Wager Match: Solomon V Duffy Bracken

[Solomon]

(Closed to Duffy Braken/Blank)

On The Table: 500 exp.

http://www.althanas.com/world/showth...693#post186693

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“…And light shall reveal every heart’s intent; the villain hides no longer.
The devil resides within the skins of man; but our fires be stronger.
The eyes ever watchful, ever burning, tell the pulpit fell.
To catch the devil in his guise, and send him back to hell.”

Scripture was a very confusing medium. In these recent years he had been learning much about the use of devices in literature; how a comparison could be channelled through metaphor, or an unexpected ending foreshadowed in the text. Yet scripture seemed more aloof; the texts were hard to determine from the writings of a wise or a mad man, but still these books were held on high.

Solomon had to re-wet his fingers, but still not able to turn the frail parchment pages peacefully he let it alone before he caused the old timer any more grief. Calloused hands were favourable for combat, but unfit in the caring of ancient tomes. Stepping down from the altar he muddled it over once more; there was a word for a device used in scripture, what was it? Parallel? Para-likeable? It was a story within a story. Perhaps this cautioning piece was merely one of those?

Nearly the whole of the abbey moaned with each step from the altar. He brushed his nose in protest of a sneeze, the dust of the decayed wood stirred simply by his being there. It could be seen looming in the slivers of sunlight that had found the gaps in the boarded windows and hazily wandered towards the splintered edges of the pews cluttering the ‘arena’ he was supposed to be fighting in.

“This is a monastery, we survive on donations!” Arrye had jeered. Solomon crashed Arrye’s cloister of stargazers many times before, but this was the first time he’d pleaded financial need. “You keep going to the citadel for practise? I’d say it’s about time you tried to find a sponsor.”

Clueless to yet another of trend of Citadel etiquette Solomon was once more at the mercy of Arrye’s kindness. He arranged Solomon a meeting with one of their donors, but already the ordeal had left him unnerved.

“Corone is at war, if you hadn’t noticed.” Arrye had warned. “The Empire will be scouting the forum, often in the guise of a contractor or an independent interest. Our Glorious Empire, sadly, is not well known for compassion. Avoid offers, no matter how tempting, from anyone unwilling to disclose.”

This meant that he had to be choosey when he was actually desperate. Bhora, Arrye’s donor, had refused to meet or accept a message until Solomon returned from the arena victorious. There was no room for error, but if Bhora didn’t take him on he was out of luck. His debt was twice as high as he could reach; if he failed what could he do?

The floor stopped creaking. He paused, and prodding the floor with the tip of his boot he decided to veer left of the suspicious spot.

“I remember the last fight, you’re strong! I’m going to test your reflexes on this one.” The monk had chattered the entirety of the way to the arena. “I got something in mind… there’s gonna be trap doors, flip switches, and all kinds of awesome stuff! Be ready for anything, okay?”

The monk seemed enthusiastic, yet his design looked very unassuming. Unease continued its route through his nerves; had the monk not followed through? Or was he this good at disguising things?

Solomon had read enough theatre to know passing under the chandelier at the foot of the aisle was pushing his luck, and the angel busts crowning the ironwork of the window frames gave him an equally ominous feeling.

The eyes ever watchful… How ironic that a symbol of judgement could be so appropriate. His every word, movement and meditation was being observed this very moment and when he left this arena he would be either blessed or condemned.

[Duffy]

For lonely men, there was only one path worth walking. For Duffy, sorrowful and bedraggled by his own damnation, that path was growing far too comfortable of late. The cold of the night, the frost of the peaks, the summer leaves on the soon-autumnal trail had all passed, and the seasons turned back to winter. Still there he stood, confused, jealous, and bitter. No cold steel could end his suffering; no arrow to the eye could solve his plight. The good bard of Scara Brae, playwright, patriarch of orphans and philanthropist pro-rota longed to die.

The end did not come swiftly to the immortal few of Althanas. Though it was peddled freely in the impoverished streets and the blade-scorned battlefields of the world and all the many worlds beyond its confines, for the Tantalum and his merry men, women and creatures of the night, it eluded them entirely. They could find many things in the dark places of the world, be it gluttony in madness, or love in the delicate notes of folk songs and madrigals, but they could never find death, resolution, absolution. The difference between what a man wanted in life and what he got, however, was usually a disparagingly large gap between fact and dream. Time would tell, perhaps, if Duffy would ever find what it was he was looking for.

His heavy boots, tanned and cracked leather beset with faded silver buckles clattered onto the rickety oak floorboards as he stepped through the Citadel’s heavy iron doors and took stock of his surroundings. With a rush of blood to the head, the strange and time-worn building that appeared before him echoed the challenge of the encounter set before him. Here, at least, though it was never permanent, he could get a taste of death, and the touch of its sweet caress could sooth his muscles and pains away for just an hour or two. With a flick of his wrist, he set his hair to the left. The black, sweaty locks had taken into strands all the dust and toil and oil of the long road north from Jadet. They had absorbed the war-torn landscape as if they were reading history from a page, eager to remember, eager to recall.

With time dripping down his brow, and daggers twirling in eager palms, the bard walked a few feet into the arena. He stepped gingerly over the threshold and into calamity. Within a split second, the cold chill of the sandy corridor that lead to the arena fell from his lithe form. It was quickly replaced with heat, intensity, madness. His heart pulsed, but with metaphorical force and gusto alongside its literal, biological function. He licked his top lip and tasted the salt in his excretions, and knew that he was ready. Wearing nothing more than loose fitting dark brown trousers and a tight and ill-fitting tank top, he gave off the impression of a brigand, a vagabond, or perhaps just a well to do pauper. His well-travelled expression added to his appearance, little flashes of steel polishing the look with shine and malice.

Today, contrary to the typical habits of a Scarabrian, he wore only one belt. He was bereft of his usual Katarhna, assorted trappings and demi-cloak. He was without his words, having left them firmly in his books, scrolls and memories. Duffy Bracken came exactly as he was, every bit his namesake, every bit the sharp Dagger he was born to be. With a slap, he seemed to hit himself with the back of his right hand, only to draw it across his cheek to wipe away the perspiration. Feverish eyes, seemingly set on nothing in particular in the strange igam ogam world that beset his senses pierced the abyss. He heard the creak, the groan and the tinkle of crystal, and tried to piece together the battle field. Somewhere out there after all was his opponent. He wondered, in his half adrenaline addled thoughts what his sparring partner’s drive might be. Tales told of relief and fame, others money and misfortune; would today be the day that fate threw the bard a proverbial bone, something to inspire him to rise high from the quagmire?

He shrugged half-heartedly, not believing his own battle cry as he stepped forwards once more. There was a soft bounce to his step, his toes clenching in their leather prison, his eyes glowing with the inner radiance of The Aria. Though longing to die Duffy felt very much alive in the Citadel. Its sandy walls and high domes spoke of a strange communion between happenstance and irony. He clicked his neck as he advanced, and every few steps he squatted, lunged then righted his form into a rigid standing position. It marked the readying of a virtuoso stance against the mystery of promises and chances. The aisle that dragged his sight into the arena could lead him to anything imaginable. A dandy with a sword, a provocateur whose words brought flame to life, perhaps even a girl with a well-placed aim and a sharp tongue to match the barbs of her arrows.

“Whoever and whatever comes at me, let ‘em tears out my throat,” he spat bubbly phlegm onto the dusty floorboards and did so with considerable malice and contempt. His brooding entrance done and dusted, and with no audience to entertain with a raucous opening line or encapsulating soliloquy confessing his sins, he continued across the entrance hall to the large doors that divided the small poky room from the rest of whatever lay beyond.

The soft click reached his ears, yet he was too tired, sweaty and concentrated on his opponent to be alert for deadlier threats to his time in the Citadel. One of the floorboards sunk as he stepped on it, and he pulled back his right boot with a sudden tension in his body, like a tip toeing child sounding the midnight alarm on the way to the cookie jar. The gargoyles over the window frames and the gothic architecture, more befitting of an Alerar mansion than a slaughter house suddenly loomed into view. Duffy took notice, which he didn’t often do, and wished he had been more astute. One of the tiles on the far right wall, a marble check pattern bespeckled with jade and ivory tiles fell away and revealed the first of many ‘accidents’.

“Oh sh-” was all Duffy could muster before he buckled his knees and fell backwards, wrists snapping into an arc so that he pushed against the cold, hard floor and formed a crab stance. The bolt whistled overhead, an oak shaft with a steel barb and red feathered guide. Before the bard could right himself, his prehensile reflexes coming to his rescue once again, it had embedded itself six inches into the far wall, shattering tile and wooden lion statue with its flight. He muttered a prayer to the Thayne Tantalus, deity of creativity and of Scara Brae and flipped upwards.

“Always got to be deadly,” he mumbled, casting his mind back to the many arenas he had fought in that had been far more precarious to traverse than the duelling stances of his enemies. Crystal shards, comets, towering branches you could fall forever from; he had been through it all. For an arena to be so openly hostile was new on the other hand. “I am ready for you!” He roared, forcing the words out from behind a meek mask of an uncertain, youthful child.

He composed himself, and pushed hard against the door. His steps were lighter now, his skin glowing golden in the candlelight cast by the Spartan decoration of the strange cathedral to the unknown. Faded carpet underfoot gave the impression of procession, and the heavy, lurking creak of the doors as they parted way and folded inwards echoed about the lofty heights of the draconian mansion. They rolled into the last remnants of Duffy’s nervous laugh as he entered the arena proper, and called out with a cacophony of discord to whomever or whatever awaited him in the unknown.

[Solomon]

He stalked the length of the aisle, one foot sweeping the floor before him like the feeler of an insect in search of yet another of the old church’s tricks. The floor however did not reveal any more secrets; it seemed the discovery would be a mixture of happenstance and misfortune, of either himself or his opponent.

He took a step over a ruined pew, avoiding direct passage under the wrought iron and frayed rope of the chandelier, and set a weightless foot on the other side. Despite the debris around him the spot seemed safe. A wooden pillar had given way on the opposite length of the pew, breaking the bench up under fallen beams and cantilevers.

There were other questionable sections of ceiling he made note of, and as he scanned more thoroughly he noticed again the angels in the ironwork. There were four on each wall, set atop the lazy planking of whatever remained of the windows. Their still, black faces bent forward over cupped hands; to see what they held Solomon had to strain his eyes, but they appeared to be a small glass or chalice of some kind.

He swallowed, averting his gaze before he entertained the notion that their eyes had followed him. Another eye caught him wandering: along the back wall his profile hung in a full length mirror. He approached, the curiosity in his face reflected back at him; this seemed suspicious, what was this about? He dug his fingers into the frame, but a few jerks in either direction disbanded his theory.

The image in the glass was solid and alert. He purposefully continued scanning the nearby area; it would have been embarrassing if observers caught him ogling his own reflection. How ready he was for this fight! He’d spent weeks carving the definition back into his stature; his mounded thighs twitched at the ready, his pectorals kicked up against the restrictions of his shirt. His biceps thundered forward and the triceps spiked downward; he’d never say it out loud, but he looked like a chiselled masterpiece.

A spark ignited inside his mind. Solomon raced to get back to the door, leaping clear over the broken debris of the pew, and then nearly tripping as he staggered in reminder of the hidden tricks. The match was set. He revisited his training; feet shoulder width apart, bending at the knees, just like he’d done in front of his wooden opponent. He covered his left fist with his right palm; although strong he also had to show ease. An adversary should never see you… by the Gods, was he sweating?!?

It was better to let it remain than been seen scrambling. Solomon did not move from his statuesque balance, allowing a thin bead to roll down into his sideburn. The heaving doors emanated laughter, the spark in Solomon’s mind, the Shein energy signature, aligned itself with a man young and slender who sauntered into the abbey with an assertion Solomon was not sure to accept as a greeting or a taunt.

Solomon flexed beneath skin. In past encounters he had liked to exchanged words, or at least a smile, with an opponent before the injuries were exchanged. Today there was too much at stake; the battle must first be won in the mind of this dark-haired stranger before Solomon could achieve victory in the arena.

He rose from a mid-length bow, unable to forgo all his usual courtesies, and immediately struck an assault pose. The manoeuvres flowed through his mind like breath in his lungs; he leaned forward over his left foot, channelled his own Shein with a swift movement of his arms, and once empowered he fired off like a loosened arrow.

He was aware of the threats; the conspicuous patch in the aisle, the chandelier, and now the iron carried in the slender travelling man’s belt. Solomon would arrive as he scrambled to produce his weapons, if this adversary managed to attack it would be from waist level and Solomon could slap the offending hand down, strike with his free hand and collapse his sternum. If he didn’t go for the weapons he would try to dodge and Solomon would strike with a right hook: if he moved to the left the hook would bowl over him on the follow through. If he moved to the right Solomon would let the momentum from the hook carry him and channel that power into a low, right roundhouse kick.

Most were so distracted by his size they did not expect such fantastic sprinting power.

[Duffy]

Erring on the side of caution, Duffy dared only to breathe beneath the glare of the opponent as they grossed glances. He had entered with such bravado and enthusiasm an excitement; he had not expected to be set upon so swiftly without so much as a polite hello or a how do you do? He barely had time to take in the grandeur of the inner sanctum, a spectacular architectural feat born from the imagination of a truly brilliant mind before he stepped to the right, hoping to outwit his opponent and send him flying towards the still open doors.

Duffy Bracken was quick, but this fellow was just as born with a spring in his step. A whirl of cloth and skin told Duffy all he needed to know, and he clenched his teeth for the impact of a well-timed kick to his upper left arm. The guttural thud would’ve have broken the skin, if he had not taken the time to tightly wrap his exposed limbs with many layers of coarse white fabric. They served to dampen physical impact, and to ply tension to his muscles when he made a daring ascent into the lofty heights of Scara Brae. Today, they would save him only once, he feared.

He collapsed onto the floor with a rough tumble between the first two pews. The smell of dust and oak rotting with age clung to his nostrils as he scrambled upright, moving from sprawl, to canine position to upright humanoid with a blistering blur. He sprang about and smiled, spitting the phlegm from between his cheeks onto the sacred slabs with a cheeky boycott of etiquette. Whilst Duffy was accustomed to playing roles, he hated playing nice when his opponent had no intention of doing the same. With the gloves off, out came Tooth & Nail with twin flashes of steel and an eager ring of metal leaving worn leather.

“My name’s Duffy, not that it seems t’interest ya!” He chirped, bouncing from toe to toe with a twist of his hip and a twirl of his left blade then his right. He alternated quicker and quicker, as if he were gearing himself up for some daring act of bravery. If Solomon had known Duffy better, he would have guessed that said bravery would turn out to be pure stupidity. “Let’s get us down to business, shall we?” He asked his question with clear and enunciated rhetoric, and before his opponent could register what he had said, he leapt forwards.

The dry leather binding his right foot clapped noisily against the pew, and he pushed himself airborne with a roar of effort and a flash of madness in his eyes. His superior gait, a well balanced approach to agility, tumbling and reckless movement allowed the bard to leap over the ancient wooden seating almost as if it weren’t there. He cleared the distance between himself and Solomon without so much as breaking a sweat, but descended with daggers poised to strike with a fever and a sticky back all the same. The gargoyles and the spirits dwelling in the cloisters on the edges of the abbey’s expanse watched with baited breath, coughing and spluttering barely contained amusement at the foolish wars of the mortals.

With his side still throbbing from the roundhouse, Duffy let his hair fall loose and his heart beat furiously in its cage as a musical accompaniment to the opening act of their encounter. The very arena itself had tried to kill him seconds after he had stepped through the iron clad doors from sandy and darkened corridor into the Citadel’s battle dome…he was more than ready for whatever this crazed brawler had in store for him. Though the Gothic structure sent a shiver down his spine, and the opponent's unnerving speed was a danger written in blood in the stars, Duffy felt alive. He felt keen, eager and certain.

He had bet part of his very soul and his life’s experience on his victory, he had to be.

[Solomon]

“My name’s Duffy, not that it seems t’interest ya”

His secondary instinct had been correct. The slender young man, Duffy, reacted with evasion. He would be an acrobatic opponent; choosing a ‘step in, step out’ method Solomon would have to counter with a ‘push through.’ When Duffy sprung in with his flurry of blows Solomon would advance, and if he could, initiate a grapple. He’d take damage, but an acrobat’s methods only felled an opponent over time, like a wave upon a rock; only Duffy’s ocean wasn’t endless and Solomon’s rock could roll!

Duffy’s iron daggers were snug in his fists. He gathered momentum, easing himself onto the tips of his toes without as much as a glance at the ground he held. Duffy’s bent smile doubled with his comment; Solomon tightened his jaw to keep any regrets from escaping. It was he who’d chosen to forgo the pleasantries; he could not go back on that now. Put in perspective, what did it really matter? They were combatants and this was a fight! He had remembered his bow and that was courteous enough. This match was a test of power, not valour. He had to impress; if he didn’t receive sponsorship he couldn’t pay his debt and then everything, his house and all his possessions, would be seized by the state of Salvar.

If only Corone hadn’t been at war, his window wouldn’t be so narrow. He could treat this match as he would any other match. Then again, if only Salvar’s Church and monarchy hadn’t gone to war! They’d have never disputed land claims and Solomon’s little house would have remained unnoticed and this whole mess would never have happened.

Duffy made his move. With a twist of his lean design he was in the air and descending, daggers out, with a youthful cry. Solomon, unable to discern if his last statement was a quip or a warning, set his feet into position. Vitality pulsed in the tips of his flexed fingers and twitched in his toes. Duffy came down on an arc with both hands even in reach; he was probably ambidextrous, neither hand held in offense or defense. He would attack based on Solomon’s move, and so Solomon had to attack to move Duffy.

With a vault and a violent fist Solomon met Duffy in his descent. With hair flowing round like a cape and a column of angels set on either side of his shoulders Solomon enjoyed the thought that what he was about to rip out of the air was no mere mortal, but an avenging spirit…

His grip was lost within the second he’d obtained it. His eyes locked onto a spot of floor, guiding his frame down safely while he silenced the alarm that blasted through his brain. He pivoted, resolute on ascertaining his opponent’s whereabouts while the pulse in his left arm confirmed damage. He had done everything right. He’d passed the dagger, gotten control of Duffy’s right arm… but what then? Had he blinked? Did Duffy utilize this angle, performing something Solomon couldn’t see? Was he that fast, was he that keen?

Solomon’s defenses followed their programing; the abrasion on the underside of his left arm, barely higher than the point midway between wrist and elbow, turned inward and away from Duffy while Solomon’s eyes attempted a recalculation of the rigid rogue. If he was to keep face he could not let Duffy see he was wounded. The gouge had cut him enough to fail his grip, an unnerving thought considering the endurance of his skin versus the diameter of Duffy’s arm.

The young man had more strength, more dexterity in his lean frame than met the eye. He had most definitely factored in Solomon’s lag as a brute and this had to be erased. Drawing back onto a single foot Solomon shot up in a backflip as demonstration of his own adept agility. Duffy, without a doubt, was the swifter; but the performance might cause him to second guess this ‘lag’ and supply Solomon with one added second to Duffy’s decision time. A second he could use to…

It happened again. Solomon’s feet were sure, landing evenly apart. Yet as the stings and clamour subsided he realized it was not a miscalculation, but the pew itself. Landing, the bench slipped off its feet and cast him down into the mess of conniving craftsmanship. He’d been had! That rapscallion little monk had got him!

Bhora was likely chortling, observing it all through the crystal ball. This was Arrye’s recommendation? A brutish stooge with a mind so narrow it could not house both caution and calculation? He knew the arena was booby-trapped, why had he tried using it as an aid!?!

Shein burned through his very being. Throwing himself back to his feet caused the floorboards to crack, and armed with a broken wedge of pew six feet long Solomon charged Duffy with the wood swinging wildly. He was angry and he was powerful but he would not lose focus. There could be no more blunders. The wood was dry and splintered; colliding with Duffy would do more damage to it than to him, but if he could force him into evasion there was the chance he’d flip a trigger and render himself prone. He swung long and hard, un-shy with the furry boiling his blood. He wouldn’t let Duffy have an opportunity to advance, only to escape!

With each step Solomon ran a similar risk, but if he could get Duffy leaping about, two steps for his one, at least his dice would be loaded.

[Duffy]

The broken limb of the pew swung into Duffy’s personal space, and true to expectation, the bard side-stepped, twisted and ducked out of each of the three beheading strikes. He clenched his teeth with each movement, realising from the rush of air as each blow whistled past neck and ear that he was only just narrowly avoiding an early death. His opponent, though shaken by the fickle soul of the cathedral’s deadly space was still full of surprises. When the torrent ended, he skipped back out of harm’s reach and made the distance between them a firm two hundred feet.

“Impressive little thing, ain’t ya?” He said mockingly, his accent bouncing up into the lofty heights of the church’s spire and bulbous dome. Cradling his daggers like a child with a rattle, he ran the nail of his thumb along the worn hilt of his blades to steel his thoughts. Somehow, he had to overcome two opponents. The first he could understand. It was a flesh bound enemy dancing to his own quirky steps, a staccato amidst the low humdrum rhythm of the strange hum of the cathedral. The second was the cathedral itself, still insisting on its attempts to end both their fun.

After the bolt had nearly skewered his head and stapled his eyeball to the doorframe, he had remained thoroughly alert and with his wits firmly about him. Such was the strain on focussing on two deadly threats at once; Duffy was starting to doubt just how long he could remain on the best of his game. Thinking swordplay and dagger thrusts to be a perilous effort, he sheathed both his daggers into their scabbards and clicked his neck left and right, as if preparing for some grandiose performance.

Quite expectantly, the bard did something few would have done in a time of war.

He sang.

Though he possessed none of the harmony of Ruby’s voice, or the beautiful melancholy of Lillith’s, he sang with gusto and feeling and a raucous grind to his words that brought the song to life all the same.

“Long ago in ancient times, where words were blades and wars were rhymes,” he clapped his hands together, and the very air itself burst into life. “People feared the Bardic skill, for beneath his lies the world fell ill.” A second clap brought the life to being, in the form of a swirling maelstrom of fiery hue that span upwards around Duffy from its prognosis of life in the cracked, dusty tiles of the cathedral’s central aisle.

The Bard drew on the Union of Ages, the ancient connection that tied all the Tantalum together through the providence of the other realm called The Aria. In his mind, the silver sea of mercury kicked into a rolling monsoon, waves reaching the height of redwood before they crashed down in strange silence. In the turbulence, a power grew, and burst forth from Duffy’s cracked, parched lips.

“With rampant strength and turgid blast, the songs of old were made to last. They crushed foe’s bone and splintered skin, and with these words the Bard slew sin!” A third clap sent the spiral tumbling down, and the strands imploded into a sphere in front of Duffy’s chest. It shimmered with a strange light, indescribable by mortal senses and stranger than anything witnessed by human eyes.

Unbeknownst to Solomon, the formation before the Bard was a fragment of Ruby Winchester’s power. It burnt brightly with a brief coarsening burst of fire, as if it were dying in the light before the colour faded altogether. The energy sphere broke apart as Duffy drew his hands apart, casting them wide like an angel’s wings. Three small spheres emerged from the rush of air, and rushed forwards as Duffy stomped his right foot and drew his hands forwards. His divine command urged the wild, barely controlled blasts towards Solomon’s cheeky grin.

They bounced like a pack of wild hounds hungry for a kill over the stone and wavered left and right, destroying pew and worn tomb stone without reverence for the deities the cathedral stood in testament to. Duffy slouched, the energy of the spell singing leaving his body with a rise of warmth then a wave of chill. He had done all he could to empower the song’s notes to life, and what happened next was firmly in the hands of the Thayne Tantalus and his fickle ways.

The gargoyles seemed to smile as the battle unfolded, their piercing gaze settled on the bounced rampant requiem as it laid waste to the illusory arena.

He stepped back to clear himself an extra few feet, in case splinters ended his brief triumph with a piercing pain to his chest or a shrapnel loaded reprise to his verse. He instantly regretted his caution, as he had not turned to check the suspicious looking tile that was set into the centre of one of the cathedral’s gothic drains. Something flew from the right with a soft click.

“Gimme a bre-,” his words were wrenched from him as he almost folded in half backwards. The sensation of spinning ended any hopes of witnessing the handiwork of his words come to fruition. Solomon was firmly in the hands of fate, or his strange liquid, almost quicksilver senses.

Nobody appreciated the artistry of a performer these days, not even the Bard’s stage itself.

[Solomon]

Is he… ?

Solomon’s breath was short. Every swing and every trick he’d attempted with the dry plank of wood had left him at a loss. Now he stood nearly the full length of the room away from this nimble nonchalant, and out of his reach meant out of his power. When his target came to a stop the mechanics of his mind began to rattle and steam; it was not only the distance disadvantaging him but whatever ploys the abbey had planted within this great divide.

He’s singing…

The whine of his wandering mind faded. It was real! The distance the able Duffy had set between them was for a moment of showmanship. Light laughter escaped his recovered breath, only to leave him in the same moment. More than a tuned voice and rhyme hid within Duffy’s poetics; Solomon could sense the building of a malevolent energy which spawned to life the moment Duffy clapped his hands.

His strategic wheels primed; his probing eyes searched in vain for any means of counter or cover. The Eyes of Life technique Rakiet had shared with him was messaging his scans back with urgency: there was no skill set, tool or force Solomon possessed that could save him. The only option, Solomon dropped the plank and began to run while the air crackled with Duffy’s unleashed power.

If he had utilized those initial seconds he may have been in a better position. His defensive mind considered the mirror, recalling again his memories of Rakiet as he threw himself amongst the farthest pews. They were once jailed in a cell with reflective bars, threatening to ricochet any of their energy moves. Briefly, an image of himself smashing out a section of mirror taunted him; he could have used it like a reflective shield. Instead he had chosen to smile at the entertainer, at the opponent!

Solomon pulled himself tight against the pew, his dried and faithless wooden shield. The orbs pelted and scarred the old moaning abbey; they were fast, they were everywhere! A pained shimmer perked him to peer out from behind his forearms, the mirror had been hit and it had shattered. For a blissful moment he was reassured his choice of action, until its current condition yielded a new possibility. The fallen glass revealed a passageway, an escape from the bard’s surprise assault.

Solomon made a move. He leapt and dodged, making a beeline for the exposed corridor but within seconds he was flat on his side.

You’re fine. Get up! GET UP!

His inner workings flashed him a green light, whatever had happened left him intact, and he clawed his way to the hole in the wall like a desperate insect; the full analysis slowly registering. His head dragged like a lead weight and his right ear screeched overtop of any receiving sound. A head wound, one that should have been concussive. Was it one of the orbs? Or debris fried from its collision? Running his fingertips along the right side of his head Solomon wagered it was the latter. The scalp was swelling, but nothing was singed.

He’d survived the scattered assault, Solomon had lucked out. Eager, he squeezed up the stairwell the narrow corridor had yielded in pursuit of an assault of his own.

“It’s incredible Solomon…” Arrye’s gaze was mesmerized, nearly betraying his collective demeanour. “You’re bones have at least three times the strength of any normal man’s. If you keep growing like this they’ll soon rival the strength of steel!”

“Turn it again. I’m hitting harder now too!” Solomon didn’t hold back the enjoyment he received from this. The vice like mechanism the curious monk clamped on either side of his wrist had taken his full body weight to come to a point where Solomon could feel it. Arrye recorded the pounds of pressure in his logbook and then released him, murmuring inquisitively with his scratching pen.

“I think that’ll do for now.”

Solomon came to the top of the staircase. The passage had produced the route he had hoped, taking him up into the rafters of the decrepit church. He was well hidden, but Duffy wasn’t. Solomon’s ‘Eyes of Life’ imaged Duffy’s flickering, dancing life force in his mind’s eye. Although the signature from the orbs had faded he knew Duffy was far from vulnerable. Holding back a wilily snicker he dodged along the rafters swiftly as his caution would allow. Duffy would soon be wondering where he was if not already searching. Dropping in on him would only work if he could gain one or two seconds of surprise.

Three times the strength…

Solomon reassured himself against the dizziness fluttering inside his skull. His inner mind was beginning to shy away from this idea, but Solomon was already set. His hurried hands reached through the rafters and got hold of the chandelier’s rope. Duffy was a showman, this assault would be so very appropriate; if it succeeded Bhora would stop the battle now and give him his grant out of sheer delight.

With a violent tug Solomon snapped the cord and wrapped it up his right wrist. He found his angle and then slipped through the gap towards his impetuous opponent. Behind him the chandelier came plummeting to the ground, an impressive backdrop to him swinging through the air. Arrye may not have found out how hard he was hitting nowadays, but Duffy was about too.

The assault replayed in his thoughts. His Shein glowed inside of him, burning behind his eyes. This rogue wasn’t the only one who could play tricks with energy. Solomon would show him a little trick so many of his opponents had ever suspected of him. With his ‘fatal vision’ energy beams stunning Duffy he could swing a left or right kick…

The colours smeared; his vision began to twitch and twinkle. The spinning in his head hadn’t gone away and this rapid descent was multiplying it! He tightened his grip, determined to follow through, but within a fraction of a second his world turned completely upside-down and his grip was lost.
Although his eyes were open he could not see a thing. His limbs thrashed in every direction. Tumbling through the air he was as helpless as a beetle flipped onto its back. Thinking he could ‘feel’ where Duffy was he let lose the ‘fatal vision’ blast from his eyes; the goal was no longer hitting him, but keeping him away.

As he crashed hard he muttered and cursed inside himself. This battle was going to be lost, and it would be completely his own fault.

[Duffy]

The transition from solitude to the resumption of combat jarred Duffy’s nerves back to life. He had allowed himself; perhaps foolishly a few moments respite from the strange man’s pummelling fists and the deadly sentience of the gothic stonework. The sudden crash behind him soon did away with any misgivings. As glass and diamond and gold framework splintered, twisted and bent beneath its own weight he turned with a hop, expecting to defend against a backstab. He curved his arms and bucked his knees.

There was nothing but devastation; ripples in time and the doorway back out into the ante chamber. Duffy pricked his ears and was sure he could hear the gargoyles laughing at his stupidity.

His glimmering eyes scanned the pulpit, pew and pedestals that made up his antiquated surroundings, trying to garner signs of life. He made no attempt to move, lest he set off another crossbow bolt.

He was ready for anything, or so he thought.

Nobody could have expected the sky to fall.

The energy beam shot over Duffy’s shoulder and smashed into the aisle with such force the plucky youth felt his breath fly from his lips. His lung emptied painfully and forcefully as the atmosphere was burnt away. Without thinking, he acted on his instincts. There was only one natural outcome to such an event.

“Fu-” he gave up his protests quickly as his chest hurt from the shockwave. The church spat gobbets of rock and dust from the initial contact, and Duffy’s eyes widened as the beam retracted erratically back to whatever had fired it. It gouged a great canyon of ruin down the aisle, veering off briefly to cleave two pews into smithereens and wood chips.

As it headed straight for Duffy, threatening to slice him in two, the bard did what he did best.

“Hyugh,” he roared and rolled. In a flash of speed and agility Duffy boulder dashed to the right and tumbled not so elegantly into an aisle. His world once again turned upside down and left vomit casually welling up through his oesophagus.

He was too busy removing himself from a pile of kneeling cushions and prayer books to see the beam rip through where he was standing and spiral off awkwardly into the sky. There was a faint empty sound as the beam’s end rushed vertically, and then a loud crash as it pierced the dome of the church and then vanished.


“Someone’s aim is a little wonky,” he said smarmily, trying to cover his nerves, fatigue and his aching muscles with a little sarcasm. He remained crouched behind the pews, picking pages up from the floor out of half observed respect for the sanctity of a religion he didn’t care or know anything about, but felt like he should.

The gargoyles stared on.

Several awkward minutes passed, until his curiosity got the better of him and his black matted hair bounced up from behind the dusty oak to get a better look at the outlay of the church. There was no sign of his opponent anywhere, and only spirals of dust and dying flickers of embers warmed the narrow horizon.

“How odd…” he mused, rising up further until he stood upright.

The sound of heavy cobber boots on rough stone broke his pensive silence. As he veered out into the aisle, careful not to trip on the debris he glanced to his left and quickly pieced together the scene.

Solomon was lying sprawled on the ground further up towards the altar. He must’ve tried to skewer Duffy from behind whilst he was distracted by the chandelier. His nickname Monkey Man reared its triumphant head and half pushed Duffy into his buoyant and arrogant stance. He rested his hands on his hips and bounced on his heels with the cheekiest, cheesiest grin plastered from cheek to cheek.

He took a deep breath to return a normalcy to his body after its sudden hardship and tried to ease the tension in his muscles before daring to tip toe over the still deadly aisle towards his opponent. From the moving and groaning, he assumed that the enigmatic creature was still alive, and still able to put up resistance.

Duffy had narrowly escaped death yet again, but even his luck would run out.

He unsheathed his daggers, twirled them once, and stepped slowly forwards.

He did not have much time.

[Solomon]

The colours dazzled and whirled through liquid; sounds swelled and faded, echoes through an empty hallway. Fragments of his ruin bobbled like driftwood in the waves until he could thread enough of himself together to recall. Then, like a boulder exploding the surface of the calm, Solomon’s limbs twitched awake, awareness’ frantic messenger finally catching up with him.

Three times as THICK is more like it!

From his place partially compartmentalized in the now wall-less chambers of a once great tabernacle Solomon steeled his self for another round. It had hurt, but his body still moved and he still had a few logs burning in the secret fires deep in his heart core. The colours in his mind were lining up and his muscles, fists and feet were shifting into gear to meet them. It was a greenish flicker advancing on him; Duffy moved in to take the offering.

His feet hit the ground; a charge surged up through Solomon’s body and twisted him into a right backfist, following through with a half a foot of splintered wood clutched in his left hand. The conniving clown however slipped aside to let it pass; Solomon stepped forward to claim the territory but Duffy’s shifty scamp showed he was more than willing to dance.

A flash of lines and numbers dotted his vision as he struck, moved and countered. He kept his eyes on Duffy’s face, monitoring the lines, blinks or twitches that he could see as the points in his mind connected to guide his vessel into an attack pattern. He’d see Duffy slip to the right and he’d come in on his left ready as a dagger fell, then twist into a striking position or take a defensive action. Yet as the steps and furies accumulated Solomon’s teeth were biting back a growl. Duffy swung side to side like the dust stirred by the wind from his fists. The occasional glimpse of the angles reminded of the eyes looking down on him but even though his core was boiling he couldn’t land a hit whereas Duffy had already nicked him twice.

His vision was swirling and twirling once more. The ferocious fool occasionally had a second set of arms or another pair of eyes, and for the first time Solomon was more fully aware of his previous injury: his right ear was still inoperable, and judging by what was now a cold line along the backside of his jaw its inner mechanism had been destroyed. The rogue’s razors flickered and flashed without the face of their possessor wrinkling, huffing or telling. The hood had danced more times than he, and as Solomon began to worry this it all came to an end.

Duffy’s dagger bit into his left side, below his arm, and rapidly the other cut into his thigh. The growl Solomon had bitten back now erupted from his throat; but not as an expression of his primal power. It rose through the decibels to a shrill and panicked scream. His first utterance in the entirety of their battle was a scream!

He fell back. Half his mind raged while another cursed and condemned his foolishness. Had that really happened? Had he really squealed in front of his opponent? He put on the hardest face he could, yet feared Duffy probably saw through the mask; he had kept a clean face their whole head to head. Performer’s instinct, it seemed, had many applicable virtues to the battlefield.

He took a full defensive position, trying to maintain distance all the while clenching the muscles of his head to try and crush the antagonisms that were running wild within. His sensory was fighting him for his attention, like a toddler tugging at his sleeve, pointing out something of potential use it picked up in his peripheral. Analysing, he made the move. A pillar adjacent to the alter possessed a switch, and Solomon yanked it down with nothing but hope it would activate in his favour.

Several seconds later the faces of the angels began to glow. From the bowl in their cupped hands tiny flames had emerged and soft firelight illumined the columns of the cathedral.

A light switch!?!?!?!

Hope’s wick had burned down to its end. All the events that were sitting on the shell of his concentrative mind broke through and as his core filled with failure, pain, and humiliation Solomon unleashed his growl and charged Duffy for all he was worth. He didn’t care how many times he was nicked or scraped, he wasn’t going to leave the fray until he’d heard the satisfying crunch of Duffy’s kneecaps bent out of their place by the brutal force of his own body!

As he drew close he fired a second round of fatal vision into the face of his foe; whether it hit or not the momentary flash would distract him.

[Duffy]

Blinded by the lights, dazed by the sudden turn of events and somewhat confused by just how wrong he had been about his opponent, Duffy flew backwards. The surge of pain without a doubt would have shot down his spine and severed the bard’s control over his limbs if he remained conscious. His neck snapped back, shattering his spinal column and shattering any hope of a witty come back.

His dagger strike, agile dodging and brief dance with his opponent had sharpened his senses a little too much. Too keen to taunt his foe into more frantic over excretions, he had not seen the dual attack coming. When Solomon had charged, he had tensed his limbs to leap clear over the strange man and drive Tooth & Nail down into the man’s collar bones.

When his body landed twenty feet back from where it had been moments ago, the cathedral’s hectic hall fell into silence. The angels glowed once more, flickering from luminescence to shadow with the grace of protecting spirits. Between the day and night, Duffy’s soul rose into the dome’s lofty heights glowing unseen and possessing a pensive, almost introspective expression.

In the aisle, he saw his own body lying dormant. Blood had already pooled around his singed neck stump, dripping through the cracks in the broken and sundered slabs of worn granite. Though pew and mortar has shattered in the name of their testosterone Duffy’s soul wasn’t sure which sight was sorer to his ghostly eyes. Was he saddened more by his own death, or the destruction they had wrought in such a holy place?

The same thoughts swirled in his mind as he opened his eyes without ceremony on the Citadel’s infirmary floor. It was a busy day for death it seemed, as the bard rose he gawped at the sight of every single low bed in the blood stained chamber fully occupied. There were orcs without heads, elves without arms and a daemon or two without their tainted souls for company. He shrugged, showing no remorse for those who would rise in due course untouched by pain.

“What a strange man,” he mumbled to himself, stretching on the tips of his toes and bouncing life back into his aching body.

From the angle of the sunbeams streaming in from the high windows in the Citadel’s outer wall Duffy guessed it was late afternoon. Given his injuries, he guessed it had taken the monks many hours to piece him back together in his entirety. Even now, after many hours of rest his neck ached and his eyeballs throbbed against the intrusion of daylight.

“Still, let’s go and see about that wager,” he smiled, the taste of gold on the tip of his parched tongue urging him to leave swiftly, the sight of corpses and concubines too much for the bard to take on an empty stomach and an emptier purse.
It was funny how the Citadel cast you into hell yet let you leave as if it were all a dream, for better or worse.

“Or rather, let’s run away real quick for losing it…” he frowned as he pounced up the spiral staircase which lead into the chantry and north to the reception desks where combatants signed up with chalk to slate to test their mettle.