Welcome to my CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure). For this, you will all be taking community poll votes that will go on for a few days before I take their final tally and choose the winning option to continue the story. The rules of it are simple. You all like big guys? Pick the choices that will help them grow! That said, I will not provide any clues or guidance on what will make them grow, as it is better I keep it tense on whether you are choosing right. Some choices can’t be wrong, and depending on your actions, the behavior of the character will change. I will keep them behaving as accurately to your choices as I can, after all, the goal is to make it a character you can have creative freedom with. So, with all that out of the way, good luck and have fun with this!
This is who you are, a 2’1" tall Cave Wyrm. You are a scholar from your dwelling with other Cave Wyrm’s, and after enough time, you have gone out in search of things to collect and bring back for them. You wear a nice cloak with a stylized top after your role, have two large antennae for sensing things in dark conditions, large eyes to see well within dim lighting, and a thick and heavy tail that isn’t really used for anything. Your clothing is fit comfortable, but snug to your body to keep it secure. Your hair goes down your back a bit into your clothes. Overall, you are a very healthy Cave Wyrm and very average looking.
You have recently left your dwelling, a network of caves where most of the other Cave Wyrms live. After traversing your way through the twisting, rocky corridors, you reach the surface level, the sunlight hitting your skin, and the bright light taking a moment to adjust to. The surface Cave Wyrms that work on the farms above ground greeted you as you went by, many wondering where it was you were going. Telling them you were going hunting for treasures to take back to them, they wished you luck, and just went back to their usual activities. Living as a Cave Wyrm was very peaceful if you stayed at the dwelling, so many of them didn’t have any sense to what kind of dangers lie away from it, though you were confident in your own abilities, since this isn’t the first time you have left to find little treasures, but you were hoping, this time around, maybe you’d get lucky enough and bring back something bigger for them this time other than old coins or small pieces of something bigger. You recall a few places you read about from some books at your dwelling, and decided the first step was figuring out where you going to go…
Go to a bustling town and ask for rumors on anything special
Search for a temple recorded in some of the older books
Keep it safe and go back to an old run down village not far from you
The winning vote: Search for a temple recorded in some of the older books
You decided to try finding one of the temples that was recorded in the older books and scrolls your librarian kept. It wasn’t easy to figure out where it was, the passages were unclear as to its precise location, but it did give a general few clues that helped put at least some form of location on the map for you. So you began your travel, walking between trees, around river bends, and through open clearings. Eventually, the dense forest trees stopped, and you began to walk out into an open prairie. This was about accurate to where you had to look, as the distant range of mountains was where you needed to reach. Your travel continues, and after a very long approach, you manage to make it to the foot of the mountain. The trail on it was one you had walked before, and not see the temple, but you were certain the clues pointed to it being here. Maybe you had just been missing it, or there was an extra, hidden path to take you to it. You begin walking the trail, and as your eyes stay focused on your surroundings, a thin opening catches your eye. It was one you had seen before but just assumed it was the formation of rocks, but when you look between it, you can see clearly there is another pathway leading up past it. You take the moment to squeeze yourself between the cracked opening, struggling and bit since your tail added a bit of difficulty from trying to do it sideways, but managed to get through, albeit having a light scratch from the rock at the base of your tail. The pathway you found eventually took a sharp upwards direction into its own little cave opening, and then, there it was, a temple from the books, hidden away in a dark cave. Most people wouldn’t be able to see it in such darkness, but your eyes were adjusted to living in dark caves. From what you could make out, there was a large stone door acting as its front, with two dragon statues on the side, and what could be ancient writing under the statues, and around the doorframe, but you would need more light to be able to read them. You couldn’t believe it was a dragon temple though, which excited you, as Cave Wyrm’s are descendants of dragons, there could be things from your ancestoral superior race. However, now was the time to make the first decision before heading inside…
Stop stalling and just enter the temple, treasure awaits!
Try drawing a rune in the dark to light the text up and read it
Be barbaric and take a snuffed out torch from the wall and light it with fire breath
So, for the past voters, I discovered that editing a spelling mistake for some reason reset the poll, I am so sorry for doing that to anyone who had already voted, I will make sure NOT to edit the post. Like last time, the poll will last two days, meaning Monday morning, I will close the poll and write out the next part of the story! Have fun until then!
Winning vote: Try and draw a rune in the dark to light up the text.
Rune magic was basic, and very easy to perform, since Cave Wyrms study it very frequently. Though due to how specific they need to be, trying to do one in the dark proved challenging, but taking it slowly and carefully, and using your moderate vision in the dark, you were able to make it and a light came from the rune into your palm. You carried it along with you, approaching a statue, as you could see the text was the same repeating sentence across all the surfaces they were present on. The translation may be off, it has been awhile since last you read or studied it, but the rough translation seemed to say “By the blessings of our divine ruler, his gifts here for all to find and one day use, his blessings to us will become your boon for what it is needed for.” With that translation, it seemed like people wanted this to be discovered one day and its gifts used based on what they were needed for. Although your kind didn’t need one, or at least not immediately, it wouldn’t hurt to take just one in case it was needed. After approaching the front door, and pushing it open using all your strength to move it slowly. Once you could comfortably squeeze your way in, you carried the light orb in your hand, and continued down the path. The halls twisted and turned, with images depicting the different blessings this dragon seemed to grant, focused towards what looked like wealth, strength, and fertility for their land. It had to have been a powerful dragon, but it was hard to identify what kind they were because they were all just etched out stone drawings with no color. You eventually came to a split in the path, two different doorways, with the difference in them being what the dragon statue standing before each door held. The left door held what looked like a chain, little gems and attachments to them, including a feather shaped and coin shaped attachments to it. The right statue held a very simple orb, an intricate carved pattern into it, looking like it would theoretically hold elements within it. Which door do you take?
Left door with the fancy overdecorated amulet statue
Right door with the potentially elemental orb statue
Winning choice: Go through the door with the overdecorated amulet statue.
Heading to the statue holding the chain amulet, you pushed open the door. Inside was a vast, yet thin hallway, both sides having hooks that held actual amulets on them, a fair portion of them being missing though, and the ones that remained had text too faded and aged to read properly, or seemed damaged in one way or another. After a quick count, you found only three amulets worth possibly taking, two of which being identical star shaped amethyst bearing ones held by very small chains, and the last having an opal in on a neat string. You supposed one could suffice, but the text on them was only able to be partially translated between the amethyst pair having “wealth” and “copy”, while the opal stringed amulet only had one translatable word, that being “caution,” which obviously did not set well for you.
Take the amethyst pair
Take the stringed opal
Leave and head to the other room (the prior choices will remain)
Well, there wasn’t anything stopping you from taking it, and the “caution” didn’t necessarily have to mean it was dangerous. Maybe they just wanted you to be aware of its effects? But of course, without proper restoration tools, you’d never find out what this thing does without thorough testing, and step one was simply putting it on. So, with the intent of taking this opal on a string with you, you pull the loop of the string over your head and drop it on. It was, as expected, very light and cool to the touch. Its about as expected of the small little gem, and currently, nothing was happening. So, it was that time to leave. You walk towards the exit, expecting the door to leave to be as difficult to push open as it was before, but surprisingly, when both hands were planted on it, and you began to push, the door swung open so unexpectedly fast, you ended up falling over onto your chest. You pushed yourself back to your feet and looked at the opal, worried it broke. It looked perfectly in tact, and nothing seemed to change on it. Maybe the door was just easier open to on your way out. The moment you step into the light of the evening sun, your light ball from the rune dissipated, its light now no longer needed, and now the question remained of where you go. You couldn’t make it home with what little time was left in the day.
Go home anyways, it won’t take THAT long… right?
Find a nice small tunnel to take shelter in for the night
Climb up higher to try spotting a settlement and sleep in a nice bed
Sleep in the cave you just came from instead. It won’t be uncomfortable.
The warning must not be one to stop people from putting it on. Its just saying like “Caution: will have effects on wearer”, which, what better way to find out than to put it on?
There wasn’t any reason to make yourself wait. You decided to make the trek back home anyways. It wouldn’t be too difficult to do with your moderate visibility in the dark, and it’d feel uncomfortable sleeping alone. You made it at the base of the mountain just as the sun set, only a sliver of its light left over the horizon, which disappeared soon after. It pretty quiet in the woods, with only the sounds of the usual nighttime insects and avians. Your path home was pretty unobstructed, you were able to make it most of the way before entering the caverns to your dwelling. You made it home, and found yourself too exhausted upon entering your little wooden shack, before you just ended up collapsed into your small bed, and slept, exhaustion preventing any other thoughts from making you check to see if that opal was enchanted at all. Thankfully, when you woke up, you felt no different than you had when you fell asleep. You don’t even know how long you slept for considering that there was no sun that came through the caves, but judging from the magic lit torches, you are at least certain it is still daytime. You checked the pockets of your cloak and everywhere else, everything was still there, and you still had the stringed opal on your neck… Well, you were home, now what? You have a magic artifact on you that you need to examine to ensure it is safe to go put into your collection, but you also don’t want to just start your day working, but it would be better to check it now rather than later.
Check the stringed opal’s magic right away.
Take it off and go enjoy a day off.
Keep it on, and grab some good and socialize. You’ll check it later in the day.
Well, it didn’t make any sense to leave your place and go do other things when everything you needed to check its magic was right in your home. You took the opal off to set it on your flat stone desk, and engraved the needed runes. After placing your special scrying glass next to it, you waited for the spell to identify what the magic in the opal did, but you were disappointed when the rune just fizzled out, the scrying glass had no reaction. Usually if something didn’t have magic it would just turn black, but the fact the glass didn’t change meant the rune just didn’t work. Maybe you drew it wrong? You were tired. And hungry. You gave it one more shot, this time consulting your back for the exact rune circle you needed to draw. And despite waiting a bit longer to make sure every symbol was correct, you placed the glass in the correct spot again, and yet, it fizzled out again, this time quicker than before. It was strange to watch your rune just fail twice in a row, you made it yourself after all, and its always correctly identified magic in an object, yet the glass had no reactions. You were interrupted before you could think up on anything else by one of the younger Cave Wyrms come inside, apparently having been told by its mother that they should come here and bring you a fresh fish from the underground lake, since no one had seen you outside. How nice of them, you decided to take a break to eat the fish, filling your stomach and fueling your brain for the next steps to take. Since conventional runes couldn’t identify it, you needed to find a new way to identify the magic within it. It was pointless to try your runes if they just kept dying out, so maybe you could find another way to do it.
