The first thing I want to congratulate you on is the scale of this.

You fit four stories in one, chronicling years of a secret battle. That was great!

The character work was good, but I do think the plot was a bit murky sometimes. A bit of grammatical errors also could’ve been caught on another draft.

Still though, I had a great time! One of my favorite concepts this WJ!

I like your interpretation of a shadow stalker druid. There's definitely a lack of clarity: Who is who, who wants what for what reason? The final scene is very evocative and eldritch and ends at the perfect time, well done.

My horse, my horse for an assassin who can aim!

I do love the grim humor of the druid struggling to find an assassin capable of pulling it off.

I did sense that the narrative got less clear over time. I interpreted it as the druid "running out of time" as he alludes to, but I think clarifying this intent needed a little more room to breathe. It's so subtle, I wasn't sure if it was intentional.

Poor rat assassin. I'm sure he did his best.

Great entry! By the second attempt I was shedding off the confusion and putting it together. I really liked how you handled the theme too, very original- I would have liked to put together what did the trick in the end, but I guess I didn't sniff that out exactly

I really wanted to like this piece, but it didn't quite land for me. I love the concept that you chose, and I like the structure of "increasingly desperate assassination attempts culminating in doing it yourself".  But there was a vagueness here that stopped me from really getting invested in the story, and I think part of it is that your chosen concept/structure is simply too much for the one-page limit.

Like Keith, I did enjoy it - but I do think it needed more editing time. Some of the time, I was getting dreamlike/time skipping vibe but other times it was a bit tricky. I like the chess board on the moodboard, I think the idea of the two wizards countering each other would be really fun to expand into with more words and time! It has a lot going for it!

As an overall read, i enjoyed your story. There are a few spelling mistakes and tense changes that make it a little difficult to read/understand what is happening and why in places. But I do have to say your blurb for the story made me laugh out loud. Good job.