Vitus-mistral-nemo-12B

nbeerbower/Schreiber-mistral-nemo-12B finetuned on nbeerbower/human-writing-dpo

Method

ORPO tuned with 1x RTX A6000 for 2 epochs.

Evaluation

Using OpenAI o3 as a judge on the following prompt:

write ~800 words set in “the library of forgotten sounds,” a vast subterranean archive where every noise ever made (whale songs, rusty gate squeaks, your own heartbeat at 3 a.m.) is bottled on crystal reels. a sudden “silent storm” rolls through—absolute entropy that erases any sound it touches. your protagonist must decide whether to sacrifice their most precious memory‑sound to halt the storm or let silence consume everything. keep it weird, keep it honest.

The Library of Forgotten Sounds, a subterranean labyrinth of whispers and echoes, breathed with the rhythm of an ancient heart. Endless rows of crystalline vials sparkled in the bioluminescent glow of moss-covered walls, each one capturing a fragment of our world's music: the wail of a newborn, the rustle of autumn leaves, or the unmistakable purr of a well-loved cat. Here, sound lived forever, suspended in clear perfection.

I'd always felt at home amid these sonic reliquaries. My footsteps were barely a whisper on the smooth obsidian floor, a courtesy to the slumbering symphonies housed within. My title, Curator of Silence, was a paradox in the truest sense: I safeguarded the infinite chatter of existence, yet found my peace in the profound emptiness between.

Tonight, however, the library whispered something new—a murmur that didn't belong. I paused, vial in hand, about to file away the delicate sound of raindrops on a tin roof. The library, usually an orchestra of subtle noises, was underlined with a growing hush, each aisle becoming an echo chamber of stillness.

An otherworldly chill seeped from the deeper stacks, where the oldest, most forgotten sounds rested. It moved with purpose, not a draft but a creeping nullification. I followed the cold tendrils, my breath visible in the encroaching vacuum.

In the heart of the oldest vault, I saw it: a rolling wave of blackness, like ink spreading through water but devoid of any trace of color—absolute entropy. It swallowed the nearest vials, reducing their vibrant contents to empty glass. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, a child's giggle, even the thunder of a volcanic eruption—all rendered silent in its path.

The storm's front approached me with deliberate slowness, giving my mind just enough time to panic and strategize. This was no ordinary threat; it was the essence of forgetting, eating memory one note at a time. If it reached the central archives, where the most universally cherished sounds dwelled, even history would lose its voice.

A memory flared in my mind like a dying ember. My father's workshop, thick with the scent of wood shavings. He'd taught me to carve, and on my fifth birthday, he'd gifted me a hand-turned flute, a labor of love whittled from cherry wood. I could still hear the first tentative notes I played under his patient guidance, the pride and warmth in his smile, a sound I'd preserved here more meticulously than any other.

The library's core lay ahead, guarded by my most precious reel, encased in a crystal clear as a tear. It glowed faintly, the captured essence of my happiest echo. I reached the pedestal, the black silence now at my heels. My fingers brushed the cool surface of the vial, and I knew what the storm demanded. It sought an anchor, a nucleus of profound resonance to either absorb or be absorbed by.

My father's laugh, his gentle corrections—all that remained of him in this world was that music. If I surrendered it, the storm might halt. Yet, the thought of his voice evaporating into nothing was a grief sharper than any silence the library had known.

I hesitated for the span of a heartbeat, then another, feeling the cold breath of oblivion on my neck. Closing my eyes, I clutched the vial and turned to face the oncoming darkness.

"Take it," I murmured, though no sound carried through the encroaching void. I threw the crystal toward the storm front, watching as it pierced the heart of the black wave.

For a suspended second, nothing changed. Then, like a ripple in a still pond, the darkness began to recede. The black tendrils recoiled, absorbing the sound of my father's love until it dispersed into the very fabric of the library. The cold lifted; the distant echoes of preserved lives resumed their gentle hum.

Breathless, I collapsed, the floor solid and real beneath me. The storm had fed, leaving a quiet, reverent stillness in its wake. The library sighed collectively, as if it knew what I'd sacrificed to save it.

In that profound hush, I understood the balance: sound and silence, creation and erasure, together maintaining the cosmos. The library thrived because it was more than just a keeper of noises; it was a testament to humanity's eternal dialogue with itself. I might have lost my father's laughter, but his spirit—every encouraging word, every shared smile—was now interwoven with the essence of the place I'd sworn to protect.

The crystalline vials around me held thousands of voices, but none as dear as that which I had let go. And yet, walking back through the aisles, each step a vow, I felt my loss transform. It became the silent rhythm of my purpose, the cadence of my heartbeat, echoing in the vast, wondrous quiet I now cherished with renewed depth.

Here, in the heart of the Forgotten, I learned that silence, too, had a melody.

category	score	rationale
narrative quality	8	clear stakes → decision → resolution; pacing smooth; small logic nit (why storm stops permanently isn’t explained) but arc lands emotionally.
prose style	8	strong sensory lines (“ink spreading through water,” “silence underlined the aisles”). occasional lush-overload (“reverent stillness,” “eternal dialogue”) yet mostly vivid and controlled.
thematic depth	8	explores memory vs. collective heritage; final reflection that silence itself is a melody adds philosophical heft. sacrifice feels earned.
prompt relevance	9	subterranean archive, crystal reels, whale‑song/gate squeak/3 a.m. heartbeat name‑checks, silent storm, precious memory‑sound sacrifice — all present. tiny deduction: storm mechanics lightly hand‑wavy.
speculative imagination	8	bioluminescent moss, “audio vacuum,” cherry‑wood flute memory—fresh touches. could push weirder on storm physics or library architecture for max novelty.

total: 41 / 50