Round 2 Team 6

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Son of a... The question I hoped would never come up in conversation. Think, Maddy! Think!

I pursed my lights tightly. "I'm just a wandering soul who wants to do what's right, you know?"

The look in Caitlin's eyes said that she was looking for something more substantial. Something to connect with me on. Perhaps she was secretly trying to measure me up to try and convert me or something?

"I've been... I've had a rough go at it these past couple years," I said in a manner of half-truth. I opted to go with a slight bastardization of my own story, with names changed to avoid incrimination and deflect the darkest truths of my tale. I chose my words carefully to inspire pity rather than wrath. "I've traveled the world," I began, "taking on small jobs here and there, searching for a place to belong... I've done some horrible things. I've killed for money and revenge. I've stolen. I've lied. But, I've tried so hard to turn my life around."

I glanced over at Caitlin, whose eyes were unreadable. "I honestly have. I've done what I could to atone for some of my sins... These past two years or so, I've walked the world, doing what I can to help save it."

The voice returned. "Liar. Coward," it taunted.

Looking over at Tomas, I saw he was lying on his side with his back to us, his arms curled up underneath his head. "Don't you worry, I will end you soon enough."

My attentions went back to the Cleric of Draconus before me. "I was there during the Coronian Civil War--do you remember those times? I went to Eiskalt during their recent struggles with the plague, joining up with the aid organizations that were offering food and medicine to those affected by the blight."

"The only aid you offered them was a swifter death."

"How about I offer you a bullet to the back of your head?"

Caitlin simply nodded. "An honorable cause, to be sure," she offered. "But... I sense that there is far more to your story than you let on."

Oh great, here we go. A small bead of sweat formed on my forehead.

She drew closer to me, putting a gloved hand on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me. "I sense a... a sort of darkness deeply rooted in your soul."

Oh fuck, she knows.

"It is a darkness that I have never felt before. As much as you try to fight it, it doesn't let go. It holds you tight, eating away at you with each passing day."

I tried to deflect her just a bit. "Are you certain that it's not my guilt from my past actions? Because, you know, that shit has hung heavy on my heart for so long."

The cleric shook her head in disagreement. "No. I can certainly sense something... more. It's a darkness that I have never encountered in my service to the Dragon Lord." She took hold of my other shoulder and turned me around to face her completely. I felt every fiber of my being wanting nothing more than to push her away. My mind screamed that this woman was suddenly very dangerous, if she could sense the corruption that Podë's gifts left in me. I wanted to get away. I wanted to spray acid into her face. My lungs began filling with the vile blight that had murdered thousands of innocent people.

Tomas's voice echoed in my mind once more. "Hey. Hey, Agent." I ignored his calls this time.

Caitlin's voice dropped to just above a whisper. "I can save you, Nadia. We can save you. Draconus is a kind god, and a forgiving god. This darkness that weighs heavy on your heart, this guilt of your transgressions... His love can dispel it. You don't have to continue walking the path you're on, searching for forgiveness through small actions."

It's far to late to save me. Those words were on the tip of my tongue when the both of us heard the soft rattling of bushes nearby. At first, I thought it might have been the breeze--but then I heard another noise accompanying it. I recognized it immediately, and suddenly my heart found itself firmly lodged in my throat.

The boy's laughter was shrill as it pierced my mind. "Our mistress sends her regards, Madison Freebird!"

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

One by one, the figures began emerging from the shadows that circled the camp. Ashen-barked branches rustled and snapped as they appeared from all sides. By the light of the flickering fire, they didn't look terribly off--but their jilted gait was a dead giveaway as to their true natures (if you'll pardon the pun).

Caitlin was the first to act. She let go of my shoulders and reached over her own to rip her steel claymore from its resting place on her back. Her cry was damn near ear-splitting. "Shamblers!"

Suddenly, there was so much action going on in the camp. Stefan jolted awake and was armed and on his feet before Tomas could even rise to a sitting position and ask what was going on. The sellsword punted the boy's short sword into his fumbling hands and cursed him out for not being more attentive. I took a quick look around the camp at the undead that were pouring out of the tree line. They were dressed in rotting garb that was nearly unidentifiable in their origin, but distinctly different in style from one another. They had various patchwork pieces of armor: Rusty helmets, leather cuirasses that had deep, piercing slash marks stained with dry blood, gloved hands that dragged dull and cracked weapons that dug into the dirt and dead leaves as their wielders continued their single-minded mission.

I ripped The Last Resort from its holster, opting to just skip the knives and any risk involved with getting bitten and go straight for an absolute solution to all of my problems.

Moving back towards the center of the camp, I spun around to get a clear line of sight against the first available exposed, decaying skull I could find. The Cleric of Draconus was startlingly fluid with her motions as she spun around in a circle to build momentum with the massive sword before raising it up to neatly carve up a group of two of the shamblers like they were festival turkeys.

"What the hell is going on here," Stefan shouted as he sliced off the top half of one's head with an incredible fury. "Where did they come from?!"

"A gift for our dear little Nadia from the Red Witch," the little blond-haired brat said to me tauntingly.

Focusing on the group in front of me, I counted out two pairs of eyes. With quick, focused motions, I put a bullet right between each of them. The rapports of the flintlock revolver cracked like thunder, filling the clearing with two flashes of powder and fire and drawing the attention of the handful of rotting corpses that remained.

One of the fuckers took a single step towards me before Caitlin threw out her hand. A brilliant ball of lightning formed in her palm and quickly stretched out to find its way into the fiend's open mouth. There was a loud crack that shook the trees as the poor thing's head exploded in a shower of thick blood, rotten flesh, and bone. The cleric had another storm brewing but was quickly distracted when a pair of tattered hands grabbed onto her pauldrons and yanked her back.

She cried out in surprise, and I acted quickly. Firing another shot with her head that close to the shambler's was too risky--instead, I dashed over and brought down the heavy iron gun onto the things skull. It caved in almost immediately with a sickening noise, soaking the barrel of The Last Resort in the muddy remains of the thing's brain.

Caitlin quickly regained her footing, said her thanks, and knelt down to retrieve her claymore from the weed-choked floor of the forest before continuing to defend the camp from this incredibly rude intrusion. She immediately turned to engage another pair of the undead that were behind her. I spun around camp, finding Stefan busy knee-deep in a pile of corpses, working to free his blade from the head of one attacker who was half-heartedly clawing at his arm in his re-death throes.

My eyes fell upon the flailing sword arm of Tomas. He was slowly backpedaling towards the campfire, his back to me as he tried to fend off the approaches of two shamblers. Without missing a single beat, I raised my revolver into the air, sighted my target, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

Tomas lurched forward, a spurt of blood, bone, and gray matter exploding out of his forehead and coating the torn leather vest of the fiend to his right. The boy immediately dropped his sword, which clanged against the ground several times as it settled. The pair of them watched as his lifeless body slumped onto his knees with nothing more than mild curiosity before they decided to see what the source of this sudden change of events was. Their dull, unfocused eyes found nothing but the smoking barrel of my gun and an annoyed look on my face.

I pulled the trigger twice more, dropping the pair of them next to my face-down nemesis. Quick glances around the camp confirmed that that was the last of them. I lowered the revolver and stared silently at Tomas's bleeding head as a growing pool of dark crimson soaked into the dirt underneath. The rotten little son of a bitch never knew what hit him. I breathed a sigh of relief that he would torment me no more.

That's six, I noted grimly.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

"Tomas!" Stefan cried out as the fog of the skirmish cleared from his mind. The gore-stained sellsword ran over to the body of his traveling companion, kneeling onto the dirt and drawing closer to him. His shaking hand hovered over the boy's back for several seconds before clenching into a tight fist.

"You... you stupid whore..." The grieving man stood up and turned to face me, a cold fury burning bright in his eyes, his mouth contorted into a vicious scowl. "I knew I should've run you through when you first showed up. You killed him, you bitch! You killed Tomas!"

The light of the fire glinted off the sharp edge of his sword. Raising the weapon up into an offensive stance, Stefan took a step closer to me. I did not react. No twitch of a muscle, no raising of The Last Resort to threaten him into a stalemate, no effort to defend myself from his advance.

Caitlin raised her hand, motioning for him to stop. "Stefan--no! Wait!"

"Shut up, Caitlin," he snapped. "I will not stand by as my friends and brothers are taken from me one by one! We risked it all to take up the elves' worthless cause! I will not stand for this anymore!"

The sellsword charged me, his scream filled with the anger and sadness that had overcome him. He took several wild slashes at me, each of them easily dodged. Following every one of his strikes, I found several openings for a counterattack--and yet I did nothing.

"I don't want to kill you too," I hissed as his steel filled the space I had taken up moments prior. The daggers on my hip bounced with the swift movements, crying out to be unsheathed, crying out for his bastard's blood.

Stefan came at me with a powerful overhead slash that I rolled out of the way of in the nick of time. Leaves and debris were kicked up as his blade hit the dirt. I rose to one knee, gun still tightly gripped in my briar-knit fist. I had one bullet left in the chamber, and it would be several moments more before the enchantments emptied additional rounds and powder charges from my belt and reloaded the gun. I wasn't confident enough in my knife skills to use my mythril beauties to parry and counter his furious sword strikes. Of course, there's always the acid and plague to calm him down quickly...

Screw it, I decided. There was no need to hide behind the illusion of a fair-skinned redhead anymore.

I filled my left hand with acid that quickly crystalized in the chilly Raiaeran night. I thrust my hand forward, sending the shards at an off angle so that they wouldn't completely shred the sellsword--as I said, I had no intention to kill. Rather, several pieces of sharp amber glass embedded themselves in his dominant hand and forearm. Stefan winced in pain and dropped his weapon. Falling to one knee, he muttered a few curses at me, the fury still burning bright in his features and overriding any sense of pain he might have been feeling..

I opened my mouth to say something, anything; but no words come out. I was at a complete loss as to how to react. My instincts were telling me to just say fuck it and end this wretch's life here and now. But what had he done to deserve to die? Absolutely nothing. I had nothing to gain by killing him, nothing at all. He was not one of Podë's chosen. There was no piece of her soul to be taken from him. There was the whole matter of him being witness to Tomas's murder; but let's face it--with an injured sword hand, only one other person at his back, and a forest full of shamblers, shapeshifting wolves, malevolent elementals, and other such horrors... There was little chance he would ever escape with his life anyway.

Caitlin had finally gotten over the shock of the moment and made her move. As I took a step towards Tomas's body, a circle of runes appeared at my feet, surrounding me. Several dozen thin bars of bright orange light erupted from the crimson weed-choked ground and reached into the air well above my head. I looked around--completely caged in by a containment spell. I stopped to see that the cleric had her arms stretched out, her fingertips glowing with the same shade of orange.

I slowly holstered my flintlock revolver. "Caitlin," I said with my voice low, "Please... Let me go... Nobody else is going to get hurt tonight."

The Cleric of Draconus was visibly torn. She clearly wanted to believe me, but she also wanted to be loyal to her creed and do whatever she could to keep Stefan safe. She shook her head... Slowly, at first, but soon with a great fervor. "No... I... I can't release you. Not after what you did..."

My mouth twisted into a curt frown. "I swear it. I only came for the boy, not either of you."

"...Why? Why did you do it? Why did you betray Tomas? ...Us?" Her voice was soft, just above a whisper, with a hint of sadness.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I thought about how I would respond. I was ready to spill everything--how Podë was handpicking her successors, how I had been one of them myself, how I felt that I alone deserved her gifts... Instead, I opted for a mixture of the truth and a handful of white lies. If I could appeal to Caitlin's values and beliefs of redemption in the eyes of the deities...

"I did not betray Tomas, I saved him," I began. Reaching up, I slowly unwrapped the scarf from around my neck and let it fall to the forest floor. The enchantments broke, and both Stefan and Caitlin recoiled in horror as they got a look of the real me. My hair turned back to its natural shade of black, my features grew paler and sharper, and the tangle of vines that made up my hands and arms were now on full display underneath the short-sleeved jacket I had grabbed off one of my prior victims.

"I've done some... horrible things," I continued, my voice lacking any trace of emotion. "I've stolen, I've manipulated, and yes; I've murdered. But... I'm trying to change. I'm trying to atone for my past sins."

If these words triggered anything within Caitlin, her face did not betray it. I pressed on with my half-hearted plea. "A few months ago, I was approached by the Red Witch herself. She offered me a share of her power, knowing that soon her time was up. I took that power; but soon after the corruption took hold of me, I felt that I had made a big mistake." I looked the armored cleric right in her eyes, which were shimmering with the light from her fingertips as she held me in the containment spell. "I learned that she planned to spread her corruption to others that had joined the Raiaerans' cause, granting them gifts and coercing them into continuing her dark work after her ultimate demise."

My eyes drifted over to Tomas for a brief moment before I continued. "He was one of the chosen," I said as I motioned towards his bloody corpse with a vine-woven hand. "I made the decision when I joined this cause to rebuke the gifts that I myself had been given, and prevent anyone else from leaving the Red Forest with them as well."

"Lies," Stefan said through clenched teeth as he sat knelt on the forest floor, clutching his bleeding right hand. "Tomas was not one of these... these chosen or whatever."

"Caitlin," I said softly, "you mentioned that you sensed a dark energy within me, did you not?"

"This is true," she replied.

"Tell me. Be truthful. Have you, at any point in this past week, sensed the same energy within Tomas?"

For the first time since she cast the spell that held me hostage, her focus cracked. It was several long, tense seconds before she responded. "...Yes. Yes, I have."

"It was Podë's influence," I said with a solemn nod.

Stefan's anger reached a fever pitch. "No! Lies! I will not believe it! You are a murder!!"

At this point, I had enough of his bullshit. I snapped at the sellsword. "I fucking saved his worthless ass from a fate worse than death, you idiot! You have no idea of the scope of her plans, do you? You're too blinded by your sense of family and brotherhood from your worthless little band of mercenaries to take a look at the bigger picture! This world is fucked if Podë's power escapes the edges of the forest and stains the world around us. I'm trying my damnedest to keep that from happening, and you're sitting here complaining that one of your buddies was collateral in my quest! Oh boo fucking hoo, someone did something I didn't like for the greater good! Spoiler alert, Stefan--people die! It's all a part of the fucking story!"

My words hung in the air like a cloud of plague. The venom still lingered on the tip of my tongue as the three of us sat there in utter silence. When I tore into Stefan, I threw every ounce of bile and vitriol that I could muster into my lies. All my pent up frustration from being built up then cast aside, and now--if Tomas's last words were to be believed--betrayed by the one thing that had given me an actual purpose in life... Something to strive for, to work for, to live for...

Stefan would not meet my eyes. His fists had unclenched, and he had slumped over. The weight of the world was immense on his shoulders in that moment. He was tired, he was lost, he was in mourning. He was quickly losing the will to continue on in this quest to purge the forest of its corruption, a quest that he was now the only surviving member of his company.

I turned back to Caitlin, who had remained silent this entire time. "Let me go."

She shook her head. "I... I can't."

"Please," I snarled at her.

"No. I won't."

I clenched my fists. "Now," I howled.

"You are one of Podë's blessed," she said calmly. "You admitted it yourself. You have been tainted beyond the point of saving by my god or any other."

"Oh for fuck's sake," I cried out, throwing my hands up in the air. "You don't get it either, do you?! Yeah, sure, whatever; I'm corrupted. I'm tainted. Oh woe is me, the world sees me as unclean and beyond redemption. You're going to have bigger problems if you don't dispel this shit this very second!"

A ball of red spores appeared in my hand, hungry to devour the magic that held me captive. I swiped upwards, releasing the cloud. In an instant, the fungus went to work, eating away at the cleric's spell. The thin orange bars of light quickly dissipated as their energies were consumed, but they were instantly replaced by a second round of bars, these in a tighter circle around me than before. I was not able to get my hand out of the way in time. I screamed as the holy energy singed me, burning away several layers of plant matter on my hand and forearm as I recoiled back.

Caitlin stood there, her focus renewed, determined to keep this monster caged.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Roughly an hour had passed. I remained standing within the cage of magical energy while Stefan and Caitlin went about the business of cleaning up after the shambler attack. I was starting to get cramped and uncomfortable, having little room to move around. The bars were in a tight enough circle that if I were to move six inches in any direction, I would get burned horribly again. I clenched my right hand, with which I learned that lesson--by now most of of the skin of the briar-knit limb had healed and reformed itself, leaving no evidence of the burn except for a slight tingling sensation as the regenerated cells settled in and got used to the idea of a second life.

The scowl that told Stefan's hatred towards me never left his face as he worked. Every few minutes or so, he would stop and look at me. His eyes would linger for a few minutes as he imagined the many violent, bloody ways he wanted to dispose of me before going back to moving the corpses of the undead into the brush, where presumably the creatures that populated this forsaken place would find and consume them. Caitlin... wouldn't look at me while she helped out. I couldn't get a read on her feelings. She apparently decided to react to Tomas's death and everything that occurred after it by retreating into herself and shutting out the world. It was a tactic that I knew all too well.

There was a small argument about what to do with Tomas once the rest of the bodies had been disposed of. Caitlin made the very practical argument that the boy should be thrown in the bushes, and maybe the scent of fresher meat will draw the predators sooner, giving him that much less of a chance to be raised like the others if he's in several different pieces as opposed to one. Her grieving partner was in no mood for practicality--he wanted to give him a proper burial, feeling that he deserves that much at the very least, considering all they've been through together.

It was during this conversation that I learned that Tomas was indeed one of Stefan's partners within the mercenary company he worked for. He joined several years ago after being expelled from university for whatever reason. Tomas had been a little rough around the edges, didn't take orders well, but was decent enough with a sword arm and had saved Stefan's ass in a few situations.

Caitlin made the argument that if Podë were raising corpses in the forest, then the boy would come under her spell and dig himself out of his grave, no matter how deep they made it. They argued about this for a while longer, until the sellsword gave in to cold logic and agreed to throw the chosen brat's body into the bushes with her.

Why they didn't just meet in the middle and hack him to bits and then bury them is beyond me; but I was secretly grateful that this never occurred to them. Once I somehow escaped from this containment spell, I could double back and pick up Tomas's body--and the shards of Podë's power that were locked away within.

With the camp finally cleaned up, the two finally turned their attention back towards me. I had remained still and silent this entire time, and not necessarily out of choice.

"So, what shall we do with her?" Caitlin motioned towards me, the warmth she had shown me in our conversation prior to the shambler attack gone from her voice.

The sellsword shot me a venomous look. "I say we kill her and be done with it. Leave her corpse for the horrors lurking in these woods to dispose of.

"I'm against that idea," I chimed in.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Stefan spat on the ground at my feet. "Nobody asked you, fiend."

I rolled my eyes and went back to standing around and waiting with ever-dwindling patience. It would be a while before my body could produce more of the red-tinted spores that could eat away this magic that held me captive. There was the off chance that I could just bite my lip and try to force my way through the bars--but then again, the damage that just grazing my hand against the holy magic did was rather incredible, considering. It took the majority of the last hour for the plant cells to regenerate and knit themselves back together. If I tried to squeeze my body through these glowing neon bars, there's a chance that it could kill me. There was always the option of trying to aim a shot of acidic shards through the gaps in the spell, but the chance of hitting flesh and disrupting Caitlin's concentration was very slim considering that cocoon of polished steel plate she was in.

I was at the utter mercy of a sellsword consumed with rage and a cleric blinded by her sense of morality.

Adjusting the tightly-wrapped bandages that were wrapped around his sword arm that kept his shard wounds from bleeding out, Stefan slowly paced back and forth before me. "We have to do what's right, Cait. Blood for blood."

The woman seemed unsure of herself. Deep down, she was still grappling with what her holy texts had taught her and her own personal feelings on the matter. "I... I don't know, Stefan. Killing her would serve no purpose--"

"Sure it would, you stupid bitch!" The cleric winced at his outburst. Stefan took two steps closer to her, gesturing at her and then at me with his bandaged hand. "If you let her go, what's the first thing you think she'll do? She'll kill us. She'll cut us both down where we stand. She will soak the ground with our blood, and then continue picking off others one by one. Is that what you want?"

"No. No, that's not what I want." The armored woman was clearly conflicted. Her eyes darted back and forth between myself and Stefan as she tried to sort out everything in her mind. "However, whether she lives or dies is not for up to us to decide. Only Draconus can--"

The sellsword drew dangerously close to Caitlin. "Fuck your god and the authority that you give your myths and fantasy books!" I glanced around my ethereal cage as it flickered, its caster's focus and resolve shaken by the venom and rage in his words. "The judgement is ours to make, and ours alone! In case you haven't figured it out, there is a very real god out in these woods, and this bitch was blessed with her power!"

The brunette's forehead glistened with sweat as she struggled. "But--what if she's telling the truth? What if those others she..." She paused for a long second, taking a deep breath before continuing. "What if they really were tainted by the power of the Red Witch? What if she truly thought that she would seek redemption for her own transgressions by saving the others from their dark paths in her own twisted way?"

Stefan turned to face me, darkness etched across his scarred features. "What makes you think that she didn't kill them for her own gain? To take their power and add it to her own?"

My blood turned to ice. Those words, his voice... There was something about his voice when he spoke that was slightly off.

He noticed my sudden change in demeanor, and a cruel smile crept across his face. "Did you see that? That look in her eye? That sudden burst of fear?" Stephan stepped closer to me, the campfire burning brightly behind him turning the man into a frightening silhouette. "That's exactly it. She's planning to take Podë's power for herself."

That tone in his voice... Something is not right here. I clenched and relaxed both of my briar-knit fists, my mind racing. Am I going crazy from exhaustion? What is going on here--?

Inch by inch, foot by foot, the swordsman drew closer. Each twig he stepped on cracked like thunder, each dead leaf like thin ice. All traces of mourning had been replaced by malevolence. Evil was in his eyes, and he would not stop until he got the blood he so desperately craved. "No more lies for us, eh?" His grin dropped into a sneer. "You're no better than any of the others are. Any who stepped foot into this forest, searching for the power you so desperately coveted... Any of you who so readily accepted her gifts, hoping to get more than mere scraps like the dogs you are... You're scum. Worthless scum. And soon to be dead scum, at that."

There it was.

There's no mistaking it.

His voice...

It's his voice, but there's another voice speaking those same words at the same time... A more feminine tone...

...No.

No.

No no no no no no nonononono--

"Shut the fuck up," I screeched at the top of my lungs. My mouth filled with acid, and without thinking I spat it into Stephan's grinning face. The blast of acrid smoke coming from his burning flesh immediately filled my nostrils as he recoiled back, clutching himself with his hands as he stumbled backwards towards the fire. Caitlin shouted something, but I was too consumed with a white-hot anger to make out what she was saying. My ears were ringing, my vision had gone red, and I was ready to force my way through these thin columns of holy energy, the physical cost of it be damned.

I was all set to kill this son of a bitch, until the lightning stopped me.

The runic circle at my feet went from orange to white as the ethereal bars dissipated in thin air. As I took a step forward, thick bolts of electrical energy burst from the edges of the circle and found home in my arms, my legs, my chest, and my neck. The magical energy surged through me, tearing me up from the inside faster than my body could reassemble itself. The scent of burning flesh and briar filled my nostrils. Everything turned a bright white as I convulsed. It hurt to scream, it hurt to think, it hurt to just simply exist.

Pain was all I knew in those moments.

Pain, and a dull noise in my ears that cut through the ringing. A feint disturbance that sounded like... like laughter.

And then suddenly, the storm ceased. In its place, there was a numb emptiness. My muscles relaxed, and I collapsed to the cold forest floor. Everything was growing dark. I couldn't breath. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move.

I silently begged the gods for more time. Just ten more seconds, so I may finish what I started with Stefan. Just ten more seconds... I'll give anything... Just... please. I have to know for sure.

My pleas were ignored by anyone and everyone who may had been listening from beyond the stars, except for one. As the cold embrace of death took me, there were the fading echoes of vile, cackling laughter in my ears.

Her laughter.

Podë.

Finished.

[Max Dirks]

Whereas Sulla held this honor in round one, you put together the most complete story in round 2, BlackandBlueEyes. Your writing was excellent. It was generally free from error and easy to read aside from a handful of bizaarely placed colloquialisms. Though your first person has significantly improved, you're still falling victim to what I call the first person trap, where it seems almost natural to tell the reader what you're thinking rather than show them. Indeed, there was a paragraph that ran the entire gambit of angry emotions. As for the story, I think you developed the characters well. I have two qualms. First, your persona was a bit inconsistent. First, Madison knew she would run through the group. Then, she had to check the knight's abilities. Then, she got captured. The backstory you set, running through four prior chosen ones, did not lend itself well to the way you allowed the story to develop. Making this your first attempt at killing a chosen would have made the strategy, capture and death of Madison all too real. Isn't it funny how one detail can change the entire flow of a story? In the future, please separate your thoughts from dialouge better.

Team 6 (BlackandBlueEyes)

Story: 6
Setting: 6
Pacing: 7
Action: 5
Communication: 5
Persona: 6
Mechanics: 8
Technique: 6
Clarity: 6
Wildcard: 6

Total: 61/100

BlackandBlueEyes receives 2163 EXP and 170 GP

You advance to the finals!

[Lye]

EXP & GP Added.