Second Target: The Gravekeeper

[Godhand]

Godhand stared impassively at the creature before him. It's tongue rolled out, hanging limply off the side of it's mouth. Godhand grit his teeth when the appendage suddenly sloughed off uselessly. The mercenary cleared his throat and resolved to finish the battle quickly, walking forward purposefully and grabbing the back of the undead Bladesinger's neck before driving his forearm into it's face. The monster's head recoiled with a snap and he stepped back. It took a moment to collect itself before walking back over to Godhand and mimicking the attack exactly, smashing it's forearm into the mercenary's face. Godhand's teeth shook with the hit and he stumbled backwards, giving the monster a surprised look. He walked back over and hit the forearm smash again, and the creature came back with yet the same attack, only with even more power than last time.

The gunman hit one knee and propped himself up with his right arm, shaking his head to clear the fog looming in his mind. He pushed himself back up onto his feet and responded with a VICIOUS right roundhouse punch. The monster was nearly knocked off his feet but Godhand placed a hand on it's neck and hit the forearm smash again before landing one final roundhouse punch. The Bladesinger crumpled to the ground, holding it's head. But then, out of nowhere, it's hand shot forth and he cracked Godhand across the ribs. The mercenary doubled over, clutching his abdomen and slowly turning away from the monster. Before he could collect himself however, the creature got to it's feet, placed a hand on the mobster's head and then reared back, landing an elbow on the back of his neck. Godhand fell to his knees and the creature pressed it's advantage with a series of clubbing blows to his back and head.

The swordsman's breath came out in short, heated puffs as he felt his lungs slowly give to the assault. Clenching his jaw, the mercenary suddenly grabbed both of the creature's legs and sprung to his feet, spinning on his heel to deliver a picture perfect spinebuster. He managed to mount the beast and delivered a couple of punishing right hands to it's skull, before it countered by grabbing the swordsman's head and driving it into his own. The mercenary rolled backwards, stunned, and both he and the creature tried to regain their breath.

[Dissinger]

The world had shrunk, the only occupants in it was the Gravedigger, and Seth himself. A contest of wills that would rival the stories of old was forming, even as this monstrosity of a Lich was grinning at him. Seth finally was within reach of the Gravekeeper as they circled each other slowly. Seth knew he could potentially out speed the man, he just had to get him off guard. The coffin was now held prominently between them, a constant reminder of its purpose, to shield the bastard from anything the Ghoul could throw at him.

"What if I said you don't have to bend knee or waist to my master?" He began again.

"I'd say you can take your offer and shove it. I'm not for sale," Seth replied.

"Oh, but your magic, you need it, I can see it welling up in you. It threatens to overcome its boundaries, but it can't, not without help. I can be that help Seth Dahlios," The man said, for the first time using Seth's name.

Seth suddenly reached out and grabbed the Coffin by the handle on its side. The Gravekeeper let out a cry of surprise as Seth slowly began to spin, the coffin in tow, along with the Gravekeeper. When Seth spoke next his voice finally showed the tone of frustration he had, "Use a damn coffin as a shield, expect to get it torn away!" He then released the coffin, and the Gravekeeper, coffin and all was sent flying before it landed on the ground in a cloud of dust. Seth continued to walk forward as he looked at the knives that now littered the ground about them. Finally he picked up the knife and smiled, it was Malice alright.

The Gravekeeper stood up, a look of anger on his face as he said, "You bothersome ghoul. I should have known I couldn't charm you. Fine, I'll just tear you apart." He then moved forward towards Seth and brought the coffin about in a devastating blow. That would have been impressive Had Seth not moved with the blow and grabbed once again onto the railings. He then wrenched hard, and tore the arm that connected the Gravekeeper to the coffin. He then tossed the coffin behind him.

The Gravekeeper looked at Seth as Seth moved forward, Malice moving slowly in his hand, "You threaten to kill me? That’s a laugh; it took a monstrosity worse than me to kill me. A monstrosity made by the man who made me, good luck with that." He then threw a punch that sent the gravedigger reeling, until the shovel was brought about and cut through his soft stomach. Seth growled in irritation as the Gravedigger Brought the shovel around in a downward stroke. Sidestepping it he moved swiftly and stomped down upon the spade.

The Gravekeeper looked up at Seth before he saw Seth had a grin of his own on his face, one that seemed to say, lunch time.

[Godhand]

Suddenly the abomination sat up unphased, as if their previous exchange had never occurred, and pushed itself back to it's feet. Godhand scrambled away, crawling across the bodies before the monster grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up to his feet. The creature suddenly pulled the mercenary into a headlock, lifting him up into the air while tightening it's arm to cut off circulation to his brain. He managed to hold him there a moment before leaping backwards, hitting a delayed vertical suplex on the mobster.

Godhand sat up immediately after hitting the ground, wincing and trying to reach back with his arm and put some pressure on his spine. Just then the creature ran forth and hit a low angle dropkick on the poor bastard's neck, sending him spinning away on the ground. The creature stalked Godhand, practically salivating as it waited for the mercenary to get to his feet. Godhand sensed this and took his time, doing his best to recuperate until finally managing to get himself upright again. Just as he turned to face the creature, he countered it's clothesline by catching the incoming arm at the wrist and executing an armtrap crossface.

The mercenary pulled at the creature's neck and shoulder with all the strength he could muster, furiously attempting to end the battle there and then. No such luck. Even though the monster made a sickening gurgling sound every time Godhand turned up the pressure, it still wasn't going down. Unbelievably, it actually managed to work it's way unto it's feet with the mobster hanging off it's back. It stumbled it's way over to a tree and crouched, grabbing the trunk, before lunging at it back first. Godhand's head bounced off the wooden trunk, but he hung on. One, two, but by the third time it drove Godhand's body unto the wood he'd had enough. He uncoiled from the creature, rolling off it's back and falling to the ground.

He crawled away from the creature, slowly working his way back to his feet only for the abomination to run up and hit a bulldog on the mobster. The mercenary hacked out a whining cough when he hit the ground, his stomach landing right on some elf's propped up elbow. Before he could understand what was happening, the creature had thrown his head between it's legs and lifted him up. Sitting up on it's shoulders, Godhand understood that it was looking to end the fight then and there with a powerbomb. With what little presence of mind he had left, he straddled the creature's head and just when it attemped to throw the monster unto the dirt, he countered with a hurracanrana.

Frankenstein had gotten a Frankensteiner. How appropriate.

[Dissinger]

The Gravekeeper was on his last legs as Seth reached him, and buried Malice up to the hilt in the man's gut. As he let out a gurgling whimper the black ichor that fueled him continued to pour from the stump of his shoulder. This man was nearing the end, and Seth had just the way to make sure the bastard wouldn’t snatch a victory. The man looked up at him pitiably as he said, "Come on Dahlios, you can't honestly-"

Seth began to hum before he sang the old childhood song, "I'm not listening, oh I'm not listening..." Seth then grabbed the man by his hair and roughly pulled him to his feet. He then looked at the man, seeing the pitiful shape he was in. A sadistic grin crossed his face as he said, "I may just save that arm for later, make a good midnight snack..." All the while the Gravedigger was whimpering and pleading. Seth had after all ripped an arm out of socket, bent his shovel by stomping on it, and proceeded to bury a knife in his gut.

Finally he managed, "I'll restore your magic!" The necromancer's promised treat seemed more and more to degenerate from a gift, to a hopeful statement. Seth could only snicker at the desperation he detected in the Lich's frame. From a Lich though he did seem rather adverse tot he concept of death. Almost as if he was afraid of it. Still the littered bodies around made Seth's choice simple enough, the bastard had to die.

Seth stopped as he looked at the man, "You keep promising the impossible. You can't restore my magic, its not something that can be used by the undead. The whole trade bits of your soul part make that hard. I know its a hard concept to grasp, but bear with me on this one..."

"Not true, Mordechai can-"

"If you know so much about my creator, where is he?" Seth asked.

"Please I can-"

Seth promptly grabbed the man and hoisted him over a shoulder so his legs draped off his back. A sigh crept from his lisp before he said, "Well, last chance to tell me where he is; otherwise I'm going to have to kill ya."

"I don't know!" The Lich spat. Seth chuckled as he could almost smell the fear. It was an intoxicating stench to say the least. Still Seth wasn't about to go after Mordechai anyways, not like this. Finally he smiled as he moved swiftly. Dropping to his knees as he slid the man down his shoulder, Seth forced the Gravekeeper to impact headfirst into the ground. The sounds of bones cracking resounded through the area as Seth shattered every vertebrae in the Gravekeeper's back. Leaving the body like an ostrich he whistled a soft tune as he casually flicked the body off his shoulder.

Plucking malice from the fleshy holster it had been stuck in he smiled as he looked over at Godhand, "Need some help there old man?"

Spoils of War:

Upon eating so many magic laced corpses, Seth Dahlios has come to find that his own magic has slowly begun to reawaken in him. His ability to gain new spells, is still impeded, but his spells have returned in full order.

Seth regains the Obsidian Dagger of Titanium strength Dubbed "Malice".

[Godhand]

"Shut the fuck up!"

Godhand got back to his feet, infuriated that the zombie had managed to finish off the Gravedigger before the mercenary could put away his minion. The creature worked it's way back up to it's feet, dazed, but the mobster merely hit it with a clothesline that brought them both down. The mercenary hit a kip up and pulled the monster back up by it's scalp before nailing it with a haphazard barrage of uppercuts, short roundhouses and a couple of forearm strikes. Eventually the monster was propping itself up by holding on to Godhand's chest, but he merely grabbed the back of it's head with his left hand and fired a string of rights into it's face. When it finally hit it's knees, the mobster hoisted him up by the waist and turned over to Seth.

"Open the fucking coffin!"

The ghoul did as he was told, and before the abomination could regain it's bearings, Godhand ran forth and Awesome Bombed it into the coffin and back to Hell. The mercenary immediately shut the casket, activating all it's locks and driving his elbow into them to make sure they stayed jammed that way forever. There was absolutely nothing good that could come from the other side of that coffin, and he honestly never wanted to see an abomination like that again.

Just as the mercenary was prepared to call it a day, however, the Gravekeeper seemed to regain whatever dark consciousness he possessed and pulled his head out of the dirt, searching blindly for his enemies. Godhand leapt forth desperately before stabbing it in the forehead with the mouth of his sheath, just as he'd done with Anderson. The sound was the same as last time; like blood getting sucked into a shower drain, and the Edoran's body quickly dried up until it looked like an unwrapped mummy. The mercenary pulled the sheath from the cadaver's skull with a gasp, and Xem'Zund's general instantly crumbled into dust.

Godhand fell to one knee, looking back over to the elf that had flagged them down in the first place. No good; it looked like he'd passed away once the battle started. He turned back to Seth.

"...That's enough. Let's get out of here."

Both men, bruised and battered, climbed back unto the wagon and began the long trip back to Delion. Seth brought some corpses for the road though, the fucking degenerate.

Quest Spoils: Godhand's sheath has absorbed Edorad Graves' soul. The significance of this is currently unknown.

[AdventWings]

Story

Continuity - 5

Although I understand that this is a continuation of a previous Featured Quest dealing with Xem'Zund's generals, the disjointed relation to the past events did not do well to convey how you came to be in such a position or who Lillian was. There were also a number of NPCs you mentioned in the first post who I had no idea how they were related to this story. And who the heck is Letho? (Ha)

Setting - 6

OK, both of you took advantage of using the surroundings and interacting with them. Although it did not really seem to spice the story anymore than scenery, it was adequate enough to get the story done while not exactly bringing it up to a "Must Read" status.

Pacing - 4

Well, the story certainly took a while to get to the real meat of the burger. Almost half of the story was about the casual get-together between the two NWO operatives, a quarter on getting to your location and the last quarter about the actual battle. In literature, taking that long to let the story develop without any foreshadowing can make for a bland reading.

Also, try a little harder when you bounce posts off of each other. The problem in this type of forum-based, play by post RPG is that in writing, we almost always try to insert what we did while the other person was doing something else. Sure, it's good for role-playing purposes (at least to keep track of what the other's doing) but when you put it together, it tends to be messy. The most prominent examples can be seen in post transitions from Post #7 through Post #11, although I must admit the transition from #6 to #7 is a fine example of how not to confuse the readers.

Writing Style

Mechanics - 4

Ugh. Pardon me, but... Ugh. Too many typos, run-ons and general grammar errors I could count from both of you - Godhand, you're more at fault here with the kind of rapid, spontaneous writing that you're used to. Watch out for those mistakened misspells (you have a surprising tendency to write "unto" in places that "into" and "onto" seem appropriate). Dissinger, while you don't have that many errors, please be careful about sentence organizations. While it is tempting to write in the same manner as one were to speak, it tends to become a nasty run-on. An example would be from Post #12

"Right, about that, I understand where you're coming from, but how many undead do you honestly get into arguments with?" Seth asked.

I've underlined what could be separated to form their own sentences while the original message remained clear - Perhaps a bit clearer, but that's up to the readers to decide.

Technique - 4

Apparently, it's in there somewhere. Dissinger used a lot of Simile and Metaphor, as well as Godhand. I also saw that ironic narration about the Frankenstein getting the Frankensteiner, but you will have to go easy on the Pro Wrestling terminologies. Not everyone watches WWF Smackdown or RAW in their free time.

Clarity - 4

Well, I attribute this to the rapidity of completing the thread as well as the spontaneity of it all. And, really, is Raiaera that hard to spell? (No offense - I know you were pressed for time and did not want to be bothered with looking it up.) Also, the inclusion of numerous wrestling moves made my head spin - At least I understood what a Spinebuster. But, what's a Hurracanrana?

Character

Dialogue - 7

Allowing bunnying of each other's characters is a nice strategy, since it saved a lot of posts that needed to be made for the dialogues. I'll give you credit on playing that out nicely.

Action - 6

While I must admit the Gravekeeper appeared less able than I imagined him to be, I had to be constantly reminded by my assistant (little NeNeNe and Minxia) that Seth Dahlios is a Level 11 Undead Hex Magi. Of course, the Undead General got nothing on the Lavinian. Godhand played a comical struggle against the undead minion, although it was slightly hard to tell exactly what was going on with all the wrestling moves being thrown about all over the place.

Persona - 7

Although the word "generic" came to mind, the portrayal of each characters here went quite beyond that. The townfolks remained generic townfolks, saved for the actual important ones like the guards and the mayor who responded with the hint of hesitation in his voice. The Gravekeeper sounded a little flat, but at the same time was well-portrayed as a manipulator of emotions as well as a recruiter into the Undead ranks. Too bad he had to die - He would have made a great antagonist NPC

Miscellaneous

Wild Card - 7

Not outstanding for the most parts, though, but I must admit Seth Dahlios was really cool here.

Oh, yeah. And the Spinebuster FTW.

FINAL SCORE – 54!

((Rewards + Spoils))

Godhand receives 2400 EXP and 250 GP, as well as the Absorbed Soul of Edorad Graves.
Dissinger receives 3000 EXP and 200, along with returning Magic capabilities and his Titanium dagger Malice.

See you next time!

[Zook Murnig]

EXP AND GP ADDED!

DISSINGER LEVELS UP!