An allegory.

Author's note: the title of this story is actually The Fire, but someone else already created a storygame with that title, so I couldn't give it the title that I wanted. My second choice for the title was The Light, but another person already took that title as well, so, if you don't mind, just pretend that the title of this story is The Fire.

A story set in medieval China.

Note: Even early on in the game you can lose by making a strategically erroneous choice so choose carefully.

If you're open to taking suggestions for a prompt, how about "A driverless car."

FWIW, I thought that Avery's was the best story by a good margin.

Who wrote which story in the last issue's bracket?

The way this site works is that each featured comment or storygame that you write gives you one pass to use a slur of your choice in the forums. Don't use any if you haven't contributed to the website yet though, because the mods will still ban you for using them if that's the case.

Maybe Ducat and Marshal found the wedged crate of supplies and called out to McArthur to help them retrieve it, and it was so important that McArthur didn't have time to put on his coat and boots, and all 3 were swept into the sea by a rogue wave.

Story C

The quivering lips made this read like lesbian erotica. This isn't an exhaustive list, just all the things that I can be bothered to mention in the time that I have.

Good:

The dialogue was solid.

There was some characterization.

Sentences that I liked: 

But it wasn’t real, it’s simply how she could be controlled, and hell it worked.

Her mind spun for a way to get out, but Nora’s grip was firm and she had the strength and agility to keep it that way.

Lazu was at her mercy.

Bad:

Lots of comma errors. Check out OWL at Purdue for all of its comma lessons.

Who puts their desk with their back to the door? Especially a spymaster?

The line with her draping her arms across the back of her chair is confusing to picture. Spinning around on your chair usually means the back of your chair spins along with your back, so she would have had to already been sitting backwards on her chair to mean what I think you meant.

Why would she be wanted for the danger that she posed as an enemy?

Is her arm a cool coin shaped metal? That sentence is very confusing.

Ugly:

"Scene begins" is unnecessary.

Raising an eyebrow is not a dialogue tag.

Overall, 6/10.

Infinite Story doesn't let you make stories with variables.

Overall idea: it's fine. More showing instead of telling would have filled the details of the idea in more, but, even as unfleshed out as it is, it's compelling enough for me to continue reading the story.

Direction of the story: it's good. It makes sense for the first choice to be which gem you pick given the premise of the story.

Do we know where the valuables were being stored? Were they well hidden and the pirates couldn't find it? Maybe the pirates were in a hurry, perhaps to avoid another ship or reach some destination?

There are so many possibilities involving pirates. Maybe the pirates saw a bigger ship coming while they were about to ransack the Mary Celeste and immediately left. And then the other ship asked the group if they were alright, and they were like, we don't feel safe out here with pirates everywhere, mind if we hitch a ride with you, and they said sure, and then the bigger ship sank later on the journey.

Although, now that I have actually read the article that Will's post was about, based on the sounding rod and taken navigational instruments, it seems most likely that they were spooked by the ship taking on water due to damage from the alcohol explosions and took the lifeboat thinking that they were closer to land than they actually were and ended up dying at sea.

Based on just what you said here, could they have just been taken by accosting pirates? Like, all of the occupants were just abducted by pirates to do who-knows-what with or even just joined the pirates willingly? That would leave little trace on the Mary Celeste and seems a more realistic occurrence than many of the other options. Piracy seems to have been a common thing in those days, too.