The soldiers prepared themselves for the ensuing combat, raising their shield and spears to meet with the incoming enemy. Due to the given commands and currently being of NPC status until Skittles takes control of her again, Lexa would not in affirmation to Alvin’s plan and have Nightmare soar forward, part-way into the air as much as possible inside this castle that apparently doesn’t exactly have a roof considering Habit was walking on the wall earlier, in any case.
The soldier which Albin flew towards did raise his shield to defend himself against the attack by the Grado prince, not aware that he had attracted the intentions of another individual on the battlefield. Alvin was the superior fighter of the two and had the supported strength of a Wyvern’s charge, he would have been the one to come out of the encounter victorious, however before Alvin was able to strike an arrow soared through, shot from Archibald’s bow and hit the soldier exactly where he was intended to be hit, the soldier yelping in pain and falling over with an arrow going through his armor in his side. He wouldn’t be dead, though if Alvin continued his strike he would likely be. Regardless, this battle was over for this soldier. Though, exactly as was predicted the Fighter behind them would leap forward, physically dashing forward with a glee in his eyes as he would attempt to jump at the wyvern-mounted Alvin, grabbing his axe with both hands to attempt striking at the currently lance-wielding prince in order to take advantage of the weapon’s triangle. Of course, since this was already part of the strategy…
Meanwhile, Lexa would charge down and attempt attacking the other soldier. However, this was not done with as much success. The soldier was able to lift his shield and parry the attack, proving to be more skilled than his company gave him credit for, and unless someone comes up with a timely saving or her player reappears Lexa will be inflicted with a minor injury on her side, the tidings of battle showing off its dangers. In addition, the soldier had moved aside a little in order to allow a mercenary to jump forward and try to strike in addition at Lexa, hoping to take advantage of the current numbers in that particular encounter to take her off-guard. Lexa would probably be able to avoid the blow, weapon’s triangle and the speed of a Pegasus Knight on her side, but at that point she’d possibly be sitting in a little spot of trouble.
Assumingly Aiph and Darius would be following after Archibald, trying to keep up. Aldo would aim a stare at Griswal and after aiming a glance at Kalte the two would dash after, hoping to at least get past the corner so that Sion wouldn’t see them when he came through the door…
… On that side, Sion had already sliced through his opponent, the general falling as Sion stood proudly and swung his sword to clean off the blood. Like his king, Nethanel had also finished off the General he had been fighting, but no such motion of cleaning seemed to be necessary for him as he simply smiled and sheathed his sword. The two shamans who had been standing behind the generals raised their hands to combat their enemies, but powerful spells of flaring anima magic suddenly flew over the heads of the symbols of the invasion forcing them to jump into the corners for their lives, rolling around on the floor with burning robes trying desperately to put out the flames. Meanwhile, the druids on the ledges west and east of the corridor prepared to shoot their magic to injure, but as if completely ready for that the enemy Sniped moved in and sniped at a speed and force which magic-users simply cannot handle. Both stunned Druids fell as Sion walked up to the door…
“Key.” He asked, and a Rhodri (who had left his opponent as a shaken damaged mess leaning against the wall incapable of movement) grinned behind him as he lobbed a key (which he had taken from said General) which landed perfectly in Sion’s hand. The king of Jehanna held a serious expression of combat as he inserted the door-key and opened up the large door, letting it swing open as he looked out over the remaining defenders on the other side of the door, who held their weapons with determination despite the fear they had for their enemies.
Map
Notable individuals:
Blue Mercenary Kalte – A strong-willed Swordsman who likes to travel.
Blue Knight Griswal – A proud knight of Grado heritage. Stoic, but empowered.
Blue Horserider Marwood – A Renais prince with a good heart and a rebellious streak.
Blue Faithful Arathyra – A sweet young healer from Grado
Blue Wyvern (Though more cheerful than the image claims~) Alvin – Prince of Grado. Gregarious and diplomatic, though a fine warrior in his own right.
Blue Thief Habit – A Thief hailing from Jehanna who seems unable to refuse any task.
Blue Pegasus Knight Lexa – A jaunty young pegasus knight from Frelia. Often has her head in the clouds.
Blue Shaman Aldo – A shaman researcher and advisor on things magic in service of Grado. Magically gifted and incurably serious. Weapon Mastery: Dark: D Level: 1 Equipment and Items: Flux, Vulnerary, Guiding Ring.
Green Warrior in Throne Room Rioga – The Court Emperor of Grado. Trusted by his people. Known for catching bandits and trying to strengthen Grado’s military. Weapon Mastery: Axes: B, Bows: C Level: 5 (25) Equipment and Items: Steel Axe, Tomahawk
Green General to Rioga's right Nero – Commanding guardian of Grado and one of Rioga’s best men. Weapon Mastery: Swords: ???, Lance: ???, Axe: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Steel Sword, Steel Lance, Steel Axe, Knight Crest
Green Swordmaster to Rioga's left Garric - Skilled Swordmaster in employ of Grado. Excessively cautious about himself. Weapon Mastery: Sword: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Steel Blade, Killing Edge, Hero Crest
Red Hero at Right Corridor Sion – Jehanna’s King of Red Sands, cause of this war. A graceful and deadly swordsman who can seem gentle and/or devious depending on who you are. Weapon Mastery: Swords: ???, Axes: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Lancereaver, Silver Sword, Wind Sword, Elixir.
Red Swordmaster to Sion’s right Nethanel – Second-in-command of the Royal Guild. His swordsmanship and bloodlust is only matched by his adoration for Sion. Weapon Mastery: Swords: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Killing Edge, Runesword.
Red Berserker to Sion’s Left Rhodri – Brutal leader of the Wheel Guild. An excellent drinking partner who’s jolly personality masks his lack of compassion. Weapon Mastery: Axes: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Battle Axe, Tomahawk, Elixir
Red Mercenary at Left Entrance Morag – The leader of the Spike Guild. Proud, confident and looking for wealth and fortune above all else. Weapon Mastery: Swords: D Level: 3 Equipment and Items: Steel Sword (is what that qualifies as now)
Purple Archer Archibald – A friendly poacher who wanders around Grado with his merry band of bandits. Has a hidden dark side.
Purple Thief Aiph - Thief with thin, wiry frame assisting Archibald. (As far as I know.) Weapon Mastery: Swords: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Iron Sword, I'd assume, possibly something more, I haven't given it any thought.
Purple Fighter Darius - Right hand-man of Archibald with a gruff voice. (As far as I know.) Weapon Mastery: Axes: ??? Level: ??? Equipment and Items: Iron Axe, I'd assume, possibly something more, I haven't given it any thought.
Green Odd Guy in left corridor Ret – A Mage from the rural mountains of Caer Pelyn, uncivillized yet seemingly the honorable sort.
Green female Myrmidon who I figure would be trying to gtfo after you guys Narina – A defiant woman born in Jehanna but raised in Renais.
... Hold on. Oh, wait, that was the PREVIOUS soldier. Ah, got it. XD
Since this is the first chapter, I am entirely willing on throwing away player characters whose players disappear unless people want them to remain. ... Though, Lexa was kind of part of the current battle-plan, so guess I'll have to move her for it. Haha.
Honestly, I would have submitted myself as a judge if I had known I'd only need to do a third (fourth?) of the entries, since I didn't know how busy I'd be or if there's be twenty entries or something I didn't want to completely book myself up those three days in the worst case scenario. ... On the other hand, maybe it is a good thing I didn't, seeing how I must have completely misunderstood the criteria for a passing entry because I'd have passed all of these in the situation I was picked to review that particular one on the basis that they did what the objective told them to do. Oh, well. Haha. ... I'll assume that if I did submit myself, I would have gotten a little lesson in what it takes. Hah.
... So, when's the next one? I obviously have something to prove, now. And now I can't possibly contribute with anything shorter, because writing gripping long texts is obviously what I need to practice. Especially to that specific judge, who I'd love to have give her thoughts on it regardless if she's my judge or not. I just feel I have something to make up for, after all. My goal was to get all twelve and failed on the easiest one, so now I need a new goal. That's the one I'm picking. Get a winning entry of that length. That'll do. If I can get that specific individuals approval due to my own skill, that'd be wonderful, but of course I'd accept any circumstances that makes that impossible. In any case. Yupp.
Hold on. If there's that change to the competition thing about anonymity, does that mean that we can, like, openly discuss with one another in this thread what we're doing with one another? Perhaps even make suggestions or pretty much line out our entire story-line as long as we don't actually show the entry ahead of time? Or could we do that too? How far could one go, if at all? I mean, of course the entry needs to be written by the actual writer, but, yeah?
@mdk I had an easier time, I didn't have to read my own really long entry when it came to reviewing! XD
My apologies for that. Still, yeah. I'll look forward to seeing what you think of it. Because honestly... I'm confused.
Edit: @Dark Wind And your thoughts too, if you make it. Haha. Anyone's thoughts, really, but I'll stick to looking forward to those who said they'll write reviews. Hah.
Alright. I’m no judge, but here goes. Now to prepare to become depressed.
Also, I am not going to hide which entry is mine. I am not going to write a fake review, however, at the same time I am going to <partially> hide it from those who don’t want to know before they read the entry, or something, I don’t know. I’ll be stating that I wrote the entry within the hider which should contain the review for the entry I wrote. So if you don’t want to know for whatever reason, don’t enter the reviews of entries that you don’t know who wrote. That’s about it.
Now I’m just going to post these and hope I’m doing nothing wrong.
... Heh. There were quite a few places where you forgot to include a capital letter where one should have been, and some place(s) I noticed where there should have been a question-mark but there was a dot. Eh, I’m pretty sure you should be highly aware of how much this deprives the quality of an otherwise excellently spelled story, so I’ll leave that at that. Also, using words instead of numbers looks much nicer when reading it.
We don’t learn a lot about your character here, do we? Not much to connect to. We only have a single individual running and eventually dying. Well, the only job was to write a death scene, so that’s fine, I suppose. It was a labour for yourself, not necessarily one for others to read, I think? Heh.
I could argue that the ‘heroicness’ of throwing himself into a horde and detonating himself kind of decreases the ‘unpleasantness’ score we were supposed to get, even though he didn’t actually save anyone and didn’t actually desire to die. Eh, I’d probably be kind and give you a pass anyways, for it wasn’t really a happy death, after all. Of course, I’m not the judge. Haha.
Heh. That was probably a little bit more that was in mind for this labour. You set up a little bit about the character, enough for us to know a bit to relate to him, and perhaps feel something for his eventual demise. Of course, since we already knew he’d die, this is a death scene, after all. … And he achieved nothing, and didn’t get either a dramatic end nor find out what happened after his death. If anything, I could argue that the amount of text after he had already been stabbed was a little bit long and felt a little odd because of it. But eh, that could just be me, personally. I’ll have to congratulate you on a labour well done. That’s about it.
… Well done. When I think of death-scenes, it usually follows my favorite kinds of characters, that are distinctly unnatural characters that are fighting for the good of the world, and it wouldn’t be odd to see any of those die by their day-to-day activities. Here you have a completely normal guy, and normally the feeling of sadness over a character’s death would be blunted due to knowing a character would die. Yet, you USED this feeling, included multiple places where it would be perfectly explainable that he’d die in an accident, taking the time to explain the different dangers in drawn-out fashions that made us see the possible outcomes before us, and then hit it in the chest with a fast and powerful finisher to prove us all wrong. The way you wrote after was also a highlight, it made me feel for the character’s friends and family, and made me feel it was a true tragedy. Well done. Very well done. Oh, well.
… Ah. Well… I’ll have to say. The first read-through is the most important one, and after this first read-through… I am thoroughly confused. In addition, I am not entirely sure all that backstory was even necessary, because we got really little time to try to connect to the main character anyways. I can’t help but think this is somewhat of an incomplete death scene. See, a death to me includes three parts. First all the thoughts and feelings before it happens, then the fraction of a moment when it happens and what goes through one’s mind then, and then lastly the events and feelings from sustaining the damage until actual death. You’re only including the last part in the actual writing that matters. It makes things feel incomplete to me. … Still. Well written, you’re showing off some sincere literacy skills, and I have no doubt the novel you’ve written is an exciting one. I wish you good luck with that. Haha.
Well. That was… vague. I had sincerely no idea what was going on. Maybe that was for the better, there’d been so much to explain, otherwise. I know not for what any of them died, or why, or by who. Everything regarding that is a mystery. … Well, suppose that’s one way to do it. I can’t say for sure if I had preferred it any other way, but eh. It is a mass of bitterness either way. But, well, that’s what this entire labour was fated to be, anyway. So what can I say? Interesting usage of complete vagueness to still deliver the intended emotion. Well written. Oh, well.
… Yupp. It is infinitely clear what has happened here. I’m left with few words to say. It was a death scene, as described by the labour to do. It was written with quality, and it did exactly what it was supposed to do with no discernable errors which I can locate. If anything, would that really be the haphazard way they’d execute such a significant person? Well, suppose it drives the point home that he was a nobody to them. Yupp, well done.
Ha. Alright, then. I understand the idea. It is one stupid way to die, ain’t it? Yeah. Well. Somehow, it felt like it happened too fast. It feels like we should have had a little bit more time to get used to Alex in her regular world, her expectations and the like, but she just up and left and then bang. That is the impression I get, anyways, and you’re obviously free to disagree. Other than that, everything in your writing looks quite alright. The purple is a little bit hard to read against that background, but. Nicely done.
This is my entry. I apologize if it is too long and you got bored reading it. If you found it interesting, then… I’m happy you did. I’m personally not even sure if this is good or not, so I put myself at your mercy when it comes to that. This takes place in a roleplaying world where the players were mostly in the school mentioned at multiple times in the entry… yeah. I distanced myself from that and had my character on the way somewhere else, and... yeah.
I’m kind of worried I might not have made her death unpleasant enough. I mean, she’s practically smiling as she’s dying in the end there, during her own little delusion. Eh, up to the judges, I suppose. Haha.
It feels kind of like the amount of text in this entry is somewhat irregular. Some parts have more text than others. I do not know if this was due to a choice on your part or if you were running out of time or something, but it went from being rather beautifully charming and well-described in the family situation to, uh, a rather unimpressive death-scene. It simply didn’t hold up the emotions the same way, and as such didn’t leave much of an impact. If I may say so… it felt like the beginning was a beautiful world where everything was alive and moving naturally, and then we continued to a rather stale, grey and scripted death scene. It wasn’t just that scene, it was a bit before that felt like a row of one-liners that didn’t transmit the emotions well, didn’t give a clear image. It just happened without me feeling anything about it, because the writing there failed to inspire these emotions in me. Well, it is still well written, but that’s what I feel. And that’s about that.
Savo,
Xaltwind,
Lunamaria Hawke,
Kon Kon,
vue2026,
Floofenstein,
RPM,
Renose,
Rune_Alchemist,
adncod
