An aging gnome, head down, trudges along the road to Silverhaven. There is nothing remarkable about him; he is dressed in earth tones, a tunic and cloak over deep-brown trousers.
Beside him, an elf lady gives him a covert glance. She is fascinated by a topaz pendant half-hidden in his clothes.
The gem itself is not unusual; gnomes always wear at least one piece of jewelry. What is unusual is that he's hiding it. She clears her throat.
"Aust Folkir," he introduces himself.
"Mara Lindlay."
They walk on in silence until the gates of Silverhaven come into view. Two guards watch the road,
their eyes skimming over each face.
Mara whispers, "Keep that stone hidden. I'll explain later." She pretends to stumble; Aust tucks the stone into his tunic.
"It's a silver mark for you, and four coppers for Grandfather," one guard says.
Silently, Mara hands over the coins. Her green eyes survey the two men at the gate, the younger of whom quails.
"Thank you." The guard's expression suggests that they won't be seeing Lord Avery's vaults.
**
Once they're inside, Aust hisses, "That was robbery!"
Mara turns on him in a fury. "Speaking of which, where did you get that gem?"
She clenches a hand at her side.
"I did not steal anything. It was entrusted to me by a friend."
Aust gestures at the wide street. "This is not a good place for it."
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,856 Reviews
I gewnerally like to write more throrough reviews than this one but seeing how little information you have given I find it hard to do that. Iam a fellow dnd player and an experienced 3.5 player. Let me start by saying that. Now then, what I see before me seems absolutely fine but as I have previously stated, I dont think that is very much. If mystery is the idea than I believe you are achieving it well via use of the stone which is clearly important, but in an uncertain way. "Trudgeds" should obviously be "Trudges" but I will chalk that up to a typo.
The only thing I would really suggest to make this passage better is putting a little more detail in the segment where the gnome and elf meet. At first glance it is hard to grasp that the two know each other via occupation and they seem like complete strangers. It is only a few seconds after the line about them exchanging names that that hit me.