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The First Adventure of Jiggery Pokery
Quartz inspected the license and personnel transfer papers with a frown. It all looked to be in order. But that was really the problem.
“Jiggery Pokery is it?”
“Just Jiggery is fine,” answered the shifty looking pegasus.
“Says here you finished your masters in adventure two years ago.”
“I got top marks in both swashbuckling and hoof work sir.”
“Have you ever been on an archaeological dig before?”
“Yes, yes I did, as part of getting my bachelors in archeology.”
“What have you been doing for the past two years?”
“Some family things came up, sir.”
“Uhuh...” Quartz did not sound sympathetic. “Two years sitting around makes you rusty. Never having been on an adventure makes you green. Being rusty and green makes that masters in adventure basically worthless. Your bachelors in archaeology barely makes you qualified to carry water. You're basically useless.”
Jiggery shuffled his hooves awkwardly.
“The rules say we can't operate without a licensed adventurer,” Quartz gave a tired sigh, “and you are that.”
Quartz stamped the transfer.
The site was three days outside of Filly Delphia in the Foal Mountains. Less if you cut straight to the train tracks and managed to catch a ride. It couldn't have been in a safer part of Equestria.
The actual site consisted of four pillars that had apparently been topped with primitive luminescent crystal lighting which had at one point shown the way to the cave mouth. Inside the cave was a perfectly flat dirt floor.
A little digging of that dirt floor revealed shards of broken pottery and glass. Carbon dating showed that it was roughly five hundred years of age.
It was a landfill and a fairly recent one. It was barely worth digging around in at all if not for one curious point.
There wasn't an existing settlement that could have used the landfill, nor was there any record of one.
Jiggery wrestled with the water bottles. He could carry the empty water bottles on the wing easily enough but on the return trip he had to hoof it.
Perhaps it was good exercise.
He handed off a water bottle to one of the senior archaeologists. She was reassembling a clay mug that proudly declared it's bearer the greatest father in the world. The syntax was a little different but the pure functionality of the item and the simplicity of it's manufacture made it virtually identical to the modern version.
At dinner it was a simple meal of heated hay with a dusting of flowers. A staple of cafeteria's in all manner of institutions.
The archaeologists laughed and joked as they got to know each other.
Jiggery had a table to himself.
The pegasus found that he could fly in short little hops with the weight of the water bottles across on his withers.
Passing out bottles. He stopped to watch an intern taking measurements of an old firefly lantern. It was weird though. It had a container at the bottom for... some kind of fluid maybe? There was a hole in the middle opening up into the body of the lantern. Maybe it was sugar water for the fireflies?
He wasn't sure that was right though. It didn't feel that way at least.
“Really?” asked Quartz.
“Yeah, really. Wall carvings,” answered Spade.
“What are wall carvings doing in a landfill?”
“Probably just graffiti. None of it makes much sense.”
Jiggery Pokery took a long sip from his cup of tea one table over. That seemed kind of odd.
The pegasus stepped into the dark and empty cave after the rest of the camp was asleep. The light of his lantern dimmed and faltered. It was like the fireflies were trying to escape.
The dirt had been excavated by about two hoofs revealing a tiny band of wall carvings. It was perfectly level. The carvings were black and cut deep into the stone.
Really deep actually.
Pulling a piece of chewing straw out of his pocket he tested the depth. He couldn't reach the bottom. The straw was half a hoof in length.
He didn't recognize any of the characters.
He contemplated the wall carvings for a time before heading off to bed.
Jiggery filled the water bottles from the same spring as always. The underground water source had been tested and proven safe for equine consumption
The air around the clear pond had a curious sweet smell today.
He didn't give it much thought as he began his long uphill climb back to the work site.
Spade was making dutiful notes as he examined a metal box. It was taller and deeper then it was wide and somewhere along the way one corner had been smashed in.
It didn't look like it was supposed to open being held together with screws and pegs. Inside it had tiny metal protrusions for unknown objects to hang or be affixed to.
The earth pony was so transfixed that he didn't even look up as Jiggery dropped off a bottle of water.
The archaeologists barely spoke at dinner. What few things they voiced to each other were in whispers.
There was an odd sort of chewy texture that he couldn't quite place in the flower casserole today.
Under the cover of darkness Jiggery once again examined the characters etched into the walls of the cave.
He wracked his brain. It felt like something he had learned back when he was taking his masters in adventure. Or was it something he had overheard from somepony else?
He tried to remember what it could be for a time before giving up and going to bed.
On his way to the spring the pegasus noticed the bones of a dead rabbit. The bones were still intact and not yet dried out but the carcass was entirely picked clean.
Something about it was odd, but he wasn't well versed enough in animal lore to be able to exactly pin it down.
He hurried off without giving it too much attention though. He did have a job to do.
Quartz mumbled a thanks as he was given a ration of water.
Before him was a perfectly preserved box. The box was square but flat. It was opened and inside what appeared to be curiously serrated knives.
Though the handles had all rotted away to nothing the blades themselves were in perfect condition. They had no rust, no tarnish, no dullness. The still shined like they had been polished but mere hours ago.
Utterly and totally impervious to the wear of time in the way that only the most magical of magical artifacts can be.
They didn't seem very magical though.
The crew joked and laughed with renewed and heart warming vigor. Whatever trials they had encountered apparently been over come.
Jiggery smiled reassured as he took a bite of today's casserole.
Then he put it aside. Somehow he wasn't hungry anymore.
Tonight with a pencil and paper the adventurer took some etchings. This kind of thing could really sell your memoirs, and such sales where the lion's share of the income for his industry.
Holding the paper of the carving in the wall with his hooves he dragged the pencil lightly across the surface.
He checked his work.
Frowning he tried again.
Again he compared the etchings on the page and marks on the wall.
He tried again. And again. He tried until he was out of paper.
No matter how many times he tried the characters on the the paper etchings never lined up with the characters on the wall.
Nor did they match up with each other.
Gripped by an unidentified panic Jiggery scrambled out of the dig and back to his tent.
The sweet scent at the spring had gotten stronger. It wasn't a bad smell. He didn't recognize it as any of the things would normally render drinking water undrinkable.
He clearly remembered his basic survival courses.
Still he was uncertain as he filled the bottles and once again traveled uphill to the work site.
“I'm thinking I should travel to the river for water from now on. We can start boiling it.”
“No, that is a waste of time and therefor money. This dig is barely funded as it is.” Quartz seemed to be genuinely upset at the suggestion.
“I'm really not sure about the spring.”
“I don't care what you're sure about. Just do your job.”
Quartz returned to his task which today was affixing mock-up replacement handles onto the knives he had been looking at the day before.
Jiggery sat in the center of the dig and attempted to draw the wall carvings. He carefully tried to replicate the shapes, the arms and the swirls of the characters. But when he stopped to compare them they once again didn't resemble each other.
Then he attempted to describe the character in words only to again be confronted with the fact that the description did not match up with the reality.
He stopped and considered the seemingly static characters on the wall.
He picked up a piece of lath and stuck it into one of the carvings.
It crunched, as though some stone maw had bitten into it with irresistible force.
The characters weren't static. They were changing. Shifting in shape. Along with them his memory of them was also shifting.
Only because they were in perfect sync did they appear to be static.
The characters in the wall were alive. The characters in his head were alive. They were the same characters and they were alive.
This place... It was alive and it was in his head.
Hyperventilating Jiggery took to the air, slowly hovering and getting ready to bolt from the cave.
Blocking the way out was Quartz, beside him was Spade and behind them the rest of the archaeologists.
“You didn't come to dinner.”
“I wasn't hungry.”
“We were waiting for you.”
“You can eat without me. It's fine.”
“We really can't eat without you.”
“I'll be fine on my own.”
“We're all getting really hungry. You are being very rude.”
Jiggery gave a sigh. It was rude to refuse an invitation to dinner wasn't it? “Sure, hold on, just a...”
Quartz was carrying one of those weird everlasting serrated knives.
So was Spade.
Infact they all were.
The pegasus felt a thrill of terror and his hovering wings began to generate more wind, sending it spinning through the cave.
Some dried mud on the wall next to him gave way.
It revealed some desperately scratched words in perfectly legible equestrian.
'Beware the eaters of the dead.'
And then Jiggery wasn't creating wind by accident. Now he was desperately kicking up a storm in the confines of the cave. Blinding dirt and debris was being picked up and forced out of the entrance of the dig site.
“Get him!”
Ponies blindly lunged forward into the gale.
The pegasus dodged and tricked out of the reach of the ravenous archaeologists while looking for an opening for his escape into the open sky.
Quartz however remained at the entrance blocking it off with his bulk.
The amount of lightweight debris was running out and Jiggery had to exert more and more force to ensure that the wind now howling in the tiny bowl of the cave was sharp enough to give him the upper hand.
A pair of hooves latched onto his hind leg.
“No! No, get off of me!” he shrieked in growing and mortal terror.
Unable to dodge another pair of hooves latched on around his neck. The weight threatening to drag him to the ground, he struggled into a spin hoping to throw them off.
Rebounding off of a wall with meaty thunk the ponies struck the ground.
“Ha! Got you!” shouted Spade as he readied his knife.
Jiggery's eyes went wide as the ground gave way.
A pit. The whole dig site was a pit, covered over in trash. The pit it self sucked them down like some kind of giant throat.
Ponies and dirt and garbage fell down into the wretchedly sweet smelling darkness.
The pegasus struck the water at the bottom. Still in a panic he fled away from the light along the surface of some uncharted underground lake.
His sensitive wings felt the motion of the water. They told him of... things large and vast and unknowable beneath him in the water.
Something breached the water behind him, a pony screamed and bones snapped.
He didn't look back. He never looked back. Jiggery Pokery just kept swimming into the darkness.
“Jiggery Pokery is it?”
“Just Jiggery is fine,” answered the shifty looking pegasus.
“Says here you finished your masters in adventure two years ago.”
“I got top marks in both swashbuckling and hoof work sir.”
“Have you ever been on an archaeological dig before?”
“Yes, yes I did, as part of getting my bachelors in archeology.”
“What have you been doing for the past two years?”
“Some family things came up, sir.”
“Uhuh...” Quartz did not sound sympathetic. “Two years sitting around makes you rusty. Never having been on an adventure makes you green. Being rusty and green makes that masters in adventure basically worthless. Your bachelors in archaeology barely makes you qualified to carry water. You're basically useless.”
Jiggery shuffled his hooves awkwardly.
“The rules say we can't operate without a licensed adventurer,” Quartz gave a tired sigh, “and you are that.”
Quartz stamped the transfer.
The site was three days outside of Filly Delphia in the Foal Mountains. Less if you cut straight to the train tracks and managed to catch a ride. It couldn't have been in a safer part of Equestria.
The actual site consisted of four pillars that had apparently been topped with primitive luminescent crystal lighting which had at one point shown the way to the cave mouth. Inside the cave was a perfectly flat dirt floor.
A little digging of that dirt floor revealed shards of broken pottery and glass. Carbon dating showed that it was roughly five hundred years of age.
It was a landfill and a fairly recent one. It was barely worth digging around in at all if not for one curious point.
There wasn't an existing settlement that could have used the landfill, nor was there any record of one.
Jiggery wrestled with the water bottles. He could carry the empty water bottles on the wing easily enough but on the return trip he had to hoof it.
Perhaps it was good exercise.
He handed off a water bottle to one of the senior archaeologists. She was reassembling a clay mug that proudly declared it's bearer the greatest father in the world. The syntax was a little different but the pure functionality of the item and the simplicity of it's manufacture made it virtually identical to the modern version.
At dinner it was a simple meal of heated hay with a dusting of flowers. A staple of cafeteria's in all manner of institutions.
The archaeologists laughed and joked as they got to know each other.
Jiggery had a table to himself.
The pegasus found that he could fly in short little hops with the weight of the water bottles across on his withers.
Passing out bottles. He stopped to watch an intern taking measurements of an old firefly lantern. It was weird though. It had a container at the bottom for... some kind of fluid maybe? There was a hole in the middle opening up into the body of the lantern. Maybe it was sugar water for the fireflies?
He wasn't sure that was right though. It didn't feel that way at least.
“Really?” asked Quartz.
“Yeah, really. Wall carvings,” answered Spade.
“What are wall carvings doing in a landfill?”
“Probably just graffiti. None of it makes much sense.”
Jiggery Pokery took a long sip from his cup of tea one table over. That seemed kind of odd.
The pegasus stepped into the dark and empty cave after the rest of the camp was asleep. The light of his lantern dimmed and faltered. It was like the fireflies were trying to escape.
The dirt had been excavated by about two hoofs revealing a tiny band of wall carvings. It was perfectly level. The carvings were black and cut deep into the stone.
Really deep actually.
Pulling a piece of chewing straw out of his pocket he tested the depth. He couldn't reach the bottom. The straw was half a hoof in length.
He didn't recognize any of the characters.
He contemplated the wall carvings for a time before heading off to bed.
Jiggery filled the water bottles from the same spring as always. The underground water source had been tested and proven safe for equine consumption
The air around the clear pond had a curious sweet smell today.
He didn't give it much thought as he began his long uphill climb back to the work site.
Spade was making dutiful notes as he examined a metal box. It was taller and deeper then it was wide and somewhere along the way one corner had been smashed in.
It didn't look like it was supposed to open being held together with screws and pegs. Inside it had tiny metal protrusions for unknown objects to hang or be affixed to.
The earth pony was so transfixed that he didn't even look up as Jiggery dropped off a bottle of water.
The archaeologists barely spoke at dinner. What few things they voiced to each other were in whispers.
There was an odd sort of chewy texture that he couldn't quite place in the flower casserole today.
Under the cover of darkness Jiggery once again examined the characters etched into the walls of the cave.
He wracked his brain. It felt like something he had learned back when he was taking his masters in adventure. Or was it something he had overheard from somepony else?
He tried to remember what it could be for a time before giving up and going to bed.
On his way to the spring the pegasus noticed the bones of a dead rabbit. The bones were still intact and not yet dried out but the carcass was entirely picked clean.
Something about it was odd, but he wasn't well versed enough in animal lore to be able to exactly pin it down.
He hurried off without giving it too much attention though. He did have a job to do.
Quartz mumbled a thanks as he was given a ration of water.
Before him was a perfectly preserved box. The box was square but flat. It was opened and inside what appeared to be curiously serrated knives.
Though the handles had all rotted away to nothing the blades themselves were in perfect condition. They had no rust, no tarnish, no dullness. The still shined like they had been polished but mere hours ago.
Utterly and totally impervious to the wear of time in the way that only the most magical of magical artifacts can be.
They didn't seem very magical though.
The crew joked and laughed with renewed and heart warming vigor. Whatever trials they had encountered apparently been over come.
Jiggery smiled reassured as he took a bite of today's casserole.
Then he put it aside. Somehow he wasn't hungry anymore.
Tonight with a pencil and paper the adventurer took some etchings. This kind of thing could really sell your memoirs, and such sales where the lion's share of the income for his industry.
Holding the paper of the carving in the wall with his hooves he dragged the pencil lightly across the surface.
He checked his work.
Frowning he tried again.
Again he compared the etchings on the page and marks on the wall.
He tried again. And again. He tried until he was out of paper.
No matter how many times he tried the characters on the the paper etchings never lined up with the characters on the wall.
Nor did they match up with each other.
Gripped by an unidentified panic Jiggery scrambled out of the dig and back to his tent.
The sweet scent at the spring had gotten stronger. It wasn't a bad smell. He didn't recognize it as any of the things would normally render drinking water undrinkable.
He clearly remembered his basic survival courses.
Still he was uncertain as he filled the bottles and once again traveled uphill to the work site.
“I'm thinking I should travel to the river for water from now on. We can start boiling it.”
“No, that is a waste of time and therefor money. This dig is barely funded as it is.” Quartz seemed to be genuinely upset at the suggestion.
“I'm really not sure about the spring.”
“I don't care what you're sure about. Just do your job.”
Quartz returned to his task which today was affixing mock-up replacement handles onto the knives he had been looking at the day before.
Jiggery sat in the center of the dig and attempted to draw the wall carvings. He carefully tried to replicate the shapes, the arms and the swirls of the characters. But when he stopped to compare them they once again didn't resemble each other.
Then he attempted to describe the character in words only to again be confronted with the fact that the description did not match up with the reality.
He stopped and considered the seemingly static characters on the wall.
He picked up a piece of lath and stuck it into one of the carvings.
It crunched, as though some stone maw had bitten into it with irresistible force.
The characters weren't static. They were changing. Shifting in shape. Along with them his memory of them was also shifting.
Only because they were in perfect sync did they appear to be static.
The characters in the wall were alive. The characters in his head were alive. They were the same characters and they were alive.
This place... It was alive and it was in his head.
Hyperventilating Jiggery took to the air, slowly hovering and getting ready to bolt from the cave.
Blocking the way out was Quartz, beside him was Spade and behind them the rest of the archaeologists.
“You didn't come to dinner.”
“I wasn't hungry.”
“We were waiting for you.”
“You can eat without me. It's fine.”
“We really can't eat without you.”
“I'll be fine on my own.”
“We're all getting really hungry. You are being very rude.”
Jiggery gave a sigh. It was rude to refuse an invitation to dinner wasn't it? “Sure, hold on, just a...”
Quartz was carrying one of those weird everlasting serrated knives.
So was Spade.
Infact they all were.
The pegasus felt a thrill of terror and his hovering wings began to generate more wind, sending it spinning through the cave.
Some dried mud on the wall next to him gave way.
It revealed some desperately scratched words in perfectly legible equestrian.
'Beware the eaters of the dead.'
And then Jiggery wasn't creating wind by accident. Now he was desperately kicking up a storm in the confines of the cave. Blinding dirt and debris was being picked up and forced out of the entrance of the dig site.
“Get him!”
Ponies blindly lunged forward into the gale.
The pegasus dodged and tricked out of the reach of the ravenous archaeologists while looking for an opening for his escape into the open sky.
Quartz however remained at the entrance blocking it off with his bulk.
The amount of lightweight debris was running out and Jiggery had to exert more and more force to ensure that the wind now howling in the tiny bowl of the cave was sharp enough to give him the upper hand.
A pair of hooves latched onto his hind leg.
“No! No, get off of me!” he shrieked in growing and mortal terror.
Unable to dodge another pair of hooves latched on around his neck. The weight threatening to drag him to the ground, he struggled into a spin hoping to throw them off.
Rebounding off of a wall with meaty thunk the ponies struck the ground.
“Ha! Got you!” shouted Spade as he readied his knife.
Jiggery's eyes went wide as the ground gave way.
A pit. The whole dig site was a pit, covered over in trash. The pit it self sucked them down like some kind of giant throat.
Ponies and dirt and garbage fell down into the wretchedly sweet smelling darkness.
The pegasus struck the water at the bottom. Still in a panic he fled away from the light along the surface of some uncharted underground lake.
His sensitive wings felt the motion of the water. They told him of... things large and vast and unknowable beneath him in the water.
Something breached the water behind him, a pony screamed and bones snapped.
He didn't look back. He never looked back. Jiggery Pokery just kept swimming into the darkness.
Technically very well written. The build-up to the conclusion was well thought out, but I have to say that the use of so many short segments, all ending with unease, got annoyingly repetitive. If I were editing your story I would recommend that that you slow it down. Take more time for the descriptions. Dwell more on the feelings of the ponies involved, and make it less "in-your-face". Ambiguity heightens tension. Having so many short segments left me feeling slapped around, not freightened!
This is an archaeological adventure story which smoothly escalates into horror, and while I think the core concept here is solid enough, I feel like this has a lot of details weighing it down. There's a large number of problems which individually feel like nitpicks but collectively kept me from engaging with the story. Again, I'm going to toss out a random sample of the parts which stuck out in my mind the most (yay sleep deprivation):
– The title character's name, Jiggery Pokery, means "dishonest manipulation" (*), implying that he's some sort of con artist. He's even described at the beginning as a "shifty looking pegasus". But as the story goes on, he is played as a completely sincere, straightforward archaeologist, and becomes a very vanilla heroic protagonist, which sets up a cognitive dissonance that is never addressed.
– There are some big red herrings in the archaeological expedition. The biggest is the lamps that use oil rather than fireflies, which led me to initially assume that this was heading toward a "The Writing On The Wall" ending of the big reveal involving Equestria once being Earth. There's the World's Best Dad cup (wouldn't ponies use "Sire"?) and the unopenable metal box, neither of which have anything to do with the final reveal. That's okay sometimes! But I definitely find it more satisfying to read stories in which everything is a subtle clue toward the ultimate nature of the mystery, and the reveal is the puzzle piece in the center which clicks everything together.
– There are also some clues which do seem to tie in to your reveal, but even after reading through to the end I can't figure out how. The sweetness of the water is a central clue, but given that (big spoilers) it's apparently related to the Deep Ones that eat everyone at the end, I'm getting conflicting clues. First of all, they're carnivores and so the spring water should be full of dead things, but JP apparently rules that out by noting that he detects none of the things that would make water undrinkable (like dead animals in the water). …Though, granted, stripped-clean bones near the water site with no evidence of predators should have been a red flag of its own, and he sort of shrugs it off. Secondly, the purpose of the sweetness is kind of incoherent. Sweetness is an attractant, generally; it would make sense that if there was some sort of agent in the water that the sweetness was masking, it would drive the ponies crazy and give the eaters fresh food — but JP is drinking the same water as everyone else, and he doesn't go crazy!
– Related, this part is kind of word salad, so I'm not sure what it's supposed to express:
If "the carcass was picked clean", then we're seeing just the bones, which is the first thing you told us. How exactly do bare bones "dry out" (especially given that he finds them on the way to the spring, i.e. nowhere near the water), and why were they "not yet" dried out, i.e. how did they start wet? This also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity; it's heavily implied that the ponies ate the rabbit (since the Eaters are messy bone-crunching devourers), but when you talk about the casserole in the camp, you basically just say that JP stops eating because he's not hungry, rather than him sensing anything off about the food.
– This is totally Fridge Logic, but I'm not sure what the point of driving the ponies carnivorous and crazy was. I mean, the eaters in the depths are eating the things they attract to the spring, right? So wouldn't turning their prey into carnivores just reduce the food they themselves get?
I think the big takewaway here is: give this some additional high-level structural plotting, and let the details all flow from that. Decide — in your own mind at least! There's no need for gobs of exposition — how the eaters in the depths work, how the water works, who your main character is and what drives his actions (whether they're meant to be con-man-y or heroic), etc. The big things. Then look at the story and reframe it with that big picture in mind. You might need to rewrite some scenes to take your outline into account, but this will end up much stronger for it.
Tier: Needs Work
Edit: This one was right on the border for me. I think I'll upgrade it to "Almost There" on the basis that the structure is pretty smooth considering my foundation complaints.
– The title character's name, Jiggery Pokery, means "dishonest manipulation" (*), implying that he's some sort of con artist. He's even described at the beginning as a "shifty looking pegasus". But as the story goes on, he is played as a completely sincere, straightforward archaeologist, and becomes a very vanilla heroic protagonist, which sets up a cognitive dissonance that is never addressed.
– There are some big red herrings in the archaeological expedition. The biggest is the lamps that use oil rather than fireflies, which led me to initially assume that this was heading toward a "The Writing On The Wall" ending of the big reveal involving Equestria once being Earth. There's the World's Best Dad cup (wouldn't ponies use "Sire"?) and the unopenable metal box, neither of which have anything to do with the final reveal. That's okay sometimes! But I definitely find it more satisfying to read stories in which everything is a subtle clue toward the ultimate nature of the mystery, and the reveal is the puzzle piece in the center which clicks everything together.
– There are also some clues which do seem to tie in to your reveal, but even after reading through to the end I can't figure out how. The sweetness of the water is a central clue, but given that (big spoilers) it's apparently related to the Deep Ones that eat everyone at the end, I'm getting conflicting clues. First of all, they're carnivores and so the spring water should be full of dead things, but JP apparently rules that out by noting that he detects none of the things that would make water undrinkable (like dead animals in the water). …Though, granted, stripped-clean bones near the water site with no evidence of predators should have been a red flag of its own, and he sort of shrugs it off. Secondly, the purpose of the sweetness is kind of incoherent. Sweetness is an attractant, generally; it would make sense that if there was some sort of agent in the water that the sweetness was masking, it would drive the ponies crazy and give the eaters fresh food — but JP is drinking the same water as everyone else, and he doesn't go crazy!
– Related, this part is kind of word salad, so I'm not sure what it's supposed to express:
On his way to the spring the pegasus noticed the bones of a dead rabbit. The bones were still intact and not yet dried out but the carcass was entirely picked clean.
If "the carcass was picked clean", then we're seeing just the bones, which is the first thing you told us. How exactly do bare bones "dry out" (especially given that he finds them on the way to the spring, i.e. nowhere near the water), and why were they "not yet" dried out, i.e. how did they start wet? This also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity; it's heavily implied that the ponies ate the rabbit (since the Eaters are messy bone-crunching devourers), but when you talk about the casserole in the camp, you basically just say that JP stops eating because he's not hungry, rather than him sensing anything off about the food.
– This is totally Fridge Logic, but I'm not sure what the point of driving the ponies carnivorous and crazy was. I mean, the eaters in the depths are eating the things they attract to the spring, right? So wouldn't turning their prey into carnivores just reduce the food they themselves get?
I think the big takewaway here is: give this some additional high-level structural plotting, and let the details all flow from that. Decide — in your own mind at least! There's no need for gobs of exposition — how the eaters in the depths work, how the water works, who your main character is and what drives his actions (whether they're meant to be con-man-y or heroic), etc. The big things. Then look at the story and reframe it with that big picture in mind. You might need to rewrite some scenes to take your outline into account, but this will end up much stronger for it.
Edit: This one was right on the border for me. I think I'll upgrade it to "Almost There" on the basis that the structure is pretty smooth considering my foundation complaints.
I liked your setting, and I enjoyed the style. It's hard to find horror fics that deal with ancient evils the way this story does. Not without its share of issues, though. I'll try not to repeat what has already been said.
Regarding build up, I think you were doing a good job with the looping carvings on the walls, and with the progressive decay of the drinking water.
On the other hand, the main character felt rather lackluster. It's fine if you want your character to be a blank slate, but we're barely given enough character development to care whether or not he'll be fine by the end of the fic.
Like horizon said, I see the potential this story has, and with some reestructuring, it could be a solid horror fic.
Regarding build up, I think you were doing a good job with the looping carvings on the walls, and with the progressive decay of the drinking water.
On the other hand, the main character felt rather lackluster. It's fine if you want your character to be a blank slate, but we're barely given enough character development to care whether or not he'll be fine by the end of the fic.
Like horizon said, I see the potential this story has, and with some reestructuring, it could be a solid horror fic.
I just want to start by saying that Jiggery Pokery is a great name for a pony.
Sounds like he's made of copper, to me.
Well, this was an odd little experience, but certainly not a bad one. With the scenes being as short and rapid as they are, it makes the story feel a bit unfocused, in the sense that it's not clear which details are significant and which aren't. Still, the transition into horror worked well enough, and I was invested in finding out how it all turned out in the end.
Not much else for me to say beyond that, I'm afraid.
>>horizon
Pinkie Pie says "Hi, Mom and Dad!" in the first part of The Cutie Map, and in Crusaders of the Lost Mark, Applejack says "if Mom and Dad were here".
On the topic of the sweetness, as you said, sweetness is generally considered an attractant. I imagined that it serves a similar function to the sweet sap inside of a Venus flytrap.
"Being rusty and green makes that masters in adventure basically worthless."
Sounds like he's made of copper, to me.
Well, this was an odd little experience, but certainly not a bad one. With the scenes being as short and rapid as they are, it makes the story feel a bit unfocused, in the sense that it's not clear which details are significant and which aren't. Still, the transition into horror worked well enough, and I was invested in finding out how it all turned out in the end.
Not much else for me to say beyond that, I'm afraid.
>>horizon
There's the World's Best Dad cup (wouldn't ponies use "Sire"?)
Pinkie Pie says "Hi, Mom and Dad!" in the first part of The Cutie Map, and in Crusaders of the Lost Mark, Applejack says "if Mom and Dad were here".
On the topic of the sweetness, as you said, sweetness is generally considered an attractant. I imagined that it serves a similar function to the sweet sap inside of a Venus flytrap.
You've got several really cool ideas, here. The mysteries here are pretty darn intriguing, and the little details like a Masters in Adventuring really make the world pop.
In terms of weaknesses, I'm going to have to parrot what a couple of other reviewers said about the pacing. I'm really not a fan of cutting a story up into ultra-short scenes, especially when you're going for a mood piece. The thing about horror is that the scariest moments tend to be when things are building up--during those little quiet moments when you know something is going to happen, but you're not sure what or when. It's hard to build up that kind of feeling of tension when we're being thrown from one scene to the next, especially when each little scene seems to exist only to introduce a very specific concept. It makes it feel a little bit transparent.
I'd suggest merging several of the mini-scenes together. I feel that longer passages that drop multiple hints would be more effective in preparing the reader for the finale.
In terms of weaknesses, I'm going to have to parrot what a couple of other reviewers said about the pacing. I'm really not a fan of cutting a story up into ultra-short scenes, especially when you're going for a mood piece. The thing about horror is that the scariest moments tend to be when things are building up--during those little quiet moments when you know something is going to happen, but you're not sure what or when. It's hard to build up that kind of feeling of tension when we're being thrown from one scene to the next, especially when each little scene seems to exist only to introduce a very specific concept. It makes it feel a little bit transparent.
I'd suggest merging several of the mini-scenes together. I feel that longer passages that drop multiple hints would be more effective in preparing the reader for the finale.
This instantly gave 'Writing on the Wall' vibes, and I think you should read that for sure if you haven't, author. Both of them set up an oddity at first, and both twist that near the end. But whereas Writing's feels totally natural, the false 'It was humans!' only to reveal 'Nope, Lovecraft!' doesn't quite work here, because A -> B is unnatural. If we're dealing with Deep Ones or something similar, then we should see more primitive, tribal-style artifacts. Stuff that hints at a village or something, not modern civilization.
The whole 'Masters in Adventure' part is awesome, I like that, you've got a good vibe there - just, well, decide if you want to double down on people, or Elder Things, and rebuild the relevant other pieces from there.
The whole 'Masters in Adventure' part is awesome, I like that, you've got a good vibe there - just, well, decide if you want to double down on people, or Elder Things, and rebuild the relevant other pieces from there.
>>horizon
Lovecraftian fics often have heroes that were big burly brawlers that never get into a fist fight. It's part of the "out of your element" aspect of the story.
Curiously I didn't add any red herrings at all. I get that it doesn't make a lot of sense without any explanation. But hey, archeology and lovecraft. I am double protected from having to explain any of it... Unless I include scenes where the archaeologists discuss things and get them wrong? Except they would get less wrong as time goes by and the madness sunk in...
Bones are generally moist from a freshly slaughtered animal. Most predators break bones open to get to the marrow and those that are unable to do so certainly clean the surface of the bone clean while picking away every scrap of meat. It's basically the difference between using your teeth and using a knife. Don't worry about not catching onto that point, Jiggery didn't either.
>>Dafaddah
>>ZaidValRoa
>>Everyday
>>Bachiavellian
I think I can solve the problem of too many short scenes by adding more short scenes. I mean slightly longer scenes detailing growing relationships between Jiggery and some of the Archaeologists. This would add texture to the story as then scenes wouldn't always end with "Duh Dun!" and also add some punch to the thing at the end.
>>Morning Sun
pst. It was humans.
Lovecraftian fics often have heroes that were big burly brawlers that never get into a fist fight. It's part of the "out of your element" aspect of the story.
Curiously I didn't add any red herrings at all. I get that it doesn't make a lot of sense without any explanation. But hey, archeology and lovecraft. I am double protected from having to explain any of it... Unless I include scenes where the archaeologists discuss things and get them wrong? Except they would get less wrong as time goes by and the madness sunk in...
Bones are generally moist from a freshly slaughtered animal. Most predators break bones open to get to the marrow and those that are unable to do so certainly clean the surface of the bone clean while picking away every scrap of meat. It's basically the difference between using your teeth and using a knife. Don't worry about not catching onto that point, Jiggery didn't either.
>>Dafaddah
>>ZaidValRoa
>>Everyday
>>Bachiavellian
I think I can solve the problem of too many short scenes by adding more short scenes. I mean slightly longer scenes detailing growing relationships between Jiggery and some of the Archaeologists. This would add texture to the story as then scenes wouldn't always end with "Duh Dun!" and also add some punch to the thing at the end.
>>Morning Sun
pst. It was humans.