Copied from my livejournal. I don't know why I want to post this here except to get you all to laugh at it or something. Anyway, do whatever you want. Note: this is VERY incomplete, so ANY grammatical errors/suggestions/comments are welcome. Mostly. >:P
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Prelude Part I
Place : Here
So nice to have good friends thought Andrew to himself in glee, looking at the nice new CD that he held in his little hand. It read in a simple scrawl "G.A.T.E. 2 Advance Copy". Apparently Cody's handwriting hadn't gotten any better now that he was a game programmer. But it didn't matter much to Andrew as he held the disc with as much reverence as a twelve year old can manage. He now had it... the first copy of the most anticipated sequel in a couple of years. All his for the playing. And so nice of it to get here on a Friday, when he had lots of time to get started on the RPG. With this thought formost in mind, Andrew opened up his GameStation and popped the CD in, settling in to watch the game's intro.
Place : Elsewhere
The night was as black as pitch, the moon's comforting rays unable to reach past the clouds and rain. Not that either worried any of the small squad of knights and trainees arrayed outside one Malith Keep. Being called upon to take care of a deranged mage in his own home tends to change one's perspective on these small issues.
"Alright men, lets make this quick. MOVE IN"
At the commander's order, they all moved in through the front doors quickly and efficiently, looking around just in case they found trouble in the plain-looking halls. Two of these knights in particular, one young girl with a determined look and a plain rapier and an older gentleman that seemed mostly comfortable with the situation, saw the form of this trouble first. Shambling horrors came down the sparsely decorated halls, a great moaning and groaning to be heard. "Undead!!" came the shout from the weathered lips as he took a swing at the nearest. The stroke cut through its target and quickly reversed to cut through another in the time it took for the young girl to begin assailing one to their side. Meanwhile, his young charge did her best to weaken the zombies that came her way, knowing that her weapon wasn't ideal against them. With any luck, she thought, he won't have made too many more of them tonight.
The cries from elsewhere in the manor, however, didn't seem to give much hope for that outcome. The filthy corpses filled the main hall, desperately trying to push back the Bloodeagle-trained soldiers. Unfortunately for them, the training of the assembled team was slowly but surely making the undead stay dead. With a few of the zombies cleared out from his position, Knight Gilbert quickly motioned for help. "MacArthur! Brooder! HURRY UP!" Quickly the girl and another of her comrades rushed towards the currently clear doorway the knight was pointing out. A couple of clumsy-but-effective slashes left the maid's opponent flat on the ground before she turned to go through the opening. With a silent prayer that there wasn't anything worse, the young girl (Rachel MacArthur by name) and another cadet rushed through the door and into a hall marked only by a single staircase going up and several paintings of imposing figures on the walls.
Upon seeing that the stairway was clear, cadet Brooder started up the staircase, only slowed by a cry of "Wait" from Rachel. "What is it, huh?" he asked, inwardly hoping that whatever it was wouldn't involve more corpses shambling about in hopes of eating his brains. The reply he got was a mumbled "... something's not right" as Rachel slowly put together what bothered her about this situation. "There's only two places that someone like him would build their lab and high up isn.... Ah!" A click from a slightly disturbed picture frame precluded the almost noiseless opening of a small door under the staircase. "As I thought," Rachel said with more than a bit of pride. "His lab WOULD be downstairs. I'm going down. You stay here in case the door closes."
"...but.."
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!" Rachel yelled as she bulled past her stunned peer. All he could manage was a sort of scowl as he let Rachel past, into the barely-lit hall beyond.