Round 3: Paragon Vs Inkfinger

[Paragon]

"So, they've escaped," said a dry, wispy voice.

"As far as moving from one area we control into another, I suppose," replied a deep, sultry voice. Nothing could be made out in the darkness aside from their shadowy figures, a table between them, a bottle of spirits, and two glasses.

"Still, this did not go quite as planned. The inkmage's abilities are quite useful- this was our opportunity to pry him from Areesha's clutches."

"At least until we saw what we saw."

"Exactly. How did his armor break apart? He even removed the magical make-up in the same action. Now our devices are left to the whims of the tournament committee. Whether or not they consider Mr. Strandssen to be defeated or whether they accept Dorian's declaration of withdrawal that occurred shortly before."

"This warrants a look into the viewing globe. His memories should illuminate this mystery." The sultry-voiced one produced a small green globe and set it in the center of the table.

"Before that, I want to commend you on that spell. To infiltrate the memories of both competitors is a great way to assess their abilities in the context of their histories. Last round, we had no idea Dorian was capable of this."

"Save your thanks. The library was already set up for such a purpose. A long time ago, a great and powerful wizard set up the library to record his memories in writing, so that he did not have to rely on his failing memory. With his death, however, the library became a bit haunted, so to speak. Still, we are able to manipulate it somewhat. Regardless, let us now look into his memories. The moment right before the armor broke apart."

They both looked deep into the viewing globe.

* * * *

As Cael's body fell like a chunk of snow in spring, Dorian's eyes widened as his outstretched arm twitched. He could not control it, his will being subverted somehow. Both his arms were brought back, and wrapped themselves around his own neck. Fallow's screaming drowned out his thoughts, the dragonling buzzing around his head frantically. As the Sesthali's breath became short, time winding down on his life, all of the outside sounds were dimmed to nothing. The pain of somewhat outside force choking him using his own hands was ignored. He could only hear the sound of his own heartbeat. A moment of clarity came upon him, and he thought about himself. Was he someone that could do this? No, he wasn't. This wasn't him. He thought about... what he could do. How his body should respond to his and only his will.

Squinting.

He saw the armor that wrapped around his body, his arms, his upper legs. In a way, he saw the 'decorations' on his face as well. All of this was visible to him, as if he was looking at himself from the outside. Yet, he was not looking at the armor nor the make-up. He was looking beyond it.

Seeing.

The world went dark around him. In front of him, he could see the armor, floating and providing a white glow that was the only source of light. Then, that disappeared as well, giving him the total absence of light. To his surprise, he saw something familiar, and yet these particular lights were unique. Red, green, blue, yellow, every color in the visible spectrum of the eye appeared before him. They were like threads, bobbing back and forth to an imaginery breeze, like they had life on their own. He was inside the loom again, and in each thread were tiny moving pictures that told a story.

Reaching.

He knew what to do. This was fate-crafting. In this world, he was free to move, free to reach out and wrap his hand around a red thread, his fingers not quite touching the thread itself yet, just hovering around it. He saw himself in this thread, the kind of person he wanted to be, and the armor was nowhere to be seen.

Touching.

He closed his hand around the thread, and the red light drowned everywhere else. All he could see was red. The sight was short however, as the sight of the twirling maelstrom and Cael reappeared. Only a moment had passed. He was back in the library, and the cursed armor was cracking. Red light seeped from the cracks, and they multiplied until the armor simply fell to pieces to the ground. The make-up also washed away, streaming down his face down to the carpet until he looked like himself again. As the armor hit the ground, it turned to dust piece by piece, which was blown away by the heavy winds that surrounded him.

The fate of the armor... was to be worn by no one ever again.

* * * *

"Quite a feat, isn't it?" noted the dry-voiced one. "If I'm understanding this right, he changed the fate of the armor. That sort of thing supersedes any enchantment we put on it, doesn't it?"

The wispy-voiced one took a sip from his glass and said, "In His name, we shall act."

Please take into account the immense time constraints it took to have a completed thread within this time frame when judging. Too many battles I see are judged based on the standards of Citadel battles where they have all the time in the world.

[Letho]

My word! This must be the friendliest Serenti we had in recent history. People helping each other, teaching each other, bunnying and whatnot... Where’s the good, old fashioned belligerence? Back in the day, you had to chop some heads... *shakes fist*

But yeah, on a serious note now, good stuff, guys. The scores will be RED for Inkfinger, and BLUE for Paragon.


STORY – 7/7

Here’s the deal. When two people cooperate to such an extent that they bunny each other characters through most of the thread, then the thread is a collaborative effort. As such, I can’t really give advantage to either of you. I will say that it shows you were racing against the clock, because after you took your time to introduce everything, it went downhill in the rush. And despite your OOC note in your last post, I must judge this as any other thread, using the same criteria. The climax itself felt rushed and didn’t have the impact it should’ve had, and consequently the ending itself left me wanting, especially on Inkfinger’s end since the story pretty much ended with him passing out while Dorian carried him upstairs. Paragon tried to salvage the conclusion a little bit, but all it did for me is further mystify the whole ordeal instead of clearing it up.


STRATEGY – 7/6

There wasn't much chance for strategy given the course of the thread, but what there was was done decently. I'm giving advantage to Inkfinger for clever usage of his cranes and the binding seal, and for Dorian using healing ointments that I couldn't find anywhere in his profile. Remember that this is a battle and anything you want to use that affects it in any way should be listed in your profile.


SETTING – 9/7

Very well done. From flying books, bloodied skulls with peering eyes, laden shelves with intricate carvings, you two painted a vivid picture for me. I’m giving slight advantage to Inkfinger because he seemed to introduce a bit more detail and the touch with the pencil-on-paper image from the cranes’ perspectives was a clever little twist I liked very much.


CONTINUITY – 6/7

You both presented a decent enough reason to be here, but I think Paragon managed to link the threads a bit better (no pun intended). I felt that Inkfinger lacked about half a post worth of conclusion to really bring this to a tie, clearing up what his participation meant to the folks he mentioned in his intro post (Areesha and that dude with a name that starts with an “I” that’s not really an “I”)


INTERACTION – 7/7

I have no major complaints here, but there wasn’t anything really outstanding either. You both did a good job dealing with the mayhem that the library kept throwing at you. I initially thought that I’d be giving Inkfinger the advantage here for the interesting deal with the catalogue at the beginning, but then Paragon even things up by pretty much (man)handling Cael from the moment he put his spear through him.


CHARACTER – 7/6

The problem with major bunnying in any thread is that characters tend to be a bit stiff and unnatural when played by the other person. It usually takes a thread or two to get the feeling of another character and the lack of experience showed here. Example would be when Cael and Dorian meet face to face, and in response to Dorian’s words, Cael just points the way and doesn’t say anything. At any rate, Inkfinger pips ahead again because I felt that he did a better job portraying Cael with his skittish behavior and constant inner monologue.


CREATIVITY – 6/6

Nothing much to say here. I didn’t notice much worth mentioning, but nothing was out of place either so an average score for you both here.


MECHANICS – 8/9

You were both very good mechanics-wise, but there were some mistakes. On average, Inkfinger had more so Paragon gets the advantage, but again, nothing terribly concerning. It’s usually a missed letter here and there and Word doesn’t notice (like “the” turning into “he”)


CLARITY – 9/9

It doesn’t take all that much skill to write stuff. It does, however, take skill to make it easy for people to read and I honestly had very little trouble understanding what was going on. The reasons why I didn’t give the perfect score here is Paragon’s ending which was a bit harder to comprehend and the part with Cael with his back turned and that paper thing he cut down with naginata which could’ve been clearer. But generally, a very good job, folks.


WILD CARD – 5/5

You both missed the deadline once, Paragon with post #2 and Inkfinger with the subsequent #3, so that’s point off for each of you.


TOTAL SCORE – 71/69

Inkfinger is the winner. Congratulations to both of you!

Sei will do the EXP/GP calculation.