OOC: Gonna start this out a bit slow, but it'll get pretty awesome later on.

IC: His vision came slowly. Everything was a bright blur at first. He could see nothing but a violent, bright white. After a while everything became a dark blur. A few colors popped out here and there, and after a while he recognized dark green leaves, and dark branches. He could see a small, bright circle shining in the sky beyond the shapes coming into focus around him.

Secunda, he thought, recognizing the moon. His vision cleared up, and he deduced that he was in a forest; the thick canopy obscured most of the sky, and he could feel himself lying on what felt like tall grass.

The man sat up, but was immediately subdued by a massive pain in the back of his head. His ears rang and his head throbbed so much that he thought it might explode. He fell back to the ground, his hands tightly clutching his temples. His vision blurred again, and he couldn't hear a thing.

He couldn't tell how long he stayed in that spot, waiting for the pain to subside. When the man felt up to it, he attempted to sit up once more. A sharp pain greeted him once again, only this time it wasn't nearly enough to stop him. Still holding his head with his left hand, he brought himself to one knee, then the other, and then stood up.

The man felt a weakness is his left ankle, losing his balance for an instant before regaining it. It felt odd, as if it had been recently injured in some way. He picked his left foot up off the ground and examined it as he balanced on his other. He flexed his ankle, and besides a slight soreness, it seemed fine. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he saw another foot lying on the ground.

Attached to this foot was a man, strewn across the ground in front of him. He knelt down and checked for a pulse; he could feel nothing. He turned the man's head to see his face, and his stomach turned over. At this, the man was surprised, as there was nothing particularly disgusting about the dead man's face. If anything, he thought, it must have been from the suspense; he must have expected to see a horribly disfigured, bloody face. On the contrary, the dead breton's face seemed calm, almost serene. One might think he was sleeping if his flesh was not cold to the touch.

The man stood up once more, still looking at the corpse at his feet, and for the first time asked himself where he was. A forest, he thought. Yes, he was in a forest. But which forest? He looked around at the thick foliage, trying to specifically state where he was; no answer came to him.

He looked at the side of a nearby tree, noticing how moss grew thickly on one side and not the other. Pointing in the direction the moss was facing he said quietly, "North." Moss always pointed North. Better get home, then, he thought, moving in that direction. But where was home, and why was he going North? Is home in that direction?

The man pondered over this for several minutes, but for the life of him could not come up with an answer to any of it. This, of course worried him. He was an advlt, or at least he thought he was. Naturally, an advlt would have quite a bit of memory stored in his brain, telling him where he was and where he needed to go.

But his mind was blank. He could not recollect anything about himself or his present situation, and he still felt a bit dizzy from the pain in his head. His fingers touched the tender spot on the back of his head, and his brain, as if stimulated from the pain, immediately put two and two together: he had evidently taken a blow to the head (from the dead breton, perhaps?), and his memory was failing him temporarily as a result.

So the man continued on North, hoping his memory might come back soon. It started to rain.

Good to see I'm not the only one attempting a return. Although yours was a bit more vibrant than mine.

As far as the fanfic goes, I always find that starting it out slow gives you time to develop a sound character and give your readers some time to get to know who it is they're reading about.
I like that you can identify the importance of a slow beginning, rather than attempting to rush straight into a fight from the start. It shows you understand the importance of setting the tone, be it dramatic, comedic, macobre, etc...

Of course with every bit of praise there should always be a bit of constructive criticism. As there's always room to improve. I think even Darkom can agree with that.

I noticed you used the word "blurred" quite a bit to describe the difficulty your character was having in regaining/maintaining his vision. I understand that the synonyms for some words are hard to find, but repetition takes away from the splendor of having some variety. I'm not saying you need to have a Webster's dictionary-esque piece of literature with a handful of words that even Darkom can't identify, but substituting these repeated words improves the overall read.

I liked the amount of detail you put into him struggling to find out where he was and what he was doing there.

The only issue i had was the ending. It was a bit dry. The simplicity left me feeling a little blank, but the overall read was impressive and enjoyable. I hope you continue with the installations.

And 'btw', you left us hanging there with that last rp you started a while back. You owe us! :laugh:

Thanks for the good praise, Dren. I'll be sure to watch my word choice from now on
And you mean Black Gold? I would've loved to keep going with that, but alot of people disappeared before it got going. But I'd be willing to try that again.


The wind picked up a bit as he walked on with the smallest hint of a limp on his left side. The light rain stung his face as it flew nearly sideways through the air. The forest was still rather dark, especially so now that dark clouds had removed most traces of moonlight from his surroundings. Serveral times the man found himself tripping over fallen logs and snagging his clothes on branches he never knew were there.

Yet, through all this trouble, he still had no idea where he was going. His decision to go north had been entirely based around his own gut feeling; there really was no basis for it whatsoever. Over and over again the man considered turning back (especially now that he was heading face-first into sideways-flying rain, which was growing heavier by the minute), but to backtrack now would be incredibly wasteful, after all the distance he had covered.

Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly lighting up the man's surroundings. Quite a distance away, he thought he saw a small shack; he decided he ought to head there, hoping whoever was there might give him shelter.

Another bolt of lightning came with a loud crack, almost like an explosion, followed by an enourmous sound of timber falling. A moment later, something large and heavy fell onto him, bringing the man flat on his back. The wind was knocked out of him as he felt a few ribs crack. A large branch had fallen onto him; or at least, he thought one had, as he really could not see a thing.

The man reached an arm out to grab the earth, and began to drag himself out from underneath the heavy piece of lumber. The work strained his broken ribs, but he managed, eventually freeing his legs. He attempted to stand up when the pain in his head hit once again; combined with the pain in his ribs, he collapsed to his knees. His vision was obscured by the blinding pain in his head, but he heard someone yell, and thought he could see the door to the cottage fly open.... a man was approaching him through the storm, carrying a lantern ahead of him...

"Come on, get up!" a gruff voice said, and a man hoisted him up from his armpits. He could feel his arm being slung around this man's shoulder, and the man brought him out of the downpour and into a small sitting room. He was put down on a sofa as the man shouted to a woman to bring some water.

The man was now kneeling down in front of the person he had just saved. "Are you all right?," he said, waving his hand in front of strange man's unresponsive eyes. "Hey!" he said more loudly as he snapped his fingers in the man's face. The man finally seemed to notice where he was, and quickly looked all around himself, taking it all in.

"Where have you been?" the man said in a familiar voice. Taking a closer look, he could deduce that his savior was a Nord. But why was he talking like this?

"W-What?" the man said, apparently confused by this question.

The Nord looked even more confused. "You were supposed to come back yesterday! Arven wanted to up and leave, but I convinced her to stay another day to see if you'd come back." The man looked quite pleased with himself.

The man gave the Nord an empty stare, as though trying to process all of the information that had just entered his brain. Who was this man? He was apparently supposed to know him, perhaps they were friends, or some kind of business associate?

The Nord evidently realized that the man had no idea what was going on, as he then said, "Eh, you need some rest, looks like you've been through hell and back," A dark elf woman came up to them and handed the Nord a jug of water. He thanked her and then turned back toward him. "Here, drink up," he said as he handed him the jug. The water was cold and, despite the pain in his ribs, quite wonderful. He finished drinking when the Nord spoke again.

"Arven'll help you to the room, and she'll patch those up for you," the Nord gestured toward the man's ribs, which he was clutching with his left hand. The dark elven woman helped him up and they walked together through a doorway into a very small bedroom, where she laid him down on the bed.

"We didn't think you'd come back," she said, smiling broadly at him. Too tired to ask the questions burning in his mind, he simply nodded and smiled back. "I'll fetch some bandages."

The man could feel his eyelids sagging as she walked out of the cramped room. By the time she returned, he was asleep.