D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1210 1210 Exhibit A

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Kress chapter

Judges: Ulf/'Steve' Auctifer, Oditr, Titania, Mint

Criteria: Looks, Not-sand features, Structurally Sound, Creativity, Looks

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Thyme walked passed each of the judges to hand them all a clipboard with five pieces of paper that were mostly blank. There was 'Sandcastle 1' at the top of the first, and the others would presumably be ladled 2-5. Other than the label, there was a box at the bottom. Thyme quickly explained, "In front of you are some pieces of paper to make your judgement on. You can put whatever you want in the free space. Notes, temporary scores. Anything. Once you've looked through all five of the displays, I'll give you judges a further ten minutes to finalise your answers. 

"Once the time is up, I'll be collecting your clipboards and whatever is in that box will be your score. If it's not a number between 0 and 10 then it won't count towards the contestants scores… AND" Thyme paused to make sure everyone was paying attention. "You won't be getting any dinner," 

"Wait I'm only here for the free food! How could you take that away from me!" growled Steve. 

Thyme folded their hands of their chest and glared back while responding. "I think if you can't manage to write five numbers down in a box then you don't really deserve any food do you? At least, nothing good. Think of it as encouragement to actually do your job," 

Steve grumbled some more but didn't actually vocalise any words simply pretended to sit down. Kress felt his eye twitch as this 'old man' managed to not just SIT in the air, but lean backwards as if he was in a reclining chair. Mint looked just as shocked as Kress felt. Eyes and mouth wide open as Steve relaxed. 

"Right… everyone good?" Thyme asked and when there was no complaints Thyme nodded to themself. "Right, good then. Let's see what the first bit of art on display is!" 

Thyme waved their hands and suddenly the platform they were on was moved backwards and angled slightly. It wasn't hard to stay standing, the incline was very slight after all, but it was noticeable. A moment later, a square of sand appeared in the air next to them. Kress could see a moderately sized cannon made out of sand… though looking closer it might be 'sandstone' instead. 

Thyme smiled and said "Feel free to walk around. There's an invisible platform above the display that you can walk on. Don't get too close to the edge of the square though… who knows what could happen," 

Kress of course, walked straight over to the edge without any fear before pausing. *Do I really want to do this? Yes, Yes I do.* Kress then went down on his knees and went to wave his hand over the edge… when his hand smacked into an invisible wall. "Right… it's a box. Yeah that makes sense," mumbled Kress as he shook out his knuckles. With his increased strength and durability from adventuring, the pain barely registered. It was more habit then anything else. 

When he got up, he saw Blue standing behind him with a smirk on her face. "What, I felt like it needed testing," answered Kress with a huff. 

Blue just smiled and said, "Of course, testing Thyme is obviously a great decision," 

"Hey, he's not a judge this round so if I was ever going to push Thyme's buttons now IS the Thyme to do it," said Kress while wiggling his eyebrows. Well he tried anyway. Wiggling his eyebrows wasn't a skill Kress had practiced but Blue got the idea. She just rolled her eyes. 

"What do you think of the cannon?" asked Blue. 

"The cannon?" returned Kress. "I… I'm not sure. It looks like a normal cannon made out of sand really. Props for making it real-sized I guess but it takes up a rather small area compared to what we were given and I don't think we're at risk of loosing to them… unless they do really well on the durability scale," 

Blue nodded in agreement as she glanced over at the mass of people surrounding the cannon at the moment. With the display being so small, relatively speaking, there just wasn't much to look at so everyone had huddled together. There was the first ring of just judges as they circled the cannon. Then a step back was clump of people, then further back there was one more ring, mostly of people on tiptoes, or March. 

Kat and Lily were standing off in the corner making out instead of paying attention to the cannon so… good for them? *Honestly I'm surprised Stan hasn't noticed me hanging out with Blue and started glaring. Not that he's got competition from Blue of course. She's not really my type… but Stan doesn't know that. Hmm… should I mess with him? No that could end really poorly. Especially when I'm not certain I want to return his advances yet.*

Eventually Thyme started to wave people off the platform. As everyone made their way back to the other, visible platform, Thyme asked, "Right, so judges, what's your initial impressions? Theoretical scores? Subject to change after seeing everything else of course?" 

"You still haven't shown me how stable it is!" said Oditr. 

"Right right of course," said Thyme as they clicked their fingers. A moment later the space below them seemed to shiver for a second before returning to normal. Presumably this was Thyme swapping out a copy. "How do you want me to test this?" 

"Shake it a bit. Like panning for gold. Double the force every shake until things start breaking," said Oditr. 

Thyme nodded and did so. The first shake did nothing, the same with the second. Kress honestly stopped counting how long it took but eventually the cannon started to fall apart. The supports were actually the first to go. Then the legs. Then the lower half of the cannon. The top was pretty solid though, and stayed together. Thyme looked to Oditr who nodded, "Yup I'll call that good enough," 

"So what's your score for it then?" asked Thyme. 

Oditr shrugged. "I'll have to see the others. I'm thinking… it gets maybe a two for how it looked once things started falling apart… but a four or a five for sticking together? We'll have to see," 

*That's a bit harsh. Thyme hit the thing pretty hard. What are you expecting it to hold up against? A real earthquake?*

"I'm afraid I'll have to give it a two," said Steve. "It was a nice cannon… but I don't exactly see the beauty in cannons myself so it's getting a low score," 

*I don't necessarily disagree but damn Ulf you're brutal when you want to be.*

"Steve is… somewhat right at least," said Mint. "I want to give it something better, because it seems like a really well made cannon… but I agree it wasn't all that nice looking. I'm thinking along the lines of a four?" 

*I wonder if Mint is just trying to be nice or if she sees enough merit in it to give it a four? I suppose time will tell. I don't really know anything about them.*

Auctifer spoke next, "For me I'm angling towards a low score as well, perhaps a four like Mint? The supports and especially the base were a nice touch, but they didn't really pop for me. They were just that, supports. Everything that wasn't made from sand was just part of the cannon. Still, the non-sand parts were important so… a fou- no, perhaps a five?" 

*Right… I have no idea what to think about Auctifer's score. It seems a bit high… but I just don't know how he's evaluating things. Still… I'm going to say that's a bit high.* 

Titania looked back at the cannon for a few seconds, "In some ways… this isn't very creative at all. In others… it's a wonderful piece of art. I can clearly see the care and attention that was put into making that cannon. It isn't just a sandcastle shaped to look like a cannon, but almost a real cannon made out of sand. I suspect with more time it would be a working cannon made out of sand…

"But there wasn't more time. I've got to judge based just on what's there… and I'm still not sure how creative I think it is. Certainly it's ARTISTIC. Perhaps more artistic then the sculptures intended… but artistic non-the-less so… I guess I'm just going to save five? Until I know more then I'll move it up or down. It's a very uncertain five after all," 

*Not sure I need to comment on Titania's score. She made it pretty clear what she thinks, and the five is just because it's the middle number not because she actually thinks five is the correct answer here. Still… I feel a strong urge to have some sort of thoughts about Titania's scoring process considering I critiqued everyone else's but I'm coming up with nothing. She explained her thoughts well and the score is mostly meaningless.*