Team of Fellows (Solo)

[Ganlon Martel]

He couldn't hear any noise. This was not going at all the way that he had hoped. Go quietly down the stairs, sneak up on the bad guys, free his friends, at least that was the plan at the top of the stairs. The bad guys weren't playing along.

Ganlon grabbed the latch on the second door just as the torch that was in the in the vestibule went out. This was not going at all the way he had planned. On the other side of the door was a blue light. It glowed from something deep in the room. The floor of the room just past inside of the room past where Ganlon was pitched downward towards the center of the room.

Ganlon could see the that the roof had a slope as well. This was not a room it was a cavern and the light was in the center of it. Okay, Ganlon thought to himself, how much do I really want to save these guys? Marc upstairs wanted to kill him. Peter had forced him to stay telling him that if he didn't he would kill him. Randolph just loved killing. Gasteau was Gasteau, but Keloge, Ganlon wanted to save Keloge.

He stepped into the Cavern of a room and towards the light. He walked and as he did he started to hear the Chanting again. This time he could make out that it was a single male voice. It was much louder now than when he had heard it from the top of the stairs. The way the cavern of a room was designed it allowed the sound to find you where ever you stood.

Ganlon took ten more steps and he could make out what was glowing. It took his breath away and he stood agape. It was a chalice. Black as midnight this one was. It had no chip in it, unlike his own. Still this could be a sibling to his own chalice. A brother or a sister, or maybe a parent. There was something unmistakenly wrong about it though.

Ganlon need to see it closer and he began walking again. As he continued he saw the remaining members of the Team of Fellows. Each of them stood straight as a board. There hands were out and open. There arms flung open wide as each resembled a letter T. There faces were pictures of horror. Pain filled every muscle and consumed their eyes. Muscle twinges could be seen as they moved in rhythm with what stood in front of them. They moved with the sound of the chant in a dance of pain.

What stood there was a man, a human male. Ganlon could make out his age from the back of his head but he was clean shaven and a tattoo of black thorns ran from his collar up to a crown on his head. His clothes were yellow like the tabards of the men who had died above him. Ganlon fingered the pipe that he had aquired not so long ago. The man was average in size and build. His hands were raised in motions that reminded Ganlon of a conductor of music.

Every time he made a down stroke with his left hand, he punctuated it with a sound in the chant. Ganlon reasoned out what he was doing. Every time he made the down stroke he pulled life energy from the Team of fellows. He watched as the light from the Team of Fellows left them and went to the Man.

Ganlon looked hard at the chalice. It was the point where the light was going. It was eating it, absorbing it, channelling it; but into what? Under the chalice lay a shield of black. Ganlon could not recognize the metal. The light was going straight into the metal and becoming one with the fibers within. Who ever this was he was using this chalice to make a magical item.

He had not been noticed yet, so Ganlon crept closer. The Team of Fellows did not seem to see him either and he made it ever closer to the Man. Just before he made it with in striking distance the man stopped and turned around.

"You were Peter's newest addition. The healer who could bind wounds with a light from with in." Ganlon could see that the eyes of the man burned with a green light. The rest of his face was impassive as if no emotion moved with in him. Ganlon's stomach turned with knots of fear. This Man knew him.

"What did he call you? Oh, yes, Ganlon. A very old name to be sure. From an old line I believe. The Martels wasn't it. Followers of the Goddess Aegle, I believe." The man turned his eyes away and made the Team of Fellows move the dance of pain again. Ganlon's sword point dropped. He had said the name of the Goddess. The words hit hm harder than any blow.

Aegle was the name of his Goddess. The name rang like joyful bells in his head when he heard it. That was she. His Goddess, the one that had caused him to be standing here. The vision of her in his head became clear from his dream and she stood in his head in clear detail. He had never known her name before. Ganlon knew why he had been made to turn that corner.

He looked at her with his mind's eye from toes to head. She stood wearing a robe of light green that held the twinkle of starlight on water. Her hair flowed from her head in a red glow that spoke of the rise of the morning sun on a pond. Her hands and feet were gone in a light that he could not see into. Then he saw her face. Every line was perfectly cut, there were no flaws, no wrinkles. Her lips held the fullness of a ripe strawberry and her cheeks were the color of cream. Her eyes held him in the blue green of an ocean storm. He felt a love there that made his heart swell in his chest. His Goddess, thanks be to her.

[Ganlon Martel]

Ganlon wanted more. He needed more. The dance of pain continued but he didn’t care. He waited. He stood statue still and looked at the Mage in front of him.
Belkas Droverson knew what he had done. He was too engulfed in the transformation to actually fight Ganlon. He had been a Mage for a very long time and for a good reason. Small time adventurers such as Ganlon Martel always had weaknesses. It was finding it that made Belkas the Unwanted so good at staying alive.

The Delyn shield that lay beneath his chalice was half way through the transformation to its full capabilities. The amount of life force that was focused now into it was tremendous. Thirty of the soldiers that he had hired and now the last of his Team of Fellows life force had been focused into the shield.

The entire pretense of this job; what did that idiot fighter Langford call it, ah yes the “blow”, had been perfectly structured for this moment. The Team of Fellows had out lasted their necessity. They had started to do what most idiots do; they got full of themselves and started demanding more money.

Belkas realized that at some point Ganlon would awake from the stunned shock that had hit him when he had invoked the Goddesses true name. The power of that name had cost him dearly and for a moment his confidence was shaken by doubt. How had a true follower of Aegle found him?

His confidence was bolstered as the life force of the one named Randolph completely left his body and the husk of the man hit the floor. Thirty seconds no more and he would have completed his necessary task and be able to dispatch this lost soul of a Cleric of Aegle that stood behind him.

A Cleric of Aegle, he had not heard that title for a very long time. He would be richly rewarded when he completed the Shield and killed the Cleric of Aegle. He returned his focus to the transformation.

Ganlon watched as Randolph hit the floor. He felt the light exit his body. He wondered which of the Team would be next. He looked to the faces of Keloge, Gasteau, and Peter. The dance of pain continued for each of them. The pain in their eyes stung a nerve in the part of Ganlon that was still a small town healer. He couldn't just let them die.

In his head he heard it, voice from the other side of the door in his mind. A soft voice at first but its power grew. The light grew also and Ganlon could feel it push on the door. The voice said, “You are my child and in you I am well pleased. Make right the wrong that lies before you.”
Ganlon’s body awoke from the cold freeze that had over taken it with a burst of white light.

[Ganlon Martel]

The light from Ganlon’s body lit the cavern and bathed it in a daylight shine. The pictures that had been drawn there in days gone past shone with a new cleanness. Men and women dancing and playing, loving and laughing, while Gods and Goddess sat on thrones above them were painted from floor to ceiling of the Cavern.

Ganlon didn’t see any of it with his conscious eye. His brain recorded it categorized it and put it in a synapse to be recalled later. Later when he would need to remember this ruin, he would return. Right now though, his only focus was the Black Chalice on the block of stone that stood in the middle of the cavern.

Ganlon did not think about the mage or the dance he forced the members of the Team of Fellows to dance. He didn’t think about his sword or his shield as he let them fall from his hands. All he could see was the black chalice. He grabbed it then and let the light that filled him enter into it.

The moment after he touched the Chalice he had a vision. He saw himself and Genove. They laughed as a boy and girl danced together on the lawn of his father’s house. They held hands and kissed and Ganlon was happy. It was gone in the next second as the blast from the wave of energy hit him like a wall of stone. He fell onto the floor of the cavern with an audible thud.

Belkas Droverson was also driven to the ground by the wave of energy. Completely stunned by the loss of connection to the black chalice he looked around the room for a moment as if he were under water. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t hear, and he had lost sense of self.

The last of the Team of Fellows fell as puppets cut from their puppet masters strings. Each lay in the spot where they were cut free in a crumpled heap.
Light like a small sun appeared in the center of the cavern above the spot where the black chalice had been. The energies of the dead moved from the shield and the fractured chalice up and into the light with a beautiful rainbow of people. Faces of the soldiers and persons that had been trapped by Belkas moved along the rainbow and into the otherlife. The energy of the Team of Fellows that lived returned to them.

Ganlon was able to witness this beauty from his backside and his smile was a bright as ever. He watched the sprits pass to the otherlife with a detachment from the world around him. The smile on Ganlon’s face filled Belkas with anger that came from the very pits of his being. He felt that he had enough energy for one more spell and he began the chant for a spell that would burn the smile off of Ganlon’s face for ever.

The words had just made there climax when Keloge raised himself from his place on the floor. He heard the Mage, saw Ganlon, and pulled the last of his daggers from his boot. With a force of will and flick of the wrist Keloge threw his dagger towards the Mage.

Had Keloge been one hundred percent the dagger would have buried itself in the throat of the Mage ending the life of Belkas the unwanted. Keloge was not one hundred percent and the dagger found itself in the Mage’s back. It was enough how ever to cause the spell to go off before completion and the energy was sent straight into the small sun in the ceiling.

“Zall,” Ganlon said as he awoke from his revelry. He grabbed his sword and stood.

“Mage I have ended the darkness that you have started. Now I will end you.” Ganlon stepped towards the Mage.

“Do you think yourself some hero, spouting off words like that?” Belkas reached for the dagger in his back. “I am Belkas, the Unwanted, Mage of the Three Powers, Stealer of life force, you are a street orphan. A nothing that I allowed to come to me for your life energy, shut your mouth.” Belkas pulled the dagger from his shoulder blade.

Behind Belkas, Peter Langford stood.

“Zall, Belkas, you tried to kill me.” Peter looked around for his sword and retrieved it. “What the Zall, Bud, you really pissed me off. “ Gasteau stood next and then Keloge.

“I warned you about the balance Peter. Things were way off balance and needed to be leveled off. It looks like the scales are still tipped though. Belkas you are a weight I wish to remove.” Keloge picked up his sword and Gasteau’s.

“Peter, Keloge, Gasteau, nice to see you again.” Ganlon smiled.

“I told you to shut up. I am Belkas. You three are mine. I found you, I paid for you, I made you, I can destroy you.” Belkas moved his hand towards a pouch at his belt. Ganlon moved faster than he knew he had the ability to do and was standing with the point of his sword at Belkas’ neck before the Mage could put his hand inside.

“Ganlon, bud, as much as it pains me to say this, don’t kill him yet.” Peter walked forward. Each step was force of will, but Ganlon could see a look of sheer determination in the Team Leaders eyes. “I would like to hear the full story before I end him.” Peter moved to stand before the Mage. He touched Ganlon’s sword and lowered away from the Mages neck.

“Talk Mage, what is all of this?” Ganlon saw the Mage start to move. The Mage touched a ring on his left hand with his right pointer finger. He tried to move his sword back and Peter grabbed for the Mage in same instant only to hold thin air.

“Zalling unbelievable,” Peter yelled from at the top of his lungs. “I should have just let you kill him.”

“I too would have known what plans this nefarious demon of a Magic user had for this item.” Keloge poked the slag of a metal that was the Black Chalice with the end of his sword.

“There can be no fault found in the desire to gain information and knowledge Peter. This is what keeps us alive.”

Peter turned to Ganlon and grabbed his right shoulder, “Martel, you saved my life. You saved my friends lives. You are free from any binding I placed on you when you first met us. You are free to move on. Bud, you can come with us, as I am sure that Keloge, Gasteau and I, “
Peter looked at the two of the other fellows, “will be chasing Belkas. Or go your own way. We have to retrieve Marc from up stairs. He is still alive right?”

Ganlon nodded his head yes. Peter continued, “He will probably want to avenge his brother’s death. I can’t fully speak for him Bud, but I am pretty sure that he will always hate you.”

“I know Peter. I can’t stay with you. There are other things I have found about myself today.” Ganlon grabbed Peter’s hand and pulled him close.

“I will miss you. You are the closest that I still have to family out there.”

“That’s not entirely true, Bud. Your Mother had a sister. Her name is Jeanie Charlotte. I believe she is still alive. Although where to find her now though I couldn’t tell you.” Peter pushed Ganlon back. Ganlon put this new knowledge with the rest of the days revelations.

“Rolly Polly little Ganlon, I will miss you.”

Keloge came forward, “You talk as if we are already going separate ways. We still have stairs to climb a building to leave and a wagon to get back to Radasanth. Although I think that Ganlon should go before us. I don’t know how much Marc is going to like the idea of pulling a wagon with Ganlon.” Keloge started the walk from the Cavern with Peter directly behind.

Gasteau walked forward and picked up the black shield that lay on the stone in the middle of the room. He placed it into Ganlon’s hands and stared deeply into Ganlon’s eyes. He let go of Ganlon’s hand and moved to the others. Ganlon looked one more time around the darkness of the Cavern of a room and followed the others out.

One last goodbye at the door of the ruins finished the time that Ganlon Martel spent with the Team of Fellows. Ganlon felt as if he had known them forever and a little piece of him had died as he walked away into the forests of Concordia.

[Breaker]

This is my first "workshop" judgment, and I elected to put it on the full rubric for two reasons. Ordinarily workshop judgments are on the condensed rubric, but I wanted to showcase the slightly remodelled 3.0 rubric here, and also provide well-organised commentary, because of the quantity and quality of work you put in here. After I've archived this thread, I'll add my judgment to the workshop and leave it open for a few days for any last-minute user comments. My commentary in each area will be somewhat rudimentary, only filling in things I believe the workshop did not cover.

Mood: Patient
Music: Lethal & Young by HW

Plot Construction - 18/30
Story: 6/10 - The first 4-5 posts of this thread would have made a bone-biting intro if not for weaknesses in the writing I'll outline further on. Your execution of the rising action/climax/falling action was somewhat less elegant, but nonetheless I commend your work on a building a coherent storyline.

Strategy: 5.5/10 - When you actually used the skills, abilities, and body language/actions of the characters to drive the plot, you did it exceptionally well. However there were large segments of dialogue dominant prose where your strategy work fell apart, which I'll get into later.

Setting: 6.5/10 - You had some really great setting work, solid original descriptions, but again my commentary further down will show how your pacing got in the way of a higher score here. Basically your consistency is off - in post #2 for example, mostly the descriptions are good, but your transition from "forest" to "guys' house" is so sudden and muddy I had to re-read it, and finally read on to the next post before I really understood where we were.

Characterisation - 15/30
Continuity: 4/10 - Because of the lack of physical actions from the characters, or any other adequate imagery during the long dialogy bits, it was difficult to keep a flowing image in my head. You did a great job of capturing the "feel" of Althanas but I didn't notice a significant effort beyond that to connect your story or character to existing lore.

Character: 6.5/10 - You really do have some great character work with Ganlon, but that only extended to the NPCs on occasion - for the most part they didn't come off nearly as real or important as him. You can remedy this by applying the same level of realism to other characters as you do to Ganlon - even though they may be stronger/tougher.

Interaction: 4.5/10 - You had some really great moments, mostly linked to Ganlon's physical actions, but your overuse of dialogue really hurt the thread overall. As an exercise in the future, try to always have at least two sentences of description after someone says something. In this way, each "line" becomes accompanied by a physical action, piece of body language, or sound that will help tie the reader in to the moment. When you get comfortable doing this every time, you'll find your characters don't need to say as much out loud, simply because they are saying things with their personalities and their actions. At that point, you'll be able to find the "right" spots to use quick one-liners, and provide rich dialogue that complements the action consistently.

Writing Style - 16/30
Creativity: 6/10 - A unique approach at a concept I haven't seen for awhile at least on Althanas. Your work with literary devices is still fairly basic, but I can see you're getting better. I also did appreciate some overarching themes in this thread and your character's storyline, as well as a few nifty allusions.

Mechanics: 7/10 - You can probably find all of your own typos and grammatical errors, so I won't go into that. Instead I'll use this spot to mention the flashback-present phase of this story would have worked better if you'd had one post of flashback, then one post of present. It got confusing with you switching in the middle of posts, and the ______ really just made it look bad. I'd recommend a single or three * centred or aligned left, but keep in mind playing with flashbacks is trickier than it seems.

Clarity: 3/10 - Thought this really wasn't long I had to take a couple breaks to get my thoughts in order. The combination of my critique elsewhere all contributed to bringing this score down. If you don't already read your posts out loud to yourself as part of your editing, begin doing so immediately. If you are already doing that, find someone else to read them out loud to.

Wildcard: 6/10 - You're really close to jumping 5-10 points in your average scores, I can sense it.

Total: 55/100

I request from this quest one white wooden pipe and the tobacco to smoke in it. I request the Delyn shield devoid of any power,metal alone, to be used in a future quest where power maybe bestowed upon it, in lieu of any gold. Thank you.

Ganlon Martel gains the pipe and tobacco as described and a medium or small sized dehlar shield in lieu of gold. The shield may be upgraded to delyn in a future quest or at the bazaar at a reduced rate.

Ganlon Martel gains 710 EXP.