Thank goodness Marc's here. I was about to mention him and pray that he show up. I'll expand on some things with examples.
No, this is really uncomfortable to read. The discomfort is what's provoking weird feelings in some of the people here, I think.
Let's not talk about your passion, because it is definitely there. Your passion might be part of the problem, that being, it's making things tedious, and therefore uncomfortable.
So let me preface this by, I had an idea what the problem was going to be, because I struggle with it too. I had it pointed out by an editor or two, and try to do better, but it still gets me. I can't explain the problem, but I can show you the exact examples. I read the first chapter, and most recent chapter.
First off, I think your dialogue is fine, because it makes sense that they would have an awkward way of speaking. The prose is where the discomfort in reading is. This is also going to be tough because of people's taste. I can promise you most casual readers won't like what you've done though.
They were sung drunkenly by soldiers in their off time, with percussion accompaniment provided by the banging of tankards.
So, why can't we say this:
Soldiers sang them drunkenly in their off time, with percussion accompaniment provided by the banging of tankards.
This is what Marc meant by passive language. That "they were" adds a lot of nothing to the sentence too, but causes the reader to have to process it. There's another problem where you're telling the reader to imagine "drunkenly" instead of the soldiers first. This is a really subtle thing, but the soldiers first is stronger. How can I explain the difference... it's like when you say the drunkenly, in that split second, there is still no subject. The brain is taking time trying to
look for what to apply the druken quality to. It's a small thing, but small things cause discomfort that people don't usually know how to put words to.
In the dim glow of the lanterns(,) the liquid in the glass appeared black
Just another example
The liquid in the glass appeared black in the dim glow of the lanterns.
Again, you have to ask what is more important here. The dim glow, or the liquid.
This next one causes a different kind of discomfort:
Tad found his audience shift from politely ignoring to active heckling.
Can you spot the difference:
Tad found his audience shift from politely ignoring to actively heckling.
Maybe officially there's a 'tense' issue here? Regardless, I think there should be symmetry here.
He knew a couple dozen Ottis tales by heart, and enough of about half as many more to tell them without anyone knowing he made up the rest.
What is going on here? It took me so long to figure this out. And look, I know i'm not the sharpest, but I can't be the only that had to read that twice. Let's optimize:
He knew a couple dozen Ottis tales by heart. He knew another half dozen more that no one had to know were made up.
Did I get the meaning of the sentence wrong? If so, I'm sorry for being stupid.
Okay, next up, there's this thing that happens where certain phrases are better off swapped. The longer the sentence the more obvious it becomes. I do this, and it usually gets corrected by the editor. Now the thing is, mileage varries depending on the length on of the line.
In an instant Yurzan closed the distance to Hohza.
Can we say:
Yurzan closed the distance to Hohza in an instant.
Quick note too is that your line needs a comma after instant. And that's part of the trick of knowing when you have an order issue. Anyway, the order issue causes trouble.
Like I said, I read the final chapter to see if these problems were still there, but they seemed less common. Which is good.
Let's talk about another issue that makes the others worse:
You have very rich language.
Think about what it means that in 2724 words, you only used 'said' six times. (First chapter)
Now, honestly, I commend you for that, but it's indicative of the overall issue that sometimes, simpler words are good enough.
The other denizens of this place, orcs and trolls, were several times larger than any of the diminutive workers. They’d care little about crushing one of their short brethren underfoot, save for the mess it might make on the soles of their feet or boots
Why not residents instead of denizens?
Why not tiny instead of diminutive? Heck, why not goblin instead of diminutive, since you remind the reader that they're short later.
Short is fine, but it being here after you used a more intense way of saying short makes it jarring.
Big, uncommon words are cool, but having to process a lot of them creates fatigue. Some avid readers dont like admitting this, but purple prose is detrimental to a reading experience if the reader is struggling with uncommon words.
All in all, what i want to convey to you is:
It's the way you use language that causes discomfort. That discomfort is causing people to not attach to the story because they're wrestling with it, which leads to projection on you.
Like I said, your dialogue is fine, because uncomfortable speech patterns make sense for another world.
Your later chapters suffer less from the first chapter's problem, i think, because maybe you realized what words you needed and which ones you didn't?
In general, there are also comma problems, but adding them wouldn't fix the underlying issues. There's also dialogue issues in the later chapters, mostly about how the dialogue is denoted.
Again, no question about your passion. It's there. You're fighting with the language to tell a story.
