LCC Final: Super Awesome Fun Time, Best Pals Go! v Unreasonable Gentlemen

[Hysteria]

Talen turned his head to the floating platform. He had failed to entertain the idea that they could somehow bring down the barrier protecting the two puppeteers before finishing the fight. Yet, the moment it was done, it seemed as if it was always destined to be so. Fire seared through one man, and cold steel silenced the other. As their lives slipped away Talen felt the dark strings of machinations fall from his body. He was free and there were no barriers any longer.

Rayse pointed his finger towards the crowd gathered above them. They bayed and bleated for blood, unaware that the lions were now free among the sheep. Talen held no ill will towards Storm or Rayse, and perhaps in a moment of weakness Talen would even admit some ounce of respect. What he didn’t care for was the people watching him in a game not of his choosing. He had competed in fights many times before, some even to the death. However, in every case it had been by his choice. The child swore this would be the only exception as he narrowed his eyes and glanced at Storm. The rouge was in no position to attack, and Rayse and William seemed to have come to some agreement earlier. Talen swallowed the bitter taste at not defeating Rayse for the sweeter dish of revenge. When those thoughts had passed the blue-eyes monster disappeared.

Talen let his eyes scan the crowd for a moment from the back of the seats. It had been hard to see while fighting what had been above them. Rows of stone seats encircled the chamber, lined with simple pillows it was as Spartan in appearance as it was impressive in architecture. The subtleties of the building were lost on Talen, such as the way the stone rings met perfectly with each other, or the way they must have been hewn from huge quarries.

Disgusting…. Rotten pieces of meat. thought Talen. It was the normality of the people in the crowd that turned Talen’s stomach. Average folk, dressed for a day out and a good laugh. They had no idea what he had been through, or what he was capable of. Behind their shield they had peered at monsters. Four men, the most normal of which was a dragon slayer.

“Where’s that snotty kid gone?” came a voice from somewhere in front of Talen. With the sudden death of the two puppeteers the crowd were eyes forward and completely missed the child standing behind them.

The bliss of ignorance faded away, replaced with a shrill cry of fear. Twin bulls, black as the darkest ebony, charged through the stands. Chaos spread quickly as each bovine tore and smashed through onlookers. Each had gone in a different direction and herded the crowd towards the far side of the stands. If Rayse or William didn’t dispatch the growing throng, then Talen would oblige. Talen leapt from one thick stone seat to another with easy movements. The cries of pain and fear were his music and he, the humble player moved through the frets and struts of his time. His cold, dark gauntlets lashed out amid his leaps, catching a man in the throat here, and a woman in the stomach there. The smile that was on Talen’s blood speckled face was genuine.

There are no strings on me!

[Storm Veritas]

In his travels, Storm Veritas had seen several forms of chaos. He’d assassinated politicians in broad daylight, traveled amidst the front lines within the theater of war, and felt the asphyxiating terror as Moonwing flooded Jormungstadt. Regardless of these harrowing experiences, nothing had ever felt as omnipresent and inescapable as the concentrated focus of tens of thousands, resolute on killing four exceptionally terrible men.

The screams came in a wave towards him, a terrible blend of shrieks, swears, and rageful groans. The foursome had killed the beloved overseers, and now Talen was killing the spectators. Thousands flooded for the well-dispersed exits beneath the grandstands, as the beastly black brahmas rampaged through the crowds. Thousands more made their ways over the cement retaining wall, fixated (or so it seemed) on killing the electromancer first.

Seriously, what the f*ck did I do to these assholes?

His body became a blur of frenetic energy, darting, dashing, slashing and spraying electric fury. Blood sprayed in horrible fountains from the fast collapsing bodies of a mass predominantly comprised of men. His pain and soreness washed away like sand beneath the tide as a completely primal instinct took over him, the speed of the wizard initially rendering the assaults of normal humans altogether useless. The crowd had assaulted from all sides of the magician, boldly circling him and closing in with a suffocating squeeze.

Bodies began to pile, however were immediately backfilled with more furious assailants. They began to reach him as fatigue began to lay a soft hand on his shoulder, reminding Storm of mortality’s cruel limits.

Shit, can’t keep up with them, why aren’t they getting scared?

Veritas redirected a thrown knife into the open-mawed face of an angered assailant, catching the long sweet quiet take hold of an attacker in his periphery. Another blast of quick lightning, and down went another in a charred heap, smoke stemming from cored eye sockets. Like the mongoose, he sprung with dual blades at another corner, striking out at two men with sweeping slashes, spilling intestines beneath them before leaping back to the center of the fast closing circle. With each bold attack he pressed back a segment of the horde, however they continued to close on him. Storm felt the great burn of energy pulsing from him; his blood stained skin emanating a pale blue glow as he continued to launch assaults in futility.

There were too many; far too many, and these fools didn’t scatter at the sight of the carnage. These mongers fed on violence, growing more aggressive with each newly minted death. They collectively fought through the best efforts of the electromancer. At first it was an errant punch that found its mark, soon after he felt the grazing whisper and burn of a knife strike. Like a great beetle fighting off an endless plague of ants, the end result would be inevitable.

“RAYSE!! RAYSE HELP!!”

There was no answer within earshot this time. There was no convenient escape route; no pillars to climb or balconies to leap to. The mob closed in, men grabbing at his shoulders and raining punches and scratches all over him. Gazing up, the Gods were nowhere to be found to answer him, only the ugly stone roof of the great arena.

F*ck us all, then. F*ck… You… All…

He stretched his body up, breathing deep to use every ounce of his energy to unleash his most powerful blast of electric energy directly above him. The centered ceiling of the great arena exploded, sending massive, wagon-sized slabs of sun-drenched marble to the arena below. The sun flooded in through the new roof of the now-open coliseum, however the mob remained undeterred, completely overwhelming Storm Veritas in layers of awful, angry human contention and resentment.

Those layers of rage were the first to feel the wrath of the Gods, as the keystone landed upon them all with a titanic crash.

[Revenant]

Chaos reigned.

William watched the carnage unfolding with an exuberant enthusiasm. Killing the colored men had been a catalyst towards destruction. He’d been freed. They’d all been freed. And it seemed that none of the combatants had been terribly pleased with being made a pawn for the amusement of the crowd.

Impassioned cries for blood turned to screams. The pleasure and enjoyment that rolled through the crowd was gone, replaced by bloodlust and carnage. From high up on his perch, William could feel all of it. The cracking bone of those trampled under the hooves of Talen’s rampaging shadow beasts, the popped, cooked flesh of Storm’s victims, each life called out to him, feeding the rampaging beast inside him until William’s destructive nature had filled itself on blood and violence.

“Ultra-violence,” William grunted at Rayse. He idly kicked the smoldering ruins of the man in white, the slight contact hurling the remains into the rioting crowd thanks to his supernatural strength. William grinned at his fiery companion, the heated air around him growing in time with his excitement. “Why not?”

A jagged spear of lightning tore through the space behind William’s empty words as Storm’s attack detonated the building’s ceiling. William could feel the entire structure shift, huge blocks of material suddenly jarred loose by the blast. His molten core still possessed enough wrath to summon several more explosive blasts, similar to the one that had killed the man in white. William let another magma shot coalesce in his claws.

“Good hunting,” he said to Rayse and then took to the air.

Spiralling away from the falling debris, William gave the arena an appraising study. His destructive enlightenment showed William just where to strike to maximize the effect of Storm’s attack and in a flash he sent the magma shot hurling towards a support, then summoned and threw a second at a section of wall twenty feet beside it.

The twin balls of flame hurtled through the air over the roaring melee and exploded brilliantly against the structure points William had targeted. Stone, mortar, and reinforcing beams of wood vaporized under the heat and pressure, just as the revenant had known they would. Suddenly an entire third of the building was left with nothing to support it and collapsed over the stands.

Hundreds were instantly ground to paste beneath the tons of rubble, hundreds more would likely die before assistance ever arrived to dig them free of the rubble, and still hundreds more were left incapacitated. In a single move, William had turned half the crowd into casualties.

“Did not know who they were fucking with,” William snarled in demonic pleasure. Then, using the last of his molten heat, William flew up and out of the building into the bright Lyridian daylight.

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse’s jaw dropped as his arm slowly drooped down to his sides. He was planning to fire off a warning shot to cause fear and panic, but this was a bit… extreme. Talen had just decided to go full psychopath on the crowd, William followed suit, and Storm was getting swarmed by people just as crazy as their attackers. He pressed a palm against his forehead, lamenting the growing headache. He tucked the knife away..

This whole month was nothing but misunderstandings. Rayse’s devil-may-care attitude led him into some of these situations, but the rottenness of the world as a core bothered him the most. Was it really so different from the planes? The William he met in the opera house was a man who wanted to see if his power could be used for positive ends. The William he met in the planes was subdued, logical, and lacking empathy, but still had some notions of justice. The William he met just now seemed more unhinged than anything. Rayse guessed that Arcus was roped into this in a similar manner, but before he could ask, the goddess-damned molten man flew away like the ugliest phoenix he ever saw.

A voice came from the floor of the floating platform, “How did he kn, know?”

Rayse looked down, seeing the man in black wading in a puddle of his own bood. “By the goddess, you’re still alive? I must be getting rusty.”

“That passphrase… He- cough! H-he shouldn’t have ever known it. There are only a handful of people that could’ve- hack!”

“So that’s how he broke it, eh? I guess someone wanted you dead more than us.” Rayse paused. “Actually, I’m not sure why I thought you were responsible for this in the first place. I was just following William’s lead there. So, who told him the magic words that spelled out your doom?”

The words fell on deaf ears, or rather dead ears. Rayse peered over the edge at Storm’s situation, which looked like it was improving due to William creating some natural obstacles. However, one of the falling ceiling parts crashed into the platform, sending it and the contractor hurdling towards the ground. The pyromancer managed to jump off before impact, thinking he was about to join Storm on the ground floor of the most absurd riot he ever witnessed.

However, he was staring directly at a huge, overturned keystone where he thought the lightning mage and the angry mob were fighting. Putting two and two together, Rayse started to dislodge the rubble, using his knife as a wedge where appropriate. He was lucky the metal didn’t bend, then again he couldn’t fathom the material it was made out of after his fight with Denebriel. The pile of bodies under the stone was a mass of limbs dressed in blood, but he didn’t give up and removed bodies until he found Storm’s gentlemanly visage amongst the rabble. He pulled out Storm, who looked absolutely ghastly. He lost a lot of blood, and Rayse couldn’t tell how many bones were broken, but he was still talking, so that was a good sign.

Lighting the few mini-bombs that were in his pocket, Rayse detonated them nearby in order to give some space between them and the mob. The air was filled with dust, smoke, and bits of debris from the crumbling colosseum.

“I see you’re having fun,” said Rayse. “I get that. But consider this: Let’s get the fuck out of here?”

Storm was relieved that Rayse was not as bloodthirsty as the shadowy twerp. “F*ck yes, man. Please.”

On second thought, with Talen distracted, this could be my one chance to take him out. He’s already proving to be the most dangerous Ixian I’ve ever seen… then again if he’s with William, maybe he’s changed his allegiances. Leaving him be could cause me a lot of problems in the future. Then again, maybe not.

Rayse took a few steps back, preparing to run into Storm the same way he did in Radasanth. He had enough power left to take them both out of there, but only barely.

Storm and I were likely stand-ins for their real opponents- the giant skeleton and phantom spear man. They were… far more intimidating opponents. I could see William not hesitating at all if he saw something resembling a Servitor. But aside from that… what about me? Am I just living on borrowed time here with this curse? Always being one temper tantrum away from unleashing extra-planar demons onto the world. Trying to ignore it by doing the most dangerous, bone-headed shit I could think of. Becoming more like William. But after meeting Taische, Kryos, Elite Optic, Shin, Talen, and reuniting with William, maybe rather than trying to magic away the curse, I could… trigger it.

The demons were pretty brutal when he encountered them, but people on Althanas might actually be able to match them. What’s the worst that could happen? The apocalypse? The Akashiman especially seemed to have the right abilities for the job. Maybe if he found him and explained his situation, despite the apparent contempt for what the man did, it could work out in Rayse’s favor.

The contractor sprinted into Storm, causing them both to dematerialize into hundreds of fiery wisps.

[Hysteria]

Talen was the last one amid the chaos. From the child’s back four long black tendrils of darkness lashed out at anything that came near. Were it not for the arms of N’Jal he would have been overrun by the civilians when their fear had turned to lunacy. They were sheep, running and acting without truly understanding what was happening. In Talen’s cold blue eyes, they were nothing, of no importance and of no care.

Talen’s cloths were marked with blood from those he had killed. His porcelain skin flecked with red, his ebony hair slick with crimson. He couldn’t turn his gaze from the roof for long, with rubble still falling freely around him from the shattered hole above. Despite the feeling of freedom that had washed over him, it seemed suddenly hollow the moment he was left crushing no-name civilians between rubble and blood.

“Dammit…” muttered Talen as one of the arms of N’Jal upon his back smashed into a man charging at him from behind. The impact with deep and thick as bone snapped and the man was sent him bouncing across the seats.

Once again the child had been left last amid the chaos and death. The sinking of the Cudlitz Pride, the ship that carried Talen and William to the accursed arena was nothing compared to the bloodbath around him. Despite it all he had failed to get any answers. In bitter reflection he could see that it was only his sense of anger that had been temporarily sated.

Have I gone too far Kyla? Is this the monster of Eiskalt? Talen’s thoughts drifted to the faces of dead comrades even as his eyes turned skyward. The blue light of day seemed to call him from the blood stained basin. Deep rich crimson was a stark contrast to the white finery of marble. Talen lifted off his feet, letting his body glide around falling rubble towards the sky bound exit. Once more he was following William’s trails, but the child didn’t know if he wanted to find the man of molten blood again. Where the Revenant went death followed, even more than the child of darkness was used to.

[Storm Veritas]

(The End)

[Logan]

I expect to have this judged by end of the week. (6/25/16)

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Hello everyone. Firstly i'd like to apologise profoundly to the competitors of the LCC final for the wait in judging. Unfortunately Logan is unable to produce a judgment so it has fallen to me to ensure the final reaches a proper conclusion.

I expect to have the judgment up by Friday, but because this is my first tournament judgment my draft will have to be approved by Dirks so please bear with me. This will ensure that ths contestants get the highest quality judgment that this tournament demands.

Once again I apologise for the wait.

Yours,
Shinsou

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Judge's note: Thank you all for your patience. I am finally able to deliver your judgment! I really enjoyed this thread and the effort put in by both parties.

Judgment

Unreasonable Gentlemen

Storm Veritas

Story

Story: 6

On a base level, I enjoyed your contribution to the story but I felt that your presence served more as a vehicle to support Rayse. Completely accidentally, I suspect, this seemed to put the usually prominent Storm in the unusual position of a supporting role, of which the purpose seemed to be to just “to keep something happening” until you all turned on the chessmasters.

I felt this was confirmed with the pairings in the fight – whilst Rayse and William fleshed out their history, it felt almost as if you and Hysteria were left to your own devices which, inevitably, led to the only course of action possible; a fight between you both before the crowd turned on you. Nonetheless, it was a role you performed well and nothing felt artificial or contrived in the build up to the fight or in the skirmish itself.

Setting: 8

As hinted at in technique, you describe the various settings in a way that brings them to life and makes them seem real without overcooking them. Your strength here is how you not only ensure homage to the larger details but also, quite surgically, pay attention to the smaller intricacies that add splashes of colour to the scene (such as your description of the room Storm wakes in). The way you later used the raging crowds and the destruction of the arena roof helped to add value to the tale by creating a tense atmosphere and your use of this helped to improve your score here.

Pacing: 6

The same reasons for a lower score apply here as they did in the story category. The tempo of the thread and Storm’s involvement at the start felt right, but seemed to degrade towards the end of the thread and his apparent demise in his last-ditch effort to stem the raging horde was too abrupt to leave me content. Whilst Rayse wrote a more profound conclusion, your own seemed quite anti-climatic.

Character

Communication: 8

You performed very well indeed with Storm in this area. His colourful dialogue and logical thought process stood out in this thread, especially in how he viewed being controlled by the “puppet-masters” and his feelings once Talen had chosen to attack. Then, finally, the conveyance of his fear of being swallowed up by the furious masses. The way you allow his emotions to bleed through via the dialogue allowed the reader to delve into the inner workings of Storm’s mind in a way which few can do.

Action: 7

This is what I’d call a quintessential, if not slightly standard, performance. Nothing he did deviated from his character, from the characteristic blasts of that vicious lightning towards his enemies to a last-gasp attempt to fend off the angry mob by blasting the roof and raining down destruction upon everyone. The decision to protect himself with the Might of Moxxilus was a quick witted one and even more so was the escape from the jade cocoon. I also felt you were fair and justified with the hits you took and the ones you didn’t.

Persona: 8

Storm is a character that, when the mood takes him, can provide the reader with a wealth of dimensions but when it comes down to it he is who he is. In this thread, the lightning mage seems comfortable in his own skin and doesn’t seem vulnerable to tangents of personality. Years of experience has forged an understanding of how coldly the world can work and the kill or be killed approach he took with Talen and William is example enough of this, before the chaos brought on by the deaths of the chessmasters. All of this came together nicely to encapsulate what Storm is all about.

Prose

Mechanics: 8

For the most part you produced a solid and well written piece; one, I would point out, whose only real spelling error was in the thirteenth in-character post (“Well, shit. If I can’t fry the little bastard, I’m pretty well screw…”) where you obviously meant to say “screwed”. However, bearing in mind the fine margins we are dealing with in tournament judging, I did have to mark you down for some minor grammatical errors. The main offender was sentence fragmentation (where a semi-colon was needed to correctly break up the sentence and give the correct context to what you were portraying) but you weren’t alone here. In fact you were, overall, the strongest competitor in this category and your ability to write so solidly under both time and performance pressure is reflected in your score.

Technique: 9

The one thing I liked about your writing was how you brought in an entire spectrum of literary devices to give the reader a complete picture of your story. You marry vivid description with easy to understand terminology that brings a scene to life and makes the piece very easy on the eye, but having said that there were one or two occasions where I thought you might have been a little overkill on the descriptions. That said, as the reader, I was never particularly confused as to what was going on and why or how. Your technique is well executed and well practised, with only a minor adjustment to the score to reflect my point above.

Clarity: 7

At first I struggled with how you had both come to the conclusion you were in Lornius, given that you had woken in a dark, featureless room. This was never really remedied, as although Rayse explained that there was a bit of “reverse probing” after being stabbed, I never really understood how or why this happened. Barring this, nothing else that you said or did was unclear.

Wildcard: 10

As per Logan’s guidance on the use of the wildcard in the LCC, full points have been awarded for posting within the 24 hour time-limit.

Final score: 77


Rayse Valentino

Story

Story: 8

I felt you had a bit of a slow start and at one point wondered where the plot was going, but then you more than made up for it by crafting a compelling, gripping tale that you weaved brilliantly into your battle. Your combined history with William Arcus and the Plain of Undeath served to form the core of your presence here and put Rayse and William at the centre of the thread, almost reducing the usually prominent Storm and Talen to supporting roles of which the purpose was just keep the thread ticking over until you all turned on the chessmasters.

Whilst I cannot deny that you and Revenant put in remarkable individual displays in this area, as reflected in your scores, I also can’t help but feel that the one-sided approach affected the balance of your team up until the end when everything coalesced together to form a rebellion against the chessmasters.

Setting: 7

Whereas Storm brings the setting to life, I feel your own description of setting tends to be perhaps a little more “matter of fact”. This isn’t always a bad thing, and it is something I felt you improved upon in this round compared to previous ones, but I still feel there is room for improvement in actually being able to make the reader visualize where you are. I did however enjoy your description of your movements in the Upper City during your flashback.

Pacing: 7

As I said in Storm’s section, the tempo of the thread at the start generally felt right but I felt you did a better job of upholding that pace with your writing than he did with his. Whilst Storm’s conclusion seemed a bit abrupt, your own was more in line with what I would have expected (although still a little sudden). The thread, perhaps, could have overall done with more consistency between you both from one scene to the next.

Character

Communication: 7

In conjunction with the way you portrayed his persona, you also did a remarkable job at maintaining a high quality of internal and external dialogue. Rayse’s words and thoughts were always appropriate and rarely long or drawn out without good reason.

My biggest issue here was not what you did with Rayse, as such, but the way you bunnied Storm’s dialogue early on. Storm has a very particular style – crass, vulgar and direct. A line in your first post (““We were stabbed? All I remember is uh, bleeding, and then I saw you and you were bleeding. I only remember like… a second of it. Who did this to us?”) caught my eye as simply odd and unfitting of Storm Vertias’s typical dialogue and resembled instead something closer to Rayse (with the “like” and “uh” pauses between words). Luckily there weren’t too many instances of this, but it was enough to make me recoil a bit when I read it.

Action: 8

Throughout this clash of titans, most of what Rayse did followed what I’d come to expect of him in parallel with the story and his character. There were no massively destructive dramatics, but instead a range of well thought out attacks and intricate nuances that helped both your pacing and the overall feel of your posts. The only time I questioned why the pyromancer did something was when he suggested to William they turned on the crowd as it seemed a bit out of place at that point in the fight. Otherwise, you did well.

Persona: 9

Throughout this tournament, Logan noted how impressed he was with your growth and I concur with that assessment. In each round you have developed Rayse more and more until the final, which has really been a fantastic culmination of your efforts throughout the tournament. His fears, his thoughts, his entire world was laid to bare and the flashbacks with William helped this no end. There were moments of dark humour (“Rayse pulled the weapon out, whispering, “That’s what you get for taking my shoes.”) that nicely punctuated a more serious side of him, but never felt out of place.

Prose

Mechanics: 7

For the most part, your mechanics were sound, but there were a few errors in the text which were probably as a result of the time pressure you were under. These consisted mostly of typos and the odd accidental repetition, but these were ones that should have been picked up with a basic spellcheck and a quick glance through. Also I would recommend that you separate your larger paragraphs out a bit – some of the text was, whilst grammatically correct, quite blocky and not particularly easy on the eye.

Technique: 7

What I liked about your work was that you didn’t try to over-compensate and during the times you were fleshing out your history with William, you really pulled me in to the writing and gripped me. You weren’t overbearing or clumsy with description at all but to really put that glossy finish on your work I felt you could add a little bit more literary technique to help add those missing splashes of colour that bring a scene to life.

Clarity: 7

As I said in Storm’s section, at first I struggled with how you had both come to the conclusion you were in Lornius. I never really felt this was remedied, as although Rayse explained that there was a bit of “reverse probing” after being stabbed, I never really understood how or why this happened. That said, nothing else that you said or did was unclear or confusing.

Wildcard: 10

As per Logan’s guidance on the use of the wildcard in the LCC, full points have been awarded for posting within the 24 hour time-limit.

Final score: 77


Super Awesome Fun Time, Best Pals Go!

Revenant

Story

Story: 8

“Artur Eld 1124”. That one line of dialogue hooked me immediately. What did it mean? Why was William pottering about barefoot on Lornius, muttering this to himself over and over? It grabbed my attention and kept me reading. From the first post, you told a fantastic tale that was entwined brilliantly with the battle. The combined history with Rayse and the conflict between you here formed the nucleus of the plot and put you both at the core of the thread, but as I said above this reduced the Talen to more of a supporting role of which the purpose was just keep the thread ticking over. The way that you brought the thread full circle with “Artur Eld 1124” being the passcode to destroy the puppeteer’s protection, though, was brilliant. Well done.

Setting: 7

When it comes to setting, I find you tend to focus more on the important details and leave the smaller ones to the imagination. This is both a strength and a weakness. However, you did a fantastic job of portraying the xenophobia of Lornius at the start and your strength here is how you form a good setting without flooding posts with little irrelevances. Your re-telling of William’s experience in the Plain of Unlife was good and your final post portrayed well the absolute chaos of the incensed mob as they tried to overcome the four warriors. Good job.

Pacing: 7

The pace of your writing felt right for the thread and I didn’t feel the same degradation of tempo I did with Unreasonable Gentlemen. Indeed, the battle scenes were of real quality and I could feel the tension. My only real negative feeling was that your ending seemed a bit abrupt, with no real taste left for “what happens next for William” after you head out of the dome and back into Lyridia. Some might argue that wasn’t needed but I felt you did such a good job on the story that this would have been the perfect way to tie it all up.

Character

Communication: 6


William’s spoken dialogue is about as natural for the character as one could expect; gruff, colourful and, at the appropriate times, filled with rage. Everything he says rings true to his character. Where there was a little internal dialogue, such as thoughts or feelings, these were conveyed well (one such example being the fear during his flashback at the Plain of Unlife) but I would have liked to have seen more of these little thoughts to really crawl inside his head.


Action: 8

I believe that William stole the show when it came to action. Everything he did connected back to his character and it all started with that one-track mind thinking of only one thing once he saw Rayse. I loved the way the rage inside him made him ignore the puppeteers for the most part, but then eventually he weighed up the probabilities and realized the truth of his own manipulation after Rayses’s intervention. My favorite part was when the barrier was broken and William melted one of the chessmasters. It was brutal and fitting.


Persona: 7

Unlike the last round, where William’s personality sort of falls a bit flat under Talen, you really do well to re-establish that furious alpha-male footing again. Arcus is a beast of a man but is not without fear and this is portrayed well in the flashbacks, with the fear of the Plane of Unlife still burning in his mind. This time he is at the very least on equal footing with Talen in the team rather than being ordered about, which feels more natural, and the plot allowed you to reveal more of the real William to us in a way that wasn’t too detrimental. I still feel there is more to come from you though.

Prose

Mechanics: 8

You produced a solid, well written piece that failed to produce a single spelling error. As with Storm, I did have to mark you down for some minor grammatical errors and similarly it was mostly down to the simple placement of an apostrophe here or there to give the correct context to what you were portraying. That being said your ability to write so solidly under both time and performance pressure is rewarded in your score. Well done.


Technique: 7

The way you paint William as a dark and damaged victim of the Plane of Unlife is excellent even just for the few posts of content on the subject and I especially like the way that you linked this to your confrontation with Rayse. However, though your overall technique is good, it is just lacking that literary edge to take you to the top tier. Your approach to writing is generally well done, though, and I don’t want to take that away from you.

Clarity: 8

My final note is on your clarity. There barely any issues at all with this, mostly because there was really nothing convoluted in your posts. You did very well at keeping your posts easy to follow and effective at delivering the story.

Wildcard: 10

As per Logan’s guidance on the use of the wildcard in the LCC, full points have been awarded for posting within the 24 hour time-limit.

Final score: 76


Hysteria

Story

Story: 6.5

Although I felt you did a slightly better job here than Storm, the same comments apply in that I felt that your presence served more as a vehicle to support Revenant. I did enjoy your opening post which retained a sense of continuity, but later in the battle it still boiled down to the purpose of Talen being to just “to keep something happening” until you all turned on the chessmasters.

Being that as it may, I never found myself bored and regardless it was a role you performed to the best of your ability. I liked the fact you kept your continuity going to the end and gave a little nod to Eiskalt.

Setting: 6

I felt your approach to setting tended to be perhaps a little lapsidasical when compared with the others. This isn’t to say you did a bad job, but it is something I felt you could improve upon because most of the time I felt you had drawn me a skybox filled mostly with action and no description. Your opening post was a bit lazy when it came to detail, and I had to even re-read a section of your post to gather that you had entered a doorway. After that, you pretty much gave up on describing the arena which I couldn't help but feel disappointed with given your ability.

Although this improved later in the fight, I still felt a bit short changed by the overall quality. Actually being able to make the reader visualize where you are and what you are doing is so important and on more than one occasion I felt you were lagging behind in this department compared with the others.

Pacing: 7

This is one area where I felt you were one of the stronger competitors. The tempo of your posts seemed to ebb and flow in a way which felt more natural for your role, and I felt your conclusion didn't seem as abrupt as some of the others. Your battle was intense, and everything seemed to feel just right. That said, there is still room for improvement and with a better setting and story you would have likely scored 8 here.

Character

Communication: 6

You managed to uphold a decent level of communication with Talen without also doing anything particularly spectacular. The dialogue fit the character, insofar as nothing seemed out of place, but it mostly felt a bit bland amongst the other strong personalities. I did like the small reflection on Eiskalt at the end, though, and the question of whether or not Talen was a monster. That served to add a little character development into the mix.


Action: 8

What you lacked in setting and story you really made up for here. All of Talen's actions were in line with what i'd expect from the kid in the situation he was in, and the numerous creative ways you found to try and dispatch your opponents were simply awesome. From the shadow beasts to the poison shards, there wasn't a dull moment to be found and I didn't find that anything you did was too powerful for your character. I also quite liked the way your shadow magic wove around you to repair your attire and your skin. Good work.

Persona: 7

You do a very good job of playing Talen and rarely deviate away from his persona: that of a kid suffering from ADHD who also happens to wield incredible power and has somewhat questionable ethics. He believes he may be a monster, and the way his personality bleeds through into your writing you could be forgiven for agreeing with him. The use of his magic shows how relentless Talen can be when he wants to, but he shows an inquisitive side too that ultimately culminates in arriving with William to this place. However, with that said, I do believe that Talen still isn't the finished article, and that there is still plenty of potential there for some really good development in the future.


Prose

Mechanics: 5

Unfortunately, there were a few noticeable errors in your writing. A popular one was the incorrect context of “it’s”, and to explain what I mean I need to point you to your opening post (“It was cold, despite the sun’s gaze upon it’s wood and rising heat of day.” and two paragraphs later “William wrapped a hand around the handle, jerked it open, pulling it nearly off it’s hinges”). In your second post you mis-spell “pierce” (“indeed they could barely peirce leather”) but I’m putting all of these down to time pressure. There were a few more, but the point I need to make is the importance of using a spell-check to eliminate these typos, especially in a tournament where a few marks could mean the difference between a win and a loss.

Those mistakes aside, the rest of the writing was ok and laid out in a way that pleased the eye.


Technique: 7.5


Your overall technique is very good. The way you write when you are in full flow manages to pull the reader into your post and keep their attention firmly on what you are trying to convey without going off on a tangent. Your descriptions are vivid ("The charred flesh burnt through to tendons and bone dripped with fresh red blood. "), and I especially enjoyed the way you described the manifestation of the shadowy bulls, but because of this I found myself almost screaming at you through my monitor. Why did you not apply this level of effort to your setting? You unquestionably have all the tools there.

Clarity: 8

Other than having to re-read a section of your first post to determine where exactly you were going with Revenant (i.e the door), there were no real issues here and everything seemed pretty clear.



Wildcard: 10

As per Logan’s guidance on the use of the wildcard in the LCC, full points have been awarded for posting within the 24 hour time-limit.

Final score: 71

Final scores

Unreasonable Gentlemen: 77
Super Awesome Fun Time, Best Pals Go!: 73.5

Unreasonable Gentlemen win the 2016 LCC!

Rewards as follows:

Storm Veritas and Rayse Valentino receive 4,688 EXP & 185 GP each plus 6000 EXP & 20 AP tournament winnings.

Revenant and Hysteria receive 1125 EXP & 90 GP each plus 2000 EXP & 15 AP tournament winnings.

Congratulations!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

All rewards have been added!