Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Okay...this is quite nicely done I think. As far as first chapters this one does its job fairly well. I think you can take this story a few places with how you've established this, and I like the places it appears to be headed towards.
Anyway let's get right to it,
"I'm just the informant. If you can't use the information I give you, that's your problem, not mine." Ilya blows his bangs out of his eyes.
The man in front of him almost growls. "You saying I'm stupid?"
"Interpret it how you wish."
Ilya isn't naive. He knows he's about to be in a lot of trouble. He drops, kicks the man's legs out from under him, stands up, and runs for his life.
"Oi! GET HIM!"
Okay.... well that's quite a start. It seems we're diving straight into the action on this one, and its some pretty immediate action too. Its a little confusing on the start because we have absolutely no idea what is going on, but I love that, its a nice touch of mystery and I think it works wonders at getting the reader's attention and making them curious to see what this could all be about.
...And there it is. Unfortunate, but he'd had a bad feeling when he took this job, anyway, so it's not like he's unprepared.
Ilya is fast and agile, traits you need to have if you're a small guy who gets into fights. But sometimes, that's not enough, especially when there are a large number of thugs coming from all sides. So you also need to know your fighting grounds extremely well — better than whoever you're fighting. Ilya prays to whichever gods will listen that this gang don't know everything he does.
He runs directly at a building, which throws the thugs off. This is one of the less funded districts of Lumine — not so much that it's completely decrepit, but enough that some of the buildings have chinks and weaknesses. Which this one does.
Okay...well that's a decent move there, but I think the little interruption there to provide a full paragraph on just what sort of fighter Ilya is kind of breaks the pacing of this a little, and you don't want to see that happening so early into a chapter. I'd suggest reducing that down a bit and maybe going for showcasing that through what Ilya does as opposed to just outright stopping in the middle of the fight to explain this because that doesn't help the story at all.
Here's something that should help.
Ilya's thoughts are racing at a million miles a minute as he pulls himself up with one hand. This is easy if you get the hang of it — you just have to keep looking for the next foothold, you just have to keep going no matter if your hands are shaking. It's adrenaline, that's all, is what you have to keep telling yourself.
He gets to the roof, but he's not done — he needs to get far away before they find some other way up here, so he takes one deep breath, two, and then he runs, trusting his past self's calculations that if he jumps at just the right time, he'll make it. And he does, so he keeps running, and he keeps running. It feels immensely satisfying in an electric kind of way, to know he was right.
By this point, there's no way they're still after him, but that thinking is what gets people killed so Ilya keeps running, even though his lungs are burning and his legs are screaming at him to stop. He learnt long ago that sometimes you just have to ignore those sorts of things, if you want to survive. Which he really does.
Okay....well this is a bit mixed here for me. I love this little almost chase sequence of sorts where he's running away, but those comments mixed in there really don't help too much especially the ones about Ilya's ability. A couple of these are fine, like the reference to learning that a long time ago, but then that one with the adrenaline really doesn't work at all. So I'd say sort of if you're hinting at sort of this person's past it works alright, but then just talking about what they're doing in extra detail out of nowhere really is breaking the pacing up here.
He's not really sure how he ends up back at the old toyshop, but when he gets there, he's beaming. It has to be one of his worst traits that he actually likes when he has to run away from something.
Lexi is waiting there, an unamused look on her face. "Provoked them on purpose again, didn't you?"
"I'll have you know I am always an absolute delight," Ilya says, attempting to school his features into a serious expression and failing. He walks to the back of the shop, behind the curtain and into his makeshift room, and pulls off his gloves. It may be summer, but he looks good in gloves, so.
Well this is a lovely bit of interaction. A little bit more could perhaps go into describing Lexi there. Its a perfect chance to introduce her a bit better, and this is rather vague. Of course this is simply the basic things. The dialogue does a wonderful job already of telling us more about what sort of connection they have and what their relationship might be like.
She's one of his best friends, and has been for a long time. She's the one who took him in when he first arrived in Lumine; he'd been terrified, and cold, and alone, and she'd found him, and she took him to the old toyshop and tended to his wounds. She hadn't had to, but she had anyway, and he owes her his life.
Of course, that doesn't mean he always listens to what she has to say.
Ilya pushes the curtain to his room to the side, and walks in again. He likes the place, even though it is slightly creepy. He's always finding weird dolls in his wardrobe, but he's pretty sure it's Lexi pranking him.
Okay..well see that's pretty much exactly what I mentioned earlier, I think you could just have that a bit earlier, although this way it does work too, so it should be okay as it stands. Well let's see where this takes us next.
He walks back into the front of the shop, opens up the book. It's quite good, actually, he'd forgotten — it's about a girl living in Steelgard who wants to be an engineer. He's pretty sure that the writer is from there. They describe it almost perfectly, if his blurry memories from the time he visited as a child are anything to go by.
I love this little snippet here. It adds on quite nicely to the idea of this person that we already have. Although I do have to say that perhaps this place could use a touch more description, because besides the messy room, Ilya and Lexi are currently floating in a bit of a black void.
Lexi lets out a breath, then pushes herself up. "Well, I'm off. Gotta make money somehow, if you keep pissing off your customers."
"I always get payment upfront and you know that! Plus, it's a good thing the bars haven't banned me yet," Ilya says, shaking his head, "if you're going to keep abandoning me every day."
"You're sixteen, that's not old enough to be drinking alcohol."
Ilya shrugs. "I tried it once, it's not great. Tastes like-"
"I swear," Lexi laughs, "if you finish that sentence I'm telling Demelza about the Eclair Incident."
"NO PLEASE I BEG OF YOU." But Lexi's already out the door. Eh, he's not going to a bar anyway, so who cares.
Ilya always, one way or another, finds himself here. The Lumine Library.
Okay that was a cute interaction again, you can really see that they are definitely best friends, but the transition there to the library is a bit jarring. We barely get an indicator that this person is going anywhere and then just BOOM scene transition. I think you need to either include a scene break or have a clearer transition there.
Today, he's sitting on the balcony outside the main Library with a few books. The sun is shining on his back, because if he turns towards it he'll definitely burn. He's not reading anything, though, not even the book he needs to return; he needs a minute to just... sit here.
He's in the the capital city of one of the richest countries in the world. And it's a weird disconnect, because he's lived here for so long, but he's not from here. He loves Lexi like she's his sister, but the old toyshop isn't his home like it is hers. His home is far to the north, in snow and — and this sort of thing is exactly what he comes here to not think about, so he really shouldn't be thinking about it!
Okay this is a fun moment of reflection here. I think it balances out that faster paced start quite nicely and tells us quite a few things about the place and this person's history. Its a nice touch I think. You get a good sense of how much of a habit this is, and why it would be so much of a habit.
Ilya takes a breath. He lets it out.
It's been eight years. That should be long enough to forget, surely.
He's never been very good at deciding not to think about things, especially this thing, so instead he takes the books back to the receptionist and leaves the Library. Lexi needs a couple things from the market, she left him a list, so he'll go and buy those.
Well that hints at so much there and I love it. Its a wonderful detail to include here, especially right at the start because that really goes a long way to telling us what sort of person this is.
"Did you hear the King of Najahashi is throwing some kind of party?" That's a young woman, talking to her friend and the owner of the stall she's at. (Ilya has a bad habit of eavesdropping.)
Not sure why the bit in the bracket is remotely necessary there.
On his way back to the toyshop, he passes by a jewellery stall. Pretty, but expensive and unnecessary—
"You there!"
Ilya turns around. The middle-aged person running the stall beckons him closer. He walks over, cautious.
They lean back in their chair. "Those earrings, where did you get them?"
Hmm...I have a feeling the earlier conversation about royalty is somehow important later on, although there's not telling, it could be a random red herring. Besides that love this little moment here, although I now get the feeling we might have another chase on our hands, or at least cliffhanger for the ending.
Ilya turns away again. "They're not for sale."
"Oh, I don't mean to buy them," the stall owner laughs, "it's just that that's Sau gold, isn't it? You don't find much of that this far south."
Ilya freezes. The gold of his earrings is from Chiesau Nova, of course it is, but he had never expected anyone to notice. "...My aunt visited once," he lies, not looking the stall owner in the eyes. "She brought these back as a souvenir."
The stall owner smiles. "Ah, you're lucky. The borders have been closed for years, she must've been there a while ago."
Well that's a fun little detail now. Also very tactful move there to escape being questioned too much. I think that was timed quite nicely there by this person although now this opens up a few more questions.
(He knows the borders are closed. He knows why the borders are closed.) He smiles back. "Yes, it's a good few years ago now." And he walks away, heart beating painfully against his ribs.
...He's fine. He just needs to get back to the toyshop.
This time I think the bracketed part is a good detail, I just don't see why it has to be in brackets. As for this ending, well its no cliffhanger, but its a powerful one nonetheless for the start of a story. I think you've done quite well here. We do find ourselves curious to see what happens next.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, this is a nice solid start here. There's a few kinks to iron out but for the most part it does the job of a first chapter quite well and I think its certainly done enough to make me want to read a second part of this.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Points: 257336
Reviews: 4115
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