Prologue
The Shadow

‘Twas a new moons night upon Ranaamar, the great continent that inhabited the plane, Aeternus; which left all the kingdoms in shadow, forgotten within the chill of the autumn night.
In one great city, bordering between the heartlands, known as Centra-Tier, and the northern lands, known as Vaelamehl, darkness fell, eternal and perpetual. Darkness so thick, rich in its velvety substance, that it brewed a wind of civil war. The city was known as Belheim.
Belheim was a grand and flourishing city of trade and education, a neutral home for rogues with nowhere else to go. The population was inhabited with humans, half-breeds, halflings, gnomes, and occasionally dwarves. Together, under the dukedom of Elric von Ulric, the pariahs built a fascinating city, near the Titans Sea.
Built of stone and wood, the City of Time flourished… and with the help of gnomish curiosity, Belheim became such a city, for with the unity of the races, a clock tower was born. The largest tower made without magic and without the intent of power. Tel’ma’vaas, the Tower of Time, became the symbol of Belheim.
Though the city was hushed at night, save for the ticking of the great clock in the heart of Belheim and the few voices of the watch, a set of skittering feet was heard. Though the candle-lit street lamps illuminated the city in a serene glow of white, orange, and yellow, the skittering figure was encased in darkness.
Try as he could, the panicking thing of a man continued to run, trying hard to not be heard by his unseen pursuer. The man, clothed in darkness and shadow, twisted and turned around every corner of the streets of Belheim, trying vainly to hide his labored gasps and his sluggish exhaustion. Within moments, the frightened man, a midnight burglar, found himself in an alley.
The alley was surrounded by three tall buildings, the stone holding the cool rain air within their frosty, T-shaped depths. Garbage littered the way, grime and stagnant water plaguing the cobbled floors. With no candlelight, no moons-light, the alley was engrossed in shadow.
“I’m almost there!” The man cried with glee, a wave of relief swelling his very mortal coil. Then he yelped, even louder than his cry, as he placed his own hands over his mouth as he realized that he had spoken so loudly. The man was thin and frail, his wiry brown hair unkempt, falling freely everywhere about his face, hiding his petty, beady eyes. Lips as thin as wire were pursed in frightened silence, his skin leathery to the touch, let alone by appearance. He was small, no more than five-foot-four-inches. The midnight burglar wore a shoddy brown leather vest with nothing but his thin body beneath it, his pants bleached potato-sack slacks with many patches, and he wore simple wheat sandals. A thin piece of rope was wrapped around his waist to hold up his bulging pants.
With no more hesitation, and with much fear, the man ran through the ally, whispering, though quite loudly, the word “Akreyos!” Over and over again. So much so, that eventually, stone block of a building began to glow with white-blue light cracks.
Slowly, the cracks began to sublime and become graceful curves as they began to form a simple, every once in a while becoming rough and rigid. Eventually, a symbol formed. A glyph.
More often than not, wizards or sorcerers of various employs would create secret passageways by creating such shortcuts by divining a glyph upon a slab of stone. All they needed was the power word, the saying that would awaken its power, and the simple touch of the magic-stained hand. In this case… a guild or a noble family has allowed someone such as this burglar a rite of passage to such a “relic.”
Before the poor wretch could reach the crossroads of the alley, a veiled form of complete shadow appeared, a dagger with sickening green flames upon its edges in hand. And with a flick of the shadow’s leathern wrist, the dagger found itself at home in the man’s shoulder. Within the penetration, a blast psychokinetic pulse shoved the man back, leaving the dagger levitating in place. No blood dropped from its glassy steel, no blood appeared upon those horrid green flames, the blade as clean as a whistle… and the man was rolling backwards, grunting and groaning and moaning from the event. The cloaked entity walked by the dagger with a great aura of surrealism, his hand wrenching the blade from thin air without so much as a thought. The green flames disappeared upon his touch.
He sheathed the weapon.
The man, whose cloak danced about him like a wraith, soon found himself over the petty human weakling, whose gaunt face was devoid of blood from the appearance of the black-clad figure. The man began mumbling madly at the sight of such a creature, sobbing, whimpering for mercy… fear wholly glazed the poor burglar’s eyes.
“You betrayed us…” the cloaked man whispered, his dark voice soothing… and yet distantly cold. A shiver ran up the gaunt man’s spine. He tried to speak, but the sight of the assassin scared him… his legs were weak and his groin and legs were soaking wet (from wetting himself or from cold sweat, he does not know!) “It is fitting that you die this way.”
If it were possible for the blood-drained face of the burglar to become any paler than it was in the very beginning of his escape, it would be now. The darkness of the cowl did nothing to hide the emptiness the burglar felt at the simple stare from beneath their shadowy depths. He began to sob.
“If it will make you feel any better,” the shadow spoke, his voice the same, “I will devour you quickly and return to my humble home.”
Devour! The sobs were now combined with a shout, for help and for mercy. The wretch found some reserve of energy to attempt to crawl away… only to find himself against the wall where the glyph resided. The back of the burglar’s thumped against the stone, his neck wet with a warm fluid. Blood matted the gaunt man’s hair.
Within an instant, the shadow obelisk stood before the wretch, whose back of his right hand began to glow a weak blue. Weakly, the beggar-like thief reached for the stone slab, which was too high above him to reach and touch the glyph.
The hand flew away, hitting the ground with a sickening flop. Blood now pumped freely like a fountain from the stump of what used to be the burglar’s right hand. He screamed.
A sharp, nasty glare, a whip of the cowl, silenced the screaming… though the man’s expression was still like that of a screeching banshee. Vainly, the midnight thief tried to stem the flow of blood…
“And now… you are forgotten, little thief.” The shadow whispered, as if singing a lullaby to a babe. The reassuring tone made the petty thief curl up, falling slowly asleep. With much grace and fluidity, the black gauntleted left hand of the shadow now rested upon the thief’s chest.
The shadow began to mumble as black tendrils encased with an eerie green glow erupting from his entire left arm, from finger tips to bicep.
The tendrils entered and surrounded the weak body of the moaning thief, slowly pumping the essence of life from the man’s body. As the spell grew more intense, the shadow stood up, the tendrils lifting the half-dead creature without effort. The gaunt man now seemed like a shell, his body corroding away, the sweet scent of death and decay filling the shadow’s nostrils. Soon the body began to break, more tendrils erupting from the assassin’s body.
What was once the body of the burglar soon became tiny morsels, tiny bits of memory and dust.
Eventually, nothing was left but the right hand of the man as the shadow consumed the beggar’s body.
The shadow swooned slightly, holding himself upright with a strong hand on the wall. His hooded head shifted to the decapitated hand, and stared at it for some time.
“Oi! It came from over there!” Shouted a guard, his voice husky and tainted with weariness. The sound of stomping feet, as loud as the wretch’s screaming before he died, was close by the shadow’s location. Quickly, the shadow reached for the hand, making it vanish with his touch, so it seemed, and then rose.
With a simple tap of his finger-on-air, a portal opened.
He stepped through…
The guards of the watch entered the alleyway, seeing nothing. It was oblivious, empty and void of any life, save for rats and other such vermin. Even insects! The guard who had shouted turned to his peers with a weak smile and a shrug.
“Must’ve been my imagination,” he spoke, embarrassed by his display. The other guards simply shrugged and mumbled, walking away from the alley.
‘Twas empty.

Dude. That was awesome.

My limited english linguistic skills arent good enough to express how awesome that was.
You, Sir, have a rare talent and I really admire that.

Keep up the good work.

HOLY FRAKIN CRAP!!!

I can already tell that this would make an awesome book, and a slightly less awesome movie ( not a bad on your part but directors destroy movies...)

I loved it and request...nay! DEMAND more Sess! *slow nod and strokes dagger* That is all...*dark voice* Don't let me detain you...

Ahh... I see my errors. I'll have to fix those. Luckily, this is the rough draft.

Also, not post anymore exerpts. Possibly due to the fact that: A) The novel might be published. Or. B) The novel might flop.

Dunno. But I'm REALLY aiming for this to finish. This character and the plot are quite enriching. Plus, there'll be a lot of surprises in it if I finish it. So... wish me the best of luck. ^^

Also: I wouldn't mind for some "cruel" critique (defined so because they're the cold hard truth.)

Eh as for cruel critique I can't find anything wrong with it though when it comes to grammar and such I'm practically useless. Also I am saddened that more will not be posted but if it gets published you better tell me!! *feral growl* *sigh* I can wait. I believe when ( no ifs Sess) this novel is finished it shall earn the place of honor in between my massive collect of Terry Pratchett and R.A. Salvatore.

I'm not sure what the rules/conventions are regarding critique, but there's a few things I've noticed that I feel I have to point out. While it may seem that I'm being incredibly harsh, picky, pedantic or analytical, I want to assure you that it's not because I think your writing is bad. Indeed, it's quite the contrary; I believe your wiritng holds the potential to be very good, but simply has some issues with grammar and other such tehnicalities that unfortunately break up the verisimilitude rather thoroughly. I just want to point these out to you so that hopefully, in future, your writing will be even better.

Just to reiterate; I am not saying this is at all bad. In all honesty, I wish I had your talent for writing plot, but alas, all I can do is write technically accurately. I just think it'd help accelerate the willful suspension of disbelief if you could iron out the grammatical faults. Here goes...







T'was a new moon's night...



I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here. You can't border between. Something can border something else, e.g. "Bordering the heartlands.", or something can have borders that lie between two things, as in "With borders between the heartlands and the northern lands.", but border between alone makes no sense, at least to me. As Terry Pratchett famously wrote; "Space. Some call it the final frontier. Of course, this is utter nonsense, as if it were, then there would be nothing for it to be a frontier to. As boundaries go though, it's pretty penultimate."



This statement is self-contradictary. It the darkness was eternal and perpetual, it would have always been there. Ergo, it could not fall, because it was never not there to be able to fall there. See what I mean?



The populaton cannot be inhabited. Places, structures, homes, buildings, lands and other such things can be inhabited, but a population is made up of people, not inhabited by them. If you like think of inhabited as meaning "a place lived in by". A population is not a place though. Think of it more as a group of people. As such, a group of people cannot be lived in by humans, half-breeds etc. unless the half-breeds were exceptionally small or something sufficiently percuilar.



Candle lit means literally "to be lit up by a candle". The street lamps were not lit up by candles, they were candles that were lighting up the area with candles. You could either say "the candle-lit street" or "the candle bearing street lamps", or something to that effect.



Firstly, you might want an apostrophe on "moon's" again... Same as above really. Secondly, I'm not sure you've quite applied "engrossed" to the correct context. To be engrossed is to be enthralled or fascinated by something. As such, an alley, being an insentient object, lacks the ability to literally engrossed by, or interested in anything. Alleys cannot think, after all. I see that you could be attempting to affect some kind of cryptic metaphor here, but if that is the case, then I must warn you that it's a little too esoteric, and doesn't come across with enough ambiguity to validate an alternative meaning. As Friel so wisely wrote, "Uncertainty in meaning is incipient poetry." You either need to be less clear about it being literal, so we know you're using a metaphor, or you need a new verb.

Continued on next post...

Continued...




The "mortal coil" is a euphamism for a place in which living people are. Hence, the phrase "shuffling off the mortal coil" is a euphamism (or perhaps a dysphemism, depending on the inflection) for dying. As such, "mortal coils" are not personal, no-one has their own one. Thereby, the use of the term in the above sentence fragment is incorrectly contextualized. Please correct me if this meaning for the phrase "mortal coil" is simply a colloquial term, and it does make sense in whatever register you wrote it.



(sp. alley)



I'm not sure sublime is the right verb here. Sublime as a verb I know only to be a scientific term, meaning for a solid substance to very rapidly turn in to a gas, spending little to know time in a transitional liquid state, the most common example of this being the behaviour of iodine crystals upon heating. Even in you did mean to say the stone was evaporating, you said the cracks, which doesn't make sense, as gaps between stones cannot evaporate; they're empty spaces. Sublime also exists as an adjective, meaning wonderful, perfect, magnificent or beautiful. If you meant this, then the cracks would have to "become sublime", you could not say "the cracks began to brilliant".
Also, things cannot "form a simple". I don't know if you meant to write "symbol" there, or meant to say it began to form something that possessed the properties of being simple, but if so, you've used an adjective in the place of a noun.



I applaud you here. You used a word I had to look up. Though "leathern" is a very nice word, it means "made of leather". Did you mean to say his wrist was made of leather?



http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/surrealism This is all I have to say on the matter. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's the word you want.



Everything else you have written has been in the past tense, and in your brackets you switch to present tense "does" instead of "did". Try to avoid skipping tenses unnessecarily, it just breaks up that precious versimilitude.



An obelisk is a big needle shaped piece of stone. I'm not sure where it came from, or indeed how a stone can stand. Just be careful of using words you're not sure of the meaning of. There is no shame in consulting the humble dictionary.



You've confused your tenses again. You wanted "erupted" rather than "erupting"



To be oblivious is to be utterly unaware or unknowing. An alley cannot be oblivious because it possesses not the capacity to know things, and thus also the capacity to not know things by exclusive logic.




To say once more; you write very well. Just try to proof-read more thoroughly, and do not be afraid to use a dictionary, it's not a form of cheating!

I hope I haven't overstepped any boundaries or offended you in any way. If so, just ask and I'll delete this post.

On another, unrelated note, have you ever read any Edgar Allan Poe? I have a feeling you'd like him.

First and foremost, I am quite glad that you're quite thorough with your critiquing. Here are my responses to such things. You are, by far, the only person who has commented the errors of my rough draft.

here I go.





Purposefully done as "'Twas a new moons night" for in the world of Aeternus, there are two moons.

Also, in literature, especially old english, "it was" was shortened to "'twas", the apostrophe behind the letter "t" was dominant. You could always go back to "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" (Or go to dictionary.com and type it in.)

(Although, I think 'twas has an alternate spelling as "t'was")



I see what you mean. I have confused myself there. Luckily, my friend, this is a rough draft. I'll fix that when I go through and edit.



I see what you mean here. I'll see what I can do to change that.


Ah, that's where my brain has died. I'll fix that as well. Dunno what went wrong there :/


Yea, again, brain died on me. Thank you.



1) The moon was used in plural on purpose.

2) You're right, I need to find another verb to replace "engrossed." Thank you for pointing that out.

Hm... I guess I have to correct that one, as well :/


Ahah! Thank you for that. The spelling was driving me nuts when I wrote this.



Ah, and that's where I was typing a bit too fast with a hazed mind. Yes, I mean to put symbol where "simple" was and so on. Sublime, you're right, I used it in the wrong sense, but I'm using it in a literary term rather than in a scientific term.

Sublime- (verb) to make higher, nobler, or purer.


Well, his hand would appear that way. I'm using the term as if it were a part of him. Tightly bound to his wrist... but perhaps I should change it?


Hm... well, it depends. I'm using it in the sense of him being "surreal" or: hazy, fantasy-like, dreamy, unreal. So on.

But, I dunno.


Ah, I'll fix that. Thank you.


Well, I was stressing to find something to identify him as through the perception of the wretch. Though the RIGHT word on the tip of my tongue, I had to force myself forward. I'll fix it as well.


Of course, thank you ^^'


Well, I feel as though my vocabulary is a bit absent, so I couldn't think of the right world. Plus, I also tend to forget its definition, so I'll change that as well.



rofl! I know, friend, I tend to use it. But I often sometimes twist the definition unconsciously while I right and never pay much attention when I'm typing in a flurry of imagination. Thankfully, this is a rough draft and that your critique in my spell, grammar, and use of vocabulary have arrived to save the day

No, you have not offended me. You did just what I ask, and I am thankful.

Yea, I have, and I do. And you're right, I do like him.

very good work. Though I'm slightly confused about what the storyline is, but considering it's only the first part I'm not suprised.






I looked up the definition of "engrossed". one of the definitions was 'absorbed', which makes somewhat sense to use .

just thought i would add my bit.

Ah, you're right. The synonyms also clarify it. So, I guess it is used properly.

If there are multiple moons, and the light 'belongs' to the moons, so to speak, you still need an apostorphe, only it comes after the s, as in; moons'. Basically, if multiple things can be thought of as collectively possessing one thing, the possessive apostrophe follows, instead of perceedes, the 's'.

As for a replacement for obelisk, you might want to use "avatar", or "paragon".

Alright, I concur. I'll use the apostrophe during the edit.

As for those, I'll use one of those during the edit, as well. Thank you.