Battle at your leisure folks. This thread must be completed by January 9th, 2014 at 12:00 AM EST. If you finish early, please submit it for judging per usual.
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Battle at your leisure folks. This thread must be completed by January 9th, 2014 at 12:00 AM EST. If you finish early, please submit it for judging per usual.
(As requested this Arena takes place entirely at night.)
There was solid ground, Elthas could feel it. However, he wasn't certain of much more after that. The opponent he was meant to face had requested an arena in the dark, which struck Elthas as odd. Elthas's mind immediately began to ponder WHO or WHAT would want to fight at night. Elthas was capable enough, but he'd been allowed to bring a torch with him. He set up the torch against a nearby wall and pushed the tip of it deep into the craggy surface. It was a rocky wall everywhere, granite and limestone. Other likely sedimentary rocks were present and the area was naturally poorly lit for Elthas. So the torch served to light Elthas's way in the cavernous expanse.
The cave surrounded Elthas for miles in every direction. Beyond Elthas there lurked an underground lake. Glowing blue and green fungi, lichen and other underground organisms filled the cavernous expanse. It took a few moments for Elthas to get used to the low light. He wore a black outfit for the occasion that time. His body fully outfitted in a leather adventurer's garb. He wore a brown leather vest, a long sleeved shirt, and baggy black pants. His boots were also black leather boots that matched his black gloves. Those days, he wore a fedora that was making his unique appearance quite famous in the Althanas Leagues. His fedora was tipped slightly at an angle casting a shadow across his face. He looked about for signs of his opponent.
As he looked around he spotted the various paintings on the wall. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but then he recognized the symbols as druidic runes and glyphs! The symbols were etched on the walls in glowing blue chalk or paint and the have lasted the test of time. Elthas felt power flowing from the bizarre symbols. That power provided a strange form of comfort, and at the same time, an eerie feeling. Elthas could only wait until his opponent arrived. In the meantime, he sat down and began to sing in High Elven...
Out of Character:
A hauntingly familiar crooning wafted down the mineshaft on breaths of fresh air. Nora already missed the warmth and comfort of her home below, but the surface world allured with its own charms. The moon on a clear night, shining in her obsidian eyes. The wind through her voluminous hair, sending shivers over sweat slicked skin. The taste of living blood from beings such as he who sang so beautifully above.
Ellenora Sekuerba Pope labored up the long ladder, finding footholds in the rock and digging her nails into ancient timbers where rungs had rotted away. The fog of must and dust lessened as the song grew louder, and the den mother of the Liberi Nocturna tribe paused to gather breath. Her sleek muscles ached. She was weak from centuries spent in slumber, but her Goddess had awakened her and sent her forth as the herald of her people. Njal led from the shadows with steely webs of wisdom, and her servants seldom knew what lay at the other end of their string. Nora scrambled over the last rung and padded barefoot and naked toward the source of the song.
She skirted a small underground lake with light steps over shaven rock. Algae glistened and insects stirred the water with tiny flitting legs. Nora paused to smell a glowing blue mushroom, the aroma a pleasing combination of above and below. She plucked the fungi by the base of the stem and threaded it through her hair like a flower. Its natural iridescence bringing out the blue tint to her mane. She squeezed between a set of pillar-like stalactites, the swords slung across her body pressing tight. Her trusted iron wakizashi and tanto in their oaken homes. The leather straps of the scabbards pinned swathes of Nora's hair across her like the folds of a barely decent elven robe.
Nora approached the singer as his melody wound to a natural pause, brushing sweat-heavy bangs from her fine boned face. A cloud of pheromones surrounded her in the form of her own scent. She paused a wagon's length from the elf, taking in his broad muscular frame. Seeing such a brawny being recalled her need to feed. Without a decent meal she would be useless to answer when Njal called.
"You sing beautifully," she said. You smell delicious, she thought.
Elthas could only blink in surprise when he sensed the woman's approach.
There was a mysterious quality to the air around her, and Elthas took it in all at once. His eyes narrowing for a moment, he felt tension. Then he relaxed as he did not attempt to resist whatever it was that the mysterious woman was attempting to do to him. His eyes were not trained enough to detect pheromones in the air, so he could only smell the scent. Finding it intoxicating to his sensitive nostrils, he had a hard time concentrating. He could only blush furiously in respond at the stranger's kind words. He rubbed the back of his head for a moment. He wasn't shy at all, but the moment had caught him off guard. The Althanas Leagues will place together people from all sorts of skill brackets...I'll have to remember that for sure. He settled down after a moment or two and took the dark beauty in with his eyes. He admired her. She was a being of true beauty, the almost revealing attire accentuating her form in a flattering sort of way.
Elthas could not help but feel his heart race. After his ex wife, Hylda Terrentius had divorced him, he had not taken another to his bed in many years since. The sudden realization of that made his situation very obvious. And the hungry side of him wanted to embrace the creature of beauty before him. However, he had a job to do and there would be time AFTER the match was over. Elthas smiled at the lady before him.
"Oh, ah...I thank you. I like to sing when I'm nervous." Elthas said truthfully. "Learned a long time ago..." Elthas could not shake the feeling that it was getting terribly hot in the cavern all of the sudden. He shook his head for a moment still unconsciously attempting to resist whatever the effects of the pheromones were. However, his will soon broke and he was trapped in the web. Falling across the grasp of N'Jal's song. He stood up. "Right then." He added. "I suppose we can start when you are ready." Elthas said calmly. His lips were trembling with something similar to desire and hunger. He had never dealt with the power of N'Jal DIRECTLY, but Elthas was well versed in the Thayne Codex. He was aware there were mysteries in the dark. And once some webs pulled you in...
...They refused to let go.
"Yes," Ellenora agreed, trying not to lick her lips as she dragged out the sibilant sound. "Let us begin." Her tone insinuated a different struggle than deadly combat - one of equal sweat and urgency. The vampyre parted her hair with both hands and slid her fingers down the long strands. The pale V of bare skin which began just above her waist grew wider as she stepped towards the elf, for once taking no pleasure in the soft caress of her own hair. She needed blood, and beneath his leather shell the broad shouldered elf was bursting with the stuff. "You must catch many a woman's fancy with that voice of yours," she said enticingly as her hands neared her waist.
The homeworld beneath was so much simpler than the surface. The complexities of Nora's needs pulled at her like panicked horses. She knew she should have been cultivating the singer to become a servant of Njal. But she hungered so strongly she intended to drain him dry, leaving not a drop of life. Her Goddess would exalt in the sacrifice of a soul.
A faint zephyr caressed snowy thighs as Nora approached the hulking elf. Ripples lapped the shore of the underground lake lazily as blind fish grouped around disturbances left by insects' feet. The glowing mushroom in the vampyre's hair and overall luminescence of the cavern's flora splashed the pair in shadowless light.
"I have only one question, if I may," she said, drawing so close she could taste salty vitae on the air. Oh, to sink her fangs into that soft neck and feast as she had so long ago. Her hands reached her waist and grasped the hilt of her tanto. She lunged the last of the distance, drawing the dagger and driving it's hilt straight up at the man's chin. A stunning tactic, meant to distract. Without changing her grip Nora stabbed downward with both hands, aiming to bury the tanto's tip just beneath her meal's collarbone.
Njal grant me this gift, she prayed silently, and I will bring your word to all those who walk above.
At the last possible second, he escaped the twin pronged attack.
He almost forgot that he was there to do battle, he almost allowed himself to fall into the black widow's trap. He did the only nonchalant thing he could think to do, he fell backwards HARD. His body landed gracelessly with a thud as he looked up at the seductress. Somehow, he didn't mind that she was toying with his head. Elthas was never racist to begin with, but he didn't want to die before he could begin to really get to know what made her take. His body grew really REALLY hot. Removing his cloak, he suddenly twirled it upward in an escape tactic, more to calm himself than anything else. He released the cloak and stood up a few moments later, the twin pronged dagger attack would have been deadly and fatal. Elthas did not even feel offended by the crazy attack. I got to remember where I am, these people are out to KILL... He had no idea whatever it was that the monks had told them in the first place. He didn't care, he would offer the Vampiress mercy if it came down to it.
His philosophy was borderline psychotic in tendencies, but he didn't care. The woman before him was beautiful, he would paint her and sculpt her for many moons to come. Her image haunted his mind, and tormented him. At the same time that he wanted to win the battle, he also wanted to take her to his bed. It was maddening, somehow, the song of N'Jal, he could hear a subtle whisper in the air. Perhaps it was a testament to his own madness. He was not a monster, but he had a long career of being a villain, and that darkness still gripped his heart. Elthas sighed as he stood up and readied his daggers. "Ask your question, I may or may not reply..." She is so beautiful... Elthas was an honest man, but a man nonetheless. His mind was playing with him, toying with him. Thinking about long nights with the woman before him. He shook his head. She's fucking with me...shit... Elthas thought to himself. ...And I think I want her to...
Ellenora hissed between her fangs as her tanto stabbed only air. She slapped the blade back into its scabbard, forcing her elegant face to smile through a turmoil of hunger and frustration. The dreamy look in the elf's eyes said he was under her spell, but long years of training kept him moving and aware. Nora flicked her head, sending a ripple through the blue tinted folds of her hair, accentuating the parts of her creamy skin that were hidden from those prying green eyes. She laughed and skipped to the side, feeling the ends of her natural robe slap about her calves.
The hunger gripped her tighter than the roots behind the walls of their cavernous arena bound the earth. Nora needed to taste the vitae churning in the elf's veins, but now his defenses were aroused. Her mind danced to the same beat as his pounding heart. She had not had a question in mind to ask him. She'd intended to be feasting on his life blood by that time. Sweat trickled beneath her downy robe as she pranced partway around the broad shoulder being, dark eyes drinking him in lustily. The more of her scent he inhaled, the better chance she might have of bypassing his staunch skill.
A blue druidic glyph glowed from the craggy wall.
Nora swallowed a deep hiss that sprang from her throat unbidden. There had been vampyric runes carved there in ancient times. Tomes of her people written upon the very walls... most had fallen away to the passage of time, but this was desecration. What race had done this? She wobbled, weak with hunger. The anger overcame her like a fever but she forced her pale fine-boned face to smile as she spun gracefully on bare feet.
"There is a game I thought you may know," she sang like a child playing at sticks and stones. Muted shadows cast by the glow of the cave's shrubbery twirled around the vampyre as she drew her wakizashi, an ancient Akashiman shortsword. "You seem like a well traveled warrior," she swooned as she waltzed closer, cradling her weapon in both arms like a partner. "Have you ever played Haidia's kiss?" She leaned forward and thrust her iron blade toward the elf's midsection. But before her sleek wrists straightened her arms flicked upward. The thrust became turned to an upward slash as her reach extended. Nora gritted her fangs and exhaled as she attempted to open the elf's throat. She was already imagining the shower of blood that would wash over her when her weapon connected.
The elf carried enough crimson fluid to fill her belly and paint over those filthy glowing runes.
Caught off guard, Elthas suddenly heard the girl's intent.
Even then she probably had the upper hand.
He was just getting up when she attacked and he decided to simply submit. The tournament was proving to be a really terrible gamble, and he would never again join another tournament. The blade ripped his feeble clothing-for-armor, and he didn't cry out when she cut him. He simply closed his eyes. The blade slid upwards easily through his flesh, and Elthas was killed off yet again. It's not that he was weak, it's that he was not a killer. The other combatants in the tournament automatically had an edge on him. And the woman before him was a devil in a woman's skin. A HANDSOME woman at that. Elthas bled everywhere as the blade split upward through the lower portion of his jaw, and he fell. Dead. He could not longer fight, and perhaps, he had never intended to in the first place.
And so, he would be haunted by nightmares of the pale skinned beauty for the rest his immortal life...
(Sorry for double post, I was given permission by Forbidden)
Elthas woke up next in another place.
It was a gray world full of ghosts and shades. Specters of the past, but the Elf were immortals. So even in death they would not know the rest needed to move on to The Great After. Elthas looked as a certain specter approached him. It was a woman, a familiar woman. His Mother. By then, Mother had become a distant memory and her image was growing faded. Like ripples in time. Elthas approached the woman, he recognized her glowing energy field as the mark of an Elf. He saw that she was summoning him to her side. Elthas obliged, curiously, he felt no malice from the woman.
The grey world was weightless and barren. Debris swirled through the air and it was very hot. Elthas could hear wind passing in every direction and it was very difficult to stare forward because of the debris. He had to cover his face with his cloak. He looked at the woman and stood by her side. His facial expression was calm considering he was just killed by that Vampire. Elthas noticed that the woman was looking up at him.
"Elthas." She said. "Your name is known here and the weight of your deeds is visible on your soul."
"I am dead...?" Elthas asked.
"Aye." She said. "But it is not your time. You were wrongfully sucked into the web of N'Jal."
"Spider's kiss was it then?" Elthas sighed. "I always attract the psychos."
"That's the least of our concerns at this point." The woman said carefully. "I bare a warning for you." She touched Elthas's forehead for a moment. "Go back to your world, your time." She continued. "Prepare for what is coming. This is a second chance for you to get it right."
"To get what right?" Elthas asked.
"Go back home Elthas. Your time is not today..."
And Elthas's consciousness faded to black.
He awoke next...
FIN.