Hello anyone who decided to check out this story. I won't be posting any notes like this before the chapters after this, but I wanted to introduce the story and talk about the schedule first. There is essentially no upload schedule. I'll do my best to upload a couple thousand word chapters around once a month but I can't really promise too much. I will finish this story though. It won't be abandoned. At the time of uploading this chapter, I'll have at least the first 5 chapters edited and all set to go.
Next, the story is supposed to be kinda like a cheesy, Captain N -guy gets sucked into the computer- type of story. So it won't break the fourth wall, but it will be pretty lighthearted. I'll do my best to read reviews, and I'll try respond to a few everytime I update. And finally, I'm taking liberties with the lore of each world, and combining them with other games, so any mention of Elder Scrolls, Witcher, Mass Effect, or anything else will be integrated to buff the backstory and make people go, 'hey, I recognize that!'
Anyways, on with the story!
Chapter 1: Spring Time
Scratching at the corners of his paper, Link doodled abstract birds as his teacher lectured about physics. A bird landing on the windowsill drew his attention from the doodles to the outside. Sunlit the grassy lawn, filtered through the few trees and illuminated the flowers that grew on the school's lawn. 'Only a few more weeks till I'm out of here.' Link brought his eyes back up to the projector and resumed taking down notes in the spaces of his packet that weren't already covered in doodles.
Eventually, the bell rang and Link slipped into the flow of students in the halls, winding his way to his final class of the day, Cooking. Link had a few friends in the class, but it was full of mostly girls because his guy friends didn't want to take a class that taught them how to do laundry, so they harped on him for taking such a feminine class. Link was really in it for the cooking. He pulled a collection of pre assembled spices out of his bag and dawdled on his phone until the rest of the class wandered in. The teacher was a tiny, slightly eccentric woman who had more than enough enthusiasm for the entire class. Today's assignment was to prepared a dish based on the Rushroom - particular species of mushroom with a large, star shaped, purple cap. There was no limit on the ingredients, with the exception of a minimum of one Rushroom.
Link smiled to himself as he hollowed out the interior of the rushroom caps, heated a pan, and diced a few vegetables. Simultaneously, he had rice cooking off to the side for the end. The hollowed out caps were placed in the small toaster oven to cook. Pouring olive oil in the pan, Link tossed the diced veggies in and browned them.
The smell of the rushrooms and the veggies cooking wafted through the classroom, mingling with the smells of the other students' dishes. Some have made pasta with mushroom toppers, some have cooked a steak accompanied by rushrooms, but no one else in the class had forgone a recipe and completely improvised their dish.
The veggies and rice were packed into the hollow caps, then combined. This created a veggie/rice/rushroom sandwich where the mushroom caps acted as buns. The teacher loved Link's ingenuity and improvisational skills, while the rest of the class wasn't a fan of using any form of mushroom in general. They all conceded to Link's dish, as it tasted the best. The class shared dishes and performed a blind vote as to who made the best dish. A few quiet minutes of eating various mushroom dishes, idle conversation, and surprisingly smooth cleanup passed before the teacher called for everyone's attention. Unsurprisingly, Link's dish won, though it was only a single vote between his Rushroom Caps and a popular student's steak and mushroom pita wraps.
Starting up his faded green cafe racer, Link headed left campus for his apartment to pick up his camping equipment. He had finally been able to make plans with a few friends to camp for the extended weekend. The coming Monday was a holiday, and and he wanted to make the absolute most of it. The bike rumbled beneath him as he took off home. Mentally he ran over his list for the weekend, 'I need the tent obviously, a sleeping bag, pillow, clothes: pants, shorts, bathing suit, 2 shirts and a hoodie. Plus my food bag, a towel, and climbing gear- Oh hey, I should take the shortcut today.' Turning down a dirt road, Link picked up his pace marginally, hopping the bike from small bumps in the road and sliding it around a couple tight corners.
Jumping back onto paved roads, Link only had to ride a couple houses down before he pulled into his driveway. Parking his bike in front of the garage, he punched in the code to open the garage, slipped under the door before it fully opened and slapped the button to stop it half way up. Dropping his jacket, he bound up the stairs two at a time. In his room, Link opened his school bag and transferred the foil containing his rushroom dish, a speaker, and a notebook & pen to the camping pack. Link tossed the bag over one shoulder, ran down the stairs, scrawled a quick note to his parents that he left on the kitchen counter and snagged his green flight jacket. Grabbing a ratchet strap as he closed the garage door, Link secured the tent bag to the back of his bike, and hopped on. The backpack and tent were heavy enough to throw off his balance a little, so he compensated by sitting a little further forward. The bike fired up and Link took off down the road.
The trip was a little over an hour out of the suburbs that Link lived in, meaning he had to ride on a highway with all that gear on his bike. 'This isn't too bad of a ride all in all, I mean the tractor trailers and bigger trucks can be pretty sketchy when they pass. Those rolling hills sure do look like fun to ride through, maybe I'll try to find somewhere to ride once we setup camp.' Link's bike had semi-offroad tires on it so he could ride around on trails and through the woods without the need for a second bike, but this also meant that riding on roads could be fairly bumpy and a little slow. The cruise took Link from the stop and go traffic and fairly flat landscape of his hometown through rolling fields and eventually he began to climb hills, and possibly causing slightly backed up traffic.
The fields became home to trees, and the trees turned to whole forests. Tall pines lines the sides of the road like natural fences that sometimes revealed a deer or two feeding on the underbrush. The speed limit also reduced to account for the winding and hilly nature of the roads. Link slowed his bike as he rolled into the small rustic village that was more or less the gateway to Lush National Park. People milled about the sidewalks, restaurant patios and the village green laughing and enjoying the nice weather. The low sun reflected off the pond that was bumped up against one corner of the village, throwing moving sunspots on the storefronts that danced and shimmered with a rainbow of hues. Further down the road, Link passed the small art museum that had been built the previous summer. 'I need to remember to stop in there at some point. The building had such a cool form, like a future-concept log cabin.'
The small village became obscured by the dense forests as he continued to ride the road that flowed over the landscape.
So what do you think? Not too shabby in my opinion. Once the story gets flowing I'll probably try to go back and revise the first two or three to better fit the meat of the story. Also I'd like to thank my friends; alien-outhouse on tumblr, she's great, reblogs lots of funny stuff that keeps me going throughout the days, and my best friend from college, KM.