Legion of Light Gaiden: Prelude to Ruination

[Wings of Endymion]

The scenery swam in indistinct shapes before her eyes, even the crystal-clear stars in the night sky above failing to register as more than wavering pinpricks to her sight. Everything from the slabs of marble to the withered greenery was tinged by a muted crimson haze, and she could taste the coppery tang of her own blood inside her nose and mouth. A vacuum had formed in her ears, a piercing tinny echo that completely blocked off any new information from the outside world. She would have held her head in pain, were it not for the fact that it hurt too much to move in any case.

No wonder both Ingwe and Thomas were so adamant in being proficient in melee as well as magic, she thought to herself limply as the world passed her by. She realised that was another way in which they were alike… they were both so intent on carrying the heavy burdens they shouldered by themselves, Ingwe under the guise of consideration for others, Thomas under the proud banner of his selfishness. While she…

She was so powerless alone…

A single tear trickled from the corner of eyes too vacant to take in anything distinct. Dimly in the distance the shadows moved again, and her mind told her that there were new echoes in the air, the sound of a human voice calling to her from afar. Ar’zhanekkar no doubt, gloating and rubbing in his apparent victory, as was his want. She tried to smile at his small-minded childishness, but all that responded was a faint twitch in her cheeks. Like a rag doll tossed aside to the corner of a playroom she slumped against the ground, her beautiful eyes broken and lifeless, her slender body slack and unresponsive.

What would they do, I wonder…

The thought threaded through her mind as she visualised their respective faces. Ingwe, quiet yet determined… Thomas, proud and stubborn… the two people in the world who understood her the most, but who were so far away… so far away… To her benighted mind, her memories of them shone like distant starry beacons, symbols of what she so admired but could not reach. Like the rest of her world, they were dimming, slowly dimming…

She’d seen them face off against seemingly insurmountable odds before and survive. Ingwe had battled nearly single-handedly through a goblin horde and faced off against a daemon in his attempt to reach her the previous year in Nippon, not to mention his more recent exploits in the Battle of Nenaebreth when he had defied first Angelus and then Natosatael once more in quick succession. Thomas, on the other hand, had participated in many of Haidia’s pit fights to prove his worth to its daemonic citizens, and had faced mortal danger on countless occasions during their excursions to various locations of interest on the surface world.

The key factor, her tired mind realised with a start, was that neither of them had ever given up. Time and time again, their bodies had been broken, their spirits had been crushed, and their wills had been overwhelmed. And yet always they had found that little something within them to stand tall again. In their case, she supposed, it was their dreams and their hopes for the future that spurred them onwards even at the risk of their lives. She wondered if she had that little spark within her as well.

She wondered if wanting to be like them, even for a single moment, would be enough.

I guess… I’ll never really know until I try…

Until I try…

By sheer force of will alone, the deadly fog that clouded her mind began to lift. Amongst other things, she realised that she’d closed her eyes; when they opened again, they shone like stars with renewed purpose.

[Wings of Endymion]

So this is what it feels like…

The pain was still there, to be sure. Every breath she took, no matter how shallow, was accompanied by a burning lance to her side, and she could not feel anything but agony from her waist downwards. Her right shoulder was a throbbing mess, and the front of her formerly pristine robes was stained dark crimson with coughed-up blood. But the adrenaline eased her injuries, and her resolve gave her the strength to overcome them. Carefully she marshalled her resources, waiting for the right moment to strike, as the unsuspecting Ar’zhanekkar crept into her peripheral vision.

So this is what they went through…

A strange sense of calm and tranquillity settled over her soul, granting her the patience and the clarity of thought that she most needed. Images from her previous attempts at besting her foes flashed through her mind, fleeting clues as to how she could hope to defeat them. While Ar’zhanekkar drew breath, she could not hope to defeat ‘Jack’. While ‘Jack’ could still move, she could not hope to defeat his master.

In which case, the choice is clear.

The moment before she struck, her eyes showed no sign of qualm or doubt. They were crystal clear, cloudless and concentrated, without a single shred of fear to disturb their flawless beauty. Not a single panted breath, not a single bead of sweat on the construct’s pallid arm did they miss, so keen was their gaze.

The moment before she struck, Ar’zhanekkar met her eyes and recoiled at the promise of judgement that bore deep into his abyssal soul. And the necromancer then knew that, despite his high-handed haughtiness, his motives had been deceptively simple all along.

He feared her.

He feared her natural talent, caught by surprise as yet another handful of translucent spheres flashed into existence at her whispered commands.

He feared her intelligence and her adaptability, unable to move as she loosed her final strength in one pivotal arcane barrage, launching herself forwards in the aftermath as faint sparks flickered into life upon her slender blood-drenched hands.

He feared the motives that she kept hidden deep behind her cheerfully calm mask, he realised, as the glittering bolts of magic grew larger and larger in his eyes. The newfound realisation shook him to the very cores of his aged brittle bones; it was all the last shred of survival instinct his mind possessed could do to reflexively order ‘Jack’ to intercept her.

Time began to accelerate as the numbness of shock slowly receded, releasing from its icy grip his honed battle senses. Ar’zhanekkar had not survived for so long in Xem’zund’s employ for nought. Swiftly he predicted the projected point of impact and the force of the resulting explosion, and darted behind the imaginary line he drew in the dirt. ‘Jack’ could more than handle himself, for now he had to…

“Ranshinshou!”

Bright white light enveloped the vicinity, momentarily obscuring from view the undead minion and the foolhardy young woman who was charging in at full speed, completely ignoring the explosive consequences of her own magic. In an instant the blinding flash lifted, but in that brief heartbeat, something happened.

Something, Ar’zhanekkar’s mind shrieked in confusion, was wrong.

“What did you do?” he hollered hysterically, aiming his gnarled staff in her direction. The young woman was wrapped in a macabre motionless embrace with her opponent, its wickedly bladed claws poised mere millimetres from her body. She in turn had the fingers of her left hand splayed against the construct’s temples… and it was then that Ar’zhanekkar remembered the sparks that had danced across her palm beforehand. Had she…?

“What did you do!?” Ar’zhanekkar screamed again, his mental commands to his minion hitting a proverbial dead end. Finish it… carve her up, chop her into pieces, and then feast upon her pretty beating heart! he ordered, but if anything the undead construct was even more confused than its master. Slowly and harmlessly it lowered its grotesque claws, a benign smile creeping into its mismatched features.

I took advantage of your strengths, Yuka wanted to reply, unable to prevent a triumphant smile from creeping across her blooded features. It was true that direct control over his minion’s movements gave Ar’zhanekkar all the benefits of a living sword and shield, capable of coordinating seamlessly to fight with him as one. But such control always came at a price; in this case, she had deduced, ‘Jack’ completely lacked the will, perhaps even the ability, to fight of his own accord. By temporarily paralysing his mind, an action that would have had little effect whatsoever on a living opponent, she had destroyed the surprisingly tenuous link between minion and master.

Yuka knew that the effects would not last long, and that a necromancer of Ar’zhanekkar’s calibre would easily be able to re-establish control… if she gave him the time to do so when he had overcome his shock. Until then, however, the battlefield was even. And she would not let that advantage lie unused.

[Wings of Endymion]

“R…arRGH!”

“Nngh!”

Now she understood the step that Ingwe had taken when he had made his decision to come after her… the single shard of courage he had dug up from deep within his soul to brave the unknown and face beings far more powerful than he himself could ever hope to be. For the first time in her life, she associated the scholarly young man with the unlikely cognomen ‘hero’.

Eldritch energies cartwheeled and coruscated about the courtyard as the combatants matched spell with spell, blow with blow, step with step. Ar’zhanekkar was by far the more seasoned spellcaster, fighting with experience and power accumulated over the long eons of his existence. But somehow, through raw talent and sheer tenacity alone, the young woman clung to survival, harrying his every movement like a persistent pest. What was more, she was visibly improving with every spellbinding eternity longer that the battle lasted, adapting and enhancing her skills with all the precocious skill of the star pupil she had once been.

The outcome was never in doubt. The gulf between them was just too vast. But for one fleeting forever, she dared to believe, dared to hope, dared to dream. Her pale skin glowed with power and exertion, her fine black hair flowed in the aftermath of every precisely measured step, and her mind literally immersed itself in the delicate balance between life and death that she found herself in.

For one fleeting forever, she was a star taken form amongst the desolate ruins, a bright avatar of purity and noble commitment flaring defiantly as she illuminated her surroundings with light and hope.

Then reality reasserted itself, and she was a star no longer; with no forewarning beyond a sudden crack, the darkness swallowed Yuka whole. It pulsated once, throbbing in pain, then a second time as if digesting its prey. Finally it was done, spitting her out at the far end of the courtyard and casting her limp form amongst the rubble for a third and last time.

Once again, the silence that followed was almost deafening in its intensity. Only ragged breaths sounded from the victor, the necromancer gradually working his mouth towards coherent words.

“Not… bad…” Ar’zhanekkar wheezed at last, his breaths coming in phlegm-tainted gasps that sounded for all the world like a sickly Alerian steam engine trying to climb the Dagger Peaks. Gradually he was able to regain control over his lungs, his recovery hindered by his age and his exhaustion. But Yuka’s dagger glinted beyond her reach in the grass behind him, and his diseased feet lay claim to her staff where it had slipped from her nerveless fingers. Though he leant heavily on his own rod as if his very life depended upon its sturdy aid, it was clear that he was the grim victor, and that she was the valiant vanquished who could expect no quarter from her foe.

“I almost underestimated you,” he coughed throatily, ejecting a thick gob of bloodstained mucous to taint the moonlit marble beneath his feet. His words were more for his own benefit than for that of the barely conscious woman, but it gave him a wonderful sense of command and control to hear only his voice reverberate through the sudden silence that haunted the aftermath of their encounter. “I did not expect that you would be able to defeat Jack…” – the necromancer indicated the still-catatonic construct, making a mental note to re-establish his authority as soon as more pressing matters were dealt with – “… and neither did I believe that you could push me this far.”

One last deep gurgle, and Ar’zhanekkar began to gather his powers to him once more. It would not take much to finish her now. A single spell, the barest application of raw power to her broken body, and she would never trouble him again. He could return to the epic magic that his Lord Maeril was weaving, a sinister tapestry of catastrophic doom and apocalyptic devastation that…

A crooked finger extended towards Yuka, studded with gnarled knuckles and tipped with a filthy, much-gnawed nail. Ar’zhanekkar whispered one word in an archaic demonic tongue, and an arcane bolt darker than the night itself sprung towards where she lay.

“I don’t think so,” another voice resounded in the same obscure language, and to the uninitiated, it was as if the heavens themselves had split the skies with rolling thunder to save the young woman. The necromancer, however, knew better.

A massive shadow blotted the silvery moon from view, effortlessly waving away the bolt of doom. Even the mighty Ar’zhanekkar suddenly felt insignificant and puny beneath its gaze. The thing switched to the common tongue for its next words, but they were no less impressive and commanding, fiery brimstone and foetid wind spelling out the essence of death itself to the cowering necromancer.

“How dare you,” it grinned.

Ar’zhanekkar felt the fear take over his mind.

[Wings of Endymion]

Drip… drip…

Her world had become a hazy dreamscape of intangible forms, one in which reality coupled with chaos in a gruesome danse macabre. Time, thought, and sensation seemed to treacle towards her through a thick viscous fog, and even then she had to fight for every little shred of information about herself and her surroundings. She could tell that it was dark, that it was silent, and that barely anything stirred amongst the all-encompassing shadows… but other than that…

Drip… drip…

Her body would not move, but that was okay… she had neither the will nor the energy to want it to. She lay spread-eagled upon the ground, isolated chunks of marble rubble digging painfully into her back, coal loamy earth kissing her pale lifeless cheek. It felt so comfortable to simply lie there in the cocooning night, letting the bright moon illuminate her broken body. It felt so good to be able to ignore the pain and the numbness that coursed through her extremities.

Drip… drip…

However, there was something… something in the fathomless depths of her surroundings that simply refused to let her drift off into the becalmed void like a forsaken piece of driftwood. The metallic taint of blood that infiltrated her lungs with every faint rise and fall of her chest… the steady drip of a seemingly endless supply of liquid onto a hard surface… the unclear echo of something dire and dreadful deep within the recesses of her mind… Something had happened here, something terrible…

Drip… drip…

“How dare you.”

Drip… drip…

“How dare you harm my precious property?”

Drip… drip…

“I… I…”

Drip… drip…

“Aaarrgh!”

Ar’zhanekkar’s scream resounded loud and clear through her ears, violently stripping away every last cloud of comfort that sought to shield her from the callous brutality of reality. Her eyes flashed open involuntarily, and she found herself alone once more in the depths of the night, completely abandoned by every last one of her hopes and her fears, with but one exception.

Nailed to the courtyard wall above her head, left to the crows in crucified sacrifice, the shapeless mass of flesh and bone that had not so long ago been alive loomed large in her vision.

It was ‘Jack’. But the construct had been abused and mutilated almost beyond recognition, tortured and toyed with by the sadistic daemon until all that remained intact was the blissfully beatific smile that hung limply in the midst of a thoroughly wrecked torso. Limbs were stretched taught at agonisingly awkward angles, joints twisted in a manner that certainly should not have been possible in life. Jack had been thoroughly and horribly laid to rest by Natosatael’s loving attentions. Yuka’s mind, in macabre and horrifying fascination, tried to deduce what exactly the daemon had done with the missing parts of the construct’s anatomy. Not doubt Natosatael had taken much pleasure in demonstrating his prowess to the terrified necromancer, tearing apart Ar’zhanekkar’s prized pet one piece at a time.

Drip… drip…

It took her the best part of an hour to conjure the strength to tear her attention away from the grotesque scene. The only reason why she didn’t spend the entire time screaming was because the fear-induced paralysis that gripped her throat had nearly choked the very life from her body.

Drip… drip…

The first traces of daylight had driven the moon to the far corner of the heavens by the time she’d arrived at her final conclusion. Between Natosatael, Ar’zhanekkar, and the other beings that flocked to Maeril’s banner, she could not bring herself to stay with them any longer. Perhaps it had been her mistake in relying on a daemon for protection in the first place, but that was irrelevant now. She could not dwell on the past; she had to look to the future, and plan her path as carefully as possible to stay alive amongst such overwhelming death.

Drip… drip…

At long last she reached within her soul to begin the painstaking process of rejuvenating her wounds. She would need every last shred of strength she could muster in the face of adversity in order to effect her escape… and it would not help her cause in the slightest if she were to be discovered in such a vulnerable state.

Drip… drip…

For she did not want to die. Not yet.

Drip…

[Visla Eraclaire]

Wings, I've never read anything by you on either of your accounts before this, and that may change now. I was glad I grabbed this thread before Task did. Feel free to contact me with questions and concerns. Thanks for an enjoyable Sunday afternoon and evening.

Story ~ 25

Continuity Your initial posts contained more positioning of the story to come than many manage in an entire thread. I realize that the FQ gives some advantage in this, but it is still impressive. The run through your past brushed up against the line of too much, even, but I don't think it went over. Just know that you're at that point. I think someone familiar with the character reading this might have viewed it more critically, but as a new reader to your writing I was pleased with it. 9

Setting Descriptions early in the thread were excellent and atmospheric, especially the description of the streets of the beleaguered city. It was so vivid, I actually missed the part that your character wasn't there, which is both a compliment and a mild criticism that it was thrown in just to throw it in. Still, it worked. The whole piece was very atmospheric and I appreciated it. 9

Pacing The thread dragged a bit at the beginning, almost convincing me that it was going to be entirely a summary and a foreshadowing of things to come, albeit an able one. It starts to pick up when Yuka pieces things together after her conversation with Thomas and then gets quite exciting. I have some praise for a part in Post #10 in the Action section, but I'd like to note a Pacing problem that followed. The pause in 10 was fine, but I don't feel you fully capitalized in the drama that was pointed out explicitly. It felt tense, immediate, and very exciting, and you left it to languish too long with internal thoughts. Still, at many parts it was quite gripping and I think that the ability to have a thread full circle without feeling heavy-handed is quite impressive. 7

Character ~ 23

Dialogue Dialogue was competent, but not extraordinary. I think this is probably the only area where you need significant work. Minor specific criticism: “gently but firmly” I know what you mean, but using direct antonyms comes off silly. Maybe you did it intentionally, but it didn't work for me. Your mileage may vary. Generally the text accompanying dialogue was good, but the dialogue itself wasn't spectacular, with a few exceptions. Among these was the “beautiful back” comment though sly lack-of-endowment jokes are almost a stable of Japanese comedy dialogue, and given the character inspirations it's both fitting and somewhat unsurprising. Your internal monologue for Yuka also seemed a little too rigid to be someone's thoughts. Maybe she does think like that, but it would surprise me. It sounded more like the sort of monologue they put as a voice over in movies when people think, which isn't a good thing to be like. 6

Action One of the first things I noted was “How is this guy's face in the mirror?” Bam, next paragraph: Explanation. Kudos. Slightly less kudos because the explanation was rather technical, but kudos nonetheless. I wish I had gotten that explanation on the “six-fold delayed incantation” mentioned later. The major action of the thread comes in a little late, with a few flourishes during the conversational intro. It is well written, but you should be careful that your very interesting descriptions sometimes cut away from the tension and it clunks a bit when you try to bring it back. An example:

The sight was so horrible, her reaction so violent, that she barely remembered to keep hold of her staff and continue her roll, in order to avoid its next strikes. And yet, somehow there was something almost pitiful in its expression, like a mutilated doll that still maintained the innocence it had once projected. Razor sharp claws came precariously close to clipping the side of her head… and then she was away, opening up enough distance between herself and her foe to breath once more.

The description of pity is quite poetic but its placement in the middle of two actions makes the second seem a little off. That being said, I want to point out an exception where this was actually helpful. At the end of Post #10, a synopsis is given of what Yuka thinks the battle is about. This also has a very animesque feel to it, but it was perfect for the situation. The audience might not realize the full scope of what was going on and pinpointing the drama was good, I thought. Some might have found it less so for saying to your reader, “This is why the situation is bad,” but I think it was handled quite well.

Similarly your resolution was quite solid. A bit technical, but I know that's a hard line to walk between over-explained and confusing. 8

Persona Your character interactions were solid. Feelings and intentions were expressed through subtleties and actions rather than explicit statements most of the time, though in later posts there were occasionally some more direct approaches which were less artful. There's obviously more depth to plumb with Yuka, and I think her realization is a powerful one. Until the very end, I was going to comment that I felt you spent more time talking about Thomas and Ingwe than Yuka, but it all pulled together. Your thesis was clear and was well executed. It was exultant without being cliché or childishly optimistic. Bravo. 9

Writing ~ 24

Technique The thread had several interesting techniques including solid analogies, themes, ample use of alliteration, which I think was fairly clearly planned rather than accidental, repetition, parallelism, and probably others that I missed or failed to mention. Sometimes it was very effective, other times it was just thrown in, mostly the alliteration in the later case, the others were aptly done. You have a very florid style so it can be dangerous overdoing it. Still, in general I think the technique here is significantly above average. You have a command over dramatic writing, fine description, and a vast vocabulary. The fact that this section is short speaks to the fact that I was generally impressed but not particularly by any individual instance. This is also reflected in my score. Also, there were a couple cases where repetition was seemingly unintentional but merely a repeat of the same adjective or phrase. “Young woman” is hard to avoid, but “grotesque” might have been replaced at least a couple times with something else. 8

Mechanics There were a few points where I was left to ponder whether something was technically correct and generally after some checking I resolved these in your favor. Even if I hadn't, I feel that if I have to look something up and check, either way is likely acceptable in creative writing. The only thing I would comment on is the possible overuse of elipses. I'm fairly certain none were technically misuses, but they peppered the piece with some frequency, especially later on, and I often wondered if another mark would not be more appropriate. One specific example is at the beginning of post #5 and then again in the fourth paragraph. I felt like that could have just been a comma or a dash. Personal taste, though. Also, I despise the grammarian arguments over “Older than she” vs “Older than her” and I side with you on this one, there is an implied verb “is” after “she.” “Than” is not to be considered a preposition. Yeah, I spent some time looking at that, so I had to mention it. You also had a series of sentence fragments in post #5. It's of a type I am often tempted by and I think that it's largely an issue of formalism that oughtn't be penalized on a forum like this. Other judge's might, so make it a list with a colon or make them full sentences or just phrase it a little different. Post #5 also has “of which whom” a clear typo. I swear I didn't just start reading at post #5. I didn't catch anything before. 8

Clarity As I said in continuity, there was a lot of explanation in the thread and I think that was very useful to me as someone coming fresh into an already developed story. I didn't go back to check through your earlier threads to see if this was explained before. If so, welcome to the difficult problem of balancing between long time readers and new readers. I can't give much advice on how to do it, except that as you go forward you might want to taper the background off just a little. A few times you seemed to use sentence structures that were more complex than necessary. On a second read, they were fine, but they made me stop. This is likely a product of critical reading more than anything else, but I thought it deserved mention, doubly so because I suffer from the same problem, as you may have noticed in this judgment, up to and including this sentence which now has several dependent and independent clauses. The same case with a few word choices I found awkward. For example, “dons” seemed a strange choice of word because while it did bring the real world mafia to mind, it also feels distinctly out-of-world if you know what I mean, similarly with “like the barrel of a gun.” There are obviously guns floating around Althanas, but it strikes me as an odd metaphor still. Occasionally more obscure words were used when simpler words would have sufficed. I'm not going to accuse you of what I am often accused of, i.e. trying to sound smart, because I suspect that it is not pretension but just the way you write. Oftentimes obscure words will have a unique flavor or nuance of meaning that a simpler word doesn't, but your choice of “domicile” at one point struck me as a good example of when it seemingly did not. 8

Wildcard This thread started off with me expecting to give lower scores than I ultimately did. And I don't mean to say I picked it up and said, “This is going to be bad.” About halfway through I thought it was a fairly mediocre piece with some interesting elements and a lot of potential. I expected it would meander along, but it really came to a fine conclusion. I was quite surprised at how much I ended up enjoying the read at the end. As much as being surprised feels great, I think if I weren't a judge I might not have seen this through to the end. So for my final personal slant, positive, but not overwhelmingly positive. This also accounts for a few nitpicky personal gripes that you have no reason to correct, because they are individual to me, most likely. Still, there is a Wild Card for such things. 7

Final Score: 79

Wings of Endymon gains 4020 exp (double for FQ) and 200 GP

Wings of Endymon is now level 2.

[Taskmienster]

2011 exp base * 1.5 for finishing an FQ thread = 3016 exp total.

Wings levels up to 2