Cythera Chronicles: Before The Adventure

Storn the Glissim gold-miner hacked and hacked as small chunks of rock flew in the air. Panting, he paused for a moment, and went on. He hit with all his might and saw a boulder rolling towards him. He ducked and the boulder disappeared into the darkness of the cave. Storn glimpsed a small red glint between several small pebbles and grabbed at a strange stone. Glowing red fire and lava slithered in an oval shaped diamond, the FireJewel. Gold dragons lay across the fantastic jewel, as if trying to protect it. Storn clutched his find against his chest, and felt its heat flow in his body.

The silence was broken by a small croak.

Chapter 1
The Escape

In front of him, where the boulder had fallen from, was a small pair of glowing red eyes. More and more eyes slowly blinked open. Storn hurried away, his sea-blue hair trailing off behind him, dancing wildly in the air and his deep forest green eyes wide open. He tried not to look back, but he could still hear dozens of monstrous creatures climbing everywhere in the cave, in search of fresh meat. In a blinding flash of light, a Quind with long pitch-black hair and electric-blue eyes appeared from a dark passageway and threw raging bolts of lightning at the ferocious monsters. "I'll hold them back!" He declared. "Use the FireJewel!"

Storn, confused, spotted the jewel. "I'm sure he meant this!" he thought, raising the diamond. Instantly, sparks came out from the jewel and formed a tremendous dragon. The dragon blazed and the monsters were in flames. The monsters were killed. The dragon, Storn, and the stranger, whose name was Vildum, reached the exit of the mine, but the boulder that rolled out of place blocked it.

"How did you come in then?" Storn questioned Vildum, puzzled. "I came down with a rope," Vildum responded. " And the rope I used is kind of useless." He continued, raising a few clawed pieces of rope. They all sighed hopelessly. All of a sudden, Storn had an idea. He ordered the dragon to try to break the rock, but the rock was hardly damaged in spite of the dragon's great power. The dragon struck the stone several times and tried burning it with great amounts of fire but the rock was not affected. Exhausted, the dragon rested beside his master, his webbed red wings folded against his body and a few golden wisps of smoke and flame appeared after each breath.

"Maybe we can fly up!" Vildum interrupted. The dragon moaned at those words. "I came down by rope, so there has to be an exit from where I came from!" The dragon unenthusiastically stirred his wings and soared spectacularly in the air. Soon later, they were outside. Storn made the dragon disappear and went away to take some rest.

Chapter 2

The next day, Storn woke up early, and heard an army of humans approaching the village and roaring through narrow valleys and dark streets, battling against the helpless Glissims. Storn knew what he had to do. "We have to get out of here, quick!" he said quickly. They rushed out and saw a short bald dwarf trudging wearily into battle.

"You'd rather step back!" Vildum advised the dwarf. The man slowly turned around with his eyes shut, he was trembling. "I think we sound like humans!" Vildum and Storn giggled. The dwarf peeked an eye open and stuttered, "Excuse me! I went the wrong way!"

"Come, my friend!" Storn waved his hand. Just then, some humans saw them and started chasing after them. Brindor the dwarf yelped in fright and curled up in a ball. In the meantime, the dragon reappeared and held the humans off, but the dwarf was afraid no more. Brindor loved dragons. With a dragon at his side, his shield hid his body and covered it completely so that he could only peek out from time to time. His sword, which was much too heavy for a man of that size, hardly lifted itself from the ground and swung slowly to and fro in the air without even scratching a human leg.

The dragon was doing much better. His sharp shiny claws terrified the humans. Some were already running for their lives and the rest was paralyzed from terror. So the dragon simply blew a few sparks in the air to make himself look better. That was enough to send all the humans flying for their lives! Brindor admired the dragon's talent dreamily. The company made their way out of the battle and moments later a
beautiful landscape surrounded them.

"We shall rest near the edge of the woods, in hiding." Vildum said. Storn agreed, and Brindor started making soft moss beds. After a small warm fire that the dragon made and a small meal the friends crawled in a cave for the night and started discussing. "The humans approach, we need to get to safety!" Storn declared, "Then we should be leaving by tomorrow, early." The dwarf assumed, polishing the dragon's claws. "The Dwarven Caves aren't too far, but there are rumors of human activity..."
"But we have no other place to go," Storn confirmed.
"Anyway, we'll all end up badly whatever we do! In all cases, Brindor and Vildum'll get captured, I'll get killed and the humans will obviously get the FireJewel! There are millions of humans out there, you hear me? MILLIONS."
"Well, good-night!" Brindor ended the conversation. They all fell asleep.

Chapter 3
The Mage

The next few days were terrible; rain showered on the forest and soaked the party. The dragon, though, always had a glowing heat around him. Not even a droplet reached his scaled skin. In spite of the roaring thunderstorms, the party continued their way. Vildum was particularly energetic. The lightning gave him a boost of energy and power. He is a Lightning Quind. Every Quind is born with a special element that they use for the rest of their lives.

"Look! See those small hills over there?" Brindor pointed. " Those are the Dwarven Caves!" Then he squinted and saw blood everywhere. Brindor realized in horror that his Dwarven friends have been attacked. He reached for his sword and unintentionally bopped himself on the head with the blunt part(luckily). He lay unconscious against an aging tree. The others went up to rescue the dwarves in danger. Once again, Storn released the dragon. Some humans turned back and Vildum instantly blazed them with a shock of power.

The dragon showered the humans with a rain of fire. Some dwarves ran up towards them and shouted, "Over here! These humans are unbelievable!" Storn and Vildum followed the dwarves and called the dragon. A powerful mage cast a spell on the dragon and it fell violently against the cobblestones. Storn then received a wind spell and as he flew, he knocked himself on a wall. Bleeding and in pain, Storn fell to his knees and died. Vildum stared at his long-gone friend. His eyes suddenly widened, and his pupils became fire.

Chapter 4
The Spell

Vildum raised his hand but it was too late. The human laughed and cast a spell on himself. A glowing ball covered the humans. Vildum collected all his power, all his energy and all his magic. A long blazing bolt of fantastic power shattered the protection and struck the humans. For seconds, the bolt was still striking the humans. Vildum saw a thick bluish line cut his view in half. Vildum used all his power for that spell, and drained his life out of him. Nevertheless, the humans and Vildum all tumbled on the floor, lifeless.

At the edge of a dark wood, Brindor the dwarf awoke. He caught a glimpse of his destroyed village, and went away. He muttered, "Vildum...Storn...My Dragon...all lost." and he disappeared in the woods.

[This message has been edited by moderator (edited 03-25-2003).]

The idea for this story is pretty good, but frankly the story itself falls a little short. You should work on describing everything a little bit more. For example, the monsters at the beginning should be more than just "monstrous creatures". Such a description can't really put the image of vicious beasts with razor claws and six inch fangs into anyone's mind.

You should also work on character development. When Storn dies, it should be moving and we should grieve with Vildum at the loss of his long-time friend. We really don't know anything about Storn; where he comes from, why he's so determined to stop the humans(actually he seemed more determined to run like hell), what his dreams and aspirations are, and so on and so forth. Since we know nothing of him, we can't help but greet his death with anything but apathy. Similarly, since we have no idea why Vildum and Storn are so close, we can't empathize with him. I thought that the cave was the first time they had met until you mentioned that they were long-time friends after Storn's death!

I hope this helps you.

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

Ambrosia Software Web Board: Cythera Chronicles: Before The Adventure - Ambrosia Software Web Board