The room was gargantuan, filled to total capacity with hundreds, thousands even, of all sorts of odd creatures. The neon holo-displays hovered above the bustling crowd, displaying numbers and names and some more number and some more names.
John Doerten stood at the entrace to this hectic facility. This was not what he had expected when he signed up.
John saw two creatures sitting on opposite ends of tables, glaring at eachother. One was a cerean, the other was a Hutt. A Hutt?! Since when were there Hutts in the coalition? People shouted around them, jeering and cheering, but the two people, still glaring at eachother, were not disturbed, nothing could break their concentration on the game. This scene was repeated time after time across the entire span of the room, all focused on The Game.
The Game... perhaps this WAS what John had signed up for after all? John had pictured a few people, gathered civilly to play a newly invented game. This was a few HUNDRED people gathered CRAZILY to play some revolutionary and ridiculous game. John turned around to leave, too many people made him nervous, he was, after all, just a Human.
But something made him glance back over his shoulder... namely, a loudspeaker shouting his name. "JOHN DOERTEN and RACKBAZ TECKBA! Table 13! Commence!"
Firstly and foremost, John mentally cursed at whoever operated the loudspeak. It was pronouned 'Doh-Er-Ten'!! Not 'Dooo-ert-en'!! But he got over that, he imagined how 'Rakebaz Teckba' must feel, theres no way it was pronounced 'Rake-Beds Teck-bah'.
Then, John thought about what the loudspeaker had said... Table Thirteen? Commence?! He was supposed to be playing on table thirteen... Right now!
John maneuvered his way through the thick crowd, with a 'Pardon' here and an 'Excuse me' there, he was able to make it through without injuring anyone to a table. 'Table 12' it said, in large, red letters on its side. John made his way to the table on the left. 'Table 11', darn! Well, third times the charm, John went two tables to the right and made it to table 13.
Sitting on the other side of the table was a Mon Calamarian, he smiled at John.
"Greetings, young human, I am Rakebaz."
Yeah, see? 'Rock-eh-bahz'. Not 'Rake-Beds'.
"Uh.... yeah, hi... I'm John."
Stuttered John as he climbed into his seat. He surveyed the board infront of him, the holographic image was that of a complicated, clearly randomly generated, 3 dimentional design.
"Do you know how to play The Game, young human?"
Well... John had read a little. But not enough, he assumed that the game would be explained on its debut.
"Uh.. no, sorry."
"No matter, Let me explain. Each player recieves five Sherzoinks, the sherzoiks each encase seven of Traunguels, when a Sherzoink eaats a Traunguel with a Yrinslf in the Reuyhsig, then you Gariweb your Fihtbisl with a Frongon. You have to make sure that the Sherzoink isn't a Malzoink, though, wich you can hopefully tell by the Tranguel Granan inside, but only when you Gariweb the Fihtbisl can you get the Gurandalmondo. Now, you move one Sherzoik every Turenene... so you have to make sure that the idahi and the gfodh never Plonk. I'm sure you understand the basics, so I don't have to tell you those."
John blinked.
John blinked again.
"Uh... yeah...."
"Ok, well then, let us commence. We are already behind."
The Mon Calamarian pushed a button.
Suddenly, the world changed for John. He spiraled out of reality into a huge area. The area was blank, lifeless, he seemed to be the only person there.
Then, it came alive. It was huge, it was Orange.... very Orange... and John coulden't even see Rakebaz. Then, on the floor infront of John, phospherent numbers appeared... 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! GO!
Five round objects with odd appentages sticking out of them appeared infront of John... This WAS the picture he had seen on holo-net!
"Uh... Sherloinks... or something, right?" John muttered to himself.
Suprisingly, John saw a ball flying at him, it had come from over that wall infront of him! Instinctly, John jumped to the side, his arm hit one of the Sherzoinks (which he called Sherloinks) and it spit something out of a shoot-like appentage. It was a purple putty-like stuff, and it was flying towards the ball that was about to hit the wall behind John.
Then, the two objects collided! The ball that had flown at John seemed to form the putty into a screw and put it into a small hole. John furrowed his eyebrows... a Yrinslf in the Reuyhsig!! So those must bolth have been Tranguels? Right? What was supposed to happen? He was supposed to eat them? No, these things were supposed to eat them.
"Uhh.. You..."
A sherzoink looked at john...
"No, not you, YOU.'
A different sherzoink looked at john.
"Eat it."
The Sherzoink did as it was told.
Suddenly, a huge target appeared. For the first time, John noticed a blaster pistol strapped to his side. John took out the pistol and shot the target. Bull's eye! John always had been good at shooting things.
A very odd shape appeared in John's hand. John looked at it curiously. Then, he pointed at it. It changed. How strange! John dropped it. Whatever it was, it wasn't winning him the game.
When it it the floor, However, it rooted into the floor and a glowing sphere came out of its top. John smirked. Weird! John pointed at it... what works once will, hopefully, work twice...
Indeed! The sphere changed from green to purple.
John then took a moment to take in his suroundings, infront of him, on the wall, were two numbers, they seemed to be going slowly downward. They weren't very low yet... John didn't worry.
John turned around and looked behind him... wow.
About 12 meters forward... behind the Sherzoinks, there was a drop. Not just any drop, a DROP. It fell into oblivian... sick, orange oblivian. Woulden't want to fall there... John looked to his left, the wall stopped and he could go past it, beyond that there was a jungle gym of copper, John could probably maneuver it too, something that not everyone could boast. Being a little bit of a gymnist himself, John had had some practice with that kind of thing.
Then, to John's right, was a spiraling strange thing. It was spining to quickly that it just seemed to be a.. a... well, something quite hypotising. John, remembering the ball that had launched from over the wall, decided to look behind to find the offending thrower.
It was marvelous! John peeked around the corner and there were hundreds of amazing objects aligned along the walls and places, large, small, round, square, moving, stationary. John assumed that they all had purposes, but something else, more important, caught John's eye. It was Rakebaz!
Rakebaz noticed john too, he clearly knew what he was doing, though. Yelling something in a strange language, Rakebaz pointed with his blaster... no... what was it called? A...Frongon, yes, that was it!
A fleet of objects flew toward Frakutsk... each had shiny balls or energy halos around them, they clearly didn't mean well.
John, at a loss at what to do, looked back into his 'base'... he only had one little building with a big energy ball... and he was to deal with a fleet of these things? Well, pointing seemed like an effective tactic so far. This time, having drawn his weapon, John pointed at the shiny ball with the blaster... er... Frongon. It flew into his other hand...
John smirked, it wasn't like he was going to win anyway, so he took the energy ball, and his Frongon, and charged at the hostile vessles. He fought like a madman, he took five or six shots with his Frongon as he approached the enemies, and then, upon them Reaching him, they all began firing small beams and throwing balls of energy and whirring at eachother with Halos!
Ah, but John was smart enough to know not to let those HIT him! John fell to the floor, and many of the beams and balls flew over him. John threw his ball of energy up into the air. It hit several of the enemy ships, they sizzled and fell, John leeped up into the air, catching his ball of energy and doing a sumersault, throwing it side-armed at the enemy fleet as he hit the ground again. It whirred through the fleet, consuming quite a few balls of energy and satisfactorily crunching, slicing, and diceing enemy ships. The energy ball, however, kept going once it moved past the fleet.
And there were still quite a few of the ships left! John pointed at the energy ball with his Frongon, it began to come back... but there were more immediate problems! The enemy ships were firing on John! Angrily, John thwacked out at one with his Frongon... It hit the ship from the air, smashing it into two peices and knocked it to the floor. That... that was fun, it was very pleasing to smash something like that.
But John's prospects were looking dim. Rakebaz, still surveying the battle from afar, took a few well-aimed shots at John, and Rakebaz's entire fleet began to fire. John's energy ball was about to reach him now... John punched out at another, larger, ship and the energy ball sliced through a couple as it returned to John's hand. Obviously, the energy hitting John didn't hurt... but John could tell it was bad. John smashed at another group of ships with his energy ball... they all were tossed out of the air, but another remaining group of ships took another shot at John.
John dove over to the ships, taking them all out as he fell to the ground... but Rakebaz was still there.
Rakebaz looked down the barrel of his Flongon as John scambled up, and ran back toward his base. Rakebaz took a few shots at John, a few hitting, most missing, before John was able to get back behind his wall.
John put his back against the wall, panting. But those numbers were still there right to John's right... John stood back to look at them.
The purple one was very low! 12 and counting! 11! 10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! PLONK!!!
Then, John returned to the real world... still out of breath. Rakebaz was across the small table, smiling.
"Ah, no matter, young human. Not everyone can understand The Game and master it on their first day of playing. Besides, you put on quite an impressive athletic display there! Good game."
Rakebaz offered John his hand, John shrugged and shook it.
"Uh... Thanks, good game."
John Doerten stood at the entrace to this hectic facility. This was not what he had expected when he signed up.
John saw two creatures sitting on opposite ends of tables, glaring at eachother. One was a cerean, the other was a Hutt. A Hutt?! Since when were there Hutts in the coalition? People shouted around them, jeering and cheering, but the two people, still glaring at eachother, were not disturbed, nothing could break their concentration on the game. This scene was repeated time after time across the entire span of the room, all focused on The Game.
The Game... perhaps this WAS what John had signed up for after all? John had pictured a few people, gathered civilly to play a newly invented game. This was a few HUNDRED people gathered CRAZILY to play some revolutionary and ridiculous game. John turned around to leave, too many people made him nervous, he was, after all, just a Human.
But something made him glance back over his shoulder... namely, a loudspeaker shouting his name. "JOHN DOERTEN and RACKBAZ TECKBA! Table 13! Commence!"
Firstly and foremost, John mentally cursed at whoever operated the loudspeak. It was pronouned 'Doh-Er-Ten'!! Not 'Dooo-ert-en'!! But he got over that, he imagined how 'Rakebaz Teckba' must feel, theres no way it was pronounced 'Rake-Beds Teck-bah'.
Then, John thought about what the loudspeaker had said... Table Thirteen? Commence?! He was supposed to be playing on table thirteen... Right now!
John maneuvered his way through the thick crowd, with a 'Pardon' here and an 'Excuse me' there, he was able to make it through without injuring anyone to a table. 'Table 12' it said, in large, red letters on its side. John made his way to the table on the left. 'Table 11', darn! Well, third times the charm, John went two tables to the right and made it to table 13.
Sitting on the other side of the table was a Mon Calamarian, he smiled at John.
"Greetings, young human, I am Rakebaz."
Yeah, see? 'Rock-eh-bahz'. Not 'Rake-Beds'.
"Uh.... yeah, hi... I'm John."
Stuttered John as he climbed into his seat. He surveyed the board infront of him, the holographic image was that of a complicated, clearly randomly generated, 3 dimentional design.
"Do you know how to play The Game, young human?"
Well... John had read a little. But not enough, he assumed that the game would be explained on its debut.
"Uh.. no, sorry."
"No matter, Let me explain. Each player recieves five Sherzoinks, the sherzoiks each encase seven of Traunguels, when a Sherzoink eaats a Traunguel with a Yrinslf in the Reuyhsig, then you Gariweb your Fihtbisl with a Frongon. You have to make sure that the Sherzoink isn't a Malzoink, though, wich you can hopefully tell by the Tranguel Granan inside, but only when you Gariweb the Fihtbisl can you get the Gurandalmondo. Now, you move one Sherzoik every Turenene... so you have to make sure that the idahi and the gfodh never Plonk. I'm sure you understand the basics, so I don't have to tell you those."
John blinked.
John blinked again.
"Uh... yeah...."
"Ok, well then, let us commence. We are already behind."
The Mon Calamarian pushed a button.
Suddenly, the world changed for John. He spiraled out of reality into a huge area. The area was blank, lifeless, he seemed to be the only person there.
Then, it came alive. It was huge, it was Orange.... very Orange... and John coulden't even see Rakebaz. Then, on the floor infront of John, phospherent numbers appeared... 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! GO!
Five round objects with odd appentages sticking out of them appeared infront of John... This WAS the picture he had seen on holo-net!
"Uh... Sherloinks... or something, right?" John muttered to himself.
Suprisingly, John saw a ball flying at him, it had come from over that wall infront of him! Instinctly, John jumped to the side, his arm hit one of the Sherzoinks (which he called Sherloinks) and it spit something out of a shoot-like appentage. It was a purple putty-like stuff, and it was flying towards the ball that was about to hit the wall behind John.
Then, the two objects collided! The ball that had flown at John seemed to form the putty into a screw and put it into a small hole. John furrowed his eyebrows... a Yrinslf in the Reuyhsig!! So those must bolth have been Tranguels? Right? What was supposed to happen? He was supposed to eat them? No, these things were supposed to eat them.
"Uhh.. You..."
A sherzoink looked at john...
"No, not you, YOU.'
A different sherzoink looked at john.
"Eat it."
The Sherzoink did as it was told.
Suddenly, a huge target appeared. For the first time, John noticed a blaster pistol strapped to his side. John took out the pistol and shot the target. Bull's eye! John always had been good at shooting things.
A very odd shape appeared in John's hand. John looked at it curiously. Then, he pointed at it. It changed. How strange! John dropped it. Whatever it was, it wasn't winning him the game.
When it it the floor, However, it rooted into the floor and a glowing sphere came out of its top. John smirked. Weird! John pointed at it... what works once will, hopefully, work twice...
Indeed! The sphere changed from green to purple.
John then took a moment to take in his suroundings, infront of him, on the wall, were two numbers, they seemed to be going slowly downward. They weren't very low yet... John didn't worry.
John turned around and looked behind him... wow.
About 12 meters forward... behind the Sherzoinks, there was a drop. Not just any drop, a DROP. It fell into oblivian... sick, orange oblivian. Woulden't want to fall there... John looked to his left, the wall stopped and he could go past it, beyond that there was a jungle gym of copper, John could probably maneuver it too, something that not everyone could boast. Being a little bit of a gymnist himself, John had had some practice with that kind of thing.
Then, to John's right, was a spiraling strange thing. It was spining to quickly that it just seemed to be a.. a... well, something quite hypotising. John, remembering the ball that had launched from over the wall, decided to look behind to find the offending thrower.
It was marvelous! John peeked around the corner and there were hundreds of amazing objects aligned along the walls and places, large, small, round, square, moving, stationary. John assumed that they all had purposes, but something else, more important, caught John's eye. It was Rakebaz!
Rakebaz noticed john too, he clearly knew what he was doing, though. Yelling something in a strange language, Rakebaz pointed with his blaster... no... what was it called? A...Frongon, yes, that was it!
A fleet of objects flew toward Frakutsk... each had shiny balls or energy halos around them, they clearly didn't mean well.
John, at a loss at what to do, looked back into his 'base'... he only had one little building with a big energy ball... and he was to deal with a fleet of these things? Well, pointing seemed like an effective tactic so far. This time, having drawn his weapon, John pointed at the shiny ball with the blaster... er... Frongon. It flew into his other hand...
John smirked, it wasn't like he was going to win anyway, so he took the energy ball, and his Frongon, and charged at the hostile vessles. He fought like a madman, he took five or six shots with his Frongon as he approached the enemies, and then, upon them Reaching him, they all began firing small beams and throwing balls of energy and whirring at eachother with Halos!
Ah, but John was smart enough to know not to let those HIT him! John fell to the floor, and many of the beams and balls flew over him. John threw his ball of energy up into the air. It hit several of the enemy ships, they sizzled and fell, John leeped up into the air, catching his ball of energy and doing a sumersault, throwing it side-armed at the enemy fleet as he hit the ground again. It whirred through the fleet, consuming quite a few balls of energy and satisfactorily crunching, slicing, and diceing enemy ships. The energy ball, however, kept going once it moved past the fleet.
And there were still quite a few of the ships left! John pointed at the energy ball with his Frongon, it began to come back... but there were more immediate problems! The enemy ships were firing on John! Angrily, John thwacked out at one with his Frongon... It hit the ship from the air, smashing it into two peices and knocked it to the floor. That... that was fun, it was very pleasing to smash something like that.
But John's prospects were looking dim. Rakebaz, still surveying the battle from afar, took a few well-aimed shots at John, and Rakebaz's entire fleet began to fire. John's energy ball was about to reach him now... John punched out at another, larger, ship and the energy ball sliced through a couple as it returned to John's hand. Obviously, the energy hitting John didn't hurt... but John could tell it was bad. John smashed at another group of ships with his energy ball... they all were tossed out of the air, but another remaining group of ships took another shot at John.
John dove over to the ships, taking them all out as he fell to the ground... but Rakebaz was still there.
Rakebaz looked down the barrel of his Flongon as John scambled up, and ran back toward his base. Rakebaz took a few shots at John, a few hitting, most missing, before John was able to get back behind his wall.
John put his back against the wall, panting. But those numbers were still there right to John's right... John stood back to look at them.
The purple one was very low! 12 and counting! 11! 10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! PLONK!!!
Then, John returned to the real world... still out of breath. Rakebaz was across the small table, smiling.
"Ah, no matter, young human. Not everyone can understand The Game and master it on their first day of playing. Besides, you put on quite an impressive athletic display there! Good game."
Rakebaz offered John his hand, John shrugged and shook it.
"Uh... Thanks, good game."