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Congratulations for making it to the second round of the Tournament of Champions. Both teams receive three Fate Points for making it this far! The battle closes after 11:59 PM EST on March 16th. Good luck to both teams!
Arenas were arranged at random, and your prompt is as follows:
You will do battle upon the wind-swept rooftops of a sprawling city in the dead of night. The roofs seem close enough to jump, but it sure is a long way down.
The heat of the first battle raced towards an epic climax. Fate had not chosen its winner, and this jeopardized the life of both sides as they neared destruction. A destruction too eagerly anticipated by even the sea as it rocked the boats in the colosseum back and forth.
Archon watched with great dismay as both opponents tried meticulously to break his Rune, his spirit, and his life. The spell he just cast exhausted his reserves for the moment, and a feeling of helplessness washed over him as the struggling woman crawled near his circle and disrupted it with a rift of powerful magic. At the same time, her companion swung a deadly weapon in a decapitating arc.
Just as the magic sparked and prepared to rupture anything in it radius, or possibly merge to create a new spell, Archon felt his body de-stabilize. Just as the blow would have struck his head into a puddle on the ship's ground, it passed through. And just as Archon felt sure that the arena they held their first match in could not change in such drastic measures, it did.
His view changed, or perhaps, and Archon thought this more likely, everything else changed for him. All colors continuously ran to gray, and the monotonous world itself continuously summoned an obscuring fog. Within seconds the perplexing monotony became a limbo of clouds, and the only soul inhabiting the limbo had no idea what to do.
Archon's water weird form remained- the battle had not ended. His slim, attractive female body in the pleasant azure color and seductively long did not fade away with the rest of the world- a stub on his left arm also reminded him that the scars of the previous battle had not gone away, and that danger might take the other one if he did not choose the road of caution. Of course, he still felt strangely helpless in a place not unlike his own void in which he constantly resided.
However, before all thoughts flew away in a neatly organized and reviewed fashion, the scenery changed again. Colors burst from every inconspicuous speck of cloud, and terrain just shot up from below. Archon noticed the black, starry sky first, and then the pale moon which still seemed to suffer from a gaping crater somewhere on its surface.
After the sky came houses; roofs: shingled, wooden, high, low or flat. Especially odd came the realization of being on top of such a roof. This caused feelings of perplexity to once again come into his mind uninvited- but at least they threw out the dangerous emotions of helplessness. He peered around, his watery hair whipping in the wind, occasionally giving a droplet to the air current.
The current roof had a rather flat angle, but an elongated roof. His eyes could not tell him the color of the shingles, but he did see six windows lining them- one trip and a fall was all it took. Light shone from those windows, and a passing shadow warned of the living in this house. Archon moved his tiring eyes on.
In the distance came more houses, more lights. More life, as far as he was concerned, but nothing made sense to him! Where was he? If this was another battle, then victory was almost automatically denied- the question of if pestered Archon the most. If-questions that he had no answer for, and everything here just pointed to a sprawling cityscape with filthy alleys, streets filled with excrements and urine, and people not sane enough to care about it.
“Emilio?” Archon surprisingly called out. An intention to say something in this starry night never occurred to him, but the echo affirmed his action. Might as well, he thought. However, he might as well do it louder despite the fact a shadow from beneath him crept to the window, “Emilio! Are you there?”
Out of Character:
Teleportation was not one of his favored means of transport.
The display of fire and light surrounding Archon was quite stunning, even from Emilio's prone position. For a few moments, it actually scared him, as he was not used to seeing random pillars of fire rising from some arcane rune that close to him. This sense of fear was soon taken away by something that required a lot more attention, though.
As if in a dream, Emilio was lifted off the deck -- or perhaps the deck moved out from underneath him. The world blurred, different shapes fading away into one big cloud of colors, slowly turning a monotone gray. To him, it felt like he was slowly spinning and twirling around like some abstract painting in the making, the idea of the world around him changing causing quite some nausea. The hangover he usually suffers from after twenty pints would be nowhere near what he'd get after this ordeal.
Slowly, the world took shape again, though drastically different from what it used to be, and sadly, Emilio's stomach voiced a clear opinion on this. As dull grey turned to black, his surroundings became solid again. He dropped to his knees, eyes held shut. The little transportation had not been too pleasant, and even though he didn't know where the hell he was, there was something bigger coming up. "Oh, crap." Blortch!
An unappetizing mixture of brown and vale yellow slowly dripped down the shingles. Emilio opened his eyes very slowly, trying not to upset his stomach any more. Apparently, he was on a roof, as the defiled shingles proved. A bright moon lit up the city they were in, many buildings surrounding the one he was on, though none of them decorated with the contents of his digestive system. Though most of him was still in shock from the sudden change in scenery, somewhere in the back of his head, he thanked all of his known deities for getting him out of that place. He'd really hate to have to kill either one of his former opponents. 'Specially the girl. She was cute. Alas, fate can be cruel, as this was likely to be their next stage of battle. Hopefully against some lumbering brutes; he hated not being able to go all-out. Speaking of 'them', his partner seemed to be calling out for him, his voice strangely resembling a wailing sirene. That may have partially been because of his instability, but that was not his concern right now.
"Yeah yeah, I'm right here." Emilio messily got back on his feet. "I'm uh, not used to teleporting, 's all." Not that he needed to explain, with his direct environment covered in vomit and all. He noticed Archon was actually nowhere near him; there was a rooftop in between them. Even if he'd been in roof-jumping conditions, there was no way anyone would get him near Archon right now. The water weird's bodily curves ignored any and all distance between them in terms of stunning beauty.
"You, uh... you stay there! You ah, you never know when those other guys might show up! Just, just stay there for now!" Archon seemed to agree; he drifted off as he surveyed the area.
Phew. Who knows what I might do if I got close to that. Remarkably, his blatant lies had put him to think. Was this actually another battle? Would their adversaries be arriving soon?
Emilio drew one of his pistols. A slight change in weight. Five rounds left, if he wasn't mistaken. It should do, at least until the next reload. He simply hoped they wouldn't catch the both of them by surprise. I'm not about to let some stupid Tournament beat me. Heh.
The world had passed away before Zhang Konji's eyes a moment before the final blow of his previous battle. The majestic flying arches and scintillating stained glass of the ancient castle became so much haze- a sun-streaked expanse of dust and distant mountains. He'd passed through the wastes for what felt like a day and a third before coming upon a pool of brilliant light, which swirled and eddied as a river and beckoned him close.
And he'd ventured near, seeing within the pool a startlingly clear image of some blasted city's skyscape, wreathed in blazing stars; this became the world.
The wanderer stood still atop a heap of dusty old crates, peering down into a void. Behind him was what he remembered to be a 'billboard' announcing 'Incredible savings' and above him was the night in full festival attire. So incredibly alive were the stars and the wise old moon, filling the sky with their gentle light, that a brief smile came to his face. They seemed to spiral out from the very center of the universe, holding all creation in a loving and familiar embrace. He felt a kindling of the old joy, knowing himself to be a part of that grand design-
-and then crouched low, bringing his quarterstaff across his thighs and his gaze level with the rest of the rooftops. A faint echo reached his ears from some distance, one man exclaiming something he couldn't quite make out.
Silently he crept back and hid himself behind the crates, settling the butt of his staff against a discarded portion of tarp. Wordlessly he thanked Vincent Strider, the planeswalker who'd brought him across the inconceivable expanse of reality to many wonderful places countless times before. Without that experience, there was little doubt the teleportation would have incapacitated him.
A rush of memory brought his gloved hand to the head wound Qaron had given him some time before. There was nothing but a long and jagged flesh wound, stung by the intrusion but no longer bleeding. His hand functioned perfectly and he suspected if he'd drawn the glove back, there would be no bruises.
Very well, then. All that remained was the present situation. The wanderer chose to consider it a new round or worse, given the presence of at least one other person in the same vicinity as he. It could just as easily have been a night owl or drunkard relieving himself, or singing (or both). Such incaution could prove fatal, he knew.
He moved. A few loping strides carried him over the narrow gap between the building adjacent his position, which featured a veiled garden and some conical device crafted of steel, spitting foul-smelling smog. He listened for more speaking, but nothing came.
Climbing agilely over brick-and-mortar faces, windowpanes and flagpoles he brought himself ever closer to the source of the noise, keeping his staff low and horizontal the entire time. Occasionally moonlight would glint from the few steel plates woven into his gloves and pauldrons, but unless one of his foes was highly sensitive to light, he saw no great risk. Keeping to utter shadow would only slow him further.
After many minutes of climbing and leaping and landing, he finally caught sight of a young man with darkness in his hand. Strange darkness, though; it was well-defined and angular in places. Retreating behind a cluster of tall wooden poles he strained to make out the nature of whatever the young man held, and it appeared to be a gun.
Not like Vincent's, though. Vincent's was round and seemed alive, its heart spinning after every thunderclap it produced.
Ultimately it would make little difference. A gun was a gun and all guns spat bits of metal at unheard-of speeds, and he was not equipped with armor that would keep them from slicing him through and through. Therefore stealth became of the utmost importance, and just behind it, cleverness.
He examined the poles that hid him. They were laden with heavy glass bulbs of multiple colors and crystalline windchimes that stirred only lightly, nearly still with the quiet wind. A few moments of searching brought him three bulbs of solid dark violet that seemed to drink the starlight rather than reflect it, making them perfect distractions (for as long as they lasted, anyway).
Unwilling to waste time he drew a bead on a distant window, many-paned and broad- an easy target. With trained ease he launched the first bulb and it shattered along with the window, raining glass into whatever space it observed. Lights flickered on and silhouettes stirred but the wanderer was already gone, ascending another brick-and-masonry face to close the gap between himself and his supposed foes while they were (hopefully) distracted.
A day late, but I'm on it now....
Thank you for participating! Someone will be along shortly to judge this thread for you!
Due to this not reaching the minimum of 12 posts, or even coming close, I’m not going to be using the rubric. I will be commenting a little bit on the posts, and then declaring a winner! As Dirks said in the first round:
Quote:
I’d like to copy/paste an easy to miss excerpt of the Battle FAQ that might be helpful later in the tournament: “It is possible that your partner or your opponent might be gone for an extended period of time, but it might be in your interest to keep the battle moving. In that instance, you might bunny (with permission, see below) [your partner out of the fight] or simply continue the fight with the remaining players.”
SoulBeaver: I loved your opening, it was such a wicked crazy way to transition from one scene to the next. It pulled the reader in immediately, made me really feel like there was a realistic and reasonable transition between the last round and this one, as well as gave a good idea as to what the Cabal really wants… no breaks, just fighting. I would suggest, however, that if you do this in the next thread that you make it a little bit more clear that you are transitioning from one round to the next. It was a bit unclear otherwise. Other than that, the setting was well described, and it was written rather well. Enjoyable.
Nieve.Roja: Your opening was similar, and well done. I liked that you weren’t invulnerable to the teleportation side effects, and that it was something unfamiliar and you played it well. You switched tense once, or it felt like a switch in tense at least, and one of your paragraphs seemed a little long with a few different subjects written in it. All in all well done though.
Atle: It was good that you took the time to add in more details and little things that your opponents did not. Nothing bad to be said about either SoulBeaver or Nieve’s openings, but instead of following the same setting and feel you added to it. That’s always a great thing to do, since it gives the reader a look as that which has yet to be described. Also, the advanced technique’s that you used were very well written. My favorite line being: “A few moments of searching brought him three bulbs of solid dark violet that seemed to drink the starlight rather than reflect it, making them perfect distractions (for as long as they lasted, anyway).” Emphasis mine.
Winner: Destined Intervention (due to inactivity on Team Awesome)
Rewards: Fate Points.