A detective story

[Dimentio]

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of a detective novel set in a fantasy city in the world I have imagined. I apologise in advance for a rather... well... expressive language. But all main characters are supposed to be goblins.

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I


The piercing light of the white sun made the walls of the towering buildings of Culerica look even more black and intimidating beneath the clear blue sky. As the sun had reached its zenith, few were the shadows which were to be found like cool oases from the rays of the remorseless, burning sky-wheel.


The winds of the Ocean of Dawn might have offered some salty compensation to sweaty and pulsating skins. In the eastern outskirts of the city, near to the Great Warehouse, they maybe did so. But the buildings of Culerica were all oversized, the streets often narrow, and to not speak about the Ash Wall surrounding the edges of Mount Khylar! The few faint breezes which reached the Central Plaza down below the Ziggurat were lukewarm and thick of air pollution.


Half a kilometre down the Plaza Avenue, away from the enormous, pyramid-like tower to the east, a young boar sat and drank on a stoup of cold mead. The blueish-yellowish marquise, stretching over his head at the crowded beer garden outside of Balash's Tavern, wasn't to much relief in the effort of shielding away the sun, especially not as a hole the size of an egg allowed Zaylah's Eye to pierce through, then and then burning Khirza's arm, especially when he was reaching out to gulp yet another sup of the refreshing liquid.


He grimaced, filtering a breath of golden brown air through the intervals between his shark-like teeth. Brushing his mane with one of the ape-like arms, he cursed himself that he hadn't taken a headache pill when leaving his apartment one hour ago.


In the beginning, he had pondered on the idea of forgetting this little meet-up with Khruzor. Just laying down his bed watching the waft slowly circling around below the limestone roof and then and then pull his donkey out of boredom. Forgetting about Khruzor and whatever Khruzor wanted to say.


Then the waft had given out a noise, reminiscent of that little black kitten which Khirza had illuminated with hairspray and a petrol lighter when he had been a kid. But it had died a lot quicker than the cat anyway. Soon, the suffocating heat in Khirza's small one-cavern apartment on the third floor became unbearable. He could neither sleep, eat, masturbate or even pretend to philosophise about the meaning of life. ****, he had thought and raised himself up from his stinking bed. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he had ignited a zhûla, scratched his crotch and decided that it maybe would be interesting to meet up with that old rascal Khruzor.


Walking naked into the shower, he had discovered that the small fountain on the floor next to the plughole was as dead as the waft. In a fit of rage, he had shouted obscenities about gods, demons, faeces and his miserable life in general, before starting to kick at the walls, hammering on them with his fist like a maniac with a seizure. To crown this achievement, he had smashed his head into the cave wall, gaining an ugly wound on his left temple.


After treating the wound with the antiseptic liquid he still hadn't consumed all of, he had dressed himself up and taken the pair of big black sunglasses, which he had stolen from a drunken Corelander, putting them on his considerable nose.



And now he sat there at Balash's tavern, smelling like ****, feeling like the head had been hit by a sledgehammer and trying to look untroubled for the sake of his buzka. Increasingly irritated, he tapped with the long fingers on the tabletop of white stone. Just when he thought about leaving for some real shadow, he recognised Khruzor struggling through the crowd, spying with eyes shielded by a pair of turquoise sunglasses. The slim upper body was naked, showing off the sinewy chest muscles and artistically drawn tattoos for all the sows to see. With his right arm, he carried a yellow shirt which dangled like a dead animal down his thighs. Human garb had always been a trademark of Khruzor, who often had done business at the Hama districts of the City.



Khirza, experiencing the burst of sudden joy only felt by reunification with old pals was about to jump up on his stone couch, beat his chest and wave towards his buddy. But a sudden whiff from the east strangled his movement as he was about to stand up. Fluttering in the lukewarm breeze, one of the sleeves of the shirt revealed itself.
It was black.
Of blood.


II


“So!” Khruzor exclaimed when he at last found his old friend Khirza. “Here you sit like another shitter, crouching down on your pint like a greedy old hag! I almost thought you were home masturbating or something!”


“Lower your voice, Khruz'! Zaylah's cruel with us today! Sit down here now.”


Khruzor chuckled as he sat down, reaching out with his left arm, pinching Khirza on the right cheek.
“Ayayaya Khirza, not be too grumpy now! It has been what... three years since now? And here you are sitting, drinking a pint of mead like its ******* yesterday!”
Khirza examined Khruzor without uttering a word.


As his friend had said, it had been three years ago. Khruzor's round head had been shaved since that, while the two huge, pointy ears stood out, receiving every sound, every movement from their surroundings. Khirza noted that the sun shone through the pink skin of his friend's ears, making the violet blood vessels visible. Khurzor had lost some teeth since they last met, and his lower lip was bleeding slowly.


Khirza on his side had a large nose which was skewed downward, a small and feminine chin as well as high brows protecting the deep eyes. His ears were even larger than Khruzor's and his long and thin neck stretched down to a sunken chest and a flat stomach. He was dressed in a black leather vest with sharp iron rivets pointing out, a codpiece of brown leather which was stuffed with white fabric on the inside, as well as a pair of moccasins which were strapped to his thighs by two slings connected to his belt. On his right arm, he had a ram skull surrounded by black flames tattooed below the shoulder.



His thin mane had been oiled three days ago, and was dyed so blonde that it almost was white and shone in the sun. It had been cut one month ago by Ulumi, and wouldn't need attention for another nine months. An earring of pure gold dangled below his right ear.



His complexion was fair, a greyish green. Despite his twenty-one years of age, his skin had not turned darker yet, except around his eyes. Ironic wrinkles had started to emerge at the corners of the eyes, which were coloured in cyan with stains of burning yellow around the eyes. He was considered “too beautiful” and seen as effeminate. Some times, clan warriors had approached him, trying to buy sexual favours. That perception of him was troubling, and made him prefer to walk outside with his eyes hidden by sunglasses.


“Why so quiet, Khirza? Thought you would long to see your old pal, heh!” Khurzor smiled generously, showing a gape in his jaw were three teeth once had been.
“Khurzor you dog! Stop messing around with my brain and show me what you got!” Khirza hissed as he leaned forward, grabbing Khurzor's left hand.


Khurzor let out a nervous chuckle. “Why so tense Khirza? Tell me! What you've been up to these three years? I myself have just recently arrived back from Huzh. Glad to be back to the good old whore Khylariza I must say... Wait! Stop!”
Without saying a word, Khirza grabbed the shirt Khurzor hid his right arm with and pulled it away from him. Khurzor tried to hide his right arm underneath the table, but too late. The yellow bandage was highly visible, and evidently fresh as it seemed to be still moistly.


“Cut the **** Khurzor! Remember I don't like fairytales! Chuckle it up before I break your jaw, you shitter!”
Khurzor made a discreet gesture to his old time friend to calm down. He asked for the shirt back, and put it around the arm, before laying it on the tabletop before Khirza's eyes. The bandage was sloppily arranged but smelled of alcohol, indicating that someone at least with an ounce of experience in aid had attended to it. At the end, the bandage and the arm abruptly ended in a stump stained black of blood, with a crimson spot at the centre.


Khirza watched the stump while wrinkling his nose, then he thoughtfully nodded and looked on his friend, shrugging his shoulders.
“What was that good for? Thought you had done something nasty... then just routine surgery? Now now Khurzor, you're scaring the vomit out of me! Your behaving strange for Bhâba's sake!”
“Hush down, Khirza!” Khurzor scolded him while looking around and then putting back his arm. “This wasn't surgery, you arse!”


“Oh, you wanted to brag about some whore taking a souvenir from you? Oh, that's old meat Khurzor, but your way of doing it was indeed original!” Khirza hissed and burst up in a malicious grin.
“I carry a dagger in my boot, and I'm not afraid to use it. If you don't want those two nostrils of yours to become one, you'll listen to what I'll have to say, Babyface!”


Khirza smashed his fist down the tabletop, while the ears shivered out of anger. But he kept his expression numb.
“Don't... you... ever... call... me... that... again... Khurzor!”
Khurzor's face broke up in a big grin.
“Well brother... calm down! Zaylah's Eye too cruel today to boil the blood by wrath. Heh! I should tell you what has happened, and why I wanted to talk with you.”
“You want my help I could see that. So... does it involve money... brother?”
“Ah...”, Khurzor sighed and smiled.
“Go on!”


“You remember all that thing with the faulty canulas? What made me say goodbye to Khylariza and stray away to Huzh to swim in calm waters for a couple of years? Well, guess what? Got into some trouble there as well! Picked a fight with one chum named Dagaz... clan warrior of course, that pisser! Fractured his skull with a marble goblet I did!”


“How did you go by in Huzh? Heard its boring like ****?”


“Ah... just old, boring, usual stuff. Theft, selling a little magic powder, poaching some animals on clan territory! That last bit made quite a big profit! I mean, at least giving me a shag or two!”


“Was it that Dagaz guy who cut your arm?”


“Nah nah nah now brother! That happened after I returned to Culerica, two months ago!”
“So you've been here for two months you ******* prick! And you didn't even send me a note! What are friends for nowadays?”


“So! So! Hear! You've distracted me... was going to tell you about Dagaz! Or at least what happened after! Was thrown into their dungeon... but had lost a few good kilos there so I escaped through the sewers...”
“Their prisons suck, right?”


“Don't interrupt me, Khirza! You have to listen now, brother! I hitch-hiked on a caravan and came with a salt trackster back here... oh... and if anyone in uniform's asking you about me or coming within a hame pig's hearing distance, you call me Yarkuz, right? Anyway, sneaked in and strayed around for a few days like a poor, beaten old dog! That's when I was hooked up by him for a job in the Warehouse.”
“Who?”


“Can't tell his name... he's a brutal bastard, brother! Nevertheless, he gave me this job you'll see... taking this black coatcase from the Warehouse to that place... That'll cheap I thought. I was offered a fifty big crotch-openers for the trouble... an offer too good to thank no to, brother!”
“What ******* place, you shitter! Stop speaking like this's some kind of weird sex and slasher! Just tell me the ******* point, scumbag! Where's your other hand? Still up “his” arse, right?”


“Hush! I cannot tell you what place! Its ******* secret brother! They could get my balls burned!”
“Sure, and mine as well.”


Khurzor cleared his throat, casting quick, suspicious glances around before continuing his story in a hissing whisper.
“Tell you this brother! I went to that place, waiting for them to appear with the key! He had my right hand handcuffed to that ******* bag before I took the subway to the place... **** how nervous I was!”
“Go on!”


“I stepped off the subway on the place he said I should step off, and then walked my way to the entry of that place! Sat down on the place behind the pillar, ordering my little bumblebee juice. It tasted icky, but I gobbled it up in loads, watching the girls dance...”


“Cut the **** now you word-pisser and come to the point before them 'shrooms are blossoming in my ****-hole!” Khirza flared up.
“Okay! Okay! I was about to come to the point! Awoke the next morning down the gutter at a street unknown, my head just went around and around and around...”


“AND THE ******* BAG YOU ARSEFUCKER!” Khirza shouted as he flew up on his seat with the boots, stretching the arms forward to lift his friend up the neck. Khurzor ducked from the approaching hands, while releasing a loud laughter from the bottom of his stomach. A laughter that made a few of the guests on the tavern turn their heads.


“KHIRZA! YOU'LL SO FUNNY BROTHER! WHAT A FUN STORY! I'M LAUGHING MY ******* INTESTINES OUT! HUHAHAHA!”
Khurzor climbed up with boots and all on the seat, embracing Khirza while pressing tears through the eyes, still hiding the severed hand with the shirt. As the audience around them started to tend to their own refreshments and conversations, Khurzor whispered in Khirza's ear.


“Want to get us both killed you fucker? Not that? Well, listen to me then!”
“Well well... I will listen then, but if you get us killed, I will haunt you down in Hell and mash your balls into squash, so you learn not to **** me in the arse no more, hear that?”
“I could buy that, brother. We'll sit down now, okay?”


When they had done so, Khurzor continued with his story.
“I awoke there at the gutter, amongst a pile of cardboard boxes and with my head screaming... tried to rub it with my right hand. But guess what? It was gone! And it started to bleed as I came concious. Had to rush to the nearest tavern to get an aid kit so I wouldn't bleed to death right there like a raped cat!”


“Have any clue where that lost arm of yours is?” Khirza asked with a sarcastic glee.
Khurzor thoughtfully scratched with the fingers of his remaining hand on a sore spot of the neck.
“Don't know and don't care too much. Its the coatcase I'm in need of...”
“Brother, just drop that ****.”


“Wish I could... and I did, for five ******* days. Then, his clan came and took me to that awful sewer, interrogating me 'bout the whereabouts of the bag. Hadn't a ******* clue of course so I got a real good battering from them. Reason I'm still here is that they want me to retrieve that darn thing.”


Khirza leaned back on the dorsal of the seat, seemingly more relaxed.
“And I guess you want my help?”
“Exactly brother... you've been living here all the time in good old Khyl'! Know the City like you know Ulumi's nether regions! Have many contacts! When put in this dire situation, I though “whom better to help me that my blood brother Khirza, who is certainly missing me like hell”?


Khirza closed his eyes as his body shivered. Simultaneously, he smashed both his hands down the smooth surface of the tabletop, palms down.


“Your a ******* twat and you know it Khurzor! Leave me to rot six months in that hell hole jail, just dancing away to Huzh like some kind of dancing girl! Then returning to the bosom of good old Khyl' and not even call me before you get into some kind of trouble! Tell me, how much will I get?”
“I'll say we'll split it equal. Twenty-five crotch openers to me, twenty-five to you? Fair and square, brother?”
“Its a hell of a lot of money, any idea where you might find the bag?”


“Best to return to the tavern where I lost it, brother?”
“What did it contain to make it so valuable?”
“Not the slightest idea”, Khurzor grinned.
“You can't be serious, brother! Didn't you look?”
“Haven't I told you I didn't have the key, you fucker!?” Khurzor spat out.


“Right... right! In how many days should the bag be back?”


“Seven.”


“**** you! I'm out of here!” Khirza said, and gallantly swung himself over the green-painted iron rail which separated the beer garden from the yellow walkway at the side of the massive avenue of brown asphalt. Motorcarts and large transporters drowned the verbal excrement which Khurzor threw after him. With both his hands, Khirza greeted his friend off with an obscene gesture, proceeding to walk down away from the avenue.

[Dimentio]

Apart from the auto-censor messing up things, I have noticed some anomalies which need to be corrected. I have forgot one colon mark, and the name of the main character's friend got mixed up some times, probably due to the similarity of their names.

[Xelah]

My not so humble opinions
Some kind of error

Originally Posted by Dimentio

The piercing light of the white sun made the walls of the towering buildings of Culerica I'd change it to "towering walls" or "towering buildings" . . . double prepositions are just in my "don't do this" list look even more black and intimidating beneath the clear blue sky. As the sun had reached its zenith, few were the shadows which were to be found like cool oases from the rays of the remorseless, burning sky-wheel. your metaphor sounds a bit strained


The winds of the Ocean of Dawn might have offered some salty compensation to sweaty and pulsating why are the skins vibrating? skins. In the eastern outskirts of the city, near to the Great Warehouse, they maybe did so. But the buildings of Culerica were all oversized, the streets often narrow, and to not speak about the Ash Wall surrounding the edges of Mount Khylar! This sentence loses me from the start. It starts with "but" and I have no idea why it ends with an exclamation point.The few faint breezes which reached the Central Plaza down below the Ziggurat were lukewarm and thick with air pollution. There's a lot of telling going on here. We're two paragraphs in and I don't know who the main character is. This can work, but in most cases, you'll grab a reader more with a character and then painting the scene later.


Half a kilometre down the Plaza Avenue, away from the enormous, pyramid-like tower to the east, a young boar sat and drank on a stoup of cold mead. The blueish-yellowish marquise, stretching over his head at the crowded beer garden outside of Balash's Tavern, wasn't too much relief in the effort of shielding away the sun this is really wordy., especially not as a hole the size of an egg allowed Zaylah's Eye to pierce through, then and then burning Khirza's arm, especially when he was reaching out to gulp yet another sup of the refreshing liquid. Okay, some characters, but there's still a lot of telling going on, and that last sentence was a massive run-on (66 words). If I were skimming first pages at Books-A-Million, I'd have set this one down by now.


He grimaced, filtering a breath of golden brown air is this supposed to be ale? why is he filtering air?through the intervals between his shark-like teeth. Brushing his mane with one of the ape-like arms, he cursed himself that he hadn't taken a headache pill when leaving his apartment one hour ago. now we're getting somewhere with characters, but I got the impression that this is a medieval setting prior to this, perhaps some mention of it not being a medieval setting before this would help


In the beginning, he had pondered on the idea of forgetting this little meet-up with Khruzor. Just laying down his bed watching the waft slowly circling around below the limestone roof and then and then remove the second "and then" . . . unless this is the chinese food place from "dude, where's my car?"pull his donkey out of boredom he's going to do what to his donkey? I am totally confused.. Forgetting about Khruzor and whatever Khruzor wanted to say.this sentence is a fragment.


Then the waft I looked up all definitions of waft, and still don't understand what you're talking about with a waft making a sound. Might be one of those Brit-American things, but I have my doubts. had given out a noise, reminiscent of that little black kitten which Khirza had illuminated with hairspray and a petrol lighter when he had been a kid. But it had died a lot quicker than the cat anyway again, starting a sentence with "but" . . . sentences shouldn't start with but.. Soon, the suffocating heat in Khirza's small one-cavern apartment on the third floor became unbearable. He could neither sleep, eat, masturbate or even pretend to philosophise about the meaning of life. ****, he had thought and raised himself up from his stinking bed. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he had ignited a zhûla a what? , scratched his crotch and decided that it maybe would be interesting to meet up with that old rascal Khruzor. There's really a lot of telling going on. Show more.

I decided to stop there. The more I read, the more confused I'm getting, and I'm repeating myself with needing to be shown more. Ease up on the metaphors, and simplify your sentences. It sounds like you've put quite a bit of thought into world-building and the characters, but it's hard for me to follow.

[Dimentio]

Thank you for helping me sorting this out.

1. The double prepositions should be corrected.

2. Maybe that.

3. The heat is remorseless. I mean 30 centigrades and up ^^

4. Probably be reformulated then.

5. Yes, I should.

6. "Donkey" is a goblin street term for something really inappropriate to say here.

7. Ah, there is a linguistical problem here. With a waft, I meant a fan. Corrected now. ^^

8. Got that. ^^

7. A Zhûla is basically a cigarette containing powder from a hallucinogenic mushroom of the kind which would have been illegal in most countries.

Overally, I am appreciating your help ^^. Bear in mind that English isn't my first language, though I prefer to use it for creative writing.

There is a dilemma in how much to dig into the details of the surrounding world, and how much to focus on the characters. I would of course revise the text overally before giving it as a gift to a friend of me, who requested such a story. ^^

[The Judge]

Dimentio, speaking as one who can barely order a coffee in another language, I have nothing but admiration for your level of English. Unfortunately, good as it is, it is not really idiomatic enough when it comes to writing. I see this is a gift for a friend, but if you were planning to submit it for publication I would strongly urge you to have it professionally edited. Even as a gift, is it possible for you to run it by a native English speaker to get the lumps smoothed out?

For me, the language problem causes such difficulty in reading your work that it prevents me being able to comment on any larger issues and to be honest I gave up after the first section. I don't know how useful a nit-picky critique will be in the circumstances, but I'll mention a few things. (NB these are simply examples, not a definitive list.)

Wrong use of words
you and Xelah between you picked up waft/fan.
'marquise' - probably you mean marquee but that in fact that is not appropriate anyway, as a marquee is an enclosed tent, whereas the implication is that this is simply an awning.
'intervals' - 'gaps'.

Grammatically correct but...
few were the shadows which were to be found - better as 'few shadows were to be found'.
they maybe did so - 'maybe they did'.
blueish-yellowish - at a pinch 'blueish-yellow' if this is the overall colour (though to my mind that would be green), or 'blue and yellow' if there are patches of both colours eg stripes or blobs.

Incorrect English/idiom
sweaty and pulsating skins -even if there are many people (using the term loosely) it is 'skin', and Xelah is right, skin doesn't pulsate even in great heat.
and to not speak about the Ash Wall surrounding the edges of Mount Khylar! - 'not to speak of' (no 'and') or more usually, 'not to mention'; and 'surrounding' brings the implication of being at the edges without its being said.
drank on a stoup of cold mead - 'drank a stoup of cold mead' (ie no 'on'); an alternative would be 'drank cold mead from a stoup' but only if you want to draw attention to the vessel.
wasn't to much relief in the effort of shielding away the sun - 'wasn't much help in keeping off the sun' or 'gave little relief from the sun'

Just plain odd
especially when he was reaching out to gulp yet another sup of the refreshing liquid - he's reaching out to pick up the vessel, not to gulp; 'sup' can be used as a noun but its use nowadays is limited to older people and/or dialect, I'd have said; 'refreshing liquid' is just not something anyone would think or say.

Inconsistent voice
In places your style of voice is educated eg 'zenith', 'pulsating', but then you veer off downmarket eg 'outside of', 'wasn't to[o] much relief' before lapsing into outright slang eg 'pull his donkey'. I apppreciate that the latter is, presumably, moving into a deeper POV which might account for it, but it doesn't work, I'm afraid.

Overuse of adjectives/adverbs
Take your first two sentences - The piercing light of the white sun made the walls of the towering buildings of Culerica look even more black and intimidating beneath the clear blue sky. As the sun had reached its zenith, few were the shadows which were to be found like cool oases from the rays of the remorseless, burning sky-wheel. I don't object to descriptors in general, but this is just too many - and to make matters worse, none of them is particularly interesting or memorable. I also agree with Xelah that 'sky-wheel' is too much, and to my mind 'oases' isn't an especially helpful simile.


Sorry to put the boot in like this, Dimentio. As I say, I admire your command of English, but I don't think that you are doing your writing skills any favours because of the inevitable problems which arise.

[Dimentio]

Given that the buildings of that city are made in order to be as intimidating as possible, they are vastly oversized. The style of voice is actually intentional, as its a small story written from the point of view of a young, male goblin.

Just an experiment, k? ^^

"The bright clear light of the white sun made the towering buildings of Culerica look even more black and intimidating beneath the clear blue sky. As the sun had reached its zenith, few were the shadows which were to be found relieving the people from the reach of its remorseless, burning rays."