A Town of Masks

Galdar tightened the leather straps of his armor as he approached the eastern wall of Mythrite. He glanced around at the makeshift camps he passed as he walked, noticed the buzz of energy in the nurses and assistants that were scattered throughout the hastily assembled medical center. Galdar noted that they were already short on tents, as there were a fair number of injured guards lying on wooden benches and blanketed grounds, nursing bandaged wounds and recent amputations in the open air. Several of them turned their heads to lock eyes with him as he examined the scene. Some saluted, but most just stared at him with a dull, lifeless look in their eyes. The camp had an overwhelming gloom that poisoned the atmosphere around it. This was a place of despair.   Tightening his grip on his sheathed blade, Galdar continued past the camp. He quickly side stepped as a cart carrying supplies nearly trampled him on the road. The driver let out a quick “Sorry Cap’n” as he continued speeding towards the emergency center. Galdar noted the sense of urgency, wondered if they were still in the process of healing injured from the morning shift. There had been a sizable raid the night before, and, though he had heard tell of Captain Kew’s brilliant counter-attack, there was no doubt such a move was costly. Or, perhaps, they were preparing for the coming onslaught.   The wall was alive with activity by the time Galdar arrived. The last of the repair volunteers were quickly packing their things in the light of the setting sun, and the guards who were stationed were preparing for the night, restocking quivers and sharpening swords. He scanned the area, searching for the commanding officer on the scene. After a moment he found her, huddled over a table with a few other guards, shouting orders and referring to a map of the town. Kavrimi Emberdream pointed a finger at a guard carrying a large barrel filled with arrows and directed him towards the wall near the gate when she noticed Galdar’s approach. She quickly straightened her self and threw up the town guard's salute. “Welcome to the front, Captain.”   “At ease, Kavrimi.” With a wave of his hand, her posture immediately receded as she turned back to the table behind her. “Anything to report?”   “It’s looking grim, captain.” Kavrimi pointed to a spot on the map a hundred meters out from the town wall. “Earlier today, a lookout reported spotting several goblin scouts investigating the wall. Bows were fired upon the scouts felling two, but the rest were able to escape.”   “You fear the worst?”   “You must’ve seen the emergency center on your way in. We’ve already suffered many losses, our defenses have been weakened by the last nights’ attacks. Now they know how defenseless we are. No doubt an assault from the east should arrive within an hour of sunset.” She looked up from the map and turned to Galdar, locking eyes with him. They were the eyes of a soldier, he noted, eyes that had seen battle before. She was not corrupted by fear, but rather she had considered their options, run the numbers, and came to one inevitable conclusion. He could read her thoughts in her eyes, knew her next words before she said them. “I don’t think we can survive the coming siege.”   Galdar paused for a moment, holding his chin with his hand as he glanced around the encampment, counting the guards stationed at the wall, noted the weaponry and armor they bore. “I fear you might be right. We don’t have enough soldiers to hold this wall. So we won’t.”   Kavrimi looked to Galdar, a puzzled look on her face. “Sir? Do you suggest we pull back and let them take the wall.”   Galdar turned back to Kavrimi with a slight smile . “Of course not. Mythrite is our town, and we will not hand it over to those creatures. But we’ll make it look like we are.” He circled back around to the map of Mythrite, pointing out a stable house some ways outside the eastern gate. “Here is where we’ll make our stand, not the wall. We’ll stash as many guards as we can in this stable and the surrounding wilderness. The goblins are expecting a weakened defense, they think this siege a guaranteed success. Let them. Their overconfidence will be their downfall. When their siege party rushes in to take the wall, we’ll send our real defensive force at them from here. They’ll be trapped between our walls and our blades. Then it’s just a matter of cutting them down.”   Galdar glanced over to Kavrimi, saw a glint of hope returning to her eyes as she considered the plan. “It’s bold.”   “Now is the time for boldness. Gather the best soldiers you can find and meet me by the gate before the sun is gone.” With renewed vigor, Kavrimi leapt from the table and began shouting orders. Galdar made his way to the eastern gate and looked out to the wilderness beyond Mythrite’s walls. His shadow stretched out ominously ahead of him, growing larger and more misshapen as the sun quickly dissolved beyond the horizon line, scattering bright orange and right blotches along the darkening sky.   As he watched the light fade, Galdar felt a fire beginning to stir within him. Mythrite was a town of endless hardship, and this past month had been the exemplification of that misery. Galdar thought of what he had been through. He thought of the attempt on his life in the Highharvestide Festival, the poison that surely would have ended him if not for Truevale’s unwitting interference. He thought of his speech to the masses, of the mob that booed him off of the stage, led by the witch Ascella Sagittarri. He gritted his teeth at the thought of her. What God have I angered that they would burden me with so foul an enemy. The humiliation, the ruthless politics...he hadn’t realized how much they had exhausted him.   Compared to everything he endured, these goblins were nothing. Mindless punching bags for him to vent his rage. A part of him was grateful to the malicious creatures. Mythrite was a town of masks, a political landscape where one wrong step could lead you stumbling down a dark slope, never to return. It was constant and meticulous. Out here on the battlefield there were no masks. As Kavrimi approached with her selected guard in tow, Galdar was grateful for the darkness that now cloaked him, the sun having vanished beyond the horizon. They might have suspected he had gone feral.   Galdar drew his sword and led the party beyond the gate.

Comments

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Oct 31, 2020 19:22

Your intro starts of well and does a good job being informative! You give us the name of the main character right off the bat, and you set up the intensity of the situation with him adjusting his armor all in your first sentence. By the end of your first two paragraphs, I knew exactly how dire the situation had gotten and what the situation was.   While you do a very good job with keeping us readers informed with the attack in the first three paragraphs, I feel that there’s a tad bit of overselling and overstating that fact when the dialogue starts. At this point, we’re already about 1/3 through or halfway through the vignette and the information’s already established. When Kavrimi goes and restates how bad it is, it felt a bit unnecessary, especially with the line “You must’ve seen the emergency center on your way in.”. (We did see it! Talk about what we’re going to do about it please!)   I feel that you do a good job explaining clearly and effectively what exactly Galdar’s plan was. You both explain his plan to us and give us a bit of insight into his character; He cares about Mythrite, he’s clever, and the fact that he’s smiling while telling his plan shows that he’s confident, or at the very least, he’s sure his plan’ll work. I also appreciate your scene transition with the sunset! I felt that it was a good way to both set the scene and transition from Galdar’s plan to him readying for battle.   Galdar’s reflections felt a bit out of left field while he was readying for battle. Ascella was never referenced anywhere beforehand, and now instead of ruminating over the oncoming and established threat of the goblins, he’s griping over what Ascella’s done to him, which we the reader, know nothing about. Perhaps this wouldn’t feel out of place if he was grumbling about her actions against him in slight remarks throughout the vignette, but for me at least, this really caught me off guard; I was expecting him to be psyching himself up for the battle, not reflecting on the past. (Also, perhaps this is a personal thing for me, but I think it’s best not to directly tell the audience “He thought” or “they were thinking”. I’d say try and convey that he’s thinking and that the next pieces of dialogue are his internal thoughts rather than directly stating it.)

Nov 30, 2020 20:26

I think you have a really good painting of the dire situation that the town guard are in, but tend to overexplain parts. There's a lot of trimming of unnecessary lines and repetition that can be done. I feel like it's already been established that it's a "place of despair" - no need to say it. It also feels like you have two good images / ideas clashing with each other. You have the brave Galdar taking on a daunting situation and planning against another goblin siege, and then you have his tormenting past taking ahold of his actions. I feel like they're good themes, but they need to be meshed more well. Introducing Galdar's past so briefly and so late ends up feeling like it was just inserted in, and it would do you better to gradually insert this information early on throughout the vignette, perhaps showing some kind of quirks of Galdar as a result while he talks with Kavrimi. That aside, not a bad vignette!