The Sands of Dreams - Drake vs Jessie

[The Forgotten]

A pleasantly cool breeze flowed across the warm waves as they lapped against the shimmering sand beach. The wind had a sweet smell, like honey drifting across a vast expanse. An invisible sun shone warmly down from someplace beyond the crystal blue dome that marked the boundaries of the Pagoda Warrior’s expansive playground. Shoeless feet rested on the moist boundary between water and sand, enjoying the chill of the waves flowing over his skin.

It was almost like living in a dream, this arena. Even when he wasn’t fighting, the Warrior Jessie spent much of his free time staring out at the broad expanse of lake that rested neatly in the center of his world. It was soothing to his mind. It tickled a long-lost memory of “home”, of his “family” running along such pristine beaches in the heat of summer. Featureless shadows flitted across his mind like someone had colored in all the important bits that would tell one form from another.

“So what would I do if I went back home?” He asked the wind, knowing that his only response would be the gentle serenity of a beach. “Would I even want to be home?”

Home. That word had no meaning on this world, on Althanas. Perhaps his home was the barracks the monks were kind enough to allow him to use so long as he remained a ranking member of the Pagoda. No, it was a place to sleep and retreat in bad weather, not a home. Any of the countless inns and taverns he had frequented before settling down here? They were even less of a home. Yet through everything, one flicker remained in his dreams. Three shadows surrounding the form of a man so similar to him. Two featureless shades wrapped arms around each other; the third had its arms around the man's chest. All were wracked with tears.

It seemed so eerily real, but like all of the Hierarch's memories lately, it had to be someone else's thoughts. Thoughts of past battles his mind knew but his body had never fought were too common for his comfort. Even if someone was trying to tell him something, they could have easily picked another medium.

The light crunching spatter of someone walking down a sand dune only just registered in the Warrior’s mind when a few stray grains fell across his hands as he laid with his eyes closed, peering into the abyss of his mind. He reluctantly opened his mismatched orbs and craned his neck around like a lanky brown-haired owl. His hazel eye was the only one that had any view of his challenger; it could only have been a challenger because the monks always appeared right before him regardless of where he decided to retreat. Lying beside him was a naturally stained and polished oak staff, and his lazy hand almost missed grabbing hold of it the first time around. Blue denim pants and a white tee, both damp from the occasional breaking mist, rose to an impressive six-feet-plus before turning around, smiling at the strange young man standing before him.

“Sorry for the rather awkward welcome. I wasn’t really expecting them to send me someone else for at least another couple days. Welcome to the Lake of Dreams. I will be your host, Jessie, and usher you into an eternal sleep… or at least for as long as the monks take before reviving you.”

So this was his second official challenger. Either the caretakers of his arena were rushed enough to forget to give him the scroll with the challenger's information or they just wanted to see what he could do fighting blind. After his last match against the flambouyant Kohaku, Jessie was expecting something a little... “more” from the man standing before him. But a fight was a fight and one day was the same as the next when it came to this place of structured chaos. He would fight, he would win, and he would return to the serene surf that washed all the cares outside his little piece of the universe away. All he had to do was win.

[Alabane]

Drake grinned as his opponent welcomed him, enjoying both the anticipation of the fight to come and the scenic location. The pagoda monks had been cagey on what the arena would be, but the white sand beach suited him fine. It was plain to see why Scara Brea’s guards claimed this was the place to be. Here he could fight for and earn a place of honor among the Hierarchy. Maybe with time he would eventually make it to grandmaster, a position of prestige beyond even the nobility. But that was a battle for another time. First, he needed to defeat one of the lowest ranking Hierarchs, a Warrior. From the looks of the man before him, this was going to be quite literally a walk on the beach. No reason to be rude though.

Shrugging his shoulders, Drake returned his enemy’s greeting. “It is not a problem. The monks appeared quite busy, but surely you do not need days to recover? Regardless, my name is Drake. On this Lake of Dreams, I may be your guest but it is not I who shall embrace the eternal darkness this day."

Unsheathing his blade, Drake twirled the familiar scimitar with practiced ease. Throwing his traveling pack to the side, Drake brought the scimitar’s hilt to his chest with the blade held vertical. “I salute you, worthy opponent. This day we meet in battle in a spirit of competition, let not our injuries color our opinions of each other, and may the most skilled man emerge victorious.”

Finished with the speech, Drake moved to strike. Startlingly fast, he moved at a near sprint kicking sand into the air behind him and his clothes puffed up as they caught the wind. Only a few feet from Jessie he struck with a rapid sideways swipe announced as the scimitar whistled through the air.

[The Forgotten]

“Days to recover? No, I simply savor the little time I have free as much as I can.”

Jessie’s reply was simple and true, and he finished shortly before this unknown man drew a rather sharp scimitar and quite literally threw himself into the melee-to-be. Tall, dark, and lanky met tall, tired, and prepared. Or was it the other way around? Both challengers were tall for humans, both were thin, but only one appeared tired while the other might as well have been bristling with confidence. It was almost a pity that Drake’s confidence was misplaced. Even tired, Jessie was no pushover. He certainly was no blissful walk along diamond-sand beaches in battle.

Despite being solid like a paving stone when stepped on, the sand behaved as expected when subject to any force other than the compression of a foot stepping down. Shards of white mist flew into the air when the scimitar-wielder blasted off; Jessie’s jaw locked half-open as he suppressed a yawn. It had been such a wonderfully calm… morning? Afternoon? The sun only moved when he wanted it to in here, and it had been frozen half-risen behind the dunes for hours. Or days. So hard to tell.

Not that he cared. His staff moved smoothly from beside him to an almost-ready position with his left hand holding onto a point about a third of the way down and his right hand mirroring. The swing came, telegraphed by the fact that a running charge can only allow a few methods of attack. Regardless, Jessie chose his first counteroffensive almost as quickly as his opponent charged him. It was quite simple, really. Of the many things the hierarch was called, a coward was never one of them. Cautious, yes. Stupid? Occasionally. But never cowardly.

As soon as his challenger’s arm moved into position to swing, the Warrior stepped in with his right foot and shifted the staff closer to horizontal. His left knee almost touched the moist sand as he stepped, head dipping low to avoid the strike. In the same motion, the staff was brought parallel to the sand, elbows bent rather sharp. It should probably be stated now that Jessie was no longer tired. He exploded forward, every muscle that could aid his momentum contributing. His target was somewhere between Drake’s hips and stomach, and if all went well, the challenger would be doubled over by the strike. Best case, he’d end up flat on his back. Worst case, well, Jessie didn’t want to think about the worst that could happen.

[Alabane]

Not bad, the dark elemental commented on his opponent. For someone who had looked half-asleep, his reactions betrayed his lazy façade. They weren’t comparable to his, of course, but he had to give credit where it was due. If you are as surprising in all aspects, this might actually be a challenge.

Unwilling to bowl through his opponent, Drake dug his heels into the sand as his sword whistled harmlessly over Jessie’s head. It was too little too late to stop him, but fortunately his opponent provided. Faster than human reflexes gave him the time he needed to reach out with his unarmed hand and catch the man’s staff in a firm grip, using it as brace. With a single eerie pop of his shoulder, Drake halted his own advance.

His forward momentum gone, Drake immediately reversed his direction and began kicking in the sand as he strained to pull the staff from his opponent’s two handed grip. He didn’t hold any real illusions of getting the staff, but just needed to off-balance the man. Recovered from the full arc of its wide swing, Drake drew his right hand back with the blade held down in a quick overhead strike aimed at the man’s back. A scorpion’s sting, in form and intent.

The separating distance removed, Drake felt he had the advantage. His weapon was better suited to such close combat and it was his preference besides. The sand filled his boots, but it didn’t give Jessie any advantage he could see, as he had first feared when the monks mentioned each Hierarch had a personalized arena. Grinning, Drake eagerly waited to see how Jessie would deal.

[The Forgotten]

Quick. Alert. Confident. These words described both men as they locked hands around the warrior’s staff. Both men were determined to win. Both men were prepared for eventualities. Both men smiled, but where Drake grinned in confidence that he had the advantage, Jessie smiled because he knew he was being underestimated. His first match in these hallowed halls against the warrior whose shoes he now filled had been an interesting one. Travis Kiltias had held nothing back in his relentless offensive. It was an exhilarating battle by all counts set in an endless expanse of forest, or at least that’s what he wanted to think. He hadn’t moved from the spot the portal had dumped him for fear of getting lost. Not that he needed to move; the former Warrior had found him easily enough. It was in that battle that Jessie learned one of his first lessons about the Pagoda: no opponent, whether you are the challenger or the hierarch, is worth taking for granted. You either go into a fight believing that your opponent can wipe the floor with you or you die.

If only this man could understand that concept. His attitude was one of absolute superiority, relying on a speed his opponent couldn’t match for an advantage. It wasn’t quite the worst possible outcome, but it certainly was not good for Jessie to be the slower of the two. The warrior knew that he was disadvantaged against his opponent, but he also knew the rules. He lived by the rules. The rules tempered him, fired his resolve. He was disadvantaged, but still he smiled. This act probably wouldn’t make sense unless you considered the idea that Jessie smiling was an indication of how bad things were about to go for his opponent. Close quarters wasn’t quite his forte, but part of his training with the staff included what to do when an enemy was invading his space.

It would take a few precious moments for the scimitar to come back into striking position unless his enemy turned it around and slashed back; Jessie would have to finish his takedown before that opportunity presented itself. Yes, he was going to lay Drake flat on his back just that fast. It wasn’t difficult to accomplish either. His left foot reached out as she continued to stand, planting itself solid in the sand behind Drake’s extended leg. Rather than trying to push his staff into the shock-absorbing arm of his foe, he pulled back and down with his right hand, using his resisting hand of his opponent as a pivot. This had that rather interesting effect of swinging the opposite end of the weapon up and around to where it would either catch the other man’s shoulder or the side of his head. Both locations would have the same outcome; the only difference was in how much damage would be done otherwise.

Jessie’s entire weight was thrown into the maneuver. He pivoted to the right and shifted the staff down as much as he could. There was nowhere for Drake to go but down to the ground.

“Any other warrior would have killed you by now. Pompous fool.”

This, too, was part of his contract at the Dajas Pagoda. Many beings new to the adventuring lifestyle came to this sacred battleground to test their mettle; the Warriors they faced were not simply opponents, but instructors. Most times, the instruction was the cold embrace of death. At other times, death would teach nothing, and so Jessie had to improvise. A hazy thought of a red-haired woman glazed across the back of his mind. She was his first instructor at the Pagoda… and she had beaten him. But it wasn’t his memory. He had never challenged a woman for the title he held now, and no woman matching her description came up in the records of the past year. Yet he knew her. She was one piece of someone else’s past that glided through his present and into his future. One piece of a larger puzzle with infinite pieces.

Asuka. How do you know me, and how do I know you?

[Alabane]

With a swift turn of the staff, Drake felt his advantage literally slip through his fingers. Braced as he was to absorb the previous blow, he had two options. Let go, or wrench his wrist in an extremely painful manner. Worse yet, movement in his periphery left little doubt he was going to be feeling it either way.

Taking a conservative role, for a change, Drake let himself fall and twisted as best he could to dodge the staff. Going boneless, as the kids called it. Too little too late. With a sharp smack the oak staff struck him from jaw to temple. With his own attempt to dodge adding to Jessie’s forceful follow-through, dark spots filled his vision as he was forced to taste the beach.

With a rapid twist, Drake regained his feet and managed to scramble away on all fours. With an effort, he managed to keep his right eye open through the pain and warily watched Jessie. His left was screwed shut from sand and it was all he could do to keep from running to the water to wash the bastardly fine crystals out. On his periphery he could see the tale-tell smoke rising from the black blood oozing down his face. Didn't think a staff could break the skin.

Forcing himself to ignore the pain, the dark elemental shook sand from everywhere, knowing he would never again complain about it being in his shoes. Hearing Jessie’s speech, Drake was of two opinions. First, that he was glad it had been a staff and not a pole-arm of some sort. Second, it seemed unlikely he could have been killed so easily. And maybe he was a bit pompous, but nobody went into a battle expecting to die. He’d work on it in the future, for now he needed to focus all of his attentions on not getting hit like that again. He knew it wasn’t going to kill him, but it sure felt like it should have.

[The Forgotten]

There was a definite change in the atmosphere of the fight after Jessie’s speech, if that’s what you could call it. The challenger had learned his lesson and no longer exuded the overconfident air of someone unafraid of anything. It was good to see that the strange man had learned a lesson, but now Jessie was at an advantage… and not just because he hadn’t taken a staff to the jaw. He still had tricks up his sleeves, or at least under his shirt.

“Let’s make this a little more fun…”

An ominously howling wind picked up in the distance, though it was most likely a coincidence seeing how Jessie was completely incapable of any sort of magic. He smiled and held his staff out, pointing at Drake with one tapered end. It could have been an illusion, but the tip seemed to dip a little lower to the ground than it was a few seconds ago. His hair was also getting longer and changing color as well; getting much longer and turning pink. Perhaps the most noticeable difference, however, was the appearance of something—two somethings—underneath his shirt. The sensation of everything inside his body rearranging itself was something that always felt a little different, but the unmistakable curve of breasts now showing through the tight-fitting shirt was certainly the strangest sensation. Yes, Jessie had just shrunk almost a foot and turned into a girl. Get used to it, because it feels stranger for him than it looks to you.

“…and raise the stakes some.”

More than appearance, even the voice was feminine, and nothing a female impersonator could pull of. A deep purple mist surrounded her hands and snaked its way to the tip of the staff where it condensed into a rather wickedly sharp blade of the same color. Jessie couldn't use magic, but for some reason, Jessica could. Her staff had just turned into a spear; the blade covered the last foot of the wood completely and lethally. It was quite clear that this time there wouldn’t be any second chances. She walked forward carefully; spear ready to strike at any time. Thrust at the leg, feint to the other leg, then one more thrust to the chest. It was time to go on the offensive.

[Alabane]

Eyes wide, Drake watched his opponent’s amazing transformation open mouthed. Maybe he’d been hit harder than he thought, but he seemed to being feeling an awful lot of pain for being delirious. So that meant that Jessie really did just change into a girl, and not a bad looking one.

Gross, Drake thought to himself even as he stood a little straighter. Revulsion and attraction don’t mix, but he couldn’t make up his mind. Jessica was attractive enough he wanted to impress her, but still most definitely had been a guy. Unable to wrap his head around it, Drake put out of mind, hoping to forget it. The idea that women he had been attracted to previously had also been men in disguise was horrifying, just thinking about it made him queasy.

Still rubbing his sand-filled eye, Drake raised his sword defensively and considered his opponent. Like a predator, Jessica stalked towards him with careful measured steps and a deadly glint in her red eyes. The staff she held was now glowing with a hard purple edge, but still seemed just a staff to his untrained eye.

With a grim smile, Drake’s left eye cracked open and then blinked as the last piece of sand swam away in a dark teardrop. Distracted by his small victory, the darkness elemental yelped with surprise when the purple glow sliced through his pant leg and cut him. Immediately realizing his folly, Drake swung mightily to protect the remaining good leg. Faster than he could adjust, the staff pulled back and thrust for his chest.

With a grunt, Drake staggered back a few steps from the blow. Just before it reached his chest, Drake pulled at the magic, stripping the staff bare and consuming it. It was always a strange feeling, like flexing a muscle that didn’t exist, but in this instance it saved his life. A moment’s more hesitation, or had he not realized the need, and he’d have been impaled for sure.

Hoping Jessica would be confused by the unsuccessful attack, Drake aggressively took up the offensive. Feinting a wide sideways slash then following up with a viscous lunge for her stomach, Drake struck as swiftly and forcefully as possible. His head hurt even more without the distraction of his eye, and he was ready to end the match. Normally he might have just tried to cut her hands and arms, disable her. Here with monks around to ward off permanent death, he could run her through completely guilt-free.

[The Forgotten]

So the challenger had a trick of his own, it seemed. His forward leg would be in quite a bit of pain thanks to the slice, but at least she had been nice enough to not hook the inside of his knee with the blade. Assuming Drake was made up of the same muscle and tissue fibers that comprised her body, she could have easily sent him sprawling to the ground just by severing that one little tendon. It would have been easy, but it wouldn't have taught him anything. He hadn't thrown off her aim by doing whatever he did that made her Æther blade vanish, but he had saved his own life in the process. It was her own faulty aim that made the staff-only part of her strike non-lethal. She had missed her target part of the sternum, just beneath the ribcage.

At least he learned by example; the man was a quick study when he returned the favor she sent his way with his own flurry of strokes. The wicked scimitar came across for a sideways strike and the Warrior coolly shifted her staff upright and braced for an impact that never came. It was with wide-eyed shock that the pink-haired fighter realized her own folly. She had gotten overconfident; cocky even. For all his simplistic nature, he had just pulled a feint, and it was a good one: completely unforeseen and superbly executed. As much as Jessica hated to admit it, he had just got her good.

It could only have been fate that placed her against a challenger wielding a scimitar; the curved blade was never designed for piercing strikes like the one she was faced with. She turned and shifted to her right side as the wicked blade rent her shirt then stroked her ribs. Perhaps if he had been swinging a straight longsword around... perhaps then he could have killed her. The scimitar wanted to run her through, but it only cleft a slice out of her stomach thanks to a little-too-late evasion. The blade didn't quite reach the bones at the top of the hole, but it hurt far more than anything else that had ever happened to her and exposed many things inside her body that had no business seeing the light. The cut hadn't been clean either. Moving to the side made the blade twist as it sliced through... and the hunk of skin was now dangling from a bit of flesh too thick to simply tear off.

For an instant, the Warrior didn't know what was happening. She had felt the blade tearing into her, but now everything was numb. It was a liberating sensation as endorphins and adrenaline flooded her body, but she also knew it wouldn't last. In an instant, Jessica's mind flashed another shadowy memory. She was out, riding something much faster than a horse, and fell. Her foot got pinned underneath the contraption or whatever it was, and then this sensation came over her. It was definitely her, but before she came into existence. It was Jessie's memory, which meant it was also her memory. She was Jessie, but she wasn't Jessie; part of him, yet separate.

Darkness crept in from the edges of her eyes, narrowing her vision to see nothing but Drake's bastard form. Every heartbeat brought her one step closer to death. Every heartbeat brought her two steps closer to her challenger. A strange tingling crept through her fingertips and lips almost as though she was hyperventilating, but she knew the reason was far more serious. She was bleeding too much. The amorphous Aether that normally bent to her whims was more difficult to grasp and pull into a blade, but somehow she managed it in the moments between Drake's lunge and her own. Her left hand yearned for his neck, longed to grasp it in her palm. Her right hand slid silently toward his ribs, purple haze surrounding the flickering point of a blade melded to her palm. How he stripped her magic from the staff didn't matter to her mind. As long as it was still connected to her physically, he shouldn't be able to do it again.

Now if only she could focus long enough to extend the magical sword once her palm touched his side...

[Alabane]

As she strode toward him almost calmly, Drake couldn’t help being impressed. If he’d received that kind of injury he’d have bowed out, or at least taken a minute to deal with the pain. With her glazed eyes it was clear she was fading fast, for which he was thankful. With her staff discarded in the sand, Drake moved to sheath the scimitar when a purple glint in her hands caught his eye.

Catching her hands in his, Drake siphoned the magic once more. For the first second or so the energy filled him but the glow didn’t stop, it just kept coming. With a gasp, Drake reached his limit and felt the strange magical blades slide through his flesh. For a moment, nothing happened. Then with a rumbling noise like thunder in the distance the dark elemental felt his being shake and then erupt out of his side with a roar.

The purple light of Jessica’s blades lit the ungodly black smoke that was his blood. The dark cloud of his life-blood poured forth to form an opaque cloud covering yards of sand around him. His last conscious sensation was that of grainy sand sticking to his cheek as he convulsed where he fell. As his body died his mind returned to the elemental ether from which he came originally, though his stay this time would be brief. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he’d heard sandals slapping on moist sand as he faded.

Next thing he knew, Drake was sitting on a stone slab before a monk. The bald man before him waved glowing hands over his body slowly as the dark elemental was pieced back together. When he was satisfied, the monk wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “Well, that was no picnic, but I should have a much easier time if ever come around here again. Not often we get magic creatures, took a while to put you right.”

Sliding off the stone table, Drake rankled a little at being referred to as a creature. “Lucky me.” His sarcasm aside, he looked around but didn’t see Jessie anywhere. “Hey, tell Jessie…tell him I’ll never make a ‘hit like a girl’ joke again.”

As he left the pagoda, Drake rubbed his side ruefully. It still stung a little, but nothing he couldn’t walk off. That bet he’d lost against the guards though? That he wouldn’t walk off so easily, but you can’t win them all. Or in his case, any.

[The Forgotten]

A dull throbbing rumble rolled across the roiling world made for two, echoing through the great dunes to the edge of this pocket of the universe. The black mist that erupted from her foe's side gushed like blood as he fell backward down to the ground. He had not conceded the battle; Drake had given it his all from the very start all the way to his last conscious thought.

Darkness crept further and further into Jessica's vision; half falling, she sat down on the hard sand and laid her head on the ground. Silver clouds against a blue backdrop flitted across all the colors of the spectrum as her brain suffocated and strained to deal with the problem of a loss of life energy as well as the loss of her magical energy.

In a way, the strange man had killed himself. The Aether had refused to take on any solid shape until he started drawing it into his body. It was part chance and part luck that caused the Aether to align as it flowed from her hand to his. One last command finally snapped the amorphous threads into solid blade-like forms that just managed to pierce his side before dissipating. Her ears were ringing, but even that sensation faded as the last of her lifeblood pooled onto the sand.

Warmth... soft... comfort. Jessie opened his eyes slowly to the familiar sight of the Pagoda infirmary. One brown-clad figure nonchalantly walked between all-but-empty cots; so this was the section of the warrior's shrine dedicated to ensuring that their fighters could recover completely and without incident. Warm blankets fell away from a less than muscular torso as Jessie sat up, and then promptly laid back down. Looking to where his opponent's scimitar had gouged him open he saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, but moving and bending felt like something was tearing him apart from the inside.

“Oh, good. You're awake Jessie.”

“I'm not sure I want to be. I thought you monks were supposed to be the best at healing.”

“Ah, that. It seems that your Jessica form is developing some sort of resistance to our healing... or magic in general. We aren't really sure. We had to force a reversion back to your male body to close the wound; the others were just about to return to finish the mending.”

“Oh. That's news to me. Mind if I go back to sleep?”

“Not at all, Jessie. One last thing... It seems that your hazel eye is taking on a red tint. We don't know what is causing it, but some of the others think that Jessica is starting to take over your mind.”

The shuffling of cloth against stone and the slapping of sandals marked the entrance of at least three other Ai'Bron before they were even visible in the doorway.

“Good night, then. Hopefully I'll fall... asleep... be... fore...”

The soft hand of the caretaker on the Warrior's forehead was warm and brought him into a deep, restful sleep almost immediately. Once he was out, the four monks looked to each other and exchanged hushed words. He didn't need to know everything that was going on with his body. He would be happier in ignorance. The fact that he hadn't noticed that his hair was longer than usual was proof enough of that.

“Drake left you a message,” someone said, “Something about not making jokes about hitting a girl again.” It didn't matter who said it. He hadn't heard it, but the message had been delivered. The monks weren't liars, after all.

[Breaker]

The Sands of Dreams
Battle Judgement

The Forgotten's scores are in red, Alabane's are in blue.

STORY

Continuity ~ 6 ~ 3
Between the two of you, The Forgotten was the only one who really had a storyline. It was a little vague at first, but it developped throughout and ended not half bad. However, you'd have gotten more points here and in other categories if it had been a little more intricate. Alabane, you barely did anything to justify Drake's placement in the thread, and your score here reflects that. In the future, tell me why Drake is where he is, doing what he's doing.

Setting ~ 5.5 ~ 5
Both of you did a decent job of describing the setting throughout, without ever really impressing me. Alabane, I found it rather unrealistic that your character could stop and change directions so quickly in dry sand.

Pacing ~ 3 ~ 4.5
You both need to do a lot more here. You need to make the thread interesting enough that the reader can't wait to read the next post. While I got a little foreshadowing from the Forgotten, your posts were also on the long side and I lost interest in most of them halfway through. Drake did a decent job of getting the action rolling and keeping it constant, but again there was nothing to make me want that next post.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 3.5 ~ 3
I've said this before to other people, and it rings true in this thread: the best posts, dialogue-wise, were the ones with little or no dialogue. Conversation in battles is tricky to handle, and I felt like both of you fell into the generic, stereotypical opening speeches and combat taunts. A good rule is: if you haven't got something important or relevant to say, don't say anything at all. Keep in mind that your characters would be panting from exhertion and adrenaline, therefore unlikely to make these little not-quite-witty comments.

Action ~ 4.5 ~ 5
Both of you could use some work on describing action clearly, and using short concise sentences in action sequences rather than longer ones. You both did a decent job of taking the hits you took though, I particularly liked the way Drake had trouble getting the sand out of his eyes. The Forgotten, you lose a half point here mostly because of the way your long posts sometimes distracted from the action.

Persona ~ 5 ~ 3
Jess(ica)e was a little more three dimensional and relatable, but you both need to do some serious work on character. Try incorporating your character's thoughts into anything and everything. Observations of the setting and opponent should be skewed/original due to their unique perspective, and their actions and dialogue should reflect strong character choices, not the most convenient convention.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 5 ~ 3
Neither of you did much in the technique department, though the Forgotten at least made the effort to use some literary devices, even if they were awkward at times (the owl comparison gave me pause for a moment, and I had trouble picturing it). Remember, using metaphor, simile, personnification etc will embellish your writing, make it more interesting and more compelling. Also, well placed literary devices will really spice up your setting descriptions.

Mechanics ~ 8 ~ 7.5
You both did well here.

Clarity ~ 6.5 ~ 7
For the most part readable and concise enough, but the Forgotten loses a half point due to the long-winded posts. Keep up the good work, you two.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 6 ~ 6 Don't be afraid to go above and beyond.

TOTAL ~ 53/100 ~ 47/100 The Forgotten is the winner!

EXP and GP Rewards

The Forgotten gains 1000 EXP and 400 GP
Alabane gains 300 EXP and 50 GP

[Witchblade]

EXP and GP added!