New blood in town [open to all]

[Anteni]

The tavern was alive with color and movement, mixing together like in a dream to form malleable objects and incoherent memories. Alcohol massaged Anteni’s thoughts and vision; he forgot the name of the place in which he was, he forgot the faces of those around him, he forgot all of the immediate past. The young man was seated at one of the pub’s long tables, populated by several patrons laughing and drinking merrily. Anteni was beyond that point, though, sitting aloof. His mind was swimming in sloppy drunkenness; the vapors of alcohol seemed to drift out of his throat and burn his nose hairs every few moments. He could not even remember what he started the night out with, but a frothy mug of ale sat before him now. The taste was not there – just the urge to empty the glass for the sake of drinking.

As of now, his arms were folded and he sat comfortably at one of the wooden chairs. Nothing in particular rested in his gaze, meandering about the room and pausing as liquid thoughts invaded his impulses. Why was he here? Because the family turned to shit. What was he going to do here? Find a job. Doing what? Eh… Anteni sniffled and grunted with this unpleasant reminder. Doing what, doing what. All he ever knew was the Yarborough coast – here in the city of Radasanth he sat, as drunk as the hardiest sailor, not knowing where he was heading. No where but broke, he thought with a huff, trying to remember just how much he had drank.

A resolve suddenly washed over him, a resolve of such a kind found only in the blood of wasted men. He would find a job. Now. Anteni stood up, located the door within a few moments, and pushed forward through the hazy warmth of the tavern. As he burst forth into the night, the air without seemed as a bucket of water compared to the soupy air within. The young Coronian began to meander down the cobblestone street; he was utterly oblivious to the lack of people, as well as to the fellow that had exited the bar soon after him. Anteni placed a hand on the cool stone of a building, and proceeded to empty his stomach onto the stones of the road. A soft noise, a glint of moonlight was all the warning he needed.

Anteni staggered backwards as the dagger grazed his arm. A slight pinch – nothing more was felt, thanks to the buffer of alcohol between his nerves. Even so, his first instinct was, of course, rage. Before he could withdraw his sword from its scabbard, though, the rogue had advanced with several slashes. Anteni could not tell at the time, but the scrawny, cloaked fellow was just corralling the coastal boy toward an alley. Even the attempts, though, boiled Anteni’s blood: with a roar, and in a surprisingly quick gesture for such a drunk man, his short sword was out of its sheathe and was cutting the air in a wide arc before him. The thief, a young novice himself, feebly brought his dagger to bear against Anteni’s dangerously vicious attack; the clang of steel knocked the weapons from both men’s hands, and the tools of death hit the cobblestone with a clatter. Having hedged all his bets on Anteni paying for his next meal, the rogue was not dismayed. He lunged forth at the drunkard with both hands wrapping about his neck, and the two fell partly into an alley, where they proceeded to grapple.

Even the anger of a drunken stupor was not enough juice to allow Anteni to pry this wiry thief off of his neck. His head began to throb as his vision became even more blurry, and a deep pain, almost soothing, in a sense, began to originate from his chest.

[Anteni]

OOC: Just gonna keep this rolling… anyone is still free to join. If no one does, I’ll just continue this as a solo and submit it for judging.


It is very rare, in fact, for a drunk to be in a situation of such dire consequence that sobriety forces itself upon him or her. It is usually just a splash of coherent thought, a quick gasp of air, a peek above the murky surface of booze-induced stupor. It is refreshing and enlightening, but of course, almost never enough to alter the situation that said drunks finds himself in. It is more saddening, really; with that fleeting sense of soberness comes a full realization of just what is in store; a moment later, one is pulled back under into the depths by the weight of drunken stupidity. For Anteni, this moment consisted of but a thought.

I’m going to die.

That soothing pain had begun to wash through him and sight was no longer a functioning sense. Sleep was calling him – all he needed to do was relax, to keep his eyes shut, to just really relax… no movement… forget the hands around his neck… no need to pull them off… it wasn’t important, he could deal with it later, when he awoke… just sleep.

The effort of the thief was emitted in quiet grunts as he squeezed tighter and jerked his arms. Anteni dropped his hands from the attacker’s wrists, and a devilish smile began to creep across the man’s face; his meal would be free tonight. That smirk was still plastered to his face when a pommel cracked the back of his skull, and remained there as his blood began to seep through his hair onto the cobblestones. By this point, Anteni was still conscious, but hardly so. He could faintly hear, as from the back of a deep, deep cavern, the ruffling of clothes and bodies, and a heavy weight was taken from his chest. In correlation, the pressuring spell of sleep began to dissipate as air nourished the Coronian’s deprived mind.

He felt the warm touch of a person, then his body being lifted, then the cool rock of a nearby building; everything was changing so quickly but all he could do was try to open his eyes. With much effort, Anteni brought his hand to his face, just to touch it at first; then he rubbed his eyes, and jaw, and nose, and he felt reality and its memories begin to return. Finally, a crack of light entered his eyes; the relative brightness of moonlit cobblestones flooded his vision and a headache without parallel settled into cranium.

“Uhhg… ghaa… ehh… fuck,” he mumbled. What was he doing outside? Doing what. “Daaamnit,” he groaned, “I need a job.”

Anteni began to push off from the building but suddenly felt himself falling rapidly toward the ground. It was as if his legs refused to move along with his upper torso – luckily, he was suspended in air, and propped back against the stone structure. For the first time, he caught a glimpse of a leg beside him. Anteni slowly turned his head – a very painful movement – and saw a man standing there, crossed arms, wide stance, and a strange look of sorrow, pity, and disgust defining him.

“You in’t gon find werk like that, fella,” said the stranger in a guttural voice. “I weren’t gon help ya… but I’ve bin in uh simler state az’ya, so I did. Beside, I git a free dagger out’it, mmh.”

As this seemingly foreign language tried to penetrate Anteni’s cognizance, the coastal kid, in turn, tried to focus on the features of this man through his drunken vision and the haze of night.

“I’iz in d’bar… saw’ya…” The man saw he was not getting through to Anteni. “Hmph.” He took the sword he found on the ground and put it in the boy’s sheath. “C’mon, sober up wi’me and me frenz back in’teh tavern.”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Asleep was a state that had eluded the nymph for as long as she had been out of the ocean. With eyes that were accustomed to the darkness of deep water, the night was a time as intriguing to Twyla as the day. All sorts of fascinating things went on while most people were sleeping, usually things that were dark and sinister or secretive and shameful. It was at night that the researcher found fodder for her most perceptive remarks on humanity for her record of the present. Most nights held characters and events worthy of documentation, and tonight was proving to be no different.

"Very interesting," Twyla murmured, her head tilting to the side to find a better angle of the situation that was brewing before her. She was perched on an old crate, legs daintily crossed beneath her clinging robes, back resting against the wall of a bakery that would be closed until the pink light of dawn banished the shadows of the eaves under which she sat. One hand rested lightly against her throat, fingers in contact with a silver medallion that gleamed in the faint moonlight.

The nymph's hood was pulled over her face, but her eyes, looking from beneath the purple hem, were focused on the scene that was unfolding in an alley on the other side of the street. She had noticed the young man as he had made his stumbling way out of the tavern down the street, staggering past her on the other side of the road without noticing her shadowed presence. When the thief had attacked the boy, herding him into the even darker alley, she had pulled out her medallion to make a note of his predicament.

Humans, it seems, lack the altruistic kindness that usually discriminates sentient beings from instinct-driven predators. The strong prey on the weak as sharks prey on wounded dolphins. One human will kill another for the coins in his purse, even if those coins were perhaps being taken to a physician to pay for a loved one's much-needed medicine. Humans are, to put it briefly, unbelievably selfish. Even now I watch as one man kills another, the victim a staggering wretch who is obviously wounded, diseased, or insane. They grapple shortly, but the prey is clearly no match for the predator.

Twyla paused, her free hand rising to tap lightly against her lips in thought as a new figure joined the brawl, one who stepped from the shadows to attack the attacker with the pommel of a sword.

And yet, the nymph continued, her mind again focusing on the necklace, the invalid is rescued. A useless rescue, perhaps, as the injured youth seems to be near to death anyway, but a kind gesture nonetheless. The rescuer appears to be human. His motivation must be scavenging. With the boy dead, all he would have to do is take care of the attacker, and then he would have two corpses to loot. Or perhaps, she amended, watching as the tall man lifted the boy to his feet, he is a slave trader, hoping to save the specimen for the black market.

Or maybe, the Elemental said into her mind from where he lay in a coiled heap on the ground beside her crate, he just wanted to save a young boy's life.

That's silly, Twyla snapped, lifting her fingers from the medallion so that her thoughts went unrecorded. The only reason one man would help another is so that the former could get something in return from the latter. It's a basic principle of humanity.

Not all humans are as selfish as you would like to believe, the green dragon said, his head still resting on his tail. Linked as they were, he could see all of the drama across the street through her eyes.

What do you know of humanity? she demanded, casting a disdainful glance onto the Elemental beside her. You've spent the last thousand years in a demon's jar.

And you've spent them killing humans before you'd even gotten to know them, he retorted, his usually placid voice tinged with anger.

"I don't need to know them," she spat aloud. "They're all the same!"

With an angry growl the nymph pushed herself off of the crate and strode across the street, tucking her medallion into her dress as she marched forward. She stopped at the mouth of the alley, hands on her hips and lips set in a determined line.

Listen to this, you ignorant viper.

"Tell me this, human," she commanded in a ringing voice, looking to the man who stood before the hunched boy. "Why did you intefere with the affairs of the weakling?"

[Anteni]

Anteni didn’t really hear the stranger speaking to him; his focus was placed on the dead rogue. The dark cobblestone of the alley were stained darker still by the blood flowing from his skull. Mixed emotions clamored amongst intoxicated impulses; Anteni was angry and elated, confused and saddened. In that montage-like blur of the immediate past, this man’s desperate and young face had been locked with that of the Coronian’s own. This man would have killed him… and yet, Anteni could feel his sorrow rising as the thief’s life coated the alleyway and an air of death settled over the body. Between the mixing emotions, the mixing alcohol, and a near death experience, the stomach of the young man emptied itself, once more, upon the ground. As he purged himself, the distinct voice of a woman pierced the night air.

“Tell… why… weakling?”

Anteni straightened himself and looked in confusion toward the voice, at which point stood a cloaked figure that melted serenely into the night scene. Both men stared at the figure in silence, for both were caught off-guard by her presence, and the older drunk was baffled by her question. The young coastal man tried to see past the darkness of the hood, but failed; in his drunkenness, even the sound of a woman elicited much curiosity on his part. Finding no pretty face to gaze upon, and disinterested in the weird appearance of the figure, he found his gaze pulled back to the dead human being laying on the alleyway. Fifty-proof tears began to well up in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the drunken bar-goer continued to eye the girl curiously. He was not as old as he was for no reason: strange encounters such as this did not usually end well, according to his past. At least she spoke first, instead of sneaking up and stabbing him in the back. Although, that would not be the worst of fates, he knew.

“Erh… coz it ‘uhz the right thin’ tah do… don’t yer thinka?” The tavern patron, Brix, as he was called, continued to look upon the short woman with skepticism and caution, and even a bit of anger. “I git a queshun fer you: whyah di’nt yah intafer wit’ t’is weaklin’?”

Before she could answer, Anteni stumbled across the alleyway and propped himself up against the other building. He let out a quiet burp and sniffled before saying what he had to say. “Can ya help him?” The Coronian half-heartedly gestured to the dead man on the ground. “Are ya a healer? I mean, yer a woman, yeah?” His logic was obviously not the sharpest it had ever been, but he drunkenly, expectantly, gazed into the darkness of the hood.

[Nymph and Dragon]

It took a moment for the nymph to decipher the older man's babbling, but by the time she had translated his question and opened her mouth to retort, the younger boy had moved closer to her, staggering against the wall and speaking in a slur. Twyla took a half-step back as his words carried the foul scent of sweat, vomit, and alcohol to her face. She eyed the boy with distaste, tempted to throw back her hood so that he could see just how disgusted with him she was.

"No, you moron," she said to the boy in an icy tone. "I'm not a healer and I'm not a woman." The last word came out with more condescension than she had intended. "The weaker sex," they were called. There was no way that she would identify with the weaker aspect of any race, let alone one as miserable as that of humans. "And even if I was I wouldn't help him."

The young man's dark gaze was fixed on her, drops of puke hanging from his sparse beard. Twyla fought the disgust that made her want to lash out against him.

Humans are so nasty,she thought to the Elemental. I wish you were poisonous so that you could kill him.

I'm not a killer, the green dragon responded indignantly. And I bear the boy no malice. He's drunk, can't you tell? Humans are always unstable when they've consumed alcohol.

Is the old one skunked too?

Yes, but not quite as badly as the boy.

She turned her gaze to the older man, eyes blazing as she remembered the challenge she had deteced in his words. "And I wouldn't help him for the same reason that I didn't help that dimwitted lout whom he was trying to kill. You humans are like rodents; kill one and another will simply spring up in its place. I was doing your species a favor by letting the weak imbecile get killed off before he could reproduce. Now," she turned a significant glance at the puddle of vomit that was streaming between the cobbles, "your children will probably end up marrying one of his and aid in the perpetuation of the wretchedness of your race."

Still angry, Twyla turned back to the inebriated boy. "And why would you want me to save that scoundrel's life? Aside from the fact that he was trying to kill you, even if I could bring him back to life, he'd be hung for attempted murder, would he not?" A thought occured to the nymph and her eyes narrowed beneath her hood. "Or do you want the ruffian to live so that he can brought to justice in the form of a more painful, long-lasting execution?"

See that, viper, Twyla crowed triumphantly to the dragon. The dead human's a criminal, the old man's evading my question, and the young one's an intoxicated sadist. How's that for a fair representation of humanity?

[Anteni]

Brix crossed his arms and eyed suspiciously the stranger at the mouth of the alley. The moonlight reflected off the buildings behind and the cloak upon her, but he could not make out what sort of creature she was. Certainly not human, he concluded. The unsung hero, though he did not recognize himself as such, glanced at the boy, who had turned his attention back to the dead street rat following the disappointing rebuttal of the creature. Better that he dunt mouth off, thought the man. For that reason, after she addressed Anteni once more, Brix butted in to answer. He would have to be careful or else he could provoke the anger of who-knows-what.

“H’ve ya evah hurd of brutherhud? Of camaraderie?” Brix pressed forward a step, pulling Anteni close and putting his arm around him. He felt a tinge of pride swell up within him in the face of such criticism of his race. “Of kindness, of sacrifice?”

The moonlight touched upon Brix’s face, angular and pudgy at the same time. The unshaven hairs of a long day shrouded his jaw in dark brown, and matted, shoulder-length hair of the same color streaked over his countenance. Beneath the hairiness, though, stood out two lucid eyes that could not hide emotion for the life of him. On this particular night, distrust burned through the green orbs.

“Da boy’s drunk, kay? Ya dunt know him, dunt pretend tah. Same go’z fer meh, ‘n all us humans. I’ll help ‘im if I wanna – he’z mah brothah, kay? Dat guy dere,” gesturing toward the dead man, “din’t seem tah t’ink so, so’z hi'z not mah brothah, git it?” Glaring at the darkness beneath the hood, Brix was unable to make out any solid features of the figure before him. Whuz she after, he wondered furiously. “Now, if yah’d pleez step aside, so’z me ‘n mah brothah could git back inside.”

Meanwhile, Anteni was staring at the wall beside him; the words of the woman – no, that’s not what she was, for some reason – resounded in his mind. The booze was running heavily through his blood, but after vomiting and having a near-death experience, sobriety was creeping into his thought process. Letting much of his weight sink into the comforting grip of the man beside him, Anteni turned his gaze pointedly back to the stranger. He could not understand her. “Is it wrong to simply want a man to be alive rather than dead?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

A flash of insight tore through the nymph's thoughts as she translated the old warrior's words. Her fingers started to rise involuntarily to her throat, but she forced herself to keep them at her side.

They're related! His reason for rescue is because of a shared bloodline. Twyla felt the strong urge to find a quiet place to sit down and record this new development in her observation of human motivations, but again she restrained her scholarly enthusiasm, opting instead to continue discourse with the specimen in the hopes of gleaning aneven more profound tidbit. This one's not at all like a shark . . . he's more like an orca with a responsibility for his siblings.

The thought reminded her of her own sisters, the Sirens that had been her only companions in the ocean. Her throat closed as she pictured their faces, remembering the uncounted days that they had spent together, searching the waters for human-carrying vessels to capsize. Then her mind jumped suddenly to the last time she had seen them, shrieking and throwing rocks at her from the waves as she stumbled away from them and the ocean, naked and confused with only the loathed Elemental crawling at her side.

Not a fair trade at all, she thought with a pout. I lose my home, my family, my livelihood, and all I get in return is a useless little snake.

You should pay attention when someone's talking to you, piped the voice of the Elemental, who was tactfully ignoring her insult. He just asked you to move.

He wants me to move? Anger rose again in the nymph's throat. What, is he afraid to come near me? Does he think that I'll give him some sort of disease? You're telepathic, tell me what he's thinking.

I've told you before; the minds of men are their own.

Twyla considered the irony of the situation. The man was intent on defending the boy, even from a "woman" who was smaller and obviously unarmed. He actually considered her a threat! It had been a while since a man had looked upon her with fear.

You're a useless worm, she said to the dragon before opening her mouth to speak. She had nearly begun a lengthy tirade on the injustice of his assumptions when the drunken boy again interrupted her, though this time his voice seemed nominally more lucid.

“Is it wrong to simply want a man to be alive rather than dead?”he asked.

A burst of derisive laughter left the nymph's lips. "When his death would be more profitable for society at large, then yes, there is something wrong with that." She eyed the men before her, one protective and strong, the other a senseless weakling. "And why would you assume that he would want to live, anyway? If he's fallen to the level of mugging drunken idiots outside of seedy taverns, don't you think that death would be a kind way to preserve what little pride he may have had left?"

[Anteni]

The stranger’s words rung an icy bell within Anteni’s soul; in fact, he visibly shivered, though the night was not cold. She was right. Right? No… perhaps? Frustration boiled to the fore of the Coronian’s inebriated mind; he looked back upon the dead body, as if an answer was waiting there. Is his death a good thing?

For a long while, Anteni had managed to maintain his optimism and his sense of a better future. And then he got to Radasanth, to a bar, to a glass of ale. Now a depression was settling upon his thoughts, and erupting forth in a wave of questions was a sadness, glowing with frustrated anger, reminding him of minutes before. Of course it was a good thing; I could be dead right now. The thought itself was vague and half-formed, unable to come fully together in the torrent of alcohol, but that did not prevent a sinking feeling from entering his stomach. Why did that rogue try to kill him? He could be bleeding out upon the cobbles right now, for what? For some gold, it would seem? Why?

It wasn’t all his fault, Anteni pleaded with himself. He was just hungry, probably, maddened, perhaps, by an empty stomach and a cruel city. The woman’s degrading laugh echoed in his thoughts. "Why would you assume that he would want to live?" she had asked. Why? Because he’d kill me to survive... thought the drunk. A hurtful question ripped through his intoxicated thoughts to make itself heard, despite Anteni’s reservations against it. Is that wrong? After all, the drunken young man was just another directionless individual right now, detached from his own body and mind, swimming in recreational poison. It was hard for Anteni to concentrate on the question, though, for a dead man laid behind him… and that laugh before him. Still, it echoed, taunting and infuriating and confusing.

The Coronian stepped forth from under the arm of Brix, who had been thoroughly disappointed, and worried, by Anteni’s senseless question; the boy placed a hand on the cool stone of a building as he gazed into the fathomless black of the hood; he could not make out any eyes, which he so longed to see. “Why… why are you, so cold?”

[Nymph and Dragon]

Twyla rolled her eyes and held back a sigh as the drunk sputtered another idiotic question. What was in that alcohol that would make a person so pathetically emotional?

Or was he like this before he drank?

Suppressing a shudder of revulsion the nymph replied, "Don't mistake logic and reason for coldness. If my blood could heal him, would you want me to slit my throat and make him drink it to bring him back to life?" She paused for breath and looked from one man to the other, then said before either could open their mouth, " Why do you evade the truth? His death is a good thing for you, and probably a good thing for him too, so why lament it? Why shed tears over a man who was going to shed your blood?"

Throwing up her hands in disgust, Twyla began to pace across the mouth of the alley, moving too quickly to wait for a reply.

"I usually don't concern myself with the education of the moronic," she said as she paced, "but I'm going to help you learn the truth about your own race."

She stopped suddenly, brain still racing while her hands rested on her hips. Her robes fluttered around her feet as she stopped, staring for only a second at the men before saying,

"I propose a test. A test to see whether your bleeding-heart sentiments toward humanity are warranted. I'll show you the truth about your fellow mankind so that once you have come to fully understand the inner nature of your species, you will be able to see this man's death as it should properly be viewed; as a mercy not only to him, but also to the rest of the world."

Head thrown high, the nymph felt a bubble of excitement rise in her chest.

Finally, a real-life application of my studies!

What if he proves you wrong? the Elemental questioned.

Are you kidding? I've been studying this species for long enough to know that there is absolutely no way that I can lose.

[Anteni]

A pain streaked joyfully through Anteni’s body as he inhaled slowly; his throat was sore and his lungs ached. Even with the pain-relieving liquor swimming in his veins, the young man felt a hurt in his core—a feeling of fleeting death. Anteni breathed in deeply: the crisp night air seemed to carry with it the essence of health, for it nourished his mind and cooled his burning lungs. Despite the alcohol and the distracting pain he tried to remain focused upon the feminine person’s words, though he was disappointed by her reference to “logic and reason.” His half-baked thoughts immediately began to accuse her of hiding behind rationality while she excused atrocities, but with the enthusiasm of a child, the age-old argument about balance of emotion and logic began to tie his thought processes into fathomless knots.

Amidst the mental labyrinth, his senses continued straining to listen to the stranger. “Why lament it?” he heard. “Why shed tears?” The probing questions cut through some of the entanglements of his mind, though not quick enough for a response to be made before she began to pace back and forth, and continue to speak her seemingly callous impulses. Why? Because he’s human… because he is I, I am he, thought the Coronian, though the intuition did not express itself in lucid words that he could have spoken aloud, even if he had the chance.

Anteni heard speak of “education” and if his ears could have sprung up like those of a hound, they would have. Despite a certain laziness brought on with drunkenness, the young man was fully tempted by the prospect of learning something. Although, was there really something to learn from this person? He had to wonder. Assured by his logic, currently wed to emotion by the sanctity of intoxication, Anteni was certain that he did not care for her chilling flavor of “logic and reason.” And there was a “test” too? Well, this was certainly something to think about for the boy. He tried to remove himself from the immediacy of the request by, instead, turning his eyes and thoughts to the sky. The moon was nowhere in sight, for it was hidden by the invisible hand of dark clouds; only the dull light of lanterns and magical sources could be seen, reflected off the back of the vaporous hands that greedily cupped the moon. The Coronian was truly intrigued; perhaps he would not agree with this person’s lesson, though he could still discover something. Better yet, perhaps there was something he could teach her.

Standing beside the dazing boy, Brix was worried. What had he gotten himself into here? “A test” administered by an unknown, shady creature? Surely sounded like a trap to the skeptical patron. A monstrous shape-shifting and soul-eating demon could be grinning under that hood. Or worse. Brix tried to shake off his pessimism; he would stand by his words earlier, especially in face of this insulting stranger. He had saved this boy once, and he would not abandon him now; though, if the young man was insistent on following the path of death, Brix would certainly not follow. The impassioned ramblings thus far had created a tinge of worry in the older man’s mind.

The aspiring student-soldier turned his sight away from the heavens and to the similar darkness of the stranger’s hood. Could be a trap, he thought prudently. After all, despite the resemblance of her being human, this individual indirectly denied such. And to top that, there seemed to be little room for appreciation of Anteni’s kind. Still, something about her suggested that she was after the same thing as he himself: knowledge, experience, understanding. Though he was still too drunk to consider that he had little idea what sort of creature she was, he could sense a sincere desire from her to impress knowledge upon him. What he did not ponder was that she may have also had a sincere desire to consume his brains after doing so. Debating silently in his thoughts and preparing his response, as was necessary due to his delayed cognizance, Anteni could not help but notice the light of the moon as it struggled forth from the selfish hands of night; perhaps that celestial body was as curious as he.

“I’ll try’yer test,” said the boy definitively.

After waiting so long for such a quick reply, the stranger was probably frustrated and relieved upon hearing the acceptance. However, the feeling lasted but a moment.

“No! Not yit boy,” interjected Brix. “Farst: I wunt yah tah ‘splain whuz’it ‘bout, kay? Alzo, whut if we win?” The tavern-goer thought about his question for little more than a second. “Or looz?”

Sorry, quick notice: you can roleplay the agreement of both guys.

[Nymph and Dragon]

Twyla felt her enthusiasm drain away as the men stared at her blankly after her proposal. Then the younger one responded, his voice more firm and decisive than it had been before.

See? she smirked to the Elemental. That's another thing about humans. They can't resist a good challenge.

"No! Not yit boy. Farst: I wunt yah tah ‘splain whuz’it ‘bout, kay? Alzo, whut if we win? . . .Or looz?”

Twyla only stared uncomprehendingly at the man for a few seconds, her mind quickly growing accustomed to his odd drawl. Then she crossed one arm over her chest and lifted the other hand to tap her fingers against her chin.

"Very good point, Elder Brother," she conceded pensively. "What good is a competition if there is no prize? There's no point in having a gamble if there are no stakes! Of course, I doubt there is anything that you could give me that I would actually want . . ."

I think he's referring more to the prize that they'll get if they win, the dragon said from where he sat in the shadows on the side of the alley.

Don't be absurd, she admonished scornfully. They're not stupid enough to think they'll beat me . . . well, maybe they are.

"When I win, you shall give me . . . well, all I really want is the satisfaction of knowing that your foolish, self-righteous notions about humanity have been destroyed." She considered proposing that the losers would become the slaves of the winner,a smile breaking across her face at the thought of the reactions she would incite with a procession of manacled slaves trailing after her. Then she thought of how wary the big man was of her and how he stared so distrustfully at her hooded face.

They'd never go for it, the Elemental concurred emphatically.

Sure they would, she retorted. The young one's just itching for the chance to enslave himself. He already agreed to my challenge before I even gave the terms.

Come on, Twyla, he's drunk.

That's another problem with them.she decided with a sad sigh. Humans are just no fun unless they're inebriated.

The nymph turned her attention back to the men. "The game is this: we shall set up certain situations that require one of your species to make a moral decision. We each shall state our own opinion on what the reaction of the test subject will be. We shall then observe the human's response, and whoever was closest in their guess will score a point. And at the end of three tests, the winner shall be declared, and shall have the joy of making the losers eat crow." Twyla stopped to breathe, then continued, "Do we have a deal?"

After a moment of heavy silence, the older man glanced down at the boy who stood unsteadily beside him. His forehead was wrinkled in worried thought, but he fixed green eyes onto the hooded face of the nymph and nodded firmly, his mouth set in a disapproving line.

"Excellent," Twyla purred. She lifted her face to glance at the sky, noting the sliver of moon that peeked coyly from behind the clouds. Morning was still a short time away, but it might be a while until the nymph was able to get away from the men. Making a quick decision, she lowered her head and looked back at the men.

"Since your little brother there seems to still be lacking some of his wits, we shall postpone the commencement of the game until morning. At dawn we will meet at the bakery across the street, and I hope that by then the drunken idiot will have decided to come out of his inebriated state. A mind full of alcohol can't be filled with knowledge!"

Clasping her hands on front of her, the nymph tilted her head in a slight bow, then turned and strode swiftly out of the alley.

Where's the closest body of fresh water? She asked the Elemental, sensing his presence as he crawled across the ground after her.

There's a small fountain in the garden of a mansion a few miles east of here, he reported. If you pick up your pace you can make it there and have time for a good swim before you have to come back.

When I want your input, viper, I'll summon a demon to wring it out of your scaly neck. She cast a glare at the undulating dragon beside her. Why don't you go back to your little realm and eat poisionous mushrooms? I don't need you until tomorrow.

With an acquiescent cock of the head, the Elemetal disappeared from the dusty street. Twyla glanced again at the empty ground beside her, the dragon's presence in her mind suddenly distant and unreachable.

"Stupid snake," she muttered. An unexpected feeling of loneliness rushed into her, but the nymph crushed the emotion with a lengthened stride. She considered calling the dragon back to guide her to the pool, but decided instead to find it on her own. It was bad policy to depend on anything or anyone other than herself, and it would be a dry day in the ocean before she admitted to needing help from the Elemental.

Besides, she justified with a slight smile as her steps carried her out of the city slums and into one of the upper-class regions of the city, Being alone will give me time to think up my challenges.

[Nymph and Dragon]

((Anteni is MIA, so this is my last post.))

The cloying scent of fresh bread suffocated Twyla's nose, but she doggedly refused to move from atop her crate outside the bakery. Her legs were folded beneath her, arms crossed tightly over her chest as she rested her back against the wall behind her, one finger tapping impatiently on the opposite arm. The air was warm and dry and the early-afternoon sun beamed pleasantly down on the languid village. Twyla was pissed.

There was a slight popping noise on the ground beside her crate, accompanied by a twinge in her chest, but the nymph kept her gaze firmly focused on the alley across the street. She heard the whispering of scales across cobbles, but it wasn't until claws scratched on wood that she turned her head to cast a despising look onto the Elemental at her side.

"Stay on the ground where you belong," she ordered tersely. The snake-sized dragon looked up at her, forearms resting against the side of the crate from where it had been sharpening its claws on the wood like a cat.

Rudeness isn't necessary, its voice echoed petulantly in her mind.

"But it is deserved. What took you so long to get here, anyway?"

I sensed your discomfort and came to see if there was anything I could do for you.

"You can get the hell out of my mind, for starters," she snapped. An elderly woman who had been sweeping the threshhold of her shop was staring curiously at Twyla, so she forced herself to take a deep breath and returned her gaze to the street. The Elemental curled into a loop on the ground with its head resting on its forked tail, and for a moment the atmosphere was something akin to peaceful.

So . . . where are those men?

Twyla's tightly-strung nerves snapped. "How the hell should I know? Probably getting drunk again in a tavern down the street or lying dead in a pool of their own vomit. Why the hell should I care? They're the ones who passed up on the opportunity of a lifetime!" She smacked her fist onto the surface of the crate, eyes blazing as she continued her rant in a voice that grew increasingly louder. "I could have taught them a lesson that would have completely revolutionized their lives. They would have left my presence filled with insight, knowledge, and a heck of a lot more intelligence than they'd started with last night. I would have opened their eyes to the world around them, shown them things they would never have imagined, crammed the truth about their pathetic species so far down their throat that they'd have to slit open their own bellies to get rid of it. I . . . they . . . . I could have made them better men!"

A heavy moment of silence followed this pronouncement as the nymph slowly lowered her arms and the stopped pedestrians resumed their courses. Warmth suffused her cheeks and she quickly pulled her hood farther over her face, heaving a sigh as she slumped back against the wall.

I suppose they didn't want to become better men, the Elemental supplied optimistically.

"That's another thing that's wrong with humans," she muttered bitterly. "The only things they have ambition for are gold, women, and power."

Maybe your truth was too much to handle.

"Maybe they were just drunken idiots who woke up this morning with no recollection of what happened last night."

Are we going to wait longer for them?

Twyla shook her head irritably. "They're definitely not worth it. I think I've gleaned all I can from this pathetic little town, anyway."

Moments later the nymph was walking out of the village, the shimmering green dragon crawling in the dust beside her. She frowned as she strode, muttering angrily about the manners of mankind, and the Elemental wisely let her diatribe without comment. A few miles down the street, Twyla stopped walking and looked back over her shoulder, even though the town they'd left was already out of view. Her eyes were bright and she smiled with cold satisfaction. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Reaching up one hand up to rest against her silver medallion, Twyla smirked as she continued her part of the record being compiled of the history of mankind.

Humans have, once again, proven themselves to be completely predictable. After meeting two specimens of said species and offering to impart upon them a fragment of my knowledge and insight into the infrastructure of their race, I have come to the appointed meeting place and, after six hours of patient waiting, have found myself to be, as they put it "stood up." Though my instinct is to be affronted by such an insult, common sense tells me that I have not the right to expect such lowly beings to adhere to their word. One does not expect a trout to follow through on all of its spoken plans, so how could one expect responsibility from men? It seems that perhaps I was the foolish one, to expect so much from mere humanity . . .

[Nein]

“Cute.”

Rotten, sun-dried, withered and rather fishy did have the tendency to rouse Drenn.

If only that were true, a belated hope of his character, as he carefully made his way around the fish vendor. Twenty other identical stands littered the docking piers and the smell was becoming rather overwhelming to one so foreign. Drenn was hungry, sure, but not that hungry. Avoiding any more unwanted interruptions, he left on an expression of disgust before heading out of the small trading market, appreciative of the winding dirt road that faced him now.

Not too impressed, Drenn assumed Corone had more to offer than bad seafood.


Of course it had more to offer.

Well, it should have more to offer…


Did it?

Sand is rather useless.

Little less than inner conflict between his purpose of monetary gain here, and the unfertile terrain of the land he left behind, Drenn remained unconvinced of his own awkwardly forced optimism and let his thoughts wander as he did the trails of Corone.

Perhaps it was common for dark men in foreign cloth to wander around; no one took notice as he dissapeared into the new and quite odd world.

Almost.



~*~


Convincing oneself of a nap deserved was fairly easy, which could explain why Drenn now lay comfortably beneath a large overhanging tree, a smug smile upon his youthful face and a yawn deep in his belly. Bright arctic eyes followed movement even despite the mess of hair still unkempt from rest. Upon this moment of relaxation intruded a cloaked figure on the road nearby, and…

A dragon?

It was, in fact, a rather small version of the mythical creatures he had heard about so often as a child and now dismissed as legend. Strange that such an image would come after sleep, and not during, but Drenn could only help to look on and smile at his own imagination; completely oblivious to the reality of the situation.

“Cute.”

[Witchblade]

Storyline

Continuity: - 4 The story started out rather interesting to the reader and I could have seen this thread getting high scores if things had kept going in the direction they were. Unfortunately the thread never was finished so this category and the others that follow it will all be affected to a certain extent because of that.

This thread started off in a bar, typical good place for characters to start and meet however no one really does do that since Anteni stumbles drunkenly from the bar and into the street, getting attacked by a nameless patron following him. The conflict that arises after this when Twyla arrives does tend to catch the readers eyes as she is a very interesting characters and she is done in an interesting way that always reflects, sometimes incorrectly and humorous, on the other actions of the characters. It’s a good tool to use while writing, just make sure never to overuse it.

Setting: - 8 Setting was done marvellously throughout the entire thread, though short it may have been, especially by Anteni. There were always a few lines of setting thrown out to the reader to keep them grounded into the here and now without leaving them wandering off in space. Nymph you did this as well, though your posts were not as rich with setting as Anteni’s they were none the less there.

Pacing: - 5 The pacing was good, of course since there was not very much of an ending to the quest there aren’t going to be high scores here. Nymph, you did try to wrap it up with your last post and you didn’t do a bad job with that, however it is missing the other interaction of Anteni. Nein’s last post in the quest was interesting because it kind of wrapped things up from a third party’s point of view. It’s hard to explain, his character is just sitting there watching Twyla go by but he doesn’t interact with her, so it’s like a passing thought as the story ends.

Character

Dialogue: - 8 The dialogue was great; the contrast between Twyla, Anteni and Brix was very well done. You have two characters that can speak fluent common and very well at that, even while drunk, and you have one tavern patron who has an extremely thick and heavy accent. It does however make the reader stop and pause as they sound out the words before them to figure out what they are. This isn’t horrendously bad, however if the reader had to continue to do this for a very long time it could very easily annoy them, so make sure that you use speech like this sparring. Not to mention the mental dialogue that Twyla had was very well done as well and really took the reader into her head in a more direct way than the normal third person perspective that is being written out.

Actions: - 6 The actions of the characters seemed true enough to their own personalities, especially Twyla who stayed true to her distrusting and hateful views of humanity throughout the short thread. I really can’t say too much in this category since there wasn’t enough time to really get to know the characters and read about their actions.

Persona: - 6 The personality of the characters were very interesting, even Brix had a very vibrant personality that came out once the words started flowing from his mouth. Twyla had a very harsh, almost sharp, to the point personality that always wanted to see her proven right and everyone else proven wrong, not to mention she doesn’t seem to like humanity at all and I like that. The personality of Anteni was good and so were his thoughts and emotions, however the constant reminder of his drunken state was unnecessary to the reader. They already know he’s drunk and putting in little reminders here and there is fine but when you go in depth into why he’s thinking like that or the only reason he’s doing this is because he’s intoxicated the reader becomes annoyed. They already know he’s intoxicated, don’t keep telling them over and over again.

Writing Style

Mechanics: - 8 I didn’t spot any glaring spelling or grammatical mistakes through any of your posts. I did notice that from time to time, Anteni, you write rather long sentences. They’re not grammatically incorrect, they are not run on sentences, however, that doesn’t mean they aren’t a little awkward in their length to the reader.

Technique: - 3 I did not spot the use of any kind of advanced techniques in the thread.

Clarity: - 9 Crisp and clear, like the morning as the sun peeks over the horizon. All of your writing was clear to the reader and never once was there a moment of confusion on the readers end.

Wild Card: - 5 This started off like a good quest and I would have liked to see it finished, I believe it could have gotten some much better scores if it had been complete.

Total: 62

Reward:

Anteni receives 250 experience and 100 GP!

Nymph and Dragon receives 250 experience and 100 GP!

Nein receives 50 experience!

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP added!