Once upon a time…
Well, a while ago I said that I would write some short stories, but hadn’t really decided upon any other than The Death Bringers, well, this is the other one I’ve decided to do. As for the stories about Agus and The Gossip, I’m not sure yet. But this story is partially for showing of my stories for TA in Finkan and maybe gain some more readers that is interested in my work. With this story I want the usual feedback (speculations, questions, etc) but also some help with the grammar so it will read well and have a decent flow in it. Well, well, here goes.
The Seven Rings – Part I
Once upon a time there was a girl. This girl was ordinary in every aspect.
Well, of course besides for the fact that she was a noble girl, daughter to the Baron of Enheim who was brother to the immortal king of Katia in the first century of the apocalypse. But that’s not too important, so let’s move on.
But she was a beauty! With golden brown hair and green sparkling eyes and with a face and smile that made even the hardest of men grow soft. She had a voice that sounded like silk and a body that the gods envied! And she was kind to all, even the poorest of the poor in the province. Oh, her heart was really one of gold. But she bore a terrible secret for a girl of her pedigree. She hated it all!
Being of royal blood wasn’t what she wanted. No, no! She was filled with lust for adventures and treasures. But she was not allowed to travel, let alone to seek out adventures other than shopping. Her father tried to please her with plays that he arranged and small made up adventures in their gardens. But she quickly grew tired of this. Her brother tried to cheer her up by bringing home everything he could find on his travels through the provinces.
He bought expensive jewellery, dresses and goodies from all over the land! But she quickly lost interest in them too. She wanted to travel, she didn’t just want to sit in their palaces just waving her skirts and listing to boring tutors all day long. Who would? Her father then decided to invite other counts and earls to his castles and palaces and bring their children with them to keep her company.
But the young girl wasn’t satisfied. All the girls just talked art and music and spoke about plays and jewellery, which she wasn’t interested in. But the boys interested her for a while. Growing up only with her father, her brother and male servants around (and with no mother) she hadn’t been able to meet other boys other than on few brief occasions. The boys brought her some amusement for a while, with their wrestling, sword fights, card playing and gossip about heroes and legends.
This though, ended quickly when her father found out that she had started to wrestle with the boys and almost acted like a boy! She started to wear trousers and shirts instead of gowns and dresses and her language had been coloured by the boys talk. He then quickly stopped the visits and made sure that she was properly dressed and occupied with studies.
For you see, he had lost patience in his daughter. No matter what he did she never seemed satisfied and always craved more and more. His female counsellors said that it was just a phase and that the girl would come around if she were kept busy and educated in all the female arts. So he issued an order for her to be attended to by female servants only that would teach her to sew, paint and do everything a proper woman of her lineage should do.
This made the girl really frustrated. She didn’t want to sew all day! And what good was painting when it was almost impossible to make out anything from the colours? Reading was another thing, this way at least she could read about the world and how to travel. So she in secret started to read about what she needed to gather to go on an adventure.
For months she prepared for her adventure. Trying to act as her father wanted her to act and at the same time trying to gather as much equipment in secret as she needed. She pretended to send letters to one of the counts’ sons but in truth she was issuing orders to a merchant to gather the things she needed. As the months passed she also read about magic, sorcery and wizards. And she decided to become one. As all know, you just don’t decide to become a magician but she was determined that this was what she wanted to do!
To be continued…
Well I didnt find much grammar errors and such except:
“This made the girl really frustrated. She didn’t want to sew all day! And what god was painting when it was almost impossible to make out anything from the colours?” I suspect its supposed to be “good” there.
Otherwise the story is about Linsuss(dunno about the spelling , hehe)
, you could get that from the title even , and well it will be fun reading about it since Linsuss is one of the more prominent characters so far in youre game.
Oh just one question , “The first century of the apocalypse” I guess thats how you want to call “epok ett” in english?
Other than that I look forward to reading this one.
No it isn’t.
So… what is the First century of the apocalypse?
Precicely what it says; the first century of the apocalypse. What else would it be?
And it’s NOT spelled with a capital F.
Well, I think this story will be really interesting. Both the fact that Linsuss will be a prominent character and I also expect to see some player characters further on. There are also quite a lot of interesting stuff going on around her. So it will be fun for us who are into the game. But it should also be interesting for new readers, like those from TA. I think it is a good choice for introductory story.
Well, I found some obvious errors except for the one PB pointed out. (I read this story but didn’t have time to comment on it earlier.)
upbringing – Remember the ‘g’ and type it as one word.
The jump there felt a bit too sudden. It startled me the first time, but since it seem to be made this way to indicate that this is a verbally told story it might not be too wrong…
But it also brings us to the question… Who is the story teller? Well, right now I have no idea… Not enough information yet I believe.
And one last thing. Maybe put “To be continued…” outside the quote? But I guess it is in there since it is in the actual document…
Well, now I really gotta go to the RPG session… Darn you, got stuck with this comment…
The flow of the text is good. However in the beginning the part about the king being king in the first century of the apocalypse felt weird in some way, though I cant put my finger on it. Obviously you want to put this story in a time frame and so forth, but maybe some other formulation of this is warranted?
I also felt like Ankan that this part was a bit odd:
I think the ‘but’ need to denote something in the sentence before it’s entrance, and even though the previous sentence says something like; “don’t bother this sentence in the flow of the text”, maybe it’s a to big gap between cited sentence above and the sentence that she was ordinary for it to have a natural flow?
Hmm… should be something like: “talked about art and music”?
Anyway I enjoyed reading this and think it would be a nice addition to the stories for TA, the story also involves mostly normal elements and I think it can show a part of Nianze that mythology cannot.
If I’m not totally misstaken he meant that the sudden jump felt a little wierd. But he later changed his opinion since it’s meant to be a verbal story. I myself don’t see any fault in it.
I am not sure about this with “talked about art…”. When I read it aloud for myself it sounds pretty okay and when comparing to other stories it also seems pretty okay. But I’m not sure. What do you think?