Concepts & Originality 4/5

The premise is neat. I like the choice of faction/perspective; I like the lead character; I like the lizard temple robots. Very neat and fun idea. There were just points where I wasn't sure what exactly was going on or why it was happening (such as the final imprisonment and the gemstone wife?)

Flow & Clarity 1/5

I'd like to echo The Last Omnitect, who broke it down far better than I could. Apologies if a 1/5 seems overly harsh, I've just been grading this category pretty strictly overall. The bones of the story are good;  at its core the prose itself isn't bad and the ideas are great. Some quick editing to correct run-on sentences and clean up grammatical mistakes would do wonders to help the story flow and improve clarity.

Adherence to Theme 4/5

The use of old temple ruins to make bio-mechanical mechs is cool and creative. Love that.

If you want to discuss any of my feedback/ratings further, feel free to @ me on the OPR discord.

Just finished reading, and I wanted to offer some constructive criticism!
Before you read this, I want to emphasize that I think you should be proud of your writing, and I want you to keep at it and improve your work! You have a clearly creative mind with cool stories to tell, so keep telling them!

First off, I love the Axolotls, and it does my heart to see them getting more narrative love. It's a very good choice of faction and narrative focus! And you very clearly have an interesting idea and concept underpinning the story, and that's the first and most important battle in making a good tale! So great work there!

Most of my issues fall into the area of Story Structure, Editing, and Run-On Sentences. These really take a toll on your writing, but the good news is that all of these problems are easily addressable and can be overcome with just time and practice. Again, I highly encourage you to keep writing! You've got tales to tell, so keep at it, because they deserve to be told! Repetition will basically handle all of these!

Let's start with Story Structure: your premise is interesting, but because you have so much to convey (setting up the main character and the premise, introducing the ruins, Xochi's capture by the Axolotl, introducing the Vinci character, removing the Vinci character, Xochi's isolation, and then the climax and ending) and you had 1000 words or less to do it in, it felt unfortunately rushed. Short stories are tough because you have to choose between telling a smaller story with great detail, or a longer story with almost none, and finding that balance is really tough. I would've loved to see you focus on any one of those narrative beats and really hone in on the scene and the characters. The mystery of Xochi discovering the Ruins, or expanding the conversation she had with the Vinci while they were captive... either scene could've been a great short story all in itself! I would highly advise you hone in on really exploring singular cool moments like those for future short story submissions!

As for the Editing issues, there were numerous spelling and grammar errors, but they were all relatively easy to make and most were immediately caught by autocorrect. I'd advise you give yourself at least an hour or two to do a spelling/editing pass and correct any mistakes you find before you publish your next story. Maybe even ask a friend to give it a quick read so they can catch any spelling mistakes or awkward sentence structure. In timed submissions, there's almost always errors, but even a single editing pass goes a long way to addressing that!

Finally, the most poignant critique I have was the Run-On Sentences. Now, I'm fine with run-on sentences from time to time, especially if they are used as tools to convey emphasis or to highlight a specific moment. Heck, in dialogue, I think they're perfectly fine, as people often speak in run-on sentences. That said, you tend to use run on sentences often, including in scene setting, narrative descriptions, and backstory... and that can really detract from your work.

A each sentence is meant to have a focus: describe a thing, or convey an action, explain something to the audience, emphasize something etc. The way you wrote this story, your sentences often take the place of entire paragraphs: they have several focuses, often in sequence. Instead of putting a period between each focus and letting them breathe as stand-alone sentences with their own descriptions and flow, you use a comma and the word 'and' instead, which makes it harder to follow your meaning and leaves it feeling rushed. The biggest example for me is this sentence:

"Not much else is known by some of the frog mages, yet what little was known, was enough to send many frog mages in a frenzy appointing all their forces to seek the magic stones, all in the hopes of fulfilling long lost prophecies of the olden times."

That right there could have been 3 separate sentences with 3 separate focuses:
- What little they knew was enough to send the frog mages into a frenzy.
- The frog mages sent all their forces out to seek the magic stones.
- The frog mages hoped to fulfill prophecies of old.

Once you focus up your sentence structure, and let each idea breathe, I think your writing will dramatically improve!

I hope that what I posted doesn't come off too harsh, as I want to offer constructive critique, not cast stones at a fellow creative. So, I'm going to finish this off by again reiterating what I think is my most important point:
I think you have the potential to be an excellent writer.
You clearly have the imagination for it and you have stories well worth telling!
You should be proud of your work, because it's worth being proud of!
All you need is more practice, so...
KEEP.
WRITING.

And if you still worry that Im hating on this, lemme be clear:
I don't write essay long analyses of stories I hate. <3

I hope I get to see you in the next writing jam, my friend!
Until then-
ME'KAH
ME'KAH
ME'KAH

not very smart. not sure what's going on at the end. the axolotls kidnap people then make them walk stairs and chant mekah. please explain for my smooth brain.

Sounds like opr needs to drop a new faction: Golemfolk! 

Great story, easy to read with a nice plot!