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> Dragon-Kist, by Ibis Helios
Ibis
post Sep 21 2007, 08:06 AM
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Mouth
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From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



Hiya All. This is my first fiction ever; and thereby my first fan fiction. Sooo, tear me apart! Rake me over the coals. I am putty in your hands. Constructive criticism please.
I have much to learn and that's why I've posted it here at my favorite fan fic site. BUT, please .. be kind in criticism, ok? I know I really have alot to learn. This is, btw - the entry I wrote for the Dungeon Contest at Septim's forums .. but no one else entered. So I thought I'd post it here and find out what all you experts think.

DRAGON-KIST
by Ibis Helios

Skyla and Jonahab were tired and their horses were very weary from the long day's ride. They were traveling from Bruma to Anvil and the low scent of the sea breeze was beginning to subtly make its presence known, but there was still a good distance to travel.

Jonahab suggested that they stop the horses at least for a rest period before they continue on. Skyla peered into the distance and thought that she saw some structures of a sort looming up out of the trees and rocks on the left side of the road, slightly uphill from where they were trotting.

She motioned and the two horses were directed toward the structures, which turned out to be the broken down and battered walls that were the remnants of some fort or other of yore. The fort was worthless piles of rubble now and no protection from rain or critters, since its roofs were long gone and its walls were fallen to rubbled stones in many places.

But it could offer a site for a campfire that wouldn't have to be kindling for so very long and the two Nords dismounted from their steeds, which they tethered to sturdy buckthorn bushes on the road side of the ruins; and then they proceeded to gather wood and kindling sticks for a fire. Nothing calms a horse's spirits in the night air like a comforting fire and these beasts were sweaty and in need of rest for awhile. The fire would warm the human spirits in the crowd too.

But strangely enough, the fire had the direct opposite effect upon the human element because when it was burning and casting its glowing lights all around the ruined fort area; an entranceway was suddenly rrevealed that seemed to lead down into the heart of the fort itself.

And so, our ruined fort adventure begins. The door leading into the interior of the fort had been meant to be sturdy and nearly impenetrable probably in its original state. And to the good credit of its makers, it still was a sturdy and hearty peice of wood to reckon with. That was not the problem, or in our case, the solution to easy entry. The stones all around the thick door were in such bad repair that they were all crumbly and when Skyla and Jonahab applied their combined muscles to moving the door on its hinges - not the door or the hinges but the wall itself gave way and collapsed in a sudden and tumbling heap. Both Nords jumped out of the way and then pressed the door the rest of the way open and peered within the dank darkness that met their nostrils.

The stale air was overly pungent with an acrid smell that seemed to imply sorcery and fire spells of some sort. A very dark-tinged metallic smell also permeated the atmosphere like that of rust. And there was the horrible faint trace of death in the air; like that of long dead and almost rotted away but not quite totally decayed flesh of some sort. Overall and blending into this miasma of smells was some disctinctive odour that neither had ever smelt before but that positively raised the hairs on the backs of both of their necks. What could this reek be? Chemical laden, smokey and yet mammalian in some scented way. Skyla lifted her neckwrap up over her ears and tied a knot at the back of her head to keep it covering her nose in the front. Jonahab was not so lucky in his attire, but made do by turning around his skullcap that cushioned his head from the metal of his elven helmet, so that it was in front of his face and he tied the woolen straps around over his ears and behind his head so that he had a woven mask of sorts too. Our heroes looked odd, but there was nobody. living at least, to see them and they were shielded from the odiferous hole they were about to enter.

But it was too dark for exploration, so they had to return to the fire and get wood peices from it and some cloth and pine resin from some of the greener kindling wood to make torches to hold. Thus armed in the left hand and with their weapons drawn with their right hands, they entered the dank maw of the tomb within the fort. It may have once been an orderly place but it was purely chaotic as the torchlight danced off the scattered and disheveled objects within. The walls themselves were laying about on the floor in many places. It was obviously not just time that had marred this place; but some great upheaval had happened here at sometime past.

Skyla and Jonahab groped their way forward within the ring of the dim torchlight through a somewhat large first room. It seemed it had at one time been a billet hall, having shelves with all sorts of items lined upon them. But now the shelves were lying in ruins on the floors for the most part along with their former contents but in some places where the segments were still bracketed to the walls, items and ancient supplies long out of date remained lined up or peched perilously close to falling over the edge. So, Skyla surmised out loud that some sudden cataclysmic event must have occurred all at once to have left the shelves thus. The floor itself was all cracked and askew and Jonahab cursed loudly as he stumbled and tripped in places where the jagged floor edges jutted up. Jonahab, being the greedier of the two, was walking first even though it was more dangerous; he wanted to be the first to spot any treasure or loot there might be left here to be found. Which he judged the chances of to be good since this was an old storage place for some evidently powerful and possibly rich army.

Skyla was used to the avarice of her companion and secretly chuckled at his penchant for trying to find riches in the most unlikely of places, but he never gave up wishing for a life of ease and respectability that would suddenly be his when he discovered the treasure of a lifetime. And so she was not at all surprised when, as they came to a forked hallway; Jonahab picked the larger thoroughfare for himself and pointed to a small dark dingy apeture and said, "We may as well split up in order to not take all night exploring here. Why don't you crawl in there and I'll go this way?"

She did take the course he suggested and immediately noticed a warm draft coming up the slick hallway and wondered if she did not notice before that the walls were a strange mottled purple color. Down, down she went and the hallway was very curving and the chemical smell they had first been puzzled by seemed to grow stronger as she descended.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, Johahab was exploring the hall that he had chosen for himself and instead of getting smaller , his apeture seemed to be getting gradually wider. Plus he was on even ground. Finally he rounded a corner into an open area and to his surprise, he saw a beautiful lady in the room. At least she was beautiful until it came to her thighs, which were decidedly animal like, as were the rest of here legs and feet. He could tell this because she had on a long red dress that was slit on each side from the hip to the ankle. Otherwise she was gorgeous. She had curling kettle red hair and mesmerizing pool green eyes. Pale skin was marred by narry a freckle. The trim of her dress was all bordered in gold latticework and her jewelry, which was considerable, was all gold. Many necklaces and bracelets of gold did she wear and it was these that especially captured Jonahab's attention, besides her ethereal beauty.

"Welcome, welcome stranger!" the lass enticed him with. "I thought I would narry see another human again as long as I lived in this wretched tomb" she exclaimed. "Have you come to free me?" she asked.
"Why yes," lied Jonahab, "And I have heard that there is a reward due for your rescue, fair maid." He said this with a hopeful gleam in his eye. "Of course!" the lass beamed. "You must be talking of this."
She whistled suddenly, and up the hallway from behind her tottled a purple dragon that was about a head taller than Jonahab. "Oh no!" Jonahab intoned, "I did nothing to merit being torn apart by your evil creature, my lady." He retreated back down his stretch of hallway slightly. "Awe, this is no evil creature, sir; this is my trusty dragon companion. And although my refusal to give him up is the reason for my being emtombed in this hole that they've named DragonKiss; Kelzy is a good dragon and here he has your reward for rescuing us." The dragon, Kelzy, turned about and he had on his back a righteous handsome giant longbow and very long, distictive arrows in a quiver.

"That is your prize, fair hero," the lass claimed as Kelzy held out the bow and quiver toward Jonahab. "you are now to be the proud owner of DragonMaw, master bow and a quiver full of DragonTeeth arrows. It was crafted by a mighty bowyer named Cullen and you need only wrestle Kelzy for it. Don't worry, he isn't hungry. He's already been fed." At which Kelzy grabbed ahold of Jonahab by both arms and moved into a classic wrestling stance.
Jonahab, who was not very brave at heart, was alarmed to be having to struggle for his prize .. but he wanted the DragonMaw and DragonTeeth; so he wrenched the large lizard around the best he could. "Did we tell you that DragonMaw can send an entire platoon of soldiers flying into the air with the strike of just one Dragontooth? And it sets them on fire for a goodly amount of time as well."
"A good way to roast a meal," she added. Kelzy's eyes lit up at these words and alas, it was all over for Jonahab at that moment although he didn't know it until a small time later. .. The blazoned haired lady had taught Kelzy well not to rush and gobble when he ate his dessert.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Skyla kept descending into the increasingly warm, dank tunnelage and once she stumbled a bit on a rock and her torch grazed against the sleek, wettish purple wall. Immediately after this there was a hellishly loud highpitched sonance, like the scream of a banchee Skyla thought; and a huge shudder like as from the rock itself and then a sucession of what almost seemed like convulsions. 'There must be rocks falling further down', she thought. God forbid that there had been a rockslide further up behind her because that would leave her trapped in here. She was a very hopeful, altruistic sort of person and so she preferred to think that the upheavals and steadying movements in and out of the rocks were geological phenomena and not the girations of breathing of a living beast. Which of course is what they were.

When she did come to a pocketlike larger space within the tunnels, she encountered some, ummm, creatures she had never seen nor heard about in all her days. Glowy, tremulous piles of purplish slime that oozed and constantly changed shape. She saw the bones of some long dead animal on the ground and one of the slimes oozed over it and when it continued to the other side, most of the bones were like as if melted away. It was like the oozes had acid within them. One started to come for her and she tried to cut it with her daedric sword. She did manage to cleave it in two and then there were two slimey creatures coming for her. She then swung her fiery torch at one and it caught on fire and burnt down to nothing; so she gave the same treatment to the other. But there were too many of the slimes in the upcoming chamber for her to contiune forwards. And she found that she couldn't go back very far because the way was indeed blocked; not by a rockfall but by something that looked like a sphinctered colon. And then the tunnel walls began to shrink and the slipperyness of them increased and Skyla soon was no more. Although she never met up with her friend, because she'd cllimbed into the lesser stomach of the dragon's maw. She never came up for air nor was heard of again..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shrelk, Skyla's brother and also friend of Jonahab had been searching for them for two days. He followed their dead path in the fading grasses and finally found their tethered horses right where they had left them, hungry and spooked. He saw the cold campfire remnants and then noticed the tumbled down walls around an old thick wooden door; and sticking right out of the ensuing hole, half lying on the wooden door - was the most gnarly righteous longbow upon a sleek quiver of long arrows that he'd ever laid eyes upon. Shrelk knew he must have the bow as his own. He grabbed ahold of it and then placed his hand down to pick up the quiver. Suddenly, out of the quiver raced a little purple dragonlike lizard no bigger than a lady's hand, replete with backfins and irridescent violet scales. The dragon soundly bit the back of his hand but he scooped up the quiver and swung it on his shoulder as the lizard jumped away. He stumbled to his horse, managed to mount and grabbed the reins of the two other horses to lead them away. His eyes were growing hazy though as he looked along the trail his horse was following and then his eyes glazed over and he was no longer a-horseback and was staring down the maw of some smelly purple heaving tunnel .......





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mplantinga
post Sep 21 2007, 04:58 PM
Post #2


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From: Bluffton, SC



It was strangely satisfying to read a dungeon crawl that didn't end well for the adventurers. I really enjoyed the concrete imagery you used in your description of the fort. I also appreciated the insight into the characters inner thoughts and motivations; it helped to make the characters feel real.

I'm afraid that my background as a scientist doesn't put me in a very good position to critique the story. Writing was always one of my weakest skills. Overall, I would say that the story is well thought out and carefully executed.

One minor point: There were a couple places where the apparent narrator switched; most of the time it is clear that the story is told by some omniscient observer, but a couple times the use of "our" is a little confusing.

I do hope this is not the last Ibis-authored story we see on the forums.
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Ibis
post Sep 21 2007, 08:38 PM
Post #3


Mouth
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Joined: 30-March 06
From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



Well thank you, mplantinga. smile.gif Yes, I see what you mean about the narrator point-of-view. That is among the many things I must learn about in storytelling.

**Afterthought: Concerning your kind wish that this isn't the last Ibis-authored story = I now see why perhaps dungeon crawls end more happily for the heroes; I have gone and killed off all my main characters!! How am I to do a sequel? Perhaps I should make Kelzy the star or 'a redhead & her pet'.

Well, I am really enjoying this .... especially lying in bed at night after posting and mellow.gif wondering if anyone has responded yet; which you did. So, if I get good writing advice and can improve, I think I may try this some more.

This post has been edited by Ibis: Sep 21 2007, 08:46 PM


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jack cloudy
post Sep 21 2007, 08:57 PM
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From: In a cold place.



Apart from minor grammar mistakes here and there, it looked like a fine read to me. Not to mention original. Climbing into the stomach of a dragon, now that's a way to end you don't find often in stories. laugh.gif

Just one question. Jonahab was dreaming of finding the ultimate treasure and retiring, right? His companion had a Daedric sword. What did he have? Did he have something similar? If so, simply selling it would have been enough. Those things are worth a fortune. (Though their cutting value is better than their monetary value, if you ask me.)


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Ibis
post Sep 21 2007, 09:49 PM
Post #5


Mouth
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Joined: 30-March 06
From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



Hmm. very good question about the daedric sword, Jack. This is the kind of fine attention to detail that I need. Perhaps what you said about 'the cutting value is better than the selling one', could answer it.

But this really is a slipup that I made, isn't it? I presented them as two fairly needy Nord adventurers but gave Skyla a daedric sword without even thinking because that is what I mainly use when I play, Daedric ... without consulting the monetary value. Why? Because I cheat the game highly when playing and put in the best mods I can find and my hubby makes really over-the-top weapon enchantments for me .. usually for the daedric.

(I have a set of female Ebony Armor coming up for my Altmer Spellsword, Sione, called MoonHold Armor with out of this world enchantments and a set of Legion Dragon called Sunhold Armor .. in a mod by Cain. But that might possibly be another story .. lolol.)

Two other points in Dragon Kist that I agonized over was whether the distance between Bruma and Anvil was actually a day's ride by horseback. No idea really if it is with the easy travel system the way it is in Oblivion. And about the buckthorn bush that the Nords tether their horses to. I'm nowhere near as familiar with foliage in Oblivion as I am with Morrowind and don't have TESCS for Oblivion installed. Would people tie up horses to a thorny bush? It was the only one I could find the name of around Anvil.

Skyla is btw, my most played character in Oblivion. Should I give her another brand of weapon .. that would imply the strength and power of a Nord fighter but be cheaper than Daedric? What about Steel or Iron? Any thoughts from anyone about what would be the most adequate weapon here?

Please, keep teaching me folks!! Budding author here needs much direction ...


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treydog
post Sep 21 2007, 11:21 PM
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From: The Smoky Mountains



First, glad to see you writing from your RPing experiences. It adds a unique perspective to your
story-telling. I would like to see a little more "back-story". So, they are on their way to Anvil---
in order to....? (Since the brother shows at the end, perhaps they were supposed to meet him?
And maybe the 3 were going to engage in some sort of random Nordish mayhem?

Others have noted the shifting point-of-view- that can be a difficult thing to avoid. I would
suggest sticking with the omniscient, anonymous narrator- it allows you to describe the
characters' thoughts and actions, but also to occasionally throw in a little, "meanwhile,
unbeknownst to the Lone Ranger...."

I like the idea of making Kelzy and Keeper your continuing characters...kind of anti-heroic. That
will let you begin to develop them further--- not an option for Skyla or Jonahab.....

The Daedric sword can be explained a number of ways- it was an heirloom, something Skyla
would never, ever sell.... The sword is also one of the reasons for Jonahab's greed- he is
envious of it, and wishes to find something equally (or even more) valuable. And that greed
causes him to take reckless chances....

Anyhow, this certainly gets a Treydog paw-print of approval (for whatever that's worth).


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Ibis
post Sep 22 2007, 12:08 AM
Post #7


Mouth
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From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



OMG! That paw-print is worth gold to me. Three critiques I was/am especially waiting for = yours, Minque's and my real mentor, who got me into this mess - Black Hand's. But I absolutely want to hear from everyone else too. Oh this is so much fun .. point out the flaws here people. I'm learning .. blink.gif

Trey, you are kindling my brainfires .. the back story for the Nords. Yeh, that would be good to put in; but when I think of it (your suggestions are great) how do I do it now? This advise would be for the next time I write? I don't really know how to edit what you've written or if it's even allowed here once you post something.

I did start thinking of origins for Kelzy and his keeper, Astryal the Red. Why she is only half-human or how she surmises why ... why Kelzy isn't a full sized dragon. How she became a witch among common folk and was bottled up in a cave with her pet menace.

I also am considering tying all the fan fics I write together with the common conjecture that the main weapon used in each story was made by this mysterious weaponsmith Cullen .. always mentioned in an offhand way, never known. Kinda like based on Milanius's 3D weapon thread "another brilliant peice of comedy".

This post has been edited by Ibis: Sep 22 2007, 12:10 AM


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minque
post Sep 22 2007, 12:58 AM
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Yay! Ibis the bird is joining the writer´s guild! Welcome my dear.....I see you´re off to a good start...

Oh and getting that paw-print really means a great deal......don´t we all want that?


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Lucidarius
post Sep 22 2007, 09:16 AM
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I liked the unusual ending with the three adventurers all dead and in the stomach of a dragon. The redhead and her pet were intriguing, and you would be able to continue the story if you went on to tell us more about them.

Also, your own suggestion of tying in a story of Cullen, the smith, would be good. Maybe the witch has a grudge against him and is luring adventurers to her lair to salvage as many weapons from his hand as possible. When she's gathered enough she'll set off accompanied by Kelzy to destroy Cullen since he can only be killed with his own weapons.

Looking forward to reading more.


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Ibis
post Sep 22 2007, 10:43 AM
Post #10


Mouth
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From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



Oh this is great! I am getting more back ground story and suggestions all the time. Thanks. smile.gif


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treydog
post Sep 22 2007, 02:02 PM
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I like the idea of the story being a conflict between Astryal and Cullen. She has a reason for seeking revenge (to be revealed later)- so, using her uber-magic skills, she creates a glamourie that draws anyone closely associated with any of Cullen's weaponry. That way, even if a casual traveler finds her lair, it will just appear to be a random (empty) ruin. (Nothing to see here; move along).

Those who are lured will believe that it is their own idea (thus Skyla and Jonahab travelling to Anvil).

Don't want to say too much- if we give away the whole story in an open thread, there won't be any suspense. biggrin.gif


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Ibis
post Sep 23 2007, 12:29 PM
Post #12


Mouth
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From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



I've been thinking and in consultation about this, and I think that there will possibly be several weapon stories coming up in future that are loosely related to the cunning of Cullen's spellcrafting of weaponry. ph34r.gif


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The Metal Mallet
post Sep 23 2007, 10:16 PM
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I liked the concept of this story, and I also like the ideas the others are coming up with. It would certainly provide for an interesting series of stories.

You definitely know how to build up a sense of imagery with your writing (but dare I say, it could be a little TOO much imagery, that could be my personal preference though; let's get some details and some storytelling done is the way I like things done tongue.gif). That's certainly not a huge fault though. And there has all ready been mention of the couple of times you switch the storytelling point of view (it happens to everyone, just look at the beginning of my story; it took a few posts for me to finally pick one to go with).

Overall, I look forward to seeing what you might do with this concept this thread has been talking about.


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Ibis
post Sep 24 2007, 06:40 PM
Post #14


Mouth
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From: Florida Moon-filled Sleepless Nights



Thank you, MM ... more story content and details, I will have to worik on that. And more backgroiund as Treydog says. I guess more reasons why things are the way they are will explain a lot of that.


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