The room was cold and damp. There was mold growing on the cobble stone walls of the house, which meant that no one had bothered to clean the room or the house in ages. The room was dimly lit, the only source of light in the room came from a lit candle that was already half-used which was on a table at the center of the room. The door to the room opened, revealing a rather big-sized man of medium height. He was wearing rather old and worn out clothing. His hair was in a mess and his big rat like face was covered in dirt and grime. The man, as soon as he entered the room hastily made his way towards a bed located at the other end of the room. The floorboards creaked as he walked over to the bed.
“I have recovered the chalice my master,” informed the man successfully as he knelt down beside the bed before taking the chalice out from an old leather bag that was slung over his shoulder. He showed it to his master. His master turned his head slowly to inspect the chalice. The man’s master was, pale and almost dead like, his skin was like the colour of chalk and his eyes were sunken into his head.
“You have served me well, Silenus,” said Silenus’ master weakly with a raspy voice. “Now fetch me some water with the chalice,” the master ordered weakly. Silenus rummaged through his bag for a moment before taking out a battered silver flask. He uncapped the flask before pouring the clear and clean water out from the flask and into the chalice. The chalice glowed for a brief moment as the water came in contact with it. Silenus helped to sit his master up before placing the chalice near his master’s mouth so he could drink from it. Silenus’ master drank the water that was in the chalice. In mere moments after drinking from the chalice, colour started to return to the master’s skin, albeit slightly and his dead like eyes started to come back to life.
Silenus’ master lifted his arm slowly before muttering something which Silenus could not make up. The fingertips of Silenus’ master let out a brief green spark, then nothing. Silenus’ master, who had his strength partially returned to him, slapped the chalice out of Silenus’ hand.
“W-w-what is the problem my master?” asked Silenus who was surprised by his master’s action.
“The chalice did not return to me my full power, let alone a fraction of it,” explained his master, “It is missing its twin. Clever. They did not put them both together”
“It’s twin?” asked a confused Silenus to his master.
“Yes, its twin. The Gem of Immortality,” said the master who did not even look at his follower.
“I- I-I can get it for you master,” said Silenus with the obvious presence of fear in his voice, “j-just tell me where to find it.”
Silenus’ master finally looked at him. Silenus was even more terrified than before, his master’s cold gaze pierced into him, into his very soul. He wished that his master would avert his gaze away from him. His master spoke. “Go to Cambroxzen Academy for Magic, the gem is buried somewhere on their grounds.”
“B-but how do I get in?” queried Silenus who looked at the ground as to not make eye contact with his master, “N-n-no one can enter Cambroxzen’s ground without prior approval.”
“Contact our associates there,” instructed his master coldly, “he will let you in. And do not hesitate in bringing more of your brethren to search for the gem.”
“R-r-right away my master,” acknowledged Silenus who was still looking at the ground.
“Now leave me,” ordered his master coldly as he waved his hand to dismiss Silenus.
Upon hearing his master’s order, Silenus stood up from his kneeling position and picked up the chalice from the ground before placing it on the table. Silenus then hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him before letting out a sigh of relief.
***************************
The teacher's lounge of Cambroxzen Academy of Magic was a large circular room that was brightly lit as the crimson curtains of the room were drawn back, letting sunlight into the room. It was decorated tastefully and filled with finely made oak furniture with crimson coloured cushions. It had a very big fire-place to be lit for those long and cold winter nights. At the side of the room were tables that were full of food that the teachers could enjoy during certain times of the day. The lounge was currently somewhat empty with only Sherlock, Shauna, an elderly male professor with a long flowing white beard, a female centaur lecturer and a male goblin professor in the lounge.
“So someone actually broke into the deepest and most well defended vault of Eragash?” asked Shauna in utter disbelief before finishing the last bit of her salad.
“Yup,” replied Sherlock before taking a bite out of his steak pie, his second of the meal, “but whoever broke into the bank must have been a wizard or witch with considerable skill and power.”
“Perhaps I should take my money out from Eragash,” remarked Shauna to Sherlock who had just taken another bite out of his steak pie, “and place it under my bed. I think its much safer there.”
“I think you should still keep your money in Eragash,” opined Sherlock with a hint of skepticism in his voice to his best friend who was sitting across the table from him, “this was just an isolated incident. I mean, when was the last time where someone broke into Eragash before this?”
Shauna took a moment to think before answering Sherlock. “Never?” answered Shauna who was unsure of her answer.
“Exactly,” confirmed Sherlock before taking a sip out of his cup of tea, "whoever broke into the bank and managed to steal the chalice is a wizard or witch with exceptional skill and power. I mean I would expect the deepest vaults of Eragash to be protected by some of the most powerful protective charms, hexes and jinxes to keep thieves out. So whoever broke into Eragash and actually managed to escape with stolen items, is a wizard or witch who is extremely talented and powerful.
“Well if someone successfully breaks into the bank’s vaults again, I’m withdrawing all my money and items from the bank, no ifs and or buts” stated Shauna adamantly before taking a sip of water out of her glass. Before Sherlock could voice his objections to Shauna’s plan, the school bell rang. This indicated that it was the start of the next class period, and that Shauna had to leave for her Care of Magical Creatures class with her first year students.
Sherlock and Shauna both took out their wands and made the scraps and crumbs of food on their respective plates disappear. Then they used their wands to levitate their plates and cups over to the area where they were supposed to deposit their dirty cutlery and dishware to be washed. As they placed their cutlery and dishware into a large bronze basin, they disappeared almost instantaneously.
After putting their cutlery and dishware away, Sherlock and Shauna made their way to the large oak door that served as the entrance and exit of the lounge. “So what are you going to do after this?” asked Shauna as she followed Sherlock out from the lounge.
“I’m going to stop by the library,” informed Sherlock to Shauna, “need to do some research.”
“Research on the Gem of Immortality am I right?” asked Shauna.
Sherlock nodded his head. “That’s right.”
“So you’re going to see whether there are any more points of interest in Cambroxzen we have not discovered yet?” queried Shauna as they walked towards the direction where her Care for Magical Creature class will be taking place.
Sherlock smiled warmly to his close friend. “You know me too well Shauna.”
Shauna smiled in return, “Anyways, I have to go Sherlock,” said Shauna, “don’t want to keep the students waiting too long. I’ll see you in the library later?”
“Find me in the restricted section,” replied Sherlock, “I’ll be there.”
“Alright,” acknowledged Shauna before heading off to the barn where her class is held, “see you later.” Shauna rushed down a flight stairs of the Medieval castle towards the grand entrance. Sherlock then walked up the flight of stairs and made his way to the academy’s grand library on the second floor.
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hey~
Read the previous reviews. I'll try to avoid what was covered.
If you don't want it to be obvious who Master is, cut that prologue. At this point it comes off as a schtick to get readers hooked while keeping a boring first chapter anyway. I'm so excited to see that Naxy is still hanging out
As far as I'm concerned, the first half of this chapter is the best yet. I think your description of setting is improving. The second step I would suggest is to assume your reader has some life experience. It's common sense that a moldy wall is moldy because no one has cleaned it and a school bell signals class changes. You don't have to tell us. We know. The fact that you do explain tiny details slows down narration.
I can't deny anyone's complaints about repetition. You also start a lot of sentences with a name or dialogue. Not the biggest deal, but it makes the flow kinda boring.
Sherlock still just feels like a character made to inform the reader about the Chalice and now the bank. Scenes with him in it are always boring, and the dialogue is always stiff and seemingly inconsequential. I can't name one thing that was actually important that I learned in the second half of this chapter.
Onto Chapter 3!
Any questions, lemme know,
Megs~
Hello!
cutting out extra information
I'm here because you have requested a review from me in my WRFF thread!
Since you didn't specify something that you wanted me to specifically review on, I'm going to just write down anything I think needs edited or that you should work on!
As I've seem that many people have already reviewed this, I will try and make this mostly an overview, not very specific review. I don't read the other reviews, so if I repeat something that someone else has said, that means that you might want to edit that specific part
I also want to apologize for taking so long to review this, I've been writing up this review for a day or so, just haven't finished until now!
Just to Review:
In Chapter 1, you needed to work on:
Spoiler
repetition
sentence flow
your writing was plain
Here we go, Chapter 2! ~
this is really just me being nitpicky, but I think it should be "which probably meant...". It just seems more...right. Like, you character probably doesn't KNOW that it hadn't been clean, he's just making an assumption.
R-E-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N.
I'm already seeing so much of it! You say "master" about five times in the same paragraph. I'm not going to lecture you on it again, but just go through and make sure you don't repeat the same thing over and over.
also, again with just really uninteresting, plain stuff. You gotta show some personality of your character!
I feel like maybe you should try and make detailed character profiles for your characters. add some more depth and more history. If I may offer an example, this is my Main character for my novel:
Spoiler
Age: 22
Sex: male
Eye Color: brown with gold specks
Hair Color: dark brown
Skin Color: between tan and pale -m not super tan, not super pale.
Height: five foot 11 inches (5’11)
Weight: 142 pounds
Memorable Features: He usually has a closely shaven beard, mostly scruff on his face. Square face, rugged features. When you look at him, he screams man.
Race: caucasian/white
Ethnicity: no religion
Faults: He’s never been in love before, so he can be very oblivious to emotion. He’s sort of a machine. You tell him to do something, and he’ll do it without question. which is why a lot of people will use advantage if this tendency to help them do illegal things and hard things
Talents: He’s extremely sly, and good at sneaking around. His sort of a badass. He doesn’t feel many emotions, which could be consider a talent and a fault.
Family: His grandfather, now 90, used to burn books. His parents died in a horrible plane crash in 2259, when Garrett was 3. His Grandparents took him in, and he always gravitated towards his grandmother. Garrett had a tough relationship with his Grandfather, because he was never home. He was out all the time at work. His Grandmother died when Garrett was 13, and his Grandfather had to come home full time to take care of Garrett. His Grandfather was NOT happy about this, which made Garrett and his Grandfather have a tough relationship.
Childhood: Parents died at age three, he went to Harvard University, majoring in science. IN Harvard he discovered his sick enjoyment for setting things on fire. This is how he came to meet his boss, Sebastian.
Source of Income: Arsonist
Hobbies: Setting books on fire obviously. He enjoys watching people, not necessarily stalking, but just observing how people interact with each other. He likes to collect a page from exactly three books before he burns the property. And it has to be page 31.
Patience Breaking Point: Garrett has a lot of patience. His breaking point would probably be when he’s under a lot of emotional stress.
Status in Society: He’s pretty big in his government, since he’s secretly burning books. But it’s more of a secretive thing, so not many know it. As the country is brainwashed, everyone is payed minimum wage, so no one is too rich, or too poor, unless you don’t work.
And onto of that stuff, I also added some more history/personality while I was plotting. I feel like it would really help you create a voice for your character, which will help your writing be more interesting
You don't need the commas. And this is a very boring description,a and it doesn't flow well. try: "He was pale and almost zombie like, he had skin the color of chalk and his eyes were dark and sunken into his head."
Adds more imagery, flows better, etc.
"Silenus's Master this Silenus's Master that..." THAT IS ALL I SEE. This is extremely annoying and it's almost painful to read over and over and over. Make a name for this character, or just call him "Master" as his name. Use the words "he, him, etc." The repetition is horrible with that. Please, please fix that. You don't have to work as hard as you are, I promise.
Something I think would be helpful is putting the time and main character mentioned in the chapter at the top, just so I know right away where the setting is and that's it's a different character!
"restricted section" harry potter >.>
Well, I will say that your second half was ten times better than everything so far. It still needs improvement, but it was better than everything before that.
Just please take everything I'm saying into consideration as you keep working on this novel! I hope that me reviewing this has helped in some way, and I'll really try to get this done on Saturday. I hope I'll be through all chapters by then! (Although that might not happen according to plan :p)
Off to the next!
-Del
Hello! Hermione here as requested. I enjoyed this chapter much more than I did your first. The plot of your story is really starting to build, and it’s getting more interesting. Now, on with my review.
The main problem I had with it is the repetition of the word ‘house’. Maybe you could reword it to say, “There was mold growing on the cobblestone walls of the house; nobody had bothered to clean them in ages.”
You did a much better job of using imagery in your first paragraph of this chapter. You included senses other than sight, and it was easy to visualize the servant walking through his master’s cold, damp room. I thought that mentioning the creaky floorboards was a nice touch, and the bit about the candle was also good. As I did when reviewing your first chapter of this story, I’m going to focus on the first paragraph and how you can improve it.
Spoiler
I liked the image of the mold growing on the cobblestone walls; I just thought this sentence sounded a little awkward. Sorry I’m being so nitpicky
You repeated the word room three times in this one sentence, and it also contained a comma splice. I think it’d sound better if you’d shorten it to say, “The room was dimly lit by a half-used candle on a table placed in its center.” Also, instead of saying it was half-used, I think you could have picked a stronger word for imagery’s sake, such as ‘dwindling’ or ‘shrinking’. That’s 100% up to you.
I believe you’re missing a comma after the word ‘room’. Again, you unnecessarily repeated the word ‘room’ in the same sentence. I agree with hunith’s approach of rewording this part.
This was probably my favorite part of this chapter. It got me interested knowing that there were spies inside the school, working for the master.
In this review my main goal is to focus on helping you improve your descriptions of the different bits of scenery in your story, and now I’m going to hone in on your description of the teacher’s lounge. This description was okay, but I thought it could maybe use a little work. Here’s an idea of how I would tweak it, but you can take or leave whatever parts of this you choose:
Spoiler
While this description was nice, it would be further enhanced if you would rewrite it using senses other than sight. Here is an article I think you’ll find helpful: http://thewritepractice.com/except-sigh ... ractice%29
Overall, better job on this chapter. Keep writing, and I’ll keep reviewing!
Hey Yizhongt, LordofLit here, sorry for the late review, been a busy week!
Anyway, let me start off by saying that like the last chapter, this is a well written and descriptive piece, Like the last chapter, there were hints of mystery in order to get the readers asking questions, I like the technique you're using to do this!
Although there were just one or two mistakes that won't take long to clear up:
' no if' the 'if' in this quote should be in plural form, as the saying goes; 'no ifs and no buts,'.
Also, you need to put in the extra comma here and there, as you need to give the reader time to pause and absorb all the elements of what they have just read, otherwise it will be too much to take in all at once.
'the plates scraps and crumbs of food on their respective plates disappear.' here, take out the first usage of 'plates' is irrelevant as you do not need to use the word twice in this quote.
However, this is a very well described piece and I like the way the story is progressing. Like last time, I'm anticipating the next chapters!
LordofLit101
P.S.- The next chapter of my novel should be posted soon!
Hey LordoLit. Chapter 3 of the Chalice of Life is out. If you're free, a review would be much appreciated.
Will do when I can
Hi there, this is Hunith. Here to review The Chalice Of Life.
As usual, the story is very good and is finally beginning to grow and undoubtedly into a very great piece of work.
However, I have some few things i'd like to point out to you.
Now I like the beginning to this chapter, it gives some level of anonymity to the room but you over used the word 'the room'. you repeated it countless times in your descriptions. Now i'm not saying not to use it at all, but you could have employed pronouns at some part.
Example:
Now you see what i'm talking about? you had already told us about a room which is old and abandoned. So you didn't have to repeat the room again when you were describing it.
it could have been this way:
The man, as soon as he entered, hastily made his way towards a bed located at the other end of the room. The floorboards creaked as he walked over to it.
You did the same thing here as well:
I was getting frustrated having to continuously read
'the man's master' or 'Silenus master'
Thing is, we already know that Silenus was speaking with his master. so there was no need of constantly repeating Silenus' master.
You could have just used 'the master' in place of all that which would have made it much simpler to read.
#over repeating words, can make your writing gray. That's my opinion by the way#
Considering the theft, and considering the worth of what had been swiped, i think you haven't given us enough info on the crime.
what happened?
How did the show go down?
How did the thief manage to get inside a secured vault?
Was there any protective charm? if there was, how did he get past it?
did he have an inside man?
All these things; we don't know. Now I'm saying this because the chalice is a very important artifact and is the center of this story and despite the fact that many don't know of it's existence or location doesn't mean it could just be taken. surely someone put it there. And whoever did wouldn't want people sniffing around for it. So the stealing of it, is a big portion of the story which must be shown. (that's what i think)
Another thing is, i think you should try to begin your dialogues on another line. for the sake of clarity and orderly presentation.
In total, I think that you should add more flair to your writing. your tone is very good and with a little polish you can make your work glow.
if anything let me know;
...signing out
PS:sorry for the late review
~Hunith~
Hey Hunith, thanks for the constructive feedback. I'll make the changes you've suggested.
On the issue of telling about the breaking into a bank, I didn't want to tell much about it, have an air of mystery, but I think I should. Just not in much detail. What do you think? Because the main character would not know how the bank protects the bank and its content.
that'll be fine. cos the reader must have some sort of idea about it.
But if you have decided to talk about it fully later on in the story, then don't give any spoilers.
Hey hunith. Chapter 3 of the Chalice of Life is out. If you're free, a review would be much appreciated.
Hey hunith. Chapter 3 of the Chalice of Life is out. If you're free, a review would be much appreciated.
ayt buddy. will check up on it.