PZ

Project ZEAL - Prologue

Project ZEAL was an interesting project of the Compendium chiefly held in 2004. Several members came together to write fan fiction in a common world as members of a new party of heroes. The threat to the world this time was Zeal, albeit from another dimension. Named ZEAL for ease of reference, this advanced civilization had the power to haphazardly cross dimensions, at which point they would gather data, then stimulate destruction and Lavoid activity to investigate the species. ZEAL has come to the Keystone Dimension, but Gaspar has detected their presence. This begins the call for several new heroes to amass at the End of Time in preparation of the coming fight against the unethical whims of ZEAL.

The journey of the new heroes, all from different time periods, to the End of Time would mark the prologue. Unfortunately, a co-creator of Project ZEAL resigned, and the other creator (ZeaLitY) had the pressing matter of building the rest of the Compendium to attend to. Though the world lay created and the heroes gathered in Gaspar's company, the story was abandoned at this point. Some old forumers can probably remember seeing the mysterious Project ZEAL forum at the end of the board list, which denied access to all but the affiliated readers. For the first time, the fruits of ZEAL are being presented on the Compendium in celebration of the power and intelligence of its community. Featured authors include ZeaLitY, Compendium creator and Director; Symmetry, ZEAL co-creator; Leebot, Guru of Time; Aitrus, Compendium founding father; 1stofthelast, old forumer; Claado Shou, Chrono Symphonic creator; V_Translanka, forum staple; Radical_Dreamer, Compendium founding Entity; and chronotriggerfreak, OCR Chrono fan. Below you'll find the beginning of the journey; it's a short piece of a guy from Zeal dreaming this entire thing up. My prose is naturally on steroids with imagery; please excuse!

Scene 1 - A Dream Of Itself (ZeaLitY)

The infinite, white clouds stretched in a far-spanning sea of crested puffs, sailing in an azure sky -- the most majestic of days, arriving once a year in grand, sunlit entrance. The gold and white edifices shone brightly in the luminary's reflection, casting a reflective shimmer that illuminated the verdant, vibrant grass beyond, stirred by a summer breeze loosed from its place in the east to caress and enwrap the shining sights and the hearts of the enlightened peoples within. Truly, the beauty of nature was of such an overwhelming degree that those invigorated by the essence of summer now only sought to lie in repose beneath arboreal shades, and ponder the rare blessing poured from above. Every inhabitant had been permeated and uplifted by the brilliant light, which left no eye without sparkle and recognition of the beauty of the world; and too, beneath the airy reaches, the sea was bathed in luminosity unparalleled, yielding white crests as it stretched to unify with a lighter hue on the far horizon.

With refreshed, groggy eyes, a dreamer adorned with fine purple and blue robes wandered out from an entryway whose inscription read 'ENHASA,' and walked to a bench overlooking a grassy cliff; he too had recognized the special qualities of this day, and removed a notepad from within his regal dress. At once, he began composing a poem to venerate the scene of luster; "For I was free to gaze upon and sight / Endless waves below -- ripples and creases / Which caressed as dreams the world to blue rest -- / For all passions and colors, brighter seem / From vantage of majestic isle in sky." And upon this note, the few leaves drifting in the wind, and the light breeze itself struck him in the heart of his intellect. His sublime surroundings set forward thinking; he began to wonder if other realms, specifically those of the Earthbound, experienced such fine days -- even by their relatively low standard of living -- and dreamt of unceasing splendor. Ascending higher in thought, he considered if other, gloried civilizations such as Zeal on faraway celestial bodies were experiencing beauty too; whether they also delighted in the visitations of the sun, relaxed in the sonata of the rain, and quietly dreamt in the cradling rays of starlight. At this length, he stretched, and left his poem unfinished -- for its subject matter had at last transcended his skill.

He was correct, but this lay beyond his knowledge, for he could not fathom the unlimited gatherings of peoples across the universe, or the joys they had -- and even yet, he could not know of the other shades of Zeal that danced in the universal spectrum; the parallel worlds that ran above and beneath him, never touching, both equal and varied in their qualities and beauty. Some stemmed from a common root occurrence found in some, and absent in others -- the finding of a magic gem to prolong life -- a civil war to end all strife -- the deaths of kings, and other royal things, events ranged across the worlds, each deciding their history and divergence. The poet's king, and probably himself, had impact in these other dimensions of Zeal; the rise of a mad queen, and the fall of the civilization might have all been avoided if that man had lived -- and in regions beyond one's senses and wildest fathoms, the royalty of Zeal did survive a tumultuous time, and the king of the land, twelve-thousand years before the next great reign of lords over humanity, lived -- ensuring the sustenance of his own realm, and its journey through time -- its subjugation of the crimson beast of the asthenosphere -- its developments in the power of magic -- and its survival into the modern age, yielding a kingdom which, in the dreamer's world, had existed in ever-expanding enlightenment thirteen thousand years beyond his own epoch. He caught a glimpse of this everlasting Zeal, and passed to a shallow sleep.

Use the sidebar to navigate to other scenes and access the "writers' bible" for the project. Discuss Project ZEAL and this feature here.

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