Trying my hand at imaginative writing. Comment plz!

err, Dorkelf, could you move the repost of Chapter 1 up to the previous spot? it's all out of order now, and I think that's kind of confusing to the reader.

[EDIT (Dorkelf): Done, sorry for the confusion. Wasn't sure whether or not you wanted the unrevised version to remain for comparison, didn't want to assume. Your revision has now replaced your original post.]

Edit: thanks, De :)
 
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[Chapter 3]

Mriiah sprawled over her bed. It was night, and the only light in the room came from a glass jar on a wicker basket beside the door. The fireworms inside glowed with a pale blue phosphorescence. She was supposed to be sleeping, but the temptation to look kept creeping up on her.

Her father had told her not to look at it, to try to forget what had happened. He had warned her not to let people see it. They might take it as the mark of a curse or something worse. But it still fascinated her.

Slowly, as if on their own, the slender fingers of her left hand wrapped around the long sleeve of her nightgown and pulled it up to just above her elbow. She could hardly see anything in the light, so she stretched one slim arm out towards the jar. In the dim light, she could make out a ring of twelve tiny symmetrical tooth marks. Directly in the middle of the ring the flesh she could make out a small round patch of punctured skin. It looked like a thousand tiny needles had entered her through the middle of the ring.

Which they had. Mriiah shivered involuntarily, even though the room was warm. The pain had been excruciating – the feeling of a thousand tiny blades swimming through her arm, looking for light, looking for life, or maybe for food –

Tonight would be the last night in her Mama’s home, the last for a long while. They were sending her to the White Corter to meet with the Counsel of Five. She had been told that the Five would tell her what to do about the mark. A Flower’s Bite, they had called it. A corruption of the Life Weaving – whatever that meant. She scoffed to herself in the dark. She couldn’t stand them. They called themselves the Elders, but they didn’t even know what the Flower’s Bite meant. That’s why she had to leave behind all the things that she loved – Mama, her father, and even little Tob, her infant brother. That’s why she had to abandon her friends, to pull up roots, to lose the life that she loved here in Mach’s Corter. And Lisce.

The last thought came unbidden to her mind. Why was she thinking of him? Again. Why was she thinking of him again?

Because he had been there. Because he had been the one to pull her from the surreal fires that had blossomed around her, because he had sacrificed himself to save her from certain death at the cruel hands of whatever fate had brought her to that accursed flower. And because the memory of his tortured screams seemed to rise unbidden to her ears, hiding behind every noise that she heard.

Or maybe it was because she had seen him last night. And because she couldn’t face him. He had always been a carefree young lad, although his easygoing nature had been tempered by strong sense of moral justice. Moral Justice. Where was his moral justice then? Now he was a burnt-out husk of a man. If you could call him a man. He was more like a creature, now. He had looked up when she had entered the room, and his glazed eyes seemed to look into the past as he saw her, to remember that day. She could recall staring, horrified, at his blackened limbs – and at the austere, sand-like limbs that replaced the ones that had been destroyed altogether.

Time had seemed to slow, and had only started again when she felt her stomach coming up into her mouth. She had turned away quickly and held on, but the burning in her throat made her want to let go. Her father had been upset with her – by all rights she should have thanked the man who had given his life for hers. But she couldn’t face him. And for that, she felt a traitor.

Mriiah stood up from her bed. The sturdy iron frame moved a little, but it didn’t squeak, and for that she was thankful. She loved her Mama, but her Mama could be stern when she felt the need, and having her only daughter up after dark would make her feel that need. Mriiah was of the age where most woman did their Choosing, and Madam Rolbaddom would not have it said that her daughter had been out at night trying to decide before the time was right.

After listening for a while, Mriiah was certain that her mother was not in the hall outside the bedrooms, so she walked over to the dresser that, up to this morning, had held her personal belongings. It was all but empty now. A large mirror, a gift from her father, hung above the dresser. She gazed at her reflection and wished that she looked more confident about leaving Mach’s Corter.

Mriiah was tall and slim, with dark red hair that fell well below her shoulders. It was straight tonight, but in the wet months, it would often tangle. Her eyes were a soft blue and possessed the spark of a keen intellect. Except that tonight they were filled with a mild apprehension. She’d never been out of Mach’s Corter, and the White Corter was the furthest away of all the Corters. She was going to miss out on the entire summer, on Melini’s bonding ceremony, and on the Harvest Festivals – and that would be if their travel was smooth.

Of course, she was excited as well. Mriiah loved new things, and this trip promised to be full of the unfamiliar. She had heard tales of the things in the other Corters, and now she would be the first of her friends to see them. Melini and Gelline had been beside themselves in jealousy – but both also agreed that they would never have wanted to see those things under the circumstances.

The Five would determine what would be done with Mriiah. The thought haunted her. A bunch of old men would be trying to “fix” her? She hated to think of herself as something wrong. The elders of her village had spoken in hushed voices about curses and bad omens, although they claimed that it had little to do with her specifically, and that it wasn’t her fault. And then they had ordered her sent away from the village.

I’m dangerous. They think I’m dangerous. She was surprised to find that her fists were clenched. She loved Mach’s Corter. She loved all of the people, the animals, the very smell of the place. She didn’t mind that Mach’s Corter was by far the smallest of the Four Courters. It was her Corter and she would always be a Mach’s Corter girl.

She gave a sigh and turned back to her bed, throwing herself down on it as if she were exhausted. The frame gave a tell-tale creak, the sound causing her a brief flicker of chagrin. If her Mama found out that she was still up –

The bedroom door quietly swung open, and in the soft light she saw the silhouette of her mother, a strong woman whose large frame seemed to fit in well with her status as the village blacksmith’s wife. One big hand was placed on her hip, balled into a fist.

Mriiah’s lips seemed dry. She managed to get out a whisper: “Mama…”

Her mother looked at her through the dim light, the trails of spent tears could be seen on the big woman’s face. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispered softly. “I couldn’t sleep either.”

Mriiah struggled to say something, anything, but she couldn’t. Her mother came towards her, leaving the door open to the hall. And so they spent the rest of the night, mother and daughter in each other’s arms, hoping to keep the light of day from coming and pulling them apart.
 
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Lisce woke just before daybreak. He felt the throbbing in his skull, as usual. But he had woke up for some reason other than just the pain. Had it been the dream? He wracked his memory for his dreams, but all he could remember was a feeling of imminence.

He went to the window and looked out. The streets of the city were empty except for a large cat that was obviously on the hunt, keeping the mice and rats down.

And that's when he felt it. A warmth coming from his right hand, from his surrogate fingers. Lisce stared at his hand dumbly, not fathoming what was going on. The Weaver's Dust on the fingers was glowing with a threatening orange light, like the light of an unearthly candle.

A feeling like electricity shot through him. Was his new body Unravelling? The thought filled him with dread, but not fear. At least, not for himself. If his new body Unravelled, he would be dead before he could do anything, so it didn't really matter. But the effect of the Unravelling would probably destroy the house he was in. Perhaps it would destroy the houses beside them as well. Both houses were filled with people. He needed to get away.

Lisce began to fumble with the window. If he could get it open, maybe he could get out into the streets where he wouldn't be a threat to anyone. The glow in his hand was much brighter now -- it looked like the Weaver's Dust was burning from the inside out.

And that's when he felt it. One, two, three ripples shot through his arm, as if it were responding to the presence of something. As if something had just passed by that he could not see but that the Weaver's Dust had detected.

Lisce looked down and was surprised to see that the Weaver's Dust had become transparent. He held his hand up in the light of the window in order to inspect it. He was still looking at his hand in awe when he saw them. Tall shapes of unimaginable darkness and cruelty stalked through the streets, their every movement fluid. They flitted from shadow to shadow, moving purposely and with evil intent. Lisce gaped, then began to turn from the window. He must warn everyone.

Except that as soon as his arm moved away from the window, the figures vanished. He stared at the empty street for a few moments. Then he brought his hand back to the window. The orange glow had all but faded, and the fingers were definitely opaque. Lisce swallowed. What had happened?

He looked up and down the road for a glimpse of the unholy figures. The streets of the city were empty except for the corpse of the large cat that he had seen earlier that night. A chill ran down his spine -- the cat looked like it had been stabbed to the ground by an invisible blade.

Lisce couldn't tell how long he spent watching for something to happen, his heart pounding in his ears. He kept waiting for his hand to start glowing again, but the light never returned.

After a long wait, he realized that it was morning, and so he turned away from the window. He thought about telling someone what he had seen, but he couldn't think of anyone who would listen.
 
[Chapter 4]

As usual, the cock crowed much to early for Mriiah's liking. She groaned out of frustration, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Then she remembered that she was leaving Mach's Corter today. The thought hit her like a blow -- leaving her home, possibly for good. It made her feel sick.

She could hear voices down the hall. She could easily recognize the sound of her mother and her father as they talked softly, but the other voice was unfamiliar. Most likely the strange voice belonged to a Traveller, what with its carefree lilt and warm way of speaking, as if the speaker knew everyone like his own children.

When Mriiah stumbled out into the main room, the conversation stopped abruptly. Her mother froze in mid-stride, a plateful of pan cakes held in her hand. Madam Rolbaddom stared at her daughter as if her gaze could stop time and keep Mriiah from having to leave. Even her father, who had never shown a moment of weakness as far as Mriiah could remember, seemed to be having trouble swallowing. The only person in the room who seemed to be able to speak was the Traveller.

"I gather this is the girl?" He asked. "Fine lass, if I've ever seen one." With a fluid motion he stood to his feet and extended his hand, palm down, in a Mach's Corter greeting. Mriiah didn't take his hand.

Madam Rolbaddom cleared her throat. "Mriiah, show the man some courtesy."

The Traveller chuckled. "No worries, ma'am. 's only natural. She's just a young thing now, isn't she?"

Mriiah's father nodded. "Much too young to be leaving the Corter alone. I'd give the secret of my best alloy to be able to go with her, but with the harvest season approaching I've got no choice. The shop won't run herself." He paused for a while as if to ponder his words, then addressed Mriiah. "This is Tirk Rinjuggler, cousin to Mril, the tanner. He's a seasoned Traveller, and better yet, a man of his word. He'll see to it that you get to the White Corter, and come back home safe and sound."

His last words hung around for a while in Mriiah's mind. She held on to them like a prayer -- to be home again, or to never leave in the first place. The emotion of the moment threatened to overwhelm her, so she distracted herself by examining the stranger who was eating at their table.

The Traveller was a tall, thin man, but he looked tough. His skin was weathered by years of life on the roads between the Four Corters and from navigating the Wastes and the Wilds that lay around the settlements, and his shoulders were almost as broad as Mriiah's father's. He looked about ten years younger than her father, but he seemed to possess an air of timelessness. Perhaps it was the white hair. Mriiah had never seen a man so young with hair like an Elder before. Tirk Rinjuggler -- even his name seemed strange. A rin was a thin knife used by Tide Weavers. Could Tirk have a connection to the Tide Weavers? Mriiah wasn't sure it would be polite to ask. After all, Tide Weavers were considered to be outcasts by much of the world, as their Weaving often had widespread and unnatural effects, often manipulating weather or redirecting rivers. They spent most of their time out in the Wilds trying to tame the jungles and twists, or in the Wastes looking for clean water.

Tirk tapped his finger on the rim of his glass of ale. "Travel's no worry. It's nearly summer -- the roads are well travelled and there's really no threat from bandits. The Corters are enjoying some real peace, and the Wilds seem to be at rest for a change."

Mriiah's father frowned. He was a sharp man, and years of business had quickened his senses. "...But?"

Tirk grinned sheepishly. "You're a quick one, Master Smith." He sighed, stretching his long, thin legs as he leaned back in his chair and put a pipe between his teeth. The end of the pipe suddenly burst into a small flame, and soon the traveller began to relax as the smoke flitted from the end. He appeared to be choosing his words carefully. "It's mainly politics... the bleating of the masses with nothing to do but squabble." Mriiah hardly paid attention to him -- she was too facinated by his pipe. A self-lighting pipe. It was obviously the work of a Fire Weaver.

Tirk frowned suddenly and pulled the pipe from his teeth. "Some crack-pot clergyman has claimed that the Shadow Weavers have returned. Now there's groups of fanatics looking for any or every person who has the Skill who isn't already part of a guild. It's sheer lunacy, but it bodes ill for some people."

Some people. The words hung in the air, an unspoken threat behind them. Some people like me, Mriiah thought. She could see the looks on her parents' faces. They knew the danger. She could be branded as a witch, or as something much worse, like a Shadow Weaver or an Abomination.

Her father opened his mouth, then closed it as Tirk held up his hand. "Don't worry about the girl." Tirk's face had a resolute edge to it. "I'll make sure she'll be safe from any crazy man-hunters. Once she's in the White Corter, she'll be fine -- it's just the other Corters that have these funny ideas, and we'll stay to the main cities and away from any places where 'incidents' might happen. Besides, she doesn't look like the kind that people think have dealings with the Shadow." His face had a smirk on it and his tone made it very clear that he did not think highly of that kind of person.

The rest of the meal went on uneventfully, with Tirk and her father bantering about the prices of various tools and blades, of alloys, of guilds and organizations, and of the new self-heating forge that the Flame of Terrek Weaver Band had claimed to have perfected. As interesting as these things sounded, Mriiah could not focus her thoughts on them. Instead her mind was filled with a dread of the unknown -- of religious fanatics that might brand her as an Abomination.
 
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The high-pitched hissing filled the air as Rint threw himself down behind the tripod. The Peshant Mal 12 Compressor Rifle sat on top, its long barrel trained on the depreasurizing cryo-tank. Rint wasn't going to be caught off-guard by whoever was inside the tank -- the slave, or assassin, or whoever he was would open his eyes with a red dot shining on the middle of his forehead.

"Depressurization complete in 30 seconds." The voice sounded pleasant but was completely devoid of any real trace of emotion. And it had said a similar message every minute for the last twenty, ever since Doc Ems -- Regin Emsenn, medical technician -- had punched in the command to activate the cryo-tank's thawing procedure. Rint growled a curse at artificial machine voices in general and flipped the safety off of the back of the compression rifle. A deep hum began to resonate from the gun, as the two long black tubes running along the rifle's sides began to vibrate.

"Depressurization complete in 20 seconds." The compression rifle would be completely inaccurate for the next five or six seconds as it generated a pressure charge. Personally, Rint disliked any weapon that had such an obvious weekness, but the 'Twelve was what he had to work with. It would not be a good thing for him to damage WUIDF property in the case of an incident, so the compression rifle was his best option. While the rifle was certainly a lethal weapon, it would not cause any collateral damage to the buildings and vehicles that surrounded the cryo-tank.

"Depressurization complete in 15 seconds." Rint held his left hand up in a warning manner. The four other soldiers shifted uneasily and brought their weapons to bear on the tank. Doc Ems stood behind them, assumedly out of harm's way and yet close enough to offer medical assistance should the tank's prisoner need it. Rint felt his rifle stop shaking as it emitted an audible beep.

"Depressurization complete in 10 seconds. Subject is regaining consciousness." Rint tightened his grip on the rifle, holding the gun steady so that the red targetting dot hovered on the tank at head height. A cold wind carressed his cheek, blowing small eddies of dust in its wake.

"Depressurization complete in 5 seconds. Subject is conscious. Vital signs are okay." Rint frowned and cursed to himself. The wind that he had barely felt a few seconds ago had whipped up in an instant. Now it was almost a problem as it pushed on the rifle. If it hadn't been on a tripod, the Mal 12 would have been very hard to aim. Rint hated it when the weather became an obstacle. Wasn't WUIDF headquarters supposed to have controlled atmospheric dampening?

[Going to bed. Will complete tomorrow, I think]
 
Hmm I really should do some work on this. Writer's block is bad.

I've started writing down some thoughts about the world and characters for this story, so as to try get a framework to overcome the blockage.
 
Been I while since I looked at this. School is driving me nuts right now with assignments, and my free time is being spent on Jacki... lol.

Okay, so I think I'll try post something. I'm kind of jammed on the actual story so I think I'll post some back material.


<The Four Corters>

Okay, so what we have here is a combination of "four quarters" with "four corners." Yeah, you thought it meant something cooler, I know, but you were wrong.

Of course, the name "Corters" meaning the above note is actually a bit of a misnomer. The four corters are not of an equal size. I mentioned in the story that Mach's Corter is the smallest Corter. It's actually the smallest by far: it is only a single small town and a few outlying farms. Mriiah's hometown is called "Mach's Corter" because, well, the town pretty much covers the province.

Mach's Corter is the western Corter. It is bordered to the north by the Red Corter and to the south by Goretan Corter. The eastern corter is, of course, the White Corter. all of the Corters are surrounded by the Wastes (giant deserts known to house death, decay, and worse) and by the Wilds (untamed jungles full of monsters and perhaps dark powers). An example map would look like this:

Legend:
_ Waste
+ Wild
M Mach's Corter
G Goretan
R Red Corter
W White Corter


________++++++++WWWWWWWW
________++RRRRRWWWWWWWWW
_________RRRRRWWWWWWWWWW
_______MRRGRRRRWWWWWWWWW
_______MGGGGRRWWWWWWWWWW
________GGGGGGGG+WWWWWWW
_________GG++GGG++WWWWWW
__________G++G+++++WWWWW


The Red Corter is the Four Corter's business center. Merchants, money, and of course the Clergy all reside in the Red Corter. The Red Corter is often seen as being in opposition to the White Corter in that many of the Red Corters wish that they had the political power as well.

The Red Corter is also the land of fads and fancies, which makes it a dangerous place for Mriiah, but she prefers to travel through it than through Goretan.

Goretan Corter is a wild land. It is bordered by the Wilds which threaten to overthrow the tenuous order within. Monsters often leave the jungles and must be destroyed. Tirk and Mriiah will be avoiding Goretan for the above reason.

The White Corter is the biggest and most powerful of the Corters. The Twin Palaces are here; so is the ruling council of elders -- The Five. A thriving feudal-ish community centers around the Twin Palaces, with sprawling agriculture and a strong order of knighthood in place.



<Okay, so TJ mentioned something a long time ago about wanting to know about Weaving.>

Weaving is "sort of" magical. Basically, weavers take the base elements of the world (using a medieval and ultimately WoW-like set of elements) and weave them into chains, tapestries, and finally into reality itself. Weavers are creators in and of themselves, however they cannot create ex nihilo as such.

Here are the schools of weaving and what they use to weave:

Life Weaver's Dew
Fire Weaver's Soot
Earth Weaver's Dust
Tide not really anything -- the raw element occurs naturally in air

Life Weaving: Because Life Weavers use Weaver's Dew, they must be up early to sift through the morning dew to find the raw, elemental Weaver's Dew. Obviously, a Life Weaver is most powerful in the early morning when the Dew is in vast supply.

Life Weavers can transfer life between themselves and others, rebuild damaged things (flesh on living beings, other things on trees, etc) and create "magical creatures."

Fire Weavers collect Weaver's Soot from the aftermath of fires. The Soot itself must be hurled into a fire (to re-ignite it) before it can be used in weaving. Fire Weavers are considered to be the strongest of Weavers, due to their weaving of various forms of energy.

Fire Weavers can create chains of light, fire, and electricity. They can infuse constructs with power and set things ablaze.

Earth Weavers collect Weavers Dust from, well, everywhere. They can use their weaving skill to terraform the ground, or to create constructs. They can also purify the ground, bringing impurities to the surface. Of course, this often just means they select a given impurity such as iron and bring it to the surface.

Tide Weavers come in many specialized talents. They do not carry reagents. Rather, they interact with reagents that naturally occur in the air. Tide Weavers can alter weather. Some Tide Weavers can also affect temperatures, causing freezing or ignition as they so choose.


The scope of Weaving
Weavers typically create chains of weaving which they may use to any purpose. They can also infuse objects that already occur in nature with their weaving. In grand cases, they can also create objects (like Lisce's body, although that's partly infusion as well) out of their weaving.
 
The room was dark. Blue smoke filled the air with a thick, choking mist. The room was a semi-circle with tall, sharp-looking chairs, each with an old, old man sitting in it. And they were all looking at her.

Mriiah squirmed anxiously, or at least tried to. It was a little hard to move, what with her arms bound behind her back and a rough hand clamped tight on her left shoulder. She had no idea how she had got to this room. She just knew that they had found her, that they knew that she was evil.

She blinked, and the room came sharply into focus. Four thrones, with four old, wrinkled, and terribly severe-looking men, their beards falling down over their feet, the hairs seeming to come out of the folds of skin caused by an extended life of perpetual frowning. One throne sat off to the side of the room, and it was empty. And the man who had bound her, who held her shoulder tightly, even angrily -- he belonged on that throne. She was before the Five, the great elders who would judge her!

The Elder who held her spoke, his voice harsh like a branch breaking off of a dead tree. "We have found a witch." Mriiah's vision exploded. They weren't even going to try her, to examine the Flower's Bite, to hear her story? How could this be the methods used by the rulers of the Four Corters?

Murmurs filled the room. In the hall leading into this chamber, Mriiah could hear a mob, soldiers, clergy, and all armed to the teeth. When the old man had said the word witch, they had all reacted. Now they were muttering to themselves, talking among each other, and gesturing at her with daggers and axes. Finally someone yelled out of the crowd: "Burn her!" The cry was taken up by the rest of the mob.

Mriiah gasped. The hand on her shoulder had turned into blue flame, burning silently and producing heat, but not consuming her -- yet.

The Elder with the burning hands raised his head to the others, his face alight with a wicked grin. "Well, brothers, may we burn her?" Mriiah shrank back from him, as best we should. The other four Elders looked up at her with grave eyes. The one in the center seat held out a hand, palm towards them, in caution.

"How do you know she's a witch?" he asked, his voice weary, as if he had heard this many times before. Mriiah felt a small rush of hope inside of her. Perhaps this Elder would save her from this madman, from this mob, and from this hell.

A voice spoke from one of the other thrones. "She looks like one." Mriiah looked over towards the sound of the voice. One of the Elders was looking at her, intently. Or was he? She wasn't sure he was even looking at her -- his piercing gaze seemed to be looking through her. Through her body, at her soul, or at her heart.

She followed his gaze, looking down. To her utter horror she could not see her body -- she was invisible. All that remained for her to see was her heart: a floating black chamber, hanging in the air, dripping black bile and pulsating cruelly. A burning hand caught her by the throat. She tried to scream, but she couldn't. She wrestled with the hand, which was burning. The fire began to catch on to her hands and her face. She tried to scream again--

--Mriiah sat up with a scream. Tirk twisted around in his seat, a small look of concern on his usually expressionless face. Watching Mriiah try to catch her breath, his face seemed to soften. "Nightmare, eh?" Mriiah nodded, trying to get her heart to stop pounding. It hurt her lungs so. Tirk faced back towards the road towards them, his back to her. "You woke at a good time. We'll be crossing into the Red Corter soon, and customs is going to want to know about you."

Mriiah crawled to the front of the covered wagon, to Tirk's left. The sun was rising, a great ball of fire on the horizon in from of the Shriale, great birds of burden. Four such birds pulled the cart, their flightless, fuzz-covered bodies resembling a cross between a giant finch and a Wumwum bush.

The idyllic adventure was over for her. Before the dream, she'd been enjoying her travels, unconcerned with her destination. Now, she realized that the journey was completely out of her control. She was being drawn inexplicably towards an unknown destination.
 
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<This chapter is coming out of order. It is really just a scene. But it's here nonetheless, and it gives us something that we need: a villain. He's not the main one, but he's a key evil player.>


Evil has many faces, all of which appear cruel, but not all of which are as they appear.

Sometimes the boundaries of what is good and evil aren't as defined as they seem.

Sometimes good has to sell its soul to evil in order to save the world.

All these thoughts whizzed through Rikk Toringer's head in the space of a blink. They were all lies. He knew, deep down, that what he was about to do would not and could not be rationalized. It was evil, pure and simple. And it would get him what he wanted.

Rikk stood in the middle of ancient Goretan burial ground. Beneath this ground lay the bodies of many of the Corter's original inhabitants, killed by a mysterious plague. And below them lay something even more mysterious, a reason for the plague. An outsider.

Rikk looked around him at the uneven ground, left largely unmarked except for a few groups of stones that Rikk knew had once been cairns, now toppled by time. A cold wind blew from the north, tossing Rikk's light, gray hair across his shoulders. All his life he had kept it in a thick braid, in the tradition of Life Weavers. But recently he had shaved all but the formerly braided hair, and let that hang loose. It was the mark of an older tradition, one that had been all but forgotten. And one that would soon be brought into harsh focus.

Rikk had the tall, wiry build that often spoke of nobility amongst the Corters. He wore light armor made from an animal's hide, tanned and Weaved into a single piece. It was black like the tar found in the Wilds, and it was missing something.

Rikk Toringer was a Weaver. That much was clear the way he moved, from the way he carried himself, and from the way his eyes and his mind took in the things around him and sized them, categorized them, picked them apart and filed them away for a time that he'd need them again.

And yet Rikk carried none of the signature pouches, looms, or tools that a Weaver would need in order to Weave even the smallest of Threads.

It was time. Drawing lines from where he assumed the cairns had once stood, Rikk drew a square in his mind, each cairn at a corner, with the body of the square encompassing the area of the burial ground. Carefully, with measured steps, Rikk walked in a spiral, starting at one of the cairns and slowly descending to the center. Then he began to walk back, again in a spiral shape, until he had finished at the corner to the left of the one he had began at. Starting the process again, he slowly spiraled to the center again. He would copy these movements until each of the corners had been reached.

The process took over an hour. In the end, Rikk Toringer stood in the midst of the burial grounds, his feet aching from the slow, careful pacing. His heart beat fast within him. Would retribution fall upon him for what he was about to do?

He didn't care. He was done with worrying about what unseen forces could do to stop him. They hadn't done much for him when he followed the path of the Life Weaver; now his was a path that would allow him to save that what he had once lost. He was the Savior the Corters needed.

Rikk had long since thrown away the satchels of Weaver's Dew and the Lifegiving Loom; he needed them no longer. His loom was his heart; his tools, his mind, his desperation, and his hatred. And his essence was his soul.

Rikk stood silent in the middle of his spiralling footprints, his eyes closed and his mind silent. A long, dark thread began to unwind itself from within his body, exiting through the skin of his chest, above his heart. It was ethereal in nature and seethed with energy, twitching like a living thing. It hovered around him, one end above his head. Soon it was joined by another, and then another.

Suddenly the three threads ceased twitching and, after a second's pause, buried themselves in the soil around Rikk's feet. More threads emitted from Rikk's chest, but all of these simply flung themselves into the ground at various angles. Within seconds, Rikk appeared to be a grisly morsel in the middle of a great web of translucent black threads, all of which were madly burrowing beneath the soil, seeking the treasures buried underneath.

Each of the threads would enter a body, a corpse. Using a bit of Rikk's soul, the bodies would come to life -- if you could call it that. The corpses would move, like morbid puppets on a string: for such is what they were.

Silent amidst the menagerie of atrocity that surrounded him, Rikk began to move the threads with his hand. In the next four hours, the dead would dig themselves to the surface. Then they would spend the next day or two excavating the area in order to find what was buried below. Then, Rikk would return them to their resting places, choosing only to control the corpse of the outsider -- in whose hands rested the secret of the plague that had destroyed the lives of the village. Rikk would have that secret, and the ability to unleash it as he pleased.

He felt no remorse, pity, sadness, or even guilt at his actions. After all, at this moment he had only half of a soul -- the other half was under the ground, churning the soil and digging for the surface.
 
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Hey sir,

Realized I hadn't been keeping up on my reading. I reread chapter 1, and I read chapter two and I am very, very interested. I honest am really into the work like I was Ender's Game, my all time favorite book of fiction (tied with the Sword of Truth series). I am very engaged and your syntax, while wordy sometimes, is very fun to read. I guess I can only think of three suggestions.

1. I'm not reading into the environment very well. Might just be my excitement, reading quickly so I can figure out what happens. I don't know if we're in a typical office setting with Vill, or if it's supposed to be futuristic with fancy holograms on the walls and stuff. Tell me what's there, but don't tell me what's there... if you catch my meaning.

2. Rint sounds like a real beast, like the main character from Gears of War. Tough as nails. Chews glass just for fun. Make sure all his actions are representative of that. No sissy talk -- unless he's got a sensitive side. I see that he's intimidated by women... but for me that makes the character less believable. I'd see Rint as a fear-nothing kind of guy who's only weakness is his recklessness and his lack of tact. Buuuuuuuuut I've only read chapter 1 and 2 so far. My view might change. Just make sure it's all consistent.

3. "Her long blond hair cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall of ripples." Barf. That's the most clique of all descriptions. Please no cascading hair. No waterfalls. For the love of salami, no ripples.

As always, take my opinions with a grain of salt. I'm just a struggling writer. I look forward to reading more of your work soon! And I apologize for not reading them sooner. I know how valuable feedback is and how exciting it is to read some.
 
Response to TJ's comments.

1. I'm specifically trying to be minimalistic in my descriptions. That being said, maybe I need to make my characters interact a bit more with their environments so you get an idea of where they are. (What is the ancient burial ground? A field? A desert? Wide open terrain? A classic 20th century graveyard? In reality, it's a field with nothing growing on it. But I don't tell you that)

2&3. I really don't like where I went in chapter 2. I assure you it will change. And I will pull out the cliched romancey-pansey parts. If I'm going to throw romance in, I think it will be much better.

I'm trying to blend Rint's story with its high-tech-future style with Mriiah and Lisce's.

As to Rint's character, he's actually modeled off a fun-loving Jamaican friend of mine who's all laid back and doesn't care about anything stressful -- except football. Only Rint doesn't give a care about football -- he's intense about capping people and stopping evil. He's also not so much intimidating by women as much as fascinated by them and he doesn't quite understand them.


Right now I'm in the process of rethinking my characters. A. A. Milne once said that if you don't enjoy your stories, children won't, either. I've recently reapplied that to literature in the form of "if you don't like your hero, others won't either" and "if you don't hate your villians, others won't either."

I'm pretty satisfied with Rikk right now. He's a really bad guy, but also skilled at convincing himself that the end justifies the means. He sees himself as good, but in reality he's just selfish and wanting. He's also quite creepy in many ways (or should be) -- he's a man who chooses to lose his soul.
 
<Chapter 4 part 2 Remake><removing some cheese and working on a way of making it more... cool? More like something I'd like to see.>

The high-pitched hissing filled the air as Rint threw himself down behind the tripod. The Peshant Mal 12 Compressor Rifle sat on top, its long barrel trained on the depressurizing cryo-tank. Rint wasn't going to be caught off-guard by whoever was inside the tank -- the slave, or assassin, or whoever he was would open his eyes with a red dot shining on the middle of his forehead.

"Depressurization complete in 30 seconds." The voice sounded pleasant but was completely devoid of any real trace of emotion. And it had said a similar message every minute for the last twenty, ever since Doc Ems -- Regin Emsenn, medical technician -- had punched in the command to activate the cryo-tank's thawing procedure. Rint growled a curse at artificial machine voices in general and flipped the safety off of the back of the compression rifle. A deep hum began to resonate from the gun, as the two long black tubes running along the rifle's sides began to vibrate.

"Depressurization complete in 20 seconds." The compression rifle would be completely inaccurate for the next five or six seconds as it generated a pressure charge. Personally, Rint disliked any weapon that had such an obvious weakness, but the 'Twelve was what he had to work with. It would not be a good thing for him to damage corporate property in the case of an incident, so the compression rifle was his best option. While the rifle was certainly a lethal weapon, its vacuum pulses would not cause any collateral damage to the buildings and vehicles that surrounded the cryo-tank.

"Depressurization complete in 15 seconds." Rint held his left hand up in a warning manner. The four other soldiers shifted uneasily and brought their weapons to bear on the tank. Doc Ems stood behind them, assuredly out of harm's way and yet close enough to offer medical assistance should the tank's prisoner need it. Rint felt his rifle stop shaking as it emitted an audible beep.

"Depressurization complete in 10 seconds. Subject is regaining consciousness." Rint tightened his grip on the rifle, holding the gun steady so that the red targetting dot hovered on the tank at head height. He thought back to Serrie's words. Rint wasn't sure what kind of a threat the "slave" might pose, but he knew he would have very little time to find out once the tank was open. One bad side effect of the cryo-tanks was that they left their subjects disoriented upon thawing. You know, that might work in our favor. Rint mused silently. Assuming this isn't a berserk drug-soldier of some sort.

"Depressurization complete in 5 seconds. Subject has regained consciousness." The hissing rose in pitch until it became a whistle, not unlike the sound that Vill's kettle made whenever he had himself a tea. Rint braced himself, giving a quick check to the left and right. His men were ready, their weapons aimed and their bodies tense. The whistle cut off, and the door of the pod unlatched with a loud clicking noise.

Rint motioned with his hand. One of the other soldiers, hoisting a large megaphone, barked a command towards the pod: "Come on out with your hands in the air where we can see them."

With that, the door to the pod opened. Inside, Rint could see what looked like an old man in dirty clothes. Around his waist was a belt, heavily laden with small bags, pouches, and the like. On one hip the man carried a knife, similar to a sickle, but with the blade on the outside of the curved blade. Rint spoke into his suit mic. "He's armed, but the weapon's fairly primative."

The old man was clearly disoriented. He stumbled backwards at the sight of the five armed men who made up his welcoming committee. Rint cursed to himself -- Serrie had played him for a fool. The man was certainly no assassin -- he was in poor physical shape -- and he was certainly no danger. Still, Rint wasn't one to take chances with the unknown.

"I'm going in." Rint tapped the mic a second time, for inter-squad communication. "Doc, give me ten seconds, and then follow." Taking his hands off of the Mal 12, Rint pulled a sleek triple-barrelled Freagent shotgun from off of his back. The Freagent could be fired with one hand, and its burst rounds made it a perfect fit for close combat. Not as good as his trusty Thread-Tech carbine, but it would do the trick.

Rint sauntered towards the tank, his walk carefree but his mind and reflexes on edge. He held his empty left hand out in a friendly manner, palm open and towards the old man. The man's eyes were wide with fear, but his mannerisms were confused. Rint wondered what he was seeing, a friend, a soldier, or a monster from beyond the pale. Rint slowed his movements, hoping to seem less of a threat.

That's when he walked off the edge of the world. The hanger faded away and left him in a dark space with no features except himself, the old man, and himself.

Rint stopped in surprise. Standing beside the old man, pointing his Thread-Tech HIR Carbine at his throat, was a man that Rint could only describe as Rint. A clone, or something, but definitely himself. Rint spun to the left suddenly, just in time to avoid a shot. He whipped up the shotgun and began to blast away. He could hear the voices of his comrades shouting orders, giving directions, and ultimately asking him what the devil he was doing.

Rint rolled across the ground, his mind racing. How could this be? He had had no warning. Suddenly he was fighting himself -- however that worked -- and his mission was in jeopardy. Serrie hadn't been pulling his leg, after all.

His fourth shot caught the other him in the chest. The other him grunted, but otherwise didn't acknowledge the slug's presence in his heart at all. Rint's strange fate had turned nightmarish.

The old man. This must be his doing. Rint turned his gun and trained it on the man's head, then pulled the trigger. The world went black.
 
*Announcer Voice* Tune in next time when we find out whether or not Rint is dead. Actually, you won't, because we're heading back to Mriiah next. But we will come back here eventually. Until then, don't hedge any bets because I'm making this up as I go!
 
I R Bad Author. I've not touched this in a while because I've given into the illusion of Writer's Block. I'd like to head back into here soon... maybe some more of Mriiah, maybe add some more Rikk, or perhaps just sketch out some scenes totally out of order. I'm thinking of making this an exercise in storyboarding, and then linking the boards into each other.
 
This piece comes completely out of order, it's a storyboard sketch of a completely different scene altogether.

Smoke poured out of the giant crack in the ground that tore through the place that had once been Mach's Corter. Mriiah couldn't believe her eyes. Her home, her place, the one place on the earth that had yet to reject her was now a steaming wound filled with ashes and decay.

It seemed to Mriiah that she had been staring at the chaos in disbelief for quite a while now. Tirk stood at her side, his rin held tightly in his left hand, ready for anything. As usual, he was silent, but his eyes and other senses were actively searching for the first sign of danger. Mriiah tried to say something, anything, but her mouth was dry and nothing uttered forth.

Her home was gone. The tear in the ground was centered on the old village smithy. Yes, it did extend across the entire town, but its thickest and deepest part was right where her home used to be. Only a few shattered stones and some ashes remained. Everything else was gone. Whatever did this was either huge or powerful. Or both. And perhaps it was still here.

Something moved at the bottom of the crack. At first she'd mistaken it for a rock, but now she saw that it was a creature that resembled a man made of stone. Slowly at first, but with increasing speed, the world began to spin and turn red. This was the creature that had destroyed her home. She heard Tirk yell, a warning or something, but she was ready. The Flower's bite began to glow with a faint green color, and then so did her eyes. As it had before against the Schadd, and again against the death cultists in Goretann, her mind filled with a dozen possible futures, each involving an unraveling. She concentrated on the one where the stones making up the creature's body heated until they turned to fire, melting the being in seconds. And in excruciating pain.

When she opened her eyes, the creature's body was a burning mess. As it should be; her revenge demanded no less. Except that the creature was not in pain. In fact, it was grinning, its familiar face tugging at her memories, telling her that she was mistaken.

Lisce. She was killing Lisce.
 
It felt good in his hands. Actually, good wasn't the right word. It felt like it belonged in his hands. It also felt evil.

Rikk Toringer flipped the disk over in his hands. It was nondescript, about the thickness of his thumb, with small holes all along the rim which served as an entryway into, or perhaps exit from, the inside of the object.

It was a soul prison, a device for the capturing of and keeping of one's soul. It had multiple uses amongst those who Weaved with their own spirits: allowing one to live on after the destruction of one's body; allowing transference of one's spirit to another's body; keeping Soul Weaving suspended in time to allow it to happen at a later time; and, unleashing the effects of one's emotions in a highly concentrated form. It was for the last use that Rikk Toringer now desired the prison.

But first, he must find away to purge the prison of its current occupant. The prison was currently in use for the third purpose, namely, to Weave a certain Pattern when certain stimuli were present. It was this purpose that had spawned the plague that massacred the villagers whose corpses had so willingly done his bidding mere hours before.

Rikk placed the disk back into the rotting hands of his new companion. The corpse was that of a short, stocky man. This much was normal. What was abnormal about this corpse was the fact that it was wearing a grey, synthetic jumpsuit upon which were emblazoned the letters "ThreadTech Away Team" in bold yellow print. In one fetid hand the corpse held a long-barreled pistol, a strange metal device that coupled amazing technology and what looked like Fire Weaving. The zombie's head was encased in a helmet made of a hard but transparent synthetic substance. A large, jagged hole in the helmet lined up perfectly with a similar whole in the corpse's cranium.

The dark line linking Rikk to the outsider flared for a moment, and the corpse's hand closed on the disk. The cadaver turned, and began to slowly lurch toward the east. It would be a slow trek for both the corpse and the Weaver, but until they reached the Wilds that bordered the White Corter, the soul prison could not be made to release its occupant. Rikk hoped that they would not meet any other travelers on the way. If it were known that a Shadow Weaver walked alive in Goretan, the world's problems and all the political infighting would be forgotten until he was dead. So, he would have to leave no survivors, no witnesses. And this pained him.

Rikk Toringer was not an evil man, he told himself. Rikk Toringer was a faithful man, a loving provider. And he would do whatever it took to provide what he needed to provide to the ones who needed him the most.
 
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