[quote=Euripides]...Hera's spite was seeded amongst the Amazonians, both awed and terrified by the feats of the mighty Hercules. So as their setting upon him did cause him to slay the most noble queen of Amazons, all as Hera had ordained came to pass.[/quote]

[center][b][color=black]Those of you who have completed this task - as children do not know of the permanence of things, so too might the wise remain unaware of what lies beyond their knowing. Only the enlightened might evade such meticulous treachery as you have devised. You are hereby worthy of bearing the title...[/color][/b][/center]
[center][h3][color=coral][b]Amazonian Tragedian[/b][/color][/h3][/center]

Congratulations to the authors of the following stories:
[b]Pawn take King[/b]
[b]The Song[/b] by [@WiseDragonGirl].
[b]Just Take a Stroll[/b] by [@PlatinumSkink].
[b]The Silver Bullet[/b] by [@Holmishire].

Your stories have been added to The Twelve Labours [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3591696]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/3682167]News[/url] and [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3682168]Roleplaying Discussion[/url] Subforums!

Alas, another Labour - and another lost Challenge Accolade. None of the winning entries were deemed worthy of [b][color=coral]Diaphanous Stigma[/color][/b]. I suppose I shall just put it with the others. Its loss, as promised before, shall be felt more greatly in the Final Hazard.

[hider=Mag Lev's Reviews][hider=Act One]Fail

Though having quite the exposition on the character in question, Taina, Prologue failed to have any part enact a tragedy without knowing before hand what they were doing or doing so at the behest of somebody which could not be retaliated against. Instead, the party enacting the tragedy knew full well that what they were doing was fully going to harm Taina and that they weren't doing it to at the behest of anybody else. While it does deserve praise for such character exposition so as to cause feeling for Taina, Al, Maggie, and Tony, I can not, in my mind, accept a win from this writing. Yet, it made for a wonderful and touching story. [/hider][hider=Pawn Takes King]Pass

Minor errors in grammar and sentence structure make it somewhat difficult to read. In the use of the french term 'danse macabre', the 'of' placed after it makes it 'the dance of death of burned' and the addition of a comma afterwards would have made the sentence structure flow more natural. A few commas is all that is needed to improve the flow of the work. It has otherwise deserved its passing grade.[/hider][hider=The Song]Pass

Well written with near none grammatical errors. Certainly an interesting way to go around with the tragedy, the realization of its happening having come until a long while after the fact. The story and ploy to use the character was rather dull though and obvious from the moment the drink was given away. It was almost to be expected that a nobleman would use a commoner for such matter
[/hider][hider=Just Take A Stroll]Pass

Lacks the use of "" for conversation and instead uses the singular apostrophes. Possess several errors in grammar and a misspelling of the word maneuvering. While the story itself is good, the way it is written makes for a bit lackluster read. Commas placed in certain areas weren't needed and other areas where they should have been.[/hider][hider=The Silver Bullet]Pass

The story fulfills the requirements and has great grammar. While it doesn't plainly state that the character was led to kill another through some ploy, it does so in a covert way so as to imply that he was led to do so by Huldr. For the covert plot, its grammar being close to flawless and having a unique setting to catch the reader's attention, "The Silver Bullet" deserves praise, even a win I would say.
[/hider][/hider][hider=Terminal's Reviews][hider=Act One]I am greatly saddened that you did not challenge me to tackle the scientific aspects of this particular story like last time, oh-so-mysterious-anonymous-author whose identity shall forever remain a mystery. I could have written 150,000 characters worth of commentary on the neuroscience. That aside, you doth protest too much in regards to your inability to refine the whole of the story's content. While there [i]are[/i] more errors than might otherwise be expected of you - both in the form of typos and the occasional misplaced word - most occur earlier on in the story. The latter portions are rather pristine and do not bear any serious criticism.

I am afraid the reason you failed is down to the specificity of the challenge criteria. Simply put, Taina was put through the wringer by a bunch of stinkers who did not mind getting their own hands dirty. 

Now you and I both know that in the context of the previous story, [i]technically[/i] it should count since they did kind of sort of save her life. However, I know and you [i]should[/i] known that each entry much stand on its own. The reader should not have to refer to external sources of information when evaluating the piece. Within the isolated context of this specific entry alone, the challenge criteria are not met. Even if we twist the logic a little and look at it as Taina enacting a tragedy against her friends by twisting a wrist and going off to play space cowgirl while leaving them all heartbroken, the fact of the matter is she did all of that of her own volition.[/hider][hider=Pawn Take King]The first and most notable problem with the entry is the number of misplaced words out of nowhere, as well as the generally awkward sentence structure. Most of these are errors that an autocorrect would not have picked up, and so in the future I would recommend simply rereading your work in order to catch these sorts of problems.

[quote=Examples (Not Exhaustive)]and so as a black hand offered the king’s pawn a victory over [u][b]own[/b][/u] another pawn which was prodded into the fray. . .

Now deep in contemplation of the worth of this obvious trap, [u][b]the real the[/b][/u] battle begins.

Silent as ever though the smoking man, dressed in his lounge suit burning his smokes away [u][b]like[/b][/u] between his fingers. . .[/quote]
Beyond that, my advice to you in terms of punctuation is to use commas much more sparingly. Look for ways to refine and condense sentence structures neatly without losing any important content, like so.

[quote=Paragraph Two] Two pawns, insignificant henchmen, leapt forward for their king and queen, and in reply, a single pawn moved away. . .

[i]Could [/i]have been this:[

Two insignificant pawns leapt forward for their king and queen, and in reply a single enemy pawn moved away. . .

Three commas removed, and the sentence is still entirely correct grammatically.[/quote][/hider][hider=The Song]Your handling of grammar and sentence structure has improved markedly, the greatest technical flaw with this story is the dialogue - it comes across as largely stilted and unnatural, staged in a way. 

[quote=Examples]Paragraph Five:
“I will go there tomorrow and ask for her hand in marriage.”
Lemitsa already knows and they are out of earshot of the bartender, so this is rather clumsy verbal exposition given that Mikhal has no reason to say this.

Paragraph Seven:
"Allow me to smooth my throat with your fine ale and then I will sing for your customers, as agreed."
More expository speech that Mikhal has no real reason to verbalize; the information therein is effortlessly inferred by the reader even the speech is ignored. An ordinary man would just have asked to have a drink first and left it at that.

Paragraph Thirty-Six:
“You are a smart man, no wonder I can see you as a friend, but that is not all.”
Nobody actually talks like this - this would be something Lemitsa would be thinking, not verbalizing.[/quote]
Beyond that, I am afraid I must agree with Mag Lev about the story's content. The entry is an easy pass, but it is vaguely uninteresting and easy to predict. A way you might have made it better could have been to write about Lemitsa tagging along with Mikhal the previous day as he gathered funds, whilst surreptitiously setting up his little scheme in the background - which, after the payoff, would have come across as vastly more impressive while also underscoring the extent to which Limitsa used Mikhal. The problem in short is that the story is too straightforward and simplified - brevity is the soul of wit, but as I have said before: Sometimes you need length in order to have depth. You have already demonstrated that you are capable of much more engaging stories, so this one was a bit of a letdown in that regard.[/hider][hider=Just Take a Stroll]The usual smattering of inappropriate punctuation, but nearly no typos of note nor misplaced words. The most serious technical issue with the entry is, as Mag Lev indicated, your use of apostrophes rather than quotation marks to denote speech - which might be handwaved solely for stylistic reasons.

As far as the actual stories go, in some areas your your descriptive passages are simply amazing and wholly engaging. The identifying the Humans via their shoe markings, the inability to even perceive the rest of the Human body above roughly ankle-height - brilliant, small details that lend the story a significant degree of charm. In other areas however, your descriptions fall short - in particular I was disappointed with your summation of the Ghinites' civilization and city, which was essentially described as 'lots of goo.' 

Perhaps the most criminal example of that might be your description of the pad Akheria was reading near the start, which was almost literally described as 'a plate of goo with goo indentations for reading.' Are these creatures blind? WAre the indentations a different color, or is there some form of electromagnetic perception going on? I have no idea. If I had to guess I would say you got a bit caught up in the novelty of the concept and so were unable to wholly elaborate upon the nuance of the setting. My recommendation in this case is simply to use multiple variations upon a same theme if you find yourself constantly describing several details or elements with uniform or else highly simplified natures.[/hider][hider=The Silver Bullet]As per usual, your entry is almost wholly devoid of any kind of technical errors of any kind. You also easily pass the challenge criteria, condensing everything into a straightforward three-act ensemble. My only real criticism is that perhaps you compressed everything a bit too much, and that the story is perhaps a bit too straightforward. The most interesting parts of the story are the expository segments in the second act (sound familiar?), which in all seriousness you probably could have omitted entirely and still passed - and as such there is a lot of wasted potential within the story itself. 

The story was expertly wrought, modestly engaging, and masterfully executed. There just is not much there to get invested in though. You might recall that you passed the Fourth Labour with your world of Supers setting using a highly similar, highly compressed story that was brief and consisted mostly of exposition. The primary difference between the two stories is their context - the first used the relatively simple setting as a framework to perfectly accentuate the point of the story, while in this one the setting all feels like extraneous and unnecessary fluff. Not unappreciated, but perhaps not utilized in a wholly appropriate fashion.[/hider][/hider]