Project 3 – Beginnings – Part One
This is a Short Story series I’ve just begun writing. It’s planned to become 9 parts in total divided into 3 different stages. This is the first stage, Beginnings. Also heed my warning, I think the interest and activity on the blog is decreasing too much which really makes it hard to muster up any will to write or do anything at all. I’m not kidding when I’m saying that maybe I should quit role-playing since the interest shown from my players have been very low lately that I’m losing my will to play something serious and instead plan to go back to less serious characters and campaigns with less effort and maybe shut down the blog altogether. Please show interest in what I write and role-playing in general or my will might run out sooner rather than later.
A cool wind blew through the room bringing fresh mountain air. The thin translucent white curtains swayed a little by the motion as the wind swept past them. A man was lunging in a big divan with dark blue satin cushions embroidered with gold and silver imperial whirls and vines.
The man looked up and tilted his head slightly as he suddenly heard footsteps over the black and white tiled marble floor. His clear blue eyes swept over the room and its rich furnishing, looking from hallway to hallway to determine where the steps were coming from. It was hard to hear the direction of far away sounds in this cathedral like hallways.
Finally an elfish man with a serene face and a blue simple silk caftan entered the room holding a silver tray with a scroll with golden stripes and a silver seal on it. His eyebrows rose a little at the sight of the important order. His eyes followed the scroll as the man made his way steadily through the room without a word. In the background he could hear the bards and choir sing somewhere far away.
When the elf reached him he fell gracefully to his knees reaching out the tray towards him and stayed in that position without a word until he took up the scroll and bowed slightly to him. To think that it was only three years since he himself had done errands such as this – giving orders to the more important and high ranking agents and officers of the Government. But then he was a special case he knew.
He held the scroll in both his hands turning it slowly and looking intensely at it while he waited for the steps of the elf to fade away. He felt a small strain to his eyes as they began to water from his intense stare and realized that he had locked his vision on the scroll almost as he tried to paralyze it with his spirit. He closed his eyes, feeling the burning sting of the static electricity that had started to build up in his irises but ignored it and blinked a few times until his vision turned back to normal.
He looked at the seal carefully before breaking it; it was a triangle with a thick long line that ran from the tip of the triangle to the middle of its base. The line was crossed with one equally thick smaller horizontal line about a third from the tip of the vertical line. There were smaller signs surrounding the outer line of the triangle as well as the mark III – the sign of the level of importance. This mission was very important; there were only one higher level, barely given to anyone other than the Governments own Angels or Centurions.
He started to shake with excitement. This was the opportunity he had waited for his long life. This was what he had strived for from the beginning. Ever since the government had formed this had been his sole goal – To serve The Emperor in this glorious quest of salvation of the world. He broke the seal and started reading.
And then his eyebrows started climbing towards his forehead. His mouth falling towards his lap, his eyes widening, his face paling, his muscles freezing and a cold ball started forming in his stomach. He shook his head, trying to shake away the shock that had come over him. He bent forward, reading again, trying to decipher the text trying to find a hidden meaning, an explanation. He read it over and over and over again, but no matter how hard he tried, there was no code to break.
Realizing this he stood up. His eyes cold as ice, with ice flowing in his veins, shocked but determined. He took a deep breath, and then he began walking towards the east wing for transportation. He had a long journey ahead of him and in the end of his journey, an impossible task. As he walked he silently prayed for the grace of The Emperor.
Part Two will come when I finish writing it and if interest in this part is shown. Most of the 9 parts are already quite thoroughly planned and ready to be written, the only thing that I need now is some motivation and reason to share.
Best regards,
Herid Fel
Hmm a cryptic start, but still with some interesting indications, obviously this must be some place in aguin and most likely a pretty important place considering the surroundings although most of the places in aguin seem quite well furnished.
The man is appearantly some sort of agent for the newly founded government? Im guessing he is also a natural ki striker or something else that makes him special, since it seemed like reaching his rank in three years was something special. I liked the description of his feelings there in the end after reading the scroll, hehe.
The scroll is quite interesting if I got the right picture how the seal looked(a trianle with a cross(bible aka comen) in it? Because that might suggest something to do with Deben or atleast an agent of comen.
Anyhow Im not very good at finding spelling errors unless they are very obvious, and I didnt find any when reading it, but I do hope you will continue this story =), was a long time we had any of these, and I will try to improve my activity on the blog.
It’s hard to answer anything in your comment without too much spoilers but some answers you’ll get.
Yes, it’s in Aguin. And yes most of Aguin is well furnished, but not all. Aguin is more beautiful but not every place is well furnished. But then again the world’s most powerful people reside in this country.
Yes, it’s really special to achieve that level in that short a time. No regular person would be able to achieve this without great strength and potential.
A Triangle with a Cross is right yes, but it’s not the symbol of Cómen. Cómen’s symbol is similar, but only has a black OR silver Cross and on a white OR silver/grey background.
Well the describtion felt like a typical aguin setting hehe =), abit when we were there with Jayde and CO. Mountain breeze would suggest its somewhere close to a mountain, maybe even St.antonica. Too bad I dont have a map =)
Written as a true prologue, since a continuation is to be expected the cryptic end and lack of plot information is acceptable. Otherwise you have a tendency to try to hide too much information of that kind. Which might be the point, you do not wish to reveal the information and only give a feeling about the surroundings, but it sometimes feels like it goes too far.
But the stories are good in the way that they give that information about the surroundings regardless of what the plot actually is.
Nice detail about stare there, but it fits in whith what you have said before. It is a somewhat “physical” power.
Well, sometimes maybe. But I try not to include too much in teasers. In this though I didn’t feel that it went too far. But well.
I will post the continuation soon.
With the same password as the other.
I think this is a good prologue what with all the implied excitement from the high profile character and the curious mission he received. Makes me want to know what it’s all about, which I suppose is the point of any good teaser.
I also think that the stare thing was a nice touch, it’s always interesting to read of ‘how’ something actually manifests and works and in some cases details which might not appear while playing.
Other than bits and pieces of the conclusions already drawn by the others I don’t have much in the way of qualified guesses about the story. Though, the mission would seem to be something which the man could hardly believe that he would be asked to do. Perhaps because from his point of view success would be in some way harmful or undesireable.
Part Two, open.
It should of course be lounging, this is actually the only spelling error I’ve found that hasn’t been commented on.
I don’t know if swept is the most appropriate word, it seems to me to imply it being stronger than the context seems to suggest, but I admit to being abit undecided on that part.
About the texts on the whole:
I think the texts reflected the differences and drawbacks of the characters and the goverments well, the healer doesn’t value normal guys very highly, “farmers aren’t really people, you know this”. I would guess he is a noble and not just someone powerful, it might also be one reason why he is abit more special.
I don’t think that someone unaccustomed to Nianze would have picked up on what happened to the mage and his memories in between the texts with the mage’s point of view. Someone that knows about the world would have filled the blanks easily, but someone that doesn’t know Nianze might not, and filling the blanks is important since alot of the story is implied and otherwise might lead to confusion.
Anyway, it was quite interesting what happened to the mage, I guess why he was the only one that could do the job had to do with his ability, but maybe also because he was a wood elf, that in order to find the place or spirit, or not having to get past some wards, he must be an wood elf or something.
My guess is that the spirit was some nature thing and that killing it was evil and that it have some connection to wood elves or elf groves. Also, if he is a wood elf he would never do something like that and there the memory thing comes into play, unless there was some ward if you have certain intentions and those things had to be surpressed as well. Not that he would accepted that particular familiar very well either and might have had to be forced, but I guess it gives more power for a familiar like that.
In a way the perspective of the dwarf was the most interesting because of the insight into the dark seed ability, but I found part 1 probably the best but then I generally like beginnings more than the rest in some ways. But maybe you should do more to lead the plot onwards, maybe hint a bit more at what he is about to do. This, I think, mentally prepares the reader for what is about to come next time, so that the reader has more things to think about for the next time the text is from the healer’s perspective.
It wouldn’t exactly be needed, since the parts are relatively short and it might be against what you had in mind. I’m not the most distinguished member of us concerning such things I can see but it is a thought. If you lead in more to the texts then it might be good to flesh them out a bit, like hinting abit at why they are doing the things they are doing for instance.
Currently we know that what they are doing is important for the governments, and probably some epic thing as well, but why is not touched on from what I recall. It is something that the governments want secret, why it was a kremis that was chosen to do the job for Fagun might have been to assassinate someone, but also because he can avoid drawing too much attention, not like mr. Healer, who anyway tried to divert people.
That the three characters are somehow connected is suggested but if, and in what ways, as well as other things, will likely be clearer in the last parts.
I might be reaching for straws abit, since I don’t have some texts in fresh memory and might remember things differently when reconstructing them. I will see if I have some more specific feedback but when I wrote this I intended to cover all posts somewhat.
Unexpected but good to see you post something for a change. Well, well…