Hi guys, how would you improve this text? What do you think? What parts or aspects are best?
And just how bad is the hopefully placeholder "kaleidoscope" illustration, on a scale from 1 to minus a thousand? (-warning and sorry for that last one. can't think of a better way to go, there, atm)
These are the important questions. Thanks for reading, if you do:
__
The demon had been on its way to a meeting of the three lords of its (greater) region, but had been attracted off path by a shaping in the void. There was an unshielded mind practicing magic close enough to the void's twisting path for a demon such as this one, (a creature of great subtlety, which is why it was going to see two lords, not three -for it was the third) the faint swirling changes in that other space were not too subtle to pick up.
It did not see or feel this like one might in a kaleidoscope, -its senses were not so overwhelmingly sharp as to be able to see clearly such a change, but it had nonetheless picked up on an almost imperceptible shifting, one that could just as easily be imaginary.
Truth be told, they often were: the swirling currents and eddies of negotiation in the red mountain lands of his home plane (frequently adorned with further red by the unwilling, though he thought generous, sacrifices of those too slow, imperceptive, or merely unlucky. -and not so subtle as he, for he'd survived his share of bad luck) were such that a creature could not afford to miss a trick, though it could afford to see one where none was -that was the methodology he'd scraped and stumbled his way into, if he searched a hundred such patterns, and if 99 were nothing at all, or even dangers, he would not forego one such as this -an unshielded mage powerful enough to be felt through the void.
Everything was negotiation, as far as Hharzak was concerned. There was threats, where one negotiates the fear of one's opponent. There was combat, where one negotiated the arc of blades, and negotiated to find a place where death was agreeable enough to the enemy, that it would not be sufficiently inclined, and strong, as to strike back a severe blow the same instant, or the one after. This was a game he played wherever possible, -to find a place in a combat where his opponent was not ready to trade, or to retaliate, -where the enemy's focus was on some other plan of action, and step wholly inside the arms of death, to deliver it, when they were not ready to close.
He attributed a great deal of his strength to this practice. The danger was endlessly repaid by the knowledge he always had, that he would take such needless risks in the future, and thus could never afford to be a hair's breadth less than perfect in awareness or sharpness, or subtlety.
Hharzak closed on the disturbance now and put aside his thoughts. Veering off from the main "path" he quickly became certain that there was something significant here.
He cast only his spirit in the burst through the void's edge, and found himself, though aware still of his physical form lurking in the void, and its senses and detection and safeguards, -immaterial and nigh invisible on a hillside. A sunny day. A green hillside. Fresh grass.
He felt the power emitted now. A mage here was wholly open to the ethereal. Such power swirled around, but what was it being used for?
Hharzak was on the cusp of worrying when he looked around, and found not an arrogant, foolish but dangerous, youngster, or an aged archmage who might have no need for a static defense -for it could throw one up in an instant, and sense ethereal threats that could have a shot anyhow (that was the way with many of the old greybeards and crones, too many he thought)
But just a child on a hillside, playing with forces it couldn't possibly understand.
There were no guarantees that this wasn't some kind of trap, but he sensed nothing else conscious for miles around but the sheep, squirrels and so on common areas like this one.
Though.. that in itself was disturbing. Why so isolated. Why so reckless? Why had no creature happened across its path, to take its magic?
Well this was a backwater, and the child was young enough. Perhaps 7 years of age.
And there were never any guarantees.
Still, he was always ready to flee on a dime, but became a little moreso now. A corner of his mind was dedicated to escape, should the need for it come up.
He studied the aura before him closer now, and the aurora given out. The boy was
not stood in a natural vortex or well of power. Hharzak decided then that he would
likely take the risk, whatever else he uncovered. The potential for gain here was too
great. He could be going to a meeting of one lord of the mountains of martain. He
could be returning to the mountains of Hharzak, if he could steal (even) a half of
this child's power, for the balance of power was delicate, and there was a great bounty
before him.
No situation was ever without risk. Words he'd lived his life by, words which had made him a lord. Hharzak prepared himself for a vicious struggle, though he expected it to be one sided and brief. Prepared himself almost as he had for the duel that had put him on the last steps of the path to what he was today, what he'd been for the last ten years.
This was it. If he had missed anything, he would be fighting for his life.
Hharzak considered dropping his body out of the void , but decided against it, as if the ploy succeeded in disturbing and surprising the child, there was a good chance it would be able to set up defenses.
Hharzak moved smoothly but swiftly up, then launched himself at the centre of the gently swirling vortex, then through, into the realm of souls or minds, when he was close enough to the opening. Ready to rend a thousand legions, he found no hidden defenses, and slipped unobstructed into the boy's unshielded mind.
No sooner, and no later, he wrenched with all of his might for control, sensing no hidden traps or defenses.
There was no intention to kill the boy, (no need after all, and the danger of retribution), but he wasn't taking any risks, either, so this lack of intention did not effect the outcome- A force was unleashed to kill a thousand legionaires. Unpleasant, but Hharzak didn't take unnecessarry risks.
_
Hharzak found himself chained in an instant, then suspended, away from any possible influence
"ow"
__
"What was that...
..Hharzak? Is that your name?"
____
Some things I am trying to go for are (in this excerpt or as setup for wider context):
1. Somewhat sympathetic demon: it's in a "delicate" position, motivated by an impersonal desire for power (and so safety also), -not a desire to hurt. It's fastidious and scrupulous even about what others would see as taking candy from a baby. Something is also made of the fact that he's a demon from a dangerous area in which he has survived where other have not. moments later the kid also doesn't immediately kill him, but he is instantly ready for death, and fights in his own mind to die with no regrets and perhaps therefor with some honour, purely for his own, and its own, sake, at a time when no one will know.
2. This world has drastically varying power levels, at least sometimes/occasionally, and these can be hidden. Hopefully this will make for a lot of bluffing, intel gathering, concealing information, striding into risks that are not just risks but "unknown unknowns", -generally an exciting environment.
3. It could absolutely have been a kid with crazy power but no skill. Hharzak wasn't necessarrilly wrong. If you're playing certain kinds of games, sometimes you just lose: sometimes the dice just fall that way, it's in the nature of the game, -whether you're harzak, playing the game of the road to power and safety and comfort, willing to risk it all, -or just some poor kid on a mountain side that might have conjured food and shelter for thousands, hundreds of thousands, one day, stuck in the game of a dangerous world, where demons can pop out of thin air and kill you just because no one at your village knew the necessity of not broadcasting such magic, to tell you.
3b) Hharzak could have become instantly a lot more powerful. The forces of magic are great, and loose in the world. Oppurtunities arise, (not all so unpleasant), power is there to be taken for the brave, the mad, the driven, the dutybound... -all who would risk the perils which surround it.
I have three main (specific) queries, but please feel free to ignore these if they do not seem helpful to your critique:
1. How well does the excerpt fit in with these tones/themes, and did it individually manage to hit any of them for you, like as in you recognise it in retrospect?
2. How bad is the writing? When I read it to myself it reads well but I know what I'm imagining and have a hard time not reading that instead.
I think it might be very barebones in its fundamentals, -I know it could be a lot better, but it's very hard for me to get a sense of how obstructive the lack of, uh, "in-close richness of rendition" gets in the way, because of like I said not being able to read what I put without knowing and partially seeing what I meant/intended (and also because I have a high tolerance for bad writing as a reader, but nvm that lol!).
So yeah I know it's common advice to focus more on getting each bit exactly right than on coming up with more cool stuff, but how particularly is that the case here? How readable is it?
3. does including (so many of) Hharzak's thoughts about risk foreshadow that something will go wrong too much? -I was thinking of getting rid of most of them for like one thought along the lines that thought that something is unusual here, and a dismissal that of course it's unusual, and even if it is a trap or something he's torn his way out of enough of those in his time, AND if you pass up this oppurtunity another may not do so, and you will be in more danger at their mercy than you could possibly be with the element of surprise, even against an archmage, for you are Hharzak.
_
Thanks, all!
And just how bad is the hopefully placeholder "kaleidoscope" illustration, on a scale from 1 to minus a thousand? (-warning and sorry for that last one. can't think of a better way to go, there, atm)
These are the important questions. Thanks for reading, if you do:
__
The demon had been on its way to a meeting of the three lords of its (greater) region, but had been attracted off path by a shaping in the void. There was an unshielded mind practicing magic close enough to the void's twisting path for a demon such as this one, (a creature of great subtlety, which is why it was going to see two lords, not three -for it was the third) the faint swirling changes in that other space were not too subtle to pick up.
It did not see or feel this like one might in a kaleidoscope, -its senses were not so overwhelmingly sharp as to be able to see clearly such a change, but it had nonetheless picked up on an almost imperceptible shifting, one that could just as easily be imaginary.
Truth be told, they often were: the swirling currents and eddies of negotiation in the red mountain lands of his home plane (frequently adorned with further red by the unwilling, though he thought generous, sacrifices of those too slow, imperceptive, or merely unlucky. -and not so subtle as he, for he'd survived his share of bad luck) were such that a creature could not afford to miss a trick, though it could afford to see one where none was -that was the methodology he'd scraped and stumbled his way into, if he searched a hundred such patterns, and if 99 were nothing at all, or even dangers, he would not forego one such as this -an unshielded mage powerful enough to be felt through the void.
Everything was negotiation, as far as Hharzak was concerned. There was threats, where one negotiates the fear of one's opponent. There was combat, where one negotiated the arc of blades, and negotiated to find a place where death was agreeable enough to the enemy, that it would not be sufficiently inclined, and strong, as to strike back a severe blow the same instant, or the one after. This was a game he played wherever possible, -to find a place in a combat where his opponent was not ready to trade, or to retaliate, -where the enemy's focus was on some other plan of action, and step wholly inside the arms of death, to deliver it, when they were not ready to close.
He attributed a great deal of his strength to this practice. The danger was endlessly repaid by the knowledge he always had, that he would take such needless risks in the future, and thus could never afford to be a hair's breadth less than perfect in awareness or sharpness, or subtlety.
Hharzak closed on the disturbance now and put aside his thoughts. Veering off from the main "path" he quickly became certain that there was something significant here.
He cast only his spirit in the burst through the void's edge, and found himself, though aware still of his physical form lurking in the void, and its senses and detection and safeguards, -immaterial and nigh invisible on a hillside. A sunny day. A green hillside. Fresh grass.
He felt the power emitted now. A mage here was wholly open to the ethereal. Such power swirled around, but what was it being used for?
Hharzak was on the cusp of worrying when he looked around, and found not an arrogant, foolish but dangerous, youngster, or an aged archmage who might have no need for a static defense -for it could throw one up in an instant, and sense ethereal threats that could have a shot anyhow (that was the way with many of the old greybeards and crones, too many he thought)
But just a child on a hillside, playing with forces it couldn't possibly understand.
There were no guarantees that this wasn't some kind of trap, but he sensed nothing else conscious for miles around but the sheep, squirrels and so on common areas like this one.
Though.. that in itself was disturbing. Why so isolated. Why so reckless? Why had no creature happened across its path, to take its magic?
Well this was a backwater, and the child was young enough. Perhaps 7 years of age.
And there were never any guarantees.
Still, he was always ready to flee on a dime, but became a little moreso now. A corner of his mind was dedicated to escape, should the need for it come up.
He studied the aura before him closer now, and the aurora given out. The boy was
not stood in a natural vortex or well of power. Hharzak decided then that he would
likely take the risk, whatever else he uncovered. The potential for gain here was too
great. He could be going to a meeting of one lord of the mountains of martain. He
could be returning to the mountains of Hharzak, if he could steal (even) a half of
this child's power, for the balance of power was delicate, and there was a great bounty
before him.
No situation was ever without risk. Words he'd lived his life by, words which had made him a lord. Hharzak prepared himself for a vicious struggle, though he expected it to be one sided and brief. Prepared himself almost as he had for the duel that had put him on the last steps of the path to what he was today, what he'd been for the last ten years.
This was it. If he had missed anything, he would be fighting for his life.
Hharzak considered dropping his body out of the void , but decided against it, as if the ploy succeeded in disturbing and surprising the child, there was a good chance it would be able to set up defenses.
Hharzak moved smoothly but swiftly up, then launched himself at the centre of the gently swirling vortex, then through, into the realm of souls or minds, when he was close enough to the opening. Ready to rend a thousand legions, he found no hidden defenses, and slipped unobstructed into the boy's unshielded mind.
No sooner, and no later, he wrenched with all of his might for control, sensing no hidden traps or defenses.
There was no intention to kill the boy, (no need after all, and the danger of retribution), but he wasn't taking any risks, either, so this lack of intention did not effect the outcome- A force was unleashed to kill a thousand legionaires. Unpleasant, but Hharzak didn't take unnecessarry risks.
_
Hharzak found himself chained in an instant, then suspended, away from any possible influence
"ow"
__
"What was that...
..Hharzak? Is that your name?"
____
Some things I am trying to go for are (in this excerpt or as setup for wider context):
1. Somewhat sympathetic demon: it's in a "delicate" position, motivated by an impersonal desire for power (and so safety also), -not a desire to hurt. It's fastidious and scrupulous even about what others would see as taking candy from a baby. Something is also made of the fact that he's a demon from a dangerous area in which he has survived where other have not. moments later the kid also doesn't immediately kill him, but he is instantly ready for death, and fights in his own mind to die with no regrets and perhaps therefor with some honour, purely for his own, and its own, sake, at a time when no one will know.
2. This world has drastically varying power levels, at least sometimes/occasionally, and these can be hidden. Hopefully this will make for a lot of bluffing, intel gathering, concealing information, striding into risks that are not just risks but "unknown unknowns", -generally an exciting environment.
3. It could absolutely have been a kid with crazy power but no skill. Hharzak wasn't necessarrilly wrong. If you're playing certain kinds of games, sometimes you just lose: sometimes the dice just fall that way, it's in the nature of the game, -whether you're harzak, playing the game of the road to power and safety and comfort, willing to risk it all, -or just some poor kid on a mountain side that might have conjured food and shelter for thousands, hundreds of thousands, one day, stuck in the game of a dangerous world, where demons can pop out of thin air and kill you just because no one at your village knew the necessity of not broadcasting such magic, to tell you.
3b) Hharzak could have become instantly a lot more powerful. The forces of magic are great, and loose in the world. Oppurtunities arise, (not all so unpleasant), power is there to be taken for the brave, the mad, the driven, the dutybound... -all who would risk the perils which surround it.
I have three main (specific) queries, but please feel free to ignore these if they do not seem helpful to your critique:
1. How well does the excerpt fit in with these tones/themes, and did it individually manage to hit any of them for you, like as in you recognise it in retrospect?
2. How bad is the writing? When I read it to myself it reads well but I know what I'm imagining and have a hard time not reading that instead.
I think it might be very barebones in its fundamentals, -I know it could be a lot better, but it's very hard for me to get a sense of how obstructive the lack of, uh, "in-close richness of rendition" gets in the way, because of like I said not being able to read what I put without knowing and partially seeing what I meant/intended (and also because I have a high tolerance for bad writing as a reader, but nvm that lol!).
So yeah I know it's common advice to focus more on getting each bit exactly right than on coming up with more cool stuff, but how particularly is that the case here? How readable is it?
3. does including (so many of) Hharzak's thoughts about risk foreshadow that something will go wrong too much? -I was thinking of getting rid of most of them for like one thought along the lines that thought that something is unusual here, and a dismissal that of course it's unusual, and even if it is a trap or something he's torn his way out of enough of those in his time, AND if you pass up this oppurtunity another may not do so, and you will be in more danger at their mercy than you could possibly be with the element of surprise, even against an archmage, for you are Hharzak.
_
Thanks, all!
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