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View Full Version : Yet Again, I Write A Book...


Mzor203
November 4th, 2008, 01:47 AM
And this time, I am serious. There's a thing called National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) that probably someone on here has heard about. Basically it's a challenge to write 50,000 words in November, 1,667 words a day. I did it last year, but failed, but this time I'm on track and looking good.

Anyway, I want some feedback on it thus far to see if this is any good. Please note that this is my VERY FIRST DRAFT. There will be things that don't make sense. When I go back and edit, it's going to look nothing like it does now. I still don't have a title (I barely ever have a title) but I l know I'm going have the word Oppression in it.

Anyway, this is the Prologue, which may or may not be removed or severely edited at some later date. Some things won't make sense, as I said before, and there may be a few severely botched up words or sentences as my space bar on this computer is retarded, and I've disabled spell check on OpenOffice for the time being. But whatever.

I also am completed with one half of Chapter One which may later become Chapter 2 and some of Chapter One which will be the actual Chapter One at some point... what? Basically, more coming soon. I'm writing as fast as I can.

(Drumroll Please)...

________________________________________________________________________


Prologue


The watcher kneeled down before the high throne, bowing his head to the cloaked figure that sat on magnificent seat. He unrolled the piece of parchment in his hand which held the latest reports and observations of the watchers. He looked at his lord, requesting the right to speak. The dark figure nodded.


“Lord Vangweld, there have been several outbreaks and riots from groups of the minor cults. They have been too much for the forces we have to stationed, and I request reinforcements.”


Lord Vangweld nodded, and then stood up, addressing his Master of Forces, who stood in one of the shadowed corners of the room. “Please take this watcher to the war room so you can calculate how many forces should be sent out.” The Master of Forces nodded his head in acknowledgement, and then led the watcher out of the room down a corridor. Then he nodded his head to the next Watcher in line, who then stepped forward.


“What have you to report?” Lord Vangweld inquired of the watcher.


“Sir, there has been a major uprising in the town of Asmyhr about 50 miles south of here. The revolting villagers are composed mainly of Venificans, and it seems to be led by a single man who has evaded us thus far. I am requesting that a small group of Elites be sent down to the town so that we can quell this uprising.” The watcher stopped and thought for a moment, and then continued, “The town directly west of Asmyhr has been unsettled as well, I believe we may have a revolt brewing there as well.”


Lord Vangweld thought for a moment before saying, “Very well, take a small squadron of elites and guide them to these two towns. Do not return until you have either quelled the riots or driven all the Venificans out of the area.” The watcher bowed, and then took his lead, exiting by the corridor the watcher before him had taken.


The cloaked figure turned to a man who had been standing beside his throne throughout the whole process, and beckoned for him to follow as he stepped down from his throne and strode towards another hall branching off the main room. The man followed Lord Vangweld, keeping at a safe distance. They followed the long hallway until they exited into a brightly lit room with a table in its center. The table was strewn with maps, tools, and notes, everything the tactical officers would need to plan an invasion or direct a battle. Lord Vangweld pulled a large sheet of parchment from the folds of his cloak, and rolled it out on the table. He beckoned for the man to come closer.


“C'leth,” he said,addressing the man, “I am worried about our current situation. Our forces are scattered, and these groups of minor cults spread throughout the kingdom are doing an annoyingly well job of popping up all over the place and complicating matters. We need a new tactic.”


“Lord, I think that we're doing all we can do at the moment,” C'leth said carefully, arranging markers denoting their troops on the map. “We don't have enough forces at the moment to cover every area where there may be an uprising, but if we take down one group after another, eventually they'll wear out.”


“Or we'll wear out,” Lord Vangweld pointed out.


“That is a valid point. However, our forces are more trained, these are simply ordinary townspeople.”


“It's still not enough. We need an alternative method.”


“Actually, I've been thinking about that. The Veneficans could be easily crushed if we had the forces of the general populations against them.”


“And how do you propose we do that?” Lord Vangweld asked, interested now.


“If we could somehow get the general population to look down upon them, we could put a bounty on every Venifican that normal townspeople would be very happy to claim, and without hesitation. And we could do this through religious oppression.”


“Religious oppression?” Lord Vangweld's attention was now fully on on C'leth.


“Yes, if we chose one religion to endorse, and hopefully convert most people to, then we could put preachers in place which would then condemn Venificans, if very subtly. Eventually, the government could put a ounty on the Venificans, and there wouldn't be any remorse from the general population.”


“I believe this could be an excellent idea if it were pulled off correctly,” said Lord Vangweld, ”But it will need much planning, and we will need a religion to focus on and endorse.”


“I already have one in mind, my lord,” C'leth said. “Araneism is a very predominant religion, and, while it would be harder to pass off as the 'One True Religion' to most people, if we managed to it would greatly be to our advantage.”


“Excellent. Your idea is brilliant, C'leth. If it works, you shall be greatly rewarded.”


“It was my pleasure to present my idea to you, my lord,” C'leth said with a bow.


“It is time to get to work then,” Lord Vangweld said. “Let us begin the planning.”


I realize how lame this sounds now... And, ARGH! THe color is going funkeh... please just use a different skin if you have to.

Mzor203
November 7th, 2008, 01:59 AM
Well, if anyone is interested, here is the next part of it.


Chapter 1


The footsteps were coming closer, close enough to make him tense up and start running if need be. Then a second pair of footsteps was added to the first, and one of the guards shouted to another, something which didn't sound very pleasant. Suddenly the footsteps stopped, and he heard whispering. “Let's check behind there. Peeking out from the slits of the crates, he could see that he was surrounded. This was the end.


And then suddenly another guard came running out down the alley, an shouted to the others. “One of them just went that way. It's the one with the bow.” The two guards who had been about to find and murder him dashed away, leaving him to breath a sigh of relief.


The boy, Altair Ranjin, stepped out from behind the stack of crates he had hidden himself behind, squinting in the sun after being in such a dark place for so long. He looked around, and not seeing anyone around, went back to his hiding place, grabbed the shirt of a guard he had knocked out, and dragged him out into the alleyway. The guard grunted, but didn't wake up. After giving him a kick for good measure, Altair dragged the guard into one of the deserted houses, and opened the trapdoor to the cellar, heaving him down the stairs into the darkness below. He emerged back out onto the street, and then ran in the direction of his house.


Altair made it back safely, though not without a few close encounters. As he came to the wooden door of his home, he knocked on the wood eight times, and then waited. The door opened a crack, and suspicious eye peered out. Realizing it was Altair, the door swung open revealing his mother, Lyled Ranjin, who quickly pulled him inside. She closed the door and gave him a quick hug before asking, “What took you so long?”


“A guard was on my tail and it took a long time to shake him,” Altair said. “Then I had to hide from a second group for a while, but one of them lingered around longer then I liked, so I took him out. And then there was another couple who had me, and they almost got me, but they ran off excitedly before they found me.” He took a deep breath.


“Sounds like you had some trouble,” Lyled said. “You handled it well.” She gave him a quick smile, which Altair returned. “Ari got here about 20 minutes ago, he just went and got something to eat.”


“Food sounds like a good idea,” Altair said, his stomach growling at the thought. They went into the kitchen, where they found a dark skinned boy, Ari, who was Altair's long time friend, sitting at the table. Altair waved.”


“Hey,” said Ari, flashing him a smile. “Want some?” He pointed to a loaf of bread with some cheese sitting beside it on the table.


“Sounds great,” Altair said, sitting down beside his friends, and cutting himself a slice with the knife that was resting beside the loaf. “So what have you been up to all afternoon?” he asked as he bit into the bread.


“I've been running, a lot,” Ari said more seriously. “They never get off my tail.”


“I can relate to that,” Altair said. They were silent for a moment.


Ari turned to Lyled, and said, “What are we going to do next?”


“We have to find who's leading this force, and see if we can capture him,” she said. “If we can, it will throw the rest of the force into confusion.”


“Sounds like a plan,” Altair said, finishing off the last of his slice of bread. “How are we going to find him?”


Lyled began to reply, but was cut off by a loud bang coming from the other room. They all froze, ready to run or fight. The bang came again. “Someone's trying to break down the door,” Ari guessed.


“Get out of here,” Lyled said. “Grab the emergency kit, Altair.” With that they all stood up and ran towards the back door, Altair taking a detour into the hall where he grabbed a backpack filled with emergency supplies. After securing it on his back, he followed the others, coming out the back door to find them waiting for him. Inside they all heard a great crash.


“They've got in, come on,” Ari said, and they began running through the alley they had emerged into. As they turned a corner, the back door of their house crashed open, and they heard footsteps running towards them.


“Split up,” Lyled said. “Everyone meet at Camail's house.” Ari and Altair nodded, and when they emerged onto the street they went in three different directions, Altair taking a right turn and then finding another alley to dart into. As he looked behind him, his heart skipped a beat as he saw not a guard following him, but a watcher in a black cloak. Apparently they had decided that he needed a bit more of a challenge.


Altair darted around a few corners, and then scrambled up a pile of crates standing beside a house, and then stepped onto the roof. It was steady enough for him to stand on, but he didn't trust it for long, so he ran to the other side, and jumped down into the adjacent alleyway, landing with a thump. He quickly regained his balance and began to run again. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized to his astonishment that he had not managed to shake the watcher. He put on an extra burst of speed, not planning to be caught by the cloaked figure.


It took a long time for Altair to lose the watcher. Eventually he managed to lose him long enough to cross another roof and get away before the watcher saw where he was going. As soon as he was certain he wasn't been followed, he began running in the direction of Camail's house. Camail was a friend of his mother's, who they could trust to keep them safe long enough to plan their next move.


It turned out that despite the trouble he had with the watcher, he was still the first at Camail's house. As he was let in he was surprised to find neither Ari nor his mother at the house.


“You haven't seen my mom or Ari yet?” Altair asked Camail.


“Not yet,” she answered him, bringing him to the kitchen. “I wasn't expecting any of you today.”


“We had some trouble,” Altair said. “Some of the royal guard were sent to deal with us, it seems. So we had to get away from them. Then we had a watcher come into our house.” At the mention of the watcher Camail's eyes took on a worried light. “He chased me, but I managed to shake him. Ari and my mom must have run into other trouble.”


There was a soft rap at the back door, and Camail went to answer it. A moment later she came back to the kitchen with his mother behind her. She gave a quick smile to Altair. “Where's Ari?” she asked him.


“He hasn't arrived yet,” Altair replied. “I'm surprised he isn't. Maybe a watcher went after him as well.”


“A watcher?” Lyled asked.


“Yes, that was who broke into our house. He chased me.”


“This is worse than I thought.” Lyled sat down in a chair to catch her breath. It seemed she had been running as well. To confirm his thoughts, she said, “I ran into a group of guards. There were too many to fight, so I had to run for quite a while. Hopefully Ari doesn't have worse.” No sooner had she said this than there was another knock at the door, which turned out to be Ari himself.


“We're all here,” Altair said. “Now what?”


“I think we need to move on to another town,” Lyled said. “It's too dangerous for us to stay here much longer, and if we can spread the word of our revolution to other Venificans, we'll give the government quite a bit of trouble.”


“But will others be willing to participate in a revolution when it could endanger their lives?” Camail asked. “I, for example, am going to have no part in this until someone comes and provokes me.”


“It is a good point,” Lyled said. “But I am sure there are many who, like us, have had enough and are willing to fight rather than let the government slowly destroy us.”


“Well good luck with that,” Camail said, obviously not looking upon Lyled's plan with approval.


“So where are we going next?” Altair asked.


“First we have to get out of the city,” Lyled answered. “There are guards everywhere, and watchers are around too, so it might be tough. But once we are out it becomes much easier. I think we'll go to Levweld first, as it's the closest town and I know there are a fair amount of Venificans there.” She stood up from the chair had been sitting in, and turned to Camail. “Thank you for allowing us to stay here while we recuperated. Now we need to continue on. Altair, do you have the emergency kit?”


“I do,” Altair replied, lifting up the backpack to show her.


“Good. Let's go you two.” Both the boys stood up and said good-bye to Camail, and then followed Lyled out of the house. When they came out into the afternoon light, they began following the road to the nearest section of the wall that stretched around the whole of Asmyhr. They walked slowly, always keeping a look out for guards until they were able to dart into an alley to better conceal themselves. While they kept near the shadows that were cast by the tall houses, they were almost invisible due to the dark clothing that they wore as a testament of being Venificans.


They encountered patrolling guards multiple times, but it seemed that there were less on the streets than there had been before. When Altair pointed this out, his mother seemed worried for some reason, but she didn't say anything when Altair asked about it.


They had almost reached the wall when they encountered trouble. As they rounded a corner they came upon a barricade of guards. There were 6 of them, all lined up, poised and ready as if they were waiting for something. Altair was pretty sure he knew exactly what it was.


Suddenly one of the guards gave a shout; he had seen the three of them lurking in the shadows. Altair, Ari and Lyled turned to run, but stopped dead as they saw another three guards running towards them. They were trapped in the alley, with no way out. “We're going to have to fight them,” Ari whispered, but Lyled shook her head.


“Don't try to fight, we're outnumbered. The only thing we can do is run. Just try to get out of here as quickly as possible.” Altair and Ari nodded, knowing that she was right. To try to fight would be almost suicidal.


“On three we all run in different directions,” Lyled said. “Three... Two... One...”


At his mother's signal, Altair ran towards one of the guards and dove under his legs, tripping him into another guard. The confusion that resulted gave him enough time to get up and run down the alley, providing him with a decent head start on the guards. He looked back to see how Ari and Lyled were doing, but was unable to see them in the mass of guards.


By this time two of the guards had recovered their footing and were chasing after him. He wouldn't have been worried about them, except that he now noticed that these two carried crossbows. No sooner had he noticed than an arrow went speeding by his head, closer than he was comfortable with. He turned a corner, out onto the main road, and ran towards another alleyway, ducking into it just in time as another arrow lodged itself in the wood of a house by his head.


Deciding it was too dangerous to try to simply lose the guards, Altair hid behind a barrel which was collecting rainwater, and waited. As the two guards came close enough, he dashed out from behind the barrel and slammed into one of the guards with all the force he could muster, then gave him a blow on the nose with his fist. The guard he had attacked fell to the ground, dazed and in pain, while the other guard turned around, trying to figure out what had happened. Altair had managed to get behind a large crate however, so the guard didn't see anything except his companion laying on the ground, a trickle of blood running from his head where he had bashed it against the rock.


The guard crept forward carefully, and Altair readied himself to attack once again. As the guard walked past him, he sprang out and gave his enemy a well-aimed kick directly to his back. The guard let out a yelp, and swung around, releasing an arrow that flew wide and smashed through the window of one of the houses. Altair gave the guard another kick, this one landing on the guard's stomach, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to collapse to the ground. With both of the guards incapacitated, Altair turned and ran in the direction he thought would take him to the city wall.


As he reached the large wall which surrounded the city, Altair realized that trying to sneak over the structure was going to be very dangerous. The wall was very tall, and it had guards always stationed on top of it, as attacks could break out at any time if you let your guard down. Anyone who left the city through the main gates was questioned and inspected for safety reasons, and Altair couldn't risk that. But trying to sneak over the wall would only arouse more suspicion if he was caught. But it was the only way out of the city.


Luckily the structure had many parts that could be used as handholds. Altair grabbed one of the boards which were protruding from the wall, and hoisted himself up, grabbing another board with his other hand. It was slow going, but he managed to gradually make his way to the top of the wall without being seen. Getting across the wall, however, would be the hard part.


Two of the city's soldiers were making their way towards where Altair had positioned himself, so he quickly dropped himself down a ways and hid while the guards passed. As soon as they were out of sight, he scrambled back to the top of the wall, jumped over the railing and onto the walkway, and hid behind a pile of crates while he surveyed the area. Seeing no one, he made his way carefully to another hiding spot, and continued in this manner until he was near the other side of the wall.


Just as he settled in behind two barrels, however, a hand clamped over his mouth, and he felt a sharp, cold object placed against his neck. “Don't make a single move,” a voice whispered in his ear. He froze, not daring to do anything lest he be killed on the spot.


Altair went over his options in his mind, deciding the only thing he could do was try to knock out whoever had caught him. He jabbed back with his elbow as hard as he could into his captor's stomach. There was a muffled groan behind him, and the dagger fell away from his neck. Altair turned around to finish the job, but stopped short as he saw his friend, Ari, on the ground clutching his stomach.


Altair ran over to him, helping him up and bringing him into the alcove made by the barrels. When Ari saw that it was Altair who he had caught, he laughed, and said, “Sorry, I couldn't see who it was.”


Altair grinned at his friend. “It's OK. Sorry for the pain I caused you, but I didn't feel like having my throat slashed.” Ari began to say something back, but then they both heard footsteps approaching. They waited as they passed, trying not to make a sound or move something in the small space. When they finally abated, the two friends crept out from behind the barrels, and began to make their way towards the edge of the wall. Ari went first, grabbing the railing and letting himself drop down to where he could grab a handhold. Altair followed hi, waiting until Ari was far enough down that they didn't impede on each other's progress. They made it to the ground without being seen, dropping on to the soft earth with a sigh of relief.


“We need to find my mom,” Altair said, and Ari agreed. They began to skirt around the wall, and it wasn't long until they came across Lyled, who seemed to have just finished her descent. She greeted the boys.


“It's getting late, so we're going to have to make camp in the woods,” she said, gesturing towards the forest that lay just outside the city limits. “We'll make our way to Levweld in the morning.” The boys both nodded, showing they understood. Checking that they still had everything, they began heading towards the forest, keeping near trees and bushes so as not to be seen by the soldiers on the wall, who had a great view of the surrounding area. They reached the woods without mishap, breathing a sigh of relief as they made their way into the safety of the trees.

Zephyr
November 7th, 2008, 02:07 AM
*confuzzled*

Why are they being chased?
Mystery :D


*dun dun dun!*

Mzor203
November 7th, 2008, 02:11 AM
How'd you read all that so fast? :o

Anyway, this is going to be fixed up... a LOT, but the later chapters will explain it better, I hope.

I realize how random some of this is when I look back at it...

Requin
November 7th, 2008, 11:54 AM
My English teacher always said to start with something attention grabbing.
What about an action scene, somone being murdered or something?
Just an idea, but it's going well, keep going Rex!!!!