The Jungle

This one's been in development for a while now. It's pretty long, but if you don't want to read it all then just review half of it or something, because it took a long time to do =-/

And also this is me changing styles again, because this one isn't nearly as obviously twisted as some of my others.

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The Jungle


I don't like the jungle.

Really, I never really liked the jungle. But after this excursion, I don't think I'll ever like the jungle again. I swear, at times, it seems like the jungle trees are laughing at me. They have good reason, too. I gotta admit, I was totally unprepared for the it. The vines try to whip me, and thanks to them I have sore legs. The trees try to trip me, and thanks to them, I have scratched palms. Even the insects are laughing at me, in their weird language.

I guess I sort of deserve it though. Should I ever decide to come back to this jungle, I gotta remember to wear longer clothing, and to maybe just bring and axe and chop my way through. Or maybe a match...

But anyways, it's been three days trekking through this jungle place. I've gotten used to every single type of tree that you'll see here: there's only 3. There's the big tall leafy tree. There's a very tall thin tree. And there's a big fat leafy tree. Scatter those randomly around, and eventually if you keep on cramming trees into the same place, and then if you think you're done, then cram about one thousand more trees into the same area, and then you've got a good idea of what the jungle looks like.

Now, the trees aren't such a bad thing really. I like trees myself. But then, you add vines that are always getting in your way, poisonous leaves that you've always got to be jumping out of the way of, and even the occassional beserk monkey. Snakes as well are abound, always slithering around under the leaves and underbrush. And when I look up, I can see birds flying, making their graceful swoops through the sky, and they're probably laughing at me too because I'm stuck here on the ground. I wish I was a bird, so that these stupid vines would stop hitting me. Ouch! Stoppit!

The other problem with this forest is that I can't use any magic. My master forbid me from using magic. So every time I want to blast a vine into smoldering embers, I can't. It's too bad, too. These vines need to learn some obedience.

But anyways, through all this musing about blue birds and vines with grudges, there is a reason that I'm walking through this jungle. Apparently it's supposed to be one of my three "challenges" that I have to complete before I become a true mage. My second will come once I finally reach where I'm going, the ruins. The third my master hasn't told me about. He's always being mysterious like that.

So until then, I walk, and walk, and walk. And finally, when I start to think that my legs can't take any more abuse, I see a clearing. I start to run, but I trip and stumble over a tree stump. So I decide to keep walking slowly. And then, eventually, I make it into the clearing.

I look around the ruins. It's pretty impressive. Directly in front of me, in the middle of the ruins, is the biggest, hugest tree I've ever seen. I'm like an ant in comparison to it. It's crazy. Then, in a symmetrical type layout, there is a line of trees in a straight line, each sucessively smaller. All this is in the huge clearing. I look up to see the sun beaming down like a huge golden circle in the blue sky.

I then turn my attention to the ruins again. Surrounding the biggest tree in a huge square, there are four huge stone slabs. They're about as tall as I am, and they're covered with inscriptions. I walk over to the nearest one. I'm surpised to discover that I can read a little bit of it. I'd only been taught a little bit of this language. From what I know, I see the word "trolth", which reminds me distinctly of the word "trilth" (from a different language), which means "tree". I also see "psyx" close to "trolth", which means "dangerous". Dangerous tree? I didn't understand.

There was a line dividing the slab into two. Below that line there was the words I could say to cast a spell. I wondered what it was for.

I walked over to the next stone slab. This time, the words were in english, much to my delight. It said ,"Only the one who solves the riddle of the ruins will be allowed access to the inner chamber". A riddle? Of the ruins? I was confused. I thought I would just have to look around them a little bit and come back. I guess I was wrong.

Below it, there was the line again, and then there was another spell written there. What did it mean? It was confusing.

I walked to the next stone. The top half was totally blank. "Strange..." I muttered to myself. What did that mean? Below it though, there was the line, and then there was another spell. This was strange. Maybe the fourth stone would bring it all together.

I walked over to it. If this was the stone that would be the beam of light into darkness, it sure didn't look at it. I looked at the top for the inscription as usual. It was very short. "Movom el blanc oson" it said, and that was all it said. I wondered what it meant - I'd never seen that type of language before. Maybe, if I used what I knew about other languages I could hazard a guess. Movom...Movom... it wasn't looking familiar at all. I'd come back to that.

"El" though was pretty simple. I was almost positive it meant "the" - I'd seen it before. I looked at "blanc". I knew that in some languages, "blanco" could mean "white". But what if it was simpler then that... "blanc"... sounded a lot like... "blank"! As in... "blank stone"!

I was close now, I knew. I looked back at "movom". "Think simple", I said to myself. Simple...simple...then my vision blurred and when it focused again I was staring at the word... or more precisely, the first three letters of the word. "Mov". "That looks a lot like move..." and then suddenly the answer hit me like a ton of bricks, and I felt pretty dumb.

"Move the blank stone". It was obvious. I walked over to it. It didn't look like it hid anything, but I moved it anyways. It resisted at first, then slid smoothly over the grass. I looked below it in surprise.

There was a dark, dank staircase leading down. Looks like this was that "inner chamber" the stone had mentioned. I started walking down. As I walked, torches passed me on my left and my right. They did little to illuminate the surroundings, though. The stairway continued for a bit, and then started spiraling down. I was a bit apprehensive about what I was going to meet down there, but I walked on anyways.

I kept on walking and walking. The stairway was a long, long stairway. It was very mysterious - who would build a staircase this long? Just as I was wondering how these torches were still lit after hundreds of years, the stairway flattened out. I walked out of the dimly lit staircase and into a dimly lit room. Four torches were in the middle of the four walls that made up the small, square room. Spiderwebs covered the walls, and the ceiling stretched up past my line of vision. In the middle of the room there was a table. And on the middle of the table there was a scroll.

I looked at it. It looked kinda innocent just sitting there. I guessed that if my master had sent me here, this had to be the reason. So I grabbed it.

Immidately the ground all around me started shaking. I thought to myself "Oh great, a cave in. This is like some stupid cliche story". It continued for a bit as if to scare me - it didn't need to, I was already freaked out. Then it stopped. I breathed again. Then I ran up the stairs as fast as possible, which wasn't very fast, since the stair case was so long. Up and up I ran, and I was consistantly hearing the rumbling noises, which wasn't very heartening.

Eventually, I made it out of that dark dank tunnel. But when I got out, I instantly wished that I hadn't. I realized exactly why I was hearing those noises. There was something huge on top of the earth. It looked like it was made up of dirt, and those huge trees that I told you about before were on it's back like some sort of spikes. It was humoungous - if you remember how big the tree was, that was about the size of it's hand. It walked on four feet, but occasionally it stood on two. Although it seemed like a complete force of nature, I could see two yellow eyes on its head.

It looked at me, and then it noticed the scroll that I still held in my hands. It roared at me and ran right at me. I freaked out and ran for something that could provide me cover - the nearest stone slab. Of course, that would be like stepping on a thimble to me, but atleast it was something. I was thinking about what the heck I was supposed to do, and then I looked at the slab. There was the spell on the bottom as usual, and this was the slab that mentioned something about "dangerous tree". Some neurons in my brain did some quick connecting, and I wondered: could it be more then coincidence? I thought about saying the spell, then I remembered my master telling me I couldn't do any magic at all. Oh well. I was going to die. May as well live not a wizard then die. I said the spell as the huge thing was only about twenty feet from me. It was knocked back.

I thought that might be the end, but it was never that easy, was it? It got right back up. I said the spell again, but it bounced back as harmlessly as I might if I was thrown out of a catapult... or...something... Well anyways, I decided maybe a spell on another slab would do the trick. I ran over to the closest one, and said that spell. Once again, the huge thing got knocked down. Then he got right back up. Not good.

I ran over to the third and said the spell. It wasn't even knocked down this time. It just shrugged off the blow. Ut-oh, maybe the magic wasn't as strong as it was supposed to be. Maybe the huge beast had developed some sort of magic resistance. I ran over to the final slab, and said the spell. Nothing happened at all.

This was bad... very bad. What was I supposed to do? I used the advice that my master always told me to take : "Think simple". I was thinking simple, but nothing was comming to mind. The huge beast was almost upon me. I dropped the scroll accidentally, and picked it up and looked at it for the first time. There was a magic inscription on it. For the heck of it, I read it off as fast as possible, and pointed my hands at the monster.

The huge beast nearly had his foot on me. Suddenly, blue light sparkled from my fingertips. It gracefully directed itself right at the huge monster. At first, nothing happened. Then he fell over backwards, and all I could see once again was a straight line of trees. I thought he was dead, and then I heard him snoring. I chuckled. Then I heard a voice.

"Good job, boy. I give you an eight out of ten for style. You almost died!"

I jumped in surprise, and turned around. There was my master, just standing there. He was an old man in blue robes. He had an old looking wizened face, a long mustache, and a long wooden cane. He had a book in one of his hands. "Wait..." I said. "You mean you were here the entire time?"

"Well, I wasnt here the entire time, but I was watching you. You didn't do nearly as bad as I expected."

My facial features arranged themselves weirdly as I wondered if that was a complement or insult.

"But...I thought I wasn't supposed to use magic?"

"Hah!" He laughed. "Being independant is half the challenge. The other half is to read the scroll... And you nearly totally forgot about that."

"Well, maybe I was a little lucky."

"Agreed on that point. Anyways, did you like my geomancing magic?"

"Your...what? Do you mean...do...you... that monster was yours?" I was staring at him now, and suddenly I was very glad he was my friend and not my enemy.

"Of course it was! Didn't I just tell you that?"

"Well, then what about that stone slab with something about 'dangerous trees' on it?"

"I put that there just to make everything seem right. Anyways, lets get out of here. I never really liked the jungle..."

I couldn't have agreed with him more.




I'm not sure what I think about this one... What do you think?

Very interesting! Could have made the ending better though.

On the Super-Secret JohnFN Rating Scale - 68/90

What my inner nerd was screaming while i was reading this: meh

Why: It was ok jony. original idea enough which is good in your case. not alot i can say about it though.

overall: 7/10

I normally don't read long stories but I'm glad I made an exception. This story was pretty good, as are most of the things you write. I liked the "casualness" of the story, it really seemed like it was this persons' thoughts.

The only problem was the ending, it isn't very strong. I don't know what to suggest to do to make it better as I'm really bad at endings.

So overall I'm going to give you a 9/10, which I believe is the highest rating I have ever given out.

Wow, I don't think I've ever gotten responses on a story that fast, especially one this long. Thanks for the comments guys :)

As for the ending... yeah, it was meh. Note to self: keep every piece of a story important for it being good together at all times. I tried to do character development and humor but totally forgot about the twist at the end, so thats what you get :P

I dunno, one of these days i'm going to think up a really brilliant story. Until then stuff like this is what you guys get. :-D

Too read, didn't long.

will comment later on

My rating (yay!):

Before you read my rating, know that I use different scales in order to have a global rating out of 100 that takes in consideration all important parts more than the others.

Script: 18/20 — Interesting!

Descriptions: 19/20 — Wow, you really use... ABuse descriptions!

Imagination: 6/15 — Not much imagination, this is a mix between Indiana Jones and Warcraft. Heh, you forgot the part where he switches the idol with the stone... and there is no Holy Grail in your... wait... I'm getting lost again...

Writing skill: 14/15 — The 11th commandement: Thou Shalt Be Skilled

Action: 10/10 — Action packed! Gruesome pace!

Humor: 5/10 — No jokes, some suggestions, and a non-funny-but-humoristic cliché ending

Transposition of the author: 5/10 — You weren't totally in the skin of the character, eh? Do better next time!


Global rating: 79/100 — Almost 80. Too bad. All people below 80 are stupid and ugly. Wait... I just myself had a 74 a few days ago... let's change this to all people below 74. LUCKER!
Concerning the litterary part, you made no effort. This is a movie, not a book. Think about leitmotivs, litterary figures, second senses, etc.
And I did not give you 80 because there was no porn in your story... or maybe not.

Err, a movie? Oook.

And actually there is one small second sense that I doubt anyone will ever pick up on, ever. So maybe you were right.


You sure about that? ;)

Heh ever since "the city" the highest I can get is ~80. Seems to be the lesson of my life that I'll do something hard without knowing it's hard and then for the rest of my time try to match that feat. Oh well :P