Beginnings of sorrow

[Danweirn Gor]

With the stars shining brightly in the night sky and almost a full moon it was not to dark out for being midnight. Not that it really mattered I had always had fairly good night vision. I was on my way home from my weekly visit to town to make my deliveries of furniture that had been completed and to get any new orders. There was only one delivery today and the person could have waited until next week to get piece, but I also got a few new orders so it was not a complete waste. Not to mention that i got to see Samia which is why I was so late getting back home. I was hard to leave her when i only got to see her once a week at most. It would have been easier if i did not want to marry her one day. Samia was the daughter of one of the poorer farmers of the land. He was barley able to support his family. He believed in hard work though which was why he probably why he liked me so much and wanted me to marry his daughter. I lived with my mother and father along with my two nephews of my dead older sister. My sister was killed by a disease almost 4 years ago. The boys were luckily old enough to manage the small farm that supplied us with most of our food. My mother did what most mothers did care for their children even if i did more caring for her than she did for me. My father did what he did best which was at best nothing. He had a good hand at crafting the wood but he was into his drink and dreamweed so much that he only worked one day out of every six. I did the rest of the woodworking and tried to help out wherever i could. I was going to take the shortcut through the sparse woods so i could get home a little faster. As i was nearing the area where i should be able to see the candle in the window that my mother usually leaves there i did not see anything. She probably forgot it she was getting older and could not remember everything that she once could. As i exited the forest i approached the house about 100 yards away. As I got closer I noticed that the door was ajar. Something did not seem right. My father sometimes left the door ajar but not in the middle of the night he usually passed out hours before now. As i entered the house i looked for a lamp to light so i could get up to my room. After i found a lamp and lit it i made my way to the den where i came upon 4 dead bodies. It was my mother, father and my two nephews. There was a huge puddle of blood that spanned almost the entire room. As i recovered from my shock i noticed that i was not alone in the room Their was a tall lanky man wearing a dark green tunic with a pair of dark brown almost appearing black britches. He wore a short sword and a dagger strapped to his belt. I knew that if he attacked me my little measly dagger would not be enough. Then he drew his weapons. As he drew them he started talking about how my mother pleaded with him to spare me and how my father only wanted to save his own life and that my nephews squealed like little girls. I was to stunned to respond so instead i dived into the back room and blocked the door. I figured i had a minute or two before he broke the door down to get my self ready for the attack. I searched the chests in the room for my dads old weapons. It was not much only three throwing knives and a quarterstaff. i was getting the knives ready to throw when the door just burst open. The man was standing there with a demonic grin on his face. As he stepped forward i got off two of the knives in his direction before i grabbed the staff. One knife went high and wide to fly into the room behind him the other narrowly missed his are but getting his tunic pinning his dagger arm to the wall. It would only hold for a second or two before he got free but that was all i needed. He brought his sword in for a low swing. I parried and was able to thrust into his chest and brought the other end around to smash into his knee then followed with a jab with my left to his chin knocking him up against the wall. By this time his arm was free and i was on the defensive. I parried the the high swing of the sword but got a long shallow cut along my side from the dagger. I tried to connect with a series of hits that he knocked away and in return he brought his knee up into my stomach. I back-stepped a little to give me some room. he came in with the dagger first this time with the sword following behind in a thrust. i blocked th dagger but got a deep gash from the sword as he altered his attack to a swing when i dodged and accidental knocked over the lantern catching the straw of the floor on fire. I knew that if i was going to finish this it had to be quick. I ducked behind him and entered into the den. Over the next few encounters and two cuts later i notice a certain chain of attack that left his right side open. As he the dagger in for a thrust i knocker it out wide and then knocked the sword in the same direction and ducked to the right and smashed the end of the staff into the back of his knee bringing him to the ground and brought my dagger out and thrust into his temple. As he lay dying and unconscious on the floor and the adrenaline started wearing off everything that had happened caught up with me. I was alone and most of the house was on fire with no hope of saving it. I quickly grabbed the mans weapons and dragged the rest of my family's bodies out side before the fire could claim them. I quickly ran back in through all the smoke and located food for 2 days and ran back out. After i buried the rest of my family i thought that i could not stay here. The memories were to much. I had to leave and go far away form here. I set of to find a better life in a different land and to hopefully forget this day of sorrow and live a normal life.


sry for the length and the bad grammar but i thought it would be better longer rather than shorter.
This is the first time i wrote anything like this tell me how it was and what changes i could have made to make it better

[Alric, son of Harland]

From a purely technical perspective, there are some structural things you could fix to make it flow better. I'd be happy to proofread it, if you'd like.

As to the story, I like it. If you added a few more details to the fight, instead of just describing the actions taken. Describe the movements the two fighters make; surely they're not just standing there swinging at each other. Do you move around or onto furniture? Do you leave the room?

Also, you've described why you're adventuring, but now that you're in the Land Between the Lands, maybe you'd like to add more after you leave home? Describe how you arrived in The Land, maybe, and the people you first met when you arrived.

Alric

[Danweirn Gor]

ok. I was not really thinking about the fight but more about the reason why i left and just a little background info.

[Alric, son of Harland]

Tragedy often motivates people to drastic action; the ideas are sound. It also tends to have a dramatic effect on a person, so maybe you should think on how it has affected your character. Is he withdrawn, refusing to get close to someone so he won't suffer if he loses them? Is he outspokenly affectionate, because he regrets not telling his family how much he loved them before they were killed, and doesn't want to repeat the mistake?

Alric

[Danweirn Gor]

I already know how it affects my character. I have a problem of compleatley making something up. So i incorperated something that actually happened and made it a little more dramatic and changed the circumstances a little to come up with something that was a little truth and a little fiction

[greybeardabbot]

Write from your own experience, what you know.
I knew a kid in highschool that wrote a story about VietNam.
Nam Vets thought the story was really good and that he captured the landscape so well that they all thought that he MUST have been there. One even asked him when he was there.
He told them the truth, that he had never been there... that he was just decribing the woods around his grampa's farm and embelished a little according to what he imagined.

Sound like you're on the same track.

Your story has lots of "hanging chads"... Story lines that pop out but don't go anywhere... Nothing wrong with those, so long as you go back and pick them off. (Give explaination for them)

Aside from the typos, grammer and spelling... which we choose to overlook...
The Things I liked:
I liked your vocation as a furnture maker... that was a brilliant choice!
I liked the girlfriend and her father part... He likes you because you are a hard worker. That is a much better foundation for a charactor than almost anything else you could have choosen.
I like that you character is not an IMMEDIATE expert with a weapon, with no reasonable explaination as to why he should be. I like that he's NOT.
I like that LUCK has as much or more to do with his servival as his skill. He doesn't have skill. If he survives it's because of Luck or divine purpose. That he is not a fool and can recognize and take advantage of an opportunity is believible.

What I don't really like too much:
Sorry, but I'm sort of bored with the now standardized Dag persona of "My Family was brutally massacured and I'm now an orfened/homeless person with a grudge" I understand the reason people choose that origen... but it's just getting too familiar. I'm not saying "get rid of it" I'm just saying it seems WAY to COMMON in the Dag universe.

I didn't much like the hanging chad of "Why?" Who is this killer? What motivates his over the top killing spree? And how come your charactor never seems to question what brought this on? He seems to accept it without question.

I didn't much like that your charactor risks running in for "two days worth of food" but not for anything of value. I think the last thing someone would be thinking of in that situation is thier stomach. Morelikely you would run back for items of either sentimental or practical value... like your tools, your mothers jewely, your father's rings, the deed to the land... that kind of thing.

I didn't much like... another typical DAG storyline device... The leave it all behind and forget the past...
That doesn't seem to ring true for the noble man you painted, that he would hang his head and want to forget the past and just get on with his life...
More likely he would never want to forget this day.

If you need your character to leave... i suggest this...
The Man who Killed your family... escapes... injured or uninjured the escape is the important thing...
This gives your charactor noble purpose... and a reason to leave... To hunt down this killer and find the answer for WHY before you give yourself the pleasure of taking his life as justice requires...
For such a mission we can believe that your charactor would leave behind his home and his love to persue a "greater good"
It would also give you a reason to train and learn to be a dangerous man...
Just a suggestion.

Your stoy is fine as it is and a very good first effort.

[Danweirn Gor]

well as far a a few things go. The going back for personal property as other things as he left. the house was on fire and the fire that i had imagined was that almost nothing could have been saved so he went back and got what he most needed at the moment and could find easily. Also i thought i put it in there when i wrote it but the reason why the killer was there was because the father had incurred a large debt with his drinking and drug habits. That was the reason why my character left. He was the only one left and they would come after him next.