Greywolf-ELM's Magic Fades
OK, I have been camping out and procrastinating on saying anything about this for a while. It's time to actually say something about the story.
First of all, you have some great flavor and depth to this story. I that aspect very much. You set the stage wonderfully with the description. It helps me sit down and get comfortable with the story environment.
That being said, I think there are some weaknesses here. Partway through the story, you change from past tense. The transition is a bit jarring and you should probably choose a tense and stick with it.
There is also the picture use, which has kept me from commenting for so long. The pictures are nicely integrated into the narrative. Fildon is reading the letters and when I reach the first picture, I am thinking that I now know what the hook to the story is. Then I reach the second picture and I find that there are two hooks, which might be related. By the third hook, I understand that the story really isn't about any of the events in the pictures. When all is said and done, the pictures are just illustrations associated with the setup for the real story.
It isn't that the pictures were poorly used, but I do have to wonder why they would have been illustrations at all. As well, I begin to wonder why the first several paragraphs could not have been summarized as one. Essentially that Fildon received several letters about magical devices he created that are failing. I end up feeling like I have read a very flavorful, lengthy introduction. The first three pics serve to represent the magical devices, but there is no other tension involved. When all is said and done, I don't care if there were illustrations for the items because they really don't tell me very much about the story. The strongest aspect of the items is that they are not weapons, which we later learn is important.
As I said, this isn't a case of poor pic usage, but I don't think the pics provide enough emphasis to your story.
The fourth pic hints at the conflict for the story. The "MONSTER IN HUMAN GUISE" is the reason why Fildon has betrayed his heritage. Yet, we don't really learn much there. We have gone through the setup that Fildon must remember what it is to be a dwarf, but we never find out if he does.
This is all contrasted against the wonderful tapestry of description you have woven. You clearly have a very strong vision of what environment Fildon is in. You have so much implied background and culture that it is fun to read it. By the time I get to the end, I am very much looking forward to Fildon confronting the adversary, whatever it might be. I think that is the problem. You have done a nice job building everything up, but there is no resolution. It reads like a prologue to a story, or to an adventure, or perhaps even a character background, but there is no real ending. There is no confrontation. There is no critical moment of success or failure for Fildon. Every event has taken place in the past, except for the hammer finally telling Fildon to bugger off. In the end, I have very little empathy for anybody in the story, except perhaps the indignation of the hammer. I'm not sure that was your intent.
Overall, this comes across as fairly critical and that is why I have taken so long to post anything. I enjoyed the story very much until I got to the end and realized it was over. I think there are some wonderful elements here that you could use to create a very engaging story if you could bring more relevance to the initial pictures and/or create more tension and the resolution of the core problem. So, I hope I have been helpful, rather than overly harsh.
