Timewaster's Guide Archive

In which Jin meets a "nurse" and does the impossible.

Summary:

Prologue:  Traxix is being tried for grievous crimes against the world and all of humanity (or what that equates to anyway).  Imprisoned in a cell of iron, chained to a bed of iron, Traxix lives in complete solitary until the trial.  His friend, Salem, is to represent him in the trial.  His wife, Chalot, is the primary witness against him and the person who imprisoned him.  He receives a visit from a woman claiming to be his daughter who tells him Salem is the person he should be wary of.  Before she can be questioned further, the woman is forced to flee.  During the trial, instead of testifying of all the crimes and injustices Traxix is sure he has committed, she instead preaches of how great a person he is and how the trial is a farce.  She is struck down almost instantly by a man from Calor.  Traxix, quite upset his wife was just killed, rushes to attack the Calorite.  He is stopped and killed by Salem.  Before he dies, Salem draws on his head with a piece of charcoal.

Karemoth:  Karemoth is a the greatest hunter of the Ziphoa tribe.  During the hunt, a child wonders close by and Karemoth loses a leg below the knee trying to rescue her.  The tribe gives him what equates to three days to prove he can still contribute to the well being of all (gather food in some way).  Unable to prove this, he is slated for death, as his body can be processed to food and the blood for drink.  Angry at such a callous treatment of him, after all the things he's done for the tribe, Karemoth kidnaps the witch girl (read white skinned person) and attempts to take her away to kill her as the tribal laws say they all should have done already.  Before he can kill her, however, the Tribe is attacked by a band of witches who kill man warriors and kidnap the High Chief as well as taking the girl, Anaiah, with them.  The tribe is very upset and, despite the problem of Karemoth attempting to run away, they can no kill him now, as they need him to help hunt the witches if he can.  Once found, the War Chief, amazingly enough, converses with them in Numarian (their language) indicating she has a great deal of experience with the witchborn people.  Negotiations fall apart, however, as there is little the tribe can offer for their chief.  The witches have devils fighting for them, controlled by a group of singing women.  Karemoth and his brother husband plan an attack to kill the choir of women and thus render the devils out of control.  In the confusion they try to rescue High Chief but she insists on getting all of their other numerous prisoners out.  This results in her death.  Despite Karemoth's bitterness at his wife's death, the rescued prisoners, also witches, offer to establish exclusive trade with the Ziphoa tribe.  Karemoth's ability to smith things from Bones is one of their particular reason for this.  Save now that he can bring in food in exchange for his smithing, Karemoth is safe, but still very angry at the witches.  Anaiah is returned to the tribe, as no one knows who her real parents are and she is, in turn, given to Karemoth to raise.  Karemoth, Teravan, and Hammond, the three husbands of the late High Chief, decide to use these new trade arrangements as a means of gathering powerful resources and training warriors in the forbidden magic of the witches.  Their plan is to use the devils, like the witches did, to conquer them and steal their resource rich lands back.  They are going to raise Anaiah up to do just that, as she is the only witchborn they can control to do it.

Interlude (Traxix):  Traxix wakes up in a strange place filled with foggy paths and translucent green fortresses.  Touching the bricks of the fortress causes him to relive other people's experiences.  Very suddenly, he finds out he's as alone as he thought he was.

Jin'Cathul:  Jin is the son of Pai'Asie Del'Nosa and her husband, Talvin.  A tall, lanky, Numarian boy with long white hair (that his parents refuse to cut short) trained as a research scientists (or as close as one gets in a B.C. aged world) as well possessing the strange ability to make purple electrical sparks dance on his fingers.  His best friend Chalinae, is upset because among the other freeborn males, he is the least male-like and sets him up for a challenge to prove he is a "man."  This challenge involves invading a neighboring Houses's garden and stealing a red flower.  Unable to figure out how to do that, Jin is greeted by a strange voice while doing work for his father.  The voice convinces Jin he can do it, and helps him plan how.  Jin leaves to do it too early in the planning stages, however, and does not have everything he needs to succeed.  Captured, Jin is slated for death with Chalinae because she put him up to the task.  His parents are able to have him released from the prison but he is forced to do a great deal of work for the people tried to steal from.  The voice in the Kulutinist Tower also implies that Talvin may not actually be Jin's real father.

Current Chapter:  Jin is shown his punishment and starts work on translating and helping his father with experiments involving a hole in the Shroud.  They are waiting for a nurse to come and check out Jin's injuries.

I hope it is an enjoyable chapter.

Since it wasn't posted.  I thought I'd just post here.

Soooo . . . . it was actually better then the other parts I've read.  Something I'm noticing is that your work might be suffering from . . . well . . . the format.  I'll try to explain.

This short, serial form seems to lend itself more toward quick, short action.  This means each installment requires its own action flow between start, build, climax, and resolution (or cliffhanger as is more likely the case).  To conserve the space for this rising action and such, it seems you're skimping on the details.  Our heroine is talking to a lizard, but the lizard seems to more behave like the Geico gecko instead of a lizard.  If that's what you want then great.  But I think the pieces would benefit more from details about his behaviors and her behaviors.  This compares, interestingly, to dance.  I hope this helps explain it.

If you've ever watched a good ballroom couple, let's say, dancing a competitive samba.  You can find numerous videos over the internet to see what I'm talking about, if you don't know personally.  Ballroom is essentially broken down into steps.  Left foot here, right foot there.  There is nothing about the arms.  When you watch dancers, they step and step and step, but what makes things look good are the arms.  A good dancer lets the arms do their thing and doesn't push them around.  But the arms are there, and they are what really brings the steps to life.  Your piece is, essentially, missing it's arms.

Picks up right where 12 left off.

Chapter 10 - Jin is rescued at the Bazaar by Chalinae.

Chapter 11 - Jin suffers the consequences.

No topic was up, so I put one up.

You're new, so I'm going to try to go easier on you.  No, I'm only joking.

The actual writing and word choice is good.  Don't change the voice of your piece.  Don't change your characters.  They're all fine.  But the good stuff pretty much ends thhere.

Right off from the start you're counting off cliche's.  You've got wizards (I'll admit I'm bias against wizards and I think it's for very good reasons), you've got dwarven ale, you've got goblins, and you've got a crew that sounds an aweful lot like a D&D adventuring party.  You even have yoru armored fighter complaining about not getting enough to drink.  All of those by themselves are forgivable . . . individually . . . but together it can all be a real turn off.  Now I happen to really like the books Orcs and Dwarves, so the inclusion of such things isn't always bad.  It doesn't mean you have to start over, but it does mean you're going to have to work really really really hard to make this book stand out and convince me its worth my time to read.  Adding a space alien or whatever was a good start at that.  I hate to put it this way but for some reason it doesn't sound cliche to others (just me) but you do alot of "telling."  I feel like I should wash my mouth out for saying that.  Or wash my fingers since I'm typing it.

By telling, I'm refering to some of the introductory paragraphs where you're introducing the characters.  The good thing you did was the a word joke.  Lines like "In the early days, Merin had tried developing shields to protect their camp . . ."  You could just as easily have the people in the camp discussing the lack of shields and the problems they caused.  Bran could whine about not getting enough sleep.  That could be funny.  And it gives us more character to work with.  Instead, you just kind of mention it, and move on.

I'm not sure if you're trying to do an omnicient point of view or not.  It seems like we're seeign ran's PoV but when you get to Anno, we've switched.  If this has all been through her eyes, then I suggest giving us more of her right from the start.

And then you really had to go and ruin the space alien by saying she's from "Earth."  I'm really not a fan of Conneticut Yankees in any form, so I will admit to being horribly bias against the earth thing, with dwarves and wizards.  Putting it in the space alien context is cool.  That's interesting.  That's what's keeping my reading.  The way earth is talked about is nice too, making it actually sound alien instead of Earthy.

The phrase, "as you know," needs to go.  It made me taste bile.

Not done reading, I'll finish soon.

Merry Christmas everyone!  Get lots of good presents!

Well I hope this is at least decent.  And I hope it is worth your time to critique.

Chapter 1:  We are introduced to Tasia.  She and her gang plan a heist.  During the planning she runs into a Naalim who seems to stalk her and hunt her.  She flees for her life.

Chapter 2:  Awrtek and Tyrus, God of Mercy and High Judge respectively, are called in by the devils to investigate an obliteration.  As only Naalim can obliterate, and Naalim are the church's business, the church is brought in.  Awrtek and Tyrus question people and investigate the scene, determining that only Naalim with Frenetic powers could have caused the deaths.  As no one has seen a frenetic in 400 years, this is strange findings.  Also implied is that Naalim can partially consume obliterate someone, leaving their bodies scared.

Chapter 3:  We meet the Naalim . . . and we learn a little about his goals and methods.