Never shall we die...

[Torin Reahkari]

"Bold words."

'I don't say things I don't mean.' Torin replied, glancing at the woman strutting around him, eyeing him up. He countered by watching her head to toe as well. He waited while she spoke and leaned against the wheel of the Snowbourne.

'This group means more to me than most know. Mathias himself has no idea exactly what this group is to me. I will do whatever it takes to keep it alive. I have no issue sharing leadership, it makes it easier to make the decisions that benefit the group with someone to help.' Torin replied casually, pushing his back off the railing and standing straight.

'As far as feeding..Inside me..somewhere..there is a creature, a symbiote. These symbiotes can't live without hosts, and for the most part, the hosts are human or a hybrid of drow and human. These things, Shadows, are part of the Rangir, which you already knew about. Anyways, I've had an..issue, I guess, with invaders from the Rangir hitting Etheria. Assassins, mercenaries..Whatever. All courtesy of Borna Venar.' Torin began, taking out another cigarette and lighting it. 'This constant stream of them heading here leaves a lot of bodies that you can feed from. If one happens to cross my path, I will kill it and leave it in the brig for you. If you find one here, you can do what you need to do. If that works for you, that is.' Torin added, taking a drag.

'Now that you staying is official, I'm glad you mentioned crew. I have members of the Rangir that split from Borna's factions and joined the Alerian Resistance stationed not far from Etheria. One can teleport, so he'll be very useful, and another is a telepath, again useful. I will send word to them to gather here. They can stand in for a crew for now, but I'd rather them be keeping tabs on Borna and the Rangir, so we'll use them to show Alerar and the rest of Althanas that the Black Sails Armada is back and strong, hopefully drawing in new members. Sound good to you?' Torin smiled, walking over to the girl and holding out his hand.

'Oh right. The kid. Of course she can stay here on the Snowbourne as long as you'd like, and then on your own ship when you acquire it. I assure you, between the two of us alone she is well protected, and once my men arive, even better so.' Torin added, still holding his hand out.

'She is quite beautiful. I don't see the resemblence to Seth, though.' Serigae muttered.

"I agree. But that look in her eyes...Must be a Lavinian thing. As soon as she mentioned Dahlios, I knew she wasn't lying.' Torin replied warmly. Things were looking up for him and Etheria. Maybe this was a sign.

Maybe she was a sign.

[Lavinian Pride]

Sarah looked down at the hand before her. Part of her was tempted to slit open her palm in the tradition that was rife through Lavinya. However, she couldn't, not as a vampire, that'd be tantamount to siring the young Reahkari. As she looked upon the hand her own graceful hand gently entered his before she shook his hand firmly. Purposefully holding back some of that vampiric strength to not give away her assets, at least not yet.

She had only entered the bay in the hopes of finding a nice quiet place in Alerar, a place far from the eternal shadow that was Seth Dahlios. While she didn't hate the man, she didn't trust him either. He was far too unfocused now to accept as mere fact. Still, this was a new beginning, a chance for her to actually start anew. Reforge the Dahlios name, back to the thieving name it had once been. Back when Seth was Lavinya's poster child, and she was a mere whisper in the back of his head.

A better time, a safer time.

Her thoughts ventured to Kid, and she knew then and forever what had to be done. The girl would probably stay with Sarah until she was old enough, then it would be up to Darith to actually train her, and prepare her for the world. Sarah nodded softly as he ideas and thoughts for the future finally came together. Even as the moon hung high in the starry night. Sarah finally sighed as she leaned back across the railing.

As she nodded softly she looked down at the deck of the ship, his ship, but no less hers now. A wistful smile played upon her face before she looked back at the young Pirate, "So, where are we off to Captain Reahkari?"

[Treze Reahkari]

"Shit. If they're going somewhere..Ugh, I can't believe I'm doing this." Treze thought to himself, reaching up and pulling himself onto the dock, sure to make as much noise as possible. He raised his hands up over his head walking up the gangplank, until he was met with the point of Tanzalis.

"Quick to strike people down there, little cousin." Treze muttered, swallowing the lump in his throat.

'When it comes to crap like you, very. I was actually just informing my friend here about likes of your Rangir.' Torin snarled, pressing the tip of the blade closer to his cousin's throat. If he used even a quarter of his strength..

"Yeah, about that. Turns out Borna's a bit of a fraud, and had nothing to teach me. Frankly, I'm pretty sick of taking shit from him all the time too. I want to join the Armada." Treze returned, a cruel smile lighting up his face.

'Right. I'm supposed to believe that Borna's not going to send in a spy now that he knows I'm back. Fuck that, Treze. I can't trust you.' Torin replied, taking a step closer and readjusting so the blade of Tanzalis was now a mere hairs width away from Treze's throat.

"I'm not asking you to trust me. You're the captain of a ship made for pirates and you're talking about trust? I'm asking you to let me be a part of your crew." the assassin replied, dropping his hands to his side. At least the part about trust was the truth.

Inside, Treze was squirming. What was wrong with him? Since when did he feel guilt? It was his cousin, and he did harbor many ill feelings towards him. And yet, at the same time, he felt as though he was doing something wrong today.

But how he felt didn't really matter. He had sworn allegiance to Borna, and that was it. Torin was blood, but the Rangir was an oath, and Treze never backed out of his oaths.

[Torin Reahkari]

(I won't bother redoing the entire bunnied conversation between Treze and Torin, so I'll just use the line as where the conversation took place in my post.)

A smile flashed acrossed the boys face as Sarah shook his hand. That was a pact, and if what Torin knew about Lavinians was true, it would never be broken.

Suddenly, a loud splash and the clunky sound of bootsteps on rotted wood. Without a second though, the Time Mage had Tanzalis out and pointed one-handedly at the entryway to the Snowbourne.

'Treze..' Torin hissed, pushing Tanzalis a little closer.

_______________________________________


Let this snake become part of his crew? True, they were a group of pirates, but that would be a new low.

'If you can give me one good reason why I shouldn't pick you up and hurl you right out of Etheria, I'll let you join.' Torin replied sullenly, his eyes shooting hatred into Treze's.

"Well, we are still blood related."

'That excuse ran it's course the time you tried to kill me in second Rangir battle. And then the Dark War in Ettermire. No, you have to earn the right to be a Reahkari again. You don't even have a Shadow. He doesn't even trust you to be a real part of the Rangir, so why should I about the Armada?' Torin was spitting pure vocal acid now. He could actually see the words knock his cousin back a bit.

"I'll tell you what. I heard the bit about needing your previous Resistance members as a crew for now. Instead of them keeping tabs on Borna, I'll let you know exactly what's going on with the Rangir." Treze offered.

Torin mused about this for a second. He wasn't even sure he could believe anything Treze said. Being around Borna for so long probably gave him the ability to bullshit his way out of anything. But he was blood...

'Fine. One word to Borna about the Armada though, one false move, and you're finished Treze, do you understand me?' Torin replied, sheathing Tanzalis and pointing to Sarah. 'This is Sarah. She is the co-captain of the Snowbourne, and the co-leader of the Armada. She gives you an order, you do it before she finishes saying it. You are a Cabin Boy, and nothing else until one of us says otherwise. And we will be watching.' the pirate finished, staring out into the ocean. Suddenly he remembered that Sarah had asked them where they were going.

'Back to what we were talking about, Sarah, that's a very good question...' Torin sighed, turning to look at Etheria. He felt an ache fill his heart. This place had been his home for such a long time...

But it needed to be done.

'Well, we need to find more crew members, or another ship. I'll send word to the Resistance members, and then we'll sail to the easiest place to find people with less morals than most..Corone.' Torin continued, a smirk crossing his face. Maybe he'd even stop in the Citadel while he was there.

[Christoph]

General Notes: *insert general introduction and comments here* All right, let’s get on to the judgment!

Continuity: 5
Ironically, continuity actually started off decently in the first post but then declined as several references were made but not explained as well as they could have been. I’m sure it would make sense to someone more well-versed in the histories of the two characters involved, but not all readers are. I got the feeling that the thread was more light and casual, rather than anything serious. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as you’re having fun, but the score reflects it. But again, if you’re having fun than it probably doesn’t matter to either of you very much.


Setting: 6
Not bad, not great. The setting wasn’t ignored, but I definitely didn’t feel immersed in it at all. Partially, I would attribute it to the dialogue focus of the thread; there’s only so much you can do with the setting when the characters are just talking to one another. Still, I feel that there could have been more.


Pacing: 6
First, avoid repeating dialogue. I’m sure you both should know that it gets annoying to read. It wasn’t a major problem by any means, but when you’re both bunnying from time to time in the thread anyway, there’s no reason for it. On a related note, the exchange between Sarah and Torin at the beginning didn’t flow very well, with a given post containing a few lines of dialogue, and the next one replying to each line. It didn’t flow naturally, and again, since you both seemed comfortable enough with bunnying, it should have been very easy to avoid.

Other than that, the thread fell into the Pacing pitfalls associated with this sort of light, casual “meet up and talk about things” style of thread. The interaction started quickly between the two characters without any sort of build-up or established significance, and then it didn’t build into anything more. As I said in Continuity, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this type of thread, but don’t expect JCs. =p


Dialogue: 6
See the comments I made under Pacing. Other than that, it wasn’t terribly bad, though it seemed a bit unrealistic at times. Again, though, it really got to be annoying to read three or more different lines of dialogue from the same character, all of which were then replied to by the other character in that order.


Persona: 6
Wasn’t terrible, could have been worse. This was a short quest filled with dialogue, but despite that I didn’t get as strong a feel for the characters as I would have liked. It also struck me as odd how all the characters came together. It was all too quick without proper development that would have helped it make sense. There were some good things in there, though. I got a good glimpse or Torin’s ambition and Sarah’s attitude toward her vampirism. I also liked how Sarah and the kid interacted in the first post.


Action: 6
This wasn’t an epic quest filled with big battles and fight scenes, but a thread doesn’t need to be in order to have good action. I felt that everyone did a decent job in giving the characters a little life here and there, though I think you could have gone further.


Technique: 5
Torin: You used a lot of fragments, which I normally don’t mind if they serve a purpose. I don’t think most of them did. Lavinian: Early on, you tended to overuse “then” in your first post. The problem disappeared for the most part as it went, but I would still recommend reading your posts out loud before posting them. That technique should go a great distance in helping your posts flow better.

Other than that, there wasn’t anything particularly bad, though there could have been much more done with literary devices. The writing was very simple, which again convinces me that this was just a light thread.


Mechanics: 8
Aside from fragments and an occasional typo, it wasn’t bad.


Clarity: 6
Aside from plot issues, I usually had a good feel for what was going on and wasn’t often left confused on a technical level.


Wildcard: 7
It was a decent read. It wasn’t astounding, but it was okay. All threads don’t need to be masterpieces to accomplish desired ends and have fun. I'll be keeping an eye out for the Black Sails in the future.

Total: 61

Lavinian Pride receives 1,340 EXP and 150 GP
Torin Reahkari receives 1,340 and 150 GP
Treze Reahkari receives 345 EXP and 75 GP

[Taskmienster]

EXP and GP added.

Lavinian should have been at level 4 anyway, so I corrected that.