A Final Hurrah - ((Closed to Fitebear))

The Citadel, nestled in the safety of Radasanth and guarded by the do-gooders that reside there. There once existed a time where this husk of a man lived peacefully within its walls with a wife, and a child. Years upon years of hatred, the thirst for revenge, and misfortune has long since washed away any pleasantries tied to this place. The murders and infamy quickly marked the assassin turned mercenary as banned from the Citadel. The rumors of gruesome wounds and mangled corpses treated by the Ai'Brone who run the establishment still run freely from drunk men's lips.

However...

Something unknown called out to him, to the silver-maned criminal. Under the mask of night and a cloudless starry sky, he turned his verdant gaze to the looming tower of the Citadel. Perched upon the city wall, beside a watchmen who spent this late hour neglecting his responsibilities for a few moments of sleep, Lichensith Ulroke sighed. In the hollows of his mind echoed the screams of his victims, the faint warmth of spilled blood on his hands, and the rhythmic beating of his own heart in the heat of combat.

The silhouette upon the wall placed a gloved hand over his chest. The thing that beat within a bone cage lacked the emotion, the warmth, and drive of a heart. Yet, with every tick of the clock, a muscle deep beneath the surface pumped cold and cursed blood throughout his body.

Lye adverted his gaze to the Citadel's peak. In his years upon Althanas, he could not recall a time where the Ai'Brone led anyone to its summit. What did they hold up there? What did it contain?

He wanted to know.

The silent shadow reached into the leather pouch at his back and produced a length of cable with a winch. Tipped with a finely pointed and uniquely enchanted steel spike, Lye whipped it skyward with all his might. The coil unwound from his hand with a metallic zip, causing his slumbering company to stir.

"...ten more gold for a dance... heheh..." the watchman murmured with a sultry grin and rosy cheeks.

Steel bit into stone as the anchor wedged itself into the Citadel's walls. Solid metal crawled like the roots of a weed and purchased a firm hold into the cracks, crevices, and mortar. The assassin tugged the line taught, clicking the winch into place on the line.

"...yeah... like that, baby... heheh..." the watchman stirred, shifting his uniformed body against the wall to find new comfort.

The assassin offered one last glance to the civil servant, sparing his mind's suggestion of making the man's slumber eternal. Instead, Lye hefted his weight off the edge, plummeting down to dimly lit streets. The line snapped taught, and with he blackened kiss of shadowy magics, the winch stirred to life, hoisting his corpse upward. Upon arriving at the line's end, he kicked free from the wall, willed the anchor free, and before slamming into the building to a lengthy death below, phased his ethereal form through stone.

The drifter's boots clicked softly against polished marble. The flicker of candelabra's illuminated his slender physique as he stood. Soft chanting of old tongues droned together in a choir from scores upon scores of robed men on onyx slabs.

"The illusion chambers..." Lye thought, recalling a theory of how the Ai'Brone produce worlds within closed doors.

He approached one of them, waving a gloved hand over the open eyes of a chanting monk. It stirred no response.

"Eerie..." he murmured, spanning his view to anyone that may have heard his alien trade-speak among ancient tongues.

No reply.

He quirked his head at a lone door toward the center of the chamber - clean, polished, and ornately trimmed in gold. Lye strode around the decorated onyx door to find nothing more, just a door and a frame. His curiosity piqued. He located a handle, round like a common knob, but hollow where a keyhole should be. Instead, only darkness remained inside. With brow raised, he turned and opened the door.

Bright light poured through as it wedged open, the sweeping warmth of sun bleeding into the cold, musty air. The song of finches and thrush echoed into the chamber. Held open in front of him, stretched an expanse of swaying grass and blue skies.

Lye smirked and shook his head.

The purpose of the door and the world beyond unknown, his familiarity with the old men's tricks beckoned him inside. With a deliberate pull behind him, the door groaned shut, clicked, and faded into the endless sea of green.

Another false realm. Another arena. And one last opportunity for senseless bloodshed.

"Hello," he welcomed to the hulking frame of a man emerging from a door of his own.

John staggered. He at times, had likened this feeling to extreme blood loss, or suffocation. Those things sounded bad, sure, but this feeling was a little different. He placed another step in front of him, making his way to the Citadel.

John Cromwell was as drunk as he’d ever been, and he wanted blood.

His drunken mind’s thoughts wandered back to their most common residence. He saw again, relived again, wished against again. The vision of his wife and daughter, blood pouring from their throats and soaking their nightgowns, plagued him like an unrelenting miasma, and he placed another step in front of him, his drunken steps not fast enough to escape his thoughts.

He remembered he had a bottle, and took another swig of the strong liquor inside, the burning long-dulled by his drunken sorrow. His steps rounded a wall, and brought him into the courtyard of the citadel. He took another swig, draining the bottle. A monk approached, younger than most, perhaps a teenager. He spoke cautiously.

“Sir, we can’t allow-”

John’s anger billowed as he spoke loudly. “I must fight, boy,” He stepped to the side, knowing that he would hold no answers. He loosed the bottle he held at the wall of the citadel before he realized he’d done it. He yelled at the thing, the bottle exploding on the wall of obsidian.

“Joooooooor! Give me an opponent!”

The boy behind him stepped back as another form exited the doorway to the courtyard. Jor stared at John sternly.

“No, John. Go home and sleep.”

The half-giant stepped forward to Jor, looking down at him. Jor was one of few who did not step back.

“I said, give me a fight.”

“John, you know-”

John raised his fist, not intending to strike his Ai’Bron friend, but as he raised it, it struck him in the chin anyways.

Instantly, John’s vision blurred, and his head smacked the stone under the Citadel, Jor standing above him with one arm extended from his robe. He turned away.

“Go home, John.”

As he walked away, John reached out a hand and clutched the man’s ankle. Jor turned, scowling.

“Please, Jor,” John said. He would have been ashamed of himself if he had not been inebriated. “It doesn’t stop. I need to do something.”

Jor looked down, and though John was far too drunk to see or understand the feeling, he felt a bit of compassion for the man he stood over. He thought hard for a moment about what the portal would do to him if he was drunk. One thing was sure, though.

He’d likely never come round drunk again.

John felt himself being lifted, helped to a portal and was vaguely grateful for the Ai’Bron’s help before he was pushed through, stumbling into the light.

Instantly, John dropped to his knees in pain, spewing the contents of his stomach onto the grass beneath him. Every beat of his heart pounded his skull with a dull thud, he closed his eyes, everything was so bright, the song of birds so very loud. He groaned, clutching his head with both hands as he retched again, heaving and trying to vomit from an empty stomach. He lowered his hands, clutching the grass as his heart beat again, feeling like his head was an anvil. It pounded on his brain, and he rested his head on the ground, the cool earth doing nothing to fix his sudden and impossibly painful hangover.

Yes, he was painfully sober for every moment of his agony. He knelt there in the grass, eyes closed, for seconds or minutes, he truthfully did not know, but the pain stopped after a time, and he dared open his eyes. Grass and sunshine pierced his eyes, but it did not sting as much, and he stood, looking across the meadow at his opponent.