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Welp, I've decided that I could do a fairly short storygame out of a rough draft of a linear story I wanted to do.  But because of my horrendous organizational skills, I'm prone to skipping over parts that need revisions, questions that need answering, etc.

This is where you guys get to come in; scrutinize, ask, ponder, question, criticize my story and style so that it fits in your head.  Found a good place where the story could branch off of?  Cite the first couple of words and put in a suggestion.  Found a grammatical error?  Cite and put in the suggestion.  Found something awkward?  Cite and out into the suggestion.

That's all you need to do.  So, without further ado...

N o m o r For Nomor, the mornings of winter and spring were hardest to wake from. His world, in those six months of chilly, white-out morns and crisp, star-lit nights, moved only as quickly as the snow fell. The snow, at this time of the year, fell lightly. Knuckles and joints popped as he propped himself up with an arm bruised along the wrist, purple as his torso was. The whittled door, rent to shreds, offered only an uncomfortable reminder, a reminder that the woman he had known for four nights was nothing more than a conniving beast of some kind. His heart was wounded doubly : once from the very real incision she gave him under his shoulder blade, and another for his loss of trust. She still had the kindness, or at least enough fear, to flee with Nomor’s clothing strewn in a trail. Droplets shrank, splattered, and distanced themselves from one another from where she took flight only hours before. Nomor, as he usually did, elected to forgo excess clothing. The routine, regardless of the night before, had always been the same for him : the security of the fire, its kindling, its nurturing with wood, then his own feeding. Everything else followed in a half-conscious list of things : taking inventory, cleaning, surmising, tracking. The latter two brought his mind to a standstill. The trail ended abruptly not past twenty yards out, with a single feather marking where she had taken flight. He knew not where he could find her again, or whether or not if at all she would return to the province. Given his current condition, he elected to go back to the village. He never imagined that he would consult with the same shaman that cast him out and called him a demon, but he had his obligations and oaths in order, oaths he would not break for fear that he would be chased out of the only lands he knew. With what little was left, packing up was simple. A snapped bow served no use for him, and it could not even be whittled down to make a fire-bow. The hunting spears were nowhere to be found. Only the ceremonial knife and the satchel full of little pelts were all that remained. In this manner of little encumbrance, Nomor walked into the tundra with uncertainty and wariness. ~~~ Noon was a dark overcast, and for that Nomor was glad. The ground was blanketed in snow that went up to the ankles. Had the day been brighter, the snow would have blinded him with a field of white; he would not see the crevices that marked rivers, streams, and creeks, nor the little fox-holes, nor the tracks the passing bears, mammoths, and other wildlife would leave. No bow or spear would defend him until it would be far too late, if he had any. But with the clouds as thick as the hide of caribou, Nomor found something far stranger than just animal tracks; snow was packed, flattened, and stamped in a straight line to the North-East. In some places, the permafrost had been exposed, kicked up, and overturned. In others, a straight line would drag for a good ten yards, stop, and continue for the next ten yards more. To the best of his knowledge, he knew the steps belonged to men. Of what race, he could guess as something similar to his own, but the way they moved was most unorthodox; their steps mimicked those of a hen and her chicks’. He could not count their numbers with any accuracy so long as their trail was a slew of footsteps. This, too, he would have to consult the shaman about. Nomor kept this close to his thoughts as his snowshoes left little grids depressed into the blanket of white. The clouds were their brightest by the time Nomor had found the effigy, this time a man-sized doll clad in strange, shining scales of gray. Usually, he would find the replica of another tribe’s chieftain at the stake, to give offense and warning to any passing party, but men clad in fish scales were a new sight entirely. Similar effigies could be seen pinned to booby-trapped pines, with burn scars and chinks in the clothing; they were warnings of what kinds of traps had lain in wait. In contrast, a small little cavity at the base of a cluster of bone-white aspen opened into a snug tunnel. So Nomor crawled into the tunnel at the fork of the aspen ring, a relatively safer entrance into the forest, which soon became a labyrinth of intersecting paths darkened by a tight weave of thousands of crossing branches. He kept his form small, as the lack of leaves belied the fact that the branches were young enough to snap and slice through tendon and tissue. Plenty enough to halt the progress of an entire warband, if necessary. That is, if their numbers would split between one passage or the other; the traps in the tunnel alone were enough to stop more than three dozen and three, and above ground about equal that number. In other words, numbers that had not been amassed in years’ time. And yet, for Nomor to traverse two miles in the same prostrated manner was excruciating in of itself. There was no guarantee for adults to come out unscathed, much less one that had already exerted most of his energy and patience traversing the tundra. Slits and brambles pierced through his hide shirt, perhaps once, twice. In both instances, the briar had hooked into his skin. Where they had hooked onto meat, windrows of overturned skin gave way to florid flesh. And where had the florid flesh laid bare to softened leather coarsened at the hem, blood spilt, dripped, and trickled as a springtime creek would. He could hear the hollers now, how the bells had clamored up a storm of half-waken guards and men when his foot snagged on a wire. Perhaps those strange men had came to the village. Bones jutted out from above and around, mere inches from his face. The cream-colored ribs flattened into spearheads, the kinds with sawtooth edges and scythe-like hooks. At the end of the tunnel, a face worn and dark as the pines met Nomor’s with a squint and a stare. Thin lips and eyelids pressed against one another before the face lifted itself away from the mouth of the tunnel, and the spears followed similarly. A flurry of crunches ebbed and faded as the men walked back to their occupations. Fence-weaving, weapon making, leather kneading, and bone breaking resumed under the hubbub of laughing children and singing women, a warband forming in the guise of what the village called “hunts”. Nomor, as he crawled out of the tunnel, heard a soft chuckle from behind. “We’ve lost two before we found the fish-men, but we’ve learned many things. Too much, some of the elders say. They are men inside all the same, and that they bleed the same red as we do. That they have come to do the same as this tribe has done for many winters; we are preparing for when they come in full force.” The voice, high-strung and intoned in deep lows and squeaky highs, registered itself to that of the shaman. “You seem to know of the woman,” Nomor spoke. “Of her, I do.” Footsteps approached. “More beast than man, more skin than walker. But she is not unlike most witches. Come, come. I must bless my brethren.” Gnarled pincers, fingers now melted into pincers, grabbed Nomor by the wrist. The shaman, hunched and hobbling no more than ten or twelve hands tall, recited a chant as his tooth-lined staff shook and rustled by the beat of their steps. Incomprehensible was the chant, a given; meaningless, an opinion reserved only to Nomor. “I had seen her fly above the village before you came, so I took three with me to the North. The spirits told me there was your skin-walker, and I tried to ask it to leave our land,” the shaman spoke, breaking his rhythmic hum. “And its reply?” “That was how we lost the two. Like an eagle descending from the skies, she took the men in her arms and threw them into the lake.” He stopped, and tugged the collar of Nomor’s shirt so the two could see eye to eye. “We cannot afford to have such a thing hinder our efforts, not while we are still warring.” He released his grip, walked on. “Anyhow, I later fled west, and found the fish-men half-frozen and starving. They had crawled out of the lake when their weight broke through the ice. I brought one to the village, and learned many, many things from him.” The shaman drew back lips to reveal chipped, ground teeth the color of the morning sky, a soft yellow that said more of his health than his age. It was a spritely grin, the same one he had worn since he was younger and sly. The two entered a hut of sewn hides propped up by whale bones. “He spoke the language of demons. The same language your people spoke, before we made their lands ours. As we did with your people, he said his tribe intended to do with ours.” Inside the hut, the shaman rifled through various bauble-filled bowls. All of their contents were strange to Nomor’s eyes : glimmering gray scales, twinkling bands inset with little sky-colored beads, and inexplicably thin wood bark marked with black symbols were all cast onto a mat of stretched rabbit hide. The shaman undulated and cried out in a loud voice as he took his staff and struck the bark, then the band, then the scale. The bark snapped, the band bend, but the staff bounced away, impervious to the shaman’s blow. The two looked at each other; Nomor’s brows furrowed, and the shaman’s eyes widened. “Perhaps they will take our lands,” the shaman murmured, before giving the bark a second stab. “You look at this here; their culture is weak like the bark of their trees.” He flicked the ornamented band off of the mat. “They are stubborn in trading; all exchanges must give them more than they can offer.” He then picked up the scale, and placed it in his mouth. “But in the way they fight…” The shaman started, before smacking his lip. “...it is more than enough to justify why their society is so poor in these aspects. They are unstoppable, the spirits tell me. They bend to nothing, just like their scales. They have no need for trade and tradition.” “Should I concern myself in this matter?” Nomor's asked. He picked up the band and held it to the light above. “I may be able to speak with them.” “No.” The shaman swiped the band from Nomor's hand, and placed the bark, scale, and band back into the bowl. “The danger you have brought to us is more immediate. You will kill this beast that wears the likeness of our men, and then you will return so that I will have time to determine your use. But do not return without the egg.” “What egg?” “The egg of the beast. The spirits guided my sight. They showed me that the child inside had your likeness. It would do this tribe well with another demon like yours in our possession, so I tell you that you must bring the egg.” The shaman turned to collect some other reagents. Nomor cleared his throat. “Why are you still here?” the shaman asked. “May I borrow a weapon to hunt with? I lost all I had when the beast attacked.” “No; your knife is more than enough. Have you used it this past season?” “Once already, four nights ago. I used it to rescue her.” “Why?” “She had the skin of a woman until she tried to kill me. It would seem she has stopped wearing the skin since.” The shaman descended into a tirade in an old tongue, blasting a colorful, old language in a string of curses as he threw pouches and bowls aside. He procured a root that had frost caked to its exterior. It seemed as though a lasting cold had sprung from inside, since the shaman’s finger became coated with a layer of ice. Whooping and a great thundering of footsteps rang from the outside. “Ingest this when you find the beast.” The shaman tossed it to Nomor. “But not all; you may need more for the fish-men.” Nomor exited the hut, and squinted when sunlight flashed into his eyes. As he blinked, he found the camp, once filled with a cheerful clamor, had fallen silent. The children, once free to roam about the village grounds, stood by in the entrances of their hovels, their mothers’ arms cradled around their progeny’s necks and chests so as to keep them from venturing out too far. The men, as soon as they gave their last farewells, left the village by the north in clusters of two or three. Fresh powder lifted by a light breeze drew veils around their figures. Their silhouettes, with the rising of the winds and the setting of the sun, were quick to become one with the greying snow. ~~~ The tundra was ablaze with a hundred fiery stars. From the distance Nomor was, they had only made a slow, dancing procession across the night, a trail of embers under the threat of extinguishment by the winterborne gale. Nomor, as close as he was to the snow-capped giants he knew as the confines of his world, felt only the kiss of a zephyr. With it, the last sighs of men foreign and familiar murmured strange names, names of people he could not determine as place or person, man or woman, elder or infant. Cold death took from their words until all that remained for Nomor were muffled vowels. Opposite to the far flames sat the pocket of night, a mouth agape with hunger deeper than what light, be it that of the sun or moon, could betray. Neither wind nor snow could smoothen or cushion its granite fangs, nor could the trickling waters of spring carve a softer tongue for Nomor to easier traverse through. White powder forecasted his entrance with silence. Nomor drew the knife from the confines of his robe, bone-white only as the midnight sun would permit, and split the root into two. With white ice caking his palm and lips, he crammed the bulb into his mouth, and chewed. Crisp snaps became dull cracks as tooth and tongue froze, but Nomor continued until he could no longer. He then swallowed and doubled over, his mouth clamped shut so as to force the pain deeper, deeper until the pain was one with him. He no longer expelled white-hot breaths. The effort to heave air in and out ceased soon after, as also the efforts for his heart to beat so quickly. The perspiration that clung from the inside of his clothing solidified. Ice fused skin to hide, hair to pore, lid to socket. He stood, and descended with knife in hand. As it did with the rest of Nomor’s body, the serrated edge ebonized with the gullet of the black maw, and synchronized with the rhythm of Nomor’s hunched body. No longer was it a tool to divide flesh from bone, bark from cambium, fiber from fiber; as Nomor was predator, so was the knife a fang. All that mattered was that it was pointing towards the sounds, the sounds of an animal cornered and heaving with life in its lungs. The man dared not to illuminate the bowels of the abyss. It was not because he was afraid of being seen, for the abyss had pervaded his being entirely. There was no need to see, for it could hear, smell, feel him within it. In the same way how the darkness could see him without sight, he too observed the abyss and the prey it contained. If he had brought a torch, as the way the tribe did, he would be hard-pressed to descend upon the cowering creature. He was afraid to see her as something other than quarry. She was panting. He heard her, and she his footsteps. Something between a squawk and a cry reverberated through the granite walls. Feathers rustled. Cloth shifted, flipped, folded, scraped against the feldspar floor. Talons raked and blunted themselves upon quartz. Wings flapped. Shrieks loudened. Nomor threw his body towards the noise with knife raised, and met only stone by the brow. The rest of his body followed and ricocheted with a crack. He stumbled, held his arms out for balance, and waited. The wind slapped against his face. When he turned to strike at the beast, he became still. He registered something lukewarm between his ribs. The something drove deeper when his body was shoved, then pinned into the wall. His blood, instead of merely dripping, merely clung the object in question and fused with it as it had his skin and clothing. A layer of verglas slim from his palms and encrusted the appendage, chilled the flesh underneath. Nomor slid his hands farther from his body, closer to hers and raised his weapon, before driving the knife down. Another shriek was followed with more wild scrabbling. The pressure, once so unyielding to withdrawal, lessened enough so Nomor could free himself. Once he was unrestricted, he fell forward, and his hand grasped at something soft. He raised the knife, and plunged deep it into the shrill dark. ~~~ Nomor cradled the warmth as best he could, his waist turning to and fro as his ear rested on her heart. The thrum of the heart, which had once thrashed so that it seemed to threaten to break free of its fleshy confines, slowed and quieted considerably. The torso, which once had heaved with considerable effort to take air in and out, was still. Nomor still did not light a torch, for he feared now he would be too disgusted with himself if he saw his own handiwork. He had done as the shaman decreed, for the survival of the tribe, and for his own. And yet, in preserving himself, what had he to gain? Trust was not an option, so long as shamans and elders existed within one tribe or the other. They would say the same as the last, and the tribe would always concur. Nomor leaned forward, and released the body from his grasp before venturing further into the darkness. He walked deliberately, though not quietly. There was still the egg to retrieve, and he had to be careful not to damage it. The shaman had stated that the little one inside was not unlike him, and Nomor had been alone of years. And yet, suspicion lingered in Nomor’s mind. He was old, whereas the little one was young. He had not the mind to learn, to adapt to life within the village. He wanted to expect the same, but the shaman had most likely told him to bring the egg so he could raise the child for himself. Where Nomor’s services were limited by the frequency of his returns, the child would most likely live closer, a weapon to be used for offense or defense at any opportune moment. His foot tapped against something round, thick, and heavy as though it were a boulder. He knelt and removed a sack slung over his shoulder. He stretched his arms ahead of him, to feel the egg. His hands recoiled. The egg was cold so that his hands, hands that exuded gelid frost, stung. Nomor hadn’t considered that he would ever feel the same as the tribesmen would in his presence, but the egg had to make him reconsider. They had more knowledge, more experience with those of his ilk. Though he disliked their ways, the child could be nurtured properly under their care. He rolled the egg into the sack, and slung the sack across his chest. The daylight, a star from where he stood, served as his guide out of the cavern. But the sun did not blind him as it did usually. Though the day was considerably warmer than most, the landscape was properly scintillated. The snow was not a blinding white, nor was it formless and suspect to hazard as it was at night, so Nomor was doubly surprised when a flash of brilliant amber radiated from his right periphery. He threw his arm over his eyes. The day’s warmth left him, and a bitter gale buffeted what little was left in his veins. The sun was not shrouded by white clouds, not cirriform nor stratospheric. It was a billowing pillar of black that had covered the morning star, and at the base of this pillar was the village--ablaze.

Well there's certainly a massive structure problem! Then again, I'm sure that doesn't need to be pointed out to you, right? 

I going to edit that, but it's late, and I can't be fecked any more between filling in degree requirements, transposing music, and this.  Maybe I'll have more time in the morning, maybe not.

Looks like you had more energy than you let on. :)

Powered by Yuri engines : now with 32% efficiency!

That's a much higher percentage than mine at the moment. My brain is like fumes and smoke from the lack of nourishment and sleep. I'll skim through this regardless however. :p

It was a Carnot reference...

 I don't think I'm very familiar with that reference then.

 

N o m o r



For Nomor, the mornings of winter and spring were hardest to wake from. His world, in those six months of chilly, white-out morns and crisp, star-lit nights, moved only as quickly as the snow fell.

The snow, at this time of the year, fell lightly.

Knuckles and joints popped as he propped himself up with an arm bruised along the wrist, purple as his torso was. The whittled door, rent to shreds, offered only an uncomfortable reminder, a reminder that the woman he had known for four nights was nothing more than a conniving beast of some kind. His heart was wounded doubly : once from the very real incision she gave him under his shoulder blade, and another for his loss of trust.

She still had the kindness, or at least enough fear, to flee with Nomor’s clothing strewn in a trail. Droplets shrank, splattered, and distanced themselves from one another from where she took flight only hours before. Nomor, as he usually did, elected to forgo excess clothing. The routine, regardless of the night before, had always been the same for him : the security of the fire, its kindling, its nurturing with wood, then his own feeding. Everything else followed in a half-conscious list of things : taking inventory, cleaning, surmising, tracking.

The latter two brought his mind to a standstill.

The trail ended abruptly not past twenty yards out, with a single feather marking where she had taken flight. He knew not where he could find her again, or whether or not if at all she would return to the province.

Given his current condition, he elected to go back to the village. He never imagined that he would consult with the same shaman that cast him out and called him a demon, but he had his obligations and oaths in order, oaths he would not break for fear that he would be chased out of the only lands he knew.

With what little was left, packing up was simple. A snapped bow served no use for him, and it could not even be whittled down to make a fire-bow. The hunting spears were nowhere to be found. Only the ceremonial knife and the satchel full of little pelts were all that remained. In this manner of little encumbrance, Nomor walked into the tundra with uncertainty and wariness.

~~~

Noon was a dark overcast, and for that Nomor was glad. The ground was blanketed in snow that went up to the ankles. Had the day been brighter, the snow would have blinded him with a field of white; he would not see the crevices that marked rivers, streams, and creeks, nor the little fox-holes, nor the tracks the passing bears, mammoths, and other wildlife would leave. No bow or spear would defend him until it would be far too late, if he had any.

But with the clouds as thick as the hide of caribou, Nomor found something far stranger than just animal tracks; snow was packed, flattened, and stamped in a straight line to the North-East. In some places, the permafrost had been exposed, kicked up, and overturned. In others, a straight line would drag for a good ten yards, stop, and continue for the next ten yards more.

To the best of his knowledge, he knew the steps belonged to men. Of what race, he could guess as something similar to his own, but the way they moved was most unorthodox; their steps mimicked those of a hen and her chicks’. He could not count their numbers with any accuracy so long as their trail was a slew of footsteps.

This, too, he would have to consult the shaman about. Nomor kept this close to his thoughts as his snowshoes left little grids depressed into the blanket of white.

The clouds were their brightest by the time Nomor had found the effigy, this time a man-sized doll clad in strange, shining scales of gray. Usually, he would find the replica of another tribe’s chieftain at the stake, to give offense and warning to any passing party, but men clad in fish scales were a new sight entirely. Similar effigies could be seen pinned to booby-trapped pines, with burn scars and chinks in the clothing; they were warnings of what kinds of traps had lain in wait. In contrast, a small little cavity at the base of a cluster of bone-white aspen opened into a snug tunnel.

So Nomor crawled into the tunnel at the fork of the aspen ring, a relatively safer entrance into the forest, which soon became a labyrinth of intersecting paths darkened by a tight weave of thousands of crossing branches. He kept his form small, as the lack of leaves belied the fact that the branches were young enough to snap and slice through tendon and tissue. Plenty enough to halt the progress of an entire warband, if necessary.

That is, if their numbers would split between one passage or the other; the traps in the tunnel alone were enough to stop more than three dozen and three, and above ground about equal that number. In other words, numbers that had not been amassed in years’ time.

And yet, for Nomor to traverse two miles in the same prostrated manner was excruciating in of itself. There was no guarantee for adults to come out unscathed, much less one that had already exerted most of his energy and patience traversing the tundra. Slits and brambles pierced through his hide shirt, perhaps once, twice.

In both instances, the briar had hooked into his skin. Where they had hooked onto meat, windrows of overturned skin gave way to florid flesh. And where had the florid flesh laid bare to softened leather coarsened at the hem, blood spilt, dripped, and trickled as a springtime creek would.

He could hear the hollers now, how the bells had clamored up a storm of half-waken guards and men when his foot snagged on a wire. Perhaps those strange men had came to the village.

Bones jutted out from above and around, mere inches from his face. The cream-colored ribs flattened into spearheads, the kinds with sawtooth edges and scythe-like hooks. At the end of the tunnel, a face worn and dark as the pines met Nomor’s with a squint and a stare. Thin lips and eyelids pressed against one another before the face lifted itself away from the mouth of the tunnel, and the spears followed similarly.

A flurry of crunches ebbed and faded as the men walked back to their occupations. Fence-weaving, weapon making, leather kneading, and bone breaking resumed under the hubbub of laughing children and singing women, a warband forming in the guise of what the village called “hunts”. Nomor, as he crawled out of the tunnel, heard a soft chuckle from behind.

“We’ve lost two before we found the fish-men, but we’ve learned many things. Too much, some of the elders say. They are men inside all the same, and that they bleed the same red as we do. That they have come to do the same as this tribe has done for many winters; we are preparing for when they come in full force.”

The voice, high-strung and intoned in deep lows and squeaky highs, registered itself to that of the shaman.

“You seem to know of the woman,” Nomor spoke.

“Of her, I do.” Footsteps approached. “More beast than man, more skin than walker. But she is not unlike most witches. Come, come. I must bless my brethren.”

Gnarled pincers, fingers now melted into pincers, grabbed Nomor by the wrist. The shaman, hunched and hobbling no more than ten or twelve hands tall, recited a chant as his tooth-lined staff shook and rustled by the beat of their steps. Incomprehensible was the chant, a given; meaningless, an opinion reserved only to Nomor.

“I had seen her fly above the village before you came, so I took three with me to the North. The spirits told me there was your skin-walker, and I tried to ask it to leave our land,” the shaman spoke, breaking his rhythmic hum.

“And its reply?”

“That was how we lost the two. Like an eagle descending from the skies, she took the men in her arms and threw them into the lake.” He stopped, and tugged the collar of Nomor’s shirt so the two could see eye to eye. “We cannot afford to have such a thing hinder our efforts, not while we are still warring.”

He released his grip, and walked on.

“Anyhow, I later fled west, and found the fish-men half-frozen and starving. They had crawled out of the lake when their weight broke through the ice. I brought one to the village, and learned many, many things from him.”

The shaman drew back lips to reveal chipped, ground teeth the color of the morning sky, a soft yellow that said more of his health than his age. It was a spritely grin, the same one he had worn since he was younger and sly. The two entered a hut of sewn hides propped up by whale bones.

“He spoke the language of demons. The same language your people spoke, before we made their lands ours. As we did with your people, he said his tribe intended to do with ours.”

Inside the hut, the shaman rifled through various bauble-filled bowls. All of their contents were strange to Nomor’s eyes : glimmering gray scales, twinkling bands inset with little sky-colored beads, and inexplicably thin wood bark marked with black symbols were all cast onto a mat of stretched rabbit hide. The shaman undulated and cried out in a loud voice as he took his staff and struck the bark, then the band, then the scale. The bark snapped, the band bend, but the staff bounced away, impervious to the shaman’s blow. The two looked at each other; Nomor’s brows furrowed, and the shaman’s eyes widened.

“Perhaps they will take our lands,” the shaman murmured, before giving the bark a second stab. “You look at this here; their culture is weak like the bark of their trees.”

He flicked the ornamented band off of the mat.

“They are stubborn in trading; all exchanges must give them more than they can offer.”

He then picked up the scale, and placed it in his mouth.

“But in the way they fight…” The shaman started, before smacking his lip. “...it is more than enough to justify why their society is so poor in these aspects. They are unstoppable, the spirits tell me. They bend to nothing, just like their scales. They have no need for trade and tradition.”

“Should I concern myself in this matter?” Nomor's asked. He picked up the band and held it to the light above. “I may be able to speak with them.”

“No.” The shaman swiped the band from Nomor's hand, and placed the bark, scale, and band back into the bowl. “The danger you have brought to us is more immediate. You will kill this beast that wears the likeness of our men, and then you will return so that I will have time to determine your use. But do not return without the egg.”

“What egg?”

“The egg of the beast. The spirits guided my sight. They showed me that the child inside had your likeness. It would do this tribe well with another demon like yours in our possession, so I tell you that you must bring the egg.”

The shaman turned to collect some other reagents. Nomor cleared his throat.

“Why are you still here?” the shaman asked.

“May I borrow a weapon to hunt with? I lost all I had when the beast attacked.”

“No; your knife is more than enough. Have you used it this past season?”

“Once already, four nights ago. I used it to rescue her.”

“Why?”

“She had the skin of a woman until she tried to kill me. It would seem she has stopped wearing the skin since.”

The shaman descended into a tirade in an old tongue, blasting a colorful, old language in a string of curses as he threw pouches and bowls aside. He procured a root that had frost caked to its exterior. It seemed as though a lasting cold had sprung from inside, since the shaman’s finger became coated with a layer of ice. Whooping and a great thundering of footsteps rang from the outside.

“Ingest this when you find the beast.” The shaman tossed it to Nomor. “But not all; you may need more for the fish-men.”

Nomor exited the hut, and squinted when sunlight flashed into his eyes. As he blinked, he found the camp, once filled with a cheerful clamor, had fallen silent. The children, once free to roam about the village grounds, stood by in the entrances of their hovels, their mothers’ arms cradled around their progeny’s necks and chests so as to keep them from venturing out too far. The men, as soon as they gave their last farewells, left the village by the north in clusters of two or three. Fresh powder lifted by a light breeze drew veils around their figures.
Their silhouettes, with the rising of the winds and the setting of the sun, were quick to become one with the greying snow.

~~~

The tundra was ablaze with a hundred fiery stars. From the distance Nomor was, they had only made a slow, dancing procession across the night, a trail of embers under the threat of extinguishment by the winterborne gale. Nomor, as close as he was to the snow-capped giants he knew as the confines of his world, felt only the kiss of a zephyr. With it, the last sighs of men foreign and familiar murmured strange names, names of people he could not determine as place or person, man or woman, elder or infant. Cold death took from their words until all that remained for Nomor were muffled vowels.

Opposite to the far flames sat the pocket of night, a mouth agape with hunger deeper than what light, be it that of the sun or moon, could betray. Neither wind nor snow could smoothen or cushion its granite fangs, nor could the trickling waters of spring carve a softer tongue for Nomor to easier traverse through. White powder forecasted his entrance with silence.

Nomor drew the knife from the confines of his robe, bone-white only as the midnight sun would permit, and split the root into two. With white ice caking his palm and lips, he crammed the bulb into his mouth, and chewed. Crisp snaps became dull cracks as tooth and tongue froze, but Nomor continued until he could no longer. He then swallowed and doubled over, his mouth clamped shut so as to force the pain deeper, deeper until the pain was one with him.

He no longer expelled white-hot breaths. The effort to heave air in and out ceased soon after, as also the efforts for his heart to beat so quickly. The perspiration that clung from the inside of his clothing solidified. Ice fused skin to hide, hair to pore, lid to socket. He stood, and descended with knife in hand.

As it did with the rest of Nomor’s body, the serrated edge ebonized with the gullet of the black maw, and synchronized with the rhythm of Nomor’s hunched body. No longer was it a tool to divide flesh from bone, bark from cambium, fiber from fiber; as Nomor was predator, so was the knife a fang. All that mattered was that it was pointing towards the sounds, the sounds of an animal cornered and heaving with life in its lungs.

The man dared not to illuminate the bowels of the abyss. It was not because he was afraid of being seen, for the abyss had pervaded his being entirely. There was no need to see, for it could hear, smell, feel him within it. In the same way how the darkness could see him without sight, he too observed the abyss and the prey it contained. If he had brought a torch, as the way the tribe did, he would be hard-pressed to descend upon the cowering creature.

He was afraid to see her as something other than quarry.

She was panting. He heard her, and she his footsteps. Something between a squawk and a cry reverberated through the granite walls. Feathers rustled. Cloth shifted, flipped, folded, scraped against the feldspar floor. Talons raked and blunted themselves upon quartz. Wings flapped. Shrieks loudened. Nomor threw his body towards the noise with knife raised, and met only stone by the brow. The rest of his body followed and ricocheted with a crack. He stumbled, held his arms out for balance, and waited. The wind slapped against his face. When he turned to strike at the beast, he became still.

He registered something lukewarm between his ribs. The something drove deeper when his body was shoved, then pinned into the wall. His blood, instead of merely dripping, merely clung the object in question and fused with it as it had his skin and clothing. A layer of verglas slim from his palms and encrusted the appendage, chilled the flesh underneath. Nomor slid his hands farther from his body, closer to hers and raised his weapon, before driving the knife down. Another shriek was followed with more wild scrabbling. The pressure, once so unyielding to withdrawal, lessened enough so Nomor could free himself. Once he was unrestricted, he fell forward, and his hand grasped at something soft. He raised the knife, and plunged deep it into the shrill dark.

~~~

Nomor cradled the warmth as best he could, his waist turning to and fro as his ear rested on her heart. The thrum of the heart, which had once thrashed so that it seemed to threaten to break free of its fleshy confines, slowed and quieted considerably. The torso, which once had heaved with considerable effort to take air in and out, was still.

Nomor still did not light a torch, for he feared now he would be too disgusted with himself if he saw his own handiwork. He had done as the shaman decreed, for the survival of the tribe, and for his own.

And yet, in preserving himself, what had he to gain? Trust was not an option, so long as shamans and elders existed within one tribe or the other. They would say the same as the last, and the tribe would always concur.

Nomor leaned forward, and released the body from his grasp before venturing further into the darkness. He walked deliberately, though not quietly. There was still the egg to retrieve, and he had to be careful not to damage it. The shaman had stated that the little one inside was not unlike him, and Nomor had been alone of years.

And yet, suspicion lingered in Nomor’s mind. He was old, whereas the little one was young. He had not the mind to learn, to adapt to life within the village. He wanted to expect the same, but the shaman had most likely told him to bring the egg so he could raise the child for himself. Where Nomor’s services were limited by the frequency of his returns, the child would most likely live closer, a weapon to be used for offense or defense at any opportune moment.

His foot tapped against something round, thick, and heavy as though it were a boulder. He knelt and removed a sack slung over his shoulder. He stretched his arms ahead of him, to feel the egg. His hands recoiled.

The egg was cold so that his hands, hands that exuded gelid frost, stung.

Nomor hadn’t considered that he would ever feel the same as the tribesmen would in his presence, but the egg had to make him reconsider. They had more knowledge, more experience with those of his ilk. Though he disliked their ways, the child could be nurtured properly under their care. He rolled the egg into the sack, and slung the sack across his chest. The daylight, a star from where he stood, served as his guide out of the cavern.

But the sun did not blind him as it did usually. Though the day was considerably warmer than most, the landscape was properly scintillated. The snow was not a blinding white, nor was it formless and suspect to hazard as it was at night, so Nomor was doubly surprised when a flash of brilliant amber radiated from his right periphery. He threw his arm over his eyes. The day’s warmth left him, and a bitter gale buffeted what little was left in his veins. The sun was not shrouded by white clouds, not cirriform nor stratospheric.

It was a billowing pillar of black that had covered the morning star, and at the base of this pillar was the village--ablaze.

This story certainly doesn't lack in imagery and giving the reader a bunch of detailed descriptions about what they are seeing through the perspective of the protagonist. I really like what you have so far, were you perhaps going for a somber and cold approach for the mood of this?

Yuppers.  Does any part need clarification and expansion?

Maybe a bit more exposition? Some more details on the setting and the main character's thoughts and feelings. Well, with the tasks he is told to carry out by the Shaman and all. 

When I think about it more, there's hardly anything I can find that can be criticized. I could point out things but they would be things that were maybe intentional and more of a style choice.  I'd just be injecting my own preferences. 

I really enjoyed reading it and passing a decent amount of time.  Hmm, maybe I should look at this more objectively. All of this rambling can't be helpful for you, my apologies. :c

I loved it. Imagery is abundant, and it really shows in the second half of the third part and first half of the fourth. The way you described every little detail is what really got me, and I think it's grand.

The story was good (especially the cliffhanger ending), and you really made me want to read more. If you ever turn this into a full-blown series, hit me up. (Or is it called "Nomor" for a reason? XD)

If there were any problems, I'd say a little more imagery in the second and fourth parts, which were slightly lacking as opposed to the others, but aside from that, great job. Love to see more of this.

@Malkalack @Wigglewigglewiggle @Kiel_Farren @Morgan_R @EndMaster @Killa_Robot @BerkaZerka @FeanoronForge @betaband @SkyTenshi @Sky_Tenshi @SpartacusTheGreat @coinsmom @Tim36D

Yeah, it's pretty confusing at times. The best way to describe it is that it feels like we're missing context, or maybe meaning. Things are just sort of happening without us knowing why. It's clear there's a big world, but rather than slowly introduce us to it, we're just kind of thrown into it.

Much of the time that could be spent explaining things goes instead into describing the situation. Which while descriptive, usually left me more confused than immersed. Needs some more exposition imo.

I agree that it's pretty confusing at times, but I disagree with the rest. Throwing people into a story/world is a time-honored tradition, and it's very, very easy to overdo exposition. I think it some specific cases things need to be more clear, but mostly I think the lack is mostly in immersion and motivation.

Swift needs to put us into the character more, both into his head and into his experience. Right now he's a cipher who things happen to, and who does things, but he's lacking in emotional reaction & motivation, and a lot of what could be shown as direct experience is told about in summary form. It would require a pretty extensive rewrite to change that, but... something to consider, anyway.

I'm not saying he needs to explain everything, just more. Who is the shaman and why did we go to him? Why are we hunting this woman? What's a quarry? What is the main character if he's not human? What's his history with the this creature that he alluded to earlier on?

Many things introduced but left unanswered.

Fair points. I do think a degree of not-knowing and wanting-to-find-out can draw readers in, but there's too much that's unclear at this point.

For Nomor, the mornings of winter and spring were hardest to wake from. His world, in those six months of chilly, white-out morns and crisp, star-lit nights, moved only as quickly as the snow fell. 

The snow, at this time of the year, fell lightly. 

Nice opening. Kind of an establishing shot, and nicely poetic.

Knuckles and joints popped as he propped himself up with an arm bruised along the wrist, purple as his torso was. The whittled door, rent to shreds, offered only an uncomfortable reminder, a reminder that the woman he had known for four nights was nothing more than a conniving beast of some kind. His heart was wounded doubly : once from the very real incision she gave him under his shoulder blade, and another for his loss of trust. 

Technically I don't think his heart could be literally wounded. He'd be dead.

She still had the kindness, or at least enough fear, to flee with Nomor’s clothing strewn in a trail. Droplets shrank, splattered, and distanced themselves from one another from where she took flight only hours before.

This confused me. Fleeing due to kindness? Or fear? Very different motivations. I'm left wondering how the fight actually ended. Did he fight her off, or did she leave him alive when she could have killed him? And what's with the clothes? Was she carrying them away as she fled, dropping them as she went? Why? Also, following "clothing strewn in a trail" with "Droplets etc" is a weird switch from one kind of trail to another.

The trail ended abruptly not past twenty yards out, with a single feather marking where she had taken flight.
 

Nice. I'm intrigued by the possibilities here, without needing to know right away if she's winged or a shapeshifter or what.

Given his current condition, he elected to go back to the village. He never imagined that he would consult with the same shaman that cast him out and called him a demon, but he had his obligations and oaths in order, oaths he would not break for fear that he would be chased out of the only lands he knew. 

Hm. He's been cast out, but he's afraid of being even MORE cast out? I guess I could buy that, but you haven't sold me on it yet. Maybe some details about whatever marginal life he has could fit in here. 

Noon was a dark overcast, and for that Nomor was glad. The ground was blanketed in snow that went up to the ankles. Had the day been brighter, the snow would have blinded him with a field of white; he would not see the crevices that marked rivers, streams, and creeks, nor the little fox-holes, nor the tracks the passing bears, mammoths, and other wildlife would leave. No bow or spear would defend him until it would be far too late, if he had any. 

Nice. It's a nitpick, but maybe "EVEN if he had any," since he doesn't.

The clouds were their brightest by the time Nomor had found the effigy, this time a man-sized doll clad in strange, shining scales of gray. Usually, he would find the replica of another tribe’s chieftain at the stake, to give offense and warning to any passing party, but men clad in fish scales were a new sight entirely. Similar effigies could be seen pinned to booby-trapped pines, with burn scars and chinks in the clothing; they were warnings of what kinds of traps had lain in wait. In contrast, a small little cavity at the base of a cluster of bone-white aspen opened into a snug tunnel. 

 Interesting, but a little confusing. Warnings of traps that HAD lain in wait? How is that a warning? And why would you warn your enemies about traps anyway?

So Nomor crawled into the tunnel at the fork of the aspen ring, a relatively safer entrance into the forest, which soon became a labyrinth of intersecting paths darkened by a tight weave of thousands of crossing branches. He kept his form small, as the lack of leaves belied the fact that the branches were young enough to snap and slice through tendon and tissue. Plenty enough to halt the progress of an entire warband, if necessary.

Yyyeah, no. That's just not how branches work. Young branches are more flexible and less likely to snap, and if they did, it wouldn't be with enough force to cut through tendons with wood. Traps I'll buy, but dangerous branches? Not convinced.

In both instances, the briar had hooked into his skin. Where they had hooked onto meat, windrows of overturned skin gave way to florid flesh. And where had the florid flesh laid bare to softened leather coarsened at the hem, blood spilt, dripped, and trickled as a springtime creek would. 

Florid prose, more like. I think you could cut this paragraph.

He could hear the hollers now, how the bells had clamored up a storm of half-waken guards and men when his foot snagged on a wire. Perhaps those strange men had came to the village.

'Perhaps those strange men had come to the village' seems like a non-sequitor in the middle of the action, here -- and you put the snagging on the wire after the consequences. I'd rearrange this. Snag his foot, set off bells, have people yelling.

Bones jutted out from above and around, mere inches from his face. The cream-colored ribs flattened into spearheads, the kinds with sawtooth edges and scythe-like hooks. At the end of the tunnel, a face worn and dark as the pines met Nomor’s with a squint and a stare. Thin lips and eyelids pressed against one another before the face lifted itself away from the mouth of the tunnel, and the spears followed similarly.

The first sentence confused me. I'd say 'spearheads' rather than 'bones,' and then say that they're bones afterwards. Otherwise people are going to get entirely the wrong visual at first.

A flurry of crunches ebbed and faded as the men walked back to their occupations. Fence-weaving, weapon making, leather kneading, and bone breaking resumed under the hubbub of laughing children and singing women, a warband forming in the guise of what the village called “hunts”. Nomor, as he crawled out of the tunnel, heard a soft chuckle from behind.

Again, I think you're putting things in the wrong order here. He's in the tunnel, he can't see what the men are doing. Get him out of the tunnel, have him look around and SEE what's going on. Maybe with some indication of what the men think of a visit from the man their shaman cast out as a demon? Are they at all afraid of him? Or more contemptuous? Startled to see him back?

“We’ve lost two before we found the fish-men, but we’ve learned many things. Too much, some of the elders say. They are men inside all the same, and that they bleed the same red as we do. That they have come to do the same as this tribe has done for many winters; we are preparing for when they come in full force.”

The voice, high-strung and intoned in deep lows and squeaky highs, registered itself to that of the shaman.

Aaand the shaman doesn't mind that he's back? Just dives right into some exposition for us? I want some emotional content, dammit. You can get to the information about the fish-men, but you need some tension in the conversation first. The shaman cast him out, he's barging in, I'm not convinced those men shouldn't STILL be pointing spears at him -- until his desperate story about the woman/monster convinces the shaman to tell them to stand down.

“You seem to know of the woman,” Nomor spoke.

He does? I see no indication of that in what he said.

“Of her, I do.” Footsteps approached. “More beast than man, more skin than walker. But she is not unlike most witches. Come, come. I must bless my brethren.”

Good lines. But again, I feel like there could be so much more dramatic tension in this conversation.

Inside the hut, the shaman rifled through various bauble-filled bowls. All of their contents were strange to Nomor’s eyes : glimmering gray scales, twinkling bands inset with little sky-colored beads, and inexplicably thin wood bark marked with black symbols were all cast onto a mat of stretched rabbit hide. The shaman undulated and cried out in a loud voice as he took his staff and struck the bark, then the band, then the scale. The bark snapped, the band bend, but the staff bounced away, impervious to the shaman’s blow. The two looked at each other; Nomor’s brows furrowed, and the shaman’s eyes widened.

...I'm so confused. Do you mean the scale bounced away, not the staff?

“Should I concern myself in this matter?” Nomor's asked. He picked up the band and held it to the light above. “I may be able to speak with them.”

This seems like an odd offer to make, considering how aggressive the scale-people seem. Speak with them... to what effect? Unless Nomor is some kind of silver-tongued diplomat... which doesn't seem like what you're doing here.

“No.” The shaman swiped the band from Nomor's hand, and placed the bark, scale, and band back into the bowl. “The danger you have brought to us is more immediate. You will kill this beast that wears the likeness of our men, and then you will return so that I will have time to determine your use. But do not return without the egg.”

First, isn't it wearing the likeness of their women, or a particular women, not their men? Also... I'm not convinced you should do this, where the shaman knows about the egg and tells him to bring it back. I think it would make a better twist if Nomor finds it himself.

The shaman descended into a tirade in an old tongue, blasting a colorful, old language in a string of curses as he threw pouches and bowls aside. He procured a root that had frost caked to its exterior. It seemed as though a lasting cold had sprung from inside, since the shaman’s finger became coated with a layer of ice. Whooping and a great thundering of footsteps rang from the outside.

What? Why is he suddenly swearing? He knew she was a shapeshifter. And then there's random whooping and footsteps? Except three sentences later the camp had gone from 'cheerful clamor' to silence?

“Ingest this when you find the beast.” The shaman tossed it to Nomor. “But not all; you may need more for the fish-men.”

He'll give him a (presumably rare) potion-equivalent, but not a frigging spear? Why won't he give him weapons?

Nomor exited the hut, and squinted when sunlight flashed into his eyes. As he blinked, he found the camp, once filled with a cheerful clamor, had fallen silent. The children, once free to roam about the village grounds, stood by in the entrances of their hovels, their mothers’ arms cradled around their progeny’s necks and chests so as to keep them from venturing out too far. The men, as soon as they gave their last farewells, left the village by the north in clusters of two or three. Fresh powder lifted by a light breeze drew veils around their figures.
Their silhouettes, with the rising of the winds and the setting of the sun, were quick to become one with the greying snow.

This is lovely, except for the part where the village is presumably surrounded by the two miles of branch-tunnels. Or if there's a way to leave in the open (where silhouettes might be seen), why didn't Nomor go around that way?

~~~

Whew. Okay, still not done, but let me know if this level of critique is more helpful than annoying. I do think you've got something with potential here, but I think it does need work... and I'm honestly not sure where you'd begin to make it interactive. Maybe backtrack to when he first finds the 'woman'? Anyway, you'd be reworking it a lot, so I'm not sure if this paragraph-by-paragraph critique is actually what you're looking for. If it is helpful, though, I'll get back to it.

Liking what I'm getting so far.  Killa's on the right track with asking questions; most of them should be answered whenever I get around to getting the childhood parts started.

As for branching out, if you're not too emotionally invested with Nomor, then you're not obligated to suggesting a choice.  It'd be a bit unfair if alternative choices were a priority this far in the story.

Don't relent if you find some sentence unfitting or weird.  Point it out, and tell me that shit needs to go, and it may.