Ugh. Einar awoke with a throbbing pain in his forehead. It almost felt familiar. He opened his eyes and found he was lying on what felt like a slab of cold, rough stone. As he slowly moved his hand across it he noticed that it felt a little grainy to the touch. He still felt the other presence inside him but right now it was distracted, focusing its efforts somewhere else. Einar coughed, and the second consciousness responded. So you're awake, that's good. All things considered we haven't taken that much damage, but I wouldn't recommend getting up just yet. You know, with your lags broken and all.
Einar sighed with relief. He was still alive, and closer to finding whoever destroyed his village.
Suddenly, there was another ripping sound not far off, and everything became blindingly bright. Ignoring the pain, he slowly got to his feet and saw fire. A massive ball of flame was suspended in the air, framed by a bit of black around the edges of the portal that had just opened up. Its brilliant light was almost blinding, and Einar was forced to shield his eyes. The landscape was odd with massive platforms floating in midair and some sort of hill at one end. He could see a few silhouettes framed in the white light: one looked like a large hammer. Its shape and size suggested that it was forged for war, and was currently floating above the highest point he could see. Another was of a man, who appeared to be wearing a suit of metal covering everything except for his head. A little ways away there seemed to be a few more people, trying to keep their distance. The armored man seemed familiar to Einar, and he tried to remember where he had heard of a being like that.
“You should not have come here,” the man said. As his voice boomed out, the realization hit him. This man must be Havi, ruler of the gods. The Bright One, who wore the heavenly armor and had the power of the sun and the stars.
“You have done nothing but destroy and kill. This trail of blood and destruction left in your wake speaks for itself. And now you come here, to spread your ruin even further.”
As the man in armor said this, there was a ripping sound behind him, and the brilliant light winked out of existence. Looking around himself again, he saw a very different scene, Without the blinding light, everything looked bedraggled, decrepit. The floating platforms which had once looked like an impressive display now seemed chaotic, suspended in the air like lifeless puppets. The whole place was gray, looking more like he aftermath of an explosion trapped in time than the home of gods. Even Havi looked more human now. His armor was still immaculate but his face looked young, and underneath all the bravado Einar could sense a trace of fear in his voice. Nevertheless, he continued to speak.
“This cannot continue. I must put an end to your reign of terror,” Havi continued. “If I don't stop you here, there could be no end to the bloodshed. You, with the face of a demon, must be destroyed.”
As Einar heard this, he felt anger coarsing through his veins. It was not like that night in the tavern, where he felt the rage of another in his system like a foreign substance. No, this was his own indignation, hot and furious like dragon's fire. He felt the words bubble up from inside of him. They were in the dragon's manner of speech, but they felt true, as if forged out of his emotions.
“How dare you say that to me?” Einar shouted. “Do you even know what I've seen, what I've been through? Oh yeah, it's easy to sit up here on your glorified rubble, but you have no idea of the things I've had to do in order to survive. You have done nothing for me. No aid, no justice for what I've lost, not so much as a blessing. You have no right to judge me and my actions when you do nothing but sit on the sidelines. You're nothing but an onlooker, a scared little bit-”
“Enough”, Havi interrupted. He reached for his belt, and drew a dagger. Einar glanced around for a weapon, but he couldn't see anything except for the hammer, still suspended in the air. It looked smooth. There was a faint orange glow radiating from a circle carved into the center, with what looked like the Futhark inscribed around it. However, the man in armor was standing between them, and he was starting to look really dangerous. “Your rampage ends here,” Havi shouted. Suddenly, Einar heard the voice inside him again.
Hey, let me take over for this fight. Your body is fully healed, but your religion might hold you back. Just relax internally and let your body follow the impulses I send it. Einar begrudgingly agreed as Havi started to charge. He felt like panicking, but he could feel the dragon inside him was calm, waiting for the perfect moment.
Havi got in close enough to attack, and flung a swung at Einar. Einar's body jumped a step back to dodge, and then leaped through the air. Einar noticed that he could jump higher than before, and figured that the dragon had strengthened the muscles in his legs while healing them. As Havi swung around to attack again, Einar felt his body begin to run as fast as it possibly could, and heard the voice in his head. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope it said as it practically scampered away from Havi. As Einar's body fled up the slope, Havi stopped and put up a hand in protest. “Wait! Don't touch that! It's the only thing holding this place together!”
His warning fell on ears that were not quite deaf, but ignoring him with a vigor. Einar watched as his body reached out and grabbed the hammer. It was cool to the touch and he could feel the power flowing through it. Gripping the handle as tightly as he could, Einar leaped off the edge and plunged towards a rift opening below them.
“I thought you were going to fight him”, Einar shouted above the rushing sound of the portal. Are you kidding? He was crazy and had a knife. I just didn't want your honor and determination to be the death of us. You were getting riled up, who knows what you might have done?
As they reached the end of the portal, they began to fall towards the ground. They were quite high up, and Einar felt the other consciousness frantically begin to reinforce his limbs to withstand the impact. Even though the hammer felt fairly light in his hands, it was dragging them down towards the earth as if it weighed a ton. They fell past massive buildings which looked like they were made of stone, silver and glass. They smashed into the ground between the buildings, leaving it cracked around them. It was gray and smooth, and it felt like the ground he woke up on in Havi's realm. People who passed on the street stopped and stared, with some holding out shiny objects or holding them to their head and speaking. Einar got up, took a few steps out of the crater and looked around him, with one hand still firmly gripping the hammer.
He heard a deafening noise blaring out from behind him, and turned in time to see a large box-shaped thing with glass in the front speeding towards him. He defensively held up the hammer in front of him and a small orange pulse rippled out from it, stopping the wheeled box as if it had just hit a wall. The bystanders began to scamper away now, and there was a chaotic sound coming from all directions. Suddenly, a dozen more wheeled boxes came in from all directions, blaring an insufferable sound. These ones were smaller than the other one and were black and white, with flashing lights on top. People wearing identical clothing burst out of them, all holding oddly shaped bits of metal and shouting at him to “stand down” and drop his weapon. Looking at their formation and and outfits, they looked like they could be guards, or someone's army. Einar wanted to learn more, but right now he was tired and needed to find a place to rest.
He smashed the hammer on the ground with only a small amount of his power and another shockwave erupted from it, knocking everyone over and upturning their boxes. He leaped into the air, and found his legs were a lot stronger than before. He ran, avoiding flashing lights and those infernal black and white boxes until he reached a towering ruin quite a ways away from the tall buildings. Here old and broken boxes were stacked high as far as he could see, and it would provide a good spot to hide for now. As he settled down into a bench that was placed in a big yellow box, he looked up at the sky out of one of the shattered windows and wondered what he would do next.
End of chapter
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137,507 Literary Works • 672,040 Reviews
Hi haredrier! Mage here to do the long overdue, promised review! I hope this review helps you out a lot, and makes up for how long it's taken me to write it. So let's get to it, shall we? ^_^
I really enjoyed reading this chapter! It's interesting seeing the conflict between Havi and Einar/the dragon, and there was some aspects of this chapter in particular that I really loved. I'll get into those when I go into the specifics. ^_^ I wasn't able to find any overall problems, so great job there! The things I noticed are all nitpicks.
Onto the specifics!
There should be a comma after "it".
There should be a period or semi-colon after "awake" instead of a comma. There also should be a comma after "considered". That way, neither of the sentences are run-on sentences. ^_^
There doesn't need to be a comma after "here".
There should be a period after "scene".
This has to be my favorite part out of the entire chapter. It holds so much symbolism and meaning. Once Einar stops seeing the gods as elite, powerful figures to worship and as actual individuals, "the blinding light", or the view he had, disappears and he sees their flaws; they're like other people to him.
The comma comes before the quotation marks. You do this other times in the chapter as well, so just remember that the comma never comes right before the dialogue tag.
I'm also excited to see what happens now that they appear to be in our time from the descriptions Einar gave. ^_^
I'm sorry if my review seemed harsh. That wasn't my intention whatsoever; I had fun reading this! If you have any questions about what I said, please ask and I'll clear things up! Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! Have a wonderful day/night! ^_^
I'm sort of skipping around in chapters a good lot, but I want to say that I like the narration here. You really make the reader feel not that they're just looking at things from Einar's perspective, but that they actually are Einar. It takes a lot of strength in your writing to pull that off, but I felt like you nailed it quite well. I see there are a lot of things that happened in the past chapters, but also that Einar has developed into quite a character. And as always, your attention to detail and description is just breathtaking. There was a ton of intensity between Einar and the god's confrontation, a very shaking and moving scene.
But what exactly made him realize this was Havi? It seems like he realized it just because that's how you intended the plot to go and it doesn't feel natural because the description isn't all there -- but this is easily fixed by adding the proper detail.
This is a pet peeve of mine -- more specifically, the use of "really" in place of a proper, stronger adjective. Sometimes you want to be sure to avoid purple prose, but in this case, either removing really or replacing it with a more powerful word wouldn't harm things. Plus you don't describe how dangerous he looks at all, you're telling us instead.
Nothing adds more intrigue to a story then a huge and powerful hammer. Overall, this was another great chapter and your writing continues to impress me with it's vigor. Thanks for sharing.
Hello again, haredrier!
I just have one suggestion for the above sentence, which is a comma after 'considered'. Though not necessary, it would make it flow just a little bit better.
So you're awake, that's good. All things considered we haven't taken that much damage, but I wouldn't recommend getting up just yet.
You are getting really good at writing! I remember reading previous chapters, and your writing style has really blossomed into something that's becoming quite amazing.
“You have done nothing but destroy and kill. This trail of blood and destruction left in your wake speaks for itself. And now you come here, to spread your ruin even further.”
Havi, ruler of the gods, really does sound like a powerful god. What I'm saying is you've done a great job with writing the dialogue. And while it's on my mind, I also think you've done a great job transitioning between the 'inner' voices in italics, such as in the first paragraph. The transitions were smooth and I never once questioned who was 'talking'.
“I thought you were going to fight him”, Einar shouted above the rushing sound of the portal.
When I read the dialogue in my mind, I didn't imagine he was shouting until I read that he was shouting. But, if you used an exclamation mark instead of just a comma... my mind would probably imagine him shouting. That would make the scene that much more vivid.
People wearing identical clothing burst out of them, all holding oddly shaped bits of metal and shouting at him to “stand down” and drop his weapon.
I think you intend for the reader to know by instinct what these oddly shaped bits of metal are, because you mention them a lot but never bluntly answer the question of what they are. However, I didn't think it was obvious so just felt confused when I didn't find out what they were. Add some extra description, maybe, or just say what they are so the reader can see it in their mind's eye.
Those nitpicks aside, this was a well-written chapter. Again, good job on your writing; you're thriving!
Thanks for the review, I'm glad you've been enjoying my writing!
When Einar is shouting it's only to make himself heard over the rushing wind, not because he's particularly upset at the dragon's actions. As for the boxes and bits of metal, they're cars and guns, respectively. Einar doesn't know what they are, so tha narration follows what he thinks of them. It's similar to how the word Beans is used to represent canned foods, because that what he thinks they're all called.
To be perfectly honest I thought it could be pieced together, if you combine the black and white "boxes" (police cars), the uniforms and the tems they used. In any case, I'll try to be clearer in future writing. Thanks for your input!