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The outlaw

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Dredigan

Dredigan

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He couldn't cry anymore, he didn't think he had any tears left and his throat was sore, at this point there was nothing left to do but walk back to the Lorik. After a little while he gave up though, he crawled up under a tree to shield himself from the rain and he lay there with his back up against it, praying.
He was surprised that he woke up, though he could tell it had been a long time, it was late at night now. His leg's ached miserably from running so long, but he would catch a fever and die out here if he didn't find better shelter soon, He stood, despite the wicked pain he felt, and began hobbling toward the Lorik as fast as he could, he stumbled once or twice into the mud but something forced him back up. Ember patted against his legs as he hobbled, the secret to killing these beasts was dangling on his hip, and he was the only one who could bring the news back, it wasn't even up to him anymore. He had to get back to Rob.
===============================================================
Chapter thirteen: Yorlede
"He's dead sir." The rebel told Robyk. Robyk had spent that whole day in his study, Raylov was the leader of this outfit but for some reason people seemed to be flocking to bring the news to Rob. Yorlede had just sat in his cell, they didn't even give him a chamber pot to make his water in, so he just did it wherever he was sitting and it leaked to the low area in the center of the cell, there it was mixing with the water leaking in from the rainfall. The corner was full of feces that made the cell stink, he was unclothed and soaking wet with rainwater, covered in his OWN water, and his wrists chafed badly from the irons.
He had lost count of the days he'd been in here, the only way he could even tell if it was day or night was if someone opened the door to the guardhouse. He hadn't been spoken to since the knight of tears Valtir through him in here, sometimes he liked to speak to himself to make sure he still had his own voice.

26-Jun-2012 18:02:13 - Last edited on 26-Jun-2012 18:04:33 by Dredigan

Dredigan

Dredigan

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The rebels fed him twice or thrice a day when they were feeling good, usually it was what they didn't want, watery pea soup with some bread crust and the but of a sausage in it, or some thin cold porridge. Once he had a bite of corn, it was even warm. Today must have been a bad day because they only fed him once, and a terrible meal it was, it was naught but the butt of a loaf of bread floating in a bowl of milk.
When the day finally came that Robyk came to see him he rejoiced for the company, even if it was the company of this outlaw. He leaned down and unlocked his irons before saying anything. Yorlede looked at his wrists, they were grossly red and raw. "You've been ransomed." he said. "Your brothers are outside." Rob said lifting Yorlede to his feet. Yorlede couldn't help but smile even as Rob tied his wrists with thick hempen rope. Yorlede felt Rob shove him toward the door, he walked without a fight, why would he argue with being set free?
When they got outside he saw three knights mounted on large stallions, the middle one had a full suit of silver plate on with his red crested helm. Rob Shoved him down into the mud. "Here. Now give me the payment." Rob shouted through the rain. The red crested knight's horse shook his head impatiently. "Here. Take your damn money and give us Yorlede." he shouted back and threw a brown sack at Rob, who cought it. Rob opened the sack and looked inside, using a finger to move things around. "Good. Take your 'knight' and go." Rob said giving Yorlede a little kick to put his face back into the mud.
One of the lesser knights dismounted his horse and grabbed Yorlede up, helping him mount, then he remounted behind Yorede. "Don't cut those ties until you're away from the town." Rob yelled at them. Yorlede was feeling quite excited about finally leaving this filthy hole they called a village, why Roham was so interested in it was beyond him.

26-Jun-2012 18:44:22 - Last edited on 26-Jun-2012 18:46:06 by Dredigan

Dredigan

Dredigan

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They trudged off into the rain and nobody said a word until they had traveled a league or so. "Yorlede you bloody fool. How could you let these... These gutter rats overpower you?" The red crested knight asked, after he heard the voice he knew it was Ser Stavi. "It wasn't my fault, they were lead by that sellsword we arrested for for all that drunken rabble, The dwarf, Raylo or something of the sort. You've seen him fight he's a monster." Yorlede said and Stavi was quiet for a time. "It's no matter." He said in his deep hollow ringing voice. "Look there." They rode over a little hill and Yorlede saw red banners waving with whitewashed shields decorating them. Yorlede was astonished.
"Lord... I mean King Aenis cannot spare all of these men." Yorlede said plainly, there had to be a thousand men here. "He has sent word to his vassal, Lord Worrik, demanding he send two thousand men to defend Ornica in their absence." The knight he was riding with reached around him and sawed off his ties with a little dagger. "We're taking back the Lorik." Stavi said, "This is your chance to redeem yourself." he finished.
they rode down the hill into the camp, men were walking past them with dead rabbits and the like in their hands, and others were drinking and singing songs under their tents. The knight Yorlede was with dropped him off at a small rend tent, not much taller then him and just wide enough for him to lay in. When he walked in he found a chest and inside he found some new silver armor, but this one did not have red crests on it. (Disgraced and demoted.) he though as he donned the armor. "Still a knight though." he said out loud to himself. He found a plain steel longsword leaning against his nightstand, he picked it up and buckled on the sword belt.
=====================================================
End of part one.
I need to do a part two because someone posted under here (which im not mad about its fine).

26-Jun-2012 19:05:09 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2012 20:13:00 by Dredigan

Azigarath

Azigarath

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"The oil engulfed him only... He kept walking as if it didn't phase him."
Phase should be faze.
"He stood and nearly fell, so he grabbed a spear to help support his weight."
Holding a spear to support weight? You mean the spear was on its butt and he was leaning on it.
"He limped up to the castle steps and took his time climbing them"
He's almost dead, why would he be taking his time? 0.o
What does ... mean? Three periods mean that the author intentionally left something out, it doesn't mean a pause or a moment for reflection. So it is grammatically incorrect to use it too often if there's nothing being left out.
Note that whenever a different character speaks, the dialogue is always on its own line.
What do these monsters look like?
Strange that your story has mentioned RuneScape however there is no clear coordination betwixt the settings. Your map is similar to Delnaz's.
Tan skin, blonde hair and blue eyes is a cliché. I see it so often that it's losing its effectiveness. The following paragraph about your hero and his wife is a grammatical mess.
Characters' thoughts should not be within brackets, type their thoughts as a normal dialogue and finalize it with "he thought" etc..
""This man, is accused of the highest of crimes. Desertion of the lords army in times of war." The man read off a scroll of paper. "His lordship, Luthor Roham on this day sentences you, Tolvar Aviik, to die. Is there anything you wish to say Tolvar?" The man folded up the scroll."
So Tolvar was accused, by whom? Also, I think Tolvar was a knight, so the worst punishment for knights was the compensation of horse and armour. Oh well, that doesn’t matter, seeing as this story isn't about Medieval Europe.
Stewards did not organize and talk about executions. That's the judge's job.

27-Jun-2012 00:47:20 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2012 00:50:22 by Azigarath

Azigarath

Azigarath

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Dialogue is unrealistic; your adults don't act like adults. Human beings don't talk like that. And how is it that copulation began on the floor but ended up on a bed? This goes back to my earlier point, as your sentence structure is clumsy and incoherent. Your humans live in perfect worlds, which doesn't realy add to the effect of the story's context.
Hm, your naming sounds like something from Lord of the Rings or Skyrim or some other Tolkien clone. Don't model your stories off of video games or other peoples' works, for you will finalise your story to be unoriginal. Use your own ideas, they're better than anything else so far.
Your monsters don't seem to do much other than stand idle and screech at people, which makes them wet themselves. "Roar! I'm going to stand here, look at you, and be scary! Fear me!"
Were = were
We're = we are
Again, more mentioning but no descriptions of combat. Shortcuts kill your story's emotion. This is why your characters feel more like robots than human beings.
"Yorlede was almost embarrassed by the other knights, They were all tall, handsome, and proud, he himself was no taller than 5'7, sinewy and swarthy."
Average height of the Middle Ages was about 5'5". Charlemagne was six feet tall and considered a giant.
"His one redeeming quality was the color of his eyes, a bright green-blue that were truly bright."
You describe the same thing twice, and I don't see anything redeeming about bright eyes.
"The quality of the guardhouse reflected the quality of the town. A hovel, a longhouse with enough beds in it for half his men."
A hovel is not an example of quality, a hovel is a simple dwelling, so more of a shack. You do repeat the mistake of using incorrect wording. You also overuse quite a few words, such as donning and spattered, and donning means to put on clothing, hence that's not the correct usage of words since armour is not clothing. Equipping or armouring would be better words as they are correctly associated with armour.

27-Jun-2012 00:47:44

Azigarath

Azigarath

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Some chapters have the same title.
Your = your
You're = you are
"And a halfhelm with the visor removed. He slung his mace over his back."
What's a halfhelm? And maces were not slung over the back, they were strapped by the waist with a frog.
"For rebels these men are well trained."
Knights, mercenaries and princes could be rebels. There is no reason why some rebels can't be well-trained.
Dwarves speaking a Germanic language, eh?
"He slid on his chainmail shirt and his plate mail vest, along with his chainmail leggings and plate boots and gloves."
This would take about an hour to do. That's why knights had pages and squires, so that they'd help him put on his armour. Leggings is clothing, not armour. A better word would be chausses, don't get your wording from video games.

"The guards were being overwhelmed by average citizens, though most had swords and a bit of armor."
Impossible.
"He remembered severing a guards arm, and punching one in the nose making him fall, then impaling him."
Also impossible. I recall in your first story that someone stabbed an opponent in the chest and then carries on, and in this example, your hero impales someone with a sword. To stab someone to that extent is actually possible, but then the sword would get stuck between the ribs. Weapons could also get stuck after piercing some armour.
Your knights and guards don't seem to be trained very well. If they can be defeated by goblins, women and citizens, then maybe you shouldn't be using knights in your story. Knights were trained since the age of five to kill people, but oh well, I guess that's obsolete in the story.
"He remembered bits and pieces, like swiping his blade through a man from shoulder to waste and seeing the halves of the mans body fall apart, and somehow ending up on the ground jabbing a mans eyes out, jelly like goo pulsating out of the eye sockets before he died."

27-Jun-2012 00:48:07 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2012 00:52:04 by Azigarath

Azigarath

Azigarath

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You keep forgetting to put a ' before the s. Waste should be waist. Is it just me, or is it unrealistic for a man to cut another man vertically in half, or is your story supposed to be imagined like a Japanese cartoon? And how does gouging someone's eyes out kill someone?
Someone's yelling would not be louder than fighting. Real-life combat is not like a Total War game, you cannot yell overtop several hundred soldiers' fighting.
As usual, you are not describing the fighting. You are saying it’s happening but that's not enough for imagination to build upon.
Hyaa!
"The chamber was still dark but he could see his wife was unclothed, and still as fat as the day before. "
Most people don't lose noticeable weight within twenty four hours.
"Vaylar was very skinny and sinewy, the idea of him laying with this whale was almost too much for him to bear when he wed her all those years ago, but he had to have an heir, they did have three daughters, but he hoped to put a son in her soon enough, before she dried out and became useless."
The daughters only need to marry for an heir to be available. I loved the first sentence though.
What do your draugrs look like? They do have varied appearance in mythology.
"mutilated beyond reason, none of them had both arms attached, some were missing legs, many were headless."
This is dismemberment, not mutilation.
"He found a plain steel longsword leaning against his nightstand,"
It just happened to be there for your hero, hm?
Well, now that the commentary is done, I can move onto the next point. The execution of your ideas is good I suppose, though you repeat a lot of mistakes and the story feels more like an explanation of happenings than a story. Simply put, your storytelling is severely lacking due to a lack of description, particularly where the action is.

27-Jun-2012 00:48:27 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2012 00:53:31 by Azigarath

Azigarath

Azigarath

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Still, the story is full-length so that's good, so you do have passion for it. What I like about the story is how you mention that your heroes are not always a hero after all, so that does make them dynamic but also adds controversy. For example, it feels like you model your characters after modern soldiers. If you do take a look at Medieval history sometime down the road, you'll soon notice that soldiers back then were not really like ours of today.
Overall the story is what it is, a young author's story, so there's no reason to complain about it. It's not like I should expect someone new to be able to impress thousands of people that this forum obviously doesn't have.
Your story would become a polished product with some proofreading, simply start by fixing grammar, wording and general typos, as you are making too many mistakes for elementary level literature. The biggest lack in your story is the absence of long-term description (as you have probably noticed from all my feedback about that), so it'd be a good idea to shift from short-term elements and expand upon multiple ideas that have more than a few sentences of blah blah blah.
But the best way to make a good story is to do it your own way, so if you feel that you can do better than my feedback on your own then you certainly can do that. Nonetheless, really don't be so influenced by other sources, because your story is very similar to a lot of things out there concerning naming and characters.
Oh, and I forgot to mention on your other thread that chainmail doesn’t clank, it jingles. Plate armour also doesn't clank, it clicks when the parts move.








I will be sure to post my reply once you have finished posting the story. :)

27-Jun-2012 00:48:45 - Last edited on 28-Jun-2012 06:47:44 by Azigarath

Dredigan

Dredigan

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I wish you hadn't posted this yet because i wasn't finished and now I have to do the outlaw part 2 when i wanted it all to be one story. So now this is gonna look kind of dumb. Thanks for your feedback though, but there are a few things i wanted to point out to you. I know people don't lose noticible weight in 24 hours, that was him complaining to himself about her being overweight, Chainmail is in no way heavier than platemail, when i describe people blocking with swords i don't mean blocking i mean parrying so i'll point that out next time, and when i describe people putting armor on like you said it would taake a long time, so i don't sit there and describe them buckling everything, and putting everything in place because it slows down the story, and also chapters have the same name because im not naming the chapters, im saying the name of the character that chapter follows.
And if you're suggesting that I stole Delnaz' map idea, I didn't, I've never read Delnaz' story but whereas I'm sure it's great i've been working on mine constantly, the map Idea just came to me when I finished the prologue.

27-Jun-2012 19:59:46 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2012 20:15:06 by Dredigan

Dredigan

Dredigan

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=======================================================
PART 2 BEGINS ON PAGE 7.
=======================================================
I know I've left some details out and if you have read this you may be confused as to why Lord Roham's name is Luthor in the begining, and Aenis at the end. It's because the lord who declared himself king died for he was very old, I didn't describe it in the story because I didn't give Vaylar's viewpoint until long after he died so he would have already heard about it, and I didn't show it at Yorlede's viewpoint because he died before Yorlede was sent to 'The Lorik'. So it didn't seem relevant to make the character think about it.
Also in sight of Azigarth's review I've taken some things into consideration. I'm going to make the guards fight much better in the 2nd part, and im going to make the fighting more intense. So if it seems like things have sort of changed this is why.
Also, he called my first story a bit clichet, but all I can say to that is I WANTED them to be taken out like that, and he said knights fight better than that, well the only TRUE knight's survived and got taken captive, i know I said they proved themselves in battles but all they truly did was be present at significant events. Art is not a democracy, so thats how I invisioned it and thats how I wrote it.

27-Jun-2012 20:13:40 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2012 20:22:54 by Dredigan

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