My inspiration for this tale:
At the beginning of the Oblivion you start of as a random person in a prison cell.
So i decided to make a story about a possible history of what could have caused the character to be in the prison at the start of Oblivion.
Any constructive criticism is welcome so do not hesitate to mail me or comment.

If you see any corrections that need to be made please send me a message.

*Please note this is entirely original. Any similarities to other books of games are entirely unintentional. If there are any issues please contact me directly*




Foreword

I take up my pen and a flood of memories come to me; quicker than I can put them to paper.

They are the memories of a young man, battle worn, and weary. A great many responsibilities lay and have lain heavy upon his shoulder. The memories of those he has lost; saved and killed weighing him down. Memories of the time he stood beside the great dragon of Akatosh, memories of the fiery worlds of oblivion he had to descend upon; to save the ravaged world of Cryodil.

I apologise; I am getting ahead of the story.

My tale begins not during the great “War of the Gates”, nor does it begin after the great deeds of our world weary hero. No, our tale begins many decades before, for we know much of what happened to our hero during and after the “War of the Gates”, but nothing is known of the hero beforehand.

No one knows how our hero came to be in the cells of the Imperial City, that fateful night of the Emperor Uriel Septims assasination

That is no one knew... until now.

Until now no one knew the name of the Hero of Kvatch, The Warrior of the Gates, The Savior of Cyrodill.
So now I ask you to take yourselves back. Back to a time where peace had once adorned, our turbulant world.

Back to share the childhood of our hero....Brakath.

I have completed chapter 1.
It still needs proof reading, but hopefully will have it up on here at some point soon.


Please comment on what you think and possibly even things you might like to see in the fic.

Thanks

Anakha

Chapter 1: Unexpected Visitors

My earliest memories are of a small village enveloped with the rich smell of my foster parents’ bakery. Freshly made bread made here brought travelers from far and wide to visit our quaint and quiet village.
From my secret hideout in the tavern roof I could see the whole village. I can see the smith hammering away at a horse shoe with each hammer stroke echoing through the hills, the town crier making his daily routes whistling his usual cheery tune, the sailors unloading a freight merchant vessel bringing its usual bounty of chocolate, cocoa and exotic fruits, I can see the shopkeeper beating her husband over the head with her rolling pin; after he had spent the whole of last night drinking at the local tavern.

I usually come up to this spot to think...to watch as the world rolls gently by. But my daily musing was interrupted by the shrill voice of my friend Mordreth calling my name.

“Brakath, Brakath are you up there?” called Mordreth from the stairs leading up to the secret hideout.

I winced; Mordreth coming here meant i was in trouble. I turned to the entrance of the hideout to see his round red face poking up into the hideout.

“Yes Mordreth, I am here” i sighed “what is it?”

Mordreth climbed up through the entrance and sat down beside me with a thud, he was obviously weary from the climb. Mordreth was never very good with exercise.

“Mrs...The...Baker is asking for you” he managed to finally wheeze.

I sighed. This meant chores. Whenever Mordreth is sent to find me it means that my foster mother wants me to do manual work. I stood up glancing down at the still wheezing Mordreth.

“Thank you Mordreth, I should best go see what is up” I admitted regretfully.

And so i made my way down the stairs back down to street level. I slowly strolled my way up the hill towards my mum’s bakery. As I made my way to the bakery I saw the younger kids playing hide and seek near the village square one of the kids narrowly dodging a traders cart rolling through the village.

It is easy enough to find the bakery in this village; all you need to do is follow your nose. Today’s smell from the bakery was extra sweet. I strolled through the bakery towards the house entrance, stopping for only a second to deftly sneak a nice warm pastry into my pocket.

The house door was slightly ajar, I slowly poked my head around the door to check the coast was clear and saw that the table had been set and the hearth already had a roaring flame heating up the empty room. In the distance I could hear raised voices. Typical I thought. My foster parents were arguing again; a daily routine that they had not realized I knew about.

I sat down in the wicker armchair by the fire. After a few minutes the arguments subsided and my foster parents solemnly walked downstairs. When my mother saw me, she put on a fake smile and greeted me.

“Good morning son” she said calmly.

My foster father on the other hand did not even fake warmth in his voice.

“What took you so long? Where were you? Causing trouble, no doubt” he said gruffly.

I went to open my mouth to speak, but my mother stood between us, and with a sickly sweet voice asked us to join her at the table for lunch. Father grunted. I warily made my way over to the table.

An awkward silence fell upon the three of us. My dad started fiddling with one of the forks, whilst my mother looked around with an uneasy smile. That moment i knew something was wrong. Questions invaded my subconsciousness, “why had they argued?”, “Why had she called me home?”; I thought for a moment about asking those questions, but something blocked me from doing so.

Eventually my foster mum turned to me looking me full in the face.

“What do you know about your parents’ death?”

I was stunned, speechless. This was a topic of conversation i was told never to talk about. It was my foster mother who told me never to speak of it and here she is now asking me to talk about the very topic she wanted never mentioned.

“I...I don’t know anything.” I finally uttered.

She smiled at me, a pitying smile; a smile that spoke volumes.

It was my foster father that broke the silence in an angry voice, an anger not directed at me this time.

“Well? Are you going to tell him then?” He was shaking angrily, grinding his teeth nervously. This combination made me nervous.

My foster mother turned to him about to speak but then a loud banging rattled the front door.

An ominous voice shouted from the other side of the door.

“Open up we are the Cyrodiil Guard” he bellowed “Open up I say! We have come for the boy!”

Once again I was stunned, too shocked to say anything. My foster mum was the first to stand up.

“I’m coming, I won’t be a moment” she called in a frightened voice. She then turned to me and in a hushed voice said “run Brakath, as fast as you can, i don’t have time to explain you must go. Now!”

My foster father was standing by the door ready to let the Guards in, waiting for me to get clear.
I nodded my understanding and whispered a good bye and climbed out of the window at the back of the house.

I was only just quick enough. The guards had obviously had enough of waiting and burst the door open; sending splinters flying to every corner of the room. From my hiding spot at the end of the garden i could see into the window which had helped me make my quick escape. My foster mother was the first to be rounded up she screamed as they pulled her out into the street by her hair. My foster father struggled as he heard her screams, in return was deftly rapped on the head with a cudgel. His limp unconscious body was dragged out onto the street and dumped beside my foster mother. Fearful for my life I ran from my hiding spot as the remaining guards searched and destroyed the rest of the house.

I ran to the smithy making every effort to remain unseen. I climbed up into the hayrack high up in the smithy’s rafters. From there I could see the crowds gathering around my foster parents and the tall disciplined guards, armed with sabers and crossbows.

An hour went by the crowds hissing with excitement as a number of guards destroyed the bakery, the iron discipline of the guards unwavering. And then a single Guard stepped out of the wreckage that was once the bakery, the place I called home. This guard was different to the rest he wore silver armor embossed with a dragon on his left chest, and a plume of feathers rose from the center of his helm.

He stood before the crowds and raised his sword into the air. The crowds went silent. Not a sound could be heard. Not even the birds that sat upon the tavern roof dared tweet.

“I am after a boy! These two people who stand before you in chains have harbored this boy for many years” he swung his sword to point at my foster parents as if to emphasize he point he then turned his head back to the crowds “If any of you are to find this boy you are to bring him to me, or you shall suffer a similar fate to these two traitors!” As he spat out the word traitors he swung his sword down, his finely honed blade whistling as it fell.

That must have been a signal; as soon as the blade fell two guards with crossbows pierced my foster parents with crossbow bolts. I held back my sobs as tears fell down my cheeks. The lead guard then announced his name to the shocked crowd before him. Through the pain of the loss of my parents and the tears that fell from my eyes I could not hear his name. I curled up in the hay and sobbed my heart out.

It was not until past sunset; that I dared stir from my safety of the hay. Tears had dried upon my cheeks my body was shaking with the fear of being caught. The crowds had dispersed. The guards were gone.

My foster parents still lay in the place where they were felled. I started to move towards them but stopped myself. An orange torch light flickered into view. My nerve broke.

I ran.

I ran through the streets of the village. Not caring whether or not i was seen. I heard no shouts from behind me that told me I had not been followed.

I continued to run; across the farmers fields, and into the ominous darkness of the woods of Stanthen.

You have captured my attention! No major mistakes tripped my radar.

I'm not good enough with grammar to know every little detail of punctuation rules, least of all the semicolon, but I think it may be used incorrectly in a couple places. You'll want to get someone who is more of an expert on it than me to check. xD

That being said, I like your story thus far. Suggestion though, critique-wise--or really it's closest to a personal opinion but I don't know if you need a foreward here. It'd be preferable--possibly only to me--to just start it at chapter one instead. It's a very personal opinion on my part but it's something you might want to consider... Possibly. I favor chapter one beginning the story as opposed to the foreward because I feel like the foreward sets up too much expectation. I trust the readers to be able to figure out that this is an origins story without the introduction tipping them off. But even more than that, the foreward is just of epic proportions--not in length but in subject and the way the narrator is talking, while the chapter is focused on quaint and small details. I'm a big fan of the little details, and I could be wrong but I think most people are with me on that. I respond more to the small things because I'm a human being and I think primarily in small details. Thinking in epic proportions is distasteful to me ("hey the universe never ends, think about that" I don't like to do it) and I believe that if something epic was truly happening to me I would still be concentrating on the details, because that's the way my mind works. I think details make it easier for the thinker to connect themselves to the world, and I think details makes it easier for readers to connect to the story, setting, and character. I've just worked myself into a circle here with mega repetition and all that stuff, I know. But point: the foreward is too epic for me personally to connect to, and if you put that at the beginning it might lose my interest. I'd suggest either starting at chapter one, or adding more of the little things to the foreward.

Then again, I could just be weird (I'm certainly confusing. Let me know if that's confusing to you, because it doesn't seem like it's very coherent to me but I'm having trouble fixing it.)

I think I understand.
Do you think it would be better to remove the foreword completely or to change it so that it makes up chapter 1 instead?

I think that's really your call--it's your call taking this suggestion even. You know your story and the effect you want it to have on readers, what path (not just of those two but any other options on any other problems) would show it all better? I'm not going to be able to answer as well as you, the writer, can.