Terminal

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

In just before the turning of the screw.

Next post shall be up shortly.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

@Cruallassar, @Bright_Ops - you both have around three hours left to post.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

@PlatinumSkink, @Cruallassar, @Bright_Ops - Around twelve hours remain to post before I have to again.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

With the close of the First Labour of series two, the roster with lives have all been updated. A few of you have extra lives to play around with now. There are also a few new 2-Lifers that have been added and informed via PM, so we may or may not be seeing a new face or two shortly.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

The forum is giving me a great deal of trouble currently with application errors and lag, and so a few of the ancillary posts attached with the victory announcement - the archives and the news announcements - will be going up later today rather than immediately. Apologies.

TTL Series Two: The First Labour

...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.

Euripides

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...

Nemean Fabulist

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

Your stories have been added to The Twelve Labours Victory Archives, to which there will be a permanent link in my signature. In addition, your victory has been announced in both the News and Roleplaying Discussion Subforums!

Terminal's Reviews

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. I did not count this against your story. 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 mortal 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. Elyurias did not die. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@Terminal

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.

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.

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 is 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.

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.

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.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

i've screwed up
If anyone dies from this I will definitely be offering refunds.

@Terminal, am I still allowed to post now, or would you prefer I wait until after the punishment takes effect?

@Holmishire

Oh, feel free to post. In fact, you are still near the Limousine, no? I would advise dodging if you want to avoid impalement.

Also: Even with the more-than-once rule, we have now accumulated enough errors to significantly smudge up the text. Thankfully with the number of participants the first world-break is not too severe, so things are still relative easy to interpret.

The Final Hazard

Luca reacted on instinct. He dove at the knight and grabbed his arm, slowing -- but not stopping -- its movement. His thoughts were racing too quickly to keep track of them all. Tesla chemical weapon death death STOP him STOP STOP danger plating death "No! NO! NO! NO!" PAIN!!!

Luca only managed to keep the implement from striking the ground by grabbing the business end with his left hand. But something inside commanded him to stop the weapon. He held on with all his might, with no plan-B and, for that matter, no plan-A either.

@mdk

Grasping the bolt, Luca got a good look and feel for it. The metal bands were faintly warm, and he senses that the bolt had an active power source of some kind - and he also feels that the tip was not firmly set in place. Clearly it was designed to break on contact - or under enough pressure. If the knight had even a little more strength, the tip might have snapped off just from him pressing it against Luca's hand. Thankfully this was not the case, but caution is clearly warranted.

Even devoting all his concentration to the task to hand though, Luca cannot help but notice when a peculiar disturbance emerged. His mechanical nature gives him immaculate precision, motor control, and coordination. It would not have been an exaggeration to say he could have stood perfectly still, or kept his hand perfectly level - as long as he was undamaged, anyway. Abruptly though, his internal gyroscopics were telling his brain that he was moving slightly in every direction simultaneously despite remaining in exactly the same spot.

Luca did not have much time to consider what that meant before the other knight - the one who was a passenger in the limousine with him - charged in and gave the armored crossbowman Luca was wrestling with a vicious love-tap directly atop the helmet with the pommel of his sword.

Fortune attempted to close the distance as quickly as possible in order to assist by slamming the pummel of his sword down on the knight's head as hard as he could in an attempt to stun him.

@Bright_Ops

Rather than the hollow clanking noise one might have expected, the pommel makes contact with the hostile knight's helm it created a dull thud. The kind of sound of a person heard after throwing a small rock at a solid iron bulkhead. The knight does not so much as flinch, and the metal of their helm did not dent whatsoever - in fact, the wounded man did not even appear to have been jostled by the blow.

Completely ignoring Fortune, the knight began swearing profusely as he attempts to wrestle the bolt free to Luca's grasp one-handed. "Get off you pissant!" He snarled, struggling to keep his body raised with his other arm. Growling in frustration, he stops supporting himself with his free hand, falling fully back to the ground - and then solidly struck Luca fully across the face with his gauntlet-clad hand from a prone position.

His eyes glowed verdant green as he looked over the spreading silver areas, the area near the attackers, and...oh yeah, that lightning rod thing too, and that lightning-emitting orb. Another thing he didn't understand...why would they have placed that there and performed that seemingly meaningless action?

@Cruallassar

With his enhanced vision, the surrounding scenery was markedly different. Hidden underneath the cobblestone street, unnaturally straight and ordered line of power flowed like pipeworks along the street and underneath building, though he could only sense it for a short distance. More notable was the massive node and line of power drawn like a webs through the airs above the street, like ley-line that had somehow been twisted and forced into an unnatural configurations. The magician girls that were using the 'redirection orbs' was emitting an aura of her own, and there were several faintly distant, peripheral presence of something magical of power out of his line of sight. Curiously, the levitating spheres, the blackguard who had accosted the limousine, the tripods, their weapon, and the crossbowman plate mails were all dark and utterly devoid of anything magical of signature. How they work without magic was not readily apparent.

These paltry detail paled in comparison to the single most startling aspect of the worlds revealed to Kael's ethereal sight. Looking into the sky, far above the webbing of leyline rendered just above the city street, there is a massive, double-helix structure with arm that spanned from one end of the horizons of the other. Set in the center of its mass at the of zeniths of the worlds was an immense focal points of power - and Kael could distinctly feel that massive power directing its attention at him. At them. They were being watched...

Abruptly, his ethereal vision started to waver. One of the otherwise stable leyline of hovering above the city street bends. A few of the smaller of line of power beneath the street snapped and curls in on to themselves - and most notably, the smooth and sleek, spreading wave of metal of the vector bullet started to burst to jagged shoot of metal that spear out in every direction through the air, although thankfully the pool and the jagged spine stopped growing mere moments later. The limousines, however, was a different story. The massive and rapidly-spreading waves of metal that had been of consuming it shimmered and shifted, and thousands of small, of jagged of lance of metal burst to out from the ruined vehicle's surface in every direction - threatening to reach out and to impale everyone immediately surrounding the vehicles.

@PlatinumSkink

Just as Amelie crawled free of her own redirection orbs, she feels a sudden change in the gravitational pressure being exerted on the capes. It had started to flicker, as though the gravitational force of the Earths was of rapidly shifting between two specific variable. while this resulted in a loss of energy to redirect and keep the now entirely metal-coated capes afloat, it settled to the ground to more like a drifting leaf than the heavy weight it had been a moment ago. Unlike the other metal-coated object around, the metal upon its surface did not start to suddenly explode to spines in every direction - though the metal on it had stopped expanded before the other pools of the spreading of substance had started to erupt. As though something in the environments had changed just after she had gotten free.

@Doc Doctor

"I'll spare you the convincing talk about how much longer and more pleasant your life will be if you cooperate. You got ten seconds to tell me information good enough to make me think twice about seeing what happens when a fella takes a few rounds from this puppy in the balls."

@mdk

"Stop there. That particular spot will do just fine. In light of recent events, I have extended your time until this moment. Your ten seconds starts now. Talk."

Donovan Booth

Donny abruptly realized his accents was gone. His voices was suddenly been replaced with a wholly unaccented and neat, clear tones.

The thug declined to say anything to particular of interest. In his hurry to crawl to away he jabs the shafts of the arrows stuck in his knees against the streets, and was now howling pitifully in pain, clutching at his maimed legs with both arm and sobbing freely, with both spittle and snot streaming from his faces. The pools of blood accumulating beneath him from the injury was rippling in an odd way, with tiny wave stretching up into the air, lapping at the edge of the surrounding cobblestones. Donny felt strangely light on his feet as well, as though he had suddenly taken off a suits of soaked clothe.

The rising suns, now fully above the horizons, also felt oddly cold - as though its light carried no heat.

What was going on?

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

... I actually just had a nightmare where I had this finely crafted post before me, perfect in every way, yet when I posted it magically turned into an unintelligible mess where every word was missing letters and likely had countless grammatical mistakes as well. Each word also somehow had this red bar under it to emphasize the errors despite that it was posted on the guild which doesn't have that feature. Hah.

@PlatinumSkink

Speaking of which.

@Holmishire has missed the 48 hour deadline.

A new post will be up from me shortly, as my deadline from my response to Donny is fast approaching.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

Alright. Expect reviews and victory announcements tomorrow.