One Month, Thirty Stories. What Do the Results Look Like? Part 2/2.

This is the second part of the first 30 stories I wrote to complete the Thirty Stories a Month Challenge. Hopefully by reading these you'll realize how low the bar is, and that you can probably do it too :) The main idea is to get your creative juices flowing and get a pile of stories that you can cherry pick the best from.

Day 16 - Thief

1. There's a thief stealing cats.
2. You track him down intending to stop him but somehow you end up helping him steal cats.
3. You convince him it's time to give the cats back. One by one you return the cats to their families.

Day 17 - Inside Job

1. You're a special operative for the NSA hired to track down a genius criminal; stock manipulation, thefts, murders, propaganda etc etc. You have special expertise.
2. You discover the criminal is ex or current NSA (and they knew). But as you're about to confront them, they're killed as you're taking the elevator. As well several heads of the department.
3. A special white house task force reassigns you. Using your wits you track the guy down and take him out. But he's happy to go, his mission's complete. The death is a little ambiguous, did you really kill him?

Day 18 - Behind the Mask

1. For the last two months you've been hired by xXxRaz0rxXx for 10 times your usual rate to do body work missions. Surveillance, planting bugs, setting up drones, drop-offs, pick-ups simple mildly illegal stuff. Two years of this and you'll be able to emigrate to the free territories in Mongolia.
2. Your recruiter requests you kill someone and gives proof of heinous crimes. The crimes seem too awful (the exact nature is never specified you're left to guess). A little digging shows it's a frame up. This guy is an AI researcher. Pull a few more threads and it seems xXxRazorxXx is an artificial intelligence and you've been helping it.
3. Your government and two large megacorps discover what you've been doing. Assume it's your idea and you're most wanted. The last mission you end up with has a choice; collar the AI and let it go free, sand box it, destroy it, sell it to the corps or free it entirely.

Day 19 - Arthur

1. A sword wrapped in 15 meters of knotted cord is found in an ancient church. Clues lead to a mound a few miles away. The sword alloy is totally new, unheard of.
2. The mound has eggs, that through mishaps hatch into dragon creatures. They're free in the lab at night. In an Alien type of situation.
3. Only the sword and someone brave enough to wield it can defeat them.

Day 20 - Pensioner Hogwarts

1. A lonely old man, 60, harassed by youths, little to do apart from subsist.
2. He's noticed by a young women who invites him into a coven. There he works to attain a cypher, similar to a familiar. They require a pact to work with you, it's secret so no one knows if all pacts are the same.
3. The coven is attacked, people scattered, you're all told to lay low. Thrust back in to normal life but it's more enjoyable with access to hermetic powers. News comes later that a cypher, a free cypher attacked the coven and it's hunting down all the coven members.

Day 21 - Stolen Secrets

1. You climb out of the vatican under-basements a talisman clutched close and dart down the dark streets to meet with your client.
2. The client takes it, hands over your money and then ... tries to kill you. You see it coming and only take a shot to the shoulder. You have to run, pursued by some lackeys. But you know the city better and loop back to follow the client from a distance so you can get your money back.
3. He enters a crypt, lower, lower, this doesn't feel good. It's a vampiric cult and your client is using the stolen artifact to try and get access. Steal it back and get out with your life.

Day 22 - Space Pilot School

1. You're in an elite pilot school. Your rival is killed and you're blamed, hounded out of the school and banned.
2. The school is destroyed and you're the only one left to turn to.
3. Hunt down the space pirates in a prototype fighter jet and redeem your image.

Day 23 - Basically the Goonies

1. Group of boys, messing around in the library, find a walled alcove containing a skeleton and a map.
2. They concoct a story to tell their parents and head off after the treasure.
3. One accidentally spills the beans and everyone bears down on the treasure's purported location.

Day 24 - Necromancer

1. An oldman, long suspected to be a necromancer, dies. Through a series of hilarious events you steal his decaying hand.
2. A few nights later, after several failed experiments, your door begins to bang and a cracked voice shouts "Return my hand to the grave". Then clammy hand moves in your grasp.
3. The following morning, you go to the grave; it's empty. As you look in it a hand clasps you on the shoulder. "I think you will be my apprentice". He teaches you and then together you must escape a hunter.

Day 25 - Neomanchester

1. Hired to hack into the Echelon program and remove a bit of data.
2. You do the hand-off. You're betrayed. Most of the team are killed or captured. But you have a copy of the data.
3. You dig in, call in favors, and work up to a revenge attack. You destroy the enemies plan, expose his secret. The corp he works for denies involvement leaving him out to dry. The kind of murky half victory you can hope for in cyberpunk setting.

Day 26 - The Inspector

1. A robot that can see the dead, leads a team of adventurers to a deep dense growth in the Earth's crust.
2. The rock wasn't never meant to be uncovered. It drenches that part of the world in consciousness and the dead come back to life.
3. The robot has to save the only human friends it's ever had.

Day 27 - Seaworld

1. Libertian billionaire has purchased an oil rig in a disputed area in the South China Sea. They're a transhumanist movement. They're planning to take over an island but it's a British Overseas Territory. Therefore you've got to stop them and gather intel on what they're planning.
2. Break into the leader's hotel room in Hong Kong while he's there for a meeting and discover the base security details.
3. Infiltrate the base and blow it up. Secrets revealed, twists and double crossings.

Day 28 - Familiars

1. Certain children can pull creatures out of the weak places. Around puberty they're compelled to go certain locations. You're one of these children, it's your 13th birthday and you're wandering alone in the woods.
2. A gang of children notices you and chasing you pelting you with rocks and hooting. You run, deep, deep into the woods and there's something here. Something cold. A monster. You pull a familiar out to protect you.
3. At that time helicopters throw high beams onto the ground. You see the serpentine monster slither away felling trees as it foes. You're pulled into the helicopter, it's time to begin your training.

Day 29 - Familiar Shadow War

1. You're a child with familiar powers. Born in Taiwan, you're tasked with assassinating the current Chinese leader while on a trip in Moscow. (Taiwan has a deal with the next in line, where they'll receive independence.)
2. A brother sister pair attempt to stop you but you're successful. You kill a man you don't even know, for reasons you don't understand. Then the world goes to hell. You can't be extracted.
3. You've got to escape into Europe and fight your way back to your homeland.

Day 30 - Ur Manchester

1. There's an ancient grand underground city beneath northern England. A city of wizards.
2. You (a poor punk kid) find your way into the city by accident (or is it?). You decide to try and sell tours. But you only ever sell one tour and it goes horribly, horribly wrong.
3. One of your tour group is killed. Another one is changed and runs away to Nottingham. You assist a group to try and capture him. Ending up with the entire city destroyed. Above ground this is blamed on a terrorist bomb. You're banned from the under city for life.

Final Words

That was fun. I have a nice collection of interesting stories. Including a few I didn't post here. You're welcome to use any of the summaries I've posted to expand on or use in any way you like.

From reading the stories it seems I'm quite into vampires, AI, secret societies and cyberpunk. Infact, my ideal game would include all those elements, even better with an old haunted house too.

I encourage you to give the 30SAM challenge a try yourself!