Round Three: (1) Blank v (25) Adventurer's Club

[Max Dirks]

Round three begins Thursday at 12 AM EST.

Congratulations! Rather than having a bye this round you will have to face a special challenge. Blank will post their introductions first and then the Adventurer's Club will follow. This is to be judged like a regular tournament battle. Inactivity will lead to disqualification. Have fun!

[INDK]

Shortly after the end of his battle against the Baneblades, Damon was lying on the stone floor of the pagoda having recently bled to death. It had been a painful death, full of struggles in vain to find his legs again and continue the battle. Now, even in death, the boy convulsed violently, so unpredictably that even the monks were forced to take extra care as they worked to bring his body back to life. They worked under a blanket of tranquility, but for Damon, everything seemed so completely hostile.

“No… no- NO!,” he screamed passionately. His spirit had begun to move through nothingness, meaning that everything he tried to latch on to, everything he tried to struggle against, everything he tried to hit, none of it actually existed. The boy was moving thanks to some inexorable force, headed towards a white light with nothing to stop him.

Suddenly, a bright flash appeared, and the boy’s memory was flooded with the thoughts, deeds and emotions of a thousand past lives. The feeling was crippling. Damon staggered forward like a drunk and found himself in the middle of a dry and dirty cave. Sweat had caked his body and his skin was even paler than usual. A vomiting sensation was burning up through the boy’s stomach.

“Don’t worry,” came a voice that had been familiar to him in his past life. “Everything is fine. The monks are going to bring you back. Just calm down, you won’t be waiting in Limbo for too long.”

Damon blinked. It was a man he’d recognized from his forgotten past in Surat. Now, everything that he had known was coming back to him. “Father?” he managed, unable to say much more as his stomach turned into itself.

“Father and friend,” the voice replied, materializing before him in the shape of a father that Damon would forget the moment he returned to the plane of Althanas. “Don’t worry though, you won’t remember any of this when you go back.”

Damon bit his lip. “I- I need to,” the boy insisted. “It matters that I remember my past…”

“If you know too much about the past, you’ll be afraid of the future,” Damon’s father replied. “Just listen to me, and be ready.” The man then handed a small orb to the boy. “And keep that in your pocket.”

“Alright,” Damon replied, looking at the shiny white orb quizzically. The boy had never seen anything like it. It was bright and white hot inside, sealed within a cold glass sphere. The boy touched it, but he didn’t take it. “What is it?”

“A memory,” Damon’s father replied. “Use it when needed. But take it now, it’s time to go.” The orb was then shoved into Damon’s pant pocket.

However, by the time Damon could have responded, he had already been revived by the monks. A bit confused, the boy remembered nothing of his incident with his father. All the memories that had been returned to him disappeared now, and as the boy picked himself up to prepare for his battle in the next round of the LCC, he didn’t even notice the little orb that had ended up in his pocket.

-x-

Later that afternoon, Damon had rediscovered the orb. His memories of his brief time in a higher plane now lost on him, the boy had no idea where the shiny bauble had come from. Had he been more suspicious he would have thrown it away, and had he been greedier he might have tried to sell the orb without examining it any further. However, being himself, Damon thought it best to keep around for another time, when the orb’s purpose would have been made more clear.

As for now, Damon had an LCC match to fight. The boy made his way out towards the Lotho Mountains where the tournament organizers had told him to meet. He knew nothing about his opponents for this match, and neither did Ashiakin. The streets of Lornius, in as much as they were discussing the battle, only spoke of how odd it was that Blank’s opponents remained unknowns. While the town had been all abuzz with analysis of their previous opponents, coffee shops now talked in greater details about the other matches.

The ground in the foothills was soft and dark. It had rained recently, the air was saturated with the smells of wetted earth. It was a calming setting, the fresh earth mixed among young trees and other newly sprouted foliage, but Damon was still nervous. In the last round, he’d let Ashiakin down. They had barely progressed, and the fact that he had been so easily confused by Rheawien suggested that he might not be ready for a tournament like this. Before, the boy had thought laser tornados and a partner like the Prince of Panic would be all that he’d need to succeed.

Now he was finding that that wasn’t nearly enough.

“Well lets get this started, whoever it is, whenever, lets just start now,” the boy thought anxiously. He fidgeted on the balls of his feet as he waited, either for his opponents or Ashiakin. Damon hoped it would be Ashiakin who arrived first. The boy knew he’d feel a bit more comfortable with his partner’s advice.

“That is, as long as Ashiakin still wants to be my partner,” Damon thought nervously. The boy had been too embarrassed to face his partner. He knew that it wasn’t the most mature decision, but the boy had just been so confused. Far too many emotions had been running through the boy’s head at the time of his death, and they were all still unresolved.

Damon was just overwhelmed. The LCC felt like too much of a challenge, and there were too many thoughts that seemed to be running through his mind. On top of all that, Damon couldn’t help but to think that there was something important missing. The boy had come to grips with there being a past life he knew nothing about, but now it just seemed like nothing fit. It was almost as if he’d put on clothes that were a size a bit too tight.

However, Damon still needed to get redemption. The boy figured that there had to be something to help Ashiakin. “We’ve gotten this far and they won’t let Ashiakin replace me,” the boy thought solemnly. “There is no way out but through.”

[Ashiakin]

“... You didn’t seem yourself out there,” the man was saying. “Something was off.”

Ashiakin was looking away from the other man, eyes half-focused on some indistinct section of the bureaucratic carnival that roiled around him. Since the end of the second round, the demon’s entourage had grown from two people to two hundred. Only about twenty of them had been sent by the Salvic crown. The rest were reporters constantly badgering him with questions, would-be mercenaries wanting to place themselves in his employ, and stinking peasants with yellowed teeth and greasy hair that only wanted to scrounge up enough gold to waste in the Lyridian casinos. Ashiakin hated all of them.

“Your lordship?” the man asked, all courtly concern and false compassion. “Are you well? Should I get Edwin to bring you something?”

A wind from the distant shore swept over the low coastal plains and into the foothills, stirring up the smells of the latrine and roasting meat in the demon’s roadside camp. Ashiakin shook his head and finally turned toward his companion. He was a middle-aged human with a thick beard and expensive clothes named Athdor. The government of Salvar, after hearing how Ashiakin had been less than an amicable crowd pleaser in the last two rounds, had sent him to Lornius to ensure that Ashiakin put on a more friendly public face. Ashiakin did not like him, either. “No, I’m fine,” he said softly. “I was just thinking about everything that happened in the last round.”

“And well you should, your lordship,” said Athdor. “His Majesty was pleased that you carried the day, of course, but he was… less than pleased with your demeanor throughout the battle. One of the reasons the government chose you as their champion was your ability to charm crowds. That, to say the least, was not evident—”

“I know,” Ashiakin interjected. “I heard you say that the first twelve times you told me. Why does Iorlan care so much about how often I smile in this tournament? If Blank wins, we’ll get the island. I don’t have to be charming while I’m doing it.”

“Yes, your lordship…” he started cautiously, “but His Majesty feels that the better face you put on during the tournament, the more people will accede to your rule once you and Damon emerge as the victors. We don’t want you to be seen as cold or elitist.”

Ashiakin sighed and cast his eyes toward the ground. “Gods forbid they know the truth, eh?” Athdor opened his mouth to say something else, but the demon silenced him with a wave of his hand. “I’m not bringing this miserable camp with me to the battle. They’re staying here. You’re staying here. I spoke to the reporters with the Lyridian Chronicle and they’ve reached an agreement with some local mages. They’re going to use some spell that lets them watch the battle from a distance so the reporters can transcribe it. That way both of us will be happy, no? The people of Lornius will get to read about how delightful I am and I’ll be able to fight without an audience. Leave me.”

The man hesitated, but a sharp look from Ashiakin sent him walking away into the crowd. Almost as soon as he had left, Edwin and Vissal approached. Edwin was a clumsy boy of sixteen that the monarchy had sent to act as his squire. Vissal was a woman they had originally sent as the demon’s sole bodyguard, but as his entourage had grown Ashiakin promoted her to the captain of his personal guard. “It’s time for you to leave,” she said. “The officials want you and Damon to show up first.”

Edwin stepped closer to the demon, carrying a bundle that contained Ashiakin’s newly polished and sharpened weapons. “Here’s your weapons, my lord,” he said, timidly holding out the equipment he held in his arms. Ashiakin took them with a nod of thanks. He throw his bow and quiver of arrows over his shoulder and slid his two long knives into their sheathes on his belt. The demon had instructed Edwin to keep his sword here, as he wanted to try to avoid melee combat as much as possible this round.

“You know,” he told them as he gave his weapons a last minute inspection, “Athdor thinks I should smile more often. Isn’t that a little ridiculous? Considering what the monarchy has planned and all, just in case?”

Edwin quickly muttered his agreement, but Vissal raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What does the government have planned?”

Ashiakin smiled at her, then turned and started to walk away from the camp. After a few steps, he called back to her without turning around: “If Damon and I don’t win this tournament, Salvar is going to take this whole bloody island by force.”

The battleground was not far away and Ashiakin’s walk was short. He passed the time musing over his last battle and how he had acted in it, wondering if there wasn’t a grain of truth somewhere in all of Athdor’s nonsense. Finally, he emerged from a copse of young trees to see that Damon was standing on the green foothills of the Lotho Mountains waiting for him. Ashiakin’s feet plowed carefully through the rich earth and springy grass as he approached his partner from behind. I may not need the love of the realm behind me, he thought, but it would be a terrible thing to lose this boy’s trust. I’ve neglected him lately. I need to make sure he has not forgotten our friendship.

“You did well last round, Damon,” he said as he walked up beside him. “Death is nothing to be ashamed of. We won and that’s all that matters. That is all that people will remember. I hope you don’t feel ashamed or embarrassed. You fought well and should be proud of yourself. Just remember to be on your guard this time.” And then Ashiakin smiled. It was not for Athdor’s babbling about public relations or Salvar’s ravenous desire for colonial advancement, but for Damon—Damon and his childlike naiveté, Ashiakin’s oblivious reservoir of power that would place so much right into his hands.

[Hawke]

“They’ve gotta be kidding me… We’re fighting out here?” Taemm gestured towards his surroundings, visibly irritated. “What kind of a tournament is this, anyway?”

Normally the boy wasn’t one to lose his temper, but these were anything but normal circumstances. He had just arrived on the island by boat earlier the same morning, and his stomach still hadn’t fully recovered from his first sea-journey. Not only did he know nothing about this strange new land, but he had been forced to navigate it alone on a still groggy constitution. Almost immediately after he had stepped onto dry land, he had been given a map, and thrust in the approximate direction of the battleground. But it wasn’t so much the long hike that bothered him, it was what it implied.

“To not even let people watch… It’s crazy, right? Do they really expect us to fight without an audience?” Taemm sighed, oblivious of the fact that his companion -- a bird that had been perched on the tree he was resting under -- had already flown away. “I asked the guy after he told me how far I had to walk, and he said that they weren‘t even going to have a live broadcast of the match. Can you believe that?“

Taemm had suspected from the beginning that he had been called in as a mere sideshow, and the low importance the tournament committee seemed to be putting on the match only seemed to verify his theory. Judging from the hurried boat ride he had been forced to take, he probably hadn’t been the tournament committee’s first choice either. But he was okay with that. More important was their promise that he would get to have some fun with one of his old friends from the Adventurer’s Club. For that, he would’ve endured far more than a simple boat ride and a moderate hike. Just the thought of the Adventurer’s Club was enough to bring a smile to Taemm’s face, and he found himself grinning from ear to ear as he recalled those days now.

“Good times…” He murmured. Ever since the club had been disbanded, the boy everyone knew as “Neon” had felt like he was missing something. When he thought back to the time he had still been a member, he remembered a certain spark -- a fire that hadn’t quite burned as brightly ever since. He felt lackluster. Things didn’t seem as fun anymore, and he didn’t get excited like he used to. But he had been excited when he received the invitation from the tournament committee. It was enough to give him hope for today. Even if nobody on this island knew their names, even if nobody was there to watch them fight, he would find some way to show them… The Adventurer’s Club was no sideshow.

He glanced up at the empty branch above him. “I guess I better get going too, huh?”

With a yawn, Taemm stretched and rose to his feet. After a quick consultation of the map the tournament official had given him, he was on his way. There wouldn’t be a crowd of spectators to greet him when he arrived, but if there were, they would have known.

The main attraction had arrived.

[INDK]

The moment that Ashiakin spoke to him was like an unexpected gift. Though many of his confusions remained unanswered, it was as if Ashiakin had physically pulled him out from his morass of troubles and into a spot of clear headedness. For Damon, the refuge that his partner’s forgiveness had provided him with brought momentary thoughts of determination and faith in his own abilities again. It was a good feeling.

“Thank you,” the boy replied earnestly. “I know I don’t deserve to be your partner, and if you’d known that I was going to be late in the last round that you would have never picked me. I will fight here and I will win this for you. You deserve it after everything you’ve done.”

While Damon had made the offer sincerely, he had spoken it quickly, the words barely having time to sink into his head before he’d managed to spill them out. Still, the boy was completely sincere. Ashiakin had mentored him a great deal to get them this far in the tournament, and with few rounds left before the finals, Damon knew that their opponents would keep getting much more difficult to beat. Because of that, there was more to this battle than a mere an opportunity to redeem himself, Damon was going to need to learn how to win a tournament battle for his team.

“I can’t believe I let that woman fool me,” Damon thought. “She was of the terrible sort, cheating and lying, and she even tried to say that she was in the Brotherhood. Bringing up a past that I don’t even understand like that… she should have known better.”

It had been particularly embarrassing, but Damon tried to focus on this memory. While it caused him shame, it was the closest thing to a concrete thought on which the boy could focus. During the last round, he had been an emotional wreck. First Damon had been concerned about arriving late, then he’d been frustrated by the lack of help he’d received from the monks, then he’d wilted under the pressure of living up to the name of a departed legend and ended up dead himself. The only way he could avoid that now was to regain his focus.

Thus the memory, for all its shame, kept him sharp. If he were to think about anything else, then he would find himself back with all the same problems he had the last round. For now, Damon would have to say goodbye to the lingering memories that seemed to be bubbling up through his subconscious, what had happened to him during the time that he had been dead, the strange orb that had found its way into his pocket. All of those were concerns, but none of them were things that he could afford to worry about then.

Still, it would be no good. The little orb seemed to carry the weight of an anchor in his pocket. Every time Damon tried to think about anything else, it went back to the orb and what had happened during his death that had enabled him to get it.

“I’ll just ask Ashiakin before our enemies arrive,” Damon thought. “He probably gave it to me to cheer me up, and just forgot to say anything about it. If he tells me what it is, then I can stop worrying about it. It’s probably a weapon or something for the match if he did give it to me.”

Beaming, Damon asked his partner the question. “Ashiakin?” the boy said proudly. “Did you give me this?”

He held up the orb for his partner to see.

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin barely listen to Damon’s enthusiastic thanks, but he nodded his head in the boy’s direction all the same. While he wasn’t sure it was healthy that his companion was so down on himself, he wasn’t about to reprimand him. Damon had just displayed the kind of idol worship that Ashiakin needed to cultivate for them to make it through the tournament. Once Lornius was under Salvar’s hegemony, that kind of wide-eyed weakness would make the boy an excellent puppet ruler. Still, Ashiakin couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the plan.

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Damon,” he said, eyes scanning the horizon for their enemies rather than looking to his companion. “I’m glad to hear you’re as eager to win as I am, though. Whoever our opponents are, we’ll make short work of them.”

There did not seem to be any sign of the opposition. All Ashiakin knew of them was that they were a special entry in the tournament that went by the name Adventurer’s Club, the name of an organization that was popular about the same time that Ashiakin was in the Ice Reavers. While those days were only a year or two gone, it was strange to look back on them. It would be stranger still if their enemies ended up being people he knew.

I’m letting too much get away from me, he thought. Thinking about things long past when I should be getting ready for battle. The way I let redeeming my Serenti defeat take control of me last round. That was bad form. I need to remember why I’m here.

Salvar had sent him to Lornius so that they could conquer the island by Ashiakin winning the tournament. It would be a bloodless acquisition of a colony well-suited for trade with Corone. Ashiakin had selected Damon as his partner because the boy was naïve and possessed a well of magical power that out-rivaled much of what he had seen on Althanas up to this point. The fact that he had the same name as an elven general of great fame who had recently died also helped to lend them name recognition and attention.

Still, Ashiakin was beginning to wonder if doing all of this for Salvar was really worth it. After he had been defeated in the first round of the Serenti Invitational, he had let shame corner him into the position of a soldier. Someone who took orders without thinking. Winning two consecutive rounds of the LCC, however, were beginning to sway his mind away from that. But toward what? he wondered, and nothing came to mind.

Instead of letting his thoughts consume him, the demon removed his bow from his shoulder and set to stringing it. It was a fine recurve bow, a composite of the wood of an ulder tree and stone golem hide. He nocked an arrow to it and took aim on a nearby sapling. The demon released his grip and the barbed arrow sang through the air, smashing into the dead center of the tree’s springy trunk. As he walked over toward it to retrieve his arrow, Damon asked him a question and held out his hand.

Ashiakin pulled the arrow from the tree and looked at the orb curiously. Suspicion seized him for a moment, but he quickly dismissed it. Damon was likely just being Damon. “I’m afraid I didn’t,” he said. “Perhaps it was a tournament reward for doing well last round?”

[Xanith Trailweaver]

Roses in his hand, Xanith knelt down and blew dust off the face off the tombstone. He sighed as he muttered its inscription: “Here lies Mirrah, Honored Daughter of the Dominions of Revelae, Protector of Elfkind and Wife to Xanith.” As many times as he had seen those words, the elf was surprised he hadn’t choked up before he had finished reading them.

He set the flowers down at the base of the tombstone and rose to leave the cemetary, but before he was more than a few steps away from the grave the trembling began, as it always did, and he fell to his knees and wept.

“Why, why did you have to go?” he sobbed, his hands sinking into the earth below as he tried to keep his body from collapsing entirely. His next sounds were unintelligible as he crouched on all fours, speaking the language of grief until he felt a hand pat his shoulder.

“What?” Xanith growled, and after a jolt the earth below him melted away and was replaced by wooden planks, the smell of his fresh-cut flowers replaced with fresh salt air, and the tombstone replaced with a stiletto-heeled crocodile boot, dyed a garish shade of pink.

“We’re here,” a woman’s voice said, “And you failed again, Thietnar.”

Xanith rose to his feet so he could look the speaker, Maranda, eye-to-eye. “I told you never to call me that,” he replied behind clenched teeth, referencing the birth name he no longer used. In an attempt to regain some of the dignity he had just lost, he moved to the side of the ship and leaned against its rail, hanging his head low to look at the waves beneath him.

The “here” that Maranda spoke of was the island country of Lornius, and Xanith was a participant in the Lornius Corporate Challenge, a yearly tournament where teams of adventurers battled one another to determine who was the greatest fighting tandem in all of Althanas. The elf was not here by choice but instead sent as a representative of the Radasanthian shipping magnate Baron Rafell, whose service Xanith had entered into when he signed a five-year contract several weeks ago. Rafell was organizing a new training facility for warriors that, unlike The Citadel, allowed spectators to watch the actual battles. Rafell was looking to compete not with The Citadel but with the Radasanthian theater industry, which had recently entered a boom period thanks a new wave of bloody, emotional melodramas, and to attract an audience he needed several famous combatants to be the public faces of his new venture. Xanith was one of his first recruits, and in return for his five years of service Rafell had not only offered him a fortune in gold but also an opportunity to sail south and attempt to return home at the end of the contract. It was that last provision that made the contract an offer Xanith could ill afford to refuse – if there was anyone who could mount a successful expedition to the south it was Rafell, who owned many of the largest galleons in Corone.

“You lasted longer this time without breaking down,” Maranda remarked as she joined him at the rail, referring to the latest episode in the graveyard. Maranda, who always dressed in the same pink fur coat, trousers, and stiletto boots, was one of those rare magic-users in Althanas who could read minds. The blonde beauty, Rafell’s personal assistant, had without her master’s knowledge began secretly conducting psychic sessions with Xanith in an attempt to break him out of his depression and to ease his feelings of responsibility for the death of his late wife. While all his problems hadn’t been solved yet, Xanith had to admit that he was making a little progress towards clearing his mind and returning to the warrior he had once been.

“There’s our liaison,” Miranda said, and she pointed at a man dressed in a grey uniform standing on the nearest dock, who judging by his uniform was an assistant to one of the higher-ranking Lornian executives. Once the ship had docked, Xanith and Maranda greeted the man and were led to the back of a horse-drawn carriage parked nearby. While Maranda and the liaison chatted about current affairs in Lornius, Xanith kept mostly to himself, gazing out the side of the carriage at the city of Lyridia and then at the brief stretch of flatlands to its northeast. Their journey took them from mid-morning to mid-afternoon before they arrived at the appointed place of battle, the Lotho Mountains. With Maranda waiting behind, Xanith stepped out of the carriage and scanned his surroundings, eager to meet with his opponents and to be done with such foolishness.

[Hawke]

The nice thing about arriving late is that it can always be done fashionably, as opposed to an early arrival, which always seems to carry a sense of awkwardness. Since a newcomer automatically attracts the attention of those who are already present, it also gives one the opportunity to steal the spotlight with a flashy entrance. That was Taemm’s philosophy anyway, as well his justification for his apparent inability to be on time for anything. It was a good excuse in his mind, one that matched well with his character.

... It also sounded a hell of a lot better than, “I’m sorry, I kept looking at the map upside-down and going in the wrong direction.”

Though despite Taemm’s tardiness, it appeared that he wouldn’t be the last one to arrive. As he approached the battleground through the trees, he could make out two figures standing and conversing with each other, but neither of their faces were familiar to him. The tournament official had mentioned that non-combatants weren’t being allowed within certain distance of the match, so the two were almost definitely his opponents. However, that still left one more unaccounted for… Either his teammate was having similar difficulties in finding the site, or the tournament committee hadn’t followed through on their promise. Slightly disappointed, the boy nevertheless adopted his trademark grin as he emerged into the clearing.

“Oy!” he called out. Even in such an isolated setting, the former street performer hated to make an entrance without all eyes on him, so he waited until he had the two figures’ attention before sauntering up.

“Sorry for the delay, I‘m kinda bad when it comes to directions, but at least I made it, right?” he grinned. “Nice to meet’cha, the name’s Taemm Raelesa, and it looks like I‘ll be your opponent today.”

Adopting a relaxing stance, Taemm reached back and began to undo the straps that bound the staff to his back. “My teammate still isn’t here yet, huh? Oh well, he’ll be here when he gets here I guess.”

Actually, Taemm was beginning to doubt whether the tournament committee had managed to find another member of the late Adventurer’s Club, much less convince them to come all the way out here. He wouldn’t have been surprised. Everyone had disappeared pretty fast after the group split, and after a year or so of on-and-off searching, Taemm himself hadn’t been able to come up with any leads. But that wasn't the point. With all of the doubt running through his head, he knew that even if his teammate did show up a few minutes from now, the impatience and insecurity that would build in his mind during that time would cripple him for the match. In order to prevent that from happening, he would have to act now while his blood was still boiling from the sight of his opponents, and trust that backup would arrive soon.

“Oh, but wait…“ Taemm paused, as if he had just thought of something. “We don’t know when he’ll come, and I’d hate to keep you two waiting any longer than you already have…”

The staff now freed from its restraints, Taemm whipped it over his shoulder and buried an end into the soft earth. He casually rested his weight on the slick bronzewood pole, his smile sparkling like a shooting star against a pitch black sky.

“… So whaddaya say we just get this thing started already?”

[INDK]

Damon was a bit surprised as to Ashiakin’s response about the orb, but seeing as the ice elemental didn’t pay all that much attention to the item, neither would the boy. Damon put it back in his pocket, figuring that perhaps he might use it in a time of dire need, but otherwise rely on his sword.

“Maybe the monks gave it to me as a reward for fighting honorably,” the boy thought. “It would only be fair after the kind of opponents we’d had.” Encouraged by the thought, Damon unsheathed his mythril longsword that Ashiakin had gifted him before the tournament. Damon loved the weapon. It was bright and shiny, even on a rainy day like this, and it reminded the boy of what a good friend he had in his tournament partner.

Now, their challengers had arrived. In the distance, Damon could hear the sounds of a carriage, just as a man who had an affection for orange emerged out from the trees. The boy tried not to laugh. Even if he had gotten his memories restored, the boy doubted that he would have ever seen anyone dressed so much like a tropical bird. However, despite an initial guffaw, the boy held his laughter in. It would be inappropriate in a battle, and unbecoming for one who had been chosen by Ashiakin as a partner.

“Well… uh… lets get started then,” Damon replied. “I’m Damon Kaosi and this is Ashiakin Azzarack. He’s going to be the Duke of Lornius after we win the tournament.” This time, Damon refrained from adding the normal nicety about how he was sorry that his opponents would not be able to advance. It had been customary for him to make that apology after both of the first two rounds, but after meeting the Baneblades, he wasn’t sure if he meant it anymore. The boy was certain that he wasn’t sorry that those two horrendous girls couldn’t advance, and since he didn’t know these new opponents any better, he wasn’t going to feel bad for them either.

With that, Damon prepared for battle. He held his sword low, straight out and parallel to his navel as he spread his legs just slightly so as to be ready for his opponent’s attack. A run forward and a quick strike was not a good way to open a match, the boy had learned that during the first round. The wet dirt now offered just as little give as the sand at the beach in their earlier battle. With silt still running down of the tops of the Lotho mountains, movement in the foothills could get more difficult as the battle progressed. He was going to have to be smart.

“We can get this started,” the boy replied slyly, figuring that Ashiakin had already come up with an effective plan of action. “Don’t worry about it… we’re ready!”

[Xanith Trailweaver]

“They’ll let anyone in this thing,” Xanith whispered as he poked his head around the tree he hid behind. Here he was, thousands and thousands of miles away from home, and he had been reduced to battling with children. While he recognized Taemm from their days spent together in the Adventurer’s Club (and really who could forget such a sight?), Xanith had never seen before nor heard of either of his opponents. He suspected that the tall, otherwordly being with the pale skin was the more dangerous of the duo, but in this strange new world of dozens of different races Xanith had to constantly remind himself that appearances did not always reflect an individual’s talent or skill with a blade. Still, Xanith wondered what it was about the sight of that ethereal creature that had caused his blood to suddenly chill.

Xanith was sure that his opponents had heard his approach in the carriage, but what he didn’t know is if they had seen him creeping forward from tree-to-tree. Taemm seemed content to begin the contest without him, and the elf was content to let him, not willing to relinquish any chance at surprise. Xanith had already decided that once the battle started his first target would be the black-eyed youth. Not wanting to kill him, Xanith would try to shoot the boy in the shin with a crossbow dart and take him out of the contest early. With his leg movement restricted, Xanith could then charge the fifty or so feet between them and engage his opponent in hand-to-hand combat, seeking to bat his enemy’s weapon aside and score a knockout blow with the hilt of one his weapons or with a well-placed kick.