Like Shades, I am posting my entry from the last competition.


Part one:

“Tell me Dunmer, and tell me now.” The leader of the pack questioned of the newcomer. “What were you planning to do once you found our hideout?”

All LeTren could reply was, “I was planning on cutting your throats in the night, and head for Dago-”

“Enough, you fool, I will not tolerate your quips any longer. What were you planning?”

He approached the Dark Elf with caution and unsheathed his dagger.

He began to explain, “I told you, I planned to ki-” but never finished his sentence.

“Damnit Nibarr, I wanted to hear his explanation before you knocked him out.”

“Ah, he wouldn’t have told you the truth anyway,” the tall Dark Elf replied, “I’ll tie him up, but if you want to interrogate someone, you might want to see if his friend is awake.”

“Bah, I don’t want to talk to that Argonian, send Bugdul to do it, and tell him if he doesn’t talk, he can eat him for all I care.”

“Wake up lizard, the boss wants to know what you were planning.”

“Why should I tell you, pig-face,” the Argonian said to the Orc, “You can’t make me talk.”

All the Orc replied was, “Well in that case, you won’t need your left hand anymore, now will you?”

The hideous scream that followed was more than enough to wake LeTren from unconsciousness, and he wished for just that moment that he could have been deaf.

He managed a whisper, “Poor, Gah. I’m sorry,” before lapsing back into the darkness.

The small band of thieves, known amongst themselves as the Rough Merchants, consisted of three members. First was Hrard the Hard, the leader and a mighty Nord who preferred sword to mace. Second was Bugdul gro-Bugdul, an Orc of uncommon intellect who enjoyed eating others. The last was a crafty Dunmer, Nibarr Releth, who was often vocal about his displeasure of joining a team of giants, but nevertheless joined them to be one step closer to becoming a nightmare for all of Vvardenfell, maybe even all of Morrowind.

Part two:

Even though he was late, Faric couldn’t help but laugh that he was making the gondolier wait on him. But now was not the time for humor, his brother had been missing for days and he needed to update his superior on the situation of the bandits wreaking havoc on the roads leading to the city of Vivec. Even with increased guards on the roads, the bandits were still at large.

“I’m ready now, take me back to the Foreign Quarter, my good Dunmer friend.”

Minutes later he arrived and tipped the Elf in the odd hat, who just grunted and muttered an insult under his breath.

He made his way up the canton and entered to find an Ordinator putting a thief on the ground with a split lip.

“A warning to you, scum. Try it again and you will die where you stand.”

Faric found his way through the crowd and entered the Mages Guild. He located the Guild Guide and paid her to transport him to Balmora’s Guild of Mages. Once there, he exited the guildhall and made his way through the city to the South Wall Cornerclub to meet with his superior.

The publican saw Faric and told him, “Ah, Faric, Culuma will be with you shortly.”

“Ah, she must be dressing herself up for me. She always had a thing fo-“

“Enough Breton,” said a beautiful Altmer, “I assume you have something for me, otherwise you are wasting my time.”

He responded with, “My fair lady, I have lost contact with my brother, and I-“

“Have we been discovered, do they know?”

“My lady, LeTren has always known how to keep secrets, I doubt that has changed.”

“Still, this isn’t good, they know something is up. I fear you may have to deal with this problem personally. You will be provided provisions, of course, and armor if you wish.”

Faric accepted supplies, but politely refused armor.

“That would just throw my casting off.”

He set out for the city of Vivec on foot, dressed as a merchant would and using a small cart hoping to encounter the bandits. Hoping to find his Dunmeri half-brother, and find him alive.

Part three:

LeTren regained consciousness in the deep of night and found his captors passed out from a long night of drinking.

Well, that’s lucky, he thought.

He managed to wriggle his hands out of their bonds easily and without much sound. He then untied his feet and was able to sneak past the trio and found his travel companion in a cage in a larger room of the caverns the bandits had been occupying for the past few days.

The bandits’ cavern was located in the mountains between Seyda Neen and Pelagiad to avoid any detection by guards. They also used it as the perfect location to monitor the roads of both settlements leading to the city of Vivec in order to set ambushed on any merchants who had to use either road. So far, it was the perfect location and it had been LeTren’s job to find their base and report back to his brother’s superior. Too bad the group found him before he could return to Faric.

“Gah, are you alright? Gah-Ju?”

He tried to see what was done to his friend, but before he could, Gah-Ju spoke, “Tren, the damned pig-face ate my feet, I won’t be able to escape with you, I’m as good as dead. You need to leave before they awaken.”

LeTren couldn’t believe his friend’s lethargy.

“You’ll be fine, Gah, I can help you out of here. I’ll carry you.”

“Too slow, just go,” and with that Gah turned so LeTren couldn’t see his face.

“I’m sorry Gah, for all of this. I’ll make you proud.”

As LeTren turned to leave, Gah-Ju responded with a whisper so LeTren could just barely hear, “Gotch-you!”

“Damnit Gah, even now you joke?”

“Relax Tren, get me out of here.”

The Dunmer asked, “What about your feet? I can’t actually carry you.”

“No worries my friend, only my left hand is gone,” with that he showed his Elf-friend his stub where his hand used to be.”

LeTren, as quiet as he could, unlocked the cage and the two made their way out of the room and headed towards the exit of the cave. Before they could leave, though, they were startled to see Nibarr standing in their way with his sword in his hand.

“No one’s going anywhere!”

Part four:

Faric made it up to Fort Moonmoth without altercation, but just as he past, two Dunmer assailed him and one told him, “Leave your goods or die traveler.”

“My good Dunmeri lowlifes, you are hindering business that you’d do well not t-”

“Die, N’wah!”

Before either could reach him, Faric unleashed an orb of lightning and dropped the first one. The second bandit didn’t reach Faric either and didn’t notice the dagger coming until it was already lodged in his throat.

“A shame they don’t like foreigners yet” he said as he wiped the dagger on the bandit’s shirt and continued on his way.

He thought to himself, I’m already entering the mountains? I hope I encounter them soon.

As he was in thought, he heard a noise and saw a cliff racer heading straight for him.

“I don’t have time for this.”

He let loose a tiny fireball and that was that, but just as he thought it was over, he remembered how bountiful they could be and saw up in the sky five more heading straight for him.

“So much for haste.”

He pulled his dagger out of his boot and waited for them. One by one they arrived and fell. Only one was left and before he could kill it, he suffered only a minor bite on the shoulder. He could handle far worse.

“Pests, I wonder how long they’ve been following me.”

Once he finished cleaning his dagger he replaced it in its boot-sheath and went on his way. He started off again and began to once again wonder if his brother was still alive.

“You better be alive Tren, I couldn’t handle having your blood on my hands.”

He exited the mountains and continued to follow the path up to a crossroads and began to head south when out of the side of the mountain came a sickly looking nix-hound.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He dispatched it with a minor spell, but three more showed up and got to him before he could loose another. He wasn’t injured but the first one to reach him knocked him down, taking his breath out of him. He recovered quickly and was able to reach his dagger and stabbed the nix in the throat.

As he pulled himself up, he had time to swipe another nix-hound approaching, dropping it dead. The third one sprang at him, but he rolled out of the way before it could land on him. He crackled off a lightning spell killing it. He finished off the first one and sighed. And he continued on towards Vivec.

Part five:

“You thought you could escape?” Nibarr approached the escapees. “I would never inebriate myself, not when we have such dangerous prisoners.”

He reached behind his back and pulled out LeTren’s sword that was taken when they first took him captive.

“Here,” he said as he tossed him his sword, “We will fight to the death, it is clear you won’t give us a straight answer who you work for. At least I can have the satisfaction of killing you.”

LeTren looked at him and asked, “What of your companions? How do I know they won’t jump in and help you?”

“I made sure they would be drunk enough to sleep soundly until midday tomorrow. It will be just you and I”

“You knew we’d try and escape?”

“Of course I did, you didn’t know it, but I purposely tied your bonds loose. It sickens me to see another of our race tied up. Enough of this, assure me that your friend won’t interfere.”

LeTren looked at Gah-Ju, “Promise me you won’t make it an unfair fight. None of your Gotch-you stuff.”

“Fine, my friend. I promise.”

Nibarr then said, “Good, now let’s begin.”

He rushed at LeTren, who sidestepped and dodged a swipe from Nibarr’s blade. He thrust his own sword, but Nibarr managed to back up enough and laughed at LeTren.

“You are nothing. Where’s your technique?”

They both sliced their swords through the air and both missed. Then, all of a sudden both men caught the other’s hand with their own offhand. Nibarr reacted quicker and gave LeTren a head-butt that sent him falling back a few steps.

In the act of LeTren falling back, Nibarr ripped LeTren’s sword out of his grip and held both swords.

“Now what will you do? You have no sword now!”

He tossed it back to LeTren, who caught it and lunged back at Nibarr, who just sidestepped at the last second. This surprised LeTren who fell on the ground and rolled away to avoid an overhead chop that would have, no doubt, left him mortally wounded. He came back to his feet and had to parry another overhead chop, but Nibarr was the stronger and forced LeTren back down to the ground.

Nibarr attempted a third overhead chop that forced LeTren to roll away, regain his footing in the roll and attempt a blind backward thrust. Had he not been such a great swordsman, Nibarr surely would have been impaled. He just sprang backward and waited for LeTren to turn back around.

He rushed at him and LeTren was almost caught in surprise, but managed to kick Nibarr in the left knee, sending him down to one knee. LeTren took advantage and punched him in the head, sending Nibarr to the ground for the first time in the fight. Unfortunately, as soon as he went down, he came back up and laughed in his face.

“The sun will be up soon,” he said, and charged after LeTren.

Part six:

“You’d better finish me off, my companions may wake up soon,” Nibarr cried at LeTren.

The sun was starting to rise, and the two had been fighting for hours. LeTren knew he wouldn’t be able to defeat Nibarr, even though neither suffered any significant wounds. Both elves were clearly exhausted, but refused to let up even the slightest bit of intensity.

“Too bad no one will know of our battle! Too bad no one will witness your death at my hands!”

“Say what you want Nibarr, but I will not die today!”

With that said, the battle continued. Or so Nibarr thought, he went for another attack, but was instantly stuck in place, then lightning coursed through every part of him, and he fell to the floor, dead.

Part seven:

Faric cleared Pelagiad and was getting too close to Vivec. He started to worry that he might miss the bandits.

“LeTren, where are you?”

As he came to another crossroads, he contemplated going southwest through the mountains, then back southeast towards Vivec, but decided to continue on past the mountains. But as luck would have it, as soon as he started walking again, he heard voices and steel clattering on steel. It was coming from within the mountain.

At last, he thought, that must be LeTren fighting.

He made his way up the mountain pass, and entered the cave to see LeTren fighting another Dark Elf. He could tell his brother wouldn’t last long. He cast a paralytic spell over the attacker and sent a moderate amount of energy into a lightning orb, killing the Dunmer.

“Faric!” exclaimed the tired Elf, “There are two more sleeping in the other room.”

Faric entered the room and saw them. Too bad they were no longer sleeping. Rather, they were fully armored and had weapons in their hands. Faric cast a minor lightning spell, and ran out of the chamber to join his brother.

The brutes followed him, but didn’t see their Dark Elf captive slip past to the side. LeTren stabbed the Orc in the back of the neck, instantly ending his life. The Nord took notice and backhanded the Elf to the ground, but before he could finish him off, was enveloped in fire and fell to the ground a heap of charred bones and armor.

“Come, Tren. We can report your success in defeating the Rough Merchants.”

“You defeated them,” LeTren replied, “You did brother, I didn’t.”

“Nevertheless Tren, we should return to Balmora to tell Culuma our success.”

“Sorry, I won’t be going. Gah-Ju and I will be leaving this cruel land and head to Cyrodiil for a better living.”

Faric just stared at his brother. “Have it your way, brother. I’ll see you there, someday.”

Then he whispered under his breath. Someday.

Interesting. Well, I'll follow my own advice and try to point out what I liked, and what I felt could have been improved. I'll start with the good.

There's a lot going on. You've managed to get quite a complicated plot into 2,500 words, and several characters. The plot itself is interesting, with a couple of twists and turns, and it has a good pace throughout. The jumping back and forth between characters adds nicely to the tension, especially towards the end, when we know his brother is coming for him. I was wondering if he'd get there in time, or whether he'd turn up too late. Your willingness to cause serious damage to Gah-Ju also added to the unpredictability, I was never entirely sure that LeTren would get out unscathed, and again that helped to increase the tension and made me want to keep reading. Basically it's a nice idea, done in an effective way, that rattled along at a fair old pace.

There were some areas that I thought could have been better though. First up, the dialogue. There was too much, for lack of a better way of putting it, B Movie action dialogue. This is a problem especially in the scenes with Faric. I'm going to quote a couple of brief sections here:






In a short story, pretty much every word has to count. You want to get as much detail about the characters across (that's relevant and adds to the story) as you can. The dialogue above didn't really give me much to work with. It's like the dialogue in a Schwarzenegger film, one liners after an action. "Consider this a divorce." "I'll be back." etc etc. It doesn't really add anything, and it comes across as a bit cheesy. So I do think that the dialogue could have been improved.

My last areas that I would have liked to see done in a bit more detail are the lead character's interior thoughts. I suspect that the word limit had something to do with this. We get action after action, which is quite exciting, but it loses its impact. The reason for this is that the characters themselves don't have time to reflect on what's happening. You built up tension quite well to be honest, but the tension could have been cranked up far more if we'd been allowed to really care and get to feel for the characters. When we don't know what they're thinking, it's hard to really feel for them. You end up hoping they'll win because we know they're the good guys. I'd have preferred fully thought out characters, rather than character types (i.e. good guys and bad guys).

My criticisms here could be quite easily solved, especially as you're no longer tied down to a word limit. It would be fascinating to see this reworked into a slightly longer piece. To be honest I feel 2,500 words wasn’t enough to really explore the story, as you did decide on a large scale plot with several characters. I hope to read more

Thanks! I might try to lengthen it out later. (I've got a few 'projects' under way right now, though.)

As far as Faric goes, would changing his out loud dialogue into thought be less "Schwarzenegger?"

To me, it just happened to work out that LeTren was never given long amounts of time to himself. Especially when he was fighting.


LeTren and Gah-Ju are involved in a sequel I've been writing since the contest was still on. With the breaks and events that have happened in it so far, he has a lot more inner thought. Also, its plot is a lot better suited to the 'word limit' being that there is none.

So these guys were looking for the bandit hideout and were caught, right? Why did the bandits want to keep them alive for interrogation? Why do they need to hear that "We're coming to take your stuff!" from a tresspassing Argonian and Dark Elf?

Ok, why is he cautious about approaching a tied up guy? He ought to be agressive and beating the confession out of him. Then you threw me off the wagon by saying the guy drew his dagger, but then the one tied up was only knocked out. I dunno, but I don't expect a person would knock someone out with an unsheathed dagger.

The part about giants made me wonder as well, since giants are another creature in the TES world. I figured you must have meant the orc and nord were very tall, but the only one you called tall was the dark elf, so that wasn't it. Is that a part of the story you were meaning to expand upon?

He has the guy on the ground and he threatens to kill him where he stands? It doesn't seem like you meant it in a humorous way either, you mentioned just before with Faric that this wasn't a time for humor in the story.

And then later, why didn't LeTren kill the three when he had the chance? Right when he got up?

Fighting for a couple hours? Swordfights or fistfights where I've been sparring, I was fairly worn out after fifteen minutes straight with no intention of hurting someone badly or doing any dramatic moves. A couple hours seems longer than reasonable for someone to get the upper hand. The problem with swordsmen is, the better they are the quicker the fight would be over.

It removes the horror of the situation a bit to come out and state how the orc is just eating parts of the argonian, if you held that information back until LeTren escaped and found out for himself it would give a better shock. Have LeTren hear all these horrible screams of torture in the background. Then again, are you really going to stay quiet about your purpose in some awful cave if a guy is literally eating your hands and feet in front of you? And you stay quiet while he takes off each one and leaves you bleeding? The guy is amazingly calm just after becoming a triple amputee.

Roll on, good sir.

Some of your criticisms don't make sense.
1) He wasn't tied up yet.
2) The Dunmer(Nibarr) knocked him out, not the Nord.
3) Even a tall Dark Elf would be short compared to a Nord and Orc.
4) Obviously he'd have to stand back up if he were to steal again.
5) He only got a hand eaten. The feet thing was just him kidding.

Are you sure he wasn't tied up yet? (I know you're the author) The reason I ask is because it doesn't seem reasonable to question someone about their motives in that manner when their friend is knocked unconscious right beside them, is there no struggle? I assumed he was tied up because you say directly that he is in the third chapter and it didn't seem appropriate for him to have been unrestrained before with the dialogue. If he was taking part of an effort to find this cave then, why weren't he and his fellow more prepared for these circumstances? Their goal it seems was to hunt these Rough Merchants.

Number two is not in question.

Even in game mechanics other than Daggerfall a dark elf of above average height would be very comparable to a nord or orc. In Daggerfall however the orcs were noticably shorter than most other races, which is why I made the distinction. Either way, giant would be a much more appropriate term if the guy was a wood elf or short in stature. A person of six feet doesn't consider a person of six feet four inches a giant.

Not even considering the temperament of the ordinator and his system of warnings, it doesn't strike you as odd to consider the position of a man or beast during capture? An ordinator in my opinion which you may well disagree with wouldn't consider this thief a worthy enough citizen to stand up to his death or to take responsibility for his life and stop stealing. Put an edge of religious zeal on him, I would think, demean him in some way.

For the last one, I honestly read that part a couple times before commenting and I didn't get that he still had his feet. When he said only my left hand is gone in a joking manner I took it to mean "I still have my right".

1) “Ah, he wouldn’t have told you the truth anyway,” the tall Dark Elf replied, “I’ll tie him up, but if you want to interrogate someone, you might want to see if his friend is awake.”

2) Maybe they are tall even for an Orc and Nord. I guess an adjective or two describing their heights should have also made it in there. That or I may have meant lanky, not tall for describing Nibarr, but never changed it. (I don't remember now to be honest.)

3) Just as the story starts at the conclusion of the "interrogation" of LeTren, Faric only saw the end of the confrontation. More could, and should be implied to, have happened.

4) but you get it now, right?

As far as "Number two is not in question." goes. Does that mean I clarified it?

Got it.

The nord and orc are both given fairly short parts in the story, just expanding upon them and their business would take care of it pretty well.

Sure

I get it now that you told me what it was, perhaps you should accentuate the joke in the story by having the Argonian sitting there picking his feet when he tells LeTren he doesn't have them.

I always thought it was Nibarr who knocked him out. I see now that the confusion came about because you didn't establish who the leader of the group was from the start, so I assumed it was the same person doing everything at the beginning and the others only joined in once he had taken action.

Noted.


Oh...

Thanks!