Delui-the full story - Writers Forum

crazed scribe · 04-10-2007, 02:32 PM

Hi!

Please read this and tell me what you think. This is my altered story following the advice of snorrie and others. I have also changed the ending. Thanks. Enjoy!

Delui

Pain. Kriel could feel it. He felt like a pinnacle of rock surrounded by thick, dank, water. Kriel dropped to the hard ground; it had been a dry summer. He tried to keep as low as possible so his tall, muscular figure couldn’t be seen by whatever was causing the great amount of pain.
As one of the Delui he had toughened himself to the overwhelming sensation of other people’s feelings. It was the gift and more often the curse of the Delui to be aware of the feelings of others. This gift gave the Delui great power and wisdom among townsfolk. Over the millennia’s the Delui had experimented with their gift and managed to find a way to focus it on their swords, which were legendary…
… One of these swords was now drawn by Kriel. It was a solidly built yet light and fast as well. Foremost, though, it was a Delui blade which gave it powers no other sword could compete with and no-one could stand against it in the hands of a Delui.
Kriel gazed down from his hill . The village he had enjoyed the last two months of his life at had been desiccated.
As his sharp eyes focused on the village he could see men in armour with axes and torches running around the village, hacking down people with glee and burning down the thatched houses. “Raiders”, he spat with malice. He could not let the torturing and pilfering continue.
Kriel charged down the hill. He channelled his extra sense into his Delui sword and felt it warm. The first raider never knew what hit him. Kriel could feel where all his weak points were and how to counter his next two moves before they were set into motion.
As the raider swung across with his axe Kriel leaped feet first parrying the axe with his hefty boots and slit the raiders’ throat through the weak spot of his armour, that only the raider knew about. Kriel was now one with the battle…
Kriel was now re-channelling the power of terror he was now causing into his beloved sword as he executed more and more raiders. Although he knew it was for the greater good; he was sickened by himself. He knew it wasn’t right. The feeling he had told him it wasn’t right. The feeling his victims gave him told him it wasn’t right. The sorrow it caused others told him it wasn’t right. Yet he had to commit the crime many times over to save more lives than he would take; lives that weren’t his to take. It was his task and his task must be completed at all costs.
Gore covered him. He hated it. Kriel gritted his teeth though and cleared his vision with a quick wipe of his eyes using his hard leather gauntlets that he prized because of their protection and flexibility. Then he saw the man he had been searching for and been preparing for, for the last two years of his life. The being called Velafkrip.
Velafkrip was once a great lord of Kriel’s hidden realm. Velafkrip had been a firm, honest, kind leader. He was also a great master of his gift. Velafkrip, who enjoyed researching and testing his power, was doing so when his power was extended and twisted beyond any level any being could handle. It drove him into the deepest depth of insanity, combined with a lust for pain and terror pf a greater extent than any other person known to the human or spirit world.
The thing that forced him through this monstrous transformation was a pocket of uncontrolled, erratic, charge of black magic. The charge had been stored within an ancient book written by an ancient sorcerer (A meddling raced that have become extinct because of their power). Because of the qualities of this magic his powers were increased ten fold magnifying his perception of others feelings. Twisted, though, his power had become, he now depended upon the misery and pain of others. He now relished the power.
Velafkrip had teamed himself, and had soon become the ruler of, with the brutal raiders who raided for fun and to pilfer the hard earned goods of the citizens of the state. Kriel cast his mind back as he remembered why he had been chosen. As the chosen heir to the knew King-and one of the most powerful Delui- Kriel had been selected by the people to correct the problem of which their kind was the source.
To bring himself to the present Kriel shook his head full of thick mane hair. He charged Velafkrip with all his feeling and all his might, stopping him from slaughtering another innocent. Velafkrip easily parried using a blade almost identical to Kriel’s own. Kriel was knocked off his guard as he felt a strange emptiness of feeling from Velafkrip. Velafkrip seemed to get more powerful as he fed from Kriel’s anxiety and the fear around him.
The battle waged on but Kriel was tiring fast and Velafkrip seemed to be an unstoppable force. Kriel did the only thing possible, as he parried Velafkrip's blade he injected himself with his last resort. Poison.

One. He sweated and began to shiver slight ly as the poison took effect. One ergent thought serged through his head: four seconds of life left.

Two. As he withdrew from the parry he made a deep cut on his left arm.

Three. Doggedly Kriel attacked again.

Four. As Velafkrip let out a battle cry Kriel flicked his blade so Velafkrip got a mouthful of poisoned blood. A smile flickered across Kriels face. All he felt was relief.

Five. He blacked out with a smile on his face. It was over. They both died on that spot but at the same time a bright future began, one where the evil had been purged and death and chaos did not rule.

Blood_Writer · 04-10-2007, 02:36 PM

I liked it, finally finding out the truth of the Delui!

All i have to say, its v.good.

=]

Blood Writer.

crazed scribe · 04-11-2007, 02:10 AM

Thanks blood writer. Anyone else?

Ice Tea Atonach · 04-11-2007, 05:15 AM

Oh yes! Me-me! haha

Nice story, I enjoyed it, good plot and ideas. My only problem with this is that the fight scene is told and not shown. Show us this battle and the pain that they both feel as they fall.

crazed scribe · 04-11-2007, 07:13 AM

Thanks Atonach. ok I see what you mean. I'll try to do something about that next time I write. Anyone else?

4gofailure · 04-13-2007, 02:55 PM

greetings and salutations

loved it, thought it was great, just had a little problem with this line.

"Velafkrip, once a great lord of Kriel’s hidden realm yet it just goes to show how rotten a golden apple can go doesn’t it?"

The whole rotten apple and addressing the reader thing, threw me off and I lost the atmosphere of the battle scene...probably just my airheadedness though

snorrie · 04-13-2007, 04:14 PM

This is not my genre, but I'll have to say that it had so much information packed into such a confined piece that I couldn't enjoy and absorb. Then again, if you fully developed the story, I guess it would be hella-long. It needs cleaning, a few words taken out to condense what the reader already knows. The thing that turned me off was the ending where the hero was stabbed in the chest so he could also stab the bad guy. If you've seen Excalibur it is a rip off of that scene. Only you will know though and those who have read or seen the story. Good luck.

crazed scribe · 04-14-2007, 03:42 AM

glad you liked it 4gfailure! thanks snorrie for the advice and crit it all helps! I'm sorry you didn't like it. With the excalibur thing i've never seen or heard about that film so i didn't realise I was writing something similar to something already used. THanks though for your comments (both of you and i'll try and tone down the interruptive phrasing in my next story). Thanks!

snorrie · 04-14-2007, 03:22 PM

I think what the problem for me is this piece is on the brink of purple prose. Maybe that's what you're going for but apparently purple prose is not good publishing material. Maybe you're writing for the pleasure of it but my guess is that you would like to be a published author like I'm sure most everyone on this site would. It seems a bit wordy. Take a carving knife and cut out as many of the words as possible, at the same time it still making sense. Keep it straight to the point. Readers tend to get bored and lose focus when there's too much excess bagage. Also, cut down on the metaphors. I think they are way overused in this piece. Again, maybe that's what you're going for, but from experience, I find that it cheapens the piece like a B movie. You can still create tension and drama without all the metaphors. The way I choose when I use a metaphor is if it just comes out natural. If you have to stop and think of a cleaver metaphor for a scene then it doesn't belong there. Keep writing. Good luck.

crazed scribe · 04-14-2007, 03:39 PM

thnx snorrie i'm going to make changes and post it below.

edf · 04-17-2007, 05:31 PM

Hello!

I do agree with Snorrie that I think this piece suffers from too much information in too little of a section. I believe that by letting the story be longer and more in depth, you could solve that issue. I also believe there is some cutting of unnesicary words needed...

I know I am horrible at catching grammer issues and such, but I would watch your long sentances. To me, I find long sentances harder to read- this may be because of all the info packed into a really long sentance, I had to re-read some of the sections of your story to figure out what you were trying to get across. Sentance variation is good- not all sentances have to be short, not all have to be long. Finding a nice mix I believe is good.

The fourth paragraph, what is this 'it' you are talking about? Try to be carefull about too much word repitition- espescially with a word that could be explained... I found myself wondering what 'it' was, and that did become my focus instead of reading the story for the story. Are you trying to explain how this char, Kreil, does not like the violence in the fighting? Does he not like the fact that fighting only brings on devistation? Clarification would make that scene... well, more clear...LOL. I do like how you are explaining the characters feelings towards all the killing, really adds depth to the character, just has to be polished up a bit.

Also, think about adding some comma's. As I was reading over some sentances, I felt some comma's were needed. Comma's break up long sentances and can help make them flow nicer ( at least from what I read about them and in my experience with using them)
For example:
"As the raider swung across with his axe Kriel leaped feet first parrying the axe with his hefty boots and slit the raiders’ throat through the weak spot of his armour, that only the raider knew about. "

Read your sentnace, do you feel this addition of a comma would help it:

As the raider swung across with his axe, Kriel leaped feet first parrying the axe with his hefty boots and slit the raiders’ throat through the weak spot of his armour, that only the raider knew about.
Actually, you may even be able to add another, and possibly make two sentances....

As the raider swung across with his axe, Kriel leaped feet first, parrying the axe with his hefty boots. He slit the raiders’ throat through the weak spot of his armour that only the raider knew about.

I actually deleted your very last comma. In my humble opinion, I feel that reads better... what do you think?

Action sequences are hard to write and I suffer from not understanding the best way to handle them, but I did find a helpful post here on this forum.
( http://www.writingforums.com/showthread.php?t=76739 ) I would check it out and read people's replies. I refered back to that post several times when I was working on my story. (that doesn't mean I was sucsessfull at it, I just found it helpful, LOL.)

I think with some revising, your story can really take off- you have set up a very action packed scene with an interesting character that I find myself drawn too, I agree with his reasoning and and happy to find out he succeeded! I felt for him, therefore I believe you have done a good job creating the character.

Also, I like how you ended the story- I believed the way you wrote it was nicely handled- intense!

I have a few sugestions of things you can think about with the story:
I found myself interested in Velafkrip, and how his gained power corupted him. Perhaps if you go into more detail with that, you can add more to his character. I find it interesting that some one was once a good person, then went bad through the powers of coruption.

Maybe Velafkrip himself did something personally to Kriel, and then that deed egged Kreil on to kill Velafkrip, even tho Kreil didn't like the idea of taking someone elses life... I do like how you made Kreil have a conscious about killing people.

Just some things to think about- I actually thought about the above ideas after I read it, it was something I found myself wondering, so I just shared them with you for possible idea starters or whatnot.

I really like you idea of this story, and I do believe you are off to a good start. Definatly has potential, for I find myself wondering more about the characters you have writen about as I am typing this! I'll keep my eyes peeleed for more writings by ya ( especially if you continue/work on this sotry more)

I hope I helped you out!

Best wishes and keep on writin'!

edf

crazed scribe · 04-18-2007, 01:42 AM

Thanks edf. Reading over your story, now, I agree with all your points. I'll take them into consideration in the future. In the next week or so i'll edit my work and repost it, thanks!

snorrie · 04-18-2007, 03:44 AM

I see you take advice well. You've toned it down quite a bit so it's no full of purple prose anymore and it's good you've axed the metaphors. I don't have anything agains metaphors. They just need to be used sparingly. I did a quick once over and I'd have to say this version is much better. I still needs tweaking though. I try to get a more in depth critique tomorrow when I'm not so tired.