Hello there! I’ve decided to start off with an introduction rather than getting right into the prompt. I understand that we’ve all got our different desires here and my prompt is a bit lengthy. I’d be happy to hear people are reading it just for fun, but I don’t expect that. So I’ll frontline everything here to let you see if it sounds like your cup of tea, then you can read on.

I used to roleplay a number of years ago, and then I stopped for a while. In this last year I’ve been trying to get back into it as a hobby to get out some of these random ideas I get in my head through the day. I put together little stories and develop them here or there, but that ultimately isn’t creative writing is it? I don’t think I’m anywhere good enough for book writing, but I still want to share these little stories around. I think it’s fun, and hopefully you think so too when reading them.

But that being said, I guess I’m not looking for a collaborative writer as far as development goes. I like putting together my own stories and giving you a chance to explore them and come up with your own interpretations as we go; that’s the fun in books isn’t it? Getting to find out how your thoughts and feelings about it differ from others. And if we all knew about the exact way our stories were going to develop we would get bored pretty fast. Hence why there are spoiler warnings.

What this means is that while I do want your input as a character, I also want to just present something to you and let you go along more like a game than a book. In books we can daydream about how we would go about making some decisions and how they would unfold, but its games where we actually feel the weight of our choices when we have to make them. Hopefully I can emulate that for you and still put together a comprehensive plot that gets you day dreaming all the same.

So what I’m looking for is someone who is ok just jumping in without really knowing where things are going except what they’re character learns. I tried to write my prompt here from a perspective that would be neutral enough for you take over the passenger character as you saw fit. As much as I’ve said I want to be writing for you, I also hope you’ll be inspired enough to write back in decent length and quality. I understand that might not be easy always but I won’t chew your head off or anything, so don’t feel bad if you get writer’s block and need some sort of prompting from me. It’s a lot for me to ask you to just go in blind and write not knowing exactly where things are going. So I don’t mind answering questions and giving guidance here or there. Hopefully you’ll just forgive me if I seem cryptic or ambiguous sometimes. In the end I do want you to have your own perspective on this all.

Now for the final nitty-gritty… maybe I should have put this in at the start, but if you made it this far I don’t doubt these things will scare you off. I mean for adult themes to exist here, so be 18 preferably. This could mean smut, if that’s what you like, or it could not (totally optional on this one). Romance is an option as well, although it won’t be as simple as that so I make no guarantees. Primarily I mean for dark themes and violence to make up for a lot of this, although I don’t plan on writing mindless torture scenes so don’t think I mean anything real extreme there. Hopefully we have an agreed upon level of tolerance there. But in the end I don’t mind adapting things to your comfort level in some way or another. So even if you choose to respond getting by getting right into the story please send me something out of character too to let me know what you’re craving and what you’re alright with. I can also help prompt you if you don’t know how to start but are still interested. Hell I may even have other stories to try if this one doesn’t seem like your thing, but you like what I’m trying to do (My post history may have a few ideas there for the curious among you).

And as for responding in the future, I can pass along an email once we’re agreed upon something. But don’t really expect a rapid fire story here. I don’t know how long term this will end up being, but my schedule really only allows one good sized post a day. Maybe more if we’re in a quick spat of back and forth and hopefully no less as well. But if I agree not to badger you for posts, can you do the same for me? If so we should get along great. And I look forward to hearing from you!

Hopefully the story makes up for all that nonsense now:

It was the creaking of heavy wooden gates that woke the passenger from their deep sleep. Old hinges cried out lustily in use and there was the deep bubbling slosh of water being forced away from the opening maw ahead. But for the passenger, all was still in a darkness that revealed little. And the gateway in the water was no more than a lighter shade of grey against an indiscernible background of nothingness. But their boat rocked now, galloping on the gentle waves stirred up by the watery entrance ahead.

The craft was a gondola, long, narrow, and flat along the bottom barely seeming deep enough to keep water out and the passenger in. But fore and aft the boat tapered and rose upward into arched pillars that could have held a dangling lantern if there had been such a thing available. At the far end there was a rolled cloth bundle of what looked like supplies. And as the craft rolled forward through the dark gates, the doors thudded to a stop in a wide embrace and their sound echoed in every direction. The reverb sounded backward like the rumble of a massive grandfather clock.

Stumbling along the rolling craft was not easy, but there was a growing light now that the gates had passed. The still water surrounding the boat was punctuated here and there by pillars of pure white light that danced and flicked with ripples sent out by the gondola, disturbed by its passenger’s careful movements to their parcel. It seemed that clouds were stirring in the water on either side of the boat. They swirled and mingled, and were lit from somewhere below with the rising ghost lights that disappeared into a featureless black sky.

When the bundle was lifted from its place at the front of the ship, it unfurled slightly. The material was dark forest green cotton, thick and heavy. And the first part to fall away appeared to be a wide hood, revealing it as a sturdy cloak filled with secrets, amongst which was a curious dagger. The blade was long and needle thing, more like a craftsman’s tool than a weapon. It had a nearly nonexistent guard about the handle, just small enough for the wielder’s thumb to rest up under without being cut. The blade itself appeared to have an edge, despite its needle-like appearance, and a wickedly honed point that twinkled ever so slightly as the gondola rolled past one pillar of rising pale light.

Else wise, within was little more than a pair of black leather gloves seemingly a perfect fit for the passenger’s hands and a silvery chain necklace adorned with a dull grey stone that begin to come alive in their hands. Somewhere within a light began and then grew until it shone brightly enough to make the passenger squint, at which point it began to fade. The white light dimmed but never fully went out. The stone continued to hold a softly emanating glow to it that pulsed like a timepiece.

Ahead of the boat, there were other images fading into view, sights on the unseen horizon like dull stars that seemed to move and wander. They were so far away it was hard to tell, but they appeared to be small flames of a flickering orange/yellow glow that shuffled steadily around in the distance where the gondola drifted evermore, toward the tower upon the Isle of End that was also the beginning. It was not a great thing, but in the nothingness of the black it was seemingly the whole world. Slowly its shape manifested in the dark ahead. It rose from a narrow base, giving it a strange cone-like figure that was wholly unnatural. And on the highest floor there was a single window, lit from within by a comforting warm light.

As the stranger examined the structure their boat came upon the gravel of a stony shore just ahead of it. The ship had a gentle pace, and the only sound from the collision was a wet slide to a stop as the gondola bobbed and then settled, grounded. Water softly lapped at the sides and below could been seen the pitch black stones that had been churned by the soft tide from the black rock landmass where upon the Tower rested.

Stepping into the water would prove uneventful. The gravel was secure and the water warm enough to almost feel nonexistent. But it was the only way to get out and up to see the structure firsthand. Faintly outlined by those distant moving lights, the Tower seemed almost too real in a place where it ought never to exist. The stones that rounded the foundation made periodic pillars with intricate carvings of erotic swirls and looming arches shaped perhaps like the gates that had only just opened somewhere in the past. And carefully kept atop the stony shore, barely visible around the base of tower, were low bushes. Their leaves were black as the world all around, but there were colors there as well, bright, bloody red roses that were dim in the no light, but still somehow had a vibrant color all their own. There weren’t many it seemed, and there didn’t appear to be any windows on the bottom floor to enjoy them from within. In fact the tower seemed as if it would be almost no more than a closet up close. But looking up it seemed to loom massively like a wall full of endless passages, all held up by an unseen force.

Normally enough, there was a solid door of dark wooden planks at the base of the tower. The wood was a deep rich brown and the metal banding across it reflected no light. But burned into the heavy planks in a flowery script was a friendly message: “Bring a gift and ascend.” Behind the door was nothing more than a dark spiral staircase with inlets in the walls for dull candles to guide the way up. Up to where the sole window burned in waiting.