Pridelands Online

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Pridelands Online

Post by GameCobra »

A sneak peak of a short story I like to write. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~Prologue~~~~~~~~~~~

Bored.
So Bored.
Go to sleep? Bored.
Television? Bored.
Pridelands? Oh,yeah. The cure of my boredom.
Gone.

My Fantasties. My dreams. The feelings of rubbing my cheeks, tummy, claws and back on the nearest pillow and screaming about how much I loved to feel those muscle-bounded lions and bending myself to their will. Gone.

These were the fantasies of a purple cat named Grape. A Female cat we might add that lives within the Sandwich household with her human adoptive parents, Jill and Earl Sandwich. No kids, just two pets - Herself; and a dog named Peanut.

Ever since the eventual end of the Prideland series two weeks ago, Grape had much more free time on her hands on important things to do ~ mainly sleeping, being woken up by Peanut, laying on her parent's laps; a feat she recently discovered she enjoyed very much; and then repeat. Oh, and Maxwell ~ her black cat boyfriend. Grape fears however that her relationship hasn't been the most progressive since the end of the Prideland series, but she never blamed that on Maxwell. Infact, it's been steady ~ just slow. without the Prideland series, a drive in her has been feeling very empty lately and she began fearing that it may have an affect on her life the more she thought about it. Though Grape lamented that she knew better after the Prideland series to not let it get to her so much.

However... the reality of the situation seems to have affected her more than she realized. all of those deep moments she talked about. All of those feelings she had about the book. How much she felt she connected with Res...
This can't be what's left of her life after this. Moping in her bed.

"Maybe I should become the leader of the good old dogs club." She said to herself. "They have good biscuits."

"Maybe you should try Pridelands Online!" Said Peanut, who somehow snuck up on Grape.
Grape turns around and just stared at him for a moment, realizing this was definitely Peanut talking. And not waking her up.
"Say what now?"
"Pridelands Online! That new online game everyone's been talking about." Peanut pauses for a moment to think about what he's saying. "Though you need a computer to play it and we don't have one."

Peanut was being ignored at this point. The bed Grape was using was gone. He quickly looks towards the kitchen and sees that Grape somehow pushed herself into the kitchen with the bed ontop of her back... with her tail. She bumps into Earl. Despite not seeing him, she begins speaking to him.

"Dad. We need a computer."
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by NHWestoN »

Wait! Okay, I got a beer. I'm listening, GC..........
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by D-Rock »

Only things I know of SAO is the premise of being trapped in a game and a few clips of the Abridged series.

Interesting to see where this leads, and the mental image of Grape dragging her entire bed that quickly is kinda funny. :lol:
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Alright, so here's how it's going to work: I got the script done.

It looks like this will be longer than I thought, but I will be writing an act three times a week. The Chapters will consist of five acts each.

This story will likely be done by the end of Febuary, but expect an act for now on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. If anything comes up, i'll update it ahead of schedule.

That being said, enjoy the show :)

~~~~~~~~~~Chapter 1: My Nine Lives for a Computer~~~~~~~~~~

(Act 1)

"Why do we have to be the only family in the neighbourhood who lives like the Flintstones?"

Grape shouts towards the sky, her uvula clearly being shown for everyone to see.

"Well for starters we don't need a computer." Earl starts the conversation off with. "The computers are at the office and we don't need one at home for anything. We just need to write everything down."
"Plus, the Internet is scary." Jill adds, who can be heard in one of the other rooms. Though nowhere near them, the conversation isn't being lost to anyone.

"Ugh, the internet only sounds scary because people can do anything on there. What do you think I'm gonna do? Go on there and pretend i'm human?"
"Now see, This is the kind of thinking we're worried about. People can go on there and pretend to be pets as well."
"It's really weird."

Grape grumbles as she listens in on this conversation. It's true that the family is not computer experts to start with, and noone knows how the internet really works, but ~ Pridelands. That's an effort Grape is willing to take a risk for...

"But what about Pridelands? Can't I just get a computer to play Pridelands and just Pridelands? I won't even go on the internet."

Earl paused for a moment. The question did look like it gave him a moment to think about it.
But...

"Not at the moment, Princess."

Earl walks away at that point; and so does the conversation.

Slowly getting out from under the bed, Grape goes back to putting her bed back to where it belongs and starts digging her head deep into a pillow. Frustrated at this point, her mind begins turning towards other people in the neighbourhood.

Peanut on the otherhand is still in the same position he always was at ~ and continues to look at Grape as she puts her bed back together.

"How did you hear about this game, anyway?"
"Joey."

Joey? How does he have this news before~

"Oh, right. Shouldn't surprise me." Grape says as she sighs. "So... what did you learn about this game, anyway?"

Peanut suddenly started getting silent. Grape looked at him carefully and was beginning to analyze him. Peanut's eyes were shifting towards the windows of the house.
"I'm assuming it's the best game ev~"
"you get to play as the Kumara Klan."

The Kumara Klan? The most peaceful loving clan in the entire franchise? Who would want to play as them?

"...Seriously?" Grape suddenly adds. "I was under the impression you were going to have me at the Spearbearer's tribe."

Peanut rolls his eyes while drawing out his lips.

"Wellllllll..."
"Please tell me they are playable..."

The expressions on Peanut's face was dancing back and forth. Part of his look was conveying worry about something, but it's at this point Grape didn't know what it was. Grape's anticipation for an answer was growing deeply into desperation as Peanut was already giving off the excitement to her with his expressions, so it's safe to assume that even if he said no at this point, Grape knows he's hiding the real answer from her.

But Grape wanted Peanut to give her the answer she wanted. She wanted him to get her excited for this game more than anyone at this point.

"...Yes."

Grape immediately jumps out of the bed and lands perfectly on the floor with a hard thud.

"That's it ~ I need a computer."
"But we don't have one!"
"I know where I can get one."

Grape hops out the window and starts walking across the fences. Eying the windows of the house that Bino and Max lived in down the road, she starts checking out the house for Maxwell, eventually catching him on the family computer.
Grape knocks on the window and waits for Max. Smirking at him as he looks over at her and answers by opening the window, he returns the smile back to her as she jumps through the window and lands infront of him, playfully wrapping her tail around his.

"Oh, Maxie. I missed you so much."

Maxwell rubs his chin as he hears Grape saying this, amused by her response.

"You're here to play on the computer."
"I'm here to play on your computer."
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by Bandit1990 »

This looks pretty good.

I'm interested in your take on Pridelands, since the only definitive things I know of from the comic are a handful of throwaway references and a list of proper nouns with no context.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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My favorite aroma .... "OBSESSION" !!!!
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Re: Pridelands Online

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(Act 2)

"It's like this." Max starts off the conversation as he leads Grape towards the computer, the two of them holding glasses of milk and some popcorn. "All the tribes are fighting one another. It's the same thing like in the books. The catch is, though, is that we're all part of the Final Pride. It sort of sucks at first..."

Max takes a deep breath.

"But get this ~ We can leave the Final Pride! We can join anyone we want! We don't have to be saving the pridelands or anything! We can just go around as The Spearbearer's tribe and show off our awesome might and let everyone know why we're the hottest lions in the universe!"

Grape grins at the last remark.

"Alright, Max. I know you're trying to hype me up ~ and you are definitely doing an awesome job." She says as she takes the time to sip the glass of milk to cool off the hype she's experiencing. "But what about the characters? What about the Laughing Face and the ancient conspiracy and all the stuff in the books? How far into the story is the game?"

To answer the question, Max pulls from the computer desk all of the books. He specifically hones out for Fall of the Pridelands.

"What best place to start than Fall of the Pridelands? the start of the conspiracy and the conspiracy and where all the fighting starts."

Max turns on the PC and goes to the game immediately, showing off the icon of the Pridelands. Representing a lion with a spear held over his shoulder from the ground and looking towards the background, Max clicks on the login and types in his login username. The password, however, is saved for his convenience.

"Had to write down the password, but this is much easier."

As Grape watches, she notes that the computer mentions that the computer Maxwell uses has two characters he can login to the game as. The first one, the one Maxwell is clicking on, is called MightyMax. The second is called WolfAmongUs.

"Hey, why do you have two names? Can you play the game as multiple people?"
Max coughs for a moment.
"Oh,yes. I found out you can have a max of five characters. The second character was created to try out the Hyenas out. You know, to see how bad they really are."
"Still very bad?"
"Very."

As the game starts to login, Max hops off of the chair and offers it to Grape.

"Try it."

Grape is surprised at first, nervously squeezing and tapping her fingers before she sits into the chair and logs in to MightyMax.

"Just... try not to do anything embarassing?" Max says, rubbing his head nervously. Grape chuckles at this point.
"No worries - i'll let everyone know your a dog who likes dating cats for catnip."

Maxwell raises a finger to the comment, but pauses as he processes the information.

"...Are you sure this is your first time on a computer?"

Logging into the game, Grape gets to see an overhead view of MightyMax who steps out of his hut. A walking bipedal Lion with a spear and a mane darker than most who has a tribal cloth to match the color as well. A cute and adorable detail Grape notes is he even got the ear bitten off on the same right ear as Max. He even has the same number of teeth marks, though the mark is stretched out more and isn't as deep as Maxwell's real bite.

Looking around the place MightyMax lives in is a bunch of other characters who pretty much are equipped with spears just like him. Though luckily they all don't look exactly the same, some of them are a mix-breed of cheetahs, hyenas and Lions. Refreshing to see it's not just the all-lion approach like it was in the book, Grape was eager to experiment later on.

"I already left the Final Pride and became a Spearbearer." Max notes.
"Oh, right. So what do you normally do in the game at this point?"

Max points outside the town.

"Just hunting stuff. It's currently the only way to progress in the game i found out until I find out where this place is, exactly. But it's very likely not far from the other tribes like the books says."

Grape analyzes the screen carefully to figure out the controls for the game. However, up until this point she realizes she never played a computer game before and can't grasp the controls. After a little guiding from Max, she manages to see that the character, MightyMax, can only equip a few things compared to the RPGs that Peanut plays on his consoles - mainly a weapon, a piece of armor and a shield. The game, however, doesn't say anything about the limit of what she can carry. Seeing no bag on the character, she assumes it all goes in the cloth.

"Oh, brother." she says, embarrassed from the immediate conclusion that came to her.
"I'm not complaining!" Max adds, grinning.
"They make it sound like sometimes having fur or wearing something like a tribal cloth automatically will have infinitespace! How can they say this carp?!?"

Grape fumes for a moment, but decides to fool around with the game more and get use to the controls. She finds herself looking at one of the other characters.
"Hi!" She types, with Maxwell pressing enter on the keyboard for her to confirm her text message. "Whoops."

One of the players looks at MightyMax and gushes. "It's one thing to be able to emote in a console game... but in this game?"
Grape tries hiding her excitement from the player's gush-like look. It was much more detailed than the games she played on a console.

"Hey, i'm new ~ Wanna travel together?!?"

Grape pauses and whispers to Max.

"How... did he do that?"

Max points ot the top of the keyboard's F keys.

"twelve emotions in the game. it's pretty sweet."

Grape randomly presses one of them. Specifically, the F2 key.

Mighty Max growls loudly, scaring off the player.

"Ack!"
"Grape!" Maxwell says, but eventually laughing afterwards. "You're going to make me look mean!"
"You are mean!"
"Yeah, but not that mean!"

Despite the reactions, Grape felt amused what just happened. It's her first time interacting with another player online and she felt much more refreshed to try out other things.

"Hopefully i didn't scare the kid. Let's do something else."

Grape at this point positioned herself to play the game on the chair with her knees. She moves the character outside the village and gets a taste of the combat system, which boils down to fighting and poking random scorpions and desert rats with her spear. She gets MightyMax damaged a few times, but discovers he's easily defeating the random encounters outside the village. Every defeat gave her food to return to the village as well, which was somethign she never seen in a game before and she began looking for ways to contribute to the village.

"So wait, you can improve the village?"

For the first time, Max squees. He then points to various parts of the village that Grape can see.

"What i love about this game is that we can improve the village we live in. This game is still new, though, so i'm not sure how this works. But what i read is that we can improve the weapons, armor and the shields that we use to fight for everyone. so everyone that's a spearbearer shares the same equipment as the village!"

Max and Grape squee together at this point.

"Just think - an army of buff lions with super awesome spears."

The distinction was not lost on either Grape or Max, but their imaginations were playing a different tune. To Max, it meant he could be the awesome warrior he always wanted.
To Grape, this was two folds ~ Be an awesome fighting female lioness ~ and two, she can admire all the buff lions with awesome spears. And maybe the tribal cloths.

After some time passed, Grape had to log off as she noted that at least two hours passed and she gotten her taste of the game. Maxwell in the meantime turned the computer off and guided Grape to the door.

"If we can, we can get everyone else to play with us, but i'm not sure who... besides the two of us."
"If i can get my dad to buy one, me and Peanut can play. But..."
Grape realized while leaving that a computer isn't exactly a two player machine. One account.
"We'll figure something out! It would be fun if we could all play together and become the best Spearbearers in the whole game!"
"Yeah, then we can show off our awesome prowless to Petir." Grape snarks "But yes ~ this sound awesome. I'll give you a call when something comes up."

Grape eventually heads home, Max eventually heading back into the house with another grin on his face.
"Yes! Online dating with Grape!"

However, after introducing Grape to the online game, Grape had a new goal in mind:
"Yes! World's most popular purple cat!"
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Perfect close to a quiet evening .... Thanks.
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by D-Rock »

I remember being fascinated with my first computer game, which I think was The Amazon Trail. Point and click is really different from whatever genre Pridelands is here. Seems pretty good.
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by dusk »

I want grape and peanut to become famous youtubers that play Pridelands online, lol.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Have to admit i had a bit of a challenge with this one due to limited time, but it was fun writing this chapter ~ even if it's a dream chapter. x3

(ACT 3)

"Petir! I'm here!" Shouts a tall, muscular and very intimidating purple cat, swinging a spear at her hyenas opponents with the assistance of other spearbearer lions that are equally sized. Clad with an oaken bra sturdy enough to withstand their arrows and blunt weaponry and a tribal cloth wrecked in fasionably attractive and durable detail, the purple cat wrecks the group of hyenas shortly before pulling out the bow over her shoulder and shooting the leader of the opposition in the head, leaving behind a black silouette shadow of the body.

"Gapre!" The well-dressed lion shouts to her, jumping beside her as he scoops her into his free arm, the other one using a shield to block the arrows fired at them. "I have heard the tales from afar what people speak of yourself! Tell me if it is true!"

"Yes, Petir... anything..." She replies, her voice trembling from the anticipation of his answer, suddenly dropping her weapons and attempting to reach his cheek.

"Is it true you reached level one hundred?"

Those... were not the words she wanted to hear.

"Carp!" Grape shouts, waking up from the dream. "Not what i had in mind..."

Grape struggled from her bed as she woke up, now moving herself to the couch half-asleep, thinking about the game. It was starting to come to her more, a feeling of different types of excitement. At first it was merely excitement for the attention she would get, but then she realized that she could get the attention of other more prominent people. It was also dawning on her as more time went by about the game that she began thinking of another important aspect of the game that never dawned on her: Res.

It dawned on her that Res might've had some input for the game through his owner, Miss Auburn. She wasn't sure how he felt about the game. However, realizing this, She also wasn't sure if it was a good idea to talk to him without spoiling herself. Of course, she knows she's better than that, but at the same time she never actually tested that theory out before with Res and felt it would be best just to wait until she tries the game more.

"I'll have to send him a letter letting him know what i'm up to, anyway. See if there's something he should let me know."

As more time passed, Grape noticed she was starting to fall asleep again. Thinking about the story more and how the game would work once she got her computer someday ~ if that ever happened, she wondered about the Gapre character in her dream and if was possible she could have a character like that? She never seen any fancy multi-colored characters in the game, but she did see some paint and different colored gear.

Part of her wanted to resist the urge as she thought about it more, but the purple dressed female spearbearer. She only wanted to try the spearbearer since it felt like the most obvious choice to feed her ongoing fantasies with the game and that she knew herself that Max was into the fighting clan's tough ways. Peanut, on the otherhand, if given the chance, would no doubt be with the Kumara clan.

As she thought about it more and closed her eyes, the thought about it suddenly felt more clear. Peanut walking around the Final Pride, with a cape and his pure fists, spreading ways on how to main peace and prosperity in the Final Pride. Players wree gathering around him to talk about improving their lives and he would tell everyone about the cult of Nintendo or the good old dogs club.

The image of Peanut suddenly hosting the good old dogs club started to materialize. Except the fun part Grape notes is that Peanut is wearing a well-tailored robe that matches his real-life brown fur and is preaching to the players of the game about the good old dogs club inside what looks like a brimstone church dressed up in expensive church glass ~ which oddly have Zach on them. The dream was starting to pick up the pace and Grape could only vaguely see the idea that the game is overrun by Peanut now and his followers have somehow created a world where everything is run by the Sandwiches.

Peanut became the ruler of Pridelands Online. noone could stop him.

"I totally approve." Grape says to herself, saying that after witnessing Peanut enjoying his newfound love by other players. Thinking about it, if Peanut ever got the time, she also wondered how the other players would treat him...

Bino suddenly showed up. With an army of Binos. The dream was suddenly getting faster, but Grape was able to keep up as it kept going. Her mind on the emotional aspects of the dreams read everything going on and Grape felt things as they passed by, but as she tried to watch the Binos running around and starting to attract followers by telling them secrets about Peanut, it started to come to Grape that there might be some bad players out there like Bino...

Come to think of it, how far into the game is Peanut? If he's playing with Joey, it's likely not that much.
Did Peanut ever meet people like this?

The dream slipped towards numerous ideas Grape had over the years with Pridelands at this point. Grape realized it was showing some aspects of her childhood with Pridelands ~ the things she wished she could've stopped in Pridelands. Stopping the Hyenas from ruining the land, for example. If they never burnt down, she might've found some good hyenas in the books.

It then dawned on Grape - we can do that in the game?

The anticipation was starting to get to Grape more. The dream kept getting faster and more exciting things she wished before her were coming and leaving at a blink of an eye, but she felt them. That's the important part for Grape. But as it was sorting out all of this, it slew down at one thing she was excited to see in the game ~ a long term memory.

Everyone she knew banning together to have a good time playing the game. She recognozed them as Pridelands characters she thought she would see them as if they ever became what she perceived as their prideland characters. Even though she didn't play the game with them, she felt like a memory of history of things to come were coming to her: Peanut, Max, Tarot, Res, Joey and maybe even Sabrina would play and band together to save the land. She doubted Sabrina would play games with them online, but she did get Sabrina to play Imaginate with them.

As the dream felt like it was reaching it's conclusion, Grape saw everyone she knew hosting a party with people she never met before online. Interesting enough, they were not their prideland characters anymore. It was like the Yarn Ball, but this time everyone was dancing and singing and having a good time. Now unlike the Yarn Ball, this dream was showing the potential party of over ten times what she saw at the Yarn Ball, nay, even more to eclipse what it felt like. Though after awhile of seeing it, it wasn't the numbers that mattered ~ it's what they were doing.

"To Res" Grape said in her dream, not noticing she was in the crowd as well. "For making it this far with his story."

With their fists raised in triumph, the party moved on afterwards. Everyone dancing, everyone having a good time... everyone moving into houses like it was their own lives.
their own lives...

Grape felt a growing warmth there. In addition to what she felt when she was playing with her friends, An easing sensation that they would get the chance to own property and hang out like real people swept over Grape. Though Grape was not sure if that was a thing in the game, the idea that the game could present that possibility was growing immiment more.

"So good." Grape said to herself asleep. "I hope this works out..."

Grape drifts off now into the dream, now thinking about more important things ~ Like what's for dinner ~ And just how long would it take for her to get a computer.

Grape amuses herself as the dream shows her the answer ~ in the form of collecting moondust from the ceiling of her house.
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by NHWestoN »

Sweet, funny, and delightful, GC ... except I'm gonna need a sink full of Marker's Mark to wash the image of an army of Binos out of my skull! Oh, and a straw.....I'll also need a straw....
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by D-Rock »

I'll admit, I think this much in certain games, too. Seems pretty good to me.
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by GameCobra »

Bad news - i got a busy schedule this week due to some unfortunate internet issues at home that i gotta fix and it's going to be distracting, so the next update won't be up until Sunday.

Until then, i'll see if i can squeeze in the end of the first chapter by Sunday!
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Alright, then. Good luck with that.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Wish my ceiling had moondust ... All i've got are last year's cobwebs and a dozing skink hibernating in the space between the bricks and the ceiling drywall.
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by GameCobra »

Finally back on track. :D

Alright, my apologies again. AS mentioned before, I'm officially working from home starting tomorrow. Weekends off with weekdays of work, but it gives me the awesome benefit to do everything much faster from home.

I'm going to play it safe though for now and update it Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If i get time, i'll add another update during the weekend!

Very short act. cramming was the name of the game.

(Act 4)

"So theoretically... if i were to mow the lawn, do the laundry, clean the house, clean the dishes, give me and you a bath, sell the mice i catch, never shed, eat or use the litterbox, stop the shredding of furnitue~"
Grape pauses briefly.
"~nuts~"
"~clean people's cars, stop us from buying anything for the month, sell a kitten every week... I could make enough money at the end of the month for a computer."

Peanut peeks his head over Grape's shoulder and takes a brief look at the list of ideas Grape was looking at ~ it's the local merchant news.

"I can't believe how expensive computer are! They are more expensive than puppies and kittens!"
"And a television."
"And a Super Nintendo."
"And a Playstation...
"XBox..."
"The kitchen floor..."

Grape and Peanut exasperate as they both butt each other's heads from behind with their back against each other, slumping down at the front door with exhaustion. Grape takes another peek at the list of advertisements of selling old computers. all of them are well over the thousand dollar american mark and that price range is like a million dollars towards pets. Grape was lucky enough to get five dollars a week, but that alone would take ages for a new computer to arrive.

"Let's try some ideas out."

"No." Says Keene, pointing out the wolves who are already cleaning the garden and keeping Karishad away from anything with a plug on it.
"No." Says King, turning towards the pups who are actually excited to see Grape. "Well... they do like cats all of a sudden..."
"No." Says Peanut, thinking his babysitting days are over.
"No." Says Jill Sandwich, pointing towards the already stuffed toy room that belongs to Peanut.
"That's not fair!"
"So is being anyone not Peanut Butter Sandwich."

Peanut pauses for a moment.

"...Clever girl."

As the final act comes to the front, Grape decides it's time to pull off the big guns.

"No." Says Earl Sandwich, who is petting Grape in his lap. However, what seemed to have been a battle of cuteness from Grape's end looks like it went into a long winded duel of who could overcome whose willpower. Grape's fur has been rubbed and groomed out from lots of petting and all she can see is a look of defeat in her eyes as she gets her back petted and her ears rubbed fondly. Her face goes from defeat to comfort, and casual enjoyment, then back to the last two expressions in random order.

"This.Was.Not.Suppose.To end.This way."

Cue the end of act 4.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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(Act 5)

Back to the bed. Again. Maybe forever at this point.

Grape had her face down on the pillow and was trying to sleep off the feeling of defeat in her life that has been plaguing her since the game came out.

"If anyone wants me I'll be chewing my tail."
"But you're not chewing your~"

Grape corrects Peanut by stretching her rear sideways and proceeds to bite her tail and holding onto it tightly. Though it clearly looks like it's not something she can keep up from the straining her mouth and teeth are showing and the tail slowly sliding out, she goes at it with great resistance.

"~that's better!"

After the tussle with her own tail, Grape leans back and looks at the roof.

"I can't believe we're going to be missing out on this." Grape says as she rolls and looks at Peanut. "Consider this ~ What if we could be the best characters in Pridelands? What if we could improve it? What would Res think?"
Peanut points to his copy of Chrono Trigger.
"Hmm?"
Grape looked at bewilderment for a moment.
"Have you ever heard of the popularity SquareSoft and Nintendo had in the Super Nintendo days?"
Grape looks towards Peanut's room, but she was trying to see his Wii. She turns back and looks at him with one eye crooked with confusion.
"Peanut, We were not even born when they came out."

"I know."
Peanut then brings out a copy of Nintendo Power from under the couch.

"What the~ How the heck did~"
"Garbage. Who throws these away?" Peanut says with a hurt expression.
"Probably old people. But what gives?"

It's at this point Peanut sits himself down on the floor, holding one paw on his kneecap.
"Videogames back then gave people all sorts of inspiration. from what I read that were the biggest inspirations for videogames way back in the super nintendo games, back when they were 16-bit color."
"Oh, the bore." Grape adds with bad taste.
"If Nintendo hadn't been as successful with the Super Nintendo and Game Boys as this magazine would have me lead to believe, then games probably would have never succeeded as much as they did, all the way back when the Nintendo had just a regular Nintendo." Peanut then adds~ "By the way, i actually got the Nintendo to work. RC Pro-Am rocks."

Peanut begins humming the RC PRo-Am theme at this point, getting distracted by the conversation.

"Yeah..."
Grape leans back on the pillw again, exhausted still from the day.
"But... I want to help make Pridelands better."

Just then, a car pulls into the driveway.

"By the way, Dad went to buy a computer."
"...contact Tarot. I fear I might've just lost my soul."

Hours passed as Earl had Bill hook it up. The sunglasses gave away to Peanut and Grape the sharp wittiness he had for electronics, but he even provided instructions on how to get the internet hooked up for Earl.

"It costs monthly, but luckily you guys are getting a computer that i was going to throw out for being too old, but i think it still plays games? Though don't let people know you are using my old office computer."
"No worries, Bill. Thanks for covering me."
"Hey, anything for you ~ and my hard working computers that still beat."

As Bill leaves, Grape and Peanut step up to Earl quickly and eagerly.
What followed though, was a long, awkward silence. Followed by smiling from the pets. Followed by Earl tapping his chin.

"I never thought about it, but I bought this computer for work for saving stuff. But i was able to get something better than a typewriter computer from Bill."
Earl then looks down at Grape, who maintains the smile.
"And yes, i bought it for you as well. No use trying to hide it~"
"Thank~"
"~You, yes. I know, i love you,too,kitten. But here's the deal."

Earl starts to lay out ground rules for the two of them ~ more specifically ~ the dreaded hourly rule. He notes that the two can use it an hour a day. Peanut and Grape try to work out the shared hours deal with him by sharing both Grape and Peanut's time, but it ends up being an hour for each. He also notes they can't boot him off when using it.

"~And addition to that, since i gotta pay it monthly to play the game, i expect you two to keep things tidy. Understood?"
"Yes!" The pets shout in salute.
"Good. Have first crack at it."

Grape does what is essentially a flash step onto the chair before the computer, looking to see how to turn it on. Earl provides the finger to press the power button.
"...say, dad?"
"Hmm?"
"...I love you."

"Aww." Peanut sarcastically quips. Earl pets Grape's head.

"Play nice, you two. And try to tell as much sandwich jokes while you're at it."
"We willllllll~" they sarcastically quip with their eyes rolling.

"So how do we play this?"
"Well, let's see..."

Peanut pull out the advertisement for the game.

"We go to the website..."
"uh-huh."
"www.pridelandsonline.com"
"Yesssss...?"
"click on the game, run it and install it...?"
"Sweeeeet...?"

Grape navigates the computer while Peanut reads the instructions. It wasn't easy as was explained to Grape since she wasn't familiar with how easy the mouse works and how clicking on and registering for the game required reading all sorts of terms and agreements. And unfortunately for Grape and Peanut ~ they read the whole thing the first time.

"... Who reads this stuff?!?!?"

After the initial installment of the game, their eyes lit up when they finally see what they wished to see ~ The Pridelands Online icon - all in it's buffy lion glory.

"CREATE A CHARACTER!" Peanut shouts loudly
"I'M TRYING! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I'M SCREAMING BUT I'M TRYING!"

The character creation screen showed up. The moment of truth arrived for Grape.
"So, think they'll let you get away with making a purple cat?" Peanut quirps.

Grape paused for a few moments. She reflected on what Maxwell told her would happen ~ She would start off in the Final Pride and eventually be able to move more freely. If she wanted to be with the spearbearers like Maxwell, she wanted to look as respectable to the players online. "I'm going for the look everyone would see in a Pridelands heroine."

The mouse gave Grape the option to customize her character, but it started with the gender first. It then allowed her to chose her race. At the moment, it only introduced three races - Lions, Cheetahs and Hyenas. It pinpoints the most basic advantages of the races - Lions are durable, Cheetahs are fast, and Hyenas are dangerous... but the strengths are not exaggerated. It points out to Grape how big their strengths are at the beginning but what she would see if she were maxed out. To elaborate on the eyecandy that Grape wanted, the game shows her a preview of what her character would look like if she were the strongest lion in the game - buff, a spear that is extremely elegant with jeweled decorations and giving off both fire and lightning at once, and nails and claws grown and hardened to the point that it could tear up stone.

Grape drooled for a moment.
"Hey, Cool! they have Hyenas!" Peanut quips.

Grape ignores the comment and goes for the final creation of her project. "Now for the name."
"Gapre?" Peanut adds.
"Nah. Something better than that... something... heroic... something... like..."
"I bet you five dollars you can't get Gapre to date Petir."

Grape resisted the urge at that point, carefully moving her fingers around the letters.
"Actually... I wonder..."
"G-R-A-P-E"
The name was taken. Grape was in shock.
"Ack! If i ever find this 'Grape' i'll kill'em!"
"Grape dating Petir?!?"
"No!" Grape fumes, growing frustrated. "Let's try this one out."
"P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S-G-R-A-P-E"

"...What."
Peanut's tone was that of disbelief. It wasn't a name he expected, considering all the ridicule Grape fussed about it. Why this name?
The name was eventually accepted. Grape then moves onto the character creation. Choosing the lion, she begins adding some details to the ears to make them as long and pointy as a cats ear as possible, but also as less busty as most female depictions. She also goes out of her way to make sure the model resembles her real-life cat body, including making the tail as thick as hers and a thicker tail tuft. Lastly, she colors the chest shirt purple along with the waist cloth. As for a weapon, she of course chooses the spear ~ naturall weapon of the spearbearers.

And thus, PrincessGrape was born.

Chapter 1 finished.
Last edited by GameCobra on Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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I gotta commend them for actually reading the terms. Curious as to how much of their time it ate up?

Well, now comes the virtual journey of our protagonist.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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I'm starting to think as of the end of the chapter that i'm rushing as well. My new working schedule does have weekends off, so for this month i'm going to move the schedule over to the weekends only to see how this works. I'll have a chapter done every month at this rate, but at least it'll feel less rushed.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Take your time, GC ........... 'Cause it's reeeeeally good.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Act 1

The Final Pride. The starting zone for the newcomers of the game.

The Prideland books, what the game was based off of, would describe a story about a series of tribes that have grown too use to the old age tradition of hunting. While Grape and Peanut never read any stories about hunting, that changed with Pridelands. What sets Pridelands apart is that Pridelands secretly had these intelligent clans and they used their vast intelligence to build cities, make weapons, make money and laws and give people comfy lives as free animals. It was essentially a world where animals are the humans in life, but more prehistoric. And it was evolving into a game at this point. As the stories went on, Petir, one of the most famous lions in the book and master huntsman, pointed out a flaw that noone seems to care to notice: They are running out of food. As the story progresses, Petir tries to find out why noone is paying attention to this. As the issue with the plot in the first book would point out that no matter how hard Petir tries telling the people of the pridelands, noone seems to listen to him. It took a whole book for Petir to finally understand what was going on.

From the next book onwards, Petir would be trying to put a stop to the mindless hunting by trying to get his new tribe of hunters to stop what is going on in the Pridelands.

After logging into the game, the screen shows PrincessGrape coming out from a tent that is eerily similar to the poster Grape has at home on her wall, standing proud out in the meadow where a bunch of other tents are shown with nothing but her purple chest shirt and waist cloth. As she looks around at the other players standing outside the tent she came from, she suddenly jumps in surprise to the side as another player pops out from behind her. She quickly notes the name of the player, cornholeo, for a few seconds before losing interest, but the surprise caught her.

Shifting her view now to the Final Pride's starting location more, she is able to only see tents, tents and more tents. The Final Pride is basically a series of tents, but surrounding a giant bonfire with a totem depicting a cheetah, a hyena and a Lion. It's at this point she must've been looking at the totem that Petir used to start the Final Pride ~ the one he carved with his own claws. He never gave a name to it, either. Looking over the area more, the tents are not as plain as she expected most of them. While there are surely a few tents that look the same, some of them are noticable for having hyena, cheetah and rough fur on the coated front of the tents. Though clearly it's not actual fur, she can't help but feel like someone shaved their fur and used it to paint their tents...

And then she sees them - the other players. They are gathering infront of the totem in the center.
She sees at least more than a hundred of names, names that are also squished into other people's names.
didn't matter to Grape - she was too busy trying to muster the energy to talk to them, so many ideas swimming through her head with excitement.

"I need... to come up with the wittiest response online ever."

Grape takes a deep breath, moves her mouse up to the players, and touches one of them with the mouse.
It asks her what does she wish to do with the player. The list ranged from Assisting, joining to even kissing, which had Grape resist the urge to do just for the humor of it.
Then there was the hello button. Grape clicked it.
PrincessGrape lifts up her left leg and waives with her right hand at the player, and a message indicates to Grape that PrincessGrape just said hi to Petirfanboy67.
Doesn't matter to Grape ~ She just said hi. This was already the best thing in the world for her.

"Peanut, i'm losing my mind here."
"Quick! see if you can find someone online we know!"

Grape paused for a moment.

"I don't know anyone! Well, except Max, but..."

Suddenly, Grape seen someone not too far infront of her, in between the tent and the totem. he stuck out like a sore thumb.

"No way...WolfAmongUs?"

Max's other character? What was he doing here? Compared to the other character that Max played, MightyMax, WolfAmongUs was a grey spotted hyena with a tomahawk hairdo and a wooden club. Grape takes a moment and notices the other hyenas coming out of the tent next to her may not start with anything, but players are actively running over to the totem in the center and getting other players to help get something decent. As she watches, the other players are actively giving out stuff like spears, axes and a stone club. WolfAmongUs just has a wooden club...

"Jerks!" She says to herself off the game, hastily clicking on WolfAmongUs and giving her the option to flirt with him. PrincessGrape then blows a kiss towards WolfAmongUs and winks at him, uncertain if WolfAmongUs even noticed. "There, there, Maxie. Everything's~"
Suddenly, WolfAmongUs logged off, written in yellow text.
"huh?"

Everythign suddenly went silent for a moment.

"...Wha? ...What just happened?"

Peanut wasn't sure either. He just shrugged at Grape as she looked back at him. But then suddenly, the phone rang. Grape answered.

"Yes?"
"Grape?" Maxwell says over the phone.

"Were you... just flirting with someone on the computer?"

Grape looked puzzled. She shortened one eyebrow for the other.

"Well, yes... but... aren't you playing WolfAmongUs on Pridelands right now?"
"...No."
"... well then who~"

It suddenly dawned on her.
"NO!"

And from that day only, the neighbourhood cat and dog howled a loud "NO!" from each of their houses as to what just transpired.

End of Chapter 2, Act 1.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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So, WolfAmongUs was Bino? The username's kind of on the nose, which I guess makes sense.

I wonder if he "Ironically" read the rest of the series too. :P
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Well, ain't that a nice first experience! :lol:

And now a love triangle for the ages.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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...and another naif drifts into the internet's dark holes.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Act 2

Next morning.
8:00 AM
Everyone asleep.

Grape is awake. A rare treat. Already taking her solo bath. Another rare treat.
Writing a letter to Res? Not a rare treat.

"Dear, Res. It just came to my attention i finally got Pridelands online yesterday and i been thinking about how to communicate this to you..."
...
...
...

Grape pauses for a moment, trying to remind herself of what she said this morning she was going to do.

"Write to Res... about the plot. the game. the computer. the detailed anatomy of the characters... the weird idea of dating people on a videogame in Pridelands..."

One thing, though, she was dead determined 'not' to ask him, no matter how much she wanted to. She already considered this a oath to herself as she got the chance to try the game.
Spoilers.

Grape wanted this experience to be special.

She never went online before.
She never played a Pridelands videogame before. Though she notes this is the first time they ever made one.
She especially never engaged in the pridelands story like this before.

"The tricky thing about how i write this letter is that i'm not entirely sure how I planned for this to work out, but it's because i'm being overwhelmingly excited right now."

As Grape begun thinking about the words carefully, she started thinking to herself about the time she was going to spend playing the game and thinking of people like Peanut, Max, Res and her parents.
thinking about it, she realized she is going to be spending alot of time on it for the first week.

"The reason I write this letter to you now is to give off the same vibe i always wanted to share with you when your last book came out."

Grape suddenly erased the last noun there.

"No... can't start doing that..."

A deep breath suddenly came over her as she began thinking about it more, realizing that she may have been rushing this.
But she knew she couldn't do that.

"The reason I write this letter to you now is to give off the same vibe i always wanted to share with you since we met."

Whew.
Grape felt relieved then. This was the reason here.

"Ever since I read your books I always wanted to use your stories to give me an amazing impact in my life and I feel like this is one of them. I want your fans all over the world to share the same excitement that i had when i first read your book."

She smiles as she writes this particular line.

"I think this game will be perfect for that! If you ever see me online, do what you feel is important, Res. I'm going to see if i can get my pals to join us. it'll be a blast."

As she finishes this last line, she pauses once more, continuing to come up with another idea before she starts licking the envelope.

"Oh, and one last thing~" She eventually adds. "~no spoi~"
Ack!
She realizes this time though she would have to rewrite the whole thing again. Can't have him seeing her erasing that last part.

With all that is done out of the way, she gently places the envelope on the kitchen table along with the rest of the mail.
Huh. Now that's done...
What next?

"You said you needed a party?"

Grape suddenly turns to her side, seeing Tarot with her CrystalTab9000.

"Wait, when did you~"
"Peanut said to choose one game from the future that we'd play together and this was it."
"...But i thought he said Joey~"
*Click*

Tarot clicks the game on her tab. Within minutes, it starts looking for players online.

"I'll get Max on this as well."
"...Say what?"
"We been playing this alot since this game came out."
"...Say what?!?"

End of Act 2

Developer's comment - I really liked how this chapter came out, though I found it amusing how this chapter turned out in the end.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Gotta love sudden appearances like Tarot pulled. So now we have a play group, let's see how it goes.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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The net spreads wider............yes!
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Very sorry for the long wait for this chapter. I been severely caught up with fixing computers last week. I'm back on track now. I'll try to get the last two acts done by next Sunday.

Act 3

"OK, so let me get this straight." She says, under her character's breath, PrincessGrape. "We all had ways to access this game all along..."

She takes a moment to look over at the oversized, large and muscular Kumara clan member,Karanga. Towering over the four of them standing together, Karanga stood out with mainly the wooden pole he was carrying.

"Peanut, you could've at least tried a sword or a spear."

Karanga suddenly shows irritation.

"How rude! us Kumara members strive for peace and love and prosperity!"
"...huh. That much i know... but they literally don't do anything in the books, so what gives?"

The fourth member of their group played by Tarot was named Arieswar ~ a small female hyena with long, overgrown and uncombed hair. She looks up at PrincessGrape.

"He wants to redeem Saso."
"Ah. But i thought he died?"

Karanga crosses his arms and closes his eyes in deep thought for the next words to come out of his mouth.

"Saso's legacy will live through me!"

A couple of players behind Karanga could be heard clapping for him. PrincessGrape and MightyMax look on in confusion.

"Seriously? Do people know why they are even clapping for Saso?"

"ALL HAIL KARANGA! REDEEMER OF SASO!"

PrincessGrape, MightyMax and Arieswar stand aside and watch as the other players crowd around Karanga and talk to him about Saso. The conversations being told are unable to be heard due to the multitude of things they are talking about at once with him.

"Any of you two getting this?" PrincessGrape points out.
"I know they wanna build a shrine for Saso."

PrincessGrape's expression suddenly sours.

"Oh,great. That's just what we need - would they really honor Saso in this game?"

MightyMax chuckles at PrincessGrape's sudden shock. PrincessGrape gives him a half-heated slap on the shoulder in response.

"I just think it's amusing. So far the game has been %100 tight with the books, but after playing this game, the lore... can potentially change in this game, I think?"

PrincessGrape suddenly looks at MightyMax with full attention.

"What do you mean?"

Arieswar coughs for a moment before giving the details ahead of MightyMax.

"Players can make clans in this game. Although they cannot actually be part of the lore of Pridelands, there is one that stands to say they are big enough to outnumber even the Final Pride."
AriesWar pauses for a moment.
"Which makes no sense since there is only about fifty people in the book that actually live in the Pridelands. The players just luckily make up the rest of the citizens."

"Ooo, that sounds fun."

MightyMax takes a moment to interject with his spear, showing it off to PrincessGrape. Unlike the one the newer players has, which is just the tip carved to be pointy, MightyMax has a stone at the tip of it.

"So last time, i mentioned the village can be upgraded. I also found out we have to buy the gear with our own hunting points."

As he says this, he swiftly pulls out a stone spear from his back and chucks it to PrincessGrape along with a well made leather shield tied together by vine string.

"Got an extra copy for us."
"Aww, how sweet!"

PrincessGrape turns towards Arieswar curiously who has a quarterstaff at the ready, though not what she expected.

"A Jade staff." PrincessGrape says while tapping the top of it. "With a emerald jewel?"
"I been leveling the Temple of Kumara with Peanut."
"... A peace-loving hyena couple?" She says while smirking "That's actually pretty neat."
"You should see how clean the place is,too."
"Right."

PrincessGrape looks aroudn the village and looks around for Petir.

"...So where is Petir at?"

"You now stand infront of Petir, leader of the Final Pride, hunting master extrordinaire!" Say the lions and lioness guarding Petir.

Petir was standing out in the open towards the west edge of the zone they were in, gathered by a ton of players and two extremely impressive guards and a impressively bulky feline archer, which she has dug her bow into the ground. The two guards were named Amma and Zetu, and they were brother and sister lions who were assigned to manage over any wrongdoings in the Final Pride with their bows alone along with Petir.

PrincessGrape couldn't stop staring at him.

"Oh, fish do i ever wish i could be that girl next to Peti~ Wait, he has a girlfriend now?"
"Only in this game it seems so far."
"... What's her name?"
"Arenae"
"Gah!"

As PrincessGrape watched Petir, he directly addresses PrincessGrape in a private message on her game. Only she can see it.

"I see you are new here, PrincessGrape. I wish to know about you more, but I must ask for your help. Hopefully as you help us out, i'll be able to learn more about you as time goes on. I need to know who i can trust in the Pridelands. Can i count on your undying loyalty to me, regardless of what happens after this day?"

Although PrincessGrape was not expressing it, Grape in her chair was staring at the keyboard, flabbergastered at what was happening. It didn't matter. She typed in Yes as fast as her cat fingers could possibly type, requiring numerous backspaces in order for it to be finalized.

Her friends next to her were wondering why PrincessGrape was pausing at this point, but seeing that she was staring at Petir, they waited until it was over with. This was not unusual for them.

"PrincessGrape, i am glad you accepted. I hope you plan on sticking with us. I must ask for you now to journey into the world and see what challenges brought you here to me and help try to find a way to bring peace and balance to the Pridelands once again."

An unexpected response comes from Petir at this point ~ He puts his paw on his forehead and looks at her before saluting her from his left eyebrow.
Grape nearly fell out of her chair from that response.

"...Did you guys see that?"
"...See what?" Says MightyMax.
AriesWar and Karanga simply shrug.

They didn't see it? None of the other players did as well?
... But Grape was sure...
... Is Petir a player? ... or is that part of the game?

"Guys... start teaching me how to play this game right away."
PrincessGrape says, emoting a clenched grip afterwards.
"I really need to know what this game is all about. Now."

End of Act 3.
Last edited by GameCobra on Wed Mar 14, 2018 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Even online Grape carries her fangirl part of her personality. :lol:
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Sorry for the long delay. I notice i'm having a harder time writing lately due to time constraints. Guess working at home isn't as easy as i thought it was going to be. At this point, i'll try to update this as much as i can.

An hour has passed since Grape and the others began leaving the Final Pride. Much of it was given to the four party members going around exploring the wide vast open area of the game. Littered with wild animals ranging from rabbits, boars and the quite-so-original giraffafigs ~ basically giraffe thieves. To hunt, kill, and gain EXP, most of it boiled down to Grape learning how to play the game. Arieswar and Karanga were mostly the most non-combative type, but whenver they saw a giraffafig they would jump in and bash them with their staffs and heal any wounds the group got with the herbs they acquired through the journey. PrincessGrape and MightyMax hunting like the predators they always wished to be and were going around attacking everything that was hostile they saw. With the exception of some rabbits they would test their prowess on to see how it wound handle into a game, they left the non-aggressive animals alone. With the four of them as a team, it was easily giving Grape alot of free time to gush over the game as time passed ~ most of it getting use to the newfound funs of playing with Peanut, Max and Tarot in an online game together. At home, she even goes to pick up some cat snacks and a glass of milk for the prolonged exposure she is usually not doing infront of the television, but she started to feel the long hours of gaming was something she would have to get use to for awhile. However, she admitted to herself as time flew by that this is probably not going to be something she could everyday ~ despite how much she loved the game as it is.

"Ok, so let me recap~" PrincessGrape says while sitting with a piece of cooked meat into her mouth, which instantly disappears to remove the realistic effect of one chowing down on good. "~Gah, I wish that didn't happen."
She clears her throat. "We fight monsters. We feed our tribe or village. We get stronger as they get stronger. We can declare war on each other and make them weaker and make us stronger. We can capture their leaders for sweet, sweet ransoms. The game has a story outside of that, but it's given to us by our leaders."

they all nod at PrincessGrape afterwards.

"...So what happens after that?"

A long silence hangs over them after that. It takes about half a minute for MightyMax to say something.

"Honestly? We're not sure... Roleplaying, I guess. From our experiences so far in the game, romance is possible, but only with other players."

Grape makes a spit take in real-life. She had to make a mental lock on this since she felt like this was not going to be the first.

"You can date other players on here?!?"
"Yes."
"Please don't tell me they~"
"NO." MightyMax immediately says, knowing full well where the conversation was going. "Pictures are a no-no on here. You can give gifts to people online like the way i gave you your weapons and armor. The game remarkably gives alot of junky and not so junky items on here that you can give to other players." MightyMax then smugly smiles as he hands PrincessGrape a fish bone. "For you, my dear."
"Oh, thanks!" She says sarcastically as she tosses it behind her, MightyMax giving an amused look as he's returning to checking out his character information.

Just then, the four of them are jumped by four smaller hyenas.

"Hah!" Says the leading Hyena. "We got you cornered!"

Though the hyenas looked small and mean, the four of them are unfortuantely easily overcome by the four of them, being piled up right where the four of them were eating at.

"Don't you guys have healers?"
"...We thought we could do it without Bob."
"Bob?"

Grape and the others suddenly looked at each other. It never occurred to them. Arieswar especially looks rather sheepish upon realizing~
"Oh dear. That sounds like a human."

End of Act 4
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Unexpected demographic, considering the fact that we never see humans reading the books.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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There were those two who went to see the movie.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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It's almost been a month since i updated this, but i have to unfortunately put this up for hiatus for awhile. Brother's graduation is coming up and I also have trouble working from home (due to the fact i'm not working at home until further notice. Argh.)

I apologize in advance. i'm going to attempt to write the project when i have free time with a massive update to make up for the delay.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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No worries! I am looking forward to an update for this story, as it's great, but please take your time!
As I gaze upon the stars, I realize how much I will miss this world.

20-23-5-14-20-25 25-5-1-18-19 8-5 4-9-4 14-15-20 18-5-20-21-18-14,

20-8-5 19-9-24 6-9-14-7-5-18-5-4 13-9-19-6-9-20 23-9-20-8 12-15-20-19 15-6 6-21-18.


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Re: Pridelands Online

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Thanks for the wait, guys! I have to make changes to this fic and shorten it to three chapters due to real life changes again, so i'm going to end this chapter and make the final chapter. Though to make up for it, i'm going to put alot of work into it.

Act 5

"Alright, I don't wanna recap again, so i'll just ask" PrincessGrape says, now looking over the hyenas who are sitting at the unlit fire, each of them with just one health point away from dying. Considering locking players is against the rules of the game, this was her group's best option. "Are all of you humans?"

The Hyenas all nod yes.

"And have you played with... pets before?"
"Pets?"

The three Hyenas look at each other carefully.

"You mean... like in-game or real life?"
"I think she means real-life from inside the game."
"Duh, that's what it sounds like."

"Yes. Are you really humans in real life?"

"...Yes...?"

PrincessGrape started looking nervous.

"Grape?" Says MightyMax, looking concerned along with Karanga who bites his staff.

"Pets playing with humans?!? Online?!?"

The Hyenas looked confused at this.

"What's wrong with that?"

PrincessGrape and the group suddenly looked shocked.

"Say what?"
"Nothing wrong with playing with pets."

Arieswar heals the hyenas not too long after that.

"So." PrincessGrape pauses for a moment to process what's going on at this point. "You... don't mind playing with pets?"

The hyenas chuckle mischievously

"It's just a game, dude. You could be a god for all we care."

Arieswar notes this and ponders about Dragon and Pete.

"You know... I don't know why gods never play videogames either..."

"I know, that's exactly what i'm saying!" Says one of the hyenas, continuing to rant. "I mean, they got all of this infinite power and choose to skip games and movies and not even bothering to enjoy it! I bet they are the type of dudes that spoil themselves and skip straight to the end and miss all the juicy stuff."

Arieswar rubs her chin shortly afterwards.

"It's more like they like to fight one another than actually enjoy the story i find..."

The hyenas shake Arieswar's hand one at a time. "Thanks for the heals, by the way. I'm Jim."
"Tom.
"Joey."

"Ha!" MightyMax shouts "You related to a dog named Bino?"
"Human!" Joey shouts "Why do people on here say that?!?"
"Don't worry about it." MightyMax says while giggling "I'm Max in real life."

PrincessGrape looks at MightyMax surprisingly. Arieswar does as well.

"I thought you said we wern't going to friend any humans?"

PrincessGrape looks at MightyMax for a short moment.

"Well... errr..."
"Max?"
"I...was worried, that's all. I thought they would cause trouble for our owners, honestly."

"Nah, man. Why would people do that? They would have to be really, really, REALLY big jerks to do that."
"No kidding?" PrincessGrape says with a big sigh of relief. Karanga starts gleeing shortly afterwards.

"Guys, can we please adventure with them before we log off? I don't want to miss this opportunity!"

Karanga gives off his hyena puppy-eyed look.

Everyone was looking over at each other for a few seconds, but it didn't take long shortly afterwards before they marched off towards the middle of the desert.

"Just one rule - no PvP. got it?"
"awwww!" The Hyenas said.

Meanwhile, another player logs into the game under a mysterious black cloak and goes immediately to meet Petir. Though the mysterious figure wasn't so mysterious for long.

"Hey, Res."
"Gah!"

End of Chapter 2, Act 5.
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Re: Pridelands Online

Post by dusk »

I'm very happy this has been updated, love this fic. Looking forward to the next chapter!
As I gaze upon the stars, I realize how much I will miss this world.

20-23-5-14-20-25 25-5-1-18-19 8-5 4-9-4 14-15-20 18-5-20-21-18-14,

20-8-5 19-9-24 6-9-14-7-5-18-5-4 13-9-19-6-9-20 23-9-20-8 12-15-20-19 15-6 6-21-18.


*Russian Intensifies*
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Chapter 3: Pets Online

Act 1

"Don't tell them this" Res says to the player behind Petir. "But they were the first pet players online."

Petir looks shocked for a moment.

"Aren't I as well?"
"Well..."
"It's not everyday a tiger gets to play behind the keyboard and act like royalty. Not like at home, that is."
"Right." Res says nervously. "So, errr... Sid. Can i ask you a question?"

Petir nods before he adds a comment. "Don't mind asking me anything. You are, afterall, the writer of this grand story."
"Right... so, Sid... I was wondering... from your perspective... do you think this will work?"

Petir gives a shocked look on his face.

"Why do you even doubt? humans and pets can co-exist as normally as humans do to another." Petir says before adding. "While it's sad to say that everyone has the right to not get along no matter who they are, animals and humans really have nothing that can bar them except their physical appearance. Whose to say what they think will be a problem?"
"Only because they are playing behind the computers, though..."

Petir looks at Res. "Before we go further, can you remove that mysterious cloak? I wanna see the face of who i'm speaking to."
"But you already know who i am?"
"All i'm seeing is someone that's hiding himself. Now come ~ I trust you, Res."

Res looks around at the other players.

"Erm... I don't think that's a good id~"
"Trust me, Res. From one cat to another."

A bit of an awkward silence hits Res. Going into a deeper thinking about it, he looks up at Petir and starts thinking about the ideas he had when the game was made online ~ people trying to have fun with the book the way he wanted. It didn't go the exact way he wanted: Leveling up, grinding, fighting monsters, PVP (Especially PVP), and acting tougher online in general. He was hoping people would be enjoying the story much more that he created as he began thinking of the game more and looked at the other players around him talking to Petir at the same time as him. He never noticed it, but Sid; the guy playing behind Petir; had to deal with all of these people at the same time. Res had known Sid since the day the game was made and like him, Sid is a tiger who lives in Canada as well from Newfoundland ~ but what he didn't know about the tiger was that he moved from Japan ~ Kyoto to be more specific. Res looked it up online and he couldn't believe that this was one of the historically famous areas in the world for videogames. He always wondered what Sid was like in real life. Not to mention the name.

But at this point, he started to realize he was doubting himself again. Res wanted to be better than this.
He removed the cloak and showed himself as a striped grey tiger. The people next to him immediately noticed this, which Petir smied at.

"Now then... wanna watch and see what the players are gonna do over the years? :)"

End Act 1.

(Yes, that smiley was intentional)
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Re: Pridelands Online

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Before i begin this final act, I truly appreciate the people that have viewed this fic over the past couple of months. I'm extremely happy to gotten to write this far at least and while i wish to write more of it, i realize it has to come to an end at this point. I hope you guys enjoy the ending i cooked up =)

~~~Chapter 3, Final Act~~~

It happened for a couple of months without knowing, but as the game's popularity started going up and people were playing the game, it came as a culture shock when it was discovered that humans and pets were playing online. This shock, however, was not as bad as Res first thought it was going to be like. Noone thought about banning the game or felt violated like he initially thought it was going to be like. Infact, Sid was confident this was not going to happen.

However, Sid was not aware as well just what part Grape played in this.

"The data seems to not lie to me ~ she honestly was the first pet to mingle with humans. Who would've thought?" Sid says to himself infront of his computer.

He logs in as Petir at this point, feeling it's time to do what he felt must be done.

Meanwhile, Grape ~ or in this case, PrincessGrape, was back at the Final Pride. Over the past couple of months she had been going around with a bow and arrow throughly decorated with feathers around the top and bottom of the bow that were tied to the strings. One would note to Grape what would happen if someone pulled the feathers, to which she growled. Her clothes went from the plain cloth look to something more tribla looking ~ dawning feathers from what looked like various birds. To her, though ~ it gave her a feeling of accomplishment in the game as well as immersion within the game. She, afterall, saw the game growing at it's leasure. Watching players make guilds, fighting each other and mingling with Petir and the other characters from the book. She hated to admit, though, that over the years the game had it's painful gripes that bothered her. To date, people that complained about the game and enjoy it for what it is would get her into a furious rage at times. Though Grape knew better. Despite her temper, she would always remind herself of Res's book and what she liked about it and tried steering people's ideas away from what she thought was a bad thing to think about in the game. Not everyone can be happy and she learned to accept this over time.

Still, though... with all the peple the game attracted, she couldn't help but wonder what she would do if she was in Res's shoes.

"PrincessGrape?"

She looked at Petir who came to her personally. It took her a few seconds to clue in what just happened. Not to mention that she was just observing the Final Pride from a hut.

"P...Paaaaaa...Paaaaaa"
"Paws? Laws? Paris?"

Grape expressed shock from that remark.

"So it's true. I am speaking to a live player."
"Indeed."

Grape sighs.

"I'm sorry that i disappointed you."
"Actually, it's not that."

She grins at him.

"You totally killed the mood."

"Ah,yes. I seen how you reacted to Petir over the years."
"What?!?"
"Kidding."

Petir returns the grin back at her

"I admit I was hoping to do this grand surprise for you, but i have to be frank. I came here today to congratulate you for your support for the game over the years."
"Me?"
"Yes. You."

Sid sends Grape a e-mail in the game.

"Check your e-mail."

Petir gets up, but looks at Grape one last time before leaving.

"Also, this is the only time i'll be playing Petir. From this point on, Petir will be controlled by an AI. But I assure you: I put all the effort into him."

He winks before logging off. Petir vanishing all of a sudden.

"...Oh, wow..."

Still taken aback what just happened, she eventually logs off while noone notices. She takes a look at the e-mail immediately, having grasped e-mails over the past couple of months.

"...Sid, huh?"

While reading the e-mail, she slowly showed various reactions to the e-mail. Most of them blushing and catching her cheeks from the overwhelming embarassment she was receiving, not realizing that the person behind Petir was a Tiger from Japan.

But he also conveyed to Grape in the e-mail that lit her cheeks up far more than anything the game has offered her so far.

A simple thank you for playing the game the way she did at first.

She never realized it until she read the e-mail, but the thought of human players mingling in the game with one another felt like such a minor thing at first.

"... You know..." Grape says to herself. "...I never considered playing games like Peanut."

She immediately phoned Maxwell afterwards, weapping the finger around the phone wires.

"What's up, babe?"
"Hey, Max?
"Hmm?"
"Remember how i talked about quitting?"
"Yeah... I was hoping that we~"
"Wanna start a guild?"

Max looked shocked on his end of the phone.

"But... wouldn't we be playing the game longer? I thought you wanted to stop playing games eventually?"
"True... but I just found out something interesting about the game. I figured we could play it longer. Get the four of us to run a guild as rulers somehow."

Max rubs his face with one hand.

"Dude, are you proposing King Peanut and Max and Queen Grape and Tarot?"
"Come on, I know you waaaant it." She teases on her side of the phone.
"Most definitely!"

After a few seconds, though, he pondered about the attitude.

"So, uhh... mind if i ask? What changed your mind?"

Grape turns the monitor towards herself.

"Let me tell you a tale about a japanese tiger..."

The End.
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Re: Pridelands Online

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This was fun while it lasted. Interesting to think about more pet-human interactions, and through MMO is neat to see. Good job, man!
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