Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about books again. Here it goes.

As you all may know The Belgariad and The Mallorean or just "the Garion books" are my favorite book series by David Eddings. Eddings also wrote another fantasy series afterwards called The Elenium and The Tamuli. Currently I'm reading the first book in the Elenium called The Diamond Throne. The prologue is a story that tells part of the mythology of that world much like the Garion books. The story tells of a troll named Ghwerig that found an irregular shaped sapphire of great power in his caves. After an extremely longer time of careful sculpting the troll fashioned a sapphire rose which he named Bhelliom and behind the jewel lied all the power of his gods, the troll gods. However Ghwerig was angered when he learned he could not use it until his gods taught him that he needed two keys of great power to unlock the Bhelliom. So he forged two rings to serve as keys for the Bhelliom out of shards left over from sculpting the gem. The elder Styric gods tried to take the Bhelliom from him but without success because the gems power was to great. The younger Styric gods wanted no god to wield so great a power so they sent the goddess Asphrael and she went and sang the troll to sleep and stole his rings. The story goes on for a while about kingdoms and gods but by the end of it much of Eosia's history is still shrouded in mystery.

Sparhawk is a Pandion Knight of Elenia and the Queen's personal champion however her father unjustly exiled Sparhawk to Rendor indefinitely. Not until 10 years later did Sparhawk return legally by using a tear stained contract the queen had written at 8 yrs old saying that when she was crowned he could come back. He soon discovers that the queen had fallen ill and 12 of his brotherhood of Pandion knights and their teacher the Styric sorceress Sephrenia placed a spell that would encase her in a block of diamond on her throne keeping her alive for as long as Spephrenia and the twelve knights lived. However the burden of the spell would kill one knight every month until the queen Elahna died. The quest is to find a cure for the queen before she dies and the evil priest Anias gains rule of all of Eosia.

I am loving The Elenium almost as much as Eddings' Garion books but that's probably just nostalgia of reading them at a young age. Bye.



- By Ashton

Arrow

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about a TV show. Here it goes.

The show is called Arrow. Arrow is a live action show based off of the DC comics character Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is a millionaire playboy out on a yacht with his girlfriends sister. Not the best guy. Before long what seems like a freak storm destroys the yacht. His father kills himself on the life raft to save his son and leaving him with a promise to right the wrongs his father had made in life. The life raft shores up on an island in the pacific. Incidentally one of the most dangerous places on earth. Five years later a fishing vessel sails close to the island and a heavily scarred Oliver is rescued and taken back to Star City in America.

He arrives with a list of names from his father of rich, corrupt, citizens of Star City from wealthy business men to drug dealers. He sets out as a hooded vigilante in green righting wrongs to save his city with a bow and arrows. As his crusade progresses you see more and more of the mysteries of what happened to him on that island.

The show is intense and action filled however it is also filled with mystery which is something a lot of action shows miss. It also has a ton of Easter eggs peppered through the show referencing the original DC character. I highly suggest this for anyone that's a fan of action TV shows or of Green Arrow.









Bye.


- By Ashton

Gemini Strike

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about another iOS game here it goes.

The game I'm blogging about is called Gemini Strike. You are a clone fighter pilot that protects earth and comes back every time he dies. While you are fighting enemies you earn gems and credits and you can find cargo by destroying cargo ships that happen upon your path. With gems you can open the cargo boxes to get most of the time common parts to equip to your ship. Parts have combinations of three stats, armor, HP, and damage to add to your ship. Most of them also have an effect like lasers, EMPs, healing, rockets, etc. you can also open cargo boxes from the black market using credits and these parts are rare and more valuable. Finally you can go on secret missions that are harder than others to find cargo boxes that cost less credits to open and have even better parts. Credits have one more use. You can also use credits to buy ships. There are 7 different models of ships so far. Each model has it's unique effect plus stat bonuses. The more expensive model you buy the more devastating the effect will be and the higher the stat bonuses will be.

Each sector has around 4-5 missions in it before you get to the last mission which has a boss. In the missions most enemies will die in one shot, are small, and have one type of attack. You will also get bigger mini bosses that have a health bar at the top next to yours. Destroying these, and the cargo ships will grant you things called reactors. Reactors appear at the bottom of the screen and double tapping the screen or tapping it will activate it. Reactors will give you effects based on their color for example green are rockets and pink is a huge laser. It only lasts for a few seconds and then is gone. If you get a new reactor without using the old one it will just replace it. The boss at the end of each sector is a very large black ship with a lot of health and multiple attacks. There are also 3 other types of missions. In these you don't have weapons. In the blockade missions you have to maneuver around lasers. In meteor missions you dodge meteors and in mine missions you dodge mines.

Gemini strike also has some really good music and sound effects that go with the space battles perfectly. I also like how the battlefield extends beyond the screen border a and the camera follows you so you actually have room to dodge the lasers. My favorite feature is definitely the high level of customization you can have on a ship.

Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Little Raiders: Robins Revenge. The story starts with the evil sheriff obliterating the village of Snowbourne making the men fight in a needless war and killing and capturing the others. You as Robin and Brunel try to fight but are overwhelmed immediately and are only barely saved by the tree spirit Wakaba. Wakaba takes the unconscious robin and Brunel to a tall, large oak in the forest south of what's left of Snowbourne. Together you join forces with the tree spirit. Brunel the builder builds houses and workshops along the tree and you fight for magical acorns to grow the tree taller and taller. The more vengeful villagers you rescue from the sheriff's men the more your army of raiders grows. Rescue heroes like Lucius, Turk, and more to train swordsmen, alchemists, and more. Take your vengeance on the evil sheriff.

You can go on raids to gather silver, amber, food, wood, or weapons. You have to be careful on raids because when your raiders are knocked out their weapons break and you have to make them again. Red raids are hard, yellow medium, and green easy. With silver you can buy master weapons, food or wood from the trader. They're four tiers of weapons. The first is craft weapons. These weapons you can easily make at the workshops at your tree but break if your raider is knocked out. Master weapons you can buy from the trader or find on missions. These are better than crafted weapons but can still break. Enchanted weapons are very good and improve 2 stats instead of just one and don't break. Legendary weapons are the best weapons in the game and don't break. Every day Wakaba gives you tokens that you can spend on the wishing well with a chance to get crafted, master, or enchanted weapons. Spending fifty amber on the well will get you master, enchanted, or legendary weapons. This is the only way to get legendary weapons. You can use Amber to speed up timers but you really only want to use them to buy enchanted weapons from the trader or wish in the well. Food will heal you raiders to full health while they are at the tree unless their knocked out, then you have to wait 20-30 min first. You need wood to build things.

Little Raiders: Robins Revenge is a great game with balanced in app purchases, good timers, beautiful pixel graphics, enchanting sounds and music, and great battle sequences. I highly suggest it for iOS gamers. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about cross country. Here it goes.

Cross country started around a week and a half before school started. First I'll go through the different exercises. First off is the tempo run. In this we just run in a square with the coaches there to make sure each of us is keeping their own specific pace. Most of the time we do this in a big field but we've also done it on the track. Next is a fartlick. In this you jog for a random amount of time in a square before the coaches say sprint and you sprint for a random amount of time. So you could end up sprinting for 10 seconds or a whole minute. A new one this year was on the track. In this we sprinted the straightaways and walked the curves. Last year we had an exercise that we called the sedlar circuit and everyone hated it because you had to run up a hill diagonally and then across a knotted field with holes in it. It was boring, had no shade and really hurt your feet. This year the first time they took us out where we do it for a hill workout we saw construction was going on where the course was. We were ecstatic.

The course we have at my school is a 5k or 3.1 miles. The course starts on a field behind the school. After you run across the field you run down a hill and and you turn and run parallel to the field next to some train tracks. You keep going the same direction under the bleachers and then into the soccer fields. Then you run across the second one out the gate and run straight along a gravel path and turn left. Then you turn left again and along that gravel path is a tire that's the one mile marker. Then you turn right up a hill and along a muddy path until you turn right past a grove of trees and then you run a huge loop around a hilly field and come back out the trees which is the end of the second mile. Next you run a loop behind the middle school and back diagonally back towards the highschool, then you cross a parking lot and turn left and back across the field.

Now I'll tell you about the third race I've ran. I had run a race last year and one before this but it wasn't a real race because I ran after the race with other people that didn't have 14 practices which is the requirement to race. So this race is on a new course nobody on my team had run before. That race only 8 of the 10 guys could race and the top 7 guys run a varsity race and the rest run JV. So there are 3 races, boys varsity, girls varsity, and JV which is girls and boys but they are still graded separately. So I ran JV, the last race which was around sunset. It was my school which was me and half the girls and Jefferson who had around 14 or so guys. The first mile went by fast and by the time I did it I thought I had a group of 10ish junior and senior guys in front of me plus one guy in front of me that looked like he was at least a sophomore. This was pretty normal for the others who got around 10 or 12 place most races so I wasn't worried. Most the course was flat and went through fields and the woods. By the second mile I was beginning to catch up to the guy in front of me however if I kept my pace I wouldn't pass him before the race ended. After I thought about that some Jefferson people stood by the course cheering him on and I heard them say that he was in 5th place meaning I was actually only in 6th! So I tried harder and I managed to pass him not long before we would've entered the field that had the finish at the end of it. Shortly before I got into the field... I started throwing up. I had hamburger for lunch that day so I entered the field with all of the people watching me while it looked like I was throwing up dark crimson which they thought was blood. You always sprint the last part of the race to get the best time I so I had to sprint in order to stay in front of the guy behind me. So I sprinted as hard as I could and finished the race with ripped up legs, a stomach tying itself in knots, throwing up black, and breathing like I was missing a lung. After I got cleaned up my coaches congratulated me and told me that fifth place actually got a medal! On my team I got a medal and one other girl got a medal. Nobody else placed. Afterwards we went to chick fil ay before I went home.
So that's how cross country has gone so far. Bye.


- By Ashton