Ever have one of those morning where you knew you were screwed? Yeah, I had one like that not too long ago, well maybe longer ago than I give credit, after all, everything adds together after 'while. Yea seems like only yesterday, basically I been hitting the slosh hard, experimenting mixing ale w' mana. Now you don't need to be an alchemist to know that is more foolish that chargin' an ol' horn head, but I'm a glutton for punishment, an' curiosity had gotten the best of me that night.

Anyway I'm rambling, so let me get back to the tale at hand. Yeah this is a tale about how I got to save the Magistrates daughter, why I did, well gold is a pretty good motivator for a moral shift, yeah, lotsa of gold, enuff to retire, so I can sit here, at this here bar, and tell this story to you.

So open the bar tab, and I'll tell you a tale of how I've gotten here at this here bar.

You see, as I mentioned earlier, I had been mixing powdered mana w/ alcohol, for various experiments, and when you go at dives, they usually end up watered down and dirty, so a wee bit o' mana helps perk up the gloom of drinking at such a place, but the problem is, when consuming such things, the results can be unpredictable, and luck would have it I just passed out from a night of voyeurism, but not a minute before stepping on the wrong toes.

I woke up too a blurr of fury and violence. Before I knew it my back was against the wall, looking face to horn w/ a cattleman. Now them Minotaur's, they are some big brutes, but they aren't the brightest rock of mana in the quarry. Now, I always have a plan, but I don't always have a opportunity, so I hang there, bidding my time.

"You weren't very wise cheating me out of that gold last night", I recognized the voice in the blur of the memories, a man in a white hat, he lost to a game of cards,.... it was an intense game. "Now ol' horn head will show you what happens to those who cross me!".

"I beat you fair square, you dirty..." ah, better not finish what I yelled in that sentence. Lets just say it ended with the minotaur getting a shot of red mana in the head from my old trusty six shooter. Everything in a fire fight gets blurry, your adrenaline pumps, your actions start doing themselves, like being a puppet by faith.

I remember shooting a snakeman as he came from behind the bar, his shot whizzing past my ear like a midsummer bee. The next thing I remember is getting a stool smacked across my head, breaking on impact, and the same head hitting the ground with a thud. Now, a lesser man would been killed to this, but I'm as hard as stone, and that he didn't expect. I tackled him as he started walking away. A few exchanges of punches, and we crash into the street, and he ended up face down in something better left unmentionable. I took the bag of gold, and walked, trying to recollect my thoughts, as I grabbed my stuff. Clearly I overstayed my welcome in this town, hitch a ride on the Rail-Runner and see where it brings me. So I got my case, my flask, my lizard skins, the usual stuff, and started to walk.

Now in this story, you might hear me make fun of a lotta critta's. Whether they be the scale, the hornhead, or the savage, I will give 'em credit where credit is rightfully due, they know when to quit, an' when to stay down. People, people never know this basic thing. "I'sss go-go-gooona kill YOU!" is what I hear from behind, with the click of the pistol. Without though I turn around and a chorus of bangs could be heard. He fell, like a house of cards, back on the ground like the day he was born. Now, in a strange twist of faith, I'd been hit too with something fierce, because the next thing I know, the world was coming closed and everything was fading to black.


I wake up some time later to a blur of madness. As I slowly got my vision back, I looked over to see a young Cat-girl, of what ya call 'em, eh it's not important, dressing my wound. She looks at me, and with those big green cat eyes, stares for a second, before running out the room, screaming he's awake.

"Tiss.... awak!" she hissed, running like.... well a cat if I do reckone myself. It'd seem like I musta been layin' there for an eternity or two, really I can't say I remember much, it's all a blurr of spinning darkness and delirium. You know, I musta passed back out, because when I woke up again, there was several fine dressed men standing over my bed, as if they were waiting for me to meet the reaper.


"Splendid! He is alive" said a fat one "I always though you alchemists and apothecaries to be quacks, but I must say, quiet frankly, your work speaks for itself. Marvelous!" I kid you not, he spoke just how I said it, with the spout out chest, and even the one eye due to the monocle. The other man agreed, in the same exaggerated fashion, but the doctor was quiet.
(to be continued)

Now that I've gotten this week's voting business out of the way, I've got to put this on my "to-read" list. I'll get to it eventually...

Oh, and a note: I noticed a censored word in the opening line. Considering you can't get around the censor anyway, I would suggest changing the word to "screwed" or the like.

(changed, also tell me what you think).

So if there's going to be a sequel it has to be "For A Few Mana More".

Actually maybe, depends how I finish this, and what I feel like. I have had a few idea's on the back burner.

There's awkward phrasing in this line:

I've always heard it "everything blurs together" instead of "adds together". Might be a lack of experience on my part, others can disprove me or back me up.

----

Typo:

Should be "more foolish than".

Double-typo:

If you're going to stick to the accent, it would be 'nuff.

Big no-no

Is this a story, or your personal outline?

Typo:

Should be "woke up to a blur".

Typo:

Should be "have an opportunity".

Typo:

Should be "biding".

Grammar problem:


Mutiple typos:

Should be "like a puppet of fate".

Typo:

Should be "killed by this".

Typo:

Should be "thought".

Typo:

Should be "or what ya call 'em".

Typo:

Should be "reckon".

Typo:

Should be "quite".

Typo?

I have never heard of "spout out chest".

----

Hopey Jegus. There are so many problems with this.

To start with, you don't have what I would call a competent level of punctuation in this. Between that and the typos, I would tell you to at least run this through a basic spell-checker like Word or Google Docs. It was honestly painful to read through.

Second, if you are going to write in an accent, you need to be very consistent with it. There are too many instances where you end up writing with a more eloquent version than what you are with the accent.

To extend that topic, I read recently (and I've got to find that article to add to my "What I've Been Reading About Writing), and it makes sense to say so, to avoid writing accents because in doing so you automatically make the character more difficult to understand and, in some cases, bar some readers entirely since non-natives may not understand how to read accents.

Another issue is from the ending. There are no cat-girls that I know of on Jakkard, and if you meant a fox-folk woman, it's been my impression that fox-folk are mostly among the higher class of Jakkard, so I have a hard time believing that one would be so subservient as you have her portrayed. If, on the other hand, the last scene takes place on another plane, then you do not make that clear in the least, since you repeatedly say [walk] and not ['walk] and the well-dressed men in the end somehow know that your main character is an alchemist.

This needs much more work instead of being continued right now...