[quote=Euripides]It is true, mighty Hercules did succeed in carrying away safely the cattle of Geryon - though in his hubris and fugue did he forget the true purpose of his task. In accosting these simple creatures, Hercules slaughtered noble Orthrus and upbraided Geryon for presuming to safeguard that which was rightfully theirs. Hercules blackened the hallowed land of Erytheia, tainting the earth with the blood of innocents and stealing away its prosperity.[/quote]

[center][b][color=black]Where one bargains with the Rhino, only malice can thrive. In these darkened times without champions, all have learnt to fear the title...[/color][/b][/center]
[center][h3][color=coral][b]Doombringer of Erytheia[/b][/color][/h3][/center]

Needless to say, nobody earned the [b][color=coral]Aphotic Desideratum[/color][/b] challenge accolade. Nothing shall be added to the victory archives. No proclamations of triumph shall be announced. All Manner of Great and Terrible Things have been born anew to torment those who partake of the Final Hazard.

[hider=RomanAria's Reviews][hider=How to Make them Equal]
Wow. I love your story – the way you did this through a journal-ish style was a really unique take on it, and the way you executed it was fabulous. I could see the events unfolding in my mind’s eye, but it still retained a very personal flavor that such stories usually lack. Good work. The premise of it was fabulous, too – an excellent set-up with intrigue and unique cultures that we could feel, despite the relatively limited insight we were given. And in terms of your storyline it was a solid hit on the theme.

The reason I failed your entry, though I regretted needing to do it, was because there are many constructions and tenses that don’t fit together as well as they should. It seems like English isn’t your first language? In whatever case it is, the structure is so distracting in some places that I lose the full flavor of the story, and so I cannot pass this as it does not fulfill what I call my “basic level of good storytelling.” A work needs to be sufficiently error-free that I don’t get distracted by grammatical snaggles in my reading.

Solid effort, nonetheless. And, if you look at the verdicts on the rest of the entries, we did Make them Equal.
[/hider]

[hider=Forward]
Okay, so. That moment when the identity of “it” clicked in my head (Which it didn’t until the very end) – my jaw dropped and I reread the story four more times. Well done with the premise. Very, very well done. There are several lines that at first made no sense, like “great wars waged across it” and then once I realized what “it” was… yeah. These ideas are very well done.

The overall execution, however… is slightly lacking. While I do appreciate what you tried to do with the formal language, much of it just left me scratching my head. “More sunrises more sunsets and again it saw upon that which it watched the growing of its ideals.” Erm… parsing error, can you please rephrase this sentence and the entire paragraph? A few more commas might be helpful…

The main reason I failed your entry was because you did not fulfill the challenge parameters. Time’s “everything” did not wind up destroyed. A being as infinite as Time would surely not be focused solely on the happenings of the little people of one little civilization on one little planet, for time is universal.

I also, after considering the number of sentences that I couldn’t quite decipher, decided that this entry did not quite live up to my personal “basic standard of quality storytelling.” Sometimes a more natural tone and word choice can express an idea much more eloquently than a formal tone with needlessly-obsolete phrases.

Do not be discouraged by your failure, my friend. Keep marching forward.
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[hider=Kurt Fortitude]
Good work, Platinum, as ever. Beautiful characterization, lovely writing. Two critiques as far as form goes: One, the single awkward grammar bit that jumped out at me for no apparent reason: “'Don't turn your head. You'll blind yourself.' Nuvac told on the floor, his eyes closed.” I don’t know why but it jumped out at me and rather soured my mood as I was reading. Secondly, your habit of structuring the majority of paragraphs as dialogue, action, paragraph break, dialogue, action, got just a bit repetitive. But that’s just me being nitpicky – in terms of form, a solid entry.

The reason I failed your entry was because of a technicality in the way I interpreted the prompt – Must have everything destroyed by someone who fights because of them. I interpreted this line to mean that it must be an ally. Someone who’s inspired by the ideas and motivations of the protagonist, who fights for their cause. Since it was the enemies who destroyed everything, your entry did not fulfill the challenge requirements.

Do not despair at the failure. Face the last two labours and the final hazard with fortitude.
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[hider=Going Home]
Beautiful work as always, Holmishire. We can always count on you for quality entries – there is nothing that I can think to say about the structure or form of this entry. Just… *gush* sooo preeetty.

The reason I failed your entry was because I didn’t see how it fulfilled all of the challenge parameters – At least how I interpreted it, everything your character loved had to be completely, physically destroyed. Ariana’s home was not – though improbable, she could have found another ship. Also, she did still have her four comrades, whom she loved or at the least cared about.

I’m sorry, dear, that we had to end your undefeated streak this time. But it was inevitable. I hope you’ll stick around for the next labours – don’t pack your bags to go home just yet.
[/hider][/hider][hider=Terminal's Reviews][hider=How to Make Them All Equal]I will say that everything else aside, this was my favorite submission this time around.

The story is nearly precisely what the the challenge criteria was asked for, but remained interesting and engaging despite the straightforward approach. The eventual merger of Rhom and Mayazetec into Euleria is an excellent creative twist on the core concept of the Labour Criteria and under nominal circumstances would amount to a firm victory.

Unfortunately, while reading through this story the first thing that was always at the forefront of my mind was just how many mistakes there were. Upon reexamination, I do not believe there is a single paragraph that is devoid of at least one significant error of either tense or grammar save perhaps the very first and the very last. There was no singular criminal error that ruined the piece, but rather a legion of small mistakes.

My advice in this regard is to take the time to read through your own entry upon completion - most of these errors are minor but are all nearly immediately evident and would likely have been caught in a cursory skim. If you are already in the habit of rereading what you write, you may want to find another person to read your material in order to provide a second opinion of sorts.[/hider][hider=Forward]My biggest problem with this entry is that your chosen character - Time - lacks any of the sort of necessary characterization that would allow for it to really meet the challenge criteria. You were clearly aiming to illustrate Time as a vast cosmic aspect, but its preponderance is rather unhelpfully vague and tautologically meaningful. The reader is never given significant reason to care about Time or the revelation that mortals are stealing and/or otherwise manipulating it. If anything, Time comes across as a particularly dim-witted child attempting and failing to sound profound and the story gains nearly nothing from having been staged from its viewpoint - which is bad when that basically is the entire story.

As for the story itself, it suffers from structural awkwardness - several misused or otherwise absent commas, conjunctions, and transitions. Moreover, the narrative itself is very stiff and stilted. 
[quote=Second Paragraph]It wasn't even sure how the things it watched knew what it was called, how it worked, but amusement filled it still ([u][b]far too much ambiguity, be more precise and find other pronouns to use[/b][/u]). What felt even more and to some even less, the monuments went up in houses and town-squares ([u][b]this sentence makes no sense whatsoever, even in-context, adding nothing to the story. Call it a parsing error[/b][/u]). On the things it watched and the things it lead ([b][u]More ambiguity. Subtlety is, as indicative, subtle and therefore best used in small doses - spell things out a bit more clearly rather than being pointlessly obtuse).[/u][/b]. Still some loved it and others cursed it. It was constant and always in the back ground even when its little creatures didn't notice it.[/quote]

While I can see what you were going for in terms of the challenge criteria, the one thing you did a pretty good job of explaining was that ultimately the passage of Humanity was of little to no consequence to Time - it felt only brief and vague amusement followed by sorrow, and their absence did not truly affect it in the requested manner.[/hider][hider=Kurt Fortitude]I will say that I found myself wanting to pass this entry. It does not [i]precisely[/i] meet the challenge criteria, but I nonetheless felt that your written ending had adhered to the [i]spirit[/i] of the challenge. Ultimately the reason I decided to fail Kurt Fortitude was because it would hardly be fair, given my by now firmly established precedent of failing entries for not adhering precisely to the challenge criteria.

In case you were wondering, the exact flub is that Kurt's [i]enemy[/i] destroyed everything, which runs contrary to the parameters of the challenge. The idea was that a character who was an object of Want would inspire others, nominal allies (though not necessarily) to destroy everything. The problem with your specific ending is that your villain already had ample incentive to destroy Earth without having to be inspired to do so by Kurt. Kurt was the [i]causal[/i] factor, but was not a source of inspiration or idolatry for Nuvac - if that makes any sense.

In terms of formulation you continue to improve. Very few typos and much less of the awkward grammar I have almost come to expect of your submissions - the biggest problem here is probably the way you structured the narrative, which comes across as rather stiff and awkward. This is less obvious in the calmer segments, especially the beginning, but becomes especially distracting during the action scenes.
[quote=Kurt and Nuvac's Showdown]'You mean... like this?' Kurt asked, as the pod shot electricity through the control panel. Nuvac's grunt was audible, [u]and it told Kurt to jump out of the way before Nuvac shot through his head because his voice had given off his location[/u] (This segue is unnecessarily long, containing superfluous information and providing an explanation in the middle of the fight that distracts from it more than assists it). [u]That's when all the lights went out. The window turned black, preventing the light of space to come in as well[/u] (very awkward spacing and transitions, could have been conceivably shortened or lengthened considerably and made neater).[/quote]
[quote=Kurt and Nuvac's Showdown]'… KAH!' Kurt forced himself up on his left leg, [u]a hand going to cover his left side, which had been shot[/u] (You could have just said his injured left side. Would have been shorter and neater). [u]His body quivered from the pain and his eyes kept themselves half-closed[/u] (describing the eyes as though they were controlling entities separate from Kurt clashes with the narrative perspective of the first half of the sentence, 'he could barely keep his eyes open' would have been a better choice). Though, he still could smile, for he held a gun in his left hand directed down at his defeated opponent. '… There. I won.' He proclaimed.

'… GNF!' Nuvac made a noise as his leg detached, [u]as Ruwdan injured limbs do, assuming they hadn't died[/u] (This information is extremely interesting and relevant. Sure would have been nice to know earlier, preferably somewhere it would not have broken up the activity of an already busy scene). Nuvac glared up at him, infuriated.  'And what, exactly, did you hope to accomplish with this victory?' He asked, a searing anger in his voice. … That was the most emotion Kurt had ever seen in Nuvac. [u]Suppose being shot through the leg would do that to you[/u] (breaks away from the narrative tone of the rest of the paragraph without a proper transition.[/quote]

In previous Labours, you have been advised a few times to experiment more with how you arrange your action scenes and overall narrative structure - and it is rather obvious that you [i]were[/i] experimenting here, so I can hardly fault you for the rather haphazard arrangement here. That said, this particular approach is actually a step back rather than forward - I encouraged you to try and describe things a little more thoroughly in action scenes and to be more descriptive, and you certainly did that here. The problem is that you made poor choices of what to describe, and what was described was presented in a needlessly drawn-out and awkward fashion. My advice to you this time is to continue experimenting and to focus on brevity - wring as much detail as possible out of the shortest sequence of words you can find. Omit needless words.

On a more personal note, I think I get what Han Solo meant now. Having someone always going on about the odds of any given outcome is really annoying.[/hider][hider=Going Home]I understand that you were operating under rather severe time restrictions. That said,  understand that you have produced much greater in much less time - and it is also known that the problem was one of inspiration rather than any actual external pressure applied by real life. So all I have to say is: [i]You have nobody to blame but yourself[/i].

The one real problem with this entry was that Ariana was not really the sort of character that was requested. You explained who she is and why she could [i]possibly[/i] be the sort of character I was looking for, but you failed to demonstrate the prerequisite qualities in her character for that purpose. I know she is the bastard daughter of the Queen, liked by her men, a conquistadora, and basically nothing else. She is largely two-dimensional and not a character I would normally expect to see in one of your works.

Without any established principles or ideals, without really inspiring much of anything, it cannot really be said that Ariana was the causal factor of her friend blowing the carrack out of the water. That is something they might have reasonably been expected to do anyway even if she had been befriended by anybody else - proven because Ariana is nobody of any true comport as far as the story goes, at least.

I have said it before: Brevity is the soul of wit, but a story is always precisely as long as it needs to be in order to tell the tale it needed to. This story is not what was asked for.

The good news is: I have it on good authority there is much more oxygen at the base of the mountain, even though everyone else is there.[/hider][/hider]
[hider=An Alternate Version of this Post][quote=Euripides]So Hercules, he went up to Orthrus to beat him to stupid death but then Orthrus went yo Heracles, this is a stealth mission jackass and Huhruhclease went oh and then he died the end.[/quote]

[center][b][color=black]Nobody completed this task.

Whoopee.[/color][/b][/center]

No victory archive, no news and discussion posts, no challenge accolades.[/hider]