BlackSmith Training. (Solo Quest)

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

The next part of the ordeal was taking care of the handle construction. This phase went on smoothly. Soon, the Smith was able to place the handles upon the blades he constructed. They were simple, common quality construction but were effective enough. The youth made some scabbards for his weapons, completing the process and preparing himself for a trip to the bazaar. After the process was complete, Dyne Corona left the Spirit Forge. He cleaned up after himself making sure that he left everything nice and tidy for whoever was the next person that used the Spirit Forge. Dyne took a long look at the completed Spirit Edged Weapons that hung in the weapon racks. He nodded to them as if to pay his respects to the Phantoms that came before. Dyne completed his task and left the Spirit Forge for the time being. The door closed behind him with its glowing golden butterfly.

Dyne thought about everything that Philemon and Karxen told him about. He would make it a point to collect as many Phantom Stones as he could and bring them back to the Spirit Forge. One day. One day Dyne would be a skilled Spirit Smith. For the time being he had to settle with working on Iron and Copper. They were boring, but at the very least they gave him the basic foundation until he learned more about his chosen trade. Now, he was even more grateful to the House of Sora for allowing him the chance to start unlocking his true potential. The youth took his package and made his way towards the staircase to ascend back into the Sleepy Willow. It was only as Dyne climbed the huge staircase that he started to realize how tired he really was...

The End.

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****Spoils Request****

001--Butterfly Key. A key from the sea of Dyne's heart. This key is used to open various Philemon Doors. Some of them lead to Spirit Forges while others lead to other incredible places. The Butterfly Key can only be used by Alberdyne Cormyr. It is an artifact that is not sell able. It is a small key made of gold with a butterfly motif.

002--3 Common Quality Broadswords. Just any old plain Broadsword that you'd see all over Althanas. Typical value. FOR SALE at The Bazaar. These weapons were constructed specifically for sale. Blade is made of copper, the handle is made of leather.

003--2 Common Quality Daggers. Just any old plain Daggers you would see all over Althanas. Typical vavlue. FOR SALE at the Bazaar. The blade is made of copper and the handle is made of leather.

[Karuka]

And time for the judgment.

Continuity: 4 I got the gist of what brought Dyne to Underwood, or at least away from his house, but not until near the end. You kept referring back to Gallen's death and giving a little more info each time, and that was pretty frustrating. I also couldn't get a time frame for how long Dyne had been at the shop. The closest I could gather was a few weeks, which means that Dyne shouldn't even have been allowed to hold a hammer, much less be skilled in forging basic swords. I also couldn't understand why Karxen would adopt a 19 year-old boy. Alberdyne is a man, maybe in need of a job and training, but not in need of adoption. I could understand Karxen taking him on as a protege, even maybe an apprentice, although blacksmith apprentices normally start at age 9. I also don't understand how Dyne managed to become Head Apprentice when there are obviously more skilled men that have been with Karxen longer. It would upset the heirarchy.

Pacing: 7 Some segments were a little rushed, and others were dragged out a bit much, but it was paced well enough.

Setting: 3 I didn't know what anything or anyone looked like, and I rarely got any useful sensory detail. Make me feel the heat of the forge, don't just say it's hot. make me see everything, instead of describing everything really vaguely. It would probably pull up your scores in other areas, too.

Persona: 4 Dyne felt flat to me. I never got to understand him, how he thinks and feels, so his moments of high emotion or confusion didn't resonate. It didn't help that Dyne was still "in denial" of his real father's death and calling Karxen "father."

Dialogue: 4 For the most part it fit, but Philemon's speech and Dyne's conversation with his father's ghost seemed very stylized and pretty cliche.

Action: 5 There wasn't much to it, even within the context of your tale. I know as well that you meant to highlight how quick a study Dyne was when you said he'd made the swords on his order in a single day, but if you want a novice - even a talented one - to make a blade free of basic and fatal flaws, he needs more than a day a piece. I also don't understand how Dyne got a Butterfly Key so swiftly.

Mechanics: 4 You have several problems here, and if you watch these tendencies in future threads, your score will go up. First, you tend to write fragments. A sentence is a structure that contains an idea. It requires a subject and a verb, at the very least, and most of the times at least one object. You tended to alternate what you dropped, leading me to believe that you just wrote the posts quickly and didn't look back over them. You also tend to have capitalization and punctuation errors. You capitalized common nouns, like "copper, ore, mother, and father." Only when Dyne addresses his father is it proper for the word to be capitalized. In punctuation, you tend to cut off sentences too early, making a clause a sentence (clauses should be separated by commas, or at most, semi-colons). You also dropped commas where they were needed and put commas where they shouldn't have been. Proof read, have someone else proof read, and the score will go up.

Technique: 3 The tequniques I saw were one good metaphor and a couple of tired similies. Other than that, there was an abundance of awkward wording.

Clarity: 6 It was generally clear, but the awkward wordings put question marks in several spots on the pages of this quest.

Wild Card: 4 It seemed that Dyne had too much blacksmithing skill too fast at too low a level, and I feel that you could have brought in Spirit Smithing in later and more effectively. Also, just a note. Liviol, being a wood, is not the material you want for your hammer. It might be the shaft, but the head wouldn't be of the wood, and liviol wouldn't be the best wood for the job, anyway. I feel that a much better job could have been done with this quest.

Total: 44 Congratulations!

Rewards: Alberdyne_Cormyr gets 644 EXP, 2 plain copper daggers and 2 plain copper broadswords that he may sell at the Bazaar, and his Butterfly Key with the caveat that if you use it to get him incredible items or abilities too easily, it will break.

Any questions can be PM'd to me.

[Letho]

EXP added.