Project 3 – Beginnings – Part Two
It was dark outside. The sun was long since gone for one or another reason. Not that such thing was that easy to tell in Chou’Charren or anywhere else in Sancho for that part. The Overlords didn’t like the sun not to mention that Cedar always pushed down more clouds from above. But that suited him, it suited him well.
The dwarf smiled to himself as he was casually leaning against the wall, waiting. His big scarred eyelids were closed and his striped muddy hair was in his face but he didn’t care, it would only add on the image he was trying casually to keep up. If anyone saw him that was. He could feel how the dark power was shrouding him, feel the oily mist oozing out from his body as he tried to keep low, sensing.
Down the muddy street heading west came three men garbed in various spacious coats and trousers. He didn’t see them, but he could feel them. They were here. He didn’t tense, that would only warn the guards flanking his target. They would feel his intent before he was able to act and it would all be over. He only leaned back reaching out to his shadow trap preparing to spring it when they were close enough. He waited.
Psssstphoofff!
The trap had been sprung, and the curtain of black smoke covered the street. He snapped his eyes open and slid out in the street drawing his Shadow Dirks and with a grim smile on his face. The world was purple and black to him sometimes outlined with pink light spots. The black smoke was almost transparent to his shadow vision just as he wanted it.
The guards flanking his target had drawn their swords and obviously activated their shadow vision too, though their vision was inferior to his shadow smoke. He slammed against the first guard, slashing him over his inner thigh and kicked him to lunge himself towards the second guard that had turned towards his companions shrill shrieks of pain as the Shadow Dirks had cut him. The guard turned just in time to receive two dirks in his lower abdomen piercing his armour as it were only cloth and killing him instantly.
Using the motion of the fallen guard he rolled in the air towards his target that were just standing still in the middle of the street, reaching for his head preparing to snap his neck.
Then he suddenly flew back, he was tossed out of the black smoke and bounced once on the ground before he rolled and got to his feet. What by the shadow of Brémo?!
But he didn’t have time to think, out of the smoke came a flying shadow, he didn’t know what it was so he just dodged it… barely. As he threw himself to the side he spun in the air prepared to throw daggers towards the thing, but stopped in shock. Up the street, the thing that had flown out of the smoke had turned and was standing on the street with a smile on its face. It was his target, standing there with black armour he must have hidden underneath his robes, and with wings black as ravens. His target was a Fallen! He cursed to himself and instead prepared to defend himself. When he landed, the thing just watched him calmly with a smirk on his face. Yes, it was a fallen, or maybe one of the Overlords creatures. But it didn’t attack for some reason.
He eyed it wearily, and it looked back, calmly. He could see in its eyes that the Fallen knew he was in control, he could kill him anytime he wanted but he was expecting something, waiting for something. Waiting for him to do something. He can’t think that I’m so stupid that I will attack him, can he? He thought to himself as he tried to see where the first guard were. The shadow smoke had lifted and he saw him, dead, with a deep gash over his abdomen. The fallen had killed him, but why?
“What do you want me?” he said cautiously, preparing to flee if he attacked. But maybe that was what he wanted. He didn’t move, watching the Fallen waiting for a response. The Fallen smiled faintly and then let his wings disappear and started walking towards him.
“I was sent by The First Overlord,” he said looking at him calmly. He kept his distance from the Fallen, who smiled at his attempt.
“He has a task for you Dwarf,” the Fallen said, suddenly behind him. He spun around, grinding his teeth in his mind. The Fallen hadn’t moved. Damned divine power! But shouldn’t Fallen have lost that ability? His eyes grew narrow, he couldn’t be a fallen, could he?
“What are you?” he said to the Fallen that smiled.
“I am a Dark Angel, didn’t you realize that?” he said in a condescending tone. Then he realized something and added; “My wings are black because I follow The Way of Shadow and not only the Way of Darkness. Thus my wings aren’t red. Satisfied, mortal?” he finished with a sneer. He didn’t know what to think, he could be lying but even so, it wasn’t his place. But then again, most Fallen came to work for the Overlords if they managed to flee from Aguin or wherever Angels hanged out.
“What does The First Overlord want with me? I am not an agent worthy of his attention, I’m just a mere low level assassin, killing in his name,” he said carefully.
“Pha! You wan’t to kill him just as much as the rest of the Overlords!” the Fallen mocked but then he smiled. “He want you to perform a special kind of task, and he needs someone well experienced within the Dark Arts with not too great a power to do this so it can be done… discreetly and without drawing too much attention to your power,” he said with an evil grin. He didn’t like this Fallen. He was smiling and grinning too much, it felt like a trap or a way to dispose of him. But he didn’t have a choice, he would die if he said no, no matter who really commanded him through this Fallen.
“Tell me more,” he said and started to walk with the Fallen. He smiled as he heard what they wanted him to do. This would be fun.
Hmm well another short story, and more action oriented this time around. Well from reading this it feels like a hmm maybe a stretch but a short introduction of whats to come with Holy addenum, purely speculating here though, but first a story in aguin and then a story including a fallen. Also that imortant mission the other man got might be to chase or hunt down this dark angel then again maybe not =), just an afterthought.
Then again he claims to be a dark angel which can be another thing? unless you changed the meaning of a fallen, then you have this way of shadow, dont remember hearing any way of shadow, unless its some sort of high level holy kremises, a very interesting read anyhow and it piqued my interest for playing a holy addenum, seems like there is alot to learn there.
About the fight scene I think you have improved in keepng a good and steady flow in the fight, atleast I had no problems understanding and getting captivated in the scene, it was nicely done.
About the dwarf, well not much to say there, sounds like a pretty standard kremis that is about to do something way above his head by the sound of it.
Hmm then we have the Overlords, I dont really know what timeline this is supposed to be, but I would guess the Overlords are high ranking people of the dragons, maybe one overlord per territory or city.
Ah right, shadow dirks = långdolkar or something else?
The Way of Darkness = The religion of Sate
The Way of Shadow = The specific religion of Brémo, you have heard this before
Something else. It’s a dagger allright but the Shadow infront of it makes it associated with Shadow Arts.
I saw that I hadn’t answered your statement here and I think that I should since this is something pretty basic for Nianze.
The Sancho Overlords are not of the Dragon Syndicates. The overlords usually come from a syndicate but not necessarily. In this Age though the Overlords are the Necromancers that took over the Cities of Sancho during the Fire Wars. Or rather, made an alliance with the Necromancers after being attacked by the world’s first Death Angel.
The First Overlord is in fact also known as The First, of the Necromancers. He is the head of Fagun and second to nobody in Sancho.
Hehe, I see, thought it might be necromancers you meant, since the syndicates have been there and will be there for basically all time I assumed it was a title for them, oh well.
Guess I should have figured that one out, think the english confused me abit, but when you mention it, yeah I remember now.
Language police-mode activate!
The idiom you are looking for is “for that matter”, stated a bit differently in english from swedish
Ref: http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/for+that+matter
Ar you sure it shouldn’t be “as if”? Is the armour made of cloth or do you wish to describe how the daggers easily pierce whatever armour they have? And since it is a “shadow” dagger, I guess it is not a far stretch that it should easily penetrate pretty much any armour.
Don’t you mean “from me” or “with me”? Looks like you are trying to translate the swedish expression straight off and isn’t that wrong?
Who is waiting for a response? As you wrote it the Fallen is waiting for the response, but I guess you actually meant that POV is waiting (add an “and” or a comma if you really want to.)
Who say it? Not really clear until later. Later on it seems like it is the Fallen, but from that first paragraph I get the feeling the dwarf say it. And you use “he” to refer to different characters if so… Otherwise it is the dwarf claiming to be sent by him… A bit confusing.
And the attempt may refer to either of those things… Either the attempt to invoke the first overlord, or the attempt to keep distance.
Later on it’s quite clear that the “Fallen” makes the statement. Or maybe not? Since the assassin is killing in the name of him. Is that something any ordinary assassin can say, as if they kill in is name when they follow him. Like you can do something in the name of god. I guess this is so, since otherwise he is claiming to work for the first overlord… But it all seems quite odd if that is so, so I guess not.
The word you want is “want”, “‘t” is (only?) used for contraction of certain words with “not”.
You still refer to him as “the Fallen”, does this reflect the thoughts of the POV or is this a mistake? But now I notice that you use it later on also, so I guess it’s not a mistake.
I dunno if this is actually wrong, spoken words are quite inaccurate sometimes. But from this statement it almost seems like the drawing of attention to his power is the actual goal, not the means to a goal. I guess that what is actually needed is someone with low power so that the opponent don’t notice his power and thereby ruin the mission.
Again, you are swapping who “he” is refering to. Either you need to reformulate, introduce names or something else to refer to people with when you don’t want to reveal character names. Like “the pockmarked man” or something, you get the point. In this case you have “the dwarf” and “the Fallen”.
I like the sound of that somehow… Fuse integrated with light explosion.
I don’t think this guy is that low level though. He was better at dark combat than the “guards” atleast. What Dark/Fallen Angel needs guards?! And Guards that are that bad…
What is that power he is using in the beginning? The closest thing I can think of is the dark combat used by shadow dancers. Is that it, or is it something you can do with normal dark combat? Or maybe something more special than that?
Otherwise, nice feeling to the story. If you want to improve your english, I get the feeling from what you write and what you have written before that you are a little bit too close to writing swedish. You are trying to directly translate swedish idioms and other ways of expressing yourself. That is an error I often notice in your text, but I can’t blame you. I often do the same when I write or talk without analyzing it more closely.
But when writing stories and such, these are things you will likely need to learn to notice in your second pass-through before you really get used to writing english correctly.
And secondly, is this supposed to be read by anyone, or are you supposed to have prior knowledge of Nianze? Don’t notice anything here (when checking really quickly) that you really need to know about Nianze to understand. You atlest ep
The story was captivating atleast.
Looks like we have seen two opposing sides now. Maybe a third one, one for Vordén if the first one was Gude’s? Since a part three is upcoming…
No I’m not sure, I will look over it. I just spoke it out loud in my head as I often do when I formulate battles and try to translate my visions into text.
You are right, again. Though it should be “What do you want of me” which is a correct use if I remember correctly.
As for your other points, it’s well noted. Yes I do use my Swedish too much when I write in English which I’ve heard from others is making a fuss of what I’m writing. But I am trying to improve which is why I stick to English in my work instead of fleeing to Swedish which would be so much easier.
Obviously the Guards were just for show so he would take the bait. And yes, he isn’t Low Lever, but he isn’t a Lord I or Immortal or Celestial in nature either. He is just very skilled, very cunning and not one of great strength. I would compare him to Souichirou or Devon in power.
I’m not really sure what you are referring to. The Shrouding or the Sensing? You know what Shroud is, that is the ability Kremis’s have to make themselves “melt” into their surroundings if they are really still. You helped me with that name, remember?
If it’s about the sensing, it’s a combined technique you automatically get when you have Dark Combat, Intuition and Rate at the necessary levels. It’s relativetly normal, takes some SC and so to do and you need to have been “thought” that you can do it in one way or another, though your character can figure out things like that too.
Yes it is. I’m starting to post my works in other circles since I don’t feel satisfied with the feedback I get here so I’m trying to open up my work to more people to maybe be able to get more interest from a wider range of people. I need to keep myself going you know.
I’m glad. The series should be interesting whet it has a beginning, a story line, and an ending. Better than just my usual fragment stories. Though I really liked my work with the “Words From a Traveller”. I hope I’ll have the energy to write more stories that can have some more purpose in them.
Hehe, well, the name Project 3, means more than just 3 parts, hehe. Everything in this series revolves around 3. Three sides, three stories, three characters.
It was the sensing I was refering to, not shroud. About the title, I was refering to the back then fourthcoming part 3 of the beginnings. Might be more than three, but I haven’t read that third part yet. Will have to get back with you on that since I’m on my phone on the way to the university and I’m almost there.
I like this story as the kremis is in my opinion one of the cooler concepts in Nianze, and who doesn’t like action? I don’t really have much else to say about it, I do have a couple of questions though.
I’m guessing that ‘fallen’ means an angel or otherwise holy person gone bad, is this correct?
Do all angels of specific philosophies have different colored wings? What color would angels of balance’s wings be?
Yes, in a sense that is correct though it isn’t as simple as that. But oversimplified you can say so, yes.
It depends. Angels usually have white wings but there are, some different angels like the one in the story. But in general sense the wings of angels are White (Way of Light), Red (Way of Darkness) and the way of balance seldom has angels and the few they have have wings like fairies but with strands of trees. So mostly transparent.
BTW; part three open.