6 replies to this topic

[Grantaire]

-=-

Two vahki walking up a hill
one's shot and one's left standing still
I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind
The Hunters have come in the night
now’s your time to flee or fight

-=-

Welcome to the review topic of Survive, a short epic set in the Toa/Dark Hunter war. For those of you who venture into the RPG forum, you may have noticed that my RPG, Strike From the Shadows, is set during the same time and has the same introduction song. This is not a coincidence; this writing is a sister work of that RPG, and is meant to cover the story of my character in that RPG, namely Eyra. This Epic will probably be discontinued once I reach the point in story where the RPG begins, but will be continued should the RPG win with what is essentially an RPing nerative turned into a story. It should be interesting.

The first part of chapter one, if no one could tell, was written almost a year ago, and has only minor changes done.

Reviews and whatnot will be greatly appreciated.

-Eyra's profile-

Name: Eyra
Gender: Male.
Species: Toa.
Faction: Metru Nui Protectorate.
Kanohi: Rahi Control.
Element: Sonics.
Appearance: An average sized toa, a little on the thin side. Eyra wears silver and dark grey armor, with a mask that bears great resemblance to both a great Huna and Kakama.
Powers: Sonics.

Abilities: Eyra is a skilled archer, has great skills in the forest, including fire making and trapping. Lastly, he is a fairly good athlete, and can wield a flail, as well as some other weapons such as the standard mace, the spear, or the sword.
Weapons: Eyra wields as primary weapon a recurve bow, full 80 pounds although sightless. He carries a short mace and chain for a secondary weapon: an eight inch long handle of lightweight metal with a comfortable rubber grip, a spike at the base. A chain of tempered steel a foot in length comes out of the top, ending in a flanged mace-head. His arrows are tipped with blunted weaken heads that work similar to a high powered weaken disk, able to render a being as large as a vortixx unable to move for several hours.

Other Equipment: Eyra carries a small backpack of a durable material. It is filled with several hundred replacement arrow heads, just in case no one in Metru Nui can produce them, an unlikely situation due to the kanoka production there.
Personality: Eyra is slightly unsure of himself, especially of his status as a toa. A former hunter and practically a hermit, he finds the shift to toahood unnerving and chaotic. He is rather shy, and get embarrassed at any forms of praise. However, his nerveousness hides a quiet but fierce determination to protect the matoran.
History: Eyra lived on the northern continent in a small village of matoran. More accurately, he lived in a small hut near the village. A recluse out of shyness, he watched the going ons in the village with detached interest. A hunter and gardener, he needed very little aside from what he could grow or kill, and sometimes traded with the village. However, after the toa of the village was killed by a group of wild Kane Ra, he was forced to watch the activities of the village with a little less detachment. For years the toa had combated the rahi, and Eyra had only considered him a nuisance and a competition. Now however, he noticed that the other matoran in the village were nowhere near as good at repulsing rahi as he was. So, completely silently, he began stepping into the role of the toa. An expert archer and a skilled hunter, he was an adequate replacement. The matoran never even knew who was responsible for the sudden lack of rahi, until one day he had to fight off a particularly large rahi encroachment, which forced him almost into the village itself. There was no chance of hiding after that, as the matoran and their turaga insisted on throwing a celebration for their (now thoroughly embarrassed) protector. Fortunately for him, life resumed as was normal, although now he was known to the matoran, and often forced to join them for this thing or that. Over ten years later, a toa from the outside responded to the turaga’s plea for another toa; namely by sending a toa stone with the name Eyra engraved on it. The toa was a clairvoyant and had only recently completed his destiny, becoming a turaga. Strangely, Eyra looked at it from the point of view of a hunter, and disliked the size and the fact that he had to greatly upgrade the size of his bow. However, he soon began to enjoy the added help his element gave him. And when his turaga finally got him to be able to use his mask, he found it almost perfect; mask of rahi control equaled no rahi threats after all. He insisted in only using it to keep the more dangerous rahi at bay, hunting the others. Even so, the challenge became less and less. Accustomed to the daily challenge of survival, he was at a loss against the thing known as boredom. Fortunately, he had only been enduring this for a short whole before another toa wandered into the village, a drizzled traveler named Rahkan. He settled down there at the request of the turaga, even though the village was hardly in need of more protection. He became Eyra’s mentor, coaching him in everything from hand to hand combat to elemental control. Boredom was quickly slain by the constant training. Hardly five years later, the toa received a summon, and left for Metru Nui soon after along with over a hundred other toa.

(Optional) Notes:

Edited by Zarayna: The Quiet Light, Jun 21 2012 - 09:00 PM.

[thebeggerpie]

This...is pretty awesome so far.

[fishers64]

I liked you bringing details into the Toa/Dark Hunter war. One slight thing that bothered me was the lack of capitalization of words such as "Toa" and "Kakama", but that's probably just a stylistic choice more than anything else.

[Grantaire]

Sorry, Kakama is an error. However, toa being a species name here, I don't use it. I will however, capitalized it when it refers to a toa like a title (for instance someone yelling 'Toa!' to a passing toa).

[Aderia]

(+) Setting - Awesome setting. Gotta love the Toa/Dark Hunter War. So far, you've portrayed it well and uniquely.

(-) Redundancy - As Tyler put it once, "Omg, let me put my shocked face on". A Toa of Sonics with a bow. :shockedface:

(-) Semi-colon overkill - Yes, I know you're almost as elite as Legolover when it comes to being a Grammar Nazi, but you don't have to rub it in.

(+) Dialogue - Very good, it set the tone for the war-theme in the story.

(-) Typoes - Ahahaha, you and your typoes. Oh well. We're all human.

"We have been spotted! half dozen Hunter, they came out of nowhere. My bet is that they've been watching uGH-"

Capitalize 'half', pluralize 'Hunter', and decide what 'uGH' is supposed to be, because IMO, it looks awkward with a small 'u' and capital 'GH'

The water churned as the sand underneath congealed and rose and, lo! To the half astonished eyes of the waiting Hunters [...]

So, I acknowledge the originality of your use of the exclamation 'lo!', but stepping from the middle of a beach-storming in the Matoran Universe, into old english for two letters and an exclamation point really threw me off there. Just thought I'd point that out.

It was passably the first respite he had gained since landing, and full hour ago. The toa had gained the beach almost an hour ago, and the fighting had spread into the general area, although it was more duels and sniping wars than a full fledged battle.

"Passably" to "possibly", I'm guessing, 'and' to 'a', and you stated that the Toa landed an hour ago twice in two sentences, which is once too many times, IMO.

"Our team leader got killed in the water, how should I know what our forces are planning?"

Meh, that just sounds weird coming out of the mentor's mouth. "Our team leader's been", or "Our team leader was" just sounds more mentor-ish to me.

"no, we'll just continue on; if we meet up with any other landing forces, we'll stick with them. [...]

"no" needs capitalized.

And that's all I caught, for now.

(+) Power Optimization - The way you had the Toa pooling their powers was very well done. Like, a team of Kakama users, the team of Water Toa pulling a Red Sea in that one scene, all very good. I look forwards to seeing more of this genius.

Other than that, there's not much I can say for the first chapters. Keep up the good work, Zar.

[Grantaire]

(-) Redundancy - As Tyler put it once, "Omg, let me put my shocked face on". A Toa of Sonics with a bow. :shockedface:

Usually it's a toa of iron with a bow that I use, and he's an assassin, not a good character.

Hey, what can I say, I like bows.

(-) Semi-colon overkill - Yes, I know you're almost as elite as Legolover when it comes to being a Grammar Nazi, but you don't have to rub it in.

But... Semicolons are our friends.

Capitalize 'half', pluralize 'Hunter', and decide what 'uGH' is supposed to be, because IMO, it looks awkward with a small 'u' and capital 'GH'

It was the leftover of an effect I abandoned.

So, I acknowledge the originality of your use of the exclamation 'lo!', but stepping from the middle of a beach-storming in the Matoran Universe, into old english for two letters and an exclamation point really threw me off there. Just thought I'd point that out.

Blame me for having recurring flashbacks of the last play I was in.

"Passably" to "possibly", I'm guessing, 'and' to 'a', and you stated that the Toa landed an hour ago twice in two sentences, which is once too many times, IMO.

I meant passably.

Anyways, thanks for the review. Unless I decide to extend it, the second chapter should be up very soon.

[Aderia]

Hey there stranger! Official ECC review here for you =D

Now, since I already reviewed chapter 1, I’m just gonna pick up where I left off. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Big blocks of text in Chapter 2, they kill. Almost literally, since you’re a literalist. I have on the print-out, written in big red pen, “Huge blocks of text = BAD”, just for the record.

So, nitpicks first, as per usual.

From Chapter 2:

The toa who walked through Ta Metru looked everything other than the proud liberator he was supposed to be.

I found that wording to be a bit awkward, and in my head, wanted to read it as “looked like anything but”.

Now his mentor was waiting for him at the chute station on the coliseum’s island, and expecting him in less then an hour.

‘then’ to ‘than’, and ‘Coliseum’ should be capitalized.

The corpse he had seen in the window in the morning had not been the first he had seen, and had left a long lasting sobering cloud over the young toa, used as he was to the death of rahi.

Okay, personally, I have an issue with the wording that I bolded, but my microsoft word document that’s helping me out here doesn’t. So I’ll just point it out to you.

Happily, he was almost done, and so Eyra did not have to wait long before Rahkan turned to him with a grunt.

I’m not entirely sure what ‘happily’ is doing there.

One Dark Hunter had [b]caused[/b] this entire ambush;

Meh, weird word choice, it sounds more like the Dark Hunter is being blamed for bringing the ambush upon his own party, rather than being the ambush, if you get what I’m trying to say.

[…]the standard honor obsessed toa.

Protesting against stereotypes here.

Propelled by anger, the toa of sound threw himself out from his cover.

‘toa of sound’, or whatever element is concerned, always looks better ‘Toa of Sound’, with the capital letter, in my opinion. I just wanted to bring it to attention.

The massive Hunter, several heads taller than a steltian, had just finished off the last vahki, tearing its head right off its shoulders.

‘steltian’ and ‘vahki’ are proper nouns, and would look better capitalized. Again, opinion, but worth mentioning.

[…] a blast of water slammed into him, sending him into a building’s wall, and congealing around him, turning solid. Eyra’s eyes widened in shock; this was not just a brute. He reached out with his power over sound, even as he began to grow faint from want of air. The trick was one of the first he learned: a high pitched scream shot through the Hunter’s ears, causing him to start, instinctively clasping his hands to his ears. In an instant, Eyra was on the ground, soaked by the no longer solid water, and gasping for breath.

Okay, you see those two bolded words/phrases? They’re hiding amid a mass of normal text. Yeah, it took me reading from Point A all the way to Point B to realize that the water itself turned solid, it wasn’t some weird freeze power, or like scab-water power.

Where was Rahkan? He asked desperately, that thought blocking out even the Hunter moving towards him.

Why is Eyra thinking in past tense?

Eyra’s eyes took in two important facts; first that his heartlight was beating, and second that judging from the wound in his side, it wasn’t likely to remain beating for very long unhelped.

Protesting against made up words here. ‘Unhelped’, really?

Grabbing the staff with both hands, Eyra managed to retain enough sense to block the first block from the ax with the staff.

I’m not entirely sure how you can block a block, so I quoted it and left it here in the review for you to ponder.

The Hunter seemed to sense this, approaching almost carelessly. As he stopped in front of him, his heavy foot careless knocked a body aside, drawing Eyra’s eyes down.

Normally, I would say ‘careless’ to ‘carelessly’, but that would give you two ‘carelessly’ in two sentences, which is one ‘carelessly’ too many, in which case, I suggest a thesaurus.

His eyes shot up, the deep green slit seeming to spark.

Singular/plural duel going on here, methinks.

From Chapter 3:

The throbbing pounded through his being, pounded into his very sound.

I’m not sure if that’s some Toa of Sonics joke, or if you mis-typed ‘soul’ or something, but it sounded funny to me.

Then the first tree stump met his gave.

‘Gaze’, mayhap? I’m not sure what you meant here. But I’m pretty sure tree stumps don’t meet people’s ‘gave’s.

Clenching his fists, he wondered: Where the heck am I? Was I teleported? He decided that he had not been teleported; the Huntress’s kanohi had been a Matatu.

Okay, more of a formatting error, but the thoughts should probably be un-italicized. And a question, is it really a Matatu, or plant-aroma induced visions, like a drug or whatever? Also, again with the capitalizing and ‘Kanohi’.

Eyra was faster however, regaining his [b]olhd on Rahkan.

‘olhd’ to ‘hold’, I presume.

Hypothesis: duties impeded. Conclusion: deactivate impeder for repair.” Had the toa of sonics heard that,[b] h would have certainly acted differently.

‘h’ to ‘he’, not to insult your intelligence, I know you know it goes there, I just didn’t to give you a nitpick quoteblock with no explanation.

Outside, Hordor was fighting off two rahkshi, with some difficulty.

Not sure where the Rahkshi came from. Also, it needs capitalized.

Also, the last two paragraphs in chapter 3, coding fails. But don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.

Okay, now onto the actual story. I feel kind of biased, since we’ve talked about this so much on chat and stuff, to be honest. I get to see Eyra’s character expand beyond this Epic in Strike from the Shadows, which is awesome, I think you’ve laid a really solid foundation for him so far. And I will also be looking forwards to seeing Rahkan’s character develop.

Also, I want to point out the places where you could have broken up your gi-normous blocks of text in Chapter 2, but I won’t because it would take too long. Thanks, by the way, for resolving that in Chapter 3.

In the General Discussion Library topic, this was touched upon, but the fact that this story is tied so closely to an RPG is good and bad. It draws in certain readers, SftS players in particular, and pushes others away, the non-RPG-ers, or so I’ve noticed. And not really even this story in particular, just RPG spinoffs in general.

Anyways, for the most part, your dialog flowed nicely between characters, smooth action and scene transitions too. There wasn’t much character development, but since they’re from your RPG, I’ll leave it be. Keep up the good work, Zarayna, and I look forwards to seeing how Eyra’s plotline wraps up in the end.

Edited by Aderia, Jul 07 2012 - 09:01 PM.