Lore/Story An Old Man [short Story]

I don't know why but I thought I should write a short story, so I did. It's set in Wynncraft. I hope you can figure out where exactly this is and at what time in Wynncrafts history, also what the revelation at the end means. :D Please leave constructive feedback!

Spoiler: An Old Man

An Old Man​

I gazed down upon my wonderful creation. From up here it looked even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. The walls out of stone bricks meticulously carved out by hand in patterns replicated from the ancient wynnic temples. As massive as a small mountain but more decorated than even the greatest of jewelry. The polished stones glimmering in the days last sunlight emitting an orange glow over the peaceful valley filled with roaming pigs and green grass.

Finally finished I could admire my work. I felt happiness and accomplishment flow into my veins. I had built this myself, stone for stone. Each one weighing heavier on my aging body. I had never stopped to think about how old I had become. That thing in front of me had consumed my whole life. My happiness flew away like a scared bird. I wanted to feel happy for the magnificent thing I had accomplished but the fact that this had been my entire life quickly swept over any remaining thoughts of satisfaction like an enormous tidal wave.

The sun set and I could no longer see outside the ring of light that the warm flames created. The fire was as bright as the white color of my beard and as inviting as a warm drink on a cold night. But I could not stop staring at the temple. Well, I could no longer see it except for the rare occasions the moon peaked through the layer of clouds that had gathered on the night sky. The fire crackled one more time and stopped emitting that glorious heat that had kept me up for this long. I was sleeping earlier and earlier every day that passed but today was an exception.

I stared and stared at the temple but I could not stop the war being waged between the good and bad inside my head. Thoughts appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye. I would never have a real life. This is my life. The temple is my legacy. I did well. I wasted so many years on this one thi... A thought popped into my mind. I never knew why I built this temple. I spent my entire life working tirelessly and hard, every day without knowing why. My only friends the winds who whispered in my ear and the roaming pigs of the valley.

I never slept that night. I watched as the glowing orange ball we call sun rose on the horizon and put me and my long since dead fire in the dark shadow of the mountains. The temple was once again glowing, but not orange this time. A purple flame rose from the ashes of the fire and disappeared before I could tell it was real. I rushed, as fast as an old man could go, down the worn out stairs made out of dirt down from the plateau I had been sitting on, over the roaring river and to the front of the great temple.

I was filled with excitement for the first time since childhood. It felt so long ago, childhood. I stopped at the entrance and took a deep breath of the cold morning air. I looked up to the sun, it had gone back a few hours. I could swear on it. I turned around with my heart starting to beat faster, I was worried my old heart couldn't take something like this. The small tree I had planted in my youth shriveled and died in a matter of seconds, a single leaf remaining but it like the others fell down and landed in the wrinkly palm of my hand. I tucked it in a pocket to preserve my memory of the tree and the moments with it.

My heart started to beat even faster. I was so confused I couldn't feel sentimental. But I was scared. The only thing this could be was magic, and all I had heard about magic was some big waves of the ocean coming from the great sea. Of course I had never seen the sea but the wind knew and we were friends. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and turned around again but this time faster and with my old heart beating in my chest as if it was trapped and wanted to punch its way out.

A small flame like the one from the campfire appeared just inside of the great temple entrance. Slowly and very carefully I got closer to the flame, my steps against the solid stone floor echoing in the gigantic temple, but when I could almost touch it the light vanished and another one appeared a few meters deeper inside the temple. I knew this was bait to lure me in but it was like magic. I couldn't resist and followed the flame deeper inside the temple I had built. I was the creator of the temple but it felt like I did not own it.

With the curved roof keeping out most of the light my eyes focused on the flames while I walked towards the other end of the temple. My eyes staring at the flames so long they began to tear up. The last flame burnt out and I was left in the dark, only a few torches lighting up the edges of the temple walls.

I was scared, but I wanted to find out what this all was. Maybe this was my purpose. Maybe... I could not think more before a gigantic beam of what I had to assume was magic appeared in front of me. The light blinding me as I threw my arm to cover my eyes. This was going to be the way I died. If not by some creature, a heart attack. The intense light slowly started to fade and when my eyes had stopped burning I slowly and with much caution lowered my arm, still bright I could see it towering in front of me. An enormous wooden door.

 

Spoiler: Comments on the thing

An Old Man​

I gazed down upon my wonderful creation. From up here it looked even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. The walls out of stone bricks meticulously carved out by hand in patterns replicated from the ancient wynnic temples. As massive as a small mountain but more decorated than even the greatest of jewelry. The polished stones glimmering in the days last sunlight emitting an orange glow over the peaceful valley filled with roaming pigs and green grass.
Comment - Alright, it's nice so far, describing something I assume to be a large structure without outright saying that. By it being so decorated I would have to say it being a castle or a cathedral or something of sorts. Its nice so far!

Finally finished I could admire my work. I felt happiness and accomplishment flow into my veins. I had built this myself, stone for stone. Each one weighing heavier on my aging body. I had never stopped to think about how old I had become. That thing in front of me had consumed my whole life. My happiness flew away like a scared bird. I wanted to feel happy for the magnificent thing I had accomplished but the fact that this had been my entire life quickly swept over any remaining thoughts of satisfaction like an enormous tidal wave.
Comment - Hmm... Ok leads some character developments about his conflicting emotions on whether he feels that him building the structure cost him most of his life and youth, now that he is old he can't really do anymore. I do feel however you have many similes, perhaps you can tone them down?

The sun set and I could no longer see outside the ring of light that the warm flames created. The fire was as bright as the white color of my beard and as inviting as a warm drink on a cold night. But I could not stop staring at the temple. Well, I could no longer see it except for the rare occasions the moon peaked through the layer of clouds that had gathered on the night sky. The fire crackled one more time and stopped emitting that glorious heat that had kept me up for this long. I was sleeping earlier and earlier every day that passed but today was an exception.
Nice paragraph! But I still feel that there are tooooooo many descriptive words again, It's good and all but chill fam :p
I stared and stared at the temple but I could not stop the war being waged between the good and bad inside my head. Thoughts appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye. I would never have a real life. This is my life. The temple is my legacy. I did well. I wasted so many years on this one thi... A thought popped into my mind. I never knew why I built this temple. I spent my entire life working tirelessly and hard, every day without knowing why. My only friends the winds who whispered in my ear and the roaming pigs of the valley.
Hmm... This feels like it should continue off of paragraph 2 since paragraph 3 has no real plot relation and this could be put before 3 to have a bit better flow.
I never slept that night. I watched as the glowing orange ball we call sun rose on the horizon and put me and my long since dead fire in the dark shadow of the mountains. The temple was once again glowing, but not orange this time. A purple flame rose from the ashes of the fire and disappeared before I could tell it was real. I rushed, as fast as an old man could go, down the worn out stairs made out of dirt down from the plateau I had been sitting on, over the roaring river and to the front of the great temple.
A bit too many descriptive words, but does introduce a large plot point and builds some suspense! Nice!
I was filled with excitement for the first time since childhood. It felt so long ago, childhood. I stopped at the entrance and took a deep breath of the cold morning air. I looked up to the sun, it had gone back a few hours. I could swear on it. I turned around with my heart starting to beat faster, I was worried my old heart couldn't take something like this. The small tree I had planted in my youth shriveled and died in a matter of seconds, a single leaf remaining but it like the others fell down and landed in the wrinkly palm of my hand. I tucked it in a pocket to preserve my memory of the tree and the moments with it.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Wait... no no no? The beginning is very nice, introduces the conflicting emotions of the old man again and may bring up the theme! But then the end sort of.... reduces the effect. Why does him seeing something exciting make him lose his excitement and wonder again? He was just happy a few seconds ago! But he still preserves his youth? Im very confused now......
My heart started to beat even faster. I was so confused I couldn't feel sentimental. But I was scared. The only thing this could be was magic, and all I had heard about magic was some big waves of the ocean coming from the great sea. Of course I had never seen the sea but the wind knew and we were friends. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and turned around again but this time faster and with my old heart beating in my chest as if it was trapped and wanted to punch its way out.
Hmm.... He can't feel sentimental? What of? The excitement of his childhood? Since I doubt he saw the magic and temples when he was young. This keeps with the idea of him losing his childhood again but... why? He was just excited about this moments ago. I understand the temple stole most of his life and he regrets it but at the end I thought he was excited at this new development?
A small flame like the one from the campfire appeared just inside of the great temple entrance. Slowly and very carefully I got closer to the flame, my steps against the solid stone floor echoing in the gigantic temple, but when I could almost touch it the light vanished and another one appeared a few meters deeper inside the temple. I knew this was bait to lure me in but it was like magic. I couldn't resist and followed the flame deeper inside the temple I had built. I was the creator of the temple but it felt like I did not own it.

Comment - Like it was magic? It literally is magic here! Ok so magic now owns the area of sorts, why did the magic appear? What is it even? Nice suspense!

With the curved roof keeping out most of the light my eyes focused on the flames while I walked towards the other end of the temple. My eyes staring at the flames so long they began to tear up. The last flame burnt out and I was left in the dark, only a few torches lighting up the edges of the temple walls.
Why are the torches burning out? How long has he been walking? Or is it magic putting it out? Lots of questions!
I was scared, but I wanted to find out what this all was. Maybe this was my purpose. Maybe... I could not think more before a gigantic beam of what I had to assume was magic appeared in front of me. The light blinding me as I threw my arm to cover my eyes. This was going to be the way I died. If not by some creature, a heart attack. The intense light slowly started to fade and when my eyes had stopped burning I slowly and with much caution lowered my arm, still bright I could see it towering in front of me. An enormous wooden door.

What the shit


Wow
Ok... I understand your idea but there is a thing called over explaining and over detailing.

Literally every sentence has a simile, or 5 descriptive words, and at this point I highlited a bunch of stuff that I feel is descriptive or a simile, I rushed through this so I may have mistaken a few things. As is quite obvious literally EVERY sentence or other sentence is some description of something. This at this point reads like a simile and description after another simile and description. I would be fine with this if it had a purpose but from what I can tell it has none, it might be a attempt at making the reader more immersed and creating imagry but it annoys me more than anything.

Lets take a good example of over descriptions
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt from "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"


Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.” In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.


As is quite clear here literally the entire section is all descriptive. This is all slightly boring in the beginning but IT SERVES A PURPOSE

If you haven't read the novella yet, the main theme is about the duality of human nature. With that in mind lets go back in and look at it again

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.” In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

These are just some of the binaries in the paragraph.
This doesn't quite have the impact until you read further in but IT DOES HAVE A PURPOSE!!!!!

The imagery and over descriptions develop the theme, and set up the entire character in one quick paragraph. Due to the extremely short length of the novella this quick introduction brings us the gist of Utterson, and develops the theme. I've highlited all the binaries I found quickly and as you can see they are EVERYWHERE. This helps develop the theme even more with a literal example of the duality of someone, in this case Mr Utterson.



I'm sorry if I was too harsh. Im very bad at giving criticism :( but tl;dr
Reduce the number of descriptive words
Make the descriptions Have a Purpose!!1!!!1
Random non-related descriptions are nice to make the reader immersed a bit, but too much is bad, after all, the Imagination is the greatest thing we have.

 

your poll is biased
why are they all nos

 

Thank you for the feedback! Holy that's a lot of text. I wrote it in under an hour at 10:30PM. And now it's 3AM, so don't except it to be perfect xD. I do however appriecate the critism. The leaf is a setup for something I haven't actually written and will probably not do. I do understand now (I kind of felt it didn't fit before posting) that it's in the wrong place. I'll try to come up with a new plot device or have it fit better/ I'll maybe try to edit it tomorrow. This is a story about an old man, it won't be very action packed and the descriptions serve to slow down the story. Okay now to the text.

This is staying as it is because it sets up the place and just makes the first part of the story very chill. It's literally the old man admiring his own work. This story is written in first person so the story is basically his thoughts/him recollecting old events.

I do agree there's too many similes but this:

is a very important sentence because it shows that he is old, which has not been mentioned before.

Here there are a lot of descriptive words, but they all serve a purpose. First sentence: Establishing it's night in a way other than saying "it's night" and also setting up for the third sentence. Second sentence: Very descriptive on purpose, supposed to make you feel like the fire is something you want to be around and look at. Third sentence: The "big reveal". All these descriptive words that make you feel like he will be sitting around the campfire in the night because first he can't see the temple and second the fire is so inviting and nice but the third sentence is "But I could not stop staring at the temple." This shows that he can't stop thinking about it and that he can't actually see it shows that he's thinking about it. I'll probably add "staring blankly" to make it more clear and also put this bit from the 4th paragraph here instead:

The rest of paragraph 3 is probably gonna stay similar but with less descriptive words as I agree that there are too many there.

The story elements of this paragraph but I do understand what you mean with too many descriptive words and I totally agree here. The flame and the magic of the valley will probably get a little bit more detailed though.

I agree that the end is out of place and that will be changed. I want to keep the shriveled tree though because it's a clue to the location of where all this takes place :P.

This paragraph needs to be refined and I need to make the story better and more reminiscent of the main theme. Although I really like this:

I will however edit the part describing the waves. This is also some lore connecting stuff and for some reason when reading this again I really love the "Of course I had never seen the sea but the wind knew and we were friends."
There's just some character in that sentence and also shows that the old man has not been able to do anything except build the temple all his life. Also a callback to a previous statement which is kind of like an "ahhhhh! cool." moment for me at least lol. Callbacks to previous statements/events are in my opinion pretty nice.

He doesn't know it's magic and he doesn't have much experience with it as set up in paragraph 7. Kind of obvious though so I'll probably change it. The echoing is imo a description with purpose to show the size of the temple. The last sentence is also a plot development so I would consider that as a description with purpose.

And the last paragraph I would say isn't that overcrowded with descriptions but I will remove any unnecessary descriptions.

General: I think right now the plot isn't very well written as the story was never intended to be a main element. I mainly wrote this as a background for an area in Wynncraft and wanted to create an interesting character. In my opinion the old man is a very interesting character because he is so conflicted. I don't show this enough in the story however and he is left kind of underdeveloped. Thank you for your very constructive feedback although if I'm going to have to give feedback on your feedback (lol) it's that you're very negative :P. I have thick skin so I don't really care what people think about me but I want to improve and always be the best I can. Saying what was good (I'm not saying this so you can give me an ego boost, I really don't care) is really helpful as well because if you just say what was bad the author might think everything is bad and throw out and start over when there were indeed lots of good elements. If you mention those elements, it of course makes the recipient of the criticism happy but they also can improve more by not changing what's good. If you have anything else please comment it!

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Because I probably won't do any more than this lol.

 

Hmm. It was really hard to follow, almost like a Minecraft build with too much detailing. You try to cram too much detail into paragraphs, and the detailing, or overdetailing, is very hard to keep up with. It's easy to get lost within all the comparisons and details. The eye, being lazy, is attracted to both large and small paragraphs all together. You only have large paragraphs, and this is daunting to the eye. The eye automatically classifies a book as too hard, too easy, or good difficulty based on how the sentences are dispersed. But the idea of internal conflict is wonderful. Just try to simplify it a little bit more, as it is crammed to the brim with things.
-Zerachia

 

Nice , but wut was the temple ? the temple of time or the passage ?

 

Posted my own story today but I noticed this one and I was interested. Here's what I think after reading your story:

When I write things in another language, I tend to be very descriptive because the language I write with is very suitable for a slow, detailed style of writing. Hence, when I write in English, I usually do the same. That explains why I really like your work: a lot of details, good organizations and a "slow" speed of plot developing. It's my personal preference, and I do think that you are "too" descriptive sometimes, but that doesn't change the fact that you have a good potential of being an excellent writer.

I agree with the previous comments, but I just want to give some encouraging advice. I don't know how old you are but you are doing a really good job here in my opinion. I'd love to see more of your work here and practice always makes perfect :D