Author Topic: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-4 (critiques and comments welcome)  (Read 5707 times)

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TheVorpalTribble

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Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-4 (critiques and comments welcome)
« on: April 23, 2011, 04:27:12 PM »
I've decided to give this specific novel a thread of its own. It is to be Book 1 of The Angels That Fell Sideways series.

I'm posting it in the hope of attaining some constructive criticism. Praise or flaming is all well and good, feel free, but I'd also like some opinions on it as if you were writing a review on a novel you picked up at the store and began to read.

Am only planning to post the first 3-5 chapters as a teaser. Hopefully they'll be enough to give a taste.

I'm using welsh sayings and spelling here and there, so if you wonder
how some things are pronounced here is a guide:

Nwmenaidd = Numenaith (the land of numens, or unearthly beings)
Cymru = Kumree (Welsh for Wales)
Tyta = Tit-tee (Daddy)
Tylwyth Teg = Tel-oe-ith Taeg(the benevolent fairies of Wales. Alike to the Seelie, but unrelated)
Myfanwy = Muh-vahn-wi (my lady/my dear one)

« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 10:22:55 PM by TheVorpalTribble »
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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2011, 04:27:57 PM »

Chapter 1
[spoiler]
Crab

Beauty. That is what I've always striven to preserve. The human body is a miraculous thing. Ingenious in design. A sublime work of art. It is meant to be beautiful. Health is beautiful. Even in the jowly depths of the old beggar, or the horse-nosed crone, there is a poetry to face and form. To its correct functioning. As a physician I have always admired its workings and warred against the ill humors that invaded it. In this waltz between birth and death my Caron had moved with unending grace. Then she had forgotten the steps in the dance of life. Something deep within had tripped.
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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2011, 04:30:16 PM »
Chapter 2
[spoiler]
Nymff
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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2011, 04:31:10 PM »
Chapter 2 continued
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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2011, 04:32:11 PM »
Chapter 3
[spoiler]
Wolf
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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2011, 04:35:45 PM »
Chapter 4[spoiler]
Slenderman

Caron. I first met her in this very house. Though I was born in London, this town is where both my parents were born. They brought me around my sixteenth year to visit and see my heritage.  I was apprenticed to my father, and eager to prove that I knew more than he. I had heard of the famous Craig brewery and the medicinal properties said to be contained within their liquors. Wishing to dismiss such claims I journeyed here to sample the miracles for myself. It was in the gardens as I passed that I heard a singing that would have rivaled the celestial choir. I was not fluent in the welsh tongue, but the mysterious lyrics behind that melody only drew me. There I found her holding a young rabbit that she has rescued from a snare and hoped to return to health. She was serenading to it, cuddling it to her breast. Such kindness and contentment did I see in that gaze, in the trust the pup showed as it slept in her embrace. Care of animal and child was her gift, as I hope it shows in the character of our son, Derog.  As I finished my apprenticeship I asked for her hand. She refused, saying it would be all of her or nothing. I accepted this requirement gladly and for these dozen years such contentment have I known that it feels only a day has passed. That was what Caron did, she brought happiness to all that knew her. Let us feel gladness instead of sorrow as she leaves, for she has escaped her pain and awaits us. This is a day of life, so let's celebrate those of us that still live.

Derog hardly heard the words his father spoke during his mam's wake. His soul felt parched by his draining depression. Those about him naturally tied it with the passing of his mother, but that hurt was a long time ache that he felt would eventually pass. It was now but a twinge compared to this pain. Of another loss.

The hunting party had returned the night before, and Derog had explained away his disappearance by explaining his fear at seeing her body and getting lost in the dark. The shattered pane was by the wind. All of it was a shade of the truth, and thus he could allow his tale to be said with sincerity.

His father was so relieved that nothing more sinister than that had occurred that he felt little inclination to question it. Gridge however peered out from under his eyebrows and Derog could see the skepticism in his gaze. He said nothing, of the tale or his missing medd, but Derog could feel his doubting presence each time he passed.

The searchers had been invited to stay for the night in the manor and on the morrow a wake would be held. Derog knew Dawe would have preferred a quiet ceremony, but he also knew Caron would have enjoyed a gathering of her friends and neighbors.

The morning before he had slipped out after a night devoid of any nocturnal visitations. He turned southeast as he had the previous night, towards the distant Taff. This time he rode on horseback, careful not to alarm the other horses that'd been kept in the stable. He was heading away when a figure stepped out from behind the garden wall. It was Gridge, who despite copious drinking with the searchers the previous night was up with dawn. He had a shovel in hand and a stony expression upon his face.

Derog took a deep breath.

"Bore da." he said. "After the search shouldn't you be sleeping off the medd?"

Gridge worked his jaw a moment then finally said, "Digging graves for the young isn't something you wish to do sober."

He took a step forward.

"Though tweren't so oggled as to try with my hands. Took me awhile to find the shovel. How'd it get with the medd I wondered. Don't recall my digging in the cellar last night." he said grimly. "So I'm done trying to recall. You aid my memory. What was it doing down there?"

Mentally Derog cursed. His thoughts had been leagues away after Barri had left. He'd completely forgotten the shovel.

"'n don't give me some bairn's tale. You know what you were about."

As Derog's mind raced, trying to think up a response, his eye idly traced the landscape out beyond the hill. What he saw came to the front of his mind, wiping out the stuttering response he had planned. From the start of the mountains to the north to the cut of the valleys and the rise of the moors, there was something being outlined. The green of the grass shaped and the stone accentuated. It all came together, a pattern so intricate it left him speechless, yet obvious as a rushing river. How had he never seen it? The land itself seemed to be speaking to him, pointing a way. 

"Derog?" a voice suddenly said by his ear. Derog jerked in surprised. He hadn't even noticed Gridge walking up to him. "Where are you at, lad?"

"It's there. It's all there." he whispered, spreading his hand to encompass the landscape.

Gridge turned his scowl to the horizon.

"I think your tyta better have a look at that fool head." he said gruffly, concern warring with the anger in his voice.

"It'll take me to her." Derog breathed, forgetting Gridge before him.

With that he kicked his heels against his mount's ribs and the horse galloped forward. Cursing and shouting after him, Gridge could only watch as he headed down.

He followed the path that lay before him for the next several hours. To those that passed it seemed he himself an awkward, convoluted route, yet for the boy it felt straight, and the land about him curved to fit.

He came upon the hill far from any farm or even a hunter's cabin. The horse began to start at nothing, whites showing in its eyes. Then it planted its feet like a mule and no manner of coaxing could move the mount up it. Resigned to walk, he began the long hike up, pushing through the groves that ringed its base and stumbling about the marshy ground. He almost expected to see red eyes before him, but nothing showed itself, not even the buzz of a mosquito.

Finally he pushed through the grove to rubble and heath. Eventually he came to the top. There was the obelisk, though the moss seemed to have grown back upon it in the night. In the daylight it no longer seemed so otherworldly, but   felt natural. It was the pinnacle upon which several of the strange path-lines in the landscape met.
There was no trace there had ever been anything here, though large, fleshy mushrooms were pushing up from soil that no longer seemed rocky, but thick and rich. The trees that had been brought back to life however were missing, as were the burrows they had torn.

Derog called for an hour, dug in the soil and kicked over mushrooms, but to no avail. Finally he approached the obelisk and rammed his head against it, breaking the scab that had formed upon his forehead. It bled on the  moss freely and ran down his face. He ripped off the moss, smearing it liberally about the bare stone which now showed no sign of rune. He pressed at the wound to continue the flow to give more blood, but though he waited, nothing came of it.

Beside himself with grief and longing he turned back down the hill and let the horse find its way back.


The wail of a child rose high enough to snap Derog out of miasma of memory. His father paused a moment and then raised his voice to continue, but the babe seemed determined to make him inaudible. Many mothers had come to the wake and brought with them young ones that Caron herself had delivered. With an irritability borne out of his frustrations, he snapped his head to glare at it.

It was a girl of almost two, far old enough to be silenced by its mother. The parent however just rocked it back and forth with an expression of despair. The child might have been called stunning by a casual observer, with thick red ringlets and pale green eyes, but there was an expression as it screamed that seemed both cruel and bored. To Derog's eye there was something off with it, something almost sinister. 

The babe then suddenly stopped as it noticed his attention. She narrowed her eyes and opened a mouth already possessing a full compliment of small, shiny teeth. It took a breath and gave the most piercing scream yet. Finally the mother excused herself to a corner and with a blanket draped across her began to nurse it despite its years. She then abruptly cried out in startled pain. The toddler pushed the blanket away with a tantrum. Before the mother could pull it back he saw her breast smeared with blood. The toddler turned to stare right at him. She grinned, blood streaking her lips.

Derog turned his head back around, but the hairs were rising on the back of his neck. 'That child was not what it seemed' was the warning his insight whispered. The words of Barri came back to him. Children that were not children. Infants of the Unseelie snuck into human cribs. Could this be such a one? 

By this time Dawe had obviously decided to bring his memorial speech to a close, as all lifted drinks to their departed daughter of Nwmenaidd. Others then began to tell their memories of Caron, as others milled about the food and drink swapping talk and laughter.

When the crowd about Derog had cleared, the mother of the biting beast had already moved away.

-=-=-=-=-=-

They buried Caron in the private graveyard on the northwest edges of the Craig lands. In other cities influential families often had mausoleums, or were given a place of honor within a church's hallowed grounds. In Nwmenaidd not even a coffin was used. She was lowered down within a sheet, a corner taken by Dawe, Derog, Gridge and one of Lowri's sons. Caron was clothed in a white gown, and flowers were braided in her hair.
Her mother, father, and grandparents all had been buried here, though no marker indicated where they lay. Instead it almost resembled an orchard, with each of the family having a tree planted over them.

As Dawe watched on solemnly, Gridge tossed in each corner so that her bluing face was hidden. He then began to shovel.  The townsfolk sang a song in an ancient form of welsh Derog hadn't heard since his grandfather had passed. It sounded joyous and mirthful, and with the aid of the brilliant sunshine and smell of living things it was obviously intended to ease the mind of the grieved. Lowri however had been granted the honor to be the mourner by Dawe and she let out a horrible keening of sorrow and loss, screaming to the dead soul as she tore lanks of hair from her head. The song and wail, it somehow didn't seem incongruous. It instead joined together to become all that defined the human condition. Pain and peace, joy and sorrow, magic and mortality.

When the mound had been packed down Derog tossed his indigo rose upon the mound. For three days he had gripped or worn it, and never had it shriveled or showed any signs of death. It seemed the only thing that still lived. Both his mother and his dreams had died within a single day.

They stayed several more days to pack away Caron's belonging and give out what they knew she would have wished to gift. Derog actually saw tears in Gridge's eyes as he was handed a small hand-carved flute. He stared down at it for several minutes.

"The lass never got the hang of it. I'd thought she'd tossed it away long ago." he had finally said.

Dawe laid a hand on the old man's shoulder for a moment, "Caron never threw away anything of value."

It was understood that Derog had inherited the estates, being the last direct line of the Craigs. Dawe misinterpreted Derog's expression when he was told. 

"Someday you will be grateful for it." Dawe said.

"And I'll keep it ready for ye." Gridge said neutrally.

"I'd like to come back each summer." Derog responded.

Dawe nodded. "I think that can be managed."

A carriage from London pulled up shortly thereafter with a weary looking driver and wearier horses. Gridge hitched up a fresh pair and helped Derog load as the coachman was fixed a meal by Lowri.

An hour or so later they were giving their goodbyes. Gridge was having a private word with Dawe, as Lowri caught up the boy in a hug.

"Don't be forgetting us now." she said in an admonishing tone. "Nwmenaidd is in your blood, child. It'll call to you."

"I'll be coming around for May of each." Derog replied, hesitantly returning the embrace.

"Good, good. You can stay with my family you know. Not this empty manor housed by an old man."

"Lowrie, how would you like to stay here, you and your family?  As you say, its big and empty."

Lowri's eyes widened and she began to shake her head.

"It'll need the upkeep. Gridge does the repairs, but he'd just assume stay in his keeper's house than come within."  I think my mam would have liked it being filled up again."

Lowri closed her mouth and nodded.

Inwardly he smiled. That's one thing he knew she'd not be able to refute.

She looked him up and down.

"You're becoming a man, Derog." she said with a curious expression as Dawe approached the carriage.

Dawe put a hand on Derog's shoulder, "That he is."

As Dawe stepped into the carriage Derog leaned close to Lowri, "And if Barri shows himself again, you're welcome to burn him down."

Lowri's eyes went hard and she nodded, tapping her nose. Derog nodded back, and climbed within.

He glanced back at the manor, and Lowri lifted a hand. Beside her stood Gridge, arms crossed and silent.The The trip across Cymru took the next couple days, which Dawe used chiefly to sleep that of the exhausted and heart-weary. Derog however had eyes only for the scenery. The path he had taken was not just one it seemed, the natural flow showing signs of numerous ones as they passed over. It was odd however as they seemed to curved right around any human settlements. The only exception he found was Nwmenaidd, which the path had gone straight to the obelisks, through the middle of town and ending in the mossy hill where he had met his Lady.

His mood both waned and brightened as he recalled her. He dreamt of her that night at an inn which the travelers had halted at.  He was sometimes trying to reach or speak with her, but never able to come near. He was like a spirit unable to affect the world. Her face too was difficult to recall. He didn't understand why, for every other aspect remained in startling clarity. Even in his dreams they were not so much hidden as obscured.

He tried to capture her in sketchings the following evening, though dusk was approaching and I would soon be too dim to continue. Curiously Dawe glanced over at his work and his eyes widened in appreciation.

"What manner of woman is that?" he inquired.

"I met her on May Eve." Derog replied with feigned distraction as he shaded her hair.

"This is so? I'd have thought such a beauty could only exist in one's imagination if indeed you capture her true. "

"She's not imaginary!" Derog snapped, looking up.

Dawe studied him with the clinical detachment he had learned to bring up in place of surprise. Derog was many things, but like himself quickness of anger was not a general trait. Then again, being motherless wasn't either. The two would both have to learn to handle the loss in their own way.

"Nor did I say she was." he replied cooly, returning the gaze. "It was intended as a compliment to both the artist and the lady."

"Sorry, Tyta." Derog replied formally.

"Mmm." Dawe murmured with a nod, and was sitting back in his chair when the horses whinnied, one bucking.

Glancing out, Derog saw the coachmen struggling with the reigns. He managed to get them under control, though they continued to snort and shake. The driver led them to the side and around some kind of obstruction.
They were at a cross-road. The one they were upon led through a stretch of woodlands, the dense canopy above shading their passing. The other ran parallel to the treeline. At the edge of the wood, where the two intersected, was a puddle of blood. As Derog watched another drip fell from above, adding to it. He glanced back as the horses continued past, squinting against the setting sun that was casting its rays directly across the trail. Tangled in the vines above was a snow-white hart, a rack of magnificent antlers sprouting from atop its head. It didn't seem to be harmed from this angle, the blood only issuing from its open mouth.

Though puzzled at how a deer would have ascended into the treetops, it wasn't that surreal spectacle that suddenly made him feel cold inside. He had the feeling of being watched. Glancing over at Dawe, the elder as well was peering out the window with a look of alertness.

Turning back to his own he felt rather than saw a movement. Leaning out the window to look back he felt his heart begin to beat faster. The hart had disappeared, as had the tangle it had been caught in. The sun then sunk below the horizon and the archway was cast into immediate gloom. For a split second Derog would have sworn he saw a long face atop what he had taken to be a tall, slender tree trunk with long, crooked limbs.  He blinked against the spots that danced in his vision, but once they faded it was too dim to tell what he had seen, if anything.

He felt himself starting at the slightest movement and the horse's hooves sounded unnaturally loud in his ears.

Darkness settled for true and the coachman brought the horses to a stop so that he could light the lanterns.  In the brief spark before the wick caught Derog saw a pair of thin trees growing from the middle of the road ahead. Trees with shoes. When the lantern finally flared the trunks had gone. For a moment Derog wondered if the tree giant had followed them, but this was different. There was no sweet scent of burning herbs, no eyes in the dark. Those legs, seeming clothed in tactile shadow had been no thicker than a normal man's but had reached up past the overhead trees. Far taller than the giant. Also, while the giant had been frightening, he was still something that Derog could assimilate. It had been brutal and bullying. This that he felt now was colder and alien. The entire situation tasted of it, if such a word could describe it. He didn't know if there was a definition for it, this  sixth sense that was developing with all its frightening connotations.

"A moment." Dawe said out the window as the driver reached up to climb back to his seat. He stood, bending almost double, and stepped out of the door. He straightened, arching his back and rolling his shoulders.

"Too long in a carriage will hunch your back." he said, glancing back in the carriage. "Do you wish to stretch?"

Derog glanced up and down the trail and slowly stepped out. He stretched, and walked around to the horses. He'd often heard animals had great senses than man, and if there were anything about they'd be looking for it. It was with a horrible knot in his stomach that he saw the horse's eyes were glazed. Their nostrils didn't flare nor did they so much as twitch. They might have been dead if not for the steady rise and fall of their sides.

"They don't look too good." Derog ventured warily.

The driver glanced over and snorted dismissively, "Be about two hours before we come across the next inn, sirs."

"Then best we be off." Dawe said with a sigh.

Reluctant to be back in the carriage, reluctant to remain in the wood, Derog felt an agony of indecision. He stepped up and, once seated, closed his eyes and willed the ride to be over. He fell into a troubled sleep.

As slumber took Derog a shape stretched out behind the wagon, like a shadow lengthening in the setting sun, reaching for the wagon. Its arms stretched and stretched, arcing over the wagon top down to grab the reigns of the horses from the unresisting hands of the suddenly sleeping coachmen.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

It was the cold that woke Derog. He was lying on his back amidst leaves by the side of the wagon The temperature itself was not particularly chilly, but within he felt frozen. A figure clothed in black was bent over beside him. It must have been thirty feet tall, and as slender as a sapling. The face was down on his level however peering into his, a horrible, expressionless blob of wan nothingness that glowed in the lamplight. Hundreds of arms, or perhaps tentacles began to rise from its back and reached out to surround the boy.  Derog felt paralyzed as it enveloped him. Something beyond fear had gripped him, beyond terror. He welcomed whatever it might do to him. He would do anything for it. Just as long as it would promise to kill him soon. For the first time he thought he understood what they said when they said god-fearing. He would bow down and worship it, this that was master over his very soul.  Derog reached up to embrace it when there was a whisper in the dark.
The slender man jerked its arm back as something struck it. An arrow of some kind protruded from the shoulder. No cry of pain was uttered, no drop of blood fell, but the figure raised a single leg and seemed to step out and over the forest.

The coldness began to fade and finally Derog could cry out in blind fear. The horses as well seemed to be coming out of the terrorized stupor. Derog barely had time to jumped back within before the horses began gallop. The door flailed back and forth as he curled into a fetal position upon the floor. The coachmen was thrown backwards with the momentum, slamming his head into the carriage. Dazedly he blinked and grabbed at the reigns. No matter how hard he pulled the horses would not stop, crazed and foaming. They hit a rut and Dawe was thrown up to the ceiling before falling atop his son.

Derog awoke in his parent's bed within their London home. The same bed where his mam had lay before being taken to Nwmenaidd. Disgust flooded through him, and he tried to leap off, but a stabbing pain drilled through his side. He gasped with the agony, but he felt faint of breath, and a deeper inhalation only aggravated the pain.

Pulled down the sheet he saw this his lower chest had been tightly bound. Gingerly he pressed on them and winced. He wondered how he had gotten here, and what had happened. Something niggled at his mind, like a dream that stayed just deep enough to remain hidden.

A hand then reached out to his shoulder, and Derog screamed as the memory returned. Of the slender man and his impossible reach. Derog tried to  leap out of bed, but as he finished screaming he realized he couldn't breathe. The hand reached down from Derog's shoulder to the boy's chest and performed some maneuver. Derog felt his bones might break, but abruptly he felt his lungs filling again. He chocked and coughed for several moments before lying back in complete exhaustion.

"Derog! Son, lie still." his father's voice said sternly. "You have a broken rib and if you thrash you may drive it closer to the lung."

Derog looked up to his father's face, the anxiety warring with clinical detachment.

"My... bed." Derog gasped out.

"You needed attending, and traipsing up to the attic every night would not be sensible." Dawe replied in exasperation.

"Mam's sick bed..."

Dawe looked at him blankly, then his eyes softened.

"It's alright, she wouldn't mind." he replied, utterly misinterpreting Derog's concern.

"The crab!" he wheezed.

The look immediately hardened.

"Derog Feddyg, your mother was a wondrous woman, and reluctant am I to criticize her, but she gave you ideas that have rooted a little too well. While very ill, her condition was not communicable. Do not worry over catching it. There. Is. No. Crab." he said, clearly and without a raise in his voice. Despite this Derog could tell he was on the borders of his temper. With that the elder Feddyg stood and left the room.

Derog lie still for some time after, flinching each time he brushed a coverlet, sure he felt crawling legs upon his flesh. As much misery as his ribs were, another type of turmoil raged within his chest. What was true and what was not? His father was a learned, intelligent man. A genius even. He knew more than most could hope for. His mother seemed to know much as well, yet the two had never seen eye to eye on what was truth and what was legend.

He wondered what it all meant. Since the may's eve he had seen more oddities than the rest of his life bound together. Or did he only think they were odd? He knew his father had worked with those possessed of brain fevers who ranted and raved of creatures not there, of suffering pain without wound. Then the image of the lady came back to him, and of the rose he had gripped. Barri had seen it! He knew his imagination was fertile, and prided himself on it, but surely even the most febrile could not dream up anything that approached a creature such as she. The lines had led him to the hill as well. No dreams could have taken him without assuming that which was equally improbable.

Perhaps, he reasoned with an inner chillness, he was only now seeing what had always been there. The lady had opened his eyes in so many ways. He only feared what might now be shown him. What happened when you noticed things that were used to being unnoticed? Lifted their veil and exposed them? Was the world itself as much a lie as the people that dwelt upon it? He wondered what else he might inadvertently draw the attention of. [/spoiler]

This is one of my rougher drafts that I'm not certain I'll keep as a chapter.

Everything before they leave for London is intended to be kept, but the run in with the Slender Man I'm concerned may be a little too much. Then again, its randomness is intended to show that he is now noticing things and in response being noticed back. I'm wanting the reader to wonder what is going on behind the scenes of the world, and do we want to peek into it even if we could?

The Slender Man and his attempt to take of the child is also a scene that I intend to explain within the second book of the series, Dark Waltzing. It will explain who rescued Derog and how.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 10:22:02 PM by TheVorpalTribble »
Over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, over park, over pale, through blood, through fire...

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TheVorpalTribble

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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2011, 04:36:20 PM »
That'll be enough. Appreciate your perusal.
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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2011, 12:39:04 AM »
Perhaps giving the characters and tale TvTrope categories will make the reading more interesting  :shrug
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Prime32

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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2011, 07:48:53 PM »
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

TheVorpalTribble

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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2011, 10:22:11 PM »
Added a tentative 4th chapter. Not decided if I plan to keep it.

Quote
Um... cool. Wait.
 :clap
That's better.
Gonna assume clapping means good. Does it read as a professional piece however?

Quote
Where did I use those characters?

Over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, over park, over pale, through blood, through fire...

A Dying Ember
(Campaign Setting)

Prime32

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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2011, 10:41:29 PM »
Quote
Where did I use those characters?
They show up as question marks.
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

kurashu

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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-3 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2011, 04:13:49 PM »
Perhaps giving the characters and tale TvTrope categories will make the reading more interesting  :shrug

I lol'd. I have to print them out to read this (just too much on the screen for my eyes), but from the bit I read on the board I was in love with it. I'll give you more feedback after I read it in full.

TheVorpalTribble

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Re: Indigo's Rose, Chapters 1-4 (critiques and comments welcome)
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2011, 10:03:19 PM »
Been having very little time for being online of late. Anyone who wishes to read it, I have the first 8 chapters up on DeviantArt:
http://karribi.deviantart.com/gallery/29944202

Have updated and smoothed out chapters 1-4 in the link, though 5-8 are still roughish.
Over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, over park, over pale, through blood, through fire...

A Dying Ember
(Campaign Setting)