we've not yet had time in excess enough to read and review the stories this time, but we hope to get it next week.

But we can't deny that we've looked at the criticism for ours. Something we find very nice to see, be it positive or critical.
[quote=@PlatinumSkink]
... Heh. If I divide a larger, but still not quite large, story up into five parts... then this is either the second or the fourth part. Very well written, as I've come to expect of you. Very interesting and engaging, as I've come to expect of you. And... not the whole tale, as I've come to- eh. XD ... Regardless, everything here felt like it was pulled off exactly as was intended. But honestly, if I got to personally pick which part of the story I wanted to read, I would not have picked this part. Haha. In any case. Flawless quality and narrative skill. If the art of writing engaging stories can become greater than yours, then I can no longer tell the difference. I'm currently feeling an eager desire of reading the beginning and the end of what tale these characters are heading off on. Of course, I can't, I only have this part. Haha. ... Though, what lie are we talking about here? Almost all she said was the truth, wasn't it? The lie which the theme seems to focus on is the lie which she's setting up, that the Countess is still alive, correct? Wouldn't it then be more appropriate to the theme to write about when she fools the prey? Eh, maybe not. In any case. Well done, if I didn't say that. Well done.[/quote]

The story could easily have more parts, but it doesn't. At least not yet. The lie isn't as blatant as it could be, but we think it might be layered throughout the whole story. Some of our stories, the better ones, tend to be creatures of their own, so we can't force things into them without breaking them. We think the lie is somewhat in the fact that the necromancer is describing what is happening, even as she's doing it to her victim, and then there's the bits about whether they have free will, or whether there's something else controlling them. We don't know. 

[quote=@darkwolf687]Well, well... I loved the style. This was a beautiful piece, in my opinion. The lexis was good, the syntax was accurate and the plot was nice in my eyes. Its unfortunate then, that the lie is not the best on here and as such I cannot do this piece justice by awarding it with a vote. I feel, the same I feel with Reality Checkmate, that my understanding of this contest is going to cheat this and that piece out of me considering it for my vote.  9/10[/quote]

Aye, it didn't ask to be written with "lie" as the core thread. Had we had more time available and fewer other stories demanding to be written, we might have added "chapters" that would have had more obvious lies, but alas, that was not the case this time. But that doesn't matter to us. Its writing stories people enjoy we consider important, not fitting it as good as possible to the theme.