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[Mr. Doc]

I wrote this little story for an assignment in English and figured I might as well post it here to see what critique I can get

Excerpt from Histories of the Realm

(The following is a passage from the historical record of the Dwarf Urist Thikut, a massive tome detailing the entire history of the region in which he lived, both oral and written, compiled between the years of 278 and 284 with the assistance of many Dwarves, Men, Elves, and one Kobold.)

History tells that the Age of Myth ended not with a climactic final showdown between a legendary hero and a mighty titan, but in an epic struggle between a young boy defending his home and a hideous monster that had been forgotten by time. In the year 153 the wealthy dwarven fortress of Volaliton, Whitehall in our own tongue, was bathed in blood by a dark creature accidentally unleashed from the depths of the Earth. Nizra Bleakspear; a forgotten beast in the form of a giant, emaciated lizard with leathery wings and a poisonous sting upon his tail that spread a horrible rotting plague, rose from the dark waters of a cavern the Dwarves had recently discovered in their unending quest for riches beneath the mountains. The fortress guard fought valiantly against the evil creature, one brave swordsdwarf leapt onto its back and mangled the wings to uselessness before being struck down, but to no avail. It slaughtered them and ascended into the fortress proper, beginning a massacre that ended with the few remaining survivors fleeing the sepulcher their home had become. For many years Nizra feasted on the corpses of its victims and the massive stockpiles of food and fine dwarven ale, but without farmers tending the fields and livestock or brewers working the stills the destitute fortress was soon without food and the beast was forced to wander the world in search of prey. Moving south from the Golden Mountain, it began to prey on the vulnerable settlements of the kingdom of men. With their armies engaged in a distant goblin war and the heroes of the realm occupied with an extermination of the hideous Nightkin, Nizra was free to devour the defenseless villagers.

Our hero, the boy who would become known as Orin Demonsbane, was working as an apprentice blacksmith when word that the beast of Whitehall had been spotted nearby reached the village. A meeting of the remaining men quickly convened around a statue of a long-dead hero, with young Orin secretly watching from nearby. The mayor begged and pleaded with the men to mount a defense, but these men that had remained behind did so out of cowardice. Those that used their duties with the village as an exemption from war quickly decided to abandon the settlement. With a sudden shout Orin ran from his hiding place and into the blacksmith’s workshop, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him. The villagers gathered and the talk that normally begins when strange things happen followed. Some say he had an inspiration, others that he was mad, more still that he had been touched by the gods. No matter the cause he emerged the next day clad in steel armor holding aloft a masterful sword that was later christened “Blackbane.”

Some accounts tell that Orin then rallied some of the villagers into a party and struck off to face the beast, others say he set off alone. What is known for certain is that when the men reached Nizra, the battle came down to single combat between Orin and the creature. Seeing the small boy Nizra let loose a fell laugh and struck out with his stinger. Orin moved nimbly, for the armor he had crafted was light and flexible, rolling to the side and pointing his sword out so that the retracting tail of the beast was sliced lengthwise. Black blood flowed openly from the gash and a terrible scream pierced the air. Now in a rage Nizra began to strike furiously at Orin, letting fly with wild blows with its claws. The boy remained calm, dodging each razor-sharp claw and counterstriking. An old and vain warrior would call the damage Orin inflicted insignificant, mere scratches to a Forgotten Beast such as Nizra, but he would be wrong. As the fight dragged on, Orin continued to keep his wits about him while the creature only grew more enraged as its black blood stained the floor of the forest. In the end Nizra made the fatal mistake of violently lunging forth with his whole body, attempting to bite the boy in two. Standing his ground, Orin watched the monstrosity charging forth until he could smell stench of a thousand corpses from its mouth. Then, at the very last second, he dropped to the ground and held Blackbane straight up. After it had passed Nizra fell to the side, revealing a long gash oozing a torrent of blood that joined a thousand smaller streams from cuts numbering the same.

Many still criticize the agile fighting style of Orin Demonsbane, even to this day long after his remains were buried in the Crypt of Legends in the reclaimed Golden Mountain, but this humble author posits that you cannot argue with results. Orin continued to defend his village long after the encounter; joining the heroes in eliminating the noisome Nightkin from the realm of men, striking down the wretched Goblin King from his throne, fighting titans and hydras and dragons and all other manner of mythic creature and powerful beast. All the while continuing to fight the same way he always had, with patience and precise maneuvers with the intention of wearing down even the strongest opponent.

[Nivim]

 Well, the only errors I'm sure of involve shortening sentences slightly, like so:

Nizra Bleakspear; a forgotten beast in the form of a giant, emaciated lizard with leathery wings and a poisonous sting upon his tail that spread a horrible rotting plague, rose from the dark waters of a cavern the Dwarves had recently discovered in their unending quest for riches beneath the mountains.

Nizra Bleakspear-- a giant, emaciated lizard with leathery wings and a stinger upon his tail; one filled with a horrible rotting plague-- rose from the dark, cavern waters the dwarves had recently discovered during their unending quest for riches.

1. Your semicolon, "that", and comma setup leaves some things too vague. Does the "forgotten beast", the "lizard", the "sting", or the "tail" "spread a horrible rotting plague"? One would think "stinger", but if it is already poisonous, why does it have a plague too? There's that, and aren't you supposed to use a semicolon to connect to complete thoughts or a complete and an incomplete thought? So, I instead used the wonder of dashes-- I like dashes--; they're like cheating grammatically.
2. Removed "a forgotten beast in the form of" because you already said it was a both monster and forgotten. I guess if you're trying to capture some of DF's quirks it's alright, but it seems midly more likely to show up on such teacher's plagiarism searching programs.
3. Uncapitalized "Dwarves" because you don't capitalize "humans" or "bears", do you?
4. You have too many prepositions stacked on the end there for smooth reading (it's a similar, mental effect to what happens when you stick too many "and"s in a single sentence), so I turned "of a cavern" into another adjective for "waters", and also removed "beneath the mountains" because that should already be plenty heavily implied in your other surrounding sentences.
5. Oh, and "in" to "during" because it fits just a bit more neatly.
 There's plenty of that sort of refinement you can do if you want or need it, but if you meant criticism of meaning instead of wordcraft...I'm not sure where to start. Dwarf Fortress stories tend to take their strength from the many details and the connections made by players using those details, but this piece seems dry of the "how"s and "why"s that usually go into that, not to mention being completely ready to be blindsided by someone who doesn't know anything about strange Moods and the like. How did Orin make his armour when all the steel would have been scraped out for the war effort? Why is a human getting a mood, and at such an auspicious time? How does a lizard laugh? Why didn't Nizra go silently about adding another kill to its list?