Revan Revisited, Hopefully, better than before. Options

[Lord Revan]

Chorrol, since having really gotten my hand into writing, there's been a number of things I've wanted to tweak or redo altogether about my first story. Being that I am too lazy to bear scanning and editing what I've written already, I will write it all anew. I hope that my experience now will make this more according to my vision and more enjoyable to read for everyone.
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The bitter winds from the north whistled shrilly through the Jerall Mountains. A pack of wolves on the prowl for food perked up suddenly, hearing faint sounds in the distance over the noise of the winds. They howled a communal call and shot toward the direction of the faint howling and screaming in the distance.

The full moon hovered ominously above the snowy landscape. While one could spite the moon for the problems it posed on nights such as this, its curse was indisputably useful on this very occasion.

A lone figure stood detached from the slaughter taking place between immortal enemies. His mission had been to kill the clan of vampires here, but he opted to end two plagues with one cure.
He watched impassively as a hulking werewolf chomped down on a vampire archer’s leg and ripped her from her tree branch screaming. The man was unmoved by the struggle of beast and plagued beings, for much of him was hollow and empty, and he knew not how to fill himself again.

The struggle grew more desperate as time went on, combatants being slain like wheat before the scythe. Soon only the vampire ancient and one of the strongest werewolves remained after the slaughter's climax.

Neither opponent was in any measure of good condition at this point. The man-beast had a poisonous arrow sticking between the shoulder blades, and a short sword, minus the hand that wielded it, was lodged in its left leg.

The vampire matron was bleeding from several bite and slash wounds, fragments of her glass armor were littered about her.
It was clear that neither would survive for long, death could not be denied. The wolf snarled at something, and the vampire heard the crunching footfalls of approaching boots on snow.

Seemingly from thin air, the lone observer materialized between the two crippled combatants. He produced a needle-like dagger of Deadric design with a flourish and started toward the ailing lycanthrope.
Not even the primal ferocity of lycanthropy could sustain the beast now; it lay on a patch of red-stained snow, staring at the moon.

Purposefully, the figure stood over its sprawled form, ceremonial dagger firmly in hand. In its weakened state, the werewolf was unable to stop the dagger thrust through its neck.
The armored man left the dagger in the creature’s throat, and rose to his full height again. The vampiress summoned up her last few moments of strength to gaze at the figure.

His armor covered every inch of him, and was compromised of two layers. The fabric underlay was matte-black, easily flexing according to his movement.
Over the underlay were plates of armor that look similar to chitin, albeit with a sapphire blue hue. Plates were attached precisely placed at non-pivot points, and even then in a way that they did not limit range of motion.

He loomed over the vampire silently, noble in a way. His helmet was constructed of many armor pieces fused together around a black, depthless faceplate.

The vampire ancient attempted to speak, but could not form words, the end was truly near. The figure finally spoke with a powerful and deep voice. “Your lifetime’s curse is lifted.”
He lifted a gauntleted hand; palm hovered just shy of her face. Pure, unbroken darkness flooded her vision, and the vampire was no more.

For a few moments, the ancient's body remained in a kneeling position, but as the figure pulled his hand away it crumpled limply. He took a moment more to scrutinize the body before retrieving his dagger from the werewolf.

Minutes passed as he searched the bodies for valuables and weapons that could be of use or profit. As the mysterious figure worked, a pack of timber wolves arrived, waiting anxiously for him to leave so they could feast upon the dead.
Finally, he finished scavenging the bodies for valuables, and allowed the pack to enjoy the bounty before them. The atmosphere of this place was repellant to his mind, and the figure departed without so much as looking back.

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Apr 19 2008, 08:58 PM

[jack cloudy]

It's a bit shorter than I remember it, and with less exposition. Nevertheless, I am going to assume that the figure is Revan again.

I can't judge your new story from one chapter, but I can tell you that I liked the way Revan approached and all. Silent, not in a hurry but with one heck of a presence.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on it. Hopefully, you'll manage to do with either less storylines or more interwoven storylines this time. It kinda got all confusing for me in the end.

[Lord Revan]

I wanted to hold out on the exposition in the beginning, and otherwise just give cleaner expo. Because it just bugs me when I found that I repeated or contradicted myself in the original.

I'll also try and cut down on the sideplots (which might give me oportunities to write stories with the alternate plots as the primary focus).

[Lordban]

First things first: note that I haven't been reading the original story, and that I'm posting this critique because think the start of your tale would have been excellent had it not been for one particular point.

> I certainly won't presume to judge the story from one chapter.
> It starts out with a very nice bit of description. I linked, probably unsurprisingly, the lone figure to the name "Revan". Up to this point, I am caught.
> I'm troubled a few lines later. The surviving werewolf and vampire are referred to as 'opponents'; the respective descriptions of their states hint at serious wounds but give no indication they're actually no longer opposing one another, so I pictured them still standing in my mind's eye. I certainly did not expect the bit where the werewolf is already lying on the snow; what I expected after reading the lines coming before was an interruption of their ongoing struggle. What I really miss is a line picturing at least the werewolf's collapse.
> The rest of the chapter is well-written, but I can't savour it because of the odd feeling raised by that werewolf lying down.

[paragenic]

>> A lone figure stood detached from the slaughter taking place between immortal enemies

The enemies all die at the end of the story. Don't you mean "mortal enemies"?

I agree with Lordban on some of her points. The story has promise. Like her I was surprised when reading the text especially on these two points:

1) to read that the two remaining fighters were mortally wounded, and not just worse for wear. You refer to them as "opponents" and "combatants" which infers that they are fighting each other. When I read further it struck me that they were so wounded each was helpless so they could not have been fighting, certainly not each other.

2) to read that the scene was "repellant to his mind" - in the beginning of the story I read him "standing detached" "watchng impassively" and being "unmoved". It surprised me that Revan would suddenly find the scene to be repellant to his mind.

Having said all of that, I find myself wondering what this "mysterious figure" was up to. If he looted the body of the baddest werewolf AND the vampire matriarch, you'd think he would have found an artifact of power. If you would write the next chapters, this is what I would be expecting to understand: what was he doing there? Was he paid to kill the vampires? Perhaps by the werewolves themselves but he led them all into a devious trap?