Boundless Journey II. (Closed)

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

There were few things that could impress the blacksmith those days.

Standing before him, was one of those few things. Somehow, the woman before him had an endurance that would allow her to withstand the weight of a heavy psionic's attack. Al remembered that he would have to train his power a lot more for it to become more effective. Yelling challenges at him, the woman exhibited a great amount of bravery. Within the heart of Skyforge, the blacksmith was ready for battle. However, the injury to his body was taking it's toll on his mind. He felt extremely cold, and the weight of his arm hanging discomforted him. It was a numbed sensation, tingling crawling up and down his body like a million tiny spiders. Al had learned a great deal during the events of the battle. He had gotten a bit closer to his goal of defeating his enemy; MetalDrago Scorpio. As he looked at the woman, he smiled softly and in an understanding way.

"Why rush this dance?" Al suddenly said. "I feel more alive in here with you than almost any other time. Except when I work a forge." Al started to walk forward towards her. It was a deliberately slow affair, his eyes locked upon her eyes. "So, let us enjoy this dance just a little longer. " Al said casually and stopped to he was just within striking distance of that wicked spear. "I must applaud you, Mordelain. Your endurance is first-rate." With that, Al began the process of what he was planning. Keeping a smile on his face, Al reached from deep within his soul. Normally, the philosopher would be attempting to bed the woman before him. However, she was not an object to him by that point. She was a fellow warrior in a world largely dominated by men. Al knew, she had earned her place amongst the warriors of The Citadel League. Al would be watching her career with close personal interests.

As Al prepared his strategy, he suddenly kicked out with his forward leg. Favoring the front movement of his kick, he was attempting to actually kick down on the spear itself. It wasn't a dirty tactic by any means even though he was a brawler. Al meant to disarm the girl and engage her in close-quarters combat, where the brawler excelled. As Al kicked downward with all his weight, he continued to reach from deep within his soul. Releasing his second ability, the psychokinetic branch of power, Al launched a telekinetic bolt at the central most point of the spear. The spear was an inanimate object, he could work his power on the spear, but not the girl. Once again, Al exerted his will with a direct purpose. As he released his will, he focused on what he was attempting to do. The psychokinetic bolt was launched from his hand towards the spear. If it connected, Al would will his mind to rip the spear from out of her hands, and send the spear flying off to the side and away from it's master. If it succeeded, Al hoped to turn the tides on Mordelain, and use the spear against her.

Continuing to concentrate as he kicked and launched his bolt, the youth was ready. It was a conscious gamble. Al had trained his psychokinetic powers enough by that point that he knew the risks involved in using them. Al was exposed and vulnerable to counter attack or riposte. If either the kick or the bolt missed, Al was screwed and he knew it. Despite all that, he kept that same smile on his face. There was no arrogance, or malice in that smile. Rather, there was a kindness and an almost sublime acceptance. As if he somehow expected to fail. Al put all his weight down on the physical attack, and the weight of his mental powers in the psychic one. Should either of his maneuver succeed, the next part of Al's plan would be revealed. The entire maneuver was meant to disarm the woman, but that was just phase one. Blood flowed steadily from the injury he'd received even as he continued to act. Al needed to have a win desperately, for his honour's sake.

[Mordelain]

The blast and kick combined together to disarm Mordelain. Her now well-worn partisan suffered hairline fractures. The dancer felt a weight in her arms unlike anything she had ever tried to carry before. As the spear flew far to her right in a calamitous spin she felt the breath squeezed from her lungs, though more through a sudden and uncontrollable fear than because of physical exertion.

“Well played Alberdyne,” she gritted her teeth, instinctively stooping and splaying her arms wide as if she were about to burst into a reckless charge to reclaim her weapon.

It crashed onto the sand and bounced before it settled.

She did not fancy her chances at reclaiming her armament on foot. The heat of the forge was sapping her endurance much quicker than even the searing landscape of the Nirakkal did. It was a sticky, clammy heat that rose from the ground itself, as opposed to one that beat down from the heavens.

Her gut churned under the sway of warmth and nerves.

The Kalithrism and the Void called to her as a convenient path to recovery. Before she could consider the implications she vanished. There was only a faint and sudden chime in the air before she and her sweaty back fled Althanas proper.

In the heat of the fire and the flames, beneath a towering bronze eagle depicting gods of old forging, there was only one route open to the planes walker. A brighter fire roared all around here over the edge of the bronzed walkway she found herself on. On the horizon there was a spiralling maelstrom of citrus colours and firestorms. Below, she could make out the indistinguishable roar of the Eye of Solace, a whirlpool so big that you could not see all of it in one single view, no matter how high you flew through the heavens.

“Come on Mordelain, do not mess this up now…”

If she did, she would not re-appear ten feet or so to her right as she intended. She could re-appear anywhere in the nine worlds of the Kalithrism. She hoped her experience in bounding over the deserts of Fallien had afforded her a greater degree of control with her abilities.

“By Junkyo’s chime and Hudde’s repentance, I fall in favour to the forge I fled.”

She ran to the edge of the narrow bridge over the Eye and teetered on the rail. Her white ribbons trailed behind her as her momentum suspended them mid-air. Like an angel she spread her arms wide and closed her eyes. She pictured the spot her partisan had come to rest, the very exact pattern of impact in the sand, the grains sparkling in the light of the sun. She drew on Fallien and on the glass planes of the Blight to tether her to Althanas.

Then she connected those images to Corone’s sandstone Citadel, a tether that seemed to work as she fell forwards into the sheer and terrifying nothingness of the air above the Eye.

She looked directly into the event horizon which a small black orb at the heart of the whirlpool. The air rushed up around her, threatening to break her limbs and send her into an uncontrollable spin. Legend said only the troubadours could leap from the bridge and remain focussed enough to slip through the eye unscathed. Many others fell into the flames only to be incinerated long before their spirits were eradicated from the multiverse. It was almost an hour before she finally fell into the vortex and slipped back through the cracks in the world.

It would be a few seconds before she appeared in the arena from her opponent’s perspective.

For the troubadour it felt like a lifetime, like a decade of torment riddled with flashbacks of all the horrors she had witnessed. The echoes of the man’s psionic attack haunted her through the dark and silent cold expanse between the planets.

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

Of all the possible outcomes, the one that Al had not been expecting occurred.

"Holy...shit." Al cursed when she completely vanished.

At a loss, Al figured that she had somehow left the Citadel all together. Considering that the fight was over, at least from his point of view, he finally began to attend to his injuries. Having not given an inch, the blacksmith only then realized that he'd been severely cut. Ichor flowed from the injury. His entire arm was completely useless by that point, numbed over from the pain. Looking around, Al was stunned when the monks didn't arrive to assist him. I thought this battle was over?! Al thought to himself as he saw minutes passing by. No answer, or response, or any other change to the arena occurred. Is she going to come back I guess? Thinking that it was probably some sort of a last-ditch effort on her part, Al took a precious few moments to recover his pacing. His eyes were already bloodshot from the pain he was feeling.

It was a fair battle through and through. Al decided that he liked Mordelain's resilience and would attempt to talk to her when their ordeal was over. Reach her if he could. Al needed some help in the workshop back home, and he could offer her needed work. An honest gold piece was an honest gold piece and everybody was looking for that these days. So Al sat down on a bench and attempted to gather his thoughts. His mind replayed the images of the battle, it had seemed obvious to him that she was strong. However, he did not think that she possessed the ability to simply vanish. If it was a trick, he was not going to expose his back to her. Time was passing in his world, and he started to feel some concern for his opponent when she was not returning back to the physical world. Al kept his back side several paces from one of the machines in Skyforge. This machine, was a grinding machine used to sharpen dull blades.

Al had no way of knowing what it was that his opponent had done. There were no monks rushing into the arena to attend to his injuries, so Al guessed that the battle was on going. He sighed. Damn this hurts. He clutched at the injury on his chest, it was serious. He could feel the opening with his fingertips but knew from experience not to play with it too much. It needed treatment from the monks lest it get an infection. Al carefully looked around the arena, his weaponry was nearby, but he had started the battle with his gloves. He would end it with them. If she did reappear, he only could guess that she was attempting to recover her spear. Had he been healthier, or the dishonorable type, he would have tossed the spear into one of the furnaces and out of play. The thought made the blacksmith chuckle at the potential of seeing the girl's shock at lack of a spear upon her reappearance. Al kept his mind focused at the task at hand as he waited.

He growled with each passing moment at the pain he felt. Deciding he needed to shut the wound, he went over to one of the great furnaces of Skyforge. Grabbing a blade, he stuck the tip into it, and felt it grow hot within moments. Once he saw steam rising from within the furnace, he removed the blade. Staring at the white-hot tip for a long moment, Al sighed. He needed to shut the opening. Another moment passed, and Al screamed with an unearthly howl as he placed the super-heated bladed against his injury. It was a job well-done. He'd closed the cut a few shaky moments later, and had formed a terrible burn-scar where the spear had cut open flesh. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air, and all slowly felt the blood in his body circulating normally. She was taking too long. Al quickly turned his back back to the machine behind him just in case this was all some elegant trick on her behalf. He moved into a fighting stance, and prepared for imminent battle. No monks meant the fight was on going.

[Mordelain]

Mordelain re-appeared on Althanas with a soft exhalation of air from her lungs. In those final fleeting seconds before she had hit the wall of the eye she had taken a customary deep breath. She had learnt to balance the pressure within against the intense forces plied against her body during the transition from the unstable world to the stable, but it still left her drained.

The sweltering heat of the forge was nothing compared to the searing heat of Ixias, to the point that it felt suddenly quite cold.

She emerged to a scream and her instincts brought her about on a sharp heel to set eyes on its source. With a lump in her throat she saw Alberdyne seal his wound with a heated blade, white and searing like a sun flare. The only reaction she could muster was a shudder that jarred her nerves, adding to the fatigue of walking against the constraint of the Ai’bron illusion.

“You are a brave man, Alberdyne,” she said, without menacing tone or intrusive pitch. By luck, and perhaps grace, she had re-appeared a few feet beyond where her partisan had landed. This gave her enough wide birth from her opponent to step up to the pole-arm and reclaim it.

The dancing shadows and painful memories which still lingered in her mind fell into nothingness the very second the Fallien palm wood connected with her fingers. It was dry as a bone still, and the moment she took the soft white muslin grip into confidence she felt whole again.

She wasted no more time running forwards whilst the pain of the man’s first aid still coursed through his body. It felt in her bones and her soul like this was the only chance she would get to utilise such an advantage. With feet padding over the sand, bandoleer, bell and ribbon flailing once more in her wake, she ended her momentum with a flat foot stamped to the dirt. Once more, she resorted to a one handed thrust of her spear towards Alberdyne’s seared shoulder.

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

It all happened so suddenly and conclusively that Al had little time to react. He'd just moved into a normal standing position when the girl reappeared a short distance from her spear. She spoke, but Al was still in too much pain to really care. His burnt flesh hurt like hell, and he was still attempting to come out of the agony he felt. Leaving him dizzy, he was vulnerable to attack. Al put down the heated blade tip as it would not be a suitable weapon, and he laded it in a nearby cooling unit. He'd had just enough time to do that when she attacked. Al turned on the balls of his feet to face the incoming charge of the blade-dancer, but the blacksmith was caught off guard. Damn it, I wasn't expecting that... Perhaps he should have expected it. Since he had never encountered such a trick before, he had no idea what to expect.

So when she attacked, he was defenseless and could only turn his body weight ever so subtly. He knew he was going to get hit, and it would hurt...a lot. As he shifted his body weight, he turned his body at a angle on pure instinct alone. The instinct came from the simple fact that he did not want to die. I've come too far to fall in such a way. Al thought to himself as he moved. When he felt flesh being torn asunder, the blacksmith growled in agony. Thankfully, the previous injury was spared that time as the tip of her battle-spear ripped open the center of his chest and dragged across. Fresh blood spilled everywhere, and the blacksmith could no longer contain his emotion. He screamed in agony once again, but was put in a position where he could act with his healthy arm. It was a strategic play.

He knew he would have to sacrifice getting hits in order to enter his comfort zone. In the extreme combat range, Al scrounged up ever last amount of courage he could. His opponent was quite skilled and he could not afford to falter. As soon as he could practically taste her skin against his mouth. Her scent was intoxicating, but Al had to concentrate to pull off the next part of the battle. By that point, Al just wanted to survive. He was not skilled enough of his own power yet to win. So when she was right in front of him, he countered. It would have been a riposte had he his sword equipped, but alas, honour was a fool's gamble. He suddenly kicked out with the leg that was furthest away from Mordelain. This, he used to thrust his knee hopefully up into her gut. Then, he swung with his healthy arm in an uppercut attack aimed at the lower portion of her face...

He was completely open to a counter from the girl at that point. He could only hope that she would get hit by either of the two movements.

[Mordelain]

Winded, knocked to her right and suddenly bereft of momentum, Mordelain could only splutter in the wake of Alberdyne’s melee. She stumbled, clumsy feet just managing to keep her upright and heart racing.

“Ugh,” she groaned once more.

At the end of her tumble she kicked forwards so that she departed Alberdyne’s immediate reach. Her partisan levelled behind her, tip sparkling in the soft sunlight of the dimming evening sky.

“You possess a mighty fist,” she mustered the strength to commend her opponent, as was befitting of a trial of respect.

When she righted herself, sandy dust cloud raising behind her the Troubadour brought her pole arm to her front. She took it firmly into the confidence of both her sweating palms. Bells and whistles, no longer possessing any spectacle for the arena and the on looking crowd stopped their incessant chatter. Her chest still throbbed from a well delivered knee and her cheek, plastered with sand and sweat and now, from a small cut, blood, tingled with the reminder that she was mortal after all.

She turned slowly and set the partisan’s end into the sand. It crunched the glass fragments and left a hole in the floor of the sky forge. Lingering in the moment, Mordelain had to compose herself to not falter in the sweltering madness of the forge’s heat.

Once more the dancer launched into a forward run that was haphazard but unpredictable. Lancing and thrusting, she drove the partisan into Alberdyne’s still righting form. His thrust and punch had brought him to his knee; a clumsy move that even the inexperienced Mordelain could see was very much to her advantage.

It did not take much strength behind her attack to force the Fallien steel through the man’s already tarnished shoulder.

“Though you have a lot to learn about the worlds at your feet,” a ferocious snarl tarnished the otherworldly beauty of the Tama.

She threw her mind back to that last, anguish laden moment of her fall into the vortex. In those moments she had witnessed every dark moment of her life, an eternal loop of damnation caused by Alberdyne’s prominent and potent psionic attack. The thud of her weapon connecting with bone jolted her arm and shattered her short lived relish.

“I am sorry…” she whispered coarsely, almost brought to tears. She had, in her long life, never killed a man in cold blood before.

She turned the spear tip and winced as the blacksmith screamed. A cold rush of blood to the head did away with any enjoyment Mordelain might have felt after delivering the mortal blow. She half wanted to scream out in anguish herself.

“I am so sorry…” she took the shaft of the partisan once again into two hands and with a lacklustre tug; she wrenched it from the body of her opponent.

She skipped back, foot wraps scuffing the sand, heart pounding and hair matted with sweat and sorrow. She bowed, feeling the impending sense of victory without satisfaction. Mordelain could only shake her head at the slow, cold awakening she was experiencing to the proposition of having it wield a weapon. This she knew but would not yet accept, would not be the last time she would have to drive her spear into the heart of another.

There was no bound left in this journey. She turned back to the steps that rose to the ore pits, too afraid and sickened with her actions to pay her respects to Alberdyne.

[Alberdyne_Cormyr]

Lifeless, his body fell to the ground having been unable to react in time to mount a proper defense.

Well now, that sucked. Al couldn't think of any last clever words to say. Instead, he fell gracefully at the tip of her spear, but had learned something tremendous about himself. I am learning. Basically unarmed, he had taken on the blade-dancer, with an insurmountable will and almost foolhardy bravery. In a sense, he had won something far more important. I got my dignity back. He'd been searching for his honour ever since MetalDrago Scorpio robbed him of it. As Al's lifeless body fell, many thoughts ran through his dying head. Wearing a strange mask of peace on his face, Al did not struggle against his final moments. Instead, he submitted to her spear gracefully even as she ripped his heart out of his chest. When Al's body finally touched the ground, there was a sickening thud of his corpse against the sandy earth. That certainly was not pleasant...

Al saw a darkness as he began to fade from the Firmanent. Then, within the dark there was a shining light that signaled the coming of the monks. Al knew what that would herald. Time passed in the circling void as he felt no peace and knew no comfort. A part of him could not accept the fact that he had just been soundly beaten by the blade-dancer. That reality created a terrible sense of self-loathing. Al was growing resentful of the living world. He knew that would be dangerous for him, as such a negative feeling oft drew negative things. However, he was still far too weak to really appreciated exactly what had happened to him. He still had much to learn. As he walked towards the light caused by the monks, something made him hesitate. There was a presence in the dark, something that called from beyond the gates of sensibility. An unknown presence, he could only barely feel it breathing down his neck. Something about this made him deeply afraid, and that fear brought a cold.

The cold made him shiver physically as he stopped moving towards the light. Powerfully now, the presence lulled Al into a sort of complacency. As he looked at the dark, he turned his back to the light for a brief moment. Then, something called to him from the dark.

"Son of Cormyr." The voice said.

"..." Al did not respond, but he was drawn somehow to that ethereal presence.

By that point, he was in a deep state of physical torpor.

Something about that presence in the dark was familiar to him.

"I have followed your family for ages. The secrets of your tribe." The voice called out from the dark. "Do you want power? The power to defeat your enemy, MetalDrago Scorpio?"

Al looked back at the light of the monks for a moment, and then turned towards the presence. "What do I have to do?"

"Come with me. And the secrets of the Omniverse will be yours."

Fin

***

Spoils Request

1-(1x's) Pair of (Average Quality) Combat Gloves made by Alberdyne's own hands. The inner layer of the leather fabric is interlaced with a basic sheet of iron links. Getting hit by these gloves hurt, a lot.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

New characters, old writers, and how they fought tooth and nail! This was a very promising read, and it didn’t let down! Well done to you both, and I hope that these comments I give you help you out in your journey to be better writers. Light commentary it is. You’re both big boys, you can always come to me for questions.

Story:
Mordelain (7) You did a really good portrayal of the happy go lucky girl who is testing her mettle against the world. At the beginning she had awesome spunk, and awesome drive, but as the battle got on you did a very, steady turnaround of your character’s thoughts, and I felt more and more gripped to her because of it. Your use of her views did well to create the story of her reasons for being there, which is important for random citadel battles.

Alberdyne (5) You did a decent explanation for your reasons to battle, but the issue I had as a reader was that you practically shoved it down my throat. For a guy who is a blacksmith, you sure are obsessed with being the weapon. And you at times would rush to the idea you had forming, then other times abandon a thought. This created a very scattered read, and to help you out I suggest finding out what you want from the thread ahead of time, and focus only that goal.

Setting:

Mordelain (7) While you did well to use the setting to our advantage, you have done better before and I’m going to call you on it. While this is nothing bad, if you want to hit the JC, you need to remain consistent.

Alberdyne (6) You did another well done job of setting the setting, but once you do you leave it aside and carry forth with your plans. You have to continue to bring in those attributes, and not just dump them on the reader at once. Mastering this will really boost your score.

Strategy:
Mordelain (6) Nothing out of the ordinary, played well within your limits and the best way to improve is the colorful use of using your setting more to your advantage to hook the reader.

Alberdyne (6) Same as Mord. You may have a blunt style, but it’s not a bad thing. It served you well through most of the reading, but to improve I’d suggest varying your tempo a bit.

Continuity:
Mordelain (6) You established some key elements into your story, but I am a bit confused on to some of it. Remember, introducing an element to your story must be fully explained and touched on. I haven’t read much of this account so a few blanks were left in. Nothing to be concerned about, just look at your writing when proof reading and think, if I never read that, would I know what that meant?

Alberdyne (6) The exact same thing as above.

Character:
Mordelain (6) Usually I have no beef giving you an 8 when it comes to your characters, but this is boiling back down to the same thing I’ve been beating you over the head for in all your previous judgments. FIND A UNIQUE TRAIT TO THE CHARACTER. This read much like Duffy and Ruby, and while the Fallien flair was added and did well to create her, you could easily have replaced with Duffy and Scara Brae and the same effect is found. Remember, Duff man, that everyone is a unique individual with their own neurological conditions, pyschosis, and motivations. This will help you separate them from the rest.

Alberdyne (5) You have a character who is at one point humble, and the next blood lust crazed. At one moment he’s calm and collective, at the next he’s preaching about being a weapon in his mind. Bi-Polar came to mind. Like Duffy, I’m seeing the signs of Lorenor breaking through in the less rational moments, and Al in the calmer moments. If this is intentional you need to spend a bit more time establishing that. You have a strong force of personality here, you just need to define why that force is so strong. Doing this and you’ll be hitting 8-9’s in no time.

Creativity:
Mordelain (5) Colorful use of your word choice, the sprinkling culture of Fallien, mixed with a flair for the dramatic. Ah, like a spring peach eh, Ruby Winchester….I mean Duffy Bracken! Wait…Arden? Nothing new here, and that’s why this score hit low. You have to grow and adapt to newer goals and the only way to achieve this is to pop your comfort zone and explore new waters.

Alberdyne (5) Mutant Lorenor…this stigma needs to vanish. This is a wholly new character, with all new goals and dreams. Show that. In this you had written in much the same way as you always have, and to that I say bust your comfort bubble as well.

Clarity:
Mordelain (7) Well done Duffy, nothing a few proofreads can’t fix. You did a solid job here, and to improve all you need to do is make sure you read aloud the previous post when posting a new one. You’ll find those hiccups in no time.

Alberdyne (4) Okay, this is the category I’ve been wanting to discuss with you. Your clarity is so low because you have me jumping out of the world of the story and shaking my head. Repetitive use of words as well as the blunt style don’t go hand in hand. It’s okay to be blunt and upfront in your style of writing, as MetalDrago has shown that it can be done just as easily as the flowery speech. But when you mix repetition of the same words and phrases over and over and over you got me reeling. First, if ever you are not in a dialogue quote “like this” then you need to spell out the full name. Al is a nickname, and should be sparingly used out of that context. In addition, you have two descriptors for your character. Blacksmith, and Al.

Al went to the store. Al did not like the milk, so he smashed it to the ground. Al watched the fluid drain away like blood from a corpse. The Blacksmith didn’t know why, but he liked that feeling. From that day on he knew his true calling.

Al then decided he would train his body to be the weapon.

Not easy reading, and Al was used far more than it should have. In addition, establishing something, and then doing it again three more times breaks the flow of the read as the one reading it thinks to themselves that they got it. You are the weapon, it’s what you are striving to be.

These two changes, my friend, will really boost you up to 7-8’s, and from there it will be all about the flair you add and word choice. Try getting a list of descriptors for your character, and keep it near your writing area to remind you to throw them in. (I’ve done that a few times for other accounts when I had trouble thinking of descriptors)

Mechanics:
Mordelain (8) Hiccups here and there, nothing new.

Alberdyne (6) Ouch bro. You got a few missed words that leave incomplete thoughts, and that kills clarity as well. As I tell everyone, when you put up a new post, go back and read the other and proofread. You’ll be amazed at what you missed.

Interaction:
Mordelain (7)

Alberdyne (7) You do a good job of playing well with others! Just interact with all things around you instead of them, and you’ll go up another point or two.

Wildcard:

In closing guys, I dumped a lot mostly on you Al, because you could benefit the most. For you Mord, you got little because it’s nothing new that I haven’t judged recently. I want to say that I did enjoy the read, and had a lot of fun. I want to see where you both go from here in your separate trails, and I look forward to your next sagas!

Mordelain (6)
Alberdyne (5)

Mordelain: 65
Alberdyne: 55

Mordelain is the victor.

Mordelain Earns 850 EXP and 200GP
Alberdyne Earns 250 EXP and 0 GP, but he can keep his new gloves!

Come and find me if you have questions.

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.