Ambrosia Software Web Board: Cythera Chronicles: The Dragon's Statue: Part 2: The Seat of the New Empire - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Rulir sat Achra down on a chair and began to pack his equipment. He wasn’t totally sure what he had seen on the horizon, that is to say, he didn’t recognize the symbol. Whatever it was, it didn’t look friendly and it was definitely heading this way.
"Uncle Rulir, how far is it to the Pynx?"
"About a day’s walk, Achra." Rulir responded.
"That’s a long way! We should leave soon."
"That’s right, I’ll have everything together in a minute."
Rulir put his book of prophecies into his pack. "No telling what it could be," he thought to himself. His spyglass, his lucky charm, and about a day’s rations. After a few more minutes, Achra asked impatiently, "Has it been a minute yet?"
"Okay, okay. Let’s go." Rulir said as he put his cloak on and grabbed his staff. They walked out the door and down the path north towards Cademia, and then west to the Pynx.

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[One hour later]

"Are we there yet?" asked Achra.
"No."
"How much longer?" she asked again.
"Not far." This was a lie, he just wanted to make her stop bugging him.

Rulir and Achra hiked for another six hours. Or rather, Rulir and Achra hiked another one hour, Rulir carried Achra the other five. Just as Rulir’s back was about to give out, they turned a small corner and saw Cademia at the bottom of the hill.

"It’s getting dark, maybe we should stay at the inn tonight," said Rulir, knowing that strange things come out at night.
"Okay, let’s go!" said Achra as she jumped down and ran towards the town. Rulir rolled his eyes thinking that she could have walked this whole way.

As they entered the inn, they noticed a tall man in a grayish Viking-like armor standing at the front desk.
"I need directions to the place called Pynx," he said in loud, low, scratchy voice.
"I would wait here till morning, it’s at least four hours walk," answered the receptionist.
"I need not rest before my travels! Tell me its location now," the big man yelled.
Rulir walked up to the man to tell him how to get there, as he did, he found that this man was even bigger than he had initially assumed. Some might call him a giant in fact. Rulir, being about 17 hands tall (about 68 inches, or 170 centimeters) isn’t a short man. However, the big man was about 20 hands tall, (80 inches, or 200 centimeters) towered over Rulir.
"Eh, it’s about four hours walk that way," Rulir pointed west towards the mountains.
"Good! I bid thee farewell," the Viking said to them and stomped off towards the mountains.
"Rulir! Stealing my business again are you?" the woman at the desk smiled and pulled up the sign in book.
"Something like that. Got an extra room or two?" asked Rulir.
"Sure do. Where you headed tomorrow?" the woman asked in return.
"Same place as Goliath over there. Hopefully he’ll get lost on the way."
"Ah, I see. Official Empire business is it?" She said as she motioned for the two to follow her.
"Not yet. But soon enough." Rulir walked into his room and the woman showed Achra her room.

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[The next morning]

"Rise and shine, you’ve got to be moving if you want to make it to the Pynx before lunch."
"Okay, okay. Do we get breakfast?" Rulir asked, food obviously being more important than telling the Empire about the horizon at the moment.
"Of course," she said and put her tray on the bar table.
"Come on Achra, food’s getting cold," she called into Achra’s room.
Achra quickly came to the table, where as it took Rulir a good fifteen minutes to get out of bed. Once done eating, the two said good-bye to the barkeep and headed west.

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[Four hours later]

Rulir and Achra reached the top of a hill, as they looked over, they saw a glimmering white pyramid surrounded by houses and beyond that, a city wall about ten feet high. Rulir looked up, it was getting cloudy. It was going to rain, and Rulir hated rain.
"Is that the Pynx?" asked Achra.
"That’s it honey."
"It doesn’t look anything like the paintings we saw at the inn."
"That’s because those paintings are pretty old. In the last few years they’ve put a layer of white marble on the outside to make it look white like that."
"It looks pretty."
"Yes it does. Now we had better go inside before it starts raining."

With that, Rulir and Achra headed down towards the city walls. Before the day was out, the Empire would face a challenge unlike anything ever seen in the land of Cythera.

(To be continued)

[This message has been edited by moderator (edited 04-02-2002).]

This is, overall, a good story. It did seem a bit short, though. I liked some of the humor that was used.

Slayer's Guide to Grammar

Incorrect:
"Hi." Said Bob.

Correct:
"Hi," said Bob.

Also worth noting is that 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters.

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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]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the advice, it's much appreciated. It may be a bit short, but to compare (although doing so probably isn't a great idea) it's one of my longest to date.

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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]

Hey, I heard that karma works, the user just won't get the e-mail. Is this true?

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Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
 
 

Pretty good, DarkDragon. It was rather short, but oh well. Nice character development on Achra. Flows pretty well, except in the part about the morning it was a bit hard to tell who was speaking. Other than that, seems good!

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Some people say I have too much time on my hands. I say their hands aren't big enough.

Hmm, what to say...

Overall, it's shaping up to be a good story, but I think this chapter is suffering from that dreaded disease - Middle Chapter Syndrome. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about that; depending on the story, they can be a necessary evil (prime example: The Empire Strikes Back.)

I think this one might have benefitted by being taken just a little bit further. 95% of the story is a straightforward recounting of the journey to Pnyx, with a couple of lines at the end that tie it back in to the phenomenon from the first chapter; I think a little more was needed along those lines, perhaps by relating Rulir's thoughts on the subject as he walked, to increase the tension slightly.

I'm trying to formulate impressions into words here, so please excuse me if it's a little clumsy. I'm assuming that the 'viking' is going to be a key character. If so, then I think his introduction was just a little too tangential; Rulir and Achra really needed to encounter him again before the chapter ended, perhaps in a stressful situation - say, an ambush, in which he could come to their aid. As it is, he could easily just fade into the background and be forgotten, and that's not good for a first impression.

Still, I suspect all of this will become moot once the story is complete; read from beginning to end, most of these kind of problems will probably vanish.


Now, to finish on a brighter note: what did I like about the chapter?

You spent a good portion of it dealing with Achra, and how she reacted to her changing circumstances, and I think it was time well spent. You seem to have captured the essence of a child's point of view very well, and made it an amusing and enjoyable read.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.

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Kobayashi Maru!

I'm glad you like it,

Katerei,I agree the morning is a little confusing, I'll remember that in the next chapter.

cache, thanks for the input. I see what you mean by Middle Chapter Syndrome and I'm glad you like it as well.

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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]