It's a rainy day, once again. . .
The Knight walks by, a whisper in the wind.
Leaves were all over the streets, clumps, bumps, scattered all over.
The Knight paused by the auction hall to buy supplies; he was to begin his mission soon.
He checked his watch.
'SCRAP! I'm late!'
I finished up the purchases- I needed to hurry on to the arcade. . .
When I arrived, There were two women and a man waiting for me. The man, wearing thick plate armor, jumped towards me- Prostrating.
"Thank god you're here, I thought they were going to kill me!"
I looked to the side, glumly, "They might kill me more, I'm late..."
The two women of which we spoke were the Guildmaster, and her Apprentice.
...Both of which were very cruel.
Fortunately, their expressions did not hint to torture.
"Come on, you nincompoops. We have a job to do."
The mission was to go down to Core level to pick up an artifact from the swarm; The Guildmaster trusted in the Apprentice's skill by now.
We, on the other hand, were meat shields- Me and Ardal.
The elevator ride was. . . Peaceful, to say the most. Other than the amazing gash down my face, this was lucky for our guild.
"We're close. Just another two... Levels.." I groaned, covered in wounds from both enemies and team.
Ardal wasn't much better off, one of his arms had been broken. Nevertheless, he grinned with confidence.
Next level was a bit better- there were no major enemies, so me and Ardal had a chance to heal up from all the drops.
After that. . . Fire, fire, and more fire.
I choked on the smoke, the haze disabling my sight. "How much more. . . *Gasp* IS THERE?"
For some reason, we had taken the path through Vanaduke's lair as well.
The Apprentice was starting to get just as hurt as me and Ardal. I would have smirked, but I'm sure she wouldn't be able to sympathize with us after that. Vanaduke's mace swung, and crashed to the ground next to me. I jumped up his arm and cut his head off.
And all the Guildmaster had to say was "Hmph." As usual, no 'good job' or 'well done'.
Finally, the last elevator to the core.
The group walked slowly towards the objective, through the rain, marked on our map- We'd finally come this far.
The Guildmaster was the first to grasp the artifact, as usual. . .
And then, something happened.
...Purple?
Arden recieved a sword through the stomach- And that's when I started to regret everything I'd ever done.
His arm extended weakly to the air, but there was nothing that could be done.
By all rights, me and the Apprentice were doomed to die.
"Take her right side, I'll get the left!" I shouted, in a desparate last attempt to live.
The Apprentice was stubborn, but she knew as well as I did if she didn't do something, we were dead.
Between the flurry of the two of us, the Guildmaster could barely block almost all of our attacks-
One to two came in from my side- a shin and the stomach, Three from her side- Two on the arm, one on the shoulder.
Suddenly, what was the Guildmaster leaps over us, and plunges her arm into Arden, and lifts him up.
Is she... Sucking his blood?
Horrified or not, I charged in- It was fairly reasonable to think the Swarm could heal through blood, as a sort of ritual.
I aimed for the neck, but hit the arm holding Arden.
She still had an arm free, and began to pull it back to thrust into my body.
It was over. . .
The Apprentice came in over me, getting a heartily stab on the head.
Blood splattered and smeared everywhere.
The Apprentice reached down to help me up. She hugged me, crying tears, tears, tears.
All I could do was hold the hug, and comfort her.
"I thought she was paying attention..." She sobbed.
". . .We were supposed to destroy it!"
I released the hug- eyes cast down.
Ignoring all else, I shuffled to Arden, covered in wounds, scrapes, and bruises.
I closed his eyes for him, and left for the elevator.
And that is how I became the second Guildmaster Moren, of Blank Faces, under direct order of Alex.
---
I need to improve.
Sure, it's an okay story, but it could be better.
How can I improve? This will help me be a better storyteller, in general.
I don't think I've ever seen a one-shot is purely written format before. If you don't know what a one-shot is, it's essentially a type of story (commonly in manga format) which is made as a preview to draw in support for a proper serialization -- in other words, it's a glimpse of a story in a small time-frame. It can also be a story which could be expanded, but isn't, and is rather crammed into a smaller format. This story reminds me of the latter type.
I think your story gives the minimum amount of descriptions as to what's happening in chronological order, which is commonplace for one-shots. I also think that, if you had taken this story and split each paragraph into its own part (excluding a couple, which would have been combined to make a "part", such as the first and second paragraphs), it would have been pretty darn good. This is also common for one-shots.
I'm not sure if you meant for your story to come out in such a way. If you did, then great. It's not exactly the best one-shot I've read, but if it was on a list of works to be fully realized (and thus expanded, in this story's case), it would likely have my vote for full serialization.
If you didn't mean for it to be a one-shot type, then it lacks detail. I don't know what any characters other than Arden (whose name I assume you changed within the middle of writing, because he's originally called "Ardal" on the 4th and 5th paragraphs, only to change halfway through the 5th) look like -- and even his appearance isn't very detailed, consisting only of the description of his armor:
"thick plate armor"
.Enemy encounters are completely non-existent other than Vanaduke, whose fight is omitted excluding the finishing blow and a single one of his attacks. The results are given, but the fights themselves aren't present.
Character development seems to occur closer to then end than anything else, but because the story didn't give much details on the personalities of the characters to begin with (other than short lines like
"...Both of which were very cruel"
or"Ardal wasn't much better off, one of his arms had been broken. Nevertheless, he grinned with confidence."
, which were appreciated, but didn't exactly give a solid picture of the characters personalities), I can't tell how much of a change the characters went through beyond the labels "dead" and "still alive". The character that seemed to change the most was the Guildmaster's apprentice (who doesn't have a name), who went from cruel in the beginning to what appears to be more docile in the end -- but because I lack an adequate amount of details, I'm not sure whether she became docile. She could have just been sad over her master's loss, and would return to her cruel nature soon after.There were also oddities in wording, like
"They might kill me more"
. How does one get more killed than another? But, considering the length of the story, I'd say that these errors didn't amount to enough to look too deeply into.The end reveals that this was all a story from the main-character, finally named Moren, which sort of explains the lack of detail as he could've been telling the story to some curious nub-knight running around Haven. Still, I think an ending like that could be considered common in One-Shots, and (once again) if you weren't going for a One-Shot feel, then I think the ending is kind of cliché.
That's not to say it's bad. Considering the length of the work and the amount of detail prevalent through the story up until that point, this ending is fitting. But still. There had to have been more things that occurred between the event and him becoming Guildmaster, and mentioning those details would have made the ending a bit better.
Even something like:
"We went back to haven, when my guild-mates noticed that their Guildmaster wasn't present (not even mentioning Arden), they fired off a barrage of questions, eventually leading to the question of "So who'll be the leader now?".
{Insert-Name-of-Apprentice-Here} was elected, but declined for {Insert-Reason-which-can-contribute-to-End-Development-Here}, and elected me instead. And that is how I became the second Guildmaster Moren, of Blank Faces, under direct order of Alex."
Side-note:
The first paragraph is in third-person, while the rest are in first. Considering the amount of writing, even if this was for creative purposes as a sort of "camera pans in on the main character" scene, first-person may have suited it better -- for consistency's sake, at least.
Final Notes/tl;dr:
As a One-Shot, this is a pretty good story. As a non-One-Shot, it lacks detail, even if it was meant to be a story told about the past to some stranger with a good dose of curiosity. Details and personalities need to be added to the characters in order to allow readers to better empathize with the characters, or at least visualize the scenes throughout the story. Without them, it's hard to get a good understanding of the feelings expressed during the situations presented.
This is a solid "skeleton of a story", and fits the "tale to another knight" or One-Shot feel pretty well. But it'd need to be fleshed out a bit more to make me, personally, feel anything for these characters beyond "Oh, he died. That sucks." or "Hey, he lived. Cool."