You have two weeks to complete your battle. Good luck.
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You have two weeks to complete your battle. Good luck.
"Okay, this is getting out of hand,"
There had been some friction in the offices of the Serenti Invitational tournament. Money had changed hands, and titles had been passed out like candy, and thrown away just as readily. Something was wrong with the tournament, but in the name of apparent economic solidarity the event was proceeding as normal, or nearly normal. But on the third floor of the beautiful brown-brick building in the town of Serenti, a meeting of self-described important people was going on.
The conference room wasn't terribly large or impressive, to be sure. It had a fairly valuable table, made from the wood of a nearly extinct tree and crafted by traditional ogre craftsmen from Salvar. Everyone was very proud of it, but not so proud as to use coasters for their drinks or refrain from depositing used gum on the underside, gum being a popular novelty at the time.
One other feature dominated this conference room; on the wall was an enormous, ornate brass frame, a lattice of squares arranged as a pyramid, serving as an illustration of the tournament's progression. There were even points to screw on extra brackets, in case of an odd number of entrants, though of course half of them had gotten lost over the years, so the thirty-ninth bracket of Round One was being represented by a hastily adapted napkin holder. Each of the squares (also the napkin holder) was designed to hold a promotional painting of a combatant. All of them had been marked with spots of paint, representing their status. Green meant a win for that round, red meant a loss, and blue meant indeterminate.
There were a lot of blue spots.
Sir Goldpantle Reginax Holdthrust, who by sheer coincidence happens to be the man who hates his own name the most in the entire universe, was smoking like a chimney. His suit was disheveled, his hair frazzled, and the bags under his eyes would not pass a carry-on check in any airport one cared to name. He stubbed out a cigarette with vigor and whirled to face the rest of the organizational committee.
"A haunted library? Who lined that venue up? It's almost as bad as that debacle with the holes in the ground, or the repeated issues we've been having with the thrice-damned Ai'Bron. More than half of our original entrants have just...disappeared! We keep advancing losers to fill the holes, got to smile for the public, but for the gods' sake, the other clog is about to drop here, people!"
"Shouting about it isn't going to help, sir. It's not like anyone here knows either. No-one's going to crack and confess 'yes, yes, I did it, they're all jammed in the broom closet!' " said Aliszandra Thrumm, head of promotion.
"Quite right," the Serenti's head clerk smirked smugly. He seemed to be the only one in the room keeping calm. Preternaturally calm, even.
"Some of them have worse than disappeared! There was a mix-up with the magical equipment which, Jacoby, I notice you keep insisting we utilize, and a man died! Drowned at the bottom of the ocean,"
Jacoby Cartwright, the only mage on staff and head of the technical department, shrugged. He was wearing a monocle that flashed red if someone lied to him. At least, in theory; in practice, it tended to flash red whenever he moved his left thumb. "Technically he drowned first, then sank to the bottom. I couldn't say what went wrong, by the way, sir, my technicians checked and double-checked before sending the boat out,"
"Well, I've had enough!" Holdthrust shouted, pounding his fist hard enough to add yet another dent to the much-loved table. "No more fancy arenas, no more magical gimmicks, we're keeping it simple for this round,"
Holdthrust crossed the room in three strides of his bandy legs and wrenched open the conference room door.
"We're having it here," he said.
Just through the door stood a short, oddly-dressed girl. She wore black glasses on her face, and her hair was beyond boyishly short. Her skin was the brown of an undisturbed coffee, and the most disconcertingly mischievous grin was plastered on her face.
"Sup, Gentle-dawgs," Relt Peltfelter said as she strode into the room, "Looking forward to working with your dumb asses,"
The conference room erupted into shouting.
- - -
"Every room is open to you, all three floors plus the basement," Holdthrust said as he handed a big ring of keys to Relt, "Your opponent gets the same treatment. Most of my craven employees are still clearing anything valuable out of their offices, but they should be out of your hair soon enough,"
"Sounds like a blast, boss man," Relt said, "I knew you'd get this shit under control if we just met up and spoke like fucking adults,"
"Quite right. As you observed, someone is trying to ruin my tournament, Miss Peltfelter. But that doesn't directly concern you; you're a participant, a customer, essentially. And I am not in the business of putting my customers at risk of harm, excepting of course that which naturally is a risk of organized combat in the first place. So I figured that I wanted a round I could keep an eye on. If you see anything supernatural or otherwise unusually threatening and strange, the entire Serenti town guard will be on call to assist. But as far as your opponent goes, you'll be on your own,"
Relt nodded and looked around the lobby as the man went out. It was a nice, open layout, with a sort of balcony accessible from the second floor. A single desk sat under this balcony, from which a surly receptionist had been roused with great risk of life and limb. A few chairs and outdated magazines were all that was available to placate visitors.
Her opponent was somewhere else in the building. There were no monsters, no traps, no extraneous dangers. Just two vicious pugilists of debatable competency.
This shit was, officially, on.
Cael awoke in the generic calm of the Serenti infirmary, alone and utterly disoriented. Dorian was gone. The haunted shelves and murderous books of the library were gone. The spear - the inkmage gasped in a startled breath and sat up fast enough that the room spun, feeling his chest.
The spear was gone, of course, but the phantom ache lingered through his rib cage and in his back. He reached under his too-big shirt to feel where the blade had worked its way out, half-expecting to feel metal, but all that met his fingers was solid flesh.
"Don't worry, Cael, they fixed you up good."
Cael jumped as the door swung open and Îdhdaer waltzed in, a multi-colored banner clutched in his gloved hands. "Congratulations!" the banner said, in letters that were still dripping paint on the sterile white carpet. Cael gave the elf a look - one that, hopefully, told his boss just what he could do with his banner. Îd was thoroughly unmoved. "That...was a bit closer, though. I swear, you're going to give me grey hairs." The elf flipped his perfectly straight, golden-blond hair dramatically. Cael leaned back in the bed, crossing his arms. Îd peeked at him from behind the curtain of his hair. "Really? No response? No snappy comeback?”
"Why am I here, Îd? Really?"
"That’s…not snappy.” Cael just glared. Îd finally sighed, pushing his hair back from his face. “You’re here because I owe Areesha money, and Areesha is really, really pissed. I think she was hoping you'd die a lot more often."
He’d heard that story before. He just didn’t understand why Îd would sell him out for her. Why he kept having to go back into battle. He picked at the blanket fibers, sullenly.
"Yeah, well, screw her."
Îd gave him a blank look. "I'm pretty sure that's why she's ticked. You won't. I mean, yes, I get it, she looks like a bald bear, but…" The elf shrugged. “You coulda taken one for the team, man.”
It took a moment for that whole sentence to even process before Cael looked away from the blanket-fibers wrapped around his fingers. "...seriously? Is that what she told you -- is that what you think?” Îd shrugged. Cael rubbed his eyes. “She's angry because I refused to work for her."
“Work for her…” Îd’s forehead wrinkled in thought, amber eyes suddenly brightening in realization. "Wait, you mean…"
Cael thought back on the conversation, held a year ago now; the thinly veiled threats and the long black claws. "I mean, she's hoping I die repeatedly because I wouldn't let her bank on my..." There he paused. He didn’t even know what to call that, besides things that would make is a thousand times too real. Besides, Îd did it for him.
"Nigh-crippling emotional trauma?"
“…I guess that works as well as anything. She’s mad you won, by the way…”
“What else is new?” Cael heaved himself upright, kicked his feet out of the bed, and sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
*
The sound of rustling paper, hurried footsteps and doors slammed in the distance filled the air as Cael followed the clerk through the hallways. His fingers worked at the tiny crane between them, three of its brethren already sticking out from his pocket.
This place was clearly an office. He could get used to this place. Bad things never happened in offices, right?
But, then, you thought that about the library, and look what happened there. His chest twinged at the memory. But, still. He understood offices more than he understood libraries, but he’d never been in one so…well kept.
The clerk was a twitchy little fellow: pudgy and balding and he kept looking over his shoulder at Cael as if he expected the inkmage to skewer him for the fun of it. Cael’s answering smiles grew more and more strained as he followed the clerk up the stairs, fingers working at the fifth crane.
I guess I’m not used to anyone thinking of me as a warrior. Combatant. Whatever.
The door they finally stopped at was simple carved and polished oak. The plush carpet beneath his boots held the damp, matted look of something freshly washed. Cael scrubbed his foot over it while his guide shoved a key in the door’s hole. The door opened with a loud snap and a scent like chemicals and lemons. Cael looked at him.
“Did you just have this place cleaned?”
“Yes,” the clerk said, almost timidly; though there was a glint of something that looked very much like resentment in his eyes. He pushed the door open to reveal shiny-polished floors and the ornate railings of a balcony. “We don’t allow magicians to clean for us, so the whole place was scrubbed by hand, the good old fashioned way.” He sniffed, looking more than a little disgruntled. “And now you, no doubt, will ruin it.”
Red-soaked books and the salt-tang slick of copper on the back of his teeth flashed through Cael’s mind for a moment, but he forced the pictures from his head; forced himself to focus on the here-and-now before he tore the last crane. “I’ll try my best not to,” he offered, holding his hand out. The clerk just sniffed again, dropped the ring of keys in Cael’s hand, and half-hurried, half-stomped back down the hall.
Cael watched until the clerk turned the corner out of sight before he shrugged, pocketed the keys, and walked through the door. This was a very nice office building, yes, but he was much more concerned about what it might possibly be hiding. He took his pen from his pocket. The cranes followed, one by one. He laid them out on the edge of the balcony, carefully sketching each to life.
Relt had found the snooker table.
The north room of the building's basement faced the street, with little arched windows up around the ceiling through which light streamed like big, buttery fingers jammed through a mesh screen, attempting to retrieve that last, lost potato chip. At one point it had been a dungeon of some sort, as evinced by the bars on the window and the rusted manacles now repurposed as cue holders, but now it was a garishly decorated lounge. A painting of a salmon run occupied one wall, with the aforementioned snooker table just below it.
Relt dropped the last of the billiard balls into her bag as she headed back to the stairwell; she needed tossin' ammo if she was gonna beat this guy's ass. Her eyes lingered briefly on the stairs down to the subbasement, but as Relt had basically had no good things happen to her underground, she headed back upstairs.
"Ah-HA!" Relt shouted as she leapt into the hall, 7-ball at the ready. She frowned at its emptiness. "Man, if this guy disappears or dies too, I am gonna be just...livid," Relt said to herself as she jimmied the next door down. The room inside was dark. She opened the door the rest of the way, leaning in. There was a face on the other side, staring at her. She freaked out and hurled the ball; the mirror (because it was a mirror, obviously) shattered, sending Relt stumbling backwards. Her foot came down on a shard of glass, which slid out from under her and sent her spilling her ass onto the ground like a big dumb moron.
Relt stepped back into the hallway and shut the door. No-one could ever know about that.
The girl stomped back into the stairwell, ignoring the tinkle of glass pieces falling off her clothes. She went up another flight, trying to recapture her super-suave murderboss mentality. She trudged a little more, then stopped. There was somebody else there, sitting on the balcony overlooking the lobby that she had just been in. The man (at least, probably a man. All of Relt's other opponents had been men for some reason) sat there, fiddling with something. A sniper rifle? Highly probable, yes.
Every muscle in Relt's body tensed. She wasn't the kind of person who got spooked by a mirror in a dark room, or who shied away from a fight. She was a bad-ass new god, a beautiful animal, a machine built exclusively for the purpose of doling out some sick violence to the collective knuckleheaded noggins of all those who would defy her.
"FFFFFFffffuck you!" she roared, tossing the cue ball at the man like a grenade. It was not a great battle cry. She ducked into a side office half out of desire for cover, half out of embarassment.
- - -
In another part of town, in a darkened room, the head clerk for the Serenti Invitational offices knelt deferentially before a shadow-veiled figure. He was fidgeting; something was wrong. The sound of a glass being filled rang like a bell, before a voice like a desert stated, "Yes?"
"It's the tournament," the clerk hissed, "That fool Holdthrust is having the next round at the tournament offices, surrounded by town guards! We can't disappear anyone like this, it's a disast-"
"Oh, do calm down," the dry voice said, issuing something that may have been a laugh, "It is a minor setback, but hardly a crisis. Perhaps the final round shall have three combatants, perhaps not. What does it matter, really, in the end. Our work in His name proceeds nonetheless,"
"You don't understand," the clerk said, "Holdthrust is suspicious. Someone has been putting pieces together, it's only a matter of time before they-"
"Do what? Any blame will fall squarely on the, admittedly now much-decimated, ownership and upper echelons of the tournament. You are just a clerk, albeit one of high grade. There is no chance of this being linked to...us, before our work is complete,"
"T-the combatants have the run of the offices. My office included!"
"Your point?"
"I have sensitive documents in there! Things like...paystubs! Venue contracts! The deed to this property-"
"You fool!" the voice roared, an aural avalanche of sand. A hand like teak slapped the clerk, carrying him across the floor. As he went to pick himself up, the hand gripped his throat with an uncanny strength, and lifted him bodily from the ground. "You fool! You tell me now that you kept documentation?! You utter fool!" The clerk managed a choking, gagging sound. It may have been an attempt to explain.
The hand hurled the clerk across the room; he collided with the low door out, shaking it in its hinges. "You go back to those offices, you incompetent buffoon! If just one grain of our work is made known to the mouth-breathing reprobates employing you, I'll see to it that you are flayed alive. Destroy the documents!"
"Wh-" the clerk coughed, "What about the combatants?"
"If you've any luck at all, they'll kill you before I have the opportunity!"
The white sphere came out of nowhere, hit the ceiling with a resounding bang and ricocheted off the balcony again, barely missing Cael’s skull in the process. He could feel the breeze from its flight against his hair.
What the hell was that?
Fearing further projectiles, the inkmage dove for the meager cover of the balcony railing, knocking the cranes into the air as he did. They fluttered into flight, but by the time he could focus on the scratch paper sensation of indignation, the sense of urgency was alleviated.
He’d seen his opponent already, after all, through the railings; seen the other combatant duck through one of the solid oak doors below, like a jackrabbit with a fox on its tail: a short, wiry figure of indeterminate gender (though the voice suggested a woman) and, apparently, questionable vocabulary.
Oh, get off your high horse. Like you’d yell something more intelligent?
Still. That fact didn’t mean the figure would stay behind the door. He kept his eye on it with that thought in mind as he reached up and caught three of the cranes, feeling them twitch against his fingers in a slither of delicate paper. He scrambled back into the hall and headed for the stairs, hurriedly adding the sigil for blade next to the signs that called the cranes to life as he ran.
The blade cranes once again took to the air as he paused at the foot of the stairs to get his bearings. He’d been in more confusing places before -- that damn library came to mind, most recently; he shoved it away again -- but every corridor in this place looked the same. Finally, he just closed his eyes and let the cranes’ facsimile of thought take hold.
Aside from a cacophony of irrelevant lines, smudges, disproportionately scribbled room and stick figures, they weren’t sending much of anything, but the thoughts were coming from a uniform direction. He turned until he faced them and started off again, unbuckling his naginata as he moved in a half-lope, half-limp.
The cranes’ thoughts were becoming less and less focused as he grew closer and closer. Much like their living counterparts, as soon as something passed out of their perception, once something was no longer an immediate threat the cranes forgot about it.
A closed office door was not what the cranes considered an immediate threat. They wheeled and kited in the air before the door and generally felt…smug. Almost obnoxiously so. Cael passed through them like so many falling leaves, brushing them aside as his hand closed around the doorknob.
For all you know, this is a trap…
He pulled the door open regardless, ducking behind the thick oak just in case as the six cranes dove inside.
Despite both widespread anecdotal evidence and the predictable progression of chronic recreational marijuana usage, Relt was not stupid. She had not just huddled in a small office like a excretorily troubled child with an armload of soiled linens. Instead, she had clambered up onto some poor man's bookcase, ready to launch an atomic fucking piledriver on the first person to walk through the door. She braced her arms against the ceiling and her knees, rather unfortunately, against the only extant copy of a monograph on ancient elven accounting, ready to spring like a stupid cat in a horror movie.
She did not expect a bunch of birds to come in. Birds were a shocker. Relt had not, in her multiple panic-attacky run-throughs of the endgame to this situation, factored in the bird element. It is for this reason that instead of flinging herself at them like, let's face it, a pteranodon having a seizure, she simply leaned close enough that her billiard-ball-ballasted bag dangled in the flight path of the seeking stork-looking things.
One of the wings sliced through her bag's strap, sending the contents spilling to the floor in a torrent of colorful spheres and also one hammer (Relt having learned her lesson in the round before last and left the majority of her belongings safely stowed back in her hotel room). The snooker balls scattered around the floor with a big chalky clackity-fuck, rebounding off of expensive furniture and fine skirting board and basically turning the whole floor of the small, windowless office into a nightmare of spherical self-destruction.
Therefore it was a bad time for Relt to lose her grip, tumble through a whirling cloud of razor-sharp origami cranes, miraculously land on her feet but less miraculously also on a fusillade of scampering orbs. The cranes had clung to her oversized shirt, sharp paper tangled in fraying threads, and this combined with her skittering and sliding over the floor had turned the girl into an unpredictable projectile. As the balls beneath the balls of her feet sent her careening out of the office, she bounced off of the opposite wall, leaving a perfect imprint of her face in the plaster.
She stumbled back from this, her flailing body sending the heavy wooden door slamming into the wall like a freight train, and sending her to the ground in a lacerated, bruised pile. By this point the now slightly crumpled origami birds had been shaken loose, and flapped limply around the hall.
"Fuck birds forever," Relt said loudly, levering herself up onto her elbows, "And fuck you, bird guy, whoever you are. Eat a dick. Go down to the olde-timey corner store, spend a nickel on a bushel of freshly-plucked floppy ol' donkey dicks. Go home and eat them just the way grandma taught you to, in the good old days when you were a buck-toothed kid in overalls, out on the back porch of the old farmhouse," she crawled upright along the damaged wall, "Cook those huge dicks up into a big ol' donkey dick pie, covered with streusel and flaky crust, and just choke on those very same dicks, you lousy bird-having bitch,"
Relt swatted one of the stricken cranes out of the air as she got her bearings, bearings in this context clearly meaning 'knife'. Some part of her knew that as long as she was staggering around in the open she was a clear target for whoever her opponent was, but another part of her kind of felt like making this personal. She had been all pecked up and scratched at by birds which she still hadn't noticed were made of paper, so why not just start making some stabs happen?
"Listen, bro," she said, "Here's the deal. I'm not a violent person, but you just threw a bunch of fucking birds at me. So I'm gonna find you, and probably make some stabs happen. ¿Comprendes?"
Out of Character:
Official like: I forfeit. Sorry chaps.
Well then, this makes my job easier (which sucks because it looked like it was gonna be close)
Relt Peltfelter Advances to the finals!