FanFic: Dragon hunting

[Flamberge]

Slowly he made his way into the center dome of this forest like area. Dark brown hair trailing down both sides of his face and slightly shifting with each step he took. He didn't know what to expect in here but after fighting so many creatures so far, he didn?t want to get taken by surprise. After all, these creatures seem to have been leading him this way and guarding this place to all costs.

The hot air of this place stuck to his skin causing him to breathe deeply to try and get his breath back from these harsh battles. A light brown eye moved to scan the area slowly, seeing the hot steaming rocks on the floor here and the excavation equipment left behind from the incident. His other eye, yellow with a long red scar trailing over the full length of his cheek, seemed to stay in one place. A lot of this equipment was tilted in some kind of strange position away from the entrance to the caves. Mining tools left on the ground, half covered by the dirt that had kicked up in that large explosion that had surprised everyone. There were a few lights still working, glass scattered about the ground from the broken lamps, and wires hanging from the roof of this dome waving slightly in the gentle breeze that carried through this place, the light on the floor shifting from side to side slowly revealing shadows and then hiding them again.

Slowly he would move his arm out to the side and cup his fingers around his palm, as if holding something. A soft light would appear on his wrist and slowly grow up into his gloved hand. This light concentrating on his palm before slowly growing out both sides of the tunnel his hand had formed. One end stopped suddenly forming some kind of purple handle but the other arch of light kept growing, building this weapon as it reached out more and more. Soon the light would fade around this large purple sword that had formed, looking as if it was created out of the head of a Hildebear. A large blade, radiating with energy would shimmer in this waving light now and slowly he took another step forward. This dragon hunter was now ready to take on this monster, not a drop of fear or hesitation in those eyes.

It wasn't long before he would feel the ground shake harshly under his feet. A pattern of footsteps, and a small quake for each one would grow harsher, but this hunter stood his ground and waited for this beast to show itself.

It wasn't long before he could see the glowing red eyes of the creature staring back at him from the depths of the cavern he faced. His eyes narrowed, and lips smirked with enjoyable anticipation of what was to come. There was an earth rattling cry from the beast, one that could only be brought out by a creature of this size and strength, but not a movement came from the hunter as he slowly moved his large sword up into both hands, tilting the blade to the side away from him and preparing himself for any form of attack that this dragon would give him. A few more lights crashed to the floor from high up on the ceiling, but he didn't take his eyes off of the monster before him.

As this creature pulled out of the dark abyss he would see this creature only had two legs, it wasn’t like the dragons of legends he had expected when he came here, but none the less it was a dragon. Black shadow fading into dark green scales as the monster walked, step by step out into the poor light of the central dome. He simply moved to take a step forward pulling his sword closer to himself as he would be forced to endure an ear piercing roar. Eyes winced down at this roar and a step back was taken before he would gain control of his legs to force himself to stand there.

The hunter didn’t wish to waist anymore time and quickly broke into a run at the dragon. This dragon moving to rear his head back slowly, stretching the neck out to this hunter, letting its mouth fall open. Down the tunnel of the neck he could see something approaching, but at first he couldn’t tell what. Those duel colored eyes would suddenly widen when a burst of flame flew from the dragons muzzle directly at him. The stream of fire was huge, too large to just dodge but he wasn’t going to stand there and take the full attack either. Lifting his left arm up quickly he moved to jump to the side. The flames would crash against his photon shielding but even that wasn’t enough to hold back such a force. While he managed to stall the flame long enough for him to evade it the gauntlet would fizzle and spark quickly before a small plume of smoke popped from it.

He took a deep breath, gritting his teeth and fell into a sudden sprint again this time running at the legs of the monster rather than the monster itself. Those large wings that made up its forearms would stretch out and beat at the ground as it would make the full attempt to lift off of the ground. While it was lifted quickly it wasn’t fast enough to avoid his attack. The sword pulled up high over his head and he would swing it down quickly with as much strength as he could put into it. Impacting the thigh but only managing to get a deep cut into the dragon. The dark blood ran down the blade of the sword, and over the Hildebear head that braced the handle. Seeing the dragon starting to take to the sky he would quickly move to back away from the beast and let it have its space. He wasn’t going to let it escape if that was its plan.

Once high enough in the air, this dragon would peer down at the hunter and take a deep breath, filling its lungs only to empty its third lung full of phosphate down at the ground. A burst of fire raced down to the ground forcing the hunter to jump back and allow the balls of flame to impact the ground just in front of him. His armor was then smoking with the heat of the flames, as he landed on his knee from the jump. The hunter's black armor hot with small plumes of smoke rolling up it and off the shoulders while he slowly moved to push himself back up to his feet. The dragon would watch him from up above and rumble softly, almost as if laughing at the hunter while he ascended higher into the air and preformed some kind of back flip in mid-air before plummeting down to the ground again. It targeted directly at the hunter who moved to throw himself out of the way landing on his side on the ground, but looked back to see a hole in the floor now where the dragon had impacted. Quickly he clawed at the dirt to pull himself back up to his feet and looked around, trying to figure out where the dragon was coming from.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye and quickly he jerked his head to look at it. The hunters' eyes widened in disbelief when he saw some kind of mound training straight for him. He didn’t waist time this time but jumped out of the way taking a hard hit to his left leg that wasn’t able to get out of the way fast enough. He moved to try and stand but gasped at the intense pain this motion gave him from his injured leg, forcing him back to the ground. He looked to the side to see the mound had turned around. The hunter looked down at his sword slowly and then smirked looking back at the mound. As it came closer he would move his arms would quickly pull himself to the side of the mound and swing his sword hard at the on coming dirt, piercing through the stone and slashing it deeply. He could feel the ground shake once more as a horrifying scream came from the caves below followed shortly by a rather heavy impact into the ground down there. He moved to straighten up slowly, his leg still throbbing in pain. Probably broken for all he knew, but he had to tough it out until he could get back to Pioneer. Turning slowly he would use his sword as a cane now to help hold him up and then suddenly stopped in his tracks when he heard something behind him. A heavy whooshing sound as if something were breathing. His head jerked back to the entrance again looking deeply into the black pit and gasped seeing this creature there again, but it seemed the dragon had taken some damage as well, the right wing was missing from it s place on its shoulder. Heavy amounts of blood pouring down the monsters side and onto the ground, leaving a trail as to where it had been. He knew he wouldn’t be able to run now with his leg as it was, but he turned and braced himself as best he could, pulling up his sword from the ground and holding it out in front of him.

Hatred and rage burned in the monsters eyes as it started to move for the human and then took off into a run after him. Huge fangs exposed to the man as it rushed for him. He only moved to take a step forward and waited for the creature to come to him. It swiftly leaded its head down, stretching out its neck to try and take the full human into its mouth. He jumped forward under the creature when it leaned down for him, landing on the knee of his hurt leg but then moved quickly to jump up at the dragon’s neck sword swinging upward with a heavy stroke. The blade connecting to the flesh of the dragon and cutting into it, with the force this strike held it would cleanly slash straight through the neck and passed between the vertebrae, decapitating the beast in a single stroke. Landing back down the heavy fluids that gave life to this dragon would fall down under him, covering him while the body fell to one side and the head to the other. Again he pushed himself up to standing and looking back shaking his head slowly.

“F**kin’ dragons”, he murmured to himself, his voice deep with lack of feeling for the death he had just taken. His breath heavy with the pains his leg brings him, this brought him to understand that he would need to go to the medic soon, not something he liked doing.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Flamberge on 2005-08-04 19:58 ]</font>

[Elvendar]

Hm. Very long. Has potential, definitely. Some of your wording is a bit... odd. Somewhat slow. You're getting a little bit bogged down with minor details and actions, so cut down on that in the future.

[LadyRedComet]

First and foremost, watch the tense you're writing in. If you shift back and forth between present and past, there had better be a good reason for it (like a dream or vision or something special would be in the different tense), don't just switch randomly in a sentence.

This:

these creatures seem to have been leading him

Is bad.

As Elvendar stated, you tend to word things oddly. For my first example, I present this:

A light brown eye moved to scan the area slowly

That phrase is just plain weird. While it gives the audience the idea you want, it also gives me a "what is this author on? Can't he write normally?" feeling. I think it'd be better written as "he scanned the area slowly." Or even "carefully" instead of slowly. But an eye scanned the area? Just one? What about his other eye? Or himself, even? Sorry, makes me want to laugh.

Another point: I. Don't. Care. About. Every. Detail. Of. Your. Character's. Appearance. I don't know what it is with this fandom, but every author I've read has a horrible tendency to over-describe their character. It's almost as if they're trying to justify that their character is different and they must do so in the most irritating way possible. We don't get to read character development or growth, we get an uber-in-depth description of their physical appearance. And their uber-cool weapons. And mag. And special abilities. Woohoo.

More weird phrasing:

not a drop of fear or hesitation in those eyes.

While it technically works, it just sounds weird. Really weird.

The hunter didn?t wish to waist anymore time

Might want to check which word you use there. He didn't wish to "The part of the human trunk between the bottom of the rib cage and the pelvis" (waist) any more time, or he didn't wish to "use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly" (waste) any more time? And rather than quote each instance and explain what is wrong, I shall just say you need to be more careful in the future with how you word things. And again (there is more of this problem in the paragraph with the aforementioned quote), watch your tenses. If you are writing in past tense, stay in past tense for the whole story. If you are writing in present tense, stay in present tense.

Another question: why the constant use of "this" rather than "the"? Is there more than one dragon in the cavern? I understand that there are other dragons, but you are only writing about this one, so we don't need "this" used constantly, unless there is another dragon. Which I don't think there is, at least not yet.

I'll end this little critique with this comment: that is a very strange ending. It doesn't seem to be an ending at all, and it does nothing. The story doesn't even make me curious as to why this hunter is fighting a dragon. I don't care about him at all. All you let the audience know is that he doesn't care when he kills a dragon (though what hunter would?). We also know the excrutiating details of what he looks like, and how he wields his weapon and shield. I think you spent too much time focusing on how much detail you could cram into the story and not enough on what you are conveying to the audience. Because while it is very detailed, it is generally poorly written (a simple beta-read would have solved most of your problems) and tends to be on the long-and-boring side (even though by length it is not very long, it reads as if it were).

[CupOfCoffee]

I only read the first and last couple of paragraphs because LRC said the ending was weird, and man, she was right. Don't take it the wrong way, but unless this is just a chapter in a longer story, or better yet, only part of a chapter, that ending is really random and half-assed feeling.

Also, this line:

...his voice deep with lack of feeling for the death he had just taken.

kinda doesn't add up. His voice was deep with a lack of feeling? That's like being heavy with a lack of bricks in your backpack.