All Comments on 'The Runesmith Chronicles Ch. 18'

Decent story so far. Should be interesting to see where you take this.

Quick question though, how many woman are you planning on introducing to Kal's group? Are you going to keep adding to his harem forever until the end of the story, or are the existing women going to be it? I would hate to see Ikuno, Perra, Bea, Aradelle, and Gerda sidelined as new women are introduced, then for those women to be sidelined as more are added. That's one of the pitfalls of harem stories, for character development to suffer in the interest of displaying the main character's sexual prowess.

That was terrifying! I don't usually do this, but there I was just stirring my tea, eating some reheated pasta and I read the line after Kal and Ikuno head back to the human area to check on their hosts.

Writing and sending this before I've read anything else, so I'm hopeful this isn't just a cliffhanger, but if so, I won't be soon forgetting it.

So it was immediately followed up, but it was still very frightening in that moment.

Lovely chapter. Though it of course leaves me hungry for more! The secrecy of many of the major plot points is very intriguing. The privacy, mom, and the locket are all quite the curiosity. The first two are the bigger ones that likely have Very Important connotations, whereas the locket is something that would be neat to know whether they were able to plan for what seems to be happening, or if one or more will be blindsided by the effects that are spooling up..Regardless I'm loving the magic and adventure and romance. The only real concern popping up in my little brain is the very sincere hope that Kal's rush of excitement, his thrill of battle doesn't end up being tempered by an event too much for the way he is now to handle. Keeping some innocence even about something as rough and psychologically toiling as combat isn't really a bad thing. As long as one has tempered that with wisdom and discipline.

Anyways, sorry about the deep, dark way that ended up going. Eagerly awaiting your next release... umm, phrasing...

@jzp007ahren

As i have said before I try to do things that make sense so I'm going to throw out what sort of happened as far as my train of thought with the encounter with the gargoyles:

Crystal cave has a guardian, the Mana Golem.

What would be a good guardian for things on the surface? Conditions: can last for centuries or even millenia, able to hide in/on stone, either able to mold stone or has natural weapons, inside a mountain so wings would be handy. Gargoyles seem to fit perfectly.

How are they powered? Mana crystals? Doesnt work in the story. Mana crystals are effectively only magic power cells. Direct enchantment? Can't do that, Kal would easily be able to see them. Conditional phrase? That would work, Crystaline structures and their reactions to harmonics are well known. So they stay dormant until a particular phrase or statement is made

Which crystal? Their objective is search and destroy so red seems most appropriate... (research) omg there's a ton of red gemstones, lets just go with ruby, people are most familiar with that.

Behavior: Gargoyles act in pairs. Winged enemies are attacked directly, non winged enemies are grabbed and dropped. if enemy attacks one defends while the other attacks from the side, if enemy defends then they both attack. If one is destroyed it activates the rest to take care of the problem. Natural resistances: everything but geomancy (ummm...) and extreme heat, slicing/piercing weapons need to be magical to do damage,(both chars currently use bludgeoning weapons and can use them with extreme force... uh oh) Gargoyle done. Cool

(fight starts)

Hmmm... Kal has gloves that he can punch through a massive geode and the agate lining a geode is quite a bit tougher than limestone rock. Kal would attempt to attack the most obvious weak point which he can see with his magic vision. Is there a reason for Kal to be on the defensive? Not really, in his mind with his knowledge and strength he has the advantage. Therefore Kal would be attacking.

Kal attacks, Gargoyle defends so other one can attack Kal from the side. Strength rune, instead of getting flanked Kal hops over the defender and aims for the weak spot (well this is less than exciting) Pulls his hand out and sees a broken ruby (*groan* dammit he can shatter those pretty much at will) breaks other gargoyles power source (well that was anticlimactic)

Ikuno is over there just being Ikuno she could have a big martial/magical fight, but no, easiest way to deal with them would be just to bop them with the club and drain them of magic (*hangs head* well fuck...)

If the encounter came across as too easy, that's okay, I thought so too. I had something far more exciting in my head but when I took their current abilities into account, well... this is what I ended up with. Unfortunately I think if it had turned out any other way, the exchange would have come across as gratuitous and insincere.

@ Jedi_Kahn this has actually been brought up a couple of times already and i think that the best way to explain is that he will likely have a fairly large 'harem' but outside of this initial group it will be very decentralized with him only being able to interact with a few at a time based on proximity to one another. Not sure how it is going to work just yet after all this is my first story of this kind, or any kind for that matter.

I see you already answered some of my questions. Thank you. I am wondering though about the Roc’s. Are they extinct or just extremely rare? It seems that something that large and powerful could easily wipe out everything in its path if it wanted to. Yet it needs a lot of magic in order to be hatched too, so that might be why they are so rare? And are the gargoyles placed there by the Roc or was it something/someone else? Is a Roc egg naturally camouflaged to look like a part of its surroundings? Seems to me that this would be a natural thing for protecting it when it’s unguarded. And maybe why Kal and Ikuno didn’t find any shell pieces or eggs.

It occurred to me that Kal’s thoughts about Roc’s are based off of finding out the mana cave’s location relative to the Roc’s caves. It’s supposition and not yet proven, though it does make sense. Have you considered what would happen if he was wrong? Maybe not here, but say in some future event? It could be a useful plot tool. Following a path of thinking that turns out to be wrong. Getting into adventures but ultimately having to turn around and reanalyze the facts and come to a different conclusion. It might end up being useful for character development or introduction of new characters or just bringing in new storylines like other magic users, politics, third parties, and such.

Thank you for your hard work and posting this story.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

JAFCritic

Yeah, the fight was great. Really real, and I loved it. Was just referencing the emotions he was going through via Perra's understanding. The thrill of battle can turn to ash if one battle ends horribly. Even everyone surviving doesn't mean things turn out all right. As she also said, being concerned about how cold and logical he can be to solve a problem. It becomes a darker world when you can't fight with a smile on your face. When your first instinct becomes to utterly destroy something to protect you and yours. ~ Hoping nothing like That happens. Because even though Ikuno really upped the training, and is trying for a no-nonsense now that she's being hunted, its hard to maintain that sort of attitude, as you've shown. Unless you learn that lesson young and harshly. You don't forget the lessons of your youth, even if you don't remember them. That's not to say that combat isn't to be taken seriously, because he definitely does take it seriously. Just... well I think I'd keep talking in circles.

Anyways loving the story of course. And... as a little side thing. Had a flash of a scene pop into my head, that really made me question how Ikuno's club works. Because, it can't really be a Pure anti-magic club. She can teleport it to herself and desummon it. And as we saw with the gargoyle, it doesn't work 100% all the time. So, its a powerful tool, but far from flawless.

I totally missed that flaw in Ikuno’s Mace. If it’s anti magic how is she able to summon it and make it disappear? For that matter, where does it go when she dismisses it? Perhaps it has a fixed amount of magic it can cancel out? I don’t know, but it’s interesting.

Funny how leaving out a single line can bring up questions. I was supposed to mention that Kal could see lines from the center of the gargoyles running downward as well. Ikuno's club worked as it should have, the gargoyle just started recharging immediately, small red glow in the corners of its eyes to a glow that is faint but can be seen in Kal's light a few minutes later.

Ikuno's club is magical in nature, much as Ikuno herself is, and actually absorbs magic, not destroys it. As such, there is an upper limit to what it can take. A fight with something like the Mana Golem would quickly render the club useless as the golem just has too much energy at its disposal. I have the mechanism and consequences in mind for such an event but can't really say much as it may be something that comes up later in the story.

Where does it go? Can't really talk about that yet.

I will mention that there are conditions as to what can/cannot be drained, for instance, if she touched Kal with it, the club would immediately empty any crystals on him but leave his personal magic stores untouched.

Thank you for the explanation. I appreciate you doing that. If you are worried about spoilers then just say something like you are aware of the issue and have it covered in later chapters. If, by some chance, I do find a potential flaw then I’m glad to be of help. But I usually ask things about which I either don’t understand or to get you to consider a different person’s point of view. None of it is meant to tell you what to write, only to get you thinking about possibilities for the next chapter. Again thank you for your time, work, and posting this wonderful story.

Not sure what's up with the next Chapter it was submitted back on the 15th and it usually doesn't take this long to get posted.

Just enjoying the story. Not an avid reader of this genre but think the storyline and writing are superb.

Wondering if an appearance by a roc is in the works.

It seems like Kal has some thoughts swirling about the Roc around below the surface of his consciousness. Given how he blunders around in the world of magic, I suspect he will make some mistakes in logic and perhaps put himself and his human family in danger. The pendant may make it easier for the necromancer to to track down Perra and allow him the opportunity to set up traps for Kal, or to cause great damage in the human world.

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The possibilities for further adventures abound!

Onward and upward,,,,