Round 2: Pestartz vs Artifex vs Dissinger

Round starts 5 July, 12:01am EST.

Two people will advance from this fight.

Prompt: Idyllic countryside, dirty sport.
(Feel free to use, or not to use this to help set up the setting)

Boots tread across the gravel. Each step crunched through the air, sending a warning of their arrival. Each step seeming at random, but never without surety. A chaos had engulfed the boots, leaving them to wander the Coronian countryside in solitude. The occasional person greeted the traveler, but many left him to his own devices. His gait moved slowly along the countryside, leaving him time to think, a luxury he had ill afforded in the past.

It had been a week since the fateful encounter with Draug Remi. Seth Dahlios had fought valiantly subduing the otherwise untouchable homunculi, with the victory came a bittersweet revelation. Should the Lavinian Demon somehow manage to reach and slay Rayse Valentino, he would be granted back his daughter. Moving with determination he pondered the act and further if he could trust the Cult of Blessed Torture to uphold their end of the bargain. He knew there would be a lie in there somewhere. Even if Cassandra was in on the deal, she would never release his daughter back to him. Not until the vile bitch was a god.

By then the vengeance for his first daughter would be out of reach.

A wind blew, kicking up gravel and dust from the ground to the face of the Demon. A hand adjusted the wide brimmed hat to cover his face, even as the grass rippled in a wave. The scents of summer played with the thief, who was lost inside his mind. His eyes only briefly graced the road before him, catching the occasional tree amongst the rolling field of grass, no higher than the tops of his boots. His eyes drank in the details, mentally cataloging them for later, even as his mind raced through the avenues and corridors. There was something that he was missing, a link he was not making in his head.

Another wind blew across the idyllic countryside, giving the Demon pause enough to mutter about the weather being against him. He waited for the wind to pass, tearing at his coat, causing the stiff leather to flap in the breeze announcing him to the world more fully. He paused only briefly, letting his annoyance at the breeze leave with the gust of wind, before resuming his gait once more. Seth Dahlios let his mind wander once more, back to hurtful words of friends and foes now. The world seemed set against him, much like when he first began his journey. His life was a tattered wreck, chronicling the passing the the once and future Thief.

Where before he had railed against financial tyrants that sought to enslave his people, now he fought to have his life back. Seth Dahlios was long gone, put to sleep so that a Demon could free his daughter. It was only a matter of time before the demon would seek to sate its thirst. He had often used the Citadel as a distraction, giving him much needed focus, now, now he required something more, something much deadlier. The anger and hatred in his heart now sought a more perfect sacrifice to quench the hunger for pain and agony.

Thayne show mercy on the first idiots to spark that thirst.

There was something relaxing about traveling through Corone that Leon Timyon would never understand. It was the same bright sun that shone upon smokey Alerar or the frigid north of Salvar, but here it was not so mocking or oppressive. The gentle and consistent breeze took the edge off of the sun’s rays, with enough trees giving shade for a nap during the hottest parts of the day if a traveller so wished. There was more than enough daylight for anyone to make it from town to town even with a long rest.

Leon himself had indulged in the act earlier, dozing as the sun lazily crawled across the sky. A single tree provided all the shade the cat boy could have needed. The meandering road was just a short walk away; not even out of sight, but too far for any bandit to get the drop on him. It was good sleep, the soft grass providing more than enough of a cushion for comfort. It was brought to an end as Leon’s ears twitched with the coming steps of travelers. The cat boy had barely dreamed. The cat hardly ever dreamed nowadays, just quick images that left his waking mind as quickly as water through his paws.

It was because of these grasses he was shirtless now, his armored jacket and shirt slung over a low tree branch. A large ruck sack, with spear and sword strapped awkwardly to its outside, rested beneath the branch. Delicately, with the tips of claws that could cut air, he removed ticks that found him an easy meal. It was mindless work, letting Leon’s head wander as he popped the bloodsucking insects and occasionally interrupted by loud yawns that showed too many teeth. He had quite some time before his ship would arrive in the southern port, which would bring him to Scara Brae. From there, nearly a week on the smaller island as his vessel resupplied, and by then he should have narrowed things down.

He popped a second tick on his arm.

Leon had been gone from nearly everything for too long. His reputation had suffered accordingly. The office he held in the Dajas Pagoda, that of Grandmaster, was almost completely forgotten and the tower itself all but destroyed from neglect and age, if his sources were to be believed. Raiaera had likely forgotten after Xem’Zund’s crippling attack, his contribution reduced to a mere footnote at best. Even Underwood, nearly a stone’s throw from his home in the forest of Concordia, barely registered the hunter as little more than an odd customer with deep pockets and a deeper thirst. Even something like the Serenti ended up being little more than an empty promise, despite the build up and excitement that seemed to be echoed throughout the country.

The third tick wriggled its legs, the body trapped in the tips of Leon’s claws. It hadn’t been able to find purchase on Leon’s face, it’s teeth unable to pierce his skin. He twitched, and the insect fell to the ground in pieces. Leon hadn’t cared much for what legacy he had built over time, but now that it had faded there was an ache. His changes in the world weren’t lasting, except for his scars. He shrugged, pulling the shirt over his head. A quick tap on the rucksack with his paw and the steel yarn coiled around the arm.

There was plenty of time to enjoy his life and just as much to start anew.

Rolling a cigarette in a moving cart was a bad idea, but I'd had no time to make a few up before I'd left the inn. Each jostle of the wobbling wheel brought with it fresh tears and frustrated grimaces, perhaps even a slight curse under my breath, before I dabbed at the wound with my tongue like some sort of motherly reptile who'd had only the most primitive notion in the back of their primordial brain on suture it. The driver, a fat little man in grey wool, would snicker to himself at my struggle, before he focused once again on the uneven path that served as our road through copse and rolling hills towards an uncertain killing field ahead. The sun hung high in the sky, and a warm breeze announced its presence with such consistency that even I thought about hiring it as a hype-man.

In truth, part of me wanted to remain asleep in my rented room, reeking of whisky and gin as I tossed and turned beneath scratchy sheets and blankets, in a spot with so many curtains and shutters that it was hard to believe my rapine form wasn't awaiting a burial. But when destiny came knocking at my door, in the form of the fattened cart-owner, who was I to refuse its summons.

“Are you sure you're the same man everyone was talking about from last round?” The driver had an insolent tone to his voice, and the lack of eye contact with me did little to endear him.

“So I'm told,” I whispered back to him, carefully running the naked flame of my lighter back and forth over the dampened smoked I'd managed to cobble together. “Not too sure why there was talk at all. None too sure of what I did.” He chuckled softly to himself, his greasy face taking on a whole new sheen as we passed through another shadowy canopy of trees.

“Man, they say that fight was the stuff of legends, like two titans in the stories of old, battling through sheer force of will.”

“Oh.” No one had managed to give me a straight answer as to what had happened during my first match, and it wasn't likely I'd remember the finer details any time soon. Having been on a drunk the entire lead up until the fight, and pumped so full of stimulants during it, had left a hole in my memory so clear-cut that I could almost visualize it. “That's cool.”

Somehow, through some higher grace or thought, I'd managed to advance to the next fight. The money I'd won went to booze and board, and what few coin I had left paid for my ride. I'd be damned if I was walking anywhere with a hangover as omnipresent as the sun above. One more turn, passed on last thicket of trees and a rolling sea of long grass, and we found ourselves on the outskirts of some sunken ruins in a hill. Grey stone crumbled to dust in the ground amidst a crude outline at what had once been a fairly large outdoor amphitheater, no doubt a racing track of some kind that some long dead people had frequented. Corone, it seemed, was a land of sprawling modern cities that hid a far more interesting, and archaic past.

“And here's my next abattoir,” I grinned, fixing the lapel of my suit and stowing away the cigarette I'd worked so hard to bring to life.

“Abattoir,” the fat man said with a puzzled expression, lingering on each syllable as if time would bring some gnosis.

“It's French.”

“What's that?”

“Nevermind,” I sighed, standing up as the cart finally ground to a halt - Alerar's expat community of offworlders had made me a stranger in any land. The driver was hesitant, but finally managed to find some silly question he'd had bubbling since our trip began back in the village.

“I'm not saying I don't appreciate the chance to watch a great tournament unfold, but I just have to ask,” he paused for moment, sliding from the cab and securing the horses' reigns to a nearby tree. “Why do you fight?” I nodded, turning my head to the back of his wagon, and the several warming chests kept in it.

“Why do you make, and delivery, homemade sandwiches?”

“It's all I know.”

I gave him a weary smile, before hopping out next to him. “Just make sure to have a post-victory roll-up ready for me,” I fiddled nervously with the crowbar and mask that dangled at my side before patting my breast pocket, “it'll go well with my pre-victory smoke.”

Round closed, Pestarzt advances.