A Dynasty Of Whores (Closed)

[Dianus Ogham]

A Dynasty Of Whores (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSQF1smSGIg&feature=related)

2495


Contains Adult Themes Some May Find Offensive

O COURTESANS, Love's witching, wild priestesses,
You charm the universe from end to end!
Heroes are always fettered by your tresses,
Kings for their pleasure on your bed depend.

Your pose is graceful, and your nostril quivers,
Your feet go dancing, and your deep eyes burn,
Your supple bodies bend like reeds of rivers,
Your robes like incense round about you turn.

Poor men are full of anger when they see you
Come from your segregation of disgrace,
Matrons cast envious eyes at you and flee you,
And the wise, scolding, turn away their face.

But still the sighs of boys with passion paling
Soar up to you in sultry evenings when
You pass, the dreams of lonely artists trailing,
And gray regrets of amorous old men;

And long, strong sighs of young men sick and ailing,
Whose blood chafes at the scent the summer floats,
Longing to take your breasts like fruits, inhaling
Love in the odour of your petticoats.

Fernand Gregh.

[Dianus Ogham]

“I don’t know how they worked it out,” Dianus said defiantly, the gears in her spine grinding in time with those in her mind. Little wisps of steam floated up from the neck of her dress and wove through her expertly woven hair.

“You were not exactly...subtle this evening, milady,” the trundle of the carriage through Eluriand’s crowded streets rocked Dianus gently to and fro as she stared at her man servant. She struck his temple with the sort of glare that could pierce a tortoise’s shell given half the chance.

Without retorting, she turned her attention to putting on her delicate silk gloves.

"We are nearly at our destination," she said flatly.

Her mind wandered over the embroidery and she read it under a breath as they turned a corner, a steep, hairpin incline that she knew lead up the embankment out of the crater to the docklands. They would soon pull in through large oak gates, bound in silver wrought frames and stop outside a small doorway. That doorway was arched and crumbling, resistant to any attempts she made to restore it to it's former glory. She would stare at it before stepping out into the dreary cold of another evening in abysmal company.

She wished she could stay in the carriage until morning, and whisk herself away into secracy.

“I apologise,” her manservant said, dusting off his own lapels and adjusting his bowler hat. He would have twirled and straightened his elongated moustache too, had he a mirror and a razor to flex it into even more ludicrous heights of fashion. She smiled at him wearily, but not for long, lest the strain crease her brow.

“Puzzlement doesn’t suit me does it?” She mumbled. She knew full well that the riddle of how Mr Jenkins had known she was a whore would get to her, boil her blood for days, perhaps weeks. “I guess I will have to get used to the idea in these turbulent times.” She read the embroidery on her gloves again, turning a delicate wrist over so she could annunciate every syllable of the Cult’s code.

“For the future, the past lays itself down and the gear turns on its grave,” she said aloud. Her manservant smiled, though only momentarily, before resting his hand onto the door’s handle. The carriage leant back and Dianus spread her hands to prop herself upright on the velveteen décor. “I just hope the grave in question will not be mine,” she looked out of the window as they turned in on their own path and picked out a few meagre details of the dusk skyline.

Eluriand had grown fat on the escaping wealth in the wake of the Corpse War, and everywhere they went, orphans, slaves and moaning widows traipsed after them like a swarm of flies to a rotting carcass. She almost, almost cared, but every now and then one of her mechanical limbs crept up to the window and slapped away a desperate palm or pinched a nose and scared whatever wastrel demanded money from her back into the dark.

"I'll work it out one day," she mumbled, distraught she had been bested by a man with a shrivelled sense of manhood and a strange odour of cheese and port about his anus.

As they ascended the hill on the last stretch of their brief journey from her consulate’s address on the far side of the city to the Cult’s centre of operation, it was not the poor that followed them aimlessly, but her own self-doubt and ever present loneliness.

[Dianus Ogham]

“I can’t swat that away so easily…” she whispered, lest her manservant over hear and view her in anything other than an inhumane light.

The carriage turned right as it crested the hill. With the motion the cityscape vanished at an angle until it settled onto a heavy red brick wall, riddled with pot holes, cracks and various evidences of magical and mechanical mishaps. It looked, as many said as they stared up at the lofty towers and steaming vents like a castle at war. In a way, the Cult's abode was indeed constantly besieged. It was an appropriate metaphor she guessed, given the lengths and pains its occupants went through to ensure it remained intact, despite the chaos inside that destroyed it from within.

“Do you require sustenance before the address, milady?” The manservant leant forwards, ready to open the door and cast out the iron steps that allowed those less mobile individuals a dignified descent to the dirt floor or red carpet of their destination.

“No thank you Horace, I have…” she wrinkled her lips with a self-satisfied smile, knowing full well he would assume the real meaning of her declining, “already eaten this evening.” He nodded in response, amused but not surprised. As the carriage stopped with a jolt he swung out into the night air in a flurry of leather lapels and a taught doublet in midnight blue set against a midnight black sky.

“The Lady Dianus Ogham, attending the Consulate Address,” he said with a hoarse voice to the two waiting and vigilant attendants at the gates. They stepped forward to help, but as she floated out on the strength of Priscilla’s limbs they nodded and returned to their posts.

She had a way about her that did not need lengthy words or oratory prowess; men loved her, she hated them, it was simple enough.

“I don’t know why they insist on keeping the Night’s Watch stationed here,” she nodded politely all the same, setting herself down next to Horace. He stood with a disturbed look that suggested he was wondering why he had bothered with the steps. “Nobody will come up that hill unless they’re deranged,” she looked to her left and then walked around the carriage, patting the black mares that bridled with pleasure as she did so.

“Milady, we don’t have time to take in the view,” Horace said as he ran to her side. He rested a hand delicately on her left shoulder and she span around. “They are going to start without you.”

She raised an eyebrow, picking out the strain on his face as clear as day with her cold, calculating eyes. He was right and she hated the fact, but she would never show it. The bitter cold was getting to her already, so she nodded politely and held out her hand for him to escort her by.

“Let us not keep them waiting, then,” she said meekly as they walked.

Making them wait was exactly what she intended to do, though she would do it in her own peculiar manner.

[Dianus Ogham]

The gates opened ominously as they approached, and under steam and will they folded inwards. They revealed the small courtyard beyond wrought into the stone of Eluriand itself, bound in pipes and dotted with vents that spat steam and smog high into the night sky from every wall and available grate. It was a glorious, if dirty sight to behold, but Dianus knew it was only a glimpse of the sheer immensity of the Cult’s presence in the city. It went far, far below the seen, into the very depths of madness and shadows itself.

The gates slammed to behind them as they reached the inner doors, a poky archway manned by a solitary Night Watchman. He wore a white capped hat, and a respirator of an unknown and ever changing design than served to hide his face and stem the onset of disease from the toxic air. He said nothing as he pushed the door open and stepped out of the way, nodding only slightly, as was custom.

“Thank you,” Horace said, ushering his lady inside before shutting the door behind them. As soon as he was certain the Watchman would not hear, he leant into her earshot and muttered “gives me the creeps, they do.”

Dianus chuckled uncouthly before composing herself.

"Quite."

They took a moment to gather their wits about them before continuing in near darkness. It served as a defence to keep away those lucky enough to get this far. A hindrance an elf would not be slowed by. If anyone were mad enough to attempt to infiltrate the Cult of Solomon’s headquarters, chances are however the Night Watchmen would have gutted them a new airway and hung them over the walls for the crows before they even got near the inner wall.

The College Arcana in Beinost remained to this day eternally curious about how seemingly mortal and non-magical men managed to know you were going to try before you even knew yourself.

“You should see the Innari of Scara Brae. If those men scare you, they say the goblins of the Windlacers are rather fond of carving their names into your heart whilst you still live.”

She heard Horace grumble in the dark and smiled.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” she was tempted to tap him on the shoulder with Priscilla’s hand but thought better of making a dramatic entrance to the Annual Address.

A hundred feet in they found another door, which they opened and instantly felt the temperature of the night air fall away. It was replaced instead with a warm glow of gas lanterns and the hubris of excitement that came only when far too many clever people gathered in one small confined space to feel superior.

[Dianus Ogham]

“Is the whore here yet Alistair?” A man with a large moustache shouted across the cavernous expanse of The Clockland. The disdainful word echoed through the roof beams and bounced over the brass plating on the floor. Rightly it brought silence into the chamber.

Whilst everyone respected Dianus, few liked her. She was a sore point in a man’s world, a diamond in the rough of chauvinism and sexism.

“’Coming’ no doubt,” Alistair shouted back with amusement. An awkward cluck of heavy stomachs and moustaches bobbed up and down in laughter.

When the entrance door swung open with a ceremonial hiss of steam driven hinges, the laughter stopped, and they all turned slowly to crane their well indulged necks at the spectacle they had all came to see. Dianus entered through the pall of machinery, raised on a walking stand of mechanical limbs which clanked and tinkered on the inner sanctum of the Cult’s headquarters with echo. She set herself down and whipped the limbs back under the garter of her dress.

“Gentlemen,” was all she said as she crossed the fifty foot gap between the wall and the outer edge of the vast ring at the centre of the room.

The Clockland was in essence a sound proof fish bowl made of bronze. The audience chamber at its heart was wide enough to allow fourteen people to sit comfortably away from one another yet close enough for a stern voice to cast its opinion to the Council without straining itself. It also kept them comfortably at a distance from their present guest speaker.

“Though,” she set her hands onto the back of her chair as the men shuffled nervously to their seats, “the correct term is escort, not whore.”

Horace smiled as he sat next to her in tandem, and they both pulled the prepared dossier that rested on the mahogany veneer closer.

“Lady Ogham,” the man named Alistair began apologetically, his moustache twice as erratic as Horace’s yet half as stylish.

He was seated opposite on the far side but peered at the alluring figure of the Cult’s strangest member through magnifying lenses in his heavy work goggles. He was one of the few members of the Council who was not a noble, and not, as far as Dianus could recall from their solitary evening encounter, very good at anything other than bridge building.

“Save your breath Alistair, I heard you and got every bit of enjoyment out of the squirm on your face when I entered to bother you again. If you did not enjoy my cunt, there is no need to broadcast the business exchange to everyone in Eluriand. Now, all of you kindly listen, and shut up.”

[Dianus Ogham]

They did so sharply.

"Thank you kindly."

The room was disturbed only by the sound of the great cog which hung overhead making its heavy rotations. It kept the time perfectly, though never displayed it to anyone but the Thayne Solomon himself.

“You called me here to discuss the intended excursion beneath Beinost, so without resorting to delicate aphorism, whimsical epigram or indeed, a euphony of put downs to state why you should keep your remarks to yourselves, might I be permitted to make a start?”

Several heads nodded feverishly, spectacles, monocles and gold teeth flashing in the flickering light of the gas lamps which were hung from bent and rusty hooks over the table. Everywhere Dianus could set her gaze there was the dull glow of bronze panelling, faded wood or a shrivelled member. She sighed, shook her head and flipped open the document. The sages of the Cult had bound her submitted proposal in freshly cut leather barely an hour before she had arrived; it still smelt of tannin and rotten cow's intestines.

The first page made her smile.

It was the Circle, its outer circumference warped into a cog and written as was tradition in dragon blood.

They’ve taken me seriously, she mused.

“As you all well know, the devastation wrought on Anebrilith, now Beinost, was almost disastrous to the point of utter loss. Though the Order and the College Arcana are doing all they can to rebuild the city there yet remains many things that inhibit its restoration.”

“Why explore the ruins of Beinost?” Alistair said, cutting in with a dangerous game of early questioning.

“Why explore Eluriand? Why indeed anywhere in Raiaera I hear overwrought and prehensile minds ask?” She raised an eyebrow and set the circlet on her brow straight. They all rolled their eyes, forgetting in their insistence on insults and lording it over her past that she could read everything they uttered.

“That is not the question, Lady Dianus. There is nothing in the catacombs of Beinost that could possibly be of interest to the Cult of Solomon.” A large man Dianus knew to be much more proficient with a ladle than a lupine ointment on his genitals reminded the Council.

“You would know all about poking about in pointless cracks Tyne,” Alistair retorted, tapping the table with nervous knuckles.

There was much applause.

[Dianus Ogham]

Their pointless posturing cut the opening statement of the guest speaker short.

"Typical," she whispered flatly, her perfectly aqueous lips wrinkling into a wry smile.

As they broke into arm flailing, scotch drinking and cigar clipping, Horace leant into his lady’s ear and muttered a line she was all too familiar with.

“Tit’s up already milady.”

“Quite,” she whispered back, her lips continually pursed with resentment.

The uproar went on for quite some time, leaving Dianus and Horace to their whispered satyricons and spoonerism games about which of the Council had the most curious Betty Swallocks. By the time they realised they had been taken in by a wave of petulant posturing Alistair cleared his throat and they all turned to stare at their guest.

Trails of cigar smoke and uncomfortable breaths drifted up in spirals of decadence into the whirling motion of The Clockyard’s ceiling rotary.

“I believe I was going to inform you about the nature of the artefact I have requested funds to exhume. Of course, if you wish to measure your genitalia, I can settle that particular argument without the need for buttons and golden zips to be released.”

Horace smiled.

She flicked her wrist and turned the page of the dossier, which she ran her finger over to double check the information that had been type set onto the parchment.

“I wish to recover an item known as The Gold Threaded Coat, a creation of the Akashiman maestro you all know as Tu Ch’iu-Niang."

Without further ado she picked up the dossier and read the delicately scribed verse that started the second page aloud to the council chamber. The sound of the clock mechanism which hung overhead ticked loudly between every syllable.

"Covet not the gold-threaded coat,
Grasp the years when you are young,
When the flowers open come pluck them;
Do not wait to gather a spent spray from an empty bough."

[Dianus Ogham]

All of a sudden, much to Dianus’ shrill sense of humour, the council were listening.

"Written a century ago," Horace added with academic thrill.

Overweight bellies and shaggy beards stopped rollicking with laughter and gossip and fell into line. They were wrapped metaphorically about their lady patron’s fingers. She waited for an appropriate amount of time for suspense to build before closing the book with a lift of a soft touch and sat back in the tall embrace of her chair. The clock overhead chimed, noisily, and the vibrations of the mechanism were felt by all.

“I am sure I don’t need to explain to you what it does, do I?” She did not, so they all shook their heads.

“Your previous endeavours would indicate that searching for this particular…trinket of industry would prove fruitful, but our reservations are not about success rates and gain, Lady Ogham.” Alistair put it as politely as his well chiselled jaw and dashing good looks could.

“You’d do well to indulge me the real reasons, then.” Horace sat back in his chair with a disdain written on his face in clear ink. Side by side, the lady and her servant were the enigmatic odd couple of the council chamber, and the other members often had wagers as to who wore trousers of the two. They were still not entirely certain.

“It’s,” he minced his words between turnings of the brass gears overhead, and the gentle hisses of steam which started to permeate up from the many cracks in the inner circle of the council chamber. Dianus took stock of the changes in the heart of the Cult of Solomon, and concluded that it would soon be dead on a new hour. “More a case of if this particular item would be appropriate for our use. We all know Tu Ch’iu-Niang was a somewhat odious individual, how can we be sure his machination rests in accordance with the Cult’s proclamations?”

“You can’t,” whipped Ogham’s tongue, her pale hair and pallid features lurid with visible frustration. Whilst she was an attractive woman by elven standards, when angered, she was a virulent harpy to the men of the Cult. “I should however attest to the worthwhile nature of funding this exhibition. If I find the item, and it is not suitable, then we can afford ourselves some protection against similar devices through its study, before ultimately destroying it for good.”

She could not have known it without possessing a modicum of telepathy, but that assurance alone sealed the deal and already the council members were tallying the potential profitability of such a financing.

“My name is Heidegger,” an obese man with several chins broke into the exchange between Dianus and Alistair. As he spoke, he wobbled, dribbles of spit bobbing up and down the folds of skin to fall onto his bespeckled waistcoat. This particular garment could have encompassed several of the other council members like a saran wrap. Apart from his monstrous size and the safe keeping of the evening meal on his clothing, he did not seem to echo the same chauvinism as the other council members did at every opportunity. “How soon can you embark?”

Dianus smiled, crossed her legs and opened the dossier in front of her once more. It rang a little chime as the metal clasp on the front cover landed on the brass of the table. She double checked the dates and itinerary scribbled hastily on the inside front cover.

“By tomorrow morning I should imagine. It will and can be sooner if the Watchmen do not interfere with my tending in the stores in the lower levels of Solomon’s Key.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her right ear seductively, and watched Heidegger’s reaction. He squirmed, perhaps under his own weight or more likely because of the attention, and she made a mental note to thank him personally and more privately at some point in the future.

[Dianus Ogham]

With the civil war raging in Corone dragging Raiaera into the fighting wherever or not it wanted to take part, Dianus wagered that every council meeting for many years would be this difficult. In more prosperous days, the Cult of Solomon had not asked for re-assurance from her, and had offered her all the funding and resources her expeditions had needed to be successful endeavours. She rasped her knuckles on the brass of the table in contemplation, before she shut the book and passed it with a non-chalant grace to Horace.

Whilst he tucked it into his briefcase, which always appeared and disappeared with speed and mystery she stood slowly. The many men at the great circular table, though quick to chide their female counter part with sexist jokes and cheap innuendo punches all rose politely with more speed than their heavy frames or semi-intoxications skeletons could naturally muster.

“I will take my leave gentlemen, to give you the privacy tradition dictates you be allowed to make your decision. I should expect to hear from you?” She raised an eyebrow. Several of the man mouthed empty promises, uncertain wherever or not she was being rhetorical or making a genuine enquiry. Heidegger chuckled with a heavy rotation of his ringed fingers with an elegant flair.

“Would we keep you waiting for long Lady Ogham? Please wait in the ante chamber; we shall reach a decision in no time at all.”

“That is most humble of you, Heidegger.” She made a note in her calculating mind to remember his name without the need for a sarcastic mnemonic.

With a curt bow she slipped away from the council table and turned her back on the great clock mechanism and the poisonous atmosphere of the council of whores. They had all brought right into her wiles, breasts and ample features without realising it.

“Don’t say it,” she whispered to her manservant.

Horace rolled his eyes but fell in line behind his employer.

“Yes ma’am, I wouldn’t dream of it,”

As she made her way to the heavy doors, she concentrated on the tendrils of her mechanism and slid the tentacles down under the folds of her dress. They rose like silent assassins, bronze tentacles set stylishly against the deep caramel and crème lace of her attire and trailed behind their owner like extensions of her talent, genius and seductive presence.

The men watched her nervously, half aroused and half with baited breath. When she finally left, and the heavy doors slammed closed, they all audibly sighed with relief and fell into their chairs with a torrent of creaks, meteoric impacts and ripping seams in ill-fitting pinstripe.

“That wasn’t uncomfortable at all,” said Alistair, pouring himself another shot of deep fiery whisky from a cracked decanter.

“She is a very driven woman; we could do with more like her amongst our number.”

The council looked at Heidegger, as if his statement was blasphemous beyond words. He shrugged after several seconds of silence, and knocked the accusation aside with a heavy knock on the table. The great doors opposite those Dianus had entered rumbled, and steam poured from the hinges with great uproar.

“I was just saying,” he continued. “Let us dwell no more on it, and call the Watchmen to witness our decision.”

The Council rose once more, stiffer and slower than before. Together they spoke the ancient line of calling in a harmony broken and bitter.

“May the Cult answer to none save the Watch and the men who turn it.”

[Dianus Ogham]

“Can you picture the scene Horace?” Dianus tried not to sound liaise faire as they walked through the darkened corridor and back out into the ante chamber that set the council chamber apart from the outer wall.

“What of the scene ma’am? I don’t usually dwell on it.”

“I don’t expect you to, but aren’t you at least curious as to what the Watchmen look like under all that hot, sweaty leather?”

Horace wrinkled his nose.

“Not in the same way you do ma’am.”

Dianus chuckled, and they waltz out side by side into the torchlight of the ante chamber. The doors that lead outside was propped open with a small cast iron eagle statue, the guard momentarily called to ten to the needs of the council and their customs. The bronze walls and steam were replaced with a more familiar grease lined sandstone and the smell of charcoal and dust which lingered in the air.

“It will do no good to wait here; I know full well they will approve the funding I require.”

“Should you not wait all the same ma’am?” Horace raised an eyebrow, one so curious as to his employer’s intentions it threatened to lift off his bowler hat.

“No, we should depart and make our way to the stores at the foot of the cliff. It will be many hours yet before we can rest.”

The road up to the Cult’s vast headquarters also split into two trails hallway up the hairpin bend. The other road, the one less travelled wove around the plateau of diamond hard rock until it faded into a black cave where the Cult’s vast vaults and stores were hidden buried deep in the earth. They were separated from the rest of the underground research laboratories and the vast, tower like structure of the Great Clock due to the highly charged atmosphere created by so many strange artefacts and vast quantities of magical apparatus that were kept there.

“I can’t say I approve of your actions, but I see the sense in it.”

“I did not ask for approval, Horace, just that you check outside to see if it’s safe so we can be on our way.”

She unfurled a single mechanical hand from under her dress and picked up the visitor ledger from the abandoned desk set against the right wall. She scribbled her name in the appropriate column and pretended not to be listening for her manservant’s heavy footsteps over the worn floor.

He disappeared out of the corner of her discerning glare and she smiled with relief. The moment he started acting like she did was the moment he would sadly have to go. She enjoyed the fact that they remained such good friends and critical of one another, despite their supposed professional relationship. She ceased to be Horace Wilderdon’s employer a long time ago.

“I’m more like a culpable aunt,” she said nervously, wondering if he was listening just beyond the borderline.

He re-appeared seconds later with a smile on his humble face. She set the ledger back onto the desk and dutifully strolled over to the doorway.

“All clear ma’am,” he said chirpily, before disappearing back out into the brisk cold of the soon to be midnight air.

“Excellent, then let us be on our way.”

“Shall I send for sustenance to keep us going whilst we work?”

Dianus considered the offer carefully. Chances are they would be loading and ticking items off the ledgers long into the night to amass all they would need for their expedition. It was lucky that she did not need much sleep, luckier still that Horace never slept at all. She had often commented, but only when he was out of earshot that he would have made an excellent jiggalo.

“Yes, that would be splendid.”

She knocked the door to the carriage to one side and disappeared into its warm interior. Horace would have helped her, but he had already scuttled back inside to send for the butler. She looked up at the imposing heights of the Cult’s base of operations and let the swell of excitement deep in the pit of her stomach run riot.

“A dynasty of whores they may be,” she said gingerly, realising she was to be included in their number soon enough, “but they have made the right choice.” She leant back onto the velveteen cushion which kept the strain off the mechanical elements of her spine implant and sighed.

It would be a long night, but she was more than used to those.

[Amen]

A Dynasty of Whores by Dianus Ogham

This’ll be a quick, full rubric judgment with light commentary, as you requested.

Story: 3/10

I think this thread would have been better served if the entire thing had been about the expedition, and the events of this thread had just been a one or two post prologue. The scale is just too small here to really draw a reader in, the pitch just too insignificant. If Dianus hadn’t received funding for her trip…well, so what? It doesn’t seem exciting or life-changing that she did, so I have to wonder if the story is worth telling. Raise the stakes!

Strategy: 3/10

Dianus is saucy, but her interactions with the gentlemen in the cult seemed superficial and inconsequential, and I don’t feel like her sauciness with them was explained or warranted, and it just didn’t drive the thread. There are a few things I would have liked to see. If Heidegger is agreeing to finance her trip because he thinks she’s hot, I would have liked more evidence of that, or even to see her seduce him. She has all the haughtiness of a femme fatale, but she doesn’t really do anything with it. It’s more like she exists, and you hint at her sexual dalliances in the past, but nothing she’s doing in the present really supports her being that kind of character. I know men have the feeling that we’re slaves to desire, but the truth is that whores have to work – sex requires intimacy and intimacy is dangerous, you up the danger level tenfold plus when you’re paying for sex. Nobody just tumbles into a prostitute’s bed.

Setting: 4/10

The brassy fishbowl where most of the thread’s action takes place is interesting, but I had a hard time really putting myself inside it. What’s the lighting like? Doesn’t it get annoying with all the sounds ringing around? Is it stuffy in there, with no apparent airflow?

Plot Construction Total: 10/30

Continuity: 5/10

Dianus is a solid and interesting character. I would have liked it if the storyline challenged her more: if it forced her to learn something new about herself, or cause her to grow, or anything of the sort, but the most important thing here is that she’s well thought-out and she’s consistent throughout the thread. The same goes for Horace, but I had a harder time getting a bead on the gentlemen at the meeting.

Interaction: 2/10

I had a hard time believing/following the social interactions in this thread. Especially around post #8, everyone starts reacting to events in an extremely disjointed way, it honestly almost reads like a psychedelic drug trip, or something out of a dream, or Alice in Wonderland because Alistair totally reminds me of the walrus from The Walrus and the Carpenter. For example, everybody starts laughing, and all I can think is, “what was funny? Are they putting pot in their pipes? I just don’t get it.”

Character: 4/10

Again, I’m just not sure where Dianus is coming from a lot of the time. It would have helped if we had more direct description of her history with these guys, and with her manservant. As it stands, I think I get her, but I don’t understand why she’s doing or saying the things she is, or why she’s holding certain character’s in different lights. I mean, I get that she’s snarky because the cult is sexist…but she’s also a whore, and has apparently slept with a number of them? It’s messy and her interactions based on that knowledge just didn’t seem natural to me.

Characterization Total: 11/30

Creativity: 4/10

I like the steampunk flair. Your character and the setting itself were brilliant. The text itself feels overwritten, though, and some of your descriptors just don’t mesh with what they’re describing (“aqueous lips” in post #7, for example). I feel like the thesaurus was whipped out liberally here, but for all the wrong reasons. There are plenty of suitably lofty words used here, but rarely did I see the right one used. You don’t need to impress your reader; you need to convey compelling ideas to him succinctly!

Mechanics: 7/10

Very good for the most part. I picked out a few minor mechanical errors, but they didn’t really start until post nine and beyond and they didn’t affect clarity.

Clarity: 5/10

If there’s one thing I would point at to have you focus on, it’s conveying your ideas succinctly, choosing the best possible words, and keep in mind exactly what you want to tell your reader. Make sure thoughts are relevant to what’s happening at that point in time.

Again, consider post nine, which was especially tough. “The many men at the great circular table, though quick to chide their female counter part with sexist jokes and cheap innuendo punches all rose politely with more speed than their heavy frames or semi-intoxications skeletons could naturally muster.” I think there are errors in there, but even without, that’s an incredibly clunky sentence. I get the action, but what you’re trying to say beyond the action is going right over my head.

Writing Style Total: 16/30

Wildcard: 4/10

Next time, go big! This is a small part of a much more interesting story (the expedition) and could have been covered in a much smaller space. Give your reader an event that exacts changes upon those involved, and focus on writing those events succinctly.

Total Score: 41

DIANUS OGHAM gains 370 EXP and 250 GP.

Extra GP was granted as a spoil, but feel free to play as if Dianus received a much more substantial sum to fund her expedition. This just represents the gold she has to spend on herself.

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.