Army Battle: Argentum Astrum v. The Bandit Brotherhood

[Zook Murnig]

By the time the astral traveler had returned his body, the deep rumbling noise had become much louder, and small bits of sand were shaking free from the walls. Caduceus took Chic aside, explaining what he had found. "I skried a large, dark form in the clouds," he whispered. "I believe it to be an Aleraran airship, or something like it."

"Why would Alerar have sent an airship all the way out here?" asked the older adept. "You don't think..."

"No." The Qaballist said it with finality. "They couldn't have found out about the book. And why would they send an airship after an old journal? No, I think this is just a coincidence. Probably using the area for some sort of test of a new design." He looked over at the rest of his party. "Still, it would probably be best if we picked up the pace. We need to get out of the range of any destruction, should they test any new cannons or other weapons." I can only hope Torgun can hold out if that passage collapses. He should know better than anyone what to do.

Returning to the group, Caduceus announced that they needed to get going. "Let's pick up the pace, guys! We've got a lot of ground to cover."

~~~~~

Before long, the team came upon a large room, lit by braziers filled with everburning flame. Like the illuminating flames of the dolls, these fires did nothing to provide heat -- only light. Across the entire room spread a large depiction of a strange alphabet, each tile having a letter upon it. "Tabatha? Can you tell us what this is?" Caduceus asked of the barbarian woman.

"Each of these squares is marked with a rune from my people's language," she explained. "I think we need to spell a word to get across. When I was young, I remember we would learn the letters, and how to spell, with a game like that. This should be the same."

"A word? Maybe 'aurochs,'" Logan suggested in his rough voice. "How do you spell that, Mistress Cicero?"

Stepping over to the edge of the lettertable, the raven-haired warrior looked over the blocks nearest her. She picked up a small rock, tossing it onto a space at random. Nothing happened at first, but then a click rang out and a large spike fell from the darkness above, spearing through the rune with a great crash. "No mistakes..."

Once again, she gazed upon those letters nearest to her, picking out one that resembled a reversed 4. "Ahsa," she said as she placed her weight on it.

CLICK.

She backpedaled as hard as she could, tumbling back onto the plain floor before a spear burst through from beneath the tile, shattering it. "Wrong. How was it spelled again?"

It was then that Caduceus spoke up again. "Perhaps the spellings have changed over time. My own Hebrew language has two dialects that are still spoken, with subtle differences between their spellings and pronunciations," he pointed out. "Think hard, how would the queen have spelled it?"

"That's right!" she exclaimed, flashing an understanding smile at the magician. "Ahsa is a rune we learned from foreigners after the Auroch Queen's death. She would have spelled it beginning with..." She stepped on a block resembling an arch. "Uruz."

She waited for the click, but none came, and she sighed her relief. "Raida, othal, kusma, sauil," she chanted, leaping onto a new block with each word. In this way, she crossed the table, and found a lever on the far side. Flipping it, she waved the others over.

They hesitated at first, not sure what that lever might have done, but the kender dolls ran headlong over to the warrior, not a care in the world for what happened to their stuffed bodies. And nothing happened.

"Keep going," Caduceus ordered when they had all crossed. "Who knows what other surprises we might find before we reach the helm?"

[Christoph]

General notes: I was sad to see this thread cut off so soon in the story. Alas, such things can happen when you have a time limit. This was a very close match by two talented writers. I didn’t even know who was going to win until I did both totals. On to the important stuff! And maybe cookies. >.>



Saxon:

Continuity: 6
The beginning was decently established, though the motivations for your army being in the Conquest Trials were a bit underdeveloped. The lack of an ending hurt both of your continuity scores.

Setting: 8
I felt truly immersed in the setting quite often while reading your posts. I got the sense that I was actually wandering around in that desert. I actually found myself squinting from the imaginary glare of a fictional sun. Nice work.

Pacing: 7
You put forth a good, solid effort to move things along. Those efforts were to little avail, unfortunately, but you were moving in the right direction.

*

Persona: 7
I got glimpses here and there of your cast of characters. Saxon didn’t come off strong, though. I got a bit of his calculating side, but little real emotion. If you were going for distinct lack of emotion, I didn’t really see much of that, either. It doesn’t help that the thread was really only half done, though.

Action: 5
There wasn’t much of it. I understand that the deadline hit before the battle even started, but non-combat actions are good as well. There were some, but it seemed that you were often too busy describing everything (too much so at times) to have your cast of characters do much.

Dialogue: 6
Your dialogue wasn’t overly bad, but I couldn’t point out anything particularly special about it. Much of it seemed very basic and even repetitive at times. Also, one more than one occasion, you described a speaker as having a particular kind of accent without actually explaining what said accent sounded like.

*

Technique: 6
On one hand, you did a good job in immersing me in the setting. On the other hand, you overused adjectives and over-described things constantly. When I’m frequently reading several sentences in a row where three or more adjectives are being used to describe something, especially when the subject is something very basic and mundane, it really bogs the writing down and makes my head hurt. Use efficient adjectives and descriptions and try to leave unimportant objects a little more vague from time to time. Clarity and vivid detail is good, but not when it gets cluttered.

Mechanics: 7
On the whole, everything seemed in order. The improper spacing used in your quotation marks irritated me, though.

Clarity: 7
Everything was clear for the most part. If anything, things got too clear from time to time, bogging things down.

Wild Card: 6
Good job overall. I’d have liked to have seen more.

Total: 65



Zook Murnig:

Continuity: 5
Saxon set up the battle as being an IC tournament. You seemed to ignore that, making it all revolving around an exhibition without explaining why you were there when a tournament was going on. It was a bit confusing and three the beginning of the thread off for me.

Setting: 7
You did well here, but I felt it didn’t shine through as much as Saxon’s. I particularly liked the cave, though.

Pacing: 5
Okay, I can understand that you wanted to go a different rout with this, but it was a battle. You made no effort to make it a real battle. As a result, the entire thread went by with no actually fighting between the armies. It was something of a letdown.

*

Persona: 7.5
I got a slightly better feel for your characters than I did from Saxon. Also, the dolls were very entertaining. ^^

Action: 5
While you did have more going on in your posts than Saxon typically seemed to, you also took measures that prevented any real battle from happening. Therefore, I can’t give you an advantage here.

Dialogue: 9
This is where you really shined. Dialogue was funny and engaging. It kept me entertained. Also, you actually portrayed accents in a way that makes how they sound clearer, rather than just stating that they had some random accent that I don’t know.

*

Technique: 7
Your writing was far cleaner than Saxon’s. There was less clutter and it was much easier to read. You’ve got a decent style. You could afford a little more flourish to your posts, though, to really make them shine.

Mechanics: 8
Like your technique, your mechanics were generally clean. There were run-ons here and there, but they didn’t detract much from the writing.

Clarity: 8
Things made sense. I didn’t have to go back and reread too much.

*

Wild Card: 5
I understand what you were trying to do, but I was still a bit annoyed by the break from Saxon’s tournament-based continuity, not to mention the lack of any effort to allow the actual battle to start.

Total: 66.5


Zook wins!

Zook Murnig receives 862 EXP and 100 GP
Saxon Receives 225 EXP and 65 GP

Good job to both of you!

Argentum Astrum wins this match.

[Witchblade]

EXP and GP added!

Zook is 77 experience away from a level up, damn you're mean Chris.