Madeline Beaufort and the Moon Thief

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Author Foreward: Hi guys, thank you for joining me here on my first text adventure! Im not too great with formatting or grammar stuff so if you have any tips or tricks please tell me! I'm doing this to try to expand my own writer-y knowledge and I think thats probably a place to start.

Madeline Beaufort
and the Moon Thief


Prologue:

Sidhas stopped at the top of the hill to catch his breath, the sweat from his sprint giving off a faint white reflection that outlined his silhouette against the starry night sky. Shaking and hunched over with his hands on his knees, his legs gave out and he collapsed face first into the dirt.

The young boy rolled over and looked up, stars filling up his field of view, and beyond that, innumerable galaxies, some of which Sidhas would be able to pick out if he wasn’t having a moral crisis. There was so much out there, he knew from experience. He had only come to this planet on a fluke in the spirit of adventure, attempting to escape the drudgery of his schoolwork during the round’s break. This planet was only recently discovered by the council, and was opened for tourism only a couple of weeks prior. He was the first of his species to set foot on Earth, as far as he knew, and now he was going to die there, knowing the dark fate that would become of his homeworld and all the others that were above him, but too far away to see.

He wiped the mixture of sweat and tears from his face. I can't let it all be for nothing, he thought, I won't let it all end because of these idiotic monkeys, his sadness giving way to a bitter resolve.

Sidhas stood up. He could see at the bottom of the hill, the humans in hazmat suits were catching up to his position on foot. Blackhawk helicopters were scanning the valley below and he noted it would only take them a short time to spot him.

He grabbed his father’s tome from the pull cord on his hip. He turned to the page he had stared at so many times before, wondering how anyone could cast that spell. It seemed impossible to him, but one of his ancestors had done it, or it wouldn't be there written in blood. Sidhas knew that tonight, after what had transpired, if there was any time any person could do it, it was him and it was now. He began to recite the words.



The co-pilot of the blackhawk on the right-most flank spotted the creature at the top of the hill to the east. Redirecting the helicopter, they shined the spotlight on him and the soldiers in the backseat took aim. Machine gun fire rocketed toward the alien being, one round ripping through its claw and the strange foreign book it was holding, but it was too late; The casting was almost done. White energy radiating off the beast it said the final word. While it’ was no audibly louder than the rest of it’s fiendish spell, the pilots and soldiers swore they could hear it ring clearly.

“Selene”



Sidhas was bleeding but the pain felt hollow to him with the immense amount of energy running through his veins. Without even flinching he raised his injured hand to the sky, blood dripping down down his arm onto his shoulder and head. The hole in his hand matched perfectly with the large white celestial body overhead. The spell had been cast and now all he had to do was complete the action. He thought about his friends, and his family, and everyone he had ever met before this point, What’s one civilization compared to every other throughout the universe? All doubt subsided.

He closed his hand and the sky went dark.



An explosion of white rippled off the hill sending all the soldiers staggering backwards, and the choppers spinning on a collision course with the ground. They aimed their weapons at their monstrous target, but he was already gone, rocketing through the atmosphere in a blaze of white.

In the heat of the calamity, it took some of them a second to notice what had transpired. They were after all, soldiers, and not particularly well trained in the art of magic. But they felt it in their gut, that something was profoundly wrong. Missing. Most of the soldiers were bewildered in a silent awe, but one pilot being helped out of the wreckage of a blackhawk could be heard over the flames.

“Where is the moon?”

Chapter One: An Unusual Tea Party

Madeline jumped out of bed with the usual vigor. Her alarm began to ring as she walked over to turn it off. Going to the bathroom mirror, she splashed water in her face and brushed her teeth. Her hairbrush went untouched, as was usually the case. Throwing on a T-shirt and shorts, she pranced downstairs to the dining room table.

Madeline’s parents knew she didn’t need a babysitter even at eleven years old. The girl was independent to a fault, having something of distaste for being told what to do by her two moms, and instead elected to be so good at her day-to-day activities that her parents couldn't complain for any ‘logical’ reason. This of course didn’t stop them, as their main concern was for Madeline’s lack of friends. Madeline would simply respond to that line of questioning that if kids her age had any “adequate conversational skills” she would consider befriending them. Independance aside, she didn’t exactly relish waking up to an empty house, but it was only for a couple of days and then both her moms would be back from their mission. She was proud of what they were doing out there in space, and someday wanted to be an astronaut like them.

Madeline turned on the TV as she poured cereal into a bowl. A panel of correspondents seemed to be arguing on the news.

She flipped through to her favorite channel, trying to find her one guilty pleasure, a cartoon that would come on this time in the morning before school. It was one morning routine that she wouldn’t get to do for a long time. Different coverage of the same news seemed to be on every channel.

“-such as volcanic activity and earthquakes. Experts also say that high tides will likely shift to noon over the next couple of days. ”

The news ticker read MOON MISSING? in bold, capital letters. Madeline’s heart sank and a knot welled up in her gut. She couldn't think of anything but her moms, they were up there! Before she had any time to process what she had seen on TV, the doorbell rang.

She walked across the living room and opened the door.

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Who's there?

A grieving friend of your mothers.

a space alien with an obnoxious scottish accent.

the titular character, a struggling door-to-door moon salesman

your third mom

a clown with a gun. he's freshly escaped from the circus (aka the big house, or the big tent) and needs a place to hide from the circus authorities for a few days while this whole thing blows over. and hey, a hostage wouldn't be bad either...

orange you glad i didn't say banana

it's your favorite character from that cartoon you wanted to watch, only real (but just as 2-dimensional)

an angler. with the adjusting of the tides they want to see if they can try fishing in your basement

a rogue astronaut. "come with me if you want to save your moms," they say. "i've built a secret spaceship of my own out in a barn in the valley. i've never tested it but there's no time now"

two new-agey hippy types disillusioned with the whole of western civilization, playing on their bongos, picking flowers, and trying to recruit you to their free-love-and-plenty-hugs point-of-view with gifts of beads and a poorly-xeroxed pamphlet

a feral child, no older than yourself, who's hard at work frantically chewing the anglets off of some shoelaces

a soldier-lady of some rank you don't know, here to break the quite solemn news that your much-older brother, a fighter pilot, was shot down into enemy territory and is presumed dead

the people from the adoption agency found out what happened to your moms before you did and they're here to take you back now

it's a lawyer. they hand you a court date and tell you that you've been served

nobody's there. it's a game of ding-dong-ditch.

two words: singing telegram

Get the door, it's religion

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Author note: I don't know how you are supposed to format dialogue. I hope this is readable/understandable!

There were a number of men in black suits, and a convoy of suburbans. They looked like the secret service, all standing at attention, but somehow they were less distinguishable than that. The one agent who looked any different was female, standing at the door to receive Madeline. She was dressed in formal army attire, though what rank or division was beyond Madeline.

The soldier-woman addressed Madeline “One moment, Miss Beaufort.”

A door opened from the center-most suburban of the convoy, directly in front of madeline’s humble condominium. A giant, broad shouldered man stepped out, and the SUV bounced up, as if considerable weight had been removed from the vehicle. Madeline felt she recognized the man but couldn’t quite place from where.

“I assume you've heard the news Maddie, oh, I’m so sorry.” The giant boomed in a scottish accent.

He shambled up the walkway to the door, his body swaying back and forth as he walked. The speed in which he moved up the path displayed a distinct power and grace unusual for a man of his size. He reached the precipice of the doorway.

“Well girl, Can I come in?”

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>_ Do you let the strange man in?

no, where's my mommies

no, where's my mommies

all 17 of them, what did you do

No, but you'll be outside in a minute

“Is this about the moon?” Madeline asked, hoping for some answers, “What happened to my moms?”

She had assumed this man who obviously carried some authority might know. The realization slowly dawning on her that she had no idea if he even knew anything about her parent’s predicament.

“Yes, this is about your mothers.” A brief moment of calm washed over Madeline as she realized she might get some answers.

”And more.” He added, shifting from flippant to a more serious tone. Whatever momentary calm Madeline might have had, was taken away just as quick. What did he want from her, other than to deliver the bad news? The prospect worried Madeline somewhat. Who was this man and what organization was his supposed authority even derived from?

“I'm sorry, but who are you exactly?” Madeline asked incredulously, crossing her arms.

“You don’t recognize me?” The giant looked upset, then a brief flash of understanding washed over his face “It must be the voice settings again”

The man turned to the soldier lady, who had stepped off the walkway to accommodate for his large stature. “Ha! I swear if this damn translator, goes on the fritz one more time, I'm going to eat the techs.”

He pounded his fist against his throat. For a brief moment, a distortion appeared to wash over the lower portion of the man's face, revealing something else, thought she couldn't quite make out what. Madeline blinked, What was that? She wondered if the stress of the whole situation was causing her to have visions.

“Is that better?” His dialect suddenly changing to an american one, as clear as day. Madeline resolved to confront the absurdity of what she seen with the man’s face and what had transpired with his speech later.

What was important to her in that moment was that she recognized that voice from years prior, and it suddenly unlocked the memory of where she’d seen this giant man before. He was in a photograph sitting on the fireplace mantle, posing with Madeline’s parents and various other colleagues of theirs. Madeline vaguely remembered the man, from a few occasions years prior when her family would have work friends over. Mostly she remembered playing with his daughter, a cool punk girl more than twice her age who kept Madeline at ease even with her somewhat scary appearance.

“I remember you! You worked with my parents, I played with your daughter at the barbecue a few years back. The one with the mohawk?”

The man nodded, “That’s my Liberty, she’s out traveling on her honeymoon right now actually.”

The man’s name began to come back to Madeline “And you’re ‘Uncle’ Rex?”

Obviously Rex wasn't actually her uncle, but it was what her parents told Madeline to call him, and that much she remembered clearly. He nodded and smiled. His arms opened wide and he crouched down to her level. Somehow, Rex made her feel at ease, and Madeline could almost forget about all the agents were positioned across her front lawn. Madeline flew into his arms, she needed some comfort, and a strange man from her past would have to do.

“It will be alright girl, now what do you say we go inside? I have something important to show you.”

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>_ Well?

YEAH OK I GUESS. GET INSIDE

be a good, no, great host. plaster on a smile, tell him to take a load off in the living room, then quickly make him a pot of coffee and a pot of tea and get out mommy's good wine and bring it all out on a silver tray with sugar cubes and milk and crackers and cheese to place on the coffee table. then immediately break down into inconsolable tears and collapse onto the floor as a sobbing mass