Fite me SirArtemis

[redford]

John stood in the arena he’d just fought in. Stars had replaced the sun in the sky, and a full moon gave ample light to see. John stepped forward, and felt the slosh of liquid. Looking down, he saw blood.

His blood.

It coated the courtyard up to his ankles, and John had just enough time to reel in horror before he glimpsed a red glow from his hands. His gauntlets began to feel warm as the red glow from his armor increased in intensity.

Oh no, John thought, trying in vain to remove them as they grew hotter and hotter. Sweat beaded at his forehead as he pulled on the edges of the armor with all his strength, unable to escape the burning of his gauntlets. After a few moments, he began to scream.

There was no escape, so John screamed. He screamed again and again, falling to his hands and knees as the blood boiled around his gauntlets, doing nothing to relieve the burning. The agony was unbearable, and John’s voice ran hoarse as his armor began to morph, growing up his arms and toward his torso, extending his pain to his chest.

John tried to scream, but nothing came, not even breath. It hitched in his throat and he was denied his release. The pain burned his mind, maddened him with agony. He felt tears form at his eyes as he tried to scream again, and blood poured from his mouth instead of sound, falling into the pool he was in, mingling with his blood in the courtyard.

------------------------

John’s eyes popped open, jerking his hand up to grab whatever was nearest to him. His hand landed on the railing of his cot and he gasped, pulling air into his lungs desperately. He breathed again, reveling in the simple sensation of cool air entering his lungs. His hand left the railing and grabbed at his upper arms, making sure that his armor was where it was supposed to be, and that he was not actually being burned alive. Everything seemed to be in its proper place, and John fell back into the cot, turning his head to see a very surprised nurse. She was small and lithe, with brown hair that fell in a short, tangled mess around her face. He noticed Artemis next to her.

John turned to him, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, staring at him. Artemis was an excellent fighter. Though John had been frustrated during their match, he had learned quite a bit about how he wasn’t as durable as he thought he was. His gaze moved from Artemis to his own gauntlets, then back to him. The dream was disturbing, but he’d learned to live with them, and didn’t put much stock into what happened when he was asleep anyways. He spoke.

“Again,”

Artemis’ eyes widened a little, and the nurse stepped behind him. He put a hand out, palm down. “You're out of your mind. No. After a battle, take time to review. Learn from what transpired. Allow the lessons to sink in. Don't fight for the sake of fighting.”

“How do you think I learned how to fight? By fighting.”

“Yes, and we just did the fighting. Perhaps you can take some of those lessons learned and use them against a new opponent, but you need to let those lessons sink in. And you should know that we aren’t on the same level. I withheld myself quite a bit so I could fight you. Once I don’t have to do that when we fight, there will be new things for both of us to learn. For now, I need to head back to my forge.”

John’s teeth clenched a little at how easy it had apparently been for Artemis to defeat him. He stood, grabbing his bloodstained tunic. “I’ll head to mine then, need some new clothes too.”

Artemis looked up at John. “Come to Knife’s Edge, find me at the Norlond Forge. We’ll see if we can’t get you a decent tailor, maybe some armor, too.”

“No armor,” John said, locking eyes with Artemis as he held up a gauntlet. “These gloves, they’re growing. I don’t know how, but they’re growing up my arms, and I think pretty soon I won’t need armor. If they don’t kill me, that is.”

“Well it doesn’t need to be real armor, you can get a variety of different cloth types that have a similar effect.”

John looked down. “Maybe. There’s a tournament, the Salvar Brawler’s Invitational, in a few weeks.”

[SirArtemis]

Artemis looked up at the man with both pity and faith. He stood tall and proud and yet there was something Artemis felt was hidden beneath the posture, an almost invisible sliver of self doubt that his intuition told him lived buried deep beneath the layers of muscle. Still, he could tell that this man had potential; surely, he would fulfill that potential if he simply maintained belief in himself. Unfortunately, that would be difficult if he continued to lose, and Artemis felt slightly guilty.

"So then I expect to see you in a few weeks. Recover for now and come prepared to fight and win. Once you do, we'll use some of your winnings to get you equipped to help you fight in the Citadel's walls when things other than fists are allowed. I'd also encourage you to use arenas that are more challenging and diverse. You will never train your mind to be creative in combat if there is not enough to notice. The more that goes on at any moment, the more present you must be as a fighter and the quicker you must react."

John simply stood there, his eyes still staring but his expression looked almost glazed over.

"John?" Artemis asked, checking to see if he had the big man's attention.

"Yeah, I get it," he yawned as he stretched his limbs. He moved them around as though they had never felt life, but Artemis knew that in a sense they did feel somewhat that way after recovering from a battle. "I have some things to take care of for now, but if I swing by Salvar, I'll come find you."

"Sounds like a plan," Artemis agreed, turning to leave. As he started to walk through the door, he heard his name called again.

"Oh and Artemis, if you do decide to enter the tournament, just know that this time I won't lose."

Artemis smiled at the comment, and he did not argue. In a fistfight, John probably would win. They were not exactly in a similar weight class. So instead, he just shrugged and walked out of the room, finding his way out through the familiar halls of the Citadel and down the stone steps.

He pulled out a familiar vial that Daros, his eccentric wizardly friend, had given him to use to return quickly to their home in Knife's Edge when traveling. He uncorked the bottle, cringed as the viscous and vile liquid went down, and found his body tugged through the material plane as though there were a hole made in the fabric of space-time.

Once he arrived back in Knife's Edge within Daros' home, he corked the vial back and took a moment to close his eyes and recover from the disorienting feeling of teleportation. As he did, he took a moment to reflect back on his own fight. With blades, he had a clear advantage. If he had decided to use Judicis, his advantage would have been even greater. If the arena had been different, there was no way to know. One thing he did know was that he needed to train in unarmed combat. There was a lesson in it after all.

Regardless, he knew he'd be seeing more of John, but not yet.

'Not yet.'

[Philomel]

Thread Title: Fite me SirArtemis!
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants: redford vs SirArtemis

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Plot: 18 --- 17

• Story- 6/10---6/10

redford: You weave a good strong tale with a basic reason to be in the Citadel. The plot is simple fighting for the best part, but you set it up and finish well, in the same tone and pattern:- however, this can also be your downfall. For further involvement and interest of the reader, you could go into a little more than mercenary type desire for fighting. Try exploring a little of redford’s background, as well as introducing the reader to maybe other sides of why he wants to fight for the sake of fighting in the first place - what in his life led him to do this?

Sir Artemis: You build a different plot and reason than redford, in a sense that your character is there to keep his skills in practise (post 2). You write a good battle, that matches redford’s strength and brawn, keeping up the tension also. There is a good sense of where Artemis is going, and what sort of person he is, but not so much where he comes from - this would be something to explore in future. The Story within is good but really "too simple," try furthering your exploration in future battles.

• Setting- 5/10---4/10

redford: You start of with a great strength in this section. You begin with a very thought out and well described arena, and continue to focus on it to a small extent. Certainly you could have mentioned it more, such as reflecting on the way that his blood soaks onto the sand/ground in the arena etc. You also lose much of the power you started out with, and end up relying on the action moreover than the setting itself. There is a lot of opportunities missed here, from post 5 onwards, hence your low score. You do focus a small about on setting at the end, but I would encourage you to tie in the whole thread to this power.

SirArtemis: There is something of a lost opportunity here, similar to redford. You write about the Setting and follow it through from redford’s first post, with small details of the monks and so on, however, you also lose a lot of the power of setting due to focusing on the battle itself. There is always chance to place in Setting mentions, with use of different senses.

• Pacing- 7/10---7/10

redford: Pacing is very fast and intense, as a battle like this should be with a character like yours, whose focus is in fighting and brawling. Your strength here is with starting out with a slow introduction and then with a strong fiery speed you build up tension until the climax of the battle, using shorter words to really pull the reader along. However, one weakness here is your use of thick chunky paragraphs that make the reading visually more difficult.

SirArtemis: Similarly to redford you expertly adopt a good strong Pacing in the heat of the battle, responding to the theme and sweat of the entire thing with great run on sentences that roll off the tongue easily and make it seem like a punch really is being thrown, but in slow motion. Your description of each hit or proposed hit is written clear and well, inviting the reader to really get to grips with the tale. What you could do to improve here is break up some of your heavier paragraphs to add smaller rises and falls in the story.

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Character: 20 --- 21

• Communication- 7/10---6/10

redford: You start off with a very casual chat to Brother Jor, which in a powerful way reflects on the idea that John has been here for many times he is on first name friendship terms with the monks (“back here to fight again, huh?” post 1). He speaks overall in a very conversational tone, something which is a bit odd when to his opponent, but can be said to add something to his personality. All in all there perhaps should be more Communication intermixed with your pieces of Action, but you have a very good base to build from.

SirArtemis: There is a definite sense of the nobility and pride around Artemis when he speaks, in his tone and word choice, for instance he speaks of “honour” in your first post. It also is eerie, though, as he talks of redford’s corpse and the aftermath of the battle in a strange way, considering the battle and how he might improve thereafter, rather than focusing on the death that transpired. This is though different from the “pity” you express from him in post 12, your last post, and so is rather discordant with the rest of your Character. There is an alien-ness about Artemis that is discomforting, and it is not certain if this is intentional or not, if it is it would be good to make this very much more clear.

• Action-7/10---7/10

redford: As this is a battle Action is one of the main things to focus on, and indeed you do. You show us the spirit of your character in his being a fighter/brawler by use of having his actions defining him in this fight. What you could improve on in this section is a sense of the smaller actions, perhaps the lesser aggressive actions that make John a good lover/compassionate person/whatever else he is, for this seems to be lost all in all in this thread. This is a place to continue from and to improve your writing from.

SirArtemis: Your art in this section is with following through your blows etc and describing them strongly to make them obvious and known. There are a few odd descriptions that take a couple of times to read to properly get the meaning, such as “He felt them break, and certainly felt them too” in post 8. Certainly emotions come through also, which link in with Persona, such as the faith and pity mention in your last post, a kind of softness at the centre of this warrior, and this is a place to really concentrate on as you continue to write.

• Persona- 6/10---8/10

redford: You have a rather simple personality and focus in this battle - i.e. the ideal of fighting, coming here to fight and that is pretty much all. Definitely you do show this within internal thought, such as that for post 9 with “you may be able to best me…” and there are raw emotions, as mentioned in Plot;- but you could have added some more in depth perspective for your character in Persona. Look at this in future, especially in battles.

SirArtemis: Like redford you use internal thought to express your character’s Persona, which is always a very good starting point. It gives more insight into your character’s personality. What you do also, however, is hint at further expression in his thought processes and “what he does next” type paragraphs, where you write that Artemis is going to go away and think about the battle and consider what occurred. This adds a future for your character, a continuance that could link into other stories, and also adds in extra detail. There could be more development done here, but you definitely have a very strong base.

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Prose: 20 --- 21

• Mechanics- 7/10---7/10

redford: Very little to say here, other than there were no obvious spelling mistakes etc. In general you could be more ambitious with your punctuation and perhaps sentence structure, exploring things like how ellipses can add to the building of a sentence, but everything was correct, including neat dialogue.

SirArtemis: Your weakness here was the thicker paragraphs as previously mentioned in Pacing - however, this is really the only weakness. You do not have any obvious mechanical mistakes in this piece, and also you go beyond the norm and use run-on sentences with semicolons and other interesting punctuation, really exploring the use of them and how they can be powerful.

• Clarity- 6/10---7/10

redford: You have a strong hand at making everything known and clear, with each action strong and purposeful. What is not clear is when you write the word “John” whereas in your character description in the sidebar there is the name “Robert”. Another thing is slight confusion from posts 9 to 11 over whether John is alive or dead, or if the start of 11 is a glance back in the past. Clarity here would help greatly.

SirArtemis: Closely following redford you write a clear battle, with great tone and words. There is a little bit of discontinuity towards the end with redford’s posts, for he has John bleeding in post 9, and then you have him dead in 10 and then he seems to be alive in 11. Good communication between you two would really help here for else it can cause confusion such as exampled here. Else, very good and clear in all of your plot so great.

• Technique- 7/10---7/10

redford: You open really well, technically speaking, with such phrases as, “it’s massive shadow painted across the courtyard and the surrounding forest, heralding the day’s end” in post 1 which both enhances your initial Setting and also sets you in good stead for the thread. You write furtherly powerfully within the fighting itself, using a variety of words for each. What you can do now to continue is to bring in a lot more metaphor and similie, something which was lacking.

SirArtemis: Overall you create a very impressive picture of Technique, that really helps to pull the reader along. At times you can get run away more with the action of the piece and the fighting, rather than use of language itself, but what you do create you create well.

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Wildcard: 5 --- 5

Wildcard here goes to a fight that is simply a fight, but a fight well played. Slightly less points here for reasons written above, in the respect that I felt there could have been a lot more added in detail to the backstory and story itself, however in the basics of a battle it really spun a strong tale well.

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Final Score: 63---64

Sir Artemis Wins!! (Just).

Sir Artemis receives:
2200 EXP
80 GP

redford receives:
600 EXP
80 GP

[Rayleigh]

All EXP and GP have been added!