Veteran Bracket: Wilhelm Bosche vs. Shadar

[Wilhelm Bosche]

Shadar's line provided to me via PM, all further bunnying approved

Wil was still unfamiliar with the layout of Radasanth. As he and the newly formed caravan of strange individuals following him winded their way out of the estate, he wondered if he could even find his way back to his boarding house. Geography was one thing. He had no doubt that he could find his way to Uiria once he left the city, not that he had any genuine intention of going there, not in the present company at least. Within the cities, things changed too much for his records to be of any use. What's more, he had presumed he would be returning hundreds of years later and so he had paid little mind to the layouts of settlements in his studies, figuring their transient nature would see them wiped away by the time he set foot on their paving stones.

He looked over his shoulder at the Makarios and spoke softly to him in Eudaemonian, wondering slightly whether his other companion would begin to find such discourse suspicious, or whether he was truly so interested in technology that he would let it pass.

"Do you know your way through this city? I'm going to take the storage buffer and make a run for it. I presume you can handle yourself with these types if I do," Wil said, attempting to keep his facial expression pleasant and his tone jovial, as if he were just making friendly banter.

"I don't know this district very well, but do what you must," he said. He was still surprisingly obedient to any Eudaemonian he met. Evidently the Makarios' programming was not easily shaken. Within a few minutes, he had gone from selling their technology to the highest bidder to handing it over for free and covering the escape of someone who amounted to a thief. "I can make a distraction. I doubt you would be much help against this man anyway, if what I'm sensing from him is true."

"He does seem unusual. I can't quite place it," Wil answered with a false laugh. He decided that in the conversational show he was putting on for the benefit of non-Eudaemonian listeners, the Makarios had just made a clever joke.

"It's for the best," the ex-vendor answered, his grave tone severely hampering the illusion of pleasant small talk. Resolute almost to the point of being morbid, it would seem the files on Makarios recruits and officers was not all propaganda after all.

By then, the group had reached the checkpoint where they originally entered the estate. The line was still long, as the event had barely gotten underway when Wil et al. had decided to absent themselves. The old wizard that was sealing swords looked over at them crassly.

"Done already? No matter what they're paying you, it's too much," he scoffed as he released the spell on Wilhelm's sword. He said nothing to the Makarios vendor and turned to the nobleman following them. Glancing at his hip, he raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you have a sword before?"

"Surely, I would not need a sword around here," he answered in the same aloof tone he had maintained through the whole endeavor.

"Indeed, your memory must not be what it used to be," Wil added as the group paced off into the main streets of Radasanth. He had no idea what they were talking about, but any excuse to mock the old coot was fine by him. Amusingly, he and the wizard were likely only a few years different in age, though no one would guess from looking at them. Such is the nature of environmental impacts, he thought, before his mind turned to escape routes.

Just outside the upscale district, down a wide thoroughfare, Wil spotted the telltale shingle identifying a tavern. He turned the group toward it and pressed them on with a quick call, "Right this way, fellows. We're off to Uiria, it would seem."

He truly hoped it seemed that way as he added one final note in Eudaemonian to the Makarios with a flippant smile, "Get ready."

[Shadar]

Shadar, oddly silent with his gaze burning into Wilhelm’s back, was well aware of the situation. A minute earlier, a little dream demon had tipped him off.

~

Know what else I learned while I was giving Eudaemonians nightmares? Jackal blurted out as they neared the exit.

Shadar, a bit nauseas himself from the press of negative emotions, waited warily for an answer.

Their language.

The off-worlders’ conversation played again in his mind, this time dubbed in Tradespeak. He almost burst out laughing. Pleasant folk were useful to have around, but Shadar had no respect for them. A good double cross, though, that was a fine show of character. The bastard even kept up his act by helping Shadar dodge the old mage’s suspicions. That guy deserves a pat on the back, Shadar chuckled internally.

With blade in hand or not?

I haven’t decided yet.

~

“I’m ready,” he announced before either of the two men could break from their unassuming stride. Should they turn to face the Lord and Lady Macgowan, there would be nothing but air and footprints on the sun-baked cobblestones, and even the prints ended abruptly.

A bloodcurdling screech filled the air, loud enough to stun, as a golden silhouette of feathers darted from the blinding glare of the sun and stomped down in front of Wilhelm. Brigitte, bare as the day she was created, set her emerald eyes on him and scrapped her talons over the street. Every feather bristled, from talons to ample chest-exposing V to the tips of her wings in lieu of arms. Long, vibrant locks fell over her shoulders, framing her stern face in hostile crimson.

“I guess we’re both liars.” The tone held far more amusement than Brigitte portrayed at the moment, but it was too inhuman a voice to provide any comfort. Shallow and surreal, it was the memory of a voice that had died years ago when Shadar gave up the comforts and indulgences of mortality. He tapped one foot on the roof tiles that hung over the off-worlder. “I respect that.”

In an instant, one marked by not even a stirring of the rooftop soot, he was standing behind them. His gloved arms were crossed over his chest, where his sleeveless black coat lay open to reveal a shirt as white as polished bone. It was only a few shades lighter than his pale skin, and slightly duller than his short moon-silver hair.

“I can normally sense a lie, but your act was so good that I didn’t even try. Bravo!” He gave a scant few seconds of measured applause. Then, he reached one hand forward. The surface of the elbow-length glove churned like an oil slick, and iridescently blue veins of prevalida rose to the surface. Liquid steel rose also, bulging out behind his wrist and curling forward to form a long blade pointed at Wilhelm.

“I’m serious this time,” Shadar intoned gravely, “Give me a moment with your… collection.” He overtly eyed the case in Wilhelm's hand. “The alternative is that I take it permanently, and the nature of my existence prevents me from possessing an item when the current owner is alive and unwilling to share.”

You’re going kind of easy on them, Jackal grumbled, bloodlust drenching his words.

I’m just repaying him for the politeness. A karmic balance… in case things get messy.

Spoiler:

I'll detail Shadar's magic tricks in OOC so there's no confusion on how I'm using his powers. In this instance, he was never on the roof. He actually dodged around the corner of a building when Brigitte took to the air. Then, right before the illusion of himself disappeared from the roof, he stepped back onto the street wearing a cloaking illusion that would render him very difficult to notice unless someone was looking in that direction. So, there's really no instant teleportation powers in his arsenal... sadly.

[Wilhelm Bosche]

"What a shame," the Makarios psion said sullenly. In a flash of precognition, he saw what was to come, but there was no time for a warning or an action. Perhaps this is why the trainees are so resigned, blessed with glimpses just far enough ahead to forewarn futility.

Rattled by the ear-splitting noise, Wilhelm turned and looked for the man, only to find him perched above, clearly a position of dominance that was well deserved. The Eudaemonian's mind raced as the pair of inhuman beings taunted him. No sooner had he began to calculate a course of action than the circumstances changed. The man was behind him, blade to his neck.

He had traveled across realities only to be mugged on the street for a few scraps of technology. The Executor's warning be damned, he was not about to throw down his life for a pile of trinkets. He shifted the storage buffer from his right hand to his left and reached into his pocket slowly to produced the hilt.

"By all means then," he took the weapon and tossed it at the man's feet. "Have a look. I think you'll find I wasn't lying. It's probably weaker than the blade you have pointed at me. Just like most of the other things found at that carnival of stupidity, it's all show. If it is truly a force to be reckoned with, and I am from the place that made it, why would I carry a hunk of metal on my hip?"

He shook his head. To be sure, there were certain advantages to energy blades, but with power cores all but completely unavailable and maintenance a universe away, the tedium of keeping one up had lead him to choose a simple piece of sharpened metal over the technological contrivance laid at his assailant's feet.

"Enjoy," the Makarios said with a strange hint of smugness as his eyes glazed over. Within his labyrinthine mind, a seed of energy had been growing steadily until now it was full to bursting. A rush of invisible psionic force erupted from the man's form, crashing toward all present. Wilhelm was tossed like a rag doll several feet into the air and the energy blade's hilt clattered across the cobblestones toward a gutter.

The psionic shove was more disorienting than painful, but Wilhelm knew an opportunity when he saw one. Glancing toward a nearby building, there was no time to guess at what it was. Two stories high, that was good enough for the moment. Reaching out through the rift that had brought him to Althanas, his heritage called out to the Phase Engine, and it responded.

He appeared, collapsed on the floor, on the second story of the building. His head ached as if he hadn't slept for days and his stomach demanded to be empty. Pulling himself up to his knees, he voided its contents into a corner before crawling along the floor, away from any windows. He wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, he merely had to hope that, whatever those things were that were after him, they couldn't sense him here or better yet were satisfied with what they had gotten.

He gave a brief thought to the Makarios he had left alone with them, but his mind quickly returned to his own throbbing pain and waves of nausea.

Spoiler:

For the record I find it somewhat contrived that his familiar happens to know Eudaemonian, a language spoken by approximately a dozen people in all of Althanas who keep almost exclusively to themselves. Since it is technically possible, he laid a groundwork for it, and to keep things moving amicably, I stake no formal objection. One additional note, we have both agreed that our respective NPCs (Bridgett and the Makarios) are acceptable and that their inclusion and abilities ought not count against either of us.

[Shadar]

As the bladeless hilt skittered toward Shadar’s feet, a strangely impish grin slit his face, only to be slapped away by an invisible wave. Brigitte squawked in pain, but Shadar sprawled too violently through the air to find her. He put all his attention inward, building a wall of denial; denial against gravity, denial against momentum. Quant rules that he had yet to transcend. The offending force fought back, though, with a strength of will that lent it an alien flavor. It wasn’t any breed of wind magic, certainly.

Finally, Shadar found his bearings against the force and statically came to a halt in the air. Hovering inches above the street, positioned almost on his side, he snapped his head around to find the source of the otherworldly power. What he saw first, however, was the trinket Wilhelm had offered him bouncing toward a slit in the cobblestones. The faint odor of sewage wafted upward like death’s aura welcoming the hapless device into the abyss. As instinctively as a miser straining for a fallen coin, Shadar planted his toes on the rough stone and lunged into a low glide. He thrust his free arm forward, fingers splayed, and a pale flesh-colored spout erupted from his palm. It formed into a gruesome arm, disturbingly long with a total of three elbow joints. The hilt took its final bounce before the inevitable descent when the extended limb reached it. Ashen fingers fumbled over the smooth surface and flailed in panic, swatting it harshly against the wall of a building. Light sparked for a moment as if the impact had brought the blade to life, but it immediately winked out with a stuttered hum and landed against the stone wall.

Shadar winced, but Brigitte’s outraged shriek pulled his gaze away from the prize as she catapulted herself toward Wilhelm’s robed companion. Her outline seemed to blur to Shadar’s eyes, rendering her an earth-toned streak of vengeance. The vendor was swept backward so quickly that his legs flew as high as his shoulders had been. Then, he was planted hard, back against the street, and every ounce of air in his lungs escaped in a high, abrupt groan. It was safe to assume that he wouldn’t let fly another invisible blast until he re-mastered breathing.

Shadar allowed himself a second of paternal pride before he cast his eyes about, arm-mounted blade at the ready, to deal with the punkish off-worlder. “The hell-” he bite off. The street was deserted save for a few people in the distance who hastily changed direction. With the snake-like limb that still hung from his other palm, he snatched up the battered hilt and drained the whole grotesque mess back into the void. His glove burned, bruise red, for a moment as the weapon entered, but it quickly returned to the usual light-defying hue. Wilhelm had cast away his attachment to the device when he surrendered it.

“Where is he?” Shadar demanded, stalking to the vendor’s side. Brigitte still stood over him, feet clenching his shoulders, as she hissed furiously. When Shadar drew close, he realized that the blurring of her outline hadn’t been simply an effect of her speedy pounce. She still seemed frayed at the edges. With heat in his eyes and his blade against the man’s throat, Shadar added, “And what in the hell was that blast?”

The captive looked up as calmly as if he trusted in the immortal’s leniency, but there was resignation in his eyes. Whatever duty he had been tasked with, he seemed to have fulfilled, and his expression held nothing but pride that he had been able to serve. But, serve who? An acquaintance from some overdone sham auction?

“Tell me!” Shadar shouted, bloodless veins -mere remnants of a past existence- bulged in his forehead. The vendor, mouth shut as solidly as if he had already crossed to the other side, just stared upward with grim acceptance smoothing his brow.

What the hell is with this guy?

Kill him! Jackal demanded hungrily. Shadar’s blade didn’t move. Rare and amazing weapons will come ooooout, like a bloody piñata. Still, nothing but the awkward staring contest and Brigitte seething in the background. Okay, fine. Their world had some other tricks too, mind stuff. The freak’s probably loyal enough that he would stick a rusty needle through his eye if a superior told him to.

Then, do you know what the hell that was?

Pfft. I just play in people’s brains. I pick up their language enough to scare them in their own tongue. I look at their culture long enough to know what they’re afraid of. Do you expect me to study, on top of that, how their crap works? I‘ve got better things to do. Or I did, back when I was up there.

“Dammit,” Shadar growled. He pulled his blade away from the man’s throat and stepped behind Brigitte, “We’re going after Wilhelm.” He planted his empty hand against the small of her feathered back, and a sliver of his essence flowed between them, stabilizing her form. “So that’s what it was,” he mumbled as she calmed visibly and stepped off of her captive. The fraying of her essence wasn’t unlike what she suffered at the hands of a mentally hostile crowd, just more severe. She had been created from nothing by a demon who trafficked in illusions, but Shadar had never imagined that to be a glaring vulnerability until today. “The off-worlder’s got a few things to teach us,” he said with a resolution that made his earlier ventures seem like simple whims.

The two took to the air and glided over the rooftops, scanning the alleys for whatever hole their rat had scampered into. There wasn’t much time. The sun was falling from its zenith and the shadows that lived among the trash were returning in force.

[Wilhelm Bosche]

Wilhelm lay prostrate on the floor of what he ultimately discovered to be a dusty attic. Either the floor below was occupied by a shop of some sort, or the residents were simply prolific hoarders. Oaken crates were stacked in every corner and hemp sacks of unknown material were piled up around them. Whatever was in them, one sackfull had already been spoiled as a side effect of Wil's dimensional jaunt.

As he finally came back to his senses, Wil was afraid even to think. Whatever was outside was surely looking for him, and it had more than the basic senses. Whether that included telepathy was still to be seen, but there was no reason to doubt it. Still, it was impossible to quiet his mind. He wondered whether the Makarios psion was alright. He pondered how long he should stay put, how long the two creatures outside would be hunting him, and how he was going to get out of this place when the time came.

The light outside the window was still bright and he reckoned it to be mid-afternoon. If he could go undisturbed here until nightfall, that would be the time to leave. Still, he was no skilled burglar. If the doorway out was locked, he would have no solution but to force it. Only a few days on this plane and he would already be a criminal. No, getting to Althanas had involved illegality enough, he had no desire to offend the authorities of this world too. If he could wait till night, he could wait just as well till the next day and then leave as he came, slipping through dimensions. As unpleasant as it was, he would rather vomit again than be clapped in irons and sent off to the dungeons of this pre-industrial civilization. There probably weren't even trials, he thought. Not that Eudaemonia had them either. What little crime there was with dealt with summary judgment by Directorate officials. Still, that was civilized enough. This place, though, who knows. He had already been disillusioned with it enough for one day.

Glancing down at the object he had clutched in his hands, he decided to bide his time by inventorying its contents. A small display hummed to life and illuminated the dark corner of the attic with a pale blue luminescence.

What?! Wil cried out silently in his own mind, barely restraining himself from making a noise. The display told the story:

Contents:
Total Mass: 3425 grams
Discrete Objects: 1

Detailed Inventory:
Transmission Relay x 1

All the rest of his inventory had been nothing at all? Wilhelm suddenly wished that perhaps the psion had not survived after all, the stoic bastard. He had almost gotten himself shanked by some who-knows-what for a transmitter with a hardcoded message from Director Bosche that he had seen dozens of times. He felt certain he could recite it almost verbatim.

Ah well, he thought, calming himself down for the long, tedious wait. The buffer alone is probably as useful as anything else that could have been inside. Except, of course, a scanner, what he had wanted all along…

[Shadar]

At midnight, the half-moon lazily watched over Radasanth’s richest street. The Lieselotte Manor dominated at the end of the street, the king’s seat at their table. It slept fitfully. Torches still bobbed in the courtyard, lending just enough light to make the assembly of carriages look like a forest of mares and monoliths. The auction’s guards, now in their brown and green traveling attire, lugged the last few chests from the manor. It had been a good haul, as to be expected of the most prosperous city in Corone. What few trinkets remained were neatly stowed in three large chests. The rest overflowed with payment; coins of absurd denomination, signed and sealed records of debt, even family heirlooms that, with a little polish and dramatization, would fetch a fine price at the next event. No louder than the squeals of the gates grinding open, the carriages and their small army of guards slipped down the main street, passing every manor that they had just conned.

Customer satisfaction spoke to the contrary, though. Many had urged their servants home quickly with their treasures. Urns were pulled from mantles and family jewel were shifted to smaller boxes to make room for their new toys. Their significance seemed to radiate off every polished facet, brightening the homes with pride as refreshing and fleeting as a summer breeze. Those that didn’t spend their evening admiring the pieces were in their studies, calculating the accrued value years into the future. Only a few, who coincidentally had the most brilliant manors, returned with nothing but ideas. They knew the scheme for that it was, and they relished it as a learning experience. Already, they had plans for their own dungeon-robbed treasures… that would be quietly crafted by unnamed artisans.

Only the servants of the Macgowan residence seemed to be awake at this hour. They watched the caravan, heavy in gold, light in guilt, trundle out of town, and they whispered. Only one class of people is worse gossips than the rich; their servants. Every single one of them, as they tidied the ungathered mail, trimmed the garden to perfection, and polished every surface to mirrored brilliance, knew that the Lord and Lady’s return in the morning would be very trying. They had no way to soften the impact of the stories, those wild tales of uncouth behaviour while they were clearly visiting their son’s estate an entire day’s travel away, but at least the couple would returned to a polished and preened haven from which to weather the storm.

The caravan circled around the church at the opposite end of the street, a building nearly as tall as the Lieselotte Manor, and disappeared into the darker streets beyond. “Good riddance,” muttered Shadar from the wide, arched windows at the top of the bell tower. He and Brigitte, back against back, sat upon the workman’s platform running the interior of the tower, the massive bell inches above their heads and deathly silent.

As his glazed eyes wandered the faintly moonlit street, he flipped the bladeless Eudaemonian hilt from hand to hand. After their search for the off-worlder had reached a disappointing end, he had tried to salvage what little he could from the venture, but even the small device rebuked him. He had tried flicking it every which way and twisting every moveable piece he could find, of which there seemed to be more than when Wilhelm had handled it. Sighing, he swallowed the piece of off-world garbage into his palms.

Sonic! Or maybe Syonic… something, Jackal suddenly belted out so powerfully that Shadar expected the bell to ring.

What? he demanded bitterly as he lay his head back against the ruby waterfall of Brigitte’s hair and rested on her shoulder. She did the same, pressing her ear to his own.

That invisible whatever that the mind puppet slapped you with. It was called something like that.

Shadar scowled. Somehow, the demon’s pointless ramblings annoyed him more than the outright hostility. Jackal probably knew that, though, as he chuckled a little in the background. Any information he could give would be meaningless, anyway. Shadar had no way to track Wilhelm, if the bastard was even still on Althanas, and no leads to investigate the bizarre magic. It was simply one of an uncountable number of dangers, all the more frightening now after being proven as Brigitte’s antithesis.

“Do you think immortals fear death more than mortals?” he asked aloud, not expecting an answer, but not wanting to shield her from the hard truth either.

Brigitte tilted her head in thought, stared at the rafters a moment, then answered in a tone as relaxed as could be, “I was never mortal. I don’t know.” Either she didn’t realized the gravity of the statement, or she truly felt no fear at its prospect. Whether it was a sign of childishness or not, Shadar couldn’t tell.

“I suppose,” he mumbled, “I was… and I don’t remember being as worried about it. Maybe, when you have an expiration date, you don’t see the need in delaying the inevitable.” Brigitte nodded against his shoulder, but she had no response to offer. “Ready to go?” Shadar finally asked when the silence and the silver-edged shadows of moonlit stone began to grate on him.

“Pull the rope,” Jackal interjected in an audible illusion.

Shadar jerked his head up. “What do you-”

“Yeah, pull it,” Brigitte chirped, turning and smiling broadly on this oh-so-rare occasion that she agreed with her creator.

Shadar glanced around for a moment before he realized their game, then a mischievous smile washed away his introspective scowl. “Heh, okay.”

All down the street, noble and servant alike awoke to a horrendous clang that reverberated through the walls and straight down to the foundations. It was a sound they had never heard from the church before, as if the bell had been hoisted to its peak and let fly with wild abandon. The sound stretched on, the metal protesting loudly, and not a single ear heard the ageless laughter as two shadows darted away into the half-lit night.

Requested items:
-One bound sword and sheath. The magic will fade if it is removed from the void for a short length of time.
-One broken energy sword. An internal connection was jarred loose, given the impact and the age of the device. The focusing matrix is intact, though, and the power core has enough juice to see some small amount of use down the road.
Neither item will be usable in any way until researched in a later thread.

Weakness gained/discovered:
-Shadar cannot resist Psionic forces as easily as he could physical forces.
-Brigitte is actually damaged by Psionic force, and will be very susceptible to Psionic attacks designed to do damage.

[Wilhelm Bosche]

Requested spoils:
- Storage Buffer: A briefcase-sized piece of Eudaemonian technology that relies on phased space to compress objects. It can hold up to 5 cubic meters of non-living matter, which can be inserted into it by typing a command into the interface screen and placing the object against the exterior of the buffer. It can be locked by a passcode and breaking it open would reveal nothing but broken components. It already contains the transmitter which is of no monetary value.

[Max Dirks]

This battle hooked me right away. The premise was unique, the setting was sound and you both began the story at an incredible pace. Then it seemed that you two fell into disfavor over something. Maybe it was powergaming. Maybe you were running out of time. Either way, the ending was rushed and confusing. If you would have seen things through until the end and written together like you did in the beginning this might have been Judge's Choice material. Read on for individual comments.

Shadar

Continuity- 6
Setting- 6
Pacing- 6 (See comment above)
Dialogue- 4 (Jackal's omni-presence hurt you here. You essentially powergamed through dialogue by allowing your character to have a far greater knowledge of Eudaemonian culture than he should have. This is easy to avoid by adding other means of discovery into the story, such as character observation and interaction, rather than past NPC interactions that the reader is forced to believe are true)
Action- 4 (See comment above)
Persona- 7 (Shadar has certainly grown as a character and his depth is apparent in your writing. Jackal seems to have evolved as well, but he seems far less interesting as a character than he did before. Maybe it's because Shadar has grown past bending to his will)
Technique- 6 (You have some long run on sentences. When you are reviewing your posts look at the words you use between commas and decide whether the same message can be conveyed without them. If it can, drop those words)
Mechanics- 7
Clarity- 6 (Sometimes your writing was hard to follow)
Wild Card- 6
Total 58/100

Wilhelm

Continuity- 6 (An excellent start, but somewhat unrealistic plot development hurt you here. See persona below)
Setting- 7(Excellent description of the setting. You chose a unique place to build your character and used it well. Bravo)
Pacing- 6 (See comment above)
Dialogue- 5
Action- 4 (Unless I missed something in your profile and subsequent writings, your psion blast was not approved. To use a new ability in battle it has to be properly developed. If you desire to keep it, please post a mid-level profile update and let the RoG moderator decide whether he can keep it or not)
Persona- 6 (The setting and the path of the thread took was clearly meant to advance your character's story, but I felt that many of the factors leading to the development, like the vendor serving under Bosche, were a bit too convenient. It might have been more believable if you hadn't cast him aside at the end and made him a greater part in your story)
Technique- 7 (Your writing is excellent)
Mechanics- 8
Clarity- 6
Wildcard- 6
Total- 61/100

Wilhelm advances to Round Two.

Rewards: Spoils approved. Shadar also receives 200 GP consolation gift.

[Taskmienster]

Wilhelm gains 2200 exp and 200 gold! He is now level 1!

Shadar gains 660 exp and 150 gold!


This has been added! Congrats.