The Simple Orders

[Storm Veritas]

Too easy. Way too easy. Something’s up.

It wasn’t that he had expected the hospital to be crowded; he would have thought that having a strong security presence would have been a security risk in and of itself; calling too much attention to a spot, becoming far too defenseless from some ordinance charge or stick of dynamite. It was the quiet. He lingered in the broom closet some forty feet down the hall from the room of Jacob Thurmond, and the place was positively serene. He supposed that the bright lights and drab monochromatic theme was depressing enough to keep the morale low, but there should have been… something.

Three family members go down within a few days and the boy’s room is quiet, two half-assed guards? Doesn’t make sense. Can’t be right. Bullshit.

The more he thought about it, however, Storm reasoned that it could be correct. They had kept the shades drawn to the room at all times, the position of the youth impossible to discern from outside. Besides, there would be a pall over the family for some time now. The boy was tired, wounded, and recovering, probably sleeping more than normal. The pang in his own shoulder cried out again to Veritas, reminding him that perhaps waiting an extra day and allowing himself to heal fully would have been less than a terrible idea.

He waited in the darkness for a short spell, hoping inspiration would overtake him. How many were in the room? He had waited here for nearly an hour now, and the rank odor of the antiseptic and ammonia was beginning to burn his lungs. Two different orderlies had checked the room. Three visitors had come and gone, three men that looked to be familia paying respects to their future employer. Each one left in a fashion both nonchalant and sufficiently stupid looking, the unassuming gaze of the roaming tough guy-types. He had heard conversation, and even once grown bold enough to walk by the doorway, unaccosted but also obscured from view of the room. There was another set of two men in there, but Storm figured one or two security goons had never slowed him before. Besides, if they were given a brain of their own, they'd guard outside the door.

Fine, f*ck it. Hit the door hard, come up blazing. Catch them in the catnap. Make it fast.

He wandered up to the door, thankful that he had worn the soft-soled shoes today. The heavy clack echoed on marble tile, but his feet came without warning of his entry. With the door closed to room 614, he took a deep breath and withdrew his daggers. One more breath, the blade had some browned residue on it. Whose blood was this? The killing was too much. Too many. Too fast.

One more time. Hard and heavy, make it happen.

He hit the door hard, hands aglow with electric hate. It burst open, the heavy brass handle smashing into the drywall and sticking deep. A spacious, sprawling room, no normal hospital layout. A blur of action, overwhelming motion. They were all about him, many of them, perhaps too many to count. Clicks and clacks, but very few words aside from a collective breath and the singular “Now” uttered by the one across, by the glass. They had guns. They were waiting for him.

Fuck.

Extraordinary measures were certainly called for, and Storm took them. He leapt high in the air, making use of the elevated ceiling as he thrust hands through a light fixture, daggers driving deep in the ceiling as the electricity coursed into him. The surge was fantastic, his body pulsing with raw power and a vibrant sense of invincibility. He would need it. A smattering thunder rang beneath him as bullets sailed wildly, none expecting such nimble activity in tight quarters. The light was shorted, and the room went dark, save some thin streams of sunlight from the window. He had to get killing.

He leapt down from the ceiling to the bed, a panther pouncing with ferocity and an accurate rage. The blades dug deep, searing and slashing, a terribly cry uttered forth from beneath thick sheets of wool or cotton. He couldn’t move before the hands and arms were on him, pulling him back and away from his kill. They pulled him back and he resisted, surging forth to finish the job. Another click, another gun drawn, and he reacted once more, desperately rushing back hard in the direction of pull. The crowd fell back as he shifted weight, one man not enough to counter his newly gained strength. With another bound, he drove the man holding him up and back hard, feeling the yield of glass and another terrific explosive shatter. The shards fell onto him, into him, but the man behind him went limp. The pain was overwhelming, horrendous, and disorienting, but he sought only escape. The light that ushered in from the sunny expanse of the outdoor brought terror with it.

He laid eyes on the kill, the reality gripping him with a steely hand. The man he had killed was at least forty years old, bearded, thin, frail. A trap. And in the wildly contrasting dark and newfound light, a large set of steadied iron sidearms would take aim at him again.

This time, they couldn’t all miss.

[The Cinderella Man]

“Drop the weapons or I’ll drop you like the trash you are!”

Victor Callahan was never known for his aptitude to trashtalk, not in the boxing ring and not outside of it either. But as he stepped into the shattered doorway of the room 614 and whipped out his revolver, he felt the distinctive urge to play the tough guy. No, not to play one. To be one. To show the murderous scoundrel that stood before the .50 barrel of his widowmaker that this was it, last stop, end of the ride. Despite the adrenaline gushing though his veins and his heartrate going through the roof, he could recognize the black-haired man. How could he ever forget those eyes, those ghastly lifeless eyes that peered at him seconds before he twisted the neck of Evelyn Thurmond as if she was a chicken? He wouldn’t forget, he wouldn’t forgive and he wouldn’t let the rogue slither his way out of this quandary. And the best part of it was that today he wasn’t alone. Five dumb-faced gorillas stood on the other side of the room, pistols cocked and glimmering in the piercing sunlight. They couldn’t shoot for shit, but there were five of them and that meant five projectiles that moved a lot faster then one man.

“And don’t you bloody move either or I’ll turn your head into a canoe!” the prizefighter added, sidestepping precariously, maneuvering his feet over the sentries that bastard fell already. He didn’t give a crap about these poor sods right now. Neither of them was exactly an angel with a spotless record anyway. What he did care was Jake Thurmond that seemed awfully lifeless, lying on the cheap light-gray linoleum with his face in a pool of blood. Victor turned the body over with his foot – a rather harsh way to treat a recently deceased, but then again, the man below didn’t complain. And that man wasn’t Jacob.

“That... That’s not Jake? Where is he?” Victor said, retracting his steps until he once again stood face to face with the intruder, presenting the gun mouth as the last thing the man would see if he didn’t answer. And still, those eyes, faded blue and as cold as winter morning – poker eyes – looked at him with no visible emotions.

CLICK

The oiled metallic sound came with something cold pressed against the back of his head. And with something steely pushing against his skull came a scent that struck him like an iron pipe. He assumed the metal was the gun. He knew that the gunner was Mariah.

“That is none of your business...” the dame spoke, her whisper climbing up his neck on the wings of her warm breath. Even now, when she held him at gunpoint for some obscure reason, it drew him insane. “...cousin.”

“Mariah? What the...” the boxer tried to speak, but the cylindrical metal only bore into his hair stronger.

“Shush. And give me your piece or I’ll make certain that the next thing that runs through your mind is a hot piece of lead.” the minx spoke, snatching the revolver from Victor’s hands and pointing it towards Jake’s would-be executioner. The five guns that were his allies seconds before now separated unevenly; three for the murderer, two for the prizefighter and all eager for a quick kill.

“It was you. You ordered all those killings. And now you’re going after Jake.” Victor still found enough steel in him to speak, despite his gut turning into a bedlam and his knees getting shaky under the influence of genuine fear. She couldn’t kill him, though, not after all they shared. Not after last night...

“Oooh, close, my little dumbass, but no cigar.” Mariah spoke, her voice soft and condescending, mocking him with every word she spoke. Though not the brightest star in the sky, Victor soon managed to assemble the puzzle that he started working on since death of the Uncle. The damsel in scarlet moved on her high heels like a gazelle, circling around the prizefighter and holding her guns with staggering serenity. “A woman, my boy. A woman can kill you in a thousand different ways. They all have the backbone when the shit hits the fan.” his boxing manager always told him. Victor nodded affirmatively back then, but only now he understood what Arslan was talking about.

“You two are allies?” he asked and she smiled with subtle viciousness, but didn’t answer. Instead the answer presented itself. Jacob Thurmond waltzed into the room as if he owned the world, his grin on like an acute defection. He took one of the guns from Mariah’s hands, pointed it towards Victor and gave his sister a lengthy ardent kiss.

“We are lovers, Padre.” the boy spoke, the grin on his face a perpetual mockery that the prizefighter wanted to punch into smithereens. It was a wiseass kind of grin, the I’m-better-then-you grin and there wasn’t a damn thing the boxer could do about it. “And once we take care of you and your partner here, we’ll be rich lovers. Heroes even. How else would you call a poor wounded boy and his sister fending off a greedy ingrate of a cousin and his henchman?”

“I’d call it a goddamned fraud!”

Mariah giggled and Jacob’s irksome grin turned into a toothy smile. “You would. Unfortunately, you won’t be alive long enough to tell your side of the story. Not after my boys here put two in your chest and one in your empty head.”

Jacob gingerly moved away from the line of fire of his five gunmen before lowering his revolver. He unloaded it, kicked the bullets so they scattered all over the smooth floor, and threw the gun on the bed.

“Goodbye, cousin. And say hello to my folks for me.”

The smile was once again substituted with a grin as he moved out of the room. When Mariah did the same, Victor’s hand caught her by the elbow. Her gun pressed at his chin, a tiny looking single shot, nickeled and shined to the point where he could see his reflection in it, but he had no doubts that it would introduce his brains to the ceiling if she pulled the trigger. Her look, so tantalizing only minutes ago, looked indifferently in his eyes.

“That’s it?! You’re leaving me for dead after all that happened? After all we shared?”

She snatched her arm ardently from his clutch.

“All we shared? You were nothing, honey, nothing but an instrument. And I played you like a guitar. Ciao.”

And with the fading clicking sound of her heels on the tiled hallway, Victor and the assassin that was his nemesis until the entire deal went sour were left alone with their executors.

[Storm Veritas]

It all unfolded so quickly, so simply, and the whole exchange shook him to the core. The arrival of the two from the Manor stopped everything, the brash talk and double crossing bringing a smile to his face. His eyes darted about the room as the people were confused, and there was no action as the woman spoke to her former protector in defiance. It was a setup, and she was involved. More important was the opportunity to assess the scene. Five men. All armed. The protector, armed yet double crossed. Could he be turned? The metal framing exposed, to attract the lightning. A diversion, if necessary.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ve got a chance here.

Yet all thought and strategy ceased when he saw the boy. Jake Thurmond, not hurt or slowed but cocky, walking with confidence, even arrogance. He spoke as though he knew the outcome was inevitable. As though this was all part of the larger plan. Sneering at the youth through the sea of faceless goons, the sea of memories flooded him, a reminder of how this had all transpired. The letters, the actions.

Edward and Jake are both threats as well, their newfound power all-too soon to be abused.

Jake, at fifteen, is already fast learning the ways of a tyrant in training.

I think your simple electrical prowess would work best – they do tend to enjoy the pool a great deal when they drink.

The nerves hit him again with a harrowing reality. It all made sense now. Who else would know as much about the family, and their private security? Who could have access to the money? Who would care how they were executed?

The one who wished to survive, of course. The boy who could lean out of the water while talking down to a servant. The one who knew all along, and knew how to play the hired gun for a fool. The boy. -O-.

It had to be this way, the boy and his sister? The motherly older girl who had blossomed into beauty? Was this part of the plan? Could it be?

It doesn’t matter. Survive now, philosophy later. You’ve got a powerful gun on your side now, even if he can’t shoot for a shit.

“The game is over, Thurmond,” he began, a voice pompous and falsely brave. “You won’t beat US both.” Subtle, like a brick.

Am I really saying this? Jesus, Storm, you get high and mighty when you’re desperate.

The implication was simple. Bring in the hired gun, distract with a flash of lightning, assault, slash, kill. It didn’t stand a chance, but it was his only prayer. Perhaps the confused hands on deck wouldn’t know what to do.

Or perhaps they’ll make a human sieve out of your sorry ass.

He had to take the chance. A brilliant flash of light erupted from his hands as he burst forward, the electric energy spiraling out to the ends of the lavish hospital room. It was everywhere, all inclusive, and would buy him a second to slash forward towards the boy.

That hateful, manipulative thing that had planned his father’s death and taken sister’s hand. Of course, the monster behind the puppet was a child. “O” began to make sense.

”I’m coming for you, Oedipus…”

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor heard numerous people speak about the peculiarity of those crucial life-or-death moments, where the time supposedly slowed down to a crawl and enabled a person to achieve the seemingly impossible. He also heard about boxers that told similar tales about the bouts in which the world around them moved in slow motion. And on that day, in the Radasanth General Care Hospital, Victor Callahan discovered that those stories were bullshit.

The truth was that between the time the assassin acknowledged the fact that they were both throat-deep in dung and the time he launched a blinding lightning flare, the prizefighter thought only about the five gun barrels that seemed much too eager to perforate his body. His stomach was a furnace, twisting and turning, and ultimately making him feel on the verge of releasing the contents of his bladder. “Fear is good.” his father liked to say in his ultimately-wise, undisputable voice that sometimes irked the boxer with its callousness. “Fear puts you in your rightful place.” Victor didn’t like these words replaying in his head. Because right now he felt that his place was down on the ground, bleeding to death, and the five crooks with malicious smirks seemed prone to get him to the place.

And when the lightning flashed with fierce white light, the time didn’t slow down. In fact, Victor was almost certain that the opposite thing happened and that it accelerated. Because he was rolling to the side with bullets whizzing by him like angered hornets, grabbing his unloaded gun and overturning one of the beds before he even realized his legs were in motion. It was an instinctive motion, self-preservation on a basic, primal level, and the phlegmatic brooding prizefighter was lost in it, effaced to make way for a beast that wanted out. That wanted to live.

The makeshift cover was almost no cover at all, but in the bedlam of gunfire splintered wood and bawled curses, it was a godsend. Victor swung the cylinder of his six-shooter swiftly, his other hand gathering the unloaded shells and loading them into the gun. Only three. The rest were scattered efficiently through the room by the courtesy of Jacob’s foot. His mind suggested reaching for the spare cartridges that stood in his gunbelt and his fingers obeyed. Inches away from where he sat on the cold linoleum, hidden behind the iron bed and the lofty mattress, another salvo of bullets bore through his cover, leaving a puff of dust and a sharp beam of light behind its advance. He was running out of shelter and had to make his move, now or never. Do or die. His hand swung the cylinder inwards single-handedly, the gun making the satisfying click. Victor grinned. It was too early in the game of life for dying.

When he sprung up and strafed for the door, the time didn’t slow down. The world seemed blurred, glossy from the rapidity of the movement, and the only sound he could hear were the gun blasts, echoing in his ears like cannons. Three of these miniscule explosions were his own, one sending a bullet through the glass and out in the sunny garden, two others finding their targets. His second shot struck one of the gunmen in the chest, the third hitting his comrade in the neck. His surprise worked, the doors were a foot away from him. All he had to do was swing...

Pain.

It crashed through his left shoulder like a club strike, then proceeded to turn into a heated dagger piercing his flesh and bone. It sent the prizefighter careening, hitting the door frame, leaving a crimson blot on it and then cast him on all fours as he crawled into the hallway. The gun escaped from the clutch of his fingers, the treacherous thing sliding over the white tiles as if it wanted to flee from him. It stopped only when it reached the opposite wall. His instincts were telling him to forget about the bloody gun, to get up and run like a bat out of hell. Behind his back, two pistols were clicking dryly, the third one firing another round that ricocheted off the tiles with an audible twang!

They were out. The son’s of bitches were out and they had to reload. His mind quelled his instincts and motioned his body towards the pistol, the three legged crawl of the boxer looking decrepit and agonizingly slow. He didn’t know what happened to the assassin that went after Mariah and Jake. He didn’t care. All three of them could live happily ever after as far as he was concerned, just as long he got his gun and blew these nitwitted goons of the face of this planet. He could hear the cylinders swinging out, the hot empty casings spilling over the floor with a jingling sound. Not much time left.

When his right finally swiped for the revolver, Victor allowed the momentum to turn his body. His head hit the wall, his back connecting with the smooth tiles, but his right held up the pistol from the lying position, pointing it towards the three stooges. The pain in his left shoulder was throbbing, burning, numbing his entire left side and consequently making his right wobbly. The three were nearly done reloading, too dumb to take a peek and see that there was one very pissed off gunslinger taking aim right at them. He had just enough time... If only his hand stopped to fucking shake.

The first one swung the cylinder of his pistol inwards. Victor’s brain was blank, caught in between fear and expectation, standing on its toes like a child on a fair. No more time. Victor’s finger pulled. And pulled. And pulled. And when the gun smoke dispersed like a morning mist, there were none left standing in room 614.

[Storm Veritas]

His trick worked perfectly. Well, almost perfectly.

The flash of light was incredibly effective in blinding the room, yet far be it from the sub-brilliant Veritas to acknowledge that he, too, would be blinded. His eyes pulled into a taut squint as he ran forward, but colors meshed in a sea of white and gold. His knee smashed hard on what was probably a hospital bed, and gunfire exploded all about him again as he fell.

Something hit him hard, tearing him in half. He wasn’t sure what it was, but couldn’t fathom less than a cannon lined up off his flank and opening fire. His stomach was split, and his hand moved to the lower back where he would later find the bullet had exited. The pain was incredible, but staying here would be certain death. When the smoke cleared, the room would find a smear of blood trailing from the floor to the doorway, where Storm finally stood as he brushed by the man he would one day learn to be Victor Callahan. Fortunately, he was every bit as desperate as Storm was.

Jesus. Guess you aren’t the sniper in the trees, but point blank maybe you’ll take down a few of these idiots.

A whisper came. “Hold them off and run to the West Corridor. We’ll flush those two in and settle up.”

Had he really thought of a plan? Was he ready to trust the guard who had tried to kill him? How was this one different? How was he involved? How was he differentiated from the faceless masses that Veritas had slashed through, cleaving his way to fortune and fate? He had –no- way to differentiate, but knew that this one was different.

Up ahead in the hallway, escorted by a pair of lumbering brutes, the two remaining Thurmond children ran, darting left into another path and off to freedom. Children was inaccurate, perhaps “offspring” was the only sensible way to describe the two demons that conspired to raze their family to live the life of incest. More enraging than their own sins was the ease in which they had duped Storm. They would have to answer for this, although their two guards would say otherwise.

No sooner did he turn the first corner than was he blindsided by a big looping punch. He staggered back, falling to the ground as his momentum carried him hard around the corner. He scrambled now, the punch not registering nearly as much as the terrible ache in his stomach. A pistol was pulled, and he watched the thumb slide to cock the hammer. The huge security agent didn’t stand a chance. Storm flipped the pistol hard and violently, watching it land firm into his stomach. The hulking guard dropped his gun as he reached for the blade, and then it was over. A second swipe dragged the dagger firm across his throat, and a thin stream of crimson began to coat his chest. Storm pulled the first blade from the fat stomach as he turned, looking up ahead for the coconspirators.

The hallway was deserted. Doctors and nurses peeked from the doorways in terror, wide eyes in disbelief. Jake and Mariah were gone. His shoulder and stomach and head throbbing in ridiculous pain, Storm didn’t know if he could continue.

He felt sick as he clasped the handles again, his mouth filling with an acidic purge that he popped upon the hospital floor. He coughed, hacked, and cleared his mouth. Stumbling ahead like a drunk, it seemed hopeless. They would have escaped. They must have escaped. And in his movement, he realized that his only belongings – the coins he had taken from the deathtrap apartment he couldn’t return to – were likely on the floor at the scene of the shootout.

His stomach rose again as he lurched forward. Jake and Mariah Thurmond had to die.

[The Cinderella Man]

Victor didn’t bother reloading. Even if could animate his left arm – which he couldn’t – the process would be utterly redundant. The hospital was deadly calm, the white-attired staff joining the patients in search for sanctuary within the numerous rooms that weren’t filled with smiles, lies and gunfire. Jake and Mariah were probably long gone by now, riding that lofty carriage as if hellfire was at their tails, and even if they weren’t, the prizefighter didn’t care. His shoulder hurt as if somebody drove a hot poker through it and left it there for good measure. The only difference was that the perforation didn’t close the wound, so he could feel warm blood drooling down his cloth and skin like syrup. Combined, the pulsating ache and the inevitable blood loss were forcing him to put the white flag up and wait for somebody to scoop him from the cold tiles. He was, after all, in a hospital. They would patch him up, some fat nurse with a chip on a shoulder and a patronizing voice would lecture him on playing with guns, and all should be well.

Only, it wouldn’t. Because then the law would come, asking questions whose answers fled in an incestuous embrace. He would tell them his story, they would nod their unintelligent faces, take sporadic notes, and ultimately decide that his explanation had as many holes as there were fresh corpses in their morgue. Especially if somebody took the liberty to send an anonymous statement which incriminated him ever further. Somebody who got very rich very young by hacking through his family members as if they were grass threads. Fucking family. Fucking Mariah and her swaying hips and the scent that the gun smoke pried from his nostrils.

So despite his desire to take a breather and wait for the men in white, Victor struggled back to feet like a drunkard with a mean hangover. He pushed his widowmaker back in its holster at his hip, then used his functional hand to push himself up. His left insisted on amplified pain even though he didn’t use it. His vision blurred at first, the hallways turning into a twisted optical illusion that seemed like something that wanted to hypnotize him, but a minute shake of the head focused his eyes. He thought he saw a pair of nurses open a double door to operations room, take a peer, then retract back to safety, but in his current state it might’ve been just a mirage. Didn’t matter anyways. He had to get away, away from the hospital, Radasanth, possibly even Corone. With the finances that Jacob and Mariah acquired with their little treacherous endeavor, they would have more then enough to hire a professional or three to tie up loose ends. And he didn’t go through the fiery christening moments ago just to get shot in the back of the head by some nickel-and-dime crook out to earn easy money.

Part of him wanted retribution, there was no doubt about it. It was the just part again, the part that he threw away like a filthy rag on the night he bedded Mariah. Now that part of him was back and beside the usual I-told-you-so, it was demanding justice. Victor made a couple of wobbly steps forward, supporting himself against the wall with his healthy shoulder. His face was cringed in pain, the blood oozing down the left sleeve of his leather coat and down onto the pristine tiles. To hell with justice. To hell with revenge. It was bound to get him into another pickle just like this one – or possibly a much more worse one – and he had enough pickles for one lifetime.

Let bygones be bygones. It sounded like a good piece of advice.

When he swung around the next corner and started heading towards the exit, he noticed the black-haired assassin and he wasn’t in a better shape then the prizefighter. Pale as death and bleeding profusely, he looked like somebody who wouldn’t get through the door, let alone away from the hospital. And yet there was some strength pushing him forward still, not the brute kind, but the sinewy stringy kind that certain weed had. It was the kind that wasn’t killed easily, holding for dear life regardless of the grim outlook. If the man wasn’t a bloody murderer, that trait might’ve earned him some respect with Victor. As it was, the prizefighter reckoned the best course of action was for each of them to go their separate ways. No questions asked. No falsely friendly handshakes. They were both mere mutts fresh out of a dogfight and they each had their own wounds to lick.

“That’s what I get for trusting family.” was the only thing that Victor muttered, adding a bitter smirk before he pushed the glass doors and left the hospital, the dead-eyed assassin and the carnage behind him.

What would he do if his paths crossed with those of Jacob and Mariah? He would put a bullet in the cocky prick, there was no doubt about it now. He was outsmarted, outgunned, outdone in every aspect by a runt that couldn’t grow a proper beard, and that was a wound that would never heal. But Mariah? Mariah was the salt on the wound, amplifying the pain, reveling in his anguish. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that, if put in a situation to kill the gorgeous traitorous dame, Victor wasn’t certain that he’d be able to pull the trigger.

((SPOILS: .50 caliber revolver, dubbed “Widowmaker” – this pistol is the only good thing that Victor procured from his ordeal with the Thurmonds. It’s a six-shooter, made out of hardened steel with a titanium barrel, with a handle. Victor currently has no bullets for the revolver and has practically no skill in wielding it. He wouldn’t be able to properly wield it until he reaches minimum level 2.))

[Storm Veritas]

So that was it, then.

As soon as he saw the familiar gunman come around the corner, he knew it was over. The face told the whole story. Resignation, loss. A general malaise, known that they were both beaten, both defeated by the somewhat simple ruse. There was no anger in his face, only sadness. Their own history together made no difference now. The fighting was over. They had lost.

“I suppose I’m in good enough company for those that were tricked. Fought hard back there, even IF you can’t shoot for a shit.”

He smiled, it was the only thing the situation could warrant. He couldn’t go back and search for money that had no doubt since been claimed. He couldn’t dress and heal his wounds here, where the police would arrive soon and the murderer would shortly be hanged for all the public to see. His body cried, mental and physical fatigue meshing with emotional exhaustion. He once joked that emotions were womanly things, and that they came from the ovaries. He was wrong.

Gotta keep movin’, then.

He didn’t stop trudging, knew that he couldn’t. He would leave inconspicuously, stealing a simple lab coat on his way and suppressing the blood flow from horrible wounds. He would hit town soon enough, and be gone within a day or two. There was no money for him anywhere, no food, no home to return to. His wounds would get much worse before they got better. The good life was short lived indeed.

Within the set of a few days, he would find himself aboard a ferry to Raiaera. Another opportunity was there, one where he could call the shots, and no longer listen to a grand manipulator.

You fool. Got too greedy. Didn’t run when you could. Fooled by a goddamned kid. And a bitch, to spare.

The bitterness festered in him, unfortunate as sourness was already in no short supply. He had met one good man in all of Radasanth, and had tried to kill him. Along the way, he had taken the lives of three, at least one of which was guiltless.

It was time to run away again. This time, he fled not the police, but rather his own history. He was running out of places that would extend him their goodwill.

[INDK]

This was certainly an amazing thread with awesome twists and turns. Things were done so well here that I had to not only change my initial impressions of the characters, but my initial notes in quite a few places!

Total Score= 83 God, Letho, could you stop filling up the judges choice forum with just you? You’re making me look soft and overly generous.

Introduction – 9 One of the things I really liked about this introduction is it seemed to get at the basic crux of the thread early, without trying to overload me with the elaborate plot. Honestly, if you’d thrown all of that in my lap at once, it would have fried my brain and then I would have given you zeros in all the other categories because I was no longer capable of forming coherent thought.

Setting – 7 Storm, sometimes you need to be careful with your descriptions that have links to things in the modern world. I’ll give you an example;

Most guns in Althanas were not semi-automatic death sprayers, but needed to be cleared, cleaned, loaded and fired.

This begs a bunch of questions about what Storm knows about other kinds of guns and all that stuff. In general, since you use third person limited omniscience in your writing, it seems odd that you would bring these kinds of things up unless Storm knew about them. Unless you’re going to elaborate, don’t do it. Plus, you miss out on opportunities of using descriptions to tell me something about Storm.

Strategy – 8 I really appreciated the fact that even the easy killings were creative. There was no “alright, I stabbed you from the dark” crap that isn’t particularly novel.

Dialogue – 9 There were some really good lines in here, such as Storm’s wondering if he is too good at what he does for the sake of humanity. Most of it though, was not nearly as snappy though equally effective.

Character – 8 I had originally written something about having trouble deciding who to root for when you guys had seemingly divergent goals. However you really put this together in the end.

Rising Action – 7 I liked the fact that while there were parallel stories running here through the quest, you gave me a good idea of what connected the people together. It really annoys me otherwise.

Climax – 9 I loved the end when everything came together. On my first run through, I had dinged you a bit in strategy and dialogue because of the kind of information you were getting in those letters. However, when it all made sense, it just notched up the excitement of the thread one bit.

Conclusion – 8 Letho, it really feels like you’ve solved your problems with conclusions that used to be your biggest downfalls when I judged your threads. This one was very good, I felt both for Victor and Storm.

Writing Style – 9 Letho, there were a few mistakes here I saw using “to” and “too.” You use “too” to convey that something is exceedingly something else. “The writing was too good, this quest was too long, my eyes are too tired.” For other things, you use to. “I have to give you a good score even though I want to rip my eyeballs out.” I’m not sure if this was a typo or a mistake, but I saw it more than once so I thought I’d point it out.

However, this plot was just majestic, and most of the writing was superb. I hate to be nitpicky, but I really went over the main complaint I had about this thread.

Wild Card – 9 I’ve always assumed that paper currency was a promissory note for gold pieces and just referred to as gold pieces, can’t ding you for the dollars though. We really do need to figure something out that way.

Spoils=

The Cinderella Man receives 925 EXP and his gun
Storm Veritas receives 3775 EXP and 1000 GP

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

EXP and GP added.

Storm Veritas leveled up!
Cinderella Man leveled up!