AC: Round 2 - Group 7

[Letho]

Like with all the best riddles, the answer was perfectly obvious after he heard it. Letho reckoned this was the case with the previous two as well, and that the solution would have come like a slap to the face if only someone provided it. But out of the three of them, none seemed to have penchant for solving these brain teasers, their answers failing to appease the riddler with in the stone. And so the hill kept shaking, the monolith kept standing there like the world’s largest tombstone, and the darkness kept closing in around them. It rose around the hill’s summit until they seemed to be standing at the bottom of a well whose walls were ever moving, like corporeal black smoke. The horrors within that veil stretched their smoky limbs out in ghastly gestures of greeting, eager to embrace whoever got within reach.

Extending his will towards the malleable metal of the Vorpal Blade, Letho morphed the weapon into a massive scythe. And even as Hsa’s conjured familiar started drilling the shadows within the mist with his rotating horn and Steppenwolf started smacking them away with his mitts, Letho began slicing them away. The curved blade of his scythe went through the limbs unchallenged, the slicing motions leaving smoky trails as they severed the extremities from the surrounding mist. Yet for every arm he separated from the mist, two more appeared, and for every tentacle he stomped into a puff of black smoke, two more came reaching for his legs. It felt like trying to fight water, trying to make the flood stop with naught but your hands and feet and feel it pour through no matter what you did. Hsa’s creature was the sole source of light, shining as a falling star on a moonless night, but even its light started to fade as the black smoke started to envelop it.

Orud, Ylime! To me! Letho extended his inner voice to his two old friends. A pair of portals materialized next to the bulky ranger instantaneously, and through it leapt a huge pair of silver-furred wolves. They landed on the rocky plateau with a growl, their red eyes scanning the surrounding as their heads went back and forth. Protect the Chibimon.

Creatures of natural origin might’ve been perplexed by such a request without further elaboration, but the two wolves were as much a part of Letho’s mind as he was a part of theirs. They bounded away instantly, snapping their large fangs at the black hands that reached for Myslight. They worked in perfect unison, Orud and Ylime, leaping over the smaller wolf-like creature and fending off whatever came close enough to extinguish its light.

“Fall back slowly!” Letho commanded, ducked beneath a massive tentacle that wanted to run him through, then rolled away when it tried to crush him. The scythe came crashing down on the thick tendril, turning it to dirty vapor. “We make a half-circle around the lad! Buy him some time to answer.”

“What’s the riddle?” Steppenwolf asked, swatting the smoky hands away with his massive arms. Letho could see that half the man’s jacket was missing, be he was otherwise no worse for wear.

“It makes you weak at worst of times,” the Chibimon trainer said hurriedly. “Keeps you safe, keeps you in line. Makes your hands sweat, makes your heart grow cold. It visits the weak, but seldom the bold.”

“And?” the pink-haired man again.

“And what? I don’t know the answer. Grief maybe, or sickness...” Hsa spat back. He turned away from the monolith, cringing at the sight. His wolf-like familiar was a faint twinkle amidst the darkness, like an oil lamp behind a dirty pane of glass. Steppenwolf was just a couple of paces away from him, wrestling with three hands that kept pulling at his shirt, his knee, his shoulder. Of the two Letho’s wolves, only one still stood next to Myslight, blood trickling between the huge fangs. Letho himself was at his side now, swiping the scythe this way and that, chasing the blackness away with the flat of the curved blade.

“Just... not sure,” the youngster said in little over a whisper.

“It is fine, lad,” Letho said, his voice calm in between swipes and groans and shallow audible breaths. “Just pick one. And have no fear.”

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa closed his eyes and trckles of sweat ran down his head onto his cheeks. He could hear his allies pulling a tight perimeter around him. They were entrusting their fate to a boy they had just met, a boy who seemed over his head in this world of giant men and larger legends. He sighed heavily, the words of the riddle starting to etch into his brain just as much as it was etched into the stone. With the riddle, however, came the words of Letho, the man who trusted he would make the right decision. Have no fear. Have no fear. Have no fear...

"The answer is fear!" Hsa shouted at the top of his lungs, as if he had just been punctured with something extremely sharp. There was another rumble in reply, though this one was far more violent than the ones that had preceded it. Hsa slammed his fist into his other hand in frustration, sure he had doomed his team to not only lose in the Adventurer's Crown, but also lose their lives to the mystery that was hiding in the dark cloud beyond.

A blue rectangular light illuminated the monolith as the riddle disappeared into the black material, a door sliding upwards to make an open entryway into whatever lay within. Hsa looked back to his team mates pulling out his chibiballs and pressing the button on them as he did so. A cream colored light shot forth from the devices and enveloped the Chibimon that were out, swiftly turning back into a beam which retracted back into the small spheres. "It's open, make a run for it!" Hsa shouted as he ran inside the building, the rapid footsteps of both Letho and Steppenwolf following his example.

The door to the monolith closed the second the last member of the party had entered, little wisps of dark mist rising up to the ceiling once cut off from its main source of terror. Finally with a chance to catch their breath, the trio looked around the inside of the structure. After all, the inside had to be much safer than the creepy dark mist of shadows that threatened to tear their limb from limb....

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

I looked around the area, my eyes darting mback and forth between passing images. The place was filled with dozens, maybe hundreds of mirrors. I walked over towrds the maze of reflections, reaching my hand out and feeling the cold cystal on my palm. There was a strange air circulating the room, chilling my exposed chest (my shirt had been ripped off while holding off the encroaching mists outside). The air had a funny smell to it as well, as if nobody had been within these walls for a very long time.

"Glass," I said as I knocked on an invisible wall, "most of the walls are mirrors, but some of them are just regular glass. That's going to make it very confusing in finding one another should we get seperated." I stopped for a minute to enjoy the irony of my situation. In the first round of the tournament, I was trapped within a maze of bushes and had to contend with doppelgangers in order to reach my goal. Now, in the second round, I would still have doubles with the intent of confusion, though these particular images appeared to be harmless.

"Alright, I'll just come out and say it," Hsa walked up beside me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his pants, "I'm really worried about this."

"It should be easy as long as we stay by one another. All this 'temple' has to hinder us is a hall of mirrors. Any child with a basic knowlege of carnivals could get throughthis part. No offense." I smirked, knowing full well that I was actually trying to take a verbal jab at the kid without making it seem so.

"None taken," Hsa's eyes shifted towards mine, a knowing look on his face, "but I was moreso referring to the riddles. I'm not sure about the other ones, but shouldn't we be concerned that the two answers we do know for sure were 'nothing' and 'fear'. It just... I don't know. It doesn't bode well."

"Way to jinx us," I mumbled, looking around for an entrance into the hall of mirrors. "You and Lord Ravenheart stay close to me, I'll take point."

"That'd be swell, " Hsa turned around, then back to me, "if Letho was even still with us."

I spun around, pure shock painted across my features. Whatever happened to make Letho Ravenheart seemingly disappear from the group during our conversation, it probably was not a good thing. Damn that kid for jinxing it! I thought to myself, my teeth clenched in anger.

[Letho]

The darkness was complete and disorienting, and the only assurance Letho had that he was in fact standing and not floating in nothingness was the feeling of firm ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t see his two companions, nor could he hear their rapid breathing gradually winding down, their clothes shuffling as they moved around. It seemed the sounds of others ceased to exist the moment he stepped through that door.

“Got to wait,” Letho though, keeping his calm. “Let my eyes adjust.”

In all truth, the ranger didn’t expect something like this on the other side of the door. The kid certainly got the riddle right, there was no doubt about that. The answer fit like a hand in an old glove, filling in all the creases, yet they were rewarded with a big batch of nothing. At the very least Letho expected something trying to grab him, growl at him, some monster with a massive maw bearing down at him from the surrounding darkness. But for a while there was nothing, not even when his pupils got a chance to widen and search for the smallest traces of light.

He was just about to make peace with the fact that he’d have to feel his way around when his eyes were blasted with white. And as the whiteness was slowly drained away from his eyes, Letho still expected something standing there, waiting to eat him. Because that seemed to be the way these things went in this competition. You overcame one obstacle only to be met with another, more gruesome one for the entertainment of those who dared not to engage in such adventuring. This too was much like the Citadel, Letho reckoned, where for every one person who entered the arenas of the monks, there were five who sat in the watching rooms, getting their thrills from other fighting and bleeding and dying. It was a detestable notion, but such was the world of Althanas currently, where the brave fought for the enjoyment of the cowardly.

But there was nothing trying to eat or otherwise ravage the ranger in the room within the monolith. Instead, what Letho saw was his own reflection and beyond it a room that seemed to stretch on into eternity, each populated with a smaller version of him. When he turned around, his eyes still squinted from the sudden burst of light, he could see the dizzying effect on the other sides as well.

“A mirror room,” Letho said, approaching one of the walls with his hand outstretched, careful not to run into it. Once his fingers made contact, he let them slide over the smooth surface, searching for any trace of a crease. There were usually doors hidden within these rooms, or small pressure pads that opened passages.

But even as the he began his search, there came a change in the reflection. It seemed to start at the farthest, smallest reflection which seemed to be magically switched off, like a street lamp at the far end of a long avenue. One by one, the reflections disappeared, the neverending series of rooms diminishing before his very eyes. It shouldn’t have been possible, of that much Letho was certain even if wasn’t terribly knowledgeable in the physics of light. Yet the darkness once again approached, eating at his reflections.

By the time it got to the very last mirrored image, Letho had his sword at the ready, expecting another wall of arms and tentacles like on the outside of the monolith. But instead of turning into a wall of black, the last reflection seemed to melt away into transparency until the big pane of glass revealed an entirely different image. On a blood-crusted rack, splayed with her arms and legs tied down to the corners of the wooden slab, a young girl looked back at him in dismay. Next to her stood a hooded figure, his face invisible in the shadows, and next to the figure a table with rusty surgical instruments of all shapes and sizes. But Letho barely even noticed the shadowy man, his eyes focused solely on the lass. Getting closer to the transparent wall and pressing his hand against it, he whispered the name of the girl.

“Lorelei?”

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa and Steppenwolf searched the immediate area looking for their powerful ally. Letho, it seemed, has just wandered off on his own for some reason. They both turned in the same direction when they heard the ranger say the word ‘Lorelei’. Has looked to the large Mystic, who merely shrugged his shoulders. Apparently he was just as confused as the young Chibimon trainer. “Go,” Hsa said, once again putting on a façade of bravery to rival his two new friends, “Me and the Chibimon will cover you. When you find Mister Letho, we’ll all meet back here.”

Steppenwolf nodded and ran off, carefully probing each mirror with his hands and slowly shifting around this way and that in order to find safe passage. Hsa stuffed his hands into his pockets and whistled calmly, his hands so close to the chibiballs that he felt comfortable being alone. After all, he was never truly alone, was he? Not as long as he had the Chibimon.

He approached one of the mirrors, a happy tune still being whistled as he looked upon his reflection. He opened his mouth and licked his teeth, making sure that there was no grime in his pearly whites. Each tooth had a small film over it, the result of not brushing for a couple of days. The child made a mental note to ask the attendants of the next round for a toothbrush when they completed whatever mysterious goal round 2 had held for them.

As he looked upon his reflection, the child noticed something odd in the image before him. The boy looked down, counting all three of his chibiballs tucked safely onto his black belt. He looked back to the mirror, or more precisely his belt, and counted a total of zero Chibimon captured in the reflection. The youth tilted his head to the side, checking himself once more before going back to the mirror. “Where are your Chibimon?” he asked to nobody in particular, more so a riddle wherein the answer was a simple optical illusion.

As if commanded to act by an outside force, the image withdrew three chibiballs from its pocket, throwing the items down upon the ground. Hsa looked on in horror as his mirror double stomped on the containers for his friends, a sadistic look upon his face. The doppelganger was laughing, enjoying himself as he not only wrecked the Chibimon’s homes, but also severely damaged the residents inside. Hsa felt sick to his stomach, a barely audible ‘stop!’ was attempted, but only air escaped his mouth.

The sinister copy knelt down with a wicked grin painted across his features, pressing the buttons on all three chibiballs as Hsa continued to shake his head frantically. The popping sound of the balls rand throughout the building, and Hsa was instantaneously covered with the blood of Servapour, MysLight, and Rhinosaurus. He felt one of their organs slap him across the face, though he was too distraught to know or care which it was. The boy fell to his knees, vomiting a thick greenish-yellow liquid all over the already crimson stained ground. Soon, his tears joined the disturbing mixture, followed by his fist slamming constantly to the ground in frustration and emotional pain. He had become a monster, had killed his closest friends, what kind of person was the true Hsa Eulb?

The lonely kind…

[Letho]

A pair of emerald eyes looked back at him, filled with tears of desperation, pleading for his help. The girl had her mother’s eyes, and just like every time Letho gazed into them, memories of Myrhia flooded his mind, reopening old wounds, reawakening old regrets. There had been times when that would’ve been enough to rattle the ranger, throw him off his guard, but Letho Ravenheart had grown callous over the years, grown cold, grown old. And this theatric imagery wasn’t enough to deceive him. Not even when the hooded man pulled the dirty rag out of her mouth and his daughter cried out his name in a familiar voice, Letho wasn’t fooled. Instead, he lowered himself on the ground, put the Vorpal Blade over his lap, and waited for the illusion to dissipate. Because that was how these things usually worked. They were all about shock and awe and making a person believe just because their mind was shaken by something terrible. But if one persists, disbelief usually conquered the illusion. And Letho had gotten good at persisting.

“I am disappointed, Lord Ravenheart. No outrage? No banging on the wall?” the figure on the other side of the glass spoke. Letho couldn’t see his face, but he was pretty sure there would be one if his mind really desired it.

“What for? None of this is real,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, his tone dismissive. “That is not Lorelei.”

“And you know this as a certainty? Absolute, utter certainty?” the wraith again, its black hands fiddling idly with the rusty instruments.

“I do,” Letho said, unmoving.

The black man picked up a thin, curved knife and turned to the girl. She was dressed in a sleeveless dress made of white silk covered with tiny glittering scales which sparked as she moved. It was not something he had ever seen Lorelei wear, and that alone was a clue that this was unreal, that this was just a projection of his daughter poured into a memory of Myrhia and a dress she once wore on a ball in Radasanth.

“Father, please... please,” the faux Lorelei begged, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Please, help me. I... I didn’t know...”

Letho said nothing, his eyes firmly set on the scene, his face as emotionless. Not even when the hooded figure brought the knife over the girl’s chest and ripped the dress from her throat to her crotch, revealing the smooth nudity of his daughter did he flinch.

“If you’re so certain, then you certainly won’t mind me doing this,” the figure said with an unseen smile as it pressed the knife against the girl’s stomach and drew the jagged edge over her skin. The white skin immediately budded with red roses of blood, and as the trail of the knife continued over her abdomen, the girl wailed and thrashed against her shackles. Crimson poured from her body, soaking her dress and soon turning it dark red.

“Let me ask you a question, though,” the figure said, feigning inquisitiveness. “If we whisked you away here, twice now to be exact, what makes you so certain we didn’t bring your precious Lorelei the same way?”

At first, Letho said nothing. Engaging an illusion in a conversation only fueled its development, made it harder to break. But even old war dogs such as him couldn’t resist explaining their own reasoning outloud, perhaps out of pure bravado.

“I enlisted for this competition. She has not,” he ultimately responded.

“And you’re absolutely certain about that as well?” the figure said, positioning the knife for another cut. “What if I said that she too was a competitor?”

“I would call you a liar.”

“Truly? Is it so hard to believe that she could try her hand at such a competition? A stubborn girl such as herself?” There was that tone again, spoken through smiling lips that weren’t there. “After all, you have one her age in your very group. Is it so hard to believe that the daughter of the legendary Letho Ravenheart wouldn’t follow in her father’s footsteps?”

“Perhaps not. But if she is a competitor, she and her group would’ve been given a task of their own, just as we were. This is not Serenti. Competitors are not in direct conflict with each other,” Letho explained, his tone still filled with certainty. Yet for the briefest moments, he wasn’t entirely certain. Looking back on the life of his daughter, she had had a knack of getting into trouble and doing things he wouldn’t have allowed if she had asked him. Just like he had in his youth.

“Hmm, I guess you didn’t read the fine print, now did you?” the black man said. And looking back on it, Letho wasn’t entirely certain that he did. He remembered that they all had to sign a contract before entering, and he remembered looking over it, but reading every line, even word... No, he wasn’t certain if he had done that.

“Father, please,” Lorelei managed in between sobs and painful grunts. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat that made her brown hair stick to her skin. “I... They said... they said we would... we would fight together... have an adventure.”

“Lies! Be silent, ghosts. I will palaver with you no more,” Letho finally said. Neither Lorelei nor the hooded shadow seemed eager to follow his directive. The black man merely chuckled as he made another incision, this time starting in between Lorelei’s budding breasts and slicing towards her navel with agonizing slowness. The ghost of his daughter kept crying, kept pleading, kept calling him out in that voice that kept knocking against the remnants of his heart, hoping there was still a pulse beneath that hard shell. But none of these voices were as loud as the one in Letho’s head, the voice of his multiple selves arguing over the reality of the situation. Most of them still stuck to their guns, still claimed with utmost certainty that this was just an illusion, just a trick played on his mind. But there were others that explored other avenues of thought, other possibilities. One in particular stood out, sounding much too reasonable for Letho liking.

“Chances are that is not Lorelei,” that voice said. “But if there is an even remote possibility that it is, do I really want to take that risk?”

“She’s a resilient one, just like her father,” the figure mused, hovering around the girl as he picked another spot to cut. “I guess I’ll just have to go a bit deeper this time.”

“No!” the voice called out, but this time it wasn’t Lorelei’s. Letho charged straight at the wall, the Vorpal Blade metamorphosing into a massive warhammer even as he brought it down from overhead. The impact shook the entire room, shook the entire building down to its foundations for all Letho knew. But it barely made a dent in the glass wall, sending but a few cracks spreading like streaks of lightning over a gray sky. Behind it, the image now distorted by the breaks in the glass, the knife dug into the flesh again, this time tracing a red line at Lorelei’s side that went so deep the knife rasped against the bone. The girl screamed again, again and again, pausing only long enough to draw breath into her lungs. And each wail only made Letho strike harder, his arms numb up to the elbow as he kept hammering away at the rock-solid surface.

And all he kept thinking was: if that wasn’t Lorelei, he was making a fool of himself, but if it was, she would never forgive him for waiting this long to act.

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Letho Ravenheart, the Red Marshall, was trying to kill a mirror. Worse still, the mirror itself seemed to be made of something really resilient, for it only cracked, but never fully broke. I approached the powerful ranger cautiously, a hand reaching out and touching his shoulder. Letho spun around, hammer at the ready, only to stand down upon seeing my unique features.

“It’s just a mirror, Lord Ravenheart,” I spoke in as calm and collected a manner as I could, considering this man had just tried to bring this entire monolith down on top of us. “I don’t know what you saw, but it’s not there. Just us and the mirrors.”

He was breathing heavily, and I thought I caught the starting signs that Letho Ravenheart was about to cry. I raised an eyebrow, allowing the ranger to gain his composure before anybody said anything else. “My daughter…” he spoke as if he was reliving the experience, “She was being tortured. I knew it was probably an illusion, but how can you be sure when your family may be at risk?” I nodded, trying my best to be helpful, given the situation.

I looked beyond Letho’s back towards the mirror, several green, almost claw like hands grasping at the marshals back. I gripped the large fellow by the shoulder and forcefully pulled him close to my side, the claws retracting back into their glass prison. “Get Hsa and let’s get the hell out of here!” I shouted, not waiting for a reply before I started running in sheer terror.

I could hear their voices calling me, wishing for me to join their lot. They’re darkish green hands reached for me, probably my allies as well. They would use anything to get me to their cause. My half-orc blood boiled within me, as if it wished for me to acquiesce to their demands. Most of the orcs on Althanas had banned together under the common goal of recruiting me to lead them. Logically, an orc who appeared human could infiltrate any number of countries and lay the groundwork for an elaborate attack. Add that with my keen intellect and Mystic abilities and you had my greatest fear; to be captured by the orcs and forced into destroying the world.

I could hear footsteps as I ran, my body slamming violently into glass on more than once occasion. My mind kept telling me to stop, to slow down and see if it was Letho and Hsa or an orcish army at my heels. My body, on the other hand, was now running on instinct, not logic. I continued to run, my head not turning back for even a second, until my eyes caught sight of a single white mirror. The mirror itself seemed like a portal of some sort, perhaps even entry into the inner sanctum of the monolith. Regardless of where it led, it had to be better than the nightmare I was experiencing at that moment.

Sweat poured down my body as I made my way towards the light, my eyes closed as I ran through…

((Steppenwolf and Hsa’s final posts. Letho, bunny Hsa in whatever way you see fit to end us on a high note.))

[Letho]

Running after the pink-haired man now, bouncing against the walls of the mirror-covered labyrinth, trying to outrun the greenish hands that would surely pull them into darkness. Letho's world consisted of the multitude of reflections passing by in a blur and the green fingers reaching the trio from every shadow, every darkened spot in the mirrors. But amidst this mayhem, all he felt was anger and chagrin. And it wasn't because he had been fooled; no, he had been aware of the possibility the moment he engaged the illusion in conversation and later charged at the barrier that stood between them. It was rather the weakness that made him wrathful, vulnerability that couldn't be eliminated no matter how indurate he became. They would always be able to wound him by wounding Lorelei, just as they had always been able to wound him while Myrhia had been alive, and the fact that there was nothing he could do about it filled him with rage. For deep down in inside, Letho Ravenheart was a prideful man, and prideful men despised being faced with their fears and weaknesses.

All three made a final mad dash towards a square of white light, assuming it was another passageway, hoping it would get them away from the nightmares that lurked in the mirrors. And as the light enveloped them and blurred everything out of existence, for a moment they felt weightless and floating, as if they had been thrown in molasses made of clouds and dreams. Then gravity took hold again, only instead of grounding them, it sent them blasting upwards to insurmountable heights. Faster and faster it pulled them upwards, the sheer force tearing first their clothes, then starting to rip at their skin and flesh. Only for the briefest of moments the three adventurers felt pain, as if someone was trying to dismantle their bodies one chunk at a time, but before that pain managed to turn into a scream, their minds blanked out.

And they were somewhere else again.


***RESUMPTION***


His eyes opened to the dirty color of a sky at dusk, specked here and there with the faintest twinkle of the first stars. They weren't Althanas stars, that much was clear, for the constellations were all wrong and some moved far faster than they ought to. But by now, Letho wasn't surprised by this discrepancy.

Picking himself up from the ground, Letho took a moment to ascertain his surroundings. The island stretched around him in three directions, unfolding before his gaze like an incredibly detailed map. It was a lush island, just as it had been the last time he stood there, on the plateau atop the hill that rose at the very heart of the isle of illusion. He didn't have to turn around to know what stood on the fourth side of the hilltop, but he turned around anyways. The black monolith was unmistakably there, stretching into the heavens as if it supported it, as if the sky would fall if it weren't there. And just like the last time, the setting sun seemed to have no effect on the dark surface of that anthracite rock, as if it swallowed the light instead of reflecting it.

By then, his companions were coming to as well. Steppenwolf pushed his large torso up with both arms, grunting with the effort, while Hsa's first reaction seemed to be feel around if all his appendages were where they were supposed to be and undamaged. Once he was certain that the pain from moments before left no damage, he immediately inspected his belt. But though his ball contraptions were there, there was no smile on his face. It was not until he detached each and every one of them and pressed the little button that released the animals that there was relief on the boy's face. More than that, actually. Once all his Chibimon proved to be alive and kicking and bounding around the lad, nipping at his hands, Hsa managed a chuckle or two.

"While I'm glad the boy has his balls back, it seems we've accomplished nothing. We're back at the beginning," Steppenwolf was the first to point out the obvious, not neglecting to take a jibe at the monster trainer. Hsa didn't seem to mind, didn't seem like he heard the big man taking a pot at him at all.

"It would appear so," Letho said, his tone a bit distant again as he gazed at the monumental monolith.

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Hsa joined it, proving he heard what was being said after all. The teen approached the other two, his Chibimon in tow. "I thought we reached the, you know, the inner sanctum or whatever."

For a long while, nobody said anything, their eyes inspecting the monolith as if staring at it with enough intent would provide an answer. But just like the last time, the rock remained silent, the sun kept dipping below the horizon and the mysterious island went about its business, sending darkness towards the hill again.

"Perhaps it was all a test, not just the riddling," Letho finally said, not taking his eyes off the rock colossus that seemed to tower of the world itself. "Think about it. The answer to the riddle that got us inside had been fear. And it was our fears that the mirrors reflected. It was our fears that defeated us. And thus we have failed."

"So what do we do now?" Hsa asked, after a moment of silence that all three took to gauge Letho's explanation.

"We do better, kid," Steppenwolf said. "We do better."

And even as his words were spoken, the invisible chisels started their work again. Words began to emerge on the featureless face of the monolith, and as darkness started to close in on the trio, the three went to work again.

***

With no wings, I fly.
With no eyes, I see.
With no arms, I climb.
More frightening than any beast, stronger than any foe.
I am cunning, ruthless, and tall; in the end, I rule all.

[Revenant]

Plot: (19)

Storytelling (7) – This was a story of failure rather than one of triumph, which was certainly something unexpected. There was a nice fluid beginning, a natural progression, and the ending really nailed it. The bunnying between the characters was smooth, which made for a good thread flow.

Setting (6) – The description of the monolith was really good, though the land around it faded somewhat as the riddling portion of the thread went on. What about the rising mist seemed so unnatural and unsettling as Steppenwolf watched it rising over the cliff? Obviously the hostile shapes gave it tension once it had risen to that level but before then was it a subtle off-color tint? A barely perceptible smell of otherworldliness? You don’t always need an epic paragraph to tell something when little snippets of description can really be used to emphasize the creepiness of how unsettling something is.

Pacing (6) – Most of this thread flowed really well one part into the next except for one scene, and that was Letho’s separation from the others upon entering the monolith. Why was he singled out when the other two were left together? Why did he enter into darkness and then find himself trapped in the mirror room? The entry just felt a little out of place.

Character: (21)

Communication (7) – I could really get a feel for the rising panic that your characters were experiencing as the tension in the thread increased. It was very complimentary and gave your characters individual voices. Letho, you did a good job of conveying the undercurrent of frustration Letho had going on under the calm façade that he put up, and it very much made me feel an understanding of how your character is normally used to being completely in charge and how helpless he felt when that was taken away, even by his own actions. Steppenwolf’s initial dislike for Hsa was interesting and I got the feeling that Steppenwolf is a character that really isn’t very happy unless he has someone to protect and the fact that Hsa didn’t want his protection like Cellar Door had in the previous round angered him but it sort of faded away as a plot point once the tension started rising and was never really addressed again. Chibimon, for the most part you played up your character’s indomitable cheeriness very well, aside from your nightmares overcoming you of course, but there was one point that really felt like it didn’t belong and that was the solving of the “nothing” riddle where Hsa seems to get snappy and annoyed that Letho and Steppenwolf hadn’t thought of the answer.

Action (6) – Action wasn’t the driving factor in this thread and while it what you did have was well tied in and gave good indications of who your characters were it was still a little less revealing than the other categories in this section. Steppenwolf in particular seemed to merely be following along with this thread, not really taking the same initiatives that both Letho and Hsa were taking. Chibimon, the gore explosion during your nightmare scene really felt overly done. Blood I can take, even the spraying blood would have been alright, but the flying organs just went a bit over the top and cut some of the seriousness from the scene. Steppenwolf, I was somewhat disappointed that your character seemed to have missed his trial. His fear of becoming a tool for the orcs was a great plot point and could have really been played upon by the mirrors’ illusions.

Persona (8) – The real driving force of the thread was who your characters were and how they dealt with not being put in a position of strength, which really made them shine. Letho, you did a good job of pointing out the fact that despite what everybody on Althanas seems to think, Letho isn’t the perfect god-like figure that he’s often portrayed as. While I would by no means call him stupid, his weakness at the point of riddles really added a level of depth to his character. Steppenwolf, as I mentioned in the communication portion, your dislike of Hsa felt as important to your character as a plot point as his orc-heritage, but I would have liked to have seen that continued or concluded and perhaps the root of it delved into more than it was.

Prose: (21)

Mechanics (7) – A few errors here and there in Steppenwolf and Chibimon’s posts, not many but easily catchable.

Clarity (7) – There were a couple of parts in the mirror rooms that were written in a way that, while they didn’t exactly trip up my reading, they didn’t flow as smoothly as they could have. Primarily this came from Hsa’s nightmare sequence. Still, as I said, it didn’t exactly trip up my reading, and I understood it clearly as I was reading, if not cleanly.

Technique (7) – The use of failure as a point for great characters was what really set this thread apart. It was a great technique and really helped flesh out the some deeper levels to the characters than I’ve seen from them. Riddles are also a tool that I enjoy, as people tend to think of conflicts purely in a physical sense and it was refreshing to see otherwise here.

Wildcard: (6)

Total: 67

Letho receives 1407 exp and 95 gp.
Chibimon Blue receives 461 exp and 70 gp.
Steppenwolf Orlouge receives 628 exp and 70 gp.