Ambrosia Software Web Board: Cythera Chronicles: The Swordsmen of Darkness: The Tome of Evil (Part 2) - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Ivor arrived at Pnyx a week later. There he met a student who told him where the library was. The student smiled, and left for Runic Class. Ivor went up to the library and saw Selinus, the librarian. "I don't need help from a geezer!" He muttered under his breath and began looking for 'Swordsmithing.' Forty-five minutes later he still hadn't found the book. "Ok. I give up. I'll ask that Selinus guy."

"Excuse me, sir, but I need to..." Ivor was cut off by Selinus noticing him. "What's your name sonny?"
"I'm Ivor. I need a book on 'Swordsmithing.'"
"Sure sonny! We have a book right over here on 'Lord Tithing'! It's got all the information on the taxes paid to lords in the old days!"
Ivor frowned. "I actually need a book on 'SWORDSMITHING'!"
Selinus didn't seem to register this. "Eh? What did you say?" Just then the student who gave Ivor the directions to the library walked in. Selinus seemed to be napping on his feet, so Ivor went to talk to this boy. "Hi kid," he said with enthusiasm.
"The name's Timon. I'm the son of the Timon who journeyed with Hercules. I thought Selinus might give you a hard time. He gives everyone a hard time. So, what are you looking for?"
Ivor smiled at the thought that someone might help him. "I'm looking for a book on 'Swordsmithing.' I'm Ivor, from Kosha."
"Pleased to meet you Ivor. That book is in the fifth degree hall. C'mon! I know the password!"
"Okay," Ivor agreed. 'Hey, it's always worth a shot,' He thought to himself.
"Torake," Timon stated clearly and the door opened. They looked through the books and finally found the right one. After reading the article together they copied it down for reference. "Thanks," Ivor said as he prepared to go. Just as he was reaching the door, Timon asked, "Why did you need to look that up?" In gratitude, Ivor told the whole story. "Wow." Timon said, looking amazed. "I'm on break for a month! Can I come too?"
Ivor thought about it. 'Well, Timon has been really helpful and having magic might be useful!' Ivor had made his descision. "Sure, you can come!" So they set off for Land King Hall. When they made, it they had a much easier time getting the book they wanted. The short passage read: "The Sword Star, also known as Elven Star is an extremely bright star that hangs over the Black Mountains. It was used as a pinpoint for the ancient Tyrant's guards when traveling the guild of the Swordsmen of Darkness."
"Well, Ivor, have you got it all written down?"
"Yep! We're on to Cademia."
"Ok. Let's go!"

Three days later they were in a heated argument with the blacksmith. "What do you mean you don't want to buy my goods! They're in top condition!"
"Sir, please calm down! We don't have any oboloi! All we came to do was ask you a question!"
"Oh. Well what is it?"
"You see, sir, we want to know about The Black Mountains and The Sword Star."
"NO! I'M NOT TELLING LITTLE KIDS LIKE YOU ABOUT THAT! I WISH I NEVER WENT THERE!" He raged.
"Sir..." But Ivor couldn't think up an excuse. Timon bumped in quickly. "We, uh, are from the Magesterium. We are doing a report on that star for astronomy. Could you, uh, tell us what you know?"
"Prove it. Show me one of those magical book thingies." Timon took out his grimoire and showed it to the blacksmith.
"All right. All right. You win." The boys sat through a long lecture while taking notes. After they refused all of his goods again, they walked through the city towards old Apis' inn.

Just then Ivor realized something. "We don't have the 40 oboloi needed for two rooms!"
"You're right! I have an idea. It's a good thing that I know up to 6th level spells!" They were near the locked gate to the castle's back courtyard. Timon cast 'open' and then closed and locked the door behind them. They crawled down the shaft into the tomb of the tyrant. Timon opened the gate and walked to the bridge. He walked through the bell room and into the throne room. "So what do we do now?" Ivor groaned.
"We sit," Timon replied with a hint of arrogance in his voice. He sat on the left throne and a secret passage immediately opened behind him. Timon walked in and came out with his pockets ringing with the sound of clanking oboli. "I think we shall have a comfortable night." Timon smirked. During the night in their comfortable beds, Timon had a dream. Two voices said over and over in unison, "Beware the Tome of Evil." The next morning Timon dismissed it as a figment of his imagination.

Elsewhere, two men viewed this through their crystal ball. "He ignored us," said one. "That was not wise," replied the other.

(To Be Continued)

[This message has been edited by moderator (edited 03-18-2002).]

This was definitely an improvement over the last part. For future reference, please break your chronicles into paragraphs.

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Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

Hmm, very interesting, Mr. Somebody. However, your chapters could afford to be a bit longer!

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"No, Reepicheep, you may -not- attempt single combat with it!"

My, but we're all being very negative today - unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be much better; so apologies in advance

First off, this chronicle is a big improvement over your last part, at least as far as length is concerned. Now, I hope what I'm going to say next will help you pad things out in part three; but if you don't find any of this helpful, feel free to ignore it (I'll try to keep it general, anyway, so it will apply to more than just you, Mr S.)

With regard to Slayer's paragraphs thing (although I'm not sure if this is what he' s referring to, since I never saw the chronicle in it's raw state), there's a simple rule of writing that several people need to take note of (cache22 glares at Odysseus ):

When writing a conversation between characters, each new speaker begins a new paragraph. It's not grammatically correct to have the spoken text of two different characters on the same line - plus, it's hard to read.

Now, length. You had enough ideas in this part to make a fairly good sized chapter, so the solution isn't to cram in more ideas and events. Instead, you could expand on the ones you already have. It seems to me that this part reads more like a list of events that occurred, than a story about the events that occurred.

Don't get me wrong, I really think you have the potential to improve in this, otherwise I wouldn't be saying anything. Um, lets see: for a recent example, take a look at the last few posts in the TS "The Kul'Shar Legacy". My post (as Overmind) in which they fought the elves was quite long, but it didn't really have that many events or new ideas in it. I'll try and list the major ones (not necessarily in order):

1. It rained
2. They fought elves
3. Mia is Anzor's daughter
4. Mia wasn't sent, she came on her own
5. They met the Forest Guardians
6. Flynn finally found out how to recharge his lightning sword.

That's about it. All the rest is embellishment on those main ideas, just to give it depth (not that it wasn't fun writing it .) It might be interesting to look through other story posts by different writers, trying to pick out the new or important ideas and events each post or chronicle is based around, and seeing how the writer padded the ideas to create what they did. Actually, I might start doing that myself.

Anyway, just to reinforce, we don't say what we do to discourage you or criticise your story, but rather in the hope that we can help you improve your writing, and make each successive chronicle you write an increasingly enjoyable experience for all of us. You have some good ideas, and we all like a good story - after all, how many of us would be doing this if we didn't find it fun?


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Kobayashi Maru!

Listen to cache... he speakith the truth.
Esp. on that paragraoh thing. That's very important.

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Hey, Why don't you get on IRC sometime?
(Famous Last Words #91)
Ê ÊÊÊ
Where do you want to [url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/tricks/rJade.htm"]teleport[/url] today?

*Odysseuss withers at the stare from cache*. It was you who edited it!
Anyway, Mr. Sombody, you have definatly meliorated like said before.

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"I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis."
-Zaphod Beeblebrox
When I'm bored, my post number goes up.



[This message has been edited by idiotSavant (edited 03-19-2002).]

You guys are too picky, it may not quite warrant karma, but it is still a fairly decent cron.

Though, despite being picky, much of what cache says is true. For reference, check out some chronicles written by:
Me
Rogan
Talos
cache22
and of course: Heidel

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-TheDarkDragon
"The goal is to accelerate the release process incrementally until we actually tear the fabric of space-time. Each final candidate will precede the one that came before it, and eventually EV Nova will be released sometime in 1937."
-mcb 3-10-02 (release of Nova fc3)
[shameless IRC plug]Go to #cythera on IRC for the rock-hard-abba-dabbas #ev3 just can't do. [/shameless IRC plug]