mewtwowarrior (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mewtwowarrior) wrote2010-11-09 07:38 pm
mewtwowarrior) wrote2010-11-09 07:38 pm
Entry tags:
NaNoWriMo: Chapter 11
Just finished level 10/Chapter 11 for my Portal novelization! :D I started it last night, but I only wrote enough to get where I needed for word count yesterday and stopped when I got too tired. XD
This chapter has a lot of blahblahblah, I fear, but it was one of my trump cards to get more words, I planned the general gist of it from the beginning.
:D I almost hit my entire word count for today with this single chapter. I am only lacking 49 words. XD I'm going to try to get as much done as I can on the next chapter to build up for Thursday and the weekend. I'm kinda tired, but I've got pleeennntttyyy of time, so instead of being bored, I'm gonna be productive. :D These chapters go quicker when I'm working on one chapter, instead of 2 or 3. Even though it was loads more words, I'm still waaay done before I normally am with a lesser amount. Whoo! Things are looking up for word count, I hope. The next level is kind of tricky and has some strange steps, so it's gonna take a while to get down right and describe in any kind of sane manner. XD Get the full portal gun next level too, and I still haven't decided how it's gonna upgrade itself. XD
Anyways, any crit/advice/comments for this chapter are appreciated! :D
Chapter notes:
10
-This one was difficult to screenshot because there's weird steps. It's not hard to do, just weird to snapshot. XD
-The beginning subtitles don't quite match what GLaDOS says. :|
-Some awkward phrasing, need to fix that later. :|
-The first chapter I've done that was worked on on two different days.
-Ahhh, thinking back on it, I fear I may have written too much for this chapter, I hope it's interesting and not boring. D:
-The first ledge is jaggedy and not straight, I wasn't sure how to describe it without it being too terribly weird.
-I was tempted to have Chell do fancy acrobatics and use a cartwheel or something, but decided that didn't really make sense or add anything. Let me know if you think otherwise! :D
-Outside Resources:
I used the Portal sound effects pack I had downloaded to listen again to the entry speech.
The elevator doors closed and it started its journey to the next test chamber. The doors opened after several moments, and Chell looked out into the area.
There was a medium-length hallway in front of her that ended with an area that looked rather strange. Chell walked down the hallway, curious to see what it lead to.
When she reached the exit of the hallway, the voice spoke to her, "Hello again. To reiterate..." The voice suddenly sounded staticy for a moment, then went back to understandable, "previous warning..." The voice glitched again, this time for longer. It was impossible to understand the words that were being said, there was no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes the words were slowed down and sometimes they were sped up and there was some static. Suddenly, the voice went back to normal for one final word, "momentum."
Chell frowned slightly. Another glitch that prevented her from understanding the voice's instructions. She hoped this wouldn't cause a problem if there was a difficult test that she had to do. She waited a moment to see if the voice would return, but it did not. Chell shrugged, then moved to the main room.
The odd thing she had seen from the elevator was a raised section of floor that made stairs. They were up on the silver pillars, which were resting on the grid with the orange glow below. The entire area under the stairs was bathed in red-orange light.
The stairs led up to an open exit door situated in a metal wall. She could see part of the room through the door; it also consisted of walls made of metal.
The information board was on the wall next to the first stair. Chell couldn't see details from where she was, but she could tell that the first two squares on the bottom row were highlighted.
The stairs were too high up to jump or climb up on, and she didn't know where the orange portal was. Was it in the room beyond or somewhere else?
Both the walls next to her were empty, Chell turned around, looking all about her.
Directly above the door and where she was standing was a metal pillar sticking out of a metal grill with orange lights that was in the wall. Attached to the pillar was a vertical section of wall.
Chell backed up towards the stairs, looking up at this, trying to see what the sticking out wall piece looked like.
The front of the wall came into view, and Chell could see that the orange portal was resting on it.
This was a bit unusual, if she walked through a portal down where she was standing; would the one that was up higher push her out onto the stairs?
Well, the only thing to do was try it. Chell turned to her right and placed a blue portal on the wall, then walked through it.
It was quite disorientating when she came out of the orange portal in midair and fell to the ground.
The fall wasn't long, however, and she landed safely on the first stair. Chell shook her head slightly, then walked over to the information board to get a better look at what was in store for her.
The two highlighted squares on the board showed similar pictures. The first one had a stick figure jumping off of a ledge into a portal. The second one showed the stick figure flying out of a portal above the ledge.
So, it looked like this test was about reaching further distances by launching oneself into one portal that was at a lower position than the other.
Apparently, getting onto the stairs was the first part, as she had been on level ground when entering the first portal. Likely, the next room would have a scenario similar to the one shown on the board.
Chell continued walking up the steps and into the second room.
As soon as she entered, the door closed behind her and she heard a soft, swirling thunk. There was a portal somewhere in the room, but at first glance, the entire place was made nearly entirely of the odd metal.
On the right wall was a long observation window. Several feet in front of Chell was a gap in the floor. On the other side of the gap was an exit door that lead into another metal room.
As Chell walked closer to the gap, she saw on the ground two lighted squares that showed the same images from the information board. Standing close to the edge, she looked down below.
The floor in the gap was quite a ways down. The middle part was the standard concrete she was used to, and surrounding it was a thin line of metal grillwork.
There wasn't a portal down there, but if she followed the pictures, it should be somewhere behind her.
Chell turned around and saw a section of concrete wall a ways above the door she had come through.
Part of this concrete wall, however, was pushed out from the rest of it by a metal pillar. On the front of this section was an orange portal.
Copying the picture, Chell walked back to the gap and fired a blue portal down into the pit. She took a deep breath and jumped off feet first.
She sailed through the blue portal easily and came out of the orange one. However, she came out feet-first and found herself flying on her back, looking up at the ceiling.
Unable to see her destination, she landed with a crash on the other side of the gap.
The voice congratulated her, "Spectacular. You appear to understand how a portal affects forward momentum, or to be more precise, how it does not."
Chell lied on her back for a moment, trying to regain her bearings. The pain from her awkward impact subsided quickly, so she sat up and shook her head. That hadn't gone exactly well. She had crossed the gap, but she had forgotten to take into consideration that whatever went in the portal first would come out first.
The pictures were incorrect, in order to fly out of the portal like the second one showed, she'd have to dive in face-first. Chell wasn't thrilled about that, if she made a mistake or something went wrong, she'd smash her face in on the cold concrete floor. The knee springs couldn't save her from that.
Chell ran a hand through her messy hair; she'd have to be more careful about taking these jumps. There had to be a way to make it across safely. Jumping off like she normally did was going to end her up like she was now. If she dove off, using it like a diving board, she could see where she was heading towards, but it was likely she'd just smack into the ground again.
What if she jumped in with her body parallel to the portal? She'd come out with everything facing the right way and her feet would be pointing to the ground. It'd be hard to jump off that way, but it was the best chance she had at not falling into a heap on the ground.
Chell got to her feet and made her way through the nearby dark hallway and the door at the end.
As soon as she passed through and entered the next room, the door shut behind her. Like the previous room, this one appeared to be made entirely of metal. There was also a gap in this room, but it seemed to have two ledges higher than it across the way. On top of the higher ledge was another exit door. There were two observation windows in this room, one on each side. The one on the right wall overlooked the gap, while the one on the left oversaw the ledges.
Chell walked to this gap, right in front of it was a lighted square on the ground. However, instead of showing a picture, it showed a single dot.
Stepping forward to look into the gap, Chell saw several different things. This gap had a small concrete space in the middle that was almost entirely taken up by the orange portal. Next to, and around, this space was a winding series of concrete stairs held up by silver pillars. Everything was resting on a metal grid that had an orange light glowing from within. This time, she could see more of the pipe holding things up.
She turned around to see if there was another vertical platform she could launch herself from. There was a concrete section of wall above the door, and as she looked at it, a section of it extended out from the wall with a mechanical whir.
This room was opposite of the other. This time, she had to place a portal above and leap into one below. If there was a problem, all she had to do was walk up the stairs to reach where she had entered and try again. That must be why the ledges were taller, so that you couldn't just walk out from the stairs and skip the puzzle entirely.
Well, time to get to work. Chell aimed the portal gun at one of the upper parts of the extended section of concrete and fired. A blue portal appeared exactly where she wanted it to.
She turned back around to the gap below. Chell wanted to make sure she did this right and wasn't stuck climbing up the stairs or flying out of the portal at odd angles again. She'd have to jump off in a sort of skydiving position, except if she spread her arms out, she wouldn't make it through the portal. She'd have to keep compact in order to get through.
Chell took a deep breath and jumped upwards and off of the platform. As she fell, she rotated her body until she was flying front-first at the portal. She passed through the orange portal and came flying out of the blue one she had positioned. It felt like she was falling, but her orientation had changed, so in reality, she was going sideways instead of down.
She landed on the lower ledge, the springs bending quite a bit under her impact. She stumbled slightly, using the wall in front of her to brace herself, then regained her balance. That went a lot smoother than last time.
Chell gave a sigh of relief, and the voice informed her that "Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
She turned around, as there was nowhere else to go. As she did so, Chell saw the top row of the extended concrete go out further until it was almost directly above her.
When the wall section started moving, the blue portal on it disappeared. So, portals couldn't be on moving surfaces. That'd be useful to remember. Portals didn't seem to be entirely stable; they had to be on motionless, flat surfaces. What would happen if you were partially through when it started moving and the portal closed? You'd be chopped in half, or worse. She didn't really want to think about that and hoped that it wouldn't come to something like that.
Chell put a new blue portal on the concrete wall that was above her, then walked to the edge. Before the ground gave way to gap, Chell saw another lighted square, this time with two dots. Then, she looked through the orange portal below.
She could see the exit door, but the sign was upside down. She gave a weary sigh. This wasn't going to be easy. No matter how she jumped out, she was going to end up smacking into the ground. The only way to not was to back flip through the portal, and she didn't really want to try that.
If she did the skydive jump again, she'd come up with her head towards the ground and land on it. That would be painful, fatal, or both. So she was either going to fly through facing the door and land on her back or jump through feet-first and land on her stomach.
Landing on her back seemed the less dangerous of the two options, so Chell gritted her teeth and dove off face-first towards the portal below.
It was disorientating traveling through the portal with her entire perspective flipped upside down.
She hit the ground on her back and her momentum caused her to slide until she was right in front of the Grid. Chell looked up, watching the blue lines travel back and forth as she regained her sense of direction. The pain went away rapidly, and she made her way to her feet and passed through the Grid, heading straight for the elevator.
The doors closed behind her and it traveled to the next chamber.
Chapter Word Count: 2,165 :D :D :D
Total Word Count: 15,040
This chapter has a lot of blahblahblah, I fear, but it was one of my trump cards to get more words, I planned the general gist of it from the beginning.
:D I almost hit my entire word count for today with this single chapter. I am only lacking 49 words. XD I'm going to try to get as much done as I can on the next chapter to build up for Thursday and the weekend. I'm kinda tired, but I've got pleeennntttyyy of time, so instead of being bored, I'm gonna be productive. :D These chapters go quicker when I'm working on one chapter, instead of 2 or 3. Even though it was loads more words, I'm still waaay done before I normally am with a lesser amount. Whoo! Things are looking up for word count, I hope. The next level is kind of tricky and has some strange steps, so it's gonna take a while to get down right and describe in any kind of sane manner. XD Get the full portal gun next level too, and I still haven't decided how it's gonna upgrade itself. XD
Anyways, any crit/advice/comments for this chapter are appreciated! :D
Chapter notes:
10
-This one was difficult to screenshot because there's weird steps. It's not hard to do, just weird to snapshot. XD
-The beginning subtitles don't quite match what GLaDOS says. :|
-Some awkward phrasing, need to fix that later. :|
-The first chapter I've done that was worked on on two different days.
-Ahhh, thinking back on it, I fear I may have written too much for this chapter, I hope it's interesting and not boring. D:
-The first ledge is jaggedy and not straight, I wasn't sure how to describe it without it being too terribly weird.
-I was tempted to have Chell do fancy acrobatics and use a cartwheel or something, but decided that didn't really make sense or add anything. Let me know if you think otherwise! :D
-Outside Resources:
I used the Portal sound effects pack I had downloaded to listen again to the entry speech.
The elevator doors closed and it started its journey to the next test chamber. The doors opened after several moments, and Chell looked out into the area.
There was a medium-length hallway in front of her that ended with an area that looked rather strange. Chell walked down the hallway, curious to see what it lead to.
When she reached the exit of the hallway, the voice spoke to her, "Hello again. To reiterate..." The voice suddenly sounded staticy for a moment, then went back to understandable, "previous warning..." The voice glitched again, this time for longer. It was impossible to understand the words that were being said, there was no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes the words were slowed down and sometimes they were sped up and there was some static. Suddenly, the voice went back to normal for one final word, "momentum."
Chell frowned slightly. Another glitch that prevented her from understanding the voice's instructions. She hoped this wouldn't cause a problem if there was a difficult test that she had to do. She waited a moment to see if the voice would return, but it did not. Chell shrugged, then moved to the main room.
The odd thing she had seen from the elevator was a raised section of floor that made stairs. They were up on the silver pillars, which were resting on the grid with the orange glow below. The entire area under the stairs was bathed in red-orange light.
The stairs led up to an open exit door situated in a metal wall. She could see part of the room through the door; it also consisted of walls made of metal.
The information board was on the wall next to the first stair. Chell couldn't see details from where she was, but she could tell that the first two squares on the bottom row were highlighted.
The stairs were too high up to jump or climb up on, and she didn't know where the orange portal was. Was it in the room beyond or somewhere else?
Both the walls next to her were empty, Chell turned around, looking all about her.
Directly above the door and where she was standing was a metal pillar sticking out of a metal grill with orange lights that was in the wall. Attached to the pillar was a vertical section of wall.
Chell backed up towards the stairs, looking up at this, trying to see what the sticking out wall piece looked like.
The front of the wall came into view, and Chell could see that the orange portal was resting on it.
This was a bit unusual, if she walked through a portal down where she was standing; would the one that was up higher push her out onto the stairs?
Well, the only thing to do was try it. Chell turned to her right and placed a blue portal on the wall, then walked through it.
It was quite disorientating when she came out of the orange portal in midair and fell to the ground.
The fall wasn't long, however, and she landed safely on the first stair. Chell shook her head slightly, then walked over to the information board to get a better look at what was in store for her.
The two highlighted squares on the board showed similar pictures. The first one had a stick figure jumping off of a ledge into a portal. The second one showed the stick figure flying out of a portal above the ledge.
So, it looked like this test was about reaching further distances by launching oneself into one portal that was at a lower position than the other.
Apparently, getting onto the stairs was the first part, as she had been on level ground when entering the first portal. Likely, the next room would have a scenario similar to the one shown on the board.
Chell continued walking up the steps and into the second room.
As soon as she entered, the door closed behind her and she heard a soft, swirling thunk. There was a portal somewhere in the room, but at first glance, the entire place was made nearly entirely of the odd metal.
On the right wall was a long observation window. Several feet in front of Chell was a gap in the floor. On the other side of the gap was an exit door that lead into another metal room.
As Chell walked closer to the gap, she saw on the ground two lighted squares that showed the same images from the information board. Standing close to the edge, she looked down below.
The floor in the gap was quite a ways down. The middle part was the standard concrete she was used to, and surrounding it was a thin line of metal grillwork.
There wasn't a portal down there, but if she followed the pictures, it should be somewhere behind her.
Chell turned around and saw a section of concrete wall a ways above the door she had come through.
Part of this concrete wall, however, was pushed out from the rest of it by a metal pillar. On the front of this section was an orange portal.
Copying the picture, Chell walked back to the gap and fired a blue portal down into the pit. She took a deep breath and jumped off feet first.
She sailed through the blue portal easily and came out of the orange one. However, she came out feet-first and found herself flying on her back, looking up at the ceiling.
Unable to see her destination, she landed with a crash on the other side of the gap.
The voice congratulated her, "Spectacular. You appear to understand how a portal affects forward momentum, or to be more precise, how it does not."
Chell lied on her back for a moment, trying to regain her bearings. The pain from her awkward impact subsided quickly, so she sat up and shook her head. That hadn't gone exactly well. She had crossed the gap, but she had forgotten to take into consideration that whatever went in the portal first would come out first.
The pictures were incorrect, in order to fly out of the portal like the second one showed, she'd have to dive in face-first. Chell wasn't thrilled about that, if she made a mistake or something went wrong, she'd smash her face in on the cold concrete floor. The knee springs couldn't save her from that.
Chell ran a hand through her messy hair; she'd have to be more careful about taking these jumps. There had to be a way to make it across safely. Jumping off like she normally did was going to end her up like she was now. If she dove off, using it like a diving board, she could see where she was heading towards, but it was likely she'd just smack into the ground again.
What if she jumped in with her body parallel to the portal? She'd come out with everything facing the right way and her feet would be pointing to the ground. It'd be hard to jump off that way, but it was the best chance she had at not falling into a heap on the ground.
Chell got to her feet and made her way through the nearby dark hallway and the door at the end.
As soon as she passed through and entered the next room, the door shut behind her. Like the previous room, this one appeared to be made entirely of metal. There was also a gap in this room, but it seemed to have two ledges higher than it across the way. On top of the higher ledge was another exit door. There were two observation windows in this room, one on each side. The one on the right wall overlooked the gap, while the one on the left oversaw the ledges.
Chell walked to this gap, right in front of it was a lighted square on the ground. However, instead of showing a picture, it showed a single dot.
Stepping forward to look into the gap, Chell saw several different things. This gap had a small concrete space in the middle that was almost entirely taken up by the orange portal. Next to, and around, this space was a winding series of concrete stairs held up by silver pillars. Everything was resting on a metal grid that had an orange light glowing from within. This time, she could see more of the pipe holding things up.
She turned around to see if there was another vertical platform she could launch herself from. There was a concrete section of wall above the door, and as she looked at it, a section of it extended out from the wall with a mechanical whir.
This room was opposite of the other. This time, she had to place a portal above and leap into one below. If there was a problem, all she had to do was walk up the stairs to reach where she had entered and try again. That must be why the ledges were taller, so that you couldn't just walk out from the stairs and skip the puzzle entirely.
Well, time to get to work. Chell aimed the portal gun at one of the upper parts of the extended section of concrete and fired. A blue portal appeared exactly where she wanted it to.
She turned back around to the gap below. Chell wanted to make sure she did this right and wasn't stuck climbing up the stairs or flying out of the portal at odd angles again. She'd have to jump off in a sort of skydiving position, except if she spread her arms out, she wouldn't make it through the portal. She'd have to keep compact in order to get through.
Chell took a deep breath and jumped upwards and off of the platform. As she fell, she rotated her body until she was flying front-first at the portal. She passed through the orange portal and came flying out of the blue one she had positioned. It felt like she was falling, but her orientation had changed, so in reality, she was going sideways instead of down.
She landed on the lower ledge, the springs bending quite a bit under her impact. She stumbled slightly, using the wall in front of her to brace herself, then regained her balance. That went a lot smoother than last time.
Chell gave a sigh of relief, and the voice informed her that "Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
She turned around, as there was nowhere else to go. As she did so, Chell saw the top row of the extended concrete go out further until it was almost directly above her.
When the wall section started moving, the blue portal on it disappeared. So, portals couldn't be on moving surfaces. That'd be useful to remember. Portals didn't seem to be entirely stable; they had to be on motionless, flat surfaces. What would happen if you were partially through when it started moving and the portal closed? You'd be chopped in half, or worse. She didn't really want to think about that and hoped that it wouldn't come to something like that.
Chell put a new blue portal on the concrete wall that was above her, then walked to the edge. Before the ground gave way to gap, Chell saw another lighted square, this time with two dots. Then, she looked through the orange portal below.
She could see the exit door, but the sign was upside down. She gave a weary sigh. This wasn't going to be easy. No matter how she jumped out, she was going to end up smacking into the ground. The only way to not was to back flip through the portal, and she didn't really want to try that.
If she did the skydive jump again, she'd come up with her head towards the ground and land on it. That would be painful, fatal, or both. So she was either going to fly through facing the door and land on her back or jump through feet-first and land on her stomach.
Landing on her back seemed the less dangerous of the two options, so Chell gritted her teeth and dove off face-first towards the portal below.
It was disorientating traveling through the portal with her entire perspective flipped upside down.
She hit the ground on her back and her momentum caused her to slide until she was right in front of the Grid. Chell looked up, watching the blue lines travel back and forth as she regained her sense of direction. The pain went away rapidly, and she made her way to her feet and passed through the Grid, heading straight for the elevator.
The doors closed behind her and it traveled to the next chamber.
Chapter Word Count: 2,165 :D :D :D
Total Word Count: 15,040