing, the thread is still quite active (on November 7, 2004, four months later) with 207 posts. You can find the thread here.

I have copied down the posts of the story here, making them into paragraphs, and making minor adjustments to grammar and punctuation. For example, some rare sentences were actually extensions of previous ones, and they have been combined into the one sentence. However, the entire story is still intact.

Sure, not all of it makes sense. People have forgotten about things, so there are more contradictions than the Riven descriptive book, but that's what you get when you write a story like this. All in all, its a pretty amazing journey, and a good read too. Enjoy!

The Writers

The following people have contributed to the story (in the order they joined):

Speedyserd
Phen1
Boshettee
matt myat
AFGNCAAP
JadesDream
CAGrayWolf
earthangell
Jerle
HannaGertie
Gaberax
Eat_My_Shortz
rw.
Grizz65
ToriaUru
mr-zebra
TheThunder55
rorschachx
DesertWalk
ratpoet

The Story

Once upon a time, there were these two good friends, a boy named Bradley and a girl named Carlie. Now, Bradley was a strange fellow, in that he was allergic to everything that started with the letter C. As you might expect, Carlie fast became annoyed with Bradley for calling her Norah all the time. It was an unfortunate occurance that Carlie so happened to snap when they were alone and thoroughly lost on the foresty slopes of Mount Eerie.

"Why can't you do anything right?!" Carlie shouted at Bradley. Carlie's frantic plea echoed throughout the valley while Bradley scratched at the camera in a vain hope of capturing the Microphones of Mount Eerie. Carlie shook her head, wondering what on earth Bradley wanted with the microphones on the mountain and why on earth there were microphones on it in the first place? She was also wondering why Bradley wasn't breaking out in a rash as he was scratching his Camera. But then she realized it was a Digital, so it was ok. Contrary to contrasting circumstances with Carlie who was now concealed within a cleft.

Lukily Bradley thought nothing of this as he franetially fumbled to apture the giganti and everesent Mirophones. Suddenly, a giant blue bird appeared! The ferocious beast, it's enormous wings shimmering with shards of azure, plunged from the sky towards Bradley, who gazed up through his camera oblivious until Carlie's sudden shout as she emerged from the cliff face.

"BRAD!! LET GO OF THE CAMERA!" she shouted as the bird's talons reached for him. Little did they know, the bird was not after the camera, but instead the chipmunk that was perched on top of Bradley's head. The little chipmunk, her cheeks stuffed with berries, had been watching Bradley's picture taking avidly when she looked up and fell off his head in a faint.

"BRAD, YOU WRECK THAT CAMERA AND I'M GONNA POUND YOU ONE!" she screeched and she watched the spectacle. The large bird pulled up at the last moment, just before it knocked into Brad, then continued its downward flight directly into Carlie and took flight with her instead.

"Come back Norah!" shouted Brad.

"Owwwowow... how do you... Ouch! expect me to..." but Brad didn't catch the end as Carlie, dangling from the birds talons, was spirited over the rise above.

"Now, where did my camera go?" thought Bradley, as he scratched his head and looked around, inadvertently falling off the cliff as he took a step backward. As Bradley plumeted through the mists that swam about Mount Eerie, he thought to himself, "Why do i get the feeling this is going to be a bad day?" He was still wondering about the bad day he was having when his hand trailed down to his side and opened a book hanging off of his belt loop. As Bradley fell he saw the razor sharp fingers of rock at the base of Mount Eerie slicing towards him, but seconds before he met certain death, Bradley suddenly flipped inside-out with a small pop and only a few bits of debri where left to scatter over the field of knives.

Soon after, he appeared on an island that had a hut on it. It was quite drafty and badly in need of a new roof. Brad was worried about Carlie, but realised he had a job to do, so he trod into the hut. He started inspecting the ceiling and accessing the damage and what repairs would be required. Sighing heavily, he decided that he would need help.

"I know just the person," he thought to himself, "her birds would be perfect for the job!" He pulled a strange whistle out of his back pocket, and started to play a complicated tune. As he played a overbearing flock of seagulls flew in from Myst Island, taking over his small Relto.

He stopped his tune, realising he must have played a wrong note somewhere, and just stood there as gulls rumaged about his feet, on his shoulders, over the ground, on the trees and atop his hut, when from the east began to approach the forbiding noise of a clattering flying contraption, a squaking woman and the chattering screeches of thousands apon thousands more birds. The congregation of all these birds caused the small island to now resemble PYST Island, making Brad ask of himself "What note exactly did I play to cause all this?"

Meanwhile, Carlie was having her own fun with the bird with sharp talons. As Carlie struggled and bashed hopelessly against the thick talons holding her like swath of giant steel serpents, she began to get exhasted and looked up to notice they were approaching a forest of enormous trees high in the wispy clouds. "Since when can there exist a forest in the clouds?", Carlie wondered just before she passed out from tiredness and the lack of oxygen since they were flying so high. Just as Bradley and friends finished restoring his roof, the giant blue bird flew overhead and released Carlie, sending her crashing through the roof.

Bradley jumped with surprise as Carlie came crashing through the roof, and yelled, "Norah!"

Carlie, who seemed to have bumped her head rather hard on the wardrobe looked at Bradley with a curious blank stare and said, "Hi Norah, nice to meet you." As Carlie began to recover her senses she asked, "Where am I and what is this place?"

Bradley answered, "I'm not entirely sure, but there seem to be a lot of books here!"

"Have you read or looked at any of the books yet?" Carlie asked with expectation.

"I left my reading glasses at home..." Bradley muttered as he scratched his head and looked away in shame. "Home? Oh, where's that?" she asked, "What's your name then?"

"Don't you remember, Norah, we were atop Mount Eerie and I was taking pictures with your camera?"

"I HAVE A CAMERA????" she screeched. It became quite apparent now that Carlie was not in her left mind and this was a detrimental concern for Brad. He considered knocking her hard in the head again, but just couldn't quite bring himself to do it....

So instead of adding another large knot to her hard head, he told her she had a construction company and was hired to repair his roof and that they had become lovers after discovering they had something in common, an aversion to anything starting with the letter "C".

Carlie aka Norah looked at Bradley in consternation and perfect clarity and then decided disbelief would be the better look and exclaimed, "How many times do I have to tell you, not <whisper> Construction Company... it's Mold-Your-Structure-Today! Now, where did my tool belt go?"

While carlie got to work on the roof, bradley poured himself a glass of refreshing waterfall goodness, grabbed the latest version of The Guild magazine and splonged onto his favorite and most comfortable lazy boy (made from genuine squee fur - but of course, he wouldn't let anyone know that). Unfortunately for Bradley, a member of the local D'ni animal rights group choose that moment to pop in for a surprise visit to his Relto.

"Hello there, I'm from the D.A.R.G. Our motto of the day: Who needs secondhand squee fur if a first hand squee can keep you warmer? Nice rug you have there. Mind if I test it? You know there's a hefty fine on owning squeefur?" Bradley eyed the D.A.R.G. employee, noted the Relto book on her hip, and then invited her to see the view from his dock.

"Yes, the view is quite magnificent...but I'm afraid there is the matter of the chair and rug, Mister...?" the stern woman who's large DARG name-tag proudly proclaimed "Rita Von Peta: Inspector"

Suddenly, Brad gazed into the abyss, pointed a finger out and shouted, "What's that?!?" Rita, being an experienced inspector, however was not fooled by Brad's trick - it was the oldest one in the D.A.R.G. handbook and used frequently to distract distraught pet's owners - and returned to the fur.

Carlie, unaware of her lack of skill in the craft of hut roof maintance had just completed a brillant repair job as Brad came in and she turned to ask what the DARG woman thought of the view. "I think she rather enjoyed the fresh air" he replied, "needed a bit of encouragement though."

In an attempt to distract the inspector from the rug, Brad quickly proclaimed, "Rita, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend slash Relto Roof Repairer, Norah!" A linking sound was heard outside the hut and Bradley sighed and moaned, "Now what?"

He heard a deep male voice... "Carly, its me, your boyfriend Jeff!" Brad grabbed a dusty cyan coloured book of the shelf, thrusting it in front of Carlie's palm as she reached for the door and in one fell swoop he plunged his hand into the panel as he swung the book out the window.

As they materialised in the old run-down 'hood, Norah fiercely asked Brad "who's Carly?"

"How should i know?", replied Brad innocently. Realisataion came close to dawning on Carlie but she was distracted by a sharp tingling that began to develop in the air around them and Brad quickly pulled her into a heavily overgrown alleyway as another figure materialised into the street behind them.

They saw Rita of D.A.R.G. looking all around and calling, "Pardon me young man, but I was not done asking you questions!"

"You should be asking that Jeff guy, it's his island," stammered Brad.

"Perhaps, but you are here now!" Rita took out a pen and a piece of paper with D.A.R.G. printed in big green letters over the top. "I'm afraid I'm going have to take your..." but she trailed off as a shadow enveloped her from behind. Coming back to her senses, she completed her sentence, "KI number!"

A cold hand firmly gripped the startled Rita's right shoulder as a low, whispering voice intoned threateningly "Are you lost, my dear?" Rita turned to the dark mass of shadows, the blood draining from her face and Brad took the opportunity to whisk Carlie into the inky depths of a deserted building. Rita sighed with relief when she realized it was just her boss, Zandi, who was just back from his vacation in the desert. Zandi, apologetic that he had startled Rita, began to explain that he probably knew more about why she was there then Rita did herself.

Bradley took Carlie's hand and tried to sneak out of the door from the building they were hiding in, but those doors had not seen WD-40 in centuries and the hinges squeaked and protested loudly. Hearing the Creak of the door, Brad suddenly remembered his phobia and ran behind a large egg.

Carlie stared at Brad in puzzlement and then at the egg which had begun to roll slowly toward the doorway leading out onto the street. The huge egg wobbled ponderously at first but then, like some half-fried juggernaut, it gathered momentum as it proceeded to rollick raucously down the broad avenue. Zandi and Rita watched in horror as the giant blue egg rolled towards them.

It wobbled from one side to the other so fast that they just couldn't tell which way to jump! So they jumped on top of it, and like the ball in The Path of the Shell it jettisoned them out of the way. And as they flew through the air, Zandi turned to Rita, smiled and said "Looks like the yolk's on us, doesn't it?"

Rita and Zandi landed in a heap of vegetation as the egg rolled to a stop behind them and began to shudder from within. They looked at each other in horror! The egg started to crack at the top. Suddenly, the top of the egg exploded, revealing the slithy head of a jabberwock (with eyes of flame).

Right behind the Jabberwock, the air shimmered, as Jeff appeared, exclaiming, "Carlie! I'm here to save you!"

The Jabberwock quickly turned and burbled, "Hey Jeff, long time no see!"

"Oh hey, Steve, what've you been up to?"

Drawing an imaginary knife over his own throat Jeff whispered conspiratorilly to the gyring, gimbeling and utterly bewildered Jabberwock "Ix-nay on the ame-nay, you moron."

In the midst of this confrontation, Carlie got bored, got up and walked out of the room. Bradley ed. Then, during all the Confusion, Brad started another one of his phobic episodes. Suddenly, While Carlie thought of how boring her life is, she noticed that galons of blood were dripping from her nails...

It was at this point that the sky began to cave in, and a shaft of moonlight fell on a gruesome scene in the cavern. Brad, Carlie, Jeff, Rita and the Jabberwock all paused and gazed up at the purple shafts of light shining through the fissure in the roof, with leaves gently falling down. They suddenly arrived in a rounded, illuminated room, which contained one closed door, and five buttons.

The first button said "Push to Open" and the second button said "Push to Flush" while the remaining three said "Don't Touch". Natrually, the one reading "Push to Flush" was pressed first, as no one likes a stinky toilet.

When nothing happened, except someone suddenly dissapearing, the Jabberwock - unable to constrain himself - excitedly pressed the most shinyest button. Brad, Carlie, Jeff and Rita all screamed "NO!" in unison, frightening the Jabberwock and causing it to tinkle on the cavern floor. Not knowing that he has just unleashed the most terrifying creature to ever exist, the jabberwock sighed and turned to his friends with a "dont panic, nothing's wrong" look on his face...

Suddenly, one, then two, then a slow stream, then a torrent of startled mushroom loving badgers who were startled by a snake, came streaming out of the Teledahn book that the Jabberwock had released when he pushed the button.

The Swarm of evil, winged badgers flowed toward them quite clumsily, in fact, they were most obvously drunk. "Mmmm, Fresh mushroom-fed badgers" the Jabberwock snarled to himself whilst charging into the knot of drunken, annoying, pestering, calisthenics-performing creatures.

At that exact moment a very inquisitive character, this guy , decided to push another "Do Not Touch" button. This set off several cataclysmic events, whereupon they found themselves drifting away from each other in a great stary expanse...

As the badgers fell through the Star Fissure, Brad and Carly heard their ever-decreasing song carry off into the distance: "Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom mushrooooo...."

Thankfully Carlie, Bradley, Jeff and Rita (Zandi was long gone when the 'Push to flush' button had been pushed) all had their Relto books and they panic linked out of the fissure.

As a side note to the story: The fissure, mysterious as it is, returned the badgers savely to their home Age, where they await the next victim, I mean fan, to push a certain button.

At last the four heroes were separated, and their petty squabbles put on hold, but soon enough, Carly's KI started flashing. "Hmmm," thought Carly, "I wonder what this flashing thing is and where did I get it from?" Obviously, Carly, aka Norah, was still suffering from the effects of her bump to the head.

Carlie punched a few buttons on the KI and suddenly a voice sounded, "Carlie...Carlie...can you hear me now?" Carlie jumped, startled, and looked suspiciously at the device, "Brad?... Jeff?" she asked before it suddenly dawned on her who it was.

"Carlie," the voice sounded, "you cannot know my name, but you can just call me an Ageless, Faceless Gender-Neutral, Culturally-Ambiguous Adventure Person, or AFGNCAAP for short." She stared in horror at the device.

The voice continued: "You can't run, Carlie... You must choose... Brad or Jeff," as suddenly a Red and a Blue Relto book appeared before her. "Now, who do I choose?" she thought to herself with a worried look on her face.

Just as suddenly, a white book appeared and the voice said, "or, you can come over and fix up my little farmhouse, make sure you watch out for the grues." Carlie considered this thoughtfully and realising that she had no idea who Brad and Jeff were, opened the shiney white book and placed her palm inside.

Carlie found herself standing in front of a lovely white farmhouse. There was a mailbox in front of it with a little red flag, containing a letter, and inside the house on the table there was a jar of water, and a rusty knife. She said to herself "What's in the letter"? So, using the rusty knife, she opened up the letter and started to read.

The letter stated that there was a forest with tall trees. Remembering the words of her wise grandmama "Carlie, my girl, you will never see the forest for the trees" Carlie opened up her relto book and went home.

Unforuntately, Carlie landed on her dog. Her dog was ok. Except for the limp...... Carlie, however, suffered a blow to the head and layed there as her dog limped around and started licking her face. In the mean time, Brad and Jeff materialised near the White House, wondering why Norah hadn't shared her Relto. Norah had forgotten the chant of "Share my relto book, Share my relto book, Share my relto book!!"

Brad and jeff decided to run for president and vice president respectively. However, they had some rather tough opponents: Sirrus and Achenar Atrusson. Sirrus and Achenar didn't fight fair fights. Whenever they fought, they would use brass knuckles, illegal shots, and loved to poke people in the eyes. Fearing the worst, jeff and brad respectively ran for the hills *ahem* or knolls.

Both Sirrus and Achenar laughed their evil laughs. Achenar's evil laugh did sound a bit like Herman Munster though. "What the heek is wrong with your laugh?" sneered Sirrus to Achenar.

Achenar just looked at him and said " what the heck is heek?"

"Are you mocking me?" sneered Sirrus as he got madder at his younger brother.

"What chu think jerkface" said Achenar in his best Deniro.

Sirrus lunged at Achenar, and as Achenar shoved him back Brad and Jeff quietly slipped into the White House. "This presidency debate is getting out of control" said Brad, as they slipped away the heavy rug and disappeared into the trapdoor.

Brad and Jeff emerged from the secret tunnel to find Carlie (Norah), still woosey from landing on her dog, and her dog sitting on the ground. "Woof!" said the dog.

Brad, Carlie, Jeff, and the limping dog stood on the Relto dock, feeling lucky that Relto books came with you, and that all of the crazy wierd things that had happened couldn't follow them to Relto, or could they?

No nothing could follow.....but something could definately be there already like fish!! Big, smelly, green fish that no one really seems to like in their Reltos but there is nothing that they can do about them anyways. In fact, they were flying-cloud-fish - ones that couldn't be fished-for with any conventional fishing pole.

Anyways, the fish are irrelevant and it's time to get back to the story! Even though the fish weeeerrreeee weird ...and are in fact part of the story, as they quickly hustled up and began to question what business the three humans and crippled dog have on their newly colonised Relto.

"Excuse me, but what kind of fish are you?" asked one of the fish.

Brad (he he) started "We aren't fi...."

"Woof!" interrupted the dog.

Norah said, "Be quiet DeeOhGee". Jeff wondered why they didn't have a C..C..Cat instead, but then he remembered why. Everyone stopped to stare at Jeff as it sounded like he was coughing up a furball!

"Are you ok?" asked Bradley.

"Cough, cough, gasp" Jeff heaved for his breath as his eyes watered and teared up.

"He's a fish out of the water!" claimed one of the fish.

When Jeff stopped coughing (and had regained consciousness), the fish came forward, "Greetings! I am Henry, King of the Flying Cloudfish!" There was an eerie calmness after this statement.

"Flying Cloudfish?" asked Jeff.

"Yes!" replied the King of the Cloudfish, with a smile.

"Since when are there flying fish in the clouds?" whispered Carlie.

"Now really, Norah," replied Brad, "what other kinds of fish would you expect to see in the clouds?"

"Um, well, I don't really know" Norah stammered, looking really weirded out at seeing cloud fish talking to them.

"What, have you never seen cloudfish before?" asked the king.

"Well to tell you the truth," replied Brad, "I'm just house-sitting this Age for someone called Yeesha."

"House-sitting? House-sitting?!?!?" stammered Norah, staring at Brad with daggers in her eyes.

Meanwhile back in Washington, Sirrus and Achenar had found a small book in Jeff's office, that they had just broken into. Jeff could see this happening on his wrist with his KI camera. Jeff's KI is special - it also lets him into doors with blinking green lights. Unfortunately, he stares at the lights for too long and in the process the doors close on him.

Meanwhile, the public decided they were bored with watching the presidential debates, and decided to watch Sirrus' and Achenar's debates instead.

"I, Sirrus, representative of the Evil Party, the greatest Party of all the Ages, promise not to kill and maim anyone if elected President," spoke the first candidate on Myst-wide TV, his brother snuffling in the background behind him. Achenar watched his brother with an evil glint in his eye.

Achenar took the stand: "Sirrus is a fool and a liar, and he will kill you just as he killed father!" he exclaimed! Jeff decided to run for president against Sirrius and Achenar! So Sirrus and Achenar labored together to keep Jeff off of the multi-verse ballot.

But Jeff had allies that the brothers didn't count on: Brad and Carlie, and the entire flying cloud-fish empire. Brad and Carlie knew that Jeff would make a good president. In fact, the voters knew Jeff would make such a good president that they voted for Sirrus and Achenar to be sent to two prison Ages, never to be heard from again.

The celebration for Jeff was so long and loud and Brad and Carlie were very happy for him. They were less enthused with cleaning up afterwards.

"Did you say Cleaning???" asked Brad, his fear of things that began with the letter "C" suddenly coming back to him.

"YES!" said Carlie, with a glint in her eye, and a smile on her face. "C..C..Cleaning!" she laboured, "we're Cleaning the Celebration hall before the Coronation in the Clouds!" The Cloud fish were busy polishing for the Coronation of Jeff.

Brad was experiencing the agony of a million nails scraping a million blackboards, and cried out "STOP IT YOU HEAR ME!!! ENOUGH!!!"

Carlie stared at Brad, and said "I think you need a holiday." Jeff's Coronation in the clouds was held up by their exchange.

"Excuse me," cried Jeff, "But can we get back to... ME!?!"

Carlie knelt before Jeff and said "You will make the best president!"

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion in the room! A thick cloud of smoke enveloped a mysterious figure, clad in black, as the stunned party looked on. "Who's that?" asked Bradley.

Carlie aka Norah choked on the thick, black smoke cloud as she looked on with fright in her eyes. Out of the black cloud came a UPS man, coughing while trying to wipe off the black dust that had covered him.

"Hrmn," he cleared his throat, "is there a Jeff here?"

"Yes, I'm Jeff..." said Jeff somewhat tentatively. Jeff slowly lowered his hand to his hip pocket, his hand ready to link safely back to Relto, should the need arise.

Think you can add to the story? Firstly, remember - One sentence only, you can't make two posts in a row, write text in italics if you wish to make an unrelated comment, and try to keep the story flowing nicely. If you want to contribute, jump on the end of the thread here.