I want to experiment with an idea for this series. Does anyone remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure series? I’d like to do something similar here. The difference is that I want you, my readers, to decide which direction the story goes by “voting” in the comments. Each section of this story, Eifan will be faced with a choice. It will be your job to comment on which choice he should make. The one that gets the most votes will determine which way the story goes. Clear enough? Good.

So, what should Eifan explore: the shelter, the tower, or the plaza?

Also, feel free to suggest anything else you’d like Eifan to explore. I can’t guarantee he’ll have time (he is, after all, likely to find his hands full), but I’m definitely open to suggestions.

That said, I may have to flip a coin (roll a d3) in order to continue this story…

Interesting concept! I didn’t see this when it was first posted.

Let’s have a look at the shelter.

Yeah, it fell off the front page really quickly. The Ficly-a-day challenge causes some serious turnover. :)

And since you’re the only other commenter on this, we’ll send Eifan to the shelter. I’ll see if I have time to do that this afternoon. :)

I saw this and I thought it was a very cool idea but I hadn’t had the time to comment before now. I do think you should let us know how many days we have to vote. Despite the story a day, there aren’t that many people active right now.

Normally, I think present tense is awkward (it took me a long time to get used to the Hunger Games) but I think you’ve done a bang up job here. Eifan is mysterious and I look forward to finding out more about him and this place, this Shorelocke he has found himself at. I will second HSAR’s vote for the shelter.

That’s a good idea, Robert. Usually I just assume that once a story falls off the front page, it falls into obscurity, anyway.

Glad you enjoyed the use of present tense. It’s not a form I like to use all the time, but it just seemed right for this idea.

The ending did feel like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ sort of moment. “…cloying scent of rot and decay hangs over everything” was my favorite line from the piece. Great scene with lots of magic to it.

I’m fine witha trip to the shelter as well.

Heh, I need to come back to this one. I had good intentions with the series — and then life just kinda got busy…