...Whoa. Awesome creation myth time!

Well, how should I begin...
This story is unlike every other fanfiction I've ever read. It is more like an incredibly professional written book. Your language is absolutely amazing. Never have I seen such well described imagery. It was stunning, really. As if I was watching a movie. And I could follow the whole plot perfectly and your dialogue was beyond realistic. I loved the dialogue so much! Although all this was written by one person, it seems as if everyone has their own, completely unique character. There's nothing I could complain about in the way this is done. Magnificent work!

Now to the plot itself. The plot... Let me just say so much, I should have listened to Sigrdríf. I made the /assumption/ that this would have a happy ending, at least for one of them. (For that the reason I read this was Lex, I had most hoped for him to be happy in the end...). I honestly expected it until the very last sentence. And then I was an emotional wreck. I have no idea if it was intended to be THAT sad because everyone else here seems to not really care about the character's happiness or maybe I am just too emotional. But that's also a point which doesn't make this a normal fanfiction because up to now I have mostly read stories with happy endings. But this... this doesn't seem like a fiction at all, it's like the damn harsh reality and that's what depresses me the most. I mean seriously, maybe I'm just too influenced by cute, fluffy, innocent stories but the fact that here was no real romance and that in the end everyone leaves... I just can't stand that. I know, that and the fact that so many people die is only realistic and way more mature than rainbows and unicorns but I would have at least wanted the hint of a happy ending for one of the main characters. Although you said Habasi had found what she had searched for I can't shake the feeling that it's not what she truly wants. I would've also been happy if you just let Methredhel stay there. Your portrayal of the friendship between her and Lex was intense and stunning (my favorite part of the whole fic (overall the relationships between the characters were the most interesting part imo)) and if she had stayed, there would've been at least a single sunray in Lex' life (And I thought you liked him...). But like this... I'm so downcast about the way it ended. Well, maybe I'm taking it a tad bit too seriously, though. And besides, it's your story and it's perfect as it is.

On another note, I absolutely love how you wrote this from so many different points of view, built up their storylines and managed the way they all come together in the end so well. Very, very clever how you did that. Lots of skill is needed for that or maybe you're just talented. I admire how you can write everything from drama to action to humor to romance and so on. Plus, I'm stunned by your intellect and imagination. Servius' mindset for example was genius. I have no idea how one can come up with such ideas but I appreciate them a lot.
I found all of the characters believable and, as I already mentioned, they were all so unique. When one died, it was as though a good friend of mine died and I must admit that I cried several times. I loved them all, especially due to your characterizations of them, their inner thoughts, emotions, actions, talks... They were appropriate in every situation and completely in character (for those that weren's OC's).
I also learned some good lessons for life.

So, all in all I can only say WOW. Just WOW.
I hope this review comes somewhere close to the praise this story deserves. If it was a book, I'd buy it immediately.
I'm sorry that there's no constructive criticism here but I couldn't for the life of me think of anything.
Hope I forgot nothing...
Keep it up and thank you for this.

cool

Don't expect much constructive criticism in this review; as you said in one of your own reviews, it takes time, and I'm pretty sure you'll have improved on pretty much everything I'll point out anyway.

What I will say is that you definitely have a good idea for a plot so far, and a good way of drawing readers in. I know for a fact I'm interested, a good sign. I like that idea of taking relatively minor NPCs and throwing them a bigger role; you see Lex quite a bit, but barely anything of Maro Rufus, and while Habasi might be common in Morrowind fics (I wouldn't know) I've certainly never seen her in an Oblivion fic. It'll be interesting to see how they'll fit in together.

So, while the writing itself leaves much to be desired thus far (I assume you now spell 'Khajiit' correctly? A pet hate of mine, that), the plot is good, and as the plot and characters are the most important parts of a story, this bodes well. I'll keep reading, of course, but it might take a while to read the rest of this. Expect something a bit more substantial for the next review, whenever that is.

I feel like a terrible, terrible fan at the moment. Trust me when I say that I read your entire story some time ago, and I loved every minute of it. The details, characters, plot, subplots...*happy sigh* This is one of the rare stories on this website that gives fanfiction a good name, and I adore your writing style. So you can imagine how terrible I felt when I was browsing my favorites today and noticed that I haven't even given you the proper review attention. It might mean nothing to you, but considering the lack of truly magnificent stories on this website, to neglect reviewing one of true quality seems like an utter crime to me.

Perhaps the problem here is that each chapter tends to be so well-crafted that my reviews would repeat the same praise over and over again. lol. Seriously though, you did a fantastic job, and I can't believe that you started writing this in 2007. I'm actually glad that I only discovered it toward the end of writing process, or I might have gone insane waiting for updates.

Thank you for writing such a wonderful story. Sincerely, truly, thank you. If and when you publish a book, let me know so that I can buy it. You've got at least one fan for life.

truly awesome. probably one of, if not the best ending of anything that i have read on this site. bravo. bravo.

This story would be finished while I was in France.

As always, fantastic.

I have a new crush though

And now...on to the sequel

~Billatrix Lestrange

Man, you seriously amaze me, dude! It baffles me you still haven't thought of becoming a professional author!

Okay, so there were some flaws early in this chapter which weren't exactly tiny. I feel there should have been some more text between the cheek-kiss from Flyte and her walking out the door, and Varnado's smile felt a bit wrong. At the very least, I would have called it a "bitter-sweet" smile or something.

Also, I think Servius really should have felt more about having a punishment meted out to him by daedra. Also, I would think the other daedra would HATE Bal (isn't he the one who's essentially pure evil?). I understand why they're punishing him, but I'd still have touched on that. Still, overall I really like that scene.

But the description of Akavir blew me away! With vision like that, it’s hard to imagine anyone turning down a sequel. I mean, your vision of Akavir made even the battle at the Imperial City feel comparatively cheap and hollow, and that’s quite a feat! Okay, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure exactly how to imagine all of what you described, but the vague ideas I picked up were enough to form an image in my head which dropped my jaw.

Still, I would have mentioned Khon-ma being pretty nervous confronting the Emperor, given her failures. And hopefully she’s been humbled a good deal by her injury in combat.

There were some repeated words in the earlier scenes: “relax” and “heavens.” So maybe you should have given this chapter one more look over. Still, I could understand why you’d be eager to release this so soon.

I feel deeply satisfied with the end of this story. Even though it’s a novel, I can’t help but imagine credits rolling.

-Decius Frecentis

A nearly rock-solid chapter. It didn't blow me away like the last, but left little to be desired.

The dialogue was nice. Maybe the philosphising on life was piled on just a PINCH too much, but only a pinch.

It was very easy to imagine this chapter. The imagery was great.

There were, however, tiny nicks in the mental descriptions with Lex. For example, I'd have Lex think or feel a little something more upon colliding with Flyte. I also would have put one sentence before he breaks off from conversing with Ocato to enter his room.

A couple of very minor things seemed a little off with Lex’s lines too. Specifically, Lex not knowing (or "knowing", because how sure can the Tamrielics really be) what happens after people die (it would be like someone today growing up in the West and not knowing what Heaven was), and the fact that he offered Flyte "do good" as a suggestion (given his character, I'd think he'd see that as the first thing which naturally came to most leaders minds; "appreciate the fact that you'll be doing good" would have sounded more Lex, IMO).

Finally, in the last part, when you said the figure wasn't human, I would mention it looked Elven. After all, the only way the figure didn’t look human was her elven ears, right?

Still, excellent chapter. It did its job perfectly (well, not perfectly, but you know what I mean). Really, the flaws I mentioned felt EXTREMELY minor. Though it sounds like your ending is going to beg for a sequel…

WOW! Wow! Aw man, you're going to make my ending feel so lame now (I know, still two more chapters, but still). You're the one author who I except to see the best results from when he writes a chapter in a few days. Wow.

Dang. I'm...jeez!

Okay, okay, I'll try to articulate:

Ahem.

Superb plot directions and emotional descriptions here. I have never felt so engrossed reading anything else in my life! Oh my gosh...

...but, there were flaws, as there always will be. Let's get to those:

-Some of Flyte's lines felt a bit contrived, like when she said it was "insane" to use the super-weapon. Hard to explain, but I just would have kept her silent there.

-I think Maro was a bit too eager to "test the waters". That had a good chance of killing them.

-Similarly, I think Varnado was a bit too eager to go along with Maro in sparing the man. He could have used a little more insistance (still, that "Well yeah, there is that" line was hilarious).

-Meth stops reflecting after she wins too quickly. I mean, I would have written a whole paragraph before she even frowns. It felt like it cheapened a powerful moment, especially given HOW she won.

-"The Heart of Tamriel" confused me. At first I thought you meant the Heart of Lorkahn.

-Ocato seemed a bit out of character and even "modern" at times. "Deadly serious" just sounds a bit 20ths/21st century. I would have said "deathly".

Still, wow...just wow! Man! Wow! I wish I could favorite you twice!

So I don't have the time to give a full length review /

But I must say

I loved this chapter

And am in love with Khon-Ma

The first two scenes were a little rocky. The last two scenes were awesome. It was sometimes a little too hard to tell who was speaking in this chapter (especially because the pairing of females, thus making "she" not a very revealing word), which made some areas minorly confusing, but not too bad.

You do a really good job of getting across the personality you told me you intended for the cloakies in this one.

Let me go over this scene by scene.

First scene:

This scene was pretty good, but left a little something to be desired. The dialogue at the beginning seems to be missing some emotional/expressive description on the part of the Tamrielics.

Also, I still don't understand how the hybrids were made. Did they just have to drink Uriel's blood?

Lastly, there was one line that confused the heck out of me the first time I read it. That was “ ‘Stop assuming that you’re not expendable!’ she responded. ‘You can’t die, and we’re here to stop Servius, remember?”

Second scene:

Reading the previous chapter, I pictured Maro had been thrown WAY too high to survive. I was imagining him like one-hundred feet in the air. Still, I guess that’s more of a flaw with the previous chapter.

The physical descriptions are really nice here (but how much can the Market District really burn? IIRC, it’s almost completely stone). I do think you should have gone into his head more before he decides to get up. It felt like the intro went by too fast. He should have reflected on his circumstances more.

Still, other than that, very well done.

Third scene:

This was my favorite. It feels wonderfully poignant. MAYBE Meth spent A LITTLE too long recounting memories, but still, awesome. And I love how the last part is described.

Fourth scene:

A very fine battle. Intense, surprising, and interesting. I especially like the ending. I had my money on the Kamal, but this turn of events satisfies me no less.

So like I said, superb job with those last two scenes, they really pulled me in. If you want more specifics on the areas I cricitized, though, just ask.

Great story as I see it so far, and it really is a good continuation of the plot after the end of the Oblivion Crisis. There is a lot of positive stuff I could throw in here, but it would take too long. instead, I'm going to point out a plot related flaw I noticed in this most recent chapter- Tosh Raka is not the lord of the Kamal, in fact he doesn't have anything to do with them. The Akaviri race led by Tosh Raka is called thge Ka'Po'Tun, and they're tiger people sort of similar to the Khajiit. Hate to point that out but I'm something of a pedant.

Otherwise it is obvious you have a good deal of skill when it comes to writing, and I say keep going!

Well, kind of a mixed bag...still, it's probably above par even for you.

Plotwise, I’d say this is awesome. Stylewise, it feels a tad rough. It feels very inspired, but rushed (which it probably was).

Let's get the criticism over with. The bad part of the mix is that the chapter's "paint job" seems a little rough, if you know what I mean. There's a repetition of the word "save" in a sentence about the Aylied ruin, and there seem to be some deep (but otherwise small) gaps in the emotional scape. The biggest instance of this is when Meth is about to fight a certain Khajiit. Meth is not an experienced warrior as far as we know, let alone one who would risk her life to protect innocents (until now), so I think that scene should have had a far more intense mental description at the end. Another instance I thought could use more mental description was during Maro's little trip above the Imperial City. I would have slowed that scene down, gone a lot into Maro's thoughts and feelings as he descends. Then, there’s the scene with Lex, where he’s told that some secrets are kept even from the Emperor. I think he should think or feel something about that.

Okay, bad stuff’s done. Let’s get onto the good. In terms of the core events of the chapter, this one is gold. Very dramatic, very intriguing, very fun. I also really like the physical description in the Aylied ruin (though I was a bit thrown off when Lex said it seemed “old” because it hadn’t deteriorated), and Maro’s battlescene reminded me of a Call of Duty game (in a good way).

I’ll confess, though, that I did have a flash of disappointment after the identity of the robed figures was revealed, since that’s pretty much exactly who I would have guessed they were (okay, I didn’t think they were that exact race, but you know what I mean). Still, it hasn’t killed any significant amount of my enthusiasm for the plot.

Great work, heavily anticipating the next one.

I'm only doing a few chapters at a time, so that I don't rush over details and whatnot. That aside, the last two chapters were quite well done. I actually only just remembered that I have seen Habasi from playing Morrowind, but that was ages ago. I actually very much like that you're using characters from both games, and the politics involved promise to be very interesting. The backdrop of the empire's difficulties is very realistic, especially when considering the provinces (provinces? I'm assuming that's what the lands surrounding Cryodiil would be called.), and I'm really curious as to how the different characters you're setting up will interact as the plot progresses.

As a final note, this Legion Commander guy, Civello, gives me the creeps. He sounds like the type of guy whose smile would make me want to gag because of its plastic quality, but I can also forsee a lot of potential in the character, so I'm trying not to dislike him just yet.