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  1. #11
    Legend

    EXP: 127,650, Level: 15
    Level completed: 55%, EXP required for next Level: 7,350
    Level completed: 55%,
    EXP required for next Level: 7,350


    Philomel's Avatar

    GP
    14,025

    Name
    Philomel van der Aart (+ Veridian)
    Age
    30 (+10)
    Race
    Faun (+ Fox/Earth Spirit)
    Gender
    Female (+ Male)
    Location
    Corone

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    Rising like a feverish shriek, Veridian's whine went wild on the wind. As the huge warscythe slashed against him, the fox who was on fire felt the full blow of its power. As he had hit William - bit him with a maw of flame that burnt fierce and true - William hit back, lunging out with his weapon as if he could truly fly. If one imagined, they could have seen wings, rising upon the coal-skinned man's back, flapping strenuously against the howling wind. But no one was there to watch it, only Veridian, and for that moment he was all alone. All by himself as the cruel black blade struck down towards the flaming giant beast.

    Nobody was watching for they looked elsewhere in horror. As Shinsou van Osiris lost his footing, wrapped in a shroud of green biting smoke and a uprising fog as there was a quiet, contained explosion. So contained that it was precisely where it should not have been for Shinsou's safety, and with two stacked attacks of no small danger the beloved man, who was her enemy here but dear friend elsewhere, toppled ... and tipped into the void.

    Philomel's gasp fell away to empty air. As Shinsou's every shadow tentacle began to shimmer and slip away, a hard lump began to form in her throat. Now - now it was just her army against the dark man of lava and charcoal skin. Whom Veridian was desperately fighting against, as he took such a blow - such a disheartening, horrible blow - oh my Drys, Shinsou was - and she was part of it.

    Philomel, we are in the Citadel! Veridian screamed, filling her head suddenly with the knowledge of his agony and movement. We are in battle. I - I cannot - ugh he was butted into the side by the blunted side it seemed, but thick red blood was still flowing. I cannot fight this beast alone.

    Blinking, she swung around, over to where she saw his bright glowing body weaving over the pillars like a dancer, but growing weaker with every step. He was in full retreat now, clearly injured down one long flank as William, the man and their enemy here, kept approaching with furious pace. It would not be long before Veridian himself was decreased of all his energy and would soon too fall into the nothingness beyond.

    Snap. And she was back in reality. Veridian was right - Shinsou was only gone, for now. Her moment of unknowing was born from her misunderstanding about her rest. All she had done was retreat for the moment so soothe her injuries - caused by Shinsou no less. Now they had stopped bleeding, she could rejoin the fight and make amends for what the other man, a relevant stranger, had done to Veridian. For her fox mattered more than a man.

    Looking over to where she had last seen Delath, she saw him dancing, the short few seconds that had actually passed needing for him to move far and around because of the instability of their pillared arena. Cursing slightly under her breath, for her foolishness and her time wasting, Philomel stood and scooped up her weapons, calling for the dragon to about turn and head to her. Letting out a light roar he circled around, carefully to step only as lightly as he could - but tiptoe did not come naturally to a massive thirty foot beast. Tail swishing madly he battled against the breeze, great eyes focusing in on her and she smiled at him, nodding encouragingly. As he swept around, Philomel took a couple of steps back - and then leapt, heading straight for his back and clearing the few feet easily.

    As soon as her last hoof left the starting platform it began to fall away, and the inevitablity of their fate came back to her. The unavoidable challenge of remaining on those pillars that had no purpose other than to plunge into the void beyond, taking all and every soul with it. Even those that flew, for the harsh wind, though it had now declined to something of a current null, would eventually sweep them into darkness.

    Sucking in her breath, and gearing her heart up for war once more she twisted to look back to her darling fox, who was now running for his very existence, trying to keep William busy as she planned.

    I am sorry, she murmured to him, coming in now like a storm.

    The earth-spirit smiled to her, before he twisted around likely for the last time and threw one last, almighty bite at Arcus. Just to distract and confuse him, just to make him not notice - if it were possible - the mighty faun thundering towards him on the back of a colossal dragon.

    Her mythril sword was drawn, her point, when it came, marked at Arcus' back.
    Last edited by Philomel; 11-18-2017 at 04:56 PM.

  2. #12
    Senior Member

    EXP: 113,151, Level: 14
    Level completed: 62%, EXP required for next Level: 5,849
    Level completed: 62%,
    EXP required for next Level: 5,849


    Revenant's Avatar

    GP
    3,553

    Name
    William Arcus
    Race
    Revenant
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Corone

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    Each snapping flick of his obsidian blade and every savage tearing claw swipe served only to stoke the rage inside William. Though the fox was nearly twice William’s size, it quickly became apparent that the molten warrior was the more savage predator. Once it became apparent that a stand-up fight would be suicide, the fox beat a hasty retreat across the Dancing Stones. This thrilled William, who was eager to do away with the magic spears and tendrils and to simply get himself stuck into the thick of the fighting.

    That wasn’t to say that the fox fled blindly from William, or that it didn’t get in a few snapping bites of its own against the revenant. Every new platform the fox leapt to was either already dropping in order to discourage direct pursuit, or else it was angled to force William back into a portion of the field where stable footing was already sparse. By the time William finally cornered the beast, a quick glance showed him that over half the pillars in the arena had already been taken out. Things were moving to the endgame.

    However the drawn out chase did serve to allow William’s rapid regeneration to put him back together into a more or less uninjured state. His chest still ached from where the tentacle had crushed him and there was still some stiffness in his shoulder where the mage’s ice spear had impaled him. Barring that, even the fresh wounds that the fox had given him had sealed, not being significant enough to overcome his innate capabilities.

    A look of pure panic shone in the creature’s eyes the moment it realized that it had leaped to the wrong pillar and had nowhere left to retreat. William savored that fear but knew that he couldn’t afford to drag it out for too long. He himself would have to retreat three pillars back and turn into the largely unaffected portion of the goat monster’s field where it met up with his. That was, of course, assuming the goat hadn’t moved to cut off his escape by dropping the pillars around him while he’d been busy attending to her fox.

    That was one of the dangers of the Dancing Stones, and it sent a thrill up William’s spine. There were too many fighters in the Citadel who thought that the only proper way to fight was to simply stand in front of one another and throw punches until someone fell. True it was a more realistic approach to training, but William had long since grown tired of simply laying into his enemies and tearing them apart. Where was the fun in overwhelming an obviously inferior foe? William had only ever been able to count the number of people who could stand up to him in a straight-up brawl in the single digits. Most of those people had long since departed from public life in Althanas. Given that, how else was William supposed to enjoy himself?

    Having said that, William wasn’t a fool. Knowing that his opponent was cornered and bleeding from a half a dozen slashes he took a moment to look around in hopes of catching sight of the goat monster or her dragon. As if to answer his question the fox lunged recklessly at him. William’s attention reflexively snapped back to the beast and he whipped his scythe to meet the creature’s lunge.

    Deadly as it was on its own, William’s scythe also possessed a powerful enchantment. The stronger version of this enchantment allowed the weapon to pass through incredibly powerful magical shields and armor as if they weren’t there, but even the minor version could cut steel like paper. An expression of frustration crossed his charred features as William ignited the lesser version of the enchantment and levelled the blade at the fox. One final swing would simply part the beast in two and then he could turn his attention to the goat.

    It didn’t occur to William that the creature’s final lunge was a distraction until he felt the goat monster’s sword slam into his back. The thick, tough skin held against the pressure for a fraction of a second before the weight of the charging dragon and the blade’s razor edge punched through him like an awl. He didn’t have time to see if his attack had killed the fox, but it didn’t matter as the momentum of the attack hitting him lifted him bodily and carried him into the sky.

    A ball of red-hot steel blazed in William’s chest as the goat woman lifted him, but strangely enough he could only think about how the much stronger the chamber’s gusting winds tore at him while he flew into the air. Some dim, rational part of his mind realized that he must be flying now and not simply up in a jumping arc given how much more aggressively the arena was treating him.

    The pain collapsed in on William in an instant and he looked down to see two inches of metal jutting from the front of his chest. The attack had struck his squarely, but luckily the blow had missed his heart. Unluckily, it had not done the same for one lung, his stomach, and a handful of other internal organs. The realization brought a painful spasm with it and William retched, vomiting bright, molten blood in a fountain that was immediately snatched by the violent winds and sprayed out in a fanning arc.

    Much to his approval, he realized that a single hand had risen to grip the steel protruding from the front of his chest. He’d clamped down on the end of the blade hard enough that he felt the mythril tip bending beneath the pressure. It wouldn’t exactly solve the problem of having six inches of metal speared through his chest, but it would keep any more from coming in or, spirits forbid, the blade from withdrawing and simply dumping him into the abyss.

    That accomplished, William twisted around feebly to meet the triumphant eyes of the goat woman behind him. Beneath her the massive dragon snarled and snapped its jaws a hand span from his dangling, bone-covered legs. The pain was mind-numbing, but pain was an old comrade of William’s and he struggled to put it aside so that he could focus. William focused on the energy in his molten core, much of which was currently escaping, and drew it inwards. It was the same sort of thing he’d done when he’d formed the magma shot that had exploded the mage’s pillar. This time though, he didn’t stop when he’d gathered enough energy for a magma shot and instead kept drawing until he held a double-portion of the power. He curled his lips at the goat-woman, hoping to steal her look of triumph and said, "my name is William." Then he released his gathered energy in a powerful magma explosion centered on himself.
    "I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me." - Call of Cthulhu

    David vs. Goliath: History's first recorded critical hit.

  3. #13
    Legend

    EXP: 127,650, Level: 15
    Level completed: 55%, EXP required for next Level: 7,350
    Level completed: 55%,
    EXP required for next Level: 7,350


    Philomel's Avatar

    GP
    14,025

    Name
    Philomel van der Aart (+ Veridian)
    Age
    30 (+10)
    Race
    Faun (+ Fox/Earth Spirit)
    Gender
    Female (+ Male)
    Location
    Corone

    View Profile
    Emotions ... feelings.

    The first was utter shock, surprise and elation. As her white blade, as shining as the morning star, plunged through dark clothes and charred skin of the man who was their last enemy, Philomel took in a breath. Here it was, her legacy, her death-stroke, giving what the mighty faun could towards ending this man's life. Heart beating like a drum heralding thunder, she watched in awe as Nameless, for so was the sword called, slid smooth and unhindered through armour and flesh, to protrude out from the other side of the being that remained.

    The Veridian's last footing was lost. A yowl rose as he slipped and began to tumble into his known fate. As he did he desperately lunged out with a last, projected bite of flame, centering it on where Nameless' tip extruded. It fell to naught, for it had been his final determined act with a severely weakened body. Tumbling, he twisted down into the void beyond, meeting the endless world acceptingly. At that point Philomel felt utter loss - but as equal acknowledgement as he.

    It had been a long time coming - the fox-formed earth-spirit had bravely endured the calls of death and slipped out of as many blows from the enemy as he had been able to. Several hits in, and one lasting bad paw, and he had gone.

    Finally.

    And then - then there was horror. As a screeching utterance of metal came to her ears. It was moments after she had struck with Nameless, and Veridian had fallen - the two might as well been sychronised. Delath beneath her continued his twist of dancing steps to avoid plummetting down directly. She needed to leap from her seat on his back as instinct took over and she recognised that sound, or what it might mean. As her form took her into the air she tried, with a sick feeling entering her chest, to tug Nameless from its new sheath, but it was as she feared. As the noise had predicted, had meant.

    He, the coal-skinned villain, had twisted the end of her beloved sword so that it was lodged right into the back of him.

    Sucking in her breath, Philomel kept a hold of the sword, and swung up her hooves to plant them on his back - right there and not caring about the improbability of the angle, or the pain it might cause him. She aimed to use the effort to drag Nameless from him, bent as it was or not, as Delath spiralled away. Determination swept through her - these defiantly were the last moments of the battle, after all - and she prepared to make it agonising. Amused, she grinned to herself as she called for Mao, that last vestibule of useless power that she had into existence ...

    "I am William," the man said as her hooves met his mid-back.

    "And I am Philomel fu-"

    Boom ...

    Utter, utter darkness, as fire and energy ripped her form into a million pieces. The explosion slammed like her own headbutt into her, born from William - it was his name, after all he had annouced. With the ability to cause volcanoes to errupt the power poured from him, instantly burning the hair from the faun's whole body and the scales from Delath's skin. Both of them had not expected it, and it caused instant death. Hands no longer grasped around Namless, instead it hung in William's body as a memory of another time. Neither did a dragon haunt the dancing stones, but rather had gone. Only a hulking char of his bones and frame stood, but that would soon fall into the abyss.

    Silence fell. And it seemed William had won.

    That was, excepting for a tiny form sitting there, still and confused on the last remaining pillar. A small white and brown rabbit, ears erect, and looking honestly surprised. Summoned out of nowhere, brought to her mistress' attention, just far enough away from the fire and brimstone to be there, a reminent.

    Tilting her head she gazed at the single being now left in the field, other than herself. Brave eyes blinked, nose twitched, and then she did as rabbits do best.

    She sniffed.
    *admin at your service*

    Matriarch of the Gilded Lily and of its brothels, associated establishments and the army.

    Characters:
    The family triplet: Philomel, Vaeron and Celandine.
    The god and kenku triplet: Stare, Avin and Vixen.
    The Primordials: Professor Charles and Moros.

  4. #14
    Senior Member

    EXP: 113,151, Level: 14
    Level completed: 62%, EXP required for next Level: 5,849
    Level completed: 62%,
    EXP required for next Level: 5,849


    Revenant's Avatar

    GP
    3,553

    Name
    William Arcus
    Race
    Revenant
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Corone

    View Profile
    William wasn’t sure if the light from the magma explosion had faded or not. The deafening eruption of noise had been swept away by the arena’s winds but somehow he still couldn’t see anything. It took him a moment to process that the wind whipping around him wasn’t the magic of the arena but purely the sensation of plummeting helplessly. That the winds hadn’t snatched him up to smash against a pillar told William that he was no longer flying. That in turn meant the goat had either dropped him or died in his blast. Neither option gave him much hope as he struggled to reach out for anything to grab onto.

    But William had pushed his luck too far. The fight had taken too long and had ranged too far over the Dancing Stones. While there were untouched pillars littering the arena, none of them were near enough to where we was falling to offer any support. William fell, struggling vainly to find purchace until the very end when the abyss claimed him.

    ***

    William came to inside a small recovery room inside the Citadel’s medical wing. As always, his gear had been retrieved and returned to him and his wounds had been fully treated. The fight had been interesting, even if it had been a far throw from what he’d been expecting when he’d requested the Dancing Stones arena from the Ai’Brone. Still, the nature of his opponents intrigued him. It was rare for him to come across others that were as talented as him anymore. Too many heroes and villains having succumbed to the ravages of time and chaos. He’d have to keep these two in mind should their paths cross again. It only took a moment to flag down a passing monk and to get the information that he was looking for.

    “Shinsou Vann Osiris and Philomel van der Aart,” he growled, a smile of eager satisfaction flitting playfully across his face. “We’ll meet again, I promise.”
    "I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me." - Call of Cthulhu

    David vs. Goliath: History's first recorded critical hit.

  5. #15
    upon the cheek of night

    EXP: 224,444, Level: 20
    Level completed: 0%, EXP required for next Level: 0
    Level completed: 0%,
    EXP required for next Level: 0


    Breaker's Avatar

    GP
    38,725

    Name
    Joshua Breaker Cronen
    Age
    30
    Race
    Demigod
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Corone
    Thread Title: The Dancing Stones
    Judgment Type: Condensed Rubric
    Thread Type: Three-way battle
    Participants: Revenant (Rev), Philomel (Phi), Shinsou Vaan Osiris (Shin)

    As an opening note, I'm not sure if it is still standard or not but as a judge I would appreciate a note at the beginning letting me know that there will be bunnying. While this isn't so important in regular RP, in competitive RP you can lose points for bunnying without permission so it's nice to give the judge a head's up. As it was, I assumed you were all communicating and had permission for all of the bunnying.

    This battle was considerably shorter than I would have expected from three such impressive characters, even with Shin having to drop out early. The Dancing Stones is definitely a cool arena, and it was nice to get your individual takes on it, but overall I thought this thread missed its mark as a story. You did have some decent individual efforts, but no one really stood out from the pack, which made this quite difficult to score.

    Plot

    Rev: 17/30
    Phi: 17/30
    Shin: 15/30

    Rev: Despite a fairly simplistic and standard approach (a warrior returning to the Citadel after some time away), you employed the most three dimensional story. It followed a fairly predictable arc, but I still understood where we were in the scope of William's life. Your initial description of the setting was rather unimpressive, but you did the best job of using and representing that setting throughout the story. At times you dwelled too much on detail or let your posts run a little long (such as when William got iced to the pillar, freed himself, and climbed back up all in one go), however for the most part you did a good job of setting the pace of the thread and controlling it throughout.

    Phi: Your backstory was a little more complex, but you sort of abandoned the notion of a storyline partway through and just focused on the battle. While in a sense this is good, the battle still needs to tell a story about your character, and your story was thin around the middle and scarce toward the end. I think one more post at the end would have really benefited you here. Your descriptions of the setting were probably the prettiest but I didn't feel like you interacted with it as strongly as Rev or Shin. The uniqueness of the arena barely seemed to influence your character's decisions at all. You demonstrated decent pacing but at times overdid the flowery writing, such as using the term "genesis" in the same way on two separate occasions.

    Shin: Your story had me intrigued more than the others, but since it literally ended halfway through the thread, you lost some points in that area. I liked your initial description of the setting and the way you employed it - Shin's decision to stay on the starting platform spoke volumes about the kind of person he is, and made the battle that much more interesting. Your posts got a little wordy at times, I think you could afford to rein in the length a little, but overall the flow was good until it abruptly ended.

    Character

    Rev: 14/30
    Phi: 14/30
    Shin: 15/30

    Rev: Your dialogue was limited and a little cliche (the closing line in particular), however you did have some decent internal dialogue and I actually liked the fact that William mostly saved his breath for fighting, and then spoke while impaled on Phi's sword to bait his trap. I liked the way you drove your writing with action, but at times you get a little too caught up in it and either over-describe or simply put too much in one post. I'll point again to post #8 where you did both of these things. From the beginning onward I got a growing sense of type of person William is, however his personality never really became compelling or especially interesting, in fact like the dialogue it was at times a little cliche.

    Phi: Bringing an entire cast of characters into a battle certainly set you up to employ dialogue more than the others, however I never felt you really used this to your advantage. You did a good job of representing the actions of your various characters, but at times your flowery language makes the actual events fairly muddy. The worst example of this was in post #9 where I couldn't be sure if you were saying Delath was flying or just being metaphorical. Since your profile says Delath can't fly I figured it was a metaphor, but first of all this forced me to stop reading and look at your profile, and second of all it really seemed to confuse Rev as he references a flying dragon in his next post. You challenged yourself more than the others by bringing multiple personas to the battle, and while I wasn't blown away by them, I thought you rose to the occasion adequately.

    Shin: You employed dialogue to assist in telling the story, both internal and external, and did the best job of using it to represent your character. Your actions were probably the best described with the least redundancy, and told the most about the type of person Shinsou is. That persona really shone through in the posts you did make, and I have a feeling if you'd stuck around you would have taken this category by storm.

    Prose

    Rev: 21/30
    Phi: 19/30
    Shin: 17/30

    Rev: You demonstrated solid mechanics throughout the thread, I only caught a handful of small typographical errors in your writing that an extra proofread might eliminate. William's story was the easiest to follow and except for a few places where less would have been more, your prose was quite clear. You didn't employ many advanced literary techniques, however when you did they landed fairly effectively, so I'd encourage you to do more in this area.

    Phi: Mechanically you had the most errors in the thread. There weren't any that feel worth mentioning, I think they're all just typos that you missed in editing, but there were a noticeable number of them. I would definitely recommend doing an extra editing pass, preferably reading back what you've written out loud as this can be very helpful in catching these small errors. You employed the most literary technique of anyone in the battle, however because of the overall thickness of your writing these didn't always land, in fact at times it seems like you were using a metaphor for the sake of using a metaphor.

    Shin: I didn't notice many mechanical or clarity issues in your writing, but because you wrote so much less than the others I had to dock you a bit in these areas. Your literary devices when you used them were strong, but again there just wasn't enough presence for you to score very well.

    Wildcard

    Rev: 5/10
    Phi: 5/10
    Shin: 5/10

    I considered docking both Rev and Phi a point each for instances of powergaming, but since in both cases there were some clarity issues, I'll just issue you each a warning. Rev, I was completely confused by the part about William flying in post #12. I had to do my homework to find out that as of level 11 William actually could fly, so that was probably fair game, but it would have helped a lot if you'd mentioned ICly that he can fly at some point, such as thinking to himself at the beginning "I'll avoid flying because of the winds," or something. Phi, your use of Delath did not feel at all representative of a thirty foot earth dragon. Considering he doesn't have any enhanced agility, I would have expected him to be extremely awkward (at best) on the pillars meant for nimble human sized creatures. The way he was effortlessly "dancing" across them really rang false, and if you'd actually used him more I might have taken a point away. Shin, since you already lost points for dropping out early and I didn't dock the others here, I didn't dock you either.

    Totals

    Rev: 57/100
    Phi: 55/100
    Shin: 52/100

    Revenant Wins!

    Revenant receives 3675 EXP and 80 GP and pays 4 AP for the judgment

    Philomel receives 1050 EXP and 30 GP

    Shinsou Vaan Osiris receives 1050 EXP and 10 GP

    Congratulations! If anyone has any questions or requires any clarification don't hesitate to PM me.

  6. #16
    upon the cheek of night

    EXP: 224,444, Level: 20
    Level completed: 0%, EXP required for next Level: 0
    Level completed: 0%,
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    Breaker's Avatar

    GP
    38,725

    Name
    Joshua Breaker Cronen
    Age
    30
    Race
    Demigod
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Corone
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