Quest for The Glorious Light (Closed, but feel free to read)

[Valanthe]

Valanthe had been flying, it was such a wonderful enlightening experience. Eventually, she found herself falling asleep. She woke up when she head Xos talking about an odd experience. She looked around, this room seemed familier. They weren't in the temple anymore, that much she knew. She sat up, and the blankets fell, revealing that she was not infact decent. She moved her right hand to reach down and get her clothes, when she discovered a gold band on her ring finger.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery." was etched on it's surface. She noticed Xos had one on too.
"I think uhh, we got in trouble too." she said indicating the rings.
"Enjoy your marriage." replaced the original text, then it too faded, leaving the golden bands as common wedding rings.
"Seems strict to me." Valanthe said as she got dressed.
"I mean, what's wrong with a little fun now and then with a new friend?" she asked, strapping her weapons back on.

Moonbeam sat up, stretched, and wished she could fly a little more.

[Destrudo]

Destrudo meanwhile woke up in the citadel.
COME TO ME. the words rang clearly in his ears. It was the same horrible voice from before. Now it was summoning him.
He remembered, gods alive he remembered his past. Immediatly he wished he didn't, the pain, the suffering, the light was gentle compared to his father.
His father, he remebered overhearing him mention Destrudo as part of some sort of project he was working on with someone named N'jal. Who was N'jal? It was time he returned home, to learn the truth.

"I see your awake." Brother Onox said.

COME TO ME. the words rang again. The voice was stronger. Was it the voice of N'jal?

"Stuff it. I know my path. I reject the light. I would rather rule in darkness than serve in light. It's time I returned home." he said, a dangerous edge to his voice.

His footsteps echoed ominously as he left The Citadel.
He thought of Xos and Valanthe.
"Next time I see either of you, your dead." he declared to the uncaring world.

[Xos]

Xos smiled as he discovered he was suddenly married.
"I didn't think anything of it myself. Sure, I wanted to get to know you more, but perhaps in time love will spring in place of like. However, I think we'll get in further trouble if we shrug this off and go our seperate ways. Lets accept our punishment like adults then shall we? Lets at least act like husband and wife until it stops being an act." Xos said, getting up and getting dressed himself.
He discovered something new in his pockets as he put his robes on.
He pulled out a copy of the very book that brought him here in the first place.
"It's, It's The book of the ancient masters! Come, we're going to Corone, to the Citadel. The monks will know how to use this. I won't miss graduation, at least I hope I won't!" He said, exictedly. He stopped and looked in the mirror, he was different in appearence. His nails were short and trimmed, his eyes were the same, but his bone structure was as a normal human. He found his senses were somewhat dulled too. His boots looked the same, but he found were not the same magic air-walking boots he had before.

Downstairs they discovered the room had already been payed for by a strange old man glowing with light. Xos described the Abbott to Ron, and discovered that their benefactor and the Abbott of Light could pass for twin brothers if they weren't one in the same.

Together Xos, Valanthe, and Moonbeam set out for Corone on the next availible ferry.

This quest is over, though it probably wasn't an exciting quest. I enjoyed it though, and that's really all that matters.

Spoil requests:

Destrudo loses a good portion of his over-inflated Ego, and gains a much needed dose of Humility, the ability to remember his past, and less important, a common steel dagger, remarkable only in it's commonality.
---
Valanthe loses the antlers in her hair, the feathers and beads that decorated it, and her animal hide dress. She gains a common white dress made of a mysterious fiber as strong as her hides were. This dress will not last much longer and must obtain for herself a new dress of some sort A.S.A.P. She also gains a plain gold wedding band and marriage to Xos as punishment for commiting Adultery with him. The whole powers swap thing means nothing oocly.
---
Xos loses all his Dragon Blood traits, that is, his odd bone structure, the scales his skin forms when it dries, his oddly long finger nails, his keen senses, and his special boots that let him airwalk because they came from the draconic side of the family. His intelligence is not a Dragon blood trait, and his magic no longer stems from it instead coming from Omni. He also loses his Nihon Quaterstaff from a seperate incident. He gains a plain gold wedding band and marriage to Valanthe as punishment for committing Adultery with her. As well he gains the book of the ancient masters. He can't use it, but will let him go to and from Kessingale, the city in his home reality, via The Citadel, at least for now until other arrangements are RP'ed. any questions feel free to ask.

[Raelyse]

Before we get down to the numbers and rewards, I’d just like to let the three of you know that if you want any justification or more in depth commentary, don’t hesitate to contact me via PM or IM and I will help you best I can.

Story

Continuity – 2 – This was especially poor because apparently the three characters had a history – a history that was only briefly touched upon during the course of the quest. If this is a continuation from a previous quest, it would be best for the reading public and judging moderator if you could add just a few sentences as you write to tell more about their past, their feelings about what had happened. Still, there was a little something that I managed to gleam. Also I felt that you all made this quest significant in your character’s stories by writing about the Light and how important it was to your characters.

Setting – 2 – You gave me very little setting wise. The most obvious one was the incident with the deer droppings and that frankly isn’t enough for the amount of settings that you ran through during the course of this quest. You can easily get a higher score here by elaborating on the description of the area that your characters are in. I felt that during the course of this quest, I had to imagine a lot of the area by myself, which is something that should never happen. You should give the reader enough so that he can have a fantastic view of the setting by your writing alone.

Pacing – 1 – This was horrible. I felt that most all posts in this thread were too short. I felt that you all could have made posts that were longer and filled with more detail and action, instead of some posts which were basically lines of dialogue and insignificant action. I also found it very difficult to find out what was going to happen next because there was no foreshadowing or build up at all. There was no tension or suspense at all, because nothing was hinted at, alluded to or even explained with detail. You mention stuff about the temple early on, but that isn’t mentioned until the end. Try to build up the climatic events and you will score much better here.

Character

Dialogue – 4 – This was okay. I got a good measure of who your characters were and how they acted by their thoughts and spoken words. I felt that this could still be improved though, because there were some lines of dialogue that I thought were cliché or a bit bland. Intermittently, there were some that I did like and thought were clever and original. You got points for those and you would have all got a lot more if you cut out the corny ones and added ones that fit in with your character.

Action – 3 – I did manage to understand the motivation behind the motivation of most of your character’s actions, but I did feel as though the romance between Xos and Valanthe was very rushed and the whole marriage thing made very little sense to me. Destrudo was good, staying constant to his character throughout and I really understood his character. However, I was very confused by how easily he managed to defeat the skilled old man at the end and get the reward. I felt that it would have been better if Destrudo learnt his lesson through failure, but I did like how he did not turn to the Light. As a whole, your characters’ actions were occasionally reasonable and sometimes fit in with who your characters are, but you need to do it more frequently to get a higher score.

Persona – 2 – Some of the reasons for the scores from Dialogue and Action overlap into here. In particular to this category, I didn’t give you guys a higher score because I thought that your character’s emotions and personalities didn’t really come to the fore as much as I would have liked. I felt as though I only scratched the surface with what happened in this quest. Valanthe is a druid, Xos is a wizard who wants to learn and Destrudo is a badass mean boy. That was about all I learnt and you should let the reader into your characters more in the future so they can learn more.

Writing Style

Technique – 1 – Almost nothing to speak of, with the championship streaker simile sticking out only because it failed to fit in so drastically. You guys can do a lot better in this character by putting in personification, metaphors and similes to really fire up your writing and make it better. Every average to fantastic writer on Althanas do it so you only need to read other writer’s threads to get a good idea of how to improve this score.

Mechanics – 1 – Grammar errors and random capitalizations were scattered throughout this thread. It isn’t hard to get a good score here, all you need to do is read through your posts or get someone to do it for you and the errors will just jump out at you.

Clarity – 3 – As a whole, I managed to understand what was happening but towards the end, there were a few posts that were so convoluted that I had to read over a few times to really grasp what was happening. Xos’ in particular was filled with so much unneeded detail that I could not get to what was really important to the story. There were clarity issues throughout as I didn’t understand what some of your abilities did and a few times, I did not know what was happening from your posts, I only understood when I read forward. Perhaps the worst thing is the issues with Valanthe. I did know of her antlers’ existence until the very end and in the first few posts, I had no idea who or what Moonbeam was. Just explain briefly in a few sentences here and there about some of your characters’ features and characteristics and this will be much better.

Wild Card – 2 – I felt that you guys did okay, but you can do a lot better. Just take to heart the tips that I gave you, read other Althanas writings and you will do much better in the future. Good luck!

Total Score – 21

Xos gains 244 EXP and 194 GP
Valanthe gains 221 EXP and 194 GP
Destrudo gains 204 EXP and 140 GP

Xos gets his book with stipulated abilities and his wedding band. The book cannot be used until it is approved as a quest spoil or in his next level update. The wedding band cannot be sold.

Valanthe gains her dress and the wedding band. The dress is in poor shape and needs repair soon. Her wedding band cannot be sold.

Destrudo gains an average steel dagger.

[Zook Murnig]

EXP/GP ADDED!