Fire, smoke, rain, and lightning.
It all came hurtling towards the Earth. All of the elements of the world swirled into play like some cataclysm, fighters, ship, captains, three fates, three forces, spiraling downwards with fatalistic momentum.
Spiraling towards death. When Malstorm and Raava locked again with each other, one last time, lightning exploded forth, hitting both in a momentous strike that lit up the brooding sky. Thunder pealed forth, and rumbled out this moment of judgment in its earthshaking power, crashing down upon the world like a monstrous wave. And with it, came the mad captain, joining the chorus of fire and wreckage that fell from the heavens like fiery meteors.
In the oncoming collision, ~N~ released the captain's wheel, now but a spinning ornament on a doomed vessel. Rappelling over to the anchor, by way of the rigging and mast, he pulled up on its iron clamps and let it slip free, plunging down below on its black, heavy chain, right towards the two combatants. With a single bound, the mad captain swan dived right off the side of the ship, and grabbed the chain, pulling it down, riding it down with him as he swung closer to the fighters.
With one last stretch, he grabbed Raava's neck, wrenching him backwards and twisting him over his hip and around. "You're coming with me, traitor. You sunk my ship, and I'm talking you straight to the briny crushing depths for your treacherous ways!" The mad captain, with the suicidal disciple as his prisoner, barely managed to avoid the massive hulk of the burning airship as it crashed down upon Captain Malstrom, bearing all its weight upon her and condemning her body to its fate.
Like an errant meteor shard, ~N~ and Raava, bound to their own fate, barreled towards the sea, where the ocean deformed with a massive shape many times larger than that of the abandoned airship. This monstrous Leviathan breached the crystal clear water's surface with sublime power and cresting up above the waves it emerged from, opened its cavernous maw.
In the next moment, the legendary sea beast closed its watery jaws around ~N~ and Raava and plunged into the depths once more with a tidal crash....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were three extensions given during this battle: One for Kayne, Two for Ma1chbox. Despite this, their total amount of extra time came out to about the same: ~12 hours. As both amounts totaled less than 24 hours, I am choosing not to deduct these extensions from your scores.
However, all things being equal, Ma1chbox, your second extension was not requested, and represented a slip on your part for keeping track of your deadlines. As such, I'm deducting half a point for that from your total. If your combined extensions had represented a total amount of time noticeably greater than that which Red Kayne was granted, I would've deducted an additional amount beyond this; however, each of yours totaled 6 extra hours (give or take some odd minutes) while Kayne received 12 hours total in one.
So, as it it stands, before any judging for the categories below, Ma1chbox begins with a 0.5 point deduction for going beyond the deadline without requesting an extension on his second extension occurrence.
On to the judging...
Writing Style:
- Artistry and Complexity (creativity/originality, risky techniques and intricate details that enrich the post, unusual structuring and changing styles)
RedKayne, you utilized techniques I recognized from my own fights in the Rumble last year, with the changing format of your font, and its positioning, as well as accompanying your posts with musical soundtracks. It's clear you've paid attention to the best fighters of the past, and have incorporated their practices into your own. And particularly, I thought your first post was among your best. In that post, you used the bold and centering to highlight my captain's words, as they interlaced and interrupted Malstrom's observations, thoughts, and memories, all of which were critical to her character. You did this in real time, and the bolding and centering offset and broke her thoughts very well.
But, not all application of writing maneuvers were equally warranted or as clearly functional (such is the risk of experimentation, that it sometimes doesn't always work so well). Your third post moved the lines from right justified to left, and while the blue coloration of the lines and their positioning set them apart, it did that in a way that was aesthetically less than pleasing, and perhaps separated them too much in meaning and integration with what your post was trying to say.
The fourth post continued this experiment, and it now seemed to represent Malstrom's thoughts, or a prayer, and then certain words were colored yellow, which I wondered about, but I thought that the font size change and italics of "NOT THIS TIME" was actually the most effective part there, since the font form matched and aided in the expressing of its content. I commend you for your experimentation, and I believe that as you continue to try new forms, you will get a better feel for which aesthetics work best with your content and message, and which detract from it. As someone who has, in his own posts, risked much in experimentation, that is the risk and cost for making truly exceptional prose.
I award you 2.75 points for the parts that worked well, as well as the parts that did not.
Ma1chbox, Your writing was more conservative, however, your use of italics was well placed, and your writing in general I found to be sound and broken up into parts that made sense, representing the progression of thoughts, action, and events in an evenly coherent fashion. Where RedKayne's post were more uneven in their substance and focus depending on the subject material, yours delivered a consistent account that took all things into an even proportion. This lent your posts a solid consistency and coherence that made them smooth.
However, I personally wonder what you could do if you were to put music or style flourishes in your words. I wonder if you could take your skilled grasp of words and accentuate them further with formatting changes that would further highlight and provide aesthetic embellishment to the different perspectives and aspects of your posts. I would like to see more from you in the future in that regard.
I'm awarding you 2.25 points for a solid style that conveyed your content well, but was fairly conservative in its approach.
- Fluidity and Clarity (Ease of following the action of the post, and smoothness in reading and understanding it)
RedKayne, again, as mentioned above, I thought your first post was excellent in carrying the content and emphasizing it in a way that made the setting and your characters thoughts and memories all flow clearly into line. Everything played together, without anything dominating the spotlight. The same could not be said later on, when it seemed, for example in your third post that the memories and blue lines actually threw off the rhythm of events and broke the flow of the action. Admittedly, you alternated sequentially through these applications, but that didn't result in a post that was either playing coherently, or meaningfully. It seemed that the symphony you had in the first post had now begun to play their separate songs that just happened to be in the same room, and in the third post, it jolted the reader back and forth between those songs in a way that contributed to confusion, rather than coherence.
I award you 2.50 points here.
Ma1chbox, I thought your posts flowed well, for the most part. Some of your maneuvers were difficult to work through, your flips and turns and such, as in your first post. I would work on making sure those are more clearly written in the future. However, I thought that Raava's thoughts, his observations, his progression of actions all made sense, and followed on each other rather well (even when he was doing something some might call "mad"). In this respect, I think you actually outperformed Kayne for flow and clarity. This is where your grasp of writing style and conventions played to your favor.
I award you 2.75 points here.
- Conventions (grammar/spelling/punctuation)
RedKayne, same as before, your first post was your best. And then... something strange happened with your tenses. You started, as you went along in your second, third, and fourth posts, writing in the future tense like you were planning this all out in some hypothetical future as in the following examples from those three posts:
"Captain Malstrom recognized the limitations of her mental health, but she will take necessary precautions to protect herself.
She will not allow the Cold Emperor to interfere this time." (Post 2)
"Yes, she would also utilize risky techniques, but she would also consider the possible positive outcomes. In this instance, the Captain is self-assured that she will be victorious even though the battle will no longer directly take place on the ship." (Post 3)
"Captain Malstrom also considered the possibility of her opponent somehow managing to dodge the initial attack. The faceless creature could also have magical spells in reserve, such as a teleportation ability to avoid the attack. Raava is still doomed for defeat, regardless.
This spell is a two-phased attack. The first phase is not traditionally used to strike blows. If Raava dodges the lightning bolt, it will contact the Tempest Knight instead. From there, Elena will instantly redirect the divine lightning bolt back at her opponent and smite him.
Then, there was also another possible inconvenience. If Malstrom does manage to slay the luminescent warrior with the spell, but doesn't shatter him into thousands of pieces... she would still be dealing with a four-hundred pound carcass falling directly at her.
That is why she still has a Bolting spell in reserve. It was another perfect reason why she didn't utilize that ability earlier. Even after using the incredibly taxing lightning spell, Captain Malstrom's mana pool is capable of one last resort." (Post 4)
This presented the reader with a constantly changing tense as well as perspective (because you seemed to scope out to some kind of omniscient 3rd person narrator describing things from afar in those posts at times, as opposed to the more personal, intimate 3rd person limited perspective you had at the beginning in the first post) that was altogether disconcerting and perplexing. For all your "planned" maneuvers in the final post, you are not allowed to telegraph out reactions in any situation in preparation for hypothetical future happenings that you're unable to actually write out. This is the limitation of the Rumble, the four posts you get to do the best you can do in those posts.
I would suggest working on maintaining a consistent perspective and tense in your posts in the future, or more skillfully weaving them in a manner that doesn't break the reader's connection to the timing and perspective of the events.
I award you 1.75 points for breaking perspective and tense on significant occasions.
Ma1chbox, again, your conventional style helped you here and you shifted from omniscient third person narrative to personal 3rd person narrative smoothly. I felt that you could've risked more, but your style conventionality served your conventions well. You risked less, and could handle what you did with enough skill to make it smooth.
I award you 3.00 points for consistent, well-managed prose. Now, do more with it in the future. 
Effectiveness of Combat:
- Character Consistency (How well do the actions of the character in the post reflect or fit who/what they are, their capabilities, and their limitations?)
RedKayne, I loved the opening. Can I just say that? Again? What more poignant, perfect experience to open with on an airship flown by a mad captain under attack than a young girl, a sister, hanging on to dear life from a cliff, saved by the last moment by her brother.
It was perfect. And that particular memory mattered here for obvious reasons. But then... post three, you open with this:
"It was odd... how the sun remained unchanged after that fateful day...
It truly shows that mother nature is apathetic...
After spending an infinite aeon of observing humanity's worst...
By taking a few step backwards, Captain Malstrom would fall into the oblivion of the sky. A clumsy step or a foolish error - and it would all be over. Yet, the Tempest Knight held no fear, and stood there in a confident manner. She was ready to face her opponent, despite being weaponless and defenseless. There was a brief silence of anticipation as Elena ignored the roaring gales around her, and she strictly paid attention to her adversary's next move."
Wait. What? Where's the little girl whose first lines, our first introduction to her, were "Somebody, save me!" I get that the girl has become the knight. I get she's older now, more experienced, more courageous. But that memory mattered. And now it doesn't seem to anymore. I was hoping to see a fight with someone who was bravely facing a central fear in a pivotal moment in her life to courageously fight on. But she's stepping to the edge here without even so much as blinking.
You spoke of her mental limitations, but after that first post, you didn't show us as much through her eyes how they played. You told us they were there, but you didn't make us feel them through her eyes.
This paragraph captures it: "To free fall through the air - while among the clouds - is certainly a surreal experience. The suit of armor deflected away the hissing winds from Elena's skin, but the mage-knight's heart still palpated from the incredible sensation. Despite being high in altitude, the vivid imagination of crashing against the ground - an instant death - would unnerve anyone. The Captain could only find comfort by logically reasoning with herself - this was her original plan of strategy from the very beginning. The Templar had to fight through the mortal fear of death. There were still a couple more steps to proceed with her strategy, before the endgame commences. Honestly, it was remarkable that Elena still had a plan to work with, regardless of several unexpected events. She has to slightly improvise due to Raava's last action, but the outcome would remain unchanged."
She's fighting through the fear of death, the plunge, but it's part of her plan? Logic? When one is in the grips of a childhood fear and memory coming back into their lives at such a moment, logic blows away like dust in the wind. Emotions rule the day. What is she feeling? Can she hear her heartbeat as it hammers in her chest? Is she blinking back tears? Is she taking hurried breaths? Is she losing control in this one situation where she's literally in free fall and all of her control is slipping away? Yes, there's the plan but where's the girl? Where's her nightmare? Where's her humanity? The struggle that blows the flickering torch of logic around like its plaything? Wheres the girl with chattering teeth mouthing her prayers not in serenity but in desperate hope, clinging to the faith that her gods will save her against all odds?
I want to know your Malstrom intimately, and I was all in at the beginning. But then you took her away from me and told me in prose that seemed like I was getting her condition through Morse code. In the end, you brought back her humanity through the stylistics of your words, "NOT THIS TIME!" and for a brief glimpse, I felt that girl again, that brave girl.
But I felt that Kayne the writer became too dominant in Malstrom the knight, and turned her from what she is into what he is. John Keats talks about "negative capability": the need for a writer to empty himself of himself in order to fill himself up with his characters. In this case, I believe this is good advice for you to take your writing to next level, Kayne. Forsake yourself. Become your characters. Feel what they feel, not what you would feel. Think what they think, not what you would think. Speaking personally, I try to do this with all of my characters. I have my limits, so I tend to favor characters that share characteristics with myself, which makes it easier to become them, but for example, in last year's Rumble, playing a lowly goblin (which I've done before), I can't write that goblin like I would write myself (a goblin isn't an intelligent being who is overly confident, for example). He wouldn't make the same decisions, he wouldn't act the same way I would. If I wanted him to do something, I had to think of a way that would be true to the goblin he was to get him there. And if I couldn't do that, I tried to think of something else. I think you can do this, but you missed significant opportunities to bring us into the heart and head of Malstrom here.
Also, again, I smiled when I saw you picked a character whose gender differed from your own. That requires a leap, an unsexing of yourself to get there. A woman faces a notably different set of challenges and paths to success in many cases than a man. You are trying things here that make me wonder what you can do with more practice.
I award you 2.50 points for your efforts, for consistent prayers, knightly behavior, and playing a character that presented you with a few significant challenges in who she was, and for making her one I wanted to know, even if I felt unfortunately distanced from her at times.
(wow, that went long)
Ma1chbox, who is Raava? I wondered this throughout my reading of your character. He's a dichotomy of peace and madness that shines through in your last post more clearly than any previous:
"It was a humbling thought, truly it was. To many, it would have been insulting, even. Knowing that your best efforts, your suffering, then, are but mere antics to the gods? The mere notion alone would be enough to cast most down into the dark pit that is despair… but not Raava. Not him, not the shining disciple, the chosen student of the traitorous prophet. In fact, it was the opposite. Knowing this cynical truth, and accepting it in its barest and rawest form is what drives him forward, and what makes him a danger to those who stand in his way. Unlike others, who sought glory or reward, Raava sought death. He would just as easily watch himself burn as he would watch the world burn, and he would stand there, smiling in the ashes like a madman.
This was because deep down inside him, beneath all the layers of crystal and fire, deep beneath the death throes of a dying star, there lay a force more powerful than any other in the known universe: hatred. Its fires burned with a force hotter than that of a thousand suns, and a thousand more combined. In a way, that was his power. Hatred. Not resilience, not telekinetic manipulation, not the control of light, no. It was hatred. He possessed the ability to do anything and everything for the simple fact that he had nothing to lose… no, it went beyond having nothing to lose. His loss would be his victory. No longer would he be bound to the traitorous prophet’s will. His death will come, and when it comes, his watch will have ended."
We get a glimpse here that differs greatly from the "Peace" we began with. The first time Kayne wrote, "An inhuman, blood-curdling scream echoed into the area, practically shattering the universe with its presence. Elena's gray eyes suddenly lowered her gaze, as if hearing clearly for the first time. This... individual... was suffering," I too realized, "Oh yeah! He did scream, didn't he?" And I went back, "Upon seeing her begin to make her move, Raava’s hiss grew silent for a second, but was then replaced by a thundering, blood-curdling scream that gave off a hint of the muffled echoes of the intense agony of a man trapped inside a small chamber against his will. Though he had no mouth, Raava’s haunting battlecry rang out loud enough to pierce even the deafening winds of the storm up ahead."
But I didn't understand this man trapped against his will until the final moments. Of course, all that he did seemed madness, and yet we begin with one who is so seemingly composed that he barely registers what's going on around him. It was... like I wanted to hear him scream more.
His actions matched his character, but I felt I didn't know who he was until the end. My suggestion for the future is to bring us into the world of this man, make us FEEL his torment, the torment that is encased behind the seemingly placid, smooth exterior. Let us see that difference right at the beginning. Let us see and feel what Raava sees and feels that matches his torment, makes him do the crazy things he does, makes us feel that burning hatred, that wish to end it all. Make us want to end it all with him in those final moments. Make us want to cry out, "PEACE! GIVE HIM PEACE! FOR MERCY'S SAKE!"
I am awarding you 2.50 points for actions befitting a madman who just wants to die, but docking you points for not getting us past his shell as well as you could have.
- Ingenuity (How well does the character handle situations in original, interesting, yet effective ways? Does the player simply repeat the same actions and put little thought in their moves, or do they provide interesting responses to the situations they’re in?)
RedKayne, most of Malstrom's moves are "part of the plan." And it seems sometimes she's waiting for that plan to unfold. She does adapt and switch tactics, and does some things that frankly took me by surprise, like leaping off the ship. When I found out about the lightning I thought, "Ok, that's a nice twist." But for the most part, it's like you're waiting for the pieces to fall into place.
Ma1chbox, you're insane. Using a cannon to fire upwards and sink the ship? Really? It reminded me of the proverb, "Don't use a cannon to kill a fly." And I delivered the results of your insanity to you accordingly. But you did surprise me, and it was a move I would've never predicted. Frankly, it seemed like something you just made up on the spot, and yet in spite of that, it was not out of character for Raava at all, given his suicidal nature.
Both of you adapted and rolled well with the punches, but I'm giving this to one to Ma1ch for sheer unpredictability that changed the whole fight.
RedKayne, I award you 2.75 points for adaptation and moving the pieces into position for your final (lightning) strike.
Ma1chbox, I award you 3.00 points for changing the game with a move that didn't break character, as self-destructive and out-of-the-box as it was.
- Choreography (How well does the character/player interact with the other player’s character? Is it like a battle dance? Or two rubber chickens banging their heads together?)
Here I felt you were both evenly matched, because it seemed at times you were adapting and interacting with each other (in the beginning with the charges and change ups and the blasts; and at the end with plummeting death dives, interlocked and grappling with each other), and at times you were moving away from each other (Malstrom moving towards the end of the ship and off, Raava going below decks).
You both receive 2.50 points.
Control of the Field:
- Environmental Awareness (How well do you roleplay awareness to the surrounding environmental conditions with your character, taking into account how they affect your character, positively and negatively?)
RedKayne, your awareness of the environment was top notch, I thought. You noted particular details, you highlighted dialogue, you were aware of the changes in battlefield conditions. In some ways, your God's Eye narrative helped you here, allowing you to (like a general) take account of everything on the field.
I award you 3.00 points. Flawless.
Ma1chbox, I also felt you did well with this. I laughed when you noted in passing the lack of crew, but in Raava's fury, it seemed several times that nothing else mattered beyond himself and what he was attempting to do that moment. While that is in character, I felt you could've accounted for the environment more in ways that showed Raava ignoring things, sometimes to his own peril. There are opportunities for you to describe things like the mayhem, the cannonballs, the thunder, and the rain in more vivid detail, to note particular pieces of dialogue they way you noted the crew's absence. I know Raava is separate from it all in his shell, but help your readers to feel what he cannot, to hear and see what he pays less attention to than he should.
I award you 2.60 points for accounting for details, but sometimes giving us little more than that.
- Strategic Awareness (How well do you play off your character’s abilities, strengths and weaknesses in each situation/round? Are you aware of the ways that the environment and your opponent’s actions can affect your character? Are you able to anticipate and turn these to your advantage or minimize the damage to your own character effectively?)
RedKayne, again, this situation should've been terrifying for Malstrom, but it didn't feel that way. And I felt--too often--that her Past (beyond the first post) interceded in disruptive and not clearly connected ways that took the reader outside of the fight too many times at moments where I wanted to be in the fight with Malstrom. Your awareness (noted above) of the environment is superb. But then her memories get in the way of utilizing this awareness in more dynamic ways. That third post... she drew her dagger.
Was that all she could have done? Yes, there's a lot of inner contemplation going on, but could she not have perhaps taken another action besides falling and waiting, basically? I felt like all that reconnaissance that your environmental awareness gave you was not utilized to its maximum potential. I felt like you had your plan, and instead of changing the plan, you adapted to try to keep the plan you had, resulting in missed opportunities while you waited for the pieces to fall into place.
I award you 2.50 points. You know what you want to do, but sometimes, you need to call an audible and change it up, like you did in the second post. Sometimes sticking with the plan is not in fact the best use of your abilities.
Ma1chbox, I'm not even sure you had a plan. I felt you had an improvisational approach, that was reactive, but also adaptive and interesting. I think you put more than a few wrinkles in what everyone thought was the way things were going to go. But your character, despite all of his interesting choices, is certainly not interested in survival. Had RedKayne been able to capitalize on Raava's moments of self-destruction, I think this fight could have gone very differently at the end. As it is, the moments after the cannon maneuver went gracefully uncapitalized, sparing Raava when the moment was ripe to strike him a mortal blow (even if he might've wanted that).
You lucked out.
I award you 2.50 points as well, for reckless self-endangerment that could've ended the fight for you sooner than it did, but for that ingenuity you displayed in how you utilized your environment.
- Control of the Fight (Did you maintain control of the situation? Was your opponent on their heels scrambling to meet your attacks, or were you on yours? If you were not in control for most of the fight, was there an impressive “turn” in the direction of the combat; did you turn the tables on your opponent in a decisive manner through surprise or cleverness?
RedKayne, I award you points for your planning and control. In spite of it breaking character in ways I elaborated on above, I never felt like you were directionless. However, in keeping with your plan, you also missed opportunities (like I mention above as well), and lost momentum (particularly in that dreaded third post). In the end, Malstrom is falling, hoping against hope that something works in her favor. I could feel this from you as you tried to account for all the ways the fight could end. It felt like you were losing control, even as you tried to hold on to it. Like she was back on that cliff edge, with no brother to save her this time.
I award you 2.50 points here.
Ma1chbox, Raava gets the points for the cannon "turn" that changed this fight. He loses points for the cost of doing it. But in the end, it felt like he had recovered and once again seized the momentum.
I award you 2.65 points here, since I felt you made better use of the time you were given, even if your control was always shaky.
The totals are:
RedKayne: 22.75 points
Ma1chbox: 23.25 points
Ma1chbox goes on to the Final Round.
Originally Posted by Persona
... yes, I felt like I was watching The Tasmanian Devil, just... you know... swirling around and breaking what was around him and doing the craziest things, which was fine... but there were moment where you char actually stopped and thought. So I wondered if it was breaking a char role, or that he actually has some... sanity to it? (I mean roaring like a monster was very much marking it as a "beast", but stopping and thinking was a bit.. dunno... out of char I guess? I still loved the descriptions!!! ).
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