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[clockout1]

Note 2- I'm not really sure I like this next bit. It seems necessary, but there is far too much dialogue for my taste. This scene will lead into a battle. I'll get working on that, as well as editing the first scene.

Anyway, enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One


There it was. The black monolith that stood for everything the Coalition was trying to stop. The tower pierced the sky like a long, malignant knife.
   
Rivlin stood, brown hair rustling in the breeze, staring at the tower. Up until this moment, he had never thought he would see this terrible building; yet here he was. It wasn't that remarkable on the outside; merely a large hollowed out collumn that was wide at the base, thin in the middle, then wide again at the top. It was punctured by arrow loops at periodic intervals.
   
Rivlin stooped down, crouching low and slowly moving in the direction of the tower. On either side of him, his friends and comrades Jav'lan and Kaev followed suit. Their black cloaks and dark, loose pants made them nearly invisible in the black dunes; just more dust blowing in the wind. The downside, however, was that the outfits were intolerably hot in the desert weather.
   
Their job was to scout the tower- to 'find a weakness,' the commander of the scouting forve had said. As far as Rivlin could see, there was no weakness. The tower looked as old and impenetrable as the sand around it.
   
After circling the tower entirely once, an action that had taken nearly an hour, Rivlin still could not see any weakness. Hell, he couldn't see any entrance at all. The thing was unbroken and completely solid save for the narrow arrow loops.
   
"I think we've seen all there is to see, Rivlin, unless you'd like to knock on the door and ask to go inside." Jav'lan said, breaking  the silence. Despite the tension, his voice was light and merry.
   
"As far as I can see, there is no door. But you're right, let's go." Rivlin replied, just as low but with none of the lightness in his voice.
   
"Wait," Kaev said quietly. He spoke rarely, and Rivlin and Jav'lan started a little. "Look," he said, pointing. Rivlin followed the direction of his finger and saw a small groove on the side of the tower, barely perceptible at thier current distance. Rivlin supposed it could be a door, but he wasn't going to call in the army to attack a groove in the side of the impenitrable tower.
   
"Yes, well, it is distinctly door-shaped. But how can we be sure?" Jav'lan said.

"We can't," replied Rivlin, "unless you'd like to knock on it and ask to go in," he finished, quoting Jav'lan and smiling a little.
   
"Quiet. They'll hear us," Kaev hissed, "let's get going."
   
The three men left the sight of the black stone tower, cloaks swishing in the breeze.


Two

   
"What do you mean, indestructible?" Captain Tarmok demanded, slamming his fist on the table he was sitting behind. Rivlin, Kaev, and Jav'lan were standing in the makeshift command post of the army's camp; rickety wooden tables lined the edges of the ragged, grey-green cloth of the tent's canvas. Books were haphazardly stacked on top of the tables, along with rolled up scrolls, empty ink cartrigdes, a compass or two, and several maps. In one corner were three large chests, standing empty and open. These chests were used to contain the contents of the tables when the army mobilised.
   
"Not necessarily indestructible, but hard enough for our purposes." Rivlin said matter of factly.
   
"Unless you're hiding siege equipment somewhere in the camp." Jav'lan said gleefuly. He was about to say more when a hard gaze from Tarmok silenced him.
   
"As I was saying, sir, " Rivlin continued, "we saw what we believe to be a door, although there didn't appear to be any hinges. My theory is that it is either raised or dropped. Either that, or the door is a decoy and they have some other entryway out in the desert. We don't know the extent of the underground portion of the tower; assuming there is one."
   
"You say you saw a door." Tarmok paused for confirmation. Rivlin nodded. "And yet you didn't investigate it further?
   
"No sir. We saw arrow loops along the side going up. It was deathly quiet, but we didn't want to risk getting shot at. And before you mention it, the loops are far too small for a soldier to get through, even if he could scale twenty feet up the side of the tower." Rivlin stated. It was a response clearly planned in advance.
   
"Very well. The way I see it, we have two options. We can assume the door is a structural weak point and try to break it down, or we could attempt to tunnel into the purported underground portion of the tower," Tarmok speculated.
   
Kaev was the first to speak- "I think there are far too many assumptions to plan a decent attack strategy. We need more information, and I think I know how to get it," Tarmok twirled his hand; go on. "Alright, so we know they have archers, so we can't get too close. Here is my plan: we take a portion of the army- or in our case, the whole thing- and bring it over to a nearby hilltop, ready for war. We'll make a lot of noise, and ideally they will be distracted. Me, Rivlin, and Jav'lan will go over on the other side of the tower and see if we can discover anything else. And if we do, the army will be ready for war so we can just go ahead and attack."
   
By the time he finished speaking, Rivlin and Jav'lan were staring at Kaev in near astonishment. They had known Kaev was intelligent, but he never spoke very much so the two had not known just how intelligent Kaev was.
   
Tarmok clearly felt the same. He clapped Kaev on the shoulder: "Excellent plan, simply excellent! Messanger!" Tarmok shouted. A few moments later, a man in loose blue-black clothing came running in.
   
"Prepare the army for war. We're moving against the tower." The man ran back outside, and Tarmok turned back to the three scouts. "Come on. We'll stop at a location near the tower then give you time to get into position." Tarmok stood and followed the three scouts through the small opening of the tent. Outside, half-armored men were rushing around in every direction, buckling swords and strapping on armor. A ragged collumn of the quicker soldiers stood on one side of the camp. A field marshal was shouting orders above the din of war preparations to clean up the ranks.
   
Ten minutes later, the bulk of the army was marching north-east. Save for the sound of the breeze and the occasional clank of armor, it was completely silent in the desert as the army marched toward their target.

[Retro]

First off, a short note. For the love of Armok give me some feedback. I don't care if you tell me it stinks worse than a horse's ass, anything is better than nothing. I don't want this to be another one chapter story that never gets finished.

let's do this bro

There it was. The black monolith that stood for everything the Coalition was trying to stop. It pierced into the sky like a knife, with seemingly malicious intent.

“It pierced the X like a knife” is a very common simile, but off to a good start. You’ve introduced enough concepts and subtext in the second sentence to suggest a world that may interest the reader.

Rivlin stood, brown hair rustling in the breeze, staring at the tower. Up until this moment, he had never thought he would see this terrible building; yet here he was, and he realized he should move before a lucky archer put an arrow through his head.

“and he realized he should move […]” feels a bit misplaced – interejected sort of out of nowhere in the middle of a joint-sentence about the predestined vibes he’s getting. That semicolon probably ought to just be a comma as well; you could separate it by sentence with a period for dramatic effect, but it comes out a bit awkward when the reader sees it as a single sentence anyways.

He stooped down, crouching low and slowly moving in the direction of the tower. On either side of him, his friends and comrades Jav'lan and Kaev followed suit. Their black cloaks and black, loose pants made them nearly invisible in the black dunes; just more dust blowing in the wind. The downside, however, was that the outfits were intolerably hot in the desert weather.

I enjoy the descriptions given here; black sand dunes and a black tower paint fairly striking imagery. You could vary up ‘black’ a bit more though – that’s four times, counting ‘the black monolith’ from earlier. Try dark, inky, colourless, lightless, any other stuff like that, then every time you need to describe a similar thing you can just sort of cycle through your list of adjectives so the reader doesn’t notice the repetition. You don’t only have to use visual descriptors even; you could try like ‘wicked’ or ‘grim’ or even words that the reader may not know but can get a sense of the tone of nonetheless (like ‘mordant’). I also liked ‘cloaks and loose pants’ to get a feel of the technology/fantasy era of the piece, though a fabric description wouldn’t hurt to evoke a bit more from it.

Their job was to scout the tower- "Find a weakness," Tarmok, the commander of the scouting force, had said. As far as Rivlin could see, there was not weakness. The tower looked old as the sand around it, and was about the same shade.

“the commander of the scouting force” isn’t very well placed here. You could either move it back a bit in the paragraph or cut it entirely and explain it later. That you mentioned it was their ‘job’ and that this Tarmok guy had told them to do it strongly implies that he’s got some sort of authority, though unspecified.

“there was not weakness” is just a simple typo, though it’s a bit of an awkward line.

After circling the tower entirely once, an action that had taken nearly an hour at their snail's pace, Rivlin still could not see any weakness. Hell, he couldn't see any entrance at all. The thing was unbroken at ground level, but higher up there were arrow loops at regular intervals. Rivlin did not want to test the skills of the archers this day.

“snail’s” seems awkward and a mite unnecessary – could swap with some other similar-usage word for better effect. “but higher up there were arrow loops at regular intervals” could stand to be re-arranged a bit, possibly to “but there were arrow loops higher up at regular intervals.” The last line is a bit awkward as well since no action is given to accompany the thought – maybe turn the start to “Rivlin kept one eye on them – he [blah blah blah]” to indicate his action regarding it.

"I think we've seen all there is to see, Rivlin, unless you'd like to knock on the door and ask to go inside." Jav'lin said, breaking  the silence. Despite the tension, his voice was light and merry.

Nothing really to change here. I’m just including this paragraph for posterity I guess :\

(maybe re-arrange ‘his voice was light and merry’ w/ ‘despite the tension’? i don’t know maybe i’m seeing readibility bumps where there ain’t none)

"As far as I can see, there is no door. But you're right, let's go." Rivlin replied, just as low but with none of the lightness in his voice.

good, good

maybe more emphasis on ‘is’?

"Wait," Kaev said quietly. He spoke rarely, and Rivlin and Jav'lan started a little. "Look," he said, pointing. Rivlin followed the direction of his finger and saw a small groove on the side of the tower, barely perceptible at thier current distance. Rivlin supposed it could be a door, but he wasn't going to call in the army to attack a groove in the side of the impenetrable tower.

“but he wasn’t going to call in the army to […]” feels a bit out of place to me, as they were sent to investigate this tower for signs of weakness or an entrance and found it perfectly impenetrable save for this. Seems like it would bear more weight, or require further examination.

[few lines of dialogue]

This is all right. It felt a little bit generic though – maybe not so much the specific words but the style of exchange, as it mirrors so many similar dialogues from novels, books, whatever. I guess I don’t really have any specific suggestions on how to get away from that, only to watch out for falling too much in line with establishing friendships the way you’ve seen it done a hundred times.

"Quiet, you two. You sound like an old couple." Kaev interjected. "We should leave before someone hears us."

Not sure why they’d leave without really investigating further. Everything else is fine here though. Plus if there’s wind I don’t think the three of them being close together and fairly far away would really risk being heard.

The three men left the sight of the black monolith, black cloaks swishing in the breeze.

There’s ‘black’ again. And ‘monolith’ again as well. Try ‘pillar.’

Oh! I just realized why they weren’t investigating the door – fear of getting seen by the archers. That element didn’t feel present enough to me, I guess. The impenetrableness and remoteness of the tower sort of made it seem like there wasn’t anybody inside to look out.

Overall off to a pretty good start. The language occasionally gets a bit generic but you’ve established something different enough and with enough implied elements to get the reader’s attention. I think I’ll check back when you post more.

[rarborman]

I thaught it could use some work; it was readable but could use some more emphasis on certain parts.   I'd suggest for descriptions of objects, people, and buildings you write the object's name on a peice of paper and list every part, feature, possible color, history, even texture if need be that relates to the object, and then look at it again for helping description, and never ever use a description for two objects in the same sentence unless you are describing their similarities or contrasts.   I'd note that this would probably be a better setting if it were at a time close to night and to give the arrow loops some sort of lighting to see below or something to emphasize the danger of being seen.

[clockout1]

Oh thank god, finally. Feedback. The last forums I posted something like this in, I got forty-something views and no replies.

Thanks, I'll get working on this.

[rarborman]

Which forum? We're on top of stuff here, wE B strAt ↑ inputfull.

[clockout1]

Since I'll be editing all new scenes into the first post I made in order to avoid jumping around pages searching for the next chapter, this bump is necessary or no one will ever notice it.