Round 1: Amber Eyes Vs Orphans

[orphans]

Azza watched Kyla leave and felt a small swell of pride surging forward. To be trusted with such a place was beyond her comprehension. Sure, she had a room to herself and she could wander where she pleased, usually – but this was different! Kyla had always been an older sister figure for the young girl and to be entrusted with such a secret did wonders for her sense of worth.

Turning herself about in the enclosed garden, the growing girl fell back into the plush grass. There, she stared up through the opening of the ceiling at the sky above. It made her realize that the garden Kyla shared was so much more than just a simple place to practice. It was her beginning potential and just like the sky, she could only see a fraction of it. A tentative smile played across Azza’s lips, realizing that she would have to work hard to break her confining boundaries.

Azza finally found something to strive for, something that had limitless possibilities to explore.

Yet, a lingering doubt ate away at her jubilation. Magic had always been a complex study and the young Dovicarus, Azza, knew so. She knew this before the lesson with Kyla had even taken place. She had devoured book after book and ploughed through tome after voluminous tome of information the Ixian library archives had to offer.

Azza could recall nothing that would give the slightest hint to what she had cast. Only inklings of near reminiscent similarities could be made. A restoration spell? Perhaps, but restoring with fire and wind? Two of the most erosive elements? And what was the spell before that had warped the tree into a monstrosity? A chaos warp fused with an elemental destruct incantation? Was there such a thing?

In the end it didn’t matter to Azza. She had learned that she was capable of using magic. However short their lesson, Azza figured it was for the better. Kyla had admitted to only a basic understanding of the art and from their equally limited knowledge, both could see what a folly it would be had the lessoned continued.

No, Azza would need to seek more experienced tutors and even then, there was no guarantee that they could help control her latent energies. Or worse, seek to gain it for their own.

For now, Azza was content to have the sense of accomplishment and to remain in the garden, staring through the eye of the ceiling at the vastness beyond. Words eluded her of how she truly felt at that moment.

Eventually, Azza settled on a single word:

Hopeful.

[Letho]

What’s this?! A battle with no actual battling?! Preposterous!

On a more serious note, I have a feeling that the end score will be very close and depend on the technicalities. You worked closely together on this one and as such I found it hard to really score one over the other in some segments. But anyways, let’s get on with it. Amber’s score will be in RED and orphans’ in BLUE

STORY – 5/5

I rather liked the story you two told here, and the fact that the whole thing came full circle with the restoration of the tree was nicely done. The issue I have is that there really wasn’t that much of a circle. I understand that Kyla is perhaps not the most qualified teacher, but you basically ended the lesson after two attempts and there wasn’t much of a build up to the climax. There was a potential for more here and I would’ve loved if you expanded on it. As it stands now, it seemed to me that you two were just content to reach the ten post limit.

STRATEGY – 7/6

A segment I found hard to score. Both of you stayed true to your character’s abilities and utilized them in proper manner. The reason I couldn’t go any higher was that there wasn’t much of it involved and you failed to engage your characters fully into this story. The advantage goes to Amber for the usage of light and shadow magic in her display, whereas Azza’s random effect really only utilized her Magic Incompatibility.

SETTING – 8/9

Very well done. This whole lesson seemed to revolve around taking in the force of the world and converting it into magic and because of that you always seemed mindful of your surroundings. It maybe tapered off a bit at the end, but you still managed to paint a picture for me. The reason you lost points here, Amber, was that throughout your intro post, I had no idea what is this castle she was talking about. Only in orphans’ posts did I realize it’s the Ixian Castle. But otherwise, a good job here.

CONTINUITY – 6/7

Don’t have much to say here. You played true to your characters and I liked Kyla’s mentioning of the war. It would help, however, if you specified which war. We all assume it’s the Corone Civil War just as we assume the Ixian Castle is in Corone, but not everybody follows the events in the regions and the specific locations of your character’s abodes, so a bit more clarification could help both of you here. I had to take a point of Amber though, because of the plastic bow and arrow at the beginning. It was a playful little detail, true, but also almost completely out of whack with the continuity of Althanas.

INTERACTION – 7/7

Another tie here. The interaction between the two of you was good, but that doesn’t surprise as you did quite a lot of bunnying throughout the thread. This really gave a more genuine feeling to it instead of the classical back-and-forth of tournament battles, and helped the flow of the events. But again, I would’ve liked if you did more than just blast (and revive) some trees. In short, the interaction was good, but the content was lacking.

CHARACTER – 7/8

You both stayed very true to your characters and there was enough information for me to shape both in my mind. But Orphans gets the advantage here because Azza seemed to display a wider array of emotions, whereas I didn’t quite feel the same way about Kyla. I understand that she had the role of a patient teacher, but I expected to see more of a reaction when Azza disintegrated a tree in the place she held so dear.

CREATIVITY – 7/7

I don’t know whose idea was to turn a tournament battle into a magic lesson, but it’s a nice reprieve from the usual where two people try to hack each other’s extremities off. There was some nice imagery involved and I liked the way you described the effects of your spells, namely light and shadow magic from Kyla and the chaotic results of Azza’s spells. But other than that, there wasn’t really much to differentiate you two, so another tie here.

MECHANICS – 6/8

Amber, you have a repeated issue of missing commas. Most of this happens in dialogue and it tends to happen a lot. A usual example would be:

“ What you need to remember Azza is that everything you do has an effect.”

which should be:

“ What you need to remember, Azza, is that everything you do has an effect.

Orphans had fewer issues. There were a couple of tense shifts and a missing word I noticed, but nothing too major.

CLARITY – 8/8

No major issues here really. Amber, you could sometimes do with separating the thick paragraphs into two or more, especially if there’s a lot of dialogue in them. Orphans, I would’ve preferred if you actually explained what a Dovicarus is before using it extensively in the thread.

WILD CARD – 6/6

You get a point each for not swinging at each other with swords and stuff in some arbitrary setting.


TOTAL SCORE – 67/71

Orphans is the winner. Congratulations to both of you!

Orphans and Amber Eyes get... I don’t know how much EXP/GP. Couldn’t find the formula anywhere, so I’ll talk to Sei to do the calculation.

[Silence Sei]

Orphans gains 2200 EXP, 100 GP

Amber gets 600 Exp, 200 GP

GP-Exp added!