Title: At home in the Unknown
Author: Phantom M
Status: Public
Word Count: 1738 words

-{Author's notes}-
This is a reboot to my first attempt in fleshing my character's debut.
I took Raven's advice and did a revised version of it!
Thanks Raven!

[{-[Editor's Notes]-}]
~Sunday, 23 November 2014 +8 GMT~
1st attempt to revise punctuation and paragraphing.

~Sunday, 30 November 2014 +8 GMT~
2nd attempt to revise punctuation and paragraphing.
Proofread and edit with the help of OrcishLibrarian.

____________________________________________________________







Drowning in a whirlpool of wailing echoes, Morique felt a rusty hook tugging at her core. She was unable to move her body except for her neck, she looked down to see a five feet apparatus stabbed through her abdomen.

The repulsive shaft adorned with slimy eyeballs surveyed their surrounding frantically, oozing dark pungent liquid from every non-existing pore.

As if they could sense Morique's consciousness, the eyeballs fixed their gaze upon her in unison. They glared with the dark intent of fleshgrafters who had found their perfect cadaver.

The plant mage felt bile rising to her throat, her heart rate accelerated to an audible pulse, teeth chattering involuntarily.

An unearthly whisper muddled by the disorienting waves spiralled toward her. She knows not of what they spoke, nevertheless it calmed her nerves.

The voices came from all directions in a multitude of layers, she could even identify her own voice from the collective.

It took her a good while before she could perceive the out notion of the collective. They were not of a language she knew, thoughts were forced into her mind with immense pressure, threatening to tear her mind asunder.

"Wel...come....home...."

She made out the three syllables at the end of the whispers before her world went dark once again.





Awakened from the strangest dream she had, Morique found herself docked upon the shore of an ominous island.

Sitting up on the bottom board of the boat, she nearly shoved her face into a scimitar, once again fear gripped her by the throat. Half a dozen scurvy pirates with appearance matching their breath fixed their stares on her in complete silence.

The moonlight only added to the horror weighing upon her chest.

"RraaaAH!" the one with a blade to her face yelled, throwing Morique onto the bottom board.

She scuttled into a fetal as the familiar sensation overtook her once again.

The pirate chuckled, relishing in the exercise of power over the weak. Another pattern which Morique saw in the behavior of men, they crave dominance.

"Oww look ye scared the maiden her to grave!" the man to his left growled. He smacked his pal on the back playfully, putting up a chivalrous front as he gave his best smile.

"Aye mate, don't overdo it! Cap'n would be mad as a scrook if ye were to scar a' lady!" a man at the back shouted.

Morique looked around for her vines, they were missing. Those potted companions of hers were her only source of protection if ever a fight would ensue. She bit her lips and blamed herself for being careless, for not securing the pots to the boat before setting sail.

It all seemed too late, for whatever the pirates had in stall for her, would cause her great misery. She would once again be a tool, at the command of a greater authority, no different from her life back in the civilized world.

The pirates chattered as the scimitar wielding scum dragged her off the boat. She could feel her forearm bruising from the vice grip as she stumbled to her feet. A physical struggle against these six well build men was not an option.

She was aware of men's temptation with lust, but one thing she knew for certain was her repulsive appearance. Unlike the other children back in Aucanfall, Morique never had anyone approaching her with a blushed confession.

On any other occasion Morique would grimace at her lack of attractiveness, but in her current situation, it was a very well her best defense from violation.

"Dead or not, our boss will be cutting her throat anyway" her captor grumbled as they traversed into the woods.

Morique's eyes widened, her fate was not that of a slave to power, but death. She refused to die, it was not her purpose for setting sail and leaving that wretched hypocrite of a civilization behind!

'My dreams...! No... There is so much I want to know beyond the confinement of that meaningless regime!.. I promised a new home to my dear plants, what will they do without me!?... I can't die here! Not now!' her inner voice screamed.

The absence of leaves on the trees and their unnatural shapes soothed Morique's panic. For the first time she had laid eyes upon the beauty of death, these trees embodied her fascination with life's entropy.

"If today I must shed blood to preserve my own, then I shall, gladly" she muttered silently.

A jerk on her arm nearly dislocated her elbow, she felt a numbing sensation followed by sharp pain as she walked into the filthy crook before her. The sudden stillness in the group harmonized with the dead of the night.

"What was that?" one of the men asked, a clear mask of bravado over his fear.

Morique did not hear anything, not until it happened again, a slither rustling the forest floor was getting closer to the group, snakes perhaps. She smiled darkly to herself, 'snakes?' she thought, 'no'.

A soft screech for vengeance could be heard by none but her, followed by the terrified screams from one of the pirates, then another.

In a matter of seconds, hideous sounds of crunched bones and shredding flesh radiated from the sides of the formation.

The remaining pirates stared at each other, their exchanging glances confirmed their worse fears. The natural inhabitants of this island are prowling once again.

"I told y'all we shouldn't be out at-!" vines lashed out at the men by their necks and dragged them into the dark for a bloody feast, leaving the scimitar wielding pirate with Morique.

Morique felt relief as her fear was transferred into her captors, and now their collective fear had compounded into that one scum before her.

He turned around to smack her across the face, rendering Morique dazed from the impact. Before she knew it, she was held before the man like a meat shield, ready to be sacrificed to the darkness when the vines make their next grab.

Five thick vines shot out at Morique, the plant mage broke out a hearty smile as the vines brushed pass her.

They stroked her hair and wrapped themselves around the neck, arms and legs of the man, in an instant. The vines broke his bones starting with his neck, loosening his grip on Morique.

She dusted her grey tunic and black skirt, as the vines carried the dead man over her head and into the darkness, delighted chewing soon followed.

"You came back for me" she smiled, taking gleeful steps into the dark. Before her stood her fully grown carnivorous plants, the size of large fountains at the square in Aucanfall. She petted both of them on their heads as they gnawed on the bones of her captors.


Her rejoice was interrupted by an influx of knowledge not unlike the voices in her recent dream, upon contact with her plants, she took a dive into their memory.

During her sleep on the aimless journey, the skies stretched a blanket of overcast in her direction. Despite all visible signs of a storm, there was an unnatural lack of wind and thunder.

On both physical and mental plane, Morique traversed into a territory not of her reality. A twist of madness and the unspeakable overtook her surrounding distorting the barrier between physical and mental.

Morique remembered the creepy voices in that dream, simultaneously keeping her in the state of sanity and insanity. There was an ancient being or entity taking an interest in her presence, it had spoken to her, and welcomed her.

Stranded on a rocking boat in the midst of the sea, a group of large sea snakes came to her aid as she laid dormant. These snakes seem to be under the command of the voice which guided her ashore.

The information she could acquire from her friends was enough to send a surge of power through every pore on her body, rendering her skin sickly grey, it took a toll on her frail body but her mind was able to withstand the pressure.

Her hair went from brown to a dark shade of green, dark circles around her eyes worsened. Her vision enhanced as she now sees with a tinge of green through snake-like eyes.

"Why me?..." she muttered, her voice coated with a sickly rasp.





"Silly girl, plants do not feel pain"

Morique repeated the words of the townsfolk back in Aucanfall, the act of uttering such treacherous words left a bitter aftertaste upon her tongue.

Since sunrise Morique had stood before the horizon at the outskirts of Aucanfall, the plant mage took comfort in the absence of other humans, with only the crashing waves and a couple of potted plants to keep her company. Her only hope of leaving behind the prideful cesspool was a ragged boat secured to the shore by a weathered rope.

"Twenty years I spent putting up with the lords... No more"

She severed the weakened rope with the help of her vines, freeing the boat from its leash. Without hesitation, she strode barefooted into the waters. She struggled to keep hold of the boat from the waves with a scrawny arm, while she carefully placed her pots on the bottom board before climbing aboard.

With only her vines to steer the boat, she laid down and fix her gaze upon the cloudy skies. Morique cringed as she felt a familiar sense of indifference from the infinite stretch of heavenly fluffs, it reminded her of the upperclass' attitude toward the commoners.

"I would rather forsake peace... than to be a mere name on their bureaucratic grimoire!"

Those were the last words she uttered at her confused parents. They echoed in her subconscious as she slipped into a gradual slumber.





With her abilities augmented, she tried to strengthen her plants with thorns and venomous spit, the results were instant.

She felt the presence of the sea snakes, which now appeared clear to her that they were leviathans in their infancy, their voices and thoughts were linked to hers. Morique grinned a sickening grin.

Whatever it was that bestowed power upon her needed steward for its territory, preferably a misanthropic naturalist like herself.

"Now, to clear this island of its pest.." she whispered.

She stepped into the shadowy thicket barefoot as her companions crawled after eagerly.

"There is so much to learn about our existence... and The Ninth Depths...".

I find it supremely difficult to read this story because of all the run-on sentences. Sometimes you use a comma where a full stop would be more appropriate. Sometimes you're missing a comma where there should be one. In addition, you should consider more line breaks to make the pacing of your story flow better.

Here's the first segment rewritten with edited formatting:

Hello again CKY!

I've inserted spacing and paragraphing to my story, hopefully it's better now!
Please let me know if there is any other writer's mistakes!

Also, do let me know what you think about the reboot!

Hey, Phantom, just wanted to let you know that I'll read this as time allows, but it might not be for a couple of days. I'm pretty swamped right now between grading and my own writing, but I will get to this when I can.

Thanks for posting.

No problem Raven! Your help is most appreciated!

Okay, I have read this. There are specifics I might try to get to at some point in the future, but for now, I'll give my basic reactions. First and foremost, this is, in my opinion, much better than the original draft. This is what I would consider a story. It still has flaws, of course, and I think it could be a better story, but this is a huge improvement over the first draft.

CKY has a point about the run-ons. There are a number of comma splices, especially early on. That goes away a bit later in the story, but you want to make sure you separate out complete clauses.

I think your third section is by far your strongest. It's the section that tells a story from start to finish, has conflict and consequence, and has several nice little characterization moments with Morique, where you are showing us things about her. I especially like when she curls up in the fetal position in fear (though I'm not sure you actually want to call it that.) Still, that was a great little moment for her that told us something. There is still a lot of improvement that can be made, even with that section, but I enjoyed it.

Your first section, on the other hand, still reads as very flat to me. Keep in mind that, as Morique's intro story, that first section is quite literally the first thing people are going to see of your character. In that time, you need to subtly convey some of her key traits, but more importantly, you need to give your readers a reason to be interested in what happens to her. By starting off with this little moment of her sitting by the shore waiting to head out, then just sort of doing it, you provide no real point of interest.

There are two possible ways to fix this (well, probably a lot more than two, but two I'll mention.) The first is to frame this as basically two narratives tied into one, her struggle with society and her ultimate decision to leave it, and then the struggle with the pirates. The other option it to use the technique of In Medias Res, and start in the middle, then flash back. Perhaps by starting her off in the boat, lost at sea, you might hook your reader earlier. Or, you can start her off captured by the pirates, then show us how it happened in a series of flashbacks. As it is, though, the readers are even less connected to her home than she is. (Incidentally, I like Aucanfall MUCH better as a town name than the original.)

The dream sequence is fine, but I found myself confused by how much was supposed to be metaphor, how much literal, and how much just dream stuff. Dream sequences are tricky to pull off in general, and while this one isn't bad, I feel it could be strengthened.

I'm still not buying Morique's ness, and I think that is where a more developed first section would really do you some good. Remember that in Magic, color philosophy is more than just the types of spells used. I'd like to see a hint early on that she has a facet of blue's philosophy.

But like I said, I really think you're moving in the right direction with this! Good work!

Hey Raven! Thanks for the review once again!

About the idea of hooking my readers, I agree that the second section has more suspense to it. My solution... I suppose I could shift the first section to the point where she undergoes her transformation, as you said, serving as a flashback to why she made the journey.

Regarding the dream sequence, I suppose that's the charm of it, it's a surreal blend

Oh! About the , I'll try to incorporate it in future chapters. As per mentioned in the dossier, she'll be able to command fishes and other smaller marine creatures (Jellyfishes, crabs, squids).

Thanks again!

Howdy, Phantom M, and welcome!

First off, thanks for taking the time to post and share your story!

I didn't comment on your original draft of this piece, but I want to second Raven in saying that this version feels like a big improvement. I think Morique has the potential to be a very interesting character, and I'd be happy to see you keep working on her.

I also want to second Raven in saying that there are some ways to continue to make this piece better. Raven and CKY already offered some good suggestions, so I don't want to spend too much time rehashing things they have already said. Instead, I want to offer a couple of pieces of feedback. Some of them are pretty general, and some of them are a little more specific.

On the general end, I would encourage you to give this piece a good, thorough proofread, and to pay close attention to things like verb tense, subject/verb agreement, pronoun use, and word choice. Editing is the less-fun sibling of writing, but it is every bit as important, because good editing is what gives your creativity the chance to shine. Right now, this piece is just tough to read in places, because the language isn't always doing what you want it to do. A good editing pass will help to clean that up, and will allow your readers to focus fully on your story.

For example, here's an example of pronoun use which is causing some trouble:


Now, given the larger context of the story, I was able to figure out that the "it" at the end of the sentence is the boat. But, the way the sentence is structured, it reads like the "it" is referring to the rope, since that is the object in the first part of the sentence, and the boat hasn't been mentioned yet in this graf. This is a case where saying "the boat" instead of "it" would make the sentence a lot easier to understand.

Here's an example where verb tense tripped me up:


Notice how, in the first graf here, we're in the past tense: "looked," "bit," "blamed," etc.

Then, as the second graf begins, we're in present tense: "It all seems too late..." and "whatever the pirates have..."

Now, in the third graf, we're back to past tense: "chattered," "dragged."

Jumping from tense to tense like that ends up being very disorienting. Since the story is mostly written in past tense, I'd say to keep an eye out for places where you're using the present tense. Unless there's a clear reason for each instance of present tense -- it's in a quote, it's referring to what a character is thinking, etc. -- I'd suggest staying in the past tense.

For one last example, here's a case where word choice is causing a problem:


I'm almost positive that you meant to say "syllables" here, rather than "syllabus." This is the sort of case where a couple extra proofreads will do a world of good. Things like spellcheck and autocorrect are technological marvels, but they just try to guess the word you intended to write -- they can't tell if it makes sense in the context of the sentence. Your eyes and ears are much better at that than the computer is. So, edit, edit, and edit, and you'll catch these sorts of issues.

The next piece of general advice I'd give is to just really focus on sentence construction. As Raven and CKY pointed out, there are a lot of instances in the story -- especially near the beginning -- where clauses are just spliced together with commas, when what they really need is a conjunction to hook them together, or when they would actually be better off as separate sentences. Again, just to pick one example:



Essentially, you have two different sentences here:

"Drowning in a whirlpool of wailing echoes, Morique felt a rusty hook tugging at her core."

-and-

"Unable to move her body except for her neck, she looked down to see a five feet apparatus stabbed through her abdomen."

Those are full sentences, and a comma just isn't strong enough to hold them together.

There are a couple ways you can work with a situation like this. For example, you can use a stronger piece of punctuation:

"Drowning in a whirlpool of wailing echoes, Morique felt a rusty hook tugging at her core; unable to move her body except for her neck, she looked down to see a five feet apparatus stabbed through her abdomen."

Or you can just break the sentence apart into two, separate sentences. In this particular instance, that's what I think I would do:

"Drowning in a whirlpool of wailing echoes, Morique felt a rusty hook tugging at her core. She was unable to move her body except for her neck, and she looked down to see a five feet apparatus stabbed through her abdomen."

Speaking purely for myself, a mental exercise I find *invaluable* when a sentence is starting to get away from me is to focus like a laser on the simplest possible sentence structure: noun, verb, object. I force myself to just write like that: Noun, verb, object, period. Noun, verb, object, period. It's a very simple, pedestrian kind of prose, but the great thing about it is that it *works.* I never get into trouble when I write noun, verb, object, period.

Once I have my thoughts broken out like that, I can go back, and re-read them, and try to rephrase them and join them together into more complex forms, with the knowledge that I'm working from a foundation which is clear and understandable. It sounds drab and unexciting, but, in my experience, it works miracles in those cases where a sentence or a graf has become so complicated that it is too hard to follow.

Anyway, hopefully that gives you a couple of ideas for ways you can refine this piece. And the reason that I'm offering all this feedback is because I think you have the potential for a really good story here, and I want to see you continue to develop this idea, and to make it better.

Thanks again for posting, and for sharing your story!

Orc! That's quite the comprehensive review!

I've made changes accordingly.

Thanks!