Choose Her Path!
(Alright. Choose Her Path! is something akin to an older book series known as Choose Your Own Adventure. I am going to write a short-story series focusing around a developing giantess, and provide options for which readers can vote on to decide what happens in the next chapter! So, her future and choices are in your hands.
If you have questions, ask. Now, without further ado… the first chapter! Also, if you see a spelling, grammar or some other error, point it out so I can edit that. I always miss something.)
Chapter One
The day had started out so well, so promising…
Amaris stood on a hill overlooking her home city, Port Phyten. It was just after dusk, and the sun had set fully over the now-darkened expanse of the sea. Behind her stretched miles and miles of the Phyten Forest, the woodland occasionally broken up by lakes. To the east lay a hazy mountain range; her best bet, she figured, would be to head in that direction and hope for the best. There was great knowledge kept there, by training schools, private libraries, public archives… a place to start.
Not very funny, this new quest she was setting out upon. When the young mage had woken that morning, all she had had on her mind was breakfast and getting back into her studies. The previous night she, and three other students, had attended a traditional ceremony which marked their coming into mature wizardry—effectively, Amaris and her peers had passed apprentice level. Gifts had been given, celebratory remarks made, alcoholic beverages ingested. Generally, a good time was had by all.
She was not having a good time anymore. In the middle of the afternoon, Amaris had been subject to a sudden headache while in the process of tidying her study. Briefly, she had blacked out and awoken to find everything around her at a lesser scale. A quick estimated measurement shown she had grown. Her former height of 5’6” had been, somehow, replaced: she was now around eight feet tall!
In anger, she had set about to find her former trainers, to demand answers to what might well have been a prank. She had found no one, not even the other three new-wizards—she now wondered what had happened to them. A note on her bed briefly explained everything: that this was her challenge to prove herself a truly-able mageborn. She had to find the source of her growth (which would, it added enigmatically, increase), find a way to control it… possibly a way to remove it.
So that meant a quest. Amaris turned her back on her home and began to make her way through the trees. She had at first suspected her robe of being the source of the growth, as the magenta silk, bound to her waist with a gold sash, had stretched and continued to conform to her body, remained her size. So had her other garments that day: she had worn the new clothing given to her as a gift at her coming-of-age. Obviously enchanted but, she discovered, not the source. Removing it did nothing to change her back, and as nothing else fit, she continued to wear the garb. She had tried all of her new jewelry, as well, but none of it budged when she went to take it off. The two rings remained on her fingers, the choker at her throat, and the studs in her earlobes. Any one of the bloody gems could be the cause!
It frustrated her to no end. The only solution she had was to leave, strike out on her own to hopefully discover a cure to this growth-madness. Irritating, as she was sincerely looking forward to her studies, and not to days of by-foot walking to paw through musty tomes in distant lands. Why couldn’t they have picked something with a bit more sense to challenge her with?
As the girl went along, raven hair pushed back from her scowling face and held roughly in place by a thin leather cord, she felt a familiar pierce through her skull. Not again! She thought wildly, just before the world went black and blank, cutting off her short scream of pain and rage. It was only for a few minutes; when she came to, she had put on nearly, she estimated… ten feet? She was not eighteen feet tall…!
Shuddering, Amaris stood and looked over the top of a nearby tree. This was not going to be a wonderful journey, she decided, and feeling a bit weak in the legs, she nonetheless hurried on. She was too anxious to sleep, anyway.
It wasn’t long before she found a broad path through the woods, a road commonly used by merchants for their caravans into the port and to outlying towns or distant cities. The compacted dirt made the going easier, but—ah! What if someone saw her? How was Amaris to explain her height? It would be so embarrassing, for that matter, once they saw the mark on her forehead which showed her as a magic-user. They’d stare, they’d mutter, there’d be rumors…
“Ohhh,” The magenta-robed girl was conflicted. She could continue down the road, getting on with her quest quicker and on easier ground, but that would heighten the risk of coming across people. Or she could move back into the woods and use the trees to hide, taking a slower and more difficult route, but less chance of people, for certain.
What to do, what to do?
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End Votes:
What should Amaris do?
Stay on the road!: [ 2 ]
Get into those woods!: [ 1 ]
Total Votes: 3
