The Snake-folk of the Unnalm Tribe were gathered in the chieftain's tent. It was that time of year again, when the oldest younglings were to advance to adulthood. In addition to the trials that had taken place earlier that day, and for most of the week, the last task was for each to choose an item from the relics the chieftain presented each youth. The collection was different every year and each item chosen was believed to reflect something about the young Rattler that chose it.

After about half of the passing adolescents were called up it was finally Szetsh's turn. He was one of the younglings that had excelled in the spellcrafting trials and could be selected as an apprentice to one of the tribe's current shamans.

Szetsh approached the leader of their tribe, and before him on the ground he could see the various items. Most of them were stones or tools of ornate design, some were little toys or other objects with moving parts, and he could have sworn one of them was a scroll of some sort. What caught Szetsh's attention though was one of the stones. It didn't have any fancy carvings nor was it embedded into some circlet or broach, but it was perfectly round, about the size of both his fist put together. It had the look of the night sky with its dark, almost black violet and a couple twinkles of star light here or there. Szetsh was drawn towards it as if it was speaking to him. He heard the words, “Who are you?” escape his scaly lips. He could tell the stone wanted to be picked up, to be held, just as sure as a living person vocalizing the request. Once in Szetsh’s hands, the chieftain spoke to the crowd, though Szetsh was too engaged with the gemstone to listen. After that, Szetsh was ushered out of the tent for the other boys and girls, to partake in the same rite of passage.

Once outside, Szetsh couldn’t take his eyes off the stone, he could tell it was asking questions, but they were so vague that he couldn’t make out any one request. Entranced with it he was none the less. The other now young adults were off playing with their new items and each other, while Szetsh just sat there on his limbless tail listening to the stones wordless inquiries.

****

That night, just as everyone was getting ready for sleep, one of the lookouts came screaming into their mists, “THE IRON PEOPLE COME! THE IRON PEOPLE COME!”
“The iron people” was the tribe’s term for those from Verkell. It was no news that they’d been expanding in the waste in search of more of their precious iron, and the few mana leyline crosspoints scattered across the waste like that which the Unnalm built their tribe’s village around. There was an ongoing mission to find another before the iron people found their current location, but they were too late; they were already found.

One of the wagons rode up to chieftain’s tent and out stepped a fox enveloped in a baloth hide cape and fedora. His face was covered with a bandana, and it was clear that his entire outfit was a dark, unsettling red. The fox strode up to the tent just as the chieftain slithered out. “Good even Chieftain, I hope we’re not intruding, but I do have to ask you to evacuate this area as it now belongs to me.”

“Under whose command?” the chieftain hissed.

“Under my own, you have not been using this location’s resources, as such you will not mind their absence.”

“But we use land itself, we live here, we eat here, hunt here, there are seven generation buried here.”

“You can find somewhere else to live and eat and hunt and bury your dead, but I am taking this spot even if I have to do so by force.”

“We’ll never allow it.”

“I’m sorry, but without your Basilisks you’re not going to be able to back that up.”

“What do you mean?”

The fox snapped his fingers and eight men in heavily obscuring outfits came from behind the chieftain’s tent wrangling the village’s only four domesticated basilisks, each of which had both its eyes gouged out.

“No.” the chieftain was in shock, but he held his ground. “We won’t let you take more from us, leave now.”

“I can’t promise that, but I will give you one more day to pack up and leave and then I’m coming to take whatever is left.” He ordered his men back into the wagon with the basilisks, “These’ll fetch a nice price at the butcher’s.”

“STOP!” The chieftain lunged only to be impaled with the dagger the fox was hiding under his cape.

The fox pulled the dagger from the chieftain’s gut, it was clear that it actually his hand forming a shadowy blade.

“Nightstalker.” The chieftain weezed as he gripped his poisoned wound.

“No, I’m much worse than any old nightstalker, I’m Thomas Regger. Demons sell their souls to me. Oh, and one last thing before you die; my outfit was white when I bought it.” He then turned to the rest of the village who watched in horror. “You have until this time tomorrow to leave! Anyone and anything I find hear afterwards will be made an example of why no one should forget the name Thomas Regger!”

It had been a rough couple of relocating and a new place still wasn’t found. Szetsh couldn't care less with how engrossed he was with his new gem. He had finally come to understand its wordless communication and even started to respond, to engage in conversation, much to his parents dismay. "Szetsh," his mother would ask, "why not play with other children?"

"But he show me great things, strange magics and places like Jakkard, but not-waste."

"Szetsh dear, that's where the iron people live."

"No, like....trees....as far as eye can see."

"There no place like that."

"Not here, no, but far away, my passage prize said so."

"Szetsh dear, it is rock, rock not talk."

"But it rock do talk, listen." Szetsh held out the gemstone towards his mother who recoiled slightly at something being shoved in her face. She pressed the side of her face against the stone, but all she heard was the noises from the surroundings.

She pulled away, "I don't hear anything."

"He not talk to you? He talk to me all time."

"He? Dearest, I think it time to put stone away."

“No!” Szetsh screemed. His mother tried to grab him, but he was just too slippery. Szetsh slither-running got him all around the tribes newly formed caravan and back before he smacked right into his father. Szetsh’s chin came to just above his father’s midsection.

Szetsh’s father, looming over him, spoke, “Szetsh, my son, how you do?” the father’s voice was quiet and gravely, his vocal cords damaged in a village burning by the iron people long before Szetsh hatched.

Szetsh hugged his father, Gemstone still held tightly. “Mother want passage prize to go away.”

His mother came up just as he said this and his father looked a little annoyed as he spoke to his wife, “Why take what sacred rite give him.”

“He say it talk, and he play with it and not other children.”

“Some passage prize are magic, give him time, he adjust.”

“If he not adjust?”

“Give him time.”

By now Szetsh had wondered off and has sitting by cactus conversing with his the gemstone again. “You know my name, what your’s? ... You not have name? Then you be given name, what can you do? … Wish? You make wish? Then you be Wish-Maker. … I glad you like it. Tell me more about tree world. …” This went on for several hours. It was just after sunset now and the caravan was setting up tents for the night.

Szetsh awoke in the reptilian-equivalent of a cold sweat. He just had the most disturbing dream. It was of the caravan burning, people, Rattlers and iron people alike, were frantic and running all over the place. He asked the Wish-Maker what about the dream, but the stone knew no more than Szetsh despite sharing the dream. It was the middle of the night, and everyone else was safe and asleep.
Szetsh heard some noise off in the distance. He came out of the tent holding Wish-Maker to see where it was coming from. He could see something on the horizon. It was a redish-orange glow, like that of a campfire, but it was much too far away, it shouldn’t have been visible. Szetsh realized immediately that it was either his dream playing out before him or the precursor to it.
He ran back inside and tried to wake his parents up, but they dismissed his findings as more crazy nonsense. Even his father, who had been so understanding of Szetsh’s claim that Wish-Maker had voice, didn’t think the premonition true. Szetsh rushed to the tent of the only shaman who decided to move with the rest of the tribe instead of stand her ground.

“Shaman Gresta! Shaman Gresta! Iron people are here!”

At the words “iron people” she snapped awake and sprung up.

“What do you mean, child?”

“I saw big fire, top of hill!”

“Show me.”

As they stepped out of Shaman Gresta’s tent there was no need to go any further. The blaze was running down the hill being led by several silhouettes, one of which was a Vash that had gotten a head start running away and came up to Szetsh and Gresta panting. “run….” He managed to wheeze before falling face down in the dirt revealing the third degree burn that exposed his spine. The two of them hurried to wake everyone up as the burning hill now illuminated the camp.

The tribe was in a panic as people scrambled to gather their belongings before the flames overtook them. That wasn’t the only thing that came, most of the other figures were the iron people who started the conflagration and where now attacking the tribe. In this panic Szetsh had tripped and dropped the Wish-Maker stone. He went looking after it only to find Thomas Regger holding it.

“And what do we have here? Oh, was this your?”
Szetsh nodded.
“Well its mine now, what wonders this could bring I’ll have to let my auramancer extract its essence before I grind the stone and sell it ‘star dust’. Fake obviously, but people will buy anything. OUCH!!!!” Szetsh had taken the monologue as an opportunity to bit Thomas’s ankles, causing him to drop the stone. Before Szetsh could grab though, Thomas punted him a couple feet. “You little pipsqueak, how dare you!” He turned to some of his men and shouted, “Tar him!” As cauldron was brought above his head Szetsh curld up into a ball and waited for whatever tarring someone meant.

Instead, the commotion stopped, no shouts, no screams, not even the fire; just the light chirp of some unknown bird that had become startled. The ground felt like a pile of fresh leaves. Szetsh could hear Wish-Maker asking him to look. He Opened his eyes and sat up. For as far as he could see, nothing, but trees.

Category: Male Snake-folk Planeswalker
Colors: primary, dabbles in others

Backstory
Szetsh grew up in one of the Rattler tribes that stayed out in the Jakkard wastes after the Crystal ceiling formed. He practiced shamanism and grew adept at training the few basilisks that his tribe could domesticate from wild stock. On the Day of Passage, a holiday spent celebrating the new found man- and womanhood of the oldest of the village children, Szetsh discovered a gem stone of an unknown mineral that displayed psychic abilities, and a will of its own. After the Angel-hunter Thomas Regger destroyed their tribes village and force Szetsh's people to flee, his tribe become wanderers.

During a second attack from Thomas Regger, Szetsh tried to fight back. Failling miserably. His spark ignited in the process and he found himself, and his passage prize on Kamigawa.

Appearance and Personality
Szetsh was at an equivalent age of a young adult human (approx. 18), when his spark ignited. He is reserved and a little skittish, but can be quite sociably around those he trusts.

His scales are the various colors of the desert sand and he has a full head of feathers giving him a 'coutal-like quality to him.

Abilities
Before becoming a 'walker, Szetsh had a great talent with beast training and pack hunting. After his encounter with a prisma-mage however he has taken to studying of colors of magic on-and-off, though with little success. He is still young and knows he has yet to access his full potential, and this gives him hope for things still to come.

Appears In
The Rattler and the Talking Stone
Darksteel Relic

The Snake-folk of the Unnalm Tribe were gathered in the chieftain's tent. It was that time of year again, when the oldest younglings were to advance to adulthood. In addition to the trials that had taken place earlier that day, and for most of the week, the last task is verb tense disagreement for each to choose an item from the relics the chieftain presented the youths. The collection was different every year and each item chosen was believed to reflect something about the young Rattler that chose it.

After about half of the passing adolescents were called up it was finally Szetsh's turn. He was one of the younglings that had excelled at unnecessary in the shamanistic I think just "shaman" would work. Even then, the next step would be "shamanic" rather than "shamanistic". trials and could be selected as an apprentice to one of the tribe's current shamans.

Szetsh approached the leader of their tribe, and before him on the ground he could see the various items. Most of them were stones or tools of ornate design, some were little do-dads This just feels out of place or toys with moving parts, and he could have sworn one of them was a scroll of some sort. What caught Szetsh's attention though was one of the stones. It didn't have any fancy carvings nor was it embedded into some circlet or broach, but it was perfectly round, about the size of both his fist put together and looked like he was staring into the night sky with its dark almost black violet and a couple twinkles of star light here or there. I think this sentence got away from you somewhere along the line. Szetsh was drawn towards it as if it was speaking to him. He heard the words, “Who are you?” escape his scaly lips. He could tell the stone wanted to be picked up, to be held, just as sure as a living person vocalizing the request. Once in Szetsh’s hands, the chieftain spoke to the crowd, though Szetsh was too engaged with the gemstone to be listening You only really need to say "to listen". After that, Szetsh was ushered out of the tent for the other boys and girls, to partake in the same rite of passage.

Once outside, Szetsh couldn’t take his eyes off the stone, he could tell it was asking questions, but they were so vague that he couldn’t make out any one request. Entranced with it he was none the less. The other now young adults were off playing with their new items and each other, while Szetsh just sat there on his limbless tail listening to the stones wordless inquiries.

****

That night, just as everyone was getting ready for sleep, one of the lookouts came screaming into their mists, “THE IRON PEOPLE COME! THE IRON PEOPLE COME!”

“The iron people” was the tribe’s term for those from Verkell. It was no news that they’d been expanding in the waste in search of more precious iron, and the few mana leyline crosspoints scattered across the waste like the around which could use some tightening up the Unnalm their tribes village around redundant. There was an ongoing mission to find another before the iron people found their current location, but they were too late; they were already found.

One of the wagons rode up to chieftain’s tent and out stepped a fox enveloped in a baloth hide cape and fedora and covered his face with a bandana, all of which were colored a dark red run on sentence. The fox strode up to the tent just as the chieftain slithered out. “Good even Chieftain, I hope we’re not intruding, but I do have to ask you to evacuate this area as it now belongs to me.”

“Under whose command?” the chieftain hissed.

“Under my own, you have not been using this location’s resources, as such you will not mind their absence.”

“But we use land itself, we live here, we eat here, hunt here, there are seven generation buried here.”

“You can find somewhere else to live and eat and hunt and bury your dead, but I am taking this spot even if I have to do so by force.”

“We’ll never allow it.”

“I’m sorry, but without your Basilisks you’re not going to be able to back that up.”

“What do you mean?”

The fox snapped his fingers and eight men in heavily obscuring outfits came from behind the chieftain’s tent wrangling the village’s only four domesticated basilisks, each of which having redundant had both its eyes gouged out.

“No.” the chieftain was in shock, but he held his ground. “We won’t let you take more from us, leave now.”

“I can’t promise that, but I will give you one more day to pack up and leave and then I’m coming to take whatever is left.” He ordered his men back into the wagon with the basilisks, “These’ll fetch a nice price at the butcher’s.”

“STOP!” The chieftain lunged only to be impaled with the dagger the fox was hiding under his cape.

The fox pulled the dagger from the chieftain’s gut, it was clear that it actually his hand forming a shadowy blade.

“Nightstalker.” The chieftain weezed as he gripped his poisoned wound.

“Not just any old nightstalker, I’m Thomas Regger. Oh, and one last thing before you die; my outfit was white when I bought it.” He then turned to the rest of the village who watched in horror. “You have until this
time tomorrow to leave! Anyone and anything I find hear afterwards will be made an example of why no one should forget the name Thomas Regger!”

This is actually an issue. Nighstalkers are evil shadows of people who have sold their souls to demons. The thing is, they lose almost their entire identity and become twisted into something... less than normal. If they are far enough gone beings to be Nightstalkers, then they wouldn't have the sense of self left to say things like that.

Having said that, I don't see any problem aside from having made him a Nightstalker, because that's just not what he is here.

Usually when I critique, I like to go from general comments to specific ones. This time, however, I feel the opposite would be more useful, so I'll go through the story and comment as I read.

First thing's first, there is a number of specifics here that you, to the best of my knowledge, simply invent about the culture of the snake-folk. I would need Keeper or Barinellos to tell me for sure, but I assume "Unnalm" is something you made up? That's not a problem in and of itself, you understand, but because it would impact a community plane, we should probably discuss it first.

Now, that being said, I sort of like the rite of passage object selection thing you've got going. It's an interesting cultural cue. I was glad to see you got rid of "do-dads," which I agree didn't fit.

Your first four paragraphs vary widely in terms of length. Again, in and of itself, that's not a problem. In fact, it can be a really powerful tool in writing. However, you need to know what effect it has on the reader. Unless carefully proofreading, readers don't actually read every word. They scan. And the longer a paragraph, the more likely they are to skip over things. Because of this, shorter paragraphs, when placed between two longer ones, tend to really stand out to a reader. Your second paragraph is only two sentences, and stands out a lot. Unfortunately, it doesn't really do anything to deserve to stand out. It just proves a distraction. I would fill it out with a little more detail, maybe some more background or some description would fit well here.

Conversely, your third paragraph is comparatively quite long, and you buried a moment that you probably wanted to stand out more, when Szetsh whispers "Who are you?" in a mystical little moment. That might have better served you by breaking that into its own line, which dialog could certainly justify.

The sentence: "The iron people" was the tribe's term for those from Verkell" really stands out. It takes the reader out of the story because you, as the narrator, are addressing us, the readers, directly, in a way that is totally outside of the story. You can accomplish the same thing in-world by saying something like "Every snake there shuddered, knowing well what that meant: the people of Verkell." With something like that, you are still in the story, in the minds of the people you're portraying, and you provide necessary exposition without jarring us out of it. Imagine, for instance, if in Star Wars, the first time the Force was mentioned, George Lukas stepped out on screen and told us directly what the Force was and what it meant, then stepped away to allow the movie to continue.

I will need clarification from Keeper or Barinellos on the nature of "domesticated basilisks." To me, that seems like a contradiction in terms, but if the snakefolk in Jakkard do somehow domesticate basilisks, then very well.

I've noticed a couple of places were you use all caps for emphasis. I would advise against this in a story. An exclamation point should suffice. That's more of a stylistic point, however. If you really like them, fine. They just aren't necessary.

I like the way you fixed the nightstalker problem. It's actually the way I was going to suggest you fix it. It could probably be a bit clearer, but in general, I think you're on the right track there.

Part two is, as Luna pointed out, marked with typos, which makes it very difficult to read. Even the first sentence "It had been a rough couple of relocating..." A rough couple of what? Weeks? Months? Or just a rough couple of relocations? From there you go directly into passive voice by saying "a new place still wasn't found." Now, I'm not as down on passive voice as some people are, but this one seemed unnecessary, when you could have just said "and they still hadn't found a new place to settle."

Once dialog starts, we get into a major problem for me, and that's the language you choose to use here. For one thing, I personally find it offensive, as it's a device that is an historic slight of indigenous and non-English speakers, which isn't okay. But more than that, it really doesn't make sense. The convention started because non-native English speakers were trying to speak in English, which is a comparably difficult language to learn. But even if there are several different languages in Jakkard, which I don't think we know, your snakes would not be speaking (poorly) to one another in a language other than their own. You, as the narrator, are already translating for us. There's no reason here to give us an intentionally poor translation just as an indication that these people are "others" to ourselves.

Also, it seems very off to me that his mother tells him to go play with other "children" when a major plot point of part one is his rite of passage into adulthood. In fact, the entire relationship between Szetsh and his parents seems pretty off to me. That being said, I really like what you're doing with his increased obsession with the Wish-Maker. You're hitting a note of mania with him that I really like.

There's another major plot problem with the end of this piece that's pretty important to me. Jakkard's planar ceiling makes it nearly impossible to planeswalk in or out except in Verkell and maybe one or two other places. I have my own reasons for this, but I'm really unhappy with Szetsh 'walking out of the Wastes like that. If there's any way you could relocate that moment to Verkell, I would be much obliged. Maybe Szetsh gets captured, brought to Verkell and is about to be killed there? I know it's an extra step and somewhat waylays the immediacy of the situation, but it fits the metaphysics of the plane much better.

Now for some generals. Proofreading. The mind is a funny thing. Remember when I said earlier that readers don't actually read everything? That's thricefold true when we read our own work. The mind remembers what you meant to write, and will often read it that way. Most of the prose I post has been read over at least twice, usually while listening to it out loud (I use a text-to-speech function) and I still miss a few things here and there. You want to help your readers through a text as much as possible, and typos, misspellings and incorrect word usage really hampers that pursuit.

The other thing I want to preach is patience. This story feels really rushed, like you just want to get through it and get to the end. The moments you put in here, as in the two appearances of Thomas Regger, are suitably significant to the life of Szetsh and his people, but there is almost no build-up of tension here. I said once that it's all about pathos (emotional connection with your audience), and I hold to that. We don't have a lot of time in this piece to really care about what happens, and no real time to come to fear Thomas Regger the way we should fear a villain. In fact, we have little to no sense of Regger period.

I think this piece can, and should, be fleshed out a bit more. Let us get more into Szetsh's head and the reality of his people. Show us how terrifying Thomas Regger is, and make us feel it, viscerally, so that when he reappears at the end, we're genuinely concerned about what's going to happen.

Like I said at the very beginning, I think this has potential. I think you hit some good notes with the basics of character and culture, and your story arc fits well with an ascension story. It's the particulars where I think you need some polishing. This one is probably going to take some work to get to where it seems you want to go, but you've got a decent skeleton laid out now.

If you're looking for some practice writing, I do run the Flavor of the Week thread over in the Art, Flavor and Storyline board. Each week, I provide a new writing prompt in the form of a Magic card, and people write a short little story. If you're interested, it's a good way to polish some of these skills.

Thanks for writing this, and please don't get discouraged. Writing is always a work in progress, and the only way to improve is to keep doing it. I certainly hope you continue.