All Comments on 'Storm and Stone Ch. 02'

An interesting continuation of your first chapter, though it does leave me with some questions: first of all, it seems that time travels at different speeds between the two worlds, though not while they’re talking to each other. If a minute on Earth truly was a day, then it would be next to impossible to call/FaceTime. Texting I could understand, though with significant delay.

Chalking up the time dilation to magic, my biggest critique is that so far Arawn is skilled at everything. Sword fighting, fist fighting, blacksmithinng, musician, architectect/builder, empath, etc. It makes it difficult to empathize with the character when all of the challenges he’s come up against so far have been, at best, easy. Making him super strong? Sure, maybe gravity is stronger on earth or some such. Increasing his magical abilities on par with Merlin? Totally buy into it considering his magical entry into the world. I don’t want to seem to critical, as you do give a reasonable explanation for each of his skills as they become relevant, but please keep don’t make Arwan more ‘overpowered’ than he already his.

On to some of your better writing, you are doing a great job in creating emotional depth in Arwan in particular, his mannerisms are already starting to be developed. However due to the speed that all of these events seem to be happening, it hasn’t given you the same luxury of developing your supporting characters to the same level. I understand that given the time of war, having such a strong ally appear out of thin air would be fantastic, and would lead to not asking too many hard questions. That being said, given how known assasins and spies are relatively well entrenched, I’d be surprised if the ‘higher ups’ will be as willing to place complete trust in, what eventually amounts to, a complete stranger. Yes he’s freakishly strong, gifted, and bonded with your daughter, but what if all of this was an elaborate trap to gain audience with, and assasinate the king/Queen? Trust needs to be earned, and though his new friends will vouch for him, I hope it isn’t that easy.

I realize that I’m coming off harsher than I intended to, and for that I apologize. I thoroughly enjoyed the chapter, which is why I am going through the effort of what I hope to be constructive criticism. Overall it was a very good chapter, and I hope to see you continue to improve as you continue to write. If this is in fact your first attempt at writing, then I will be even more impressed, though it may just be your first submission to Literotica.

At the end of the day however, this is your story, and take my thoughts with a grain of salt. You’re the author, doing something I could never do, and you do it well.

I’ll be looking forward to reading your next submission,

Cheers,

Dennis

His powers are actually something that I struggled with. Since the very beginning, I've had a clear vision of what I wanted Arawn to be able to accomplish. That is part of the reason I designed the multiverse that I've named Eternity's Fold. Metaphysical Empathy (as opposed to simply being able to empathize with someone) is a little understood phenomena. Thanks to the internet, there is a lot more known, but it is still a big question mark in a lot of important ways.

I have to state up front that Arawn is nowhere near as overpowered as he seems. A Patreon subscriber compared him to Saitama in One Punch Man. That's very accurate and I am taking a similar approach to this. Rather than have him bored, you are going to see the world grow to meet him. Terrock is absolutely enormous world, and Athul is about half the width of Asia. It's not even the largest continent on the planet. He might be the biggest dog in his little corner, but he's a puppy in a field, still growing into his paws and there are grown dogs everywhere.

In chapters 2 and 3, you see him start to understand a little more about what it is he can do.

For the time dilation, there is a variable there which you haven't yet put your finger on. I can't say just yet, because Arawn has not figured it out, himself. I will say that the phone is a key piece of the puzzle for him, in understanding just what exactly has happened to him and how everything ties together. The specifics will come out in chapter 4, I've almost written myself up to that scene. I can say this much: Magic, Science, and Empathic Ability are all separate, but linked in Eternity's Fold.

I can't say too much about the development of the other characters without giving away chapter 4, except that they start to get their bearings and step up.

Finally, act one covers his arrival, and that draws to a close with chapter 4. I'm going to do my best to make sure I answer the most important questions while leaving a few mysteries for you good folks to chew on going forward. One thing to remember, there are four books in this series, and at least one of them will run parallel to this one for a significant portion of time, probably two of them. Some questions will get answered in the other books. I can say a little more about that when you've read chapter 3. Since we're in the comments for #2, I don't want to drop spoilers for anyone catching up.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response. You were not as harsh as you thought, your points were clear and I did not find them terse. You enjoyed things, but were concerned about others, I get it.

If I've missed anything, feel free to point it out and we can discuss what I am able to in more detail.

Thanks again,

TLW

Im must agree with Guen about the pitfall of Arawn being a expert in all those fields. Its like he can do anything as if he is Q from Startrek, without being super annoying.

Even the elf falls in love with im in 5 seconds...

The time dilation with direct phonecall also seems over the top.

But... I also like the story and where it goes

Just realized I never really addressed the comments about his knowledge. I apologize, I got caught up in the other and lost track.

At face value, he does seem like an expert in a lot of things. He's really not. He does have three degrees from college, and you'll see them come into play directly, but I have always thought that it's amazing how much general information you can find online. It's actually something I do as a hobby, and as a result I'm generally chock full of useless tidbits of information that isn't good for much other than a couple declarations of "Oh, that's cool" in a conversation. It made me think about how much practical knowledge we take for granted every single day of our lives.

Real Empaths, if you believe in the supernatural, have an extremely difficult time in our world if you think about what they're bombarded with. Most will tell you that they can't shield or otherwise block it out. Until about 2000, there wasn't much you could find anywhere, even on the internet, about what the Empathic sense even was. In my mind, I see the most successful of them in our world today as self-made. If you look around at the accounts, most will tell you it's a curse and not a gift. They just want it to stop. It drives them to seek ways of controlling it, and in its own way, forces a deep spiritual education on the people it affects directly. From my studies, I see Empathy as a bridge to every other aspect of the supernatural. It just seems that emotion is the underlying force behind it all. Spells require force of will, desire is a powerful emotion, and easily propels the will into action. It goes even deeper than that, but I'm not going to write another book here. lol. Still, my writing reflects my beliefs in that department, and as a successful 42 year old empath of no small skill by Earthly standards, I can't see him not having a grasp of much of the fundamentals of magic before the other factors come into play.

While Grok kicked around in my head and protested his imprisonment long before Storm & Stone was ever birthed in any form, I wondered about these things, and how much of an effect they might have on the function of magic. Arawn Stonebrook, Raiden Bane, Ethan Glade, and Michael Satko are the end result.

So, while you wonder about how he came across some of the knowledge he has, hop over to youtube and see for yourself just how easy it can be to understand some of the fundamentals of things like quantum physics and cymatics, and how those might be applied to magic by a keen mind, even if that mind doesn't have a formal education in the field. You might just be surprised, I know I was when it first occurred to me, and I got the inspiration from elsewhere.

Hope this helps, and thanks for reading!

TLW

Arawn is the 42 year old empath, not me. Just realized how I worded that.