AC: Round 2 - Group 7

[Revenant]

This thread is reserved for members of Group 7. The thread will open at noon on September 7th (Pacific time) and will be closed after two weeks.

Good Luck!

Group 7
Letho
Chibimon Blue
Steppenwolf Orlouge

[Letho]

***RESUMPTION***

This time his dreams were the way they usually were: a mere heap of broken images, disjointed, at the very edge of comprehensibility. As his consciousness returned, Letho Ravenheart managed to recall but a few, and already they were fading away like shapes in the sand as the tides comes in. A town, a cluster of stormy clouds, a hooded man, gallows, blood, riders with torches. He thought it might be Gisela on the day of the massacre, but it didn’t look like Gisela. It carried more resemblance to Savion, the homeland he had forsaken so many years ago, with its cascading staircases and high towers that reached to the heavens.

But by the time that conclusion dawned to his drowsy mind, reality rudely showed the images away, painting over them with a dun blue color like a painter dissatisfied with his work. And he was somewhere else again. His eyes opened to the dirty color of a sky at dusk, specked here and there with the faintest twinkle of the first stars. They weren’t Althanas stars, that much was clear, for the constellations were all wrong and some moved far faster than they ought to. But by now, Letho wasn’t surprised by this discrepancy. After the trek through the desert with three others, and the dragon, and the underground tunnels filled with fiery horrors, there was not much that could surprise the ranger. He was fairly certain that this entire competition didn’t take place on any island on the face of Althanas. The place had a different feel to it, different smell, different patterns of motion, like an illusion just too perfect to be true, artificial deep down under the surface.

“Probably a lot like the Citadel,” Letho thought as he pushed himself up to his elbows. For one, his wounds were gone. The dislocated shoulder, the broken ribs, the burned skin and flesh, all brought back just like when Ai'brone monks did their magic. The world around him only further confirmed his suspicions. Mere moments ago – or at least it seemed to Letho that the pool and the dragon occurred moments ago – he had been dropping from exhaustion and blood loss under the surface of a wretched desert island. And yet now he rested on a stony hillside, with the descending landscape around him covered in grass that swayed back and forth under the light breeze. He could see trees as well, old willows lazily swinging their crowns as if they were in some religious trance. He was fairly certain that there was also a brook or two somewhere out there, bubbling merrily as it went to meet the surrounding sea.

“Figures,” the bulky ranger mumbled as he got up to his feet. He had had to endure the desert and the cold and the ship-sized dragon to get here, but now that he was actually at his destination, the island was as nice as it could be. Letho cracked a wry smirk as he stretched and his spine popped and cracked; whoever pulled the strings which made this magical theatre come to life had a wicked sense of humor.

Like the last time, there were others in his proximity, but unlike the desert several hours (or days, Letho couldn't really be sure) ago, he was the first one to regain consciousness. And while he hadn't been terribly satisfied with the his last motley crew - what with the invisible man with a candle holder and a dragon-woman with about half a pound of chips on her shoulder - looking over his two companions made him want to be back with the other three. At least two of those three looked capable. What he wound up with this time around was a ridiculous looking hulk of a man with huge pink hairdo that must've ran from one of the traveling carnivals, and a kid that seemed at an age with his own daughter. But while his fourteen years old Lorelei grew up to be a rather self-sufficient lass that knew how to handle a staff aside from being able to burn half a block with her magicks, this lad looked more at home swinging a wooden sword than a real one.

But the odd sleeping couple and their skills (or lack thereof) didn't stay long on Letho's mind. Because what stood on top of the rocky hill was simply staggering. Letho couldn't remember what the object looked like when he had first seen it on that desert beach, but he was fairly certain that it had been nothing like what stood before him now. Some hundred paces wide and rising up towards the sky in uninterrupted smoothness stood a perfectly rectangular slab of rock. Half as thick as it was wide, this anthracite-colored monolith dominated the landscape with its eeriness, looking as if it was something that didn't belong there, that didn't belong anywhere on Althanas, a pure pointless excess of size. With nary a scratch or a fleck of mud on its surface, it seemed like a dark hole in reality, and only when Letho made his way to the foot of the structure and pressed his hand against the glass-smooth surface, he was certain that there was matter there and not just ink-colored mist.

"By the gods, what are we supposed to do with this damned thing?" Letho muttered, his eyes sliding upwards to the point where the monolith disappeared in either the clouds or the gathering darkness of the night. His reverie was interrupted by the sound of the shuffling behind his back. Turning away from the weird block of black stone, he walked back to the others. The Vorpal Blade was back in its staff form, the butt of it clicking against the stone as he walked, but the metal staff was the only remarkable feature about him. In his plain white shirt and faded denim pants, Letho looked like he did at the beginning of the previous round; just another aging adventurer.

"On your feet, lads," he said to the other two, his voice deep and a bit hoary, unnaturaly loud in the stillness of the monolith's presence. "We have work to do."

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa woke up to the words of this strange man, holding his head instinctively to check for any bumps or bruises. The youth was growing rather sick of Kenneth Stern and his reoccurring theme of seemingly drugging his tournament participants to get them from round to round. As he sat up, he looked at the man before him; brown hair peppered with shades of gray coming in, an intimidating size with a weapon to match, and a fearsome, well kempt beard that would make a gnome envious. Hsa was standing before the mighty Letho Ravenheart.

Of course the child had heard the stories that many spoke about Letho. He was a living legend among the young and old alike, a warrior with unsurpassed might, a devout sense of justice, and the ability to right any wrongs that evil doers would attempt upon Althanas. Just standing (or rather, sitting) in this man’s presence caused goose bumps to form all over Hsa’s body, and the child scooted backwards a bit, his eyes downwards to the ring of pure darkness at the foot of the hills below them.

“Yo-You’re Letho…” he finally stammered out, followed by a heavy swallow, “I-I’m so sorry for the intrusion, Mister Ravenheart sir. M-My name is Hsa, Hsa Eulb.” The boy ended his introductions there, finding it vastly inappropriate to introduce his Chibimon to a man who would obviously know the name of such powerful creatures. The trainer’s eyes shifted back downward, following the length of the giant stone slab behind the Corone Ranger.

“I… don’t feel good about this place…” Hsa spoke, though it almost came out more as a whisper. He rose to his feet, a gurgling in his stomach indicating an instinctive fear rather than any actual hunger. He had eaten at the Chibimon Center he had found during the first round of the Adventurer’s Crown, and apparently the fruits and vegetables he had were still firmly packed away. He could even smell the scent of fresh strawberries on his breath. Did Kenneth Stern teleport him here immediately after he ate?

He moved his head around, trying to gain a grip on his surroundings. There was a smell that he could not figure out, a scent he had encountered once before in his adventures. He licked his lips, as if tasting the wind would help him remember, but sighed in resignation once that failed. His gaze finally settled on the last member of the group; he was a large man with a rather strange hairstyle, as well as clothing tastes. Just looking at this strange man, and remembering that he was in the presence of a respected warrior such as Letho Ravenheart, Hsa turned his baseball cap forward, stood straight up, and puffed his chest out as best he could.

He approached the third member of their party as if he had no fear. In fact, he felt as though he had something to prove to the much older gentleman behind him. Kneeling down, Hsa grabbed the broad shoulder of the awkward haired person and began to shake him. “Hey, it’s time to get up!”

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

My eyes shot open the second the hand was placed upon my shoulder. In an instant, I was up with my hand around the neck of the boy who had shaken me awake. I didn’t remember ever going to sleep, so I had quickly assumed that I was still in the hedge maze that had tortured me and my Adventurer’s Crown team mates for hours. However, looking at the child who had jostled me out of my sleep, I realized that there was nothing to indicate the work of Alabaster the half-fae. I dropped the kid, who landed onto his knees and began gasping for air, my head spinning every which way a bit frantically.

“Where’s Cellar?!” I demanded, as if I expected the boy in the baseball hat to know. He simply looked up to me, a little bit of water welling up into his eyes. I stared at him for just a moment, realizing that I was being incredibly rude. “I’m sorry,” I kneeled down towards the child with a warm smile on my face, “My name is Steppenwolf, and I’m just worried about my team mates. Have you seen anyone else here?”

“Just us,” the voice came not so far off as my eyes went to meet with the source. I took a hard swallow, my eyes completely wide with fear as I looked at the massive frame of Letho Ravenheart, the ‘Sentry of Corone’. My heart began pounding into my throat, my eyes looking over the hero, glancing over his brown eyes, graying hair, broad frame and most importantly, the hand that seemed to be upon his weapon. My guess was that he was just a second away from striking me down. I made a mental note not to touch the boy that was with us unless it was in a more hospitable way.

“Letho Ravenheart!” I exclaimed, standing at full attention in the presence of the man, body quivering with excitement. For all of my life, I wanted to be a super hero, and now here was a man that was the very embodiment of heroics. I felt like a little girl who just met a famous designer of some sort; giddy with excitement and trembling with adoration. “My name is Steppenwolf Orlouge, sir! I am ready and able to serve you at a moment’s notice, sir! Just let me know whatever you need!” I brought my hand up to my forehead to salute, as if I was one of Lord Ravenheart’s soldiers.

“Hsa,” the child choked out as he scrambled to his feet, “And as Mister Letho said, we’re the only ones we have seen here. I think Mister Stern decided we were getting too friendly with our last teams, and switched us up again.” He pointed behind me, to the edge of the hillside we were standing upon. My gaze followed his finger to see the inky shroud of impenetrable mist below us. I shuddered, knowing that as a scientist, the scariest stuff in the world usually winds up in the darkest places.

I finally lowered my salute to the man and finally took notice of the tall obelisk before us. My curiosity as an inventor took the better of me, and I began to walk over to the gigantic structure, my hands pressed against the cool material of the object. I traced my fingers around the thing, trying to find something, anything that would give us a clue to what we were supposed to be doing. While I loved Kenneth Stern right now for perhaps giving me the best partner ever, his ambiguity in his missions left something to be desired.

My fingers ran across some indentions in the ancient marvel and I smiled. I used my fingers to trace the indentions themselves now, a smile across my face as I spoke the words silently to myself before calling to my apparently new team mates. “Hsa, Lord Ravenheart, there’s some writing over here! Maybe it’s a clue?”

As I spoke, there was still a pang in my heart, worried about that sweet black haired girl from the last round of the tournament. Taka and Erissa could and would handle themselves, but Cellar was just a child who got in over her head. I took a deep sigh as I heard my team mates approaching, hoping that if I got out of here fast enough, I could at least check on Cellar’s progress.

[Letho]

It would seem that he didn't need his Lawmaker gunblade or his uniform to be recognized these days. Both boy and man deduced who Letho was as soon as they took a gander at him, the younger one breaking into juvenile elation and excessive humility while the pink-haired man did his best impression of a soldier seconds after nearly choking Hsa to death. Letho regarded both with a measured nod, his eyes firm, his face revealing nothing. It wouldn't do to show any kind of displeasure or disappointment; the ranger knew that as much as any leader worth his salt. Regardless of how unimpressive and incapable someone might be, they had a tendency to only get worse if faced with negativity. And also there was always the odd chance that his initial assessment was wrong, and that there was much more to these two. Though Letho doubted in such a favorable turn of events given his luck so far, it was a possibility he had to take into his calculations.

Steppenwolf's discovery brought the ranger out of his assessing thoughts and to the matter at hand. At first Letho suspected that the pink-haired man was seeing things, for he had gazed upon the monolith moments ago and there wasn't a single imperfection on its surface to be seen. Yet even as Hsa and he approached the foot of the mystical slab, he could see it as well. In the dying light of the dusk, the letters looked like scratch marks aligned in a perfectly horizontal row. But once Letho was close enough, he could recognize the words engraved into the surface of the monolith. The typeface of the writing was utterly simplistic, just large featureless capital letters carved into the surface by an invisible chisel.

"What does it say?" Hsa finally asked, unable to see the entire engraving from the pair of bulky men. Letho's eyes went over the letters slowly, straining in the low illumination.

"It says," Letho said, reciting in a flat tone that concealed his own confusion. "I drive men mad for love of me. Easily beaten, never free."

All three stood in silence, eyes on the letters and heads wrapping around their meaning. It was the young man in the cap that spoke again, unafraid to ask the questions that the grown-ups usually liked to keep for personal deliberation.

"So what does it mean?"

"I believe it's a riddle," Steppenwolf finally said after a short period of grave-like silence, sounding a bit too enthusiastic about it. "Would you agree, sir?" he added, turning to Letho.

Letho's frown deepened, adding another wrinkle to his brow even as a low growl appeared somewhere deep in his throat regardless of how hard he tried to suppress it. He hated bloody riddles. Back in Savion, Lothirgan, his old teacher, had had a thousand of them, always trying to test Letho's mind just as he tested his sword hand. And while his pupil excelled with all things sharp and pointy, the riddles had defeated the young Letho every time. The problem, as Lothirgan nicely put it, wasn't that Letho was a dullard, but rather that his mind worked in straight lines, searching for an optimal and most effective solutions. And riddles were always full of twists and curves, putting a mind through its paces until it made its way to the solution.

"Indeed," Letho squeezed out, eyes once again going over the letters, as if this time they would find a new clue that would lead to the solution. The cogs in his head were gyrating with a rattle, screeching and whining as he exerted the part of his mind he didn't use all too often these days. They said that people got wiser as they got older, but Letho wasn't a showcase example of that, at least not when it came to riddles. He kept focusing on parts of the riddle and came up with answers that fit only partially.

"A nymph maybe. They can drive people mad. But you do not pay for a nymph, his mind went, trying out answers like shoes on a Bazaar, searching for the one that fits. "Perhaps respect. Respect is never free. But it can't be beaten. How about power? People are driven mad by power and it isn't free. But power isn't easily beaten..." And on it went until Hsa interrupted the train of thought that, as always, ran on a straight line.

"So, what's the answer?" the wide-eyed boy asked, looking straight at Letho. The ranger could feel Steppenwolf's eyes from the opposite side, equally expectant.

"Damned if I know. I hate these bloody things. It seems the answer always turns out to be the thing farthest from your mind," Letho said, shrugging his massive shoulders. He looked at the riddle again, then up the face of the huge monolith, and almost started to miss the salamanders and the ice dragon. Wrapping his large hands on an enemy and wrangling him to the ground, that was something he could do. But wrapping his mind around a riddle was like trying to grasp an eel; just when you thought you had a good grip, it wriggled out and slapped you in the face. "But we better come up with it fast. I do not think we can win this tournament by sitting here until we grow wiser."

[Silence Sei]

"What if it's not?" Hsa asked with a genuine curiousity to his words, "What if they expect you to think of the furthest thing from your mind, and so you spend the entire time thinking about it? Then maybe it turns out that the answer is something really simple and easy?" He blinked for a moment, looking to Steppenwolf and Letho with wonderment. He knew that strength wise, he brand new Rhinosaurus would not even be a match for these two towering titans, so the youth hoped he could at least be on par with his comrades intelligence wise. Letho seemed a bit confused at the question, while Steppenwolf looked at Hsa like the child had suffered some sort of severe brain damage. In fact, a lot of people had the tendency to look at the boy like that.

"That is without a doubt the most..." Steppenwolf's eyes shifted towards Letho, who was once more resting his had upon the hilt of his weapon, "... unusual way to look about it that I have ever heard." Letho's protection of the child did not escape Hsa's gaze either, a smirk coming across the child's face. He did not know why Letho Ravenheart favored him so, but the fact that he did showed Hsa that this man was something to truly aspire to.

Steppenwolf once again broke the train of thought, crossing his arms and huffing a bit. "Alright then, Hsa was it? Maybe you can answer the riddle. I was thinking of an answer, but it seemed to overcomplicate things. If your theory is right, maybe we are over analyzing this whole situation." He shifted his head behind him, stepping aside so the boy could take a crack at solving the mystery. Hsa took a deep swallow and began to walk forward, repositioning his hat in an attempt to make himself more comfortable. He stuck his chest out wide, as he imagined Letho would do if he were to try and answer the query asked by the monolith.

"The answer," Hsa smiled as he looked downwards at the shadows that engulfed his frame, unsure if they belonged to Letho, Steppenwolf, or the obelisk. "Is Chibimon."

The ground started to rumble a bit, and Hsa's eyes grew wide with wonderment. Had he answered the question correctly? Steppenwolf and Hsa both almost fell to the ground as the earth beneath them quivered and growled Then, just as quickly as the quake had come, so did it subside. The structure continued to obstruct their way, and Hsa was now out of one of the shadows, solving at least one mystery. If only it had been the right one.

"I'm going to ask," Steppenwolf said in a calm manner, though the twitching of his eyebrow indicated a slight annoyance, "because I don't think Lord Ravenheart will. What exactly are Chibimon, Hsa?"

((Note, this post is being posted with Sei because I started writing it without realizing I was on the Sei account. By that time, it was too late to start over and my PS3 does not appear to have a copy/paste feature that I can use. Once I acquire a proper computer, I shall post with Hsa as I properly should. This shouldn't happen again, and my apologies for letting it happen this time.))

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

Truth be told, I love children, I really do. In fact, one day I hope to have an entire flock (Gaggle? Herd? Murder?) of them one day. This particular child, however, there was something about him that just irked me the wrong way. I felt as though he had been keeping something to himself ever since he woke me up so many minutes ago. The way he carried himself around me and Lord Ravenheart didn't help things for him either. IT seemed like he was in way over his head, but something allowed this kid to advance to the next round of the Adventurer's Crown tournament, even if that something was the kindness of another person.

My thoughts went back to Cellar Door, and to the maze I had encountered in the previous round. The girl had seemed helpless throughout most of our adventure during the first round, but I had seen her magnificient powers first hand. Even as Hsa began to explain the concept of these 'Chibimon', these monsters who fit into balls and immediately obeyed their owner depending on how many 'Trophies' the trainer had earned in 'Arena Battles', I couldn't help but wonder what the boy's true motives were. Maybe I was once again over analyzing things, and the kid was a legitimate warrior who could tame even the wildest beast. Chances were that the child was just delusional, though, and I would have to spend yet another round looking after someone else.

Am I truly that bitter? I had to ask myself the question, reflect in on myself as Hsa continued on. I began to walk away from my group, towards the edge of the hillside as Lord Ravenheart pretended to be interested in 'Servapour' and 'Rhinosaurus', despite not being able to see these creatures. I sighed, ashamed of the way I was treating a kid I had just met. What would my brothers do? Well, Ciato would have killed Hsa on the spot just for waking him up, but my other brothers would have done the right thing. They would have taken everything the kid had said seriously, and believe him to be truthful unless proven otherwise. So then...why was I so different.

As I looked down at the black mist below us, I noticed something different now. It seemed as though the shades of darkness were growing closer to us. In the shroud of ink, I thought I could make out some even darker figures, but my mind was probably playing tricks on me. Perhaps I was just too concerned with wallowing in my own self-pity to have noticed the distance before. I kept quiet, turning back around and joining my party as Hsa was finishing off his rant. I looked back to the obelisk, my head tilting to the side as I read the writing once again. "Uhhh....guys?" I said, a worried tone to my voice. I could feel both the noble gaz of Lord Ravenheart and the annoying one of Hsa Eulb bury into my back.

"The riddle changed..."

[Letho]

After being introduced to the world of Chibimons in far more detail than truly necessary, Letho could see why the young Hsa thought it might be the answer. Some men were mad for trapping these animals into their little balls, and some of these animals were weak and easily beaten, and certain special species didn’t come cheap. But the black monolith didn’t seem satisfied with an answer that was only a partial fit. It gave the entire hill a good shake and then, just as mysteriously as they came into existence, the letters perished from its surface as if smoothed away by sands of time in mere seconds. And as if the quake wasn’t enough to make them realize their mistake, the monolith – or whatever power was hidden within that black slab or rock – seemed to pull the darkness closer around the hill. The faint shroud that previously stood at the foot of the mound was now halfway up the hillside, far darker that any night ought to be. It turned the entire island into a monochromatic world of shadows and dark outlines.

Hsa was dwelling into subspecies of Chibimons and their mutations and evolutions and Letho was going through his sixteenth courteous nod while keeping one eye on the kid and the other on the surrounding blackness, when Steppenwolf alerted them to the change on the monolith’s face. And once again the simplistic handwriting appeared, chinked into the surface with invisible, soundless chisels. Three pair of eyes strained in the dying light to read the engraving.

“Man walks over, man walks under. In times of war he burns asunder.”

“Well, I’m not taking this one. I already messed up once,” Hsa said, taking a few steps away from the monolith.

“It was a good try, lad,” Letho tried to encourage the young man, but only got a shrug as Hsa sat on a nearby rock.

“Not good enough,” the youngster said, kicking at one of the pebbles. His eyes followed its the downhill tumble, then suddenly went wide as the blackness made it disappear. “Hey, what the hell is that?!” the Chibimon trainer exclaimed as he jumped back to his feet, pointing at the encroaching wall of shadows.

“I’d say it’s an incentive,” Steppenwolf responded with a smirk.

“Incentive? For what?”

“For us to get one right, I reckon,” Letho said, sounding a bit distant. His eyes went over the riddle again, his mind repeating it in an endless cycle even as his brain tried to work out some link between the verses. There was a linking thread in there somewhere, a sliver of familiarity hidden behind a wall of ages. He had heard this one before, he was almost certain of it. Has something to do with war. Must have. Walks over. Walks under. His mind worried at the riddle like dog at an old bone. War. Tearing down. Destruction. Destroy what? Something useful. Something stopping him. But what? A ditch? No, can’t get under. A wall? Could it be a wall?

“Any ideas?” Steppenwolf said, one hand lost in the pink of his huge round hairdo.

“I think it’s a wall,” Letho said, turning to the other two. “As in a city wall. You walk under it through a gate. In wartime you either go over or you tear it down.” He looked for certainly in the other two, but neither seemed terribly convinced.

“Better than anything I’ve got,” Hsa finally said.

“It seems to fit. I’m just not sure...” the huge man said, half to himself and half to others.

“I guess one can never be with these things. I shall try it,” Letho finally said. Never one to shy away from the risky situations, the ranger raised his head a bit and spoke in a decisive voice. “The answer is a wall.”

For the briefest of moments nothing happened, the monolith before them no different than the namesake from the answer. And then, just as they all began to hope they managed to come up with a correct response, the ground shook again. Once again, they all looked to steady themselves, leaning against the dastardly monolith that almost seemed to mock them with its riddles. And once again the letters were whisked away and the darkness tightened the noose around the top of the hill.

“Oh, come on!” Letho shouted in frustration once the quake ceased, slamming his fist against the cold stone. Pain bolted up his arm immediately, but even with the tremendous strength behind his punch, there was not a scratch on the monolith, no booming echo of the impact resonating through the stone. Only silence prevailed.

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa watched qietly as even his idol failed to solve the new riddle that popped up. The boy had managed to somehow keep his footing as the quake trembled under them, though it did cause his lithe form to stumble backwards, further from his group. As he attempted to regain his footing, he could feel something grabbing at his shirt, his body spinning around to look at the dark mist that had closed in around them. Running backwards from fear more than anything else, Hsa quickly reached down towards his chibiballs, pulling the unique device out from the slots in his belt and hitting the iddle button on the strange sphere. "Guys," Hsa's voice was quick, filled with worried, "We gotta do something quick, because whatever's in that fog is ready to take us away!"

The youth moved his had towards the side of his head, throwing his chibiball as he declared to the Gods above and the men below. "Rhinosaurus, show these guys the power of a Chibimon!"

The ball fell to the ground, its top popping open and emitting a bright white light. The light took the form of something large before red colors were added to the shape, the bulk of this strange beast covered in the crimson scales. The horn atop the four legged creature resembled a large version of a powerdrill, complete with rapid spinning. The monster huffed out some air from it's large nostrils, it's black eyes narrowing at the whatevers in the shroud of black that surrounded Hsa and his team. Hsa cracked his knuckles for a moment before pointing outwards towards the mist. "Rhinosaurus, keep whatever is coming at us at bay!"

The boy turned, his eyes hopeful that his friend would gain some assistance in the form of either of the gentle giants behind him. Letho and Steppenwolf looked to one another and nodded in unison, Letho taking some paces towards the child. Steppenwolf focused his attention back upon the monolith as a hand started reaching for the Rhinosaurus, which rebuked the attack by stabbing the limb with its spinning horn. There was a horrible screech that made Hsa's ears ring and the mysterious arm retracted back into it's shadowy home. "Whatever you're going to do, Mister Steppenwolf," Hsa clenched his teeth, one hand upon his next chibiball, "you better do it soon. I'm not sure how much time we have left!"

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

"Because that's what I really needed," I mumbled just loud enough so that maybe Lord Ravenheart could hear me, "more pressure put on me."

I felt the smooth surface of the monolith, attempting to find the next riddle. While this obelisk of mystery was something to be admired, I was never much of a fan for imminent death. Needless to say, I was pretty much aware of the urgent nature of the situation without Hsa's coaching. My eyes lit up as my hands came across the next question, speaking the conundrum aloud as I read. "More powerful than God. More evil than the devil. The poor have it. The rich need it. If you eat it, you will die."

I looked back towards my team mates, hoping one of them would have a spare moment to actually help me out. Unfortunately, Lord Ravenheart already had his weapon drawn, standing side by side with the scientific marvel that Hsa had unleashed upon the mist. How did such a large monster fit into a ball the size of one's palm anyways? I shook my head, trying to stay focused on the task at hand. Obviously my team would be of no help at the moment. I took a deep breath as I thought long and hard aout the answer.

"Lets see, the rich need gold, money is the root of all evil, and some people have been known to worship their own fortune. Then agai, the poor would not have any money. The poor need plenty of air, and the rich have it, but I don't see how either could be something as objective as good or evil.." I brought a hand to my chin, attempting to drow out the sounds of weapons shredding flesh, as well as the banshee like screams that kept threatening to hurt my ear drums. I took a deep breath and bit my lower lip, my eyes starring straight at the question as if a strong gaze would cause it to do whatever it was supposed to do.

"Any day now, Mister Steppenwolf!" I heard Hsa calling as I hear the strange sound of one of his 'chibiballs' being released, and then a decidedly wolf-like growl. Hsa quickly issued orders to this beast, whom he called "MysLight". My head turned towards the action, my piercing look shooting straight towards the hinderence that was Hsa Eulb.

"I'm working on it!!!" I shouted, my head turning back to the question before it hit me like a pound of bricks to the face. "It's an idea! Ideas can be good or evil, the poor have ideas, and the rich had, plenty of ideas at one point, but will require more to stay rich. And you can't really eat an idea, can you? That's it, the answer is an idea!" I stood proud, glad that I had contributed something meaningful to the group, only to fall upon my bottom when the world began to rumble once more. Hsa looked back towards me just as I was getting up.

"What was the question?" Hsa ask as I looked bck towards him, the child taking a few paces backwards just in case. It was almost as if the boy didn't have any faith in my deductive reasoning skills. I repeated the question, as well as my thought process and answer. In response, Hsa grabbed his hat and threw it took the ground forcefully, apparently very frustrated with something I said.

"The answer was nothing! Nothing is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have nothing and rich need nothing! If you eat nothing, you die!" I reflected on Hsa's words for a moment, my own shame and humiliation apparently upon my face. I looked up just in time to watch Lord Ravenheart taking a few steps back from the advancing mist. "I can't believe you didn't get that right!" Hsa shouted in in anger.

"If you think you'll be so good at the next one," I growled as a retort, "then it's all yours pal!"

"Cover me," Hsa said, the child stomping over to my location as I rushed towards his Chibimon. "My Chibimon can handle themselves, you guys just provide me with some distractions while I try and figure the next one out." I nodded, clenching my fists and preparing to through my hammers of hands out towards any black thing I saw coming towards me.

Should be easy, I thought to myself, I'll just imagine the things as Hsa's face...

[Letho]

Like with all the best riddles, the answer was perfectly obvious after he heard it. Letho reckoned this was the case with the previous two as well, and that the solution would have come like a slap to the face if only someone provided it. But out of the three of them, none seemed to have penchant for solving these brain teasers, their answers failing to appease the riddler with in the stone. And so the hill kept shaking, the monolith kept standing there like the world’s largest tombstone, and the darkness kept closing in around them. It rose around the hill’s summit until they seemed to be standing at the bottom of a well whose walls were ever moving, like corporeal black smoke. The horrors within that veil stretched their smoky limbs out in ghastly gestures of greeting, eager to embrace whoever got within reach.

Extending his will towards the malleable metal of the Vorpal Blade, Letho morphed the weapon into a massive scythe. And even as Hsa’s conjured familiar started drilling the shadows within the mist with his rotating horn and Steppenwolf started smacking them away with his mitts, Letho began slicing them away. The curved blade of his scythe went through the limbs unchallenged, the slicing motions leaving smoky trails as they severed the extremities from the surrounding mist. Yet for every arm he separated from the mist, two more appeared, and for every tentacle he stomped into a puff of black smoke, two more came reaching for his legs. It felt like trying to fight water, trying to make the flood stop with naught but your hands and feet and feel it pour through no matter what you did. Hsa’s creature was the sole source of light, shining as a falling star on a moonless night, but even its light started to fade as the black smoke started to envelop it.

Orud, Ylime! To me! Letho extended his inner voice to his two old friends. A pair of portals materialized next to the bulky ranger instantaneously, and through it leapt a huge pair of silver-furred wolves. They landed on the rocky plateau with a growl, their red eyes scanning the surrounding as their heads went back and forth. Protect the Chibimon.

Creatures of natural origin might’ve been perplexed by such a request without further elaboration, but the two wolves were as much a part of Letho’s mind as he was a part of theirs. They bounded away instantly, snapping their large fangs at the black hands that reached for Myslight. They worked in perfect unison, Orud and Ylime, leaping over the smaller wolf-like creature and fending off whatever came close enough to extinguish its light.

“Fall back slowly!” Letho commanded, ducked beneath a massive tentacle that wanted to run him through, then rolled away when it tried to crush him. The scythe came crashing down on the thick tendril, turning it to dirty vapor. “We make a half-circle around the lad! Buy him some time to answer.”

“What’s the riddle?” Steppenwolf asked, swatting the smoky hands away with his massive arms. Letho could see that half the man’s jacket was missing, be he was otherwise no worse for wear.

“It makes you weak at worst of times,” the Chibimon trainer said hurriedly. “Keeps you safe, keeps you in line. Makes your hands sweat, makes your heart grow cold. It visits the weak, but seldom the bold.”

“And?” the pink-haired man again.

“And what? I don’t know the answer. Grief maybe, or sickness...” Hsa spat back. He turned away from the monolith, cringing at the sight. His wolf-like familiar was a faint twinkle amidst the darkness, like an oil lamp behind a dirty pane of glass. Steppenwolf was just a couple of paces away from him, wrestling with three hands that kept pulling at his shirt, his knee, his shoulder. Of the two Letho’s wolves, only one still stood next to Myslight, blood trickling between the huge fangs. Letho himself was at his side now, swiping the scythe this way and that, chasing the blackness away with the flat of the curved blade.

“Just... not sure,” the youngster said in little over a whisper.

“It is fine, lad,” Letho said, his voice calm in between swipes and groans and shallow audible breaths. “Just pick one. And have no fear.”

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa closed his eyes and trckles of sweat ran down his head onto his cheeks. He could hear his allies pulling a tight perimeter around him. They were entrusting their fate to a boy they had just met, a boy who seemed over his head in this world of giant men and larger legends. He sighed heavily, the words of the riddle starting to etch into his brain just as much as it was etched into the stone. With the riddle, however, came the words of Letho, the man who trusted he would make the right decision. Have no fear. Have no fear. Have no fear...

"The answer is fear!" Hsa shouted at the top of his lungs, as if he had just been punctured with something extremely sharp. There was another rumble in reply, though this one was far more violent than the ones that had preceded it. Hsa slammed his fist into his other hand in frustration, sure he had doomed his team to not only lose in the Adventurer's Crown, but also lose their lives to the mystery that was hiding in the dark cloud beyond.

A blue rectangular light illuminated the monolith as the riddle disappeared into the black material, a door sliding upwards to make an open entryway into whatever lay within. Hsa looked back to his team mates pulling out his chibiballs and pressing the button on them as he did so. A cream colored light shot forth from the devices and enveloped the Chibimon that were out, swiftly turning back into a beam which retracted back into the small spheres. "It's open, make a run for it!" Hsa shouted as he ran inside the building, the rapid footsteps of both Letho and Steppenwolf following his example.

The door to the monolith closed the second the last member of the party had entered, little wisps of dark mist rising up to the ceiling once cut off from its main source of terror. Finally with a chance to catch their breath, the trio looked around the inside of the structure. After all, the inside had to be much safer than the creepy dark mist of shadows that threatened to tear their limb from limb....

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

I looked around the area, my eyes darting mback and forth between passing images. The place was filled with dozens, maybe hundreds of mirrors. I walked over towrds the maze of reflections, reaching my hand out and feeling the cold cystal on my palm. There was a strange air circulating the room, chilling my exposed chest (my shirt had been ripped off while holding off the encroaching mists outside). The air had a funny smell to it as well, as if nobody had been within these walls for a very long time.

"Glass," I said as I knocked on an invisible wall, "most of the walls are mirrors, but some of them are just regular glass. That's going to make it very confusing in finding one another should we get seperated." I stopped for a minute to enjoy the irony of my situation. In the first round of the tournament, I was trapped within a maze of bushes and had to contend with doppelgangers in order to reach my goal. Now, in the second round, I would still have doubles with the intent of confusion, though these particular images appeared to be harmless.

"Alright, I'll just come out and say it," Hsa walked up beside me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his pants, "I'm really worried about this."

"It should be easy as long as we stay by one another. All this 'temple' has to hinder us is a hall of mirrors. Any child with a basic knowlege of carnivals could get throughthis part. No offense." I smirked, knowing full well that I was actually trying to take a verbal jab at the kid without making it seem so.

"None taken," Hsa's eyes shifted towards mine, a knowing look on his face, "but I was moreso referring to the riddles. I'm not sure about the other ones, but shouldn't we be concerned that the two answers we do know for sure were 'nothing' and 'fear'. It just... I don't know. It doesn't bode well."

"Way to jinx us," I mumbled, looking around for an entrance into the hall of mirrors. "You and Lord Ravenheart stay close to me, I'll take point."

"That'd be swell, " Hsa turned around, then back to me, "if Letho was even still with us."

I spun around, pure shock painted across my features. Whatever happened to make Letho Ravenheart seemingly disappear from the group during our conversation, it probably was not a good thing. Damn that kid for jinxing it! I thought to myself, my teeth clenched in anger.

[Letho]

The darkness was complete and disorienting, and the only assurance Letho had that he was in fact standing and not floating in nothingness was the feeling of firm ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t see his two companions, nor could he hear their rapid breathing gradually winding down, their clothes shuffling as they moved around. It seemed the sounds of others ceased to exist the moment he stepped through that door.

“Got to wait,” Letho though, keeping his calm. “Let my eyes adjust.”

In all truth, the ranger didn’t expect something like this on the other side of the door. The kid certainly got the riddle right, there was no doubt about that. The answer fit like a hand in an old glove, filling in all the creases, yet they were rewarded with a big batch of nothing. At the very least Letho expected something trying to grab him, growl at him, some monster with a massive maw bearing down at him from the surrounding darkness. But for a while there was nothing, not even when his pupils got a chance to widen and search for the smallest traces of light.

He was just about to make peace with the fact that he’d have to feel his way around when his eyes were blasted with white. And as the whiteness was slowly drained away from his eyes, Letho still expected something standing there, waiting to eat him. Because that seemed to be the way these things went in this competition. You overcame one obstacle only to be met with another, more gruesome one for the entertainment of those who dared not to engage in such adventuring. This too was much like the Citadel, Letho reckoned, where for every one person who entered the arenas of the monks, there were five who sat in the watching rooms, getting their thrills from other fighting and bleeding and dying. It was a detestable notion, but such was the world of Althanas currently, where the brave fought for the enjoyment of the cowardly.

But there was nothing trying to eat or otherwise ravage the ranger in the room within the monolith. Instead, what Letho saw was his own reflection and beyond it a room that seemed to stretch on into eternity, each populated with a smaller version of him. When he turned around, his eyes still squinted from the sudden burst of light, he could see the dizzying effect on the other sides as well.

“A mirror room,” Letho said, approaching one of the walls with his hand outstretched, careful not to run into it. Once his fingers made contact, he let them slide over the smooth surface, searching for any trace of a crease. There were usually doors hidden within these rooms, or small pressure pads that opened passages.

But even as the he began his search, there came a change in the reflection. It seemed to start at the farthest, smallest reflection which seemed to be magically switched off, like a street lamp at the far end of a long avenue. One by one, the reflections disappeared, the neverending series of rooms diminishing before his very eyes. It shouldn’t have been possible, of that much Letho was certain even if wasn’t terribly knowledgeable in the physics of light. Yet the darkness once again approached, eating at his reflections.

By the time it got to the very last mirrored image, Letho had his sword at the ready, expecting another wall of arms and tentacles like on the outside of the monolith. But instead of turning into a wall of black, the last reflection seemed to melt away into transparency until the big pane of glass revealed an entirely different image. On a blood-crusted rack, splayed with her arms and legs tied down to the corners of the wooden slab, a young girl looked back at him in dismay. Next to her stood a hooded figure, his face invisible in the shadows, and next to the figure a table with rusty surgical instruments of all shapes and sizes. But Letho barely even noticed the shadowy man, his eyes focused solely on the lass. Getting closer to the transparent wall and pressing his hand against it, he whispered the name of the girl.

“Lorelei?”

[Chibimon Blue]

Hsa and Steppenwolf searched the immediate area looking for their powerful ally. Letho, it seemed, has just wandered off on his own for some reason. They both turned in the same direction when they heard the ranger say the word ‘Lorelei’. Has looked to the large Mystic, who merely shrugged his shoulders. Apparently he was just as confused as the young Chibimon trainer. “Go,” Hsa said, once again putting on a façade of bravery to rival his two new friends, “Me and the Chibimon will cover you. When you find Mister Letho, we’ll all meet back here.”

Steppenwolf nodded and ran off, carefully probing each mirror with his hands and slowly shifting around this way and that in order to find safe passage. Hsa stuffed his hands into his pockets and whistled calmly, his hands so close to the chibiballs that he felt comfortable being alone. After all, he was never truly alone, was he? Not as long as he had the Chibimon.

He approached one of the mirrors, a happy tune still being whistled as he looked upon his reflection. He opened his mouth and licked his teeth, making sure that there was no grime in his pearly whites. Each tooth had a small film over it, the result of not brushing for a couple of days. The child made a mental note to ask the attendants of the next round for a toothbrush when they completed whatever mysterious goal round 2 had held for them.

As he looked upon his reflection, the child noticed something odd in the image before him. The boy looked down, counting all three of his chibiballs tucked safely onto his black belt. He looked back to the mirror, or more precisely his belt, and counted a total of zero Chibimon captured in the reflection. The youth tilted his head to the side, checking himself once more before going back to the mirror. “Where are your Chibimon?” he asked to nobody in particular, more so a riddle wherein the answer was a simple optical illusion.

As if commanded to act by an outside force, the image withdrew three chibiballs from its pocket, throwing the items down upon the ground. Hsa looked on in horror as his mirror double stomped on the containers for his friends, a sadistic look upon his face. The doppelganger was laughing, enjoying himself as he not only wrecked the Chibimon’s homes, but also severely damaged the residents inside. Hsa felt sick to his stomach, a barely audible ‘stop!’ was attempted, but only air escaped his mouth.

The sinister copy knelt down with a wicked grin painted across his features, pressing the buttons on all three chibiballs as Hsa continued to shake his head frantically. The popping sound of the balls rand throughout the building, and Hsa was instantaneously covered with the blood of Servapour, MysLight, and Rhinosaurus. He felt one of their organs slap him across the face, though he was too distraught to know or care which it was. The boy fell to his knees, vomiting a thick greenish-yellow liquid all over the already crimson stained ground. Soon, his tears joined the disturbing mixture, followed by his fist slamming constantly to the ground in frustration and emotional pain. He had become a monster, had killed his closest friends, what kind of person was the true Hsa Eulb?

The lonely kind…

[Letho]

A pair of emerald eyes looked back at him, filled with tears of desperation, pleading for his help. The girl had her mother’s eyes, and just like every time Letho gazed into them, memories of Myrhia flooded his mind, reopening old wounds, reawakening old regrets. There had been times when that would’ve been enough to rattle the ranger, throw him off his guard, but Letho Ravenheart had grown callous over the years, grown cold, grown old. And this theatric imagery wasn’t enough to deceive him. Not even when the hooded man pulled the dirty rag out of her mouth and his daughter cried out his name in a familiar voice, Letho wasn’t fooled. Instead, he lowered himself on the ground, put the Vorpal Blade over his lap, and waited for the illusion to dissipate. Because that was how these things usually worked. They were all about shock and awe and making a person believe just because their mind was shaken by something terrible. But if one persists, disbelief usually conquered the illusion. And Letho had gotten good at persisting.

“I am disappointed, Lord Ravenheart. No outrage? No banging on the wall?” the figure on the other side of the glass spoke. Letho couldn’t see his face, but he was pretty sure there would be one if his mind really desired it.

“What for? None of this is real,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, his tone dismissive. “That is not Lorelei.”

“And you know this as a certainty? Absolute, utter certainty?” the wraith again, its black hands fiddling idly with the rusty instruments.

“I do,” Letho said, unmoving.

The black man picked up a thin, curved knife and turned to the girl. She was dressed in a sleeveless dress made of white silk covered with tiny glittering scales which sparked as she moved. It was not something he had ever seen Lorelei wear, and that alone was a clue that this was unreal, that this was just a projection of his daughter poured into a memory of Myrhia and a dress she once wore on a ball in Radasanth.

“Father, please... please,” the faux Lorelei begged, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Please, help me. I... I didn’t know...”

Letho said nothing, his eyes firmly set on the scene, his face as emotionless. Not even when the hooded figure brought the knife over the girl’s chest and ripped the dress from her throat to her crotch, revealing the smooth nudity of his daughter did he flinch.

“If you’re so certain, then you certainly won’t mind me doing this,” the figure said with an unseen smile as it pressed the knife against the girl’s stomach and drew the jagged edge over her skin. The white skin immediately budded with red roses of blood, and as the trail of the knife continued over her abdomen, the girl wailed and thrashed against her shackles. Crimson poured from her body, soaking her dress and soon turning it dark red.

“Let me ask you a question, though,” the figure said, feigning inquisitiveness. “If we whisked you away here, twice now to be exact, what makes you so certain we didn’t bring your precious Lorelei the same way?”

At first, Letho said nothing. Engaging an illusion in a conversation only fueled its development, made it harder to break. But even old war dogs such as him couldn’t resist explaining their own reasoning outloud, perhaps out of pure bravado.

“I enlisted for this competition. She has not,” he ultimately responded.

“And you’re absolutely certain about that as well?” the figure said, positioning the knife for another cut. “What if I said that she too was a competitor?”

“I would call you a liar.”

“Truly? Is it so hard to believe that she could try her hand at such a competition? A stubborn girl such as herself?” There was that tone again, spoken through smiling lips that weren’t there. “After all, you have one her age in your very group. Is it so hard to believe that the daughter of the legendary Letho Ravenheart wouldn’t follow in her father’s footsteps?”

“Perhaps not. But if she is a competitor, she and her group would’ve been given a task of their own, just as we were. This is not Serenti. Competitors are not in direct conflict with each other,” Letho explained, his tone still filled with certainty. Yet for the briefest moments, he wasn’t entirely certain. Looking back on the life of his daughter, she had had a knack of getting into trouble and doing things he wouldn’t have allowed if she had asked him. Just like he had in his youth.

“Hmm, I guess you didn’t read the fine print, now did you?” the black man said. And looking back on it, Letho wasn’t entirely certain that he did. He remembered that they all had to sign a contract before entering, and he remembered looking over it, but reading every line, even word... No, he wasn’t certain if he had done that.

“Father, please,” Lorelei managed in between sobs and painful grunts. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat that made her brown hair stick to her skin. “I... They said... they said we would... we would fight together... have an adventure.”

“Lies! Be silent, ghosts. I will palaver with you no more,” Letho finally said. Neither Lorelei nor the hooded shadow seemed eager to follow his directive. The black man merely chuckled as he made another incision, this time starting in between Lorelei’s budding breasts and slicing towards her navel with agonizing slowness. The ghost of his daughter kept crying, kept pleading, kept calling him out in that voice that kept knocking against the remnants of his heart, hoping there was still a pulse beneath that hard shell. But none of these voices were as loud as the one in Letho’s head, the voice of his multiple selves arguing over the reality of the situation. Most of them still stuck to their guns, still claimed with utmost certainty that this was just an illusion, just a trick played on his mind. But there were others that explored other avenues of thought, other possibilities. One in particular stood out, sounding much too reasonable for Letho liking.

“Chances are that is not Lorelei,” that voice said. “But if there is an even remote possibility that it is, do I really want to take that risk?”

“She’s a resilient one, just like her father,” the figure mused, hovering around the girl as he picked another spot to cut. “I guess I’ll just have to go a bit deeper this time.”

“No!” the voice called out, but this time it wasn’t Lorelei’s. Letho charged straight at the wall, the Vorpal Blade metamorphosing into a massive warhammer even as he brought it down from overhead. The impact shook the entire room, shook the entire building down to its foundations for all Letho knew. But it barely made a dent in the glass wall, sending but a few cracks spreading like streaks of lightning over a gray sky. Behind it, the image now distorted by the breaks in the glass, the knife dug into the flesh again, this time tracing a red line at Lorelei’s side that went so deep the knife rasped against the bone. The girl screamed again, again and again, pausing only long enough to draw breath into her lungs. And each wail only made Letho strike harder, his arms numb up to the elbow as he kept hammering away at the rock-solid surface.

And all he kept thinking was: if that wasn’t Lorelei, he was making a fool of himself, but if it was, she would never forgive him for waiting this long to act.

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

[Steppenwolf Orlouge]

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Letho Ravenheart, the Red Marshall, was trying to kill a mirror. Worse still, the mirror itself seemed to be made of something really resilient, for it only cracked, but never fully broke. I approached the powerful ranger cautiously, a hand reaching out and touching his shoulder. Letho spun around, hammer at the ready, only to stand down upon seeing my unique features.

“It’s just a mirror, Lord Ravenheart,” I spoke in as calm and collected a manner as I could, considering this man had just tried to bring this entire monolith down on top of us. “I don’t know what you saw, but it’s not there. Just us and the mirrors.”

He was breathing heavily, and I thought I caught the starting signs that Letho Ravenheart was about to cry. I raised an eyebrow, allowing the ranger to gain his composure before anybody said anything else. “My daughter…” he spoke as if he was reliving the experience, “She was being tortured. I knew it was probably an illusion, but how can you be sure when your family may be at risk?” I nodded, trying my best to be helpful, given the situation.

I looked beyond Letho’s back towards the mirror, several green, almost claw like hands grasping at the marshals back. I gripped the large fellow by the shoulder and forcefully pulled him close to my side, the claws retracting back into their glass prison. “Get Hsa and let’s get the hell out of here!” I shouted, not waiting for a reply before I started running in sheer terror.

I could hear their voices calling me, wishing for me to join their lot. They’re darkish green hands reached for me, probably my allies as well. They would use anything to get me to their cause. My half-orc blood boiled within me, as if it wished for me to acquiesce to their demands. Most of the orcs on Althanas had banned together under the common goal of recruiting me to lead them. Logically, an orc who appeared human could infiltrate any number of countries and lay the groundwork for an elaborate attack. Add that with my keen intellect and Mystic abilities and you had my greatest fear; to be captured by the orcs and forced into destroying the world.

I could hear footsteps as I ran, my body slamming violently into glass on more than once occasion. My mind kept telling me to stop, to slow down and see if it was Letho and Hsa or an orcish army at my heels. My body, on the other hand, was now running on instinct, not logic. I continued to run, my head not turning back for even a second, until my eyes caught sight of a single white mirror. The mirror itself seemed like a portal of some sort, perhaps even entry into the inner sanctum of the monolith. Regardless of where it led, it had to be better than the nightmare I was experiencing at that moment.

Sweat poured down my body as I made my way towards the light, my eyes closed as I ran through…

((Steppenwolf and Hsa’s final posts. Letho, bunny Hsa in whatever way you see fit to end us on a high note.))

[Letho]

Running after the pink-haired man now, bouncing against the walls of the mirror-covered labyrinth, trying to outrun the greenish hands that would surely pull them into darkness. Letho's world consisted of the multitude of reflections passing by in a blur and the green fingers reaching the trio from every shadow, every darkened spot in the mirrors. But amidst this mayhem, all he felt was anger and chagrin. And it wasn't because he had been fooled; no, he had been aware of the possibility the moment he engaged the illusion in conversation and later charged at the barrier that stood between them. It was rather the weakness that made him wrathful, vulnerability that couldn't be eliminated no matter how indurate he became. They would always be able to wound him by wounding Lorelei, just as they had always been able to wound him while Myrhia had been alive, and the fact that there was nothing he could do about it filled him with rage. For deep down in inside, Letho Ravenheart was a prideful man, and prideful men despised being faced with their fears and weaknesses.

All three made a final mad dash towards a square of white light, assuming it was another passageway, hoping it would get them away from the nightmares that lurked in the mirrors. And as the light enveloped them and blurred everything out of existence, for a moment they felt weightless and floating, as if they had been thrown in molasses made of clouds and dreams. Then gravity took hold again, only instead of grounding them, it sent them blasting upwards to insurmountable heights. Faster and faster it pulled them upwards, the sheer force tearing first their clothes, then starting to rip at their skin and flesh. Only for the briefest of moments the three adventurers felt pain, as if someone was trying to dismantle their bodies one chunk at a time, but before that pain managed to turn into a scream, their minds blanked out.

And they were somewhere else again.


***RESUMPTION***


His eyes opened to the dirty color of a sky at dusk, specked here and there with the faintest twinkle of the first stars. They weren't Althanas stars, that much was clear, for the constellations were all wrong and some moved far faster than they ought to. But by now, Letho wasn't surprised by this discrepancy.

Picking himself up from the ground, Letho took a moment to ascertain his surroundings. The island stretched around him in three directions, unfolding before his gaze like an incredibly detailed map. It was a lush island, just as it had been the last time he stood there, on the plateau atop the hill that rose at the very heart of the isle of illusion. He didn't have to turn around to know what stood on the fourth side of the hilltop, but he turned around anyways. The black monolith was unmistakably there, stretching into the heavens as if it supported it, as if the sky would fall if it weren't there. And just like the last time, the setting sun seemed to have no effect on the dark surface of that anthracite rock, as if it swallowed the light instead of reflecting it.

By then, his companions were coming to as well. Steppenwolf pushed his large torso up with both arms, grunting with the effort, while Hsa's first reaction seemed to be feel around if all his appendages were where they were supposed to be and undamaged. Once he was certain that the pain from moments before left no damage, he immediately inspected his belt. But though his ball contraptions were there, there was no smile on his face. It was not until he detached each and every one of them and pressed the little button that released the animals that there was relief on the boy's face. More than that, actually. Once all his Chibimon proved to be alive and kicking and bounding around the lad, nipping at his hands, Hsa managed a chuckle or two.

"While I'm glad the boy has his balls back, it seems we've accomplished nothing. We're back at the beginning," Steppenwolf was the first to point out the obvious, not neglecting to take a jibe at the monster trainer. Hsa didn't seem to mind, didn't seem like he heard the big man taking a pot at him at all.

"It would appear so," Letho said, his tone a bit distant again as he gazed at the monumental monolith.

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Hsa joined it, proving he heard what was being said after all. The teen approached the other two, his Chibimon in tow. "I thought we reached the, you know, the inner sanctum or whatever."

For a long while, nobody said anything, their eyes inspecting the monolith as if staring at it with enough intent would provide an answer. But just like the last time, the rock remained silent, the sun kept dipping below the horizon and the mysterious island went about its business, sending darkness towards the hill again.

"Perhaps it was all a test, not just the riddling," Letho finally said, not taking his eyes off the rock colossus that seemed to tower of the world itself. "Think about it. The answer to the riddle that got us inside had been fear. And it was our fears that the mirrors reflected. It was our fears that defeated us. And thus we have failed."

"So what do we do now?" Hsa asked, after a moment of silence that all three took to gauge Letho's explanation.

"We do better, kid," Steppenwolf said. "We do better."

And even as his words were spoken, the invisible chisels started their work again. Words began to emerge on the featureless face of the monolith, and as darkness started to close in on the trio, the three went to work again.

***

With no wings, I fly.
With no eyes, I see.
With no arms, I climb.
More frightening than any beast, stronger than any foe.
I am cunning, ruthless, and tall; in the end, I rule all.

[Revenant]

Plot: (19)

Storytelling (7) – This was a story of failure rather than one of triumph, which was certainly something unexpected. There was a nice fluid beginning, a natural progression, and the ending really nailed it. The bunnying between the characters was smooth, which made for a good thread flow.

Setting (6) – The description of the monolith was really good, though the land around it faded somewhat as the riddling portion of the thread went on. What about the rising mist seemed so unnatural and unsettling as Steppenwolf watched it rising over the cliff? Obviously the hostile shapes gave it tension once it had risen to that level but before then was it a subtle off-color tint? A barely perceptible smell of otherworldliness? You don’t always need an epic paragraph to tell something when little snippets of description can really be used to emphasize the creepiness of how unsettling something is.

Pacing (6) – Most of this thread flowed really well one part into the next except for one scene, and that was Letho’s separation from the others upon entering the monolith. Why was he singled out when the other two were left together? Why did he enter into darkness and then find himself trapped in the mirror room? The entry just felt a little out of place.

Character: (21)

Communication (7) – I could really get a feel for the rising panic that your characters were experiencing as the tension in the thread increased. It was very complimentary and gave your characters individual voices. Letho, you did a good job of conveying the undercurrent of frustration Letho had going on under the calm façade that he put up, and it very much made me feel an understanding of how your character is normally used to being completely in charge and how helpless he felt when that was taken away, even by his own actions. Steppenwolf’s initial dislike for Hsa was interesting and I got the feeling that Steppenwolf is a character that really isn’t very happy unless he has someone to protect and the fact that Hsa didn’t want his protection like Cellar Door had in the previous round angered him but it sort of faded away as a plot point once the tension started rising and was never really addressed again. Chibimon, for the most part you played up your character’s indomitable cheeriness very well, aside from your nightmares overcoming you of course, but there was one point that really felt like it didn’t belong and that was the solving of the “nothing” riddle where Hsa seems to get snappy and annoyed that Letho and Steppenwolf hadn’t thought of the answer.

Action (6) – Action wasn’t the driving factor in this thread and while it what you did have was well tied in and gave good indications of who your characters were it was still a little less revealing than the other categories in this section. Steppenwolf in particular seemed to merely be following along with this thread, not really taking the same initiatives that both Letho and Hsa were taking. Chibimon, the gore explosion during your nightmare scene really felt overly done. Blood I can take, even the spraying blood would have been alright, but the flying organs just went a bit over the top and cut some of the seriousness from the scene. Steppenwolf, I was somewhat disappointed that your character seemed to have missed his trial. His fear of becoming a tool for the orcs was a great plot point and could have really been played upon by the mirrors’ illusions.

Persona (8) – The real driving force of the thread was who your characters were and how they dealt with not being put in a position of strength, which really made them shine. Letho, you did a good job of pointing out the fact that despite what everybody on Althanas seems to think, Letho isn’t the perfect god-like figure that he’s often portrayed as. While I would by no means call him stupid, his weakness at the point of riddles really added a level of depth to his character. Steppenwolf, as I mentioned in the communication portion, your dislike of Hsa felt as important to your character as a plot point as his orc-heritage, but I would have liked to have seen that continued or concluded and perhaps the root of it delved into more than it was.

Prose: (21)

Mechanics (7) – A few errors here and there in Steppenwolf and Chibimon’s posts, not many but easily catchable.

Clarity (7) – There were a couple of parts in the mirror rooms that were written in a way that, while they didn’t exactly trip up my reading, they didn’t flow as smoothly as they could have. Primarily this came from Hsa’s nightmare sequence. Still, as I said, it didn’t exactly trip up my reading, and I understood it clearly as I was reading, if not cleanly.

Technique (7) – The use of failure as a point for great characters was what really set this thread apart. It was a great technique and really helped flesh out the some deeper levels to the characters than I’ve seen from them. Riddles are also a tool that I enjoy, as people tend to think of conflicts purely in a physical sense and it was refreshing to see otherwise here.

Wildcard: (6)

Total: 67

Letho receives 1407 exp and 95 gp.
Chibimon Blue receives 461 exp and 70 gp.
Steppenwolf Orlouge receives 628 exp and 70 gp.