It began as a quiet sunny day. The birds were singing. The children were playing happily in the streets. A typical day in the city of Kvatch.

Then the gates rose.

The ground crumbled and shook beneath the cityfolks feet as huge spires rose out of the ground. People screamed as the gates activated with a bright crimson glow and churned out hundreds of daedric creatures from the planes of oblivion. Tons of people were ripped apart by the blades of the Dremora whilst others were burnt by the tens of Flame Atronachs burning the houses and people of Kvatch. Within minutes, the peace and serenity of the city was filled with the screams of hundreds of people being slaughtered by the sheer amount of demons ploughing through the gates.

"Fall back! Fall back to the castle!" Asule Telathor yelled to his troops. As his men ran back from the church steps he looked around at the remains of his beautiful city. Broken buildings. Flames higher than the sky itself. Hundreds of bodies littering the street. He kicked a dead scamp in anger. "Bastards... What have they done?" He screamed into the air. As the imperial troops fell back into the castles walls he counted his men. "Just under thirty men... Against four hundred plus..." He cursed. "This city... Is lost..."

The iron gate came crashing down as the legions of daedra piled into the courtyard. Mostly lesser beings. Asule raised his blade and sliced the head off an oncoming Clanfear and roared. He wasn't losing so easily. He turned around and raised his shield, blocking the blow from a large Xivilia. He pushed back its mace and stabbed it in the stomach with his sharp longsword. He kicked the creature in the stomach and pulled his blade from the heavy bleeding demon. Asule glancede around at the chaos. He could still see some of his men. But the daedra were still coming, numbers stronger than ever. With a heavy heart he called once more for a retreat and ran for the large double doors of the castle.

He made it inside with twelve men to spare. They pushed the doors closed and began pulling down the locks whilst others ran for heavy blocks of wood to reinforce the door. Asule dropped his longsword and fell to the floor. There was blood splattered all over his cuirass, both human and daedra alike. He gasped and tried to wipe it all off. He couldn't help crying. They were all going to die. The city was lost. ""What have I led my men into?" He shivered as the doors began to thump as the hordes of demons tried to crash through the castle doors. He pulled of his helmet and stared into the reflection. His short blonde hair was matted with sweat, and his cheeks covered in blood. He layed his head in his hands and sighed heavily. "What about Kalia and my children... Did they make it? Will I ever see them again..?" He groaned. "Oh god... "Be strong," he said. "Be strong."

He ran his hands over his face and sighed once more. He placed his helm upon his head and plucked his blade up from the floor. He walked over to the Imperial troops and looked at their handy work. The wood was hastily pushed up towards the doors and cracks were already beginning to appear. One man turned to Asule and grimaced. "I'm sorry sir. It's the best we could do with them ramming the door." Asule forced a smile and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's ok soldier. Come." He led them along the hall towards the throne of Kvatch. "Here we will stand. Here we will defend Kvatch till the last drop of blood spills from our bodies!" He raised his sword in the air and roared. His men followed suit and held their blades towards the roof. The thumping grew louder and they soon heard the sounds of wood being smashed and dropped to the floor. The soldiers remained silent as the next few minutes were filled with the sounds of crashing wood and screaming demons. As the gates began to pile down several scamps made it through the holes and wriggled around the floor untill they regained their balance. They stood up and stared around the Throne room, looking for their prey. The closest Clanfear spotted the troops and screeched victoriously to the others. They all started running towards them and pounced at them one by one. As the guards of Kvatch cut them down, more daedra had found their way through the splintered remains of the doors.

When the last clanfear was struck down they turned their flank back towards the door and stood, one last time against the forces of Oblivion. Asule made a silent prayer to the gods. Blessing his comrades... And his family... Wishing luck and health upon them all. "And so it ends..." he whispered to himself. The demons got closer. Their numbers had increased once more. They piled in all corners of the hall as they ran towards their prey.

"For Kvatch!" Asule cried.

"For Kvatch!" His men yelled back.

The daedra crashed upon them, overwhelming them in seconds. Asule tried to kill as many as he could, hacking and slahing where ever he could.

"One... Two... Three..." He counted in his head.

He barely heard the screams of his men over the cries of delight from the ecstatic demons. He tried to shut them out.

"Four.. Five... Six..."

He made for another slice with his blade when his sword was knocked from his hand. He was kicked to the ground and trampled on by the crazed horde. His legs were numb with the pain from the takedown and he felt blood dripping from his head as they stamped on his head.

He reached for a dagger in front of him and stabbed a Scamp in the spine and smirked.

"Seven..."

He felt a sharp blade penetrate his back and stab through his ribs.

The smile remained on his face as he coughed up blood over the royal carpet. The sword was pulled from his body and he was engulfed in excruciating pain. He dropped the dagger and closed his eyes.

And the screams of Hell were gone.

You're not allowed a second fan-fiction. Sorry.

What...?

You can't have two running fan-fictions at one time.

edit: Oh, I see the other one is done.

No this is a short story. Not an RP. Nothings running. This is a story.

No, you don't get it. You're not allowed to have two fan-fictions at the same time. But the other one looks like it's finished, so I guess you're good.

Indeed, if you wish to keep this thread open, your other one will be locked soon. I don't like the rule either, but trust me when I say this. I know from personal experience (three times, actually).

So my 'man of faith' story will get locked?

Yes. It's either this story or that one. Those are the rules I'm afraid.

Besides, why would you want two fan fictions anyway? With only one you can pour more time into that to make it better.

Ok i understand that. But both of my 'fan fictions' are finished. They are only short stories. Thats it there done. Simple as.

Theres nothing to add to them. Ok? lol.

Now thanks for your advice and stuff, but does anyone have any comments on the actual story? lol

First of all, Chriso, do you have any idea how much I want to start writing the dozens of ideas that I have stored away? I do love my current story (although it has lost some of its luster), but one gets bored. Why write about Garzog and Claude when I could have Galerion's apprentice be hunting Mannimarco? Or a terrorist cult of illusionists sowing mistrust and death along the countryside?

Secondly, I now see that we have all been so preoccupied with the rules that no one has bothered to give you some critique

Hmm... Short stories must be looked at differently than longer novels, but I still can't help but feel it would be better if you showed the invasion more instead of telling us all what's happening. You have a protagonist, use him. Describe what he is seeing as the Daedra attack, not some random narration that is both boring and repetetive. That kind of description is not really a description at all. You can use that kind of far off, detached point of view, though you'll have to change a few things to make it equally characterizing as someone using a closer one.

I know that you might want to hold off on using the protagonist so you have some space to get the overall situation down, but my personal opinion is that there are very few times where it is a good idea to describe a scene with pure narration. Telling us what the character sees and feels tends to lead to better descriptions and more characterization. Remember "Show, don't tell" applies to more than just saying "He is sad". There are certain levels- one always has to deal with the SDT rule in one form or another.

Over and over we see "he did this, he saw that". Don't just list off things that he saw like he's a robot, give him some emotions, thoughts, and realism. In the middle of a battle, he is probably not going to be able to take stock of all of this information. You can easily convey the scene to us without explaining exactly what's going on, especially on a subject we are all so familiar with. We don't need information about what's happening around your character, we need to know what's happening to him and within him. That kind of thing is much more interesting than even the most dynamic fight scene.

It even feels like you switch quite frequently between telling us about the protagonist and telling us about the scene. While you do have to do both, and in this point of view it isn't always a bad idea to avoid direct descriptions by the characters, I can't help but feel that you could stand to do things a bit differently. It is a very complicated and advanced subject- one that I have very little experience in, myself- so I don't expect you to be able to do it any more than I can. However, it is always something you can think about while you write, and maybe even ask a more experienced and knowledgeable writer about.

Now, with all this criticism, I can tell you one good thing: you are still writing a pretty good story, but it could be better. For example, the pace is very very quick. Description and flow are even more important in a short story than they are in a novel, since we don't have a long plot or developed characters to work off of. The best way to slow it down is with good descriptions. As it is, I feel like I'm playing Oblivion again instead of hearing how it actually happened. There was a daedra here, a building there, but the story doesn't tell us anything specific about them. When you look at a house, you don't just think "Oh look, a house", more often than not you are going to pick out certain details or things you remember about that house. "What a nice door", "Why would they put blue shutters on the windows?", or "Old lady Smith lives there, let's get out of here". Little things, like people actually see in real life, make a huge difference.

Going away from more general themes, I have one thing to say about your style of writing: you overuse the sentence structure of "He blanked the blank and then blanked the blank". It is not a bad structure by itself, but when you do it three times in a row, twice a paragraph, it becomes distracting. Vary your sentences, use commas and semi-colons, and perhaps even the occasional "subject-verb-direct object" form. You also start lots of sentences in the "as" form, telling one thing so you can say something else. "As they blanked, this other thing happened". It becomes very tedious to read. The as form also gives the feeling of multiple things happening at once, which can be good or bad depending on how frequently you do it. We get very fast paced action, but very little focus on one thing, which leads to scenes being visualized in small segments.

Like I said, the far away narration is fine, but you have to know the pros and cons of such a method: you get very little characterization, very little description, and even less focus. However, at the same time, you get much clearer action and quick progression through the plot. In a short story, it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Whether you want to make the audience connect with the protagonist and mourn his death, or just tell a small tale about the valor of the last defenders of Kvatch. Either one are fine- it's really just personal preference. Personally, I prefer lots of characterization, a little bit lighter than normal descriptions, and an average plot advancement. But hey, that's your call.

Now, all of this critique is meaningless if what you were going for was just a legend-like tale, like one would tell to other people. However, if you want that kind of story that feels personal, like a little secret between the author and the reader, you'll want to connect the reader more. But still, that completely depends on your purpose of writing this

All in all, my personal tastes probably impacted this critique more than they should have (I am a fan of very close and emotional novels), and if you only want to write short stories then you are spot on target. As a short story it was good, but if you ever want to write longer you'll have to change a few things.

Thanks for writing, and keep it up :goodjob:

Woah, Thanks for the critisism. It was a bit overwhelming to read at first but I got through it.

I'll take this advice on board for next time. I dont really like editing it just because someone said this and that etc. I prefer to be able to look back and see what I could improve on. Especially for a longer story, which I'll definetley get around to doing soon, but not now. Got school and what not, (I shouldn't even be on here because i need to sleep for my higher english NAB tommorow. But when I get the chance...

You're very welcome, though don't take everything I say as fact. I was arguing with myself for a very long time over whether your style is appropriate for short stories or not, and it is just my novel preference making me want you to write it like a novel. That's why I kept saying it's your call and whatnot

School :nope: English classes can really get in the way of improving your writing, eh

Haha, I'm sure that school is a little bit more important... Too bad that my NAB isnt imaginative.. Personal study unfortunately... ah well...