[Grimjust Bearegular]

Nearly 2000 Whites screamed and shrank back in fear as the furthermost cavern wall began to shimmer and hum. The air wobbled and bulged outwards until it tore and emitted an intense red light. The rent widened and stretched, the light grew brighter and brighter until all the Whites had to shield their eyes to avoid going blind. Two shapes fell through the rent with a high-pitched keening sound and then it immediately closed.

Squick got gingerly to her feet and warily approached the huddled figures that had fallen out of the hole in the wall. They lay in a puddle of vomit and blood. Turning her head a fraction she shouted,

“Move, Grizzle, get over here!”

Squatting near one of the huddles, examining it closely she noticed the feathers. White feathers connected to bones. Wings.

“Ah, so these are our saviours then. I must say, these bird-men don’t look like much,” Squick mumbled to no one in particular.

Behind her two figures moved out from the shadow and through the crowd. One was blade thin and sinewy. Balding and scarred he moved with a cat-like grace. The other was heavy-set and bulky, heavy browed and with a stout jaw. His nose was crooked after being broken one too many times. He thudded towards Squick, his head slowly swinging from side to side as he walked.

“Move, take that one, Grizzle and I will take this one,” Squick said as she grabbed the arms of the figure closest to her and Grizzle grabbed the legs.

Move bent down, lifted the other figure up and draped him across his shoulders.

Squick, Move and Grizzle carried their load onto a natural dais in the cave leading to a large, heavy iron door set into the cave wall. They stopped there, and Move leaned forward and knocked three times on the door. A shuffling of feet and grum mumbling could be heard from the other side. After a few moments the door opened with a creak and a wrinkled face dominated by a very large hawk nose and a wide mouth, surrounded by wild gray hair, poked out from opening. Brown, rheumy eyes gave them a gruff stare and the mouth suddenly twisted into a sneering frown. Squick clicked her tongue impatiently and said,

“Get out of our way, old man. We wish to see Pain.”

Move forced the door wide open and brushed the man out of their way. Inside the grey and unwelcoming stonewalls were draped with lengths of burgundy cloth, and the room was illuminated by several gilded stand lamps. The whole place reeked with the smell of incense. Luxuries the Whites had to do without.

“Oh, are they here already?” A chirpy voice inquired, followed by a good-natured chuckle.

Squick just nodded at the very large, black- skinned woman lounging on large, tasseled pillows that the voice belonged to. Fortuna gave them a bright smile and waved towards two tables obviously prepared for the new arrivals, the flesh on her underarms shimmying. Squick, Grizzle and Move toiled over to the tables and dumped their load. And then they left the room.

From behind two white paper screens a lithe woman appeared. She walked slowly towards the tables, her raven hair swaying with every step. Slim, long fingered hands traced the wooden edges of the tables and paused ever so slightly by the wings that hung limply over the edge. She stopped by the end of the right hand table and frowned. Tapping the lower lip of her rosebud mouth she whispered,

“This must be Declan. He is in a great deal of pain. A lot more than the other one…who must be Roland.”

She gestured distractedly towards the other table.

“Frankly, Ah couldn’t care less,” Carriage rasped,

“just wake ‘em up and make ‘em settle this damned dispute.”

Pain shot him resigned and irritated look, and did not deign to answer the old, brittle man.

“Let her do her work in peace, my dear Carriage. Your nagging will be of no help, however much you’d like to think so,” Fortuna lectured the old man good- naturedly, smiling to take the edge off.

Carriage hissed at her and muttered under his breath,

“And you’re still fat however much you’d like to think otherwise.”

The dark woman laughed away his muttering, her chins shaking with the effort. Pain silenced them both with a raising of her hand.

“I will begin now,” she whispered without turning.

Her hand trembled as she stretched it out to touch Declan’s forehead and when her fingertips came in contact with his skin her tiny, frail body surged towards the cave ceiling. A loud, inhuman roar escaped her now parched lips as the blood withdrew from her skin and concentrated on feeding her important organs. Her already pale skin became translucent, revealing the hundreds of blood vessels meandering their way across her flesh, and beneath them; the fibers of the muscles controlling her face and neck. The long, delicate fingers clawed at her face, tearing rents and drawing blood. Fortuna and Carriage looked on in silence, the latter making no effort to conceal his annoyance with Pain’s screaming.

Pain’s eyes filled with milky white liquid that rolled down her face like pearly tears. Her dry, purplish lips drew back, exposing gum and teeth. The hand that clawed at her face stopped and hesitantly stretched towards Roland. The hand trembled violently and the fingers slowly clenched and unclenched. Fortuna gasped loudly, her lips quivering and eyes widening. Carriage grunted and pulled at the hair in his left ear.

“She’s going to kill herself,” he mumbled irritated and spat a lump of brown mucus on the floor.

Fortuna shook her head and gripped her dress tightly.

“She cannot do this. It is impossible...she must be stopped!”

As Carriage moved forward Pain’s hand snapped down on Roland’s forehead.


The Whites in the outer cave suddenly screamed in terror as the very bedrock they were sitting upon began to tremble and heave. Stalactites were shaken loose from the ceiling and crashed to the ground, sending flying bits of rock everywhere. The cave walls cracked and jagged gashes opened up from floor to ceiling. The adults huddled around the children to protect them from falling rocks and to keep them from falling into the gashes that were tearing open the floor. The howls from the Inner Room made them all cover their ears and cry in terror. And then everything stopped.

Pain glowed red, shrieking like a crazed fury as the white tears turned pitch black and her glossy raven hair grew gray then white. Carriage and Fortuna were whimpering in fear and disbelief as they watched Pain destroy herself. The red glow turned into a crimson fog, and smoky tendrils snaked their way towards the other two gods. When the fog touched them their bodies arched and their howls joined those of Pain and the Whites in the other room. Pain’s form shifted. One second she was lithe and longhaired, the next she was squat with short curly hair. She flickered from one form to the other so fast she appeared to be no more than a blur. The maroon fog engulfed Fortuna and Carriage, enveloped them in an anguish that made them spasm and foam around the mouth. The red cloud slowly darkened and as the two gods believed themselves about be destroyed it turned black and whipped back into Pain, who crumbled and fell to the floor.

The silence before they all started breathing again was deafening. Carriage slowly scrambled to his feet and let out a long stream of unpleasantries when he saw that the front of his brown pants were dark.

“Damn you, Pain!”

He hobbled over to Fortuna and nudged at her with his foot. When he saw that she would survive (unfortunately) he hobbled over to where Pain lay drenched in sweat and vomit. He bent down and gently brushed the sodden hair out of her pale face. She stared up at him, not really seeing anything at all. At least she was alive.

“Can you hear me, lass?”

A trembling finger touched his cheek after a little while and she blinked.

“Good,” he whispered before he picked her up and carried her to the room behind the paper screens.

She was as light as a feather to him.

[Tarcanus]

The rent widened and stretched, the light grew brighter and brighter until all the Whites had to shield their eyes to avoid going blind.

Get rid of the second 'brighter'. The fact that you tell us the Whites would go blind if they looked at it negates the need to repeat yourself.


Move, Grizzle, get over here!”

I suggest changing Move's name. Every time you use it in this piece it could be construed as Squick telling Grizzle to move. Very confusing.


Inside the grey and unwelcoming stonewalls were draped with lengths of burgundy cloth

This is awkward and confusing. It reads like they were physically inside the grey and unwelcoming stone walls. Change it to: "Inside, the grey and unwelcoming stone walls were draped with lengths of burgundy cloth" This was a good example of when you need commas. This is a problem I ran into a good bit in this piece, so I won't hit on all of them.



I don't really need to quote any more of it, but I have more to say:

- I think you need to at least hint at what Pain is trying to do to Roland and Declan. I have no idea if she was trying to heal them, take their souls, possess them, etc.

- I think you also missed a great place for some ambience at the very beginning. Instead of opening with the arrival of Roland and Declan, why not take a few paragraphs to describe the caverns(what kind of lighting is there? is there enough room for all 2000 people? etc.) and show the general mood of the masses(are they comfortable in the cavern? are they waiting on something? is this just an ordinary day? is there a reason they're all gathered or is it a communal chamber? etc). Then you can have the fun of showing their reactions to the sudden appearance of Rolan(Roland and Declan).

- As I mentioned earlier you need to use more punctuation. Commas in particular (though I can be a comma whore, sometimes, so take my advice with a grain of salt). The above example shows you how important they can be.



Overall Impressions:

Again, I think nothing was really explained here, so I'm still in the dark about a lot of things, though I sense you building up to a bit of a conversational info-dump between Rolan and Pain&co. - which would be appreciated, on my part. I feel like this chapter is weaker because of a lack of characterization - in chapter one we had Roland and Declan talking and thinking. The characterization that is here makes me feel like you are trying very hard to show that Fortuna is fat and Carriage is a grumpy old man-god or w/e. I think this could be eased back on by taking away some of the attribution around your dialog. For instance,

“Let her do her work in peace, my dear Carriage. Your nagging will be of no help, however much you’d like to think so,” Fortuna lectured the old man good- naturedly, smiling to take the edge off.

Carriage hissed at her and muttered under his breath,

“And you’re still fat however much you’d like to think otherwise.”

The dark woman laughed away his muttering, her chins shaking with the effort. Pain silenced them both with a raising of her hand.

“I will begin now,” she whispered without turning.

'good-naturedly' is too complicated an adverb, here. You really don't need to say her chins shook when she laughed. you could do away with the 'without turning' because if you didn't tell us she turned, she probably didn't - which makes telling us she didn't turn irrelevant.




All of that being said, I apologize if it comes off as harsh. I'm still interested in what's going on here and really want to know who the hell Rolan is and what happened to the city.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

Tarcanus, on Feb 25 2009, 07:14 PM, said:

The rent widened and stretched, the light grew brighter and brighter until all the Whites had to shield their eyes to avoid going blind.

Get rid of the second 'brighter'. The fact that you tell us the Whites would go blind if they looked at it negates the need to repeat yourself.


Move, Grizzle, get over here!”

I suggest changing Move's name. Every time you use it in this piece it could be construed as Squick telling Grizzle to move. Very confusing.


Inside the grey and unwelcoming stonewalls were draped with lengths of burgundy cloth

This is awkward and confusing. It reads like they were physically inside the grey and unwelcoming stone walls. Change it to: "Inside, the grey and unwelcoming stone walls were draped with lengths of burgundy cloth" This was a good example of when you need commas. This is a problem I ran into a good bit in this piece, so I won't hit on all of them.



I don't really need to quote any more of it, but I have more to say:

- I think you need to at least hint at what Pain is trying to do to Roland and Declan. I have no idea if she was trying to heal them, take their souls, possess them, etc.

- I think you also missed a great place for some ambience at the very beginning. Instead of opening with the arrival of Roland and Declan, why not take a few paragraphs to describe the caverns(what kind of lighting is there? is there enough room for all 2000 people? etc.) and show the general mood of the masses(are they comfortable in the cavern? are they waiting on something? is this just an ordinary day? is there a reason they're all gathered or is it a communal chamber? etc). Then you can have the fun of showing their reactions to the sudden appearance of Rolan(Roland and Declan).

- As I mentioned earlier you need to use more punctuation. Commas in particular (though I can be a comma whore, sometimes, so take my advice with a grain of salt). The above example shows you how important they can be.



Overall Impressions:

Again, I think nothing was really explained here, so I'm still in the dark about a lot of things, though I sense you building up to a bit of a conversational info-dump between Rolan and Pain&co. - which would be appreciated, on my part. I feel like this chapter is weaker because of a lack of characterization - in chapter one we had Roland and Declan talking and thinking. The characterization that is here makes me feel like you are trying very hard to show that Fortuna is fat and Carriage is a grumpy old man-god or w/e. I think this could be eased back on by taking away some of the attribution around your dialog. For instance,

“Let her do her work in peace, my dear Carriage. Your nagging will be of no help, however much you’d like to think so,” Fortuna lectured the old man good- naturedly, smiling to take the edge off.

Carriage hissed at her and muttered under his breath,

“And you’re still fat however much you’d like to think otherwise.”

The dark woman laughed away his muttering, her chins shaking with the effort. Pain silenced them both with a raising of her hand.

“I will begin now,” she whispered without turning.

'good-naturedly' is too complicated an adverb, here. You really don't need to say her chins shook when she laughed. you could do away with the 'without turning' because if you didn't tell us she turned, she probably didn't - which makes telling us she didn't turn irrelevant.




All of that being said, I apologize if it comes off as harsh. I'm still interested in what's going on here and really want to know who the hell Rolan is and what happened to the city.

I must say that I actually agree with everything you've just said. I read through it right before I posted it and thought: Well, some of this just doesn't make any sense. The story was pretty clear in my head when I wrote it, but now that some time has passed (over a year actually) it does seem a bit difficult to understand just what the hell is going on. And I know my commas aren't good, it's something I've always struggled with.

And you're right. In Chapter 3 we get an info-dump bonanza.

But thank you so much for your comment. Now I have a pretty good idea of what to change when I revise this chapter. It's the first draft, so it's bound to be pretty awful