The Epic Tale of Navalon - Page 4

Kramerman · January 26, 2003, 19:22

Annhyicus hesitated. His two companions found themselves dumbfounded at their commander’s heals. Annhyicus thought to himself frantically. He tried to stay cool, to stay calm. His rational mind immediately began to think, to analyze the situation. He observed the area around him. He saw the main palace complex just 20 meters down a pebble road from the main gate at which he now stood. The walls surrounded this modest palace at a fairly constant 20-meter space. Annhyicus heard commotion on the wall, but he could see nothing. In this split-second of time since he entered the walls, he and his men all saw the gate mechanism on the side of the gate, and a crew of four uniformed men operating it. The Lieutenant, the Captain, and the Imperator charged the four men, who had already readied their weapons against the attackers of this compound. Their short swords were useless, however, against the superior reach of the mounted soldiers. The four gatemen were cut down swiftly. Annhyicus could hear the commotion outside the gate and from on top of the walls, as the guards on the walls battled the cavalry force still outside.

Annhyicus commanded the two officers to dismount, and to open the gate. As the men followed their order, a dozen wall guards began descending the walls via stairs about 50 meters distant on both sides of the gate. Annhyicus figured they must have noticed the struggle beneath them and were now coming to stop the intruders. As they bottomed the stairs, the palace doors just 20 meters away began to open, and out came 4 spearmen. Annhyicus knew he had to buy his officers time. The two men were doing a four-man job, and struggling with it. The biggest threat was the spearmen. They were closest and their spears, if they were well trained with them, could easily defeat a mounted soldier, as Annhyicus presently was. The half-dozen men moving in from the right, and the other half-dozen moving in from the left would have to wait.

Annhyicus dismounted Arch, taking on four spearmen while mounted was an impossible task… taking them on foot would merely be extremely difficult. Now a veteran swordsman, master with his glorious sword and shield and most confident in his powerful armor, Annhyicus fearlessly charged the assailants. The first spearman thrust his spear at the charging man, while the second, third, and fourth fanned out to attempt to flank Annhyicus. Annhyicus was quick however, and caught the spear in his shield, swiftly slashed down with his sword to behead the spear, and then continued forward against the spearman. He then backhanded his sword and slashed the man across the neck. At this moment he had two spearmen on his left (one moving to get behind him) and another on his right. Annhyicus jumped and spun 180 degrees to avoid two spear thrusts and then to face his attackers that had gotten behind him.

The spearmen decided that a direct confrontation, as their comrade had tried, would not work on this masterful swordsman. They decided to employ standoff tactics, where they would attempt to slowly circle and gain position on the lone fighter, and then go in for the kill. Annhyicus realized this himself and now saw that he was indeed in trouble. If the spearmen weren’t enough, the wall guards were on the brink of joining the fight and subduing the Lieutenant and Captain. They, at this point, had managed to get the gate cracked open just enough for dismounted soldiers to attempt to squeeze through. Within moments, four Navalonian horsemen had dismounted and squeezed through the crack in the gates. They were just in time to meet the dozen swordsmen from the walls who had just arrived. It was now the Navalonians who were using standoff tactics. They only attempted to hold the guardsmen back with their shields and parrying with their swords, just long enough to allow the other horsemen to get through. As Navalonians were feeding through, Captain Montius and Lieutenant Pilos ran off to help their Imperator.

Annhyicus was able to maneuver to get his back against the palace wall. This did not remedy his situation, but meant that he now only had three flanks, ones that he could see relatively well, to worry about. He had parried multiple thrusts and was really beginning to worry when he noticed his two comrades, Pilos and Montius, were upon his attackers. With the spearmen distracted by the newcomers to this skirmish, Annhyicus took advantage of the situation and charged the spearman on his right. Performing a similar maneuver as he did on the intitial spearman, he blocked a thrust, severed the spear, and then moved in for the kill. He then turned to see the Lieutenant and Captain finishing similar attacks on the remaining two spearmen.

Turning once more, Annhyicus surveyed the battle near the gates. He noticed the number of men in his squadron of horsemen (which was originally a dozen) was now minus three. However only a couple of wall guards remained.

Annhyicus shouted to his men, “Once those guards are subdued, open the gates fully to allow our troops to enter freely when they arrive! Then mount your horses that are outside the gates and wreak havoc to distract and confuse the guards that remain in the compound!”

Annhyicus then sprinted off toward the now open main door to the palace complex. Pilos and Montius followed closely behind…

Kramerman · January 26, 2003, 19:27

ah... that felt great.
I only have any free time on weekends, so the soonest I'd expect to continue is next weekend. Tho, I have plans then, so that does not look good. One thing is for sure, I will not foget about my story again!

As for finishing it, that is unlikely. Not because i dont want to, just because the end is so, oh so far off, i doubt I will ever get there. I will be continuing the story for quite some time to come, so no worries.

Also, please do try and disregard any changes you notice in style (particularly changes for the worse

), as it has been quite sometime since i have done any creative writting.

Thanks,

Kman

ChrisiusMaximus · January 26, 2003, 19:59

Great to have you back

vovan · January 26, 2003, 21:39

Don't be discouraged, Kramer. The update is good. Hope to see more from you.

Kramerman · October 6, 2003, 17:21

ok. I have got my self into a hole. I had a grand, macro-scheme of how the story worked in my head, but as I wrote out the story at the micro-level, i just kinda did it as I went along, thinking it would just come togther. At this point of the story however, i have no idea how im gonna get to hte next part. Ive come here and looked and wrote, but nothing seems to work how i want it too. I guess its kinda like writers block. I dunno if i can complete the stroy from this point. If anyone is interested in continuing it for me, or perhaps give me some ideas to get thru the block, just give me a pm or something.

If not, well have to see what happens. I just dont want to start putting out some half assed segments for the sake of continuing the story, if it will just ruin it. I hope anyone who has read this tale understands.

Thanks

Kman

Kramerman · October 6, 2003, 17:42

I started this story more than a year ago! I cant believe its been so long...

ChrisiusMaximus · October 7, 2003, 02:32

Kramerman iys good to see youre thinking of coming back to this

I loved reading this story. I will gladly reread the whole piece and get back to you with any thoughts that occur to me but it may not be until the weekend.

Im assuming you would prefer feedback in this thread rather than the new one you started, am I right ?

Let us know and I will post here.

Kramerman · October 9, 2003, 20:01

yeah, id like to keep feedback to this thread just so we can keep the other one clean and neat. I really hope i can come back to it but without a lot of time to ponder at once, its really hard for me to get out of the hole i made. Im competing for a fighter spot in the air force (which is a few years down the road), but that takes high GPA (pain in the ass with aerospace major) and peer evaluations and dress inspections and physical fitness, etc... basically my life has been centered around this very competitive goal. We shall see, and like I said, if anyone has some good ideas, that would be cool, and perhaps people could add to the story on their own. I dont know yet tho. ill just have to wait and see, i guess.

thanks

Kman

ChrisiusMaximus · October 14, 2003, 15:50

Kman Im still in the process of rereading through the original thread but noticed several chapters missing in the new thread, is this intentional ?

IE at the end of the fourth post in the redux thread you skip several parts of the original to the point where the first alliance occurs, namely the period bringing the rest of Italy into the fold.

Kramerman · October 14, 2003, 16:21

woops... that was not intentional. when i get back for class this evening ill fix that. thanks for bringing that to my attention

ChrisiusMaximus · October 15, 2003, 05:12

Kman Ive now finished rereading this as promised, I see no problem with what is written so far in fact its an excellent piece, very exciting to read.

I think youre main problem is writers block and this does not surprise me at all. I think you set yourself too ambitious a task initially with this story, let me explain.

The most succesful stories which have tried to chronicle an entire history of humanity have been more of an AAR of a game being played with a little story thrown in for good measure. Some good examples of this style are "Ghandi Khan the Wise" by Bassman and "Le Grand Nation" by Kaos.

Everything you have written thus far with the exception of the introduction has centered around the first forty to fifty years of the life of our hero Annhyicus, which is not a problem because its great reading, but if youre going to get to the modern ages at this pace you will indeed as you earlier stated need several threads. You are writing a much more detailed and lengthy account than the AAR history of the world type story needs, infact it more akin to the more detailed stories here such as my piece "Mikes Story" and the Guitarists "Es Frater Meus, Et Es Iminicus Meus"( you are my brother, you are my enemy) and many others.

Lord Zalzabads roman epic became so detailed he decided to turn it into a trilogy in seperate threads, and I think this is a clue to how you could overcome your current crisis of writers block.

I would suggest you finish this off with a couple of chapters to complete the capture of the Italian territory, and bring the whole country under the rule of Navalon. Then bring this story to a close as a chronicle in the history of Navalon, you could possibly extend slightly to include a happy end to this first chronicle ie maybe with Annhyicus becoming a father to his first child or something equally as notable in our heros life.

If you do this it leaves you with the accomplishment of a completed story which definitely has the depth and content to stand alone as a good story. Then you have the choice to decide how to progress if at all. I mean you could skip many generations to your second chronicle of the history of Navalon, or you could stay focussed on the ancient history period but the point is here that you now have an opportunity to make that choice for yourself. At present I feel that the story is controlling you and not you controlling the story, which can all get to be too much pressure thus causing total writers block.

So in conclusion finish this up with a couple of victorious chapters and maybe a happy event to end this chronicle or chapter in the history of Navalon, then rethink youre startegy of whether to continue in another thread and if so how and in what period.

Again I think its the sheer scale of what you set out to do and the length of the story so far that combine to cause your writers block, I hope these thoughts are helpful to you and I hope to see you continue as soon as possible.

unscratchedfoot · October 15, 2003, 08:37

I'm gonna have a go at reading this gargantuan piece of literature once I have enough time, maybe once I got my Bush story wrapped up. It took me long enough just to read Chrisius's last post here.

I'm a slow reader so this story better be good!!

As for having writer's block, if you never want to have this problem again I will give you a hint from the unworthy bit of knowledge I been imbued with: plan your story start to end before starting to write it. If you can't come up with one part, then don't start it yet. Besides, if you make up the story as you go you might find later that you needed to have put something in earlier but now its too late. For example, while making my Royal Service story, I didn't decide on the end until I was half-way through writing it already so now its a big mess like this thread.

But my other stories were all fully mapped out in detail before I started so now its just a matter of doing the roadwork of putting it down on paper. Planning the story is the easy part, writing it up is always the hard part.

Kramerman · October 15, 2003, 14:42

Thats good advice Chrisis, Ill look into finishing this episode of the epic. and well see what happens from there. I now just hope i dont ruin the story... my writing has degraded badly. But a complete story, or technically episode, would give me a sense of closure.

also, i fixed teh redux thread, so the complete story should be there now.

thanks

unscratchedfoot-

yes, planning out the story better would have been a good idea. I had it planned out on a macro scale (and a few places in micro), but i delved into the micro-scale of the stroy and kinda got trapped. Whenever i write something complex again tho, ill be sure to plan out what im gonan write better