One Coin Quest

[K-Zu-Ziro]

(OOC: totes closed to me only! i.e. an mad solo)

Upon a desk pushed against the wet moss of a stone block wall sat the severed head of a Radasanthian human. The frayed skin of his neck touched the gnarled wood, it was circled in a crust of stale claret seeping from the fatal wound. The eye sockets were empty, the rims had began to contract against the skull causing them to wrinkle. A blunt bash had opened the skull from above, the organ inside had been sucked out. Orange flickered from a single candle set on the edge of the desk, illuminating the gruesome scene.

K-Zu-Ziro snapped a pincer across the fatty wrist of a dismembered arm. Serrated edges lining either side of the pincer held the limb firm. The Child of the Black Tree God held the chunky bicep to the heat of its scissoring mandibles. The flesh quickly charred before giving up its precious juice; fat dripped into a re-purposed tin can place below. K-Zu-Ziro was, once again, brewing the Butter of Hosto.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

“I've become numb to this, I suppose.” complained Mux Drink in an echo that could only be heard in the cavern of K-Zu-Ziro's mind. This was the voice of one of its first victims; a human diplomat whose brain the insectoid requisitioned and transplanted into the cavity next to its own brain. Now, the creature telepathically dominates Mux Drik in order to subdue the horror of his prison. “Having said that, some of the things I did as a politician were just as reprehensible.” K-Zu-Ziro, able to communicate with Drik inside their shared mental space, did not apologise. “T-Zu-Hosto, my parent, will free the world of conflict if we succeed.” While the insectoid's subduing of Drik's distress was absolute, the create did not caress Mux's valuable opinion, "Slavery and peace are not the same thing, Ziro!"

[K-Zu-Ziro]

An adequate amount of fat had rendered and collected inside the rusted container. To add to the brew K-Zu-Ziro snapped off a chunk of meat from the remnants of the corpse sitting in its lap. Gently squeezing the lump of flesh over the mixture caused three drops of the deceased's blood to fall into the mix. Anticipating satisfaction, mucus oozed from the insectoid's mandibles, just a dab of its own saliva was to complete the concoction. The can sat awkwardly between its pincers when lifted, nevertheless the creature had grown adept at drinking its warm drink from the makeshift mug.

This mixture—the Butter of Hosto—served an important purpose: it induced a period of hibernation. Regular periods of dormancy were required to allow for regeneration in K-Zu-Ziro's species. As a genderless drone, it had the luxury of not having to generate reproductive materials whilst sleeping.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

A rodentine fellow, rotund to the verge of a spheredom, waddled out of the shadows. His little pink paws pattered on the dank stone slabs, their rough surface left the skin of his feet red raw. Once at the insect's desk, he peered up watched K-Zu-Ziro slobber over the final drips of its grisly soup. It was Digsy, the Hostian boy charged with accompanying the nation's first scout. His precious nose twitched frenetically at the smell of death, this scent he knew meant one thing: his master was going to be hibernating. As such, he would be free to do something fun. Something in the light of day!

“Going to sleep for a while?” the diminutive rat boy asked aloud.

“For three nights only.” the giant insect gently spoon fed its thoughts into Digsy's receptive mind with a serenity impossible of the spoken word.

In a declaration whistled through his considerable incisors, Digsy said, “Well in that case I'll be off out, maybe I can steal a treat from one of the market stalls! Hehehe!”

[K-Zu-Ziro]

The trio's hideout was a disused water treatment plant outside Radasanth. Sandstone blocks carved in yesteryear's heyday made for a weathered look as many years later. The soft nature of the stone had allowed for every manner of vegetation to lock root in the structure. Primarily amongst the greens: moss and ivy. It was only one storey in the strictest sense, the plant had only one floor. In spite of that, the building peaked at thirty feet so as to contain colossal sludge vats. Beneath the main floor, there were plunge pools that bordered the small lake on which the building had been placed.

Digsy's fur felt the weight of a coat of rancid water by the time he clambered out of an exhaust tunnel at the edge the adjacent lake. After shaking himself dry, ish, he licked his front paws and wiped down his face. Today was market day and no time was to be wasted, he scampered along the muddy trail towards town. “Maybe they'll be roasting hocks—ham hocks, deer hocks, maybe chicken feet… or something!” the boy was giddy at the thought of a savoury snack.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

A long shadow mocked Digsy on behalf of the flighty sun, in the time it had taken him to make it into town the best hours of the day had passed him by. Cursing the sky itself could not bring back the lost time, while he knew it he protested nonetheless, “Fucking shit. Fucking shit. All the food is going to be OLLLLDDDDDDD. But at least I'm here!!!” Despite finding himself at the tail end of a tiring afternoon, he felt energised to have reached his destination.

Amongst busy legs, romping up and down the city streets, he went along fairly anonymously. At his height he observed a broad range of boots, shoes, hosiery, pantaloons and patterns. While the fashion sense of the city entertained his foreign tastes, his foreign lungs were assaulted by the rising dust whipped up by the most chaotic of marches. Claiming to be three feet tall for him was a stretch. It was also a stretch to see what was laid out at the food stalls he was perusing. While his vertical range failed him, his sense of smell did not—using this acute sense he was able to sniff out exactly what he wanted. The scent of pork turned his saliva glands into veritable waterfalls of impatience; though reminiscent of the smell of cooking human flesh he had recently fled, Digsy had learned to spot the difference between porcine and hominid meat.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

In his rush to navigate the busy streets of market day, his goal the delicious pork vendor, Digsy invaded the floral flow of lady's pretty dress. Stood firmly between her stout thighs, he was instantly frustrated by the smell. The scent of the meat he desired was flushed from his naval cavity and replaced by the dainty fragrance the lady was wearing. His paws were instantly a blurring fury, battling the fabric as though it were a mortal enemy. Eventually the pleats parted and he could escape. And just as he escaped, he felt the firm kick of the lady's pointed boot in his sensitive abdomen. “Urgh.” the rat boy flew through the air and into a thin beam, it felt cold and metallic.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

“Ha! Mind yourself, kiddo!” a toughened baritone, muffled by a food ridden handlebar moustache, pointed down at Digsy. The sentient rodent slid, comically, down the metal bar and hit the cobbled floor with a dull thud. “Looks like you're having a rough day, rattie!” it was the owner of the pork stall. “I watched you come running over here from down the street. That's quite the compliment for our food, I'll tell you what!” Digsy straightened his whiskers and said, “Yesss! I'm so hungry, boss!” the stall owner found the whistle to Digsy's words adorable. Dirt filled the creases in the owner's right hand, the hand he used to pluck a well roasted ham hock from the rack, “there you go, fella!” Digsy clasped the hunk of meat dearly, but his head drooped, “Sir, I don't have any money to pay for this.” his words were flushed with a melancholy resignation more akin to the mourning of the dead. “Ah, hmm!” before Digsy could look up again he saw the flash of a single gold coin enter his field of vision, “take this too. And be gone before you leave me bankrupt!”

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Ham juices greased Digsy's whiskers to a glisten while the sun sank into its tangerine twilight. While taking another hulking, dripping, tasty bite of the ham hock Digsy's mind felt free to wander, “That man was so nice.” Even though the dusty soil of the walk home worked its way into the cuts in his feet, the joy of his snack eclipsed the pain wholly. “I really could never have imagined that a human would help out a Hostian like that.” His mousy brow bore his confusion, “I really hope Ziro doesn't eat him or any of his friends or family. I've never felt that way about a human before, huh.”

K-Zu-Ziro took up residence on the periphery of the city to take advantage of the bulging population. Compared to the world's other nations, Corone had a less oppressive government which in turn gave the insectoid the ability to prey on the herd with a degree of liberty. Digsy had thought it acceptable because they were not Hostians. After all, their mission was for the best of Hostoland and their living god, T-Zu-Hosto. Digsy decided that it was out of his control and simply to hope for the best for his new friend.

[K-Zu-Ziro]

Digsy clawed his way up the leg and to the top of his master's desk to sit next to the grim remnants of the dead man's decomposing head, “Sorry you had to die, man. I really am.” he wondered if his sympathy would carry through to be heard on the other side of the nether. He also wondered if K-Zu-Ziro could hear him even though it was hibernating on a bed of hay in the distant corner of the room, the creature's dull exoskeleton merged into the shadows. It was then that Digsy realised how it was for the humans when they were taken, suddenly from the darkness … he felt the chilling hand of death on his shoulder.

Shaking off the willies, he pawed at the coin with earnest, thumbing the dirt away so he could gorge on the whimsy of a foreign coin. First he noticed the ring of text close to the rim of the of the coin, it was foreign to him. At the centre of one side of the coin was the profile of a man. Again, the significance of the figure was lost on him. Little did he know, it was Santhalas. The other side of the coin had a flower centred in an ornate wreath. The species was, unsurprisingly, lost on him. Most impressively, he thought, were the convenient ridges lining the edge of the coin to reduce the chance of it slipping from the holder's grasp. Digsy sat the coin next to the lifeless head. His logic for placing it there was that it would be a spot that K-Zu-Ziro would notice it. It had been a long day and night had crept up on him. Digsy pulled some hay from the bail in the corner of the room and fluffed it into a makeshift bed before sailing away with the mixers for an evening of delightful dreams.

(OOC: all I want from this solo is one single coin so i'm over 200 and can enter the upcoming tournament!)

[Rayleigh]

Thread Title: One Coin Quest (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?29746-One-Coin-Quest)
Judgement Type: Basic
Participant(s): K-Zu-Ziro

Good evening! I'm Rayleigh, and I had the pleasure of reading and judging this fun little story.

Strengths

First, let me compliment you on that opening. I was always encouraged to use a "hook" when I start a story, to really grab my reader's attention, and you did an excellent job of this. Not only was there a severed head sitting on a desk, there was a very well written severed head sitting on a desk. You use just the perfect amount of detail to help the reader picture this head; the way the skin met the wood, the way the skull peaked through, the results of the blow that led to this poor soul's demise. It was all delightfully macabre. For me, the nonchalance with which you described the scene was the absolute best part. You set the scene without providing too much flourish, and as I mentioned, you use no more detail than necessary. Too often, writers bog down their readers with too much description, but you manage to avoid falling into that trap (I'll expand on this below). This was an excellent start to your story, and it left me wondering why there was a head on a table. You can bet I kept reading.

As I mentioned above, your level of description really was one of your strengths here. For such a short, straight-forward story, any more description would have slowed down the pacing and distracted the reader, rather than helping to paint a clearer picture. But I also want to dedicate an entire portion of the "strengths" category to the specific techniques that you used. Yourwriting was clean, crisp, and incredibly easy to follow. You threw in beautiful a handful of really beautiful lines, such as this gem from post six: "the scent of pork turned his saliva glands into veritable waterfalls of impatience." It was simple, wonderful, and an excellent visual that really drove your point home. While I think that you could perhaps use even more technique in a longer thread, what you did here worked.

I also really wanted to commend you on how well you wrote your very unusual characters. In their movements, their words, even their thoughts, I could tell what each character was supposed to be. You didn't write your insectoid or your rat as a human being, which is another error that many writers encounter. You did not write about a figure who sounded totally human except for the couple of references to his antenna that you threw in haphazardly. You went for it, and you were successful. Great job.

Finally, I wanted to point out your clean mechanics. Except for a couple of questionable capitalization decisions, and a matter I'll discuss in a moment, your piece was error-free. Well done. I know that this is a fourth strength, and that I'm breaking the rules, but that had to be said.


Weaknesses

In general, your story felt a bit lacking. I know that it was meant to be short, as you made it pretty clear that it was a quick way to pick up a bit of gold. But putting all of that aside, I think that there are ways you could have beefed this up a bit more. As I noted above, your description was nice, so I'm not encouraging you to start writing pages and pages of Victor Hugo-esque description. Rather, a bit more action, a bit more dialogue, could have made your story feel a bit more complete. Digsy was so excited to go out in public, but his adventure seemed pretty rushed. Maybe you could have added another poor interaction with a human to make the butcher's kindness stand out even more. Or a bit more conversation between Digsy and K-Zu-Ziro (that was an interesting dynamic just begging to be played out). Again, I know you were rushing through this a bit, but there was so much more you could have done to improve your story.

Along the same line, there were some questions that went unanswered. I felt that you did not provide enough backstory on your very interesting characters. Mux Drink, for example, only received a sentence or two of very vague explanation. But he is a seriously unique character! This felt a bit like an episode in the middle of a television series, and I was looking for that "previously on" bit, but I could not find it. Even in a short piece like this, you really need to provide a bit more explanation as to what your characters are. It will make everything that they do more powerful, because I won't still be trying to figure out how they got to be how they are.

Finally, and this is a small technical error, you had some wonky things going on with your dialogue. Sometimes, you used a new line for new speakers, but that did not seem constant. For example, in post two, you have two characters chatting. This may have been a style choice, as they're technically the same entity, but I was so confused as to who was speaking. I re-read that post multiple times, and I'm still not entirely confident. It really affected overall clarity, your storyline, and your characters. Just something to keep in mind!

For what it was, this was an enjoyable read. I really look forward to reading your future stories! I threw in a bit of extra GP for you, because that's what you were after all along, right?

K-Zu-Ziro receives 200 EXP and 50 GP!

[Hysteria]

GP and exp added!