For the curious, this takes place before the Matahouroa shorts. Features Panahihou and Natanalok, running about Namacanaan's Bhamarivo.

Chapter 1/3: Shadows

I arrive to this strange plane, the cool blanket of night soothing after the pain in the ass that was to get here. The air itself is hot and humid, but the darkness feels, as always, welcoming and comforting, a sort of coldness independent from temperature, that relaxes my muscles and my eyes and takes away the stress and discomfort. It's a feeling most don't get, which is frankly a pity. It is almost completely pitch black, only the distant slivers of starlight passing through the branches of the canopy. I don't need light to see, however, being one with the shades as I am. I'm in a covered, woodland-like swamp, my webbed feet just barely submerged beneath shallow water.

The journey here was quite tiresome. I came here on a hassle: I was relaxing in a pub in Ravnica, when this douche antler-guy starts shooting arrows at me. I mean, it's not like I haven't had people wanting me dead before, including some quite nasty Dimir freaks, but most assassins are a bunch of over confident, pitiful children that think they have advantage in the shadows - my own domain and no one else's -, and once you demonstrate to them how powerless they are easy to dispatch. This one, though, this one marched in, blinding like a freaking Sun, firing arrows that hit me without missing and burned me like, well, like sunrays, and were as hard on the eyes as them. And some were even worse. Word of advice: if a life mage fires at you, rot the hell out of the arrowhead as quickly as possible, or else they'll turn into trees.

I think I nearly died, if not for a very generous Rakdos mob that was pissed off at the guy, distracting him long enough for me to escape. I retreated to the shadows, healed myself as quickly as possible, and left, only to end up in some sort of Blind Eternities storm that left me spinning around towards it. As I did, I noticed that the planes rotating it felt empty in a wrong away, and I did my best to not enter any of them, until I started to feel very drained and couldn't keep myself in control for much longer. In a split second decision, I went to the one that I felt most gravitated towards, which happened to be this one. I don't know why, but I felt it was the best choice I could make back there.

I breathe deeply, feeling the darkness passing through my veins. This plane feels empty, but at least my domain exists, unlike some of the other planes I glimpsed quickly in the storm. It is somewhat tempered, but it is still strong and vast, spreading through the lands in vast swamps and marshland. I can already feel myself regenerating, the wounds healing and the stress leaving with each breath, and a rush of power flares through my body, making me feel quite alive. I move my arms, shaping the shadows to my whims, and I create a shade. It whirls about in the air, then descends down to me, passing softly through my plumage, clinging to me like a child.

"Scout for me" I command.

The shade then leaves, whirling about into the nightsky. I'm hungry, so I move deeper into the swamp, looking for fish. Already I spot a lungfish, and with a spell I kill it, burning its soul but leaving its flesh intact. I grab it with my beak and open my wings, taking off and gliding for a bit, my feet skimming the water surface until I see a clearing, leading to my ascent. I spot a large branch, and I gracefully perch on it, sitting down and ripping the tender fish flesh with my hooked beak. It isn't particularly good, tasting a bit too sour and mud-like, but then again I am quite spoiled, having such a wide sample range as I have.

The shade returns, whirling around like a breeze.

"Another spellcaster approaches, master. It resembles a lemur, and carries with it potions. Undead puppets pulled by vines walk alongside it."

"Goodness, I haven't been here for more than a few minutes and they already send zombies at me."

I swallow the rest of the lungfish in a single gulp - something quite natural for us Kawau, being waterbirds and all, but still it's quite undignified and brusque -, and I stand. Darkness whirls and pools within, ready to be released in dark fires.

"Show yourself!" I shout

I wait. The trees began to shake, branches moving out of the way, until I see who's moving them. It does indeed look like a lemur, a huge, fat, gorilla like lemur with a thick brown pelt that's darker in the underside, grinning to me its sharp fangs. The eyes are red, almost glowing in the dark, even though I'm not using any light to see. Sitting on a massive, twelve headed hydra, its left hand carries a staff ending on a hippo skull while the other carries vines like leashes, attached and pulling dead corpses of humans, other lemurs, assorted beasts and a creature that resembles an Aven, but with white feathers and a toothed snout instead of a beak. Raising the staff and letting go of the vines, the lemur commands the hydra it is sitting on to lower one of its head and allow it to climb on the neck, reaching up until it's as high as me, and we stand at eye level.

"Calm yourself" it says, smugly, "Although you'd make a fine vahyfaty, I think we should at least try to be civil."

"Sure, if your reason for stalking me makes sense."

"Well, it's not my fault you puff up out of nowhere. You're in my turf, you know. But I see you could use some rest. My home's not far away..."

Right then, any sane person would've blast the creepy primate with darkness and watch in glee as the black flames tear the flesh from bones. But even after my regeneration, power trip and meal, I could use a little sleep, as well as a guide into this plane.

"After you" I say, raising my wings.

It smiles, and it reaches it's palm, inviting me to take it and ride along. I decline with a hiss, and the primate orders the beast to move along, the forest appearently moving out of the way with no plant being trampled. I take off, and follow.

"Is this wise, master?" asks the shade, still child-like in manneirisms and tone.

"Not at all, just as pretty much everything I've ever done."

The beast stops at a massive tree, towering above the rest of the swamp, its canopy sheltering the rest of the forest beneath it. Green lights indicate that its hollowed out inside, coming mostly from a cave-like opening in the middle of the trunk, right above a very large branch, about the size of a small wurm. The hydra head lowers, and the lemur goes inside, while vines descend from the branches to take in the undead, hanging around among several others. I glide, landing on the branch with what I hoped to be some grace and dignity.


"You'll have to forgive me, I wasn't expecting visitors" it says, scratching its floppy ears.


I walk inside. It is indeed a large room, illuminated by green crystals laying in holes on the wall like makeshift lamps, with a poorly-lit corridor at the other end. It is thin, but I can see that it leads to several other rooms. On the main room itself, I see a large cauldron at the center, several seats of wood that seemed to have been grown out of the tree itself, numerous fetishes of feathers, bones and body parts, and some corpses hanging on the ceiling, mostly of other lemurs, dissecated and mummified. A depression on the wall is full of scrolls and tablets of wood and bone.


"Quite the view, uh?" says the lemur, sitting lazily in an almost bed-like seat and stretching its limbs. I hope I don't have to sleep in one of those.


"Why are you doing this? No offense, but you don't seem the "take strangers in" type."


It smiles, grinning those damn sharp teeth, the tongue licking a fang clean, and it seems to ponder, before answering.


"Simple. I need you to do a favour for me. See that corpse over there?"


I look where it is pointing. Another carcasse of those Aven-like creatures, in a worse state of decay. Its teeth are fully exposed, the lips having rotten away, while a huge gape in its chest exposed the insides of the ribcage. Plumes fell from its tail, which I could see was long, like that of a reptile, something you wouldn't guess when it was covered in feathers.


"You'll kill one of those, that controls a city nearby. I can't destroy it myself with him over there, but I've seen you create that shade, I've felt your power, and I'm pretty sure they've never seen something like you before, so I know you're perfect for the job. You can have whatever you want from them, I just want them all dead."


"Sounds thrilling, but I'm no one's servant. If you want anything from me, you better give me a very good reason for me to scratch your back. Everyone who's played me for their thrall is now dead, and if you even imply using me as a tool, I will kill you where you stand."


"I see we have a lot in common. Perhaps I could interest you in a more... direct, form of payment?" it says, laying suggestively.


"No, thanks, I'm too tired. I assume those rooms over there are the sleeping chambers-"


"Oh, no, none of them are. I have hammocks outside."


"Okay, then. If by dawn you have anything to motivate me, I'll consider your offer. Don't bother trying anything."


"Wouldn't dream of it."


I leave the room, jumping from the branch and opening my wings, flying in circles around the tree. There are indeed many hammocks, but most have too many zombies nearby. Damn do I hate necromancy. I pick one hanging on a nacked branch, rather exposed to the elements but completely free of zombies. I land on the branch, and climb down, falling softly into the net. It seems rather sturdy, so at least I won't fall off. Just to make sure, I focus again, thinking of the swamps nearby, and I create another shade.


"Keep guard for me. If I fall, cushion it."


It nods, and I dooze off. To us Aven, sleep is basically a series of naps, though the brief moments of being awake pass us by if we are that tired, effectively just "hiccups" of consciousness. In one of said "hiccups", I swear feeling a light in the distant horizon, but I shrug it off, tired as I am.

Chapter 2/3: Light

It all started a week ago, when another planeswalker came to my palace in steppes. He was a customer, yet I felt that he was different, somehow. He was like most of them, full of darkness, yet there was an air of professionalism about him. Clearly someone on my level, yet wanting my services.

I simply obliged.

He was a human, or something akin, middle-aged and with greasy hair. Pretending to be confident, but I could see he was stressed about about being in the open. He saw instantly that I'm not a babbling type, so he didn't bother with eloquence.

I liked him already, even if he was choking in deathfire. He took out a black feather, and handed it to me. It was from an Aven.

"Kill him. Or at least keep him distracted for a week, that's all I need."

I nodded.

"If and when you have him, call me."

He handed me a coin, and vanished. It was a foul thing, radiating corruption and misery, but it had a powerful summoning enchantment attached to it, so I put it in my pocket, and I prepared myself.

I meditated, trained my muscles and reflexes, trained with a lance, then with my bow, drank tea and packed.

I planeswalked, feeling the essence in the feather, and I ended up in Ravnica. From there, it was easy to track. It led to a pub, where my target was: a young male cormorant-like Aven, chatting with some Rakdos scum. He was distracted, so I simply protected myself with an aura of light, and fired at him, weaving soulfire and vitalfire spells into my arrows.

I almost got him. None of my arrows missed him, light burning and vines bursting. He tried to curse me, but the light dispelled his spells darkness away. He was forced to retreat, but just as I followed him a Rakdos mob attacked me. I've executed many Rakdos filth before, and they wanted revenge for that. The light ensured not a single blow from them harmed me, but they blocked me from all sides for hours.

I killed them all, but my target managed to planeswalk away.

I followed suit, passing through the Blind Eternities until I came across an aether storm. I've heard of it before, Namacanaan and her slave planes, emptied of its fires until only three remained, one opposed to the other two.

I was reminded of Tarkir, of its clans, and I briefly considered them ending up there, where they'd be isolated from each other in their own domains. My thoughts emptied as I felt myself drained, and I focused on my task. His essence lead me to one of the planes, where my own fires were plentiful, and I dove in eagerly.


So now I'm here, in a forest clearing at dawn.

I take a deep breath. The air is sweet and full of life, and I feel at home. Though I still feel darkness, at least there is no mistfire to deceive or bloodfire to enrage, just peace and tranquility.

I sense my target. As expected, he is where deathfire burns, in rotten swamps. My aura dissipated in my planeswalking, but I don't need it. This world feels ancient and wild, so I don't need much restraint here.


I speak little because words are precious and should not be wasted, should be always meaningful and understood. A bellow is a single word, loud, clear and primal, a song without sentences or meters or stanzas or prosaic nonsense that people vomit, not thinking about the beauty of simplicity. My song does what no melody can, it burns in the hearts of beasts to inspire them not to strike savagely, but to feel my urgency, my worry, my hope. Someone whom I once loved said it felt like sunlight in sound, and indeed the air seems to grow brighter.


A strange beast answers. It looks like a crocodile, but with the nostrils placed wrongly at the base of the snout. It's quite large, about 12 meters long, big enough to carry me around. Its muzzletip nuzzles gently against me, and I pet it, climbing to its back.


It gallops, diving into a river I hadn't even noticed, covered by vines as it was. We head towards the swamps.

Chapter 3/3: Compromise


As dawn rises, Rifo grows tired. The kidoky are not necessarily nocturnal, but the mage feels stronger at night, and weaker by day. It is just Rifo's thing. They have watched Panahihou in his sleep, patiently and without worry. Just before the Sun is above the horizon, Rifo climbs their tree, the kidoky's hand grasping firmly the bark and pulling the opulent, fat body against gravity's harshness. One the right hand gets hold of a branch, it is easier to climb, simply swinging above, brachiating the ladder of branches. Rifo may be old, but is not rusty.

After half an hour, the primate has reached the intended branch, the weight shaking it figurously as the body falls. Rifo hopes to have woken up the planeswalker, to have made his sleep end bothersomely, and is rewarded with an annoyed grunt.

"Rise and shine."

"No thanks to you. I hope what you have to offer is very damn much, because if I discover that you ruined my beauty sleep with your fat ass for nothing you won't sleep again."

As if to prove his point, Panahihou extends a wing, and suddenly the air grows darker as countless shades energe from the shadows beneath each leaf, forming a vortex around Rifo, before departing back to their hiding places. The display impresses the kidoky, but Rifo is confident in the bargain's worth.

"Yes, I have. If you do me that favour, I'll-"

Suddenly, an arrow strikes the hammock's ropes, cutting them neatly and sending Panahihou to fly downwards. The startled Aven quickly opens his wings and glides, but an arrow glowing with a white hue strikes his left arm and nails him to the tree trunk. The pain is unbearable, and his frantic movements to free himself only worsen it.

"You know, firing at me for no reason didn't endear me to you much, but you had to go an extra mile and freacking tie me, didn't you? Don't know if you've heard, but that's what gets me really pissed off."

Another arrow is fired, but is intercepted by vines, descending from the branches and breaking it in mid-air. Rifo comes down swinging in a liana, and lands next to the Kawau. Bestial roars fill the air, and the hydra appears, its heads diving in the forest to distract the agressor.

"Well, seems like you're in a tough spot. Maybe I don't need to offer you anything after all."

Panahihou laughs.

"Say that again, and I'll kill you right now! I call the shots, and you will. Take. Off. The. Arrow."

Rifo feels a chill on the fur, and doesn't need to turn to know that the shades envelop the air sorrounding the mage. For the first time in quite a while, Rifo growls, the fangs shown in anger rather than a mocking grin. The left hand grabs the shaft, snuffs the light, and slowly pulls it out, letting gravity inflict a lot of pain on the Aven as the arrow head cuts across the flesh and bone, before the body is released. Falling downwards, Panahihou tucks the wounded arm against his body and spreads the other, spiralling downwards as the wing offers half an airfoil like a winged seed. The spinning leads to nausea and the Aven almost vomits, but gets him landed safely on the soft swamp undergrowth, if not very elegantly.

Lying on the ground, hidden by ferns and shrubs, Panahihou sees his attacker afar, in far higher ground some 50 meters away. Natanalok fights against the hydra heads and the vahyfaty zombies, arrows firing in all directions and burning their flesh in explosions of white light, the elkfolk's face stoic and without visible signs of bother. In any other circumstance, Panahihou would admire the fellow planeswalker's power and sheer magnificence, but the Kawau instead focuses mana, regenerating his arm and drawing the shades to him, covering himself in darkness, concealed against the shadow of the undergrowth. After a few minutes, the wound is healed, and although the arm needs further attention, the planeswalker figurex it is at least functional as a wing again. Rising from the ground, Panahihou opens both wings, and calls to his shades.

"Strike at once."

In a fraction of a second, Natanalok is thrown in complete darkness. It doesn't last: soulfire light flashes from his eyes, and all the shades die, dissipating in the wind. But his target is gone, his wing beats coming from the canopy. The hydra heads, always regenerating after every strike, are momentarily blinded, so Natanalok takes the chance to climb, using his lance as a pole to propell himself upward. As soon as his hoofs touch a tree branch, the legs spring and the former Jeskai is further elevated, jumping his way from trunk to trunk and from branch to branch until the canopy is too dense. Crouching on the last lone branch, his antlers tangling in vines, Natanalok bellows again, and the vegetation moves out of the way, revealing the clear sky.

And a massive, bestial, black-pelted, panther-like demon with vast wings and wrathful yellow eyes.

"Hope you're proud of yourself!" Panahihou shouts from afar, "I hate demons, but since you've been a thorn my side for too long I made one just for you."

Natanalok aims an arrow, but it's crushed by the fiend's fist, which is imediately dodges. Evading a tail swipe and the other massive clawed paw, Natanalok focuses on his lance instead of his arrows, and stands still. As the demon punches at him again, Natanalok jumps, grabs its shoulder and strikes the lance right across the throat, glowing with a golden light that kills the beast and dissipates its corpse.

As the mercenary predicts, Panahihou is barely in sight, flying far in the western horizon. Picking a leaf from a tree and chewing it, Natanalok draws his arrow and bow, and fires once more. It hits, exploding in a brilliant light that encapsulates the other planeswalker in a field. Feeling the breeze passing through his pelt, Natanalok breathes in the "fires", as taught to him in a monastery far away, a ritual changed to suit his divergent philosophy on these "fires". This pays off, as the sorrounding vegetation lends him a pair of glowing, white petal wings, which carry him aloft, into the skies of Bhamarivo.

Not long after, Natanalok stands near the bubble. Inside it, Panahihou is crouched, his arms holding his legs close to his chest and his head lazily laying on top of them.

"You look ridiculous."

Natanalok only nods. He notices that the arm wound has reopened again, and is bleeding proffoundly. With his target incapacitated, Natanalok touches the light sphere, and the wound is healed, as are minor ailments within Panahihou's body. The Aven whimpers softly, feeling a rush of energy that is both intrusive and revitalising.

"Why did you do that for?"

"You're not going anywhere, and I don't need to kill you, just to keep you distracted for a week, as my employer ordered."

"Did he happen to give you a coin?"

Natanalok nods, and takes the foul thing off his pocket. Panahihou cranes his neck, inspecting it with his blue eyes, and scoffs.

"Figures it'd be him. Did he tell you why he needs me gone for a week?"

Natanalok shakes his head.

"Not much of a speaker, eh? Well, that bastard's been a thorn in my side for a while. You see, because of a lot of crap that happened to me in the past, I hate slavery. I hate seeing myself in other people, especially when they suffer like I did. So, if I find slavers, I can't help myself but make them suffer for making me suffer, and free the poor souls they've imprisoned. Now, to be fair to the man, he isn't a slavedriver himself, but he enabled a lot of misery in several planes I'm fond of, so as you can imagine I tried to kill him many times. Suffice to say, he's in a quite vulnerable spot for a few days, so if you didn't start shooting like a maniac I'd have him killed today."

Natanalok nods, and ponders. Not that long ago, he too was a vigilante, striking at people like his employer, but in the past few years he realised the need to think on the long term, and gave up dispensing justice. Short victories are just that, and to end suffering, the longer term has to be considered. He still acted like a force of peace on occasion, but he had larger plans and goals, ambitions that would end strife all across the multiverse, so he took to simply act as a mercenary, to gain the resources he needed for his vision.

Could he make an exception, though?

"You say he's weak now?"

"Yes. You also have the means to summon him."

Natanalok looks at the sorrounding landscape, and sees a flooded plain, grass growing out of the murky waters. He stands behind the sphere and pushes it forward, flying donwards with it until they reach ground level, his hooves touching the dry ground at the edges of the marshland. Willing his enchantments away, both the wings and the sphere dissipate, and Panahihou falls on the elkfolk's arms. Though he is healed, the whole affair left him too tired to retaliate, so he simply lets himself be laid softly on the grass.

"If we can summon him, then he'll die today."

Alright, looks like you got everything posted! I'm going to go ahead and do a line-by-line in the spoilers below - my comments will be in red text!



OOOkay, I'm going to have to get to the rest of this later. The first part has a lot of issues with clarity - I'm never really certain who is speaking, why people are doing what they are doing, or how they know what they know. The writing itself is well done, and very descriptive, but it gets thrown off by the fact that I don't really understand what's going on. I also can't really bring myself to care about what's happening in the story because of that. It's indecipherable, not because of the subject matter, but because of basic narrative missteps.

Anyway, thanks for posting, Helio - I'll let you know what I think of two and three tomorrow, probably, assuming I don't burn out over night.

Thank you for your time, it is greatly apreciated and will not go to waste.

I will just quickly address some things, I will give a more detailed answer in due time. In the meantime, I'll fix some of the grammatical errors.




I see him as sort of someone who is very full of himself. He is kind of very pretentious, yet not really: he tries to come across as elegant and refined, except he is a bitter, overemotional punk. He has some degree of self-awareness, but doesn't really care.

Basically, a slightly less ill-mannered Daffy Duck.





Translator convenience. Basically, I couldn't think of a PG insult that doesn't come across as edgy for the sake of being edgy.





I struggle with how I wanted to convey the story, and I settled for a sort of "dialogue with the daemon" sort of thing. Basically, it's an hypothetical situation in which he narrates something while living it.




It's something based on both Venser's "episode" in Time Spiral and Kiora's debut UR.





He basically did a cursory healing in Ravnica, and the draining in the storm didn't help. I should have been clearer on this, but I erased some details when the character/word count surpassed the limit





Created. Shades in canon are either spirit like undead, or beings made of pure shadow/black mana.





It's kind of like when someone is self-aware of one's own flaws but doesn't really care/actually embraces them. It's something I've always wanted to try with a Black aligned character.





His shades are born with his knowledge in their mind. If he knows what a lemur is, they do.





He is a planeswalker. He has travelled to many places.





He doesn't know, that was a the lemur talking.





That he's bitter and thinks ill of his own options in life.





...No, it was about the tree.




Actually yes, you're right on the spot. Rifo (the lemur thing) is meant to be both overconfident, moronic and desperate, which is why they (unknown gender) are resorting to using whatever tool they came across.

Also added some clarification about who's speaking.

A few responses to your responses, then I'll dive into part two and maybe three if I'm lucky.



This is not a good basis for a compelling character. Daffy Duck does not act like real people act - if you want to write a good story, you have to write about character who are dynamic and have believeable thought processes/reactions to situations. So far, you have Paha responding to an assassination attempt and almost dying by rolling his eyes, and reacting to sexual advances from an agender lemur-gorilla by shrugging and saying he's too tired. No one is this apathetic - especially in their own head! Remember, stoic people are only stoic on the outside. Everyone feels emotion.



Here's a few that you could use that also fit in with the overall theme of not using modern vocabulary casually that Magic strictly adheres to:
Antlered Pest
Bothersome Insect
Pain in my Side
Thorn in my Side
(Or since we've got a penguin here)
Anything to do with ruffling his feathers



And I'm sure that, if balanced, this sort of thing can work. It's just that, right now, it does not. All we get is Paha actively dismissing very real threats, acting like a sullen teenager, and being powerful, somehow. It doesn't really have any sort of coherency, and makes the story read poorly. What I'm getting at is what I've said before - People don't act like this in their own heads. You have prime time with Paha right now - you get to see EVERYTHING he thinks and feels. It's perfect for exploring a character. And if this apathetic, monotone penguin-man is what you were going for, then, well... you probably need to go back to the drawing board, because I can't find myself with a connection at all.



This should probably be mentioned in-text, then.



Same as above. None of your readers have implicit knowledge of what you - or Paha - knows. Give it to us. "The skull reminded me of the hippopotamus creatures I'd seen on Shajara." That's one sentence that tells us everything we need to know about the sort of object at the end of the staff.



Once again, same as above. This needs to be in the text, somehow. It doesn't need to be explicitly explained, but surely Paha thought about this some? Instead of just going along with it and thinking "Wow, this is stupid, buy golly I sure am tired." There are better ways to show that this creature is moronic and ambitious. Emphasize that. Play it up. Right now Rifo is just sort of ominous and unsettling, but it's so lukewarm that I don't really care.

Hope this helps. Moving into part two, now.



I actually liked this portion better. You've got some good ideas with this guy, but they should be expanded upon. As it is, the piece is too short and a lot of information you are trying to convey gets lost in the narrative.

On to part 3!



Ok, so part 3 was probably my LEAST favorite part. The "ending" is hammy and forced. There is no reason, absolutely NO reason, for these two to work together, or for Nata to even TRUST Paha's word. It grates against what little character building you've done for both characters. Not to mention, Rifo just VANISHES despite being a POV character for the first part of the chapter.

All-in-all, this piece needs a lot of work. So much about all three of these characters (four if you count Fisco Vane's knockoff) is left up in the air. I'm sure YOU know all about them, but you aren't writing for YOURSELF to read this (I think?), so you need to explain it to US. We don't know these characters. We need more information. We need descriptions of how they look and what they do, not just actions and witty remarks.

The issues with clarity are still present, and I'd go so far as to say, OVERpresent. We hardly ever know who is speaking, or why they are motivated, or who they are acting against. It's an interesting concept that has been executed poorly.

On the other hand, you're grasp on description is solid and there were a few paragraphs I really liked! Your actions scenes were fun to read, though they suffered from a bit of incomprehensibility due to grammatical errors and the like. I'd like to know more about Nata and his Jeskai heritage, and Paha in general, because they bring so much baggage into this piece, but none of it is explained.

(Do not link me to their dossier pages. I should not have to read their dossier to understand a character in each individual piece.)

So, things to work on:
Clarity, clarity, clarity!
Every question I asked is NOT a question your reader should be asking - try to control the flow of information more tightly!
Describe your characters - physically, emotionally, and mentally!
Spell-check! Especially during action scenes. The number of misspells increased at the end there.

If I had to vote on this now, I'd have to vote "nay", instead of NAI, because the amount of necessary revision requires so much additional text as to make it a completely new piece. If this gets cleaned up and becomes less opaque, then at the very least we will have something worth working with! As it stands, there is not enough information for us, as the readers, to do anything with.

Well, that's everything, I think. Good luck!

Thank you, once again, for your time.


I shall send this story to the trash can, but at least I learned a lot.

Hi, Helio -- thanks for sharing your story!

I got a chance to look at this last night, and I think that Ruwin covered pretty much all of the notes that I made while I was reading. I think a focus on clarity is going to be your best friend going forward.

To crib shamelessly from Strunk and White:



I think you have something potentially interesting, here. It's just a little tough to engage with at present. If you do an edit on the piece, the suggestion I'd make is to constantly ask yourself: Is there a simpler form of syntax I can use here? Is there a clarifying detail I can provide here?

Speaking for myself, whenever I find myself getting into trouble, I find it amazingly helpful to start writing or re-writing things into simple, declarative sentences. Subject, verb, object, period. Subject, verb, object, period. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

For example, if I was struggling to describe how Beryl found a locked chest but couldn't find the key, I might force myself to write something like this to start with:

"Beryl looked around for the locked chest. She found it beneath the curio cabinet. The chest was covered with a thin layer of dust. She searched for the key."

Obviously, not the most exciting paragraph I've ever written. But the virtue of beginning with short, simple sentences is that I know I'm starting with something which makes sense and won't get me into trouble. From there, I can rework things to add more detail or to change how the language sounds. But I'm starting from a clear foundation.

The same exercise is something I'll do in reverse with a paragraph which has gotten out of hand. I'll break all the compound sentences down into shorter, simpler sentences. That does wonders for me a lot of the time. Even if I subsequently knit some of those sentences back together again, it tends to leave me with something better than what I started with.

The one other big question I would suggest asking is: How much is the present-tense narration getting you here? I know you explained your rationale for going with present tense, but I think it's hurting you more than it helps. Myself, I tend to shy away from present-tense narration, because it's tricky to execute, and I think the degree of difficulty increases exponentially when you have more than one P.O.V. character. Keeping track of what is happening when and to whom gets complicated fast, and you have to do a lot of verbal gymnastics in order to maintain the tense that can come at the expense of clarity. Just as an exercise, you might try retelling the first chapter in past-tense form. You may find that you don't like it, and, if so, that's okay. It's your story, so you should write it the way you like it. But my guess is that you'll find that the shift in tense doesn't cost you much, but gets you a lot of free help in terms of readability.

Anyway, just my two cents. Hope some of that is helpful!

I intend to read this fairly soon, but before I do, I just need to ask. Is this "done"? I only ask because, despite the fact that I've been subjecting people to the ongoing War of the Wheel for the better part of a year, I personally dislike reading works just to have another section added the next day or something. So, not counting revisions of course, is this "done"?

Yes, it is done, even before I deemed it a failure

I'll be the judge of that!


...eventually...