Swagger, Dagger, Stagger (Closed)

[Anke/Varg]

Swagger, Dagger, Stagger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV1zepxvJX8&feature=related)


Closed to Marcus.

In moonlight, Rouge was a serene woman of the modern generation. In sunlight, she was a resplendent example of an industrious young mind. In darkness, however, all those qualities became swiftly undone. When night fell without the silver caress of the open sky, in the under dark of cities, in sewer’s bowel and catacomb dire, the woman known as the Red Anke came into her own.

As she stepped through the grand double doors into the arena, she cast aside the friendly persona of her usual self and let the red widow emerge. Soft sand crunched underfoot, her heavy boots reacting to the illusory magic of the Ai’bron as if physics were somehow relevant. She advanced, confidently, silently, cocksure and ready.

The sandy borderline gave way into a large, three hundred foot wide circle. It had no discernible edge and mist whirled about her in a dome. It descended, as if it were attracted to her warmth and swaddled her in cold yet strangely invigorating vapours. She ran her hand through it, dispersing it with a scatter and a swirl. Carefully she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, analysing the density of the water that formed into droplets on her porcelain skin.

“Perfect,” she smiled, a wicked flash of malefic turning her pleasant expression sour. She produced two leather gloves from the tuck of her breastplate, nothing more than a thin covering of steel moulded over a red and frilly bodice, and pulled them expertly over on. She did not wish to lose her grip to moisture.

The half formed wisps of mist caused Rouge concern and doubt. So subtly drifting through the arena, she could only question what the purpose of it was. It served no purpose but distraction. Upon entering the Citadel she had been asked about preferences for the terrain of her battlefield. She had simply shrugged, throwing the composure of the attendant wide. He had relented beneath a scowl and her silence, and guided her to one of the smaller domes that perhaps, from Rouge could now gather, was kept simple for those without much in the way of imagination.

The Red Anke was not here to dance in the trees, or to wander through crags and stalagmite caverns. She was here to hone the one thing she was good at besides the creation of new and wondrous machinations from the rubbish and scrap of others.

She was here to kill.

“There will be no peaceful white hand offered here today,” she whispered, using the play on words of the Scourge’s motto to calm her nerves and to prepare her mind for whatever, or whosoever entered the arena through the grand doors on the far side of the circle. “Only a red hand…only death,” she stooped to pluck her well-worn iron daggers from the heel of her boots and twirled them with a mist slicing display of readiness. She put one foot in front of the other, and rested her left hand on a slumped hip.

[Marcus]

Marcus lay on the ground writhing in pain, seemingly in an uncontrollable fashion. Whispers of hell surrounded him as he screamed in pain. Marcus fought to stand.

“I can take away your pain,” said a black cloaked figure that appeared behind Marcus.

“Who are you? Go away!” screamed Marcus as he stumbled forward onto his face

“I am Antioc. Think of me as your patron, your guardian angel of a sort. You do not want me to go away. I am the only one who can take away your pain,” said the cloaked man.

“What do you want from me?” Marcus was able to say as the words of a thousand demons enveloped his mind once more.

“Relinquish your mind unto me. I will set you at peace,” Antioc whispered just barely audible above the roar of the voices.

“Fine, do whatever it takes. It’s killing me!” screamed Marcus.

With that Antioc assumed control of the body he had just possessed.

“Hmmm, this seems like a very fine host indeed. We shall see what we are capable in this now wont we boys,” Antioc said. As he finished his words the voices screamed in their hushed whisper seeming to roar like the great army they were.

Antioc of course knew where he could find a suitable challenge for his new body. He traveled to the citadel, to the arena. As he approached the monks gathered with stern looks on their faces. They knew what he was.

Antioc spoke as the monks started to come closer seeming as if they were going to attack him, “You’ve nothing to fear from me younglings. I have only come to seek a fair match. Have you a fair battle for me today?”

The monks looked at each other nervously as if not knowing what to do. Silently they backed away never turning their backs to him. All but one, he stood there and simply pointed a finger to a set of double doors.

Antioc took the meaning and walked through the doors to make an assessment of the surroundings. Inside he found what appeared to be a wide field. With a woman who stood directly in the center playing with a knife.

Antioc said nothing. He drew his sword from his hip and looked the woman dead in the eyes.

[Anke/Varg]

Fair was an altogether relative term, as open to misinterpretation as any other ideal to be found in the hearts of men.

Interesting…she mused to herself as the far doors finally cracked open.

Rouge played anything but fair, it was in her nature, her soul, her work ethic. Truth be told, it was also in her employment contract, and she had no intention of breaking the binds she had to the Scourge on satisfying someone else’s moral indignations. The cold, calculating stare her opponent gave her upon his entry only reinforced the desire in the killer’s mind that yes, today, there would be death.

Even if that death was not her opponents, and she was destined to an ironic end, she would enjoy riling his wits every beating moment of their engagement. She would salivate at the prospect of cutting his limbs and instilling the fear and paranoia her namesake had driven into the minds of so, so, so many lesser willed men. She stepped forwards, brimming with confidence and demure.

“Hello good sir,” she said, before she came to an abrupt halt. Her boots had made only a handful of footprints in the moistening sand of the arena before her ears prickled. There was something in the air, a faint sequester of nerves and attention, akin to a buzzing from the reeds, the cawing of crows on the winds.

It is just adrenaline… she hoped. She cocked her head for a moment of intent listening, but gave it no more thought when it faded just as quickly as it had sounded.

“It is a pleasure to meet you?” the enquiry in her tone was meant as much as a question as it was an insult. From the man’s stoic, well defended appearance, she calculated he had endured a harsh early years, was well-trained, and took to the drink in the gluttony of battle like all men that travelled the road to war. He might even perhaps have been a soldier, or might still wish to become one, given the opportunity to do so. “My name is…” she paused, carefully selecting one of her many pseudonyms from a repertoire of personas, “Anke.”

Wasting no more time to give away more than she needed, and wasting no more of her mental prowess on the when and why, she continued her advance. It was a quite natural, quite graceful, and very intent sort of momentum. She walked as if she were a prowling tigress, though there was no seductive intent in her mannerisms. Her daggers dropped to her sides, simple, firm grips comforting the woman’s hands in their leather coverings.

With a callous whisper and a curled lip, a wry show of her demeanour, Anke shrunk the three hundred feet distance between her blades and his. The echo of her footsteps rattled through the ethereal tendrils of mist. The beat of her heart pounded in time with each crunch of her heel on the facsimile of a fog riddled beach.

[Marcus]

“Ankeeeee,” the name flowed from his lips drawn long as if savoring the taste of her name. His voice flowed evenly like the taste of hot buttered rum. The voices surrounding him reached a crescendo greater than anything before knowing blood would soon be spilt to satisfy their thirst for destruction and pain.

“Esse ad pacem fratres mox slate tua sitit simul et nostra verum potental ut,” spoke Antioc to the voices that surrounded him. Their voices suddenly hushed in their anticipation for violence.

Antioc strode forward with the point of his sword pointed down and away being held in his right hand.

“It shallll be my pleasureeee to fight you,” Antioc spoke as he lanced out with his mind stabbing her with his Demonic Mind in her right foot to see what sort of reaction he would get. He only let his attack last for a matter of a moment. Enough to judge how she will react.

[Anke/Varg]

Though quick on her feet, Anke could not avoid that which she could not see. She could not temper the advance of that which she could not predict. She did not predict the man; a brutish oath that towered over her small frame would possess such power. The lancing pain in her foot, quite sudden and quite unstoppable dropped her to her knee. Her right leg, seemingly under fire buckled, shook, screamed and rippled.

“Grah, gyahh!” she gargled, torn between agony and twisted ecstasy. As quickly as it had struck the invisible weapon ceased to torment her. She glanced down through teary eyes. The first thing she noticed was a lack of impact. The second was a lack of blood. Her mind raced to tinker with reasons, to catch up with lies, to see through the unseen.

Magic… was her only conclusion.

“Interesting…” she said, pained expression reforming into a cold, calculated stare. She possessed none of the menace of her opponent, but she took on a mantel of a different sort…the unknown. Her small, slender body tensed as she righted herself. The hum of the man’s radix grew, slowly but surely announcing its presence so that Rouge could no longer simply ignore it. A swirl of mist passed between them like aqueous tumbleweed.

She sheathed one of her daggers and reached for the space beneath her tattered crimson half-cloak. Rouge produced a heavy, clunky, metallic lantern. She fingered the short handle and twisted it with a snap of her wrist as she extended her arm to full width. The chain extended, and like an anchor falling to the bottom of the sea, the lantern crashed unceremoniously onto the sand. The Chronotron rang its own faint tune, like the whirring of a clockwork machine hastily sped through the cosmos.

“Allow me to illuminate you, sir, as to why that little parlour trick will cost you dearly,” she grinned. She let out the Anke proper, and ran forwards, lantern trailing like a heavy, dead dog behind her as she advanced. She longed and prayed to smash the product of her life’s work into the man’s skull, but he must have weighed, from her estimation, twice her own bulk and stood considerably taller. She would need Leper’s strength to even remotely swing the lantern that high with enough force.

As she encroached into her opponent’s personal space, she twisted the dagger in her right hand through several poised rotations, and then trusted it up towards his bulking torso. Unlike the man’s lancing strike, she did not expect her iron blade to penetrate his hefty armour quite as easily, but like a bee stinging an elephant, she hoped to bring out a rage that she could use to her advantage through a strange fusion of obscuring mists, and the power of time itself. She held her left arm back, keeping the six foot length of chain away from her splayed legs so that she did not foolishly trip herself up. She clenched her teeth.

[Marcus]

Antioc watched the woman closely as she dropped to her knee. She made what sounded like a half choked scream.

Antioc made his assessment as it stood. Either this body was far more powerful than he had assumed or this woman was very sensitive to pain. Antioc spread a broad smile as she spoke. He observed her closely as she righted herself sheathed a dagger and drew one of the oddest looking things Antioc had ever observed.

“Quid i videns fratres?” Antioc said aloud.

A hymn of voices rose around him, “Periculum! Respice de! dolor! Tempus! Mortem! Corruptelam! Mechanica! Magicae!”

Antioc had no answers for what was before him.

The woman drew close dragging the heavy object behind her. She flourished her dagger before striking at him.

Antioc could of easily brought his sword across in time to block the attack using the full weight of his sword. But rather then striking at her dagger he swung for her arm at the elbow joint of her arm holding the strange object. The dagger even with her weight behind it barely stuck into his armor. He had a minor scratch from where it stuck into his armor. Antioc doubted highly this woman would be able to pry it free of the leather.

Antioc spoke as the dagger struck him, “What a pitty.”

[Anke/Varg]

Oh… Anke thought to herself. She mouthed her surprise from her suddenly weakened position.

Though she had not expected anything to come of it, she had not expected it to be that ineffective. The dull thud of a blade chipping off armour never satisfied her keen sense of self importance. It did more damage to her than the man’s spell had done, and a damaged ego was a worrisome injury for the engineer. The cackling in the distance returned.

“I am very pleased I learnt how to cook and eat crab when I was younger,” she snarled, drawing on her experiences before the Scourge found her to drive her determination to new heights. She was not going to give in, especially with his dry sardonic tone only furthering her dislike for her opponent.

What the hell does he mean by ‘pity’?

Abandoning her blade, she let it fall to the sand without applause. A series of shuffles brought her out of the man’s sword arm, and when she passed the prone lantern, she pulled it back like a rabid, lurching dog. It flew in an arc and thudded onto the sand behind her. Her position was almost identical to the stance from which she had launched her attack, only she was now ten feet away.

“To begin,” she cocked her head, her wide, bright, zeal fuelled eyes aflame, “you get a large, blunt instrument.” The chain shortened at her command, a flick of the wrist to tug at the mechanism within the Chronotron’s casing. It kicked up sand as it whipped off the ground, and swung like a pendulum from two feet of chain. It rattled like a poltergeist’s feeble attempts to haunt the living. “Taking the crab firmly into your grip, you swing damned hard.” She started to spin the lantern, until it gained enough momentum to continue swinging almost of its own accord in a circular motion to her left.

The weight of the lantern caused a gyroscopic effect, and Rouge had tense every muscle in her hip and body to keep her restrained. When she was stable enough, she slipped the iron dagger she had secured beneath the strap of her belt and flipped it into a reverse grip.

“The difficult part, however, is luring the crab in to the net…” she released the tension in the lantern’s chain and ignited the flame. Through reinforced glass on five sides, a bright white light with a hint of eggshell and custard erupted from within. It was primed, and so was she. “If I am such a pity, come and get me, Mr Crab!” she chuckled.

If she was going to fail miserably against the hard carapace of her opponent, she was going to toy with him in doing so. Riddles were such a good way to rouse a hidden demon within – especially those with dim wits about them and a strange gumption to burst into archaic and infernal babble. She took a deep breath, and waited.

[Marcus]

Antioc watched as the woman stumbled backwards. The dagger managed to slip from his armor of its own accord which displeased him, as the wound started to slightly bleed. He brought his sword back to the ready position.

Fighting with a weapon sticking out of you is much more intimidating, Antioc thought to himself.

She managed to get the mechanical device whirling around on her left side. Slightly intrigued at what that items purpose would actually be, Antioc decided to ere on the side of caution. Antioc slipped his shield off his back and strapped it to his left forearm.

Antioc closed his black eyes for a moment and as soon as he opened his eyes he squared them straight over her heart. He attacked with the full force of his mind bringing everything he could to bear on her heart. He watched her whole body to see what reaction would have from this.

He spoke as he attacked with his mind, “The pity is you could of brought a much bigger sword…those pin pricks will never do more than bleed me a little through this,” Antioc gestured towards his armor and the tiny amount of blood coming from his wound.

[Anke/Varg]

Rouge ran through the scenario she intended to implement, her cavernous mind, librarian like and astute glowed with intellect and brightness. It stopped glowing very quickly when the lancing pain she had been inflicted previously quite suddenly returned. The feeling was akin to her own dagger turning in onto its owner and pushing through her breastplate. It was driven by a ravaging force that easily penetrated the steel and perforated a lung. It stopped only when it impaled her heart, stopping it instantly and dropping her jaw.

Her hand went limp and with it the spinning lantern crashed to the ground behind her. Under the momentum of its rotation, it continued to roll in a quarter circle, marking out it’s trajectory with two thick lines in the sand. The very second her knees buckled and slammed into the arena floor, the Chronotron came to a standstill.

I guess this crab does not want to encounter a Liviol bark dressing… she chuckled in death formed lunacy. Her pallid face was expressionless, as if all the blood had been drained from her body and spilt out onto the Citadel’s hallowed ground. It took a few moments and a trail of mist to flow between them for the realisation to dawn on Rouge that she was in fact, quite well. Her senses returned, as if she had been injected with alcohol and slapped repeatedly to raise her from a deep slumber. She felt, without a doubt, more alive now than ever.

The scrabbling, gibbering voices that scratched at her sanity grew louder. Her usually cocksure self-confidence was losing its grip. In the darkness, Rouge might have been a terrifying sight, but in the soft sunlight of the oceanic atmosphere, she was nothing more than a meek, humble young woman.

It is time to turn time…it is time to spin the hands…

Realising she was being toyed with, a fact she did not wish to consider as being her only option for this engagement, she pushed herself upright, and when she rose, she lifted the Chronotron very slowly, making a show of its continued effervescence.

“Tell me,” she whispered, “if you are not a crab, what manner of creature are you?” her tone was soft, virginal, innocent. She cocked her head in the same manner she had done several times since she had introduced herself, only this time, she grinned. Sweat formed on her brow from the constant strain of cycling between false death and sheer imagined pain.

With her dagger still in her hand, held limply at her hip and pointed back in a reverse grip, the Red Anke dangled her lantern left and right with a gentle swing. It rattled, a pendulum counting down the seconds before madness returned to the sandy circle. For a moment, Rouge was almost certain she could hear a seagull’s caw. She waited for him to advance, and when he did, she would illuminate the mistake that lead to his death, or to her own arrogant comeuppance.

[Marcus]

Antioc released his hold on the woman unable to concentrate further. He had brought this woman to her knees with his absolute power. His blood was fresh with adrenaline from the thrill of victory. The whispers in his mind pressed him deeply begging to be heard.

“Occidere! tollitis! inferre! dolor! chaos! Percute! Tormentis!” screamed the voices in his head.

“patiens cara fratres. Minus habeamus cibum fun frui est,” seethed Antioc.

“ETIAM!” Shouted the consensus in his mind.

Antioc spoke slowly and deliberately, “My dear woman I am the soul of the ancients sent forth to bleed this land dry once more. I my dear lady am the destroyer of worlds.”

Antioc hefted his shield to beneath his chin to guard his upper torso and neck. He walked forward to the woman, meaning to slice and toy with her. Just as he got within his range knowing his height gave his arm an extended reach with his 4 ft sword. He aimed a precise stab moving with all his speed. His blow was meant for her left shoulder under the armor to make a small stab there to incapacitate that arm.

[Anke/Varg]

All of his speed, was all the more her gain. Rouge, still reeling from the barrage of the man’s potent magical attacks let her body cave. Her limbs buckled, her hair flopped in her descent, and her lungs deflated, emptying of their vapour sodden breath with a coarse exhalation. In that same moment, she pressed her fingers together and squeezed the handle of the Chronotron so tight it felt like the veins in her arm might burst. Time stopped, for just a hair’s breadth of a second, and was hers to command.

If you had asked Rouge to explain how the flame of the lantern created the sphere that erupted from it when triggered, even she would have been lost for words. It defied logic, and it certainly defied sense. She had crafted it from the amulet her mother had given to her when she was but a young debutante in the northern province of Sess-Terra; the mining barony of the isle of Scara Brae. It was half mystical, half machine, but it had saved her life on many an occasion, and she seldom questioned its ability to turn the tide as well as the hands on the clock.

At full extension, the Vorpal sphere extended 20ft about the lantern’s canopy, covering Rouge and Antioc as the shield bearing warrior advanced into her weakened defences. As she was stationary, she felt only a tingle over her skin, goose bumps on the back of her neck and a strange desire to vomit. If she had been moving, she would be suddenly compelled in whatever direction she was going, a lightning greasing of limb and momentum.

Ah, and there we go…she thought; her words stretched into endless syllables that echoed in the fractal heartbeat of the Chronotron. This was the man’s anger, his arrogance, his futility letting his sword arm down. Rouge had no doubt, through experience and supposition, that his blade would have little trouble penetrating her armour. There would be no bulwark rebuking of his strike as his thick plate had her iron dagger, there would be only a sudden, quick and painful end to her attempts to prepare herself for the coming war in Scara Brae, for the fake empire’s fall (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?23601-A-Fake-Empire-Falling-(Closed)&highlight=fake+empire).

She closed her eyes, which took an age in the restrictive environment of the sphere. Silently and patiently she hoped he would stream quite suddenly and exponentially into chaos. If she had calculated her position, his trajectory and his demeanour correctly, he would over extend his thrust. His heavy blade would embed into the misty nothingness behind her and give her the one, singular opportunity the engineer saw as hers to claim. If she had misplaced her own intellect, then his blade would pierce her square through her skull, not her under arm, and the scream she made would extend into an aeon of agony, until the bright white flame that danced about her prone form faded, and the lantern dimmed along with the soul of its maker.

[Marcus]

Antioc’s lunge stab pulled his body as time seemed to distort. Anke seemed to freeze in time while his whole body flung forward at ultra high speed. His arm seemed to want to pull itself free of his own body. It caused an involuntary jerk in his body.

His sword deflected enough and sliced off her ear. His whole body continued past her and he buried himself into the sandy ground. Antioc stayed still not knowing what had just happened. He tried to speak to the legion inside of him finding it to slow to speak.

Instead he used his mind to speak with them, Quod est fieri fratres? Quid est hoc?

“Tempus! Tardus! AVE! Corruptelam! Silentium! Non movere,” came the reply

Antioc decided taking the last bit of advice was important and held as still as he could using his blinking eyes trying to judge when the spell had ended.

[Anke/Varg]

Rouge had now gone through two out of the three stages of a Scourge agent’s downfall. The first was swagger, the arrogance gifted to the agents of Scara Brae’s White Hand by their allegiance. The second was dagger, a sharp point delivered to enemy and soul. When she reached the third, she did not like it one bit. The third was stagger.

She reached for her ear and was greeted by a slippery touch. Even through the expensive stitch and tanned hide of her leather gloves, she could feel the all too familiar warmth of blood. Bile gushed into the back of her throat, but was swallowed quickly and returned to her churning stomach before it defiled her façade.

“You will regret that,” she spat. She glanced over her shoulder as the man’s brutish strength caused him to stumble past. Though she had miscalculated her position, and she had paid a steep price for it, she had bartered with fate and brought her one chance without expending all of her strength in doing so. “You will regret it so…Mr Crab,” with a cackle, she spiralled about, let loose the handle of the Chronotron and scooted south into the man’s presence.

With all her heart, drive and compassion she flew at him. With all her rage, fettered by a sudden hatred, Anke thrust her iron dagger into the rear of the man’s back. She did not aim, she only pleaded with the Red Hand, and the White, that her blade would find a mark amongst the madman’s armoured hide to retaliate and bring her need for revenge to new heights. She prayed for a weakness to be revealed, a chink in his armour, a crack in his façade.

For a member of the Scourge, the stagger was the last wobbling moment of glory before a fall. How you carried yourself in that moment would determine how well the under dark of the city of Scara Brae remembered you. It was, after all, entirely up to you how you left the world you carved for yourself. Rouge had no intention of being unremembered when she left the Citadel today, she had every desire to be heralded as a prophet of madness, and murder. If people would not pay attention to her genius, for academia was oft scorned amongst the lesser people, then she had to give them something they wanted to see.

She would give them a glamorous spectacle instead. She wanted her laced bodice, menacing anachronisms and strange metaphors to be burnt into the minds of the on looking, baying crowd for years to come. With blood streaming down her cheek and neck and into the pool of her clavicle, she snarled like a wild animal. She took on the persona of the long standing, and long suffering companion she worked with in the Scourge. She took on the traits of the one thing she did not want to become, most ironically, of the gentlemen werewolf she often kept vigil over.

[Marcus]

As Antioc lay in the sand Anke spoke very slowly. He had little interest in her words any more. For a human she was quite insane. Antioc admired that little bit of this woman, well that and her fearlessness. As soon as she stopped speaking whatever magical effects that had hold over Antioc reversed. Nothing seemed, forced, any longer as time seemed to restore itself.

Antioc immediately flipped over his body swinging his sword around to point at her to make sure she didn’t stab him while he lay on his stomach. It was to an absolute astonishment that the moment he turned that Anke’s dagger found home in his throat just above his armor. He felt his sword bite home as her dagger found his throat. He didn’t care what damage he may have done. He fled to the depths of Marcus’s mind.

The black of Marcus’s mind faded as Marcus came back in control of his own body. He was horrified at what he had done. His pain did not cease the entire time contained within his own body. He watched the whole thing as if it were a bad movie. He felt every ounce of pain and every jolt of attack. He finally understood the words of the demons he had invited into himself. Everything played before him driving him further into his insanity. With a look of pure horror at the dagger in his throat he passed out not knowing what was left to him.

[Anke/Varg]

Anke rose, and wiped the dagger on the hem of her short skirt that protruded out from under her thick leather apron. It was an unceremonious end to an amble through madness and the strange company it kept. She cocked her head, admiring the decrepit, broken body that lay before her. Though she was injured, tired, exasperated and haunted by voices, she had somehow emerged relatively unscathed from the confrontation.

The more she had allowed the killer in her, the animal to preside over her intelligence, the stronger the man’s magic and aura seemed to become. It was a curious juxtaposition to live with. Overcome a man with strength, and he overcame you with his own. Overwhelm him with a keen, womanly mind, and he had nothing to offer. She chuckled.

“The next step in the recipe is to break the shell open, and to scoop out the innards. Then you are supposed to season, a little light sprinkling of salt,” she cocked her head to the left, her eyes burning bright, “pepper,” she twitched it to the right, “and paprika.” The voices finally faded, leaving nothing more than a whispery echo in the recesses of her mind, mimicking the mists as they encroached on the pair, thickening as if they longed to hide the crimes that had gone on in their midst.

"Today, however, I am not hungry." She added, a smack of her lips doing away with the cracked skin and dry, fluffy tongue that had accrued sand and sweat in the tussle between blade and lantern's flame.

With a long, drawn out sigh, she turned on her heels and started to walk from the arena. Her stagger, it seemed, would come another day. For now, the Red Anke remained a widow, and until she found it within herself to stop killing, and to love, she would have to continue to be the blood stained red hand of the Scourge.

[Silence Sei]

As requested, light commentary only where I feel it necessary


Anke on the left, Marcus on the right.

Story 4-3 Marcus’ never really brought me around with a rising action, and his conclusion didn’t really wrap up his end of the story. Likewise, I felt that Anke’s conclusion was half-hearted.

Continuity 5-2 I got enough about Anke’s history to be satisfied. Marcus, you need to elaborate more on your character. Why was he in pain? How can he talk to demons? Is this the first time this had happened? Answering any of these questions would have raised your score.

Setting 3-1 Anke mentioned the setting here and there, but I never got a sense for where the two of you were battling in the citadel. Anke gets the edge because she at least gave me the sound of a seagull and sand underneath, hinting at a beach. Marcus, you can improve here by using all five of your senses to the enivironment. Does the wind smell salty? Can you hear waves crashing? Do you see anything beach-like?

Creativity 5-5

Character 4-3 I never got a sense for who your characters were. Marcus, by answering the questions I asked during continuity, your score would have dramatically increased.

Interaction 5-3 Anke made efforts to interact with Marcus, while Marcus seemed to always be in his own little world until he was attacked. Open up some dialogues, man.

Strategy 4-4 I didn’t understand the lantern’s power, now did I totally grasp the telekinesis displayed by Marcus. However, the two of you used them in clever ways, just try to get better at making us understand what’s going on.

Mechanics 8-5 I caught several grammar and spelling errors on Marcus’ side, and far fewer on Ankes. Simple as that.

Clarity 4-4 As said in strategy, there was some confusion, and a re-read over a post or two from each of you.

Wildcard 5-6 This was an entertaining battle, and out of the two of you, I like the concept of being possessed by demons to fight more than yet another Scourge assassin, even if she can manipulate time.

47-36

Anke/Varg wins and gets 500 exp, 100 GP
‘
Marcus gets 150 exp, 50 GP

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.