My Lands: Black Gem Hunting

At noon game time today, 21 March in the Year of the Dragon, my Captain of the Guard came a knocking on my door. Upon entering and saluting he explained that our hardworking explorers had found a strange structure nearby that had suddenly appeared. I had not seen one myself before but rumors dating back many moons were that these strange structures, known as Sevens (and referred to hereafter as simply'7') were the homes of the Gods and great riches were stored therin.

I thanked the Duty Officer and immediately went forth to spy on the structure and could not believe my eyes at the treasure it held. There was one problem though: it was protected by a mighty army with numbers so huge that they could not be written in our modern script.

I knew that without knowing the defending army's strength it would be dangerous to attack alone and that I needed to attack with a true and trusted ally. I did not need to think too much about who as my clan mate Leucothian would be ideal as we had both come through the ranks together and were made Suzerian on the same day.

After looking over maps we set off seperately from two cities near to the the 7 and devised a plan to attack wherein both our armies would merge as we crested the hill next to the 7. And into the valley of death we rode, two armies as one. Leuco brilliantly commanded the eastern flank and our all of our valiant troops proved to be victorious despite the spirited defence put up by the defending 7 troops.

And as we returned to the nearby hill we looked down and were amazed to see that the entire 7 structure had disappeared as per legendary tales passed on only by word of mouth.

We were so excited that we forgot to take records of the battle or the enemy and trust readers will appreciate just how exhilerating the experience it was. The battle report though is in the Tavern for all to see.

We were just so excited and this has been one of the highlights of MyLands!

When we returned to our Castle there was only one order I could give to thank our tireless troops:

Break out the Mead and bring on the dancing girls!

Sincere congrats to you and Leucothian for the wonderful achievement unique on Mylands: destroying a 7!

You post reminded me of the 7 I attacked not so long ago and was most amusing. Especially the ending;)

Congratulations to the wonderful warriors, I destroyed a similar object a few years ago, but I never described it on the forum

The story is not long enough to get the reward. Please, write a larger story and add some screenshots in order to receive the reward.

congratulations on your success, use the pearls with a specific purpose: to become stronger than your enemies.

I'm afraid this story is lacking on many aspects.
Length, details, description, "epicness"...

I think your first paragraph is the most solid (good choice of details you wanted to describe and add, lean into it!) and then it is downhill from there.

Areas I suggest to focus and make more robust:
1) Your paragraphs are very "thin". I encourage you to add 1-2 things to mention for each paragraph -- even if they might be throwaway details (eg. "It was dark and stormy the day of our attack...")
Even better if they are transformative details you can progress throughout your story.
(eg. Your hero was defeated one time in the past by ... say, GOLEMS or something. So now in the epic battle you can have him struggle and overcome the golems)

2) The BATTLE... where is it?? ... I find this is the hardest for players to write about and do it well.
Some lazily skip it almost entirely leaving us feeling like it was literally a MyLands battle concluding in a single second, others do their best but ultimately rush through it.
I feel like the former is the case here.

One line says you're riding in ... not two lines later you are describing looking back over a finished battlefield and ruin disappearing. Zero actual battle description. You set it up (albeit very shortly) but it needs more to really feel like an epic battle occurred at the arch ruin. Even a simple sequence of your hero encountering an issue in combat only to overcome it and lead the charge to victory a few sentences (ideally paragraph or so) later will do a lot for the story.

How powerful was the monster hero? Did they just instantly disintegrate and die? What happened? (Tell us! )
You were each drained of mana during the battle -- how did that affect your heroes in the story? How did this affect the monsters? (Maybe the hero grew "stronger"?)
Your hero found a scroll of instant exploration -- something like this is an opportunity for story building. (eg. perhaps you can tell us of how the explorers who found the '7' lost one of their crew and this scroll can act as representation of you freeing them from the 7. Or maybe it is just your explorers being imbued with ancient magic that flowed from the vault of the '7' after you opened it and claimed the gems. There's no wrong answers, it's literally your call! )

Was the battle totally clean, no problems, you both flew straight into the main hall of the '7' and had no trouble? Or was your ally Leucothian perhaps separated from your army during the battle and so you have to face the monster hero alone? Or maybe his hero managed to arrive just in time while you were 1v1'ing the monster hero and beginning to struggle due to some unforeseen play the monsters made? ...maybe the mana drain thing, I don't know. (Tell us! )


Extras to consider:
.: Small details even like adding the names of your heroes (and the monster hero's name too!) can go a long way in expanding things for the story.
:. Take some snapshots of anything you can and embed them into the story throughout.
(battle report, any of the story-building details discussed above such as artifacts or spells used, maybe even the kingdom the '7' was in)


If you want any further help finalizing the additions to your story, just let me know. I have helped players with many Arch Ruin Stories -- I don't help lazy players who do not even put any effort.
I can see this is not the case and I am sure you will be able to fully tap into your creative side, as you have already begun.
Cheers.

Size isn't everything.

I recall when I wrote my own article you said its exactly the same about it.

I am very disappointed in your (Hexxus') comments. We are warriors not Booker Prize Nominees.

You can stick your level 3 artefact.

ps It would help every one on here if they were informed about how many words were required?

Write a story in no less than XXX words.......

I don't see it. Please point out to me f I have missed it.

Objective: describe vividly a story of the level 7 Arch-Ruin annihilation on the Forum attaching screenshots of the battles

Both conditions described in the quest are not met. Also you know something is off if Hexxus suggestions to improve are 3 times longer than the original "story".

The reward is not free, but certainly possible for everyone to get with some effort/time spend.

Boadicea wrote:Size isn't everything.

You're right. That's why the content needs improving too.

Boadicea wrote:I recall when I wrote my own article you said its exactly the same about it.

I am very disappointed in your (Hexxus') comments. We are warriors not Booker Prize Nominees.

You can stick your level 3 artefact.

I don't recall what I wrote in response to your story. That said, I probably said them because the stories were of the same caliber...lacking. I acknowledge we are not looking for novels here, but these would hardly be considered a single paragraph if the lines were together without spacing. On a sheet of paper, it would hardly be a full page. The quest is a challenge to players to write an epic story that is vivid and engaging... I don't know what to say if you disagree and truly believe this submission fulfills those requirements.

Lastly, I'm only offering constructive criticism and suggestions to help complete the quest. Not sure why you are rejecting my comments.
I have offered to help complete the story as well... (but I think Dorut has it in them to do it fully themselves -- they have also not reached out)

Cheers