Garovel just laughed. ‘How’s the soreness, by the way?’
He groaned a little. ‘Incredibly painful... but... I’m starting to get used to it... I guess.’
‘It’ll probably get a lot worse after today.’
“Ugh...”
They both spotted a police car exiting the station’s side garage, a uniformed officer in the driver’s seat.
‘There he is,’ said Garovel, clutching Hector’s shoulder. ‘Get ready. I’ll follow him and give you directions. When I tell you, start running as fast as you can.’
Hector felt a blaze of vigor run through him. The soreness vanished, and he breathed deep. “Whoa...!” He could feel his muscles pulsing, his blood rushing, and a surge of so much energy that he thought he might go insane if he didn’t expel it.
‘You might not need it, but put your mask on just in case. And make sure you don’t run into anyone. That’s more important than catching up to us.’
He slid the welding mask over his face. He had to pull up the small, black visor in order to see at all. The rectangular slit of glass bore a few scratches but not enough to obstruct his vision.
The police car was pulling away. Garovel flew after it, and Hector waited. They fell out of sight, and he kept waiting. Passersby gave him uncomfortable looks as he stood there in his mask, trembling with anticipation.
‘Move straight ahead five blocks and turn right. Tell me when you’ve reached it.’
Hector bolted forward. His legs bounded over the pavement with more force than he expected, but he could tell that he wasn’t even breaching his potential yet. He broadly weaved between pedestrians, still picking up momentum, but when he saw an intersection full of passing vehicles, he realized he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. So he didn’t. He ran into traffic. A white town car blared its horn at him as he leapt clear over its roof and landed still running down the sidewalk.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Sentence ten - I think your missing a word near the end of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean by sentence ten. I reread the post and couldn't find anything.
DeleteWhen I tell you, start running as fast as can.’ <-- This sentence, Im pretty sure it can use the word "you" (i guess i could have said 9 lines down).
DeleteAha, thank you. I swear some of these things are invisible to me. Even when I read it allowed, I still don't see it. Fixed now.
DeleteThe human mind will fill in the blanks even when it should be obvious to some people that there is something missing
DeleteYep.
DeleteAnd I wrote "allowed" instead of "aloud." Wow.
lol, you could very well be making worse mistakes, but you are not so I am sure you are ALLOWED to mess somethings up.
DeleteA wielding mask? Well, As someone who has used wielding masks in the past, I can tell you that you can't see in normal light, not even with an inactinic cristal 1, much less with 4 or 5, as is the case for most wielding masks. You need a VERY strong light source in front of an object to actually see it, and you actually see it in green and black contrast.
ReplyDeleteMost people fail to notice that wielding masks have special crystals, polarized to prevent most radiation to pass. A light enough filter would cause sever retinal burn, which literally blinds you temporally, making your eyes unable to form a coherent image for your brain to decypher. Retinal burn heals on itself in one day or two, but it's INCREDIBLY painful, often requiring morphine based drops to soothe the pain.
For this reason, most people go overboard with inactinic screen/filters, and will eve even 2 crystals of grade 11 at the same time. So, in other words: you wouldn't be able to see at ALL with a wielding mask on, unless you were looking straight at the sun.
That's a very good point, and one that never gets addressed in the story. Hector doesn't use the mask for that long, but still. As someone who really tries to do his research, I have to say, this is now bothering me. Hmm.
DeleteI suppose the only way for it to make sense is if the mask is more sophisticated than described. Instead of a normal mask, it'd be an electronic, auto-darkening helmet. Perhaps I should go back and edit that. I'd be interested to hear your opinion.
Well. There are different kinds of wielding masks. The most common ones have the glass screwed in place, between sheets of clear glass, to protect it from random bits of molten metals that could jump from wielding them. That kind of mask it's a single piece that basculates from the top of the head.
DeleteHowever, some people prefer a mask that won't basculate. So it's pretty much like a helmet in that sense. In order to allow yourself to see when you're not wielding, you flip the glass upwards, and all you keep is a thin transparent glass. You usually keep that glass in the way when smoothing what you just wielded, specially with circular abrasive smoothers, else some of those bits of molten iron WOULD jump to your eyes... it HURTS a lot, and they need to be extracted, altho it doesn't require a doctor. So, as a result, that transparent cryatal is often full of marks left by those flying specs, thus rendering ANYONE seen thru them impossible to recognize. But they allow you to see well enough.
So I think the second type of mask could work wonders here. just flip the visor up, and there he goes, able to see, and noone can recognize him.
Also, the "sticky substance" used to wield different iron plates is Epoxy resin xD
Good job with your research, and pleased to help you
Hmm. Fascinating. I'll have to go back and make a few edits, then. Thank you very much. Inaccuracies really bother me, haha.
DeleteHave to kill a bit of time before the next update, so I can add in on this. The quick and easy, somewhat dirty fix, would simply be to have Hector remove the crystal from the mask so he could see. You could add in a line or two somewhere about being unable to see as is, and having to smash it out or however you want to go about it. I am under the impression that he is not wearing for the eye protection, but simply to protect his head and make him unrecognizable.
DeleteI'm just not sure how to tie it into the idea of returning the helmet. Maybe turn it into a bit of a gag with him wondering if he could still return it after removing the crystal and when the rest of it gets destroyed, he realizes that he definitely can't return it (without liberal use of duct tape)
RD
I got nothing to add to this one. I'll just say good page
ReplyDeleteTypo
ReplyDelete"That’s more important than catching up to us"
Did you mean "...than someone catching..."
No, avoiding hitting pedestrians is more important than Hector catching up to Garovel and Mallory.
ReplyDeleteAh! I see, sorry for the mistake. :)
ReplyDelete