Future Imperfect (Closed)

[Alyssa Snow]

Destroy the planet...

Alyssa's silhouette froze, her damp top held in front of her as she stared blankly through it at the floor. Silence gripped the room with only the faint whir of mechanics and muffled voices of patrons below. Her mind raced.

"Weapon..." she softly mumbled to herself.

Memories of scalpels, syringes, pills, tonics, and pain racked her thoughts. The plain, nearly reflective walls of the Alerian laboratory haunted her. No matter how much time had passed since her escape, the dreams and nightmares followed her.

Lucius shifted his weight to much protest from the worn wooden floor boards. Alyssa snapped back to reality and shook the thoughts from her head.

"Shooting you is still on the table, but..." she began, pulling her top over her head. "You had better elaborate. Why do you think I would do - that I am even capable of something like that?"

Alyssa finished tucking and adjusting herself before emerging from the screen. This time, her weapons were holstered, but the blonde stood with arms crossed.

[Lucius]

Lucius smirked.

"I don't think, Alyssa. I know." He moved to stand opposite the gun mage and folded his arms equally as stubborn and defensive as she. Finally, he was getting traction. She was, from the maelstrom of glints in her eye, starting to believe the impossible.

"How can you be so sure the future is set in stone?"

Lucius considered his reply. Alyssa moved slowly to the table by the window, and pulled both chairs out. She sat to the left of the bay and gestured for her increasingly less unwelcome guest to sit opposite. He adjusted himself in a similar manner, though with much less dignity.

"I've been there." He thought a moment. "Well, technically I'm from there, but the fine details aren't important now." Trying to explain temporal dichotomy on a first date was a fool's errand. "In the future, Althanas is destroyed and the survivors spread out across the stars." Equally as confusing to people of this time line was the concept of galaxies and universes. The Thayne and the Star gods still counted for much of Althanian astrology.

"You're on a roll with the incredulous claims tonight," Alyssa quipped. With her arms still folded, her sarcasm came across a little more harshly than she intended. Lucius frowned. "But go on...," she continued.

"I'm not going to explain it to you." It would take much time, and more liquor than the bar downstairs could provide. "No madam." He held out a hand, gloved and laced with nanotechnology.

Alyssa stared at the glove. "Is it a magic glove?"

Lucius sighed.

"Take my hand. You'll feel a short electric shock, nothing painful, and then a warm wash of tingles." The static field induced by contact with the ARIA components in Lucius's hand would dampen the nausea caused by temporal cannonade. He was preparing her, like shot in a barrel, to be fired violently through time and space.

"I bet you say that to every woman you meet," she said. All the same, though clearly reluctant, she took his hand. They stared awkwardly at one another, the dim light of her bed chamber illuminating the mutual look of wonder and possibility on their faces.

"It is science," he clarified. "Science that is going to teleport you to my airship." Space ship sounded too cool. "It can take you to the proof you seek." He waited a moment, for dramatic effect.

"Are you suggesting...," she erred.

"Yes. I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to show you the future imperfect."

With that, a mental thought activated the ARIA uplink to Lucius's ship that was sheathed in the clouds above the village. In a blue flash, they would find themselves on the bridge.

[Alyssa Snow]

Alyssa recalled her time on Forral's Fortress, a place with temperatures so frigid, that after so much cold her body felt hot. Then, it would go numb. Much like then, Alyssa felt the cold before the heat. Her skin prickled with energy or the absence of it. Her vision tunneled and skewed until the last resemblances of Lucius' face submerged into a seething vortex of colors. Alyssa felt her weight vanish, as though suspended in air or floating upon water.

She felt as though she had been unmade - nothing, but still something.

Then, like a kick to the stomach from a mule, all senses were impacted at once. Her ears rang, eyes blinded by blue light, skin ablaze with new atmosphere, and an overwhelming aroma similar to that Alerian lab. Alyssa doubled over. She gripped at her stomach and felt its contents churn.

Through the ringing, she heard a faint but unintelligible voice partnered with a hand on her back. As she fought her nausea, her weaponized instincts moved her free hand to the grip of her revolver.

"...okay?" She made out. "First jump is always the worst."

"Weapon!" another voice called out.

Alyssa drew her revolver, but immediately felt resistance on her arm. She looked to see Lucius grasping her wrist with panicked eyes.

"Easy! Easy!" he chanted.

Still blurry, she recognized his features and forced her muscles to relax. Instead, a fit of shivers rattled her bones and she let her weapon fall to the floor. A metallic clatter sounded instead of wood.

"Oh shit," Alyssa heard him mutter. "Bag! Bag! Someone get a bag!"

Too late.

Alyssa felt her stomach tense and turn. She heaved and all its contents spilled to the floor.

"I see the new recruit is handling the adjustment to artificial grav well," a stern feminine voice stated.

"Ma'am!" Alyssa looked up to see a woman, dressed in clean but very foreign attire. Her hair cut short and rigid features, she looked down on Alyssa with a snarl of disgust. To her side, Lucius stood at attention.

It was then that she noticed the alien world around her. Everything metal. Smooth, almost reflective floors. Blinking, clicking, and whirring machinery all mashed with a cacophony of verbal chatter. Above her, she saw a polish dome of what she could only assume was glass. Beyond it, a black void peppered with stars.

"You should take her to the holding quarters," the woman commanded. "Have one of the medics run a comprehensive on her. Make sure everything is still in one piece."

Alyssa readjusted her bewildered gaze on the source of the voice and drew her arm across her lips to clean the taste of vomit from them. She felt Lucius hoist her up by the arm and return her weapon to its holster. Meanwhile, the young gunner's eyes drifted to the center of the alien room. Nested in the middle of a glowing array of light, another woman stood with her back to them. Shoulders squared, heels together, and hands folded behind her back, this woman emanated an aura of command.

She was the final image Alyssa recalled before her consciousness wavered, and she felt her body moved.

[Gnarl & Root]

Name of Judgement: Future Imperfect
Type of Judgement: Basic Judgement
Participants: Lucius & Alyssa Snow

Lucius

Strengths

• Your general technique and writing is well written and clear. There was no difficulty in picking up what was going on or what you were describing. This makes for an easy read.

• Persona was well done here. While I think you could benefit from some more internal thought/feelings, your characters language and actions told enough about your character to explain who he was as a person.

• Your introduction was solid. Starting during a conversation isn't that easy, but you set the tone, the story and your characters personality/ appearance very quickly here. It made this reader want to know who you were looking for, what was going to happen, so I did get into the story quickly.


Weaknesses

• In regards to setting, what you do is good, it’s clear and direct to what your character is interacting with and where they are. However, what you choose to describe, or when you chose to describe it confused this reader. It also hurt the tone of your writing.

…or kill everyone, and everything.

The lake lapsed on in silence, the moon overhead shone bright alone.

Above is a quote from post four. After you had set a nice tone, ending in “…or Kill everyone, and everything.” You then added a small description of the lake. This felt out of place. This additionally affected the tone of your writing.

• In post six, you dedicate a lot of your writing to controlling Alyssa. When you do refer back to your character it was short and felt rushed.

Out popped a future man, across the room and into the wall. He dropped onto Alyssa's bed in a heap.

Your description in earlier posts was strong, and here it fell flat. Additionally it effected the tone of your writing. After being serious in earlier posts, this felt almost comical.

• While in other writing of yours I have seen strong mechanics, it came across that you didn’t really proof read over your posts. Various spelling errors or wrong words appeared in throughout, but I do relate this more to proof reading rather than you being unaware of how to do it. Example from post four of this:

A sucking nose.

It was clear you meant “noise” here.


Alyssa

Strengths

• Your general pacing was rather solid here, you built up nicely in the beginning and sped your posts up with short sharper sentences when in conflict. This worked well and helped the ease of reading your writing.

• I enjoyed the fact you showed various sides to her personality. It’s easy for writers to get wrapped up in their core personality, and you showed much more than that. The change from your earlier posts, such as the shop keeper, compared to your later posts within the tavern, is a good example of this.

• Not only do you describe well, the adjectives, colours and general world description was used effectively. I would suggest Lucius could take some notes from you on knowing exactly what to describe and when. You also do well to focus on other features such as smell and sound rather than just the visual.


Weaknesses

• In many ways you are strong on storytelling. The story is simple but clear, your characters decisions are appropriate and there's no confusion about it in general. However, due to the strength of your writing I feel you could have delved a little deeper here. Especially towards the end, where I felt Alyssa's acceptance of the situation was rushed between the two of you to get to the end. I never really understood why she would shut out the Inn keeper(regardless of his wandering eyes) and yet accept a man so easily who just randomly and awkwardly appeared in her room.

• You also use some interesting instances of back story, for both the shop keeper at the beginning, and Alyssa such as the memories in post eleven. These helped set some good tone, and yet your characters actions took away from this. Haunted by these memories and then accused of destroying the planet, but then quickly accepting it's a possibility and heading almost immediately up into his ship. It all happened so fast, it just felt odd and took away from what started off so well.

• It is clear you have a good grasp of mechanics, but in parts you suddenly lack the same quality, that or you don't go over what you've written. This damaged the clarity of your writing. The start of post nine is a good example of this, a few missed letters and more pop up here.

That he's been [I]looking[I] for me for years...

The above quote you missed the forward slash out. I don't think you have a detrimental problem here, but some proof reading would certainly clear that up.


Rewards:

Lucius gains:
480 Exp
60 Gold

Alyssa gains:
560 Exp
60 Gold

Apologies for the wait!

[Rayleigh]

All EXP and GP have been added!