seek and ye shall find [solo]

[Vendredi]

There was no sun into the cellar, and no good way to tell time. For Fii, it felt like forever since the slavers went back to their game, leaving him to hang with the dead.

Rat woke up with a moan somewhere between the first and tenth hour after they were captured. Fii was meditating his own failures, nails digging into his own thighs, growing angrier and angrier with every thought. He could pick the lock. He might even be able to escape. And then what? Leave Rat here, and pretend that he had saw nothing, heard nothing today? Where’s your recklessness now, Firelis Tyv’ern?

Shock had numbed him to action. He was distraught.

Fii looked up, and caught Rat’s slowly clearing eyes. Perhaps Fii should leave Rat here. It would greatly improve Fii’s own chances. Slavers. Ha. And they claimed his mother was one of them. The world seemed to have turned on its head today, and Fii wasn’t sure where that left him. As a slaver’s stock.

Hunger gnarled in Fii’s belly. It must have been a full day since he last ate, but even his own spit tasted bitter. Rat, now finally alert, was rattling on the cage bars, drawing the slavers’ attention with his blind panic. The slavers looked up. One of them smiled. The rest were laying down their cards. Something was about to happen.

The next hour was one of the longest in Fii’s short, seventeen years.

One by one, the children were all uncaged, and their wrists snapped into thick manacles with long, dragging chains. The youngest few were tied to the older ones’ backs. Fii and Rat went last, and they completed the lineup. The chained line were theren shown to a tunnel hidden behind the cages. They stumbled through it, and the slavers prodded them to hurry every other step. The other end of the tunnel led to a shack. The outside of the shack was an area with near the city walls that looked terribly familiar.

Night had fallen, covering the land under a canvas of black nothingness. Tonight was a moonless night, and even the stars seemed dim with an absence of light. Other than the chain-gang and the slavers, there was no sign of any living thing within the vicinity.

With the ease of those who had done this a thousand times before, the slavers directed the children to the city walls, to the tunnel that arched over a ditch. Two men stood guard, while the others led the chain of children through.

Ha, Fii thought. There was something sardonic about the situation. He was leaving the city how he entered. This time, however, he stepped right into the ditch of rotting foliage and fetid wastes, and felt the slime reach his knees. He should be disgusted, but disgust wasn’t coming. Disgust was as far away to him as this morning had been, and almost as far away as reality seemed right now.

[Vendredi]

Two additional men were waiting on the other side of the city walls. They were hooded and cloaked, and each carried a sword easily the size of Fii’s arm. The sight of them almost made Fii despair. Two more, on top of the original four. Perhaps he should have attempted running sooner, and left Rat to Y’edda and fate. Perhaps he should do it now. Run, and never look back.

The new men brought a horse-cart that had been boarded up completely with wood, and a few more horses to spare. The slavers were loading the children in now, with the two newcomers standing guard. at both sides of the wagon. In front, Rat looked to be shivering violently. Out of fear, mayhaps, or something else.

Suddenly, Fii was struck with the thought that this was a first time for Rat, too, and Rat was in this boat because of Fii. For a moment, Fii felt guilty for even thinking about leaving Rat here.

Today, he was learning that he had less honour than the little he thought he had, that he would abandon friend and innocents both to the guillotine if it meant his own life.

Today was a day for learning uncomfortable truths, and Fii did not like what he was learning.

Suddenly, Rat stilled and shuddered. Then, in an instant, Rat was free and had leapt away, leaving behind a pair of manacles that had snapped open, Without sparing Fii a single glance, Rat made for the rolling hills that span before before the city. Unfortunately, his dash for freedom did not go unnoticed.

“What are you--” one of the slavers began, but did not have the opportunity to finish.

“Go,” Fii screamed. With a surge of strength that he did not know he had, Fii swang the thick chain attached to his manacle. It struck the slaver who spoke on the back of the head. It must have struck hard, because the man wobbled and fell. That caught the attention of the rest of them, and they came running.

I’ll regret this. Fii already did. The sudden action had shaken off some part of the fog that had taken hold of his mind. He was half-rooted in the moment, though the rest of reality still felt distant.

When the first fist descended upon Fii, Fii gave as good as he’s got. He ducked, burrowed forward, and pushed with his entire core. That sent the man in front of him stumbling back, but there were two more behind him. The cloaked figures were also closing in. Fii grunted. He swung back, rising his manacles wrists and bringing the sharp metal down upon the stumbling man’s skull. That earned a cry, but it also earned him a jab to the thigh as one of the men behind him unsheathed a knife.

Involuntarily, Fii sunk to his knees. He clenched his teeth and steeled his back, and bit back a sudden scream as something thick and rough struck his neck. The man in front of him had managed to stand, looking mad with fury.

The hooded figures were upon them. Fii felt a shudder of fear, but adrenaline roared thickly in Fii’s veins.

He was no warrior. He was a thief. He held no illusions of grandeur, and some part of his mind knew this was a losing battle. Even so, when push came to shove, Fii wasn’t the giving up sort.

The next blow was a sock to the side of his head. It sent Fii sprawling into the ground. He could taste the tangy saltiness of blood in his mouth. HIs eyes stang. His ears rang. His mind threatened to go blank. Fii could hear the sound of swords being drawn at the back. They mean to see me dead. Despite that, Fii struggled to get to his feet.

The anticipated blow never came.

Behind his back came the sound came the strangled cry of the slavers. It took every ounce of strength left in his weary frame to bring himself to a stand and to turn. His body quivered. When he did, Fii was treated to the sight of a real battle. The hooded figures had turned on the slavers.

Two of the slavers were already down, with wounds that sunk deep into their torsos seeping blood. The other two were engaged in fierce battles, knife and staff locked tight with the hooded figures’ swords.

Confusion rained upon Fii’s every pore, seeping into his eyes and clogging his throat until he was drowning in it.

Then one of the men -- the slaver with the staff -- jerked back, untangling his staff from the hooded figure’s chokehold. Instead, the slaver surged towards Fii. The momentum of the movement threw back the stranger’s hood. A familiar face was now bare to the world.

Father, Fii mouthed in horror, before his own body dived down and forward, and a bout of dizzy vertigo overtook him, and there was nothing but darkness --

[Vendredi]

When Fii woke up, he was in his father’s arms, and how he got there was no mystery. The night had bled away into earning morn’, and they were no longer outside of the city walls. They were back at the farmhouse, in the same room he had slept the prior night. The large arms cradling him felt like safety and home and peace, but safety and home and peace did little to quiet the niggling worm in Fii’s mind.

“What happened?” Fii managed, when his tongue was finally in working order. His father pushed a skin of water to his lips. Fii drank. “How’d--how’d you find me?”

“You weren’t home by nightfall, boy.” His father’s voice was coarse and tired, and his eyes were bloodshot, as though the man hadn’t slept for a day and a night. The man probably hadn’t. “So we went looking. That information dealer you like so much told us where you went a-hunting for your mother’s trail. Introduced us to some people."

His father shifted. Fii sipped his water.

"Broke a few fingers. Made a couple o’ threats. Wasn’t too hard to get ourselves hired as their new bodyguards after. That group’s been doing it for a while, but won’t be slaving anymore, after last night. They’ve barely got a breath left between them.” The smile on his father’s face was far from reassuring. “Don’t do that again, boy.”

Sheepishness colored Fii’s ears red. “Sorry,” he mumbled, face down.

Then, “Did you know? That this is what mother does?”

“No.” Then father laughed, and it was a croaking, dry sound. “But we’re mercenaries. I’m not surprised. Your old woman’s always been a mysterious one.” Then, hesitation. “But she’s a good woman.”

Fii pushed himself to sit, and his father let him, large arms pulling away as Fii propelled himself to lean against his father’s side.

He could not reconcile it. The same woman who sang him lullabies to sleep was a woman who would… who would what? Slit the throats of children under the cloak of the night?

“Why didn’t you look for her?” Fii whispered, instead.

“Where would we start?” A sigh. An old, faraway look. “Never told you, but we always knew she’d be leaving. She came tellin’ us she’d be going someday. Your mother’s a special one. Some sort of destiny. Never knew if she was running to it, or running from it.”

Hesitation, again. “She left a locket. You should have it.”

A beat of silence. Then another.

“I have to know,” Fii whispered, fingers clenching the his father’s sleeves so tightly he must have left stains upon them. “I have to.”

He wasn’t sure what it was that he had to know. He wasn’t sure what he meant. There was a niggle in his mind that itched unbearably at the thought of not knowing, and there was a whisper in his soul that rankled with desperation at the thought of staying still. He liked himself much less today than he liked himself yesterday, and he needed to know who Fii was and if he would like Fii tomorrow. He liked his mother much less today than he liked her yesterday, and perhaps he had to reconcile the woman he thought he knew with the woman she was, and he did not know who she was.

Stop judging. Stop thinking.

The older man gazed down at Fii for a long time without speaking. Fii wondered when his father’s hair had turned grey. Was it recent? His father was a man nearing his fifth decade, and it had been years since Fii had looked at him carefully.

For a moment, Fii cursed that spoiled, selfish child he had been, that he might still be, demanding attention, demanding answers, demanding the world to fall to its knees in front of his foolish egotism.

Then, his father nodded. Once. Twice. “Yes, you do.”

---

“Goodbye, father,” Fii said, standing once again in front of the abandoned farmhouse. He was dressed and geared for a longer journey this time. There were coins in his pouch and clothes in his pack, knifes in his boots, and a locket that pulsed with heat against his chest, beneath his shirt. There was a touch more humility and less arrogance in his demeanor.

“Stay safe, son.” The man’s face was stern, and visibly tired.

There was a touch of awkwardness in the farewell. Awkwardness from both of them, for both of them. How long had it been since the pair of them spoke so genially? How long would it be before they spoke again, if ever?

“I’ll find my way back,” Fii promised, half to himself. “Once I have my answers.” He wasn’t sure what, or how, or when, or even what his questions were, but he believed it nonetheless.

A pause. “Yes.”

Complete.

[Sulla]

Seek and Ye Shall Find [Solo]
Writer(s): Vendredi

Plot (18 / 30)

Honestly, your biggest issue in this category was pacing. That’s not to say it was some egregious error on your part - I actually really enjoyed what I was reading. But when I find myself so engrossed in something, pacing can quickly turn sour the experience. In this case, the story felt as though it moved too quickly, too fluidly, and far too nearly. Up until Firelis and Rat snuck into the granary’s basement, there wasn’t a lot of time taken to build up tension. Firelis’ initial search for his mother seemed to leave him empty handed, in terms of narrative, but it only took another sentence of dialogue with Rat’s mother to secure some information from her, and then the contact he met was only mentioned in passing. This made the beginning almost a breeze to get through, but with such an ominous note in your opener, I was hoping for a bit more mystery throughout the thread. For the most part, it became travel from place to place, with Firelis unsure but the audience fully aware that his investigation was not fruitless. While you don’t need to describe every meeting and dead end, I think it would have be wise to invest some more time in trying to build these things up. You can tell the audience your character is sullen or frustrated with how things are proceeding, but you’ll get much more impact with the readers by allowing them to come to their own conclusion by empathizing with your protagonist’s struggle. Finding nothing inside the granary’s interior was a good hint at that, but if you stretched it out even a few more sentences, perhaps him hearing an unanswered echo from his footfalls (or whatever imagery you’d want to throw in), it allows the reader to really imagine being there, and the hopelessness of the situation.

I will say, however, that from the entrance into the basement until the final post, you found that happy medium in between slowburn and breakneck action. Well done on your part.

As far as the story goes, it was a fairly standard trope at the beginning that took on a more sinister turn as time went by. I enjoyed the reveal near the denouement, but felt it would have been more impactful with just a bit more time explaining Firelis’ relationship with his mother. You don’t need to get bogged down in flashbacks or anything, but perhaps a few more lines of dialogue between Rat and Firelis (which would have helped build some character between the two), with Firelis using the excuse to shift focus away from his companion’s constant chattering. Even something as meager as a familiar site where he’d seen his mother only a few days before could have added more potency or urgency to his cause. As it stands, I understand his actions, but find it slightly difficult to put myself in his place. Most people have mothers (parents, really), but knowing a little more about Firelis’ would make his single-minded foolishness easier to comprehend. His people are often away, hired as sellswords, muscle, and agents for others, how often did his mother leave? Was she gone for lengths at a time? Long-stretches? Leaving a vague note might be strange, but not if she had a particularly long job that she had to take right away. Knowing just a bit more about her habits allows the audience to better situate themselves with Firelis’ dilemma. As it stands, it would be easy to misinterpret Firelis’ single-minded foolishness for a bit of an overreaction.

That all said, I really enjoyed the bits of backstory you did treat us to. The matron, Rat, Firelis’ people, the slums - it all worked its way well into the setting.

Speaking of your setting, despite it seeming sparse at times, I thought you did a remarkably good job at keeping it light, but very descriptive. The sewer and where it lead, the streets itself, and that dark chamber beneath the granary felt fairly fleshed out, though I only wish your character had a bit more time to interact with it (he did in the sewer, and it was very gross, haha). The one scene I had trouble with was the passing mention of Rat and Firelis using rooftops as a means of travel. This wasn’t particularly bad, it’s just that I had only the description of the decrepit slum houses from earlier to go on, and while I know that the entire city is not made up of them, I had to fill in the gap in my mind with something that wouldn’t have given way to the weight of the two boys (I chose the red tile roofs from Assassin’s Creed 2).

Character (17 / 30)

There’s was a bit of an issue with you telling and not showing throughout the thread, nothing major, but was it distracting at times. Rat spoke a lot, that was evident. I knew fairly quickly that he was the type of person to fill a silence only he found awkward with meaningless chatter. But on more than one occasion you pointed out his habit of being a pest and rather talkative. Having that point hammered home so often is superfluous when you’ve already done a fairly impeccable job describing a character in only the dialogue his uses. Firelis, too, was a bit muddled in this. I could see his frustration and sulleness without having it spelled out for me, but this is really a minor issue. When it came to Firelis’ father, I thought you were much more successfully succinct. You managed to hint at a vulnerability behind his strength, and also stuff him full of personality with only his actions and words. Just try to keep in mind you clearly have the wonderful ability to flesh out a character without using too much of the narration on descriptors. It’s a remarkable knack you have, so play with it a bit more, and I’ve no doubt you could make the characters come alive.

There wasn’t too much dialogue given the length of the quest, but I greatly appreciate it when someone does an excellent job making their character’s sound distinct from one and other. The slavers, Firelis’, his father, and Rat were written differently enough that I could probably have guessed who was speaking without being told, simply by rhythm, word choice, or an inkling of dialect thrown in.

More of a complaint for me here was the slavers. I understand Firelis’ didn’t know too much about them, that third-person limited is (of course) limited, and that they weren’t going to expand on themselves with some sob stories of what drove them into a life of slaving, but they felt a bit strawmanish, or cartoonishly evil. This part relates a bit to story, but why exactly were they killing children who had gotten too old to be slaves? I have to imagine it’s a sex thing to particular clientele, but really, how many slaves would they need that they needed more than a handful of chattel. Certainly, adults function far more usefully for any type of manual labor and would probably fetch a better price when it came to most people looking for that type of work. It just seems like the slavers had found themselves in a niche market, and rather than expand their profits, they killed off stock. Which would be fine, if I knew who they were dealing to, and if I knew it was impossible to sneak slaves out to other buyers who would want older children, but I don’t. What I do know is they took some sick pleasure in killing “unsellable” goods, and that just seems unrealistic to me, especially when none of them took part in the actual act. Instead they played cards surrounded by hanging, freshly killed bodies (which would stink despite being recent, because of bile and refuse that would expel on death, mind you), which goes away from the idea of the banality of evil, and straight into some sort of Dreadfort situation. Even worse than this implied (and somewhat hackneyed) monstrosity they exhibit, was their sheer stupidity. There was no one guarding the entrance to the granary, no one guarding the entrance to the basement, they’d set up their table as far from the one entrance where intruders might arrive (with plenty of darkness and obscuring objects in the way, and they didn’t check on the hooded guards that met them at the entrance way (which makes me question why the guards are so strict at the gate, but fail at patrolling around the walls). When these kind of questions arise, I can’t even fathom how the managed to sneak off with their victims in the first place, unless it was bolting through the streets Three Stooges’ style.

You did a fairly good job with your protagonist and the friendly NPCs surrounding him, but you should work on your villains to the same degree. If they’re bad at what they do, make it more evident, but if they’re a real threat, try to treat the reader to more glimpses of that. Think about what you would do in their place, as you do for Firelis, and I guarantee you’ll have yourself a much more rounded story, and a much greater obstacle for your main character to overcome.

Prose (19 / 30)

Your mechanics were nearly tight, but I caught a few typos - though mostly in the end. This is understandable, as we all get a little sloppy when the finish line is in sight. You managed to weave in quite a bit of imagery despite the length of the story, though I do wish you did it a bit more. The granary, standing alone from the city and more massive than it had any right to be underground, and the sewer, visited twice and nearly knee deep - these were especially well done.

I won’t prod too much into this category, because I think you have a fairly firm grasp of both the basic and more advanced notions of writing. But I will make just a few suggestions.

When it came to the slaver ring at the end, I think you missed a real opportunity at foreshadowing what would occur. The Matron, who dealt in gossip, could have mentioned something, perhaps within earshot, of people going missing. If you didn’t want to be that opaque, then Firelis’ first entrance into the slums around the sewer could have had some more chattering amongst the locals. Perhaps a nearby mother slips her child behind her, or ushers her back into the hovel while giving one last suspicious look back to the protagonist. As it stood, I figured fairly quickly that the creatures inside the cages were people, because I’ve read it before. But if you lay some more foundation before that happens, that reveal moment packs quite a bit more power as it dawns on the reader. Just keep this in mind for the future.

At times, your writing had a bit of a lyrical quality to it, at least in terms of pacing, rests, and flow. It’s hard to really pinpoint, but if you read it aloud to yourself after writing it, it becomes a bit more apparent. I found these hints particularly pleasing, as it helps move the thread along while working within a certain aesthetic. All I can add to this is to try to play it up as a strength. The use of alliteration will certainly ease itself into the style very well, and playing with that would make things all the more successful.

Wildcard (10 / 10)

While there were certainly some flaws, I really enjoyed this story, especially the ending. I’m quite looking forward to reading your work in the future, especially if it continues the search for Firelis’ mother, and hints even more at the destiny that was mentioned for her.

Total Score: (64 / 100)
EXP: 1332 1,360 (Judge's Discretion)
GP: 175

Spoils Granted: “An ivory locket, circular, with some sort of an emblem engraved on top of it. The emblem showed a winged horse, and a banner with words of an unknown language. Nothing magical.”

[Logan]

EXP and GP Added!