Waltzing With Death

The story is too long to post in a forum topic, but you can read it on the document (it has much better formatting anyway)

@Freddy_Fazguy has drawn several pieces of artwork to accompany the writing, and you’ll see them as you read! He is a very talented artist, and I can’t recommend enough that you check out more of his work on the forums.

I am very open to all constructive criticism, whether it be how a certain sentence flows, or a critical flaw inherent to the plot, no critique is too small or too big for me to make note of, so don’t be afraid to tell the truth.

In this particular story, I experimented a lot with mid-fight banter, internal monologues, and synergizing the characters’ abilities with the environment around them. It was wonderful fun to write, and I’ve certainly learned a lot through it, but I’ll always be open to learning more.

In-game Characters

Benjamin Brooks, the Brawling Blur
BenjaminBrooks1


Architect Merlot, the Waltz of Death

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@ImaLettuce @WarmWater @Cryonical @BNTarwarn @BlueYonder I hope this isn’t pinging too many people, this is my debut story on the forums and I was wondering if any of you would be interested in reading it. I’ve never written about Arcane Odyssey before, but I felt inspired to show Architect Merlot some love, since from what I’ve seen a lot of people view him as pathetic. I can’t exactly blame them, due to all the cheesing methods present early into release giving Merlot a pretty lame first impression, but I think he’s a pretty cool NPC.

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Wow, you’ve practically wrote a whole book!
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This is going to be a long read

Real men look at “1/6341 pages” and read the entire thing out of sheer spite for the length :speaking_head: :fire: :100:

You’re a real one for taking up the challenge

Yep, I’ll update you when I read through the whole thing

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Wowwwwwwww, this whole story is absolutely incredible. I especially love how it ends.

I love how you incorporated a morale into it after all the fighting, that no reward is greater than experiencing what there is to see in this beautiful life.

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This was an absolute master piece of writing I had the privilege of enjoying. It felt like I was watching a sculptor carve a delicate monument of marble from the sides of a mountain. Each moment of their fight had me on the edge of my seat, eager for the next step of the waltz between Benjamin and Merlot. Beyond that, you were able to seamlessly transition between each battleground, from the lake to cliffs, to caves, to his armory. This constant roulette of places ensures that the story never gets too caught up in a singular pace, drawing us into the unpredictability of fighting Merlot. We are fighting along side Benjamin here, constantly shifting locations to dodge the overwhelming presence of the Architect.

And can we talk about the personality of Merlot in this rendition as well? He’s just oozing with charismatic charm, comedic timing, and witty comments. It really makes you wish we had more work that portrayed him like this.


Critques:

Benjamin really hung on for dear life in this one. It did seem like he really had plot armor after surviving another ultimate snare when the first one made his entire life flash before his eyes but I suppose focus aura does do that to someone.

I suppose the cave portion isn’t too clear on the scale of the cave. It was a bit hard to follow with the depth of the lake since in one Benjamin was able to dive into and another Merlot was able to stand up in it. Might just be me on this one tho.


Endnotes:

Now you got me curious about the backstory behind Benjamin Brooks :slight_smile:

Might have to make a scene from this now. The images from @Freddy_Fazguy really got the imagination juices flowing.

Incredible job overall for your debut story!!

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BRO COOKED

BRO COOKED

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Hey I learned what the fox says

“Waltzing with death”

I’m about to tear up, thank you so much for your kind words! Your critique is also incredibly helpful, in the future I’ll keep it in mind while writing.

The banter was by far the most fun to write in this whole thing, and I’m super glad that other people enjoy it as well. The little dialog he has in-game gave me the vibe Merlot is a little pretentious about his job, and just very dramatic overall. And the mask he wears reminds me of those masks associated with theaters, idk the exact name for them. So I thought it’d be fun to write him as a witty theater kid who grew up and is now living his life to the fullest. I’d definitely love to make more characters reminiscent of how I wrote Merlot.

I completely get this, I pushed the boundaries of believability too far. In hindsight, there were a lot of things I justified in my mind with “Well, in-game, we regenerate our health extremely fast, and this fight is very long and dragged on, so it’s not unbelievable that their wounds would be healed enough in time to survive whatever the next big hit is.”

To prepare for the story, I actually got a full sunken iron set (probably not the exact armor Benjamin uses, but the defense increase is close enough) in-game to test what it’s like to fight with high health and Resistance Focus, and I do believe that–going off how things work in the game–Benjamin would have survived all the hits he took in this story. However, the problem is that I never conveyed that the characters’ regeneration speed is similar to how it is in-game. That’s because I honestly wasn’t sure if it was, I didn’t know how literally I was supposed to take the game mechanics, a bout of indecisiveness that ended up weakening the story overall.

It could also be that I overhyped the power of Merlot’s attack. Snare is a low-damage defensive move, and while it would still pack a heavy punch as an ultimate art (especially with the 3x level difference between Benjamin and Merlot), I think the first time he used it I made it out to be a bigger deal than it logically would be if it was a move Merlot really had in-game.

All this is stuff I’ll have to improve upon the next time I write. I’ll try to add more clarity regarding durability and health regen and all that. Thanks for bringing the issue closer to my attention!

I don’t remember Merlot standing in the water, I intended to make it so they were always standing on rocks, and when in the lake they had to swim. This is probably a misunderstanding, my descriptions must’ve gotten sloppy at some point and I didn’t realize it. But you’re right that I didn’t specify the exact size of the cave very well. In my mind, it’s a somewhat small cave horizontally, shaped mostly circularly. The water is fairly deep, but since all of the stone above the lake fell down, the rocks were large enough to stick out the water and be stood on, despite the lake’s depth.

I have a lot of other ongoing stories I have to finish writing, so I can’t say I’ll be able to come back to Benjamin soon, but when I do I want to write a character-focused story with little or no combat, better developing him and his motivations. Currently, the only thing fully set in stone is that he is a separate person from whoever AO’s protagonist is, and he probably never hears of the Order or gets involved with them at all, instead doing his own thing. I’m glad to hear you’re invested!

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:clap: glad to have beta read and made art of this mate, if you do plan on doing more stuff like this, ping me

Yeah, it was great working with you, thanks again so much for taking the time out of your day to help. I love the energy and tension in the art you made, my jaw honestly dropped when you sent them.

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We had a little discussion earlier today about benjamin’s backstory, and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff
specter told me he felt really underdeveloped as a character so i felped him with that by asking him questions and helping him get ideas

check out royal road btw
place to post series of books
also critque circle if you want to improve(only really short stories can be posted there tho)

only through first page and already better then most stuff i’ve read, even some novels.
really fine work, should be proud

one thing id say tho, is that you outward tell the reader a lot of info, when it could be better delivered through inferences

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Okay so I haven’t finished yet since it is a long read but here is what I have to say so far so that I don’t forget:

I really liked the descriptive wording used throughout the story as it gives the audience a more clearer perspective as to what is currently happening in the story. It’s the smaller details such as teeth chattering, wheezing, the constant reminder that Benjamin is freezing while bleeding to death, Merlot scraping his claws, they all really emphasize to the reader the care to detail you’ve written down. The implementation of artwork also helped a lot, but even without it I could still fully know what was occurring between the various actions happening during the story. The usage of italics for Benjamin’s inner thoughts was also pretty well done too. I also liked the fighting, as it can be quite difficult to write out a whole fight scene without the reader getting bored, but I did not feel that way when reading this. The method in which you conveyed Merlot is also pretty realistic as to how I would imagine his character to be in AO.

He rushes forth, spiraling with enough ferocity to quiver the hardened. What?! Benjamin’s eyes widen, and he twitches his limbs as if to adjust their positioning before he remembers he’s already in a battle-ready stance.

Merlot’s hurricane dash grabs snow off the peak, spiraling around him like an angelic aura of white and innocence, almost annoyingly elegant. He comes to an abrupt stop, flinging the icy powder out of his twister and onto Benjamin, covering him from head to toe.

So far I’ve found this to be a highlight in your writing abilities. I appreciate this section as it gives descriptive body movements, the shock that Benjamin is dealing with, and how Merlot is utilizing the environment around him for his attacks.

Critiques:

“I only say those names when I’m showing off to random kids on the streets.”

I know this was kinda addressed by Merlot by making fun of his attack names, but I found saying this felt a bit cringey in my opinion. This seems like a piece of dialogue that wouldn’t realistically be said in a battle such as this one. Even with Merlot and Benjamin making witty comments to each other during the entirety of the fight, this feels somewhat out of place.


As if on cue, the masked man comes into view, leaping off the cliff above, though much more gracefully than Benjamin’s fall.

I feel as though during this section, it could’ve been used to have a surprise factor in the story. Instead of telling that Merlot was on cue, you could have shown how Merlot shockingly appeared to Benjamin. By previously discussing how Benjamin is thinking that Merlot will come any second while also previously blacking out, I as a reader see that as an indicator that Merlot will already be here any moment. By having a surprise, it could heighten the suspense of Ben being tracked down. For example, instead of having Merlot drop down on cue, you could have Benjamin looking around his surroundings, then he realizes that Merlot appears behind him. Something like that.


Merlot crumples off the wall, his fedora flying with the wind to someplace where it will never be recovered.

This critique goes with some of the sentences written in the story, but the latter part of this sentence isn’t necessarily needed. We already know based off of the environment Benjamin and Merlot are fighting in that if a hat flies off that it won’t be recovered.


An Ultimate Art?! It ensnares Benjamin from behind, pulling him to the front where he’s stuck in place. His life flashes before his eyes. Countless liquid needles stab into him, piercing through his metal plate and digging into his flesh.

The life flashing before his eyes part isn’t really delved into, just seems to be unnecessarily placed there. I understand that Merlot’s attack did quite a blow, but the single sentence of, “His life flashed before his eyes” seems like a detail the tries to invoke emotion but doesn’t quite fit by how short it is. Basically, it seems like a transition that isn’t executed well as we directly go from attack, to life flashes before his eyes, then abruptly back to attack again.


There were also a lot of times where I felt as if Benjamin just had a lot of plot armor. The guy fell down cliffs like 3 times and took a whole bunch of healing potions even after some of them were cracked. I would recommend not using this level of protection for the protagonist and discovering other ways to help the character instead of giving them quick solutions to advance the story more.


Those were just small critiques as the whole story so far has been really amazing and well done. I’m definitely not an experienced writer, but hopefully these will help in the future. You are a very talented writer and have created an intriguing story. I’m going to go finish the rest of it now :+1:

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I wasn’t sure about this line either honestly, it was one of those lines that I probably should’ve spent more time reconsidering but left alone in the end. On future projects I’ll pay more attention to dialog and keep it more natural.

This is a wonderful point, changing the wording there would’ve definitely intensified the scene.

Repetitive or unnecessary lines are something I critique very often, feels great to know that there’s someone else out there who’s a stickler for that sort of thing. This line was added somewhat last second during the editing phase, so that could explain why it slipped by. I should spend more time editing so little errors like that don’t get through as much.

Another wonderful point, I really have nothing to say about this other than that I completely agree in hindsight. It was a cliche line that I should’ve either done more with or swapped out for something more impactful.

Regrettably, this is true. Before publication, I had a feeling that all the hits Benjamin took were just too much to believe when added all together, but I shrugged away the thought because I didn’t think it was as big of a flaw as it was. A partial contributor is that I have a hard time bringing myself to scrap scenes, so I just threw in every single idea I had without fully considering the ramifications. That resulted in a bloated fight length and absurd survival that is only believable if you take the functionality of health and health regeneration in the game very literally.

Overall, you’ve given consistently wonderful advice, and I feel confident I can write a lot better going forth thanks to you and everyone else who’s been critiquing the story. A lot of these flaws could’ve been prevented if I listened to my gut more when it told me there was an issue with the narrative. It would also have helped to take my job more seriously and brainstorm really hard to fix the bigger problems instead of lazily pushing them aside and hoping they’re smaller than they seem. This has been one of my most helpful learning experiences, and I deeply hope I can apply all this advice and take my time while writing rather than rushing the process.

I can’t thank you enough for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts, and I wish you a wonderful day.

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it may help to have a friend read it through before you post it.

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Uhm, Acktually Galleons, the AO currency, are gold. bad writing!!!

The wanted posters show silver galleons rather than gold ones, and they seem to be drastically less valuable, I’d assume by 100x or 1000x