Renaissance Hero

Renaissance Hero


Synopsis: one Hero, one Demon King, two lazy bastards on a quest to nirvana

Genre: Mature,Action,Adventure,Drama,Fantasy,Transported to another world

Table of contents:
Prologue 1.1 (revised)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

 

I'm going to be brutally honest here...

It sounds like a hardcore middle school stage play. No really, read this with one of those dramatic narrator voices, imagine the characters as middle schoolers with bad costumes, and you'll see what I mean.

The dialogue matches too...

"Vile demon, you dare! Evil will never win! We will never surrender!"

"Ha, a Demon King being lenient. What a joke. Do your worst demonspawn."

Come on, man. I'd put in more effort into painting a canvas white than writing this.

 

I agree with @Dragn555 , the dialogue is horrible.
I know it's meant to be horrible, to contrast with the modern and more relaxed tone the Demon King has, but because of that, it just seems stupid.

The mood overall seems mishmashed and uneven, with serious tones and some comedic ones.

My advice would be to have it so that the Demon King acts serious while you write his not-so-serious thoughts out.
Or, you could just make everything extremely idiotic and comedic.

Like, instead of that guy saying, "Ha, a Demon King being lenient. What a joke. Do your worst demonspawn."
Have him say, "Hey guys, that actually sounds pretty nice. Can we just go with that?" Then describe a buddy of his whacking the back of his head and whispering, "Shut up, look at the mood!"

 

I was going for ridiculous and cliches mostly in this chapter. And after that, well I havent written that part yet.
Guess you arent too thrilled with the prologue

 

Hah thnx for advice, yup was going for fantastical ridiculousness and cliches. Seems it slightly backfired

 

*strokes beard* seems intruiging

 

Renaissance Hero

Prologue 1.1(revised)

In an ordinary galaxy, on an ordinary day, a fairly ordinary man was walking down the street. With his dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and handsome facial features he would have cut a dashing figure were it not for his furrowed brows, the bags under his eyes and the 3-day old unkempt beard.

The man was walking while simultaneously reading on his smartphone. He was an engineering student and his final exam before graduating was later that day. But it was not to be, for the ground rose up and swallowed him whole, well that's how it seemed to him at least. Witnesses to this incident however only heard a blood curling scream and an open manhole.

But the man saw a completely different view. A view to a completely different world. Nobody could have predicted a space-time portal lurking in a manhole.
At the same time, in a galaxy not so close but not too far away.

A catastrophic incident occurred. The Demon King found out about the hero summoning taking place and took immediate actions to prevent his nemesis from crossing over. His Devilishness himself stepped onto the battlefield and the combined forces of elves, dwarves, humans and beast men held the forces of evil at bay.

But not for long, for they were betrayed from the inside. The Demon King brainwashed key personnel from both sides, ensuring unwavering loyalty and timely help to prevail at the end of the day.

The brainwashed agents exploded thereby annihilating allied forces. The demons encroached upon the summoning site where the gathering of the strongest mages and knights ever seen was gathered. But even they couldn't hold out hold out due to the repeated betrayals and overwhelming numbers.

And unfortunately, to no-one's surprise the dark mage Zephal betrayed his comrades when he saw that his odds for survival were rapidly diminishing. The mage while panicking covered himself in shadows and tried to sneak away.

But since it was high-noon, again to no-one's surprise the cretin died miserably upon being swarmed by demons.

The Demon King approached the brave heroes of the world and spoke thusly:
"O brave heroes, it seems that I have won today. So, pretty please, obediently surrender. Now."

The light mage Iridis of the Holy Church naturally couldn't accept such disgraceful behaviour and shouted before anyone could speak:

"Vile demon, you dare! Evil will never win! We will never surrender!"

A snicker was heard immediately after Iridis finished screaming her lungs out

"Who was it!? Who laughed right now"

To everyone's surprise, it turned to be the head paladin Michel who couldn't hold it in.

"Hahaha, who says that anymore. Hahaha, from which era did you pop out Iridis."
In a high pitched mocking voice he repeated what she said, "Vile demon, you dare! Evil will never win! We will never surrender!" Hahaha, oh Iridis when will you learn that your whole holier-than-thou shtick only makes people despise you."

It seemed with the looming threat over their heads, previous grievances were being voiced in the open.

And to that, the Demon King gave a pretty good imitation of the facepalm, were it not for his horns being in the way it would have been perfect. The demon spoke, " Yes, yes I know. You hate me, I hate you, the story of our lives. Ah, very well, since it has come to this I might as well get serious."

The Demon King cracked his knuckles and gave the heroes a pretty intimidating glare which sent shivers down their spines. Usually, these heroes didn't fear anyone but this was the only being they knew that was undefeatable for them.

For they were not the Hero. The person who could defeat this abomination.
The battlefield was ominously silent before the final storm. The mages readied their spells, the knights prepared themselves for a final charge. The Demon King just watched until he was apparently satisfied with the preparations.

The Demon King spoke, " This is your final warning if you surrender now, I will be lenient."

A voice was heard from the crowd, " Ha, a Demon King being lenient. What a joke. Do your worst demon spawn."

It seemed that head paladin Michel cracked under pressure and started spouting nonsense, " Shut up, some of us want to actually go home after this. I still haven't even opened my tavern yet."

Somebody asked," Yeah, what's it called?"

" The Divine Taste" Everyone was thinking, "Ooh, fancy" but Iridis was nursing a grudge from before and found a chance to poke a hole in Michel's pride, " Ha, this pretentious bastard as if you will survive today." ,and Michel shouted back"Vile woman, your tongue is sharper than your magic. See if I don't cut you down after this is over!"

A noticeable sigh came from the Demon King. He spoke the last recorded words of the battle known later as the Battle of Summoning, " Hah, people can we get serious over here?"
Death and destruction came immediately after. The Demon King signaled with his arm.

Firebolts flew from the demon side to the hero side. Icebolts immediately followed back interspersed with lighting bolts frying scores of demons but some were earth inclined magicians and raised earthen walls to defend. The lights mages healed their fallen compatriots and from time to time purified demons that got too close. The demons in retaliation cursed and hexed back weakening them. Knights rushed into the holes opened by magic and swung their longswords, war hammers, maces and even threw demons at their allies when their blessed weapons broke.

The Demon King watched this free-for-all but somehow couldn't get excited, " Huh, I guess it's not the same without the Hero."

While everyone was preoccupied with fighting, the Demon King gathered his mana to cast his ultimate spell "Armageddon". It' wasn't a complicated spell but it required a frightening amount of mana. In its origin lied the ordinary firebolt but the Demon King made it unreasonably large and learned how to compress it's size later on.

Naturally, a giant firebolt couldn't go unnoticed and soon there were shouts in the vein of "Stop him!" or " Destroy the spell!". The mages immediately launched a combined attack on the Demon King but lesser demons got in their way and secured enough time for the spell to be completed.

The Demon King muttered under his breath, " Well, here goes nothing."

Everyone watched as if in slow-motion the Demon King threw the ball in the midst of the bloody melee. When the deceptively small firebolt landed, only a loud whoosh sound was heard and nothing else.

But that didn't mean the spell didn't work. On the contrary, the spell worked so well that it outright obliterated both the demons and the mages together. Even the Demon King would have perished were it not for his cellular regeneration being unreasonably fast.

The only person standing at the end was the Demon King but despite his victory, his mood wasn't cheerful at all, even a tinge of regret could be seen in his expression.

The Demon King gave a look at the desolate wasteland that remained after the battle. With a sigh, he said," What's done is done. At least no righteous asshole will come to loot my body."

And what about the summoning portal? It too was damaged beyond repair. Well, at least that's what the Demon King thought.

Until on a fateful day, he appeared. A hundred years too late.

 

Chapter 1

Out of the portal emerged a screaming mess of a person which then proceeded to violently trash on the floor like a fish out of water.
After some time the man noticed his situation and embarassingly stood up and took a look to check if anyone saw him. To his relief, no-one was there.

After giving his surroundings a better look, he found himself in a wooden shack. His first impression of it was that it stank of poverty. A single bed and a stool in a corner.

He was completely baffled by the situation, one moment he was walking down the street and the next moment he is in Poverty Central. Did someone kidnap him and took him into the slums or what?

Due to the shack having no lightning, he had trouble finding the door but he used his smartphone as a flashlight and soon enough he found the doorframe. The person who lived here was so poor, they didn't even have a doorknob or a lock for that matter.
The man pushed the door open and the first sound he heard was-

"Ooooff"

There was a child on the floor. The man took a gander at him and immediatelly put two and two together. This child lived here. How did he know? Why, with dirt on it's face ,oversized clothes that didn't fit and not a single building in view who else could live here.

The man gave the child a hand and dusted off it's shoulders.

He asked the child, " Can you tell me where the hell I am or find me someone who knows?"

The child gave him the same look when a tourist asks someone a question but the person doesn't know the language.

He tried again, " Kannst du mir sagen wo ich bin oder jemanden der weiß finden?"

The child gave him the same look again.

The man was becoming exasperated. He decided to try another language.

Not even the first syllable came out of his mouth when the child widened it's eyes and started shrieking at the top of it's lungs.
The man was caught dumbfounded at this sight.

Bam!

The man slapped the child on the cheek.

Now the child was dumbfounded. After a moment, it seemed to realize something and started searching through it's oversized robe. After searching through every nook and cranny it finally found what it was searching for.

It was a small crystal. It was a hexagonal crystal, slightly oblong and translucent.

The child pushed the crystal towards the man as if he should take it. The man was confused due to the behaviour of the child but despite that he took the crystal from the child's hands.

As soon as he touched the crystal, the man started screaming like a banshee and started jumping around as if it would make the pain go away. And every curse that ever was, was utterred that day.

After a while of trashing and foaming at the mouth the man finally calmed down. If looks could kill, the look that the man gave at the child would have obliterated it like a nuclear explosion.

The man asked, " Why?"

" Speak"

The man was confused, "What?"

The child pointed first at the man and then at himself , " You. Me. Speak."

The man finally caught onto the difference and asked, "Eh, you understand what I am saying?"

With a nod the child confirmed his assumption.

So that crystal must have been some kind of universal translator or something like that. This day just kept getting weirder and weirder.

Then it asked with quite some vigor, " Name?"

The man answered briefly, " Erik. And followed up with, "And you?"

The child with a slightly deflated tone of voice said, "Mika"

" What's with the tone of your voice? Is there something wrong?"

" Well, you are not quite what I imagined you to be."

" And what did you imagine" " A giant."

" Why a giant?" "Well, aren't all heroes giants?"

"Well yeah, heroes are often depicted larger-than-life personas- Wait, what are you talking about? I'm not a hero."

" Aren't you? My master said that the hero will apear someday at this place. "

"Well, where is this master of yours?"

The child pointed to a tombstone and with obvious sadness in it's voice, " There. He passed away last summer."

Well, that's just wonderful. Where is adult supervision when you need it?

" I'm really sorry, but did he leave a message of any kind?"

"No, only some books and a gold coin."

Just great old man, just great. This kid must have been tricked or something. Shouldn't there be a welcome party for their saviour or at least a slutty princess and a king sized bed. And instead, here I am stuck with a kid in the middle of nowhere. And broke to boot, as if things couldn't get any worse.

" Can I see those books? Maybe there is a message in there?"

Again, Mika searched through his robes and finally, after tiring himself out and whipping up a cloud of dust in the process he handed over the books.

Seriously this kid needs some proper clothes. Well, that's for later, I seriously doubt I will find a mall inside this forest.
Let's see, Introduction to magic. Huh pretty obvious, but it's a bit on the thin side. And the other book seems to be this guy's journal. Let's see what's inside.

"Knowledge is power" Oooh, that was some insight there old man.

"In the other book you will find that magic is described as the power of influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces. But it is not so. There is nothing mysterious about magic, there are only ignorant people who refuse to see the truth. I have uncovered a shocking truth and when I tried to tell other people about my findings, I was mercilessly mocked into obscurity by narrow-minded mediocre cretins who refused to even spare a glance at my research. Well, screw them and their whole family!

Whoever is reading this journal, you can consider yourself my successor.

I researched mana and it's origins. And I discovered mana was not of this world. Some thousands of years ago, something devastating happened and what came out of it was mana. And with it, elves, beastmen and the dwarwes. They are not of this world just like mana itself. Shocking, isn't it?"

Yeah, what was more shocking though , somewhere on this planet there are elves?

"The mystery of the origin of mana lies somewhere forgotten, and one of these three races must have the answer."

Tch, damn geezer. I have my own problems. I'm not a scientist, I'm a bloody engineer. Give me some duct tape, a screwdriver and I'm all good.

After that there was a bunch of notes, bizzare comments and crazy nonsense that nobody sane could understand. Then something about the hero popped up.

"I have heard from my master, that in ancient records that speak of the Hero, describe him as a being with an intimate connection with mana. Therefore I decided to travel to the old summoning site and wait for the return of the hero. I hope my gamble pays off."

After that, there were descriptions of his daily life and research spanning some 40 years. And a gradual descent into despair from aging which even magic couldn't prevent, only slow down.

And finally near the end, Mika was mentioned
" Today, I found an orphan child in the middle of this wasteland. What are the chances? This must be some kind sign the gods are sending not to give up. Yes, it must be so. "

This novel reeks of desperation. Old man, how desperate were you?

"Death is coming for me, I have no time. The Hero hasn't shown up yet. But I will not give up. I have written down my experiences to help guide the Hero on his quest. Unfortunately I'm the last one who believes in the myth of the hero. All others perished at the Battle of
Summoning or dismiss it as some kind of fancy legend."

Wonderful, just fxking wonderful. What am I even supposed to do. Am I supposed to save the world on the sly? I don't have enough patience to walk the thief/assassin route.

"Hero, if you are reading this, it means I have passed on. Please take care of Mika and teach him some magic. He seems to have some talent for it. And if, only if you have some spare time, could you fullfill this old man's wish to find out the truth about mana ?Remember, knowledge is power. The more you know about yourself and the world, the more powerful you will be. Imagination is your only limit. "

You could have said so at the beginning damn geezer. At least I've got a general direction on how to proceed right now. This whole ordeal is bordering on insanity. And who goes to a fantasy world to adopt children? Hell, I'm barely on solid food myself.

"Mika" "Yes?"

"Pack your stuff, it seems there is a village westward." "But I don't have any stuff"

Oh, poverty thou cruel bitch.

"Fine, then I'll pack my stuff and then we will depart" "Ok"

So I rummaged through my backpack which traveled with me. My search netted me a couple of textbooks, a pack of cigarettes, three lighters, my phone charger, sunglasses, a couple of rulers, a pencil case and as icing on the cake, my headphones.

Indeed, without music in the background you can't have a proper adventure. *cue awesome music*

Pity the fool who goes to a fantasy world without his walkman.

"Let's go Mika, there's a wide world just waiting to screw us over."

 

holy shit man its long

 

should I take that as a compliment or ?

 

compliment

though it means "I'm not reading this till i have enough spare time"

 

read it.

And I have to say.

WHERE THE FUCK IS HIS DUCT TAPE AND SCREWDRIVER?!

 

IKR

 

haha nice

 

Chapter 2

As soon as the two neophyte magicians epic journey started, disaster struck.
Erik had to make a life-changing decision immediately after crossing.

Am I going to have to give up on them? It's not like there is a convenience store around here. It's not like smokers carry around their "emergency fantasy world smokes" with them.
Yes, Erik was currently staring at his last cigarette pack. The tobacco filled, smoke producing, deathstick that he loved more than anything.

Damn, damn, damn. I'm going to have make them last as long as possible, it's not like they will just magically appear if I wish for them enough.

And then the sound of a lightbulb coming on inside Erik's mind was heard.
Magic. Almost forgot about that. Heh, magical cigarettes. Life is sweeeeet.

But, there was a slight problem since the Hero's magic skills were nonexistent. Yet, such minor details couldn't stop Erik on his quest to obtain the holy grail of all smokers: free cigarettes forever.

The other book Mika's master left for the Hero, was The Introduction to magic.Erik stared with a feverish gaze at the cover as if it contained the answer to meaning of life.

"Magic is described as the power of influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces."

Sure,whatever that's old news already, let's move on.

"Magic is based primarily on the elemental magics which are: earth,air,fire and water. Basic magics such as earth shield, wind blades, firebolts or water blast can be casted from these elements. "

Wonderful, I wonder what Mendeleev would have had to say on this topic.

"But there are some magics which are not elemental in nature. They are called arcane magics. They were created by grandmaster magicians and by design they have specific purposes such as detecting presences of magic or life and many more similar purposes."

Yes, yes that's all kinds of awesome, but where's my damn cigarette magic?!

Erik rifled through the booklet but to his disappointment, there was no cigarette magic to be found. But that was not enough to stop him.
And thus Eric for the first time uttered his famous cathphrase, "Fuck it, I'm an engineer." which later on was used, unfortunately for Eric's reputation, by teenagers before getting black-out drunk.

With baseless confidence and complete ignorance of magic, Erik bravely jumped head-first into magic research. While Erik and Mika were walking, Erik tried to feel the mana in his surroundings but to no avail. After half a day of fruitless "feeling" and muttering to himself, he gave up.

With a noticeable sigh, he turned to Mika and said, " Magic sure is complicated, huh?" while Mika replied nonchalantly, " Eh, not really."
" What do you mean? Can you show me?"

Mika stopped walking and assumed an expression of deep concentration. In the beginning nothing happened but soon the surroundings began to heat up. And just like that, a fireball magically appeared in Mika's hands. It wasn't very impressive but it sure looked real. Erik with a trembling hand poked the ball of fire and got a burned finger in return.

Erik looked at Mika with a complicated gaze while thinking to himself.

Fxck me, are you the hero or me?

Erik blew on his fingers until the heat went away. And with a reneved vigor he plunged right back into his research.

To Erik's surprise, he soon enough felt the mana around him in the form of energy. It seemed that on some sub-conscious level he was denying reality and his current situation. Erik focused on the ambient energy and brought it to his finger. In his mind he pictured process of combustion and willed for the mana to create a spark and burn itself.

As everyone knew, playing with fire was dangerous and as combustion was an exothermic reaction with Eric's face being too close to the process the resulting spurt of fire jumped and cleanly burned his eyebrows off of his face. Fortunately there was Mika close by who conjured a water ball and splashed Eric's face with it.

With his face looking like he went through "advanced interrogation" Erik put off learning magic for tommorow.

When the sun finally set below the horizon, the two found a secluded spot near the road and retired for the night. Erik gathered some firewood and built a small campfire to keep them warm. When he finished and was just starting to turn in for the night, a stomach growled.

Erik looked at Mika and asked, " When did you last eat?"

"Yesterday."

Erik then proceeded to rummage through his backpack. A couple of moments later he turned to Mika, " Here, this is a chocolate bar. I lived on these for a while."

"What is chocolate?"

"What do you mean what is chocolate? It's chocolate. Don't tell me this is the first time you have seen chocolate."

"Yes."

Oh, for fxck sake what kinda of hellhole is this place when children don't even know what chocolate is.

With a sigh Erik said, "Don't worry as soon as I figure out this whole magic thing you will have all the chocolate in the world and I'll have all the cigarettes I want."

 

Nai waaa. I commend your efforts dog hut bro

 

Man, I find your lack of descriptions horrible disturbing.
I know nothing about where they are, apart from it's a forest.

I know nothing about where they went. Where they rested. Or even what Mika looks like. And what Erik is wearing.
Now, I don't want you to slap on a few sentence of the next chapter to fix the few things I mentioned above, I want you to think about what you're writing, the imagery, all of it. Then write it ALL down, convey it as much as you can.

Otherwise you're writing a whole story using verbs. The most boring kind of thing to write with, verbs. There were barely any adverbs!


Some general opinions:
Format your story, make sure all your grammar and punctuation is correct.
Don't censor words, no one is going to berate you, and it doesn't do much if all you do is change a single letter.

*Vomits while reading that*
The punctuation and grammar............

 

Couldn't be bothered with editing today, I used to write in my word but my subscription expired

 

Wait, people actually use the legal version of Microsoft Word?

Dude, that's like buying Winrar

 

Hah, hell no. It came with the pc before this whole subscription charade came along