The Unfortunate Messenger
Community Rating
Description
Being covered in an evil spirit's blood in the heart of a dense forest, in the dark of the night, without his horse was definitely not what Ravindra considered a productive day at work.
Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, he found himself fighting the same evil spirit the next night!!
Honestly, Ravindra didn't want to travel to these treacherous places and put his life in mortal peril for fun. He was forced to because he was a court messenger, and his crazy King wasn't really known for kindness.
The King was ruthless on most days, but for a few days every few months, he would fall in love with a Princess, which meant Ravindra had to deliver the love letters for a few days every few months.
Skilled in swordsmanship and horse riding, Ravindra was always up for the task, but this time, he was far beyond his depth.
Find out if Ravindra can handle this reviving evil spirit or if he will become an ex-messenger in my new short story "The Unfortunate Messenger."
Content warning:18+ because there is mild graphic violence.
Acknowledgment: Thanks to canva.com for the fantastic cover page.
Information
- Status
- Completed
- Year
- 2024
- Author
- SachinSHebbar
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.7/ 5.0
- Followers
- 4
- Views
- 750
Chapters(2 total)
Reviews
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Community Reviews(3)
- WilliamGabriel10Royal Road★★★★★ 5.0I greatly enjoyed this story when reading it. The author takes a great deal of inspiration from various real world mythologies and it shows. The protagonist is compelling and interesting and you have some really wonderful descriptive text.
I recommend giving it a read. You won't be disappointed.
That said, there is quite a bit of violence present in the whole thing. Some of the descriptions are a bit needlessly gory. The author refers to the chapters as short stories, so I'm not certain it will be continued. - ariettecloverRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0It's a shame we don't have more stories like this. The Unfortunate Messenger is a more narrative short story than many modern ones tend to aim for. When I'm reading short story collections, they're poetic and atmospheric, but they're treated often more like flash fiction than proper short stories. At least, that's my experience. They're less entire stories contained to a few pages, and more snapshots of small moments. The Unfortunate Messenger feels like the former.
It also embraces the author's origins as an Indian writer — so much of what we're exposed to is either the west, or a westerner's take on elsewhere, or a setting designed to be read by westerners. You get that all the time with every kind of story, even the ones that are intended to be diverse.
The prose is written quite casually, which makes this story very easy to read for any audience, but does not detract at all from quality.
There's fantasy elements that I can't really relate to because I'm not Indian. But they're really well incorporated, and the author includes some descriptions in the post-chapter notes to help people who aren't from India to follow along.
The ending is also, just... it makes the story. It's a solid comment about humanity and it's just the perfect topping. I really like it. I'm glad I read this! - FantalystRoyal Road★★★★ 4.0Overall this was a fun little short story that reminded me a lot of old fables growing up, but instead of my culture, they were interestingly filled with Indian Lore! With just a few small changes/additions I think it could be a great story. As it stands today it's very much still worth a read!
Style: Style was pretty good. It would be improved more if the tensing was consistent throughout the story. Just some minor tweaks here and this would be even better. Overall though it was well done.
Story: The story was very good, I was entertained and it was short enough to be engaging almost the entire time. I think you could improve it more by working on showing and not telling in a few spots, but you're already aware of that.
Grammar: It read well and passed my first check. Overall the grammar was great.
Character: I think if you made one change, it would be to add just a bit more to the story to make me feel more understanding behind the characters growth over the story. I wish we had a bit more information on him and his sub story instead of just the main story he currently was on. Especially given the ending you had. I think just a few paragraphs going more in depth to his emotions would take the story to the next level!
Overall though this was great work and I appreciated that within two chapters I enjoyed a full story from start to finish. If you're looking to dip your toes into some old school fable style reading, I think you'd very much enjoy this book.