[Altamira] UZ's Training thread

[UZ!]

(OOC: 488 words. It was actually 600 words before I decided to check the first word count, so this is the short version. )

BIC:

“Stupid insomnia.”

That was all UZ could think. He had stopped trying to sleep hours ago, and by his guess, it was already 6:00 or later. He was sitting, slightly slouched, on top of a rather large rock in the forest, and to a passersby, it might seem that he was just resting from a morning jog, if he had any legs. Thoughts were cascading through his head at a rapid rate, almost moving faster than he could process them.

“When they asked me to leave the colony, I figured there might be something interesting out here. Anything, really,” UZ thought out loud. And it was true. When he had left the colony, he had been expecting epic battles. Epic battles were what the old colony’s elders had been discussing day in and day out, after all. UZ was thinking less highly of those elders with every boring, uneventful minute that passed. It had been three weeks since he was forced out, and the only thing he had received thus far was a mild case of frostbite. His mind was being pushed to the brink of insanity not only by the incredible lack of activity, but by thoughts of his failure to himself. He had promised his master that he would never cease his training, but cease it had.

“I need training more than I ever have,” he thought. “I can’t allow myself to sit here and rot!” The tone of his voice made it sound as if he was pleading to the gods themselves, asking them for divine intervention. By this point, his body had started quivering, and one of his eyes had gone slightly askew, as if he was turning into a caricature of insanity itself. He threw his head back, and in a voice that would surprise many coming from such a small creature, roared, “I need something to happen!”

Suddenly, UZ was snapped back into reality as a rumbling occurred in the ground around him. “Earthquak-” was all he got out before his body began shaking as well. His head flew back and forth with such force that it was surprising he never smacked the ground with his sizable nose. But before anything of harmful nature could occur, as suddenly as it had started, all the movement stopped.

UZ took a second to regain his composure, and looked around. He immediately noticed that someone appeared to have replaced the forest with a desert. There was nothing but sand and rocks where the trees once were. He felt a large presence behind him, and as he turned around, his vision was filled by a majestic dome shaped building. The dome was covered in what seemed like shimmering water, giving it an almost blinding shine. The awe soon wore off, and curiosity filled the void that it had left. UZ quickly slithered towards the dark entrance, thinking “Well, I suppose this does qualify as ‘something happening.’ ”

[Altamira]

Here we go:

First, just a nitpick:

“When they asked me to leave the colony, I figured there might be SOMETHING interesting out here. Anything, really,” UZ thought out loud.

Generally here in the BA, we italicize a word, rather than capitalizing it, for emphasis. It looks a bit neater and more professional. ;]

One more here:

It had been 3 weeks since he was forced out, and the only thing he had received thus far was a mild case of frostbite.

With numbers less than ten, it also looks--bah, I hope you don't grow bored of me saying this--more professional and somewhat neater to write out the word for the number. So, in this case, you would type "three" rather than "3". 'Tis just a good habit to have as a writer. ^^;;

Missing a comma here:

He threw his head back, and in a voice that would surprise many coming from such a small creature, roared “I need something to happen!”

One is needed after the bolded "roared", since dialogue follows.

Another small error here:

UZ quickly slithered towards the dark entrance, thinking “Well, I suppose this does qualify as ‘something happening.’”

With the quote inside a quote here, you need a space between the punctuation marks. It should look like this:

UZ quickly slithered towards the dark entrance, thinking “Well, I suppose this does qualify as ‘something happening.’ ”

And that's all the errors I've spotted. Good work!

Here's your next lesson: Have UZ enter the Dome through the front doors, only to find himself in a labyrinth of hedges and greenery that would lead one to believe they were still outside. With no way to see what's around each corner, he'll have to wander his way through the maze, and as he moves, sounds of large, hostile creatures somewhere nearby will hint at possible danger at every turn. End your post with him finding his way out of the maze and into a dark hallway. 600 words minimum.

[UZ!]

(OOC: *coughs* Well, I suppose going 5 months between posts isn't all that good of a schedule, huh. I'm back. Yeah. So I'll hopefully be able to do this again. Since I've had this part lying around since I wrote it like in November. 670 words.)

BIC:

As soon as UZ walked through the giant gaping hole that posed as an entrance, he noticed that even though the Dome had looked already gigantic from the outside, it had to be almost twice as big inside. A vast hedge maze stretched far beyond the length he could see, and vines covered everything that wasn’t moving. What looked like sunlight gleamed in from the ceiling, although the lack of heat coming from the overly bright light gave away its non-sun status.

“Great,” UZ said to nobody in particular. “I’m caught in a giant indoor carnival attraction.” Obviously not able to do the classic “Keep your left hand on the wall until you hit the exit” strategy, UZ instead decided to, as he might say, “play it by ear.”

Wandering from corner to corner, UZ’s eyes began to notice that the farther he went into the labyrinth, the darker the area got. Looking up quickly, UZ quickly noted that the ceiling of the dome was shifting to turn to nighttime, oddly faster than it would in a normal day. And, also noticeable, was the amount of random noises coming from each tunnel of hedges. Sounds of animals UZ had heard of, and several he couldn’t even come close to identifying were ringing in his ears by the time he had rounded what, judging by the ceiling’s placement, was the maze's halfway point.

A small yelp behind UZ caused him to leap (as well as a treeworm can leap, of course) in fear, as he turned around and shouted “Blaze!” at the top of his lungs in a desperate, frightened voice. When he had finally regained his bearings, he looked down to see what appeared to be a small squirrel like creature, burnt to a crisp beneath him. “Whoops,” was all he could think to say at that point. Feeling beyond awkward by that point (and pondering how he had just over killed a squirrel) UZ continued on into the rather noisy darkness.

Several minutes later, it became apparent to UZ that day was refusing to come back, at least with the same speed the night had shown up. If anything, it seemed to be getting even darker. And with the dark came even more of those horrid noises, getting louder and more raucous by the minute. “It’s almost as if a group of giant dragons had set up base camp right in the middle of the maze and started singing campfire songs off key.” UZ chuckled to himself at his rather stupid joke and reminded himself that making fun of these noises was probably the last thing he should do at that point.

After dead end after dead end after endless dead end, UZ finally reached a fork in the road, and a small sign saying EXIT next to it. The sign was old, beaten, and covered with what appeared to be several thousand small leech-like creatures. While there might have been an arrow on the sign pointing the way at one point, the obvious wear and tear on the wood had left it nigh unreadable. Fortunately there were only two paths, but, as UZ thought to himself, one would most likely lead to some cliché certain death scenario, the other the exit. “God, it’s like someone scripted this out for a bad action novel or something,” UZ mumbled.

After careful deliberation with himself (followed by an awkward minute of him attempting to converse with him mandolin) UZ chose to go right. The level of unholy noises coming from the darkness were almost to the point of being unbearable by this time, and UZ was almost ready to snap before, just as suddenly as they showed up, they stopped entirely. Not used to the sudden silence, UZ started recoiling in terror at the smallest sounds, which he was now highly oversensitive to. Another large hole greeted him at what appeared to be the end of the maze, and UZ took a moment to rest before going in to the beckoning maw.

[Altamira]

*sick, so please excuse any incoherence beforehand*

Let's get started here:

Missing apostrophe here:

Sounds of animals UZ had heard of, and several he couldn’t even come close to identifying were ringing in his ears by the time he had rounded what, judging by the ceiling’s placement, was the mazes halfway point.

Bolded word should be "maze's", so that the word is possessive and not plural.

And a missing comma here:

“Whoops” was all he could think to say at that point.

There should be a comma after the bolded "whoops" to connect the dialogue to the rest of the sentence.

Content-wise with these first few paragraphs:

As soon as UZ walked through the giant gaping hole that posed as an entrance, he noticed that even though the Dome had looked already gigantic from the outside, it had to be almost twice as big inside. A vast hedge maze stretched far beyond the length he could see, and vines covered everything that wasn’t moving. What looked like sunlight gleamed in from the ceiling, although the lack of heat coming from the overly bright light gave away its non-sun status.

“Great,” UZ said to nobody in particular. “I’m caught in a giant indoor carnival attraction.” Obviously not able to do the classic “Keep your left hand on the wall until you hit the exit” strategy, UZ instead decided to, as he might say, “play it by ear.”

Wandering from corner to corner, UZ’s eyes began to notice that the farther he went into the labyrinth, the darker the area got. Looking up quickly, UZ quickly noted that the ceiling of the dome was shifting to turn to nighttime, oddly faster than it would in a normal day. And, also noticeable, was the amount of random noises coming from each tunnel of hedges. Sounds of animals UZ had heard of, and several he couldn’t even come close to identifying were ringing in his ears by the time he had rounded what, judging by the ceiling’s placement, was the mazes halfway point.

UZ seems too readily able to deduce things about the maze as soon as he enters--this ruins the illusion that he's still outside, and takes away your ability to play on the whole panicky "lost in a maze" idea. He seems too omniscient. As soon as he walks in, he immediately can tell the light is not sunlight, and that the garden-looking area he's in is a maze, despite the fact that, slithering around as I imagine he does, it would be quite difficult for him to see all this. The tall hedges should be looming up like buildings, throwing off his sense of direction and ability to see far out along the maze. While the way you have it isn't bad, I think it would make the piece more interesting (and just about as realistic/relatable as this could be) if UZ made these discoveries a bit more slowly.

...I hope that made sense. ^^;; Let me know if it didn't and I'll try to explain better.

While there might have been an arrow on the sign pointing the way at one point, the obvious wear and tear on the wood had left it neigh unreadable.

The bolded word should be "nigh". "Neigh" is for horses. ;P

Confusing sentence here:

The level of unholy noises coming from the darkness were almost to the point of being unbearable by this time, and UZ was almost ready to snap before, just as suddenly as it showed up, it stopped entirely.

Firstly, what is "it" referring to in this sentence? Read this whole sentence aloud--see if you can see what's wrong with it. It feels as if something has been left/taken out, and it reads awkwardly.

And that's all the issues I'll point out for now. Once you've fixed up what I've told you to, I'll give you a new lesson, and assign you to one of my characters for teaching.

[UZ!]

All righty. Fixed up the small typo and the punctuation errors. (Man, you can tell it had been 5 months since I had written something, huh?) I also replaced the word "it" with "they" in the bad sentence there. Hopefull that should make it more clear I was refering to the noises.

Anyway, did you want me to actually rewrite those first three paragraphs? Or will me saying "I have learned my lesson and will not do it again, teacher" suffice?

[Altamira]

For now, we'll let it go. I just hope to see you remember that lesson for future assignments. ;P Also, I've decided to teach you with my character Cadenza Madrigal, since you seem ready to focus more on stylistic areas of writing.

Here's your next assignment:

Here we're going to focus on perception--and one of UZ's weaknesses. Have UZ go through the hole he found at the end of the maze and proceed down a dimly-lit, narrow tunnel covered in lichen and moss. Describe his thoughts and what he sees as he travels through this passageway. Upon reaching the end, he'll discover that he's at a dead end with no doorways or other means of exit--and he'll have to retrace his steps to find some other way out that's been obscured by the lichen. As soon as he moves again to turn back, however, the two walls of the tunnel will sprout needles that will grow closer and closer to him with each passing second. Have UZ eventually swallow his fear well enough that he can find a way out--or, have him pass out, and wake up in a nurse's station. Either way, have an elf greet him when he escapes/wakes up. No word minimum, but remember what I told you before. ;]

[UZ!]

(OOC: See? I only went TWO months between posts this time! At this rate, I'll be down to a post a day in no time. Also: 561 words, not bad.)

“Well, it’s dark, I can tell that.” UZ really couldn’t see much else in terms of detail inside that gaping hole at the end of the oversized hedge maze he just finished exploring. With nowhere else to go, however, he had nothing to do but enter. Crawling in a slow straight manner, UZ couldn’t tell how large the hole was, and was certain that the only way this could end was with him slamming into a wall. “This must be one of those situations where hands come in handy,” he mumbled to himself. He had hardly gotten the word “handy” out before his prediction came true. With a resounding THUD, UZ found 2 straight inches of a stone ledge wedged into his head.

“Ow.” Not the least bit comfortable, UZ pulled his head out of the ledge and began to poke around. With a small 3 foot stretch up, (followed by his head slamming against the ceiling) UZ determined that the ‘ledge’ that he had smacked into was more of a low hanging wall. “God, there must only be a few feet of clearance here…” he mumbled. Shrinking down into his hole, he slinked beneath the wall. Still fairly dark, a faint glow was emitting from ahead of him. It looked like glow in the dark paint had been splattered on the wall in various chunks.

After 2 minutes of trudging closer to the glow, (as well as hitting his head on the ceiling more times then he’d care to admit) UZ felt something non-ceiling-like scrape across his head. “Odd. That didn’t feel like rock at all. The hell is on my head?” Being unable to scrape it off due to his unfortunate lack of appendages, he simply slammed his head onto the nearest side wall trying to get it off. A few dizzy spells later, his efforts yielded a small bit of mossy substance from his head to the wall. After a small rest to get his brain back in sync, UZ checked it out. “This must be why the walls are glowing, this moss is bioluminescent.” Onward he went, staying even lower in his hole to avoid touching the lichen.

The tunnel proved to be only a few hundred more feet long before hitting a dead end. The tunnel was covered in layer upon layer of the moss, and he couldn’t break through it. “If there is something on the other side of this tunnel, I don’t think I’ll be seeing what it is…” UZ couldn’t come up with any bright ideas, minus attempting to burn down all the moss. As he turned around to get back to a wider area, he felt an omniscient presence behind him. It was a metallic noise, almost like a sword sticking itself through the wall. Turning his head, he saw a large needle extending a few inches from the side of the tunnel. “Oh… crap.” Within seconds, more needles began shooting out of the wall in jagged and frightening manner. Within seconds, fear overtook UZ, and he fainted.

When UZ woke up, he was in a plain stone-walled room covered in green vines. His head was propped up against a pillow-like wall, and a lone elf was sitting in the room with him. The elf, hearing the rustling of UZ awakening, turned his head and spoke. “Good evening, sir. How are you?”