The Forgotten Ch. 1

Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for mature content.

August 24, 2020
Novel / Chapter: Fantasy, Action / Adventure
5 comments (5 reviews)

The large tent swayed against the buffering winds and sand, and sheltered the hardened men from the blistering sun outside. Another man entered through the thin flap in the front of the tent, and tied it behind him.

"Good of you to finally join us, Clanmaster Sykkou," said a grisly man at one end of the tent. His dark purple eyes gestured to an open seat around the circular table, and he rubbed his beard as the council waited for Sykkou to sit and adjust himself. Sykkou fished out a scroll from his tight vest robe and unfurled it, letting the tough paper crackle and groan against the shifting of its state. Several words and drawings danced along the scroll, shifting constantly like the sand dunes outside. Sykkou's eyes swirled like a cloud, purple and cloudy gray twirling around each other. "It is the time of the Shifting Sands, so locating our neighbor tribes will be more difficult than normal."

"Yes, yes, this is expected. We are not meeting right now to determine whether the sun will grace us with its presence tomorrow." Rage entered the leader's voice. "You know what we are here for! We all know what we are here for."

The tension around the table of clansmen thickened, and they glanced around each other. Clansman Sykkou looked up in the leader's direction, sweating trickling down his forehead to his thick brow. "Of course."

"Must I remind anyone why we are here? Must I?" The leader spat out, his voice reverberating around the tent's tough skinned walls. He breathed out, and he closed his eyes. "Find the neighboring clans, Clansman."

Sykkou traced a finger across the scroll, and the fading words curled around it, briefly revealing darker ink below it and through it. "The... Aaravasti Clan is not far from here, and they are following... the Konicalv constellation. It will take only a few days ride to reach them, and our sandriders can easily cut them off in the Shifting Sands."

The Clansmen all turned their attention to the leader expectedly. It was a sound plan. The leader mulled it over, his face expressionless. "I have a question, Clansmaster Sykkou."

Sykkou gulped. Questions were never a welcome sign. "Yes?"

"Are you aware of the plan?"

"Yes, Clansmaster Ryko."

"Are you sure about that?"

The other Clansmen shifted in their stools.

Sykkou stumbled with his words. "I-- I believe we all are, Clansmaster."

Ryko nodded. "I would have thought the same, but it appears not." He raised his voice. "We have lost our matriarchs in the last battle with our neighboring clans. We have no more..." he gulped. "We have no future." Tears filled his war-torn eyes. "So why is it that you use your sightseeing capabilities as a ruse to undermine our plans? The only plan that will save us?"

"I'm- I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about, Clansmaster Ryko."

"Oh, you don't?" Ryko pulled out a scroll, this one far smaller than Sykkou's and painted blood red. "You willingly handed information to this war table that my scouts reported to me more than seven moons ago! You are trying to sabotage us!"

Sykkou's face shifted from one of innocence to one of defiance. "You are asking us to raid our neighbors and steal their children... for, for, 'repopulation?'" Sykkou stood up. "That is putrid. It is revolting! It is--"

Ryko launched himself across the small table, knocking Sykkou down. The other Clansmen stood up amidst the struggle, and a few immediately left. The remaining attempted to intervene, but Ryko sent them a growl and a glare of complete death and menace, as if something was invading his body. They retreated outside of the tent, terrified.

Ryko seethed, punching Sykkou at first, and Sykkou attempted to shield his face. Ryko then emitted a low snarl, tearing at Sykkou's clothes, tearing them apart. His vision faded and his pupils dilated, like he was no longer himself as he revealed Sykkou's bare skin, fully intent on taking advantage of it.

Of course, something had taken over him, or, at least, it was on the verge of doing so. A shadow in the corner of the top of the tent observed the mauling and rape. Behind Ryko was a mirage, a shadow of something. It surrounded the scene, and coiled around Ryko. It shifted into something more tangible, a creature of red and maroon that clutched at Ryko. It was a Fiend, a being of an alternate dimension, one filled with hate and terror. It was a minor Fiend, one that represented some primal emotion of humans. This one fed on Ryko's anger, pride, and lust, and was using it to attempt to cross over to this dimension, to take over Ryko's body. Once it accomplished its goal, it would merge with Ryko into something of disastrous capabilities.

There it was.

The form shimmered, and tangible spikes strutted out of its back, and it took a shape of something grotesque. A slithering hiss sounded amidst the moaning and struggling of the two humans.

The shadow dropped from the roof of the tent, pinning the Fiend against the rickety main table of the tent, crushing it into splinters. The Fiend's arms ripped from Ryko's spirit, and it belt out a ear-splintering scream that warbled around around this dimension. Its arms shortened and it clawed at the shadow of a person pinning it down. The person covered its face with a mask of an angry face. The Fiend struck at the mask, shattering it in half. Underneath it was a void of nothingness that screamed and coiled with tentacles of darkness that struck at the Fiend.

The Fiend let out a yelp of absolute terror and scrambled to escape the human's hold, but it was pointless. The human pulled out two swords, both identical except for their color and hilt. One of them was a regular silver sword, while the other was stained red with a hilt of flesh. The human set the regular sword on the floor and grabbed the red sword with both hands and thrust it deep into the Fiend's chest. The Fiend exploded into crimson dust, filling the tent and sifting to the ground.

Ryko gasped and his eyes widened. He sat back, breathing hard. "What happened?" He looked around, eyes fuzzy, until he finally saw and acknowledged the shadow of a person standing behind him.

The shadow person didn't acknowledge Ryko with a look. A deep voice said, "It was a demon of your own making." They stashed their red sword and picked back up the regular iron sword.

"I feel... free," Ryko muttered.

"You are stained." The shadow person stabbed Ryko in the heart and pushed his dying form to the side, off of Sykkou's bare body.

Sykkou covered his face, mumbling pleas and begging for his life to the shadow person, scrambling away from them.

The shadow man paid Sykkou no heed, and picked up a crimson mask with a face frozen in terror etched into it. He weighed it in his hand, and replaced his cracked one with it, before leaving Ryko's dead body and Sykkou's shivering silhouette in the tent.

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Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:51 pm

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Shady wrote a review...

Heya Omnaya!

Here for the review, AT LAST! Let's get started...

The large tent swayed against the buffering winds and sand, and sheltered the hardened men from the blistering sun outside.

So you know my style, otherwise, I would apologize for ripping into your v first paragraph xD

But basically I view the first chapter as one of the most important parts of a novel. People flipping through stories in the book store or library will be skimming the first chapter to see if they want to bring the book home with them. And beyond even the first chapter, I think the first paragraph, and especially the first sentence is super important. I'm not saying I'm an expert in this by any means, but I always try to work really hard with the first sentence.

This first sentence has a LOT of adjectives that make it really kind of clunky to read. We've got a large tent, buffeting winds (not buffering lol), the hardened men, and the blistering sun. It's too much, in my opinion. I'd suggest either splitting this into two sentences that you flesh out a bit more or work on removing some of the adjectives to make it flow better. Make sure the first sentence sets a mood for your chapter.

His dark purple eyes gestured

How do you gesture with your eyes? I feel like you mean more like him nodding or gesturing with his chin or something. I can't really envision gesturing at something with your eyes.

Sykkou's eyes swirled like a cloud, purple and cloudy gray twirling around each other. "It is the time of the Shifting Sands, so locating our neighbor tribes will be more difficult than normal."

"Yes, yes, this is expected. We are not meeting right now to determine whether the sun will grace us with its presence tomorrow." Rage entered the leader's voice. "You know what we are here for! We all know what we are here for."

It is not clear to me who is saying each of these things. At first, I thought it Sykkou saying the first thing, but it's in the same paragraph as the grisly man speaking so I thought maybe not. But then I thought maybe Sykkou IS the leader, but that doesn't seem to be the case from the next paragraph. So... idk, if this is Sykkou talking, you should definitely put it in its own paragraph so that that's clearer.

~ ~ ~

Wow! Lots of things happening in this chapter!

I'm always a fan of opening with action. It is a compelling hook, and I certainly am curious to know what happens after this! The main critique I have of this chapter is it has too much lore for a first chapter. I know that that's your thing lol but you've got a lot of complicated names going on, you've got vague plans and political intrigue, you've got supernatural aspects -- it's a lot to keep track of, and I think it's a bit too much.

I honestly am not really sure whose side I'm supposed to be on right now, so it's kind of hard to sympathize with either of them. Like obviously Ryko seems terrible based on what he did to Sykkou -- but also if Sykkou was deliberately trying to deceive his allies, then also not a great dude? And I don't have enough background to know what's going on.

Also, Sykkou reminds me of Suduko xD

But good chapter! I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

Keep writing and happy RevMo!

~Shady

Also, I am featuring entries from the Banner Contest in all of my RevMo reviews, so please enjoy this banner by the fantabulous @alliyah (but know that I in no way endorse the chicken-ry and am #classified 4ever)

Omni says...

SHADY thank you for your review! Honestly I forgot that I asked for reviews on this XD

I definitely agree with first paragraph. I was more setting the image in my mind and I agree that it should have been modified a bit, and expanded. I'd like to expand the description a liiiiiittttle bit more, but not too much because the description of this place isn't really the point.

I also agree that I should have introduced Ryko's name earlier. I didn't actually have a name for him until the point I put it in the story, but I should have went back and put it in.

Honestly, I have seen people gesture with just their eyes before, but recently people have told me that's mainly a gay thing? I know it sounds ridiculous, but with how many people who were confused with the description, I will definitely edit it out in the future, if/when I come back to revise it.

Also, neither of the men in this are good people, persay, but Sykkou is definitely the victim in the end. But, yeah, they're not the main focus of the story, which you'll see in the next chapter.

Thank you for reviewing! I hope you enjoyed

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Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:03 am

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KateHardy wrote a review...

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a review!! ~~duh~~

First Impression: This is a really cool opening chapter. Some great action, a subtle introduction to the world and overall just pretty nicely done stuff. Its seems like a bit of a random bloody battle here to introduce this shadow dude. With the way you've pace things I feel like that fight between the two dudes was actually not the point here. I feel like that was all a setup. And that's pretty nice. ~~Correct me if I'm wrong~~.

Anyway let's get right to it,

The large tent swayed against the buffering winds and sand, and sheltered the hardened men from the blistering sun outside. Another man entered through the thin flap in the front of the tent, and tied it behind him.

Pretty good opening description there. Sets up the setting pretty nicely.

"Good of you to finally join us, Clanmaster Sykkou," said a grisly man at one end of the tent. His dark purple eyes gestured to an open seat around the circular table, and he rubbed his beard as the council waited for Sykkou to sit and adjust himself. Sykkou fished out a scroll from his tight vest robe and unfurled it, letting the tough paper crackle and groan against the shifting of its state. Several words and drawings danced along the scroll, shifting constantly like the sand dunes outside. Sykkou's eyes swirled like a cloud, purple and cloudy gray twirling around each other. "It is the time of the Shifting Sands, so locating our neighbor tribes will be more difficult than normal."

Another great description for this character. Instantly lets you know this is taking place in somewhere that is not around here.

"Must I remind anyone why we are here? Must I?" The leader spat out, his voice reverberating around the tent's tough skinned walls. He breathed out, and he closed his eyes. "Find the neighboring clans, Clansman."

Well someone really wanted to get a point across there with so much repitition.

Ryko nodded. "I would have thought the same, but it appears not." He raised his voice. "We have lost our matriarchs in the last battle with our neighboring clans. We have no more..." he gulped. "We have no future." Tears filled his war-torn eyes. "So why is it that you use your sightseeing capabilities as a ruse to undermine our plans? The only plan that will save us?"

Pretty nice buildup of tension here to the craziness that follows.

Sykkou's face shifted from one of innocence to one of defiance. "You are asking us to raid our neighbors and steal their children... for, for, 'repopulation?'" Sykkou stood up. "That is putrid. It is revolting! It is--"

That's definitely a horrible idea.

Ryko seethed, punching Sykkou at first, and Sykkou attempted to shield his face. Ryko then emitted a low snarl, tearing at Sykkou's clothes, tearing them apart. His vision faded and his pupils dilated, like he was no longer himself as he revealed Sykkou's bare skin, fully intent on taking advantage of it.

Very interesting start to the fight. And the people running out is also a nice addition to indicate that this is something they believe will be serious.

The shadow dropped from the roof of the tent, pinning the Fiend against the rickety main table of the tent, crushing it into splinters. The Fiend's arms ripped from Ryko's spirit, and it belt out a ear-splintering scream that warbled around around this dimension. Its arms shortened and it clawed at the shadow of a person pinning it down. The person covered its face with a mask of an angry face. The Fiend struck at the mask, shattering it in half. Underneath it was a void of nothingness that screamed and coiled with tentacles of darkness that struck at the Fiend.

Well that is a lot of action all at once. Some pretty cool visuals in there. You do a pretty good of showcasing the action so that it can be followed.

The shadow person didn't acknowledge Ryko with a look. A deep voice said, "It was a demon of your own making." They stashed their red sword and picked back up the regular iron sword.

"I feel... free," Ryko muttered.

"You are stained." The shadow person stabbed Ryko in the heart and pushed his dying form to the side, off of Sykkou's bare body.

Well that was...a lot of dead people.

The shadow man paid Sykkou no heed, and picked up a crimson mask with a face frozen in terror etched into it. He weighed it in his hand, and replaced his cracked one with it, before leaving Ryko's dead body and Sykkou's shivering silhouette in the tent.

That's a really good place to end things that you've got there. Definitely builds up quite a bit of mystery as to who this shadow dude is.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

Overall: Okay overall this is a really awesome start to a story. I'm definitely going to follow along to see what this is about. I feel like maybe this possession is going to have something to do with all of this as well. So much to try and decipher in this one. I'm going to try and get to your other chapter as well.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry

Omni says...

I'm glad that you got that the fight with these two characters isn't actually the point, and that the immediacy of that fight was because it wasn't the main, central focus.

I definitely want to explore more about the possession in the next few chapters, and I hope you follow along with the story

thank you for the review!!

KateHardy says...

You're Welcome!!
Ahh glad that I managed to figure that out.

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Sun Aug 30, 2020 12:00 am

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Riverlight wrote a review...

Hey there, Omnom! It's Vilnius, here to review your awesome addition to the Young Writers' Universe.

Already, your story is off to an intense, dramatic start that has pulled me in hook, line, and sinker. I love your description of the desert, though I think you could have expanded on it and described the encampment or what these men were wearing.

I'm a bit of a writing hypocrite for saying this, but I think you need to slow down the "friendly meeting" to "you're a liar" to "DIE, SCUM OF THE EARTH" bits just a tiny bit. Arguments tend to begin with little things (e.g. Sykkou could have said something slightly off, prompting Ryko to declare his accusation) that lead to the big things, like murder.

One question I had revolves around pronunciation. I've been saying "Sykkou" either "psycho" or "sie-cow" for the past... however long it's been taking me to read this chapter and type up a review. Is there a glossary and/or language guide you have somewhere to help readers say things the way you do?

Overall, I think this is a great start to your story and I can't wait to keep reading it! Have a nice [*insert time of day here*]!!!

Omni says...

Hey Vilnius! This is a bit late, but thank you for the review!!

I agree that this escalated a bit too fast, but I did want that to be the point. I think I could have expressed that better though, with perhaps a chapter before this one that had more setting up the meeting with some people professing their worries about Ryko.

I've been pronouncing Sykkou as "Sick-coo"

Riverlight says...

You're welcome!

I'll try saying it that way.

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Tue Aug 25, 2020 1:59 pm

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Lezuli wrote a review...

Hello! I'm Lezuli and I'll be reviewing this for you!
To start out, I would like to say that this seems like it will be a very interesting story. The idea of clans, Fiends, and slayers definitely seems intriguing.
As for my review, there are a few things I noticed that I'll point out.
#1: "His dark purple eyes gestured to an open seat around the circular table" I don't think many people gesture with their eyes to chairs. It would probably make more sense if you added in a hand gesture too.
#2: "The person covered its face with a mask of an angry face" Here, when I first read it, I thought the person was covering the Fiend with the mask, but it didn't match the rest of the story. I think you mean to say that the person is wearing the mask. It might make more sense if that is the case to write it more like this-'the person covered their face with a mask of an angry face'.
And that's all I have for you! I hope this helped you somehow.

Omni says...

Thank you for the review! I agree, those two details were a bit awkward

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Tue Aug 25, 2020 3:58 am

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Atticus wrote a review...

Hey there Omni! Tuck here to review for you today.

Just to get this out of the way, I'm gonna be slapping you with a fairly brutal review because I know you're a strong writer and can handle some critique. That being said, let's jump into it.

The large tent swayed against the buffering winds and sand, and sheltered the hardened men from the blistering sun outside. Another man entered through the thin flap in the front of the tent, and tied it behind him.

"Good of you to finally join us, Clanmaster Sykkou," said a grisly man at one end of the tent. His dark purple eyes gestured to an open seat around the circular table, and he rubbed his beard as the council waited for Sykkou to sit and adjust himself.

See the problem here? You begin a story with three sentences that have an identical structure. It's a very dull way to begin a story, and I felt my interest slipping away within these few sentences, although the small descriptors you had in here were enough to keep me invested.

Another point to note is that I had to read that exchange between Clanmaster Sykkou and Ryko several times to figure out what was going on. Part of what contributed to that is the fact that you didn't use Ryko's name until midway through the first conversation, which threw me off in that back-and-forth. I also felt that everything escalated rather quickly. As soon as Sykkou was accused of impropriety, he confessed without any floundering or attempts at denial. To me, it would feel more natural if Sykkou first stumbled for a defense or lied, saying that it wasn't true, it wasn't him, etc.

Clansman Sykkou looked up in the leader's direction, sweating trickling down his forehead to his thick brow

Ah, yes, I hate when sweating trickles down my face.

Okay, wow, that escalated quickly. We very quickly went from a meeting, to an accusation, to spirits and murder. In fact, I'm wondering if we went too quickly. Perhaps teasing at some of the tension between Sykkou and Ryko would better set the stage for this major conflict. Right now, you have the shock value of an immediate possession and kill within the first chapter, but if you were to hold off on this, you would still retain a decent amount of shock value. Even if these two characters have a minor preexisting conflict, I doubt any readers are expecting shadow people who feed off negative emotions.

On the other hand, if you create that preexisting conflict, then this conflict has an emotional basis with the reader. It will have a fuller and more profound impact and won't feel as unnaturally forced as this current version does. It could be worked into the plot and implemented more effectively if you were to hint at this conflict beforehand. I think that right now it feels as if you were rushing to get to this point, so the pacing is off. Don't be shy about letting the characters develop, letting that tension build and then reaching the peak of your plot and unleashing the beast.

Overall, however, I enjoyed reading this! I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for your ability to worldbuild such incredible landscapes, and this story was no exception. You also did a fantastic job of balancing your worldbuilding and introduction to this new fantasy story with characterization and plot building, a line that is tremendously hard to find and even harder to walk. Even though it got a little gruesome towards the end, you introduced a powerful antagonistic force that is unconventional and captivating. I definitely hope to continue to follow this story and YWU!

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know and I'd be happy to clear up any confusion. I'm sure I'll see you around.

Best,
Tuck

Omni says...

Hey Tuck!! Thank you so much for the review

I gotta be honest, I wrote this in a span of a few hours and I definitely didn't refine it before posting it. I get your point about similar writing structure in the beginning and the note about not knowing Ryko's name until like halfway through the conversation. I was still figuring out Ryko's name and how I wanted to present him, so I just didn't give him a name for a bit. Definitely should when I go back and edit this.

As for the escalation, I wanted it that way because I wanted it to be shocking to the reader and the other people in the room. I realize that I didn't bring that to life extremely well, since I didn't give enough reactions with the other Clansmen. In the edit, I'll add more reactions to the other Clansmen about how Ryko isn't usually like this, an he has become increasingly angry and stuff. Do you think that would work out better? Again, I didn't want this to exactly resonate with the audience to have a connection with these people because these are supposed to be just random people.

Thank you so much for the review, though!! I would love for you to read and review more of this as it comes out <3

Young Writers Society

The Forgotten Ch. 1

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