Hello all, here's my first attempt at some fan fiction. I first had the idea after reading etrusk's "Blood Oath" story, about a barbarian who never reaches his potential and a rogue who decides to be more than what she was meant to be. I then started to wonder about the many enemies in the game, and how they perceived the situation. What if some of them started to have greater aspirations as well? I think it'd be interesting if my nameless protagonist met Torril the rogue some day in the future...
Anyway, here's the story. I haven't written anything in a long time so it's probably a little rough around the edges. Any comments or criticisms would be appreciated.
The world, which some call The Monastery, is an aged, sprawling, irregular construct of stone and timber, and although its outer walls define or suggest a boundary, it is infinite. Our realm is housed within; no one truly knows what lies without, if indeed anything does. (This has been a subject of much debate; some say that the very concept of ‘outside’ is absurd, if not blasphemous; others claim the world is cyclical, and any hypothetical breach into the outer wall would lead to another monastery, identical or perhaps mirrored in our own. What I once glimpsed, and told no one, was a far open gate I knew I hadn’t been meant to see, and through it, dark rain-soaked moors vanishing into infinite fog beneath an autumn sky). Inside these somber walls I came into existence and here I will die, or have died – I now know the distinction is meaningless.
I am of Night Clan. Though others may surpass us in the ways of magic trickery, we are strong and cunning warriors, without peer in the arts of battle. Together with our kinsmen of Moon and Death we have been tasked to guard this place - the certainty of this is seared into every fiber of our being, though it has never been told to any of us. Like many of my clan, my younger days were marked by travel. I have crossed the echoing stone chambers, explored the hallways, the atria, the archways and courtyards. With my clan-brothers I took the crumbling staircase into the arabesque maze of cellars where hungry spider-demons lurk and Nightkin shamans plead in high-pitched voices with their diminutive and angry gods, and beyond, to those endless catacombs of nighted silence whose pale damp stones have never been warmed by the sun and where dead things float or stumble, drawn to the warmth of the living. It was during these early travels that I first became aware of a prevailing oddity; In vain I have attempted to ascribe it to tricks of light and shadow, peculiarities of perception, or even my own fallible memory – the truth has asserted itself with a force I cannot deny. The Monastery, though eternal, is also fluid. It started with doors changing their position, stairways leading to unexpected places. New openings reveal unfamiliar chambers, while a dead end might lie where memory recalls a great hall. I eventually knew that entire sections of the Monastery would periodically undergo such changes as to become unrecognizable. This is how I came to perceive infinity, for although the damp stones and shadow-haunted corridors always exist, their layout is ever-shifting and the permutations are without end. And yet, though monstrous in itself, this fact is - as we shall see - only the lesser of our world’s secrets.
I have spoken of exploration, yet a large part of our existence is dedicated to combat. We know nothing of those we fight save that they are The Enemy. They take many guises yet are instantly recognizable. It is always the same: they come out of nowhere, weapons raised, spells readied, death in their eyes. Where there was silence a moment before, the din of combat fills the ancient halls. Blade meets armor or flesh, magics eerie and terrible fly through the air bringing destruction, screams and shouts and death-rattles echo in the darkness. Relentlessly the Enemy advances, and we feel compelled to fight them. We do not know where they come from, where they go, or for what purpose; a hidden voice whispers to us that it is irrelevant. Sometimes we defeat them. I have buried my axe in the chest of a warrior and cried out in triumph as I stood over the lifeless body. But even in these rare instants the victory is short-lived, because we know they will return with greater strength and greater numbers. They pass through to some unknown destination, eagerly searching the dead as they go (I do not know for what, but I have seen things I cannot explain - fallen comrades relinquishing items which they could not have possessed). Although we are skillful, and my muscles and weapons have never betrayed me, the fight is hard. Many of us fall for each Enemy slain. But – and this may be the Monastery’s ultimate gift or ultimate curse – as they may return, so do we.
Like all my fellow creatures, I have fought to protect this place. I have died more deaths than I can remember, by sword and club and piercing arrow, hurled axe and claw and fist, by spear of steel and shaft of lightning, by the agony of fire and the numbness of cold, by poisonous vapors which blacken the tongue and drown the lungs, by magics I cannot name or comprehend. I saw and felt my body rupture, my bones shatter. I have gazed with dimming vision at the chaos round me, at my own blood glistening on the stones, as I slipped into nothingness a thousand times over. Yet I always awake, in the cold damp silence, and I understand that the Monastery will endure forever and so will its denizens. It is my world. It is my prison, and death itself brings no escape.
The others seem unaware, or perhaps resigned to this lot; mostly, they refuse to acknowledge it, and so my quest is a solitary one. Sometimes, during the quiet moments, I wander the halls and twilight-dimmed courtyards alone, dreaming of vast reaches beyond our reality. I wish for a world not girded by stone walls. I wish to track The Enemy to its lair, to see what they see, to understand them and then destroy them once and for all. Long have I thought and planned. I have seen the forbidden gate, and when next it opens, I will pass through it. I have no illusions of my abilities; without the Monastery’s restorative power, I know that my reward will likely be oblivion, yet even so I would not regret nor change my course. I will no longer be a puppet in this senseless game devised by some higher being whose purpose is as alien to us as the meanings of stars. I know what must be done; the moors await. Come victory or death, I will not look back.
RevenantsKnight
19-10-2004, 05:47
Interesting...not many people choose to write from the perspective of a demon, especially not from that of a minor and more or less faceless fiend. That said, you do a good job of working around this inherent problem, making your narrator seem more appealing to the reader than the average goat demon beginning players kill off by the hundreds. The demon's perspective is in general believable, and overall, the piece is, in my opinion, fairly well written and free of error.
However, there are some things that I found confusing, or think don't quite work. Here are my observations on your story:
1: It's kinda short, and as a result, the narrator isn't as developed/well described as he could be (I'm assuming that the narrator is male for simplicity's sake) and the reader doesn't get enough time to get absorbed in your world. As it is, it's boom, here's the world, here's the lead, and now on to the next chapter, coming soon.
2: You're a little too faithful to the game for my tastes in a few points. The dying and respawning I'll buy, since demons are supposed to be immortal (at least compared to humans) and therefore their spirits could theoretically be rebound to new bodies by their masters. However, the shifting nature of the monastery seems like unnecessary adherence to Diablo II's 'new game' property. You do describe it rather eloquently, but it took my attention out of your world and placed my focus smack on your writing.
3: "Nightkin shamans plead in high-pitched voices with their diminutive and angry gods." Do you mean Devilkin here? Also, I'd try to avoid using the stock names of monsters as much as possible; you could describe them as "orange imp-shamans" or something of that ilk. You do a good job with the rest of the monsters, though, as well as mixing in the narrator's species with the "I am of Night Clan" bit.
Anyway, that's just my two cents. I hope I didn't come off as overly critical, as I do think most of your story's engaging; there're just a few parts that stuck out in my mind when I read it over. Thanks for posting this for folks to read!
Thanks for the comments, as I said it's my first attempt in a long time, and I wasn't happy with all of it either...
1 - I know what you mean, I suppose I was afraid of being overly wordy, and thinking that many people might not feel like reading a long story from an unknown author. I'll probably write more, though.
2 - Being faithful to the game was the point... I thought I'd look at some of the more confusing characteristics of the game from a 'reality' standpoint (the random dungeons, respawning etc) and someone trying to make sense of them. It would have actually been much easier to write a conventional fan-fic without these elements, I think. :)
3 - I used their Diablo 1 name because I don't really like the D2 ones (devilkin is too obvious, and what's a carver?) and it seemed somehow approriate.
Anyway, thanks for reading and I appreciate the criticism. I'm always trying to get better...
0xDEADCAFE
20-10-2004, 19:01
Very nice. It's an interesting idea and one that expands my conception of the Night Clan monster types. It is also beautifully written and the imagery is strong.
This is one example, but really, the whole story is just as good:
What I once glimpsed, and told no one, was a far open gate I knew I hadn’t been meant to see, and through it, dark rain-soaked moors vanishing into infinite fog beneath an autumn sky.
Great job. :thumbsup:
Jazzmosis
31-10-2004, 05:54
It's very good - and rather believable. Although I didn't understand the 'new game' analogy you used (I saw it more as you trying to describe a place similiar to the Arcane Sanctuary rather than the Monastary). But entertaining nonetheless.
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