AC: Round 1 - Group 6

[Revenant]

This thread is reserved for member of Group 6. The thread will open at noon on August 18th (Pacific time) and will be closed after two weeks.

Good Luck!


Group 6
Itera - Itera
Inwuhou - Inwuhou
Ceidon Lore - Ceidon
Zack Blaze - Zack Blaze

[Inwuhou]

The light of the dawn spilled across the landscape, reflected in countless glittering wavetops on the sea. When the double glare of the sun and mirrored sun struck the shearwater colony, brown-feathered expanse broke into noise and movement. Parents argued briefly over who was watching over the chick and who was going out hunting and by the time that the sun cleared the horizon, the losers were flapping away into the sea.

Downwind of the settling mob and immersed in the smell of a hundred generations of collected birdshit, a dense column of gnats danced in their early-morning orgy. Occasionally, two would wander off for a private moment together. Some of these couples came near a small gumwood. One of these approached a small, sky-blue bundle near the root of that tree. They stopped, frozen in midair, the invisible blur of their feathery wings becoming a languid flapping more befitting an albatross. The intimate moment stretched into an eternity in front of Inwuhou's closed eyes.

A gust of cool sea-wind blew towards the rocky beach, lifting a few strands of her black hair with excruciating slowness. She put a mental bookmark in her contemplation on the natural aspects of nothing, then surfaced from her meditative trance. In a tight bubble around the nun, time has been moving very slowly since sundown, sliced into unusually thick pieces between each passing moment. To her perspective, the sun had set not 3 hours ago and had popped vivaciously free of the horizon. It was time.

Inwuhou studied the copulating gnats in front of her face for a moment and filed away a passing thought on the brevity of life. Then she stopped slicing time, returning to the broader frame. The gnats sped back up to their normal speed and were gone in a second, their tiny minds none the wiser.

The nun observed the windy rustle of the leaves above her head, the angle of the sun, and stood up from her cross-legged sitting. The blue robes and white outer-skirt unfolded elegantly with her. Then she reached back and, very precisely, pounded a fist into the side of the tree trunk. An oak staff, its surface worked to a dull, dark polish by age and use, fell out of the branches and neatly into Inwuhou's waiting hands. She slung it on her back, over the small wicker backpack, by the strip of cloth wrapped around it. There, that was everything.

Her sandals slapped quietly against the gravelly beach as she walked down from the headland, arms folded inside each other's sleeves and entire body abuzz with an entire night's stored negative Paradox. She approached where the others had rested for the night and waited quietly for one of them to wake up.

Inwuhou still hasn't opened her eyes.

[Itera]

They say that the sleep of a person satisfied with everything in the world is like sleeping in the most comfortable feather beds. Presumably, this meant that the person wanted the most comfortable feather bed and was satisfied with the one that the person's got. This was the case with a certain boundary fairy, who had spent the night sleeping in an ornately-carved canopy bed the size of half a volleyball court and filled with enough feathers to simulate an artificial ski slope.

Itera loved her bed very much. Other than the horrendous massacre of geese that went into making the bed, there was also a horrendous massacre of careers when the man for whom the bed had been commissioned discovered that the box it was delivered in was empty. The new captain of the guard puzzled for a long time over how a gigantic bed could be stolen from inside a sealed wooden box, surrounded at all times by alert guards who swear up and down that no-body had come anywhere near it, and yet the box's seal remained entirely intact. In fact, a few years later this would inspire legends of do-gooder thieves who went around nicking nobles' furniture and distributing it to the downtrodden and poor. For some reason, this was much less well received than legends of do-gooder thieves who went around nicking more fungible things, like coins or jewels.

Itera loved sleeping in her bed very much. The only reason that the term hibernation doesn't apply is that this happens at times other than winter and, technically speaking, there are no seasons in the pocket dimension that she sleeps in. Like a dilletante heiress with no position or ambition, the only things that get her out of bed are hunger, boredom, and visitors.

A weak, purplish light still penetrated the heavy red drapes around the bed. Itera's amber eyes cracked open. Then they closed again and she went back to sleep.

Perhaps an hour later, the drapes parted and a disheveled fairy clambered out. Itera had finally remembered that there was supposed to be something interesting and fun today. Her private dimension, a tesseract-shaped place whose strange distances and eye-covered "walls" could drive men insane, was littered with rifts to various places that she had visited. She ambled over to one often-visited one, commanded it open, and hopped in sans pajamas. There was a splashing noise.

In a secret hot springs hidden away in an secret valley in the Kachuk mountains, a young shepherd taking a bath froze stock-still as a breath-taking blonde appeared out of nowhere and fell into the water. He managed to make it almost a minute before Itera, in the process of wringing out her wash-towel for the second time, noticed him. Back-washing, followed by hijinks, ensued.

The rift to the bathhouse opened again to admit a much more refreshed, cheerful, and satisfied Itera. She had a subconscious notion that the traumatized boy was probably ruined for marriage or whatever passed for marriage in his pitiful little village. True to her fey nature, she paid the idea no heed whatsoever. She opened her closet and picked out one of dozens of identical costumes: a huge light pink mob cap with a red ribbon in front, a conservative, white tea gown with a narrow purple tabard, wide sleeves, and 3-layer pleated ankle-length skirt, and heavy brown boots. So prepared, she headed for the rift to today's events.

A biological necessity surfaced at this point and Itera performed an about-face.

Quite some time later, there was an unheard tearing noise inside Inwuhou's pack. The boxy pack, tightly-woven from oiled wicker, was mostly empty save for a few documents, prayer beads, and a handful of pointy gold-coated needles. There was plenty of space for the rift.

Inwuhou's backpack lid popped open and Itera's smiling head and hands emerged fresh as a daisy, "Good morning! I see that we're here already! What a nice day, yes?"

She sipped from the fragrant cup of tea one hand before placing it down in the saucer in the other hand with a faint clink. "My, what a nice forest! What... what is that smell?"

[Inwuhou]

Inwuhou was aware of something different in her pack from the first moment that its inside was suddenly connected to a different inside. It was a very strange feeling, like staring into the abyss with all of your senses. All the directions and distances felt wrong to any mind used to the more traditional system of Althanas and the many eyes in that purple expanse stared back at her mind's eye. Suffice to say, she was a little perturbed.

Then a hat came out of the rift. The hat was attached to a head. The head was attached to a neck, and so on and so forth until there was very definitely a very familiar person poking out of the very pack that she had personally packed the night before, such a short time ago.

"Good morning. The smell that you refer to appears to be the result of hundreds of birds nesting in the same spot for many years and practicing fowl hygiene." Inwuhou said with all her usual calm, entirely defeating the temptation to turn her head and look at her sudden passenger. Compared to the temptation to strangle the fairy the first time that the two had met, this was extremely easy.

"Can't you do something about that? It's disgusting."

"I don't have my mop with my person this time. It didn't occur to me that it would be necessary on this... endeavour."

"Well, can't you kill them all or something as punishment?" Itera sipped her tea and, realizing one of its many benefits, refused to remove her nose from the steam above the cup.

"It is bad for the enlightenment of the soul to commit mass murder of innocent animals."

"They're hardly innocent. I mean, the smell!"

A normal person might have refused to dignify that reasoning with response. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single normal person within two feet of the pair.

"They are innocent of that. They are only doing what comes naturally to them, because they haven't wisdom to know better."

A grin spilled across Itera's face. "Then why did you blame me for doing what comes naturally to me, all those times before?"

"People have the wisdom to know better and should strive for enlightenment. Your excessive acts of theft, robbery, assault, molestation, theft, arson, indecency, vandalism, and profanity will ultimately harm yourself."

"You said-"

"There was a lot of theft."

Itera chuckled to herself, which was a technically challenging operation while continuing to bury her nose in her tea. As a testament to her experience and skill, nothing spilled.

"Well, what are we doing now?"

"We are waiting for the others to wake up."

[Itera]

Itera thought on this proposal for a moment, hesitantly sipping at her tea lest she find herself with an empty cup and no defense against exposure to the elements.

"Is that so?"

"It is so."

She reflected on past conversations with the nun. The main problem lied in that the girl had two modes: off and torrent. Either you weren't going to get a single extra sentence out of her, or she was going to be nattering on and on about morals and enlightenment and all sorts of human rubbish. It made for a terrible conversationalist.

"N-hey, Inwuhou." Still, any distraction was welcome, at this point. Itera was quickly getting bored of looking out at the rocks and the gravel and the scrub and the sea. There was a lot of flocculent sky, too, but she had gotten bored of that long before she ever signed up for this adventure.

"Yes?"

"What are you going to do after they wake up?"

"I am going to greet them and exchange names."

"Ah."

Some time passed. The tea cooled.

"So, you don't know who they are?"

"No."

"Don't you do that history-looking thing where you can see into their past?"

"Yes."

An awkward silence - at least, it felt awkward to Itera - ensued for several heartbeats.

"Well?" Itera finally gave in.

"Well what?"

"Do the history-looking thing. Who are they?"

"Didn't you say that it would be rude to do that to others when you don't have their consent?" Inwuhou replied, her eyes-closed smile actually widening a little. She had gotten that exact, indignant accusation from Itera when they had first met. That had been quite a shock, finding out about the realm of the fey and the practices of those people.

"That was me. This is them. It won't be rude at all."

"Oh?"

Itera's brow crinkled a little, "I know what you're trying to say, you stick. They're not fey. There's nothing wrong with poking around in their business because they're from your realm. When you poked around in mine, that was an inter-dimensional incident."

Another awkward silence ensued. Itera sighed, "What if I offered you some tea?"

"That would be nice, I think."

Itera withdrew back into her home. There was a clinking of porcelain and a faint sound of pouring from within Inwuhou's pack, then she re-emerged, bearing another steaming cup and saucer.

"Thank you." Inwuhou accepted the cup as Itera reached around her head with both arms. It really was very nice white tea; the fragrance completely filled the air above the cup. She stood there, tea in hand, staff resting in the crook of an arm. Waiting.

"Well?"

"Perhaps when I finish this tea."

[Ceidon]

The Omega Infinitum must be destroyed. In the wrong hands, it could end all life on Althanas! Someone whispered into his ears. The Omega Infinitum must be destroyed. In the wrong hands, it could end all life on Althanas! The voice grew louder. The Omega Infinitum must be destroyed. In the wrong hands, it could end all life on Althanas! The voice screamed.

Ceidon Lore, adventurer and principle agent of the Order of the Golden Dawn, awoke with a start. He jumped to his feet, grabbed his sword, Errol, from its sheath and spun around. His nostrils were quickly filled with salty air and the sounds of water crashing into rocks took form in his ears. Wait...was he on a beach? How was that possible? Moments ago, he was in Corone being briefed by the leader of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Caduceus Grimaldi, on a dangerous new mission. Now he was gods know where. “What on Althanas is going on?” he cried out.

He looked right and left, and then saw a peculiar sight. In front of him, a nun was sipping on some tea. There was something else too, a head was protruding from the nun’s backpack, presumably drinking the same thing. Sword in hand, Ceidon shifted into a defensive posture. Why on earth would a nun and and a life-sized fairy be on the beach together? Then it struck him: the tournament had begun. This eclectic pair was either his partners or his opponents. Before he could decide, a wave rose along the rocky shoreline and submerged Ceidon’s feet in the water. Startled, he jumped into the air, and started frantically brushing off his legs with the flat end of his sword. When he realized his assailant was just the ocean, he turned red and looked sheepishly into the air. “Great, now they think you’re a clown.” He mumbled.

While looking up, embarrassed, Ceidon caught a faint flicker at the top of a tall mountain. At first he thought it was the sun reflecting off of something, but the flicker remained constant. Ceidon’s suspicions had been confirmed. This was the tournament and that must be it, the fabled Omega Infinitum. With his free hand, Ceidon began pointing up at the flicker. “There!” He called out to the nun and the fairy. “There!” He began poking at the air.

When the two looked clueless, Ceidon shook his head. The Order of the Golden Dawn was created to protect Althanas’ deepest and darkest secrets. That mission made the Order incredibly secretive, and it meant death if one exposed the group’s existence or its mission. Nevertheless, Ceidon carelessly yelled out the words that were engrained in his head: “The Omega Infinitum must be destroyed. In the wrong hands, it could end all life on Althanas!” He placed his free hand over his lips. “Oops!”

“Oh, is that tea?” Ceidon asked in recovery. “Can I have some?”

[Inwuhou]

Inwuhou managed a complicated expression resembling a bastard cross between a confused frown and a benevolent smile. The man who had just hopped up was very excited, which was understandable for someone who had just woken up in foreign surroundings and probably very confused, and spewing nonsense, which was not understandeable because it was nonsense. She forayed backwards along the timeline to make sure that she heard right.

"The Omega Infinitum must be destroyed. In the wrong hands, it could end all life on Althanas! Oops!"

By the third replay, it still didn't make much sense for a tournament, but Inwuhou was quite familiar with not understanding some mysteries. The familiarity came with the territory of being a nun seeking after enlightenment. She reeled herself back to the present, when a few seconds had passed during the review.

"Good morning. There is tea for everyone. My name is Inwuhou, a nun of the Wuji Temple. The one behind me is Itera, a native of Tenger Jerhal." Inwuhou's head tipped forward, both as a bow of respect and because Itera just daintily elbowed her in the back of the head.

"You didn't need to-"

"It is best to be forward with everything. We are teammates, after all. Tea?" Itera sighed and disappeared back into the pack to rummage around for the rest of her tea set. There was the sound of porcelain, of water, and of some metal vessel being retrieved. Itera reappeared, a cup of tea in one hand and a lidded pewter bowl in the other.

"Sugar? Serve yourself."

Inwuhou passed each to Ceidon in turn and, for the first time, opened her sea-green eyes to look in the direction that he had pointed at. She stared that way long enough to have finished her tea and for Itera to have begun on her second cup.

"I don't see it. If you say it is there, however," She smiled, eyes closing again. "then it must be there."

[Ceidon]

“I’m Ceidon Lore,” the adventurer said, taking the sugar and his glass of tea. By this time, he had sheathed his sword and was sitting on top of a large rock near the others. “It’s nice to meet you.” Ceidon lifted the cup to his mouth and was about to take a sip when he smelled something horrible. “No offense ma’am,” he said to the rather odd fairy, “but your tea smells like...uh...bird feces.” Ceidon sipped it anyway. “Hmm, it tastes okay though.” Then he saw, much to his dismay, that the source of the smell was not the tea, but rather the gull nest the two had set up camp near. Ceidon turned red and for the next few minutes he was afraid to look the fairy in the eyes.

“It’s there.” Ceidon eventually said in response to Inwuhou. Still attempting to avoid making eye contact with the fairy, he focused on the nun. “I don’t know how Stern found it though. Before he advertised it as the reward for completing the tournament, we weren’t even sure it existed.” He looked into Inwuhou’s emerald eyes and saw she was clueless. “Sorry,” Ceidon said. “Sometimes I forget to fill in the blanks. The Omega Infinitum, also known as the Book of Knowledge, is a living history of Althanas. Everything that’s ever come to pass is recorded on its pages. Alone, the book is just a historian’s dream, but in the wrong hands it can be used to uncover Althanas’ darkest secrets. It records everything, even things not meant to be remembered. Just think of weapons and magic so dangerous they could destroy Althanas in less than a millisecond.”

Ceidon hesitated before continuing. He was blabbing, and was unsure if could trust these people. But then again, Inwuhou was a nun. They’re among the most trustworthy people on Althanas, right? Ceidon took another sip of tea and continued. “Well we think – sorry, my organization – thinks that Kenneth Stern somehow found the book and is offering it up as the prize for winning the tournament. We think the “Destiny’s Book” is actually the Omega Infinitum. As you can imagine, I need to destroy that book before anyone like Dan Wilmherst or Madison Freebird can get their grubby little hands on it. Oh no…” Ceidon trailed off. If this was the tournament, and the shining beacon was the book, then the other contestants would already be on their way to the top of the mountain.

“We…I need to go now,” Ceidon said, standing up. He handed the unfinished cup of tea back to the fairy and started looking around. They were on the shore of an ocean, but it was one that Ceidon had never seen before. There was no sand like the shores of Fallien or Corone. The cliffs and rocks were characteristic of the shores of Alerar, but the weather was wrong. “Let’s go that way!” Ceidon pointed what he believed to be north, through a rocky path. Truthfully, Ceidon had no idea where he was or which way to go. He had no idea where the other combatants were, or whether he would ever encounter them. In fact, he had no idea why he’d suddenly voted himself de facto leader of the party and if the nun and the fairy would even follow him. All he knew is that he had to get to the Omega Infinitum first, but he didn’t want to go alone.

He started towards the rocky path. “Well, are you guys coming?” He asked, looking to the nun and the fairy. Of course, in his rush to get underway Ceidon wasn’t looking where he was going. Before he had taken 5 steps, the adventurer tripped over the slumbering body of Zach Blaze and toppled head over heels onto the rocky shore.

[Zack Blaze]

Zack awoke not to the sounds of his team mates clamoring, but to that of the seagulls incessant cawing. As his eyes opened, the teen tried to cover his ears. He hated seagulls; they were nothing but rats that developed wings instead of tails in his eyes. Then there was that noise, the sound of a squeeze toy that was drowning in the water. The smell didn’t so much bother the young man, as he felt most people on Althanas did not practice proper hygiene protocols, and therefore had the tendency to smell just as bad as bird excrement.

“Who….who drugged me exactly, so I can punch them in their goddamn face?” Zack looked to the man who had stumbled over his body. Luckily, Ceidon’s clumsiness didn’t hurt the battle hardened street fighter, though the motion did allow the boy to take note of the man’s inability to watch where he was going. His gaze shifted to the other two, or rather the woman and the disembodied head in her backpack. He blinked for a moment, unsure if he was still dreaming or if he had indeed woken up. A cool breeze rolled in, tickling his smooth legs, and prompting him to look downwards at his body.

“More importantly, where are my pants?!” Zack looked down at his white boxer shorts, the bottoms of the underwear looking has if they were torn. His question prompted a giggle from the head, who ducked back into the backpack. “If this is what I think it is; if this is the Adventurer’s Crown, then I am not participating unless I have something to wrap around my legs!”

Before Zack could continue his complaint, his black bell bottom-esque pants were tossed out of the book bag and onto his legs. The youth stood up and quickly redressed himself, not taking even a moment to wonder how someone got his pants off without removing his shoes. “That’s better,” the street fighter said with a smile, “Now that that’s settled, I’m Zack, Zack Blaze of Misery Incorporated, where stopping Misery is our business.”

The others blinked at the motto-spewing Zack for a moment, and the teen was briefed on what was going on in a matter of seconds. “Goodness. That certainly does sound like a dangerous book! I think we should trust Mr. Ceidon in leading us to where we need to go.” As he spoke, Zack blew a drifting feather away from his face.

Outwardly, Zack was prepared to follow Ceidon’s orders, or the orders of any one of his other team mates. After all, the Adventurer’s Crown was a competition that revolved around team work. However, if this book was indeed as incredible as Ceidon made it sound, there was no way the boy would destroy such a valued item. With that kind of power, he could easily obtain his goal of ruling Althanas in a matter of weeks. If push came to shove, Zack would push and shove his team mates off of a cliff to hold something that marvelous.

“Well then, Mr. Ceidon,” Zack smiled, a faux smile for his faux friends, “lead the way!”

[Ceidon]

Ceidon managed to protect his face from the fall, but his hands and knees were not so lucky. Before he even stood back up, the adventurer’s hands began to sting and could feel strawberries on his legs. “Damn it,” he grimaced while pushing himself off the ground. He eventually stood and turned just in time to see the loud young man putting on his pants back on. Ceidon briefly caught a glimpse of crack and turned his head. He didn’t even want to know why the newcomer was pantless in the first place.

Ceidon listened as the young man introduced himself as Zack Blaze of Misery Incorporated, but something about Zack’s description of the group didn’t sound right. As a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn and an unwilling participant in most of Althanas' recent wars, Ceidon was well versed on the various factions that inhabited the land. He seemed to recall that Misery Incorporated’s business wasn’t to stop misery, but rather to cause it. Or maybe that was Malice. Max Dirks, Zack Blaze, Ken Stern. There were too many two syllable names floating through Ceidon’s head right then, and they all sounded sinister to him. But this guy, Zack Blaze, was smiling it up. Moreover, he seemed content letting Ceidon lead the party. Anyone who blindly trusted Ceidon deserved to be trusted back.

“Great!” Ceidon said. “It looks like it’s about a two day journey to the summit.” Forgetting what had happened only a few minutes earlier, Ceidon cheerfully looked at the fairy and asked, “Itera of Tenger Jerhal, what other goodies do you have in that magical bag of yours? We may need food and water.” While Itera was answering, Ceidon began to walk towards the rocky pass. This time he was watching where he was going. Even though he was still listening to the fairy, outwardly it would likely look as though he was ignoring everything she said. After she finished her provisions check, Ceidon stopped.

“Wait!” He shouted. “I feel like I’m forgetting something.” Ceidon scratched his head. He felt his fingers pass through his matted hair. That was it! He was missing his hat. Ceidon rushed back to the beach where he had first woken up and looked around frantically for his most prized possession. At first he couldn’t see anything, and just when he’d given up hope he saw the rim of the hat sticking up above a rock. Fortunately, it was still dry! He walked over, picked up the hat, dusted it off and put it on his head. He slid his finger against the rim and looked up. “Okay, now I’m ready. Let’s go.”

[Itera]

Itera glanced at Ceidon as if he was some curiously insane breed of animal and cocked an eyebrow. If it were something like a pouch, a human might have drawn it open, rifed through it, and started pronouncing the contents as they came up. If she had an excellent memory, she might have started listing off things directly. Itera wasn't human, it wasn't a simple purse-bag, and she had a memory as lazy as she was. So as to give herself time to think and because she saw absolutely no reason to rush anything while being carried around on Inwuhou's back, she drank her tea.

The pocket dimension created by her manipulation of the Boundary of Inside and Outside was, strictly speaking, of finite size. It was very small, too, only about five feet on a side. The unusual thing was that it was a tesseract and so the quantity of cubes that could be fit into it was partially infused with infinity. Every place in that pocket was suspended in a deep violet abyss and surrounded by numerous red eyes. They were Itera's eyes, because this realm is part of her. The exact physics behind someone sleeping in a room that is inside the same person presently eludes written description.

When Inwuhou set off after Ceidon, Itera refilled her cup set off on the very long list of things that she's stolen and bought. Mostly stolen. There was no order to the list because she sees everything inside her at once.

"My tea kettle, a porcelain-covered pewter bathtub sized for two, with feet in the shape of half pumpkins, a pair of mummified rabbits that starved to death after I forgot about them, two large bottles of pickled radishes, a pinewood cabinet holding my moth collection, my moth collection, a dead weevil I threw out of a cob of corn, a set of bronze fireplace tools minus the poker, a tin washtub, my third-best towel, a dustbin, a dessert bowl with moldy pudding, a cob of corn that I threw away after finding a weevil in it, a breadbox, an empty wooden barrel, a wooden step-ladder, throw rug..."

She stopped at this point and downed her tea. It has been a long time since she's taken inventory, with 'never' certainly qualifying as a long time. When you can always find new floor to throw things on, spring cleaning becomes a mythical thing.

"A broken clock, a book titled 'What I Did On My Holiday' ..."

[Inwuhou]

It is more difficult than usual to concentrate when there's an endless flowing of words coming from a few inches behind one's head. Inwuhou's patience stretched like mochi: incredibly distorted, resilient, and never thinning. She had more important things to focus on, like keeping her awareness of the moment, watching where she was putting down her foot, and making sure that her tea didn't slosh out of the cup.

The landscape ahead was awash in muted greens and browns. The island had torn its way out of the sea barely a few thousand years ago and all of the scars still showed. The four adventurers had been on the natural seawall or its scree, formed from a graywacke ridge thrust aside mere millenia ago. The slumbering, snow-capped stratovolcano that Ceidon had pointed towards had contemporaneously spawned hundreds of fissures and cinder cones all around the island and turned the place into a low-lying, alpine maze.

Thin soil supported dense scrub interleaved with tall grass. Here and there, hardy, gnarled trees tried to get a start on a decent forest and make the island look the part for any future migratory aborigines. Very little life had rafted its way to the islands and it was an isolated sanctuary for avians. The very nearly deafening dawn chorus filled the air with countless variations of "this is my lawn", "I've got a great big pecker", "crush kill destroy", and "help, help, I'm being oppressed."

A migrating pigeon, more or less a tourist to the island, burst out of the bushes nearby and fled in extreme haste. A murder of pygmy crows chased after it while shouting avian profanities about egg-snatchers. Inwuhou paused in her walk long enough to politely allow the lynch-mob to pass.

"... toast rack, an unopened jar of pepper sauce, another bucket..."

The nun directed her attention towards the blond man, perhaps as a means of distracting herself, "I can't help but notice that you seemed to have spent some time in the fairy's company. It might be dangerous."

[Zack Blaze]

Zack found himself dumbfounded by Inwuhou’s words. What exactly did she mean by ‘time in a fairies’ company’? The boy scratched his head for a moment, shifting his gaze over to the girl now listing a long stream of items that seemed to also be in the backpack with her. It took Zack a moment to connect all of the dots, and when he did, he gasped in utter horror.

“You mean, I slept with that….that thing, and worse still, don’t even remember it?!” Zack seemed genuinely mortified at the prospect of not getting to enjoy himself during a typically enjoyable event. He rubbed his temples in frustration, sighing as he followed Ceidon to where the adventurer was leading them. After all, someone who had such knowledge of the book surely must have known how to reach it.

~~~~

“What do you mean we’re lost?!” Zack exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. This had been the third dead end, or rather, drop-off to a cliff, that Ceidon had lead them through. Zack rubbed his eyes, his annoyance with Ceidon’s leadership, as well as Itera’s constant ranting of items, finally starting to irk him. The youth calmed himself for a minute, placing his hands together before holding his left hand out as if it were holding something cone shape.

The boy jostled the ‘cone’ up and down, balancing his body as if to distribute his weight properly for the event. Zack shifted his gaze over towards Inwuhou, and suddenly felt the need to explain himself. “Whenever something comes up that irritates me, or I’m bored, or whatever, I do this trick I learned from mimes. Basically, I create a toy or object to play with in my imagination, and try to act as if the item is actually materialized. Right now, it’s a ball-and-cup.”

As Zack explained, he realized how much dorkier he was becoming with each passing word. He stopped his actions for a moment, to look at all of his team mates. “Come to think of it, I know little to nothing about you guys. Since Ceidon’s going to get us all lost again, how about we tell some stories about ourselves while we wander? Might kill some time until we actually get where we’re going. After all, even a broke clock is right twice a day.” Zack shifted his head towards Ceidon with a grin upon his features.

[Ceidon]

“Not lost,” Ceidon mumbled, “just unlucky.” The flickering mountain stood as a beacon in the distance, but every time the party managed to scale one precipice they were met with either another crevice or another cliff too steep to ascend directly. As a result, they were forced to zigzag across the island to reach their destination and everyone was getting frustrated, Ceidon included. Each detour they took gave the other groups an opportunity to reach the Omega Infinitum first.

Ceidon stood on yet another rock overlooking yet another crevice and scratched his chin. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his jaw was rough to the touch. Below them was another valley containing a few trees and more annoying birds. To descend and ascend would only take about an hour, but it would require a good amount of rock climbing and posed a real threat of falling. Alternatively they could stay on the edge of the precipice and walk around the valley, but that would take at least three more hours.

“We don’t have time for that,” Ceidon said in response to Zack. “We have to make a decision. We can either head down into this valley then climb back up or we can go around it. Heading into the valley is a lot quicker, but it doesn’t look very safe.” He turned around to face his crew. “What do you…” Suddenly Ceidon’s eyes turned wide. A mountain lion had emerged from a rock directly above Inwuhou.

The mountain lion gave a low growl, signaling to everyone else that she was there. However, instead of worrying, Ceidon grinned. Finally, he had an opportunity to prove to everyone that he wasn’t a buffoon. This wasn’t the first time the adventurer had come face to a face with a mountain lion. His first encounter happened two years ago in Raiaera. There, he managed to save Cadeacus’ life by putting an arrow through the beast’s heart. Ceidon was sure he could do it again.

“Don’t worry,” Ceidon whispered. “I’ve got this one.” Slowly, he reached his arm behind his back to grab his mahogany bow. After grabbing around a bit, Ceidon discovered, much to his dismay, that the bow was not there! Oh no Ceidon thought to himself. Then he remembered. He never brought his bow with him to the briefing, only his sword! “Uh, on second thought, you take this one Zack Blaze.” Ceidon hopped off the rock, scurried on over to Zack and hid behind him. “Well, go on!”

Suddenly, the mountain lion jumped down from the rock and landed in between Zack and Inwuhou. The rapid action startled Ceidon and he took a few steps back not realizing how close he was to the edge. When the lion growled again, Ceidon jumped and lost his footing on the cliff. “Zack Blaze!” he called out while falling backwards. “Help!” Ceidon reached forward and tried to grab onto Zack’s belt before he fell.

[Itera]

Itera, thankfully, had stopped listing things perhaps two hours back. It wasn't that she ran out of things to list, but rather that she had become rather suddenly and inexplicably seized with the desire to clean out her room. She hadn't done this in a long time, with 'never' also qualifies as a long time.

It was the colony of aborigine termites that finally propelled her. Itera had little problem with knives, armoires, or the occasional starving fly, but when she spotted the six-foot-high termite mound and the thinly-spread carpet of workers slowly carrying bits of drifting bones and furniture from all around the expanding colony. The knowledge that millions of termites were running around inside your private spaces is fairly upsetting.

Cleaning the space is not a physically intensive task. In fact, Itera was accomplishing all of this while comfortably reclining in a chair and with her head poking out of Inwuhou's backpack. She was moving a gap around underneath all the things that she didn't want, starting with the termite mound, and they simply fell through. The good news was that every time the group needed to backtrack due to geographical disagreeability, there was a ready trail of garbage to follow. The bad news was that much of this trail was made of things considered, correctly or not, to be edible by the general avian population.

She was in the middle of distractedly telling a story about the sculpture of a duck made from much-gnawed and quite ancient bones. It had fallen out of the rift several minutes ago, preceded by its pedestal, which was also made of bones. The story went something like this: "There was this one time when Itamera's barbeque stand came out with this new barbeque duck. It was something in the sauce, I think. It was really delicious and I think I ate two every time I went there. I like the legs best. Then she suddenly stopped making them! Turns out that she had just captured some minor fairy of ducks... I think it was ducks, and was just using the fairy for ingredients. We all had a good laugh at that."

Itera giggled softly to herself, then added, "They come back quickly. The duck fairy didn't remember it, the newspaper interview said."

Suddenly, lion.

Inwuhou was facing the lion, which meant that the rear-mounted Itera simply got a view of Ceidon running backwards off of the cliff. It was very nice of him to drag Zack off of the cliff with him, very entertaining. At about the point when Ceidon was ten feet below the edge of the cliff, Itera remembered something about humans not really taking kindly to falls off of fifty-foot cliffs on account of 1) Not being able to fly, usually, 2) Not able to regenerate, and 3) Not being able to emulate the fairy of ducks.

That wouldn't be fun.

The tip of her tongue poked out while Itera twiddled the Boundary of Here and There and tore open a pair of rifts. It was a good plan, if spur-of-the-moment, and she was proud of it. The first one, opened under the falling pair, would scoop them in neat as you please. The second one, opened right in front of the momentarily confused mountain lion, would expel the two at the same speed as they went in the first. Then they can have a fight!

She missed.

Possibly spouting inarticulate invectives, Zack and Ceidon plummeted right past the poorly-aimed 'catch' rift and into a thorny-looking bush. The hardy branches broke their fall, true, but the branches also broke. Since the bush was growing halfway up the cliff, there was some more falling to do.

Itera leaned a little out of the rift in her pack and hid her mouth with her fan, "Oh dear~"

[Inwuhou]

Inwuhou looked at the mountain lion with some trepidation. Scratch that, she was experience what it was like for a big feline's growl to completely bypass the ears and grab the ape's nerves directly. She had some training in hand-to-hand combat and could hold her own in a bar brawl, not that she would be caught dead or alive in a bar brawl in the first place. A big cat was all the wrong shape for that training and had no hands, just a lot of sharp bits, powerful muscles, and a nasty temperament.

Still, she had a stick. It was a very solid stick, not the light, bendy stuff that the nunnery training rooms provided for the neophytes. She liked her staff because presumably all the pain happened at the other end and getting smacked by five feet of oak would discourage just about anything that didn't like having small trees falling on it.

Inwuhou assumed the stance of the Coiling Ancient Roots. That style was the only one that she knew to heart, though she realized that a style relying on tripping up two-legged opponents was significantly less useful on something with rather more legs. Still, there was one thing that she could do that the lion couldn't. The nun started slicing time thin, then charged. In the back of her mind, she registered and failed to process some yelling that sounded like Ceidon.

When one slices time thin, one can do many more things because there are a lot more moments packed into each second for things to happen in. Theoretically speaking, there was no limit to how thin one could slice time and therefore it was possible for everything to happen in practical no time at all. This is generally regarded as a sort of unapprocheable ideal to strive towards by the elder nuns and silly nonsense by the younger ones. Inwuhou sliced one second into four and had crossed half of the rather short distance to the lion by the time that its catlike reflexes had registered the blur. She lowered her staff and swung for its jaw.

Then she went right through a purple-rimmed rift that had suddenly popped open in front of her.

Suddenly, Inwuhou found herself falling down next to a cliff, a short distance above Ceidon and Zack. The surprise broke her concentration like a pebble dropping into still waters. Instinctively, she began contorting in midair and prepared to roll with the landing. Itera retreated back into her rift.

Something shaped suspiciously like Inwuhou's shadow started growing on the entangled pair below.

[Zack Blaze]

Zack blew the strands of his hair out of his face as he and Ceidon flew through the air, the other man now covered mostly in thorns from their last altercation with a mountainside bush. It would have been pretty funny, if not for the fact that the fall was probably going to hurt a lot. True to his thoughts, when Zack and Ceidon touched down on the ground below, the boy could feel jolts of pain all over his body. Ceidon appeared worse for wear, as he had not only hit the ground, but broken Zack’s fall as well.

The teen got up just in time to look at Inwuhou’s shadow getting larger and larger over Ceidon’s form. The young street fighter sighed and held open his arms. Closing his eyes, Zack’s entire body was nearly thrust down by the falling weight of Inwuhou’s body. Zack smiled as he looked to the girl, surprised at his own ability to keep her from slamming into their team mate.

“I’ve had girls falling for me before, but this is ridiculous,” Zack snickered, setting the woman back upright. He grabbed Ceidon’s hand, pulling his fellow adventurer up with a sigh. “Well this is just peachy, now we’re all lost, hurting, and are even further from the goal. Why do I have a feeling this tournament is a lost cause?” Zack rubbed the back of his head, where a sizable lump was already forming.

I wonder if it’s too late to be assigned to another team… Zack thought to himself, looking around the area. There was the smell of pine in the air, so that gave the boy the sense they were near a forest, and the fact he could see Inwuhou’s shadow being cast told the youth that the party had made it to the opposite side of the cliff they were reaching. Maybe Ceidon wasn’t an idiot after all, but merely playing a part to accomplish his goals, much like Zack.

The boy looked towards the ‘team leader’ as the youth had appointed Ceidon in his mind (Zack tended to shy away from leadership unless he had absolute control). Just beyond the man, Zack could make out the darkened room of what appeared to be a cave mouth. Zack pointed towards the entrance, looking to his comrades individually before speaking. “Unless someone is opposed to the idea, I think hiding that our book of untold power was probably hidden in a cave.

[Ceidon]

Ceidon instinctively wrestled with Zack during their free fall, but his intentions were far from sinister. The adventurer was making every attempt to grab onto a rock, bush or anything that would slow their descents, but all of his efforts ended up in vain. Unable to stop his momentum, Ceidon eventually slammed into a large thorn bush. The shrub managed to hold his weight until, of course, Zack fell directly on top him.

The remainder of the fall was a blur for Ceidon, but fortunately the valley settled at an angle and by the end of their plummet they were tumbling instead of falling. It didn’t take long until the adventurer landed on solid ground, and once again, Zack slammed into him. The pain was immeasurable, but it wasn’t Zack’s weight or the force of the blow that hurt him; it was the fact that Zack had caused every thorn that was previously stuck in his jacket to pierce Ceidon's back.

Ceidon lay motionless for the next few moments as Zack got to his feet. He could feel blood pouring from his back and temporarily lost all motivation to move. If Zack hadn’t helped him up, Ceidon probably would have lay there forever. “What?” Ceidon asked as his eyes began to focus. “How are all of you here?” He asked, shaking his head. The entire party was somehow at the bottom of the valley with him. Was he dreaming? Ceidon couldn’t hear their responses and he fell back down onto his knees. The pain was insane.

While Zack was scouting their situation, Ceidon used all of his remaining energy to grab the Shards of Dreniak from his pocket. The shards weren’t sharp like glass, but rather were small pieces of rock. They were part of an ancient artifact called the Dreniak Stone, which Ceidon had recovered on his first adventure. The completed stone had immense power. It could guide the wayward, feed the poor, and even resurrect a man. Its shards had healing powers, or at least that was the extent Ceidon had ever used them.

With the shards firmly in his grip, Ceidon moved his hand in an arcane motion and whispered “Fiato Ramudo.” Anthropologists would recognize it as the tongue of the ancient Berevarians, but Ceidon doubted any of his team members would know the language. After a few moments, the needles that were stuck in Ceidon’s back began pushing to the surface. One by one the popped out and the tissue began to close behind them. It was a painful process, but Ceidon masked his pain behind a grimace. Soon the pain became numb, but the adventurer was still largely out of it.

Meanwhile, Zack had decided the best course of action was to lead the party into a cave. “No,” Ceidon mumbled. “Not cave…lava…must stay in snow. Mustn’t go.” But after leading the party off of a cliff no one was listening. Zack eventually noticed Ceidon was struggling, and offered him a shoulder. “No, no.” Ceidon continued to mumble to himself up until the point when the party entered the cave.

[Inwuhou]

Inwuhou was unexpectedly composed for someone who had spent the last minute charging a mountain lion, rifted headlong into thin air, falling down a cliff, and being neatly caught by a man. She briefly reviewed the event and then decided on the correct person to blame. It's a shame that the person wasn't here right now, so the lecturing would need to be banked..

What she could do now, though, is see to it that her team wasn't limping around on account of something as mundane as a cliff. That, at least, was simple enough to do. Inwuhou stared at Ceidon with her historical eye and started reaching back along that thread. It wasn't actually a thread, not in the sense of something tangible. It was like staring along a line of waves on the sea's surface; the waves weren't connected to each, just shared a phase. She followed those temporal ripples back, watched Ceidon stumble up, watched Ceidon pull out and use his shard.

She watched him hit the ground. She watched him hit the bush. Falls may be terrifying but they were harmless; it was all the sudden stop that was the most unpleasant. Inwuhou reached out to that split-second of sudden stop and erased it from existence, then carefully welded the two free-flying ends together. The memory and impact of that event on Ceidon disappeared; to him. he remembered falling towards a bush jutting from the cliff, then suddenly he was inexplicably past the bush.

The tumble was more difficult, lasting five seconds or so altogether. By the time that Inwuhou had swept these away, she was feeling that distinct sensation of temporal dissonance. Every action had a reaction and in the process of manipulating history, she was also her own place in the timeline. The accumulated paradox pulsated in directions that no common tongue had words for; it was like having constipation and diarrhea at the same time in every particle of your being, which were all trying to twist themselves free of each other. There were very precise and technical terms for the effects amongst the Wuji nuns, but using them would be as meaningless as the words of colors to those born blind.

Ceidon's injuries vanished. His body had no history of ever having hit anything in the last few minutes; one second he was falling and the next he was laying, uninjured, at the bottom of the cliff. Inwuhou, through the haze of paradoxical chronoprojection dissonance, smiled wanly and wondered if the fellow's mind was strong enough to remember the erased events. Then she turned and quietly did the same for Zack, a sheen of cold sweat erupting all over her.

[Itera]

Clack.

Inwuhou's pack opened and Itera's head peeked out. Once assured that there was not in fact an immediate danger of being hit very hard with ground moving very fast, she poked the rest of the way out - that is, up to her waist. There was a broad smile on her face.

"Oh! I see that everyone made the fall just fine. Nobody hurt, hey? That's pretty good." She snapped open her fan and idly applied it, "I thought someone was going to break their neck fo sure. It would have been a shame, of course."

About then, Itera noticed that her ride was not really looking well. Inwuhou smelled wrong, she smelled like too much sweat all of a sudden. She also walked wrong. Instead of that sure-footed, metered gait that the nun usually had, each of her steps came heavily. As stupid as some humans were, Inwuhou didn't strike Itera as being to sort who had to concentrate hard just to walk. This just won't do. Who'd willingly ride a sick horse?

Itera decided to check. She extended one hand and slipped it down the front of Inwuhou's robes.

There was a slight intake of breath and the nun said, "No... stop that. It-" Itera took her hand out. The glove was clammy with cold sweat. More telling was the fact that the nun hadn't smacked Itera across someplace painful already, like the last couple of dimes that Itera had molested the poor woman. Something was definitely wrong.

Itera didn't care. As far as she was concerned, Inwuhou was the mean person who lectured Itera at every meeting, whether it was about theft, callousness, laziness, opulence, sadism, or any number of very human 'sins' being applied incorrectly to the fairy. If Itera knew the word, she would be replying 'anthropocentrism' to every last charge.

"So... where are we going?"

[Zack Blaze]

Zack now found himself in the one position he had not wanted to be in; leading the party. The youth sighed, finding it annoying that he had to issue orders out rather than just mindlessly follow them. Of course, after Ceidon had lead them astray and then almost inadvertently gotten them all killed, the street fighter felt somebody had to fill the void. He felt a lot safer with his life in his own hands than that of any of his team mates.

The cave was dark, and quite humid. To help pass the time, Zack used his miming skills to mimic holding a flashlight, his vision concentrating very hard in the dimly lit settings. It wasn’t until about a mile in that the boy had finally caught sight of something. Around the corner, past some jagged rocks, was a light. Zack’s first thought was lanterns, which then brought him to the conclusion that there was intelligent life just around the next turn. Excitedly, Zack took off in the direction of the light, sweat starting to pour down his face as he did so. Just before the boy bounded the corner though, he felt a hand grab him and throw his backwards.

Zack fell on his bottom, looking up at his attacked to find a tired and sweating Ceidon wiping away the sweat from his forehead; Moreso a gesture of relief than a way to actually clear the wetness from his features. “What the hell, man?!” Zack demanded, standing up and looking at the would-be adventurer, who seemed to be heaving and wheezing pretty hard. Even after being healed by Inwuhou, it seemed that the sheer humidity of their surroundings was taking a lot out of the older man. As such, Ceidon just pointed, straight towards where Zack would have been if he had not run interference.

Lava. A huge pool or orange and red liquid sloshing back and forth in a trench that looked about teen feet deep and three feet wide. If the fighter had continued his fast paced trek, he would have fallen directly into a liquid death. Zack looked to Ceidon once more, nodding his appreciation for the man. “Death traps seems to indicate that we’re getting closer to forbidden treasures, I’m assuming.”

The youth scratched the back of his head, Itera and Inwuhou starting to catch up with the men of the party. He looked to Ceidon with a newfound respect for the man, nodding once more. “Alright, so do we push on or do we retreat, boss?”

[Ceidon]

“Push on,” Ceidon replied nonchalantly, “it's just lava!” The adventurer was unusually chipper considering his unexpected fatigue. “Hey Zack Blaze?” Ceidon asked. “Why are we in a cave?” Only moments before they were perched on top of a cliff overlooking a valley, but maybe he had made that up. Either way, Ceidon soon realized that finding this cave was probably the best thing that could have happened to the wayward party. “You know what, never mind,” he paused, “this is really good!”

Suddenly the scree, the zigzagging ranges, and the cave made sense. These weren’t mountains, they were volcanoes. In Ceidon's mind, it was almost as though this island was created specifically for the tournament. Ceidon was no geologist, but every instinct in his body suggested that if the party kept heading upward they would eventually arrive at their goal. “This island is a baby,” he said. “Earthquakes, eruptions, excitement! All we have to do is keep going up and we’ll arrive at the Omega Infinitum in no time.”

When no one moved, Ceidon realized that it was his turn to lead the party. “Oh fine,” he said. “Come on guys, follow me.” He started up the path. Although Zack continued to use some type of magic to illuminate the way, the lava managed to keep the cave bright and warm. "Put that away, silly. You're wasting your energy," he told Zack. As they were walking, Ceidon noticed that Inwuhou was dragging behind. She was sweating, and for some reason this made the nun inexplicably attractive to him. Ceidon let Zack lead temporarily, using the nun’s pace as an excuse to drop back.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ceidon asked. When she didn’t respond, the adventurer offered his shoulder. She reluctantly took it. “So, tell me about your order. Are you allowed to fall in love, or is that forbidden?” Ceidon didn’t realize it, but Inwuhou’s chronoprojection dissonance had completely altered every chemical in the adventurer’s body. His journey through time had left him unquestionably fascinated with everything he set his eyes upon.

[Inwuhou]

One arm draped over Ceidon's shoulders, Inwuhou stumped along while trying to maintain her concentration on three things at the same time. The most important thing was to keep her feet moving along and not stumbling. It was surprisingly easy because the floor was surprisingly smooth; There had been much more mountainous work by novice masons. Worse, she was fighting paradox, running her personal time slightly slower than the world and very gradually relaxing her twisted-up temporal footprint. It was going to take a while.

All of this effort meant that the scarce free little bit of her mind reacted autonomously when Ceidon's question arrived, "Love leads to worldly thoughts and inevitable loss."

She blinked and sniffed at the air. The sulfurous fumes outgassing from the fast-flowing lava was starting to make her lightheaded. Then she realized what she had said and just barely avoided clapping her free hand over her mouth. She avoided it because that hand was still holding the staff and quite the embarrassing episode of pain would have ensued.

"I don't mean... that is... erm. We're not forbidden from doing anything. The precepts are there as guidance; if someone violates one, the only one truly hurt is their own progress towards enlightenment. The damage will have already been... done. I'll... I'll be okay. I just need time to unwind. Mukuu!" She coughed.

"What is that smell?"

[Itera]

"Burnt sulfur and the like." Itera answered, vigorously fanning herself with fresh air from her rift. It was working, for the time being. She turned grinning eyes towards Ceidon, "You've got a nun fetish, isn't it? Innocent girls who haven't any experience? You like the vulnerable."

The tone was playfully accusatory, but had a real streak of insulted pride behind it all. How dare this... this human act as if she wasn't here? She was a fairy, high above the measly existence of these animals. The nun didn't even wear fashionable clothing!

Itera's train of thought was suspended while the group made a concerted effort to jump across one of the thinner branches of flowing magma in the floor of the cave. Well, the three humans did, anyway; she just rode along in Inwuhou's backpack. Then she decided to be perfectly honest with herself and everyone else, "Tell you what, Ceidon. I've got mine and you've got your pick. How about I show the girl a few basic things beforehand? It'll be more fun that way. I've seen how human mating can be all sorts of awkward the first time."

And then Inwuhou will never be satisfiable again.

Up ahead, the cavern widened into a high-ceilinged chamber, its walls still smooth as before and its gently sloped floor crossed with a few streams of lava. The air was sweltering hot from the convection and heavy to breathe from the volcanic gases. In the center of this chamber, the ceiling had a great hole knocked in it, the rim filled with stone stalactites frozen from old, dripping lava. Centered below the hole was a many-layered conical pillar, the frozen remnants of an old lava falls. Two streams flowed through tunnels in the bottom of it and the surface was, judging by the air roiling above it, quite hot to the touch.

"We wanted to go up?"

[Zack Blaze]

The leap had been relatively easy to make, now that he knew what to expect. Yet, even Zack’s confidence in his own abilities did not stop the sweltering heat from seeping into every pore of his body, forcing out sweat beads in their place. Zack took a hard swallow, only to realize that both his mouth and throat were drying from the intense humidity of the cave.

“Guess that’s what being locked in a lava cave will do to the body,” Zack grinned, but his voice came out rather hoarse. He looked to the lava falls with an admiration of sorts. After all, it wasn’t every day one got to marvel in the beauty of waterfalls made completely of molten lava. The bubbling sounds of the cave reminded Zack of that of a stew, when boiling a hearty variety of meat and vegetables to perfection. Zack licked his lips at the prospect of liquid food, his rough tongue feeling like sand paper across his mouth.

“The way I see it…” Zack took another minute to swallow, trying to steady his words so he could speak clearly. It was tougher than expected. “We can either go up right now, or get out of this cave, find some water, and try again in a little while. While I’m not…” He paused once more, taking a deep breath and swallowing once more. “Sorry, while I’m not opposed to climbing, I don’t think any of us would make it. Now, if we could leave, on the other hand.”

Zack took another swallow, fully prepared to finish his sentence, when the pause in his observations gave way to a new sound. It had a steady rhythm to it, an almost thundering sound as it got closer and closer to the group. Zack looked around for a minute before looking at his party, his eyes starting to grow wide with fear. “Can someone tell me what the hell that noise is?!”

[Ceidon]

“Tea,” Ceidon replied to Inwuhou with a grin. He was about to continue when he was interrupted by Itera. This absolutely delighted the adventurer. Like a child peaking around a tree Ceidon let go of the nun and moved her body until he was face to face with the fairy. As she spoke, he became more interested in her glittering eyes than her proposal. “No way!” Ceidon said, moving his head towards hers, “I personally prefer ridiculously gorgeous intellectually superior omnipresent multi-dimensional beings.” Then, before she could respond, Ceidon kissed Itera on the cheek.

Immediately thereafter, Ceidon became distracted by Zack’s annoying banter about the volcano. “Yes, up, up, up,” he said, pulling away from the females. “We have to go up.” Ceidon moved towards Zack in a pace that started with a skip and ended in a sprint. “Ooh,” he said, clenching his fists. “I can’t wait until we get to the top of this mountain and I get to destroy the Omega Infinitum.” Ceidon shook Zack and then jumped up on a nearby rock.

“Yes! Do you hear that? That’s the sound of victory. It signals the end of our quest and the beginning of our lives as heroes.” Ceidon yelled, extending his arms. Suddenly a large pain shot through the adventurer’s temple. It felt as though Letho Ravenheart had just shot the Lawbringer at Ceidon’s head from point blank range. “Ahh,” he said, grabbing the side of his head. “What the hell is happening to me?” Then things got even worse. Ceidon felt like a heartbeat: every second a new emotion swept through his body. He thought for sure he was having a heart attack.

At some point, Ceidon looked at his left hand and counted ten fingers. It was like double vision, but he wasn’t dizzy. “Did, did I just get a fairy STD?” No one responded, so Ceidon focused on his hand. In a few moments, ten fingers became five, and his heartbeat of emotions ceased. “What was that?” he asked. When he looked up, no one was looking back at him. They were, in fact, looking behind him with horror in their eyes. “Oh no,” Ceidon said, “There’s something behind me, isn’t there?”

Zack Blaze managed to pull Ceidon out of the way just in time to avoid being incinerated by the flaming breath of a dragon.

[Itera]

Itera blushed and was surprised at herself. With all that she was planning a moment ago, embarrassment seemed like it would fit in about as well as a deaf-mute at a choir recital. Was it the outlandish praise? To the fairy, that was just telling the truth. Was it the kiss on the cheek? Itera had tried to intercept it with her own lips but the newly-energized Ceidon was too quick. Was it the confession? Itera had rejected more and better, especially since coming to Althanas, than she cared to count.

To her personal astonishment and annoyance, Itera found that she wanted to reciprocate. It was that sudden and very visceral skipping of the heart when Ceidon leaned in that drove the blush. There's no telling when her fancies might fly off somewhere else, but right now she wanted Ceidon. If she could just get him to drop all that iron, she'd spirit away the man in an instant; lust or not, iron was still mostly prohibited in Itera's realm. She looked up, opened her mouth behind her fan to ask Ceidon which watch he was taking tonight, and stared.

She stared in horror, in fact. There was a very large lizard of some kind staring cross-eyed down at Ceidon. It looked like a small mountain, if mountains could be made of molten rock covered in a crust of black stone shot through with cracks. On second look, they appeared to be scales: black, glassy scales over flesh glowing red-orange hot. The eyes were a molten orange and the pupils were vertical slits of glowing white. Fierce heat emanated from its body, like standing close to a blacksmith's oven.

The dragon opened its mouth; staring down its white-hot throat was like finding out that the light at the end of the tunnel was on fire. Zack tackled Ceidon off of the latter's lofty perch, then a roiling plume of flames wrapped in a shroud of red-hot ash melted said lofty perch into a runny mass in passing. Well before the dragon's breath had reached Inwuhou, the radiated heat was intolerable. The entire chamber was lit like day.

There was no time for words. Itera stuck one white-socked leg out of the rift and kicked Inwuhou in the head. The nun went stumbling aside, leaving the fairy floating in mid-air half out of her rift. She enlarged it all the way and turned it vertical, the far side facing the oncoming doom.

The flames unceremoniously vanished into the rift. The accompanying hot ash swirled and a few flakes landed painfully on Itera. Then she fell out of the vertical rift and landed with the dull thump of backside to stone smouldering in places. That offensively frilly dress is probably ruined.

She sprung up screaming and crying. The stone floor was quite hot from the settled ash. Her words were mostly incoherent, but the general idea was, "Get it off!"

[Inwuhou]

One of the lessons repeated throughout the years of Inwuhou's life at the temple was how to handle being kicked in the head. It usually went alongside other lessons such as how to handle being punched in the head, headbutted in the head, and wrong in the head. All of them were intended to teach holding concentration on what you're doing at the moment because losing control could mean getting stuck one second to the left of yesterday or being spread fractally across all of history like a sort of chunky, screaming pâté.

Fortunately, Itera's foot hit Inwuhou while the latter was still occupied with staring down the white-hot dragon throat. While was no danger of making any people sauce, Inwuhou almost brained herself on the cavern wall before she had recovered. Then there was a stunningly bright gout of fire and a choking, eyes-watering cloud of ash and smoke.

Eyes watering and squeezed shut, the nun picked a handful of needles from inside her robes and hurled them at the dragon with great accuracy. It wasn't as if she usually used her eyes, anyways. Fleshly senses can be deceived. The needles hit its face with a sad plopping noise and dripped away, softening and a little melted. A few reddening dents on the scales marked where they had struck so ineffectually.

The great tail swung around, trailing hot air and attempting to decapitate the nun. She fought the paradox-induced sickness while slicing thin and jumping over the blow. She hung in the air for a few seconds, slicing thick and slowing herself time. The only good that it did was that it gave her temporal whiplash; she came down from the jump and landed right on the dragon's tail.

Her shoes started smoking. They only avoided catching fire because Inwuhou was now racing up the great big tail towards the great big buttocks.

[Zack Blaze]

Zack was never typically one to do something outwardly heroic, but if he had watched Ceidon get friend by the giant rock-like dragon before them, he would have likened it to watching a mental ill person drown in a pool. He could feel the temperature of the cave getting hotter as the dragon bellowed his fire about, causing Zack’s eyes to see ‘heat ripples’ nearly everywhere. He now knew what it was like to be a turkey in the ovens of Alerar.

Zack positioned himself upright, and helped Ceidon do the same just in time to watch Inwuhou charge straight up the back of the beast. The monstrous lizard withheld using his flames against the girl, choosing instead to rear its head back and snap at her. Zack sighed and slapped his hand against his head, shaking it furiously. Why was he stuck with a team of complete morons?

“Stupid, stupid stupid…” Zack said with a sigh, following Inwuhou’s suit and attempting to run up the dragon’s tail as well. Unfortunately, with the first step the youth took, the dragon reacted violently, flinging its tail forward and catapulting Zack onto the face of the beast. He slammed into the nose of the creature with a thud, trying not to lose consciousness over the brutal throw. He could feel the heat of the beast’s skin all over his body and he looked down to his comrades, hoping one of them could give…

“A little help here?!”

[Inwuhou]

Inwuhou had no illusions about the possibility of actually hurting the huge creature with her fists, feet, and staff. It was like the old saying about trying to learn Shield Breaker Style, which focused on breaking the enemy's equipment with your head, fists, and feet before they break your head, fists, and feet with their equipment. The saying went like this: don't.

It had to have its weak points. The eyes would be vulnerable to a well-placed blow. The claw-bones could be crushed, the teeth broken, and presumably somewhere there were nads that it could be kicked. This all assumed that the dragon was an overheated living being rather than just some mobile pile of rocks, lava, and violence. If the eyes were big gemstones and the nads were actual rocks, then things would go rather poorly for Inwuhou.

Things went poorly for Inwuhou. She was halfway up the dragon's back when it decided that that it didn't really want a massage. A lot of teeth went towards her very suddenly. She struck for them with her staff and was rewarded with a loud crack, a howl of angry pain, and half of her staff missing. The half still in her hand had a few bits of sulfrous-smelling teeth embedded in it.

Zack's cry of surprise dopplered past Inwuhou from behind. He hung tenaciously onto that snout and yelled something about help. The dragon violently shook its head to try to dislodge its new, meaty bridle. There was nothing for it. Inwuhou picked out a piece of dragontooth and slung it at a great yellow eye.

[Ceidon]

Zack slammed Ceidon hard into the cave’s rock face, sending a jolt of pain spiraling down his spine. “Thank you,” he wheezed as his savior set him upright, but Zack had already re-entered the fray. Ceidon watched helplessly as Inwuhou and Zack scaled the beast. Though he desperately wanted to help his friends, the adventurer could barely breathe. Instinctively Ceidon reached down and placed his hand in his right pocket. This is where he usually kept the Shards of Dreniak, stones blessed with the power of healing. However, the stones weren’t there. Ceidon urgently started patting his pants hoping to find his treasured possessions. Fortunately he found them immediately in his left pocket...but he never, ever, stored them in his left pocket. Then he remembered everything.

Suddenly Ceidon’s senses erupted. First a putrid odor entered his nostrils, clearing his head almost immediately. Then, the intense heat of the cave attacked his body, causing him to sweat profusely. Finally he felt as though dozens of blunt needles had been pressed into his back. He had fallen off the cliff, crashed into a thorn bush, healed his body, led the group into a cave and woke a slumbering dragon. Some party leader he was. It was Zack’s cry for help pulled Ceidon away from his memories. The adventurer looked up to find Zack dangling from the dragon’s nose while it was attempting to eat Inwuhou and Itera for dinner. At that moment he knew he had to do something!

Ceidon started towards the dragon then stopped. The rest of his party was on the dragon. Only moments before it appeared that the only way to the apex of the cave was to climb what ultimately ended up being the dragon’s spine. He had an idea: one worthy of a party leader. But there was already a problem. In her attempt to save Zack, Inwuhou ripped out a piece of the dragon’s teeth and was about to throw it into its eyes. “Wait!” Ceidon yelled, but it was too late. The dragon roared and turned its head away from the nun sending Zack flailing along with it. All the while it began stomping its feet into the ground causing rocks to fall all throughout the cave nest.

“Don’t move!” Ceidon yelled to the others, seeing an opportunity. With a deep breath, Ceidon pulled his sword from its sheath and ran towards the lava river the group had just jumped across, but when he arrived he hesitated. This sword, Erol, was the one of the last items that belonged to his father before he died. “No, he would have done the same thing,” Ceidon mumbled to himself. In one seamless motion, dipped the sword into the lava and turned towards the dragon. With a loud cry, Ceidon ran as fast as he could back to the dragon and his friends.

Somehow Ceidon managed to dodge not only the falling rocks, but also the dragon’s stops before arriving at his destination: the dragon’s ass. By this time his sword was bright red and was bubbling, but it was still holding its form. Then, with all his strength, Ceidon slammed the flat end of the sword against the dragons behind like rancher breeding a cow. “Hold on tight,” Ceidon yelled to his companions, “We’re taking the express elevator to the top.”

Ceidon prayed that there was something tender on the dragon's rear other than scales or rock. He also prayed that if it took flight as planned that he would be able to grab onto its tail before it was out of reach.

[Itera]

Itera emerged her rift, dripping wet and half-covered in thin, gray mud. A few seconds ago, she had solved the whole problem of what to do when one side of her was painted with hot ash by hopping through her open rift and scooting the other end into the same hot springs that she had taken a bath in this morning. For the first time, she had a genuine frown going. For the unfamiliar, it was more cute than dangerous.

Ceidon ran past the dripping fairy while vigorously shouting something. Distracted by her own fury, she didn't hear any of it. The gap moved silently through the air and positioned itself above the dragon at about the same time as a red-hot, pointy piece of metal smacked flat-side into the draconic backside. Itera had a moment to reflect on the parallels between hitting a great big hot flying thing with a flat bit of hot metal and hitting an anvil with a flambéd teaspoon. The dragon was just reacting to the friendly pat on the behind when Itera's gap reached its final position internally.

Not long after arriving in Althanas, Itera had been fascinated with the human concept of graveyards. There were no graves in her homeland because everyone who died had a habit of not staying dead for very long. The world wouldn't stand for something as permanent as doing away with the embodiment of, say, light. So when she first came across a field of carved stones, each inscribed with interesting pictures and writings, she stole quite a lot of them as interesting souvenirs. She grew bored of them a few days later and re-discovered them a few hours earlier during spring cleaning. Now, they were going to be useful.

Heavy Hail - Unmourned Tombs

Seven tombstones fell from their storing-place in Itera's pocket, through the gap, and smote the dragon. Each one was easily the size of a child and struck like the ton of stone that they were. Itera winced at the cacophony of thumping, cracking, rumbling, and other associated sounds. Then she winced harder as the surprised dragon roared in pained defiance at the unusual precipitation. At least it had completely forgotten about its impromptu spanking and wasn't about to-

One of the eyes was closed, a thin line of yellowish liquid running down its side. The jagged end of a dragon's tooth poked out from between the tightly-squeezed eyelids. Chance!

[Zack Blaze]

“What the hell is that going to do?!” Zack shouted the question towards Ceidon, “Hitting a lava dragon with a lava sword!? Are you retarded?! What good is giving this son of a bitch a message going to do?!” Almost as soon as Zack’s verbally abusive questioning ended, the dragon launched himself up into the air, causing the teen to blink in utter shock at the stupidity of it all.

“Are…you…kidding….me?!” Zack slammed his fist into the snout of the beast, frustrated with the mind boggling logistics of his team mates. “How did that work!?” More fists into the nose, and that was when Zack noticed it. There was a yellow liquid streaming down the face of the creature, a liquid Zack just splashed onto his own features. Trailing the oozing liquid, the street fighter found himself faced with what appeared to be the dragon’s own tooth embedded into his eye.

“Great,” Zack sighed, “So now I’m fighting a seriously pissed off lava dragon with moronic team mates. Could my day get any worse?”

It could, and it did. More specifically, in the form of Itera appearing and offering the youth a way out. After his last interaction with the fairy, the interaction he did not remember but was most certain he was taken advantage of during, Zack decided to take his chances with the dragon. The beast flew up into the air, crashing through the roof of the cave with a remarkable strength and causing rubble to sprinkle itself along Zack’s body, much like the tombstones before it.

As they flew through the air, Zack relished the new, cool breeze that granted him from the outside. He was concerned, however, that his makeshift mount was going to take his entire party up into the air higher and higher, until they could no longer breathe. He had to act fast if he wanted to save Ceidon, Inwuhou, and most importantly, himself.

Zack climbed towards the eye of the creature, trying to focus on the trail of yellow liquid through the smog extracted from the lizard’s nose. It wasn’t hard, aside from the fact that finding a scale with a good grip was rather difficult. As he got to the eye, Zack released his grip on one of the scales, and proceeded to use this free hand to slam into the dragon tooth. With each hit of his fist, the tooth went in a little more. The higher they rose, the closer the sharp object was to piercing something vital. Zack punched furiously, all of his street fighter training bubbling up to the front of his brain as he attacked the inanimate object.

He could feel the bones in his fingers cracking, and could see the blood all over his fist. He had managed to break his own hand during the altercation, but the beast was still alive. As a result, Zack scooted closer to the eye, still holding on tight to the scale with one hand. With every ounce of strength, the boy began to throw his elbow into the top of the dragon tooth, pushing it down deeper and deeper. Zack could feel himself starting to loose consciousness (though he wasn’t sure if it was from blood loss or lack of oxygen), but he continued anyway. He had to try.

Then just as suddenly as he had appeared, the dragon released a large trail of flame from his mouth, a final death wail, before the gargantuan started falling from the sky…

[Inwuhou]

Inwuhou had narrowly avoided being caught between a lot of dragon and a lot of stone by the expediency of jump off of the back. It was a long way down to the ground below, but she didn't have to make the fall. The moment that the dragon had smashed through the ceiling of the cavern and winged its way into the free air outside, Inwuhou reeled back along her own history and started deleting as quickly as she dared. It had been only a few seconds since she jumped, a short enough time to consume.

Quite suddenly, the nun reappeared on the dragon's back, having never jumped off at all. She collapsed there, arms hanging onto a mightily flapping wing-root and head spinning with the new paradox load.

That was a terrible idea. She thought, If I had been slow by just a second, I'd have hit the ground. If I had been early by just a second, I'd have hit the ceiling.

She gulped. A childish enthusiasm and giddiness penetrated all of her monastic training and discipline, Wait until the others hear about this! I might get a whole scroll added to the Library.... I... what's that smell?

The smell, which resembled a good leg of pork being turned over a fire, turned out to be coming from her. Inwuhou's death-grip on the dragon had kept her firmly attached despite the spasmodic gyrations that the creature was performing due to having its own tooth shoved through its own eye-socket. It also put quite a lot of her in constant contact with the skillet-like surface of the dragon scales. Her thickly-woven robes had browned and now a good bit of her was starting to cook.

Adrenaline gave up under the shock. Inwuhou jerked back, screaming, and fell off of the dragon. The pain hit like a brick wall, then she fainted. If she had been in a calmer state of mind, she might have noticed, with interest, that she was falling only slightly faster than the great corpse was.

[Ceidon]

Ceidon tried to ignore Zack’s chide, but the street fighter was right. This entire mission had been one disaster after another and Ceidon was the cause. Even his prized weapon, a sword given to him by his father, was about to be lost by his incompetence. He held on to Erol as long as he could before it melted into boiling metal. The next moments were lost. Apparently Itera dropped several heavy tombstones on the dragon and Zack punched it in the nose, but Ceidon was too busy lamenting to notice. Then the unthinkable happened: fed up with the onslaught the beast roared, spread its wings and took to the air. His plan had worked!

No, not his plan; their actions. This tournament, his mission, wasn’t just about him destroying the Omega Infinitum. It was about meeting others, working as a team , and winning a tournament. Alone Ceidon was clumsy, but in a team he was a graceful warrior. Maybe Kenneth Stern wasn’t as bad-shit crazy as Caduceus made him seem, as teamwork appeared to be at the core of the Adventurer's Crown. Ceidon grinned and then frowned. In the short time it had taken him to come to this realization, the dragon had already climbed out of his reach. Not only did he miss his ride, he also was pelted by boulders as the ceiling collapsed. He ducked and dodged his way to safety, finally coming to rest near Itera who was still in the cave.

“Hey,” Ceidon said sheepishly. Although he was under the weather, the adventurer still vividly remembered first insulting and then kissing the fairy only a few minutes before. “Looks like we missed our flight,” he said, looking at the ground. “So you know that trans dimensional warping you do? Would you mind if I hitched a ride?” Itera surprised him by draping her arms around him and pulling him in close. Then she kissed him on his lips.

“For…luck?” She said with a grin.

Time stopped for a moment and then suddenly Ceidon was yanked forward. He closed his eyes and grabbed Itera tightly. If she dropped him, he might end up smack in the center of oblivion. Eventually his eyelids turned from dark to light and the fairy whispered softly, “We’re here.” Ceidon slowly opened his eyes, refusing to let up his grip on Itera. They were now on a strange unnatural plateau near the peak of the mountain, standing in three inches of snow.

“Ahh,” Ceidon said, astonished. Directly in front of him, and behind Itera, was the shimmering mountain. Except it wasn’t a mountain, it was a 30 foot tall brick building. The bricks were glowing emerald green, which was obviously what he must have seen from below. However, upon closer inspection, there didn’t appear to be anyway to enter the magical fortress. “How do we get in?” he asked Itera.

“Uh, Ceidon,” she replied. “Ceidon!” The adventurer looked at the fairy only to find her eyes fixed on the sky. He followed her eyes and suddenly his heart filled with dread. Directly above them the dragon carrying their partners was dive-bombing from the sky at near terminal velocity. “Shit!” he exclaimed, pushing Itera away from him. Ceidon turned and dove to the side, praying that the plateau wouldn’t crumble under the force of the falling dragon.

[Zack Blaze]

Zack fell through the air, the massive dragon falling behind him, and Inwuhou descending slightly faster in his front. In times like these, most people would do the right thing, be the hero, and try to rescue the falling nun from both her imminent impact with the ground, but the crushing weight of the beast above the two of them. Zack looked towards the woman, then up to the defeated monster, and smiled.

The dragon, like chivalry, was dead.

Zack tried to shift his weight, falling at an angle and attempting to pull open shirt collar. His plan slightly worked, as his clothes kept getting caught in the wind, occasionally giving the youth a millisecond or so more into the air. He kept opening his collar, repeatedly trying to catch some wind in his fall from it, and finally found himself falling at the same time as the beast he had slain.

Zack acted quickly, shifting his weight back over towards the collapsing behemoth, finding a wind tunnel that had formed behind the creature’s wings. Without the wind resistance, Zack fell even faster, straight onto the body of the terrible threat that had almost killed him. He clung to the corpse of his fallen foe, closing his eyes and hoping for the best.

He heard the crash, and opened his eyes, surprised that he was still alive, that his plan had worked. However, the dragon had missed the hole it had flown out of; instead slamming directly into the green building that they had all once thought was a mountain. Zack looked around, coughing as his lungs caught a mouthful of dust. He could barely make out Ceidon and Itera’s forms in the distance.

If only Ceidon had a brain, and Itera had some courage, I wouldn’t have had to let Inwuhou die. Zack thought to himself a scowl on his face. He turned his back to his allies, looking around the chamber of the large palace. There, on a pedestal, the youth saw a parchment setting by itself. The cave, the lava, the dragon, even the lack of entrances, had apparently all been defenses to protect this paper. This had to be the Omega Infinitium.

“I…I think I found it!” Zack laughed, coughing from the dust once more and falling back upon the corpse of the dragon. “Zack Blaze…adventurer, dragon slayer, and rare treasure finder….man I’m good!”

((Zack's final post, you guys bunny him however you need to to wrap it up! We only have a day!))

[Itera]

Itera reeled back, tripped over an unexpected boulder, and smashed into the same. The dragon was in the last seconds of its swan dive now but so were its hijackers. One of them still had a death-grip on the overgrown lizard's snout. The other one was tumbling limply alongside, her long black hair streaming behind her like a shuttlecock tail.

The fairy briefly considered the benefits of simply letting everyone smash themselves to pieces. It would be fewer competitors for this whole tournament business later on and she had no particular attachments to any of them. Oh, certainly, the man on the nose had some skill, but she could always find and spirit away someone else. Perhaps she could even find someone with the same green eyes; that would be nice.

A horrible realization struck Itera as she idly watched the three nearing the ground. People went splat when they hit the ground really hard. These people were going to go splat and gte ? And if they went splat, there was going to be wet bloody bits going all over the place. If wet bloody bits were going around, she was going to get splattered on. The mud was going to be hard enough to wash out of her dress, but blood is a whole another issue. That stuff was impossible to get out and the rust-red color would stand out against her white fabric.

There was nothing for it, in order for her to save her wardrobe, she was going to have to save some humans.

Itera reached out with and found the boundary of motion and still in Inwuhou and Zack, then manipulated it just so. As the two neared the ground, each's momentum was turned and used to cancel the other's momentum. The two touched down, gentle as a lead feather.

With a singularly ghastly noise, the dragon's corpse smashed through the bricks and continued right through it. A huge cloud of dust, much of it glowing emerald green, rose and engulfed the small plateau. Itera tried to stare but was foiled by eyes watering from the dust.

"... *cough* I meant *cough* to do that..."

[Ceidon]

For the next few moments Ceidon remained face deep in the snow. As a result he missed Zack’s amazing midair maneuver, Itera’s heroic save, and the dragon’s impact with the emerald brick. When the dust settled and the ground stopped shaking, Ceidon slowly climbed to his feet to find all three of his companions shaken, but alive. It was par for the course with this group.

Amazingly, the dragon had crashed into the building, leaving a 10 foot gap in the brick. Zack had already entered, fresh from his triumph over the beast. Itera and Inwuhou held back. Ceidon gave them a small nod and then followed Zack into the building. Unlike the exterior, the interior was nothing special. Inside, the only article of note was a pillar containing a single piece of parchment. Naturally Zack picked it up, a large smirk on his face.

“Uh,” Ceidon said. Zack continued to gloat. “Uh,” Ceidon said once more in response to ‘rare treasure finder.’ When the street fighter finally finished, Ceidon yelled out, “That’s not the Omega Infinitum! Zack stopped immediately and looked to Ceidon. “The Omega Infinitum is a book. That’s a piece of paper.” Zack looked furious. Ceidon held out his arm. “Well, let me see it.” Zach hesitated for a moment, acting almost as though he thought the adventurer was attempted to trick him. Eventually Zack gave up and handed the parchment to the historian.

“It’s a map!” Ceidon exclaimed after a few moments. At this time he was completely obvious to the others. “I think I recognized this river and this hill. I think it’s in Lornius!” Suddenly everything made sense. If Kenneth Stern wanted to hide the book in a place where even the Order of the Golden Dawn feared to traverse, it was Lornius! Barren landscape, deadly animals, and xenophobic people: it was the perfect hiding spot. Parchment in hand, Ceidon began to run towards the exit. When he arrived, he turned to see that none of his teammates had followed him.

“Well,” Ceidon asked. “What are you waiting for? We’ve got a treasure to find!”

[Revenant]

Round 1 closed for judgement.

Good luck!

[Revenant]

Plot: (23)

Storytelling (8) – You completed all of the necessary tasks for this round of the tournament. Your island adventure, while not the most original, was well constructed and flowed well. The slightly humorous tone of the thread really complimented Itera and Zack, who might have felt slightly out of place in a more serious thread.

Setting (8) – There was nothing brilliantly out of the ordinary for the location that your group picked but you did a very good job of detailing it. A little more of a unique flair would have given you the bump you needed to score higher.

Pacing (7) – There was definitely a slow start in the thread with Itera and Inwuhou posting multiple times before everyone else. Inwuhou managed to post three times before Zack even got his first post in. It would have been an excellent start for a longer, more drawn out thread, but as it was it clashed with the swift moving style of the rest of the thread.

Character: (24)

Communication (7) – Ceidon and Zack both had very distint voices that gave very distinct impressions of who the characters were. Zack, it would have been very easy to allow your character’s self-superiority overshadow his other features but you found just the right balance to keep things both entertaining and engaging. I found myself laughing at several moments in this thread. Itera and Inwuhou, your voices started to blend together in areas, and while it didn’t necessarily make it difficult to distinguish between them, it made the characters feel less distinct.

Action (8) – The somewhat over-the-top nature of the characters’ actions in this thread fit almost perfectly with the story’s tone. All of your characters kept the story moving and kept things from becoming dull, even when nothing was going on. The only hint of an issue that I had was Inwuhou’s complete acceptance of Itera sticking out of her backpack with absolutely no trouble from it whatsoever, even while navigating the caves and lava tunnels.

Persona (9) – All of your characters really felt very individual in how they reacted, and I really like way that your characters reacted without thinking and then paused at the first available moment to think “wait, why am I doing this?” It added an overall sense of realness to the characters. It was good to see that your characters had emotional depth, ranging from jealousy, to lovesickness, to hopelessness, to smugness.

Prose: (20)

Mechanics (7) – While there were only a handful of errors in this thread, they were significant enough to lower the score. As always, read your work carefully and edit when necessary.

Clarity (6) – To be honest, with all the ass-burning, eye-stabbing, tombstone dropping going on, the dragon’s final moments became somewhat confusing and the exact order of events became quite muddled. Specifically, Inwuhou, your use of your time distortion led to some conflicting elements in the story after the characters fell off the cliff. The odd specifics of your ability also caused me to have to go back over the point where you were jumping over the dragon tail and instead ended up on top of it. For both Inwuhou and Itera, your abilities are very interesting, but their use needs to be carefully smoothed into the story so as not to create confusion.

Technique (7) – The lighthearted nature of this thread served you all well, but be careful when adding side commentary as too many of them, or ones put in the wrong place, can ruin the effect. Additionally, there were a couple of areas where numbers were posted as numbers instead of being written out. Taking the time to write ten instead of 10 will help the flow of your story.

Wildcard: (7)

Total: 74

Inwuhou receives 925 exp and 150 gp.
Itera receives 833 exp and 135 gp.
Ceidon receives 925 exp and 150 gp.
Zack Blaze receives 740 exp and 120 gp.

[Silence Sei]

EXP-GP added.

Zack leveled up! Here Comes a New Challenger!