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PostPosted: November 10th, 2006, 1:47 am 
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Yeah, for the sake of wasting time, I'm posting this.

Aura's Jewel is a story I wrote starting in December '03 and cancelling in January '04 (the next month). It lasted 11 chapters (which is actually pretty decent considering my track record with projects like this), and was written and posted mostly on the fly at the old Pavilion and another board I went to at the time before it went under. It stars a man and dragon as they travel on a quest to protect the mythical Aura's Jewel, which grants the power of shapeshifting to those who use it. Because I was making it up as I went along, it is very much poorly written, and I didn't put any real thought into the character names (one character even uses my real name). Though some chapters had their better moments. But feel free to go "ugh" as you read along anyway. To keep suspense (or something like that) I'm just going to post a chapter every so often instead of all at once. Also, I should note that as I post these, this'll be the first time I read these since I last worked on the story, so I'll likely be "ugh"ing with you. Don't worry, my writing has since improved. :)

(By the way, is there a Center command for posting text?)[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter One:
"The Curse"


It was all my fault. I had failed to protect Aura’s Jewel, and had to pay the price. For many years, I had to endure one dangerous adventure after another. Though now that my punishment is finally almost over, I can think about the past without feeling much grief, and I can see that the new life I had to endure was a lot more interesting than the one before it. But I sure wouldn’t have thought so back then.

Let me think here... When did this all start? Ah, yes, it was before the first curse started. I can’t quite remember how many years ago that was. It’s been so long; I lost track of time a long time ago. Hmm, what a power-hungry fool I was back then. I even attempted to overthrow the king and take the throne. That sure was a failed attempt. I couldn’t even get close to the king before I was somehow found out. I at least was able to flee from the guards, losing them in the mountain forest. I figured that I could rest on the mountain for a while, and make another attempt at the throne.

Night had come quickly, and I couldn’t rest, since the guards were still looking for me. I could see a little due to the moonlight, but I still got lost. Eventually, I came upon a small cottage. I would have just barged in there, and kicked the owner out, but now was not a good time to do so. The owner would have gone and told the guards of my intrusion. So I knocked at the door, and was answered by an old woman. I told her that I was traveling through the woods, when I was attacked by wolves and lost all my gear in the process. I had scraped against a few rosebushes during my escape, so I certainly looked like I was attacked. She let me stay, and tended at my injuries. As I looked around her house, I noticed an odd book sitting at the desk next to the fireplace. I asked her about it, and she told me it was her late husband’s diary. I would have believed her, but she seemed a bit hesitant about answering me.

That night, while she was asleep, I snuck out of my makeshift bed, and turned it open. It was in this book that I first found out about Aura’s Jewel, a jewel that had the power to allow the user to shapeshift into any creature he desired. I grinned at the thought of turning myself into powerful, unstoppable beasts. I remembered how I wanted to take the thrown, and decided that I had to get that jewel. Before I closed the book, I read one little bit about it being forbidden to use the jewel for any sort of greedy purpose, but naturally I was blinded by my greed, and ignored it. That was the mistake that started it all.

The next morning, after eating some breakfast, I left the cottage, thanking the old woman. I remember her taking a look at the book, but I didn’t think anything of it. Anyway, I headed up the mountain. It was there that Aura’s Jewel was supposed to be hidden. Some distance up the cave, I came across what appeared to be a makeshift shrine. Thinking that this was the location of the jewel, I rushed in. The cave was strangely lit, and there wasn’t a torch to be found. Not far into the cave, I found the reason why. There it was, Aura’s Jewel. A ray of light shown from a hole in the ceiling, and the jewel seemed to reflect that light all over the cave with a blue glow. I took the jewel from its pedestal, and to my delight, found that there was no trap attached.

I had the jewel, now I had to decide what to turn into. A giant hawk? A griffin, perhaps? It didn’t take long before I finally decided on a dragon. What else would I turn into, but the most powerful creature ever to grace the land and sky? The jewel seemed to work on its own, and in seconds I found myself in my desired form. It was an experience unlike any other. I had experienced a greatly heightened sense of sight, smell, and all my other senses. I moved around with the greatest of ease, wings and all, as if I had been a dragon my entire life. Unfortunately, I found that the clothes that I wore didn’t fare so well. Apparently the jewel only works on living things, and my clothes had been torn to shreds. I took one of the pieces of clothing, and tied the jewel around my neck. It was time to try my hand at the throne once again.

No sooner had I left the cave when I was met by the old woman from before. I can remember her words perfectly, most likely due to better memory thanks to the new form. “I know that you have read my book. You know that a greedy person cannot use the stone. Now, you must pay the price.â€

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Last edited by ErikaFuzzbottom on December 29th, 2006, 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: November 10th, 2006, 1:48 am 
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woah :o people are addicted to jewlery these days.....


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PostPosted: November 10th, 2006, 2:56 pm 
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^ I know its crazy.. Just paint a rock I say. :P

Sounds like a really good stoy. :)

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PostPosted: November 14th, 2006, 6:30 pm 
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Alright, here comes Part 2!

But first, some new commentary for Part 1:

*reads chapter*

That was, um, short. I could have sworn I had written a detailed explanation of the transformation into a dragon, including details like the fingers merging and tail and wings growing and clothes ripping. How disappointing. I was looking forward to reading it, too. And the revelation with Aura was really quick and overwith. Maybe I was just worried about making the chapter too long or something and cut out the dragon transformation sequence. I know I was worried about the length of one or two other early chapters. I blame the shortlived meeting with Aura on me just not trying hard enough, though. I even had a problem with it when I wrote it. I could've perhaps extended it a bit, maybe to describe Aura's appearance, maybe for there to be more of a discussion than "you're using the jewel for greed, poof, you're cursed". Though I probably wouldn't have worded it too well. I've never been real good at wording things right. I'm better than before, but I could be a lot better still.

So yeah, having an interest in both dragons and shapeshifting (the latter to a fault), I naturally wanted to make a story about those two subjects. And I wanted to make it episodic, so naturally the first chapter ends with a cliffhanger. Let's see here... *reads original comments* "I'll continue this to the end, no matter what." Pfft, right.


And now, we continue "The Curse".

[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Two:
"The Curse, Part 2"


And so I became the guardian of Aura’s Jewel. At first I didn’t like it, but what choice did I have? I suppose I could have always tried killing myself, but I was certain that Aura would have somehow prevented that, too. So I decided to grin and bear it.

At least I wasn’t always unoccupied. After about a week of just sitting around, I decided that the best thing I could do was just to do my best. Perhaps Aura would set me free if I could do a good job. The first thing I decided to do was get used to my dragon body. A little bit was easy, because dragons have a few similar features that humans do, like fingers. But moving around wasn’t easy. Having to walk on my hands as well as my feet was something I had to get used to. Over time, I was able to move around with little trouble. Turns out I also had flame breathe. But I almost started a forest fire in the process, so I decided it might be best to only use that on the mountain, where there were little things that could catch on fire.

As the years went by, there were plenty of people that came along. Some of them were after the jewel, some of them were just passing through or mountain hiking. It didn’t take long before I was able to recognize when a human was coming just by sound and smell. I could hear their footsteps and voices from afar, and humans have a distinct smell that only creatures with an acute sense of smell could recognize. I was usually able to just scare them off. Sometimes I had to fight them off. It appeared that I was given the power of invulnerability, so I never had to worry about any weapons they might have had. I never really killed anyone. I wasn’t a killer. The worst I had planned for that king from long ago was to throw him in the dungeons. Sometimes they came back for another try. Once someone had almost succeeded at claiming the jewel. But in the end, I was always the victor.

After that close call, I decided to boost my defenses by building a trap. It wasn’t a particularly easy one to build. I could only use the materials that were found on the mountain, of course. But eventually I got it to work. To test it, I let one person get close enough to the jewel to trigger the trap, while I hid in a niche in the wall, ready to attack should the trap fail. It worked. The human was trapped in a cage. By then, I was pretty much tired of humans constantly intruding into the shrine. So I took the jewel from the pedestal, and tried to turn the human into some speechless animal. To my surprise, it worked. He was now a harmless bird. Several more came during the few years after that, and each one endured the same fate, though I turned each one into a different animal. Soon enough, they just stopped coming. This mountain quickly got a reputation for being cursed.

One day, though, a group of people came along despite there being a curse. By then, I had gotten very used to having no unwanted visitors, and was elsewhere on the mountain. As I was coming back to the cave, I saw them at the mouth of the cave, with a crank pulling at a rope that was going into the cave. I quickly flew down, and was able to scare most of them off. But one stayed. I assumed that he was the leader of the group, because he wore some different clothes than the rest. At that moment, I heard a clanking sound. The rope was pulling Aura’s Jewel out of the cave! They had somehow known about the trap, and were somehow able to get past it!

The human saw it coming out as well, and desperately ran to retrieve it. But I was too fast, and took the jewel from the cage that they had put it in. I then gave a mean stare and growled at the human. But he just stood there, not with a look of fear, but with a look of disappointment. He started to walk back down the mountain path, but then, to my surprise, he just turned around and sat down on the ground. I could tell that he wasn’t going to leave so easily. But I had a way to fix that. I held the jewel toward him, and was about to turn him into a rat. As the jewel started to glow, he looked up. Again, I saw that he did not have the look of fear on his face. In fact, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this look. I decided to stop the transformation from occurring.

The jewel stopped glowing, and again his expression changed. This time, I recognized a little disappointment in his face. Did he think that I was planning on handing over the jewel to him? Or was he so desperate to change forms, he would have let me, his punisher, turn him into something that he may not have liked? I had to find out. For the first time in many years, I spoke. “What is your name?â€

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PostPosted: November 17th, 2006, 12:13 pm 
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... Hmm, liking the story so far.

Did the protagonist die just now? ... Guess I am going to have to "wait until the next chapter (tm*)", huh?

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PostPosted: November 17th, 2006, 2:11 pm 
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This may deduct a few points off of the coolness factor that this story has (and it's pretty low to begin with), but Nathan is my name. In fact, Aura's Jewel was started through a daydream I had that was similar to this, in which I went to a mountain cave to find a magical jewel that could physically transform the user, and there being a dragon guarding it. 'Course there wasn't a gas canister involved. Nathan is based off of my desires, but otherwise he's more outgoing than me. I'd probably never hire a crew to help me find a magical jewel on some far-off mountain in real life.

Kinda convenient how the dragon can change other people but not himself. And it's convenient how the dragon is invincible, but able to be affected by gas. And Aura appears again, for a very short segment. "You failed, poof, you're gone." I could've included at least a little bit of pleading. At least his experience with guarding the mountain from random peoples is kinda interesting. You almost have to feel sorry for those intruders that got changed, being forced to live out the rest of their drastically shortened lives as a wild animal. I wonder how many of them tried going back to civilization.

I didn't know this at the time, but it turns out that Lycanthropy is a clinical disease in which the person inflicted with it thinks that he can, does, or has turned into an animal. It of course also can mean for really changing into an animal, since Wikipedia defines it both ways with the clinical definition having its own article.

There's a bit of foreshadowing in this chapter. Not real noticeable, as it comes off as mostly unimportant. I don't think I ever got around to what it foreshadowed, though it was foreshadowed one or two more times before I quit, and more noticeably so. Actually, for all I know, this case was unintentional, and I merely decided to use it to my advantage afterwards.

I can definately tell that it's been a long time since I've bothered with this, though. I had completely forgotten about him changing intruders and him being attacked with a gas canister.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Three:
"The Curse, Part 3"


At first I wasn’t sure what just happened. Best guess, Nathan attacked me and snatched the jewel, and Aura blinded me. But something didn’t seem right about this blindness. It felt like I was floating! I tried moving around, but didn’t seem to get anywhere. It appeared that I had been transported to a void of darkness. No light, no sound, nothing. The only sound I could hear was the flapping of my wings when I tried to get around. So this was the greater punishment for failing in my duty to protect Aura’s Jewel.

At first I could think about nothing but being in this void for the rest of my life, however long that may be. But I guess in order to think about having to be here, I had to think about how I got here as well. The most obvious answer was that Nathan turned against me. But for some reason, that didn’t sound right. I may have only spent a few minutes with him, but it seemed to me that he wasn’t the type of person who would do such a thing. Something else was going on when I was hiding in the cave. But what? It seemed that I was never going to find out.

I’m not sure how long I was in there. I tried to keep myself from going insane by counting. I was up around 600 when I noticed a ray of light. A strange sight for being in an infinite darkness. I wasn’t sure how far away it was. It either started coming closer to me or was growing in size. I saw a figure in the light. I couldn’t tell who it was, until I heard Aura’s voice. “You are needed back in your world. I will send you there, and you are to perform an important task. But don’t think that you’re getting out of this punishment that easily. You may no longer be here, but an important part of you will.â€

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PostPosted: November 21st, 2006, 5:21 pm 
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New comments for Part 3!

Okay, this is the third time that I pretty much sucked with Aura's conversations. So far we know nothing about her beyond that she disguises herself as old ladies, she has a book on a shapeshifting-powered jewel that she created, and she apparently has more power than what the jewel seems to be capable of. I wish I could say I knew more about her, but I really don't know any more than you guys do. I'm not even sure I ever put any more thought into who she was besides some random mystic being.

The dragon sure didn't describe his experience in the void so much. But how does one properly explain being in a void like that? I guess the experience must've warped his mind or something, because he sure did become friends with Nathan real fast. Come to think of it, one might think that he'd notice his ghostliness sooner since he could probably see through his own muzzle. But I guess you kinda get used to that sort of thing.

Here's another instance of me being poor with names, General Blaque, an oh-so-subtle difference from Black. And other names I pretty much just babbled random syllables and went with it. And we've got more conveniences. Nathan had to get permission to perform an expedition which caught the counsel's interest, and he's stealthy enough to sneak into the castle.

This was where I got my first decent comment for the story when I originally posted it a few years back. For what it's worth, I think this segment is kinda interesting, as far as plot expositions go.


And now for the next chapter.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Four:
"The Curse, Part 4"


As we wandered through the streets of Durhia, it was apparent that either everyone in the city was used to seeing dragon ghosts, or Nathan was the only one who could see me. But I didn’t pay much attention to that. My thoughts were mostly on the city around me. To think that mankind has advanced this far during my life on Mt. Kolz; it’s absolutely amazing! We planned on waiting until dark to enter Durhia Castle, so I had plenty of time to ask about some of this technology. I tried asking Nathan about a few things, but he wouldn’t answer. In fact, he hadn’t said a word to me since we entered the city.

The first place we went to was a weapons shop. I suppose he needed some things to use in case he was caught. He bought a gun of some sort, some bulletproof armor, a grenade, a couple of gas canisters, and a bag to carry it all in. Before we left, I realized that the door I had just gone through was too small for me to fit through. I went back to it, and put my hand through the door. Sure enough, it was as if it wasn’t even there. And even though the floor wasn’t the same thing as the ground, I was standing on it like it was.

We left the weapons shop, and headed to Nathan’s apartment. It wasn’t a particularly large place. There was a bed on the left side, a window and a table with a lamp and a phone on the far side, and TV on a chest, a closet and the door to the bathroom on the right side. I would have thought that someone like him would have had a bit more than this.

Nathan put his gear on the bed, and finally spoke to me. “Sorry about the silent treatment I’ve been giving you. People aren’t as superstitious as they were in your days. If anybody had heard me talking to you, they would have thought I was crazy. I mean, they didn’t know you were there, and nobody tells about the city to themselves, so what else would they think?â€

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PostPosted: November 22nd, 2006, 6:58 pm 
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... Hunh. I'd say that guy Nathan is royally screwed .........

... But, as with all stories (or video games or movies) in which a situation like this happens, I'll guess that Aura or someone else will show up at the last most critical moment to save Nathan from getting pwned. Either that or Blaque will simply come *close* to killing Nathan and then just stop everything right before the final blow, and Blaque say something like this: "This fight was pathetic. It's no fun when you're this weak. I'll just let you live for now and conveniently come back later on when you will be far more powerful and have a much better chance of ruining my evil plans, even though I could easily take care of that potential problem right here and now by exerting just one more friggin' *micron* of strength to dispose of you for good, and never have to worry about it. .... But, no, in my foolish arrogance I will give you the perfect opportunity to come back for a rematch and totally blow my chances for world domination and/or destruction ......"

Story's still pretty good, Draygone.

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PostPosted: November 24th, 2006, 7:20 pm 
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Alright, some new comments for the previous chapter.

Mt. Kolz. Oh so similar to the name Mt. Koltz from Final Fantasy 6 (3 on the SNES). My names are becoming a running gag.

I went and got my hopes up when the dragon asked Nathan how he got past the trap. "I sabotaged it." Darn it, I like reading details about stuff like that, but apparently I was too lazy to bother even coming up with how the trap worked, other than there being a cage involved.

Actually, it seems like I didn't try too hard with specifics at all. The short description of Nathan's apartment is probably the most detail I've put in the story so far. One of the original comments I got with this chapter was how dumbly vague the book's author being anonymous and the jewel being at "the location" was. I guess the dragon couldn't simply take the jewel out. You know, that probably would've been pretty convenient, being a ghost that could carry off the probably well-guarded jewel. Shame Aura didn't think of that.

I really did a pretty terrible job with important encounters so far. The parrot king coming down and saying "He's a traitor, get rid of him and I'll reward you"? Not to mention how Blaque was both waiting for Nathan and had siezed the throne. How cliche, and rather lame as well. Although now that I think on it, I was more or less making it up as I went along. I have to wonder how much better it could've been had I put effort into it. Oh well, doesn't mean I can't keep making fun of it. :)

By the way, this chapter has another mosty unnoticeable instance of foreshadowing.


And now, the conclusion to "The Curse".
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Five:
"The Curse, Part 5"


Blaque had taken the form of a demon. Red eyes, bat wings on his back, claws, the works. Nathan didn’t waste any time, and already had his gear out. He took one look at Blaque and said, “Not bad. I think it’s an improvement.â€

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PostPosted: November 24th, 2006, 11:40 pm 
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... Were you by chance referring to me?

(As an afterthought) Why can I not help but picture Aura from the dot.HACK series every time I hear her name in this story?

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PostPosted: November 25th, 2006, 1:00 am 
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'Cause all characters named "Aura" look the same. :)

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PostPosted: November 28th, 2006, 10:50 pm 
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Comments on the "The Curse" conclusion:

The fact that the jewel helps the user move around in their new forms sure is drilled into your head during this chapter, isn't it? King Rechin's squawking makes me cringe. I guess I had him do that so you could tell more easily that he was turned into a parrot, or something. And the dragon's name now being Dragon? That's pretty poor. Here I thought I didn't give him a name. Nope, I gave him one, just a really bad one.

Probably the most interesting thing in this chapter is the merging of the dragon and Nathan like that. Kinda reminds me of Shaman King, though this was written before that aired. It's just too bad it's not nearly as epic as the conclusion of a 5-parter should be. That battle was short, despite the longer length of this chapter compared to the first four. It was at this point that I stopped worrying so much about length and let it grow to whatever size my imagination allowed. Though I believe I did wind up cutting something out due to its unimportance. Not sure what.

Still, kinda makes you wonder who Aura's sister is, and what sort of powers she has. Even though that was yet another short exposition. Heck, I even felt the need to point it out in the story. And, we have the most obvious case of foreshadowing so far. What's being foreshadowed? I forget, actually.

Okay, so we're out of the "The Curse" pilot. Time to start some one-shots.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Six:
"Possession"


“Okay…now!â€

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PostPosted: December 10th, 2006, 4:22 pm 
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Sorry it's been a while. Having no power for a week sorta interferes with your internet life. As such, I've missed three updates (the first Friday, the following Tuesday, and last Friday, when I did have power but didn't feel like getting back to it since I had to play catch-up on the internet which I'm still doing actually and run-on sentences can be fun if it's done as a once-in-a-while joke and you don't actually type like that all the time, you lazy noob).

I don't intend to play catch-up with this, though. I'll just resume like usual on Tuesday, which would mean the last chapter I wrote being posted the day after Christmas. Unless you'd rather I do a daily update, which would end it this Friday. (A reminder, I wrote this story a couple years back, and left it unfinished at the 11th chapter.)

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PostPosted: December 13th, 2006, 12:47 am 
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We now return to your regularly scheduled Aura's Jewel.

Hey, look, it's a chapter that doesn't end in a cliffhanger. That's right, we're out of the "pilot" and into the one-shot "episodes". At this point, I think I'm leaving commentaries just for the sake of commentaries, so I won't include one this time, especially now that I've reached the chapters that included my thoughts back when I had a much better idea of what was going on in my head at the time. Although there might be something here and there I might think of of interest, but otherwise everything else would be me making fun of my story (and my skill at coming up with names), and that just won't do. I can leave the making fun of for you guys. :)

Oh, here's something of interest. A little more how Nathan is related to myself. He's 5 1/2 feet tall, so am I. I think. He's also afraid of spiders, and I myself am afraid of spiders. Or used to be, anyway. Still, he's got a lot more guts than I do, what with him trying to get Aura's Jewel at the start and trying to retrieve it from Blaque. That's not to say I don't dream of someday going on a real adventure, so I guess that makes him a version of me that I want to be. Back to his height, ever wonder how police can tell a person's height just by looking at them? Is that a special talent, or is it something that needs practiced, I wonder.

Five more chapters to go. Here's Chapter 7.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Seven:
"The Killer's Allies"


“Westington – 5 Milesâ€

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PostPosted: December 16th, 2006, 12:51 am 
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Atch! It's Friday, already? Okay, well, no new commentary for today. I'll do a double-commentary to make up for it on Monday. For now, here's the next chapter.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Eight:
"Sixth Sense"


Joshua and Jessie continued to take care of Nathan while things were calming down in the town. And I was still certain that the two brothers would probably kill Nathan before that happened.

During the wait, the brothers fed Nathan, gave him a bed to sleep in, and some new clothes. His old clothes were a little worn from traveling in the mountain forest and the encounter with Blaque and his army. That first night I made another attempt to warn Nathan that the brothers were not as friendly as they seemed, and mentioned the wanted poster I saw in their house. “You worry too much. Josh and Jess are exactly as they seem. And I did see that wanted poster, but it didn’t really seem that significant, even if there was a reward. You need to learn how to trust people better.â€

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PostPosted: December 19th, 2006, 11:58 pm 
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Honestly, I have no new comments on Chapters 7 and 8. I tried to think of something, but nothing really needs to be said.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Nine:
"Temptations"


Several days after we arrived at Westington, we all had noticed that the guards were starting to leave town. They were giving up on finding Nathan here. Joshua and Jessie were able to get Nathan’s backpack from the hiding place. We had to set it out on the back porch to dry, due to a rainstorm we had one night. And, Joshua and Jessie promised us that they’d take us to the Valley of Borea in their car. Good news for me. I wanted to get the quest overwith, and walking takes too long.

Unfortunately, things weren’t quite right. I had noticed that on the day before, Aura’s Jewel had been used. The brothers had previously promised not to use it, but one, or maybe both of them were. I was a little surprised that they started using it again, especially considering the little problem that it has. The jewel didn’t work on clothing. The brothers knew this, though, so I suppose that they were able to get around the problem. I could have told Nathan that the jewel was being used, but I didn’t. I was hoping that the continuous use of the jewel would help my skills. Though I could sense when the jewel was used, I couldn’t tell where.

“Dragon, you have got to see this.â€

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PostPosted: December 20th, 2006, 12:49 am 
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... Sorry about that. Since chapter six's posting I hadn't received any email notification of any changes to this thread, so I didn't think to look back here.

I just read through the last three chapters, and I am still enjoying the story, Draygone. ... I guess the wording in a few scenes, such as that car chase in chapter nine, could have been a little more vivid, but, every nonprofessional writer has his strengths and weaknesses, I guess. For instance, while I may use more ... hmm, "extravagant" - I guess you'd call it - wording in my SO2 story than you do in yours, you've at least kept me (and probably others whom have read this story) interested the whole time with the plot itself. I, on the other hand, believe that my SO2 story tends to become a bit boorish at some parts, with the conversation between characters growing a little pointless and full of awkward tangents.

Perhaps you should consider having Atreides read over and critique your story. I don't know if you were aware of this, but he's got a thread somewhere around here stating that he is minoring in composition and would be happy to help identify the grammatical problems of other people's stories if they are seeking to improve them. ... Just a thought!

... I don't think that one of those two brothers should be trusted by the protagonists to help them escape the army. :skeptical For some reason, I feel that, if anything, only one of the two has malevolent intentions. Not sure which one should be marked as untrustworthy, though ....

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PostPosted: December 22nd, 2006, 11:49 pm 
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Well, this stuff was written on the fly in December/January of '03/'04 (Author's Comments as well). I could've done better with effort, and I have improved since then. I'd actually edit these myself here and now, but there's no reason to since I don't intend to really revive the story.

Out of curiosity, why do you figure one of the brothers could be a problem? I can say this since this was their last appearance, but they are both trustworthy. I was gonna eventually have them return if I continued the story, but I had no intention to have either of them betray Nathan.
*reads Chapter 9 for first time in years*
Oh, I see. That actually reminds me of an idea I had when I would bring them back. One of them at least was going to be making use of the jewel during a multi-part episode where Nathan was to be captured. I can't remember for sure which one, but I think that he was going to fake being a bad guy in order to help Nathan. Not sure, though.

One new comment for Chapter 9. One out of one person agreed, back when I first wrote this (the one person who gave me feedback back then). And I quote: "The scenes with Jessie and Joshua are quite boring though, compared to other parts of the story. I'm glad it's over." Too bad I was planning on bringing them back at some point.
[quote]Aura's Jewel

Chapter Ten:
"Unnatural Instinct"


Nathan was now a wolf; a wild animal. And, he now had to act like one. We still had Aura’s Jewel at the time, so Nathan could have changed himself back to human form, but with General Wyte and his troops looking for us, we had to stay low for a while. Knowing this, Nathan knew that he would have to hunt like a wolf. But he had little knowledge of wolves at the time, aside from tales of werewolves and the like. So we decided to try to unlock another power of Aura’s Jewel. If the jewel can change someone’s form, then it can change the mind as well. If the jewel did have such a power, then the jewel would be a lot more dangerous than we had originally thought. One could easily brainwash another with such a power.

The idea worried me for another reason, though. “Be careful how much you change your thoughts. Wouldn’t want you to completely turn into a wolf. Who knows what sort of trouble you’d get to with such an unpredictable mind.â€

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PostPosted: December 23rd, 2006, 2:51 am 
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Well, in that case, you know you will have one person in the audience for sure on that day. :lol

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PostPosted: December 23rd, 2006, 2:57 am 
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Awesome! cant wait!


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