Chapter One – The Beginning
Karlen took a deep breath and watched as the sun rose above the treetops and saw how they made the Iceriver glimmer as a thread of gold in sunlight. It was a beautiful view, but probably his last view of the province Four. Today he would take a boat in Keanor to reach the Peninsula Peak in a couple of days.
He gathered his things and walked around the campsite making sure there were no traces before he finally began to walk. A couple of birds suddenly took flight from a nearby bush, almost making him draw his shortsword, and he heard a few woodpeckers pecking their way trough a tree somewhere in the woods but other to that the morning was calm.
This was one of the reasons he had started to venture the world. To experience the calm mornings and the refreshing walks trough woods all over Yurin.
This morning thou was a little too cold, as the Katian autumn had newly arrived with its cold mornings and stormy days. Down south they would probably have pouring rain while up here in the north there would be mostly cold windstorms and occasionally some hailstorms.
After a few uneventful hours of walking in the cold woods, he didn’t like to walk on major roads, he arrived at city port, Keanor.
The port wasn’t the biggest city in Katia but it sure was one of the most heavily guarded ones. At least if you would exclude the capital city, Katia. At least that he knew of, but he had lived in Katia for most of his life so he was quite sure.
Unlike most of the smaller cities in Katia, Keanor had a city wall made of stone with a balustrade and guardwalk of wood fortified with stone and iron. On the walls of Keanor there were guards every ten meters with repeating crossbows and breastplates. The city gate was open but by the gate there was four heavily armed Knights on warhorses, probably a breed from the northeast or Deben.
Everyone was free to enter Keanor, but outside the city walls were a big sign with the warning;
”ALL THAT ENTERS KEANOR OF PROVINCE FOUR WILL ABIDE BY THE LAW, THOSE WHO DISTURBS THE ORDER WILL BE PROSECUTED ON THE ORDER OF THE HIGH COUNCIL AND THE PROVINCE LORD.”
As Karlen passed trough the gate he measured that the wall was probably at least four meters thick. He glanced at the knights in their shiny armors but looked away quickly. He didn’t want to mock Council Knights, so he continued into the city instead.
He was hungry so he walked in the direction of the port to find a tavern or a pub when something caught his eye. In a window of a shop there was a painting of him, or a man awfully similar to him, holding a shortsword in his right hand trying to defend himself from something outside the picture. The man was of average height, had brown half-long hair, green eyes in a hard face that seemed to have seen a lot and he wore a green cloak, a leatherjacket and some leather pants. Then he saw that the man in the picture had a different shortsword, this one had a decorated hilt, and he was wearing some green elven boots.
He smiled and relaxed, he had almost thought that the painter had the ability of precognition, he had heard of such things and after what he had seen the last few months he was almost ready to believe such fairytales about the Guild’s Wise Ones. Amused he continued to walk towards the port looking for a pub.
Strange, it suddenly felt like a big burden had laid itself upon his shoulders, dragging him down somehow. It must be my imagination, he convinced himself. Surely it was just because of his hunger and all that walking alone in the cold woods for so long.
* * *
A man was leaning against the wall of a building in an alley as he was watching the streets of Keanor. He was taking a bite from an apple when a man suddenly passed by with a faint smile on his hard face.
Then suddenly he knew.
He dropped his apple in surprise but didn’t bother to pick it up. As he watched the man walk by he suddenly began to smile, he had just found his ticket to freedom. He laughed and went further into the alley.
To be continued…
Note: Three stars will from here on indicate a change of perspective.
So… Interesting beginning and it has a good feeling about it, but the events felt a bit rushed there at the end.
Somehow the change of perspective felt wrong. Some more description would have fitted in there. Lets say move that part about finding his freedom a sentence down and some more description from his point of view before it. For example how Karlen moved away and how this unknown character watches him, or some redundancy and describe what just happened as he saw it.
I ask of this because it felt like the flow of the story changed a bit to fast and ended in the next instance.
If you prolong the moment with this freedom-seeker just a bit and let the story sink in before it ends, the after all effect will be better. At least I think so.
I like the way you embed information, you don’t tell us how it is, you let us live it all for our selves. We don’t have the long term memory of the character, but instead exactly what he think of in that instance. We also learn quite a bunch of what kind of person this is in a rather short text, just by a few actions of his part.
I also like the way you describe his looks, as he cannot observe himself from the outside (using a mirror or such would be kinda lame). the fact that you describe someone that supposedly looks very similar to him gives us a picture of his own looks.
It is also interesting the way the focus somewhat sways away from main character at the end. In the last sentence you refer to him as “him”, instead of letting him speak for himself. Just a small good-looking detail that is rather easily overlooked. But its nice.
So keep it up; I sure would like to see a continuation.
So on to boring part, the corrections:
“A couple of birds suddenly took flight from a nearby bush almost making him draw his short sword, and…”
Since “almost making him draw his short sword” is like a subparagraph, something that is just a side notion and if it would be removed the sentence would still make sense.
I think the overall flow of the text would gain from adding a comma so it would result in “A couple of birds suddenly took flight from a nearby bush, almost making him draw his short sword, and…”. The alternative would be adding an “and”, but that won’t fit very good since that word comes again just after.
“Down south they would probably have pouring rain while up here north there would…”. Simply add “… while up here in the north…” to make the words more “living”.
I think a paragraph-change would fit before this “Around noon he arrived at Keanor…”, similar to the one used to change perspective. This is to empathize the fact that quite some time has passed and it will make it easier to make sense of what just happened. It will also split that characters story into two parts. One in the woods and one in the city, making it easier to structure in our heads.
“The city gate was open, but at the gate was guarded by four heavily armed Knights on horses.” – Remove the word “at” and it will make more sense…
“On the wall of Keanor there was a guard…”, I think people most often use “walls” – in plural. At least it sound more majestic.
“Then he saw that the man in the picture had a different short sword…”, I think the term you are looking for is shortsword (even though this spellchecker seem to mark it as incorrect). A short sword describes that the sword is short. Could be exchanged with “glimmering” or something. A shortsword is the kind of weapon you most likely refer to.
Oh, and I look forward to the return of some role-playing (even though I’m not on the list *sob*).
Thanks for the comment. It will suffice for chapter two, this time.
However, I changed most of the things you pointed out.
I added some more descriptions here and there and tried to embed some more information in the text.
I even changed a couple of words here and there, but nothing big.
The biggest change is the new lines from the strangers perspective to make the change a bit less drastic.
A challange for everyone who reads this text. What class, type and race are our current main character? I think you all have assumed that he is Katian, which would be a good answer. But for his class and type I think it will be a lot harder to point out at this point.
So, any guesses?
As I read through it another time this sentence stuck.
“On the walls of Keanor there was a guard every ten meters with repeating crossbows and breastplates.” – Some errors with plural and singular. What you say is that every guard has several crossbows and several breastplates. Either use guards in plural or the equipment in singular.
Another small correction: “had brown half long hair”, the hair is half? Try half-long; I think that is how you write it… But I’m not sure.
As for the challenge i would guess that he is a human, or maybe half-elf since there is no characteristic reference to any specific race and he is average of height.
As for class and type, its not very easy to make a good guess at this point.
I suspect that he is Hiresword (or maybe Warrior) from his acting, but then again, playing us and make us think that he just happens to be your favorite combination… Actually he could be just about anything. And that also goes for his type.
I’ll just have to wait and see. Or maybe ‘we’, if anyone else in fact HAS read this…
I changed yet a little. I hope it will be better now.
I’m currently writing Chapter Two, and hopefully someone have read this and I hope more will read it and comment it. Otherwise I can’t promise there will be anything more after the second chapter.
I’m also thinking about writing a prolouge to add a little extra spice. But for now I will write a second chapter and wait a while before I continue the story. After all I have much to do both in school and the rule-system.
As for your guess, I won’t say. Hopefully you will discover the truth soon enough. Thou I suspect new guesses may be brought up after the next chapter.
I think the sentence “A man was leaning against the wall of a building in an alley watching the street when a man suddenly passed by with a faint smile on his hard face.” is to long and maybe a bit unclear. If you add a coma at “in an alley, watching the street” will make it easier to read.
I will change that sentence and break it into two instead. I’m not really happy with my formulation either so I will most likely change it.