Each section of this story, Eifan will be faced with a choice. It will be your job to comment on which choice he should make. The one that gets the most votes will determine which way the story goes. Clear enough? Good.

Three choices again — the volume, the orb, or the hilt. Which does he examine (first)?

Sing to the dagger, to restore the blade.

I love the use of “a dog’s age” as a measure of time.

Who knows what the dagger hilt’s purpose is? The blade may not be in this world.

I say the orb.

Apparently I’ve done my job well with this segment. I have one vote each in the comments here for two of the items in the room, and one vote from Twitter for the third. I tried to balance the descriptions for the items so that no one stood out as extra special to readers.

I vote the orb!

And there’s a tie-breaker. Any other votes before I pen the next section later?

I like the implication that he has seen the rune before. Too often it’s just “a mysterious rune” or some such.

Which is exactly why I decided to give Eifan a connection to the rune. He has a long and storied history, and occasionally things from his past pop up in his world again.

Everyone’s comments so far are making me feel really good about this section because it sounds like I accomplished all the goals I set for it. Thanks for the feedback!

The dagger; turn to page 43.

-checks book-

But… but… my book doesn’t have a Page 43….

-cries-

My vote is the orb.

Very good job of an ‘in the moment’ description that also gives hints to larger culture, magical abilities, history, etc.