Ok, to begin with, the first paragraph seems to go on and on with description. I feel it can really be condensed and make the read onto the next paragraph quicker. "Beyond the dark moor to the east lightning lanced from the obsidian sky, raking the earth like the talons of a long-forgotten barbic god." That's all you need. A bit too much description to begin with. Get to the action quicker. Bring some of the dialogue up to the front - mix description and dialogue together. This is the prelude, its supposed to entice the reader, quickly!

Nitpicker: He could say “not” if he wanted. “Nah” is more of a cultural twist to his speech-- something similar to "Y'all". Dhar could use it; however, he speaks a little more formally and does not.

Cyres

Why is it that Tak cannot say "not", when he can say the word "hot" perfectly fine?

o! 19 years later!(The boy-experiment is grown up! my bets are on him!)

Carrion is a subject few dare write about.

Hmm, forbidden magics and sciences.

"Halted that cavalry charge by the enemy hisself too." Himself? of course, there is the accent written in there, so it might be exactly whats being said.

So the mage-killers aren't part of the military per see, but are irregulars or police force or something? Might warrent a smidge more explaination

every inch coated crimson. Coated with? painted crimson? Seems a tad clunky as it is now.

Rakiirji is capitalized in this chapter and it was not in the Prologue. I understand that they're a race, and, like human, don't need capitalization, but if they are commonplace, it might be capitalized as more of a nationality. i.e. American or Canadian or to that extent. You'd do the same for humans of different nations or alligiences. But it is ultimately up to you.

Some commas are needed in the deciphered parchment.

Mage-killers are mages themselves. Interesting.

Hmm, maybe not. Maybe its just him. :)

O! spooky! So Rive (and maybe some of the other adepts?) are alive and out there. Thats good to know!

Can't wait to see the next part! Good work, you two!

Alright, third paragraph and I'm interested. Is our Archmagus a good guy? A bad guy? A lesser evil? Hope we'll find out soon.

The imp sleeps with it's eyes open? Might be a typo, or might be a really creepy trait- escpecially one for a creature with a baleful stare.

"There was a slight click as the latch was lifted, but the door crept open in silence." You might want to change it to 'though there was a slight click as the latch was lifted, the door crept open in silence.' Dunno, I think the but puts them in contrast as opposed to reinforcing each other.

"blood, dirt, perhaps both"Blood or dirt, or perhaps both sounds a tad better to my ear, a list of two being compared to a single thing as opposed to an informal list.

the Imperials continue to attack from all directions--” I'm assuming the Archmagus is a competent military commander, so he should know, despite overconfidence, never to let yourself be surrounded. Even if this does turn out to be a trap or an overwhelming victory for him, i think hes smart enough to follow basic tactics. Besides, if you were given an advantage by the enemy, wouldn't you be suspicious? dunno, just something to think about.

pure-ironclad alpha rakiirji spearheading Caps on a proper noun?

Across the hall, the child redoubled his wails. I'm not positive, but i don't think you mentioned The Boy being the the hall yet.

dimmed in the tangible aura of his necromancy. Nice imagery there. Love how it reads and looks in my mind.

It appears First-Lord Rive has two lines in a row over the Callstone that are a tad confusing. Might want to clean it up

Yes, Master,” - This line has a paragraph split in it that i think is unintenional.

Very very good first chapter (err, prologue), I will return later (tonight? tomorrow? only time will tell. Its one of those two, though) and finish off this excellent beginning.

Well, saw you added me to your Favorite Author's list, and decided to give your stuff a shot. You also did ask for some constructive critism, so I'll do my best to work it into the review.

That being said, Onward, to Story!

Hmm, Dramatis Personae. Not much to comment on here, except the length and depth of what is being presented. That a lot of information (which has been copied to another window so that I may refer back to it as ease), and, while you stay true to the concept of Dramtis Personae, there might be a better way. I read a story on here once, I forget which one, that had, at the beginning of each chapter, the new characters in it listed, along with who they were. It was good, because the author, if i recall correctly, had well over fifty major, named characters. If you ever get stuck, it might be a fun exercise to try to get back into the writing mood, and it might grow on you.

Hmm, I said a lot for just the character list.

Locus

First of all, I thank you for your review of my work. Glad to know the world isn't completely ignoring me. Oh, and your questions. Mr. Birdshit is both a person (dead) and something Tukeli calls everyone. Also, I used anachronistic words like "crapload" and "duh" to somehow give the double impression that Tukeli is _both_ a modern teenger and a magician in an alternate universe. Just showing a phenomenon that actually occurs in real life.

Now, to the business at hand. You've already had two very thorough, eloquent reviewers, who haven't left me much of worth to say, so I'll just expound on my impressions.

The prologue was lovely, graphics-wise. The imp, the potions, the light-effects, they all added to the richness of the atmosphere (which I didn't find to be the generic necromantic, by the way). My personal impression of the chapter was of someone very powerful and very nasty, slowly -- but unstoppably -- building up towards an act of devastation.

And it was a _laugh_ when I realized in the next chapter that he got killed anyway. ^_^ I hope you're saving the actual details of his death for later. If you leave it out entirely, I'll...well, I'll be disappointed.

The main point of interest in the prologue, I find, is the crying child. It raises a lot of questions, and directs the attention onward.

The battlefield chapter was, shall we say, extremely visceral. Normally, I take battlefields as casually as the next jaded teenager, but something about your description did it in for me. Maybe it was the part about the blood sticking Ja'nesay's shirt to her breasts? It was thoroughly disgusting. My congratulations! =)

After I got past my intial reactions, though, I find that I like the way you write: the exaggerated grittiness of it, the larger than life characters, and the detailed settings. Dhar is a main character of great potential, and I'm looking forward to watching him change for better or worse. I like that word "Scripture" too -- it's a very clever reversal. The magic system that it operates within ought to be interesting.

Anyway, that's all for today.

Love,Quavi

I read this before and should have reviewed a long time ago. No good excuse, either, but for some reason it kept slipping my mind. Well, anyway, I liked your story a lot. From the review and e-mai you sent me I already figured you'd be a pretty decent writer, but I was still surprised by how well-written this story was. You seem to have a vast and intricate world well fleshed-out already, which is always good- I hate it when things seem all vague and you can tell that the writer isn't even sure what direction their story's going to take. The characters all seem quite strong so far, and Dhar seems like he'll have some good character development as the story goes on.

I was kind of...how do you say it? I wasn't exactly put off, but I got a bit lost in all the descriptions there. The other reviewer explained the reasons for this with much better articulation than I ever could, so I don't really have to here. I don't think it's necessarily a weakness or flaw, though. There are people out there who just love in-depth descriptions and explanations in stories. I just don't happen to be one of them. I guess people like me just don't have it in us to wrap our minds around a whole lot of detailed description at one time. It's just a bit hard for the mind to follow, if you're a more easygoing reader like me.

Of course, you should write in the manner that suits you personally, and the description isn't actually a weakness. I really hope you'll keep it up...and hey, I thought there was another chapter up? It seems to have magically disappeared or something. Ah, one more thing. You probably want to move the "About the Authors" thing to your profile. When people read that as your first chapter, they may get disinterested and go off to read something else. I mean, it's good to know stuff about who's writing, but a lot of internet users have a two-second attention span and just want to get to the story right away.

Anywho. The fact that you're such a good writer makes me all the more grateful that you took the time to go and critique my story as thoroughly as you did. The email attachment you sent me was immensely helpful. I have to go back and make all those changes soon (though who knows when I'll actually get around to that...XD). So if I haven't said this before: thanks so much!

I'm having such difficulty reviewing this - not because it's bad, because it's not: in fact I like it a great deal. The system you've set up for magic totally interests me - I love it that engineering is classified along with alchemy and so forth! And the characters are very cool: moral ambiguity totally does it for me, and Dahr is creepy and driven and fascinating in roughly equal measures; Guunlath too is suitably nasty and vicious without ever slipping over into two-dimensionality...And yet there's something not quite working about the story so far, and I've been sitting at my computer trying to figure it out. It's not so much that the plot is still just being set out, because that's perfectly reasonable for an opening chapter and prologue, but - there's this sense of action, of drama, that's not quite present. The prologue should be absolutely gripping, it's the last stand of the Archmagi of Necromancy (minor quibble: should a single Archmagi be an Archmagus?), the battle's raging, but instead - I hate to say this, because I love description, and you've got a knack for detail I don't come close to - there are all these long slow-moving pieces of exposition or description, right down to the click of a latch and the exact function and composition of the Callstone, and even when it's something with more potential for drama, you put in lots of similes and so forth which (much as they might delight me in another context) slow things down so much and make it all very dense to read. There's the same problem in the first actual chapter, too: the meticulous description isn't such a problem, because it's not such an active scene, and I love your descriptions of the battlefield - admittedly I have a strong stomach for that sort of subject, but battles are all about the mud and blood and death, and so I do think your descriptions work - but the way you keep pausing to dot every i and cross every t makes it hard to follow what's actually happening - I can't see the wood for the trees, sort of. And including so much of what Dhar thinks about everything is very much not a problem in some ways - it lets you explain things without infodumping, which is very much of the good, and it's a useful way to establish Dhar as a character - but again, it slows things down a lot, and takes the focus off the main action, so that you lose out on coherence. I do like this story a great deal so far, and I'm interested to see where you'll go with it, but it could maybe be a great deal easier to read.

- lessthan