Round 2 Feedback - Group 2

Xenon-Z

Umbra: Link pages, please. Ahem....

This piece, as your pieces do, delivers its thrust with fun, complex, intriguing characters. The enigma that is Engie continues to unspin itself thread by thread, and the more we learn about him the more we want to know. Jayla is sharp as a dagger and Fritz's window into her mind makes her quite compelling. She's a little darker than we're used to, and we wouldn't normally expect her to be quite so reclusive, tucking away in a corner while the invalid boy does 96% of the work of getting them out of the cave, but the moments when we see her in action do well at showcasing her resourcefulness and spirit and Fritz's window into her psyche reveals some deeper layers than she shows on the surface. And Fritz's transcendent levels of awkwardness in talking to her made me laugh out loud. The conversation the two of them share over a sleepless night is quite touching, and we want to see them stay friends, which makes it all the more impactful when she disappears come morning.

You also come up with some nice metaphors when Fritz starts plumbing people's thoughts, bringing back what was borderline-excessive poetry in your audition round and giving it a very natural framework and dreamlike quality as an illustration of Fritz's power. Unfortunately, the character play and clever turns of phrase often get potholed by grammatical fumbles, dropped words, mis-punctuations, and typos throughout the work. I hear that time was a little tight and this was a first draft, so some of the errors might be ascribed to that. But others have more fundamental issues that need sorting out -- point in case, this sentence:

"It's because you're scared." Fritz replied, almost in a whisper, "You care about life, and just like me," He glanced at her knife, "You're sad."

Let me count the ways:

"It's because you're scared," Fritz replied, almost in a whisper. "You care about life, and just like me..." He glanced at her knife. "...you're sad."

Watch that punctuation, because this issue crops up in pretty much every dialogue bit. Similarly, remember that note I told you to staple last round, the one about the difference between it's and its? Well staple harder, because the confusion still persists. If you want a mnemonic device, "If it's not a contraction, drop its apostrophe." Similarly, yours doesn't have an apostrophe either. I don't mean to be a grammar pedant here, but... well yeah, I do.

The action scene where Fritz meets Jayla is appropriately tense and chaotic. It's uncertain how the Gate ended up on the inside of a giant elephant skull, but it was pretty awesome seeing the spider-beast explode out of it. The scene could have used a bit more clarity, though, as Jayla's description and depiction of certain action clips was a little nebulous at times. The line about everyone screaming at once was a nice touch and really brought out the madness of the moment. However, when "Even the monster was screaming, to a certain extent," the impact would have been much stronger without the "certain extent". When everything onstage is screaming, be bold about it, and don't dilute the effect by cutting it down with well, maybe the monster was only kind of screaming. Later, when they're headed back to the Gate, it's slightly disappointing for the monster not to make another appearance, even if it were as simple as Fritz seeing the beast attack another party and having to sneak his way around it.

All in all, you're putting on a pretty good show. Once you've brought the grammar together and ironed out a few storytelling wrinkles, this can be pretty powerful stuff.


Halcyal: As a foreword, please link multi-part entries in the description section. Doing so makes it easier to follow your work for people who are interested in it.

Now, to the main throw. Grammar, word choice and writing problems continue to persist in your entry. You're also still having referencing issues, both technically and narratively. Your pronouns don't always hail to their respective characters, you employ some wonky linking prepositions, and more than a few details and actions become textually confused, or end up seeming like they've come out of nowhere. You need to pay a little more attention to the process of taking what's in your head and translating it fully and clearly onto a page, or it can risk becoming disorienting to your reader.

Your rendition of Jayla makes her seem a little too much like a creature of fearfulness and hostile reaction to ring true to her character, and Fritz and Engie still have little spells here and there where they present just a little thinly and clumsily. That said, the two create a nice pair together, full of a confusion of friction and friendship. It creates an enjoyable ambiance and allows for some deeper dynamics to float to the surface. Speaking of which, the slowly emerging elements of their unsaid histories lends some extra dramatic weight to their mutual company and provides a little more intrigue to draw us in and tease us on. Character wise, the subtle comparison of Engie and Jayla's underlying motivation, stemming more from a bitter place, with the contrasting face of Fritz's gentler, more peace-seeking frame of mind, was also a nice little touch.

Perhaps more than any other character at this point, Fritz's power creates fetching possibilities for conveying wonder and discovery, along with adding extra layers of depth and revelation to the people and places that he interacts with, and I like the fact that you're taking the time to try to leverage some of that potential. That said, the exact mechanism and manifestation of how the power works are somewhat confused and scattered. I like the way that you handled the ghosting wisps of gold, however, using them to add an extra little touch of mystery.

The first encounter with Jayla was an entertaining bit of danger, action and comedy. On all fronts, however, more context and framing clarity would have improved your story's narrative effect and reduced the areas where things seemed random and eccentric. That's really the key thing that you need to work on. You presently have a mix of both some stronger and some weaker points of story, and they're balancing out somewhere in the middle. Try to provide improved context and clarity (both in text and story) and you'll start pushing that balance higher.

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doodleavc14

Umbra: You really seem to know what makes your characters tick, and the evolution of Jayla and Rhi's relationship through flashback feels very charming, natural, and sincere, and not at all a half-conceived plot contrivance the way lost loves often are. Thomas, too, was played very creatively and cleverly when he transforms into an Otherworld wolf-beast, which is well suited to his powers and persona. He's a little one-dimensional in his single-minded drive to kill Jayla, and the character could probably use just a tiny bit more refraction of some deeper details to really pop, but as it is he comes across with a good deal of menace and uncompromising, dare-I-say animalistic ambition.

Fritz and Engie tend to trip over each other quite a bit, though, and at many times they seem to be characterized almost in reverse: It's Engie's place to be more untrusting, aloof, and acting according to his own interests (and here he appears to be missing his crossbow); Fritz is typically more likely to get involved with helping people. Fritz's timidity comes through, but the mood his awkwardness sets can seem slightly cartoonish at times, and a little less than endearing, in contrast to his usual portrayal. That amusing moment when the three of them are all ribbing each other over their nervous tics, though, and other moments like it, helped to keep the overall mood fairly lighthearted, which made the boys' idiosyncrasies easier to accept as genuine in context.

There are a few small typos lying around (that's lying, not laying, which is something that also caught my attention) and a few missing apostrophes on the possessives. A couple of scene transitions were cut with a hard break when in fact the scene wasn't transitioning at all, simply picking up where it left off from the last sentence; for example, the point where Engie tells Fritz to grab the shears -- there is a scene cut -- and then Fritz unclips his shears. Sometimes these pseudo-transitions demarcated a slight shift of point of view from universal to personal, but those shifts might have been handled a lot more smoothly.

Storytelling-wise: I'm very curious about what angle Flemmik's side plot is eventually going to take. So far the asides to his activities with the resistance group don't seem to have much conflict or plot drive, but I get the feeling (and the hope) that it'll start shaping into something important soon. I'd posit that having added some more importance to his scenes in this round might have made them more engaging, since I'm currently wondering why we keep looking at Flemmik when all the plot is happening out there with Jayla. Also there are some moments when the mood seems a little off, like when they start having nervous tics when they realize they're in a field of bones. The comedic cast of this scene seems ill-fitting when we're supposed to start feeling scared.

I'm enjoying the sense of world you're making here, and how Jayla, while pursuing a rather personally-motivated goal, has her purpose backed by a strong community network, and the fate of the whole lot keeps me reading. My recommendation for the future would be to keep pushing the stakes higher and polish up the presentation a bit.


Halcyal: Doodle, while your prose are reasonably solid, you still have some small technical points to work on to improve your written smoothness (articles, punctuation, conjunctions, small word choices, formatting, etc.). Also, be careful of maintaining your POV, which occasionally hovers and flops about over two or more characters at once. You're writing your entries in third-person limited, which means that details should only filter in through one focal character, based on what that character would actually be able to perceive. If you start shifting that focus about without any sort of warning, showing things variably through the apertures of several different minds in the same sequence, it becomes disorienting to your readers. Movies can cut back and forth like that and still maintain visual coherency when edited properly. Writing, however, works with a different language of focus and transition.

"You'd do yourself a favour to tone down the said bookisms as well," Halcyal declared. "Many are jamming in the works and getting in the way of things more than they're helping to improve the text," his other voice advocated. "But, you're doing it too," Fritz replied....

Story-wise, some things seem to be getting a little scrambled logically. For instance, compassionate, mild, good-hearted Fritz, who can sense people's emotions, decides that he can't trust Jayla a few moments after she decides with some conviction that she can trust him. The pieces don't always all quite fit together. Your approach to Engie and Fritz also sometimes makes them seem to flip about in terms of their respective characters, and staying in them. I'm not entirely sure if it's more a writing clarity or a characterization issue; I'm inclined to think some measure of both, but it makes them skip off the tracks a bit. That said, I like the fact that you're otherwise making an attempt to keep your characters level and credible.

The flashbacks with Rhi continue to add some nice character context and foundation. We're learning more about Jayla, and the world and experiences that have made her what she is today, and that's always a good thing. Keep it up. The larger movements of your plot, and where it's going, could perhaps stand to be reinforced a little, though. Also, there towards the beginning, look, a reoccurring antagonist, and freshly made a shadow beast at that. The faint thunder of paws now haunts the procession, promising blood and teeth from the shadows.... Yes, though that part could have perhaps been strengthened and given a little more weight, it's still a good narrative flourish... except that you play the card hardly a breath after its dealt, and without the kind of closing, creeping tension that would have given it effect. You do a good thing, but then fumble it. You need to try to do a better job of recognizing and capitalizing on some of those sorts of opportunities.

Altogether, this entry has been a mix of some stronger narrative conceits tangled with some weaker ones. Work is required, but there are signs of promise, too.

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DracoRealm

Umbra: You're getting better at this bit by bit, but still have a good amount of practice to put in to refine your technique and hone your voice.

First off, paragraphs. Break them up more. Cramming too many ideas, actions, and events into one paragraph looks and sounds like you're rambling. You have one single paragraph where Thomas receives a dagger, travels many days, loses his horse, carries his dog across the desert, fights giant spiders, and breaks his leg and faints. At that point I imagined he fainted because his whole journey was whirling before his eyes in just a few lines. If I had to endure that much in 18 seconds, I admit that I'd probably faint too.

You'll notice, if you take exactly what you've written now and cut to a new paragraph whenever something new is happening, you'll end up with a whole lot of one- and two-sentence paragraphs. If you go in and do this, you'll start to see the places that are sparse on description, detail, and elaboration. Break apart those frantic stretches of text, and put some meat on the scattered bones you have left behind.

This will, of course, make your story go on longer. That's a good thing. The story should be as long as it needs to be to get the full effect out of it. It takes more time, more words, and more work to really build up your characters, settings, and plots. I can tell you have a lot of love for your stories; now you need to apply the patient effort it takes to make them satisfying to an outside reader.

Specifics: The encounter with Fritz is pretty bare-bones, but you did make an effort to use his backstory and characteristics, which was a good start. Losing his horse on the long desert journey was tragic, and if you'd put some force behind that moment it could have been very powerful on its own. The dog as companion does a lot to humanize Thomas, and the pup comes across with some charm, but it's hard to believe that any dog wandering the Place of Shadows could possibly survive while being so friendly and domesticated. You can really build that dog up, maybe starting Arrow off as a mean, feral scavenger that Thomas takes pity on and trains to obey him through dedicated effort, and now he has a loyal hound that can be a vicious threat to his enemies. It's a powerful image, and it's a lot more believable and compelling than to simply say he happened to find a dog in the forest and they're instantly best friends.

You've made a fair effort to improve based on the pointers we've given you so far, and your enthusiasm has been admirable, welcome, and very much appreciated. Work on nailing down your grammar, and watch out for run-on sentences. Work on developing stories with elevated depth, clarity, thoughtfulness, and detail. Work, work, work, so that all of those fun ideas you have can find expression and you can draw people into the world you've created.



Halcyal: Draco, your narrative writing is rough and shaky, too much so to really allow the text to draw the reader into the story. Your forms of expression are often troubled and the grammar and formatting bounce and jostle around all over the place, shaking the reader out of the tale. You also frequently change your POVs on the fly, with no indication or break in text, which leaves your reader all turned about, mentally scrambling to figure out who's actually doing what and what's actually going on.

As for your storytelling, the pacing and progression in this entry are all balled up and cramped together. You haven't provided sufficient room or time to allow your events to relax and develop naturally. Right now, your writing and plotting lack fullness and patience. You worry in your comments about your entry being too long. It isn't. Giving more attention and detail to the task of showing us how things happen, full and fleshed out, will greatly improve the effect of what you write. Also, concerning the dragon and related parts, while working in aspects of your own story world can certainly be interesting, you haven't provided anything like enough context or natural development here to make most of what you've included feel like it's a seamless part of the Ascension Gate story that you're writing for this OCT. Much of the dragon content and its surrounding lore feels alien and out of place to the rest of your entry.

On more positive fronts, I like that you try to acknowledge and account for the fact that there are fairly considerable distances between gates, and that characters actually have to travel those distances to get places. When it seems like each gate is only a few days walk from the next, the whole sense of context, which is telling us that the race for the gates and ascension is supposedly a world-level event, gets its legs kicked out from under it. The fact that you take the time to avoid that pitfall is to your story's credit. Also, while I didn't initially have any idea why there'd be a random, friendly dog in The Place of Shadows forest, and some aspects about how that sequence happened could probably have been strengthened a little, the fact that Thomas has an encounter where he meats a creature and decides, against both risk and personal advantage, not to kill it, adds some nice depth to his character. You've included an interesting turn of phrase or two during a few dialogue bits, too, which gives them some authenticity and flair.

You have lots of things to work on, too many for me to recommend you for moving on to the next round, but you also have some good seeds that you can build from.

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Wela-Inomae

Umbra: Due to some difficulties you had getting your entry transcribed from your notebook to deviantART, we were only able to officially judge your entry based on Part 1. All of us initially believed that this would hopelessly cripple your piece and that you would have to be cut. We even kind of said our goodbyes.

And then we read your Part 1. And at that moment, our decision became far less simple.

Part 1 was fantastic in its own right, and was almost enough to carry itself into Round 3 by its own power. From the very beginning, with the reference to the book from Tevys's storyline, we're already hit with a sense of magic and mystery, as well as an understanding of how the world of your story works, with a deftly delivered one-two metagame punch that makes it all the more satisfying from a tournament perspective. Then we get into the story proper, with Tomdril encountering Cyneric, and you accomplish so much character, culture, world, action, and suspense in so few words that the piece didn't feel like reading a chapter from a story -- it was like a fine painting, each word of just the right color and placed with a masterful stroke.

We were very close to promoting you to Round 3 based on Part 1 alone, but the story was still incomplete and no one else had performed underwhelmingly enough to fairly relinquish their spot to a partial piece. The rest of the story was there, though (albeit too late to consider it in judging), so for the sake of critiquing the full work we read on... and found this:

Tomdril weaves a convincing, world-appropriate sense of magic through this world like no other character has in his handling of the ghosts, and his vision of the city as it once lived was nothing short of beautiful and emotionally haunting. The realism of the world comes through as well, at times like when Cyneric's army can't use their guns in the rain. The empty promise Tom gives to Cyneric is deftly constructed (I totally called out his trick the moment he swore on his family, but that didn't detract the tiniest bit from the impact when he pulled the trigger on it). The foreshadowy framework of the items in Tom's pack carries the story from one point to the next with a good deal of intrigue. And most of all, I enjoyed how the scar-faced boy (and other listeners from past rounds) actually plays the role of us as readers, throwing up all our questions and doubts which the narrator summarily addresses, thus compelling us to shut up and suspend our disbelief and just indulge in the story Tom is weaving. As far as pure storytelling artistry goes, I found myself uncharacteristically lacking in complaints and full of gush.

You knew that you were turning in the rest of this story way too late, and knew that we couldn't count it in your favor against the other contestants. But out of a sense of dedication you wrestled through the real-life troubles you were having and resolved to get the whole story copied over and turned in, win or lose -- and that spirit is most commendable. After all that hard work you put in and the fact that you'd outdone your prior performances and created some truly professional-level work (so good that just the first part was very nearly enough to get you in), we felt that eliminating you would be as much of an injustice as eliminating another in your favor. Ultimately we decided that we couldn't rightfully eliminate a second person from Group 2, and so we'd have you continue on in the tournament in a sort of "wild card" slot.

So here's to second chances! And with that second chance comes a caveat to use it wisely, along with a few points of actual criticism: Punctuation got quite a bit confused here, which is strikingly out of form based on your previous performances. Some of it, like misplaced apostrophes and forgotten paragraph breaks, might have been due to your haste in getting things typed over. Others, like mixing up the periods and commas in quotations, are harder to reconcile. In terms of style, when "all hell breaks loose" that phrase seems a bit too present-day-real-world for the atmosphere you've established and was the only one thing jarring enough to pull me out of the story. When Tom is "running his fingers along his now-bare fingers in his pocket" it would read better without the repeated "fingers". Another thing to keep in mind is that there are three remaining gates, not two.

I'm really just splitting hairs here, because as far as Big Things to Improve Upon go I'm finding myself without much to say. We can only hope that you can keep up this level of performance, because you've set quite a high bar for yourself this round. And we're holding you to it.


Halcyal: First, to repeat a refrain; linking multi-part entries in the comments section is helpful. (It also helps prevent the murder of baby seals. You wouldn't want to facilitate the murder of baby seals, would you?)

So, at present, you're mostly looking at some formatting and paragraph issues, some small text and referencing errors, and some occasional awkwardness as far as trouble to your prose is concerned. Your stylistic choice to write in the present tense remains interesting, meanwhile, but not always entirely helpful. You're mostly writing well, however, so it's far less detracting than it could be and does end up creating some tonal uniqueness. In truth, it's mostly balancing out to something of a moot point. Just remember that it's a precarious style choice, which means that you need to keep on top of your writing that much more.

The entry's introductory sequence is a nice complement of approach, atmosphere and pacing. The tacitly declared plot conceit of Tomdril actually being the present-day bard continues to develop well, too, and adds a nice element of intrigue. I also feel that Tomdril himself, through developments and actions both large and small, has become a properly interesting character in this round, and has earned my full investment as a result. You've done very well with your opponent's character, meanwhile. You've made Cyneric a significant and enriching thread in the weave of your story, and your rendering of him is deft and feels authentic.

More generally speaking, the dilapidated city ruins (and their denizens) are not only well crafted descriptively, but are well delivered, too, with the right kinds of styling and prevalence to communicate the city's alien aspect to us through Tomdril et al's perspective. In fact, the details in this one, and the grain imparted by how those details are woven and employed, are rich and wonderful. You've dusted the story with the kinds of padding and enrobing facets that give everything in it substance and pace, turning plot and description into the unhindered stuff of happenings and experience. It's the kind of thing that pulls a person in past reading, into seeing and living.

Then there is the dance of the plot itself. Texture, turns, tempo, tone: all of it is excellent. The beats really sit right. Indeed, it truly feels like you've begun to put your heart and mind behind the effort, and it shows. More than perhaps any of your competitors this round, your full entry makes a tight, cohesive stretch of story; it reads like a tapestry. There are still some areas of writing and execution to work on, but the core is top class stuff. Keep that sort of thing up.

Of course, in all of the above, it bears noting that the last two thirds of your entry came in rather late. You did communicate with us (to a certain degree), and we're aware of some of the circumstances of work-put-in and personal-troubles-encountered; the on-time third of your entry was also good enough to be in a kind of quasi-balance with some of the other entries in your group, despite its incompleteness, but it still made coming to a decision very difficult. After a great deal of discussion, we ultimately voted in your favour, but it was a precarious thing, not far removed from your elimination, which would have been a terrible shame, given the quality of what you'd done this round. So, for your sake (and ours), try to do your best to meet the deadline next time.

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TheMerryMarquis

Umbra: Your narrative voice continues to come through strongly here; the word choice and colloquialisms really help to set the atmosphere of a "medieval" kind of setting. The story itself continues to entice us forward, particularly regarding the intrigue of the Prince's past and how he came to be the person he is today. The flashbacks, especially, feel alive and full of character and color, and the buoyant liveliness of those scenes paints an engaging contrast against the greyscale world he lives in now. Drawing the villages and towns of your fellow authors into the political network of your world is also a nice flourish, and well executed, as some authors who attempt this only make the outside material feel shoehorned in rather than being a natural part of the landscape. Your reimagined Raveners, being more like a traditional goblin horde than the insectile, predatory, demonic swarm described in the God Mode prompt, were also whole and well-rendered in the alternate character model you gave them.

Certain elements of the story, however, seem like they could use a bit more development to really stand out. For example, when said goblin horde is storming the walls of Cyneric's shelter, one particularly tired and clumsy trope comes into play: At the very moment that the heroes' plight has reached peak desperation, the sun suddenly goes down and the Raveners immediately stop what they're doing (as if unaware, up to this specific second, that the light was wearing out). This kind of maneuver has been played out so many times over so many stories, and it's a precious rare case when it doesn't look like an unrealistic plot contrivance. Heck, Cyneric's men even hold their fire to let the Raveners react to the sun in peace and safety, even though the soldiers have been holding back their panic-itch to shoot for several paragraphs and Cyneric had yelled "FI-" which is close enough to "FIRE!" for me or any other sensible person to start unloading munitions at an enemy inches from my face, sunset or no sunset.

The "sunset" thing would have felt much more convincing if you'd moved it back to an equally charged but less pointedly pivotal moment, like when the Raveners were first climbing the walls: As the soldiers desperately fight the Raveners down and worry over the battering ram they see bearing down on their door, they witness a few of the creatures looking agitated as they start pointing up toward the rooftops. The unease spreads through the Ravener ranks one by one, and their ferocity wavers, leaving Cyneric's men at a loss. They look up to the roofs, expecting to see some new fearsome enemy approaching, but all they see is the slowly darkening sky. A few last gunshots take down some Raveners as they shuffle away in retreat, but the creatures don't care anymore. The mystery builds up as the situation keeps getting stranger. What's going on here? the soldiers (and we) wonder.

Sorry, I spent an awful lot of time harping on that one thing, but that trope really gets my brain burning. (Not that I'm innocent of ever pulling it myself. My shame knows no bounds.)

Moving on. The King's speech about the inherent superiority of the noble class can use a touch more subtlety, because he's practically spelling out his philosophy for us (with a degree of self-awareness unfitting for someone so blind) and it's more natural to get to know his classist arrogance through his interactions and his tone. Tomdril seems fairly well portrayed (albeit a little too aware of his own "madness" for this point in his life, when he hasn't quite considered that he might be mad) but he seems to play a very small role considering how dramatically the Seafolk were introduced to us in the preceding flashback.

The most work, however, probably needs to go into the technical execution. There are a number of word repetition gaffes ("It then began to take a few steps forward as others closed in around the terrified soldier as well. The[y] slowly closed in around him....") and a lot of passages need a bit of cleaning up for clarity. Especially in fight scenes, you want your sentences to be tight and concise without too many ablatives, focus shifts, and parenthetical expressions clogging up simple stage directions.

The Pretender let out a cry of pain as he threw the beast off. But no sooner had he done this then it got back on its feet and tackled him. It crawled quickly toward his chest and raised its blade as if to stab him. He reached out with his free right hand (his pistol having been knocked away) and grabbed it by the wrist.

After some cuts and shuffles, we can deal a stronger hand:

The Pretender gave a pained snarl as he threw the beast off; his pistol slipped and slid into the corner. Before he could reach it, the beast gained its feet and tackled him, scrambling up to his chest and raising its blade over his heart. Cyneric seized its wrist with his free hand, still fumbling for his gun.

Also, the frequency of typos, misspellings, and wrong-words steadily increased as Part 4 went on, along with a decrease of refinement and artistic word choice, indicating some final-hours pressure. Watch out for that.

In sum, you've shown a great deal of potential and stylistic flair, which serves your unique voice and character angle very well. Give yourself some time to nail down the editing and you'll be damn solid.


Halcyal: Ghosts and goblins, oh my.

So, on the more technical side, your entry slips into some POV eccentricity and continues to entangle itself with awkward, broken and cumbersome language, spotted with numerous typos, punctuation errors and incorrect words. That's unfortunate, because your writing otherwise continues to show some artistic strength, and is even lavished with some rather keen turns of phrase and expression. I'd actually say that your writing generally seems improved over your previous entries in terms of its narrative effect, it's just that the technical stuff is still giving you some notable trouble.

Concerning some larger matters of narrative frame and technique, I'll note that starting with the aftermath as a hook is always a nice trick when done well, and your usage, while it could have used a little more fleshing out, was a reasonable swing at it. That said, the ending bit that closes that capsule suffers from some misplaced execution. A line or two of repetition to cue in your reader to a return to your starting scene, and then a recast iteration of the intro events to continue through the stroke towards its ultimate revelation, would have served the effect of the story far better than three word-for-word regurgitated paragraphs, which rather quickly began to feel stale. We are coming upon the scene with new light, so give it new light.

Getting more into the stuff of the story, the initial battle has an element of weight, credibility and tension to it (although why a horde of supposedly marauding goblin-things would be siege-ready in an abandoned ghost city is a little unclear to me). You also generally create some good dramatic tension, with environmental and atmospheric elements woven in to enhance the effect. The ghosts, in particular, are well crafted and implemented, with the darkness being both appropriately phantasmal and menacing.

You continue to provide more back-story, and well, enriching your character and world context, with some nice referencing mixed in. The transition out of the flashback sequence is well done, too. It implies everything it needs to for the reader to put together what's taking place without jostling the frame of the story. You've also done some nice crafting of Tomdril to give him nuance and depth (ex: his comment about the resting place of the dead; the naming taboo, etc.) You play with him creatively and authentically, even if his presence in the entry is just a tad sparse. In fact, you infuse him and the setting with such gravitas that the salt and the darkness bit makes for both a tense and interesting bit of scene writing, despite the fact that I have no idea why the salt should have worked as it did. The credibility of the feel of the scene, and of the rightness of what happens in the setting of the world, are at a level where they simply work, without the need for obvious logical connection.

Currently, your manner of expression and story-craft come across well enough that your story is increasingly exuding a measure of sophistication and force. Your task now is to free it from the web of technical fetters that encumbers it so that it can properly shine.