The Runion (Closed to Hoytti)

[Miss Relt]

It's was fifteen years after Sorish had brought the plant, now known as the Goolin Tree, down to help us clean our oceans. As a good friend, I had to give Sorish important news. So, my brother, Ethen, and I came up onto the shores of Fallien. There we had searched the deserts for him, but found nothing. Hearing he could be in Salvar, we hopped aboard the nearest ship and head that way, As we got further north we started to get cold. As soon as we landed however we found out that he was no longer in the area and that he was last spotted in some ruins in Corone. We thanked the man for the information and headed for Corone. As soon as we entered, we went to New Londo Ruins. However, just like in the other places, we only heard stories of his travels. Now we were off the map in a rainforest and still couldn't find him,

"Where could he be?" I asked accidentally connecting to Carol, my coral worm companion.

"How should I know?" she asked.

"I wasn't asking you!" I answered then noticed something blue up ahead. I motioned for everyone to stop then knelt down.

"Could that be?" I asked still connected to Carol.

"It could be, but we have to get closer to find out," she replied.

I nodded in response and sneakily got closer to it, motioning for Ethen to stay there. It started to turn so I hid behind a tree. After a couple of seconds, I looked back around the tree and noticed that it was gone. I stepped out then scratched my head. Were'd it go?

[hoytti]

It was 'bout noon when Sorish turned as he thought he heard someone behind him, catching the attention of his little sister Sanderia. "What's the..." She started to say, but Sorish covered her mouth. He looked like he was focusing on something in the tree's. He then removed his hand from her mouth and motioned for her to stay down and be quiet. She was thirteen but still, he treated her as a kid. She was about to complain when he started to move as quickly and quietly as possible staying wide around the tree. After a few minutes he disappeared from her sight.

Sorish ran behind the tree and noticed it was another Coralian, a familiar one at that. He was crouched below the foliage so the coralian didn't notice as he snuck towards the tree. As soon as she turned around looking at the spot where he was earlier, he walked up behind her and grabbed her.

[Miss Relt]

*I have permission to Dialogue Bunny Sorish Mon Larsh the rest of the thread*
*Hoytti has permission to Dialogue Bunny the rest of the thread as well"

I was about to scream as I felt a hand grab me and pull me back but then I heard a aggressive deep voice. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" it hissed. I felt scared since I didn't recognize the voice, but then I noticed that the hand was a blue coralian's.

"I'm looking for my friend Sorish Mon Larsh, what are you doing here?" I replied, not wanting to die at this coralian's hands.

"I'm asking the questions, why do you need to talk to Sorish?" the man replied.

"I have a message for him, it's personal," I answered.

"What's your name miss?" the man asked loosening his grip slightly.

"Korra Jeannine Relt," I replied still nervous.

Suddenly I felt him stiffen as if he was stunned. "Korra is that really you?"

"Who are you sir?" I asked knowing that he knew me.

"My name is Sorish Mon Larsh." The man replied then turned me around. He was shorter then me and had a three maybe four foot crown. He had coral blue skin with green in the cracks. His white robe still as neat and tidy as ever, though a little worn. The one thing I did notice however was how much older he looked. Instead of looking forty like he was suppose to he looked to be about seventy, maybe eighty years old by coralian standards. The warm forest stood still as we looked into each others reflective pink eyes. "Korra, you look beautiful as ever." he said then gasped and turned away.

I looked away embarrassed to have him look at me. I didn't feel beautiful. After all, it has been weeks since I've had a bath, though it seemed to be the same way with him. However, he seemed to be sleeping well, unlike me. I haven't slept well since I had received the news. The News! "Sorish there is something I came to tell you."

Suddenly he put his finger on my lips to quiet me. "Sh, lets talk later. We must take care of something first."

[hoytti]

Sorish's heart was pounding like crazy and he had no idea why. What he did know was that he just wanted to look at Korra and take her in. Her height dwarfed his as usual, her three foot five crown shaped like a heart, her coral skin was green with blue in the cracks, her rainbow fish scale dress only added to her beauty. However, the most dominant attraction had to be her large chest that instantly caught his eyes.

Then another thought entered his mind. No I can't do that. She has been my best friend for years. I can't do that. If I do she might get angry and leave. However, something inside him still pushed him to at least try. After a few seconds of standing there looking at each other he finally gave and pressed his lips to Korra's and boy did it feel good.

[Miss Relt]

The forest stood still to the point that even the breeze was gone.

I was surprised to say the least, but what felt like a few seconds later, I was enjoying the sudden attack on my mouth. Our bodies started to heat up as our kissing got deeper. As we pulled away to reflect, we heard a cough and turned our heads to see both Ethen and a girl, I believe was Sorish's sister, standing there both looking a little embarrassed. We quickly separated. I rubbed my left arm while Sorish rubbed the back of his head. "So you needed to tell me something?" Sorish asked trying to dispel the awkwardness.
"Huh?" I asked then remembered what I had to tell him. My eyes dropped remembering the news. "Sorish, I'm sorry but,"

I looked at Sorish as his eyes narrowed then went wide as he guessed the news. "When did it happen?" he asked me.

I turned away then looked over my shoulder, "Exactly ten years ago from today. I've been searching for you ever since. Especially since my parents also died that day" I looked back away from him and bowed my head starting to cry.

[hoytti]

The forest fell silent as if it could sense the sadness in the air. All creatures stopped moving and only a gentle breeze was the only thing that gave any identification that time was still moving. Sorish tried to stay strong for the sake for the others but he started to fail. Tears could be seen in his skins cracks as he tried to hold them back. Korra came up to him and hugged him. "Sorish, it's ok to cry. Everyone has to sometimes."

This sent Sorish over the edge and he cried out in his deep rumble. It was so loud that people in Dheathain, Istraleth, and Scara Brae could hear him. Many adventurers and locals alike turned in their direction wondering what happened.

[Miss Relt]

I cringed, but not because of the volume of Sorish's scream but rather at the fact that he was so dismayed by his family's death Is that how I was when I found out? I asked myself. As I continued to hug Sorish trying to calm him down Ethen had already calmed down Sorish's Sister. She didn't really have time to meet her parents so she wasn't so easily distraught. Sorish's crying was tearing out my heart and I needed to calm him down before I broke down as well. "Sorish, let's grill. you still have yours don't you?"

Sorish stood up and nodded then reached into his backpack and pulled out his Coralian Grill and started to get it ready while I went to the lake I had saw a little while back and hunted for fish. After collecting the fish I came back to notice some fruit and vegetables on the grill. Then I looked at Sorish who was definitely calmer. He has always loved to grill the fish he caught. Grilling was one of the ways his parents calmed him down. Now it was my way to do so to. "Here is some fish Sorish." I said as I approached him. He looked at me, smiled, and thanked me, then went back to grilling.

[hoytti]

Sorish was definitely happier after grilling the squash and other large fruits and vegetables he had found nearby. Also the fish that Korra had brought definitely helped out. After eating the fish he was finally completely calmed down and back to his old cheerful self. Sure the death of his parents still ached, but he also knew that they would want him to move on. After eating he noticed that the sun was almost down. "I suggest we find a place to stay the night. According to locals, this forest is dangerous after dark.

[Miss Relt]

I frowned. Seriously, another dangerous place? "Are you trying to get yourself killed Sorish?" I asked folding my arms. Sorish looked at me confused. "Every single place I've gone searching for you is dangerous. What's worse is that you took your sister there as well." I finished by pointing to his sister. Sorish's sister looked to be 13 now. She was about 5' tall. Her coral skin was green with blue in the cracks of her skin. Her breast seemed to be just starting to grow. Her crown looked to be about 2' tall.

[hoytti]

Sorish looked down in shame. It's not like I had a choice when it came to my sister following. A giggle pulled Sorish out of his thoughts. Sorish, Korra, and Korra's brother all turned towards Sanderia. She was trying to hold back laughter. However, she failed and started to roll around laughing her head off. After calming down she finally spoke. "It wasn't Sorish who took me to those places Korra. I followed him even when told to stay put." After saying that she continued to laugh.

[Miss Relt]

I looked at the girl surprised. She had followed him even when he told her not to? "Why on earth would you do something so stupid... um what is your name?"
She looked at me then laughed again. "Oops, I forgot to tell you my name. I'm Sanderia"
I smiled at her and nodded my head. "Well Sanderia, I'm Korra and this," I pulled my brother in front of me,"is my brother Ethen." Ethen smiled then waved to Sanderia.
"I know who you are Korra," she said with a smile. "Sorish told me all about you and the adventures you Forced him into."
I blushed then picked up on the emphasis. "I did not force him to do anything. he just followed me willingly." I put my hands on my hips.

[hoytti]

Sanderia was about to retort back when Sorish coughed. "Uh, guys, can't we wait to argue till after we find a place to stay? The sun is about to drop below the horizon and I don't think we want to be standing here after dark." Sanderia and Korra looked at Sorish then nodded.
"Your right Big Brother Sorish." Sanderia said putting her finger to her mouth and swaying back and forth. Sorish noticed a slight pink appear on Ethen's face. Ethen looked to be about 14. His coral skin was pure blue. A rarity in and of itself as most Coralians had some other color in the cracks. His face looked sharp but still had a young feel to it. The grey robe looked like it was made big so that he would grow into it. It had a small seam in order to change the length as he grew. The Sailfish fin cape also looked to be slightly big but just like the robe, it seamed to be hemmed in order to keep it from dragging. Sorish smiled then looked at Korra to see what she would say.

[Miss Relt]

I notice a blush on Ethen's face. He looked so cute. I then noticed Sorish looking at me waiting for my answer. I thought about Ethen's blush and wanted to see Sorish with that face. I placed my hands on my hips then walked past Sorish sending a wink his way as I spoke. "You should know by know that I love adventure." I rubbed my hand under his chin. "However, danger is where I draw the line." I continued pass him as I talked, "Lets go find us some shelter." I continued to walk swaying my hips seductively. Both Ethen and Sorish was in shock, mouth wide open, Sorish with a deep purple blush. I had never shown this side of me to anyone before and it sure shocked them. Sanderia turned away from the boys and giggling then ran after me. After a few seconds of walking, I turned around and yelled, "You coming boys!" I was still sounding seductive. That pulled them from their trance and they ran after us.

[hoytti]

After walking for maybe an hour the group came upon a cave. "I don't know how safe this cave is," Sorish said looking at the cave, "but I don't think we have much choice. we will camp here tonight and tomorrow we will continue to venture deeper into the forest." The others nodded in agreement.

[Miss Relt]

As I looked at the cave that Sorish found, I noticed that the entrance could only allow one of us to enter at a time. Sanderia entered first because she had a sword though it wasn't that strong. After a few seconds she returned and waved us in. The next person to enter was Ethen, then me, then finally Sorish. As soon as we got past the entrance to the cave, I saw that the cave sloped gradually into a dome shape. The walls and ceiling was covered in a glowing moss. It had columns where stalactites and stalagmites had fused. There was also a stream that came out of a hole on our right and it snaked to a giant pit at the back of the cave. I walked to pit and whistled. Due to the moss I could see that the bottom was about 350 feet deep. I could also tell that the cavern continued on further following the stream I had mentioned earlier. I also heard a faint sound of creatures scurrying around about five hundred feet from where I stood.
"More then likely in that recess that was made by the pond that use to be here before a creature bored into it releasing tons of water making the rest of the cavern. The stream has since returned to a trickle and there is probably a giant pond at the bottom of the cavern." Carol said from the back of my head.
Why do I need to know that? I asked her.
"Because," she said with a mental grin, "whatever bored into that pond was huge and more then likely the reason for these woods being dangerous. I suggest someone stay on watch till morning."
I thanked her then cried out, "Sorish, you might want to have a look at this."

[hoytti]

Sorish looked up from the bed rolls he was setting out for everyone. Noticing Korra looking into that pit at the back of the cave. He stood up and walked over to her. "What is it Korra," he asked.
"Sorish, see that hole in the wall there" She said pointing to a hole at the bottom of the pit. Sorish nodded. "Carol thinks that the creature who made that is the same creature that makes this forest so dangerous. She suggests we take turns keeping watch for anything that comes in through our entrance or from this pit."
"Ok," Sorish said walking back to camp, "I'll take first watch, when I get tired I'll wake you. Now go and get some sleep."
As Korra walked past Sorish to she ran her hand under his chin like she did earlier. "Don't try anything while I sleep," she said seductively before going to bed.
"What is this feeling I have?" He asked Roxi who has been strangely quiet since he had met Korra.
"I know what it is, but I'm not telling," Roxi replied giggling.
"Some help you are," Sorish retorted.
Roxi giggled then said, "I'm still not telling, now get your head out of the clouds and stand watch."
"Fine" Sorish said before sitting on a rock. However, he still couldn't get Korra out of his head.

[Miss Relt]

After laying down I decided to connect to Carol. "Hey Carol, have you ever met Sorish's Coral Worm?"
"Met her?" Carol asked, "I'm her best friend. I was there when Sorish found her. In fact, that is one of the reasons that I chose to be your Coral Worm, because you were best friends with the Roxi's host."
"Really?" I asked, "Well then, I give you permission to connect to her tonight. Also, see if Roxi will be willing to send some of Sorish's memories as a dream for me tonight.
"Will do Korra,"Carol said. I then went to sleep.

[hoytti]

Roxi felt an unfamiliar connection as they kept watch "Who goes there?" she asked opening the connection as well as a connection to Sorish.
"Roxi what's wrong?" Sorish asked hearing her question.
Roxi ignored him "I said, 'Who goes there?'."
"Is that any way to treat a friend Roxi." a voice said.
"I don't recognize your telepathic connection, now show yourself." Roxi said with a hiss.
"Look over at Korra" the voice said.
Sorish turned his head to Korra and saw a Coral snake reveal itself. "Ah you must be Carol." Sorish said surprising Roxi.
"That's right Sorish, I'm Carol," the voice said.
"Tell me, are you my best friend Carol or just another Carol?" Roxi asked surprising Sorish.
"I'm your best friend Roxi," Carol replied.
"How on earth did you not recognize her?" Sorish asked.
"Because, we never used telepathy to talk to each other." Roxi replied.
"Okay, I'll bite, why not?" Sorish asked.
"Because," Carol answered, "We require a host to do so. Our bodies cant handle the energy strain that telepathy puts on the user. Our host holds a vast amount of energy that isn't used. So we take a small portion of this to talk telepathically but only from coral worm to coral worm."
"Okay then why can I hear you?" Sorish asked.
"You can hear her because I have a link open with you. Now I'm closing that link. Keep watch." Roxi said then closed the link to Sorish.
"Fine I'll keep watch." Sorish said out loud so the two Coral worms could hear him then continued watching the night.

[Miss Relt]

I was sleeping soundly as I dreamed about the day. However that dream became a nightmare as a giant creature that looked almost like a giant two headed eel attacking Sorish. As I watched Sorish pulled out his sword and called Everyone wake up we've got company. Instantly I woke up and noticed my nightmare was real. The monster was indeed here and attacking Sorish. I contacted Carol and we started our analysis.
"It looks to be a giant two-headed serpent. If I am correct cutting off both it's heads at once should kill it." I called out to Sorish who was facing the creature preparing to defend us if it decided to strike, which it did. Both heads lunged forward, both with an intent to swallow Sorish whole.

[hoytti]

Sorish quickly dodged the serpents strike by rolling to the left then slashed his sword down on the snake severing one of its head then quickly bringing it back up to sever the other head. After Both heads were on the ground Sorish turned around and walked towards the others.

[Miss Relt]

I was about to congratulate Sorish on a job well done when all of a sudden, ends of the neck started to bubble and out of each end two more heads appeared making it a four headed serpent. I shrieked causing Sorish to turn around quickly.
"You have got to be kidding me." He said running back up to the serpent ready to do battle with it again.
The Silver Serpent was angry now and just started striking at Sorish one head at a time. Each time Sorish severing a head only for two more to take it's place. I watched as he fought the serpent. Soon though the number of heads was at a staggering fifty heads. Sorish I noticed was starting to get tired. Upon noticing this I ran up to Sorish and grabbed his sword pushing him back making the snake miss him again, while also dodging taking the sword in hand.
"What do you think your doing?" Sorish cried out looking at me.
"I'm taking over for a while. You need to rest," I answered while dodging the serpents attack.
"Can you even use a sword?" He asked me.
I huffed. "Of course I do, I am a Coralian after all."

[hoytti]

To tired to argue, Sorish moved back next to the kids who were cowering away from the giant serpent. "You kids okay?" he asked them taking them into my arms as they shivered under him. They nodded but still shivered as the fight continued on. Sorish looked back at Korra who was doing nothing but dodging. "I thought you said you knew how to fight!" He cried as she continued to dodge.

[Miss Relt]

Korra jumped backwards dodging yet another snakes head. "I do, however, cutting this creatures heads off is doing nothing but making it worse." She called back then dodged to the right avoiding another snake head. If only I had a way to get to it's heart. Wait that's it. Another Head lunged for me but instead of dodging I jumped right into the mouth. The creature swallowed me whole.

[hoytti]

"Korra!" Sorish and the children cried. Why Korra, why didn't you dodge? Sorish thought with grief, however that grief turned to anger as Sorish grabbed hold of Sanderia's sword and charged the beast, his normally Pink Eyes, Blood Red. He started Slashing away at the creatures heads trying to take it down. Each head he slashed off was replaced with two. After only a minute of slashing the number of heads on the creature was at five hundred. Sanderia and Ethen huddled together in a small hole Sanderia had found earlier. She had moved them there upon seeing Sorish's eyes change. She had heard about the Red Death from Sorish and knew that if Sorish saw them, they would be in danger.

[Miss Relt]

I heard the commotion outside, however, I had other things to think about. I had to get as close to the beast's heart as possible. AS I kept my ear to the wall of the stomach I listened. Finally I was at the place where I needed to be. I quickly shoved the sword through the stomach's wall and cut. There in front of me was the heart. I grabbed it and cut the arteries connecting the heart to the body. After the heart was severed. The creature fell and I cut my way out only to face a coralian that had read eyes. Instantly I knew who it was. "Sorish!" Sorish looked at me and charged. I dodged and opened a connection to Carol "Carol, what's wrong with him?" I cried.
"Roxi told me while we were talking that Sorish has the Red Death." Carol replied.
"The Red Death?" I asked then remembered what I heard about it. "No Sorish, Please snap out of it!" I cried as jumped away from another slash. He kept slashing at me making me back up. Soon I had my back against a wall and he was sending another slash at me. I ducked and grabbed his word hand then pushed myself forward catching my lips with his. He struggled for a few seconds but I made sure to keep my lips on his. After the initial struggle however he calmed down and started kissing back. his eyes closed. After what felt like a minute we separated, opening our eyes his back to being pink. "Thank you Korra," he said then fell forward.

[hoytti]

The rest of the night was uneventful. Sorish slept while Korra took care of the children who were still shaken from Sorish's personality change. As the first rays of sun shone through the opening to the cave Sorish finally stirred. Upon seeing him Korra ran to him. "Sorish?" She asked quietly as Sorish opened his eyes.
"Korra,"He whispered.
Korra started to cry then hugged him. "Sorish, I was so worried. Why didn't you tell me you had the red death?"
"I didn't want you to worry about me." Sorish whispered his eyes drooping again, sleep ready to over take him again.
"Sorish," Korra said shaking him to keep him awake.
"Huh?" Sorish asked in his sleepy state. "What is it Korra?"
"I think we need to get you out of here." Korra said sweetly lifting him up supporting him so he could walk. "Lets head back to the coast."
"But, what about... the... adventure?" Sorish asked as they exited the cave.
"Your more important then any adventure Sorish," Korra said sweetly trying to keep Sorish awake as they walked.
"No, this is... one of the most... important adventures... I've been on," Sorish protested as he stumbled a little.
"What makes this the most important adventure there is?" Korra asked.
"Because, it is... the first one... I've taken... with you... as my girlfriend," Sorish said.
Korra was surprised to here this and blushed, however, before she cold answer him Sorish suddenly fell forward bringing her down with him.

[Miss Relt]

After picking myself up, I picked up Sorish and continued on to the shore where a small trading post had been set up. Once I got there, the residence of the trading post rushed up to me and grabbed Sorish. They lead us to a small inn where a doctor looked us over. The children was fine and I had quite a few cuts, but none lethal. Sorish had the most damage. His entire body was covered in cuts and his body was completely drained. The doctor said that Sorish would have to stay in bed for a few weeks to recover his energy. Also, no intense workouts for three months. I agreed and paid the doctor then walked over to Sorish. "Sorish?" He didn't open his eyes. I was slightly disappointed but continued anyway I'm happy I finally found you. I kissed his crown before climbing into the bed with him and falling asleep.

[Otto]

Plot ~ 10/30

Storytelling ~ 3/10
You had some solid, basic elements here. Start off light and introduce the characters, then follow by increasing tension and forming conflict, and resolve the story so that the characters have progressed from where they started (literally or metaphorically). Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly well delivered. Apart from certain issues with the prose and character sections – discussed below – which also affected storytelling, there were some specific instances I would like to point to here.
First of all, Sorish’s recovery from hearing about his parents’ deaths is remarkably quick, and feels... wrong. It was practically resolved in a few sentences, when something like that might actually take an entire thread to begin to come to terms with. Having looked into Sorish’s profile, it seems that there was always a good relationship between them, so I would have expected it to hit him a lot harder than it did.
Secondly, the fight with the hydra was pretty anticlactic. You could have made the first part of the battle here (posts 19-20) pack a bit more tension, so that when the monster came back, I’d know that Sorish and Korra really had to step their game up. As it was, the second part of the battle (posts 21-25) also came off a bit weak; I only felt like the only thing Sorish was in danger of was getting tired, and nor did I feel like the others were at risk. I could guess Korra’s intent here easily enough, too. This can be a bit tricky; I can appreciate how setting key plot points up in advance often makes for a better, more believable story. However, when Korra was swallowed, I knew that the fight had been won – and so I wasn’t at all concerned for her well-being. How would I have gone about it? This is just a quick idea, but you could have had her shout an apology to Sorish before leaping into the snake’s mouth, rather than write up her thoughts. Yelling out a “sorry!” would mean that Korra knew what was about to happen would cause distress, but not necessarily that it was all part of her plan. If you think about it some more, I imagine you could come up with several ways to tackle this issue (and better than my suggestion).

Setting ~ 4/10
Setting descriptions are rather sparse. You usually mentioned where you went, but failed to describe much, or indeed anything, about them. For example, the first post had Korra and Ethen go to three (or possibly four, see the ‘clarity’ section for this) continents, and pretty much all I learned was that the Salvar experience was ‘cold’. I learned that Korra went to some ruins in a rainforest, but I have no idea what kind of ruins (Akashima? Empire? Older?), or even rainforest (temperate, tropical, ‘dry’? And yes, the latter is a real thing). In post no. 8, you really could have used Sorish’s foraging errand to paint the setting, here; perhaps Sorish came back “laden with rich, succulent squash, their brilliant yellow skins in stark contrast to the dappled green shade of the understorey”. Or something. Now I’m hungry, so thanks.
The cave was done much better, though. It still could have done with a few more dimensions (width, length, and dome height), as well as some colour. Furthermore, was it cold inside, or warm and humid? Damp? What did it smell like? Was the air thick with fungal spores? Adding these things would really help immerse the reader into the story (and, apart from anything else, netted you some more points).
Again, the trading post wasn’t really described at all. I don’t know how big it is, what region it is in, the climate, the building style, or the kind of people there. I don’t even know the bare basics of Sorish’s room at the inn. You’re at the end of the story, and everything’s turned out more or less okay. You could have reflected this in the setting here: make the inn small, but warm and cosy, clean, quiet, relaxing; the appetising smell of roast fish and the rhythmic lapping of waves upon the shore permeating through the building.
I liked seeing you interact with the environment here, as well. Fishing, foraging, hiding, crawling... not enough for a really good story, though, as the activity was fairly limited, and not particularly significant. Another example: you could have had the stream in the cave make the rocks slippery, causing Sorish or Korra to fall during their battle with the hydra.

Pacing ~ 3/10
You certainly moved quickly. This was good for moving the story along at a snappy pace, but for some things, the slow approach would have been much better. When Korra and Ethen traveled to Fallien, Salvar and Corone in a few sentences, that really trivialised the magnitude of such a journey. In posts 4 and 5, you started to go in depth with the kiss, but then failed to give it any substance; just one or two more sentences would have helped draw it out and suspend the moment. Similarly, slow down a bit when the characters themselves aren’t moving too fast – describe the fishing trip, their trek through the forest or the journey to the trading outpost, to give a sense of the true passage of time. Both of you missed out a lot of opportunities to expand your work in the other judgement sections because you skimmed over so much. It was a little jarring, and constantly broke immersion.

Character ~ 11/30

Communication ~ 4/10
You will want to check the ‘prose’ section to see how this has adversely affected communication. That aside, I will say that your characters aren’t very well communicated; you write the words passing through their heads and mouths, but less often do you describe their emotions, their expressions, their stance or how they speak and act in any great detail. Where you had these things, they certainly lent substance to the character’s interactions, so I would recommend trying to implement it a bit more in the future.
In post no. 1, Korra saw ‘something blue’ – how big? What colour? What shape? Try modifying it a little; if Korra couldn’t make out anything other than the colour, try writing something like “I saw a flash of blue up ahead, moving between the trees” – not that much more to write, and it reduces vagueness substantially. Post 4: Sorish writes, about the kiss, “Boy did it feel good” – a little abrupt, as well as lacklustre. No real description of the act itself, just a rating – surely, Sorish is feeling more than just ‘good’ at that moment. Post 5: I found it odd that Sorish could guess the news; I could understand him being concerned by looking at Korra’s body language, but that was a little too precise to be credible. As said under ‘story’, his rapid recovery from the bad news is also very unbelievable. Post 9: in describing Sanderia, I got biological field notes with information that I could have looked up in Sorish’s profile. Giving me Korra’s impression of her instead would have done this just fine, as well as telling me something about Korra.
The dialogue was alright for the most part, though some of it was a bit awkward. In post 12, Sorish said the sun is about to “drop below the horizon”. It just struck me as odd, perhaps, that someone anxious about finding shelter in a hurry wouldn’t simply say that it’s about to “set”. I had pretty much the same impression in post 19, where Korra’s bit about the snake seems a bit long-winded, given that they’ve just be ambushed by a giant hydra.

Action ~ 3/10
You gained some points here, because you used action to a) interact a little with the environment, and b) it augments some of your character communication. Other uses of action aren’t particularly well described – I mentioned Korra and Sorish’s kiss in posts 4 and 5 above, and how it sort of falls flat: developing and describing the action would have greatly improved it. In the battle, the bare, unadorned descriptions of each movement made it all seem rather bland and mechanical. Instead of just telling me that Sorish swung his sword down through the hydra’s neck, describe the feeling of the sword crunching its way through the giant vertebrae, and the way the bloodied neck thrashed and writhed like an unheld garden hose.
I had to take more points off due to credibility issues. A grill isn’t listed in Sorish equipment, but that’s no biggie; grills are probably quite easy to come by. If you get something minor like this, maybe just briefly add where your character acquired it (bonus points if you got it in a previous thread, and can link it in). This would be a real problem if Sorish pulled something integral to the quest out of the air, though (Deus Ex Machinima). Also, I found it remarkable that Sorish could fend off five hundred – five hundred! – of the hydra’s heads at once, Red Death or not. There aren’t any rules against this, certainly, but it hurt the credibility of your story.
There were two other outstanding issues: at the start of the quest, you are in a rainforest – these things tend to be pretty densely vegetated. Sorish has no mention of any stealth-related skills, so an 11’7” armour-clad behemoth crashing through the underbrush is bound to make a lot of noise, and this would have been readily apparent to a perceptive person such as Korra. Another issue I have is with post 6: nothing in Sorish’s profile suggests that he can scream loud enough to be heard across different islands/continents.

Persona ~ 4/10
Not too bad. Some of what the characters did action-wise seemed to come unbidden (blushing, averting their eyes, etc.), which is a good way to express, outwardly, what’s going in their minds, and you also used a fair bit of introspection, which helped in this section. As with everything I’ve mentioned above, it could have just used a bit more. Also, there wasn’t much depth to them; what the characters were feeling and thinking was fairly predictable, and that which wasn’t, lacked credibility (again, Sorish’s response to the death of his parents).
This may be in the wrong place (perhaps it goes under ‘action’), but when Korra used her cognition skill in post 19, I would have really liked to see how she came to her conclusion on the eel. Perhaps she noticed the unique patterning which identified it as a Giant Two-Headed Cave Snake(Magnophis bicapitis, perhaps), which can only be truly killed by simultaneous decapitation. In describing Korra’s use of a mental skill, you can also describe her as a character; in this case, revealing something about how she thinks. Is she the sort of person who can quickly and immediately suppress panic and rationally assess an enemy in the midst of life-or-death battle? I didn’t know if she suppressed fear in that instance, or if she was simply incapable of feeling it.

Prose ~ 9/30

Mechanics ~ 3/10
This the section which requires the most work, I think. Constant spelling and grammatical errors have seriously hindered your ability to deliver this story effectively. I’m going to go through the list, and their frequency, so you can (if you wish) prioritise what you work on improving. There may be a little overlap between the two sections below.


Spelling mistakes:
For most of these, it was simple confusion between phonetically similar words (words which sound the same). Post 1: “where’d” (the contraction of “where did”) was misspelt “were’d” (not a real word, but if it was, would be a contraction of “were did”, which doesn’t make a lot of sense). Post 4: incorrectly used ‘then’ as a comparative conjunction, as opposed to ‘than’ (“He was shorter then me”). Post 5: there were missing apostrophes; you should have used the contraction “let’s”, as in “let us”, and not the third person singular form, “lets”. Post 9: watch your participles. “... I had seen” is correct, “... I had saw” is not. Post 12: watch your contractions and possessive forms – “your” is the possessive form of “you” (i.e.: “Your right”, means that you possess the ‘right’, while “You’re right” is literally “you are right”). Also, “seemed” was spelt “seamed”, though, to be fair, you were walking about hems (it can take much less to confuse me, some times). Post 13: you wrote “... know by know”, which should have been “know by now”. You also mixed your tenses up in this one. Use plural forms where appropriate – you wrote “Both Ethen and Sorish was in shock”; “was” should have been “were”. Post 19: confused your participles; used “attacking”, when “attacked” would have been correct. Post 21: replace ‘do’ in the following excerpt with the modal verb ‘can’: “Of course I do...”, so it becomes “Of course I can...”. Post 22: don’t mix up the adverb ‘too’ with the particle ‘to’. Post 25: you had “read eyes” for “red eyes”, and “word” for “sword”. Post 26: I saw confusion between “you’re” and “your” again, and “could” was spelt as “cold”. Finally, in the last post, please note that “residence” is the physical place, and “residents” are the people (plural form of “resident”).


Grammatical mistakes, formatting errors and punctuation mishaps:
There were a lot of run-on sentences; in fact, they were present in almost every post. This happens when you link two independent clauses – which could exist as individual sentences – without using a comma to separate them. These clauses are linked by a ‘conjunction’ (generally ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’, etc.). Let’s look at an excerpt from post no. 22: “They nodded but still shivered as the fight continued on”. We have two clauses here: “They nodded”, and “they still shivered as the fight continued on”. You have linked both clauses with the conjunction ‘but’, but a conjunction is always preceded by a comma, so it should have been “They nodded, but still shivered as the fight continued on”.
Transitional words and phrases are used at the start of a sentence to link it to the previous sentence, but they are always and immediately followed by a comma. There were quite a few instances where this rule was not followed, the first one I noticed being in post no. 19: “However that dream became a nightmare...”. The “however” is a transitional word, and links to the previous sentence, “I was sleeping soundly as I dreamed about the day”. Thus, it should have been followed by a comma.
If you close speech marks with a full stop, the first word of the following sentence begins with a capital letter, like normal (see post no. 3). On that subject, something from post no. 21: if you don’t finish a sentence with dialogue, close it with a comma – so that “‘You have got to be kidding me.’ He said...” becomes “‘You have got to be kidding me,’ he said...”. Also, I know it’s counter-intuitive, but if you use a question or exclamation mark, don’t capitalise after closing the speech marks (“‘Can you even use a sword?’ he asked me”, would have been correct, in that post).
There’s a bunch of missing punctuation. Post 7: missed a full stop. Post 8: need to close your dialogue with speech marks. Post 13: a question should always end with a question mark (“You coming, boys?”, not “You coming boys!”), and I saw this again in post 16. This just seems to be matter of some bad stuff slipping through the net, as you know where that sort of punctuation goes, for the most part. Watch out for greengrocer’s apostrophes, as well: post 3 had “tree’s” (as in, “the tree’s bark”, the bark of a tree), when you meant “trees” (plural form of ‘tree’).
Keep your capitalisation consistent, as well – sometimes it was ‘Coralians’, other times ‘coralians’. Same with ‘Red Death’, and ‘red death’. And so on. And finally, there are some formatting conventions I should bring to your attention (broken in posts 9 and 10, that I recall). Basically, you should start another paragraph when someone new begins talking. Although there were plenty more instances of some of these errors than I have provided, hopefully that has gone through the majority of the different types that you’ll need to watch out for in the future.

Clarity ~ 3/10
Clarity is something that has really suffered from the paucity of elaboration in your posts, and their brevity. A few times, you failed to include something – but then referred to it in a later post. In post 7, you wrote about “the” lake which Korra had seen earlier, of which there is no reference to in the preceding posts. “A” lake would have worked fine, in this instance. And in post 27: I’m not sure where all the damage to Sorish came from; there’s no mention of him taking it in the fight. Also, you don't actually mention heading to the Outlands, yet this thread is in that forum. Are they all still in Corone, or is the rainforest on a different continent? The first post has this: “we thanked the man for the information and headed for Corone”. The ‘man’ isn’t mentioned prior to this, so it’s a jarring element – when I read it, I had to stop and think “what man?” for a second.
Another issue with clarity is some of your wording. In post 12, “Sorish noticed a slight pink appear on Ethen's face” – I’m guessing you meant hue, or tinge, but you need to include this. When Sanderia enters the cave, are you saying that she’s not strong, or that the sword isn’t? Not sure if you used the correct pronoun there (post 15). In post 21, it probably would have worked better to describe the hydra as a “Silver Serpent” earlier; without any prior reference to its colour or breed, I’m left wondering where the name came from, and if I missed something (those capitals denote some sort of importance regarding the name). There were also a few fractured sentences, which didn’t really have a subject (object): “Could that be?” (post 1), “Noticing Korra looking into that pit at the back of the cave” (post 16) and “After the heart was severed” (post 25) – these were all written as standalone sentences, but didn’t quite work as such.

Technique ~ 3/10
One reason why your posts were so short was that you seemed to favour short, clipped sentences. As a result, the writing didn’t have much in the way of personality, and your own style bled through into the dialogue of your characters. I might avoid using as many contractions as you have outside of dialogue; from a first person perspective this can help develop the voice of the ‘narrator’, but it was another thing which blurred the line between dialogue and the rest of the text.
I saw some clumsy sentences which could have been avoided – watch out for ‘redundancy’. For example: when you wrote “‘I don’t know how safe this cave is,’ Sorish said looking at the cave”, you used the word ‘cave’ twice in the same sentence. Maybe you could have changed it to: “I don’t know how safe this cave is,’ Sorish said, as he peered into the shadows” - that way I also know that it's a dark cave. This sort of thing appeared a few times in the thread (such as posts 19 and 27).
Lastly, I’d be cautious about some of your word usage. Example: in post 6, use of the word ‘identification’ was a little clumsy; I’d have gone for good old ‘indication’. Finding the best word to use in a sentence can really bring it together, sometimes.

Wildcard ~ 4/10
The scores might give a different impression, but I didn’t mind reading the story. Some decent foundations were there, but you just needed to improve the execution. The dynamic between Sorish and Korra was probably your forte, and helped glue the thread together.

One final thing: every example I’ve given above, where I tell you what I’d have written instead, is just that – what I would have written. Althanas is home to far better writers than I, so I can seriously recommend going and reading other threads. You’ll get ideas, inspiration and examples; and with any luck, you can use that to build upon your own skill sets. I don't expect you to take every single bit of this judgement to heart at once, either - it'll probably work better to keep it in mind, refer to it, and when you think that you've improved upon one area, move on to the next. Some things just require plain old time and effort.

Total ~ 34/100


hoytti gains 648 experience and 133 gold

Miss Relt gains 635 experience and 143 gold

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.