IFC All Star Round. (Open to anyone who wants to play!)

Hello there! Welcome to our digital castle.

Artwork credit - @yeszuzia on steemit and instagram

Are You Watching Closely?

It seemed like an ordinary day in Cryptopia. Krypotcek and his lovely girlfriend were just getting back to the Satoshi Farm after their morning run; Bashadow was cleaning his windows to his shop; Miss Charisma777 was stacking and organizing all the new books in The Story House. And the renovations on Crystal Street were under way! It truly was a lovely day.

The championship round entries were also all in and currently being judged by the judges as Apolymask was directing additional construction on Crystal Street for the marketplace, Apolymask walked with curiosity through town following the tumult.

Passing inaudible whispers and gasps, Apolymask quickens his pace. As the crowds get larger the pace gets quicker and whispers louder. It appears the crowds are heading towards the Castle. Something is very wrong at the Castle.

The sea of citizens had crowded the front of the castle. Apolymask, rushing now, swims his way through the nervous and panicking crowd. He pushes through to the front gate. Once there he inspects the damage to the entrance and notices a peculiar particle along the walls and floors. After further inspection, Apolymask's thoughts go through a psychedelic information download. "Orgone..." He nervously says to himself.

"Everyone of Cryptopia, Please head back to your dwellings!"

Apolymask enters the castle and to his heartbreak all is destroyed from the inside out. Relics and Artifacts are gone. Fires burning the ancient quest logs throughout. Heading up through the castle in search of the culprit, Apolymask races up to the lookout crystal. There he looks out over Cryptopia and to his horror the city is burning to the ground...

As he turns his gaze to the sky. There appears to be a long irregular shaped craft. It's the Oumuamua and appears to be slowly approaching. Terror sets in as Apolymask turns to help his fellow Cryptopians, but he is summoned and dematerializes and rematerializes into the Oumuamua.

Apolymask looks over himself as he feels the affects of the transport. He slowly looks up to see a giant Grey standing in front of him...

This time Apolymask did not awake from sleeping. This time it was not just a dream.

What happens next...?

Some of you should recognize the story above as one from earlier in the season that @iexplore created for one of his catch up rounds about "dreams", I really liked his story a lot! And thought he did a great job with it, and I had another idea recently to try to get the community to continue it from where he left off! Except, it's not a dream this time.. And I want you the community to help us determine what happens next!

This is going to be a bonus "All Star" sort of round though it is open to anyone, even the judges. However if you are a judge you can not vote for yourself. Also it will be open to myself as well, but.. If I decide to play and somehow managed to win I will give my prize to someone else. (PS.. I do probably plan on writing something up, it sounds like fun. :)

And hopefully enough of the All Stars of the regular season will play, but.. It's a busy world and steemit is particularly slow right now as well, plus we're not wealthy enough to pay peoples to be here(Outside of the prize anyways).. So whoever shows up shows up for now I suppose! Maybe in the future if this becomes more of a business we can pay All Star players to play in the All Star games. But for now.. It is what it is!

Your mission is to finish the above story. Tell us what happens next in the IFC world?
I want the players to shape where this is going! But! I do have a few guidelines of my own that I want to see.

I had an idea, and this could change in the future.. But for now I want to try it.
My idea is that each season we will move to a new castle and start a new journey. (Will pay to have a new picture drawn up hopefully by @yeszuzia but if she's too busy someone else can do it)

The old Cryptopia will still be there! No worries! Some citizens will remain, and we will send others back to help repair it and maintain it, it will continue to be an important place in our culture and society, and in time maybe we can have many castles in a network instead of just one.
Most of the citizens though and the main characters will be moving to a new castle in a new place to start a new adventure. :)

My original idea was.. An underground crystal castle inside a mountain with an underground river and big lake.
Perhaps some skylights that allow you to see the stars, or some passageways that allow the flying saucers to fly in and out of.

I was also thinking that our people would sort of be "in hiding" or trying to avoid being discovered by the alien greys, thus part of the reason for it being underground.

However.. I want to give you the players an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or you can use my idea as well if you want, but.. I also want you to explain how Apolymask manages to escape/manage/solve the problem he is facing with the grey alien in front of him and how the community deals with Cryptopia being put in danger.

You must give us permission to use your short story upon entering.
And if something is slightly off we may need to do a slight edit.

I'm not sure what kind of edit that edit would be at this point..
If so, it will be discussed in more detail at the time as I just don't know what to expect and we will cross that bridge when we get there if necessary.

Whoever does the best story gets 15 steem, second place gets 7 steem and third place gets 3 steem.
Also, I want some good entries and I want this All Star round to be special.. So I'm going to offer an additional 15 XP and a choice of a relic to the winner of this round towards the next season! Good luck!

Try to remember.. You're essentially writing the ending of this season and the beginning of the next one in a sense. Partially at least! :)
I'm excited to see what you come up with! Thanks for playing if you do! :D

By the way.. You have 2 weeks to complete this challenge. We're still busy judging the championship round, plus it's official lore so I want people to take their time on it and not be rushed and I just.. Don't want to complicate things too much, so.. Instead of the normal week, you have two full weeks to get your entry in.

PS.. Special thanks to @iexplore for creating the original story above that you read at the beginning that inspired this round and also.. Please be respectful when you write of other characters in the world. The "word" is powerful, and if this is going to be our official lore, you should be careful how you write of others and try to portray them in a fair manner.

A very special thanks to the judges and guest judges who this would not be possible without!
Judges @charisma777 @addempsea @xomegax
Former judges @rarebooksleuth @luckysteem @harj
Guest judges @enforcer48 @deliberator @jankasparec @plushzilla @tonyr @irvinesimages @sparrowbernard @mdf-365 @cryptosharon @dynamicgreentk @tecnosgirl @lunaticpandora
And also @iexplore for doing the catch up rounds and judging those as well!

And also a similarly very special thanks to all of the players and all those who managed to score at least one point in the game! This wouldn't be possible without the players either! And.. I'm not sure about how many played in total or who the names were of those who did not score any points, maybe at some point we can get someone to get better info on that. But.. For those who scored at least 1 point I will tag you below. Thanks for playing!

@kryptocek
@bashadow
@plushzilla
@amariespeaks
@har5h
@iexplore
@eaglespirit
@mr-bike
@youhavewings
@jan23com
@sandrina.life
@jbreheny
@artgirl
@magicalmoonlight
@bengy
@swolesome
@wholeself-in
@kenneth1
@warpedpoetic
@auminda
@simplymike
@bitpizza
@losthippie
@boladayl
@noisyboy
@giddyupngo
@grizzman
@deliberator
@sophiabydesign
@lynncoyle1
@nxtblg
@yura81
@mnallica
@lahvista
@chrisroberts
@laurawhite
@beeyou
@gerrardihno

And now a moment for our sponsors!

First up is @ats-david who has helped greatly! If you appreciate this contest or just his efforts in general you may want to look into voting for him as a witness at @ats-witness, he does a lot of other cool things for the community as well!

Next is @timcliff who has similarly helped out the contest significantly and who is also a witness who does a lot for the community, so likewise if you appreciate the efforts you may want to vote for him as witness also!

@krnel has also offered some support and does other good things to help out on the platform in general, I suggest you vote for krnel as a witness as well if you want to support all of this.

@steemcommunity has also helped us and expressed interest in helping more in the future and they likewise also help the community in various additional ways, I suggest voting for them as witness as well!

I'd also like to thank @theguruasia who has pledged at least 20 steem to the second and third place prizes and he said he may even donate more.

And @nxtblg who has been regularly resteeming and upvoting our challenges which has been a big help!

Plus one other person who has been helping a lot who deserves some credit is @soundlegion who has also been upvoting the contests regularly.

And while not technically sponsors, we are working with @davemccoy and those at #newbiegames and #newbieresteemday and they do a great service to the community so definitely check them out if you appreciate that, or if you're new.

Also not a sponsor, though @iexplore has taken a huge workload directly off of my shoulders and is now doing the "catch up" rounds, those should be posted on the @ifc page.. And I suggest giving him a follow and some support as well if you appreciate the work as he is doing an amazingly helpful and important job!

And another thank you to our recent sponsor @underground for donating 10 Steem.

In addition to connecting us with underground, @eaglespirit has also connected us with @derangedvisions who has donated 10 steem as well. Thank you derangedvisions!

Eagle Spirit gains another 10 XP for this which puts her at 35 XP, and we are probably going to use the steem from her sponsors to help fund a special IFC All Star round. :) Stay tuned for that!

Furthmore we recieved a 5 SBD donation from @youhavewings with a nice message attached thanking us for what we do at the IFC, thank you youhavewings! And you're welcome as well for what we do. :) Glad to share this experience with all of you! <3

And finally, a thank you to @tonyr who has donated a Trophy Token to the winner of the championship.

The challenge will finish after 14 days.

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Rules

1. Bonus all star round. 2. Create a blog post for the contest. 3. Title must contain, "IFC All Star Round" 4. Leave a link to your post in the comments below. (This part is important and a lot of people forget this, please put the blog link in the right place so our judges can find it) 5. And you also have to use the #ifc tag in your blog post as well.
6. If you somehow get hurt doing any of our quests you can not reasonably hold us accountable. Take responsibility for your own choices and actions in life. This is a voluntary game where you choose to play. Only you can make that decision for yourself. 7. You are responsible for paying the appropriate government taxes, fees, and service charges resulting from any transactions with the IFC or Marketplace. We are not responsible for collecting, reporting, paying, or remitting to you any such taxes, fees, or service charges, except as may otherwise be required by law.

Acceptable content

1. A short story continuing from the one specified about the future of the IFC world.
   
2. Language is primarily in English and if you would like to participate from elsewhere in the world it is up to you to translate your message into English so we can understand you.
3. We also encourage role playing for those who enjoy doing that. :)

Good luck in the contest!

Artwork credit - @yeszuzia on steemit and instagram

Original by @yeszuzia and modified by @charisma777