|
|
Post by Kaez on Dec 31, 2014 2:43:39 GMT -5
The powerful relic is a hallmark of all worldbuilding genres. These artifacts are very often ancient, unique, or otherwise invaluable – and always seem to slip away into unwelcome corners of the world or into the hands of those who seek to use them to do evil. It’s therefore also no surprise that the search for, and recovery of, legendary relics has become its own trope of fantasy and sci-fi alike. Whether aglow with forgotten magic of elder magi or a crucial piece of technology essential to the salvation of a whole planet, the hunt for a famous relic allows the author to easily and seamlessly introduce a breadth of history and context to the reader (thereby establishing the complexity of the setting) while maintaining a focused and driven narrative.
Restriction: Third-person; details the hunt for an object of objective value.
Topic: FORTRESS-CITY
|
|
|
|
Post by J.O.N ((Dragonwing)) on Jan 8, 2015 5:39:12 GMT -5
The Jewel of the Anjrari
Behold the great city of Anjra; a marvel of human ingenuity and the miracle of a magnanimous god. When the world was still young, and the ascendant apes were visited by the blessed ones, Anjra was one of the seven jewels bestowed upon the greatest of the proto-humans. These ancestors began to carve a fortress into the towering white cliffs, from which they ruled over one of the best natural harbours on the Jahaur Coast.
For over six thousand years the city has stood the test of time and the ravages of war, disease, and the wrath of spurned gods and their followers. As humans mastered their minds and became gods over their own creations, the city has only prospered. Within its steel, stone and hallowed halls; the mysterious Cult of Ithras has toiled away in secret, on projects few have ever thought were possible, or should be.
Rani was only child when her mother had brought her to the temple of Ithras. It was a great feat of architecture; its minarets reaching up to the tops of the cliffs, its main building hewed from the cliff face itself, and its stone was a bright red that shone in the rising and setting sun. Its archaic structure was made starker by the huge buildings of steel and glass that flank it along the cliff side.
Growing up among the priestesses, Rani always wanted to venture out of the temple and run through the winding and twisting streets of the city proper. The city was divided into three districts; the temple district was where the Cult was housed along with the new corporation buildings and laboratories. The next tier down was the housing for the people who worked amongst the corporations and the elite militia of the city. This tier held beautiful parks, plazas and shopping malls. Travel was either on foot or via the maglev trains that raced up down the streets.
Even further down, beside the harbour, was the slums. This area rarely got any attention from the ruling elite, even the Cult seemed to turn a blind eye to the squalor and violence that inhabited this level. It was also where Rani was born. Buildings, some hundreds of years old, were cramped up and built into one another. They created a maze of streets and alleys, with market stalls crammed into them. Most of its inhabitants worked on the ships or docks, if they worked at all. The rest were either in gangs or were nothing but street rats.
Having never truly lived a life outside the rules and regulations of the priesthood, Rani was excited when she was told that a guide was going to take her down to the lower levels. Her ascension was soon and she had been told by her superiors that she was allowed to explore the city for one day beforehand.
Standing at the gate to the temples compound, she had dressed as well for the adventure as she could think. She had exchanged the long red robes she normally wore for brown synthetic leather pants. They were form-fitting but tough, normally worn when she was doing gardening. For her top, she wore a light, white, long sleeved shirt with a shawl thrown over it. The shawl hid her long black hair, and it could be pulled across her face to hide her piercing that marked her as an initiate. The piercing was a golden chain that connected her right ear lobe to the right corner of her mouth.
Finally she wore her work shoes, a pair of heavy soled black boots and a pair of gloves. Standing impatiently, she was growing nervous. She had been given a small shard of crystal; apparently it would help her guide keep track of her. Playing with that in her pocket she glanced around. She had been told that her guide would arrive late in the morning, but she was hoping they would get there sooner so they could leave early. Unfortunately they arrived exactly on time.
“Initiate Rani I presume” the man said in a monotone.
The man was dressed in an all-white suit. His jacket was pulled across his chest and held in place by two buttons. His hair was also white and combed back, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Like Rani he had light brown skin.
“You are my guide? I’m sorry I never caught your name” Rani said, placing her hands together and giving a slight bow to the man.
“My name is Makta, shall we begin?” he replied while holding his hand out towards the gate. Rani quickly nodded and followed him op to the entrance.
Mani waved at the guard on duty and the gate opened up, the wrought iron opening inwards. The gate itself wasn’t what kept people out, or in. It was the field of energy that repelled anything that tried to get through it. It seemed to move aside like a curtain allowing the two to walk through it. For the first time since arriving at the temple, Rani was not within its walls.
She was expecting some moment of awe to wash over her, but to her disappointment the area outside the temple was still just as perfect and quite as inside it. They stood at a plaza with a large fountain in the middle; around it were the entrances to some nearby corporate buildings. Only a few people seemed to be out at the current time.
“I will take you to the second tier, you should be safe there and there is more interesting things to explore there.”
Rani nodded along, although she wasn’t paying too much attention as they walked through the plaza. She was wondering about what she would see. The priestesses didn’t even really talk about the rest of the city, however from the plaza she could look up at the huge white cliffs behind her, as well as see the tops of the cliffs that protected the circular bay beneath them. They were two peninsulas that almost met, the space between them being the only way in to the harbour. Atop them were battlements from many different ages. Now they held massive anti-air guns and railguns to repel any attackers from the sea.
They took one of the maglev trains down from the top tier, descending several stories into a station on the second level. The station was constructed from marble and the same red stone the other building were built from. It was clear that whoever owned the building wanted to stray away from the more modern look of steel and glass.
There were lots more people crowding the station then the plaza above them. Rani was left in awe at the different people hurrying back and forth between maglevs and their destinations. Their clothes were varied with men and women in business suits and others in garish dresses and robes. Growing up with the priestesses in their uniform red robes had left her unprepared for the actual clothes that the Anjrari wore.
Making their way out of the station, she was even further stunned at the opulence of the people. Stores were pressed up against the street walls and people flocked into buildings that housed even more stores. Makta mentioned how they were in the market plaza. Finally, after warning her not to stray from the plaza, Makta allowed her to head off into the crowd.
Making her way through the crowds, she drank in every sight she could. The hundreds of different merchants; from Anjrari in their multi coloured robes to the Tengshu, dressed in baggy pants and military style shirts made of silk. Militia wandered everywhere keeping order with their stun batons at the ready.
The buildings around her had large screens playing advertisements and scenes from the news. One seemed to show a huge fire ravaging large tracts of land as drones dived bombed it with water. Another one seemed to have a reporter standing behind sandbags and explosions went off behind her, the scene probably from some far away land.
She had to be careful making her way through the crowd; people had large bags or even cybernetic androids hauling their goods. No-one seemed to pay any attention to her. She took the first chance she could to peel away from the crowd. She had hoped to find a store so she could look at the things they sold. The temple had left her with no money to spend, but she still wanted to see it all.
However, she found herself in some alleyway behind the shops. Unlike the plaza, the alleyway was dirtier, with rubbish and crates piled to the side. At the other end it looked like there was a staircase. Curiosity got the better of her, and Rani cautiously approached the stairwell. Looking over the side of its old iron railing, she could see ancient mortar and brick that descended down in to the lower levels.
The buildings above her seemed to filter out a lot of the light and as she made her way down the stairs, she felt the older stone walls press in against her. Smells of putrid rot and mud rose up to her but she ignored it, too fascinated by the squalor. By the time she had reached the end of the stairs, she could also faintly hear the noise of not only thousands of people, but of the docks.
Sounds of crashing waves and seagulls made her begin running through the alleys, helplessly trying to get to the seaside. No matter which way she went, she couldn’t seem to find her way through the alleys and streets. Passing the stained and haggard people around her, she began to slow down from a run to a far more worried walk. Drawing her arms around her and pulling the shawl over her head and up around her face, she began trying to find her way back to the stair, forgetting about the sea.
No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find the stairs and she had the horrible feeling that she had become lost. Trying to avoid the people around her, she slipped into one of the darker alleys and sat down, shivering with fear. Taking the red crystal shard out of her pocket, she started to silently cry into it. Absorbed in herself she failed to notice the dark figure slip in beside her.
“Lost, miss?”
The voice was aged and seemed to suggest warmth. Rani looked up in shock and saw an old man with a long beard. He was shirtless and only had a pair of old tattered pants on. His skin was an even deeper brown then Rani’s, she guessed it was mud. He had a small smile behind the beard and deep brown eyes.
“Yes sir, please, please help” she whispered.
“I’d say from that chain, you’re from the temple, far from home aren’t you. Very well, come with me, I can take you to the station.”
As he spoke he got back up and held out his hand. Rani took it and followed him as he led her through the streets; he seemed to navigate them as if he knew them from memory.
“Who are you?” Rani asked, still holding the old man’s hand as he led her through the streets.
“Ooh? Me? I guess I’m your guide for the day!” The old man said with a loud laugh.
“You would like to see the sea, right? It is why you ran down here, is it not?”
Before Rani could ask how he knew that, he took her through the crowd of street rats, dockworkers and other dwellers of the lower tier. No one seemed to pay attention to the man or her and not before long; he had led her to the shoreline.
Rani gasped as she looked out through the huge cargo ships and smaller fishing ships. The bay teemed with activity, as great huge ships sailed in through the massive entrance to the harbour. Birds flocked over the fishermen’s catches and robots worked alongside men and women to unload the huge crates full of merchant goods.
Rani just stood there for several moments stunned and happy, she had gotten to see the sea.
“Remember this” the old man said softly in her ear.
She spun around to ask him what he meant, but he already began dragging her away from the docks, towards the other tiers. It didn’t take them long before they found themselves in front of a very rundown station. At the front of it were Makta and two militiamen, when they saw Rani they came running over.
“Initiate, we saw you on the cameras leading to here, are you okay?!” Makta said with worry in his voice.
“I’m fine, the old ma-“ she began to explain, but when she looked behind her, the man was gone.
She didn’t get long to be confused, instead she was whisked onto the maglev, and her day trip was cut short. Soon she found herself back at the top of the city by the temple. Solemnly she made her way back through the gates, the shield closing behind her along with the gates themselves. Almost immediately she was surrounded by some of the priestesses, her ascension was to begin.
They took Rani into the bath house, and there they washed her of the filth of the lower levels, scrubbing away the physical evidence that she had ever left the temple. Removing the clothes she wore, they instead replaced them with her red robes. One of them fished the crystal they had given her out of her old clothes. Resigned to her fate, she dressed. Then she followed them barefoot from the baths, and down into the vaults of the building.
It took them a few long silent minutes to traverse all the way down into the catacombs. Eventually though they made their way in to a huge hall. Its walls reached up into blackness above them, the only light was eerie floating orbs that illuminated more priestesses that had congregated around a podium. On the podium was a blood red crystal, the size of Rani’s head.
She was led up to it where she was made to kneel before it; one of the priestesses took the crystal shard she had returned to them and placed it back in its spot in the crystal on the podium. Around her the other women began to chant, their voices causing a rising echo. She began to feel lightheaded and she was worried she would feint. On the podium, the crystal began to hum back, strange symbols flashing across it. As the hum grew louder, Rani felt herself grow smaller in her head, the noise of the crystal drowning out her own voice.
Soon she felt memories begin to slip, as if the crystal was eating them, consuming her. Her mother’s voice and her smell of lilac, the memories of growing up within the temple, and her favourite foods and colours. All of it was being taken from her, no matter how hard she fought. Soon it came to her time earlier that day, the journey through the city.
It got to the moment she met the old man, and it then stopped.
“Remember…”
The old man’s voice was as soft as when he spoke, but it roared in her head, it filled her bones with resolve. She fought to remember the smells of the sea, the sight of its azure blue under a blue sky; the people who sailed it and worked it. She then began to remember the merchant’s clothes, the robots that followed them as well as the huge screens of the greater world. All of her memories began to pour back to her in a huge crash, like a wave.
At the centre of it all stood the old man, although now he seemed wreathed in a red fire. Approaching her, she felt overwhelmed by his presence.
“Hello Rani” his voice once again was a soft but commanding roar.
“Who are you?” she asked again, almost whimpering.
“I am your guide, but my name is Ithras.”
Rani gave a squeak as a reply, and the God laughed in reply.
“You did not fear me earlier today.”
“You were the old man?”
“Yes, you were told you would have a guide” he said with a smile. Once again he knelt down and took her hand.
She gasped as she felt a flood of strength and warmth engulf her.
“Where am I, what was that crystal?” She asked.
“That crystal is a matrix, within it, it holds me. Or perhaps a simulacrum of me, an AI built to replicate me.”
Rani looked at him in confusion.
“So you’re not really here, but you were in the city, you were real there!”
Once again he laughed.
“I was there, yes, I am anywhere you need me. That crystal is more than just a storage device. It is what connects me to this city of mine.”
Rani stood before him trying to processes everything she had been told. Suddenly she made the connection. The crystal shard she had carried with her, he was inside that.
“You’re a God, but an artificial one!”
He smiled at her.
“You will make a good follower; I will watch you with interest. It is now time to wake up, but do not forget this, remember it.”
Rani suddenly felt her mind slip away, rushing back to her body. Ithras was gone, and so was the wave of memories. Awakening, she found herself on her bed, surrounding her were the faces of the priestesses. Concern etched into their eyes.
“You’ve awoken priestess; do you know your name?” One of them asked hesitantly.
“My name? It’s Rani, I am Priestess Rani.” |
|
|
|
Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jan 21, 2015 17:43:40 GMT -5
Gonna give you a little feedback of my own here, and I'm going to try to hit some of the other stories as well.
There's a lot of potential here and some really interesting ideas to explore; I just wish you'd done a little exploring. I mean, I get that this story was to be an introduction to your world, but there's still plenty of room to play a little.
I love the idea of a naive young-woman, raised in the temple, never been outside, exploring her city for the first time. However, I don't think the language you used captured it. "To be" in all it's forms (is, was, will be) is the most boring verb available and you wore it out. My advice would be to check yourself on re-reads and any time you encounter "to be," think if there's some way to rephrase it with a more interesting verb. Sure, you can use it here or there, just keep in mind that as a mundane verb, anything you attach it to will appear equally mundane. Rani is exploring this city for the first time, she's never seen anything outside the walls of the temple. Your descriptors should have embraced that awe, and fear and anticipation, nervousness, timidity, etc. Especially when you were in her head.
There were a couple points where it seemed like you were revving up to deliver but didn't quite get there. Like when she first reached the docks, you began to paint a really vivid picture (I'd never imagined robots in a harbor before, so that was a fun image to conjure) and then said, "Meh, I can't draw people, so stick figures it is." So instead of cool descriptions of robots moving to and fro and doing their jobs with weird clawed hands or amorphous mechanical frames or whatever I get, "There were robots."
Problem is, I found myself re-writing every third line in my head and that was really distracting.
Your opening paragraph gave me some issues as well. I see what you were trying to do laying the foundation of an ancient city, but I feel like you either took me too far back, or brought me forward way to fast. I mean, within four paragraphs I went from carving caves into cliffs with stone tools to maglev trains. Really threw me off and I spent a while trying to regain my balance.
Oh, the artificial god in the computer crystal thing... I dunno, I think the idea is cool that and ancient church would eventually recreate their god in an AI, but at the same time it doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, that's not an accident. That's the pope going, "You know what guys, if we can get people to believe on faith, just build a God that we all know is fake and then we'll worship that."
I dunno, I guess I need a little more background on how this god-crystal came to be, because a computer AI ruling a people as a god while at the same time willingly acknowledging it's nature as a construct... That's a stretch for me.
Ultimately, this reads more like you had a list of ideas you wanted to put on paper and you just slammed them down as fast as you could with little concern for narrative. I'd like to see it refined into something more.
|
|
|
|
Post by J.O.N ((Dragonwing)) on Jan 22, 2015 4:35:32 GMT -5
Ultimately, this reads more like you had a list of ideas you wanted to put on paper and you just slammed them down as fast as you could with little concern for narrative. I'd like to see it refined into something more. Yeah, I ended up scrapping my original story three hours before the deadline and writing this instead. I definitely spent more time trying to paint a picture of the world then tell a good narrative. Unfortunately I'm not great at descriptions. |
|
|
|
Post by Kaez on Jan 25, 2015 21:20:52 GMT -5
the temple district was where the Cult was housed along with the new corporation buildings and laboratories the housing for the people who worked amongst the corporations and the elite militia of the city the slums This is a -little- too cliche, I think. We've all seen this kind of neat, unbelievable division a few too many times. She had exchanged the long red robes she normally wore for brown synthetic leather pants. They were form-fitting but tough, normally worn when she was doing gardening. For her top, she wore a light, white, long sleeved shirt with a shawl thrown over it. The shawl hid her long black hair, and it could be pulled across her face to hide her piercing that marked her as an initiate. The piercing was a golden chain that connected her right ear lobe to the right corner of her mouth. Finally she wore her work shoes, a pair of heavy soled black boots and a pair of gloves. Standing impatiently, she was growing nervous. She had been given a small shard of crystal; apparently it would help her guide keep track of her. Playing with that in her pocket she glanced around. She had been told that her guide would arrive late in the morning, but she was hoping they would get there sooner so they could leave early. Unfortunately they arrived exactly on time.[/quote] Try to avoid listing appearances like that. Let them work their way into the story naturally. Maybe she tugged at her brown leather pants. Maybe her boots splashed in a puddle. Make it a narrative. She did this. She was doing that. Consider alternatives like, "Her anticipations withered" or "her mind itched with curiosity" etc. Try to be mindful of each sentence. You know what you're trying to -tell- the reader, now think about how to -show- them. She chased the sounds of crashing waves and a cool gust of salty air through the winding alleys, helplessly trying to get to the seaside. Turn after turn, alley after alley, her sense of direction was contorted and the looming buildings disguised any visual cues. Weaving through the stained and haggard people around her, she fell into an anxious, worried jog. Drawing her arms around her and pulling the shawl around her face, she resigned to finding her way back to the stairs.Very few differences, but the overall impression is huge. Little wording changes are all you need. This ending scene could have benefited a ton from an emotional punch. It really lacked the insight into her feelings and thoughts that would've helped created that sense you were going for, and instead it fell a little flat. I'm not going to summarize in a ton of detail because Zovo also did an extremely good job with critiquing here, and he covered half the points I would've. No reason to reiterate those. But I felt like this had the foundation to be a really cool story -- but like Zovo, I had that itch to rewrite half the sentences. Just pay close attention to your wording. Take your time with it. |
|
