The hallways of the castle were ink black. The library door was only open a small crack as to not raise suspicion, despite the fact a boy sat in the chair with a dim candle lit, reading a textbook.
Previous Version
This is a previous version of Chapter 1: The Binds of Nobility.
Yggdrasil:
Yggdrasil is the tree of life. It is the tree that holds the world together, and produces all life on earth, generally within the form of flora and fauna, but indirectly all creatures and living beings that exist on the planet as well, since creatures require the plants on earth to sustain life. It is rumoured that the tree exists deep within the core of the earth where all of its roots connect around the world. These roots are rumoured to inject life into the soil that produces plants. The Yggdrasil tree is involved with “The Cycle of Life” (Page 284). The Yggdrasil tree consumes the mana-like substance 'Ethereal' (Page 203) to sustain itself. If for any reason the amount of quantity of Ethereal drops to hazardous levels, then the world will begin to decay as a whole for it is the substance of Ethereal that gives the tree energy within its roots to output the power to keep the world sustained and healthy. If the tree does withdraw too much Ethereal, then it is rumoured that the planet will over burst with life, overcrowding the population. This has been proven with the study of the trees' ability to starve for Ethereal, but has not been recorded in history to happen because the tree has be known to not consume more then is required to healthily sustain the planet.
Ethereal:
Ethereal, or known as “Ether” for short, is a substance commonly used for alchemic projects, and mana for magicians since it is a substance that can easily be drawn. It is known as the substance of life, and thus it contains the four basic elements the world is made up of. This is why it is popular to withdraw for magicians because it is almost everywhere as long as there is a place that has plant life, the substance still exists in areas such as wastelands or deserts but it is signifigantly reduced. It is believed that's why deserts and wastelands exists; because there is not enough Ether to sustain plant life there for anything else to live. While Ether is known for its medical properties, it is however too little in the surface to help cure wounds unless concentrated, such as concocted into a potion. Ethereal is far more concentrated and common in caves, and deep sections of the planet. Ethereal is released from the soil, and since all living life consumes the substance, when that living being or plant decomposes or wilts, the Ethereal is released back within the air, which is reused by the Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life (Page 167) in “The Cycle of Life” (Page 284). Ethereal is a substance consumed by Yggdrasil which is consumed through the trees' roots deep within the planet. It is rumoured the highest concentration of Ethereal is where the Yggdrasil tree rests, which is in the center of the planet.
The Cycle of Life:
The Cycle of life combines the Yggdrasil Tree (Page 167) and Ethereal (Page 203). The Yggdrasil Tree consumes Ethereal as food. This in turn produces life for the planet, such as creatures, and plants. If a creature were to die, then Ethereal is released from the corpse, which eventually will make it back into the soil for the Yggdrasil Tree to feed on, to produce a new being of life. Things that die, rebirth into something new, which in turn will eventually die again, to once again be reborn into something new. It has been rumoured that if this balance were too go unstable, such as the tree not being able to withdraw enough Ethereal, the world will begin to slowly produce less and less life until--
*Slam!*
“… … …”
“...I was reading that, father.”
“Sairek... I hope you do know what time it is.”
“…Midnight?”
“...Try again, son."
“-Sigh...- Two hours past midnight, father...”
“This is the third day this week I've caught you in here at this hour. I am glad that you like studying the systems on how the world works, it pleases me so much Sairek, but you do need to learn when too much is just too much. If you can’t get any decent sleep, it won’t do you any good. Especially considering you will be performing your magic arts tomorrow in front of the public eyes of the people.”
“…I still don’t see why I have to prove myself as a combat magician. My spells are hardly any good for combat.”
“Sairek, I know you are disappointed you cannot cast any major spells yet, but you are not even nine years of age yet. Most children your age can only at least cast one or two spells, generally from the same element. You can cast one spell from each of the four elements. You should be proud, even if they are minor, it is a great accomplishment.”
“What am I to do, father?
Squirt my foe with water?
Blow his hair in the wind?
Throw pebbles at him without using my hands?
Give him sunburn with concentrated heat, perhaps?
It’d be much more efficient to just whack my enemy over the head with my staff...”
“Do not be worried. You know the combat is nothing more then a mere villager who’s volunteered to help you in your studies, and for your teachers to help realize what else you need to improve on, and the next few subjects to work on next. No harm will come of you, and the public knows already. They just want nothing more to see your progress. You are after all, their future...”
“More like they just want something to laugh, if you ask me…”
“They will laugh at you for sure if you fall asleep standing up because you didn't go to bed. It’s time for you to get to sleep, son. Don’t make yourself feel worse by feeling the effects of drowsiness to be the first thing to welcome you tomorrow.”
“...Yes, father.”
Sairek got a pat on the shoulder before he heard his father step away back out to the hallway. Sairek eyed the candle which he had used to dimly light the room. He positioned his hand towards the candle.
“Wuaie,” he whispered softly motioning his hand to blow out the candle. Instead, all the flame did was dance around as a weak wind blew. Sairek grunted in disgust and disappointment. It was possible to blow it out had he been holding his staff, but he left that in his bedroom chamber. He hissed the candle out by pinching the flame with his fingers, the library nearly instantly turning black.
The morning sun streaked through the bedroom window, shining on Sairek’s body as his maid, Laure, was dressing him up for preparation for the day. He was standing next to naked, only wearing undergarments as clothing for the moment, at least until Laure handed him some Light gray, and semi baggy leggings, which Sairek responded by pulling them up his legs.
“You seem troubled master. Are you that worried?”
“Yes. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you can tell.”
“You will do fine. I assure you. You are known to be able to think instantly at problems that come your way. I'm sure it will be no different then in a training session.”
Sairek lifted his arms up, as next a rather padded white shirt went over them and soon over his head, temporarily blinding him with the white cloth until his head popped out from the other side of the shirt. Laure pushed the child’s dark brown hair back into place from any ruffling the shirt had caused it. Sairek dropped his arms, as he bowed his head down somewhat, as next a blue back mantle, the neck part very much like a scarf, went over his head. And soon after that part of clothing, a red cape was fastened within the cloth of the blue neck part of the cloak. It was made to cushion any choking the cape may have caused. The red cape went all the down, just above where his ankles were. The blue cloak wrapped around, covered some of Sairek’s shoulders, almost like a second cape, however it only want down to the lower end of his waist, only a couple inches longer then the shirt was.
“You forgot the necklace,” Sairek reminded her.
“Of course, my apologies, Master.” She replied. Reaching over from Sairek’s table near his bed, she grabbed a necklace of some sort that had a bird talon that looked to be made out of crystal. It was very clear, but it wasn’t diamond. She put the necklace under all the cloth around Sairek’s neck, placing it under the cloth so it was more in place, and wouldn’t jerk too much under sudden movement. The crystal talon draped all the way down to Sairek’s lower chest.
Sairek nodded in confirmation that it was placed right, before sitting down in the seat behind him. He soon lifted up his right leg, he soon felt his foot slipping into light brown leather boots. Once they were on, he dropped that leg, lifting his other one, with the same process. Laure soon reached into a bag seated beside her, as silver ankle guards for his shoes were soon inserted into place, not only decorating the boots, but protecting his ankles from too much damage.
Sairek soon held out his arms, as now light brown leather gloves slid into his hands. The palm section of the gloves were colored white, and on the back of the palms of the gloves, was a small little symbol. It was the ancient language letter for S, which marked the first letter of Sairek’s name.
Sairek soon pushed himself up, and was guided over to his bedroom mirror. He looked at himself before Laure tapped him on the shoulder. He looked, seeing she held his staff. He nodded, taking it. It was a simple gnarled wooden staff. Crafted just for him, and thus it was for his size. He could hold the staff as a child, but since it was for his size, he could wield the staff just like an adult. It could be used as a walking stick for him. It could be wielded in one hand to cast spells; when he could cast ones that were not so wimpy, that was. And thirdly, he could hold it two-handed to protect himself if it ever came to melee combat. He never had to do the two-handed part before, but this would probably mark the day where that changed.
Looking back to the mirror, he surveyed himself with his own emerald green eyes. He even posed a little, which he heard Laure laugh a little at the childish act. He too soon chuckled before turning back towards her.
“How much longer is left before I need to do this?”
“Not much longer before we depart for the event, master. Or else we wouldn’t have had to outfit immediately. Especially in such a stuffy outfit on a rather humid day.”
“Yes… I wouldn’t look like a noble if I wasn’t wearing three different layers of cloth on my shoulders in the summer, would I?”
He heard Laure laugh a little once more.
“Aye. Would you like me to pack extra water for you in case you become dehydrated or are becoming overwhelmed by the heat, master?”
“I would appreciate that. Yes please.”
“Oh, there is one more thing, master.”
“One more thing?”
Laure reached back into her bag, pulling out a book; the same one Sairek had been reading in the dark morning hours. He looked at the book, and then at her curiously.
“How did you know?”
“Your father told me. He told me to tell you that he apologizes for interrupt your reading. You may have enough time to finish the section you were reading before we depart. I’ve book marked the page for you; Page 284.”
“Oh! Thank you Laure! Yes, I was reading about “The Cycle of Life”, wasn’t I?”
“Remember Sairek. You may be a noble, but you are still a child. While I know you envy the other children who are out, playing freely, and you feel trapped within walls of riches, just remember that it is too early for you to act like an adult. You only get to be a child only once in this life and it is truly a short time. If you’re too curious to satisfy your questions instead of live, then you will miss that opportunity until your next cycle.”
“…I… will remember that well.”
Laure bowed to her master apprentice, before soon turning around, stepping out. Sairek turned to his bedroom table, taking in his seat. He soon turned to the page he was on previously, marked with a tiny slip as a book mark. He continued from where he left off.
…the world will begin to slowly produce less and less life until the amount of Ethereal can be recovered to normal levels. This has only happened once in recorded history where the Yggdrasil tree had been infected with a special type of virus that was cast upon it by a mad man. Although the tree recovered on its own, the Ethereal was wasted in fueling the virus, rather then being consumed by the tree. When the tree recovered from the disease, it starved for Ethereal and consumed large quantities at once. The decay of the world was recovered in a short time, but created a massive overgrowth. Eventually, the tree balanced out the system on its own accord, and the life quantity on the planet slowly balanced out to be normal again. In the event that the tree never could recover from being unable to withdraw Ethereal, or if there was no Ethereal to withdraw, the world would have to rely on itself to live on. The world may also suffer extremely dangerous natural disasters, such as twisters, earthquakes, and so on, since the tree would not be in control to keep the planet together. In essence, the world may literally split into pieces as the tree is the key to holding the continental plates together. It is of the utmost importance that The Cycle of Life is not to be tampered with in either way, as it could effect the entire planet and the very way all creatures live or even die.
The magic will be different from Harry Potter; honest. Truth be told, I actually dislike J.K. Rowling. Although, not as a writer, but just because several times she's shown herself to be a real a*s; specifically she sued one guy just because he made a family tree of the Harry Potter series for children. I don't even believe he was making money off of it, if he even could have. But I suppose that's a different subject.
The huge paragraph is actually on purpose. It was to show a timegap. I suppose I could use *'s across the split it up, but I honestly find them ugly.
It took me literally hours to think up Sairek's name. I went through many different names, but eventually Sairek just fit the best. Ironically, I began typing out jibberish on word pad 100 times, and tried to make names out of all the jibberish. Out of "ksraiefoa", I picked out some letters, rearranged them, and chose "Sairek". I don't think it's a name similar to anyone else in any culture, so I'm quite please with it.
Thanks for the review, I hope you have fun reading the rest of the chapters. It doesn't take very long for the story to begin picking up!
This reminded me of Harry Potter while I was reading it due to the spells, magic, etc. lol
It also had the feel of a manga, which I am a HUGE FAN of so that is also a plus
Overall I really liked this story and it was a great way to introduce it...I like how you started it off with him reading, we see that Sairek is a smart kids who enjoys to read and not only that we see some definitions that will probably come in handy throughout the story, such as when you said his staff was made out of Ethereal which you described so we know it is special
I like the use of the different types of magic and elements and given how Sairek said he's not a combat type, it makes me wonder if there are any other types of magicians out there which I'm eager to find out
The format of this story is also different but is also a nice one...I wasn't confused at all with who was talking at what time and what part of the story was the action part of it...I'm not sure if it was intended but between "turned black" & and "the morning sun" there is a huge gap in-between those two paragraphs and it is noticeable, especially since it's not nowhere else like that in your story
Also got to give you credit for the names. They are something different, along with the spells and are interesting. I think Sairek is a great name for a main character
Lastly it made me lol when Sairek just suggested to simply hit his opponent with his staff as opposed to using magic on them lol
Overall like I said before I am really interested in this story, it was a great introductory chapter and I am looking forward to reading some more into it
Pretty good chapter. I know I reviewed this chapter one time before, but it's not here anymore, so I'll probably repeat stuff that I had said before. Anyways...
Let me start at the beginning. The textbook passages are interesting. I think it's a unique way to give the reader an idea of what the world is like, since usually this stuff is done either through dialogue or, the more boring way, narration. For the most part, the textbook passages read like they may actually be from a textbook. There may be a few comma errors in the passages, but I won't focus on that, and I did notice some areas where you seem to lose that textbook quality. I won't point out any examples, though, because I was unsure about that.
However, there are two potential problems with the way the textbook part is set up. First, it may be considered an info dump. To me, I think it might be fine this way because it's done rather creatively, so I won't say it needs to be changed, but if other people think it's a problem, then you might want to consider doing so. The second problem I notice is that you begin with these textbook entries. Usually, you want to start off strong so you can pull the reader into the story, and I'm not sure if starting off with textbook passages is the best way to do that. Still, it reflects well with the ending of the chapter (which I'll address soon), so I'm hesitant to recommend that you change it, but if other people say they had trouble getting into the story right at the beginning, then you might want to consider changing it.
Now let me skip to the ending. I like the ending. It reflects well with the beginning of the chapter because the chapter starts and ends with textbook passages. The very last line is good, too, because it provides a hook to get us reading. With that line being placed right there, the reader can get an idea of what the conflict of the novel is going to be, and should be enough to prod him or her into reading more.
Character-wise, I think we get a strong sense of who Sairek is as a character. We get a sense that he's intelligent by the way he talks, and his dialogue also reflects his nobility. (I do wonder, though, if it may be a little too intelligent for an almost-nine-year-old, but I won't say too much about it since I have little experience with kids around that age.)
I won't say too much about the dialogue itself because that's something I struggle with, so my opinion might not matter too much in this area. However, I do think that the dialogue may be a bit long-winded at times, which can make it sound forced. Once again, my opinion might not mean too much here, so you might need someone else to take a look at the dialogue, but I do have at least one excerpt from the chapter that I'll point out this issue in.
As for the narration, I think there might be some problems with it. As you know, I reread chapter 2 before this, and when I compare the two, I want to say that chapter 2 reads a little better than this one. I'll be pointing out some technical stuff right now, though, which may help with this to some extent, but there'll be more changes that you'll have to make later on down the road. Hopefully someone else will be able to help you out some more with that. If not, then I'll return to suggest more changes. But for now, what I have will be enough, because this review is already going to take me a good while to write.
Anyways, here are some technical issues:
because the tree has be known to not consume more then is required to healthily sustain the planet.
Just a typo here. I think you mean "been," not "be."
It is believed that's why deserts and wastelands exists
I think it should be "exist," not "exists." Also, change "that's" to "that is." It sounds more textbook-like.
It has been rumoured that if this balance were too go unstable, such as the tree not being able to withdraw enough Ethereal
"Too" should be "to."
"What am I to do, father?
Soak my foe with a jet of water?
Blow his hair dry with artificial wind?
Throw chunks of dirt at him without using my hands?
You don't need to break up Sairek's dialogue like this. Put all of it in one paragraph. There was more to this dialogue, so you'll have to be sure to add those to the paragraph.
They just want nothing more to see your progress.
I think you forgot a "than" after "more."
"More like they just want something to laugh, if you ask me…"
I think you forgot an "at" after "laugh."
Don’t make yourself feel worse by feeling the effects of drowsiness to be the first thing to welcome you tomorrow."
Remember how I said your dialogue seems long-winded at times? This is an example of what I was talking about. To me, this seems kind of forced because of how long-winded it is; it doesn't seem to flow like natural dialogue. This sentence doesn't seem to make much sense, either. Maybe change "feeling" to "having" and drop the "to" in front of "be"? I don't know if it'll make it sound any less forced, but I think it'll make more sense that way.
Instead, all the flame did was dance around as a weak wind blew that couldn’t even overpower one single flame.
In context, this sentence didn't read too well for me once I got to the clause after "blew." Maybe you could change this sentence a little? Possibly to something like, "However, the weak wind couldn't even overpower the flame." Of course, change some words around to suit your style if you want, and you might need to change the sentence before this one in order for it to work.
It was possible to blow it out had he been holding his staff, the energy was much easier to draw from it ten-fold... but he left that in his bedroom chamber. He hissed the candle out by pinching the flame with his fingers, the library nearly instantly turned black.
I think it would be better if "was possible" was "would have been possible." For "the energy was much easier to draw from it ten-fold," maybe you could surround it with em dashes (this: --)? It would read better that way, and I don't think the way you have it currently would be grammatically correct, anyway. "Hissed" isn't the right verb. Use something else. Or give the flame that verb ("hissed" would make sense that way), if you're willing to do the work of rearranging the sentence. And, to me, "nearly instantly" reads kind of awkwardly. It might sound better if you use "almost" instead of "nearly."
He was standing next to naked, only wearing undergarments as clothing for the moment
You can omit "as clothing." The reader should be able to understand that he's wearing undergarments as clothing. I think you would be fine in deleting "for the moment," too, but it might not be necessary.
stretching down enough to only be inches off of the ground her he been standing upright.
I think you meant another word other than "her." Maybe "had"? Put "only" after "be," and I think you might be able to use a better verb than "stretching."
Sairek soon pulled himself back erect, as his head tilted downwards to stare at the gem, seeing it was placed right. It was after all, his mother’s.
Change "soon pulled himself back erect" to "erected his posture" or "straightened his posture." It won't read so awkwardly that way. Also, while I'm not sure on this, I think "his head tilted" might be incorrect with the POV you're using (because I'm assuming you're using limited, not omniscient). Change it to "he tilted his head" instead. Also, I don't really see how the gem being his mother's has anything to do with it being placed right. I mean, maybe I can, but as the two sentences stand currently, they don't seem to relate well enough.
Sairek soon held out his arms, as now light brown leather gloves slid into his hands.
I think you could use a better verb than "slid," because right now it doesn't seem to make too much sense. I mean, I'm assuming you're wanting to say that Laure is putting the gloves on Sairek, and slid implies something different. I suppose you could switch it around by saying "his hands slid into light brown leather gloves," which makes more sense, but then you would be giving the action to his hands, and I don't think you want that. It would be better if you found a different verb to use.
On the back of each glove, was a silver plate
Omit the comma. Or you could add a "there" after the comma, but omitting the comma would be a better choice.
The world may also suffer extremely dangerous natural disasters, such as twisters, earthquakes, and so on, since the tree would not be in control to keep the planet together.
"And so on" is not textbook-like because of how vague that phrase is. Either change it to "and (insert another natural disaster here)" or shorten that part of the sentence to "such as twisters and earthquakes."
Oh, and you used two action thingies in this chapter: *slam* and -sigh-. They're fine in a comic book, but I doubt they are considered proper in a novel. I'm fairly certain that an editor would make you change that if they saw it. Change *slam* to actual narration, and move -sigh- out of what Sairek is saying and write "he sighed."
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