Round One, Bracket B: Satuul Demons vs. Patent Pending

[Christoph]

Congratulations for making it into the Tournament of Champions. Both teams receive two Fate Points for making it this far! Posting can begin at 12 AM EST on the 14th and the battle closes at 11:59 PM EST on February 4th. Good luck to both teams!

Arenas were arranged at random, and your prompt is as follows:

Shells and bombs rain from the sky, bombarding the network of trenches and bunkers that make up your arena. Beware of no-man’s land, as it comes with all the hazards one would expect.

[Trivia]

They struggled to hold the strange creature as she pulled against the noose. Her words were so filled with snarls that they weren’t entirely understandable, but the general gist was obvious enough and the cruel man snapped at her and jerked her off her feet. The ground was hard against her back, disturbingly hard. It hurt almost as though it had slapped her. Falling never hurt that much, not unless she had fallen out of a tree. “Owow! Stupid, stupid human. Lemmego!” He held her down with the funny chain around her neck, jabbing her with the long stick that was attached to it and she shivered as the cold of the wooden floor seeped through her thick, brown skin. It was all wrong! It was... It was... “Disgusting! Disgusting ground. Disgusting human. Too many suns. Small, bright suns. Blinding. Useless things. Useless, disgusting things. Gerroff!”

Her thoughts were moving too fast for her mouth to keep up with, but it made a good effort before finally resorting back to whimpers and growls. The man shouted at her to stay still and be quiet. How dare he! “Stupid human! Snatch eat you! Snatch eat you all up. You be nothing but useless bits of bone and dirty blood.” Baring her startling array of teeth, Snatch bucked and kicked the ground as she tried to gain some bit of leverage. The weirdness beneath her was too slippery and smelled funny, like a dead forest, but sharp. Snatch had never seen a floor made of tightly knit wooden slats before. They were ugly in her opinion. “Useless, stupid ground.” The large talons on her feet gouged the varnish and scarred the wood, but it was no use. Her long fingers and claws did about as much good as they scrambled to loose the chain from about her neck. “Not working. Stupid, stupid. Help, please stupid human.” The pitiful whine was shameful, but she was still just a child and she was being humiliated by a human in a strange place, a place full of stale air and staring humans. Worse, the humans weren’t scared. The scent of their caution filled the air, but nothing like the fear that saturated everything when the Satuula hunted back home.

Stepping as close as he dared, the man bent down. His words were slow and careful. She narrowed her large, slanted eyes. “Snatch not stupid, stupid. Can understand. Now lemmego! Let. Me. Go. Now.”

”The boy we caught with you, he-“ The man was forced to jerk back as Snatch writhed powerfully and snapped her elongated jaws mere inches from his face. In anger, he twisted down hard with the pole. The chain flashed hot against her skin, but she only smiled as his scent became permeated with fright.

“My soul. What you do with Snatch’s soul?” Every syllable dropped dangerously from between snarling lips and teeth that rightfully belonged in a baboon. “Snatch’s brother? What you do with?”

“See that cave?” Snatch nodded. The big, dark hole in the wall was difficult to miss. Your brother, he went in there.”

“In there? Why? Cave dark, ugly. Not cold, useless. In there. Snatch go. Let me up. Need to go. Can’t leave all alone, can’t leave all alone. Grunt need Snatch. Yes. He need Snatch. LET ME GO!” Her struggles became even more frantic and another man, a big man, a big, ugly man, ran forward to help the other one hold onto his stick. “Stupid stick.”

”We’ll let you go. You just have to promise not to hurt anyone and to go straight into the cave.”

“Yes. Yes. Promise. Straight into cave. Grunt need Snatch. Let go. Straight into cave. Then wait until you sleep, stupid human. I eat you. Kill you and eat you. Yum.” The man ignored her and nodded to another man who was closer to the cave. There were so many humans and they all looked the same. “How Snatch know who to kill? Humans all same. Kill you all. Grow fat. Rrrr! My knife! Give it!” The third man was holding up her killing knife, the black stone shone dully in the numerous lights of the room, and with a careless flick, he tossed it deep into the darkness. The chain around her neck slipped off in the same moment and she was on her feet and running before it even had a chance to hit the ground.

As Snatch disappeared into the shadow of the portal, the first man wiped the sweat from his forehead and swore. “Pray to the gods they die. We’ll have to recapture them otherwise. Now, bring out the boy.”

*****

Running through the portal was no different than running through a cave as far as Snatch was concerned, and since she couldn’t tell one from the other, her opinion was a particularly uneducated one. It wasn’t any different, excepting, of course, the lack of stalagmites to trip over, of the extremely solid and uneven feel of the rocky ground, of the mineral laden air and the constant drip drip of water. The light at the other end came a little sooner than expected and without running into any sign of Grunt, but she was still convinced it was a cave. “Stupid, useless, disgusting humans. Kill them all. Show them. Snatch show them.” First things first though, she needed to find Grunt. “Find Grunt. Show them. Find knife. Need knife.”

A wave of dizziness overtook her as the cave disappeared behind her, but Snatch didn’t understand and so ignored this peculiar happening after recovering from her stumble. Glancing quickly around, the young demon came to a standstill. Her stooped posture made her appear small, but she shrunk even further at the unfamiliarity of this new place and she snarled warningly at nothing in particular. For a long while, she was just quiet. Snatch, who yammered about anything and everything that caught her eye and her interest, was struck dumb. “Whew.” This land was colourless. Dark grey dirt was piled against a light grey sky while black silhouettes darted this way and that above her, their small wings teasing as they escaped. Blue-grey men in black boots stared emptily at the sky, or sat, or lay face down. Their pale faces and hands mocked the darkness of her skin. No trees broke the horizon, just death and spiked circles.

Wrinkling her nose at the overwhelming stench of gore, mud and a tangy smoke, she spun about, eyes wide in the hopes of seeing the dark cave. Grey met her golden eyes, grey and a quick flash of pale yellow. Snatch pounced. Her knife! Its antler handle felt comforting in her grip, but she daintily brushed the dirt from the stone blade and sheathed it within her thigh. The papery whisper of the black tila stone against her dead, moulded skin was reassuring, but even that sounded too loud in this graveyard. Muttering to herself was out of the question. It would be difficult, but the impression of trespass was too strong to ignore. Maybe once she found Grunt, she’d feel better. That at least gave her a goal. Find Grunt.

She couldn’t see him anywhere and either the scents in the air were too overpowering or he hadn’t been through here. That man had said he’d gone into the cave! Grunt had to be here, but maybe not here, here. These humans were tricky ones. They’d proved that when they’d caught Grunt and Snatch in their nasty traps. They were tricky and they didn’t act like prey. Snatch padded forward on the balls of her feet. Grunt was here somewhere. He had to be. The oppressive quiet weighed on her, drove her forward, faster and faster until she was running. Scary, scary. Spirits hear Snatch please. Help. Help in scary place. Please. Find Grunt. Spirits hear. Find Grunt. Spirits hear. Find Grunt. That became her litany; it became her song of redundancy and pleading, a pitiful harmony to the beat of her footsteps and the staccato clicks as the decorations in her hair bounced against one another. A sparrow’s miniature skull hit a human’s knuckle bone then struck a bit of antler, brushed past a small bundle of dried flowers and rapped against a stone with a hole in it before slapping her shoulder and starting again. The sounds made her wince, but she was too busy listening to the wind to stop.

Even that behaved differently here. The wind whined as it blew past the clouds overhead, getting louder and louder until Snatch looked up. Jumping to the side, her fear burst forth in a yelp as she tumbled head over heels into a shallow trench and watched the plane pass by, dark against the sky. Giant birds flew in these skies and they were big enough to hunt her. Snatch pushed herself as tightly against the wall of the trench as she could and hugged her knees to her naked chest. Where was Grunt? She wanted her brother! A high, keening wail rose from her throat as she let her eyes fix on an egg the giant bird had just laid.

It was falling, falling, falling until... The explosion was deafening. Snatch couldn’t even hear her own scream over top of it. Oranges and yellows danced in front of her eyes, blindingly bright in this desolate wasteland. Screams ripped the air as the ground shuddered beneath her; the great beast was wounded and hurting. Resting her hand against the dirt, Snatch sought to feel the heartbeat, the lifesong that imbued her homeland so richly, but the screams kept tearing through her concentration. They were too far away to be of much note, but such pain... “Spirits hear me. Spirits hear me. Spirits hear me.”

[Nemaisare]

Humans... He could smell them; the scent was so strong it had worked its way through the sour sting of metal in Grunt’s nostrils. It filled the strange, smooth walled cave he’d found himself in, underlying the new, fresher scent he recognized as his own. He wanted out, he wanted to find them, the humans, and he knew it was their kind who had put him here, who had separated him from Snatch. He didn’t want to find out why; he just wanted to find his sister and leave. But he couldn’t, no matter how many times he paced about the small space, not even able to stand, there was no way out and he couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten in. Grunt took a heavy breath of the air around him again, pulling back his lips to reveal thick canines as the scent started his stomach to rumbling. He was hungry too...

Finally though, he heard something from beyond the walls, a sound that made his ears perk forward on either side of his face and brought him to a standstill. It came again, and he growled at it, angry that it could so bother him. The demon couldn’t tell what it was, or where it was coming from, the pale walls echoed the steady beat about confusingly before he drowned it out. Crouching low on all fours so that his bristly hair no longer brushed the roof he readied himself for whatever the sound was bringing with it, but then there came a click and a shaft of light scattered images across his vision near the floor and he had to blink and growl a warning in case the humans had intentionally blinded him. If he couldn’t see them, they could sneak up, but they’d already tried that once and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. Grunt pressed himself against the back wall, furthest away from the sliding one as he shook his head and let his eyes adjust.

But nothing came except more noise and a fresh puff of air that stirred his curiosity. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, creeping cautiously forward, talons clicking softly against the strange floor. His investigations when he got closer revealed nothing, the wall had disappeared! A soft ‘huh’ expressed his confusion to himself as the noises, slow shuffling and uneasy murmurs continued to offer ample distractions as he tried to figure out where the wall had gone. Humans were loud and bothersome, and he knew there were there, but finally they tried his patience enough that he ducked down and scuttled through the new tunnel that the wall had turned into. He wanted to come running out and catch one, maybe ask it where Snatch was, then kill it and eat it. But the sounds he made by coming through the too small tunnel alerted them, besides which, they’d been waiting for him to do just that very thing.

A loop of chain dropped over his head as he surged out, tightening around his neck while he took a brief moment to decide which he would go after and then catching him mid-air and pulling him back when he leapt. The young demon choked and his snarls were cut off by a squawk of indignation and hurt. His legs kept going and he fell heavily onto his side, gold eyes darting about to find the one responsible. It couldn’t have been his target, that human had stumbled over his own feet trying to get away, and he hadn’t done anything else. Gasping and squirming on the floor as his fingers scrabbled at his throat and the chain wrapped around it, he struggled to get back on his feet, to see all the humans who were in the place with him, to escape, to...

“SNATCH!”

Grunt’s frantic breaths brought another scent to his attention. The one he’d most wanted to find. And with a desperate heave and twisting of his body and muscles, ignoring their protests for just a moment, he righted himself and staggered, held upright, annoyingly enough, by the very chain that had just been keeping him down. Coughing and gagging as the pressure on his windpipe suddenly relaxed, the Satuul demanded in a harsh, broken voice. “Where she? Where Snatch?” Saliva foamed along his lips from the fear and forgetting to swallow and his eyes, made larger by his proximity and desperation, were wild. He bared his teeth, crouching low and resting, chest heaving. The scars that crossed his shadowy skin were gleaming in the fake light, and he looked frightened there among the humans, frightened and dangerous, but not, just then, altogether frightening.

Something poked him in the back and he growled a low note, but gave away his worry by flinching back and spinning around as far as the noose would let him before he started choking again. His black hair spun with him, snapping and cracking sharply in emphasis with his movement as the bones and antlers and small stones within it clattered together. The mohawk atop his skull seemed to bristle like a crest. “Woah there. Snatch? You want Snatch?” The men were trying a slightly different tactic here, now that they knew the two were so desperate to find each other. Grunt, however, just stared at the speaker as though he’d lost whatever smarts humans were supposed to have in the first place. Of course he wanted to find his sister!

“Fool! Yes, Snatch! Where she?” When the human bared his teeth, Grunt bared his own in nervous answer, but the man didn’t look too threatening, at least, not until he held up Grunt’s stone knife. The snarls that had died down returned with renewed intensity, and the man holding the demon back clung desperately to the pole that separated them. Quickly, before anything could get out of hand, they were all jumpy from having treated with Snatch’s threats, though Grunt couldn’t have known that, the second man, who had the knife, threw it through the portal and pointed after it. “There! Snatch is through there! Go get her!” Then all of them were leaping aside and he was racing forward, chain and pole and humans forgotten in his eagerness to find his sister. But the man knew what he was doing, and expertly flicked the chain clear before it would have done any damage or pulled him up short, and then, just like that, both demons were through the portal and the men’s troubles were over. At least for now...

*****

He kept running, didn’t want to stop as his knuckles suddenly found a softer purchase than the floor of that strange place and some stranger force pushed him off-balance. Grunt stumbled and didn’t give himself time to regain that lost balance, so that when he realised he was somewhere completely different and new, that stumble turned into a trip and he ploughed into the ground with a painful, expressionful grunt. He’d shut his eyes as he fell to protect them from anything he might be falling towards, but as soon as he’d stopped moving, he opened them. And quite promptly sprang back, away from the dull, staring eyes of a dead human. His heart had started pounding and he’d been fearful again, but as soon as he realised it was a dead one, he snorted and lifted a lip at it in scorn. Humans weren’t good for anything but meat! Of that he was sure, but where was he now?

Grunt stared about, taking in the sordid details and shivering when he saw just how many dead humans there were. Death itself did not frighten him, but on this large a scale... What had killed them all, and so easily? A gleam of black drew his attention for a moment, and he scrambled over the broken up ground to his knife, listening as the drone of bees covered up the quiet. The smoke that crept into his nostrils made him sneeze, the acrid tang that settled over his tongue worrying. No creature that wanted to survive ignored that warning, smoke meant fire and fire meant death! But Snatch was here and he could see no fire, not yet. He had to find her, he didn’t like this not knowing where she was. Ever since they’d been born they’d had the other’s company. She was his other half, the way he was hers and their mother’s sister was her other half and not Satuul could survive long without two halves.

A distraction arrived, however, from immediately beginning his search, in the form of sound. Those bees were getting louder, too loud... Too many, too high! He glanced up, finally, and saw giant birds roaring in the sky. They were chasing each other and dropping strange things... They flew like geese, but fast, like the little chirpers he could never catch, then they disappeared again and he was left to watch those shapes fall and land. The first explosion had him running without any thought in his mind for some place to hide. He leapt over a low mound and landed deeper in the earth than he had thought he would. But the following concussions that shook through him and made the air tremble until he thought it might break apart didn’t give him the option of looking around, or even of realising he was in a trench. All Grunt could think to do was run.

So run he did, fast, hard, panting and slipping when his long talons couldn’t find purchase in the churned up mud or when a corpse rolled beneath his feet. He rounded corners by leaping at the built up walls and springing off of them in the right direction, and kept his feet only by virtue of using his hands when he tripped until he was as covered in mud and blood as the dead around him. Grunt only slowed when he was sure there were no more dangerous creatures scaring the humans out of their territories.

He wanted Snatch, he wanted her with him now, but he didn’t know where she was. Words wouldn’t come to him in his state of fear and panic, but he didn’t need them. Before the huge birds or the roaring fire creatures came back, they needed to find each other and then get out, get away, go... Somewhere else! Filling his chest with the sour air, he threw back his head and howled like the wolf, keeping his pitch low and loud, just the one note, so she would know it was him. He called and called, hardly pausing between each breath to listen for her reply. She had to hear him! She had to come! Spirits...

[Torin Reahkari]

'Just go into that cave, sir. You'll find your opponents and your arena there.'

"Don't overload us measly contestants with too much information, really." Torin snarled back, strutting into the cave. Nothing but darkness.

"And is it too much to get some torches up?!" the boy called back towards the entrance.

"Firelight." A flame ignited in each of Torin's palms, lighting up the cave. He continued to walk, looking around at the drab stone stalagmites all around him. Suddenly it started to get darker, and the fires on Torin's palms went out. He felt like he was being grabbed by some giant creature and yanked forward, and then suddenly, he was face down in dirt.

'I seriously hope I hit a portal there somewhere. That was way too much motion for me.' he thought to himself, getting onto his hands and knees. A cough escaped his lips as he stood up.

"So this is the arena."

__________________________________

Torin's blue eyes flew up, staring into the grey sky above.

Pssssew!

The Pirate Prince surveyed the arena from the top of the hill underneath him. A bomb whizzed by, landing a few hundred feet from him, leaving a large crater in the already blotted ground. A grin crossed the boys face. Chaos. Chaos was good for him. The more the arena fucked the with the enemy, the easier it would be to take them out.

"Fareron!" Torin called out, searching for his partner. Maybe he entered the arena from a different area?

Pssssssssssssssssssew!

'Shit, that one's close..' Torin thought to himself, jumping up and running as fast as he could to the nearest building. He looked over his shoulder as the tree's bent, snapped, and made way for the deadly hail raining from the sky. And then, there was no trees, just another crater.

"Where the fuck is this kid, I don't even know who we're fighting!" Torin growled, clearly to himself. He made it to the doorless entrance of the building. Inside was nothing but broken furniture, blown out glass, and blood. A lot of blood.

'Am I late? Did Fareron already win? Or lose...'

The thought kind of scared Torin. He slowly walked over to the window, knocking some of the broken glass out of the way and stepping over the wall, back outside. He could hear more bombs falling, and could see nothing but muddy trenches and holes in front of him.

"Well this sucks. No enemies, no partner.." the Time Mage sighed, picking up a brick and tossing it a few feet in front of him. Suddenly, Torin was back inside the building, feeling little bits of glass embedded in his back.

"That felt great.." the boy sighed, lifting himself up and brushing the glass out of his back, and the mud off his face.

'What was it you hit, Torin?' Serigae asked. Torin had almost forgotten about the Shadow living inside him.

"Some kind of underground bomb, It looks like. I didn't see anything fall from the sky, and the brick landed over there, where the crater is. I guess I should be watching my step." Torin replied. The man lit up a cigarette, and started to make his way into one of the trenches. Wherever Fareron was, he better hurry up and get here.

[MaxBlade]

HA! I'm here, and let's do this!!

Fareron stood with hands by his side looking into the smoke filled sky. Noise pounded his ears relentlessly, harassing his senses not allowing him to think clearly. How did I end up here! The drone of a metal machine flew overhead, billowing smoke and casting a shadow across Fareron as it nosedived toward the hard packed ground.
Fire erupted from the machine like magic, the explosion almost rocking the earth. Fareron was about 100 feet away from the machine, but he could still feel his skin tighten and start to bead with sweat from the intense heat. His large eyes opened wide with surprise as he came to a realization. We’re in the middle of a fucking war! He heard three more explosions go off at the same time. He turned around quickly and immediately fell over a large something. He jumped up, looking down at the object, his mouth slowly opened in…disgust.

The man must have weighed about two hundred pounds; his humungous body glistening sweat with most of his clothes ripped off by an earlier explosion. Half of his face was sliding down to the ground, and the eye that was left stared blankly. Ants climbed around the man’s mouth and face, having a war of their own over who would get the biggest piece. Fareron shook his head looking around at the bodies strewn all over the playing field. The field that the filthy Entities had put them on. The thought flashed through his mind ‘Did they make this themselves, or was this already going on?’ The Wind Mage started to step backwards, once…twice…three times, while he grimaced at the sight, his nose upturned at the smell of rotting flesh, when on the last step, he lost his footing and fell into a trench.

“Ow!” He exclaimed, biting his lip in pain. He slowly stood up, his ankle throbbing, though he knew it wasn’t serious. As he looked down to check out his foot, he saw foot prints-or paw prints-he couldn’t tell in the muddiness of the pit. He was reminded of Torin and why he was here. Immediately he was on the defensive, slowly looking around for what he thought could be-would be-his opponent. He started to jog around a bend each step seemed to produce the thundering of explosives, like a hundred elephants! Fareron didn’t notice because he was still searching…waiting for something to surprise him. He then started to run, loosing his footing again for one moment, but quickly regained balance and acceleration. The walls of the trench were his protection, or at least he hoped they were. If the other army decided to try to invade this area he would be in a world of trouble, especially without Torin… Torin! His face twisted in pain thinking about what could happen to him out there.

He knew Torin was not weak, by any means at all, but he had also seen that poor man lying on the field of battle…
Playing field…
That was a joke.

He kept running and looking, jumping and dodging, bodies that had rolled or crawled into the trench in their last moments of desperation. Two tears came falling slowly; he actually allowed his emotions to take control of his actions. “Fuckhm...!” He had started to say ‘Fuck the gods,’ but was interrupted by a mouthful of fur and mud. They both fell into the ground hard, rolling and spitting, and Fareron took a wild guess-"This is my opponent!" Immediately he was up on his feet, looking down at the intrusion, his blood boiling with the fury of battle, his emotions he allowed.

[Trivia]

OOC:

There was a bit of bunnying in your post, Max, but I forgive you since it worked In future, just pm me or something before and I'll probably give you permission, I'm not averse to battering up liddle Snatch.

Ssshwoom! “Boom.” Boom! “Boom.” Blam! “Boom.” As each bomb fell, Snatch blinked up at the beautifully boring clouds and echoed the sound desultorily. Great tears fell from her too-large eyes as she lifted the cold muck and smeared it across her chest. Claws at the end of each triple-jointed finger biting deep to demonstrate the pain this land must have lived with for so long before dying.

Explosions hammered down around her now, erratic substitutes for the missing heartbeat. This wasn’t her world; her world had a lifesong. It had a deep, powerful beat that pulsed through everything. This world was dead and Snatch grieved for it even as she mourned for the loss of what was hers. The humans had stolen away her world with their nets and their sleeping poisons. They’d taken her world and they’d taken Grunt. Snatch shivered, though she didn’t feel cold, just chilled, and smudged away her tears with dirty hands. “Poor, poor Snatch. All lone. All lone. No Grunt. Boom. All lone. Boom.”

And then she heard it over the wail of the planes. Her heart soared with that lonely note and she began to run, not even bothering to stand up all the way. She used the packed walls of the trench to pull herself along faster, faster, faster. “Snatch coming Grunt. I comi-.” Her breath hitched against her throat at another explosion, so close it sounded that she slapped her hands over her ears. “Boom. What are things?”

Just as she was about to ask herself another unanswerable question, a bomb dropped out of the sky, hit her on the back and sent her sprawling. A yelp of pure terror escaped as she pictured the explosions she’d seen. “Owowowow!” Bits of Snatch flying everywhere. The bang never came.”Boom?” Instead, the weight was lifted off of her. She sprang to her feet, hissing and spitting out the taste of grime. Mud and slime slicked slowly from her brown skin as she glared at the newcomer.

A human! It had been a human who’d fallen from the sky! A Spirits-damned human in dirty robes had knocked her to the ground! Snatch lowered herself into a crouch, relaxed and ready with one hand fingering the hilt of her hunting knife and the other resting on the dirt. “Stupid human.” Her spine was naturally curled, but she arched it further as a cat might and felt her black hair spill over her shoulders in its heavy braids. As she settled her weight, her nearly-human toes squelched in the muck, she flexed them and felt her talons pull furrows through the ground. Elongated bones forced her to stand on the balls of her feet so that she seemed to tiptoe through life. “Stupid, tall human.” The stench that surrounded them left her incapable of discerning any subtleties in his scent, but he looked human enough and that was a mistake on his part.

“Steal Snatch with poison thorns and stinky net! Stupid human, I kill you now. I eat you.” A flash of gold heralded her movements. The plain golden band that Grunt had been tying into her hair when those darts had thudded home in their thick skin and within moments had had both of them struggling to struggle as rope nets dropped down and the humans moved closer. They’d taken away the half of her that had broken off in Mother’s womb, they had trapped her, they’d taken her world and now this human, Fareron, had pounced on her.

Snatch threw a large handful of mud at his face and followed quickly, her roar of anger loud enough to be heard above the pounding of raining metal. Teeth bared and jaws wide, Snatch leapt for his throat and pulled her knife from its sheath of flesh, pointing it with perfect precision at his heart. The feel of his neck snapping between her teeth would feel good and she would savour the salt-taste of his rich blood.

[Nemaisare]

His howls grew desperate quickly, and, though it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, he moved between each one, afraid to stay in one spot for too long. Especially as he was making enough noise to alert anything else that had the ears to hear him. Snatch might not be the only one to answer his call... Grunt kept going the way he had been headed, and saw a strange shack not far from him. An angry flash drew his attention towards it, and he thought it looked a little like the shelters the humans he knew made to keep the rain off their fires. Had these humans built that one? Had they built these fires? Huh... Crazy humans. Killing the earth, killing each other and getting him and Snatch mixed up in it all.

Gradually he picked up movement from something closer than those other humans attacking the fire creatures, something white and dirty. A distraction from the building and the confused ideas it gave him. Snatch? But it was walking all wrong to be her. Still, the figure was going somewhere along the trenches, maybe it knew where it was going. Grunt followed, keeping to the trench as he did so and staying out of sight. Well, he was wrong when he thought Faeron knew where he was going, but at least it brought him to Snatch. He saw the tall maybe-human fall and, in the same instance, saw what it was he would be falling onto. His sister! The clumsy two-legger almost stepped on her! It certainly looked as though he’d managed to scare her, but not for long.

Grunt snarled when he heard his sister’s roar. It seemed so far away, like those bees, but she wasn’t flying, she was attacking. He’d know that warning stance and leap any time. He didn’t bother to stop, he’d already paused long enough trying to make them both out. Instead, the young Satuul ran forward, blunt muzzle wrinkling into a mask of rage that anyone would think to frighten his sister. Humans were weak, foolish things and this one was alone but for the dead. He shouldn’t have come so close, together, Grunt was certain he and Snatch could bring it down. He didn’t bother trying to stay quiet or hidden, there was nowhere to hide in the trench, and he was already behind the human. His long fingers were curled and hard, the claws at their ends ready to rip through the soft flesh he knew he would find, he was upright as he ran, part of his head and mohawk above the solid earth wall, easily visible should anyone look his way.

He’d forgotten about the building and didn’t think to make sure his assumptions about the number of two-leggeds was right. All he wanted just then was to keep from letting his sister fight alone. And he was managing well enough, though he would be too late to join in her initial attack.

[MaxBlade]

Posting out of turn, since there is not much Torin can do right now, I did notify him of this.

As Fareron rolled into a standing position, the thing that lay on the ground raged around like a mad man in Fareron’s eyes, screaming insults of how tall he was and how stupid he was. For a second all thoughts of enemy had fled his mind, it looked kind of cute. So instead of trying to pin it down and question it, he stared at it.

Looking down was not the brightest idea Fareron ever had- and there hadn’t been many-In fact it was pretty dumb even for him to do! His first instinct was to get a good look at his opponent and ‘ask’ where Torin was and what they had done to him in this slum pit! He didn’t analyze how he would complete this action, how he would make… the thing talk, he just wanted to know! Instead, he looked down. The problem with emotions was that they couldn’t think logically. Fareron could think logically, but like a clown in the troupes that you could find commonly traveling around the country, he looked down! The only difference between Fareron and the clown was that Fareron got a bunch of mud slammed into his face instead of squirting water. “Stupid…” He started, and was once again cut off as…the thing flung mud into his face.

He sucked in air through his clenched teeth, teetering backwards. His vision was blurred by the darkness of the earth, and he quickly moved his hands to his eyes, wiping them across his face. He knew from experience that there would be a follow up attack; he just didn’t know what kind, so this time he thought logically.

Twisting his body quickly he jumped to the side, far enough to slam his body into the wall. He tried opening both his eyes but the left one was stilled filled with grit. The body took care of that though, by sending it’s cleansing stream. He caught a glimpse of … the thing out of his right eye. It looked like a blur to him! He definitely saw animal traces and the flash of something silver, but that was all he saw and it was all he wanted to see.

The Magus knew he needed to get to a vantage point to see how many people he was facing so he jumped and scrambled up the hard dirt wall, onto the ledge of the trench. Spinning around on his hands and knees he looked out over the scene. His vision was now cleared of the remaining grit, the body having done its work.

Fareron looked toward the oncoming attackers. There were two of them, and they both seemed filled to the brim with hatred, fury, anger, and any other word that had to do with rage. He turned his palms outwards ready to use wind magic to defend himself. His eyes slowly turning yellow as he quickly filled with magic, as he quickly stood up.

All of his emotions were gone, he was now concentrating on the problem at hand, he was becoming his old arrogant self. There was no way he was going to allow himself to die because of a relationship with a human. His heart was starting to pump faster, and his blood raced through his body, voluntarily filling him with the energy it contained.

Bombs exploded around in the distance, shrapnel flew everywhere. Bullets were airborne and shouts were running across the air dutifully. Fareron flung his hand towards the sky, a slight gust followed along. His eyes were yellow, symbolizing his readiness to use magic. These…things were obviously melee warriors; so he had nothing to worry about. He had been in tighter situations before he had met Torin…

His face looked calm on the outside, no frown no smile, but on the inside he was raging to fight.

[Christoph]

Thank you for participating! Taskmienster will judge this battle shortly. Please do not contact your judge regarding the judgment until after it has been posted.

[Taskmienster]

Satuul Demons vs. Patent Pending

Satuul Demons

Trivia

STORY

~ Continuity ~ 3/5
A good background of why you were thrown into the cave, but not really who you were or what you were. Just consider that the reader has no idea of what the character is coming into the thread, and you can write even just a paragraph to help that easily.
~ Setting ~ 7/10
Very well written, with the ‘giant birds’ that flew overhead and dropped ‘eggs’… very good.
~ Pacing ~ 9/15

CHARACTER

~ Dialogue ~ 7/10
The dialogue in the middle of paragraphs makes it hard to follow, it’s customary to put it at the beginning, end, or separate it completely for clarity. Though it also left me with a very sweet taste as to who and how the character acted, very well done.
~ Action~ 9/15
~ Persona ~ 7/10

WRITING STYLE

~ Technique ~ 6/10
There are a few rather long sentences which could have been broken up easy to make it flow a little better.
~ Mechanics ~ 8/10
~ Clarity ~ 8/10
WILD CARD!!! 3/5

Total: [67]


Nemaisare

STORY

~ Continuity ~ 3/5
See Trivia’s comment
~ Setting ~ 6/10
~ Pacing ~ 10.5/15

CHARACTER

~ Dialogue ~ 6/10
~ Action~ 9/15
~ Persona ~ 7/10

WRITING STYLE

~ Technique ~ 7/10
See Trivia’s comment
~ Mechanics ~ 6/10
Used there instead of they in the second post. Realized spelt wrong in second post. Another small error in regards to ‘not Satuul’ instead of ‘no Satuul’
~ Clarity ~ 7/10
WILD CARD!!! 3/5

Total: [64.5]


Patent Pending

Torin Reahkari

STORY

~ Continuity ~ 2/5
No real background.
~ Setting ~ 4/10
~ Pacing ~ 5/15
The score was hurt by you not posting but only once.

CHARACTER

~ Dialogue ~ 5/10
~ Action~ 6/15
~ Persona ~ 4/10

WRITING STYLE

~ Technique ~ 5/10
You use a lot of pronouns such as “The Pirate Prince” and “The Time Mage” without explaining why you are called that.
~ Mechanics ~ 7/10
~ Clarity ~ 7/10
WILD CARD!!! 2.5/5

Total: [47.5]


MaxBlade

STORY

~ Continuity ~ 2.5/5
The comment about the field where the filthy ‘Entities’ has put you made no sense without a background of who you are, who the entities are, and why you got into the fight.
~ Setting ~ 5/10
“foot prints or paw prints”: Stood out to me because why would he suddenly go on the offensive for them? There is a war going on, with who knows how many people dead, they had to walk to where they were somehow. Or where there no footprints left by the dead?
~ Pacing ~ 9/15

CHARACTER

~ Dialogue ~ 6/10
~ Action~ 6/15
In your first post you are running, crying, and stumble into mud and fur. I assume that is your opponent, but wasn’t clear. It’s bunnying nonetheless, and you should be careful to avoid that.
~ Persona ~ 5/10

WRITING STYLE

~ Technique ~ 5/10
When you are writing in a more formal setting, as opposed to something like just taking notes, it’s best to write out numbers instead of using the numeric form, such as one hundred instead of 100. You also used the pronoun “The wind mage” without giving reason for why you called him that.
~ Mechanics ~ 7/10
~ Clarity ~ 7/10
WILD CARD!!! 3/5

Total: [55.5]

TOTAL

(65.75/100) (51.25/100)

Saluut Demons Wins

GAINS/REWARDS!

Trivia and Nemaisare gain 1375 exp and 100 gold

Torin and MaxBlade gain 250 exp and 25 gold