AuthorityHellas16 - When Good Angels Do Nothing - Part 2, Chapter 2 - 3747 words [V,D]

[AuthorityHellas16]

Hello again, all!

 

Here’s the second chapter of Part 2 of When Good Angels do nothing. In addition to the usual requests (grammar, characters etc.) I’d like feedback on a few other things:

 

1. What do you think of World’s End?

2. Is it plausible that Hellas could sneak in and out with his soldiers, or do you think that’s a little ridiculous?

3. What do you think of the new character (Eirael)? Is she badass enough?

4. How is the pacing of this chapter?

 

The fourth point in particular I would like to be a focus for all of Part 2. I was looking through my chapter summaries last night and I was worried that Part 2 would come across as boring and a little stagnant. If you as wonderful readers could tell me yay or nay, I’d really appreciate it.

 

Last Time:

After accepting Lucifer’s armour and his request to work towards a shared goal (the removal of the Council from Heaven), Hellas seeks the advice of his old mentor, the Mor’kai Scrios. Scrios reveals knowledge of a group of elite soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the hellspawn and were held within World’s End. In order to find a way into the blasted plateau, Hellas confronted the terrifying Keeper of Secrets, an abomination with whom he seemed to share some history. The Keeper tested Hellas, clearly trying to nudge him towards remembering his long-lost identity, without success. In return for successfully completing his challenges, the monster told Hellas of a second labyrinth beneath Mount Majesty that would lead him into World’s End. 

 

Armed with this knowledge, Hellas and Rakha travel west, in hopes of finding the entrance into World’s End and freeing the important soldiers. From there, Hellas hopes to start his rebellion against Heaven in earnest. 

[king007]

Overall, I felt this was an average chapter.

 

I hardly kept my focus until I reached the manhole part. I would read the line like 3 times until I finally grasp what it meant. And this was my 3rd attempt at reading your submission. The first two times, I couldn't get past half of the first page.

The writing this time was not fluid, and there was excessive description that kept throwing me off. I think the pace was fine but the fault was with the writing itself.

 

I was also somewhat disappointed with the prisoners. Last time, you built up our expectations by saying that the demons themselves are afraid of them but I couldn't find anything scary about them except for their leader. And those two lines explaining the identity of the soldiers didn't really explain how powerful they were because I don't understand the scope of the war they fought or their role in it that much.

I did not understand as well why they were still alive. Why hadn't the demons killed them already ?

And if their leader was able all this time to escape on her own. I'm sure she would have been able to figure out an escape plan or something. I mean 10 years is a lot for her to keep witnessing the horrors done to her soldiers. She would have done something, anything. It did not seem logical to me.

 

Also, you kept repeating the word "blasted", which was really annoying.

The scene of freeing the soldiers could have been described better.

The leader's personality seemed badass enough for me.

I'm annoyed with Hellas when he speaks with her. I don't like his tone. It's like he has a weak personality or is not mature enough which doesn't suit the enormous task he's trying to do.

I did not buy the leader's reason for not accepting Hellas' offer of escape. They had been imprisoned here for a very long time and now someone is offering her to escape along with her soldiers and she just rejects that ? Even if the aftermath of the escape did not suit her, she could always betray Hellas and see to what was best for her men.

 

That's all I can think of right now. Sorry for all the negative points. I know it feels bad, but this was my honest reaction as a reader and I'm sure that's what you were looking for here.

Definitely, keep writing and good luck with the next submission!

[Mandamon]

From your questions:

1. What do you think of World’s End?

--My main problem is with how you've set up entry into Worlds End, which I described in my notes below.  Past that, meteors are striking (from where?) fires exploding, volcanoes, ect.  It's certainly a vision of Hell.  I wonder at the effort to keep the "effects" going.  Is this natural, or something contrived by the three gods?  And do they just sit there all the time, as you describe Set?  Do the gods wander around?

 

2. Is it plausible that Hellas could sneak in and out with his soldiers, or do you think that’s a little ridiculous?

--Getting in, fine.  I remarked below that it was strange only two lowly guards were at the door.  Although after ten years with no escape attempts (?) maybe they think they don't need to.

 

3. What do you think of the new character (Eirael)? Is she badass enough?

--I like Eirael, but I have the same problem as king007.  If she's been there for 10 years, but kept in such good shape she can fight right after being released, and can escape herself, for that matter, I would think she would have come up with something after all this time.  You've demonstrated before that Hellas can take care of hundreds of hellspawn by himself.

 

4. How is the pacing of this chapter?

--I didn't have much of a problem.  You set out the goal of releasing the prisoners, described World's End, and did what you said.  In all, I thought this was a decent chapter, except for the logical issues with Eirael and the guards.

 

Notes:

pg 1: "Mor himself, an appropriate monument to the Creator God."

--I feel like there's opportunity for explanation/expansion here what with the obvious character of Elohim who is literally the Christian God.

 

pg 2: "Since no one had bothered to surmount the peak before,"

--No one's even flown up like Hellas is doing?  Seems unlikely.

 

pg 3: "Hellas clambered out of the hole and looked around, getting his first good look at World’s End."

--I'm confused with the description here.  He flew up into the peak of a really high mountain, down into the mountain itself, through a crack in the wall, and now he's looking over a plain?  

--I looked back at the beginning and do say the mountain is the only passage through the barrier.  I guess I don't get the scale of Hellas moving through the bulk of the mountain.  If he's flying 10 minutes just to get to the top, the width is going to be immense.

 

pg 5: "great gulps of air through his tiny nostrils"

--I don't think you can gulp with nostrils.

 

pg 8: "Go talk to the Tozan or the Sokham if you want foot soldiers"

--I was under the impression these had been subsumed into one people in the big city?  Are there differences?  Have we seen any of them before?

 

pg 9: "After Hellas healed the man’s back and mangled right leg, the angel, Peter, also volunteered to free his comrades"

--Have we seen healing before?  I'm always suspicious of magical healing as most of the time it seems to have to cost to it.  You get troops that can basically fight forever.

 

pg 9:"By the time he was done, close to six hundred legionnaires were freed."

--Is there no one else around to stop them?

 

pg 9: "He had lost his leverage; "

--Why?  What does he have to lose by showing his face?

[Shrike76]

P2 - "surmount the peak" - The verb you want is "summit". Also, why has nobody climbed this mountain before?

P3 - "worse than a golem's crap" - Maybe intended to be funny, but golems don't need to eat, do they?

P4 - The paragraph starting with "Well, there goes any chance of invading" uses the word "first" 4 times.

P5 - "like it lead down into the sewerage system" - led, sewage

P7 - Hellas knows who Eirael is, but she has no idea who he is? ADDENDUM: Ah, I didn't realize he had the mask on.

P9 - Seriously? He'd leave her trapped here if she won't fight for him? He can't just free her because it's the right thing to do? Hellas is being a butt right here, and I really kind of hate him for negotiating this. This is not the time or place. What a doorknob. This is the point where I would give up on this book, because right now I don't care if Hellas wins or loses.

P10 - And seriously, why are they wasting so much time talking here in this jail? Aren't they even a little bit worried about guards or patrols?

 

Not my favourite of chapters. Hellas looking for the entrance in the crater wasn't bad, but after that I didn't have much interest.

 

Meteors seem a little excessive for this place. Meteors come from space and do catastrophic damage for miles around. Is it just rocks falling down after being spewed up by small volcanoes?

 

For the events in this chapter, it seems too easy for Hellas to make his way through this place once he's in, and too easy to free all the hundreds and hundreds of prisoners. They seem very fit for prisoners who've been there for a decade, and the lack of guards until too few of them show up too late just served to make the whole scene feel too easy. I never once felt worried for Hellas, or the prisoners, and since it seemed too easy I never really cared because I never doubted that he'd pull through.

 

1. What do you think of World’s End?

     - Eh... It seems weak. I never got the impression that Hellas was worried about stealth, or worried for his safety. All in all the place isn't as horrific as I'd expected it to be. Mostly it seems to be a place where hellspawn kill each other in a fiery background.

2. Is it plausible that Hellas could sneak in and out with his soldiers, or do you think that’s a little ridiculous?

    - It's plausible that he could sneak in. I haven't seen him sneak out but I'd say no, given that he was spotted on the way in (by a dog that really didn't seem to care, at least not enough to raise an alarm. Are we going to get to see them leave? Because I assume the hellspawn can take the same tunnel to get out?

3. What do you think of the new character (Eirael)? Is she badass enough?

    - Too badass, even. Or at least too capable after all that time in captivity. And why didn't she use her magic to escape before now. She can destroy a staircase, but not a rusted cage?

4. How is the pacing of this chapter?

    - The pacing is generally okay, but I find the sequence of actions implausible

[rdpulfer]

- I do like that Hellas has Rakha because it gives him someone to talk to, and we can tell a lot about a setting by how Rakha related to it.

 

- As someone who also writes about golems, I've never pictured them defecating, but apparently they do, according to Hellas.

 

- Jane's introduction is a little strange because it happens at the tail-end of his conversation with Eirael, so it's a little confusing. I had to back-track to see who he was talking to.

 

- There's an angel named Peter? Shouldn't he be guarding the gates or something? I think some readers might question a St. Peter connection.

 

- Eirahel is cool, but there's maybe too much emphasis on her and Hellas. I was curious what the rest of the prisoners were doing during the fight . . . they also get lost in the shuffle it seems.  

 

- Overall, still really interested where this goes. 

[Shrike76]

- There's an angel named Peter? Shouldn't he be guarding the gates or something? I think some readers might question a St. Peter connection.

 

Seeing Rdpulfer mention it reminds me that I noticed it too and it made me wonder the same thing (although I assumed Hellas would have known who St. Peter was and said something). I ended up going with the assumption that these were just normal people who'd gone to heaven and were now fighting with the angels.

[smgorden]

Lots of the larger strokes are covered above, but a few items I had trouble with below:

 

"Even flying at full speed, it took the pair a good ten minutes to fly up to the summit."

I don't recall having been shown how far these characters can normally fly in ten minutes time, so I can't tell whether this means fast or slow compared to their potential. 

The phrase "a good ten minutes" might suggest that it has taken a bit of effort, but summit implies a great distance to the top. That sounds fast to me, but it sounds like it might be slow for those characters. Would help to have some point of previous reference.

 

"It smells worse than a golem’s crap out here.’" heh. This is amusing. It might be funnier (if that's the intent) if we had some previous reference to this as well. Have we used the word golems yet? Does Hellas have experience with them. Is golem crap a known public nuisance? The phrase make it sound like dog crap in a park, where people except to be able to enjoy the premises without such hazards. I'm pretty sensitive to colloquial or other similar phrases, because I have a habit with books (and in real life) to ask where it came from. I like to imagine the scenario in which it was a matter of fact of issue of such frequency as to cross over into common parlance. Something to think about.

 

Otherwise, I liked this submission. For my tastes, you've got a lot moment happening the moment which I find quite helpful. I was able to imagine the surrounding and moments more clearly than in previous chapters, which in retrospect felt rushed. We've moved away from rote description and into first-hand experience where I get to see things at the same time as your characters. That's where I want to be. For all the cool world-building you've thought up, it's that "on the way, doing things" feelings that grounds me and get me to start imagining things off-page, so to speak. So there are some good things at work here. Carry on- looking forward to the next!

[AuthorityHellas16]

Thanks guys for all your feedback. On reflection I think this chapter does need a lot of cleaning and a lot of work. I'm going to make a few changes that'll hopefully clear a few things up

 

- I think I can jump straight to Hellas being in the caverns and spend more time in World's End; when I read it over again it seemed too clunky and slow

- I agree with most of you; the meteors were strictly following the "Rule of Cool" and are completely unnecessary. I can make it more alien by changing the colour of the sky or something more plausible

- I'm going to make it more difficult for Hellas to remain undetected amongst the hellspawn. It seemed a little too convenient that he could just waltz through World's End without having to duck and hide at all; almost reminded me of that scene in Transformers where the Decepticon got off Air Force One and walked in plain sight to his getaway car. Not exactly the standard I'd like to follow!

- I plan on cleaning up the initial exchange with Eirael. Perhaps I might make Hellas drop his signature "be prepared for everything" catchphrase that makes her recognise him, rather than her demanding he take off his mask. That could clean things up. 

- The soldiers should probably be less weak, as king007 mentioned, if you guys saw that as a let down. I'll have them swarm the hellspawn guards

- I was going to make Hellas basically blast his way out of the prison; burrowing back down into the caverns and escaping that way. Hopefully that could make it more plausible how he then escapes with six hundred soldiers. 

 

Anything else that I could improve on?

[Robinski]

Kind of weird going into something with a negative preconception, clearly from other comments last week I am in the minority! That’s always going to happen of course, can’t please all the people all the time. I’ll try and be more specific this week where I feel that lack of connection – maybe that will be useful – maybe not. Straight to it then...

 

“darkness befell the Castle Mountains” – this seems weird, not the usual construction, I think. Stuff usually befalls a person. Online definition (lazy, I know, but still suitable, I think) says “(especially of something bad) happen to (someone)”.

 

So, was it Mor who built the world in seven days?

 

Repetition of ‘blasted’.

 

“a natural lifespan no longer than a fly” – Google tells me a house fly lives for about 28 days.

 

“To this day, no one had been able to breach the barrier. With any luck, Hellas would be the first person in over a decade to set foot on World’s End with his free will intact” – there seems to be a contradiction in this sentence.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Rakha doesn’t seem to do anything other than tag along and be frightened. I have no idea why Hellas takes him along. I presume he’s going to perform some story-significant action in due course, but there has to be a reason for Hellas to take him or it reduces the fire spirit to a rather blatant plot device, I think.

 

Hellas is muttering a lot.

 

I'm struggling to get a sense of scale in the description of World’s End, by which I mean distance. There are factories, but I'm not sure how far away they are, and Set sits on his tower close enough for Hellas to see flies in the air and to see his features, but if he is that close to the spires, how high are they? If he can see a vista that includes factories and meteors and a range of different things, I take that to mean he must be able to see a fair distance, and yet be close enough to see fine detail of Set.

 

Also, he has just blasted a tunnel into this place, I guess security isn’t very tight – which I could understand if no-one has ever got in there.

 

I like the introduction of Eirael – but how does he know her gaze is serene when she has her back to him?

 

“why the hellspawn were so worried about these prisoners” – They can’t be that worried about them if there are only two guards on the place. Also, why are they prisoners, why hasn’t Set just killed them?

 

“fight against the Council” – How does she make this jump? It seems huge to me, planning to overthrow the Trinity, something that no-one would reasonably contemplate.

 

“One by one, Hellas dragged the prisoners out of their cells. By the time he was done, close to six hundred legionnaires were freed. Hellas shook hundreds of hands, learned hundreds of names” – I figure it’s going to take about 5 minutes to free each prisoner and get them down from their cell in the state they are in, not to mention shaking hands and taking names. For 600, that would take 3,000 minutes, which is 50 hours equating to 2 days – I presume that even with lax security, they will check the guards in that time frame!

 

“I feel like a glorified doormat” – I never really felt this, his persecution. It seems to me he mostly courted any trouble he got into by being reckless, drinking, etc.

 

“The Fire Sprite squeaked and morphed into an enormous, flaming bear” – What?! I don’t remember him doing this before or knowing that he could do this.

 

The fallen never seem to present any threat and are carved up easily by the much more powerful Okhar, who appear to have an endless supply of magical power which they can use without cost or apparent limit, so far. I think it renders the fighting scenes much less interesting. I think there was greater promise for the combat back at the beginning, when you were describing Hellas’ fallen comrades in the aftermath of battle.