Mystery of The Machine (closed)

[Xos]

Off the world of Althanas, in one of it’s connected planes…

Four beings stood around a great crystal spire. All were made of Prevalida. All had angelic wings. They were The Guardians, the most powerful forces of law that there were. There were more than four, but these four ruled the great machine in which they stood, and the machine was the entire plane in which they existed. The machine’s exact purpose was a mystery, even to them. Its origin lost in the paradoxes of time. The four winged men kneeled before the crystal spire as a woman comprised of pure energy took form within it.

“Greetings Lady Crystal, Althanas runs at peek efficiency today, maintained as always by he who descended from the order of Anseriformes. We have watched the Firmament and found the one you have sought for so long, the one who came here once before, Xos Xilanthese. We await your next directive concerning this weak organic creature.� One of the four winged men said. He wore a white toga, and his face though chiseled lacked color beyond the normal pigmentation of tempered Prevalida.

“I believe this one to know our original purpose. All original files were lost in the transformation, but his description still remains. I am confused though, records indicate this one to only be in his twenties. How then could the exact same person have been in Althanas over ten thousand years ago? Regardless, we shall pursue him and arrive at the answer. Execute Citadel Battle.ARC, this will turn the gears of fate and force him into the citadel, where we will then use the monks to bring him here, an arena that is no simple illusion.�

So it was done. One fine spring day saw Xos asleep in a tavern dreaming about a concept he had for a spell, one designed to accelerate his entire being. If one listened closely, one could almost hear the grinding whining moan of a massive engine, almost see the gears turning in the wall, and see the pistons pounding away. Invisible hands reached for Xos, determined to find out his strange connection, hands made of Prevalida, animated into a living being.
___________
Xos awoke with a start; he was certain he felt a cold hand against his chin.
“Heh, probably just part of the dream.� He said trying to reassure himself, but nothing of the sort happened. A primal urge to kill something was rising within him. He understood it full well, but couldn’t understand why he was feeling it. He wasn’t the sort to go around killing for the fun of it, or fighting to relieve tension. Still, the great machine of Ordo Iuris pounded away, grinding away in its own plane, yet at the same time, around him, and inside him, igniting his most primal desires.

Xos couldn’t take the room anymore, it felt small and confined. He left to go for a walk, and had to restrain the urge to grab the nearest female, anything, and take it down a back alley to satisfy his desires. A big brute of a man accidentally bumped into him, and Xos almost broke himself straining to keep from killing him. He was angry, he was scared. He knew something was controlling him, something wanted him to fight, to kill, something wanted him to go to the citadel.

He tried to go to any other place but the citadel, but no matter where he went, no matter what he thought of, every place was over crowded, side streets and alleyways full of carts and people, and a throng of people at his back pushing him onwards in their own rush to reach the citadel.

Soon enough he reached the steps, and discovered a sight most strange, the monks weren’t even asking people what they wanted they were just tossing them into random arenas. When they grabbed Xos, the dull glazed look in their eyes flickered briefly in recognition. Him they carried deep into the citadel, and shoved him into an arena.

Xos was truly scared. He knew something wanted him, either to fight, or for unimagined purposes of its own, and now Xos had a sense of why he couldn’t fight the impulse to fight, of why he couldn’t resist the crowds, and why the monks had forcibly taken him to an arena. He recognized he was back in Ordo Iuris.

“You will state your name for the Archives.� A strange winged man made entirely of Prevalida said before him.
“Dr. Xos Xilanthese.� Xos said, but not of his own will.
“The very same who built Ordo Iuris?� the man asked.
“What? I never built anything this grand. I once built a small three ton steam engine, but not an entire plane! Infact this is only the second time I’ve been here, the last time was in a citadel fight. If it’s about the fight last time, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to cause such ruckus.� Xos said, irritated. The urge to kill wasn’t false anymore. Now he wanted nothing more than to create something large and heavy and club the man before him to death with it.
“We will see if you are lying. The creator Xos was capable of arcane feats no other could even dream of. As such, he was virtually undefeatable in battle. We will call forth an opponent, and you will fight him, to the death.� The man said, and walked away.

Xos stood in the center of a large rotating gear, unable to fight Ordo Iuris and its over riding command to stay there. The gear was connected to a conveyor built on which raw chaos was carried. It was carried towards the Central Processing Unit, and along the way, it was beaten with Pistons made of Mythril weighing several thousand tons each. In various places, little crab-like bots performed various tasks, picking it up and transferring it to another line, or putting it in a bucker, or flipping it, or maintaining the machine. Still in other places, great blades came whizzing down a great speeds to perfectly divide the chaos into sections. In other places, the sectioned, beaten Chaos was heated on great Damascus plates until it bubbled, taking the heat of a fiery volcano to do so. From there, it was put into a great freezer, and chilled solid, yet while this happened, more pistons beat down upon it.

After this, it was put onto one of many lines, now a solid brick of crystal, to be turned into a magically charged crystal. These lines stretched out of the Central Processing Unit and across the entire plane. After being charged with an element, energy flashed into the crystal, though what it was Xos could not fathom, and then it was tossed into Althanas, or one of it’s planes. Some spilled over into Chaos. In each place, the crystal let loose it’s stored magic, and the magic in turn directed the elements. War Magic was let loose in Raiaera, fueling the battles there, and keeping them going until such time as Ordo Iuris received command to cease fueling the war and cause something else to happen there.

Xos idly wondered if even the gods could fight against the machine and it’s stranglehold edict of absolute order. But he had no time to continue wandering, as his opponent arrived, just as a chain began to move, turning fan blades and cooling the overheating machine.

The winged man stood between Xos and his opponent, facing the newcomer.

“You have been selected to kill this man. You will not disobey Ordo Iuris. If you fail to kill him, or at the very least maim him to our satisfaction, he will kill you instead. You have no choice, for this is Law, and none may gainsay the Law. The Machine of Ordo Iuris enforces all Law, even that which binds the gods. None may fight The Machine. You will have a time frame of exactly one standard rotation, or I will kill you both personally, and prohibit the powers of Aibrone from resurrecting you.� He said, then he winged away.

Suddenly, Xos was freed from The Machine’s control.
“I feel like I’m simply a pawn in someone else’s story. I just hope eventually I understand what all this is about. Regardless, I don’t plan on being slaughtered here, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to answer the urge to kill that this place forced upon me, I’m very sorry you got caught up in all this. I’m probably just as confused as you are though.� Xos said, then unleashed an Energyball comprised of Omni’s holy energies at the thing before him.

[Othar Almenneran]

Othar was very confused. However, he was not about to let this fact be known to either the winged construct or the robed man in front of him.

He’d spent the afternoon skulking in a bar after an unfortunate encounter with an arrogant half-elf. The half-breed had looked down his nose at Othar and then had the temerity to inquire if Othar’s mother had performed a frankly questionable act with a beetle. For once he allowed his bestial side to take over and leaped towards the elf, chittering manically with claws outstretched. His animalistic choler drove him towards his opponent, even as he saw the glint of a knife being drawn. Barrelling into the insulting half-elf Othar knocked him flying. Brawling for a few moments, Othar finally withdrew when he finally felt a burning pain as the steel ripped through his back-plate. Ekendra – who, until this point, had been fluttering around above the fighters squeaking – swooped down and sank her small claws in the elf’s knife hand. Taking advantage of the distraction, Othar flicked up a hoofed foot into his aggressor’s groin. The elf bent double and the knife clattered to the floor where Othar retrieved it and slipped it inconspicuously into a gap in his chitin. His antenna flicked furiously as he resumed his sitting at the bar. Ekendra fussed around him and he waved her away irritably. She was becoming more and more motherly with every pssing day since their transformation. Although they were heartmates and their very souls were joined, he was getting angry very easily these days as the beast within him rose. She had been on the recieving end of his outbursts multiple times recently and he had physically hit her more than once. On this occasion however he simply ignored her, although he begrudgingly allowed her to inspect his wound.

Stretching his back, Othar exited the tavern’s door. Ekendra’s examination of his wound had seemed to show that wasn’t too deep, having barely passed the chitin plating. The adrenalin was still pounding hard through his body and he was ignoring the slight ache in favour of a new idea. A fight. The hulking silhouette of the Citadel’s minaret rose above the line of the houses and overshadowed a large section of buildings. Othar set out along the cobbled streets, his hooves slipping on the worn stones as his anticipation mounted.

Ahead of him, a large crowd appeared to be headed for the Citadel steps as well. At the head of the surge there was a confused looking man dressed in robes. The bemused look on his face caught Othar’s eye. Obviously this man was in some way inebriated and therefore would make the perfect opponent for a little practice battle. Othar barged through the tightly packed crowd and positioned himself behind the robed figure. He barely registered that many of the surrounding crowd had blank looks in their eyes, nor that they dispersed when the bemused-looking man started to climb the steps. The monks were randomly pushing the competitors through the arena doors. A sharp jab connected with the small of his back and a sharp pain accompanied him through the door into the arena.

Othar landed flat on his face. A moment’s panic shot through him as he frantically searched for his mate who had disappeared in transit. Then she strode into view in human form, wearing an entirely spurious set of leather armour. She had short sword at her hip to complete the illusion. A bright light from an undefinable source flowed through the whole area and he blinked his four eyes - all at different times to allow a constant watch to be maintained. The floor was a hard metal, and a queasy feeling made Othar unsteady as he pushed himself to his feet. Looking around, he could see that he was at the edge of a giant gear. The pounding of pistons filled the air around him. At the centre of the cog, he could see two figures. Ekendra walked towards them and Othar followed at a distance to allow his wound a little recovery time. His illusory mate stepped towards the figures, one of which was revealed as the man they had followed. Standing before them as Othar got closer, the man said something from which Othar gathered: ‘Kill, or be killed’
‘Fine by me’ His chittering voice echoed in the large space. A bolt of bright white light suddenly erupted from the robed figure and hurtled towards Ekendra. She held her ground, confident that the missile would pass harmlessly through her. However, as it hit the torso of the woman, the ball erupted into sparks and ran through the whole of the visible body. Ekendra screamed and her form shimmered, instantaneously revealing the beetle-like form within the centre of the figure before the image returned. Othar forgot all pain and howled as he retrieved the scavenged knife and charged the magic user that was threatening his heart-mate. He dived towards the robed man, twisting as he did, intending to use his back-plate to ward off any following missile attacks. If he could get close enough, his claws should cause some damage. Looking at the knife in his hand, he suddenly realized he had next to no idea of how to use it. Nevertheless a chittered war cry escaped his mouthpiece as he descended on his opponent.

[Xos]

Xos, possibly influenced by his surroundings, sidestepped onto the conveyor belt, and ran with it, narrowly dodging a five hundred ton Prevalida Piston capable of smashing most, if not everything, that could possibly fit beneath it to pieces. Yes, instead of Xos, the enchanted Piston crushed a small pile of Chaos, the enchantment causing it to solidify and form up into a crystal brick.

He ran into a small booth, and suddenly was frozen solid as the workings of the booth froze him in a single second of time and measured his dimensional properties and other statistics. All told the measuring took ten minutes, but Xos had nothing to fear, as anything entering the booth was similarly frozen, and when it was full, ten subjects in all, it closed shut.

A piece of paper was slipped into Xos’s pocket, and then a worker drone carried him out of the booth, set him on another conveyor belt inside of a gigantic bucket the size of The Citadel itself, which was carried by an unimaginably vast crane that vanished into the distance.

Xos ignored the paper, only tucked it further inside his pocket. He hoped to get some reasonable distance from his enemy, mostly because he was a ranged caster and not a melee fighter, but the booth had made him lose track of his opponents, and so he looked about for them as the bucket began to move with a titanic screech that made Xos’s ears ring with pain.

[Othar Almenneran]

Once again, Othar found himself landing on his thin under-shell. This time, however, he was moving forward and skidded across the floor. The smooth, metal of the gear offered little resistance as he hurtled across it. Luckily, the edge of the gear had a lip on it and he ended his journey in a crumpled heap against it.

He stood up, shaking himself. The crack in his back-plate was now screaming at him to stop moving though he tried his best to ease the pain. His mate had been running to follow him, having recovered from the assault of the missile. She stopped next to him and launched into a long rant about how he shouldn't throw himself into these things while gesturing wildly with her redundant sword. He ignored her. Looking around he could see neither hide nor hair of the robed man he had been attacking. A monumental shriek caused him to look round. A huge bucket-like container was flying through the air away from him. As the bucket swung, it tipped enough for Othar to see his brown-haired opponent in the container.

Uttering several howls as he did so, Othar set off along another conveyor towards the direction the bucket had been heading in. Ekendra ran on ahead, simply running across gaps between conveyors and platforms as her insectoid self flew across the gaps without bothering to dispell the illusion. She arrived at the bucket's presumed arrival point waving her sword and shouting angrily. Struggling to jump from one moving platform to another without causing serious damage to himself, Othar made somewhat slower progress and arrived at the same point several minutes later. He wass brandishing the knife and had his claws ready.

[Xos]

Xos still couldn’t find his opponent, then the bucket descended and stopped, and a swarm of Drones descended upon the bucket, extending a conveyor belt, opening a hatch in the side, and attaching it to the machinery in the bucket. A chute descended in the meanwhile, and processed fire crystals began rolling along the beltway. They were headed for what looked like the largest furnace ever constructed by anyone.

The Crystals themselves were the sort of crystals extremely powerful magi would sell their firstborn to demons for. Xos followed their path enviously knowing he couldn’t take any with him. They rolled past Xos’s opponents who had, at that particular moment, arrived.

Reacting instinctively, Xos threw an energyball at the crystal closest to his opponents, comprised of Earth magic. It exploded on the crystal, and as fire crystals were the most volatile of all magic crystals, it reacted by exploding, only its explosion was much more powerful than the energyballs. It was powerful enough to disable the conveyor belt, knock the bucket back, and dislodge a number of gears. Repair drones descended, chittering angrily all the way. Xos darted through the smoke to get away from his opponents and give himself breathing room.

Running down the track, he saw the furnace had several gateways in it, and in conjuction with the plane of Chaos, controlled all fire throughout Althanas, and used Fire Crystals as fuel to do so. It determined what Volcanoes would explode and when, what campfires, cooking fires, and torches would burn and what ones would go out. When forests began to overstep their predetermined boundaries, it set them on fire if the Earth section could not naturally decrease them itself. It even controlled sun itself, determining when and how it would shoot out Solar Flares into the solar system. All natural fire was tightly controlled by the furnace in Ordo Iuris. Yet Xos could see Chaos disrupting the control, keeping fire from becoming too tightly controlled, naturally balancing out the system with disorder. Xos suspected that other sections controlled other facets of Althanas, and longed to just study The Machine.

He turned to realize he hadn’t been paying attention to his opponents for too long.

[Othar Almenneran]

Othar, was getting extremely angry now. The coward had seemed determined to fight at first but now was fleeing for his life at every opportunity. It seemed to him that all the myriad stereotypes that he had picked up of wizards over his weeks of overheard tavern conversations were true. They were cowardly men who hid behind their smokescreens and ran from any fight. Well, he, Othar would give him a reason to run.

Ekendra had returned to her buglike form and flew towards the robed man's route. She dodged between the falling embers while Othar had to run crouched to use his armoured back to shield himself. Even so he could feel the searing pain of his chitinous back-plate melting. The man was stood, seemingly rooted to the spot on a conveyor. The belt was grinding along its path towards a huge arch. Beyond the arch was a red light. The light flickered and danced and reflected in the flames, Othar could make out images of flaming objects, a flaming torch, a burning building, these images flickered momentarily in the flames before disappearing to be replaced by the next Althanian location that was engulfed in flames.

His adversary seemed transfixed by the huge machine and was staring at the archway as they headed on an inevitable path towards it. The fire crystals were ordered and perfectly arranged on the belt around them, the sparkling crystals glinting in their own unnatural light. Chaos crystals also dotted the moving landscape around the chitinous beetle. He reached out and touched the chaos crystal that sat on the belt between him and the brown-haired mage. His hand contacted the shiftiing surface briefly before sinking into the crystal. He withdrew his three digited appendage sharply, oddly feeling no different. His hand undertook no visible change from the entry but the flowing surface briefly registered a wooded clearing and several small birds materialized in the air. It seemed that when it became processed, the contamination to Othar's touch would inherently affect the world where it was implemented.

Obviously, Othar could not now climb over the crystal; who knew what would happen if he became immersed in the flowing, shimmering, chaotic material. Edging his way to the edge of the belt he looked over the side. Below him stretched an infinite darkness, interspersed with various mechanical constructs. He chittered his annoyance to himself as he lowered himself over the edge, digging his claws into the metal of the belt. He traversed sideways and attempted to pull himself up. He almost howled in pain as his back realised the full extent of its punishment. Almost letting go he slumped back to his hanging position. Ekendra flutered anxiously above him and pulled vainly on his antenna. On the third attempt, he hauled himself over the lip of the belt and onto the main body of metal. Ahead of him, the robed figure was still staring, apparently oblivious to Othar's plight. The sight of his heart-mate's aggressor filled him with rage and he could feel his bestial nature rising within him. For once he was happy to relinquish control to it. Charging towards the unwitting man he bounded towards him. The man turned towards him as if he had heard his approach but he was undaunted. Howling his rage at the robed figure he leapt the final few feet towards his opponent. He heard the metal floor behind him ring as his hooves reverberated off the ground. His left hand had re-drawn the dagger and was bringing it down from above his head in a clumsy but deadly slash that would tear the man's eye from its socket if it connected accurately. His left three claws had come together to form a point which drove towards the man's cloth-clad stomach. His hooved feet flailed as they sought the other's thighs and shins, seeking to bring the man to his knees where Othar's claws could find a good purchase.

[Xos]

(Permission to bunny granted in PM)
The thing was leaping upon him! Xos reacted instinctively and threw up his energy shield. The bug landed upon it, claws and dagger reaching for Xos. Wizards are notoriously weak, spending more time on their magic than on their bodies, this is why Wizards normally don’t fight melee battles, preferring instead to stay at a distance and cast magic. That, or have a warrior stand between them and their enemies.

Xos felt his shield weakening as the momentum of the bug pressed against it, and to his horror, it shattered, bringing the bug-man down on him. He twisted space to bend those claws away from him but the knife got him in the neck as he twisted away from the blade. Space bent back, and the bug, to enraged to notice or care about the bending of space and its claws bending with it, came upon him fresh, repeatedly stabbing.

Xos had one last chance to kill the bug. He cast Arcane blast, creating a small fist sized explosion, but in his haste to cast he didn’t know if he cast it on the bug, or on the machine.

Regardless, it was all over now. Grinders ground the fire crystals into energy as they entered the furnace, and unless they both got up and ran away now, both parties would die in the grinders less than five feet away. But Xos couldn’t move, and he knew he was going to die either way, so he closed his eyes, and waited quietly for the end.

[Othar Almenneran]

Othar's mind was completely clouded by the beast within him. He thrust blindly with pointed claws. A vague wonderment probed the outer regions of his consciousness as to why he wasn't making contact but it was swept aside by animalistic fury. He felt a tremor ripple through his knife-arm and a slight spray of warm liquid hit him as he penetrated the man's neck. Suddenly he stumbled forward as the man stepped backwards along the conveyor. He fell forward toward the metal floor plates but steadied himself.

A sudden explosion to his left rocked his entire body and he fell sideways. The blast had left a large smoking mark in the moving floor and ripped a huge gash in his back-plate. Chitin, blood and bodily fluids splashed across the belt and fell to oblivion beyond.

Raising himself on weakened arms he looked at the robed figure again. The man seemed to be staring past Othar. Even as he watched, the man closed his eyes. Othar felt a searing heat wash over him from behind. It blistered the exposed skin and he whimpered, partially in pain and partially in shame at being reduced to this. Looking over hs shoulder and beyond the now gaping wound in his back, he saw the huge grinding maw of the furnace. Like some insane flaming beast it chewed the crystals, spewing out flames and belching fire at regular intervals.

He attempted to pull himself away and back along the moving platform. He could feel the strength draining out of him as the heat intensified and he felt his chitinous exoskeleton softening. The pain was now unbearable and his lost noise before passing out was an agonised scream as his hooves blistered and ruptured before entering the grinding teeth.

Darkness and fire enclosed his mind and body.

[Xos]

The last thoughts in Xos’s mind before he fell in the grinder were of Valanthe. He wondered if she ever got the map to the monastery.

The Guardians watched the replay of the battle one more time with Lady Crystal.
“Thus because of this battle, we have reached the conclusion that while this is the Xos Xilanthese we are waiting for, he is not yet the Xos Xilanthese we need. An unknown measure of time must pass before he is yet ripe enough for your purposes.”

Lady Crystal touched the display.

“I need our original purpose to repair the flaw in Ordo Iuris. If I know our original purpose, I can repair the flaw. Reverse The Machine. Let time flow backwards and undo all that has been done. Send time down a different path and return to the Standardized Background Processes. Watch him, wait for him, and if necessary, help Xos Xilanthese. When the time is right, he will be forced to surrender his secrets to us.” Lady Crystal said, seconds before dissipating into the machinery around her.

The environment in Ordo Iuris grew hazy, as though a dense fog had descended. The Machine ground down to a complete halt, and then began working backwards. Time could be seen flowing backwards, and all actions taken within the last 24 hours were reversed. Xos, Othar, and his heartmate were all three completely restored as the backflow of time rewound the day.

Xos walked backwards out of the citadel, returning to his inn as the sun sank in the spot it normally rose at, lay down his head and fell asleep. The Machine could almost be felt retreating, fading into the background, the grinding whining noise of the gears and pistons fading into silence, and then, it was gone.

The Machine once more ground down to a halt, and then began working properly once more, the hazy fog completely gone, as though it were never there to begin with. All memory and knowledge of what had happened was gone, because of course, it had never happened to begin with, and as Xos would be left to his own devices, it wouldn’t happen at all.

Xos awoke feeling refreshed after his night’s rest. As much as he hated separating from Valanthe after just recently discovering how much he really did love her, the quest to get the map to the Zen Monastery in Akashima really was a one person operation. He hoped they’d repair his broken ring there, restore its fabulous enchantments.

He left after breakfast and wandered the streets. He caught sight of a strange creature that seemed to be half bug, half man exiting a tavern for The Citadel. A feeling of DéjÃ* vu welled up inside Xos, and he shook it off as he left Radasanth to meet with Valanthe at their selected spot.

Meanwhile, The Machine worked away in its own private plane, controlling Nature and supervising its tasks, making sure everything was kept in order for the gods, and trying to keep Chaos from ruining everything. Lady Crystal waited in its core, the only non-deity who remembered what truly happened, watching Xos, waiting for the time when he would be powerful enough to fix the flaws in the machine. She spoke but one line to the monitor that showed her what Xos was doing.
“I’ll be waiting, oh great and mighty creator of Ordo Iuris and The Machine within it.”

[Othar Almenneran]

Othar blinked. A slight crunching sound echoed through Othar's mind. It was as that of the gears in the portcullis of the city gate. He looked up from his drink and glanced around. He could not identify the origin of the sound. Returning to his drink he dismissed the sound wihout any further thought.

He rose from his seat, his back aching from a fight he had had earlier with a cocky half-elf. He stumbled and the cleaved chitin shot spasms of pain through his body. He coulld have sworn at this pont that he heard a faint laughter, echoing from a distant plane, from the mouths of metal constructs... He shrugged and proceeded out of the door, Ekendra on his shoulder. His heart-mate whispered comforts in his ear and hovered around the insectoid's antenna. The knife in his skin-fold was starting to impale his leg and he adjusted it slightly.

As usual, the pair attracted much attetion. It was to be expected in their current state and Othar was able to ignore the second glances and whispered jokes with no more than a mild curse every so often. One pair of eyes attracted his attention however, and he turned both his sets on their owner. A tall, brown haired man wearing robes and looking not out-of-place in a land where magi were ten a gold piece stood apart from the crowd. The man was entirely unremarkable and yet Othar was sure he recognised him. A look of haste was plastered across the man's face as he exited the city, seemingly unaware of Othhar's following eyes. The echoing crunch of the gates drowned his thoughts for a second before he returned to the city.

He was very confused, but he wasn't about to let on to anyone else, least of all his heartmate.

'Lets find a healer' The pair chittered happily together for the first time in a long while as they walked towards the town centre.

((Spoils: One plain iron knife))

[Witchblade]

Xos - your score is the first set of numbers
Othar - your score is the second set of numbers

Storyline

Continuity: - 5, 5 Xos – I’m really not sure what was going on in this battle. You’ve obviously tried to tie it into some storyline with your character; however, a large part of me thinks you could have done a much, much better job at it. Felt lost throughout this whole machine thing, not to mention prevalida creatures and a lady made of crystal. Then, at the end, a simple battle that probably lasted no more than three minutes, had very little to no action in it, where Xos himself performed almost none of that action, suddenly decides his fate as the ancient creator of some machine. I’m not seeing it. Not at all. This may have been better performed in a quest where battles took place, or perhaps the pacing better thought out.

Othar – Reasons for going to the Citadel rarely need to be complicated, it’s a place to battle. Though yours was far less complex than Xos’, I found the fight at the beginning rather pointless. It did net your character a knife, but other than that, it felt like you threw it in there just to fill the opening post. Try not to put in needless or useless actions and write only what is important to the thread. Also, I would have liked some more information on Othar and his heart-mate, Ekendra, especially why they look like bugs or what the ‘transformation’ was that changed them.

Setting: - 3, 5 Xos – I cannot stress to you how much you need to work on your setting. You may just think this is a battle and it doesn’t need one, but you’re wrong. There are simple things you never described to the reader. Chaos, for instance, it’s some kind of crystal... I think, but what exactly does it look like? Also, don’t just say an explosion happened, write the explosion. Write the heat coming off of the flames, the debris and shrapnel flying through the air, the shockwave as it impacts your character. There’s so much you can do with setting to bring a story to life. I do have to admit, even though the setting was not greatly described, you did use it in your battle which has net you some points.

Othar – You definitely tried with your setting and there were a few points that I really liked. Post 6 has some good use of setting in it and I highly enjoyed reading it. Try to keep that up and throw in important pieces of setting throughout all of your posts. Also, don’t just do it for the sake of having setting, have your character notice strange things. When you walk around in your daily life, you eye will be drawn to cracks in the pavement, an odd pattern on the wall. Do the same thing with your character.

Pacing: - 4, 5 The battle didn’t really have very much pacing to it. Othar, you just chased Xos around while he explored the giant machine, seemingly oblivious to your character trying to kill him. There wasn’t much of a climax at all. You need to work on bringing the reader’s up to that moment when the character(s) die. Give them some kind of emotional investment so they actually feel something, or even give a damn, or at least make it interesting! You need to use your best descriptive techniques and writing techniques to bring that climactic, seat gripping tension into the battle. It’s not supposed to be ‘and now they’re dead’. Othar you did a slightly better job at pacing, mainly to do with keeping the battle going while Xos was running through machines and getting stuck in something for ten minutes.

Character

Dialogue: - 4, 5 Xos – your dialogue is very cliché and flat. You use dialogue as a method to explain everything to the reader, when you really don’t need to do that. Try letting the unfolding events of the storyline explains things, maybe give them some information through dialogue but have it more cryptic.

Othar – your character doesn’t have much in the way of verbal dialogue, though you do have some inner dialogue. I would think it more interesting to actually read some dialogue between Othar and Ekendra, but you didn’t include a single thing from the two of them. I don’t even know if you can talk actually.

Action: - 4, 4.5 Xos – It seemed very odd for your character to comment on killing Othar and then just do almost nothing but run away and explode two crystals. I would think some mastermind that created that machine would think of something better to do than that. I know he’s a ranged fighter, but he had plenty of opportunity to attack Othar, even from afar, but you merely chose to turn tail and flee. And worse, Xos barely even paid attention to his opponent. In Othar’s first post, he charges straight at Xos, in your following one, you have him jumping onto a conveyor belt completely ignoring the attack.

Othar – Your actions seemed true to your character. There were times when I thought you may be powergaming, particularly when that huge explosion happened supposedly right by your character’s feet and you made no mention of it in your following post. Try to keep your character’s limitations in mind. He is only a level 0, I don’t want to see him miraculously surviving big booms without a single scratch on his body.

Persona: - 4, 4 I don’t really feel like I got to know either of your characters very well. It’s hard to add in a lot of persona into a battle thread, but it is plausible, especially when it involves storyline like this one did. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting for the characters not to tear each other apart and tear the machine apart instead? I don’t know if it’s even in their personalities to do that, but it would have been good.

Writing Style

Mechanics: - 7, 6 There were a few spelling mistakes throughout the threads, but nothing exceedingly major. I just recommend, like always, that you reread your posts. Before you post them, after you post them, before you write your next post, whenever is good for you. Othar, try not to use the same words over and over again, the reader starts focusing on them and not in a good way. Also, watch you for redundant sentences like ‘Charging towards the unwitting man, he bounded towards him.’ It’s the same thing.

Technique: - 3, 3 Neither of you used any literary techniques that I could find. I would suggest working on the techniques of your own writing though, you’ll notice your stories pop off the page the more you perfect your own technique. It may also help bring your characters to life.

Clarity: - 6, 6 Besides some missing actions, things were clear.

Wild Card: - 4, 4 I feel like this battle could have been done so much better. There was good potential for interesting storyline here, but you just did the simple thing and fought, and not a very good fight either.

Totals:

Xos – 40
Othar – 47.5

The winner is Othar! Congratulations! ^_^

Rewards:

Othar receives 675 experience and 100 GP!
Xos receives 200 experience and 200 GP!

Othar also receives the simple, iron knife that he requested.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and Gp added!