[quote=Euripides]...Though the beast of Nemean did pass that day, its legend did not die. Adorning the mighty Hercules as a raiment, it shielded the hero from all harm and took upon itself a new life, as eternal and fearsome as it had been in life. The truly invulnerable persist, even in death.[/quote]

[center][b][color=black]Those of you who have completed this task - in your craftswork, you have hewn a perfect gem with a flawed core. It is the essence of heroism and legend to render immortality upon a foundry of dross. You are hereby worthy of bearing the title...[/color][/b][/center]
[center][h3][color=coral][b]Nemean Fabulist[/b][/color][/h3][/center]

Congratulations to the authors of the following stories:
[b]Pure Hearted[/b]
[b]The Dragon Queen[/b]
[b]Blessed Erubaishur[/b]
[b]Love's Lost Labours[/b], which won the [color=coral][b]Ideal Habiliment[/b][/color] Challenge Accolade. 
[b]Tyranny[/b]
[b]Seasonal Spirit[/b] by [@PlatinumSkink].
[b]Twice Upon a Time[/b] by [@Habibi359].

Your stories have been added to The Twelve Labours [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4187741]Victory Archives[/url], to which there will be a permanent link in my signature. In addition, your victory has been announced in both the [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4003833]News[/url] and [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4003834]Roleplaying Discussion[/url] Subforums!

[hider=Terminal's Reviews][hider=Duty & Punishment]The composition here is largely adequate, so I will refrain from a lengthy technical analysis. I will say that there are two or so significant typos that appear to have been the direct result of hitting a key right next to the one you actually wanted (the word 'thus' in paragraph five comes out as 'this'). This is not a mistake that would have been caught by a standard error filter, so the only advice I can really give you here is to let others review your material before posting it.

Instead I would like to talk about the internal logic of the story itself, and ultimately address the core issue as to why it failed the Labour. If we accept the story as wholly self-contained, nearly everything makes sense with the only inconsistency being Uscelius' inexplicable ascendancy given his prior status as a minor gatekeeper. However, your story is implicitly not self-contained. Your choice to make use of the preexisting Greek/Roman mythos invites a broader, more expansive interpretation not otherwise inherent to the story. [u][b]I did not count this against your story.[/b][/u] I ultimately decided to judge the entry on its own self-contained merits, but I nonetheless feel I should at least mention how a reader's knowledge of your chosen mythos might bias them towards a more skeptical interpretation of your story. Classically, not even Zeus has any authority whatsoever in Hades save for his compulsory privilege of visiting Elysium and of banishing [i]mortal[/i] offenders to Tartarus. Hades was the eldest son of Cronos, and according to Greek tradition would have normally stood as King of Olympus and of the Gods if not for Zeus' suggestion - as the youngest and thus least entitled of Cronos' sons - to draw lots for dominion. Even though Zeus won that draw, according to Greek patriarchal standards he still owes basic deference and courtesy to Hades. The punchline being that even if Zeus went far and long out of his way to find offense with Elyurias, he and the rest of the Olympian gods could have been easily dissuaded by Hades' intervention on her behalf.

There is also the issue of why they found offense with her at all. It is stated early on in the story that she is merely a warden and that judgment of every soul ultimately falls to Hades himself - in essence, even though two souls were sent to the wrong locales, Elyurias cannot be found to have done any wrong because it is clearly outside the purview of her duties to place souls initially. The 'sin' of denying Atreus his rightful place in Elysium and of insulting its residents by admitting Iob should have fallen on Hades' shoulders, if Uscelius truly did cloak his own scheme from discovery.

If it were down to merely those issues, I would permit this story to pass. Unfortunately however, this story has failed the final challenge criteria. [i]Elyurias did not die.[/i] The contextual intricacies of mortality here are more complex than normal given we are dealing with multiple levels of afterlife, but we are explicitly told Elyurias was merely banished to Tartarus - and she already had access to its domain prior. There is no elaboration anywhere stating that she was struck down, castigated, or otherwise upbraided and thus condemned to Tartarus through natural processes.

In short: The author had the burden of establishing that Elyurias' fate qualified as a death, which has not been done. While i commend what is otherwise a substantial and solid effort, unfortunately this story does not meet the challenge criteria and so cannot pass.[/hider][hider=Pure Hearted]This story passes muster. It is fairly brief and so I only have a little to say about it, but it is largely to this entry's strength in that it is straightforward and largely free of error.

The only particularly criminal technical issue occurs in the fourth paragraph. The second sentence runs on for some time and awkwardly and redundantly refers to the childrens' parents twice. Worse errors have been made in other winning entries, but this one stands out due to the otherwise neat standard of writing observed here.

In terms of the story itself, while the ending is classically structured it is somewhat arbitrary. The specter of his murdered sister just happened to appear then, for that random and apparently unexceptional assassin, when it had failed to appear for those in the past? The manner in which the Tyrant ultimately dies makes sense, but has no impetus and occurs arbitrarily.[/hider][hider=The Dragon Queen]In regards to technical issues this story is largely clean, though the author has a tendency to overuse commas where they are not strictly necessary. Beyond that there are a number of basic formatting errors - missing line breaks and only using indentations for unspoken narrative come to mind. However, I was nonetheless pleased by the lack of typos, spelling errors, and awkward grammar here. While there is a general profusion of commas as earlier stated, there are few areas of the story that are actually grammatically incorrect.

As far as the story itself goes, I do find it curious that Drega switched from wanting to murder Viggo for telling his unsolvable riddle to mourning his death to the point of starvation. This makes a certain amount of sense in the consideration that the retelling of this story has been distorted over time; what makes less sense is Drega's momentary rage at being unable to solve a single riddle. If Viggo had truly been asking her riddles for some time and if it was recognized that she enjoyed them, is failure on her part to solve one really sufficient for her brief moment of rage? You did establish that she was vain and proud enough for such to be possible, but the motive here is otherwise exceptionally weak. From the way the story is structured, she might have just grown bored with him, eaten him, and then died by the same manner - there is insufficient content that distinguishes her dissatisfaction with her blind rage. If that makes any sense.

Nonetheless, the story is rather neatly written and it is evident that no small amount of effort went into it. Congratulations.[/hider][hider=Blessed Erubaisur]I will begin by saying that this story most closely approaches the tone and aesthetic that I was looking for in submitted entries. The exact wording and language of the story is incredibly reminiscent of similar tales of antiquity, and I compliment the author on capturing that theme so neatly.

Technically, the story does suffer due to a lack of line breaks or any kind of segmentation, making it harder to parse overall. There are few grammatical errors however - a redundant use of the word day and an unnecessary apostrophe in the word goats are the only ones that stick out - and overall I was remarkably impressed with this story's execution. If it had not been for the poor formatting, I will admit I would have honestly considered awarding it a Challenge Accolade.[/hider][hider=Love's Lost Labours]Here is the exact set of qualifications I give to new judges in order to determine whether an entry can win a Challenge Accolade.

[quote=@Terminal]Finally, the issue of Challenge Accolades. These are not intended to be easy to win. Set your bar to its highest setting when considering whether or not to hand one out. An entry that wins a Challenge Accolade should be close to perfect. A typo or two is fine, but by and large the story should be free of any kind of written error. Additionally, the story must be engaging. It is not enough to have cleared the challenge - when reading an entry, you should become absorbed by it, emotionally invested, intrigued. If the story is exceptionally well-written, but you feel nothing when reading it, do not award it an accolade. Hypothetically you could award more than one of these, but I will be extremely skeptical if you decide to do so.[/quote]

There are a couple of typos of note, plus a grammatical error - but I found myself not really caring.

If the story itself is not technically flawless in execution, its substance is of superb quality. The detailed narrative describing the bar and patrons, the incredulous, fantastical twists of the storyteller's tales, the escalation brought on by the young inquirer and the rising passion of the story-teller over time - all in setup for the inevitable end, both a classical rendition and deconstruction of oral tradition and storytelling. There is very little that I can say in way of actual criticism. Outstanding work.[/hider][hider=Tyranny]A fairly short entry, with little in the way of technical errors. While the story itself is told well enough, it it somewhat simply done without frills, and while the bait-and-switch of the mythical entity actually being fate was well executed the concept itself is not precisely the most inspired one. This entry passes the labour, but it is not of exceptional quality - its short overall length and its straightforwardness somewhat work against it here. The effort put into the story is plain to see, but it is also clear that a lot more could have been done with the material.[/hider][hider=The Stone Man]Another exceptionally short story submitted here - this is very nearly a contender for the three-paragraph record currently in place. You have demonstrated that it [i]is[/i] possible to pack in the overarching narrative necessary for a story to qualify in such a short space, and you do so while making few errors of note beyond a small number of awkwardly arranged sentences.

Ultimately, the reason your story failed is for substantive reasons in addition to the simple fact that you failed to demonstrate an object lesson, aesop, or moral lesson within your story as required by the challenge parameters. Beyond that, the story is simply unengaging and uninteresting. The reader has no reason to be interested in or care about the stone man. They have no reason to care about his death. The 'myth' you establish preceding his drowning is so light it may as well have not existed; the entirety of the story involving the kingdom could have been removed without significantly changing the substance of the story. You managed to create an overarching narrative of sorts within a small amount of space, but you failed to make that narrative at all intriguing or engaging.[/hider][hider=Seasonal Spirit]I will freely admit it grated my nerves that you clearly anthropomorphized the seasons arbitrarily as anime-genre girls, and I was sort of relying on RomanAria to help and supply an objective viewpoint. In their absence, I shall attempt to set aside my misgivings and tell you what I liked about the story.

Firstly, I found the reasons supplied by the children as to why they enjoyed winter to be fairly well-reasoned and compelling. It is not a trend often seen in literature to frame winter as an ally of man, so that was actually a pleasant change for once. I also liked how you established and described Winter's motives for rebelling and attempting to prolong her existence - the setup for her defiance is expertly woven throughout the beginning and is indicative of excellent overall story-structure and planning. I will also say that this particular story, without question, is the single cleanest entry you have ever submitted. There are an odd few issues with awkward grammar, but they are few and far between.

Outstanding work overall. A bit cheesy and the caricatures are admittedly not to my taste, but I will still acknowledge what is evidently a splendid effort.[/hider][hider=Twice Upon a Time]An expert deconstruction of the consequences of immortality across the aeons for a given individual. Your story is technically adequate, possessing only around half a dozen misspellings and decent grammar (there are several misused apostrophes). The monkey's paw tale of the failings of an immortal man are exactly what one would expect to see in stories of the nature I requested, and the object lesson although one of subjective value is both compelling and well illustrated. My only complaint is that the focal character Tulliokan is not well developed beyond his basic desires and declarations of intent - it is hard to connect with him or his reasoning, or to even become invested within his personal tale. Everything we know of him are generalities of the sort which you would expect in the vaguest of stories, and so the story in and of itself is not terribly engaging in my opinion. The decision to include time travel also feels superfluous and awkward; especially given Tulliokan stealing his own wife in the past. That particular segued comes off as a little hackneyed, and I cannot help but feel that the third act could have been handled better.[/hider][/hider]