I hereby present my failed Bardic entry. I edited the one I sent in a bit in the submission box, so this version might seem a bit rough around the edges.

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Guido Flagg was raging.

This, in itself, was not at all an odd sort of thing for Guido to be doing. It was, in fact, a skill that he spent the majority of his time these days honing.

What was odd was the reason for the Tae’dae’s sudden anger. He stood perched atop the Black Tower, with the ruined forest of Glomdoring ranged before him. It was usually one of the most effective ways to calm the bear; the vast panorama of death filled him with a certain sense of wholeness.

What angered him about the scene was that the northernmost point of the forest seemed to have erupted, quite suddenly, into flame. A foul black smoke poured from the trees, as the flames licked up around them, and that terrible smoke, at least, gave Guido some measure of comfort.

Well, he thought. I guess I’d better do something about that.

From atop the tower Guido could see Brennan Stormcrow, High Druid of the Glomdoring, lumbering between the trees with a rather large bucket of oily black water from the swamp. As Brennan hurled the bucket toward the flames, the oily water had the same affect that most oily things have when coming into contact with such a blaze.

Ouch. Guido raced down the steps of the tower trying to block out the image of Brennan’s flaming trousers.

Leaning against the base of the tower was a Mugwump who would have appeared regal if not for the abundance for traits contradictory to such an adjective; the man’s tattered black robes had somehow been made even blacker by the amount of dirt caked over them, and his normally healthy blue skin was a pallid gray. Guido caught sight of him as he bolted from the tower, and one glance was all it took to nearly knock the wind from him.

“Visaeris?!”

The Mugwump glared at his surroundings with disdain, trying to draw out his answer to convey the perfect sense of drama. It worked. “Things aren’t going too well, are they?”

“No. No they are not. The forest seems to be burning down at a slightly alarming rate.”

“You look terrible, Guido. You’re all skin and bones.”

In truth he was all scar tissue and broken bones, but Guido didn’t see how mentioning that would add to the conversation. “So, are you going to help?”

“Help with what?”

“As I said, there seems to be an unusually elevated amount of molten death creeping around Glomdoring right now.”

“So? ”
“That’s bad.”

“Ah, so it is. I have a plan, though, and I will stay long enough to see it through. Follow me.”

They set off through the woods, the scents of smoke and rot mixing in a deliciously putrid odor. Guido breathed deep, and felt his worries leave him as the tainted air filled his lungs. Visaeris simply breathed deep.

He led Guido to the Ravenwood clearing, where Rowena was standing, looking quite confused, and Crow was squawking and flailing His wings in a way that was really not helping the situation.

“What’s your plan?”. Guido was getting quite impatient. The forest was getting quite hot. The two variables were connected, obviously.

“We are going to get on Crow here, we are going to pick up the Pool of Stars, and we are going to dump it on the fire.”

“…”

Rowena rolled her eyes and disappeared back into the ground, overcome with grief.

Visaeris didn’t. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason. Shall we?”

They approached Crow, who had stopped his confused thrashing and was gazing at them intently with his remaining eye. The great bird leaned down and allowed the pair to clamber on his broad back.

“Okay, here we go…” Visaeris was beginning to feel a bit less enthusiastic about the whole plan in general, as up this close it became clear that Crow was only a bit larger than a horse. Horses had never been known to pull around immense stone pools filled with millions of gallons of cosmic force, let alone fly away with them.

So the Mugwump chose to ignore it. “Very well, then! Crow, take us to the Pool of Stars!”

Crow shot up into the night sky, not slowed in the least by the pair of miscreants settled upon his back; not even the fact that they were each gripping his feathers hard enough to loosen them from their roots.

A few miles to the north, White Hart emerged above the Serenwilde forest to see what was going on. The ethereal stag glanced around warily, shook his antlers a bit, then descended back down to the Hartstone Grove. Tonight was poker night, and Citera was dealing. White Hart knew that if he left his cards unattended for one second The Heir of Glinshari would take perfect advantage of the situation.

Soon enough Crow was drifting down toward the Pool of Stars, illuminated in the night by the auras of various angels and partying Celestians. As Visaeris and Guido hopped off the nature spirit’s back to survey the opposition, they found most of it had dispatched itself. Prince Rhysus Saros was passed out over the rim of the pool, the upper half of his body dozing in the sacred waters, Lord General Jerah Moore could be seen in the distance flirting hopelessly with a young citizen of whom his wife likely knew nothing about, while Ethelon Miststrider, Champion of the Celestines, appeared to in the act of being carried away in a drunken stupor by the Handmaiden of Shakiniel.

It just so happened that jutting from the center of the pool was what looked to be an ornamental stone hook. How handy!

As they remounted Crow and directed him to hook his talons around the outcropping, they were finally noticed by a young paladin. The paladin’s name was Tefri, and he possessed that trait so common to young Merians; a sort of overwhelming, all consuming arrogance, the sort that threatened in its immensity to drag the entirety of creation down into a pool of pure superiority.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be here”, said Tefri, addressing Crow, embodiment of the most twisted and corrupt piece of nature in the Basin. “Yeah, you’re definitely not supposed to be here.”

They ignored the paladin completely, who was powerless to stop them. Indeed, the past two paragraphs describing him have been a complete waste, as he has no influence on the outcome of this tale.

Guido urged Crow on while Visaeris swung underneath to better guide the bird’s great talons over the delicate piece of stonework. He learned a bit too much about Crow’s personal anatomy at the same time, but that is another story. As soon as Crow, who seemed to be trying (and failing) to blush, was gripping the hook with both legs, a rather flustered Visaeris pulled himself back onto the creature’s back.

Guido, at this point, had to say what was on all of their minds. “You do know that this isn’t going to work, right?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, it’s just that we’re obviously going to fail.”

“Shut up.”

With that, Visaeris spurred Crow into the skies. He strained at the weight of the Pool for a split second before launching into the air, the massive nexus of pure energy sloshing about just below him. Raw cosmic power, it should be noted, weighs very little. The stone that holds it, it should also be noted, weighs just enough to progress this story. In other words, a fairly small amount as well.

“You know,” Guido called over the roaring of the wind about them, “Don’t you think that we would be better off dumping normal water on the fire than a torrent of wild magical chaos manifested in liquid form?”

“No, I don’t.”

As they drew back over the Glomdoring the duo could see a small army of Serenguard and Moondancers flitting around the flame, which now covered almost a fifth of the forest, laughing and tossed torches into the blaze. The Hartstone Druids hadn’t been allowed to come as punishment for refusing to clean up after poker night, even though Seneschal Gregori had made it quite clear last week that it would be their turn tonight.

The dancing Serens never stood a chance. No one did. Crow dipped in low and released the Pool of Stars, letting it drift down and shatter into the heart of the inferno. As the tide of holy power came into contact with the tainted flames it erupted into a supernova of chaos that tore the world asunder.

Everyone died.

The end.

Jack tells you, "Nice story."

Jack tells you, "In fact, I will go one further and say that whomever decided
to favour several other Bardic entries over yours must, at the very least, be
on some manner of drug which severely impairs judgement."

Rexali tells you, "Bleh."

Rexali tells you, "Good thing I don't want to write short stories."

You tell Master Rexali, "Hmmm? Jealous?"

Rexali tells you, "::shrugs::."

I win!

WINNAR!

Truly. Great. Story.

People dying - A++

It was mainly the idea that Visaeris and Guido could actually kill people that made it completely unbelievable.

You know, I'd feel bad and tell you how much I liked that story and how I was surprised my entry was even given a chance if you weren't such a jerk. So good luck next time I suppose.

Hahhahaha.

Veonira, just so you know, all the blatant insults were in-character

If i'm a bit peeved at anyone it's the judges, not the writers. Not that I expected to get first place at any point in time.

EDIT: I do take things personally . So I deleted this whiney post of mine.

Hey, Veo. Just curious: Where'd you find the pic you used for the background in your signature? It's too alluring for me to ignore anymore =\\

It would appear to be Kid from Chrono Cross. Try googling it. It's gotta be out there somewhere.

Awesome story Guido!

That's in her background too? I thought Kid was just in the avatar, and the background in the sig was something else. 0_o

Nope. That's definitely Kid in her sig. Not only do I now remember seeing that picture somewhere, but I also noticed the quote in the banner. It's from the end of the game.

Exactly what I was thinking. =\\

Aww, hehe.

*blink*
The girl in my avatar is definitely not Kid. In fact, I don't really...see any similarities. But Kid is also one of my favorite characters ever and I've seen so much artwork that..yeah. The image I used in my sig is Kid from Chrono Cross, and I think it's official artwork that I found. Here's a link that takes you to the real image. I took out all the extra stuff though.

http://usuarios.lycos.es/rpggames2003/wallpapers/Kid.jpg

And that's all for this hijack!

1. omg teh hijack.

2. Chrono Cross is a terrible, terrible game.

3. Chrono Trigger is, however, totally OMFGBBQSWEET. Best RPG ever made. Perhaps the best game ever made. I have beaten it countless times (I have the cartridge). In fact, just beat it again yesterday; in my current file I have four Rainbow Swords.

Reasons I don't like Chrono Trigger.

1) TEH RAINBOW IS OVERPOWERED WTF.

2) Frog doesn't have a big enough role (and there should be some side-quest you can do to turn him back into Glenn)

3) Marle is a whiny little twit who can't do anything 'cept heal.

4) Robo is entirely useless.

5) You don't get weapons for Ayla until she hits level 9x.

6) There is no 6.

7) Robo is entirely useless.

You diss Chrono Trigger? This calls for drastic measures... Forceful brainwashing!

Ah, and great story, Guido.



EDITED IN: Counterpoints to Gaetale's post.

1) TEH RAINBOW IS OVERPOWERED WTF.
-Nobody's saying you have to use it. I've challenged myself by not using it before.

2) Frog doesn't have a big enough role (and there should be some side-quest you can do to turn him back into Glenn)
-He's got plenty of role, and I like him as a frog. Can you not resist a sword-wielding frog knight?

3) Marle is a whiny little twit who can't do anything 'cept heal.
-Okay, perhaps you've got a point here... but she can do the awesome Antipode Dual Tech with Lucca and the Delta Force Triple Tech with Lucca and Crono. AND she heals. She's useful.

4) Robo is entirely useless.
-He's got his uses. He has access to all four elements and can do some nice Dual and Triple Techs. I barely ever have him in my party, but he's not useless.

5) You don't get weapons for Ayla until she hits level 9x.
-Ayla doesn't NEED weapons.

6) There is no 6.
-Multiply it by seven and you get 42, which is the meaning of everything.

7) Robo is entirely useless.
-See 4. Boom.

Dude, Robo was the best. He practically fought everything himself.

What makes it a terrible game? I'd really like to know, because I've played many games and there's no way I would say it's terrible. Probably not the best, but not terrible, terrible.

And Chrono Trigger is great, it was my first RPG (at age what..11 I think).