Writing Challenge #4 - Combined Excercise

[Mordelain]

The finale, combine all three prompts, with a 1,000 words limit per entry:


1st -7th - Combat Brevity
Describe a brief exchange of blows between two individuals - word capped, highlighting short, sharp, and quick action to keep the reader on their toes.

8-14th - Dialogue-less Writing
A writing challenge designed to test your ability to communicate without vocal components; write an exchange between two or more people without words, song, or writing.

15-21st - Word Challenge
A simple 'include these 5 words' in a 500 word post in the most creative way challenge! Designed to increase your vocabulary and make you think about how you use your words.

22nd - 28th - Fight Club
The final challenge will include all three of the months'e exercises, with a longer word limit, and a focus on drawing all the aspects of planning together to deliver a finished product.

Entries accepted until the 14th of March.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Stillness returned, but silence eluded. Smouldering shadows whispered honeyed mockery just beyond conscious reach. Lost in thought, paying no attention to their petty insults, he let them nibble away like the swirling winter wind.

When at last they had their fill of their sport, they coalesced into smoky features as familiar now as the scars upon his chest.

“Your presumption is quite preposterous, phoenixborn,” Natosatael chuckled. Discordantly interwoven voices trickled through his mind like molten chocolate, blistering hot sweet pain into every exposed synapse. “She let you live because she wishes to see you suffer further. Not because she has seen enough. Or did you truly expect to get away so easily?”

Defiant, the nameless wanderer wrenched away from the suppurating carbuncle-like pupil focusing the haze. It laughed again, sundering remnant tranquillity in ear-tearing delight.

“Ah, but of course. You too would rather see yourself suffer further for your sins, would you not?”

Beyond the exhaustion and the pain invading with bloody tendrils the depths of his gentle brown eyes, something hardened. Something brutally honest, that against all odds actually agreed with the daemon.

“Oh, how woefully weak you stood against the Necromancer! How pitifully unprepared for the havoc he wrought, as one by one your comrades fell! Yet you had the audacity to survive! And thus you dragged her into your mess!”

Natosatael’s merry mirth lasted long enough to drive the dagger into his soul. Then it mutated jagged and ugly, sawing with vicious abandon into the fresh wounds.

“Mayhap I should eliminate her myself. Spare her what awaits.”

Emotion flared raw and powerful, spurting from the young man’s huddled form like arterial blood. The shack blazed in sudden flame. Incandescence pure and white lashed hungrily at dilapidated timber, reaching into the starry night to devour the watchful moon whole. Stark shadows seared amusement into Natosatael’s disembodied features.

As abruptly as they had spawned, the arcane fires died. Wintry air rushed into the emptiness left behind by the brief explosion; secondary combustions, gripping mounds of decaying refuse, fumed noxiously into the frozen chill. He concentrated upon the apparition, the beacon branded upon the wasteland signifying unambiguous intent.

Even in the abyssal depths of Haidia itself, few dared look Natosatael din’Pholoris in the eyes, much less deny its rightful pleasure. The daemon would have torn any less an offender limb from limb without batting an eyelid.

But it merely grinned, winking mockingly from existence, letting its voice linger.

“Contrary to popular belief, even daemons like to play by the rules sometimes. And I always save the tastiest morsels for last…”

Shadows swirled in retreat, allowing stark moonbeams to pool upon the gravely floor through the shattered roof. Shocked silence settled at last. The sudden release of tension, frosty breath escaping towards the stars above, almost lulled him into a false sense of security.

Almost. Natosatael might consider him a morsel, but not that tasty. He rose to his feet as the daemon taught not to presume what rules it played by.

The revenant strode into the abandoned shack, tearing aside the far wall as if it barely existed. Plates of wrought black iron rasped in eerily ethereal shrieks. An ancient daemon-touched longsword whispered ghostly curses in challenge, glowing faintly in the blackened moonlight. He could almost sense the incorporeal thrum as Natosatael delighted in its pawn’s entrance.

Almost. Natosatael might feed off the fear of victimised prey, but it rarely did so in person. He stood his ground defiantly as the daemon demonstrated it needs not to be present to ruin a life.

Seconds stretched into eternities. Chill-possessed blade rose high, whispering mists cavorted low, and the world contracted upon itself in frozen terror. Before he could force his lungs to draw breath the revenant had covered the distance between them. He almost dropped to his knees, resistance seeping from his limbs like fluid from a leaking flask.

Almost. Natosatael might command power overwhelming, but he would not back down so easily. He forced his gaze to hold true as the daemon hammered home how he lacked the ability to retaliate.

The revenant’s blade inched towards his eyes with terrifying precision. Frozen fingers caressed his cheek, devouring flesh like necrotic scarabs. Trails of crystallised blood splattered against the dirty wood, each a calligraphic master-stroke painted by strokes of edged death. There and then, he almost lost his life.

Almost. Natosatael might not consider him that tasty, but it had toyed with him constantly through years of chase. He bided his time for a moment longer as the daemon reminded him it still could kill at a whim.

Then his daggers whipped from their scabbards on his lower back. Flame bright and brilliant flared once again in the dim confines, painfully illuminating the swarming shadows from inside out. Searing heat glittered upon ice, dancing in grimy reflections upon his spectacles.

He left half his cheek upon the revenant’s blade. But pain-fuelled adrenaline fed his limbs with much-needed strength. He stepped inside the construct’s guard before it could fully react to his sudden movement, tasting cold metal and frozen brimstone on the back of his tongue.

Wrought iron crashed into the side of his face. His glasses, bent and broken, went flying. Crystallised blood sprayed again as his nose broke upon jagged gauntlets. But somehow he kept his feet; somehow he parried the ancient longsword as it swept in for the kill, deflecting it harmlessly into the frozen ground.

His eyes narrowed, one last burst of focus.

The revenant caught fire. Metal screamed, giving voice to the tortured soul trapped within.

A pair of Nipponese daggers stabbed through the hollow emptiness beneath the revenant’s helm. It blew apart in a violently final explosion of aether and arcane backlash.

It took a while for the young man to emerge from the ruins of the flimsy shack, owlishly replacing his glasses upon his nose.

By then the darkness crawled with daemonic shadows, and the full moon quailed beneath Natosatael’s laughter.

[Mordelain]

Thread Title: February Vignette Challenge #3
Judgement Type: Vignette
Participants: Flames of Hyperion

Scores are Flames of Hyperion

Plot

Story ~ 7
Setting ~ 8
Pacing ~ 6

Character

Communication ~ 6
Action ~ 6
Persona ~ 7

Prose

Mechanics ~ 7
Clarity ~ 6
Technique ~ 8

Brief: 9

Brief: Over the course of the challenge, Flames, you developed an idea quickly. From small, clunky, and restricted, you grew into this excellent vignette. I can see that you are better suited to longer word limits, and it shows here in your narrative. You once again wove the required words into your story, and did not falter in terms of setting, communication, and pacing, despite the restrictions placed on you.

Flames of Hyperion: 21/19/21/9 = Total = 70

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I would be happy to develop on the points above, or provide more in depth examples based on those notes if requested. cydneyoliver@gmail.com, or my Mordelain inbox are both appropriate avenues to do.

If you have any concerns, doubts, and worries, and do not wish to speak to me directly for whatever reason, then I am sure another member of staff will resolve the matter on your behalf. I am perfectly amenable and open to feedback, as the judge has to develop, as much as the writer put under the scrutiny of the rubric!


Experience, gold, and other rewards will be calculated and added together once all judgements are completed.